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diff --git a/388-0.txt b/388-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..340ccfd --- /dev/null +++ b/388-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23928 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crossing, by Winston Churchill [The +Author is the American Winston Churchill not the British] + +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 Crossing + +Author: Winston Churchill + +Release Date: December 24, 1995 [EBook #388] +Last Updated: June 12, 2017 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: utf-8 + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROSSING *** + + + +Produced by Charles Keller, David Widger, and Robert Homa + + + + + +THE CROSSING + +By Winston Churchill + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK I. THE BORDERLAND + + I. THE BLUE WALL + II. WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS + III. CHARLESTOWN + IV. TEMPLE BOW + V. CRAM’S HELL + VI. MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES + VII. IN SIGHT OF THE BLUE WALL ONCE MORE + VIII. THE NOLLICHUCKY TRACE + IX. ON THE WILDERNESS TRAIL + X. HARRODSTOWN + XI. FRAGMENTARY + XII. THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS + XIII. KASKASKIA + XIV. HOW THE KASKASKIANS WERE MADE CITIZENS + XV. DAYS OF TRIAL + XVI. DAVY GOES TO CAHOKIA + XVII. THE SACRIFICE +XVIII. “AN’ YE HAD BEEN WHERE I HAD BEEN” + XIX. THE HAIR BUYER TRAPPED + XX. THE CAMPAIGN ENDS + + + BOOK II. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM + + I. IN THE CABIN + II. “THE BEGGARS ARE COME TO TOWN” + III. WE GO TO DANVILLE + IV. I CROSS THE MOUNTAINS ONCE MORE + V. I MEET AN OLD BEDFELLOW + VI. THE WIDOW BROWN’S + VII. I MEET A HERO + VIII. TO ST. LOUIS + IX. “CHERCHEZ LA FEMME” + X. THE KEEL BOAT + XI. THE STRANGE CITY + XII. LES ISLES + XIII. MONSIEUR AUGUSTE ENTRAPPED + XIV. RETRIBUTION + + + BOOK III. LOUISIANA + + I. THE RIGHTS OF MAN + II. THE HOUSE ABOVE THE FALLS + III. LOUISVILLE CELEBRATES + IV. OF A SUDDEN RESOLUTION + V. THE HOUSE OF THE HONEYCOMBED TILES + VI. MADAME LA VICOMTESSE + VII. THE DISPOSAL OF THE SIEUR DE ST. GRE + VIII. AT LAMARQUE’S + IX. MONSIEUR LE BARON + X. THE SCOURGE + XI. “IN THE MIDST OF LIFE” + XII. VISIONS, AND AN AWAKENINGS + XIII. A MYSTERY + XIV. “TO UNPATHED WATERS, UNDREAMED SHORES” + XV. AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A MAN + + AFTERWORD + + + + +THE CROSSING + + + + +BOOK I. THE BORDERLAND + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE BLUE WALL + +I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue in +the evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters. +There, on the borders of a creek that runs into the Yadkin River, in a +cabin that was chinked with red mud, I came into the world a subject of +King George the Third, in that part of his realm known as the province +of North Carolina. + +The cabin reeked of corn-pone and bacon, and the odor of pelts. It had +two shakedowns, on one of which I slept under a bearskin. A rough stone +chimney was reared outside, and the fireplace was as long as my father +was tall. There was a crane in it, and a bake kettle; and over it great +buckhorns held my father’s rifle when it was not in use. On other horns +hung jerked bear’s meat and venison hams, and gourds for drinking +cups, and bags of seed, and my father’s best hunting shirt; also, in a +neglected corner, several articles of woman’s attire from pegs. These +once belonged to my mother. Among them was a gown of silk, of a fine, +faded pattern, over which I was wont to speculate. The women at the +Cross-Roads, twelve miles away, were dressed in coarse butternut wool +and huge sunbonnets. But when I questioned my father on these matters he +would give me no answers. + +My father was--how shall I say what he was? To this day I can only +surmise many things of him. He was a Scotchman born, and I know now that +he had a slight Scotch accent. At the time of which I write, my early +childhood, he was a frontiersman and hunter. I can see him now, with his +hunting shirt and leggings and moccasins; his powder horn, engraved with +wondrous scenes; his bullet pouch and tomahawk and hunting knife. He +was a tall, lean man with a strange, sad face. And he talked little save +when he drank too many “horns,” as they were called in that country. +These lapses of my father’s were a perpetual source of wonder to +me,--and, I must say, of delight. They occurred only when a passing +traveller who hit his fancy chanced that way, or, what was almost as +rare, a neighbor. Many a winter night I have lain awake under the +skins, listening to a flow of language that held me spellbound, though I +understood scarce a word of it. + + “Virtuous and vicious every man must be, + Few in the extreme, but all in a degree.” + +The chance neighbor or traveller was no less struck with wonder. And +many the time have I heard the query, at the Cross-Roads and elsewhere, +“Whar Alec Trimble got his larnin’?” + +The truth is, my father was an object of suspicion to the frontiersmen. +Even as a child I knew this, and resented it. He had brought me up in +solitude, and I was old for my age, learned in some things far beyond +my years, and ignorant of others I should have known. I loved the man +passionately. In the long winter evenings, when the howl of wolves and +“painters” rose as the wind lulled, he taught me to read from the Bible +and the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” I can see his long, slim fingers on the +page. They seemed but ill fitted for the life he led. + +The love of rhythmic language was somehow born into me, and many’s the +time I have held watch in the cabin day and night while my father was +away on his hunts, spelling out the verses that have since become part +of my life. + +As I grew older I went with him into the mountains, often on his back; +and spent the nights in open camp with my little moccasins drying at the +blaze. So I learned to skin a bear, and fleece off the fat for oil with +my hunting knife; and cure a deerskin and follow a trail. At seven I +even shot the long rifle, with a rest. I learned to endure cold and +hunger and fatigue and to walk in silence over the mountains, my father +never saying a word for days at a spell. And often, when he opened his +mouth, it would be to recite a verse of Pope’s in a way that moved me +strangely. For a poem is not a poem unless it be well spoken. + +In the hot days of summer, over against the dark forest the bright green +of our little patch of Indian corn rippled in the wind. And towards +night I would often sit watching the deep blue of the mountain wall and +dream of the mysteries of the land that lay beyond. And by chance, one +evening as I sat thus, my father reading in the twilight, a man stood +before us. So silently had he come up the path leading from the brook +that we had not heard him. Presently my father looked up from his +book, but did not rise. As for me, I had been staring for some time in +astonishment, for he was a better-looking man than I had ever seen. He +wore a deerskin hunting shirt dyed black, but, in place of a coonskin +cap with the tail hanging down, a hat. His long rifle rested on the +ground, and he held a roan horse by the bridle. + +“Howdy, neighbor?” said he. + +I recall a fear that my father would not fancy him. In such cases he +would give a stranger food, and leave him to himself. My father’s whims +were past understanding. But he got up. + +“Good evening,” said he. + +The visitor looked a little surprised, as I had seen many do, at my +father’s accent. + +“Neighbor,” said he, “kin you keep me over night?” + +“Come in,” said my father. + +We sat down to our supper of corn and beans and venison, of all of which +our guest ate sparingly. He, too, was a silent man, and scarcely a word +was spoken during the meal. Several times he looked at me with such a +kindly expression in his blue eyes, a trace of a smile around his broad +mouth, that I wished he might stay with us always. But once, when my +father said something about Indians, the eyes grew hard as flint. It was +then I remarked, with a boy’s wonder, that despite his dark hair he had +yellow eyebrows. + +After supper the two men sat on the log step, while I set about the task +of skinning the deer my father had shot that day. Presently I felt a +heavy hand on my shoulder. + +“What’s your name, lad?” he said. + +I told him Davy. + +“Davy, I’ll larn ye a trick worth a little time,” said he, whipping +out a knife. In a trice the red carcass hung between the forked stakes, +while I stood with my mouth open. He turned to me and laughed gently. + +“Some day you’ll cross the mountains and skin twenty of an evening,” he +said. “Ye’ll make a woodsman sure. You’ve got the eye, and the hand.” + +This little piece of praise from him made me hot all over. + +“Game rare?” said he to my father. + +“None sae good, now,” said my father. + +“I reckon not. My cabin’s on Beaver Creek some forty mile above, and +game’s going there, too.” + +“Settlements,” said my father. But presently, after a few whiffs of his +pipe, he added, “I hear fine things of this land across the mountains, +that the Indians call the Dark and Bluidy Ground.” + +“And well named,” said the stranger. + +“But a brave country,” said my father, “and all tramped down with game. +I hear that Daniel Boone and others have gone into it and come back with +marvellous tales. They tell me Boone was there alone three months. He’s +saething of a man. D’ye ken him?” + +The ruddy face of the stranger grew ruddier still. + +“My name’s Boone,” he said. + +“What!” cried my father, “it wouldn’t be Daniel?” + +“You’ve guessed it, I reckon.” + +My father rose without a word, went into the cabin, and immediately +reappeared with a flask and a couple of gourds, one of which he handed +to our visitor. + +“Tell me aboot it,” said he. + +That was the fairy tale of my childhood. Far into the night I lay on the +dewy grass listening to Mr. Boone’s talk. It did not at first flow in a +steady stream, for he was not a garrulous man, but my father’s questions +presently fired his enthusiasm. I recall but little of it, being so +small a lad, but I crept closer and closer until I could touch this +superior being who had been beyond the Wall. Marco Polo was no greater +wonder to the Venetians than Boone to me. + +He spoke of leaving wife and children, and setting out for the Unknown +with other woodsmen. He told how, crossing over our blue western wall +into a valley beyond, they found a “Warrior’s Path” through a gap across +another range, and so down into the fairest of promised lands. And as +he talked he lost himself in the tale of it, and the very quality of his +voice changed. He told of a land of wooded hill and pleasant vale, of +clear water running over limestone down to the great river beyond, the +Ohio--a land of glades, the fields of which were pied with flowers of +wondrous beauty, where roamed the buffalo in countless thousands, where +elk and deer abounded, and turkeys and feathered game, and bear in the +tall brakes of cane. And, simply, he told how, when the others had left +him, he stayed for three months roaming the hills alone with Nature +herself. + +“But did you no’ meet the Indians?” asked my father. + +“I seed one fishing on a log once,” said our visitor, laughing, “but he +fell into the water. I reckon he was drowned.” + +My father nodded comprehendingly,--even admiringly. + +“And again!” said he. + +“Wal,” said Mr. Boone, “we fell in with a war party of Shawnees going +back to their lands north of the great river. The critters took away all +we had. It was hard,” he added reflectively; “I had staked my fortune +on the venter, and we’d got enough skins to make us rich. But, neighbor, +there is land enough for you and me, as black and rich as Canaan.” + +“‘The Lord is my shepherd,’” said my father, lapsing into verse. +“‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leadeth me into green +pastures, and beside still waters.’” + +For a time they were silent, each wrapped in his own thought, while the +crickets chirped and the frogs sang. From the distant forest came the +mournful hoot of an owl. + +“And you are going back?” asked my father, presently. + +“Aye, that I am. There are many families on the Yadkin below going, too. +And you, neighbor, you might come with us. Davy is the boy that would +thrive in that country.” + +My father did not answer. It was late indeed when we lay down to rest, +and the night I spent between waking and dreaming of the wonderland +beyond the mountains, hoping against hope that my father would go. The +sun was just flooding the slopes when our guest arose to leave, and my +father bade him God-speed with a heartiness that was rare to him. But, +to my bitter regret, neither spoke of my father’s going. Being a man of +understanding, Mr. Boone knew it were little use to press. He patted me +on the head. + +“You’re a wise lad, Davy,” said he. “I hope we shall meet again.” + +He mounted his roan and rode away down the slope, waving his hand to +us. And it was with a heavy heart that I went to feed our white mare, +whinnying for food in the lean-to. + + + + +CHAPTER II. WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS + +And so our life went on the same, but yet not the same. For I had the +Land of Promise to dream of, and as I went about my tasks I conjured +up in my mind pictures of its beauty. You will forgive a backwoods +boy,--self-centred, for lack of wider interest, and with a little +imagination. Bear hunting with my father, and an occasional trip on +the white mare twelve miles to the Cross-Roads for salt and other +necessaries, were the only diversions to break the routine of my days. +But at the Cross-Roads, too, they were talking of Kaintuckee. For so the +Land was called, the Dark and Bloody Ground. + +The next year came a war on the Frontier, waged by Lord Dunmore, +Governor of Virginia. Of this likewise I heard at the Cross-Roads, +though few from our part seemed to have gone to it. And I heard there, +for rumors spread over mountains, that men blazing in the new land were +in danger, and that my hero, Boone, was gone out to save them. But in +the autumn came tidings of a great battle far to the north, and of the +Indians suing for peace. + +The next year came more tidings of a sort I did not understand. I +remember once bringing back from the Cross-Roads a crumpled newspaper, +which my father read again and again, and then folded up and put in his +pocket. He said nothing to me of these things. But the next time I went +to the Cross-Roads, the woman asked me:-- + +“Is your Pa for the Congress?” + +“What’s that?” said I. + +“I reckon he ain’t,” said the woman, tartly. I recall her dimly, a +slattern creature in a loose gown and bare feet, wife of the storekeeper +and wagoner, with a swarm of urchins about her. They were all very +natural to me thus. And I remember a battle with one of these urchins in +the briers, an affair which did not add to the love of their family for +ours. There was no money in that country, and the store took our pelts +in exchange for what we needed from civilization. Once a month would +I load these pelts on the white mare, and make the journey by the path +down the creek. At times I met other settlers there, some of them not +long from Ireland, with the brogue still in their mouths. And again, +I saw the wagoner with his great canvas-covered wagon standing at the +door, ready to start for the town sixty miles away. ‘Twas he brought the +news of this latest war. + +One day I was surprised to see the wagoner riding up the path to our +cabin, crying out for my father, for he was a violent man. And a violent +scene followed. They remained for a long time within the house, and when +they came out the wagoner’s face was red with rage. My father, too, was +angry, but no more talkative than usual. + +“Ye say ye’ll not help the Congress?” shouted the wagoner. + +“I’ll not,” said my father. + +“Ye’ll live to rue this day, Alec Trimble,” cried the man. “Ye may think +ye’re too fine for the likes of us, but there’s them in the settlement +that knows about ye.” + +With that he flung himself on his horse, and rode away. But the next +time I went to the Cross-Roads the woman drove me away with curses, and +called me an aristocrat. Wearily I tramped back the dozen miles up the +creek, beside the mare, carrying my pelts with me; stumbling on the +stones, and scratched by the dry briers. For it was autumn, the woods +all red and yellow against the green of the pines. I sat down beside the +old beaver dam to gather courage to tell my father. But he only smiled +bitterly when he heard it. Nor would he tell me what the word aristocrat +meant. + +That winter we spent without bacon, and our salt gave out at Christmas. +It was at this season, if I remember rightly, that we had another +visitor. He arrived about nightfall one gray day, his horse jaded and +cut, and he was dressed all in wool, with a great coat wrapped about +him, and high boots. This made me stare at him. When my father drew back +the bolt of the door he, too, stared and fell back a step. + +“Come in,” said he. + +“D’ye ken me, Alec?” said the man. + +He was a tall, spare man like my father, a Scotchman, but his hair was +in a cue. + +“Come in, Duncan,” said my father, quietly. “Davy, run out for wood.” + +Loath as I was to go, I obeyed. As I came back dragging a log behind +me I heard them in argument, and in their talk there was much about the +Congress, and a woman named Flora Macdonald, and a British fleet sailing +southward. + +“We’ll have two thousand Highlanders and more to meet the fleet. And +ye’ll sit at hame, in this hovel ye’ve made yeresel” (and he glanced +about disdainfully) “and no help the King?” He brought his fist down on +the pine boards. + +“Ye did no help the King greatly at Culloden, Duncan,” said my father, +dryly. + +Our visitor did not answer at once. + +“The Yankee Rebels ‘ll no help the House of Stuart,” said he, presently. +“And Hanover’s coom to stay. Are ye, too, a Rebel, Alec Ritchie?” + +I remember wondering why he said Ritchie. + +“I’ll no take a hand in this fight,” answered my father. + +And that was the end of it. The man left with scant ceremony, I guiding +him down the creek to the main trail. He did not open his mouth until I +parted with him. + +“Puir Davy,” said he, and rode away in the night, for the moon shone +through the clouds. + +I remember these things, I suppose, because I had nothing else to think +about. And the names stuck in my memory, intensified by later events, +until I began to write a diary. + +And now I come to my travels. As the spring drew on I had had a feeling +that we could not live thus forever, with no market for our pelts. And +one day my father said to me abruptly:-- + +“Davy, we’ll be travelling.” + +“Where?” I asked. + +“Ye’ll ken soon enough,” said he. “We’ll go at crack o’ day.” + +We went away in the wild dawn, leaving the cabin desolate. We loaded the +white mare with the pelts, and my father wore a woollen suit like that +of our Scotch visitor, which I had never seen before. He had clubbed his +hair. But, strangest of all, he carried in a small parcel the silk gown +that had been my mother’s. We had scant other baggage. + +We crossed the Yadkin at a ford, and climbing the hills to the south of +it we went down over stony traces, down and down, through rain and sun; +stopping at rude cabins or taverns, until we came into the valley of +another river. This I know now was the Catawba. My memories of that ride +are as misty as the spring weather in the mountains. But presently the +country began to open up into broad fields, some of these abandoned to +pines. And at last, splashing through the stiff red clay that was up to +the mare’s fetlocks, we came to a place called Charlotte Town. What a +day that was for me! And how I gaped at the houses there, finer than +any I had ever dreamed of! That was my first sight of a town. And how I +listened open-mouthed to the gentlemen at the tavern! One I recall had a +fighting head with a lock awry, and a negro servant to wait on him, and +was the principal spokesman. He, too, was talking of war. The Cherokees +had risen on the western border. He was telling of the massacre of a +settlement, in no mild language. + +“Sirs,” he cried, “the British have stirred the redskins to this. Will +you sit here while women and children are scalped, and those devils” (he +called them worse names) “Stuart and Cameron go unpunished?” + +My father got up from the corner where he sat, and stood beside the man. + +“I ken Alec Cameron,” said he. + +The man looked at him with amazement. + +“Ay?” said he, “I shouldn’t think you’d own it. Damn him,” he cried, “if +we catch him we’ll skin him alive.” + +“I ken Cameron,” my father repeated, “and I’ll gang with you to skin him +alive.” + +The man seized his hand and wrung it. + +“But first I must be in Charlestown,” said my father. + +The next morning we sold our pelts. And though the mare was tired, +we pushed southward, I behind the saddle. I had much to think about, +wondering what was to become of me while my father went to skin Cameron. +I had not the least doubt that he would do it. The world is a storybook +to a lad of nine, and the thought of Charlestown filled me with a +delight unspeakable. Perchance he would leave me in Charlestown. + +At nightfall we came into a settlement called the Waxhaws. And there +being no tavern there, and the mare being very jaded and the roads +heavy, we cast about for a place to sleep. The sunlight slanting over +the pine forest glistened on the pools in the wet fields. And it so +chanced that splashing across these, swinging a milk-pail over his head, +shouting at the top of his voice, was a red-headed lad of my own age. My +father hailed him, and he came running towards us, still shouting, and +vaulted the rails. He stood before us, eying me with a most mischievous +look in his blue eyes, and dabbling in the red mud with his toes. I +remember I thought him a queer-looking boy. He was lanky, and he had a +very long face under his tousled hair. + +My father asked him where he could spend the night. + +“Wal,” said the boy, “I reckon Uncle Crawford might take you in. And +again he mightn’t.” + +He ran ahead, still swinging the pail. And we, following, came at length +to a comfortable-looking farmhouse. As we stopped at the doorway a +stout, motherly woman filled it. She held her knitting in her hand. + +“You Andy!” she cried, “have you fetched the milk?” + +Andy tried to look repentant. + +“I declare I’ll tan you,” said the lady. “Git out this instant. What +rascality have you been in?” + +“I fetched home visitors, Ma,” said Andy. + +“Visitors!” cried the lady. “What ‘ll your Uncle Crawford say?" And she +looked at us smiling, but with no great hostility. + +“Pardon me, Madam,” said my father, “if we seem to intrude. But my mare +is tired, and we have nowhere to stay.” + +Uncle Crawford did take us in. He was a man of substance in that +country,--a north of Ireland man by birth, if I remember right. + +I went to bed with the red-headed boy, whose name was Andy Jackson. I +remember that his mother came into our little room under the eaves and +made Andy say his prayers, and me after him. But when she was gone +out, Andy stumped his toe getting into bed in the dark and swore with a +brilliancy and vehemence that astonished me. + +It was some hours before we went to sleep, he plying me with questions +about my life, which seemed to interest him greatly, and I returning in +kind. + +“My Pa’s dead,” said Andy. “He came from a part of Ireland where they +are all weavers. We’re kinder poor relations here. Aunt Crawford’s +sick, and Ma keeps house. But Uncle Crawford’s good, an’ lets me go to +Charlotte Town with him sometimes.” + +I recall that he also boasted some about his big brothers, who were away +just then. + +Andy was up betimes in the morning, to see us start. But we didn’t +start, because Mr. Crawford insisted that the white mare should have a +half day’s rest. Andy, being hustled off unwillingly to the “Old Field” + school, made me go with him. He was a very headstrong boy. + +I was very anxious to see a school. This one was only a log house in a +poor, piny place, with a rabble of boys and girls romping at the door. +But when they saw us they stopped. Andy jumped into the air, let out a +war-whoop, and flung himself into the midst, scattering them right and +left, and knocking one boy over and over. “I’m Billy Buck!” he cried. +“I’m a hull regiment o’ Rangers. Let th’ Cherokees mind me!” + +“Way for Sandy Andy!” cried the boys. “Where’d you get the new boy, +Sandy?” + +“His name’s Davy,” said Andy, “and his Pa’s goin’ to fight the +Cherokees. He kin lick tarnation out’n any o’ you.” + +Meanwhile I held back, never having been thrown with so many of my own +kind. + +“He’s shot painters and b’ars,” said Andy. “An’ skinned ‘em. Kin you +lick him, Smally? I reckon not.” + +Now I had not come to the school for fighting. So I held back. +Fortunately for me, Smally held back also. But he tried skilful tactics. + +“He kin throw you, Sandy.” + +Andy faced me in an instant. + +“Kin you?” said he. + +There was nothing to do but try, and in a few seconds we were rolling on +the ground, to the huge delight of Smally and the others, Andy shouting +all the while and swearing. We rolled and rolled and rolled in the mud, +until we both lost our breath, and even Andy stopped swearing, for want +of it. After a while the boys were silent, and the thing became grim +earnest. At length, by some accident rather than my own strength, both +his shoulders touched the ground. I released him. But he was on his feet +in an instant and at me again like a wildcat. + +“Andy won’t stay throwed,” shouted a boy. And before I knew it he had +my shoulders down in a puddle. Then I went for him, and affairs were +growing more serious than a wrestle, when Smally, fancying himself safe, +and no doubt having a grudge, shouted out:-- + +“Tell him he slobbers, Davy.” + +Andy did slobber. But that was the end of me, and the beginning of +Smally. Andy left me instantly, not without an intimation that he +would come back, and proceeded to cover Smally with red clay and blood. +However, in the midst of this turmoil the schoolmaster arrived, +haled both into the schoolhouse, held court, and flogged Andrew with +considerable gusto. He pronounced these words afterwards, with great +solemnity:-- + +“Andrew Jackson, if I catch ye fightin’ once more, I’ll be afther givin’ +ye lave to lave the school.” + +I parted from Andy at noon with real regret. He was the first boy with +whom I had ever had any intimacy. And I admired him: chiefly, I fear, +for his fluent use of profanity and his fighting qualities. He was a +merry lad, with a wondrous quick temper but a good heart. And he seemed +sorry to say good-by. He filled my pockets with June apples--unripe, by +the way--and told me to remember him when I got till Charlestown. + +I remembered him much longer than that, and usually with a shock of +surprise. + + +CHAPTER III. CHARLESTOWN + +Down and down we went, crossing great rivers by ford and ferry, until +the hills flattened themselves and the country became a long stretch +of level, broken by the forests only; and I saw many things I had not +thought were on the earth. Once in a while I caught glimpses of great +red houses, with stately pillars, among the trees. They put me in mind +of the palaces in Bunyan, their windows all golden in the morning sun; +and as we jogged ahead, I pondered on the delights within them. I saw +gangs of negroes plodding to work along the road, an overseer riding +behind them with his gun on his back; and there were whole cotton fields +in these domains blazing in primrose flower,--a new plant here, so my +father said. He was willing to talk on such subjects. But on others, and +especially our errand to Charlestown, he would say nothing. And I knew +better than to press him. + +One day, as we were crossing a dike between rice swamps spread with +delicate green, I saw the white tops of wagons flashing in the sun at +the far end of it. We caught up with them, the wagoners cracking their +whips and swearing at the straining horses. And lo! in front of the +wagons was an army,--at least my boyish mind magnified it to such. Men +clad in homespun, perspiring and spattered with mud, were straggling +along the road by fours, laughing and joking together. The officers +rode, and many of these had blue coats and buff waistcoats,--some the +worse for wear. My father was pushing the white mare into the ditch to +ride by, when one hailed him. + +“Hullo, my man,” said he, “are you a friend to Congress?” + +“I’m off to Charlestown to leave the lad,” said my father, “and then to +fight the Cherokees.” + +“Good,” said the other. And then, “Where are you from?” + +“Upper Yadkin,” answered my father. “And you?” + +The officer, who was a young man, looked surprised. But then he laughed +pleasantly. + +“We’re North Carolina troops, going to join Lee in Charlestown,” said +he. “The British are sending a fleet and regiments against it.” + +“Oh, aye,” said my father, and would have passed on. But he was made to +go before the Colonel, who plied him with many questions. Then he gave +us a paper and dismissed us. + +We pursued our journey through the heat that shimmered up from the road, +pausing now and again in the shade of a wayside tree. At times I thought +I could bear the sun no longer. But towards four o’clock of that day +a great bank of yellow cloud rolled up, darkening the earth save for +a queer saffron light that stained everything, and made our very faces +yellow. And then a wind burst out of the east with a high mournful note, +as from a great flute afar, filling the air with leaves and branches of +trees. But it bore, too, a savor that was new to me,--a salt savor, deep +and fresh, that I drew down into my lungs. And I knew that we were near +the ocean. Then came the rain, in great billows, as though the ocean +itself were upon us. + +The next day we crossed a ferry on the Ashley River, and rode down the +sand of Charlestown neck. And my most vivid remembrance is of the great +trunks towering half a hundred feet in the air, with a tassel of leaves +at the top, which my father said were palmettos. Something lay heavy +on his mind. For I had grown to know his moods by a sort of silent +understanding. And when the roofs and spires of the town shone over the +foliage in the afternoon sun, I felt him give a great sigh that was like +a sob. + +And how shall I describe the splendor of that city? The sandy streets, +and the gardens of flower and shade, heavy with the plant odors; and the +great houses with their galleries and porticos set in the midst of the +gardens, that I remember staring at wistfully. But before long we +came to a barricade fixed across the street, and then to another. And +presently, in an open space near a large building, was a company of +soldiers at drill. + +It did not strike me as strange then that my father asked his way of no +man, but went to a little ordinary in a humbler part of the town. After +a modest meal in a corner of the public room, we went out for a stroll. +Then, from the wharves, I saw the bay dotted with islands, their white +sand sparkling in the evening light, and fringed with strange trees, +and beyond, of a deepening blue, the ocean. And nearer,--greatest of +all delights to me,--riding on the swell was a fleet of ships. My father +gazed at them long and silently, his palm over his eyes. + +“Men-o’-war from the old country, lad,” he said after a while. “They’re +a brave sight.” + +“And why are they here?” I asked. + +“They’ve come to fight,” said he, “and take the town again for the +King.” + +It was twilight when we turned to go, and then I saw that many of the +warehouses along the wharves were heaps of ruins. My father said this +was that the town might be the better defended. + +We bent our way towards one of the sandy streets where the great houses +were. And to my surprise we turned in at a gate, and up a path leading +to the high steps of one of these. Under the high portico the door was +open, but the house within was dark. My father paused, and the hand he +held to mine trembled. Then he stepped across the threshold, and raising +the big polished knocker that hung on the panel, let it drop. The sound +reverberated through the house, and then stillness. And then, from +within, a shuffling sound, and an old negro came to the door. For an +instant he stood staring through the dusk, and broke into a cry. + +“Marse Alec!” he said. + +“Is your master at home?” said my father. + +Without another word he led us through a deep hall, and out into a +gallery above the trees of a back garden, where a gentleman sat smoking +a long pipe. The old negro stopped in front of him. + +“Marse John,” said he, his voice shaking, “heah’s Marse Alec done come +back.” + +The gentleman got to his feet with a start. His pipe fell to the floor, +and the ashes scattered on the boards and lay glowing there. + +“Alec!” he cried, peering into my father’s face, “Alec! You’re not +dead.” + +“John,” said my father, “can we talk here?” + +“Good God!” said the gentleman, “you’re just the same. To think of +it--to think of it! Breed, a light in the drawing-room.” + +There was no word spoken while the negro was gone, and the time seemed +very long. But at length he returned, a silver candlestick in each hand. + +“Careful,” cried the gentleman, petulantly, “you’ll drop them.” + +He led the way into the house, and through the hall to a massive door of +mahogany with a silver door-knob. The grandeur of the place awed me, +and well it might. Boylike, I was absorbed in this. Our little mountain +cabin would almost have gone into this one room. The candles threw their +flickering rays upward until they danced on the high ceiling. Marvel +of marvels, in the oval left clear by the heavy, rounded cornice was a +picture. + +The negro set down the candles on the marble top of a table. But the air +of the room was heavy and close, and the gentleman went to a window and +flung it open. It came down instantly with a crash, so that the panes +rattled again. + +“Curse these Rebels,” he shouted, “they’ve taken our window weights to +make bullets.” + +Calling to the negro to pry open the window with a walking-stick, he +threw himself into a big, upholstered chair. ‘Twas then I remarked the +splendor of his clothes, which were silk. And he wore a waistcoat all +sewed with flowers. With a boy’s intuition, I began to dislike him +intensely. + +“Damn the Rebels!” he began. “They’ve driven his Lordship away. I hope +his Majesty will hang every mother’s son of ‘em. All pleasure of life is +gone, and they’ve folly enough to think they can resist the fleet. And +the worst of it is,” cried he, “the worst of it is, I’m forced to smirk +to them, and give good gold to their government.” Seeing that my father +did not answer, he asked: “Have you joined the Highlanders? You were +always for fighting.” + +“I’m to be at Cherokee Ford on the twentieth,” said my father. “We’re to +scalp the redskins and Cameron, though ‘tis not known.” + +“Cameron!” shrieked the gentleman. “But that’s the other side, man! +Against his Majesty?” + +“One side or t’other,” said my father, “‘tis all one against Alec +Cameron.” + +The gentleman looked at my father with something like terror in his +eyes. + +“You’ll never forgive Cameron,” he said. + +“I’ll no forgive anybody who does me a wrong,” said my father. + +“And where have you been all these years, Alec?” he asked presently. +“Since you went off with--” + +“I’ve been in the mountains, leading a pure life,” said my father. “And +we’ll speak of nothing, if you please, that’s gone by.” + +“And what will you have me do?” said the gentleman, helplessly. + +“Little enough,” said my father. “Keep the lad till I come again. He’s +quiet. He’ll no trouble you greatly. Davy, this is Mr. Temple. You’re to +stay with him till I come again.” + +“Come here, lad,” said the gentleman, and he peered into my face. +“You’ll not resemble your mother.” + +“He’ll resemble no one,” said my father, shortly. “Good-by, Davy. Keep +this till I come again.” And he gave me the parcel made of my mother’s +gown. Then he lifted me in his strong arms and kissed me, and strode +out of the house. We listened in silence as he went down the steps, and +until his footsteps died away on the path. Then the gentleman rose and +pulled a cord hastily. The negro came in. + +“Put the lad to bed, Breed,” said he. + +“Whah, suh?” + +“Oh, anywhere,” said the master. He turned to me. “I’ll be better able +to talk to you in the morning, David,” said he. + +I followed the old servant up the great stairs, gulping down a sob that +would rise, and clutching my mother’s gown tight under my arm. Had my +father left me alone in our cabin for a fortnight, I should not have +minded. But here, in this strange house, amid such strange surroundings, +I was heartbroken. The old negro was very kind. He led me into a little +bedroom, and placing the candle on a polished dresser, he regarded me +with sympathy. + +“So you’re Miss Lizbeth’s boy,” said he. “An’ she dade. An’ Marse Alec +rough an’ hard es though he been bo’n in de woods. Honey, ol’ Breed ‘ll +tek care ob you. I’ll git you one o’ dem night rails Marse Nick has, and +some ob his’n close in de mawnin’.” + +These things I remember, and likewise sobbing myself to sleep in the +four-poster. Often since I have wished that I had questioned Breed +of many things on which I had no curiosity then, for he was my chief +companion in the weeks that followed. He awoke me bright and early the +next day. + +“Heah’s some close o’ Marse Nick’s you kin wear, honey,” he said. + +“Who is Master Nick?” I asked. + +Breed slapped his thigh. + +“Marse Nick Temple, Marsa’s son. He’s ‘bout you size, but he ain’ no mo’ +laik you den a jack rabbit’s laik an’ owl. Dey ain’ none laik Marse Nick +fo’ gittin’ into trouble--and gittin’ out agin.” + +“Where is he now?” I asked. + +“He at Temple Bow, on de Ashley Ribber. Dat’s de Marsa’s barony.” + +“His what?” + +“De place whah he lib at, in de country.” + +“And why isn’t the master there?” + +I remember that Breed gave a wink, and led me out of the window onto a +gallery above the one where we had found the master the night before. +He pointed across the dense foliage of the garden to a strip of water +gleaming in the morning sun beyond. + +“See dat boat?” said the negro. “Sometime de Marse he tek ar ride in dat +boat at night. Sometime gentlemen comes heah in a pow’ful hurry to git +away, out’n de harbor whah de English is at.” + +By that time I was dressed, and marvellously uncomfortable in Master +Nick’s clothes. But as I was going out of the door, Breed hailed me. + +“Marse Dave,”--it was the first time I had been called that,--“Marse +Dave, you ain’t gwineter tell?” + +“Tell what?” I asked. + +“Bout’n de boat, and Marsa agwine away nights.” + +“No,” said I, indignantly. + +“I knowed you wahn’t,” said Breed. “You don’ look as if you’d tell +anything.” + +We found the master pacing the lower gallery. At first he barely glanced +at me, and nodded. After a while he stopped, and began to put to me many +questions about my life: when and how I had lived. And to some of my +answers he exclaimed, “Good God!” That was all. He was a handsome man, +with hands like a woman’s, well set off by the lace at his sleeves. He +had fine-cut features, and the white linen he wore was most becoming. + +“David,” said he, at length, and I noted that he lowered his voice, +“David, you seem a discreet lad. Pay attention to what I tell you. And +mark! if you disobey me, you will be well whipped. You have this house +and garden to play in, but you are by no means to go out at the front of +the house. And whatever you may see or hear, you are to tell no one. Do +you understand?” + +“Yes, sir,” I said. + +“For the rest,” said he, “Breed will give you food, and look out for +your welfare.” + +And so he dismissed me. They were lonely days after that for a boy used +to activity, and only the damp garden paths and lawns to run on. The +creek at the back of the garden was stagnant and marshy when the water +fell, and overhung by leafy boughs. On each side of the garden was a +high brick wall. And though I was often tempted to climb it, I felt +that disobedience was disloyalty to my father. Then there was the great +house, dark and lonely in its magnificence, over which I roamed until I +knew every corner of it. + +I was most interested of all in the pictures of men and women in quaint, +old-time costumes, and I used during the great heat of the day to sit in +the drawing-room and study these, and wonder who they were and when they +lived. Another amusement I had was to climb into the deep windows +and peer through the blinds across the front garden into the street. +Sometimes men stopped and talked loudly there, and again a rattle of +drums would send me running to see the soldiers. I recall that I had a +poor enough notion of what the fighting was all about. And no wonder. +But I remember chiefly my insatiable longing to escape from this prison, +as the great house soon became for me. And I yearned with a yearning I +cannot express for our cabin in the hills and the old life there. + +I caught glimpses of the master on occasions only, and then I avoided +him; for I knew he had no wish to see me. Sometimes he would be seated +in the gallery, tapping his foot on the floor, and sometimes pacing the +garden walks with his hands opening and shutting. And one night I awoke +with a start, and lay for a while listening until I heard something like +a splash, and the scraping of the bottom-boards of a boat. Irresistibly +I jumped out of bed, and running to the gallery rail I saw two dark +figures moving among the leaves below. The next morning I came suddenly +on a strange gentleman in the gallery. He wore a flowered dressing-gown +like the one I had seen on the master, and he had a jolly, round face. I +stopped and stared. + +“Who the devil are you?” said he, but not unkindly. + +“My name is David Trimble,” said I, “and I come from the mountains.” + +He laughed. + +“Mr. David Trimble-from-the-mountains, who the devil am I?” + +“I don’t know, sir,” and I started to go away, not wishing to disturb +him. + +“Avast!” he cried. “Stand fast. See that you remember that.” + +“I’m not here of my free will, sir, but because my father wishes it. And +I’ll betray nothing.” + +Then he stared at me. + +“How old did you say you were?” he demanded. + +“I didn’t say,” said I. + +“And you are of Scotch descent?” said he. + +“I didn’t say so, sir.” + +“You’re a rum one,” said he, laughing again, and he disappeared into the +house. + +That day, when Breed brought me my dinner on my gallery, he did not +speak of a visitor. You may be sure I did not mention the circumstance. +But Breed always told me the outside news. + +“Dey’s gittin’ ready fo’ a big fight, Marse Dave,” said he. “Mister +Moultrie in the fo’t in de bay, an’ Marse Gen’l Lee tryin’ for to boss +him. Dey’s Rebels. An’ Marse Admiral Parker an’ de King’s reg’ments +fixin’ fo’ to tek de fo’t, an’ den Charlesto’n. Dey say Mister Moultrie +ain’t got no mo’ chance dan a treed ‘possum.” + +“Why, Breed?” I asked. I had heard my father talk of England’s power and +might, and Mister Moultrie seemed to me a very brave man in his little +fort. + +“Why!” exclaimed the old negro. “You ain’t neber read no hist’ry books. +I knows some of de gentlemen wid Mister Moultrie. Dey ain’t no soldiers. +Some is fine gentlemen, to be suah, but it’s jist foolishness to fight +dat fleet an’ army. Marse Gen’l Lee hisself, he done sesso. I heerd +him.” + +“And he’s on Mister Moultrie’s side?” I asked. + +“Sholy,” said Breed. “He’s de Rebel gen’l.” + +“Then he’s a knave and a coward!” I cried with a boy’s indignation. +“Where did you hear him say that?” I demanded, incredulous of some of +Breed’s talk. + +“Right heah in dis house,” he answered, and quickly clapped his hand to +his mouth, and showed the whites of his eyes. “You ain’t agwineter tell +dat, Marse Dave?” + +“Of course not,” said I. And then: “I wish I could see Mister Moultrie +in his fort, and the fleet.” + +“Why, honey, so you kin,” said Breed. + +The good-natured negro dropped his work and led the way upstairs, I +following expectant, to the attic. A rickety ladder rose to a kind of +tower (cupola, I suppose it would be called), whence the bay spread out +before me like a picture, the white islands edged with the whiter lacing +of the waves. There, indeed, was the fleet, but far away, like toy ships +on the water, and the bit of a fort perched on the sandy edge of an +island. I spent most of that day there, watching anxiously for some +movement. But none came. + +That night I was again awakened. And running into the gallery, I heard +quick footsteps in the garden. Then there was a lantern’s flash, a +smothered oath, and all was dark again. But in the flash I had seen +distinctly three figures. One was Breed, and he held the lantern; +another was the master; and the third, a stout one muffled in a cloak, +I made no doubt was my jolly friend. I lay long awake, with a boy’s +curiosity, until presently the dawn broke, and I arose and dressed, and +began to wander about the house. No Breed was sweeping the gallery, nor +was there any sign of the master. The house was as still as a tomb, and +the echoes of my footsteps rolled through the halls and chambers. At +last, prompted by curiosity and fear, I sought the kitchen, where I had +often sat with Breed as he cooked the master’s dinner. This was at the +bottom and end of the house. The great fire there was cold, and the pots +and pans hung neatly on their hooks, untouched that day. I was running +through the wet garden, glad to be out in the light, when a sound +stopped me. + +It was a dull roar from the direction of the bay. Almost instantly came +another, and another, and then several broke together. And I knew that +the battle had begun. Forgetting for the moment my loneliness, I ran +into the house and up the stairs two at a time, and up the ladder into +the cupola, where I flung open the casement and leaned out. + +There was the battle indeed,--a sight so vivid to me after all +these years that I can call it again before me when I will. The toy +men-o’-war, with sails set, ranging in front of the fort. They looked +at my distance to be pressed against it. White puffs, like cotton balls, +would dart one after another from a ship’s side, melt into a cloud, +float over her spars, and hide her from my view. And then presently the +roar would reach me, and answering puffs along the line of the fort. +And I could see the mortar shells go up and up, leaving a scorched trail +behind, curve in a great circle, and fall upon the little garrison. +Mister Moultrie became a real person to me then, a vivid picture in my +boyish mind--a hero beyond all other heroes. + +As the sun got up in the heavens and the wind fell, the cupola became +a bake-oven. But I scarcely felt the heat. My whole soul was out in the +bay, pent up with the men in the fort. How long could they hold out? Why +were they not all killed by the shot that fell like hail among them? Yet +puff after puff sprang from their guns, and the sound of it was like a +storm coming nearer in the heat. But at noon it seemed to me as though +some of the ships were sailing. It was true. Slowly they drew away from +the others, and presently I thought they had stopped again. Surely two +of them were stuck together, then three were fast on a shoal. Boats, +like black bugs in the water, came and went between them and the others. +After a long time the two that were together got apart and away. But the +third stayed there, immovable, helpless. + +Throughout the afternoon the fight kept on, the little black boats +coming and going. I saw a mast totter and fall on one of the ships. I +saw the flag shot away from the fort, and reappear again. But now the +puffs came from her walls slowly and more slowly, so that my heart sank +with the setting sun. And presently it grew too dark to see aught save +the red flashes. Slowly, reluctantly, the noise died down until at last +a great silence reigned, broken only now and again by voices in the +streets below me. It was not until then that I realized that I had been +all day without food--that I was alone in the dark of a great house. + +I had never known fear in the woods at night. But now I trembled as I +felt my way down the ladder, and groped and stumbled through the black +attic for the stairs. Every noise I made seemed louder an hundred fold +than the battle had been, and when I barked my shins, the pain was +sharper than a knife. Below, on the big stairway, the echo of my +footsteps sounded again from the empty rooms, so that I was taken with a +panic and fled downward, sliding and falling, until I reached the hall. +Frantically as I tried, I could not unfasten the bolts on the front +door. And so, running into the drawing-room, I pried open the window, +and sat me down in the embrasure to think, and to try to quiet the +thumpings of my heart. + +By degrees I succeeded. The still air of the night and the heavy, damp +odors of the foliage helped me. And I tried to think what was right for +me to do. I had promised the master not to leave the place, and that +promise seemed in pledge to my father. Surely the master would come +back--or Breed. They would not leave me here alone without food much +longer. Although I was young, I was brought up to responsibility. And I +inherited a conscience that has since given me much trouble. + +From these thoughts, trying enough for a starved lad, I fell to thinking +of my father on the frontier fighting the Cherokees. And so I dozed away +to dream of him. I remember that he was skinning Cameron,--I had often +pictured it,--and Cameron yelling, when I was awakened with a shock by a +great noise. + +I listened with my heart in my throat. The noise seemed to come from the +hall,--a prodigious pounding. Presently it stopped, and a man’s voice +cried out:-- + +“Ho there, within!” + +My first impulse was to answer. But fear kept me still. + +“Batter down the door,” some one shouted. + +There was a sound of shuffling in the portico, and the same voice:-- + +“Now then, all together, lads!” + +Then came a straining and splitting of wood, and with a crash the door +gave way. A lantern’s rays shot through the hall. + +“The house is as dark as a tomb,” said a voice. + +“And as empty, I reckon,” said another. “John Temple and his spy have +got away.” + +“We’ll have a search,” answered the first voice. + +They stood for a moment in the drawing-room door, peering, and then they +entered. There were five of them. Two looked to be gentlemen, and three +were of rougher appearance. They carried lanterns. + +“That window’s open,” said one of the gentlemen. “They must have been +here to-day. Hello, what’s this?” He started back in surprise. + +I slid down from the window-seat, and stood facing them, not knowing +what else to do. They, too, seemed equally confounded. + +“It must be Temple’s son,” said one, at last. “I had thought the family +at Temple Bow. What’s your name, my lad?” + +“David Trimble, sir,” said I. + +“And what are you doing here?” he asked more sternly. + +“I was left in Mr. Temple’s care by my father.” + +“Oho!” he cried. “And where is your father?” + +“He’s gone to fight the Cherokees,” I answered soberly. “To skin a man +named Cameron.” + +At that they were silent for an instant, and then the two broke into a +laugh. + +“Egad, Lowndes,” said the gentleman, “here is a fine mystery. Do you +think the boy is lying?” + +The other gentleman scratched his forehead. + +“I’ll have you know I don’t lie, sir,” I said, ready to cry. + +“No,” said the other gentleman. “A backwoodsman named Trimble went +to Rutledge with credentials from North Carolina, and has gone off to +Cherokee Ford to join McCall.” + +“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the first gentleman. He came up and laid his +hand on my shoulder, and said:-- + +“Where is Mr. Temple?” + +“That I don’t know, sir.” + +“When did he go away?” + +I did not answer at once. + +“That I can’t tell you, sir.” + +“Was there any one with him?” + +“That I can’t tell you, sir.” + +“The devil you can’t!” he cried, taking his hand away. “And why not?” + +I shook my head, sorely beset. + +“Come, Mathews,” cried the gentleman called Lowndes. “We’ll search +first, and attend to the lad after.” + +And so they began going through the house, prying into every cupboard +and sweeping under every bed. They even climbed to the attic; and noting +the open casement in the cupola, Mr. Lowndes said:-- + +“Some one has been here to-day.” + +“It was I, sir,” I said. “I have been here all day.” + +“And what doing, pray?” he demanded. + +“Watching the battle. And oh, sir,” I cried, “can you tell me whether +Mister Moultrie beat the British?” + +“He did so,” cried Mr. Lowndes. “He did, and soundly.” + +He stared at me. I must have looked my pleasure. + +“Why, David,” says he, “you are a patriot, too.” + +“I am a Rebel, sir,” I cried hotly. + +Both gentlemen laughed again, and the men with them. + +“The lad is a character,” said Mr. Lowndes. + +We made our way down into the garden, which they searched last. At the +creek’s side the boat was gone, and there were footsteps in the mud. + +“The bird has flown, Lowndes,” said Mr. Mathews. + +“And good riddance for the Committee,” answered that gentleman, +heartily. “He got to the fleet in fine season to get a round shot in the +middle. David,” said he, solemnly, “remember it never pays to try to be +two things at once.” + +“I’ll warrant he stayed below water,” said Mr. Mathews. “But what shall +we do with the lad?” + +“I’ll take him to my house for the night,” said Mr. Lowndes, “and in the +morning we’ll talk to him. I reckon he should be sent to Temple Bow. He +is connected in some way with the Temples.” + +“God help him if he goes there,” said Mr. Mathews, under his breath. But +I heard him. + +They locked up the house, and left one of the men to guard it, while +I went with Mr. Lowndes to his residence. I remember that people were +gathered in the streets as we passed, making merry, and that they +greeted Mr. Lowndes with respect and good cheer. His house, too, was +set in a garden and quite as fine as Mr. Temple’s. It was ablaze with +candles, and I caught glimpses of fine gentlemen and ladies in the +rooms. But he hurried me through the hall, and into a little chamber at +the rear where a writing-desk was set. He turned and faced me. + +“You must be tired, David,” he said. + +I nodded. + +“And hungry? Boys are always hungry.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You had no dinner?” + +“No, sir,” I answered, off my guard. + +“Mercy!” he said. “It is a long time since breakfast.” + +“I had no breakfast, sir.” + +“Good God!” he said, and pulled the velvet handle of a cord. A negro +came. + +“Is the supper for the guests ready?” + +“Yes, Marsa.” + +“Then bring as much as you can carry here,” said the gentleman. “And ask +Mrs. Lowndes if I may speak with her.” + +Mrs. Lowndes came first. And such a fine lady she was that she +frightened me, this being my first experience with ladies. But when Mr. +Lowndes told her my story, she ran to me impulsively and put her arms +about me. + +“Poor lad!” she said. “What a shame!” + +I think that the tears came then, but it was small wonder. There were +tears in her eyes, too. + +Such a supper as I had I shall never forget. And she sat beside me for +long, neglecting her guests, and talking of my life. Suddenly she turned +to her husband, calling him by name. + +“He is Alec Ritchie’s son,” she said, “and Alec has gone against +Cameron.” + +Mr. Lowndes did not answer, but nodded. + +“And must he go to Temple Bow?” + +“My dear,” said Mr. Lowndes, “I fear it is our duty to send him there.” + + +CHAPTER IV. TEMPLE BOW + +In the morning I started for Temple Bow on horseback behind one of Mr. +Lowndes’ negroes. Good Mrs. Lowndes had kissed me at parting, and +tucked into my pocket a parcel of sweetmeats. There had been a few grave +gentlemen to see me, and to their questions I had replied what I could. +But tell them of Mr. Temple I would not, save that he himself had told +me nothing. And Mr. Lowndes had presently put an end to their talk. + +“The lad knows nothing, gentlemen,” he had said, which was true. + +“David,” said he, when he bade me farewell, “I see that your father has +brought you up to fear God. Remember that all you see in this life is +not to be imitated.” + +And so I went off behind his negro. He was a merry lad, and despite the +great heat of the journey and my misgivings about Temple Bow, he made me +laugh. I was sad at crossing the ferry over the Ashley, through thinking +of my father, but I reflected that it could not be long now ere I saw +him again. In the middle of the day we stopped at a tavern. And at +length, in the abundant shade of evening, we came to a pair of great +ornamental gates set between brick pillars capped with white balls, and +turned into a drive. And presently, winding through the trees, we were +in sight of a long, brick mansion trimmed with white, and a velvet +lawn before it all flecked with shadows. In front of the portico was a +saddled horse, craning his long neck at two panting hounds stretched on +the ground. A negro boy in blue clutched the bridle. On the horse-block +a gentleman in white reclined. He wore shiny boots, and he held his hat +in his hand, and he was gazing up at a lady who stood on the steps above +him. + +The lady I remember as well--Lord forbid that I should forget her. And +her laugh as I heard it that evening is ringing now in my ears. And yet +it was not a laugh. Musical it was, yet there seemed no pleasure in it: +rather irony, and a great weariness of the amusements of this world: +and a note, too, from a vanity never ruffled. It stopped abruptly as the +negro pulled up his horse before her, and she stared at us haughtily. + +“What’s this?” she said. + +“Pardon, Mistis,” said the negro, “I’se got a letter from Marse +Lowndes.” + +“Mr. Lowndes should instruct his niggers,” she said. “There is a +servants’ drive.” The man was turning his horse when she cried: “Hold! +Let’s have it.” + +He dismounted and gave her the letter, and I jumped to the ground, +watching her as she broke the seal, taking her in, as a boy will, from +the flowing skirt and tight-laced stays of her salmon silk to her +high and powdered hair. She must have been about thirty. Her face was +beautiful, but had no particle of expression in it, and was dotted here +and there with little black patches of plaster. While she was reading, +a sober gentleman in black silk breeches and severe coat came out of the +house and stood beside her. + +“Heigho, parson,” said the gentleman on the horse-block, without moving, +“are you to preach against loo or lansquenet to-morrow?” + +“Would it make any difference to you, Mr. Riddle?” + +Before he could answer there came a great clatter behind them, and a boy +of my own age appeared. With a leap he landed sprawling on the indolent +gentleman’s shoulders, nearly upsetting him. + +“You young rascal!” exclaimed the gentleman, pitching him on the drive +almost at my feet; then he fell back again to a position where he could +look up at the lady. + +“Harry Riddle,” cried the boy, “I’ll ride steeplechases and beat you +some day.” + +“Hush, Nick,” cried the lady, petulantly, “I’ll have no nerves left me.” + She turned to the letter again, holding it very near to her eyes, +and made a wry face of impatience. Then she held the sheet out to Mr. +Riddle. + +“A pretty piece of news,” she said languidly. “Read it, Harry.” + +The gentleman seized her hand instead. The lady glanced at the +clergyman, whose back was turned, and shook her head. + +“How tiresome you are!” she said. + +“What’s happened?” asked Mr. Riddle, letting go as the parson looked +around. + +“Oh, they’ve had a battle,” said the lady, “and Moultrie and his Rebels +have beat off the King’s fleet.” + +“The devil they have!” exclaimed Mr. Riddle, while the parson started +forwards. “Anything more?” + +“Yes, a little.” She hesitated. “That husband of mine has fled +Charlestown. They think he went to the fleet.” And she shot a meaning +look at Mr. Riddle, who in turn flushed red. I was watching them. + +“What!” cried the clergyman, “John Temple has run away?” + +“Why not,” said Mr. Riddle. “One can’t live between wind and water long. +And Charlestown’s--uncomfortable in summer.” + +At that the clergyman cast one look at them--such a look as I shall +never forget--and went into the house. + +“Mamma,” said the boy, “where has father gone? Has he run away?” + +“Yes. Don’t bother me, Nick.” + +“I don’t believe it,” cried Nick, his high voice shaking. “I’d--I’d +disown him.” + +At that Mr. Riddle burst into a hearty laugh. + +“Come, Nick,” said he, “it isn’t so bad as that. Your father’s for his +Majesty, like the rest of us. He’s merely gone over to fight for him.” + And he looked at the lady and laughed again. But I liked the boy. + +As for the lady, she curled her lip. “Mr. Riddle, don’t be foolish,” she +said. “If we are to play, send your horse to the stables.” Suddenly her +eye lighted on me. “One more brat,” she sighed. “Nick, take him to the +nursery, or the stable. And both of you keep out of my sight.” + +Nick strode up to me. + +“Don’t mind her. She’s always saying, ‘Keep out of my sight.’” His voice +trembled. He took me by the sleeve and began pulling me around the house +and into a little summer bower that stood there; for he had a masterful +manner. + +“What’s your name?” he demanded. + +“David Trimble,” I said. + +“Have you seen my father in town?” + +The intense earnestness of the question surprised an answer out of me. + +“Yes.” + +“Where?” he demanded. + +“In his house. My father left me with your father.” + +“Tell me about it.” + +I related as much as I dared, leaving out Mr. Temple’s double dealing; +which, in truth, I did not understand. But the boy was relentless. + +“Why,” said he, “my father was a friend of Mr. Lowndes and Mr. Mathews. +I have seen them here drinking with him. And in town. And he ran away?” + +“I do not know where he went,” said I, which was the truth. + +He said nothing, but hid his face in his arms over the rail of the +bower. At length he looked up at me fiercely. + +“If you ever tell this, I will kill you,” he cried. “Do you hear?” + +That made me angry. + +“Yes, I hear,” I said. “But I am not afraid of you.” + +He was at me in an instant, knocking me to the floor, so that the breath +went out of me, and was pounding me vigorously ere I recovered from the +shock and astonishment of it and began to defend myself. He was taller +than I, and wiry, but not so rugged. Yet there was a look about him +that was far beyond his strength. A look that meant, never say die. +Curiously, even as I fought desperately I compared him with that other +lad I had known, Andy Jackson. And this one, though not so powerful, +frightened me the more in his relentlessness. + +Perhaps we should have been fighting still had not some one pulled us +apart, and when my vision cleared I saw Nick, struggling and kicking, +held tightly in the hands of the clergyman. And it was all that +gentleman could do to hold him. I am sure it was quite five minutes +before he forced the lad, exhausted, on to the seat. And then there +was a defiance about his nostrils that showed he was undefeated. The +clergyman, still holding him with one hand, took out his handkerchief +with the other and wiped his brow. + +I expected a scolding and a sermon. To my amazement the clergyman said +quietly:-- + +“Now what was the trouble, David?” + +“I’ll not be the one to tell it, sir,” I said, and trembled at my +temerity. + +The parson looked at me queerly. + +“Then you are in the right of it,” he said. “It is as I thought; I’ll +not expect Nicholas to tell me.” + +“I will tell you, sir,” said Nicholas. “He was in the house with my +father when--when he ran away. And I said that if he ever spoke of it to +any one, I would kill him.” + +For a while the clergyman was silent, gazing with a strange tenderness +at the lad, whose face was averted. + +“And you, David?” he said presently. + +“I--I never mean to tell, sir. But I was not to be frightened.” + +“Quite right, my lad,” said the clergyman, so kindly that it sent a +strange thrill through me. Nicholas looked up quickly. + +“You won’t tell?” he said. + +“No,” I said. + +“You can let me go now, Mr. Mason,” said he. Mr. Mason did. And he came +over and sat beside me, but said nothing more. + +After a while Mr. Mason cleared his throat. + +“Nicholas,” said he, “when you grow older you will understand these +matters better. Your father went away to join the side he believes in, +the side we all believe in--the King’s side.” + +“Did he ever pretend to like the other side?” asked Nick, quickly. + +“When you grow older you will know his motives,” answered the clergyman, +gently. “Until then; you must trust him.” + +“You never pretended,” cried Nick. + +“Thank God I never was forced to do so,” said the clergyman, fervently. + +It is wonderful that the conditions of our existence may wholly change +without a seeming strangeness. After many years only vivid snatches of +what I saw and heard and did at Temple Bow come back to me. I understood +but little the meaning of the seigniorial life there. My chief wonder +now is that its golden surface was not more troubled by the winds then +brewing. It was a new life to me, one that I had not dreamed of. + +After that first falling out, Nick and I became inseparable. Far slower +than he in my likes and dislikes, he soon became a passion with me. +Even as a boy, he did everything with a grace unsurpassed; the dash and +daring of his pranks took one’s breath; his generosity to those he loved +was prodigal. Nor did he ever miss a chance to score those under his +displeasure. At times he was reckless beyond words to describe, and +again he would fall sober for a day. He could be cruel and tender in the +same hour; abandoned and freezing in his dignity. He had an old negro +mammy whose worship for him and his possessions was idolatry. I can hear +her now calling and calling, “Marse Nick, honey, yo’ supper’s done got +cole,” as she searched patiently among the magnolias. And suddenly there +would be a shout, and Mammy’s turban go flying from her woolly head, or +Mammy herself would be dragged down from behind and sat upon. + +We had our supper, Nick and I, at twilight, in the children’s dining +room. A little white room, unevenly panelled, the silver candlesticks +and yellow flames fantastically reflected in the mirrors between the +deep windows, and the moths and June-bugs tilting at the lights. We sat +at a little mahogany table eating porridge and cream from round blue +bowls, with Mammy to wait on us. Sometimes there floated in upon us the +hum of revelry from the great drawing-room where Madame had her company. +Often the good Mr. Mason would come in to us (he cared little for the +parties), and talk to us of our day’s doings. Nick had his lessons from +the clergyman in the winter time. + +Mr. Mason took occasion once to question me on what I knew. Some of +my answers, in especial those relating to my knowledge of the Bible, +surprised him. Others made him sad. + +“David,” said he, “you are an earnest lad, with a head to learn, and you +will. When your father comes, I shall talk with him.” He paused--“I knew +him,” said he, “I knew him ere you were born. A just man, and upright, +but with a great sorrow. We must never be hasty in our judgments. But +you will never be hasty, David,” he added, smiling at me. “You are a +good companion for Nicholas.” + +Nicholas and I slept in the same bedroom, at a corner of the long house, +and far removed from his mother. She would not be disturbed by the +noise he made in the mornings. I remember that he had cut in the solid +shutters of that room, folded into the embrasures, “Nicholas Temple, His +Mark,” and a long, flat sword. The first night in that room we slept but +little, near the whole of it being occupied with tales of my adventures +and of my life in the mountains. Over and over again I must tell him of +the “painters” and wildcats, of deer and bear and wolf. Nor was he ever +satisfied. And at length I came to speak of that land where I had often +lived in fancy--the land beyond the mountains of which Daniel Boone had +told. Of its forest and glade, its countless herds of elk and buffalo, +its salt-licks and Indians, until we fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. + +“I will go there,” he cried in the morning, as he hurried into his +clothes; “I will go to that land as sure as my name is Nick Temple. And +you shall go with me, David.” + +“Perchance I shall go before you,” I answered, though I had small hopes +of persuading my father. + +He would often make his exit by the window, climbing down into the +garden by the protruding bricks at the corner of the house; or sometimes +go shouting down the long halls and through the gallery to the great +stairway, a smothered oath from behind the closed bedroom doors +proclaiming that he had waked a guest. And many days we spent in the +wood, playing at hunting game--a poor enough amusement for me, and one +that Nick soon tired of. They were thick, wet woods, unlike our woods +of the mountains; and more than once we had excitement enough with the +snakes that lay there. + +I believe that in a week’s time Nick was as conversant with my life as I +myself. For he made me tell of it again and again, and of Kentucky. +And always as he listened his eyes would glow and his breast heave with +excitement. + +“Do you think your father will take you there, David, when he comes for +you?” + +I hoped so, but was doubtful. + +“I’ll run away with you,” he declared. “There is no one here who cares +for me save Mr. Mason and Mammy.” + +And I believe he meant it. He saw but little of his mother, and nearly +always something unpleasant was coupled with his views. Sometimes we +ran across her in the garden paths walking with a gallant,--oftenest Mr. +Riddle. It was a beautiful garden, with hedge-bordered walks and flowers +wondrously massed in color, a high brick wall surrounding it. Frequently +Mrs. Temple and Mr. Riddle would play at cards there of an afternoon, +and when that musical, unbelieving laugh of hers came floating over the +wall, Nick would say:-- + +“Mamma is winning.” + +Once we heard high words between the two, and running into the garden +found the cards scattered on the grass, and the couple gone. + +Of all Nick’s escapades,--and he was continually in and out of them,--I +recall only a few of the more serious. As I have said, he was a wild +lad, sobered by none of the things which had gone to make my life, and +what he took into his head to do he generally did,--or, if balked, flew +into such a rage as to make one believe he could not live. Life was +always war with him, or some semblance of a struggle. Of his many wild +doings I recall well the time when--fired by my tales of hunting--he +went out to attack the young bull in the paddock with a bow and arrow. +It made small difference to the bull that the arrow was too blunt to +enter his hide. With a bellow that frightened the idle negroes at the +slave quarters, he started for Master Nick. I, who had been taught by +my father never to run any unnecessary risk, had taken the precaution to +provide as large a stone as I could comfortably throw, and took station +on the fence. As the furious animal came charging, with his head +lowered, I struck him by a good fortune between the eyes, and Nicholas +got over. We were standing on the far side, watching him pawing the +broken bow, when, in the crowd of frightened negroes, we discovered the +parson beside us. + +“David,” said he, patting me with a shaking hand, “I perceive that you +have a cool head. Our young friend here has a hot one. Dr. Johnson may +not care for Scotch blood, and yet I think a wee bit of it is not to be +despised.” + +I wondered whether Dr. Johnson was staying in the house, too. + +How many slaves there were at Temple Bow I know not, but we used to see +them coming home at night in droves, the overseers riding beside them +with whips and guns. One day a huge Congo chief, not long from Africa, +nearly killed an overseer, and escaped to the swamp. As the day fell, +we heard the baying of the bloodhounds hot upon his trail. More ominous +still, a sound like a rising wind came from the direction of the +quarters. Into our little dining-room burst Mrs. Temple herself, +slamming the door behind her. Mr. Mason, who was sitting with us, rose +to calm her. + +“The Rebels!” she cried. “The Rebels have taught them this, with their +accursed notions of liberty and equality. We shall all be murdered by +the blacks because of the Rebels. Oh, hell-fire is too good for them. +Have the house barred and a watch set to-night. What shall we do?” + +“I pray you compose yourself, Madame,” said the clergyman. “We can send +for the militia.” + +“The militia!” she shrieked; “the Rebel militia! They would murder us as +soon as the niggers.” + +“They are respectable men,” answered Mr. Mason, “and were at Fanning +Hall to-day patrolling.” + +“I would rather be killed by whites than blacks,” said the lady. “But +who is to go for the militia?” + +“I will ride for them,” said Mr. Mason. It was a dark, lowering night, +and spitting rain. + +“And leave me defenceless!” she cried. “You do not stir, sir.” + +“It is a pity,” said Mr. Mason--he was goaded to it, I suppose--“‘tis a +pity Mr. Riddle did not come to-night.” + +She shot at him a withering look, for even in her fear she would brook +no liberties. Nick spoke up:-- + +“I will go,” said he; “I can get through the woods to Fanning Hall--” + +“And I will go with him,” I said. + +“Let the brats go,” she said, and cut short Mr. Mason’s expostulations. +She drew Nick to her and kissed him. He wriggled away, and without more +ado we climbed out of the dining-room windows into the night. Running +across the lawn, we left the lights of the great house twinkling behind +us in the rain. We had to pass the long line of cabins at the quarters. +Three overseers with lanterns stood guard there; the cabins were dark, +the wretches within silent and cowed. Thence we felt with our feet +for the path across the fields, stumbled over a sty, and took our way +through the black woods. I was at home here, and Nick was not to be +frightened. At intervals the mournful bay of a bloodhound came to us +from a distance. + +“Suppose we should meet the Congo chief,” said Nick, suddenly. + +The idea had occurred to me. + +“She needn’t have been so frightened,” said he, in scornful remembrance +of his mother’s actions. + +We pressed on. Nick knew the path as only a boy can. Half an hour +passed. It grew brighter. The rain ceased, and a new moon shot out +between the leaves. I seized his arm. + +“What’s that?” I whispered. + +“A deer.” + +But I, cradled in woodcraft, had heard plainly a man creeping through +the underbrush beside us. Fear of the Congo chief and pity for the +wretch tore at my heart. Suddenly there loomed in front of us, on the +path, a great, naked man. We stood with useless limbs, staring at him. + +Then, from the trees over our heads, came a chittering and a chattering +such as I had never heard. The big man before us dropped to the +earth, his head bowed, muttering. As for me, my fright increased. The +chattering stopped, and Nick stepped forward and laid his hand on the +negro’s bare shoulder. + +“We needn’t be afraid of him now, Davy,” he said. “I learned that trick +from a Portuguese overseer we had last year.” + +“You did it!” I exclaimed, my astonishment overcoming my fear. + +“It’s the way the monkeys chatter in the Canaries,” he said. “Manuel had +a tame one, and I heard it talk. Once before I tried it on the chief, +and he fell down. He thinks I’m a god.” + +It must have been a weird scene to see the great negro following two +boys in the moonlight. Indeed, he came after us like a dog. At length we +were in sight of the lights of Fanning Hall. The militia was there. We +were challenged by the guard, and caused sufficient amazement when we +appeared in the hall before the master, who was a bachelor of fifty. + +“‘Sblood, Nick Temple!” he cried, “what are you doing here with that big +Congo for a dog? The sight of him frightens me.” + +The negro, indeed, was a sight to frighten one. The black mud of the +swamps was caked on him, and his flesh was torn by brambles. + +“He ran away,” said Nick; “and I am taking him home.” + +“You--you are taking him home!” sputtered Mr. Fanning. + +“Do you want to see him act?” said Nick. And without waiting for a reply +he filled the hall with a dozen monkeys. Mr. Fanning leaped back into +a doorway, but the chief prostrated himself on the floor. “Now do you +believe I can take him home?” said Nick. + +“‘Swounds!” said Mr. Fanning, when he had his breath. “You beat the +devil, Nicholas Temple. The next time you come to call I pray you leave +your travelling show at home.” + +“Mamma sent me for the militia,” said Nick. + +“She did!” said Mr. Fanning, looking grim. “An insurrection is a bad +thing, but there was no danger for two lads in the woods, I suppose.” + +“There’s no danger anyway,” said Nick. “The niggers are all scared to +death.” + +Mr. Fanning burst out into a loud laugh, stopped suddenly, sat down, and +took Nick on his knee. It was an incongruous scene. Mr. Fanning almost +cried. + +“Bless your soul,” he said, “but you are a lad. Would to God I had you +instead of--” + +He paused abruptly. + +“I must go home,” said Nick; “she will be worried.” + +“She will be worried!” cried Mr. Fanning, in a burst of anger. Then he +said: “You shall have the militia. You shall have the militia.” He rang +a bell and sent his steward for the captain, a gawky country farmer, who +gave a gasp when he came upon the scene in the hall. + +“And mind,” said Nick to the captain, “you are to keep your men away +from him, or he will kill one of them.” + +The captain grinned at him curiously. + +“I reckon I won’t have to tell them to keep away,” said he. + +Mr. Fanning started us off for the walk with pockets filled with +sweetmeats, which we nibbled on the way back. We made a queer +procession, Nick and I striding ahead to show the path, followed by +the now servile chief, and after him the captain and his twenty men +in single file. It was midnight when we saw the lights of Temple Bow +through the trees. One of the tired overseers met us near the kitchen. +When he perceived the Congo his face lighted up with rage, and he +instinctively reached for his whip. But the chief stood before him, +immovable, with arms folded, and a look on his face that meant danger. + +“He will kill you, Emory,” said Nick; “he will kill you if you touch +him.” + +Emory dropped his hand, limply. + +“He will go to work in the morning,” said Nick; “but mind you, not a +lash.” + +“Very good, Master Nick,” said the man; “but who’s to get him in his +cabin?” + +“I will,” said Nick. He beckoned to the Congo, who followed him over to +quarters and went in at his door without a protest. + +The next morning Mrs. Temple looked out of her window and saw the +militiamen on the lawn. + +“Pooh!” she said, “are those butternuts the soldiers that Nick went to +fetch?” + + +CHAPTER V. CRAM’S HELL + +After that my admiration for Nick Temple increased greatly, whether +excited by his courage and presence of mind, or his ability to imitate +men and women and creatures, I know not. One of our amusements, I +recall, was to go to the Congo’s cabin to see him fall on his face, +until Mr. Mason put a stop to it. The clergyman let us know that we were +encouraging idolatry, and he himself took the chief in hand. + +Another incident comes to me from those bygone days. The fear of negro +insurrections at the neighboring plantations being temporarily lulled, +the gentry began to pluck up courage for their usual amusements. There +were to be races at some place a distance away, and Nick was determined +to go. Had he not determined that I should go, all would have been well. +The evening before he came upon his mother in the garden. Strange to +say, she was in a gracious mood and alone. + +“Come and kiss me, Nick,” she said. “Now, what do you want?” + +“I want to go to the races,” he said. + +“You have your pony. You can follow the coach.” + +“David is to ride the pony,” said Nick, generously. “May I go in the +coach?” + +“No,” she said, “there is no room for you.” + +Nicholas flared up. “Harry Riddle is going in the coach. I don’t see why +you can’t take me sometimes. You like him better than me.” + +The lady flushed very red. + +“How dare you, Nick!” she cried angrily. “What has Mr. Mason been +putting into your head?” + +“Nothing,” said Nick, quite as angrily. “Any one can see that you like +Harry. And I will ride in the coach.” + +“You’ll not,” said his mother. + +I had heard nothing of this. The next morning he led out his pony from +the stables for me to ride, and insisted. And, supposing he was to go +in the coach, I put foot in the stirrup. The little beast would scarce +stand still for me to mount. + +“You’ll not need the whip with her,” said Nick, and led her around by +the side of the house, in view of the portico, and stood there at her +bridle. Presently, with a great noise and clatter of hoofs, the coach +rounded the drive, the powdered negro coachman pulling up the four +horses with much ceremony at the door. It was a wondrous great vehicle, +the bright colors of its body flashing in the morning light. I had +examined it more than once, and with awe, in the coach-house. It had +glass windows and a lion on a blue shield on the door, and within it was +all salmon silk, save the painted design on the ceiling. Great leather +straps held up this house on wheels, to take the jolts of the road. And +behind it was a platform. That morning two young negroes with flowing +blue coats stood on it. They leaped to the ground when the coach +stopped, and stood each side of the door, waiting for my lady to enter. + +She came down the steps, laughing, with Mr. Riddle, who was in his +riding clothes, for he was to race that day. He handed her in, and got +in after her. The coachman cracked his whip, the coach creaked off +down the drive, I in the trees one side waiting for them to pass, and +wondering what Nick was to do. He had let go my bridle, folded his whip +in his hand, and with a shout of “Come on, Davy,” he ran for the coach, +which was going slowly, caught hold of the footman’s platform, and +pulled himself up. + +What possessed the footman I know not. Perchance fear of his mistress +was greater than fear of his young master; but he took the lad by the +shoulders--gently, to be sure--and pushed him into the road, where he +fell and rolled over. I guessed what would happen. Picking himself up, +Nick was at the man like a hurricane, seizing him swiftly by the leg. +The negro fell upon the platform, clutching wildly, where he lay in a +sheer fright, shrieking for mercy, his cries rivalled by those of the +lady within. The coachman frantically pulled his horses to a stand, the +other footman jumped off, and Mr. Harry Riddle came flying out of the +coach door, to behold Nicholas beating the negro with his riding-whip. + +“You young devil,” cried Mr. Riddle, angrily, striding forward, “what +are you doing?” + +“Keep off, Harry,” said Nicholas. “I am teaching this nigger that he +is not to lay hands on his betters.” With that he gave the boy one more +cut, and turned from him contemptuously. + +“What is it, Harry?” came in a shrill voice from within the coach. + +“It’s Nick’s pranks,” said Mr. Riddle, grinning in spite of his anger; +“he’s ruined one of your footmen. You little scoundrel,” cried Mr. +Riddle, advancing again, “you’ve frightened your mother nearly to a +swoon.” + +“Serves her right,” said Nick. + +“What!” cried Mr. Riddle. “Come down from there instantly.” + +Nick raised his whip. It was not that that stopped Mr. Riddle, but a +sign about the lad’s nostrils. + +“Harry Riddle,” said the boy, “if it weren’t for you, I’d be riding in +this coach to-day with my mother. I don’t want to ride with her, but +I will go to the races. If you try to take me down, I’ll do my best to +kill you,” and he lifted the loaded end of the whip. + +Mrs. Temple’s beautiful face had by this time been thrust out of the +door. + +“For the love of heaven, Harry, let him come in with us. We’re late +enough as it is.” + +Mr. Riddle turned on his heel. He tried to glare at Nick, but he broke +into a laugh instead. + +“Come down, Satan,” says he. “God help the woman you love and the man +you fight.” + +And so Nicholas jumped down, and into the coach. The footman picked +himself up, more scared than injured, and the vehicle took its lumbering +way for the race-course, I following. + +I have seen many courses since, but none to equal that in the gorgeous +dress of those who watched. There had been many, many more in former +years, so I heard people say. This was the only sign that a war was +in progress,--the scanty number of gentry present,--for all save the +indifferent were gone to Charlestown or elsewhere. I recall it dimly, +as a blaze of color passing: merrymaking, jesting, feasting,--a rare +contrast, I thought, to the sight I had beheld in Charlestown Bay but +a while before. Yet so runs the world,--strife at one man’s home, and +peace and contentment at his neighbor’s; sorrow here, and rejoicing not +a league away. + +Master Nicholas played one prank that evening that was near to costing +dear. My lady Temple made up a party for Temple Bow at the course, two +other coaches to come and some gentlemen riding. As Nick and I were +running through the paddock we came suddenly upon Mr. Harry Riddle and +a stout, swarthy gentleman standing together. The stout gentleman was +counting out big gold pieces in his hand and giving them to Mr. Riddle. + +“Lucky dog!” said the stout gentleman; “you’ll ride back with her, and +you’ve won all I’ve got.” And he dug Mr. Riddle in the ribs. + +“You’ll have it again when we play to-night, Darnley,” answered Mr. +Riddle, crossly. “And as for the seat in the coach, you are welcome to +it. That firebrand of a lad is on the front seat.” + +“D--n the lad,” said the stout gentleman. “I’ll take it, and you can +ride my horse. He’ll--he’ll carry you, I reckon.” His voice had a way of +cracking into a mellow laugh. + +At that Mr. Riddle went off in a towering bad humor, and afterwards I +heard him cursing the stout gentleman’s black groom as he mounted his +great horse. And then he cursed the horse as it reared and plunged, +while the stout gentleman stood at the coach door, cackling at his +discomfiture. The gentleman did ride home with Mrs. Temple, Nick going +into another coach. I afterwards discovered that the gentleman had +bribed him with a guinea. And Mr. Riddle more than once came near +running down my pony on his big charger, and he swore at me roundly, +too. + +That night there was a gay supper party in the big dining room at Temple +Bow. Nick and I looked on from the gallery window. It was a pretty +sight. The long mahogany board reflecting the yellow flames of the +candles, and spread with bright silver and shining dishes loaded with +dainties, the gentlemen and ladies in brilliant dress, the hurrying +servants,--all were of a new and strange world to me. And presently, +after the ladies were gone, the gentlemen tossed off their wine and +roared over their jokes, and followed into the drawing-room. This I +noticed, that only Mr. Harry Riddle sat silent and morose, and that he +had drunk more than the others. + +“Come, Davy,” said Nick to me, “let’s go and watch them again.” + +“But how?” I asked, for the drawing-room windows were up some distance +from the ground, and there was no gallery on that side. + +“I’ll show you,” said he, running into the garden. After searching +awhile in the dark, he found a ladder the gardener had left against a +tree; after much straining, we carried the ladder to the house and +set it up under one of the windows of the drawing-room. Then we both +clambered cautiously to the top and looked in. + +The company were at cards, silent, save for a low remark now and again. +The little tables were ranged along by the windows, and it chanced that +Mr. Harry Riddle sat so close to us that we could touch him. On his +right sat Mr. Darnley, the stout gentleman, and in the other seats two +ladies. Between Mr. Riddle and Mr. Darnley was a pile of silver and gold +pieces. There was not room for two of us in comfort at the top of the +ladder, so I gave place to Nick, and sat on a lower rung. Presently I +saw him raise himself, reach in, and duck quickly. + +“Feel that,” he whispered to me, chuckling and holding out his hand. + +It was full of money. + +“But that’s stealing, Nick,” I said, frightened. + +“Of course I’ll give it back,” he whispered indignantly. + +Instantly there came loud words and the scraping of chairs within the +room, and a woman’s scream. I heard Mr. Riddle’s voice say thickly, amid +the silence that followed:-- + +“Mr. Darnley, you’re a d--d thief, sir.” + +“You shall answer for this, when you are sober, sir,” said Mr. Darnley. + +Then there came more scraping of chairs, all the company talking +excitedly at once. Nick and I scrambled to the ground, and we did the +very worst thing we could possibly have done,--we took the ladder away. + +There was little sleep for me that night. I had first of all besought +Nick to go up into the drawing-room and give the money back. But some +strange obstinacy in him resisted. + +“‘Twill serve Harry well for what he did to-day,” said he. + +My next thought was to find Mr. Mason, but he was gone up the river to +visit a sick parishioner. I had seen enough of the world to know that +gentlemen fought for less than what had occurred in the drawing-room +that evening. And though I had neither love nor admiration for Mr. +Riddle, and though the stout gentleman was no friend of mine, I cared +not to see either of them killed for a prank. But Nick would not listen +to me, and went to sleep in the midst of my urgings. + +“Davy,” said he, pinching me, “do you know what you are?” + +“No,” said I. + +“You’re a granny,” he said. And that was the last word I could get out +of him. But I lay awake a long time, thinking. Breed had whiled away +for me one hot morning in Charlestown with an account of the gentry and +their doings, many of which he related in an awed whisper that I could +not understand. They were wild doings indeed to me. But strangest of all +seemed the duels, conducted with a decorum and ceremony as rigorous as +the law. + +“Did you ever see a duel, Breed?” I had asked. + +“Yessah,” said Breed, dramatically, rolling the whites of his eyes. + +“Where?” + +“Whah? Down on de riveh bank at Temple Bow in de ea’ly mo’nin’! Dey mos’ +commonly fights at de dawn.” + +Breed had also told me where he was in hiding at the time, and that was +what troubled me. Try as I would, I could not remember. It had sounded +like Clam Shell. That I recalled, and how Breed had looked out at the +sword-play through the cracks of the closed shutters, agonized between +fear of ghosts within and the drama without. At the first faint light +that came into our window I awakened Nick. + +“Listen,” I said; “do you know a place called Clam Shell?” + +He turned over, but I punched him persistently until he sat up. + +“What the deuce ails you, Davy?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “Have you +nightmare?” + +“Do you know a place called Clam Shell, down on the river bank, Nick?” + +“Why,” he replied, “you must be thinking of Cram’s Hell.” + +“What’s that?” I asked. + +“It’s a house that used to belong to Cram, who was an overseer. The +niggers hated him, and he was killed in bed by a big black nigger +chief from Africa. The niggers won’t go near the place. They say it’s +haunted.” + +“Get up,” said I; “we’re going there now.” + +Nick sprang out of bed and began to get into his clothes. + +“Is it a game?” he asked. + +“Yes.” He was always ready for a game. + +We climbed out of the window, and made our way in the mist through the +long, wet grass, Nick leading. He took a path through a dark forest +swamp, over logs that spanned the stagnant waters, and at length, +just as the mist was growing pearly in the light, we came out at a +tumble-down house that stood in an open glade by the river’s bank. + +“What’s to do now?” said Nick. + +“We must get into the house,” I answered. But I confess I didn’t care +for the looks of it. + +Nick stared at me. + +“Very good, Davy,” he said; “I’ll follow where you go.” + +It was a Saturday morning. Why I recall this I do not know. It has no +special significance. + +I tried the door. With a groan and a shriek it gave way, disclosing the +blackness inside. We started back involuntarily. I looked at Nick, and +Nick at me. He was very pale, and so must I have been. But such was the +respect we each held for the other’s courage that neither dared flinch. +And so I walked in, although it seemed as if my shirt was made of needle +points and my hair stood on end. The crackings of the old floor were to +me like the shots in Charlestown Bay. Our hearts beating wildly, we made +our way into a farther room. It was like walking into the beyond. + +“Is there a window here?” I asked Nick, my voice sounding like a shout. + +“Yes, ahead of us.” + +Groping for it, I suddenly received a shock that set me reeling. Human +nature could stand no more. We both turned tail and ran out of the house +as fast as we could, and stood in the wet grass, panting. Then shame +came. + +“Let’s open the window first,” I suggested. So we walked around the +house and pried the solid shutter from its fastenings. Then, gathering +our courage, we went in again at the door. In the dim light let into +the farther room we saw a four-poster bed, old and cheap, with ragged +curtains. It was this that I had struck in my groping. + +“The chief killed Cram there,” said Nick, in an awed voice, “in that +bed. What do you want to do here, Davy?” + +“Wait,” I said, though I had as little mind to wait as ever in my life. +“Stand here by the window.” + +We waited there. The mist rose. The sun peeped over the bank of dense +green forest and spread rainbow colors on the still waters of the river. +Now and again a fish broke, or a great bird swooped down and slit the +surface. A far-off snatch of melody came to our ears,--the slaves were +going to work. Nothing more. And little by little grave misgivings +gnawed at my soul of the wisdom of coming to this place. Doubtless there +were many other spots. + +“Davy,” said Nick, at last, “I’m sorry I took that money. What are we +here for?” + +“Hush!” I whispered; “do you hear anything?” + +I did, and distinctly. For I had been brought up in the forest. + +“I hear voices,” he said presently, “coming this way.” + +They were very clear to me by then. Emerging from the forest path +were five gentlemen. The leader, more plainly dressed than the others, +carried a leather case. Behind him was the stout figure of Mr. Darnley, +his face solemn; and last of all came Mr. Harry Riddle, very pale, but +cutting the tops of the long grass with a switch. Nick seized my arm. + +“They are going to fight,” said he. + +“Yes,” I replied, “and we are here to stop them, now.” + +“No, not now,” he said, holding me still. “We’ll have some more fun out +of this yet.” + +“Fun?” I echoed. + +“Yes,” he said excitedly. “Leave it to me. I shan’t let them fight.” + +And that instant we changed generals, David giving place to Nicholas. + +Mr. Riddle retired with one gentleman to a side of the little patch of +grass, and Mr. Darnley and a friend to another. The fifth gentleman took +a position halfway between the two, and, opening the leather case, laid +it down on the grass, where its contents glistened. + +“That’s Dr. Ball,” whispered Nick. And his voice shook with excitement. + +Mr. Riddle stripped off his coat and waistcoat and ruffles, and his +sword-belt, and Mr. Darnley did the same. Both gentlemen drew their +swords and advanced to the middle of the lawn, and stood opposite one +another, with flowing linen shirts open at the throat, and bared heads. +They were indeed a contrast. Mr. Riddle, tall and white, with closed +lips, glared at his opponent. Mr. Darnley cut a merrier figure,--rotund +and flushed, with fat calves and short arms, though his countenance was +sober enough. All at once the two were circling their swords in the air, +and then Nick had flung open the shutter and leaped through the window, +and was running and shouting towards the astonished gentlemen, all of +whom wheeled to face him. He jingled as he ran. + +“What in the devil’s name now?” cried Mr. Riddle, angrily. “Here’s this +imp again.” + +Nicholas stopped in front of him, and, thrusting his hand in his +breeches pocket, fished out a handful of gold and silver, which he held +out to the confounded Mr. Riddle. + +“Harry,” said he, “here’s something of yours I found last night.” + +“You found?” echoed Mr. Riddle, in a strange voice, amidst a dead +silence. “You found where?” + +“On the table beside you.” + +“And where the deuce were you?” Mr. Riddle demanded. + +“In the window behind you,” said Nick, calmly. + +This piece of information, to Mr. Riddle’s plain discomfiture, was +greeted with a roar of laughter, Mr. Darnley himself laughing loudest. +Nor were these gentlemen satisfied with that. They crowded around Mr. +Riddle and slapped him on the back, Mr. Darnley joining in with the +rest. And presently Mr. Riddle flung away his sword, and laughed, too, +giving his hand to Mr. Darnley. + +At length Mr. Darnley turned to Nick, who had stood all this while +behind them, unmoved. + +“My friend,” said he, seriously, “such is your regard for human life, +you will probably one day be a pirate or an outlaw. This time we’ve +had a laugh. The next time somebody will be weeping. I wish I were your +father.” + +“I wish you were,” said Nick. + +This took Mr. Darnley’s breath. He glanced at the other gentlemen, who +returned his look significantly. He laid his hand kindly on the lad’s +head. + +“Nick,” said he, “I wish to God I were your father.” + +After that they all went home, very merry, to breakfast, Nick and I +coming after them. Nick was silent until we reached the house. + +“Davy,” said he, then, “how old are you?” + +“Ten,” I answered. “How old did you believe me?” + +“Eighty,” said he. + +The next day, being Sunday, we all gathered in the little church to hear +Mr. Mason preach. Nick and I sat in the high box pew of the family with +Mrs. Temple, who paid not the least attention to the sermon. As for me, +the rhythm of it held me in fascination. Mr. Mason had written it out +and that afternoon read over this part of it to Nick. The quotation I +recall, having since read it many times, and the gist of it was in this +wise:-- + +“And he said unto him, ‘What thou wilt have thou wilt have, despite +the sin of it. Blessed are the stolid, and thrice cursed he who hath +imagination,--for that imagination shall devour him. And in thy life a +sin shall be presented unto thee with a great longing. God, who is in +heaven, gird thee for that struggle, my son, for it will surely come. +That it may be said of you, ‘Behold, I have refined thee, but not with +silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.’ Seven days +shalt thou wrestle with thy soul; seven nights shall evil haunt thee, +and how thou shalt come forth from that struggle no man may know.’” + + + +CHAPTER VI. MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES + +A week passed, and another Sunday came,--a Sunday so still and hot and +moist that steam seemed to rise from the heavy trees,--an idle day for +master and servant alike. A hush was in the air, and a presage of we +knew not what. It weighed upon my spirits, and even Nick’s, and we +wandered restlessly under the trees, seeking for distraction. + +About two o’clock a black line came on the horizon, and slowly crept +higher until it broke into giant, fantastic shapes. Mutterings arose, +but the sun shone hot as ever. + +“We’re to have a hurricane,” said Nick. “I wish we might have it and be +done with it.” + +At five the sun went under. I remember that Madame was lolling listless +in the garden, daintily arrayed in fine linen, trying to talk to Mr. +Mason, when a sound startled us. It was the sound of swift hoof beats on +the soft drive. + +Mrs. Temple got up, an unusual thing. Perchance she was expecting a +message from some of the gentlemen; or else she may well have been +tired of Mr. Mason. Nick and I were before her, and, running through the +house, arrived at the portico in time to see a negro ride up on a horse +covered with lather. + +It was the same negro who had fetched me hither from Mr. Lowndes. And +when I saw him my heart stood still lest he had brought news of my +father. + +“What’s to do, boy?” cried Nicholas to him. + +The boy held in his hand a letter with a great red seal. + +“Fo’ Mistis Temple,” he said, and, looking at me queerly, he took off +his cap as he jumped from the horse. Mistress Temple herself having +arrived, he handed her the letter. She took it, and broke the seal +carelessly. + +“Oh,” she said, “it’s only from Mr. Lowndes. I wonder what he wishes +now.” + +Every moment of her reading was for me an agony, and she read slowly. +The last words she spoke aloud:-- + +“‘If you do not wish the lad, send him to me, as Kate is very fond of +him.’ So Kate is very fond of him,” she repeated. And handing the letter +to Mr. Mason, she added, “Tell him, Parson.” + +The words burned into my soul and seared it. And to this day I tremble +with anger as I think of them. The scene comes before me: the sky, the +darkened portico, and Nicholas running after his mother crying: “Oh, +mamma, how could you! How could you!” + +Mr. Mason bent over me in compassion, and smoothed my hair. + +“David,” said he, in a thick voice, “you are a brave boy, David. You +will need all your courage now, my son. May God keep your nature sweet!” + +He led me gently into the arbor and told me how, under Captain Baskin, +the detachment had been ambushed by the Cherokees; and how my father, +with Ensign Calhoun and another, had been killed, fighting bravely. +The rest of the company had cut their way through and reached the +settlements after terrible hardships. + +I was left an orphan. + +I shall not dwell here on the bitterness of those moments. We have all +known sorrows in our lives,--great sorrows. The clergyman was a wise +man, and did not strive to comfort me with words. But he sat there +under the leaves with his arm about me until a blinding bolt split the +blackness of the sky and the thunder rent our ears, and a Caribbean +storm broke over Temple Bow with all the fury of the tropics. Then he +led me through the drenching rain into the house, nor heeded the wet +himself on his Sunday coat. + +A great anger stayed me in my sorrow. I would no longer tarry under Mrs. +Temple’s roof, though the world without were a sea or a desert. The +one resolution to escape rose stronger and stronger within me, and I +determined neither to eat nor sleep until I had got away. The thought +of leaving Nick was heavy indeed; and when he ran to me in the dark hall +and threw his arms around me, it needed all my strength to keep from +crying aloud. + +“Davy,” he said passionately, “Davy, you mustn’t mind what she says. +She never means anything she says--she never cares for anything save her +pleasure. You and I will stay here until we are old enough to run away +to Kentucky. Davy! Answer me, Davy!” + +I could not, try as I would. There were no words that would come with +honesty. But I pulled him down on the mahogany settle near the door +which led into the back gallery, and there we sat huddled together in +silence, while the storm raged furiously outside and the draughts banged +the great doors of the house. In the lightning flashes I saw Nick’s +face, and it haunted me afterwards through many years of wandering. On +it was written a sorrow for me greater than my own sorrow. For God had +given to this lad every human passion and compassion. + +The storm rolled away with the night, and Mammy came through the hall +with a candle. + +“Whah is you, Marse Nick? Whah is you, honey? You’ suppah’s ready.” + +And so we went into our little dining room, but I would not eat. The +good old negress brushed her eyes with her apron as she pressed a +cake upon me she had made herself, for she had grown fond of me. And +presently we went away silently to bed. + +It was a long, long time before Nick’s breathing told me that he was +asleep. He held me tightly clutched to him, and I know that he feared I +would leave him. The thought of going broke my heart, but I never once +wavered in my resolve, and I lay staring into the darkness, pondering +what to do. I thought of good Mr. Lowndes and his wife, and I decided +to go to Charlestown. Some of my boyish motives come back to me now: +I should be near Nick; and even at that age,--having lived a life of +self-reliance,--I thought of gaining an education and of rising to a +place of trust. Yes, I would go to Mr. Lowndes, and ask him to let me +work for him and so earn my education. + +With a heavy spirit I crept out of bed, slowly disengaging Nick’s arm +lest he should wake. He turned over and sighed in his sleep. Carefully +I dressed myself, and after I was dressed I could not refrain from +slipping to the bedside to bend over him once again,--for he was the +only one in my life with whom I had found true companionship. Then I +climbed carefully out of the window, and so down the corner of the house +to the ground. + +It was starlight, and a waning moon hung in the sky. I made my way +through the drive between the black shadows of the forest, and came at +length to the big gates at the entrance, locked for the night. A strange +thought of their futility struck me as I climbed the rail fence beside +them, and pushed on into the main road, the mud sucking under my shoes +as I went. As I try now to cast my memory back I can recall no fear, +only a vast sense of loneliness, and the very song of it seemed to be +sung in never ending refrain by the insects of the night. I had been +alone in the mountains before. I have crossed great strips of wilderness +since, but always there was love to go back to. Then I was leaving the +only being in the world that remained to me. + +I must have walked two hours or more before I came to the mire of a +cross-road, and there I stood in a quandary of doubt as to which side +led to Charlestown. + +As I lingered a light began to tremble in the heavens. A cock crew in +the distance. I sat down on a fallen log to rest. But presently, as the +light grew, I heard shouts which drew nearer and deeper and brought me +to my feet in an uncertainty of expectation. Next came the rattling of +chains, the scramble of hoofs in the mire, and here was a wagon with +a big canvas cover. Beside the straining horses was a great, burly man +with a red beard, cracking his long whip, and calling to the horses in a +strange tongue. He stopped still beside his panting animals when he saw +me, his high boots sunk in the mud. + +“Gut morning, poy,” he said, wiping his red face with his sleeve; “what +you do here?” + +“I am going to Charlestown,” I answered. + +“Ach!” he cried, “dot is pad. Mein poy, he run avay. You are ein gut +poy, I know. I vill pay ein gut price to help me vit mein wagon--ja.” + +“Where are you going?” I demanded, with a sudden wavering. + +“Up country--pack country. You know der Proad River--yes?” + +No, I did not. But a longing came upon me for the old backwoods life, +with its freedom and self-reliance, and a hatred for this steaming +country of heat and violent storms, and artificiality and pomp. And I +had a desire, even at that age, to make my own way in the world. + +“What will you give me?” I asked. + +At that he put his finger to his nose. + +“Thruppence py the day.” + +I shook my head. He looked at me queerly. + +“How old you pe,--twelve, yes?” + +Now I had no notion of telling him. So I said: “Is this the Charlestown +road?” + +“Fourpence!” he cried, “dot is riches.” + +“I will go for sixpence,” I answered. + +“Mein Gott!” he cried, “sixpence. Dot is robbery.” But seeing me +obdurate, he added: “I vill give it, because ein poy I must have. Vat is +your name,--Tavid? You are ein sharp poy, Tavid.” + +And so I went with him. + +In writing a biography, the relative value of days and years should +hold. There are days which count in space for years, and years for days. +I spent the time on the whole happily with this Dutchman, whose name +was Hans Köppel. He talked merrily save when he spoke of the war against +England, and then contemptuously, for he was a bitter English partisan. +And in contrast to this he would dwell for hours on a king he called +Friedrich der Grosse, and a war he waged that was a war; and how this +mighty king had fought a mighty queen at Rossbach and Leuthen in his own +country,--battles that were battles. + +“And you were there, Hans?” I asked him once. + +“Ja,” he said, “but I did not stay.” + +“You ran away?” + +“Ja,” Hans would answer, laughing, “run avay. I love peace, Tavid. Dot +is vy I come here, and now,” bitterly, “and now ve haf var again once.” + +I would say nothing; but I must have looked my disapproval, for he went +on to explain that in Saxe-Gotha, where he was born, men were made to +fight whether they would or no; and they were stolen from their wives at +night by soldiers of the great king, or lured away by fair promises. + +Travelling with incredible slowness, in due time we came to a county +called Orangeburg, where all were Dutchmen like Hans, and very few spoke +English. And they all thought like Hans, and loved peace, and hated +the Congress. On Sundays, as we lay over at the taverns, these would +be filled with a rollicking crowd of fiddlers and dancers, quaintly +dressed, the women bringing their children and babies. At such times +Hans would be drunk, and I would have to feed the tired horses and mount +watch over the cargo. I had many adventures, but none worth the telling +here. And at length we came to Hans’s farm, in a prettily rolling +country on the Broad River. Hans’s wife spoke no English at all, nor +did the brood of children running about the house. I had small fancy +for staying in such a place, and so Hans paid me two crowns for my three +weeks’ service; I think, with real regret, for labor was scarce in those +parts, and though I was young, I knew how to work. And I could at least +have guided his plough in the furrow and cared for his cattle. + +It was the first money I had earned in my life, and a prouder day than +many I have had since. + +For the convenience of travellers passing that way, Hans kept a +tavern,--if it could have been dignified by such a name. It was in truth +merely a log house with shakedowns, and stood across the rude road from +his log farmhouse. And he gave me leave to sleep there and to work for +my board until I cared to leave. It so chanced that on the second day +after my arrival a pack-train came along, guided by a nettlesome old man +and a strong, black-haired lass of sixteen or thereabouts. The old man, +whose name was Ripley, wore a nut-brown hunting shirt trimmed with red +cotton; and he had no sooner slipped the packs from his horses than he +began to rail at Hans, who stood looking on. + +“You damned Dutchmen be all Tories, and worse,” he cried; “you stay here +and till your farms while our boys are off in the hill towns fighting +Cherokees. I wish the devils had every one of your fat sculps. Polly +Ann, water the nags.” + +Hans replied to this sally with great vigor, lapsing into Dutch. Polly +Ann led the scrawny ponies to the trough, but her eyes snapped with +merriment as she listened. She was a wonderfully comely lass, despite +her loose cotton gown and poke-bonnet and the shoepacks on her feet. +She had blue eyes, the whitest, strongest of teeth, and the rosiest of +faces. + +“Gran’pa hates a Dutchman wuss’n pizen,” she said to me. “So do I. We’ve +all been burned out and sculped up river--and they never give us so much +as a man or a measure of corn.” + +I helped her feed the animals, and tether them, and loose their bells +for the night, and carry the packs under cover. + +“All the boys is gone to join Rutherford and lam the Indians,” she +continued, “so Gran’pa and I had to go to the settlements. There wahn’t +any one else. What’s your name?” she demanded suddenly. + +I told her. + +She sat down on a log at the corner of the house, and pulled me down +beside her. + +“And whar be you from?” + +I told her. It was impossible to look into her face and not tell her. +She listened eagerly, now with compassion, and now showing her white +teeth in amusement. And when I had done, much to my discomfiture, she +seized me in her strong arms and kissed me. + +“Poor Davy,” she cried, “you ain’t got a home. You shall come home with +us.” + +Catching me by the hand, she ran like a deer across the road to where +her grandfather was still quarrelling violently with Hans, and pulled +him backward by the skirts of his hunting shirt. I looked for another +and mightier explosion from the old backwoodsman, but to my astonishment +he seemed to forget Hans’s existence, and turned and smiled on her +benevolently. + +“Polly Ann,” said he, “what be you about now?” + +“Gran’pa,” said she, “here’s Davy Trimble, who’s a good boy, and his pa +is just killed by the Cherokees along with Baskin, and he wants work and +a home, and he’s comin’ along with us.” + +“All right, David,” answered Mr. Ripley, mildly, “ef Polly Ann says so, +you kin come. Whar was you raised?” + +I told him on the upper Yadkin. + +“You don’t tell me,” said he. “Did ye ever know Dan’l Boone?” + +“I did, indeed, sir,” I answered, my face lighting up. “Can you tell me +where he is now?” + +“He’s gone to Kaintuckee, them new settlements, fer good. And ef I +wasn’t eighty years old, I’d go thar, too.” + +“I reckon I’ll go thar when I’m married,” said Polly Ann, and blushed +redder than ever. Drawing me to her, she said, “I’ll take you, too, +Davy.” + +“When you marry that wuthless Tom McChesney,” said her grandfather, +testily. + +“He’s not wuthless,” said Polly, hotly. “He’s the best man in +Rutherford’s army. He’ll git more sculps then any of ‘em,--you see.” + +“Tavy is ein gut poy,” Hans put in, for he had recovered his composure. +“I wish much he stay mit me.” + +As for me, Polly Ann never consulted me on the subject--nor had she need +to. I would have followed her to kingdom come, and at the thought of +reaching the mountains my heart leaped with joy. We all slept in the one +flea-infested, windowless room of the “tavern” that night; and before +dawn I was up and untethered the horses, and Polly Ann and I together +lifted the two bushels of alum salt on one of the beasts and the +ploughshare on the other. By daylight we had left Hans and his farm +forever. + +I can see the lass now, as she strode along the trace by the flowing +river, through sunlight and shadow, straight and supple and strong. +Sometimes she sang like a bird, and the forest rang. Sometimes she would +make fun of her grandfather or of me; and again she would be silent for +an hour at a time, staring ahead, and then I knew she was thinking of +that Tom McChesney. She would wake from those reveries with a laugh, and +give me a push to send me rolling down a bank. + +“What’s the matter, Davy? You look as solemn as a wood-owl. What a +little wiseacre you be!” + +Once I retorted, “You were thinking of that Tom McChesney.” + +“Ay, that she was, I’ll warrant,” snapped her grandfather. + +Polly Ann replied, with a merry peal of laughter, “You are both jealous +of Tom--both of you. But, Davy, when you see him you’ll love him as much +as I do.” + +“I’ll not,” I said sturdily. + +“He’s a man to look upon--” + +“He’s a rip-roarer,” old man Ripley put in. “Ye’re daft about him.” + +“That I am,” said Polly, flushing and subsiding; “but he’ll not know +it.” + +As we rose into the more rugged country we passed more than one charred +cabin that told its silent story of Indian massacre. Only on the +scattered hill farms women and boys and old men were working in the +fields, all save the scalawags having gone to join Rutherford. There +were plenty of these around the taverns to make eyes at Polly Ann and +open love to her, had she allowed them; but she treated them in return +to such scathing tirades that they were glad to desist--all but one. He +must have been an escaped redemptioner, for he wore jauntily a swanskin +three-cornered hat and stained breeches of a fine cloth. He was a bold, +vain fellow. + +“My beauty,” says he, as we sat at supper, “silver and Wedgwood better +become you than pewter and a trencher.” + +“And I reckon a rope would sit better on your neck than a ruff,” + retorted Polly Ann, while the company shouted with laughter. But he was +not the kind to become discomfited. + +“I’d give a guinea to see you in silk. But I vow your hair looks better +as it is.” + +“Not so yours,” said she, like lightning; “‘twould look better to me +hanging on the belt of one of them red devils.” + +In the morning, when he would have lifted the pack of alum salt, Polly +Ann gave him a push that sent him sprawling. But she did it in such good +nature withal that the fellow mistook her. He scrambled to his feet, +flung his arm about her waist, and kissed her. Whereupon I hit him with +a sapling, and he staggered and let her go. + +“You imp of hell!” he cried, rubbing the bump. He made a vicious dash at +me that boded no good, but I slipped behind the hominy block; and Polly +Ann, who was like a panther on her feet, dashed at him and gave him a +buffet in the cheek that sent him reeling again. + +After that we were more devoted friends than ever. + +We travelled slowly, day by day, until I saw the mountains lift blue +against the western sky, and the sight of them was like home once more. +I loved them; and though I thought with sadness of my father, I was on +the whole happier with Polly Ann than I had been in the lonely cabin on +the Yadkin. Her spirits flagged a little as she drew near home, but old +Mr. Ripley’s rose. + +“There’s Burr’s,” he would say, “and O’Hara’s and Williamson’s,” +marking the cabins set amongst the stump-dotted corn-fields. “And thar,” +sweeping his hand at a blackened heap of logs lying on the stones, +“thar’s whar Nell Tyler and her baby was sculped.” + +“Poor Nell,” said Polly Ann, the tears coming into her eyes as she +turned away. + +“And Jim Tyler was killed gittin’ to the fort. He can’t say I didn’t +warn him.” + +“I reckon he’ll never say nuthin’, now,” said Polly Ann. + +It was in truth a dismal sight,--the shapeless timbers, the corn, +planted with such care, choked with weeds, and the poor utensils of +the little family scattered and broken before the door-sill. These same +Indians had killed my father; and there surged up in my breast that +hatred of the painted race felt by every backwoods boy in my time. + +Towards the end of the day the trace led into a beautiful green valley, +and in the middle of it was a stream shining in the afternoon sun. +Then Polly Ann fell entirely silent. And presently, as the shadows grew +purple, we came to a cabin set under some spreading trees on a knoll +where a woman sat spinning at the door, three children playing at her +feet. She stared at us so earnestly that I looked at Polly Ann, and saw +her redden and pale. The children were the first to come shouting at us, +and then the woman dropped her wool and ran down the slope straight into +Polly Ann’s arms. Mr. Ripley halted the horses with a grunt. + +The two women drew off and looked into each other’s faces. Then Polly +Ann dropped her eyes. + +“Have ye--?” she said, and stopped. + +“No, Polly Ann, not one word sence Tom and his Pa went. What do folks +say in the settlements?” + +Polly Ann turned up her nose. + +“They don’t know nuthin’ in the settlements,” she replied. + +“I wrote to Tom and told him you was gone,” said the older woman. “I +knowed he’d wanter hear.” + +And she looked meaningly at Polly Ann, who said nothing. The children +had been pulling at the girl’s skirts, and suddenly she made a dash at +them. They scattered, screaming with delight, and she after them. + +“Howdy, Mr. Ripley?” said the woman, smiling a little. + +“Howdy, Mis’ McChesney?” said the old man, shortly. + +So this was the mother of Tom, of whom I had heard so much. She was, in +truth, a motherly-looking person, her fleshy face creased with strong +character. + +“Who hev ye brought with ye?” she asked, glancing at me. + +“A lad Polly Ann took a shine to in the settlements,” said the old +man. “Polly Ann! Polly Ann!” he cried sharply, “we’ll hev to be gittin’ +home.” And then, as though an afterthought (which it really was not), he +added, “How be ye for salt, Mis’ McChesney?” + +“So-so,” said she. + +“Wal, I reckon a little might come handy,” said he. And to the girl who +stood panting beside him, “Polly, give Mis’ McChesney some salt.” + +Polly Ann did, and generously,--the salt they had carried with so much +labor threescore and ten miles from the settlements. Then we took our +departure, the girl turning for one last look at Tom’s mother, and at +the cabin where he had dwelt. We were all silent the rest of the way, +climbing the slender trail through the forest over the gap into the next +valley. For I was jealous of Tom. I am not ashamed to own it now. + +In the smoky haze that rises just before night lets her curtain fall, we +descended the farther slope, and came to Mr. Ripley’s cabin. + + +CHAPTER VII. IN SIGHT OF THE BLUE WALL ONCE MORE + +Polly Ann lived alone with her grandfather, her father and mother having +been killed by Indians some years before. There was that bond between +us, had we needed one. Her father had built the cabin, a large one with +a loft and a ladder climbing to it, and a sleeping room and a kitchen. +The cabin stood on a terrace that nature had levelled, looking across +a swift and shallow stream towards the mountains. There was the truck +patch, with its yellow squashes and melons, and cabbages and beans, +where Polly Ann and I worked through the hot mornings; and the corn +patch, with the great stumps of the primeval trees standing in it. All +around us the silent forest threw its encircling arms, spreading up the +slopes, higher and higher, to crown the crests with the little pines and +hemlocks and balsam fir. + +There had been no meat save bacon since the McChesneys had left, for of +late game had become scarce, and old Mr. Ripley was too feeble to go on +the long hunts. So one day, when Polly Ann was gone across the ridge, +I took down the long rifle from the buckhorns over the hearth, and the +hunting knife and powder-horn and pouch beside it, and trudged up the +slope to a game trail I discovered. All day I waited, until the forest +light grew gray, when a buck came and stood over the water, raising +his head and stamping from time to time. I took aim in the notch of a +sapling, brought him down, cleaned and skinned and dragged him into the +water, and triumphantly hauled one of his hams down the trail. Polly Ann +gave a cry of joy when she saw me. + +“Davy,” she exclaimed, “little Davy, I reckoned you was gone away from +us. Gran’pa, here is Davy back, and he has shot a deer.” + +“You don’t say?” replied Mr. Ripley, surveying me and my booty with a +grim smile. + +“How could you, Gran’pa?” said Polly Ann, reproachfully. + +“Wal,” said Mr. Ripley, “the gun was gone, an’ Davy. I reckon he ain’t +sich a little rascal after all.” + +Polly Ann and I went up the next day, and brought the rest of the buck +merrily homeward. After that I became the hunter of the family; but +oftener than not I returned tired and empty-handed, and ravenously +hungry. Indeed, our chief game was rattlesnakes, which we killed by the +dozens in the corn and truck patches. + +As Polly Ann and I went about our daily chores, we would talk of Tom +McChesney. Often she would sit idle at the hand-mill, a light in her +eyes that I would have given kingdoms for. One ever memorable morning, +early in the crisp autumn, a grizzled man strode up the trail, and Polly +Ann dropped the ear of corn she was husking and stood still, her bosom +heaving. It was Mr. McChesney, Tom’s father--alone. + +“No, Polly Ann,” he cried, “there ain’t nuthin’ happened. We’ve laid +out the hill towns. But the Virginny men wanted a guide, and Tom +volunteered, and so he ain’t come back with Rutherford’s boys.” + +Polly Ann seized him by the shoulders, and looked him in the face. + +“Be you tellin’ the truth, Warner McChesney?” she said in a hard voice. + +“As God hears me,” said Warner McChesney, solemnly. “He sent ye this.” + +He drew from the bosom of his hunting shirt a soiled piece of birch +bark, scrawled over with rude writing. Polly seized it, and flew into +the house. + +The hickories turned a flaunting yellow, the oaks a copper-red, the +leaves crackled on the Catawba vines, and still Tom McChesney did not +come. The Cherokees were homeless and houseless and subdued,--their hill +towns burned, their corn destroyed, their squaws and children wanderers. +One by one the men of the Grape Vine settlement returned to save what +they might of their crops, and plough for the next year--Burrs, O’Haras, +Williamsons, and Winns. Yes, Tom had gone to guide the Virginia boys. +All had tales to tell of his prowess, and how he had saved Rutherford’s +men from ambush at the risk of his life. To all of which Polly Ann +listened with conscious pride, and replied with sallies. + +“I reckon I don’t care if he never comes back,” she would cry. “If he +likes the Virginny boys more than me, there be others here I fancy more +than him.” + +Whereupon the informant, if he were not bound in matrimony, would begin +to make eyes at Polly Ann. Or, if he were bolder, and went at the wooing +in the more demonstrative fashion of the backwoods--Polly Ann had a way +of hitting him behind the ear with most surprising effect. + +One windy morning when the leaves were kiting over the valley we were +getting ready for pounding hominy, when a figure appeared on the trail. +Steadying the hood of her sunbonnet with her hand, the girl gazed long +and earnestly, and a lump came into my throat at the thought that the +comer might be Tom McChesney. Polly Ann sat down at the block again in +disgust. + +“It’s only Chauncey Dike,” she said. + +“Who’s Chauncey Dike?” I asked. + +“He reckons he’s a buck,” was all that Polly Ann vouchsafed. + +Chauncey drew near with a strut. He had very long black hair, a new +coonskin cap with a long tassel, and a new blue-fringed hunting shirt. +What first caught my eye was a couple of withered Indian scalps that +hung by their long locks from his girdle. Chauncey Dike was certainly +handsome. + +“Wal, Polly Ann, are ye tired of hanging out fer Tom?” he cried, when a +dozen paces away. + +“I wouldn’t be if you was the only one left ter choose,” Polly Ann +retorted. + +Chauncey Dike stopped in his tracks and haw-hawed with laughter. But I +could see that he was not very much pleased. + +“Wal,” said he, “I ‘low ye won’t see Tom very soon. He’s gone to +Kaintuckee.” + +“Has he?” said Polly Ann, with brave indifference. + +“He met a gal on the trail--a blazin’ fine gal,” said Chauncey Dike. +“She was goin’ to Kaintuckee. And Tom--he ‘lowed he’d go ‘long.” + +Polly Ann laughed, and fingered the withered pieces of skin at +Chauncey’s girdle. + +“Did Tom give you them sculps?” she asked innocently. + +Chauncey drew up stiffly. + +“Who? Tom McChesney? I reckon he ain’t got none to give. This here’s +from a big brave at Noewee, whar the Virginny boys was surprised.” And +he held up the one with the longest tuft. “He’d liked to tomahawked me +out’n the briers, but I throwed him fust.” + +“Shucks,” said Polly Ann, pounding the corn, “I reckon you found him +dead.” + +But that night, as we sat before the fading red of the backlog, the old +man dozing in his chair, Polly Ann put her hand on mine. + +“Davy,” she said softly, “do you reckon he’s gone to Kaintuckee?” + +How could I tell? + +The days passed. The wind grew colder, and one subdued dawn we awoke to +find that the pines had fantastic white arms, and the stream ran black +between white banks. All that day, and for many days after, the snow +added silently to the thickness of its blanket, and winter was upon us. +It was a long winter and a rare one. Polly Ann sat by the little window +of the cabin, spinning the flax into linsey-woolsey. And she made a +hunting shirt for her grandfather, and another little one for me which +she fitted with careful fingers. But as she spun, her wheel made the +only music--for Polly Ann sang no more. Once I came on her as she was +thrusting the tattered piece of birch bark into her gown, but she never +spoke to me more of Tom McChesney. When, from time to time, the snow +melted on the hillsides, I sometimes surprised a deer there and shot him +with the heavy rifle. And so the months wore on till spring. + +The buds reddened and popped, and the briers grew pink and white. +Through the lengthening days we toiled in the truck patch, but always +as I bent to my work Polly Ann’s face saddened me--it had once been so +bright, and it should have been so at this season. Old Mr. Ripley grew +querulous and savage and hard to please. In the evening, when my work +was done, I often lay on the banks of the stream staring at the high +ridge (its ragged edges the setting sun burned a molten gold), and the +thought grew on me that I might make my way over the mountains into that +land beyond, and find Tom for Polly Ann. I even climbed the watershed to +the east as far as the O’Hara farm, to sound that big Irishman about the +trail. For he had once gone to Kentucky, to come back with his scalp +and little besides. O’Hara, with his brogue, gave me such a terrifying +notion of the horrors of the Wilderness Trail that I threw up all +thought of following it alone, and so I resolved to wait until I heard +of some settlers going over it. But none went from the Grape Vine +settlement that spring. + +War was a-waging in Kentucky. The great Indian nations were making a +frantic effort to drive from their hunting grounds the little bands of +settlers there, and these were in sore straits. + +So I waited, and gave Polly Ann no hint of my intention. + +Sometimes she herself would slip away across the notch to see Mrs. +McChesney and the children. She never took me with her on these +journeys, but nearly always when she came back at nightfall her eyes +would be red, and I knew the two women had been weeping together. There +came a certain hot Sunday in July when she went on this errand, and +Grandpa Ripley having gone to spend the day at old man Winn’s, I was +left alone. I remember I sat on the squared log of the door-step, +wondering whether, if I were to make my way to Salisbury, I could fall +in with a party going across the mountains into Kentucky. And wondering, +likewise, what Polly Ann would do without me. I was cleaning the long +rifle,--a labor I loved,--when suddenly I looked up, startled to see a +man standing in front of me. How he got there I know not. I stared at +him. He was a young man, very spare and very burned, with bright red +hair and blue eyes that had a kind of laughter in them, and yet were +sober. His buckskin hunting shirt was old and stained and frayed by the +briers, and his leggins and moccasins were wet from fording the stream. +He leaned his chin on the muzzle of his gun. + +“Folks live here, sonny?” said he. + +I nodded. + +“Whar be they?” + +“Out,” said I. + +“Comin’ back?” he asked. + +“To-night,” said I, and began to rub the lock. + +“Be they good folks?” said he. + +“Yes,” I answered. + +“Wal,” said he, making a move to pass me, “I reckon I’ll slip in and +take what I’ve a mind to, and move on.” + +Now I liked the man’s looks very much, but I did not know what he would +do. So I got in his way and clutched the gun. It was loaded, but not +primed, and I emptied a little powder from the flask in the pan. At that +he grinned. + +“You’re a good boy, sonny,” he said. “Do you reckon you could hit me if +you shot?” + +“Yes,” I said. But I knew I could scarcely hold the gun out straight +without a rest. + +“And do you reckon I could hit you fust?” he asked. + +At that I laughed, and he laughed. + +“What’s your name?” + +I told him. + +“Who do you love best in all the world?” said he. + +It was a queer question. But I told him Polly Ann Ripley. + +“Oh!” said he, after a pause. “And what’s she like?” + +“She’s beautiful,” I said; “she’s been very kind to me. She took me home +with her from the settlements when I had no place to go. She’s good.” + +“And a sharp tongue, I reckon,” said he. + +“When people need it,” I answered. + +“Oh!” said he. And presently, “She’s very merry, I’ll warrant.” + +“She used to be, but that’s gone by,” I said. + +“Gone by!” said he, his voice falling, “is she sick?” + +“No,” said I, “she’s not sick, she’s sad.” + +“Sad?” said he. It was then I noticed that he had a cut across his +temple, red and barely healed. “Do you reckon your Polly Ann would give +me a little mite to eat?” + +This time I jumped up, ran into the house, and got down some corn-pone +and a leg of turkey. For that was the rule of the border. He took them +in great bites, but slowly, and he picked the bones clean. + +“I had breakfast yesterday morning,” said he, “about forty mile from +here.” + +“And nothing since?” said I, in astonishment. + +“Fresh air and water and exercise,” said he, and sat down on the grass. +He was silent for a long while, and so was I. For a notion had struck +me, though I hardly dared to give it voice. + +“Are you going away?” I asked at last. + +He laughed. + +“Why?” said he. + +“If you were going to Kaintuckee--” I began, and faltered. For he stared +at me very hard. + +“Kaintuckee!” he said. “There’s a country! But it’s full of blood and +Injun varmints now. Would you leave Polly Ann and go to Kaintuckee?” + +“Are you going?” I said. + +“I reckon I am,” he said, “as soon as I kin.” + +“Will you take me?” I asked, breathless. “I--I won’t be in your way, and +I can walk--and--shoot game.” + +At that he bent back his head and laughed, which made me redden with +anger. Then he turned and looked at me more soberly. + +“You’re a queer little piece,” said he. “Why do you want to go thar?” + +“I want to find Tom McChesney for Polly Ann,” I said. + +He turned away his face. + +“A good-for-nothing scamp,” said he. + +“I have long thought so,” I said. + +He laughed again. It was a laugh that made me want to join him, had I +not been irritated. + +“And he’s a scamp, you say. And why?” + +“Else he would be coming back to Polly Ann.” + +“Mayhap he couldn’t,” said the stranger. + +“Chauncey Dike said he went off with another girl, into Kaintuckee.” + +“And what did Polly Ann say to that?” the stranger demanded. + +“She asked Chauncey if Tom McChesney gave him the scalps he had on his +belt.” + +At that he laughed in good earnest, and slapped his breech-clouts +repeatedly. All at once he stopped, and stared up the ridge. + +“Is that Polly Ann?” said he. + +I looked, and far up the trail was a speck. + +“I reckon it is,” I answered, and wondered at his eyesight. “She travels +over to see Tom McChesney’s Ma once in a while.” + +He looked at me queerly. + +“I reckon I’ll go here and sit down, Davy,” said he, “so’s not to be in +the way.” And he walked around the corner of the house. + +Polly Ann sauntered down the trail slowly, as was her wont after such +an occasion. And the man behind the house twice whispered with extreme +caution, “How near is she?” before she came up the path. + +“Have you been lonesome, Davy?” she said. + +“No,” said I, “I’ve had a visitor.” + +“It’s not Chauncey Dike again?” she said. “He doesn’t dare show his face +here.” + +“No, it wasn’t Chauncey. This man would like to have seen you, Polly +Ann. He--” here I braced myself,--“he knew Tom McChesney. He called him +a good-for-nothing scamp.” + +“He did--did he!” said Polly Ann, very low. “I reckon it was good for +him I wasn’t here.” + +I grinned. + +“What are you laughing at, you little monkey,” said Polly Ann, crossly. +“‘Pon my soul, sometimes I reckon you are a witch.” + +“Polly Ann,” I said, “did I ever do anything but good to you?” + +She made a dive at me, and before I could escape caught me in her strong +young arms and hugged me. + +“You’re the best friend I have, little Davy,” she cried. + +“I reckon that’s so,” said the stranger, who had risen and was standing +at the corner. + +Polly Ann looked at him like a frightened doe. And as she stared, +uncertain whether to stay or fly, the color surged into her cheeks and +mounted to her fair forehead. + +“Tom!” she faltered. + +“I’ve come back, Polly Ann,” said he. But his voice was not so clear as +a while ago. + +Then Polly Ann surprised me. + +“What made you come back?” said she, as though she didn’t care a +minkskin. Whereat Mr. McChesney shifted his feet. + +“I reckon it was to fetch you, Polly Ann.” + +“I like that!” cried she. “He’s come to fetch me, Davy.” That was the +first time in months her laugh had sounded natural. “I heerd you fetched +one gal acrost the mountains, and now you want to fetch another.” + +“Polly Ann,” says he, “there was a time when you knew a truthful man +from a liar.” + +“That time’s past,” retorted she; “I reckon all men are liars. What are +ye tom-foolin’ about here for, Tom McChesney, when yere Ma’s breakin’ +her heart? I wonder ye come back at all.” + +“Polly Ann,” says he, very serious, “I ain’t a boaster. But when I think +what I come through to git here, I wonder that I come back at all. The +folks shut up at Harrod’s said it was sure death ter cross the mountains +now. I’ve walked two hundred miles, and fed seven times, and my sculp’s +as near hangin’ on a Red Stick’s belt as I ever want it to be.” + +“Tom McChesney,” said Polly Ann, with her hands on her hips and her +sunbonnet tilted, “that’s the longest speech you ever made in your +life.” + +I declare I lost my temper with Polly Ann then, nor did I blame Tom +McChesney for turning on his heel and walking away. But he had gone +no distance at all before Polly Ann, with three springs, was at his +shoulder. + +“Tom!” she said very gently. + +He hesitated, stopped, thumped the stock of his gun on the ground, and +wheeled. He looked at her doubtingly, and her eyes fell to the ground. + +“Tom McChesney,” said she, “you’re a born fool with wimmen.” + +“Thank God for that,” said he, his eyes devouring her. + +“Ay,” said she. And then, “You want me to go to Kaintuckee with you?” + +“That’s what I come for,” he stammered, his assurance all run away +again. + +“I’ll go,” she answered, so gently that her words were all but blown +away by the summer wind. He laid his rifle against a stump at the +edge of the corn-field, but she bounded clear of him. Then she stood, +panting, her eyes sparkling. + +“I’ll go,” she said, raising her finger, “I’ll go for one thing.” + +“What’s that?” he demanded. + +“That you’ll take Davy along with us.” + +This time Tom had her, struggling like a wild thing in his arms, and +kissing her black hair madly. As for me, I might have been in the next +settlement for all they cared. And then Polly Ann, as red as a holly +berry, broke away from him and ran to me, caught me up, and hid her face +in my shoulder. Tom McChesney stood looking at us, grinning, and that +day I ceased to hate him. + +“There’s no devil ef I don’t take him, Polly Ann,” said he. “Why, he was +a-goin’ to Kaintuckee ter find me for you.” + +“What?” said she, raising her head. + +“That’s what he told me afore he knew who I was. He wanted to know ef +I’d fetch him thar.” + +“Little Davy!” cried Polly Ann. + +The last I saw of them that day they were going off up the trace towards +his mother’s, Polly Ann keeping ahead of him and just out of his reach. +And I was very, very happy. For Tom McChesney had come back at last, and +Polly Ann was herself once more. + +As long as I live I shall never forget Polly Ann’s wedding. + +She was all for delay, and such a bunch of coquetry as I have never +seen. She raised one objection after another; but Tom was a firm man, +and his late experiences in the wilderness had made him impatient of +trifling. He had promised the Kentucky settlers, fighting for their +lives in their blockhouses, that he would come back again. And a +resolute man who was a good shot was sorely missed in the country in +those days. + +It was not the thousand dangers and hardships of the journey across +the Wilderness Trail that frightened Polly Ann. Not she. Nor would she +listen to Tom when he implored her to let him return alone, to come back +for her when the redskins had got over the first furies of their hatred. +As for me, the thought of going with them into that promised land was +like wine. Wondering what the place was like, I could not sleep of +nights. + +“Ain’t you afeerd to go, Davy?” said Tom to me. + +“You promised Polly Ann to take me,” said I, indignantly. + +“Davy,” said he, “you ain’t over handsome. ‘Twouldn’t improve yere looks +to be bald. They hev a way of takin’ yere ha’r. Better stay behind with +Gran’pa Ripley till I kin fetch ye both.” + +“Tom,” said Polly Ann, “you kin just go back alone if you don’t take +Davy.” + +So one of the Winn boys agreed to come over to stay with old Mr. Ripley +until quieter times. + +The preparations for the wedding went on apace that week. I had not +thought