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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Maid-At-Arms, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Maid-At-Arms
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: May 6, 2004 [EBook #12279]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAID-AT-ARMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charlie Kirschner and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+MAID-AT-ARMS
+
+A Novel
+
+By
+
+Robert W. Chambers
+
+Illustrated by
+
+Howard Chandler Christy
+
+
+1902
+
+
+TO
+
+MISS KATHARINE HUSTED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+After a hundred years the history of a great war waged by a successful
+nation is commonly reviewed by that nation with retrospective
+complacency.
+
+Distance dims the panorama; haze obscures the ragged gaps in the pageant
+until the long lines of victorious armies move smoothly across the
+horizon, with never an abyss to check their triumph.
+
+Yet there is one people who cannot view the past through a mirage. The
+marks of the birth-pangs remain on the land; its struggle for breath was
+too terrible, its scars too deep to hide or cover.
+
+For us, the pages of the past turn all undimmed; battles, brutally
+etched, stand clear as our own hills against the sky--for in this land
+we have no haze to soften truth.
+
+Treading the austere corridor of our Pantheon, we, too, come at last to
+victory--but what a victory! Not the familiar, gracious goddess,
+wide-winged, crowned, bearing wreaths, but a naked, desperate creature,
+gaunt, dauntless, turning her iron face to the west.
+
+The trampling centuries can raise for us no golden dust to cloak the
+flanks of the starved ranks that press across our horizon.
+
+Our ragged armies muster in a pitiless glare of light, every man
+distinct, every battle in detail.
+
+Pangs that they suffered we suffer.
+
+The faint-hearted who failed are judged by us as though they failed
+before the nation yesterday; the brave are re-enshrined as we read; the
+traitor, to us, is no grotesque Guy Fawkes, but a living Judas
+of to-day.
+
+We remember that Ethan Allen thundered on the portal of all earthly
+kings at Ticonderoga; but we also remember that his hatred for the great
+state of New York brought him and his men of Vermont perilously close to
+the mire which defiled Charles Lee and Conway, and which engulfed poor
+Benedict Arnold.
+
+We follow Gates's army with painful sympathy to Saratoga, and there we
+applaud a victory, but we turn from the commander in contempt, his
+brutal, selfish, shallow nature all revealed.
+
+We know him. We know them all--Ledyard, who died stainless, with his own
+sword murdered; Herkimer, who died because he was not brave enough to do
+his duty and be called a coward for doing it; Woolsey, the craven Major
+at the Middle Fort, stammering filthy speeches in his terror when Sir
+John Johnson's rangers closed in; Poor, who threw his life away for
+vanity when that life belonged to the land! Yes, we know them
+all--great, greater, and less great--our grandfather Franklin, who
+trotted through a perfectly cold and selfishly contemptuous French
+court, aged, alert, cheerful to the end; Schuyler, calm and
+imperturbable, watching the North, which was his trust, and utterly
+unmindful of self or of the pack yelping at his heels; Stark, Morgan,
+Murphy, and Elerson, the brave riflemen; Spencer, the interpreter;
+Visscher, Helmer, and the Stoners.
+
+Into our horizon, too, move terrible shapes--not shadowy or lurid, but
+living, breathing figures, who turn their eyes on us and hold out their
+butcher hands: Walter Butler, with his awful smile; Sir John Johnson,
+heavy and pallid--pallid, perhaps, with the memory of his broken
+parole; Barry St. Leger, the drunken dealer in scalps; Guy Johnson,
+organizer of wholesale murder; Brant, called Thayendanegea, brave,
+terrible, faithful, but--a Mohawk; and that frightful she-devil, Catrine
+Montour, in whose hot veins seethed savage blood and the blood of a
+governor of Canada, who smote us, hip and thigh, until the brawling
+brooks of Tryon ran blood!
+
+No, there is no illusion for us; no splendid armies, banner--laden,
+passing through unbroken triumphs across the sunset's glory; no winged
+victory, with smooth brow laurelled to teach us to forget the holocaust.
+Neither can we veil our history, nor soften our legends. Romance alone
+can justify a theme inspired by truth; for Romance is more vital than
+history, which, after all, is but the fleshless skeleton of Romance.
+
+R.W.C.
+
+BROADALBIN,
+
+May 26, 1902.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I. THE ROAD TO VARICKS'. II. IN THE HALLWAY. III. COUSINS. IV. SIR
+LUPUS. V. A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S. VI. DAWN. VII. AFTERMATH. VIII.
+RIDING THE BOUNDS. IX. HIDDEN FIRE. X. TWO LESSONS. XI. LIGHTS AND
+SHADOWS. XII. THE GHOST-RING. XIII. THE MAID-AT-ARMS. XIV. ON DUTY. XV.
+THE FALSE-FACES. XVI. ON SCOUT. XVII. THE FLAG. XVIII. ORISKANY. XIX.
+THE HOME TRAIL. XX. COCK-CROW. XXI. THE CRISIS. XXII. THE END OF THE
+BEGINNING.
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"I SAT DOWN HEAVILY IN HOMESICK SOLITUDE".
+
+"YOU'RE MY COUSIN, GEORGE ORMOND, OR I'M THE FATTEST LIAR SOUTH OF
+MONTREAL!".
+
+"SHE SUFFERED US TO SALUTE HER HAND".
+
+"NOW LOOSE ME--FOR THE FOREST ENDS!".
+
+"THIS IS THE END, O YOU WISE MEN AND SACHEMS!".
+
+"JACK MOUNT LOOMED A COLOSSAL FIGURE IN HIS BEADED BUCKSKINS".
+
+"INSTANTLY MOUNT TRIPPED THE MAN".
+
+"A STRANGE SHYNESS SEEMED TO HOLD US APART".
+
+
+
+THE MAID-AT-ARMS
+
+I
+
+THE ROAD TO VARICKS'
+
+We drew bridle at the cross-roads; he stretched his legs in his
+stirrups, raised his arms, yawned, and dropped his huge hands upon
+either thigh with a resounding slap.
+
+"Well, good-bye," he said, gravely, but made no movement to leave me.
+
+"Do we part here?" I asked, sorry to quit my chance acquaintance of the
+Johnstown highway.
+
+He nodded, yawned again, and removed his round cap of silver-fox fur to
+scratch his curly head.
+
+"We certainly do part at these cross-roads, if you are bound for
+Varicks'," he said.
+
+I waited a moment, then thanked him for the pleasant entertainment his
+company had afforded me, and wished him a safe journey.
+
+"A safe journey?" he repeated, carelessly. "Oh yes, of course; safe
+journeys are rare enough in these parts. I'm obliged to you for the
+thought. You are very civil, sir. Good-bye."
+
+Yet neither he nor I gathered bridle to wheel our horses, but sat there
+in mid-road, looking at each other.
+
+"My name is Mount," he said at length; "let me guess yours. No, sir!
+don't tell me. Give me three sportsman's guesses; my hunting-knife
+against the wheat straw you are chewing!"
+
+"With pleasure," I said, amused, "but you could scarcely guess it."
+
+"Your name is Varick?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Butler?"
+
+"No. Look sharp to your knife, friend."
+
+"Oh, then I have guessed it," he said, coolly; "your name is Ormond--and
+I'm glad of it."
+
+"Why are you glad of it?" I asked, curiously, wondering, too, at his
+knowledge of me, a stranger.
+
+"You will answer that question for yourself when you meet your kin, the
+Varicks and Butlers," he said; and the reply had an insolent ring that
+did not please me, yet I was loath to quarrel with this boyish giant
+whose amiable company I had found agreeable on my long journey through a
+land so new to me.
+
+"My friend," I said, "you are blunt."
+
+"Only in speech, sir," he replied, lazily swinging one huge leg over the
+pommel of his saddle. Sitting at ease in the sunshine, he opened his
+fringed hunting-shirt to the breeze blowing.
+
+"So you go to the Varicks?" he mused aloud, eyes slowly closing in the
+sunshine like the brilliant eyes of a basking lynx.
+
+"Do you know the lord of the manor?" I asked.
+
+"Who? The patroon?"
+
+"I mean Sir Lupus Varick."
+
+"Yes; I know him--I know Sir Lupus. We call him the patroon, though he's
+not of the same litter as the Livingstons, the Cosbys, the Phillipses,
+Van Rensselaers, and those feudal gentlemen who juggle with the high
+justice, the middle, and the low--and who will juggle no more."
+
+"Am I mistaken," said I, "in taking you for a Boston man?"
+
+"In one sense you are," he said, opening his eyes. "I was born in
+Vermont."
+
+"Then you are a rebel?"
+
+"Lord!" he said, laughing, "how you twist our English tongue! 'Tis his
+Majesty across the waters who rebels at our home-made Congress."
+
+"Is it not dangerous to confess such things to a stranger?" I asked,
+smiling.
+
+His bright eyes reassured me. "Not to all strangers," he drawled,
+swinging his free foot over his horse's neck and settling his bulk on
+the saddle. One big hand fell, as by accident, over the pan of his long
+rifle. Watching, without seeming to, I saw his forefinger touch the
+priming, stealthily, and find it dry.
+
+"You are no King's man," he said, calmly.
+
+"Oh, do you take me for a rebel, too?" I demanded.
+
+"No, sir; you are neither the one nor the other--like a tadpole with
+legs, neither frog nor pollywog. But you will be."
+
+"Which?" I asked, laughing.
+
+"My wisdom cannot draw that veil for you, sir," he said. "You may take
+your chameleon color from your friends the Varicks and remain gray, or
+from the Butlers and turn red, or from the Schuylers and turn blue
+and buff."
+
+"You credit me with little strength of character," I said.
+
+"I credit you with some twenty-odd years and no experience."
+
+"With nothing more?"
+
+"Yes, sir; with sincerity and a Spanish rifle--which you may have need
+of ere this month of May has melted into June."
+
+I glanced at the beautiful Spanish weapon resting across my pommel.
+
+"What do you know of the Varicks?" I asked, smiling.
+
+"More than do you," he said, "for all that they are your kin. Look at
+me, sir! Like myself, you wear deer-skin from throat to ankle, and your
+nose is ever sniffing to windward. But this is a strange wind to you.
+You see, you smell, but your eyes ask, 'What is it?' You are a woodsman,
+but a stranger among your own kin. You have never seen a living Varick;
+you have never even seen a partridge."
+
+"Your wisdom is at fault there," I said, maliciously.
+
+"Have you seen a Varick?"
+
+"No; but the partridge--"
+
+"Pooh! a little creature, like a gray meadow-lark remoulded! You call it
+partridge, I call it quail. But I speak of the crested thunder--drumming
+cock that struts all ruffed like a Spanish grandee of ancient times.
+Wait, sir!" and he pointed to a string of birds' footprints in the dust
+just ahead. "Tell me what manner of creature left its mark there?"
+
+I leaned from my saddle, scanning the sign carefully, but the bird that
+made it was a strange bird to me. Still bending from my saddle, I heard
+his mocking laugh, but did not look up.
+
+"You wear a lynx-skin for a saddle-cloth," he said, "yet that lynx never
+squalled within a thousand miles of these hills."
+
+"Do you mean to say there are no lynxes here?" I asked.
+
+"Plenty, sir, but their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I do
+not mean to vex you; I read as I run, sir; it is my habit."
+
+"So you have traced me on a back trail for a thousand miles--from
+habit," I said, not exactly pleased.
+
+"A thousand miles--by your leave."
+
+"Or without it."
+
+"Or without it--a thousand miles, sir, on a back trail, through forests
+that blossom like gigantic gardens in May with flowers sweeter than our
+white water-lilies abloom on trees that bear glossy leaves the year
+round; through thickets that spread great, green, many-fingered hands at
+you, all adrip with golden jasmine; where pine wood is fat as bacon;
+where the two oaks shed their leaves, yet are ever in foliage; where the
+thick, blunt snakes lie in the mud and give no warning when they deal
+death. So far, sir, I trail you, back to the soil where your baby
+fingers first dug--soil as white as the snow which you are yet to see
+for the first time in your life of twenty-three years. A land where
+there are no hills; a land where the vultures sail all day without
+flapping their tip-curled wings; where slimy dragon things watch from
+the water's edge; where Greek slaves sweat at indigo-vats that draw
+vultures like carrion; where black men, toiling, sing all day on the
+sea-islands, plucking cotton-blossoms; where monstrous horrors, hornless
+and legless, wallow out to the sedge and graze like cattle--"
+
+"Man! You picture a hell!" I said, angrily, "while I come from
+paradise!"
+
+"The outer edges of paradise border on hell," he said. "Wait! Sniff that
+odor floating."
+
+"It is jasmine!" I muttered, and my throat tightened with a homesick
+spasm.
+
+"It is the last of the arbutus," he said, dropping his voice to a gentle
+monotone. "This is New York province, county of Tryon, sir, and yonder
+bird trilling is not that gray minstrel of the Spanish orange-tree,
+mocking the jays and the crimson fire-birds which sing 'Peet! peet!'
+among the china-berries. Do you know the wild partridge-pea of the pine
+barrens, that scatters its seeds with a faint report when the pods are
+touched? There is in this land a red bud which has burst thundering into
+crimson bloom, scattering seeds o' death to the eight winds. And every
+seed breeds a battle, and every root drinks blood!"
+
+He straightened in his stirrups, blue eyes ablaze, face burning under
+its heavy mask of tan and dust.
+
+"If I know a man when I see him, I know you," he said. "God save our
+country, friend, upon this sweet May day."
+
+"Amen, sir," I replied, tingling. "And God save the King the whole year
+round!"
+
+"Yes," he repeated, with a disagreeable laugh, "God save the King; he is
+past all human aid now, and headed straight to hell. Friend, let us part
+ere we quarrel. You will be with me or against me this day week. I knew
+it was a man I addressed, and no tavern-post."
+
+"Yet this brawl with Boston is no affair of mine," I said, troubled.
+"Who touches the ancient liberties of Englishmen touches my country,
+that is all I know."
+
+"Which country, sir?"
+
+"Greater Britain."
+
+"And when Greater Britain divides?"
+
+"It must not!"
+
+"It has."
+
+I unbound the scarlet handkerchief which I wore for a cap, and held it
+between my fingers to dry its sweat in the breeze. Watching it
+flutter, I said:
+
+"Friend, in my country we never cross the branch till we come to it, nor
+leave the hammock till the river-sands are beneath our feet. No
+hunting-shirt is sewed till the bullet has done its errand, nor do men
+fish for gray mullet with a hook and line. There is always time to pray
+for wisdom."
+
+"Friend," replied Mount, "I wear red quills on my moccasins, you wear
+bits of sea-shell. That is all the difference between us. Good-bye.
+Varick Manor is the first house four miles ahead."
+
+He wheeled his horse, then, as at a second thought, checked him and
+looked back at me.
+
+"You will see queer folk yonder at the patroon's," he said. "You are
+accustomed to the manners of your peers; you were bred in that land
+where hospitality, courtesy, and deference are shown to equals; where
+dignity and graciousness are expected from the elders; where duty and
+humility are inbred in the young. So is it with us--except where you are
+going. The great patroon families, with their vast estates, their
+patents, their feudal systems, have stood supreme here for years. Theirs
+is the power of life and death over their retainers; they reign absolute
+in their manors, they account only to God for their trusts. And they are
+great folk, sir, even yet--these Livingstons, these Van Rensselaers,
+these Phillipses, lords of their manors still; Dutch of descent,
+polished, courtly, proud, bearing the title of patroon as a noble bears
+his coronet."
+
+He raised his hand, smiling. "It is not so with the Varicks. They are
+patroons, too, yet kin to the Johnsons, of Johnson Hall and Guy Park,
+and kin to the Ormond-Butlers. But they are different from either
+Johnson or Butler--vastly different from the Schuylers or the
+Livingstons--"
+
+He shrugged his broad shoulders and dropped his hand: "The Varicks are
+all mad, sir. Good-bye."
+
+He struck his horse with his soft leather heels; the animal bounded out
+into the western road, and his rider swung around once more towards me
+with a gesture partly friendly, partly, perhaps, in menace. "Tell Sir
+Lupus to go to the devil!" he cried, gayly, and cantered away through
+the golden dust.
+
+I sat my horse to watch him; presently, far away on the hill's crest,
+the sun caught his rifle and sparkled for a space, then the point of
+white fire went out, and there was nothing on the hill-top save the
+dust drifting.
+
+Lonelier than I had yet been since that day, three months gone, when I
+had set out from our plantation on the shallow Halifax, which the
+hammock scarcely separates from the ocean, I gathered bridle with
+listless fingers and spoke to my mare. "Isene, we must be moving
+eastward--always moving, sweetheart. Come, lass, there's grain somewhere
+in this Northern land where you have carried me." And to myself,
+muttering aloud as I rode: "A fine name he has given to my cousins the
+Varicks, this giant forest-runner, with his boy's face and limbs of
+iron! And he was none too cordial concerning the Butlers,
+either--cousins, too, but in what degree they must tell me, for I
+don't know--"
+
+The road entering the forest, I ceased my prattle by instinct, and again
+for the thousandth time I sniffed at odors new to me, and scanned leafy
+depths for those familiar trees which stand warden in our Southern
+forests. There were pines, but they were not our pines, these feathery,
+dark-stemmed trees; there were oaks, but neither our golden water oaks
+nor our great, green-and-silver live-oaks. Little, pale flowers bloomed
+everywhere, shadows only of our bright blossoms of the South; and the
+rare birds I saw were gray and small, and chary of song, as though the
+stillness that slept in this Northern forest was a danger not to be
+awakened. Loneliness fell on me; my shoulders bent and my head hung
+heavily. Isene, my mare, paced the soft forest-road without a sound, so
+quietly that the squatting rabbit leaped from between her forelegs, and
+the slim, striped, squirrel-like creatures crouched paralyzed as we
+passed ere they burst into their shrill chatter of fright or anger, I
+know not which.
+
+Had I a night to spend in this wilderness I should not know where to
+find a palmetto-fan for a torch, where to seek light-wood for splinter.
+It was all new to me; signs read riddles; tracks were sealed books; the
+east winds brought rain, where at home they bring heaven's own balm to
+us of the Spanish grants on the seaboard; the northwest winds that we
+dread turn these Northern skies to sapphire, and set bees a-humming on
+every bud.
+
+There was no salt in the air, no citrus scent in the breeze, no heavy
+incense of the great magnolia bloom perfuming the wilderness like a
+cathedral aisle where a young bride passes, clouded in lace.
+
+But in the heat a heavy, sweetish odor hung; balsam it is called, and
+mingled, too, with a faint scent like our bay, which comes from a woody
+bush called sweet-fern. That, and the strong smell of the bluish,
+short-needled pine, was ever clogging my nostrils and confusing me. Once
+I thought to scent a 'possum, but the musky taint came from a rotting
+log; and a stale fox might have crossed to windward and I not noticed,
+so blunted had grown my nose in this unfamiliar Northern world.
+
+Musing, restless, dimly confused, and doubly watchful, I rode through
+the timber-belt, and out at last into a dusty, sunny road. And
+straightway I sighted a house.
+
+The house was of stone, and large and square and gray, with only a
+pillared porch instead of the long double galleries we build; and it had
+a row of windows in the roof, called dormers, and was surrounded by a
+stockade of enormous timbers, in the four corners of which were set
+little forts pierced for rifle fire.
+
+Noble trees stood within the fortified lines; outside, green meadows
+ringed the place; and the grass was thick and soft, and vivid as a green
+jewel in color--such grass as we never see save for a spot here and
+there in swampy places where the sun falls in early spring.
+
+The house was yet a hundred rods away to the eastward. I rode on slowly,
+noticing the neglected fences on either hand, and thought that my cousin
+Varick might have found an hour to mend them, for his pride's sake.
+
+Isene, my mare, had already scented the distant stables, and was
+pricking forward her beautiful ears as I unslung my broad hat of plaited
+palmetto and placed it on my head, the better to salute my hosts when I
+should ride to their threshold in the Spanish fashion we followed
+at home.
+
+So, cantering on, I crossed a log bridge which spanned a ravine, below
+which I saw a grist-mill; and so came to the stockade. The gate was open
+and unguarded, and I guided my mare through without a challenge from the
+small corner forts, and rode straight to the porch, where an ancient
+negro serving-man stood, dressed in a tawdry livery too large for him.
+As I drew bridle he gave me a dull, almost sullen glance, and it was not
+until I spoke sharply to him that he shambled forward and descended the
+two steps to hold my stirrup.
+
+"Is Sir Lupus at home?" I asked, looking curiously at this mute,
+dull-eyed black, so different from our grinning lads at home.
+
+"Yaas, suh, he done come home, suh."
+
+"Then announce Mr. George Ormond," I said.
+
+He stared, but did not offer to move.
+
+"Did you hear me?" I asked, astonished.
+
+"Yaas, suh, I done hear yoh, suh."
+
+I looked him over in amazement, then walked past him towards the door.
+
+"Is you gwine look foh Mars' Lupus?" he asked, barring my way with one
+wrinkled, blue-black hand on the brass door-knob. "Kaze ef you is, you
+don't had better, suh."
+
+I could only stare.
+
+"Kaze Mars' Lupus done say he gwine kill de fustest man what 'sturb him,
+suh," continued the black man, in a listless monotone. "An' I spec' he
+gwine do it."
+
+"Is Sir Lupus abed at this hour?" I asked.
+
+"Yaas, suh."
+
+There was no emotion in the old man's voice. Something made me think
+that he had given the same message to visitors many times.
+
+I was very angry at the discourtesy, for he must have known when to
+expect me from my servant, who had accompanied me by water with my boxes
+from St. Augustine to Philadelphia, where I lingered while he went
+forward, bearing my letter with him. Yet, angry and disgusted as I was,
+there was nothing for me to do except to swallow the humiliation, walk
+in, and twiddle my thumbs until the boorish lord of the manor waked to
+greet his invited guest.
+
+"I suppose I may enter," I said, sarcastically.
+
+"Yaas, suh; Miss Dorry done say: 'Cato,' she say, 'ef de young gem'man
+come when Mars' Lupus am drunk, jess take care n' him, Cato; put him
+mos' anywhere 'cep in mah bed, Cato, an' jess call me ef I ain' busy
+'bout mah business--'"
+
+Still rambling on, he opened the door, and I entered a wide hallway,
+dirty and disordered. As I stood hesitating, a terrific crash sounded
+from the floor above.
+
+"Spec' Miss Dorry busy," observed the old man, raising his solemn,
+wrinkled face to listen.
+
+"Uncle," I said, "is it true that you are all mad in this house?"
+
+"We sho' is, suh," he replied, without interest.
+
+"Are you too crazy to care for my horse?"
+
+"Oh no, suh."
+
+"Then go and rub her down, and feed her, and let me sit here in the
+hallway. I want to think."
+
+Another crash shook the ceiling of solid oak; very far away I heard a
+young girl's laughter, then a stifled chorus of voices from the
+floor above.
+
+"Das Miss Dorry an' de chilluns," observed the old man.
+
+"Who are the others?"
+
+"Waal, dey is Miss Celia, an' Mars' Harry, an' Mars' Ruyven, an' Mars'
+Sam'l, an' de babby, li'l Mars' Benny."
+
+"All mad?"
+
+"Yaas, suh."
+
+"I'll be, too, if I remain here," I said. "Is there an inn near by?"
+
+"De Turkle-dove an' Olives."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"'Bout five mile long de pike, suh."
+
+"Feed my horse," I said, sullenly, and sat down on a settle, rifle
+cradled between my knees, and in my heart wrath immeasurable against my
+kin the Varicks.
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN THE HALLWAY
+
+So this was Northern hospitality! This a Northern gentleman's home, with
+its cobwebbed ceiling, its little window-panes opaque with stain of rain
+and dust, its carpetless floors innocent of wax, littered with odds and
+ends--here a battered riding-cane; there a pair of tarnished spurs;
+yonder a scarlet hunting-coat a-trail on the banisters, with skirts all
+mud from feet that mayhap had used it as a mat in rainy weather!
+
+I leaned forward and picked up the riding-crop; its cane end was capped
+with heavy gold. The spurs I also lifted for inspection; they were
+beautifully wrought in silver.
+
+Faugh! Here was no poverty, but the shiftlessness of a sot, trampling
+good things into the mire!
+
+I looked into the fireplace. Ashes of dead embers choked it; the
+andirons, smoke-smeared and crusted, stood out stark against the sooty
+maw of the hearth.
+
+Still, for all, the hall was made in good and even noble proportion;
+simple, as should be the abode of a gentleman; over-massive, perhaps,
+and even destitute of those gracious and symmetrical galleries which we
+of the South think no shame to take pride in; for the banisters were
+brutally heavy, and the rail above like a rampart, and for a newel-post
+some ass had set a bronze cannon, breech upward; and it was green and
+beautiful, but offensive to sane consistency.
+
+Standing, the better to observe the hall on all sides, it came to me
+that some one had stripped a fine English mansion of fine but ancient
+furniture, to bring it across an ocean and through a forest for the
+embellishment of this coarse house. For there were pictures in frames
+showing generals and statesmen of the Ormond-Butlers, one even of the
+great duke who fled to France; and there were pictures of the Varicks
+before they mingled with us Irish--apple-cheeked Dutchmen, cadaverous
+youths bearing match-locks, and one, an admiral, with star and sash
+across his varnish-cracked corselet of blue steel, looking at me with
+pale, smoky eyes.
+
+Rusted suits of mail, and groups of weapons made into star shapes and
+circles, points outward, were ranged between the heavy pictures, each
+centred with a moth-ravaged stag's head, smothered in dust.
+
+As I slowly paced the panelled wall, nose in air to observe these
+neglected trophies, I came to another picture, hung all alone near the
+wall where it passes under the staircase, and at first, for the
+darkness, I could not see.
+
+Imperceptibly the outlines of the shape grew in the gloom from a deep,
+rich background, and I made out a figure of a youth all cased in armor
+save for the helmet, which was borne in one smooth, blue-veined hand.
+
+The face, too, began to assume form; rounded, delicate, crowned with a
+mass of golden hair; and suddenly I perceived the eyes, and they seemed
+to open sweetly, like violets in a dim wood.
+
+"What Ormond is this?" I muttered, bewitched, yet sullen to see such
+feminine roundness in any youth; and, with my sleeve of buckskin, I
+rubbed the dust from the gilded plate set in the lower frame.
+
+"The Maid-at-Arms," I read aloud.
+
+Then there came to me, at first like the far ring of a voice scarcely
+heard through southern winds, the faint echo of a legend told me ere my
+mother died--perhaps told me by her in those drifting hours of a
+childhood nigh forgotten. Yet I seemed to see white, sun-drenched sands
+and the long, blue swell of a summer sea, and I heard winds in the
+palms, and a song--truly it was my mother's; I knew it now--and, of a
+sudden, the words came borne on a whisper of ancient melody:
+
+     "This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms,
+     Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms!"
+
+Memory was stirring at last, and the gray legend grew from the past, how
+a maid, Helen of Ormond, for love of her cousin, held prisoner in his
+own house at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, sheared off her hair, clothed her limbs
+in steel, and rode away to seek him; and how she came to the house at
+Ashby and rode straight into the gateway, forcing her horse to the great
+hall where her lover lay, and flung him, all in chains, across her
+saddle-bow, riding like a demon to freedom through the Desmonds, his
+enemies. Ah! now my throat was aching with the memory of the song, and
+of that strange line I never understood--"Wearing the ghost-ring!"--and,
+of themselves, the words grew and died, formed on my silent lips:
+
+     "This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms,
+     Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms!
+
+     "Though for all time the lords of Ormond be
+     Butlers to Majesty,
+     Yet shall new honors fall upon her
+     Who, armored, rode for love to Ashby Farms;
+     Let this her title be: A Maid-at-Arms!
+
+     "Serene mid love's alarms,
+     For all time shall the Maids-at-Arms,
+     Wearing the ghost-ring, triumph with their constancy.
+     And sweetly conquer with a sigh
+     And vanquish with a tear
+     Captains a trembling world might fear.
+
+     "This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms,
+     Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms!"
+
+Staring at the picture, lips quivering with the soundless words, such
+wretched loneliness came over me that a dryness in my throat set me
+gulping, and I groped my way back to the settle by the fireplace and sat
+down heavily in homesick solitude.
+
+[Illustration: "I SAT DOWN HEAVILY IN HOMESICK SOLITUDE".]
+
+Then hate came, a quick hatred for these Northern skies, and these
+strangers of the North who dared claim kin with me, to lure me northward
+with false offer of council and mockery of hospitality.
+
+I was on my feet again in a flash, hot with anger, ready with insult to
+meet insult, for I meant to go ere I had greeted my host--an insult,
+indeed, and a deadly one among us. Furious, I bent to snatch my rifle
+from the settle where it lay, and, as I flung it to my shoulder,
+wheeling to go, my eyes fell upon a figure stealing down the stairway
+from above, a woman in flowered silk, bare of throat and elbow, fingers
+scarcely touching the banisters as she moved.
+
+She hesitated, one foot poised for the step below; then it fell
+noiselessly, and she stood before me.
+
+Anger died out under the level beauty of her gaze. I bowed, just as I
+caught a trace of mockery in the mouth's scarlet curve, and bowed the
+lower for it, too, straightening slowly to the dignity her mischievous
+eyes seemed to flout; and her lips, too, defied me, all silently--nay,
+in every limb and from every finger-tip she seemed to flout me, and the
+slow, deep courtesy she made me was too slow and far too low, and her
+recovery a marvel of plastic malice.
+
+"My cousin Ormond?" she lisped;--"I am Dorothy Varick."
+
+We measured each other for a moment in silence.
+
+There was a trace of powder on her bright hair, like a mist of snow on
+gold; her gown's yoke was torn, for all its richness, and a wisp of lace
+in rags fell, clouding the delicate half-sleeve of China silk.
+
+Her face, colored like palest ivory with rose, was no doll's face, for
+all its symmetry and a forgotten patch to balance the dimple in her
+rounded chin; it was even noble in a sense, and, if too chaste for
+sensuous beauty, yet touched with a strange and pensive sweetness, like
+'witched marble waking into flesh.
+
+Suddenly a voice came from above: "Dorothy, come here!"
+
+My cousin frowned, glanced at me, then laughed.
+
+"Dorothy, I want my watch!" repeated the voice.
+
+Still looking at me, my cousin slowly drew from her bosom a huge,
+jewelled watch, and displayed it for my inspection.
+
+"We were matching mint-dates with shillings for father's watch; I won
+it," she observed.
+
+"Dorothy!" insisted the voice.
+
+"Oh, la!" she cried, impatiently, "will you hush?"
+
+"No, I won't!"
+
+"Then our cousin Ormond will come up-stairs and give you what Paddy gave
+the kettle-drum--won't you?" she added, raising her eyes to me.
+
+"And what was that?" I asked, astonished.
+
+Somebody on the landing above went off into fits of laughter; and, as I
+reddened, my cousin Dorothy, too, began to laugh, showing an edge of
+small, white teeth under the red lip's line.
+
+"Are you vexed because we laugh?" she asked.
+
+My tongue stung with a retort, but I stood silent. These Varicks might
+forget their manners, but I might not forget mine.
+
+She honored me with a smile, sweeping me from head to foot with her
+bright eyes. My buckskins were dirty from travel, and the thrums in
+rags; and I knew that she noted all these matters.
+
+"Cousin," she lisped, "I fear you are something of a macaroni."
+
+Instantly a fresh volley of laughter rattled from the landing--such
+clear, hearty laughter that it infected me, spite my chagrin.
+
+"He's a good fellow, our cousin Ormond!" came a fresh young voice from
+above.
+
+"He shall be one of us!" cried another; and I thought to catch a glimpse
+of a flowered petticoat whisked from the gallery's edge.
+
+I looked at my cousin Dorothy Varick; she stood at gaze, laughter in her
+eyes, but the mouth demure.
+
+"Cousin Dorothy," said I, "I believe I am a good fellow, even though
+ragged and respectable. If these qualities be not bars to your society,
+give me your hand in fellowship, for upon my soul I am nigh sick for a
+welcome from somebody in this unfriendly land."
+
+Still at gaze, she slowly raised her arm and held out to me a fresh,
+sun-tanned hand; and I had meant to press it, but a sudden shyness
+scotched me, and, as the soft fingers rested in my palm, I raised them
+and touched them with my lips in silent respect.
+
+"You have pretty manners," she said, looking at her hand, but not
+withdrawing it from where it rested. Then, of an impulse, her fingers
+closed on mine firmly, and she looked me straight in the eye.
+
+"You are a good comrade; welcome to Varicks', cousin Ormond!"
+
+Our hands fell apart, and, glancing up, I perceived a group of youthful
+barbarians on the stairs, intently watching us. As my eyes fell on them
+they scattered, then closed in together defiantly. A red-haired lad of
+seventeen came down the steps, offering his hand awkwardly.
+
+"I'm Ruyven Varick," he said. "These girls are fools to bait men of our
+age--" He broke off to seize Dorothy by the arm. "Give me that watch,
+you vixen!"
+
+His sister scornfully freed her arm, and Ruyven stood sullenly clutching
+a handful of torn lace.
+
+"Why don't you present us to our cousin Ormond?" spoke up a maid of
+sixteen.
+
+"Who wants to make your acquaintance?" retorted Ruyven, edging again
+towards his sister.
+
+I protested that I did; and Dorothy, with mock empressement, presented
+me to Cecile Butler, a slender, olive-skinned girl with pretty, dark
+eyes, who offered me her hand to kiss in such determined manner that I
+bowed very low to cover my smile, knowing that she had witnessed my
+salute to my cousin Dorothy and meant to take nothing less for herself.
+
+"And those boys yonder are Harry Varick and Sam Butler, my cousins,"
+observed Dorothy, nonchalantly relapsing into barbarism to point them
+out separately with her pink-tipped thumb; "and that lad on the stairs
+is Benny. Come on, we're to throw hunting-knives for pennies. Can
+you?--but of course you can."
+
+I looked around at my barbarian kin, who had produced hunters' knives
+from recesses in their clothing, and now gathered impatiently around
+Dorothy, who appeared to be the leader in their collective deviltries.
+
+"All the same, that watch is mine," broke out Ruyven, defiantly. "I'll
+leave it to our cousin Ormond--" but Dorothy cut in: "Cousin, it was
+done in this manner: father lost his timepiece, and the law is that
+whoever finds things about the house may keep them. So we all ran to
+the porch where father had fallen off his horse last night, and I think
+we all saw it at the same time; and I, being the older and stronger--"
+
+"You're not the stronger!" cried Sam and Harry, in the same breath.
+
+"I," repeated Dorothy, serenely, "being not only older than Ruyven by a
+year, but also stronger than you all together, kept the watch, spite of
+your silly clamor--and mean to keep it."
+
+"Then we matched shillings for it!" cried Cecile.
+
+"It was only fair; we all discovered it," explained Dorothy. "But Ruyven
+matched with a Spanish piece where the date was under the reverse, and
+he says he won. Did he, cousin?"
+
+"Mint-dates always match!" said Ruyven; "gentlemen of our age understand
+that, Cousin George, don't we?"
+
+"Have I not won fairly?" asked Dorothy, looking at me. "If I have not,
+tell me."
+
+With that, Sam Butler and Harry set up a clamor that they and Cecile had
+been unfairly dealt with, and all appealed to me until, bewildered, I
+sat down on the stairs and looked wistfully at Dorothy.
+
+"In Heaven's name, cousins, give me something to eat and drink before
+you bring your lawsuits to me for judgment," I said.
+
+"Oh," cried Dorothy, biting her lip, "I forgot. Come with me, cousin!"
+She seized a bell-rope and rang it furiously, and a loud gong filled the
+hall with its brazen din; but nobody came.
+
+"Where the devil are those blacks?" said Dorothy, biting off her words
+with a crisp snap that startled me more than her profanity. "Cato! Where
+are you, you lazy--"
+
+"Ahm hyah, Miss Dorry," came a patient voice from the kitchen stairs.
+
+"Then bring something to eat--bring it to the gun-room
+instantly--something for Captain Ormond--and a bottle of Sir Lupus's own
+claret--and two glasses--"
+
+"Three glasses!" cried Ruyven.
+
+"Four!" "Five!" shouted Harry and Cecile.
+
+"Six!" added Samuel; and little Benny piped out, "Theven!"
+
+"Then bring two bottles, Cato," called out Dorothy.
+
+"I want some small-beer!" protested Benny.
+
+"Oh, go suck your thumbs," retorted Ruyven, with an elder brother's
+brutality; but Dorothy ordered the small-beer, and bade the
+negro hasten.
+
+"We all mean to bear you company, Cousin," said Ruyven, cheerfully,
+patting my arm for my reassurance; and truly I lacked something of
+assurance among these kinsmen of mine, who appeared to lack none.
+
+"You spoke of me as Captain Ormond," I said, turning with a smile to
+Dorothy.
+
+"Oh, it's all one," she said, gayly; "if you're not a captain now, you
+will be soon, I'll wager--but I'm not to talk of that before the
+children--"
+
+"You may talk of it before me," said Ruyven. "Harry, take Benny and Sam
+and Cecile out of earshot--"
+
+"Pooh!" cried Harry, "I know all about Sir John's new regiment--"
+
+"Will you hush your head, you little fool!" cut in Dorothy. "Servants
+and asses have long ears, and I'll clip yours if you bray again!"
+
+The jingling of glasses on a tray put an end to the matter; Cato, the
+black, followed by two more blacks, entered the hall bearing silver
+salvers, and at a nod from Dorothy we all trooped after them.
+
+"Guests first!" hissed Dorothy, in a fierce whisper, as Ruyven crowded
+past me, and he slunk back, mortified, while Dorothy, in a languid
+voice and with the air of a duchess, drawled, "Your arm, cousin," and
+slipped her hand into my arm, tossing her head with a heavy-lidded,
+insolent glance at poor Ruyven.
+
+And thus we entered the gun-room, I with Dorothy Varick on my arm, and
+behind me, though I was not at first aware of it, Harry, gravely
+conducting Cecile in a similar manner, followed by Samuel and Benny,
+arm-in-arm, while Ruyven trudged sulkily by himself.
+
+
+
+III
+
+COUSINS
+
+There was a large, discolored table in the armory, or gun-room, as they
+called it; and on this, without a cloth, our repast was spread by Cato,
+while the other servants retired, panting and grinning like over-fat
+hounds after a pack-run.
+
+And, by Heaven! they lacked nothing for solid silver, my cousins the
+Varicks, nor yet for fine glass, which I observed without appearance of
+vulgar curiosity while Cato carved a cold joint of butcher's roast and
+cracked the bottles of wine--a claret that perfumed the room like a
+garden in September.
+
+"Cousin Dorothy, I have the honor to raise my glass to you," I said.
+
+"I drink your health, Cousin George," she said, gravely--"Benny, let
+that wine alone! Is there no small-beer there, that you go coughing and
+staining your bib over wine forbidden? Take his glass away, Ruyven! Take
+it quick, I say!"
+
+Benny, deprived of his claret, collapsed moodily into a heap, and sat
+swinging his legs and clipping the table, at every kick of his shoon,
+until my wine danced in my glass and soiled the table.
+
+"Stop that, you!" cried Cecile.
+
+Benny subsided, scowling.
+
+Though Dorothy was at some pains to assure me that they had dined but an
+hour before, that did not appear to blunt their appetites. And the
+manner in which they drank astonished me, a glass of wine being
+considered sufficient for young ladies at home, and a half-glass for
+lads like Harry and Sam. Yet when I emptied my glass Dorothy emptied
+hers, and the servants refilled hers when they refilled mine, till I
+grew anxious and watched to see that her face flushed not, but had my
+anxiety for my pains, as she changed not a pulse-beat for all the red
+wine she swallowed.
+
+And Lord! how busy were her little white teeth, while her pretty eyes
+roved about, watchful that order be kept at this gypsy repast. Cecile
+and Harry fell to struggling for a glass, which snapped and flew to
+flakes under their clutching fingers, drenching them with claret.
+
+"Silence!" cried Dorothy, rising, eyes ablaze. "Do you wish our cousin
+Ormond to take us for manner-less savages?"
+
+"Why not?" retorted Harry. "We are!"
+
+"Oh, Lud!" drawled Cecile, languidly fanning her flushed face, "I would
+I had drunk small-beer--Harry, if you kick me again I'll pinch!"
+
+"It's a shame," observed Ruyven, "that gentlemen of our age may not take
+a glass of wine together in comfort."
+
+"Your age!" laughed Dorothy. "Cousin Ormond is twenty-three, silly, and
+I'm eighteen--or close to it."
+
+"And I'm seventeen," retorted Ruyven.
+
+"Yet I throw you at wrestling," observed Dorothy, with a shrug.
+
+"Oh, your big feet! Who can move them?" he rejoined.
+
+"Big feet? Mine?" She bent, tore a satin shoe from her foot, and slapped
+it down on the table in challenge to all to equal it--a small,
+silver-buckled thing of Paddington's make, with a smart red heel and a
+slender body, slim as the crystal slipper of romance.
+
+There was no denying its shapeliness; presently she removed it, and,
+stooping, slowly drew it on her foot.
+
+"Is that the shoe Sir John drank your health from?" sneered Ruyven.
+
+A rich flush mounted to Dorothy's hair, and she caught at her wine-glass
+as though to throw it at her brother.
+
+"A married man, too," he laughed--"Sir John Johnson, the fat baronet of
+the Mohawks--"
+
+"Damn you, will you hold your silly tongue?" she cried, and rose to
+launch the glass, but I sprang to my feet, horrified and astounded, arm
+outstretched.
+
+"Ruyven," I said, sharply, "is it you who fling such a taunt to shame
+your own kin? If there is aught of impropriety in what this man Sir John
+has done, is it not our affair with him in place of a silly gibe
+at Dorothy?"
+
+"I ask pardon," stammered Ruyven; "had there been impropriety in what
+that fool, Sir John, did I should not have spoke, but have acted long
+since, Cousin Ormond."
+
+"I'm sure of it," I said, warmly. "Forgive me, Ruyven."
+
+"Oh, la!" said Dorothy, her lips twitching to a smile, "Ruyven only said
+it to plague me. I hate that baronet, and Ruyven knows it, and harps
+ever on a foolish drinking-bout where all fell to the table, even Walter
+Butler, and that slow adder Sir John among the first. And they do say,"
+she added, with scorn, "that the baronet did find one of my old shoon
+and filled it to my health--damn him!--"
+
+"Dorothy!" I broke in, "who in Heaven's name taught you such shameful
+oaths?"
+
+"Oaths?" Her face burned scarlet. "Is it a shameful oath to say 'Damn
+him'?"
+
+"It is a common oath men use--not gentlewomen," I said.
+
+"Oh! I supposed it harmless. They all laugh when I say it--father and
+Guy Johnson and the rest; and they swear other oaths--words I would not
+say if I could--but I did not know there was harm in a good
+smart 'damn!'"
+
+She leaned back, one slender hand playing with the stem of her glass;
+and the flush faded from her face like an afterglow from a
+serene horizon.
+
+"I fear," she said, "you of the South wear a polish we lack."
+
+"Best mirror your faults in it while you have the chance," said Harry,
+promptly.
+
+"We lack polish--even Walter Butler and Guy Johnson sneer at us under
+father's nose," said Ruyven. "What the devil is it in us Varicks that
+set folk whispering and snickering and nudging one another? Am I
+parti-colored, like an Oneida at a scalp-dance? Does Harry wear bat's
+wings for ears? Are Dorothy's legs crooked, that they all stare?"
+
+"It's your red head," observed Cecile. "The good folk think to see the
+noon-sun setting in the wood--"
+
+"Oh, tally! you always say that," snapped Ruyven.
+
+Dorothy, leaning forward, looked at me with dreamy blue eyes that saw
+beyond me.
+
+"We are doubtless a little mad, ... as they say," she mused. "Otherwise
+we seem to be like other folk. We have clothing befitting, when we
+choose to wear it; we were schooled in Albany; we are people of quality,
+like the other patroons; we lack nothing for servants or tenants--what
+ails them all, to nudge and stare and grin when we pass?"
+
+"Mr. Livingston says our deportment shocks all," murmured Cecile.
+
+"The Schuylers will have none of us," added Harry, plaintively--"and I
+admire them, too."
+
+"Oh, they all conduct shamefully when I go to school in Albany," burst
+out Sammy; "and I thrashed that puling young patroon, too, for he saw me
+and refused my salute. But I think he will render me my bow next time."
+
+"Do the quality not visit you here?" I asked Dorothy.
+
+"Visit us? No, cousin. Who is to receive them? Our mother is dead."
+
+Cecile said: "Once they did come, but Uncle Varick had that mistress of
+Sir John's to sup with them and they took offence."
+
+"Mrs. Van Cortlandt said she was a painted hussy--" began Harry.
+
+"The Van Rensselaers left the house, vowing that Sir Lupus had used them
+shamefully," added Cecile; "and Sir Lupus said: 'Tush! tush! When the
+Van Rensselaers are too good for the Putnams of Tribes Hill I'll eat my
+spurs!' and then he laughed till he cried."
+
+"They never came again; nobody of quality ever came; nobody ever comes,"
+said Ruyven.
+
+"Excepting the Johnsons and the Butlers," corrected Sammy.
+
+"And then everybody geths tight; they were here lath night and Uncle
+Varick is sthill abed," said little Benny, innocently.
+
+"Will you all hold your tongues?" cried Dorothy, fiercely. "Father said
+we were not to tell anybody that Sir John and the Ormond-Butlers
+visited us."
+
+"Why not?" I asked.
+
+Dorothy clasped both hands under her chin, rested her bare elbows on the
+table, and leaned close to me, whispering confidentially: "Because of
+the war with the Boston people. The country is overrun with
+rebels--rebel troops at Albany, rebel gunners at Stanwix, rebels at
+Edward and Hunter and Johnstown. A scout of ten men came here last week;
+they were harrying a war-party of Brant's Mohawks, and Stoner was with
+them, and that great ox in buckskin, Jack Mount. And do you know what he
+said to father? He said, 'For Heaven's sake, turn red or blue, Sir
+Lupus, for if you don't we'll hang you to a crab-apple and chance the
+color.' And father said, 'I'm no partisan King's man'; and Jack Mount
+said, 'You're the joker of the pack, are you?' And father said, 'I'm not
+in the shuffle, and you can bear me out, you rogue!' And then Jack Mount
+wagged his big forefinger at him and said, 'Sir Lupus, if you're but a
+joker, one or t'other side must discard you!' And they rode away,
+priming their rifles and laughing, and father swore and shook his
+cane at them."
+
+In her eagerness her lips almost touched my ear, and her breath warmed
+my cheek.
+
+"All that I saw and heard," she whispered, "and I know father told
+Walter Butler, for a scout came yesterday, saying that a scout from the
+Rangers and the Royal Greens had crossed the hills, and I saw some of
+Sir John's Scotch loons riding like warlocks on the new road, and that
+great fool, Francy McCraw, tearing along at their head and crowing
+like a cock."
+
+"Cousin, cousin," I protested, "all this--all these names--even the
+causes and the manners of this war, are incomprehensible to me."
+
+"Oh," she said, in surprise, "have you in Florida not heard of our war?"
+
+"Yes, yes--all know that war is with you, but that is all. I know that
+these Boston men are fighting our King; but why do the Indians
+take part?"
+
+She looked at me blankly, and made a little gesture of dismay.
+
+"I see I must teach you history, cousin," she said. "Father tells us
+that history is being made all about us in these days--and, would you
+believe it? Benny took it that books were being made in the woods all
+around the house, and stole out to see, spite of the law that
+father made--"
+
+"Who thaw me?" shouted Benny.
+
+"Hush! Be quiet!" said Dorothy.
+
+Benny lay back in his chair and beat upon the table, howling defiance at
+his sister through Harry's shouts of laughter.
+
+"Silence!" cried Dorothy, rising, flushed and furious. "Is this a
+corn-feast, that you all sit yelping in a circle? Ruyven, hold that
+door, and see that no one follows us--"
+
+"What for?" demanded Ruyven, rising. "If you mean to keep our cousin
+Ormond to yourself--"
+
+"I wish to discuss secrets with my cousin Ormond," said Dorothy,
+loftily, and stepped from her chair, nose in the air, and that
+heavy-lidded, insolent glance which once before had withered Ruyven, and
+now withered him again.
+
+"We will go to the play-room," she whispered, passing me; "that room has
+a bolt; they'll all be kicking at the door presently. Follow me."
+
+Ere we had reached the head of the stairs we heard a yell, a rush of
+feet, and she laughed, crying: "Did I not say so? They are after us now
+full bark! Come!"
+
+She caught my hand in hers and sped up the few remaining steps, then
+through the upper hallway, guiding me the while her light feet flew; and
+I, embarrassed, bewildered, half laughing, half shamed to go a-racing
+through a strange house in such absurd a fashion.
+
+"Here!" she panted, dragging me into a great, bare chamber and bolting
+the door, then leaned breathless against the wall to listen as the chase
+galloped up, clamoring, kicking and beating on panel and wall, baffled.
+
+"They're raging to lose their new cousin," she breathed, smiling across
+at me with a glint of pride in her eyes. "They all think mightily of
+you, and now they'll be mad to follow you like hound-pups the whip, all
+day long." She tossed her head. "They're good lads, and Cecile is a
+sweet child, too, but they must be made to understand that there are
+moments when you and I desire to be alone together."
+
+"Of course," I said, gravely.
+
+"You and I have much to consider, much to discuss in these uncertain
+days," she said, confidently. "And we cannot babble matters of import to
+these children--"
+
+"I'm seventeen!" howled Ruyven, through the key-hole. "Dorothy's not
+eighteen till next month, the little fool--"
+
+"Don't mind him," said Dorothy, raising her voice for Ruyven's benefit.
+"A lad who listens to his elders through a key-hole is not fit for
+serious--"
+
+A heavy assault on the door drowned Dorothy's voice. She waited calmly
+until the uproar had subsided.
+
+"Let us sit by the window," she said, "and I will tell you how we
+Varicks stand betwixt the deep sea and the devil."
+
+"I wish to come in!" shouted Ruyven, in a threatening voice. Dorothy
+laughed, and pointed to a great arm-chair of leather and oak. "I will
+sit there; place it by the window, cousin."
+
+I placed the chair for her; she seated herself with unconscious grace,
+and motioned me to bring another chair for myself.
+
+"Are you going to let me in?" cried Ruyven.
+
+"Oh, go to the--" began Dorothy, then flushed and glanced at me, asking
+pardon in a low voice.
+
+A nice parent, Sir Lupus, with every child in his family ready to swear
+like Flanders troopers at the first breath!
+
+Half reclining in her chair, limbs comfortably extended, Dorothy crossed
+her ankles and clasped her hands behind her head, a picture of indolence
+in every line and curve, from satin shoon to the dull gold of her hair,
+which, as I have said, the powder scarcely frosted.
+
+"To comprehend properly this war," she mused, more to herself than to
+me, "I suppose it is necessary to understand matters which I do not
+understand; how it chanced that our King lost his city of Boston, and
+why he has not long since sent his soldiers here into our county
+of Tryon."
+
+"Too many rebels, cousin," I suggested, flippantly. She disregarded me,
+continuing quietly;
+
+"But this much, however, I do understand, that our province of New York
+is the centre of all this trouble; that the men of Tryon hold the last
+pennyweight, and that the balanced scales will tip only when we patroons
+cast in our fortunes, ... either with our King or with the rebel
+Congress which defies him. I think our hearts, not our interests, must
+guide us in this affair, which touches our honor."
+
+Such pretty eloquence, thoughtful withal, was not what I had looked for
+in this new cousin of mine--this free-tongued maid, who, like a painted
+peach-fruit all unripe, wears the gay livery of maturity, tricking the
+eye with a false ripeness.
+
+"I have thought," she said, "that if the issues of this war depend on
+us, we patroons should not draw sword too hastily--yet not to sit like
+house-cats blinking at this world-wide blaze, but, in the full flood of
+the crisis, draw!--knowing of our own minds on which side lies
+the right."
+
+"Who taught you this?" I asked, surprised to over-bluntness.
+
+"Who taught me? What? To think?" She laughed. "Solitude is a rare spur
+to thought. I listen to the gentlemen who talk with father; and I would
+gladly join and have my say, too, but that they treat me like a fool,
+and I have my questions for my pains. Yet I swear I am dowered with more
+sense than Sir John Johnson, with his pale eyes and thick, white flesh,
+and his tarnished honor to dog him like the shadow of a damned man sold
+to Satan--"
+
+"Is he dishonored?"
+
+"Is a parole broken a dishonor? The Boston people took him and placed
+him on his honor to live at Johnson Hall and do no meddling. And now
+he's fled to Fort Niagara to raise the Mohawks. Is that honorable?"
+
+After a moment I said: "But a moment since you told me that Sir John
+comes here."
+
+She nodded. "He comes and gees in secret with young Walter Butler--one
+of your Ormond-Butlers, cousin--and old John Butler, his father, Colonel
+of the Rangers, who boast they mean to scalp the whole of Tryon County
+ere this blood-feud is ended. Oh, I have heard them talk and talk,
+drinking o' nights in the gun-room, and the escort's horses stamping at
+the porch with a man to each horse, to hold the poor brutes' noses lest
+they should neigh and wake the woods. Councils of war, they call them,
+these revels; but they end ever the same, with Sir John borne off to bed
+too drunk to curse the slaves who shoulder his fat bulk, and Walter
+Butler, sullen, stunned by wine, a brooding thing of malice carved in
+stone; and father roaring his same old songs, and beating time with his
+long pipe till the stem snaps, and he throws the glowing bowl at Cato--"
+
+"Dorothy, Dorothy," I said, "are these the scenes you find already too
+familiar?"
+
+"Stale as last month's loaf in a ratty cupboard."
+
+"Do they not offend you?"
+
+"Oh, I am no prude--"
+
+"Do you mean to say Sir Lupus sanctions it?"
+
+"What? My presence? Oh, I amuse them; they dress me in Ruyven's clothes
+and have me to wine--lacking a tenor voice for their songs--and at
+first, long ago, their wine made me stupid, and they found rare sport in
+baiting me; but now they tumble, one by one, ere the wine's fire touches
+my face, and father swears there is no man in County Tryon can keep our
+company o' nights and show a steady pair of legs like mine to bear him
+bedwards."
+
+After a moment's silence I said: "Are these your Northern customs?"
+
+"They are ours--and the others of our kind. I hear the plain folk of the
+country speak ill of us for the free life we lead at home--I mean the
+Palatines and the canting Dutch, not our tenants, though what even they
+may think of the manor house and of us I can only suspect, for they are
+all rebels at heart, Sir John says, and wear blue noses at the first run
+o' king's cider."
+
+She gave a reckless laugh and crossed her knees, looking at me under
+half-veiled lids, smooth and pure as a child's.
+
+"Food for the devil, they dub us in the Palatine church," she added,
+yawning, till I could see all her small, white teeth set in rose.
+
+A nice nest of kinsmen had I uncovered in this hard, gray Northern
+forest! The Lord knows, we of the South do little penance for the
+pleasures a free life brings us under the Southern stars, yet such
+license as this is not to our taste, and I think a man a fool to teach
+his children to review with hardened eyes home scenes suited to
+a tavern.
+
+Yet I was a guest, having accepted shelter and eaten salt; and I might
+not say my mind, even claiming kinsman's privilege to rebuke what seemed
+to me to touch the family honor.
+
+Staring through the unwashed window-pane, moodily brooding on what I had
+learned, I followed impatiently the flight of those small, gray swallows
+of the North, colorless as shadows, whirling in spirals above the cold
+chimneys, to tumble in like flakes of gray soot only to drift out again,
+wind--blown, aimless, irrational, senseless things. And again that
+hatred seized me for all this pale Northern world, where the very birds
+gyrated like moon-smitten sprites, and the white spectre of virtue sat
+amid orgies where bloodless fools caroused.
+
+"Are you homesick, cousin?" she asked.
+
+"Ay--if you must know the truth!" I broke out, not meaning to say my
+fill and ease me. "This is not the world; it is a gray inferno, where
+shades rave without reason, where there is no color, no repose, nothing
+but blankness and unreason, and an air that stings all living life to
+spasms of unrest. Your sun is hot, yet has no balm; your winds plague
+the skin and bones of a man; the forests are unfriendly; the waters all
+hurry as though bewitched! Brooks are cold and tasteless as the fog; the
+unsalted, spiceless air clogs the throat and whips the nerves till the
+very soul in the body strains, fluttering to be free! How can decent
+folk abide here?"
+
+I hesitated, then broke into a harsh laugh, for my cousin sat staring at
+me, lips parted, like a fair shape struck into marble by a breath
+of magic.
+
+"Pardon," I said. "Here am I, kindly invited to the council of a family
+whose interests lie scattered through estates from the West Indies to
+the Canadas, and I requite your hospitality by a rudeness I had not
+believed was in me."
+
+I asked her pardon again for the petty outburst of an untravelled
+youngster whose first bath in this Northern air-ocean had chilled his
+senses and his courtesy.
+
+"There is a land," I said, "where lately the gray bastions of St.
+Augustine reflected the gold and red of Spanish banners, and the blue
+sea mirrors a bluer sky. We Ormonds came there from the Western Indies,
+then drifted south, skirting the Matanzas to the sea islands on the
+Halifax, where I was born, an Englishman on Spanish soil, and have lived
+there, knowing no land but that of Florida, treading no city streets
+save those walled lanes of ancient Augustine. All this vast North is new
+to me, Dorothy; and, like our swamp-haunting Seminoles, my rustic's
+instinct finds hostility in what is new and strange, and I forget my
+breeding in this gray maze which half confuses, half alarms me."
+
+"I am not offended," she said, smiling, "only I wonder what you find
+distasteful here. Is it the solitude?"
+
+"No, for we also have that."
+
+"Is it us?"
+
+"Not you, Dorothy, nor yet Ruyven, nor the others. Forget what I said.
+As the Spaniards have it, 'Only a fool goes travelling,' and I'm not too
+notorious for my wisdom, even in Augustine. If it be the custom of the
+people here to go mad, I'll not sit in a corner croaking, 'Repent and
+be wise!' If the Varicks and the Butlers set the pace, I promise you to
+keep the quarry, Mistress Folly, in view--perhaps outfoot you all to
+Bedlam!... But, cousin, if you, too, run this uncoupled race with the
+pack, I mean to pace you, neck and neck, like a keen whip, ready to turn
+and lash the first who interferes with you."
+
+"With me?" she repeated, smiling. "Am I a youngster to be coddled and
+protected? You have not seen our hunting. I lead, my friend;
+you follow."
+
+She unclasped her arms, which till now had held her bright head cradled,
+and sat up, hands on her knees, grave as an Egyptian goddess
+guarding tombs.
+
+"I'll wager I can outrun you, outshoot you, outride you, throw you at
+wrestle, cast the knife or hatchet truer than can you, catch more fish
+than you--and bigger ones at that!"
+
+With an impatient gesture, peculiarly graceful, like the half-salute of
+a friendly swordsman ere you draw and stand on guard:
+
+"Read the forest with me. I can outread you, sign for sign, track for
+track, trail in and trail out! The forest is to me Te-ka-on-do-duk [the
+place with a sign-post]. And when the confederacy speaks with five
+tongues, and every tongue split into five forked dialects, I make no
+answer in finger-signs, as needs must you, my cousin of the
+Se-a-wan-ha-ka [the land of shells]. We speak to the Iroquois with our
+lips, we People of the Morning. Our hands are for our rifles! Hiro [I
+have spoken]!"
+
+She laughed, challenging me with eye and lip.
+
+"And if you defy me to a bout with bowl or bottle I will not turn
+coward, neah-wen-ha [I thank you]! but I will drink with you and let my
+father judge whose legs best carry him to bed! Koue! Answer me, my
+cousin, Tahoontowhe [the night hawk]."
+
+We were laughing now, yet I knew she had spoken seriously, and to plague
+her I said: "You boast like a Seminole chanting the war-song."
+
+"I dare you to cast the hatchet!" she cried, reddening.
+
+"Dare me to a trial less rude," I protested, laughing the louder.
+
+"No, no! Come!" she said, impatient, unbolting the heavy door; and,
+willy-nilly, I followed, meeting the pack all sulking on the stairs, who
+rose to seize me as I came upon them.
+
+"Let him alone!" cried Dorothy; "he says he can outcast me with the
+war-hatchet! Where is my hatchet? Sammy! Ruyven! find hatchets and come
+to the painted post."
+
+"Sport!" cried Harry, leaping down-stairs before us. "Cecile, get your
+hatchet--get mine, too! Come on, Cousin Ormond, I'll guide you; it's the
+painted post by the spring--and hark, Cousin George, if you beat her
+I'll give you my silvered powder-horn!"
+
+Cecile and Sammy hastened up, bearing in their arms the slim
+war-hatchets, cased in holsters of bright-beaded hide, and we took our
+weapons and started, piloted by Harry through the door, and across the
+shady, unkempt lawn to the stockade gate.
+
+Dorothy and I walked side by side, like two champions in amiable confab
+before a friendly battle, intimately aloof from the gaping crowd which
+follows on the flanks of all true greatness.
+
+Out across the deep-green meadow we marched, the others trailing on
+either side with eager advice to me, or chattering of contests past,
+when Walter Butler and Brant--he who is now war-chief of the loyal
+Mohawks--cast hatchets for a silver girdle, which Brant wears still; and
+the patroon, and Sir John, and all the great folk from Guy Park were
+here a-betting on the Mohawk, which, they say, so angered Walter Butler
+that he lost the contest. And that day dated the silent enmity between
+Brant and Butler, which never healed.
+
+This I gathered amid all their chit-chat while we stood under the
+willows near the spring, watching Ruyven pace the distance from the post
+back across the greensward towards us.
+
+Then, making his heel-mark in the grass, he took a green willow wand and
+set it, all feathered, in the turf.
+
+"Is it fair for Dorothy to cast her own hatchet?" asked Harry.
+
+"Give me Ruyven's," she said, half vexed. Aught that touched her sense
+of fairness sent a quick flame of anger to her cheeks which I admired.
+
+"Keep your own hatchet, cousin," I said; "you may have need of it."
+
+"Give me Ruyven's hatchet," she repeated, with a stamp of her foot which
+Ruyven hastened to respect. Then she turned to me, pink with defiance:
+
+"It is always a stranger's honor," she said; so I advanced, drawing my
+light, keen weapon from its beaded sheath, which I had belted round me;
+and Ruyven took station by the post, ten paces to the right.
