Complete weird tales of.., p.1148
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1148
“I never held you in contempt.”
“Yes; when I stole your horse; and when you deemed me easy — and proved me so — —”
“I meant it not that way!” said I, reddening.
“Yet it was so, John Drogue. I was not difficult. I meant no harm, but had not sense enough to know harm when it approached me!... And so I thank you for schooling me. But I never could have taken any gift from you.”
After a silence I rose and went into the officer’s quarters.
The Continental Captain was lying on his trundle-bed, but got up and sent two men to harness Kaya to our waggon.
I told him I should leave all stores and provisions with him, and asked if he would look after our sheep and cattle and fowls until they could be fetched to Johnstown and cared for there.
He was a most kindly man, and promised to care for our creatures, saying that the eggs and milk would be welcome to his garrison, and that if he took a lamb or two he would pay for it on demand.
So when our waggon drove up in the darkness outside, he came and took leave of us all very kindly, saying he hoped that Penelope would be safe in Johnstown, and that the raiders would soon be driven out of the Sacandaga.
I gave him our canoe, for which he seemed grateful.
Then I helped Penelope into the waggon, got in myself and took the reins. Nick and the Saguenay vaulted into the box and lay down on our pile of furs and blankets.
And so we drove out of the stockade and onto the Johnstown Road, Penelope in a wolf-robe beside me, and both her hands clasped around my left arm.
“Are you a-chill?” I asked.
“I do not know what ails me,” she murmured, “but — the world is so vast and dark.... and God is so far — so far — —”
“You are unhappy.”
“No.”
“You grieve for somebody?”
“No, I do not grieve.”
“Are you lonesome?”
“I do not know if I am.... I do not know why I tremble so.... The world is so dark and vast.... I am so small a thing to be alone in it.... It is the war, perhaps, that awes me. It seems so near now. Alas for the battles to be fought! — the battles in the North.... Where you shall be, John Drogue.”
“You said that once before.”
“Yes. I saw you there against a cannon’s rising cloud.... And a white shape near you.”
“You said it was Death,” I reminded her.
“Death or a bride.... I did not wish to see that vision. I never desire to see such things.”
“Pooh! Do you really believe in dreams, Penelope?”
“There were strange uniforms there,” she murmured, “ — not red-coats.”
“Oh; green-coats!”
“No. I never saw the like. I never saw such soldiery in England or in France or in America.”
“They were only dream soldiers,” said I gaily. “So now you must laugh a little, and take heart, Penelope, because if we two have been made homeless this night by fire, still we are young, and in health, and have all life before us. Come, then! Shall we be melancholy? And if there are to be battles in the North, why, there will be battles, and some must die and some survive.
“So, in the meanwhile, shall we be merry?”
“If you wish, sir.”
“Excellent! Sing me a pretty French song — low voiced — in my ear, Penelope, whilst I guide my horse.”
“What song, sir?”
“What you will.”
So, holding my arm with both her hands, she leaned close to me on the jolting seat and placed her lips at my ear; and sang “Malbrook,” as we drove toward Johnstown through the dark forest under the April stars.
Something hot touched my cheek.
“Why, Penelope!” said I, “are you weeping?”
She shook her head, rested her forehead a moment against my shoulder, and, sitting so, strove to continue —
“Il ne — ne reviendra—”
Her voice sank to a tremulous whisper and she bowed her face in her two hands and rested so in silence, her slender form swaying with the swaying waggon.
It was plain to me that the child was afeard. The shock of flight, the lurid tokens of catastrophe in the heavens, the alarming rumours in those darkening hours, anxiety, suspense, all had contributed to shake a heart both gentle and courageous.
For in the thickening gloom around us a very murk of murder seemed to brood over this dark and threatened land, seeming to grow more sinister and more imminent as the fading crimson in the northern heavens paled to a sickly hue in the first faint pallor of the coming dawn.
