Complete weird tales of.., p.1157
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1157
“I am, dear Jack, with unalterable affection,
“Your unhappy,
“Polly.”
My eyes were misty as I laid the letter aside, resolving to do all I could to carry out Lady Johnson’s desires. For not until long afterward did I hear that Steve Watts had survived his terrible wounds and was finally safe from the vengeance of outraged Tryon.
Another letter, also with broken seal, I laid open and read while Snips heated his irons and gazed out of the breezy window, where, with fife and drum, I could hear the garrison marching out for exercise and practice.
And to the lively marching music of The Huron, I read my letter from Claudia Swift:
“Oneida; Aug: 7th, 1777.
“My dearest Jack,
“I am informed that I may venture to send this epistle under a flag that goes out today. No doubt but some Yankee Paul Pry in blue-and-buff will crack the seal and read it before you receive it.
“But I snap my fingers at him. I care not. I am bold to say that I do love you. And dearly! So much for Master Pry!
“But, alas, my friend, now indeed I am put to it; for I must confess to you a sadder and deeper anxiety. For if I love you, sir, I am otherwise in love. And with another! I shall not dare to confess his name. But you saw and recognized him at Summer House when Steve was there a year ago last spring.
“Now you know. Yes, I am madly in love, Jack. And am racked with terrors and nigh out o’ my wits with this awful news of the Oriska battle.
“We hear that Captain Walter Butler is taken out o’ uniform within your lines; and so, lacking the protection of his regimentals, he is like to suffer as a spy. My God! Was he alone when apprehended by Arnold’s troops? And will General Arnold hang him?
“This is the urgent news I ask of you. I am horribly afraid. In mercy send me some account; for there are terrible rumours afloat in this fortress — rumours of other spies taken by your soldiery, and of brutal executions — I can not bring myself to write of what I fear. Pity me, Jack, and write me what you hear.
“Could you not beg this one mercy of Billy Alexander, that he send a flag or contrive to have one sent from your Northern Department, explaining to us poor women what truly has been, — and is like to be — the fate of such unfortunate prisoners in your hands?
“And remember who it is appeals to you, dear Jack; for even if I have not merited your consideration, — if I, perhaps, have even forfeited the regard of Billy Alexander, — I pray you both to remember that you once were a little in love with me.
“And so, deal with me gently, Jack. For I am frightened and sick at heart; and know very little about love, which, for the first time ever in my life, has now undone me.
“Will you not aid and forgive your unhappy, ”Claudia.”
Good Lord! Claudia enamoured! And enamoured of that great villain, Henry Hare! Why, damn him, he hath a wife and children, too, or I am most grossly in error.
I had not heard that Walter Butler was taken. I knew not whether Lieutenant Hare had been caught in Butler’s evil company or if, indeed, he had fought at all with old John Butler at Oriska.
Frowning, disgusted, yet sad also to learn that Claudia could so rashly and so ignobly lavish her affections, nevertheless I resolved to ask Lord Stirling if a flag could not be sent with news to Claudia and such other anxious ladies as might be eating their hearts out at Oneida, or Oswego, or Buck Island.
And so I laid aside her painful letter, and unfolded the last missive. And discovered it was writ me by Penelope:
“You should not think harshly of me, Jack Drogue, if you return and discover that I am gone away from Johnstown.
“Douw Fonda is returned to Cayadutta Lodge. He has now sent a carriage for to fetch me. It is waiting while I write. I can not refuse him.
“If, when we meet again, you desire to know my mind concerning you, then, if you choose to look into it, you shall discover that my mind contains only a single thought. And the thought is for you.
“But if you desire no longer to know my mind when again — if ever — we two meet together, then you shall not feel it your duty to concern yourself about my mind, or what thought may be within it.
“I would not write coldly to you, John Drogue. Nor would I importune with passion.
“I have no claim upon your further kindness. You have every claim upon my life-long gratitude.