+
+The post was painted scarlet, ringed with white above; below, in
+outline, the form of a man--an Indian--with folded arms, also drawn in
+white paint. The play was simple; the hatchet must imbed its blade close
+to the outlined shape, yet not "wound" or "draw blood."
+
+"Brant at first refused to cast against that figure," said Harry,
+laughing. "He consented only because the figure, though Indian, was
+painted white."
+
+I scarce heard him as I stood measuring with my eyes the distance. Then,
+taking one step forward to the willow wand, I hurled the hatchet, and it
+landed quivering in the shoulder of the outlined figure on the post.
+
+"A wound!" cried Cecile; and, mortified, I stepped back, biting my lip,
+while Harry notched one point against me on the willow wand and Dorothy,
+tightening her girdle, whipped out her bright war-axe and stepped
+forward. Nor did she even pause to scan the post; her arm shot up, the
+keen axe-blade glittered and flew, sparkling and whirling, biting into
+the post, chuck! handle a-quiver. And you could not have laid a June
+willow-leaf betwixt the Indian's head and the hatchet's blade.
+
+She turned to me, lips parted in a tormenting smile, and I praised the
+cast and took my hatchet from Ruyven to try once more. Yet again I broke
+skin on the thigh of the pictured captive; and again the glistening axe
+left Dorothy's hand, whirring to a safe score, a grass-stem's width from
+the Indian's head.
+
+I understood that I had met my master, yet for the third time strove;
+and my axe whistled true, standing point-bedded a finger's breadth from
+the cheek.
+
+"Can you mend that, Dorothy?" I asked, politely.
+
+She stood smiling, silent, hatchet poised, then nodded, launching the
+axe. Crack! came the handles of the two hatchets, and rattled together.
+But the blade of her hatchet divided the space betwixt my blade and the
+painted face, nor touched the outline by a fair hair's breadth.
+
+Astonishment was in my face, not chagrin, but she misread me, for the
+triumph died out in her eyes, and, "Oh!" she said; "I did not mean to
+win--truly I did not," offering her hands in friendly amend.
+
+But at my quick laugh she brightened, still holding my hands, regarding
+me with curious eyes, brilliant as amethysts.
+
+"I was afraid I had hurt your pride--before these silly children--" she
+began.
+
+"Children!" shouted Ruyven. "I bet you ten shillings he can outcast you
+yet!"
+
+"Done!" she flashed, then, all in a breath, smiled adorably and shook
+her head. "No, I'll not bet. He could win if he chose. We understand
+each other, my cousin Ormond and I," and gave my hands a little friendly
+shake with both of hers, then dropped them to still Ruyven's clamor
+for a wager.
+
+"You little beast!" she said, fiercely; "is it courteous to pit your
+guests like game-cocks for your pleasure?"
+
+"You did it yourself!" retorted Ruyven, indignantly--"and entered the
+pit yourself."
+
+"For a jest, silly! There were no bets. Now frown and vapor and wag your
+finger--do! What do you lack? I will wrestle you if you wait until I don
+my buckskins. No? A foot-race?--and I'll bet you your ten shillings on
+myself! Ten to five--to three--to one! No? Then hush your silly head!"
+
+"Because," said Ruyven, sullenly, coming up to me, "she can outrun me
+with her long legs, she gives herself the devil's own airs and graces.
+There's no living with her, I tell you. I wish I could go to the war."
+
+"You'll have to go when father declares himself," observed Dorothy,
+quietly polishing her hatchet on its leather sheath.
+
+"But he won't declare for King or Congress," retorted the boy.
+
+"Wait till they start to plague us," murmured Dorothy. "Some fine July
+day cows will be missed, or a barn burned, or a shepherd found scalped.
+Then you'll see which way the coin spins!"
+
+"Which way will it spin?" demanded Ruyven, incredulous yet eager.
+
+"Ask that squirrel yonder," she said, briefly.
+
+"Thanks; I've asked enough of chatterers," he snapped out, and came to
+the tree where we were sitting in the shadow on the cool, thick carpet
+of the grass--such grass as I had never seen in that fair Southland
+which I loved.
+
+The younger children gathered shyly about me, their active tongues
+suddenly silent, as though, all at once, they had taken a sudden alarm
+to find me there.
+
+The reaction of fatigue was settling over me--for my journey had been a
+long one that day--and I leaned my back against the tree and yawned,
+raising my hand to hide it.
+
+"I wonder," I said, "whether anybody here knows if my boxes and servant
+have arrived from Philadelphia."
+
+"Your boxes are in the hallway by your bed-chamber," said Dorothy. "Your
+servant went to Johnstown for news of you--let me see--I think it was
+Saturday--"
+
+"Friday," said Ruyven, looking up from the willow wand which he was
+peeling.
+
+"He never came back," observed Dorothy. "Some believe he ran away to
+Albany, some think the Boston people caught him and impressed him to
+work on the fort at Stanwix."
+
+I felt my face growing hot.
+
+"I should like to know," said I, "who has dared to interfere with my
+servant."
+
+"So should I," said Ruyven, stoutly. "I'd knock his head off." The
+others stared. Dorothy, picking a meadow-flower to pieces, smiled
+quietly, but did not look up.
+
+"What do you think has happened to my black?" I asked, watching her.
+
+"I think Walter Butler's men caught him and packed him off to Fort
+Niagara," she said.
+
+"Why do you believe that?" I asked, angrily.
+
+"Because Mr. Butler came here looking for boat-men; and I know he tried
+to bribe Cato to go. Cato told me." She turned sharply to the others.
+"But mind you say nothing to Sir Lupus of this until I choose to
+tell him!"
+
+"Have you proof that Mr. Butler was concerned in the disappearance of my
+servant?" I asked, with an unpleasant softness in my voice.
+
+"No proof," replied Dorothy, also very softly.
+
+"Then I may not even question him," I said.
+
+"No, you can do nothing--now."
+
+I thought a moment, frowning, then glanced up to find them all intently
+watching me.
+
+"I should like," said I, "to have a tub of clean water and fresh
+clothing, and to sleep for an hour ere I dress to dine with Sir Lupus.
+But, first, I should like to see my mare, that she is well bedded and--"
+
+"I'll see to her," said Dorothy, springing to her feet. "Ruyven, do you
+tell Cato to wait on Captain Ormond." And to Harry and Cecile: "Bowl on
+the lawn if you mean to bowl, and not in the hallway, while our cousin
+is sleeping." And to Benny: "If you tumble or fall into any foolishness,
+see that you squall no louder than a kitten mewing. Our cousin means to
+sleep for a whole hour."
+
+As I rose, nodding to them gravely, all their shy deference seemed to
+return; they were no longer a careless, chattering band, crowding at my
+elbows to pluck my sleeves with, "Oh, Cousin Ormond" this, and "Listen,
+cousin," that; but they stood in a covey, close together, a trifle awed
+at my height, I suppose; and Ruyven and Dorothy conducted me with a new
+ceremony, each to outvie the other in politeness of language and
+deportment, calling to my notice details of the scenery in stilted
+phrases which nigh convulsed me, so that I could scarce control the set
+gravity of my features.
+
+At the house door they parted company with me, all save Ruyven and
+Dorothy. The one marched off to summon Cato; the other stood silent, her
+head a little on one side, contemplating a spot of sunlight on the
+dusty floor.
+
+"About young Walter Butler," she began, absently; "be not too short and
+sharp with him, cousin."
+
+"I hope I shall have no reason to be too blunt with my own kin," I said.
+
+"You may have reason--" She hesitated, then, with a pretty confidence in
+her eyes, "For my sake please to pass provocation unnoticed. None will
+doubt your courage if you overlook and refuse to be affronted."
+
+"I cannot pass an affront," I said, bluntly. "What do you mean? Who is
+this quarrelsome Mr. Butler?"
+
+"An Ormond-Butler," she said, earnestly; "but--but he has had trouble--a
+terrible disappointment in love, they say. He is morose at times--a
+sullen, suspicious man, one of those who are ever seeking for offence
+where none is dreamed of; a man quick to give umbrage, quicker to resent
+a fancied slight--a remorseless eye that fixes you with the passionless
+menace of a hawk's eye, dreamily marking you for a victim. He is cruel
+to his servants, cruel to his animals, terrible in his hatred of these
+Boston people. Nobody knows why they ridiculed him; but they did. That
+adds to the fuel which feeds the flame in him--that and the brooding on
+his own grievances--"
+
+She moved nearer to me and laid her hand on my sleeve. "Cousin, the man
+is mad; I ask you to remember that in a moment of just provocation. It
+would grieve me if he were your enemy--I should not sleep for thinking."
+
+"Dorothy," I said, smiling, "I use some weapons better than I do the
+war-axe. Are you afraid for me?"
+
+She looked at me seriously. "In that little world which I know there is
+much that terrifies men, yet I can say, without boasting, there is not,
+in my world, one living creature or one witch or spirit that I
+dread--no, not even Catrine Montour!"
+
+"And who is Catrine Montour?" I asked, amused at her earnestness.
+
+Ere she could reply, Ruyven called from the stairs that Cato had my tub
+of water all prepared, and she walked away, nodding a brief adieu,
+pausing at the door to give me one sweet, swift smile of
+friendly interest.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+SIR LUPUS
+
+I had bathed and slept, and waked once more to the deep, resonant notes
+of a conch-shell blowing; and I still lay abed, blinking at the sunset
+through the soiled panes of my western window, when Cato scraped at the
+door to enter, bearing my sea-boxes one by one.
+
+Reaching behind me, I drew the keys from under my pillow and tossed them
+to the solemn black, lying still once more to watch him unlock my boxes
+and lay out my clothes and linen to the air.
+
+"Company to sup, suh; gemmen from de No'th an' Guy Pahk, suh," he
+hinted, rolling his eyes at me and holding up my best wristbands, made
+of my mother's lace.
+
+"I shall dress soberly, Cato," said I, yawning. "Give me a narrow
+queue-ribbon, too."
+
+The old man mumbled and muttered, fussing about among the boxes until he
+found a full suit of silver-gray, silken stockings, and hound's-tongue
+shoes to match.
+
+"Dishyere clothes sho' is sober," he reflected aloud. "One li'l gole
+vine a-crawlin' on de cuffs, nuvver li'l gole vine a-creepin' up de
+wes'coat, gole buckles on de houn'-tongue--Whar de hat? Hat done loose
+hisse'f! Here de hat! Gole lace on de hat--Cap'in Ormond sho' is quality
+gemm'n. Ef he ain't, how come dishyere gole lace on de hat?"
+
+"Come, Cato," I remonstrated, "am I dressing for a ball at Augustine,
+that you stand there pulling my finery about to choose and pick? I tell
+you to give me a sober suit!" I snatched a flowered robe from the bed's
+foot-board, pulled it about me, and stepped to the floor.
+
+Cato brought a chair and bowl, and, when I had washed once more I seated
+myself while the old man shook out my hair, dusted it to its natural
+brown, then fell to combing and brushing. My hair, with its obstinate
+inclination to curl, needed neither iron nor pomade; so, silvering it
+with my best French powder, he tied the short queue with a black ribbon
+and dusted my shoulders, critically considering me the while.
+
+"A plain shirt," I said, briefly.
+
+He brought a frilled one.
+
+"I want a plain shirt," I insisted.
+
+"Dishyere sho't am des de plaines' an' de--"
+
+"You villain, don't I know what I want?"
+
+"No, suh!"
+
+And, upon my honor, I could not get that black mule to find me the shirt
+that I wished to wear. More than that, he utterly refused to permit me
+to dress in a certain suit of mouse-color without lace, but actually
+bundled me into the silver-gray, talking volubly all the while; and I,
+half laughing and wholly vexed, almost minded to go burrowing myself
+among my boxes and risk peppering silk and velvet with hair-powder.
+
+But he dressed me as it suited him, patting my silk shoes into shape,
+smoothing coat-skirt and flowered vest-flap, shaking out the lace on
+stock and wrist with all the delicacy and cunning of a lady's-maid.
+
+"Idiot!" said I, "am I tricked out to please you?"
+
+"You sho' is, Cap'in Ormond, suh," he said, the first faint approach to
+a grin that I had seen wrinkling his aged face. And with that he hung
+my small-sword, whisked the powder from my shoulders with a bit of
+cambric, chose a laced handkerchief for me, and, ere I could
+remonstrate, passed a tiny jewelled pin into my powdered hair, where it
+sparkled like a frost crystal.
+
+"I'm no macaroni!" I said, angrily; "take it away!"
+
+"Cap'in Ormond, suh, you sho' is de fines' young gemm'n in de province,
+suh," he pleaded. "Dess regahd yo'se'f, suh, in dishyere lookum-glass.
+What I done tell you? Look foh yo'se'f, suh! Cap'in Butler gwine see how
+de quality gemm'n fixes up! Suh John Johnsing he gwine see! Dat ole
+Kunnel Butler he gwine see, too! Heah yo' is, suh, dess a-bloomin' lak
+de pink-an'-silver ghos' flower wif de gole heart."
+
+"Cato," I asked, curiously, "why do you take pride in tricking out a
+stranger to dazzle your own people?"
+
+The old man stood silent a moment, then looked up with the mild eyes of
+an aged hound long privileged in honorable retirement.
+
+"Is you sho' a Ormond, suh?"
+
+"Yes, Cato."
+
+"Might you come f'om de Spanish grants, suh, long de Halifax?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but we are English now. How did you know I came from the
+Halifax?"
+
+"I knowed it, suh; I knowed h'it muss be dat-away!"
+
+"How do you know it, Cato?"
+
+"I spec' you favor yo' pap, suh, de ole Kunnel--"
+
+"My father!"
+
+"Mah ole marster, suh; I was raised 'long Matanzas, suh. Spanish man
+done cotch me on de Tomoka an' ship me to Quebec. Ole Suh William
+Johnsing, he done buy me; Suh John, he done sell me; Mars Varick, he buy
+me; an' hyah ah is, suh--heart dess daid foh de Halifax san's."
+
+He bent his withered head and laid his face on my hands, but no tear
+fell.
+
+After a moment he straightened, snuffled, and smiled, opening his lips
+with a dry click.
+
+"H'it's dat-a-way, suh. Ole Cato dess 'bleged to fix up de young
+marster. Pride o' fambly, suh. What might you be desirin' now, Mars'
+Ormond? One li'l drap o' musk on yoh hanker? Lawd save us, but you sho'
+is gallus dishyere day! Spec' Miss Dorry gwine blink de vi'lets in her
+eyes. Yaas, suh. Miss Dorry am de only one, suh; de onliest Ormond in
+dishyere fambly. Seem mos' lak she done throw back to our folk, suh.
+Miss Dorry ain' no Varick; Miss Dorry all Ormond, suh, dess lak you an'
+me! Yaas, suh, h'its dat-a-way; h'it sho' is, Mars' Ormond."
+
+I drew a deep, quivering breath. Home seemed so far, and the old slave
+would never live to see it. I felt as though this steel-cold North held
+me, too, like a trap--never to unclose.
+
+"Cato," I said, abruptly, "let us go home."
+
+He understood; a gleam of purest joy flickered in his eyes, then died
+out, quenched in swelling tears.
+
+He wept awhile, standing there in the centre of the room, smearing the
+tears away with the flapping sleeves of his tarnished livery, while,
+like a committed panther, I paced the walls, to and fro, to and fro,
+heart aching for escape.
+
+The light in the west deepened above the forests; a long, glowing crack
+opened between two thunderous clouds, like a hint of hidden hell, firing
+the whole sky. And in the blaze the crows winged, two and two, like
+witches flying home to the infernal pit, now all ablaze and kindling
+coal on coal along the dark sky's sombre brink.
+
+Then the red bars faded on my wall to pink, to ashes; a fleck of rosy
+cloud in mid-zenith glimmered and went out, and the round edges of the
+world were curtained with the night.
+
+Behind me, Cato struck flint and lighted two tall candles; outside the
+lawn, near the stockade, a stable-lad set a conch-horn to his lips,
+blowing a deep, melodious cattle-call, and far away I heard them
+coming--tin, ton! tin, ton! tinkle!--through the woods, slowly, slowly,
+till in the freshening dusk I smelled their milk and heard them lowing
+at the unseen pasture-bars.
+
+I turned sharply; the candle-light dazzled me. As I passed Cato, the old
+man bowed till his coat-cuffs hung covering his dusky, wrinkled fingers.
+
+"When we go, we go together, Cato," I said, huskily, and so passed on
+through the brightly lighted hallway and down the stairs.
+
+Candle-light glimmered on the dark pictures, the rusted circles of arms,
+the stags' heads with their dusty eyes. A servant in yellow livery,
+lounging by the door, rose from the settle as I appeared and threw open
+the door on the left, announcing, "Cap'm Ormond!" in a slovenly fashion
+which merited a rebuke from somebody.
+
+The room into which the yokel ushered me appeared to be a library, low
+of ceiling, misty with sour pipe smoke, which curled and floated level,
+wavering as the door closed behind me.
+
+Through the fog, which nigh choked me with its staleness, I perceived a
+bulky gentleman seated at ease, sucking a long clay pipe, his bulging
+legs cocked up on a card-table, his little, inflamed eyes twinkling red
+in the candle-light.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU'RE MY COUSIN, GEORGE ORMOND, OR I'M THE FATTEST LIAR
+SOUTH OF MONTREAL!".]
+
+"Captain Ormond?" he cried. "Captain be damned; you're my cousin, George
+Ormond, or I'm the fattest liar south of Montreal! Who the devil put 'em
+up to captaining you--eh? Was it that minx Dorothy? Dammy, I took it
+that the old Colonel had come to plague me from his grave--your father,
+sir! And a cursed fine fellow, if he was second cousin to a Varick,
+which he could not help, not he!--though I've heard him damn his luck to
+my very face, sir! Yes, sir, under my very nose!"
+
+He fell into a fit of fat coughing, and seized a glass of
+spirits-and-water which stood on the table near his feet. The draught
+allayed his spasm; he wiped his broad, purple face, chuckled, tossed off
+the last of the liquor with a smack, and held out a mottled, fat hand,
+bare of wrist-lace. "Here's my heart with it, George!" he cried. "I'd
+stand up to greet you, but it takes ten minutes for me to find these
+feet o' mine, so I'll not keep you waiting. There's a chair; fill it
+with that pretty body of yours; cock up your feet--here's a pipe--here's
+snuff--here's the best rum north o' Norfolk, which that ass Dunmore laid
+in ashes to spite those who kicked him out!"
+
+He squeezed my hand affectionately. "Pretty bird! Dammy, but you'll
+break a heart or two, you rogue! Oh, you are your father all over again;
+it's that way with you Ormonds--all alike, and handsome as that young
+devil Lucifer; too proud to be proud o' your dukes and admirals, and a
+thousand years of waiting on your King. As lads together your father
+used to take me by the ear and cuff me, crying, 'Beast! beast! You eat
+and drink too much! An Ormond's heart lies not in his belly!' And I
+kicked back, fighting stoutly for the crust he dragged me from. Dammy,
+why not? There's more Dutch Varick than Irish Ormond in me. Remember
+that, George, and we shall get on famously together, you and I. Forget
+it, and we quarrel. Hey! fill that tall Italian glass for a toast. I
+give you the family, George. May they keep tight hold on what is theirs
+through all this cursed war-folly. Here's to the patroons, God
+bless 'em!"
+
+Forced by courtesy to drink ere I had yet tasted meat, I did my part
+with the best grace I could muster, turning the beautiful glass
+downward, with a bow to my host.
+
+"The same trick o' grace in neck and wrist," he muttered, thickly,
+wiping his lips. "All Ormond, all Ormond, George, like that vixen o'
+mine, Dorothy. Hey! It's not too often that good blood throws back; the
+mongrel shows oftenest; but that big chit of a lass is no Varick; she's
+Ormond to the bones of her. Ruyven's a red-head; there's red in the rest
+o' them, and the slow Dutch blood. But Dorothy's eyes are like those
+wild iris-blooms that purple all our meadows, and she has the Ormond
+hair--that thick, dull gold, which that French Ormond, of King Stephen's
+time, was dowered with by his Saxon mother, Helen. Eh? You see, I read
+it in that book your father left us. If I'm no Ormond, I like to find
+out why, and I love to dispute the Ormond claim which Walter Butler
+makes--he with his dark face and hair, and those dusky, golden eyes of
+his, which turn so yellow when I plague him--the mad wild-cat that
+he is."
+
+Another fit of choking closed his throat, and again he soaked it open
+with his chilled toddy, rattling the stick to stir it well ere he
+drained it at a single, gobbling gulp.
+
+A faint disgust took hold on me, to sit there smothering in the fumes of
+pipe and liquor, while my gross kinsman guzzled and gabbled and
+guzzled again.
+
+"George," he gasped, mopping his crimsoned face, "I'll tell you now that
+we Varicks and you Ormonds must stand out for neutrality in this war.
+The Butlers mean mischief; they're mad to go to fighting, and that means
+our common ruin. They'll be here to-night, damn them."
+
+"Sir Lupus," I ventured, "we are all kinsmen, the Butlers, the Varicks,
+and the Ormonds. We are to gather here for self-protection during this
+rebellion. I am sure that in the presence of this common danger there
+can arise no family dissension."
+
+"Yes, there can!" he fairly yelled. "Here am I risking life and property
+to persuade these Butlers that their interest lies in strictest
+neutrality. If Schuyler at Albany knew they visited me, his dragoons
+would gallop into Varick Manor and hang me to my barn door! Here am I, I
+say, doing my best to keep 'em quiet, and there's Sir John Johnson and
+all that bragging crew from Guy Park combating me--nay, would you
+believe their impudence?--striving to win me to arm my tenantry for this
+King of England, who has done nothing for me, save to make a knight of
+me to curry favor with the Dutch patroons in New York province--or
+state, as they call it now! And now I have you to count on for support,
+and we'll whistle another jig for them to-night, I'll warrant!"
+
+He seized his unfilled glass, looked into it, and pushed it from him
+peevishly.
+
+"Dammy," he said, "I'll not budge for them! I have thousands of acres,
+hundreds of tenants, farms, sugar-bushes, manufactories for pearl-ash,
+grist-mills, saw-mills, and I'm damned if I draw sword either way! Am I
+a madman, to risk all this? Am I a common fool, to chance anything now?
+Do they think me in my dotage? Indeed, sir, if I drew blade, if I as
+much as raised a finger, both sides would come swarming all over
+us--rebels a-looting and a-shooting, Indians whooping off my cattle,
+firing my barns, scalping my tenants--rebels at heart every one, and I'd
+not care tuppence who scalped 'em but that they pay me rent!"
+
+He clinched his fat fists and beat the air angrily.
+
+"I'm lord of this manor!" he bawled. "I'm Patroon Varick, and I'll do as
+I please!"
+
+Amazed and mortified at his gross frankness, I sat silent, not knowing
+what to say. Interest alone swayed him; the right and wrong of this
+quarrel were nothing to him; he did not even take the trouble to pay a
+hypocrite's tribute to principle ere he turned his back on it;
+selfishness alone ruled, and he boasted of it, waving his short, fat
+arms in anger, or struggling to extend them heavenward, in protest
+against these people who dared urge him to declare himself and stand or
+fall with the cause he might embrace.
+
+A faint disgust stirred my pulse. We Ormonds had as much to lose as he,
+but yelled it not to the skies, nor clamored of gain and loss in such
+unseemly fashion, ignoring higher motive.
+
+"Sir Lupus," I said, "if we can remain neutral with honor, that surely
+is wisest. But can we?"
+
+"Remain neutral! Of course we can!" he shouted.
+
+"Honorably?"
+
+"Eh? Where's honor in this mob-rule that breaks out in Boston to spot
+the whole land with a scurvy irruption! Honor? Where is it in this vile
+distemper which sets old neighbors here a-itching to cut each other's
+throats? One says, 'You're a Tory! Take that!' and slips a knife into
+him. T'other says, 'You're a rebel!' Bang!--and blows his head off!
+Honor? Bah!"
+
+He removed his wig to wipe his damp and shiny pate, then set the wig on
+askew and glared at me out of his small, ruddy eyes.
+
+"I'm for peace," he said, "and I care not who knows it. Then, whether
+Tory or rebel win the day, here am I, holding to my own with both hands
+and caring nothing which rag flies overhead, so that it brings peace and
+plenty to honest folk. And, mark me, then we shall live to see these
+plumed and gold-laced glory-mongers slinking round to beg their bread at
+our back doors. Dammy, let 'em bellow now! Let 'em shout for war! I'll
+keep my mills busy and my agent walking the old rent-beat. If they can
+fill their bellies with a mess of glory I'll not grudge them what they
+can snatch; but I'll fill mine with food less spiced, and we'll see
+which of us thrives best--these sons of Mars or the old patroon who
+stays at home and dips his nose into nothing worse than old Madeira!"
+
+He gave me a cunning look, pushed his wig partly straight, and lay back,
+puffing quietly at his pipe.
+
+I hesitated, choosing my words ere I spoke; and at first he listened
+contentedly, nodding approval, and pushing fresh tobacco into his clay
+with a fat forefinger.
+
+I pointed out that it was my desire to save my lands from ravage, ruin,
+and ultimate confiscation by the victors; that for this reason he had
+summoned me, and I had come to confer with him and with other branches
+of our family, seeking how best this might be done.
+
+I reminded him that, from his letters to me, I had acquired a fair
+knowledge of the estates endangered; that I understood that Sir John
+Johnson owned enormous tracts in Tryon County which his great father,
+Sir William, had left him when he died; that Colonel Claus, Guy Johnson,
+the Butlers, father and son, and the Varicks, all held estates of
+greatest value; and that these estates were menaced, now by Tory, now by
+rebel, and the lords of these broad manors were alternately solicited
+and threatened by the warring factions now so bloodily embroiled.
+
+"We Ormonds can comprehend your dismay, your distress, your doubts," I
+said. "Our indigo grows almost within gunshot of the British outpost at
+New Smyrna; our oranges, our lemons, our cane, our cotton, must wither
+at a blast from the cannon of Saint Augustine. The rebels in Georgia
+threaten us, the Tories at Pensacola warn us, the Seminoles are
+gathering, the Minorcans are arming, the blacks in the Carolinas watch
+us, and the British regiments at Augustine are all itching to ravage and
+plunder and drive us into the sea if we declare not for the King who
+pays them."
+
+Sir Lupus nodded, winked, and fell to slicing tobacco with a small, gold
+knife.
+
+"We're all Quakers in these days--eh, George? We can't fight--no, we
+really can't! It's wrong, George,--oh, very wrong." And he fell
+a-chuckling, so that his paunch shook like a jelly.
+
+"I think you do not understand me," I said.
+
+He looked up quickly.
+
+"We Ormonds are only waiting to draw sword."
+
+"Draw sword!" he cried. "What d'ye mean?"
+
+"I mean that, once convinced our honor demands it, we cannot choose but
+draw."
+
+"Don't be an ass!" he shouted. "Have I not told you that there's no
+honor in this bloody squabble? Lord save the lad, he's mad as
+Walter Butler!"
+
+"Sir Lupus," I said, angrily, "is a man an ass to defend his own land?"
+
+"He is when it's not necessary! Lie snug; nobody is going to harm you.
+Lie snug, with both arms around your own land."
+
+"I meant my own native land, not the miserable acres my slaves plant to
+feed and clothe me."
+
+He glared, twisting his long pipe till the stem broke short.
+
+"Well, which land do you mean to defend, England or these colonies?" he
+asked, staring.
+
+"That is what I desire to learn, sir," I said, respectfully. "That is
+why I came North. With us in Florida, all is, so far, faction and
+jealousy, selfish intrigue and prejudiced dispute. The truth, the vital
+truth, is obscured; the right is hidden in a petty storm where local
+tyrants fill the air with dust, striving each to blind the other."
+
+I leaned forward earnestly. "There must be right and wrong in this
+dispute; Truth stands naked somewhere in the world. It is for us to find
+her. Why, mark me, Sir Lupus, men cannot sit and blink at villany, nor
+look with indifference on a struggle to the death. One side is right,
+t'other wrong. And we must learn how matters stand."
+
+"And what will it advance us to learn how matters stand?" he said, still
+staring, as though I were some persistent fool vexing him with
+unleavened babble. "Suppose these rebels are right--and, dammy, but I
+think they are--and suppose our King's troops are roundly trouncing
+them--and I think they are, too--do you mean to say you'd draw sword and
+go a-prowling, seeking for some obliging enemy to knock you in the head
+or hang you for a rebel to your neighbor's apple-tree?"
+
+"Something of that sort," I said, good-humoredly.
+
+"Oh, Don Quixote once more, eh?" he sneered, too mad to raise his voice
+to the more convenient bellow which seemed to soothe him as much as it
+distressed his listener. "Well, you've got a fool's mate in Sir George
+Covert, the insufferable dandy! And all you two need is a pair o' Panzas
+and a brace of windmills. Bah!" He grew angrier. "Bah, I say!" He broke
+out: "Damnation, sir! Go to the devil!"
+
+I said, calmly: "Sir Lupus, I hear your observation with patience; I
+naturally receive your admonition with respect, but your bearing towards
+me I resent. Pray, sir, remember that I am under your roof now, but when
+I quit it I am free to call you to account."
+
+"What! You'd fight me?"
+
+"Scarcely, sir; but I should expect somebody to make your words good."
+
+"Bah! Who? Ruyven? He's a lad! Dorothy is the only one to--" He broke
+out into a hoarse laugh. "Oh, you Ormonds! I might have saved myself the
+pains. And now you want to flesh your sword, it matters not in
+whom--Tory, rebel, neutral folk, they're all one to you, so that you
+fight! George, don't take offence; I naturally swear at those I differ
+with. I may love 'em and yet curse 'em like a sailor! Know me better,
+George! Bear with me; let me swear at you, lad! It's all I can do."
+
+He spread out his fat hands imploringly, recrossing his enormous legs on
+the card-table. "I can't fight, George; I would gladly, but I'm too fat.
+Don't grudge me a few kindly oaths now and then. It's all I can do."
+
+I was seized with a fit of laughter, utterly uncontrollable. Sir Lupus
+observed me peevishly, twiddling his broken pipe, and I saw he longed to
+launch it at my head, which made me laugh till his large, round, red
+face grew grayer and foggier through the mirth-mist in my eyes.
+
+"Am I so droll?" he snapped.
+
+"Oh yes, yes, Sir Lupus," I cried, weakly. "Don't grudge me this laugh.
+It is all I can do."
+
+A grim smile came over his broad face.
+
+"Touched!" he said. "I've a fine pair on my hands now--you and Sir
+George Covert--to plague me and prick me with your wit, like mosquitoes
+round a drowsy man. A fine family conference we shall have, with Sir
+John Johnson and the Butlers shooting one way, you and Sir George Covert
+firing t'other, and me betwixt you, singing psalms and getting all your
+arrows in me, fore and aft."
+
+"Who is Sir George Covert?" I asked.
+
+"One o' the Calverts, Lord Baltimore's kin, a sort of cousin of the
+Ormond-Butlers, a supercilious dandy, a languid macaroni; plagues me,
+damn his impudence, but I can't hate him--no! Hate him? Faith, I owe him
+more than any man on earth ... and love him for it--which is strange!"
+
+"Has he an estate in jeopardy?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes. He has a mansion in Albany, too, which he leases. He bought a mile
+on the great Vlaic and lives there all alone, shooting, fishing, playing
+the guitar o' moony nights, which they say sets the wild-cats wilder.
+Mark me, George, a petty mile square and a shooting shanty, and this
+languid ass says he means to fight for it. Lord help the man! I told him
+I'd buy him out to save him from embroiling us all, and what d' ye
+think? He stared at me through his lorgnons as though I had been some
+queer, new bird, and, says he, 'Lud!' says he,' there's a world o'
+harmless sport in you yet, Sir Lupus, but you don't spell your title
+right,' says he. 'Change the a to an o and add an ell for good measure,
+and there you have it,' says he, a-drawling. With which he minced off,
+dusting his nose with his lace handkerchief, and I'm damned if I see the
+joke yet in spelling patroon with an o for the a and an ell for
+good measure!"
+
+He paused, out of breath, to pour himself some spirits. "Joke?" he
+muttered. "Where the devil is it? I see no wit in that." And he picked
+up a fresh pipe from the rack on the table and moistened the clay with
+his fat tongue.
+
+We sat in silence for a while. That this Sir George Covert should call
+the patroon a poltroon hurt me, for he was kin to us both; yet it seemed
+that there might be truth in the insolent fling, for selfishness and
+poltroonery are too often linked.
+
+I raised my eyes and looked almost furtively at my cousin Varick. He had
+no neck; the spot where his bullet head joined his body was marked only
+by a narrow and soiled stock. His eyes alone relieved the monotony of a
+stolid countenance; all else was fat.
+
+Sunk in my own reflections, lying back in my arm-chair, I watched
+dreamily the smoke pouring from the patroon's pipe, floating away, to
+hang wavering across the room, now lifting, now curling downward, as
+though drawn by a hidden current towards the unwaxed oaken floor.
+
+No, there was no Ormond in him; he was all Varick, all Dutch, all
+patroon.
+
+I had never seen any man like him save once, when a red-faced Albany
+merchant came a-waddling to the sea-islands looking for cotton and
+indigo, and we all despised him for the eagerness with which he trimmed
+his shillings at the Augustine taverns. Thrift is a word abused, and
+serves too often as a mask for avarice.
+
+As I sat there fashioning wise saws and proverbs in my busy mind, the
+hall door opened and the first guest was announced--Sir George Covert.
+
+And in he came, a well-built, lazy gentleman of forty, swinging
+gracefully on a pair o' legs no man need take shame in; ruffles on cuff
+and stock, hair perfumed, powdered, and rolled twice in French puffs,
+and on his hand a brilliant that sparkled purest fire. Under one arm he
+bore his gold-edged hat, and as he strolled forward, peering coolly
+about him through his quizzing glass, I thought I had never seen such
+graceful assurance, nor such insolently handsome eyes, marred by the
+faint shadows of dissipation.
+
+Sir Lupus nodded a welcome and blew a great cloud of smoke into the air.
+
+"Ah," observed Sir George, languidly, "Vesuvius in irruption?"
+
+"How de do," said Sir Lupus, suspiciously.
+
+"The mountain welcomes Mohammed," commented Sir George. "Mohammed
+greets the mountain! How de do, Sir Lupus! Ah!" He turned gracefully
+towards me, bowing. "Pray present me, Sir Lupus."
+
+"My cousin, George Ormond," said Sir Lupus. "George first, George
+second," he added, with a sneer.
+
+"No relation to George III., I trust, sir?" inquired Sir George,
+anxiously, offering his cool, well-kept hand.
+
+"No," said I, laughing at his serious countenance and returning his
+clasp firmly.
+
+"That's well, that's well," murmured Sir George, apparently vastly
+relieved, and invited me to take snuff with him.
+
+We had scarcely exchanged a civil word or two ere the servant announced
+Captain Walter Butler, and I turned curiously, to see a dark, graceful
+young man enter and stand for a moment staring haughtily straight at me.
+He wore a very elegant black-and-orange uniform, without gorget; a black
+military cloak hung from his shoulders, caught up in his sword-knot.
+
+With a quick movement he raised his hand and removed his officer's hat,
+and I saw on his gauntlets of fine doeskin the Ormond arms, heavily
+embroidered. Instantly the affectation displeased me.
+
+"Come to the mountain, brother prophet," said Sir George, waving his
+hand towards the seated patroon. He came, lightly as a panther, his
+dark, well-cut features softening a trifle; and I thought him handsome
+in his uniform, wearing his own dark hair unpowdered, tied in a short
+queue; but when he turned full face to greet Sir George Covert, I was
+astonished to see the cruelty in his almost perfect features, which were
+smooth as a woman's, and lighted by a pair of clear, dark-golden eyes.
+
+Ah, those wonderful eyes of Walter Butler--ever-changing eyes, now
+almost black, glimmering with ardent fire, now veiled and amber, now
+suddenly a shallow yellow, round, staring, blank as the eyes of a caged
+eagle; and, still again, piercing, glittering, narrowing to a slit.
+Terrible mad eyes, that I have never forgotten--never, never can forget.
+
+As Sir Lupus named me, Walter Butler dropped Sir George's hand and
+grasped mine, too eagerly to please me.
+
+"Ormond and Ormond-Butler need no friends to recommend them each to the
+other," he said. And straightway fell a-talking of the greatness of the
+Arrans and the Ormonds, and of that duke who, attainted, fled to France
+to save his neck.
+
+I strove to be civil, yet he embarrassed me before the others, babbling
+of petty matters interesting only to those whose taste invites them to
+go burrowing in parish records and ill-smelling volumes written by some
+toad-eater to his patron.
+
+For me, I am an Ormond, and I know that it would be shameful if I turned
+rascal and besmirched my name. As to the rest--the dukes, the glory, the
+greatness--I hold it concerns nobody but the dead, and it is a
+foolishness to plague folks' ears by boasting of deeds done by those you
+never knew, like a Seminole chanting ere he strikes the painted post.
+
+Also, this Captain Walter Butler was overlarding his phrases with
+"Cousin Ormond," so that I was soon cloyed, and nigh ready to damn the
+relationship to his face.
+
+Sir Lupus, who had managed to rise by this time, waddled off into the
+drawing-room across the hallway, motioning us to follow; and barely in
+time, too, for there came, shortly, Sir John Johnson with a company of
+ladies and gentlemen, very gay in their damasks, brocades, and velvets,
+which the folds of their foot-mantles, capuchins, and cardinals
+revealed.
+
+The gentlemen had come a-horseback, and all wore very elegant uniforms
+under their sober cloaks, which were linked with gold chains at the
+throat; the ladies, prettily powdered and patched, appeared a trifle
+over-colored, and their necks and shoulders, innocent of buffonts,
+gleamed pearl-tinted above their gay breast-knots. And they made a
+sparkling bevy as they fluttered up the staircase to their cloak-room,
+while Sir John entered the drawing-room, followed by the other
+gentlemen, and stood in careless conversation with the patroon, while
+old Cato disembarrassed him of cloak and hat.
+
+Sir John Johnson, son of the great Sir William, as I first saw him was a
+man of less than middle age, flabby, cold-eyed, heavy of foot and hand.
+On his light-colored hair he wore no powder; the rather long queue was
+tied with a green hair-ribbon; the thick, whitish folds of his double
+chin rested on a buckled stock.
+
+For the rest, he wore a green-and-gold uniform of very elegant
+cut--green being the garb of his regiment, the Royal Greens, as I
+learned afterwards--and his buff-topped boots and his metals were
+brilliant and plainly new.
+
+When the patroon named me to him he turned his lack-lustre eyes on me
+and offered me a large, damp hand.
+
+In turn I was made acquainted with the several officers in his
+suite--Colonel John Butler, father of Captain Walter Butler, broad and
+squat, a withered prophecy of what the son might one day be; Colonel
+Daniel Claus, a rather merry and battered Indian fighter; Colonel Guy
+Johnson, of Guy Park, dark and taciturn; a Captain Campbell, and a
+Captain McDonald of Perth.
+
+All wore the green uniform save the Butlers; all greeted me with
+particular civility and conducted like the respectable company they
+appeared to be, politely engaging me in pleasant conversation, desiring
+news from Florida, or complimenting me upon my courtesy, which, they
+vowed, had alone induced me to travel a thousand miles for the sake of
+permitting my kinsmen the pleasure of welcoming me.
+
+One by one the gentlemen retired to exchange their spurred top-boots for
+white silk stockings and silken pumps, and to arrange their hair or
+stick a patch here and there, and rinse their hands in rose-water to
+cleanse them of the bridle's odor.
+
+They were still thronging the gun-room, and I stood alone in the
+drawing-room with Sir George Covert, when a lady entered and courtesied
+low as we bowed together.
+
+And truly she was a beauty, with her skin of rose-ivory, her powdered
+hair a-gleam with brilliants, her eyes of purest violet, a friendly
+smile hovering on her fresh, scarlet mouth.
+
+"Well, sir," she said, "do you not know me?" And to Sir George: "I vow,
+he takes me for a guest in my own house!"
+
+And then I knew my cousin Dorothy Varick.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SUFFERED US TO SALUTE HER HAND".]
+
+She suffered us to salute her hand, gazing the while about her
+indifferently; and, as I released her slender fingers and raised my
+head, she, rounded arm still extended as though forgotten, snapped her
+thumb and forefinger together in vexation with a "Plague on it! There's
+that odious Sir John!"
+
+"Is Sir John Johnson so offensive to your ladyship?" inquired Sir
+George, lazily.
+
+"Offensive! Have you not heard how the beast drank wine from my slipper!
+Never mind! I cannot endure him. Sir George, you must sit by me at
+table--and you, too, Cousin Ormond, or he'll come bothering." She
+glanced at the open door of the gun-room, a frown on her white brow.
+"Oh, they're all here, I see. Sparks will fly ere sun-up. There's
+Campbell, and McDonald, too, wi' the memory of Glencoe still stewing
+betwixt them; and there's Guy Johnson, with a price on his head--and
+plenty to sell it for him in County Tryon, gentlemen! And there's young
+Walter Butler, cursing poor Cato that he touched his spur in drawing off
+his boots--if he strikes Cato I'll strike him! And where are their fine
+ladies, Sir George? Still primping at the mirror? Oh, la!" She stepped
+back, laughing, raising her lovely arms a little. "Look at me. Am I well
+laced, with nobody to aid me save Cecile, poor child, and Benny to hold
+the candles--he being young enough for the office?"
+
+"Happy, happy Benny!" murmured Sir George, inspecting her through his
+quizzing-glass from head to toe.
+
+"If you think it a happy office you may fill it yourself in future, Sir
+George," she said. "I never knew an ass who failed to bray in ecstasy at
+mention of a pair o' stays."
+
+Sir George stared, and said, "Aha! clever--very, very clever!" in so
+patronizing a tone that Dorothy reddened and bit her lip in vexation.
+
+"That is ever your way," she said, "when I parry you to your confusion.
+Take your eyes from me, Sir George! Cousin Ormond, am I dressed to your
+taste or not?"
+
+She stood there in her gown of brocade, beautifully flowered in peach
+color, dainty, confident, challenging me to note one fault. Nor could I,
+from the gold hair-pegs in her hair to the tip of her slim, pompadour
+shoes peeping from the lace of her petticoat, which she lifted a trifle
+to show her silken, flowered hose.
+
+And--"There!" she cried, "I gowned myself, and I wear no paint. I wish
+you would tell them as much when they laugh at me."
+
+Now came the ladies, rustling down the stairway, and the gentlemen,
+strolling in from their toilet and stirrup-cups in the gun-room, and I
+noted that all wore service-swords, and laid their pistols on the table
+in the drawing-room.
+
+"Do they fear a surprise?" I whispered to Sir George Covert.
+
+"Oh yes; Jack Mount and the Stoners are abroad. But Sir John has a troop
+of his cut-throat horsemen picketed out around us. You see, Sir John
+broke his parole, and Walter Butler is attainted, and it might go hard
+with some of these gentlemen if General Schuyler's dragoons caught them
+here, plotting nose to nose."
+
+"Who is this Jack Mount?" I asked, curiously, remembering my companion
+of the Albany road.
+
+"One of Cresap's riflemen," he drawled, "sent back here from Boston to
+raise the country against the invasion. They say he was a highwayman
+once, but we Tories"--he laughed shamelessly--"say many things in these
+days which may not help us at the judgment day. Wait, there's that
+little rosebud, Claire Putnam, Sir John's flame. Take her in to table;
+she's a pretty little plaything. Lady Johnson, who was Polly Watts, is
+in Montreal, you see." He made a languid gesture with outspread
+hands, smiling.
+
+The girl he indicated, Mistress Claire Putnam, was a fragile, willowy
+creature, over-thin, perhaps, yet wonderfully attractive and pretty, and
+there was much of good in her face, and a tinge of pathos, too, for all
+her bright vivacity.
+
+"If Sir John Johnson put her away when he wedded Miss Watts," said Sir
+George, coolly, "I think he did it from interest and selfish
+calculation, not because he ceased to love her in his bloodless, fishy
+fashion. And now that Lady Johnson has fled to Canada, Sir John makes
+no pretence of hiding his amours in the society which he haunts; nor
+does that society take umbrage at the notorious relationship so
+impudently renewed. We're a shameless lot, Mr. Ormond."
+
+At that moment I heard Sir John Johnson, at my elbow, saying to Sir
+Lupus: "Do you know what these damned rebels have had the impudence to
+do? I can scarce credit it myself, but it is said that their Congress
+has adopted a flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen stars on a blue
+field, and I'm cursed if I don't believe they mean to hoist the filthy
+rag in our very faces!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S
+
+Under a flare of yellow candle-light we entered the dining-hall and
+seated ourselves before a table loaded with flowers and silver, and the
+most beautiful Flemish glass that I have ever seen; though they say that
+Sir William Johnson's was finer.
+
+The square windows of the hall were closed, the dusty curtains closely
+drawn; the air, though fresh, was heavily saturated with perfume.
+Between each window, and higher up, small, square loop-holes pierced the
+solid walls. The wooden flap-hoods of these were open; through them
+poured the fresh night air, stirring the clustered flowers and the
+jewelled aigrets in the ladies' hair.
+
+The spectacle was pretty, even beautiful; at every lady's cover lay a
+gift from the patroon, a crystal bosom-glass, mounted in silver
+filigree, filled with roses in scented water; and, at the sight, a gust
+of hand-clapping swept around the table, like the rattle of December
+winds through dry palmettos.
+
+In a distant corner, slaves, dressed fancifully and turbaned like
+Barbary blackamoors, played on fiddles and guitars, and the music was
+such as I should have enjoyed, loving all melody as I do, yet could
+scarcely hear it in the flutter and chatter rising around me as the
+ladies placed the bosom-bottles in their stomachers and opened their
+Marlborough fans to set them waving all like restless wings.
+
+Yet, under this surface elegance and display, one could scarcely choose
+but note how everywhere an amazing shiftlessness reigned in the
+patroon's house. Cobwebs canopied the ceiling-beams with their silvery,
+ragged banners afloat in the candle's heat; dust, like a velvet mantle,
+lay over the Dutch plates and teapots, ranged on shelves against the
+panelled wall midway 'twixt ceiling and unwaxed floor; the gaudy yellow
+liveries of the black servants were soiled and tarnished and ill
+fitting, and all wore slovenly rolls, tied to imitate scratch-wigs, the
+effect of which was amazing. The passion for cleanliness in the Dutch
+lies not in their men folk; a Dutch mistress of this manor house had
+died o' shame long since--or died o' scrubbing.
+
+I felt mean and ungracious to sit there spying at my host's table, and
+strove to forget it, yet was forced to wipe furtively spoon and fork
+upon the napkin on my knees ere I durst acquaint them with my mouth; and
+so did others, as I saw; but they did it openly and without pretence of
+concealment, and nobody took offence.
+
+Sir Lupus cared nothing for precedence at table, and said so when he
+seated us, which brought a sneer to Sir John Johnson's mouth and a scowl
+to Walter Butler's brow; but this provincial boorishness appeared to be
+forgotten ere the decanters had slopped the cloth twice, and fair faces
+flushed, and voices grew gayer, and the rattle of silver assaulting
+china and the mellow ring of glasses swelled into a steady, melodious
+din which stirred the blood to my cheeks.
+
+We Ormonds love gayety--I choose the mildest phrase I know. Yet, take us
+at our worst, Irish that we are, and if there be a taint of license to
+our revels, and if we drink the devil's toast to the devil's own
+undoing, the vital spring of our people remains unpolluted, the nation's
+strength and purity unsoiled, guarded forever by the chastity of
+our women.
+
+Savoring my claret, I glanced askance at my neighbors; on my left sat my
+cousin Dorothy Varick, frankly absorbed in a roasted pigeon, yet
+wielding knife and fork with much grace and address; on my right
+Magdalen Brant, step-cousin to Sir John, a lovely, soft-voiced girl,
+with velvety eyes and the faintest dusky tint, which showed the Indian
+blood through the carmine in her fresh, curved cheeks.
+
+I started to speak to her, but there came a call from the end of the
+table, and we raised our glasses to Sir Lupus, for which civility he
+expressed his thanks and gave us the ladies, which we drank standing,
+and reversed our glasses with a cheer.
+
+Then Walter Butler gave us "The Ormonds and the Earls of Arran," an
+amazing vanity, which shamed me so that I sat biting my lip, furious to
+see Sir John wink at Colonel Claus, and itching to fling my glass at the
+head of this young fool whose brain seemed cracked with brooding on
+his pedigree.
+
+Meat was served ere I was called on, but later, a delicious Burgundy
+being decanted, all called me with a persistent clamor, so that I was
+obliged to ask permission of Sir Lupus, then rise, still tingling with
+the memory of the silly toast offered by Walter Butler.
+
+"I give you," I said, "a republic where self-respect balances the
+coronet, where there is no monarch, no high-priest, but only a clean
+altar, served by the parliament of a united people. Gentlemen, raise
+your glasses to the colonies of America and their ancient liberties!"
+
+And, amazed at what I had said, and knowing that I had not meant to say
+it, I lifted my glass and drained it.
+
+Astonishment altered every face. Walter Butler mechanically raised his
+glass, then set it down, then raised it once more, gazing blankly at me;
+and I saw others hesitate, as though striving to recollect the exact
+terms of my toast. But, after a second's hesitation, all drank sitting.
+Then each looked inquiringly at me, at neighbors, puzzled, yet already
+partly reassured.
+
+"Gad!" said Colonel Claus, bluntly, "I thought at first that Burgundy
+smacked somewhat of Boston tea."
+
+"The Burgundy's sound enough," said Colonel John Butler, grimly.
+
+"So is the toast," bawled Sir Lupus. "It's a pacific toast, a soothing
+sentiment, neither one thing not t'other. Dammy, it's a toast no Quaker
+need refuse."
+
+"Sir Lupus, your permission!" broke out Captain Campbell. "Gentlemen, it
+is strange that not one of his Majesty's officers has proposed the
+King!" He looked straight at me and said, without turning his head: "All
+loyal at this table will fill. Ladies, gentlemen, I give you his Majesty
+the King!"
+
+The toast was finished amid cheers. I drained my glass and turned it
+down with a bow to Captain Campbell, who bowed to me as though
+greatly relieved.
+
+The fiddles, bassoons, and guitars were playing and the slaves singing
+when the noise of the cheering died away; and I heard Dorothy beside me
+humming the air and tapping the floor with her silken shoe, while she
+moistened macaroons in a glass of Madeira and nibbled them with serene
+satisfaction.
+
+"You appear to be happy," I whispered.
+
+"Perfectly. I adore sweets. Will you try a dish of cinnamon cake? Sop it
+in Burgundy; they harmonize to a most heavenly taste.... Look at
+Magdalen Brant, is she not sweet? Her cousin is Molly Brant, old Sir
+William's sweetheart, fled to Canada.... She follows this week with
+Betty Austin, that black-eyed little mischief-maker on Sir John's right,
+who owes her diamonds to Guy Johnson. La! What a gossip I grow! But
+it's county talk, and all know it, and nobody cares save the Albany
+blue-noses and the Van Cortlandts, who fall backward with standing too
+straight--"
+
+"Dorothy," I said, sharply, "a blunted innocence is better than none,
+but it's a pity you know so much!"
+
+"How can I help it?" she asked, calmly, dipping another macaroon into
+her glass.
+
+"It's a pity, all the same," I said.
+
+"Dew on a duck's back, my friend," she observed, serenely. "Cousin, if I
+were fashioned for evil I had been tainted long since."
+
+She sat up straight and swept the table with a heavy-lidded, insolent
+glance, eyebrows raised. The cold purity of her profile, the undimmed
+innocence, the childish beauty of the curved cheek, touched me to the
+quick. Ah! the white flower to nourish here amid unconcealed corruption,
+with petals stainless, with bloom undimmed, with all its exquisite
+fragrance still fresh and wholesome in an air heavy with wine and the
+odor of dying roses.
+
+I looked around me. Guy Johnson, red in the face, was bending too
+closely beside his neighbor, Betty Austin. Colonel Claus talked loudly
+across the table to Captain McDonald, and swore fashionable oaths which
+the gaunt captain echoed obsequiously. Claire Putnam coquetted with her
+paddle-stick fan, defending her roses from Sir George Covert, while Sir
+John Johnson stared at them in cold disapproval; and I saw Magdalen
+Brant, chin propped on her clasped hands, close her eyes and breathe
+deeply while the wine burned her face, setting torches aflame in either
+cheek. Later, when I spoke to her, she laughed pitifully, saying that
+her ears hummed like bee-hives. Then she said that she meant to go, but
+made no movement; and presently her dark eyes closed again, and I saw
+the fever pulse beating in her neck.
+
+Some one had overturned a silver basin full of flowers, and a servant,
+sopping up the water, had brushed Walter Butler so that he flew into a
+passion and flung a glass at the terrified black, which set Sir Lupus
+laughing till he choked, but which enraged me that he should so conduct
+in the presence of his host's daughter.
+
+Yet if Sir Lupus could not only overlook it, but laugh at it, I, certes,
+had no right to rebuke what to me seemed a gross insult.
+
+Toasts flew fast now, and there was a punch in a silver bowl as large as
+a bushel--and spirits, too, which was strange, seeing that the ladies
+remained at table.
+
+Then Captain Campbell would have all to drink the Royal Greens, standing
+on chairs, one foot on the table, which appeared to be his regiment's
+mess custom, and we did so, the ladies laughing and protesting, but
+finally planting their dainty shoes on the edge of the table; and
+Magdalen Brant nigh fell off her chair--for lack of balance, as Sir
+George Covert protested, one foot alone being too small to sustain her.
+
+"That Cinderella compliment at our expense!" cried Betty Austin, but Sir
+Lupus cried: "Silence all, and keep one foot on the table!" And a little
+black slave lad, scarce more than a babe, appeared, dressed in a
+lynx-skin, bearing a basket of pretty boxes woven out of scented grass
+and embroidered with silk flowers.
+
+At every corner he laid a box, all exclaiming and wondering what the
+surprise might be, until the little black, arching his back, fetched a
+yowl like a lynx and ran out on all fours.
+
+"The gentlemen will open the boxes! Ladies, keep one foot on the table!"
+bawled Sir Lupus. We bent to open the boxes; Magdalen Brant and Dorothy
+Varick, each resting a hand on my shoulder to steady them, peeped
+curiously down to see. And, "Oh!" cried everybody, as the lifted
+box-lids discovered snow-white pigeons sitting on great gilt eggs.
+
+The white pigeons fluttered out, some to the table, where they craned
+their necks and ruffled their snowy plumes; others flapped up to the
+loop-holes, where they sat and watched us.
+
+"Break the eggs!" cried the patroon.
+
+I broke mine; inside was a pair of shoe-roses, each set with a pearl and
+clasped with a gold pin.
+
+Betty Austin clapped her hands in delight; Dorothy bent double, tore off
+the silken roses from each shoe in turn, and I pinned on the new
+jewelled roses amid a gale of laughter.
+
+"A health to the patroon!" cried Sir George Covert, and we gave it with
+a will, glasses down. Then all settled to our seats once more to hear
+Sir George sing a song.
+
+A slave passed him a guitar; he touched the strings and sang with good
+taste a song in questionable taste:
+
+     "Jeanneton prend sa fauçille."
+
+A delicate melody and neatly done; yet the verse--
+
+     "Le deuxième plus habile
+     L'embrassant sous le menton"--
+
+made me redden, and the envoi nigh burned me alive
+with blushes, yet was rapturously applauded, and the
+patroon fell a-choking with his gross laughter.
+
+Then Walter Butler would sing, and, I confess, did
+it well, though the song was sad and the words too
+melancholy to please.
+
+"I know a rebel song," cried Colonel Claus. "Here,
+give me that fiddle and I'll fiddle it, dammy if I don't--ay,
+and sing it, too!"
+
+In a shower of gibes and laughter the fiddle was
+fetched, and the Indian fighter seized the bow and drew
+a most distressful strain, singing in a whining voice:
+
+     "Come hearken to a bloody tale,
+       Of how the soldiery
+     Did murder men in Boston,
+       As you full soon shall see.
+     It came to pass on March the fifth
+       Of seventeen-seventy,
+     A regiment, the twenty-ninth.
+       Provoked a sad affray!"
+
+"Chorus!" shouted Captain Campbell, beating time:
+
+     "Fol-de-rol-de-rol-de-ray--
+     Provoked a sad affray!"
+
+"That's not in the song!" protested Colonel Claus, but everybody sang it
+in whining tones.
+
+"Continue!" cried Captain Campbell, amid a burst of laughter. And Claus
+gravely drew his fiddle-bow across the strings and sang:
+
+     "In King Street, by the Butcher's Hall
+       The soldiers on us fell,
+     Likewise before their barracks
+       (It is the truth I tell).
+     And such a dreadful carnage
+       In Boston ne'er was known;
+     They killed Samuel Maverick--
+       He gave a piteous groan."
+
+And, "Fol-de-rol!" roared Captain Campbell, "He gave a piteous groan!"
+
+"John Clark he was wounded,
+  On him they did fire;
+James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks
+  Lay bleeding in the mire;
+Their regiment, the twenty-ninth,
+  Killed Monk and Sam I Gray,
+While Patrick Carr lay cold in death
+  And could not flee away--
+
+"Oh, tally!" broke out Sir John; "are we to listen to such stuff all
+night?"
+
+More laughter; and Sir George Covert said that he feared Sir John
+Johnson had no sense of humor.
+
+"I have heard that before," said Sir John, turning his cold eyes on Sir
+George. "But if we've got to sing at wine, in Heaven's name let us sing
+something sensible."
+
+"No, no!" bawled Claus. "This is the abode of folly to-night!" And he
+sang a catch from "Pills to Purge Melancholy," as broad a verse as I
+cared to hear in such company.
+
+"Cheer up, Sir John!" cried Betty Austin; "there are other slippers to
+drink from--"
+
+Sir John stood up, exasperated, but could not face the storm of
+laughter, nor could Dorothy, silent and white in her anger; and she rose
+to go, but seemed to think better of it and resumed her seat, disdainful
+eyes sweeping the table.
+
+"Face the fools," I whispered. "Your confusion is their victory."
+
+Captain McDonald, stirring the punch, filled all glasses, crying out
+that we should drink to our sweethearts in bumpers.
+
+"Drink 'em in wine," protested Captain Campbell, thickly. "Who but a
+feckless McDonald wud drink his leddy in poonch?"
+
+"I said poonch!" retorted McDonald, sternly. "If ye wish wine, drink it;
+but I'm thinkin' the Argyle Campbells are better judges o' blood than
+of red wine.
+
+"Stop that clan-feud!" bawled the patroon, angrily.
+
+But the old clan-feud blazed up, kindled from the ever-smouldering
+embers of Glencoe, which the massacre of a whole clan had not
+extinguished in all these years.
+
+"And why should an Argyle Campbell judge blood?" cried Captain Campbell,
+in a menacing voice.
+
+"And why not?" retorted McDonald. "Breadalbane spilled enough to teach
+ye."
+
+"Teach who?"
+
+"Teach you!--and the whole breed o' black Campbells from Perth to Galway
+and Fonda's Bush, which ye dub Broadalbin. I had rather be a Monteith
+and have the betrayal of Wallace cast in my face than be a Campbell of
+Argyle wi' the memory o' Glencoe to follow me to hell."
+
+"Silence!" roared the patroon, struggling to his feet. Sir George Covert
+caught at Captain Campbell's sleeve as he rose; Sir John Johnson stood
+up, livid with anger.
+
+"Let this end now!" he said, sternly. "Do officers of the Royal Greens
+conduct like yokels at a fair? Answer me, Captain Campbell! And you,
+Captain McDonald! Take your seat, sir; and if I hear that cursed word
+'Glencoe' 'again, the first who utters it faces a court-martial!"
+
+Partly sobered, the Campbell glared mutely at the McDonald; the latter
+also appeared to have recovered a portion of his senses and resumed his
+seat in silence, glowering at the empty glasses before him.
+
+"Now be sensible, gentlemen," said Colonel Claus, with a jovial nod to
+the patroon; "let pass, let pass. This is no time to raise the fiery
+cross in the hills. Gad, there's a new pibroch to march to these days--
+
+     "Pibroch o' Hirokôue!
+     Pibroch o' Hirokônue!"
+
+he hummed, deliberately, but nobody laughed, and the grave, pale faces
+of the women turned questioningly one to the other.
+
+Enemies or allies, there was terror in the name of "Iroquois." But
+Walter Butler looked up from his gloomy meditation and raised his glass
+with a ghastly laugh.
+
+"I drink to our red allies," he said, slowly drained his glass till but
+a color remained in it, then dipped his finger in the dregs and drew
+upon the white table-cloth a blood-red cross.
+
+"There's your clan-sign, you Campbells, you McDonalds," he said, with a
+terrifying smile which none could misinterpret.
+
+Then Sir George Covert said: "Sir William Johnson knew best. Had he
+lived, there had been no talk of the Iroquois as allies or as enemies."
+
+I said, looking straight at Walter Butler: "Can there be any serious
+talk of turning these wild beasts loose against the settlers of
+Tryon County?"
+
+"Against rebels," observed Sir John Johnson, coldly. "No loyal man need
+fear our Mohawks."
+
+A dead silence followed. Servants, clearing the round table of silver,
+flowers, cloth--all, save glasses and decanters--stepped noiselessly,
+and I knew the terror of the Iroquois name had sharpened their dull
+ears. Then came old Cato, tricked out in flame-colored plush, bearing
+the staff of major-domo; and the servants in their tarnished liveries
+marshalled behind him and filed out, leaving us seated before a bare
+table, with only our glasses and bottles to break the expanse of
+polished mahogany and soiled cloth.
+
+Captain McDonald rose, lifted the steaming kettle from the hob, and set
+it on a great, blue tile, and the gentlemen mixed their spirits
+thoughtfully, or lighted long, clay pipes.
+
+The patroon, wreathed in smoke, lay back in his great chair and rattled
+his toddy-stick for attention--an unnecessary noise, for all were
+watching him, and even Walter Butler's gloomy gaze constantly reverted
+to that gross, red face, almost buried in thick tobacco-smoke, like the
+head of some intemperate and grotesquely swollen Jupiter crowned
+with clouds.
