Complete weird tales of.., p.163
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 163
Silver Heels turned her sorrowful eyes on poor Cade Renard.
Riding that afternoon near sunset, at the False Faces’ Carrying-Place upon the Mohawk, we spoke of Johnson Hall and the old life, sadly, for never again could we hope to enter its beloved portals.
Naught that belonged to us remained in the Hall, save only the memories none might rob us of.
“If only I might have Betty,” said Silver Heels, wistfully.
“Betty? Did she not attend you to Boston with Sir John?” I asked.
“Yes, but she was slave to Sir John. I could not buy her; you know how poor I awoke to find myself in Boston town.”
“Would not that brute allow you Betty?” I asked, angrily.
“No; I think he feared her. Poor, blubbering Betty, how she wept and roared her grief when Sir John bade her pack up, and called her ‘hussy.’”
That night we lay at Schenectady, where also was camped a body of Sir William’s Mohawks, a sullen, watchful band, daubed in hunting-paint, yet their quivers hung heavy with triple-feathered war-arrows, and their knives and hatchets and their rifles were over-bright and clean to please me.
Some of them knew me, and came to talk with me over a birch-fire. I gave them tobacco, and we tarried by the birch-fire till the stars waned in the sky and the dawn-stillness fell on land and river; but from them I could learn nothing, save that Sir John and Colonel Guy had vowed to scalp their own neighbours should they as much as cry, “God save our country!” Evil news, truly, yet only set me firmer in my design to battle till the end for the freedom that God had given and kings would take away.
Silver Heels, quitting the inn with Mount, came to warn me that I must sleep if we set out at sunrise. Graciously she greeted the Mohawks who had risen to withdraw; they all knew her, and watched her like tame panthers with red coals in their eyes.
“But they are panthers yet; forget it not,” muttered Jack Mount.
At sunrise we rode out into the blue hills. Homeless, yet nearing home at last, my heart lifted like a singing bird. Dew on the sweet-fern exhaling, dew on the ghost-flower, dew on the scented brake! — and the whistle of feathered wings, and the endless ringing chorus of the birds of Tryon! Hills of pure sapphire, streams of gems, limpid necklaces festooned to drip diamonds from crags into some frothing pool! Pendent pearls on vines starred white with bloom; a dun deer at gaze, knee-deep in feathering willow-grass; a hermit-bird his morning hymn, cloistered in the vaulted monastery where the great organ stirs among the pines!
Hills! Hills of Tryon, unploughed, unharrowed, save by the galloping deer; hills, sweet islands in the dark pine ocean, over whose waste the wild hawk’s mewing answers the 506 cry of its high-wheeling mate; hills of the morning, aromatic with spiced fern, and perfumed of the gum of spruce and balsam; hills of Tryon; my hills! my hills!
“The spring is with us,” said Jack Mount, stooping to pluck a frail flower.
“Ka-nah-wah-hawks, the cowslip!” murmured Silver Heels.
“Savour the wind; what is it?” I asked, sniffing.
“O-neh-tah, the pine!” she cried.
“O-ne-tah, the spruce!” I corrected.
“The pine, silly!”
“The spruce!”
“No, no, the pine!”
“So be it, sweet.”
“No, I am wrong!”
And we laughed, and she stretched out her slender hand to me from her saddle.
Then we galloped forward together, calling out greeting to our old friends as we passed; and thus we saluted Jis-kah-kah, the robin, and Kivi-yeh, the little owl, and we whistled at Koo-koo-e, the quail, and mocked at old Kah-kah, the watchful crow.
Han-nah-wen, the butterfly, came flitting along the roadside, ragged with his long winter’s sleep.
“He should not have slept in his velvet robe for a night-shift,” said Silver Heels; “he is a summer spendthrift, and Nah-wan-hon-tah, the speckled trout, lies watching him under the water.”
Which set me thinking of my feather-flies; and then the dear old river flashed in sight.
“I see — I see — there, very far away on that hill—” whispered Silver Heels.
“I see,” I muttered, choking.