* * *
CHAPTER XXV
BURKE’S TAVERN
NOW, WHETHER IT was the wetting I got on Mayfield Creek and the chill I took on the long night’s journey to Johnstown, or if my thigh-wound became inflamed from that day’s exertion at Fish House, Summer House, and Mayfield, I do not know for certain.
But when at sunrise we drove up to Jimmy Burke’s Tavern in Johnstown, I discovered that I could not move my right leg; and, to my mortification, Nick and my Indian were forced to make a swinging chair of their linked hands, and carry me into the tavern, Penelope following forlornly, her arms full of furs and blankets.
Here was a pretty dish! But try as I might I could not set my foot to the ground; so they laid me upon a bed and stripped me, and my Saguenay wrapped my leg in hot blankets and laid furs over me, till I was wet with sweat to the hair.
Presently comes Jimmy Burke himself — that lively, lovable scamp, to whom all were friendly; for he was both kind and gay, though a great braggart, and few believed that he had any stomach for the deeds he said he meant to do in battle.
“Faith,” says he, “it’s Misther Drogue, God bless him, an’ in a sad plight along o’ the bloody Sacandaga Tories! Wisha then, sorr, had I been there it’s me would ha’ trimmed the hair o’ them!”
“Are you well, Jimmy?” I inquired, smiling, spite my pain.
“Am I well? I am that! I was never fitter f’r to fight thim dirty green coats of Sir John’s. Och — the poor lad! Lave me fetch a hot brick — —”
“I’m lame as a one-legged duck, Jimmy,” said I. “Send word to the Fort that I’ve an account to render, and beg the Commandant to overlook my tardiness until I can be carried thither on a litter.”
“And th’ yoong leddy, sorr? Will she bait here?”
“Yes; where is she?”
“She lies on a wolf-skin on the bed in the next chamber, foreninst the wall, sorr. There’s tears on her purty face, but I think she sleeps, f’r all that. Is she hurted, too, Misther Drogue?”
“Oh, no. When she wakes send a maid-servant to care for her. Find a loft-bed for my Indian and give him no rum — mind that, James Burke! — or we quarrel.”
“Th’ red divil gets no sup in my shabeen!” said he. “Do I lave him gorge or no?”
“Certainly. Let him stuff himself. And let no man use him with contempt. He is faithful and brave. He is my friend. Do you mark me, Jimmy?”
“I do, sorr. And Nick Stoner — that long-legged limb of Satan! — av he plays anny thricks on Jimmy Burke may God help him — the poor little scut! — —”
I had some faint recollection of pranks played upon Burke by Nick in this same tavern; but what he had done to Jimmy I did not remember, save that it had set Sir William and the town all a-laughing.
“Nick is a good lad and my friend,” said I. “Use him kindly. Your wit is a match for his, anyway, and so are your fists.”
“Is it so!” muttered Burke, casting a smouldering side-look at me. “D’ye mind what he done three year come Shrove Tuesday? The day I gave out I was a better man than Sir William’s new blacksmith? Well, then — av ye disremember — that scut of a Nick shtole me breeches, an’ he put them on a billy-goat, an’ tuk him to the tap-room where was company. An’, ‘Here,’ says he, ‘is a better Irishman than you, Jimmy Burke! — an’ a better fighter, too.’ An’ wid that the damned goat rares up an’ butts me over; an’ up I gets an’ he butts me over, an’ up an’ down I go, an’ the five wits clean knocked out o’ me, an’ the company an’ Sir William all yelling like loons an’ laying odds on the goat — —”
I lay there convulsed with laughter, remembering now this prank of the most mischievous boy I ever knew.
Burke licked his lips grimly at the memory of that ancient wrong.
“Sure, he’s th’ bould wan f’r to come into me house wid the score unreckoned an’ all that balance agin’ him.”
“Touch pewter with him and forgive the lad,” said I. “These are sterner days, Jimmy, and we should cherish no private malice here where we may be put to it to stand siege.”