+
+The plea of the patroon for neutrality in the war now sweeping towards
+the Mohawk Valley I had heard before. So, doubtless, had those present.
+
+He waxed pathetic over the danger to his vast estate; he pointed out the
+conservative attitude of the great patroons and lords of the manors of
+Livingston, Cosby, Phillipse, Van Rensselaer, and Van Cortlandt.
+
+"What about Schuyler?" I asked.
+
+"Schuyler's a fool!" he retorted, angrily. "Any landed proprietor here
+can become a rebel general in exchange for his estate! A fine bargain! A
+thrifty dicker! Let Philip Schuyler enjoy his brief reign in Albany.
+What's the market value of the glory he exchanged for his broad acres?
+Can you appraise it, Sir John?"
+
+Then Sir John Johnson arose, and, for the only moment in his career, he
+stood upon a principle--a fallacious one, but still a principle; and for
+that I respected him, and have never quite forgotten it, even through
+the terrible years when he razed and burned and murdered among a people
+who can never forget the red atrocities of his devastations.
+
+Glancing slowly around the table, with his pale, cold eyes contracting
+in the candle's glare, he spoke in a voice absolutely passionless, yet
+which carried the conviction to all that what he uttered was
+hopelessly final:
+
+"Sir Lupus complains that he hazards all, should he cast his fortunes
+with his King. Yet I have done that thing. I am to-day a man with a
+price set on my head by these rebels of my own country. My lands, if not
+already confiscated by rebel commissioners, are occupied by rebels; my
+manor-houses, my forts, my mills, my tenants' farms are held by the
+rebels and my revenues denied me. I was confined on parole within the
+limits of Johnson Hall. They say I broke my parole, but they lie. It was
+only when I had certain news that the Boston rebels were coming to seize
+my person and violate a sacred convention that I retired to Canada."
+
+He paused. The explanation was not enough to satisfy me, and I expected
+him to justify the arming of Johnson Hall and his discovered intrigues
+with the Mohawks which set the rebels on the march to seize his person.
+He gave none, resuming quietly:
+
+"I have hazarded a vast estate, vaster than yours, Sir Lupus, greater
+than the estates of all these gentlemen combined. I do it because I owe
+obedience to the King who has honored me, and for no other reason on
+earth. Yet I do it in fullest confidence and belief that my lands will
+be restored to me when this rebellion is stamped on and trodden out to
+the last miserable spark."
+
+He hesitated, wiped his thin mouth with his laced handkerchief, and
+turned directly towards the patroon.
+
+"You ask me to remain neutral. You promise me that, even at this late
+hour, my surrender and oath of neutrality will restore me my estates and
+guarantee me a peaceful, industrious life betwixt two tempests. It may
+be so, Sir Lupus. I think it would be so. But, my friend, to fail my
+King when he has need of me is a villainy I am incapable of. The
+fortunes of his Majesty are my fortunes; I stand or fall with him. This
+is my duty as I see it. And, gentlemen, I shall follow it while life
+endures."
+
+He resumed his seat amid absolute silence. Presently the patroon raised
+his eyes and looked at Colonel John Butler.
+
+"May we hear from you, sir?" he asked, gravely.
+
+"I trust that all may, one day, hear from Butler's Rangers," he said.
+
+"And I swear they shall," broke in Walter Butler, his dark eyes burning
+like golden coals.
+
+"I think the Royal Greens may make some little noise in the world," said
+Captain Campbell, with an oath.
+
+Guy Johnson waved his thin, brown hand towards the patroon: "I hold my
+King's commission as intendant of Indian affairs for North America. That
+is enough for me. Though they rob me of Guy Park and every acre, I shall
+redeem my lands in a manner no man can ever forget!"
+
+"Gentlemen," added Colonel Claus, in his bluff way, "you all make great
+merit of risking property and life in this wretched teapot tempest; you
+all take credit for unchaining the Mohawks. But you give them no credit.
+What have the Iroquois to gain by aiding us? Why do they dig up the
+hatchet, hazarding the only thing they have--their lives? Because they
+are led by a man who told the rebel Congress that the covenant chain
+which the King gave to the Mohawks is still unspotted by dishonor,
+unrusted by treachery, unbroken, intact, without one link missing!
+Gentlemen, I give you Joseph Brant, war-chief of the Mohawk
+nation! Hiro!"
+
+All filled and drank--save three--Sir George Covert, Dorothy Varick, and
+myself.
+
+I felt Walter Butler's glowing eyes upon me, and they seemed to burn out
+the last vestige of my patience.
+
+"Don't rise! Don't speak now!" whispered Dorothy, her hand closing on my
+arm.
+
+"I must speak," I said, aloud, and all heard me and turned on me their
+fevered eyes.
+
+"Speak out, in God's name!" said Sir George Covert, and I rose,
+repeating, "In God's name, then!"
+
+"Give no offence to Walter Butler, I beg of you," whispered Dorothy.
+
+I scarcely heard her; through the candle-light I saw the ring of eyes
+shining, all watching me.
+
+"I applaud the loyal sentiments expressed by Sir John Johnson," I said,
+slowly. "Devotion to principle is respected by all men of honor. They
+tell me that our King has taxed a commonwealth against its will. You
+admit his Majesty's right to do so. That ranges you on one side.
+Gentlemen," I said, deliberately, "I deny the right of Englishmen to
+take away the liberties of Englishmen. That ranges me on the
+other side."
+
+A profound silence ensued. The ring of eyes glowed.
+
+"And now," said I, gravely, "that we stand arrayed, each on his proper
+side, honestly, loyally differing one from the other, let us, if we can,
+strive to avert a last resort to arms. And if we cannot, let us draw
+honorably, and trust to God and a stainless blade!"
+
+I bent my eyes on Walter Butler; he met them with a vacant glare.
+
+"Captain Butler," I said, "if our swords be to-day stainless, he who
+first dares employ a savage to do his work forfeits the right to bear
+the arms and title of a soldier."
+
+"Mr. Ormond! Mr. Ormond!" broke in Colonel Claus. "Do you impeach Lord
+George Germaine?"
+
+"I care not whom I impeach!" I said, hotly. "If Lord George Germaine
+counsels the employment of Indians against Englishmen, rebels though
+they be, he is a monstrous villain and a fool!"
+
+"Fool!" shouted Colonel Campbell, choking with rage. "He'd be a fool to
+let these rebels win over the Iroquois before we did!"
+
+"What rebel has sought to employ the Indians?" I asked. "If any in
+authority have dreamed of such a horror, they are guilty as though
+already judged and damned!"
+
+"Mr. Ormond," cut in Guy Johnson, fairly trembling with fury, "you deal
+very freely in damnation. Do you perhaps assume the divine right which
+you deny your King?"
+
+"And do you find merit in crass treason, sir?" burst out McDonald,
+striking the table with clinched fist.
+
+"Treason," cut in Sir John Johnson, "was the undoing of a certain noble
+duke in Queen Anne's time."
+
+"You are in error," I said, calmly.
+
+"Was James, Duke of Ormond, not impeached by Mr. Stanhope in open
+Parliament?" shouted Captain McDonald.
+
+"The House of Commons," I replied, calmly, "dishonored itself and its
+traditions by bringing a bill of attainder against the Duke of Ormond.
+That could not make him a traitor."
+
+"He was not a traitor," broke out Walter Butler, white to the lips, "but
+you are!"
+
+"A lie," I said.
+
+With the awful hue of death stamped on his face, Walter Butler rose and
+faced me; and though they dragged us to our seats, shouting and
+exclaiming in the uproar made by falling chairs and the rush of feet, he
+still kept his eyes on me, shallow, yellow, depthless, terrible eyes.
+
+"A nice scene to pass in women's presence!" roared the patroon. "Dammy,
+Captain Butler, the fault lies first with you! Withdraw that word
+'traitor,' which touches us all!"
+
+"He has so named himself," said Walter Butler, "Withdraw it! You foul
+your own nest, sir!"
+
+A moment passed. "I withdraw it," motioned Butler, with parched lips.
+
+"Then I withdraw the lie," I said, watching him.
+
+"That is well," roared the patroon. "That is as it should be. Shall
+kinsmen quarrel at such a time? Offer your hand, Captain Butler. Offer
+yours, George."
+
+"No," I said, and gazed mildly at the patroon.
+
+Sir George Covert rose and sauntered over to my chair. Under cover of
+the hubbub, not yet subsided, he said: "I fancy you will shortly require
+a discreet friend."
+
+"Not at all, sir," I replied, aloud. "If the war spares Mr. Butler and
+myself, then I shall call on you. I've another quarrel first." All
+turned to look at me, and I added, "A quarrel touching the liberties of
+Englishmen." Sir John Johnson sneered, and it was hard to swallow, being
+the sword-master that I am.
+
+But the patroon broke out furiously. "Mr. Ormond honors himself. If any
+here so much as looks the word 'coward,' he will answer to me--old and
+fat as I am! I've no previous engagement; I care not who prevails, King
+or Congress. I care nothing so they leave me my own! I'm free to resent
+a word, a look, a breath--ay, the flutter of a lid, Sir John!"
+
+"Thanks, uncle," I said, touched to the quick. "These gentlemen are not
+fools, and only a fool could dream an Ormond coward."
+
+"Ay, a fool!" cried Walter Butler. "I am an Ormond! There is no
+cowardice in the blood. He shall have his own time; he is an Ormond!"
+
+Dorothy Varick raised her bare, white arm and pointed straight at Walter
+Butler. "See that your sword remains unspotted, sir," she said, in a
+clear voice. "For if you hire the Iroquois to do your work you stand
+dishonored, and no true man will meet you on the field you forfeit!"
+
+"What's that?" cried Sir John, astonished, and Sir George Covert cried:
+
+"Brava! Bravissima! There speaks the Ormond through the Varick!"
+
+Walter Butler leaned forward, staring at me. "You refuse to meet me if I
+use our Mohawks?"
+
+And Dorothy, her voice trembling a little, picked up the word from his
+grinning teeth. "Mohawks understand the word 'honor' better than do you,
+Captain Butler, if you are found fighting in their ranks!"
+
+She laid her hand on my arm, still facing him.
+
+"My cousin shall not cross blade with a soiled blade! He dare not--if
+only for my own poor honor's sake!"
+
+Then Colonel Claus rose, thumping violently on the table, and, "Here's a
+pretty rumpus!" he bawled, "with all right and all wrong, and nobody to
+snuff out the spreading flame, but every one a-flinging tallow in a fire
+we all may rue! My God! Are we not all kinsmen here, gathered to decent
+council how best to save our bacon in this pot a-boiling over? If Mr.
+Ormond and Captain Butler must tickle sword-points one day, that is no
+cause for dolorous looks or hot words--no! Rather is it a family trick,
+a good, old-fashioned game that all boys play, and no harm, either. Have
+I not played it, too? Has any gentleman present not pinked or been
+pinked on that debatable land we call the field of honor? Come, kinsmen,
+we have all had too much wine--or too little."
+
+"Too little!" protested Captain Campbell, with a forced laugh; and Betty
+Austin loosed her tongue for the first time to cry out that her mouth
+was parched wi' swallowing so many words all piping-hot. Whereat one or
+two laughed, and Colonel John Butler said:
+
+Neither Mr. Ormond nor Sir George Covert are rebels. They differ from us
+in this matter touching on the Iroquois. If they think we soil our hands
+with war-paint, let them keep their own wristbands clean, but fight for
+their King as sturdily as shall we this time next month."
+
+"That is a very pleasant view to take," observed Sir George, with a
+smile.
+
+"A sensible view," suggested Campbell.
+
+"Amiable," said Sir George, blandly.
+
+"Oh, let us fill to the family!" broke in McDonald, impatiently. "It's
+dry work cursing your friends! Fill up, Campbell, and I'll forget
+Glencoe ... while I'm drinking."
+
+"Mr. Ormond," said Walter Butler, in a low voice, "I cannot credit ill
+of a man of your name. You are young and hot-blooded, and you perhaps
+lack as yet a capacity for reflection. I shall look for you among us
+when the time comes. No Ormond can desert his King."
+
+"Let it rest so, Captain Butler," I said, soberly. "I will say this:
+when I rose I had not meant to say all that I said. But I believe it to
+be the truth, though I chose the wrong moment to express it. If I change
+this belief I will say so."
+
+And so the outburst of passion sank to ashes; and if the fire was not
+wholly extinguished, it at least lay covered, like the heart of a
+Seminole council-fire after the sachems have risen and departed with
+covered heads.
+
+Drinking began again. The ladies gathered in a group, whispering and
+laughing their relief at the turn affairs were taking--all save Dorothy,
+who sat serenely beside me, picking the kernels from walnut-shells and
+sipping a glass of port.
+
+Sir John Johnson found a coal in the embers on the hearth, and, leaning
+half over the table, began to draw on the table-cloth a rude map of
+Tryon County.
+
+"All know," he said, "that the province of New York is the key to the
+rebel strength. While they hold West Point and Albany and Stanwix, they
+hold Tryon County by the throat. Let them occupy Philadelphia. Who
+cares? We can take it when we choose. Let them hold their dirty Boston;
+let the rebel Washington sneak around the Jerseys. Who cares? There'll
+be the finer hunting for us later. Gentlemen, as you know, the invasion
+of New York is at hand--has already begun. And that's no secret from the
+rebels, either; they may turn and twist and double here in New York
+province, but they can't escape the trap, though they saw it long ago."
+
+He raised his head and glanced at me.
+
+"Here is a triangle," he said; "that triangle is New York province. Here
+is Albany, the objective of our three armies, the gate of Tryon County,
+the plague-spot we are to cleanse, and the military centre. Now mark!
+Burgoyne moves through the lakes, south, reducing Ticonderoga and
+Edward, routing the rats out of Saratoga, and approaches Albany--so.
+Clinton moves north along the Hudson to meet him--so--forcing the
+Highlands at Peekskill, taking West Point or leaving it for later
+punishment. Nothing can stop him; he meets Burgoyne here, at Albany."
+
+Again he looked at me. "You see, sir, that from two angles of the
+triangle converging armies depart towards a common objective."
+
+"I see," I said.
+
+"Now," he resumed, "the third force, under Colonel Barry St. Leger--to
+which my regiment and the regiment of Colonel Butler have the honor to
+be attached--embarks from Canada, sails up the St. Lawrence, disembarks
+at Oswego, on Lake Erie, marches straight on Stanwix, reduces it, and
+joins the armies of Clinton and Burgoyne at Albany."
+
+He stood up, casting his bit of wood-coal on the cloth before him.
+
+"That, sir," he said to me, "is the plan of campaign, which the rebels
+know and cannot prevent. That means the invasion of New York, the
+scouring out of every plague-spot, the capture and destruction of every
+rebel between Albany and the Jerseys."
+
+He turned with a cold smile to Colonel Butler. "I think my estates will
+not remain long in rebel hands," he said.
+
+"Do you not understand, Mr. Ormond?" cried Captain Campbell, twitching
+me by the sleeve, an impertinence I passed, considering him overflushed
+with wine. "Do you not comprehend how hopeless is this rebellion now?"
+
+"How hopeless?" drawled Sir George, looking over my shoulder, and, as
+though by accident, drawing Campbell's presumptuous hand through his
+own arm.
+
+"How hopeless?" echoed Campbell. "Why, here are three armies of his
+Majesty's troops concentrating on the heart of Tryon County. What can
+the rebels do?"
+
+"The patroons are with us, or have withdrawn from the contest," said Sir
+John; "the great folk, military men, and we of the landed gentry are for
+the King. What remains to defy his authority?"
+
+"Of what kidney are these Tryon County men?" I asked, quietly. Sir John
+Johnson misunderstood me.
+
+"Mr. Ormond," said Sir John, "Tryon County is habited by four races.
+First, the Scotch-Irish, many of them rebels, I admit, but many also
+loyal. Balance these against my Highlanders, and cross quits. Second,
+the Palatines--those men whose ancestors came hither to escape the
+armies of Louis XIV. when they devastated the Palatinate. And again I
+admit these to be rebels. Third, those of Dutch blood, descended from
+brave ancestors, like our worthy patroon here. And once more I will
+admit that many of these also are tainted with rebel heresies. Fourth,
+the English, three-quarters of whom are Tories. And now I ask you, can
+these separate handfuls of mixed descent unite? And, if that were
+possible, can they stand for one day, one hour, against the trained
+troops of England?"
+
+"God knows," I said.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+DAWN
+
+I had stepped from the dining-hall out to the gun-room. Clocks in the
+house were striking midnight. In the dining-room the company had now
+taken to drinking in earnest, cheering and singing loyal songs, and
+through the open door whirled gusts of women's laughter, and I heard the
+thud of guitar-strings echo the song's gay words.
+
+All was cool and dark in the body of the house as I walked to the front
+door and opened it to bathe my face in the freshening night. I heard the
+whippoorwill in the thicket, and the drumming of the dew on the porch
+roof, and far away a sound like ocean stirring--the winds in the pines.
+
+The Maker of all things has set in me a love for whatsoever He has
+fashioned in His handiwork, whether it be furry beast or pretty bird, or
+a spray of April willow, or the tiny insect-creature that pursues its
+dumb, blind way through this our common world. So come I by my love for
+the voices of the night, and the eyes of the stars, and the whisper of
+growing things, and the spice in the air where, unseen, a million tiny
+blossoms hold up white cups for dew, or for the misty-winged things that
+woo them for their honey.
+
+Now, in the face of this dark, soothing truce that we call night, which
+is a buckler interposed between the arrows of two angry suns, I stood
+thinking of war and the wrong of it. And all around me in the darkness
+insects sang, and delicate, gauzy creatures chirked and throbbed and
+strummed in cadence, while the star's light faintly silvered the still
+trees, and distant monotones of the forest made a sustained and steady
+rushing sound like the settling ebb of shallow seas. That to my
+conscience I stood committed, I could not doubt. I must draw sword, and
+draw it soon, too--not for Tory or rebel, not for King or Congress, not
+for my estates nor for my kin, but for the ancient liberties of
+Englishmen, which England menaced to destroy.
+
+That meant time lost in a return to my own home; and yet--why? Here in
+this county of Tryon one might stand for liberty of thought and action
+as stanchly as at home. Here was a people with no tie or sympathy to
+weld them save that common love of liberty--a scattered handful of
+races, without leaders, without resources, menaced by three armies,
+menaced, by the five nations of the great confederacy--the Iroquois.
+
+To return to the sea islands on the Halifax and fight for my own acres
+was useless if through New York the British armies entered to the heart
+of the rebellion, splitting the thirteen colonies with a flaming wedge.
+
+At home I had no kin to defend; my elder brother had sailed to England,
+my superintendent, my overseers, my clerks were all Tory; my slaves
+would join the Minorcans or the blacks in Georgia, and I, single-handed,
+could not lift a finger to restrain them.
+
+But here, in the dire need of Tryon County, I might be of use. Here was
+the very forefront of battle where, beyond the horizon, invasion,
+uncoiling hydra folds, already raised three horrid, threatening crests.
+
+Ugh!--the butcher's work that promised if the Iroquois were uncaged! It
+made me shudder, for I knew something of that kind of war, having seen a
+slight service against the Seminoles in my seventeenth year, and
+against the Chehaws and Tallassies a few months later. Also in November
+of 1775 I accompanied Governor Tonyn to Picolata, but when I learned
+that our mission was the shameful one of securing the Indians as British
+allies I resigned my captaincy in the Royal Rangers and returned to the
+Halifax to wait and watch events.
+
+And now, thoughtful, sad, wondering a little how it all would end, I
+paced to and fro across the porch. The steady patter of the dew was like
+the long roll beating--low, incessant, imperious--and my heart leaped
+responsive to the summons, till I found myself standing rigid, staring
+into the darkness with fevered eyes.
+
+The smothered, double drumming of a guitar from the distant revel
+assailed my ears, and a fresh, sweet voice, singing:
+
+     "As at my door I chanced to be
+                    A-spinning,
+                        Spinning,
+     A grenadier he winked at me
+                    A-grinning,
+                        Grinning!
+     As at my door I chanced to be
+     A grenadier he winked at me.
+     And now my song's begun, you see!
+
+     "My grenadier he said to me.
+                    So jolly,
+                        Jolly,
+     'We tax the tea, but love is free,
+                    Sweet Molly,
+                        Molly!'
+     My grenadier he said to me,
+     'We tax the tea, but love is free!'
+     And so my song it ends, you see,
+                    In folly,
+                        Folly!"
+
+I listened angrily; the voice was Dorothy Varick's, and I wondered that
+she had the heart to sing such foolishness for men whose grip was
+already on her people's throats.
+
+In the dining-hall somebody blew the view-halloo on a hunting-horn, and
+I heard cheers and the dulled roar of a chorus:
+
+"--Rally your men!
+Campbell and Cameron,
+Fox-hunting gentlemen,
+Follow the Jacobite back to his den!
+Run with the runaway rogue to his runway,
+     Stole-away!
+     Stole-away!
+     Gallop to Galway,
+Back to Broadalbin and double to Perth;
+Ride! for the rebel is running to earth!"
+
+And the shrill, fierce Highland cry, "Gralloch him!" echoed the infamous
+catch, till the night air rang faintly in the starlight.
+
+"Cruachan!" shouted Captain Campbell; "the wild myrtle to clan Campbell,
+the heather to the McDonalds! An't--Arm, chlanna!"
+
+And a great shout answered him: "The army! Sons of the army!"
+
+Sullen and troubled and restless, I paced the porch, and at length sat
+down on the steps to cool my hot forehead in my hands.
+
+And as I sat, there came my cousin Dorothy to the porch to look for me,
+fanning her flushed face with a great, plumy fan, the warm odor of roses
+still clinging to her silken skirts.
+
+"Have they ended?" I asked, none too graciously.
+
+"They are beginning," she said, with a laugh, then drew a deep breath
+and waved her fan slowly. "Ah, the sweet May night!" she murmured, eyes
+fixed on the north star. "Can you believe that men could dream of war
+in this quiet paradise of silence?"
+
+I made no answer, and she went on, fanning her hot cheeks: "They're off
+to Oswego by dawn, the whole company, gallant and baggage." She laughed
+wickedly. "I don't mean their ladies, cousin."
+
+"How could you?" I protested, grimly.
+
+"Their wagons," she said, "started to-day at sundown from Tribes Hill;
+Sir John, the Butlers, and the Glencoe gentlemen follow at dawn. There
+are post-chaises for the ladies out yonder, and an escort, too. But
+nobody would stop them; they're as safe as Catrine Montour."
+
+"Dorothy, who is this Catrine Montour?" I asked.
+
+"A woman, cousin; a terrible hag who runs through the woods, and none
+dare stop her."
+
+"A real hag? You mean a ghost?"
+
+"No, no; a real hag, with black locks hanging, and long arms that could
+choke an ox."
+
+"Why does she run through the woods?" I asked, amused.
+
+"Why? Who knows? She is always seen running."
+
+"Where does she run to?"
+
+"I don't know. Once Henry Stoner, the hunter, followed her, and they say
+no one but Jack Mount can outrun him; but she ran and ran, and he after
+her, till the day fell down, and he fell gasping like a foundered horse.
+But she ran on."
+
+"Oh, tally," I said; "do you believe that?"
+
+"Why, I know it is true," she replied, ceasing her fanning to stare at
+me with calm, wide eyes. "Do you doubt it?"
+
+"How can I?" said I, laughing. "Who is this busy hag, Catrine Montour?"
+
+"They say," said Dorothy, waving her fan thoughtfully, "that her father
+was that Count Frontenac who long ago governed the Canadas, and that her
+mother was a Huron woman. Many believe her to be a witch. I don't know.
+Milk curdles in the pans when she is running through the forest ... they
+say. Once it rained blood on our front porch."
+
+"Those red drops fall from flocks of butterflies," I said, laughing. "I
+have seen red showers in Florida."
+
+"I should like to be sure of that," said Dorothy, musing. Then, raising
+her starry eyes, she caught me laughing.
+
+"Tease me," she smiled. "I don't care. You may even make love to me if
+you choose."
+
+"Make love to you!" I repeated, reddening.
+
+"Why not? It amuses--and you're only a cousin."
+
+Astonishment was followed by annoyance as she coolly disqualified me
+with a careless wave of her fan, wafting the word "cousin" into my
+very teeth.
+
+"Suppose I paid court to you and gained your affections?" I said.
+
+"You have them," she replied, serenely.
+
+"I mean your heart?"
+
+"You have it."
+
+"I mean your--love, Dorothy?"
+
+"Ah," she said, with a faint smile, "I wish you could--I wish somebody
+could."
+
+I was silent.
+
+"And I never shall love; I know it, I feel it--here!" She pressed her
+side with a languid sigh that nigh set me into fits o' laughter, yet I
+swallowed my mirth till it choked me, and looked at the stars.
+
+"Perhaps," said I, "the gentle passion might be awakened with
+patience ... and practice."
+
+"Ah, no," she said.
+
+"May I touch your hand?"
+
+Indolently fanning, she extended her fingers. I took them in my hands.
+
+"I am about to begin," I said.
+
+"Begin," she said.
+
+So, her hand resting in mine, I told her that she had robbed the skies
+and set two stars in violets for her eyes; that nature's one miracle was
+wrought when in her cheeks roses bloomed beneath the snow; that the
+frosted gold she called her hair had been spun from December sunbeams,
+and that her voice was but the melodies stolen from breeze and brook and
+golden-throated birds.
+
+"For all those pretty words," she said, "love still lies sleeping."
+
+"Perhaps my arm around your waist--"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"So?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And, after a silence:
+
+"Has love stirred?"
+
+"Love sleeps the sounder."
+
+"And if I touched your lips?"
+
+"Best not."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm sure that love would yawn."
+
+Chilled, for unconsciously I had begun to find in this child-play an
+interest unexpected, I dropped her unresisting fingers.
+
+"Upon my word," I said, almost irritably, "I can believe you when you
+say you never mean to wed."
+
+"But I don't say it," she protested.
+
+"What? You have a mind to wed?"
+
+"Nor did I say that, either," she said, laughing.
+
+"Then what the deuce do you say?"
+
+"Nothing, unless I'm entreated politely."
+
+"I entreat you, cousin, most politely," I said.
+
+"Then I may tell you that, though I trouble my head nothing as to
+wedlock, I am betrothed."
+
+"Betrothed!" I repeated, angrily disappointed, yet I could not think
+why.
+
+"Yes--pledged."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To a man, silly."
+
+"A man!"
+
+"With two legs, two arms, and a head, cousin."
+
+"You ... love him?"
+
+"No," she said, serenely. "It's only to wed and settle down some day."
+
+"You don't love him?"
+
+"No," she repeated, a trifle impatiently.
+
+"And you mean to wed him?"
+
+"Listen to the boy!" she exclaimed. "I've told him ten times that I am
+betrothed, which means a wedding. I am not one of those who
+break paroles."
+
+"Oh ... you are now free on parole."
+
+"Prisoner on parole," she said, lightly. "I'm to name the day o'
+punishment, and I promise you it will not be soon."
+
+"Dorothy," I said, "suppose in the mean time you fell in love?"
+
+"I'd like to," she said, sincerely.
+
+"But--but what would you do then?"
+
+"Love, silly!"
+
+"And ... marry?"
+
+"Marry him whom I have promised."
+
+"But you would be wretched!"
+
+"Why? I can't fancy wedding one I love. I should be ashamed, I think.
+I--if I loved I should not want the man I loved to touch me--not
+with gloves."
+
+"You little fool!" I said. "You don't know what you say."
+
+"Yes, I do!" she cried, hotly. "Once there was a captain from Boston; I
+adored him. And once he kissed my hand and I hated him!"
+
+"I wish I'd been there," I muttered.
+
+She, waving her fan to and fro, continued: "I often think of splendid
+men, and, dreaming in the sunshine, sometimes I adore them. But always
+these day-dream heroes keep their distance; and we talk and talk, and
+plan to do great good in the world, until I fall a-napping.... Heigho!
+I'm yawning now." She covered her face with her fan and leaned back
+against a pillar, crossing her feet. "Tell me about London," she said.
+But I knew no more than she.
+
+"I'd be a belle there," she observed. "I'd have a train o' beaux and
+macaronis at my heels, I warrant you! The foppier, the more it would
+please me. Think, cousin--ranks of them all a-simper, ogling me through
+a hundred quizzing-glasses! Heigho! There's doubtless some deviltry in
+me, as Sir Lupus says."
+
+She yawned again, looked up at the stars, then fell to twisting her fan
+with idle fingers.
+
+"I suppose," she said, more to herself than to me, "that Sir John is now
+close to the table's edge, and Colonel Claus is under it.... Hark to
+their song, all off the key! But who cares?... so that they quarrel
+not.... Like those twin brawlers of Glencoe, ... brooding on feuds nigh
+a hundred years old.... I have no patience with a brooder, one who
+treasures wrongs, ... like Walter Butler." She looked up at me.
+
+"I warned you," she said.
+
+"It is not easy to avoid insulting him," I replied.
+
+"I warned you of that, too. Now you've a quarrel, and a reckoning in
+prospect."
+
+"The reckoning is far off," I retorted, ill-humoredly.
+
+"Far off--yes. Further away than you know. You will never cross swords
+with Walter Butler."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"He means to use the Iroquois."
+
+I was silent.
+
+"For the honor of your women, you cannot fight such a man," she added,
+quietly.
+
+"I wish I had the right to protect your honor," I said, so suddenly and
+so bitterly that I surprised myself.
+
+"Have you not?" she asked, gravely. "I am your kinswoman."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," I muttered, and fell to plucking at the lace on my
+wristbands.
+
+The dawn's chill was in the air, the dawn's silence, too, and I saw the
+calm morning star on the horizon, watching the dark world--the dark, sad
+world, lying so still, so patient, under the ancient sky.
+
+That melancholy--which is an omen, too--left me benumbed, adrift in a
+sort of pained contentment which alternately soothed and troubled, so
+that at moments I almost drowsed, and at moments I heard my heart
+stirring, as though in dull expectancy of beatitudes undreamed of.
+
+Dorothy, too, sat listless, pensive, and in her eyes a sombre shadow,
+such as falls on children's eyes at moments, leaving their
+elders silent.
+
+Once in the false dawn a cock crowed, and the shrill, far cry left the
+raw air emptier and the silence more profound. I looked wistfully at the
+maid beside me, chary of intrusion into the intimacy of her silence.
+Presently her vague eyes met mine, and, as though I had spoken, she
+said: "What is it?"
+
+"Only this: I am sorry you are pledged."
+
+"Why, cousin?"
+
+"It is unfair."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To you. Bid him undo it and release you."
+
+"What matters it?" she said, dully.
+
+"To wed, one should love," I muttered.
+
+"I cannot," she answered, without moving. "I would I could. This night
+has witched me to wish for love--to desire it; and I sit here
+a-thinking, a-thinking.... If love ever came to me I should think it
+would come now--ere the dawn; here, where all is so dark and quiet and
+close to God.... Cousin, this night, for the first moment in all my
+life, I have desired love."
+
+"To be loved?"
+
+"No, ... to love."
+
+I do not know how long our silence lasted; the faintest hint of silver
+touched the sky above the eastern forest; a bird awoke, sleepily
+twittering; another piped out fresh and clear, another, another; and, as
+the pallid tint spread in the east, all the woodlands burst out ringing
+into song.
+
+In the house a door opened and a hoarse voice muttered thickly. Dorothy
+paid no heed, but I rose and stepped into the hallway, where servants
+were guiding the patroon to bed, and a man hung to the bronze-cannon
+post, swaying and mumbling threats--Colonel Claus, wig awry, stock
+unbuckled, and one shoe gone. Faugh! the stale, sour air sickened me.
+
+Then a company of gentlemen issued from the dining-hall, and, as I
+stepped back to the porch to give them room, their gray faces were
+turned to me with meaningless smiles or blank inquiry.
+
+"Where's my orderly?" hiccoughed Sir John Johnson. "Here, you, call my
+rascals; get the chaises up! Dammy, I want my post-chaise, d' ye hear?"
+
+Captain Campbell stumbled out to the lawn and fumbled about his lips
+with a whistle, which he finally succeeded in blowing. This
+accomplished, he gravely examined the sky.
+
+"There they are," said Dorothy, quietly; and I saw, in the dim morning
+light, a dozen horsemen stirring in the shadows of the stockade. And
+presently the horses were brought up, followed by two post-chaises, with
+sleepy post-boys sitting their saddles and men afoot trailing rifles.
+
+Colonel Butler came out of the door with Magdalen Brant, who was half
+asleep, and aided her to a chaise. Guy Johnson followed with Betty
+Austin, his arm around her, and climbed in after her. Then Sir John
+brought Claire Putnam to the other chaise, entering it himself behind
+her. And the post-boys wheeled their horses out through the stockade,
+followed at a gallop by the shadowy horsemen.
+
+And now the Butlers, father and son, set toe to stirrup; and I saw
+Walter Butler kick the servant who held his stirrup--why, I do not know,
+unless the poor, tired fellow's hands shook.
+
+Up into their saddles popped the Glencoe captains; then Campbell swore
+an oath and dismounted to look for Colonel Claus; and presently two
+blacks carried him out and set him in his saddle, which he clung to,
+swaying like a ship in distress, his riding-boots slung around his neck,
+stockinged toes clutching the stirrups.
+
+Away they went, followed at a trot by the armed men on foot; fainter and
+fainter sounded the clink, clink of their horses' hoofs, then died away.
+
+In the silence, the east reddened to a flame tint. I turned to the open
+doorway; Dorothy was gone, but old Cato stood there, withered hands
+clasped, peaceful eyes on me.
+
+"Mawnin', suh," he said, sweetly. "Yaas, suh, de night done gone and de
+sun mos' up. H'it dat-a-way, Mars' George, suh, h'it jess natch'ly
+dat-a-way in dishyere world--day, night, mo' day. What de Bible say?
+Life, def, mo' life, suh. When we's daid we'll sho' find it dat-a-way."
+
+
+
+VII
+
+AFTERMATH
+
+Cato at my bedside with basin, towel, and razor, a tub of water on the
+floor, and the sun shining on my chamber wall. These, and a stale taste
+on my tongue, greeted me as I awoke.
+
+First to wash teeth and mouth with orris, then to bathe, half asleep
+still; and yet again to lie a-thinking in my arm-chair, robed in a
+banyan, cheeks all suds and nose sniffing the scented water in the
+chin-basin which I held none too steady; and I said, peevishly, "What a
+fool a man is to play the fool! Do you hear me, Cato?"
+
+He said that he marked my words, and I bade him hold his tongue and tell
+me the hour.
+
+"Nine, suh."
+
+"Then I'll sleep again," I muttered, but could not, and after the
+morning draught felt better. Chocolate and bread, new butter and new
+eggs, put me in a kinder humor. Cato, burrowing in my boxes, drew out a
+soft, new suit of doeskin with new points, new girdle, and new
+moccasins.
+
+"Oh," said I, watching him, "am I to go forest-running to-day?"
+
+"Mars' Varick gwine ride de boun's," he announced, cheerfully.
+
+"Ride to hounds?" I repeated, astonished. "In May?"
+
+"No, suh! Ride de boun's, suh."
+
+"Oh, ride the boundaries?"
+
+"Yaas, suh."
+
+"Oh, very well. What time does he start?"
+
+"'Bout noontide, suh."
+
+The old man strove to straighten my short queue, but found it hopeless,
+so tied it close and dusted on the French powder.
+
+"Curly head, curly head," he muttered to himself. "Dess lak yo'
+pap's!... an' Miss Dorry's. Law's sakes, dishyere hair wuf mo'n
+eight dollar."
+
+"You think my hair worth more than eight dollars?" I asked, amused.
+
+"H'it sho'ly am, suh."
+
+"But why eight dollars, Cato?"
+
+"Das what the redcoats say; eight dollars fo' one rebel scalp, suh."
+
+I sat up, horrified. "Who told you that?" I demanded.
+
+"All de gemmen done say so--Mars' Varick, Mars' Johnsing, Cap'in
+Butler."
+
+"Bah! they said it to plague you, Cato," I muttered; but as I said it I
+saw the old slave's eyes and knew that he had told the truth.
+
+Sobered, I dressed me in my forest dress, absently lacing the
+hunting-shirt and tying knee-points, while the old man polished hatchet
+and knife and slipped them into the beaded scabbards swinging on
+either hip.
+
+Then I went out, noiselessly descending the stairway, and came all
+unawares upon the young folk and the children gathered on the sunny
+porch, busy with their morning tasks.
+
+They neither saw nor heard me; I leaned against the doorway to see the
+pretty picture at my ease. The children, Sam and Benny, sat all hunched
+up, scowling over their books.
+
+Close to a fluted pillar, Dorothy Varick reclined in a chair,
+embroidering her initials on a pair of white silk hose, using the
+Rosemary stitch. And as her delicate fingers flew, her gold thimble
+flashed like a fire-fly in the sun.
+
+At her feet, cross-legged, sat Cecile Butler, velvet eyes intent on a
+silken petticoat which she was embroidering with pale sprays of flowers.
+
+Ruyven and Harry, near by, dipped their brushes into pans of brilliant
+French colors, the one to paint marvellous birds on a silken fan, the
+other to decorate a pair of white satin shoes with little pink blossoms
+nodding on a vine.
+
+Loath to disturb them, I stood smiling, silent; and presently Dorothy,
+without raising her eyes, called on Samuel to read his morning lesson,
+and he began, breathing heavily:
+
+     "I know that God is wroth at me
+       For I was born in sin;
+     My heart is so exceeding vile
+       Damnation dwells therein;
+     Awake I sin, asleep I sin,
+       I sin with every breath,
+     When Adam fell he went to hell
+       And damned us all to death!"
+
+He stopped short, scowling, partly from fright, I think.
+
+"That teaches us to obey God," said Ruyven, severely, dipping his brush
+into the pink paint-cake.
+
+"What's the good of obeying God if we're all to go to hell?" asked
+Cecile.
+
+"We're not all going to hell," said Dorothy, calmly. "God saves His
+elect."
+
+"Who are the elect?" demanded Samuel, faintly hopeful.
+
+"Nobody knows," replied Cecile, grimly; "but I guess--"
+
+"Benny," broke in Dorothy, "read your lesson! Cecile, stop your
+chatter!" And Benny, cheerful and sceptical, read his lines:
+
+     "When by thpectators I behold
+       What beauty doth adorn me,
+     Or in a glath when I behold
+       How thweetly God did form me.
+     Hath God thuch comeliness bethowed
+       And on me made to dwell?--
+     What pity thuch a pretty maid
+       Ath I thoud go to hell!"
+
+And Benny giggled.
+
+"Benjamin," said Cecile, in an awful voice, "are you not terrified at
+what you read?"
+
+"Huh!" said Benny, "I'm not a 'pretty maid'; I'm a boy."
+
+"It's all the same, little dunce!" insisted Cecile.
+
+"Doeth God thay little boyth are born to be damned?" he asked, uneasily.
+
+"No, no," interrupted Dorothy; "God saves His elect, I tell you. Don't
+you remember what He says?
+
+     "'You sinners are, and such a share
+       As sinners may expect;
+     Such you shall have; for I do save
+       None but my own elect.'
+
+"And you see," she added, confidently, "I think we all are elect, and
+there's nothing to be afraid of. Benny, stop sniffing!"
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Cecile, gloomily.
+
+Dorothy, stitching serenely, answered: "I am sure God is fair."
+
+"Oh, everybody knows that," observed Cecile. "What we want to know is,
+what does He mean to do with us."
+
+"If we're good," added Samuel, fervently.
+
+"He will damn us, perhaps," said Ruyven, sucking his paint-brush and
+looking critically at his work.
+
+"Damn us? Why?" inquired Dorothy, raising her eyes.
+
+"Oh, for all that sin we were born in," said Ruyven, absently.
+
+"But that's not fair," said Dorothy.
+
+"Are you smarter than a clergyman?" sneered Ruyven.
+
+Dorothy spread the white silk stocking over one knee. "I don't know,"
+she sighed, "sometimes I think I am."
+
+"Pride," commented Cecile, complacently. "Pride is sin, so there you
+are, Dorothy."
+
+"There you are, Dorothy!" said I, laughing from the doorway; and, "Oh,
+Cousin Ormond!" they all chorused, scrambling up to greet me.
+
+"Have a care!" cried Dorothy. "That is my wedding petticoat! Oh, he's
+slopped water on it! Benny, you dreadful villain!"
+
+"No, he hasn't," said I, coming out to greet her and Cecile, with Samuel
+and Benny hanging to my belt, and Harry fast hold of one arm. "And
+what's all this about wedding finery? Is there a bride in this
+vicinity?"
+
+Dorothy held out a stocking. "A bride's white silken hose," she said,
+complacently.
+
+"Embroidered on the knee with the bride's initials," added Cecile,
+proudly.
+
+"Yours, Dorothy?" I demanded.
+
+"Yes, but I shall not wear them for ages and ages. I told you so last
+night."
+
+"But I thought Dorothy had best make ready," remarked Cecile. "Dorothy
+is to carry that fan and wear those slippers and this petticoat and the
+white silk stockings when she weds Sir George."
+
+"Sir George who?" I asked, bluntly.
+
+"Why, Sir George Covert. Didn't you know?"
+
+I looked at Dorothy, incensed without a reason.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, ungraciously.
+
+"Why didn't you ask me?" she replied, a trifle hurt.
+
+I was silent.
+
+Cecile said: "I hope that Dorothy will marry him soon. I want to see how
+she looks in this petticoat."
+
+"Ho!" sneered Harry, "you just want to wear one like it and be a
+bridesmaid and primp and give yourself airs. I know you!"
+
+"Sir George Covert is a good fellow," remarked Ruyven, with a
+patronizing nod at Dorothy; "but I always said he was too old for you.
+You should see how gray are his temples when he wears no powder."
+
+"He has fine eyes," murmured Cecile.
+
+"He's too old; he's forty," repeated Ruyven.
+
+"His legs are shapely," added Cecile, sentimentally.
+
+Dorothy gave a despairing upward glance at me. "Are these children not
+silly?" she said, with a little shrug.
+
+"We may be children, and we may be silly," said Ruyven, "but if we were
+you we'd wed our cousin Ormond."
+
+"All of you together?" inquired Dorothy.
+
+"You know what I mean," he snapped.
+
+"Why don't you?" demanded Harry, vaguely, twitching Dorothy by the
+apron.
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"Wed our cousin Ormond."
+
+"But he has not asked me," she said, smiling.
+
+Harry turned to me and took my arm affectionately in his.
+
+"You will ask her, won't you?" he murmured. "She's very nice when she
+chooses."
+
+"She wouldn't have me," I said, laughing.
+
+"Oh yes, she would; and then you need never leave us, which would be
+pleasant for all, I think. Won't you ask her, cousin?"
+
+"You ask her," I said.
+
+"Dorothy," he broke out, eagerly. "You will wed him, won't you? Our
+cousin Ormond says he will if you will. And I'll tell Sir George that
+it's just a family matter, and, besides, he's too old--"
+
+"Yes, tell Sir George that," sneered Ruyven, who had listened in an
+embarrassment that certainly Dorothy had not betrayed. "You're a great
+fool, Harry. Don't you know that when people want to wed they ask each
+other's permission to ask each other's father, and then their fathers
+ask each other, and then they ask each--"
+
+"Other!" cried Dorothy, laughing deliciously. "Oh, Ruyven, Ruyven, you
+certainly will be the death of me!"
+
+"All the same," said Harry, sullenly, "our cousin wishes to wed you."
+
+"Do you?" asked Dorothy, raising her amused eyes to me.
+
+"I fear I come too late," I said, forcing a smile I was not inclined to.
+
+"Ah, yes; too late," she sighed, pretending a doleful mien.
+
+"Why?" demanded Harry, blankly.
+
+Dorothy shook her head. "Sir George would never permit me such a
+liberty. If he would, our cousin Ormond and I could wed at once; you see
+I have my bride's stockings here; Cecile could do my hair, Sammy carry
+my prayer-book, Benny my train, Ruyven read the service--"
+
+Harry, flushing at the shout of laughter, gave Dorothy a dark look,
+turned and eyed me, then scowled again at Dorothy.
+
+"All the same," he said, slowly, "you're a great goose not to wed
+him.... And you'll be sorry ... when he's dead!"
+
+At this veiled prophecy of my approaching dissolution, all were silent
+save Dorothy and Ruyven, whose fresh laughter rang out peal on peal.
+
+"Laugh," said Harry, gloomily; "but you won't laugh when he's killed in
+the war, ... and scalped, too."
+
+Ruyven, suddenly sober, looked up at me. Dorothy bent over her
+needle-work and examined it attentively.
+
+"Are you going to the war?" asked Cecile, plaintively.
+
+"Of course he's going; so am I," replied Ruyven, striking a careless
+pose against a pillar.
+
+"On which side, Ruyven?" inquired Dorothy, sorting her silks.
+
+"On my cousin's side, of course," he said, uneasily.
+
+"Which side is that?" asked Cecile.
+
+Confused, flushing painfully, the boy looked at me; and I rescued him,
+saying, "We'll talk that over when we ride bounds this afternoon. Ruyven
+and I understand each other, don't we, Ruyven?"
+
+He gave me a grateful glance. "Yes," he said, shyly.
+
+Sir George Covert, a trifle pallid, but bland and urbane, strolled out
+to the porch, saluting us gracefully. He paused beside Dorothy, who
+slipped her needle through her work and held out her hand for him
+to salute.
+
+"Are you also going to the wars?" she asked, with a friendly smile.
+
+"Where are they?" he inquired, pretending a fierce eagerness. "Point out
+some wars and I'll go to 'em post haste!"
+
+"They're all around us," said Sammy, solemnly.
+
+"Then we'd best get to horse and lose no time, Mr. Ormond," he observed,
+passing his arm through mine. In a lower voice he added: "Headache?"
+
+"Oh no," I said, hastily.
+
+"Lucky dog. Sir Lupus lies as though struck by lightning. I'm all
+a-quiver, too. A man of my years is a fool to do such things. But I do,
+Ormond, I do; ass that I am. Do you ride bounds with Sir Lupus?"
+
+"If he desires it," I said.
+
+"Then I'll see you when you pass my villa on the Vlaie, where you'll
+find a glass of wine waiting. Do you ride, Miss Dorothy?"
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+A stable lad brought his horse to the porch. He took leave of Dorothy
+with a grace that charmed even me; yet, in his bearing towards her I
+could detect the tender pride he had in her, and that left me cold and
+thoughtful.
+
+All liked him, though none appeared to regard him exactly as a kinsman,
+nor accorded him that vague shade of intimacy which is felt in kinship,
+not in comradeship alone, and which they already accorded me.
+
+Dorothy walked with him to the stockade gate, the stable lad following
+with his horse; and I saw them stand there in low-voiced conversation,
+he lounging and switching at the weeds with his riding-crop; she, head
+bent, turning the gold thimble over and over between her fingers. And I
+wondered what they were saying.
+
+Presently he mounted and rode away, a graceful, manly figure in the
+saddle, and not turning like a fop to blow a kiss at his betrothed, nor
+spurring his horse to show his skill--for which I coldly respected him.
+
+Harry, Cecile, and the children gathered their paints and books and
+went into the house, demanding that I should follow.
+
+"Dorothy is beckoning us," observed Ruyven, gathering up his paints.
+
+I looked towards her and she raised her hand, motioning us to come.
+
+"About father's watch," she said. "I have just consulted Sir George, and
+he says that neither I nor Ruyven have won, seeing that Ruyven used the
+coin he did--"
+
+"Very well," cried Ruyven, triumphantly. "Then let us match dates again.
+Have you a shilling, Cousin Ormond?"
+
+"I'll throw hunting-knives for it," suggested Dorothy.
+
+"Oh no, you won't," retorted her brother, warily.
+
+"Then I'll race you to the porch."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+She laughed tauntingly.
+
+"I'm not afraid," said Ruyven, reddening and glancing at me.
+
+"Then I'll wrestle you."
+
+Stung by the malice in her smile, Ruyven seized her.
+
+"No, no! Not in these clothes!" she said, twisting to free herself.
+"Wait till I put on my buckskins. Don't use me so roughly, you tear my
+laced apron. Oh! you great booby!" And with a quick cry of resentment
+she bent, caught her brother, and swung him off his feet clean over her
+left shoulder slap on the grass.
+
+"Silly!" she said, cheeks aflame. "I have no patience to be mauled."
+Then she laughed uncertainly to see him lying there, too astonished
+to get up.
+
+"Are you hurt?" she asked.
+
+"Who taught you that hold?" he demanded, indignantly, scrambling to his
+feet. "I thought I alone knew that."
+
+"Why, Captain Campbell taught you last week and ... I was at the
+window ... sewing," she said, demurely.
+
+Ruyven looked at me, disgusted, muttering, "If I could learn things the
+way she does, I'd not waste time at King's College, I can tell you."
+
+"You're not going to King's College, anyhow," said his sister. "York is
+full o' loyal rebels and Tory patriots, and father says he'll be damned
+if you can learn logic where all lack it."
+
+She held out her hand, smiling. "No malice, Ruyven, and we'll forgive
+each other."
+
+Her brother met the clasp; then, hands in his pockets, followed us back
+through the stockade towards the porch. I was pleased to see that his
+pride had suffered no more than his body from the fall he got, which
+augured well for a fair-minded manhood.
+
+As we approached the house I heard hollow noises within, like groans;
+and I stopped, listening intently.
+
+"It is Sir Lupus snoring," observed Ruyven. "He will wake soon; I think
+I had best call Tulip," he added, exchanging a glance with his sister;
+and entered the house calling, "Cato! Cato! Tulip! Tulip! I say!"
+
+"Who is Tulip?" I asked of Dorothy, who lingered at the threshold
+folding her embroidery into a bundle.
+
+"Tulip? Oh, Tulip cooks for us--black as a June crow, cousin. She is
+voodoo."
+
+"Evil-eye and all?" I asked, smiling.
+
+Dorothy looked up shyly. "Don't you believe in the evil-eye?"
+
+I was not perfectly sure whether I did or not, but I said "No."
+
+"To believe is not necessarily to be afraid," she added, quickly.
+
+Now, had I believed in the voodoo craft, or in the power of an evil-eye,
+I should also have feared. Those who have ever witnessed a sea-island
+witch-dance can bear me out, and I think a man may dread a hag and be no
+coward either. But distance and time allay the memories of such uncanny
+works. I had forgotten whether I was afraid or not. So I said, "There
+are no witches, Dorothy."
+
+She looked at me, dreamily. "There are none ... that I fear."
+
+"Not even Catrine Montour?" I asked, to plague her.
+
+"No; it turns me cold to think of her running in the forest, but I am
+not afraid."
+
+She stood pensive in the doorway, rolling and unrolling her embroidery.
+Harry and Cecile came out, flourishing alder poles from which lines and
+hooks dangled. Samuel and Benny carried birchen baskets and
+shallow nets.
+
+"If we're to have Mohawk chubbs," said Cecile, "you had best come with
+us, Dorothy. Ruyven has a book and has locked himself in the play-room."
+
+But Dorothy shook her head, saying that she meant to ride the boundary
+with us; and the children, after vainly soliciting my company, trooped
+off towards that same grist-mill in the ravine below the bridge which I
+had observed on my first arrival at Varick Manor.
+
+"I am wondering," said Dorothy, "how you mean to pass the morning. You
+had best steer wide of Sir Lupus until he has breakfasted."
+
+"I've a mind to sleep," I said, guiltily.
+
+"I think it would be pleasant to ride together. Will you?" she asked;
+then, laughing, she said, frankly, "Since you have come I do nothing but
+follow you.... It is long since I have had a young companion, ... and,
+when I think that you are to leave us, it spurs me to lose no moment
+that I shall regret when you are gone."
+
+No shyness marred the pretty declaration of her friendship, and it
+touched me the more keenly perhaps. The confidence in her eyes, lifted
+so sweetly, waked the best in me; and if my response was stumbling, it
+was eager and warm, and seemed to please her.
+
+"Tulip! Tulip!" she cried, "I want my dinner! Now!" And to me, "We will
+eat what they give us; I shall dress in my buckskins and we will ride
+the boundary and register the signs, and Sir Lupus and the others can
+meet us at Sir George Covert's pleasure-house on the Vlaie. Does it
+please you, Cousin George?"
+
+I looked into her bright eyes and said that it pleased me more than I
+dared say, and she laughed and ran up-stairs, calling back to me that I
+should order our horses and tell Cato to tell Tulip to fetch meat and
+claret to the gun-room.
+
+I whistled a small, black stable lad and bade him bring our mounts to
+the porch, then wandered at random down the hallway, following my nose,
+which scented the kitchen, until I came to a closed door.
+
+Behind that door meats were cooking--I could take my oath o' that--so I
+opened the door and poked my nose in.
+
+"Tulip," I said, "come here!"
+
+An ample black woman, aproned and turbaned, looked at me through the
+steam of many kettles, turned and cuffed the lad at the spit, dealt a
+few buffets among the scullions, and waddled up to me, bobbing and
+curtsying.
+
+"Aunt Tulip," I said, gravely, "are you voodoo?"
+
+"Folks says ah is, Mars' Ormon'," she said, in her soft Georgia accent.
+
+"Oh, they do, do they? Look at me, Aunt Tulip. What do my eyes tell you
+of me?"
+
+Her dark eyes, fixed on mine, seemed to change, and I thought little
+glimmers of pure gold tinted the iris, like those marvellous restless
+tints in a gorgeous bubble. Certainly her eyes were strange, almost
+compelling, for I felt a faint rigidity in my cheeks and my eyes
+returned directly to hers as at an unspoken command.
+
+"Can you read me, aunty?" I asked, trying to speak easily, yet feeling
+the stiffness growing in my cheeks.
+
+"Ah sho' can," she said, stepping nearer.
+
+"What is my fate, then?"
+
+"Ah 'spec' yo' gwine fine yo'se'f in love," she said, softly; and I
+strove to smile with ever-stiffening lips.
+
+A little numbness that tingled spread over me; it was pleasant; I did
+not care to withdraw my eyes. Presently the tightness in my face
+relaxed, I moved my lips, smiling vaguely.
+
+"In love," I repeated.
+
+"Yaas, Mars' Ormon'."
+
+"When?"
+
+"'Fore yo' know h'it, honey."
+
+"Tell me more."
+
+"'Spec' ah done tole yo' too much, honey." She looked at me steadily.
+"Pore Mars' Gawge," she murmured, "'spec' ah done tole yo' too much. But
+it sho' am a-comin', honey, an' h'it gwine come pow'ful sudden, an' h'it
+gwine mek yo' pow'ful sick."
+
+"Am I to win her?"
+
+"No, honey."
+
+"Is there no hope, Aunt Tulip?"
+
+She hesitated as though at fault; I felt the tenseness in my face once
+more; then, for one instant, I lost track of time; for presently I found
+myself standing in the hallway watching Sir Lupus through the open door
+of the gun-room, and Sir Lupus was very angry.
+
+"Dammy!" he roared, "am I to eat my plate? Cato! I want my porridge!"
+
+Confused, I stood blinking at him, and he at table, bibbed like a babe,
+mad as a hornet, hammering on the cloth with a great silver spoon and
+bellowing that they meant to starve him.
+
+"I don't remember how I came here," I began, then flushed furiously at
+my foolishness.
+
+"Remember!" he shouted. "I don't remember anything! I don't want to
+remember anything! I want my porridge! I want it now! Damnation!"
+
+Cato, hastening past me with the steaming dish, was received with a
+yelp. But at last Sir Lupus got his spoon into the mess and a portion of
+the mess into his mouth, and fell to gobbling and growling, paying me no
+further attention. So I closed the door of the gun-room on the great
+patroon and walked to the foot of the stairway.
+
+A figure in soft buckskins was descending--a blue-eyed, graceful youth
+who hailed me with a gesture.
+
+"Dorothy!" I said, fascinated.
+
+Her fringed hunting-shirt fell to her knees, the short shoulder-cape
+from throat to breast; gay fringe fluttered from shoulder to wrist, and
+from thigh to ankle; and her little scarlet-quilled moccasins went
+pat-patter-pat as she danced down the stairway and stood before me,
+sweeping her cap from her golden head in exaggerated salute.
+
+She seemed smaller in her boy's dress, fuller, too, and rounder of neck
+and limb; and the witchery of her beauty left me silent--a tribute she
+found delightful, for she blushed very prettily and bowed again in dumb
+acknowledgment of the homage all too evident in my eyes.
+
+Cato came with a dish of meat and a bottle of claret; and we sat down
+on the stairs, punishing bottle and platter till neither drop nor
+scrap remained.
+
+"Don't leave these dishes for Sir Lupus to fall over!" she cried to
+Cato, then sprang to her feet and was out of the door before I could
+move, whistling for our horses.
+
+As I came out the horses arrived, and I hastened forward to put her into
+her saddle, but she was up and astride ere I reached the ground, coolly
+gathering bridle and feeling with her soft leather toes for
+the stirrups.
+
+Astonished, for I had never seen a girl so mounted, I climbed to my
+saddle and wheeled my mare, following her out across the lawn, through
+the stockade and into the road, where I pushed my horse forward and
+ranged up beside her at a gallop, just as she reached the bridge.
+
+"See!" she cried, with a sweep of her arm, "there are the children down
+there fishing under the mill." And she waved her small cap of silver
+fox, calling in a clear, sweet voice the Indian cry of triumph, "Kôue!"
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+RIDING THE BOUNDS
+
+For the first half-mile our road lay over that same golden, hilly
+country, and through the same splendid forests which I had traversed on
+my way to the manor. Then we galloped past cultivated land, where
+clustered spears of Indian corn sprouted above the reddish golden soil,
+and sheep fed in stony pastures.
+
+Around the cabins of the tenantry, fields of oats and barley glimmered,
+thin blades pricking the loam, brilliant as splintered emeralds.
+
+A few dropping blossoms still starred the apple-trees, pears showed in
+tiny bunches, and once I saw a late peach-tree in full pink bloom and an
+old man hoeing the earth around it. He looked up as we galloped past,
+saluted sullenly, and leaned on his hoe, looking after us.
+
+Dorothy said he was a Palatine refugee and a rebel, like the majority of
+Sir Lupus's tenants; and I gazed curiously at these fields and cabins
+where gaunt men and gaunter women, laboring among their sprouting
+vegetables, turned sun-dazzled eyes to watch us as we clattered by;
+where ragged children, climbing on the stockades, called out to us in
+little, shrill voices; where feeding cattle lifted sober heads to stare;
+where lank, yellow dogs rushed out barking and snapping till a cut of
+the whip sent them scurrying back.
+
+Once a woman came to her gate and hailed us, asking if it was true that
+the troops had been withdrawn from Johnstown and Kingsborough.
+
+"Which troops?" I asked.
+
+"Ours," began the woman, then checked herself, and shot a suspicious
+glance at me.
+
+"The Provincials are still at Johnstown and Kingsborough," said Dorothy,
+gently.
+
+A gleam of relief softened the woman's haggard features. Then her face
+darkened again and she pointed at two barefooted children shrinking
+against the fence.
+
+"If my man and I were alone we would not be afraid of the Mohawks; but
+these--"
+
+She made a desperate gesture, and stood staring at the blue Mayfield
+hills where, perhaps at that moment, painted Mohawk scouts were watching
+the Sacandaga.
+
+"If your men remain quiet, Mrs. Schell, you need fear neither rebel,
+savage, nor Tory," said Dorothy. "The patroon will see that you have
+ample protection."
+
+Mrs. Schell gave her a helpless glance. "Did you not know that the
+district scout-call has gone out?" she asked.
+
+"Yes; but if the tenants of Sir Lupus obey it they do so at their
+peril," replied Dorothy, gravely. "The militia scouts of this district
+must not act hastily. Your husband would be mad to answer a call and
+leave you here alone."
+
+"What would you have him do?" muttered the woman.
+
+"Do?" repeated Dorothy. "He can do one thing or the other--join his
+regiment and take his family to the district fort, or stay at home and
+care for you and the farm. These alarms are all wrong--your men are
+either soldiers or farmers; they cannot be both unless they live close
+enough to the forts. Tell Mr. Schell that Francy McCraw and his riders
+are in the forest, and that the Brandt-Meester of Balston saw a Mohawk
+smoke-signal on the mountain behind Mayfield."
+
+The woman folded her bony arms in her apron, cast one tragic glance at
+her children, then faced us again, hollow-eyed but undaunted.
+
+"My man is with Stoner's scout," she said, with dull pride.
+
+"Then you must go to the block-house," began Dorothy, but the woman
+pointed to the fields, shaking her head.
+
+"We shall build a block-house here," she said, stubbornly. "We cannot
+leave our corn. We must eat, Mistress Varick. My man is too poor to be a
+Provincial soldier, too brave to refuse a militia call--"
+
+She choked, rubbed her eyes, and bent her stern gaze on the hills once
+more. Presently we rode on, and, turning in my saddle, I saw her
+standing as we had left her, gaunt, rigid, staring steadily at the
+dreaded heights in the northwest.
+
+As we galloped, cultivated fields and orchards became rarer; here and
+there, it is true, some cabin stood on a half-cleared hill-side, and we
+even passed one or two substantial houses on the flat ridge to the east,
+but long, solid stretches of forest intervened, and presently we left
+the highway and wheeled into a cool wood-road bordered on either side by
+the forest.
+
+"Here we find our first landmark," said Dorothy, drawing bridle.
+
+A white triangle glimmered, cut in the bark of an enormous pine; and my
+cousin rode up to the tree and patted the bark with her little hand. On
+the triangle somebody had cut a V and painted it black.
+
+"This is a boundary mark," said Dorothy. "The Mohawks claim the forest
+to the east; ride around and you will see their sign."
+
+I guided my horse around the huge, straight trunk. An oval blaze scarred
+it and on the wood was painted a red wolf.
+
+"It's the wolf-clan, Brant's own clan of the Mohawk nation," she called
+out to me. "Follow me, cousin." And she dashed off down the wood-road, I
+galloping behind, leaping windfalls, gullies, and the shallow forest
+brooks that crossed our way. The road narrowed to a trodden trail; the
+trail faded, marked at first by cut undergrowth, then only by the white
+scars on the tree-trunks.