that the Grape Vine settlement held so many people. And they +came from other settlements, too, for news spread quickly in that +country, despite the distances. Tom McChesney was plainly a favorite +with the men who had marched with Rutherford. All the week they +came, loaded with offerings, turkeys and venison and pork and bear +meat--greatest delicacy of all--until the cool spring was filled for the +feast. From thirty miles down the Broad, a gaunt Baptist preacher on a +fat white pony arrived the night before. He had been sent for to tie the +knot. + +Polly Ann’s wedding-day dawned bright and fair, and long before the sun +glistened on the corn tassels we were up and clearing out the big room. +The fiddlers came first--a merry lot. And then the guests from afar +began to arrive. Some of them had travelled half the night. The +bridegroom’s friends were assembling at the McChesney place. At last, +when the sun was over the stream, rose such Indian war-whoops and shots +from the ridge trail as made me think the redskins were upon us. The +shouts and hurrahs grew louder and louder, the quickening thud of +horses’ hoofs was heard in the woods, and there burst into sight of the +assembly by the truck patch two wild figures on crazed horses charging +down the path towards the house. We scattered to right and left. On they +came, leaping logs and brush and ditches, until one of them pulled up, +yelling madly, at the very door, the foam-flecked sides of his horse +moving with quick heaves. + +It was Chauncey Dike, and he had won the race for the bottle of “Black +Betty,”--Chauncey Dike, his long, black hair shining with bear’s oil. +Amid the cheers of the bride’s friends he leaped from his saddle, +mounted a stump and, flapping his arms, crowed in victory. Before he had +done the vanguard of the groom’s friends were upon us, pell-mell, all in +the finest of backwoods regalia,--new hunting shirts, trimmed with bits +of color, and all armed to the teeth--scalping knife, tomahawk, and all. +Nor had Chauncey Dike forgotten the scalp of the brave who leaped at him +out of the briers at Neowee. + +Polly Ann was radiant in a white linen gown, woven and sewed by her own +hands. It was not such a gown as Mrs. Temple, Nick’s mother, would have +worn, and yet she was to me an hundred times more beautiful than +that lady in all her silks. Peeping out from under it were the little +blue-beaded moccasins which Tom himself had brought across the mountains +in the bosom of his hunting shirt. Polly Ann was radiant, and yet at +times so rapturously shy that when the preacher announced himself ready +to tie the knot she ran into the house and hid in the cupboard--for +Polly Ann was a child of nature. Thence, coloring like a wild rose, +she was dragged by a boisterous bevy of girls in linsey-woolsey to +the spreading maple of the forest that stood on the high bank over the +stream. The assembly fell solemn, and not a sound was heard save the +breathing of Nature in the heyday of her time. And though I was happy, +the sobs rose in my throat. There stood Polly Ann, as white now as the +bleached linen she wore, and Tom McChesney, tall and spare and broad, as +strong a figure of a man as ever I laid eyes on. God had truly made that +couple for wedlock in His leafy temple. + +The deep-toned words of the preacher in prayer broke the stillness. +They were made man and wife. And then began a day of merriment, of +unrestraint, such as the backwoods alone knows. The feast was spread +out in the long grass under the trees--sides of venison, bear meat, +corn-pone fresh baked by Mrs. McChesney and Polly Ann herself, and all +the vegetables in the patch. There was no stint, either, of maple beer +and rum and “Black Betty,” and toasts to the bride and groom amidst +gusts of laughter “that they might populate Kaintuckee.” And Polly Ann +would have it that I should sit by her side under the maple. + +The fiddlers played, and there were foot races and shooting matches. Ay, +and wrestling matches in the severe manner of the backwoods between the +young bucks, more than one of which might have ended seriously were it +not for the high humor of the crowd. Tom McChesney himself was in most +of them, a hot favorite. By a trick he had learned in the Indian country +he threw Chauncey Dike (no mean adversary) so hard that the backwoods +dandy lay for a moment in sleep. Contrary to the custom of many, Tom was +not in the habit of crowing on such occasions, nor did he even smile as +he helped Chauncey to his feet. But Polly Ann knew, and I knew, that he +was thinking of what Chauncey had said to her. + +So the long summer afternoon wore away into twilight, and the sun fell +behind the blue ridges we were to cross. Pine knots were lighted in the +big room, the fiddlers set to again, and then came jigs and three and +four handed reels that made the puncheons rattle,--chicken-flutter +and cut-the-buckle,--and Polly Ann was the leader now, the young men +flinging the girls from fireplace to window in the reels, and back +again; and when, panting and perspiring, the lass was too tired to stand +longer, she dropped into the hospitable lap of the nearest buck who was +perched on the bench along the wall awaiting his chance. For so it went +in the backwoods in those days, and long after, and no harm in it that +ever I could see. + +Well, suddenly, as if by concert, the music stopped, and a shout of +laughter rang under the beams as Polly Ann flew out of the door with the +girls after her, as swift of foot as she. They dragged her, a struggling +captive, to the bride-chamber which made the other end of the house, and +when they emerged, blushing and giggling and subdued, the fun began with +Tom McChesney. He gave the young men a pretty fight indeed, and long +before they had him conquered the elder guests had made their escape +through door and window. + +All night the reels and jigs went on, and the feasting and drinking too. +In the fine rain that came at dawn to hide the crests, the company rode +wearily homeward through the notches. + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE NOLLICHUCKY TRACE + + + Some to endure, and many to quail, + Some to conquer, and many to fail, + Toiling over the Wilderness Trail. + +As long as I live I shall never forget the morning we started on our +journey across the Blue Wall. Before the sun chased away the filmy veil +of mist from the brooks in the valley, the McChesneys, father, mother, +and children, were gathered to see us depart. And as they helped us to +tighten the packsaddles Tom himself had made from chosen tree-forks, +they did not cease lamenting that we were going to certain death. Our +scrawny horses splashed across the stream, and we turned to see a gaunt +and lonely figure standing apart against the sun, stern and sorrowful. +We waved our hands, and set our faces towards Kaintuckee. + +Tom walked ahead, rifle on shoulder, then Polly Ann; and lastly I drove +the two shaggy ponies, the instruments of husbandry we had been able +to gather awry on their packs,--a scythe, a spade, and a hoe. I +triumphantly carried the axe. + +It was not long before we were in the wilderness, shut in by mountain +crags, and presently Polly Ann forgot her sorrows in the perils of the +trace. Choked by briers and grapevines, blocked by sliding stones and +earth, it rose and rose through the heat and burden of the day until +it lost itself in the open heights. As the sun was wearing down to the +western ridges the mischievous sorrel mare turned her pack on a sapling, +and one of the precious bags burst. In an instant we were on our knees +gathering the golden meal in our hands. Polly Ann baked journeycakes on +a hot stone from what we saved under the shiny ivy leaves, and scarce +had I spancelled the horses ere Tom returned with a fat turkey he had +shot. + +“Was there ever sech a wedding journey!” said Polly Ann, as we sat about +the fire, for the mountain air was chill. “And Tom and Davy as grave as +parsons. Ye’d guess one of you was Rutherford himself, and the other Mr. +Boone.” + +No wonder he was grave. I little realized then the task he had set +himself, to pilot a woman and a lad into a country haunted by frenzied +savages, when single men feared to go this season. But now he smiled, +and patted Polly Ann’s brown hand. + +“It’s one of yer own choosing, lass,” said he. + +“Of my own choosing!” cried she. “Come, Davy, we’ll go back to Grandpa.” + +Tom grinned. + +“I reckon the redskins won’t bother us till we git by the Nollichucky +and Watauga settlements,” he said. + +“The redskins!” said Polly Ann, indignant; “I reckon if one of ‘em did +git me he’d kiss me once in a while.” + +Whereupon Tom, looking more sheepish still, tried to kiss her, and +failed ignominiously, for she vanished into the dark woods. + +“If a redskin got you here,” said Tom, when she had slipped back, “he’d +fetch you to Nick-a-jack Cave.” + +“What’s that?” she demanded. + +“Where all the red and white and yellow scalawags over the mountains +is gathered,” he answered. And he told of a deep gorge between towering +mountains where a great river cried angrily, of a black cave out of +which a black stream ran, where a man could paddle a dugout for miles +into the rock. The river was the Tennessee, and the place the resort +of the Chickamauga bandits, pirates of the mountains, outcasts of all +nations. And Dragging Canoe was their chief. + +It was on the whole a merry journey, the first part of it, if a rough +one. Often Polly Ann would draw me to her and whisper: “We’ll hold out, +Davy. He’ll never know.” When the truth was that the big fellow was +going at half his pace on our account. He told us there was no fear of +redskins here, yet, when the scream of a painter or the hoot of an owl +stirred me from my exhausted slumber, I caught sight of him with his +back to a tree, staring into the forest, his rifle at his side. The day +was dawning. + +“Turn about’s fair,” I expostulated. + +“Ye’ll need yere sleep, Davy,” said he, “or ye’ll never grow any +bigger.” + +“I thought Kaintuckee was to the west,” I said, “and you’re making +north.” For I had observed him day after day. We had left the trails. +Sometimes he climbed tree, and again he sent me to the upper branches, +whence I surveyed a sea of tree-tops waving in the wind, and looked +onward to where a green velvet hollow lay nestling on the western side +of a saddle-backed ridge. + +“North!” said Tom to Polly Ann, laughing. “The little devil will beat +me at woodcraft soon. Ay, north, Davy. I’m hunting for the Nollichucky +Trace that leads to the Watauga settlement.” + +It was wonderful to me how he chose his way through the mountains. Once +in a while we caught sight of a yellow blaze in a tree, made by himself +scarce a month gone, when he came southward alone to fetch Polly Ann. +Again, the tired roan shied back from the bleached bones of a traveller, +picked clean by wolves. At sundown, when we loosed our exhausted horses +to graze on the wet grass by the streams, Tom would go off to look for a +deer or turkey, and often not come back to us until long after darkness +had fallen. + +“Davy’ll take care of you, Polly Ann,” he would say as he left us. + +And she would smile at him bravely and say, “I reckon I kin look out for +Davy awhile yet.” + +But when he was gone, and the crooning stillness set in, broken only by +the many sounds of the night, we would sit huddled together by the fire. +It was dread for him she felt, not for herself. And in both our minds +rose red images of hideous foes skulking behind his brave form as he +trod the forest floor. Polly Ann was not the woman to whimper. + +And yet I have but dim recollections of this journey. It was no hardship +to a lad brought up in woodcraft. Fear of the Indians, like a dog +shivering with the cold, was a deadened pain on the border. + +Strangely enough it was I who chanced upon the Nollichucky Trace, which +follows the meanderings of that river northward through the great Smoky +Mountains. It was made long ago by the Southern Indians as they threaded +their way to the Hunting Lands of Kaintuckee, and shared now by Indian +traders. The path was redolent with odors, and bright with mountain +shrubs and flowers,--the pink laurel bush, the shining rhododendron, and +the grape and plum and wild crab. The clear notes of the mountain birds +were in our ears by day, and the music of the water falling over the +ledges, mingled with that of the leaves rustling in the wind, lulled us +to sleep at night. High above us, as we descended, the gap, from naked +crag to timber-covered ridge, was spanned by the eagle’s flight. And +virgin valleys, where future generations were to be born, spread out and +narrowed again,--valleys with a deep carpet of cane and grass, where the +deer and elk and bear fed unmolested. + +It was perchance the next evening that my eyes fell upon a sight which +is one of the wonders of my boyish memories. The trail slipped to the +edge of a precipice, and at our feet the valley widened. Planted +amidst giant trees, on a shining green lawn that ran down to the racing +Nollichucky was the strangest house it has ever been my lot to see--of +no shape, of huge size, and built of logs, one wing hitched to another +by “dog alleys” (as we called them); and from its wide stone chimneys +the pearly smoke rose upward in the still air through the poplar +branches. Beyond it a setting sun gilded the corn-fields, and horses and +cattle dotted the pastures. We stood for a while staring at this oasis +in the wilderness, and to my boyish fancy it was a fitting introduction +to a delectable land. + +“Glory be to heaven!” exclaimed Polly Ann. + +“It’s Nollichucky Jack’s house,” said Tom. + +“And who may he be?” said she. + +“Who may he be!” cried Tom; “Captain John Sevier, king of the border, +and I reckon the best man to sweep out redskins in the Watauga +settlements.” + +“Do you know him?” said she. + +“I was chose as one of his scouts when we fired the Cherokee hill towns +last summer,” said Tom, with pride. “Thar was blood and thunder for ye! +We went down the Great War-path which lies below us, and when we was +through there wasn’t a corn-shuck or a wigwam or a war post left. We +didn’t harm the squaws nor the children, but there warn’t no prisoners +took. When Nollichucky Jack strikes I reckon it’s more like a +thunderbolt nor anything else.” + +“Do you think he’s at home, Tom?” I asked, fearful that I should not see +this celebrated person. + +“We’ll soon l’arn,” said he, as we descended. “I heerd he was agoin’ to +punish them Chickamauga robbers by Nick-a-jack.” + +Just then we heard a prodigious barking, and a dozen hounds came +charging down the path at our horses’ legs, the roan shying into +the truck patch. A man’s voice, deep, clear, compelling, was heard +calling:-- + +“Vi! Flora! Ripper!” + +I saw him coming from the porch of the house, a tall slim figure in a +hunting shirt--that fitted to perfection--and cavalry boots. His face, +his carriage, his quick movement and stride filled my notion of a hero, +and my instinct told me he was a gentleman born. + +“Why, bless my soul, it’s Tom McChesney!” he cried, ten paces away, +while Tom grinned with pleasure at the recognition. “But what have you +here?” + +“A wife,” said Tom, standing on one foot. + +Captain Sevier fixed his dark blue eyes on Polly Ann with approbation, +and he bowed to her very gracefully. + +“Where are you going, Ma’am, may I ask?” he said. + +“To Kaintuckee,” said Polly Ann. + +“To Kaintuckee!” cried Captain Sevier, turning to Tom. “Egad, then, +you’ve no right to a wife,--and to such a wife,” and he glanced again at +Polly Ann. “Why, McChesney, you never struck me as a rash man. Have you +lost your senses, to take a woman into Kentucky this year?” + +“So the forts be still in trouble?” said Tom. + +“Trouble?” cried Mr. Sevier, with a quick fling of his whip at an unruly +hound, “Harrodstown, Boonesboro, Logan’s Fort at St. Asaph’s,--they +don’t dare stick their noses outside the stockades. The Indians have +swarmed into Kentucky like red ants, I tell you. Ten days ago, when I +was in the Holston settlements, Major Ben Logan came in. His fort had +been shut up since May, they were out of powder and lead, and somebody +had to come. How did he come? As the wolf lopes, nay, as the crow flies +over crag and ford, Cumberland, Clinch, and all, forty miles a day for +five days, and never saw a trace--for the war parties were watching the +Wilderness Road.” And he swung again towards Polly Ann. “You’ll not go +to Kaintuckee, ma’am; you’ll stay here with us until the redskins are +beaten off there. He may go if he likes.” + +“I reckon we didn’t come this far to give out, Captain Sevier,” said +she. + +“You don’t look to be the kind to give out, Mrs. McChesney,” said he. +“And yet it may not be a matter of giving out,” he added more soberly. +This mixture of heartiness and gravity seemed to sit well on him. +“Surely you have been enterprising, Tom. Where in the name of the +Continental Congress did you get the lad?” + +“I married him along with Polly Ann,” said Tom. “That was the bargain, +and I reckon he was worth it.” + +“I’d take a dozen to get her,” declared Mr. Sevier, while Polly Ann +blushed. “Well, well, supper’s waiting us, and cider and applejack, for +we don’t get a wedding party every day. Some gentlemen are here whose +word may have more weight and whose attractions may be greater than +mine.” + +He whistled to a negro lad, who took our horses, and led us through the +court-yard and the house to the lawn at the far side of it. A rude table +was set there under a great tree, and around it three gentlemen were +talking. My memory of all of them is more vivid than it might be were +their names not household words in the Western country. Captain Sevier +startled them. + +“My friends,” said he, “if you have despatches for Kaintuckee, I pray +you get them ready over night.” + +They looked up at him, one sternly, the other two gravely. + +“What the devil do you mean, Sevier?” said the stern one. + +“That my friend, Tom McChesney, is going there with his wife, unless we +can stop him,” said Sevier. + +“Stop him!” thundered the stern gentleman, kicking back his chair and +straightening up to what seemed to me a colossal height. I stared at +him, boylike. He had long, iron-gray hair and a creased, fleshy face +and sunken eyes. He looked as if he might stop anybody as he turned upon +Tom. “Who the devil is this Tom McChesney?” he demanded. + +Sevier laughed. + +“The best scout I ever laid eyes on,” said he. “A deadly man with +a Deckard, an unerring man at choosing a wife” (and he bowed to the +reddening Polly Ann), “and a fool to run the risk of losing her.” + +“Tut, tut,” said the iron gentleman, who was the famous Captain Evan +Shelby of King’s Meadows, “he’ll leave her here in our settlements while +he helps us fight Dragging Canoe and his Chickamauga pirates.” + +“If he leaves me,” said Polly Ann, her eyes flashing, “that’s an end to +the bargain. He’ll never find me more.” + +Captain Sevier laughed again. + +“There’s spirit for you,” he cried, slapping his whip against his boot. + +At this another gentleman stood up, a younger counterpart of the +first, only he towered higher and his shoulders were broader. He had a +big-featured face, and pleasant eyes--that twinkled now--sunken in, with +fleshy creases at the corners. + +“Tom McChesney,” said he, “don’t mind my father. If any man besides +Logan can get inside the forts, you can. Do you remember me?” + +“I reckon I do, Mr. Isaac Shelby,” said Tom, putting a big hand into Mr. +Shelby’s bigger one. “I reckon I won’t soon forget how you stepped +out of ranks and tuk command when the boys was runnin’, and turned the +tide.” + +He looked like the man to step out of ranks and take command. + +“Pish!” said Mr. Isaac Shelby, blushing like a girl; “where would I have +been if you and Moore and Findley and the rest hadn’t stood ‘em off till +we turned round?” + +By this time the third gentleman had drawn my attention. Not by anything +he said, for he remained silent, sitting with his dark brown head bent +forward, quietly gazing at the scene from under his brows. The +instant he spoke they turned towards him. He was perhaps forty, and +broad-shouldered, not so tall as Mr. Sevier. + +“Why do you go to Kaintuckee, McChesney?” he asked. + +“I give my word to Mr. Harrod and Mr. Clark to come back, Mr. +Robertson,” said Tom. + +“And the wife? If you take her, you run a great risk of losing her.” + +“And if he leaves me,” said Polly Ann, flinging her head, “he will lose +me sure.” + +The others laughed, but Mr. Robertson merely smiled. + +“Faith,” cried Captain Sevier, “if those I met coming back +helter-skelter over the Wilderness Trace had been of that stripe, they’d +have more men in the forts now.” + +With that the Captain called for supper to be served where we sat. He +was a widower, with lads somewhere near my own age, and I recall being +shown about the place by them. And later, when the fireflies glowed and +the Nollichucky sang in the darkness, we listened to the talk of the +war of the year gone by. I needed not to be told that before me were the +renowned leaders of the Watauga settlements. My hero worship cried it +aloud within me. These captains dwelt on the border-land of mystery, +conquered the wilderness, and drove before them its savage tribes by +their might. When they spoke of the Cherokees and told how that same +Stuart--the companion of Cameron--was urging them to war against our +people, a fierce anger blazed within me. For the Cherokees had killed my +father. + +I remember the men,--scarcely what they said: Evan Shelby’s words, like +heavy blows on an anvil; Isaac Shelby’s, none the less forceful; +James Robertson compelling his listeners by some strange power. He was +perchance the strongest man there, though none of us guessed, after +ruling that region, that he was to repeat untold hardships to found and +rear another settlement farther west. But best I loved to hear Captain +Sevier, whose talk lacked not force, but had a daring, a humor, a +lightness of touch, that seemed more in keeping with that world I had +left behind me in Charlestown. Him I loved, and at length I solved the +puzzle. To me he was Nick Temple grown to manhood. + +I slept in the room with Captain Sevier’s boys, and one window of it was +of paper smeared with bear’s grease, through which the sunlight came all +bleared and yellow in the morning. I had a boy’s interest in affairs, +and I remember being told that the gentlemen were met here to discuss +the treaty between themselves and the great Oconostota, chief of the +Cherokees, and also to consider the policy of punishing once for all +Dragging Canoe and his bandits at Chickamauga. + +As we sat at breakfast under the trees, these gentlemen generously +dropped their own business to counsel Tom, and I observed with pride +that he had gained their regard during the last year’s war. Shelby’s +threats and Robertson’s warnings and Sevier’s exhortations having no +effect upon his determination to proceed to Kentucky, they began to +advise him how to go, and he sat silent while they talked. And finally, +when they asked him, he spoke of making through Carter’s Valley for +Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Trail. + +“Egad,” cried Captain Sevier, “I have so many times found the boldest +plan the safest that I have become a coward that way. What do you say to +it, Mr. Robertson?” + +Mr. Robertson leaned his square shoulders over the table. + +“He may fall in with a party going over,” he answered, without looking +up. + +Polly Ann looked at Tom as if to say that the whole Continental Army +could not give her as much protection. + +We left that hospitable place about nine o’clock, Mr. Robertson having +written a letter to Colonel Daniel Boone,--shut up in the fort at +Boonesboro,--should we be so fortunate as to reach Kaintuckee: and +another to a young gentleman by the name of George Rogers Clark, +apparently a leader there. Captain Sevier bowed over Polly Ann’s hand +as if she were a great lady, and wished her a happy honeymoon, and me he +patted on the head and called a brave lad. And soon we had passed beyond +the corn-field into the Wilderness again. + +Our way was down the Nollichucky, past the great bend of it below +Lick Creek, and so to the Great War-path, the trail by which countless +parties of red marauders had travelled north and south. It led, indeed, +northeast between the mountain ranges. Although we kept a watch by day +and night, we saw no sign of Dragging Canoe or his men, and at length +we forded the Holston and came to the scattered settlement in Carter’s +Valley. + +I have since racked my brain to remember at whose cabin we stopped +there. He was a rough backwoodsman with a wife and a horde of children. +But I recall that a great rain came out of the mountains and down the +valley. We were counting over the powder gourds in our packs, when there +burst in at the door as wild a man as has ever been my lot to see. His +brown beard was grown like a bramble patch, his eye had a violet light, +and his hunting shirt was in tatters. He was thin to gauntness, ate +ravenously of the food that was set before him, and throwing off his +soaked moccasins, he spread his scalded feet to the blaze, and the +steaming odor of drying leather filled the room. + +“Whar be ye from?” asked Tom. + +For answer the man bared his arm, then his shoulder, and two angry +scars, long and red, revealed themselves, and around his wrists were +deep gouges where he had been bound. + +“They killed Sue,” he cried, “sculped her afore my very eyes. And they +chopped my boy outen the hickory withes and carried him to the Creek +Nation. At a place where there was a standin’ stone I broke loose from +three of ‘em and come here over the mountains, and I ain’t had nothin’, +stranger, but berries and chainey brier-root for ten days. God damn +‘em!” he cried, standing up and tottering with the pain in his feet, “if +I can get a Deckard--” + +“Will you go back?” said Tom. + +“Go back!” he shouted, “I’ll go back and fight ‘em while I have blood in +my body.” + +He fell into a bunk, but his sorrow haunted him even in his troubled +sleep, and his moans awed us as we listened. The next day he told us his +story with more calmness. It was horrible indeed, and might well have +frightened a less courageous woman than Polly Ann. Imploring her not to +go, he became wild again, and brought tears to her eyes when he spoke of +his own wife. “They tomahawked her, ma’am, because she could not walk, +and the baby beside her, and I standing by with my arms tied.” + +As long as I live I shall never forget that scene, and how Tom pleaded +with Polly Ann to stay behind, but she would not listen to him. + +“You’re going, Tom?” she said. + +“Yes,” he answered, turning away, “I gave ‘em my word.” + +“And your word to me?” said Polly Ann. + +He did not answer. + +We fixed on a Saturday to start, to give the horses time to rest, and in +the hope that we might hear of some relief party going over the Gap. On +Thursday Tom made a trip to the store in the valley, and came back with +a Deckard rifle he had bought for the stranger, whose name was Weldon. +There was no news from Kaintuckee, but the Carter’s Valley settlers +seemed to think that matters were better there. It was that same night, +I believe, that two men arrived from Fort Chiswell. One, whose name was +Cutcheon, was a little man with a short forehead and a bad eye, and he +wore a weather-beaten blue coat of military cut. The second was a big, +light-colored, fleshy man, and a loud talker. He wore a hunting shirt +and leggings. They were both the worse for rum they had had on the road, +the big man talking very loud and boastfully. + +“Afeard to go to Kaintuckee!” said he. “I’ve met a parcel o’ cowards +on the road, turned back. There ain’t nothin’ to be afeard of, eh, +stranger?” he added, to Tom, who paid no manner of attention to him. The +small man scarce opened his mouth, but sat with his head bowed forward +on his breast when he was not drinking. We passed a dismal, crowded +night in the room with such companions. When they heard that we were to +go over the mountains, nothing would satisfy the big man but to go with +us. + +“Come, stranger,” said he to Tom, “two good rifles such as we is ain’t +to be throwed away.” + +“Why do you want to go over?” asked Tom. “Be ye a Tory?” he demanded +suspiciously. + +“Why do you go over?” retorted Riley, for that was his name. “I reckon +I’m no more of a Tory than you.” + +“Whar did ye come from?” said Tom. + +“Chiswell’s mines, taking out lead for the army o’ Congress. But there +ain’t excitement enough in it.” + +“And you?” said Tom, turning to Cutcheon and eying his military coat. + +“I got tired of their damned discipline,” the man answered surlily. He +was a deserter. + +“Look you,” said Tom, sternly, “if you come, what I say is law.” + +Such was the sacrifice we were put to by our need of company. But in +those days a man was a man, and scarce enough on the Wilderness Trail +in that year of ‘77. So we started away from Carter’s Valley on a bright +Saturday morning, the grass glistening after a week’s rain, the road +sodden, and the smell of the summer earth heavy. Tom and Weldon walked +ahead, driving the two horses, followed by Cutcheon, his head dropped +between his shoulders. The big man, Riley, regaled Polly Ann. + +“My pluck is,” said he, “my pluck is to give a redskin no chance. Shoot +‘em down like hogs. It takes a good un to stalk me, Ma’am. Up on the +Kanawha I’ve had hand-to-hand fights with ‘em, and made ‘em cry quits.” + +“Law!” exclaimed Polly Ann, nudging me, “it was a lucky thing we run +into you in the valley.” + +But presently we left the road and took a mountain trail,--as stiff a +climb as we had yet had. Polly Ann went up it like a bird, talking all +the while to Riley, who blew like a bellows. For once he was silent. + +We spent two, perchance three, days climbing and descending and fording. +At night Tom would suffer none to watch save Weldon and himself, not +trusting Riley or Cutcheon. And the rascals were well content to sleep. +At length we came to a cabin on a creek, the corn between the stumps +around it choked with weeds, and no sign of smoke in the chimney. Behind +it slanted up, in giant steps, a forest-clad hill of a thousand feet, +and in front of it the stream was dammed and lined with cane. + +“Who keeps house?” cried Tom, at the threshold. + +He pushed back the door, fashioned in one great slab from a forest tree. +His welcome was an angry whir, and a huge yellow rattler lay coiled +within, his head reared to strike. Polly Ann leaned back. + +“Mercy,” she cried, “that’s a bad sign.” + +But Tom killed the snake, and we made ready to use the cabin that night +and the next day. For the horses were to be rested and meat was to +be got, as we could not use our guns so freely on the far side of +Cumberland Gap. In the morning, before he and Weldon left, Tom took me +around the end of the cabin. + +“Davy,” said he, “I don’t trust these rascals. Kin you shoot a pistol?” + +I reckoned I could. + +He had taken one out of the pack he had got from Captain Sevier and +pushed it between the logs where the clay had fallen out. “If they try +anything,” said he, “shoot ‘em. And don’t be afeard of killing ‘em.” He +patted me on the back, and went off up the slope with Weldon. Polly Ann +and I stood watching them until they were out of sight. + +About eleven o’clock Riley and Cutcheon moved off to the edge of a +cane-brake near the water, and sat there for a while, talking in low +tones. The horses were belled and spancelled near by, feeding on the +cane and wild grass, and Polly Ann was cooking journey-cakes on a stone. + +“What makes you so sober, Davy?” she said. + +I didn’t answer. + +“Davy,” she cried, “be happy while you’re young. ‘Tis a fine day, and +Kaintuckee’s over yonder.” She picked up her skirts and sang:-- + + “First upon the heeltap, + Then upon the toe.” + +The men by the cane-brake turned and came towards us. + +“Ye’re happy to-day, Mis’ McChesney,” said Riley. + +“Why shouldn’t I be?” said Polly Ann; “we’re all a-goin’ to Kaintuckee.” + +“We’re a-goin’ back to Cyarter’s Valley,” said Riley, in his blustering +way. “This here ain’t as excitin’ as I thought. I reckon there ain’t no +redskins nohow.” + +“What!” cried Polly Ann, in loud scorn, “ye’re a-goin’ to desert? +There’ll be redskins enough by and by, I’ll warrant ye.” + +“How’d you like to come along of us,” says Riley; “that ain’t any place +for wimmen, over yonder.” + +“Along of you!” cried Polly Ann, with flashing eyes. “Do you hear that, +Davy?” + +I did. Meanwhile the man Cutcheon was slowly walking towards her. It +took scarce a second for me to make up my mind. I slipped around the +corner of the house, seized the pistol, primed it with a trembling hand, +and came back to behold Polly Ann, with flaming cheeks, facing them. +They did not so much as glance at me. Riley held a little back of the +two, being the coward. But Cutcheon stood ready, like a wolf. + +I did not wait for him to spring, but, taking the best aim I could with +my two hands, fired. With a curse that echoed in the crags, he threw up +his arms and fell forward, writhing, on the turf. + +“Run for the cabin, Polly Ann,” I shouted, “and bar the door.” + +There was no need. For an instant Riley wavered, and then fled to the +cane. + +Polly Ann and I went to the man on the ground, and turned him over. His +eyes slid upwards. There was a bloody froth on his lips. + +“Davy!” cried she, awestricken, “Davy, ye’ve killed him!” + +I grew dizzy and sick at the thought, but she caught me and held me to +her. Presently we sat down on the door log, gazing at the corpse. Then I +began to reflect, and took out my powder gourd and loaded the pistol. + +“What are ye a-doing?” she said. + +“In case the other one comes back,” said I. + +“Pooh,” said Polly Ann, “he’ll not come back.” Which was true. I have +never laid eyes on Riley to this day. + +“I reckon we’d better fetch it out of the sun,” said she, after a while. +And so we dragged it under an oak, covered the face, and left it. + +He was the first man I ever killed, and the business by no means came +natural to me. And that day the journey-cakes which Polly Ann had made +were untasted by us both. The afternoon dragged interminably. Try as we +would, we could not get out of our minds the Thing that lay under the +oak. + +It was near sundown when Tom and Weldon appeared on the mountain side +carrying a buck between them. Tom glanced from one to the other of us +keenly. He was very quick to divine. + +“Whar be they?” said he. + +“Show him, Davy,” said Polly Ann. + +I took him over to the oak, and Polly Ann told him the story. He gave +me one look, I remember, and there was more of gratitude in it than in a +thousand words. Then he seized a piece of cold cake from the stone. + +“Which trace did he take?” he demanded of me. + +But Polly Ann hung on his shoulder. + +“Tom, Tom!” she cried, “you beant goin’ to leave us again. Tom, he’ll +die in the wilderness, and we must git to Kaintuckee.” + +The next vivid thing in my memory is the view of the last barrier Nature +had reared between us and the delectable country. It stood like a lion +at the gateway, and for some minutes we gazed at it in terror from +Powell’s Valley below. How many thousands have looked at it with sinking +hearts! How many weaklings has its frown turned back! There seemed to +be engraved upon it the dark history of the dark and bloody land beyond. +Nothing in this life worth having is won for the asking; and the best is +fought for, and bled for, and died for. Written, too, upon that towering +wall of white rock, in the handwriting of God Himself, is the history of +the indomitable Race to which we belong. + +For fifty miles we travelled under it, towards the Gap, our eyes drawn +to it by a resistless fascination. The sun went over it early in the +day, as though glad to leave the place, and after that a dark scowl +would settle there. At night we felt its presence, like a curse. Even +Polly Ann was silent. And she had need to be now. When it was necessary, +we talked in low tones, and the bell-clappers on the horses were not +loosed at night. It was here, but four years gone, that Daniel Boone’s +family was attacked, and his son killed by the Indians. + +We passed, from time to time, deserted cabins and camps, and some places +that might once have been called settlements: Elk Garden, where the +pioneers of the last four years had been wont to lay in a simple supply +of seed corn and Irish potatoes; and the spot where Henderson and his +company had camped on the way to establish Boonesboro two years before. +And at last we struck the trace that mounted upward to the Gateway +itself. + + + +CHAPTER IX. ON THE WILDERNESS TRAIL + +And now we had our hands upon the latch, and God alone knew what was +behind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it. +Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presence +did not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strange +aptness a quaint saying of my father’s that Kaintuckee was the Garden +of Eden, and that men were being justly punished with blood for their +presumption. + +As if to crown that judgment, the day was dark and lowering, with +showers of rain from time to time. And when we spoke,--Polly Ann and +I,--it was in whispers. The trace was very narrow, with Daniel Boone’s +blazes, two years old, upon the trees; but the way was not over steep. +Cumberland Mountain was as silent and deserted as when the first man had +known it. + +Alas, for the vanity of human presage! We gained the top, and entered +unmolested. No Eden suddenly dazzled our eye, no splendor burst upon it. +Nothing told us, as we halted in our weariness, that we had reached the +Promised Land. The mists weighed heavily on the evergreens of the slopes +and hid the ridges, and we passed that night in cold discomfort. It was +the first of many without a fire. + +The next day brought us to the Cumberland, tawny and swollen from the +rains, and here we had to stop to fell trees to make a raft on which to +ferry over our packs. We bound the logs together with grapevines, and as +we worked my imagination painted for me many a red face peering from +the bushes on the farther shore. And when we got into the river and were +caught and spun by the hurrying stream, I hearkened for a shot from +the farther bank. While Polly Ann and I were scrambling to get the raft +landed, Tom and Weldon swam over with the horses. And so we lay the +second night dolefully in the rain. But not so much as a whimper escaped +from Polly Ann. I have often told her since that the sorest trial she +had was the guard she kept on her tongue,--a hardship indeed for one of +Irish inheritance. Many a pull had she lightened for us by a flash of +humor. + +The next morning the sun relented, and the wine of his dawn was wine +indeed to our flagging hopes. Going down to wash at the river’s brink, +I heard a movement in the cane, and stood frozen and staring until a +great, bearded head, black as tar, was thrust out between the stalks and +looked at me with blinking red eyes. The next step revealed the hump +of the beast, and the next his tasselled tail lashing his dirty brown +quarters. I did not tarry longer, but ran to tell Tom. He made bold to +risk a shot and light a fire, and thus we had buffalo meat for some days +after. + +We were still in the mountains. The trail led down the river for a bit +through the worst of canebrakes, and every now and again we stopped +while Tom and Weldon scouted. Once the roan mare made a dash through the +brake, and, though Polly Ann burst through one way to head her off and +I another, we reached the bank of Richland Creek in time to see her nose +and the top of her pack above the brown water. There was nothing for it +but to swim after her, which I did, and caught her quietly feeding in +the cane on the other side. By great good fortune the other horse bore +the powder. + +“Drat you, Nancy,” said Polly Ann to the mare, as she handed me my +clothes, “I’d sooner carry the pack myself than be bothered with you.” + +“Hush,” said I, “the redskins will get us.” + +Polly Ann regarded me scornfully as I stood bedraggled before her. + +“Redskins!” she cried. “Nonsense! I reckon it’s all talk about +redskins.” + +But we had scarce caught up ere we saw Tom standing rigid with his hand +raised. Before him, on a mound bared of cane, were the charred remains +of a fire. The sight of them transformed Weldon. His eyes glared again, +even as when we had first seen him, curses escaped under his breath, and +he would have darted into the cane had not Tom seized him sternly by the +shoulder. As for me, my heart hammered against my ribs, and I grew +sick with listening. It was at that instant that my admiration for +Tom McChesney burst bounds, and that I got some real inkling of what +woodcraft might be. Stepping silently between the tree trunks, his eyes +bent on the leafy loam, he found a footprint here and another there, and +suddenly he went into the cane with a sign to us to remain. It seemed an +age before he returned. Then he began to rake the ashes, and, suddenly +bending down, seized something in them,--the broken bowl of an Indian +pipe. + +“Shawnees!” he said; “I reckoned so.” It was at length the beseeching in +Polly Ann’s eyes that he answered. + +“A war party--tracks three days old. They took poplar.” + +To take poplar was our backwoods expression for embarking in a canoe, +the dugouts being fashioned from the great poplar trees. + +I did not reflect then, as I have since and often, how great was the +knowledge and resource Tom practised that day. Our feeling for him +(Polly Ann’s and mine) fell little short of worship. In company ill +at ease, in the forest he became silent and masterful--an unerring +woodsman, capable of meeting the Indian on his own footing. And, +strangest thought of all, he and many I could name who went into +Kentucky, had escaped, by a kind of strange fate, being born in the +north of Ireland. This was so of Andrew Jackson himself. + +The rest of the day he led us in silence down the trace, his eye alert +to penetrate every corner of the forest, his hand near the trigger +of his long Deckard. I followed in boylike imitation, searching +every thicket for alien form and color, and yearning for stature and +responsibility. As for poor Weldon, he would stride for hours at a time +with eyes fixed ahead, a wild figure,--ragged and fringed. And we knew +that the soul within him was torn with thoughts of his dead wife and +of his child in captivity. Again, when the trance left him, he was an +addition to our little party not to be despised. + +At dark Polly Ann and I carried the packs across a creek on a fallen +tree, she taking one end and I the other. We camped there, where the +loam was trampled and torn by countless herds of bison, and had only +parched corn and the remains of a buffalo steak for supper, as the meal +was mouldy from its wetting, and running low. When Weldon had gone a +little distance up the creek to scout, Tom relented from the sternness +which his vigilance imposed and came and sat down on a log beside Polly +Ann and me. + +“‘Tis a hard journey, little girl,” he said, patting her; “I reckon I +done wrong to fetch you.” + +I can see him now, as the twilight settled down over the wilderness, +his honest face red and freckled, but aglow with the tenderness it had +hidden during the day, one big hand enfolding hers, and the other on my +shoulder. + +“Hark, Davy!” said Polly Ann, “he’s fair tired of us already. Davy, take +me back.” + +“Hush, Polly Ann,” he answered, delighted at her raillery. “But I’ve a +word to say to you. If we come on to the redskins, you and Davy make for +the cane as hard as you kin kilter. Keep out of sight.” + +“As hard as we kin kilter!” exclaimed Polly Ann, indignantly. “I reckon +not, Tom McChesney. Davy taught me to shoot long ago, afore you made up +your mind to come back from Kaintuckee.” + +Tom chuckled. “So Davy taught you to shoot,” he said, and checked +himself. “He ain’t such a bad one with a pistol,”--and he patted +me,--“but I allow ye’d better hunt kiver just the same. And if they +ketch ye, Polly Ann, just you go along and pretend to be happy, and +tear off a snatch of your dress now and then, if you get a chance. It +wouldn’t take me but a little time to run into Harrodstown or Boone’s +Station from here, and fetch a party to follow ye.” + +Two days went by,--two days of strain in sunlight, and of watching and +fitful sleep in darkness. But the Wilderness Trail was deserted. Here +and there a lean-to--silent remnant of the year gone by--spoke of the +little bands of emigrants which had once made their way so cheerfully to +the new country. Again it was a child’s doll, the rags of it beaten +by the weather to a rusty hue. Every hour that we progressed seemed to +justify the sagacity and boldness of Tom’s plan, nor did it appear to +have entered a painted skull that a white man would have the hardihood +to try the trail this year. There were neither signs nor sounds save +Nature’s own, the hoot of the wood-owl, the distant bark of a mountain +wolf, the whir of a partridge as she left her brood. At length we could +stand no more the repression that silence and watching put upon us, and +when a rotten bank gave way and flung Polly Ann and the sorrel mare into +a creek, even Weldon smiled as we pulled her, bedraggled and laughing, +from the muddy water. This was after we had ferried the Rockcastle +River. + +Our trace rose and fell over height and valley, until we knew that we +were come to a wonderland at last. We stood one evening on a spur as the +setting sun flooded the natural park below us with a crystal light and, +striking a tall sycamore, turned its green to gold. We were now on the +hills whence the water ran down to nourish the fat land, and I could +scarce believe that the garden spot on which our eyes feasted could be +the scene of the blood and suffering of which we had heard. Here at last +was the fairyland of my childhood, the country beyond the Blue Wall. + +We went down the river that led into it, with awe, as though we were +trespassers against God Himself,--as though He had made it too beautiful +and too fruitful for the toilers of this earth. And you who read this +an hundred years hence may not believe the marvels of it to the pioneer, +and in particular to one born and bred in the scanty, hard soil of the +mountains. Nature had made it for her park,--ay, and scented it with her +own perfumes. Giant trees, which had watched generations come and go, +some of which mayhap had been saplings when the Norman came to England, +grew in groves,--the gnarled and twisted oak, and that godsend to the +settlers, the sugar-maple; the coffee tree with its drooping buds; the +mulberry, the cherry, and the plum; the sassafras and the pawpaw; +the poplar and the sycamore, slender maidens of the forest, garbed +in daintier colors,--ay, and that resplendent brunette with the white +flowers, the magnolia; and all underneath, in the green shade, enamelled +banks which the birds themselves sought to rival. + +At length, one afternoon, we came to the grove of wild apple trees so +lovingly spoken of by emigrants as the Crab Orchard, and where formerly +they had delighted to linger. The plain near by was flecked with the +brown backs of feeding buffalo, but we dared not stop, and pressed on to +find a camp in the forest. As we walked in the filtered sunlight we had +a great fright, Polly Ann and I. Shrill, discordant cries suddenly burst +from the branches above us, and a flock of strange, green birds flecked +with red flew over our heads. Even Tom, intent upon the trail, turned +and laughed at Polly Ann as she stood clutching me. + +“Shucks,” said he, “they’re only paroquets.” + +We made our camp in a little dell where there was short green grass by +the brookside and steep banks overgrown with brambles on either hand. +Tom knew the place, and declared that we were within thirty miles of the +station. A giant oak had blown down across the water, and, cutting out +a few branches of this, we spread our blankets under it on the turf. +Tethering our faithful beasts, and cutting a quantity of pea-vine for +their night’s food, we lay down to sleep, Tom taking the first watch. + +I had the second, for Tom trusted me now, and glorying in that trust I +was alert and vigilant. A shy moon peeped at me between the trees, and +was fantastically reflected in the water. The creek rippled over the +limestone, and an elk screamed in the forest far beyond. When at length +I had called Weldon to take the third watch, I lay down with a sense of +peace, soothed by the sweet odors of the night. + +I awoke suddenly. I had been dreaming of Nick Temple and Temple Bow, and +my father coming back to me there with a great gash in his shoulder like +Weldon’s. I lay for a moment dazed by the transition, staring through +the gray light. Then I sat up, the soft stamping and snorting of +the horses in my ears. The sorrel mare had her nose high, her tail +twitching, but there was no other sound in the leafy wilderness. With +a bound of returning sense I looked for Weldon. He had fallen asleep on +the bank above, his body dropped across the trunk of the oak. I leaped +on the trunk and made my way along it, stepping over him, until I +reached and hid myself in the great roots of the tree on the bank above. +The cold shiver of the dawn was in my body as I waited and listened. +Should I wake Tom? The vast forest was silent, and yet in its shadowy +depths my imagination drew moving forms. I hesitated. + +The light grew: the boles of the trees came out, one by one, through the +purple. The tangled mass down the creek took on a shade of green, and +a faint breath came from the southward. The sorrel mare sniffed it, and +stamped. Then silence again,--a long silence. Could it be that the cane +moved in the thicket? Or had my eyes deceived me? I stared so hard that +it seemed to rustle all over. Perhaps some deer were feeding there, +for it was no unusual thing, when we rose in the morning, to hear the +whistle of a startled doe near our camping ground. I was thoroughly +frightened now,--and yet I had the speculative Scotch mind. The thicket +was some one hundred and fifty yards above, and on the flooded lands +at a bend. If there were Indians in it, they could not see the sleeping +forms of our party under me because of a bend in the stream. They might +have seen me, though I had kept very still in the twisted roots of the +oak, and now I was cramped. If Indians were there, they could determine +our position well enough by the occasional stamping and snorting of the +horses. And this made my fear more probable, for I had heard that horses +and cattle often warned pioneers of the presence of redskins. + +Another thing: if they were a small party, they would probably seek to +surprise us by coming out of the cane into the creek bed above the +bend, and stalk down the creek. If a large band, they would surround and +overpower us. I drew the conclusion that it must be a small party--if a +party at all. And I would have given a shot in the arm to be able to see +over the banks of the creek. Finally I decided to awake Tom. + +It was no easy matter to get down to where he was without being seen +by eyes in the cane. I clung to the under branches of the oak, finally +reached the shelving bank, and slid down slowly. I touched him on the +shoulder. He awoke with a start, and by instinct seized the rifle lying +beside him. + +“What is it, Davy?” he whispered. + +I told what had happened and my surmise. He glanced then at the restless +horses and nodded, pointing up at the sleeping figure of Weldon, in full +sight on the log. The Indians must have seen him. + +Tom picked up the spare rifle. + +“Davy,” said he, “you stay here beside Polly Ann, behind the oak. You +kin shoot with a rest; but don’t shoot,” said he, earnestly, “for God’s +sake don’t shoot unless you’re sure to kill.” + +I nodded. For a moment he looked at the face of Polly Ann, sleeping +peacefully, and the fierce light faded from his eyes. He brushed her on +the cheek and she awoke and smiled at him, trustfully, lovingly. He put +his finger to his lips. + +“Stay with Davy,” he said. Turning to me, he added: “When you wake +Weldon, wake him easy. So.” He put his hand in mine, and gradually +tightened it. “Wake him that way, and he won’t jump.” + +Polly Ann asked no questions. She looked at Tom, and her soul was in +her face. She seized the pistol from the blanket. Then we watched him +creeping down the creek on his belly, close to the bank. Next we moved +behind the fallen tree, and I put my hand in Weldon’s. He woke with a +sigh, started, but we drew him down behind the log. Presently he climbed +cautiously up the bank and took station in the muddy roots of the tree. +Then we waited, watching Tom with a prayer in our hearts. Those who have +not felt it know not the fearfulness of waiting for an Indian attack. + +At last Tom reached the bend in the bank, beside some red-bud bushes, +and there he stayed. A level shaft of light shot through the forest. The +birds, twittering, awoke. A great hawk soared high in the blue over our +heads. An hour passed. I had sighted the rifle among the yellow leaves +of the fallen oak an hundred times. But Polly Ann looked not once to +the right or left. Her eyes and her prayers followed the form of her +husband. + +Then, like the cracking of a great drover’s whip, a shot rang out in the +stillness, and my hands tightened over the rifle-stock. A piece of bark +struck me in the face, and a dead leaf fluttered to the ground. Almost +instantly there was another shot, and a blue wisp of smoke rose from the +red-bud bushes, where Tom was. The horses whinnied, there was a rustle +in the cane, and silence. Weldon bent over. + +“My God!” he whispered hoarsely, “he hit one. Tom hit one.” + +I felt Polly Ann’s hand on my face. + +“Davy dear,” she said, “are ye hurt?” + +“No,” said I, dazed, and wondering why Weldon had not been shot long ago +as he slumbered. I was burning to climb the bank and ask him whether he +had seen the Indian fall. + +Again there was silence,--a silence even more awful than before. The +sun crept higher, the magic of his rays turning the creek from black to +crystal, and the birds began to sing again. And still there was no sign +of the treacherous enemy that lurked about us. Could Tom get back? I +glanced at Polly Ann. The same question was written in her yearning +eyes, staring at the spot where the gray of his hunting shirt showed +through the bushes at the bend. Suddenly her hand tightened on mine. The +hunting shirt was gone! + +After that, in the intervals when my terror left me, I tried to +speculate upon the plan of the savages. Their own numbers could not +be great, and yet they must have known from our trace how few we +were. Scanning the ground, I noted that the forest was fairly clean of +undergrowth on both sides of us. Below, the stream ran straight, but +there were growths of cane and briers. Looking up, I saw Weldon faced +about. It was the obvious move. + +But where had Tom gone? + +Next my eye was caught by a little run fringed with bushes that curved +around the cane near the bend. I traced its course, unconsciously, bit +by bit, until it reached the edge of a bank not fifty feet away. + +All at once my breath left me. Through the tangle of bramble stems at +the mouth of the run, above naked brown shoulders there glared at me, +hideously streaked with red, a face. Had my fancy lied? I stared again +until my eyes were blurred, now tortured by doubt, now so completely +convinced that my fingers almost released the trigger,--for I had thrown +the sights into line over the tree. I know not to this day whether I +shot from determination or nervousness. My shoulder bruised by the kick, +the smoke like a veil before my face, it was some moments ere I knew +that the air was full of whistling bullets; and then the gun was torn +from my hands, and I saw Polly Ann ramming in a new charge. + +“The pistol, Davy,” she cried. + +One torture was over, another on. Crack after crack sounded from the +forest--from here and there and everywhere, it seemed--and with a song +that like a hurtling insect ran the scale of notes, the bullets buried +themselves in the trunk of our oak with a chug. Once in a while I heard +Weldon’s answering shot, but I remembered my promise to Tom not to waste +powder unless I were sure. The agony was the breathing space we had +while they crept nearer. Then we thought of Tom, and I dared not glance +at Polly Ann for fear that the sight of her face would unnerve me. + +Then a longing to kill seized me, a longing so strange and fierce that +I could scarce be still. I know now that it comes in battle to all men, +and with intensity to the hunted, and it explained to me more clearly +what followed. I fairly prayed for the sight of a painted form, and time +after time my fancy tricked me into the notion that I had one. And even +as I searched the brambles at the top of the run a puff of smoke rose +out of them, a bullet burying itself in the roots near Weldon, who fired +in return. I say that I have some notion of what possessed the man, for +he was crazed with passion at fighting the race which had so cruelly +wronged him. Horror-struck, I saw him swing down from the bank, splash +through the water with raised tomahawk, and gain the top of the run. +In less time than it takes me to write these words he had dragged a +hideous, naked warrior out of the brambles, and with an avalanche of +crumbling earth they slid into the waters of the creek. Polly Ann and I +stared transfixed at the fearful fight that followed, nor can I give any +adequate description of it. Weldon had struck through the brambles, but +the savage had taken the blow on his gun-barrel and broken the handle of +the tomahawk, and it was man to man as they rolled in the shallow water, +locked in a death embrace. Neither might reach for his knife, neither +was able to hold the other down, Weldon’s curses surcharged with hatred, +the Indian straining silently save for a gasp or a guttural note, +the white a bearded madman, the savage a devil with a glistening, +paint-streaked body, his features now agonized as his muscles strained +and cracked, now lighted with a diabolical joy. But the pent-up rage of +months gave the white man strength. + +Polly Ann and I were powerless for fear of shooting Weldon, and gazed +absorbed at the fiendish scene with eyes not to be withdrawn. The +tree-trunk shook. A long, bronze arm reached out from above, and a +painted face glowered at us from the very roots where Weldon had lain. +That moment I took to be my last, and in it I seemed to taste all +eternity. I heard but faintly a noise beyond. It was the shock of the +heavy Indian falling on Polly Ann and me as we cowered under the trunk, +and even then there was an instant that we stood gazing at him as at a +worm writhing in the clay. It was she who fired the pistol and made +the great hole in his head, and so he twitched and died. After that a +confusion of shots, war-whoops, a vision of two naked forms flying from +tree to tree towards the cane, and then--God be praised--Tom’s voice +shouting:-- + +“Polly Ann! Polly Ann!” + +Before she had reached the top of the bank Tom had her in his arms, +and a dozen tall gray figures leaped the six feet into the stream and +stopped. My own eyes turned with theirs to see the body of poor Weldon +lying face downward in the water. But beyond it a tragedy awaited me. +Defiant, immovable, save for the heaving of his naked chest, the savage +who had killed him stood erect with folded arms facing us. The smoke +cleared away from a gleaming rifle-barrel, and the brave staggered and +fell and died as silent as he stood, his feathers making ripples in the +stream. It was cold-blooded, if you like, but war in those days was to +the death, and knew no mercy. The tall backwoodsman who had shot him +waded across the stream, and in the twinkling of an eye seized the +scalp-lock and ran it round with his knife, holding up the bleeding +trophy with a shout. Staggering to my feet, I stretched myself, but I +had been cramped so long that I tottered and would have fallen had not +Tom’s hand steadied me. + +“Davy!” he cried. “Thank God, little Davy! the varmints didn’t get ye.” + +“And you, Tom?” I answered, looking up at him, bewildered with +happiness. + +“They was nearer than I suspicioned when I went off,” he said, and +looked at me curiously. “Drat the little deevil,” he said +affectionately, and his voice trembled, “he took care of Polly Ann, I’ll +warrant.” + +He carried me to the top of the bank, where we were surrounded by the +whole band of backwoodsmen. + +“That he did!” cried Polly Ann, “and fetched a redskin yonder as clean +as you could have done it, Tom.” + +“The little deevil!” exclaimed Tom again. + +I looked up, burning with this praise from Tom (for I had never thought +of praise nor of anything save his happiness and Polly Ann’s). I looked +up, and my eyes were caught and held with a strange fascination by +fearless blue ones that gazed down into them. I give you but a poor +description of the owner of these blue eyes, for personal magnetism +springs not from one feature or another. He was a young man,--perhaps +five and twenty as I now know age,--woodsman-clad, square-built, +sun-reddened. His hair might have been orange in one light and +sand-colored in another. With a boy’s sense of such things I knew that +the other woodsmen were waiting for him to speak, for they glanced at +him expectantly. + +“You had a near call, McChesney,” said he, at length; “fortunate for you +we were after this band,--shot some of it to pieces yesterday morning.” + He paused, looking at Tom with that quality of tribute which comes +naturally to a leader of men. “By God,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d +try it.” + +“My word is good, Colonel Clark,” answered Tom, simply. + +Young Colonel Clark glanced at the lithe figure of Polly Ann. He +seemed a man of few words, for he did not add to his praise of Tom’s +achievement by complimenting her as Captain Sevier had done. In fact, +he said nothing more, but leaped down the bank and strode into the water +where the body of Weldon lay, and dragged it out himself. We gathered +around it silently, and two great tears rolled down Polly Ann’s cheeks +as she parted the hair with tenderness and loosened the clenched hands. +Nor did any of the tall woodsmen speak. Poor Weldon! The tragedy of his +life and death was the tragedy of Kentucky herself. They buried him by +the waterside, where he had fallen. + +But there was little time for mourning on the border. The burial +finished, the Kentuckians splashed across the creek, and one of them, +stooping with a shout at the mouth of the run, lifted out of the +brambles a painted body with drooping head and feathers trailing. + +“Ay, Mac,” he cried, “here’s a sculp for ye.” + +“It’s Davy’s,” exclaimed Polly Ann from the top of the bank; “Davy shot +that one.” + +“Hooray for Davy,” cried a huge, strapping backwoodsman who stood beside +her, and the others laughingly took up the shout. “Hooray for Davy. +Bring him over, Cowan.” The giant threw me on his shoulder as though +I had been a fox, leaped down, and took the stream in two strides. I +little thought how often he was to carry me in days to come, but I felt +a great awe at the strength of him, as I stared into his rough features +and his veined and weathered skin. He stood me down beside the Indian’s +body, smiled as he whipped my hunting knife from my belt, and said, +“Now, Davy, take the sculp.” + +Nothing loath, I seized the Indian by the long scalp-lock, while my big +friend guided my hand, and amid laughter and cheers I cut off my first +trophy of war. Nor did I have any other feeling than fierce hatred of +the race which had killed my father. + +Those who have known armies in their discipline will find it difficult +to understand the leadership of the border. Such leadership was granted +only to those whose force and individuality compelled men to obey them. +I had my first glimpse of it that day. This Colonel Clark to whom Tom +delivered Mr. Robertson’s letter was perchance the youngest man in the +company that had rescued us, saving only a slim lad of seventeen whom +I noticed and envied, and whose name was James Ray. Colonel Clark, so +I was told by my friend Cowan, held that title in Kentucky by reason of +his prowess. + +Clark had been standing quietly on the bank while I had scalped my first +redskin. Then he called Tom McChesney to him and questioned him closely +about our journey, the signs we had seen, and, finally, the news in the +Watauga settlements. While this was going on the others gathered round +them. + +“What now?” asked Cowan, when he had finished. + +“Back to Harrodstown,” answered the Colonel, shortly. + +There was a brief silence, followed by a hoarse murmur from a thick-set +man at the edge of the crowd, who shouldered his way to the centre of +it. + +“We set out to hunt a fight, and my pluck is to clean up. We ain’t +finished ‘em yet.” + +The man had a deep, coarse voice that was a piece with his roughness. + +“I reckon this band ain’t a-goin’ to harry the station any more, +McGary,” cried Cowan. + +“By Job, what did we come out for? Who’ll take the trail with me?” + +There were some who answered him, and straightway they began to quarrel +among themselves, filling the woods with a babel of voices. While I +stood listening to these disputes with a boy’s awe of a man’s quarrel, +what was my astonishment to feel a hand on my shoulder. It was Colonel +Clark’s, and he was not paying the least attention to the dispute. + +“Davy,” said he, “you look as if you could make a fire.” + +“Yes, sir,” I answered, gasping. + +“Well,” said he, “make one.” + +I lighted a piece of punk with the flint, and, wrapping it up in some +dry brush, soon had a blaze started. Looking up, I caught his eye on me +again. + +“Mrs. McChesney,” said Colonel Clark to Polly Ann, “you look as if you +could make johnny-cake. Have you any meal?” + +“That I have,” cried Polly Ann, “though it’s fair mouldy. Davy, run and +fetch it.” + +I ran to the pack on the sorrel mare. When I returned Mr. Clark said:-- + +“That seems a handy boy, Mrs. McChesney.” + +“Handy!” cried Polly Ann, “I reckon he’s more than handy. Didn’t he save +my life twice on our way out here?” + +“And how was that?” said the Colonel. + +“Run and fetch some water, Davy,” said Polly Ann, and straightway +launched forth into a vivid description of my exploits, as she mixed +the meal. Nay, she went so far as to tell how she came by me. The young +Colonel listened gravely, though with a gleam now and then in his blue +eyes. Leaning on his long rifle, he paid no manner of attention to +the angry voices near by,--which conduct to me was little short of the +marvellous. + +“Now, Davy,” said he, at length, “the rest of your history.” + +“There is little of it, sir,” I answered. “I was born in the Yadkin +country, lived alone with my father, who was a Scotchman. He hated a man +named Cameron, took me to Charlestown, and left me with some kin of his +who had a place called Temple Bow, and went off to fight Cameron and the +Cherokees.” There I gulped. “He was killed at Cherokee Ford, and--and I +ran away from Temple Bow, and found Polly Ann.” + +This time I caught something of surprise on the Colonel’s face. + +“By thunder, Davy,” said he, “but you have a clean gift for brief +narrative. Where did you learn it?” + +“My father was a gentleman once, and taught me to speak and read,” I +answered, as I brought a flat piece of limestone for Polly Ann’s baking. + +“And what would you like best to be when you grow up, Davy?” he asked. + +“Six feet,” said I, so promptly that he laughed. + +“Faith,” said Polly Ann, looking at me comically, “he may be many +things, but I’ll warrant he’ll never be that.” + +I have often thought since that young Mr. Clark showed much of the +wisdom of the famous king of Israel on that day. Polly Ann cooked a +piece of a deer which one of the woodsmen had with him, and the quarrel +died of itself when we sat down to this and the johnny-cake. By noon we +had taken up the trace for Harrodstown, marching with scouts ahead and +behind. Mr. Clark walked mostly alone, seemingly wrapped in thought. +At times he had short talks with different men, oftenest--I noted with +pride--with Tom McChesney. And more than once when he halted he called +me to him, my answers to his questions seeming to amuse him. Indeed, I +became a kind of pet with the backwoodsmen, Cowan often flinging me to +his shoulder as he swung along. The pack was taken from the sorrel mare +and divided among the party, and Polly Ann made to ride that we might +move the faster. + +It must have been the next afternoon, about four, that the rough +stockade of Harrodstown greeted our eyes as we stole cautiously to the +edge of the forest. And the sight of no roofs and spires could have +been more welcome than that of these logs and cabins, broiling in the +midsummer sun. At a little distance from the fort, a silent testimony +of siege, the stumpy, cleared fields were overgrown with weeds, tall +and rank, the corn choked. Nearer the stockade, where the keepers of the +fort might venture out at times, a more orderly growth met the eye. It +was young James Ray whom Colonel Clark singled to creep with our message +to the gates. At six, when the smoke was rising from the stone chimneys +behind the palisades, Ray came back to say that all was well. Then we +went forward quickly, hands waved a welcome above the logs, the great +wooden gates swung open, and at last we had reached the haven for which +we had suffered so much. Mangy dogs barked at our feet, men and women +ran forward joyfully to seize our hands and greet us. + +And so we came to Kaintuckee. + + + + +CHAPTER X. HARRODSTOWN + +The old forts like Harrodstown and Boonesboro and Logan’s at St. Asaph’s +have long since passed away. It is many, many years since I lived +through that summer of siege in Harrodstown, the horrors of it are faded +and dim, the discomforts lost to a boy thrilled with a new experience. I +have read in my old age the books of travellers in Kentucky, English and +French, who wrote much of squalor and strife and sin and little of +those qualities that go to the conquest of an empire and the making of a +people. Perchance my own pages may be colored by gratitude and love for +the pioneers amongst whom I found myself, and thankfulness to God that +we had reached them alive. + +I know not how many had been cooped up in the little fort since the +early spring, awaiting the chance to go back to their weed-choked +clearings. The fort at Harrodstown was like an hundred others I have +since seen, but sufficiently surprising to me then. Imagine a great +parallelogram made of log cabins set end to end, their common outside +wall being the wall of the fort, and loopholed. At the four corners +of the parallelogram the cabins jutted out, with ports in the angle in +order to give a flanking fire in case the savages reached the palisade. +And then there were huge log gates with watch-towers on either side +where sentries sat day and night scanning the forest line. Within the +fort was a big common dotted with forest trees, where such cattle as +had been saved browsed on the scanty grass. There had been but the one +scrawny horse before our arrival. + +And the settlers! How shall I describe them as they crowded around us +inside the gate? Some stared at us with sallow faces and eyes brightened +by the fever, yet others had the red glow of health. Many of the men +wore rough beards, unkempt, and yellow, weather-worn hunting shirts, +often stained with blood. The barefooted women wore sunbonnets and loose +homespun gowns, some of linen made from nettles, while the children +swarmed here and there and everywhere in any costume that chance had +given them. All seemingly talking at once, they plied us with question +after question of the trace, the Watauga settlements, the news in the +Carolinys, and how the war went. + +“A lad is it, this one,” said an Irish voice near me, “and a woman! +The dear help us, and who’d ‘ave thought to see a woman come over the +mountain this year! Where did ye find them, Bill Cowan?” + +“Near the Crab Orchard, and the lad killed and sculped a six-foot +brave.” + +“The saints save us! And what ‘ll be his name?” + +“Davy,” said my friend. + +“Is it Davy? Sure his namesake killed a giant, too.” + +“And is he come along, also?” said another. His shy blue eyes and stiff +blond hair gave him a strange appearance in a hunting shirt. + +“Hist to him! Who will ye be talkin’ about, Poulsson? Is it King David +ye mane?” + +There was a roar of laughter, and this was my introduction to Terence +McCann and Swein Poulsson. The fort being crowded, we were put into a +cabin with Terence and Cowan and Cowan’s wife--a tall, gaunt woman with +a sharp tongue and a kind heart--and her four brats, “All hugemsmug +together,” as Cowan said. And that night we supped upon dried buffalo +meat and boiled nettle-tops, for of such was the fare in Harrodstown +that summer. + +“Tom McChesney kept his faith.” One other man was to keep his faith +with the little community--George Rogers Clark. And I soon learned that +trustworthiness is held in greater esteem in a border community than +anywhere else. Of course, the love of the frontier was in the grain of +these men. But what did they come back to? Day after day would the sun +rise over the forest and beat down upon the little enclosure in which we +were penned. The row of cabins leaning against the stockade marked the +boundaries of our diminutive world. Beyond them, invisible, lurked a +relentless foe. Within, the greater souls alone were calm, and a man’s +worth was set down to a hair’s breadth. Some were always to be found +squatting on their door-steps cursing the hour which had seen them +depart for this land; some wrestled and fought on the common, for a fist +fight with a fair field and no favor was a favorite amusement of the +backwoodsmen. My big friend, Cowan, was the champion of these, and often +of an evening the whole of the inhabitants would gather near the spring +to see him fight those who had the courage to stand up to him. His +muscles were like hickory wood, and I have known a man insensible for +a quarter of an hour after one of his blows. Strangely enough, he never +fought in anger, and was the first to the spring for a gourd of water +after the fight was over. But Tom McChesney was the best wrestler of the +lot, and could make a wider leap than any other man in Harrodstown. + +Tom’s reputation did not end there, for he became one of the two +bread-winners of the station. I would better have said meatwinners. Woe +be to the incautious who, lulled by a week of fancied security, ventured +out into the dishevelled field for a little food! In the early days of +the siege man after man had gone forth for game, never to return. Until +Tom came, one only had been successful,--that lad of seventeen, whose +achievements were the envy of my boyish soul, James Ray. He slept in the +cabin next to Cowan’s, and long before the dawn had revealed the forest +line had been wont to steal out of the gates on the one scrawny horse +the Indians had left them, gain the Salt River, and make his way thence +through the water to some distant place where the listening savages +could not hear his shot. And now Tom took his turn. Often did I sit with +Polly Ann till midnight in the sentry’s tower, straining my ears for the +owl’s hoot that warned us of his coming. Sometimes he was empty-handed, +but sometimes a deer hung limp and black across his saddle, or a pair of +turkeys swung from his shoulder. + +“Arrah, darlin’,” said Terence to Polly Ann, “‘tis yer husband and James +is the jools av the fort. Sure I niver loved me father as I do thim.” + +I would have given kingdoms in those days to have been seventeen and +James Ray. When he was in the fort I dogged his footsteps, and listened +with a painful yearning to the stories of his escapes from the roving +bands. And as many a character is watered in its growth by hero-worship, +so my own grew firmer in the contemplation of Ray’s resourcefulness. My +strange life had far removed me from lads of my own age, and he took a +fancy to me, perhaps because of the very persistence of my devotion to +him. I cleaned his gun, filled his powder flask, and ran to do his every +bidding. + +I used in the hot summer days to lie under the elm tree and listen to +the settlers’ talk about a man named Henderson, who had bought a great +part of Kentucky from the Indians, and had gone out with Boone to found +Boonesboro some two years before. They spoke of much that I did not +understand concerning the discountenance by Virginia of these claims, +speculating as to whether Henderson’s grants were good. For some of +them held these grants, and others Virginia grants--a fruitful source +of quarrel between them. Some spoke, too, of Washington and his ragged +soldiers going up and down the old colonies and fighting for a freedom +which there seemed little chance of getting. But their anger seemed +to blaze most fiercely when they spoke of a mysterious British general +named Hamilton, whom they called “the ha’r buyer,” and who from his +stronghold in the north country across the great Ohio sent down these +hordes of savages to harry us. I learned to hate Hamilton with the rest, +and pictured him with the visage of a fiend. We laid at his door every +outrage that had happened at the three stations, and put upon him +the blood of those who had been carried off to torture in the Indian +villages of the northern forests. And when--amidst great excitement--a +spent runner would arrive from Boonesboro or St. Asaph’s and beg Mr. +Clark for a squad, it was commonly with the first breath that came into +his body that he cursed Hamilton. + +So the summer wore away, while we lived from hand to mouth on such +scanty fare as the two of them shot and what we could venture to gather +in the unkempt fields near the gates. A winter of famine lurked ahead, +and men were goaded near to madness at the thought of clearings made and +corn planted in the spring within reach of their hands, as it were, and +they might not harvest it. At length, when a fortnight had passed, and +Tom and Ray had gone forth day after day without sight or fresh sign of +Indians, the weight lifted from our hearts. There were many things +that might yet be planted and come to maturity before the late Kentucky +frosts. + +The pressure within the fort, like a flood, opened the gates of it, +despite the sturdily disapproving figure of a young man who stood silent +under the sentry box, leaning on his Deckard. He was Colonel George +Rogers Clark,¹ Commander-in-chief of the backwoodsmen of Kentucky, whose +power was reënforced by that strange thing called an education. It was +this, no doubt, gave him command of words when he chose to use them. +¹ It appears that Mr. Clark had not yet received the title of Colonel, +though he held command.--Editor. + +“Faith,” said Terence, as we passed him, “‘tis a foine man he is, and +a gintleman born. Wasn’t it him gathered the Convintion here in +Harrodstown last year that chose him and another to go to the Virginia +legislatoor? And him but a lad, ye might say. The divil fly away wid +his caution! Sure the redskins is as toired as us, and gone home to the +wives and childher, bad cess to thim.” + +And so the first day the gates were opened we went into the fields a +little way; and the next day a little farther. They had once seemed to +me an unexplored and forbidden country as I searched them with my eyes +from the sentry boxes. And yet I felt a shame to go with Polly Ann and +Mrs. Cowan and the women while James Ray and Tom sat with the guard of +men between us and the forest line. Like a child on a holiday, Polly +Ann ran hither and thither among the stalks, her black hair flying and a +song on her lips. + +“Soon we’ll be having a little home of our own, Davy,” she cried; “Tom +has the place chose on a knoll by the river, and the land is rich with +hickory and pawpaw. I reckon we may be going there next week.” + +Caution being born into me with all the strength of a vice, I said +nothing. Whereupon she seized me in her strong hands and shook me. + +“Ye little imp!” said she, while the women paused in their work to laugh +at us. + +“The boy is right, Polly Ann,” said Mrs. Harrod, “and he’s got more +sense than most of the men in the fort.” + +“Ay, that he has,” the gaunt Mrs. Cowan put in, eying me fiercely, while +she gave one of her own offsprings a slap that sent him spinning. + +Whatever Polly Ann might have said would have been to the point, but it +was lost, for just then the sound of a shot came down the wind, and a +half a score of women stampeded through the stalks, carrying me down +like a reed before them. When I staggered to my feet Polly Ann and Mrs. +Cowan and Mrs. Harrod were standing alone. For there was little of fear +in those three. + +“Shucks!” said Mrs. Cowan, “I reckon it’s that Jim Ray shooting at a +mark,” and she began to pick nettles again. + +“Vimmen is a shy critter,” remarked Swein Poulsson, coming up. I had a +shrewd notion that he had run with the others. + +“Wimmen!” Mrs. Cowan fairly roared. “Wimmen! Tell us how ye went in +March with the boys to fight the varmints at the Sugar Orchard, Swein!” + +We all laughed, for we loved him none the less. His little blue eyes +were perfectly solemn as he answered:-- + +“Ve send you fight Injuns mit your tongue, Mrs. Cowan. Then we haf no +more troubles.” + +“Land of Canaan!” cried she, “I reckon I could do more harm with it than +you with a gun.” + +There were many such false alarms in the bright days following, and +never a bullet sped from the shadow of the forest. Each day we went +farther afield, and each night trooped merrily in through the gates with +hopes of homes and clearings rising in our hearts--until the motionless +figure of the young Virginian met our eye. It was then that men began +to scoff at him behind his back, though some spoke with sufficient +backwoods bluntness to his face. And yet he gave no sign of anger or +impatience. Not so the other leaders. No sooner did the danger seem past +than bitter strife sprang up within the walls. Even the two captains +were mortal enemies. One was Harrod, a tall, spare, dark-haired man of +great endurance,--a type of the best that conquered the land for the +nation; the other, that Hugh McGary of whom I have spoken, coarse and +brutal, if you like, but fearless and a leader of men withal. + +A certain Sunday morning, I remember, broke with a cloud-flecked sky, +and as we were preparing to go afield with such ploughs as could be got +together (we were to sow turnips) the loud sounds of a quarrel came +from the elm at the spring. With one accord men and women and children +flocked thither, and as we ran we heard McGary’s voice above the rest. +Worming my way, boylike, through the crowd, I came upon McGary and +Harrod glaring at each other in the centre of it. + +“By Job! there’s no devil if I’ll stand back from my clearing and waste +the rest of the summer for the fears of a pack of cowards. I’ll take +a posse and march to Shawanee Springs this day, and see any man a fair +fight that tries to stop me.” + +“And who’s in command here?” demanded Harrod. + +“I am, for one,” said McGary, with an oath, “and my corn’s on the ear. +I’ve held back long enough, I tell you, and I’ll starve this winter for +you nor any one else.” + +Harrod turned. + +“Where’s Clark?” he said to Bowman. + +“Clark!” roared McGary, “Clark be d--d. Ye’d think he was a woman.” + He strode up to Harrod until their faces almost touched, and his voice +shook with the intensity of his anger. “By G--d, you nor Clark nor any +one else will stop me, I say!” He swung around and faced the people. +“Come on, boys! We’ll fetch that corn, or know the reason why.” + +A responding murmur showed that the bulk of them were with him. Weary of +the pent-up life, longing for action, and starved for a good meal, the +anger of his many followers against Clark and Harrod was nigh as great +as his. He started roughly to shoulder his way out, and whether from +accident or design Captain Harrod slipped in front of him, I never knew. +The thing that followed happened quickly as the catching of my breath. I +saw McGary powdering his pan, and Harrod his, and felt the crowd giving +back like buffalo. All at once the circle had vanished, and the two men +were standing not five paces apart with their rifles clutched across +their bodies, each watching, catlike, for the other to level. It was +a cry that startled us--and them. There was a vision of a woman flying +across the common, and we saw the dauntless Mrs. Harrod snatching +her husband’s gun from his resisting hands. So she saved his life and +McGary’s. + +At this point Colonel Clark was seen coming from the gate. When he got +to Harrod and McGary the quarrel blazed up again, but now it was between +the three of them, and Clark took Harrod’s rifle from Mrs. Harrod and +held it. However, it was presently decided that McGary should wait one +more day before going to his clearing; whereupon the gates were opened, +the picked men going ahead to take station as a guard, and soon we were +hard at work, ploughing here and mowing there, and in another place +putting seed in the ground: in the cheer of the work hardships were +forgotten, and we paused now and again to laugh at some sally of +Terence McCann’s or odd word of Swein Poulsson’s. As the day wore on +to afternoon a blue haze--harbinger of autumn--settled over fort and +forest. Bees hummed in the air as they searched hither and thither +amongst the flowers, or shot straight as a bullet for a distant hive. +But presently a rifle cracked, and we raised our heads. + +“Hist!” said Terence, “the bhoys on watch is that warlike! Whin there’s +no redskins to kill they must be wastin’ good powdher on a three.” + +I leaped upon a stump and scanned the line of sentries between us +and the woods; only their heads and shoulders appeared above the rank +growth. I saw them looking from one to another questioningly, some +shouting words I could not hear. Then I saw some running; and next, as +I stood there wondering, came another crack, and then a volley like the +noise of a great fire licking into dry wood, and things that were +not bees humming round about. A distant man in a yellow hunting shirt +stumbled, and was drowned in the tangle as in water. Around me men +dropped plough-handles and women baskets, and as we ran our legs grew +numb and our bodies cold at a sound which had haunted us in dreams by +night--the war-whoop. The deep and guttural song of it rose and fell +with a horrid fierceness. An agonized voice was in my ears, and I +halted, ashamed. It was Polly Ann’s. + +“Davy!” she cried, “Davy, have ye seen Tom?” + +Two men dashed by. I seized one by the fringe of his shirt, and he flung +me from my feet. The other leaped me as I knelt. + +“Run, ye fools!” he shouted. But we stood still, with yearning eyes +staring back through the frantic forms for a sight of Tom’s. + +“I’ll go back!” I cried, “I’ll go back for him. Do you run to the fort.” + For suddenly I seemed to forget my fear, nor did even the hideous notes +of the scalp halloo disturb me. Before Polly Ann could catch me I +had turned and started, stumbled,--I thought on a stump,--and fallen +headlong among the nettles with a stinging pain in my leg. Staggering to +my feet, I tried to run on, fell again, and putting down my hand found +it smeared with blood. A man came by, paused an instant while his eye +caught me, and ran on again. I shall remember his face and name to my +dying day; but there is no reason to put it down here. In a few seconds’ +space as I lay I suffered all the pains of captivity and of death by +torture, that cry of savage man an hundred times more frightful than +savage beast sounding in my ears, and plainly nearer now by half the +first distance. Nearer, and nearer yet--and then I heard my name called. +I was lifted from the ground, and found myself in the lithe arms of +Polly Ann. + +“Set me down!” I screamed, “set me down!” and must have added some of +the curses I had heard in the fort. But she clutched me tightly (God +bless the memory of those frontier women!), and flew like a deer toward +the gates. Over her shoulder I glanced back. A spare three hundred yards +away in a ragged line a hundred red devils were bounding after us with +feathers flying and mouths open as they yelled. Again I cried to her +to set me down; but though her heart beat faster and her breath came +shorter, she held me the tighter. Second by second they gained on +us, relentlessly. Were we near the fort? Hoarse shouts answered the +question, but they seemed distant--too distant. The savages were +gaining, and Polly Ann’s breath quicker still. She staggered, but the +brave soul had no thought of faltering. I had a sight of a man on a +plough horse with dangling harness coming up from somewhere, of the man +leaping off, of ourselves being pitched on the animal’s bony back +and clinging there at the gallop, the man running at the side. Shots +whistled over our heads, and here was the brown fort. Its big gates +swung together as we dashed through the narrowed opening. Then, as he +lifted us off, I knew that the man who had saved us was Tom himself. The +gates closed with a bang, and a patter of bullets beat against them like +rain. + +Through the shouting and confusion came a cry in a voice I knew, now +pleading, now commanding. + +“Open, open! For God’s sake open!” + +“It’s Ray! Open for Ray! Ray’s out!” + +Some were seizing the bar to thrust it back when the heavy figure of +McGary crushed into the crowd beside it. + +“By Job, I’ll shoot the man that touches it!” he shouted, as he tore +them away. But the sturdiest of them went again to it, and cursed him. +And while they fought backward and forward, the lad’s mother, Mrs. Ray, +cried out to them to open in tones to rend their hearts. But McGary had +gained the bar and swore (perhaps wisely) that he would not sacrifice +the station for one man. Where was Ray? + +Where was Ray, indeed? It seemed as if no man might live in the hellish +storm that raged without the walls: as if the very impetus of hate and +fury would carry the savages over the stockade to murder us. Into the +turmoil at the gate came Colonel Clark, sending the disputants this way +and that to defend the fort, McGary to command one quarter, Harrod and +Bowman another, and every man that could be found to a loophole, while +Mrs. Ray continued to run up and down, wringing her hands, now facing +one man, now another. Some of her words came to me, shrilly, above the +noise. + +“He fed you--he fed you. Oh, my God, and you are grateful--grateful! +When you were starving he risked his life--” + +Torn by anxiety for my friend, I dragged myself into the nearest cabin, +and a man was fighting there in the half-light at the port. The huge +figure I knew to be my friend Cowan’s, and when he drew back to load I +seized his arm, shouting Ray’s name. Although the lead was pattering +on the other side of the logs, Cowan lifted me to the port. And there, +stretched on the ground behind a stump, within twenty feet of the walls, +was James. Even as I looked the puffs of dust at his side showed that +the savages knew his refuge. I saw him level and fire, and then Bill +Cowan set me down and began to ram in a charge with tremendous energy. + +Was there no way to save Ray? I stood turning this problem in my mind, +subconsciously aware of Cowan’s movements: of his yells when he thought +he had made a shot, when Polly Ann appeared at the doorway. Darting in, +she fairly hauled me to the shake-down in the far corner. + +“Will ye bleed to death, Davy?” she cried, as she slipped off my legging +and bent over the wound. Her eye lighting on a gourdful of water on the +puncheon table, she tore a strip from her dress and washed and bound me +deftly. The bullet was in the flesh, and gave me no great pain. + +“Lie there, ye imp!” she commanded, when she had finished. + +“Some one’s under the bed,” said I, for I had heard a movement. + +In an instant we were down on our knees on the hard dirt floor, and +there was a man’s foot in a moccasin! We both grabbed it and pulled, +bringing to life a person with little blue eyes and stiff blond hair. + +“Swein Poulsson!” exclaimed Polly Ann, giving him an involuntary kick, +“may the devil give ye shame!” + +Swein Poulsson rose to a sitting position and clasped his knees in his +hands. + +“I haf one great fright,” said he. + +“Send him into the common with the women in yere place, Mis’ McChesney,” + growled Cowan, who was loading. + +“By tam!” said Swein Poulsson, leaping to his feet, “I vill stay here +und fight. I am prave once again.” Stooping down, he searched under the +bed, pulled out his rifle, powdered the pan, and flying to the other +port, fired. At that Cowan left his post and snatched the rifle from +Poulsson’s hands. + +“Ye’re but wasting powder,” he cried angrily. + +“Then, by tam, I am as vell under the bed,” said Poulsson. “Vat can I +do?” + +I had it. + +“Dig!” I shouted; and seizing the astonished Cowan’s tomahawk from his +belt I set to work furiously chopping at the dirt beneath the log wall. +“Dig, so that James can get under.” + +Cowan gave me the one look, swore a mighty oath, and leaping to the port +shouted to Ray in a thundering voice what we were doing. + +“Dig!” roared Cowan. “Dig, for the love of God, for he can’t hear me.” + +The three of us set to work with all our might, Poulsson making great +holes in the ground at every stroke, Polly Ann scraping at the dirt with +the gourd. Two feet below the surface we struck the edge of the lowest +log, and then it was Poulsson who got into the hole with his hunting +knife--perspiring, muttering to himself, working as one possessed with +a fury, while we scraped out the dirt from under him. At length, after +what seemed an age of staring at his legs, the ground caved on him, +and he would have smothered if we had not dragged him out by the heels, +sputtering and all powdered brown. But there was the daylight under the +log. + +Again Cowan shouted at Ray, and again, but he did not understand. It was +then the miracle happened. I have seen brave men and cowards since, and +I am as far as ever from distinguishing them. Before we knew it Poulsson +was in the hole once more--had wriggled out of it on the other side, and +was squirming in a hail of bullets towards Ray. There was a full minute +of suspense--perhaps two--during which the very rifles of the fort were +silent (though the popping in the weeds was redoubled), and then the +barrel of a Deckard was poked through the hole. After it came James +Ray himself, and lastly Poulsson, and a great shout went out from the +loopholes and was taken up by the women in the common. + +Swein Poulsson had become a hero, nor was he willing to lose any of the +glamour which was a hero’s right. As the Indians’ fire slackened, he +went from cabin to cabin, and if its occupants failed to mention the +exploit (some did fail so to do, out of mischief), Swein would say:-- + +“You did not see me safe James, no? I vill tell you joost how.” + +It never leaked out that Swein was first of all under the bed, for Polly +Ann and Bill Cowan and myself swore to keep the secret. But they +told how I had thought of digging the hole under the logs--a happy +circumstance which got me a reputation for wisdom beyond my years. There +was a certain Scotchman at Harrodstown called McAndrew, and it was +he gave me the nickname “Canny Davy,” and I grew to have a sort of +precocious fame in the station. Often Captain Harrod or Bowman or some +of the others would pause in their arguments and say gravely, “What does +Davy think of it?” This was not good for a boy, and the wonder of it is +that it did not make me altogether insupportable. One effect it had on +me--to make me long even more earnestly to be a man. + +The impulse of my reputation led me farther. A fortnight of more +inactivity followed, and then we ventured out into the fields once more. +But I went with the guard this time, not with the women,--thanks to a +whim the men had for humoring me. + +“Arrah, and beant he a man all but two feet,” said Terence, “wid more +brain than me an’ Bill Cowan and Poulsson togither? ‘Tis a fox’s nose +Davy has for the divils, Bill. Sure he can smell thim the same as you +an’ me kin see the red paint on their faces.” + +“I reckon that’s true,” said Bill Cowan, with solemnity, and so he +carried me off. + +At length the cattle were turned out to browse greedily through the +clearing, while we lay in the woods by the forest and listened to the +sound of their bells, but when they strayed too far, I was often sent to +drive them back. Once when this happened I followed them to the shade at +the edge of the woods, for it was noon, and the sun beat down fiercely. +And there I sat for some time watching them as they lashed their sides +with their tails and pawed the ground, for experience is a good master. +Whether or not the flies were all that troubled them I could not tell, +and no sound save the tinkle of their bells broke the noonday stillness. +Making a circle I drove them back toward the fort, much troubled in +mind. I told Cowan, but he laughed and said it was the flies. Yet I was +not satisfied, and finally stole back again to the place where I +had found them. I sat a long time hidden at the edge of the forest, +listening until my imagination tricked me into hearing those noises +which I feared and yet longed for. Trembling, I stole a little farther +in the shade of the woods, and then a little farther still. The leaves +rustled in the summer’s breeze, patches of sunlight flickered on the +mould, the birds twittered, and the squirrels scolded. A chipmunk +frightened me as he flew chattering along a log. And yet I went on. I +came to the creek as it flowed silently in the shade, stepped in, and +made my way slowly down it, I know not how far, walking in the water, my +eye alert to every movement about me. At length I stopped and caught my +breath. Before me, in a glade opening out under great trees, what seemed +a myriad of forked sticks were piled against one another, three by +three, and it struck me all in a heap that I had come upon a great +encampment. But the skeletons of the pyramid tents alone remained. Where +were the skins? Was the camp deserted? + +For a while I stared through the brier leaves, then I took a venture, +pushed on, and found myself in the midst of the place. It must have held +near a thousand warriors. All about me were gray heaps of ashes, and +bones of deer and elk and buffalo scattered, some picked clean, +some with the meat and hide sticking to them. Impelled by a strong +fascination, I went hither and thither until a sound brought me to a +stand--the echoing crack of a distant rifle. On the heels of it came +another, then several together, and a faint shouting borne on the light +wind. Terrorized, I sought for shelter. A pile of brush underlain by +ashes was by, and I crept into that. The sounds continued, but seemed to +come no nearer, and my courage returning, I got out again and ran wildly +through the camp toward the briers on the creek, expecting every moment +to be tumbled headlong by a bullet. And when I reached the briers, what +between panting and the thumping of my heart I could for a few moments +hear nothing. Then I ran on again up the creek, heedless of cover, +stumbling over logs and trailing vines, when all at once a dozen bronze +forms glided with the speed of deer across my path ahead. They splashed +over the creek and were gone. Bewildered with fear, I dropped under a +fallen tree. Shouts were in my ears, and the noise of men running. I +stood up, and there, not twenty paces away, was Colonel Clark himself +rushing toward me. He halted with a cry, raised his rifle, and dropped +it at the sight of my queer little figure covered with ashes. + +“My God!” he cried, “it’s Davy.” + +“They crossed the creek,” I shouted, pointing the way, “they crossed the +creek, some twelve of them.” + +“Ay,” he said, staring at me, and by this time the rest of the guard +were come up. They too stared, with different exclamations on their +lips,--Cowan and Bowman and Tom McChesney and Terence McCann in front. + +“And there’s a great camp below,” I went on, “deserted, where a thousand +men have been.” + +“A camp--deserted?” said Clark, quickly. + +“Yes,” I said, “yes.” But he had already started forward and seized me +by the arm. + +“Lead on,” he cried, “show it to us.” He went ahead with me, travelling +so fast that I must needs run to keep up, and fairly lifting me over the +logs. But when we came in sight of the place he darted forward alone +and went through it like a hound on the trail. The others followed +him, crying out at the size of the place and poking among the ashes. At +length they all took up the trail for a way down the creek. Presently +Clark called a halt. + +“I reckon that they’ve made for the Ohio,” he said. And at this judgment +from him the guard gave a cheer that might almost have been heard in +the fields around the fort. The terror that had hovered over us all that +long summer was lifted at last. + +You may be sure that Cowan carried me back to the station. “To think it +was Davy that found it!” he cried again and again, “to think it was Davy +found it!” + +“And wasn’t it me that said he could smell the divils,” said Terence, as +he circled around us in a mimic war dance. And when from the fort they +saw us coming across the fields they opened the gates in astonishment, +and on hearing the news gave themselves over to the wildest rejoicing. +For the backwoodsmen were children of nature. Bill Cowan ran for the +fiddle which he had carried so carefully over the mountain, and that +night we had jigs and reels on the common while the big fellow played +“Billy of the Wild Woods” and “Jump Juba,” with all his might, and +the pine knots threw their fitful, red light on the wild scenes of +merriment. I must have cut a queer little figure as I sat between Cowan +and Tom watching the dance, for presently Colonel Clark came up to us, +laughing in his quiet way. + +“Davy,” said he, “there is another great man here who would like to +see you,” and led me away wondering. I went with him toward the gate, +burning all over with pride at this attention, and beside a torch there +a broad-shouldered figure was standing, at sight of whom I had a start +of remembrance. + +“Do you know who that is, Davy?” said Colonel Clark. + +“It’s Mr. Daniel Boone,” said I. + +“By thunder,” said Clark, “I believe the boy is a wizard,” while Mr. +Boone’s broad mouth was creased into a smile, and there was a trace of +astonishment, too, in his kindly eye. + +“Mr. Boone came to my father’s cabin on the Yadkin once,” I said; “he +taught me to skin a deer.” + +“Ay, that I did,” exclaimed Mr. Boone, “and I said ye’d make a woodsman +sometime.” + +Mr. Boone, it seemed, had come over from Boonesboro to consult with +Colonel Clark on certain matters, and had but just arrived. But so +modest was he that he would not let it be known that he was in the +station, for fear of interrupting the pleasure. He was much the same as +I had known him, only grown older and his reputation now increased to +vastness. He and Clark sat on a door log talking for a long time +on Kentucky matters, the strength of the forts, the prospect of new +settlers that autumn, of the British policy, and finally of a journey +which Colonel Clark was soon to make back to Virginia across the +mountains. They seemed not to mind my presence. At length Colonel Clark +turned to me with that quiet, jocose way he had when relaxed. + +“Davy,” said he, “we’ll see how much of a general you are. What would +you do if a scoundrel named Hamilton far away at Detroit was bribing all +the redskins he could find north of the Ohio to come down and scalp your +men?” + +“I’d go for Hamilton,” I answered. + +“By God!” exclaimed Clark, striking Mr. Boone on the knee, “that’s what +I’d do.” + + + +CHAPTER XI. FRAGMENTARY + +Mr. Boone’s visit lasted but a day. I was a great deal with Colonel +Clark in the few weeks that followed before his departure for Virginia. +He held himself a little aloof (as a leader should) from the captains +in the station, without seeming to offend them. But he had a fancy for +James Ray and for me, and he often took me into the woods with him by +day, and talked with me of an evening. + +“I’m going away to Virginia, Davy,” he said; “will you not go with me? +We’ll see Williamsburg, and come back in the spring, and I’ll have you a +little rifle made.” + +My look must have been wistful. + +“I can’t leave Polly Ann and Tom,” I answered. + +“Well,” he said, “I like that. Faith to your friends is a big equipment +for life.” + +“But why are you going?” I asked. + +“Because I love Kentucky best of all things in the world,” he answered, +smiling. + +“And what are you going to do?” I insisted. + +“Ah,” he said, “that I can’t tell even to you.” + +“To catch Hamilton?” I ventured at random. + +He looked at me queerly. + +“Would you go along, Davy?” said he, laughing now. + +“Would you take Tom?” + +“Among the first,” answered Colonel Clark, heartily. + +We were seated under the elm near the spring, and at that instant I +saw Tom coming toward us. I jumped up, thinking to please him by this +intelligence, when Colonel Clark pulled me down again. + +“Davy,” said he, almost roughly, I thought, “remember that we have been +joking. Do you understand?--joking. You have a tongue in your mouth, +but sense enough in your head, I believe, to hold it.” He turned to Tom. +“McChesney, this is a queer lad you brought us,” said he. + +“He’s a little deevil,” agreed Tom, for that had become a formula with +him. + +It was all very mysterious to me, and I lay awake many a night with +curiosity, trying to solve a puzzle that was none of my business. And +one day, to cap the matter, two woodsmen arrived at Harrodstown with +clothes frayed and bodies lean from a long journey. Not one of the +hundred questions with which they were beset would they answer, nor +say where they had been or why, save that they had carried out certain +orders of Clark, who was locked up with them in a cabin for several +hours. + +The first of October, the day of Colonel Clark’s departure, dawned crisp +and clear. He was to take with him the disheartened and the cowed, the +weaklings who loved neither work nor exposure nor danger. And before he +set out of the gate he made a little speech to the assembled people. + +“My friends,” he said, “you know me. I put the interests of Kentucky +before my own. Last year when I left to represent her at Williamsburg +there were some who said I would desert her. It was for her sake I made +that journey, suffered the tortures of hell from scalded feet, was near +to dying in the mountains. It was for her sake that I importuned the +governor and council for powder and lead, and when they refused it I +said to them, ‘Gentlemen, a country that is not worth defending is not +worth claiming.’” + +At these words the settlers gave a great shout, waving their coonskin +hats in the air. + +“Ay, that ye did,” cried Bill Cowan, “and got the amminition.” + +“I made that journey for her sake, I say,” Colonel Clark continued, “and +even so I am making this one. I pray you trust me, and God bless and +keep you while I am gone.” + +He did not forget to speak to me as he walked between our lines, and +told me to be a good boy and that he would see me in the spring. Some +of the women shed tears as he passed through the gate, and many of us +climbed to sentry box and cabin roof that we might see the last of the +little company wending its way across the fields. A motley company it +was, the refuse of the station, headed by its cherished captain. So they +started back over the weary road that led to that now far-away land of +civilization and safety. + +During the balmy Indian summer, when the sharper lines of nature are +softened by the haze, some came to us from across the mountains to make +up for the deserters. From time to time a little group would straggle to +the gates of the station, weary and footsore, but overjoyed at the sight +of white faces again: the fathers walking ahead with watchful eyes, the +women and older children driving the horses, and the babies slung to the +pack in hickory withes. Nay, some of our best citizens came to Kentucky +swinging to the tail of a patient animal. The Indians were still abroad, +and in small war parties darted hither and thither with incredible +swiftness. And at night we would gather at the fire around our new +emigrants to listen to the stories they had to tell,--familiar stories +to all of us. Sometimes it had been the gobble of a wild turkey that had +lured to danger, again a wood-owl had cried strangely in the night. + +Winter came, and passed--somehow. I cannot dwell here on the tediousness +of it, and the one bright spot it has left in my memory concerns Polly +Ann. Did man, woman, or child fall sick, it was Polly Ann who nursed +them. She had by nature the God-given gift of healing, knew by heart all +the simple remedies that backwoods lore had inherited from the north of +Ireland or borrowed from the Indians. Her sympathy and loving-kindness +did more than these, her never tiring and ever cheerful watchfulness. +She was deft, too, was Polly Ann, and spun from nettle bark many a cut +of linen that could scarce be told from flax. Before the sap began to +run again in the maples there was not a soul in Harrodstown who did not +love her, and I truly believe that most of them would have risked their +lives to do her bidding. + +Then came the sugaring, the warm days and the freezing nights when +the earth stirs in her sleep and the taps drip from red sunrise to red +sunset. Old and young went to the camps, the women and children boiling +and graining, the squads of men posted in guards round about. And after +that the days flew so quickly that it seemed as if the woods had burst +suddenly into white flower, and it was spring again. And then--a joy +to be long remembered--I went on a hunting trip with Tom and Cowan +and three others where the Kentucky tumbles between its darkly wooded +cliffs. And other wonders of that strange land I saw then for the first +time: great licks, trampled down for acres by the wild herds, where +the salt water oozes out of the hoofprints. On the edge of one of these +licks we paused and stared breathless at giant bones sticking here +and there in the black mud, and great skulls of fearful beasts +half-embedded. This was called the Big Bone Lick, and some travellers +that went before us had made their tents with the thighs of these +monsters of a past age. + +A danger past is oft a danger forgotten. Men went out to build the homes +of which they had dreamed through the long winter. Axes rang amidst +the white dogwoods and the crabs and redbuds, and there were riotous +log-raisings in the clearings. But I think the building of Tom’s house +was the most joyous occasion of all, and for none in the settlement +would men work more willingly than for him and Polly Ann. The cabin went +up as if by magic. It stood on a rise upon the bank of the river in a +grove of oaks and hickories, with a big persimmon tree in front of the +door. It was in the shade of this tree that Polly Ann sat watching Tom +and me through the mild spring days as we barked the roof, and none ever +felt greater joy and pride in a home than she. We had our first supper +on a wide puncheon under the persimmon tree on the few pewter plates +we had fetched across the mountain, the blue smoke from our own hearth +rising in the valley until the cold night air spread it out in a line +above us, while the horses grazed at the river’s edge. + +After that we went to ploughing, an occupation which Tom fancied but +little, for he loved the life of a hunter best of all. But there was +corn to be raised and fodder for the horses, and a truck-patch to be +cleared near the house. + +One day a great event happened,--and after the manner of many great +events, it began in mystery. Leaping on the roan mare, I was riding like +mad for Harrodstown to fetch Mrs. Cowan. And she, when she heard the +summons, abandoned a turkey on the spit, pitched her brats out of the +door, seized the mare, and dashing through the gates at a gallop left +me to make my way back afoot. Scenting a sensation, I hurried along the +wooded trace at a dog trot, and when I came in sight of the cabin there +was Mrs. Cowan sitting on the step, holding in her long but motherly +arms something bundled up in nettle linen, while Tom stood sheepishly +by, staring at it. + +“Shucks,” Mrs. Cowan was saying loudly, “I reckon ye’re as little use +to-day as Swein Poulsson,--standin’ there on one foot. Ye anger me--just +grinning at it like a fool--and yer own doin’. Have ye forgot how to +talk?” + +Tom grinned the more, but was saved the effort of a reply by a loud +noise from the bundle. + +“Here’s another,” cried Mrs. Cowan to me. “Ye needn’t act as if it was +an animal. Faith, yereself was like that once, all red an’ crinkled. But +I warrant ye didn’t have the heft,” and she lifted it, judicially. “A +grand baby,” attacking Tom again, “and ye’re no more worthy to be his +father than Davy here.” + +Then I heard a voice calling me, and pushing past Mrs. Cowan, I ran into +the cabin. Polly Ann lay on the log bedstead, and she turned to mine a +face radiant with a happiness I had not imagined. + +“Oh, Davy, have ye seen him? Have ye seen little Tom? Davy, I reckon +I’ll never be so happy again. Fetch him here, Mrs. Cowan.” + +Mrs. Cowan, with a glance of contempt at Tom and me, put the bundle +tenderly down on the coarse brown sheet beside her. + +Poor little Tom! Only the first fortnight of his existence was spent in +peace. I have a pathetic memory of it all--of our little home, of our +hopes for it, of our days of labor and nights of planning to make it +complete. And then, one morning when the three of us were turning over +the black loam in the patch, while the baby slept peacefully in the +shade, a sound came to our ears that made us pause and listen with bated +breath. It was the sound of many guns, muffled in the distant forest. +With a cry Polly Ann flew to the hickory cradle under the tree, Tom +sprang for the rifle that was never far from his side, while with a +kind of instinct I ran to catch the spancelled horses by the river. In +silence and sorrow we fled through the tall cane, nor dared to take +one last look at the cabin, or the fields lying black in the spring +sunlight. The shots had ceased, but ere we had reached the little +clearing McCann had made they began again, though as distant as before. +Tom went ahead, while I led the mare and Polly Ann clutched the child to +her breast. But when we came in sight of the fort across the clearings +the gates were closed. There was nothing to do but cower in the thicket, +listening while the battle went on afar, Polly Ann trying to still the +cries of the child, lest they should bring death upon us. At length the +shooting ceased; stillness reigned; then came a faint halloo, and out of +the forest beyond us a man rode, waving his hat at the fort. After him +came others. The gates opened, and we rushed pell-mell across the fields +to safety. + +The Indians had shot at a party shelling corn at Captain Bowman’s +plantation, and killed two, while the others had taken refuge in the +crib. Fired at from every brake, James Ray had ridden to Harrodstown +for succor, and the savages had been beaten off. But only the foolhardy +returned to their clearings now. We were on the edge of another dreaded +summer of siege, the prospect of banishment from the homes we could +almost see, staring us in the face, and the labors of the spring lost +again. There was bitter talk within the gates that night, and many +declared angrily that Colonel Clark had abandoned us. But I remembered +what he had said, and had faith in him. + +It was that very night, too, I sat with Cowan, who had duty in one of +the sentry boxes, and we heard a voice calling softly under us. Fearing +treachery, Cowan cried out for a sign. Then the answer came back loudly +to open to a runner with a message from Colonel Clark to Captain Harrod. +Cowan let the man in, while I ran for the captain, and in five minutes +it seemed as if every man and woman and child in the fort were awake and +crowding around the man by the gates, their eager faces reddened by +the smoking pine knots. Where was Clark? What had he been doing? Had he +deserted them? + +“Deserted ye!” cried the runner, and swore a great oath. Wasn’t Clark +even then on the Ohio raising a great army with authority from the +Commonwealth of Virginia to rid them of the red scourge? And would they +desert him? Or would they be men and bring from Harrodstown the company +he asked for? Then Captain Harrod read the letter asking him to raise +the company, and before day had dawned they were ready for the word to +march--ready to leave cabin and clearing, and wife and child, trusting +in Clark’s judgment for time and place. Never were volunteers mustered +more quickly than in that cool April night by the gates of Harrodstown +Station. + +“And we’ll fetch Davy along, for luck,” cried Cowan, catching sight of +me beside him. + +“Sure we’ll be wanting a dhrummer b’y,” said McCann. + +And so they enrolled me. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS + +“Davy, take care of my Tom,” cried Polly Ann. + +I can see her now, standing among the women by the great hewn gateposts, +with little Tom in her arms, holding him out to us as we filed by. And +the vision of his little, round face haunted Tom and me for many weary +miles of our tramp through the wilderness. I have often thought since +that that march of the volunteer company to join Clark at the Falls of +the Ohio was a superb example of confidence in one man, and scarce to be +equalled in history. + +In less than a week we of Captain Harrod’s little company stood on a +forest-clad bank, gazing spellbound at the troubled waters of a mighty +river. That river was the Ohio, and it divided us from the strange north +country whence the savages came. From below, the angry voice of +the Great Falls cried out to us unceasingly. Smoke rose through the +tree-tops of the island opposite, and through the new gaps of its forest +cabins could be seen. And presently, at a signal from us, a big flatboat +left its shore, swung out and circled on the polished current, +and grounded at length in the mud below us. A dozen tall boatmen, +buckskin-clad, dropped the big oars and leaped out on the bank with a +yell of greeting. At the head of them was a man of huge frame, and long, +light hair falling down over the collar of his hunting shirt. He wrung +Captain Harrod’s hand. + +“That there’s Simon Kenton, Davy,” said Cowan, as we stood watching +them. + +I ran forward for a better look at the backwoods Hercules, the tales +of whose prowess had helped to while away many a winter’s night in +Harrodstown Station. Big-featured and stern, yet he had the kindly eye +of the most indomitable of frontier fighters, and I doubted not +the truth of what was said of him--that he could kill any redskin +hand-to-hand. + +“Clark’s thar,” he was saying to Captain Harrod. “God knows what his +pluck is. He ain’t said a word.” + +“He doesn’t say whar he’s going?” said Harrod. + +“Not a notion,” answered Kenton. “He’s the greatest man to keep his +mouth shut I ever saw. He kept at the governor of Virginny till he gave +him twelve hundred pounds in Continentals and power to raise troops. +Then Clark fetched a circle for Fort Pitt, raised some troops thar and +in Virginny and some about Red Stone, and come down the Ohio here with +‘em in a lot of flatboats. Now that ye’ve got here the Kentucky boys is +all in. I come over with Montgomery, and Dillard’s here from the Holston +country with a company.” + +“Well,” said Captain Harrod, “I reckon we’ll report.” + +I went among the first boat-load, and as the men strained against the +current, Kenton explained that Colonel Clark had brought a number of +emigrants down the river with him; that he purposed to leave them +on this island with a little force, that they might raise corn and +provisions during the summer; and that he had called the place Corn +Island. + +“Sure, there’s the Colonel himself,” cried Terence McCann, who was +in the bow, and indeed I could pick out the familiar figure among +the hundred frontiersmen that gathered among the stumps at the +landing-place. As our keel scraped they gave a shout that rattled in the +forest behind them, and Clark came down to the waterside. + +“I knew that Harrodstown wouldn’t fail me,” he said, and called every +man by name as we waded ashore. When I came splashing along after Tom he +pulled me from the water with his two hands. + +“Colonel,” said Terence McCann, “we’ve brought ye a dhrummer b’y.” + +“We’d have no luck at all without him,” said Cowan, and the men laughed. + +“Can you walk an hundred miles without food, Davy?” asked Colonel Clark, +eying me gravely. + +“Faith he’s lean as a wolf, and no stomach to hinder him,” said Terence, +seeing me look troubled. “I’ll not be missing the bit of food the likes +of him would eat.” + +“And as for the heft of him,” added Cowan, “Mac and I’ll not feel it.” + +Colonel Clark laughed. “Well, boys,” he said, “if you must have him, you +must. His Excellency gave me no instructions about a drummer, but we’ll +take you, Davy.” + +In those days he was a man that wasted no time, was Colonel Clark, and +within the hour our little detachment had joined the others, felling +trees and shaping the log-ends for the cabins. That night, as Tom +and Cowan and McCann and James Ray lay around their fire, taking +a well-earned rest, a man broke excitedly into the light with a +kettle-shaped object balanced on his head, which he set down in front of +us. The man proved to be Swein Poulsson, and the object a big drum, +and he straightway began to beat upon it a tattoo with improvised +drumsticks. + +“A Red Stone man,” he cried, “a Red Stone man, he have it in the +flatboat. It is for Tavy.” + +“The saints be good to us,” said Terence, “if it isn’t the King’s own +drum he has.” And sure enough, on the head of it gleamed the royal arms +of England, and on the other side, as we turned it over, the device of a +regiment. They flung the sling about my neck, and the next day, when the +little army drew up for parade among the stumps, there I was at the end +of the line, and prouder than any man in the ranks. And Colonel Clark +coming to my end of the line paused and smiled and patted me kindly on +the cheek. + +“Have you put this man on the roll, Harrod?” says he. + +“No, Colonel,” answers Captain Harrod, amid the laughter of the men at +my end. + +“What!” says the Colonel, “what an oversight! From this day he is +drummer boy and orderly to the Commander-in-chief. Beat the retreat, my +man.” + +I did my best, and as the men broke ranks they crowded around me, +laughing and joking, and Cowan picked me up, drum and all, and carried +me off, I rapping furiously the while. + +And so I became a kind of handy boy for the whole regiment from the +Colonel down, for I was willing and glad to work. I cooked the Colonel’s +meals, roasting the turkey breasts and saddles of venison that the +hunters brought in from the mainland, and even made him journey-cake, a +trick which Polly Ann had taught me. And when I went about the island, +if a man were loafing, he would seize his axe and cry, “Here’s Davy, +he’ll tell the Colonel on me.” Thanks to the jokes of Terence McCann, +I gained an owl-like reputation for wisdom amongst these superstitious +backwoodsmen, and they came verily to believe that upon my existence +depended the success of the campaign. But day after day passed, and no +sign from Colonel Clark of his intentions. + +“There’s a good lad,” said Terence. “He’ll be telling us where we’re +going.” + +I was asked the same question by a score or more, but Colonel Clark +kept his own counsel. He himself was everywhere during the days that +followed, superintending the work on the blockhouse we were building, +and eying the men. Rumor had it that he was sorting out the sheep from +the goats, silently choosing those who were to remain on the island and +those who were to take part in the campaign. + +At length the blockhouse stood finished amid the yellow stumps of the +great trees, the trunks of which were in its walls. And suddenly the +order went forth for the men to draw up in front of it by companies, +with the families of the emigrants behind them. It was a picture to fix +itself in a boy’s mind, and one that I have never forgotten. The line of +backwoodsmen, as fine a lot of men as I ever wish to see, bronzed by the +June sun, strong and tireless as the wild animals of the forest, stood +expectant with rifles grounded. And beside the tallest, at the end of +the line, was a diminutive figure with a drum hung in front of it. The +early summer wind rustled in the forest, and the never ending song +of the Great Falls sounded from afar. Apart, square-shouldered and +indomitable, stood a young man of twenty-six. + +“My friends and neighbors,” he said in a firm voice, “there is scarce +a man standing among you to-day who has not suffered at the hands of +savages. Some of you have seen wives and children killed before your +eyes--or dragged into captivity. None of you can to-day call the home +for which he has risked so much his own. And who, I ask you, is to blame +for this hideous war? Whose gold is it that buys guns and powder and +lead to send the Shawnee and the Iroquois and Algonquin on the warpath?” + +He paused, and a hoarse murmur of anger ran along the ranks. + +“Whose gold but George’s, by the grace of God King of Great Britain and +Ireland? And what minions distribute it? Abbott at Kaskaskia, for one, +and Hamilton at Detroit, the Hair Buyer, for another!” + +When he spoke Hamilton’s name his voice was nearly drowned by +imprecations. + +“Silence!” cried Clark, sternly, and they were silent. “My friends, +the best way for a man to defend himself is to maim his enemy. One year +since, when you did me the honor to choose me Commander-in-chief of your +militia in Kentucky, I sent two scouts to Kaskaskia. A dozen years +ago the French owned that place, and St. Vincent, and Detroit, and the +people there are still French. My men brought back word that the French +feared the Long Knives, as the Indians call us. On the first of October +I went to Virginia, and some of you thought again that I had deserted +you. I went to Williamsburg and wrestled with Governor Patrick Henry and +his council, with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Mason and Mr. Wythe. Virginia +had no troops to send us, and her men were fighting barefoot with +Washington against the armies of the British king. But the governor gave +me twelve hundred pounds in paper, and with it I have raised the +little force that we have here. And with it we will carry the war into +Hamilton’s country. On the swift waters of this great river which +flows past us have come tidings to-day, and God Himself has sent them. +To-morrow would have been too late. The ships and armies of the French +king are on their way across the ocean to help us fight the tyrant, and +this is the news that we bear to the Kaskaskias. When they hear this, +the French of those towns will not fight against us. My friends, we are +going to conquer an empire for liberty, and I can look onward,” he cried +in a burst of inspired eloquence, sweeping his arm to the northward +toward the forests on the far side of the Ohio, “I can look onward +to the day when these lands will be filled with the cities of a Great +Republic. And who among you will falter at such a call?” + +There was a brief silence, and then a shout went up from the ranks that +drowned the noise of the Falls, and many fell into antics, some throwing +their coonskin hats in the air, and others cursing and scalping Hamilton +in mockery, while I pounded on the drum with all my might. But when we +had broken ranks the rumor was whispered about that the Holston company +had not cheered, and indeed the rest of the day these men went about +plainly morose and discontented,--some saying openly (and with much +justice, though we failed to see it then) that they had their own +families and settlements to defend from the Southern Indians and +Chickamauga bandits, and could not undertake Kentucky’s fight at that +time. And when the enthusiasm had burned away a little the disaffection +spread, and some even of the Kentuckians began to murmur against Clark, +for faith or genius was needful to inspire men to his plan. One of the +malcontents from Boonesboro came to our fire to argue. + +“He’s mad as a medicine man, is Clark, to go into that country with less +than two hundred rifles. And he’ll force us, will he? I’d as lief have +the King for a master.” + +He brought every man in our circle to his feet,--Ray, McCann, Cowan, and +Tom. But Tom was nearest, and words not coming easily to him he fell on +the Boonesboro man instead, and they fought it out for ten minutes in +the firelight with half the regiment around them. At the end of it, when +the malcontents were carrying their champion away, they were stopped +suddenly at the sight of one bursting through the circle into the light, +and a hush fell upon the quarrel. It was Colonel Clark. + +“Are you hurt, McChesney?” he demanded. + +“I reckon not much, Colonel,” said Tom, grinning, as he wiped his face. + +“If any man deserts this camp to-night,” cried Colonel Clark, swinging +around, “I swear by God to have him chased and brought back and punished +as he deserves. Captain Harrod, set a guard.” + +I pass quickly over the rest of the incident. How the Holston men and +some others escaped in the night in spite of our guard, and swam the +river on logs. How at dawn we found them gone, and Kenton and Harrod and +brave Captain Montgomery set out in pursuit, with Cowan and Tom and Ray. +All day they rode, relentless, and the next evening returned with but +eight weary and sullen fugitives of all those who had deserted. + +The next day the sun rose on a smiling world, the polished reaches of +the river golden mirrors reflecting the forest’s green. And we were +astir with the light, preparing for our journey into the unknown +country. At seven we embarked by companies in the flatboats, waving +a farewell to those who were to be left behind. Some stayed through +inclination and disaffection: others because Colonel Clark did not +deem them equal to the task. But Swein Poulsson came. With tears in his +little blue eyes he had begged the Colonel to take him, and I remember +him well on that June morning, his red face perspiring under the white +bristles of his hair as he strained at the big oar. For we must needs +pull a mile up the stream ere we could reach the passage in which to +shoot downward to the Falls. Suddenly Poulsson dropped his handle, +causing the boat to swing round in the stream, while the men damned him. +Paying them no attention, he stood pointing into the blinding disk of +the sun. Across the edge of it a piece was bitten out in blackness. + +“Mein Gott!” he cried, “the world is being ended just now.” + +“The holy saints remember us this day!” said McCann, missing a stroke to +cross himself. “Will ye pull, ye damned Dutchman? Or we’ll be the first +to slide into hell. This is no kind of a place at all at all.” + +By this time the men all along the line of boats had seen it, and many +faltered. Clark’s voice could be heard across the waters urging them +to pull, while the bows swept across the current. They obeyed him, +but steadily the blackness ate out the light, and a weird gloaming +overspread the scene. River and forest became stern, the men silent. The +more ignorant were in fear of a cataclysm, the others taking it for an +omen. + +“Shucks!” said Tom, when appealed to, “I’ve seed it afore, and it come +all right again.” + +Clark’s boat rounded the shoal: next our turn came, and then the whole +line was gliding down the river, the rising roar of the angry waters +with which we were soon to grapple coming to us with an added grimness. +And now but a faint rim of light saved us from utter darkness. Big Bill +Cowan, undaunted in war, stared at me with fright written on his face. + +“And what ‘ll ye think of it, Davy?” he said. + +I glanced at the figure of our commander in the boat ahead, and took +courage. + +“It’s Hamilton’s scalp hanging by a lock,” I answered, pointing to what +was left of the sun. “Soon it will be off, and then we’ll have light +again.” + +To my surprise he snatched me from the thwart and held me up with a +shout, and I saw Colonel Clark turn and look back. + +“Davy says the Ha’r Buyer’s sculp hangs by the lock, boys,” he shouted, +pointing at the sun. + +The word was cried from boat to boat, and we could see the men pointing +upwards and laughing. And then, as the light began to grow, we were in +the midst of the tumbling waters, the steersmen straining now right, now +left, to keep the prows in the smooth reaches between rock and bar. We +gained the still pools below, the sun came out once more and smiled on +the landscape, and the spirits of the men, reviving, burst all bounds. + +Thus I earned my reputation as a prophet. + +Four days and nights we rowed down the great river, our oars +double-manned, for fear that our coming might be heralded to the French +towns. We made our first camp on a green little island at the mouth of +the Cherokee, as we then called the Tennessee, and there I set about +cooking a turkey for Colonel Clark, which Ray had shot. Chancing to look +up, I saw the Colonel himself watching me. + +“How is this, Davy?” said he. “I hear that you have saved my army for me +before we have met the enemy.” + +“I did not know it, sir,” I answered. + +“Well,” said he, “if you have learned to turn an evil omen into a good +sign, you know more than some generals. What ails you now?” + +“There’s a pirogue, sir,” I cried, staring and pointing. + +“Where?” said he, alert all at once. “Here, McChesney, take a crew and +put out after them.” + +He had scarcely spoken ere Tom and his men were rowing into the sunset, +the whole of our little army watching from the bank. Presently the other +boat was seen coming back with ours, and five strange woodsmen stepped +ashore, our men pressing around them. But Clark flew to the spot, the +men giving back. + +“Who’s the leader here?” he demanded. + +A tall man stepped forward. + +“I am,” said he, bewildered but defiant. + +“Your name?” + +“John Duff,” he answered, as though against his will. + +“Your business?” + +“Hunters,” said Duff; “and I reckon we’re in our rights.” + +“I’ll judge of that,” said our Colonel. “Where are you from?” + +“That’s no secret, neither. Kaskasky, ten days gone.” + +At that there was a murmur of surprise from our companies. Clark turned. + +“Get your men back,” he said to the captains, who stood about them. And +all of them not moving: “Get your men back, I say. I’ll have it known +who’s in command here.” + +At that the men retired. “Who commands at Kaskaskia?” he demanded of +Duff. + +“Monseer Rocheblave, a Frenchy holding a British commission,” said Duff. +“And the British Governor Abbott has left Post St. Vincent and gone to +Detroit. Who be you?” he added suspiciously. “Be you Rebels?” + +“Colonel Clark is my name, and I am in the service of the Commonwealth +of Virginia.” + +Duff uttered an exclamatory oath and his manner changed. “Be you Clark?” + he said with respect. “And you’re going after Kaskasky? Wal, the mility +is prime, and the Injun scouts is keeping a good lookout. But, Colonel, +I’ll tell ye something: the Frenchies is etarnal afeard of the Long +Knives. My God! they’ve got the notion that if you ketch ‘em you’ll burn +and scalp ‘em same as the Red Sticks.” + +“Good,” was all that Clark answered. + +“I reckon I don’t know much about what the Rebels is fighting for,” said +John Duff; “but I like your looks, Colonel, and wharever you’re going +there’ll be a fight. Me and my boys would kinder like to go along.” + +Clark did not answer at once, but looked John Duff and his men over +carefully. + +“Will you take the oath of allegiance to Virginia and the Continental +Congress?” he asked at length. + +“I reckon it won’t pizen us,” said John Duff. + +“Hold up your hands,” said Clark, and they took the oath. “Now, my men,” + said he, “you will be assigned to companies. Does any one among you know +the old French trail from Massacre to Kaskaskia?” + +“Why,” exclaimed John Duff, “why, Johnny Saunders here can tread it in +the dark like the road to the grogshop.” + +John Saunders, loose limbed, grinning sheepishly, shuffled forward, and +Clark shot a dozen questions at him one after another. Yes, the trail +had been blazed the Lord knew how long ago by the French, and given up +when they left Massacre. + +“Look you,” said Clark to him, “I am not a man to stand trifling. If +there is any deception in this, you will be shot without mercy.” + +“And good riddance,” said John Duff. “Boys, we’re Rebels now. Steer +clear of the Ha’r Buyer.” + + + +CHAPTER XIII. KASKASKIA + +For one more day we floated downward on the face of the waters between +the forest walls of the wilderness, and at length we landed in a little +gully on the north shore of the river, and there we hid our boats. + +“Davy,” said Colonel Clark, “let’s walk about a bit. Tell me where you +learned to be so silent?” + +“My father did not like to be talked to,” I answered, “except when he +was drinking.” + +He gave me a strange look. Many the stroll I took with him afterwards, +when he sought to relax himself from the cares which the campaign had +put upon him. This night was still and clear, the west all yellow with +the departing light, and the mists coming on the river. And presently, +as we strayed down the shore we came upon a strange sight, the same +being a huge fort rising from the waterside, all overgrown with brush +and saplings and tall weeds. The palisades that held its earthenwork +were rotten and crumbling, and the mighty bastions of its corners +sliding away. Behind the fort, at the end farthest from the river, we +came upon gravelled walks hidden by the rank growth, where the soldiers +of his most Christian Majesty once paraded. Lost in thought, Clark stood +on the parapet, watching the water gliding by until the darkness hid +it,--nay, until the stars came and made golden dimples upon its surface. +But as we went back to the camp again he told me how the French had +tried once to conquer this vast country and failed, leaving to the +Spaniards the endless stretch beyond the Mississippi called Louisiana, +and this part to the English. And he told me likewise that this fort +in the days of its glory had been called Massacre, from a bloody event +which had happened there more than threescore years before. + +“Threescore years!” I exclaimed, longing to see the men of this race +which had set up these monuments only to abandon them. + +“Ay, lad,” he answered, “before you or I were born, and before our +fathers were born, the French missionaries and soldiers threaded +this wilderness. And they called this river ‘La Belle Rivière,’--the +Beautiful River.” + +“And shall I see that race at Kaskaskia?” I asked, wondering. + +“That you shall,” he cried, with a force that left no doubt in my mind. + +In the morning we broke camp and started off for the strange place which +we hoped to capture. A hundred miles it was across the trackless wilds, +and each man was ordered to carry on his back provisions for four days +only. + +“Herr Gott!” cried Swein Poulsson, from the bottom of a flatboat, whence +he was tossing out venison flitches, “four day, und vat is it ve eat +then?” + +“Frenchies, sure,” said Terence; “there’ll be plenty av thim for a +season. Faith, I do hear they’re tinder as lambs.” + +“You’ll no set tooth in the Frenchies,” the pessimistic McAndrew put in, +“wi’ five thousand redskins aboot, and they lying in wait. The Colonel’s +no vera mindful of that, I’m thinking.” + +“Will ye hush, ye ill-omened hound!” cried Cowan, angrily. “Pitch him in +the crick, Mac!” + +Tom was diverted from this duty by a loud quarrel between Captain Harrod +and five men of the company who wanted scout duty, and on the heels of +that came another turmoil occasioned by Cowan’s dropping my drum into +the water. While he and McCann and Tom were fishing it out, Colonel +Clark himself appeared, quelled the mutiny that Harrod had on his hands, +and bade the men sternly to get into ranks. + +“What foolishness is this?” he said, eying the dripping drum. + +“Sure, Colonel,” said McCann, swinging it on his back, “we’d have no +heart in us at Kaskasky widout the rattle of it in our ears. Bill Cowan +and me will not be feeling the heft of it bechune us.” + +“Get into ranks,” said the Colonel, amusement struggling with the anger +in his face as he turned on his heel. His wisdom well knew when to humor +a man, and when to chastise. + +“Arrah,” said Terence, as he took his place, “I’d as soon l’ave me gun +behind as Davy and the dhrum.” + +Methinks I can see now, as I write, the long file of woodsmen with their +swinging stride, planting one foot before the