“Is it thrue, sor, that the destructives are on the Sacandaga?”
“Yes, it is true. Fish House, Summer House, and Fonda’s Bush are in ashes, Jimmy, and your late friend, Sir John, is at Buck Island with a thousand Indians, regulars, and Tories, and like to pay us a call before planting time.”
“Oh, my God,” says Burke, “the divil take Sir John an’ the black heart of him av he comes back here to murther his old neighbors! Sorra the day we let him scape! — him an’ Alex White, an’ Toby Tice an’ moody Wally Butler, — an’ ould John, an’ Indian Claus, an’ Black Guy! — may the divil take the whole Tory ruck o’ them! — —”
He checked himself; behind him, through the door, entered a Continental Captain; and I sat up in bed to do him courtesy.
As I suspected, here proved to be our Commandant come to learn of me my news; and it presently appeared that Nick had run to the jail with an account of how I lay here crippled.
Well, the Commandant was a simple, kindly man, whose present anxiety made little of military custom. And so he had come instantly to learn my news of me; and we talked there alone for an hour.
At his summons a servant fetched paper, ink, pen and sand; and, whilst he looked on, I wrote out my report to him.
Also, I made for him a drawing of the Drowned Lands from Fish House to Mayfield, marking all roads and paths and trails, and all canoe water, carries, and cleared land. For, as Brent-Meester, no man had more accurate knowledge of Tryon than had I; and it was all clearly in my mind, so that to make a map of it proved no task at all.
I asked him if I was to remain detached and with authority to raise a company of rangers — as had once been given me — or whether, perhaps, the Line lacked commissioned officers, saying that it was all one to me and that I wished only to serve where most needed.
He replied that, unless I went to Morgan’s corps of Virginia Riflemen, concerning which detail he had heard some talk, my full value lay in my woodcraft and in my wide, personal knowledge of the wilderness.
“Who better than you, Mr. Drogue, could take a scout to this same Buck Island, where Sir John’s hordes are gathering? Who better than yourself could undertake a swift and secret mission to any point within the confines of this vast desolation of mountain, lake, and forest, which promises soon to be the theatre of a most bloody struggle?
“Champlain already spews red-coats upon us in the North. Sir John threatens in the West. A great army menaces the Highland Forts and Albany from the South. And only such officers as you, sir, are competent to discover and dog the march of enemy marauders, come to touch with their scouts, follow and ambush them, and lead others to vital points across an uncharted world of woods when there are raiders to check or communications to threaten and cut.”
He rose, hooked up his sword, and shook hands with me.
“I have asked Colonel Willett,” said he, “to use your talents in this manner, and he has very kindly consented. Johnstown will remain your base, therefore, and your employment is certain as soon as you are able to walk.”
I thanked him and said very confidently that I should be rid of all lameness and pain within a day or so.
* * *
That night I had a fever; and for pearly four weeks my leg remained swollen and red, and the pain was such that I could not bear the weight of a linen sheet, and Nick made a frame for my bed-covers, like a tent, so that they should not touch me.
Dr. Younglove came from the Flatts, — who was surgeon in General Herkimer’s brigade of militia — and he said it was a pernicious rheumatism consequent upon the cold wetting I got upon a wound still green.
Further, he concluded, there was naught to do save that I must lie on my back until my trouble departed of its own accord; but he could not say how soon that might me — whether within a day or two or as many months, or more.
He recommended hot blankets and some draughts which they sent me from the pharmacy at the Fort, but I think they did me neither good nor evil, but were pleasant and spicy and cooled my throat.
So that was now the dog’s life I led during the early summer in Johnstown, — a most vexatious and inglorious career, laid by the heels at a time when, from three points o’ the compass, three separate storms were brewing and darkening the heavens, and a tempest more frightful than man could conceive was threatening to shatter Tryon, sweep the whole Mohawk Valley, and leave Johnstown but a whirl of whitened ashes in the evening winds.
