Complete weird tales of.., p.178
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 178
“Lad, if this house, these farms, these acres were my own, do you think I’d hesitate to polish up that old sword yonder that my father carried when Schenectady went up in flames?... Know me better, George!... Know that this condemnation to inaction is the bitterest trial I have ever known. How easy it would be for me to throw my own property into one balance, my sword into the other, and say, ‘Defend the one with the other or be robbed!’ But I can’t throw another man’s lands into the balance. I can’t raise the war-yelp and go careering about after glory when I owe every shilling I possess and thousands more to an honorable and generous gentleman who refused all security for the loan save my own word of honor.
“And now, simple, brave, high-minded as he is, he offers to return me my word of honor, free me from his debt, and leave me unshackled to conduct in this coming war as I see fit.
“But that is more than he can do, George. My word once pledged can only be redeemed by what it stood for, and he is powerless to give it back.
“That is all, sir.... Pray think more kindly of an old fool in future, when you plume yourself upon your liberty to draw sword in the most just cause this world has ever known.”
“It is I who am the fool, Sir Lupus,” I said, in a low voice.
* * *
XI
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
I REMEMBER IT was the last day of May before I saw my cousin Dorothy again.
Late that afternoon I had taken a fishing-rod and a book, The Poems of Pansard, and had set out for the grist-mill on the stream below the log-bridge; but did not go by road, as the dust was deep, so instead crossed the meadow and entered the cool thicket, making a shorter route to the stream.
Through the woodland, as I passed, I saw violets in hollows and blue innocence starring moist glades with its heavenly color, and in the drier woods those slender-stemmed blue bell-flowers which some call the Venus’s looking-glass.
In my saddened and rebellious heart a more innocent passion stirred and awoke — the tender pleasure I have always found in seeking out those shy people of the forest, the wild blossoms — a harmless pleasure, for it is ever my habit to leave them undisturbed upon their stalks.
Deeper in the forest pink moccasin-flowers bloomed among rocks, and the air was tinctured with a honeyed smell from the spiked orchis cradled in its sheltering leaf under the hemlock shade.
Once, as I crossed a marshy place, about me floated a violet perfume, and I was at a loss to find its source until I espied a single purple blossom of the Arethusa bedded in sturdy thickets of rose-azalea, faintly spicy, and all humming with the wings of plundering bees.
Underfoot my shoes brushed through spikenard, and fell silently on carpets of moss-pinks, and once I saw a matted bed of late Mayflower, and the forest dusk grew sweeter and sweeter, saturating all the woodland, until each breath I drew seemed to intoxicate.
Spring languor was in earth and sky, and in my bones, too; yet, through this Northern forest ever and anon came faint reminders of receding snows, melting beyond the Canadas — delicate zephyrs, tinctured with the far scent of frost, flavoring the sun’s balm at moments with a sharper essence.
Now traversing a ferny space edged in with sweetbrier, a breeze accompanied me, caressing neck and hair, stirring a sudden warmth upon my cheek like a breathless maid close beside me, whispering.
Then through the rustle of leafy depths I heard the stream’s laughter, very far away, and I turned to the left across the moss, walking more swiftly till I came to the log-bridge where the road crosses. Below me leaped the stream, deep in its ravine of slate, roaring over the dam above the rocky gorge only to flow out again between the ledge and the stone foundations of the grist-mill opposite. Down into the ravine and under the dam I climbed, using the mossy steps that nature had cut in the slate, and found a rock to sit on where the spray from the dam could not drench me. And here I baited my hook and cast out, so that the swirling water might carry my lure under the mill’s foundations, where Ruyven said big, dusky trout most often lurked.
But I am no fisherman, and it gives me no pleasure to drag a finny creature from its element and see its poor mouth gasp and its eyes glaze and the fiery dots on its quivering sides grow dimmer. So when a sly trout snatched off my bait I was in no mood to cover my hook again, but set the rod on the rocks and let the bright current waft my line as it would, harmless now as the dusty alder leaves dimpling yonder ripple. So I opened my book, idly attentive, reading The Poems of Pansard, while dappled shadows of clustered maple leaves moved on the page, and droning bees set old Pansard’s lines to music.
“Like two sweet skylarks springing skyward, singing,
Piercing the empyrean of blinding light,
So shall our souls take flight, serenely winging,
Soaring on azure heights to God’s delight;
While from below through sombre deeps come stealing
The floating notes of earthward church-bells pealing.”
My thoughts wandered and the yellow page faded to a glimmer amid pale spots of sunshine waning when some slow cloud drifted across the sun. Again my eyes returned to the printed page, and again thought parted from its moorings, a derelict upon the tide of memory. Far in the forest I heard the white-throat’s call with the endless, sad refrain, “Weep-wee-p! Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!” Though some vow that the little bird sings plainly, “Sweet-sw-eet! Canada, Canada, Canada!”
