Complete weird tales of.., p.1145
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1145
“Have done!” said I impatiently. “I am of the soil! I love it! I love plowed land and corn and the smell of stables! I love my log house and my glebe and the smell of English grass!”
“But a servant is a servant, John Drogue, and the mistress of your roof shall have walked in silk before she ever puts on homespun and pattens for love of you! Lord, man! I am I, and you are you! And we mate not with the same breed o’ birds. No! For mine shall be a ground-chick of sober hue and feather; and your sweetheart shall have bright wings and own the air for a home.
“That is already written: ‘each after its kind.’ So God send you your rainbow lady from the clouds, and give you a pretty heir in due event; and as for me, if I guess right, my mate to be hath never fluttered higher than her garret nor worn a shred of silk till she sews her wedding dress!”
* * *
On the last day of March maple sap ran.
Nick and I set out that day to seek a sugar-bush for the new mistress of Summer House.
Snow was soft and our snow-shoes scarce bore us, but we floundered along the hard woods, and presently discovered a grove of stately maples.
All that day we were busy in the barn making buckets out o’ staves stored there; and on the first day of April we waded the softening snow to the new sugar-bush, tapped the trees, set our spouts and buckets, and also drew thither a kettle and dry wood against future need.
I remember that the day was clear and warm, where, in the sun, the barn doors stood open and the chickens ventured out to scratch about, where the sun had melted the snow.
All day long our cock was a-crowing and a-courting; the south wind came warm with spring and fluttered the wash which Penelope was hanging out to dry and whiten under soft, blue skies.
In pattens she tripped about the slushy yard, her thick, bright hair pegged loosely, and her child’s bosom and arms as white as the snow she stepped on.
Save only for my Saguenay, who stood on the veranda roof, resting upon his rifle, the scene was sweet and peaceful. Sheep bleated in yard and fold; cattle lowed in their manger; our cock’s full-throated challenge rang out under sunny skies; and everywhere the blue air was murmurous with the voice of rills running from the melting snows like mountain brooks.
On Vlaie Water the ice rotted awash; and already black crows were walking there, and I could see them busily searching the dead and yellow sedge, from where I sat hooping my sap-buckets and softly whistling to myself.
Nick made a snowball and flung it at me, but I dodged it. Then Penelope made another and aimed it at me so truly that the soft lump covered my cap and shoulders with snow.
But her quick peal of laughter was checked when I sprang up to chasten her, and she fled on her pattens, but I caught her around the corner of the house under the lilacs.
“You should be trussed up and trounced like any child,” said I, holding her with one hand whilst I scraped out snow from my neck with t’other.
At that she bent and flung a handful of snow over me; and I seized her, bent her back, and scrubbed her face till it was pink.
Choked with snow and laughter, we swayed together, breathless, she still defiant and snatching up snow to fling over me.
“You truss me up!” she panted. “Do you think you are more than a boy to use me as a father or a husband only has the right?”
“You little minx!” said I, when I had spat out a mouthful of snow, “is not anyone free to trounce a child! — —”
At that I slipped, or she tripped me; into a drift I went, and she pounced on me and sat astride with a cry of triumph.
“Now,” says she, “I shall take your scalp, my fine friend”; and twisted one hand in my hair.
“Hiu-u! Kou-ee!” she cried, “a scalp taken means war to the end! Do you cry me mercy, John Drogue?”
I struggled, but the snow was soft and I sank the deeper, and could not unseat her.
“I drown in snow,” said I. “Get up, you jade!”
“Jade!” cries she, and stopped my mouth with snow.
I struggled in vain; under her clinging weight the soft snow engulfed and held me like a very quicksand. I looked up at her and she laughed down at me.
“Do you yield you, John Drogue?”
“It seems I must. But wait! — —”
“You threaten!”
“No! Do you mean to drown me, you vixen!”
“You engage not to seek revenge?”
“I do so.”
“Why? Because you love me tenderly?”
“Yes,” said I, half choked. “Let me up, you plague of Egypt!”
“That is not a loving speech, John Drogue. Do you love me or no?”