+
+These my cousin followed, her horse at a canter, and I followed her,
+halting now and again to verify the white triangle on the solid flank of
+some forest giant, passing a sugar-bush with the shack still standing
+and the black embers of the fire scattered, until we came to a
+logging-road and turned into it, side by side. A well-defined path
+crossed this road at right angles, and Dorothy pointed it out. "The
+Iroquois trail," she said. "See how deeply it is worn--nearly ten inches
+deep--where the Five Nations have trodden it for centuries. Over it
+their hunting-parties pass, their scouts, their war-parties. It runs
+from the Kennyetto to the Sacandaga and north over the hills to
+the Canadas."
+
+We halted and looked down the empty, trodden trail, stretching away
+through the forest. Thousands and thousands of light, moccasined feet
+had worn it deep and patted it hard as a sheep-path. On what mission
+would the next Mohawk feet be speeding on that trail?
+
+"Those people at Fonda's Bush had best move to Johnstown," said Dorothy.
+"If the Mohawks strike, they will strike through here at Balston or
+Saratoga, or at the half-dozen families left at Fonda's Bush, which some
+of them call Broadalbin."
+
+"Have these poor wretches no one to warn them?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, they have been warned and warned, but they cling to their cabins as
+cats cling to soft cushions. The Palatines seem paralyzed with fear, the
+Dutch are too lazy to move in around the forts, the Scotch and English
+too obstinate. Nobody can do anything for them--you heard what that
+Schell woman said when I urged her to prudence."
+
+I bent my eyes on the ominous trail; its very emptiness fascinated me,
+and I dismounted and knelt to examine it where, near a dry, rotten log,
+some fresh marks showed.
+
+Behind me I heard Dorothy dismount, dropping to the ground lightly as a
+tree-lynx; the next moment she laid her hand on my shoulder and bent
+over where I was kneeling.
+
+"Can you read me that sign?" she asked, mischievously.
+
+"Something has rolled and squatted in the dry wood-dust--some bird, I
+think."
+
+"A good guess," she said; "a cock-partridge has dusted here; see those
+bits of down? I say a cock-bird because I know that log to be a
+drumming-log."
+
+She raised herself and guided her horse along the trail, bright eyes
+restlessly scanning ground and fringing underbrush.
+
+"Deer passed here--one--two--three--the third a buck--a three-year old,"
+she said, sinking her voice by instinct. "Yonder a tree-cat dug for a
+wood-mouse; your lynx is ever hanging about a drumming-log."
+
+I laid my hand on her arm and pointed to a fresh, green maple leaf lying
+beside the trail.
+
+"Ay," she murmured, "but it fell naturally, cousin. See; here it parted
+from the stalk, clean as a poplar twig, leaving the shiny cup unbruised.
+And nothing has passed here--this spider's web tells that, with a dead
+moth dangling from it, dead these three days, from its brittle shell."
+
+"I hear water," I said, and presently we came to it, where it hurried
+darkling across the trail.
+
+There were no human signs there; here a woodcock had peppered the mud
+with little holes, probing for worms; there a raccoon had picked his
+way; yonder a lynx had left the great padded mark of its foot, doubtless
+watching for yonder mink nosing us from the bank of the still
+pool below.
+
+Silently we mounted and rode out of the still Mohawk country; and I was
+not sorry to leave, for it seemed to me that there was something
+unfriendly in the intense stillness--something baleful in the silence;
+and I was glad presently to see an open road and a great tree marked
+with Sir Lupus's mark, the sun shining on the white triangle and the
+painted V.
+
+Entering a slashing where the logging-road passed, we moved on, side by
+side, talking in low tones. And my cousin taught me how to know these
+Northern trees by bark and leaf; how to know the shrubs new to me, like
+that strange plant whose root is like a human body and which the Chinese
+value at its weight in gold; and the aromatic root used in beer, and the
+bark of the sweet-birch whose twigs are golden-black.
+
+Now, though the birds and many of the beasts and trees were familiar to
+me in this Northern forest, yet I was constantly at fault, as I have
+said. Plumage and leaf and fur puzzled me; our gray rice-bird here wore
+a velvet livery of black and white and sang divinely, though with us he
+is mute as a mullet; many squirrels were striped with black and white;
+no rosy lichen glimmered on the tree-trunks; no pink-stemmed pines
+softened sombre forest depths; no great tiger-striped butterflies told
+me that the wild orange was growing near at hand; no whirring,
+olive-tinted moth signalled the hidden presence of the oleander. But I
+saw everywhere unfamiliar winged things, I heard unfamiliar bird-notes;
+new colors perplexed me, new shapes, nay, the very soil smelled foreign,
+and the water tasted savorless as the mist of pine barrens in February.
+
+Still, my Maker had set eyes in my head and given me a nose to sniff
+with; and I was learning every moment, tasting, smelling, touching,
+listening, asking questions unashamed; and my cousin Dorothy seemed
+never to tire in aiding me, nor did her eager delight and sympathy
+abate one jot.
+
+Dressed in full deer-skin as was I, she rode her horse astride with a
+grace as perfect as it was unstudied and unconscious, neither affecting
+the slothful carriage of our Southern saddle-masters nor the dragoons'
+rigid seat, but sat at ease, hollow-backed, loose-thighed, free-reined
+and free-stirruped.
+
+Her hair, gathered into a golden club at the nape of the neck, glittered
+in the sun, her eyes deepened like the violet depths of mid-heaven.
+Already the sun had lent her a delicate, creamy mask, golden on her
+temples where the hair grew paler; and I thought I had never seen such
+wholesome sweetness and beauty in any living being.
+
+We now rode through a vast flat land of willows, headed due north once
+more, and I saw a little river which twisted a hundred times upon itself
+like a stricken snake, winding its shimmering coils out and in through
+woodland, willow-flat, and reedy marsh.
+
+"The Kennyetto," said Dorothy, "flowing out of the great Vlaie to empty
+its waters close to its source after a circle of half a hundred miles.
+Yonder lies the Vlaie--it is that immense flat country of lake and marsh
+and forest which is wedged in just south of the mountain-gap where the
+last of the Adirondacks split into the Mayfield hills and the long, low
+spurs rolling away to the southeast. Sir William Johnson had a lodge
+there at Summer-house Point. Since his death Sir George Covert has
+leased it from Sir John. That is our trysting-place."
+
+To hear Sir George's name now vaguely disturbed me, yet I could not
+think why, for I admired and liked him. But at the bare mention of his
+name a dull uneasiness came over me and I turned impatiently to my
+cousin as though the irritation had come from her and she must
+explain it.
+
+"What is it?" she inquired, faintly smiling.
+
+"I asked no question," I muttered.
+
+"I thought you meant to speak, cousin."
+
+I had meant to say something. I did not know what.
+
+"You seem to know when I am about to speak," I said; "that is twice you
+have responded to my unasked questions."
+
+"I know it," she said, surprised and a trifle perplexed. "I seem to hear
+you when you are mute, and I turn to find you looking at me, as though
+you had asked me something."
+
+We rode on, thoughtful, silent, aware of a new and wordless intimacy.
+
+"It is pleasant to be with you," she said at last. "I have never before
+found untroubled contentment save when I am alone.... Everything that
+you see and think of on this ride I seem to see and think of, too, and
+know that you are observing with the same delight that I feel.... Nor
+does anything in the world disturb my happiness. Nor do you vex me with
+silence when I would have you speak; nor with speech when I ride
+dreaming--as I do, cousin, for hours and hours--not sadly, but in the
+sweetest peace--"
+
+Her voice died out like a June breeze; our horses, ear to ear moved on
+slowly in the fragrant silence.
+
+"To ride ... forever ... together," she mused, "looking with perfect
+content on all the world.... I teaching you, or you me; ... it's all one
+for the delight it gives to be alive and young.... And no trouble to
+await us, ... nothing malicious to do a harm to any living thing.... I
+could renounce Heaven for that.... Could you?"
+
+"Yes.... For less."
+
+"I know I ask too much; grief makes us purer, fitting us for the company
+of blessed souls. They say that even war may be a holy thing--though we
+are commanded otherwise.... Cousin, at moments a demon rises in me and I
+desire some forbidden thing so ardently, so passionately, that it seems
+as if I could fight a path through paradise itself to gain what I
+desire.... Do you feel so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it not consuming--terrible to be so shaken?... Yet I never gain my
+desire, for there in my path my own self rises to confront me, blocking
+my way. And I can never pass--never.... Once, in winter, our agent, Mr.
+Fonda, came driving a trained caribou to a sledge. A sweet, gentle
+thing, with dark, mild eyes, and I was mad to drive it--mad, cousin! But
+Sir Lupus learned that it had trodden and gored a man, and put me on my
+honor not to drive it. And all day Sir Lupus was away at Kingsborough
+for his rents and I free to drive the sledge, ... and I was mad to do
+it--and could not. And the pretty beast stabled with our horses, and
+every day I might have driven it.... I never did.... It hurts yet,
+cousin.... How strange is it that to us the single word, 'honor,' blocks
+the road and makes the King's own highway no thorough-fare forever!"
+
+She gathered bridle nervously, and we launched our horses through a
+willow fringe and away over a soft, sandy intervale, riding knee to knee
+till the wind whistled in our ears and the sand rose fountain high at
+every stride of our bounding horses.
+
+"Ah!" she sighed, drawing bridle. "That clears the heart of silly
+troubles. Was it not glorious? Like a plunge to the throat in an
+icy pool!"
+
+Her face, radiant, transfigured, was turned to the north, where,
+glittering under the westward sun, the sunny waters of the Vlaie
+sparkled between green reeds and rushes. Beyond, smoky blue mountains
+tumbled into two uneven walls, spread southeast and southwest, flanking
+the flat valley of the Vlaie.
+
+Thousands of blackbirds chattered and croaked and trilled and whistled
+in the reeds, flitting upward, with a flash of scarlet on their wings;
+hovering, dropping again amid a ceaseless chorus from the half-hidden
+flock. Over the marshes slow hawks sailed, rose, wheeled, and fell; the
+gray ducks, whose wings bear purple diamond-squares, quacked in the
+tussock ponds, guarded by their sentinels, the tall, blue herons.
+Everywhere the earth was sheeted with marsh-marigolds and violets.
+
+Across the distant grassy flat two deer moved, grazing. We rode to the
+east, skirting the marshes, following a trail made by cattle, until
+beyond the flats we saw the green roof of the pleasure-house which Sir
+William Johnson had built for himself. Our ride together was
+nearly ended.
+
+As at the same thought we tightened bridle and looked at each other
+gravely.
+
+"All rides end," I said.
+
+"Ay, like happiness."
+
+"Both may be renewed."
+
+"Until they end again."
+
+"Until they end forever."
+
+She clasped her bare hands on her horse's neck, sitting with bent head
+as though lost in sombre memories.
+
+"What ends forever might endure forever," I said.
+
+"Not our rides together," she murmured. "You must return to the South
+one day. I must wed.... Where shall we be this day a year hence?"
+
+"Very far apart, cousin."
+
+"Will you remember this ride?"
+
+"Yes," I said, troubled.
+
+"I will, too.... And I shall wonder what you are doing."
+
+"And I shall think of you," I said, soberly.
+
+"Will you write?"
+
+"Yes. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Silence fell between us like a shadow; then:
+
+"Yonder rides Sir George Covert," she said, listlessly.
+
+I saw him dismounting before his door, but said nothing.
+
+"Shall we move forward?" she asked, but did not stir a finger towards
+the bridle lying on her horse's neck.
+
+Another silence; and, impatiently:
+
+"I cannot bear to have you go," she said; "we are perfectly contented
+together--and I wish you to know all the thoughts I have touching on the
+world and on people. I cannot tell them to my father, nor to Ruyven--and
+Cecile is too young--"
+
+"There is Sir George," I said.
+
+"He! Why, I should never think of telling him of these thoughts that
+please or trouble or torment me!" she said, in frank surprise. "He
+neither cares for the things you care for nor thinks about them
+at all."
+
+"Perhaps he does. Ask him."
+
+"I have. He smiles and says nothing. I am afraid to tax his courtesy
+with babble of beast and bird and leaf and flower; and why one man is
+rich and another poor; and whether it is right that men should hold
+slaves; and why our Lord permits evil, having the power to end it for
+all time. I should like to know all these things," she said, earnestly.
+
+"But I do not know them, Dorothy."
+
+"Still, you think about them, and so do I. Sir Lupus says you have
+liberated your Greeks and sent them back. I want to know why. Then, too,
+though neither you nor I can know our Lord's purpose in enduring the
+evil that Satan plans, it is pleasant, I think, to ask each other."
+
+"To think together," I said, sadly.
+
+"Yes; that is it. Is it not a pleasure?"
+
+"Yes, Dorothy."
+
+"It does not matter that we fail to learn; it is the happiness in
+knowing that the other also cares to know, the delight in seaching for
+reason together. Cousin, I have so longed to say this to somebody; and
+until you came I never believed it possible.... I wish we were brother
+and sister! I wish you were Cecile, and I could be with you all day and
+all night.... At night, half asleep, I think of wonderful things to talk
+about, but I forget them by morning. Do you?"
+
+"Yes, cousin."
+
+"It is strange we are so alike!" she said, staring at me thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+HIDDEN FIRE
+
+After a few moments' silence we moved forward towards the
+pleasure-house, and we had scarcely started when down the road, from the
+north, came the patroon riding a powerful black horse, attended by old
+Cato mounted on a raw-boned hunter, and by one Peter Van Horn, the
+district Brandt-Meester, or fire-warden. As they halted at Sir George
+Covert's door, we rode up to join them at a gallop, and the patroon,
+seeing us far off, waved his hat at us in evident good humor.
+
+"Not a landmark missing!" he shouted, "and my signs all witnessed for
+record by Peter and Cato! How do the southwest landmarks stand?"
+
+"The tenth pine is blasted by lightning," said Dorothy, walking her
+beautiful gray to Sir Lupus's side.
+
+"Pooh! We've a dozen years to change trees," said Sir Lupus, in great
+content. "All's well everywhere, save at the Fish-House near the
+Sacandaga ford, where some impudent rascal says he saw smoke on the
+hills. He's doubtless a liar. Where's Sir George?"
+
+Sir George sauntered forth from the doorway where he had been standing,
+and begged us to dismount, but the patroon declined, saying that we had
+far to ride ere sundown, and that one of us should go around by
+Broadalbin. However, Dorothy and I slipped from our saddles to stretch
+our legs while a servant brought stirrup-cups and Sir George gathered a
+spray of late lilac which my cousin fastened to her leather belt.
+
+"Tory lilacs," said Sir George, slyly; "these bushes came from cuttings
+of those Sir William planted at Johnson Hall."
+
+"If Sir William planted them, a rebel may wear them," replied Dorothy,
+gayly.
+
+"Ay, it's that whelp, Sir John, who has marred what the great baronet
+left as his monument," growled old Peter Van Horn.
+
+"That's treason!" snapped the patroon. "Stop it. I won't have politics
+talked in my presence, no! Dammy, Peter, hold your tongue, sir!"
+
+Dorothy, wearing the lilac spray, vaulted lightly into her saddle, and I
+mounted my mare. Stirrup-cups were filled and passed up to us, and we
+drained a cooled measure of spiced claret to the master of the
+pleasure-house, who pledged us gracefully in return, and then stood by
+Dorothy's horse, chatting and laughing until, at a sign from Sir Lupus,
+Cato sounded "Afoot!" on his curly hunting-horn, and the patroon wheeled
+his big horse out into the road, with a whip-salute to our host.
+
+"Dine with us to-night!" he bawled, without turning his fat head or
+waiting for a reply, and hammered away in a torrent of dust. Sir George
+glanced wistfully at Dorothy.
+
+"There's a district officer-call gone out," he said. "Some of the
+Palatine officers desire my presence. I cannot refuse. So ... it is
+good-bye for a week."
+
+"Are you a militia officer?" I asked, curiously.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a humorous grimace. "May I say that you also are a
+candidate?"
+
+Dorothy turned squarely in her saddle and looked me in the eyes.
+
+"At the district's service, Sir George," I said, lightly.
+
+"Ha! That is well done, Ormond!" he exclaimed. "Nothing yet to
+inconvenience you, but our Governor Clinton may send you a billet doux
+from Albany before May ends and June begins--if this periwigged beau,
+St. Leger, strolls out to ogle Stanwix--"
+
+Dorothy turned her horse sharply, saluted Sir George, and galloped away
+towards her father, who had halted at the cross-roads to wait for us.
+
+"Good-bye, Sir George," I said, offering my hand. He took it in a firm,
+steady clasp.
+
+"A safe journey, Ormond. I trust fortune may see fit to throw us
+together in this coming campaign."
+
+I bowed, turned bridle, and cantered off, leaving him standing in the
+road before his gayly painted pleasure-house, an empty wine-cup in
+his hand.
+
+"Damnation, George!" bawled Sir Lupus, as I rode up, "have we all day to
+stand nosing one another and trading gossip! Some of us must ride by
+Fonda's Bush, or Broadalbin, whatever the Scotch loons call it; and I'll
+say plainly that I have no stomach for it; I want my dinner!"
+
+"It will give me pleasure to go," said I, "but I require a guide."
+
+"Peter shall ride with you," began Sir Lupus; but Dorothy broke in,
+impatiently:
+
+"He need not. I shall guide Mr. Ormond to Broadalbin."
+
+"Oh no, you won't!" snapped the patroon; "you've done enough of
+forest-running for one day. Peter, pilot Mr. Ormond to the Bush."
+
+And he galloped on ahead, followed by Cato and Peter; so that, by reason
+of their dust, which we did not choose to choke in, Dorothy and I
+slackened our pace and fell behind.
+
+"Do you know why you are to pass by Broadalbin?" she asked, presently.
+
+I said I did not.
+
+"Folk at the Fish-House saw smoke on the Mayfield hills an hour since.
+That is twice in three days!"
+
+"Well," said I, "what of that?"
+
+"It is best that the Broadalbin settlement should hear of it."
+
+"Do you mean that it may have been an Indian signal?"
+
+"It may have been. I did not see it--the forest cut our view."
+
+The westering sun, shining over the Mayfield hills, turned the dust to
+golden fog. Through it Cato's red coat glimmered, and the hunting-horn,
+curving up over his bent back, struck out streams of blinding sparks.
+Brass buttons on the patroon's broad coat-skirts twinkled like yellow
+stars, and the spurs flashed on his quarter-gaiters as he pounded along
+at a solid hand-gallop, hat crammed over his fat ears, pig-tail
+a-bristle, and the blue coat on his enormous body white with dust.
+
+In the renewed melody of the song-birds there was a hint of approaching
+evening; shadows lengthened; the sunlight grew redder on the dusty road.
+
+"The Broadalbin trail swings into the forest just ahead," said Dorothy,
+pointing with her whip-stock. "See, there where they are drawing bridle.
+But I mean to ride with you, nevertheless.... And I'll do it!"
+
+The patroon was waiting for us when we came to the weather-beaten
+finger-post:
+
+     "FONDA'S BUSH
+     4 MILES."
+
+And Peter Van Horn had already ridden into the broad, soft wood-road,
+when Dorothy, swinging her horse past him at a gallop, cried out, "I
+want to go with them! Please let me!" And was gone like a deer, tearing
+away down the leafy trail.
+
+"Come back!" roared Sir Lupus, standing straight up in his ponderous
+stirrups. "Come back, you little vixen! Am I to be obeyed, or am I not?
+Baggage! Undutiful tree-cat! Dammy, she's off!"
+
+He looked at me and smote his fat thigh with open hand.
+
+"Did you ever see the like of her!" he chuckled, in his pride. "She's a
+Dutch Varick for obstinacy, but the rest is Ormond--all Ormond. Ride on,
+George, and tell those rebel fools at Fonda's Bush that they should be
+hunting cover in the forts if folk at the Fish-House read that smoke
+aright. Follow the Brandt-Meester if Dorothy slips you, and tell her
+I'll birch her, big as she is, if she's not home by the new moon rise."
+
+Then he dragged his hat over his mottled ears, grasped the bridle and
+galloped on, followed by old Cato and his red coat and curly horn.
+
+I had ridden a cautious mile on the dim, leafy trail ere I picked up Van
+Horn, only to quit him. I had ridden full three before I caught sight of
+Dorothy, sitting her gray horse, head at gaze in my direction.
+
+"What in the world set you tearing off through the forest like that?" I
+asked, laughing.
+
+She turned her horse and we walked on, side by side.
+
+"I wished to come," she said, simply. "The pleasures of this day must
+end only with the night. Besides, I was burning to ask you if it is true
+that you mean to stay here and serve with our militia?"
+
+"I mean to stay," I said, slowly.
+
+"And serve?"
+
+"If they desire it."
+
+"Why?" she asked, raising her bright eyes.
+
+I thought a moment, then said:
+
+"I have decided to resist our King's soldiers."
+
+"But why here?" she repeated, clear eyes still on mine. "Tell me the
+truth."
+
+"I think it is because you are here," I said, soberly.
+
+The loveliest smile parted her lips.
+
+"I hoped you would say that.... Do I please you? Listen, cousin: I have
+a mad impulse to follow you--to be hindered rages me beyond
+endurance--as when Sir Lupus called me back. For, within the past hour
+the strangest fancy has possessed me that we have little time left to be
+together; that I should not let one moment slip to enjoy you."
+
+"Foolish prophetess," I said, striving to laugh.
+
+"A prophetess?" she repeated under her breath. And, as we rode on
+through the forest dusk, her head drooped thoughtfully, shaded by her
+loosened hair. At last she looked up dreamily, musing aloud:
+
+"No prophetess, cousin; only a child, nerveless and over-fretted with
+too much pleasure, tired out with excitement, having played too hard. I
+do not know quite how I should conduct. I am unaccustomed to comrades
+like you, cousin; and, in the untasted delights of such companionship,
+have run wild till my head swims wi' the humming thoughts you stir in
+me, and I long for a dark, still room and a bed to lie on, and think of
+this day's pleasures."
+
+After a silence, broken only by our horses treading the moist earth: "I
+have been starving for this companionship.... I was parched!... Cousin,
+have you let me drink too deeply? Have you been too kind? Why am I in
+this new terror lest you--lest you tire of me and my silly speech? Oh, I
+know my thoughts have been too long pent! I could talk to you forever! I
+could ride with you till I died! I am like a caged thing loosed, I tell
+you--for I may tell you, may I not, cousin?"
+
+"Tell me all you think, Dorothy."
+
+"I could tell you all--everything! I never had a thought that I do not
+desire you to know, ... save one.... And that I do desire to tell
+you ... but cannot.... Cousin, why did you name your mare Isene?"
+
+"An Indian girl in Florida bore that name; the Seminoles called her
+Issena."
+
+"And so you named your mare from her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Was she your friend--that you named your mare from her?"
+
+"She lived a century ago--a princess. She wedded with a Huguenot."
+
+"Oh," said Dorothy, "I thought she was perhaps your sweetheart."
+
+"I have none."
+
+"You never had one?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+I turned in my saddle.
+
+"Why have you never had a gallant?"
+
+"Oh, that is not the same. Men fall in love--or protest as much. And at
+wine they boast of their good fortunes, swearing each that his mistress
+is the fairest, and bragging till I yawn to listen.... And yet you say
+you never had a sweetheart?"
+
+"Neither titled nor untitled, cousin. And, if I had, at home we never
+speak of it, deeming it a breach of honor."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For shame, I suppose."
+
+"Is it shameless to speak as I do?" she asked.
+
+"Not to me, Dorothy. I wish you might be spared all that unlicensed
+gossip that you hear at table--not that it could harm such innocence as
+yours! For, on my honor, I never knew a woman such as you, nor a maid
+so nobly fashioned!"
+
+I stopped, meeting her wide eyes.
+
+"Say it," she murmured. "It is happiness to hear you."
+
+"Then hear me," I said, slowly. "Loyalty, devotion, tenderness, all are
+your due; not alone for the fair body that holds your soul imprisoned,
+but for the pure tenant that dwells in it so sweetly behind the blue
+windows of your eyes! Dorothy! Dorothy! Have I said too much? Yet I beg
+that you remember it, lest you forget me when I have gone from you....
+And say to Sir George that I said it.... Tell him after you are wedded,
+and say that all men envy him, yet wish him well. For the day he weds he
+weds the noblest woman in all the confines of this earth!"
+
+Dazed, she stared at me through the fading light; and I saw her eyes all
+wet in the shadow of her tangled hair and the pulse beating in
+her throat.
+
+"You are so good--so pitiful," she said; "and I cannot even find the
+words to tell you of those deep thoughts you stir in me--to tell you how
+sweetly you use me--"
+
+"Tell me no more," I stammered, all a-quiver at her voice. She shrank
+back as at a blow, and I, head swimming, frighted, penitent, caught her
+small hand in mine and drew her nearer; nor could I speak for the loud
+beating of my heart.
+
+"What is it?" she murmured. "Have I pained you that you tremble so? Look
+at me, cousin. I can scarce see you in the dusk. Have I hurt you? I love
+you dearly."
+
+Her horse moved nearer, our knees touched. In the forest darkness I
+found I held her waist imprisoned, and her arms were heavy on my
+shoulders. Then her lips yielded and her arms tightened around my neck,
+and that swift embrace in the swimming darkness kindled in me a flame
+that has never died--that shall live when this poor body crumbles into
+dust, lighting my soul through its last dark pilgrimage.
+
+As for her, she sat up in her saddle with a strange little laugh, still
+holding to my hand. "Oh, you are divine in all you lead me to," she
+whispered. "Never, never have I known delight in a kiss; and I have been
+kissed, too, willing and against my will. But you leave me breathing my
+heart out and all a-tremble with a tenderness for you--no, not again,
+cousin, not yet."
+
+Then slowly the full wretchedness of guilt burned me, bone and soul, and
+what I had done seemed a black evil to a maid betrothed, and to the man
+whose wine had quenched my thirst an hour since.
+
+Something of my thoughts she may have read in my bent head and face
+averted, for she leaned forward in her saddle, and drawing me by the
+arm, turned me partly towards her.
+
+"What troubles you?" she said, anxiously.
+
+"My treason to Sir George."
+
+"What treason?" she said, amazed.
+
+"That I--caressed you."
+
+She laughed outright.
+
+"Am I not free-until I wed? Do you imagine I should have signed my
+liberty away to please Sir George? Why, cousin, if I may not caress whom
+I choose and find a pleasure in the way you use me, I am no better than
+the winter log he buys to toast his shins at!"
+
+Then she grew angry in her impatience, slapping her bridle down to range
+her horse up closer to mine.
+
+"Am I not to wed him?" she said. "Is not that enough? And I told him so,
+flatly, I warrant you, when Captain Campbell kissed me on the
+porch--which maddened me, for he was not to my fancy--but Sir George
+saw him and there was like to be a silly scene until I made it plain
+that I would endure no bonds before I wore a wedding-ring!" She laughed
+deliciously. "I think he understands now that I am not yoked until I
+bend my neck. And until I bend it I am free. So if I please you, kiss
+me, ... but leave me a little breath to draw, cousin, ... and a saddle
+to cling to.... Now loose me--for the forest ends!"
+
+[Illustration: "NOW LOOSE ME--FOR THE FOREST ENDS!".]
+
+A faint red light grew in the woodland gloom; a rushing noise like
+swiftly flowing water filled my ears--or was it the blood that surged
+singing through my heart?
+
+"Broadalbin Bush," she murmured, clearing her eyes of the clouded hair
+and feeling for her stirrups with small, moccasined toes. "Hark! Now we
+hear the Kennyetto roaring below the hill. See, cousin, it is sunset,
+the west blazes, all heaven is afire! Ah! what sorcery has turned the
+world to paradise--riding this day with you?"
+
+She turned in her saddle with an exquisite gesture, pressed her
+outstretched hand against my lips, then, gathering bridle, launched her
+horse straight through the underbrush, out into a pasture where, across
+a naked hill, a few log-houses reddened in the sunset.
+
+There hung in the air a smell of sweetbrier as we drew bridle before a
+cabin under the hill. I leaned over and plucked a handful of the leaves,
+bruising them in my palm to savor the spicy perfume.
+
+A man came to the door of the cabin and stared at us; a tap-room
+sluggard, a-sunning on the west fence-rail, chewed his cud solemnly and
+watched us with watery eyes.
+
+"Andrew Bowman, have you seen aught to fright folk on the mountain?"
+asked Dorothy, gravely.
+
+The man in the doorway shook his head. From the cabins near by a few
+men and women trooped out into the road and hastened towards us. One of
+the houses bore a bush, and I saw two men peering at us through the open
+window, pewters in hand.
+
+"Good people," said Dorothy, quietly, "the patroon sends you word of a
+strange smoke seen this day in the hills."
+
+"There's smoke there now," I said, pointing into the sunset.
+
+At that moment Peter Van Horn galloped up, halted, and turned his head,
+following the direction of my outstretched arm. Others came, blinking
+into the ruddy evening glow, craning their necks to see, and from the
+wretched tavern a lank lout stumbled forth, rifle shouldered, pewter
+a-slop, to learn the news that had brought us hither at that hour.
+
+"It is mist," said a woman; but her voice trembled as she said it.
+
+"It is smoke," growled Van Horn. "Read it, you who can."
+
+Whereat the fellow in the tavern window fell a-laughing and called down
+to his companion: "Francy McCraw! Francy McCraw! The Brandt-Meester says
+a Mohawk fire burns in the north!"
+
+"I hear him," cried McCraw, draining his pewter.
+
+Dorothy turned sharply. "Oh, is that you, McCraw? What brings you to the
+Bush?"
+
+The lank fellow turned his wild, blue eyes on her, then gazed at the
+smoke. Some of the men scowled at him.
+
+"Is that smoke?" I asked, sharply. "Answer me, McCraw!"
+
+"A canna' deny it," he said, with a mad chuckle.
+
+"Is it Indian smoke?" demanded Van Horn.
+
+"Aweel," he replied, craning his skinny neck and cocking his head
+impudently--"aweel, a'll admit that, too. It's Indian smoke; a canna
+deny it, no."
+
+"Is it a Mohawk signal?" I asked, bluntly.
+
+At which he burst out into a crowing laugh.
+
+"What does he say?" called out the man from the tavern. "What does he
+say, Francy McCraw?"
+
+"He says it maun be Mohawk smoke, Danny Redstock."
+
+"And what if it is?" blustered Redstock, shouldering his way to McCraw,
+rifle in hand. "Keep your black looks for your neighbors, Andrew Bowman.
+What have we to do with your Mohawk fires?"
+
+"Herman Salisbury!" cried Bowman to a neighbor, "do you hear what this
+Tory renegade says?"
+
+"Quiet! Quiet, there," said Redstock, swaggering out into the road.
+"Francy McCraw, our good neighbors are woful perplexed by that thread o'
+birch smoke yonder."
+
+"Then tell the feckless fools tae watch it!" screamed McCraw, seizing
+his rifle and menacing the little throng of men and women who had closed
+swiftly in on him. "Hands off me, Johnny Putnam--back, for your life,
+Charley Cady! Ay, stare at the smoke till ye're eyes drop frae th'
+sockets! But no; there's some foulk 'ill tak' nae warnin'!"
+
+He backed off down the road, followed by Redstock, rifles cocked.
+
+"An' ye'll bear me out," he shouted, "that there's them wha' hear these
+words now shall meet their weirds ere a hunter's moon is wasted!"
+
+He laughed his insane laugh and, throwing his rifle over his shoulder,
+halted, facing us.
+
+"Hae ye no heard o' Catrine Montour?" he jeered. "She'll come in the
+night, Andrew Bowman! Losh, mon, but she's a grewsome carlin', wi' the
+witch-locks hangin' to her neck an' her twa een blazin'!"
+
+"You drive us out to-night!" shouted Redstock. "We'll remember it when
+Brant is in the hills!"
+
+"The wolf-yelp! Clan o' the wolf!" screamed McCraw. "Woe! Woe to
+Broadalbane! 'Tis the pibroch o' Glencoe shall wake ye to the woods
+afire! Be warned! Be warned, for ye stand knee-deep in ye're shrouds!"
+
+In the ruddy dusk their dark forms turned to shadows and were gone.
+
+Van Horn stirred in his saddle, then shook his shoulders as though
+freeing them from a weight.
+
+"Now you have it, you Broadalbin men," he said, grimly. "Go to the forts
+while there's time."
+
+In the darkness around us children began to whimper; a woman broke down,
+sobbing.
+
+"Silence!" cried Bowman, sternly. And to Dorothy, who sat quietly on her
+horse beside him, "Say to the patroon that we know our enemies. And you,
+Peter Van Horn, on whichever side you stand, we men of the Bush thank
+you and this young lady for your coming."
+
+And that was all. In silence we wheeled our horses northward, Van Horn
+riding ahead, and passed out of that dim hamlet which lay already in the
+shadows of an unknown terror.
+
+Behind us, as we looked back, one or two candles flickered in cabin
+windows, pitiful, dim lights in the vast, dark ocean of the forest.
+Above us the stars grew clearer. A vesper-sparrow sang its pensive song.
+Tranquil, sweet, the serene notes floated into silver echoes
+never-ending, till it seemed as if the starlight all around us quivered
+into song.
+
+I touched Dorothy, riding beside me, white as a spirit in the pale
+radiance, and she turned her sweet, fearless face to mine.
+
+"There is a sound," I whispered, "very far away."
+
+She laid her hand in mine and drew bridle, listening. Van Horn, too, had
+halted.
+
+Far in the forest the sound stirred the silence; soft, stealthy, nearer,
+nearer, till it grew into a patter. Suddenly Van Horn's horse reared.
+
+"It's there! it's there!" he cried, hoarsely, as our horses swung round
+in terror.
+
+"Look!" muttered Dorothy.
+
+Then a thing occurred that stopped my heart's blood. For straight
+through the forest came running a dark shape, a squattering thing that
+passed us ere we could draw breath to shriek; animal, human, or spirit,
+I knew not, but it ran on, thuddy-thud, thuddy-thud! and we struggling
+with our frantic horses to master them ere they dashed us lifeless among
+the trees.
+
+"Jesu!" gasped Van Horn, dragging his powerful horse back into the road.
+"Can you make aught o' yonder fearsome thing, like a wart-toad
+scrabbling on two legs?"
+
+Dorothy, teeth set, drove her heels into her gray's ribs and forced him
+to where my mare stood all a-quiver.
+
+"It's a thing from hell," panted Van Horn, fighting knee and wrist with
+his roan. "My nag shies at neither bear nor wolf! Look at him now!"
+
+"Nor mine at anything save a savage," said I, fearfully peering behind
+me while my mare trembled under me.
+
+"I think we have seen a savage, that is all," fell Dorothy's calm voice.
+"I think we have seen Catrine Montour."
+
+At the name, Van Horn swore steadily.
+
+"If that be the witch Montour, she runs like a clansman with the fiery
+cross," I said, shuddering.
+
+"And that is like to be her business," muttered Van Horn. "The painted
+forest-men are in the hills, and if Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas do
+not know it this night, it will be no fault of Catrine Montour."
+
+"Ride on, Peter," said Dorothy, and checked her horse till my mare came
+abreast.
+
+"Are you afraid?" I whispered.
+
+"Afraid? No!" she said, astonished. "What should arouse fear in me?"
+
+"Your common-sense!" I said, impatiently, irritated to rudeness by the
+shocking and unearthly spectacle which had nigh unnerved me. But she
+answered very sweetly:
+
+"If I fear nothing, it is because there is nothing that I know of in the
+world to fright me. I remember," she added, gravely, "'A thousand shall
+fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand. And it shall not come
+nigh me.' How can I fear, believing that?"
+
+She leaned from her saddle and I saw her eyes searching my face in the
+darkness.
+
+"Silly," she said, tenderly, "I have no fear save that you should prove
+unkind."
+
+"Then give yourself to me, Dorothy," I said, holding her imprisoned.
+
+"How can I? You have me."
+
+"I mean forever."
+
+"But I have."
+
+"I mean in wedlock!" I whispered, fiercely.
+
+"How can I, silly--I am promised!"
+
+"Can I not stir you to love me?" I said.
+
+"To love you?... Better than I do?... You may try."
+
+"Then wed me!"
+
+"If I were wed to you would I love you better than I do?" she asked.
+
+"Dorothy, Dorothy," I begged, holding her fast, "wed me; I love you."
+
+She swayed back into her saddle, breaking my clasp.
+
+"You know I cannot," she said.... Then, almost tenderly: "Do you truly
+desire it? It is so dear to hear you say it--and I have heard the words
+often enough, too, but never as you say them.... Had you asked me in
+December, ere I was in honor bound.... But I am promised; ... only a
+word, but it holds me like a chain.... Dear lad, forget it.... Use me
+kindly.... Teach me to love, ... an unresisting pupil, ... for all life
+is too short for me to learn in, ... alas!... God guard us both from
+love's unhappiness and grant us only its sweetness--which you have
+taught me; to which I am--I am awaking, ... after all these years, ...
+after all these years without you.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps it were kinder to let me sleep.... I am but half awake to love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Is it best to wake me, after all? Is it too late?... Draw bridle in the
+starlight. Look at me.... It is too late, for I shall never
+sleep again."
+
+
+
+X
+
+TWO LESSONS
+
+For two whole days I did not see my cousin Dorothy, she lying abed with
+hot and aching head, and the blinds drawn to keep out all light. So I
+had time to consider what we had said and done, and to what we stood
+committed.
+
+Yet, with time heavy on my hands and full leisure to think, I could make
+nothing of those swift, fevered hours together, nor what had happened to
+us that the last moments should have found us in each other's arms, her
+tear-stained eyes closed, her lips crushed to mine. For, within that
+same hour, at table, she told Sir Lupus to my very face that she desired
+to wed Sir George as soon as might be, and would be content with nothing
+save that Sir Lupus despatch a messenger to the pleasure house, bidding
+Sir George dispose of his affairs so that the marriage fall within the
+first three days of June.
+
+I could not doubt my own ears, yet could scarce credit my shocked senses
+to hear her; and I had sat there, now hot with anger, now in cold
+amazement; not touching food save with an effort that cost me all my
+self-command.
+
+As for Sir Lupus, his astonishment and delight disgusted me, for he fell
+a-blubbering in his joy, loading his daughter with caresses, breaking
+out into praises of her, lauding above all her filial gratitude and her
+constancy to Sir George, whom he also larded and smeared with
+compliments till his eulogium, buttered all too thick for my weakened
+stomach, drove me from the table to pace the dark porch and strive to
+reconcile all these warring memories a-battle in my swimming brain.
+
+What demon possessed her to throw away time, when time was our most
+precious ally, our only hope! With time--if she truly loved me--what
+might not be done? And here, too, was another ally swiftly coming to our
+aid on Time's own wings--the war!--whose far breath already fanned the
+Mohawk smoke on the northern hills! And still another friendly ally
+stood to aid us--absence! For, with Sir George away, plunged into new
+scenes, new hopes, new ambitions, he might well change in his
+affections. An officer, and a successful one, rising higher every day in
+the esteem of his countrymen, should find all paths open, all doors
+unlocked, and a gracious welcome among those great folk of New York
+city, whose princely mode of living might not only be justified, but
+even titled under a new régime and a new monarchy.
+
+These were the half-formed, maddened thoughts that went a-racing through
+my mind as I paced the porch that night; and I think they were, perhaps,
+the most unworthy thoughts that ever tempted me. For I hated Sir George
+and wished him a quick flight to immortality unless he changed in his
+desire for wedlock with my cousin.
+
+Gnawing my lips in growing rage I saw the messenger for the pleasure
+house mount and gallop out of the stockade, and I wished him evil chance
+and a fall to dash his senses out ere he rode up with his cursed message
+to Sir George's door.
+
+Passion blinded and deafened me to all whispers of decency; conscience
+lay stunned within me, and I think I know now what black obsession
+drives men's bodies into murder and their souls to punishments eternal.
+
+Quivering from head to heel, now hot, now cold, and strangling with the
+fierce desire for her whom I was losing more hopelessly every moment, I
+started aimlessly through the starlight, pacing the stockade like a
+caged beast, and I thought my swelling heart would choke me if it broke
+not to ease my breath.
+
+So this was love! A ghastly thing, God wot, to transform an honest man,
+changing and twisting right and wrong until the threads of decency and
+duty hung too hopelessly entangled for him to follow or untwine. Only
+one thing could I see or understand: I desired her whom I loved and was
+now fast losing forever.
+
+Chance and circumstance had enmeshed me; in vain I struggled in the net
+of fate, bruised, stunned, confused with grief and this new fire of
+passion which had flashed up around me until I had inhaled the flames
+and must forever bear their scars within as long as my seared heart
+could pulse.
+
+As I stood there under the dim trees, dumb, miserable, straining my ears
+for the messenger's return, came my cousin Dorothy in the pale, flowered
+gown she wore at supper, and ere she perceived me I saw her searching
+for me, treading the new grass without a sound, one hand pressed to her
+parted lips.
+
+When she saw me she stood still, and her hands fell loosely to her side.
+
+"Cousin," she said, in a faint voice.
+
+And, as I did not answer, she stepped nearer till I could see her blue
+eyes searching mine.
+
+"What have you done!" I cried, harshly.
+
+"I do not know," she said.
+
+"I know," I retorted, fiercely. "Time was all we had--a few poor
+hours--a day or two together. And with time there was chance, and with
+chance, hope. You have killed all three!"
+
+"No; ... there was no chance; there is no longer any time; there never
+was any hope."
+
+"There was hope!" I said, bitterly.
+
+"No, there was none," she murmured.
+
+"Then why did you tell me that you were free till the yoke locked you to
+him? Why did you desire to love? Why did you bid me teach you? Why did
+you consent to my lips, my arms? Why did you awake me?"
+
+"God knows," she said, faintly.
+
+"Is that your defence?" I asked. "Have you no defence?"
+
+"None.... I had never loved.... I found you kind and I had known no man
+like you.... Every moment with you entranced me till, ... I don't know
+why, ... that sweet madness came upon ... us ... which can never come
+again--which must never come.... Forgive me. I did not understand. Love
+was a word to me."
+
+"Dorothy, Dorothy, what have I done!" I stammered.
+
+"Not you, but I, ... and now it is plain to me why, unwedded, I stand
+yoked together with my honor, and you stand apart, fettered to yours....
+We have shaken our chains in play, the links still hold firm and bright;
+but if we break them, then, as they snap, our honor dies forever. For
+what I have done in idle ignorance forgive me, and leave me to my
+penance, ... which must last for all my life, cousin.... And you will
+forget.... Hush! dearest lad, and let me speak. Well, then I will say
+that I pray you may forget! Well, then I will not say that to grieve
+you.... I wish you to remember--yet not know the pain that I--"
+
+"Dorothy, Dorothy, do you still love me?"
+
+"Oh, I do love you!... No, no! I ask you to spare me even the touch of
+your hand! I ask it, I beg you to spare me! I implore--Be a shield to
+me! Aid me, cousin. I ask it for the Ormond honor and for the honor of
+the roof that shelters us both!... Now do you understand?... Oh, I
+knew you to be all that I adore and worship!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our fault was in our ignorance. How could we know of that hidden fire
+within us, stirring its chilled embers in all innocence until the flames
+flashed out and clothed us both in glory, cousin? Heed me, lest it turn
+to flames of hell!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, dear lad, lest you should deem me mad to cut short the happy
+time we had to hope for, I must tell you what I have never told before.
+All that we have in all the world is by charity of Sir George. He stood
+in the breach when the Cosby heirs made ready to foreclose on father; he
+held off the Van Rensselaers; he threw the sop to Billy Livingston and
+to that great villain, Klock. To-day, unsecured, his loans to my father,
+still unpaid, have nigh beggared him. And the little he has he is about
+to risk in this war whose tides are creeping on us through this
+very night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And when he honored me by asking me in marriage, I, knowing all this,
+knowing all his goodness and his generosity--though he was not aware I
+knew it--I was thankful to say yes--deeming it little enough to please
+him--and I not knowing what love meant--"
+
+Her soft voice broke; she laid her hands on her eyes, and stood so,
+speaking blindly. "What can I do, cousin? What can I do? Tell me! I love
+you. Tell me, use me kindly; teach me to do right and keep my honor
+bright as you could desire it were I to be your wife!"
+
+It was that appeal, I think, that brought me back through the distorted
+shadows of my passion; through the dark pit of envy, past snares of
+jealousy and malice, and the traps and pitfalls dug by Satan, safe to
+the trembling rock of honor once again.
+
+Like a blind man healed by miracle, yet still groping in the precious
+light that mazed him, so I peering with aching eyes for those threads to
+guide me in my stunned perplexity. But when at last I felt their touch,
+I found I held one already--the thread of hope--and whether for good or
+evil I did not drop it, but gathered all together and wove them to a
+rope to hold by.
+
+"What is it I must swear," I asked, cold to the knees.
+
+"Never again to kiss me."
+
+"Never again."
+
+"Nor to caress me."
+
+"Nor to caress you."
+
+"Nor speak of love."
+
+"Nor speak of love."
+
+"And ... that is all," she faltered.
+
+"No, not all. I swear to love you always, never to forget you, never to
+prove unworthy in your eyes, never to wed; living, to honor you; dying,
+with your name upon my lips."
+
+She had stretched out her arms towards me as though warning me to stop;
+but, as I spoke slowly, weighing each word and its cost, her hands
+trembled and sought each other so that she stood looking at me, fingers
+interlocked and her sweet face as white as death.
+
+And after a long time she came to me, and, raising my hands, kissed
+them; and I touched her hair with dumb lips; and she stole away through
+the starlight like a white ghost returning to its tomb.
+
+And long after, long, long after, as I stood there, broke on my wrapt
+ears the far stroke of horse's hoofs, nearer, nearer, until the black
+bulk of the rider rose up in the night and Sir Lupus came to the porch.
+
+"Eh! What?" he cried. "Sir George away with the Palatine rebels? Where?
+Gone to Stanwix? Now Heaven have mercy on him for a madman who mixes in
+this devil's brew! And he'll drown me with him, too! Dammy, they'll say
+that I'm in with him. But I'm not! Curse me if I am. I'm
+neutral--neither rebel nor Tory--and I'll let 'em know it, too; only
+desiring quiet and peace and a fair word for all. Damnation!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so had ended that memorable day and night; and now for two whole
+wretched days I had not seen Dorothy, nor heard of her save through
+Ruyven, who brought us news that she lay on her bed in the dark with no
+desire for company.
+
+"There is a doctor at Johnstown," he said; "but Dorothy refuses, saying
+that she is only tired and requires peace and rest. I don't like it,
+Cousin George. Never have I seen her ill, nor has any one. Suppose you
+look at her, will you?"
+
+"If she will permit me," I said, slowly. "Ask her, Ruyven."
+
+But he returned, shaking his head, and I sat down once more upon the
+porch to think of her and of all I loved in her; and how I must strive
+to fashion my life so that I do naught that might shame me should
+she know.
+
+Now that it was believed that factional bickering between the
+inhabitants of Tryon County might lead, in the immediate future, to
+something more serious than town brawls and tavern squabbles; and,
+more-over, as the Iroquois agitation had already resulted in the
+withdrawal to Fort Niagara of the main body of the Mohawk nation--for
+what ominous purpose it might be easy to guess--Sir Lupus forbade the
+children to go a-roaming outside his own boundaries.
+
+Further, he had cautioned his servants and tenants not to rove out of
+bounds, to avoid public houses like the "Turtle-dove and Olive," and to
+refrain from busying themselves about matters in which they had
+no concern.
+
+Yet that very day, spite of the patroon's orders, when General
+Schuyler's militia-call went out, one-half of his tenantry disappeared
+overnight, abandoning everything save their live-stock and a rough cart
+heaped with household furniture; journeying with women and children,
+goods and chattels, towards the nearest block-house or fort, there to
+deposit all except powder-horn, flint, and rifle, and join the district
+regiment now laboring with pick and shovel on the works at Fort Stanwix.
+
+As I sat there on the porch, wretched, restless, debating what course I
+should take in the presence of this growing disorder which, as I have
+said, had already invaded our own tenantry, came Sir Lupus a-waddling,
+pipe in hand, and Cato bearing his huge chair so he might sit in the
+sun, which was warm on the porch.
+
+"You've heard what my tenant rascals have done?" he grunted, settling in
+his chair and stretching his fat legs.
+
+"Yes, sir," I said.
+
+"What d' ye think of it? Eh? What d' ye think?"
+
+"I think it is very pitiful and sad to see these poor creatures leaving
+their little farms to face the British regulars--and starvation."
+
+"Face the devil!" he snorted. "Nobody forces 'em!"
+
+"The greater honor due them," I retorted.
+
+"Honor! Fol-de-rol! Had it been any other patroon but me, he'd turn his
+manor-house into a court-house, arrest 'em, try 'em, and hang a few for
+luck! In the old days, I'll warrant you, the Cosbys would have stood no
+such nonsense--no, nor the Livingstons, nor the Van Cortlandts. A
+hundred lashes here and there, a debtor's jail, a hanging or two, would
+have made things more cheerful. But I, curse me if I could ever bring
+myself to use my simplest prerogatives; I can't whip a man, no! I can't
+hang a man for anything--even a sheep-thief has his chance with me--like
+that great villain, Billy Bones, who turned renegade and joined Danny
+Redstock and the McCraw."
+
+He snorted in self-contempt and puffed savagely at his clay pipe.
+
+"La patroon? Dammy, I'm an old woman! Get me my knitting! I want my
+knitting and a sunny spot to mumble my gums and wait for noon and a dish
+o' porridge!... George, my rents are cut in half, and half my farms
+left to the briers and wolves in one day, because his Majesty, General
+Schuyler, orders his Highness, Colonel Dayton, to call out half the
+militia to make a fort for his Eminence, Colonel Gansevoort!"
+
+"At Stanwix?"
+
+"They call it Fort Schuyler now--after his Highness in Albany.
+
+"Sir Lupus," I said, "if it is true that the British mean to invade us
+here with Brant's Mohawks, there is but one bulwark between Tryon County
+and the enemy, and that is Fort Stanwix. Why, in Heaven's name, should
+it not be defended? If this British officer and his renegades, regulars,
+and Indians take Stanwix and fortify Johnstown, the whole country will
+swarm with savages, outlaws, and a brutal soldiery already hardened and
+made callous by a year of frontier warfare!
+
+"Can you not understand this, sir? Do you think it possible for these
+blood-drunk ruffians to roam the Mohawk and Sacandaga valleys and
+respect you and yours just because you say you are neutral? Turn loose a
+pack of famished panthers in a common pasture and mark your sheep with
+your device and see how many are alive at daybreak!"
+
+"Dammy, sir!" cried Sir Lupus, "the enemy are led by British gentlemen."
+
+"Who doubtless will keep their own cuffs clean; it were shame to doubt
+it! But if the Mohawks march with them there'll be a bloody page in
+Tryon County annals."
+
+"The Mohawks will not join!" he said, violently. "Has not Schuyler held
+a council-fire and talked with belts to the entire confederacy?"
+
+"The confederacy returned no belts," I said, "and the Mohawks were not
+present."
+
+"Kirkland saw Brant," he persisted, obstinately.
+
+"Yes, and sent a secret report to Albany. If there had been good news in
+that report, you Tryon County men had heard it long since, Sir Lupus."
+
+"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.
+
+"Cousin," she said, timidly, "are you displeased?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"At my tyranny to make you bear me across the stream--with all your
+heavier burdens, and my own--"
+
+"I ask no sweeter burdens," I replied.
+
+She seated herself in the sand and placed a scarlet berry between lips
+that matched it.
+
+"I have tried very hard to talk to you," she said.
+
+"I don't know what to say, Dorothy," I muttered. "Truly I do desire to
+amuse you and make you laugh--as once I did. But the heart of everything
+seems dead. There! I did not mean that! Don't hide your face, Dorothy!
+Don't look like that! I--I cannot bear it. And listen, cousin; we are to
+be quite happy. I have thought it all out, and I mean to be gay and
+amuse you.... Won't you look at me, Dorothy?" "Wh--why?" she asked,
+unsteadily.
+
+"Just to see how happy I am--just to see that I pull no long
+faces--idiot that I was!... Dorothy, will you smile just once?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered, lifting her head and raising her wet lashes.
+Presently her lips parted in one of her adorable smiles. "Now that you
+have made me weep till my nose is red you may pick me every strawberry
+in sight," she said, winking away the bright tears. "You have heard of
+the penance of the Algonquin witch?"
+
+I knew nothing of Northern Indian lore, and I said so.
+
+"What? You never heard of the Stonish Giants? You never heard of the
+Flying Head? Mercy on the boy! Sit here and we'll eat strawberries and I
+shall tell you tales of the Long House.... Sit nearer, for I shall speak
+in a low voice lest old Atotarho awake from his long sleep and the dead
+pines ring hollow, like witch-drums under the yellow-hammer's double
+blows.... Are you afraid?"
+
+"All a-shiver," I whispered, gayly.
+
+"Then listen," she breathed, raising one pink-tipped finger. "This is
+the tale of the Eight Thunders, told in the oldest tongue of the
+confederacy and to all ensigns of the three clans ere the Erians sued
+for peace. Therefore it is true.
+
+"Long ago, the Holder of the Heavens made a very poisonous blue otter,
+and the Mohawks killed it and threw its body into the lake. And the
+Holder of Heaven came to the eastern door of the Long House and knocked,
+saying: 'Where is the very poisonous blue otter that I made, O Keepers
+of the Eastern Door?'
+
+"'Who calls?' asked the Mohawks, peeping out to see.
+
+"Then the Holder of the Heavens named himself, and the Mohawks were
+afraid and hid in the Long House, listening.
+
+"'Be afraid! O you wise men and sachems! The wisdom of a child alone can
+save you!' said the Holder of the Heavens. Saying this he wrapped
+himself in a bright cloud and went like a swift arrow to the sun."
+
+My cousin's voice had fallen into a low, melodious sing-song; her rapt
+eyes were fixed on me.
+
+"A youth of the Mohawks loved a maid, and they sat by the lake at night,
+counting the Dancers in the sky--which we call stars of the Pleiades.
+
+"'One has fallen into the lake,' said the youth.
+
+"'It is the eye of the very poisonous blue otter,' replied the maid,
+beginning to cry.
+
+"'I see the lost Dancer shining down under the water,' said the youth
+again. Then he bade the maid go back and wait for him; and she went back
+and built a fire and sat sadly beside it. Then she heard some one coming
+and turned around. A young man stood there dressed in white, and with
+white feathers on his head. 'You are sad,' he said to the maid, 'but we
+will help you.' Then he gave her a belt of purple wampum to show that he
+spoke the truth.
+
+"'Follow,' he said; and she followed to a place in the forest where
+smoke rose. There she saw a fire, and, around it, eight chiefs sitting,
+with white feathers on their heads.
+
+"'These chiefs are the Eight Thunders,' she thought; 'now they will help
+me.' And she said: 'A Dancer has fallen out of the sky and a Mohawk
+youth has plunged for it.'
+
+"'The blue otter has turned into a serpent, and the Mohawk youth beheld
+her eye under the waters,' they said, one after the other. The maid wept
+and laid the wampum at her feet. Then she rubbed ashes on her lips and
+on her breasts and in the palms of her hands.
+
+"'The Mohawk youth has wedded the Lake Serpent,' they said, one after
+the other. The maid wept; and she rubbed ashes on her thighs and on
+her feet.
+
+"'Listen,' they said, one after another; 'take strawberries and go to
+the lake. You will know what to do. When that is done we will come in
+the form of a cloud on the lake, not in the sky.'
+
+"So she found strawberries in the starlight and went to the lake,
+calling, 'Friend! Friend! I am going away and wish to see you!'
+
+"Out on the lake the water began to boil, and coming out of it she saw
+her friend. He had a spot on his forehead and looked like a serpent, and
+yet like a man. Then she spread the berries on the shore and he came to
+the land and ate. Then he went back to the shore and placed his lips to
+the water, drinking. And the maid saw him going down through the water
+like a snake. So she cried, 'Friends! Friends! I am going away and wish
+to see you!'
+
+"The lake boiled and her friend came out of it. The lake boiled once
+more; not in one spot alone, but all over, like a high sea spouting on
+a reef.
+
+"Out of the water came her friend's wife, beautiful to behold and
+shining with silver scales. Her long hair fell all around her, and
+seemed like silver and gold. When she came ashore she stretched out on
+the sand and took a strawberry between her lips. The young maid watched
+the lake until she saw something moving on the waters a great way off,
+which seemed like a cloud.
+
+"In a moment the stars went out and it grew dark, and it thundered till
+the skies fell down, torn into rain by the terrible lightning. All was
+still at last, and it grew lighter. The maid opened her eyes to find
+herself in the arms of her friend. But at their feet lay the dying
+sparks of a shattered star.
+
+"Then as they went back through the woods the eight chiefs passed them
+in Indian file, and they saw them rising higher and higher, till they
+went up to the sky like mists at sunrise."
+
+Dorothy's voice died away; she stretched out one arm.
+
+[Illustration: "THIS IS THE END, O YOU WISE MEN AND SACHEMS!".]
+
+"This is the end, O you wise men and sachems, told since the beginning
+to us People of the Morning. Hiro [I have spoken]!"
+
+Then a startling thing occurred; up from the underbrush behind us rose a
+tall Indian warrior, naked to the waist, painted from belt to brow with
+terrific, nameless emblems and signs. I sprang to my feet,
+horror-struck; the savage folded his arms, quietly smiling; and I saw
+knife and hatchet resting in his belt and a long rifle on the moss
+at his feet.
+
+"Kôue! That was a true tale," he said, in good English. "It is a miracle
+that one among you sings the truth concerning us poor Mohawks."
+
+"Do you come in peace?" I asked, almost stunned.
+
+He made a gesture. "Had I come otherwise, you had known it!" He looked
+straight at Dorothy. "You are the patroon's daughter. Does he speak as
+truthfully of the Mohawks as do you?"
+
+"Who are you?" I asked, slowly.
+
+He smiled again. "My name is Brant," he said.
+
+"Joseph Brant! Thayendanegea!" murmured Dorothy, aloud.
+
+"A cousin of his," said the savage, carelessly. Then he turned sternly
+on me. "Tell that man who follows me that I could have slain him twice
+within the hour; once at the ford, once on Stoner's hill. Does he take
+me for a deer? Does he believe I wear war-paint? There is no war betwixt
+the Mohawks and the Boston people--yet! Tell that fool to go home!"
+
+"What fool?" I asked, troubled.
+
+"You will meet him--journeying the wrong way," said the Indian, grimly.
+
+With a quick, guarded motion he picked up his rifle, turned short, and
+passed swiftly northward straight into the forest, leaving us listening
+there together long after he had disappeared.
+
+"That chief was Joseph Brant, ... but he wore no war-paint," whispered
+my cousin. "He was painted for the secret rites of the False-Faces."
+
+"He could have slain us as we sat," I said, bitterly humiliated.
+
+She looked up at me thoughtfully; there was not in her face the
+slightest trace of the deep emotions which had shocked me.
+
+"A tribal fire is lighted somewhere," she mused. "Chiefs like Brant do
+not travel alone--unless--unless he came to consult that witch Catrine
+Montour, or to guide her to some national council-fire in the North."
+
+She pondered awhile, and I stood by in silence, my heart still beating
+heavily from my astonishment at the hideous apparition of a
+moment since.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "that I believe Brant spoke the truth. There is
+no war yet, as far as concerns the Mohawks. The smoke we saw was a
+secret signal; that hag was scuttling around to collect the False-Faces
+for a council. They may mean war; I'm sure they mean it, though Brant
+wore no war-paint. But war has not yet been declared; it is no scant
+ceremony when a nation of the Iroquois decides on war. And if the
+confederacy declares war the ceremonies may last a fortnight. The
+False-Faces must be heard from first. And, Heaven help us! I believe
+their fires are lighted now."
+
+"What ghastly manner of folk are these False-Faces?" I asked.
+
+"A secret clan, common to all Northern and Western Indians, celebrating
+secret rites among the six nations of the Iroquois. Some say the
+spectacle is worse than the orgies of the Dream-feast--a frightful
+sight, truly hellish; and yet others say the False-Faces do no harm, but
+make merry in secret places. But this I know; if the False-Faces are to
+decide for war or peace, they will sway the entire confederacy, and
+perhaps every Indian in North America; for though nobody knows who
+belongs to the secret sect, two-thirds of the Mohawks are said to be
+numbered in its ranks; and as go the Mohawks, so goes the confederacy."
+
+"How is it you know all this?" I asked, amazed.
+
+"My playmate was Magdalen Brant," she said. "Her playmates were pure
+Mohawk."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that this painted savage is kin to that lovely
+girl who came with Sir John and the Butlers?" I demanded.
+
+"They are related. And, cousin, this 'painted savage' is no savage if
+the arts of civilization which he learned at Dr. Wheelock's school count
+for anything. He was secretary to old Sir William. He is an educated
+man, spite of his naked body and paint, and the more to be dreaded, it
+appears to me.... Hark! See those branches moving beside the trail!
+There is a man yonder. Follow me."
+
+On the sandy bank our shoes made little sound, yet the unseen man heard
+us and threw up a glittering rifle, calling out: "Halt! or I fire."
+
+Dorothy stopped short, and her hand fell on my arm, pressing it
+significantly. Out into the middle of the trail stepped a tall fellow
+clad from throat to ankle in deer-skin. On his curly head rested a
+little, round cap of silvery mole-skin, light as a feather; his
+leggings' fringe was dyed green; baldrick, knife-sheath, bullet-pouch,
+powder-horn, and hatchet-holster were deeply beaded in scarlet, white,
+and black, and bands of purple porcupine-quills edged shoulder-cape and
+moccasins, around which were painted orange-colored flowers, each
+centred with a golden bead.
+
+"A forest-runner," she motioned with her lips, "and, if I'm not blind,
+he should answer to the name of Mount--and many crimes, they say."
+
+The forest-runner stood alert, rifle resting easily in the hollow of his
+left arm.
+
+"Who passes?" he called out.
+
+"White folk," replied Dorothy, laughing. Then we stepped out.
+
+"Well, well," said the forest-runner, lifting his mole-skin cap with a
+grin; "if this is not the pleasantest sight that has soothed my eyes
+since we hung that Tory whelp last Friday--and no disrespect to Mistress
+Varick, whose father is more patriot than many another I might name!"
+
+"I bid you good-even, Jack Mount," said Dorothy, smiling.