We were comfortably established at Burke’s Inn, and, as always, baited well where food and bed were ever clean and good.
Penelope had the chamber next to mine; Nick slept in the little bedroom on my left; and the Saguenay haunted the kitchen, with a perpetual appetite never damaged by gorging.
All the news of town and country was fetched me by word o’ mouth, by penny broadsides, by journals, so that I never wanted for gossip to entertain or alarm me.
Town tattle, rumours from West and North, camp news conveyed by Coureurs-du-Bois, by runners, by expresses, all this came to my chamber where I lay impatient, brought sometimes by Burke, often by Nick, more often by Penelope.
She was very kind and patient with me. In the first feverish and agonizing days of my illness I had sent for her, and begged her to take the first convenient waggon and escort into Albany, where surely Douw Fonda would now care for her and the Patroon’s household would welcome and shelter her until the oncoming storm had passed and her aged charge should again return to Caughnawaga.
She would not go, but gave no reason. And, my sickness making me peevish, I was often fretful and short with her; and so badgered and bullied her that one night, in desperation, she wrote a letter to Douw Fonda at my request, offering to go to Albany and care for him if he desired it.
But presently there came a polite letter in reply, writ kindly to her by the young Patroon himself, who very delicately revealed how it was with Mr. Fonda. And it appeared that he had become childish from great age, and seemed now to retain no memory of her, and desired not to be cared for by anybody — as he said — who was a stranger to him.
Which was sad to know concerning so good and wise and gallant an old gentleman as had been Mr. Douw Fonda, — a fine, honourable, educated and cultivated man, whose chiefest pleasure was in his books and garden, and who never in all his life had uttered an unkind word.
This news, too, was disturbing in another manner; for Mr. Fonda had wished, as all knew, to adopt Penelope and make provision for her. And now, if his mind had begun to cloud and his memory betray him, no provision was likely to be made to support this young girl who was utterly alone in the world, and entirely without fortune.
* * *
On an afternoon late in May I was feeling less pain, and could permit the covers to rest on me, and was impatient for a dish o’ porridge. About five o’clock Penelope brought me a bowl of chocolate. When she had seated herself near me, she took her sewing from her apron pocket, and stitched away busily whilst I drank my sweet, hot brew, and watched her over the blue bowl’s edge.
“Are you better this afternoon, sir?” she inquired presently, not lifting her eyes.
I told her, fretfully, that I was but a lame dog and fit only to be knocked on the head by some obliging Tory. “I’m sick o’ life,” said I, “where no one heeds me, and I am left alone all day without food or companionship, to play at twiddle-thumb.”
At that she looked at me in sweet concern, but, seeing me wear a wry grin, smiled too.
“Poor lad,” said she, “it is nearly a month you lie there so patiently.”
“Not patiently; no! And if I knew more oaths than I think up all day long it might ease me to endure more meekly this accursed sickness.... What is it you sew?”
“Wrist-bands.”
“Whose?”
As she offered no reply I supposed that she was making a pair o’ bands for Nick.
“Do you hear further from Albany?” I inquired.
“No, sir.”
“Then it is sure that Mr. Fonda has become childish and his memory is gone,” said I, “because if he comprehended your present situation and your necessity he would surely have sent for you long since.”
“He always was kind,” she said simply.
I lay on my pillows, sipping chocolate and watching her fingers so deft with thread and needle. After a long silence I asked her rather bluntly why she had not long ago consented to the necessary legal steps offered her by Mr. Fonda, which would have secured her always against want.
As she made me no answer, I looked hard at her over my bowl, and saw her eyes very faintly glimmering with tears.
“The news of Mr. Fonda’s condition has greatly saddened you,” said I.
“Yes. He was kind to me.”
“Why, then, did you evade his expressed wishes?” I repeated. “He must surely have loved you like a father to offer you adoption.”