“Yes, I do, — you little, — —”
“Little what?”
“Object of my heart’s desire!” I fairly yelled. “I am like to smother here! — —”
“This is All Fools’ Day,” says she, sick with laughter to see me mad and at her mercy. “Therefore, you must tell me lies, not truths. Tell me a pretty lie, — quickly! — else I scrub your features!”
After a helpless heave or two I lay still.
“You say you love me tenderly. That is a lie, John Drogue — it being All Fools’ Day. So you shall vow, instead, that you hate me. Come, then!”
“I hate you!” said I, licking the snow from my lips.
“Passionately?”
I looked up at her where deep in the snow, under the lilacs, I lay, my arms spread and her two hands pinning my wrists. She was flushed with laughter and I saw the devils o’ mischief watching me deep in her dark eyes.
“It was under these lilacs,” said I, “that I had my first hurt of you. You should heal that hurt now.”
That confused her, and she blushed and swore to punish me for that fling; but I grinned at her.
“Come,” said I, “heal me of my ancient wound as you dealt it me — with your lips!”
“I did not kiss Steve Watts!”
“But he kissed you. So do the like by me and I forgive you all.”
“All?”
“Everything.”
“Even what I have now done?”
“Even that.”
“And you will not truss me up to chasten me when you go free? For it would shame me and I could not endure it.”
“I promise.”
She looked down at me, smiling, uncertain.
“What will you do to me if I do not?” she asked.
“Drown you in snow three times every day.”
“And I needs must kiss you to buy my safety?”
“Yes, and with hearty good will, too.”
She glanced hastily around, perhaps to seek an avenue for escape, perhaps to see who might spy us.
Then, looking down at me, a-blush now, yet laughing, she bent her head slowly, very slowly to mine, and rested her lips on mine.
Then she was up and off like a young tree-lynx, fleeing, stumbling on her pattens; but, like a white hare, I lay very still in my form, unstirring, gazing up into the bluest, softest sky that my dazzled eyes ever had unclosed upon.
There was a faint fragrance in the air. It may have been arbutus — or the trace of her lips on mine.
In my ears trilled the pretty melody of a million little snow rills running in the sunshine. I heard the gay cock-crow from the yard, the restless lowing of cattle, the distant caw of a crow flying high over the Drowned Lands.
When at last I got to my feet a strange, new soberness had come over me, stilling exhilaration, quieting the rough and boyish spirits which had possessed me.
Penelope, hanging out linen to sweeten, looked at me over her shoulder, plainly uncertain concerning me. But I kept my word and did not offer to molest her, and so went about my cooper’s work again, where Nick also squatted, matching bucket staves, whilst I fell to shaping sap-pans.
It was very still there in the sunshine. And, as I sat there, it seemed to me that I was putting more behind me than the icy and unsullied months of winter, — and that I should never be a boy any more, with a boy’s passionless and untroubled soul.
* * *
And so came spring upon us in the Northland that fateful year of ‘77, with blue skies and melting snow and the cock’s clarion sounding clear.
But it was mid-April before the first Forest Runner, with pelts, passed through the Sacandaga, twelve days out from Ty, and the woods nigh impassable, he gave account, what with soft drifts choking the hills and all streams over their banks.
And then, for the first, we learned something concerning the great war that was waging everywhere around our outer borders, — how His Excellency had surprised the Hessians at Trenton, and had tricked Cornwallis and beat up the enemy at Princeton. It was amazing to realize that His Excellency, with only the frozen fragments of a meagre and defeated army, had recovered all the Jerseys. But this was so, thank God; and we wondered to hear of it.
All this the Forest Runner told us as he ate and drank in the kitchen, — and how Lord Stirling had been made a major-general, and that we had now enlisted four fine regiments of horse to curb DeLancy’s bold riders; and how that great Tory, John Penn, who was lately Governor of Pennsylvania, Thomas Wharton, and Benjamin Chew, had been packed off with other villains as prisoners into Virginia. Which pleased me, because of all that Quaker treachery in the proprietary; and I deemed them mean and selfish and self-righteous dogs who whined all day of peace and brotherhood and non-resistance, and did conduct most cruelly by night for greed and sordid gain.