+
+"To you, Mistress Varick," he said, bowing the deeper; then glanced
+keenly at me and recognized me at the same moment. "Has my prophecy come
+true, sir?" he asked, instantly.
+
+"God save our country," I said, significantly.
+
+"Then I was right!" he said, and flushed with pleasure when I offered
+him my hand.
+
+"If I am not too free," he muttered, taking my hand in his great, hard
+paw, almost affectionately.
+
+"You may walk with us if you journey our way," said Dorothy; and the
+great fellow shuffled up beside her, cap in hand, and it amused me to
+see him strive to shorten his strides to hers, so that he presently fell
+into a strange gait, half-skip, half-toddle.
+
+"Pray cover yourself," said Dorothy, encouragingly, and Mount did so,
+dumb as a Matanzas oyster and crimson as a boiled sea-crab. Then,
+doubtless, deeming that gentility required some polite observation, he
+spoke in a high-pitched voice of the balmy weather and the sweet
+profusion of birds and flowers, when there was more like to be a "sweet
+profusion" of Indians; and I nigh stifled with laughter to see this
+lumbering, free-voiced forest-runner transformed to a mincing, anxious,
+backwoods macaroni at the smile of a pretty woman.
+
+"Do you bring no other news save of the birds and blossoms?" asked
+Dorothy, mischievously. "Tell us what we all are fearful of. Have the
+Senecas and Cayugas risen to join the British?"
+
+Mount stole a glance at me.
+
+"I wish I knew," he muttered.
+
+"We will know soon, now," I said, soberly.
+
+"Sooner, perhaps, than you expect, sir," he said. "I am summoned to the
+manor to confer with General Schuyler on this very matter of the
+Iroquois."
+
+"Is it true that the Mohawks are in their war-paint?" asked Dorothy,
+maliciously.
+
+"Stoner and Timothy Murphy say so," replied Mount. "Sir John and the
+Butlers are busy with the Onondagas and Oneidas; Dominic Kirkland is
+doing his best to keep them peaceable; and our General played his last
+cards at their national council. We can only wait and see,
+Mistress Varick."
+
+He hesitated, glancing at me askance.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "I've been sniffing at moccasin tracks for the
+last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then
+circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If
+I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and
+how that skulking brute got away from me I cannot think."
+
+He looked at us in an injured manner, for we were striving not to smile.
+
+"I'm counted a good tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter
+Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's
+riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to
+brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound as
+Joseph Brant."
+
+He paused, in hurt surprise, for we were laughing. And then I told him
+of the Indian and what message he had sent by us, and Mount listened,
+red as a pippin, gnawing his lip.
+
+"I am glad to know it," he said. "This will be evil news to General
+Schuyler, I have no doubt. Lord! but it makes me mad to think how close
+to Brant I stood and could not drill his painted hide!"
+
+"He spared you," I said.
+
+"That is his affair," muttered Mount, striding on angrily.
+
+"There speaks the obstinate white man, who can see no good in any
+savage," whispered Dorothy. "Nothing an Indian does is right or
+generous; these forest-runners hate them, distrust them, fear
+them--though they may deny it--and kill all they can. And you may argue
+all day with an Indian-hater and have your trouble to pay you. Yet I
+have heard that this man Mount is brave and generous to enemies of his
+own color."
+
+We had now come to the road in front of the house, and Mount set his cap
+rakishly on his head, straightened cape and baldrick, and ran his
+fingers through the gorgeous thrums rippling from sleeve and thigh.
+
+"I'd barter a month's pay for a pot o' beer," he said to me. "I learned
+to drink serving with Cresap's riflemen at the siege of Boston; a
+godless company, sir, for an innocent man to fall among. But Morgan's
+rifles are worse, Mr. Ormond; they drink no water save when it rains in
+their gin toddy."
+
+"Sir Lupus says you tried to join them," said Dorothy, to plague him.
+
+"So I did, Mistress Varick, so I did," he stammered; "to break 'em o'
+their habits, ma'am. Trust me, if I had that corps I'd teach 'em to let
+spirits alone if I had to drink every drop in camp to keep 'em sober!"
+
+"There's beer in the buttery," she said, laughing; "and if you smile at
+Tulip she'll see you starve not."
+
+"Nobody," said I, "goes thirsty or hungry at Varick Manor."
+
+"Indeed, no," said Dorothy, much amused, as old Cato came down the path,
+hat in hand. "Here, Cato! do you take Captain Mount and see that he is
+comfortable and that he lacks nothing."
+
+So, standing together in the stockade gateway, we watched Cato
+conducting Mount towards the quarters behind the guard-house, then
+walked on to meet the children, who came dancing down the driveway
+to greet us.
+
+"Dorothy! Dorothy!" cried Cecile, "we've shaved candles and waxed the
+library floors. Lady Schuyler is here and the General and the Carmichael
+girls we knew at school, and their cousin, Maddaleen Dirck, and Christie
+McDonald and Marguerite Haldimand--cousin to the Tory general in
+Canada--and--"
+
+"I'm to walk a minuet with Madge Haldimand!" broke in Ruyven; "will you
+lend me your gold stock-buckle, Cousin Ormond?"
+
+"I mean to dance, too," cried Harry, crowding up to pluck my sleeve.
+"Please, Cousin Ormond, lend me a lace handkerchief."
+
+"Paltz Clavarack, of the Half-moon Regiment, asked me to walk a minuet,"
+observed Cecile, tossing her head. "I'm sure I don't know what to say.
+He's so persistent."
+
+Benny's clamor broke out: "Thammy thtole papath betht thnuff-boxth!
+Thammy thtole papath betht thnuff-boxth!"
+
+"Sammy!" cried Dorothy, "what did you steal your father's best snuff-box
+for?"
+
+"I only desired to offer snuff to General Schuyler," said Sammy,
+sullenly, amid a roar of laughter.
+
+"We're to dine at eight! Everybody is dressing; come on, Dorothy!" cried
+Cecile. "Mr. Clavarack vowed he'd perish if I kept him waiting--"
+
+"You should see the escort!" said Ruyven to me. "Dragoons, cousin, in
+leather helmets and jack-boots, and all wearing new sabres taken from
+the Hessian cavalry. They're in the quarters with Tim Murphy, of
+Morgan's, and, Lord! how thirsty they appear to be!"
+
+"There's the handsomest man I ever saw," murmured Cecile to Dorothy,
+"Captain O'Neil, of the New York line. He's dying to see you; he said so
+to Mr. Clavarack, and I heard him."
+
+Dorothy looked up with heightened color.
+
+"Will you walk the minuet with me, Dorothy?" I whispered.
+
+She looked down, faintly smiling:
+
+"Perhaps," she said.
+
+"That is no answer," I retorted, surprised and hurt.
+
+"I know it," she said, demurely.
+
+"Then answer me, Dorothy!"
+
+She looked at me so gravely that I could not be certain whether it was
+pretence or earnest.
+
+"I am hostess," she said; "I belong to my guests. If my duties prevent
+my walking the minuet with you, I shall find a suitable partner for
+you, cousin."
+
+"And no doubt for yourself," I retorted, irritated to rudeness.
+
+Surprise and disdain were in her eyes. Her raised brows and cool smile
+boded me no good.
+
+"I thought I was free to choose," she said, serenely.
+
+"You are, and so am I," I said. "Will you have me for the minuet?"
+
+We paused in the hallway, facing each other.
+
+She gave me a dangerous glance, biting her lip in silence.
+
+And, the devil possessing me, I said, "For the last time, will you take
+me?"
+
+"No!" she said, under her breath. "You have your answer now."
+
+"I have my answer," I repeated, setting my teeth.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE GHOST-RING
+
+I had bathed and dressed me in my best suit of pale-lilac silk, with
+flapped waistcoat of primrose stiff with gold, and Cato was powdering my
+hair; when Sir Lupus waddled in, magnificent in scarlet and white, and
+smelling to heaven of French perfume and pomatum.
+
+"George!" he cried, in his brusque, explosive fashion, "I like Schuyler,
+and I care not who knows it! Dammy! I was cool enough with him and his
+lady when they arrived, but he played Valentine to my Orson till I gave
+up; yes, I did, George, I capitulated. Says he, 'Sir Lupus, if a painful
+misunderstanding has kept us old neighbors from an exchange of
+civilities, I trust differences may be forgotten in this graver crisis.
+In our social stratum there is but one great line of cleavage now,
+opened by the convulsions of war, sir."
+
+"'Damn the convulsions of war, sir!' says I.
+
+"'Quite right,' says he, mildly; 'war is always damnable, Sir Lupus.'
+
+"'General Schuyler,' says I, 'there is no nonsense about me. You and
+Lady Schuyler are under my roof, and you are welcome, whatever opinion
+you entertain of me and my fashion of living. I understand perfectly
+that this visit is not a visit of ceremony from a neighbor, but a
+military necessity.'
+
+"'Sir Lupus,' says Lady Schuyler, 'had it been only a military
+necessity I should scarcely have accompanied the General and
+his guests.'
+
+"'Madam,' says I, 'it is commonly reported that I offended the entire
+aristocracy of Albany when I had Sir John Johnson's sweetheart to dine
+with them. And for that I have been ostracized. For which ostracism,
+madam, I care not a brass farthing. And, madam, were I to dine all
+Albany to-night, I should not ignore my old neighbors and friends, the
+Putnams of Tribes Hill, to suit the hypocrisy of a few strangers from
+Albany. Right is right, madam, and decency is decency! And I say now
+that to honest men Claire Putnam is Sir John's wife by every law of
+honor, decency, and chivalry; and I shall so treat her in the face of a
+rotten world and to the undying shame of that beast, Sir John!'
+
+"Whereupon--would you believe it, George?--Schuyler took both my hands
+in his and said my conduct honored me, and more of the same sort o'
+thing, and Lady Schuyler gave me her hand in that sweet, stately
+fashion; and, dammy! I saluted her finger-tips. Heaven knows how I found
+it possible to bend my waist, but I did, George. And there's an end to
+the whole matter!"
+
+He took snuff, blew his nose violently, snapped his gold snuff-box, and
+waddled to the window, where, below, in the early dusk, torches and
+rush-lights burned, illuminating the cavalry horses tethered along their
+picket-rope, and the trooper on guard, pacing his beat, musket shining
+in the wavering light.
+
+"That escort will be my undoing," he muttered. "Folk will dub me a
+partisan now. Dammy! a man under my roof is a guest, be he Tory or
+rebel. I do but desire to cultivate my land and pay my debts of honor;
+and I'll stick to it till they leave me in peace or hang me to my
+barn door!"
+
+And he toddled out, muttering and fumbling with his snuff-box, bidding
+me hasten and not keep them waiting dinner.
+
+I stood before the mirror with its lighted sconces, gazing grimly at my
+sober face while Cato tied my queue-ribbon and dusted my silken
+coat-skirts. Then I fastened the brilliant buckle under my chin, shook
+out the deep, soft lace at throat and wristband, and took my small-sword
+from Cato.
+
+"Mars' George," murmured the old man, "yo' look lak yo' is gwine wed wif
+mah li'l Miss Dorry."
+
+I stared at him angrily. "What put that into your head?" I demanded.
+
+"I dunno, suh; hit dess look dat-a-way to me, suh."
+
+"You're a fool," I said, sharply.
+
+"No, suh, I ain' no fool, Mars' George. I done see de sign! Yaas, suh, I
+done see de sign."
+
+"What sign?"
+
+The old man chuckled, looked slyly at my left hand, then chuckled again.
+
+"Mars' George, yo' is wearin' yo' weddin'-ring now!"
+
+"A ring! There is no ring on my hand, you rascal!" I said.
+
+"Yaas, suh; dey sho' is, Mars' George," he insisted, still chuckling.
+
+"I tell you I never wear a ring," I said, impatiently.
+
+"'Scuse me, Mars' George, suh," he said, humbly. And, lifting my left
+hand, laid it in his wrinkled, black palm, peering closely. I also
+looked, and saw at the base of my third finger a circle like the mark
+left by a wedding-ring.
+
+"That is strange," I said; "I never wore a ring in all my life!"
+
+"Das de sign, suh," muttered the old man; "das de Ormond sign, suh. Yo'
+pap wore de ghos'-ring, an' his pap wore it too, suh. All de Ormonds
+done wore de ghos'-ring fore dey wus wedded. Hit am dess dat-a-way.
+Mars' George--"
+
+He hesitated, looking up at me with gentle, dim eyes.
+
+"Miss Dorry, suh--"
+
+He stopped short, then dropped his voice to a whisper.
+
+"'Fore Miss Dorry git up outen de baid, suh, I done tote de bre'kfus in
+de mawnin'. An' de fustest word dat li'l Miss Dorry say, 'Cato,' she
+say, 'whar Mars' George?' she say. 'He 'roun' de yahd, Miss Dorry,' I
+say. ''Pears lak he gettin' mo' res'less an' mis'ble, Miss Dorry.'
+
+"'Cato,' she 'low, 'I spec' ma' haid gwine ache if I lie hyah in
+dishyere baid mo'n two free day. Whar ma' milk an' co'n pone, Cato?'
+
+"So I des sot de salver down side de baid, suh, an' li'l Miss Dorry she
+done set up in de baid, suh, an' hole out one li'l bare arm--"
+
+He laid a wrinkled finger on his lips; his dark face quivered with
+mystery and emotion.
+
+"One li'l bare arm," he repeated, "an' I see de sign!"
+
+"What sign?" I stammered.
+
+"De bride-sign on de ring-finger! Yaas, suh. An' I say, 'Whar yo' ring,
+Miss Dorry?' An' she 'low ain' nebber wore no ring. An' I say, 'Whar dat
+ring, Miss Dorry?'
+
+"Den Miss Dorry look kinder queer, and rub de ghos'-ring on de
+bridal-finger.
+
+"'What dat?' she 'low.
+
+"'Dasser ghos'-ring, honey.'
+
+"Den she rub an' rub, but, bless yo' heart, Mars' George! she dess
+natch'ly gwine wear dat pink ghos'-ring twill yo' slip de bride-ring
+on.... Mars' George! Honey! What de matter, chile?... Is you a-weepin',
+Mars' George?"
+
+"Oh, Cato, Cato!" I choked, dropping my head on his shoulder.
+
+"What dey do to mah l'il Mars' George?" he said, soothingly. "'Spec'
+some one done git saucy! Huh! Who care? Dar de sign! Dar de ghos'-ring!
+Mars' George, yo' is dess boun' to wed, suh! Miss Dorry, she dess boun'
+to wed, too--"
+
+"But not with me, Cato, not with me. There's another man coming for Miss
+Dorry, Cato. She has promised him."
+
+"Who dat?" he cried. "How come dishyere ghost-ring roun' yo'
+weddin'-finger?"
+
+"I don't know," I said; "the chance pressure of a riding-glove, perhaps.
+It will fade away, Cato, this ghost-ring, as you call it.... Give me
+that rag o' lace; ... dust the powder away, Cato.... There, I'm smiling;
+can't you see, you rascal?... And tell Tulip she is right."
+
+"What dat foolish wench done tole you?" he exclaimed, wrathfully.
+
+But I only shook my head impatiently and walked out. Down the hallway I
+halted in the light of the sconces and looked at the strange mark on my
+finger. It was plainly visible. "A tight glove," I muttered, and walked
+on towards the stairs.
+
+From the floor below came a breezy buzz of voices, laughter, the snap of
+ivory fans spreading, the whisk and rustle of petticoats. I leaned a
+moment over the rail which circled the stair-gallery and looked down.
+
+Unaccustomed cleanliness and wax and candle-light made a pretty
+background for all this powdered and silken company swarming below. The
+servants and children had gathered ground-pine to festoon the walls;
+stair-rail, bronze cannon, pictures, trophies, and windows were all
+bright with the aromatic green foliage; enormous bunches of peonies
+perfumed the house, and everywhere masses of yellow and white
+elder-bloom and swamp-marigold brightened the corners.
+
+Sir Lupus, standing in the hallway with a tall gentleman who wore the
+epaulets and the buff-and-blue uniform of a major-general, beckoned me,
+and I descended the stairs to make the acquaintance of that noblest and
+most generous of soldiers, Philip Schuyler. He held my hand a moment,
+scrutinizing me with kindly eyes, and, turning to Sir Lupus, said,
+"There are few men to whom my heart surrenders at sight, but your young
+kinsman is one of the few, Sir Lupus."
+
+"He's a good boy, General, a brave lad," mumbled Sir Lupus, frowning to
+hide his pride. "A bit quick at conclusions, perhaps--eh, George?"
+
+"Too quick, sir," I said, coloring.
+
+"A fault you have already repaired by confession," said the General,
+with his kindly smile. "Mr. Ormond, I had the pleasure of receiving Sir
+George Covert the day he left for Stanwix, and Sir George mentioned your
+desire for a commission."
+
+"I do desire it, sir," I said, quickly.
+
+"Have you served, Mr. Ormond?" he asked, gravely.
+
+"I have seen some trifling service against the Florida savages, sir."
+
+"As officer, of course."
+
+"As officer of our rangers, General."
+
+"You were never wounded?"
+
+"No, sir; ... not severely."
+
+"Oh!... not severely."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"There are some gentlemen of my acquaintance," said Schuyler, turning to
+Sir Lupus, "who might take a lesson in modesty from Mr. Ormond."
+
+"Yes," broke out Sir Lupus--"that pompous ass, Gates."
+
+"General Gates is a loyal soldier," said Schuyler, gravely.
+
+"Who the devil cares?" fumed Sir Lupus. "I call a spade a spade! And I
+say he is at the head of that infamous cabal which seeks to disgrace
+you. Don't tell me, sir! I'm an older man than you, sir! I've a right to
+say it, and I do. Gates is an envious ass, and unfit to hold
+your stirrup!"
+
+"This is a painful matter," said Schuyler, in a low voice. "Indiscreet
+friendship may make it worse. I regard General Gates as a patriot and a
+brother soldier.... Pray let us choose a gayer topic ... friends."
+
+His manner was so noble, his courtesy so charming, that there was no
+sting in his snub to Sir Lupus. Even I had heard of the amazing
+jealousies and intrigues which had made Schuyler's life
+miserable--charges of incompetency, of indifference, of corruption--nay,
+some wretched creatures who sought to push Gates into Schuyler's command
+even hinted at cowardice and treason. And none could doubt that Gates
+knew it and encouraged it, for he had publicly spoken of Schuyler in
+slighting and contemptuous terms.
+
+Yet the gentleman whose honor had been the target for these slanderers
+never uttered one word against his traducers: and, when a friend asked
+him whether he was too proud to defend himself, replied, serenely, "Not
+too proud, but too sensible to spread discord in my country's army."
+
+"Lady Schuyler desires to know you," said the General, "for I see her
+fan-signal, which I always obey." And he laid his arm on mine as a
+father might, and led me across the room to where Dorothy stood with
+Lady Schuyler on her right, surrounded by a bevy of bright-eyed girls
+and gay young officers.
+
+Dorothy presented me in a quiet voice, and I bowed very low to Lady
+Schuyler, who made me an old-time reverence, gave me her fingers to
+kiss, and spoke most kindly to me, inquiring about my journey, and how I
+liked this Northern climate.
+
+Then Dorothy made me known to those near her, to the pretty Carmichael
+twins, whose black eyes brimmed purest mischief; to Miss Haldimand,
+whose cold beauty had set the Canadas aflame; and to others of whom I
+have little recollection save their names. Christie McDonald and Lysbet
+Dirck, two fashionable New York belles, kin to the Schuylers.
+
+As for the men, there was young Paltz Clavarack, ensign in the Half-moon
+Regiment, very fine in his orange-faced uniform; and there was Major
+Harrow, of the New York line; and a jolly, handsome dare-devil, Captain
+Tully O'Neil, of the escort of horse, who hung to Dorothy's skirts and
+whispered things that made her laugh. There were others, too, aides in
+new uniforms, a medical officer, who bustled about in the rôle of
+everybody's friend; and a parcel of young subalterns, very serious, very
+red, and very grave, as though the destiny of empires reposed in their
+blue-and-gold despatch pouches.
+
+"I wonder," murmured Dorothy, leaning towards me and speaking behind her
+rose-plumed fan--"I wonder why I answered you so."
+
+"Because I deserved it," I muttered,
+
+"Cousin I Cousin!" she said, softly, "you deserve all I can give--all
+that I dare not give. You break my heart with kindness."
+
+I stepped to her side; all around us rose the hum of voices, laughter,
+the click of spurs, the soft sounds of silken gowns on a polished floor.
+
+"It is you who are kind to me, Dorothy," I whispered, "I know I can
+never have you, but you must never doubt my constancy. Say you
+will not?"
+
+"Hush!" she whispered; "come to the dining-hall; I must look at the
+table to see that all is well done, and there is nobody there.... We can
+talk there."
+
+She slipped off through the throng, and I sauntered into the gun-room,
+from whence I crossed the hallway and entered the dining-hall. Dorothy
+stood inspecting the silver and linen, and giving orders to Cato in a
+low voice. Then she dismissed the row of servants and sat down in a
+leather chair, resting her forehead in her hands.
+
+"Deary me! Deary me!" she murmured, "how my brain whirls!... I would I
+were abed!... I would I were dead!... What was it you said concerning
+constancy? Oh, I remember; I am never to doubt your constancy." She
+raised her fair head from between her hands.
+
+"Promise you will never doubt it," I whispered.
+
+"I--I never will," she said. "Ask me again for the minuet, dear. I--I
+refused everybody--for you."
+
+"Will you walk it with me, Dorothy?"
+
+"Yes--yes, indeed! I told them all I must wait till you asked me."
+
+"Good heavens!" I said, laughing nervously, "you didn't tell them that,
+did you?"
+
+She bent her lovely face, and I saw the smile in her eyes glimmering
+through unshed tears.
+
+"Yes; I told them that. Captain O'Neil protests he means to call you out
+and run you through. And I said you would probably cut off his queue and
+tie him up by his spurs if he presumed to any levity. Then he said he'd
+tell Sir George Covert, and I said I'd tell him myself and everybody
+else that I loved my cousin Ormond better than anybody in the world and
+meant to wed him--"
+
+"Dorothy!" I gasped.
+
+"Wed him to the most, beautiful and lovely and desirable maid in
+America!"
+
+"And who is that, if it be not yourself?" I asked, amazed.
+
+"It's Maddaleen Dirck, the New York heiress, Lysbet's sister; and you
+are to take her to table."
+
+"Dorothy," I said, angrily, "you told me that you desired me to be
+faithful to my love for you!"
+
+"I do! Oh, I do!" she said, passionately. "But it is wrong; it is
+dreadfully wrong. To be safe we must both wed, and then--God knows!--we
+cannot in honor think of one another."
+
+"It will make no difference," I said, savagely.
+
+"Why, of course, it will!" she insisted, in astonishment. "We shall be
+married."
+
+"Do you suppose love can be crushed by marriage?" I asked.
+
+"The hope of it can."
+
+"It cannot, Dorothy."
+
+"It must be crushed!" she exclaimed, flushing scarlet. "If we both are
+tied by honor, how can we hope? Cousin, I think I must be mad to say it,
+but I never see you that I do not hope. We are not safe, I tell you,
+spite of all our vows and promises.... You do not need to woo me, you do
+not need to persuade me! Ere you could speak I should be yours, now,
+this very moment, for a look, a smile--were it not for that pale spectre
+of my own self which rises ever before me, stern, inexorable, blocking
+every path which leads to you, and leaving only that one path free where
+the sign reads 'honor.' ... And I--I am sometimes frightened lest, in an
+overwhelming flood of love, that sign be torn away and no spectre of
+myself rise to confront me, barring those paths that lead to you....
+Don't touch me; Cato is looking at us.... He's gone.... Wait, do not
+leave me.... I have been so wretched and unhappy.... I could scarce find
+strength and heart to let them dress me, thinking on your face when I
+answered you so cruelly.... Oh, cousin! where are our vows now? Where
+are the solemn promises we made never to speak of love?... Lovers make
+promises like that in story-books--and keep them, too, and die
+sanctified, blessing one another and mounting on radiant wings to
+heaven.... Where I should find no heaven save in you! Ah, God! that is
+the most terrible. That takes my heart away--to die and wake to find
+myself still his wife--to live through all eternity without you--and no
+hope of you--no hope!... For I could be patient through this earthly
+life, losing my youth and yours forever, ... but not after death! No,
+no! I cannot.... Better hell with you than endless heaven with him!...
+Don't speak to me.... Take your hand from my hand.... Can you not see
+that I mean nothing of what I say--that I do not know what I am
+saying?... I must go back; I am hostess--a happy one, as you perceive....
+Will I never learn to curb my tongue? You must forget every word I
+uttered--do you hear me?"
+
+She sprang up in her rustling silks and took a dozen steps towards the
+door, then turned.
+
+"Do you hear me?" she said. "I bid you remember every word I
+uttered--every word!"
+
+She was gone, leaving me staring at the flowers and silver and the
+clustered lights. But I saw them not; for before my eyes floated the
+vision of a slender hand, and on the wedding-finger I saw a faint, rosy
+circle, as I had seen it there a moment since, when Dorothy dropped her
+bare arms on the cloth and laid her head between them.
+
+So it was true; whether for good or ill my cousin wore the ghost-ring
+which for ages, Cato says, we Ormonds have worn before the
+marriage-ring. There was Ormond blood in Dorothy. Did she wear the sign
+as prophecy for that ring Sir George should wed her with? I dared not
+doubt it--and yet, why did I also wear the sign?
+
+Then in a flash the forgotten legend of the Maid-at-Arms came back to
+me, ringing through my ears in clamorous words:
+
+     "Serene, 'mid love's alarms,
+     For all time shall the Maids-at-Arms,
+     Wearing the ghost-ring, triumph with their constancy!"
+
+I sprang to the door in my excitement and stared at the picture of the
+Maid-at-Arms.
+
+Sweetly the violet eyes of the maid looked back at me, her armor
+glittered, her soft throat seemed to swell with the breath of life.
+
+Then I crept nearer, eyes fixed on her wedding-finger. And I saw there a
+faint rosy circle as though a golden ring had pressed the snowy flesh.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE MAID-AT-ARMS
+
+I remember little of that dinner save that it differed vastly from the
+quarrelsome carousal at which the Johnsons and Butlers figured in so
+sinister a rôle, and at which the Glencoe captains disgraced themselves.
+But now, if the patroon's wine lent new color to the fair faces round
+me, there was no feverish laughter, nothing of brutal license. Healths
+were given and drunk with all the kindly ceremony to which I had been
+accustomed. At times pattering gusts of hand-clapping followed some
+popular toast, such as "Our New Flag," to which General Schuyler
+responded in perfect taste, veiling the deep emotions that the toast
+stirred in many with graceful allegory tempered by modesty and
+self-restraint.
+
+At the former dinner I had had for my neighbors Dorothy and Magdalen
+Brant. Now I sat between Miss Haldimand and Maddaleen Dirck, whom I had
+for partner, a pretty little thing, who peppered her conversation with
+fashionable New York phrases and spiced the intervals with French. And I
+remember she assured me that New York was the only city fit to live in
+and that she should never survive a prolonged transportation from that
+earthly paradise of elegance and fashion. Which made me itch to
+go there.
+
+I think, without meaning any unkindness, that Miss Haldimand, the
+Canadian beauty, was somewhat surprised that I had not already fallen a
+victim to her lovely presence; but, upon reflection, set it down to my
+stupidity; for presently she devoted her conversation exclusively to
+Ruyven, whose delight and gratitude could not but draw a smile from
+those who observed him. I saw Cecile playing the maiden's game with
+young Paltz Clavarack, and Lady Schuyler on Sir Lupus's right,
+charmingly demure, faintly amused, and evidently determined not to be
+shocked by the free bluntness of her host.
+
+The mischievous Carmichael twins had turned the batteries of their eyes
+on two solemn, faultlessly dressed subalterns, and had already reduced
+them to the verge of capitulation; and busy, bustling Dr. Sleeper
+cracked witticisms with all who offered him the fee of their attention,
+and the dinner went very well.
+
+Radiant, beautiful beyond word or thought, Dorothy sat, leaning back in
+her chair, and the candle-light on the frosty-gold of her hair and on
+her bare arms and neck made of her a miracle of celestial loveliness.
+And it was pleasant to see the stately General on her right bend beside
+her with that grave gallantry which young girls find more grateful than
+the privileged badinage of old beaus. At moments her sweet eyes stole
+towards me, and always found mine raised to greet her with that silent
+understanding which brought the faintest smile to her quiet lips. Once,
+above the melodious hum of voices, the word "war" sounded distinctly,
+and General Schuyler said:
+
+"In these days of modern weapons of precision and long range, conflicts
+are doubly deplorable. In the times of the old match-locks and
+blunderbusses and unwieldly weapons weighing more than three times what
+our modern light rifles weigh, there was little chance for slaughter.
+But now that we have our deadly flint-locks, a battle-field will be a
+sad spectacle. Bunker Hill has taught the whole world a lesson that
+might not be in vain if it incites us to rid the earth of this wicked
+frenzy men call war."
+
+"General," said Sir Lupus, "if weapons were twenty times as quick and
+deadly--which is, of course, impossible, thank God!--there would always
+be enough men in the world to get up a war, and enjoy it, too!"
+
+"I do not like to believe that," said Schuyler, smiling.
+
+"Wait and see," muttered the patroon. "I'd like to live a hundred years
+hence, just to prove I'm right."
+
+"I should rather not live to see it," said the General, with a twinkle
+in his small, grave eyes.
+
+Then quietly the last healths were given and pledged; Dorothy rose, and
+we all stood while she and Lady Schuyler passed out, followed by the
+other ladies; and I had to restrain Ruyven, who had made plans to follow
+Marguerite Haldimand. Then we men gathered once more over our port and
+walnuts, conversing freely, while the fiddles and bassoons tuned up from
+the hallway, and General Schuyler told us pleasantly as much of the
+military situation as he desired us to know. And it did amuse me to
+observe the solemn subalterns nodding all like wise young owlets, as
+though they could, if they only dared, reveal secrets that would
+astonish the General himself.
+
+Snuff was passed, offered, and accepted with ceremony befitting; spirits
+replaced the port, but General Schuyler drank sparingly, and his
+well-trained suite perforce followed his example. So that when it came
+time to rejoin our ladies there was no evidence of wandering legs, no
+amiably vacant laughter, no loud voices to strike the postprandial
+discord at the dance or at the card-tables.
+
+"How did I conduct, cousin?" whispered Ruyven, arm in arm with me as we
+entered the long drawing-room. And my response pleasing him, he made off
+straight towards Marguerite Haldimand, who viewed his joyous arrival
+none too cordially, I thought. Poor Ruyven! Must he so soon close the
+gate of Eden behind him?--leaving forever his immortal boyhood sleeping
+amid the never-fading flowers.
+
+It was a fascinating and alarming spectacle to see Sir Lupus walking a
+minuet with Lady Schuyler, and I marvelled that the gold buttons on his
+waistcoat did not fly off in volleys when he strove to bend what once,
+perhaps, had been his waist.
+
+Ceremony dictated what we had both forgotten, and General Schuyler led
+out Dorothy, who, scarlet in her distress, looked appealingly at me to
+see that I understood. And I smiled back to see her sweet face brighten
+with gratitude and confidence and a promise to make up to me what the
+stern rule of hospitality had deprived us of.
+
+So it was that I had her for the Sir Roger de Coverley, and after that
+for a Delaware reel, which all danced with a delightful abandon, even
+Miss Haldimand unbending like a goddess surprised to find a pleasure in
+our mortal capers. And it was a pretty sight to see the ladies pass,
+gliding daintily under the arch of glittering swords, led by Lady
+Schuyler and Dorothy in laughing files, while the fiddle-bows whirred,
+and the music of bassoon and hautboys blended and ended in a final
+mellow crash. Then breathless voices rose, and skirts swished and French
+heels tapped the polished floor and solemn subalterns stalked about
+seeking ices and lost buckles and mislaid fans; and a faint voice said,
+"Oh!" when a jewelled garter was found, and a very red subaltern said,
+"Honi soit!" and everybody laughed.
+
+Presently I missed the General, and, a moment later, Dorothy. As I stood
+in the hallway, seeking for her, came Cecile, crying out that they were
+to have pictures and charades, and that General Schuyler, who was to be
+a judge, awaited me in the gun-room.
+
+The door of the gun-room was closed. I tapped and entered.
+
+The General sat at the mahogany table, leaning back in his arm-chair;
+opposite sat Dorothy, bare elbows on the table, fingers clasped.
+Standing by the General, arms folded, Jack Mount loomed a colossal
+figure in his beaded buckskins.
+
+[Illustration: "JACK MOUNT LOOMED A COLOSSAL FIGURE IN HIS BEADED
+BUCKSKINS".]
+
+"Ah, Mr. Ormond!" said the General, as I closed the door quietly behind
+me; "pray be seated. They are to have pictures and charades, you know; I
+shall not keep Miss Dorothy and yourself very long."
+
+I seated myself beside Dorothy, exchanging a smile with Mount.
+
+"Now," said the General, dropping his voice to a lower tone, "what was
+it you saw in the forest to-day?"
+
+So Mount had already reported the apparition of the painted savage!
+
+I told what I had seen, describing the Indian in detail, and repeating
+word for word his warning message to Mount.
+
+The General looked inquiringly at Dorothy. "I understand," he said,
+"that you know as much about the Iroquois as the Iroquois do
+themselves."
+
+"I think I do," she said, simply.
+
+"May I ask how you acquired your knowledge, Miss Dorothy?"
+
+"There have always been Iroquois villages along our boundary until last
+spring, when the Mohawks left with Guy Johnson," she said. "I have
+always played with Iroquois children; I went to school with Magdalen
+Brant. I taught among our Mohawks and Oneidas when I was thirteen. Then
+I was instructed by sachems and I learned what the witch-drums say, and
+I need use no signs in the six languages or the clan dialects, save
+only when I speak with the Lenni-Lenape. Maybe, too, the Hurons and
+Algonquins have words that I know not, for many Tuscaroras do not
+understand them save by sign."
+
+"I wish that some of my interpreters had your knowledge, or a fifth of
+it," said the General, smiling. "Tell me, Miss Dorothy, who was that
+Indian and what did that paint mean?"
+
+"The Indian was Joseph Brant, called Thayendanegea, which means, 'He who
+holds many peoples together,' or, in plainer words, 'A bundle
+of sticks.'"
+
+"You are certain it was Brant?"
+
+"Yes. He has dined at this table with us. He is an educated man." She
+hesitated, looking down thoughtfully at her own reflection in the
+polished table. "The paint he wore was not war-paint. The signs on his
+body were emblems of the secret clan called the 'False-Faces.'"
+
+The General looked up at Jack Mount.
+
+"What did Stoner say?" he asked.
+
+"Stoner reports that all the Iroquois are making ready for some unknown
+rite, sir. He saw pyramids of flat river-stones set up on hills and he
+saw smoke answering smoke from the Adirondack peaks to the
+Mayfield hills."
+
+"What did Timothy Murphy observe?" asked Schuyler, watching Mount
+intently.
+
+"Murphy brings news of their witch, Catrine Montour, sir. He. chased her
+till he dropped--like all the rest of us--but she went on and on a
+running, hop! tap! hop! tap! and patter, patter, patter! It stirs my
+hair to think on her, and I'm no coward, sir. We call her 'The
+Toad-woman.'"
+
+"I'll make you chief of scouts if you catch her," said the General,
+sharply.
+
+"Very good, sir," replied Mount, pulling a wry face, which made us all
+laugh.
+
+"It has been reported to me," said the General, quietly, "that the
+Butlers, father and son, are in this county to attend a secret council;
+and that, with the help of Catrine Montour, they expect to carry the
+Mohawk nation with them as well as the Cayugas and the Senecas.
+
+"It has further been reported to me by the Palatine scout that the
+Onondagas are wavering, that the Oneidas are disposed to stand our
+friends, that the Tuscaroras are anxious to remain neutral.
+
+"Now, within a few days, news has reached me that these three doubtful
+nations are to be persuaded by an unknown woman who is, they say, the
+prophetess of the False-Faces."
+
+He paused, looking straight at Dorothy.
+
+"From your knowledge," he said, slowly, "tell me who is this unknown
+woman."
+
+"Do you not know, sir?" she asked, simply.
+
+"Yes, I think I do, child. It is Magdalen Brant."
+
+"Yes," she said, quietly; "from childhood she stood as prophetess of the
+False-Faces. She is an educated girl, sweet, lovable, honorable, and
+sincere. She has been petted by the fine ladies of New York, of
+Philadelphia, of Albany. Yet she is partly Mohawk."
+
+"Not that charming girl whom I had to dinner?" I cried, astonished.
+
+"Yes, cousin," she said, tranquilly. "You are surprised? Why? You should
+see, as I have seen, pupils from Dr. Wheelock's school return to their
+tribes and, in a summer, sink to the level of the painted sachem, every
+vestige of civilization vanished with the knowledge of the tongue that
+taught it."
+
+"I have seen that," said Schuyler, frowning.
+
+"And I--by your leave, sir--I have seen it, too!" said Mount, savagely.
+"There may be some virtue in the rattlesnake; some folk eat 'em! But
+there is none in an Indian, not even stewed--"
+
+"That will do," said the General, ignoring the grim jest. "Do you speak
+the Iroquois tongues, or any of them?" he asked, wheeling around to
+address me.
+
+"I speak Tuscarora, sir," I replied. "The Tuscaroras understand the
+other five nations, but not the Hurons or Algonquins."
+
+"What tongue is used when the Iroquois meet?" he asked Dorothy.
+
+"Out of compliment to the youngest nation they use the Tuscarora
+language," she said.
+
+The General rose, bowing to Dorothy with a charming smile.
+
+"I must not keep you from your charades any longer," he said, conducting
+her to the door and thanking her for the great help and profit he had
+derived from her knowledge of the Iroquois.
+
+He had not dismissed us, so we awaited his return; and presently he
+appeared, calm, courteous, and walked up to me, laying a kindly hand on
+my shoulder.
+
+"I want an officer who understands Tuscarora and who has felt the bite
+of an Indian bullet," he said, earnestly.
+
+I stood silent and attentive.
+
+"I want that officer to find the False-Faces' council-fire and listen to
+every word said, and report to me. I want him to use every endeavor to
+find this woman, Magdalen Brant, and use every art to persuade her to
+throw all her influence with the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras for
+their strict neutrality in this coming war. The service I require may be
+dangerous and may not. I do not know. Are you ready, Captain Ormond?"
+
+"Ready, sir!" I said, steadily.
+
+He drew a parchment from his breast-pocket and laid it in my hands. It
+was my commission in the armies of the United States of America as
+captain in the militia battalion of Morgan's regiment of riflemen, and
+signed by our Governor, George Clinton.
+
+"Do you accept this commission, Mr. Ormond?" he asked, regarding me
+pleasantly.
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+Sir Lupus's family Bible lay on the window-sill; the General bade Mount
+fetch it, and he did so. The General placed it before me, and I laid my
+hand upon it, looking him in the face. Then, in a low voice, he
+administered the oath, and I replied slowly but clearly, ending, "So
+help me God," and kissed the Book.
+
+"Sit down, sir," said the General; and when I was seated he told me how
+the Continental Congress in July of 1775 had established three Indian
+departments; how that he, as chief commissioner of this Northern
+department, which included the Six Nations of the Iroquois confederacy,
+had summoned the national council, first at German Flatts, then at
+Albany; how he and the Reverend Mr. Kirkland and Mr. Dean had done all
+that could be done to keep the Iroquois neutral, but that they had not
+fully prevailed against the counsels of Guy Johnson and Brant, though
+the venerable chief of the Mohawk upper castle had seemed inclined to
+neutrality. He told me of General Herkimer's useless conference with
+Brant at Unadilla, where that chief had declared that "The King of
+England's belts were still lodged with the Mohawks, and that the Mohawks
+could not violate their pledges."
+
+"I think we have lost the Mohawks," said the General, thoughtfully.
+"Perhaps also the Senecas and Cayugas; for this she-devil, Catrine
+Montour, is a Huron-Seneca, and her nation will follow her. But, if we
+can hold the three other nations back, it will be a vast gain to our
+cause--not that I desire or would permit them to do battle for me,
+though our Congress has decided to enlist such Indians as wish to serve;
+but because there might be some thousand warriors the less to hang on
+our flanks and do the dreadful work among the people of this country
+which these people so justly fear."
+
+He rose, nodding to me, and I followed him to the door.
+
+"Now," he said, "you know what you are to do."
+
+"When shall I set out, sir?" I asked.
+
+He smiled, saying, "I shall give you no instructions, Captain Ormond; I
+shall only concern myself with results."
+
+"May I take with me whom I please?"
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+I looked at Mount, who had been standing motionless by the door, an
+attentive spectator.
+
+"I will take the rifleman Mount," I said, "unless he is detailed for
+other service--"
+
+"Take him, Mr. Ormond. When do you wish to start? I ask it because there
+is a gentleman at Broadalbin who has news for you, and you must pass
+that way."
+
+"May I ask who that is?" I inquired, respectfully.
+
+"The gentleman is Sir George Covert, captain on my personal staff, and
+now under your orders."
+
+"I shall set out to-night, sir," I said, abruptly; then stepped back to
+let him pass me into the hallway beyond.
+
+"Saddle my mare and make every preparation," I said to Mount. "When you
+are ready lead the horses to the stockade gate.... How long will
+you take?"
+
+"An hour, sir, for rubbing down, saddling, and packing fodder,
+ammunition, and provisions."
+
+"Very well," I said, soberly, and walked out to the long drawing-room,
+where the company had taken chairs and were all whispering and watching
+a green baize curtain which somebody had hung across the farther end
+of the room.
+
+"Charades and pictures," whispered Cecile, at my elbow. "I guessed two,
+and Mr. Clavarack says it was wonderful."
+
+"It certainly was," I said, gravely. "Where is Ruyven? Oh, sitting with
+Miss Haldimand? Cecile, would you ask Miss Haldimand's indulgence for a
+few moments? I must speak to Sir Lupus and to you and Ruyven."
+
+I stepped back of the rows of chairs to where Sir Lupus sat in his great
+arm-chair by the doorway; and in another moment Cecile and Ruyven came
+up, the latter polite but scarcely pleased to be torn away from his
+first inamorata.
+
+"Sir Lupus, and you, Cecile and Ruyven," I said, in a low voice, "I am
+going on a little journey, and shall be absent for a few days, perhaps
+longer. I wish to take this opportunity to say good-bye, and to thank
+you all for your great kindness to me."
+
+"Where the devil are you going?" snapped Sir Lupus.
+
+"I am not at liberty to say, sir; perhaps General Schuyler may tell
+you."
+
+The patroon looked up at me sorrowfully. "George! George!" he said, "has
+it touched us already?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I muttered.
+
+"What?" whispered Cecile.
+
+"Father means the war. Our cousin Ormond is going to the war," exclaimed
+Ruyven, softly.
+
+There was a pause; then Cecile flung both arms around my neck and kissed
+me in choking silence. The patroon's great, fat hand sought mine and
+held it; Ruyven placed his arm about my shoulder. Never had I imagined
+that I could love these kinsmen of mine so dearly.
+
+"There's always a bed for you here; remember that, my lad," growled the
+patroon.
+
+"Take me, too," sniffed Ruyven.
+
+"Eh! What?" cried the patroon. "I'll take you; oh yes--over my knee, you
+impudent puppy! Let me catch you sneaking off to this war and I'll--"
+
+Ruyven relapsed into silence, staring at me in troubled fascination.
+
+"The house is yours, George," grunted the patroon. "Help yourself to
+what you need for your journey."
+
+"Thank you, sir; say good-bye to the children, kiss them all for me,
+Cecile. And don't run away and get married until I come back."
+
+A stifled snivel was my answer.
+
+Then into the room shuffled old Cato, and began to extinguish the
+candles; and I saw the green curtain twitch, and everybody
+whispered "Ah-h!"
+
+General Schuyler arose in the dim light when the last candle was blown
+out. "You are to guess the title of this picture!" he said, in his even,
+pleasant voice. "It is a famous picture, familiar to all present, I
+think, and celebrated in the Old World as well as in the New.... Draw
+the curtain, Cato!"
+
+Suddenly the curtain parted, and there stood the living, breathing
+figure of the "Maid-at-Arms." Her thick, gold hair clouded her cheeks,
+her eyes, blue as wood-violets, looked out sweetly from the shadowy
+background, her armor glittered.
+
+A stillness fell over the dark room; slowly the green curtains closed;
+the figure vanished.
+
+There was a roar of excited applause in my ears as I stumbled forward
+through the darkness, groping my way towards the dim gun-room through
+which she must pass to regain her chamber by the narrow stairway which
+led to the attic.
+
+She was not there; I waited a moment, listening in the darkness, and
+presently I heard, somewhere overhead, a faint ringing sound and the
+deadened clash of armed steps on the garret floor.
+
+"Dorothy!" I called.
+
+The steps ceased, and I mounted the steep stairway and came out into the
+garret, and saw her standing there, her armor outlined against the
+window and the pale starlight streaming over her steel shoulder-pieces.
+
+I shall never forget her as she stood looking at me, her steel-clad
+figure half buried in the darkness, yet dimly apparent in its youthful
+symmetry where the starlight fell on the curve of cuisse and greave,
+glimmering on the inlaid gorget with an unearthly light, and stirring
+pale sparks like fire-flies tangled in her hair.
+
+"Did I please you?" she whispered. "Did I not surprise you? Cato scoured
+the armor for me; it is the same armor she wore, they say--the
+Maid-at-Arms. And it fits me like my leather clothes, limb and body.
+Hark!... They are applauding yet! But I do not mean to spoil the magic
+picture by a senseless repetition.... And some are sure to say a ghost
+appeared.... Why are you so silent?... Did I not please you?"
+
+She flung casque and sword on the floor, cleared her white forehead from
+its tumbled veil of hair; then bent nearer, scanning my eyes closely.
+
+"Is aught amiss?" she asked, under her breath.
+
+I turned and slowly traversed the upper hallway to her chamber door, she
+walking beside me in silence, striving to read my face.
+
+"Let your maids disarm you," I whispered; "then dress and tap at my
+door. I shall be waiting."
+
+"Tell me now, cousin."
+
+"No; dress first."
+
+"It will take too long to do my hair. Oh, tell me! You have frightened
+me."
+
+"It is nothing to frighten you," I said. "Put off your armor and come to
+my door. Will you promise?"
+
+"Ye-es," she faltered; and I turned and hastened to my own chamber, to
+prepare for the business which lay before me.
+
+I dressed rapidly, my thoughts in a whirl; but I had scarcely slung
+powder-horn and pouch, and belted in my hunting-shirt, when there came a
+rapping at the door, and I opened it and stepped out into the
+dim hallway.
+
+At sight of me she understood, and turned quite white, standing there in
+her boudoir-robe of China silk, her heavy, burnished hair in two loose
+braids to her waist.
+
+In silence I lifted her listless hands and kissed the fingers, then the
+cold wrists and palms. And I saw the faint circlet of the ghost-ring on
+her bridal finger, and touched it with my lips.
+
+Then, as I stepped past her, she gave a low cry, hiding her face in her
+hands, and leaned back against the wall, quivering from head to foot.
+
+"Don't go!" she sobbed. "Don't go--don't go!"
+
+And because I durst not, for her own sake, turn or listen, I reeled on,
+seeing nothing, her faint cry ringing in my ears, until darkness and a
+cold wind struck me in the face, and I saw horses waiting, black in the
+starlight, and the gigantic form of a man at their heads, fringed cape
+blowing in the wind.
+
+"All ready?" I gasped.
+
+"All is ready and the night fine! We ride by Broadalbin, I think....
+Whoa! back up! you long-eared ass! D'ye think to smell a Mohawk?... Or
+is it your comrades on the picket-rope that bedevil you?... Look at
+the troop-horses, sir, all a-rolling on their backs in the sand, four
+hoofs waving in the air. It's easier on yon sentry than when they're all
+a-squealin' and a-bitin'--This way, sir. We swing by the bush and pick
+up the Iroquois trail 'twixt the Hollow and Mayfield."
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+ON DUTY
+
+As we galloped into Broadalbin Bush a house on our right loomed up black
+and silent, and I saw shutters and doors swinging wide open, and the
+stars shining through. There was something sinister in this stark and
+tenantless homestead, whose void casements stared, like empty
+eye-sockets.
+
+"They have gone to the Middle Fort--all of them except the Stoners,"
+said Mount, pushing his horse up beside mine. "Look, sir! See what this
+red terror has already done to make a wilderness of County Try on--and
+not a blow struck yet!"
+
+We passed another house, doorless, deserted; and as I rode abreast of
+it, to my horror I saw two shining eyes staring out at me from the
+empty window.
+
+"A wolf--already!" muttered Mount, tugging at his bridle as his horse
+sheered off, snorting; and I saw something run across the front steps
+and drop into the shadows.
+
+The roar of the Kennyetto sounded nearer. Woods gave place to
+stump-fields in which the young corn sprouted, silvered by the stars.
+Across a stony pasture we saw a rushlight burning in a doorway; and,
+swinging our horses out across a strip of burned stubble, we came
+presently to Stoner's house and heard the noise of the stream rushing
+through the woods below.
+
+I saw Sir George Covert immediately; he was sitting on a log under the
+window, dressed in his uniform, a dark military cloak mantling his
+shoulders and knees. When he recognized me he rose and came to my side.
+
+"Well, Ormond," he said, quietly, "it's a comfort to see you. Leave your
+horses with Elerson. Who is that with you--oh, Jack Mount? These are the
+riflemen, Elerson and Murphy--Morgan's men, you know."
+
+The two riflemen saluted me with easy ceremony and sauntered over to
+where Mount was standing at our horses' heads.
+
+"Hello, Catamount Jack," said Elerson, humorously. "Where 'd ye steal
+the squaw-buckskins? Look at the macaroni, Tim--all yellow and
+purple fringe!"
+
+Mount surveyed the riflemen in their suits of brown holland and belted
+rifle-frocks.
+
+"Dave Elerson, you look like a Quakeress in a Dutch jerkin," he
+observed.
+
+"'Tis the nate turrn to yere leg he grudges ye," said Murphy to Elerson.
+"Wisha, Dave, ye've the legs av a beau!"
+
+"Bow-legs, Dave," commented Mount. "It's not your fault, lad. I've seen
+'em run from the Iroquois as fast as Tim's--"
+
+The bantering reply of the big Irishman was lost to me as Sir George led
+me out of earshot, one arm linked in mine.
+
+I told him briefly of my mission, of my new rank in the army. He
+congratulated me warmly, and asked, in his pleasant way, for news of the
+manor, yet did not name Dorothy, which surprised me to the verge of
+resentment. Twice I spoke of her, and he replied courteously, yet seemed
+nothing eager to learn of her beyond what I volunteered.
+
+And at last I said: "Sir George, may I not claim a kinsman's privilege
+to wish you joy in your great happiness?"
+
+"What happiness?" he asked, blankly; then, in slight confusion, added:
+"You speak of my betrothal to your cousin Dorothy. I am stupid beyond
+pardon, Ormond; I thank you for your kind wishes.... I suppose Sir Lupus
+told you," he added, vaguely.
+
+"My cousin Dorothy told me," I said.
+
+"Ah! Yes--yes, indeed. But it is all in the future yet, Ormond." He
+moved on, switching the long weeds with a stick he had found. "All in
+the future," he murmured, absently--"in fact, quite remote, Ormond....
+By-the-way, you know why you were to meet me?"
+
+"No, I don't," I replied, coldly.
+
+"Then I'll tell you. The General is trying to head off Walter Butler and
+arrest him. Murphy and Elerson have just heard that Walter Butler's
+mother and sister, and a young lady, Magdalen Brant--you met her at
+Varicks'--are staying quietly at the house of a Tory named Beacraft. We
+must strive to catch him there; and, failing that, we must watch
+Magdalen Brant, that she has no communication with the Iroquois." He
+hesitated, head bent. "You see, the General believes that this young
+girl can sway the False-Faces to peace or war. She was once their
+pet--as a child.... It seems hard to believe that this lovely and
+cultivated young girl could revert to such savage customs.... And yet
+Murphy and Elerson credit it, and say that she will surely appear at the
+False-Faces' rites.... It is horrible, Ormond; she is a sweet child--by
+Heaven, she would turn a European court with her wit and beauty!"
+
+"I concede her beauty," I said, uneasy at his warm praise, "but as to
+her wit, I confess I scarcely exchanged a dozen words with her that
+night, and so am no judge."
+
+"Ah!" he said, with an absent-minded stare.
+
+"I naturally devoted myself to my cousin Dorothy," I added, irritated,
+without knowing why.
+
+"Quite so--quite so," he mused. "As I was saying, it seems cruel to
+suspect Magdalen Brant, but the General believes she can sway the
+Oneidas and Tuscaroras.... It is a ghastly idea. And if she does attempt
+this thing, it will be through the infernal machinations and devilish
+persuasions of the Butlers--mark that, Ormond!"
+
+He turned short in his tracks and made a fierce gesture with his stick.
+It broke short, and he flung the splintered ends into the darkness.
+
+"Why," he said, warmly, "there is not a gentler, sweeter disposition in
+the world than Magdalen Brant's, if no one comes a-tampering to wake the
+Iroquois blood in her. These accursed Butlers seem inspired by hell
+itself--and Guy Johnson!--What kind of a man is that, to take this young
+girl from Albany, where she had forgotten what a council-fire meant, and
+bring her here to these savages--sacrifice her!--undo all those years of
+culture and education!--rouse in her the dormant traditions and passions
+which she had imbibed with her first milk, and which she forgot when she
+was weaned! That is the truth, I tell you! I know, sir! It was my uncle
+who took her from Guy Park and sent her to my aunt Livingston. She had
+the best of schooling; she was reared in luxury; she had every advantage
+that could be gained in Albany; my aunt took her to London that she
+might acquire those graces of deportment which we but roughly
+imitate.... Is it not sickening to see Guy Johnson and Sir John exercise
+their power of relationship and persuade her from a good home back to
+this?... Think of it, Ormond!"
+
+"I do think of it," said I. "It is wrong--it is cruel and shameful!"
+
+"It is worse," said Sir George, bitterly. "Scarce a year has she been
+at Guy Park, yet to-day she is in full sympathy with Guy and Sir John
+and her dusky kinsman, Brant. Outwardly she is a charming, modest maid,
+and I do not for an instant mean you to think she is not chaste! The
+Irish nation is no more famed for its chastity than the Mohawk, but I
+know that she listens when the forest calls--listens with savant ears,
+Ormond, and her dozen drops of dusky blood set her pulses flying to the
+free call of the Wolf clan!"
+
+"Do you know her well?" I asked.
+
+"I? No. I saw her at my aunt Livingston's. It was the other night that I
+talked long with her--for the first time in my life."
+
+He stood silent, knee-deep in the dewy weeds, hand worrying his
+sword-hilt, long cloak flung back.
+
+"You have no idea how much of a woman she is," he said, vaguely.
+
+"In that case," I replied, "you might influence her."
+
+He raised his thoughtful face to the stars, studying the Twin Pointers.
+
+"May I try?" he asked.
+
+"Try? Yes, try, in Heaven's name, Sir George! If she must speak to the
+Oneidas, persuade her to throw her influence for peace, if you can. At
+all events, I shall know whether or not she goes to the fire, for I am
+charged by the General to find the False-Faces and report to him every
+word said.... Do you speak Tuscarora, Sir George?"
+
+"No; only Mohawk," he said. "How are you going to find the False-Faces'
+meeting-place?"
+
+"If Magdalen Brant goes, I go," said I. "And while I'm watching her,
+Jack Mount is to range, and track any savage who passes the Iroquois
+trail.... What do you mean to do with Murphy and Elerson?"
+
+"Elerson rides back to the manor with our horses; we've no further use
+for them here. Murphy follows me.... And I think we should be on our
+way," he added, impatiently.
+
+We walked back to the house, where old man Stoner and his two big boys
+stood with our riflemen, drinking flip.
+
+"Elerson," I said, "ride my mare and lead the other horses back to
+Varicks'. Murphy, you will pilot us to Beacraft's. Jack, go forward
+with Murphy."
+
+Old Stoner wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, bit into a twist
+of tobacco, spat derisively, and said: "This pup Beacraft swares he'll
+lift my haar 'fore he gits through with me! Threatened men live long.
+Kindly tell him me an' my sons is to hum. Sir George."
+
+The big, lank boys laughed, and winked at me as I passed.
+
+"Good trail an' many skelps to ye!" said old Stoner. "If ye see Francy
+McCraw, jest tell him thar's a rope an' a apple-tree waitin' fur him
+down to Fundy's Bush!"
+
+"Tell Danny Redstock an' Billy Bones that the Stoner boys is smellin'
+almighty close on their trail!" called out the elder youth.
+
+Elerson, in his saddle, gathered the bridles that Mount handed him and
+rode off into the darkness, leading Mount's horse and Sir George's at a
+trot. We filed off due west, Murphy and Mount striding in the lead, the
+noise of the river below us on our left. A few rods and we swung south,
+then west into a wretched stump-road, which Sir George said was the
+Mayfield road and part of the Sacandaga trail.
+
+The roar of the Kennyetto accompanied us, then for a while was lost in
+the swaying murmur of the pines. Twice we passed trodden carrying-places
+before the rushing of the river sounded once more far below us in a
+gorge; and we descended into a hollow to a ford from which an Indian
+trail ran back to the north. This was the Balston trail, which joined
+the Fish-House road; and Sir George said it was the trail I should have
+followed had it not been necessary for me to meet him at Fonda's Bush to
+relieve him of his horse.
+
+Now, journeying rapidly west, our faces set towards the Mayfield hills,
+we passed two or three small, cold brooks, on stepping-stones, where the
+dark sky, set with stars, danced in the ripples. Once, on a cleared
+hill, we saw against the sky the dim bulk of a lonely barn; then nothing
+more fashioned by human hands until, hours later, we found Murphy and
+Mount standing beside some rough pasture bars in the forest. How they
+had found them in the darkness of the woods--for we had long since left
+the stump-road--I do not know; but the bars were there, and a brush
+fence; and Murphy whispered that, beyond, a cow-path led to
+Beacraft's house.
+
+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 paper, 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, passion--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.
+
+Where their pathway entered the alders, below the lane, they vanished
+from our sight; and, leaving Mount to watch I went back to the house, to
+search it thoroughly from cellar to the dark garret beneath the eaves.
+
+At two o'clock in the afternoon Sir George and Magdalen Brant had not
+returned. I called Mount into the house, and we cooked some eggs and
+johnny-cake to stay our stomachs. An hour later I sent Mount out to make
+a circle of a mile, strike the Iroquois trail and hang to it till dark,
+following any traveller, white or red, who might be likely to lead him
+towards the secret trysting-place of the False-Faces.
+
+Left alone at the house, I continued to rummage, finding nothing of
+importance, however; and towards dusk I came out to see if I might
+discover Sir George and Magdalen Brant. They were not in sight. I waited
+for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, where a few poppies
+turned their crimson disks towards the setting sun, and a peony lay dead
+and smelling rank, with the ants crawling all over it. In the mellow
+light the stillness was absolute, save when a distant white-throat's
+silvery call, long drawn out, floated from the forest's darkening edge.
+
+The melancholy of the deserted home oppressed me, as though I had
+wronged it; the sad little house seemed to be watching me out of its
+humble windows, like a patient dog awaiting another blow. Beacraft's
+worn coat and threadbare vest, limp and musty as the garments of a dead
+man, hung on a peg behind the door. I searched the pockets with
+repugnance and found a few papers, which smelled like the covers of
+ancient books, memoranda of miserable little transactions--threepence
+paid for soling shoes, twopence here, a penny there; nothing more. I
+threw the papers on the grass, dipped up a bucket of well-water, and
+rinsed my fingers. And always the tenantless house watched me furtively
+from its humble windows.
+
+The sun's brassy edge glittered above the blue chain of hills as I
+walked across the pasture towards the path that led winding among the
+alders to the brook below. I followed it in the deepening evening light
+and sat down on a log, watching the water swirling through the flat
+stepping-stones where trout were swarming, leaping for the tiny winged
+creatures that drifted across the dusky water. And as I sat there I
+became aware of sounds like voices; and at first, seeing no one, I
+thought the noises came from the low bubbling monotone of the stream.
+Then I heard a voice murmuring: "I will do what you ask me--I will do
+everything you desire."
+
+Fearful of eavesdropping, I rose, peering ahead to make myself known,
+but saw nothing in the deepening dusk. On the point of calling, the
+words died on my lips as the same voice sounded again, close to me:
+
+"I pray you let me have my way. I will obey you. How can you doubt it?
+But I must obey in my own way."
+
+And Sir George's deep, pleasant voice answered: "There is danger to you
+in this. I could not endure that, Magdalen."
+
+They were on a path parallel to the trail in which I stood, separated
+from me by a deep fringe of willow. I could not see them, though now
+they were slowly passing abreast of me.
+
+"What do you care for a maid you so easily persuade?" she asked, with a
+little laugh that rang pitifully false in the dusk.
+
+"It is her own merciful heart that persuades her," he said, under his
+breath.
+
+"I think my heart is merciful," she said--"more merciful than even I
+knew. The restless blood in me set me afire when I saw the wrong done to
+these patient people of the Long House.... And when they appealed to me
+I came here to justify them, and bid them stand for their own
+hearths.... And now you come, teaching me the truth concerning right and
+wrong, and how God views justice and injustice; and how this tempest,
+once loosened, can never be chained until innocent and guilty are alike
+ingulfed.... I am very young to know all these things without
+counsel.... I needed aid--and wisdom to teach me--your wisdom. Now, in
+my turn, I shall teach; but you must let me teach in my way. There is
+only one way that the Long House can be taught.... You do not believe
+it, but in this I am wiser than you--I know."
+
+"Will you not tell me what you mean to do, Magdalen?"
+
+"No, Sir George."
+
+"When will you tell me?"
+
+"Never. But you will know what I have done. You will see that I hold
+three nations back. What else can you ask? I shall obey you. What more
+is there?"
+
+Her voice lingered in the air like an echo of flowing water, then died
+away as they moved on, until nothing sounded in the forest stillness
+save the low ripple of the stream. An hour later I picked my way back to
+the house and saw Sir George standing in the starlight, and Mount beside
+him, pointing towards the east.