Presently the sunlight glimmered on a window of the distant Hall.
“We are on our own land now, dear heart,” I said, choking back the sob in my throat.
I called out to Jack Mount and unslung my woodaxe. He 507 drew his hatchet, and together we cut down a fair young maple, trimmed it, and drove a heavy post into the soil.
“Here we will build one day,” said I to Silver Heels. She smiled faintly, but her eyes were fixed on the distant Hall.
I had leased, from my lawyer, Peter Weaver, a large stone mansion in Johnstown, which stood next to the church where Sir William lay; this until such time as I might return from the war and find leisure to build on my own land the house which Silver Heels and I had planned to stand on a hill, in full view of the river and of the old Hall where our childhood had been passed.
It was night when we rode into Johnstown. I could discover no changes in the darkness, save that a few new signs swung before lighted shops, and every fifth house hung out a lanthorn and a whole candle-light.
Our stone house was vast, damp, and scantily furnished, but Jack Mount lighted a fire in the hallway, and Silver Heels went about with a song on her lips, and Cade Renard sent servants from the nearest inn with cloth and tableware, and meats smoking hot, not forgetting a great bowl of punch and a cask of ale, which the scullions rolled into the great hall and hoisted on the skids.
So we were merry, and silent, too, at moments, when our eyes met in faint smiles or wistful sympathy.
Shemuel, with his peddling panniers, had strangely disappeared, nor could we find him high or low when Mount and Cade had set their own table by the fire and the room smelled sweet with steaming toddy.
“Thrift! Thrift!” muttered Mount, rattling his toddy-stick impatiently; “now who could have thought that little Jew would have cut away to make up time in trade this night!”
But Shemuel had traded in another manner, for, ere Mount had set his strong, white teeth in the breast-bone of a roasted fowl, I heard Silver Heels cry out: “Betty! Betty! Oh dear, dear Betty!” And the blubbering black woman came rolling in, scarlet turban erect, ear-rings jingling.
“Mah li’l dove! Mah li’l pigeon-dove! Oh Gord, mah li’l Miss Honey-bee!”
“You must keep her, lad,” muttered Mount.
“I think Sir John will sell,” I said, grimly.
And so he did, or would have, had not his new wife, poor Lady Johnson, whom I had never seen, writing from the Hall, begged me to accept Betty as a gift from her. And I, having no quarrel with the unhappy lady, accepted Betty as a gift, permitting Lady Johnson to secure from the incident what comfort she might.
All through the sweet May-tide, Jack Mount and Cade Renard sunned themselves under the trees in our garden, or sprawled on the warm porch like great, amiable wolf-hounds, dozing and dreaming of mighty deeds.
Ale they had for the drawing, yet abused it not, respecting the hospitality of the house and its young mistress, and none could point the shameful finger at either to cry: “Fie! Pottle-pot! Malt-worm! Painted-nose! Go swim!” At times, sitting together on the grass, cheek by jowl, I heard them singing hymns; at times strolling through the moon-drenched garden paths they lifted up their souls in song:
“The hunter has taken the trail to the East;
The little deer run! The little deer run!
Fear not, little deer, for he hunts the Red Beast;
Ye are not for his gun! Ye are not for his gun!
“The hunter lies cold on the trail to the East;
His bosom is rent! His bosom is rent!
He died for his country, to slay the Red Beast;
To Heaven he went! To Heaven he went!”
In the moonlight the doleful chant droned on, night after night, under the dewy lilacs; and the great horned-owl answered, hooting from the pines; and Silver Heels and I listened from the porch, hand clasping hand in fearsome content. For out in the dark world God was busy shaping the destiny of a people; even the black forest knew it, and thrilled like a vast harp at the touch of the free winds’ fingers — unseen fingers, delicate, tentative, groping for the key to a chord of splendid majesty. And when at last the chord should be found and struck, resounding to the deep world’s rock foundation, a free people’s voices should repeat, singing forever and for all time throughout the earth:
“Amen!”