Not that I liked the New Englanders the better; but, of the two, preferred them and had rather they settled the Pennsylvania wilds than that the sly, smug proprietaries multiplied there and nursed treason at the breast.
Well, our Coureur-du-Bois, in his greasy leather, quills, and scarlet braid, had other news for us less palatable.
For it seemed that we had lost two thousand men and all their artillery when Fort Washington fell; that we had lost a hundred more men and eleven vessels to Sir Guy Carleton on Lake Champlain; that the garrison at Ty was a slim one and sick for the most, and the relief regiments were so slow in filling that three New England states were drafting their soldiery by force.
There were rumours rife concerning the summer campaign, and how the British had a plan to behead our new United States by lopping off all New England.
It was to be done in this manner: Guy Carleton’s army was to come down from the North through the lakes, driving Gates, descend the Hudson to Albany and there join Clinton and his British, who were to force the Highlands, march up the river, and so hold all the Hudson, which would cut the head — New England — from the body of the new nation.
And to make this more certain, there was now gathering in the West an army under Butler and Brant, to strike the Mohawk Valley, sweep through it to Schenectady, and there come in touch with Burgoyne.
To oppose this terrible invasion from three directions we had forts on the Hudson and a few troops; but His Excellency was engaged south of these points and must remain there.
We had, at Ty, a skeleton army, and Gates to lead it, with which to face Burgoyne. We had, in the Mohawk Valley, to block the west and show a bold front to Brant and Butler, only fragments of Van Schaick’s and Livingston’s Continental line, now digging breastworks at Stanwix, a company at Johnstown, and at a crisis, our Tryon County militia, now drilling under Herkimer.
And, save for a handful of Rangers and Oneidas, these were all we had in Tryon to resist the hordes that were gathering to march on us from north, west and south, — British regulars with horse, foot, and magnificent artillery; partizans and loyalists numbering 1200; a thousand savages in their paint; Highlanders, Canadians, Hessians; Sir John Johnson’s regiment of Royal Greens; Colonel John Butler’s regiment of Rangers; McDonald’s renegades and painted Tories — God! what a murderous horde; and all to make their common tryst here in County Tryon!
Our grim, lank Forest Runner sprawled on the settle by the kitchen table, smoking his bitter Indian tobacco and drinking rum and water, well sugared; and Penelope and Nick and I sat around him to listen, and look gravely at one another as we learned more and more of what it seemed that Fate had in storage for us.
The hot spiced rum loosened the Runner’s tongue. His name was Dick Jessup; and he was a hard, grim man whose business, from youth — which was peltry — had led him through perilous ways.
He told us of wild and horrid doings, where solitary settlers and lone trappers had been murdered by Guy Carleton’s outlying Iroquois, from Quebec to Crown Point.
Scores and scores of scalps had been taken; wretched prisoners had suffered at the Iroquois stake under tortures indescribable — the mere mention of which made Penelope turn sickly white and set Nick gnawing his knuckles.
But what most infuriated me was the thought that in the regiments of old John Butler and Sir John Johnson were scores of my old neighbors who now boasted that they were coming back to cut our throats on our own thresholds, — coming back with a thousand savages to murder women and children and ravage all with fire so that only a blackened desert should remain of the valleys and the humble homes we had made and loved.
Jessup said, puffing the acrid willow smoke from his clay: “Where I lay hidden near Oneida Lake, I saw a Seneca war party pass on the crust; and they had fresh scalps which dripped on the snow.
“And, near Niagara, I saw Butler’s Rangers manœuvring on snow-shoes, with drums and curly bugle-horns.”
“Did you know any among them?” I asked sombrely.
“Why, yes. There was Michael Reed, kin to Henry Stoner.”
“My cousin, damn him!” quoth Nick, calmly.
“He was a drummer in the Rangers of John Butler,” nodded Jessup. “And I saw Philip Helmer there in a green uniform, and Charles Cady, too, of Fonda’s Bush.”