+
+"I've found the False-Faces' trysting-place," said Mount, eagerly, as I
+came up. "I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile
+yonder in the bottom land--a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir.
+And first comes an Onondaga war-party, stripped and painted something
+sickening, and I dogged 'em till they turned off into the bush to shoot
+a doe full of arrows--though all had guns!--and left 'em eating. Then
+comes three painted devils, all hung about with witch-drums and rattles,
+and I tied to them. And, would you believe it, sir, they kept me on a
+fox-trot straight east, then south along a deer-path, till they struck
+the Kennyetto at that sulphur spring under the big cliff--you know, Sir
+George, where Klock's old line cuts into the Mohawk country?"
+
+"I know," said Sir George.
+
+Mount took off his cap and scratched his ear.
+
+"The forest is full of little heaps of flat stones. I could see my
+painted friends with the drums and rattles stop as they ran by, and each
+pull a flat stone from the river and add it to the nearest heap. Then
+they disappeared in the ravine--and I guess that settles it,
+Captain Ormond."
+
+Sir George looked at me, nodding.
+
+"That settles it, Ormond," he said.
+
+I bade Mount cook us something to eat. Sir George looked after him as he
+entered the house, then began a restless pacing to and fro, arms loosely
+clasped behind him.
+
+"About Magdalen Brant," he said, abruptly. "She will not speak to the
+three nations for Butler's party. The child had no idea of this wretched
+conspiracy to turn the savages loose in the valley. She thought our
+people meant to drive the Iroquois from their own lands--a black
+disgrace to us if we ever do!... They implored her to speak to them in
+council. Did you know they believe her to be inspired? Well, they do.
+When she was a child they got that notion, and Guy Johnson and Walter
+Butler have been lying to her and telling her what to say to the Oneidas
+and Onondagas."
+
+He turned impatiently, pacing the yard, scowling, and gnawing his lip.
+
+"Where is she?" I asked.
+
+"She has gone to bed. She would eat nothing. We must take her back with
+us to Albany and summon the sachems of the three nations, with belts."
+
+"Yes," I said, slowly. "But before we leave I must see the False-Faces."
+
+"Did Schuyler make that a point?"
+
+"Yes, Sir George."
+
+"They say the False-Faces' rites are terrific," he muttered. "Thank
+God, that child will not be lured into those hideous orgies by
+Walter Butler!"
+
+We walked towards the house where Mount had prepared our food. I sat
+down on the door-step to eat my porridge and think of what lay before me
+and how best to accomplish it. And at first I was minded to send Sir
+George back with Magdalen Brant and take only Mount with me. But whether
+it was a craven dread of despatching to Dorothy the man she was pledged
+to wed, or whether a desire for his knowledge and experience prompted me
+to invite his attendance at the False-Faces' rites, I do not know
+clearly, even now. He came out of the house presently, and I asked him
+if he would go with me.
+
+"One of us should stay here with Magdalen Brant," he said, gravely.
+
+"Is she not safe here?" I asked.
+
+"You cannot leave a child like that absolutely alone," he answered.
+
+"Then take her to Varicks'," I said, sullenly. "If she remains here some
+of Butler's men will be after her to attend the council."
+
+"You wish me to go up-stairs and rouse her for a journey--now?"
+
+"Yes; it is best to get her into a safe place," I muttered. "She may
+change her ideas, too, betwixt now and dawn."
+
+He re-entered the house. I heard his spurs jingling on the stairway,
+then his voice, and a rapping at the door above.
+
+Jack Mount appeared, rifle in hand, wiping his mouth with his fingers;
+and together we paced the yard, waiting for Sir George and Magdalen
+Brant to set out before we struck the Iroquois trail.
+
+Suddenly Sir George's heavy tread sounded on the stairs; he came to the
+door, looking about him, east and west. His features were pallid and
+set and seamed with stern lines; he laid an unsteady hand on my arm and
+drew me a pace aside.
+
+"Magdalen Brant is gone," he said.
+
+"Gone!" I repeated. "Where?"
+
+"I don't know!" he said, hoarsely.
+
+I stared at him in astonishment. Gone? Where? Into the tremendous
+blackness of this wilderness that menaced us on all sides like a sea?
+And they had thought to tame her like a land-blown gull among
+the poultry!
+
+"Those drops of Mohawk blood are not in her veins for nothing," I said,
+bitterly. "Here is our first lesson."
+
+He hung his head. She had lied to him with innocent, smooth face, as all
+such fifth-castes lie. No jewelled snake could shed her skin as deftly
+as this young maid had slipped from her shoulders the frail garment of
+civilization.
+
+The man beside me stood as though stunned. I was obliged to speak to him
+thrice ere he roused to follow Jack Mount, who, at a sign from me, had
+started across the dark hill-side to guide us to the trysting-place of
+the False-Faces' clan.
+
+"Mount," I whispered, as he lingered waiting for us at the
+stepping-stones in the dark, "some one has passed this trail since I
+stood here an hour ago." And, bending down, I pointed to a high, flat
+stepping-stone, which glimmered wet in the pale light of the stars.
+
+Sir George drew his tinder-box, struck steel to flint, and lighted a
+short wax dip.
+
+"Here!" whispered Mount.
+
+On the edge of the sand the dip-light illuminated the small imprint of a
+woman's shoe, pointing southeast.
+
+Magdalen Brant had heard the voices in the Long House.
+
+"The mischief is done," said Sir George, steadily. "I take the blame
+and disgrace of this."
+
+"No; I take it," said I, sternly. "Step back, Sir George. Blow out that
+dip! Mount, can you find your way to that sulphur spring where the flat
+stones are piled in little heaps?"
+
+The big fellow laughed. As he strode forward into the depthless sea of
+darkness a whippoorwill called.
+
+"That's Elerson, sir," he said, and repeated the call twice.
+
+The rifleman appeared from the darkness, touching his cap to me. "The
+horses are safe, sir," he said. "The General desires you to send your
+report through Sir George Covert and push forward with Mount
+to Stanwix."
+
+He drew a sealed paper from his pouch and handed it to me, saying that I
+was to read it.
+
+Sir George lighted his dip once more. I broke the seal and read my
+orders under the feeble, flickering light:
+
+     "TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS,
+     VARICK MANOR, June 1, 1777.
+
+     To Captain Ormond, on scout:
+
+     Sir,--The General commanding this department desires you to
+     employ all art and persuasion to induce the Oneidas,
+     Tuscaroras, and Onondagas to remain quiet. Failing this, you
+     are again reminded that the capture of Magdalen Brant is of
+     the utmost importance. If possible, make Walter Butler also
+     prisoner, and send him to Albany under charge of Timothy
+     Murphy; but, above all, secure the person of Magdalen Brant
+     and send her to Varick Manor under escort of Sir George
+     Covert. If, for any reason, you find these orders impossible
+     of execution, send your report of the False-Faces' council
+     through Sir George Covert, and push forward with the riflemen
+     Mount, Murphy, and Elerson until you are in touch with
+     Gansevoort's outposts at Stanwix. Warn Colonel Gansevoort
+     that Colonel Barry St. Leger has moved from Oswego, and order
+     out a strong scout towards Fort Niagara. Although Congress
+     authorizes the employment of friendly Oneidas as scouts,
+     General Schuyler trusts that you will not avail yourself of
+     this liberty. Noblesse oblige! The General directs you to
+     return only when you have carried out these orders to the
+     best of your ability. You will burn this paper before you set
+     out for Stanwix. I am, sir,
+
+     "Your most humble and obedient servant,
+
+     "JOHN HARROW, Major and A. D. C. to the Major-General
+     Commanding. (Signed) PHILIP SCHUYLER, Major-General
+     Commanding the Department of the North."
+
+Hot with mortification at the wretched muddle I had already made of my
+mission, I thrust the paper into my pouch and turned to Elerson.
+
+"You know Magdalen Brant?" I asked, impatiently.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"There is a chance," I said, "that she may return to that house on the
+hill behind us. If she comes back you will see that she does not leave
+the house until we return."
+
+Sir George extinguished the dip once more. Mount turned and set off at a
+swinging pace along the invisible path; after him strode Sir George; I
+followed, brooding bitterly on my stupidity, and hopeless now of
+securing the prisoner in whose fragile hands the fate of the
+Northland lay.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE FALSE-FACES
+
+For a long time we had scented green birch smoke, and now, on hands and
+knees, we were crawling along the edge of a cliff, the roar of the river
+in our ears, when Mount suddenly flattened out and I heard him breathing
+heavily as I lay down close beside him.
+
+"Look!" he whispered, "the ravine is full of fire!"
+
+A dull-red glare grew from the depths of the ravine; crimson shadows
+shook across the wall of earth and rock. Above the roaring of the stream
+I heard an immense confused murmur and the smothered thumping rhythm of
+distant drumming.
+
+"Go on," I whispered.
+
+Mount crawled forward, Sir George and I after him. The light below
+burned redder and redder on the cliff; sounds of voices grew more
+distinct; the dark stream sprang into view, crimson under the increasing
+furnace glow. Then, as we rounded a heavy jutting crag, a great light
+flared up almost in our faces, not out of the kindling ravine, but
+breaking forth among the huge pines on the cliffs.
+
+"Their council-fire!" panted Mount. "See them sitting there!"
+
+"Flatten out," I whispered. "Follow me!" And I crawled straight towards
+the fire, where, ink-black against the ruddy conflagration, an enormous
+pine lay uprooted, smashed by lightning or tempest, I know not which.
+
+Into the dense shadows of the debris I crawled, Mount and Sir George
+following, and lay there in the dark, staring at the forbidden circle
+where the secret mysteries of the False-Faces had already begun.
+
+Three great fires roared, set at regular intervals in a cleared space,
+walled in by the huge black pines. At the foot of a tree sat a white
+man, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. The man was
+Walter Butler.
+
+On his right sat Brant, wrapped in a crimson blanket, his face painted
+black and scarlet. On his left knelt a ghastly figure wearing a scowling
+wooden mask painted yellow and black.
+
+Six separate groups of Indians surrounded the fires. They were sachems
+of the Six Nations, each sachem bearing in his hands the symbol of his
+nation and of his clan. All were wrapped in black-and-white blankets,
+and their faces were painted white above the upper lip as though they
+wore skin-tight masks.
+
+Three young girls, naked save for the beaded clout, and painted scarlet
+from brow to ankle, beat the witch-drums tump-a-tump! tump-a-tump! while
+a fourth stood, erect as a vermilion statue, holding a chain belt woven
+in black-and-white wampum.
+
+Behind these central figures the firelight fell on a solid semicircle of
+savages, crowns shaved, feathers aslant on the braided lock, and all
+oiled and painted for war.
+
+A chief, wrapped in a blue blanket, stepped out into the circle swinging
+the carcass of a white dog by the hind-legs. He tied it to a black-birch
+sapling and left it dangling and turning round and round.
+
+"This for the Keepers of the Fires," he said, in Tuscarora, and flung
+the dog's entrails into the middle fire.
+
+Three young men sprang into the ring; each threw a log onto one of the
+fires.
+
+"The name of the Holder of the Heavens may now be spoken and heard
+without offence," said an old sachem, rising. "Hark! brothers. Harken, O
+you wise men and sachems! The False-Faces are laughing in the ravine
+where the water is being painted with firelight. I acquaint you that the
+False-Faces are coming up out of the ravine!"
+
+The witch-drums boomed and rattled in the silence that followed his
+words. Far off I heard the sound of many voices laughing and talking all
+together; nearer, nearer, until, torch in hand, a hideously masked
+figure bounded into the circle, shaking out his bristling cloak of green
+reeds. Another followed, another, then three, then six, then a dozen,
+whirling their blazing torches; all horribly masked and smothered in
+coarse bunches of long, black hair, or cloaked with rustling
+river reeds.
+
+     "Ha! Ah-weh-hot-kwah!
+     Ha! Ah-weh-hah!
+     Ha! The crimson flower!
+     Ha! The flower!"
+
+they chanted, thronging around the central fire; then falling back in a
+half-circle, torches lifted, while the masked figures banked solidly
+behind, chanted monotonously:
+
+     "Red fire burns on the maple!
+     Red fire burns in the pines.
+     The red flower to the maple!
+     The red death to the pines!"
+
+At this two young girls, wearing white feathers and white weasel pelts
+dangling from shoulders to knees, entered the ring from opposite ends.
+Their arms were full of those spectral blossoms called "Ghost-corn," and
+they strewed the flowers around the ring in silence. Then three maidens,
+glistening in cloaks of green pine-needles, slipped into the fire
+circle, throwing showers of violets and yellow moccasin flowers over the
+earth, calling out, amid laughter, "Moccasins for whippoorwills! Violets
+for the two heads entangled!" And, their arms empty of blossoms, they
+danced away, laughing while the False-Faces clattered their wooden masks
+and swung their torches till the flames whistled.
+
+Then six sachems rose, casting off their black-and-white blankets, and
+each in turn planted branches of yellow willow, green willow, red osier,
+samphire, witch-hazel, spice-bush, and silver birch along the edge of
+the silent throng of savages.
+
+"Until the night-sun comes be these your barriers, O Iroquois!" they
+chanted. And all answered:
+
+"The Cherry-maid shall lock the gates to the People of the Morning! A-e!
+ja-e! Wild cherry and cherry that is red!"
+
+Then came the Cherry-maid, a slender creature, hung from head to foot
+with thick bunches of wild cherries which danced and swung when she
+walked; and the False-Faces plucked the fruit from her as she passed
+around, laughing and tossing her black hair, until she had been
+despoiled and only the garment of sewed leaves hung from shoulder
+to ankle.
+
+A green blanket was spread for her and she sat down under the branch of
+witch-hazel.
+
+"The barrier is closed!" she said. "Kindle your coals from Onondaga, O
+you Keepers of the Central Fire!"
+
+An aged sachem arose, and, lifting his withered arm, swept it eastward.
+
+"The hearth is cleansed," he said, feebly. "Brothers, attend!
+She-who-runs is coming. Listen!"
+
+A dead silence fell over the throng, broken only by the rustle of the
+flames. After a moment, very far away in the forest, something sounded
+like the muffled gallop of an animal, paddy-pad! paddy-pad, coming
+nearer and ever nearer.
+
+"It's the Toad-woman!" gasped Mount in my ear. "It's the Huron witch!
+Ah! My God! look there!"
+
+Hopping, squattering, half scrambling, half bounding into the firelight
+came running a dumpy creature all fluttering with scarlet rags. A coarse
+mat of gray hair masked her visage; she pushed it aside and raised a
+dreadful face in the red fire-glow--a face so marred, so horrible, that
+I felt Mount shivering in the darkness beside me.
+
+Through the hollow boom-boom of the witch-drums I heard a murmur
+swelling from the motionless crowd, like a rising wind in the pines. The
+hag heard it too; her mouth widened, splitting her ghastly visage. A
+single yellow fang caught the firelight.
+
+"O you People of the Mountain! O you Onondagas!" she cried. "I am come
+to ask my Cayugas and my Senecas why they assemble here on the Kennyetto
+when their council-fire and yours should burn at Onondaga! O you
+Oneidas, People of the Standing Stone! I am come to ask my Senecas, my
+Mountain-snakes, why the Keepers of the Iroquois Fire have let it go
+out? O you of the three clans, let your ensigns rise and listen. I speak
+to the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Bear! And I call on the seven kindred
+clans of the Wolf, and the two kindred clans of the Turtle, and the four
+kindred clans of the Bear throughout the Six Nations of the Iroquois
+confederacy, throughout the clans of the Lenni-Lenape, throughout the
+Huron-Algonquins and their clans!
+
+"And I call on the False-Faces of the Spirit-water and the Water of
+Light!"
+
+She shook her scarlet rags and, raising her arm, hurled a hatchet into
+a painted post which stood behind the central fire.
+
+"O you Cayugas, People of the Carrying-place! Strike that war-post with
+your hatchets or face the ghosts of your fathers in every trail!"
+
+There was a deathly silence. Catrine Montour closed her horrible little
+eyes, threw back her head, and, marking time with her flat foot,
+began to chant.
+
+She chanted the glory of the Long House; of the nations that drove the
+Eries, the Hurons, the Algonquins; of the nation that purged the earth
+of the Stonish Giants; of the nation that fought the dreadful battle of
+the Flying Heads. She sang the triumph of the confederacy, the bonds
+that linked the Elder Brothers and Elder Sons with the Esaurora, whose
+tongue was the sign of council unity.
+
+And the circle of savages began to sway in rhythm to her chanting,
+answering back, calling their challenge from clan to clan; until,
+suddenly, the Senecas sprang to their feet and drove their hatchets into
+the war-post, challenging the Lenape with their own battle-cry:
+
+"Yoagh! Yoagh! Ha-ha! Hagh! Yoagh!"
+
+Then the Mohawks raised their war-yelp and struck the post; and the
+Cayugas answered with a terrible cry, striking the post, and calling out
+for the Next Youngest Son--meaning the Tuscaroras--to draw
+their hatchets.
+
+"Have the Seminoles made women of you?" screamed Catrine Montour,
+menacing the sachems of the Tuscaroras with clinched fists.
+
+"Let the Lenape tell you of women!" retorted a Tuscarora sachem, calmly.
+
+At this opening of an old wound the Oneidas called on the Lenape to
+answer; but the Lenape sat sullen and silent, with flashing eyes fixed
+on the Mohawks.
+
+Then Catrine Montour, lashing herself into a fury, screamed for
+vengeance on the people who had broken the chain-belt with the Long
+House. Raving and frothing, she burst into a torrent of prophecy, which
+silenced every tongue and held every Indian fascinated.
+
+"Look!" whispered Mount. "The Oneidas are drawing their hatchets! The
+Tuscaroras will follow! The Iroquois will declare for war!"
+
+Suddenly the False-Faces raised a ringing shout:
+
+"Kree! Ha-ha! Kre-e!"
+
+And a hideous creature in yellow advanced, rattling his yellow mask.
+
+Catrine Montour, slavering and gasping, leaned against the painted
+war-post. Into the fire-ring came dancing a dozen girls, all strung with
+brilliant wampum, their bodies and limbs painted vermilion, sleeveless
+robes of wild iris hanging to their knees. With a shout they chanted:
+
+"O False-Faces, prepare to do honor to the truth! She who Dreams has
+come from her three sisters--the Woman of the Thunder-cloud, the Woman
+of the Sounding Footsteps, the Woman of the Murmuring Skies!"
+
+And, joining hands, they cried, sweetly: "Come, O Little Rosebud
+Woman!--Ke-neance-e-qua! O-gin-e-o-qua!--Woman of the Rose!"
+
+And all together the False-Faces cried: "Welcome to Ta-lu-la, the
+leaping waters! Here is I-é-nia, the wanderer's rest! Welcome, O Woman
+of the Rose!"
+
+Then the grotesque throng of the False-Faces parted right and left; a
+lynx, its green eyes glowing, paced out into the firelight; and behind
+the tawny tree-cat came slowly a single figure--a young girl, bare of
+breast and arm; belted at the hips with silver, from which hung a
+straight breadth of doeskin to the instep of her bare feet. Her dark
+hair, parted, fell in two heavy braids to her knees; her lips were
+tinted with scarlet; her small ear-lobes and finger-tips were stained a
+faint rose-color.
+
+In the breathless silence she raised her head. Sir George's crushing
+grip clutched my arm, and he fell a-shuddering like a man with ague.
+
+The figure before us was Magdalen Brant.
+
+The lynx lay down at her feet and looked her steadily in the face.
+
+Slowly she raised her rounded arm, opened her empty palm; then from
+space she seemed to pluck a rose, and I saw it there between her
+forefinger and her thumb.
+
+A startled murmur broke from the throng. "Magic! She plucks blossoms
+from the empty air!"
+
+"O you Oneidas," came the sweet, serene voice, "at the tryst of the
+False-Faces I have kept my tryst.
+
+"You wise men of the Six Nations, listen now attentively; and you,
+ensigns and attestants, attend, honoring the truth which from my twin
+lips shall flow, sweetly as new honey and as sap from April maples."
+
+She stooped and picked from the ground a withered leaf, holding it out
+in her small, pink palm.
+
+"Like this withered leaf is your understanding. It is for a maid to
+quicken you to life, ... as I restore this last year's leaf to life,"
+she said, deliberately.
+
+In her open palm the dry, gray leaf quivered, moved, straightened,
+slowly turned moist and fresh and green. Through the intense silence the
+heavy, gasping breath of hundreds of savages told of the tension they
+struggled under.
+
+She dropped the leaf to her feet; gradually it lost its green and curled
+up again, a brittle, ashy flake.
+
+"O you Oneidas!" she cried, in that clear voice which seemed to leave a
+floating melody in the air, "I have talked with my Sisters of the
+Murmuring Skies, and none but the lynx at my feet heard us."
+
+She bent her lovely head and looked into the creature's blazing orbs;
+after a moment the cat rose, took three stealthy steps, and lay down at
+her feet, closing its emerald eyes.
+
+The girl raised her head: "Ask me concerning the truth, you sachems of
+the Oneida, and speak for the five war-chiefs who stand in their paint
+behind you!"
+
+An old sachem rose, peering out at her from dim, aged eyes.
+
+"Is it war, O Woman of the Rose?" he quavered.
+
+"Neah!" she said, sweetly.
+
+An intense silence followed, shattered by a scream from the hag,
+Catrine.
+
+"A lie! It is war! You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks!
+It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are
+hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let
+them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O
+Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their
+prophetess; let her dream for them. I have dreamed for you, O Elder
+Brothers! And I have dreamed of war!!"
+
+"And I of peace!" came the clear, floating voice, soothing the harsh
+echoes of the hag's shrieking appeal. "Take heed, you Mohawks, and you
+Cayuga war-chiefs and sachems, that you do no violence to this
+council-fire!"
+
+"The Oneidas are women!" yelled the hag.
+
+Magdalen Brant made a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing
+something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked,
+something did strike the ground--something that coiled and hissed and
+rattled--a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx
+turned its head, snarling, every hair erect.
+
+"Mohawks and Cayugas!" she cried; "are you to judge the Oneidas?--you
+who dare not take this rattlesnake in your hands?"
+
+There was no reply. She smiled and lifted the snake. It coiled up in her
+palm, rattling and lifting its terrible head to the level of her eyes.
+The lynx growled.
+
+"Quiet!" she said, soothingly. "The snake has gone, O Tahagoos, my
+friend. Behold, my hand is empty; Sa-kwe-en-ta, the Fanged One
+has gone."
+
+It was true. There was nothing where, an instant before, I myself had
+seen the dread thing, crest swaying on a level with her eyes.
+
+"Will you be swept away by this young witch's magic?" shrieked Catrine
+Montour.
+
+"Oneidas!" cried Magdalen Brant, "the way is cleared! Hiro [I have
+spoken]!"
+
+Then the sachems of the Oneida stood up, wrapping themselves in their
+blankets, and moved silently away, filing into the forest, followed by
+the war-chiefs and those who had accompanied the Oneida delegation as
+attestants.
+
+"Tuscaroras!" said Magdalen Brant, quietly.
+
+The Tuscarora sachems rose and passed out into the darkness, followed by
+their suite of war-chiefs and attestants.
+
+"Onondagas!"
+
+All but two of the Onondaga delegation left the council-fire. Amid a
+profound silence the Lenape followed, and in their wake stalked three
+tall Mohicans.
+
+Walter Butler sprang up from the base of the tree where he had been
+sitting and pointed a shaking finger at Magdalen Brant:
+
+"Damn you!" he shouted; "if you call on my Mohawks, I'll cut your
+throat, you witch!"
+
+Brant bounded to his feet and caught Butler's rigid, outstretched arm.
+
+"Are you mad, to violate a council-fire?" he said, furiously. Magdalen
+Brant looked calmly at Butler, then deliberately faced the sachems.
+
+"Mohawks!" she called, steadily.
+
+There was a silence; Butler's black eyes were almost starting from his
+bloodless visage; the hag, Montour, clawed the air in helpless fury.
+
+"Mohawks!" repeated the girl, quietly.
+
+Slowly a single war-chief rose, and, casting aside his blanket, drew his
+hatchet and struck the war-post. The girl eyed him contemptuously, then
+turned again and called:
+
+"Senecas!"
+
+A Seneca chief, painted like death, strode to the post and struck it
+with his hatchet.
+
+"Cayuga!" called the girl, steadily.
+
+A Cayuga chief sprang at the post and struck it twice.
+
+Roars of applause shook the silence; then a masked figure leaped towards
+the central fire, shouting: "The False-Faces' feast! Ho! Hoh! Ho-ooh!"
+
+In a moment the circle was a scene of terrific excesses. Masked figures
+pelted each other with live coals from the fires; dancing, shrieking,
+yelping demons leaped about whirling their blazing torches; witch-drums
+boomed; chant after chant was raised as new dancers plunged into the
+delirious throng, whirling the carcasses of white dogs, painted with
+blue and yellow stripes. The nauseating stench of burned roast meat
+filled the air, as the False-Faces brought quarters of venison and
+baskets of fish into the circle and dumped them on the coals.
+
+Faster and more furious grew the dance of the False-Faces. The flying
+coals flew in every direction, streaming like shooting-stars across the
+fringing darkness. A grotesque masker, wearing the head-dress of a bull,
+hurled his torch into the air; the flaming brand lodged in the feathery
+top of a pine, the foliage caught fire, and with a crackling rush a vast
+whirlwind of flame and smoke streamed skyward from the forest giant.
+
+"To-wen-yon-go [It touches the sky]!" howled the crazed dancers, leaping
+about, while faster and faster came the volleys of live coals, until a
+young girl's hair caught fire.
+
+"Kah-none-ye-tah-we!" they cried, falling back and forming a
+chain-around her as she wrung the sparks from her long hair, laughing
+and leaping about between the flying coals.
+
+Then the nine sachems of the Mohawks rose, all covering their breasts
+with their blankets, save the chief sachem, who is called "The Two
+Voices." The serried circle fell back, Senecas, Cayugas, and Mohawks
+shouting their battle-cries; scores of hatchets glittered,
+knives flashed.
+
+All alone in the circle stood Magdalen Brant, slim, straight, motionless
+as a tinted statue, her hands on her hips. Reflections of the fires
+played over her, in amber and pearl and rose; violet lights lay under
+her eyes and where the hair shadowed her brow. Then, through the
+silence, a loud voice cried: "Little Rosebud Woman, the False-Faces
+thank you! Koon-wah-yah-tun-was [They are burning the white dog]!"
+
+She raised her head and laid a hand on each cheek.
+
+"Neah-wen-ha [I thank you]," she said, softly.
+
+At the word the lynx rose and looked up into her face, then turned and
+paced slowly across the circle, green eyes glowing.
+
+The young girl loosened the braids of her hair; a thick, dark cloud fell
+over her bare shoulders and breasts.
+
+"She veils her face!" chanted the False-Faces. "Respect the veil! Adieu,
+O Woman of the Rose!"
+
+Her hands fell, and, with bent head, moving slowly, pensively, she
+passed out of the infernal circle, the splendid lynx stalking at
+her heels.
+
+No sooner was she gone than hell itself broke loose among the
+False-Faces; the dance grew madder and madder, the terrible rite of
+sacrifice was enacted with frightful symbols. Through the awful din the
+three war-cries pealed, the drums advanced, thundering; the iris-maids
+lighted the six little fires of black-birch, spice-wood, and sassafras,
+and crouched to inhale the aromatic smoke until, stupefied and quivering
+in every limb with the inspiration of delirium, they stood erect,
+writhing, twisting, tossing their hair, chanting the splendors of
+the future!
+
+Then into the crazed orgie leaped the Toad-woman like a gigantic scarlet
+spider, screaming prophecy and performing the inconceivable and nameless
+rites of Ak-e, Ne-ke, and Ge-zis, until, in her frenzy, she went stark
+mad, and the devil worship began with the awful sacrifice of Leshee in
+Biskoonah.
+
+Horror-stricken, nauseated, I caught Mount's arm, whispering: "Enough,
+in God's name! Come away!"
+
+My ears rang with the distracted yelping of the Toad-woman, who was
+strangling a dog. Faint, almost reeling, I saw an iris-girl fall in
+convulsions; the stupefying smoke blew into my face, choking me. I
+staggered back into the darkness, feeling my way among the unseen trees,
+gasping for fresh air. Behind me, Mount and Sir George came creeping,
+groping like blind men along the cliffs.
+
+"This way," whispered Mount.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+ON SCOUT
+
+Like a pursued man hunted through a dream, I labored on, leaden-limbed,
+trembling; and it seemed hours and hours ere the blue starlight broke
+overhead and Beacraft's dark house loomed stark and empty on the
+stony hill.
+
+Suddenly the ghostly call of a whippoorwill broke out from the willows.
+Mount answered; Elerson appeared in the path, making a sign for silence.
+
+"Magdalen Brant entered the house an hour since," he whispered. "She
+sits yonder on the door-step. I think she has fallen asleep."
+
+We stole forward through the dusk towards the silent figure on the
+door-step. She sat there, her head fallen back against the closed door,
+her small hands lying half open in her lap. Under her closed eyes the
+dark circles of fatigue lay; a faint trace of rose paint still clung to
+her lips; and from the ragged skirt of her thorn-rent gown one small
+foot was thrust, showing a silken shoe and ankle stained with mud.
+
+There she lay, sleeping, this maid who, with her frail strength, had
+split forever the most powerful and ancient confederacy the world had
+ever known.
+
+Her superb sacrifice of self, her proud indifference to delicacy and
+shame, her splendid acceptance of the degradation, her instant and
+fearless execution of the only plan which could save the land from war
+with a united confederacy, had left us stunned with admiration and
+helpless gratitude.
+
+Had she gone to them as a white woman, using the arts of civilized
+persuasion, she could have roused them to war, but she could not have
+soothed them to peace. She knew it--even I knew that among the Iroquois
+the Ruler of the Heavens can never speak to an Indian through the mouth
+of a white woman.
+
+As an Oneida, and a seeress of the False-Faces, she had answered their
+appeal. Using every symbol, every ceremony, every art taught her as a
+child, she had swayed them, vanquishing with mystery, conquering,
+triumphing, as an Oneida, where a single false step, a single slip, a
+moment's faltering in her sweet and serene authority might have brought
+out the appalling cry of accusation:
+
+"Her heart is white!"
+
+And not one hand would have been raised to prevent the sacrificial test
+which must follow and end inevitably in a dreadful death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mount and Elerson, moved by a rare delicacy, turned and walked
+noiselessly away towards the hill-top.
+
+"Wake her," I said to Sir George.
+
+He knelt beside her, looking long into her face; then touched her
+lightly on the hand. She opened her eyes, looked up at him gravely, then
+rose to her feet, steadying herself on his bent arm.
+
+"Where have you been?" she asked, glancing anxiously from him to me.
+There was the faintest ring of alarm in her voice, a tint of color on
+cheek and temple. And Sir George, lying like a gentleman, answered: "We
+have searched the trails in vain for you. Where have you lain
+hidden, child?"
+
+Her lips parted in an imperceptible sigh of relief; the pallor of
+weariness returned.
+
+"I have been upon your business, Sir George," she said, looking down at
+her mud-stained garments. Her arms fell to her side; she made a little
+gesture with one limp hand. "You see," she said, "I promised you." Then
+she turned, mounting the steps, pensively; and, in the doorway, paused
+an instant, looking back at him over her shoulder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And all that night, lying close to the verge of slumber, I heard Sir
+George pacing the stony yard under the great stars; while the riflemen,
+stretched beside the hearth, snored heavily, and the death-watch ticked
+in the wall.
+
+At dawn we three were afield, nosing the Sacandaga trail to count the
+tracks leading to the north--the dread footprints of light, swift feet
+which must return one day bringing to the Mohawk Valley an awful
+reckoning.
+
+At noon we returned. I wrote out my report and gave it to Sir George. We
+spoke little together. I did not see Magdalen Brant again until they
+bade me adieu.
+
+And now it was two o'clock in the afternoon; Sir George had already set
+out with Magdalen Brant to Varicks' by way of Stoner's; Elerson and
+Mount stood by the door, waiting to pilot me towards Gansevoort's
+distant outposts; the noon sunshine filled the deserted house and fell
+across the table where I sat, reading over my instructions from Schuyler
+ere I committed the paper to the flames.
+
+So far, no thanks to myself, I had carried out my orders in all save the
+apprehension of Walter Butler. And now I was uncertain whether to remain
+and hang around the council-fire waiting for an opportunity to seize
+Butler, or whether to push on at once, warn Gansevoort at Stanwix that
+St. Leger's motley army had set out from Oswego, and then return to
+trap Butler at my leisure.
+
+I crumpled the despatch into a ball and tossed it onto the live coals in
+the fireplace; the paper smoked, caught fire, and in a moment more the
+black flakes sank into the ashes.
+
+"Shall we burn the house, sir?" asked Mount, as I came to the doorway
+and looked out.
+
+I shook my head, picked up rifle, pouch, and sack, and descended the
+steps. At the same instant a man appeared at the foot of the hill, and
+Elerson waved his hand, saying: "Here's that mad Irishman, Tim Murphy,
+back already."
+
+Murphy came jauntily up the hill, saluted me with easy respect, and drew
+from his pouch a small packet of papers which he handed me, nodding
+carelessly at Elerson and staring hard at Mount as though he did not
+recognize him.
+
+"Phwat's this?" he inquired of Elerson--"a Frinch cooroor, or maybe a
+Sac shquaw in a buck's shirrt?"
+
+"Don't introduce him to me," said Mount to Elerson; "he'll try to kiss
+my hand, and I hate ceremony."
+
+"Quit foolin'," said Elerson, as the two big, over-grown boys seized
+each other and began a rough-and-tumble frolic. "You're just cuttin'
+capers, Tim, becuz you've heard that we're takin' the war-path--quit
+pullin' me, you big Irish elephant! Is it true we're takin' the
+war-path?"
+
+"How do I know?" cried Murphy; but the twinkle in his blue eyes betrayed
+him; "bedad, 'tis home to the purty lasses we go this blessed day, f'r
+the crool war is over, an' the King's got the pip, an--"
+
+"Murphy!" I said.
+
+"Sorr," he replied, letting go of Mount and standing at a respectful
+slouch.
+
+"Did you get Beacraft there in safety?"
+
+"I did, sorr."
+
+"Any trouble?"
+
+"None, sorr--f'r me."
+
+I opened the first despatch, looking at him keenly.
+
+"Do we take the war-path?" I asked.
+
+"We do, sorr," he said, blandly. "McDonald's in the hills wid the McCraw
+an'ten score renegades. Wan o' their scouts struck old man Schell's farm
+an' he put buckshot into sivinteen o' them, or I'm a liar where
+I shtand!"
+
+"I knew it," muttered Elerson to Mount. "Where you see smoke, there's
+fire; where you see Murphy, there's trouble. Look at the grin on
+him--and his hatchet shined up like a Cayuga's war-axe!"
+
+I opened the despatch; it was from Schuyler, countermanding his
+instructions for me to go to Stanwix, and directing me to warn every
+settlement in the Kingsland district that McDonald and some three
+hundred Indians and renegades were loose on the Schoharie, and that
+their outlying scouts had struck Broadalbin.
+
+I broke the wax of the second despatch; it was from Harrow, briefly
+thanking me for the capture of Beacraft, adding that the man had been
+sent to Albany to await court-martial.
+
+That meant that Beacraft must hang; a most disagreeable feeling came
+over me, and I tore open the third and last paper, a bulky document,
+and read it:
+
+     "VARICK MANOR,
+     "June the 2d.
+     "An hour to dawn.
+
+     "In my bedroom I am writing to you the adieu I should have
+     said the night you left. Murphy, a rifleman, goes to you with
+     despatches in an hour: he will take this to you, ...
+     wherever you are.
+
+     "I saw the man you sent in. Father says he must surely hang.
+     He was so pale and silent, he looked so dreadfully tired--and
+     I have been crying a little--I don't know why, because all
+     say he is a great villain.
+
+     "I wonder whether you are well and whether you remember me."
+     ("me" was crossed out and "us" written very carefully.) "The
+     house is so strange without you. I go into your room
+     sometimes. Cato has pressed all your fine clothes. I go into
+     your room to read. The light is very good there. I am reading
+     the Poems of Pansard. You left a fern between the pages to
+     mark the poem called 'Our Deaths'; did you know it? Do you
+     admire that verse? It seems sad to me. And it is not true,
+     either. Lovers seldom die together." (This was crossed out,
+     and the letter went on.) "Two people who love--" ("love" was
+     crossed out heavily and the line continued)--"two friends
+     seldom die at the same instant. Otherwise there would be no
+     terror in death.
+
+     "I forgot to say that Isene, your mare, is very well. Papa
+     and the children are well, and Ruyven a-pestering General
+     Schuyler to make him a cornet in the legion of horse, and
+     Cecile, all airs, goes about with six officers to carry her
+     shawl and fan.
+
+     "For me--I sit with Lady Schuyler when I have the
+     opportunity. I love her; she is so quiet and gentle and lets
+     me sit by her for hours, perfectly silent. Yesterday she came
+     into your room, where I was sitting, and she looked at me for
+     a long time--so strangely--and I asked her why, and she shook
+     her head. And after she had gone I arranged your linen and
+     sprinkled lavender among it.
+
+     "You see there is so little to tell you, except that in the
+     afternoon some Senecas and Tories shot at one of our distant
+     tenants, a poor man, one Christian Schell; and he beat them
+     off and killed eleven, which was very brave, and one of the
+     soldiers made a rude song about it, and they have been
+     singing it all night in their quarters. I heard them from
+     your room--where I sometimes sleep--the air being good there;
+     and this is what they sang:
+
+     "'A story, a story
+       Unto you I will tell,
+     Concerning a brave hero,
+       One Christian Schell.
+
+     "'Who was attacked by the savages.
+       And Tories, it is said;
+     But for this attack
+       Most freely they bled.
+
+     "'He fled unto his house
+       For to save his life.
+     Where he had left his arms
+       In care of his wife.
+
+     "'They advanced upon him
+       And began to fire,
+     But Christian with his blunderbuss
+       Soon made them retire.
+
+     "'He wounded Donald McDonald
+       And drew him in the door,
+     Who gave an account
+       Their strength was sixty-four.
+
+     "'Six there was wounded
+       And eleven there was killed
+     Of this said party,
+       Before they quit the field.'
+
+     "And I think there are a hundred other verses, which I will
+     spare you; not that I forget them, for the soldiers sang them
+     over and over, and I had nothing better to do than to lie
+     awake and listen.
+
+     "So that is all. I hear my messenger moving about below; I am
+     to drop this letter down to him, as all are asleep, and to
+     open the big door might wake them.
+
+     "Good-bye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "It was not my rifleman, only the sentry. They keep double
+     watch since the news came about Schell. "Good-bye. I am
+     thinking of you.
+
+     "DOROTHY.
+
+     "Postscript.--Please make my compliments and adieux to Sir
+     George Covert.
+
+     "Postscript.--The rifleman is here; he is whistling like a
+     whippoorwill. I must say good-bye. I am mad to go with him.
+     Do not forget me!
+
+     "My memories are so keen, so pitilessly real, I can scarce
+     endure them, yet cling to them the more desperately.
+
+     "I did not mean to write this--truly I did not! But here, in
+     the dusk, I can see your face just as it looked when you said
+     good-bye!--so close that I could take it in my arms despite
+     my vows and yours!
+
+     "Help me to reason; for even God cannot, or will not, help
+     me; knowing, perhaps, the dreadful after-life He has doomed
+     me to for all eternity. If it is true that marriages are made
+     in heaven, where was mine made? Can you answer? I cannot.
+     (The whimper of the whippoorwill again!) Dearest, good-bye.
+     Where my body lies matters nothing so that you hold my soul a
+     little while. Yet, even of that they must rob you one day.
+     Oh, if even in dying there is no happiness, where, where does
+     it abide? Three places only have I heard of: the world,
+     heaven, and hell. God forgive me, but I think the last could
+     cover all.
+
+     "Say that you love me! Say it to the forest, to the wind.
+     Perhaps my soul, which follows you, may hear if you only say
+     it. (Once more the ghost-call of the whippoorwill!) Dear lad,
+     good-bye!"
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE FLAG
+
+Day after day our little scout of four traversed the roads and forests
+of the Kingsland district, warning the people at the outlying
+settlements and farms that the county militia-call was out, and that
+safety lay only in conveying their families to the forts and responding
+to the summons of authority without delay.
+
+Many obeyed; some rash or stubborn settlers prepared to defend their
+homes. A few made no response, doubtless sympathizing with their Tory
+friends who had fled to join McDonald or Sir John Johnson in the North.
+
+Rumors were flying thick, every settlement had its full covey; every
+cross-road tavern buzzed with gossip. As we travelled from settlement to
+settlement, we, too, heard something of what had happened in distant
+districts: how the Schoharie militia had been called out; how one
+Huetson had been captured as he was gathering a band of Tories to join
+the Butlers; how a certain Captain Ball had raised a company of
+sixty-three royalists at Beaverdam and was fled to join Sir John; how
+Captain George Mann, of the militia, refused service, declaring himself
+a royalist, and disbanding his company; how Adam Crysler had thrown his
+important influence in favor of the King, and that the inhabitants of
+Tryon County were gloomy and depressed, seeing so many respectable
+gentlemen siding with the Tories.
+
+We learned that the Schoharie and Schenectady militia had refused to
+march unless some provision was made to protect their families in their
+absence; that Congress had therefore established a corps of invalids,
+consisting of eight companies, each to have one captain, two
+lieutenants, two ensigns, five sergeants, six corporals, two drums, two
+fifes, and one hundred men; one company to be stationed in Schoharie,
+and to be called the "Associate Exempts"; that three forts for the
+protection of the Schoharie Valley were nearly finished, called the
+Upper, Lower, and Middle forts.
+
+More sinister still were the rumors from the British armies: Burgoyne
+was marching on Albany from the north with the finest train of artillery
+ever seen in America; St. Leger was moving from the west; McDonald had
+started already, flinging out his Indian scouts as far as Perth and
+Broadalbin, and Sir Henry Clinton had gathered a great army at New York
+and was preparing to sweep the Hudson Valley from Fishkill to Albany.
+And the focus of these three armies and of Butler's, Johnson's, and
+McDonald's renegades and Indians was this unhappy county of Tryon, torn
+already with internal dissensions; unarmed, unprovisioned, unorganized,
+almost ungarrisoned.
+
+I remember, one rainy day towards sunset, coming into a small hamlet
+where, in front of the church, some score of farmers and yokels were
+gathered, marshalled into a single line. Some were armed with rifles,
+some with blunderbusses, some with spears and hay-forks. None wore
+uniform. As we halted to watch the pathetic array, their fifer and
+drummer wheeled out and marched down the line, playing Yankee Doodle.
+Then the minister laid down his blunderbuss and, facing the company,
+raised his arms in prayer, invoking the "God of Armies" as though he
+addressed his supplication before a vast armed host.
+
+Murphy strove to laugh, but failed; Mount muttered vaguely under his
+breath; Elerson gnawed his lips and bent his bared head while the old
+man finished his prayer to "The God of Armies!" then picked up his
+blunderbuss and limped to his place in the scanty file.
+
+And again I remember one fresh, sweet morning late in June, standing
+with my riflemen at a toll-gate to see some four hundred Tryon County
+militia marching past on their way to Unadilla on the Susquehanna, where
+Brant, with half a thousand savages, had consented to a last parley.
+Stout, wholesome lads they were, these Tryon County men; wearing brown
+and yellow uniforms cut smartly, and their officers in the Continental
+buff and blue, riding like regulars; curved swords shining and their
+epaulets striking fire in the sunshine.
+
+"Palatines!" said Mount, standing to salute as an officer rode by.
+"That's General Herkimer--old Honikol Herkimer--with his hard,
+weather-tanned jaws and the devil lurking under his eyebrows; and that
+young fellow in his smart uniform is Colonel Cox, old George Klock's
+son-in-law; and yonder rides Colonel Harper! Oh, I know 'em, sir; I was
+not in these parts for nothing in '74 and '75!"
+
+The drums and fifes were playing "Unadilla" as the regiment marched
+past; and my riflemen, lounging along the roadside, exchanged
+pleasantries with the hardy Palatines, or greeted acquaintances in their
+impudent, bantering manner:
+
+"Hello! What's this Low Dutch regiment? Say, Han Yost, the pigs has eat
+off your queue-band! Bedad, they marrch like Albany ducks in fly-time!
+Musha, thin, luk at the fat dhrummer laad! Has he apples in thim two
+cheeks, Jack? I dunnoa! Hey, there goes Wagner! Hello, Wagner! Wisha,
+laad, ye're cross-eyed an' shquint-lipped a-playin' yere fife
+hind-end furrst!"
+
+And the replies from the dusty, brown ranks, steadily passing:
+
+"Py Gott! dere's Jack Mount! Look alretty, Jacob! Hello, Elerson! Ish
+dot true you patch your breeches mit second-hand scalps you puy in
+Montreal? Vat you vas doing down here, Tim Murphy? Oh, joost look at dem
+devils of Morgan! Sure, Emelius, dey joost come so soon as ve go. Ya!
+Dey come to kiss our girls, py cricky! Uf I catch you round my girl
+alretty, Dave Elerson--"
+
+"Silence! Silence in the ranks!" sang out an officer, riding up. The
+brown column passed on, the golden dust hanging along its flanks. Far
+ahead we could still hear the drums and fifes playing "Unadilla."
+
+"They ought to have a flag; a flag's a good thing to fight for," said
+Mount, looking after them. "I fought for the damned British rag when I
+was fifteen. Lord! it makes me boil to think that they've forgot what we
+did for 'em!"
+
+"We Virginians carried a flag at the siege o' Boston," observed Elerson.
+"It was a rattlesnake on a white ground, with the motto, 'Don't tread
+on me!'"
+
+I told them of the new flag that our Congress had chosen, describing it
+in detail. They listened attentively, but made no comment.
+
+It was on these expeditions that I learned something of these rough
+riflemen which I had not suspected--their passionate devotion to the
+forest. What the sea is to mariners, the endless, uncharted wilderness
+was to these forest runners; they loved and hated it, they suspected and
+trusted it. A forest voyage finished, they steered for the nearest port
+with all the eager impatience of sea-cloyed sailors. Yet, scarcely were
+they anchored in some frontier haven than they fell to dreaming of the
+wilderness, of the far silences in the trackless sea of trees, of the
+winds ruffling the forest's crests till ten thousand trees toss their
+leaves, silver side up, as white-caps flash, rolling in long patches on
+a heaving waste of waters.
+
+Yet, in all those weeks I never heard one word or hint of that devotion
+expressed or implied, not one trace of appreciation, not one shadow of
+sentiment. If I ventured to speak of the vast beauty of the woods, there
+was no response from my shy companions; one appeared to vie with another
+in concealing all feeling under a careless mask and a bantering manner.
+
+Once only can I recall a voluntary expression of pleasure in beauty; it
+came from Jack Mount, one blue night in July, when the heavens flashed
+under summer stars till the vaulted skies seemed plated solidly with
+crusted gems.
+
+"Them stars look kind of nice," he said, then colored with embarrassment
+and spat a quid of spruce-gum into the camp-fire.
+
+Yet humanity demands some outlet for accumulated sentiment, and these
+men found it in the dirge-like songs and laments and rude ballads of the
+wilderness, which I think bear a close resemblance to the sailor-men's
+songs, in words as well as in the dolorous melodies, fit only for the
+scraping whine of a two-string fiddle in a sugar-camp.
+
+The magic of June faded from the forests, smothered under the
+magnificent and deeper glory of July's golden green; the early summer
+ripened into August, finding us still afoot in the Kingsland district
+gathering in the loyal, warning the rash, comforting the down-cast,
+threatening the suspected. Twice, by expresses bound for Saratoga, I
+sent full reports to Schuyler, but received no further orders. I
+wondered whether he was displeased at my failure to arrest Walter
+Butler; and we redoubled our efforts to gain news of him. Three times we
+heard of his presence in or near the Kingsland district: once at Tribes
+Hill, once at Fort Plain, and once it was said he was living quietly in
+a farm-house near Johnstown, which he had the effrontery to enter in
+broad daylight. But we failed to come up with him, and to this day I do
+not know whether any of this information we received was indeed correct.
+It was the first day of August when we heard of Butler's presence near
+Johnstown; we had been lying at a tavern called "The Brick House," a
+two-story inn standing where the Albany and Schenectady roads fork near
+Fox Creek, and there had been great fear of McDonald's renegades that
+week, and I had advised the despatch of an express to Albany asking for
+troops to protect the valley when I chanced to overhear a woman say that
+firing had been heard in the direction of Stanwix.
+
+The woman, a slattern, who was known by the unpleasant name of Rya's
+Pup, declared that Walter Butler had gone to Johnstown to join St. Leger
+before Stanwix, and that the Tories would give the rebels such a
+drubbing that we would all be crawling on our bellies yelling for
+quarter this day week. As the wench was drunk, I made little of her
+babble; but the next day Murphy and Elerson, having been in touch with
+Gansevoort's outposts, returned to me with a note from Colonel Willett:
+
+     "FORT SCHUYLER (STANWIX),
+     "August 2d,
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--I transmit to you the contents of a letter from
+     Colonel Gansevoort, dated July 28th:
+
+     "'Yesterday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, our garrison
+     was alarmed with the firing of four guns. A party of men was
+     instantly despatched to the place where the guns were fired,
+     which was in the edge of the woods, about five hundred yards
+     from the fort; but they were too late. The villains were
+     fled, after having shot three young girls who were out
+     picking raspberries, two of whom were lying scalped and
+     tomahawked; one dead and the other expiring, who died in
+     about half an hour after she was brought home. The third had
+     a bullet through her face, and crawled away, lying hid until
+     we arrived. It was pitiful. The child may live, but has
+     lost her mind.
+
+     "'This was accomplished by a scout of sixteen Tories of
+     Colonel John Butler's command and two savages, Mohawks, all
+     under direction of Captain Walter Butler.'
+
+     "This, sir, is a revised copy of Colonel Gansevoort's letter
+     to Colonel Van Schaick. Permit me to add, with the full
+     approval of Colonel Gansevoort, that the scout under your
+     command warns the militia at Whitestown of the instant
+     approach of Colonel Barry St. Leger's regular troops,
+     reinforced by Sir John Johnson's regiment of Royal Greens,
+     Colonel Butler's Rangers, McCraw's outlaws, and seven hundred
+     Mohawk, Seneca, and Cayuga warriors under Brant and Walter
+     Butler. I will add, sir, that we shall hold this fort to the
+     end. Respectfully,
+
+     "MARINUS WlLLETT,
+     Lieutenant-Colonel."
+
+Standing knee-deep in the thick undergrowth, I read this letter aloud to
+my riflemen, amid a shocked silence; then folded it for transmission to
+General Schuyler when opportunity might offer, and signed Murphy to
+lead forward.
+
+So Rya's Pup was right. Walter Butler had made his first mark on the red
+Oswego trail!
+
+We marched in absolute silence, Murphy leading, every nerve on edge,
+straining eye and ear for a sign of the enemy's scouts, now doubtless
+swarming forward and to cover the British advance.
+
+But the wilderness is vast, and two armies might pass each other
+scarcely out of hail and never know.
+
+Towards sundown I caught my first glimpse of a hostile Iroquois
+war-party. We had halted behind some rocks on a heavily timbered slope,
+and Mount was scrutinizing the trail below, where a little brook crossed
+it, flowing between mossy stones; when, without warning, a naked Mohawk
+stalked into the trail, sprang from rock to rock, traversing the bed of
+the brook like a panther, then leaped lightly into the trail again and
+moved on. After him, in file, followed some thirty warriors, naked save
+for the clout, all oiled and painted, and armed with rifles. One or two
+glanced up along our slope while passing, but a gesture from the leader
+hastened their steps, and more quickly than I can write it they had
+disappeared among the darkening shadows of the towering timber.
+
+"Bad luck!" breathed Murphy; "'tis a rocky road to Dublin, but a shorter
+wan to hell! Did you want f'r to shoot, Jack? Look at Dave Elerson an'
+th' thrigger finger av him twitchin' all a-thremble! Wisha, lad! lave
+the red omadhouns go. Arre you tired o' the hair ye wear, Jack Mount?
+Come on out o' this, ye crazy divil!"
+
+Circling the crossing-place, we swung east, then south, coming presently
+to a fringe of trees through which the red sunset glittered,
+illuminating a great stretch of swamp, river, and cleared land beyond.
+"Yonder's the foort," whispered Murphy--"ould Stanwix--or Schuyler, as
+they call it now. Step this way, sorr; ye can see it plain across the
+Mohawk shwamps."
+
+The red sunshine struck the three-cornered bastions of the rectangular
+fort; a distant bayonet caught the light and twinkled above the
+stockaded ditch like a slender point of flame. Outside the works squads
+of troops moved, relieving the nearer posts; working details, marching
+to and from the sawmill, were evidently busy with the unfinished
+abattis; a long, low earth-work, surmounted by a stockade and a
+block-house, which. Murphy said, guarded the covered way to the creek,
+swarmed with workmen plying pick and shovel and crowbar, while the
+sentries walked their beats above, watching the new road which crossed
+the creek and ran through the swamp to the sawmill.
+
+"It is strange," said Mount, "that they have not yet finished the fort."
+
+"It is stranger yet," said Elerson, "that they should work so close to
+the forest yonder. Look at that fatigue-party drawing logs within
+pistol-shot of the woods--"
+
+Before the rifleman could finish, a sentinel on the northwest parapet
+fired his musket; the entire scene changed in a twinkling; the
+fatigue-party scattered, dropping chains and logs; the workmen sprang
+out of ditch and pit, running for the stockade; a man, driving a team of
+horses along the new road, jumped up in his wagon and lashed his horses
+to a gallop across the rough meadow; and I saw the wagon swaying and
+bumping up the slope, followed by a squad of troops on the double.
+Behind these ran a dozen men driving some frightened cattle; soldiers
+swarmed out on the bastions, soldiers flung open the water gates,
+soldiers hung over parapets, gesticulating and pointing westward.
+
+Suddenly from the bastion on the west angle of the fort a shaft of flame
+leaped; a majestic cloud buried the parapet, and the deep cannon-thunder
+shook the evening air. Above the writhing smoke, now stained pink in the
+sunset light, a flag crept jerkily up the halyards of a tall flag-staff,
+higher, higher, until it caught the evening wind aloft and floated
+lazily out.
+
+"It's the new flag," whispered Elerson, in an awed voice.
+
+We stared at it, fascinated. Never before had the world seen that flag
+displayed. Blood-red and silver-white the stripes rippled; the stars on
+the blue field glimmered peacefully. There it floated, serene above the
+drifting cannon--smoke, the first American flag ever hoisted on earth.
+A freshening wind caught it, blowing strong out of the flaming west; the
+cannon-smoke eddied, settled, and curled, floating across its folds. Far
+away we heard a faint sound from the bastions. They were cheering.
+
+Cap in hand I stood, eyes never leaving the flag; Mount uncovered,
+Elerson and Murphy drew their deer-skin caps from their heads
+in silence.
+
+After a little while we caught the glimmer of steel along the forest's
+edge; a patch of scarlet glowed in the fading rays of sunset. Then, out
+into the open walked a red-coated officer bearing a white flag and
+attended by a drummer in green and scarlet.
+
+Far across the clearing we heard drums beating the parley; and we knew
+the British were at the gates of Stanwix, and that St. Leger had
+summoned the garrison to surrender.
+
+We waited; the white flag entered the stockade gate, only to reappear
+again, quickly, as though the fort's answer to the summons had been
+brief and final. Scarcely had the ensign reached the forest than bang!
+bang! bang! bang! echoed the muskets, and the rifles spat flame into the
+deepening dusk and the dark woods rang with the war-yell of half a
+thousand Indians stripped for the last battles that the Long House
+should ever fight.
+
+About ten o'clock that night we met a regiment of militia on the
+Johnstown road, marching noisily north towards Whitestown, and learned
+that General Herkimer's brigade was concentrating at an Oneida hamlet
+called Oriska, only eight miles by the river highway from Stanwix, and a
+little to the east of Oriskany creek. An officer named Van Slyck also
+informed me that an Oneida interpreter had just come in, reporting St.
+Leger's arrival before Stanwix, and warning Herkimer that an ambuscade
+had been prepared for him should he advance to raise the siege of the
+beleaguered fort.
+
+Learning that we also had seen the enemy at Stanwix, this officer begged
+us to accompany him to Oriska, where our information might prove
+valuable to General Herkimer. So I and my three riflemen fell in as the
+troops tramped past; and I, for one, was astonished to hear their drums
+beating so loudly in the enemy's country, and to observe the careless
+indiscipline in the ranks, where men talked loudly and their reckless
+laughter often sounded above the steady rolling of the drums.
+
+"Are there no officers here to cuff their ears!" muttered Mount, in
+disgust.
+
+"Bah!" sneered Elerson; "officers can't teach militia--only a thrashing
+does 'em any good. After all, our people are like the British, full o'
+contempt for untried enemies. Do you recall how the red-coats went
+swaggering about that matter o' Bunker Hill? They make no more frontal
+attacks now, but lay ambuscades, and thank their stars for the
+opportunity."
+
+A soldier, driving an ox-team behind us, began to sing that melancholy
+ballad called "St. Clair's Defeat." The entire company joined in the
+chorus, bewailing the late disaster at Ticonderoga, till Jack Mount,
+nigh frantic with disgust, leaped up into the cart and bawled out:
+
+"If you must sing, damn you, I'll give something that rings!"
+
+And he lifted his deep, full-throated voice, sounding the marching song
+of "Morgan's Men."
+
+     "The Lord He is our rampart and our buckler and our shield!
+     We must aid Him cleanse His temple; we must follow Him afield.
+     To His wrath we leave the guilty, for their punishment is sure;
+     To His justice the downtrodden, for His mercy shall endure!"
+
+And out of the darkness the ringing chorus rose, sweeping the column
+from end to end, and the echoing drums crashed amen!
+
+Yet there is a time for all things--even for praising God.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+ORISKANY
+
+It is due, no doubt, to my limited knowledge of military matters and to
+my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of
+Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during
+the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive
+as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which,
+after the first onset, some semblance of military order reigned.
+
+So, as I do not feel at liberty to picture Oriskany from the pens of
+abler men, I must be content to describe only what I myself witnessed of
+that sad and unnecessary tragedy.
+
+For three days we had been camped near the clearing called Oriska, which
+is on the south bank of the Mohawk. Here the volunteers and militia of
+Tryon County were concentrating from Fort Dayton in the utmost disorder,
+their camps so foolishly pitched, so slovenly in those matters
+pertaining to cleanliness and health, so inadequately guarded, that I
+saw no reason why our twin enemies, St. Leger and disease, should not
+make an end of us ere we sighted the ramparts of Stanwix.
+
+All night long the volunteer soldiery had been in-subordinate and
+riotous in the hamlet of Oriska, thronging the roads, shouting, singing,
+disputing, clamoring to be led against the enemy. Popular officers were
+cheered, unpopular officers jeered at, angry voices raised outside
+headquarters, demanding to know why old Honikol Herkimer delayed the
+advance. Even officers shouted, "Forward! forward! Wake up Honikol!" And
+spoke of the old General derisively, even injuriously, to their own
+lasting disgrace.
+
+Towards dawn, when I lay down on the floor of a barn to sleep, the
+uproar had died out in a measure; but lights still flickered in the camp
+where soldiers were smoking their pipes and playing cards by the flare
+of splinter-wood torches. As for the pickets, they paid not the
+slightest attention to their duties, continually leaving their posts to
+hobnob with neighbors; and the indiscipline alarmed me, for what could
+one expect to find in men who roamed about where it pleased them,
+howling their dissatisfaction with their commander, and addressing their
+officers by their first names?
+
+At eight o'clock on that oppressive August morning, while writing a
+letter to my cousin Dorothy, which an Oneida had promised to deliver, he
+being about to start with a message to Governor Clinton, I was
+interrupted by Jack Mount, who came into the barn, saying that a company
+of officers were quarrelling in front of the sugar-shack occupied as
+headquarters.
+
+I folded my letter, sealed it with a bit of blue balsam gum, and bade
+Mount deliver it to the Oneida runner, while I stepped up the road.
+
+Of all unseemly sights that I have ever had the misfortune to witness,
+what I now saw was the most shameful. I pushed and shouldered my way
+through a riotous mob of soldiers and teamsters which choked the
+highway; loud, angry voices raised in reproach or dispute assailed my
+ears. A group of militia officers were shouting, shoving, and
+gesticulating in front of the tent where, rigid in his arm-chair, the
+General sat, grim, narrow-eyed, silent, smoking a short clay pipe. Bolt
+upright, behind him, stood his chief scout and interpreter, a superb
+Oneida, in all the splendor of full war-paint, blazing with scarlet.
+
+Colonel Cox, a swaggering, intrusive, loud-voiced, and smartly uniformed
+officer, made a sign for silence and began haranguing the old man,
+evidently as spokesman for the party of impudent malcontents grouped
+about him. I heard him demand that his men be led against the British
+without further delay. I heard him condemn delay as unreasonable and
+unwarrantable, and the terms of speech he used were unbecoming to
+an officer.
+
+"We call on you, sir, in the name of Tryon County, to order us forward!"
+he said, loudly. "We are ready. For God's sake give the order, sir!
+There is no time to waste, I tell you!"
+
+The old General removed the pipe from his teeth and leaned a little
+forward in his chair.
+
+"Colonel Cox," he said, "I haff Adam Helmer to Stanvix sent, mit der
+opject of inviting Colonel Gansevoort to addack py de rear ven ve addack
+py dot left flank.
+
+"So soon as Helmer comes dot fort py, Gansevoort he fire cannon; und so
+soon I hear cannon, I march! Not pefore, sir; not pefore!"
+
+"How do we know that Helmer and his men will ever reach Stanwix?"
+shouted Colonel Paris, impatiently.
+
+"Ve vait, und py un' py ve know," replied Herkimer, undisturbed.
+
+"He may be dead and scalped by now," sneered Colonel Visscher.
+
+"Look you, Visscher," said the old General; "it iss I who am here to
+answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who
+svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I
+do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!"
+
+He waved his short pipe.
+
+"For vy am I an ass to march me py dot ambuscade? Such a foolishness iss
+dot talk! I stay me py Oriskany till I dem cannon hear."