other, even as the Indian +himself threaded the wilderness. Though my legs were short, I had both +sinew and training, and now I was at one end of the line and now at +the other. And often with a laugh some giant would hand his gun to a +neighbor, swing me to his shoulder, and so give me a lift for a weary +mile or two; and perchance whisper to me to put down my hand into the +wallet of his shirt, where I would find a choice morsel which he had +saved for his supper. Sometimes I trotted beside the Colonel himself, +listening as he talked to this man or that, and thus I got the gravest +notion of the daring of this undertaking, and of the dangers ahead of +us. This north country was infested with Indians, allies of the English +and friends of the French their subjects; and the fact was never for an +instant absent from our minds that our little band might at any moment +run into a thousand warriors, be overpowered and massacred; or, worst of +all, that our coming might have been heralded to Kaskaskia. + +For three days we marched in the green shade of the primeval wood, nor +saw the sky save in blue patches here and there. Again we toiled for +hours through the coffee-colored waters of the swamps. But the third day +brought us to the first of those strange clearings which the French call +prairies, where the long grass ripples like a lake in the summer wind. +Here we first knew raging thirst, and longed for the loam-specked water +we had scorned, as our tired feet tore through the grass. For Saunders, +our guide, took a line across the open in plain sight of any eye that +might be watching from the forest cover. But at length our column +wavered and halted by reason of some disturbance at the head of it. +Conjectures in our company, the rear guard, became rife at once. + +“Run, Davy darlin,’ an’ see what the throuble is,” said Terence. + +Nothing loath, I made my way to the head of the column, where Bowman’s +company had broken ranks and stood in a ring up to their thighs in the +grass. In the centre of the ring, standing on one foot before our angry +Colonel, was Saunders. + +“Now, what does this mean?” demanded Clark; “my eye is on you, and +you’ve boxed the compass in this last hour.” + +Saunders’ jaw dropped. + +“I’m guiding you right,” he answered, with that sullenness which comes +to his kind from fear, “but a man will slip his bearings sometimes in +this country.” + +Clark’s eyes shot fire, and he brought down the stock of his rifle with +a thud. + +“By the eternal God!” he cried, “I believe you are a traitor. I’ve been +watching you every step, and you’ve acted strangely this morning.” + +“Ay, ay,” came from the men round him. + +“Silence!” cried Clark, and turned again to the cowering Saunders. “You +pretend to know the way to Kaskaskia, you bring us to the middle of the +Indian country where we may be wiped out at any time, and now you have +the damned effrontery to tell me that you have lost your way. I am a man +of my word,” he added with a vibrant intensity, and pointed to the limbs +of a giant tree which stood at the edge of the distant forest. “I will +give you half an hour, but as I live, I will leave you hanging there.” + +The man’s brown hand trembled as he clutched his rifle barrel. + +“‘Tis a hard country, sir,” he said. “I’m lost. I swear it on the +evangels.” + +“A hard country!” cried Clark. “A man would have to walk over it but +once to know it. I believe you are a damned traitor and perjurer,--in +spite of your oath, a British spy.” + +Saunders wiped the sweat from his brow on his buckskin sleeve. + +“I reckon I could get the trace, Colonel, if you’d let me go a little +way into the prairie.” + +“Half an hour,” said Clark, “and you’ll not go alone.” Sweeping his eye +over Bowman’s company, he picked out a man here and a man there to go +with Saunders. Then his eye lighted on me. “Where’s McChesney?” he said. +“Fetch McChesney.” + +I ran to get Tom, and seven of them went away, with Saunders in the +middle, Clark watching them like a hawk, while the men sat down in the +grass to wait. Fifteen minutes went by, and twenty, and twenty-five, and +Clark was calling for a rope, when some one caught sight of the squad in +the distance returning at a run. And when they came within hail it was +Saunders’ voice we heard, shouting brokenly:-- + +“I’ve struck it, Colonel, I’ve struck the trace. There’s a pecan at the +edge of the bottom with my own blaze on it.” + +“May you never be as near death again,” said the Colonel, grimly, as he +gave the order to march. + +The fourth day passed, and we left behind us the patches of forest and +came into the open prairie,--as far as the eye could reach a long, level +sea of waving green. The scanty provisions ran out, hunger was added to +the pangs of thirst and weariness, and here and there in the straggling +file discontent smouldered and angry undertone was heard. Kaskaskia was +somewhere to the west and north; but how far? Clark had misled them. And +in addition it were foolish to believe that the garrison had not been +warned. English soldiers and French militia and Indian allies stood +ready for our reception. Of such was the talk as we lay down in the +grass under the stars on the fifth night. For in the rank and file an +empty stomach is not hopeful. + +The next morning we took up our march silently with the dawn, the +prairie grouse whirring ahead of us. At last, as afternoon drew on, a +dark line of green edged the prairie to the westward, and our spirits +rose. From mouth to mouth ran the word that these were the woods which +fringed the bluff above Kaskaskia itself. We pressed ahead, and the +destiny of the new Republic for which we had fought made us walk unseen. +Excitement keyed us high; we reached the shade, plunged into it, and +presently came out staring at the bastioned corners of a fort which rose +from the centre of a clearing. It had once defended the place, but now +stood abandoned and dismantled. Beyond it, at the edge of the bluff, we +halted, astonished. The sun was falling in the west, and below us was +the goal for the sight of which we had suffered so much. At our feet, +across the wooded bottom, was the Kaskaskia River, and beyond, the +peaceful little French village with its low houses and orchards and +gardens colored by the touch of the evening light. In the centre of it +stood a stone church with its belfry; but our searching eyes alighted on +the spot to the southward of it, near the river. There stood a rambling +stone building with the shingles of its roof weathered black, and all +around it a palisade of pointed sticks thrust in the ground, and with a +pair of gates and watch-towers. Drooping on its staff was the standard +of England. North and south of the village the emerald common gleamed in +the slanting light, speckled red and white and black by grazing cattle. +Here and there, in untidy brown patches, were Indian settlements, and +far away to the westward the tawny Father of Waters gleamed through the +cottonwoods. + +Through the waning day the men lay resting under the trees, talking in +undertones. Some cleaned their rifles, and others lost themselves in +conjectures of the attack. But Clark himself, tireless, stood with +folded arms gazing at the scene below, and the sunlight on his face +illumined him (to the lad standing at his side) as the servant of +destiny. At length, at eventide, the sweet-toned bell of the little +cathedral rang to vespers,--a gentle message of peace to war. Colonel +Clark looked into my upturned face. + +“Davy, do you know what day this is?” he asked. + +“No, sir,” I answered. + +“Two years have gone since the bells pealed for the birth of a new +nation--your nation, Davy, and mine--the nation that is to be the refuge +of the oppressed of this earth--the nation which is to be made of all +peoples, out of all time. And this land for which you and I shall fight +to-night will belong to it, and the lands beyond,” he pointed to the +west, “until the sun sets on the sea again.” He put his hand on my head. +“You will remember this when I am dead and gone,” he said. + +I was silent, awed by the power of his words. + +Darkness fell, and still we waited, impatient for the order. And when at +last it came the men bustled hither and thither to find their commands, +and we picked our way on the unseen road that led down the bluff, our +hearts thumping. The lights of the village twinkled at our feet, and +now and then a voice from below was caught and borne upward to us. Once +another noise startled us, followed by an exclamation, “Donnerblitzen” + and a volley of low curses from the company. Poor Swein Poulsson had +loosed a stone, which had taken a reverberating flight riverward. + +We reached the bottom, and the long file turned and hurried silently +northward, searching for a crossing. I try to recall my feelings as I +trotted beside the tall forms that loomed above me in the night. The +sense of protection they gave me stripped me of fear, and I was not +troubled with that. My thoughts were chiefly on Polly Ann and the child +we had left in the fort now so far to the south of us, and in my fancy +I saw her cheerful, ever helpful to those around her, despite the load +that must rest on her heart. I saw her simple joy at our return. But +should we return? My chest tightened, and I sped along the ranks to +Harrod’s company and caught Tom by the wrist. + +“Davy,” he murmured, and, seizing my hand in his strong grip, pulled me +along with him. For it was not given to him to say what he felt; but +as I hurried to keep pace with his stride, Polly Ann’s words rang in my +ears, “Davy, take care of my Tom,” and I knew that he, too, was thinking +of her. + +A hail aroused me, the sound of a loud rapping, and I saw in black +relief a cabin ahead. The door opened, a man came out with a horde of +children cowering at his heels, a volley of frightened words pouring +from his mouth in a strange tongue. John Duff was plying him with +questions in French, and presently the man became calmer and lapsed into +broken English. + +“Kaskaskia--yes, she is prepare. Many spy is gone out--cross la rivière. +But now they all sleep.” + +Even as he spoke a shout came faintly from the distant town. + +“What is that?” demanded Clark, sharply. + +The man shrugged his shoulders. “Une fête des nègres, peut-être,--the +negro, he dance maybe.” + +“Are you the ferryman?” said Clark. + +“Oui--I have some boat.” + +We crossed the hundred and fifty yards of sluggish water, squad by +squad, and in the silence of the night stood gathered, expectant, on the +farther bank. Midnight was at hand. Commands were passed about, and men +ran this way and that, jostling one another to find their places in a +new order. But at length our little force stood in three detachments +on the river’s bank, their captains repeating again and again the part +which each was to play, that none might mistake his duty. The two larger +ones were to surround the town, while the picked force under Simon +Kenton himself was to storm the fort. Should he gain it by surprise and +without battle, three shots were to be fired in quick succession, the +other detachments were to start the war-whoop, while Duff and some with +a smattering of French were to run up and down the streets proclaiming +that every habitan who left his house would be shot. No provision being +made for the drummer boy (I had left my drum on the heights above), I +chose the favored column, at the head of which Tom and Cowan and Ray +and McCann were striding behind Kenton and Colonel Clark. Not a word +was spoken. There was a kind of cow-path that rose and fell and twisted +along the river-bank. This we followed, and in ten minutes we must +have covered the mile to the now darkened village. The starlight alone +outlined against the sky the houses of it as we climbed the bank. Then +we halted, breathless, in a street, but there was no sound save that +of the crickets and the frogs. Forward again, and twisting a corner, +we beheld the indented edge of the stockade. Still no hail, nor had our +moccasined feet betrayed us as we sought the river side of the fort +and drew up before the big river gates of it. Simon Kenton bore against +them, and tried the little postern that was set there, but both were +fast. The spikes towered a dozen feet overhead. + +“Quick!” muttered Clark, “a light man to go over and open the postern.” + +Before I guessed what was in his mind, Cowan seized me. + +“Send the lad, Colonel,” said he. + +“Ay, ay,” said Simon Kenton, hoarsely. + +In a second Tom was on Kenton’s shoulders, and they passed me up with +as little trouble as though I had been my own drum. Feverishly searching +with my foot for Tom’s shoulder, I seized the spikes at the top, +clambered over them, paused, surveyed the empty area below me, +destitute even of a sentry, and then let myself down with the aid of the +cross-bars inside. As I was feeling vainly for the bolt of the postern, +rays of light suddenly shot my shadow against the door. And next, as +I got my hand on the bolt-head, I felt the weight of another on my +shoulder, and a voice behind me said in English:-- + +“In the devil’s name!” + +I gave the one frantic pull, the bolt slipped, and caught again. Then +Colonel Clark’s voice rang out in the night:-- + +“Open the gate! Open the gate in the name of Virginia and the +Continental Congress!” + +Before I could cry out the man gave a grunt, leaned his gun against the +gate, and tore my fingers from the bolt-handle. Astonishment robbed me +of breath as he threw open the postern. + +“In the name of the Continental Congress,” he cried, and seized his gun. +Clark and Kenton stepped in instantly, no doubt as astounded as I, and +had the man in their grasp. + +“Who are you?” said Clark. + +“Name o’ Skene, from Pennsylvanya,” said the man, “and by the Lord God +ye shall have the fort.” + +“You looked for us?” said Clark. + +“Faith, never less,” said the Pennsylvanian. “The one sentry is at the +main gate.” + +“And the governor?” + +“Rocheblave?” said the Pennsylvanian. “He sleeps yonder in the old +Jesuit house in the middle.” + +Clark turned to Tom McChesney, who was at his elbow. + +“Corporal!” said he, swiftly, “secure the sentry at the main gate! You,” + he added, turning to the Pennsylvanian, “lead us to the governor. But +mind, if you betray me, I’ll be the first to blow out your brains.” + +The man seized a lantern and made swiftly over the level ground until +the rubble-work of the old Jesuit house showed in the light, nor Clark +nor any of them stopped to think of the danger our little handful ran +at the mercy of a stranger. The house was silent. We halted, and Clark +threw himself against the rude panels of the door, which gave to inward +blackness. Our men filled the little passage, and suddenly we found +ourselves in a low-ceiled room in front of a great four-poster bed. And +in it, upright, blinking at the light, were two odd Frenchified figures +in tasselled nightcaps. Astonishment and anger and fear struggled in the +faces of Monsieur de Rocheblave and his lady. A regard for truth +compels me to admit that it was madame who first found her voice, and no +uncertain one it was. + +First came a shriek that might have roused the garrison. + +“Villains! Murderers! Outragers of decency!” she cried with spirit, +pouring a heap of invectives, now in French, now in English, much to the +discomfiture of our backwoodsmen, who peered at her helplessly. + +“Nom du diable!” cried the commandant, when his lady’s breath was gone, +“what does this mean?” + +“It means, sir,” answered Clark, promptly, “that you are my prisoner.” + +“And who are you?” gasped the commandant. + +“George Rogers Clark, Colonel in the service of the Commonwealth of +Virginia.” He held out his hand restrainingly, for the furious Monsieur +Rocheblave made an attempt to rise. “You will oblige me by remaining in +bed, sir, for a moment.” + +“Coquins! Canailles! Cochons!” shrieked the lady. + +“Madame,” said Colonel Clark, politely, “the necessities of war are +often cruel.” + +He made a bow, and paying no further attention to the torrent of her +reproaches or the threats of the helpless commandant, he calmly searched +the room with the lantern, and finally pulled out from under the bed a +metal despatch box. Then he lighted a candle in a brass candlestick +that stood on the simple walnut dresser, and bowed again to the outraged +couple in the four-poster. + +“Now, sir,” he said, “you may dress. We will retire.” + +“Pardieu!” said the commandant in French, “a hundred thousand thanks.” + +We had scarcely closed the bedroom door when three shots were heard. + +“The signal!” exclaimed Clark. + +Immediately a pandemonium broke on the silence of the night that must +have struck cold terror in the hearts of the poor Creoles sleeping in +their beds. The war-whoop, the scalp halloo in the dead of the morning, +with the hideous winding notes of them that reached the bluff beyond +and echoed back, were enough to frighten a man from his senses. In the +intervals, in backwoods French, John Duff and his companions were heard +in terrifying tones crying out to the habitans to venture out at the +peril of their lives. Within the fort a score of lights flew up and down +like will-o’-the-wisps, and Colonel Clark, standing on the steps of the +governor’s house, gave out his orders and despatched his messengers. Me +he sent speeding through the village to tell Captain Bowman to patrol +the outskirts of the town, that no runner might get through to warn Fort +Chartres and Cohos, as some called Cahokia. None stirred save the few +Indians left in the place, and these were brought before Clark in +the fort, sullen and defiant, and put in the guard-house there. And +Rocheblave, when he appeared, was no better, and was put back in his +house under guard. + +As for the papers in the despatch box, they revealed I know not what +briberies of the savage nations and plans of the English. But of +other papers we found none, though there must have been more. Madame +Rocheblave was suspected of having hidden some in the inviolable +portions of her dress. + +At length the cocks crowing for day proclaimed the morning, and while +yet the blue shadow of the bluff was on the town, Colonel Clark sallied +out of the gate and walked abroad. Strange it seemed that war had come +to this village, so peaceful and remote. And even stranger it seemed to +me to see these Arcadian homes in the midst of the fierce wilderness. +The little houses with their sloping roofs and wide porches, the gardens +ablaze with color, the neat palings,--all were a restful sight for our +weary eyes. And now I scarcely knew our commander. For we had not gone +far ere, timidly, a door opened and a mild-visaged man, in the simple +workaday smock that the French wore, stood, hesitating, on the steps. +The odd thing was that he should have bowed to Clark, who was dressed +no differently from Bowman and Harrod and Duff; and the man’s voice +trembled piteously as he spoke. It needed not John Duff to tell us that +he was pleading for the lives of his family. + +“He will sell himself as a slave if your Excellency will spare them,” +said Duff, translating. + +But Clark stared at the man sternly. + +“I will tell them my plans at the proper time,” he said and when Duff +had translated this the man turned and went silently into his house +again, closing the door behind him. And before we had traversed the +village the same thing had happened many times. We gained the fort +again, I wondering greatly why he had not reassured these simple people. +It was Bowman who asked this question, he being closer to Clark than any +of the other captains. Clark said nothing then, and began to give out +directions for the day. But presently he called the Captain aside. + +“Bowman,” I heard him say, “we have one hundred and fifty men to hold +a province bigger than the whole of France, and filled with treacherous +tribes in the King’s pay. I must work out the problem for myself.” + +Bowman was silent. Clark, with that touch which made men love him and +die for him, laid his hand on the Captain’s shoulder. + +“Have the men called in by detachments,” he said, “and fed. God knows +they must be hungry,--and you.” + +Suddenly I remembered that he himself had had nothing. Running around +the commandant’s house to the kitchen door, I came unexpectedly upon +Swein Poulsson, who was face to face with the linsey-woolsey-clad figure +of Monsieur Rocheblave’s negro cook. The early sun cast long shadows of +them on the ground. + +“By tam,” my friend was saying, “so I vill eat. I am choost like an ox +for three days, und chew grass. Prairie grass, is it?” + +“Mo pas capab’, Michié,” said the cook, with a terrified roll of his +white eyes. + +“Herr Gott!” cried Swein Poulsson, “I am red face. Aber Herr Gott, +I thank thee I am not a nigger. Und my hair is bristles, yes. Davy” +(spying me), “I thank Herr Gott it is not vool. Let us in the kitchen +go.” + +“I am come to get something for the Colonel’s breakfast,” said I, +pushing past the slave, through the open doorway. Swein Poulsson +followed, and here I struck another contradiction in his strange nature. +He helped me light the fire in the great stone chimney-place, and we +soon had a pot of hominy on the crane, and turning on the spit a piece +of buffalo steak which we found in the larder. Nor did a mouthful pass +his lips until I had sped away with a steaming portion to find the +Colonel. By this time the men had broken into the storehouse, and the +open place was dotted with their breakfast fires. Clark was standing +alone by the flagstaff, his face careworn. But he smiled as he saw me +coming. + +“What’s this?” says he. + +“Your breakfast, sir,” I answered. I set down the plate and the pot +before him and pressed the pewter spoon into his hand. + +“Davy,” said he. + +“Sir?” said I. + +“What did you have for your breakfast?” + +My lip trembled, for I was very hungry, and the rich steam from the +hominy was as much as I could stand. Then the Colonel took me by the +arms, as gently as a woman might, set me down on the ground beside him, +and taking a spoonful of the hominy forced it between my lips. I was +near to fainting at the taste of it. Then he took a bit himself, +and divided the buffalo steak with his own hands. And when from the +camp-fires they perceived the Colonel and the drummer boy eating +together in plain sight of all, they gave a rousing cheer. + +“Swein Poulsson helped get your breakfast, sir, and would eat nothing +either,” I ventured. + +“Davy,” said Colonel Clark, gravely, “I hope you will be younger when +you are twenty.” + +“I hope I shall be bigger, sir,” I answered gravely. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. HOW THE KASKASKEIANS WERE MADE CITIZENS + +Never before had such a day dawned upon Kaskaskia. With July fierceness +the sun beat down upon the village, but man nor woman nor child stirred +from the darkened houses. What they awaited at the hands of the Long +Knives they knew not,--captivity, torture, death perhaps. Through the +deserted streets stalked a squad of backwoodsmen headed by John Duff and +two American traders found in the town, who were bestirring themselves +in our behalf, knocking now at this door and anon at that. + +“The Colonel bids you come to the fort,” he said, and was gone. + +The church bell rang with slow, ominous strokes, far different from its +gentle vesper peal of yesterday. Two companies were drawn up in the sun +before the old Jesuit house, and presently through the gate a procession +came, grave and mournful. The tone of it was sombre in the white +glare, for men had donned their best (as they thought) for the last +time,--cloth of camlet and Cadiz and Limbourg, white cotton stockings, +and brass-buckled shoes. They came like captives led to execution. But +at their head a figure held our eye,--a figure that spoke of dignity and +courage, of trials borne for others. It was the village priest in +his robes. He had a receding forehead and a strong, pointed chin; but +benevolence was in the curve of his great nose. I have many times since +seen his type of face in the French prints. He and his flock halted +before our young Colonel, even as the citizens of Calais in a bygone +century must have stood before the English king. + +The scene comes back to me. On the one side, not the warriors of a +nation that has made its mark in war, but peaceful peasants who had +sought this place for its remoteness from persecution, to live and die +in harmony with all mankind. On the other, the sinewy advance guard of a +race that knows not peace, whose goddess of liberty carries in her hand +a sword. The plough might have been graven on our arms, but always the +rifle. + +The silence of the trackless wilds reigned while Clark gazed at them +sternly. And when he spoke it was with the voice of a conqueror, and +they listened as the conquered listen, with heads bowed--all save the +priest. + +Clark told them first that they had been given a false and a wicked +notion of the American cause, and he spoke of the tyranny of the +English king, which had become past endurance to a free people. As for +ourselves, the Long Knives, we came in truth to conquer, and because of +their hasty judgment the Kaskaskians were at our mercy. The British had +told them that the Kentuckians were a barbarous people, and they had +believed. + +He paused that John Duff might translate and the gist of what he had +said sink in. But suddenly the priest had stepped out from the ranks, +faced his people, and was himself translating in a strong voice. When +he had finished a tremor shook the group. But he turned calmly and faced +Clark once more. + +“Citizens of Kaskaskia,” Colonel Clark went on, “the king whom you +renounced when the English conquered you, the great King of France, has +judged for you and the French people. Knowing that the American cause is +just, he is sending his fleets and regiments to fight for it against the +British King, who until now has been your sovereign.” + +Again he paused, and when the priest had told them this, a murmur of +astonishment came from the boldest. + +“Citizens of Kaskaskia, know you that the Long Knives come not to +massacre, as you foolishly believed, but to release from bondage. We are +come not against you, who have been deceived, but against those soldiers +of the British King who have bribed the savages to slaughter our +wives and children. You have but to take the oath of allegiance to +the Continental Congress to become free, even as we are, to enjoy the +blessings of that American government under which we live and for which +we fight.” + +The face of the good priest kindled as he glanced at Clark. He turned +once more, and though we could not understand his words, the thrill of +his eloquence moved us. And when he had finished there was a moment’s +hush of inarticulate joy among his flock, and then such transports as +moved strangely the sternest men in our ranks. The simple people fell +to embracing each other and praising God, the tears running on their +cheeks. Out of the group came an old man. A skullcap rested on his +silvered hair, and he felt the ground uncertainly with his gold-headed +stick. + +“Monsieur,” he said tremulously “you will pardon an old man if he show +feeling. I am born seventy year ago in Gascon. I inhabit this country +thirty year, and last night I think I not live any longer. Last night +we make our peace with the good God, and come here to-day to die. But +we know you not,” he cried, with a sudden and surprising vigor; “ha, we +know you not! They told us lies, and we were humble and believed. But +now we are Américains,” he cried, his voice pitched high, as he pointed +with a trembling arm to the stars and stripes above him. “Mes enfants, +vive les Bostonnais! Vive les Américains! Vive Monsieur le Colonel +Clark, sauveur de Kaskaskia!” + +The listening village heard the shout and wondered. And when it had died +down Colonel Clark took the old Gascon by the hand, and not a man of his +but saw that this was a master-stroke of his genius. + +“My friends,” he said simply, “I thank you. I would not force you, and +you will have some days to think over the oath of allegiance to the +Republic. Go now to your homes, and tell those who are awaiting you what +I have said. And if any man of French birth wish to leave this place, he +may go of his own free will, save only three whom I suspect are not our +friends.” + +They turned, and in an ecstasy of joy quite pitiful to see went trooping +out of the gate. But scarce could they have reached the street and +we have broken ranks, when we saw them coming back again, the priest +leading them as before. They drew near to the spot where Clark stood, +talking to the captains, and halted expectantly. + +“What is it, my friends?” asked the Colonel. + +The priest came forward and bowed gravely. + +“I am Père Gibault, sir,” he said, “curé of Kaskaskia.” He paused, +surveying our commander with a clear eye. “There is something that still +troubles the good citizens.” + +“And what is that, sir?” said Clark. + +The priest hesitated. + +“If your Excellency will only allow the church to be opened--” he +ventured. + +The group stood wistful, fearful that their boldness had displeased, +expectant of reprimand. + +“My good Father,” said Colonel Clark, “an American commander has but one +relation to any church. And that is” (he added with force) “to protect +it. For all religions are equal before the Republic.” + +The priest gazed at him intently. + +“By that answer,” said he, “your Excellency has made for your government +loyal citizens in Kaskaskia.” + +Then the Colonel stepped up to the priest and took him likewise by the +hand. + +“I have arranged for a house in town,” said he. “Monsieur Rocheblave has +refused to dine with me there. Will you do me that honor, Father?” + +“With all my heart, your Excellency,” said Father Gibault. And turning +to the people, he translated what the Colonel had said. Then their +cup of happiness was indeed full, and some ran to Clark and would have +thrown their arms about him had he been a man to embrace. Hurrying +out of the gate, they spread the news like wildfire, and presently the +church bell clanged in tones of unmistakable joy. + +“Sure, Davy dear, it puts me in mind of the Saints’ day at home,” said +Terence, as he stood leaning against a picket fence that bordered the +street, “savin’ the presence of the naygurs and thim red divils wid +blankets an’ scowls as wud turrn the milk sour in the pail.” + +He had stopped beside two Kaskaskia warriors in scarlet blankets who +stood at the corner, watching with silent contempt the antics of the +French inhabitants. Now and again one or the other gave a grunt and +wrapped his blanket more tightly about him. + +“Umrrhh!” said Terence. “Faith, I talk that langwidge mesilf when I +have throuble.” The warriors stared at him with what might be called +a stoical surprise. “Umrrh! Does the holy father praych to ye wid +thim wurrds, ye haythens? Begorra, ‘tis a wondher ye wuddent wash +yereselves,” he added, making a face, “wid muddy wather to be had for +the askin’.” + +We moved on, through such a scene as I have seldom beheld. The village +had donned its best: women in cap and gown were hurrying hither and +thither, some laughing and some weeping; grown men embraced each +other; children of all colors flung themselves against Terence’s +legs,--dark-haired Creoles, little negroes with woolly pates, and naked +Indian lads with bow and arrow. Terence dashed at them now and then, and +they fled screaming into dooryards to come out again and mimic him when +he had passed, while mothers and fathers and grandfathers smiled at the +good nature in his Irish face. Presently he looked down at me comically. + +“Why wuddent ye be doin’ the like, Davy?” he asked. “Amusha! ‘tis mesilf +that wants to run and hop and skip wid the childher. Ye put me in mind +of a wizened old man that sat all day makin’ shoes in Killarney,--all +savin’ the fringe he had on his chin.” + +“A soldier must be dignified,” I answered. + +“The saints bar that wurrd from hiven,” said Terence, trying to +pronounce it. “Come, we’ll go to mass, or me mother will be visitin’ me +this night.” + +We crossed the square and went into the darkened church, where the +candles were burning. It was the first church I had ever entered, and I +heard with awe the voice of the priest and the fervent responses, but +I understood not a word of what was said. Afterwards Father Gibault +mounted to the pulpit and stood for a moment with his hand raised above +his flock, and then began to speak. What he told them I have learned +since. And this I know, that when they came out again into the sunlit +square they were Americans. It matters not when they took the oath. + +As we walked back towards the fort we came to a little house with a +flower garden in front of it, and there stood Colonel Clark himself by +the gate. He stopped us with a motion of his hand. + +“Davy,” said he, “we are to live here for a while, you and I. What do +you think of our headquarters?” He did not wait for me to reply, but +continued, “Can you suggest any improvement?” + +“You will be needing a soldier to be on guard in front, sir,” said I. + +“Ah,” said the Colonel, “McChesney is too valuable a man. I am sending +him with Captain Bowman to take Cahokia.” + +“Would you have Terence, sir?” I ventured, while Terence grinned. +Whereupon Colonel Clark sent him to report to his captain that he was +detailed for orderly duty to the commanding officer. And within half an +hour he was standing guard in the flower garden, making grimaces at the +children in the street. Colonel Clark sat at a table in the little front +room, and while two of Monsieur Rocheblave’s negroes cooked his dinner, +he was busy with a score of visitors, organizing, advising, planning, +and commanding. There were disputes to settle now that alarm had +subsided, and at noon three excitable gentlemen came in to inform +against a certain Monsieur Cerre, merchant and trader, then absent at +St. Louis. When at length the Colonel had succeeded in bringing their +denunciations to an end and they had departed, he looked at me comically +as I stood in the doorway. + +“Davy,” said he, “all I ask of the good Lord is that He will frighten me +incontinently for a month before I die.” + +“I think He would find that difficult, sir,” I answered. + +“Then there’s no hope for me,” he answered, laughing, “for I have +observed that fright alone brings a man into a fit spiritual state to +enter heaven. What would you say of those slanderers of Monsieur Cerre?” + +Not expecting an answer, he dipped his quill into the ink-pot and turned +to his papers. + +“I should say that they owed Monsieur Cerre money,” I replied. + +The Colonel dropped his quill and stared. As for me, I was puzzled to +know why. + +“Egad,” said Colonel Clark, “most of us get by hard knocks what you seem +to have been born with.” He fell to musing, a worried look coming on his +face that was no stranger to me later, and his hand fell heavily on +the loose pile of paper before him. “Davy,” says he, “I need a +commissary-general.” + +“What would that be, sir,” I asked. + +“A John Law, who will make something out of nothing, who will make +money out of this blank paper, who will wheedle the Creole traders into +believing they are doing us a favor and making their everlasting fortune +by advancing us flour and bacon.” + +“And doesn’t Congress make money, sir?” I asked. + +“That they do, Davy, by the ton,” he replied, “and so must we, as +the rulers of a great province. For mark me, though the men are happy +to-day, in four days they will be grumbling and trying to desert in +dozens.” + +We were interrupted by a knock at the door, and there stood Terence +McCann. + +“His riverence!” he announced, and bowed low as the priest came into the +room. + +I was bid by Colonel Clark to sit down and dine with them on the good +things which Monsieur Rocheblave’s cook had prepared. After dinner they +went into the little orchard behind the house and sat drinking (in the +French fashion) the commandant’s precious coffee which had been sent +to him from far-away New Orleans. Colonel Clark plied the priest with +questions of the French towns under English rule: and Father Gibault, +speaking for his simple people, said that the English had led them +easily to believe that the Kentuckians were cutthroats. + +“Ah, monsieur,” he said, “if they but knew you! If they but knew the +principles of that government for which you fight, they would renounce +the English allegiance, and the whole of this territory would be yours. +I know them, from Quebec to Detroit and Michilimackinac and Saint +Vincennes. Listen, monsieur,” he cried, his homely face alight; “I +myself will go to Saint Vincennes for you. I will tell them the truth, +and you shall have the post for the asking.” + +“You will go to Vincennes!” exclaimed Clark; “a hard and dangerous +journey of a hundred leagues!” + +“Monsieur,” answered the priest, simply, “the journey is nothing. For a +century the missionaries of the Church have walked this wilderness alone +with God. Often they have suffered, and often died in tortures--but +gladly.” + +Colonel Clark regarded the man intently. + +“The cause of liberty, both religious and civil, is our cause,” Father +Gibault continued. “Men have died for it, and will die for it, and it +will prosper. Furthermore, Monsieur, my life has not known many wants. +I have saved something to keep my old age, with which to buy a little +house and an orchard in this peaceful place. The sum I have is at your +service. The good Congress will repay me. And you need the money.” + +Colonel Clark was not an impulsive man, but he felt none the less +deeply, as I know well. His reply to this generous offer was almost +brusque, but it did not deceive the priest. + +“Nay, monsieur,” he said, “it is for mankind I give it, in remembrance +of Him who gave everything. And though I receive nothing in return, I +shall have my reward an hundred fold.” + +In due time, I know not how, the talk swung round again to lightness, +for the Colonel loved a good story, and the priest had many which he +told with wit in his quaint French accent. As he was rising to take his +leave, Père Gibault put his hand on my head. + +“I saw your Excellency’s son in the church this morning,” he said. + +Colonel Clark laughed and gave me a pinch. + +“My dear sir,” he said, “the boy is old enough to be my father.” + +The priest looked down at me with a puzzled expression in his brown +eyes. + +“I would I had him for my son,” said Colonel Clark, kindly; “but the lad +is eleven, and I shall not be twenty-six until next November.” + +“Your Excellency not twenty-six!” cried Father Gibault, in astonishment. +“What will you be when you are thirty?” + +The young Colonel’s face clouded. + +“God knows!” he said. + +Father Gibault dropped his eyes and turned to me with native tact. + +“What would you like best to do, my son?” he asked. + +“I should like to learn to speak French,” said I, for I had been much +irritated at not understanding what was said in the streets. + +“And so you shall,” said Father Gibault; “I myself will teach you. You +must come to my house to-day.” + +“And Davy will teach me,” said the Colonel. + + + +CHAPTER XV. DAYS OF TRIAL + +But I was not immediately to take up the study of French. Things began +to happen in Kaskaskia. In the first place, Captain Bowman’s company, +with a few scouts, of which Tom was one, set out that very afternoon for +the capture of Cohos, or Cahokia, and this despite the fact that they +had had no sleep for two nights. If you will look at the map, ¹ you +will see, dotted along the bottoms and the bluffs beside the great +Mississippi, the string of villages, Kaskaskia, La Prairie du Rocher, +Fort Chartres, St. Philip, and Cahokia. Some few miles from Cahokia, on +the western bank of the Father of Waters, was the little French village +of St. Louis, in the Spanish territory of Louisiana. From thence +eastward stretched the great waste of prairie and forest inhabited by +roving bands of the forty Indian nations. Then you come to Vincennes on +the Wabash, Fort St. Vincent, the English and Canadians called it, for +there were a few of the latter who had settled in Kaskaskia since the +English occupation. ¹The best map which the editor has found of this +district is in vol. VI, Part 11, of Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical +History of America,” p. 721. + +We gathered on the western skirts of the village to give Bowman’s +company a cheer, and every man, woman, and child in the place watched +the little column as it wound snakelike over the prairie on the road to +Fort Chartres, until it was lost in the cottonwoods to the westward. + +Things began to happen in Kaskaskia. It would have been strange indeed +if things had not happened. One hundred and seventy-five men had marched +into that territory out of which now are carved the great states of +Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and to most of them the thing was a picnic, +a jaunt which would soon be finished. Many had left families in the +frontier forts without protection. The time of their enlistment had +almost expired. + +There was a store in the village kept by a great citizen,--not a citizen +of Kaskaskia alone, but a citizen of the world. This, I am aware, sounds +like fiction, like an attempt to get an effect which was not there. But +it is true as gospel. The owner of this store had many others scattered +about in this foreign country: at Vincennes, at St. Louis, where he +resided, at Cahokia. He knew Michilimackinac and Quebec and New Orleans. +He had been born some thirty-one years before in Sardinia, had served +in the Spanish army, and was still a Spanish subject. The name of this +famous gentleman was Monsieur François Vigo, and he was the Rothschild +of the country north of the Ohio. Monsieur Vigo, though he merited it, +I had not room to mention in the last chapter. Clark had routed him from +his bed on the morning of our arrival, and whether or not he had been in +the secret of frightening the inhabitants into making their wills, and +then throwing them into transports of joy, I know not. + +Monsieur Vigo’s store was the village club. It had neither glass in the +window nor an attractive display of goods; it was merely a log cabin set +down on a weedy, sun-baked plot. The stuffy smell of skins and furs came +out of the doorway. Within, when he was in Kaskaskia, Monsieur Vigo was +wont to sit behind his rough walnut table, writing with a fine quill, +or dispensing the news of the villages to the priest and other prominent +citizens, or haggling with persistent blanketed braves over canoe-loads +of ill-smelling pelts which they brought down from the green forests of +the north. Monsieur Vigo’s clothes were the color of the tobacco he gave +in exchange; his eyes were not unlike the black beads he traded, but +shrewd and kindly withal, set in a square saffron face that had the +contradiction of a small chin. As the days wore into months, Monsieur +Vigo’s place very naturally became the headquarters for our army, if +army it might be called. Of a morning a dozen would be sitting against +the logs in the black shadow, and in the midst of them always squatted +an unsavory Indian squaw. A few braves usually stood like statues at +the corner, and in front of the door another group of hunting shirts. +Without was the paper money of the Continental Congress, within the good +tafia and tobacco of Monsieur Vigo. One day Monsieur Vigo’s young Creole +clerk stood shrugging his shoulders in the doorway. I stopped. + +“By tam!” Swein Poulsson was crying to the clerk, as he waved a +worthless scrip above his head. “Vat is money?” + +This definition the clerk, not being a Doctor Johnson, was unable to +give offhand. + +“Vat are you, choost? Is it America?” demanded Poulsson, while the +others looked on, some laughing, some serious. “And vich citizen are you +since you are ours? You vill please to give me one carrot of tobacco.” +And he thrust the scrip under the clerk’s nose. + +The clerk stared at the uneven lettering on the scrip with disdain. + +“Money,” he exclaimed scornfully, “she is not money. Piastre--Spanish +dollare--then I give you carrot.” + +“By God!” shouted Bill Cowan, “ye will take Virginny paper, and Congress +paper, or else I reckon we’ll have a drink and tobaccy, boys, take or no +take.” + +“Hooray, Bill, ye’re right,” cried several of our men. + +“Lemme in here,” said Cowan. But the frightened Creole blocked the +doorway. + +“Sacré!” he screamed, and then, “Voleurs!” + +The excitement drew a number of people from the neighborhood. Nay, it +seemed as if the whole town was ringed about us. + +“Bravo, Jules!” they cried, “garde-tu la porte. À bas les Bostonnais! À +bas les voleurs!” + +“Damn such monkey talk,” said Cowan, facing them suddenly. I knew him +well, and when the giant lost his temper it was gone irrevocably until a +fight was over. “Call a man a squar’ name.” + +“Hey, Frenchy,” another of our men put in, stalking up to the clerk, “I +reckon this here store’s ourn, ef we’ve a mind to tek it. I ‘low you’ll +give us the rum and the ‘baccy. Come on, boys!” + +In between him and the clerk leaped a little, robin-like man with a red +waistcoat, beside himself with rage. Bill Cowan and his friends stared +at this diminutive Frenchman, open-mouthed, as he poured forth a +veritable torrent of unintelligible words, plentifully mixed with +sacrés, which he ripped out like snarls. I would as soon have touched +him as a ball of angry bees or a pair of fighting wildcats. Not so Bill +Cowan. When that worthy recovered from his first surprise he seized hold +of some of the man’s twisting arms and legs and lifted him bodily from +the ground, as he would have taken a perverse and struggling child. +There was no question of a fight. Cowan picked him up, I say, and before +any one knew what happened, he flung him on to the hot roof of the store +(the eaves were but two feet above his head), and there the man stuck, +clinging to a loose shingle, purpling and coughing and spitting with +rage. There was a loud gust of guffaws from the woodsmen, and oaths +like whip-cracks from the circle around us, menacing growls as it surged +inward and our men turned to face it. A few citizens pushed through the +outskirts of it and ran away, and in the hush that followed we heard +them calling wildly the names of Father Gibault and Clark and of Vigo +himself. Cowan thrust me past the clerk into the store, where I stood +listening to the little man on the roof, scratching and clutching at the +shingles, and coughing still. + +But there was no fight. Shouts of “Monsieur Vigo! Voici Monsieur Vigo!” +were heard, the crowd parted respectfully, and Monsieur Vigo in his +snuff-colored suit stood glancing from Cowan to his pallid clerk. He was +not in the least excited. + +“Come in, my frens,” he said; “it is too hot in the sun.” And he set +the example by stepping over the sill on to the hard-baked earth of the +floor within. Then he spied me. “Ah,” he said, “the boy of Monsieur le +Colonel! And how are you called, my son?” he added, patting me kindly. + +“Davy, sir,” I answered. + +“Ha,” he said, “and a brave soldier, no doubt.” + +I was flattered as well as astonished by this attention. But Monsieur +Vigo knew men, and he had given them time to turn around. By this time +Bill Cowan and some of my friends had stooped through the doorway, +followed by a prying Kaskaskian brave and as many Creoles as could crowd +behind them. Monsieur Vigo was surprisingly calm. + +“It make hot weather, my frens,” said he. “How can I serve you, +messieurs?” + +“Hain’t the Congress got authority here?” said one. + +“I am happy to say,” answered Monsieur Vigo, rubbing his hands, “for I +think much of your principle.” + +“Then,” said the man, “we come here to trade with Congress money. Hain’t +that money good in Kaskasky?” + +There was an anxious pause. Then Monsieur Vigo’s eyes twinkled, and he +looked at me. + +“And what you say, Davy?” he asked. + +“The money would be good if you took it, sir,” I said, not knowing what +else to answer. + +“Sapristi!” exclaimed Monsieur Vigo, looking hard at me. “Who teach you +that?” + +“No one, sir,” said I, staring in my turn. + +“And if Congress lose, and not pay, where am I, mon petit maître de +la haute finance?” demanded Monsieur Vigo, with the palms of his hands +outward. + +“You will be in good company, sir,” said I. + +At that he threw back his head and laughed, and Bill Cowan and my +friends laughed with him. + +“Good company--c’est la plupart de la vie,” said Monsieur Vigo. “Et quel +garçon--what a boy it is!” + +“I never seed his beat fer wisdom, Mister Vigo,” said Bill Cowan, now in +good humor once more at the prospect of rum and tobacco. And I found out +later that he and the others had actually given to me the credit of +this coup. “He never failed us yet. Hain’t that truth, boys? Hain’t we +a-goin’ on to St. Vincent because he seen the Ha’r Buyer sculped on the +Ohio?” + +The rest assented so heartily but withal so gravely, that I am between +laughter and tears over the remembrance of it. + +“At noon you come back,” said Monsieur Vigo. “I think till then about +rate of exchange, and talk with your Colonel. Davy, you stay here.” + +I remained, while the others filed out, and at length I was alone with +him and Jules, his clerk. + +“Davy, how you like to be trader?” asked Monsieur Vigo. + +It was a new thought to me, and I turned it over in my mind. To see the +strange places of the world, and the stranger people; to become a man of +wealth and influence such as Monsieur Vigo; and (I fear I loved it +best) to match my brains with others at a bargain,--I turned it all over +slowly, gravely, in my boyish mind, rubbing the hard dirt on the floor +with the toe of my moccasin. And suddenly the thought came to me that I +was a traitor to my friends, a deserter from the little army that loved +me so well. + +“Eh bien?” said Monsieur Vigo. + +I shook my head, but in spite of me I felt the tears welling into my +eyes and brushed them away shamefully. At such times of stress some of +my paternal Scotch crept into my speech. + +“I will no be leaving Colonel Clark and the boys,” I cried, “not for all +the money in the world.” + +“Congress money?” said Monsieur Vigo, with a queer expression. + +It was then I laughed through my tears, and that cemented the friendship +between us. It was a lifelong friendship, though I little suspected it +then. + +In the days that followed he never met me on the street that he did not +stop to pass the time of day, and ask me if I had changed my mind. He +came every morning to headquarters, where he and Colonel Clark sat by +the hour with brows knit. Monsieur Vigo was as good as his word, and +took the Congress money, though not at such a value as many would have +had him. I have often thought that we were all children then, and knew +nothing of the ingratitude of republics. Monsieur Vigo took the money, +and was all his life many, many thousand dollars the poorer. Father +Gibault advanced his little store, and lived to feel the pangs of want. +And Colonel Clark? But I must not go beyond the troubles of that summer, +and the problems that vexed our commander. One night I missed him from +the room where we slept, and walking into the orchard found him pacing +there, where the moon cast filmy shadows on the grass. By day as he went +around among the men his brow was unclouded, though his face was stern. +But now I surprised the man so strangely moved that I yearned to comfort +him. He had taken three turns before he perceived me. + +“Davy,” he said, “what are you doing here?” + +“I missed you, sir,” I answered, staring at the furrows in his face. + +“Come!” he said almost roughly, and seizing my hand, led me back and +forth swiftly through the wet grass for I know not how long. The moon +dipped to the uneven line of the ridge-pole and slipped behind the stone +chimney. All at once he stopped, dropped my hand, and smote both of his +together. + +“I will hold on, by the eternal!” he cried. “I will let no American read +his history and say that I abandoned this land. Let them desert! If ten +men be found who will stay, I will hold the place for the Republic.” + +“Will not Virginia and the Congress send you men, sir?” I asked +wonderingly. + +He laughed a laugh that was all bitterness. + +“Virginia and the Continental Congress know little and care less about +me,” he answered. “Some day you will learn that foresight sometimes +comes to men, but never to assemblies. But it is often given to one man +to work out the salvation of a people, and be destroyed for it. Davy, we +have been up too long.” + +At the morning parade, from my wonted place at the end of the line, I +watched him with astonishment, reviewing the troops as usual. For the +very first day I had crossed the river with Terence, climbed the heights +to the old fort, and returned with my drum. But no sooner had I +beaten the retreat than the men gathered here and there in groups that +smouldered with mutiny, and I noted that some of the officers were +amongst these. Once in a while a sentence like a flaming brand was +flung out. Their time was up, their wives and children for all they knew +sculped by the red varmints, and, by the etarnal, Clark or no man living +could keep them. + +“Hi,” said one, as I passed, “here’s Davy with his drum. He’ll be +leadin’ us back to Kaintuck in the morning.” + +“Ay, ay,” cried another man in the group, “I reckon he’s had his full of +tyranny, too.” + +I stopped, my face blazing red. + +“Shame on you for those words!” I shouted shrilly. “Shame on you, you +fools, to desert the man who would save your wives and children. How are +the redskins to be beaten if they are not cowed in their own country?” +For I had learned much at headquarters. + +They stood silent, astonished, no doubt, at the sight of my small figure +a-tremble with anger. I heard Bill Cowan’s voice behind me. + +“There’s truth for ye,” he said, “that will slink home when a thing’s +half done.” + +“Ye needn’t talk, Bill Cowan; it’s well enough for ye. I reckon your +wife’d scare any redskin off her clearin’.” + +“Many the time she scart me,” said Bill Cowan. + +And so the matter went by with a laugh. But the grumbling continued, and +the danger was that the French would learn of it. The day passed, yet +the embers blazed not into the flame of open mutiny. But he who has seen +service knows how ominous is the gathering of men here and there, +the low humming talk, the silence when a dissenter passes. There were +fights, too, that had to be quelled by company captains, and no man knew +when the loud quarrel between the two races at Vigo’s store would grow +into an ugly battle. + +What did Clark intend to do? This was the question that hung in the +minds of mutineer and faithful alike. They knew the desperation of his +case. Without money, save that which the generous Creoles had advanced +upon his personal credit; without apparent resources; without authority, +save that which the weight of his character exerted,--how could he +prevent desertion? They eyed him as he went from place to place about +his business,--erect, thoughtful, undisturbed. Few men dare to set their +will against a multitude when there are no fruits to be won. Columbus +persisted, and found a new world; Clark persisted, and won an empire for +thoughtless generations to enjoy. + +That night he slept not at all, but sat, while the candles flickered in +their sockets, poring over maps and papers. I dared not disturb him, but +lay the darkness through with staring eyes. And when the windows on the +orchard side showed a gray square of light, he flung down the parchment +he was reading on the table. It rolled up of itself, and he pushed back +his chair. I heard him call my name, and leaping out of bed, I stood +before him. + +“You sleep lightly, Davy,” he said, I think to try me. + +I did not answer, fearing to tell him that I had been awake watching +him. + +“I have one friend, at least,” said the Colonel. + +“You have many, sir,” I answered, “as you will find when the time +comes.” + +“The time has come,” said he; “to-day I shall be able to count them. +Davy, I want you to do something for me.” + +“Now, sir?” I answered, overjoyed. + +“As soon as the sun strikes that orchard,” he said, pointing out of the +window. “You have learned how to keep things to yourself. Now I want you +to impart them to others. Go out, and tell the village that I am going +away.” + +“That you are going away, sir?” I repeated. + +“That I am going away,” he said, “with my army, (save the mark!), with +my army and my drummer boy and my paper money. Such is my faith in the +loyalty of the good people of these villages to the American cause, that +I can safely leave the flag flying over their heads with the assurance +that they will protect it.” + +I stared at him doubtfully, for at times a pleasantry came out of his +bitterness. + +“Ay,” he said, “go! Have you any love for me?” + +“I have, sir,” I answered. + +“By the Lord, I believe you,” he said, and picking up my small hunting +shirt, he flung it at me. “Put it on, and go when the sun rises.” + +As the first shaft of light over the bluff revealed the diamonds in the +orchard grass I went out, wondering. Suspecting would be a better word +for the nature I had inherited. But I had my orders. Terence was pacing +the garden, his leggings turned black with the dew. I looked at him. +Here was a vessel to disseminate. + +“Terence, the Colonel is going back to Virginia with the army.” + +“Him!” cried Terence, dropping the stock of his Deckard to the ground. +“And back to Kaintuckee! Arrah, ‘tis a sin to be jokin’ before a man has +a bit in his sthummick. Bad cess to yere plisantry before breakfast.” + +“I’m telling you what the Colonel himself told me,” I answered, and +ran on. “Davy, darlin’!” I heard him calling after me as I turned the +corner, but I looked not back. + +There was a single sound in the street. A thin, bronzed Indian lad +squatted against the pickets with his fingers on a reed, his cheeks +distended. He broke off with a wild, mournful note to stare at me. A +wisp of smoke stole from a stone chimney, and the smell that corn-pone +and bacon leave was in the air. A bolt was slammed back, a door creaked +and stuck, was flung open, and with a “Va t’en, méchant!” a cotton-clad +urchin was cast out of the house, and fled into the dusty street. +Breathing the morning air in the doorway, stood a young woman in a +cotton gown, a saucepan in hand. She had inquisitive eyes, a pointed, +prying nose, and I knew her to be the village gossip, the wife of Jules, +Monsieur Vigo’s clerk. She had the same smattering of English as her +husband. Now she stood regarding me narrowly between half-closed lids. + +“A la bonne heure! Que fais-tu donc? What do you do so early?” + +“The garrison is getting ready to leave for Kentucky to-day,” I +answered. + +“Ha! Jules! Écoute-toi! Nom de dieu! Is it true what you say?” + +The visage of Jules, surmounted by a nightcap and heavy with sleep, +appeared behind her. + +“Ha, e’est Daveed!” he said. “What news have you?” + +I repeated, whereupon they both began to lament. + +“And why is it?” persisted Jules. + +“He has such faith in the loyalty of the Kaskaskians,” I answered, +parrot-like. + +“Diable!” cried Jules, “we shall perish. We shall be as the Acadians. +And loyalty--she will not save us, no.” + +Other doors creaked. Other inhabitants came in varied costumes into the +street to hear the news, lamenting. If Clark left, the day of judgment +was at hand for them, that was certain. Between the savage and the +Briton not one stone would be left standing on another. Madame Jules +forgot her breakfast, and fled up the street with the tidings. And +then I made my way to the fort, where the men were gathering about the +camp-fires, talking excitedly. Terence, relieved from duty, had done the +work here. + +“And he as little as a fox, wid all that in him,” he cried, when he +perceived me walking demurely past the sentry. “Davy, dear, come here +an’ tell the b’ys am I a liar.” + +“Davy’s monstrous cute,” said Bill Cowan; “I reckon he knows as well as +me the Colonel hain’t a-goin’ to do no such tomfool thing as leave.” + +“He is,” I cried, for the benefit of some others, “he’s fair sick of +grumblers that haven’t got the grit to stand by him in trouble.” + +“By the Lord!” said Bill Cowan, “and I’ll not blame him.” He turned +fiercely, his face reddening. “Shame on ye all yere lives,” he shouted. +“Ye’re making the best man that ever led a regiment take the back trail. +Ye’ll fetch back to Kaintuck, and draw every redskin in the north woods +suckin’ after ye like leaves in a harricane wind. There hain’t a man of +ye has the pluck of this little shaver that beats the drum. I wish to +God McChesney was here.” + +He turned away to cross the parade ground, followed by the faithful +Terence and myself. Others gathered about him: McAndrew, who, for all +his sourness, was true; Swein Poulsson, who would have died for the +Colonel; John Duff, and some twenty more, including Saunders, whose +affection had not been killed, though Clark had nearly hanged him among +the prairies. + +“Begob!” said Terence, “Davy has inflooence wid his Excellency. It’s +Davy we’ll sind, prayin’ him not to lave the Frinch alone wid their +loyalty.” + +It was agreed, and I was to repeat the name of every man that sent me. + +Departing on this embassy, I sped out of the gates of the fort. But, as +I approached the little house where Clark lived, the humming of a +crowd came to my ears, and I saw with astonishment that the street was +blocked. It appeared that the whole of the inhabitants of Kaskaskia were +packed in front of the place. Wriggling my way through the people, I had +barely reached the gate when I saw Monsieur Vigo and the priest, three +Creole gentlemen in uniform, and several others coming out of the door. +They stopped, and Monsieur Vigo, raising his hand for silence, made a +speech in French to the people. What he said I could not understand, +and when he had finished they broke up into groups, and many of them +departed. Before I could gain the house, Colonel Clark himself came +out with Captain Helm and Captain Harrod. The Colonel glanced at me and +smiled. + +“Parade, Davy,” he said, and walked on. + +I ran back to the fort, and when I had gotten my drum the three +companies were falling into line, the men murmuring in undertones among +themselves. They were brought to attention. Colonel Clark was seen to +come out of the commandant’s house, and we watched him furtively as he +walked slowly to his place in front of the line. A tremor of excitement +went from sergeant to drummer boy. The sentries closed the big gates of +the fort. + +The Colonel stood for a full minute surveying us calmly,--a disquieting +way he had when matters were at a crisis. Then he began to talk. + +“I have heard from many sources that you are dissatisfied, that you wish +to go back to Kentucky. If that be so, I say to you, ‘Go, and God be +with you.’ I will hinder no man. We have taken a brave and generous +people into the fold of the Republic, and they have shown their +patriotism by giving us freely of their money and stores.” He raised his +voice. “They have given the last proof of that patriotism this day. +Yes, they have come to me and offered to take your places, to finish +the campaign which you have so well begun and wish to abandon. To-day I +shall enroll their militia under the flag for which you have fought.” + +When he had ceased speaking a murmur ran through the ranks. + +“But if there be any,” he said, “who have faith in me and in the cause +for which we have come here, who have the perseverance and the courage +to remain, I will reënlist them. The rest of you shall march for +Kentucky,” he cried, “as soon as Captain Bowman’s company can be +relieved at Cahokia. The regiment is dismissed.” + +For a moment they remained in ranks, as though stupefied. It was Cowan +who stepped out first, snatched his coonskin hat from his head, and +waved it in the air. + +“Huzzay for Colonel Clark!” he roared. “I’ll foller him into Canady, and +stand up to my lick log.” + +They surrounded Bill Cowan, not the twenty which had flocked to him in +the morning, but four times twenty, and they marched in a body to the +commandant’s house to be reënlisted. The Colonel stood by the door, +and there came a light in his eyes as he regarded us. They cheered him +again. + +“Thank you, lads,” he said; “remember, we may have to whistle for our +pay.” + +“Damn the pay!” cried Bill Cowan, and we echoed the sentiment. + +“We’ll see what can be done about land grants,” said the Colonel, and he +turned away. + +At dusk that evening I sat on the back door-step, by the orchard, +cleaning his rifle. The sound of steps came from the little passage +behind me, and a hand was on my head. + +“Davee,” said a voice (it was Monsieur Vigo’s), “do you know what is un +coup d’état?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Ha! You execute one to-day. Is it not so, Monsieur le Colonel?” + +“I reckon he was in the secret,” said Colonel Clark. “Did you think I +meant to leave Kaskaskia, Davy?” + +“No, sir.” + +“He is not so easy fool,” Monsieur Vigo put in. “He tell me paper money +good if I take it. C’est la haute finance!” + +Colonel Clark laughed. + +“And why didn’t you think I meant to leave?” said he. + +“Because you bade me go out and tell everybody,” I answered. “What you +really mean to do you tell no one.” + +“Nom du bon Dieu!” exclaimed Monsieur Vigo. + +Yesterday Colonel Clark had stood alone, the enterprise for which he had +risked all on the verge of failure. By a master-stroke his ranks were +repleted, his position recovered, his authority secured once more. + +Few men recognize genius when they see it. Monsieur Vigo was not one of +these. + + +CHAPTER XVI. DAVY GOES TO CAHOKIA + +I should make but a poor historian, for I have not stuck to my +chronology. But as I write, the vivid recollections are those that I +set down. I have forgotten two things of great importance. First, the +departure of Father Gibault with several Creole gentlemen and a spy of +Colonel Clark’s for Vincennes, and their triumphant return in August. +The sacrifice of the good priest had not been in vain, and he came back +with the joyous news of a peaceful conquest. The stars and stripes now +waved over the fort, and the French themselves had put it there. And the +vast stretch of country from that place westward to the Father of Waters +was now American. + +And that brings me to the second oversight. The surprise and conquest of +Cahokia by Bowman and his men was like that of Kaskaskia. And the French +there were loyal, too, offering their militia for service in the place +of those men of Bowman’s company who would not reënlist. These came to +Kaskaskia to join our home-goers, and no sooner had the hundred marched +out of the gate and taken up their way for Kentucky than Colonel Clark +began the drilling of the new troops. + +Captain Leonard Helm was sent to take charge of Vincennes, and Captain +Montgomery set out across the mountains for Williamsburg with letters +praying the governor of Virginia to come to our assistance. + +For another cloud had risen in the horizon: another problem for Clark +to face of greater portent than all the others. A messenger from Captain +Bowman at Cohos came riding down the street on a scraggly French pony, +and pulled up before headquarters. The messenger was Sergeant Thomas +McChesney, and his long legs almost reached the ground on either side of +the little beast. Leaping from the saddle, he seized me in his arms, set +me down, and bade me tell Colonel Clark of his arrival. + +It was a sultry August morning. Within the hour Colonel Clark and Tom +and myself were riding over the dusty trace that wound westward across +the common lands of the village, which was known as the Fort Chartres +road. The heat-haze shimmered in the distance, and there was no sound in +plain or village save the tinkle of a cowbell from the clumps of shade. +Colonel Clark rode twenty paces in front, alone, his head bowed with +thinking. + +“They’re coming into Cahokia as thick as bees out’n a gum, Davy,” said +Tom; “seems like there’s thousands of ‘em. Nothin’ will do ‘em but they +must see the Colonel,--the varmints. And they’ve got patience, they’ll +wait thar till the b’ars git fat. I reckon they ‘low Clark’s got +the armies of Congress behind him. If they knowed,” said Tom, with a +chuckle, “if they knowed that we’d only got seventy of the boys and some +hundred Frenchies in the army! I reckon the Colonel’s too cute for ‘em.” + +The savages in Cahokia were as the leaves of the forest. Curiosity, +that mainspring of the Indian character, had brought the chiefs, big and +little, to see with their own eyes the great Captain of the Long Knives. +In vain had the faithful Bowman put them off. They would wait. Clark +must come. And Clark was coming, for he was not the man to quail at such +a crisis. For the crux of the whole matter was here. And if he failed to +impress them with his power, with the might of the Congress for which he +fought, no man of his would ever see Kentucky again. + +As we rode through the bottom under the pecan trees we talked of Polly +Ann, Tom and I, and of our little home by the Salt River far to the +southward, where we would live in peace when the campaign was over. Tom +had written her, painfully enough, an affectionate scrawl, which he sent +by one of Captain Linn’s men. And I, too, had written. My letter had +been about Tom, and how he had become a sergeant, and what a favorite +he was with Bowman and the Colonel. Poor Polly Ann! She could not write, +but a runner from Harrodstown who was a friend of Tom’s had carried +all the way to Cahokia, in the pocket with his despatches, a fold of +nettle-bark linen. Tom pulled it from the bosom of his hunting shirt to +show me, and in it was a little ring of hair like unto the finest spun +red-gold. This was the message Polly Ann had sent,--a message from +little Tom as well. + +At Prairie du Rocher, at St. Philippe, the inhabitants lined the streets +to do homage to this man of strange power who rode, unattended and +unafraid, to the council of the savage tribes which had terrorized his +people of Kentucky. From the ramparts of Fort Chartres (once one of the +mighty chain of strongholds to protect a new France, and now deserted +like Massacre), I gazed for the first time in awe at the turgid flood of +the Mississippi, and at the lands of the Spanish king beyond. With never +ceasing fury the river tore at his clay banks and worried the green +islands that braved his charge. And my boyish fancy pictured to itself +the monsters which might lie hidden in his muddy depths. + +We lay that night in the open at a spring on the bluffs, and the next +morning beheld the church tower of Cahokia. A little way from the town +we perceived an odd gathering on the road, the yellowed and weathered +hunting shirts of Bowman’s company mixed with the motley dress of the +Creole volunteers. Some of these gentlemen wore the costume of coureurs +du bois, others had odd regimental coats and hats which had seen much +service. Besides the military was a sober deputation of citizens, and +hovering behind the whole a horde of curious, blanketed braves, come to +get a first glimpse of the great white captain. So escorted, we crossed +at the mill, came to a shady street that faced the little river, and +stopped at the stone house where Colonel Clark was to abide. + +On that day, and for many days more, that street was thronged with +warriors. Chiefs in gala dress strutted up and down, feathered +and plumed and blanketed, smeared with paint, bedecked with rude +jewellery,--earrings and bracelets. From the remote forests of the north +they had come, where the cold winds blow off the blue lakes; from +the prairies to the east; from the upper running waters, where the +Mississippi flows clear and undefiled by the muddy flood; from the +villages and wigwams of the sluggish Wabash; and from the sandy, piny +country between the great northern seas where Michilimackinac stands +guard alone,--Sacs and Foxes, Chippeways and Maumies and Missesogies, +Puans and Pottawattomies, chiefs and medicine men. + +Well might the sleep of the good citizens be disturbed, and the women +fear to venture to the creek with their linen and their paddles! + +The lives of these people hung in truth upon a slender thing--the +bearing of one man. All day long the great chiefs sought an audience +with him, but he sent them word that matters would be settled in the +council that was to come. All day long the warriors lined the picket +fence in front of the house, and more than once Tom McChesney roughly +shouldered a lane through them that timid visitors might pass. Like a +pack of wolves, they watched narrowly for any sign of weakness. As for +Tom, they were to him as so many dogs. + +“Ye varmints!” he cried, “I’ll take a blizz’rd at ye if ye don’t keep +the way clear.” + +At that they would give back grudgingly with a chorus of grunts, only to +close in again as tightly as before. But they came to have a wholesome +regard for the sun-browned man with the red hair who guarded the +Colonel’s privacy. The boy who sat on the door-step, the son of the +great Pale Face Chief (as they called me), was a never ending source +of comment among them. Once Colonel Clark sent for me. The little front +room of this house was not unlike the one we had occupied at Kaskaskia. +It had bare walls, a plain table and chairs, and a crucifix in the +corner. It served as dining room, parlor, bedroom, for there was a +pallet too. Now the table was covered with parchments and papers, and +beside Colonel Clark sat a grave gentleman of about his own age. As I +came into the room Colonel Clark relaxed, turned toward this gentleman, +and said:-- + +“Monsieur Gratiot, behold my commissary-general, my strategist, my +financier.” And Monsieur Gratiot smiled. He struck me as a man who never +let himself go sufficiently to laugh. + +“Ah,” he said, “Vigo has told me how he settled the question of paper +money. He might do something for the Congress in the East.” + +“Davy is a Scotchman, like John Law,” said the Colonel, “and he is a +master at perceiving a man’s character and business.” + +“What would you call me, at a venture, Davy?” asked Monsieur Gratiot. + +He spoke excellent English, with only a slight accent. + +“A citizen of the world, like Monsieur Vigo,” I answered at a hazard. + +“Pardieu!” said Monsieur Gratiot, “you are not far away. Like Monsieur +Vigo I keep a store here at Cahokia. Like Monsieur Vigo, I have +travelled much in my day. Do you know where Switzerland is, Davy?” + +I did not. + +“It is a country set like a cluster of jewels in the heart of Europe,” + said Monsieur Gratiot, “and there are mountains there that rise amon the +clouds and are covered with perpetual snows. And when the sun sets on +those snows they are rubies, and the skies above them sapphire.” + +“I was born amongst the mountains, sir,” I answered, my pulse quickening +at his description, “but they were not so high as those you speak of.” + +“Then,” said Monsieur Gratiot, “you can understand a little my sorrow +as a lad when I left it. From Switzerland I went to a foggy place called +London, and thence I crossed the ocean to the solemn forests of the +north of Canada, where I was many years, learning the characters of +these gentlemen who are looking in upon us.” And he waved his arm at +the line of peering red faces by the pickets. Monsieur Gratiot smiled +at Clark. “And there’s another point of resemblance between myself and +Monsieur Vigo.” + +“Have you taken the paper money?” I demanded. + +Monsieur Gratiot slapped his linen breeches. “That I have,” and this +time I thought he was going to laugh. But he did not, though his eyes +sparkled. “And do you think that the good Congress will ever repay me, +Davy?” + +“No, sir,” said I. + +“Peste!” exclaimed Monsieur Gratiot, but he did not seem to be offended +or shaken. + +“Davy,” said Colonel Clark, “we have had enough of predictions fo the +present. Fetch this letter to Captain Bowman at the garrison up the +street.” He handed me the letter. “Are you afraid of the Indians?” + +“If I were, sir, I would not show it,” I said, for he had encouraged me +to talk freely to him. + +“Avast!” cried the Colonel, as I was going out. “And why not?” + +“If I show that I am not afraid of them, sir, they will think that you +are the less so.” + +“There you are for strategy, Gratiot,” said Colonel Clark, laughing. +“Get out, you rascal.” + +Tom was more concerned when I appeared. + +“Don’t pester ‘em, Davy,” said he; “fer God’s sake don’t pester ‘em. +They’re spoilin’ fer a fight. Stand back thar, ye critters,” he shouted, +brandishing his rifle in their faces. “Ugh, I reckon it wouldn’t take a +horse or a dog to scent ye to-day. Rank b’ar’s oil! Kite along, Davy.” + +Clutching the letter tightly, I slipped between the narrowed ranks, +and gained the middle of the street, not without a quickened beat of my +heart. Thence I sped, dodging this group and that, until I came to +the long log house that was called the garrison. Here our men were +stationed, where formerly a squad from an English regiment was +quartered. I found Captain Bowman, delivered the letter, and started +back again through the brown, dusty street, which lay in the shade of +the great forest trees that still lined it, doubling now and again +to avoid an idling brave that looked bent upon mischief. For a single +mischance might set the tide running to massacre. + +I was nearing the gate again, the dust flying from my moccasined feet, +the sight of the stalwart Tom giving me courage again. Suddenly, with +the deftness of a panther, an Indian shot forward and lifted me high +in his arms. To this day I recall my terror as I dangled in mid-air, +staring into a hideous face. By intuition I kicked him in the stomach +with all my might, and with a howl of surprise and rage his fingers +gripped into my flesh. The next thing I remember was being in the dust, +suffocated by that odor which he who has known it can never forget. +A medley of discordant cries was in my ears. Then I was snatched up, +bumped against heads and shoulders, and deposited somewhere. Now it was +Tom’s face that was close to mine, and the light of a fierce anger was +in his blue eyes. + +“Did they hurt ye, Davy?” he asked. + +I shook my head. Before I could speak he was at the gate again, +confronting the mob of savages that swayed against the fence, and the +street was filled with running figures. A voice of command that I knew +well came from behind me. It was Colonel Clark’s. + +“Stay where you are, McChesney!” he shouted, and Tom halted with his +hand on the latch. + +“With your permission, I will speak to them,” said Monsieur Gratiot, who +had come out also. + +I looked up at him, and he was as calm as when he had joked with me a +quarter of an hour since. + +“Very well,” said Clark, briefly. + +Monsieur Gratiot surveyed them scornfully. + +“Where is the Hungry Wolf, who speaks English?” he said. + +There was a stir in the rear ranks, and a lean savage with abnormal +cheek bones pushed forward. + +“Hungry Wolf here,” he said with a grunt. + +“The Hungry Wolf knew the French trader at Michilimackinac,” said +Monsieur Gratiot. “He knows that the French trader’s word is a true +word. Let the Hungry Wolf tell his companions that the Chief of the Long +Knives is very angry.” + +The Hungry Wolf turned, and began to speak. His words, hoarse and +resonant, seemed to come from the depths of his body. Presently he +paused, and there came an answer from the fiend who had seized me. After +that there were many grunts, and the Hungry Wolf turned again. + +“The North Wind mean no harm,” he answered. “He play with the son of +the Great White Chief, and his belly is very sore where the Chief’s son +kicked him.” + +“The Chief of the Long Knives will consider the offence,” said Monsieur +Gratiot, and retired into the house with Colonel Clark. For a full +five minutes the Indians waited, impassive. And then Monsieur Gratiot +reappeared, alone. + +“The Chief of the Long Knives is mercifully inclined to forgive,” he +said. “It was in play. But there must be no more play with the Chief’s +son. And the path to the Great Chief’s presence must be kept clear.” + +Again the Hungry Wolf translated. The North Wind grunted and departed in +silence, followed by many of his friends. And indeed for a while after +that the others kept a passage clear to the gate. + +As for the son of the Great White Chief, he sat for a long time that +afternoon beside the truck patch of the house. And presently he slipped +out by a byway into the street again, among the savages. His heart was +bumping in his throat, but a boyish reasoning told him that he must show +no fear. And that day he found what his Colonel had long since learned +to be true--that in courage is the greater safety. The power of the +Great White Chief was such that he allowed his son to go forth alone, +and feared not for his life. Even so Clark himself walked among them, +nor looked to right or left. + +Two nights Colonel Clark sat through, calling now on this man and now +on that, and conning the treaties which the English had made with the +various tribes--ay, and French and Spanish treaties too--until he knew +them all by heart. There was no haste in what he did, no uneasiness +in his manner. He listened to the advice of Monsieur Gratiot and other +Creole gentlemen of weight, to the Spanish officers who came in their +regimentals from St. Louis out of curiosity to see how this man would +treat with the tribes. For he spoke of his intentions to none of them, +and gained the more respect by it. Within the week the council began; +and the scene of the great drama was a field near the village, the +background of forest trees. Few plays on the world’s stage have held +such suspense, few battles such excitement for those who watched. Here +was the spectacle of one strong man’s brain pitted against the combined +craft of the wilderness. In the midst of a stretch of waving grass was +a table, and a young man of six-and-twenty sat there alone. Around +him were ringed the gathered tribes, each chief in the order of his +importance squatted in the inner circle, their blankets making patches +of bright color against the green. Behind the tribes was the little +group of hunting shirts, the men leaning on the barrels of their long +rifles, indolent but watchful. Here and there a gay uniform of a Spanish +or Creole officer, and behind these all the population of the village +that dared to show itself. + +The ceremonies began with the kindling of the council fire,--a rite +handed down through unknown centuries of Indian usage. By it nations had +been made and unmade, broad lands passed, even as they now might pass. +The yellow of its crackling flames was shamed by the summer sun, and the +black smoke of it was wafted by the south wind over the forest. Then for +three days the chiefs spoke, and a man listened, unmoved. The sound of +these orations, wild and fearful to my boyish ear, comes back to me now. +Yet there was a cadence in it, a music of notes now falling, now rising +to a passion and intensity that thrilled us. + +Bad birds flying through the land (the British agents) had besought them +to take up the bloody hatchet. They had sinned. They had listened to +the lies which the bad birds had told of the Big Knives, they had taken +their presents. But now the Great Spirit in His wisdom had brought +themselves and the Chief of the Big Knives together. Therefore (suiting +the action to the word) they stamped on the bloody belt, and rent in +pieces the emblems of the White King across the water. So said the +interpreters, as the chiefs one after another tore the miniature British +flags which had been given them into bits. On the evening of the third +day the White Chief rose in his chair, gazing haughtily about him. There +was a deep silence. + +“Tell your chiefs,” he said, “tell your chiefs that to-morrow I will +give them an answer. And upon the manner in which they receive that +answer depends the fate of your nations. Good night.” + +They rose and, thronging around him, sought to take his hand. But Clark +turned from them. + +“Peace is not yet come,” he said sternly. “It is time to take the hand +when the heart is given with it.” + +A feathered headsman of one of the tribes gave back with dignity and +spoke. + +“It is well said by the Great Chief of the Pale Faces,” he answered; +“these in truth are not the words of a man with a double tongue.” + +So they sought their quarters for the night, and suspense hung +breathless over the village. + +There were many callers at the stone house that evening,--Spanish +officers, Creole gentlemen, an English Canadian trader or two. With my +elbow on the sill of the open window I watched them awhile, listening +with a boy’s eagerness to what they had to say of the day’s doings. +They disputed amongst themselves in various degrees of English as to the +manner of treating the red man,--now gesticulating, now threatening, +now seizing a rolled parchment treaty from the table. Clark sat alone, a +little apart, silent save a word now and then in a low tone to Monsieur +Gratiot or Captain Bowman. Here was an odd assortment of the races which +had overrun the new world. At intervals some disputant would pause in +his talk to kill a mosquito or fight away a moth or a June-bug, but +presently the argument reached such a pitch that the mosquitoes fed +undisturbed. + +“You have done much, sir,” said the Spanish commandant of St. Louis, +“but the savage, he will never be content without present. He will never +be won without present.” + +Clark was one of those men who are perforce listened to when they begin +to speak. + +“Captain de Leyba,” said he, “I know not what may be the present policy +of his Spanish Majesty with McGillivray and his Creeks in the south, but +this I do believe,” and he brought down his fist among the papers, “that +the old French and Spanish treaties were right in principle. Here +are copies of the English treaties that I have secured, and in them +thousands of sovereigns have been thrown away. They are so much waste +paper. Gentlemen, the Indians are children. If you give them presents, +they believe you to be afraid of them. I will deal with them without +presents; and if I had the gold of the Bank of England stored in the +garrison there, they should not touch a piece of it.” + +But Captain de Leyba, incredulous, raised his eyebrows and shrugged. + +“Por Dios,” he cried, “whoever hear of one man and fifty militia +subduing the northern tribes without a piastre?” + +After a while the Colonel called me in, and sent me speeding across the +little river with a note to a certain Mr. Brady, whose house was not far +away. Like many another citizen of Cahokia, Mr. Brady was terror-ridden. +A party of young Puan bucks had decreed it to be their pleasure to +encamp in Mr. Brady’s yard, to peer through the shutters into Mr. +Brady’s house, to enjoy themselves by annoying Mr. Brady’s family and +others as much as possible. During the Indian occupation of Cahokia this +band had gained a well-deserved reputation for mischief; and chief among +them was the North Wind himself, whom I had done the honor to kick +in the stomach. To-night they had made a fire in this Mr. Brady’s +flower-garden, over which they were cooking venison steaks. And, as I +reached the door, the North Wind spied me, grinned, rubbed his stomach, +made a false dash at me that frightened me out of my wits, and finally +went through the pantomime of scalping me. I stood looking at him with +my legs apart, for the son of the Great Chief must not run away. And +I marked that the North Wind had two great ornamental daubs like +shutter-fastenings painted on his cheeks. I sniffed preparation, too, +on his followers, and I was sure they were getting ready for some new +deviltry. I handed the note to Mr. Brady through the crack of the door +that he vouchsafed to me, and when he had slammed and bolted me out, I +ran into the street and stood for some time behind the trunk of a big +hickory, watching the followers of the North Wind. Some were painting +themselves, others cleaning their rifles and sharpening their scalping +knives. All jabbered unceasingly. Now and again a silent brave passed, +paused a moment to survey them gravely, grunted an answer to something +they would fling at him, and went on. At length arrived three chiefs +whom I knew to be high in the councils. The North Wind came out to them, +and the four blanketed forms stood silhouetted between me and the fire +for a quarter of an hour. By this time I was sure of a plot, and fled +away to another tree for fear of detection. At length stalked through +the street the Hungry Wolf, the interpreter. I knew this man to be +friendly to Clark, and I acted on impulse. He gave a grunt of surprise +when I halted before him. I made up my mind. + +“The son of the Great Chief knows that the Puans have wickedness in +their hearts to-night,” I said; “the tongue of the Hungry Wolf does not +lie.” + +The big Indian drew back with another grunt, and the distant firelight +flashed on his eyes as on polished black flints. + +“Umrrhh! Is the Pale Face Chief’s son a prophet?” + +“The anger of the Pale Face Chief and of his countrymen is as the +hurricane,” I said, scarce believing my own ears. For a lad is imitative +by nature, and I had not listened to the interpreters for three days +without profit. + +The Hungry Wolf grunted again, after which he was silent for a long +time. Then he said:-- + +“Let the Chief of the Long Knives have guard tonight.” And suddenly he +was gone into the darkness. + +I waded the creek and sped to Clark. He was alone now, the shutters of +the room closed. And as I came in I could scarce believe that he was +the same masterful man I had seen at the council that day, and at the +conference an hour gone. He was once more the friend at whose feet I sat +in private, who talked to me as a companion and a father. + +“Where have you been, Davy?” he asked. And then, “What is it, my lad?” + +I crept close to him and told him in a breathless undertone, and I +knew that I was shaking the while. He listened gravely, and when I had +finished laid a firm hand on my head. + +“There,” he said, “you are a brave lad, and a canny.” + +He thought a minute, his hand still resting on my head, and then rose +and led me to the back door of the house. It was near midnight, and the +sounds of the place were stilling, the crickets chirping in the grass. + +“Run to Captain Bowman and tell him to send ten men to this door. But +they must come man by man, to escape detection. Do you understand?” I +nodded and was starting, but he still held me. “God bless you, Davy, you +are a brave boy.” + +He closed the door softly and I sped away, my moccasins making no +sound on the soft dirt. I reached the garrison, was challenged by Jack +Terrill, the guard, and brought by him to Bowman’s room. The Captain +sat, undressed, at the edge of his bed. But he was a man of action, and +strode into the long room where his company was sleeping and gave his +orders without delay. + +Half an hour later there was no light in the village. The Colonel’s +headquarters were dark, but in the kitchen a dozen tall men were +waiting. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. THE SACRIFICE + +So far as the world knew, the Chief of the Long Knives slept peacefully +in his house. And such was his sense of power that not even a sentry +paced the street without. For by these things is the Indian mind +impressed. In the tiny kitchen a dozen men and a boy tried to hush their +breathing, and sweltered. For it was very hot, and the pent-up odor of +past cookings was stifling to men used to the open. In a corner, hooded +under a box, was a lighted lantern, and Tom McChesney stood ready to +seize it at the first alarm. On such occasions the current of time runs +sluggish. Thrice our muscles were startled into tenseness by the baying +of a hound, and once a cock crew out of all season. For the night was +cloudy and pitchy black, and the dawn as far away as eternity. + +Suddenly I knew that every man in the room was on the alert, for the +skilled frontiersman, when watchful, has a sixth sense. None of them +might have told you what he had heard. The next sound was the faint +creaking of Colonel Clark’s door as it opened. Wrapping a blanket around +the lantern, Tom led the way, and we massed ourselves behind the front +door. Another breathing space, and then the war-cry of the Puans broke +hideously on the night, and children woke, crying, from their sleep. In +two bounds our little detachment was in the street, the fire spouting +red from the Deckards, faint, shadowy forms fading along the line of +trees. After that an uproar of awakening, cries here and there, a drum +beating madly for the militia. The dozen flung themselves across the +stream, I hot in their wake, through Mr. Brady’s gate, which was +open; and there was a scene of sweet tranquillity under the lantern’s +rays,--the North Wind and his friends wrapped in their blankets and +sleeping the sleep of the just. + +“Damn the sly varmints,” cried Tom, and he turned over the North Wind +with his foot, as a log. + +With a grunt of fury the Indian shed his blanket and scrambled to his +feet, and stood glaring at us through his paint. But suddenly he met the +fixed sternness of Clark’s gaze, and his own shifted. By this time his +followers were up. The North Wind raised his hands to heaven in token of +his innocence, and then spread his palms outward. Where was the proof? + +“Look!” I cried, quivering with excitement; “look, their leggings and +moccasins are wet!” + +“There’s no devil if they beant!” said Tom, and there was a murmur of +approval from the other men. + +“The boy is right,” said the Colonel, and turned to Tom. “Sergeant, have +the chiefs put in irons.” He swung on his heel, and without more ado +went back to his house to bed. The North Wind and two others were +easily singled out as the leaders, and were straightway escorted to the +garrison house, their air of injured innocence availing them not a whit. +The militia was dismissed, and the village was hushed once more. + +But all night long the chiefs went to and fro, taking counsel among +themselves. What would the Chief of the Pale Faces do? + +The morning came with a cloudy, damp dawning. Within a decent time (for +the Indian is decorous) blanketed deputations filled the archways under +the trees and waited there as the minutes ran into hours. The Chief of +the Long Knives surveyed the morning from his door-step, and his eyes +rested on a solemn figure at the gate. It was the Hungry Wolf. Sorrow +was in his voice, and he bore messages from the twenty great chiefs who +stood beyond. They were come to express their abhorrence of the night’s +doings, of which they were as innocent as the deer of the forest. + +“Let the Hungry Wolf tell the chiefs,” said Colonel Clark, briefly, +“that the council is the place for talk.” And he went back into the +house again. + +Then he bade me run to Captain Bowman with an order to bring the North +Wind and his confederates to the council field in irons. + +The day followed the promise of the dawn. The clouds hung low, and now +and again great drops struck the faces of the people in the field. And +like the heavens, the assembly itself was charged with we knew not +what. Was it peace or war? As before, a white man sat with supreme +indifference at a table, and in front of him three most unhappy chiefs +squatted in the grass, the shame of their irons hidden under the blanket +folds. Audacity is truly a part of the equipment of genius. To have +rescued the North Wind and his friends would have been child’s play; to +have retired from the council with threats of war, as easy. + +And yet they craved pardon. + +One chief after another rose with dignity in the ring and came to the +table to plead. An argument deserving mention was that the North +Wind had desired to test the friendship of the French for the Big +Knives,--set forth without a smile. To all pleaders Colonel Clark shook +his head. He, being a warrior, cared little whether such people were +friends or foes. He held them in the hollow of his hand. And at length +they came no more. + +The very clouds seemed to hang motionless when he rose to speak, and you +who will may read in his memoir what he said. The Hungry Wolf caught the +spirit of it, and was eloquent in his own tongue, and no word of it was +lost. First he told them of the causes of war, of the thirteen council +fires with the English, and in terms that the Indian mind might grasp, +and how their old father, the French King, had joined the Big Knives in +this righteous fight. + +“Warriors,” said he, “here is a bloody belt and a white one; take which +you choose. But behave like men. Should it be the bloody path, you may +leave this town in safety to join the English, and we shall then see +which of us can stain our shirts with the most blood. But, should it be +the path of peace as brothers of the Big Knives and of their friends the +French, and then you go to your homes and listen to the bad birds, +you will then no longer deserve to be called men and warriors,--but +creatures of two tongues, which ought to be destroyed. Let us then part +this evening in the hope that the Great Spirit will bring us together +again with the sun as brothers.” + +So the council broke up. White man and red went trooping into town, +staring curiously at the guard which was leading the North Wind and his +friends to another night of meditation. What their fate would be no man +knew. Many thought the tomahawk. + +That night the citizens of the little village of Pain Court, as St. +Louis was called, might have seen the sky reddened in the eastward. It +was the loom of many fires at Cahokia, and around them the chiefs of +the forty tribes--all save the three in durance vile--were gathered in +solemn talk. Would they take the bloody belt or the white one? No man +cared so little as the Pale Face Chief. When their eyes were turned from +the fitful blaze of the logs, the gala light of many candles greeted +them. And above the sound of their own speeches rose the merrier note of +the fiddle. The garrison windows shone like lanterns, and behind these +Creole and backwoodsman swung the village ladies in the gay French +dances. The man at whose bidding this merrymaking was held stood in a +corner watching with folded arms, and none to look at him might know +that he was playing for a stake. + +The troubled fires of the Indians had died to embers long before the +candles were snuffed in the garrison house and the music ceased. + +The sun himself was pleased to hail that last morning of the great +council, and beamed with torrid tolerance upon the ceremony of kindling +the greatest of the fires. On this morning Colonel Clark did not sit +alone, but was surrounded by men of weight,--by Monsieur Gratiot and +other citizens, Captain Bowman and the Spanish officers. And when at +length the brush crackled and the flames caught the logs, three of the +mightiest chiefs arose. The greatest, victor in fifty tribal wars, held +in his hand the white belt of peace. The second bore a long-stemmed pipe +with a huge bowl. And after him, with measured steps, a third came +with a smoking censer,--the sacred fire with which to kindle the pipe. +Halting before Clark, he first swung the censer to the heavens, then to +the earth, then to all the spirits of the air,--calling these to witness +that peace was come at last,--and finally to the Chief of the Long +Knives and to the gentlemen of dignity about his person. Next the Indian +turned, and spoke to his brethren in measured, sonorous tones. He bade +them thank that Great Spirit who had cleared the sky and opened their +ears and hearts that they might receive the truth,--who had laid bare to +their understanding the lies of the English. Even as these English +had served the Big Knives, so might they one day serve the Indians. +Therefore he commanded them to cast the tomahawk into the river, and +when they should return to their land to drive the evil birds from it. +And they must send their wise men to Kaskaskia to hear the words of +wisdom of the Great White Chief, Clark. He thanked the Great Spirit for +this council fire which He had kindled at Cahokia. + +Lifting the bowl of the censer, in the eyes of all the people he drew +in a long whiff to bear witness of peace. After him the pipe went the +interminable rounds of the chiefs. Colonel Clark took it, and puffed; +Captain Bowman puffed,--everybody puffed. + +“Davy must have a pull,” cried Tom; and even the chiefs smiled as I +coughed and sputtered, while my friends roared with laughter. It gave +me no great notion of the fragrance of tobacco. And then came such a +hand-shaking and grunting as a man rarely sees in a lifetime. + +There was but one disquieting question left: What was to become of the +North Wind and his friends? None dared mention the matter at such a +time. But at length, as the day wore on to afternoon, the Colonel was +seen to speak quietly to Captain Bowman, and several backwoodsmen went +off toward the town. And presently a silence fell on the company as they +beheld the dejected three crossing the field with a guard. They were led +before Clark, and when he saw them his face hardened to sternness. + +“It is only women who watch to catch a bear sleeping,” he said. “The Big +Knives do not kill women. I shall give you meat for your journey home, +for women cannot hunt. If you remain here, you shall be treated as +squaws. Set the women free.” + +Tom McChesney cast off their irons. As for Clark, he began to talk +immediately with Monsieur Gratiot, as though he had dismissed them from +his mind. And their agitation was a pitiful thing to see. In vain they +pressed about him, in vain they even pulled the fringe of his shirt to +gain his attention. And then they went about among the other chiefs, but +these dared not intercede. Uneasiness was written on every man’s face, +and the talk went haltingly. But Clark was serenity itself. At length +with a supreme effort they plucked up courage to come again to the +table, one holding out the belt of peace, and the other the still +smouldering pipe. + +Clark paused in his talk. He took the belt, and flung it away over the +heads of those around him. He seized the pipe, and taking up his sword +from the table drew it, and with one blow clave the stem in half. There +was no anger in either act, but much deliberation. + +“The Big Knives,” he said scornfully, “do not treat with women.” + +The pleading began again, the Hungry Wolf interpreting with tremors of +earnestness. Their lives were spared, but to what purpose, since the +White Chief looked with disfavor upon them? Let him know that bad men +from Michilimackinac put the deed into their hearts. + +“When the Big Knives come upon such people in the wilderness,” Clark +answered, “they shoot them down that they may not eat the deer. But they +have never talked of it.” + +He turned from them once more; they went away in a dejection to wring +our compassion, and we thought the matter ended at last. The sun +was falling low, the people beginning to move away, when, to the +astonishment of all, the culprits were seen coming back again. With them +were two young men of their own nation. The Indians opened up a path for +them to pass through, and they came as men go to the grave. So mournful, +so impressive withal, that the crowd fell into silence again, and the +Colonel turned his eyes. The two young men sank down on the ground +before him and shrouded their heads in their blankets. + +“What is this?” Clark demanded. + +The North Wind spoke in a voice of sorrow:-- + +“An atonement to the Great White Chief for the sins of our nation. +Perchance the Great Chief will deign to strike a tomahawk into their +heads, that our nation may be saved in war by the Big Knives.” And the +North Wind held forth the pipe once more. + +“I have nothing to say to you,” said Clark. + +Still they stood irresolute, their minds now bereft of expedients. And +the young men sat motionless on the ground. As Clark talked they peered +out from under their blankets, once, twice, thrice. He was still talking +to the wondering Monsieur Gratiot. But no other voice was heard, and the +eyes of all were turned on him in amazement. But at last, when the drama +had risen to the pitch of unbearable suspense, he looked down upon +the two miserable pyramids at his feet, and touched them. The blankets +quivered. + +“Stand up,” said the Colonel, “and uncover.” + +They rose, cast the blankets from them, and stood with a stoic dignity +awaiting his pleasure. Wonderful, fine-limbed men they were, and for the +first time Clark’s eyes were seen to kindle. + +“I thank the Great Spirit,” said he, in a loud voice, “that I have found +men among your nation. That I have at last discovered the real chiefs of +your people. Had they sent such as you to treat with me in the beginning +all might have been well. Go back to your people as their chiefs, and +tell them that through you the Big Knives have granted peace to your +nation.” + +Stepping forward, he grasped them each by the hand, and, despite +training, joy shone in their faces, while a long-drawn murmur arose +from the assemblage. But Clark did not stop there. He presented them to +Captain Bowman and to the French and Spanish gentlemen present, and they +were hailed by their own kind as chiefs of their nation. To cap it all +our troops, backwoodsmen and Creole militia, paraded in line on the +common, and fired a salute in their honor. + +Thus did Clark gain the friendship of the forty tribes in the Northwest +country. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. “AN’ YE HAD BEEN WHERE I HAD BEEN” + +We went back to Kaskaskia, Colonel Clark, Tom, and myself, and a great +weight was lifted from our hearts. + +A peaceful autumn passed, and we were happy save when we thought of +those we had left at home. There is no space here to tell of many +incidents. Great chiefs who had not been to the council came hundreds of +leagues across wide rivers that they might see with their own eyes this +man who had made peace without gold, and these had to be amused and +entertained. + +The apples ripened, and were shaken to the ground by the winds. The good +Father Gibault, true to his promise, strove to teach me French. Indeed, +I picked up much of that language in my intercourse with the inhabitants +of Kaskaskia. How well I recall that simple life,--its dances, its +songs, and the games with the laughing boys and girls on the common! +And the good people were very kind to the orphan that dwelt with Colonel +Clark, the drummer boy of his regiment. + +But winter brought forebodings. When the garden patches grew bare and +brown, and the bleak winds from across the Mississippi swept over the +common, untoward tidings came like water dripping from a roof, bit by +bit. And day by day Colonel Clark looked graver. The messengers he had +sent to Vincennes came not back, and the coureurs and traders from time +to time brought rumors of a British force gathering like a thundercloud +in the northeast. Monsieur Vigo himself, who had gone to Vincennes on +his own business, did not return. As for the inhabitants, some of them +who had once bowed to us with a smile now passed with faces averted. + +The cold set the miry roads like cement, in ruts and ridges. A flurry of +snow came and powdered the roofs even as the French loaves are powdered. + +It was January. There was Colonel Clark on a runt of an Indian pony; Tom +McChesney on another, riding ahead, several French gentlemen seated on +stools in a two-wheeled cart, and myself. We were going to Cahokia, +and it was very cold, and when the tireless wheels bumped from ridge to +gully, the gentlemen grabbed each other as they slid about, and laughed. + +All at once the merriment ceased, and looking forward we saw that Tom +had leaped from his saddle and was bending over something in the snow. +These chanced to be the footprints of some twenty men. + +The immediate result of this alarming discovery was that Tom went on +express to warn Captain Bowman, and the rest of us returned to a painful +scene at Kaskaskia. We reached the village, the French gentlemen leaped +down from their stools in the cart, and in ten minutes the streets were +filled with frenzied, hooded figures. Hamilton, called the Hair Buyer, +was upon them with no less than six hundred, and he would hang them to +their own gateposts for listening to the Long Knives. These were but +a handful after all was said. There was Father Gibault, for example. +Father Gibault would doubtless be exposed to the crows in the belfry of +his own church because he had busied himself at Vincennes and with other +matters. Father Gibault was human, and therefore lovable. He bade +his parishioners a hasty and tearful farewell, and he made a cold and +painful journey to the territories of his Spanish Majesty across the +Mississippi. + +Father Gibault looked back, and against the gray of the winter’s +twilight there were flames like red maple leaves. In the fort the men +stood to their guns, their faces flushed with staring at the burning +houses. Only a few were burned,--enough to give no cover for Hamilton +and his six hundred if they came. + +But they did not come. The faithful Bowman and his men arrived instead, +with the news that there had been only a roving party of forty, and +these were now in full retreat. + +Father Gibault came back. But where was Hamilton? This was the +disquieting thing. + +One bitter day, when the sun smiled mockingly on the powdered common, a +horseman was perceived on the Fort Chartres road. It was Monsieur Vigo +returning from Vincennes, but he had been first to St. Louis by reason +of the value he set upon his head. Yes, Monsieur Vigo had been to +Vincennes, remaining a little longer than he expected, the guest of +Governor Hamilton. So Governor Hamilton had recaptured that place! +Monsieur Vigo was no spy, hence he had gone first to St. Louis. Governor +Hamilton was at Vincennes with much of King George’s gold, and many +supplies, and certain Indians who had not been at the council. Eight +hundred in all, said Monsieur Vigo, using his fingers. And it was +Governor Hamilton’s design to march upon Kaskaskia and Cahokia and +sweep over Kentucky; nay, he had already sent certain emissaries to +McGillivray and his Creeks and the Southern Indians with presents, and +these were to press forward on their side. The Governor could do +nothing now, but would move as soon as the rigors of winter had somewhat +relented. Monsieur Vigo shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He +loved les Américains. What would Monsieur le Colonel do now? + +Monsieur le Colonel was grave, but this was his usual manner. He did not +tear his hair, but the ways of the Long Knives were past understanding. +He asked many questions. How was it with the garrison at Vincennes? +Monsieur Vigo was exact, as a business man should be. They were now +reduced to eighty men, and five hundred savages had gone out to ravage. +There was no chance, then, of Hamilton moving at present? Monsieur +Vigo threw up his hands. Never had he made such a trip, and he had been +forced to come back by a northern route. The Wabash was as the Great +Lakes, and the forests grew out of the water. A fox could not go to +Vincennes in this weather. A fish? Monsieur Vigo laughed heartily. Yes, +a fish might. + +“Then,” said Colonel Clark, “we will be fish.” + +Monsieur Vigo stared, and passed his hand from his forehead backwards +over his long hair. I leaned forward in my corner by the hickory fire. + +“Then we will be fish,” said Colonel Clark. “Better that than food for +the crows. For, if we stay here, we shall be caught like bears in a +trap, and Kentucky will be at Hamilton’s mercy.” + +“Sacré!” exclaimed Monsieur Vigo, “you are mad, mon ami. I know what +this country is, and you cannot get to Vincennes.” + +“I will get to Vincennes,” said Colonel Clark, so gently that Monsieur +Vigo knew he meant it. “I will swim to Vincennes.” + +Monsieur Vigo raised his hands to heaven. The three of us went out of +the door and walked. There was a snowy place in front of the church all +party-colored like a clown’s coat,--scarlet capotes, yellow capotes, +and blue capotes, and bright silk handkerchiefs. They surrounded the +Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor +and his savages were coming to take revenge on them because, in their +necessity, they had declared for Congress. Colonel Clark went silently +on his way to the gate; but Monsieur Vigo stopped, and Kaskaskia heard, +with a shock, that this man of iron was to march against Vincennes. + +The gates of the fort were shut, and the captains summoned. Undaunted +woodsmen as they were, they were lukewarm, at first, at the idea of +this march through the floods. Who can blame them? They had, indeed, +sacrificed much. But in ten minutes they had caught his enthusiasm +(which is one of the mysteries of genius). And the men paraded in the +snow likewise caught it, and swung their hats at the notion of taking +the Hair Buyer. + +“‘Tis no news to me,” said Terence, stamping his feet on the flinty +ground; “wasn’t it Davy that pointed him out to us and the hair liftin’ +from his head six months since?” + +“Und you like schwimmin’, yes?” said Swein Poulsson, his face like the +rising sun with the cold. + +“Swimmin’, is it?” said Terence; “sure, the divil made worse things than +wather. And Hamilton’s beyant.” + +“I reckon that’ll fetch us through,” Bill Cowan put in grimly. + +It was a blessed thing that none of us had a bird’s-eye view of that +same water. No man of force will listen when his mind is made up, and +perhaps it is just as well. For in that way things are accomplished. +Clark would not listen to Monsieur Vigo, and hence the financier had, +perforce, to listen to Clark. There were several miracles before we +left. Monsieur Vigo, for instance, agreed to pay the expenses of the +expedition, though in his heart he thought we should never get to +Vincennes. Incidentally, he was never repaid. Then there were the +French--yesterday, running hither and thither in paroxysms of fear; +to-day, enlisting in whole companies, though it were easier to get to +the wild geese of the swamps than to Hamilton. Their ladies stitched +colors day and night, and presented them with simple confidence to the +Colonel in the church. Twenty stands of colors for 170 men, counting +those who had come from Cahokia. Think of the industry of it, of the +enthusiasm behind it! Twenty stands of colors! Clark took them all, +and in due time it will be told how the colors took Vincennes. This was +because Colonel Clark was a man of destiny. + +Furthermore, Colonel Clark was off the next morning at dawn to buy a +Mississippi keel-boat. He had her rigged up with two four-pounders and +four swivels, filled her with provisions, and called her the Willing. +She was the first gunboat on the Western waters. A great fear came into +my heart, and at dusk I stole back to the Colonel’s house alone. The +snow had turned to rain, and Terence stood guard within the doorway. + +“Arrah,” he said, “what ails ye, darlin’?” + +I gulped and the tears sprang into my eyes; whereupon Terence, in +defiance of all military laws, laid his gun against the doorpost and +put his arms around me, and I confided my fears. It was at this critical +juncture that the door opened and Colonel Clark came out. + +“What’s to do here?” he demanded, gazing at us sternly. + +“Savin’ your Honor’s prisence,” said Terence, “he’s afeard your Honor +will be sending him on the boat. Sure, he wants to go swimmin’ with the +rest of us.” + +Colonel Clark frowned, bit his lip, and Terence seized his gun and stood +to attention. + +“It were right to leave you in Kaskaskia,” said the Colonel; “the water +will be over your head.” + +“The King’s drum would be floatin’ the likes of him,” said the +irrepressible Terence, “and the b’ys would be that lonesome.” + +The Colonel walked away without a word. In an hour’s time he came back +to find me cleaning his accoutrements by the fire. For a while he did +not speak, but busied himself with his papers, I having lighted the +candles for him. Presently he spoke my name, and I stood before him. + +“I will give you a piece of advice, Davy,” said he. “If you want a +thing, go straight to the man that has it. McChesney has spoken to me +about this wild notion of yours of going to Vincennes, and Cowan and +McCann and Ray and a dozen others have dogged my footsteps.” + +“I only spoke to Terence because he asked me, sir,” I answered. “I said +nothing to any one else.” + +He laid down his pen and looked at me with an odd expression. + +“What a weird little piece you are,” he exclaimed; “you seem to have +wormed your way into the hearts of these men. Do you know that you will +probably never get to Vincennes alive?” + +“I don’t care, sir,” I said. A happy thought struck me. “If they see a +boy going through the water, sir--” I hesitated, abashed. + +“What then?” said Clark, shortly. + +“It may keep some from going back,” I finished. + +At that he gave a sort of gasp, and stared at me the more. + +“Egad,” he said, “I believe the good Lord launched you wrong end to. +Perchance you will be a child when you are fifty.” + +He was silent a long time, and fell to musing. And I thought he had +forgotten. + +“May I go, sir?” I asked at length. + +He started. + +“Come here,” said he. But when I was close to him he merely laid his +hand on my shoulder. “Yes, you may go, Davy.” + +He sighed, and presently turned to his writing again, and I went back +joyfully to my cleaning. + +On a certain dark 4th of February, picture the village of Kaskaskia +assembled on the river-bank in capote and hood. Ropes are cast off, the +keel-boat pushes her blunt nose through the cold, muddy water, the oars +churn up dirty, yellow foam, and cheers shake the sodden air. So the +Willing left on her long journey: down the Kaskaskia, into the flood of +the Mississippi, against many weary leagues of the Ohio’s current, and +up the swollen Wabash until they were to come to the mouth of the White +River near Vincennes. There they were to await us. + +Should we ever see them again? I think that this was the unspoken +question in the hearts of the many who were to go by land. + +The 5th was a mild, gray day, with the melting snow lying in patches on +the brown bluff, and the sun making shift to pierce here and there. We +formed the regiment in the fort,--backwoodsman and Creole now to fight +for their common country, Jacques and Pierre and Alphonse; and mother +and father, sweetheart and wife, waiting to wave a last good-by. Bravely +we marched out of the gate and into the church for Father Gibault’s +blessing. And then, forming once more, we filed away on the road leading +northward to the ferry, our colors flying, leaving the weeping, cheering +crowd behind. In front of the tall men of the column was a wizened +figure, beating madly on a drum, stepping proudly with head thrown back. +It was Cowan’s voice that snapped the strain. + +“Go it, Davy, my little gamecock!” he cried, and the men laughed and +cheered. And so we came to the bleak ferry landing where we had crossed +on that hot July night six months before. + +We were soon on the prairies, and in the misty rain that fell and fell +they seemed to melt afar into a gray and cheerless ocean. The sodden +grass was matted now and unkempt. Lifeless lakes filled the depressions, +and through them we waded mile after mile ankle-deep. There was a little +cavalcade mounted on the tiny French ponies, and sometimes I rode with +these; but oftenest Cowan or Tom would fling me, drum and all, on his +shoulder. For we had reached the forest swamps where the water is the +color of the Creole coffee. And day after day as we marched, the soft +rain came out of the east and wet us to the skin. + +It was a journey of torments, and even that first part of it was enough +to discourage the most resolute spirit. Men might be led through it, but +never driven. It is ever the mind which suffers through the monotonies +of bodily discomfort, and none knew this better than Clark himself. +Every morning as we set out with the wet hide chafing our skin, the +Colonel would run the length of the regiment, crying:-- + +“Who gives the feast to-night, boys?” + +Now it was Bowman’s company, now McCarty’s, now Bayley’s. How the +hunters vied with each other to supply the best, and spent the days +stalking the deer cowering in the wet thickets. We crossed the Saline, +and on the plains beyond was a great black patch, a herd of buffalo. +A party of chosen men headed by Tom McChesney was sent after them, and +never shall I forget the sight of the mad beasts charging through the +water. + +That night, when our chilled feet could bear no more, we sought out a +patch of raised ground a little firmer than a quagmire, and heaped +up the beginnings of a fire with such brush as could be made to burn, +robbing the naked thickets. Saddle and steak sizzled, leather steamed +and stiffened, hearts and bodies thawed; grievances that men had nursed +over miles of water melted. Courage sits best on a full stomach, and as +they ate they cared not whether the Atlantic had opened between them +and Vincennes. An hour agone, and there were twenty cursing laggards, +counting the leagues back to Kaskaskia. Now:-- + + “C’était un vieux sauvage + Tout noir, tour barbouilla, + Ouich’ ka! + Avec sa vieill’ couverte + Et son sac à tabac. + Ouich’ ka! + Ah! ah! tenaouich’ tenaga, + Tenaouich’ tenaga, ouich’ ka!” + +So sang Antoine, dit le Gris, in the pulsing red light. And when, +between the verses, he went through the agonies of a Huron war-dance, +the assembled regiment howled with delight. Some men know cities and +those who dwell in the quarters of cities. But grizzled Antoine knew +the half of a continent, and the manners of trading and killing of the +tribes thereof. + +And after Antoine came Gabriel, a marked contrast--Gabriel, five feet +six, and the glare showing but a faint dark line on his quivering lip. +Gabriel was a patriot,--a tribute we must pay to all of those brave +Frenchmen who went with us. Nay, Gabriel had left at home on his little +farm near the village a young wife of a fortnight. And so his lip +quivered as he sang:-- + + “Petit Rocher de la Haute Montagne, + Je vien finir ici cette campagne! + Ah! doux échos, entendez mes soupirs; + En languissant je vais bientôt mouir!” + +We had need of gayety after that, and so Bill Cowan sang “Billy of the +Wild Wood,” and Terence McCann wailed an Irish jig, stamping the +water out of the spongy ground amidst storms of mirth. As he desisted, +breathless and panting, he flung me up in the firelight before the eyes +of them all, crying:-- + +“It’s Davy can bate me!” + +“Ay, Davy, Davy!” they shouted, for they were in the mood for anything. +There stood Colonel Clark in the dimmer light of the background. “We +must keep ‘em screwed up, Davy,” he had said that very day. + +There came to me on the instant a wild song that my father had taught +me when the liquor held him in dominance. Exhilarated, I sprang from +Terence’s arms to the sodden, bared space, and methinks I yet hear my +shrill, piping note, and see my legs kicking in the fling of it. There +was an uproar, a deeper voice chimed in, and here was McAndrew flinging +his legs with mine:-- + + “I’ve faught on land, I’ve faught at sea, + At hame I faught my aunty, O; + But I met the deevil and Dundee + On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O. + An’ ye had been where I had been, + Ye wad na be sae cantie, O; + An’ ye had seen what I ha’e seen, + On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.” + +In the morning Clark himself would be the first off through the gray +rain, laughing and shouting and waving his sword in the air, and I after +him as hard as I could pelt through the mud, beating the charge on my +drum until the war-cries of the regiment drowned the sound of it. For we +were upon a pleasure trip--lest any man forget,--a pleasure trip amidst +stark woods and brown plains flecked with ponds. So we followed him +until we came to a place where, in summer, two quiet rivers flowed +through green forests--the little Wabashes. And now! Now hickory and +maple, oak and cottonwood, stood shivering in three feet of water on +what had been a league of dry land. We stood dismayed at the crumbling +edge of the hill, and one hundred and seventy pairs of eyes were turned +on Clark. With a mere glance at the running stream high on the bank and +the drowned forest beyond, he turned and faced them. + +“I reckon you’ve earned a rest, boys,” he said. “We’ll have games +to-day.” + +There were some dozen of the unflinching who needed not to be amused. +Choosing a great poplar, these he set to hollowing out a pirogue, and +himself came among the others and played leap-frog and the Indian game +of ball until night fell. And these, instead of moping and quarrelling, +forgot. That night, as I cooked him a buffalo steak, he drew near the +fire with Bowman. + +“For the love of God keep up their spirits, Bowman,” said the Colonel; +“keep up their spirits until we get them across. Once on the farther +hills, they cannot go back.” + +Here was a different being from the shouting boy who had led the games +and the war-dance that night in the circle of the blaze. Tired out, we +went to sleep with the ring of the axes in our ears, and in the morning +there were more games while the squad crossed the river to the drowned +neck, built a rough scaffold there, and notched a trail across it; to +the scaffold the baggage was ferried, and the next morning, bit by bit, +the regiment. Even now the pains shoot through my body when I think +of how man after man plunged waist-deep into the icy water toward the +farther branch. The pirogue was filled with the weak, and in the end of +it I was curled up with my drum. + +Heroism is a many-sided thing. It is one matter to fight and finish, +another to endure hell’s tortures hour after hour. All day they waded +with numbed feet vainly searching for a footing in the slime. Truly, the +agony of a brave man is among the greatest of the world’s tragedies to +see. As they splashed onward through the tree-trunks, many a joke went +forth, though lips were drawn and teeth pounded together. I have not +the heart to recall these jokes,--it would seem a sacrilege. There were +quarrels, too, the men striving to push one another from the easier +paths; and deeds sublime when some straggler clutched at the bole of +a tree for support, and was helped onward through excruciating ways. +A dozen held tremblingly to the pirogue’s gunwale, lest they fall +and drown. One walked ahead with a smile, or else fell back to lend a +helping shoulder to a fainting man. + +And there was Tom McChesney. All day long I watched him, and thanked God +that Polly Ann could not see him thus. And yet, how the pride would have +leaped within her! Humor came not easily to him, but charity and courage +and unselfishness he had in abundance. What he suffered none knew; but +through those awful hours he was always among the stragglers, helping +the weak and despairing when his strength might have taken him far +ahead toward comfort and safety. “I’m all right, Davy,” he would say, in +answer to my look as he passed me. But on his face was written something +that I did not understand. + +How the Creole farmers and traders, unused even to the common ways of +woodcraft, endured that fearful day and others that followed, I know +not. And when a tardy justice shall arise and compel the people of this +land to raise a shaft in memory of Clark and those who followed him, let +not the loyalty of the French be forgotten, though it be not understood. + +At eventide came to lurid and disordered brains the knowledge that the +other branch was here. And, mercifully, it was shallower than the first. +Holding his rifle high, with a war-whoop Bill Cowan plunged into the +stream. Unable to contain myself more, I flung my drum overboard and +went after it, and amid shouts and laughter I was towed across by James +Ray. + +Colonel Clark stood watching from the bank above, and it was he who +pulled me, bedraggled, to dry land. I ran away to help gather brush for +a fire. As I was heaping this in a pile I heard something that I should +not have heard. Nor ought I to repeat it now, though I did not need the +flames to send the blood tingling through my body. + +“McChesney,” said the Colonel, “we must thank our stars that we brought +the boy along. He has grit, and as good a head as any of us. I reckon if +it hadn’t been for him some of them would have turned back long ago.” + +I saw Tom grinning at the Colonel as gratefully as though he himself had +been praised. + +The blaze started, and soon we had a bonfire. Some had not the strength +to hold out the buffalo meat to the fire. Even the grumblers and +mutineers were silent, owing to the ordeal they had gone through. But +presently, when they began to be warmed and fed, they talked of other +trials to be borne. The Embarrass and the big Wabash, for example. These +must be like the sea itself. + +“Take the back trail, if ye like,” said Bill Cowan, with a loud laugh. +“I reckon the rest of us kin float to Vincennes on Davy’s drum.” + +But there was no taking the back trail now; and well they knew it. The +games began, the unwilling being forced to play, and before they fell +asleep that night they had taken Vincennes, scalped the Hair Buyer, and +were far on the march to Detroit. + +Mercifully, now that their stomachs were full, they had no worries. Few +knew the danger we were in of being cut off by Hamilton’s roving bands +of Indians. There would be no retreat, no escape, but a fight to the +death. And I heard this, and much more that was spoken of in low tones +at the Colonel’s fire far into the night, of which I never told the rank +and file,--not even Tom McChesney. + +On and on, through rain and water, we marched until we drew near to the +river Embarrass. Drew near, did I say? “Sure, darlin’,” said Terence, +staring comically over the gray waste, “we’ve been in it since +Choosd’y.” There was small exaggeration in it. In vain did our feet seek +the deeper water. It would go no higher than our knees, and the sound +which the regiment made in marching was like that of a great flatboat +going against the current. It had been a sad, lavender-colored day, and +now that the gloom of the night was setting in, and not so much as a +hummock showed itself above the surface, the Creoles began to murmur. +And small wonder! Where was this man leading them, this Clark who had +come amongst them from the skies, as it were? Did he know, himself? +Night fell as though a blanket had been spread over the tree-tops, and +above the dreary splashing men could be heard calling to one another in +the darkness. Nor was there any supper ahead. For our food was gone, +and no game was to be shot over this watery waste. A cold like that of +eternal space settled in our bones. Even Terence McCann grumbled. + +“Begob,” said he, “‘tis fine weather for fishes, and the birrds are that +comfortable in the threes. ‘Tis no place for a baste at all, at all.” + +Sometime in the night there was a cry. Ray had found the water falling +from an oozy bank, and there we dozed fitfully until we were startled by +a distant boom. + +It was Governor Hamilton’s morning gun at Fort Sackville, Vincennes. + +There was no breakfast. How we made our way, benumbed with hunger and +cold, to the banks of the Wabash, I know not. Captain McCarty’s company +was set to making canoes, and the rest of us looked on apathetically +as the huge trees staggered and fell amidst a fountain of spray in the +shallow water. We were but three leagues from Vincennes. A raft was +bound together, and Tom McChesney and three other scouts sent on a +desperate journey across the river in search of boats and provisions, +lest we starve and fall and die on the wet flats. Before he left Tom +came to me, and the remembrance of his gaunt face haunted me for many +years after. He drew something from his bosom and held it out to me, and +I saw that it was a bit of buffalo steak which he had saved. I shook my +head, and the tears came into my eyes. + +“Come, Davy,” he said, “ye’re so little, and I beant hungry.” + +Again I shook my head, and for the life of me I could say nothing. + +“I reckon Polly Ann’d never forgive me if anything was to happen to +you,” said he. + +At that I grew strangely angry. + +“It’s you who need it,” I cried, “it’s you that has to do the work. And +she told me to take care of you.” + +The big fellow grinned sheepishly, as was his wont. + +“‘Tis only a bite,” he pleaded, “‘twouldn’t only make me hungry, +and”--he looked hard at me--“and it might be the savin’ of you. Ye’ll +not eat it for Polly Ann’s sake?” he asked coaxingly. + +“‘Twould not be serving her,” I answered indignantly. + +“Ye’re an obstinate little deevil!” he cried, and, dropping the morsel +on the freshly cut stump, he stalked away. I ran after him, crying out, +but he leaped on the raft that was already in the stream and began to +pole across. I slipped the piece into my own hunting shirt. + +All day the men who were too weak to swing axes sat listless on the +bank, watching in vain for some sight of the Willing. They saw a canoe +rounding the bend instead, with a single occupant paddling madly. And +who should this be but Captain Willing’s own brother, escaped from +the fort, where he had been a prisoner. He told us that a man named +Maisonville, with a party of Indians, was in pursuit of him, and the +next piece of news he had was in the way of raising our despair a +little. Governor Hamilton’s astonishment at seeing this force here and +now would be as great as his own. Governor Hamilton had said, indeed, +that only a navy could take Vincennes this year. Unfortunately, Mr. +Willing brought no food. Next in order came five Frenchmen, trapped by +our scouts, nor had they any provisions. But as long as I live I shall +never forget how Tom McChesney returned at nightfall, the hero of the +hour. He had shot a deer; and never did wolves pick an animal cleaner. +They pressed on me a choice piece of it, these great-hearted men who +were willing to go hungry for the sake of a child, and when I refused it +they would have forced it down my throat. Swein Poulsson, he that once +hid under the bed, deserves a special tablet to his memory. He was for +giving me all he had, though his little eyes were unnaturally bright and +the red had left his cheeks now. + +“He haf no belly, only a leedle on his backbone!” he cried. + +“Begob, thin, he has the backbone,” said Terence. + +“I have a piece,” said I, and drew forth that which Tom had given me. + +They brought a quarter of a saddle to Colonel Clark, but he smiled at +them kindly and told them to divide it amongst the weak. He looked at me +as I sat with my feet crossed on the stump. + +“I will follow Davy’s example,” said he. + +At length the canoes were finished and we crossed the river, swimming +over the few miserable skeletons of the French ponies we had brought +along. We came to a sugar camp, and beyond it, stretching between us and +Vincennes, was a sea of water. Here we made our camp, if camp it could +be called. There was no fire, no food, and the water seeped out of the +ground on which we lay. Some of those even who had not yet spoken now +openly said that we could go no farther. For the wind had shifted into +the northwest, and, for the first time since we had left Kaskaskia we +saw the stars gleaming like scattered diamonds in the sky. Bit by bit +the ground hardened, and if by chance we dozed we stuck to it. Morning +found the men huddled like sheep, their hunting shirts hard as boards, +and long before Hamilton’s gun we were up and stamping. Antoine poked +the butt of his rifle through the ice of the lake in front of us. + +“I think we not get to Vincennes this day,” he said. + +Colonel Clark, who heard him, turned to me. + +“Fetch McChesney here, Davy,” he said. Tom came. + +“McChesney,” said he, “when I give the word, take Davy and his drum on +your shoulders and follow me. And Davy, do you think you can sing that +song you gave us the other night?” + +“Oh, yes, sir,” I answered. + +Without more ado the Colonel broke the skim of ice, and, taking some of +the water in his hand, poured powder from his flask into it and rubbed +it on his face until he was the color of an Indian. Stepping back, he +raised his sword high in the air, and, shouting the Shawanee war-whoop, +took a flying leap up to his thighs in the water. Tom swung me instantly +to his shoulder and followed, I beating the charge with all my might, +though my hands were so numb that I could scarce hold the sticks. +Strangest of all, to a man they came shouting after us. + +“Now, Davy!” said the Colonel. + + “I’ve faught on land, I’ve faught at sea, + At hame I faught my aunty, O; + But I met the deevil and Dundee + On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.” + +I piped it at the top of my voice, and sure enough the regiment took up +the chorus, for it had a famous swing. + + “An’ ye had been where I had been, + Ye wad na be sae cantie, O; + An’ ye had seen what I ha’e seen’ + On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.” + +When their breath was gone we heard Cowan shout that he had found a +path under his feet,--a path that was on dry land in the summer-time. We +followed it, feeling carefully, and at length, when we had suffered all +that we could bear, we stumbled on to a dry ridge. Here we spent another +night of torture, with a second backwater facing us coated with a full +inch of ice. + +And still there was nothing to eat. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. THE HAIR BUYER TRAPPED + +To lie the night on adamant, pierced by the needles of the frost; to +awake shivering and famished, until the meaning of an inch of ice on +the backwater comes to your mind,--these are not calculated to put a man +into an equable mood to listen to oratory. Nevertheless there was a +kind of oratory to fit the case. To picture the misery of these men +is well-nigh impossible. They stood sluggishly in groups, dazed by +suffering, and their faces were drawn and their eyes ringed, their +beards and hair matted. And many found it in their hearts to curse Clark +and that government for which he fought. + +When the red fire of the sun glowed through the bare branches that +morning, it seemed as if the campaign had spent itself like an arrow +which drops at the foot of the mark. Could life and interest and +enthusiasm be infused again in such as these? I have ceased to marvel +how it was done. A man no less haggard than the rest, but with a +compelling force in his eyes, pointed with a blade to the hills across +the river. They must get to them, he said, and their troubles would be +ended. He said more, and they cheered him. These are the bare facts. He +picked a man here, and another there, and these went silently to a grim +duty behind the regiment. + +“If any try to go back, shoot them down!” he cried. + +Then with a gun-butt he shattered the ice and was the first to leap +into the water under it. They followed, some with a cheer that was most +pitiful of all. They followed him blindly, as men go to torture, but +they followed him, and the splashing and crushing of the ice were sounds +to freeze my body. I was put in a canoe. In my day I have beheld great +suffering and hardship, and none of it compared to this. Torn with pity, +I saw them reeling through the water, now grasping trees and bushes +to try to keep their feet, the strongest breaking the way ahead and +supporting the weak between them. More than once Clark himself tottered +where he beat the ice at the apex of the line. Some swooned and would +have drowned had they not been dragged across the canoe and chafed back +to consciousness. By inches the water shallowed. Clark reached the high +ground, and then Bill Cowan, with a man on each shoulder. Then others +endured to the shallows to fall heavily in the crumbled ice and be +dragged out before they died. But at length, by God’s grace, the whole +regiment was on the land. Fires would not revive some, but Clark himself +seized a fainting man by the arms and walked him up and down in the +sunlight until his blood ran again. + +It was a glorious day, a day when the sap ran in the maples, and the sun +soared upwards in a sky of the palest blue. All this we saw through the +tracery of the leafless branches,--a mirthless, shivering crowd, crept +through a hell of weather into the Hair Buyer’s very lair. Had he +neither heard nor seen? + +Down the steel-blue lane of water between the ice came a canoe. Our +stunted senses perceived it, unresponsive. A man cried out (it was Tom +McChesney); now some of them had leaped into the pirogue, now they were +returning. In the towed canoe two fat and stolid squaws and a pappoose +were huddled, and beside them--God be praised!