Then for a while I closed my eyes until, slowly, that awakening sense that somebody was looking at me came over me, and I raised my head.
Dorothy stood on the log-bridge above the dam, elbows on the rail, gazing pensively at me.
“Well, of all idle men!” she said, steadying her voice perceptibly. “Shall I come down?”
And without waiting for a reply she walked around to the south end of the bridge and began to descend the ravine.
I offered assistance; she ignored it and picked her own way down the cleft to the stream-side.
“It seems a thousand years since I have seen you,” she said. “What have you been doing all this while? What are you doing now? Reading? Oh! fishing! And can you catch nothing, silly?... Give me that rod.... No, I don’t want it, after all; let the trout swim in peace.... How pale you have grown, cousin!”
“You also, Dorothy,” I said.
“Oh, I know that; there’s a glass in my room, thank you.... I thought I’d come down.... There is company at the house — some of Colonel Gansevoort’s officers, Third Regiment of the New York line, if you please, and two impudent young ensigns of the Half-moon Regiment, all on their way to Stanwix fort.”
She seated herself on the deep moss and balanced her back against a silver-birch tree.
“They’re at the house, all these men,” she said; “and what do you think? General Schuyler and his lady are to arrive this evening, and I’m to receive them, dressed in my best tucker!... and there may be others with them, though the General comes on a tour of inspection, being anxious lest disorder break out in this district if he is compelled to abandon Ticonderoga.... What do you think of that — George?”
My name fell so sweetly, so confidently, from her lips that I looked up in warm pleasure and found her grave eyes searching mine.
“Make it easier for me,” she said, in a low voice. “How can I talk to you if you do not answer me?”
“I — I mean to answer, Dorothy,” I stammered; “I am very thankful for your kindness to me.”
“Do you think it is hard to be kind to you?” she murmured. “What happiness if I only might be kind!” She hid her face in her hands and bowed her head. “Pay no heed to me,” she said; “I — I thought I could see you and control this rebel tongue of mine. And here am I with heart insurgent beating the long roll and every nerve a-quiver with sedition!”
“What are you saying?” I protested, miserably.
She dropped her hands from her face and gazed at me quite calmly.
“Saying? I was saying that these rocks are wet, and that I was silly to come down here in my Pompadour shoes and stockings, and I’m silly to stay here, and I’m going!”
And go she did, up over the moss and rock like a fawn, and I after her to the top of the bank, where she seemed vastly surprised to see me.
“Now I pray you choose which way you mean to stroll,” she said, impatiently. “Here lie two paths, and I will take this straight and narrow one.”
She turned sharply and I with her, and for a long time we walked swiftly, side by side, exchanging neither word nor glance until at last she stopped short, seated herself on a mossy log, and touched her hot face with a crumpled bit of lace and cambric.
“I tell you what, Mr. Longshanks!” she said. “I shall go no farther with you unless you talk to me. Mercy on the lad with his seven-league boots! He has me breathless and both hat-strings flying and my shoe-points dragging to trip my heels! Sit down, sir, till I knot my ribbons under my ear; and I’ll thank you to tie my shoe-points! Not doubled in a sailor’s-knot, silly!... And, oh, cousin, I would I had a sun-mask!... Now you are laughing! Oh, I know you think me a country hoyden, careless of sunburn and dust! But I’m not. I love a smooth, white skin as well as any London beau who praises it in verses. And I shall have one for myself, too. You may see, to-night, if the Misses Carmichael come with Lady Schuyler, for we’ll have a dance, perhaps, and I mean to paint and patch and powder till you’d swear me a French marquise!... Cousin, this narrow forest pathway leads across the water back to the house. Shall we take it?... You will have to carry me over the stream, for I’ll not wet my shins for love of any man, mark that!”
She tied her pink hat-ribbons under her chin and stood up while I made ready; then I lifted her from the ground. Very gravely she dropped her arms around my neck as I stepped into the rushing current and waded out, the water curling almost to my knee-buckles. So we crossed the grist-mill stream in silence, eyes averted from each other’s faces; and in silence, too, we resumed the straight and narrow path, now deep with last year’s leaves, until we came to a hot, sandy bank covered with wild strawberries, overlooking the stream.
In a moment she was on her knees, filling her handkerchief with strawberries, and I sat down in the yellow sand, eyes following the stream where it sparkled deep under its leafy screen below.
“Cousin,” she said, timidly, “are you displeased?”
“Why?”
“At my tyranny to make you bear me across the stream — with all your heavier burdens, and my own—”
“I ask no sweeter burdens,” I replied.
She seated herself in the sand and placed a scarlet berry between lips that matched it.
“I have tried very hard to talk to you,” she said.
“I don’t know what to say, Dorothy,” I muttered. “Truly I do desire to amuse you and make you laugh — as once I did. But the heart of everything seems dead. There! I did not mean that! Don’t hide your face, Dorothy! Don’t look like that! I — I cannot bear it. And listen, cousin; we are to be quite happy. I have thought it all out, and I mean to be gay and amuse you.... Won’t you look at me, Dorothy?” “Wh — why?” she asked, unsteadily.