+
+A storm of insolent protest from the mob of soldiers greeted his
+decision; the officers gesticulated and shouted insultingly, shoving
+forward to the edge of the porch. Fists were shaken at him, cries of
+impatience and contempt rose everywhere. Colonel Paris flung his sword
+on the ground. Colonel Cox, crimson with anger, roared: "If you delay
+another moment the blood of Gansevoort's men be on your head!"
+
+Then, in the tumult, a voice called out: "He's a Tory! We are betrayed!"
+And Colonel Cox shouted: "He dares not march! He is a coward!"
+
+White to the lips, the old man sprang from his chair, narrow eyes
+ablaze, hands trembling. Colonel Bellinger and Major Frey caught him by
+the arm, begging him to remain firm in his decision.
+
+"Py Gott, no!" he thundered, drawing his sword. "If you vill haff it so,
+your blood be on your heads! Vorwärts!"
+
+It is not for me to blame him in his wrath, when, beside himself with
+righteous fury, he gave the bellowing yokels their heads and swept on
+with them to destruction. The mutinous fools who had called him coward
+and traitor fell back as their outraged commander strode silently
+through the disordered ranks, noticing neither the proffered apologies
+of Colonel Paris nor the stammered excuses of Colonel Cox. Behind him
+stalked the tall Oneida, silent, stern, small eyes flashing. And now
+began the immense uproar of departure; confused officers ran about
+cursing and shouting; the smashing roll of the drums broke out, beating
+the assembly; teamsters rushed to harness horses; dismayed soldiers
+pushed and struggled through the mass, searching for their regiments
+and companies.
+
+Mounted on a gaunt, gray horse, the General rode through the disorder,
+quietly directing the incompetent militia officers in their tasks of
+collecting their men; and behind him, splendidly horsed and caparisoned,
+cantered the tall Oneida, known as Thomas Spencer the Interpreter, calm,
+composed, inscrutable eyes fixed on his beloved leader and friend.
+
+The drums of the Canajoharie regiment were beating as the drummers swung
+past me, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sweat pouring down their
+sunburned faces; then came Herkimer, all alone, sitting his saddle like
+a rock, the flush of anger still staining his weather-ravaged visage,
+his small, wrathful eyes fixed on the north.
+
+Behind him rode Colonels Cox and Paris, long, heavy swords drawn,
+heading the Canajoharie regiment, which pressed forward excitedly. The
+remaining regiments of Tryon County militia followed, led by Colonel
+Seeber, Colonel Bellenger, Majors Frey, Eisenlord, and Van Slyck. Then
+came the baggage-wagons, some drawn by oxen, some by four horses; and in
+the rear of these rode Colonel Visscher, leading the Caughnawaga
+regiment, closing the dusty column.
+
+"Damn them!" growled Elerson to Murphy, "they're advancing without
+flanking-parties or scouts. I wish Dan'l Morgan was here."
+
+"'Tis th' Gineral's jooty to luk out f'r his throops, not Danny Morgan's
+or mine," replied the big rifleman in disgust.
+
+The column halted. I signalled my men to follow me and hastened along
+the flanks under a fire of chaff: "Look at young buckskins! There go
+Morgan's macaronis! God help the red-coats this day! How's the scalp
+trade, son?"
+
+Herkimer was sitting his horse in the middle of the road as I came up;
+and he scowled down at me when I gave him the officer's salute and stood
+at attention beside his stirrup.
+
+"Veil, you can shpeak," he said, bluntly; "efery-body shpeaks but me!"
+
+I said that I and my riflemen were at his disposal if he desired leaders
+for flanking-parties or scouts; and his face softened as he listened,
+looking down at me in silence.
+
+"Sir," he said, "it iss to my shame I say dot my sodgers command me, not
+I my sodgers."
+
+Then, looking back at Colonel Cox, he added, bitterly:
+
+"I haff ordered flanking-parties and scouts, but my officers, who know
+much more than I, haff protested against dot useless vaste of time. I
+thank you, sir; I can your offer not accept."
+
+The drums began again; the impatient Palatine regiment moved forward,
+yelling their approval, and we fell back to the roadside, while the
+boisterous troops tramped past, cheering, singing, laughing in their
+excitement. Mechanically we fell in behind the Caughnawagas, who formed
+the rear-guard, and followed on through the dust; meaning to go with
+them only a mile or so before we started back across country with the
+news which I was now at liberty to take in person to General Schuyler.
+
+For I considered my mission at an end. In one thing only had I failed:
+Walter Butler was still free; but now that he commanded a company of
+outlaws and savages in St. Leger's army, I, of course, had no further
+hope of arresting him or of dealing with him in any manner save on the
+battle-field.
+
+So at last I felt forced to return to Varick Manor; but the fear of the
+dread future was in me, and all the hopeless misery of a hopeless
+passion made of me a coward, so that I shrank from the pain I must
+surely inflict and endure. Kinder for her, kinder for me, that we should
+never meet again.
+
+Not that I desired to die. I was too young in life and love to wish for
+death as a balm. Besides, I knew it could not bring us peace. Still, it
+was one solution of a problem otherwise so utterly hopeless that I,
+heartsick, had long since wearied of the solving and carried my hurt
+buried deep, fearful lest my prying senses should stir me to disinter
+the dead hope lying there.
+
+Absence renders passion endurable. But at sight of her I loved I knew I
+could not endure it; and, uncertain of myself, having twice nigh failed
+under the overwhelming provocations of a love returned, I shrank from
+the coming duel 'twixt love and duty which must once more be fought
+within my breast.
+
+Nor could my duty, fighting blindly, expect encouragement from her I
+loved, save at the last gasp and under the heel of love. Then, only, at
+the very last would she save me; for there was that within her which
+revolted at a final wrong, and I knew that not even our twin passion
+could prevail to stamp out the last spark of conscience and slay our
+souls forever.
+
+Brooding, as I trudged forward through the dust, I became aware that the
+drums had ceased their beating, and that the men were marching quietly
+with little laughter or noise of song.
+
+The heat was intense, although a black cloud had pushed up above the
+west, veiling the sun. Flies swarmed about the column; sweat poured from
+men and horses; the soldiers rolled back their sleeves and plodded on,
+muskets a-trail and coats hanging over their shoulders. Once, very far
+away, the looming horizon was veined with lightning; and, after a long
+time, thunder sounded.
+
+We had marched northward on a rutty road some two miles or more from
+our camp at Oriska, and I was asking Mount how near we were to the old
+Algonquin-Iroquois trail which runs from the lakes across the wilderness
+to the healing springs at Saratoga, when the column halted and I heard
+an increasing confusion of voices from the van.
+
+"There's a ravine ahead," said Elerson. "I'm thinking they'll have
+trouble with these wagons, for there's a swamp at the bottom and only a
+log-road across."
+
+"Tis the proper shpot f'r to ambuscade us," observed Murphy, craning his
+neck and standing on tiptoe to see ahead.
+
+We walked forward and sat down on the bank close to the brow of the
+hill. Directly ahead a ravine, shaped like a half-moon, cut the road,
+and the noisy Canajoharie regiment was marching into it. The bottom of
+the ravine appeared to be a swamp, thinly timbered with tamarack and
+blue-beech saplings, where the reeds and cattails grew thick, and
+little, dark pools of water spread, all starred with water-lilies,
+shining intensely white in the gloom of the coming storm.
+
+"There do be wild ducks in thim rushes," said Murphy, musingly. "Sure I
+count it sthrange, Jack Mount, that thim burrds sit quiet-like an' a
+screechin' rigiment marchin' acrost that log-road."
+
+"You mean that somebody has been down there before and scared the ducks
+away?" I asked.
+
+"Maybe, sorr," he replied, grimly.
+
+Instinctively we leaned forward to scan the rising ground on the
+opposite side of the ravine. Nothing moved in the dense thickets. After
+a moment Mount said quietly: "I'm a liar or there's a barked twig
+showing raw wood alongside of that ledge."
+
+He glanced at the pan of his rifle, then again fixed his keen, blue
+eyes on the tiny glimmer of white which even I could distinguish now,
+though Heaven only knows how his eyes had found it in all that tangle.
+
+"That's raw wood," he repeated.
+
+"A deer might bark a twig," said I.
+
+"Maybe, sorr," muttered Murphy; "but there's divil a deer w'ud nibble
+sheep-laurel."
+
+The men of the Canajoharie regiment were climbing the hill on the other
+side of the ravine now. Colonel Cox came galloping back, shouting:
+"Bring up those wagons! The road is clear! Move your men forward there!"
+
+Whips cracked; the vehicles rattled off down hill, drivers yelling,
+soldiers pushing the heavy wheels forward over the log-road below which
+spurted water as the bumping wagons struck the causeway.
+
+I remember that Colonel Cox had just drawn bridle, half-way up the
+opposite incline, and was leaning forward in his saddle to watch the
+progress of an ox-team, when a rifle-shot rang out and he tumbled clean
+out of his saddle, striking the shallow water with a splash.
+
+Then hell itself broke loose in that black ravine; volley on volley
+poured into the Canajoharie regiment; officers fell from their horses;
+drivers reeled and pitched forward under the heels of their plunging
+teams; wagons collided and broke down, choking the log-road. Louder and
+louder the terrific yells of the outlaws and savages rang out on our
+flanks; I saw our soldiers in the ravine running frantically in all
+directions, falling on the log-road, floundering waist-deep in the water
+and mud, slipping, stumbling, staggering; while faster and faster
+cracked the hidden rifles, and the pitiless bullets pelted them from the
+heights above.
+
+"Stand! Stand! you fools!" bawled Elerson. "Take to the timber! Every
+man to a tree! For God's sake remember Braddock!"
+
+"Look out!" shouted Mount, dragging me with him to a rock. "Close up,
+Elerson! Close up, Murphy!"
+
+Straight into the stupefied ranks of the Caughnawaga company came
+leaping the savages, shooting, stabbing, clubbing the dazed men,
+dragging them from the ranks with shrieks of triumph. I saw one
+half-naked creature, awful in his paint, run up and strike a soldier
+full in the face with his fist, then dash out his brains with a
+death-maul and tear his scalp off.
+
+Murphy and Mount were loading and firing steadily; Elerson and I kept
+our rifles ready for a rush. I was perfectly stunned; the spectacle did
+not seem real to me.
+
+The Caughnawaga men, apparently roused from their momentary stupor, fell
+back into small squads, shooting in every direction; and the savages,
+unable to withstand a direct fire, sheered off and came bounding past us
+to cover, yelping like timber-wolves. Three darted directly at us; a
+young warrior, painted in bars of bright yellow, raised his hatchet to
+hurl it; but Murphy's bullet spun him round like a top till he crashed
+against a tree and fell in a heap, quivering all over.
+
+The two others had leaped on Mount. Swearing, threatening, roaring with
+rage, the desperate giant shook them off into our midst, and cut the
+throat of one as he lay sprawling--a sickening spectacle, for the poor
+wretch floundered and thrashed about among the leaves and sticks,
+squirting thick blood all over us.
+
+The remaining savage, a chief, by his lock and eagle-quill, had fastened
+to Elerson's legs with the fury of a tree-cat, clawing and squalling,
+while Murphy dealt him blow on blow with clubbed stock, and finally was
+forced to shoot him so close that the rifle-flame set his greased
+scalp-lock afire.
+
+"Take to the timber, you Tryon County men! Remember Braddock!" shouted
+Colonel Paris, plunging about on his wounded horse; while from every
+tree and bush rang out the reports of the rifles; and the steady stream
+of bullets poured into the Caughnawaga regiment, knocking the men down
+the hill-side into the struggling mass below. Some dropped dead where
+they had been shot; some rolled to the log-road; some fell into the
+marsh, splashing and limping about like crippled wild fowl.
+
+"Advance der Palatine regiment!" thundered Herkimer. "Clear avay dot
+oxen-team!"
+
+A drummer-boy of the Palatines beat the charge. I can see him yet, a
+curly-haired youngster, knee-deep in the mud, his white, frightened face
+fixed on his commander. They shot his drum to pieces; he beat steadily
+on the flapping parchment.
+
+Across the swamp the Palatines were doggedly climbing the slope in the
+face of a terrible discharge. Herkimer led them. As they reached the
+crest of the plateau, and struggled up and over, a rush of men in green
+uniforms seemed to swallow the entire Palatine regiment. I saw them
+bayonet Major Eisenlord and finish him with their rifle-stocks; they
+stabbed Major Van Slyck, and hurled themselves at the mounted Oneida.
+Hatchet flashing, the interpreter swung his horse straight into the
+yelling onset and went down, smothered under a mass of enemies.
+
+"Vorwärts!" thundered Herkimer, standing straight up in his stirrups;
+but they shot him out of his saddle and closed with the Palatines,
+hilt to hilt.
+
+Major Frey and Colonel Bellenger fell under their horses, Colonel Seeber
+dropped dead into the ravine, Captain Graves was dragged from the ranks
+and butchered by bayonets; but those stubborn Palatines calmly divided
+into squads, and their steady fusillade stopped the rush of the Royal
+Greens and sent the flanking savages howling to cover.
+
+Mount, Murphy, Elerson, and I lay behind a fallen hemlock, awaiting the
+flank attack which we now understood must surely come. For our regiments
+were at last completely surrounded, facing outward in an irregular
+circle, the front held by the Palatines, the rear by the Caughnawagas,
+the west by part of the Canajoharie regiment, and the east by a fraction
+of unbrigaded militia, teamsters, batt-men, bateaux-men, and half a
+dozen volunteer rangers reinforced by my three riflemen.
+
+The scene was real enough to me now. Jack Mount, kneeling beside me, was
+attempting to clean the blood from himself and Elerson with handfuls of
+dried leaves. Murphy lay on his belly, watching the forest in front of
+us, and his blue eyes seemed suffused with a light of their own in the
+deepening gloom of the gathering thunder-storm. My nerves were all
+a-quiver; the awful screaming from the ravine had never ceased for an
+instant, and in that darkening, slimy pit I could still see a swaying
+mass of men on the causeway, locked in a death-struggle. To and fro they
+reeled; hatchet and knife and gun-stock glittered, rising and falling in
+the twilight of the storm-cloud; the flames from the rifles
+flashed crimson.
+
+"Kape ye're eyes to the front, sorr; they do be comin'!" cried Murphy,
+springing briskly to his feet.
+
+I looked ahead into the darkening woods; the Caughnawaga men were
+falling back, taking station behind trees; Mount stepped to the shelter
+of a big oak; Elerson leaped to cover under a pine; a Caughnawaga
+bateaux-man darted past me, stationing himself on my right behind the
+trunk of a dapple beech. Suddenly an Indian showed himself close in
+front; the Caughnawaga man fired and missed; and, quicker than I can
+write it, the savage was on him before he could reload and had brained
+him with a single castete-stroke. I fired, but the Mohawk was too quick
+for me, and a moment later he bounded back into the brush while the
+forest rang with his triumphant scalp-yell.
+
+"That's what they're doing in front!" shouted Elerson. "When a soldier
+fires they're on him before he can reload!"
+
+"Two men to a tree!" roared Jack Mount. "Double up there, you
+Caughnawaga men!"
+
+Elerson glided cautiously to the oak which sheltered Mount; Murphy crept
+forward to my tree.
+
+"Bedad!" he muttered, "let the ondacent divils dhraw ye're fire an'
+welcome. I've a pill to purge 'em now. Luk at that, sorr! Shteady!
+Shteady an' cool does it!"
+
+A savage, with his face painted half white and half red, stepped out
+from the thicket and dropped just as I fired. The next instant he came
+leaping straight for our tree, castete poised.
+
+Murphy fired. The effect of the shot was amazing; the savage stopped
+short in mid-career as though he had come into collision with a stone
+wall; then Elerson fired, knocking him flat, head doubled under his
+naked shoulders, feet trailing across a rotting log.
+
+"Save ye're powther, Dave!" sang out Murphy. "Sure he was clean kilt as
+he shtood there. Lave a dead man take his own time to fall!"
+
+I had reloaded, and Murphy was coolly priming, when on our right the
+rifles began speaking faster and faster, and I heard the sound of men
+running hard over the dry leaves, and the thudding gallop of horses.
+
+"A charge!" said Murphy. "There do be horses comin', too. Have they
+dhragoons?--I dunnoa. Ha! There they go! 'Tis McCraw's outlaws or I'm a
+Dootchman!"
+
+A shrill cock-crow rang out in the forest.
+
+"'Tis the chanticleer scalp-yell of that damned loon, Francy McCraw!" he
+cried, fiercely. "Give it to 'em, b'ys! Shoot hell into the
+dommed Tories!"
+
+The Caughnawaga rifles rang out from every tree; a white man came
+running through the wood, and I instinctively held my fire.
+
+"Shoot the dhirrty son of a shlut!" yelled Murphy; and Elerson shot him
+and knocked him down, but the man staggered to his feet again, clutching
+at his wounded throat, and reeled towards us. He fell again, got on his
+knees, crawled across the dead leaves until he was scarce fifteen yards
+away, then fell over and lay there, coughing.
+
+"A dead wan,"' said Murphy, calmly; "lave him."
+
+McCraw's onset passed along our extreme left; the volleys grew furious;
+the ghastly cock-crow rang out shrill and piercing, and we fired at long
+range where the horses were passing through the rifle-smoke.
+
+Then, in the roar of the fusillade, a bright flash lighted up the
+forest; a thundering crash followed, and the storm burst, deluging the
+woods with rain. Trees rocked and groaned, dashing their tops together;
+the wind rose to a hurricane; the rain poured down, beating the leaves
+from the trees, driving friend and foe to shelter. The reports of the
+rifles ceased; the war-yelp died away. Peal on peal of thunder shook the
+earth; the roar of the tempest rose to a steady shriek through which the
+terrific smashing of falling trees echoed above the clash of branches.
+
+Soaked, stunned, blinded by the awful glare of the lightning, I crouched
+under the great oak, which rocked and groaned, convulsed to its bedded
+roots, so that the ground heaved under me as I lay.
+
+I could not see ten feet ahead of me, so thick was the gloom with rain
+and flying leaves and twigs. The thunder culminated in a series of
+fearful crashes; bolt after bolt fell, illuminating the flying chaos of
+the tempest; then came a stunning silence, slowly filled with the steady
+roar of the rain.
+
+A gray pallor grew in the woods. I looked down into the ravine and saw a
+muddy lake there full of dead men and horses.
+
+The wounded Tory near us was still choking and coughing, dying hard out
+there in the rain. Mount and Elerson crept over to where we lay, and,
+after a moment's conference, Murphy led us in a long circle, swinging
+gradually northward until we stumbled into the drenched Palatine
+regiment, which was still holding its ground. There was no firing on
+either side; the guns were too wet.
+
+On a wooded knoll to the left a group of dripping men had gathered.
+Somebody said that the old General lay there, smoking and directing the
+defence, his left leg shattered by a ball. I saw the blue smoke of his
+pipe curling up under the tree, but I did not see him.
+
+The wind had died out; the thunder rolled off to the northward,
+muttering among the hills; rain fell less heavily; and I saw wounded men
+tearing strips from their soaking shirts to bind their hurts. Details
+from the Canajoharie regiment passed us searching the underbrush for
+their dead.
+
+I also noticed with a shudder that Elerson and Murphy carried two fresh
+scalps apiece, tied to the belts of their hunting-shirts; but I said
+nothing, having been warned by Jack Mount that they considered it their
+prerogative to take the scalps of those who had failed to take theirs.
+
+How they could do it I cannot understand, for I had once seen the body
+of a scalped man, with the skin, released from the muscles of the
+forehead, hanging all loose and wrinkled over the face.
+
+With the ceasing of the rain came the renewed crack of the rifles and
+the whiz of bullets. We took post on the extreme left, firing
+deliberately at McCraw's renegades; and I do not know whether I hit any
+or not, but five men did I see fall under the murderous aim of Murphy;
+and I know that Elerson shot two savages, for he went down into the
+ravine after them and returned with the wet, red trophies.
+
+The sun was now shining again with a heat so fierce and intense that the
+earth smoked vapor all around us. It was at this time that I,
+personally, experienced the only close fighting of the day, which
+brought a sudden end to this most amazing and bloody skirmish.
+
+I had been lying full length behind a bush in the lines of the Palatine
+regiment, eating a crust of bread; for that strange battle-hunger had
+been gnawing at my vitals for an hour. Some of the men were eating, some
+firing; the steaming heat almost suffocated me as I lay there, yet I
+munched on, ravenous as a December wolf.
+
+I heard somebody shout: "Here they come!" and, filling my mouth with
+bread, I rose to my knees to see.
+
+A body of troops in green uniforms came marching steadily towards us,
+led by a red-coated officer on horseback; and all around me the
+Palatines were springing to their feet, uttering cries of rage, cursing
+the oncoming troops, and calling out to them by name.
+
+For the detachment of Royal Greens which now advanced to the assault
+was, it appeared, composed of old acquaintances and neighbors of the
+Palatines, who had fled to join the Tories and Indians and now returned
+to devastate their own county.
+
+Lashed to ungovernable fury by the sight of these hated renegades, the
+entire regiment leaped forward with a roar and rushed on the advancing
+detachment, stabbing, shooting, clubbing, throttling. Mutual hatred
+made the contest terrible beyond words; no quarter was given on either
+side. I saw men strangle each other with naked hands; kick each other to
+death, fighting like dogs, tooth and nail, rolling over the wet ground.
+
+The tide had not yet struck us; we fired at their mounted officer, whom
+Elerson declared he recognized as Major Watts, brother-in-law to Sir
+John Johnson; and presently, as usual, Murphy hit him, so that the young
+fellow dropped forward on his saddle and his horse ran away, flinging
+him against a tree with a crash, doubtless breaking every bone in
+his body.
+
+Then, above the tumult, out of the north came booming three
+cannon-shots, the signal from the fort that Herkimer had desired to
+wait for.
+
+A detachment from the Canajoharie regiment surged out of the woods with
+a ringing cheer, pointing northward, where, across a clearing, a body of
+troops were rapidly advancing from the direction of the fort.
+
+"The sortie! The sortie!" shouted the soldiers, frantic with joy. Murphy
+and I ran towards them; Elerson yelled: "Be careful! Look at their
+uniforms! Don't go too close to them!"
+
+"They're coming from the north!" bawled Mount. "They're our own people,
+Dave! Come on!"
+
+Captain Jacob Gardinier, with a dozen Caughnawaga men, had already
+reached the advancing troops, when Murphy seized my arm and halted me,
+crying out, "Those men are wearing their coats turned inside out!
+They're Johnson's Greens!"
+
+At the same instant I recognized Colonel John Butler as the officer
+leading them; and he knew me and, without a word, fired his pistol at
+me. We were so near them now that a Tory caught hold of Murphy and tried
+to stab him, but the big Irishman kicked him headlong and rushed into
+the mob, swinging his long hatchet, followed by Gardinier and his
+Caughnawaga men, whom the treachery had transformed into demons.
+
+In an instant all around me men were swaying, striking, shooting,
+panting, locked in a deadly embrace. A sweating, red-faced soldier
+closed with me; chin to chin, breast to breast we wrestled; and I shall
+never forget the stifling struggle--every detail remains, his sunburned
+face, wet with sweat and powder-smeared; his irregular teeth showing
+when I got him by the throat, and the awful change that came over his
+visage when Jack Mount shoved the muzzle of his rifle against the
+struggling fellow and shot him through the stomach.
+
+Freed from his death-grip, I stood breathing convulsively, hands
+clinched, one foot on my fallen rifle. An Indian ran past me, chased by
+Elerson and Murphy, but the savage dodged into the underbrush,
+shrieking, "Oonah! Oonah! Oonah!" and Elerson came back, waving his
+deer-hide cap.
+
+Everywhere Tories, Royal Greens, and Indians were running into the
+woods; the wailing cry, "Oonah! Oonah!" rose on all sides now.
+Gardinier's Caughnawaga men were shooting rapidly; the Palatines, master
+of their reeking brush-field, poured a heavy fire into the detachment of
+retreating Greens, who finally broke and ran, dropping sack and rifle in
+their flight, and leaving thirty of their dead under the feet of the
+Palatines.
+
+The soldiers of the Canajoharie regiment came up, swarming over a wooded
+knoll on the right, only to halt and stand, silently leaning on
+their rifles.
+
+For the battle of Oriskany was over.
+
+There was no cheering from the men of Tryon County. Their victory had
+been too dearly bought; their losses too terrible; their triumph
+sterile, for they could not now advance the crippled fragments of their
+regiments and raise the siege in the face of St. Leger's regulars and
+Walter Butler's Rangers.
+
+Their combat with Johnson's Greens and Brant's Mohawks had been fought;
+and, though masters of the field, they could do no more than hold their
+ground. Perhaps the bitter knowledge that they must leave Stanwix to its
+fate, and that, too, through their own disobedience, made the better
+soldiers of them in time. But it was a hard and dreadful lesson; and I
+saw men crying, faces hidden in their powder-blackened hands, as the
+dying General was borne through the ranks, lying gray and motionless on
+his hemlock litter.
+
+And this is all that I myself witnessed of that shameful ambuscade and
+murderous combat, fought some two miles north of the dirty camp, and now
+known as the Battle of Oriskany.
+
+That night we buried our dead; one hundred on the field where they had
+fallen, two hundred and fifty in the burial trenches at
+Oriskany--thirty-five wagon-loads in all. Scarcely an officer of rank
+remained to lead the funeral march when the muffled drums of the
+Palatines rolled at midnight, and the smoky torches moved, and the
+dead-wagons rumbled on through the suffocating darkness of a starless
+night. We had few wounded; we took no prisoners; Oriskany meant death.
+We counted only thirty men disabled and some score missing.
+
+"God grant the missing be safely dead," prayed our camp chaplain at the
+burial trench. We knew what that meant; worse than dead were the
+wretched men who had fallen alive into the hands of old John Butler and
+his son, Walter, and that vicious drunkard, Barry St. Leger, who had
+offered, over his own signature, two hundred and forty dollars a dozen
+for prime Tryon County scalps.
+
+I slept little that night, partly from the excitement of my first
+serious combat, partly because of the terrible heat. Our outposts, now
+painfully overzealous and alert, fired off their muskets at every
+fancied sound or movement, and these continual alarms kept me awake,
+though Mount and Murphy slept peacefully, and Elerson yawned on guard.
+
+Towards sunrise rain fell heavily, but brought no relief from the heat;
+the sun, a cherry-red ball, hung a hand's-breadth over the forests when
+the curtain of rain faded away. The riflemen, curled up in the hay on
+the barn floor, snored on, unconscious; the batt-horses crunched and
+munched in the manger; flies whirled and swarmed over a wheelbarrow
+piled full of dead soldier's shoes, which must to-day be distributed
+among the living.
+
+All the loathsome and filthy side of war seemed concentrated around the
+barn-yard, where sleepy, unshaven, half-dressed soldiers were burning
+the under-clothes of a man who had died of the black measles; while a
+great, brawny fellow, naked to the waist and smeared from hair to ankles
+with blood, butchered sheep, so that the army might eat that day.
+
+The thick stench of the burning clothing, the odor of blood, the piteous
+bleating of the doomed creatures sickened me; and I made my way out of
+the barn and down to the river, where I stripped and waded out to wash
+me and my clothes.
+
+A Caughnawaga soldier gave me a bit of soap; and I spent the morning
+there. By noon the fierce heat of the sun had dried my clothes; by two
+o'clock our small scout of four left the Stanwix and Johnstown road and
+struck out through the unbroken wilderness for German Flatts.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE HOME TRAIL
+
+For eleven days we lay at German Flatts, Colonel Visscher begging us to
+aid in the defence of that threatened village until the women and
+children could be conveyed to Johnstown. But Sir John Johnson remained
+before Stanwix, and McCraw's riders gave the village wide berth, and on
+the 18th of August we set out for Varicks'.
+
+Warned by our extreme outposts, we bore to the south, forced miles out
+of our course to avoid the Oneida country, where a terrific little war
+was raging. For the Senecas, Cayugas, a few Mohawks, and McCraw's
+renegade Tories, furious at the neutral and pacific attitude of the
+Oneidas towards our people, had suddenly fallen upon them, tooth and
+nail, vowing that the Oneida nation should perish from the earth for
+their treason to the Long House.
+
+We skirted the doomed region cautiously, touching here and there the
+fringe of massacre and fire, often scenting smoke, sometimes hearing a
+distant shot. Once we encountered an Oneida runner, painted blue and
+white, and naked save for the loin-cloth, who told us of the civil war
+that was already rending the Long House; and I then understood more
+fully what Magdalen Brant had done for our cause, and how far-reaching
+had been the effects of her appearance at the False-Faces' council-fire.
+
+The Oneida appeared to be disheartened. He sullenly admitted to us that
+the Cayugas had scattered his people and laid their village in ashes; he
+cursed McCraw fiercely and promised a dreadful retaliation on any
+renegade captured. He also described the fate of the Oriskany prisoners
+and some bateaux-men taken by Walter Butler's Rangers near Wood Creek;
+and I could scarcely endure to listen, so horrid were the details of our
+soldiers' common fate, where Mohawk and Tory, stripped and painted
+alike, conspired to invent atrocities undreamed of for their
+wretched victims.
+
+It was then that I heard for the second time the term "Blue-eyed
+Indian," meaning white men stained, painted, and disguised as savages.
+More terrifying than the savages themselves, it appeared, were the
+blue-eyed Indians to the miserable settlers of Tryon. For hellish
+ingenuity and devilish cruelty these mock savages, the Oneida assured
+us, had nothing to learn from their red comrades; and I shall never be
+able to efface from my mind the memory of what we saw, that very day, in
+a lonely farm-house on the flats of the Mohawk; nor was it necessary
+that McCraw should have left his mark on the shattered door--a cock
+crowing, drawn in outline by a man's forefinger steeped in blood--to
+enlighten those who might not recognize the ghastly work as his.
+
+We stayed there for three hours to bury the dead, an old man and woman,
+a young mother, and five children, the youngest an infant not a year
+old. All had been scalped; even the watch-dog lay dead near the bloody
+cradle. We dug the shallow graves with difficulty, having nothing to
+work with save our hunting-knives and some broken dishes which we found
+in the house; and it was close to noon before we left the lonely flat
+and pushed forward through miles of stunted willow growth towards the
+river road which led to Johnstown.
+
+I shall never forget Mount's set face nor Murphy's terrible, vacant
+stare as we plodded on in absolute silence. Elerson led us on a steady
+trot hour after hour, till, late in the afternoon, we crossed the river
+road and wheeled into it exhausted.
+
+The west was all aglow; cleared land and fences lay along the roadside;
+here and there houses loomed up in the red, evening light, but their
+inhabitants were gone, and not a sign of life remained about them save
+for the circling swallows whirling in and out of the blackened chimneys.
+
+So still, so sad this solitude that the sudden chirping of a robin in
+the evening shadows startled us.
+
+The sun sank behind the forest, turning the river to a bloody red; a fox
+yapped and yapped from a dark hill-side; the moon's yellow light flashed
+out through the trees; and, with the coming of the moon, far in the
+wilderness the owls began and the cries of the night-hawks died away
+in the sky.
+
+The first human being that we encountered was a miller riding an ancient
+horse towards a lane which bordered a noisy brook.
+
+When he discovered us he whipped out a pistol and bade us stand where we
+were; and it took all my persuasion to convince him that we were not
+renegades from McCraw's band.
+
+We asked for news, but he had none, save that a heavy force of our
+soldiers was lying by the roadside some two miles below on their way to
+relieve Fort Stanwix. The General, he believed, was named Arnold, and
+the troops were Massachusetts men; that was all he knew.
+
+He seemed stupid or perhaps stunned, having lost three sons in a battle
+somewhere near Bennington, and had that morning received word of his
+loss. How the battle had gone he did not know; he was on his way up the
+creek to lock his mill before joining the militia at Johnstown. He was
+not too old to carry the musket he had carried at Braddock's battle.
+Besides, his boys were dead, and there was no one in his family except
+himself to help our Congress fight the red-coats.
+
+We watched him ride off into the darkness, gray head erect, pistol
+shining in his hand; then moved on, searching the distance for the
+outpost we knew must presently hail us. And, sure enough, from the
+shadow of a clump of trees came the smart challenge: "Halt! Who
+goes there?"
+
+"Officer from Herkimer and scout of three with news for General
+Schuyler!" I answered.
+
+"Halt, officer with scout! Sergeant of the guard! Post number three!"
+
+Dark figures swarmed in the road ahead; a squad of men came up on the
+double.
+
+"Advance officer!" rang out the summons; a torch blazed, throwing a red
+glare around us; a red-faced old officer in brown and scarlet walked up
+and took the packet of papers which I extended.
+
+"Are you Captain Ormond?" he asked, curiously, glancing at the
+endorsement on my papers.
+
+I replied that I was, and named Murphy, Elerson, and Mount as my scout.
+
+When the soldiers standing about heard the notorious names of men
+already famed in ballad and story, they craned their necks to see, as my
+tired riflemen filed into the lines; and the staff-officer made himself
+exceedingly agreeable and civil, conducting us to a shelter made of
+balsam branches, before which a smudge was burning.
+
+"General Arnold has despatches for you, Captain Ormond," he said; "I am
+Drummond, Brigade Major; we expected you at Varick Manor on the
+ninth--you wrote to your cousin, Miss Varick, from Oriskany, you know."
+
+A soldier came up with two headquarters lanterns which he hung on the
+cross-bar of the open-faced hut; another soldier brought bread and
+cheese, a great apple-pie, a jug of spring water, and a bottle of
+brandy, with the compliments of Brigadier-General Arnold, and apologies
+that neither cloth, glasses, nor cutlery were included in the
+camp baggage.
+
+"We're light infantry with a vengeance, Captain Ormond," said Major
+Drummond, laughing; "we left at twenty-four hours' notice! Gad, sir! the
+day before we started the General hadn't a squad under his orders; but
+when Schuyler called for volunteers, and his brigadiers began to raise
+hell at the idea of weakening the army to help Stanwix, Arnold came out
+of his fit of sulks on the jump! 'Who'll follow me to Stanwix?' he
+bawls; and, by gad, sir, the Massachusetts men fell over each other
+trying to sign the rolls."
+
+He laughed again, waving my papers in the air and slapping them down on
+a knapsack.
+
+"You will doubtless wish to hand these to the General yourself," he
+said, pleasantly. "Pray, sir, do not think of standing on ceremony; I
+have dined, Captain."
+
+Mount, who had been furtively licking his lips and casting oblique
+glances at the bread and cheese, fell to at a nod from me. Murphy and
+Elerson joined him, bolting huge mouthfuls. I ate sparingly, having
+little appetite left after the sights I had seen in that lonely house on
+the Mohawk flats.
+
+The gnats swarmed, but the smoke of the green-moss smudge kept them from
+us in a measure. I asked Major Drummond how soon it might be convenient
+for General Arnold to receive me, and he sent a young ensign to
+headquarters, who presently returned saying that General Arnold was
+making the rounds and would waive ceremony and stop at our post on
+his return.
+
+"There's a soldier, sir!" said Major Drummond, emphasizing his words
+with a smart blow of his riding-cane on his polished quarter-boots.
+"He's had us on a dog-trot since we started; up hill, down dale, across
+the cursed Sacandaga swamps, through fords chin-high! By gad, sir! allow
+me to tell you that nothing stopped us! We went through windfalls like
+partridges; we crossed the hills like a herd o' deer in flight! We ran
+as though the devil were snapping at our shanks! I'm half dead, thank
+you--and my shins!--you should see where that razor-boned nag of mine
+shaved bark enough off the trees with me to start every tannery between
+the Fish-House and Half-moon!"
+
+The ruddy-faced Major roared at the recital of his own misfortunes.
+Mount and Murphy looked up with sympathetic grins; Elerson had fallen
+asleep against the side of the shack, a bit of pie, half gnawed,
+clutched in his brier-torn fist.
+
+I had a pipe, but no tobacco; the Major filled my pipe, purring
+contentedly; a soldier, at a sign from him, took Mount and Murphy to the
+nearest fire, where there was a gill of grog and plenty of tobacco. I
+roused Elerson, who gaped, bolted his pie with a single mighty effort,
+and stumbled off after his comrades. Major Drummond squatted down
+cross-legged before the smudge, lighting his corn-cob pipe from a bit of
+glowing moss, and leaned back contentedly, crossing his arms behind
+his head.
+
+"I'm tired, too," he said; "we march again at midnight. If it's no
+secret, I should like to know what's going on ahead there."
+
+"It's no secret," I said, soberly; "the Senecas and Cayugas are
+harrying the Oneidas; the renegades are riding the forest, murdering
+women and infants. St. Leger is firing bombs at Stanwix, and Visscher is
+holding German Flatts with some Caughnawaga militia."
+
+"And Herkimer?" asked Drummond, gravely.
+
+"Dead," I replied, in a low voice.
+
+"Good gad, sir! I had not heard that!" he exclaimed.
+
+"It is true, Major. The old man died while I was at German Flatts. They
+say the amputation of his leg was a wretched piece of work.... He died
+bolt upright in his bed, smoking his pipe, and reading aloud the
+thirty-eighth Psalm.... His men are wild with grief, they say.... They
+called him a coward the morning of Oriskany."
+
+After a silence the Major's emotion dimmed his twinkling eyes; he
+dragged a red bandanna handkerchief from his coat-tails and blew his
+nose violently.
+
+"All flesh is grass--eh, Captain? And some of it devilish poor grass at
+that, eh? Well, well; we can't make an army in a day. But, by gad, sir,
+we've done uncommonly well. You've heard of--but no, you haven't,
+either. Here's news for you, friend, since you've been in the woods. On
+the sixth, while you fellows were shooting down some three hundred and
+fifty of the Mohawks, Royal Greens, and renegades, that sly old
+wolverine, Marinus Willett, slipped out of the fort, fell on Sir John's
+camp, and took twenty-one wagon-loads of provisions, blankets,
+ammunition, and tools; also five British standards and every bit of
+personal baggage belonging to Sir John Johnson, including his private
+papers, maps, memoranda, and all orders and instructions for the
+completed plans of campaign.... Wait, if you please, sir. That is
+not all.
+
+"On the sixteenth, old John Stark fell upon Baum's and Breyman's
+Hessians at Bennington, killed and wounded over two hundred, captured
+seven hundred; took a thousand stand of arms, a thousand fine dragoon
+sabres, and four excellent field-cannon with limbers, harness, and
+caissons.... And lost fourteen killed!"
+
+Speechless at the good news, I could only lean across the smudge and
+shake hands with him while he chuckled and slapped his knee, growing
+ruddier in the face every moment.
+
+"Where are the red-coats now?" he cried. "Look at 'em! Burgoyne, scared
+witless, badgered, dogged from pillar to post, his army on the defensive
+from Still water down to Half-moon; St. Leger, destitute of his camp
+baggage, caught in his own wolf-pit, flinging a dozen harmless bombs at
+Stanwix, and frightened half to death at every rumor from Albany;
+McDonald chased out of the county; Mann captured, and Sir Henry Clinton
+dawdling in New York and bothering his head over Washington while
+Burgoyne, in a devil of a plight, sits yonder yelling for help!
+
+"Where's the great invasion, Ormond? Where's the grand advance on the
+centre? Where's the gigantic triple blow at the heart of this scurvy
+rebellion? I don't know; do you?"
+
+I shook my head, smilingly; he beamed upon me; we had a swallow of
+brandy together, and I lay back, deathly tired, to wait for Arnold and
+my despatches.
+
+"That's right," commented the genial Major, "go to sleep while you can;
+the General won't take it amiss--eh? What? Oh, don't mind me, my son.
+Old codgers like me can get along without such luxuries as sleep. It's
+the young lads who require sleep. Eh? Yes, sir; I'm serious. Wait till
+you see sixty year! Then you'll understand.... So I'll just sit
+here, ... and smoke, ... and talk away in a buzz-song, ... and that
+will fix--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I looked up with a start; the Major had disappeared. In my eyes a
+lantern was shining steadily. Then a shadow moved, and I turned and
+stumbled to my feet, as a cloaked figure stepped into the shelter and
+stood before me, peering into my eyes.
+
+"I'm Arnold; how d'ye do," came a quick, nervous voice from the depths
+of the military cloak. "I've a moment to stay here; we march in ten
+minutes. Is Herkimer dead?"
+
+I described his death in a few words.
+
+"Bad, bad as hell!" he muttered, fingering his sword-hilt and staring
+off into the darkness. "What's the situation above us? Gansevoort's
+holding out, isn't he? I sent him a note to-night. Of course he's
+holding out; isn't he?"
+
+I made a short report of the situation as I knew it; the General looked
+straight into my eyes as though he were not listening.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said, impatiently. "I know how to deal with St. Leger and
+Sir John--I wrote Gansevoort that I understood how to deal with them. He
+has only to sit tight; I'll manage the rest."
+
+His dark, lean, eager visage caught the lantern light as he turned to
+scan the moonlit sky. "Ten minutes," he muttered; "we should strike
+German Flatts by sundown to-morrow if our supplies come up." And, aloud,
+with an abrupt and vigorous gesture, "McCraw's band are scalping the
+settlers, they say?"
+
+I told him what I had seen. He nodded, then his virile face changed and
+he gave me a sulky look.
+
+"Captain Ormond," he said, "folk say that I brood over the wrongs done
+me by Congress. It's a lie; I don't care a damn about Congress--but let
+it pass. What I wish to say is this: On the second of August the best
+general in these United States except George Washington was deprived of
+his command and superseded by a--a--thing named Gates.... I speak of
+General Philip Schuyler, my friend, and now my fellow-victim."
+
+Shocked and angry at the news of such injustice to the man whose
+splendid energy had already paralyzed the British invasion of New York,
+I stiffened up, rigid and speechless.
+
+"Ho!" cried Arnold, with a disagreeable laugh. "It mads you, does it?
+Well, sir, think of me who have lived to see five men promoted over my
+head--and I left in the anterooms of Congress to eat my heart out! But
+let that pass, too. By the eternal God, I'll show them what stuff is in
+me! Let it pass, Ormond, let it pass."
+
+He began to pace the ground, gnawing his thick lower lip, and if ever
+the infernal fire darted from human eyes, I saw its baleful
+flicker then.
+
+With a heave of his chest and a scowl, he controlled his voice, stopping
+in his nervous walk to face me again.
+
+"Ormond, you've gone up higher--the commission is here." He pulled a
+packet of papers from his breast-pocket and thrust them at me. "Schuyler
+did it. He thinks well of you, sir. On the first of August he learned
+that he was to be superseded. He told Clinton that you deserved a
+commission for what you did at that Iroquois council-fire. Here it is;
+you're to raise a regiment of rangers for local defence of the Mohawk
+district.... I congratulate you, Colonel Ormond."
+
+He offered his bony, nervous hand; I clasped it, dazed and speechless.
+
+"Remember me," he said, eagerly. "Let me count on your voice at the next
+council of war. You will not regret it, Colonel. Even if you go
+higher--even if you rise over my luckless head, you will not regret the
+friendship of Benedict Arnold. For, by Heaven, sir, I have it in me to
+lead men; and they shall not keep me down, and they shall not fetter
+me--no, not even this beribboned lap-dog Gates!... Stand my friend,
+Ormond. I need every friend I have. And I promise you the world shall
+hear of me one day!"
+
+I shall never forget his worn and shadowy face, the long nose, the
+strong, selfish chin, the devouring flame burning his soul out
+through his eyes.
+
+"Luck be with you!" he said, abruptly, extending his hand. Once more
+that bony, fervid clasp, and he was gone.
+
+A moment later the ground vibrated; a dark, massed column of troops
+appeared in the moonlight, marching swiftly without drum-tap or spoken
+command; the dim forms of mounted officers rode past like shadows
+against the stars; vague shapes of wagons creaked after, rolling on
+muffled wheels; more troops followed quickly; then the shadowy pageant
+ended; and there was nothing before me but the moon in the sky above a
+world of ghostly wilderness.
+
+One camp lantern had been left for my use; by its nickering light I
+untied the documents left me by Arnold; and, sorting the papers, chose
+first my orders, reading the formal notice of my transfer from Morgan's
+Rifles to the militia; then the order detailing me to the Mohawk
+district, with headquarters at Varick Manor; and, finally, my commission
+on parchment, signed by Governor Clinton and by Philip Schuyler,
+Major-General Commanding the Department of the North.
+
+It was, perhaps, the last official act as chief of department of this
+generous man.
+
+The next letter was in his own handwriting. I broke the heavy seal and
+read:
+
+     "ALBANY,
+
+     "August 10, 1777.
+     "Colonel George Ormond"
+
+     "MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,--As you have perhaps heard rumors that
+     General Gates has superseded me in command of the army now
+     operating against General Burgoyne, I desire to confirm these
+     rumors for your benefit.
+
+     "My orders I now take from General Gates, without the
+     slightest rancor, I assure you, or the least unworthy
+     sentiment of envy or chagrin. Congress, in its wisdom, has
+     ordered it; and I count him unspeakably base who shall serve
+     his country the less ardently because of a petty and personal
+     disappointment in ambitions unfulfilled.
+
+     "I remain loyal in heart and deed to my country and to
+     General Gates, who may command my poor talents in any manner
+     he sees fitting.
+
+     "I say this to you because I am an older man, and I know
+     something of younger men, and I have liked you from the
+     first. I say it particularly because, now that you also owe
+     duty and instant obedience to General Gates, I do not wish
+     your obedience retarded, or your sense of duty confused by
+     any mistaken ideas of friendship to me or loyalty to
+     my person.
+
+     "In these times the individual is nothing, the cause
+     everything. Cliques, cabals, political conspiracies are
+     foolish, dangerous--nay, wickedly criminal. For, sir, as long
+     as the world endures, a house divided against itself
+     must fall.
+
+     "Which leads me with greatest pleasure to mention your wise
+     and successful diplomacy in the matter of the Long House.
+     That house you have most cleverly divided against itself; and
+     it must fall--it is tottering now, shaken to its foundations
+     of centuries. Also, I have the pleasure to refer to your
+     capture of the man Beacraft and his papers, disclosing a
+     diabolical plan of murder. The man has been condemned by a
+     court on the evidence as it stood, and he is now awaiting
+     execution.
+
+     "I have before me Colonel Visscher's partial report of the
+     battle of Oriskany. Your name is not mentioned in this
+     report, but, knowing you as I believe I do, I am satisfied
+     that you did your full duty in that terrible affair;
+     although, in your report to me by Oneida runner, you record
+     the action as though you yourself were a mere spectator.
+
+     "I note with pleasure your mention of the gallantry of your
+     riflemen, Mount, Murphy, and Elerson, and have reported it to
+     their company captain, Mr. Long, who will, in turn, bring it
+     to the attention of Colonel Morgan.
+
+     "I also note that you have not availed yourself of the
+     war-services of the Oneidas, for which I beg to thank you
+     personally.
+
+     "I recall with genuine pleasure my visit to your uncle, Sir
+     Lupus Varick, where I had the fortune to make your
+     acquaintance and, I trust, your friendship.
+
+     "Mrs. Schuyler joins me in kindest remembrance to you, and to
+     Sir Lupus, whose courtesy and hospitality I have to-day had
+     the honor to acknowledge by letter. Through your good office
+     we take advantage of this opportunity to send our love to
+     Miss Dorothy, who has won our hearts.
+
+     "I am, sir, your most obedient,
+     PHILIP SCHUYLER,
+     Major-General.
+
+
+     "P.S.--I had almost forgotten to congratulate you on your
+     merited advancement in military rank, for which you may thank
+     our wise and good Governor Clinton.
+
+     "I shall not pretend to offer you unasked advice upon this
+     happy occasion, though it is an old man's temptation to do
+     so, perhaps even his prerogative. However, there are younger
+     colonels than you, sir, in our service--ay, and brigadiers,
+     too. So be humble, and lay not this honor with too much
+     unction to your heart. Your friend,
+
+     "PH. SCHUYLER."
+
+I sat for a while staring at this good man's letter, then opened the
+next missive.
+
+     "HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE NORTH, STILLWATER, August
+     12, 1777.
+
+     "Colonel George Ormond, on Scout:
+
+     "SIR,--By order of Major-General Gates, commanding this
+     department, you will, upon reception of this order, instantly
+     repair to Varick Manor and report your arrival by express or
+     a native runner to be trusted, preferably an Oneida. At nine
+     o'clock, the day following your arrival at Varicks', you will
+     leave on your journey to Stillwater, where you will report to
+     General Gates for further orders.
+
+     "Your small experience in military matters of organization
+     renders it most necessary that you should be aided in the
+     formation of your regiment of rangers by a detail from
+     Colonel Morgan's Rifles, as well as by the advice of
+     General Gates.
+
+     "You will, therefore, retain the riflemen composing your
+     scout, but attempt nothing towards enlisting your companies
+     until you receive your instructions personally and in full
+     from headquarters.
+
+     "I am, sir,
+
+     "Your very obedient servant,
+
+     "WILKINSON,
+     Adjutant-General.
+     "For Major-General Gates, commanding."
+
+"Why, in Heaven's name, should I lose time by journeying to
+headquarters?" I said, aloud, looking up from my letter. Ah! There was
+the difference between Schuyler, who picked his man, told him what he
+desired, and left him to fulfil it, and Gates, who chose a man, flung
+his inexperience into his face, and bade him twirl his thumbs and sit
+idle until headquarters could teach him how to do what he had been
+chosen to do, presumably upon his ability to do it!
+
+A helpless sensation of paralysis came over me--a restless, confused
+impression of my possible untrustworthiness, and of unfriendliness to me
+in high quarters, even of a thinly veiled hostility to me.
+
+What a letter! That was not the way to get work out of a
+subordinate--this patronizing of possible energy and enthusiasm, this
+cold dampening of ardor, as though ardor in itself were a reproach and
+zeal required reproof.
+
+Wondering why they had chosen me if they thought me a blundering and,
+perhaps, mischievous zealot, I picked up a parcel, undirected, and broke
+the string.
+
+Out of it fell two letters. The writing was my cousin Dorothy's; and,
+trembling all over in spite of myself, I broke the seal of the first. It
+was undated:
+
+     "DEAREST,--Your letter from Oriskany is before me. I am here
+     in your room, the door locked, alone with your letter,
+     overwhelmed with love and tenderness and fear for you.
+
+     "They tell me that you have been made colonel of a regiment,
+     and the honor thrills yet saddens me--all those colonels
+     killed at Oriskany! Is it a post of special danger, dear?
+
+     "Oh, my brave, splendid lover! with your quiet, steady eyes
+     and your bright hair--you angel on earth who found me a child
+     and left me an adoring woman--can it be that in this world
+     there is such a thing as death for you? And could the world
+     last without you?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Ah me! dreary me! the love that is in me! Who could believe
+     it? Who could doubt that it is divine and not inspired by
+     hell as I once feared; it is so beautiful, so hopelessly
+     beautiful, like that faint thrill of splendor that passes
+     shadowing a dream where, for an instant, we think to see a
+     tiny corner of heaven sparkling out through a million fathoms
+     of terrific night.... Did you ever dream that?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "We have been gay here. Young Mr. Van Rensselaer came from
+     Albany to heal the breach with father. We danced and had
+     games. He is a good young man, this patroon and patriot.
+     Listen, dear: he permitted all his tenants to join the army
+     of Gates, cancelled their rent-rolls during their service,
+     and promised to provide for their families. It will take a
+     fortune, but his deeds are better than his words.
+
+     "Only one thing, dear, that troubled me. I tell it to you, as
+     I tell you everything, knowing you to be kind and pitiful. It
+     is this: he asked father's permission to address me, not
+     knowing I was affianced. How sad is hopeless love!
+
+     "There was a battle at Bennington, where General Stark's men
+     whipped the Brunswick troops and took equipments for a
+     thousand cavalry, so that now you should see our Legion of
+     Horse, so gay in their buff-and-blue and their new helmets
+     and great, spurred jack-boots and bright sabres!
+
+     "Ruyven was stark mad to join them; and what do you think?
+     Sir Lupus consented, and General Schuyler lent his kind
+     offices, and to-day, if you please, my brother is strutting
+     about the yard in the uniform of a Cornet of Legion cavalry!
+
+     "To-night the squadron leaves to chase some of McDonald's
+     renegades out of Broadalbin. You remember Captain McDonald,
+     the Glencoe brawler?--it's the same one, and he's done
+     murder, they say, on the folk of Tribes Hill. I am thankful
+     that Ruyven is in Sir George Covert's squadron.
+
+     "And, dear, what do you think? Walter Butler was taken, three
+     days since, by some of Sir George Covert's riders, while
+     visiting his mother and sister at a farm-house near
+     Johnstown. He was taken within our lines, it seems, and in
+     civilian's clothes; and the next day he was tried by a
+     drum-court at Albany and condemned to death as a spy. Is it
+     not awful? He has not yet been sentenced. It touches us, too,
+     that an Ormond-Butler should die on the gallows. What horrors
+     men commit! What horrors! God pity his mother!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I am writing at a breathless pace, quill flying, sand
+     scattered by the handful--for my feverish gossip seems to
+     help me to endure.
+
+     "Time, space, distance vanish while I write; and I am with
+     you ... until my letter ends.
+
+     "Then, quick! my budget of gossip! I said that we had been
+     gay, and that is true, for what with the Legion camping in
+     our quarters and General Arnold's men here for two days, and
+     Schuyler's and Gates's officers coming and going and always
+     remaining to dine, at least, we have danced and picnicked and
+     played music and been frightened when McDonald's men came too
+     near. And oh, the terrible pall that fell on our company when
+     news came of poor Janet McCrea's murder by Indians--you did
+     not know her, but I did, and loved her dearly in school--the
+     dear little thing! But Burgoyne's Indians murdered her, and a
+     fiend called The Wyandot Panther scalped her, they say--all
+     that beautiful, silky, long hair! But Burgoyne did not hang
+     him, Heaven only knows why, for they said Burgoyne was a
+     gentleman and an honorable soldier!
+
+     "Then our company forgot the tragedy, and we danced--think of
+     it, dear! How quickly things are forgotten! Then came the
+     terrible news from Oriskany! I was nearly dead with fright
+     until your letter arrived.... So, God help us I we danced and
+     laughed and chattered once more when Arnold's troops came.
+
+     "I did not quite share the admiration of the women for
+     General Arnold. He is not finely fibred; not a man who
+     appeals to me; though I am very sorry for the slight that the
+     Congress has put upon him; and it is easy to see that he is a
+     brave and dashing officer, even if a trifle coarse in the
+     grain and inclined to be a little showy. What I liked best
+     about him was his deep admiration and friendship for our dear
+     General Schuyler, which does him honor, and doubly so because
+     General Schuyler has few friends in politics, and Arnold was
+     perfectly fearless in showing his respect and friendship for
+     a man who could do him no favors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Dear, a strange and amusing thing has happened. A few score
+     of friendly Oneidas and lukewarm Onondagas came here to pay
+     their respects to Magdalen Brant, who, they heard, was living
+     at our house.
+
+     "Magdalen received them; she is a sweet girl and very good to
+     her wild kin; and so father permitted them to camp in the
+     empty house in the sugar-bush, and sent them food and tobacco
+     and enough rum to please them without starting them
+     war-dancing.
+
+     "Now listen. You have heard me tell of the Stonish
+     Giants--those legendary men of stone whom the Iroquois,
+     Hurons, Algonquins, and Lenape stood in such dread of two
+     hundred years ago, and whom our historians believe to have
+     been some lost company of Spaniards in armor, strayed
+     northward from Cortez's army.
+
+     "Well, then, this is what occurred:
+
+     "They were all at me to put on that armor which hangs in the
+     hall--the same suit which belonged to the first Maid-at-Arms,
+     and which she is painted in, and which I wore that last
+     memorable night--you remember.
+
+     "So, to please them, I dressed in it--helmet and all--and
+     came down. Sir George Covert's horse stood at the stockade
+     gate, and somebody--I think it was General Arnold--dared me
+     to ride it in my armor.
+
+     "Well, ... I did. Then a mad desire for a gallop seized
+     me--had not mounted a horse since that last ride with
+     you--and I set spurs to the poor beast, who was already
+     dancing under the unaccustomed burden, and away we tore.
+
+     "My conscience! what a ride that was! and the clang of my
+     armor set the poor horse frantic till I could scarce
+     govern him.
+
+     "Then the absurd happened. I wheeled the horse into the
+     pasture, meaning to let him tire himself, for he was really
+     running away with me; when, all at once, I saw a hundred
+     terror-stricken savages rush out of the sugar-house, stand
+     staring a second, then take to their legs with most doleful
+     cries and hoots and piteous howls.
+
+     "'Oonah! The Stonish Giants have returned! Oonah! Oonah! The
+     Giants of Stone!'
+
+     "My vizor was down and locked. I called out to them in
+     Delaware, but at the sound of my voice they ran the
+     faster--five score frantic barbarians! And, dear, if they
+     have stopped running yet I do not know it, for they never
+     came back.
+
+     "But the most absurd part of it all is that the Onondagas,
+     who are none too friendly with us, though they pretend to be,
+     have told the Cayugas that the Stonish Giants have returned
+     to earth from Biskoona, which is hell. And I doubt not that
+     the dreadful news will spread all through the Six Nations,
+     with, perhaps, some astonishing results to us. For scouts
+     have already come in, reporting trouble between General
+     Burgoyne and his Wyandots, who declare they have had enough
+     of the war and did not enlist to fight the Stonish
+     Giants--which excuse is doubtless meaningless to him.
+
+     "And other scouts from the northwest say that St. Leger can
+     scarce hold the Senecas to the siege of Stanwix because of
+     their great loss at Oriskany, which they are inclined to
+     attribute to spells cast by their enemies, who enjoy the
+     protection of the Stonish Giants.
+
+     "Is it not all mad enough for a child's dream?
+
+     "Ay, life and love are dreams, dear, and a mad world spins
+     them out of nothing.... Forgive me ... I have been sewing on
+     my wedding-gown again. And it is nigh finished.
+
+     "Good-night. I love you. D."
+
+Blindly I groped for the remaining letter and tore the seal.
+
+     "Sir George has just had news of you from an Oneida who says
+     you may be here at any moment! And I, O God I terrified at my
+     own mad happiness, fearing myself in that meeting, begged him
+     to wed me on the morrow. I was insane, I think, crazed with
+     fear, knowing that, were I not forever beyond you, I must
+     give myself to you and abide in hell for all eternity!
+
+     "And he was astonished, I think, but kind, as he always is;
+     and now the dreadful knowledge has come to me that for me
+     there is no refuge, no safety in marriage which I, poor fool,
+     fled to for sanctuary lest I do murder on my own soul!
+
+     "What shall I do? What can I do? I have given my word to wed
+     him on the morrow. If it be mortal sin to show ingratitude to
+     a father and deceive a lover, what would it be to deceive a
+     husband and disgrace a father?
+
+     "And I, silly innocent, never dreamed but that temptation
+     ceased within the holy bonds of wedlock--though sadness might
+     endure forever.
+
+     "And now I know! In the imminent and instant presence of my
+     marriage I know that I shall love you none the less, shall
+     tempt and be tempted none the less. And, in this resistless,
+     eternal love, I may fall, dragging you down with me to our
+     endless punishment.
+
+     "It was not the fear of punishment that kept me true to my
+     vows before; it was something within me, I don't know what.
+
+     "But, if I were wedded with him, it would be fear of
+     punishment alone that could save me--not terror of flames; I
+     could endure them with you, but the new knowledge that has
+     come to me that my punishment would be the one thing I could
+     not endure--eternity without you!
+
+     "Neither in heaven nor in hell may I have you. Is there no
+     way, my beloved? Is there no place for us?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "I have been to the porch to tell Sir George that I must
+     postpone the wedding. I did not tell him. He was standing
+     with Magdalen Brant, and she was crying. I did not know she
+     had received bad news. She said the news was bad. Perhaps Sir
+     George can help her.
+
+     "I will tell him later that the wedding must be postponed....
+     I don't know why, either. I cannot think. I can scarcely see
+     to write. Oh, help me once more, my darling! Do not come to
+     Varicks'! That is all I desire on earth! For we must never,
+     never, see each other again!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stunned, I reeled to my feet and stumbled out into the moonlight,
+staring across the misty wilderness into the east, where, beyond the
+forests, somewhere, she lay, perhaps a bride.
+
+A deathly chill struck through and through me. To a free man, with one
+shred of pity, honor, unselfish love, that appeal must be answered. And
+he were the basest man in all the world who should ignore it and show
+his face at Varick Manor--were he free to choose.
+
+But I was not free; I was a military servant, pledged under solemn oath
+and before God to obedience--instant, unquestioning, unfaltering
+obedience.
+
+And in my trembling hand I held my written orders to report at Varick
+Manor.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+COCK-CROW
+
+At dawn we left the road and struck the Oneida trail north of the river,
+following it swiftly, bearing a little north of east until, towards
+noon, we came into the wagon-road which runs over the Mayfield hills and
+down through the outlying bush farms of Mayfield and Kingsborough.
+
+Many of the houses were deserted, but not all; here and there smoke
+curled from the chimney of some lonely farm; and across the stump
+pasture we could see a woman laboring in the sun-scorched fields and a
+man, rifle in hand, standing guard on a vantage-point which
+overlooked his land.
+
+Fences and gates became more frequent, crossing the rough road every
+mile or two, so that we were constantly letting down and replacing
+cattle-bars, unpinning rude gates, or climbing over snake fences of
+split rails.
+
+Once we came to a cross-roads where the fence had been demolished and a
+warning painted on a rough pine board above a wayside watering-trough.
+
+     "WARNING!
+
+     All farmers and townsfolk are hereby requested and ordered to
+     remove gates, stiles, cow-bars, and fences, which includes
+     all obstructions to the public highway, in order that the
+     cavalry may pass without difficulty. Any person found felling
+     trees across this road, or otherwise impeding the operations
+     of cavalry by building brush, stump, rail, or stone fences
+     across this road, will be arrested and tried before a court
+     on charge of aiding and giving comfort to the enemy.
+     G. COVERT,
+
+     "Captain Commanding Legion."
+
+Either this order did not apply to the cross-road which we now filed
+into, or the owners of adjacent lands paid no heed to it; for presently,
+a few rods ahead of us, we saw a snake fence barring the road and a man
+with a pack on his back in the act of climbing over it.
+
+He was going in the same direction that we were, and seemed to be a
+fur-trader laden with packets of peltry.