--food. A piece of buffalo +on its way to town, and in the end compartment of the boat tallow +and bear’s grease lay revealed by two blows of the tomahawk. The +kettles--long disused--were fetched, and broth made and fed in sips to +the weakest, while the strongest looked on and smiled in an agony of +self-restraint. It was a fearful thing to see men whose legs had refused +service struggle to their feet when they had drunk the steaming, greasy +mixture. And the Colonel, standing by the river’s edge, turned his face +away--down-stream. And then, as often, I saw the other side of the man. +Suddenly he looked at me, standing wistful at his side. + +“They have cursed me,” said he, by way of a question, “they have cursed +me every day.” And seeing me silent, he insisted, “Tell me, is it not +so, Davy?” + +“It is so,” I said, wondering that he should pry, “but it was while they +suffered. And--and some refrained.” + +“And you?” he asked queerly. + +“I--I could not, sir. For I asked leave to come.” + +“If they have condemned me to a thousand hells,” said he, +dispassionately, “I should not blame them.” Again he looked at me. “Do +you understand what you have done?” he asked. + +“No, sir,” I said uneasily. + +“And yet there are some human qualities in you, Davy. You have been +worth more to me than another regiment.” + +I stared. + +“When you grow older, if you ever do, tell your children that once upon +a time you put a hundred men to shame. It is no small thing.” + +Seeing him relapse into silence, I did not speak. For the space of half +an hour he stared down the river, and I knew that he was looking vainly +for the Willing. + +At noon we crossed, piecemeal, a deep lake in the canoes, and marching +awhile came to a timber-covered rise which our French prisoners named +as the Warriors’ Island. And from the shelter of its trees we saw the +steely lines of a score of low ponds, and over the tops of as many +ridges a huddle of brown houses on the higher ground. + +And this was the place we had all but sold our lives to behold! This was +Vincennes at last! We were on the heights behind the town,--we were at +the back door, as it were. At the far side, on the Wabash River, was the +front door, or Fort Sackville, where the banner of England snapped in +the February breeze. + +We stood there, looking, as the afternoon light flooded the plain. +Suddenly the silence was broken. + +“Hooray for Clark!” cried a man at the edge of the copse. + +“Hooray for Clark!”--it was the whole regiment this time. From +execration to exaltation was but a step, after all. And the Creoles fell +to scoffing at their sufferings and even forgot their hunger in staring +at the goal. The backwoodsmen took matters more stolidly, having +acquired long since the art of waiting. They lounged about, cleaning +their guns, watching the myriad flocks of wild ducks and geese casting +blue-black shadows on the ponds. + +“Arrah, McChesney,” said Terence, as he watched the circling birds, +“Clark’s a great man, but ‘tis more riverince I’d have for him if wan av +thim was sizzling on the end of me ramrod.” + +“I’d sooner hev the Ha’r Buyer’s sculp,” said Tom. + +Presently there was a drama performed for our delectation. A shot came +down the wind, and we perceived that several innocent Creole gentlemen, +unconscious of what the timber held, were shooting the ducks and geese. +Whereupon Clark chose Antoine and three of our own Creoles to sally out +and shoot likewise--as decoys. We watched them working their way over +the ridges, and finally saw them coming back with one of the Vincennes +sportsmen. I cannot begin to depict the astonishment of this man when +he reached the copse, and was led before our lean, square-shouldered +commander. Yes, monsieur, he was a friend of les Américains. Did +Governor Hamilton know that a visit was imminent? Pardieu (with many +shrugs and outward gestures of the palms), Governor Hamilton had said if +the Long Knives had wings or fins they might reach him now--he was all +unprepared. + +“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Clark to Captains Bowman and McCarty and +Williams, “we have come so far by audacity, and we must continue by +audacity. It is of no use to wait for the gunboat, and every moment +we run the risk of discovery. I shall write an open letter to the +inhabitants of Vincennes, which the prisoner shall take into town. I +shall tell them that those who are true to the oath they swore to Father +Gibault shall not be molested if they remain quietly in their houses. +Let those who are on the side of the Hair Buyer General and his King go +to the fort and fight there.” + +He bade me fetch the portfolio he carried, and with numbed fingers wrote +the letter while his captains stared in admiration and amazement. What +a stroke was this! There were six hundred men in the town and +fort,--soldiers, inhabitants, and Indians,--while we had but 170, +starved and weakened by their incredible march. But Clark was not to +be daunted. Whipping out his field-glasses, he took a stand on a little +mound under the trees and followed the fast-galloping messenger across +the plain; saw him enter the town; saw the stir in the streets, knots of +men riding out and gazing, hands on foreheads, towards the place where +we were. But, as the minutes rolled into hours, there was no further +alarm. No gun, no beat to quarters or bugle-call from Fort Sackville. +What could it mean? + +Clark’s next move was an enigma, for he set the men to cutting and +trimming tall sapling poles. To these were tied (how reverently!) the +twenty stands of colors which loving Creole hands had stitched. The +boisterous day was reddening to its close as the Colonel lined his +little army in front of the wood, and we covered the space of four +thousand. For the men were twenty feet apart and every tenth carried a +standard. Suddenly we were aghast as the full meaning of the inspiration +dawned upon us. The command was given, and we started on our march +toward Vincennes. But not straight,--zigzagging, always keeping the +ridges between us and the town, and to the watching inhabitants it +seemed as if thousands were coming to crush them. Night fell, the colors +were furled and the saplings dropped, and we pressed into serried +ranks and marched straight over hill and dale for the lights that were +beginning to twinkle ahead of us. + +We halted once more, a quarter of a mile away. Clark himself had picked +fourteen men to go under Lieutenant Bayley through the town and take the +fort from the other side. Here was audacity with a vengeance. You may +be sure that Tom and Cowan and Ray were among these, and I trotted after +them with the drum banging against my thighs. + +Was ever stronghold taken thus? + +They went right into the town, the fourteen of them, into the main +street that led directly to the fort. The simple citizens gave back, +stupefied, at sight of the tall, striding forms. Muffled Indians stood +like statues as we passed, but these raised not a hand against us. Where +were Hamilton, Hamilton’s soldiers and savages? It was as if we had come +a-trading. + +The street rose and fell in waves, like the prairie over which it ran. +As we climbed a ridge, here was a little log church, the rude cross +on the belfry showing dark against the sky. And there, in front of us, +flanked by blockhouses with conical caps, was the frowning mass of Fort +Sackville. + +“Take cover,” said Williams, hoarsely. It seemed incredible. + +The men spread hither and thither, some at the corners of the church, +some behind the fences of the little gardens. Tom chose a great forest +tree that had been left standing, and I went with him. He powdered his +pan, and I laid down my drum beside the tree, and then, with an impulse +that was rare, Tom seized me by the collar and drew me to him. + +“Davy,” he whispered, and I pinched him. “Davy, I reckon Polly Ann’d be +kinder surprised if she knew where we was. Eh?” + +I nodded. It seemed strange, indeed, to be talking thus at such a place. +Life has taught me since that it was not so strange, for however a +man may strive and suffer for an object, he usually sits quiet at the +consummation. Here we were in the door-yard of a peaceful cabin, the +ground frozen in lumps under our feet, and it seemed to me that the wind +had something to do with the lightness of the night. + +“Davy,” whispered Tom again, “how’d ye like to see the little feller to +home?” + +I pinched him again, and harder this time, for I was at a loss for +adequate words. The muscles of his legs were as hard as the strands of +a rope, and his buckskin breeches frozen so that they cracked under my +fingers. + +Suddenly a flickering light arose ahead of us, and another, and we saw +that they were candles beginning to twinkle through the palings of the +fort. These were badly set, the width of a man’s hand apart. Presently +here comes a soldier with a torch, and as he walked we could see from +crack to crack his bluff face all reddened by the light, and so near +were we that we heard the words of his song:-- + + “O, there came a lass to Sudbury Fair, + With a hey, and a ho, nonny-nonny! + And she had a rose in her raven hair, + With a hey, and a ho, nonny-nonny!” + +“By the etarnal!” said Tom, following the man along the palings with the +muzzle of his Deckard, “by the etarnal! ‘tis like shootin’ beef.” + +A gust of laughter came from somewhere beyond. The burly soldier paused +at the foot of the blockhouse. + +“Hi, Jem, have ye seen the General’s man? His Honor’s in a ‘igh temper, +I warrant ye.” + +It was fortunate for Jem that he put his foot inside the blockhouse +door. + +“Now, boys!” + +It was Williams’s voice, and fourteen rifles sputtered out a ragged +volley. + +There was an instant’s silence, and then a score of voices raised in +consternation,--shouting, cursing, commanding. Heavy feet pounded on the +platform of the blockhouse. While Tom was savagely jamming in powder and +ball, the wicket gate of the fort opened, a man came out and ran to a +house a biscuit’s throw away, and ran back again before he was shot at, +slamming the gate after him. Tom swore. + +“We’ve got but the ten rounds,” he said, dropping his rifle to his knee. +“I reckon ‘tis no use to waste it.” + +“The Willing may come to-night,” I answered. + +There was a bugle winding a strange call, and the roll of a drum, and +the running continued. + +“Don’t fire till you’re sure, boys,” said Captain Williams. + +Our eyes caught sight of a form in the blockhouse port, there was an +instant when a candle flung its rays upon a cannon’s flank, and Tom’s +rifle spat a rod of flame. A red blot hid the cannon’s mouth, and behind +it a man staggered and fell on the candle, while the shot crunched its +way through the logs of the cottage in the yard where we stood. And now +the battle was on in earnest, fire darting here and there from the +black wall, bullets whistling and flying wide, and at intervals cannon +belching, their shot grinding through trees and houses. But our men +waited until the gunners lit their matches in the cannon-ports,--it was +no trick for a backwoodsman. + +At length there came a popping right and left, and we knew that Bowman +and McCarty’s men had swung into position there. + +An hour passed, and a shadow came along our line, darting from cover to +cover. It was Lieutenant Bayley, and he sent me back to find the Colonel +and to tell him that the men had but a few rounds left. I sped through +the streets on the errand, spied a Creole company waiting in reserve, +and near them, behind a warehouse, a knot of backwoodsmen, French, +and Indians, lighted up by a smoking torch. And here was Colonel Clark +talking to a big, blanketed chief. I was hovering around the skirts of +the crowd and seeking for an opening, when a hand pulled me off my feet. + +“What ‘ll ye be afther now?” said a voice, which was Terence’s. + +“Let me go,” I cried, “I have a message from Lieutenant Bayley.” + +“Sure,” said Terence, “a man’d think ye had the Hair Buyer’s sculp +in yere pocket. The Colonel is treaty-makin’ with Tobaccy’s Son, the +grreatest Injun in these parrts.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“Hist!” said Terence. + +“Let me go,” I yelled, so loudly that the Colonel turned, and Terence +dropped me like a live coal. I wormed my way to where Clark stood. +Tobacco’s Son was at that moment protesting that the Big Knives were +his brothers, and declaring that before morning broke he would have one +hundred warriors for the Great White Chief. Had he not made a treaty +of peace with Captain Helm, who was even then a prisoner of the British +general in the fort? + +Colonel Clark replied that he knew well of the fidelity of Tobacco’s Son +to the Big Knives, that Tobacco’s Son had remained stanch in the face of +bribes and presents (this was true). Now all that Colonel Clark desired +of Tobacco’s Son besides his friendship was that he would keep his +warriors from battle. The Big Knives would fight their own fight. To +this sentiment Tobacco’s Son grunted extreme approval. Colonel Clark +turned to me. + +“What is it, Davy?” he asked. + +I told him. + +“Tobacco’s Son has dug up for us King George’s ammunition,” he said. “Go +tell Lieutenant Bayley that I will send him enough to last him a month.” + +I sped away with the message. Presently I came back again, upon another +message, and they were eating,--those reserves,--they were eating as I +had never seen men eat but once, at Kaskaskia. The baker stood by with +lifted palms, imploring the saints that he might have some compensation, +until Clark sent him back to his shop to knead and bake again. The good +Creoles approached the fires with the contents of their larders in their +hands. Terence tossed me a loaf the size of a cannon ball, and another. + +“Fetch that wan to wan av the b’ys,” said he. + +I seized as much as my arms could hold and scurried away to the firing +line once more, and, heedless of whistling bullets, darted from man to +man until the bread was exhausted. Not a one but gave me a “God bless +you, Davy,” ere he seized it with a great hand and began to eat in +wolfish bites, his Deckard always on the watch the while. + +There was no sleep in the village. All night long, while the +rifles sputtered, the villagers in their capotes--men, women, and +children--huddled around the fires. The young men of the militia begged +Clark to allow them to fight, and to keep them well affected he sent +some here and there amongst our lines. For our Colonel’s strength +was not counted by rifles or men alone: he fought with his brain. As +Hamilton, the Hair Buyer, made his rounds, he believed the town to be in +possession of a horde of Kentuckians. Shouts, war-whoops, and bursts of +laughter went up from behind the town. Surely a great force was there, +a small part of which had been sent to play with him and his men. On the +fighting line, when there was a lull, our backwoodsmen stood up behind +their trees and cursed the enemy roundly, and often by these taunts +persuaded the furious gunners to open their ports and fire their cannon. +Woe be to him that showed an arm or a shoulder! Though a casement be +lifted ever so warily, a dozen balls would fly into it. And at length, +when some of the besieged had died in their anger, the ports were opened +no more. It was then our sharpshooters crept up boldly to within thirty +yards of them--nay, it seemed as if they lay under the very walls of the +fort. And through the night the figure of the Colonel himself was often +seen amongst them, praising their markmanship, pleading with every man +not to expose himself without cause. He spied me where I had wormed +myself behind the foot-board of a picket fence beneath the cannon-port +of a blockhouse. It was during one of the breathing spaces. + +“What’s this?” said he to Cowan, sharply, feeling me with his foot. + +“I reckon it’s Davy, sir,” said my friend, somewhat sheepishly. “We +can’t do nothin’ with him. He’s been up and down the line twenty times +this night.” + +“What doing?” says the Colonel. + +“Bread and powder and bullets,” answered Bill. + +“But that’s all over,” says Clark. + +“He’s the very devil to pry,” answered Bill. “The first we know he’ll be +into the fort under the logs.” + +“Or between them,” says Clark, with a glance at the open palings. “Come +here, Davy.” + +I followed him, dodging between the houses, and when we had got off the +line he took me by the two shoulders from behind. + +“You little rascal,” said he, shaking me, “how am I to look out for an +army and you besides? Have you had anything to eat?” + +“Yes, sir,” I answered. + +We came to the fires, and Captain Bowman hurried up to meet him. + +“We’re piling up earthworks and barricades,” said the Captain, “for the +fight to-morrow. My God! if the Willing would only come, we could put +our cannon into them.” + +Clark laughed. + +“Bowman,” said he, kindly, “has Davy fed you yet?” + +“No,” says the Captain, surprised, “I’ve had no time to eat.” + +“He seems to have fed the whole army,” said the Colonel. He paused. +“Have they scented Lamothe or Maisonville?” + +“Devil a scent!” cried the Captain, “and we’ve scoured wood and +quagmire. They tell me that Lamothe has a very pretty force of redskins +at his heels.” + +“Let McChesney go,” said Clark sharply, “McChesney and Ray. I’ll warrant +they can find ‘em.” + +Now I knew that Maisonville had gone out a-chasing Captain Willing’s +brother,--he who had run into our arms. Lamothe was a noted Indian +partisan and a dangerous man to be dogging our rear that night. Suddenly +there came a thought that took my breath and set my heart a-hammering. +When the Colonel’s back was turned I slipped away beyond the range of +the firelight, and I was soon on the prairie, stumbling over hummocks +and floundering into ponds, yet going as quietly as I could, turning now +and again to look back at the distant glow or to listen to the rifles +popping around the fort. The night was cloudy and pitchy dark. Twice +the whirring of startled waterfowl frightened me out of my senses, but +ambition pricked me on in spite of fear. I may have gone a mile thus, +perchance two or three, straining every sense, when a sound brought +me to a stand. At first I could not distinguish it because of my heavy +breathing, but presently I made sure that it was the low drone of human +voices. Getting down on my hands and knees, I crept forward, and felt +the ground rising. The voices had ceased. I gained the crest of a low +ridge, and threw myself flat. A rattle of musketry set me shivering, and +in an agony of fright I looked behind me to discover that I could not be +more than four hundred yards from the fort. I had made a circle. I lay +very still, my eyes watered with staring, and then--the droning began +again. I went forward an inch, then another and another down the slope, +and at last I could have sworn that I saw dark blurs against the ground. +I put out my hand, my weight went after, and I had crashed through a +coating of ice up to my elbow in a pool. There came a second of sheer +terror, a hoarse challenge in French, and then I took to my heels and +flew towards the fort at the top of my speed. + +I heard them coming after me, leap and bound, and crying out to one +another. Ahead of me there might have been a floor or a precipice, as +the ground looks level at night. I hurt my foot cruelly on a frozen clod +of earth, slid down the washed bank of a run into the Wabash, picked +myself up, scrambled to the top of the far side, and had gotten away +again when my pursuer shattered the ice behind me. A hundred yards more, +two figures loomed up in front, and I was pulled up choking. + +“Hang to him, Fletcher!” said a voice. + +“Great God!” cried Fletcher, “it’s Davy. What are ye up to now?” + +“Let me go!” I cried, as soon as I had got my wind. As luck would have +it, I had run into a pair of daredevil young Kentuckians who had more +than once tasted the severity of Clark’s discipline,--Fletcher Blount +and Jim Willis. They fairly shook out of me what had happened, and then +dropped me with a war-whoop and started for the prairie, I after them, +crying out to them to beware of the run. A man must indeed be fleet +of foot to have escaped these young ruffians, and so it proved. When I +reached the hollow there were the two of them fighting with a man in the +water, the ice jangling as they shifted their feet. + +“What’s yere name?” said Fletcher, cuffing and kicking his prisoner +until he cried out for mercy. + +“Maisonville,” said the man, whereupon Fletcher gave a war-whoop and +kicked him again. + +“That’s no way to use a prisoner,” said I, hotly. + +“Hold your mouth, Davy,” said Fletcher, “you didn’t ketch him.” + +“You wouldn’t have had him but for me,” I retorted. + +Fletcher’s answer was an oath. They put Maisonville between them, ran +him through the town up to the firing line, and there, to my horror, +they tied him to a post and used him for a shield, despite his +heart-rending yells. In mortal fear that the poor man would be shot +down, I was running away to find some one who might have influence over +them when I met a lieutenant. He came up and ordered them angrily to +unbind Maisonville and bring him before the Colonel. Fletcher laughed, +whipped out his hunting knife, and cut the thongs; but he and Willis +had scarce got twenty paces from the officer before they seized poor +Maisonville by the hair and made shift to scalp him. This was merely +backwoods play, had Maisonville but known it. Persuaded, however, that +his last hour was come, he made a desperate effort to clear himself, +whereupon Fletcher cut off a piece of his skin by mistake. Maisonville, +making sure that he had been scalped, stood groaning and clapping his +hand to his head, while the two young rascals drew back and stared at +each other. + +“What’s to do now?” said Willis. + +“Take our medicine, I reckon,” answered Fletcher, grimly. And they +seized the tottering man between them, and marched him straightway to +the fire where Clark stood. + +They had seen the Colonel angry before, but now they were fairly +withered under his wrath. And he could have given them no greater +punishment, for he took them from the firing line, and sent them back to +wait among the reserves until the morning. + +“Nom de Dieu!” said Maisonville, wrathfully, as he watched them go, +“they should hang.” + +“The stuff that brought them here through ice and flood is apt to boil +over, Captain,” remarked the Colonel, dryly. + +“If you please, sir,” said I, “they did not mean to cut him, but he +wriggled.” + +Clark turned sharply. + +“Eh?” said he, “did you have a hand in this, too?” + +“Peste!” cried the Captain, “the little ferret--you call him--he find +me on the prairie. I run to catch him with some men and fall into the +crick--” he pointed to his soaked leggings, “and your demons, they fall +on top of me.” + +“I wish to heaven you had caught Lamothe instead, Davy,” said the +Colonel, and joined despite himself in the laugh that went up. Falling +sober again, he began to question the prisoner. Where was Lamothe? +Pardieu, Maisonville could not say. How many men did he have, etc., +etc.? The circle about us deepened with eager listeners, who uttered +exclamations when Maisonville, between his answers, put up his hand to +his bleeding head. Suddenly the circle parted, and Captain Bowman came +through. + +“Ray has discovered Lamothe, sir,” said he. “What shall we do?” + +“Let him into the fort,” said Clark, instantly. + +There was a murmur of astonished protest. + +“Let him into the fort!” exclaimed Bowman. + +“Certainly,” said the Colonel; “if he finds he cannot get in, he will be +off before the dawn to assemble the tribes.” + +“But the fort is provisioned for a month,” Bowman expostulated; “and +they must find out to-morrow how weak we are.” + +“To-morrow will be too late,” said Clark. + +“And suppose he shouldn’t go in?” + +“He will go in,” said the Colonel, quietly. “Withdraw your men, Captain, +from the north side.” + +Captain Bowman departed. Whatever he may have thought of these orders, +he was too faithful a friend of the Colonel’s to delay their execution. +Murmuring, swearing oaths of astonishment, man after man on the firing +line dropped his rifle at the word, and sullenly retreated. The crack, +crack of the Deckards on the south and east were stilled; not a barrel +was thrust by the weary garrison through the logs, and the place became +silent as the wilderness. It was the long hour before the dawn. And as +we lay waiting on the hard ground, stiff and cold and hungry, talking in +whispers, somewhere near six of the clock on that February morning the +great square of Fort Sackville began to take shape. There was the long +line of the stockade, the projecting blockhouses at each corner with +peaked caps, and a higher capped square tower from the centre of the +enclosure, the banner of England drooping there and clinging forlorn to +its staff, as though with a presentiment. Then, as the light grew, the +close-lipped casements were seen, scarred with our bullets. The little +log houses of the town came out, the sapling palings and the bare +trees,--all grim and gaunt at that cruel season. Cattle lowed here and +there, and horses whinnied to be fed. + +It was a dirty, gray dawn, and we waited until it had done its best. +From where we lay hid behind log house and palings we strained our eyes +towards the prairie to see if Lamothe would take the bait, until our +view was ended at the fuzzy top of a hillock. Bill Cowan, doubled up +behind a woodpile and breathing heavily, nudged me. + +“Davy, Davy, what d’ye see!”. + +Was it a head that broke the line of the crest? Even as I stared, +breathless, half a score of forms shot up and were running madly for the +stockade. Twenty more broke after them, Indians and Frenchmen, dodging, +swaying, crowding, looking fearfully to right and left. And from within +the fort came forth a hubbub,--cries and scuffling, orders, oaths, and +shouts. In plain view of our impatient Deckards soldiers manned the +platform, and we saw that they were flinging down ladders. An officer in +a faded scarlet coat stood out among the rest, shouting himself hoarse. +Involuntarily Cowan lined his sights across the woodpile on this mark of +color. + +Lamothe’s men, a seething mass, were fighting like wolves for the +ladders, fearful yet that a volley might kill half of them where they +stood. And so fast did they scramble upwards that the men before them +stepped on their fingers. All at once and by acclamation the fierce +war-whoops of our men rent the air, and some toppled in sheer terror and +fell the twelve feet of the stockade at the sound of it. Then every man +in the regiment, Creole and backwoodsman, lay back to laugh. The answer +of the garrison was a defiant cheer, and those who had dropped, finding +they were not shot at, picked themselves up again and gained the top, +helping to pull the ladders after them. Bowman’s men swung back into +place, the rattle and drag were heard in the blockhouse as the cannon +were run out through the ports, and the battle which had held through +the night watches began again with redoubled vigor. But there was more +caution on the side of the British, for they had learned dearly how the +Kentuckians could measure crack and crevice. + +There followed two hours and a futile waste of ammunition, the lead from +the garrison flying harmless here and there, and not a patch of skin or +cloth showing. + + + +CHAPTER XX. THE CAMPAIGN ENDS + + “If I am obliged to storm, you may depend upon such treatment as is +justly due to a murderer. And beware of destroying stores of any kind, +or any papers or letters that are in your possession; or of hurting one +house in the town. For, by Heaven! if you do, there shall be no mercy +shown you. +“To Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton.” + +So read Colonel Clark, as he stood before the log fire in Monsieur +Bouton’s house at the back of the town, the captains grouped in front of +him. + +“Is that strong enough, gentlemen?” he asked. + +“To raise his hair,” said Captain Charleville. + +Captain Bowman laughed loudly. + +“I reckon the boys will see to that,” said he. + +Colonel Clark folded the letter, addressed it, and turned gravely to +Monsieur Bouton. + +“You will oblige me, sir,” said he, “by taking this to Governor +Hamilton. You will be provided with a flag of truce.” + +Monsieur Bouton was a round little man, as his name suggested, and the +men cheered him as he strode soberly up the street, a piece of sheeting +tied to a sapling and flung over his shoulder. Through such humble +agencies are the ends of Providence accomplished. Monsieur Bouton walked +up to the gate, disappeared sidewise through the postern, and we sat +down to breakfast. In a very short time Monsieur Bouton was seen coming +back, and his face was not so impassive that the governor’s message +could not be read thereon. + +“‘Tis not a love-letter he has, I’ll warrant,” said Terence, as the +little man disappeared into the house. So accurately had Monsieur +Bouton’s face betrayed the news that the men went back to their posts +without orders, some with half a breakfast in hand. And soon the rank +and file had the message. + +“Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton begs leave to acquaint Colonel Clark that +he and his garrison are not disposed to be awed into any action unworthy +of British subjects.” + +Our men had eaten, their enemy was within their grasp and Clark and +all his officers could scarce keep them from storming. Such was the +deadliness of their aim that scarce a shot came back, and time and again +I saw men fling themselves in front of the breastworks with a war-whoop, +wave their rifles in the air, and cry out that they would have the Ha’r +Buyer’s sculp before night should fall. It could not last. Not tuned to +the nicer courtesies of warfare, the memory of Hamilton’s war parties, +of blackened homes, of families dead and missing, raged unappeased. +These were not content to leave vengeance in the Lord’s hands, and when +a white flag peeped timorously above the gate a great yell of derision +went up from river-bank to river-bank. Out of the postern stepped the +officer with the faded scarlet coat, and in due time went back again, +haughtily, his head high, casting contempt right and left of him. Again +the postern opened, and this time there was a cheer at sight of a man +in hunting shirt and leggings and coonskin cap. After him came a certain +Major Hay, Indian-enticer of detested memory, the lieutenant of him who +followed--the Hair Buyer himself. A murmur of hatred arose from the men +stationed there, and many would have shot him where he stood but for +Clark. + +“The devil has the grit,” said Cowan, though his eyes blazed. + +It was the involuntary tribute. Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton stared +indifferently at the glowering backwoodsmen as he walked the few steps +to the church. Not so Major Hay. His eyes fell. There was Colonel Clark +waiting at the door through which the good Creoles had been wont to go +to worship, bowing somewhat ironically to the British General. It was a +strange meeting they had in St. Xavier’s, by the light of the candles +on the altar. Hot words passed in that house of peace, the General +demanding protection for all his men, and our Colonel replying that he +would do with the Indian partisans as he chose. + +“And whom mean you by Indian partisans?” the undaunted governor had +demanded. + +“I take Major Hay to be one of them,” our Colonel had answered. + +It was soon a matter of common report how Clark had gazed fixedly at +the Major when he said this, and how the Major turned pale and +trembled. With our own eyes we saw them coming out, Major Hay as near +to staggering as a man could be, the governor blushing red for shame of +him. So they went sorrowfully back to the gate. + +Colonel Clark stood at the steps of the church, looking after them. + +“What was that firing?” he demanded sharply. “I gave orders for a +truce.” + +We who stood by the church had indeed heard firing in the direction of +the hills east of the town, and had wondered thereat. Perceiving a +crowd gathered at the far end of the street, we all ran thither save the +Colonel, who directed to have the offenders brought to him at Monsieur +Bouton’s. We met the news halfway. A party of Canadians and Indians had +just returned from the Falls of the Ohio with scalps they had taken. +Captain Williams had gone out with his company to meet them, had lured +them on, and finally had killed a number and was returning with the +prisoners. Yes, here they were! Williams himself walked ahead with two +dishevelled and frightened coureurs du bois, twoscore at least of +the townspeople of Vincennes, friends and relatives of the prisoners, +pressing about and crying out to Williams to have mercy on them. As for +Williams, he took them in to the Colonel, the townspeople pressing into +the door-yard and banking in front of it on the street. Behind all a +tragedy impended, nor can I think of it now without sickening. + +The frightened Creoles in the street gave back against the fence, and +from behind them, issuing as a storm-cloud, came the half of Williams’ +company, yelling like madmen. Pushed and jostled ahead of them were four +Indians, decked and feathered, the half-dried scalps dangling from their +belts, impassive, true to their creed despite the indignity of jolts and +jars and blows. On and on pressed the mob, gathering recruits at every +corner, and when they reached St. Xavier’s before the fort half the +regiment was there. Others watched, too, from the stockade, and what +they saw made their knees smite together with fear. Here were four +bronzed statues in a row across the street, the space in front of them +clear that their partisans in the fort might look and consider. What was +passing in the savage mind no man might know. Not a lip trembled nor +an eye faltered when a backwoodsman, his memory aflame at sight of the +pitiful white scalps on their belts, thrust through the crowd to curse +them. Fletcher Blount, frenzied, snatched his tomahawk from his side. + +“Sink, varmint!” he cried with a great oath. “By the etarnal! we’ll pay +the H’ar Buyer in his own coin. Sound your drums!” he shouted at the +fort. “Call the garrison fer the show.” + +He had raised his arm and turned to strike when the savage put up his +hand, not in entreaty, but as one man demanding a right from another. +The cries, the curses, the murmurs even, were hushed. Throwing back +his head, arching his chest, the notes of a song rose in the heavy air. +Wild, strange notes they were, that struck vibrant chords in my own +quivering being, and the song was the death-song. Ay, and the life-song +of a soul which had come into the world even as mine own. And somewhere +there lay in the song, half revealed, the awful mystery of that Creator +Whom the soul leaped forth to meet: the myriad green of the sun playing +with the leaves, the fish swimming lazily in the brown pool, the doe +grazing in the thicket, and a naked boy as free from care as these; and +still the life grows brighter as strength comes, and stature, and power +over man and beast; and then, God knows what memories of fierce love +and fiercer wars and triumphs, of desires gained and enemies +conquered,--God, who has made all lives akin to something which He holds +in the hollow of His hand; and then--the rain beating on the forest +crown, beating, beating, beating. + +The song ceased. The Indian knelt in the black mud, not at the feet of +Fletcher Blount, but on the threshold of the Great Spirit who ruleth +all things. The axe fell, yet he uttered no cry as he went before his +Master. + +So the four sang, each in turn, and died in the sight of some who +pitied, and some who feared, and some who hated, for the sake of land +and women. So the four went beyond the power of gold and gewgaw, and +were dragged in the mire around the walls and flung into the yellow +waters of the river. + +Through the dreary afternoon the men lounged about and cursed the +parley, and hearkened for the tattoo,--the signal agreed upon by the +leaders to begin the fighting. There had been no command against taunts +and jeers, and they gathered in groups under the walls to indulge +themselves, and even tried to bribe me as I sat braced against a house +with my drum between my knees and the sticks clutched tightly in my +hands. + +“Here’s a Spanish dollar for a couple o’ taps, Davy,” shouted Jack +Terrell. + +“Come on, ye pack of Rebel cutthroats!” yelled a man on the wall. + +He was answered by a torrent of imprecations. And so they flung it +back and forth until nightfall, when out comes the same faded-scarlet +officer, holding a letter in his hand, and marches down the street to +Monsieur Bouton’s. There would be no storming now, nor any man suffered +to lay fingers on the Hair Buyer. + +I remember, in particular, Hamilton the Hair Buyer. Not the fiend my +imagination had depicted (I have since learned that most villains do not +look the part), but a man with a great sorrow stamped upon his face. The +sun rose on that 25th of February, and the mud melted, and one of our +companies drew up on each side of the gate. Downward slid the lion of +England, the garrison drums beat a dirge, and the Hair Buyer marched out +at the head of his motley troops. + +Then came my own greatest hour. All morning I had been polishing and +tightening the drum, and my pride was so great as we fell into line that +so much as a smile could not be got out of me. Picture it all: Vincennes +in black and white by reason of the bright day; eaves and gables, +stockade line and capped towers, sharply drawn, and straight above these +a stark flagstaff waiting for our colors; pigs and fowls straying hither +and thither, unmindful that this day is red on the calendar. Ah! here +is a bit of color, too,--the villagers on the side streets to see the +spectacle. Gay wools and gayer handkerchiefs there, amid the joyous, +cheering crowd of thrice-changed nationality. + +“Vive les Bostonnais! Vive les Américains! Vive Monsieur le Colonel +Clark! Vive le petit tambour!” + +“Vive le petit tambour!” That was the drummer boy, stepping proudly +behind the Colonel himself, with a soul lifted high above mire and +puddle into the blue above. There was laughter amongst the giants behind +me, and Cowan saying softly, as when we left Kaskaskia, “Go it, Davy, +my little gamecock!” And the whisper of it was repeated among the ranks +drawn up by the gate. + +Yes, here was the gate, and now we were in the fort, and an empire was +gained, never to be lost again. The Stars and Stripes climbed the staff, +and the folds were caught by an eager breeze. Thirteen cannon thundered +from the blockhouses--one for each colony that had braved a king. + +There, in the miry square within the Vincennes fort, thin and bronzed +and travel-stained, were the men who had dared the wilderness in ugliest +mood. And yet none by himself would have done it--each had come here +compelled by a spirit stronger than his own, by a master mind that +laughed at the body and its ailments. + +Colonel George Rogers Clark stood in the centre of the square, under +the flag to whose renown he had added three stars. Straight he was, and +square, and self-contained. No weakening tremor of exultation softened +his face as he looked upon the men by whose endurance he had been able +to do this thing. He waited until the white smoke of the last gun had +drifted away on the breeze, until the snapping of the flag and the +distant village sounds alone broke the stillness. + +“We have not suffered all things for a reward,” he said, “but because +a righteous cause may grow. And though our names may be forgotten, +our deeds will be remembered. We have conquered a vast land that our +children and our children’s children may be freed from tyranny, and we +have brought a just vengeance upon our enemies. I thank you, one and +all, in the name of the Continental Congress and of that Commonwealth +of Virginia for which you have fought. You are no longer Virginians, +Kentuckians, Kaskaskians, and Cahokians--you are Americans.” + +He paused, and we were silent. Though his words moved us strongly, they +were beyond us. + +“I mention no deeds of heroism, of unselfishness, of lives saved at the +peril of others. But I am the debtor of every man here for the years to +come to see that he and his family have justice from the Commonwealth +and the nation.” + +Again he stopped, and it seemed to us watching that he smiled a little. + +“I shall name one,” he said, “one who never lagged, who never +complained, who starved that the weak might be fed and walk. David +Ritchie, come here.” + +I trembled, my teeth chattered as the water had never made them chatter. +I believe I should have fallen but for Tom, who reached out from the +ranks. I stumbled forward in a daze to where the Colonel stood, and the +cheering from the ranks was a thing beyond me. The Colonel’s hand on my +head brought me to my senses. + +“David Ritchie,” he said, “I give you publicly the thanks of the +regiment. The parade is dismissed.” + +The next thing I knew I was on Cowan’s shoulders, and he was tearing +round and round the fort with two companies at his heels. + +“The divil,” said Terence McCann, “he dhrummed us over the wather, an’ +through the wather; and faix, he would have dhrummed the sculp from +Hamilton’s head and the Colonel had said the worrd.” + +“By gar!” cried Antoine le Gris, “now he drum us on to Detroit.” + +Out of the gate rushed Cowan, the frightened villagers scattering right +and left. Antoine had a friend who lived in this street, and in ten +minutes there was rum in the powder-horns, and the toast was “On to +Detroit!” + +Colonel Clark was sitting alone in the commanding officer’s room of +the garrison. And the afternoon sun, slanting through the square of the +window, fell upon the maps and papers before him. He had sent for me. I +halted in sheer embarrassment on the threshold, looked up at his face, +and came on, troubled. + +“Davy,” he said, “do you want to go back to Kentucky?” + +“I should like to stay to the end, Colonel,” I answered. + +“The end?” he said. “This is the end.” + +“And Detroit, sir?” I returned. + +“Detroit!” he cried bitterly, “a man of sense measures his force, and +does not try the impossible. I could as soon march against Philadelphia. +This is the end, I say; and the general must give way to the politician. +And may God have mercy on the politician who will try to keep a people’s +affection without money or help from Congress.” + +He fell back wearily in his chair, while I stood astonished, wondering. +I had thought to find him elated with victory. + +“Congress or Virginia,” said he, “will have to pay Monsieur Vigo, and +Father Gibault, and Monsieur Gratiot, and the other good people who have +trusted me. Do you think they will do so?” + +“The Congress are far from here,” I said. + +“Ay,” he answered, “too far to care about you and me, and what we have +suffered.” + +He ended abruptly, and sat for a while staring out of the window at the +figures crossing and recrossing the muddy parade-ground. + +“Tom McChesney goes to-night to Kentucky with letters to the county +lieutenant. You are to go with him, and then I shall have no one +to remind me when I am hungry, and bring me hominy. I shall have no +financier, no strategist for a tight place.” He smiled a little, sadly, +at my sorrowful look, and then drew me to him and patted my shoulder. +“It is no place for a young lad,--an idle garrison. I think,” he +continued presently, “I think you have a future, David, if you do not +lose your head. Kentucky will grow and conquer, and in twenty years be +a thriving community. And presently you will go to Virginia, and study +law, and come back again. Do you hear?” + +“Yes, Colonel.” + +“And I would tell you one thing,” said he, with force; “serve the +people, as all true men should in a republic. But do not rely upon their +gratitude. You will remember that?” + +“Yes, Colonel.” + +A long time he paused, looking on me with a significance I did not +then understand. And when he spoke again his voice showed no trace of +emotion, save in the note of it. + +“You have been a faithful friend, Davy, when I needed loyalty. Perhaps +the time may come again. Promise me that you will not forget me if I +am--unfortunate.” + +“Unfortunate, sir!” I exclaimed. + +“Good-by, Davy,” he said, “and God bless you. I have work to do.” + +Still I hesitated. He stared at me, but with kindness. + +“What is it, Davy?” he asked. + +“Please, sir,” I said, “if I might take my drum?” + +At that he laughed. + +“You may,” said he, “you may. Perchance we may need it again.” + +I went out from his presence, vaguely troubled, to find Tom. And before +the early sun had set we were gliding down the Wabash in a canoe, past +places forever dedicated to our agonies, towards Kentucky and Polly Ann. + +“Davy,” said Tom, “I reckon she’ll be standin’ under the ‘simmon tree, +waitin’ fer us with the little shaver in her arms.” + +And so she was. + + + + + +BOOK II. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM + + +CHAPTER I. IN THE CABIN + + +The Eden of one man may be the Inferno of his neighbor, and now I am to +throw to the winds, like leaves of a worthless manuscript, some years of +time, and introduce you to a new Kentucky,--a Kentucky that was not for +the pioneer. One page of this manuscript might have told of a fearful +winter, when the snow lay in great drifts in the bare woods, when Tom +and I fashioned canoes or noggins out of the great roots, when a new and +feminine bit of humanity cried in the bark cradle, and Polly Ann sewed +deer leather. Another page--nay, a dozen--could be filled with Indian +horrors, ambuscades and massacres. And also I might have told how there +drifted into this land, hitherto unsoiled, the refuse cast off by the +older colonies. I must add quickly that we got more than our share of +their best stock along with this. + +No sooner had the sun begun to pit the snow hillocks than wild creatures +came in from the mountains, haggard with hunger and hardship. They +had left their homes in Virginia and the Carolinas in the autumn; an +unheralded winter of Arctic fierceness had caught them in its grip. +Bitter tales they told of wives and children buried among the rocks. +Fast on the heels of these wretched ones trooped the spring settlers in +droves; and I have seen whole churches march singing into the forts, +the preacher leading, and thanking God loudly that He had delivered +them from the wilderness and the savage. The little forts would not hold +them; and they went out to hew clearings from the forest, and to build +cabins and stockades. And our own people, starved and snowbound, went +out likewise,--Tom and Polly Ann and their little family and myself +to the farm at the river-side. And while the water flowed between the +stumps over the black land, we planted and ploughed and prayed, always +alert, watching north and south, against the coming of the Indians. + +But Tom was no husbandman. He and his kind were the scouts, the advance +guard of civilization, not tillers of the soil or lovers of close +communities. Farther and farther they went afield for game, and always +they grumbled sorely against this horde which had driven the deer from +his cover and the buffalo from his wallow. + +Looking back, I can recall one evening when the long summer twilight +lingered to a close. Tom was lounging lazily against the big persimmon +tree, smoking his pipe, the two children digging at the roots, and Polly +Ann, seated on the door-log, sewing. As I drew near, she looked up at +me from her work. She was a woman upon whose eternal freshness industry +made no mar. + +“Davy,” she exclaimed, “how ye’ve growed! I thought ye’d be a wizened +little body, but this year ye’ve shot up like a cornstalk.” + +“My father was six feet two inches in his moccasins,” I said. + +“He’ll be wallopin’ me soon,” said Tom, with a grin. He took a long +whiff at his pipe, and added thoughtfully, “I reckon this ain’t no place +fer me now, with all the settler folks and land-grabbers comin’ through +the Gap.” + +“Tom,” said I, “there’s a bit of a fall on the river here.” + +“Ay,” he said, “and nary a fish left.” + +“Something better,” I answered; “we’ll put a dam there and a mill and a +hominy pounder.” + +“And make our fortune grinding corn for the settlers,” cried Polly Ann, +showing a line of very white teeth. “I always said ye’d be a rich man, +Davy.” + +Tom was mildly interested, and went with us at daylight to measure the +fall. And he allowed that he would have the more time to hunt if the +mill were a success. For a month I had had the scheme in my mind, where +the dam was to be put, the race, and the wondrous wheel rimmed with cow +horns to dip the water. And fixed on the wheel there was to be a crank +that worked the pounder in the mortar. So we were to grind until I could +arrange with Mr. Scarlett, the new storekeeper in Harrodstown, to have +two grinding-stones fetched across the mountains. + +While the corn ripened and the melons swelled and the flax flowered, our +axes rang by the river’s side; and sometimes, as we worked, Cowan +and Terrell and McCann and other Long Hunters would come and jeer +good-naturedly because we were turning civilized. Often they gave us a +lift. + +It was September when the millstones arrived, and I spent a joyous +morning of final bargaining with Mr. Myron Scarlett. This Mr. Scarlett +was from Connecticut, had been a quartermaster in the army, and at +much risk brought ploughs and hardware, and scissors and buttons, and +broadcloth and corduroy, across the Alleghanies, and down the Ohio in +flatboats. These he sold at great profit. We had no money, not even +the worthless scrip that Congress issued; but a beaver skin was worth +eighteen shillings, a bearskin ten, and a fox or a deer or a wildcat +less. Half the village watched the barter. The rest lounged sullenly +about the land court. + +The land court--curse of Kentucky! It was just a windowless log house +built outside the walls, our temple of avarice. The case was this: +Henderson (for whose company Daniel Boone cut the wilderness road) +believed that he had bought the country, and issued grants therefor. Tom +held one of these grants, alas, and many others whom I knew. Virginia +repudiated Henderson. Keen-faced speculators bought acre upon acre and +tract upon tract from the State, and crossed the mountains to extort. +Claims conflicted, titles lapped. There was the court set in the +sunlight in the midst of a fair land, held by the shameless, thronged +day after day by the homeless and the needy, jostling, quarrelling, +beseeching. Even as I looked upon this strife a man stood beside me. + +“Drat ‘em,” said the stranger, as he watched a hawk-eyed extortioner in +drab, for these did not condescend to hunting shirts, “drat ‘em, ef I +had my way I’d wring the neck of every mother’s son of ‘em.” + +I turned with a start, and there was Mr. Daniel Boone. + +“Howdy, Davy,” he said; “ye’ve growed some sence ye’ve ben with Clark.” + He paused, and then continued in the same strain: “‘Tis the same +at Boonesboro and up thar at the Falls settlement. The critters +is everywhar, robbin’ men of their claims. Davy,” said Mr. Boone, +earnestly, “you know that I come into Kaintuckee when it waren’t nothin’ +but wilderness, and resked my life time and again. Them varmints is +wuss’n redskins,--they’ve robbed me already of half my claims.” + +“Robbed you!” I exclaimed, indignant that he, of all men, should suffer. + +“Ay,” he said, “robbed me. They’ve took one claim after another, tracts +that I staked out long afore they heerd of Kaintuckee.” He rubbed his +rifle barrel with his buckskin sleeve. “I get a little for my skins, +and a little by surveyin’. But when the game goes I reckon I’ll go after +it.” + +“Where, Mr. Boone?” I asked. + +“Whar? whar the varmints cyant foller. Acrost the Mississippi into the +Spanish wilderness.” + +“And leave Kentucky?” I cried. + +“Davy,” he answered sadly, “you kin cope with ‘em. They tell me you’re +buildin’ a mill up at McChesney’s, and I reckon you’re as cute as any of +‘em. They beat me. I’m good for nothin’ but shootin’ and explorin’.” + +We stood silent for a while, our attention caught by a quarrel which +had suddenly come out of the doorway. One of the men was Jim Willis,--my +friend of Clark’s campaign,--who had a Henderson claim near Shawanee +Springs. The other was the hawk-eyed man of whom Mr. Boone had spoken, +and fragments of their curses reached us where we stood. The hunting +shirts surged around them, alert now at the prospect of a fight; men +came running in from all directions, and shouts of “Hang him! Tomahawk +him!” were heard on every side. Mr. Boone did not move. It was a common +enough spectacle for him, and he was not excitable. Moreover, he knew +that the death of one extortioner more or less would have no effect on +the system. They had become as the fowls of the air. + +“I was acrost the mountain last month,” said Mr. Boone, presently, +“and one of them skunks had stole Campbell’s silver spoons at Abingdon. +Campbell was out arter him for a week with a coil of rope on his saddle. +But the varmint got to cover.” + +Mr. Boone wished me luck in my new enterprise, bade me good-by, and set +out for Redstone, where he was to measure a tract for a Revolutioner. +The speculator having been rescued from Jim Willis’s clutches by the +sheriff, the crowd good-naturedly helped us load our stones between +pack-horses, and some of them followed us all the way home that they +might see the grinding. Half of McAfee’s new station had heard the news, +and came over likewise. And from that day we ground as much corn as +could be brought to us from miles around. + +Polly Ann and I ran the mill and kept the accounts. Often of a crisp +autumn morning we heard a gobble-gobble above the tumbling of the water +and found a wild turkey perched on top of the hopper, eating his fill. +Some of our meat we got that way. As for Tom, he was off and on. When +the roving spirit seized him he made journeys to the westward with Cowan +and Ray. Generally they returned with packs of skins. But sometimes +soberly, thanking Heaven that their hair was left growing on their +heads. This, and patrolling the Wilderness Road and other militia +duties, made up Tom’s life. No sooner was the mill fairly started than +off he went to the Cumberland. I mention this, not alone because I +remember well the day of his return, but because of a certain happening +then that had a heavy influence on my after life. + +The episode deals with an easy-mannered gentleman named Potts, who was +the agent for a certain Major Colfax of Virginia. Tom owned under a +Henderson grant; the Major had been given this and other lands for his +services in the war. Mr. Potts arrived one rainy afternoon and found me +standing alone under the little lean-to that covered the hopper. How we +served him, with the aid of McCann and Cowan and other neighbors, and +how we were near getting into trouble because of the prank, will be seen +later. The next morning I rode into Harrodstown not wholly easy in my +mind concerning the wisdom of the thing I had done. There was no one to +advise me, for Colonel Clark was far away, building a fort on the banks +of the Mississippi. Tom had laughed at the consequences; he cared little +about his land, and was for moving into the Wilderness again. But +for Polly Ann’s sake I wished that we had treated the land agent less +cavalierly. I was soon distracted from these thoughts by the sight of +Harrodstown itself. + +I had no sooner ridden out of the forest shade when I saw that the place +was in an uproar, men and women gathering in groups and running here +and there between the cabins. Urging on the mare, I cantered across the +fields, and the first person I met was James Ray. + +“What’s the matter?” I asked. + +“Matter enough! An army of redskins has crossed the Ohio, and not a +man to take command. My God,” cried Ray, pointing angrily at the swarms +about the land office, “what trash we have got this last year! Kentucky +can go to the devil, half the stations be wiped out, and not a thrip do +they care.” + +“Have you sent word to the Colonel?” I asked. + +“If he was here,” said Ray, bitterly, “he’d have half of ‘em swinging +inside of an hour. I’ll warrant he’d send ‘em to the right-about.” + +I rode on into the town, Potts gone out of my mind. Apart from the +land-office crowds, and looking on in silent rage, stood a group of the +old settlers,--tall, lean, powerful, yet impotent for lack of a leader. +A contrast they were, these buckskin-clad pioneers, to the ill-assorted +humanity they watched, absorbed in struggles for the very lands they had +won. + +“By the eternal!” said Jack Terrell, “if the yea’th was ter swaller ‘em +up, they’d keep on a-dickerin’ in hell.” + +“Something’s got to be done,” Captain Harrod put in gloomily; “the red +varmints ‘ll be on us in another day. In God’s name, whar is Clark?” + +“Hold!” cried Fletcher Blount, “what’s that?” + +The broiling about the land court, too, was suddenly hushed. Men stopped +in their tracks, staring fixedly at three forms which had come out of +the woods into the clearing. + +“Redskins, or there’s no devil!” said Terrell. + +Redskins they were, but not the blanketed kind that drifted every day +through the station. Their war-paint gleamed in the light, and the white +edges of the feathered head-dresses caught the sun. One held up in his +right hand a white belt,--token of peace on the frontier. + +“Lord A’mighty!” said Fletcher Blount, “be they Cricks?” + +“Chickasaws, by the headgear,” said Terrell. “Davy, you’ve got a hoss. +Ride out and look ‘em over.” + +Nothing loath, I put the mare into a gallop, and I passed over the very +place where Polly Ann had picked me up and saved my life long since. The +Indians came on at a dog trot, but when they were within fifty paces of +me they halted abruptly. The chief waved the white belt around his head. + +“Davy!” says he, and I trembled from head to foot. How well I knew that +voice! + +“Colonel Clark!” I cried, and rode up to him. “Thank God you are come, +sir,” said I, “for the people here are land-mad, and the Northern +Indians are crossing the Ohio.” + +He took my bridle, and, leading the horse, began to walk rapidly towards +the station. + +“Ay,” he answered, “I know it. A runner came to me with the tidings, +where I was building a fort on the Mississippi, and I took Willis here +and Saunders, and came.” + +I glanced at my old friends, who grinned at me through the berry-stain +on their faces. We reached a ditch through which the rain of the night +before was draining from the fields Clark dropped the bridle, stooped +down, and rubbed his face clean. Up he got again and flung the feathers +from his head, and I thought that his eyes twinkled despite the +sternness of his look. + +“Davy, my lad,” said he, “you and I have seen some strange things +together. Perchance we shall see stranger to-day.” + +A shout went up, for he had been recognized. And Captain Harrod and Ray +and Terrell and Cowan (who had just ridden in) ran up to greet him and +press his hand. He called them each by name, these men whose loyalty had +been proved, but said no word more nor paused in his stride until he had +reached the edge of the mob about the land court. There he stood for a +full minute, and we who knew him looked on silently and waited. + +The turmoil had begun again, the speculators calling out in strident +tones, the settlers bargaining and pushing, and all clamoring to be +heard. While there was money to be made or land to be got they had no +ear for the public weal. A man shouldered his way through, roughly, and +they gave back, cursing, surprised. He reached the door, and, flinging +those who blocked it right and left, entered. There he was recognized, +and his name flew from mouth to mouth. + +“Clark!” + +He walked up to the table, strewn with books and deeds. + +“Silence!” he thundered. But there was no need,--they were still for +once. “This court is closed,” he cried, “while Kentucky is in danger. +Not a deed shall be signed nor an acre granted until I come back from +the Ohio. Out you go!” + +Out they went indeed, judge, brokers, speculators--the evicted and the +triumphant together. And when the place was empty Clark turned the key +and thrust it into his hunting shirt. He stood for a moment on the step, +and his eyes swept the crowd. + +“Now,” he said, “there have been many to claim this land--who will +follow me to defend it?” + +As I live, they cheered him. Hands were flung up that were past +counting, and men who were barely rested from the hardships of the +Wilderness Trail shouted their readiness to go. But others slunk away, +and were found that morning grumbling and cursing the chance that had +brought them to Kentucky. Within the hour the news had spread to the +farms, and men rode in to Harrodstown to tell the Colonel of many who +were leaving the plough in the furrow and the axe in the wood, and +starting off across the mountains in anger and fear. The Colonel turned +to me as he sat writing down the names of the volunteers. + +“Davy,” said he, “when you are grown you shall not stay at home, I +promise you. Take your mare and ride as for your life to McChesney, and +tell him to choose ten men and go to the Crab Orchard on the Wilderness +Road. Tell him for me to turn back every man, woman, and child who tries +to leave Kentucky.” + +I met Tom coming in from the field with his rawhide harness over his +shoulders. Polly Ann stood calling him in the door, and the squirrel +broth was steaming on the table. He did not wait for it. Kissing her, he +flung himself into the saddle I had left, and we watched him mutely as +he waved back to us from the edge of the woods. + +In the night I found myself sitting up in bed, listening to a running +and stamping near the cabin. + +Polly Ann was stirring. “Davy,” she whispered, “the stock is oneasy.” + +We peered out of the loophole together and through the little orchard we +had planted. The moon flooded the fields, and beyond it the forest was +a dark blur. I can recall the scene now, the rude mill standing by the +water-side, the twisted rail fences, and the black silhouettes of the +horses and cattle as they stood bunched together. Behind us little Tom +stirred in his sleep and startled us. That very evening Polly Ann had +frightened him into obedience by telling him that the Shawanees would +get him. + +What was there to do? McAfee’s Station was four miles away, and Ray’s +clearing two. Ray was gone with Tom. I could not leave Polly Ann alone. +There was nothing for it but to wait. + +Silently, that the children might not be waked and lurking savage might +not hear, we put the powder and bullets in the middle of the room and +loaded the guns and pistols. For Polly Ann had learned to shoot. She +took the loopholes of two sides of the cabin, I of the other two, and +then began the fearful watching and waiting which the frontier knows +so well. Suddenly the cattle stirred again, and stampeded to the other +corner of the field. There came a whisper from Polly Ann. + +“What is it?” I answered, running over to her. + +“Look out,” she said; “what d’ye see near the mill?” + +Her sharp eyes had not deceived her, for mine perceived plainly a dark +form skulking in the hickory grove. Next, a movement behind the rail +fence, and darting back to my side of the house I made out a long +black body wriggling at the edge of the withered corn-patch. They were +surrounding us. How I wished that Tom were home! + +A stealthy sound began to intrude itself upon our ears. Listening +intently, I thought it came from the side of the cabin where the lean-to +was, where we stored our wood in winter. The black shadow fell on that +side, and into a patch of bushes; peering out of the loophole, I could +perceive nothing there. The noise went on at intervals. All at once +there grew on me, with horror, the discovery that there was digging +under the cabin. + +How long the sound continued I know not,--it might have been an hour, +it might have been less. Now I thought I heard it under the wall, now +beneath the puncheons of the floor. The pitchy blackness within was such +that we could not see the boards moving, and therefore we must needs +kneel down and feel them from time to time. Yes, this one was lifting +from its bed on the hard earth beneath. I was sure of it. It rose an +inch--then an inch more. Gripping the handle of my tomahawk, I prayed +for guidance in my stroke, for the blade might go wild in the darkness. +Upward crept the board, and suddenly it was gone from the floor. I swung +a full circle--and to my horror I felt the axe plunging into soft flesh +and crunching on a bone. I had missed the head! A yell shattered the +night as the puncheon fell with a rattle on the boards, and my tomahawk +was gone from my hand. Without, the fierce war-cry of the Shawanees that +I knew so well echoed around the log walls, and the door trembled with a +blow. The children awoke, crying. + +There was no time to think; my great fear was that the devil in the +cabin would kill Polly Ann. Just then I heard her calling out to me. + +“Hide!” I cried, “hide under the shake-down! Has he got you?” + +I heard her answer, and then the sound of a scuffle that maddened me. +Knife in hand, I crept slowly about, and put my fingers on a man’s neck +and side. Next Polly Ann careened against me, and I lost him again. +“Davy, Davy,” I heard her gasp, “look out fer the floor!” + +It was too late. The puncheon rose under me, I stumbled, and it fell +again. Once more the awful changing notes of the war-whoop sounded +without. A body bumped on the boards, a white light rose before my eyes, +and a sharp pain leaped in my side. Then all was black again, but I had +my senses still, and my fingers closed around the knotted muscles of an +arm. I thrust the pistol in my hand against flesh, and fired. Two of us +fell together, but the thought of Polly Ann got me staggering to my feet +again, calling her name. By the grace of God I heard her answer. + +“Are ye hurt, Davy?” + +“No,” said I, “no. And you?” + +We drifted together. ‘Twas she who had the presence of mind. + +“The chest--quick, the chest!” + +We stumbled over a body in reaching it. We seized the handles, and with +all our strength hauled it athwart the loose puncheon that seemed to be +lifting even then. A mighty splintering shook the door. + +“To the ports!” cried Polly Ann, as our heads knocked together. + +To find the rifles and prime them seemed to take an age. Next I was +staring through the loophole along a barrel, and beyond it were three +black forms in line on a long beam. I think we fired--Polly Ann and +I--at the same time. One fell. We saw a comedy of the beam dropping +heavily on the foot of another, and he limping off with a guttural howl +of rage and pain. I fired a pistol at him, but missed him, and then I +was ramming a powder charge down the long barrel of the rifle. Suddenly +there was silence,--even the children had ceased crying. Outside, in the +dooryard, a feathered figure writhed like a snake towards the fence. The +moon still etched the picture in black and white. + +Shots awoke me, I think, distant shots. And they sounded like the +ripping and tearing of cloth for a wound. ‘Twas no new sound to me. + +“Davy, dear,” said a voice, tenderly. + +Out of the mist the tear-stained face of Polly Ann bent over me. I put +up my hand, and dropped it again with a cry. Then, my senses coming with +a rush, the familiar objects of the cabin outlined themselves: Tom’s +winter hunting shirt, Polly Ann’s woollen shift and sunbonnet on their +pegs; the big stone chimney, the ladder to the loft; the closed door, +with a long, jagged line across it where the wood was splintered; and, +dearest of all, the chubby forms of Peggy and little Tom playing on the +trundle-bed. Then my glance wandered to the floor, and on the puncheons +were three stains. I closed my eyes. + +Again came a far-off rattle, like stones falling from a great height +down a rocky bluff. + +“What’s that?” I whispered. + +“They’re fighting at McAfee’s Station,” said Polly Ann. She put her cool +hand on my head, and little Tom climbed up on the bed and looked up into +my face, wistfully calling my name. + +“Oh, Davy,” said his mother, “I thought ye were never coming back.” + +“And the redskins?” I asked. + +She drew the child away, lest he hurt me, and shuddered. + +“I reckon ‘twas only a war-party,” she answered. “The rest is at +McAfee’s. And if they beat ‘em off--” she stopped abruptly. + +“We shall be saved,” I said. + +I shall never forget that day. Polly Ann left my side only to feed the +children and to keep watch out of the loopholes, and I lay on my back, +listening and listening to the shots. At last these became scattered. +Then, though we strained our ears, we heard them no more. Was the fort +taken? The sun slid across the heavens and shot narrow blades of light, +now through one loophole and now through another, until a ray slanted +from the western wall and rested upon the red-and-black paint of two +dead bodies in the corner. I stared with horror. + +“I was afeard to open the door and throw ‘em out,” said Polly Ann, +apologetically. + +Still I stared. One of them had a great cleft across his face. + +“But I thought I hit him in the shoulder,” I exclaimed. + +Polly Ann thrust her hand, gently, across my eyes. “Davy, ye mustn’t +talk,” she said; “that’s a dear.” + +Drowsiness seized me. But I resisted. + +“You killed him, Polly Ann,” I murmured, “you?” + +“Hush,” said Polly Ann. + +And I slept again. + + +CHAPTER II. “THE BEGGARS ARE COME TO TOWN” + + +“They was that destitute,” said Tom, “‘twas a pity to see ‘em.” + +“And they be grand folks, ye say?” said Polly Ann. + +“Grand folks, I reckon. And helpless as babes on the Wilderness Trail. +They had two niggers--his nigger an’ hers--and they was tuckered, too, +fer a fact.” + +“Lawsy!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “Be still, honey!” Taking a piece of +corn-pone from the cupboard, she bent over and thrust it between little +Peggy’s chubby fingers “Be still, honey, and listen to what your Pa +says. Whar did ye find ‘em, Tom?” + +“‘Twas Jim Ray found ‘em,” said Tom. “We went up to Crab Orchard, +accordin’ to the Colonel’s orders, and we was thar three days. Ye ought +to hev seen the trash we turned back, Polly Ann! Most of ‘em was scared +plum’ crazy, and they was fer gittin ‘out ‘n Kaintuckee at any cost. +Some was fer fightin’ their way through us.” + +“The skulks!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “They tried to kill ye? What did ye +do?” + +Tom grinned, his mouth full of bacon. + +“Do?” says he; “we shot a couple of ‘em in the legs and arms, and bound +‘em up again. They was in a t’arin’ rage. I’m more afeard of a scar’t +man,--a real scar’t man--nor a rattler. They cussed us till they was +hoarse. Said they’d hev us hung, an’ Clark, too. Said they hed a right +to go back to Virginny if they hed a mind.” + +“An’ what did ye say?” demanded Polly Ann, pausing in her work, her eyes +flashing with resentment. “Did ye tell ‘em they was cowards to want to +settle lands, and not fight for ‘em? Other folks’ lands, too.” + +“We didn’t tell ‘em nothin’,” said Tom; “jest sent ‘em kitin’ back to +the stations whar they come from.” + +“I reckon they won’t go foolin’ with Clark’s boys again,” said Polly +Ann, resuming a vigorous rubbing of the skillet. “Ye was tellin’ me +about these fine folks ye fetched home.” She tossed her head in the +direction of the open door, and I wondered if the fine folks were +outside. + +“Oh, ay,” said Tom; “they was comin’ this way, from the Carolinys. Jim +Ray went out to look for a deer, and found ‘em off ‘n the trail. By the +etarnal, they was tuckered. He was the wust, Jim said, lyin’ down on a +bed of laurels she and the niggers made. She has sperrit, that woman. +Jim fed him, and he got up. She wouldn’t eat nothin’, and made Jim put +him on his hoss. She walked. I can’t mek out why them aristocrats wants +to come to Kaintuckee. They’re a sight too tender.” + +“Pore things!” said Polly Ann, compassionately. “So ye fetched ‘em +home.” + +“They hadn’t a place ter go,” said he, “and I reckoned ‘twould give ‘em +time ter ketch breath, an’ turn around. I told ‘em livin’ in Kaintuck +was kinder rough.” + +“Mercy!” said Polly Ann, “ter think that they was use’ ter silver +spoons, and linen, and niggers ter wait on ‘em. Tom, ye must shoot +a turkey, and I’ll do my best to give ‘em a good supper.” Tom rose +obediently, and seized his coonskin hat. She stopped him with a word. +“Tom.” + +“Ay?” + +“Mayhap--mayhap Davy would know ‘em. He’s been to Charlestown with the +gentry there.” + +“Mayhap,” agreed Tom. “Pore little deevil,” said he, “he’s hed a hard +time.” + +“He’ll be right again soon,” said Polly Ann. “He’s been sleepin’ +that way, off and on, fer a week.” Her voice faltered into a note of +tenderness as her eyes rested on me. + +“I reckon we owe Davy a heap, Polly Ann,” said he. + +I was about to interrupt, but Polly Ann’s next remark arrested me. + +“Tom,” said she, “he oughter be eddicated.” + +“Eddicated!” exclaimed Tom, with a kind of dismay. + +“Yes, eddicated,” she repeated. “He ain’t like you and me. He’s +different. He oughter be a lawyer, or somethin’.” + +Tom reflected. + +“Ay,” he answered, “the Colonel says that same thing. He oughter be sent +over the mountain to git l’arnin’.” + +“And we’ll be missing him sore,” said Polly Ann, with a sigh. + +I wanted to speak then, but the words would not come. + +“Whar hev they gone?” said Tom. + +“To take a walk,” said Polly Ann, and laughed. “The gentry has sech +fancies as that. Tom, I reckon I’ll fly over to Mrs. McCann’s an’ beg +some of that prime bacon she has.” + +Tom picked up his rifle, and they went out together. I lay for a long +time reflecting. To the strange guests whom Tom in the kindness of his +heart had brought back and befriended I gave little attention. I was +overwhelmed by the love which had just been revealed to me. And so I was +to be educated. It had been in my mind these many years, but I had never +spoken of it to Polly Ann. Dear Polly Ann! My eyes filled at the thought +that she herself had determined upon this sacrifice. + +There were footsteps at the door, and these I heard, and heeded not. +Then there came a voice,--a woman’s voice, modulated and trained in the +perfections of speech and in the art of treating things lightly. At the +sound of that voice I caught my breath. + +“What a pastoral! Harry, if we have sought for virtue in the wilderness, +we have found it.” + +“When have we ever sought for virtue, Sarah?” + +It was the man who answered and stirred another chord of my memory. + +“When, indeed!” said the woman; “‘tis a luxury that is denied us, I fear +me.” + +“Egad, we have run the gamut, all but that.” + +I thought the woman sighed. + +“Our hosts are gone out,” she said, “bless their simple souls! ‘Tis +Arcady, Harry, ‘where thieves do not break in and steal.’ That’s +Biblical, isn’t it?” She paused, and joined in the man’s laugh. “I +remember--” She stopped abruptly. + +“Thieves!” said he, “not in our sense. And yet a fortnight ago this +sylvan retreat was the scene of murder and sudden death.” + +“Yes, Indians,” said the woman; “but they are beaten off and forgotten. +Troubles do not last here. Did you see the boy? He’s in there, in the +corner, getting well of a fearful hacking. Mrs. McChesney says he saved +her and her brats.” + +“Ay, McChesney told me,” said the man. “Let’s have a peep at him.” + +In they came, and I looked on the woman, and would have leaped from +my bed had the strength been in me. Superb she was, though her +close-fitting travelling gown of green cloth was frayed and torn by the +briers, and the beauty of her face enhanced by the marks of I know not +what trials and emotions. Little, dark-pencilled lines under the eyes +were nigh robbing these of the haughtiness I had once seen and hated. +Set high on her hair was a curving, green hat with a feather, ill-suited +to the wilderness. + +I looked on the man. He was as ill-equipped as she. A London tailor +must have cut his suit of gray. A single band of linen, soiled by the +journey, was wound about his throat, and I remember oddly the +buttons stuck on his knees and cuffs, and these silk-embroidered in a +criss-cross pattern of lighter gray. Some had been torn off. As for his +face, ‘twas as handsome as ever, for dissipation sat well upon it. + +My thoughts flew back to that day long gone when a friendless boy rode +up a long drive to a pillared mansion. I saw again the picture. The +horse with the craning neck, the liveried servant at the bridle, +the listless young gentleman with the shiny boots reclining on the +horse-block, and above him, under the portico, the grand lady whose +laugh had made me sad. And I remembered, too, the wild, neglected lad +who had been to me as a brother, warm-hearted and generous, who had +shared what he had with a foundling, who had wept with me in my first +great sorrow. Where was he? + +For I was face to face once more with Mrs. Temple and Mr. Harry Riddle! + +The lady started as she gazed at me, and her tired eyes widened. She +clutched Mr. Riddle’s arm. + +“Harry!” she cried, “Harry, he puts me in mind of--of some one--I cannot +think.” + +Mr. Riddle laughed nervously. + +“There, there, Sally,” says he, “all brats resemble somebody. I have +heard you say so a dozen times.” + +She turned upon him an appealing glance. + +“Oh!” she said, with a little catch of her breath, “is there no such +thing as oblivion? Is there a place in the world that is not haunted? I +am cursed with memory.” + +“Or the lack of it,” answered Mr. Riddle, pulling out a silver snuff-box +from his pocket and staring at it ruefully. “Damme, the snuff I fetched +from Paris is gone, all but a pinch. Here is a real tragedy.” + +“It was the same in Rome,” the lady continued, unheeding, “when we met +the Izards, and at Venice that nasty Colonel Tarleton saw us at the +opera. In London we must needs run into the Manners from Maryland. In +Paris--” + +“In Paris we were safe enough,” Mr. Riddle threw in hastily. + +“And why?” she flashed back at him. + +He did not answer that. + +“A truce with your fancies, madam,” said he. “Behold a soul of good +nature! I have followed you through half the civilized countries of +the globe--none of them are good enough. You must needs cross the ocean +again, and come to the wilds. We nearly die on the trail, are picked +up by a Samaritan in buckskin and taken into the bosom of his worthy +family. And forsooth, you look at a backwoods urchin, and are nigh to +swooning.” + +“Hush, Harry,” she cried, starting forward and peering into my face; “he +will hear you.” + +“Tut!” said Harry, “what if he does? London and Paris are words to +him. We might as well be speaking French. And I’ll take my oath he’s +sleeping.” + +The corner where I lay was dark, for the cabin had no windows. And if my +life had depended upon speaking, I could have found no fit words then. + +She turned from me, and her mood changed swiftly. For she laughed +lightly, musically, and put a hand on his shoulder. + +“Perchance I am ghost-ridden,” she said. + +“They are not ghosts of a past happiness, at all events,” he answered. + +She sat down on a stool before the hearth, and clasping her fingers upon +her knee looked thoughtfully into the embers of the fire. Presently she +began to speak in a low, even voice, he looking down at her, his feet +apart, his hand thrust backward towards the heat. + +“Harry,” she said, “do you remember all our contrivances? How you used +to hold my hand in the garden under the table, while I talked brazenly +to Mr. Mason? And how jealous Jack Temple used to get?” She laughed +again, softly, always looking at the fire. + +“Damnably jealous!” agreed Mr. Riddle, and yawned. “Served him devilish +right for marrying you. And he was a blind fool for five long years.” + +“Yes, blind,” the lady agreed. “How could he have been so blind? How +well I recall the day he rode after us in the woods.” + +“‘Twas the parson told, curse him!” said Mr. Riddle. “We should have +gone that night, if your courage had held.” + +“My courage!” she cried, flashing a look upwards, “my foresight. A +pretty mess we had made of it without my inheritance. ‘Tis small enough, +the Lord knows. In Europe we should have been dregs. We should have +starved in the wilderness with you a-farming.” + +He looked down at her curiously. + +“Devilish queer talk,” said he, “but while we are in it, I wonder where +Temple is now. He got aboard the King’s frigate with a price on his +head. Williams told me he saw him in London, at White’s. Have--have you +ever heard, Sarah?” + +She shook her head, her glance returning to the ashes. + +“No,” she answered. + +“Faith,” says Mr. Riddle, “he’ll scarce turn up here.” + +She did not answer that, but sat motionless. + +“He’ll scarce turn up here, in these wilds,” Mr. Riddle repeated, “and +what I am wondering, Sarah, is how the devil we are to live here.” + +“How do these good people live, who helped us when we were starving?” + +Mr. Riddle flung his hand eloquently around the cabin. There was +something of disgust in the gesture. + +“You see!” he said, “love in a cottage.” + +“But it is love,” said the lady, in a low tone. + +He broke into laughter. + +“Sally,” he cried, “I have visions of you gracing the board at which we +sat to-day, patting journey-cakes on the hearth, stewing squirrel broth +with the same pride that you once planned a rout. Cleaning the pots and +pans, and standing anxious at the doorway staring through a sunbonnet +for your lord and master.” + +“My lord and master!” said the lady, and there was so much of scorn in +the words that Mr. Riddle winced. + +“Come,” he said, “I grant now that you could make pans shine like +pier-glasses, that you could cook bacon to a turn--although I would have +laid an hundred guineas against it some years ago. What then? Are you to +be contented with four log walls? With the intellectual companionship of +the McChesneys and their friends? Are you to depend for excitement upon +the chances of having the hair neatly cut from your head by red fiends? +Come, we’ll go back to the Rue St. Dominique, to the suppers and the +card parties of the countess. We’ll be rid of regrets for a life upon +which we have turned our backs forever.” + +She shook her head, sadly. + +“It’s no use, Harry,” said she, “we’ll never be rid of regrets.” + +“We’ll never have a barony like Temple Bow, and races every week, and +gentry round about. But, damn it, the Rebels have spoiled all that since +the war.” + +“Those are not the regrets I mean,” answered Mrs. Temple. + +“What then, in Heaven’s name?” he cried. “You were not wont to be thus. +But now I vow you go beyond me. What then?” + +She did not answer, but sat leaning forward over the hearth, he staring +at her in angry perplexity. A sound broke the afternoon stillness,--the +pattering of small, bare feet on the puncheons. A tremor shook the +woman’s shoulders, and little Tom stood before her, a quaint figure in a +butternut smock, his blue eyes questioning. He laid a hand on her arm. + +Then a strange thing happened. With a sudden impulse she turned and +flung her arms about the boy and strained him to her, and kissed his +brown hair. He struggled, but when she released him he sat very still +on her knee, looking into her face. For he was a solemn child. The lady +smiled at him, and there were two splashes like raindrops on her fair +cheeks. + +As for Mr. Riddle, he went to the door, looked out, and took a last +pinch of snuff. + +“Here is the mistress of the house coming back,” he cried, “and singing +like the shepherdess in the opera.” + +It was Polly Ann indeed. At the sound of his mother’s voice, little Tom +jumped down from the lady’s lap and ran past Mr. Riddle at the door. +Mrs. Temple’s thoughts were gone across the mountains. + +“And what is that you have under your arm?” said Mr. Riddle, as he gave +back. + +“I’ve fetched some prime bacon fer your supper, sir,” said Polly Ann, +all rosy from her walk; “what I have ain’t fit to give ye.” + +Mrs. Temple rose. + +“My dear,” she said, “what you have is too good for us. And if you do +such a thing again, I shall be very angry.” + +“Lord, ma’am,” exclaimed Polly Ann, “and you use’ ter dainties an’ +silver an’ linen! Tom is gone to try to git a turkey for ye.” She +paused, and looked compassionately at the lady. “Bless ye, ma’am, ye’re +that tuckered from the mountains! ‘Tis a fearsome journey.” + +“Yes,” said the lady, simply, “I am tired.” + +“Small wonder!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “To think what ye’ve been +through--yere husband near to dyin’ afore yere eyes, and ye a-reskin’ +yere own life to save him--so Tom tells me. When Tom goes out a-fightin’ +redskins I’m that fidgety I can’t set still. I wouldn’t let him know +what I feel fer the world. But well ye know the pain of it, who love +yere husband like that.” + +The lady would have smiled bravely, had the strength been given her. She +tried. And then, with a shudder, she hid her face in her hands. + +“Oh, don’t!” she exclaimed, “don’t!” + +Mr. Riddle went out. + +“There, there, ma’am,” she said, “I hedn’t no right ter speak, and ye +fair worn out.” She drew her gently into a chair. “Set down, ma’am, +and don’t ye stir tell supper’s ready.” She brushed her eyes with her +sleeve, and, stepping briskly to my bed, bent over me. “Davy,” she said, +“Davy, how be ye?” + +“Davy!” + +It was the lady’s voice. She stood facing us, and never while I live +shall I forget that which I saw in her eyes. Some resemblance it bore +to the look of the hunted deer, but in the animal it is dumb, +appealing. Understanding made the look of the woman terrible to +behold,--understanding, ay, and courage. For she did not lack this last +quality. Polly Ann gave back in a kind of dismay, and I shivered. + +“Yes,” I answered, “I am David Ritchie.” + +“You--you dare to judge me!” she cried. + +I knew not why she said this. + +“To judge you?” I repeated. + +“Yes, to judge me,” she answered. “I know you, David Ritchie, and the +blood that runs in you. Your mother was a foolish--saint” (she laughed), +“who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple. That +was her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousand +sermons. A doting saint, because she followed your father into the +mountain wilds to her death for a whim of his. And your father. A +Calvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particular +weakness of his own--” + +“Stop, Mrs. Temple!” I cried, lifting up in bed. And to my astonishment +she was silenced, looking at me in amazement. “You had your vengeance +when I came to you, when you turned from me with a lift of your +shoulders at the news of my father’s death. And now--” + +“And now?” she repeated questioningly. + +“Now I thought you were changed,” I said slowly, for the excitement was +telling on me. + +“You listened!” she said. + +“I pitied you.” + +“Oh, pity!” she cried. “My God, that you should pity me!” She +straightened, and summoned all the spirit that was in her. “I would +rather be called a name than have the pity of you and yours.” + +“You cannot change it, Mrs. Temple,” I answered, and fell back on the +nettle-bark sheets. “You cannot change it,” I heard myself repeating, +as though it were another’s voice. And I knew that Polly Ann was bending +over me and calling me. + +“Where did they go, Polly Ann?” I asked. + +“Acrost the Mississippi, to the lands of the Spanish King,” said Polly +Ann. + +“And where in those dominions?” I demanded. + +“John Saunders took ‘em as far as the Falls,” Polly Ann answered. “He +‘lowed they was goin’ to St. Louis. But they never said a word. I reckon +they’ll be hunted as long as they live.” + +I had thought of them much as I lay on my back recovering from the +fever,--the fever for which Mrs. Temple was to blame. Yet I bore her +no malice. And many other thoughts I had, probing back into childhood +memories for the solving of problems there. + +“I knowed ye come of gentlefolks, Davy,” Polly Ann had said when we +talked together. + +So I was first cousin to Nick, and nephew to that selfish gentleman, Mr. +Temple, in whose affectionate care I had been left in Charlestown by my +father. And my father? Who had he been? I remembered the speech that +he had used and taught me, and how his neighbors had dubbed him +“aristocrat.” But Mrs. Temple was gone, and it was not in likelihood +that I should ever see her more. + + + + +CHAPTER III. WE GO TO DANVILLE + +Two years went by, two uneventful years for me, two mighty years for +Kentucky. Westward rolled the tide of emigrants to change her character, +but to swell her power. Towns and settlements sprang up in a season and +flourished, and a man could scarce keep pace with the growth of them. +Doctors came, and ministers, and lawyers; generals and majors, and +captains and subalterns of the Revolution, to till their grants and to +found families. There were gentry, too, from the tide-waters, come to +retrieve the fortunes which they had lost by their patriotism. There +were storekeepers like Mr. Scarlett, adventurers and ne’er-do-weels +who hoped to start with a clean slate, and a host of lazy vagrants who +thought to scratch the soil and find abundance. + +I must not forget how, at the age of seventeen, I became a landowner, +thanks to my name being on the roll of Colonel Clark’s regiment. For, +in a spirit of munificence, the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia +had awarded to every private in that regiment one hundred and eight +acres of land on the Ohio River, north of the Falls. Sergeant Thomas +McChesney, as a reward for his services in one of the severest campaigns +in history, received a grant of two hundred and sixteen acres! You who +will may look at the plat made by William Clark, Surveyor for the Board +of Commissioners, and find sixteen acres marked for Thomas McChesney in +Section 169, and two hundred more in Section 3. Section 3 fronted the +Ohio some distance above Bear Grass Creek, and was, of course, on the +Illinois shore. As for my own plots, some miles in the interior, I never +saw them. But I own them to this day. + +I mention these things as bearing on the story of my life, with which I +must get on. And, therefore, I may not dwell upon this injustice to the +men who won an empire and were flung a bone long afterwards. + +It was early autumn once more, and such a busy week we had had at the +mill, that Tom was perforce obliged to remain at home and help, though +he longed to be gone with Cowan and Ray a-hunting to the southwest. Up +rides a man named Jarrott, flings himself from his horse, passes the +time of day as he watches the grinding, helps Tom to tie up a sack or +two, and hands him a paper. + +“What’s this?” says Tom, staring at it blankly. + +“Ye won’t blame me, Mac,” answers Mr. Jarrott, somewhat ashamed of his +rôle of process-server. “‘Tain’t none of my doin’s.” + +“Read it, Davy,” said Tom, giving it to me. + +I stopped the mill, and, unfolding the paper, read. I remember not +the quaint wording of it, save that it was ill-spelled and ill-writ +generally. In short, it was a summons for Tom to appear before the court +at Danville on a certain day in the following week, and I made out that +a Mr. Neville Colfax was the plaintiff in the matter, and that the suit +had to do with land. + +“Neville Colfax!” I exclaimed, “that’s the man for whom Mr. Potts was +agent.” + +“Ay, ay,” said Tom, and sat him down on the meal-bags. “Drat the +varmint, he kin hev the land.” + +“Hev the land?” cried Polly Ann, who had come in upon us. “Hev ye no +sperrit, Tom McChesney?” + +“There’s no chance ag’in the law,” said Tom, hopelessly. “Thar’s Perkins +had his land tuck away last year, and Terrell’s moved out, and twenty +more I could name. And thar’s Dan’l Boone, himself. Most the rich bottom +he tuck up the critters hev got away from him.” + +“Ye’ll go to Danville and take Davy with ye and fight it,” answered +Polly Ann, decidedly. “Davy has a word to say, I reckon. ‘Twas he made +the mill and scar’t that Mr. Potts away. I reckon he’ll git us out of +this fix.” + +Mr. Jarrott applauded her courage. + +“Ye have the grit, ma’am,” he said, as he mounted his horse again. +“Here’s luck to ye!” + +The remembrance of Mr. Potts weighed heavily upon my mind during the +next week. Perchance Tom would have to pay for this prank likewise. +‘Twas indeed a foolish, childish thing to have done, and I might have +known that it would only have put off the evil day of reckoning. Since +then, by reason of the mill site and the business we got by it, the land +had become the most valuable in that part of the country. Had I known +Colonel Clark’s whereabouts, I should have gone to him for advice and +comfort. As it was, we were forced to await the issue without counsel. +Polly Ann and I talked it over many times while Tom sat, morose and +silent, in a corner. He was the pioneer pure and simple, afraid of no +man, red or white, in open combat, but defenceless in such matters as +this. + +“‘Tis Davy will save us, Tom,” said Polly Ann, “with the l’arnin’ he’s +got while the corn was grindin’.” + +I had, indeed, been reading at the mill while the hopper emptied itself, +such odd books as drifted into Harrodstown. One of these was called +“Bacon’s Abridgment”; it dealt with law and it puzzled me sorely. + +“And the children,” Polly Ann continued,--“ye’ll not make me pick up the +four of ‘em, and pack it to Louisiana, because Mr. Colfax wants the land +we’ve made for ourselves.” + +There were four of them now, indeed,--the youngest still in the bark +cradle in the corner. He bore a no less illustrious name than that of +the writer of these chronicles. + +It would be hard to say which was the more troubled, Tom or I, that +windy morning we set out on the Danville trace. Polly Ann alone had been +serene,--ay, and smiling and hopeful. She had kissed us each good-by +impartially. And we left her, with a future governor of Kentucky on her +shoulder, tripping lightly down to the mill to grind the McGarrys’ corn. + +When the forest was cleared at Danville, Justice was housed first. +She was not the serene, inexorable dame whom we have seen in pictures +holding her scales above the jars of earth. Justice at Danville was a +somewhat high-spirited, quarrelsome lady who decided matters oftenest +with the stroke of a sword. There was a certain dignity about her temple +withal,--for instance, if a judge wore linen, that linen must not +be soiled. Nor was it etiquette for a judge to lay his own hands in +chastisement on contemptuous persons, though Justice at Danville +had more compassion than her sisters in older communities upon human +failings. + +There was a temple built to her “of hewed or sawed logs nine inches +thick”--so said the specifications. Within the temple was a rude +platform which served as a bar, and since Justice is supposed to carry +a torch in her hand, there were no windows,--nor any windows in the jail +next door, where some dozen offenders languished on the afternoon that +Tom and I rode into town. + +There was nothing auspicious in the appearance of Danville, and no man +might have said then that the place was to be the scene of portentous +conventions which were to decide the destiny of a State. Here was a +sprinkling of log cabins, some in the building, and an inn, by courtesy +so called. Tom and I would have preferred to sleep in the woods near by, +with our feet to the blaze; this was partly from motives of economy, +and partly because Tom, in common with other pioneers, held an inn in +contempt. But to come back to our arrival. + +It was a sunny and windy afternoon, and the leaves were flying in +the air. Around the court-house was a familiar, buzzing scene,--the +backwoodsmen, lounging against the wall or brawling over their claims, +the sleek agents and attorneys, and half a dozen of a newer type. These +were adventurous young gentlemen of family, some of them lawyers and +some of them late officers in the Continental army who had been rewarded +with grants of land. These were the patrons of the log tavern which +stood near by with the blackened stumps around it, where there was much +card-playing and roistering, ay, and even duelling, of nights. + +“Thar’s Mac,” cried a backwoodsman who was sitting on the court-house +steps as we rode up. “Howdy, Mac; be they tryin’ to git your land, too?” + +“Howdy, Mac,” said a dozen more, paying a tribute to Tom’s popularity. +And some of them greeted me. + +“Is this whar they take a man’s land away?” says Tom, jerking his thumb +at the open door. + +Tom had no intention of uttering a witticism, but his words were +followed by loud guffaws from all sides, even the lawyers joining in. + +“I reckon this is the place, Tom,” came the answer. + +“I reckon I’ll take a peep in thar,” said Tom, leaping off his horse and +shouldering his way to the door. I followed him, curious. The building +was half full. Two elderly gentlemen of grave demeanor sat on stools +behind a puncheon table, and near them a young man was writing. Behind +the young man was a young gentleman who was closing a speech as we +entered, and he had spoken with such vehemence that the perspiration +stood out on his brow. There was a murmur from those listening, and I +saw Tom pressing his way to the front. + +“Hev any of ye seen a feller named Colfax?” cries Tom, in a loud voice. +“He says he owns the land I settled, and he ain’t ever seed it.” + +There was a roar of laughter, and even the judges smiled. + +“Whar is he?” cries Tom; “said he’d be here to-day.” + +Another gust of laughter drowned his words, and then one of the judges +got up and rapped on the table. The gentleman who had just made the +speech glared mightily, and I supposed he had lost the effect of it. + +“What do you mean by interrupting the court?” cried the judge. “Get out, +sir, or I’ll have you fined for contempt.” + +Tom looked dazed. But at that moment a hand was laid on his shoulder, +and Tom turned. + +“Why,” says he, “thar’s no devil if it ain’t the Colonel. Polly Ann told +me not to let ‘em scar’ me, Colonel.” + +“And quite right, Tom,” Colonel Clark answered, smiling. He turned to +the judges. “If your Honors please,” said he, “this gentleman is an old +soldier of mine, and unused to the ways of court. I beg your Honors to +excuse him.” + +The judges smiled back, and the Colonel led us out of the building. + +“Now, Tom,” said he, after he had given me a nod and a kind word, “I +know this Mr. Colfax, and if you will come into the tavern this evening +after court, we’ll see what can be done. I have a case of my own at +present.” + +Tom was very grateful. He spent the remainder of the daylight hours with +other friends of his, shooting at a mark near by, serenely confident +of the result of his case now that Colonel Clark had a hand in it. Tom +being one of the best shots in Kentucky, he had won two beaver skins +before the early autumn twilight fell. As for me, I had an afternoon of +excitement in the court, fascinated by the marvels of its procedures, by +the impassioned speeches of its advocates, by the gravity of its judges. +Ambition stirred within me. + +The big room of the tavern was filled with men in heated talk over the +day’s doings, some calling out for black betty, some for rum, and some +demanding apple toddies. The landlord’s slovenly negro came in with +candles, their feeble rays reënforcing the firelight and revealing the +mud-chinked walls. Tom and I had barely sat ourselves down at a table in +a corner, when in came Colonel Clark. Beside him was a certain swarthy +gentleman whom I had noticed in the court, a man of some thirty-five +years, with a fine, fleshy face and coal-black hair. His expression was +not one to give us the hope of an amicable settlement,--in fact, he had +the scowl of a thundercloud. He was talking quite angrily, and seemed +not to heed those around him. + +“Why the devil should I see the man, Clark?” he was saying. + +The Colonel did not answer until they had stopped in front of us. + +“Major Colfax,” said he, “this is Sergeant Tom McChesney, one of the +best friends I have in Kentucky. I think a vast deal of Tom, Major. He +was one of the few that never failed me in the Illinois campaign. He +is as honest as the day; you will find him plain-spoken if he speaks at +all, and I have great hopes that you will agree. Tom, the Major and +I are boyhood friends, and for the sake of that friendship he has +consented to this meeting.” + +“I fear that your kind efforts will be useless, Colonel,” Major Colfax +put in, rather tartly. “Mr. McChesney not only ignores my rights, but +was near to hanging my agent.” + +“What?” says Colonel Clark. + +I glanced at Tom. However helpless he might be in a court, he could +be counted on to stand up stanchly in a personal argument. His retorts +would certainly not be brilliant, but they surely would be dogged. Major +Colfax had begun wrong. + +“I reckon ye’ve got no rights that I know on,” said Tom. “I cleart the +land and settled it, and I have a better right to it nor any man. And +I’ve got a grant fer it.” + +“A Henderson grant!” cried the Major; “‘tis so much worthless paper.” + +“I reckon it’s good enough fer me,” answered Tom. “It come from those +who blazed their way out here and druv the redskins off. I don’t know +nothin’ about this newfangled law, but ‘tis a queer thing to my thinkin’ +if them that fit fer a place ain’t got the fust right to it.” + +Major Colfax turned to Colonel Clark with marked impatience. + +“I told you it would be useless, Clark,” said he. “I care not a fig for +a few paltry acres, and as God hears me I’m a reasonable man.” (He did +not look it then.) “But I swear by the evangels I’ll let no squatter +have the better of me. I did not serve Virginia for gold or land, but I +lost my fortune in that service, and before I know it these backwoodsmen +will have every acre of my grant. It’s an old story,” said Mr. Colfax, +hotly, “and why the devil did we fight England if it wasn’t that every +man should have his rights? By God, I’ll not be frightened or wheedled +out of mine. I sent an agent to Kentucky to deal politely and reasonably +with these gentry. What did they do to him? Some of them threw him out +neck and crop. And if I am not mistaken,” said Major Colfax, fixing +a piercing eye upon Tom, “if I am not mistaken, it was this worthy +sergeant of yours who came near to hanging him, and made the poor devil +flee Kentucky for his life.” + +This remark brought me near to an untimely laugh at the remembrance of +Mr. Potts, and this though I was far too sober over the outcome of the +conference. Colonel Clark seized hold of a chair and pushed it under +Major Colfax. + +“Sit down, gentlemen, we are not so far apart,” said the Colonel, +coolly. The slovenly negro lad passing at that time, he caught him by +the sleeve. “Here, boy, a bowl of toddy, quick. And mind you brew it +strong. Now, Tom,” said he, “what is this fine tale about a hanging?” + +“‘Twan’t nothin’,” said Tom. + +“You tell me you didn’t try to hang Mr. Potts!” cried Major Colfax. + +“I tell you nothin’,” said Tom, and his jaw was set more stubbornly than +ever. + +Major Colfax glanced at Colonel Clark. + +“You see!” he said a little triumphantly. + +I could hold my tongue no longer. + +“Major Colfax is unjust, sir,” I cried. “‘Twas Tom saved the man from +hanging.” + +“Eh?” says Colonel Clark, turning to me sharply. “So you had a hand in +this, Davy. I might have guessed as much.” + +“Who the devil is this?” says Mr. Colfax. + +“A sort of ward of mine,” answers the Colonel. “Drummer boy, financier, +strategist, in my Illinois campaign. Allow me to present to you, Major, +Mr. David Ritchie. When my men objected to marching through ice-skimmed +water up to their necks, Mr. Ritchie showed them how.” + +“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the Major, staring at me from under his +black eyebrows, “he was but a child.” + +“With an old head on his shoulders,” said the Colonel, and his banter +made me flush. + +The negro boy arriving with the toddy, Colonel Clark served out three +generous gourdfuls, a smaller one for me. “Your health, my friends, and +I drink to a peaceful settlement.” + +“You may drink to the devil if you like,” says Major Colfax, glaring at +Tom. + +“Come, Davy,” said Colonel Clark, when he had taken half the gourd, +“let’s have the tale. I’ll warrant you’re behind this.” + +I flushed again, and began by stammering. For I had a great fear that +Major Colfax’s temper would fly into bits when he heard it. + +“Well, sir,” said I, “I was grinding corn at the mill when the man +came. I thought him a smooth-mannered person, and he did not give his +business. He was just for wheedling me. ‘And was this McChesney’s mill?’ +said he. ‘Ay,’ said I. ‘Thomas McChesney?’ ‘Ay,’ said I. Then he was all +for praise of Thomas McChesney. ‘Where is he?’ said he. ‘He is at the +far pasture,’ said I, ‘and may be looked for any moment.’ Whereupon +he sits down and tries to worm out of me the business of the mill, the +yield of the land. After that he begins to talk about the great people +he knows, Sevier and Shelby and Robertson and Boone and the like. Ay, +and his intimates, the Randolphs and the Popes and the Colfaxes +in Virginia. ‘Twas then I asked him if he knew Colonel Campbell of +Abingdon.” + +“And what deviltry was that?” demanded the Colonel, as he dipped himself +more of the toddy. + +“I’ll come to it, sir. Yes, Colonel Campbell was his intimate, and +ranted if he did not tarry a week with him at Abingdon on his journeys. +After that he follows me to the cabin, and sees Polly Ann and Tom +and the children on the floor poking a ‘possum. ‘Ah,’ says he, in his +softest voice, ‘a pleasant family scene. And this is Mr. McChesney?’ +‘I’m your man,’ says Tom. Then he praised the mill site and the land all +over again. ‘‘Tis good enough for a farmer,’ says Tom. ‘Who holds under +Henderson’s grant,’ I cried. ‘‘Twas that you wished to say an hour ago,’ +and I saw I had caught him fair.” + +“By the eternal!” cried Colonel Clark, bringing down his fist upon the +table. “And what then?” + +I glanced at Major Colfax, but for the life of me I could make nothing +of his look. + +“And what did your man say?” said Colonel Clark. + +“He called on the devil to bite me, sir,” I answered. The Colonel put +down his gourd and began to laugh. The Major was looking at me fixedly. + +“And what then?” said the Colonel. + +“It was then Polly Ann called him a thief to take away the land Tom +had fought for and paid for and tilled. The man was all politeness once +more, said that the matter was unfortunate, and that a new and good +title might be had for a few skins.” + +“He said that?” interrupted Major Colfax, half rising in his chair. “He +was a damned scoundrel.” + +“So I thought, sir,” I answered. + +“The devil you did!” said the Major. + +“Tut, Colfax,” said the Colonel, pulling him by the sleeve of his +greatcoat, “sit down and let the lad finish. And then?” + +“Mr. Boone had told me of a land agent who had made off with Colonel +Campbell’s silver spoons from Abingdon, and how the Colonel had ridden +east and west after him for a week with a rope hanging on his saddle. I +began to tell this story, and instead of the description of Mr. Boone’s +man, I put in that of Mr. Potts,--in height some five feet nine, spare, +of sallow complexion and a green greatcoat.” + +Major Colfax leaped up in his chair. + +“Great Jehovah!” he shouted, “you described the wrong man.” + +Colonel Clark roared with laughter, thereby spilling some of his toddy. + +“I’ll warrant he did so,” he cried; “and I’ll warrant your agent went +white as birch bark. Go on, Davy.” + +“There’s not a great deal more, sir,” I answered, looking apprehensively +at Major Colfax, who still stood. “The man vowed I lied, but Tom laid +hold of him and was for hurrying him off to Harrodstown at once.” + +“Which would ill have suited your purpose,” put in the Colonel. “And +what did you do with him?” + +“We put him in a loft, sir, and then I told Tom that he was not +Campbell’s thief at all. But I had a craving to scare the man out of +Kentucky. So I rode off to the neighbors and gave them the tale, and +bade them come after nightfall as though to hang Campbell’s thief, which +they did, and they were near to smashing the door trying to get in the +cabin. Tom told them the rascal had escaped, but they must needs come +in and have jigs and toddies until midnight. When they were gone, and we +called down the man from the loft, he was in such a state that he could +scarce find the rungs of the ladder with his feet. He rode away into +the night, and that was the last we heard of him. Tom was not to blame, +sir.” + +Colonel Clark was speechless. And when for the moment he would conquer +his mirth, a glance at Major Colfax would set him off again in laughter. +I was puzzled. I thought my Colonel more human than of old. + +“How now, Colfax?” he cried, giving a poke to the Major’s ribs; “you +hold the sequel to this farce.” + +The Major’s face was purple,--with what emotion I could not say. +Suddenly he swung full at me. + +“Do you mean to tell me that you were the general of this hoax--you?” he +demanded in a strange voice. + +“The thing seemed an injustice to me, sir,” I replied in self-defence, +“and the man a rascal.” + +“A rascal!” cried the Major, “a knave, a poltroon, a simpleton! And +he came to me with no tale of having been outwitted by a stripling.” +Whereupon Major Colfax began to shake, gently at first, and presently +he was in such a gale of laughter that I looked on him in amazement, +Colonel Clark joining in again. The Major’s eye rested at length upon +Tom, and gradually he grew calm. + +“McChesney,” said he, “we’ll have no bickerings in court among soldiers. +The land is yours, and to-morrow my attorney shall give you a deed of +it. Your hand, McChesney.” + +The stubbornness vanished from Tom’s face, and there came instead a +dazed expression as he thrust a great, hard hand into the Major’s. + +“‘Twan’t the land, sir,” he stammered; “these varmints of settlers is +gittin’ thick as flies in July. ‘Twas Polly Ann. I reckon I’m obleeged +to ye, Major.” + +“There, there,” said the Major, “I thank the Lord I came to Kentucky to +see for myself. Damn the land. I have plenty more,--and little else.” He +turned quizzically to Colonel Clark, revealing a line of strong, white +teeth. “Suppose we drink a health to your drummer boy,” said he, lifting +up his gourd. + + + +CHAPTER IV. I CROSS THE MOUNTAINS ONCE MORE + + “‘Tis what ye’ve a right to, Davy,” said Polly Ann, and she handed me a +little buckskin bag on which she had been sewing. I opened it with +trembling fingers, and poured out, chinking on the table, such a motley +collection of coins as was never seen,--Spanish milled dollars, English +sovereigns and crowns and shillings, paper issues of the Confederacy, +and I know not what else. Tom looked on with a grin, while little Tom +and Peggy reached out their hands in delight, their mother vigorously +blocking their intentions. + +“Ye’ve earned it yerself,” said Polly Ann, forestalling my protest; +“‘tis what ye got by the mill, and I’ve laid it by bit by bit for yer +eddication.” + +“And what do you get?” I cried, striving by feigned anger to keep the +tears back from my eyes. “Have you no family to support?” + +“Faith,” she answered, “we have the mill that ye gave us, and the farm, +and Tom’s rifle. I reckon we’ll fare better than ye think, tho’ we’ll +miss ye sore about the place.” + +I picked out two sovereigns from the heap, dropped them in the bag, and +thrust it into my hunting shirt. + +“There,” said I, my voice having no great steadiness, “not a penny more. +I’ll keep the bag for your sake, Polly Ann, and I’ll take the mare for +Tom’s.” + +She had had a song on her lips ever since our coming back from Danville, +seven days agone, a song on her lips and banter on her tongue, as she +made me a new hunting shirt and breeches for the journey across the +mountains. And now with a sudden movement she burst into tears and flung +her arms about my neck. + +“Oh, Davy, ‘tis no time to be stubborn,” she sobbed, “and eddication +is a costly thing. Ever sence I found ye on the trace, years ago, I’ve +thought of ye one day as a great man. And when ye come back to us so big +and l’arned, I’d wish to be saying with pride that I helped ye.” + +“And who else, Polly Ann?” I faltered, my heart racked with the parting. +“You found me a homeless waif, and you gave me a home and a father and +mother.” + +“Davy, ye’ll not forget us when ye’re great, I know ye’ll not. ‘Tis not +in ye.” + +She stood back and smiled at me through her tears. The light of heaven +was in that smile, and I have dreamed of it even since age has crept +upon me. Truly, God sets his own mark on the pure in heart, on the +unselfish. + +I glanced for the last time around the rude cabin, every timber of which +was dedicated to our sacrifices and our love: the fireplace with its +rough stones, on the pegs the quaint butternut garments which Polly Ann +had stitched, the baby in his bark cradle, the rough bedstead and the +little trundle pushed under it,--and the very homely odor of the place +is dear to me yet. Despite the rigors and the dangers of my life here, +should I ever again find such happiness and peace in the world? The +children clung to my knees; and with a “God bless ye, Davy, and come +back to us,” Tom squeezed my hand until I winced with pain. I leaped on +the mare, and with blinded eyes rode down the familiar trail, past the +mill, to Harrodsburg. + +There Mr. Neville Colfax was waiting to take me across the mountains. + +There is a story in every man’s life, like the kernel in the shell of +a hickory nut. I am ill acquainted with the arts of a biographer, but +I seek to give in these pages little of the shell and the whole of the +kernel of mine. ‘Twould be unwise and tiresome to recount the journey +over the bare mountains with my new friend and benefactor. He was a +strange gentleman, now jolly enough to make me shake with laughter and +forget the sorrow of my parting, now moody for a night and a day; now +he was all sweetness, now all fire; now he was abstemious, now +self-indulgent and prodigal. He had a will like flint, and under it a +soft heart. Cross his moods, and he hated you. I never thought to cross +them, therefore he called me Davy, and his friendliness grew with +our journey. His anger turned against rocks and rivers, landlords and +emigrants, but never against me. And for this I was silently thankful. + +And how had he come to take me over the mountains, and to put me in the +way of studying law? Mindful of the kernel of my story, I have shortened +the chapter to tell you out of the proper place. Major Colfax had made +Tom and me sup with himself and Colonel Clark at the inn in Danville. +And so pleased had the Major professed himself with my story of having +outwitted his agent, that he must needs have more of my adventures. +Colonel Clark gave him some, and Tom,--his tongue loosed by the +toddy,--others. And the Colonel added to the debt I owed him by +suggesting that Major Colfax take me to Virginia and recommend me to a +lawyer there. + +“Nay,” cried the Major, “I will do more. I like the lad, for he +is modest despite the way you have paraded him. I have an uncle in +Richmond, Judge Wentworth, to whom I will take him in person. And when +the Judge has done with him, if he is not flayed and tattooed with +Blackstone, you may flay and tattoo me.” + +Thus did I break through my environment. And it was settled that I +should meet the Major in seven days at Harrodstown. + +Once in the journey did the Major make mention of a subject which had +troubled me. + +“Davy,” said he, “Clark has changed. He is not the same man he was when +I saw him in Williamsburg demanding supplies for his campaign.” + +“Virginia has used him shamefully, sir,” I answered, and suddenly there +came flooding to my mind things I had heard the Colonel say in the +campaign. + +“Commonwealths have short memories,” said the Major; “they will accept +any sacrifice with a smile. Shakespeare, I believe, speaks of royal +ingratitude--he knew not commonwealths. Clark was close-lipped once, not +given to levity and--to toddy. There, there, he is my friend as well as +yours, and I will prove it by pushing his cause in Virginia. Is yours +Scotch anger? Then the devil fend me from it. A monarch would have +given him fifty thousand acres on the Wabash, a palace, and a sufficient +annuity. Virginia has given him a sword, eight thousand wild acres to be +sure, repudiated the debts of his army, and left him to starve. Is there +no room for a genius in our infant military establishment?” + +At length, as Christmas drew near, we came to Major Colfax’s seat, some +forty miles out of the town of Richmond. It was called Neville’s Grange, +the Major’s grandfather having so named it when he came out from England +some sixty years before. It was a huge, rambling, draughty house of +wood,--mortgaged, so the Major cheerfully informed me, thanks to the +patriotism of the family. At Neville’s Grange the Major kept a somewhat +roisterous bachelor’s hall. The place was overrun with negroes and dogs, +and scarce a night went by that there was not merrymaking in the house +with the neighbors. The time passed pleasantly enough until one frosty +January morning Major Colfax had a twinge of remembrance, cried out for +horses, took me into Richmond, and presented me to that very learned and +decorous gentleman, Judge Wentworth. + +My studies began within the hour of my arrival. + + + + + +CHAPTER V. I MEET AN OLD BEDFELLOW + +I shall burden no one with the dry chronicles of a law office. The +acquirement of learning is a slow process in life, and perchance a +slower one in the telling. I lacked not application during the three +years of my stay in Richmond, and to earn my living I worked at such odd +tasks as came my way. + +The Judge resembled Major Colfax in but one trait: he was choleric. But +he was painstaking and cautious, and I soon found out that he looked +askance upon any one whom his nephew might recommend. He liked the +Major, but he vowed him to be a roisterer and spendthrift, and one day, +some months after my advent, the Judge asked me flatly how I came to +fall in with Major Colfax. I told him. At the end of this conversation +he took my breath away by bidding me come to live with him. Like many +lawyers of that time, he had a little house in one corner of his grounds +for his office. It stood under great spreading trees, and there I was +wont to sit through many a summer day wrestling with the authorities. In +the evenings we would have political arguments, for the Confederacy was +in a seething state between the Federalists and the Republicans over +the new Constitution, now ratified. Between the Federalists and the +Jacobins, I would better say, for the virulence of the French Revolution +was soon to be reflected among the parties on our side. Kentucky, +swelled into an unmanageable territory, was come near to rebellion +because the government was not strong enough to wrest from Spain the +free navigation of the Mississippi. + +And yet I yearned to go back, and looked forward eagerly to the time +when I should have stored enough in my head to gain admission to the +bar. I was therefore greatly embarrassed, when my examinations came, by +an offer from Judge Wentworth to stay in Richmond and help him with his +practice. It was an offer not to be lightly set aside, and yet I had +made up my mind. He flew into a passion because of my desire to return +to a wild country of outlaws and vagabonds. + +“Why, damme,” he cried, “Kentucky and this pretty State of Franklin +which desired to chip off from North Carolina are traitorous places. +Disloyal to Congress! Intriguing with a Spanish minister and the Spanish +governor of Louisiana to secede from their own people and join the +King of Spain. Bah!” he exclaimed, “if our new Federal Constitution +is adopted I would hang Jack Sevier of Franklin and your Kentuckian +Wilkinson to the highest trees west of the mountains.” + +I can see the little gentleman as he spoke, his black broadcloth coat +and lace ruffles, his hand clutching the gold head of his cane, his face +screwed up with indignation under his white wig. It was on a Sunday, and +he was standing by the lilac bushes on the lawn in front of his square +brick house. + +“David,” said he, more calmly, “I trust I have taught you something +besides the law. I trust I have taught you that a strong Federal +government alone will be the salvation of our country.” + +“You cannot blame Kentucky greatly, sir,” said I, feeling that I must +stand up for my friends. “The Federal government has done little enough +for its people, and treated them to a deal of neglect. They won that +western country for themselves with no Federal nor Virginia or North +Carolina troops to help them. No man east of the mountains knows what +that fight has been. No man east of the mountains knows the horror of +that Indian warfare. This government gives them no protection now. Nay, +Congress cannot even procure for them an outlet for their commerce. +They must trade or perish. Spain closes the Mississippi, arrests our +merchants, seizes their goods, and often throws them into prison. No +wonder they scorn the Congress as weak and impotent.” + +The Judge stared at me aghast. It was the first time I had dared oppose +him on this subject. + +“What,” he sputtered, “what? You are a Separatist,--you whom I have +received into the bosom of my family!” Seizing the cane at the middle, +he brandished it in my face. + +“Don’t misunderstand me, sir,” said I. “You have given me books to +read, and have taught me what may be the destiny of our nation on this +continent. But you must forgive a people whose lives have been spent in +a fierce struggle for their homes, whose families have nearly all lost +some member by massacre, who are separated by hundreds of miles of +wilderness from you.” + +He looked at me speechless, and turned and walked into the house. I +thought I had sinned past forgiveness, and I was beyond description +uncomfortable, for he had been like a parent to me. But the next +morning, at half after seven, he walked into the little office and laid +down some gold pieces on my table. Gold was very scarce in those days. + +“They are for your journey, David,” said he. “My only comfort in your +going back is that you may grow up to put some temperance into their +wild heads. I have a commission for you at Jonesboro, in what was once +the unspeakable State of Franklin. You can stop there on your way to +Kentucky.” He drew from his pocket a great bulky letter, addressed to +“Thomas Wright, Esquire, Barrister-at-law in Jonesboro, North Carolina.” +For the good gentleman could not bring himself to write Franklin. + +It was late in September of the year 1788 when I set out on my homeward +way--for Kentucky was home to me. I was going back to Polly Ann and +Tom, and visions of that home-coming rose before my eyes as I rode. In +a packet in my saddle-bags were some dozen letters which Mr. Wrenn, the +schoolmaster at Harrodstown, had writ at Polly Ann’s bidding. I have the +letters yet. For Mr. Wrenn was plainly an artist, and had set down on +the paper the words just as they had flowed from her heart. Ay, and +there was news in the letters, though not surprising news among those +pioneer families whom God blessed so abundantly. Since David Ritchie +McChesney (I mention the name with pride) had risen above the +necessities of a bark cradle, two more had succeeded him, a brother +and a sister. I spurred my horse onward, and thought impatiently of the +weary leagues between my family and me. + +I have often pictured myself on that journey. I was twenty-one years +of age, though one would have called me older. My looks were nothing to +boast of, and I was grown up tall and weedy, so that I must have made +quite a comical sight, with my long legs dangling on either side of the +pony. I wore a suit of gray homespun, and in my saddle-bags I carried +four precious law books, the stock in trade which my generous patron had +given me. But as I mounted the slopes of the mountains my spirits rose +too at the prospect of the life before me. The woods were all aflame +with color, with wine and amber and gold, and the hills wore the misty +mantle of shadowy blue so dear to my youthful memory. As I left the rude +taverns of a morning and jogged along the heights, I watched the vapors +rise and roll away from the valleys far beneath, and saw great flocks of +ducks and swans and cackling geese darkening the air in their southward +flight. Strange that I fell in with no company, for the trail leading +into the Tennessee country was widened and broadened beyond belief, +and everywhere I came upon blackened fires and abandoned lean-tos, and +refuse bones gnawed by the wolves and bleached by the weather. I slept +in some of these lean-tos, with my fire going brightly, indifferent to +the howl of wolves in chase or the scream of a panther pouncing on its +prey. For I was born of the wilderness. It had no terrors for me, nor +did I ever feel alone. The great cliffs with their clinging, gnarled +trees, the vast mountains clothed in the motley colors of the autumn, +the sweet and smoky smell of the Indian summer,--all were dear to me. + +As I drew near to Jonesboro my thoughts began to dwell upon that strange +and fascinating man who had entertained Polly Ann and Tom and me so +lavishly on our way to Kentucky,--Captain John Sevier. For he had made +a great noise in the world since then, and the wrath of such men as my +late patron was heavy upon him. Yes, John Sevier, Nollichucky Jack, had +been a king in all but name since I had seen him, the head of such +a principality as stirred the blood to read about. It comprised the +Watauga settlement among the mountains of what is now Tennessee, and was +called prosaically (as is the wont of the Anglo-Saxon) the free State +of Franklin. There were certain conservative and unimaginative souls +in this mountain principality who for various reasons held their old +allegiance to the State of North Carolina. One Colonel Tipton led these +loyalist forces, and armed partisans of either side had for some years +ridden up and down the length of the land, burning and pillaging and +slaying. We in Virginia had heard of two sets of courts in Franklin, of +two sets of legislators. But of late the rumor had grown persistently +that Nollichucky Jack was now a kind of fugitive, and that he had +passed the summer pleasantly enough fighting Indians in the vicinity of +Nick-a-jack Cave. + +It was court day as I rode into the little town of Jonesboro, the air +sparkling like a blue diamond over the mountain crests, and I drew deep +into my lungs once more the scent of the frontier life I had loved +so well. In the streets currents of excited men flowed and backed and +eddied, backwoodsmen and farmers in the familiar hunting shirts of hide +or homespun, and lawyers in dress less rude. A line of horses stood +kicking and switching their tails in front of the log tavern, rough +carts and wagons had been left here and there with their poles on the +ground, and between these, piles of skins were heaped up and bags of +corn and grain. The log meeting-house was deserted, but the court-house +was the centre of such a swirling crowd as I had often seen at +Harrodstown. Now there are brawls and brawls, and I should have thought +with shame of my Kentucky bringing-up had I not perceived that this was +no ordinary court day, and that an unusual excitement was in the wind. + +Tying my horse, and making my way through the press in front of the +tavern door, I entered the common room, and found it stifling, brawling +and drinking going on apace. Scarce had I found a seat before the whole +room was emptied by one consent, all crowding out of the door after +two men who began a rough-and-tumble fight in the street. I had seen +rough-and-tumble fights in Kentucky, and if I have forborne to speak of +them it is because there always has been within me a loathing for them. +And so I sat quietly in the common room until the landlord came. I asked +him if he could direct me to Mr. Wright’s house, as I had a letter for +that gentleman. His answer was to grin at me incredulously. + +“I reckoned you wah’nt from these parts,” said he. “Wright’s--out o’ +town.” + +“What is the excitement?” I demanded. + +He stared at me. + +“Nollichucky Jack’s been heah, in Jonesboro, young man,” said he. + +“What,” I exclaimed, “Colonel Sevier?” + +“Ay, Sevier,” he repeated. “With Martin and Tipton and all the Caroliny +men right heah, having a council of mility officers in the court-house, +in rides Jack with his frontier boys like a whirlwind. He bean’t afeard +of ‘em, and a bench warrant out ag’in him for high treason. Never seed +sech a recklessness. Never had sech a jamboree sence I kept the tavern. +They was in this here room most of the day, and they was five fights +before they set down to dinner.” + +“And Colonel Tipton?” I said. + +“Oh, Tipton,” said he, “he hain’t afeard neither, but he hain’t got men +enough.” + +“And where is Sevier now?” I demanded. + +“How long hev you ben in town?” was his answer. + +I told him. + +“Wal,” said he, shifting his tobacco from one sallow cheek to the other, +“I reckon he and his boys rud out just afore you come in. Mark me,” he +added, “when I tell ye there’ll be trouble yet. Tipton and Martin and +the Caroliny folks is burnin’ mad with Chucky Jack for the murder of +Corn Tassel and other peaceful chiefs. But Jack hez a wild lot with +him,--some of the Nollichucky Cave traders, and there’s one young lad +that looks like he was a gentleman once. I reckon Jack himself wouldn’t +like to get into a fight with him. He’s a wild one. Great Goliah,” he +exclaimed, running to the door, “ef thar ain’t a-goin’ to be another +fight! Never seed sech a day in Jonesboro.” + +I likewise ran to the door, and this fight interested me. There was +a great, black-bearded mountaineer-farmer-desperado in the midst of a +circle, pouring out a torrent of abuse at a tall young man. + +“That thar’s Hump Gibson,” said the landlord, genially pointing out the +black-bearded ruffian, “and the young lawyer feller hez git a jedgment +ag’in him. He’s got spunk, but I reckon Hump ‘ll t’ar the innards out’n +him ef he stands thar a great while.” + +“Ye’ll git jedgment ag’in me, ye Caroliny splinter, will ye?” yelled Mr. +Gibson, with an oath. “I’ll pay Bill Wilder the skins when I git ready, +and all the pinhook lawyers in Washington County won’t budge me a mite.” + +“You’ll pay Bill Wilder or go to jail, by the eternal,” cried the young +man, quite as angrily, whereupon I looked upon him with a mixture of +admiration and commiseration, with a gulping certainty in my throat that +I was about to see murder done. He was a strange young man, with the +rare marked look that would compel even a poor memory to pick him out +again. For example, he was very tall and very slim, with red hair blown +every which way over a high and towering forehead that seemed as long +as the face under it. The face, too, was long, and all freckled by the +weather. The blue eyes held me in wonder, and these blazed with such +prodigious wrath that, if a look could have killed, Hump Gibson would +have been stricken on the spot. Mr. Gibson was, however, very much +alive. + +“Skin out o’ here afore I kill ye,” he shouted, and he charged at the +slim young man like a buffalo, while the crowd held its breath. I, who +had looked upon cruel sights in my day, was turning away with a kind +of sickening when I saw the slim young man dodge the rush. He did more. +With two strides of his long legs he reached the fence, ripped off the +topmost rail, and his huge antagonist, having changed his direction and +coming at him with a bellow, was met with the point of a scantling in +the pit of his stomach, and Mr. Gibson fell heavily to the ground. It +had all happened in a twinkling, and there was a moment’s lull while the +minds of the onlookers needed readjustment, and then they gave vent to +ecstasies of delight. + +“Great Goliah!” cried the landlord, breathlessly, “he shet him up jest +like a jack-knife.” + +Awe-struck, I looked at the tall young man, and he was the very essence +of wrath. Unmindful of the plaudits, he stood brandishing the fence-rail +over the great, writhing figure on the ground. And he was slobbering. I +recall that this fact gave a twinge to something in my memory. + +“Come on, Hump Gibson,” he cried, “come on!”