Complete weird tales of.., p.175
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 175
“Yes.... For less.”
“I know I ask too much; grief makes us purer, fitting us for the company of blessed souls. They say that even war may be a holy thing — though we are commanded otherwise.... Cousin, at moments a demon rises in me and I desire some forbidden thing so ardently, so passionately, that it seems as if I could fight a path through paradise itself to gain what I desire.... Do you feel so?”
“Yes.”
“Is it not consuming — terrible to be so shaken?... Yet I never gain my desire, for there in my path my own self rises to confront me, blocking my way. And I can never pass — never.... Once, in winter, our agent, Mr. Fonda, came driving a trained caribou to a sledge. A sweet, gentle thing, with dark, mild eyes, and I was mad to drive it — mad, cousin! But Sir Lupus learned that it had trodden and gored a man, and put me on my honor not to drive it. And all day Sir Lupus was away at Kingsborough for his rents and I free to drive the sledge, ... and I was mad to do it — and could not. And the pretty beast stabled with our horses, and every day I might have driven it.... I never did.... It hurts yet, cousin.... How strange is it that to us the single word, ‘honor,’ blocks the road and makes the King’s own highway no thorough-fare forever!”
She gathered bridle nervously, and we launched our horses through a willow fringe and away over a soft, sandy intervale, riding knee to knee till the wind whistled in our ears and the sand rose fountain high at every stride of our bounding horses.
“Ah!” she sighed, drawing bridle. “That clears the heart of silly troubles. Was it not glorious? Like a plunge to the throat in an icy pool!”
Her face, radiant, transfigured, was turned to the north, where, glittering under the westward sun, the sunny waters of the Vlaie sparkled between green reeds and rushes. Beyond, smoky blue mountains tumbled into two uneven walls, spread southeast and southwest, flanking the flat valley of the Vlaie.
Thousands of blackbirds chattered and croaked and trilled and whistled in the reeds, flitting upward, with a flash of scarlet on their wings; hovering, dropping again amid a ceaseless chorus from the half-hidden flock. Over the marshes slow hawks sailed, rose, wheeled, and fell; the gray ducks, whose wings bear purple diamond-squares, quacked in the tussock ponds, guarded by their sentinels, the tall, blue herons. Everywhere the earth was sheeted with marsh-marigolds and violets.
Across the distant grassy flat two deer moved, grazing. We rode to the east, skirting the marshes, following a trail made by cattle, until beyond the flats we saw the green roof of the pleasure-house which Sir William Johnson had built for himself. Our ride together was nearly ended.
As at the same thought we tightened bridle and looked at each other gravely.
“All rides end,” I said.
“Ay, like happiness.”
“Both may be renewed.”
“Until they end again.”
“Until they end forever.”
She clasped her bare hands on her horse’s neck, sitting with bent head as though lost in sombre memories.
“What ends forever might endure forever,” I said.
“Not our rides together,” she murmured. “You must return to the South one day. I must wed.... Where shall we be this day a year hence?”
“Very far apart, cousin.”
“Will you remember this ride?”
“Yes,” I said, troubled.
“I will, too.... And I shall wonder what you are doing.”
“And I shall think of you,” I said, soberly.
“Will you write?”
“Yes. Will you?”
“Yes.”
Silence fell between us like a shadow; then:
“Yonder rides Sir George Covert,” she said, listlessly.
I saw him dismounting before his door, but said nothing.
“Shall we move forward?” she asked, but did not stir a finger towards the bridle lying on her horse’s neck.
Another silence; and, impatiently:
“I cannot bear to have you go,” she said; “we are perfectly contented together — and I wish you to know all the thoughts I have touching on the world and on people. I cannot tell them to my father, nor to Ruyven — and Cecile is too young—”
“There is Sir George,” I said.
“He! Why, I should never think of telling him of these thoughts that please or trouble or torment me!” she said, in frank surprise. “He neither cares for the things you care for nor thinks about them at all.”
“Perhaps he does. Ask him.”