“All I ask,” says Nick, “is to get these two hands on them. I demand no weapons; I want only to feel my fingers closing on them.” He sat staring into space with the blank glare of a panther. Then, “Were they painted?” he demanded.
“No,” said Jessup, “but Simon Girty was and Newberry, too. There were a dozen painted Tories or blue-eyed Indians, — whatever you call ‘em, — and they sat at a Seneca fire where the red post stood, and all eating half-raw venison, guts and all — —”
Penelope averted her pallid face and leaned her head on her hand.
Jessup took no notice: “They burned a prisoner that day. I was sick, where I lay hidden, to hear his shrieks. And the British in their cantonments could hear as plainly as I, yet nobody interfered.”
“There could have been no British officer there,” said Penelope, in the ghost of a voice.
“Well, there were, then,” said Jessup bluntly. Turning to me he added: “There’s a gin’rall there at Niagara, called St. Leger, and he’s a drunken son of a slut! We should not be afeard of that puffed up bladder, and I hope he comes against us. But Butler has some smart officers, like his son Walter, and Lieutenant Hare, and young Stephen Watts — —”
“You saw him there!” exclaimed Penelope.
“Yes, I saw him in a green uniform; and, with him also, a-horse, rode Sir John Johnson, all in red, and Walter Butler in black and green, and his long cloak a-trail to his spurs. By God, there is a motley crew for you — what with Brant in the saddle, in paint and buckskins and fur robe, and shaved like any dirty Mohawk; and Hiakatoo, like a blackened devil out o’ hell, all barred with scarlet and wearing the head of a great wolf for a cap, as well as the pelt to cover his war-paint! — and McDonald, with his kilt and dirk, and the damned black eyes of him and the two buck-teeth shining on his lips! — God!” he breathed; and took a long pull at his pannikin of spiced rum.
* * *
That evening Jessup left for Johnstown on his way to Albany with his peltry; and took with him a letter which I wrote to the Commandant at Johnstown fort.
But it was past the first of May before I had any notice taken of my letter; and on a Sunday came an Oneida runner, bearing two letters for me; one from the Commandant, acquainting me that it was not his intention to garrison Fish House or Summer House, that Nick and I were sufficient to stand watch on the Mohawk Trail and Drowned Lands and report any movement threatening the Valley from the North, and that what few men he had must go to Stanwix, where the fort had not yet been completed.
The other letter was writ me from Fonda’s Bush by honest John Putman:
“Friend Jack” (says he), “this Bush is a desert indeed and all run off, — the Tories to Canady, — such as the Helmers, Cadys, Bowmans, Reeds, and the likes, — save Adam Helmer, who is of our complexion, — and our own people who are friends to liberty have fled to Johnstown excepting me, — all the women and children, — Jean De Silver’s family, De Luysnes’ people, the Salisburys, Scotts, Barbara Stoner, who married Conrad Reed and has gone to New York now; and all the Putmans save myself, who shall go presently in fear of the savages and Sir John.
“Sir, it is sad to see our housen empty and our fields fallow, and weeds growing in plowed land. There remain no longer any cattle or fowls or any beasts at all, only the wild poultry of the woods come to the deserted doorsteps, and the red fox runs along the fence.
“Your house stands empty as it was when you marched away. Only squirrels inhabit it now, and porcupines gnaw the corn-crib.
“Well, friend Jack, this is all I have to say. I shall drive my oxen to Johnstown Fort tomorrow, and give this letter to the first runner or express.
“I learn that you have bought the Summer House of the Commission. I wish you joy of it, but it seems a perilous purchase, and I fear that you shall soon be obliged to leave it.
“So, wishing you health, and beholden to you for many kindnesses — as are we all who come from Fonda’s Bush — I close, sir, with respect and my obedience and duty to my brave young friend who serves liberty that we old folk and our women and children shall not perish or survive as British slaves.
“Sir, awaiting the dread onset of Sir John with that firmness which becomes a good American, I am,