--at which the crowd went +wild with pure joy. Witticisms flew. + +“Thought ye was goin’ to eat ‘im up, Hump?” said a friend. + +“Ye ain’t hed yer meal yet, Hump,” reminded another. + +Mr. Hump Gibson arose slowly out of the dust, yet he did not stand +straight. + +“Come on, come on!” cried the young lawyer-fellow, and he thrust the +point of the rail within a foot of Mr. Gibson’s stomach. + +“Come on, Hump!” howled the crowd, but Mr. Gibson stood irresolute. He +lacked the supreme test of courage which was demanded on this occasion. +Then he turned and walked away very slowly, as though his pace might +mitigate in some degree the shame of his retreat. The young man flung +away the fence-rail, and, thrusting aside the overzealous among his +admirers, he strode past me into the tavern, his anger still hot. + +“Hooray fer Jackson!” they shouted. “Hooray fer Andy Jackson!” + +Andy Jackson! Then I knew. Then I remembered a slim, wild, sandy-haired +boy digging his toes in the red mud long ago at the Waxhaws Settlement. +And I recalled with a smile my own fierce struggle at the schoolhouse +with the same boy, and how his slobbering had been my salvation. I +turned and went in after him with the landlord, who was rubbing his +hands with glee. + +“I reckon Hump won’t come crowin’ round heah any more co’t days, Mr. +Jackson,” said our host. + +But Mr. Jackson swept the room with his eyes and then glared at the +landlord so that he gave back. + +“Where’s my man?” he demanded. + +“Your man, Mr. Jackson?” stammered the host. + +“Great Jehovah!” cried Mr. Jackson, “I believe he’s afraid to race. He +had a horse that could show heels to my Nancy, did he? And he’s gone, +you say?” + +A light seemed to dawn on the landlord’s countenance. + +“God bless ye, Mr. Jackson!” he cried, “ye don’t mean that young +daredevil that was with Sevier?” + +“With Sevier?” says Jackson. + +“Ay,” says the landlord; “he’s been a-fightin with Sevier all summer, +and I reckon he ain’t afeard of nothin’ any more than you. Wait--his +name was Temple--Nick Temple, they called him.” + +“Nick Temple!” I cried, starting forward. + +“Where’s he gone?” said Mr. Jackson. “He was going to bet me a six-forty +he has at Nashboro that his horse could beat mine on the Greasy Cove +track. Where’s he gone?” + +“Gone!” said the landlord, apologetically, “Nollichucky Jack and his +boys left town an hour ago.” + +“Is he a man of honor or isn’t he?” said Mr. Jackson, fiercely. + +“Lord, sir, I only seen him once, but I’d stake my oath on it.” + +“Do you mean to say Mr. Temple has been here--Nicholas Temple?” I said. + +The bewildered landlord turned towards me helplessly. + +“Who the devil are you, sir?” cried Mr. Jackson. + +“Tell me what this Mr. Temple was like,” said I. + +The landlord’s face lighted up. + +“Faith, a thoroughbred hoss,” says he; “sech nostrils, and sech a gray +eye with the devil in it fer go--yellow ha’r, and ez tall ez Mr. Jackson +heah.” + +“And you say he’s gone off again with Sevier?” + +“They rud into town” (he lowered his voice, for the room was filling), +“snapped their fingers at Tipton and his warrant, and rud out ag’in. My +God, but that was like Nollichucky Jack. Say, stranger, when your Mr. +Temple smiled--” + +“He is the man!” I cried; “tell me where to find him.” + +Mr. Jackson, who had been divided between astonishment and impatience +and anger, burst out again. + +“What the devil do you mean by interfering with my business, sir?” + +“Because it is my business too,” I answered, quite as testily; “my claim +on Mr. Temple is greater than yours.” + +“By Jehovah!” cried Jackson, “come outside, sir, come outside!” + +The landlord backed away, and the men in the tavern began to press +around us expectantly. + +“Gallop into him, Andy!” cried one. + +“Don’t let him git near no fences, stranger,” said another. + +Mr. Jackson turned on this man with such truculence that he edged away +to the rear of the room. + +“Step out, sir,” said Mr. Jackson, starting for the door before I could +reply. I followed perforce, not without misgivings, the crowd pushing +eagerly after. Before we reached the dusty street Jackson began pulling +off his coat. In a trice the shouting onlookers had made a ring, and we +stood facing each other, he in his shirt-sleeves. + +“We’ll fight fair,” said he, his lips wetting. + +“Very good,” said I, “if you are still accustomed to this hasty manner. +You have not asked my name, my standing, nor my reasons for wanting Mr. +Temple.” + +I know not whether it was what I said that made him stare, or how I said +it. + +“Pistols, if you like,” said he. + +“No,” said I; “I am in a hurry to find Mr. Temple. I fought you this way +once, and it’s quicker.” + +“You fought me this way once?” he repeated. The noise of the crowd was +hushed, and they drew nearer to hear. + +“Come, Mr. Jackson,” said I, “you are a lawyer and a gentleman, and so +am I. I do not care to be beaten to a pulp, but I am not afraid of +you. And I am in a hurry. If you will step back into the tavern, I will +explain to you my reasons for wishing to get to Mr. Temple.” + +Mr. Jackson stared at me the more. + +“By the eternal,” said he, “you are a cool man. Give me my coat,” he +shouted to the bystanders, and they helped him on with it. “Now,” + said he, as they made to follow him, “keep back. I would talk to this +gentleman. By the heavens,” he cried, when he had gained the room, “I +believe you are not afraid of me. I saw it in your eyes.” + +Then I laughed. + +“Mr. Jackson,” said I, “doubtless you do not remember a homeless boy +named David whom you took to your uncle’s house in the Waxhaws--” + +“I do,” he exclaimed, “as I live I do. Why, we slept together.” + +“And you stumped your toe getting into bed and swore,” said I. + +At that he laughed so heartily that the landlord came running across the +room. + +“And we fought together at the Old Fields School. Are you that boy?” +and he scanned me again. “By God, I believe you are.” Suddenly his face +clouded once more. “But what about Temple?” said he. + +“Ah,” I answered, “I come to that quickly. Mr. Temple is my cousin. +After I left your uncle’s house my father took me to Charlestown.” + +“Is he a Charlestown Temple?” demanded Mr. Jackson. “For I spent some +time gambling and horse-racing with the gentry there, and I know many of +them. I was a wild lad” (I repeat his exact words), “and I ran up a bill +in Charlestown that would have filled a folio volume. Faith, all I had +left me was the clothes on my back and a good horse. I made up my mind +one night that if I could pay my debts and get out of Charlestown I +would go into the back country and study law and sober down. There was +a Mr. Braiden in the ordinary who staked me two hundred dollars at +rattle-and-snap against my horse. Gad, sir, that was providence. I +won. I left Charlestown with honor, I studied law at Salisbury in North +Carolina, and I have come here to practise it.” + +“You seem to have the talent,” said I, smiling at the remembrance of the +Hump Gibson incident. + +“That is my history in a nutshell,” said Mr. Jackson. “And now,” he +added, “since you are Mr. Temple’s cousin and friend and an old +acquaintance of mine to boot, I will tell you where I think he is.” + +“Where is that?” I asked eagerly. + +“I’ll stake a cowbell that Sevier will stop at the Widow Brown’s,” he +replied. “I’ll put you on the road. But mind you, you are to tell Mr. +Temple that he is to come back here and race me at Greasy Cove.” + +“I’ll warrant him to come,” said I. + +Whereupon we left the inn together, more amicably than before. Mr. +Jackson had a thoroughbred horse near by that was a pleasure to see, and +my admiration of his mount seemed to set me as firmly in Mr. Jackson’s +esteem again as that gentleman himself sat in the saddle. He was as good +as his word, rode out with me some distance on the road, and reminded me +at the last that Nick was to race him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE WIDOW BROWN’S + + +It was not to my credit that I should have lost the trail, after Mr. +Jackson put me straight. But the night was dark, the country unknown to +me, and heavily wooded and mountainous. In addition to these things +my mind ran like fire. My thoughts sometimes flew back to the wondrous +summer evening when I trod the Nollichucky trace with Tom and Polly +Ann, when I first looked down upon the log palace of that prince of the +border, John Sevier. Well I remembered him, broad-shouldered, handsome, +gay, a courtier in buckskin. Small wonder he was idolized by the Watauga +settlers, that he had been their leader in the struggle of Franklin for +liberty. And small wonder that Nick Temple should be in his following. + +Nick! My mind was in a torment concerning him. What of his mother? +Should I speak of having seen her? I went blindly through the woods +for hours after the night fell, my horse stumbling and weary, until at +length I came to a lonely clearing on the mountain side, and a fierce +pack of dogs dashed barking at my horse’s heels. There was a dark cabin +ahead, indistinct in the starlight, and there I knocked until a gruff +voice answered me and a tousled man came to the door. Yes, I had missed +the trail. He shook his head when I asked for the Widow Brown’s, and +bade me share his bed for the night. No, I would go on, I was used +to the backwoods. Thereupon he thawed a little, kicked the dogs, and +pointed to where the mountain dipped against the star-studded sky. There +was a trail there which led direct to the Widow Brown’s, if I could +follow it. So I left him. + +Once the fear had settled deeply of missing Nick at the Widow Brown’s, I +put my mind on my journey, and thanks to my early training I was able +to keep the trail. It doubled around the spurs, forded stony brooks in +diagonals, and often in the darkness of the mountain forest I had to +feel for the blazes on the trees. There was no making time. I gained the +notch with the small hours of the morning, started on with the descent, +crisscrossing, following a stream here and a stream there, until at +length the song of the higher waters ceased and I knew that I was in the +valley. Suddenly there was no crown-cover over my head. I had gained the +road once more, and I followed it hopefully, avoiding the stumps and the +deep wagon ruts where the ground was spongy. + +The morning light revealed a milky mist through which the trees showed +like phantoms. Then there came stains upon the mist of royal purple, +of scarlet, of yellow like a mandarin’s robe, peeps of deep blue fading +into azure as the mist lifted. The fiery eye of the sun was cocked over +the crest, and beyond me I saw a house with its logs all golden brown +in the level rays, the withered cornstalks orange among the blackened +stumps. My horse stopped of his own will at the edge of the clearing. A +cock crew, a lean hound prostrate on the porch of the house rose to his +haunches, sniffed, growled, leaped down, and ran to the road and sniffed +again. I listened, startled, and made sure of the distant ring of many +hoofs. And yet I stayed there, irresolute. Could it be Tipton and his +men riding from Jonesboro to capture Sevier? The hoof-beats grew louder, +and then the hound in the road gave tongue to the short, sharp bark that +is the call to arms. Other dogs, hitherto unseen, took up the cry, and +turning in my saddle I saw a body of men riding hard at me through the +alley in the forest. At their head, on a heavy, strong-legged horse, +was one who might have stood for the figure of turbulence, and I made +no doubt that this was Colonel Tipton himself,--Colonel Tipton, once +secessionist, now champion of the Old North State and arch-enemy of John +Sevier. At sight of me he reined up so violently that his horse went +back on his haunches, and the men behind were near overriding him. + +“Look out, boys,” he shouted, with a fierce oath, “they’ve got guards +out!” He flung back one hand to his holster for a pistol, while the +other reached for the powder flask at his belt. He primed the pan, and, +seeing me immovable, set his horse forward at an amble, his pistol at +the cock. + +“Who in hell are you?” he cried. + +“A traveller from Virginia,” I answered. + +“And what are you doing here?” he demanded, with another oath. + +“I have just this moment come here,” said I, as calmly as I might. “I +lost the trail in the darkness.” + +He glared at me, purpling, perplexed. + +“Is Sevier there?” said he, pointing at the house. + +“I don’t know,” said I. + +Tipton turned to his men, who were listening. + +“Surround the house,” he cried, “and watch this fellow.” + +I rode on perforce towards the house with Tipton and three others, while +his men scattered over the corn-field and cursed the dogs. And then we +saw in the open door the figure of a woman shading her eyes with her +hand. We pulled up, five of us, before the porch in front of her. + +“Good morning, Mrs. Brown,” said Tipton, gruffly. + +“Good morning, Colonel,” answered the widow. + +Tipton leaped from his horse, flung the bridle to a companion, and +put his foot on the edge of the porch to mount. Then a strange thing +happened. The lady turned deftly, seized a chair from within, and pulled +it across the threshold. She sat herself down firmly, an expression +on her face which hinted that the late lamented Mr. Brown had been a +dominated man. Colonel Tipton stopped, staggering from the very impetus +of his charge, and gazed at her blankly. + +“I have come for Colonel Sevier,” he blurted. And then, his anger +rising, “I will have no trifling, ma’am. He is in this house.” + +“La! you don’t tell me,” answered the widow, in a tone that was wholly +conversational. + +“He is in this house,” shouted the Colonel. + +“I reckon you’ve guessed wrong, Colonel,” said the widow. + +There was an awkward pause until Tipton heard a titter behind him. Then +his wrath exploded. + +“I have a warrant against the scoundrel for high treason,” he cried, +“and, by God, I will search the house and serve it.” + +Still the widow sat tight. The Rock of Ages was neither more movable nor +calmer than she. + +“Surely, Colonel, you would not invade the house of an unprotected +female.” + +The Colonel, evidently with a great effort, throttled his wrath for the +moment. His new tone was apologetic but firm. + +“I regret to have to do so, ma’am,” said he, “but both sexes are equal +before the law.” + +“The law!” repeated the widow, seemingly tickled at the word. She smiled +indulgently at the Colonel. “What a pity, Mr. Tipton, that the law +compels you to arrest such a good friend of yours as Colonel Sevier. +What self-sacrifice, Colonel Tipton! What nobility!” + +There was a second titter behind him, whereat he swung round quickly, +and the crimson veins in his face looked as if they must burst. He saw +me with my hand over my mouth. + +“You warned him, damn you!” he shouted, and turning again leaped to the +porch and tried to squeeze past the widow into the house. + +“How dare you, sir?” she shrieked, giving him a vigorous push backwards. +The four of us, his three men and myself, laughed outright. Tipton’s +rage leaped its bounds. He returned to the attack again and again, and +yet at the crucial moment his courage would fail him and he would let +the widow thrust him back. Suddenly I became aware that there were two +new spectators of this comedy. I started and looked again, and was +near to crying out at sight of one of them. The others did cry out, but +Tipton paid no heed. + +Ten years had made his figure more portly, but I knew at once the man +in the well-fitting hunting shirt, with the long hair flowing to his +shoulders, with the keen, dark face and courtly bearing and humorous +eyes. Yes, humorous even now, for he stood, smiling at this comedy +played by his enemy, unmindful of his peril. The widow saw him before +Tipton did, so intent was he on the struggle. + +“Enough!” she cried, “enough, John Tipton!” Tipton drew back +involuntarily, and a smile broadened on the widow’s face. “Shame on you +for doubting a lady’s word! Allow me to present to you--Colonel Sevier.” + +Tipton turned, stared as a man might who sees a ghost, and broke into +such profanity as I have seldom heard. + +“By the eternal God, John Sevier,” he shouted, “I’ll hang you to the +nearest tree!” + +Colonel Sevier merely made a little ironical bow and looked at the +gentleman beside him. + +“I have surrendered to Colonel Love,” he said. + +Tipton snatched from his belt the pistol which he might have used on me, +and there flashed through my head the thought that some powder might +yet be held in its pan. We cried out, all of us, his men, the widow, and +myself,--all save Sevier, who stood quietly, smiling. Suddenly, while +we waited for murder, a tall figure shot out of the door past the +widow, the pistol flew out of Tipton’s hand, and Tipton swung about with +something like a bellow, to face Mr. Nicholas Temple. + +Well I knew him! And oddly enough at that time Riddle’s words of long +ago came to me, “God help the woman you love or the man you fight.” How +shall I describe him? He was thin even to seeming frailness,--yet it +was the frailness of the race-horse. The golden hair, sun-tanned, awry +across his forehead, the face the same thin and finely cut face of the +boy. The gray eyes held an anger that did not blaze; it was far more +dangerous than that. Colonel John Tipton looked, and as I live he +recoiled. + +“If you touch him, I’ll kill you,” said Mr. Temple. Nor did he say it +angrily. I marked for the first time that he held a pistol in his slim +fingers. What Tipton might have done when he swung to his new bearings +is mere conjecture, for Colonel Sevier himself stepped up on the porch, +laid his hand on Temple’s arm, and spoke to him in a low tone. What he +said we didn’t hear. The astonishing thing was that neither of them for +the moment paid any attention to the infuriated man beside them. I +saw Nick’s expression change. He smiled,--the smile the landlord had +described, the smile that made men and women willing to die for him. +After that Colonel Sevier stooped down and picked up the pistol from +the floor of the porch and handed it with a bow to Tipton, butt first. +Tipton took it, seemingly without knowing why, and at that instant a +negro boy came around the house, leading a horse. Sevier mounted it +without a protest from any one. + +“I am ready to go with you, gentlemen,” he said. + +Colonel Tipton slipped his pistol back into his belt, stepped down from +the porch, and leaped into his saddle, and he and his men rode off into +the stump-lined alley in the forest that was called a road. Nick stood +beside the widow, staring after them until they had disappeared. + +“My horse, boy!” he shouted to the gaping negro, who vanished on the +errand. + +“What will you do, Mr. Temple?” asked the widow. + +“Rescue him, ma’am,” cried Nick, beginning to pace up and down. “I’ll +ride to Turner’s. Cozby and Evans are there, and before night we shall +have made Jonesboro too hot to hold Tipton and his cutthroats.” + +“La, Mr. Temple,” said the widow, with unfeigned admiration, “I never +saw the like of you. But I know John Tipton, and he’ll have Colonel +Sevier started for North Carolina before our boys can get to Jonesboro.” + +“Then we’ll follow,” says Nick, beginning to pace again. Suddenly, at a +cry from the widow, he stopped and stared at me, a light in his eye like +a point of steel. His hand slipped to his waist. + +“A spy,” he said, and turned and smiled at the lady, who was watching +him with a kind of fascination; “but damnably cool,” he continued, +looking at me. “I wonder if he thinks to outride me on that beast? Look +you, sir,” he cried, as Mrs. Brown’s negro came back struggling with a +deep-ribbed, high-crested chestnut that was making half circles on +his hind legs, “I’ll give you to the edge of the woods, and lay you +a six-forty against a pair of moccasins that you never get back to +Tipton.” + +“God forbid that I ever do,” I answered fervently. + +“What,” he exclaimed, “and you here with him on this sneak’s errand!” + +“I am here with him on no errand,” said I. “He and his crew came on me +a quarter of an hour since at the edge of the clearing. Mr. Temple, I am +here to find you, and to save time I will ride with you.” + +“Egad, you’ll have to ride like the devil then,” said he, and he stooped +and snatched the widow’s hand and kissed it with a daring gallantry that +I had thought to find in him. He raised his eyes to hers. + +“Good-by, Mr. Temple,” she said,--there was a tremor in her voice,--“and +may you save our Jack!” + +He snatched the bridle from the boy, and with one leap he was on the +rearing, wheeling horse. “Come on,” he cried to me, and, waving his hat +at the lady on the porch, he started off with a gallop up the trail in +the opposite direction from that which Tipton’s men had taken. + +All that I saw of Mr. Nicholas Temple on that ride to Turner’s was +his back, and presently I lost sight of that. In truth, I never got to +Turner’s at all, for I met him coming back at the wind’s pace, a huge, +swarthy, determined man at his side and four others spurring after, the +spume dripping from the horses’ mouths. They did not so much as look at +me as they passed, and there was nothing left for me to do but to turn +my tired beast and follow at any pace I could make towards Jonesboro. + +It was late in the afternoon before I reached the town, the town set +down among the hills like a caldron boiling over with the wrath of +Franklin. The news of the capture of their beloved Sevier had flown +through the mountains like seeds on the autumn wind, and from north, +south, east, and west the faithful were coming in, cursing Tipton and +Carolina as they rode. + +I tethered my tired beast at the first picket, and was no sooner on my +feet than I was caught in the hurrying stream of the crowd and fairly +pushed and beaten towards the court-house. Around it a thousand furious +men were packed. I heard cheering, hoarse and fierce cries, threats +and imprecations, and I knew that they were listening to oratory. I was +suddenly shot around the corner of a house, saw the orator himself, and +gasped. + +It was Nicholas Temple. There was something awe-impelling in the tall, +slim, boyish figure that towered above the crowd, in the finely wrought, +passionate face, in the voice charged with such an anger as is given to +few men. + +“What has North Carolina done for Franklin?” he cried. “Protected her? +No. Repudiated her? Yes. You gave her to the Confederacy for a war +debt, and the Confederacy flung her back. You shook yourselves free from +Carolina’s tyranny, and traitors betrayed you again. And now they have +betrayed your leader. Will you avenge him, or will you sit down like +cowards while they hang him for treason?” + +His voice was drowned, but he stood immovable with arms folded until +there was silence again. + +“Will you rescue him?” he cried, and the roar rose again. “Will you +avenge him? By to-morrow we shall have two thousand here. Invade North +Carolina, humble her, bring her to her knees, and avenge John Sevier!” + +Pandemonium reigned. Hats were flung in the air, rifles fired, shouts +and curses rose and blended into one terrifying note. Gradually, in the +midst of this mad uproar, the crowd became aware that another man +was standing upon the stump from which Nicholas Temple had leaped. +“Cozby!” some one yelled, “Cozby!” The cry was taken up. “Huzzay for +Cozby! He’ll lead us into Caroliny.” He was the huge, swarthy man I had +seen riding hard with Nick that morning. A sculptor might have chosen +his face and frame for a type of the iron-handed leader of pioneers. +Will was supreme in the great features,--inflexible, indomitable will. +His hunting shirt was open across his great chest, his black hair +fell to his shoulders, and he stood with a compelling hand raised for +silence. And when he spoke, slowly, resonantly, men fell back before his +words. + +“I admire Mr. Temple’s courage, and above all his loyalty to our beloved +General,” said Major Cozby. “But Mr. Temple is young, and the heated +counsels of youth must not prevail. My friends, in order to save Jack +Sevier we must be moderate.” + +His voice, strong as it was, was lost. “To hell with moderation!” they +shouted. “Down with North Carolina! We’ll fight her!” + +He got silence again by the magnetic strength he had in him. + +“Very good,” he said, “but get your General first. If we lead you across +the mountains now, his blood will be upon your heads. No man is a better +friend to Jack Sevier than I. Leave his rescue to me, and I will get him +for you.” He paused, and they were stilled perforce. “I will get him for +you,” he repeated slowly, “or North Carolina will pay for the burial of +James Cozby.” + +There was an instant when they might have swung either way. + +“How will ye do it?” came in a thin, piping voice from somewhere near +the stump. It may have been this that turned their minds. Others took up +the question, “How will ye do it, Major Cozby?” + +“I don’t know,” cried the Major, “I don’t know. And if I did know, I +wouldn’t tell you. But I will get Nollichucky Jack if I have to burn +Morganton and rake the General out of the cinders!” + +Five hundred hands flew up, five hundred voices cried, “I’m with ye, +Major Cozby!” But the Major only shook his head and smiled. What he said +was lost in the roar. Fighting my way forward, I saw him get down from +the stump, put his hand kindly on Nick’s shoulder, and lead him into the +court-house. They were followed by a score of others, and the door was +shut behind them. + +It was then I bethought myself of the letter to Mr. Wright, and I sought +for some one who would listen to my questions as to his whereabouts. +At length the man himself was pointed out to me, haranguing an excited +crowd of partisans in front of his own gate. Some twenty minutes must +have passed before I could get any word with him. He was a vigorous +little man, with black eyes like buttons, he wore brown homespun and +white stockings, and his hair was clubbed. When he had yielded the +ground to another orator, I handed him the letter. He drew me aside, +read it on the spot, and became all hospitality at once. The town was +full, and though he had several friends staying in his house I should +join them. Was my horse fed? Dinner had been forgotten that day, but +would I enter and partake? In short, I found myself suddenly provided +for, and I lost no time in getting my weary mount into Mr. Wright’s +little stable. And then I sat down, with several other gentlemen, at Mr. +Wright’s board, where there was much guessing as to Major Cozby’s plan. + +“No other man west of the mountains could have calmed that crowd after +that young daredevil Temple had stirred them up,” declared Mr. Wright. + +I ventured to say that I had business with Mr. Temple. + +“Faith, then, I will invite him here,” said my host. “But I warn you, +Mr. Ritchie, that he is a trigger set on the hair. If he does not fancy +you, he may quarrel with you and shoot you. And he is in no temper to +bectrifled with to-day.” + +“I am not an easy person to quarrel with,” I answered. + +“To look at you, I shouldn’t say that you were,” said he. “We are going +to the court-house, and I will see if I can get a word with the young +Hotspur and send him to you. Do you wait here.” + +I waited on the porch as the day waned. The tumult of the place had died +down, for men were gathering in the houses to discuss and conjecture. +And presently, sauntering along the street in a careless fashion, his +spurs trailing in the dust, came Nicholas Temple. He stopped before the +house and stared at me with a fine insolence, and I wondered whether I +myself had not been too hasty in reclaiming him. A greeting died on my +lips. + +“Well, sir” he said, “so you are the gentleman who has been dogging me +all day.” + +“I dog no one, Mr. Temple,” I replied bitterly. + +“We’ll not quibble about words,” said he. “Would it be impertinent to +ask your business--and perhaps your name?” + +“Did not Mr. Wright give you my name?” I exclaimed. + +“He might have mentioned it, I did not hear. Is it of such importance?” + +At that I lost my temper entirely. + +“It may be, and it may not,” I retorted. “I am David Ritchie.” + +He changed before my eyes as he stared at me, and then, ere I knew it, +he had me by both arms, crying out:-- + +“David Ritchie! My Davy--who ran away from me--and we were going to +Kentucky together. Oh, I have never forgiven you,”--the smile that there +was no resisting belied his words as he put his face close to mine--“I +never will forgive you. I might have known you--you’ve grown, but I vow +you’re still an old man,--Davy, you renegade. And where the devil did +you run to?” + +“Kentucky,” I said, laughing. + +“Oh, you traitor--and I trusted you. I loved you, Davy. Do you remember +how I clung to you in my sleep? And when I woke up, the world was black. +I followed your trail down the drive and to the cross-roads--” + +“It was not ingratitude, Nick,” I said; “you were all I had in the +world.” And then I faltered, the sadness of that far-off time coming +over me in a flood, and the remembrance of his generous sorrow for me. + +“And how the devil did you track me to the Widow Brown’s?” he demanded, +releasing me. + +“A Mr. Jackson had a shrewd notion you were there. And by the way, he +was in a fine temper because you had skipped a race with him.” + +“That sorrel-topped, lantern-headed Mr. Jackson?” said Nick. “He’ll be +killed in one of his fine tempers. Damn a man who can’t keep his temper. +I’ll race him, of course. And where are you bound now, Davy?” + +“For Louisville, in Kentucky, at the Falls of the Ohio. It is a growing +place, and a promising one for a young man in the legal profession to +begin life.” + +“When do you leave?” said he. + +“To-morrow morning, Nick,” said I. “You wanted once to go to Kentucky; +why not come with me?” + +His face clouded. + +“I do not budge from this town,” said he, “I do not budge until I hear +that Jack Sevier is safe. Damn Cozby! If he had given me my way, we +should have been forty miles from here by this. I’ll tell you. Cozby is +even now picking five men to go to Morganton and steal Sevier, and he +puts me off with a kind word. He’ll not have me, he says.” + +“He thinks you too hot. It needs discretion and an old head,” said I. + +“Egad, then, I’ll commend you to him,” said Nick. + +“Now,” I said, “it’s time for you to tell me something of yourself, and +how you chanced to come into this country.” + +“‘Twas Darnley’s fault,” said Nick. + +“Darnley!” I exclaimed; “he whom you got into the duel with--” I stopped +abruptly, with a sharp twinge of remembrance that was like a pain in my +side. ‘Twas Nick took up the name. + +“With Harry Riddle.” He spoke quietly, that was the terrifying part of +it. “David, I’ve looked for that man in Italy and France, I’ve scoured +London for him, and, by God, I’ll find him before he dies. And when I do +find him I swear to you that there will be no such thing as time wasted, +or mercy.” + +I shuddered. In all my life I had never known such a moment of +indecision. Should I tell him? My conscience would give me no definite +reply. The question had haunted me all the night, and I had lost my +way in consequence, nor had the morning’s ride from the Widow Brown’s +sufficed to bring me to a decision. Of what use to tell him? Would +Riddle’s death mend matters? The woman loved him, that had been clear to +me; yet, by telling Nick what I knew I might induce him to desist from +his search, and if I did not tell, Nick might some day run across the +trail, follow it up, take Riddle’s life, and lose his own. The moment, +made for confession as it was, passed. + +“They have ruined my life,” said Nick. “I curse him, and I curse her.” + +“Hold!” I cried; “she is your mother.” + +“And therefore I curse her the more,” he said. “You know what she is, +you’ve tasted of her charity, and you are my father’s nephew. If you +have been without experience, I will tell you what she is. A common--” + +I reached out and put my hand across his mouth. + +“Silence!” I cried; “you shall say no such thing. And have you not +manhood enough to make your own life for yourself?” + +“Manhood!” he repeated, and laughed. It was a laugh that I did not like. +“They made a man of me, my parents. My father played false with the +Rebels and fled to England for his reward. A year after he went I was +left alone at Temple Bow to the tender mercies of the niggers. Mr. Mason +came back and snatched what was left of me. He was a good man; he saved +me an annuity out of the estate, he took me abroad after the war on +a grand tour, and died of a fever in Rome. I made my way back to +Charlestown, and there I learned to gamble, to hold liquor like a +gentleman, to run horses and fight like a gentleman. We were speaking of +Darnley,” he said. + +“Yes, of Darnley,” I repeated. + +“The devil of a man,” said Nick; “do you remember him, with the cracked +voice and fat calves?” + +At any other time I should have laughed at the recollection. + +“Darnley turned Whig, became a Continental colonel, and got a grant out +here in the Cumberland country of three thousand acres. And now I own +it.” + +“You own it!” I exclaimed. + +“Rattle-and-snap,” said Nick; “I played him for the land at the ordinary +one night, and won it. It is out here near a place called Nashboro, +where this wild, long-faced Mr. Jackson says he is going soon. I crossed +the mountains to have a look at it, fell in with Nollichucky Jack, and +went off with him for a summer campaign. There’s a man for you, Davy,” + he cried, “a man to follow through hell-fire. If they touch a hair of +his head we’ll sack the State of North Carolina from Morganton to the +sea.” + +“But the land?” I asked. + +“Oh, a fig for the land,” answered Nick; “as soon as Nollichucky Jack is +safe I’ll follow you into Kentucky.” He slapped me on the knee. “Egad, +Davy, it seems like a fairy tale. We always said we were going to +Kentucky, didn’t we? What is the name of the place you are to startle +with your learning and calm by your example?” + +“Louisville,” I answered, laughing, “by the Falls of the Ohio.” + +“I shall turn up there when Jack Sevier is safe and I have won some more +land from Mr. Jackson. We’ll have a rare old time together, though I +have no doubt you can drink me under the table. Beware of these sober +men. Egad, Davy, you need only a woolsack to become a full-fledged +judge. And now tell me how fortune has buffeted you.” + +It was my second night without sleep, for we sat burning candles in Mr. +Wright’s house until the dawn, making up the time which we had lost away +from each other. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. I MEET A HERO + +When left to myself, I was wont to slide into the commonplace; and where +my own dull life intrudes to clog the action I cut it down here and +pare it away there until I am merely explanatory, and not too much +in evidence. I rode out the Wilderness Trail, fell in with other +travellers, was welcomed by certain old familiar faces at Harrodstown, +and pressed on. I have a vivid recollection of a beloved, vigorous +figure swooping out of a cabin door and scattering a brood of children +right and left. “Polly Ann!” I said, and she halted, trembling. + +“Tom,” she cried, “Tom, it’s Davy come back;” and Tom himself flew out +of the door, ramrod in one hand and rifle in the other. Never shall I +forget them as they stood there, he grinning with sheer joy as of yore, +and she, with her hair flying and her blue gown snapping in the wind, +in a tremor between tears and laughter. I leaped to the ground, and +she hugged me in her arms as though I had been a child, calling my name +again and again, and little Tom pulling at the skirts of my coat. I +caught the youngster by the collar. + +“Polly Ann,” said I, “he’s grown to what I was when you picked me up, a +foundling.” + +“And now it’s little Davy no more,” she answered, swept me a courtesy, +and added, with a little quiver in her voice, “ye are a gentleman now.” + +“My heart is still where it was,” said I. + +“Ay, ay,” said Tom, “I’m sure o’ that, Davy.” + +I was with them a fortnight in the familiar cabin, and then I took up +my journey northward, heavy at leaving again, but promising to see +them from time to time. For Tom was often at the Falls when he went +a-scouting into the Illinois country. It was, as of old, Polly Ann who +ran the mill and was the real bread-winner of the family. + +Louisville was even then bursting with importance, and as I rode into +it, one bright November day, I remembered the wilderness I had seen +here not ten years gone when I had marched hither with Captain Harrod’s +company to join Clark on the island. It was even then a thriving little +town of log and clapboard houses and schools and churches, and wise men +were saying of it--what Colonel Clark had long ago predicted--that it +would become the first city of commercial importance in the district of +Kentucky. + +I do not mean to give you an account of my struggles that winter +to obtain a foothold in the law. The time was a heyday for young +barristers, and troubles in those early days grew as plentifully in +Kentucky as corn. In short, I got a practice, for Colonel Clark was +here to help me, and, thanks to the men who had gone to Kaskaskia and +Vincennes, I had a fairly large acquaintance in Kentucky. I hired rooms +behind Mr. Crede’s store, which was famed for the glass windows which +had been fetched all the way from Philadelphia. Mr. Crede was the +embodiment of the enterprising spirit of the place, and often of an +evening he called me in to see the new fashionable things his barges had +brought down the Ohio. The next day certain young sparks would drop into +my room to waylay the belles as they came to pick a costume to be worn +at Mr. Nickle’s dancing school, or at the ball at Fort Finney. + +The winter slipped away, and one cool evening in May there came a negro +to my room with a note from Colonel Clark, bidding me sup with him at +the tavern and meet a celebrity. + +I put on my best blue clothes that I had brought with me from Richmond, +and repaired expectantly to the tavern about eight of the clock, pushed +through the curious crowd outside, and entered the big room where +the company was fast assembling. Against the red blaze in the great +chimney-place I spied the figure of Colonel Clark, more portly than +of yore, and beside him stood a gentleman who could be no other than +General Wilkinson. + +He was a man to fill the eye, handsome of face, symmetrical of figure, +easy of manner, and he wore a suit of bottle-green that became him +admirably. In short, so fascinated and absorbed was I in watching him as +he greeted this man and the other that I started as though something had +pricked me when I heard my name called by Colonel Clark. + +“Come here, Davy,” he cried across the room, and I came and stood +abashed before the hero. “General, allow me to present to you the +drummer boy of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, Mr. David Ritchie.” + +“I hear that you drummed them to victory through a very hell of torture, +Mr. Ritchie,” said the General. “It is an honor to grasp the hand of one +who did such service at such a tender age.” + +General Wilkinson availed himself of that honor, and encompassed me with +a smile so benignant, so winning in its candor, that I could only mutter +my acknowledgment, and Colonel Clark must needs apologize, laughing, for +my youth and timidity. + +“Mr. Ritchie is not good at speeches, General,” said he, “but I make +no doubt he will drink a bumper to your health before we sit down. +Gentlemen,” he cried, filling his glass from a bottle on the table, “a +toast to General Wilkinson, emancipator and saviour of Kentucky!” + +The company responded with a shout, tossed off the toast, and sat +down at the long table. Chance placed me between a young dandy from +Lexington--one of several the General had brought in his train--and +Mr. Wharton, a prominent planter of the neighborhood with whom I had +a speaking acquaintance. This was a backwoods feast, though served in +something better than the old backwoods style, and we had venison and +bear’s meat and prairie fowl as well as pork and beef, and breads that +came stinging hot from the Dutch ovens. Toasts to this and that were +flung back and forth, and jests and gibes, and the butt of many of these +was that poor Federal government which (as one gentleman avowed) was +like a bantam hen trying to cover a nestful of turkey’s eggs, and +clucking with importance all the time. This picture brought on gusts of +laughter. + +“And what say you of the Jay?” cried one; “what will he hatch?” + +Hisses greeted the name, for Mr. Jay wished to enter into a treaty with +Spain, agreeing to close the river for five and twenty years. Colonel +Clark stood up, and rapped on the table. + +“Gentlemen,” said he, “Louisville has as her guest of honor to-night a +man of whom Kentucky may well be proud [loud cheering]. Five years ago +he favored Lexington by making it his home, and he came to us with the +laurel of former achievements still clinging to his brow. He fought and +suffered for his country, and attained the honorable rank of Major in +the Continental line. He was chosen by the people of Pennsylvania to +represent them in the august body of their legislature, and now he has +got new honor in a new field [renewed cheering]. He has come to Kentucky +to show her the way to prosperity and glory. Kentucky had a grievance +[loud cries of ‘Yes, yes!’]. Her hogs and cattle had no market, her +tobacco and agricultural products of all kinds were rotting because the +Spaniards had closed the Mississippi to our traffic. Could the Federal +government open the river? [shouts of ‘No, no!’ and hisses]. Who +opened it? [cries of ‘Wilkinson, Wilkinson!’]. He said to the Kentucky +planters, ‘Give your tobacco to me, and I will sell it.’ He put it +in barges, he floated down the river, and, as became a man of such +distinction, he was met by Governor-general Miro on the levee at New +Orleans. Where is that tobacco now, gentlemen?” Colonel Clark was here +interrupted by such roars and stamping that he paused a moment, and +during this interval Mr. Wharton leaned over and whispered quietly in my +ear:-- + +“Ay, where is it?” + +I stared at Mr. Wharton blankly. He was a man nearing the middle +age, with a lacing of red in his cheeks, a pleasant gray eye, and a +singularly quiet manner. + +“Thanks to the genius of General Wilkinson,” Colonel Clark continued, +waving his hand towards the smilingly placid hero, “that tobacco has +been deposited in the King’s store at ten dollars per hundred,--a +privilege heretofore confined to Spanish subjects. Well might Wilkinson +return from New Orleans in a chariot and four to a grateful Kentucky! +This year we have tripled, nay, quadrupled, our crop of tobacco, and +we are here to-night to give thanks to the author of this prosperity.” + Alas, Colonel Clark’s hand was not as steady as of yore, and he spilled +the liquor on the table as he raised his glass. “Gentlemen, a health to +our benefactor.” + +They drank it willingly, and withal so lengthily and noisily that Mr. +Wilkinson stood smiling and bowing for full three minutes before he +could be heard. He was a very paragon of modesty, was the General, and +a man whose attitudes and expressions spoke as eloquently as his words. +None looked at him now but knew before he opened his mouth that he was +deprecating such an ovation. + +“Gentlemen,--my friends and fellow-Kentuckians,” he said, “I thank you +from the bottom of my heart for your kindness, but I assure you that I +have done nothing worthy of it [loud protests]. I am a simple, practical +man, who loves Kentucky better than he loves himself. This is no virtue, +for we all have it. We have the misfortune to be governed by a set of +worthy gentlemen who know little about Kentucky and her wants, and think +less [cries of ‘Ay, ay!’]. I am not decrying General Washington and +his cabinet; it is but natural that the wants of the seaboard and the +welfare and opulence of the Eastern cities should be uppermost in their +minds [another interruption]. Kentucky, if she would prosper, must look +to her own welfare. And if any credit is due to me, gentlemen, it is +because I reserved my decision of his Excellency, Governor-general Miro, +and his people until I saw them for myself. A little calm reason, a +plain statement of the case, will often remove what seems an insuperable +difficulty, and I assure you that Governor-general Miro is a most +reasonable and courteous gentleman, who looks with all kindliness and +neighborliness on the people of Kentucky. Let us drink a toast to him. +To him your gratitude is due, for he sends you word that your tobacco +will be received.” + +“In General Wilkinson’s barges,” said Mr. Wharton, leaning over and +subsiding again at once. + +The General was the first to drink the toast, and he sat down very +modestly amidst a thunder of applause. + +The young man on the other side of me, somewhat flushed, leaped to his +feet. + +“Down with the Federal government!” he cried; “what have they done for +us, indeed? Before General Wilkinson went to New Orleans the Spaniards +seized our flat boats and cargoes and flung our traders into prison, ay, +and sent them to the mines of Brazil. The Federal government takes sides +with the Indians against us. And what has that government done for you, +Colonel?” he demanded, turning to Clark, “you who have won for them half +of their territory? They have cast you off like an old moccasin. The +Continental officers who fought in the East have half-pay for life or +five years’ full pay. And what have you?” + +There was a breathless hush. A swift vision came to me of a man, young, +alert, commanding, stern under necessity, self-repressed at all times--a +man who by the very dominance of his character had awed into submission +the fierce Northern tribes of a continent, who had compelled men to +follow him until the life had all but ebbed from their bodies, who had +led them to victory in the end. And I remembered a boy who had stood +awe-struck before this man in the commandant’s house at Fort Sackville. +Ay, and I heard again his words as though he had just spoken them, +“Promise me that you will not forget me if I am--unfortunate.” I did not +understand then. And now, because of a certain blinding of my eyes, I +did not see him clearly as he got slowly to his feet. He clutched +the table. He looked around him--I dare not say--vacantly. And then, +suddenly, he spoke with a supreme anger and a supreme bitterness. + +“Not a shilling has this government given me,” he cried. “Virginia has +more grateful; from her I have some acres of wild land and--a sword.” +He laughed. “A sword, gentlemen, and not new at that. Oh, a grateful +government we serve, one careful of the honor of her captains. +Gentlemen, I stand to-day a discredited man because the honest debts I +incurred in the service of that government are repudiated, because my +friends who helped it, Father Gibault, Vigo, and Gratiot, and others +have never been repaid. One of them is ruined.” + +A dozen men had sprung clamoring to their feet before he sat down. One, +more excited than the rest, got the ear of the company. + +“Do we lack leaders?” he cried. “We have them here with us to-night, in +this room. Who will stop us? Not the contemptible enemies in Kentucky +who call themselves Federalists. Shall we be supine forever? We have +fought once for our liberties, let us fight again. Let us make a common +cause with our real friends on the far side of the Mississippi.” + +I rose, sick at heart, but every man was standing. And then a strange +thing happened. I saw General Wilkinson at the far end of the room; his +hand was raised, and there was that on his handsome face which might +have been taken for a smile, and yet was not a smile. Others saw him +too, I know not by what exertion of magnetism. They looked at him and +they held their tongues. + +“I fear that we are losing our heads, gentlemen,” he said; “and I +propose to you the health of the first citizen of Kentucky, Colonel +George George Rogers Clark.” + +I found myself out of the tavern and alone in the cool May night. And as +I walked slowly down the deserted street, my head in a whirl, a hand +was laid on my shoulder. I turned, startled, to face Mr. Wharton, the +planter. + +“I would speak a word with you, Mr. Ritchie,” he said. “May I come to +your room for a moment?” + +“Certainly, sir,” I answered. + +After that we walked along together in silence, my own mind heavily +occupied with what I had seen and heard. We came to Mr. Crede’s store, +went in at the picket gate beside it and down the path to my own door, +which I unlocked. I felt for the candle on the table, lighted it, and +turned in surprise to discover that Mr. Wharton was poking up the fire +and pitching on a log of wood. He flung off his greatcoat and sat down +with his feet to the blaze. I sat down beside him and waited, thinking +him a sufficiently peculiar man. + +“You are not famous, Mr. Ritchie,” said he, presently. + +“No, sir,” I answered. + +“Nor particularly handsome,” he continued, “nor conspicuous in any way.” + +I agreed to this, perforce. + +“You may thank God for it,” said Mr. Wharton. + +“That would be a strange outpouring, sir,” said I. + +He looked at me and smiled. + +“What think you of this paragon, General Wilkinson?” he demanded +suddenly. + +“I have Federal leanings, sir,” I answered + +“Egad,” said he, “we’ll add caution to your lack of negative +accomplishments. I have had an eye on you this winter, though you did +not know it. I have made inquiries about you, and hence I am not here +to-night entirely through impulse. You have not made a fortune at the +law, but you have worked hard, steered wide of sensation, kept your +mouth shut. Is it not so?” + +Astonished, I merely nodded in reply. + +“I am not here to waste your time or steal your sleep,” he went on, +giving the log a push with his foot, “and I will come to the point. When +first laid eyes on this fine gentleman, General Wilkinson, I too fell +a victim to his charms. It was on the eve of this epoch-making trip of +which we heard so glowing an account to-night, and I made up my mind +that no Spaniard, however wily, could resist his persuasion. He said to +me, ‘Wharton, give me your crop of tobacco and I promise you to sell it +in spite of all the royal mandates that go out of Madrid.’ He went, he +saw, he conquered the obdurate Miro as he has apparently conquered the +rest of the world, and he actually came back in a chariot and four as +befitted him. A heavy crop of tobacco was raised in Kentucky that year. +I helped to raise it,” added Mr. Wharton, dryly. “I gave the General my +second crop, and he sent it down. Mr. Ritchie, I have to this day never +received a piastre for my merchandise, nor am I the only planter in this +situation. Yet General Wilkinson is prosperous.” + +My astonishment somewhat prevented me from replying to this, too. Was it +possible that Mr. Wharton meant to sue the General? I reflected while he +paused. I remembered how inconspicuous he had named me, and hope died. +Mr. Wharton did not look at me, but stared into the fire, for he was +plainly not a man to rail and rant. + +“Mr. Ritchie, you are young, but mark my words, that man Wilkinson will +bring Kentucky to ruin if he is not found out. The whole district from +Crab Orchard to Bear Grass is mad about him. Even Clark makes a fool of +himself--” + +“Colonel Clark, sir!” I cried. + +He put up a hand. + +“So you have some hot blood,” he said. “I know you love him. So do I, +or I should not have been there tonight. Do I blame his bitterness? Do I +blame--anything he does? The treatment he has had would bring a blush +of shame to the cheek of any nation save a republic. Republics are +wasteful, sir. In George Rogers Clark they have thrown away a general +who might some day have decided the fate of this country, they have left +to stagnate a man fit to lead a nation to war. And now he is ready +to intrigue against the government with any adventurer who may have +convincing ways and a smooth tongue.” + +“Mr. Wharton,” I said, rising, “did you come here to tell me this?” + +But Mr. Wharton continued to stare into the fire. + +“I like you the better for it, my dear sir,” said he, “and I assure +you that I mean no offence. Colonel Clark is enshrined in our hearts, +Democrats and Federalists alike. Whatever he may do, we shall love him +always. But this other man,--pooh!” he exclaimed, which was as near a +vigorous expression as he got. “Now, sir, to the point. I, too, am a +Federalist, a friend of Mr. Humphrey Marshall, and, as you know, we are +sadly in the minority in Kentucky now. I came here to-night to ask you +to undertake a mission in behalf of myself and certain other gentlemen, +and I assure you that my motives are not wholly mercenary.” He paused, +smiled, and put the tips of his fingers together. “I would willingly +lose every crop for the next ten years to convict this Wilkinson of +treason against the Federal government.” + +“Treason!” I repeated involuntarily. + +“Mr. Ritchie,” answered the planter, “I gave you credit for some +shrewdness. Do you suppose the Federal government does not realize the +danger of this situation in Kentucky. They have tried in vain to open +the Mississippi, and are too weak to do it. This man Wilkinson goes down +to see Miro, and Miro straightway opens the river to us through him. How +do you suppose Wilkinson did it? By his charming personality?” + +I said something, I know not what, as the light began to dawn on me. And +then I added, “I had not thought about the General.” + +“Ah,” replied Mr. Wharton, “just so. And now you may easily imagine that +General Wilkinson has come to a very pretty arrangement with Miro. For +a certain stipulated sum best known to Wilkinson and Miro, General +Wilkinson agrees gradually to detach Kentucky from the Union and join it +to his Catholic Majesty’s dominion of Louisiana. The bribe--the opening +of the river. What the government could not do Wilkinson did by the +lifting of his finger.” + +Still Mr. Wharton spoke without heat. + +“Mind you,” he said, “we have no proof of this, and that is my reason +for coming here to-night, Mr. Ritchie. I want you to get proof of it if +you can.” + +“You want me--” I said, bewildered. + +“I repeat that you are not handsome,”--I think he emphasized this +unduly,--“that you are self-effacing, inconspicuous; in short, you are +not a man to draw suspicion. You might travel anywhere and scarcely be +noticed,--I have observed that about you. In addition to this you are +wary, you are discreet, you are painstaking. I ask you to go first to +St. Louis, in Louisiana territory, and this for two reasons. First, +because it will draw any chance suspicion from your real objective, +New Orleans; and second, because it is necessary to get letters to New +Orleans from such leading citizens of St. Louis as Colonel Chouteau and +Monsieur Gratiot, and I will give you introductions to them. You are +then to take passage to New Orleans in a barge of furs which Monsieur +Gratiot is sending down. Mind, we do not expect that you will obtain +proof that Miro is paying Wilkinson money. If you do, so much the +better; but we believe that both are too sharp to leave any tracks. You +will make a report, however, upon the conditions under which our tobacco +is being received, and of all other matters which you may think germane +to the business in hand. Will you go?” + +I had made up my mind. + +“Yes, I will go,” I answered. + +“Good,” said Mr. Wharton, but with no more enthusiasm than he had +previously shown; “I thought I had not misjudged you. Is your law +business so onerous that you could not go to-morrow?” + +I laughed. + +“I think I could settle what affairs I have by noon, Mr. Wharton,” I +replied. + +“Egad, Mr. Ritchie, I like your manner,” said he; “and now for a few +details, and you may go to bed.” + +He sat with me half an hour longer, carefully reviewing his +instructions, and then he left me to a night of contemplation. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. TO ST. LOUIS + + +By eleven o’clock the next morning I had wound up my affairs, having +arranged with a young lawyer of my acquaintance to take over such cases +as I had, and I was busy in my room packing my saddle-bags for the +journey. The warm scents of spring were wafted through the open door +and window, smells of the damp earth giving forth the green things, and +tender shades greeted my eyes when I paused and raised my head to think. +Purple buds littered the black ground before my door-step, and against +the living green of the grass I saw the red stain of a robin’s breast as +he hopped spasmodically hither and thither, now pausing immovable with +his head raised, now tossing triumphantly a wriggling worm from the sod. +Suddenly he flew away, and I heard a voice from the street side that +brought me stark upright. + +“Hold there, neighbor; can you direct me to the mansion of that +celebrated barrister, Mr. Ritchie?” + +There was no mistaking that voice--it was Nicholas Temple’s. I heard a +laugh and an answer, the gate slammed, and Mr. Temple himself in a long +gray riding-coat, booted and spurred, stood before me. + +“Davy,” he cried, “come out here and hug me. Why, you look as if I were +your grandmother’s ghost.” + +“And if you were,” I answered, “you could not have surprised me more. +Where have you been?” + +“At Jonesboro, acting the gallant with the widow, winning and losing +skins and cow-bells and land at rattle-and-snap, horse-racing with that +wild Mr. Jackson. Faith, he near shot the top of my head off because I +beat him at Greasy Cove.” + +I laughed, despite my anxiety. + +“And Sevier?” I demanded. + +“You have not heard how Sevier got off?” exclaimed Nick. “Egad, that +was a crowning stroke of genius! Cozby and Evans, Captains Greene and +Gibson, and Sevier’s two boys whom you met on the Nollichucky rode over +the mountains to Morganton. Greene and Gibson and Sevier’s boys hid +themselves with the horses in a clump outside the town, while Cozby and +Evans, disguised as bumpkins in hunting shirts, jogged into the town +with Sevier’s racing mare between them. They jogged into the town, I +say, through the crowds of white trash, and rode up to the court-house +where Sevier was being tried for his life. Evans stood at the open door +and held the mare and gaped, while Cozby stalked in and shouldered +his way to the front within four feet of the bar, like a big, awkward +countryman. Jack Sevier saw him, and he saw Evans with the mare outside. +Then, by thunder, Cozby takes a step right up to the bar and cries +out, ‘Judge, aren’t you about done with that man?’ Faith, it was like +judgment day, such a mix-up as there was after that, and Nollichucky +Jack made three leaps and got on the mare, and in the confusion Cozby +and Evans were off too, and the whole State of North Carolina couldn’t +catch ‘em then.” Nick sighed. “I’d have given my soul to have been +there,” he said. + +“Come in,” said I, for lack of something better. + +“Cursed if you haven’t given me a sweet reception, Davy,” said he. “Have +you lost your practice, or is there a lady here, you rogue,” and he +poked into the cupboard with his stick. “Hullo, where are you going +now?” he added, his eye falling on the saddle-bags. + +I had it on my lips to say, and then I remembered Mr. Wharton’s +injunction. + +“I’m going on a journey,” said I. + +“When?” said Nick. + +“I leave in about an hour,” said I. + +He sat down. “Then I leave too,” he said. + +“What do you mean, Nick?” I demanded. + +“I mean that I will go with you,” said he. + +“But I shall be gone three months or more,” I protested. + +“I have nothing to do,” said Nick, placidly. + +A vague trouble had been working in my mind, but now the full horror +of it dawned upon me. I was going to St. Louis. Mrs. Temple and Harry +Riddle were gone there, so Polly Ann had avowed, and Nick could not +help meeting Riddle. Sorely beset, I bent over to roll up a shirt, and +refrained from answering. + +He came and laid a hand on my shoulder. + +“What the devil ails you, Davy?” he cried. “If it is an elopement, of +course I won’t press you. I’m hanged if I’ll make a third.” + +“It is no elopement,” I retorted, my face growing hot in spite of +myself. + +“Then I go with you,” said he, “for I vow you need taking care of. +You can’t put me off, I say. But never in my life have I had such a +reception, and from my own first cousin, too.” + +I was in a quandary, so totally unforeseen was this situation. And then +a glimmer of hope came to me that perhaps his mother and Riddle might +not be in St. Louis after all. I recalled the conversation in the cabin, +and reflected that this wayward pair had stranded on so many beaches, +had drifted off again on so many tides, that one place could scarce hold +them long. Perchance they had sunk,--who could tell? I turned to Nick, +who stood watching me. + +“It was not that I did not want you,” I said, “you must believe that. +I have wanted you ever since that night long ago when I slipped out of +your bed and ran away. I am going first to St. Louis and then to +New Orleans on a mission of much delicacy, a mission that requires +discretion and secrecy. You may come, with all my heart, with one +condition only--that you do not ask my business.” + +“Done!” cried Nick. “Davy, I was always sure of you; you are the one +fixed quantity in my life. To St. Louis, eh, and to New Orleans? Egad, +what havoc we’ll make among the Creole girls. May I bring my nigger? +He’ll do things for you too.” + +“By all means,” said I, laughing, “only hurry.” + +“I’ll run to the inn,” said Nick, “and be back in ten minutes.” He got +as far as the door, slapped his thigh, and looked back. “Davy, we may +run across--” + +“Who?” I asked, with a catch of my breath. + +“Harry Riddle,” he answered; “and if so, may God have mercy on his +soul!” + +He ran down the path, the gate clicked, and I heard him whistling in the +street on his way to the inn. + +After dinner we rode down to the ferry, Nick on the thoroughbred which +had beat Mr. Jackson’s horse, and his man, Benjy, on a scraggly pony +behind. Benjy was a small, black negro with a very squat nose, alert and +talkative save when Nick turned on him. Benjy had been born at Temple +Bow; he worshipped his master and all that pertained to him, and he +showered upon me all the respect and attention that was due to a member +of the Temple family. For this I was very grateful. It would have been +an easier journey had we taken a boat down to Fort Massac, but such a +proceeding might have drawn too much attention to our expedition. I +have no space to describe that trip overland, which reminded me at every +stage of the march against Kaskaskia, the woods, the chocolate streams, +the coffee-colored swamps flecked with dead leaves,--and at length the +prairies, the grass not waist-high now, but young and tender, giving +forth the acrid smell of spring. Nick was delighted. He made me recount +every detail of my trials as a drummer boy, or kept me in continuous +spells of laughter over his own escapades. In short, I began to realize +that we were as near to each other as though we had never been parted. + +We looked down upon Kaskaskia from the self-same spot where I had stood +on the bluff with Colonel Clark, and the sounds were even then the +same,--the sweet tones of the church bell and the lowing of the cattle. +We found a few Virginians and Pennsylvanians scattered in amongst the +French, the forerunners of that change which was to come over this +country. And we spent the night with my old friend, Father Gibault, +still the faithful pastor of his flock; cheerful, though the savings of +his lifetime had never been repaid by that country to which he had given +his allegiance so freely. Travelling by easy stages, on the afternoon of +the second day after leaving Kaskaskia we picked our way down the high +bluff that rises above the American bottom, and saw below us that yellow +monster among the rivers, the Mississippi. A blind monster he seemed, +searching with troubled arms among the islands for his bed, swept onward +by an inexorable force, and on his heaving shoulders he carried great +trees pilfered from the unknown forests of the North. + +Down in the moist and shady bottom we came upon the log hut of a +half-breed trapper, and he agreed to ferry us across. As for our horses, +a keel boat must be sent after these, and Monsieur Gratiot would no +doubt easily arrange for this. And so we found ourselves, about five +o’clock on that Saturday evening, embarked in a wide pirogue on the +current, dodging the driftwood, avoiding the eddies, and drawing near +to a village set on a low bluff on the Spanish side and gleaming white +among the trees. And as I looked, the thought came again like a twinge +of pain that Mrs. Temple and Riddle might be there, thinking themselves +secure in this spot, so removed from the world and its doings. + +“How now, my man of mysterious affairs?” cried Nick, from the bottom of +the boat; “you are as puckered as a sour persimmon. Have you a treaty +with Spain in your pocket or a declaration of war? What can trouble +you?” + +“Nothing, if you do not,” I answered, smiling. + +“Lord send we don’t admire the same lady, then,” said Nick. “Pierrot,” + he cried, turning to one of the boatmen, “il y a des belles demoiselles +là, n’est-ce pas?” + +The man missed a stroke in his astonishment, and the boat swung +lengthwise in the swift current. + +“Dame, Monsieur, il y en a,” he answered. + +“Where did you learn French, Nick?” I demanded. + +“Mr. Mason had it hammered into me,” he answered carelessly, his eyes on +the line of keel boats moored along the shore. Our guides shot the canoe +deftly between two of these, the prow grounded in the yellow mud, and we +landed on Spanish territory. + +We looked about us while our packs were being unloaded, and the place +had a strange flavor in that year of our Lord, 1789. A swarthy boatman +in a tow shirt with a bright handkerchief on his head stared at us over +the gunwale of one of the keel boats, and spat into the still, yellow +water; three high-cheeked Indians, with smudgy faces and dirty red +blankets, regarded us in silent contempt; and by the water-side above +us was a sled loaded with a huge water cask, a bony mustang pony between +the shafts, and a chanting negro dipping gourdfuls from the river. A +road slanted up the little limestone bluff, and above and below us stone +houses could be seen nestling into the hill, houses higher on the river +side, and with galleries there. We climbed the bluff, Benjy at our heels +with the saddle-bags, and found ourselves on a yellow-clay street lined +with grass and wild flowers. A great peace hung over the village, an air +of a different race, a restfulness strange to a Kentuckian. Clematis and +honeysuckle climbed the high palings, and behind the privacy of these, +low, big-chimneyed houses of limestone, weathered gray, could be seen, +their roofs sloping in gentle curves to the shaded porches in front; +or again, houses of posts set upright in the ground and these filled +between with plaster, and so immaculately whitewashed that they gleamed +against the green of the trees which shaded them. Behind the houses was +often a kind of pink-and-cream paradise of flowering fruit trees, so +dear to the French settlers. There were vineyards, too, and thrifty +patches of vegetables, and lines of flowers set in the carefully raked +mould. + +We walked on, enraptured by the sights around us, by the heavy scent +of the roses and the blossoms. Here was a quaint stone horse-mill, a +stable, or a barn set uncouthly on the street; a baker’s shop, with a +glimpse of the white-capped baker through the shaded doorway, and an +appetizing smell of hot bread in the air. A little farther on we heard +the tinkle of the blacksmith’s hammer, and the man himself looked up +from where the hoof rested on his leather apron to give us a kindly +“Bon soir, Messieurs,” as we passed. And here was a cabaret, with the +inevitable porch, from whence came the sharp click of billiard balls. + +We walked on, stopping now and again to peer between the palings, when +we heard, amidst the rattling of a cart and the jingling of bells, a +chorus of voices:-- + + “À cheval, à cheval, pour aller voir ma mie, + Lon, lon, la!” + +A shaggy Indian pony came ambling around the corner between the long +shafts of a charette. A bareheaded young man in tow shirt and trousers +was driving, and three laughing girls were seated on the stools in the +cart behind him. Suddenly, before I quite realized what had happened, +the young man pulled up the pony, the girls fell silent, and Nick was +standing in the middle of the road, with his hat in his hand, bowing +elaborately. + +“Je vous salue, Mesdemoiselles,” he cried, “mes anges à char-à-banc. +Pouvez-vous me diriger chez Monsieur Gratiot?” + +“Sapristi!” exclaimed the young man, but he laughed. The young women +stood up, giggling, and peered at Nick over the young man’s shoulder. +One of them wore a fresh red-and-white calamanco gown. She had a +complexion of ivory tinged with red, raven hair, and dusky, long-lashed, +mischievous eyes brimming with merriment. + +“Volontiers, Monsieur,” she answered, before the others could catch +their breath, “première droite et première gauche. Allons, Gaspard!” she +cried, tapping the young man sharply on the shoulder, “es tu fou?” + +Gaspard came to himself, flicked the pony, and they went off down the +road with shouts of laughter, while Nick stood waving his hat until they +turned the corner. + +“Egad,” said he, “I’d take to the highway if I could be sure of holding +up such a cargo every time. Off with you, Benjy, and find out where +she lives,” he cried; and the obedient Benjy dropped the saddle-bags as +though such commands were not uncommon. + +“Pick up those bags, Benjy,” said I, laughing. + +Benjy glanced uncertainly at his master. + +“Do as I tell you, you black scalawag,” said Nick, “or I’ll tan you. +What are you waiting for?” + +“Marse Dave--” began Benjy, rolling his eyes in discomfiture. + +“Look you, Nick Temple,” said I, “when you shipped with me you promised +that I should command. I can’t afford to have the town about our ears.” + +“Oh, very well, if you put it that way,” said Nick. “A little honest +diversion--Pick up the bags, Benjy, and follow the parson.” + +Obeying Mademoiselle’s directions, we trudged on until we came to a +comfortable stone house surrounded by trees and set in a half-block +bordered by a seven-foot paling. Hardly had we opened the gate when a +tall gentleman of grave demeanor and sober dress rose from his seat on +the porch, and I recognized my friend of Cahokia days, Monsieur Gratiot. +He was a little more portly, his hair was dressed now in an eelskin, +and he looked every inch the man of affairs that he was. He greeted +us kindly and bade us come up on the porch, where he read my letter of +introduction. + +“Why,” he exclaimed immediately, giving me a cordial grasp of the hand +“of course. The strategist, the John Law, the reader of character of +Colonel Clark’s army. Yes, and worse, the prophet, Mr. Ritchie.” + +“And why worse, sir?” I asked. + +“You predicted that Congress would never repay me for the little loan I +advanced to your Colonel.” + +“It was not such a little loan, Monsieur,” I said. + +“N’importe,” said he; “I went to Richmond with my box of scrip and +promissory notes, but I was not ill repaid. If I did not get my money, +I acquired, at least, a host of distinguished acquaintances. But, Mr. +Ritchie, you must introduce me to your friend.” + +“My cousin, Mr. Nicholas Temple,” I said. + +Monsieur Gratiot looked at him fixedly. + +“Of the Charlestown Temples?” he asked, and a sudden vague fear seized +me. + +“Yes,” said Nick, “there was once a family of that name.” + +“And now?” said Monsieur Gratiot, puzzled. + +“Now,” said Nick, “now they are become a worthless lot of refugees and +outlaws, who by good fortune have escaped the gallows.” + +Before Monsieur Gratiot could answer, a child came running around the +corner of the house and stood, surprised, staring at us. Nick made a +face, stooped down, and twirled his finger. Shouting with a terrified +glee, the boy fled to the garden path, Nick after him. + +“I like Mr. Temple,” said Monsieur Gratiot, smiling. “He is young, but +he seems to have had a history.” + +“The Revolution ruined many families--his was one,” I answered, with +what firmness of tone I could muster. And then Nick came back, carrying +the shouting youngster on his shoulders. At that instant a lady appeared +in the doorway, leading another child, and we were introduced to Madame +Gratiot. + +“Gentlemen,” said Monsieur Gratiot, “you must make my house your home. +I fear your visit will not be as long as I could wish, Mr. Ritchie,” he +added, turning to me, “if Mr. Wharton correctly states your business. I +have an engagement to have my furs in New Orleans by a certain time. +I am late in loading, and as there is a moon I am sending off my boats +to-morrow night. The men will have to work on Sunday.” + +“We were fortunate to come in such good season,” I answered. + +After a delicious supper of gumbo, a Creole dish, of fricassee, of crême +brûlé, of red wine and fresh wild strawberries, we sat on the porch. The +crickets chirped in the garden, the moon cast fantastic shadows from the +pecan tree on the grass, while Nick, struggling with his French, talked +to Madame Gratiot; and now and then their gay laughter made Monsieur +Gratiot pause and smile as he talked to me of my errand. It seemed +strange to me that a man who had lost so much by his espousal of our +cause should still be faithful to the American republic. Although he +lived in Louisiana, he had never renounced the American allegiance which +he had taken at Cahokia. He regarded with no favor the pretensions of +Spain toward Kentucky. And (remarkably enough) he looked forward even +then to the day when Louisiana would belong to the republic. I exclaimed +at this. + +“Mr. Ritchie,” said he, “the most casual student of your race must come +to the same conclusion. You have seen for yourself how they have overrun +and conquered Kentucky and the Cumberland districts, despite a hideous +warfare waged by all the tribes. Your people will not be denied, and +when they get to Louisiana, they will take it, as they take everything +else.” + +He was a man strong in argument, was Monsieur Gratiot, for he loved it. +And he beat me fairly. + +“Nay,” he said finally, “Spain might as well try to dam the Mississippi +as to dam your commerce on it. As for France, I love her, though my +people were exiled to Switzerland by the Edict of Nantes. But France is +rotten through the prodigality of her kings and nobles, and she cannot +hold Louisiana. The kingdom is sunk in debt.” He cleared his throat. “As +for this Wilkinson of whom you speak, I know something of him. I have +no doubt that Miro pensions him, but I know Miro likewise, and you will +obtain no proof of that. You will, however, discover in New Orleans +many things of interest to your government and to the Federal party in +Kentucky. Colonel Chouteau and I will give you letters to certain French +gentlemen in New Orleans who can be trusted. There is Saint-Gré, for +instance, who puts a French Louisiana into his prayers. He has never +forgiven O’Reilly and his Spaniards for the murder of his father in +sixty-nine. Saint-Gré is a good fellow,--a cousin of the present Marquis +in France,--and his ancestors held many positions of trust in the +colony under the French régime. He entertains lavishly at Les Îles, his +plantation on the Mississippi. He has the gossip of New Orleans at his +tongue’s tip, and you will be suspected of nothing save a desire +to amuse yourselves if you go there.” He paused, interrupted by the +laughter of the others. “When strangers of note or of position +drift here and pass on to New Orleans, I always give them letters to +Saint-Gré. He has a charming daughter and a worthless son.” + +Monsieur Gratiot produced his tabatière and took a pinch of snuff. I +summoned my courage for the topic which had trembled all the evening on +my lips. + +“Some years ago, Monsieur Gratiot, a lady and a gentleman were rescued +on the Wilderness Trail in Kentucky. They left us for St. Louis. Did +they come here?” + +Monsieur Gratiot leaned forward quickly. + +“They were people of quality?” he demanded. + +“Yes.” + +“And their name?” + +“They--they did not say.” + +“It must have been the Clives,” he cried; “it can have been no other. +Tell me--a woman still beautiful, commanding, of perhaps eight and +thirty? A woman who had a sorrow?--a great sorrow, though we have never +learned it. And Mr. Clive, a man of fashion, ill content too, and pining +for the life of a capital?” + +“Yes,” I said eagerly, my voice sinking near to a whisper, “yes--it is +they. And are they here?” + +Monsieur Gratiot took another pinch of snuff. It seemed an age before he +answered:-- + +“It is curious that you should mention them, for I gave them letters to +New Orleans,--amongst others, to Saint-Gré. Mrs. Clive was--what shall +I say?--haunted. Monsieur Clive talked of nothing but Paris, where they +had lived once. And at last she gave in. They have gone there.” + +“To Paris?” I said, taking breath. + +“Yes. It is more than a year ago,” he continued, seeming not to notice +my emotion; “they went by way of New Orleans, in one of Chouteau’s +boats. Mrs. Clive seemed a woman with a great sorrow.” + + + + + +CHAPTER IX. “CHERCHEZ LA FEMME” + + +Sunday came with the soft haziness of a June morning, and the dew sucked +a fresh fragrance from the blossoms and the grass. I looked out of our +window at the orchard, all pink and white in the early sun, and across +a patch of clover to the stone kitchen. A pearly, feathery smoke was +wafted from the chimney, a delicious aroma of Creole coffee pervaded the +odor of the blossoms, and a cotton-clad negro à pieds nus came down the +path with two steaming cups and knocked at our door. He who has tasted +Creole coffee will never forget it. The effect of it was lost upon Nick, +for he laid down the cup, sighed, and promptly went to sleep again, +while I dressed and went forth to make his excuses to the family. I +found Monsieur and Madame with their children walking among the flowers. +Madame laughed. + +“He is charming, your cousin,” said she. “Let him sleep, by all means, +until after Mass. Then you must come with us to Madame Chouteau’s, my +mother’s. Her children and grandchildren dine with her every Sunday.” + +“Madame Chouteau, my mother-in-law, is the queen regent of St. Louis, +Mr. Ritchie,” said Monsieur Gratiot, gayly. “We are all afraid of her, +and I warn you that she is a very determined and formidable personage. +She is the widow of the founder of St. Louis, the Sieur Laclède, +although she prefers her own name. She rules us with a strong hand, +dispenses justice, settles disputes, and--sometimes indulges in them +herself. It is her right.” + +“You will see a very pretty French custom of submission to parents,” +said Madame Gratiot. “And afterwards there is a ball.” + +“A ball!” I exclaimed involuntarily. + +“It may seem very strange to you, Mr. Ritchie, but we believe that +Sunday was made to enjoy. They will have time to attend the ball before +you send them down the river?” she added mischievously, turning to her +husband. + +“Certainly,” said he, “the loading will not be finished before eight +o’clock.” + +Presently Madame Gratiot went off to Mass, while I walked with Monsieur +Gratiot to a storehouse near the river’s bank, whence the skins, neatly +packed and numbered, were being carried to the boats on the +sweating shoulders of the negroes, the half-breeds, and the Canadian +boatmen,--bulky bales of yellow elk, from the upper plains of the +Missouri, of buffalo and deer and bear, and priceless little packages +of the otter and the beaver trapped in the green shade of the endless +Northern forests, and brought hither in pirogues down the swift river by +the red tribesmen and Canadian adventurers. + +Afterwards I strolled about the silent village. Even the cabarets were +deserted. A private of the Spanish Louisiana Regiment in a dirty uniform +slouched behind the palings in front of the commandant’s quarters,--a +quaint stone house set against the hill, with dormer windows in its +curving roof, with a wide porch held by eight sturdy hewn pillars; +here and there the muffled figure of a prowling Indian loitered, or a +barefooted negress shuffled along by the fence crooning a folk-song. All +the world had obeyed the call of the church bell save these--and Nick. I +bethought myself of Nick, and made my way back to Monsieur Gratiot’s. + +I found my cousin railing at Benjy, who had extracted from the +saddle-bags a wondrous gray suit of London cut in which to array his +master. Clothes became Nick’s slim figure remarkably. This coat was cut +away smartly, like a uniform, towards the tails, and was brought in at +the waist with an infinite art. + +“Whither now, my conquistador?” I said. + +“To Mass,” said he. + +“To Mass!” I exclaimed; “but you have slept through the greater part of +it.” + +“The best part is to come,” said Nick, giving a final touch to his +neck-band. Followed by Benjy’s adoring eyes, he started out of the door, +and I followed him perforce. We came to the little church, of upright +logs and plaster, with its crudely shingled, peaked roof, with its tiny +belfry crowned by a cross, with its porches on each side shading the +line of windows there. Beside the church, a little at the back, was the +curé’s modest house of stone, and at the other hand, under spreading +trees, the graveyard with its rough wooden crosses. And behind these +graves rose the wooded hill that stretched away towards the wilderness. + +What a span of life had been theirs who rested here! Their youth, +perchance, had been spent amongst the crooked streets of some French +village, streets lined by red-tiled houses and crossing limpid streams +by quaint bridges. Death had overtaken them beside a monster tawny +river of which their imaginations had not conceived, a river which draws +tribute from the remote places of an unknown land,--a river, indeed, +which, mixing all the waters, seemed to symbolize a coming race which +was to conquer the land by its resistless flow, even as the Mississippi +bore relentlessly towards the sea. + +These were my own thoughts as I listened to the tones of the priest as +they came, droningly, out of the door, while Nick was exchanging jokes +in doubtful French with some half-breeds leaning against the palings. +Then we heard benches scraping on the floor, and the congregation began +to file out. + +Those who reached the steps gave back, respectfully, and there came an +elderly lady in a sober turban, a black mantilla wrapped tightly about +her shoulders, and I made no doubt that she was Monsieur Gratiot’s +mother-in-law, Madame Chouteau, she whom he had jestingly called the +queen regent. I was sure of this when I saw Madame Gratiot behind her. +Madame Chouteau indeed had the face of authority, a high-bridged nose, a +determined chin, a mouth that shut tightly. Madame Gratiot presented us +to her mother, and as she passed on to the gate Madame Chouteau reminded +us that we were to dine with her at two. + +After her the congregation, the well-to-do and the poor alike, poured +out of the church and spread in merry groups over the grass: keel +boatmen in tow shirts and party-colored worsted belts, the blacksmith, +the shoemaker, the farmer of a small plot in the common fields in +large cotton pantaloons and light-wove camlet coat, the more favored in +skull-caps, linen small-clothes, cotton stockings, and silver-buckled +shoes,--every man pausing, dipping into his tabatière, for a word with +his neighbor. The women, too, made a picture strange to our eyes, the +matrons in jacket and petticoat, a Madras handkerchief flung about their +shoulders, the girls in fresh cottonade or calamanco. + +All at once cries of “‘Polyte! ‘Polyte!” were heard, and a nimble young +man with a jester-like face hopped around the corner of the church, +trundling a barrel. Behind ‘Polyte came two rotund little men perspiring +freely, and laden down with various articles,--a bird-cage with two +yellow birds, a hat-trunk, an inlaid card box, a roll of scarlet cloth, +and I know not what else. They deposited these on the grass beside the +barrel, which ‘Polyte had set on end and proceeded to mount, encouraged +by the shouts of his friends, who pressed around the barrel. + +“It’s an auction,” I said. + +But Nick did not hear me. I followed his glance to the far side of the +circle, and my eye was caught by a red ribbon, a blush that matched it. +A glance shot from underneath long lashes,--but not for me. Beside +the girl, and palpably uneasy, stood the young man who had been called +Gaspard. + +“Ah,” said I, “your angel of the tumbrel.” + +But Nick had pulled off his hat and was sweeping her a bow. The girl +looked down, smoothing her ribbon, Gaspard took a step forward, and +other young women near us tittered with delight. The voice of Hippolyte +rolling his r’s called out in a French dialect:-- + +“M’ssieurs et Mesdames, ce sont des effets d’un pauvre officier qui est +mort. Who will buy?” He opened the hat-trunk, produced an antiquated +beaver with a gold cord, and surveyed it with a covetousness that was +admirably feigned. For ‘Polyte was an actor. “M’ssieurs, to own such a +hat were a patent of nobility. Am I bid twenty livres?” + +There was a loud laughter, and he was bid four. + +“Gaspard,” cried the auctioneer, addressing the young man of the +tumbrel, “Suzanne would no longer hesitate if she saw you in such a hat. +And with the trunk, too. Ah, mon Dieu, can you afford to miss it?” + +The crowd howled, Suzanne simpered, and Gaspard turned as pink as +clover. But he was not to be bullied. The hat was sold to an elderly +person, the red cloth likewise; a pot of grease went to a housewife, and +there was a veritable scramble for the box of playing cards; and at last +Hippolyte held up the wooden cage with the fluttering yellow birds. + +“Ha!” he cried, his eyes on Gaspard once more, “a gentle present--a +present to make a heart relent. And Monsieur Léon, perchance you will +make a bid, although they are not gamecocks.” + +Instantly, from somewhere under the barrel, a cock crew. Even the yellow +birds looked surprised, and as for ‘Polyte, he nearly dropped the cage. +One elderly person crossed himself. I looked at Nick. His face was +impassive, but suddenly I remembered his boyhood gift, how he had +imitated the monkeys, and I began to shake with inward laughter. There +was an uncomfortable silence. + +“Peste, c’est la magie!” said an old man at last, searching with an +uncertain hand for his snuff. + +“Monsieur,” cried Nick to the auctioneer, “I will make a bid. But first +you must tell me whether they are cocks or yellow birds.” + +“Parbleu,” answered the puzzled Hippolyte, “that I do not know, +Monsieur.” + +Everybody looked at Nick, including Suzanne. + +“Very well,” said he, “I will make a bid. And if they turn out to be +gamecocks, I will fight them with Monsieur Léon behind the cabaret. Two +livres!” + +There was a laugh, as of relief. + +“Three!” cried Gaspard, and his voice broke. + +Hippolyte looked insulted. + +“M’ssieurs,” he shouted, “they are from the Canaries. Diable, un berger +doit être généreux.” + +Another laugh, and Gaspard wiped the perspiration from his face. + +“Five!” said he. + +“Six!” said Nick, and the villagers turned to him in wonderment. What +could such a fine Monsieur want with two yellow birds? + +“En avant, Gaspard,” said Hippolyte, and Suzanne shot another barbed +glance in our direction. + +“Seven,” muttered Gaspard. + +“Eight!” said Nick, immediately. + +“Nine,” said Gaspard. + +“Ten,” said Nick. + +“Ten,” cried Hippolyte, “I am offered ten livres for the yellow birds. +Une bagatelle! Onze, Gaspard! Onze! onze livres, pour l’amour de +Suzanne!” + +But Gaspard was silent. No appeals, entreaties, or taunts could persuade +him to bid more. And at length Hippolyte, with a gesture of disdain, +handed Nick the cage, as though he were giving it away. + +“Monsieur,” he said, “the birds are yours, since there are no more +lovers who are worthy of the name. They do not exist.” + +“Monsieur,” answered Nick, “it is to disprove that statement that I +have bought the birds. Mademoiselle,” he added, turning to the flushing +Suzanne, “I pray that you will accept this present with every assurance +of my humble regard.” + +Mademoiselle took the cage, and amidst the laughter of the village at +the discomfiture of poor Gaspard, swept Nick a frightened courtesy,--one +that nevertheless was full of coquetry. And at that instant, to cap the +situation, a rotund little man with a round face under a linen biretta +grasped Nick by the hand, and cried in painful but sincere English:-- + +“Monsieur, you mek my daughter ver’ happy. She want those bird ever +sence Captain Lopez he die. Monsieur, I am Jean Baptiste Lenoir, Colonel +Chouteau’s miller, and we ver’ happy to see you at the pon’.” + +“If Monsieur will lead the way,” said Nick, instantly, taking the little +man by the arm. + +“But you are to dine at Madame Chouteau’s,” I expostulated. + +“To be sure,” said he. “Au revoir, Monsieur. Au revoir, Mademoiselle. +Plus tard, Mademoiselle; nous danserons plus tard.” + +“What devil inhabits you?” I said, when I had got him started on the way +to Madame Chouteau’s. + +“Your own, at present, Davy,” he answered, laying a hand on my shoulder, +“else I should be on the way to the pon’ with Lenoir. But the ball is to +come,” and he executed several steps in anticipation. “Davy, I am sorry +for you.” + +“Why?” I demanded, though feeling a little self-commiseration also. + +“You will never know how to enjoy yourself,” said he, with conviction. + +Madame Chouteau lived in a stone house, wide and low, surrounded by +trees and gardens. It was a pretty tribute of respect her children and +grandchildren paid her that day, in accordance with the old French usage +of honoring the parent. I should like to linger on the scene, and tell +how Nick made them all laugh over the story of Suzanne Lenoir and the +yellow birds, and how the children pressed around him and made him +imitate all the denizens of wood and field, amid deafening shrieks of +delight. + +“You have probably delayed Gaspard’s wooing another year, Mr. Temple. +Suzanne is a sad coquette,” said Colonel Auguste Chouteau, laughing, as +we set out for the ball. + +The sun was hanging low over the western hills as we approached the +barracks, and out of the open windows came the merry, mad sounds of +violin, guitar, and flageolet, the tinkle of a triangle now and then, +the shouts of laughter, the shuffle of many feet over the puncheons. +Within the door, smiling and benignant, unmindful of the stifling +atmosphere, sat the black-robed village priest talking volubly to an +elderly man in a scarlet cap, and several stout ladies ranged along the +wall: beyond them, on a platform, Zéron, the baker, fiddled as though +his life depended on it, the perspiration dripping from his brow, +frowning, gesticulating at them with the flageolet and the triangle. And +in a dim, noisy, heated whirl the whole village went round and round and +round under the low ceiling in the valse, young and old, rich and poor, +high and low, the sound of their laughter and the scraping of their feet +cut now and again by an agonized squeak from Zéron’s fiddle. From time +to time a staggering, panting couple would fling themselves out, help +themselves liberally to pink sirop from the bowl on the side table, +and then fling themselves in once more, until Zéron stopped from sheer +exhaustion, to tune up for a pas de deux. + +Across the room, by the sirop bowl, a pair of red ribbons flaunted, a +pair of eyes sent a swift challenge, Zéron and his assistants struck +up again, and there in a corner was Nick Temple, with characteristic +effrontery attempting a pas de deux with Suzanne. Though Nick was +ignorant, he was not ungraceful, and the village laughed and admired. +And when Zéron drifted back into a valse he seized Suzanne’s plump +figure in his arms and bore her, unresisting, like a prize among +the dancers, avoiding alike the fat and unwieldy, the clumsy and the +spiteful. For a while the tune held its mad pace, and ended with a +shriek and a snap on a high note, for Zéron had broken a string. Amid a +burst of laughter from the far end of the room I saw Nick stop before an +open window in which a prying Indian was framed, swing Suzanne at arm’s +length, and bow abruptly at the brave with a grunt that startled him +into life. + +“Va-t’en, méchant!” shrieked Suzanne, excitedly. + +Poor Gaspard! Poor Hippolyte! They would gain Suzanne for a dance only +to have her snatched away at the next by the slim and reckless young +gentleman in the gray court clothes. Little Nick cared that the affair +soon became the amusement of the company. From time to time, as he +glided past with Suzanne on his shoulder, he nodded gayly to Colonel +Chouteau or made a long face at me, and to save our souls we could not +help laughing. + +“The girl has met her match, for she has played shuttle-cock with all +the hearts in the village,” said Monsieur Chouteau. “But perhaps it is +just as well that Mr. Temple is leaving to-night. I have signed a bon, +Mr. Ritchie, by which you can obtain money at New Orleans. And do +not forget to present our letter to Monsieur de Saint Gré. He has a +daughter, by the way, who will be more of a match for your friend’s +fascinations than Suzanne.” + +The evening faded into twilight, with no signs of weariness from the +dancers. And presently there stood beside us Jean Baptiste Lenoir, the +Colonel’s miller. + +“B’soir, Monsieur le Colonel,” he said, touching his skull-cap, “the +water is very low. You fren’,” he added, turning to me, “he stay long +time in St. Louis?” + +“He is going away to-night,--in an hour or so,” I answered, with +thanksgiving in my heart. + +“I am sorry,” said Monsieur Lenoir, politely, but his looks belied his +words. “He is ver’ fond Suzanne. Peut-être he marry her, but I think +not. I come away from France to escape the fine gentlemen; long time ago +they want to run off with my wife. She was like Suzanne.” + +“How long ago did you come from France, Monsieur?” I asked, to get away +from an uncomfortable subject. + +“It is twenty years,” said he, dreamily, in French. “I was born in the +Quartier Saint Jean, on the harbor of the city of Marseilles near +Notre Dame de la Nativité.” And he told of a tall, uneven house of four +stories, with a high pitched roof, and a little barred door and window +at the bottom giving out upon the rough cobbles. He spoke of the smell +of the sea, of the rollicking sailors who surged through the narrow +street to embark on his Majesty’s men-of-war, and of the King’s white +soldiers in ranks of four going to foreign lands. And how he had become +a farmer, the tenant of a country family. Excitement grew on him, and he +mopped his brow with his blue rumal handkerchief. + +“They desire all, the nobles,” he cried, “I make the land good, and +they seize it. I marry a pretty wife, and Monsieur le Comte he want her. +L’bon Dieu,” he added bitterly, relapsing into French. “France is for +the King and the nobility, Monsieur. The poor have but little chance +there. In the country I have seen the peasants eat roots, and in the +city the poor devour the refuse from the houses of the rich. It was we +who paid for their luxuries, and with mine own eyes I have seen their +gilded coaches ride down weak men and women in the streets. But it +cannot last. They will murder Louis and burn the great châteaux. I, who +speak to you, am of the people, Monsieur, I know it.” + +The sun had long set, and with flint and tow they were touching +the flame to the candles, which flickered transparent yellow in the +deepening twilight. So absorbed had I become in listening to Lenoir’s +description that I had forgotten Nick. Now I searched for him among the +promenading figures, and missed him. In vain did I seek for a glimpse +of Suzanne’s red ribbons, and I grew less and less attentive to the +miller’s reminiscences and arraignments of the nobility. Had Nick indeed +run away with his daughter? + +The dancing went on with unabated zeal, and through the open door in the +fainting azure of the sky the summer moon hung above the hills like a +great yellow orange. Striving to hide my uneasiness, I made my farewells +to Madame Chouteau’s sons and daughters and their friends, and with +Colonel Chouteau I left the hall and began to walk towards Monsieur +Gratiot’s, hoping against hope that Nick had gone there to change. But +we had scarce reached the road before we could see two figures in the +distance, hazily outlined in the mid-light of the departed sun and the +coming moon. The first was Monsieur Gratiot himself, the second Benjy. +Monsieur Gratiot took me by the hand. + +“I regret to inform you, Mr. Ritchie,” said he, politely, “that my keel +boats are loaded and ready to leave. Were you on any other errand I +should implore you to stay with us.” + +“Is Temple at your house?” I asked faintly. + +“Why, no,” said Monsieur Gratiot; “I thought he was with you at the +ball.” + +“Where is your master?” I demanded sternly of Benjy. + +“I ain’t seed him, Marse Dave, sence I put him inter dem fine clothes +‘at he w’ars a-cou’tin’.” + +“He has gone off with the girl,” put in Colonel Chouteau, laughing. + +“But where?” I said, with growing anger at this lack of consideration on +Nick’s part. + +“I’ll warrant that Gaspard or Hippolyte Beaujais will know, if they can +be found,” said the Colonel. “Neither of them willingly lets the girl +out of his sight.” + +As we hurried back towards the throbbing sounds of Zéron’s fiddle I +apologized as best I might to Monsieur Gratiot, declaring that if Nick +were not found within the half-hour I would leave without him. My host +protested that an hour or so would make no difference. We were about to +pass through the group of loungers that loitered by the gate when the +sound of rapid footsteps arrested us, and we turned to confront two +panting and perspiring young men who halted beside us. One was Hippolyte +Beaujais, more fantastic than ever as he faced the moon, and the other +was Gaspard. They had plainly made a common cause, but it was Hippolyte +who spoke. + +“Monsieur,” he cried, “you seek your friend? Ha, we have found him,--we +will lead you to him.” + +“Where is he?” said Colonel Chouteau, repressing another laugh. + +“On the pond, Monsieur,--in a boat, Monsieur, with Suzanne, Monsieur le +Colonel! And, moreover, he will come ashore for no one.” + +“Parbleu,” said the Colonel, “I should think not for any arguments that +you two could muster. But we will go there.” + +“How far is it?” I asked, thinking of Monsieur Gratiot. + +“About a mile,” said Colonel Chouteau, “a pleasant walk.” + +We stepped out, Hippolyte and Gaspard running in front, the Colonel and +Monsieur Gratiot and myself following; and a snicker which burst out +now and then told us that Benjy was in the rear. On any other errand I +should have thought the way beautiful, for the country road, rutted by +wooden wheels, wound in and out through pleasant vales and over gentle +rises, whence we caught glimpses from time to time of the Mississippi +gleaming like molten gold to the eastward. Here and there, nestling +against the gentle slopes of the hillside clearing, was a low-thatched +farmhouse among its orchards. As we walked, Nick’s escapade, instead of +angering Monsieur Gratiot, seemed to present itself to him in a more and +more ridiculous aspect, and twice he nudged me to call my attention to +the two vengefully triumphant figures silhouetted against the moon +ahead of us. From time to time also I saw Colonel Chouteau shaking +with laughter. As for me, it was impossible to be angry at Nick for +any space. Nobody else would have carried off a girl in the face of her +rivals for a moonlight row on a pond a mile away. + +At length we began to go down into the valley where Chouteau’s pond +was, and we caught glimpses of the shimmering of its waters through the +trees, ay, and presently heard them tumbling lightly over the mill-dam. +The spot was made for romance,--a sequestered vale, clad with forest +trees, cleared a little by the water-side, where Monsieur Lenoir raised +his maize and his vegetables. Below the mill, so Monsieur Gratiot told +me, where the creek lay in pools on its limestone bed, the village +washing was done; and every Monday morning bare-legged negresses strode +up this road, the bundles of clothes balanced on their heads, the +paddles in their hands, followed by a stream of black urchins who +tempted Providence to drown them. + +Down in the valley we came to a path that branched from the road and +led under the oaks and hickories towards the pond, and we had not taken +twenty paces in it before the notes of a guitar and the sound of a voice +reached our ears. And then, when the six of us stood huddled in the rank +growth at the water’s edge, we saw a boat floating idly in the forest +shadow on the far side. + +I put my hand to my mouth. + +“Nick!” I shouted. + +There came for an answer, with the careless and unskilful thrumming of +the guitar, the end of the verse:-- + + “Thine eyes are bright as the stars at night, + Thy cheeks like the rose of the dawning, oh!” + +“Hélas!” exclaimed Hippolyte, sadly, “there is no other boat.” + +“Nick!” I shouted again, reënforced vociferously by the others. + +The music ceased, there came feminine laughter across the water, then +Nick’s voice, in French that dared everything:-- + +“Go away and amuse yourselves at the dance. Peste, it is scarce an hour +ago I threatened to row ashore and break your heads. Allez vous en, +jaloux!” + +A scream of delight from Suzanne followed this sally, which was received +by Gaspard and Hippolyte with a rattle of sacrés, and--despite our +irritation--the Colonel, Monsieur Gratiot, and myself with a burst of +involuntary laughter. + +“Parbleu,” said the Colonel, choking, “it is a pity to disturb such a +one. Gratiot, if it was my boat, I’d delay the departure till morning.” + +“Indeed, I shall have had no small entertainment as a solace,” said +Monsieur Gratiot. “Listen!” + +The tinkle of the guitar was heard again, and Nick’s voice, strong and +full and undisturbed:-- + + “S’posin’ I was to go to N’ O’leans an’ take sick an’ die, + Like a bird into the country my spirit would fly. + Go ‘way, old man, and leave me alone, + For I am a stranger and a long way from home.” + +There was a murmur of voices in the boat, the sound of a paddle gurgling +as it dipped, and the dugout shot out towards the middle of the pond and +drifted again. + +I shouted once more at the top of my lungs:-- + +“Come in here, Nick, instantly!” + +There was a moment’s silence. + +“By gad, it’s Parson Davy!” I heard Nick exclaim. “Halloo, Davy, how the +deuce did you get there?” + +“No thanks to you,” I retorted hotly. “Come in.” + +“Lord,” said he, “is it time to go to New Orleans?” + +“One might think New Orleans was across the street,” said Monsieur +Gratiot. “What an attitude of mind!” + +The dugout was coming towards us now, propelled by easy strokes, and +Nick could be heard the while talking in low tones to Suzanne. We could +only guess at the tenor of his conversation, which ceased entirely as +they drew near. At length the prow slid in among the rushes, was seized +vigorously by Gaspard and Hippolyte, and the boat hauled ashore. + +“Thank you very much, Messieurs; you are most obliging,” said Nick. And +taking Suzanne by the hand, he helped her gallantly over the gunwale. +“Monsieur,” he added, turning in his most irresistible manner to +Monsieur Gratiot, “if I have delayed the departure of your boat, I +am exceedingly sorry. But I appeal to you if I have not the best of +excuses.” + +And he bowed to Suzanne, who stood beside him coyly, looking down. As +for ‘Polyte and Gaspard, they were quite breathless between rage and +astonishment. But Colonel Chouteau began to laugh. + +“Diable, Monsieur, you are right,” he cried, “and rather than have +missed this entertainment I would pay Gratiot for his cargo.” + +“Au revoir, Mademoiselle,” said Nick, “I will return when I am released +from bondage. When this terrible mentor relaxes vigilance, I will escape +and make my way back to you through the forests.” + +“Oh!” cried Mademoiselle to me, “you will let him come back, Monsieur.” + +“Assuredly, Mademoiselle,” I said, “but I have known him longer than +you, and I tell you that in a month he will not wish to come back.” + +Hippolyte gave a grunt of approval to this plain speech. Suzanne +exclaimed, but before Nick could answer footsteps were heard in the +path and Lenoir himself, perspiring, panting, exhausted, appeared in the +midst of us. + +“Suzanne!” he cried, “Suzanne!” And turning to Nick, he added quite +simply, “So, Monsieur, you did not run off with her, after all?” + +“There was no place to run, Monsieur,” answered Nick. + +“Praise be to God for that!” said the miller, heartily; “there is some +advantage in living in the wilderness, when everything is said.” + +“I shall come back and try, Monsieur,” said Nick. + +The miller raised his hands. + +“I assure you that he will not, Monsieur,” I put in. + +He thanked me profusely, and suddenly an idea seemed to strike him. + +“There is the priest,” he cried; “Monsieur le curé retires late. There +is the priest, Monsieur.” + +There was an awkward silence, broken at length by an exclamation from +Gaspard. Colonel Chouteau turned his back, and I saw his shoulders +heave. All eyes were on Nick, but the rascal did not seem at all +perturbed. + +“Monsieur,” he said, bowing, “marriage is a serious thing, and not to be +entered into lightly. I thank you from my heart, but I am bound now with +Mr. Ritchie on an errand of such importance that I must make a sacrifice +of my own interests and affairs to his.” + +“If Mr. Temple wishes--” I began, with malicious delight. But Nick took +me by the shoulder. + +“My dear Davy,” he said, giving me a vicious kick, “I could not think of +it. I will go with you at once. Adieu, Mademoiselle,” said he, bending +over Suzanne’s unresisting hand. “Adieu, Messieurs, and I thank you for +your great interest in me.” (This to Gaspard and Hippolyte.) “And now, +Monsieur Gratiot, I have already presumed too much on your patience. I +will follow you, Monsieur.” + +We left them, Lenoir, Suzanne, and her two suitors, standing at the +pond, and made our way through the path in the forest. It was not until +we reached the road and had begun to climb out of the valley that the +silence was broken between us. + +“Monsieur,” said Colonel Chouteau, slyly, “do you have many such +escapes?” + +“It might have been closer,” said Nick. + +“Closer?” ejaculated the Colonel. + +“Assuredly,” said Nick, “to the extent of abducting Monsieur le curé. +As for you, Davy,” he added, between his teeth, “I mean to get even with +you.” + +It was well for us that the Colonel and Monsieur Gratiot took the +escapade with such good nature. And so we walked along through the +summer night, talking gayly, until at length the lights of the village +twinkled ahead of us, and in the streets we met many parties making +merry on their homeward way. We came to Monsieur Gratiot’s, bade our +farewells to Madame, picked up our saddle-bags, the two gentlemen +escorting us down to the river bank where the keel boat was tugging at +the ropes that held her, impatient to be off. Her captain, a picturesque +Canadian by the name of Xavier Paret, was presented to us; we bade our +friends farewell, and stepped across the plank to the deck. As we were +casting off, Monsieur Gratiot called to us that he would take the first +occasion to send our horses back to Kentucky. The oars were manned, the +heavy hulk moved, and we were shot out into the mighty current of the +river on our way to New Orleans. + +Nick and I stood for a long time on the deck, and the windows of the +little village gleamed like stars among the trees. We passed the last of +its houses that nestled against the hill, and below that the forest lay +like velvet under the moon. The song of our boatmen broke the silence of +the night:-- + + “Voici le temps et la saison, + Voici le temps et la saison, + Ah! vrai, que les journées sont longues, + Ah! vrai, que les journées sont longues!” + + + + +CHAPTER X. THE KEEL BOAT + +We were embarked on a strange river, in a strange boat, and bound for +a strange city. To us Westerners a halo of romance, of unreality, hung +over New Orleans. To us it had an Old World, almost Oriental flavor +of mystery and luxury and pleasure, and we imagined it swathed in the +moisture of the Delta, built of quaint houses, with courts of shining +orange trees and magnolias, and surrounded by flowering plantations of +unimagined beauty. It was most fitting that such a place should be the +seat of dark intrigues against material progress, and this notion lent +added zest to my errand thither. As for Nick, it took no great sagacity +on my part to predict that he would forget Suzanne and begin to look +forward to the Creole beauties of the Mysterious City. + +First, there was the fur-laden keel boat in which we travelled, gone +forever now from Western navigation. It had its rude square sail to take +advantage of the river winds, its mast strongly braced to hold the long +tow-ropes. But tow-ropes were for the endless up-river journey, when +a numerous crew strained day after day along the bank, chanting the +voyageurs’ songs. Now we were light-manned, two half-breeds and two +Canadians to handle the oars in time of peril, and Captain Xavier, who +stood aft on the cabin roof, leaning against the heavy beam of the long, +curved tiller, watching hawklike for snag and eddy and bar. Within the +cabin was a great fireplace of stones, where our cooking was done, and +bunks set round for the men in cold weather and rainy. But in these fair +nights we chose to sleep on deck. + +Far into the night we sat, Nick and I, our feet dangling over the +forward edge of the cabin, looking at the glory of the moon on the vast +river, at the endless forest crown, at the haze which hung like silver +dust under the high bluffs on the American side. We slept. We awoke +again as the moon was shrinking abashed before the light that glowed +above these cliffs, and the river was turned from brown to gold and then +to burnished copper, the forest to a thousand shades of green from crest +to the banks where the river was licking the twisted roots to nakedness. +The south wind wafted the sharp wood-smoke from the chimney across our +faces. In the stern Xavier stood immovable against the tiller, his short +pipe clutched between his teeth, the colors of his new worsted belt made +gorgeous by the rising sun. + +“B’jour, Michié,” he said, and added in the English he had picked up +from the British traders, “the breakfas’ he is ready, and Jean make him +good. Will you have the grace to descen’?” + +We went down the ladder into the cabin, where the odor of the furs +mingled with the smell of the cooking. There was a fricassee steaming +on the crane, some of Zéron’s bread, brought from St. Louis, and coffee +that Monsieur Gratiot had provided for our use. We took our bowls and +cups on deck and sat on the edge of the cabin. + +“By gad,” cried Nick, “it lacks but the one element to make it a +paradise.” + +“And what is that?” I demanded. + +“A woman,” said he. + +Xavier, who overheard, gave a delighted laugh. + +“Parbleu, Michié, you have right,” he said, “but Michié Gratiot, he say +no. In Nouvelle Orléans we find some.” + +Nick got to his feet, and if anything he did could have surprised me, I +should have been surprised when he put his arm coaxingly about Xavier’s +neck. Xavier himself was surprised and correspondingly delighted. + +“Tell me, Xavier,” he said, with a look not to be resisted, “do you +think I shall find some beauties there?” + +“Beauties!” exclaimed Xavier, “La Nouvelle Orléans--it is the home of +beauty, Michié. They promenade themselves on the levee, they look down +from ze gallerie, mais--” + +“But what, Xavier?” + +“But, mon Dieu, Michié, they are vair’ difficile. They are not like +Englis’ beauties, there is the father and the mother, and--the convent.” +And Xavier, who had a wen under his eye, laid his finger on it. + +“For shame, Xavier,” cried Nick; “and you are balked by such things?” + +Xavier thought this an exceedingly good joke, and he took his pipe out +of his mouth to laugh the better. + +“Me? Mais non, Michié. And yet ze Alcalde, he mek me afraid. Once he put +me in ze calaboose when I tried to climb ze balcon’.” + +Nick roared. + +“I will show you how, Xavier,” he said; “as to climbing the balconies, +there is a convenance in it, as in all else. For instance, one must +be daring, and discreet, and nimble, and ready to give the law a +presentable answer, and lacking that, a piastre. And then the fair one +must be a fair one indeed.” + +“Diable, Michié,” cried Xavier, “you are ze mischief.” + +“Nay,” said Nick, “I learned it all and much more from my cousin, Mr. +Ritchie.” + +Xavier stared at me for an instant, and considering that he knew nothing +of my character, I thought it extremely impolite of him to laugh. +Indeed, he tried to control himself, for some reason standing in awe of +my appearance, and then he burst out into such loud haw-haws that the +crew poked their heads above the cabin hatch. + +“Michié Reetchie,” said Xavier, and again he burst into laughter that +choked further speech. He controlled himself and laid his finger on his +wen. + +“You don’t believe it,” said Nick, offended. + +“Michié Reetchie a gallant!” said Xavier. + +“An incurable,” said Nick, “an amazingly clever rogue at device when +there is a petticoat in it. Davy, do I do you justice?” + +Xavier roared again. + +“Quel maître!” he said. + +“Xavier,” said Nick, gently taking the tiller out of his hand, “I will +teach you how to steer a keel boat.” + +“Mon Dieu,” said Xavier, “and who is to pay Michié Gratiot for his fur? +The river, she is full of things.” + +“Yes, I know, Xavier, but you will teach me to steer.” + +“Volontiers, Michié, as we go now. But there come a time when I, even I, +who am twenty year on her, do not know whether it is right or left. Ze +rock--he vair’ hard. Ze snag, he grip you like dat,” and Xavier twined +his strong arms around Nick until he was helpless. “Ze bar--he hol’ you +by ze leg. An’ who is to tell you how far he run under ze yellow water, +Michié? I, who speak to you, know. But I know not how I know. Ze water, +sometime she tell, sometime she say not’ing.” + +“À bas, Xavier!” said Nick, pushing him away, “I will teach you the +river.” + +Xavier laughed, and sat down on the edge of the cabin. Nick took easily +to accomplishments, and he handled the clumsy tiller with a certainty +and distinction that made the boatmen swear in two languages and a +patois. A great water-logged giant of the Northern forests loomed ahead +of us. Xavier sprang to his feet, but Nick had swung his boat swiftly, +smoothly, into the deeper water on the outer side. + +“Saint Jacques, Michié,” cried Xavier, “you mek him better zan I +thought.” + +Fascinated by a new accomplishment, Nick held to the tiller, while +Xavier with a trained eye scanned the troubled, yellow-glistening +surface of the river ahead. The wind died, the sun beat down with a +moist and venomous sting, and northeastward above the edge of the bluff +a bank of cloud like sulphur smoke was lifted. Gradually Xavier ceased +his jesting and became quiet. + +“Looks like a hurricane,” said Nick. + +“Mon Dieu,” said Xavier, “you have right, Michié,” and he called in +his rapid patois to the crew, who lounged forward in the cabin’s shade. +There came to my mind the memory of that hurricane at Temple Bow long +ago, a storm that seemed to have brought so much sorrow into my life. I +glanced at Nick, but his face was serene. + +The cloud-bank came on in black and yellow masses, and the saffron light +I recalled so well turned the living green of the forest to a sickly +pallor and the yellow river to a tinge scarce to be matched on earth. +Xavier had the tiller now, and the men were straining at the oars to +send the boat across the current towards the nearer western shore. And +as my glance took in the scale of things, the miles of bluff frowning +above the bottom, the river that seemed now like a lake of lava gently +boiling, and the wilderness of the western shore that reached beyond the +ken of man, I could not but shudder to think of the conflict of nature’s +forces in such a place. A grim stillness reigned over all, broken only +now and again by a sharp command from Xavier. The men were rowing for +their lives, the sweat glistening on their red faces. + +“She come,” said Xavier. + +I looked, not to the northeast whence the banks of cloud had risen, +but to the southwest, and it seemed as though a little speck was there +against the hurrying film of cloud. We were drawing near the forest +line, where a little creek made an indentation. I listened, and from +afar came a sound like the strumming of low notes on a guitar, and sad. +The terrified scream of a panther broke the silence of the forest, and +then the other distant note grew stronger, and stronger yet, and rose to +a high hum like unto no sound on this earth, and mingled with it now +was a lashing like water falling from a great height. We grounded, and +Xavier, seizing a great tow-rope, leaped into the shallow water and +passed the bight around a trunk. I cried out to Nick, but my voice was +drowned. He seized me and flung me under the cabin’s lee, and then above +the fearful note of the storm came cracklings like gunshots of great +trees snapping at their trunk. We saw the forest wall burst out--how far +away I know not--and the air was filled as with a flock of giant birds, +and boughs crashed on the roof of the cabin and tore the water in the +darkness. How long we lay clutching each other in terror on the rocking +boat I may not say, but when the veil first lifted there was the river +like an angry sea, and limitless, the wind in its fury whipping the +foam from the crests and bearing it off into space. And presently, as we +stared, the note lowered and the wind was gone again, and there was the +water tossing foolishly, and we lay safe amidst the green wreckage of +the forest as by a miracle. + +It was Nick who moved first. With white face he climbed to the roof of +the cabin and idly seizing the great limb that lay there tried to move +it. Xavier, who lay on his face on the bank, rose to a sitting posture +and crossed himself. Beyond me crowded the four members of the crew, +unhurt. Then we heard Xavier’s voice, in French, thanking the Blessed +Virgin for our escape. + +Further speech was gone from us, for men do not talk after such a +matter. We laid hold of the tree across the cabin and, straining, flung +it over into the water. A great drop of rain hit me on the forehead, and +there came a silver-gray downpour that blotted out the scene and drove +us down below. And then, from somewhere in the depths of the dark cabin, +came a sound to make a man’s blood run cold. + +“What’s that?” I said, clutching Nick. + +“Benjy,” said he; “thank God he did not die of fright.” We lighted a +candle, and poking around, found the negro where he had crept into the +farthest corner of a bunk with his face to the wall. And when we touched +him he gave vent to a yell that was blood-curdling. + +“I’se a bad nigger, Lo’d, yes, I is,” he moaned. “I ain’t fit fo’ +jedgment, Lo’d.” + +Nick shook him and laughed. + +“Come out of that, Benjy,” he said; “you’ve got another chance.” + +Benjy turned, perforce, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the +candle-light, and stared at us. + +“You ain’t gone yit, Marse,” he said. + +“Gone where?” said Nick. + +“I’se done been tole de quality ‘ll be jedged fust, Marse,” said Benjy. + +Nick hauled him out on the floor. Climbing to the deck, we found that +the boat was already under way, running southward in the current through +the misty rain. And gazing shoreward, a sight met my eyes which I shall +never forget. A wide vista, carpeted with wreckage, was cut through the +forest to the river’s edge, and the yellow water was strewn for miles +with green boughs. We stared down it, overwhelmed, until we had passed +beyond its line. + +“It is as straight,” said Nick, “as straight as one of her Majesty’s +alleys I saw cut through the forest at Saint-Cloud.” + +Had I space and time to give a faithful account of this journey it +would be chiefly a tribute to Xavier’s skill, for they who have not put +themselves at the mercy of the Mississippi in a small craft can have no +idea of the dangers of such a voyage. Infinite experience, a keen eye, +a steady hand, and a nerve of iron are required. Now, when the current +swirled almost to a rapid, we grazed a rock by the width of a ripple; +and again, despite the effort of Xavier and the crew, we would tear the +limbs from a huge tree, which, had we hit it fair, would have ripped us +from bow to stern. Once, indeed, we were fast on a sand-bar, whence (as +Nick said) Xavier fairly cursed us off. We took care to moor at night, +where we could be seen as little as possible from the river, and divided +the watches lest we should be surprised by Indians. And, as we went +southward, our hands and faces became blotched all over by the bites of +mosquitoes and flies, and we smothered ourselves under blankets to get +rid of them. At times we fished, and one evening, after we had passed +the expanse of water at the mouth of the Ohio, Nick pulled a hideous +thing from the inscrutable yellow depths,--a slimy, scaleless catfish. +He came up like a log, and must have weighed seventy pounds. Xavier and +his men and myself made two good meals of him, but Nick would not touch +the meat. + +The great river teemed with life. There were flocks of herons and cranes +and water pelicans, and I know not what other birds, and as we slipped +under the banks we often heard the paroquets chattering in the forests. +And once, as we drifted into an inlet at sunset, we caught sight of the +shaggy head of a bear above the brown water, and leaping down into the +cabin I primed the rifle that stood there and shot him. It took the +seven of us to drag him on board, and then I cleaned and skinned him as +Tom had taught me, and showed Jean how to put the caul fat and liver +in rows on a skewer and wrap it in the bear’s handkerchief and roast it +before the fire. Nick found no difficulty in eating this--it was a dish +fit for any gourmand. + +We passed the great, red Chickasaw Bluff, which sits facing westward +looking over the limitless Louisiana forests, where new and wondrous +vines and flowers grew, and came to the beautiful Walnut Hills crowned +by a Spanish fort. We did not stop there to exchange courtesies, but +pressed on to the Grand Gulf, the grave of many a keel boat before and +since. This was by far the most dangerous place on the Mississippi, and +Xavier was never weary of recounting many perilous escapes there, or +telling how such and such a priceless cargo had sunk in the mud by +reason of the lack of skill of particular boatmen he knew of. And +indeed, the Canadian’s face assumed a graver mien after the Walnut Hills +were behind us. + +“You laugh, Michié,” he said to Nick, a little resentfully. “I who speak +to you say that there is four foot on each side of ze bateau. Too much +tafia, a little too much excite--” and he made a gesture with his hand +expressive of total destruction; “ze tornado, I would sooner have him--” + +“Bah!” said Nick, stroking Xavier’s black beard, “give me the tiller. +I will see you through safely, and we will not spare the tafia either.” +And he began to sing a song of Xavier’s own:-- + + “‘Marianson, dame jolie, + Où est allé votre mari?’” + +“Ah, toujours les dames!” said Xavier. “But I tell you, Michié, le +diable,--he is at ze bottom of ze Grand Gulf and his mouth open--so.” +And he suited the action to the word. + +At night we tied up under the shore within earshot of the mutter of the +place, and twice that night I awoke with clinched hands from a dream +of being spun fiercely against the rock of which Xavier had told, +and sucked into the devil’s mouth under the water. Dawn came as I was +fighting the mosquitoes,--a still, sultry dawn with thunder muttering in +the distance. + +We breakfasted in silence, and with the crew standing ready at the oars +and Xavier scanning the wide expanse of waters ahead, seeking for that +unmarked point whence to embark on this perilous journey, we floated +down the stream. The prospect was sufficiently disquieting on that +murky day. Below us, on the one hand, a rocky bluff reached out into +the river, and on the far side was a timber-clad point round which the +Mississippi doubled and flowed back on itself. It needed no trained eye +to guess at the perils of the place. On the one side the mighty current +charged against the bluff and, furious at the obstacle, lashed itself +into a hundred sucks and whirls, their course marked by the flotsam +plundered from the forests above. Woe betide the boat that got into this +devil’s caldron! And on the other side, near the timbered point, ran a +counter current marked by forest wreckage flowing up-stream. To venture +too far on this side was to be grounded or at least to be sent back to +embark once more on the trial. + +But where was the channel? We watched Xavier with bated breath. Not once +did he take his eyes from the swirling water ahead, but gave the tiller +a touch from time to time, now right, now left, and called in a monotone +for the port or starboard oars. Nearer and nearer we sped, dodging the +snags, until the water boiled around us, and suddenly the boat +shot forward as in a mill-race, and we clutched the cabin’s roof. +A triumphant gleam was in Xavier’s eyes, for he had hit the channel +squarely. And then, like a monster out of the deep, the scaly, black +back of a great northern pine was flung up beside us and sheered us +across the channel until we were at the very edge of the foam-specked, +spinning water. But Xavier saw it, and quick as lightning brought his +helm over and laughed as he heard it crunching along our keel. And so +we came swiftly around the bend and into safety once more. The next day +there was the Petite Gulf, which bothered Xavier very little, and the +day after that we came in sight of Natchez on her heights and guided our +boat in amongst the others that lined the shore, scowled at by lounging +Indians there, and eyed suspiciously by a hatchet-faced Spaniard in a +tawdry uniform who represented his Majesty’s customs. Here we stopped +for a day and a night that Xavier and his crew might get properly drunk +on tafia, while Nick and I walked about the town and waited until his +Excellency, the commandant, had finished dinner that we might present +our letters and obtain his passport. Natchez at that date was a +sufficiently unkempt and evil place of dirty, ramshackle houses and +gambling dens, where men of the four nations gamed and quarrelled and +fought. We were glad enough to get away the following morning, Xavier +somewhat saddened by the loss of thirty livres of which he had no +memory, and Nick and myself relieved at having the passports in our +pockets. I have mine yet among my papers. + + “Natchez, 29 de Junio, de 1789. + +“Concedo libre y seguro pasaporte a Don Davíd Ritchie para que pase a la +Nueva Orleans por Agna. Pido y encargo no se le ponga embarazo.” + +A few days more and we were running between low shores which seemed to +hold a dark enchantment. The rivers now flowed out of, and not into the +Mississippi, and Xavier called them bayous, and often it took much skill +and foresight on his part not to be shot into the lane they made in the +dark forest of an evening. And the forest,--it seemed an impenetrable +mystery, a strange tangle of fantastic growths: the live-oak (chêne +vert), its wide-spreading limbs hung funereally with Spanish moss and +twined in the mistletoe’s death embrace; the dark cypress swamp with the +conelike knees above the yellow back-waters; and here and there grew the +bridelike magnolia which we had known in Kentucky, wafting its perfume +over the waters, and wondrous flowers and vines and trees with French +names that bring back the scene to me even now with a whiff of romance, +bois d’arc, lilac, grande volaille (water-lily). Birds flew hither and +thither (the names of every one of which Xavier knew),--the whistling +papabot, the mournful bittern (garde-soleil), and the night-heron +(grosbeck), who stood like a sentinel on the points. + +One night I awoke with the sweat starting from my brow, trying to +collect my senses, and I lay on my blanket listening to such plaintive +and heart-rending cries as I had never known. Human cries they were, +cries as of children in distress, and I rose to a sitting posture on the +deck with my hair standing up straight, to discover Nick beside me in +the same position. + +“God have mercy on us,” I heard him mutter, “what’s that? It sounds like +the wail of all the babies since the world began.” + +We listened together, and I can give no notion of the hideous +mournfulness of the sound. We lay in a swampy little inlet, and the +forest wall made a dark blur against the star-studded sky. There was a +splash near the boat that made me clutch my legs, the wails ceased and +began again with redoubled intensity. Nick and I leaped to our feet +and stood staring, horrified, over the gunwale into the black water. +Presently there was a laugh behind us, and we saw Xavier resting on his +elbow. + +“What devil-haunted place is this?” demanded Nick. + +“Ha, ha,” said Xavier, shaking with unseemly mirth, “you have never +heard ze alligator sing, Michié?” + +“Alligator!” cried Nick; “there are babies in the water, I tell you.” + +“Ha, ha,” laughed Xavier, flinging off his blanket and searching for his +flint and tinder. He lighted a pine knot, and in the red pulsing flare +we saw what seemed to be a dozen black logs floating on the surface. +And then Xavier flung the cresset at them, fire and all. There was a +lashing, a frightful howl from one of the logs, and the night’s silence +once more. + +Often after that our slumbers were disturbed, and we would rise +with maledictions in our mouths to fling the handiest thing at the +serenaders. When we arose in the morning we would often see them by the +dozens, basking in the shallows, with their wide mouths flapped open +waiting for their prey. Sometimes we ran upon them in the water, where +they looked like the rough-bark pine logs from the North, and Nick +would have a shot at them. When he hit one fairly there would be a +leviathan-like roar and a churning of the river into suds. + +At length there were signs that we were drifting out of the wilderness, +and one morning we came in sight of a rich plantation with its dark +orange trees and fields of indigo, with its wide-galleried manor-house +in a grove. And as we drifted we heard the negroes chanting at their +work, the plaintive cadence of the strange song adding to the mystery +of the scene. Here in truth was a new world, a land of peaceful customs, +green and moist. The soft-toned bells of it seemed an expression of its +life,--so far removed from our own striving and fighting existence in +Kentucky. Here and there, between plantations, a belfry could be seen +above the cluster of the little white village planted in the green; and +when we went ashore amongst these simple French people they treated us +with such gentle civility and kindness that we would fain have lingered +there. The river had become a vast yellow lake, and often as we drifted +of an evening the wail of a slave dance and monotonous beating of a +tom-tom would float to us over the water. + +At last, late one afternoon, we came in sight of that strange city which +had filled our thoughts for many days. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE STRANGE CITY + + +Nick and I stood by the mast on the forward part of the cabin, staring +at the distant, low-lying city, while Xavier sought for the entrance +to the eddy which here runs along the shore. If you did not gain this +entrance,--so he explained,--you were carried by a swift current below +New Orleans and might by no means get back save by the hiring of a +crew. Xavier, however, was not to be caught thus, and presently we were +gliding quietly along the eastern bank, or levee, which held back +the river from the lowlands. Then, as we looked, the levee became an +esplanade shaded by rows of willows, and through them we caught sight +of the upper galleries and low, curving roofs of the city itself. There, +cried Xavier, was the Governor’s house on the corner, where the great +Miro lived, and beyond it the house of the Intendant; and then, gliding +into an open space between the keel boats along the bank, stared at by +a score of boatmen and idlers from above, we came to the end of our long +journey. No sooner had we made fast than we were boarded by a shabby +customs officer who, when he had seen our passports, bowed politely and +invited us to land. We leaped ashore, gained the gravelled walk on the +levee, and looked about us. + +Squalidity first met our eyes. Below us, crowded between the levee +and the row of houses, were dozens of squalid market-stalls tended by +cotton-clad negroes. Beyond, across the bare Place d’Armes, a blackened +gap in the line of houses bore witness to the devastation of the year +gone by, while here and there a roof, struck by the setting sun, gleamed +fiery red with its new tiles. The levee was deserted save for the +negroes and the river men. + +“Time for siesta, Michié,” said Xavier, joining us; “I will show you ze +inn of which I spik. She is kep’ by my fren’, Madame Bouvet.” + +“Xavier,” said Nick, looking at the rolling flood of the river, “suppose +this levee should break?” + +“Ah,” said Xavier, “then some Spaniard who never have a bath--he feel +what water is lak.” + +Followed by Benjy with the saddle-bags, we went down the steps set in +the levee into this strange, foreign city. It was like unto nothing +we had ever seen, nor can I give an adequate notion of how it affected +us,--such a mixture it seemed of dirt and poverty and wealth and +romance. The narrow, muddy streets ran with filth, and on each side +along the houses was a sun-baked walk held up by the curved sides of +broken flatboats, where two men might scarcely pass. The houses, too, +had an odd and foreign look, some of wood, some of upright logs and +plaster, and newer ones, Spanish in style, of adobe, with curving roofs +of red tiles and strong eaves spreading over the banquette (as the +sidewalk was called), casting shadows on lemon-colored walls. Since New +Orleans was in a swamp, the older houses for the most part were lifted +some seven feet above the ground, and many of these houses had wide +galleries on the street side. Here and there a shop was set in the wall; +a watchmaker was to be seen poring over his work at a tiny window, a +shoemaker cross-legged on the floor. Again, at an open wicket, we caught +a glimpse through a cool archway into a flowering court-yard. Stalwart +negresses with bright kerchiefs made way for us on the banquette. Hands +on hips, they swung along erect, with baskets of cakes and sweetmeats on +their heads, musically crying their wares. + +At length, turning a corner, we came to a white wooden house on the Rue +Royale, with a flight of steps leading up to the entrance. In place of +a door a flimsy curtain hung in the doorway, and, pushing this aside, +we followed Xavier through a darkened hall to a wide gallery that +overlooked a court-yard. This court-yard was shaded by several great +trees which grew there; the house and gallery ran down one other side of +it; and the two remaining sides were made up of a series of low cabins, +these forming the various outhouses and the kitchen. At the far end +of this gallery a sallow, buxom lady sat sewing at a table, and Xavier +saluted her very respectfully. + +“Madame,” he said, “I have brought you from St. Louis with Michié +Gratiot’s compliments two young American gentlemen, who are travelling +to amuse themselves.” + +The lady rose and beamed upon us. + +“From Monsieur Gratiot,” she said; “you are very welcome, gentlemen, to +such poor accommodations as I have. It is not unusual to have American +gentlemen in New Orleans, for many come here first and last. And I am +happy to say that two of my best rooms are vacant. Zoey!” + +There was a shrill answer from the court below, and a negro girl in a +yellow turban came running up, while Madame Bouvet bustled along the +gallery and opened the doors of two darkened rooms. Within I could dimly +see a walnut dresser, a chair, and a walnut bed on which was spread a +mosquito bar. + +“Voilá! Messieurs,” cried Madame Bouvet, “there is still a little +time for a siesta. No siesta!” cried Madame, eying us aghast; “ah, the +Americans they never rest--never.” + +We bade farewell to the good Xavier, promising to see him soon; and +Nick, shouting to Benjy to open the saddle-bags, proceeded to array +himself in the clothes which had made so much havoc at St. Louis. I +boded no good from this proceeding, but I reflected, as I watched him +dress, that I might as well try to turn the Mississippi from its course +as to attempt to keep my cousin from the search for gallant adventure. +And I reflected that his indulgence in pleasure-seeking would serve +the more to divert any suspicions which might fall upon my own head. At +last, when the setting sun was flooding the court-yard, he stood arrayed +upon the gallery, ready to venture forth to conquest. + +Madame Bouvet’s tavern, or hotel, or whatever she was pleased to call +it, was not immaculately clean. Before passing into the street we stood +for a moment looking into the public room on the left of the hallway, +a long saloon, evidently used in the early afternoon for a dining room, +and at the back of it a wide, many-paned window, capped by a Spanish +arch, looked out on the gallery. Near this window was a gay party of +young men engaged at cards, waited on by the yellow-turbaned Zoey, and +drinking what evidently was claret punch. The sounds of their jests and +laughter pursued us out of the house. + +The town was waking from its siesta, the streets filling, and people +stopped to stare at Nick as we passed. But Nick, who was plainly in +search of something he did not find, hurried on. We soon came to the +quarter which had suffered most from the fire, where new houses had +gone up or were in the building beside the blackened logs of many of +Bienville’s time. Then we came to a high white wall that surrounded a +large garden, and within it was a long, massive building of some beauty +and pretension, with a high, latticed belfry and heavy walls and with +arched dormers in the sloping roof. As we stood staring at it through +the iron grille set in the archway of the lodge, Nick declared that it +put him in mind of some of the châteaux he had seen in France, and he +crossed the street to get a better view of the premises. An old man in +coarse blue linen came out of the lodge and spoke to me. + +“It is the convent of the good nuns, the Ursulines, Monsieur,” he said +in French, “and it was built long ago in the Sieur de Bienville’s time, +when the colony was young. For forty-five years, Monsieur, the young +ladies of the city have come here to be educated.” + +“What does he say?” demanded Nick, pricking up his ears as he came +across the street. + +“That young men have been sent to the mines of Brazil for climbing the +walls,” I answered. + +“Who wants to climb the walls?” said Nick, disgusted. + +“The young ladies of the town go to school here,” I answered; “it is a +convent.” + +“It might serve to pass the time,” said Nick, gazing with a new interest +at the latticed windows. “How much would you take, my friend, to let us +in at the back way this evening?” he demanded of the porter in French. + +The good man gasped, lifted his hands in horror, and straightway let +loose upon Nick a torrent of French invectives that had not the least +effect except to cause a blacksmith’s apprentice and two negroes to stop +and stare at us. + +“Pooh!” exclaimed Nick, when the man had paused for want of breath, “it +is no trick to get over that wall.” + +“Bon Dieu!” cried the porter, “you are Kentuckians, yes? I might have +known that you were Kentuckians, and I shall advise the good sisters to +put glass on the wall and keep a watch.” + +“The young ladies are beautiful, you say?” said Nick. + +At this juncture, with the negroes grinning and the porter near bursting +with rage, there came out of the lodge the fattest woman I have ever +seen for her size. She seized her husband by the back of his loose frock +and pulled him away, crying out that he was losing time by talking to +vagabonds, besides disturbing the good sisters. Then we went away, Nick +following the convent wall down to the river. Turning southward under +the bank past the huddle of market-stalls, we came suddenly upon a sight +that made us pause and wonder. + +New Orleans was awake. A gay and laughing throng paced the esplanade on +the levee under the willows, with here and there a cavalier on horseback +on the Royal Road below. Across the Place d’Armes the spire of the +parish church stood against the fading sky, and to the westward the +mighty river stretched away like a gilded floor. It was a strange +throng. There were grave Spaniards in long cloaks and feathered beavers; +jolly merchants and artisans in short linen jackets, each with his +tabatière, the wives with bits of finery, the children laughing and +shouting and dodging in and out between fathers and mothers beaming with +quiet pride and contentment; swarthy boat-men with their worsted belts, +gaudy negresses chanting in the soft patois, and here and there a +blanketed Indian. Nor was this all. Some occasion (so Madame Bouvet had +told us) had brought a sprinkling of fashion to town that day, and it +was a fashion to astonish me. There were fine gentlemen with swords +and silk waistcoats and silver shoe-buckles, and ladies in filmy summer +gowns. Greuze ruled the mode in France then, but New Orleans had not +got beyond Watteau. As for Nick and me, we knew nothing of Greuze and +Watteau then, and we could only stare in astonishment. And for once we +saw an officer of the Louisiana Regiment resplendent in a uniform that +might have served at court. + +Ay, and there was yet another sort. Every flatboatman who returned to +Kentucky was full of tales of the marvellous beauty of the quadroons and +octoroons, stories which I had taken with a grain of salt; but they had +not indeed been greatly overdrawn. For here were these ladies in the +flesh, their great, opaque, almond eyes consuming us with a swift +glance, and each walking with a languid grace beside her duenna. Their +faces were like old ivory, their dress the stern Miro himself could +scarce repress. In former times they had been lavish in their finery, +and even now earrings still gleamed and color broke out irrepressibly. + +Nick was delighted, but he had not dragged me twice the length of the +esplanade ere his eye was caught by a young lady in pink who sauntered +between an elderly gentleman in black silk and a young man more gayly +dressed. + +“Egad,” said Nick, “there is my divinity, and I need not look a step +farther.” + +I laughed. + +“You have but to choose, I suppose, and all falls your way,” I answered. + +“But look!” he cried, halting me to stare after the girl, “what a face, +and what a form! And what a carriage, by Jove! There is breeding for +you! And Davy, did you mark the gentle, rounded arm? Thank heaven these +short sleeves are the fashion.” + +“You are mad, Nick,” I answered, pulling him on, “these people are +not to be stared at so. And once I present our letters to Monsieur de +Saint-Gré, it will not be difficult to know any of them.” + +“Look!” said he, “that young man, lover or husband, is a brute. On my +soul, they are quarrelling.” + +The three had stopped by a bench under a tree. The young man, who wore +claret silk and a sword, had one of those thin faces of dirty complexion +which show the ravages of dissipation, and he was talking with a +rapidity and vehemence of which only a Latin tongue will admit. We +could see, likewise, that the girl was answering with spirit,--indeed, I +should write a stronger word than spirit,--while the elderly gentleman, +who had a good-humored, fleshy face and figure, was plainly doing his +best to calm them both. People who were passing stared curiously at the +three. + +“Your divinity evidently has a temper,” I remarked. + +“For that scoundel--certainly,” said Nick; “but come, they are moving +on.” + +“You mean to follow them?” I exclaimed. + +“Why not?” said he. “We will find out where they live and who they are, +at least.” + +“And you have taken a fancy to this girl?” + +“I have looked them all over, and she’s by far the best I’ve seen. I can +say so much honestly.” + +“But she may be married,” I said weakly. + +“Tut, Davy,” he answered, “it’s more than likely, from the violence of +their quarrel. But if so, we will try again.” + +“We!” I exclaimed. + +“Oh, come on!” he cried, dragging me by the sleeve, “or we shall lose +them.” + +I resisted no longer, but followed him down the levee, in my heart +thanking heaven that he had not taken a fancy to an octoroon. Twilight +had set in strongly, the gay crowd was beginning to disperse, and in +the distance the three figures could be seen making their way across the +Place d’Armes, the girl hanging on the elderly gentleman’s arm, and the +young man following with seeming sullenness behind. They turned into one +of the narrower streets, and we quickened our steps. Lights gleamed in +the houses; voices and laughter, and once the tinkle of a guitar came +to us from court-yard and gallery. But Nick, hurrying on, came near to +bowling more than one respectable citizen we met on the banquette, into +the ditch. We reached a corner, and the three were nowhere to be seen. + +“Curse the luck!” cried Nick, “we have lost them. The next time I’ll +stop for no explanations.” + +There was no particular reason why I should have been penitent, but I +ventured to say that the house they had entered could not be far off. + +“And how the devil are we to know it?” demanded Nick. + +This puzzled me for a moment, but presently I began to think that the +two might begin quarrelling again, and said so. Nick laughed and put his +arm around my neck. + +“You have no mean ability for intrigue when you put your mind to +it, Davy,” he said; “I vow I believe you are in love with the girl +yourself.” + +I disclaimed this with some vehemence. Indeed, I had scarcely seen her. + +“They can’t be far off,” said Nick; “we’ll pitch on a likely house and +camp in front of it until bedtime.” + +“And be flung into a filthy calaboose by a constable,” said I. “No, +thank you.” + +We walked on, and halfway down the block we came upon a new house with +more pretensions than its neighbors. It was set back a little from the +street, and there was a high adobe wall into which a pair of gates were +set, and a wicket opening in one of them. Over the wall hung a dark +fringe of magnolia and orange boughs. On each of the gate-posts a +crouching lion was outlined dimly against the fainting light, and, by +crossing the street, we could see the upper line of a latticed gallery +under the low roof. We took our stand within the empty doorway of a +blackened house, nearly opposite, and there we waited, Nick murmuring +all sorts of ridiculous things in my ear. But presently I began to +reflect upon the consequences of being taken in such a situation by a +constable and dragged into the light of a public examination. I put this +to Nick as plainly as I could, and was declaring my intention of going +back to Madame Bouvet’s, when the sound of voices arrested me. The +voices came from the latticed gallery, and they were low at first, but +soon rose to such an angry pitch that I made no doubt we had hit on +the right house after all. What they said was lost to us, but I could +distinguish the woman’s voice, low-pitched and vibrant as though +insisting upon a refusal, and the man’s scarce adult tones, now high as +though with balked passion, now shaken and imploring. I was for leaving +the place at once, but Nick clutched my arm tightly; and suddenly, as I +stood undecided, the voices ceased entirely, there were the sounds of a +scuffle, and the lattice of the gallery was flung open. In the all but +darkness we saw a figure climb over the railing, hang suspended for an +instant, and drop lightly to the ground. Then came the light relief of a +woman’s gown in the opening of the lattice, the cry “Auguste, Auguste!” + the wicket in the gate opened and slammed, and a man ran at top speed +along the banquette towards the levee. + +Instinctively I seized Nick by the arm as he started out of the doorway. + +“Let me go,” he cried angrily, “let me go, Davy.” + +But I held on. + +“Are you mad?” I said. + +He did not answer, but twisted and struggled, and before I knew what he +was doing he had pushed me off the stone step into a tangle of blackened +beams behind. I dropped his arm to save myself, and it was mere good +fortune that I did not break an ankle in the fall. When I had gained +the step again he was gone after the man, and a portly citizen stood in +front of me, looking into the doorway. + +“Qu’est-ce-qu’il-y-a la dedans?” he demanded sharply. + +It was a sufficiently embarrassing situation. I put on a bold front, +however, and not deigning to answer, pushed past him and walked with as +much leisure as possible along the banquette in the direction which Nick +had taken. As I turned the corner I glanced over my shoulder, and in the +darkness I could just make out the man standing where I had left him. +In great uneasiness I pursued my way, my imagination summing up for Nick +all kinds of adventures with disagreeable consequences. I walked for +some time--it may have been half an hour--aimlessly, and finally decided +it would be best to go back to Madame Bouvet’s and await the issue with +as much calmness as possible. He might not, after all, have caught the +fellow. + +There were few people in the dark streets, but at length I met a man who +gave me directions, and presently found my way back to my lodging place. +Talk and laughter floated through the latticed windows into the street, +and when I had pushed back the curtain and looked into the saloon +I found the same gaming party at the end of it, sitting in their +shirt-sleeves amidst the moths and insects that hovered around the +candles. + +“Ah, Monsieur,” said Madame Bouvet’s voice behind me, “you must excuse +them. They will come here and play, the young gentlemen, and I cannot +find it in my heart to drive them away, though sometimes I lose a +respectable lodger by their noise. But, after all, what would you?” she +added with a shrug; “I love them, the young men. But, Monsieur,” she +cried, “you have had no supper! And where is Monsieur your companion? +Comme il est beau garçon!” + +“He will be in presently,” I answered with unwarranted assumption. + +Madame shot at me the swiftest of glances and laughed, and I suspected +that she divined Nick’s propensity for adventure. However, she said +nothing more than to bid me sit down at the table, and presently Zoey +came in with lights and strange, highly seasoned dishes, which I ate +with avidity, notwithstanding my uneasiness of mind, watching the while +the party at the far end of the room. There were five young gentlemen +playing a game I knew not, with intervals of intense silence, and +boisterous laughter and execrations while the cards were being shuffled +and the money rang on the board and glasses were being filled from a +stand at one side. Presently Madame Bouvet returned, and placing before +me a cup of wondrous coffee, advanced down the room towards them. + +“Ah, Messieurs,” she cried, “you will ruin my poor house.” + +The five rose and bowed with marked profundity. One of them, with a +puffy, weak, good-natured face, answered her briskly, and after a little +raillery she came back to me. I had a question not over discreet on my +tongue’s tip. + +“There are some fine residences going up here, Madame,” I said. + +“Since the fire, Monsieur, the dreadful fire of Good Friday a year ago. +You admire them?” + +“I saw one,” I answered with indifference, “with a wall and lions on the +gate-posts--” + +“Mon Dieu, that is a house,” exclaimed Madame; “it belongs to Monsieur +de Saint-Gré.” + +“To Monsieur de Saint-Gré!” I repeated. + +She shot a look at me. She had bright little eyes like a bird’s, that +shone in the candlelight. + +“You know him, Monsieur?” + +“I heard of him in St. Louis,” I answered. + +“You will meet him, no doubt,” she continued. “He is a very fine +gentleman. His grandfather was Commissary-general of the colony, and he +himself is a cousin of the Marquis de Saint-Gré, who has two châteaux, a +house in Paris, and is a favorite of the King.” She paused, as if to let +this impress itself upon me, and added archly, “Tenez, Monsieur, there +is a daughter--” + +She stopped abruptly. + +I followed her glance, and my first impression--of claret-color--gave +me a shock. My second confirmed it, for in the semi-darkness beyond +the rays of the candle was a thin, eager face, prematurely lined, with +coal-black, lustrous eyes that spoke eloquently of indulgence. In an +instant I knew it to be that of the young man whom I had seen on the +levee. + +“Monsieur Auguste?” stammered Madame. + +“Bon soir, Madame,” he cried gayly, with a bow; “diable, they are +already at it, I see, and the punch in the bowl. I will win back +to-night what I have lost by a week of accursed luck.” + +“Monsieur your father has relented, perhaps,” said Madame, +deferentially. + +“Relented!” cried the young man, “not a sou. C’est égal! I have the +means here,” and he tapped his pocket, “I have the means here to set me +on my feet again, Madame.” + +He spoke with a note of triumph, and Madame took a curious step towards +him. + +“Qu’est-ce-que c’est, Monsieur Auguste?” she inquired. + +He drew something that glittered from his pocket and beckoned to her to +follow him down the room, which she did with alacrity. + +“Ha, Adolphe,” he cried to the young man of the puffy face, “I will have +my revenge to-night. Voilà!” and he held up the shining thing, “this +goes to the highest bidder, and you will agree that it is worth a pretty +sum.” + +They rose from their chairs and clustered around him at the table, +Madame in their midst, staring with bent heads at the trinket which he +held to the light. It was Madame’s voice I heard first, in a kind of +frightened cry. + +“Mon Dieu, Monsieur Auguste, you will not part with that!” she +exclaimed. + +“Why not?” demanded the young man, indifferently. “It was painted by +Boze, the back is solid gold, and the Jew in the Rue Toulouse will give +me four hundred livres for it to-morrow morning.” + +There followed immediately such a chorus of questions, exclamations, +and shrill protests from Madame Bouvet, that I (being such a laborious +French scholar) could distinguish but little of what they said. I looked +in wonderment at the gesticulating figures grouped against the light, +Madame imploring, the youthful profile of the newcomer marked with a +cynical and scornful refusal. More than once I was for rising out of +my chair to go over and see for myself what the object was, and then, +suddenly, I perceived Madame Bouvet coming towards me in evident +agitation. She sank into the chair beside me. + +“If I had four hundred livres,” she said, “if I had four hundred +livres!” + +“And what then?” I asked. + +“Monsieur,” she said, “a terrible thing has happened. Auguste de +Saint-Gré--” + +“Auguste de Saint-Gré!” I exclaimed. + +“He is the son of that Monsieur de Saint-Gré of whom we spoke,” she +answered, “a wild lad, a spendthrift, a gambler, if you like. And yet he +is a Saint-Gré, Monsieur, and I cannot refuse him. It is the miniature +of Mademoiselle Hélène de Saint-Gré, the daughter of the Marquis, sent +to Mamselle ‘Toinette, his sister, from France. How he has obtained it I +know not.” + +“Ah!” I exclaimed sharply, the explanation of the scene of which I had +been a witness coming to me swiftly. The rascal had wrenched it from her +in the gallery and fled. + +“Monsieur,” continued Madame, too excited to notice my interruption, +“if I had four hundred livres I would buy it of him, and Monsieur de +Saint-Gré père would willingly pay it back in the morning.” + +I reflected. I had a letter in my pocket to Monsieur de Saint-Gré, the +sum was not large, and the act of Monsieur Auguste de Saint-Gré in every +light was detestable. A rising anger decided me, and I took a wallet +from my pocket. + +“I will buy the miniature, Madame,” I said. + +She looked at me in astonishment. + +“God bless you, Monsieur,” she cried; “if you could see Mamselle +‘Toinette you would pay twice the sum. The whole town loves her. +Monsieur Auguste, Monsieur Auguste!” she shouted, “here is a gentleman +who will buy your miniature.” + +The six young men stopped talking and stared at me with one accord. +Madame arose, and I followed her down the room towards them, and, had it +not been for my indignation, I should have felt sufficiently ridiculous. +Young Monsieur de Saint-Gré came forward with the good-natured, easy +insolence to which he had been born, and looked me over. + +“Monsieur is an American,” he said. + +“I understand that you have offered this miniature for four hundred +livres,” I said. + +“It is the Jew’s price,” he answered; “mais pardieu, what will you?” he +added with a shrug, “I must have the money. Regardez, Monsieur, you have +a bargain. Here is Mademoiselle Hélène de Saint-Gré, daughter of my lord +the Marquis of whom I have the honor to be a cousin,” and he made a bow. +“It is by the famous court painter, Joseph Boze, and Mademoiselle de +Saint-Gré herself is a favorite of her Majesty.” He held the portrait +close to the candle and regarded it critically. “Mademoiselle Hélène +Victoire Marie de Saint-Gré, painted in a costume of Henry the Second’s +time, with a ruff, you notice, which she wore at a ball given by his +Highness the Prince of Condé at Chantilly. A trifle haughty, if you +like, Monsieur, but I venture to say you will be hopelessly in love with +her within the hour.” + +At this there was a general titter from the young gentlemen at the +table. + +“All of which is neither here nor there, Monsieur,” I answered sharply. +“The question is purely a commercial one, and has nothing to do with the +lady’s character or position.” + +“It is well said, Monsieur,” Madame Bouvet put in. + +Monsieur Auguste de Saint-Gré shrugged his slim shoulders and laid down +the portrait on the walnut table. + +“Four hundred livres, Monsieur,” he said. + +I counted out the money, scrutinized by the curious eyes of his +companions, and pushed it over to him. He bowed carelessly, sat him +down, and began to shuffle the cards, while I picked up the miniature +and walked out of the room. Before I had gone twenty paces I heard them +laughing at their game and shouting out the stakes. Suddenly I bethought +myself of Nick. What if he should come in and discover the party at the +table? I stopped short in the hallway, and there Madame Bouvet overtook +me. + +“How can I thank you, Monsieur?” she said. And then, “You will return +the portrait to Monsieur de Saint-Gré?” + +“I have a letter from Monsieur Gratiot to that gentleman, which I shall +deliver in the morning,” I answered. “And now, Madame, I have a favor to +ask of you.” + +“I am at Monsieur’s service,” she answered simply. + +“When Mr. Temple comes in, he is not to go into that room,” I said, +pointing to the door of the saloon; “I have my reasons for requesting +it.” + +For answer Madame went to the door, closed it, and turned the key. Then +she sat down beside a little table with a candlestick and took up her +knitting. + +“It will be as Monsieur says,” she answered. + +I smiled. + +“And when Mr. Temple comes in will you kindly say that I am waiting for +him in his room?” I asked. + +“As Monsieur says,” she answered. “I wish Monsieur a good-night and +pleasant dreams.” + +She took a candlestick from the table, lighted the candle, and handed it +me with a courtesy. I bowed, and made my way along the gallery above the +deserted court-yard. Entering my room and closing the door after me, I +drew the miniature from my pocket and stood gazing at it for I know not +how long. + + + +CHAPTER XII. LES ILES + +I stood staring at the portrait, I say, with a kind of fascination that +astonished me, seeing that it had come to me in such a way. It was no +French face of my imagination, and as I looked it seemed to me that I +knew Mademoiselle Hélène de Saint-Gré. And yet I smile as I write this, +realizing full well that my strange and foreign surroundings and my +unforeseen adventure had much to do with my state of mind. The lady in +the miniature might have been eighteen, or thirty-five. Her features +were of the clearest cut, the nose the least trifle aquiline, and by a +blurred outline the painter had given to the black hair piled high upon +the head a suggestion of waviness. The eyebrows were straight, the brown +eyes looked at the world with an almost scornful sense of humor, and I +marked that there was determination in the chin. Here was a face that +could be infinitely haughty or infinitely tender, a mouth of witty--nay, +perhaps cutting--repartee of brevity and force. A lady who spoke +quickly, moved quickly, or reposed absolutely. A person who commanded +by nature and yet (dare I venture the thought?) was capable of a supreme +surrender. I was aroused from this odd revery by footsteps on the +gallery, and Nick burst into the room. Without pausing to look about +him, he flung himself lengthwise on the bed on top of the mosquito bar. + +“A thousand curses on such a place,” he cried; “it is full of rat holes +and rabbit warrens.” + +“Did you catch your man?” I asked innocently. + +“Catch him!” said Nick, with a little excusable profanity; “he went in +at one end of such a warren and came out at another. I waited for him +in two streets until an officious person chanced along and threatened to +take me before the Alcalde. What the devil is that you have got in your +hand, Davy?” he demanded, raising his head. + +“A miniature that took my fancy, and which I bought.” + +He rose from the bed, yawned, and taking it in his hand, held it to the +light. I watched him curiously. + +“Lord,” he said, “it is such a passion as I might have suspected of you, +Davy.” + +“There was nothing said about passion,” I answered hotly. + +“Then why the deuce did you buy it?” he said with some pertinence. + +This staggered me. + +“A man may fancy a thing, without indulging in a passion, I suppose,” I +replied. + +Nick held the picture at arm’s length in the palm of his hand and +regarded it critically. + +“Faith,” said he, “you may thank heaven it is only a picture. If such +a one ever got hold of you, Davy, she would general you even as you +general me. Egad,” he added with a laugh, “there would be no more +walking the streets at night in search of adventure for you. Consider +carefully the masterful features of that lady and thank God you haven’t +got her.” + +I was inclined to be angry, but ended by laughing. + +“There will be no rivalry between us, at least,” I said. + +“Rivalry!” exclaimed Nick. “Heaven forbid that I should aspire to such +abject slavery. When I marry, it will be to command.” + +“All the more honor in such a conquest,” I suggested. + +“Davy,” said he, “I have long been looking for some such flaw in your +insuperable wisdom. But I vow I can keep my eyes open no longer. Benjy!” + +A smothered response came from the other side of the wall, and Benjy +duly appeared in the doorway, blinking at the candlelight, to put his +master to bed. + +We slept that night with no bed covering save the mosquito bar, as was +the custom in New Orleans. Indeed, the heat was most oppressive, but we +had become to some extent inured to it on the boat, and we were both +in such sound health that our slumbers were not disturbed. Early in the +morning, however, I was awakened by a negro song from the court-yard, +and I lay pleasantly for some minutes listening to the early sounds, +breathing in the aroma of coffee which mingled with the odor of the +flowers of the court, until Zoey herself appeared in the doorway, +holding a cup in her hand. I arose, and taking the miniature from the +table, gazed at it in the yellow morning light; and then, having dressed +myself, I put it carefully in my pocket and sat down at my portfolio to +compose a letter to Polly Ann, knowing that a description of what I +had seen in New Orleans would amuse her. This done, I went out into the +gallery, where Madame was already seated at her knitting, in the shade +of the great tree that stood in the corner of the court and spread its +branches over the eaves. She arose and courtesied, with a questioning +smile. + +“Madame,” I asked, “is it too early to present myself to Monsieur de +Saint-Gré?” + +“Pardieu, no, Monsieur, we are early risers in the South for we have our +siesta. You are going to return the portrait, Monsieur?” + +I nodded. + +“God bless you for the deed,” said she. “Tenez, Monsieur,” she added, +stepping closer to me, “you will tell his father that you bought it from +Monsieur Auguste?” + +I saw that she had a soft spot in her heart for the rogue. + +“I will make no promises, Madame,” I answered. + +She looked at me timidly, appealingly, but I bowed and departed. The sun +was riding up into the sky, the walls already glowing with his heat, and +a midsummer languor seemed to pervade the streets as I walked along. The +shadows now were sharply defined, the checkered foliage of the trees +was flung in black against the yellow-white wall of the house with the +lions, and the green-latticed gallery which we had watched the night +before seemed silent and deserted. I knocked at the gate, and presently +a bright-turbaned gardienne opened it. + +Was Monsieur de Saint-Gré at home. The gardienne looked me over, and +evidently finding me respectable, replied with many protestations of +sorrow that he was not, that he had gone with Mamselle very early that +morning to his country place at Les Îles. This information I extracted +with difficulty, for I was not by any means versed in the negro patois. + +As I walked back to Madame Bouvet’s I made up my mind that there was +but the one thing to do, to go at once to Monsieur de Saint-Gré’s +plantation. Finding Madame still waiting in the gallery, I asked her to +direct me thither. + +“You have but to follow the road that runs southward along the levee, +and some three leagues will bring you to it, Monsieur. You will inquire +for Monsieur de Saint-Gré.” + +“Can you direct me to Mr. Daniel Clark’s?” I asked. + +“The American merchant and banker, the friend and associate of the +great General Wilkinson whom you sent down to us last year? Certainly, +Monsieur. He will no doubt give you better advice than I on this +matter.” + +I found Mr. Clark in his counting-room, and I had not talked with +him five minutes before I began to suspect that, if a treasonable +understanding existed between Wilkinson and the Spanish government, Mr. +Clark was innocent of it. He being the only prominent American in the +place, it was natural that Wilkinson should have formed with him a +business arrangement to care for the cargoes he sent down. Indeed, after +we had sat for some time chatting together, Mr. Clark began himself to +make guarded inquiries on this very subject. Did I know Wilkinson? How +was his enterprise of selling Kentucky products regarded at home? But +I do not intend to burden this story with accounts of a matter which, +though it has never been wholly clear, has been long since fairly +settled in the public mind. Mr. Clark was most amiable, accepted my +statement that I was travelling for pleasure, and honored Monsieur +Chouteau’s bon (for my purchase of the miniature had deprived me of +nearly all my ready money), and said that Mr. Temple and I would need +horses to get to Les Îles. + +“And unless you purpose going back to Kentucky by keel boat, or round by +sea to Philadelphia or New York, and cross the mountains,” he said, +“you will need good horses for your journey through Natchez and the +Cumberland country. There is a consignment of Spanish horses from the +westward just arrived in town,” he added, “and I shall be pleased to go +with you to the place where they are sold. I shall not presume to advise +a Kentuckian on such a purchase.” + +The horses were crowded together under a dirty shed near the levee, and +the vessel from which they had been landed rode at anchor in the river. +They were the scrawny, tough ponies of the plains, reasonably cheap, and +it took no great discernment on my part to choose three of the strongest +and most intelligent looking. We went next to a saddler’s, where I +selected three saddles and bridles of Spanish workmanship, and Mr. Clark +agreed to have two of his servants meet us with the horses before Madame +Bouvet’s within the hour. He begged that we would dine with him when we +returned from Les Îles. + +“You will not find an island, Mr. Ritchie,” he said; “Saint-Gré’s +plantation is a huge block of land between the river and a cypress swamp +behind. Saint-Gré is a man with a wonderful quality of mind, who might, +like his ancestors, have made his mark if necessity had probed him or +opportunity offered. He never forgave the Spanish government for the +murder of his father, nor do I blame him. He has his troubles. His son +is an incurable rake and degenerate, as you may have heard.” + +I went back to Madame Bouvet’s, to find Nick emerging from his toilet. + +“What deviltry have you been up to, Davy?” he demanded. + +“I have been to the House of the Lions to see your divinity,” I +answered, “and in a very little while horses will be here to carry us to +her.” + +“What do you mean?” he asked, grasping me by both shoulders. + +“I mean that we are going to her father’s plantation, some way down the +river.” + +“On my honor, Davy, I did not suspect you of so much enterprise,” he +cried. “And her husband--?” + +“Does not exist,” I replied. “Perhaps, after all, I might be able to +give you instruction in the conduct of an adventure. The man you chased +with such futility was her brother, and he stole from her the miniature +of which I am now the fortunate possessor.” + +He stared at me for a moment in rueful amazement. + +“And her name?” he demanded. + +“Antoinette de Saint-Gré,” I answered; “our letter is to her father.” + +He made me a rueful bow. + +“I fear that I have undervalued you, Mr. Ritchie,” he said. “You have +no peer. I am unworthy to accompany you, and furthermore, it would be +useless.” + +“And why useless!” I inquired, laughing. + +“You have doubtless seen the lady, and she is yours," said he. + +“You forget that I am in love with a miniature,” I said. + +In half an hour we were packed and ready, the horses had arrived, we +bade good-by to Madame Bouvet and rode down the miry street until we +reached the road behind the levee. Turning southward, we soon left +behind the shaded esplanade and the city’s roofs below us, and came to +the first of the plantation houses set back amidst the dark foliage. +No tremor shook the fringe of moss that hung from the heavy boughs, so +still was the day, and an indefinable, milky haze stretched between +us and the cloudless sky above. The sun’s rays pierced it and gathered +fire; the mighty river beside us rolled listless and sullen, flinging +back the heat defiantly. And on our left was a tropical forest in all +its bewildering luxuriance, the live-oak, the hackberry, the myrtle, the +Spanish bayonet in bristling groups, and the shaded places gave out a +scented moisture like an orangery; anon we passed fields of corn and +cotton, swamps of rice, stretches of poverty-stricken indigo plants, +gnawed to the stem by the pest. Our ponies ambled on, unmindful; but +Nick vowed that no woman under heaven would induce him to undertake such +a journey again. + +Some three miles out of the city we descried two figures on horseback +coming towards us, and quickly perceived that one was a gentleman, the +other his black servant. They were riding at a more rapid pace than the +day warranted, but the gentleman reined in his sweating horse as he +drew near to us, eyed us with a curiosity tempered by courtesy, bowed +gravely, and put his horse to a canter again. + +“Phew!” said Nick, twisting in his saddle, “I thought that all Creoles +were lazy.” + +“We have met the exception, perhaps,” I answered. “Did you take in that +man?” + +“His looks were a little remarkable, come to think of it,” answered +Nick, settling down into his saddle again. + +Indeed, the man’s face had struck me so forcibly that I was surprised +out of an inquiry which I had meant to make of him, namely, how far we +were from the Saint-Gré plantation. We pursued our way slowly, from +time to time catching a glimpse of a dwelling almost hid in the distant +foliage, until at length we came to a place a little more pretentious +than those which we had seen. From the road a graceful flight of wooden +steps climbed the levee and descended on the far side to a boat landing, +and a straight vista cut through the grove, lined by wild orange trees, +disclosed the white pillars and galleries of a far-away plantation +house. The grassy path leading through the vista was trimly kept, and on +either side of it in the moist, green shade of the great trees flowers +bloomed in a profusion of startling colors,--in splotches of scarlet and +white and royal purple. + +Nick slipped from his horse. + +“Behold the mansion of Mademoiselle de Saint-Gré,” said he, waving his +hand up the vista. + +“How do you know?” I asked. + +“I am told by a part of me that never lies, Davy,” he answered, laying +his hand upon his heart; “and besides,” he added, “I should dislike +devilishly to go too far on such a day and have to come back again.” + +“We will rest here,” I said, laughing, “and send in Benjy to find out.” + +“Davy,” he answered, with withering contempt, “you have no more romance +in you than a turnip. We will go ourselves and see what befalls.” + +“Very well, then,” I answered, falling in with his humor, “we will go +ourselves.” + +He brushed his face with his handkerchief, gave himself a pull here and +a pat there, and led the way down the alley. But we had not gone far +before he turned into a path that entered the grove on the right, and to +this likewise I made no protest. We soon found ourselves in a heavenly +spot,--sheltered from the sun’s rays by a dense verdure,--and no one +who has not visited these Southern country places can know the teeming +fragrance there. One shrub (how well I recall it!) was like unto the +perfume of all the flowers and all the fruits, the very essence of the +delicious languor of the place that made our steps to falter. A bird +shot a bright flame of color through the checkered light ahead of us. +Suddenly a sound brought us to a halt, and we stood in a tense and +wondering silence. The words of a song, sung carelessly in a clear, +girlish voice, came to us from beyond. + + “Je voudrais bien me marier, + Je voudrais bien me marier, + Mais j’ai qrand’ peur de me tromper: + Mais j’ai grand’ peur de me tromper: + Ils sont si malhonnêtes! + Ma luron, ma lurette, + Ils sont si malhonnêtes! + Ma luron, ma luré.” + +“We have come at the very zenith of opportunity,” I whispered. + +“Hush!” he said. + + “Je ne veux pas d’un avocat, + Je ne veux pas d’un avocat, + Car ils aiment trop les ducats, + Car ils aiment trop les ducats, + Ils trompent les fillettes, + Ma luron, ma lurette, + Ils trompent les fillettes, + Ma luron, ma luré.” + +“Eliminating Mr. Ritchie, I believe,” said Nick, turning on me with a +grimace. “But hark again!” + + “Je voudrais bien d’un officier: + Je voudrais bien d’un officier: + Je marcherais a pas cárres, + Je marcherais a pas cárres, + Dans ma joli’ chambrette, + Ma luron, ma lurette + Dans ma joli’ chambrette, + Ma luron, ma luré.” + +The song ceased with a sound that was half laughter, half sigh. Before I +realized what he was doing, Nick, instead of retracing his steps towards +the house, started forward. The path led through a dense thicket which +became a casino hedge, and suddenly I found myself peering over his +shoulder into a little garden bewildering in color. In the centre of +the garden a great live-oak spread its sheltering branches. Around the +gnarled trunk was a seat. And on the seat,--her sewing fallen into her +lap, her lips parted, her eyes staring wide, sat the young lady whom we +had seen on the levee the evening before. And Nick was making a bow in +his grandest manner. + +“Hélas, Mademoiselle,” he said, “je ne suis pas officier, mais on peut +arranger tout cela, sans doute.” + +My breath was taken away by this unheard-of audacity, and I braced +myself against screams, flight, and other feminine demonstrations of +terror. The young lady did nothing of the kind. She turned her back +to us, leaned against the tree, and to my astonishment I saw her slim +shoulders shaken with laughter. At length, very slowly, she looked +around, and in her face struggled curiosity and fear and merriment. Nick +made another bow, worthy of Versailles, and she gave a frightened little +laugh. + +“You are English, Messieurs--yes?” she ventured. + +“We were once!” cried Nick, “but we have changed, Mademoiselle.” + +“Et quoi donc?” relapsing into her own language. + +“Americans,” said he. “Allow me to introduce to you the Honorable David +Ritchie, whom you rejected a few moments ago.” + +“Whom I rejected?” she exclaimed. + +“Alas,” said Nick, with a commiserating glance at me, “he has the +misfortune to be a lawyer.” + +Mademoiselle shot at me the swiftest and shyest of glances, and turned +to us once more her quivering shoulders. There was a brief silence. + +“Mademoiselle?” said Nick, taking a step on the garden path. + +“Monsieur?” she answered, without so much as looking around. + +“What, now, would you take this gentleman to be?” he asked with an +insistence not to be denied. + +Again she was shaken with laughter, and suddenly to my surprise she +turned and looked full at me. + +“In English, Monsieur, you call it--a gallant?” + +My face fairly tingled, and I heard Nick laughing with unseemly +merriment. + +“Ah, Mademoiselle,” he cried, “you are a judge of character, and you +have read him perfectly.” + +“Then I must leave you, Messieurs,” she answered, with her eyes in her +lap. But she made no move to go. + +“You need have no fear of Mr. Ritchie, Mademoiselle,” answered Nick, +instantly. “I am here to protect you against his gallantry.” + +This time Nick received the glance, and quailed before it. + +“And who--par exemple--is to protect me against--you, Monsieur?” she +asked in the lowest of voices. + +“You forget that I, too, am unprotected--and vulnerable, Mademoiselle,” + he answered. + +Her face was hidden again, but not for long. + +“How did you come?” she demanded presently. + +“On air,” he answered, “for we saw you in New Orleans yesterday.” + +“And--why?” + +“Need you ask, Mademoiselle?” said the rogue, and then, with more +effrontery than ever, he began to sing:-- + + “‘Je voudrais bien me marier, + Je voudrais bien me marier, + Mais j’ai grand’ peur de me tromper.’” + +She rose, her sewing falling to the ground, and took a few startled +steps towards us. + +“Monsieur! you will be heard,” she cried. + +“And put out of the Garden of Eden,” said Nick. + +“I must leave you,” she said, with the quaintest of English +pronunciation. + +Yet she stood irresolute in the garden path, a picture against the dark +green leaves and the flowers. Her age might have been seventeen. Her +gown was of some soft and light material printed in buds of delicate +color, her slim arms bare above the elbow. She had the ivory complexion +of the province, more delicate than I had yet seen, and beyond that +I shall not attempt to describe her, save to add that she was such a +strange mixture of innocence and ingenuousness and coquetry as I had not +imagined. Presently her gaze was fixed seriously on me. + +“Do you think it very wrong, Monsieur?” she asked. + +I was more than taken aback by this tribute. + +“Oh,” cried Nick, “the arbiter of etiquette!” + +“Since I am here, Mademoiselle,” I answered, with anything but +readiness, “I am not a proper judge.” + +Her next question staggered me. + +“You are well-born?” she asked. + +“Mr. Ritchie’s grandfather was a Scottish earl,” said Nick, immediately, +a piece of news that startled me into protest. “It is true, Davy, though +you may not know it,” he added. + +“And you, Monsieur?” she said to Nick. + +“I am his cousin,--is it not honor enough?” said he. + +“Yet you do not resemble one another.” + +“Mr. Ritchie has all the good looks in the family,” said Nick. + +“Oh!” cried the young lady, and this time she gave us her profile. + +“Come, Mademoiselle,” said Nick, “since the fates have cast the die, let +us all sit down in the shade. The place was made for us.” + +“Monsieur!” she cried, giving back, “I have never in my life been alone +with gentlemen.” + +“But Mr. Ritchie is a duenna to satisfy the most exacting,” said Nick; +“when you know him better you will believe me.” + +She laughed softly and glanced at me. By this time we were all three +under the branches. + +“Monsieur, you do not understand the French customs. Mon Dieu, if the +good Sister Lorette could see me now--” + +“But she is safe in the convent,” said Nick. “Are they going to put +glass on the walls?” + +“And why?” asked Mademoiselle, innocently. + +“Because,” said Nick, “because a very bad man has come to New +Orleans,--one who is given to climbing walls.” + +“You?” + +“Yes. But when I found that a certain demoiselle had left the convent, I +was no longer anxious to climb them.” + +“And how did you know that I had left it?” + +I was at a loss to know whether this were coquetry or innocence. + +“Because I saw you on the levee,” said Nick. + +“You saw me on the levee?” she repeated, giving back. + +“And I had a great fear,” the rogue persisted. + +“A fear of what?” + +“A fear that you were married,” he said, with a boldness that made +me blush. As for Mademoiselle, a color that vied with the June roses +charged through her cheeks. She stooped to pick up her sewing, but Nick +was before her. + +“And why did you think me married?” she asked in a voice so low that we +scarcely heard. + +“Faith,” said Nick, “because you seemed to be quarrelling with a man.” + +She turned to him with an irresistible seriousness. + +“And is that your idea of marriage, Monsieur?” + +This time it was I who laughed, for he had been hit very fairly. + +“Mademoiselle,” said he, “I did not for a moment think it could have +been a love match.” + +Mademoiselle turned away and laughed. + +“You are the very strangest man I have ever seen,” she said. + +“Shall I give you my notion of a love match, Mademoiselle?” said Nick. + +“I should think you might be well versed in the subject, Monsieur,” + she answered, speaking to the tree, “but here is scarcely the time and +place.” She wound up her sewing, and faced him. “I must really leave +you,” she said. + +He took a step towards her and stood looking down into her face. Her +eyes dropped. + +“And am I never to see you again?” he asked. + +“Monsieur!” she cried softly, “I do not know who you are.” She made him +a courtesy, took a few steps in the opposite path, and turned. “That +depends upon your ingenuity,” she added; “you seem to have no lack of +it, Monsieur.” + +Nick was transported. + +“You must not go,” he cried. + +“Must not? How dare you speak to me thus, Monsieur?” Then she tempered +it. “There is a lady here whom I love, and who is ill. I must not be +long from her bedside.” + +“She is very ill?” said Nick, probably for want of something better. + +“She is not really ill, Monsieur, but depressed--is not that the +word? She is a very dear friend, and she has had trouble--so much, +Monsieur,--and my mother brought her here. We love her as one of the +family.” + +This was certainly ingenuous, and it was plain that the girl gave us +this story through a certain nervousness, for she twisted her sewing in +her fingers as she spoke. + +“Mademoiselle,” said Nick, “I would not keep you from such an errand of +mercy.” + +She gave him a grateful look, more dangerous than any which had gone +before. + +“And besides,” he went on, “we have come to stay awhile with you, Mr. +Ritchie and myself.” + +“You have come to stay awhile?” she said. + +I thought it time that the farce were ended. + +“We have come with letters to your father, Monsieur de Saint-Gré, +Mademoiselle,” I said, “and I should like very much to see him, if he is +at leisure.” + +Mademoiselle stared at me in unfeigned astonishment. + +“But did you not meet him, Monsieur?” she demanded. “He left an hour ago +for New Orleans. You must have met a gentleman riding very fast.” + +It was my turn to be astonished. + +“But that was not your father!” I exclaimed. + +“Et pourquoi non?” she said. + +“Is not your father the stout gentleman whom I saw with you on the levee +last evening?” I asked. + +She laughed. + +“You have been observing, Monsieur,” she said. “That was my uncle, +Monsieur de Beauséjour. You saw me quarrelling with my brother, +Auguste,” she went on a little excitedly. “Oh, I am very much ashamed +of it. I was so angry. My cousin, Mademoiselle Hélène de Saint-Gré, has +just sent me from France such a beautiful miniature, and Auguste fell in +love with it.” + +“Fell in love with it!” I exclaimed involuntarily. + +“You should see it, Monsieur, and I think you also would fall in love +with it.” + +“I have not a doubt of it,” said Nick. + +Mademoiselle made the faintest of moues. + +“Auguste is very wild, as you say,” she continued, addressing me, “he is +a great care to my father. He intrigues, you know, he wishes Louisiane +to become French once more,--as we all do. But I should not say this, +Monsieur,” she added in a startled tone. “You will not tell? No, I know +you will not. We do not like the Spaniards. They killed my grandfather +when they came to take the province. And once, the Governor-general Miro +sent for my father and declared he would put Auguste in prison if he did +not behave himself. But I have forgotten the miniature. When Auguste +saw that he fell in love with it, and now he wishes to go to France and +obtain a commission through our cousin, the Marquis of Saint-Gré, and +marry Mademoiselle Hélène.” + +“A comprehensive programme, indeed,” said Nick. + +“My father has gone back to New Orleans,” she said, “to get the +miniature from Auguste. He took it from me, Monsieur.” She raised her +head a little proudly. “If my brother had asked it, I might have given +it to him, though I treasured it. But Auguste is so--impulsive. My uncle +told my father, who is very angry. He will punish Auguste severely, +and--I do not like to have him punished. Oh, I wish I had the +miniature.” + +“Your wish is granted, Mademoiselle,” I answered, drawing the case from +my pocket and handing it to her. + +She took it, staring at me with eyes wide with wonder, and then she +opened it mechanically. + +“Monsieur,” she said with great dignity, “do you mind telling me where +you obtained this?” + +“I found it, Mademoiselle,” I answered; and as I spoke I felt Nick’s +fingers on my arm. + +“You found it? Where? How, Monsieur?” + +“At Madame Bouvet’s, the house where we stayed.” + +“Oh,” she said with a sigh of relief, “he must have dropped it. It +is there where he meets his associates, where they talk of the French +Louisiane.” + +Again I felt Nick pinching me, and I gave a sigh of relief. Mademoiselle +was about to continue, but I interrupted her. + +“How long will your father be in New Orleans, Mademoiselle?” I asked. + +“Until he finds Auguste,” she answered. “It may be days, but he will +stay, for he is very angry. But will you not come into the house, +Messieurs, and be presented to my mother?” she asked. “I have been +very--inhospitable,” she added with a glance at Nick. + +We followed her through winding paths bordered by shrubs and flowers, +and presently came to a low house surrounded by a wide, cool gallery, +and shaded by spreading trees. Behind it were clustered the kitchens and +quarters of the house servants. Mademoiselle, picking up her dress, +ran up the steps ahead of us and turned to the left in the hall into +a darkened parlor. The floor was bare, save for a few mats, and in the +corner was a massive escritoire of mahogany with carved feet, and +there were tables and chairs of a like pattern. It was a room of +more distinction than I had seen since I had been in Charlestown, and +reflected the solidity of its owners. + +“If you will be so kind as to wait here, Messieurs,” said Mademoiselle, +“I will call my mother.” + +And she left us. + +I sat down, rather uncomfortably, but Nick took a stand and stood +staring down at me with folded arms. + +“How I have undervalued you, Davy,” he said. + +“I am not proud of it,” I answered shortly. + +“What the deuce is to do now?” he asked. + +“I cannot linger here,” I answered; “I have business with Monsieur de +Saint-Gré, and I must go back to New Orleans at once.” + +“Then I will wait for you,” said Nick. “Davy, I have met my fate.” + +I laughed in spite of myself. + +“It seems to me that I have heard that remark before,” I answered. + +He had not time to protest, for we heard footsteps in the hall, and +Mademoiselle entered, leading an older lady by the hand. In the light +of the doorway I saw that she was thin and small and yellow, but +her features had a regularity and her mien a dignity which made her +impressing, which would have convinced a stranger that she was a person +of birth and breeding. Her hair, tinged with gray, was crowned by a lace +cap. + +“Madame,” I said, bowing and coming forward, “I am David Ritchie, from +Kentucky, and this is my cousin, Mr. Temple, of Charlestown. Monsieur +Gratiot and Colonel Chouteau, of St. Louis, have been kind enough to +give us letters to Monsieur de Saint-Gré.” And I handed her one of the +letters which I had ready. + +“You are very welcome, Messieurs,” she answered, with the same +delightful accent which her daughter had used, “and you are especially +welcome from such a source. The friends of Colonel Chouteau and of +Monsieur Gratiot are our friends. You will remain with us, I hope, +Messieurs,” she continued. “Monsieur de Saint-Gré will return in a few +days at best.” + +“By your leave, Madame, I will go to New Orleans at once and try to find +Monsieur,” I said, “for I have business with him.” + +“You will return with him, I hope,” said Madame. + +I bowed. + +“And Mr. Temple will remain?” she asked, with a questioning look at +Nick. + +“With the greatest pleasure in the world, Madame,” he answered, and +there was no mistaking his sincerity. As he spoke, Mademoiselle turned +her back on him. + +I would not wait for dinner, but pausing only for a sip of cool Madeira +and some other refreshment, I made my farewells to the ladies. As I +started out of the door to find Benjy, who had been waiting for more +than an hour, Mademoiselle gave me a neatly folded note. + +“You will be so kind as to present that to my father, Monsieur,” she +said. + + +CHAPTER XIII. MONSIEUR AUGUSTE ENTRAPPED + +It may be well to declare here and now that I do not intend to burden +this story with the business which had brought me to New Orleans. While +in the city during the next few days I met a young gentleman named +Daniel Clark, a nephew of that Mr. Clark of whom I have spoken. Many +years after the time of which I write this Mr. Daniel Clark the younger, +who became a rich merchant and an able man of affairs, published a book +which sets forth with great clearness proofs of General Wilkinson’s +duplicity and treason, and these may be read by any who would satisfy +himself further on the subject. Mr. Wharton had not believed, nor had +I flattered myself that I should be able to bring such a fox as General +Wilkinson to earth. Abundant circumstantial evidence I obtained: +Wilkinson’s intimacy with Miro was well known, and I likewise learned +that a cipher existed between them. The permit to trade given by Miro to +Wilkinson was made no secret of. In brief, I may say that I discovered +as much as could be discovered by any one without arousing suspicion, +and that the information with which I returned to Kentucky was of some +material value to my employers. + +I have to thank Monsieur Philippe de St. Gré for a great deal. And I +take this opportunity to set down the fact that I have rarely met a more +remarkable man. + +As I rode back to town alone a whitish film was spread before the sun, +and ere I had come in sight of the fortifications the low forest on the +western bank was a dark green blur against the sky. The esplanade on +the levee was deserted, the willow trees had a mournful look, while the +bright tiles of yesterday seemed to have faded to a sombre tone. I spied +Xavier on a bench smoking with some friends of his. + +“He make much rain soon, Michié,” he cried. “You hev good time, I hope, +Michié.” + +I waved my hand and rode on, past the Place d’Armes with its white +diagonal bands strapping its green like a soldier’s front, and as I drew +up before the gate of the House of the Lions the warning taps of the +storm were drumming on the magnolia leaves. The same gardienne came to +my knock, and in answer to her shrill cry a negro lad appeared to hold +my horse. I was ushered into a brick-paved archway that ran under the +latticed gallery toward a flower-filled court-yard, but ere we reached +this the gardienne turned to the left up a flight of steps with a +delicate balustrade which led to an open gallery above. And there +stood the gentleman whom we had met hurrying to town in the morning. A +gentleman he was, every inch of him. He was dressed in black silk, his +hair in a cue, and drawn away from a face of remarkable features. He +had a high-bridged nose, a black eye that held an inquiring sternness, a +chin indented, and a receding forehead. His stature was indeterminable. +In brief, he might have stood for one of those persons of birth and +ability who become prime ministers of France. + +“Monsieur de St. Gré?” I said. + +He bowed gracefully, but with a tinge of condescension. I was awed, and +considering the relations which I had already had with his family, I +must admit that I was somewhat frightened. + +“Monsieur,” I said, “I bring letters to you from Monsieur Gratiot and +Colonel Chouteau of St. Louis. One of these I had the honor to deliver +to Madame de St. Gré, and here is the other.” + +“Ah,” he said, with another keen glance, “I met you this morning, did I +not?” + +“You did, Monsieur.” + +He broke the seal, and, going to the edge of the gallery, held the +letter to the light. As he read a peal of thunder broke distantly, the +rain came down in a flood. Then he folded the paper carefully and turned +to me again. + +“You will make my house your home, Mr. Ritchie,” he said; “recommended +from such a source, I will do all I can to serve you. But where is this +Mr. Temple of whom the letter speaks? His family in Charlestown is known +to me by repute.” + +“By Madame de St. Gré’s invitation he remained at Les Îles,” I answered, +speaking above the roar of the rain. + +“I was just going to the table,” said Monsieur de St. Gré; “we will talk +as we eat.” + +He led the way into the dining room, and as I stood on the threshold +a bolt of great brilliancy lighted its yellow-washed floor and walnut +furniture of a staid pattern. A deafening crash followed as we took our +seats, while Monsieur de St. Gré’s man lighted four candles of green +myrtle-berry wax. + +“Monsieur Gratiot’s letter speaks vaguely of politics, Mr. Ritchie,” + began Monsieur de St. Gré. He spoke English perfectly, save for an +occasional harsh aspiration which I cannot imitate. + +Directing his man to fetch a certain kind of Madeira, he turned to +me with a look of polite inquiry which was scarcely reassuring. And I +reflected, the caution with which I had been endowed coming uppermost, +that the man might have changed since Monsieur Gratiot had seen him. +He had, moreover, the air of a man who gives a forced attention, which +seemed to me the natural consequences of the recent actions of his son. + +“I fear that I am intruding upon your affairs, Monsieur,” I answered. + +“Not at all, sir,” he said politely. “I have met that charming +gentleman, Mr. Wilkinson, who came here to brush away the causes of +dissension, and cement a friendship between Kentucky and Louisiana.” + +It was most fortunate that the note of irony did not escape me. + +“Where governments failed, General Wilkinson succeeded,” I answered +dryly. + +Monsieur de St. Gré glanced at me, and an enigmatical smile spread over +his face. I knew then that the ice was cracked between us. Yet he was +too much a man of the world not to make one more tentative remark. + +“A union between Kentucky and Louisiana would be a resistless force in +the world, Mr. Ritchie,” he said. + +“It was Nebuchadnezzar who dreamed of a composite image, Monsieur,” I +answered; “and Mr. Wilkinson forgets one thing,--that Kentucky is a part +of the United States.” + +At that Monsieur St. Gré laughed outright. He became a different man, +though he lost none of his dignity. + +“I should have had more faith in my old friend Gratiot,” he said; “but +you will pardon me if I did not recognize at once the statesman he had +sent me, Mr. Ritchie.” + +It was my turn to laugh. + +“Monsieur,” he went on, returning to that dignity of mien which marked +him, “my political opinions are too well known that I should make a +mystery of them to you. I was born a Frenchman, I shall die a Frenchman, +and I shall never be happy until Louisiana is French once more. My +great-grandfather, a brother of the Marquis de St. Gré of that time, and +a wild blade enough, came out with D’Iberville. His son, my grandfather, +was the Commissary-general of the colony under the Marquis de Vaudreuil. +He sent me to France for my education, where I was introduced at court +by my kinsman, the old Marquis, who took a fancy to me and begged me +to remain. It was my father’s wish that I should return, and I did not +disobey him. I had scarcely come back, Monsieur, when that abominable +secret bargain of Louis the Fifteenth became known, ceding Louisiana to +Spain. You may have heard of the revolution which followed here. It was +a mild affair, and the remembrance of it makes me smile to this day, +though with bitterness. I was five and twenty, hot-headed, and French. +Que voulez-vous?” and Monsieur de St. Gré shrugged his shoulders. +“O’Reilly, the famous Spanish general, came with his men-of-war. Well +I remember the days we waited with leaden hearts for the men-of-war to +come up from the English turn; and I can see now the cannon frowning +from the ports, the grim spars, the high poops crowded with officers, +the great anchors splashing the yellow water. I can hear the chains +running. The ships were in line of battle before the town, their flying +bridges swung to the levee, and they loomed above us like towering +fortresses. It was dark, Monsieur, such as this afternoon, and we poor +French colonists stood huddled in the open space below, waiting for we +knew not what.” + +He paused, and I started, for the picture he drew had carried me out of +myself. + +“On the 18th of August, 1769,--well I remember the day,” Monsieur de +St. Gré continued, “the Spanish troops landed late in the afternoon, +twenty-six hundred strong, the artillery rumbling over the bridges, the +horses wheeling and rearing. And they drew up as in line of battle in +the Place d’Armes,--dragoons, fusileros de montañas, light and heavy +infantry. Where were our white cockades then? Fifty guns shook the town, +the great O’Reilly limped ashore through the smoke, and Louisiana was +lost to France. We had a cowardly governor, Monsieur, whose name is +written in the annals of the province in letters of shame. He betrayed +Monsieur de St. Gré and others into O’Reilly’s hands, and when my father +was cast into prison he was seized with such a fit of anger that he +died.” + +Monsieur de St. Gré was silent. Without, under the eaves of the gallery, +a white rain fell, and a steaming moisture arose from the court-yard. + +“What I have told you, Monsieur, is common knowledge. Louisiana has been +Spanish for twenty years. I no longer wear the white cockade, for I am +older now.” He smiled. “Strange things are happening in France, and the +old order to which I belong” (he straightened perceptibly) “seems to be +tottering. I have ceased to intrigue, but thank God I have not ceased to +pray. Perhaps--who knows?--perhaps I may live to see again the lily of +France stirred by the river breeze.” + +He fell into a revery, his fine head bent a little, but presently +aroused himself and eyed me curiously. I need not say that I felt a +strange liking for Monsieur de St. Gré. + +“And now, Mr. Ritchie,” he said, “will you tell me who you are, and how +I can serve you?” + +The servant had put the coffee on the table and left the room. Monsieur +de St. Gré himself poured me a cup from the dainty, quaintly wrought +Louis Quinze coffeepot, graven with the coat of arms of his family. As +we sat talking, my admiration for my host increased, for I found that he +was familiar not only with the situation in Kentucky, but that he +also knew far more than I of the principles and personnel of the new +government of which General Washington was President. That he had little +sympathy with government by the people was natural, for he was a Creole, +and behind that a member of an order which detested republics. When we +were got beyond these topics the rain had ceased, the night had fallen, +the green candles had burned low. And suddenly, as he spoke of Les +Îsles, I remembered the note Mademoiselle had given me for him, and +I apologized for my forgetfulness. He read it, and dropped it with an +exclamation. + +“My daughter tells me that you have returned to her a miniature which +she lost, Monsieur,” he said. + +“I had that pleasure,” I answered. + +“And that--you found this miniature at Madame Bouvet’s. Was this the +case?” And he stared hard at me. + +I nodded, but for the life of me I could not speak. It seemed an outrage +to lie to such a man. He did not answer, but sat lost in thought, +drumming with his fingers on the tables until the noise of the slamming +of a door aroused him to a listening posture. The sound of subdued +voices came from the archway below us, and one of these, from an +occasional excited and feminine note, I thought to be the gardienne’s. +Monsieur de St. Gré thrust back his chair, and in three strides was at +the edge of the gallery. + +“Auguste!” he cried. + +Silence. + +“Auguste, come up to me at once,” he said in French. + +Another silence, then something that sounded like “Sapristi!” a groan +from the gardienne, and a step was heard on the stairway. My own +discomfort increased, and I would have given much to be in any other +place in the world. Auguste had arrived at the head of the steps but was +apparently unable to get any farther. + +“Bon soir, mon père,” he said. + +“Like a dutiful son,” said Monsieur de St. Gré, “you heard I was in +town, and called to pay your respects, I am sure. I am delighted to find +you. In fact, I came to town for that purpose.” + +“Lisette--” began Auguste. + +“Thought that I did not wish to be disturbed, no doubt,” said his +father. “Walk in, Auguste.” + +Monsieur Auguste’s slim figure appeared in the doorway. He caught sight +of me, halted, backed, and stood staring with widened eyes. The candles +threw their light across his shoulder on the face of the elder Monsieur +de St. Gré. Auguste was a replica of his father, with the features +minimized to regularity and the brow narrowed. The complexion of the one +was a clear saffron, while the boy’s skin was mottled, and he was not +twenty. + +“What is the matter?” said Monsieur de St. Gré. + +“You--you have a visitor!” stammered Auguste, with a tact that savored +of practice. Yet there was a sorry difference between this and the +haughty young patrician who had sold me the miniature. + +“Who brings me good news,” said Monsieur de St. Gré, in English. “Mr. +Ritchie, allow me to introduce my son, Auguste.” + +I felt Monsieur de St. Gré’s eyes on me as I bowed, and I began to think +I was in near as great a predicament as Auguste. Monsieur de St. Gré was +managing the matter with infinite wisdom. + +“Sit down, my son,” he said; “you have no doubt been staying with your +uncle.” Auguste sat down, still staring. “Does your aunt’s health mend?” + +“She is better to-night, father,” said the son, in English which might +have been improved. + +“I am glad of it,” said Monsieur de St. Gré, taking a chair. “André, +fill the glasses.” + +The silent, linen-clad mulatto poured out the Madeira, shot a look at +Auguste, and retired softly. + +“There has been a heavy rain, Monsieur,” said Monsieur de St. Gré to +me, “but I think the air is not yet cleared. I was about to say, Mr. +Ritchie, when my son called to pay his respects, that the miniature of +which we were speaking is one of the most remarkable paintings I have +ever seen.” Auguste’s thin fingers were clutching the chair. “I have +never beheld Mademoiselle Hélène de St. Gré, for my cousin, the Marquis, +was not married when I left France. He was a captain in a regiment of +his Majesty’s Mousquetaires, since abolished. But I am sure that the +likeness of Mademoiselle must be a true one, for it has the stamp of a +remarkable personality, though Hélène can be only eighteen. Women, with +us, mature quickly, Monsieur. And this portrait tallies with what I have +heard of her character. You no doubt observed the face, Monsieur,--that +of a true aristocrat. But I was speaking of her character. When she was +twelve, she said something to a cardinal for which her mother made her +keep her room a whole day. For Mademoiselle would not retract, and, +pardieu, I believe his Eminence was wrong. The Marquise is afraid of +her. And when first Hélène was presented formally she made such a witty +retort to the Queen’s sally that her Majesty insisted upon her coming +to court. On every New Year’s day I have always sent a present of coffee +and périque to my cousin the Marquis, and it is Mademoiselle who writes +to thank us. Parole d’honneur, her letters make me see again the +people amongst whom she moves,--the dukes and duchesses, the cardinals, +bishops, and generals. She draws them to the life, Monsieur, with a +touch that makes them all ridiculous. His Majesty does not escape. God +forgive him, he is indeed an amiable, weak person for calling a States +General. And the Queen, a frivolous lady, but true to those whom she +loves, and beginning now to realize the perils of the situation.” He +paused. “Is it any wonder that Auguste has fallen in love with +his cousin, Monsieur? That he loses his head, forgets that he is a +gentleman, and steals her portrait from his sister!” + +Had I not been so occupied with my own fate in the outcome of this +inquisition, I should have been sorry for Auguste. And yet this feeling +could not have lasted, for the young gentleman sprang to his feet, cast +a glance at me which was not without malignance, and faced his father, +his lips twitching with anger and fear. Monsieur de St. Gré sat +undisturbed. + +“He is so much in love with the portrait, Monsieur, that he loses it.” + +“Loses it!” cried Auguste. + +“Precisely,” said his father, dryly, “for Mr. Ritchie tells me he found +it--at Madame Bouvet’s, was it not, Monsieur?” + +Auguste looked at me. + +“Mille diables!” he said, and sat down again heavily. + +“Mr. Ritchie has returned it to your sister, a service which puts him +heavily in our debt,” said Monsieur de St. Gré. “Now, sir,” he added to +me, rising, “you have had a tiresome day. I will show you to your room, +and in the morning we will begin our--investigations.” + +He clapped his hands, the silent mulatto appeared with a new candle, and +I followed my host down the gallery to a room which he flung open at the +far end. A great four-poster bedstead was in one corner, and a polished +mahogany dresser in the other. + +“We have saved some of our family furniture from the fire, Mr. Ritchie,” +said Monsieur de St. Gré; “that bed was brought from Paris by my father +forty years ago. I hope you will rest well.” + +He set the candle on the table, and as he bowed there was a trace of +an enigmatical smile about his mouth. How much he knew of Auguste’s +transaction I could not fathom, but the matter and the scarcely +creditable part I had played in it kept me awake far into the night. I +was just falling into a troubled sleep when a footstep on the gallery +startled me back to consciousness. It was followed by a light tap on the +door. + +“Monsieur Reetchie,” said a voice. + +It was Monsieur Auguste. He was not an imposing figure in his nightrail, +and by the light of the carefully shaded candle he held in his hand I +saw that he had hitherto deceived me in the matter of his calves. He +stood peering at me as I lay under the mosquito bar. + +“How is it I can thank you, Monsieur!” he exclaimed in a whisper. + +“By saying nothing, Monsieur,” I answered. + +“You are noble, you are generous, and--and one day I will give you the +money back,” he added with a burst of magniloquence. “You have behave +very well, Monsieur, and I mek you my friend. Behol’ Auguste de St. Gré, +entirely at your service, Monsieur.” He made a sweeping bow that might +have been impressive save for the nightrail, and sought my hand, which +he grasped in a fold of the mosquito bar. + +“I am overcome, Monsieur,” I said. + +“Monsieur Reetchie, you are my friend, my intimate” (he put an aspirate +on the word). “I go to tell you one leetle secret. I find that I can +repose confidence in you. My father does not understan’ me, you saw, +Monsieur, he does not appreciate--that is the Engleesh. Mon Dieu, you +saw it this night. I, who spik to you, am made for a courtier, a noble. +I have the gift. La Louisiane--she is not so big enough for me.” He +lowered his voice still further, and bent nearer to me. “Monsieur, I +run away to France. My cousin the Marquis will help me. You will hear +of Auguste de St. Gré at Versailles, at Trianon, at Chantilly, and +peut-être--” + +“It is a worthy campaign, Monsieur,” I interrupted. + +A distant sound broke the stillness, and Auguste was near to dropping +the candle on me. + +“Adieu, Monsieur,” he whispered; “milles tonneres, I have done one +extraordinaire foolish thing when I am come to this house to-night.” + +And he disappeared, shading his candle, as he had come. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. RETRIBUTION + +During the next two days I had more evidence of Monsieur de St. Gré’s +ability, and, thanks to his conduct of my campaign, not the least +suspicion of my mission to New Orleans got abroad. Certain gentlemen +were asked to dine, we called on others, and met still others casually +in their haunts of business or pleasure. I was troubled because of +the inconvenience and discomfort to which my host put himself, for New +Orleans in the dog-days may be likened in climate to the under side of +the lid of a steam kettle. But at length, on the second evening, after +we had supped on jambalaya and rice cakes and other dainties, and the +last guest had gone, my host turned to me. + +“The rest of the burrow is the same, Mr. Ritchie, until it comes to the +light again.” + +“And the fox has crawled out of the other end,” I said. + +“Precisely,” he answered, laughing; “in short, if you were to remain in +New Orleans until New Year’s, you would not learn a whit more. To-morrow +morning I have a little business of my own to transact, and we shall +get to Les Îles in time for dinner. No, don’t thank me,” he protested; +“there’s a certain rough honesty and earnestness ingrained in you +which I like. And besides,” he added, smiling, “you are poor indeed at +thanking, Mr. Ritchie. You could never do it gracefully. But if ever I +were in trouble, I believe that I might safely call on you.” + +The next day was a rare one, for a wind from somewhere had blown the +moisture away a little, the shadows were clearer cut, and by noon +Monsieur de St. Gré and I were walking our horses in the shady road +behind the levee. We were followed at a respectful distance by André, +Monsieur’s mulatto body-servant, and as we rode my companion gave me +stories of the owners of the different plantations we passed, and spoke +of many events of interest in the history of the colony. Presently he +ceased to talk, and rode in silence for many minutes. And then he turned +upon me suddenly. + +“Mr. Ritchie,” he said, “you have seen my son. It may be that in him +I am paying the price of my sins. I have done everything to set him +straight, but in vain. Monsieur, every son of the St. Grés has awakened +sooner or later to a sense of what becomes him. But Auguste is a fool,” +he cried bitterly,--a statement which I could not deny; “were it not for +my daughter, Antoinette, I should be a miserable man indeed.” + +Inasmuch as he was not a person of confidences, I felt the more +flattered that he should speak so plainly to me, and I had a great +sympathy for this strong man who could not help himself. + +“You have observed Antoinette, Mr. Ritchie,” he continued; “she is a +strange mixture of wilfulness and caprice and self-sacrifice, and she +has at times a bit of that wit which has made our house for generations +the intimates--I may say--of sovereigns.” + +This peculiar pride of race would have amused me in another man. I found +myself listening to Monsieur de St. Gré with gravity, and I did not dare +to reply that I had had evidence of Mademoiselle’s aptness of retort. + +“She has been my companion since she was a child, Monsieur. She has +disobeyed me, flaunted me, nursed me in illness, championed me behind my +back. I have a little book which I have kept of her sayings and doings, +which may interest you, Monsieur. I will show it you.” + +This indeed was a new side of Monsieur de St. Gré, and I reflected +rather ruefully upon the unvarnished truth of what Mr. Wharton had told +me,--ay, and what Colonel Clark had emphasized long before. It was my +fate never to be treated as a young man. It struck me that Monsieur de +St. Gré had never even considered me in the light of a possible suitor +for his daughter’s hand. + +“I should be delighted to see them, Monsieur,” I answered. + +“Would you?” he exclaimed, his face lighting up as he glanced at me. +“Alas, Madame de St. Gré and I have promised to go to our neighbors’, +Monsieur and Madame Bertrand’s, for to-night. But, to-morrow, if you +have leisure, we shall look at it together. And not a word of this to my +daughter, Monsieur,” he added apprehensively; “she would never forgive +me. She dislikes my talking of her, but at times I cannot help it. It +was only last year that she was very angry with me, and would not speak +to me for days, because I boasted of her having watched at the bedside +of a poor gentleman who came here and got the fever. You will not tell +her?” + +“Indeed I shall not, Monsieur,” I answered. + +“It is strange,” he said abruptly, “it is strange that this gentleman +and his wife should likewise have had letters to us from Monsieur +Gratiot. They came from St. Louis, and they were on their way to Paris.” + +“To Paris?” I cried; “what was their name?” + +He looked at me in surprise. + +“Clive,” he said. + +“Clive!” I cried, leaning towards him in my saddle. “Clive! And what +became of them?” + +This time he gave me one of his searching looks, and it was not unmixed +with astonishment. + +“Why do you ask, Monsieur?” he demanded. “Did you know them?” + +I must have shown that I was strangely agitated. For the moment I could +not answer. + +“Monsieur Gratiot himself spoke of them to me,” I said, after a little; +“he said they were an interesting couple.” + +“Pardieu!” exclaimed Monsieur de St. Gré, “he put it mildly.” He gave me +another look. “There was something about them, Monsieur, which I could +not fathom. Why were they drifting? They were people of quality who had +seen the world, who were by no means paupers, who had no cause to travel +save a certain restlessness. And while they were awaiting the sailing +of the packet for France they came to our house--the old one in the +Rue Bourbon that was burned. I would not speak ill of the dead, but Mr. +Clive I did not like. He fell sick of the fever in my house, and it was +there that Antoinette and Madame de St. Gré took turns with his wife in +watching at his bedside. I could do nothing with Antoinette, Monsieur, +and she would not listen to my entreaties, my prayers, my commands. We +buried the poor fellow in the alien ground, for he did not die in the +Church, and after that my daughter clung to Mrs. Clive. She would not +let her go, and the packet sailed without her. I have never seen such +affection. I may say,” he added quickly, “that Madame de St. Gré and I +share in it, for Mrs. Clive is a lovable woman and a strong character. +And into the great sorrow that lies behind her life, we have never +probed.” + +“And she is with you now, Monsieur?” I asked. + +“She lives with us, Monsieur,” he answered simply, “and I hope for +always. No,” he said quickly, “it is not charity,--she has something of +her own. We love her, and she is the best of companions for my daughter. +For the rest, Monsieur, she seems benumbed, with no desire to go back or +to go farther.” + +An entrance drive to the plantation of Les Îles, unknown to Nick and me, +led off from the main road like a green tunnel arched out of the forest. +My feelings as we entered this may be imagined, for I was suddenly +confronted with the situation which I had dreaded since my meeting with +Nick at Jonesboro. I could scarcely allow myself even the faint hope +that Mrs. Clive might not prove to be Mrs. Temple after all. Whilst I +was in this agony of doubt and indecision, the drive suddenly came out +on a shaded lawn dotted with flowering bushes. There was the house with +its gallery, its curved dormer roof and its belvedere; and a white, +girlish figure flitted down the steps. It was Mademoiselle Antoinette, +and no sooner had her father dismounted than she threw herself into his +arms. Forgetful of my presence, he stood murmuring in her ear like a +lover; and as I watched them my trouble slipped from my mind, and gave +place to a vaguer regret that I had been a wanderer throughout my life. +Presently she turned up to him a face on which was written something +which he could not understand. His own stronger features reflected a +vague disquiet. + +“What is it, ma chérie?” + +What was it indeed? Something was in her eyes which bore a message and +presentiment to me. She dropped them, fastening in the lapel of his +coat a flaunting red flower set against a shining leaf, and there was a +gentle, joyous subterfuge in her answer. + +“Thou pardoned Auguste, as I commanded?” she said. They were speaking in +the familiar French. + +“Ha, diable! is it that which disquiets thee?” said her father. “We will +not speak of Auguste. Dost thou know Monsieur Ritchie, ‘Toinette?” + +She disengaged herself and dropped me a courtesy, her eyes seeking +the ground. But she said not a word. At that instant Madame de St. Gré +herself appeared on the gallery, followed by Nick, who came down the +steps with a careless self-confidence to greet the master. Indeed, a +stranger might have thought that Mr. Temple was the host, and I saw +Antoinette watching him furtively with a gleam of amusement in her eyes. + +“I am delighted to see you at last, Monsieur,” said my cousin. “I am +Nicholas Temple, and I have been your guest for three days.” + +Had Monsieur de St. Gré been other than the soul of hospitality, it +would have been impossible not to welcome such a guest. Our host had, +in common with his daughter, a sense of humor. There was a quizzical +expression on his fine face as he replied, with the barest glance at +Mademoiselle Antoinette:-- + +“I trust you have been--well entertained, Mr. Temple. My daughter has +been accustomed only to the society of her brother and cousins.” + +“Faith, I should not have supposed it,” said Nick, instantly, a remark +which caused the color to flush deeply into Mademoiselle’s face. I +looked to see Monsieur de St. Gré angry. He tried, indeed, to be grave, +but smiled irresistibly as he mounted the steps to greet his wife, who +stood demurely awaiting his caress. And in this interval Mademoiselle +shot at Nick a swift and withering look as she passed him. He returned a +grimace. + +“Messieurs,” said Monsieur de St. Gré, turning to us, “dinner will soon +be ready--if you will be so good as to pardon me until then.” + +Nick followed Mademoiselle with his eyes until she had disappeared +beyond the hall. She did not so much as turn. Then he took me by the arm +and led me to a bench under a magnolia a little distance away, where he +seated himself, and looked up at me despairingly. + +“Behold,” said he, “what was once your friend and cousin, your +counsellor, sage, and guardian. Behold the clay which conducted you +hither, with the heart neatly but painfully extracted. Look upon a +woman’s work, Davy, and shun the sex. I tell you it is better to go +blindfold through life, to have--pardon me--your own blunt features, +than to be reduced to such a pitiable state. Was ever such a refinement +of cruelty practised before? Never! Was there ever such beauty, such +archness, such coquetry,--such damned elusiveness? Never! If there is a +cargo going up the river, let me be salted and lie at the bottom of it. +I’ll warrant you I’ll not come to life.” + +“You appear to have suffered somewhat,” I said, forgetting for the +moment in my laughter the thing that weighed upon my mind. + +“Suffered!” he cried; “I have been tossed high in the azure that I might +sink the farther into the depths. I have been put in a grave, the earth +stamped down, resurrected, and flung into the dust-heap. I have been +taken up to the gate of heaven and dropped a hundred and fifty years +through darkness. Since I have seen you I have been the round of all the +bright places and all the bottomless pits in the firmament.” + +“It seems to have made you literary,” I remarked judicially. + +“I burn up twenty times a day,” he continued, with a wave of the hand to +express the completeness of the process; “there is nothing left. I see +her, I speak to her, and I burn up.” + +“Have you had many tête-à-têtes?” I asked. + +“Not one,” he retorted fiercely; “do you think there is any sense in the +damnable French custom? I am an honorable man, and, besides, I am not +equipped for an elopement. No priest in Louisiana would marry us. I see +her at dinner, at supper. Sometimes we sew on the gallery,” he went on, +“but I give you my oath that I have not had one word with her alone.” + +“An oath is not necessary,” I said. “But you seem to have made some +progress nevertheless.” + +“Do you call that progress?” he demanded. + +“It is surely not retrogression.” + +“God knows what it is,” said Nick, helplessly, “but it’s got to stop. I +have sent her an ultimatum.” + +“A what?” + +“A summons. Her father and mother are going to the Bertrands’ to-night, +and I have written her a note to meet me in the garden. And you,” he +cried, rising and slapping me between the shoulders, “you are to keep +watch, like the dear, careful, canny, sly rascal you are.” + +“And--and has she accepted?” I inquired. + +“That’s the deuce of it,” said he; “she has not. But I think she’ll +come.” + +I stood for a moment regarding him. + +“And you really love Mademoiselle Antoinette?” I asked. + +“Have I not exhausted the language?” he answered. “If what I have been +through is not love, then may the Lord shield me from the real disease.” + +“It may have been merely a light case of--tropical enthusiasm, let +us say. I have seen others, a little milder because the air was more +temperate.” + +“Tropical--balderdash,” he exploded. “If you are not the most +exasperating, unfeeling man alive--” + +“I merely wanted to know if you wished to marry Mademoiselle de St. +Gré,” I interrupted. + +He gave me a look of infinite tolerance. + +“Have I not made it plain that I cannot live without her?” he said; “if +not, I will go over it all again.” + +“That will not be necessary,” I said hastily. + +“The trouble may be,” he continued, “that they have already made one of +their matrimonial contracts with a Granpré, a Beauséjour, a Bernard.” + +“Monsieur de St. Gré is a very sensible man,” I answered. “He loves his +daughter, and I doubt if he would force her to marry against her will. +Tell me, Nick,” I asked, laying my hand upon his shoulder, “do you love +this girl so much that you would let nothing come between you and her?” + +“I tell you, I do; and again I tell you, I do,” he replied. He paused +suddenly glancing at my face, and added, “Why do you ask, Davy?” + +I stood irresolute, now that the time had come not daring to give voice +to my suspicions. He had not spoken to me of his mother save that once, +and I had no means of knowing whether his feeling for the girl might not +soften his anger against her. I have never lacked the courage to come +to the point, but there was still the chance that I might be mistaken in +this after all. Would it not be best to wait until I had ascertained in +some way the identity of Mrs. Clive? And while I stood debating, Nick +regarding me with a puzzled expression, Monsieur de St. Gré appeared on +the gallery. + +“Come, gentlemen,” he cried; “dinner awaits us.” + +The dining room at Les Îles was at the corner of the house, and its +windows looked out on the gallery, which was shaded at that place by +dense foliage. The room, like others in the house, seemed to reflect the +decorous character of its owner. Two St. Grés, indifferently painted, +but rigorous and respectable, relieved the whiteness of the wall. They +were the Commissary-general and his wife. The lattices were closed on +one side, and in the deep amber light the family silver shone but dimly. +The dignity of our host, the evident ceremony of the meal,--which was +attended by three servants,--would have awed into a modified silence at +least a less irrepressible person than Nicholas Temple. But Nick was one +to carry by storm a position which another might wait to reconnoitre. +The first sensation of our host was no doubt astonishment, but he was +soon laughing over a vivid account of our adventures on the keel boat. +Nick’s imitation of Xavier, and his description of Benjy’s terrors after +the storm, were so perfect that I laughed quite as heartily; and +Madame de St. Gré wiped her eyes and repeated continually, “Quel +drôle monsieur! it is thus he has entertained us since thou departed, +Philippe.” + +As for Mademoiselle, I began to think that Nick was not far wrong in his +diagnosis. Training may have had something to do with it. She would not +laugh, not she, but once or twice she raised her napkin to her face and +coughed slightly. For the rest, she sat demurely, with her eyes on +her plate, a model of propriety. Nick’s sufferings became more +comprehensible. + +To give the devil his due, Nick had an innate tact which told him when +to stop, and perhaps at this time Mademoiselle’s superciliousness made +him subside the more quickly. After Monsieur de St. Gré had explained to +me the horrors of the indigo pest and the futility of sugar raising, he +turned to his daughter. + +“‘Toinette, where is Madame Clive?” he asked. + +The girl looked up, startled into life and interest at once. + +“Oh, papa,” she cried in French, “we are so worried about her, mamma and +I. It was the day you went away, the day these gentlemen came, that we +thought she would take an airing. And suddenly she became worse.” + +Monsieur de St. Gré turned with concern to his wife. + +“I do not know what it is, Philippe,” said that lady; “it seems to be +mental. The loss of her husband weighs upon her, poor lady. But this is +worse than ever, and she will lie for hours with her face turned to the +wall, and not even Antoinette can arouse her.” + +“I have always been able to comfort her before,” said Antoinette, with a +catch in her voice. + +I took little account of what was said after that, my only notion being +to think the problem out for myself, and alone. As I was going to my +room Nick stopped me. + +“Come into the garden, Davy,” he said. + +“When I have had my siesta,” I answered. + +“When you have had your siesta!” he cried; “since when did you begin to +indulge in siestas?” + +“To-day,” I replied, and left him staring after me. + +I reached my room, bolted the door, and lay down on my back to think. +Little was needed to convince me now that Mrs. Clive was Mrs. Temple, +and thus the lady’s relapse when she heard that her son was in the house +was accounted for. Instead of forming a plan, my thoughts drifted from +that into pity for her, and my memory ran back many years to the text +of good Mr. Mason’s sermon, “I have refined thee, but not with silver, +I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” What must Sarah Temple +have suffered since those days! I remembered her in her prime, in her +beauty, in her selfishness, in her cruelty to those whom she might have +helped, and I wondered the more at the change which must have come over +the woman that she had won the affections of this family, that she had +gained the untiring devotion of Mademoiselle Antoinette. Her wit might +not account for it, for that had been cruel. And something of the agony +of the woman’s soul as she lay in torment, facing the wall, thinking +of her son under the same roof, of a life misspent and irrevocable, I +pictured. + +A stillness crept into the afternoon like the stillness of night. The +wide house was darkened and silent, and without a sunlight washed with +gold filtered through the leaves. There was a drowsy hum of bees, and in +the distance the occasional languishing note of a bird singing what must +have been a cradle-song. My mind wandered, and shirked the task that was +set to it. + +Could anything be gained by meddling? I had begun to convince myself +that nothing could, when suddenly I came face to face with the +consequences of a possible marriage between Nick and Mademoiselle +Antoinette. In that event the disclosure of his mother’s identity would +be inevitable. Not only his happiness was involved, but Mademoiselle’s, +her father’s and her mother’s, and lastly that of this poor hunted woman +herself, who thought at last to have found a refuge. + +An hour passed, and it became more and more evident to me that I must +see and talk with Mrs. Temple. But how was I to communicate with her? At +last I took out my portfolio and wrote these words on a sheet:-- + +“If Mrs. Clive will consent to a meeting with Mr. David Ritchie, he +will deem it a favor. Mr. Ritchie assures Mrs. Clive that he makes this +request in all friendliness.” + +I lighted a candle, folded the note and sealed it, addressed it to Mrs. +Clive, and opening the latticed door I stepped out. Walking along the +gallery until I came to the rear part of the house which faced towards +the out-buildings, I spied three figures prone on the grass under a +pecan tree that shaded the kitchen roof. One of these figures was Benjy, +and he was taking his siesta. I descended quietly from the gallery, and +making my way to him, touched him on the shoulder. He awoke and stared +at me with white eyes. + +“Marse Dave!” he cried. + +“Hush,” I answered, “and follow me.” + +He came after me, wondering, a little way into the grove, where I +stopped. + +“Benjy,” I said, “do you know any of the servants here?” + +“Lawsy, Marse Dave, I reckon I knows ‘em,--some of ‘em,” he answered +with a grin. + +“You talk to them?” + +“Shucks, no, Marse Dave,” he replied with a fine scorn, “I ain’t no hand +at dat ar nigger French. But I knows some on ‘em, and right well too.” + +“How?” I demanded curiously. + +Benjy looked down sheepishly at his feet. He was standing pigeon-toed. + +“I done c’ressed some on ‘em, Marse Dave,” he said at length, and there +was a note of triumph in his voice. + +“You did what?” I asked. + +“I done kissed one of dem yaller gals, Marse Dave. Yass’r, I done kissed +M’lisse.” + +“Do you think Mélisse would do something for you if you asked her?” I +inquired. + +Benjy seemed hurt. + +“Marse Dave--” he began reproachfully. + +“Very well, then,” I interrupted, taking the letter from my pocket, +“there is a lady who is ill here, Mrs. Clive--” + +I paused, for a new look had come into Benjy’s eyes. He began that +peculiar, sympathetic laugh of the negro, which catches and doubles on +itself, and I imagined that a new admiration for me dawned on his face. + +“Yass’r, yass, Marse Dave, I reckon M’lisse ‘ll git it to her ‘thout any +one tekin’ notice.” + +I bit my lips. + +“If Mrs. Clive receives this within an hour, Mélisse shall have one +piastre, and you another. There is an answer.” + +Benjy took the note, and departed nimbly to find Mélisse, while I paced +up and down in my uneasiness as to the outcome of the experiment. A +quarter of an hour passed, half an hour, and then I saw Benjy coming +through the trees. He stood before me, chuckling, and drew from his +pocket a folded piece of paper. I gave him the two piastres, warned him +if his master or any one inquired for me that I was taking a walk, and +bade him begone. Then I opened the note. + +“I will meet you at the bayou at seven this evening. Take the path that +leads through the garden.” + +I read it with a catch of the breath, with a certainty that the +happiness of many people depended upon what I should say at that +meeting. And to think of this and to compose myself a little, I made my +way to the garden in search of the path, that I might know it when the +time came. Entering a gap in the hedge, I caught sight of the shaded +seat under the tree which had been the scene of our first meeting with +Antoinette, and I hurried past it as I crossed the garden. There were +two openings in the opposite hedge, the one through which Nick and I had +come, and another. I took the second, and with little difficulty +found the path of which the note had spoken. It led through a dense, +semi-tropical forest in the direction of the swamp beyond, the way being +well beaten, but here and there jealously crowded by an undergrowth +of brambles and the prickly Spanish bayonet. I know not how far I had +walked, my head bent in thought, before I felt the ground teetering +under my feet, and there was the bayou. It was a narrow lane of murky, +impenetrable water, shaded now by the forest wall. Imaged on its +amber surface were the twisted boughs of the cypresses of the swamp +beyond,--boughs funereally draped, as though to proclaim a warning of +unknown perils in the dark places. On that side where I stood ancient +oaks thrust their gnarled roots into the water, and these knees were +bridged by treacherous platforms of moss. As I sought for a safe +resting-place a dull splash startled me, the pink-and-white water lilies +danced on the ripples, and a long, black snout pushed its way to the +centre of the bayou and floated there motionless. + +I sat down on a wide knee that seemed to be fashioned for the purpose, +and reflected. It may have been about half-past five, and I made up my +mind that, rather than return and risk explanations, I would wait where +I was until Mrs. Temple appeared. I had much to think of, and for the +rest the weird beauty of the place, with its changing colors as the +sun fell, held me in fascination. When the blue vapor stole through the +cypress swamp, my trained ear caught the faintest of warning sounds. +Mrs. Temple was coming. + +I could not repress the exclamation that rose to my lips when she stood +before me. + +“I have changed somewhat,” she began quite calmly; “I have changed since +you were at Temple Bow.” + +I stood staring at her, at a loss to know whether by these words she +sought to gain an advantage. I knew not whether to pity or to be angry, +such a strange blending she seemed of former pride and arrogance and +later suffering. There were the features of the beauty still, the +eyes defiant, the lips scornful. Sorrow had set its brand upon this +protesting face in deep, violet marks under the eyes, in lines which no +human power could erase: sorrow had flecked with white the gold of the +hair, had proclaimed her a woman with a history. For she had a new and +remarkable beauty which puzzled and astonished me,--a beauty in which +maternity had no place. The figure, gowned with an innate taste in +black, still kept the rounded lines of the young woman, while about the +shoulders and across the open throat a lace mantilla was thrown. She +stood facing me, undaunted, and I knew that she had come to fight for +what was left her. I knew further that she was no mean antagonist. + +“Will you kindly tell me to what circumstance I owe the honor of +this--summons, Mr. Ritchie?” she asked. “You are a travelled person for +one so young. I might almost say,” she added with an indifferent laugh, +“that there is some method and purpose in your travels.” + +“Indeed, you do me wrong, Madame,” I replied; “I am here by the merest +chance.” + +Again she laughed lightly, and stepping past me took her seat on the +oak from which I had risen. I marvelled that this woman, with all +her self-possession, could be the same as she who had held her room, +cowering, these four days past. Admiration for her courage mingled with +my other feelings, and for the life of me I knew not where to begin. My +experience with women of the world was, after all, distinctly limited. +Mrs. Temple knew, apparently by intuition, the advantage she had gained, +and she smiled. + +“The Ritchies were always skilled in dealing with sinners,” she began; +“the first earl had the habit of hunting them like foxes, so it is said. +I take it for granted that, before my sentence is pronounced, I shall +have the pleasure of hearing my wrong-doings in detail. I could not ask +you to forego that satisfaction.” + +“You seem to know the characteristics of my family, Mrs. Temple,” I +answered. “There is one trait of the Ritchies concerning which I ask +your honest opinion.” + +“And what is that?” she said carelessly. + +“I have always understood that they have spoken the truth. Is it not +so?” + +She glanced at me curiously. + +“I never knew your father to lie,” she answered; “but after all he had +few chances. He so seldom spoke.” + +“Your intercourse with me at Temple Bow was quite as limited,” I said. + +“Ah,” she interrupted quickly, “you bear me that grudge. It is another +trait of the Ritchies.” + +“I bear you no grudge, Madame,” I replied. “I asked you a question +concerning the veracity of my family, and I beg that you will believe +what I say.” + +“And what is this momentous statement?” she asked. + +I had hard work to keep my temper, but I knew that I must not lose it. + +“I declare to you on my honor that my business in New Orleans in no way +concerns you, and that I had not the slightest notion of finding you +here. Will you believe that?” + +“And what then?” she asked. + +“I also declare to you that, since meeting your son, my chief anxiety +has been lest he should run across you.” + +“You are very considerate of others,” she said. “Let us admit for the +sake of argument that you come here by accident.” + +It was the opening I had sought for, but despaired of getting. + +“Then put yourself for a moment in my place, Madame, and give me credit +for a little kindliness of feeling, and a sincere affection for your +son.” + +There was a new expression on her face, and the light of a supreme +effort in her eyes. + +“I give you credit at least for a logical mind,” she answered. “In +spite of myself you have put me at the bar and seem to be conducting my +trial.” + +“I do not see why there should be any rancor between us,” I answered. +“It is true that I hated you at Temple Bow. When my father was killed +and I was left a homeless orphan you had no pity for me, though your +husband was my mother’s brother. But you did me a good turn after all, +for you drove me out into a world where I learned to rely upon myself. +Furthermore, it was not in your nature to treat me well.” + +“Not in my nature?” she repeated. + +“You were seeking happiness, as every one must in their own way. That +happiness lay, apparently, with Mr. Riddle.” + +“Ah,” she cried, with a catch of her breath, “I thought you would be +judging me.” + +“I am stating facts. Your son was a sufficient embarrassment in this +matter, and I should have been an additional one. I blame you not, +Mrs. Temple, for anything you have done to me, but I blame you for +embittering Nick’s life.” + +“And he?” she said. It seemed to me that I detected a faltering in her +voice. + +“I will hide nothing from you. He blames you, with what justice I leave +you to decide.” + +She did not answer this, but turned her head away towards the bayou. Nor +could I determine what was in her mind. + +“And now I ask you whether I have acted as your friend in begging you to +meet me.” + +She turned to me swiftly at that. + +“I am at a loss to see how there can be friendship between us, Mr. +Ritchie,” she said. + +“Very good then, Madame; I am sorry,” I answered. “I have done all that +is in my power, and now events will have to take their course.” + +I had not gone two steps into the wood before I heard her voice calling +my name. She had risen, and leaned with her hand against the oak. + +“Does Nick--know that you are here?” she cried. + +“No,” I answered shortly. Then I realized suddenly what I had failed to +grasp before,--she feared that I would pity her. + +“David!” + +I started violently at the sound of my name, at the new note in her +voice, at the change in the woman as I turned. And then before I +realized what she had done she had come to me swiftly and laid her hand +upon my arm. + +“David, does he hate me?” + +All the hope remaining in her life was in that question, was in her face +as she searched mine with a terrible scrutiny. And never had I known +such an ordeal. It seemed as if I could not answer, and as I stood +staring back at her a smile was forced to her lips. + +“I will pay you one tribute, my friend,” she said; “you are honest.” + +But even as she spoke I saw her sway, and though I could not be sure it +were not a dizziness in me, I caught her. I shall always marvel at the +courage there was in her, for she straightened and drew away from me +a little proudly, albeit gently, and sat down on the knee of the oak, +looking across the bayou towards the mist of the swamp. There was the +infinite calmness of resignation in her next speech. + +“Tell me about him,” she said. + +She was changed indeed. Were it not so I should have heard of her own +sufferings, of her poor, hunted life from place to place, of countless +nights made sleepless by the past. Pride indeed was left, but the fire +had burned away the last vestige of selfishness. + +I sat down beside her, knowing full well that I should be judged by +what I said. She listened, motionless, though something of what that +narrative cost her I knew by the current of sympathy that ran now +between us. Unmarked, the day faded, a new light was spread over the +waters, the mist was spangled with silver points, the Spanish moss took +on the whiteness of lace against the black forest swamp, and on the +yellow face of the moon the star-shaped leaves of a gum were printed. + +At length I paused. She neither spoke, nor moved--save for the rising +and falling of her shoulders. The hardest thing I had to say I saved for +the last, and I was near lacking the courage to continue. + +“There is Mademoiselle Antoinette--” I began, and stopped,--she turned +on me so quickly and laid a hand on mine. + +“Nick loves her!” she cried. + +“You know it!” I exclaimed, wondering. + +“Ah, David,” she answered brokenly, “I foresaw it from the first. I, +too, love the girl. No human being has ever given me such care and such +affection. She--she is all that I have left. Must I give her up? Have I +not paid the price of my sins?” + +I did not answer, knowing that she saw the full cruelty of the +predicament. What happiness remained to her now of a battered life stood +squarely in the way of her son’s happiness. That was the issue, and no +advice or aid of mine could change it. There was another silence that +seemed to me an eternity as I watched, a helpless witness, the struggle +going on within her. At last she got to her feet, her face turned to the +shadow. + +“I will go, David,” she said. Her voice was low and she spoke with a +steadiness that alarmed me. “I will go.” + +Torn with pity, I thought again, but I could see no alternative. And +then, suddenly, she was clinging to me, her courage gone, her breast +shaken with sobs. “Where shall I go?” she cried. “God help me! Are there +no remote places where He will not seek me out? I have tried them all, +David.” And quite as suddenly she disengaged herself, and looked at me +strangely. “You are well revenged for Temple Bow,” she said. + +“Hush,” I answered, and held her, fearing I knew not what, “you have not +lacked courage. It is not so bad as you believe. I will devise a plan +and help you. Have you money?” + +“Yes,” she answered, with a remnant of her former pride; “and I have an +annuity paid now to Mr. Clark.” + +“Then listen to what I say,” I answered. “To-night I will take you to +New Orleans and hide you safely. And I swear to you, whether it be +right or wrong, that I will use every endeavor to change Nick’s feelings +towards you. Come,” I continued, leading her gently into the path, “let +us go while there is yet time.” + +“Stop,” she said, and I halted fearfully. “David Ritchie, you are a good +man. I can make no amends to you,”--she did not finish. + +Feeling for the path in the blackness of the wood, I led her by the +hand, and she followed me as trustfully as a child. At last, after an +age of groping, the heavy scents of shrubs and flowers stole to us on +the night air, and we came out at the hedge into what seemed a blaze of +light that flooded the rows of color. Here we paused, breathless, and +looked. The bench under the great tree was vacant, and the garden was +empty. + +It was she who led the way through the hedge, who halted in the garden +path at the sound of voices. She turned, but there was no time to flee, +for the tall figure of a man came through the opposite hedge, followed +by a lady. One was Nicholas Temple, the other, Mademoiselle de St. +Gré. Mrs. Temple’s face alone was in the shadow, and as I felt her hand +trembling on my arm I summoned all my resources. It was Nick who spoke +first. + +“It is Davy!” he cried. “Oh, the sly rascal! And this is the promenade +of which he left us word, the solitary meditation! Speak up, man; you +are forgiven for deserting us.” + +He turned, laughing, to Mademoiselle. But she stood with her lips parted +and her hands dropped, staring at my companion. Then she took two steps +forward and stopped with a cry. + +“Mrs. Clive!” + +The woman beside me turned, and with a supreme courage raised her head +and faced the girl. + +“Yes, Antoinette, it is I,” she answered. + +And then my eyes sought Nick, for Mrs. Temple had faced her son with a +movement that was a challenge, yet with a look that questioned, yearned, +appealed. He, too, stared, the laughter fading from his eyes, first +astonishment, and then anger, growing in them, slowly, surely. I shall +never forget him as he stood there (for what seemed an age) recalling +one by one the wrongs this woman had done him. She herself had taught +him to brook no restraint, to follow impetuously his loves and hates, +and endurance in these things was moulded in every line of his finely +cut features. And when he spoke it was not to her, but to the girl at +his side. + +“Do you know who this is?” he said. “Tell me, do you know this woman?” + +Mademoiselle de St. Gré did not answer him. She drew near, gently, to +Mrs. Temple, whose head was bowed, whose agony I could only guess. + +“Mrs. Clive,” she said softly, though her voice was shaken by a +prescience, “won’t you tell me what has happened? Won’t you speak to +me--Antoinette?” + +The poor lady lifted up her arms, as though to embrace the girl, dropped +them despairingly, and turned away. + +“Antoinette,” she murmured, “Antoinette!” + +For Nick had seized Antoinette by the hand, restraining her. + +“You do not know what you are doing?” he cried angrily. “Listen!” + +I had stood bereft of speech, watching the scene breathlessly. And now I +would have spoken had not Mademoiselle astonished me by taking the lead. +I have thought since that I might have pieced together this much of her +character. Her glance at Nick surprised him momentarily into silence. + +“I know that she is my dearest friend,” she said, “that she came to us +in misfortune, and that we love her and trust her. I do not know why she +is here with Mr. Ritchie, but I am sure it is for some good reason.” She +laid a hand on Mrs. Temple’s shoulder. “Mrs. Clive, won’t you speak to +me?” + +“My God, Antoinette, listen!” cried Nick; “Mrs. Clive is not her name. I +know her, David knows her. She is an--adventuress!” + +Mrs. Temple gave a cry, and the girl shot at him a frightened, +bewildered glance, in which a new-born love struggled with an older +affection. + +“An adventuress!” she repeated, her hand dropping, “oh, I do not believe +it. I cannot believe it.” + +“You shall believe it,” said Nick, fiercely. “Her name is not Clive. Ask +David what her name is.” + +Antoinette’s lips moved, but she shirked the question. And Nick seized +me roughly. + +“Tell her,” he said, “tell her! My God, how can I do it? Tell her, +David.” + +For the life of me I could not frame the speech at once, my pity and +a new-found and surprising respect for her making it doubly hard to +pronounce her sentence. Suddenly she raised her head, not proudly, but +with a dignity seemingly conferred by years of sorrow and of suffering. +Her tones were even, bereft of every vestige of hope. + +“Antoinette, I have deceived you, though as God is my witness, I thought +no harm could come of it. I deluded myself into believing that I had +found friends and a refuge at last. I am Mrs. Temple.” + +“Mrs. Temple!” The girl repeated the name sorrowfully, but perplexedly, +not grasping its full significance. + +“She is my mother,” said Nick, with a bitterness I had not thought in +him, “she is my mother, or I would curse her. For she has ruined my life +and brought shame on a good name.” + +He paused, his breath catching for very anger. Mrs. Temple hid her face +in her hands, while the girl shrank back in terror. I grasped him by the +arm. + +“Have you no compassion?” I cried. But Mrs. Temple interrupted me. + +“He has the right,” she faltered; “it is my just punishment.” + +He tore himself away, and took a step to her. + +“Where is Riddle?” he cried. “As God lives, I will kill him without +mercy!” + +His mother lifted her head again. + +“God has judged him,” she said quietly; “he is beyond your vengeance--he +is dead.” A sob shook her, but she conquered it with a marvellous +courage. “Harry Riddle loved me, he was kind to me, and he was a better +man than John Temple.” + +Nick recoiled. The fierceness of his anger seemed to go, leaving a more +dangerous humor. + +“Then I have been blessed with parents,” he said. + +At that she swayed, but when I would have caught her she motioned me +away and turned to Antoinette. Twice Mrs. Temple tried to speak. + +“I--I was going away to-night,” she said at length, “and you would never +have seen or heard of me more. My nephew David--Mr. Ritchie--whom I +treated cruelly as a boy, had pity on me. He is a good man, and he was +to have taken me away--I do not attempt to defend myself, my dear, but +I pray that you, who have so much charity, will some day think a little +kindly of one who has sinned deeply, of one who will love and bless you +and yours to her dying day.” + +She faltered, and Nick would have spoken had not Antoinette herself +stayed him with a gesture. + +“I wish--my son to know the little there is on my side. It is not much. +Yet God may not spare him the sorrow that brings pity. I--I loved Harry +Riddle as a girl. My father was ruined, and I was forced into marriage +with John Temple for his possessions. He was selfish, overbearing, +cruel--unfaithful. During the years I lived with him he never once spoke +kindly to me. I, too, grew wicked and selfish and heedless. My head was +turned by admiration. Mr. Temple escaped to England in a man-of-war; he +left me without a line of warning, of farewell. I--I have wandered +over the earth, haunted by remorse, and I knew no moment of peace, of +happiness, until you brought me here and sheltered and loved me. And +even here I have had many sleepless hours. A hundred times I have +summoned my courage to tell you,--I could not. I am justly punished, +Antoinette.” She moved a little, timidly, towards the girl, who stood +motionless, dazed by what she heard. She held out a hand, appealingly, +and dropped it. “Good-by, my dear; God will bless you for your kindness +to an unfortunate outcast.” + +She glanced with a kind of terror in her eyes from the girl to Nick, and +what she meant to say concerning their love I know not, for the flood, +held back so long, burst upon her. She wept as I have never seen a woman +weep. And then, before Nick or I knew what had happened, Antoinette had +taken her swiftly in her arms and was murmuring in her ear:-- + +“You shall not go. You shall not. You will live with me always.” + +Presently the sobs ceased, and Mrs. Temple raised her face, slowly, +wonderingly, as if she had not heard aright. And she tried gently to +push the girl away. + +“No, Antoinette,” she said, “I have done you harm enough.” + +But the girl clung to her strongly, passionately. “I do not care what +you have done,” she cried, “you are good now. I know that you are good +now. I will not cast you out. I will not.” + +I stood looking at them, bewildered and astonished by Mademoiselle’s +loyalty. She seemed to have forgotten Nick, as had I, and then as I +turned to him he came towards them. Almost roughly he took Antoinette by +the arm. + +“You do not know what you are saying,” he cried. “Come away, Antoinette, +you do not know what she has done--you cannot realize what she is.” + +Antoinette shrank away from him, still clinging to Mrs. Temple. There +was a fearless directness in her look which might have warned him. + +“She is your mother,” she said quietly. + +“My mother!” he repeated; “yes, I will tell you what a mother she has +been to me--” + +“Nick!” + +It passes my power to write down the pity of that appeal, the +hopelessness of it, the yearning in it. Freeing herself from the girl, +Mrs. Temple took one step towards him, her arms held up. I had not +thought that his hatred of her was deep enough to resist it. It was +Antoinette whose intuition divined this ere he had turned away. + +“You have chosen between me and her,” he said; and before we could get +the poor lady to the seat under the oak, he had left the garden. In my +perturbation I glanced at Antoinette, but there was no other sign in her +face save of tenderness for Mrs. Temple. + +Mrs. Temple had mercifully fainted. As I crossed the lawn I saw two +figures in the deep shadow beside the gallery, and I heard Nick’s voice +giving orders to Benjy to pack and saddle. When I reached the garden +again the girl had loosed Mrs. Temple’s gown, and was bending over her, +murmuring in her ear. + +Many hours later, when the moon was waning towards the horizon, fearful +of surprise by the coming day, I was riding slowly under the trees on +the road to New Orleans. Beside me, veiled in black, her head bowed, was +Mrs. Temple, and no word had escaped her since she had withdrawn herself +gently from the arms of Antoinette on the gallery at Les Îles. Nick had +gone long before. The hardest task had been to convince the girl that +Mrs. Temple might not stay. After that Antoinette had busied herself, +with a silent fortitude I had not thought was in her, making ready for +the lady’s departure. I shall never forget her as she stood, a slender +figure of sorrow, looking down at us, the tears glistening on her +cheeks. And I could not resist the impulse to mount the steps once more. + +“You were right, Antoinette,” I whispered; “whatever happens, you will +remember that I am your friend. And I will bring him back to you if I +can.” + +She pressed my hand, and turned and went slowly into the house. + + + + +BOOK III. LOUISIANA + + +CHAPTER I. THE RIGHTS OF MAN + +Were these things which follow to my thinking not extraordinary, I +should not write them down here, nor should I have presumed to skip +nearly five years of time. For indeed almost five years had gone by +since the warm summer night when I rode into New Orleans with Mrs. +Temple. And in all that time I had not so much as laid eyes on my cousin +and dearest friend, her son. I searched New Orleans for him in vain, and +learned too late that he had taken passage on a packet which had dropped +down the river the next morning, bound for Charleston and New York. + +I have an instinct that this is not the place to relate in detail what +occurred to me before leaving New Orleans. Suffice it to say that I +made my way back through the swamps, the forests, the cane-brakes of the +Indian country, along the Natchez trail to Nashville, across the barrens +to Harrodstown in Kentucky, where I spent a week in that cabin which had +so long been for me a haven of refuge. Dear Polly Ann! She hugged me as +though I were still the waif whom she had mothered, and wept over +the little presents which I had brought the children. Harrodstown was +changed, new cabins and new faces met me at every turn, and Tom, more +disgruntled than ever, had gone a-hunting with Mr. Boone far into the +wilderness. + +I went back to Louisville to take up once more the struggle for +practice, and I do not intend to charge so much as a page with what may +be called the even tenor of my life. I was not a man to get into trouble +on my own account. Louisville grew amazingly; white frame houses were +built, and even brick ones. And ere Kentucky became a State, in 1792, I +had gone as delegate to more than one of the Danville Conventions. + +Among the nations, as you know, a storm raged, and the great swells from +that conflict threatened to set adrift and wreck the little republic but +newly launched. The noise of the tramping of great armies across the +Old World shook the New, and men in whom the love of fierce fighting was +born were stirred to quarrel among themselves. The Rights of Man! How +many wrongs have been done under that clause! The Bastille stormed; the +Swiss Guard slaughtered; the Reign of Terror, with its daily procession +of tumbrels through the streets of Paris; the murder of that amiable +and well-meaning gentleman who did his best to atone for the sins of his +ancestors; the fearful months of waiting suffered by his Queen before +she, too, went to her death. Often as I lighted my candle of an evening +in my little room to read of these things so far away, I would drop my +Kentucky Gazette to think of a woman whose face I remembered, to wonder +sadly whether Hélène de St. Gré were among the lists. In her, I was +sure, was personified that courage for which her order will go down +eternally through the pages of history, and in my darker moments I +pictured her standing beside the guillotine with a smile that haunted +me. + +The hideous image of that strife was reflected amongst our own people. +Budget after budget was hurried by the winds across the sea. And swift +couriers carried the news over the Blue Wall by the Wilderness Trail +(widened now), and thundered through the little villages of the Blue +Grass country to the Falls. What interest, you will say, could the +pioneer lawyers and storekeepers and planters have in the French +Revolution? The Rights of Man! Down with kings! General Washington and +Mr. Adams and Mr. Hamilton might sigh for them, but they were not +for the free-born pioneers of the West. Citizen was the proper term +now,--Citizen General Wilkinson when that magnate came to town, +resplendent in his brigadier’s uniform. It was thought that Mr. +Wilkinson would plot less were he in the army under the watchful eye of +his superiors. Little they knew him! Thus the Republic had a reward for +adroitness, for treachery, and treason. But what reward had it for the +lonely, embittered, stricken man whose genius and courage had gained for +it the great Northwest territory? What reward had the Republic for +him who sat brooding in his house above the Falls--for Citizen General +Clark? + +In those days you were not a Federalist or a Democrat, you were an +Aristocrat or a Jacobin. The French parties were our parties; the +French issue, our issue. Under the patronage of that saint of American +Jacobinism, Thomas Jefferson, a Jacobin society was organized in +Philadelphia,--special guardians of Liberty. And flying on the March +winds over the mountains the seed fell on the black soil of Kentucky: +Lexington had its Jacobin society, Danville and Louisville likewise +their patrons and protectors of the Rights of Mankind. Federalists were +not guillotined in Kentucky in the summer of 1793, but I might mention +more than one who was shot. + +In spite of the Federalists, Louisville prospered, and incidentally I +prospered in a mild way. Mr. Crede, behind whose store I still lived, +was getting rich, and happened to have an affair of some importance in +Philadelphia. Mr. Wharton was kind enough to recommend a young lawyer +who had the following virtues: he was neither handsome nor brilliant, +and he wore snuff-colored clothes. Mr. Wharton also did me the honor to +say that I was cautious and painstaking, and had a habit of tiring +out my adversary. Therefore, in the early summer of 1793, I went to +Philadelphia. At that time, travellers embarking on such a journey were +prayed over as though they were going to Tartary. I was absent from +Louisville near a year, and there is a diary of what I saw and felt +and heard on this trip for the omission of which I will be thanked. The +great news of that day which concerns the world--and incidentally this +story--was that Citizen Genêt had landed at Charleston. + +Citizen Genêt, Ambassador of the great Republic of France to the litle +Republic of America, landed at Charleston, acclaimed by thousands, and +lost no time. Scarcely had he left that city ere American privateers had +slipped out of Charleston harbor to prey upon the commerce of the hated +Mistress of the Sea. Was there ever such a march of triumph as that of +the Citizen Ambassador northward to the capital? Everywhere toasted and +feasted, Monsieur Genêt did not neglect the Rights of Man, for +without doubt the United States was to declare war on Britain within +a fortnight. Nay, the Citizen Ambassador would go into the halls of +Congress and declare war himself if that faltering Mr. Washington +refused his duty. Citizen Genêt organized his legions as he went along, +and threw tricolored cockades from the windows of his carriage. And at +his glorious entry into Philadelphia (where I afterwards saw the great +man with my own eyes), Mr. Washington and his Federal-Aristocrats +trembled in their boots. + +It was late in April, 1794, when I reached Pittsburg on my homeward +journey and took passage down the Ohio with a certain Captain Wendell of +the army, in a Kentucky boat. I had known the Captain in Louisville, for +he had been stationed at Fort Finney, the army post across the Ohio from +that town, and he had come to Pittsburg with a sergeant to fetch down +the river some dozen recruits. This was a most fortunate circumstance +for me, and in more ways than one. Although the Captain was a gruff and +blunt man, grizzled and weather-beaten, a woman-hater, he could be a +delightful companion when once his confidence was gained; and as we +drifted in the mild spring weather through the long reaches between the +passes he talked of Trenton and Brandywine and Yorktown. There was more +than one bond of sympathy between us, for he worshipped Washington, +detested the French party, and had a hatred for “filthy Democrats” +second to none I have ever encountered. + +We stopped for a few days at Fort Harmar, where the Muskingum pays +its tribute to the Ohio, built by the Federal government to hold the +territory which Clark had won. And leaving that hospitable place we took +up our journey once more in the very miracle-time of the spring. The +sunlight was like amber-crystal, the tall cottonwoods growing by the +water-side flaunted a proud glory of green, the hills behind them that +formed the first great swells of the sea of the wilderness were clothed +in a thousand sheens and shaded by the purple budding of the oaks and +walnuts on the northern slopes. On the yellow sandbars flocks of geese +sat pluming in the sun, or rose at our approach to cast fleeting shadows +on the water, their honk-honks echoing from the hills. Here and there +a hawk swooped down from the azure to break the surface and bear off a +wriggling fish that gleamed like silver, and at eventide we would see at +the brink an elk or doe, with head poised, watching us as we drifted. +We passed here and there a lonely cabin, to set my thoughts wandering +backwards to my youth, and here and there in the dimples of the hills +little clusters of white and brown houses, one day to become marts of +the Republic. + +My joy at coming back at this golden season to a country I loved was +tempered by news I had heard from Captain Wendell, and which I had +discussed with the officers at Fort Harmar. The Captain himself had +broached the subject one cool evening, early in the journey, as we +sat over the fire in our little cabin. He had been telling me about +Brandywine, but suddenly he turned to me with a kind of fierce gesture +that was natural to the man. + +“Ritchie,” he said, “you were in the Revolution yourself. You helped +Clark to capture that country,” and he waved his hand towards the +northern shore; “why the devil don’t you tell me about it?” + +“You never asked me,” I answered. + +He looked at me curiously. + +“Well,” he said, “I ask you now.” + +I began lamely enough, but presently my remembrance of the young man who +conquered all obstacles, who compelled all men he met to follow and obey +him, carried me strongly into the narrative. I remembered him, quiet, +self-contained, resourceful, a natural leader, at twenty-five a bulwark +for the sorely harried settlers of Kentucky; the man whose clear vision +alone had perceived the value of the country north of the Ohio to the +Republic, who had compelled the governor and council of Virginia to see +it likewise. Who had guarded his secret from all men, who in the face +of fierce opposition and intrigue had raised a little army to follow +him--they knew not where. Who had surprised Kaskaskia, cowed the tribes +of the North in his own person, and by sheer force of will drew after +him and kept alive a motley crowd of men across the floods and through +the ice to Vincennes. + +We sat far into the night, the Captain listening as I had never seen +a man listen. And when at length I had finished he was for a long +time silent, and then he sprang to his feet with an oath that woke the +sleeping soldiers forward and glared at me. + +“My God!” he cried, “it is enough to make a man curse his uniform to +think that such a man as Wilkinson wears it, while Clark is left to rot, +to drink himself under the table from disappointment, to plot with the +damned Jacobins--” + +“To plot!” I cried, starting violently in my turn. + +The Captain looked at me in astonishment. + +“How long have you been away from Louisville?” he asked. + +“It will be a year,” I answered. + +“Ah,” said the Captain, “I will tell you. It is more than a year since +Clark wrote Genêt, since the Ambassador bestowed on him a general’s +commission in the army of the French Republic.” + +“A general’s commission!” I exclaimed. “And he is going to France?” The +nation which had driven John Paul Jones from its service was now to lose +George Rogers Clark! + +“To France!” laughed the Captain. “No, this is become France enough. +He is raising in Kentucky and in the Cumberland country an army with a +cursed, high-sounding name. Some of his old Illinois scouts--McChesney, +whom you mentioned, for one--have been collecting bear’s meat and +venison hams all winter. They are going to march on Louisiana and +conquer it for the French Republic, for Liberty, Equality--the Rights of +Man, anything you like.” + +“On Louisiana!” I repeated; “what has the Federal government been +doing?” + +The Captain winked at me and sat down. + +“The Federal government is supine, a laughing-stock--so our friends the +Jacobins say, who have been shouting at Mr. Easton’s tavern all winter. +Nay, they declare that all this country west of the mountains, too, +will be broken off and set up into a republic, and allied with that most +glorious of all republics, France. Believe me, the Jacobins have not +been idle, and there have been strange-looking birds of French plumage +dodging between the General’s house at Clarksville and the Bear Grass.” + +I was silent, the tears almost forcing themselves to my eyes at the +pathetic sordidness of what I had heard. + +“It can come to nothing,” continued the Captain, in a changed voice. +“General Clark’s mind is unhinged by--disappointment. Mad Anthony ¹ is +not a man to be caught sleeping, and he has already attended to a little +expedition from the Cumberland. Mad Anthony loves the General, as we all +do, and the Federal government is wiser than the Jacobins think. It may +not be necessary to do anything.” Captain Wendell paused, and looked +at me fixedly. “Ritchie, General Clark likes you, and you have never +offended him. Why not go to his little house in Clarksville when you get +to Louisville and talk to him plainly, as I know you can? Perhaps you +might have some influence.” + +¹ General Wayne of Revolutionary fame was then in command of that +district. + +I shook my head sadly. + +“I intend to go,” I answered, “but I will have no influence.” + + +CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE ABOVE THE FALLS + +It was May-day, and shortly after dawn we slipped into the quiet water +which is banked up for many miles above the Falls. The Captain and I sat +forward on the deck, breathing deeply the sharp odor which comes from +the wet forest in the early morning, listening to the soft splash of the +oars, and watching the green form of Eighteen Mile Island as it gently +drew nearer and nearer. And ere the sun had risen greatly we had passed +Twelve Mile Island, and emerging from the narrow channel which divides +Six Mile Island from the northern shore, we beheld, on its terrace above +the Bear Grass, Louisville shining white in the morning sun. Majestic in +its mile of width, calm, as though gathering courage, the river seemed +to straighten for the ordeal to come, and the sound of its waters crying +over the rocks far below came faintly to my ear and awoke memories of a +day gone by. Fearful of the suck, we crept along the Indian shore until +we counted the boats moored in the Bear Grass, and presently above the +trees on our right we saw the Stars and Stripes floating from the log +bastion of Fort Finney. And below the fort, on the gentle sunny slope to +the river’s brink, was spread the green garden of the garrison, with its +sprouting vegetables and fruit trees blooming pink and white. + +We were greeted by a company of buff and blue officers at the landing, +and I was bidden to breakfast at their mess, Captain Wendell promising +to take me over to Louisville afterwards. He had business in the town, +and about eight of the clock we crossed the wide river in one of the +barges of the fort and made fast at the landing in the Bear Grass. But +no sooner had we entered the town than we met a number of country +people on horseback, with their wives and daughters--ay, and +sweethearts--perched up behind them: the men mostly in butternut linsey +hunting shirts and trousers, slouch hats, and red handkerchiefs stuck +into their bosoms; the women marvellously pretty and fresh in stiff +cotton gowns and Quaker hats, and some in crimped caps with ribbons +neatly tied under the chin. Before Mr. Easton’s tavern Joe Handy, +the fiddler, was reeling off a few bars of “Hey, Betty Martin” to the +familiar crowd of loungers under the big poplar. + +“It’s Davy Ritchie!” shouted Joe, breaking off in the middle of the +tune; “welcome home, Davy. Ye’re jest in time for the barbecue on the +island.” + +“And Cap Wendell! Howdy, Cap!” drawled another, a huge, long-haired, +sallow, dirty fellow. But the Captain only glared. + +“Damn him!” he said, after I had spoken to Joe and we had passed on, “he +ought to be barbecued; he nearly bit off Ensign Barry’s nose a couple of +months ago. Barry tried to stop the beast in a gouging fight.” + +The bright morning, the shady streets, the homelike frame and log +houses, the old-time fragrant odor of corn-pone wafted out of the open +doorways, the warm greetings,--all made me happy to be back again. +Mr. Crede rushed out and escorted us into his cool store, and while he +waited on his country customers bade his negro brew a bowl of toddy, at +the mention of which Mr. Bill Whalen, chief habitué, roused himself from +a stupor on a tobacco barrel. Presently the customers, having indulged +in the toddy, departed for the barbecue, the Captain went to the fort, +and Mr. Crede and myself were left alone to talk over the business which +had sent me to Philadelphia. + +At four o’clock, having finished my report and dined with my client, I +set out for Clarksville, for Mr. Crede had told me, among other things, +that the General was there. Louisville was deserted, the tavern porch +vacant; but tacked on the logs beside the door was a printed bill which +drew my curiosity. I stopped, caught by a familiar name in large type at +the head of it. + + “GEORGE R. CLARK, ESQUIRE, + + “MAJOR-GENERAL IN THE ARMIES OF FRANCE AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE + FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY LEGION ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. + + “Proposals + +“For raising volunteers for the reduction of the Spanish posts on the +Mississippi, for opening the trade of the said river and giving freedom +to all its inhabitants--” + +I had got so far when I heard a noise of footsteps within, and Mr. +Easton himself came out, in his shirt-sleeves. + +“By cricky, Davy,” said he, “I’m right glad ter see ye ag’in. Readin’ +the General’s bill, are ye? Tarnation, I reckon Washington and all his +European fellers east of the mountains won’t be able ter hold us back +this time. I reckon we’ll gallop over Louisiany in the face of all +the Spaniards ever created. I’ve got some new whiskey I ‘low will sink +tallow. Come in, Davy.” + +As he took me by the arm, a laughter and shouting came from the back +room. + +“It’s some of them Frenchy fellers come over from Knob Licks. They’re +in it,” and he pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the proclamation, +“and thar’s one young American among ‘em who’s a t’arer. Come in.” + +I drank a glass of Mr. Easton’s whiskey, and asked about the General. + +“He stays over thar to Clarksville pretty much,” said Mr. Easton. “Thar +ain’t quite so much walkin’ araound ter do,” he added significantly. + +I made my way down to the water-side, where Jake Landrasse sat alone on +the gunwale of a Kentucky boat, smoking a clay pipe as he fished. I +had to exercise persuasion to induce Jake to paddle me across, which +he finally agreed to do on the score of old friendship, and he declared +that the only reason he was not at the barbecue was because he was +waiting to take a few gentlemen to see General Clark. I agreed to pay +the damages if he were late in returning for these gentlemen, and soon +he was shooting me with pulsing strokes across the lake-like expanse +towards the landing at Fort Finney. Louisville and the fort were just +above the head of the Falls, and the little town of Clarksville, which +Clark had founded, at the foot of them. I landed, took the road that led +parallel with the river through the tender green of the woods, and as +I walked the mighty song which the Falls had sung for ages to the +Wilderness rose higher and higher, and the faint spray seemed to be +wafted through the forest and to hang in the air like the odor of a +summer rain. + +It was May-day. The sweet, caressing note of the thrush mingled with the +music of the water, the dogwood and the wild plum were in festal array; +but my heart was heavy with thinking of a great man who had cheapened +himself. At length I came out upon a clearing where fifteen log houses +marked the grant of the Federal government to Clark’s regiment. Perched +on a tree-dotted knoll above the last spasm of the waters in their +two-mile race for peace, was a two-storied log house with a little, +square porch in front of the door. As I rounded the corner of the house +and came in sight of the porch I halted--by no will of my own--at +the sight of a figure sunken in a wooden chair. It was that of my old +Colonel. His hands were folded in front of him, his eyes were fixed but +dimly on the forests of the Kentucky shore across the water; his hair, +uncared for, fell on the shoulders of his faded blue coat, and the +stained buff waistcoat was unbuttoned. For he still wore unconsciously +the colors of the army of the American Republic. + +“General!” I said. + +He started, got to his feet, and stared at me. + +“Oh, it’s--it’s Davy,” he said. “I--I was expecting--some friends--Davy. +What--what’s the matter, Davy?” + +“I have been away. I am glad to see you again, General.” + +“Citizen General, sir, Major-general in the army of the French Republic +and Commander-in-chief of the French Revolutionary Legion on the +Mississippi.” + +“You will always be Colonel Clark to me, sir,” I answered. + +“You--you were the drummer boy, I remember, and strutted in front of the +regiment as if you were the colonel. Egad, I remember how you fooled the +Kaskaskians when you told them we were going away.” He looked at me, but +his eyes were still fixed on the point beyond. “You were always older +than I, Davy. Are you married?” + +In spite of myself, I laughed as I answered this question. + +“You are as canny as ever,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. +“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,--they are only possible for the +bachelor.” Hearing a noise, he glanced nervously in the direction of the +woods, only to perceive his negro carrying a pail of water. “I--I was +expecting some friends,” he said. “Sit down, Davy.” + +“I hope I am not intruding, General,” I said, not daring to look at him. + +“No, no, my son,” he answered, “you are always welcome. Did we not +campaign together? Did we not--shoot these very falls together on our +way to Kaskaskia?” He had to raise his voice above the roar of the +water. “Faith, well I remember the day. And you saved it, Davy,--you, a +little gamecock, a little worldly-wise hop-o’-my-thumb, eh? Hamilton’s +scalp hanging by a lock, egad--and they frightened out of their five +wits because it was growing dark.” He laughed, and suddenly became +solemn again. “There comes a time in every man’s life when it grows +dark, Davy, and then the cowards are afraid. They have no friends whose +hands they can reach out and feel. But you are my friend. You remember +that you said you would always be my friend? It--it was in the fort at +Vincennes.” + +“I remember, General.” + +He rose from the steps, buttoned his waistcoat, and straightened himself +with an effort. He looked at me impressively. + +“You have been a good friend indeed, Davy, a faithful friend,” he said. +“You came to me when I was sick, you lent me money,”--he waved aside my +protest. “I am happy to say that I shall soon be in a position to repay +you, to reward you. My evil days are over, and I spurn that government +which spurned me, for the honor and glory of which I founded that +city,”--he pointed in the direction of Louisville,--“for the power and +wealth of which I conquered this Northwest territory. Listen! I am +now in the service of a republic where the people have rights, I +am Commander-in-chief of the French Revolutionary Legion on the +Mississippi. Despite the supineness of Washington, the American nation +will soon be at war with Spain. But my friends--and thank God they +are many--will follow me--they will follow me to Natchez and New +Orleans,--ay, even to Santa Fé and Mexico if I give the word. The West +is with me, and for the West I shall win the freedom of the Mississippi. +For France and Liberty I shall win back again Louisiana, and then I +shall be a Maréchal de Camp.” + +I could not help thinking of a man who had not been wont to speak of his +intentions, who had kept his counsel for a year before Kaskaskia. + +“I need my drummer boy, Davy,” he said, his face lighting up, “but he +will not be a drummer boy now. He will be a trusted officer of high +rank, mind you. Come,” he cried, seizing me by the arm, “I will write +the commission this instant. But hold! you read French,--I remember +the day Father Gibault gave you your first lesson.” He fumbled in his +pocket, drew out a letter, and handed it to me. “This is from Citizen +Michaux, the famous naturalist, the political agent of the French +Republic. Read what he has written me.” + +I read, I fear in a faltering voice:-- + +“Citoyen Général: + +“Un homme qui a donné des preuves de son amour pour la Liberté et de sa +haine pour le despotisme ne devait pas s’adresser en vain au ministre de +la République française. Général, il est temps que les Américains libres +de l’Ouest soient débarassés d’un ennemie aussi injuste que méprisable.” + +When I had finished I glanced at the General, but he seemed not to be +heeding me. The sun was setting above the ragged line of forest, and a +blue veil was spreading over the tumbling waters. He took me by the arm +and led me into the house, into a bare room that was all awry. Maps hung +on the wall, beside them the General’s new commission, rudely framed. +Among the littered papers on the table were two whiskey bottles and +several glasses, and strewn about were a number of chairs, the arms +of which had been whittled by the General’s guests. Across the rough +mantel-shelf was draped the French tricolor, and before the fireplace on +the puncheons lay a huge bearskin which undoubtedly had not been +shaken for a year. Picking up a bottle, the General poured out generous +helpings in two of the glasses, and handed one to me. + +“The mists are bad, Davy,” said he; “I--I cannot afford to get the fever +now. Let us drink success to the army of the glorious Republic, France.” + +“Let us drink first, General,” I said, “to the old friendship between +us.” + +“Good!” he cried. Tossing off his liquor, he set down the glass and +began what seemed a fruitless search among the thousand papers on the +table. But at length, with a grunt of satisfaction, he produced a form +and held it under my eyes. At the top of the sheet was that much-abused +and calumniated lady, the Goddess of Liberty. + +“Now,” he said, drawing up a chair and dipping his quill into an almost +depleted ink-pot, “I have decided to make you, David Ritchie, with full +confidence in your ability and loyalty to the rights of liberty and +mankind, a captain in the Legion on the Mississippi.” + +I crossed the room swiftly, and as he put his pen to paper I laid my +hand on his arm. + +“General, I cannot,” I said. I had seen from the first the futility of +trying to dissuade him from the expedition, and I knew now that it would +never come off. I was willing to make almost any sacrifice rather than +offend him, but this I could not allow. The General drew himself up in +his chair and stared at me with a flash of his old look. + +“You cannot?” he repeated; “you have affairs to attend to, I take it.” + +I tried to speak, but he rode me down. + +“There is money to be made in that prosperous town of Louisville.” He +did not understand the pain which his words caused me. He rose and laid +his hands affectionately on my shoulders. “Ah, Davy, commerce makes a +man timid. Do you forget the old days when I was the father and you the +son? Come! I will make you a fortune undreamed of, and you shall be my +fianancier once more.” + +“I had not thought of the money, General,” I answered, “and I have +always been ready to leave my business to serve a friend.” + +“There, there,” said the General, soothingly, “I know it. I would not +offend you. You shall have the commission, and you may come when it +pleases you.” + +He sat down again to write, but I restrained him. + +“I cannot go, General,” I said. + +“Thunder and fury,” cried the General, “a man might think you were a +weak-kneed Federalist.” He stared at me, and stared again, and rose and +recoiled a step. “My God,” he said, “you cannot be a Federalist, you +can’t have marched to Kaskaskia and Vincennes, you can’t have been a +friend of mine and have seen how the government of the United States has +treated me, and be a Federalist!” + +It was an argument and an appeal which I had foreseen, yet which I knew +not how to answer. Suddenly there came, unbidden, his own counsel which +he had given me long ago, “Serve the people, as all true men should in a +Republic, but do not rely upon their gratitude.” This man had bidden me +remember that. + +“General,” I said, trying to speak steadily, “it was you who gave me my +first love for the Republic. I remember you as you stood on the heights +above Kaskaskia waiting for the sun to go down, and you reminded me that +it was the nation’s birthday. And you said that our nation was to be a +refuge of the oppressed of this earth, a nation made of all peoples, out +of all time. And you said that the lands beyond,” and I pointed to the +West as he had done, “should belong to it until the sun sets on the sea +again.” + +I glanced at him, for he was silent, and in my life I can recall no +sadder moment than this. The General heard, but the man who had spoken +these words was gone forever. The eyes of this man before me were fixed, +as it were, upon space. He heard, but he did not respond; for the +spirit was gone. What I looked upon was the tortured body from which the +genius--the spirit I had worshipped--had fled. I turned away, only to +turn back in anger. + +“What do you know of this France for which you are to fight?” I cried. +“Have you heard of the thousands of innocents who are slaughtered, of +the women and children who are butchered in the streets in the name of +Liberty? What have those blood-stained adventurers to do with Liberty, +what have the fish-wives who love the sight of blood to do with you that +would fight for them? You warned me that this people and this government +to which you have given so much would be ungrateful,--will the butchers +and fish-wives be more grateful?” + +He caught only the word grateful, and he rose to his feet with something +of the old straightness and of the old power. And by evil chance his +eye, and mine, fell upon a sword hanging on the farther wall. Well I +remembered when he had received it, well I knew the inscription on its +blade, “Presented by the State of Virginia to her beloved son, George +Rogers Clark, who by the conquest of Illinois and St. Vincennes extended +her empire and aided in the defence of her liberties.” By evil chance, +I say, his eye lighted on that sword. In three steps he crossed the room +to where it hung, snatched it from its scabbard, and ere I could prevent +him he had snapped it across his knee and flung the pieces in a corner. + +“So much for the gratitude of my country,” he said. + +I had gone out on the little porch and stood gazing over the expanse of +forest and waters lighted by the afterglow. Then I felt a hand upon my +shoulder, I heard a familiar voice calling me by an old name. + +“Yes, General!” I turned wonderingly. + +“You are a good lad, Davy. I trust you,” he said. “I--I was expecting +some friends.” + +He lifted a hand that was not too steady to his brow and scanned the +road leading to the fort. Even as he spoke four figures emerged from the +woods,--undoubtedly the gentlemen who had held the council at the inn +that afternoon. We watched them in silence as they drew nearer, and then +something in the walk and appearance of the foremost began to bother me. +He wore a long, double-breasted, claret-colored redingote that fitted +his slim figure to perfection, and his gait was the easy gait of a man +who goes through the world careless of its pitfalls. So intently did I +stare that I gave no thought to those who followed him. Suddenly, when +he was within fifty paces, a cry escaped me,--I should have known that +smiling, sallow, weakly handsome face anywhere in the world. + +The gentleman was none other than Monsieur Auguste de St. Gré. At +the foot of the steps he halted and swept his hand to his hat with a +military salute. + +“Citizen General,” he said gracefully, “we come and pay our respec’s to +you and mek our report, and ver’ happy to see you look well. Citoyens, +Vive la République!