“But I offer more than gratitude if you should still desire it; and I would offer less — if it should better please you.
“Feel not offended; feel free. Come to me if it pleaseth you; and, if you come not, there is in me that which shall pardon all you do, or leave undone, as long as ever I shall live on earth.
“Penelope Grant.”
When Snips had powdered me and had tied my club with a queue-ribbon of his proper selection, he patched my cheek-bone where a thorn had torn me, and stood a-twirling his iron as though lost in admiration of his handiwork.
When I paid him I bade him tell Burke to bring around my horse and fetch my saddle bags; and then I dressed me in my regimentals.
When Burke came with the saddle-bags, we packed them together. He promised to care for my rifle and pack, took my new light blanket over his arm, and led the way down stairs, where I presently perceived Kaya saddled, and pricking ears to hear my voice.
Whilst I caressed her and whispered in her pretty ear the idle tenderness that a man confides to a beloved horse, Burke placed my pistols, strapped saddle-bags and blanket, and held my stirrup as I gathered bridle and set my spurred boot firmly on the steel.
And so swung to my saddle, and sat there, dividing bridles, deep fixed in troubled thought and anxiously concerned for the safety of the unselfish but very stubborn girl I loved.
* * *
I had said my adieux to Jimmy Burke; I had taken leave of the Commandant at the palisades jail. I now galloped Kaya through the town, riding by way of Butlersbury; and saw the steep roof of the Butler house through the grove, and shuddered as I thought of the unhappy young man who had lived there and who, at that very moment, might be hanging by his neck while the drums rolled from the hollow square.
Down the steep hill I rode, careful of loose stone, and so came to the river and to Caughnawaga.
All was peaceful and still in the noonday sunshine; the river wore a glassy surface; farm waggons creaked slowly through golden dust along the Fort Johnson highway; fat cattle lay in the shade; and from the brick chimneys of Caughnawaga blue smoke drifted where, in her cellar kitchen, the good wife was a-cooking of the noontide dinner.
When presently I espied Douw Fonda’s great mansion of stone, I saw nobody on the porch, and no smoke rising from the chimneys, yet the front door stood open.
But when I rode up to the porch, a black wench came from the house, who said that Mr. Fonda dined at his son’s that day, and would remain until evening.
However, when I made inquiry for Penelope, I found that she was within, — had already been served with dinner, — and was now gone to the library to read and knit as usual when alone.
The black wench took my mare and whistled shrilly for a slave to come and hold the horse.
But I had already mounted the stoop and entered the silent house; and now I perceived Penelope, who had risen from a chair and was laying aside her book and knitting.
She seemed very white when I went to her and drew her into my embrace; and she rested her cheek against my shoulder and took close hold of my two arms, but uttered not a word.
Under her lace cap her hair glimmered like sun-warmed gold; and her hands, which had become very fine and white again, began to move upward to my shoulders, till they encircled my neck and rested there, tight linked.
For a space she wept, but presently staunched her tears with her laced apron’s edge, like a child at school. And when I made her look upon me she smiled though she still breathed sobbingly, and her lips still quivered as I kissed her.
* * *
We sat close together there in the golden gloom of the curtained room, where only a bar of dusty sunlight fell across a row of gilded books.
I had told her everything — had given an account of all that had befallen my little scout, and how I had returned to Johnstown, and how so suddenly my fortunes had been completely changed.
I told her of what I knew of the battle at Oriskany, of the present situation at Stanwix and at Saratoga, and of what I saw of the fight at the Flockey, where McDonald ran.
I begged her to persuade Mr. Fonda to go to Albany, and she promised to do so. And when I pointed out in detail how perilous was his situation here, and how desperate her own, she said she knew it, and had been horribly afraid, but that Caughnawaga folk seemed strangely indifferent to the danger, — could not bring themselves to believe in it, perhaps, — and were loath to leave their homes unprotected and their fields untilled.