Meanwhile, stillness, moonlight, and a “Miserere” from the lips of two strange forest-runner folk, free-born and ready when the Lord of all led forth His prophet to command.
On that night I heard a man in the street repeat a name, Washington. And all that night I thought of it, and said it, under my breath. But what it might portend I knew not then.
May ended, smothered in flowers; and with the thickening leaves of June came to us there in the North rumours of the times which were to try men’s souls. And again I heard, somewhere in the darkness of the village streets, the name I heard before; and that night, too, I lay awake, forming the word with silent lips, close to my young wife’s breast.
The full, yellow moon of June creamed all our garden now; Mount and Renard sat a-squat upon the grass, chin on fist, to muse and muse and wait — for what? The King of England did not know; but all the world was waiting, too.
Then, one dim morning, while yet the primrose light tinted the far hills, I awoke to see Silver Heels in her white night-robe, leaning from the casement, calling out to me in a strange, frightened voice: “Michael! Michael! They are coming over the hills — over the hills, dear heart, to take you with them!”
At the window, sniffing the fresh dawn, I listened.
“Footfalls in the hills!” she said, trembling. “Out of the morning men are coming! God make me brave! God make me brave!”
For a long time we stood silent; the village slept below us; the stillness of the dawn remained unbroken, save by a golden-robin’s note, fluting from a spectral elm.
“It is not yet time,” I said: “let us sleep on, dear heart.”
But she would not, and I was fain to dress me in my leather, lest the summons coming swift might find me all unready at the call.
Then she roused Betty and the maid and servants, bidding them call up Mount and Renard, for the hour was close upon us all.
“Dear love,” I said, “this is a strange fear that takes you from your pillows there, at dawn.”
“Strange things befall a blindly loving heart,” she said; “I heard them in my dreams, and knew them, all marching with their yellow moccasins and raccoon-caps and green thrums blowing in the wind.”
“Riflemen?”
“Ay, dear love.”
“Foolish prophetess!”
“Too wise! Too wise!” she whispered, wearily, nestling within my arms, a second only, then:
“Sir Michael!” roared Mount below my window; “Cresap is on the hills with five hundred men of Maryland!”
Stunned, I stared at Silver Heels; her face was marble, glorified.
As the sun rose I left her, and, scarce knowing what I did, threw my long rifle on my shoulder and ran out swiftly through the garden.
Suddenly, as though by magic summoned, the whole street was filled with riflemen, marching silently and swiftly, with moccasined feet, their raccoon caps pushed back, the green thrums tossing on sleeve and thigh. On they came, rank on rank, like brown deer herding through a rock run; and, on the hunting-shirts, lettered in white across each breast, I read:
LIBERTY OR DEATH.
Mount and the Weasel came up, rifles shouldered, coon-skin caps swinging in their hands. Mount shyly touched the hand that Silver Heels held out; Cade Renard took the fingers, and, bending above them with a flicker of his aged gallantly, pressed them with his shrivelled lips.
“We will watch over your husband, my lady,” he said, raising his dim eyes to hers.
“Ay, we will bring him back, Lady Cardigan,” muttered Jack Mount, twisting his cap in his huge paws.
Silver Heels, holding them each by the hand, strove to speak, but the voice in her white throat froze, and she only looked silently from them to me with pitiful gray eyes.
“To kill the Red Beast,” muttered Mount; “it is quickly done, Lady Cardigan. Then your husband will return.”
“To kill the Beast,” repeated Renard; “the Red Beast with twin heads. Ay, it can be done, my lady. Then he will return.”
“I swear it!” cried Mount, flinging up his great arm. “He will return.”
“To doubt it is to doubt God’s grace, child. He will return,” said Cade Renard.
She looked at me, at Mount, at the Weasel, then at the torrent of dusty riflemen steadily passing without a break.
“If he — he must go—” she began. Her voice failed; she caught my hands and kissed them.
“For our honour — go!” she gasped. “Michael! Michael! Come back to me—”
“Truly, dear heart — truly! truly!”
“Ho! Cardigan!” rang out a voice like a pistol-shot from the passing ranks.