--Hail to the Citizen General!” + +“Vive la République! Vive le Général!” cried the three citizens behind +him. + +“Citizens, you are very welcome,” answered the General, gravely, as he +descended the steps and took each of them by the hand. “Citizens, allow +me to introduce to you my old friend, Citizen David Ritchie--” + +“Milles diables!” cried the Citizen St. Gré, seizing me by the hand, +“c’est mon cher ami, Monsieur Reetchie. Ver’ happy you have this honor, +Monsieur;” and snatching his wide-brimmed military cocked hat from his +head he made me a smiling, sweeping bow. + +“What!” cried the General to me, “you know the Sieur de St. Gré, Davy?” + +“He is my guest once in Louisiane, mon général,” Monsieur Auguste +explained; “my family knows him.” + +“You know the Sieur de St. Gré, Davy?” said the General again. + +“Yes, I know him,” I answered, I fear with some brevity. + +“Podden me,” said Auguste, “I am now Citizen Captain de St. Gré. And +you are also embark in the glorious cause--Ah, I am happy,” he added, +embracing me with a winning glance. + +I was relieved from the embarrassment of denying the impeachment by +reason of being introduced to the other notables, to Citizen Captain +Sullivan, who wore an undress uniform consisting of a cotton butternut +hunting shirt. He had charge on the Bear Grass of building the boats for +the expedition, and was likewise a prominent member of that august +body, the Jacobin Society of Lexington. Next came Citizen Quartermaster +Depeau, now of Knob Licks, Kentucky, sometime of New Orleans. The +Citizen Quartermaster wore his hair long in the backwoods fashion; he +had a keen, pale face and sunken eyes. + +“Ver’ glad mek you known to me, Citizen Reetchie.” + +The fourth gentleman was likewise French, and called Gignoux. The +Citizen Gignoux made some sort of an impression on me which I did not +stop to analyze. He was a small man, with a little round hand that +wriggled out of my grasp; he had a big French nose, bright eyes +that popped a little and gave him the habit of looking sidewise, and +grizzled, chestnut eyebrows over them. He had a thin-lipped mouth and a +round chin. + +“Citizen Reetchie, is it? I laik to know citizen’s name glorified by +gran’ cause. Reetchie?” + +“Will you enter, citizens?” said the General. + +I do not know why I followed them unless it were to satisfy a +devil-prompted curiosity as to how Auguste de St. Gré had got there. +We went into the room, where the General’s slovenly negro was already +lighting the candles and the General proceeded to collect and fill six +of the glasses on the table. It was Citizen Captain Sullivan who gave +the toast. + +“Citizens,” he cried, “I give you the health of the foremost apostle of +Liberty in the Western world, the General who tamed the savage tribes, +who braved the elements, who brought to their knees the minions of a +despot king.” A slight suspicion of a hiccough filled this gap. “Cast +aside by an ungrateful government, he is still unfaltering in his +allegiance to the people. May he lead our Legion victorious through the +Spanish dominions.” + +“Vive la République!” they shouted, draining their glasses. “Vive le +citoyen général Clark!” + +“Louisiana!” shouted Citizen Sullivan, warming, “Louisiana, groaning +under oppression and tyranny, is imploring us with uplifted hands. To +those remaining veteran patriots whose footsteps we followed to this +distant desert, and who by their blood and toil have converted it into +a smiling country, we now look. Under your guidance, Citizen General, we +fought, we bled--” + +How far the Citizen Captain would have gone is problematical. I +had noticed a look of disgust slowly creeping into the Citizen +Quartermaster’s eyes, and at this juncture he seized the Citizen Captain +and thrust him into a chair. + +“Sacré vent!” he exclaimed, “it is the proclamation--he recites the +proclamation! I see he have participate in those handbill. Poof, the +world is to conquer,--let us not spik so much.” + +“I give you one toast,” said the little Citizen Gignoux, slyly, “we all +bring back one wife from Nouvelle Orléans!” + +“Ha,” exclaimed the Sieur de St. Gré, laughing, “the Citizen Captain +Depeau--he has already one wife in Nouvelle Orléans.” ¹ + +¹ It is unnecessary for the editor to remind the reader that these are +not Mr. Ritchie’s words, but those of an adventurer. Mr. Depeau was an +honest and worthy gentleman, earnest enough in a cause which was more +to his credit than to an American’s. According to contemporary evidence, +Madame Depeau was in New Orleans. + +The Citizen Quartermaster was angry at this, and it did not require +any great perspicacity on my part to discover that he did not love the +Citizen de St. Gré. + +“He is call in his country, Gumbo de St. Gré,” said Citizen Depeau. “It +is a deesh in that country. But to beesness, citizens,--we embark on +glorious enterprise. The King and Queen of France, she pay for her +treason with their haids, and we must be prepare’ for do the sem.” + +“Ha,” exclaimed the Sieur de St. Gré, “the Citizen Quartermaster will +lose his provision before his haid.” + +The inference was plain, and the Citizen Quartermaster was quick to take +it up. + +“We are all among frien’s,” said he. “Why I call you Gumbo de St. Gré? +When I come first settle in Louisiane you was wild man--yes. Drink +tafia, fight duel, spend family money. Aristocrat then. No, I not hold +my tongue. You go France and Monsieur le Marquis de St. Gré he get you +in gardes du corps of the King. Yes, I tell him. You tell the Citizen +General how come you Jacobin now, and we see if he mek you Captain.” + +A murmur of surprise escaped from several of the company, and they all +stared at the Sieur de St. Gré. But General Clark brought down his +fist on the table with something of his old-time vigor, and the glasses +rattled. + +“Gentlemen, I will have no quarrelling in my presence,” he cried; “and +I beg to inform Citizen Depeau that I bestow my commissions where it +pleases me.” + +Auguste de St. Gré rose, flushing, to his feet. “Citizens,” he said, +with a fluency that was easy for him, “I never mek secret of my +history--no. It is true my relation, Monsieur le Marquis de St. Gré, +bought me a pair of colors in the King’s gardes du corps.” + +“And is it not truth you tremple the coackade, what I hear from +Philadelphe?” cried Depeau. + +Monsieur Auguste smiled with a patient tolerance. + +“If you hev pains to mek inquiry,” said he, “you must learn that I join +le Marquis de La Fayette and the National Guard. That I have since fight +for the Revolution. That I am come now home to fight for Louisiane, as +Monsieur Genêt will tell you whom I saw in Philadelphe.” + +“The Citizen Capitaine--he spiks true.” + +All eyes were turned towards Gignoux, who had been sitting back in his +chair, very quiet. + +“It is true what he say,” he repeated, “I have it by Monsieur Genêt +himself.” + +“Gentlemen,” said General Clark, “this is beside the question, and I +will not have these petty quarrels. I may as well say to you now that +I have chosen the Citizen Captain to go at once to New Orleans and +organize a regiment among the citizens there faithful to France. On +account of his family and supposed Royalist tendencies he will not be +suspected. I fear that a month at least has yet to elapse before our +expedition can move.” + +“It is one wise choice,” put in Monsieur Gignoux. + +“Monsieur le général and gentlemen,” said the Sieur de St. Gré, +gracefully, “I thank you ver’ much for the confidence. I leave by first +flatboat and will have all things stir up when you come. The citizens of +Louisiane await you. If necessair, we have hole in levee ready to cut.” + +“Citizens,” interrupted General Clark, sitting down before the ink-pot, +“let us hear the Quartermaster’s report of the supplies at Knob Licks, +and Citizen Sullivan’s account of the boats. But hold,” he cried, +glancing around him, “where is Captain Temple? I heard that he had come +to Louisville from the Cumberland to-day. Is he not going with you to +New Orleans, St. Gré?” + +I took up the name involuntarily. + +“Captain Temple,” I repeated, while they stared at me. “Nicholas +Temple?” + +It was Auguste de St. Gré who replied. + +“The sem,” he said. “I recall he was along with you in Nouvelle Orléans. +He is at ze tavern, and he has had one gran’ fight, and he is ver’--I am +sorry--intoxicate--” + +I know not how I made my way through the black woods to Fort Finney, +where I discovered Jake Landrasse and his canoe. The road was long, +and yet short, for my brain whirled with the expectation of seeing Nick +again, and the thought of this poor, pathetic, ludicrous expedition +compared to the sublime one I had known. + +George Rogers Clark had come to this! + + + +CHAPTER III. LOUISVILLE CELEBRATES + +“They have gran’ time in Louisville to-night, Davy,” said Jake +Landrasse, as he paddled me towards the Kentucky shore; “you hear?” + +“I should be stone deaf if I didn’t,” I answered, for the shouting which +came from the town filled me with forebodings. + +“They come back from the barbecue full of whiskey,” said Jake, “and a +young man at the tavern come out on the porch and he say, ‘Get ready you +all to go to Louisiana! You been hole back long enough by tyranny.’ Sam +Barker come along and say he a Federalist. They done have a gran’ fight, +he and the young feller, and Sam got licked. He went at Sam just like a +harricane.” + +“And then?” I demanded. + +“Them four wanted to leave,” said Jake, taking no trouble to disguise +his disgust, “and I had to fetch ‘em over. I’ve got to go back and wait +for ‘em now,” and he swore with sincere disappointment. “I reckon there +ain’t been such a jamboree in town for years.” + +Jake had not exaggerated. Gentlemen from Moore’s Settlement, from +Sullivan’s Station on the Bear Grass,--to be brief, the entire male +population of the county seemed to have moved upon Louisville after the +barbecue, and I paused involuntarily at the sight which met my eyes as I +came into the street. A score of sputtering, smoking pine-knots threw +a lurid light on as many hilarious groups, and revealed, fantastically +enough, the boles and lower branches of the big shade trees above them. +Navigation for the individual, difficult enough lower down, in front of +the tavern became positively dangerous. There was a human eddy,--nay, a +maelstrom would better describe it. Fights began, but ended abortively +by reason of the inability of the combatants to keep their feet; one +man whose face I knew passed me with his hat afire, followed by several +companions in gusts of laughter, for the torch-bearers were careless +and burned the ears of their friends in their enthusiasm. Another person +whom I recognized lacked a large portion of the front of his attire, and +seemed sublimely unconscious of the fact. His face was badly scratched. +Several other friends of mine were indulging in brief intervals of +rest on the ground, and I barely avoided stepping on them. Still other +gentlemen were delivering themselves of the first impressive periods of +orations, only to be drowned by the cheers of their auditors. These were +the snatches which I heard as I picked my way onward with exaggerated +fear:-- + +“Gentlemen, the Mississippi is ours, let the tyrants who forbid its use +beware!” “To hell with the Federal government!” “I tell you, sirs, +this land is ours. We have conquered it with our blood, and I reckon no +Spaniard is goin’ to stop us. We ain’t come this far to stand still. +We settled Kaintuck, fit off the redskins, and we’ll march across the +Mississippi and on and on--” “To Louisiany!” they shouted, and the whole +crowd would take it up, “To Louisiany! Open the river!” + +So absorbed was I in my own safety and progress that I did not pause +to think (as I have often thought since) of the full meaning of this, +though I had marked it for many years. The support given to Wilkinson’s +plots, to Clark’s expedition, was merely the outward and visible sign of +the onward sweep of a resistless race. In spite of untold privations and +hardships, of cruel warfare and massacre, these people had toiled over +the mountains into this land, and impatient of check or hindrance would, +even as Clark had predicted, when their numbers were sufficient leap the +Mississippi. Night or day, drunk or sober, they spoke of this thing +with an ever increasing vehemence, and no man of reflection who had read +their history could say that they would be thwarted. One day Louisiana +would be theirs and their children’s for the generations to come. One +day Louisiana would be American. + +That I was alive and unscratched when I got as far as the tavern is a +marvel. Amongst all the passion-lit faces which surrounded me I could +get no sight of Nick’s, and I managed to make my way to a momentarily +quiet corner of the porch. As I leaned against the wall there, trying to +think what I should do, there came a great cheering from a little way up +the street, and then I straightened in astonishment. Above the cheering +came the sound of a drum beaten in marching time, and above that there +burst upon the night what purported to be the “Marseillaise,” taken up +and bawled by a hundred drunken throats and without words. Those around +me who were sufficiently nimble began to run towards the noise, and I +ran after them. And there, marching down the middle of the street at the +head of a ragged and most indecorous column of twos, in the centre of +a circle of light cast by a pine-knot which Joe Handy held, was Mr. +Nicholas Temple. His bearing, if a trifle unsteady, was proud, and--if +I could believe my eyes--around his neck was slung the thing which +I prized above all my possessions,--the drum which I had carried to +Kaskaskia and Vincennes! He had taken it from the peg in my room. + +I shrink from putting on paper the sentimental side of my nature, and +indeed I could give no adequate idea of my affection for that drum. And +then there was Nick, who had been lost to me for five years! My impulse +was to charge the procession, seize Nick and the drum together, and drag +them back to my room; but the futility and danger of such a course were +apparent, and the caution for which I am noted prevented my undertaking +it. The procession, augmented by all those to whom sufficient power of +motion remained, cheered by the helpless but willing ones on the ground, +swept on down the street and through the town. Even at this late day +I shame to write it! Behold me, David Ritchie, Federalist, execrably +sober, at the head of the column behind the leader. Was it twenty +minutes, or an hour, that we paraded? This I know, that we slighted no +street in the little town of Louisville. What was my bearing,--whether +proud or angry or carelessly indifferent,--I know not. The glare of +Joe Handy’s torch fell on my face, Joe Handy’s arm and that of another +gentleman, the worse for liquor, were linked in mine, and they saw +fit to applaud at every step my conversion to the cause of Liberty. We +passed time and time again the respectable door-yards of my Federalist +friends, and I felt their eyes upon me with that look which the angels +have for the fallen. Once, in front of Mr. Wharton’s house, Mr. Handy +burned my hair, apologized, staggered, and I took the torch! And I used +it to good advantage in saving the drum from capture. For Mr. Temple, +with all the will in the world, had begun to stagger. At length, after +marching seemingly half the night, they halted by common consent before +the house of a prominent Democrat who shall be nameless, and, after some +minutes of vain importuning, Nick, with a tattoo on the drum, marched +boldly up to the gate and into the yard. A desperate cunning came to my +aid. I flung away the torch, leaving the head of the column in darkness, +broke from Mr. Handy’s embrace, and, seizing Nick by the arm, led him +onward through the premises, he drumming with great docility. Followed +by a few stragglers only (some of whom went down in contact with the +trees of the orchard), we came to a gate at the back which I knew well, +which led directly into the little yard that fronted my own rooms behind +Mr. Crede’s store. Pulling Nick through the gate, I slammed it, and he +was only beginning to protest when I had him safe within my door, and +the bolt slipped behind him. As I struck a light something fell to the +floor with a crash, an odor of alcohol filled the air, and as the candle +caught the flame I saw a shattered whiskey bottle at my feet and a room +which had been given over to carousing. In spite of my feelings I could +not but laugh at the perfectly irresistible figure my cousin made, as he +stood before me with the drum slung in front of him. His hat was gone, +his dust-covered clothes awry, but he smiled at me benignly and without +a trace of surprise. + +“Sho you’ve come back at lasht, Davy,” he said. “You’re--you’re +very--irregular. You’ll lose--law bishness. Y-you’re worse’n Andy +Jackson--he’s always fightin’.” + +I relieved him, unprotesting, of the drum, thanking my stars there +was so much as a stick left of it. He watched me with a silent and +exaggerated interest as I laid it on the table. From a distance without +came the shouts of the survivors making for the tavern. + +“‘Sfortunate you had the drum, Davy,” he said gravely, “‘rwe’d had no +procession.” + +“It is fortunate I have it now,” I answered, looking ruefully at the +battered rim where Nick had missed the skin in his ardor. + +“Davy,” said he, “funny thing--I didn’t know you wash a Jacobite. Sh’ou +hear,” he added relevantly, “th’ Andy Jackson was married?” + +“No,” I answered, having no great interest in Mr. Jackson. “Where have +you been seeing him again?” + +“Nashville on Cumberland. Jackson’sh county sholicitor,--devil of a +man. I’ll tell you, Davy,” he continued, laying an uncertain hand on +my shoulder and speaking with great earnestness, “I had Chicashaw +horse--Jackson’d Virginia thoroughbred--had a race--‘n’Jackson wanted +to shoot me ‘n’I wanted to shoot Jackson. ‘N’then we all went to the Red +Heifer--” + +“What the deuce is the Red Heifer?” I asked. + +“‘N’dishtillery over a shpring, ‘n’they blow a horn when the liquor +runsh. ‘N’then we had supper in Major Lewish’s tavern. Major Lewis came +in with roast pig on platter. You know roast pig, Davy?... ‘N’Jackson +pulls out’s hunting knife n’waves it very mashestic.... You know how +mashestic Jackson is when he--wantshtobe?” He let go my shoulder, +brushed back his hair in a fiery manner, and, seizing a knife which +unhappily lay on the table, gave me a graphic illustration of Mr. +Jackson about to carve the pig, I retreating, and he coming on. “N’when +he stuck the pig, Davy,--” + +He poised the knife for an instant in the air, and then, before I could +interpose, he brought it down deftly through the head of my precious +drum, and such a frightful, agonized squeal filled the room that even I +shivered involuntarily, and for an instant I had a vivid vision of a pig +struggling in the hands of a butcher. I laughed in spite of myself. But +Nick regarded me soberly. + +“Funny thing, Davy,” he said, “they all left the room.” For a moment +he appeared to be ruminating on this singular phenomenon. Then he +continued: “‘N’Jackson was back firsht, ‘n’he was damned impolite... +‘n’he shook his fist in my face” (here Nick illustrated Mr. Jackson’s +gesture), “‘n’he said, ‘Great God, sir, y’have a fine talent, but if +y’ever do that again, I’ll--I’ll kill you.’ That’sh what he said, +Davy.” + +“How long have you been in Nashville, Nick?” I asked. + +“A year,” he said, “lookin’ after property I won rattle-an’-shnap--you +remember?” + +“And why didn’t you let me know you were in Nashville?” I asked, though +I realized the futility of the question. + +“Thought you was--mad at me,” he answered, “but you ain’t, Davy. You’ve +been very good-natured t’ let me have your drum.” He straightened. “I am +ver’ much obliged.” + +“And where were you before you went to Nashville?” I said. + +“Charleston, ‘Napolis... Philadelphia... everywhere,” he answered. + +“Now,” said he, “‘mgoin’ t’ bed.” + +I applauded this determination, but doubted whether he meant to carry +it out. However, I conducted him to the back room, where he sat himself +down on the edge of my four-poster, and after conversing a little +longer on the subject of Mr. Jackson (who seemed to have gotten upon his +brain), he toppled over and instantly fell asleep with his clothes on. +For a while I stood over him, the old affection welling up so strongly +within me that my eyes were dimmed as I looked upon his face. Spare and +handsome it was, and boyish still, the weaker lines emphasized in its +relaxation. Would that relentless spirit with which he had been born +make him, too, a wanderer forever? And was it not the strangest of fates +which had impelled him to join this madcap expedition of this other man +I loved, George Rogers Clark? + +I went out, closed the door, and lighting another candle took from my +portfolio a packet of letters. Two of them I had not read, having found +them only on my return from Philadelphia that morning. They were all +signed simply “Sarah Temple,” they were dated at a certain number in the +Rue Bourbon, New Orleans, and each was a tragedy in that which it had +left unsaid. There was no suspicion of heroics, there was no railing at +fate; the letters breathed but the one hope,--that her son might come +again to that happiness of which she had robbed him. There were in all +but twelve, and they were brief, for some affliction had nearly deprived +the lady of the use of her right hand. I read them twice over, and +then, despite the lateness of the hour, I sat staring at the candles, +reflecting upon my own helplessness. I was startled from this revery by +a knock. Rising hastily, I closed the door of my bedroom, thinking I +had to do with some drunken reveller who might be noisy. The knock was +repeated. I slipped back the bolt and peered out into the night. + +“I saw dat light,” said a voice which I recognized; “I think I come in +to say good night.” + +I opened the door, and he walked in. + +“You are one night owl, Monsieur Reetchie,” he said. + +“And you seem to prefer the small hours for your visits, Monsieur de St. +Gré,” I could not refrain from replying. + +He swept the room with a glance, and I thought a shade of disappointment +passed over his face. I wondered whether he were looking for Nick. He +sat himself down in my chair, stretched out his legs, and regarded me +with something less than his usual complacency. + +“I have much laik for you, Monsieur Reetchie,” he began, and waved aside +my bow of acknowledgment “Before I go away from Louisville I want to +spik with you,--this is a risson why I am here. You listen to what dat +Depeau he say,--dat is not truth. My family knows you, I laik to have +you hear de truth.” + +He paused, and while I wondered what revelations he was about to make, I +could not repress my impatience at the preamble. + +“You are my frien’, you have prove it,” he continued. “You remember las’ +time we meet?” (I smiled involuntarily.) “You was in bed, but you not +need be ashame’ for me. Two days after I went to France, and I not in +New Orleans since.” + +“Two days after you saw me?” I repeated. + +“Yaas, I run away. That was the mont’ of August, 1789, and we have not +then heard in New Orleans that the Bastille is attack. I lan’ at +La Havre,--it is the en’ of Septembre. I go to the Château de St. +Gré--great iron gates, long avenue of poplar,--big house all ‘round a +court, and Monsieur le Marquis is at Versailles. I borrow three louis +from the concierge, and I go to Versailles to the hotel of Monsieur +le Marquis. There is all dat trouble what you read about going on, and +Monsieur le Marquis he not so glad to see me for dat risson. ‘Mon cher +Auguste,’ he cry, ‘you want to be officier in gardes du corps? You are +not afred?’” (Auguste stiffened.) “‘I am a St. Gré, Monsieur le Marquis. +I am afred of nothings,’ I answered. He tek me to the King, I am made +lieutenant, the mob come and the King and Queen are carry off to Paris. +The King is prisoner, Monsieur le Marquis goes back to the Château de +St. Gré. France is a republic. Monsieur--que voulez-vous?” (The Sieur +de St. Gré shrugged his shoulders.) “I, too, become Republican. I become +officier in the National Guard,--one must move with the time. Is it +not so, Monsieur? I deman’ of you if you ever expec’ to see a St. Gré a +Republican.” + +I expressed my astonishment. + +“I give up my right, my principle, my family. I come to America--I go to +New Orleans where I have influence and I stir up revolution for France, +for Liberty. Is it not noble cause?” + +I had it on the tip of my tongue to ask Monsieur Auguste why he left +France, but the uselessness of it was apparent. + +“You see, Monsieur, I am justify before you, before my frien’s,--that +is all I care,” and he gave another shrug in defiance of the world +at large. “What I have done, I have done for principle. If I remain +Royalist, I might have marry my cousin, Mademoiselle de St. Gré. Ha, +Monsieur, you remember--the miniature you were so kin’ as to borrow me +four hundred livres?” + +“I remember,” I said. + +“It is because I have much confidence in you, Monsieur,” he said, “it is +because I go--peut-être--to dangere, to death, that I come here and ask +you to do me a favor.” + +“You honor me too much, Monsieur,” I answered, though I could scarce +refrain from smiling. + +“It is because of your charactair,” Monsieur Auguste was good enough to +say. “You are to be repose’ in, you are to be rely on. Sometime I think +you ver’ ole man. And this is why, and sence you laik objects of art, +that I bring this and ask you keep it while I am in dangere.” + +I was mystified. He thrust his hand into his coat and drew forth an oval +object wrapped in dirty paper, and then disclosed to my astonished eyes +the miniature of Mademoiselle de St. Gré,--the miniature, I say, for +the gold back and setting were lacking. Auguste had retained only the +ivory,--whether from sentiment or necessity I will not venture. The +sight of it gave me a strange sensation, and I can scarcely write of the +anger and disgust which surged over me, of the longing to snatch it from +his trembling fingers. Suddenly I forgot Auguste in the lady herself. +There was something emblematical in the misfortune which had bereft +the picture of its setting. Even so the Revolution had taken from her +a brilliant life, a king and queen, home and friends. Yet the spirit +remained unquenchable, set above its mean surroundings,--ay, and +untouched by them. I was filled with a painful curiosity to know what +had become of her, which I repressed. Auguste’s voice aroused me. + +“Ah, Monsieur, is it not a face to love, to adore?” + +“It is a face to obey,” I answered, with some heat, and with more truth +than I knew. + +“Mon Dieu, Monsieur, it is so. It is that mek me love--you know not how. +You know not what love is, Monsieur Reetchie, you never love laik me. +You have not sem risson. Monsieur,” he continued, leaning forward and +putting his hand on my knee, “I think she love me--I am not sure. I +should not be surprise’. But Monsieur le Marquis, her father, he trit me +ver’ bad. Monsieur le Marquis is guillotine’ now, I mus’ not spik evil +of him, but he marry her to one ol’ garçon, Le Vicomte d’Ivry-le-Tour.” + +“So Mademoiselle is married,” I said after a pause. + +“Oui, she is Madame la Vicomtesse now; I fall at her feet jus’ the sem. +I hear of her once at Bel Oeil, the château of Monsieur le Prince +de Ligne in Flander’. After that they go I know not where. They are +exile’,--los’ to me.” He sighed, and held out the miniature to me. +“Monsieur, I esk you favor. Will you be as kin’ and keep it for me +again?” + +I have wondered many times since why I did not refuse. Suffice it to say +that I took it. And Auguste’s face lighted up. + +“I am a thousan’ times gret’ful,” he cried; and added, as though with +an afterthought, “Monsieur, would you be so kin’ as to borrow me fif’ +dollars?” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. OF A SUDDEN RESOLUTION + + +It was nearly morning when I fell asleep in my chair, from sheer +exhaustion, for the day before had been a hard one, even for me. I awoke +with a start, and sat for some minutes trying to collect my scattered +senses. The sun streamed in at my open door, the birds hopped on the +lawn, and the various sounds of the bustling life of the little town +came to me from beyond. Suddenly, with a glimmering of the mad events of +the night, I stood up, walked uncertainly into the back room, and stared +at the bed. + +It was empty. I went back into the outer room; my eye wandered from the +shattered whiskey bottle, which was still on the floor, to the table +littered with Mrs. Temple’s letters. And there, in the midst of them, +lay a note addressed with my name in a big, unformed hand. I opened it +mechanically. + +“Dear Davy,”--so it ran,--“I have gone away, I cannot tell you where. +Some day I will come back and you will forgive me. God bless you! NICK.” + +He had gone away! To New Orleans? I had long ceased trying to account +for Nick’s actions, but the more I reflected, the more incredible it +seemed to me that he should have gone there, of all places. And yet I +had had it from Clark’s own lips (indiscreet enough now!) that Nick and +St. Gré were to prepare the way for an insurrection there. My thoughts +ran on to other possibilities; would he see his mother? But he had no +reason to know that Mrs. Temple was still in New Orleans. Then my glance +fell on her letters, lying open on the table. Had he read them? I put +this down as improbable, for he was a man who held strictly to a point +of honor. + +And then there was Antoinette de St. Gré! I ceased to conjecture here, +dashed some water in my eyes, pulled myself together, and, seizing +my hat, hurried out into the street. I made a sufficiently indecorous +figure as I ran towards the water-side, barely nodding to my +acquaintances on the way. It was a fresh morning, a river breeze stirred +the waters of the Bear Grass, and as I stood, scanning the line of boats +there, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to confront a little man +with grizzled, chestnut eyebrows. He was none other than the Citizen +Gignoux. + +“You tek ze air, Monsieur Reetchie?” said he. “You look for some one, +yes? You git up too late see him off.” + +I made a swift resolve never to quibble with this man. + +“So Mr. Temple has gone to New Orleans with the Sieur de St. Gré,” I +said. + +Citizen Gignoux laid a fat finger on one side of his great nose. The +nose was red and shiny, I remember, and glistened in the sunlight. + +“Ah,” said he, “‘tis no use tryin’ hide from you. However, Monsieur +Reetchie, you are the ver’ soul of honor. And then your frien’! I know +you not betray the Sieur de St. Gré. He is ver’ fon’ of you.” + +“Betray!” I exclaimed; “there is no question of betrayal. As far as I +can see, your plans are carried on openly, with a fine contempt for the +Federal government.” + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +“‘Tis not my doin’,” he said, “but I am--what you call it?--a cipher. +Sicrecy is what I believe. But drink too much, talk too much--is it not +so, Monsieur? And if Monsieur le Baron de Carondelet, ze governor, +hear they are in New Orleans, I think they go to Havana or Brazil.” +He smiled, but perhaps the expression of my face caused him to sober +abruptly. “It is necessair for the cause. We must have good Revolution +in Louisiane.” + +A suspicion of this man came over me, for a childlike simplicity +characterized the other ringleaders in this expedition. Clark had had +acumen once, and lost it; St. Gré was a fool; Nick Temple was leading +purposely a reckless life; the Citizens Sullivan and Depeau had, to say +the least, a limited knowledge of affairs. All of these were responding +more or less sincerely to the cry of the people of Kentucky (every day +more passionate) that something be done about Louisiana. But Gignoux +seemed of a different feather. Moreover, he had been too shrewd to deny +what Colonel Clark would have denied in a soberer moment,--that St. Gré +and Nick had gone to New Orleans. + +“You not spik, Monsieur. You not think they have success. You are not +Federalist, no, for I hear you march las’ night with your frien’,--I +hear you wave torch.” + +“You make it your business to hear a great deal, Monsieur Gignoux,” I +retorted, my temper slipping a little. + +He hastened to apologize. + +“Mille pardons, Monsieur,” he said; “I see you are Federalist--but +drunk. Is it not so? Monsieur, you tink this ver’ silly thing--this +expedition.” + +“Whatever I think, Monsieur,” I answered, “I am a friend of General +Clark’s.” + +“An enemy of ze cause?” he put in. + +“Monsieur,” I said, “if President Washington and General Wayne do not +think it worth while to interfere with your plans, neither do I.” + +I left him abruptly, and went back to my long-delayed affairs with a +heavy heart. The more I thought, the more criminally foolish Nick’s +journey seemed to me. However puerile the undertaking, De Lemos at +Natchez and Carondelet at New Orleans had not the reputation of sleeping +at their posts, and their hatred for Americans was well known. I sought +General Clark, but he had gone to Knob Licks, and in my anxiety I lay +awake at night, tossing in my bed. + +One evening, perhaps four days after Nick’s departure, I went into +the common room of the tavern, and there I was surprised to see an old +friend. His square, saffron face was just the same, his little jet eyes +snapped as brightly as ever, his hair--which was swept high above his +forehead and tied in an eelskin behind--was as black as when I had seen +it at Kaskaskia. I had met Monsieur Vigo many times since, for he was a +familiar figure amongst the towns of the Ohio and the Mississippi, +and from Vincennes to Anse à la Graisse, and even to New Orleans. His +reputation as a financier was greater than ever. He was talking to my +friend, Mr. Marshall, but he rose when he saw me, with a beaming smile. + +“Ha, it is Davy,” he cried, “but not the sem lil drummer boy who would +not come into my store. Reech lawyer now,--I hear you make much money +now, Davy.” + +“Congress money?” I said. + +Monsieur Vigo threw out his hands, and laughed exactly as he had done in +his log store at Kaskaskia. + +“Congress have never repay me one sou,” said Monsieur Vigo, making a +face. “I have try--I have talk--I have represent--it is no good. Davy, +it is your fault. You tell me tek dat money. You call dat finance?” + +“David,” said Mr. Marshall, sharply, “what the devil is this I hear of +your carrying a torch in a Jacobin procession?” + +“You may put it down to liquor, Mr. Marshall,” I answered. + +“Then you must have had a cask, egad,” said Mr. Marshall, “for I never +saw you drunk.” + +I laughed. + +“I shall not attempt to explain it, sir,” I answered. + +“You must not allow your drum to drag you into bad company again,” said +he, and resumed his conversation. As I suspected, it was a vigorous +condemnation of General Clark and his new expedition. I expressed my +belief that the government did not regard it seriously, and would forbid +the enterprise at the proper time. + +“You are right, sir,” said Mr. Marshall, bringing down his fist on the +table. “I have private advices from Philadelphia that the President’s +consideration for Governor Shelby is worn out, and that he will issue +a proclamation within the next few days warning all citizens at their +peril from any connection with the pirates.” + +I laughed. + +“As a matter of fact, Mr. Marshall,” said I, “Citizen Genêt has been +liberal with nothing except commissions, and they have neither money nor +men.” + +“The rascals have all left town,” said Mr. Marshall. “Citizen +Quartermaster Depeau, their local financier, has gone back to his store +at Knob Licks. The Sieur de St. Gré and a Mr. Temple, as doubtless you +know, have gone to New Orleans. And the most mysterious and therefore +the most dangerous of the lot, Citizen Gignoux, has vanished like an +evil spirit. It is commonly supposed that he, too, has gone down the +river. You may see him, Vigo,” said Mr. Marshall, turning to the trader; +“he is a little man with a big nose and grizzled chestnut eyebrows.” + +“Ah, I know a lil ‘bout him,” said Monsieur Vigo; “he was on my boat two +days ago, asking me questions.” + +“The devil he was!” said Mr. Marshall. + +I had another disquieting night, and by the morning I had made up my +mind. The sun was glinting on the placid waters of the river when I made +my way down to the bank, to a great ten-oared keel boat that lay on the +Bear Grass, with its square sail furled. An awning was stretched over +the deck, and at a walnut table covered with papers sat Monsieur Vigo, +smoking his morning pipe. + +“Davy,” said he, “you have come à la bonne heure. At ten I depart for +New Orleans.” He sighed. “It is so long voyage,” he added, “and so +lonely one. Sometime I have the good fortune to pick up a companion, but +not to-day.” + +“Do you want me to go with you?” I said. + +He looked at me incredulously. + +“I should be delighted,” he said, “but you mek a jest.” + +“I was never more serious in my life,” I answered, “for I have business +in New Orleans. I shall be ready.” + +“Ha,” cried Monsieur Vigo, hospitably, “I shall be enchant. We will talk +philosophe, Beaumarchais, Voltaire, Rousseau.” + +For Monsieur Vigo was a great reader, and we had often indulged in +conversation which (we flattered ourselves) had a literary turn. + +I spent the remaining hours arranging with a young lawyer of my +acquaintance to look after my business, and at ten o’clock I was aboard +the keel boat with my small baggage. At eleven, Monsieur Vigo and I were +talking “philosophe” over a wonderful breakfast under the awning, as +we dropped down between the forest-lined shores of the Ohio. My host +travelled in luxury, and we ate the Creole dishes, which his cook +prepared, with silver forks which he kept in a great chest in the cabin. + +You who read this may feel something of my impatience to get to New +Orleans, and hence I shall not give a long account of the journey. What +a contrast it was to that which Nick and I had taken five years before +in Monsieur Gratiot’s fur boat! Like all successful Creole traders, +Monsieur Vigo had a wonderful knack of getting on with the Indians, and +often when we tied up of a night the chief men of a tribe would come +down to greet him. We slipped southward on the great, yellow river which +parted the wilderness, with its sucks and eddies and green islands, +every one of which Monsieur knew, and I saw again the flocks of +water-fowl and herons in procession, and hawks and vultures wheeling in +their search. Sometimes a favorable wind sprang up, and we hoisted +the sail. We passed the Walnut Hills, the Nogales, the moans of the +alligators broke our sleep by night, and at length we came to Natchez, +ruled over now by that watch-dog of the Spanish King, Gayoso de Lemos. +Thanks to Monsieur Vigo, his manners were charming and his hospitality +gracious, and there was no trouble whatever about my passport. + +Our progress was slow when we came at last to the belvedered plantation +houses amongst the orange groves; and as we sat on the wide galleries +in the summer nights, we heard all the latest gossip of the capital of +Louisiana. The river was low; there was an ominous quality in the heat +which had its effect, indeed, upon me, and made the old Creoles shake +their heads and mutter a word with a terrible meaning. New Orleans was +a cesspool, said the enlightened. The Baron de Carondelet, indefatigable +man, aimed at digging a canal to relieve the city of its filth, but +this would be the year when it was most needed, and it was not dug. Yes, +Monsieur le Baron was energy itself. That other fever--the political +one--he had scotched. “Ça Ira” and “La Marseillaise” had been sung in +the theatres, but not often, for the Baron had sent the alcaldes to shut +them up. Certain gentlemen of French ancestry had gone to languish in +the Morro at Havana. Yes, Monsieur de Carondelet, though fat, was on +horseback before dawn, New Orleans was fortified as it never had been +before, the militia organized, real cannon were on the ramparts which +could shoot at a pinch. + +Sub rosa, I found much sympathy among the planters with the Rights of +Man. What had become, they asked, of the expedition of Citizen General +Clark preparing in the North? They may have sighed secretly when I +painted it in its true colors, but they loved peace, these planters. +Strangely enough, the name of Auguste de St. Gré never crossed their +lips, and I got no trace of him or Nick at any of these places. Was it +possible that they might not have come to New Orleans after all? + +Through the days, when the sun beat upon the awning with a tropical +fierceness, when Monsieur Vigo abandoned himself to his siestas, I +thought. It was perhaps characteristic of me that I waited nearly three +weeks to confide in my old friend the purpose of my journey to New +Orleans. It was not because I could not trust him that I held my tongue, +but because I sought some way of separating the more intimate story of +Nick’s mother and his affair with Antoinette de St. Gré from the rest of +the story. But Monsieur Vigo was a man of importance in Louisiana, and +I reflected that a time might come when I should need his help. One +evening, when we were tied up under the oaks of a bayou, I told him. +There emanated from Monsieur Vigo a sympathy which few men possess, and +this I felt strongly as he listened, breaking his silence only at long +intervals to ask a question. It was a still night, I remember, of great +beauty, with a wisp of a moon hanging over the forest line, the air +heavy with odors and vibrant with a thousand insect tones. + +“And what you do, Davy?” he said at length. + +“I must find my cousin and St. Gré before they have a chance to get +into much mischief,” I answered. “If they have already made a noise, I +thought of going to the Baron de Carondelet and telling him what I +know of the expedition. He will understand what St. Gré is, and I will +explain that Mr. Temple’s reckless love of adventure is at the bottom of +his share in the matter.” + +“Bon, Davy,” said my host, “if you go, I go with you. But I believe ze +Baron think Morro good place for them jus’ the sem. Ze Baron has been +make misérable with Jacobins. But I go with you if you go.” + +He discoursed for some time upon the quality of the St. Gré’s, their +public services, and before he went to sleep he made the very just +remark that there was a flaw in every string of beads. As for me, I went +down into the cabin, surreptitiously lighted a candle, and drew from +my pocket that piece of ivory which had so strangely come into my +possession once more. The face upon it had haunted me since I had first +beheld it. The miniature was wrapped now in a silk handkerchief which +Polly Ann had bought for me in Lexington. Shall I confess it?--I had +carefully rubbed off the discolorations on the ivory at the back, and +the picture lacked now only the gold setting. As for the face, I had a +kind of consolation from it. I seemed to draw of its strength when I was +tired, of its courage when I faltered. And, during those four days of +indecision in Louisville, it seemed to say to me in words that I could +not evade or forget, “Go to New Orleans.” It was a sentiment--foolish, +if you please--which could not resist. Nay, which I did not try to +resist, for I had little enough of it in my life. What did it matter? I +should never see Madame la Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour. + +She was Hélène to me; and the artist had caught the strength of her +soul in her clear-cut face, in the eyes that flashed with wit and +courage,--eyes that seemed to look with scorn upon what was mean in the +world and untrue, with pity on the weak. Here was one who might have +governed a province and still have been a woman, one who had taken +into exile the best of safeguards against misfortune,--humor and an +indomitable spirit. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF THE HONEYCOMBED TILES + +As long as I live I shall never forget that Sunday morning of my second +arrival at New Orleans. A saffron heat-haze hung over the river and the +city, robbed alike from the yellow waters of the one and the pestilent +moisture of the other. It would have been strange indeed if this capital +of Louisiana, brought hither to a swamp from the sands of Biloxi many +years ago by the energetic Bienville, were not visited from time to time +by the scourge! + +Again I saw the green villas on the outskirts, the verdure-dotted +expanse of roofs of the city behind the levee bank, the line of Kentucky +boats, keel boats and barges which brought our own resistless commerce +hither in the teeth of royal mandates. Farther out, and tugging +fretfully in the yellow current, were the aliens of the blue seas, +high-hulled, their tracery of masts and spars shimmering in the heat: +a full-rigged ocean packet from Spain, a barque and brigantine from +the West Indies, a rakish slaver from Africa with her water-line dry, +discharged but yesterday of a teeming horror of freight. I looked again +upon the familiar rows of trees which shaded the gravelled promenades +where Nick had first seen Antoinette. Then we were under it, for the +river was low, and the dingy-uniformed officer was bowing over our +passports beneath the awning. We walked ashore, Monsieur Vigo and I, +and we joined a staring group of keel boatmen and river-men under the +willows. + +Below us, the white shell walks of the Place d’Armes were thronged with +gayly dressed people. Over their heads rose the fine new Cathedral, +built by the munificence of Don Andreas Almonaster, and beside that the +many-windowed, heavy-arched Cabildo, nearly finished, which will stand +for all time a monument to Spanish builders. + +“It is Corpus Christi day,” said Monsieur Vigo; “let us go and see the +procession.” + +Here once more were the bright-turbaned negresses, the gay Creole gowns +and scarfs, the linen-jacketed, broad-hatted merchants, with those of +soberer and more conventional dress, laughing and chatting, the children +playing despite the heat. Many of these people greeted Monsieur Vigo. +There were the saturnine, long-cloaked Spaniards, too, and a greater +number than I had believed of my own keen-faced countrymen lounging +about, mildly amused by the scene. We crossed the square, and with the +courtesy of their race the people made way for us in the press; and we +were no sooner placed ere the procession came out of the church. Flaming +soldiers of the Governor’s guard, two by two; sober, sandalled friars +in brown, priests in their robes,--another batch of color; crosses +shimmering, tapers emerging from the cool darkness within to pale by the +light of day. Then down on their knees to Him who sits high above the +yellow haze fell the thousands in the Place d’Armes. For here was the +Host itself, flower-decked in white and crimson, its gold-tasselled +canopy upheld by four tonsured priests, a sheen of purple under it,--the +Bishop of Louisiana in his robes. + +“The Governor!” whispered Monsieur Vigo, and the word was passed from +mouth to mouth as the people rose from their knees. François Louis +Hector, Baron de Carondelet, resplendent in his uniform of colonel in +the royal army of Spain, his orders glittering on his breast,--pillar of +royalty and enemy to the Rights of Man! His eye was stern, his carriage +erect, but I seemed to read in his careworn face the trials of three +years in this moist capital. After the Governor, one by one, the waiting +Associations fell in line, each with its own distinguishing sash. So the +procession moved off into the narrow streets of the city, the people in +the Place dispersed to new vantage points, and Monsieur Vigo signed me +to follow him. + +“I have a frien’, la veuve Gravois, who lives ver’ quiet. She have one +room, and I ask her tek you in, Davy.” He led the way through the empty +Rue Chartres, turned to the right at the Rue Bienville, and stopped +before an unpretentious house some three doors from the corner. Madame +Gravois, elderly, wizened, primp in a starched cotton gown, opened the +door herself, fell upon Monsieur Vigo in the Creole fashion; and within +a quarter of an hour I was installed in her best room, which gave out on +a little court behind. Monsieur Vigo promised to send his servant with +my baggage, told me his address, bade me call on him for what I wanted, +and took his leave. + +First, there was Madame Gravois’ story to listen to as she bustled about +giving orders to a kinky-haired negro girl concerning my dinner. Then +came the dinner, excellent--if I could have eaten it. The virtues of +the former Monsieur Gravois were legion. He had come to Louisiana from +Toulon, planted indigo, fought a duel, and Madame was a widow. So I +condense two hours into two lines. Happily, Madame was not proof against +the habits of the climate, and she retired for her siesta. I sought my +room, almost suffocated by a heat which defies my pen to describe, a +heat reeking with moisture sucked from the foul kennels of the city. I +had felt nothing like it in my former visit to New Orleans. It seemed +to bear down upon my brain, to clog the power of thought, to make me +vacillating. Hitherto my reasoning had led me to seek Monsieur de +St. Gré, to count upon that gentleman’s common sense and his former +friendship. But now that the time had come for it, I shrank from such +a meeting. I remembered his passionate affection for Antoinette, I +imagined that he would not listen calmly to one who was in some sort +connected with her unhappiness. So a kind of cowardice drove me first to +Mrs. Temple. She might know much that would save me useless trouble and +blundering. + +The shadows of tree-top, thatch, and wall were lengthening as I walked +along the Rue Bourbon. Heedless of what the morrow might bring forth, +the street was given over to festivity. Merry groups were gathered on +the corners, songs and laughter mingled in the court-yards, billiard +balls clicked in the cabarets. A fat, jolly little Frenchman, surrounded +by tripping children, sat in his doorway on the edge of the banquette, +fiddling with all his might, pausing only to wipe the beads of +perspiration from his face. + +“Madame Clive, mais oui, Monsieur, l’ petite maison en face.” Smiling +benignly at the children, he began to fiddle once more. + +The little house opposite! Mrs. Temple, mistress of Temple Bow, had come +to this! It was a strange little home indeed, Spanish, one-story, its +dormers hidden by a honeycombed screen of terra-cotta tiles. This screen +was set on the extreme edge of the roof which overhung the banquette +and shaded the yellow adobe wall of the house. Low, unpretentious, +the latticed shutters of its two windows giving it but a scant air of +privacy,--indeed, they were scarred by the raps of careless passers-by +on the sidewalk. The two little battened doors, one step up, were +closed. I rapped, waited, and rapped again. The musician across the +street stopped his fiddling, glanced at me, smiled knowingly at the +children; and they paused in their dance to stare. Then one of the +doors was pushed open a scant four inches, a scarlet madras handkerchief +appeared in the crack above a yellow face. There was a long moment of +silence, during which I felt the scrutiny of a pair of sharp, black +eyes. + +“What yo’ want, Marse?” + +The woman’s voice astonished me, for she spoke the dialect of the +American tide-water. + +“I should like to see Mrs. Clive,” I answered. + +The door closed a shade. + +“Mistis sick, she ain’t see nobody,” said the woman. She closed the door +a little more, and I felt tempted to put my foot in the crack. + +“Tell her that Mr. David Ritchie is here,” I said. + +There was an instant’s silence, then an exclamation. + +“Lan’ sakes, is you Marse Dave?” She opened the door--furtively, I +thought--just wide enough for me to pass through. I found myself in a +low-ceiled, darkened room, opposite a trim negress who stood with her +arms akimbo and stared at me. + +“Marse Dave, you doan rec’lect me. I’se Lindy, I’se Breed’s daughter. +I rec’lect you when you was at Temple Bow. Marse Dave, how you’se done +growed! Yassir, when I heerd from Miss Sally I done comed here to tek +cyar ob her.” + +“How is your mistress?” I asked. + +“She po’ly, Marse Dave,” said Lindy, and paused for adequate words. I +took note of this darky who, faithful to a family, had come hither to +share her mistress’s exile and obscurity. Lindy was spare, energetic, +forceful--and, I imagined, a discreet guardian indeed for the +unfortunate. “She po’ly, Marse Dave, an’ she ain’ nebber leabe dis year +house. Marse Dave,” said Lindy earnestly, lowering her voice and +taking a step closer to me, “I done reckon de Mistis gwine ter die ob +lonesomeness. She des sit dar an’ brood, an’ brood--an’ she use’ ter +de bes’ company, to de quality. No, sirree, Marse Dave, she ain’ nebber +sesso, but she tink ‘bout de young Marsa night an’ day. Marse Dave?” + +“Yes?” I said. + +“Marse Dave, she have a lil pink frock dat Marsa Nick had when he was a +bebby. I done cotch Mistis lookin’ at it, an’ she hid it when she see me +an’ blush like ‘twas a sin. Marse Dave?” + +“Yes?” I said again. + +“Where am de young Marsa?” + +“I don’t know, Lindy,” I answered. + +Lindy sighed. + +“She done talk ‘bout you, Marse Dave, an’ how good you is--” + +“And Mrs. Temple sees no one,” I asked. + +“Dar’s one lady come hyar ebery week, er French lady, but she speak +English jes’ like the Mistis. Dat’s my fault,” said Lindy, showing a +line of white teeth. + +“Your fault,” I exclaimed. + +“Yassir. When I comed here from Caroliny de Mistis done tole me not ter +let er soul in hyah. One day erbout three mont’s ergo, dis yer lady come +en she des wheedled me ter let her in. She was de quality, Marse Dave, +and I was des’ afeard not ter. I declar’ I hatter. Hush,” said Lindy, +putting her fingers to her lips, “dar’s de Mistis!” + +The door into the back room opened, and Mrs. Temple stood on the +threshold, staring with uncertain eyes into the semi-darkness. + +“Lindy,” she said, “what have you done?” + +“Miss Sally--” Lindy began, and looked at me. But I could not speak for +looking at the lady in the doorway. + +“Who is it?” she said again, and her hand sought the door-post +tremblingly. “Who is it?” + +Then I went to her. At my first step she gave a little cry and swayed, +and had I not taken her in my arms I believe she would have fallen. + +“David!” she said, “David, is it you? I--I cannot see very well. Why did +you not speak?” She looked at Lindy and smiled. “It is because I am an +old woman, Lindy,” and she lifted her hand to her forehead. “See, my +hair is white--I shock you, David.” + +Leaning on my shoulder, she led me through a little bedroom in the rear +into a tiny garden court beyond, a court teeming with lavish colors +and redolent with the scent of flowers. A white shell walk divided the +garden and ended at the door of a low outbuilding, from the chimney of +which blue smoke curled upward in the evening air. Mrs. Temple drew me +almost fiercely towards a bench against the adobe wall. + +“Where is he?” she said. “Where is he, David?” + +The suddenness of the question staggered me; I hesitated. + +“I do not know,” I answered. + +I could not look into her face and say it. The years of torment and +suffering were written there in characters not to be mistaken. Sarah +Temple, the beauty, was dead indeed. The hope which threatened to light +again the dead fires in the woman’s eyes frightened me. + +“Ah,” she said sharply, “you are deceiving me. It is not like you, +David. You are deceiving me. Tell me, tell me, for the love of God, +who has brought me to bear chastisement.” And she gripped my arm with a +strength I had not thought in her. + +“Listen,” I said, trying to calm myself as well as her. “Listen, Mrs. +Temple.” I could not bring myself to call her otherwise. + +“You are keeping him away from me,” she cried. “Why are you keeping him +away? Have I not suffered enough? David, I cannot live long. I do not +dare to die--until he has forgiven me.” + +I forced her, gently as I might, to sit on the bench, and I seated +myself beside her. + +“Listen,” I said, with a sternness that hid my feelings, and perforce +her expression changed again to a sad yearning, “you must hear me. And +you must trust me, for I have never pretended. You shall see him if it +is in my power.” + +She looked at me so piteously that I was near to being unmanned. + +“I will trust you,” she whispered. + +“I have seen him,” I said. She started violently, but I laid my hand on +hers, and by some self-mastery that was still in her she was silent. “I +saw him in Louisville a month ago, when I returned from a year’s visit +to Philadelphia.” I could not equivocate with this woman, I could no +more lie to her sorrow than to the Judgment. Why had I not foreseen her +question? + +“And he hates me?” She spoke with a calmness now that frightened me more +than her agitation had done. + +“I do not know,” I answered; “when I would have spoken to him he was +gone.” + +“He was drunk,” she said. I stared at her in frightened wonderment. “He +was drunk--it is better than if he had cursed me. He did not mention me? +Or any one?” + +“He did not,” I answered. + +She turned her face away. + +“Go on, I will listen to you,” she said, and sat immovable through the +whole of my story, though her hand trembled in mine. And while I live I +hope never to have such a thing to go through with again. Truth held me +to the full, ludicrous tragedy of the tale, to the cheap character of +my old Colonel’s undertaking, to the incident of the drum, to the +conversation in my room. Likewise, truth forbade me to rekindle her +hope. I did not tell her that Nick had come with St. Gré to New Orleans, +for of this my own knowledge was as yet not positive. For a long time +after I had finished she was silent. + +“And you think the expedition will not get here?” she asked finally, in +a dead voice. + +“I am positive of it,” I answered, “and for the sake of those who are +engaged in it, it is mercifully best that it should not. The day may +come,” I added, for the sake of leading her away, “when Kentucky will be +strong enough to overrun Louisiana. But not now.” + +She turned to me with a trace of her former fierceness. + +“Why are you in New Orleans?” she demanded. + +A sudden resolution came to me then. + +“To bring you back with me to Kentucky,” I answered. She shook her head +sadly, but I continued: “I have more to say. I am convinced that neither +Nick nor you will be happy until you are mother and son again. You have +both been wanderers long enough.” + +Once more she turned away and fell into a revery. Over the housetop, +from across the street, came the gay music of the fiddler. Mrs. Temple +laid her hand gently on my shoulder. + +“My dear,” she said, smiling, “I could not live for the journey.” + +“You must live for it,” I answered. “You have the will. You must live +for it, for his sake.” + +She shook her head, and smiled at me with a courage which was the crown +of her sufferings. + +“You are talking nonsense, David,” she said; “it is not like you. Come,” + she said, rising with something of her old manner, “I must show you what +I have been doing all these years. You must admire my garden.” + +I followed her, marvelling, along the shell path, and there came +unbidden to my mind the garden at Temple Bow, where she had once been +wont to sit, tormenting Mr. Mason or bending to the tale of Harry +Riddle’s love. Little she cared for flowers in those days, and now they +had become her life. With such thoughts in my mind, I listened unheeding +to her talk. The place was formerly occupied by a shiftless fellow, a +tailor; and the court, now a paradise, had been a rubbish heap. That +orange tree which shaded the uneven doorway of the kitchen she had found +here. Figs, pomegranates, magnolias; the camellias dazzling in their +purity; the blood-red oleanders; the pink roses that hid the crumbling +adobe and climbed even to the sloping tiles,--all these had been set +out and cared for with her own hands. Ay, and the fragrant bed of yellow +jasmine over which she lingered,--Antoinette’s favorite flower. + +Antoinette’s flowers that she wore in her hair! In her letters Mrs. +Temple had never mentioned Antoinette, and now she read the question +(perchance purposely put there) in my eyes. Her voice faltered sadly. +Scarce a week had she been in the house before Antoinette had found her. + +“I--I sent the girl away, David. She came without Monsieur de St. Gré’s +knowledge, without his consent. It is natural that he thinks me--I will +not say what. I sent Antoinette away. She clung to me, she would not go, +and I had to be--cruel. It is one of the things which make the nights +long--so long. My sins have made her life unhappy.” + +“And you hear of her? She is not married?” I asked. + +“No, she is not married,” said Mrs. Temple, stooping over the jasmines. +Then she straightened and faced me, her voice shaken with earnestness. +“David, do you think that Nick still loves her?” + +Alas, I could not answer that. She bent over the jasmines again. + +“There were five years that I knew nothing,” she continued. “I did not +dare ask Mr. Clark, who comes to me on business, as you know. It was +Mr. Clark who brought back Lindy on one of his trips to Charleston. And +then, one day in March of this year, Madame de Montméry came.” + +“Madame de Montméry?” I repeated. + +“It is a strange story,” said Mrs. Temple. “Lindy had never admitted any +one, save Mr. Clark. One day early in the spring, when I was trimming my +roses by the wall there, the girl ran to me and said that a lady wished +to see me. Why had she let her in? Lindy did not know, she could not +refuse her. Had the lady demanded admittance? Lindy thought that I would +like to see her. David, it was a providential weakness, or curiosity, +that prompted me to go into the front room, and then I saw why Lindy had +opened the door to her. Who she is or what she is I do not know to this +day. Who am I now that I should inquire? I know that she is a lady, that +she has exquisite manners, that I feel now that I cannot live without +her. She comes every week, sometimes twice, she brings me little +delicacies, new seeds for my garden. But, best of all, she brings me +herself, and I am always counting the days until she comes again. Yes, +and I always fear that she, too, will be taken away from me.” + +I had not heard the sound of voices, but Mrs. Temple turned, startled, +and looked towards the house. I followed her glance, and suddenly I knew +that my heart was beating. + + +CHAPTER VI. MADAME LA VICOMTESSE + +Hesitating on the step, a lady stood in the vine-covered doorway, a +study in black and white in a frame of pink roses. The sash at her +waist, the lace mantilla that clung about her throat, the deftly coiled +hair with its sheen of the night waters--these in black. The simple +gown--a tribute to the art of her countrywomen--in white. + +Mrs. Temple had gone forward to meet her, but I stood staring, +marvelling, forgetful, in the path. They were talking, they were coming +towards me, and I heard Mrs. Temple pronounce my name and hers--Madame +de Montméry. I bowed, she courtesied. There was a baffling light in the +lady’s brown eyes when I dared to glance at them, and a smile playing +around her mouth. Was there no word in the two languages to find its way +to my lips? Mrs. Temple laid her hand on my arm. + +“David is not what one might call a ladies’ man, Madame,” she said. + +The lady laughed. + +“Isn’t he?” she said. + +“I am sure you will frighten him with your wit,” answered Mrs. Temple, +smiling. “He is worth sparing.” + +“He is worth frightening, then,” said the lady, in exquisite English, +and she looked at me again. + +“You and David should like each other,” said Mrs. Temple; “you are both +capable persons, friends of the friendless and towers of strength to the +weak.” + +The lady’s face became serious, but still there was the expression I +could not make out. In an instant she seemed to have scrutinized me with +a precision from which there could be no appeal. + +“I seem to know Mr. Ritchie,” she said, and added quickly: “Mrs. Clive +has talked a great deal about you. She has made you out a very wonderful +person.” + +“My dear,” said Mrs. Temple, “the wonderful people of this world are +those who find time to comfort and help the unfortunate. That is why you +and David are wonderful. No one knows better than I how easy it is to be +selfish.” + +“I have brought you an English novel,” said Madame de Montoméry, turning +abruptly to Mrs. Temple. “But you must not read it at night. Lindy is +not to let you have it until to-morrow.” + +“There,” said Mrs. Temple, gayly, to me, “Madame is not happy unless she +is controlling some one, and I am a rebellious subject.” + +“You have not been taking care of yourself,” said Madame. She glanced at +me, and bit her lips, as though guessing the emotion which my visit +had caused. “Listen,” she said, “the vesper bells! You must go into the +house, and Mr. Ritchie and I must leave you.” + +She took Mrs. Temple by the arm and led her, unresisting, along the +path. I followed, a thousand thoughts and conjectures spinning in my +brain. They reached the bench under the little tree beside the door, and +stood talking for a moment of the routine of Mrs. Temple’s life. Madame, +it seemed, had prescribed a regimen, and meant to have it followed. +Suddenly I saw Mrs. Temple take the lady’s arm, and sink down upon +the bench. Then we were both beside her, bending over her, she sitting +upright and smiling at us. + +“It is nothing,” she said; “I am so easily tired.” + +Her lips were ashen, and her breath came quickly. Madame acted with that +instant promptness which I expected of her. + +“You must carry her in, Mr. Ritchie,” she said quietly. + +“No, it is only momentary, David,” said Mrs. Temple. I remember how +pitifully frail and light she was as I picked her up and followed Madame +through the doorway into the little bedroom. I laid Mrs. Temple on the +bed. + +“Send Lindy here,” said Madame. + +Lindy was in the front room with the negress whom Madame had brought +with her. They were not talking. I supposed then this was because Lindy +did not speak French. I did not know that Madame de Montméry’s maid was +a mute. Both of them went into the bedroom, and I was left alone. +The door and windows were closed, and a green myrtle-berry candle was +burning on the table. I looked about me with astonishment. But for the +low ceiling and the wide cypress puncheons of the floor the room might +have been a budoir in a manor-house. On the slender-legged, polished +mahogany table lay books in tasteful bindings; a diamond-paned bookcase +stood in the corner; a fauteuil and various other chairs which might +have come from the hands of an Adam were ranged about. Tall silver +candlesticks graced each end of the little mantel-shelf, and between +them were two Lowestoft vases having the Temple coat of arms. + +It might have been half an hour that I waited, now pacing the floor, now +throwing myself into the arm-chair by the fireplace. Anxiety for Mrs. +Temple, problems that lost themselves in a dozen conjectures, all +idle--these agitated me almost beyond my power of self-control. Once I +felt for the miniature, took it out, and put it back without looking at +it. At last I was startled to my feet by the opening of the door, and +Madame de Montméry came in. She closed the door softly behind her, with +the deft quickness and decision of movement which a sixth sense had told +me she possessed, crossed the room swiftly, and stood confronting me. + +“She is easy again, now,” she said simply. “It is one of her attacks. I +wish you might have seen me before you told her what you had to say to +her.” + +“I wish indeed that I had known you were here.” + +She ignored this, whether intentionally, I know not. + +“It is her heart, poor lady! I am afraid she cannot live long.” She +seated herself in one of the straight chairs. “Sit down, Mr. Ritchie,” + she said; “I am glad you waited. I wanted to talk with you.” + +“I thought that you might, Madame la Vicomtesse,” I answered. + +She made no gesture, either of surprise or displeasure. + +“So you knew,” she said quietly. + +“I knew you the moment you appeared in the doorway,” I replied. It was +not just what I meant to say. + +There flashed over her face that expression of the miniature, the mouth +repressing the laughter in the brown eyes. + +“Montméry is one of my husband’s places,” she said. “When Antoinette +asked me to come here and watch over Mrs. Temple, I chose the name.” + +“And Mrs. Temple has never suspected you?” + +“I think not. She thinks I came at Mr. Clark’s request. And being a +lady, she does not ask questions. She accepts me for what I appear to +be.” + +It seemed so strange to me to be talking here in New Orleans, in this +little Spanish house, with a French vicomtesse brought up near the court +of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette; nay, with Hélène de St. Gré, whose +portrait had twice come into my life by a kind of strange fatality +(and was at that moment in my pocket), that I could scarce maintain +my self-possession in her presence. I had given the portrait, too, +attributes and a character, and I found myself watching the lady with +a breathless interest lest she should fail in any of these. In the +intimacy of the little room I felt as if I had known her always, and +again, that she was as distant from me and my life as the court from +which she had come. I found myself glancing continually at her face, on +which the candle-light shone. The Vicomtesse might have been four and +twenty. Save for the soberer gown she wore, she seemed scarce older than +the young girl in the miniature who had the presence of a woman of the +world. Suddenly I discovered with a flush that she was looking at me +intently, without embarrassment, but with an expression that seemed +to hint of humor in the situation. To my astonishment, she laughed a +little. + +“You are a very odd person, Mr. Ritchie,” she said. “I have heard so +much of you from Mrs. Temple, from Antoinette, that I know something of +your strange life. After all,” she added with a trace of sadness, “it +has been no stranger than my own. First I will answer your questions, +and then I shall ask some.” + +“But I have asked no questions, Madame la Vicomtesse,” I said. + +“And you are a very simple person, Mr. Ritchie,” continued Madame la +Vicomtesse, smiling; “it is what I had been led to suppose. A serious +person. As the friend of Mr. Nicholas Temple, as the relation and (may +I say?) benefactor of this poor lady here, it is fitting that you should +know certain things. I will not weary you with the reasons and events +which led to my coming from Europe to New Orleans, except to say that I, +like all of my class who have escaped the horrors of the Revolution, am +a wanderer, and grateful to Monsieur de St. Gré for the shelter he gives +me. His letter reached me in England, and I arrived three months ago.” + +She hesitated--nay, I should rather say paused, for there was little +hesitation in what she did. She paused, as though weighing what she was +to say next. + +“When I came to Les Îles I saw that there was a sorrow weighing upon +the family; and it took no great astuteness on my part, Mr. Ritchie, +to discover that Antoinette was the cause of it. One has only to see +Antoinette to love her. I wondered why she had not married. And yet I +saw that there had been an affair. It seemed very strange to me, Mr. +Ritchie, for with us, you understand, marriages are arranged. Antoinette +really has beauty, she is the daughter of a man of importance in the +colony, her strength of character saves her from being listless. I found +a girl with originality of expression, with a sense of the fitness of +things, devoted to charitable works, who had not taken the veil. That +was on her father’s account. As you know, they are inseparable. Monsieur +Philippe de St. Gré is a remarkable man, with certain vigorous ideas +not in accordance with the customs of his neighbors. It was he who first +confided in me that he would not force Antoinette to marry; it was she, +at length, who told me the story of Nicholas Temple and his mother.” She +paused again, and, reading between the lines, I perceived that Madame la +Vicomtesse had become essential to the household at Les Îles. Philippe +de St. Gré was not a man to misplace a confidence. + +“It was then that I first heard of you, Mr. Ritchie, and of the part +which you played in that affair. It was then I had my first real insight +into Antoinette’s character. Her affection for Mrs. Temple astonished +me, bewildered me. The woman had deceived her and her family, and yet +Antoinette gave up her lover because he would not take his mother +back. Had Mrs. Temple been willing to return to Les Îles after you had +providentially taken her away, they would have received her. Philippe de +St. Gré is not a man to listen to criticism. As it was, Antoinette did +not rest until she found where Mrs. Temple had hidden herself, and then +she came here to her. It is not for us to judge any of them. In sending +Antoinette away the poor lady denied herself the only consolation that +was left to her. Antoinette understood. Every week she has had news of +Mrs. Temple from Mr. Clark. And when I came and learned her trouble, +Antoinette begged me to come here and be Mrs. Temple’s friend. Mr. +Ritchie, she is a very ill woman and a very sad woman,--the saddest +woman I have ever known, and I have seen many.” + +“And Mademoiselle de St. Gré?” I asked. + +“Tell me about this man for whom Antoinette has ruined her life,” said +Madame la Vicomtesse, brusquely. “Is he worth it? No, no man is worth +what she has suffered. What has become of him? Where is he? Did you not +tell her that you would bring him back?” + +“I said that I would bring him back if I could,” I answered, “and I +meant it, Madame.” + +Madame la Vicomtesse bit her lip. Had she known me better, she might +have smiled. As for me, I was wholly puzzled to account for these +fleeting changes in her humor. + +“You have taken a great deal upon your shoulders, Mr. Ritchie,” she +said. “They are from all accounts broad ones. There, I was wrong to be +indignant in your presence,--you who seem to have spent your life in +trying to get others out of difficulties. Mercy,” she said, with a quick +gesture at my protest, “there are few men with whom one might talk thus +in so short an acquaintance. I love the girl, and I cannot help being +angry with Mr. Temple. I suppose there is something to be said on his +side. Let us hear it--I dare say he could not have a better advocate,” + she finished, with an indefinable smile. + +I began at the wrong end of my narrative, and it was some time before I +had my facts arranged in proper sequence. I could not forget that Madame +la Vicomtesse was looking at me fixedly. I reviewed Nick’s neglected +childhood; painted as well as I might his temperament and character--his +generosity and fearlessness, his recklessness and improvidence. His +loyalty to those he loved, his detestation of those he hated. I told +how, under these conditions, the sins and vagaries of his parents had +gone far to wreck his life at the beginning of it. I told how I had +found him again with Sevier, how he had come to New Orleans with me +the first time, how he had loved Antoinette, and how he had disappeared +after the dreadful scene in the garden at Les Îles, how I had not seen +him again for five years. Here I hesitated, little knowing how to tell +the Vicomtesse of that affair in Louisville. Though I had a sense that I +could not keep the truth from so discerning a person, I was startled to +find this to be so. + +“Yes, yes, I understand,” she said quickly. “And in the morning he had +flown with that most worthy of my relatives, Auguste de St. Gré.” + +I looked at her, finding no words to express my astonishment at this +perspicacity. + +“And now what do you intend to do?” she asked. “Find him in New +Orleans, if you can, of course. But how?” She rose quickly, went to +the fireplace, and stood for a moment with her back to me. Suddenly she +turned. “It ought not to be difficult, after all. Auguste de St. Gré is +a fool, and he confirms what you say of the expedition. He is, indeed, +a pretty person to choose for an intrigue of this kind. And your +cousin,--what shall we call him?” + +“To say the least, secrecy is not Nick’s forte,” I answered, catching +her mood. + +She was silent awhile. + +“It would be a blessing if Monsieur le Baron could hang Auguste +privately. As for your cousin, he may be worth saving, after all. I know +Monsieur de Carondelet, and he has no patience with conspirators of this +sort. I think he would not hesitate to make examples of them. However, +we will try to save them.” + +“We!” I repeated unwittingly. + +Madame la Vicomtesse looked at me and laughed outright. + +“Yes,” she said, “you will do some things, I others. There are the +gaming clubs with their ridiculous names, L’Amour, La Mignonne, La +Désirée” (she counted them reflectively on her fingers). “Both of our +gentlemen might be tempted into one of these. You will drop into them, +Mr. Ritchie. Then there is Madame Bouvet’s.” + +“Auguste would scarcely go there,” I objected. + +“Ah,” said Madame la Vicomtesse, “but Madame Bouvet will know the names +of some of Auguste’s intimates. This Bouvet is evidently a good person, +perhaps she will do more for you. I understand that she has a weak spot +in her heart for Auguste.” + +Madame la Vicomtesse turned her back again. Had she heard how Madame +Bouvet had begged me to buy the miniature? + +“Have you any other suggestions to make?” she said, putting a foot on +the fender. + +“They have all been yours, so far,” I answered. + +“And yet you are a man of action, of expedients,” she murmured, without +turning. “Where are your wits, Mr. Ritchie? Have you any plan?” + +“I have been so used to rely on myself, Madame,” I replied. + +“That you do not like to have your affairs meddled with by a woman,” she +said, into the fireplace. + +“I give you the credit to believe that you are too clever to +misunderstand me, Madame,” I said. “You must know that your help is most +welcome.” + +At that she swung around and regarded me strangely, mirth lurking in her +eyes. She seemed about to retort, and then to conquer the impulse. The +effect of this was to make me anything but self-complacent. She sat down +in the chair and for a little while she was silent. + +“Suppose we do find them,” she said suddenly. “What shall we do with +them?” She looked up at me questioningly, seriously. “Is it likely that +your Mr. Temple will be reconciled with his mother? Is it likely that he +is still in love with Antoinette?” + +“I think it is likely that he is still in love with Mademoiselle de St. +Gré,” I answered, “though I have no reason for saying so.” + +“You are very honest, Mr. Ritchie. We must look at this problem from +all sides. If he is not reconciled with his mother, Antoinette will not +receive him. And if he is, we have the question to consider whether he +is still worthy of her. The agents of Providence must not be heedless,” + she added with a smile. + +“I am sure that Nick would alter his life if it became worth living,” I +said. “I will answer for that much.” + +“Then he must be reconciled with his mother,” she replied with decision. +“Mrs. Temple has suffered enough. And he must be found before he gets +sufficiently into the bad graces of the Baron de Carondelet,--these two +things are clear.” She rose. “Come here to-morrow evening at the same +time.” + +She started quickly for the bedroom door, but something troubled me +still. + +“Madame--” I said. + +“Yes,” she answered, turning quickly. + +I did not know how to begin. There were many things I wished to say, to +know, but she was a woman whose mind seemed to leap the chasms, whose +words touched only upon those points which might not be understood. She +regarded me with seeming patience. + +“I should think that Mrs. Temple might have recognized you,” I said, for +want of a better opening. + +“From the miniature?” she said. + +I flushed furiously, and it seemed to burn me through the lining of my +pocket. + +“That was my salvation,” she said. “Mrs. Temple has never seen the +miniature. I have heard how you rescued it, Mr. Ritchie,” she added, +with a curious smile. “Monsieur Philippe de St. Gré told me.” + +“Then he knew?” I stammered. + +She laughed. + +“I have told you that you are a very simple person,” she said. “Even you +are not given to intrigues. I thank you for rescuing me.” + +I flushed more hotly than before. + +“I never expected to see you,” I said. + +“It must have been a shock,” she said. + +I was dumb. I had my hand in my coat; I fully intended to give her the +miniature. It was my plain duty. And suddenly, overwhelmed, I remembered +that it was wrapped in Polly Ann’s silk handkerchief. + +Madame la Vicomtesse remained for a moment where she was. + +“Do not do anything until the morning,” she said. “You must go back to +your lodgings at once.” + +“That would be to lose time,” I answered. + +“You must think of yourself a little,” she said. “Do as I say. I have +heard that two cases of the yellow fever have broken out this afternoon. +And you, who are not used to the climate, must not be out after dark.” + +“And you?” I said. + +“I am used to it,” she replied; “I have been here three months. Lest +anything should happen, it might be well for you to give me your +address.” + +“I am with Madame Gravois, in the Rue Bienville.” + +“Madame Gravois, in the Rue Bienville,” she repeated. “I shall remember. +À demain, Monsieur.” She courtesied and went swiftly into Mrs. Temple’s +room. Seizing my hat, I opened the door and found myself in the dark +street. + + +CHAPTER VII. THE DISPOSAL OF THE SIEUR DE ST. GRE + + +I had met Hélène de St. Gré at last. And what a fool she must think me! +As I hurried along the dark banquettes this thought filled my brain for +a time to the exclusion of all others, so strongly is vanity ingrained +in us. After all, what did it matter what she thought,--Madame la +Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour? I had never shone, and it was rather late to +begin. But I possessed, at least, average common sense, and I had given +no proof even of this. + +I wandered on, not heeding the command which she had given me,--to go +home. The scent of camellias and magnolias floated on the heavy air of +the night from the court-yards, reminding me of her. Laughter and soft +voices came from the galleries. Despite the Terror, despite the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine, despite the Rights of Man and the wars and suffering +arising therefrom, despite the scourge which might come to-morrow, life +went gayly on. The cabarets echoed, and behind the tight blinds lines of +light showed where the Creole gentry gamed at their tables, perchance in +the very clubs Madame la Vicomtesse had mentioned. + +The moon, in her first quarter, floated in a haze. Washed by her light, +the quaintly wrought balconies and heavy-tiled roofs of the Spanish +buildings, risen from the charred embers, took on a touch of romance. +I paused once with a twinge of remembrance before the long line of the +Ursuline convent, with its latticed belfry against the sky. There +was the lodge, with its iron gates shut, and the wall which Nick had +threatened to climb. As I passed the great square of the new barracks, +a sereno (so the night watchmen were called) was crying the hour. I +came to the rambling market-stalls, casting black shadows on the river +road,--empty now, to be filled in the morning with shouting marchands. +The promenade under the willows was deserted, the great river stretched +away under the moon towards the forest line of the farther shore, +filmy and indistinct. A black wisp of smoke rose from the gunwale of a +flatboat, and I stopped to listen to the weird song of a negro, which I +have heard many times since. + + CAROLINE. † + + In, dé, tois, Ca-ro-line, Qui ci ça yé, comme + ça ma chére? In, dé, tois, Ca-ro-line, Quo + fair t’-apés cri--é ma chére? Mo l’-aimé toé to + con-né ça, C’est to m’ou--lé, c’est to mo prend, Mo + l’-aimé toé, to con-né ca -- a c’est to m’oulé c’est + to mo prend. + +Gaining the promenade, I came presently to the new hotel which had been +built for the Governor, with its balconied windows looking across the +river--the mansion of Monsieur le Baron de Carondelet. Even as I sat on +the bench in the shadow of the willows, watching the sentry who paced +before the arched entrance, I caught sight of a man stealing along the +banquette on the other side of the road. Twice he paused to look behind +him, and when he reached the corner of the street he stopped for some +time to survey the Governor’s house opposite. + +Suddenly I was on my feet, every sense alert, staring. In the moonlight, +made milky by the haze, he was indistinct. And yet I could have taken +oath that the square, diminutive figure, with the head set forward on +the shoulders, was Gignoux’s. If this man were not Gignoux, then the +Lord had cast two in a strange mould. + +And what was Gignoux doing in New Orleans? As if in answer to the +question two men emerged from the dark archway of the Governor’s house, +passed the sentry, and stood for an instant on the edge of the shadow. +One wore a long Spanish cloak, and the other a uniform that I could not +make out. A word was spoken, and then my man was ambling across to meet +them, and the three walked away up Toulouse Street. + +I was in a fire of conjecture. I did not dare to pass the sentry and +follow them, so I made round as fast as I could by the Rue St. Pierre, +which borders the Place d’Armes, and then crossed to Toulouse again by +Chartres. The three were nowhere to be seen. I paused on the corner for +thought, and at length came to a reluctant but prudent conclusion that I +had best go back to my lodging and seek Monsieur early in the morning. + +Madame Gravois was awaiting me. Was Monsieur mad to remain out at night? +Had Monsieur not heard of the yellow fever? Madame Gravois even had +prepared some concoction which she poured out of a bottle, and which I +took with the docility of a child. Monsieur Vigo had called, and there +was a note. A note? It was a small note. I glanced stupidly at the seal, +recognized the swan of the St. Gré crest, broke it, and read:-- + +“Mr. Ritchie will confer a favor upon la Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour if he +will come to Monsieur de St. Gré’s house at eight to-morrow morning.” + +I bade the reluctant Madame Gravois good night, gained my room, threw +off my clothes, and covered myself with the mosquito bar. There was no +question of sleep, for the events of the day and surmises for the morrow +tortured me as I tossed in the heat. Had the man been Gignoux? If so, he +was in league with Carondelet’s police. I believed him fully capable of +this. And if he knew Nick’s whereabouts and St. Gré’s, they would both +be behind the iron gateway of the calabozo in the morning. Monsieur Vigo +had pointed out to me that day the gloomy, heavy-walled prison in +the rear of the Cabildo,--ay, and he had spoken of its instruments of +torture. + +What could the Vicomtesse want? Truly (I thought with remorse) she had +been more industrious than I. + +I fell at length into a fevered sleep, and awoke, athirst, with the +light trickling through my lattices. Contrary to Madame Gravois’s +orders, I had opened the glass of my window. Glancing at my +watch,--which I had bought in Philadelphia,--I saw that the hands +pointed to half after seven. I had scarcely finished my toilet before +there was a knock at the door, and Madame Gravois entered with a +steaming cup of coffee in one hand and her bottle of medicine in the +other. + +“I did not wake Monsieur,” she said, “for he was tired.” + +She gave me another dose of the medicine, made me drink two cups of +coffee, and then I started out with all despatch for the House of the +Lions. As I turned into the Rue Chartres I saw ahead of me four horses, +with their bridles bunched and held by a negro lad, waiting in the +street. Yes, they were in front of the house. There it was, with its +solid green gates between the lions, its yellow walls with the fringe +of peeping magnolias and oranges, with its green-latticed gallery +from which Monsieur Auguste had let himself down after stealing the +miniature. I knocked at the wicket, the same gardienne answered the +call, smiled, led me through the cool, paved archway which held in its +frame the green of the court beyond, and up the stairs with the quaint +balustrade which I had mounted five years before to meet Philippe de +St. Gré. As I reached the gallery Madame la Vicomtesse, gowned in brown +linen for riding, rose quickly from her chair and came forward to meet +me. + +“You have news?” I asked, as I took her hand. + +“I have the kind of news I expected,” she answered, a smile tempering +the gravity of her face; “Auguste is, as usual, in need of money.” + +“Then you have found them,” I answered, my voice betraying my admiration +for the feat. + +Madame la Vicomtesse shrugged her shoulders slightly. + +“I did nothing,” she said. “From what you told me, I suspected that as +soon as Auguste reached Louisiana he would have a strong desire to go +away again. This is undoubtedly what has happened. In any event, I knew +that he would want money, and that he would apply to a source which has +hitherto never failed him.” + +“Mademoiselle Antoinette!” I said. + +“Precisely,” answered Madame la Vicomtesse. “When I reached home last +night I questioned Antoinette, and I discovered that by a singular +chance a message from Auguste had already reached her.” + +“Where is he?” I demanded. + +“I do not know,” she replied. “But he will be behind the hedge of the +garden at Les Îles at eleven o’clock--unless he has lost before then his +love of money.” + +“Which is to say--” + +“He will be there unless he is dead. That is why I sent for you, +Monsieur.” She glanced at me. “Sometimes it is convenient to have a +man.” + +I was astounded. Then I smiled, the affair was so ridiculously simple. + +“And Monsieur de St. Gré?” I asked. + +“Has been gone for a week with Madame to visit the estimable Monsieur +Poydras at Pointe Coupée.” Madame la Vicomtesse, who had better use +for her words than to waste them at such a time, left me, went to +the balcony, and began to give the gardienne in the court below swift +directions in French. Then she turned to me again. + +“Are you prepared to ride with Antoinette and me to Les Îles, Monsieur?” + she asked. + +“I am,” I answered. + +It must have been my readiness that made her smile. Then her eyes rested +on mine. + +“You look tired, Mr. Ritchie,” she said. “You did not obey me and go +home last night.” + +“How did you know that?” I asked, with a thrill at her interest. + +“Because Madame Gravois told my messenger that you were out.” + +I was silent. + +“You must take care of yourself,” she said briefly. “Come, there are +some things which I wish to say to you before Antoinette is ready.” + +She led me toward the end of the gallery, where a bright screen of +morning-glories shaded us from the sun. But we had scarce reached the +place ere the sound of steps made us turn, and there was Mademoiselle +Antoinette herself facing us. I went forward a few steps, hesitated, +and bowed. She courtesied, my name faltering on her lips. Yes, it was +Antoinette, not the light-hearted girl whom we had heard singing +“Ma luron” in the garden, but a woman now with a strange beauty that +astonished me. Hers was the dignity that comes from unselfish service, +the calm that is far from resignation, though the black veil caught +up on her chapeau de paille gave her the air of a Sister of Mercy. +Antoinette had inherited the energies as well as the features of the St. +Gré’s, yet there was a painful moment as she stood there, striving to +put down the agitation the sight of me gave her. As for me, I was bereft +of speech, not knowing what to say or how far to go. My last thought +was of the remarkable quality in this woman before me which had held her +true to Mrs. Temple, and which sent her so courageously to her duty now. + +Madame la Vicomtesse, as I had hoped, relieved the situation. She knew +how to broach a dreaded subject. + +“Mr. Ritchie is going with us, Antoinette,” she said. “It is perhaps +best to explain everything to him before we start. I was about to tell +you, Mr. Ritchie,” she continued, turning to me, “that Auguste has given +no hint in his note of Mr. Temple’s presence in Louisiana. And yet you +told me that they were to have come here together.” + +“Yes,” I answered, “and I have no reason to think they have separated.” + +“I was merely going to suggest,” said the Vicomtesse, firmly, “I was +merely going to suggest the possibility of our meeting Mr. Temple with +Auguste.” + +It was Antoinette who answered, with a force that revealed a new side of +her character. + +“Mr. Temple will not be there,” she said, flashing a glance upon us. “Do +you think he would come to me--?” + +Hélène laid her hand upon the girl’s arm. + +“My dear, I think nothing,” she said quietly; “but it is best for us +to be prepared against any surprise. Remember that I do not know Mr. +Temple, and that you have not seen him for five years.” + +“It is not like him, you know it is not like him,” exclaimed Antoinette, +looking at me. + +“I know it is not like him, Mademoiselle,” I replied. + +Madame la Vicomtesse, from behind the girl, gave me a significant look. + +“This occurred to me,” she went on in an undisturbed tone, “that Mr. +Temple might come with Auguste to protest against the proceeding,--or +even to defend himself against the imputation that he was to make use +of this money in any way. I wish you to realize, Antoinette, before you +decide to go, that you may meet Mr. Temple. Would it not be better +to let Mr. Ritchie go alone? I am sure that we could find no better +emissary.” + +“Auguste is here,” said Antoinette. “I must see him.” Her voice caught. +“I may never see him again. He may be ill, he may be starving--and I +know that he is in trouble. Whether” (her voice caught) “whether Mr. +Temple is with him or not, I mean to go.” + +“Then it would be well to start,” said the Vicomtesse. + +Deftly dropping her veil, she picked up a riding whip that lay on the +railing and descended the stairs to the courtyard. Antoinette and I +followed. As we came through the archway I saw André, Monsieur de St. +Gré’s mulatto, holding open the wicket for us to pass. He helped the +ladies to mount the ponies, lengthened my own stirrups for me, swung +into the saddle himself, and then the four of us were picking our way +down the Rue Chartres at an easy amble. Turning to the right beyond the +cool garden of the Ursulines, past the yellow barracks, we came to the +river front beside the fortifications. A score of negroes were +sweating there in the sun, swinging into position the long logs for the +palisades, nearly completed. They were like those of Kaskaskia and our +own frontier forts in Kentucky, with a forty-foot ditch in front of +them. Seated on a horse talking to the overseer was a fat little man in +white linen who pulled off his hat and bowed profoundly to the ladies. +His face gave me a start, and then I remembered that I had seen him only +the day before, resplendent, coming out of church. He was the Baron de +Carondelet. + +There was a sentry standing under a crape-myrtle where the Royal Road +ran through the gateway. Behind him was a diminutive five-sided brick +fort with a dozen little cannon on top of it. The sentry came forward, +brought his musket to a salute, and halted before my horse. + +“You will have to show your passport,” murmured Madame la Vicomtesse. + +I drew the document from my pocket. It was signed by De Lemos, and duly +countersigned by the officer of the port. The man bowed, and I passed +on. + +It was a strange, silent ride through the stinging heat to Les Îles, +the brown dust hanging behind us like a cloud, to settle slowly on the +wayside shrubbery. Across the levee bank the river was low, listless, +giving off hot breath like a monster in distress. The forest pools were +cracked and dry, the Spanish moss was a haggard gray, and under the sun +was the haze which covered the land like a saffron mantle. At times a +listlessness came over me such as I had never known, to make me forget +the presence of the women at my side, the very errand on which we rode. +From time to time I was roused into admiration of the horsemanship of +Madame la Vicomtesse, for the restive Texas pony which she rode was +stung to madness by the flies. As for Antoinette, she glanced neither +right nor left through her veil, but rode unmindful of the way, heedless +of heat and discomfort, erect, motionless save for the easy gait of her +horse. At length we turned into the avenue through the forest, lined +by wild orange trees, came in sight of the low, belvedered plantation +house, and drew rein at the foot of the steps. Antoinette was the first +to dismount, and passed in silence through the group of surprised house +servants gathering at the door. I assisted the Vicomtesse, who paused +to bid the negroes disperse, and we lingered for a moment on the gallery +together. + +“Poor Antoinette!” she said, “I wish we might have saved her this.” She +looked up at me. “How she defended him!” she exclaimed. + +“She loves him,” I answered. + +Madame la Vicomtesse sighed. + +“I suppose there is no help for it,” she said. “But it is very difficult +not to be angry with Mr. Temple. The girl cared for his mother, gave +her a home, clung to her when he and the world would have cast her off, +sacrificed her happiness for them both. If I see him, I believe I shall +shake him. And if he doesn’t fall down on his knees to her, I shall ask +the Baron to hang him. We must bring him to his senses, Mr. Ritchie. He +must not leave Louisiana until he sees her. Then he will marry her.” She +paused, scrutinized me in her quick way, and added: “You see that I take +your estimation of his character. You ought to be flattered.” + +“I am flattered by any confidence you repose in me, Madame la +Vicomtesse.” + +She laughed. I was not flattered then, but cursed myself for the quaint +awkwardness in my speech that amused her. And she was astonishingly +quick to perceive my moods. + +“There, don’t be angry. You will never be a courtier, my honest friend, +and you may thank God for it. How sweet the shrubs are! Your chief +business in life seems to be getting people out of trouble, and I am +going to help you with this case.” + +It was my turn to laugh. + +“You are going to help!” I exclaimed. “My services have been heavy, so +far.” + +“You should not walk around at night,” she replied irrelevantly. + +Suddenly I remembered Gignoux, but even as I was about to tell her of +the incident Antoinette appeared in the doorway. She was very pale, but +her lips were set with excitement and her eyes shone strangely. She was +still in her riding gown, in her hand she carried a leather bag, and +behind her stood André with a bundle. + +“Quick!” she said; “we are wasting time, and he may be gone.” + +Checking an exclamation which could hardly have been complimentary to +Auguste, the Vicomtesse crossed quickly to her and put her arm about +her. + +“We will follow you, mignonne,” she said in French. + +“Must you come?” said Antoinette, appealingly. “He may not appear if he +sees any one.” + +“We shall have to risk that,” said the Vicomtesse, dryly, with a glance +at me. “You shall not go alone, but we will wait a few moments at the +hedge.” + +We took the well-remembered way through the golden-green light under the +trees, Antoinette leading, and the sight of the garden brought back to +me poignantly the scene in the moonlight with Mrs. Temple. There was no +sound save the languid morning notes of the birds and the humming of the +bees among the flowers as Antoinette went tremblingly down the path +and paused, listening, under the branches of that oak where I had first +beheld her. Then, with a little cry, we saw her run forward--into the +arms of Auguste de St. Gré. It was a pitiful thing to look upon. + +Antoinette had led her brother to the seat under the oak. How long +we waited I know not, but at length we heard their voices raised, and +without more ado Madame la Vicomtesse, beckoning me, passed quickly +through the gap in the hedge and went towards them. I followed with +André. Auguste rose with an oath, and then stood facing his cousin +like a man struck dumb, his hands dropped. He was a sorry sight indeed, +unshaven, unkempt, dark circles under his eyes, clothes torn. + +“Hélène! You here--in America!” he cried in French, staring at her. + +“Yes, Auguste,” she replied quite simply, “I am here.” He would have +come towards her, but there was a note in her voice which arrested him. + +“And Monsieur le Vicomte--Henri?” he said. + +I found myself listening tensely for the answer. + +“Henri is in Austria, fighting for his King, I hope,” said Madame la +Vicomtesse. + +“So Madame la Vicomtesse is a refugee,” he said with a bow and a smile +that made me very angry. + +“And Monsieur de St. Gré!” I asked. + +At the sound of my voice he started and gave back, for he had not +perceived me. He recovered his balance, such as it was, instantly. + +“Monsieur seems to take an extraordinary interest in my affairs,” he +said jauntily. + +“Only when they are to the detriment of other persons who are my +friends,” I said. + +“Monsieur has intruded in a family matter,” said Auguste, grandly, still +in French. + +“By invitation of those most concerned, Monsieur,” I answered, for I +could have throttled him. + +Auguste had developed. He had learned well that effrontery is often +the best weapon of an adventurer. He turned from me disdainfully, +petulantly, and addressed the Vicomtesse once more. + +“I wish to be alone with Antoinette,” he said. + +“No doubt,” said the Vicomtesse. + +“I demand it,” said Auguste. + +“The demand is not granted,” said the Vicomtesse; “that is why we have +come. Your sister has already made enough sacrifices for you. I know +you, Monsieur Auguste de St. Gré,” she continued with quiet contempt. +“It is not for love of Antoinette that you have sought this meeting. +It is because,” she said, riding down a torrent of words which began to +escape from him, “it is because you are in a predicament, as usual, and +you need money.” + +“Hélène!” + +It was Antoinette who spoke. She had risen, and was standing behind +Auguste. She still held the leather bag in her hand. + +“Perhaps the sum is not enough,” she said; “he has to get to France. +Perhaps we could borrow more until my father comes home.” She looked +questioningly at us. + +Madame la Vicomtesse was truly a woman of decision. Without more ado she +took the bag from Antoinette’s unresisting hands and put it into mine. I +was no less astonished than the rest of them. + +“Mr. Ritchie will keep this until the negotiations are finished,” said +the Vicomtesse. + +“Negotiations!” cried Auguste, beside himself. “This is insolence, +Madame.” + +“Be careful, sir,” I said. + +“Auguste!” cried Antoinette, putting her hand on his arm. + +“Why did you tell them?” he demanded, turning on her. + +“Because I trust them, Auguste,” Antoinette answered. She spoke without +anger, as one whose sorrow has put her beyond it. Her speech had +a dignity and force which might have awed a worthier man. His +disappointment and chagrin brought him beyond bounds. + +“You trust them!” he cried, “you trust them when they tell you to give +your brother, who is starving and in peril of his life, eight hundred +livres? Eight hundred livres, pardieu, and your brother!” + +“It is all I have, Auguste,” said his sister, sadly. + +“Ha!” he said dramatically, “I see, they seek my destruction. This +man”--pointing at me--“is a Federalist, and Madame la Vicomtesse”--he +bowed ironically--“is a Royalist.” + +“Pish!” said the Vicomtesse, impatiently, “it would be an easy matter to +have you sent to the Morro--a word to Monsieur de Carondelet, Auguste. +Do you believe for a moment that, in your father’s absence, I would have +allowed Antoinette to come here alone? And it was a happy circumstance +that I could call on such a man as Mr. Ritchie to come with us.” + +“It seems to me that Mr. Ritchie and his friends have already brought +sufficient misfortune on the family.” + +It was a villanous speech. Antoinette turned away, her shoulders +quivering, and I took a step towards him; but Madame la Vicomtesse made +a swift gesture, and I stopped, I know not why. She gave an exclamation +so sharp that he flinched physically, as though he had been struck. But +it was characteristic of her that when she began to speak, her words cut +rather than lashed. + +“Auguste de St. Gré,” she said, “I know you. The Tribunal is merciful +compared to you. There is no one on earth whom you would not torture for +your selfish ends, no one whom you would not sell without compunction +for your pleasure. There are things that a woman should not mention, and +yet I would tell them without shame to your face were it not for your +sister. If it were not for her, I would not have you in my presence. +Shall I speak of your career in France? There is Valenciennes, for +example--” + +She stopped abruptly. The man was gray, but not on his account did the +Vicomtesse stay her speech. She forgot him as though he did not exist, +and by one of those swift transitions which thrilled me had gone to the +sobbing Antoinette and taken her in her arms, murmuring endearments +of which our language is not capable. I, too, forgot Auguste. But no +rebuke, however stinging, could make him forget himself, and before we +realized it he was talking again. He had changed his tactics. + +“This is my home,” he said, “where I might expect shelter and comfort. +You make me an outcast.” + +Antoinette disengaged herself from Hélène with a cry, but he turned away +from her and shrugged. + +“A stranger would have fared better. Perhaps you will have more +consideration for a stranger. There is a French ship at the Terre aux +Bœufs in the English Turn, which sails to-night. I appeal to you, Mr. +Ritchie,”--he was still talking in French--“I appeal to you, who are +a man of affairs,”--and he swept me a bow,--“if a captain would risk +taking a fugitive to France for eight hundred livres? Pardieu, I could +get no farther than the Balize for that. Monsieur,” he added meaningly, +“you have an interest in this. There are two of us to go.” + +The amazing effrontery of this move made me gasp. Yet it was neither the +Vicomtesse nor myself who answered him. We turned by common impulse +to Antoinette, and she was changed. Her breath came quickly, her eyes +flashed, her anger made her magnificent. + +“It is not true,” she cried, “you know it is not true.” + +He lifted his shoulders and smiled. + +“You are my brother, and I am ashamed to acknowledge you. I was willing +to give my last sou, to sell my belongings, to take from the poor to +help you--until you defamed a good man. You cannot make me believe,” she +cried, unheeding the color that surged into her cheeks, “you cannot make +me believe that he would use this money. You cannot make me believe it.” + +“Let us do him the credit of thinking that he means to repay it,” said +Auguste. + +Antoinette’s eyes filled with tears,--tears of pride, of humiliation, +ay, and of an anger of which I had not thought her capable. She was +indeed a superb creature then, a personage I had not imagined. Gathering +up her gown, she passed Auguste and turned on him swiftly. + +“If you were to bring that to him,” she said, pointing to the bag in +my hand, “he would not so much as touch it. To-morrow I shall go to the +Ursulines, and I thank God I shall never see you again. I thank God I +shall no longer be your sister. Give Monsieur the bundle,” she said to +the frightened André, who still stood by the hedge; “he may need food +and clothes for his journey.” + +She left us. We stood watching her until her gown had disappeared +amongst the foliage. André came forward and held out the bundle to +Auguste, who took it mechanically. Then Madame La Vicomtesse motioned +to André to leave, and gave me a glance, and it was part of the deep +understanding of her I had that I took its meaning. I had my forebodings +at what this last conversation with Auguste might bring forth, and I +wished heartily that we were rid of him. + +“Monsieur de St. Gré,” I said, “I understood you to say that a ship is +lying at the English Turn some five leagues below us, on which you are +to take passage at once.” + +He turned and glared at me, some devilish retort on his lips which he +held back. Suddenly he became suave. + +“I shall want two thousand livres Monsieur; it was the sum I asked for.” + +“It is not a question of what you asked for,” I answered. + +“Since when did Monsieur assume this intimate position in my family?” he +said, glancing at the Vicomtesse. + +“Monsieur de St. Gré,” I replied with difficulty, “you will confine +yourself to the matter in hand. You are in no situation to demand terms; +you must take or leave what is offered you. Last night the man called +Gignoux, who was of your party, was at the Governor’s house.” + +At this he started perceptibly. + +“Ha, I thought he was a traitor,” he cried. Strangely enough, he did not +doubt my word in this. + +“I am surprised that your father’s house has not been searched this +morning,” I continued, astonished at my own moderation. “The sentiments +of the Baron de Carondelet are no doubt known to you, and you are aware +that your family or your friends cannot save you if you are arrested. +You may have this money on two conditions. The first is that you leave +the province immediately. The second, that you reveal the whereabouts of +Mr. Nicholas Temple.” + +“Monsieur is very kind,” he replied, and added the taunt, “and well +versed in the conduct of affairs of money.” + +“Does Monsieur de St. Gré accept?” I asked. + +He threw out his hands with a gesture of resignation. + +“Who am I to accept?” he said, “a fugitive, an outcast. And I should +like to remind Monsieur that time passes.” + +“It is a sensible observation,” said I, meaning that it was the first. +His sudden docility made me suspicious. “What preparations have you made +to go?” + +“They are not elaborate, Monsieur, but they are complete. When I leave +you I step into a pirogue which is tied to the river bank.” + +“Ah,” I replied. “And Mr. Temple?” + +Madame la Vicomtesse smiled, for Auguste was fairly caught. He had not +the astuteness to be a rogue; oddly, he had the sense to know that he +could fool us no longer. + +“Temple is at Lamarque’s,” he answered sullenly. + +I glanced questioningly at the Vicomtesse. + +“Lamarque is an old pensioner of Monsieur de St. Gré’s,” said she; “he +has a house and an arpent of land not far below here.” + +“Exactly,” said Auguste, “and if Mr. Ritchie believes that he will save +money by keeping Mr. Temple in Louisiana instead of giving him this +opportunity to escape, it is no concern of mine.” + +I reflected a moment on this, for it was another sensible remark. + +“It is indeed no concern of yours,” said Madame la Vicomtesse. + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +“And now,” he said, “I take it that there are no further conscientious +scruples against my receiving this paltry sum.” + +“I will go with you to your pirogue,” I answered, “when you embark you +shall have it.” + +“I, too, will go,” said Madame la Vicomtesse. + +“You overwhelm me with civility, Madame,” said the Sieur de St. Gré, +bowing low. + +“Lead the way, Monsieur,” I said. + +He took his bundle, and started off down the garden path with a grand +air. I looked at the Vicomtesse inquiringly, and there was laughter in +her eyes. + +“I must show you the way to Lamarque’s.” And then she whispered, “You +have done well, Mr. Ritchie.” + +I did not return her look, but waited until she took the path ahead +of me. In silence we followed Auguste through the depths of the woods, +turning here and there to avoid a fallen tree or a sink-hole where the +water still remained. At length we came out in the glare of the sun and +crossed the dusty road to the levee bank. Some forty yards below us was +the canoe, and we walked to it, still in silence. Auguste flung in his +bundle, and turned to us. + +“Perhaps Monsieur is satisfied,” he said. + +I handed him the bag, and he took it with an elaborate air of +thankfulness. Nay, the rascal opened it as if to assure himself that he +was not tricked at the last. At the sight of the gold and silver which +Antoinette had hastily collected, he turned to Madame la Vicomtesse. + +“Should I have the good fortune to meet Monsieur le Vicomte in France, +I shall assure him that Madame is in good hands” (he swept an exultant +look at me) “and enjoying herself.” + +I could have flung him into the river, money-bag and all. But Madame +la Vicomtesse made him a courtesy there on the levee bank, and said +sweetly:-- + +“That is very good of you, Auguste.” + +“As for you, Monsieur,” he said, and now his voice shook with +uncontrolled rage, “I am in no condition to repay your kindnesses. But I +have no doubt that you will not object to keeping the miniature a while +longer.” + +I was speechless with anger and shame, and though I felt the eyes of +the Vicomtesse upon me, I dared not look at her. I heard Auguste but +indistinctly as he continued:-- + +“Should you need the frame, Monsieur, you will doubtless find it still +with Monsieur Isadore, the Jew, in the Rue Toulouse.” With that he +leaped into his boat, seized the paddle, and laughed as he headed into +the current. How long I stood watching him as he drifted lazily in the +sun I know not, but at length the voice of Madame la Vicomtesse aroused +me. + +“He is a pleasant person,” she said. + + +CHAPTER VIII. AT LAMARQUE’S + +Until then it seemed as if the sun had gotten into my brain and set it +on fire. Her words had the strange effect of clearing my head, though I +was still in as sad a predicament as ever I found myself. There was the +thing in my pocket, still wrapped in Polly Ann’s handkerchief. I +glanced at the Vicomtesse shyly, and turned away again. Her face was all +repressed laughter, the expression I knew so well. + +“I think we should feel better in the shade, Mr. Ritchie,” she said +in English, and, leaping lightly down from the bank, crossed the road +again. I followed her, perforce. + +“I will show you the way to Lamarque’s,” she said. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse!” I cried. + +Had she no curiosity? Was she going to let pass what Auguste had hinted? +Lifting up her skirts, she swung round and faced me. In her eyes was +a calmness more baffling than the light I had seen there but a moment +since. How to begin I knew not, and yet I was launched. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse, there was once a certain miniature painted of +you.” + +“By Boze, Monsieur,” she answered, readily enough. The embarrassment was +all on my side. “We spoke of it last evening. I remember well when +it was taken. It was the costume I wore at Chantilly, and Monsieur le +Prince complimented me, and the next day the painter himself came to our +hotel in the Rue de Bretagne and asked the honor of painting me.” She +sighed. “Ah, those were happy days! Her Majesty was very angry with me.” + +“And why?” I asked, forgetful of my predicament. + +“For sending it to Louisiana, to Antoinette.” + +“And why did you send it?” + +“A whim,” said the Vicomtesse. “I had always written twice a year either +to Monsieur de St. Gré or Antoinette, and although I had never seen +them, I loved them. Perhaps it was because they had the patience to read +my letters and the manners to say they liked them.” + +“Surely not, Madame,” I said. “Monsieur de St. Gré spoke often to me of +the wonderful pictures you drew of the personages at court.” + +Madame la Vicomtesse had an answer on the tip of her tongue. I know now +that she spared me. + +“And what of this miniature, Monsieur?” she asked. “What became of it +after you restored it to its rightful owner?” + +I flushed furiously and fumbled in my pocket. + +“I obtained it again, Madame,” I said. + +“You obtained it!” she cried, I am not sure to this day whether in +consternation or jest. In passing, it was not just what I wanted to say. + +“I meant to give it you last night,” I said. + +“And why did you not?” she demanded severely. + +I felt her eyes on me, and it seemed to me as if she were looking into +my very soul. Even had it been otherwise, I could not have told her how +I had lived with this picture night and day, how I had dreamed of it, +how it had been my inspiration and counsel. I drew it from my pocket, +wrapped as it was in the handkerchief, and uncovered it with a reverence +which she must have marked, for she turned away to pick a yellow flower +by the roadside. I thank Heaven that she did not laugh. Indeed, she +seemed to be far from laughter. + +“You have taken good care of it, Monsieur,” she said. “I thank you.” + +“It was not mine, Madame,” I answered. + +“And if it had been?” she asked. + +It was a strange prompting. + +“If it had been, I could have taken no better care of it,” I answered, +and I held it towards her. + +She took it simply. + +“And the handkerchief?” she said. + +“The handkerchief was Polly Ann’s,” I answered. + +She stopped to pick a second flower that had grown by the first. + +“Who is Polly Ann?” she said. + +“When I was eleven years of age and ran away from Temple Bow after +my father died, Polly Ann found me in the hills. When she married Tom +McChesney they took me across the mountains into Kentucky with them. +Polly Ann has been more than a mother to me.” + +“Oh!” said Madame la Vicomtesse. Then she looked at me with a stranger +expression than I had yet seen in her face. She thrust the miniature in +her gown, turned, and walked in silence awhile. Then she said:-- + +“So Auguste sold it again?” + +“Yes,” I said. + +“He seems to have found a ready market only in you,” said the +Vicomtesse, without turning her head. “Here we are at Lamarque’s.” + +What I saw was a low, weather-beaten cabin on the edge of a clearing, +and behind it stretched away in prim rows the vegetables which the old +Frenchman had planted. There was a little flower garden, too, and an +orchard. A path of beaten earth led to the door, which was open. There +we paused. Seated at a rude table was Lamarque himself, his hoary head +bent over the cards he held in his hand. Opposite him was Mr. Nicholas +Temple, in the act of playing the ace of spades. I think that it was +the laughter of Madame la Vicomtesse that first disturbed them, and even +then she had time to turn to me. + +“I like your cousin,” she whispered. + +“Is that you, St. Gré?” said Nick. “I wish to the devil you would learn +not to sneak. You frighten me. Where the deuce did you go to?” + +But Lamarque had seen the lady, stared at her wildly for a moment, and +rose, dropping his cards on the floor. He bowed humbly, not without +trepidation. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse!” he said. + +By this time Nick had risen, and he, too, was staring at her. How he +managed to appear so well dressed was a puzzle to me. + +“Madame,” he said, bowing, “I beg your pardon. I thought you were +that--I beg your pardon.” + +“I understand your feelings, sir,” answered the Vicomtesse as she +courtesied. + +“Egad,” said Nick, and looked at her again. “Egad, I’ll be hanged if +it’s not--” + +It was the first time I had seen the Vicomtesse in confusion. And indeed +if it were confusion she recovered instantly. + +“You will probably be hanged, sir, if you do not mend your company,” she +said. “Do you not think so, Mr. Ritchie?” + +“Davy!” he cried. And catching sight of me in the doorway, over her +shoulder, “Has he followed me here too?” Running past the Vicomtesse, +he seized me in his impulsive way and searched my face. “So you have +followed me here, old faithful! Madame,” he added, turning to the +Vicomtesse, “there is some excuse for my getting into trouble.” + +“What excuse, Monsieur?” she asked. She was smiling, yet looking at us +with shining eyes. + +“The pleasure of having Mr. Ritchie get me out,” he answered. “He has +never failed me.” + +“You are far from being out of this,” I said. “If the Baron de +Carondelet does not hang you or put you in the Morro, you will not have +me to thank. It will be Madame la Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour.” + +“Madame la Vicomtesse!” exclaimed Nick, puzzled. + +“May I present to you, Madame, Mr. Nicholas Temple?” I asked. + +Nick bowed, and she courtesied again. + +“So Monsieur le Baron is really after us,” said Nick. He opened his +eyes, slapped his knee, and laughed. “That may account for the Citizen +Captain de St. Gré’s absence,” he said. “By the way, Davy, you haven’t +happened by any chance to meet him?” + +The Vicomtesse and I exchanged a look of understanding. Relief was plain +on her face. It was she who answered. + +“We have met him--by chance, Monsieur. He has just left for Terre aux +Bœufs.” + +“Terre aux Bœufs! What the dev--I beg your pardon, Madame la Vicomtesse, +but you give me something of a surprise. Is there another conspiracy at +Terre aux Bœufs, or--does somebody live there who has never before lent +Auguste money?” + +Madame la Vicomtesse laughed. Then she grew serious again. + +“You did not know where he had gone?” she said. + +“I did not even know he had gone,” said Nick. “Citizen Lamarque and I +were having a little game of piquet--for vegetables. Eh, citizen?” + +Madame la Vicomtesse laughed again, and once more the shade of sadness +came into her eyes. + +“They are the same the world over,” she said,--not to me, nor yet to any +one there. And I knew that she was thinking of her own kind in France, +who faced the guillotine without sense of danger. She turned to Nick. +“You may be interested to know, Mr. Temple,” she added, “that Auguste is +on his way to the English Turn to take ship for France.” + +Nick regarded her for a moment, and then his face lighted up with that +smile which won every one he met, which inevitably made them smile back +at him. + +“The news is certainly unexpected, Madame,” he said. “But then, after +one has travelled much with Auguste it is difficult to take a great deal +of interest in him. Am I to be sent to France, too?” he asked. + +“Not if it can be helped,” replied the Vicomtesse, seriously. “Mr. +Ritchie will tell you, however, that you are in no small danger. +Doubtless you know it. Monsieur le Baron de Carondelet considers that +the intrigues of the French Revolutionists in Louisiana have already +robbed him of several years of his life. He is not disposed to be +lenient towards persons connected with that cause.” + +“What have you been doing since you arrived here on this ridiculous +mission?” I demanded impatiently. + +“My cousin is a narrow man, Madame la Vicomtesse,” said Nick. “We enjoy +ourselves in different ways. I thought there might be some excitement in +this matter, and I was sadly mistaken.” + +“It is not over yet,” said the Vicomtesse. + +“And Davy,” continued Nick, bowing to me, “gets his pleasures and +excitement by extracting me from my various entanglements. Well, there +is not much to tell. St. Gré and I were joined above Natchez by that +little pig, Citizen Gignoux, and we shot past De Lemos in the night. +Since then we have been permitted to sleep--no more--at various +plantations. We have been waked up at barbarous hours in the morning and +handed on, as it were. They were all fond of us, but likewise they were +all afraid of the Baron. What day is to-day? Monday? Then it was on +Saturday that we lost Gignoux.” + +“I have reason to think that he has already sold out to the Baron,” I +put in. + +“Eh?” + +“I saw him in communication with the police at the Governor’s hotel last +night,” I answered. + +Nick was silent for a moment. + +“Well,” he said, “that may make some excitement.” Then he laughed. +“I wonder why Auguste didn’t think of doing that,” he said. “And now, +what?” + +“How did you get to this house?” I said. + +“We came down on Saturday night, after we had lost Gignoux above the +city.” + +“Do you know where you are?” I asked. + +“Not I,” said Nick. “I have been playing piquet with Lamarque most of +the time since I arrived. He is one of the pleasantest men I have met in +Louisiana, although a little taciturn, as you perceive, and more than +a little deaf. I think he does not like Auguste. He seems to have known +him in his youth.” + +Madame la Vicomtesse looked at him with interest. + +“You are at Les Îles, Nick,” I said; “you are on Monsieur de St. Gré’s +plantation, and within a quarter of a mile of his house.” + +His face became grave all at once. He seized me by both shoulders, and +looked into my face. + +“You say that we are at Les Îles?” he repeated slowly. + +I nodded, seeing the deception which Auguste had evidently practised in +order to get him here. Then Nick dropped his arms, went to the door, and +stood for a long time with his back turned to us, looking out over the +fields. When finally he spoke it was in the tone he used in anger. + +“If I had him now, I think I would kill him,” he said. + +Auguste had deluded him in other things, had run away and deserted him +in a strange land. But this matter of bringing him to Les Îles was past +pardon. It was another face he turned to the Vicomtesse, a stronger +face, a face ennobled by a just anger. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse,” he said, “I have a vague notion that you +are related to Monsieur de St. Gré. I give you my word of honor as a +gentleman that I had no thought of trespassing upon him in any way.” + +“Mr. Temple, we were so sure of that--Mr. Ritchie and I--that we should +not have sought for you here otherwise,” she replied quickly. Then she +glanced at me as though seeking my approval for her next move. It was +characteristic of her that she did not now shirk a task imposed by +her sense of duty. “We have little time, Mr. Temple, and much to say. +Perhaps you will excuse us, Lamarque,” she added graciously, in French. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse!” said the old man. And, with the tact of his +race, he bowed and retired. The Vicomtesse seated herself on one of the +rude chairs, and looked at Nick curiously. There was no such thing as +embarrassment in her manner, no trace of misgiving that she would not +move properly in the affair. Knowing Nick as I did, the difficulty of +the task appalled me, for no man was likelier than he to fly off at a +misplaced word. + +Her beginning was so bold that I held my breath, knowing full well as I +did that she had chosen the very note. + +“Sit down, Mr. Temple,” she said. “I wish to speak to you about your +mother.” + +He stopped like a man who had been struck, straightened, and stared at +her as though he had not taken her meaning. Then he swung on me. + +“Your mother is in New Orleans,” I said. “I would have told you in +Louisville had you given me the chance.” + +“It is an interesting piece of news, David,” he answered, “which you +might have spared me. Mrs. Temple did not think herself necessary to my +welfare when I was young, and now I have learned to live without her.” + +“Is there no such thing as expiation, Monsieur?” said the Vicomtesse. + +“Madame,” he said, “she made me what I am, and when I might have +redeemed myself she came between me and happiness.” + +“Monsieur,” said the Vicomtesse, “have you ever considered her +sufferings?” + +He looked at the Vicomtesse with a new interest. She was not so far +beyond his experience as mine. + +“Her sufferings?” he repeated, and smiled. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse should know them,” I interrupted; and without +heeding her glance of protest I continued, “It is she who has cared for +Mrs. Temple.” + +“You, Madame!” he exclaimed. + +“Do not deny your own share in it, Mr. Ritchie,” she answered. “As for +me, Monsieur,” she went on, turning to Nick, “I have done nothing +that was not selfish. I have been in the world, I have lived my life, +misfortunes have come upon me too. My visits to your mother have been to +me a comfort, a pleasure,--for she is a rare person.” + +“I have never found her so, Madame,” he said briefly. + +“I am sure it is your misfortune rather than your fault, Mr. Temple. It +is because you do not know her now.” + +Again he looked at me, puzzled, uneasy, like a man who would run if he +could. But by a kind of fascination his eyes went back to this woman +who dared a subject sore to the touch--who pressed it gently, but +with determination, never doubting her powers, yet with a kindness and +sympathy of tone which few women of the world possess. The Vicomtesse +began to speak again, evenly, gently. + +“Mr. Temple,” said she, “I am merely going to tell you some things which +I am sure you do not know, and when I have finished I shall not appeal +to you. It would be useless for me to try to influence you, and from +what Mr. Ritchie and others have told me of your character I am sure +that no influence will be necessary. And,” she added, with a smile, “it +would be much more comfortable for us both if you sat down.” + +He obeyed her without a word. No wonder Madame la Vicomtesse had had an +influence at court. + +“There!” she said. “If any reference I am about to make gives you pain, +I am sorry.” She paused briefly. “After Mr. Ritchie took your mother +from here to New Orleans, some five years ago, she rented a little house +in the Rue Bourbon with a screen of yellow and red tiles at the edge +of the roof. It is on the south side, next to the corner of the Rue St. +Philippe. There she lives absolutely alone, except for a servant. Mr. +Clark, who has charge of her affairs, was the only person she allowed to +visit her. For her pride, however misplaced, and for her spirit we must +all admire her. The friend who discovered where she was, who went to her +and implored Mrs. Temple to let her stay, she refused.” + +“The friend?” he repeated in a low tone. I scarcely dared to glance at +the Vicomtesse. + +“Yes, it was Antoinette,” she answered. He did not reply, but his eyes +fell. “Antoinette went to her, would have comforted her, would have +cared for her, but your mother sent her away. For five years she has +lived there, Mr. Temple, alone with her past, alone with her sorrow and +remorse. You must draw the picture for yourself. If the world has a more +terrible punishment, I have not heard of it. And when, some months ago, +I came, and Antoinette sent me to her--” + +“Sent you to her!” he said, raising his head quickly. + +“Under another name than my own,” Hélène continued, apparently taking +no notice of his interruption. She leaned toward him and her voice +faltered. “I found your mother dying.” + +He said nothing, but got to his feet and walked slowly to the door, +where he stood looking out again. I felt for him, I would have gone to +him then had it not been for the sense in me that Hélène did not wish +it. As for Hélène, she sat waiting for him to turn back to her, and at +length he did. + +“Yes?” he said. + +“It is her heart, Mr. Temple, that we fear the most. Last night I +thought the end had come. It cannot be very far away now. Sorrow and +remorse have killed her, Monsieur. The one thing that she has prayed for +through the long nights is that she might see you once again and +obtain your forgiveness. God Himself does not withhold forgiveness, Mr. +Temple,” said the Vicomtesse, gently. “Shall any of us presume to?” + +A spasm of pain crossed his face, and then his expression hardened. + +“I might have been a useful man,” he said; “she ruined my life--” + +“And you will allow her to ruin the rest of it?” asked the Vicomtesse. + +He stared at her. + +“If you do not go to her and forgive her, you will remember it until you +die,” she said. + +He sank down on the chair opposite to her, his head bowed into his +hands, his elbows on the table among the cards. At length I went and +laid my hands upon his shoulder, and at my touch he started. Then he did +a singular thing, an impulsive thing, characteristic of the old Nick I +had known. He reached across the table and seized the hand of Madame la +Vicomtesse. She did not resist, and her smile I shall always remember. +It was the smile of a woman who has suffered, and understands. + +“I will go to her, Madame!” he said, springing to his feet. “I will go +to her. I--I was wrong.” + +She rose, too, he still clinging to her hand, she still unresisting. His +eye fell upon me. + +“Where is my hat, Davy?” he asked. + +The Vicomtesse withdrew her hand and looked at me. + +“Alas, it is not quite so simple as that, Mr. Temple,” she said; +“Monsieur de Carondelet has first to be reckoned with.” + +“She is dying, you say? then I will go to her. After that Monsieur de +Carondelet may throw me into prison, may hang me, may do anything he +chooses. But I will go to her.” + +I glanced anxiously at the Vicomtesse, well knowing how wilful he was +when aroused. Admiration was in her eyes, seeing that he was heedless of +his own danger. + +“You would not get through the gates of the city. Monsieur le Baron +requires passports now,” she said. + +At that he began to pace the little room, his hands clenched. + +“I could use your passport, Davy,” he cried. “Let me have it.” + +“Pardon me, Mr. Temple, I do not think you could,” said the Vicomtesse. +I flushed. I suppose the remark was not to be resisted. + +“Then I will go to-night,” he said, with determination. “It will be no +trouble to steal into the city. You say the house has yellow and red +tiles, and is near the Rue St. Philippe?” + +Hélène laid her fingers on his arm. + +“Listen, Monsieur, there is a better way,” she said. “Monsieur le Baron +is doubtless very angry with you, and I am sure that this is chiefly +because he does not know you. For instance, if some one were to tell him +that you are a straightforward, courageous young man, a gentleman with +an unquenchable taste for danger, that you are not a low-born adventurer +and intriguer, that you have nothing in particular against his +government, he might not be quite so angry. Pardon me if I say that he +is not disposed to take your expedition any more seriously than is your +own Federal government. The little Baron is irascible, choleric, stern, +or else good-natured, good-hearted, and charitable, just as one happens +to take him. As we say in France, it is not well to strike flint and +steel in his presence. He might blow up and destroy one. Suppose some +one were to go to Monsieur de Carondelet and tell him what a really +estimable person you are, and assure him that you will go quietly out +of his province at the first opportunity, and be good, so far as he is +concerned, forever after? Mark me, I merely say suppose. I do not know +how far things have gone, or what he may have heard. But suppose a +person whom I have reason to believe he likes and trusts and respects, +a person who understands his vagaries, should go to him on such an +errand.” + +“And where is such a person to be found,” said Nick, amused in spite of +himself. + +Madame la Vicomtesse courtesied. + +“Monsieur, she is before you,” she said. + +“Egad,” he cried, “do you mean to say, Madame, that you will go to the +Baron on my behalf?” + +“As soon as I ever get to town,” she said. “He will have to be waked +from his siesta, and he does not like that.” + +“But he will forgive you,” said Nick, quick as a flash. + +“I have reason to believe he will,” said Madame la Vicomtesse. + +“Faith,” cried Nick, “he would not be flesh and blood if he didn’t.” + +At that the Vicomtesse laughed, and her eye rested judicially on me. I +was standing rather glumly, I fear, in the corner. + +“Are you going to take him with you?” said Nick. + +“I was thinking of it,” said the Vicomtesse. “Mr. Ritchie knows you, and +he is such a reliable and reputable person.” + +Nick bowed. + +“You should have seen him marching in a Jacobin procession, Madame,” he +said. + +“He follows his friends into strange places,” she retorted. “And now, +Mr. Temple,” she added, “may we trust you to stay here with Lamarque +until you have word from us?” + +“You know I cannot stay here,” he cried. + +“And why not, Monsieur?” + +“If I were captured here, I should get Monsieur de St. Gré into trouble; +and besides,” he said, with a touch of coldness, “I cannot be beholden +to Monsieur de St. Gré. I cannot remain on his land.” + +“As for getting Monsieur de St. Gré into trouble, his own son could +not involve him with the Baron,” answered Madame la Vicomtesse. “And it +seems to me, Monsieur, that you are already so far beholden to Monsieur +de St. Gré that you cannot quibble about going a little more into his +debt. Come, Mr. Temple, how has Monsieur de St. Gré ever offended you?” + +“Madame--” he began. + +“Monsieur,” she said, with an air not to be denied, “I believe I can +discern a point of honor as well as you. I fail to see that you have a +case.” + +He was indeed no match for her. He turned to me appealingly, his brows +bent, but I had no mind to meddle. He swung back to her. + +“But Madame--!” he cried. + +She was arranging the cards neatly on the table. + +“Monsieur, you are tiresome,” she said. “What is it now?” + +He took a step toward her, speaking in a low tone, his voice shaking. +But, true to himself, he spoke plainly. As for me, I looked on +frightened,--as though watching a contest,--almost agape to see what a +clever woman could do. + +“There is--Mademoiselle de St. Gré--” + +“Yes, there is Mademoiselle de St. Gré,” repeated the Vicomtesse, toying +with the cards. + +His face lighted, though his lips twitched with pain. + +“She is still--” + +“She is still Mademoiselle de St. Gré, Monsieur, if that is what you +mean.” + +“And what will she think if I stay here?” + +“Ah, do you care what she thinks, Mr. Temple?” said the Vicomtesse, +raising her head quickly. “From what I have heard, I should not have +thought you could.” + +“God help me,” he answered simply, “I do care.” + +Hélène’s eyes softened as she looked at him, and my pride in him was +never greater than at that moment. + +“Mr. Temple,” she said gently, “remain where you are and have faith in +us. I begin to see now why you are so fortunate in your friends.” Her +glance rested for a brief instant on me. “Mr. Ritchie and I will go to +New Orleans, talk to the Baron, and send André at once with a message. +If it is in our power, you shall see your mother very soon.” + +She held out her hand to him, and he bent and kissed it reverently, with +an ease I envied. He followed us to the door. And when the Vicomtesse +had gone a little way down the path she looked at him over her shoulder. + +“Do not despair, Mr. Temple,” she said. + +It was an answer to a yearning in his face. He gripped me by the +shoulders. + +“God bless you, Davy,” he whispered, and added, “God bless you both.” + +I overtook her where the path ran into the forest’s shade, and for a +long while I walked after her, not breaking her silence, my eyes upon +her, a strange throbbing in my forehead which I did not heed. At last, +when the perfumes of the flowers told us we were nearing the garden, she +turned to me. + +“I like Mr. Temple,” she said, again. + +“He is an honest gentleman,” I answered. + +“One meets very few of them,” she said, speaking in a low voice. “You +and I will go to the Governor. And after that, have you any idea where +you will go?” + +“No,” I replied, troubled by her regard. + +“Then I will tell you. I intend to send you to Madame Gravois’s, and +she will compel you to go to bed and rest. I do not mean to allow you to +kill yourself.” + + + +CHAPTER IX. MONSIEUR LE BARON + +The sun beat down mercilessly on thatch and terrace, the yellow walls +flung back the quivering heat, as Madame la Vicomtesse and I walked +through the empty streets towards the Governor’s house. We were followed +by André and Madame’s maid. The sleepy orderly started up from under the +archway at our approach, bowed profoundly to Madame, looked askance at +me, and declared, with a thousand regrets, that Monsieur le Baron was +having his siesta. + +“Then you will wake him,” said Madame la Vicomtesse. + +Wake Monsieur le Baron! Bueno Dios, did Madame understand what it meant +to wake his Excellency? His Excellency would at first be angry, no +doubt. Angry? As an Andalusian bull, Madame. Once, when his Excellency +had first come to the province, he, the orderly, had presumed to awake +him. + +“Assez!” said Madame, so suddenly that the man straightened and looked +at her again. “You will wake Monsieur le Baron, and tell him that Madame +la Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour has something of importance to say to him.” + +Madame had the air, and a title carried with a Spanish soldier in New +Orleans in those days. The orderly fairly swept the ground and led us +through a court where the sun drew bewildering hot odors from the fruits +and flowers, into a darkened room which was the Baron’s cabinet. I +remember it vaguely, for my head was hot and throbbing from my +exertions in such a climate. It was a new room,--the hotel being newly +built,--with white walls, a picture of his Catholic Majesty and +the royal arms of Spain, a map of Louisiana, another of New Orleans +fortified, some walnut chairs, a desk with ink and sand and a seal, and +a window, the closed lattice shutters of which showed streaks of light +green light. These doubtless opened on the Royal Road and looked +across the levee esplanade on the waters of the Mississippi. Madame la +Vicomtesse seated herself, and with a gesture which was an order bade me +do likewise. + +“He will be angry, the dear Baron,” she said. “He is harassed to death +with republics. No offence, Mr. Ritchie. He is up at dawn looking to the +forts and palisades to guard against such foolish enterprises as this +of Mr. Temple’s. And to be waked out of a well-earned siesta--to save +a gentleman who has come here to make things unpleasant for him--is +carrying a joke a little far. Mais--que voulez-vous?” + +She gave a little shrug to her slim shoulders as she smiled at me, and +she seemed not a whit disturbed concerning the conversation with his +Excellency. I wondered whether this were birth, or training, or both, or +a natural ability to cope with affairs. The women of her order had long +been used to intercede with sovereigns, to play a part in matters of +state. Suddenly I became aware that she was looking at me. + +“What are you thinking of?” she demanded, and continued without waiting +for a reply, “you strange man.” + +“I was thinking how odd it was,” I replied, “that I should have known +you all these years by a portrait, that we should finally be thrown +together, and that you should be so exactly like the person I had +supposed you to be.” + +She lowered her eyes, but she did not seem to take offence. I meant +none. + +“And you,” she answered, “are continually reminding me of an Englishman +I knew when I was a girl. He was a very queer person to be attached to +the Embassy,--not a courtier, but a serious, literal person like you, +Mr. Ritchie, and he resembled you very much. I was very fond of him.” + +“And--what became of him?” I asked. Other questions rose to my lips, but +I put them down. + +“I will tell you,” she answered, bending forward a little. “He did +something which I believe you might have done. A certain Marquis spoke +lightly of a lady, an Englishwoman at our court, and my Englishman ran +him through one morning at Versailles.” + +She paused, and I saw that her breath was coming more quickly at the +remembrance. + +“And then?” + +“He fled to England. He was a younger son, and poor. But his King heard +of the affair, had it investigated, and restored him to the service. I +have never seen him since,” she said, “but I have often thought of +him. There,” she added, after a silence, with a lightness which seemed +assumed, “I have given you a romance. How long the Baron takes to +dress!” + +At that moment there were footsteps in the court-yard, and the orderly +appeared at the door, saluting, and speaking in Spanish. + +“His Excellency the Governor!” + +We rose, and Madame was courtesying and I was bowing to the little man. +He was in uniform, his face perspiring in the creases, his plump calves +stretching his white stockings to the full. Madame extended her hand and +he kissed it, albeit he did not bend easily. He spoke in French, and his +voice betrayed the fact that his temper was near slipping its leash. The +Baron was a native of Flanders. + +“To what happy circumstance do I owe the honor of this visit, Madame la +Vicomtesse?” he asked. + +“To a woman’s whim, Monsieur le Baron,” she answered, “for a man would +not have dared to disturb you. May I present to your Excellency, Mr. +David Ritchie of Kentucky?” + +His Excellency bowed stiffly, looked at me with no pretence of pleasure, +and I had had sufficient dealings with men to divine that, in the coming +conversation, the overflow of his temper would be poured upon me. His +first sensation was surprise. + +“An American!” he said, in a tone that implied reproach to Madame +la Vicomtesse for having fallen into such company. “Ah,” he cried, +breathing hard in the manner of stout people, “I remember you came down +with Monsieur Vigo, Monsieur, did you not?” + +It was my turn to be surprised. If the Baron took a like cognizance of +all my countrymen who came to New Orleans, he was a busy man indeed. + +“Yes, your Excellency,” I answered. + +“And you are a Federalist?” he said, though petulantly. + +“I am, your Excellency.” + +“Is your nation to overrun the earth?” said the Baron. “Every morning +when I ride through the streets it seems to me that more Americans +have come. Pardieu, I declare every day that, if it were not for the +Americans, I should have ten years more of life ahead of me.” I could +not resist the temptation to glance at Madame la Vicomtesse. Her eyes, +half closed, betrayed an amusement that was scarce repressed. + +“Come, Monsieur le Baron,” she said, “you and I have like beliefs upon +most matters. We have both suffered at the hands of people who have +mistaken a fiend for a Lady.” + +“You would have me believe, Madame,” the Baron put in, with a wit I had +not thought in him, “that Mr. Ritchie knows a lady when he sees one. I +can readily believe it.” + +Madame laughed. + +“He at least has a negative knowledge,” she replied. “And he has brought +into New Orleans no coins, boxes, or clocks against your Excellency’s +orders with the image and superscription of the Goddess in whose name +all things are done. He has not sung ‘Ça Ira’ at the theatres, and he +detests the tricolored cockades as much as you do.” + +The Baron laughed in spite of himself, and began to thaw. There was a +little more friendliness in his next glance at me. + +“What images have you brought in, Mr. Ritchie?” he asked. “We all +worship the sex in some form, however misplaced our notions of it.” + +There is not the least doubt that, for the sake of the Vicomtesse, he +was trying to be genial, and that his remark was a purely random one. +But the roots of my hair seemed to have taken fire. I saw the Baron +as in a glass, darkly. But I kept my head, principally because the +situation had elements of danger. + +“The image of Madame la Vicomtesse, Monsieur,” I said. + +“Dame!” exclaimed his Excellency, eying me with a new interest, “I did +not suspect you of being a courtier.” + +“No more he is, Monsieur le Baron,” said the Vicomtesse, “for he speaks +the truth.” + +His Excellency looked blank. As for me, I held my breath, wondering what +coup Madame was meditating. + +“Mr. Ritchie brought down from Kentucky a miniature of me by Boze, that +was painted in a costume I once wore at Chantilly.” + +“Comment! diable,” exclaimed the Baron. “And how did such a thing get +into Kentucky, Madame?” + +“You have brought me to the point,” she replied, “which is no small +triumph for your Excellency. Mr. Ritchie bought the miniature from that +most estimable of my relations, Monsieur Auguste de St. Gré.” + +The Baron sat down and began to fan himself. He even grew a little +purple. He looked at Madame, sputtered, and I began to think that, if he +didn’t relieve himself, his head might blow off. As for the Vicomtesse, +she wore an ingenuous air of detachment, and seemed supremely +unconscious of the volcano by her side. + +“So, Madame,” cried the Governor at length, after I know not what +repressions, “you have come here in behalf of that--of Auguste de St. +Gré!” + +“So far as I am concerned, Monsieur,” answered the Vicomtesse, calmly, +“you may hang Auguste, put him in prison, drown him, or do anything you +like with him.” + +“God help me,” said the poor man, searching for his handkerchief, and +utterly confounded, “why is it you have come to me, then? Why did you +wake me up?” he added, so far forgetting himself. + +“I came in behalf of the gentleman who had the indiscretion to accompany +Auguste to Louisiana,” she continued, “in behalf of Mr. Nicholas Temple, +who is a cousin of Mr. Ritchie.” + +The Baron started abruptly from his chair. + +“I have heard of him,” he cried; “Madame knows where he is?” + +“I know where he is. It is that which I came to tell your Excellency.” + +“Hein!” said his Excellency, again nonplussed. “You came to tell me +where he is? And where the--the other one is?” + +“Parfaitement,” said Madame. “But before I tell you where they are, I +wish to tell you something about Mr. Temple.” + +“Madame, I know something of him already,” said the Baron, impatiently. + +“Ah,” said she, “from Gignoux. And what do you hear from Gignoux?” + +This was another shock, under which the Baron fairly staggered. + +“Diable! is Madame la Vicomtesse in the plot?” he cried. “What does +Madame know of Gignoux?” + +Madame’s manner suddenly froze. + +“I am likely to be in the plot, Monsieur,” she said. “I am likely to be +in a plot which has for its furtherance that abominable anarchy which +deprived me of my home and estates, of my relatives and friends and my +sovereign.” + +“A thousand pardons, Madame la Vicomtesse,” said the Baron, more at sea +than ever. “I have had much to do these last years, and the heat and +the Republicans have got on my temper. Will Madame la Vicomtesse pray +explain?” + +“I was about to do so when your Excellency interrupted,” said Madame. +“You see before you Mr. Ritchie, barrister, of Louisville, Kentucky, +whose character of sobriety, dependence, and ability” (there was a +little gleam in her eye as she gave me this array of virtues) “can be +perfectly established. When he came to New Orleans some years ago he +brought letters to Monsieur de St. Gré from Monsieur Gratiot and Colonel +Chouteau of St. Louis, and he is known to Mr. Clark and to Monsieur +Vigo. He is a Federalist, as you know, and has no sympathy with the +Jacobins.” + +“Eh bien, Mr. Ritchie,” said the Baron, getting his breath, “you are +fortunate in your advocate. Madame la Vicomtesse neglected to say that +she was your friend, the greatest of all recommendations in my eyes.” + +“You are delightful, Monsieur le Baron,” said the Vicomtesse. + +“Perhaps Mr. Ritchie can tell me something of this expedition,” said the +Baron, his eyes growing smaller as he looked at me. + +“Willingly,” I answered. “Although I know that your Excellency is well +informed, and that Monsieur Vigo has doubtless given you many of the +details that I know.” + +He interrupted me with a grunt. + +“You Americans are clever people, Monsieur,” he said; “you contrive to +combine shrewdness with frankness.” + +“If I had anything to hide from your Excellency, I should not be here,” +I answered. “The expedition, as you know, has been as much of a farce as +Citizen Genêt’s commissions. But it has been a sad farce to me, inasmuch +as it involves the honor of my old friend and Colonel, General Clark, +and the safety of my cousin, Mr. Temple.” + +“So you were with Clark in Illinois?” said the Baron, craftily. “Pardon +me, Mr. Ritchie, but I should have said that you are too young.” + +“Monsieur Vigo will tell you that I was the drummer boy of the regiment, +and a sort of ward of the Colonel’s. I used to clean his guns and cook +his food.” + +“And you did not see fit to follow your Colonel to Louisiana?” said his +Excellency, for he had been trained in a service of suspicion. + +“General Clark is not what he was,” I replied, chafing a little at his +manner; “your Excellency knows that, and I put loyalty to my government +before friendship. And I might remind your Excellency that I am neither +an adventurer nor a fool.” + +The little Baron surprised me by laughing. His irritability and his good +nature ran in streaks. + +“There is no occasion to, Mr. Ritchie,” he answered. “I have seen +something of men in my time. In which category do you place your cousin, +Mr. Temple?” + +“If a love of travel and excitement and danger constitutes an +adventurer, Mr. Temple is such,” I said. “Fortunately the main spur of +the adventurer’s character is lacking in his case. I refer to the +desire for money. Mr. Temple has an annuity from his father’s estate in +Charleston which puts him beyond the pale of the fortune-seeker, and I +firmly believe that if your Excellency sees fit to allow him to leave +the province, and if certain disquieting elements can be removed from +his life” (I glanced at the Vicomtesse), “he will settle down and become +a useful citizen of the United States. As much as I dislike to submit to +a stranger private details in the life of a member of my family, I feel +that I must tell your Excellency something of Mr. Temple’s career, in +order that you may know that restlessness and the thirst for adventure +were the only motives that led him into this foolish undertaking.” + +“Pray proceed, Mr. Ritchie,” said the Baron. + +I was surprised not to find him more restless, and in addition the +glance of approbation which the Vicomtesse gave me spurred me on. +However distasteful, I had the sense to see that I must hold nothing +back of which his Excellency might at any time become cognizant, and +therefore I told him as briefly as possible Nick’s story, leaving out +only the episode with Antoinette. When I came to the relation of the +affairs which occurred at Les Îles five years before and told his +Excellency that Mrs. Temple had since been living in the Rue Bourbon as +Mrs. Clive, unknown to her son, the Baron broke in upon me. + +“So the mystery of that woman is cleared at last,” he said, and turned +to the Vicomtesse. “I have learned that you have been a frequent +visitor, Madame.” + +“Not a sparrow falls to the ground in Louisiana that your Excellency +does not hear of it,” she answered. + +“And Gignoux?” he said, speaking to me again. + +“As I told you, Monsieur le Baron,” I answered, “I have come to New +Orleans at a personal sacrifice to induce my cousin to abandon this +matter, and I went out last evening to try to get word of him.” This was +not strictly true. “I saw Monsieur Gignoux in conference with some of +your officers who came out of this hotel.” + +“You have sharp eyes, Monsieur,” he remarked. + +“I suspected the man when I met him in Kentucky,” I continued, not +heeding this. “Monsieur Vigo himself distrusted him. To say that Gignoux +were deep in the councils of the expedition, that he held a +commission from Citizen Genêt, I realize will have no weight with your +Excellency,--provided the man is in the secret service of his Majesty +the King of Spain.” + +“Mr. Ritchie,” said the Baron, “you are a young man and I an old one. If +I tell you that I have a great respect for your astuteness and ability, +do not put it down to flattery. I wish that your countrymen, who are +coming down the river like driftwood, more resembled you. As for Citizen +Gignoux,” he went on, smiling, and wiping his face, “let not your heart +be troubled. His Majesty’s minister at Philadelphia has written me +letters on the subject. I am contemplating for Monsieur Gignoux a sea +voyage to Havana, and he is at present partaking of my hospitality in +the calabozo.” + +“In the calabozo!” I cried, overwhelmed at this example of Spanish +justice and omniscience. + +“Precisely,” said the Baron, drumming with his fingers on his fat knee. +“And now,” he added, “perhaps Madame la Vicomtesse is ready to tell me +of the whereabouts of Mr. Temple and her estimable cousin, Auguste. It +may interest her to know why I have allowed them their liberty so long.” + +“A point on which I have been consumed with curiosity--since I have +begun to tremble at the amazing thoroughness of your Excellency’s +system,” said the Vicomtesse. + +His Excellency scarcely looked the tyrant as he sat before us, with +his calves crossed and his hands folded on his waistcoat and his little +black eyes twinkling. + +“It is because,” he said, “there are many French planters in the +province bitten with the three horrors” (he meant Liberty, Equality, and +Fraternity), “I sent six to Havana; and if Monsieur Étienne de Boré had +not, in the nick of time for him, discovered how to make sugar he would +have gone, too. I had an idea that the Sieur de St. Gré and Mr. Temple +might act as a bait to reveal the disease in some others. Ha, I am +cleverer than you thought, Mr. Ritchie. You are surprised?” + +I was surprised, and showed it. + +“Come,” he said, “you are astute. Why did you think I left them at +liberty?” + +“I thought your Excellency believed them to be harmless, as they are,” I +replied. + +He turned again to the Vicomtesse. “You have picked up a diplomat, +Madame. I must confess that I misjudged him when you introduced him to +me. And again, where are Mr. Temple and your estimable cousin? Shall I +tell you? They are at old Lamarque’s, on the plantation of Philippe de +St. Gré.” + +“They were, your Excellency,” said the Vicomtesse. + +“Eh?” exclaimed the Baron, jumping. + +“Mademoiselle de St. Gré has given her brother eight hundred livres, and +he is probably by this time on board a French ship at the English +Turn. He is very badly frightened. I will give your Excellency one more +surprise.” + +“Madame la Vicomtesse,” said the Baron, “I have heard that, but for your +coolness and adroitness, Monsieur le Vicomte, your husband, and several +other noblemen and their ladies and some of her Majesty’s letters and +jewels would never have gotten out of France. I take this opportunity of +saying that I have the greatest respect for your intelligence. Now what +is the surprise?” + +“That your Excellency intended that both Mr. Temple and Auguste de St. +Gré were to escape on that ship.” + +“Mille tonneres,” exclaimed the Baron, staring at her, and straightway +he fell into a fit of laughter that left him coughing and choking and +perspiring as only a man in his condition of flesh can perspire. To say +that I was bewildered by this last evidence of the insight of the woman +beside me would be to put it mildly. The Vicomtesse sat quietly watching +him, the wonted look of repressed laughter on her face, and by degrees +his Excellency grew calm again. + +“Mon Dieu,” said he, “I always like to cross swords with you, Madame la +Vicomtesse, yet this encounter has been more pleasurable than any I have +had since I came to Louisiana. But, diable,” he cried, “just as I was +congratulating myself that I was to have one American the less, you come +and tell me that he has refused to flee. Out of consideration for the +character and services of Monsieur Philippe de St. Gré I was willing to +let them both escape. But now?” + +“Mr. Temple is not known in New Orleans except to the St. Gré family,” +said the Vicomtesse. “He is a man of honor. Suppose Mr. Ritchie were to +bring him to your Excellency, and he were to give you his word that he +would leave the province at the first opportunity? He now wishes to +see his mother before she dies, and it was as much as we could do this +morning to persuade him from going to her openly in the face of arrest.” + +But the Baron was old in a service which did not do things hastily. + +“He is well enough where he is for to-day,” said his Excellency, +resuming his official manner. “To-night after dark I will send down +an officer and have him brought before me. He will not then be seen in +custody by any one, and provided I am satisfied with him he may go to +the Rue Bourbon.” + +The little Baron rose and bowed to the Vicomtesse to signify that the +audience was ended, and he added, as he kissed her hand, “Madame la +Vicomtesse, it is a pleasure to be able to serve such a woman as you.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. THE SCOURGE + + +As we went through the court I felt as though I had been tied to a +string, suspended in the air, and spun. This was undoubtedly due to the +heat. And after the astonishing conversation from which we had come, my +admiration for the lady beside me was magnified to a veritable awe. We +reached the archway. Madame la Vicomtesse held me lightly by the edge of +my coat, and I stood looking down at her. + +“Wait a minute, Mr. Ritchie,” she said, glancing at the few figures +hurrying across the Place d’Armes; “those are only Americans, and they +are too busy to see us standing here. What do you propose to do now?” + +“We must get word to Nick as we promised, that he may know what to +expect,” I replied. “Suppose we go to Monsieur de St. Gré’s house and +write him a letter?” + +“No,” said the Vicomtesse, with decision, “I am going to Mrs. Temple’s. +I shall write the letter from there and send it by André, and you will +go direct to Madame Gravois’s.” + +Her glance rested anxiously upon my face, and there came an expression +in her eyes which disturbed me strangely. I had not known it since the +days when Polly Ann used to mother me. But I did not mean to give up. + +“I am not tired, Madame la Vicomtesse,” I answered, “and I will go with +you to Mrs. Temple’s.” + +“Give me your hand,” she said, and smiled. “André and my maid are used +to my vagaries, and your own countrymen will not mind. Give me your +hand, Mr. Ritchie.” + +I gave it willingly enough, with a thrill as she took it between +her own. The same anxious look was in her eyes, and not the least +embarrassment. + +“There, it is hot and dry, as I feared,” she said, “and you seem +flushed.” She dropped my hand, and there was a touch of irritation in +her voice as she continued: “You seemed fairly sensible when I first +met you last night, Mr. Ritchie. Are you losing your sanity? Do you not +realize that you cannot take liberties with this climate? Do as I say, +and go to Madame Gravois’s at once.” + +“It is my pleasure to obey you, Madame la Vicomtesse,” I answered, “but +I mean to go with you as far as Mrs. Temple’s, to see how she fares. She +may be--worse.” + +“That is no reason why you should kill yourself,” said Madame, coldly. +“Will you not do as I say?” + +“I think that I should go to Mrs. Temple’s,” I answered. + +She did not reply to that, letting down her veil impatiently, with a +deftness that characterized all her movements. Without so much as asking +me to come after her, she reached the banquette, and I walked by her +side through the streets, silent and troubled by her displeasure. My +pride forbade me to do as she wished. It was the hottest part of a +burning day, and the dome of the sky was like a brazen bell above us. +We passed the the calabozo with its iron gates and tiny grilled windows +pierced in the massive walls, behind which Gignoux languished, and +I could not repress a smile as I thought of him. Even the Spaniards +sometimes happened upon justice. In the Rue Bourbon the little shops +were empty, the doorstep where my merry fiddler had played vacant, and +the very air seemed to simmer above the honeycombed tiles. I knocked +at the door, once, twice. There was no answer. I looked at Madame la +Vicomtesse, and knocked again so loudly that the little tailor across +the street, his shirt opened at the neck, flung out his shutter. +Suddenly there was a noise within, the door was opened, and Lindy stood +before us, in the darkened room, with terror in her eyes. + +“Oh, Marse Dave,” she cried, as we entered, “oh, Madame, I’se so glad +you’se come, I’se so glad you’se come.” + +She burst into a flood of tears. And Madame la Vicomtesse, raising her +veil, seized the girl by the arm. + +“What is it?” she said. “What is the matter, Lindy?” + +Madame’s touch seemed to steady her. + +“Miss Sally,” she moaned, “Miss Sally done got de yaller fever.” + +There was a moment’s silence, for we were both too appalled by the news +to speak. + +“Lindy, are you sure?” said the Vicomtesse. + +“Yass’m, yass’m,” Lindy sobbed, “I reckon I’se done seed ‘nuf of it, +Mistis.” And she went into a hysterical fit of weeping. + +The Vicomtesse turned to her own frightened servants in the doorway, +bade André in French to run for Dr. Perrin, and herself closed the +battened doors. There was a moment when her face as I saw it was graven +on my memory, reflecting a knowledge of the evils of this world, a +spirit above and untouched by them, a power to accept what life may +bring with no outward sign of pleasure or dismay. Doubtless thus she had +made King and Cardinal laugh, doubtless thus, ministering to those who +crossed her path, she had met her own calamities. Strangest of all was +the effect she had upon Lindy, for the girl ceased crying as she watched +her. + +Madame la Vicomtesse turned to me. + +“You must go at once,” she said. “When you get to Madame Gravois’s, +write to Mr. Temple. I will send André to you there.” + +She started for the bedroom door, Lindy making way for her. I scarcely +knew what I did as I sprang forward and took the Vicomtesse by the arm. + +“Where are you going?” I cried. “You cannot go in there! You cannot go +in there!” + +It did not seem strange that she turned to me without anger, that she +did not seek to release her arm. It did not seem strange that her look +had in it a gentleness as she spoke. + +“I must,” she said. + +“I cannot let you risk your life,” I cried, wholly forgetting myself; +“there are others who will do this.” + +“Others?” she said. + +“I will go. I--I have nursed people before this. And there is Lindy.” + +A smile quivered on her lips,--or was it a smile? + +“You will do as I say and go to Madame Gravois’s--at once,” she +murmured, striving for the first time to free herself. + +“If you stay, I stay,” I answered; “and if you die, I die.” + +She looked up into my eyes for a fleeting instant. + +“Write to Mr. Temple,” she said. + +Dazed, I watched her open the bedroom doors, motion to Lindy to pass +through, and then she had closed them again and I was alone in the +darkened parlor. + +The throbbing in my head was gone, and a great clearness had come with +a great fear. I stood, I know not how long, listening to the groans +that came through the wall, for Mrs. Temple was in agony. At intervals +I heard Hélène’s voice, and then the groans seemed to stop. Ten times +I went to the bedroom door, and as many times drew away again, my heart +leaping within me at the peril which she faced. If I had had the right, +I believe I would have carried her away by force. + +But I had not the right. I sat down heavily, by the table, to think, and +it might have been a cry of agony sharper than the rest that reminded me +once more of the tragedy of the poor lady in torture. My eye fell upon +the table, and there, as though prepared for what I was to do, lay pen +and paper, ink and sand. My hand shook as I took the quill and tried to +compose a letter to my cousin. I scarcely saw the words which I put on +the sheet, and I may be forgiven for the unwisdom of that which I wrote. + +“The Baron de Carondelet will send an officer for you to-night so that +you may escape observation in custody. His Excellency knew of your +hiding-place, but is inclined to be lenient, will allow you to-morrow +to go to the Rue Bourbon, and will without doubt permit you to leave the +province. Your mother is ill, and Madame la Vicomtesse and myself are +with her. “DAVID.” + +In the state I was it took me a long time to compose this much, and I +had barely finished it when there was a knock at the outer door. There +was André. He had the immobility of face which sometimes goes with the +mulatto, and always with the trained servant, as he informed me that +Monsieur le Médecin was not at home, but that he had left word. There +was an epidemic, Monsieur, so André feared. I gave him the note and his +directions, and ten minutes after he had gone I would have given much to +have called him back. How about Antoinette, alone at Les Îles? Why had +I not thought of her? We had told her nothing that morning, Madame la +Vicomtesse and I, after our conference with Nick. For the girl had shut +herself in her room, and Madame had thought it best not to disturb her +at such a stage. But would she not be alarmed when Hélène failed to +return that night? Had circumstances been different, I myself would have +ridden to Les Îles, but no inducement now could make me desert the post +I had chosen. After many years I dislike to recall to memory that long +afternoon which I spent, helpless, in the Rue Bourbon. Now I was on my +feet, pacing restlessly the short breadth of the room, trying to shut +out from my mind the horrors of which my ears gave testimony. Again, in +the intervals of quiet, I sat with my elbows on the table and my head in +my hands, striving to allay the throbbing in my temples. Pains came and +went, and at times I felt like a fagot flung into the fire,--I, who had +never known a sick day. At times my throat pained me, an odd symptom +in a warm climate. Troubled as I was in mind and body, the thought of +Hélène’s quiet heroism upheld me through it all. More than once I had my +hand raised to knock at the bedroom door and ask if I could help, but I +dared not; at length, the sun having done its worst and spent its fury, +I began to hear steps along the banquette and voices almost at my elbow +beyond the little window. At every noise I peered out, hoping for the +doctor. But he did not come. And then, as I fell back into the fauteuil, +there was borne on my consciousness a sound I had heard before. It was +the music of the fiddler, it was a tune I knew, and the voices of the +children were singing the refrain:-- + + “Ne sait quand reviendra, + Ne sait quand reviendra.” + +I rose, opened the door, and slipped out of it, and I must have made a +strange, hatless figure as I came upon the fiddler and his children from +across the street. + +“Stop that noise,” I cried in French, angered beyond all reason at the +thought of music at such a time. “Idiots, there is yellow fever there.” + +The little man stopped with his bow raised; for a moment they all stared +at me, transfixed. It was a little elf in blue indienne who jumped first +and ran down the street, crying the news in a shrill voice, the others +following, the fiddler gazing stupidly after them. Suddenly he scrambled +up, moaning, as if the scourge itself had fastened on him, backed into +the house, and slammed the door in my face. I returned with slow +steps to shut myself in the darkened room again, and I recall feeling +something of triumph over the consternation I had caused. No sounds came +from the bedroom, and after that the street was quiet as death save for +an occasional frightened, hurrying footfall. I was tired. + +All at once the bedroom door opened softly, and Hélène was standing +there, looking at me. At first I saw her dimly, as in a vision, then +clearly. I leaped to my feet and went and stood beside her. + +“The doctor has not come,” I said. “Where does he live? I will go for +him.” + +She shook her head. + +“He can do no good. Lindy has procured all the remedies, such as they +are. They can only serve to alleviate,” she answered. “She cannot +withstand this, poor lady.” There were tears on Hélène’s lashes. “Her +sufferings have been frightful--frightful.” + +“Cannot I help?” I said thickly. “Cannot I do something?” + +She shook her head. She raised her hand timidly to the lapel of my coat, +and suddenly I felt her palm, cool and firm, upon my forehead. It rested +there but an instant. + +“You ought not to be here,” she said, her voice vibrant with earnestness +and concern. “You ought not to be here. Will you not go--if I ask it?” + +“I cannot,” I said; “you know I cannot if you stay.” + +She did not answer that. Our eyes met, and in that instant for me there +was neither joy nor sorrow, sickness nor death, nor time nor space nor +universe. It was she who turned away. + +“Have you written him?” she asked in a low voice. + +“Yes,” I answered. + +“She would not have known him,” said Hélène; “after all these years of +waiting she would not have known him. Her punishment has been great.” + +A sound came from the bedroom, and Hélène was gone, silently, as she had +come. + +I must have been dozing in the fauteuil, for suddenly I found myself +sitting up, listening to an unwonted noise. I knew from the count of the +hoof-beats which came from down the street that a horse was galloping in +long strides--a spent horse, for the timing was irregular. Then he was +pulled up into a trot, then to a walk as I ran to the door and opened +it and beheld Nicholas Temple flinging himself from a pony white with +lather. And he was alone! He caught sight of me as soon as his foot +touched the banquette. + +“What are you doing here?” I cried. “What are you doing here?” + +He halted on the edge of the banquette as a hurrying man runs into a +wall. He had been all excitement, all fury, as he jumped from his horse; +and now, as he looked at me, he seemed to lose his bearings, to be all +bewilderment. He cried out my name and stood looking at me like a fool. + +“What the devil do you mean by coming here?” I cried. “Did I not write +you to stay where you were? How did you get here?” I stepped down on the +banquette and seized him by the shoulders. “Did you receive my letter?” + +“Yes,” he said, “yes.” For a moment that was as far as he got, and he +glanced down the street and then at the heaving beast he had ridden, +which stood with head drooping to the kennel. Then he laid hold of me. +“Davy, is it true that she has yellow fever? Is it true?” + +“Who told you?” I demanded angrily. + +“André,” he answered. “André said that the lady here had yellow fever. +Is it true?” + +“Yes,” I said almost inaudibly. + +He let his hand fall from my shoulder, and he shivered. + +“May God forgive me for what I have done!” he said. “Where is she?” + +“For what you have done?” I cried; “you have done an insensate thing +to come here.” Suddenly I remembered the sentry at the gate of Fort St. +Charles. “How did you get into the city?” I said; “were you mad to defy +the Baron and his police?” + +“Damn the Baron and his police,” he answered, striving to pass me. “Let +me in! Let me see her.” + +Even as he spoke I caught sight of men coming into the street, perhaps +at the corner of the Rue St. Pierre, and then more men, and as we went +into the house I saw that they were running. I closed the doors. There +were cries in the street now, but he did not seem to heed them. He stood +listening, heart-stricken, to the sounds that came through the bedroom +wall, and a spasm crossed his face. Then he turned like a man not to be +denied, to the bedroom door. I was before him, but Madame la Vicomtesse +opened it. And I remember feeling astonishment that she did not show +surprise or alarm. + +“What are you doing here, Mr. Temple?” she said. + +“My mother, Madame! My mother! I must go to her.” + +He pushed past her into the bedroom, and I followed perforce. I shall +never forget the scene, though I had but the one glimpse of it,--the +raving, yellowed woman in the bed, not a spectre nor yet even a +semblance of the beauty of Temple Bow. But she was his mother, upon +whom God had brought such a retribution as He alone can bestow. Lindy, +faithful servant to the end, held the wasted hands of her mistress +against the violence they would have done. Lindy held them, her own +body rocking with grief, her lips murmuring endearments, prayers, +supplications. + +“Miss Sally, honey, doan you know Lindy? Gawd’ll let you git well, +Miss Sally, Gawd’ll let you git well, honey, ter see Marse Nick--ter +see--Marse--Nick--” + +The words died on Lindy’s lips, the ravings of the frenzied woman +ceased. The yellowed hands fell limply to the sheet, the shrunken form +stiffened. The eyes of the mother looked upon the son, and in them at +first was the terror of one who sees the infinite. Then they softened +until they became again the only feature that was left of Sarah Temple. +Now, as she looked at him who was her pride, her honor, for one sight +of whom she had prayed,--ay, and even blasphemed,--her eyes were all +tenderness. Then she spoke. + +“Harry,” she said softly, “be good to me, dear. You are all I have now.” + +She spoke of Harry Riddle! + +But the long years of penance had not been in vain. Nick had forgiven +her. We saw him kneeling at the bedside, we saw him with her hand in +his, and Hélène was drawing me gently out of the room and closing the +door behind her. She did not look at me, nor I at her. + +We stood for a moment close together, and suddenly the cries in the +street brought us back from the drama in the low-ceiled, reeking room we +had left. + +“Ici! Ici! Voici le cheval!” + +There was a loud rapping at the outer door, and a voice demanding +admittance in Spanish in the name of his Excellency the Governor. + +“Open it,” said Hélène. There was neither excitement in her voice, nor +yet resignation. In those two words was told the philosophy of her life. + +I opened the door. There, on the step, was an officer, perspiring, +uniformed and plumed, and behind him a crowd of eager faces, white and +black, that seemed to fill the street. He took a step into the room, his +hand on the hilt of his sword, and poured out at me a torrent of Spanish +of which I understood nothing. All at once his eye fell upon Hélène, who +was standing behind me, and he stopped in the middle of his speech and +pulled off his hat and bowed profoundly. + +“Madame la Vicomtesse!” he stammered. I was no little surprised that she +should be so well known. + +“You will please to speak French, Monsieur,” she said; “this gentleman +does not understand Spanish. What is it you desire?” + +“A thousand pardons, Madame la Vicomtesse,” he said. “I am the Alcalde +de Barrio, and a wild Americano has passed the sentry at St. Charles’s +gate without heeding his Excellency’s authority and command. I saw the +man with my own eyes. I should know him again in a hundred. We have +traced him here to this house, Madame la Vicomtesse. Behold the horse +which he rode!” The Alcalde turned and pointed at the beast. “Behold the +horse which he rode, Madame la Vicomtesse. The animal will die.” + +“Probably,” answered the Vicomtesse, in an even tone. + +“But the man,” cried the Alcalde, “the man is here, Madame la +Vicomtesse, here, in this house!” + +“Yes,” she said, “he is here.” + +“Sancta Maria! Madame,” he exclaimed, “I--I who speak to you have come +to get him. He has defied his Excellency’s commands. Where is he?” + +“He is in that room,” said the Vicomtesse, pointing at the bedroom door. + +The Alcalde took a step forward. She stopped him by a quick gesture. + +“He is in that room with his mother,” she said, “and his mother has the +yellow fever. Come, we will go to him.” And she put her hand upon the +door. + +“Yellow fever!” cried the Alcalde, and his voice was thick with terror. +There was a moment’s silence as he stood rooted to the floor. I did +not wonder then, but I have since thought it remarkable that the words +spoken low by both of them should have been caught up on the banquette +and passed into the street. Impassive, I heard it echoed from a score of +throats, I saw men and women stampeding like frightened sheep, I heard +their footfalls and their cries as they ran. A tawdry constable, +who held with a trembling hand the bridle of the tired horse, alone +remained. + +“Yellow fever!” the Alcalde repeated + +The Vicomtesse inclined her head. + +He was silent again for a while, uncertain, and then, without +comprehending, I saw the man’s eyes grow smaller and a smile play about +his mouth. He looked at the Vicomtesse with a new admiration to which +she paid no heed. + +“I am sorry, Madame la Vicomtesse,” he began, “but--” + +“But you do not believe that I speak the truth,” she replied quietly. + +He winced. + +“Will you follow me?” she said, turning again. + +He had started, plainly in an agony of fear, when a sound came from +beyond the wall that brought a cry to his lips. + +Her manner changed to one of stinging scorn. + +“You are a coward,” she said. “I will bring the gentleman to you if he +can be got to leave the bedside.” + +“No,” said the Alcalde, “no. I--I will go to him, Madame la Vicomtesse.” + +But she did not open the door. + +“Listen,” she said in a tone of authority, “I myself have been to his +Excellency to-day concerning this gentleman--” + +“You, Madame la Vicomtesse?” + +“I will open the door,” she continued, impatient at the interruption, +“and you will see him. Then I shall write a letter which you will take +to the Governor. The gentleman will not try to escape, for his mother +is dying. Besides, he could not get out of the city. You may leave your +constable where he is, or the man may come in and stand at this door in +sight of the gentleman while you are gone--if he pleases.” + +“And then?” said the Alcalde. + +“It is my belief that his Excellency will allow the gentleman to remain +here, and that you will be relieved from the necessity of running any +further risk.” + +As she spoke she opened the door, softly. The room was still now, still +as death, and the Alcalde went forward on tiptoe. I saw him peering in, +I saw him backing away again like a man in mortal fear. + +“Yes, it is he--it is the man,” he stammered. He put his hand to his +brow. + +The Vicomtesse closed the door, and without a glance at him went quickly +to the table and began to write. She had no thought of consulting the +man again, of asking his permission. Although she wrote rapidly, five +minutes must have gone by before the note was finished and folded and +sealed. She held it out to him. + +“Take this to his Excellency,” she said, “and bring me his answer.” The +Alcalde bowed, murmured her title, and went lamely out of the house. He +was plainly in an agony of uncertainty as to his duty, but he glanced +at the Vicomtesse--and went, flipping the note nervously with his finger +nail. He paused for a few low-spoken words with the tawdry constable, +who sat down on the banquette after his chief had gone, still clinging +to the bridle. The Vicomtesse went to the doorway, looked at him, and +closed the battened doors. The constable did not protest. The day was +fading without, and the room was almost in darkness as she crossed over +to the little mantel and stood with her head laid upon her arm. + +I did not disturb her. The minutes passed, the light waned until I could +see her no longer, and yet I knew that she had not moved. The strange +sympathy between us kept me silent until I heard her voice calling my +name. + +“Yes,” I answered. + +“The candle!” + +I drew out my tinder-box and lighted the wick. She had turned, and was +facing me even as she had faced me the night before. The night before! +The greatest part of my life seemed to have passed since then. I +remember wondering that she did not look tired. Her face was sad, her +voice was sad, and it had an ineffable, sweet quality at such times that +was all its own. + +“The Alcalde should be coming back,” she said. + +“Yes,” I answered. + +These were our words, yet we scarce heeded their meaning. Between us was +drawn a subtler communion than speech, and we dared--neither of us--to +risk speech. She searched my face, but her lips were closed. She did not +take my hand again as in the afternoon. She turned away. I knew what she +would have said. + +There was a knock at the door. We went together to open it, and the +Alcalde stood on the step. He held in his hand a long letter on which +the red seal caught the light, and he gave the letter to the Vicomtesse, +with a bow. + +“From his Excellency, Madame la Vicomtesse.” + +She broke the seal, went to the table, and read. Then she looked up at +me. + +“It is the Governor’s permit for Mr. Temple to remain in this house. +Thank you,” she said to the Alcalde; “you may go.” + +“With my respectful wishes for the continued good health of Madame la +Vicomtesse,” said the Alcalde. + + + +CHAPTER XI. “IN THE MIDST OF LIFE” + +The Alcalde had stopped on the step with an exclamation at something in +the darkness outside, and he backed, bowing, into the room again to make +way for some one. A lady, slim, gowned and veiled in black and followed +by a negress, swept past him. The lady lifted her veil and stood before +us. + +“Antoinette!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse, going to her. + +The girl did not answer at once. Her suffering seemed to have brought +upon her a certain acceptance of misfortune as inevitable. Her face, +framed in the black veil, was never more beautiful than on that night. + +“What is the Alcalde doing here?” she said. + +The officer himself answered the question. + +“I am leaving, Mademoiselle,” said he. He reached out his hands toward +her, appealingly. “Do you not remember me, Mademoiselle? You brought the +good sister to see my wife.” + +“I remember you,” said Antoinette. + +“Do not stay here, Mademoiselle!” he cried. “There is--there is yellow +fever.” + +“So that is it,” said Antoinette, unheeding him and looking at her +cousin. “She has yellow fever, then?” + +“I beg you to come away, Mademoiselle!” the man entreated. + +“Please go,” she said to him. He looked at her, and went out silently, +closing the doors after him. “Why was he here?” she asked again. + +“He came to get Mr. Temple, my dear,” said the Vicomtesse. The girl’s +lips framed his name, but did not speak it. + +“Where is he?” she asked slowly. + +The Vicomtesse pointed towards the bedroom. + +“In there,” she answered, “with his mother.” + +“He came to her?” Antoinette asked quite simply. + +The Vicomtesse glanced at me, and drew the veil gently from the girl’s +shoulders. She led her, unresisting, to a chair. I looked at them. The +difference in their ages was not so great. Both had suffered cruelly; +one had seen the world, the other had not, and yet the contrast lay not +here. Both had followed the gospel of helpfulness to others, but one +as a religieuse, innocent of the sin around her, though poignant of the +sorrow it caused. The other, knowing evil with an insight that went far +beyond intuition, fought with that, too. + +“I will tell you, Antoinette,” began the Vicomtesse; “it was as you +said. Mr. Ritchie and I found him at Lamarque’s. He had not taken your +money; he did not even know that Auguste had gone to see you. He did +not even know,” she said, bending over the girl, “that he was on your +father’s plantation. When we told him that, he would have left it at +once.” + +“Yes,” she said. + +“He did not know that his mother was still in New Orleans. And when we +told him how ill she was he would have come to her then. It was as much +as we could do to persuade him to wait until we had seen Monsieur +de Carondelet. Mr. Ritchie and I came directly to town and saw his +Excellency.” + +It was characteristic of the Vicomtesse that she told this almost with +a man’s brevity, that she omitted the stress and trouble and pain of it +all. These things were done; the tact and skill and character of her who +had accomplished them were not spoken of. The girl listened immovable, +her lips parted and her eyes far away. Suddenly, with an awakening, she +turned to Hélène. + +“You did this!” she cried. + +“Mr. Ritchie and I together,” said the Vicomtesse. + +Her next exclamation was an odd one, showing how the mind works at such +a time. + +“But his Excellency was having his siesta!” said Antoinette. + +Again Hélène glanced at me, but I cannot be sure that she smiled. + +“We thought the matter of sufficient importance to awake his +Excellency,” said Hélène. + +“And his Excellency?” asked Antoinette. In that moment all three of us +seemed to have forgotten the tragedy behind the wall. + +“His Excellency thought so, too, when we had explained it sufficiently,” + Hélène answered. + +The girl seemed suddenly to throw off the weight of her grief. She +seized the hand of the Vicomtesse in both of her own. + +“The Baron pardoned him?” she cried. “Tell me what his Excellency said. +Why are you keeping it from me?” + +“Hush, my dear,” said the Vicomtesse. “Yes, he pardoned him. Mr. Temple +was to have come to the city to-night with an officer. Mr. Ritchie and I +came to this house together, and we found--” + +“Yes, yes,” said Antoinette. + +“Mr. Ritchie wrote to Mr. Temple that his Excellency was to send for him +to-night, but André told him of the fever, and he came here in the face +of danger to see her before she died. He galloped past the sentry at the +gate, and the Alcalde followed him from there.” + +“And came here to arrest him?” cried Antoinette. Before the Vicomtesse +could prevent her she sprang from her chair, ran to the door, and was +peering out into the darkness. “Is the Alcalde waiting?” + +“No, no,” said the Vicomtesse, gently bringing her back. “I wrote to his +Excellency and we have his permission for Mr. Temple to remain here.” + +Suddenly Antoinette stopped in the middle of the floor, facing the +candle, her hands clasped, her eyes wide with fear. We started, Hélène +and I, as we looked at her. + +“What is it, my dear?” said the Vicomtesse, laying a hand on her arm. + +“He will take it,” she said, “he will take the fever.” + +A strange thing happened. Many, many times have I thought of it since, +and I did not know its meaning then. I had looked to see the Vicomtesse +comfort her. But Hélène took a step towards me, my eyes met hers, and +in them reflected was the terror I had seen in Antoinette’s. At that +instant I, too, forgot the girl, and we turned to see that she had sunk +down, weeping, in the chair. Then we both went to her, I through some +instinct I did not fathom. + +Hélène’s hand, resting on Antoinette’s shoulder, trembled there. It +may well have been my own weakness which made me think her body swayed, +which made me reach out as if to catch her. However marvellous her +strength and fortitude, these could not last forever. And--Heaven help +me--my own were fast failing. Once the room had seemed to me all in +darkness. Then I saw the Vicomtesse leaning tenderly over her cousin and +whispering in her ear, and Antoinette rising, clinging to her. + +“I will go,” she faltered, “I will go. He must not know I have been +here. You--you will not tell him?” + +“No, I shall not tell him,” answered the Vicomtesse. + +“And--you will send word to me, Hélène?” + +“Yes, dear.” + +Antoinette kissed her, and began to adjust her veil mechanically. I +looked on, bewildered by the workings of the feminine mind. Why was she +going? The Vicomtesse gave me no hint. But suddenly the girl’s arms fell +to her sides, and she stood staring, not so much as a cry escaping her. +The bedroom doors had been opened, and between them was the tall figure +of Nicholas Temple. So they met again after many years, and she who had +parted them had brought them together once more. He came a step into +the room, as though her eyes had drawn him so far. Even then he did not +speak her name. + +“Go,” he said. “Go, you must not stay here. Go!” + +She bowed her head. + +“I was going,” she answered. “I--I am going.” + +“But you must go at once,” he cried excitedly. “Do you know what is in +there?” and he pointed towards the bedroom. + +“Yes, yes, I know,” she said, “I know.” + +“Then go,” he cried. “As it is you have risked too much.” + +She lifted up her head and looked at him. There was a new-born note in +her voice, a tremulous note of joy in the midst of sorrow. It was of her +he was thinking! + +“And you?” she said. “You have come and remained.” + +“She is my mother,” he answered. “God knows it was the least I could +have done.” + +Twice she had changed before our eyes, and now we beheld a new and yet +more startling transformation. When she spoke there was no reproach in +her voice, but triumph. Antoinette undid her veil. + +“Yes, she is your mother,” she answered; “but for many years she has +been my friend. I will go to her. She cannot forbid me now. Hélène has +been with her,” she said, turning to where the Vicomtesse stood watching +her intently. “Hélène has been with her. And shall I, who have longed to +see her these many years, leave her now?” + +“But you were going!” he cried, beside himself with apprehension at this +new turning. “You told me that you were going.” + +Truly, man is born without perception. + +“Yes, I told you that,” she replied almost defiantly. + +“And why were you going?” he demanded. Then I had a sudden desire to +shake him. + +Antoinette was mute. + +“You yourself must find the answer to that question, Mr. Temple,” said +the Vicomtesse, quietly. + +He turned and stared at Hélène, and she seemed to smile. Then as his +eyes went back, irresistibly, to the other, a light that was wonderful +to see dawned and grew in them. I shall never forget him as he stood, +handsome and fearless, a gentleman still, despite his years of wandering +and adventure, and in this supreme moment unselfish. The wilful, +masterful boy had become a man at last. + +He started forward, stopped, trembling with a shock of remembrance, and +gave back again. + +“You cannot come,” he said; “I cannot let you take this risk. Tell her +she cannot come, Madame,” he said to Hélène. “For the love of God send +her home again.” + +But there were forces which even Hélène could not stem. He had turned to +go back, he had seized the door, but Antoinette was before him. Custom +does not weigh at such a time. Had she not read his avowal? She had his +hand in hers, heedless of us who watched. At first he sought to free +himself, but she clung to it with all the strength of her love,--yet she +did not look up at him. + +“I will come with you,” she said in a low voice, “I will come with you, +Nick.” + +How quaintly she spoke his name, and gently, and timidly--ay, and with +a supreme courage. True to him through all those numb years of waiting, +this was a little thing--that they should face death together. A little +thing, and yet the greatest joy that God can bestow upon a good woman. +He looked down at her with a great tenderness, he spoke her name, and I +knew that he had taken her at last into his arms. + +“Come,” he said. + +They went in together, and the doors closed behind them. + +Antoinette’s maid was on the step, and the Vicomtesse and I were alone +once more in the little parlor. I remember well the sense of unreality +I had, and how it troubled me. I remember how what I had seen and heard +was turning, turning in my mind. Nick had come back to Antoinette. They +were together in that room, and Mrs. Temple was dying--dying. No, it +could not be so. Again, I was in the garden at Les Îles on a night that +was all perfume, and I saw the flowers all ghostly white under the moon. +And then, suddenly, I was watching the green candle sputter, and out of +the stillness came a cry--the sereno calling the hour of the night. How +my head throbbed! It was keeping time to some rhythm, I knew not what. +Yes, it was the song my father used to sing:-- + + “I’ve faught on land? I’ve faught at sea, + At hame I’ve faught my aunty, O!” + +But New Orleans was hot, burning hot, and this could not be cold I felt. +Ah, I had it, the water was cold going to Vincennes, so cold! + +A voice called me. No matter where I had gone, I think I would have come +back at the sound of it. I listened intently, that I might lose no word +of what it said. I knew the voice. Had it not called to me many times in +my life before? But now there was fear in it, and fear gave it a vibrant +sweetness, fear gave it a quality that made it mine--mine. + +“You are shivering.” + +That was all it said, and it called from across the sea. And the sea +was cold,--cold and green under the gray light. If she who called to me +would only come with the warmth of her love! The sea faded, the light +fell, and I was in the eternal cold of space between the whirling +worlds. If she could but find me! Was not that her hand in mine? Did I +not feel her near me, touching me? I wondered that I should hear myself +as I answered her. + +“I am not ill,” I said. “Speak to me again.” + +She was pressing my hand now, I saw her bending over me, I felt her hair +as it brushed my face. She spoke again. There was a tremor in her voice, +and to that alone I listened. The words were decisive, of command, +and with them some sense as of a haven near came to me. Another voice +answered in a strange tongue, saying seemingly:-- + +“Oui, Madame--malé couri--bon djé--malé couri!” + +I heard the doors close, and the sound of footsteps running and dying +along the banquette, and after that my shoulders were raised and +something wrapped about them. Then stillness again, the stillness that +comes between waking and sleeping, between pain and calm. And at times +when I felt her hand fall into mine or press against my brow, the pain +seemed more endurable. After that I recall being lifted, being borne +along. I opened my eyes once and saw, above a tile-crowned wall, the +moon all yellow and distorted in the sky. Then a gate clicked, dungeon +blackness, half-light again, ascent, oblivion. + + + +CHAPTER XII. VISIONS, AND AN AWAKENING + + +I have still sharp memories of the tortures of that illness, though it +befell so long ago. At times, when my mind was gone from me, I cried out +I know not what of jargon, of sentiment, of the horrors I had beheld in +my life. I lived again the pleasant scenes, warped and burlesqued almost +beyond cognizance, and the tragedies were magnified a hundred fold. Thus +it would be: on the low, white ceiling five cracks came together, and +that was a device. And the device would take on color, red-bronze like +the sumach in the autumn and streaks of vermilion, and two glowing coals +that were eyes, and above them eagles’ feathers, and the cracks became +bramble bushes. I was behind the log, and at times I started and knew +that it was a hideous dream, and again Polly Ann was clutching me and +praying me to hold back, and I broke from her and splashed over the +slippery limestone bed of the creek to fight single-handed. Through all +the fearful struggle I heard her calling me piteously to come back to +her. When the brute got me under water I could not hear her, but her +voice came back suddenly (as when a door opens) and it was like the wind +singing in the poplars. Was it Polly Ann’s voice? + +Again, I sat with Nick under the trees on the lawn at Temple Bow, and +the world was dark with the coming storm. I knew and he knew that the +storm was brewing that I might be thrust out into it. And then in the +blackness, when the air was filled with all the fair things of the earth +torn asunder, a beautiful woman came through the noise and the fury, and +we ran to her and clung to her skirts, thinking we had found safety. But +she thrust us forth into the blackness with a smile, as though she were +flinging papers out of the window. She, too, grew out of the design in +the cracks of the ceiling, and a greater fear seized me at sight of her +features than when the red face came out of the brambles. + +My constant torment was thirst. I was in the prairie, and it was +scorched and brown to the horizon. I searched and prayed pitifully for +water,--for only a sip of the brown water with the specks in it that +was in the swamp. There were no swamps. I was on the bed in the cabin +looking at the shifts and hunting shirts on the pegs, and Polly Ann +would bring a gourdful of clear water from the spring as far as the +door. Nay, once I got it to my lips, and it was gone. Sometimes a young +man in a hunting shirt, square-shouldered, clear-eyed, his face tanned +and his fair hair bleached by the sun, would bring the water. He was the +hero of my boyhood, and part of him indeed was in me. And I would have +followed him again to Vincennes despite the tortures of the damned. But +when I spoke his name he grew stouter before me, and his eyes lost their +lustre and his hair turned gray; and his hand shook as he held out the +gourd and spilled its contents ere I could reach them. + +Sometimes another brought the water, and at sight of her I would tremble +and grow faint, and I had not the strength to reach for it. She would +look at me with eyes that laughed despite the resolution of the mouth. +Then the eyes would grow pitiful at my helplessness, and she would +murmur my name. There was some reason which I never fathomed why she +could not give me the water, and her own suffering seemed greater than +mine because of it. So great did it seem that I forgot my own and sought +to comfort her. Then she would go away, very slowly, and I would hear +her calling to me in the wind, from the stars to which I looked up from +the prairie. It was she, I thought, who ordered the world. Who, when +women were lost and men cried out in distress, came to them calmly, +ministered to them deftly. + +Once--perhaps a score of times, I cannot tell--was limned on the +ceiling, where the cracks were, her miniature, and I knew what was +coming and shuddered and cried aloud because I could not stop it. I +saw the narrow street of a strange city deep down between high +houses,--houses with gratings on the lowest windows, with studded, +evil-looking doors, with upper stories that toppled over to shut out the +light of the sky, with slated roofs that slanted and twisted this way +and that and dormers peeping from them. Down in the street, instead of +the King’s white soldiers, was a foul, unkempt rabble, creeping out +of its damp places, jesting, cursing, singing. And in the midst of the +rabble a lady sat in a cart high above it unmoved. She was the lady of +the miniature. A window in one of the jutting houses was flung open, +a little man leaned out excitedly, and I knew him too. He was Jean +Baptiste Lenoir, and he cried out in a shrill voice:-- + +“You must take off her ruff, citizens. You must take off her ruff!” + +There came a blessed day when my thirst was gone, when I looked up at +the cracks in the ceiling and wondered why they did not change into +horrors. I watched them a long, long time, and it seemed incredible +that they should still remain cracks. Beyond that I would not go, into +speculation I dared not venture. They remained cracks, and I went to +sleep thanking God. When I awoke a breeze came in cool, fitful gusts, +and on it the scent of camellias. I thought of turning my head, and I +remember wondering for a long time over the expediency of this move. +What would happen if I did! Perhaps the visions would come back, perhaps +my head would come off. Finally I decided to risk it, and the first +thing that I beheld was a palm-leaf fan, moving slowly. That fact gave +me food for thought, and contented me for a while. Then I hit upon +the idea that there must be something behind the fan. I was distinctly +pleased by this astuteness, and I spent more time in speculation. +Whatever it was, it had a tantalizing elusiveness, keeping the fan +between it and me. This was not fair. + +I had an inspiration. If I feigned to be asleep, perhaps the thing +behind the fan would come out. I shut my eyes. The breeze continued +steadily. Surely no human being could fan as long as that without being +tired! I opened my eyes twice, but the thing was inscrutable. Then +I heard a sound that I knew to be a footstep upon boards. A voice +whispered:-- + +“The delirium has left him.” + +Another voice, a man’s voice, answered:-- + +“Thank God! Let me fan him. You are tired.” + +“I am not tired,” answered the first voice. + +“I do not see how you have stood it,” said the man’s voice. “You will +kill yourself, Madame la Vicomtesse. The danger is past now.” + +“I hope so, Mr. Temple,” said the first voice. “Please go away. You may +come back in half an hour.” + +I heard the footsteps retreating. Then I said: “I am not asleep.” + +The fan stopped for a brief instant and then went on vibrating +inexorably. I was entranced at the thought of what I had done. I had +spoken, though indeed it seemed to have had no effect. Could it be +that I hadn’t spoken? I began to be frightened at this, when gradually +something crept into my mind and drove the fear out. I did not grasp +what this was at first, it was like the first staining of wine on the +eastern sky to one who sees a sunrise. And then the thought grew even +as the light grows, tinged by prismatic colors, until at length a +memory struck into my soul like a shaft of light. I spoke her name, +unblushingly, aloud. + +“Hélène!” + +The fan stopped. There was a silence that seemed an eternity as the palm +leaf trembled in her hand, there was an answer that strove tenderly to +command. + +“Hush, you must not talk,” she said. + +Never, I believe, came such supreme happiness with obedience. I felt her +hand upon my brow, and the fan moved again. I fell asleep once more from +sheer weariness of joy. She was there, beside me. She had been there, +beside me, through it all, and it was her touch which had brought me +back to life. + +I dreamed of her. When I awoke again her image was in my mind, and I +let it rest there in contemplation. But presently I thought of the fan, +turned my head, and it was not there. A great fear seized me. I looked +out of the open door where the morning sun threw the checkered shadows +of the honeysuckle on the floor of the gallery, and over the railing to +the tree-tops in the court-yard. The place struck a chord in my memory. +Then my eyes wandered back into the room. There was a polished dresser, +a crucifix and a prie-dieu in the corner, a fauteuil, and another chair +at my bed. The floor was rubbed to an immaculate cleanliness, stained +yellow, and on it lay clean woven mats. The room was empty! + +I cried out, a yellow and red turban shot across the window, and I +beheld in the door the spare countenance of the faithful Lindy. + +“Marse Dave,” she cried, “is you feelin’ well, honey?” + +“Where am I, Lindy?” I asked. + +Lindy, like many of her race, knew well how to assume airs of +importance. Lindy had me down, and she knew it. + +“Marse Dave,” she said, “doan yo’ know better’n dat? Yo’ know yo’ ain’t +ter talk. Lawsy, I reckon I wouldn’t be wuth pizen if she was to hear I +let yo’ talk.” + +Lindy implied that there was tyranny somewhere. + +“She?” I asked, “who’s she?” + +“Now yo’ hush, Marse Dave,” said Lindy, in a shrill whisper, “I ain’t +er-gwine ter git mixed up in no disputation. Ef she was ter hear +me er-disputin’ wid yo’, Marse Dave, I reckon I’d done git such er +tongue-lashin’--” Lindy looked at me suspiciously. “Yo’-er allus was +powe’rful cute, Marse Dave.” + +Lindy set her lips with a mighty resolve to be silent. I heard some one +coming along the gallery, and then I saw Nick’s tall figure looming up +behind her. + +“Davy,” he cried. + +Lindy braced herself up doggedly. + +“Yo’ ain’t er-gwine to git in thar nohow, Marse Nick,” she said. + +“Nonsense, Lindy,” he answered, “I’ve been in there as much as you +have.” And he took hold of her thin arm and pulled her back. + +“Marse Nick!” she cried, terror-stricken, “she’ll done fin’ out dat +you’ve been er-talkin’.” + +“Pish!” said Nick with a fine air, “who’s afraid of her?” + +Lindy’s face took on an expression of intense amusement. + +“Yo’ is, for one, Marse Nick,” she answered, with the familiarity of an +old servant. “I done seed yo’ skedaddle when she comed.” + +“Tut,” said Nick, grandly, “I run from no woman. Eh, Davy?” He pushed +past the protesting Lindy into the room and took my hand. + +“Egad, you have been near the devil’s precipice, my son. A three-bottle +man would have gone over.” In his eyes was all the strange affection +he had had for me ever since we had been boys at Temple Bow together. +“Davy, I reckon life wouldn’t have been worth much if you’d gone.” + +I did not answer. I could only stare at him, mutely grateful for such an +affection. In all his wild life he had been true to me, and he had clung +to me stanchly in this, my greatest peril. Thankful that he was here, +I searched his handsome person with my eyes. He was dressed, as usual, +with care and fashion, in linen breeches and a light gray coat and a +filmy ruffle at his neck. But I thought there had come a change into his +face. The reckless quality seemed to have gone out of it, yet the spirit +and daring remained, and with these all the sweetness that was once in +his smile. There were lines under his eyes that spoke of vigils. + +“You have been sitting up with me,” I said. + +“Of course,” he answered, patting my shoulder. “Of course I have. What +did you think I would be doing?” + +“What was the matter with me?” I asked. + +“Nothing much,” he said lightly, “a touch of the sun, and a great deal +of overwork in behalf of your friends. Now keep still, or I will be +getting peppered.” + +I was silent for a while, turning over this answer in my mind. Then I +said:-- + +“I had yellow fever.” + +He started. + +“It is no use to lie to you,” he replied; “you’re too shrewd.” + +I was silent again for a while. + +“Nick,” I said, “you had no right to stay here. You have--other +responsibilities now.” + +He laughed. It was the old buoyant, boyish laugh of sheer happiness, and +I felt the better for hearing it. + +“If you begin to preach, parson, I’ll go; I vow I’ll have no more +sermonizing. Davy,” he cried, “isn’t she just the dearest, sweetest, +most beautiful person in the world?” + +I smiled. + +“Where is she?” I asked, temporizing. Nick was not a subtle person, and +I was ready to follow him at great length in the praise of Antoinette. +“I hope she is not here.” + +“We made her go to Les Îles,” said he. + +“And you risked your life and stayed here without her?” I said. + +“As for risking life, that kind of criticism doesn’t come well from +you. And as for Antoinette,” he added with a smile, “I expect to see +something of her later on.” + +“Well,” I answered with a sigh of supreme content, “you have been a fool +all your life, and I hope that she will make you sensible.” + +“You never could make me so,” said Nick, “and besides, I don’t think +you’ve been so damned sensible yourself.” + +We were silent again for a space. + +“Davy,” he asked, “do you remember what I said when you had that +miniature here?” + +“You said a great many things, I believe.” + +“I told you to consider carefully the masterful features of that lady, +and to thank God you hadn’t married her. I vow I never thought she’d +turn up. Upon my oath I never thought I should be such a blind slave +as I have been for the last fortnight. Faith, Monsieur de St. Gré is a +strong man, but he was no more than a puppet in his own house when he +came back here for a day. That lady could govern a province,--no, a +kingdom. But I warrant you there would be no climbing of balconies in +her dominions. I have never been so generalled in my life.” + +I had no answer for these comments. + +“The deuce of it is the way she does it,” he continued, plainly bent on +relieving himself. “There’s no noise, no fuss; but you must obey, you +don’t know why. And yet you may flay me if I don’t love her.” + +“Love her!” I repeated. + +“She saved your life,” said Nick; “I don’t believe any other woman could +have done it. She hadn’t any thought of her own. She has been here, in +this room, almost constantly night and day, and she never let you go. +The little French doctor gave you up--not she. She held on. Cursed if I +see why she did it.” + +“Nor I,” I answered. + +“Well,” he said apologetically, “of course I would have done it, but +you weren’t anything to her. Yes, egad, you were something to be +saved,--that was all that was necessary. She had you brought back +here--we are in Monsieur de St. Gré’s house, by the way--in a litter, +and she took command as though she had nursed yellow fever cases all her +life. No flurry. I said that you were in love with her once, Davy, when +I saw you looking at the portrait. I take it back. Of course a man could +be very fond of her,” he said, “but a king ought to have married her. As +for that poor Vicomte she’s tied up to, I reckon I know the reason why +he didn’t come to America. An ordinary man would have no chance at all. +God bless her!” he cried, with a sudden burst of feeling, “I would +die for her myself. She got me out of a barrel of trouble with his +Excellency. She cared for my mother, a lonely outcast, and braved death +herself to go to her when she was dying of the fever. God bless her!” + +Lindy was standing in the doorway. + +“Lan’ sakes, Marse Nick, yo’ gotter go,” she said. + +He rose and pressed my fingers. “I’ll go,” he said, and left me. Lindy +seated herself in the chair. She held in her hand a bowl of beef broth. +From this she fed me in silence, and when she left she commanded me to +sleep informing me that she would be on the gallery within call. + +But I did not sleep at once. Nick’s words had brought back a fact which +my returning consciousness had hitherto ignored. The birds sang in the +court-yard, and when the breeze stirred it was ever laden with a new +scent. I had been snatched from the jaws of death, my life was before +me, but the happiness which had thrilled me was gone, and in my weakness +the weight of the sadness which had come upon me was almost unbearable. +If I had had the strength, I would have risen then and there from my +bed, I would have fled from the city at the first opportunity. As it +was, I lay in a torture of thought, living over again every part of my +life which she had touched. I remembered the first long, yearning look I +had given the miniature at Madame Bouvet’s. I had not loved her then. +My feeling rather had been a mysterious sympathy with and admiration for +this brilliant lady whose sphere was so far removed from mine. This was +sufficiently strange. Again, in the years of my struggle for livelihood +which followed, I dreamed of her; I pictured her often in the midst of +the darkness of the Revolution. Then I had the miniature again, which +had travelled to her, as it were, and come back to me. Even then it was +not love I felt, but an unnamed sentiment for one whom I clothed with +gifts and attributes I admired: constancy, an ability to suffer and +to hide, decision, wit, refuge for the weak, scorn for the false. So I +named them at random and cherished them, knowing that these things were +not what other men longed for in women. Nay, there was another quality +which I believed was there--which I knew was there--a supreme tenderness +that was hidden like a treasure too sacred to be seen. + +I did not seek to explain the mystery which had brought her across the +sea into that little garden of Mrs. Temple’s and into my heart. There +she was now enthroned, deified; that she would always be there I +accepted. That I would never say or do anything not in consonance with +her standards I knew. That I would suffer much I was sure, but the lees +of that suffering I should hoard because they came from her. + +What might have been I tried to put away. There was the moment, I +thought, when our souls had met in the little parlor in the Rue Bourbon. +I should never know. This I knew--that we had labored together to bring +happiness into other lives. + +Then came another thought to appall me. Unmindful of her own safety, +she had nursed me back to life through all the horrors of the fever. The +doctor had despaired, and I knew that by the very force that was in her +she had saved me. She was here now, in this house, and presently she +would be coming back to my bedside. Painfully I turned my face to the +wall in a torment of humiliation--I had called her by her name. I would +see her again, but I knew not whence the strength for that ordeal was to +come. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. A MYSTERY + +I knew by the light that it was evening when I awoke. So prisoners mark +the passing of the days by a bar of sun light. And as I looked at the +green trees in the courtyard, vaguely troubled by I knew not what, some +one came and stood in the doorway. It was Nick. + +“You don’t seem very cheerful,” said he; “a man ought to be who has been +snatched out of the fire.” + +“You seem to be rather too sure of my future,” I said, trying to smile. + +“That’s more like you,” said Nick. “Egad, you ought to be happy--we all +ought to be happy--she’s gone.” + +“She!” I cried. “Who’s gone?” + +“Madame la Vicomtesse,” he replied, rubbing his hands as he stood over +me. “But she’s left instructions with me for Lindy as long as Monsieur +de Carondelet’s Bando de Buen Gobierno. You are not to do this, and you +are not to do that, you are to eat such and such things, you are to be +made to sleep at such and such times. She came in here about an hour ago +and took a long look at you before she left.” + +“She was not ill?” I said faintly. + +“Faith, I don’t know why she was not,” he said. “She has done enough to +tire out an army. But she seems well and fairly happy. She had her joke +at my expense as she went through the court-yard, and she reminded me +that we were to send a report by André every day.” + +Chagrin, depression, relief, bewilderment, all were struggling within +me. + +“Where did she go?” I asked at last. + +“To Les Îles,” he said. “You are to be brought there as soon as you are +strong enough.” + +“Do you happen to know why she went?” I said. + +“Now how the deuce should I know?” he answered. “I’ve done everything +with blind servility since I came into this house. I never asked for any +reason--it never would have done any good. I suppose she thought that +you were well on the road to recovery, and she knew that Lindy was an +old hand. And then the doctor is to come in.” + +“Why didn’t you go?” I demanded, with a sudden remembrance that he was +staying away from happiness. + +“It was because I longed for another taste of liberty, Davy,” he +laughed. “You and I will have an old-fashioned time here together,--a +deal of talk, and perhaps a little piquet,--who knows?” + +My strength came back, bit by bit, and listening to his happiness did +much to ease the soreness of my heart--while the light lasted. It was +in the night watches that my struggles came--though often some unwitting +speech of his would bring back the pain. He took delight in telling me, +for example, how for hours at a time I had been in a fearful delirium. + +“The Lord knows what foolishness you talked, Davy,” said he. “It would +have done me good to hear you had you been in your right mind.” + +“But you did hear me,” I said, full of apprehensions. + +“Some of it,” said he. “You were after Wilkinson once, in a burrow, I +believe, and you swore dreadfully because he got out of the other end. +I can’t remember all the things you said. Oh, yes, once you were talking +to Auguste de St. Gré about money.” + +“Money?” I repeated in a sinking voice. + +“Oh, a lot of jargon. The Vicomtesse pushed me out of the room, and +after that I was never allowed to be there when you had those flights. +Curse the mosquitoes!” He seized a fan and began to ply it vigorously. +“I remember. You were giving Auguste a lecture. Then I had to go.” + +These and other reminiscences gave me sufficient food for reflection, +and many a shudder over the possibilities of my ravings. She had put him +out! No wonder. + +After a while I was carried to the gallery, and there I would talk +to the little doctor about the yellow fever which had swept the city. +Monsieur Perrin was not much of a doctor, to be sure, and he had +a heartier dread of the American invasion than of the scourge. He +worshipped the Vicomtesse, and was so devoid of professional pride as to +give her freely all credit for my recovery. He too, clothed her with the +qualities of statesmanship. + +“Ha, Monsieur,” he said, “if that lady had been King of France, do you +think there would have been any States General, any red bonnets, any +Jacobins or Cordeliers? Parbleu, she would have swept the vicemongers +and traitors out of the Palais Royal itself. There would have been a +house-cleaning there. I, who speak to you, know it.” + +Every day Nick wrote a bulletin to be sent to the Vicomtesse, and he +took a fiendish delight in the composition of these. He would come out +on the gallery with ink and a blank sheet of paper and try to enlist my +help. He would insert the most ridiculous statements, as for instance, +“Davy is worse to-day, having bribed Lindy to give him a pint of Madeira +against my orders.” Or, “Davy feigns to be sinking rapidly because he +wishes to have you back.” Indeed, I was always in a torture of doubt to +know what the rascal had sent. + +His company was most agreeable when he was recounting the many +adventures he had had during the five years after he had left New +Orleans and been lost to me. These would fill a book, and a most +readable book it would be if written in his own speech. His love for the +excitement of the frontier had finally drawn him back to the Cumberland +country near Nashville, and he had actually gone so far as to raise a +house and till some of the land which he had won from Darnley. It +was perhaps characteristic of him that he had named the place +“Rattle-and-Snap” in honor of the game which had put him in possession +of it, and “Rattle-and-Snap” it remains to this day. He was going back +there with Antoinette, so he said, to build a brick mansion and to live +a respectable life the rest of his days. + +There was one question which had been in my mind to ask him, concerning +the attitude of Monsieur de St. Gré. That gentleman, with Madame, had +hurried back from Pointe Coupée at a message from the Vicomtesse, and +had gone first to Les Îles to see Antoinette. Then he had come, in spite +of the fever, to his own house in New Orleans to see Nick himself. What +their talk had been I never knew, for the subject was too painful to be +dwelt upon, and the conversation had been marked by frankness on both +sides. Monsieur de St. Gré was a just man, his love for his daughter was +his chief passion, and despite all that had happened he liked Nick. I +believe he could not wholly blame the younger man, and he forgave him. + +Mrs. Temple, poor lady, had died on that first night of my illness, +and it was her punishment that she had not known her son or her son’s +happiness. Whatever sins she had committed in her wayward life were +atoned for, and by her death I firmly believe that she redeemed him. She +lies now among the Temples in Charleston, and on the stone which marks +her grave is cut no line that hints of the story of these pages. + +One bright morning, when Nick and I were playing cards, we heard some +one mounting the stairs, and to my surprise and embarrassment I beheld +Monsieur de St. Gré emerging on the gallery. He was in white linen and +wore a broad hat, which he took from his head as he advanced. He had +aged somewhat, his hair was a little gray, but otherwise he was the +firm, dignified personage I had admired on this same gallery five years +before. + +“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in English; “ha, do not rise, sir” +(to me). He patted Nick’s shoulder kindly, but not familiarly, as he +passed him, and extended his hand. + +“Mr. Ritchie, it gives me more pleasure than I can express to see you so +much recovered.” + +“I am again thrown on your hospitality, sir,” I said, flushing with +pleasure at this friendliness. For I admired and respected the man +greatly. “And I fear I have been a burden and trouble to you and your +family.” + +He took my hand and pressed it. Characteristically, he did not answer +this, and I remembered he was always careful not to say anything which +might smack of insincerity. + +“I had a glimpse of you some weeks ago,” he said, thus making light of +the risk he had run. “You are a different man now. You may thank your +Scotch blood and your strong constitution.” + +“His good habits have done him some good, after all,” put in my +irrepressible cousin. + +Monsieur de St. Gré smiled. + +“Nick,” he said (he pronounced the name quaintly, like Antoinette), “his +good habits have turned out to be some advantage to you. Mr. Ritchie, +you have a faithful friend at least.” He patted Nick’s shoulder again. +“And he has promised me to settle down.” + +“I have every inducement, sir,” said Nick. + +Monsieur de St. Gré became grave. + +“You have indeed, Monsieur,” he answered. + +“I have just come from Dr. Perrin’s, David,”--he added, “May I call you +so? Well, then, I have just come from Dr. Perrin’s, and he says you +may be moved to Les Îles this very afternoon. Why, upon my word,” he +exclaimed, staring at me, “you don’t look pleased. One would think you +were going to the calabozo.” + +“Ah,” said Nick, slyly, “I know. He has tasted freedom, Monsieur, and +Madame la Vicomtesse will be in command again.” + +I flushed. Nick could be very exasperating. + +“You must not mind him, Monsieur,” I said. + +“I do not mind him,” answered Monsieur de St. Gré, laughing in spite of +himself. “He is a sad rogue. As for Hélène--” + +“I shall not know how to thank the Vicomtesse,” I said. “She has done me +the greatest service one person can do another.” + +“Hélène is a good woman,” answered Monsieur de St. Gré, simply. “She is +more than that, she is a wonderful woman. I remember telling you of her +once. I little thought then that she would ever come to us.” + +He turned to me. “Dr. Perrin will be here this afternoon, David, and he +will have you dressed. Between five and six if all goes well, we shall +start for Les Îles. And in the meantime, gentlemen,” he added with a +stateliness that was natural to him, “I have business which takes me +to-day to my brother-in-law’s, Monsieur de Beauséjour’s.” + +Nick leaned over the gallery and watched meditatively his prospective +father-in-law leaving the court-yard. + +“He got me out of a devilish bad scrape,” he said. + +“How was that?” I asked listlessly. + +“That fat little Baron, the Governor, was for deporting me for running +past the sentry and giving him all the trouble I did. It seems that the +Vicomtesse promised to explain matters in a note which she wrote, and +never did explain. She was here with you, and a lot she cared about +anything else. Lucky that Monsieur de St. Gré came back. Now his +Excellency graciously allows me to stay here, if I behave myself, until +I get married.” + +I do not know how I spent the rest of the day. It passed, somehow. If +I had had the strength then, I believe I should have fled. I was to see +her again, to feel her near me, to hear her voice. During the weeks that +had gone by I had schooled myself, in a sense, to the inevitable. I had +not let my mind dwell upon my visit to Les Îles, and now I was face to +face with the struggle for which I felt I had not the strength. I had +fought one battle,--I knew that a fiercer battle was to come. + +In due time the doctor arrived, and while he prepared me for my +departure, the little man sought, with misplaced kindness, to raise +my spirits. Was not Monsieur going to the country, to a paradise? +Monsieur--so Dr. Perrin had noticed--had a turn for philosophy. Could +two more able and brilliant conversationalists be found than Philippe +de St. Gré and Madame la Vicomtesse? And there was the happiness of that +strange but lovable young man, Monsieur Temple, to contemplate. He was +in luck, ce beau garçon, for he was getting an angel for his wife. Did +Monsieur know that Mademoiselle Antoinette was an angel? + +At last I was ready, arrayed in my best, on the gallery, when Monsieur +de St. Gré came. André and another servant carried me down into the +court, and there stood a painted sedan-chair with the St. Gré arms on +the panels. + +“My father imported it, David,” said Monsieur de St. Gré. “It has not +been used for many years. You are to be carried in it to the levee, and +there I have a boat for you.” + +Overwhelmed by this kindness, I could not find words to thank him as I +got into the chair. My legs were too long for it, I remember. I had a +quaint feeling of unreality as I sank back on the red satin cushions +and was borne out of the gate between the lions. Monsieur de St. Gré and +Nick walked in front, the faithful Lindy followed, and people paused to +stare at us as we passed. We crossed the Place d’Armes, the Royal Road, +gained the willow-bordered promenade on the levee’s crown, and a wide +barge was waiting, manned by six negro oarsmen. They lifted me into its +stern under the awning, the barge was cast off, the oars dipped, and we +were gliding silently past the line of keel boats on the swift current +of the Mississippi. The spars of the shipping were inky black, and the +setting sun had struck a red band across the waters. For a while the +three of us sat gazing at the green shore, each wrapped in his own +reflections,--Philippe de St. Gré thinking, perchance, of the wayward +son he had lost; Nick of the woman who awaited him; and I of one whom +fate had set beyond me. It was Monsieur de St. Gré who broke the silence +at last. + +“You feel no ill effects from your moving, David?” he asked, with an +anxious glance at me. + +“None, sir,” I said. + +“The country air will do you good,” he said kindly. + +“And Madame la Vicomtesse will put him on a diet,” added Nick, rousing +himself. + +“Hélène will take care of him,” answered Monsieur de St. Gré. + +He fell to musing again. “Madame la Vicomtesse has seen more in seven +years than most of us see in a lifetime,” he said. “She has beheld the +glory of France, and the dishonor and pollution of her country. Had the +old order lasted her salon would have been famous, and she would have +been a power in politics.” + +“I have thought that the Vicomtesse must have had a queer marriage,” +Nick remarked. + +Monsieur de St. Gré smiled. + +“Such marriages were the rule amongst our nobility,” he said. “It +was arranged while Hélène was still in the convent, though it was not +celebrated until three years after she had been in the world. There +was a romantic affair, I believe, with a young gentleman of the English +embassy, though I do not know the details. He is said to be the only man +she ever cared for. He was a younger son of an impoverished earl.” + +I started, remembering what the Vicomtesse had said. But Monsieur de St. +Gré did not appear to see my perturbation. + +“Be that as it may, if Hélène suffered, she never gave a sign of it. +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp, and the world could only +conjecture what she thought of the Vicomte. It was deemed on both +sides a brilliant match. He had inherited vast estates, Ivry-le-Tour, +Montméry, Les Saillantes, I know not what else. She was heiress to the +Château de St. Gré with its wide lands, to the château and lands of +the Côte Rouge in Normandy, to the hotel St. Gré in Paris. Monsieur le +Vicomte was between forty and fifty at his marriage, and from what I +have heard of him he had many of the virtues and many of the faults of +his order. He was a bachelor, which does not mean that he had lacked +consolations. He was reserved with his equals, and distant with others. +He had served in the Guards, and did not lack courage. He dressed +exquisitely, was inclined to the Polignac party, took his ease +everywhere, had a knowledge of cards and courts, and little else. He +was cheated by his stewards, refused to believe that the Revolution was +serious, and would undoubtedly have been guillotined had the Vicomtesse +not contrived to get him out of France in spite of himself. They went +first to the Duke de Ligne, at Bel Oeil, and thence to Coblentz. He +accepted a commission in the Austrian service, which is much to his +credit, and Hélène went with some friends to England. There my letter +reached her, and rather than be beholden to strangers or accept my money +there, she came to us. That is her story in brief, Messieurs. As for +Monsieur le Vicomte, he admired his wife, as well he might, respected +her for the way she served the gallants, but he made no pretence of +loving her. One affair--a girl in the village of Montméry--had lasted. +Hélène was destined for higher things than may be found in Louisiana,” + said Monsieur de St. Gré, turning to Nick, “but now that you are to +carry away my treasure, Monsieur, I do not know what I should have done +without her.” + +“And has there been any news of the Vicomte of late?” + +It was Nick who asked the question, after a little. Monsieur de St. Gré +looked at him in surprise. + +“Eh, mon Dieu, have you not heard?” he said. “C’est vrai, you have +been with David. Did not the Vicomtesse mention it? But why should she? +Monsieur le Vicomte died in Vienna. He had lived too well.” + +“The Vicomte is dead?” I said. + +They both looked at me. Indeed, I should not have recognized my own +voice. What my face betrayed, what my feelings were, I cannot say. +My heart beat no faster, there was no tumult in my brain, and yet--my +breath caught strangely. Something grew within me which is beyond the +measure of speech, and so it was meant to be. + +“I did not know this myself until Hélène returned to Les Îles,” Monsieur +de St. Gré was saying to me. “The letter came to her the day after you +were taken ill. It was from the Baron von Seckenbrück, at whose house +the Vicomte died. She took it very calmly, for Hélène is not a woman to +pretend. How much better, after all, if she had married her Englishman +for love! And she is much troubled now because, as she declares, she +is dependent upon my bounty. That is my happiness, my consolation,” the +good man added simply, “and her father, the Marquis, was kind to me when +I was a young provincial and a stranger. God rest his soul!” + +We were drawing near to Les Îles. The rains had come during my illness, +and in the level evening light the forest of the shore was the tender +green of spring. At length we saw the white wooden steps in the levee at +the landing, and near them were three figures waiting. We glided nearer. +One was Madame de St. Gré, another was Antoinette,--these I saw indeed. +The other was Hélène, and it seemed to me that her eyes met mine across +the waters and drew them. Then we were at the landing. I heard Madame de +St. Gré’s voice, and Antoinette’s in welcome--I listened for another. +I saw Nick running up the steps; in the impetuosity of his love he had +seized Antoinette’s hand in his, and she was the color of a red rose. +Creole decorum forbade further advances. André and another lifted +me out, and they gathered around me,--these kind people and devoted +friends,--Antoinette calling me, with exquisite shyness, by name; Madame +de St. Gré giving me a grave but gentle welcome, and asking anxiously +how I stood the journey. Another took my hand, held it for the briefest +space that has been marked out of time, and for that instant I looked +into her eyes. Life flowed back into me, and strength, and a joy not +to be fathomed. I could have walked; but they bore me through the +well-remembered vista, and the white gallery at the end of it was like +the sight of home. The evening air was laden with the scent of the +sweetest of all shrubs and flowers. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. “TO UNPATHED WATERS, UNDREAMED SHORES” + +Monsieur and Madame de St. Gré themselves came with me to my chamber off +the gallery, where everything was prepared for my arrival with the +most loving care,--Monsieur de St. Gré supplying many things from +his wardrobe which I lacked. And when I tried to thank them for their +kindness he laid his hand upon my shoulder. + +“Tenez, mon ami,” he said, “you got your illness by doing things for +other people. It is time other people did something for you.” + +Lindy brought me the daintiest of suppers, and I was left to my +meditations. Nick looked in at the door, and hinted darkly that I had to +thank a certain tyrant for my abandonment. I called to him, but he paid +no heed, and I heard him chuckling as he retreated along the gallery. +The journey, the excitement into which I had been plunged by the news I +had heard, brought on a languor, and I was between sleeping and waking +half the night. I slept to dream of her, of the Vicomte, her husband, +walking in his park or playing cards amidst a brilliant company in a +great candle-lit room like the drawing-room at Temple Bow. Doubt grew, +and sleep left me. She was free now, indeed, but was she any nearer +to me? Hope grew again,--why had she left me in New Orleans? She had +received a letter, and if she had cared she would not have remained. But +there was a detestable argument to fit that likewise, and in the light +of this argument it was most natural that she should return to Les Îles. +And who was I, David Ritchie, a lawyer of the little town of Louisville, +to aspire to the love of such a creature? Was it likely that Hélène, +Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour, would think twice of me? The powers of +the world were making ready to crush the presumptuous France of the +Jacobins, and the France of King and Aristocracy would be restored. +Châteaux and lands would be hers again, and she would go back again to +that brilliant life among the great to which she was born, for which +nature had fitted her. Last of all was the thought of the Englishman +whom I resembled. She would go back to him. + +Nick was the first in my room the next morning. He had risen early (so +he ingenuously informed me) because Antoinette had a habit of getting +up with the birds, and as I drank my coffee he was emphatic in his +denunciations of the customs of the country. + +“It is a wonderful day, Davy,” he cried; “you must hurry and get out. +Monsieur de St. Gré sends his compliments, and wishes to know if you +will pardon his absence this morning. He is going to escort Antoinette +and me over to see some of my prospective cousins, the Bertrands.” He +made a face, and bent nearer to my ear. “I swear to you I have not +had one moment alone with her. We have been for a walk, but Madame la +Vicomtesse must needs intrude herself upon us. Egad, I told her plainly +what I thought of her tyranny.” + +“And what did she say?” I asked, trying to smile. + +“She laughed, and said that I belonged to a young nation which had done +much harm in the world to everybody but themselves. Faith, if I wasn’t +in love with Antoinette, I believe I’d be in love with her.” + +“I have no doubt of it,” I answered. + +“The Vicomtesse is as handsome as a queen this morning,” he continued +paying no heed to this remark. “She has on a linen dress that puzzles +me. It was made to walk among the trees and flowers, it is as simple as +you please; and yet it has a distinction that makes you stare.” + +“You seem to have stared,” I answered. “Since when did you take such +interest in gowns?” + +“Bless you, it was Antoinette. I never should have known,” said he. +“Antoinette had never before seen the gown, and she asked the Vicomtesse +where she got the pattern. The Vicomtesse said that the gown had been +made by Léonard, a court dressmaker, and it was of the fashion the Queen +had set to wear in the gardens of the Trianon when simplicity became the +craze. Antoinette is to have it copied, so she says.” + +Which proved that Antoinette was human, after all, and happy once more. + +“Hang it,” said Nick, “she paid more attention to that gown than to me. +Good-by, Davy. Obey the--the Colonel.” + +“Is--is not the Vicomtesse going with you?” I asked. + +“No, I’m sorry for you,” he called back from the gallery. + +He had need to be, for I fell into as great a fright as ever I had had +in my life. Monsieur de St. Gré knocked at the door and startled me out +of my wits. Hearing that I was awake, he had come in person to make his +excuses for leaving me that morning. + +“Bon Dieu!” he said, looking at me, “the country has done you good +already. Behold a marvel! Au revoir, David.” + +I heard the horses being brought around, and laughter and voices. How +easily I distinguished hers! Then I heard the hoof-beats on the soft +dirt of the drive. Then silence,--the silence of a summer morning which +is all myriad sweet sounds. Then Lindy appeared, starched and turbaned. + +“Marse Dave, how you feel dis mawnin’? Yo’ ‘pears mighty peart, sholy. +Marse Dave, yo’ chair is sot on de gallery. Is you ready? I’ll fotch dat +yaller nigger, André.” + +“You needn’t fetch André,” I said; “I can walk.” + +“Lan sakes, Marse Dave, but you is bumptious.” + +I rose and walked out on the gallery with surprising steadiness. A great +cushioned chair had been placed there, and beside it a table with books, +and another chair. I sat down. Lindy looked at me sharply, but I did not +heed her, and presently she retired. The day, still in its early golden +glory, seemed big with prescience. Above, the saffron haze was lifted, +and there was the blue sky. The breeze held its breath; the fragrance of +grass and fruit and flowers, of the shrub that vied with all, languished +on the air. Out of these things she came. + +I knew that she was coming, but I saw her first at the gallery’s end, +the roses she held red against the white linen of her gown. Then I felt +a great yearning and a great dread. I have seen many of her kind since, +and none reflected so truly as she the life of the old régime. Her +dress, her carriage, her air, all suggested it; and she might, as Nick +said, have been walking in the gardens of the Trianon. Titles I cared +nothing for. Hers alone seemed real, to put her far above me. Had all +who bore them been as worthy, titles would have meant much to mankind. + +She was coming swiftly. I rose to my feet before her. I believe I should +have risen in death. And then she was standing beside me, looking up +into my face. + +“You must not do that,” she said, “or I will go away.” + +I sat down again. She went to the door and called, I following her with +my eyes. Lindy came with a bowl of water. + +“Put it on the table,” said the Vicomtesse. + +Lindy put the bowl on the table, gave us a glance, and departed +silently. The Vicomtesse began to arrange the flowers in the bowl, and +I watched her, fascinated by her movements. She did everything quickly, +deftly, but this matter took an unconscionable time. She did not so much +as glance at me. She seemed to have forgotten my presence. + +“There,” she said at last, giving them a final touch. “You are less +talkative, if anything, than usual this morning, Mr. Ritchie. You have +not said good morning, you have not told me how you were--you have not +even thanked me for the roses. One might almost believe that you are +sorry to come to Les Îles.” + +“One might believe anything who didn’t know, Madame la Vicomtesse.” + +She put her hand to the flowers again. + +“It seems a pity to pick them, even in a good cause,” she said. + +She was so near me that I could have touched her. A weakness seized +me, and speech was farther away than ever. She moved, she sat down and +looked at me, and the kind of mocking smile came into her eyes that I +knew was the forerunner of raillery. + +“There is a statue in the gardens of Versailles which seems always about +to speak, and then to think better of it. You remind me of that statue, +Mr. Ritchie. It is the statue of Wisdom.” + +What did she mean? + +“Wisdom knows the limitations of its own worth, Madame,” I replied. + +“It is the one particular in which I should have thought wisdom was +lacking,” she said. “You have a tongue, if you will deign to use it. Or +shall I read to you?” she added quickly, picking up a book. “I have read +to the Queen, when Madame Campan was tired. Her Majesty, poor dear lady, +did me the honor to say she liked my English.” + +“You have done everything, Madame,” I said. + +“I have read to a Queen, to a King’s sister, but never yet--to a King,” +she said, opening the book and giving me the briefest of glances. “You +are all kings in America are you not? What shall I read?” + +“I would rather have you talk to me.” + +“Very well, I will tell you how the Queen spoke English. No, I will not +do that,” she said, a swift expression of sadness passing over her +face. “I will never mock her again. She was a good sovereign and a brave +woman, and I loved her.” She was silent a moment, and I thought there +was a great weariness in her voice when she spoke again. “I have every +reason to thank God when I think of the terrors I escaped, of the +friends I have found. And yet I am an unhappy woman, Mr. Ritchie.” + +“You are unhappy when you are not doing things for others, Madame,” I +suggested. + +“I am a discontented woman,” she said; “I always have been. And I am +unhappy when I think of all those who were dear to me and whom I loved. +Many are dead, and many are scattered and homeless.” + +“I have often thought of your sorrows, Madame,” I said. + +“Which reminds me that I should not burden you with them, my good +friend, when you are recovering. Do you know that you have been very +near to death?” + +“I know, Madame,” I faltered. “I know that had it not been for you I +should not be alive to-day. I know that you risked your life to save my +own.” + +She did not answer at once, and when I looked at her she was gazing out +over the flowers on the lawn. + +“My life did not matter,” she said. “Let us not talk of that.” + +I might have answered, but I dared not speak for fear of saying what +was in my heart. And while I trembled with the repression of it, she was +changed. She turned her face towards me and smiled a little. + +“If you had obeyed me you would not have been so ill,” she said. + +“Then I am glad that I did not obey you.” + +“Your cousin, the irrepressible Mr. Temple, says I am a tyrant. Come +now, do you think me a tyrant?” + +“He has also said other things of you.” + +“What other things?” + +I blushed at my own boldness. + +“He said that if he were not in love with Antoinette, he would be in +love with you.” + +“A very safe compliment,” said the Vicomtesse. “Indeed, it sounds too +cautious for Mr. Temple. You must have tampered with it, Mr. Ritchie,” +she flashed. “Mr. Temple is a boy. He needs discipline. He will have too +easy a time with Antoinette.” + +“He is not the sort of man you should marry,” I said, and sat amazed at +it. + +She looked at me strangely. + +“No, he is not,” she answered. “He is more or less the sort of man I +have been thrown with all my life. They toil not, neither do they spin. +I know you will not misunderstand me, for I am very fond of him. Mr. +Temple is honest, fearless, lovable, and of good instincts. One cannot +say as much for the rest of his type. They go through life fighting, +gaming, horse-racing, riding to hounds,--I have often thought that it +was no wonder our privileges came to an end. So many of us were steeped +in selfishness and vice, were a burden on the world. The early nobles, +with all their crimes, were men who carved their way. Of such were the +lords of the Marches. We toyed with politics, with simplicity, we wasted +the land, we played cards as our coaches passed through famine-stricken +villages. The reckoning came. Our punishment was not given into the +hands of the bourgeois, who would have dealt justly, but to the scum, +the canaille, the demons of the earth. Had our King, had our nobility, +been men with the old fire, they would not have stood it. They were worn +out with centuries of catering to themselves. Give me a man who will +shape his life and live it with all his strength. I am tired of sham +and pretence, of cynical wit, of mocking at the real things of life, of +pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy. Give me a man whose existence means +something.” + +Was she thinking of the Englishman of whom she had spoken? Delicacy +forbade my asking the question. He had been a man, according to her own +testimony. Where was he now? Her voice had a ring of earnestness in it I +had never heard before, and this arraignment of her own life and of her +old friends surprised me. Now she seemed lost in a revery, from which I +forebore to arouse her. + +“I have often tried to picture your life,” I said at last. + +“You?” she answered, turning her head quickly. “Often?” + +“Ever since I first saw the miniature,” I said. “Monsieur de St. Gré +told me some things, and afterwards I read ‘Le Mariage de Figaro,’ +and some novels, and some memoirs of the old courts which I got in +Philadelphia last winter. I used to think of you as I rode over the +mountains, as I sat reading in my room of an evening. I used to picture +you in the palaces amusing the Queen and making the Cardinals laugh. And +then I used to wonder--what became of you--and whether--” I hesitated, +overwhelmed by a sudden confusion, for she was gazing at me fixedly with +a look I did not understand. + +“You used to think of that?” she said. + +“I never thought to see you,” I answered. + +Laughter came into her eyes, and I knew that I had not vexed her. But I +had spoken stupidly, and I reddened. + +“I had a quick tongue,” she said, as though to cover my confusion. +“I have it yet. In those days misfortune had not curbed it. I had not +learned to be charitable. When I was a child I used to ride with my +father to the hunts at St. Gré, and I was too ready to pick out the +weaknesses of his guests. If one of the company had a trick or a +mannerism, I never failed to catch it. People used to ask me what I +thought of such and such a person, and that was bad for me. I saw their +failings and pretensions, but I ignored my own. It was the same at +Abbaye aux Bois, the convent where I was taught. When I was presented to +her Majesty I saw why people hated her. They did not understand her. She +was a woman with a large heart, with charity. Some did not suspect this, +others forgot it because they beheld a brilliant personage with keen +perceptions who would not submit to being bored. Her Majesty made many +enemies at court of persons who believed she was making fun of them. +There was a dress-maker at the French court called Mademoiselle Bertin, +who became ridiculously pretentious because the Queen allowed the +woman to dress her hair in private. Bertin used to put on airs with the +nobility when they came to order gowns, and she was very rude to me when +I went for my court dress. There was a ball at Versailles the day I was +presented, and my father told me that her Majesty wished to speak with +me. I was very much frightened. The Queen was standing with her back to +the mirror, the Duchesse de Polignac and some other ladies beside her, +when my father brought me up, and her Majesty was smiling. + +“‘What did you say to Bertin, Mademoiselle?’ she asked. + +“I was more frightened than ever, but the remembrance of the woman’s +impudence got the better of me. + +“‘I told her that in dressing your Majesty’s hair she had acquired all +the court accomplishments but one.’ + +“‘I’ll warrant that Bertin was curious,’ said the Queen. + +“‘She was, your Majesty.’ + +“‘What is the accomplishment she lacks?’ the Queen demanded; ‘I should +like to know it myself.’ + +“‘It is discrimination, your Majesty. I told the woman there were some +people she could be rude to with impunity. I was not one of them.’ + +“‘She’ll never be rude to you again, Mademoiselle,’ said the Queen. + +“‘I am sure of it, your Majesty,’ I said. + +“The Queen laughed, and bade the Duchesse de Polignac invite me to +supper that evening. My father was delighted,--I was more frightened +than ever. But the party was small, her Majesty was very gracious and +spoke to me often, and I saw that above all things she liked to be +amused. Poor lady! It was a year after that terrible affair of the +necklace, and she wished to be distracted from thinking of the calumnies +which were being heaped upon her. She used to send for me often during +the years that followed, and I might have had a place at court near +her person. But my father was sensible enough to advise me not to +accept,--if I could refuse without offending her Majesty. The Queen was +not offended; she was good enough to say that I was wise in my request. +She had, indeed, abolished most of the ridiculous etiquette of the +court. She would not eat in public, she would not be followed around the +palace by ladies in court gowns, she would not have her ladies in the +room when she was dressing. If she wished a mirror, she would not wait +for it to be passed through half a dozen hands and handed her by a +Princess of the Blood. Sometimes she used to summon me to amuse her and +walk with me by the water in the beautiful gardens of the Petit Trianon. +I used to imitate the people she disliked. I disliked them, too. I +have seen her laugh until the tears came into her eyes when I talked of +Monsieur Necker. As the dark days drew nearer I loved more and more to +be in the seclusion of the country at Montméry, at the St. Gré of my +girlhood. I can see St. Gré now,” said the Vicomtesse, “the thatched +houses of the little village on either side of the high-road, the +honest, red-faced peasants courtesying in their doorways at our berline, +the brick wall of the park, the iron gates beside the lodge, the long +avenue of poplars, the deer feeding in the beechwood, the bridge over +the shining stream and the long, weather-beaten château beyond it. Paris +and the muttering of the storm were far away. The mornings on the sunny +terrace looking across the valley to the blue hills, the walks in the +village, grew very dear to me. We do not know the value of things, Mr. +Ritchie, until we are about to lose them.” + +“You did not go back to court?” I asked. + +She sighed. + +“Yes, I went back. I thought it my duty. I was at Versailles that +terrible summer when the States General met, when the National Assembly +grew out of it, when the Bastille was stormed, when the King was +throwing away his prerogatives like confetti. Never did the gardens of +the Trianon seem more beautiful, or more sad. Sometimes the Queen would +laugh even then when I mimicked Bailly, Des Moulins, Mirabeau. I +was with her Majesty in the gardens on that dark, rainy day when the +fishwomen came to Versailles. The memory of that night will haunt me as +long as I live. The wind howled, the rain lashed with fury against +the windows, the mob tore through the streets of the town, sacked the +wine-shops, built great fires at the corners. Before the day dawned +again the furies had broken into the palace and murdered what was left +of the Guard. You have heard how they carried off the King and Queen to +Paris--how they bore the heads of the soldiers on their pikes. I saw it +from a window, and I shall never forget it.” + +Her voice faltered, and there were tears on her lashes. Some quality in +her narration brought before me so vividly the scenes of which she spoke +that I started when she had finished. There was much more I would have +known, but I could not press her to speak longer on a subject that gave +her pain. At that moment she seemed more distant to me than ever before. +She rose, went into the house, and left me thinking of the presumptions +of the hopes I had dared to entertain, left me picturing sadly the +existence of which she had spoken. Why had she told me of it? Perchance +she had thought to do me a kindness! + +She came back to me--I had not thought she would. She sat down with her +embroidery in her lap, and for some moments busied herself with it in +silence. Then she said, without looking up:-- + +“I do not know why I have tired you with this, why I have saddened +myself. It is past and gone.” + +“I was not tired, Madame. It is very difficult to live in the present +when the past has been so brilliant,” I answered. + +“So brilliant!” She sighed. “So thoughtless,--I think that is the +sharpest regret.” I watched her fingers as they stitched, wondering how +they could work so rapidly. At last she said in a low voice, “Antoinette +and Mr. Temple have told me something of your life, Mr. Ritchie.” + +I laughed. + +“It has been very humble,” I replied. + +“What I heard was--interesting to me,” she said, turning over her frame. +“Will you not tell me something of it?” + +“Gladly, Madame, if that is the case,” I answered. + +“Well, then,” she said, “why don’t you?” + +“I do not know which part you would like, Madame. Shall I tell you about +Colonel Clark? I do not know when to begin--” + +She dropped her sewing in her lap and looked up at me quickly. + +“I told you that you were a strange man,” she said. “I almost lose +patience with you. No, don’t tell me about Colonel Clark--at least +not until you come to him. Begin at the beginning, at the cabin in the +mountains.” + +“You want the whole of it!” I exclaimed. + +She picked up her embroidery again and bent over it with a smile. + +“Yes, I want the whole of it.” + +So I began at the cabin in the mountains. I cannot say that I ever +forgot she was listening, but I lost myself in the narrative. It +presented to me, for the first time, many aspects that I had not thought +of. For instance, that I should be here now in Louisiana telling it to +one who had been the companion and friend of the Queen of France. Once +in a while the Vicomtesse would look up at me swiftly, when I paused, +and then go on with her work again. I told her of Temple Bow, and how +I had run away; of Polly Ann and Tom, of the Wilderness Trail and how I +shot Cutcheon, of the fight at Crab Orchard, of the life in Kentucky, of +Clark and his campaign. Of my doings since; how I had found Nick and +how he had come to New Orleans with me; of my life as a lawyer in +Louisville, of the conventions I had been to. The morning wore on to +midday, and I told her more than I believed it possible to tell any one. +When at last I had finished a fear grew upon me that I had told her too +much. Her fingers still stitched, her head was bent and I could not see +her face,--only the knot of her hair coiled with an art that struck me +suddenly. Then she spoke, and her voice was very low. + +“I love Polly Ann,” she said; “I should like to know her.” + +“I wish that you could know her,” I answered, quickening. + +She raised her head, and looked at me with an expression that was not a +smile. I could not say what it was, or what it meant. + +“I do not think you are stupid,” she said, in the same tone, “but I do +not believe you know how remarkable your life has been. I can scarcely +realize that you have seen all this, have done all this, have felt all +this. You are a lawyer, a man of affairs, and yet you could guide me +over the hidden paths of half a continent. You know the mountain ranges, +the passes, the rivers, the fords, the forest trails, the towns and the +men who made them!” She picked up her sewing and bent over it once more. +“And yet you did not think that this would interest me.” + +Perchance it was a subtle summons in her voice I heard that bade me open +the flood-gates of my heart,--I know not. I know only that no power on +earth could have held me silent then. + +“Hélène!” I said, and stopped. My heart beat so wildly that I could +hear it. “I do not know why I should dare to think of you, to look up +to you--Hélène, I love you, I shall love you till I die. I love you with +all the strength that is in me, with all my soul. You know it, and if +you did not I could hide it no more. As long as I live there will never +be another woman in the world for me. I love you. You will forgive me +because of the torture I have suffered, because of the pain I shall +suffer when I think of you in the years to come.” + +Her sewing dropped to her lap--to the floor. She looked at me, and +the light which I saw in her eyes flooded my soul with a joy beyond my +belief. I trembled with a wonder that benumbed me. I would have got to +my feet had she not come to me swiftly, that I might not rise. She +stood above me, I lifted up my arms; she bent to me with a movement that +conferred a priceless thing. + +“David,” she said, “could you not tell that I loved you, that you were +he who has been in my mind for so many years, and in my heart since I +saw you?” + +“I could not tell,” I said. “I dared not think it. I--I thought there +was another.” + +She was seated on the arm of my chair. She drew back her head with a +smile trembling on her lips, with a lustre burning in her eyes like a +vigil--a vigil for me. + +“He reminded me of you,” she answered. + +I was lost in sheer, bewildering happiness. And she who created it, who +herself was that happiness, roused me from it. + +“What are you thinking?” she asked. + +“I was thinking that a star has fallen,--that I may have a jewel beyond +other men,” I said. + +“And a star has risen for me,” she said, “that I may have a guide beyond +other women.” + +“Then it is you who have raised it, Hélène.” I was silent a moment, +trying again to bring the matter within my grasp. “Do you mean that you +love me, that you will marry me, that you will come back to Kentucky +with me and will be content,--you, who have been the companion of a +Queen?” + +There came an archness into her look that inflamed me the more. + +“I, who have been the companion of a Queen, love you, will marry you, +will go back to Kentucky with you and be content,” she repeated. “And +yet not I, David, but another woman--a happy woman. You shall be my +refuge, my strength, my guide. You will lead me over the mountains and +through the wilderness by the paths you know. You will bring me to Polly +Ann that I may thank her for the gift of you,--above all other gifts in +the world.” + +I was silent again. + +“Hélène,” I said at last, “will you give me the miniature?” + +“On one condition,” she replied. + +“Yes,” I said, “yes. And again yes. What is it?” + +“That you will obey me--sometimes.” + +“It is a privilege I long for,” I answered. + +“You did not begin with promise,” she said. + +I released her hand, and she drew the ivory from her gown and gave it +me. I kissed it. + +“I will go to Monsieur Isadore’s and get the frame,” I said. + +“When I give you permission,” said Hélène, gently. + +I have written this story for her eyes. + + +CHAPTER XV. AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A MAN + + +Out of the blood and ashes of France a Man had arisen who moved real +kings and queens on his chess-board--which was a large part of the +world. The Man was Napoleon Buonaparte, at present, for lack of a better +name, First Consul of the French Republic. The Man’s eye, sweeping the +world for a new plaything, had rested upon one which had excited the +fancy of lesser adventurers, of one John Law, for instance. It was a +large, unwieldy plaything indeed, and remote. It was nothing less than +that vast and mysterious country which lay beyond the monster yellow +River of the Wilderness, the country bordered on the south by the Gulf +swamps, on the north by no man knew what forests,--as dark as those the +Romans found in Gaul,--on the west by a line which other generations +might be left to settle. + +This land was Louisiana. + +A future king of France, while an émigré, had been to Louisiana. This +is merely an interesting fact worth noting. It was not interesting to +Napoleon. + +Napoleon, by dint of certain screws which he tightened on his Catholic +Majesty, King Charles of Spain, in the Treaty of San Ildefonso on +the 1st of October, 1800, got his plaything. Louisiana was French +again,--whatever French was in those days. The treaty was a profound +secret. But secrets leak out, even the profoundest; and this was wafted +across the English Channel to the ears of Mr. Rufus King, American +Minister at London, who wrote of it to one Thomas Jefferson, President +of the United States. Mr. Jefferson was interested, not to say alarmed. + +Mr. Robert Livingston was about to depart on his mission from the little +Republic of America to the great Republic of France. Mr. Livingston was +told not to make himself disagreeable, but to protest. If Spain was to +give up the plaything, the Youngest Child among the Nations ought to +have it. It lay at her doors, it was necessary for her growth. + +Mr. Livingston arrived in France to find that Louisiana was a mere +pawn on the chess-board, the Republic he represented little more. He +protested, and the great Talleyrand shrugged his shoulders. What was +Monsieur talking about? A treaty. What treaty? A treaty with Spain +ceding back Louisiana to France after forty years. Who said there was +such a treaty? Did Monsieur take snuff? Would Monsieur call again when +the Minister was less busy? + +Monsieur did call again, taking care not to make himself disagreeable. +He was offered snuff. He called again, pleasantly. He was offered snuff. +He called again. The great Talleyrand laughed. He was always so happy to +see Monsieur when he (Talleyrand) was not busy. He would give Monsieur +a certificate of importunity. He had quite forgotten what Monsieur was +talking about on former occasions. Oh, yes, a treaty. Well, suppose +there was such a treaty, what then? + +What then? Mr. Livingston, the agreeable but importunate, went home and +wrote a memorial, and was presently assured that the inaccessible Man +who was called First Consul had read it with interest--great interest. +Mr. Livingston did not cease to indulge in his enjoyable visits to +Talleyrand--not he. But in the intervals he sat down to think. + +What did the inaccessible Man himself have in his mind? + +The Man had been considering the Anglo-Saxon race, and in particular +that portion of it which inhabited the Western Hemisphere. He perceived +that they were a quarrelsome people, which possessed the lust for land +and conquest like the rest of their blood. He saw with astonishment +something that had happened, something that they had done. Unperceived +by the world, in five and twenty years they had swept across a thousand +miles of mountain and forest wilderness in ever increasing thousands, +had beaten the fiercest of savage tribes before them, stolidly unmindful +of their dead. They had come at length to the great yellow River, and +finding it closed had cried aloud in their anger. What was beyond it to +stop them? Spain, with a handful of subjects inherited from the France +of Louis the Fifteenth. + +Could Spain stop them? No. But he, the Man, would stop them. He would +raise up in Louisiana as a monument to himself a daughter of France to +curb their ambition. America should not be all Anglo-Saxon. + +Already the Americans had compelled Spain to open the River. How long +before they would overrun Louisiana itself, until a Frenchman or a +Spaniard could scarce be found in the land? + +Sadly, in accordance with the treaty which Monsieur Talleyrand had known +nothing about, his Catholic Majesty instructed his Intendant at New +Orleans to make ready to deliver Louisiana to the French Commission. +That was in July, 1802. This was not exactly an order to close the River +again--in fact, his Majesty said nothing about closing the River. Mark +the reasoning of the Spanish mind. The Intendant closed the River as his +plain duty. And Kentucky and Tennessee, wayward, belligerent infants who +had outgrown their swaddling clothes, were heard from again. The Nation +had learned to listen to them. The Nation was very angry. Mr. Hamilton +and the Federalists and many others would have gone to war and seized +the Floridas. + +Mr. Jefferson said, “Wait and see what his Catholic Majesty has to +say.” Mr. Jefferson was a man of great wisdom, albeit he had mistaken +Jacobinism for something else when he was younger. And he knew that +Napoleon could not play chess in the wind. The wind was rising. + +Mr. Livingston was a patriot, able, importunate, but getting on in years +and a little hard of hearing. Importunity without an Army and a Navy +behind it is not effective--especially when there is no wind. But +Mr. Jefferson heard the wind rising, and he sent Mr. Monroe to Mr. +Livingston’s aid. Mr. Monroe was young, witty, lively, popular with +people he met. He, too, heard the wind rising, and so now did Mr. +Livingston. + +The ships containing the advance guard of the colonists destined for +the new Louisiana lay in the roads at Dunkirk, their anchors ready +to weigh,--three thousand men, three thousand horses, for the Man did +things on a large scale. The anchors were not weighed. + +His Catholic Majesty sent word from Spain to Mr. Jefferson that he was +sorry his Intendant had been so foolish. The River was opened again. + +The Treaty of Amiens was a poor wind-shield. It blew down, and the +chessmen began to totter. One George of England, noted for his frugal +table and his quarrelsome disposition, who had previously fought with +France, began to call the Man names. The Man called George names, and +sat down to think quickly. George could not be said to be on the best of +terms with his American relations, but the Anglo-Saxon is unsentimental, +phlegmatic, setting money and trade and lands above ideals. George meant +to go to war again. Napoleon also meant to go to war again. But +George meant to go to war again right away, which was inconvenient and +inconsiderate, for Napoleon had not finished his game of chess. The +obvious outcome of the situation was that George with his Navy would +get Louisiana, or else help his relations to get it. In either case +Louisiana would become Anglo-Saxon. + +This was the wind which Mr. Jefferson had heard. + +The Man, being a genius who let go gracefully when he had to, decided +between two bad bargains. He would sell Louisiana to the Americans as +a favor; they would be very, very grateful, and they would go on hating +George. Moreover, he would have all the more money with which to fight +George. + +The inaccessible Man suddenly became accessible. Nay, he became +gracious, smiling, full of loving-kindness, charitable. Certain +dickerings followed by a bargain passed between the American Minister +and Monsieur Barbé-Marbois. Then Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe dined +with the hitherto inaccessible. And the Man, after the manner of +Continental Personages, asked questions. Frederick the Great has started +this fashion, and many have imitated it. + +Louisiana became American at last. Whether by destiny or chance, whether +by the wisdom of Jefferson or the necessity of Napoleon, who can say? It +seems to me, David Ritchie, writing many years after the closing words +of the last chapter were penned, that it was ours inevitably. For I have +seen and known and loved the people with all their crudities and faults, +whose inheritance it was by right of toil and suffering and blood. + +And I, David Ritchie, saw the flags of three nations waving over it in +the space of two days. And it came to pass in this wise. + +Rumors of these things which I have told above had filled Kentucky from +time to time, and in November of 1803 there came across the mountains +the news that the Senate of the United States had ratified the treaty +between our ministers and Napoleon. + +I will not mention here what my life had become, what my fortune, save +to say that both had been far beyond my expectations. In worldly goods +and honors, in the respect and esteem of my fellow-men, I had been happy +indeed. But I had been blessed above other men by one whose power it was +to lift me above the mean and sordid things of this world. + +Many times in the pursuit of my affairs I journeyed over that country +which I had known when it belonged to the Indian and the deer and the +elk and the wolf and the buffalo. Often did she ride by my side, +making light of the hardships which, indeed, were no hardships to her, +wondering at the settlements which had sprung up like magic in +the wilderness, which were the heralds of the greatness of the +Republic,--her country now. + +So, in the bright and boisterous March weather of the year 1804, we +found ourselves riding together along the way made memorable by the +footsteps of Clark and his backwoodsmen. For I had an errand in St. +Louis with Colonel Chouteau. A subtle change had come upon Kaskaskia +with the new blood which was flowing into it: we passed Cahokia, full +of memories to the drummer boy whom she loved. There was the church, the +garrison, the stream, and the little house where my Colonel and I had +lived together. She must see them all, she must hear the story from my +lips again; and the telling of it to her gave it a new fire and a new +life. + +At evening, when the March wind had torn the cotton clouds to shreds, +we stood on the Mississippi’s bank, gazing at the western shore, at +Louisiana. The low, forest-clad hills made a black band against the sky, +and above the band hung the sun, a red ball. He was setting, and man +might look upon his face without fear. The sight of the waters of that +river stirred me to think of many things. What had God in store for the +vast land out of which the waters flowed? Had He, indeed, saved it for a +People, a People to be drawn from all nations, from all classes? Was +the principle of the Republic to prevail and spread and change the +complexion of the world? Or were the lusts of greed and power to +increase until in the end they had swallowed the leaven? Who could say? +What man of those who, soberly, had put his hand to the Paper which +declared the opportunities of generations to come, could measure the +Force which he had helped to set in motion. + +We crossed the river to the village where I had been so kindly received +many years ago--to St. Louis. The place was little changed. The wind was +stilled, the blue wood smoke curled lazily from the wide stone chimneys +of the houses nestling against the hill. The afterglow was fading into +night; lights twinkled in the windows. Followed by our servants we +climbed the bank, Hélène and I, and walked the quiet streets bordered +by palings. The evening was chill. We passed a bright cabaret from which +came the sound of many voices; in the blacksmith’s shop another group +was gathered, and we saw faces eager in the red light. They were talking +of the Cession. + +We passed that place where Nick had stopped Suzanne in the cart, and +laughed at the remembrance. We came to Monsieur Gratiot’s, for he had +bidden us to stay with him. And with Madame he gave us a welcome to warm +our hearts after our journey. + +“David,” he said, “I have seen many strange things happen in my life, +but the strangest of all is that Clark’s drummer boy should have married +a Vicomtesse of the old régime.” + +And she was ever Madame la Vicomtesse to our good friends in St. Louis, +for she was a woman to whom a title came as by nature’s right. + +“And you are about to behold another strange thing, David,” Monsieur +Gratiot continued. “To-day you are on French territory.” + +“French territory!” I exclaimed. + +“To-day Upper Louisiana is French,” he answered. “To-morrow it will be +American forever. This morning Captain Stoddard of the United States +Army, empowered to act as a Commissioner of the French Republic, arrived +with Captain Lewis and a guard of American troops. Today, at noon, the +flag of Spain was lowered from the staff at the headquarters. To-night +a guard of honor watches with the French Tricolor, and we are French for +the last time. To-morrow we shall be Americans.” + +I saw that simple ceremony. The little company of soldiers was drawn up +before the low stone headquarters, the villagers with heads uncovered +gathered round about. I saw the Stars and Stripes rising, the Tricolor +setting. They met midway on the staff, hung together for a space, and +a salute to the two nations echoed among the hills across the waters of +the great River that rolled impassive by. + + + +AFTERWORD + +This book has been named “The Crossing” because I have tried to express +in it the beginnings of that great movement across the mountains which +swept resistless over the Continent until at last it saw the Pacific +itself. The Crossing was the first instinctive reaching out of an infant +nation which was one day to become a giant. No annals in the world’s +history are more wonderful than the story of the conquest of Kentucky +and Tennessee by the pioneers. + +This name, “The Crossing,” is likewise typical in another sense. The +political faith of our forefathers, of which the Constitution is the +creed, was made to fit a more or less homogeneous body of people who +proved that they knew the meaning of the word “Liberty.” By Liberty, +our forefathers meant the Duty as well as the Right of man to govern +himself. The Constitution amply attests the greatness of its authors, +but it was a compromise. It was an attempt to satisfy thirteen +colonies, each of which clung tenaciously to its identity. It suited the +eighteenth-century conditions of a little English-speaking confederacy +along the seaboard, far removed from the world’s strife and jealousy. It +scarcely contemplated that the harassed millions of Europe would flock +to its fold, and it did not foresee that, in less than a hundred years, +its own citizens would sweep across the three thousand miles of forest +and plain and mountain to the Western Ocean, absorb French and Spanish +Louisiana, Spanish Texas, Mexico, and California, fill this land +with broad farmsteads and populous cities, cover it with a network of +railroads. + +Would the Constitution, made to meet the needs of the little confederacy +of the seaboard, stretch over a Continent and an Empire? + +We are fighting out that question to-day. But The Crossing was in Daniel +Boone’s time, in George Rogers Clark’s. Would the Constitution stand the +strain? And will it stand the strain now that the once remote haven of +the oppressed has become a world-power? + +It was a difficult task in a novel to gather the elements necessary to +picture this movement: the territory was vast, the types bewildering. +The lonely mountain cabin; the seigniorial life of the tide-water; the +foothills and mountains which the Scotch-Irish have marked for their own +to this day; the Wilderness Trail; the wonderland of Kentucky, and the +cruel fighting in the border forts there against the most relentless of +foes; George Rogers Clark and his momentous campaign which gave to the +Republic Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; the transition period--the +coming of the settler after the pioneer; Louisiana, St. Louis, and New +Orleans,--to cover this ground, to picture the passions and politics +of the time, to bring the counter influence of the French Revolution +as near as possible to reality, has been a three years’ task. The +autobiography of David Ritchie is as near as I can get to its solution, +and I have a great sense of its incompleteness. + +I had hoped when I planned the series to bring down this novel through +the stirring period which ended, by a chance, when a steamboat brought +supplies to Jackson’s army in New Orleans--the beginning of the era of +steam commerce on our Western waters. This work will have to be reserved +for a future time. + +I have tried to give a true history of Clark’s campaign as seen by an +eyewitness, trammelled as little as possible by romance. Elsewhere, as +I look back through these pages, I feel as though the soil had only been +scraped. What principality in the world has the story to rival that of +John Sevier and the State of Franklin? I have tried to tell the truth as +I went along. General Jackson was a boy at the Waxhaws and dug his toes +in the red mud. He was a man at Jonesboro, and tradition says that he +fought with a fence-rail. Sevier was captured as narrated. Monsieur +Gratiot, Monsieur Vigo, and Father Gibault lost the money which they +gave to Clark and their country. Monsieur Vigo actually travelled in +the state which Davy describes when he went down the river with him. +Monsieur Gratiot and Colonel Auguste Chouteau and Madame Chouteau are +names so well known in St. Louis that it is superfluous to say that such +persons existed and were the foremost citizens of the community. + +Among the many to whom my apologies and thanks are due is Mr. Pierre +Chouteau of St. Louis, whose unremitting labors have preserved and +perpetuated the history and traditions of the country of his ancestors. +I would that I had been better able to picture the character, the +courage, the ability, and patriotism of the French who settled +Louisiana. The Republic owes them much, and their descendants are to-day +among the stanchest preservers of her ideals. + +WINSTON CHURCHILL. +Boston, April 18, 1904 + + + +Transcriber Notes + +Welcome to the Project Gutenberg edition of The Crossing by Winston +Churchill. We have used the original publication of this book, the 1904 +MacMillan edition, as the source for our transcription. On a few +occasions changes were made to correct obvious errors. + +Differences between the text and e-book are explained here. A few items +that may be errors are listed below, but we did not correct an error +unless it was an obvious one. Sometimes, a word had been hyphenated in +the book to split across two lines for even spacing, thus forcing the +transcriber to make a choice. Some of those decisions are listed below. + +Page 54: Changed a double quote nested inside of a double quote to use +single quotes. “Behold, I ... affliction.” became ‘Behold, I ... +affliction.’ +Page 82: Journeycakes is spelled without a hyphen here, but the +journey-cakes of Page 94 and Page 95 had a hyphen. There were four +occurrences of “journey-cake” and “journey-cakes” and no other +occurrences of the word spelled without a hyphen. The inconsistency was +retained. +Page 147: The repeating “at all at all” looks like a typo, but Churchill +also used “at all, at all” on Page 222. No changes were made. +Page 150: grog-shop was hyphenated between two lines, so could be +transcribed as “grog-shop” or “grogshop”. With no other examples in the +novel, we went with the latter usage— no hyphen. +Page 152: The word “three-score,” split across two lines with a hyphen, +could be transcribed as “threescore” or “three-score.” Two lines after +that word, a sentence began “Threescore years!” The word was hyphenated +for spacing and not transcribed with a hyphen. +Page 310: Add quotation-mark after Mr. Temple: "Good-by, Mr. Temple," +she said… +Page 317: Hell-fire was split between two lines for spacing purposes. +The decision to retain the hyphen in the transcription is traced to a +prior use of the word in this novel. On Page 40, hell-fire was spelled +with a hyphen, and the word was in the middle of a line. +On Page 321 and Page 322, changed double quotes nested inside of double +quotes to single quotes. For example, “Ay, ay!” became ‘Ay, ay!’ +Page 338: Place period after all the tribes. +Page 375: Remove comma after tinkle of a guitar. +Page 385: Was Mounsier de Saint-Gré at home? This question should end in +a question mark but the author put a period there—and so did we. +Page 426: Ignored hyphen in black forest-swamp. In print, the hyphen +occurred at the end of a line. However, the novel writes “forest swamp” +on Page 51 and “forest swamps” on Page 216--and never uses +“forest-swamp.” This inconsistency was assumed to be a publisher's +mistake in typesetting. +Page 448: “fianancier” may be dialect, but in other quotes of characters +it is spelled “financier.” See Page 192, Page 250, and Page 283. No +change was made. +Page 494: The verse following Caroline is printed to sheet music in the +book. +Page 588: The preposition “to” is missing from the following phrase: +“she drew the ivory from her gown and gave it me.” “Gave it to me” +sounds better. Nevertheless, the sentence was written without the to, +and it remains as the author wrote it in the e-book. + +Some inconsistencies were highlighted above, but there also were +instances where New Orléans was given an acute accent, but more often +so, it was not. The same occurred with Miró. Another inconsistency was +the author italicizing banquette and piastre as part of his rule of +italicizing foreign words, but failing to do so all the time. We +retained these inconsistencies in transcribing the book. + +There were some cases where it was difficult to distinguish whether +there was or was not a space before 'll. The contraction 'll was not +spaced for common contractions, such as I'll, he'll, they'll. However, +there was a space for “Breed 'll”, “what 'll”, “M'lisse 'll”, and other +uncommon contractions formed with 'll. Sometimes, with line compression +to justify the text, it is difficult to tell whether there should, or +should not, be a space between the two parts of the uncommon +contraction. In those cases where it was difficult to tell, we applied +the convention as stated above. + +Two confusing passages to transcribe are Davy's narration on Page 284 +and Page 285 and Hélène's narration on Page 583. Other paragraphs +contain quotes embedded within quotes. We changed double quotes nested +inside of double quotes to single quotes because our error-checking +utilities flag the second double quote as an error. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crossing, by Winston Churchill + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROSSING *** + +***** This file should be named 388-0.txt or 388-0.zip ***** + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/388/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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