“I have. He smiles and says nothing. I am afraid to tax his courtesy with babble of beast and bird and leaf and flower; and why one man is rich and another poor; and whether it is right that men should hold slaves; and why our Lord permits evil, having the power to end it for all time. I should like to know all these things,” she said, earnestly.
“But I do not know them, Dorothy.”
“Still, you think about them, and so do I. Sir Lupus says you have liberated your Greeks and sent them back. I want to know why. Then, too, though neither you nor I can know our Lord’s purpose in enduring the evil that Satan plans, it is pleasant, I think, to ask each other.”
“To think together,” I said, sadly.
“Yes; that is it. Is it not a pleasure?”
“Yes, Dorothy.”
“It does not matter that we fail to learn; it is the happiness in knowing that the other also cares to know, the delight in seaching for reason together. Cousin, I have so longed to say this to somebody; and until you came I never believed it possible.... I wish we were brother and sister! I wish you were Cecile, and I could be with you all day and all night.... At night, half asleep, I think of wonderful things to talk about, but I forget them by morning. Do you?”
“Yes, cousin.”
“It is strange we are so alike!” she said, staring at me thoughtfully.
* * *
IX
HIDDEN FIRE
AFTER A FEW moments’ silence we moved forward towards the pleasure-house, and we had scarcely started when down the road, from the north, came the patroon riding a powerful black horse, attended by old Cato mounted on a raw-boned hunter, and by one Peter Van Horn, the district Brandt-Meester, or fire-warden. As they halted at Sir George Covert’s door, we rode up to join them at a gallop, and the patroon, seeing us far off, waved his hat at us in evident good humor.
“Not a landmark missing!” he shouted, “and my signs all witnessed for record by Peter and Cato! How do the southwest landmarks stand?”
“The tenth pine is blasted by lightning,” said Dorothy, walking her beautiful gray to Sir Lupus’s side.
“Pooh! We’ve a dozen years to change trees,” said Sir Lupus, in great content. “All’s well everywhere, save at the Fish-House near the Sacandaga ford, where some impudent rascal says he saw smoke on the hills. He’s doubtless a liar. Where’s Sir George?”
Sir George sauntered forth from the doorway where he had been standing, and begged us to dismount, but the patroon declined, saying that we had far to ride ere sundown, and that one of us should go around by Broadalbin. However, Dorothy and I slipped from our saddles to stretch our legs while a servant brought stirrup-cups and Sir George gathered a spray of late lilac which my cousin fastened to her leather belt.
“Tory lilacs,” said Sir George, slyly; “these bushes came from cuttings of those Sir William planted at Johnson Hall.”
“If Sir William planted them, a rebel may wear them,” replied Dorothy, gayly.
“Ay, it’s that whelp, Sir John, who has marred what the great baronet left as his monument,” growled old Peter Van Horn.
“That’s treason!” snapped the patroon. “Stop it. I won’t have politics talked in my presence, no! Dammy, Peter, hold your tongue, sir!”
Dorothy, wearing the lilac spray, vaulted lightly into her saddle, and I mounted my mare. Stirrup-cups were filled and passed up to us, and we drained a cooled measure of spiced claret to the master of the pleasure-house, who pledged us gracefully in return, and then stood by Dorothy’s horse, chatting and laughing until, at a sign from Sir Lupus, Cato sounded “Afoot!” on his curly hunting-horn, and the patroon wheeled his big horse out into the road, with a whip-salute to our host.
“Dine with us to-night!” he bawled, without turning his fat head or waiting for a reply, and hammered away in a torrent of dust. Sir George glanced wistfully at Dorothy.
“There’s a district officer-call gone out,” he said. “Some of the Palatine officers desire my presence. I cannot refuse. So ... it is good-bye for a week.”
“Are you a militia officer?” I asked, curiously.
“Yes,” he said, with a humorous grimace. “May I say that you also are a candidate?”
Dorothy turned squarely in her saddle and looked me in the eyes.
“At the district’s service, Sir George,” I said, lightly.