+
+I said this to Murphy, who laughed and looked at Mount.
+
+"Who carries pelts to Quebec in August?" asked Elerson, grinning.
+
+"There's the skin of a wolverine dangling from his pack," I said, in a
+low voice.
+
+Murphy touched Mount's arm, and they halted until the man ahead had
+rounded a turn in the road; then they sprang forward, creeping swiftly
+to the shelter of the undergrowth at the bend of the road, while Elerson
+and I followed at an easy pace.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, as we rejoined them where they were kneeling,
+looking after the figure ahead.
+
+"Nothing, sir; we only want to see them pelts, Tim and me."
+
+"Do you know the man?" I demanded.
+
+Murphy gazed musingly at Mount through narrowed eyes. Mount, in a brown
+study, stared back.
+
+"Phwere th' divil have I seen him, I dunnoa!" muttered Murphy. "Jack,
+'tis wan mush-rat looks like th' next, an' all thrappers has the same
+cut to them! Yonder's no thrapper!"
+
+"Nor peddler," added Mount; "the strap of the Delaware baskets never
+bowed his legs."
+
+"Thrue, avick! Wisha, lad, 'tis horses he knows better than snow-shoes,
+bed-plates, an' thrip-sticks! An' I've seen him, I think!"
+
+"Where?" I asked.
+
+He shook his head, vacantly staring. Moved by the same impulse, we all
+started forward; the man was not far ahead, but our moccasins made no
+noise in the dust and we closed up swiftly on him and were at his elbow
+before he heard us.
+
+Under the heavy sunburn the color faded in his cheeks when he saw us. I
+noted it, but that was nothing strange considering the perilous
+conditions of the country and the sudden shock of our appearance.
+
+"Good-day, friend," cried Mount, cheerily.
+
+"Good-day, friends," he replied, stammering as though for lack of
+breath.
+
+"God save our country, friend," added Elerson, gravely.
+
+"God save our country, friends," repeated the man.
+
+So far, so good. The man, a thick, stocky, heavy-eyed fellow, moistened
+his broad lips with his tongue, peered furtively at me, and instantly
+dropped his eyes. At the same instant memory stirred within me; a vague
+recollection of those heavy, black eyes, of that broad, bow-legged
+figure set me pondering.
+
+"Me fri'nd," purred Murphy, persuasively, "is th' Frinch thrappers
+balin' August peltry f'r to sell in Canady?"
+
+"I've a few late pelts from the lakes," muttered the man, without
+looking up.
+
+"Domned late," cried Murphy, gayly. "Sure they do say, if ye dhraw a
+summer mink an' turrn th' pelt inside out like a glove, the winther fur
+will sprout inside--wid fashtin' an' prayer."
+
+The man bent his eyes obstinately on the ground; instead of smiling he
+had paled.
+
+"Have you the skin of a wampum bird in that bale?" asked Mount,
+pleasantly.
+
+Elerson struck the pack with the flat of his hand; the mangy wolverine
+pelt crackled.
+
+"Green hides! Green hides!" laughed Mount, sarcastically. "Come, my
+friend, we're your customers. Down with your bales and I'll buy."
+
+Murphy had laid a heavy hand on the man's shoulder, halting him short in
+his tracks; Elerson, rifle cradled in the hollow of his left arm, poked
+his forefinger into the bales, then sniffed at the aperture.
+
+"There are green hides there!" he exclaimed, stepping back. "Jack, slip
+that pack off!"
+
+The man started forward, crying out that he had no time to waste, but
+Murphy jerked him back by the collar and Elerson seized his right arm.
+
+"Wait!" I said, sharply. "You cannot stop a man like this on the
+highway!"
+
+"You don't know us, sir," replied Mount, impudently.
+
+"Come, Colonel Ormond," added Elerson, almost savagely. "You're our
+captain no longer. Give way, sir. Answer for your own men, and we'll
+answer to Danny Morgan!"
+
+Mount, struggling to unfasten the pack, looked over his huge shoulders
+at me.
+
+"Not that we're not fond of you, sir; but we know this old fox now--"
+
+"You lie!" shrieked the man, hurling his full weight at Murphy and
+tearing his right arm free from Elerson's grip.
+
+There came a flash, an explosion; through a cloud of smoke I saw the
+fellow's right arm stretched straight up in the air, his hand clutching
+a smoking pistol, and Elerson holding the arm rigid in a grip of steel.
+
+[Illustration: "INSTANTLY MOUNT TRIPPED THE MAN".]
+
+Instantly Mount tripped the man flat on his face in the dust, and Murphy
+jerked his arms behind his back, tying them fast at the wrists with a
+cord which Elerson cut from the pack and flung to him.
+
+"Rip up thim bales, Jack!" said Murphy. "Yell find them full o' powther
+an' ball an' cutlery, sorr, or I'm a liar!" he added to me. "This limb
+o' Lucifer is wan o' Francy McCraw's renegados!--Danny Redstock, sorr,
+th' tirror av the Sacandaga!"
+
+Redstock! I had seen him at Broadalbin that evening in May, threatening
+the angry settlers with his rifle, when Dorothy and the Brandt-Meester
+and I had ridden over with news of smoke in the hills.
+
+Murphy tied the prostrate man's legs, pulled him across the dusty road
+to the bushes, and laid him on his back under a great maple-tree.
+
+Mount, knife in hand, ripped up the bales of crackling peltry, and
+Elerson delved in among the skins, flinging them right and left in his
+impatient search.
+
+"There's no powder here," he exclaimed, rising to his knees on the road
+and staring at Mount; "nothing but badly cured beaver and mangy
+musk-rat."
+
+"Well, he baled 'em to conceal something!" insisted Mount. "No man packs
+in this moth-eaten stuff for love of labor. What's that parcel in
+the bottom?"
+
+"Not powder," replied Elerson, tossing it out, where it rebounded,
+crackling.
+
+"Squirrel pelts," nodded Mount, as I picked up the packet and looked at
+the sealed cords. The parcel was addressed: "General Barry St. Leger, in
+camp before Stanwix." I sat down on the grass and began to open it, when
+a groan from the prostrate prisoner startled me. He had struggled to a
+sitting posture, and was facing me, eyes bulging from their sockets.
+Every vestige of color had left his visage.
+
+"For God's sake don't open that!" he gasped--"there is naught there,
+sir--"
+
+"Silence!" roared Mount, glaring at him, while Murphy and Elerson,
+dropping their armfuls of pelts, came across the road to the bank
+where I sat.
+
+"I will not be silent!" screamed the man, rocking to and fro on the
+ground. "I did not do that!--I know nothing of what that packet holds! A
+Mohawk runner gave it to me--I mean that I found it on the trail--"
+
+The riflemen stared at him in contempt while I cut the strings of the
+parcel and unrolled the bolt of heavy miller's cloth.
+
+At first I did not comprehend what all that mass of fluffy hair could
+be. A deep gasp from Mount enlightened me, and I dropped the packet in a
+revulsion of horror indescribable. For the parcel was fairly bursting
+with tightly packed scalps.
+
+In the deathly silence I heard Redstock's hoarse breathing. Mount knelt
+down and gently lifted a heavy mass of dark, silky hair.
+
+At last Elerson broke the silence, speaking in a strangely gentle and
+monotonous voice.
+
+"I think this hair was Janet McCrea's. I saw her many times at
+Half-moon. No maid in Tryon County had hair like hers."
+
+Shuddering, Mount lifted a long braid of dark-brown hair fastened to a
+hoop painted blue. And Elerson, in that strange monotone,
+continued speaking:
+
+"The hair on this scalp is braided to show that the woman was a mother;
+the skin stretched on a blue hoop confirms it.
+
+"The murderer has painted the skin yellow with red dots to represent
+tears shed for the dead by her family. There is a death-maul painted
+below in black; it shows how she was killed."
+
+He laid the scalp back very carefully. Under the mass of hair a bit of
+paper stuck out, and I drew it from the dreadful packet. It was a sealed
+letter directed to General St. Leger, and I opened and read the contents
+aloud in the midst of a terrible silence.
+
+     "SACANDAGA VLAIE,
+     August 17, 1777
+
+     "General Barry St. Leger
+
+     "SIR,--I send you under care of Daniel Redstock the first
+     packet of scalps, cured, dried, hooped, and painted; four
+     dozen in all, at twenty dollars a dozen, which will be eighty
+     dollars. This you will please pay to Daniel Redstock, as I
+     need money for tobacco and rum for the men and the Senecas
+     who are with me.
+
+     "Return invoice with payment acquitted by the bearer, who
+     will know where to find me. Below I have prepared a true
+     invoice. Your very humble servant,
+
+     "F. MCCRAW.
+
+"Invoice.
+
+(6) Six scalps of farmers, green hoops to show they were killed
+    in their fields; a large white circle for the sun, showing
+    it was day; black bullet mark on three; hatchet on two.
+
+(2) Two of settlers, surprised and killed in their houses or barns;
+    hoops red; white circle for the sun; a little red foot to show
+    they died fighting. Both marked with bullet symbol.
+
+(4) Four of settlers. Two marked by little yellow flames to show
+    how they died. (My Senecas have had no prisoners for
+    burning since August third.) One a rebel clergyman, his
+    band tied to the scalp-hoop, and a little red foot under a red
+    cross painted on the skin. (He killed two of my men before
+    we got him.) One, a poor scalp, the hair gray and
+    thin; the hoop painted brown. (An old man whom we
+    found in bed in a rebel house.)
+
+(12) Twelve of militia soldiers; stretched on black hoops four inches
+    in diameter, inside skin painted red; a black circle showing
+    they were outposts surprised at night; hatchet as usual.
+
+(12) Twelve of women; one unbraided--a very fine scalp (bought
+    of a Wyandot from Burgoyne's army), which I paid full
+    price for; nine braided, hoops blue, red tear-marks; two
+    very gray; black hoops, plain brown color inside; death-maul
+    marked in red.
+
+(6) Six of boys' scalps; small green hoops; red tears; symbols
+    in black of castete, knife, and bullet.
+
+(5) Five of girls' scalps; small yellow hoops. Marked with the
+    Seneca symbol to whom they were delivered before scalping.
+
+(l) One box of birch-bark containing an infant's scalp; very little
+    hair, but well dried and cured. (I must ask full price
+    for this.)
+
+48 scalps assorted, @ 20 dollars a dozen..............80 dollars.
+
+"Received payment, F. McCRAW."
+
+The ghastly face of the prisoner turned livid, and he shrieked as Mount
+caught him by the collar and dragged him to his feet.
+
+"Jack," I said, hoarsely, "the law sends that man before a court."
+
+"Court be damned!" growled Mount, as Elerson uncoiled the pack-rope,
+flung one end over a maple limb above, and tied a running noose on the
+other end.
+
+Murphy crowded past me to seize the prisoner, but I caught him by the
+arm and pushed him aside.
+
+"Men!" I said, angrily; "I don't care whose command you are under. I'm
+an officer, and you'll listen to me and obey me with respect. Murphy!"
+
+The Irishman gave me a savage stare.
+
+"By God!" I cried, cocking my rifle, "if one of you dares disobey, I'll
+shoot him where he stands! Murphy! Stand aside! Mount, bring that
+prisoner here!"
+
+There was a pause; then Murphy touched his cap and stepped back quietly,
+nodding to Mount, who shuffled forward, pushing the prisoner and darting
+a venomous glance at me.
+
+"Redstock," I said, "where is McCraw?"
+
+A torrent of filthy abuse poured out of the prisoner's writhing mouth.
+He cursed us, threatening us with a terrible revenge from McCraw if we
+harmed a hair of his head.
+
+Astonished, I saw that he had mistaken my attitude for one of fear. I
+strove to question him, but he insolently refused all information. My
+men ground their teeth with impatience, and I saw that I could control
+them no longer.
+
+So I gave what color I could to the lawless act of justice, partly to
+save my waning authority, partly to save them the consequences of
+executing a prisoner who might give valuable information to the
+authorities in Albany.
+
+I ordered Elerson to hold the prisoner and adjust the noose; Murphy and
+Mount to the rope's end. Then I said: "Prisoner, this field-court finds
+you guilty of murder and orders your execution. Have you anything to say
+before sentence is carried out?"
+
+The wretch did not believe we were in earnest. I nodded to Elerson, who
+drew the noose tight; the prisoner's knees gave way, and he screamed;
+but Mount and Murphy jerked him up, and the rope strangled the screech
+in his throat.
+
+Sickened, I bent my head, striving to count the seconds as he hung
+twisting and quivering under the maple limb.
+
+Would he never die? Would those spasms never end?
+
+"Shtep back, sorr, if ye plaze, sorr," said Murphy, gently. "Sure, sorr,
+ye're as white as a sheet. Walk away quiet-like; ye're not used to such
+things, sorr."
+
+I was not, indeed; I had never seen a man done to death in cold blood.
+Yet I fought off the sickening faintness that clutched at my heart; and
+at last the dangling thing hung limp and relaxed, turning slowly round
+and round in mid-air.
+
+Mount nodded to Murphy and fell to digging with a sharpened stick.
+Elerson quietly lighted his pipe and aided him, while Murphy shaved off
+a white square of bark on the maple-tree under the slow-turning body,
+and I wrote with the juice of an elderberry:
+
+"Daniel Redstock, a child murderer, executed by American Riflemen for
+his crimes, under order of George Ormond, Colonel of Rangers, August 19,
+1777. Renegades and Outlaws take warning!"
+
+When Mount and Elerson had finished the shallow grave, they laid the
+scalps of the murdered in the hole, stamped down the earth, and covered
+it with sticks and branches lest a prowling outlaw or Seneca disinter
+the remains and reap a ghastly reward for their redemption from General
+the Hon. Barry St. Leger, Commander of the British, Hessians, Loyal
+Colonials, and Indians, in camp before Fort Stanwix.
+
+As we left that dreadful spot, and before I could interfere to prevent
+them, the three riflemen emptied their pieces into the swinging
+corpse--a useless, foolish, and savage performance, and I said
+so sharply.
+
+They were very docile and contrite and obedient now, explaining that it
+was a customary safeguard, as hanged men had been revived more than
+once--a flimsy excuse, indeed!
+
+"Very well," I said; "your shots may draw McCraw's whole force down on
+us. But doubtless you know much more than your officers--like the
+militia at Oriskany."
+
+The reproof struck home; Mount muttered his apology; Murphy offered to
+carry my rifle if I was fatigued.
+
+"It was thoughtless, I admit that," said Elerson, looking backward,
+uneasily. "But we're close to the patroon's boundary."
+
+"We're within bounds now," said Mount. "Fonda's Bush lies over there to
+the southeast, and the Vlaie is yonder below the mountain-notch. This
+wagon-track runs into the Fish-House road."
+
+"How far are we from the manor?" I asked.
+
+"About two miles and a half, sir," replied Mount. "Doubtless some of Sir
+George Covert's horsemen heard our shots, and we'll meet 'em cantering
+out to investigate."
+
+I had not imagined we were as near as that. A painful thrill passed
+through me; my heart leaped, beating feverishly in my breast.
+
+Minute after minute dragged as we filed swiftly onward, mechanically
+treading in each other's tracks. I strove to consider, to think, to
+picture the sad, strange home-coming--to see her as she would stand,
+stunned, astounded that I had ignored her appeal to help her by
+my absence.
+
+I could not think; my thoughts were chaos; my brain throbbed heavily; I
+fixed my hot eyes on the road and strode onward, numbed, seeing,
+hearing nothing.
+
+And, of a sudden, a shout rang out ahead; horsemen in line across the
+road, rifles on thigh, moved forward towards us; an officer reversed his
+sword, drove it whizzing into the scabbard, and spurred forward,
+followed by a trooper, helmet flashing in the sun.
+
+"Ormond!" cried the officer, flinging himself from his horse and holding
+out both white-gloved hands.
+
+"Sir George, ... I am glad to see you.... I am very--happy," I
+stammered, taking his hands.
+
+"Cousin Ormond!" came a timid voice behind me.
+
+I turned; Ruyven, in full uniform of a cornet, flung himself into my
+arms.
+
+I could scarce see him for the mist in my eyes; I pressed the boy close
+to my breast and kissed him on both cheeks.
+
+Utterly unable to speak, I sat down on a log, holding Sir George's
+gloved hand, my arm on Ruyven's laced shoulder. An immense fatigue came
+over me; I had not before realized the pace we had kept up for these two
+months nor the strain I had been under.
+
+"Singleton!" called out Sir George, "take the men to the barracks; take
+my horse, too--I'll walk back. And, Singleton, just have your men take
+these fine fellows up behind"--with a gesture towards the riflemen. "And
+see that they lack for nothing in quarters!"
+
+Grinning sheepishly, the riflemen climbed up behind the troopers
+assigned them; the troop cantered off, and Sir George pointed to
+Ruyven's horse, indicating that it was for me when I was rested.
+
+"We heard shots," he said; "I mistrusted it might be a salute from you,
+but came ready for anything, you see--Lord! How thin you've
+grown, Ormond!"
+
+"I'm cornet, cousin!" burst out Ruyven, hugging me again in his
+excitement. "I charged with the squadron when we scattered McDonald's
+outlaws! A man let drive at me--"
+
+"Oh, come, come," laughed Sir George, "Colonel Ormond has had more
+bullets driven at him than our Legion pouches in their bullet-bags!"
+
+"A man let drive at me!" breathed Ruyven, in rapture. "I was not hit,
+cousin! A man let drive at me, and I heard the bullet!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sir George, mischievously; "you heard a bumble-bee!"
+
+"He always says that," retorted Ruyven, looking at me. "I know it was a
+bullet, for it went zo-o-zip-tsing-g! right past my ear; and Sergeant
+West shouted, 'Cut him down, sir!' ... But another trooper did that.
+However, I rode like the devil!"
+
+"Which way?" inquired Sir George, in pretended anxiety. And we all
+laughed.
+
+"It's good to see you back all safe and sound," said Sir George, warmly.
+"Sir Lupus will be delighted and the children half crazed. You should
+hear them talk of their hero!"
+
+"Dorothy will be glad, too," said Ruyven. "You'll be in time for the
+wedding."
+
+I strove to smile, facing Sir George with an effort. His face, in the
+full sunlight, seemed haggard and careworn, and the light had died out
+in his eyes.
+
+"For the wedding," he repeated. "We are to be wedded to-morrow. You did
+not know that, did you?"
+
+"Yes; I did know it. Dorothy wrote me," I said. A numbed feeling crept
+over me; I scarce heard the words I uttered when I wished him happiness.
+He held my proffered hand a second, then dropped it listlessly,
+thanking me for my good wishes in a low voice.
+
+There was a vague, troubled expression in his eyes, a strange lack of
+feeling. The thought came to me like a stab that perhaps he had learned
+that the woman he was to wed did not love him.
+
+"Did Dorothy expect me?" I asked, miserably.
+
+"I think not," said Sir George.
+
+"She believed you meant to follow Arnold to Stanwix," broke in Ruyven.
+"I should have done it! I regard General Arnold as the most magnificent
+soldier of the age!" he added.
+
+"I was ordered to Varick Manor," I said, looking at Sir George.
+"Otherwise I might have followed Arnold. As it is I cannot stay for the
+wedding; I must report at Stillwater, leaving by nine o'clock in
+the morning."
+
+"Lord, Ormond, what a fire-eater you have become!" he said, smiling from
+his abstraction. "Are you ready to mount Ruyven's nag and come home to a
+good bed and a glass of something neat?"
+
+"Let Ruyven ride," I said; "I need the walk, Sir George."
+
+"Need the walk!" he exclaimed. "Have you not had walks enough?--and your
+moccasins and buckskins in rags!"
+
+But I could not endure to ride; a nerve-racking restlessness was on me,
+a desire for movement, for utter exhaustion, so that I could no longer
+have even strength to think.
+
+Ruyven, protesting, climbed into his dragoon-saddle; Sir George walked
+beside him and I with Sir George.
+
+Long, soft August lights lay across the leafy road; the blackberries
+were in heavy fruit; scarlet thimble-berries, over-ripe, dropped from
+their pithy cones as we brushed the sprays with our sleeves.
+
+Sir George was saying: "No, we have nothing more to fear from
+McDonald's gang, but a scout came in, three days since, bringing word of
+McCraw's outlaws who have appeared in the west--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, listening to a sound that I also heard; the sudden
+drumming of unshod hoofs on the road behind us.
+
+"What the devil--" he began, then cocked his rifle; I threw up mine; a
+shrill cock-crow rang out above the noise of tramping horses; a
+galloping mass of horsemen burst into view behind us, coming like an
+avalanche.
+
+"McCraw!" shouted Sir George. Ruyven fired from his saddle; Sir George's
+rifle and mine exploded together; a horse and rider went down with a
+crash, but the others came straight on, and the cock-crow rang out
+triumphantly above the roar of the rushing horses.
+
+"Ruyven!" I shouted, "ride for your life!"
+
+"I won't!" he cried, furiously; but I seized his bridle, swung his
+frightened horse, and struck the animal across the buttocks with clubbed
+rifle. Away tore the maddened beast, almost unseating his rider, who
+lost both stirrups at the first frantic bound and clung helplessly to
+his saddle-pommel while the horse carried him away like the wind.
+
+Then I sprang into the ozier thicket, Sir George at my side, and ran a
+little way; but they caught us, even before we reached the timber, and
+threw us to the ground, tying us up like basted capons with straps from
+their saddles. Maltreated, struck, kicked, mauled, and dragged out to
+the road, I looked for instant death; but a lank creature flung me
+across his saddle, face downward, and, in a second, the whole band had
+mounted, wheeled about, and were galloping westward, ventre à terre.
+
+Almost dead from the saddle-pommel which knocked the breath from my
+body, suffocated and strangled with dust, I hung dangling there in a
+storm of flying sticks and pebbles. Twice consciousness fled, only to
+return with the blood pounding in my ears. A third time my senses left
+me, and when they returned I lay in a cleared space in the woods beside
+Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a
+fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved
+McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at
+cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling meat
+with pointed sticks.
+
+Behind them, squatted in rows, sat two dozen Indians, watching us in
+ferocious silence.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+For a while I lay there stupefied, limp-limbed, lifeless, closing my
+aching eyes under the glittering red rays of the westering sun.
+
+My parched throat throbbed and throbbed; I could scarcely stir, even to
+close my swollen hands where they had tied my wrists, although somebody
+had cut the cords that bound me.
+
+"Sir George," I said, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, I am here," he replied, instantly.
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"No, Ormond. Are you?"
+
+"No; very tired; that is all."
+
+I rolled over; my head reeled and I held it in my benumbed hands,
+looking at Sir George, who lay on his side, cheek pillowed on his arms.
+
+"This is a miserable end of it all," he said, with calm bitterness. "But
+that it involves you, I should not dare blame fortune for the fool I
+acted. I have my deserts; but it's cruel for you."
+
+The sickening whirling in my head became unendurable. I lay down, facing
+him, eyes closed.
+
+"It was not your fault," I said, dully.
+
+"There is no profit in discussing that," he muttered. "They took us
+alive instead of scalping us; while there's life there's hope, ... a
+little hope.... But I'd sooner they'd finish me here than rot in their
+stinking prison-ships.... Ormond, are you awake?"
+
+"Yes, Sir George."
+
+"If they--if the Indians get us, and--and begin their--you know--"
+
+"Yes; I know."
+
+"If they begin ... that ... insult them, taunt them, sneer at them,
+laugh at them!--yes, laugh at them! Do anything to enrage them, so
+they'll--they'll finish quickly.... Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes," I muttered; and my voice sounded miles away.
+
+He lay brooding for a while; when I opened my eyes he broke out
+fretfully: "How was I to dream that McCraw could be so near!--that he
+dared raid us within a mile of the house! Oh, I could die of shame,
+Ormond! die of shame!... But I won't die that way; oh no," he added,
+with a frightful smile that left his face distorted and white.
+
+He raised himself on one elbow.
+
+"Ormond," he said, staring at vacancy, "what trivial matters a man
+thinks of in the shadow of death. I can't consider it; I can't be
+reconciled to it; I can't even pray. One absurd idea possesses me--that
+Singleton will have the Legion now; and he's a slack drill-master--he
+is, indeed!... I've a million things to think of--an idle life to
+consider, a misspent career to repent, but the time is too short,
+Ormond.... Perhaps all that will come at the instant of--of--"
+
+"Death," I said, wearily.
+
+"Yes, yes; that's it, death. I'm no coward; I'm calm enough--but I'm
+stunned. I can't think for the suddenness of it!... And you just home;
+and Ruyven there, snuggled close to you as a house-cat--and then that
+sound of galloping, like a fly-stung herd of cattle in a pasture!"
+
+"I think Ruyven is safe," I said, closing my eyes.
+
+"Yes, he's safe. Nobody chased him; they'll know at the manor by this
+time; they knew long ago.... My men will be out.... Where are
+we, Ormond?"
+
+"I don't know," I murmured, drowsily. The months of fatigue, the
+unbroken strain, the feverish weeks spent in endless trails, the
+constant craving for movement to occupy my thoughts, the sleepless
+nights which were the more unendurable because physical exhaustion could
+not give me peace or rest, now told on me. I drowsed in the very
+presence of death; and the stupor settled heavily, bringing, for the
+first time since I left Varick Manor, rest and immunity from despair or
+even desire.
+
+I cared for nothing: hope of her was dead; hope of life might die and I
+was acquiescent, contented, glad of the end. I had endured too much.
+
+My sleep--or unconsciousness--could not have lasted long; the sun was
+not yet level with my eyes when I roused to find Sir George tugging at
+my sleeve and a man in a soiled and tarnished scarlet uniform
+standing over me.
+
+But that brief respite from the strain had revived me; a bucket of cold
+water stood near the fire, and I thrust my burning face into it,
+drinking my fill, while the renegade in scarlet bawled at me and fumed
+and cursed, demanding my attention to what he was saying.
+
+"You damned impudent rebel!" he yelled; "am I to stand around here
+awaiting your pleasure while you swill your skin full?"
+
+I wiped my lips with my torn hands, and got to my feet painfully, a
+trifle dizzy for a moment, but perfectly able to stand and to
+comprehend.
+
+"I'm asking you," he snarled, "why we can't send a flag to your people
+without their firing on it?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," I said.
+
+"I do," said Sir George, blandly.
+
+"Oh, you do, eh?" growled the renegade, turning on him with a scowl.
+"Then tell me why our flag of truce is not respected, if you can."
+
+"Nobody respects a flag from outlaws," said Sir George, coolly.
+
+The fellow's face hardened and his eyes blazed. He started to speak,
+then shut his mouth with a snap, turned on his heel, and strode across
+the treeless glade to where his noisy riders were saddling up,
+tightening girths, buckling straps, and examining the unshod feet of
+their horses or smoothing out the burrs from mane and tail. The red sun
+glittered on their spurs, rifles, and the flat buckles of their
+cross-belts. Their uniform was scarlet and green, but some wore beaded
+shirts of scarlet holland, belted in with Mohawk wampum, and some were
+partly clothed like Cayuga Indians and painted with Seneca
+war-symbols--a grewsome sight.
+
+There were savages moving about the fire--or I took them for savages,
+until one half-naked lout, lounging near, taunted me with a Scotch burr
+in his throat, and I saw, in his horribly painted face, a pair of
+flashing eyes fixed on me. And the eyes were blue.
+
+There was something in that ghastly masquerade so horrible, so
+unspeakably revolting, that a shiver of pure fear touched me in every
+nerve. Except for the voice and the eyes, he looked the counterpart of
+the Senecas moving about near us; his skin, bare to the waist, was
+stained a reddish copper hue; his black hair was shaved except for the
+knot; war-paint smeared visage and chest, and two crimson quills rose
+from behind his left ear, tied to the scalp-lock.
+
+"Let him alone; don't answer him; he's worse than the Indians,"
+whispered Sir George.
+
+Among the savages I saw two others with light eyes, and a third I never
+should have suspected had not Sir George pointed out his feet, which
+were planted on the ground like the feet of a white man when he walked,
+and not parallel or toed-in.
+
+But now the loud-voiced riders were climbing into their saddles; the
+officer in scarlet, who had cursed and questioned us, came towards us
+leading a horse.
+
+"You treacherous whelps!" he said, fiercely; "if a flag can't go to you
+safely, we must send one of you with it. By Heaven! you're both fit for
+roasting, and it sickens me to send you! But one of you goes and the
+other stays. Now fight it out--and be quick!"
+
+An amazed silence followed; then Sir George asked why one of us was to
+be liberated and the other kept prisoner.
+
+"Because your sneaking rebel friends fire on the white flag, I tell
+you!" cried the fellow, furiously; "and we've got to get a message to
+them. You are Captain Sir George Covert, are you not? Very good. Your
+rebel friends have taken Captain Walter Butler and mean to hang him. Now
+you tell your people that we've got Colonel Ormond and we'll exchange
+you both, a colonel and a captain, for Walter Butler. Do you understand?
+That's what we value you at; a rebel colonel and a rebel captain for a
+single loyal captain."
+
+Sir George turned to me. "There is not the faintest chance of an
+exchange," he said, in French.
+
+"Stop that!" threatened the man in scarlet, laying his hand on his
+hanger. "Speak English or Delaware, do you hear?"
+
+"Sir George," I said, "you will go, of course. I shall remain and take
+the chance of exchange."
+
+"Pardon," he said, coolly; "I remain here and pay the piper for the tune
+I danced to. You will relieve me of my obligations by going," he
+added, stiffly.
+
+"No," I said; "I tell you I don't care. Can't you understand that a man
+may not care?"
+
+"I understand," he replied, staring at me; "and I am that man, Ormond.
+Come, get into your saddle. Good-bye. It is all right; it is perfectly
+just, and--it doesn't matter."
+
+A shrill voice broke out across the cleared circle. "Billy Bones! Billy
+Bones! Hae ye no flints f'r the lads that ride? Losh, mon, we'll no be
+ganging north the day, an' ye bide droolin' there wi' the blitherin'
+Jacobites!"
+
+"The flints are in McBarron's wagon! Wait, wait, Francy McCraw!" And he
+hurried away, bawling for the teamster McBarron.
+
+"Sir George," I said, "take the chance, in Heaven's name, for I shall
+not go. Don't dispute; don't stand there! Man, man, don't delay, I tell
+you, or they'll change their plan!"
+
+"I won't go," he said, sharply. "Ormond, am I a contemptible poltroon
+that I should leave you here to endure the consequences of my own
+negligence? Do you think I could accept life at that price?"
+
+"I tell you to go!" I said, harshly. A horrid hope, a terrible and
+unworthy temptation, had seized me like a thing from hell. I trembled;
+sweat broke out on me, and I set my teeth, striving to think as the
+woman I had lost would have had me think. "Quick!" I muttered, "don't
+wait, don't delay; don't talk to me, I tell you! Go! Go! Get out of
+my sight--"
+
+And all the time, pounding in my brain, the pulse beat out a shameful
+thought; and mad temptations swarmed, whispering close to my ringing
+ears that his death was my only chance, my only possible
+salvation--and hers!
+
+"Go!" I stammered, pushing him towards the horse; "get into your saddle!
+Quick, I tell you--I--I can't endure this! I am not made to endure
+everything, I tell you! Can't you have a little mercy on me and
+leave me?"
+
+"I refuse," he said, sullenly.
+
+"You refuse!" I stammered, beside myself with the torture I could no
+longer bear. "Then stand aside! I'll go--I'll go if it costs me--No! No!
+I can't; I can't, I tell you; it costs too much!... Damn you, you may
+have the woman I love, but you shall leave me her respect!"
+
+"Ormond! Ormond!" he cried, in sorrowful amazement; but I was clean out
+of my head now, and I closed with him, dragging him towards the horse.
+
+He shook himself free, glaring at me.
+
+"I am ... your superior ... officer!" I panted, advancing on him; "I
+order you to go!"
+
+He looked me narrowly in the eyes. "And I refuse obedience," he said,
+hoarsely. "You are out of your mind!"
+
+"Then, by God!" I shrieked, "I'll force you!"
+
+Billy Bones, Francy McCraw, and a Seneca came hastening up. I leaped on
+McCraw and dealt him a blow full in his bony face, splitting the lean
+cheek open.
+
+They overpowered me before I could repeat the blow; they flung me down,
+kicking and pounding me as I lay there, but the death-stroke I awaited
+was withheld; the castete of the Seneca was jerked from his fist.
+
+Then they seized Sir George and forced him into his saddle, calling on
+four troopers to pilot him within sight of the manor and shoot him if he
+attempted to return.
+
+"You tell them that if they refuse to exchange Walter Butler for Ormond,
+we've torments for Colonel Ormond that won't kill him under a week!"
+roared Billy Bones.
+
+McCraw, stupefied with amazement and rage, stood mopping the blood from
+his blotched face, staring at me out of his crazy blue eyes. For a
+moment his hand fiddled with his hatchet, then Bones shoved him away,
+and he strode off towards his horsemen, who were forming in column
+of fours.
+
+"You tell 'em," shouted Bones, "that before we finish him they'll hear
+his screams in Albany! If they want Colonel Ormond," he added, his voice
+rising to a yell, "tell 'em to send a single man into the sugar-bush.
+But if they hang Walter Butler, or if you try to catch us with your
+cavalry, we'll take Ormond where we'll have leisure to see what our
+Senecas can do with him! Now ride! you damned--"
+
+He struck Sir George's horse with the flat of his hanger; the horse
+bounded off, followed by four of McCraw's riders, pistols cocked and
+hatchets loosened.
+
+Bruised, dazed, exhausted, I lay there, listening to the receding
+thudding of their horses' feet on the moss.
+
+The crisis was over, and I had won--not as I might have chosen to win,
+but by a compromise with death for deliverance from temptation.
+
+If it was the compromise of a crazed creature, insane from mental and
+physical exhaustion, it was not the compromise of a weak man; I did not
+desire death as long as she lived. I dreaded to leave her alone in the
+world. But, though she loved him not--and did love me--I could not
+accept the future through his sacrifice and live to remember that he had
+laid down his life for a friend who desired from him more than he had
+renounced.
+
+I was perfectly sane now; a strange calmness came over me; my mind was
+clear and composed; my meditations serene. Free at last from hope, from
+sorrowful passion, from troubled desire, I lay there thinking, watching
+the long, red sun-rays slanting through the woods.
+
+Gratitude to God for a life ended ere I fell from His grace, ere
+temptation entangled me beyond deliverance; humble pride in the
+honorable traditions that I had received and followed untainted; deep,
+reverent thankfulness for the strength vouchsafed me in this supreme
+crisis of my life--the strength of a madman, perhaps, but still strength
+to be true, the power to renounce--these were the meditations that
+brought me rest and a quietude I had never known when death seemed a
+long way off and life on earth eternal.
+
+The setting sun crimsoned the pines; the riders were gathered along the
+hill-side, bending far out in their saddles to scan the valley below.
+McCraw, his white face bound with a bloody rag, drew his straight
+claymore and wound the tattered tartan around his wrist, motioning Billy
+Bones to ride on.
+
+"March!" he cried, in his shrill voice, laying his claymore level; and
+the long files moved off, spurs and scabbards clanking, horses crowding
+and trampling in, faster and faster, till a far command set them
+trotting, then galloping away into the west, where the kindling sky
+reddened the world.
+
+The world!--it would be the same to-morrow without me: that maple-tree
+would not have changed a leaf; that tiny, hovering, gauze-winged
+creature, drifting through the calm air, would be alive when I was dead.
+
+It was difficult to understand. I repeated it to myself again and again,
+but the phrases had no meaning to me.
+
+The sun set; cool, violet lights lay over the earth; a thrush, awakened
+by the sweetness of the twilight from his long summer moping, whistled
+timidly, tentatively; then the silvery, evanescent notes floated away,
+away, in endless, heavenly serenity.
+
+A soft, leather-shod foot nudged me; I sat up, then rose, holding out
+my wrists. They tied me loosely; a tall warrior stepped beside me;
+others fell in behind with a patter of moccasined feet.
+
+Then came an officer, pistol cocked and held muzzle up. He was the only
+white man left.
+
+"Forward," he said, nervously; and we started off through the purple
+dusk.
+
+Physical weariness and pain had left me; I moved as in a dream. Nothing
+of apprehension or dismay disturbed the strange calm of my soul; even
+desire for meditation left me; and a vague content wrapped me, mind
+and body.
+
+Distance, time, were meaningless to me now; I could go on forever; I
+could lie down forever; nothing mattered; nothing could touch me now.
+
+The moon came up, flooding the woods with a creamy light; then a little
+stream, sparkling like molten silver, crossed our misty path; then a
+bare hill-side stretched away, pale in the moonlight, vanishing into a
+luminous veil of vapor, floating over a hollow where unseen water lay.
+
+We entered a grove of still trees standing wide apart--maple-trees, with
+the sap-pegs still in the bark. I sat down on a log; the Indians seated
+themselves in a wide circle around me; the renegade officer walked to
+the fringe of trees and stood there motionless.
+
+Time passed serenely; I had fallen drowsing, soothed by the silvered
+silence; when through a dream I heard a cock-crow.
+
+Around me the Indians rose, all listening. Far away a sound grew in the
+night--the dull blows of horses' hoofs on sod; a shot rang faintly, a
+distant cry was echoed by a long-drawn yell and a volley.
+
+The renegade officer came running back, calling out, "McCraw has struck
+the Legion at the grist-mill!" In the intense silence around me the
+noise of the conflict grew, increasing, then became fainter and fainter
+until it died out to the westward and all was still.
+
+The Indians came crowding back from the edge of the grove, shoving
+through the circle of those who guarded me, pushing, pressing, surging
+around me.
+
+"Give him to us!" they muttered, under their breath. "The flag has not
+come; they will hang your Walter Butler! Give him to us! The Legion
+cavalry is driving your riders into the west! Give him to us! We wish to
+see how the Oriskany man can die!"
+
+Dragged, pulled from one to another, I scarcely felt their clutch; I
+scarcely felt the furtive blows that fell on me. The officer clung to
+me, fighting the savages back with fist and elbow.
+
+"Wait for McCraw!" he panted. "The flag may come yet, you fools! Would
+you murder him and lose Walter Butler forever? Wait till McCraw comes, I
+tell you!"
+
+"McCraw is riding for his life!" said a chief, fiercely.
+
+"It's a lie!" said the officer; "he is drawing them to ambush!"
+
+"Give the prisoner to us!" cried the savages, closing in. "After all,
+what do we care for your Walter Butler!" And again they rushed forward
+with a shout.
+
+Twice the officer drove them back with kicks and blows, cursing their
+treachery in McCraw's absence; then, as they drew their knives,
+clamoring, threatening, gathering for a last rush, into their midst
+bounded an unearthly shape--a squat and hideous figure, fluttering with
+scarlet rags. Arms akimbo, the thing planted itself before me, mouthing
+and slavering in fury.
+
+"The Toad-woman! Catrine Montour! The Toad-witch!" groaned the Senecas,
+shrinking back, huddling together as the hag whirled about and
+pointed at them.
+
+"I want him! I want him! Give him to me!" yelped the Toad-woman.
+"Fools! Do you know where you are? Do you know this grove of
+maple-trees?"
+
+The Indians, amazed and cowed, slunk farther back. The hag fixed her
+blazing eyes on them and raised her arms.
+
+"Fools! Fools!" she mouthed, "what madness brought you here to this
+grove?--to this place where the Stonish Giants have returned, riding out
+of Biskoona!"
+
+A groan burst from the Indians; a chief raised his arms, making the
+False-Faces' sign.
+
+"Mother," he stammered, "we did not know! We heard that the Stonish
+Giants had returned; the Onondagas sent us word, but we did not know
+this grove was where they gathered from Biskoona! McCraw sent us here to
+await the flag."
+
+"Liar!" hissed the hag.
+
+"It is the truth," muttered the chief, shuddering. "Witness if I speak
+the truth, O ensigns of the three clans!"
+
+And a hollow groan burst from the cowering savages. "We witness, mother.
+It is the truth!"
+
+"Witch!" cried the officer, in a shaking voice, "what would you do with
+my prisoner? You shall not have him, by the living God!"
+
+"Senecas, take him!" howled the hag, pointing at the officer. The fellow
+strove to draw his claymore, but staggered and sank to the ground,
+covered under a mass of savages. Then, dragged to his feet, they pulled
+him back, watching the Toad-woman for a sign.
+
+"To purge this grove! To purge the earth of the Stonish Giants!" she
+howled. "For this I ask this prisoner. Give him to me!--to me, priestess
+of the six fires! Tiyanoga calls from behind the moon! What Seneca dares
+disobey? Give him to me for a sacrifice to Biskoona, that the Stonish
+ghosts be laid and the doors of fire be closed forever!"
+
+"Take him! Spare us the dreadful rites, O mother!" answered the chief,
+in a quivering voice. "Slay him before us now and let us see the color
+of his blood, so that we may depart in peace ere the Stonish Giants ride
+forth from Biskoona and leave not one among us!"
+
+"Neah!" cried the hag, furiously. "He dies in secret!"
+
+There was a silence of astonishment. Spite of their superstitious
+terror, the Senecas knew that a sacrificial death, to close Biskoona,
+could not occur in secret. Suddenly the chief leaped forward and dealt
+me a blow with his castete. I fell, but staggered to my feet again.
+
+"Mother!" began the chief, "let him die quickly--"
+
+"Silence!" screamed the hag, supporting me. "I hear, far off, the gates
+of Biskoona opening! Hark! Ta-ho-ne-ho-ga-wen! The doors open--the doors
+of flame! The Stonish Giants ride forth! O chief, for your sacrilege
+you die!"
+
+A horrified silence followed; the chief reeled back, dropping the
+death-maul.
+
+Suddenly a horse's iron-shod foot rang out on a stone, close at hand.
+Straight through the moonlight, advancing steadily, came a snorting
+horse; and, towering in the saddle, a magic shape clad in complete
+steel, glittering in the moonlight.
+
+"Oonah!" shrieked the hag, seizing me in both arms.
+
+With an unearthly howl the Senecas fled; the Toad-woman dropped me and
+bounded on the dazed renegade; he turned, crying out in horror,
+stumbled, and fell headlong down the bushy slope.
+
+Then, as the hag halted, she seemed to grow, straightening up, tall,
+broad, superb; towering into a supple shape from which the scarlet rags
+fell fluttering around her like painted maple-leaves.
+
+"Magdalen Brant!" I gasped, swaying where I stood, the blood almost
+blinding me.
+
+From behind two steel-clad arms seized me and dragged me backward; I
+stumbled against the horse; the armored figure bent swiftly, caught me
+up, swung me clear into the saddle in front, while the armor creaked and
+strained and clashed with the effort.
+
+Then my head was drawn gently back, falling on a steel shoulder; two
+arms were thrust under mine, seizing the bridle. The horse wheeled
+towards the north, stepping quietly through the moonlight, steadily,
+slowly northward, through misty woodlands and ferny glades and deep
+fields swimming under the moon, across a stony stream, up through wet
+meadows, into a silvery road, and across a bridge which echoed mellow
+thunder under the trample of the iron-shod horse.
+
+The stockade gate was shut; an old slave opened it--a trembling black
+man, who shot the bolts and tottered beside us, crying and pressing my
+hand to his eyes.
+
+Men came from the stables, men ran from the quarters, lanterns
+glimmered, windows in the house opened, and I heard a vague clamor
+growing around me, fainter now, yet dinning in my ears until a soft,
+dense darkness fell, weighing on my lids till they closed.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE END OF THE BEGINNING
+
+Day broke with a thundering roll of drums. Instinctively I stumbled out
+of bed, dragged on my clothes, and, half awake and half dressed, crept
+to the open window. The level morning sun blazed on acres of slanting
+rifles passing; a solid column of Continental infantry, drums and fifes
+leading, came swinging along the stockade; knapsacks, cross-belts,
+gaiters, gray with dust; officers riding ahead with naked swords drawn,
+color-bearers carrying the beautiful new standard, stars shining, red
+and white stripes stirring lazily in brilliant, silken billows.
+
+The morning air rang with the gusty music of the fifes, the drums beat
+steadily in solid cadence to the long, rippling trample of feet.
+
+Within the stockade an incessant clamor filled the air; the grounds
+around the house were packed with soldiers, some leading out mules, some
+loading batt-horses, some drawing and carrying water, some forming
+ranks, shouting their numbers for column of fours.
+
+Sir George Covert's riders of the Legion had halted under my window,
+rifles slung, helmets strapped; a trumpeter in embroidered jacket sat
+his horse in front, corded trumpet reversed flat on his thigh.
+
+Clearing my eyes with unsteady hand, I peered dizzily at the spectacle
+below; my ears rang with the tumult of arrival and departure; and,
+through the increasing uproar and the thundering rhythm of the drums,
+memories of the past night flashed up, livid as flames in darkness.
+
+The endless columns of Continentals were still pouring by the stockade,
+when, above the dinning drums, I heard my door shaking and a voice
+calling me by name.
+
+"Ormond! Ormond! Open the door, man!"
+
+With stiff limbs dragging, I made my way to the door and pulled back the
+bolt. Sir George Covert, in full uniform, sprang in and caught my
+hands in his.
+
+"Ormond! Ormond!" he cried, in deep reproach. "Why did you not tell me
+long since that you loved her? You knew she loved you! What blind
+violence have you and Dorothy done yourselves and each other--and me,
+Ormond!--and yet another very dear to me--with your mad obstinacy and
+mistaken chivalry!"
+
+I saw the grave, kind eyes searching mine, I heard his unsteady voice,
+but I could not respond. An immense fatigue chained mind and tongue;
+intelligence was there, but the tension had relaxed, and I stood dull,
+nerveless, my hands limp in his.
+
+"Ormond," he said, gently, "we ride south in a few moments; you will be
+leaving for Stillwater in an hour. Gates's left wing is marching on
+Balston, and news is in by an Oneida runner that Arnold has swept all
+before him; Stanwix is safe; St. Leger routed. Do you understand? Every
+man in Tryon County is marching on Burgoyne! You, too, will be on the
+way towards headquarters within the hour!"
+
+Trembling from weakness and excitement, I could only look at him in
+silence.
+
+"So all is well," he said, gravely, holding my hands tighter. "Do you
+understand? All is well, Ormond.... We struck McCraw at Schell's last
+night and tore him to atoms. We punished the Senecas dreadfully. We
+have cleared the land of the Johnsons, the Butlers, the McDonalds, and
+the Mohawks, and now we're concentrating on Burgoyne. Ormond, he is a
+doomed man! He can never leave this land save as a prisoner!"
+
+His grip tightened; a smile lighted his careworn face as though a ray of
+pure sunshine had struck his eyes.
+
+"Ormond," he said, "I have bred much mischief among us all, yet with the
+kindest motives in the world. If honor and modesty forbids an
+explanation, at least let me repair what I can. I have given your cousin
+Dorothy her freedom; and now, before I go, I ask your friendship. Nay,
+give me more--give me joy, Ormond! Man, man, must I speak more plainly
+still? Must I name the bravest maid in county Tryon? Must I say that the
+woman I love loves me--Magdalen Brant?"
+
+He laughed like a boy in his excitement. "We wed in Albany on Thursday!
+Think of it, man! I showed her no mercy, I warrant you, soon as I
+was free!"
+
+He colored vividly. "Nay, that's ungallant to our Maid-at-Arms," he
+stammered. "I'm flustered--you will pardon that. She rides with us to
+Albany--I mean Magdalen--we wed at my aunt's house--"
+
+The trumpet of the Legion was sounding persistently; the clatter of
+spurred boots filled the hallway; Ruyven burst in, sabre banging, and
+flung himself into my arms.
+
+"Good-bye! Good-bye!" he cried. "We are marching with the left wing to
+Balston. I'll write you, cousin, when we take Burgoyne--I'll write you
+all about it and exactly how I conducted!"
+
+I felt the parting clasp of their hands, but scarcely saw them through
+the tears of sheer weakness that filled my eyes. The capacity for deep
+emotion was deadened in me; the strain had been too great; the reaction
+had left me scarcely capable of realizing the instant portent of events.
+
+The mellow trampling of horses came from below. I hobbled to the window
+and looked down where the troopers were riding in fours, falling in
+behind a train of artillery which passed jolting and bumping along
+the stockade.
+
+A young girl, superbly mounted, came galloping by, and behind her
+spurred Sir George Covert and Ruyven. At full speed she turned her head
+and looked up at my window, and I think I never saw such radiant
+happiness in any woman's face as in Magdalen Brant's when she swept past
+with a gesture of adieu and swung her horse out into the road. A
+general's escort and staff checked their horses to make way for her. The
+officers lifted their black cockaded hats; a slim, boyish officer, in a
+white-and-gold uniform, rode forward to receive her, with a low salute
+that only a Frenchman could imitate.
+
+So, escorted by prancing, clattering cavalry, and surrounded by a
+brilliant staff, Magdalen Brant rode away from Varicks'; and beside her,
+alert, upright, transfigured, rode Sir George Covert, whose life she had
+accepted only after she had paid her debt to Dorothy by offering her own
+life to rescue mine.
+
+Dim-eyed, I stared at the passing troops, the blurred colors of their
+uniforms ever changing as the regiments succeeded each other, now brown
+and red, now green and red, now gray and yellow, as Massachusetts
+infantry, New York line, and Morgan's Rifles poured steadily by in
+unbroken columns.
+
+Wrapped in my chamber-robe, head supported on my hand, I sat by the
+window, dully content, striving to think, to realize all that had
+befallen me. The glitter of the passing rifles, the constantly changing
+hues and colors, the movement, the noise, set my head swimming. Yet I
+must prepare to leave within the hour, for the stable bells were ringing
+for eight o'clock.
+
+Cato scratched at the door and entered, bringing me hot water, and
+hovering around me with napkin, salve, and basin, till my battered body
+had been bathed, my face shaved, and my bruised head washed where the
+Seneca castete had glanced, tearing the skin. Clothed in fresh linen and
+a new uniform, sent by Schuyler, I bade him call Sir Lupus; who came
+presently, his mouth full of toast, a mug of cooled ale in one hand,
+clay pipe in the other.
+
+He laid his pipe on the mantel, set his mug on a chair, and embraced me,
+shaking his head in solemn silence; and we sat for a space, considering
+one another, while Cato filled my bowl with chocolate and removed the
+cover from my smoking porridge-dish.
+
+"They beat all," said Sir Lupus, at length; "don't they, George?"
+
+"Do you mean our troops, sir?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir, I don't. I mean our women."
+
+He struck his fat leg with his palm, drew a long breath, and regarded
+me, arms akimbo.
+
+"Mad, sir; all stark, raving mad! Look at those two chits of girls! The
+Legion had gone tearing off after you to Schell's with an Oneida scout;
+Sir George pops in with his tale of your horrid plight, then pelts off
+to find his troopers and do what he could to save you. Gad, George! it
+looked bad for you. I--I was half out o' my senses, thinking of you; and
+what with the children a-squalling and the household rushing up stairs
+and down, and the militia marching to the grist-mill bridge, I did
+nothing. What the devil was I to do? Eh?"
+
+"You did quite right, sir," I said, gravely.
+
+He lay back, staring at me, shoving his fat hands into his breeches
+pockets.
+
+"If I'd known what that baggage o' mine was bent on, I'd ha' locked her
+in the cellar!... George, you won't hold that against me, will you?
+She's my own daughter. But the hussy was gone with Magdalen Brant before
+I dreamed of it--gone on the maddest moonlight quest that mortal ever
+dared conceive!--one in rags cut from a red blanket, t'other in that
+rotten old armor that your aunt thought fit to ship from England when
+her father stripped the house to cross an ocean and build in the forests
+of a new world. George, she's all Ormond, that girl o' mine. A Varick
+would never have thought to cut such a caper, I tell you. It isn't in
+our line; it isn't in Dutch blood to imagine such things, or do
+'em either!"
+
+He seized pipe and mug, swearing under his breath.
+
+"It was the bravest thing I ever knew," I said, huskily.
+
+He dipped his nose into his mug, pulled at his long pipe, and eyed me
+askance.
+
+"What the devil's this between you and Dorothy?" he growled.
+
+"Nothing, I trust now, sir," I answered, in a low voice.
+
+"Oh! 'nothing, you trust now, sir!'" he mimicked, striving to turn a
+sour face. "Dammy, d' ye know that I meant her for Sir George Covert?"
+His broad face softened; he attempted to scowl, and failed utterly.
+"Thank God, the land's clear of these bandits of St. Leger, anyhow!" he
+snorted. "I'll work my mills and I'll scrape enough to pay my debts. I
+suppose I'll have you on my hands when you've finished with Burgoyne."
+
+"No," I said, smiling, "the blow that Arnold struck at Stanwix will be
+felt from Maine to the Florida Keys. The blow to be delivered twenty
+miles north of us will settle any questions of land confiscation. No,
+Sir Lupus, I shall not be on your hands, but ... you may be on mine if
+you turn Tory!"
+
+"You impudent rogue!" he cried, struggling to his feet; then, still
+clutching pipe and pewter, he embraced me, and choked and chuckled,
+laying his fat head on my shoulder. "Be a son to me, George," he
+whimpered, sentimentally; "if you won't, you're a damned
+ungrateful pup!"
+
+And he took himself off, sniffing, and sucking at his long clay, which
+had gone out.
+
+I turned to the window, drawing in deep breaths of sweet, pure morning
+air. Troops were still passing in solid column, grim, dirty soldiers in
+heavy cowhide knapsacks, leather gaiters, and blue great-coats buttoned
+back at the skirts; and I heard the militia at the quarters calling
+across the stable-yard that these grimy battalions were some of
+Washington's veterans, hurried north from West Point by his Excellency
+to stiffen the backbone of Lincoln's militia, who prowled, growling and
+snarling, around Burgoyne's right flank.
+
+They were a gaunt, hard-eyed, firm-jawed lot, marching with a peculiar
+cadence and swing which set all their muskets and buckles glittering at
+one moment, as though a thousand tiny mirrors had been turned to the
+light, then turned away. And, pat! pat! patter! patter! pat! went their
+single company drums, and their drummers seemed to beat mechanically,
+without waste of energy, yet with a dry, rattling precision that I had
+never heard save in the old days when the British troops at New Smyrna
+or St. Augustine marched out.
+
+"Good--mornin', sorr," came a hearty and somewhat loud voice from below;
+and I saw Murphy, Elerson, and Mount, arm in arm, swaggering past with
+that saunter that none but a born forest runner may hope to imitate.
+They were not sober.
+
+I spoke to them kindly, however, asking them if their wants were fully
+supplied; and they acknowledged with enthusiasm that they could desire
+nothing better than Sir Lupus's buttery ale.
+
+"Wisha, then, sorr," said Murphy, jerking his thumb towards the sombre
+column passing, "thim laads is the laads f'r to twisht th' Dootch
+pigtails on thim Hissians at Half-moon. They do be pigtails on th'
+Dootch a fut long in the eel-skin. Faith, I saw McCraw's scalp--'twas
+wan o' Harrod's men tuk it, not I, sorr!--an' 'twas red an' ratty, wid
+nary a lock to lift it, more shame to McCraw!"
+
+Mount stood, balancing now on his heels, now on his toes, inhaling and
+expelling his breath like a man who has had more than a morning
+draught of cider.
+
+He laid his head on one side, like an enormous bird, and regarded me
+with a simper, as though lost in admiration.
+
+"Three cheers for the Colonel," he observed, thickly, and took off his
+cap.
+
+"'Ray!" echoed Elerson, regarding the unsteadiness of Mount's legs with
+an expression of wonder and pity.
+
+I bade Mount saddle my mare and prepare to accompany me to headquarters.
+He saluted amiably; presently they started across the yard for their
+quarters, distributing morsels of wisdom and advice among the
+militiamen, who stared at them with awe and pointed at their beaded
+shot--pouches, which were, alas! adorned with fringes of coarse hair,
+dyed scarlet.
+
+But Morgan must worry over that. I had other matters to stir me and set
+my pulses beating heavily as I walked to the door, opened it, and looked
+out into the hallway.
+
+Children's voices came from the library below; I rested my hand on the
+banisters, aiding my stiffened limbs in the descent, and limped down
+the stairs.
+
+Cecile spied me first. She was sitting on the porch with a very, very
+young ensign of Half-moon militia, watching the passing troops; and she
+sprang to her feet and threw her arms about my neck, kissing me again
+and again, a proceeding viewed with concern by the very young ensign of
+Half-moon militia.
+
+"You darling!" she whispered. "Dorothy's in the library with father and
+the children. Lean on me, you poor boy! How you have suffered! And to
+think that you loved her all the time! Ah!" she whispered,
+sentimentally, pressing my arm, "how rare is constancy! How adorable it
+must be to be adored!"
+
+There was a rush of children as we entered, and Cecile cried, "You
+little beasts, have you no manners?" But they were clinging to me, limb
+and body, and I stood there, caressing them, eyes fixed on my cousin
+Dorothy, who had risen from her chair.
+
+She was very pale and quiet, and the hand she left in mine seemed
+lifeless as I bent to kiss it. But, upon the bridal finger, I saw the
+ghost-ring, a thin, rosy band, and I thrilled from head to foot with
+happiness unspeakable.
+
+"Get him a chair, Harry!" said Sir Lupus. "Sit down, George; and what
+shall it be, my boy, cold mulled or spiced to cheer you on your journey?
+Or, as the Glencoe brawlers have it, 'Wha's f'r poonch?'"
+
+I sank into my chair, saying I desired nothing; and my eyes never left
+Dorothy, who sat with golden head bent, folding and refolding the
+ruffled corner of her apron, raising her lovely eyes at moments to look
+across at me.
+
+The morning had turned raw and chilly; a log-fire crackled on the
+hearth, where Benny had set a row of early harvest apples to sizzle and
+steam and perfume the air, the while Dorothy heard Harry, Sammy, and
+Benny read their morning lessons, so that they might hurry away to
+watch the passing army of their pet hero, Gates.
+
+"Come," cried the patroon, "read your lessons and get out, you young
+dunces! Now, Sammy!"
+
+Dorothy looked at me and took up her book.
+
+"If Amos gives Joseph sixteen apples, and Joseph gives Amanda two times
+one half of one half of the apples, how many will Amanda have?" demanded
+Samuel, with labored breath. "And the true answer to that is six."
+
+Dorothy nodded and stole a glance at me.
+
+"That doesn't sound quite right to me," said Sir Lupus, wrinkling his
+brows and counting on his fingers. "Is that the answer, Dorothy?"
+
+"I don't know," she murmured, eyes fixed on me.
+
+Sir Lupus glared at Dorothy, then at me. Then he stuffed his pipe full
+of tobacco and sat in grim silence while Benny repeated:
+
+"Theven timeth theven ith theventy-theven; theven timeth eight ith
+thixty-thix." While Dorothy nodded absently and plaited the edges of her
+lace apron, and looked at me under lowered lashes. And Benny lisped on:
+"Theven timeth nine ith theventy-thix; theven--"
+
+"Stop that nonsense!" burst out Sir Lupus. "Take 'em away, Cecile! Take
+'em out o' my sight!"
+
+The children, only too delighted to escape, rushed forth with whoops and
+hoots, demanding to be shown their hero, General Gates. Sir Lupus looked
+after them sardonically.
+
+"We're a race o' glory--mongers these days," he said. "Gad, I never
+thought to see offspring o' mine chasing the drums! Look at 'em now!
+Ruyven hunting about Tryon County for a Hessian to knock him in the
+head; Cecile sitting in rapture with every cornet or ensign who'll
+notice her; the children yelling for Lafayette and Washington; Dorothy,
+here, playing at Donna Quixota, and you starting for Stillwater to
+teach that fool, Gates, how to catch Burgoyne. Set an ass to catch an
+ass--eh, George?--"
+
+He stopped, his small eyes twinkling with a softer light.
+
+"I suppose you want me to go," he said.
+
+We did not reply.
+
+"Oh, I'm going," he added, fretfully; "I'm no company for a pair o'
+heroes, a colonel, and--"
+
+"Touching the colonelcy," I said, "I want to make it plain that I shall
+refuse the promotion. I did nothing; the confederacy was split by
+Magdalen Brant, not by me; I did nothing at Oriskany; I cannot
+understand how General Schuyler should think me deserving of such
+promotion. And I am ashamed to take it when such men as Arnold are
+passed over, and such men as Schuyler are slighted--"
+
+"Folderol! What the devil's this?" bawled Sir Lupus. "Do you think you
+know more than your superior officers--hey? You're a colonel, George.
+Let well enough alone, for if you make a donkey of yourself, they'll
+make you a major-general!"
+
+With a spasmodic effort he got on his feet, seized glass and pipe, and
+waddled out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
+
+In the ringing silence a charred log broke and fell in a shower of
+sparks, tincturing the air with the perfume of sweet birch smoke.
+
+[Illustration: "A STRANGE SHYNESS SEEMED TO HOLD US APART".]
+
+I rose from my chair. Dorothy rose, too, trembling. A strange shyness
+seemed to hold us apart. She stood there, the forced smile stamped on
+her lips, watching me with the fascination of fear; and I steadied
+myself on the arm of my chair, looking deep into her eyes, seeking to
+recognize in her the child I had known.
+
+The child had gone, and in her place stood this lovely, silent stranger,
+with all the mystery of woman-hood in her eyes--that sweet light,
+exquisitely prophetic, divinely sad.
+
+"Dorothy," I said, under my breath. "All that is brave and adorable in
+you, I love and worship. You have risen so far above me--and I am so
+weak and--and broken, and unworthy--"
+
+"I love you," she faltered, her lips scarcely moving. Then the color
+surged over brow and throat; she laid her hands on her hot cheeks; I
+took her in my arms, holding her imprisoned. At my touch the color faded
+from her face, leaving it white as a flower.
+
+"I fear you--maid spiritual, maid militant--Maid-at-Arms!" I stammered.
+
+"And I fear you," she murmured, looking at me. "What lover does the
+whole world hold like you? What hero can compare with you? And who am I
+that I should take you away from the whole world? Sweetheart, I
+am afraid."
+
+"Then fear no more," I whispered, and bent my head. She raised her pale
+face; her arms crept up around my neck and tightened, clinging closer as
+her closing lips met mine.
+
+There came a tapping at the door, a shuffle of felt-shod feet--
+
+"Mars' Gawge, suh, yo' hoss done saddle', suh."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Maid-At-Arms, by Robert W. Chambers
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