But when I touched on her leaving these foolish people and, as my wife, travelling southward with me to the great fortress on the Hudson, she only wept, saying, in tears, that she was needed by an old and feeble man who had protected her when she was poor and friendless, and that, though she loved me, her duty still lay first at Douw Fonda’s side.
Quit him she utterly refused to do; and it was in vain I pointed out his three stalwart sons and their numerous families, retainers, tenants, servants, and slaves, who ought to care for the obstinate old gentleman and provide a security for him whether he would or no.
But argument was useless; I knew it. And all I obtained of her was that, whether matters north of us mended or grew worse, she would persuade Mr. Fonda to return to Albany until such time as Tryon County became once more safe to live in.
This she promised, and even assured me that she had already spoken of the matter to Mr. Fonda, and that the old gentleman appeared to be quite willing to return to Albany as soon as his grain could be reaped and threshed.
So with this I had to content my heavy heart. And now, by the tall clock, I perceived that my time was up; for Schenectady lay far away, and Albany father still; and it was like to be a long and dreary journey to West Point, if, indeed, I should find Lord Stirling still there.
For at Johnstown fort that morning I was warned that my General Lord Stirling had already rejoined his division in the Jerseys; and that the news was brought by riflemen of Morgan’s corps, which was now swiftly marching to join our Northern forces near Saratoga.
Well, God’s will must obtain on earth; none can thwart it; none foretell ——
At the thought I looked down at Penelope, where I held her clasped; and I told her of the vision of Thiohero.
She remained very still when she learned what the Little Maid of Askalege had seen there beside me in the cannon-cloud, where the German foresters of Hainau, in their outlandish dress, were shouting and shooting.
For Penelope had seen the same white shape; and had been, she said, afeard that it was my own weird she saw, — so white it seemed to her, she said, — so still and shrouded in its misty veil.
“Was it I?” she whispered in an awed voice. “Was it truly I that the Oneida virgin saw? And did she know my features in the shroud?”
“She saw you all in white and flowers, floating there near me like mist at sunrise.”
“She told you it was I?”
“Dying, she so told me. And, ‘Yellow Hair,’ she gasped, ‘is quite a witch!’ And then she died between my arms.”
“I am no witch,” she whispered.
“Nor was the Little Maid of Askalege. Both of you, I think, saw at times things that we others can not perceive until they happen; — the shadow of events to come.”
“Yes.”
After a silence: “Have you, perhaps, discovered other shadows since we last met, Penelope?”
“Yes; shadows.”
“What coming event cast them?”
After a long pause: “Will it make his mind more tranquil if I tell him?” she murmured to herself; and I saw her dark eyes fixed absently on the dusty ray of sunlight slanting athwart the room.
Then she looked up at me; blushed to her hair: “I saw children — with yellow hair — and your eyes — —”
“With your hair!”
“And your eyes — John Drogue — John Drogue — —”
The stillness of Paradise grew all around us, filling my soul with a great and heavenly silence.
We could not die — we two who stood here so closely clasped — until this vision had been fulfilled.
And so, presently, her hands fell into mine, and our lips joined slowly, and rested.
We said no word. I left her standing there in the golden twilight of the curtains, and got to my saddle, — God knows how, — and rode away beside the quiet river to the certain destiny that no man ever can hope to hinder or escape.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXI
“IN THE VALLEY”
ON THE 24TH of June, 1777, Major General Lord Stirling had disobeyed the orders of His Excellency; and, in consequence, his flank was turned, he lost two guns and 150 men.
It is the only military mistake that my Lord Stirling ever made; the only lesson he ever had to learn in military judgment and obedience.
I was of his family for three years, — serving as one of his secretaries and aids-de-camp.
I was present at the battle of Brandywine; I served under him at Germantown in the fog, and at Monmouth; and never doubted that my Lord Stirling was a fine and capable and knightly soldier, if not possibly a great one.