“Ha! That is well done, Ormond!” he exclaimed. “Nothing yet to inconvenience you, but our Governor Clinton may send you a billet doux from Albany before May ends and June begins — if this periwigged beau, St. Leger, strolls out to ogle Stanwix—”
Dorothy turned her horse sharply, saluted Sir George, and galloped away towards her father, who had halted at the cross-roads to wait for us.
“Good-bye, Sir George,” I said, offering my hand. He took it in a firm, steady clasp.
“A safe journey, Ormond. I trust fortune may see fit to throw us together in this coming campaign.”
I bowed, turned bridle, and cantered off, leaving him standing in the road before his gayly painted pleasure-house, an empty wine-cup in his hand.
“Damnation, George!” bawled Sir Lupus, as I rode up, “have we all day to stand nosing one another and trading gossip! Some of us must ride by Fonda’s Bush, or Broadalbin, whatever the Scotch loons call it; and I’ll say plainly that I have no stomach for it; I want my dinner!”
“It will give me pleasure to go,” said I, “but I require a guide.”
“Peter shall ride with you,” began Sir Lupus; but Dorothy broke in, impatiently:
“He need not. I shall guide Mr. Ormond to Broadalbin.”
“Oh no, you won’t!” snapped the patroon; “you’ve done enough of forest-running for one day. Peter, pilot Mr. Ormond to the Bush.”
And he galloped on ahead, followed by Cato and Peter; so that, by reason of their dust, which we did not choose to choke in, Dorothy and I slackened our pace and fell behind.
“Do you know why you are to pass by Broadalbin?” she asked, presently.
I said I did not.
“Folk at the Fish-House saw smoke on the Mayfield hills an hour since. That is twice in three days!”
“Well,” said I, “what of that?”
“It is best that the Broadalbin settlement should hear of it.”
“Do you mean that it may have been an Indian signal?”
“It may have been. I did not see it — the forest cut our view.”
The westering sun, shining over the Mayfield hills, turned the dust to golden fog. Through it Cato’s red coat glimmered, and the hunting-horn, curving up over his bent back, struck out streams of blinding sparks. Brass buttons on the patroon’s broad coat-skirts twinkled like yellow stars, and the spurs flashed on his quarter-gaiters as he pounded along at a solid hand-gallop, hat crammed over his fat ears, pig-tail a-bristle, and the blue coat on his enormous body white with dust.
In the renewed melody of the song-birds there was a hint of approaching evening; shadows lengthened; the sunlight grew redder on the dusty road.
“The Broadalbin trail swings into the forest just ahead,” said Dorothy, pointing with her whip-stock. “See, there where they are drawing bridle. But I mean to ride with you, nevertheless.... And I’ll do it!”
The patroon was waiting for us when we came to the weather-beaten finger-post:
“FONDA’S BUSH
4 MILES.”
And Peter Van Horn had already ridden into the broad, soft wood-road, when Dorothy, swinging her horse past him at a gallop, cried out, “I want to go with them! Please let me!” And was gone like a deer, tearing away down the leafy trail.
“Come back!” roared Sir Lupus, standing straight up in his ponderous stirrups. “Come back, you little vixen! Am I to be obeyed, or am I not? Baggage! Undutiful tree-cat! Dammy, she’s off!”
He looked at me and smote his fat thigh with open hand.
“Did you ever see the like of her!” he chuckled, in his pride. “She’s a Dutch Varick for obstinacy, but the rest is Ormond — all Ormond. Ride on, George, and tell those rebel fools at Fonda’s Bush that they should be hunting cover in the forts if folk at the Fish-House read that smoke aright. Follow the Brandt-Meester if Dorothy slips you, and tell her I’ll birch her, big as she is, if she’s not home by the new moon rise.”
Then he dragged his hat over his mottled ears, grasped the bridle and galloped on, followed by old Cato and his red coat and curly horn.
I had ridden a cautious mile on the dim, leafy trail ere I picked up Van Horn, only to quit him. I had ridden full three before I caught sight of Dorothy, sitting her gray horse, head at gaze in my direction.
“What in the world set you tearing off through the forest like that?” I asked, laughing.
She turned her horse and we walked on, side by side.