Through my tear-dimmed eyes I saw Cresap, sword shining in his hand.
“We come,” cried Mount, shaking his rifle towards the rising sun; “death to the Red Beast!”
“Death to the Beast!” shouted Cresap, shaking his shining sword.
Half a thousand heavy rifles shook high; half a thousand deep voices roared thunderously through the stony street:
“Liberty! Liberty or Death!”
THE END
And now that of a truth the Red Beast is slain, as all men know, follow these mellow years through which our children move, watching the world like a great witch-flower unfold. Content, I sit with her I love, at dusk, tying my soft feather-flies just as I tied them for Sir William in the golden time. The trout have nothing changed, nor I, though kings already live as legends.
Bitter-sweet on porch and paling, woodbine and white-starred clematis, and the deep hum of bees; and in the sunlit garden poppies, red as the blood of martyrs. Then moonlight and my dear wife at the door.
Betty, she hath cradled our tot, Felicity, to croon some soft charm of Southern sorcery, whereby sleep settles like gray dusk-moths on tired lids.
But for the boy, William, it serves not, and he defies us with his wooden gun, declaiming that a man whose grandsire died with Wolfe will not be taken off to bed at such an hour. And so my sweetheart cradles him, unheeding my stern hint of rods a-pickle for the wilful; and, in the moonlight, joining my fish-rod, I hear her from the nursery, singing the song of blessed days departed, yet with each dawn renewed:
“For courts are full of flattery,
As hath too oft been tried;
The city full of wantonness,
And both be full of Pride:
Then care away,
And wend along with me!”
“I know a trout,” quoth Jack Mount, taking his cob-pipe from his teeth, “a monstrous huge one, lad, hard by the thunder-stricken hemlock where the Kennyetto turns upon itself. Shemuel did mark the fish, sleeping at noon three days since.”
“Bring Cade along,” said I, opening the garden gate, and gathering my rod and line lest the fly-hook catch in the rosebush; “and fetch the gaff, Jack, when you return.”
But when he came again into the moonlit garden he came alone, swinging the bright steel gaff.
“Cade sleeps by the fire in the great hall,” he said. “Truly, lad, we age apace, and the sly beast, Death, follows us, sniffing, as we go. Lord! Lord! How old we grow — how old, how old! All of us, save Lady Cardigan and you! Years freshen her.”
“The years are kind,” I said.
So we descended through the dusk to the sweet water flowing under the clustered stars.
The Maid-At-Arms
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
TO
MISS KATHARINE HUSTED
PREFACE
AFTER A HUNDRED years the history of a great war waged by a successful nation is commonly reviewed by that nation with retrospective complacency.
Distance dims the panorama; haze obscures the ragged gaps in the pageant until the long lines of victorious armies move smoothly across the horizon, with never an abyss to check their triumph.
Yet there is one people who cannot view the past through a mirage. The marks of the birth-pangs remain on the land; its struggle for breath was too terrible, its scars too deep to hide or cover.
For us, the pages of the past turn all undimmed; battles, brutally etched, stand clear as our own hills against the sky — for in this land we have no haze to soften truth.
Treading the austere corridor of our Pantheon, we, too, come at last to victory — but what a victory! Not the familiar, gracious goddess, wide-winged, crowned, bearing wreaths, but a naked, desperate creature, gaunt, dauntless, turning her iron face to the west.
The trampling centuries can raise for us no golden dust to cloak the flanks of the starved ranks that press across our horizon.
Our ragged armies muster in a pitiless glare of light, every man distinct, every battle in detail.
Pangs that they suffered we suffer.
The faint-hearted who failed are judged by us as though they failed before the nation yesterday; the brave are re-enshrined as we read; the traitor, to us, is no grotesque Guy Fawkes, but a living Judas of to-day.
We remember that Ethan Allen thundered on the portal of all earthly kings at Ticonderoga; but we also remember that his hatred for the great state of New York brought him and his men of Vermont perilously close to the mire which defiled Charles Lee and Conway, and which engulfed poor Benedict Arnold.