Yet, perhaps, there was only one great soldier in that long and bloody war of the American Revolution. I need not name His Excellency.
* * *
For nearly three years, as I say, I served as a member of Lord Stirling’s military family. The lights and shadows of those days of fire and ice, of plenty and starvation, of joy and despair, of monstrous and incredible effort, and of paralyzing inaction, are known now to all.
And the end is not yet — nor, I fear, very near to a finish. But we all await our nation’s destiny with confidence, I think; — and our own fate with composure.
No man can pass through such years and remain what he was born. No man can regret them; none can dare wish to live through such days again; none would shun them. And how many months, or years, maybe, of fighting still remain before us, no man can foretell. But the grim men in their scare-crow regimentals who today, in the present year of 1780, are closing ranks to prepare for future battles, even in the bitter aftermath of defeat, seem to know, somehow, that this nation is destined to survive.
* * *
From the month of August in 1777 to May, 1780, I had not seen Penelope; I had asked for no leave to travel, knowing, by reason of my confidential office and better than many others, how desperate was our army’s plight and how utterly every able-bodied man was needed.
In consequence, I had not seen my own Northland in all those months; I had not seen Penelope. Letters I wrote and sent to her when opportunity offered; letters came from her, and always written from Caughnawaga.
For it appeared that Douw Fonda had never consented to return to Albany; but, by some miracle of God, the Valley so far had suffered no serious harm. Yet, the terrible business at Wyoming renewed my every crudest fear for the safety of Caughnawaga; and when, in the same year, a Continental regiment of the Pennsylvania Line marched out from Schoharie to destroy Unadilla, I, who knew the Iroquois, knew that their revenge was certain to follow.
It followed in that very year; and Cherry Valley became a bloodsoaked heap of cinders; and there, under Iroquois knife and hatchet, and under the merciless clubbed muskets of the blue-eyed Indians, many of my old friends died — all of the Wells family save only one — old and young and babies. What a crime was done by young Walter Butler on that fearful day! And I sometimes wonder, now, what our generous but sentimental young Marquis thinks of his deed of mercy when he saw and pitied Walter Butler in an Albany prison, sick and under sentence of death, and procured medical treatment for him and more comfortable quarters in a private residence.
And Butler drugged his sentry and slipped our fingers like a rat and was off in a trice and gone to his bloody destiny in the West! Lord — Lord! — the things men do to men!
* * *
When Brant burned Minnisink I trembled anew for Caughnawaga; and breathed freely only when our General Sullivan marched on Tioga with six thousand men.
Yet, though he cleaned out the foul and hidden nests of the Iroquois Confederacy, I, knowing these same Iroquois, knew in my dreading heart that Iroquois vengeance would surely strike again, and this time at the Valley.
Because, out of the Mohawk Valley, came all their chiefest woes; Oriskany, which set the whole Six Nations howling their dead; Stillwater; Unadilla; Tioga; The Chemung — these battles tore the Iroquois to fragments.
The Long House, in ruins, rang with the frantic wailing of four fierce nations. The Senecas screamed in their pain from the Western Gate; the Cayugas and Onondagas were singing the death song of their nations; the proud Keepers of the Eastern Gate, driven headlong into exile, gathered like bleeding panthers on the frontier, their glowing gaze intent and patient, watching the usurpers and marking them for vengeance and destruction.
To me, personally, the conflict in my Northland had become unutterably horrible.
Our battles in the Jerseys, in Pennsylvania, in Delaware, and farther south, held for me no such horror and repugnance; for if the panoply of war be dreadful, its pomp and circumstance make it endurable and to be understood by human beings.
But to me there was something terrifying in secret ambush and ghastly massacre amid the eternal twilight of the Northern wilderness, where painted men stole through still places, intent on murder; where death was swift and silent, where all must watch and none dared rest; where children wept in their sleep, and mothers lay listening all night long, and hollow-eyed men cut their corn with sickle in one hand and rifle in the other.