“I wished to come,” she said, simply. “The pleasures of this day must end only with the night. Besides, I was burning to ask you if it is true that you mean to stay here and serve with our militia?”
“I mean to stay,” I said, slowly.
“And serve?”
“If they desire it.”
“Why?” she asked, raising her bright eyes.
I thought a moment, then said:
“I have decided to resist our King’s soldiers.”
“But why here?” she repeated, clear eyes still on mine. “Tell me the truth.”
“I think it is because you are here,” I said, soberly.
The loveliest smile parted her lips.
“I hoped you would say that.... Do I please you? Listen, cousin: I have a mad impulse to follow you — to be hindered rages me beyond endurance — as when Sir Lupus called me back. For, within the past hour the strangest fancy has possessed me that we have little time left to be together; that I should not let one moment slip to enjoy you.”
“Foolish prophetess,” I said, striving to laugh.
“A prophetess?” she repeated under her breath. And, as we rode on through the forest dusk, her head drooped thoughtfully, shaded by her loosened hair. At last she looked up dreamily, musing aloud:
“No prophetess, cousin; only a child, nerveless and over-fretted with too much pleasure, tired out with excitement, having played too hard. I do not know quite how I should conduct. I am unaccustomed to comrades like you, cousin; and, in the untasted delights of such companionship, have run wild till my head swims wi’ the humming thoughts you stir in me, and I long for a dark, still room and a bed to lie on, and think of this day’s pleasures.”
After a silence, broken only by our horses treading the moist earth: “I have been starving for this companionship.... I was parched!... Cousin, have you let me drink too deeply? Have you been too kind? Why am I in this new terror lest you — lest you tire of me and my silly speech? Oh, I know my thoughts have been too long pent! I could talk to you forever! I could ride with you till I died! I am like a caged thing loosed, I tell you — for I may tell you, may I not, cousin?”
“Tell me all you think, Dorothy.”
“I could tell you all — everything! I never had a thought that I do not desire you to know, ... save one.... And that I do desire to tell you ... but cannot.... Cousin, why did you name your mare Isene?”
“An Indian girl in Florida bore that name; the Seminoles called her Issena.”
“And so you named your mare from her?”
“Yes.”
“Was she your friend — that you named your mare from her?”
“She lived a century ago — a princess. She wedded with a Huguenot.”
“Oh,” said Dorothy, “I thought she was perhaps your sweetheart.”
“I have none.”
“You never had one?”
“No.”
“Why?”
I turned in my saddle.
“Why have you never had a gallant?”
“Oh, that is not the same. Men fall in love — or protest as much. And at wine they boast of their good fortunes, swearing each that his mistress is the fairest, and bragging till I yawn to listen.... And yet you say you never had a sweetheart?”
“Neither titled nor untitled, cousin. And, if I had, at home we never speak of it, deeming it a breach of honor.”
“Why?”
“For shame, I suppose.”
“Is it shameless to speak as I do?” she asked.
“Not to me, Dorothy. I wish you might be spared all that unlicensed gossip that you hear at table — not that it could harm such innocence as yours! For, on my honor, I never knew a woman such as you, nor a maid so nobly fashioned!”
I stopped, meeting her wide eyes.
“Say it,” she murmured. “It is happiness to hear you.”
“Then hear me,” I said, slowly. “Loyalty, devotion, tenderness, all are your due; not alone for the fair body that holds your soul imprisoned, but for the pure tenant that dwells in it so sweetly behind the blue windows of your eyes! Dorothy! Dorothy! Have I said too much? Yet I beg that you remember it, lest you forget me when I have gone from you.... And say to Sir George that I said it.... Tell him after you are wedded, and say that all men envy him, yet wish him well. For the day he weds he weds the noblest woman in all the confines of this earth!”
Dazed, she stared at me through the fading light; and I saw her eyes all wet in the shadow of her tangled hair and the pulse beating in her throat.
“You are so good — so pitiful,” she said; “and I cannot even find the words to tell you of those deep thoughts you stir in me — to tell you how sweetly you use me—”