“Just to see how happy I am — just to see that I pull no long faces — idiot that I was!... Dorothy, will you smile just once?”
“Yes,” she whispered, lifting her head and raising her wet lashes. Presently her lips parted in one of her adorable smiles. “Now that you have made me weep till my nose is red you may pick me every strawberry in sight,” she said, winking away the bright tears. “You have heard of the penance of the Algonquin witch?”
I knew nothing of Northern Indian lore, and I said so.
“What? You never heard of the Stonish Giants? You never heard of the Flying Head? Mercy on the boy! Sit here and we’ll eat strawberries and I shall tell you tales of the Long House.... Sit nearer, for I shall speak in a low voice lest old Atotarho awake from his long sleep and the dead pines ring hollow, like witch-drums under the yellow-hammer’s double blows.... Are you afraid?”
“All a-shiver,” I whispered, gayly.
“Then listen,” she breathed, raising one pink-tipped finger. “This is the tale of the Eight Thunders, told in the oldest tongue of the confederacy and to all ensigns of the three clans ere the Erians sued for peace. Therefore it is true.
“Long ago, the Holder of the Heavens made a very poisonous blue otter, and the Mohawks killed it and threw its body into the lake. And the Holder of Heaven came to the eastern door of the Long House and knocked, saying: ‘Where is the very poisonous blue otter that I made, O Keepers of the Eastern Door?’
“‘Who calls?’ asked the Mohawks, peeping out to see.
“Then the Holder of the Heavens named himself, and the Mohawks were afraid and hid in the Long House, listening.
“‘Be afraid! O you wise men and sachems! The wisdom of a child alone can save you!’ said the Holder of the Heavens. Saying this he wrapped himself in a bright cloud and went like a swift arrow to the sun.”
My cousin’s voice had fallen into a low, melodious sing-song; her rapt eyes were fixed on me.
“A youth of the Mohawks loved a maid, and they sat by the lake at night, counting the Dancers in the sky — which we call stars of the Pleiades.
“‘One has fallen into the lake,’ said the youth.
“‘It is the eye of the very poisonous blue otter,’ replied the maid, beginning to cry.
“‘I see the lost Dancer shining down under the water,’ said the youth again. Then he bade the maid go back and wait for him; and she went back and built a fire and sat sadly beside it. Then she heard some one coming and turned around. A young man stood there dressed in white, and with white feathers on his head. ‘You are sad,’ he said to the maid, ‘but we will help you.’ Then he gave her a belt of purple wampum to show that he spoke the truth.
“‘Follow,’ he said; and she followed to a place in the forest where smoke rose. There she saw a fire, and, around it, eight chiefs sitting, with white feathers on their heads.
“‘These chiefs are the Eight Thunders,’ she thought; ‘now they will help me.’ And she said: ‘A Dancer has fallen out of the sky and a Mohawk youth has plunged for it.’
“‘The blue otter has turned into a serpent, and the Mohawk youth beheld her eye under the waters,’ they said, one after the other. The maid wept and laid the wampum at her feet. Then she rubbed ashes on her lips and on her breasts and in the palms of her hands.
“‘The Mohawk youth has wedded the Lake Serpent,’ they said, one after the other. The maid wept; and she rubbed ashes on her thighs and on her feet.
“‘Listen,’ they said, one after another; ‘take strawberries and go to the lake. You will know what to do. When that is done we will come in the form of a cloud on the lake, not in the sky.’
“So she found strawberries in the starlight and went to the lake, calling, ‘Friend! Friend! I am going away and wish to see you!’
“Out on the lake the water began to boil, and coming out of it she saw her friend. He had a spot on his forehead and looked like a serpent, and yet like a man. Then she spread the berries on the shore and he came to the land and ate. Then he went back to the shore and placed his lips to the water, drinking. And the maid saw him going down through the water like a snake. So she cried, ‘Friends! Friends! I am going away and wish to see you!’
“The lake boiled and her friend came out of it. The lake boiled once more; not in one spot alone, but all over, like a high sea spouting on a reef.
“Out of the water came her friend’s wife, beautiful to behold and shining with silver scales. Her long hair fell all around her, and seemed like silver and gold. When she came ashore she stretched out on the sand and took a strawberry between her lips. The young maid watched the lake until she saw something moving on the waters a great way off, which seemed like a cloud.
“In a moment the stars went out and it grew dark, and it thundered till the skies fell down, torn into rain by the terrible lightning. All was still at last, and it grew lighter. The maid opened her eyes to find herself in the arms of her friend. But at their feet lay the dying sparks of a shattered star.
“Then as they went back through the woods the eight chiefs passed them in Indian file, and they saw them rising higher and higher, till they went up to the sky like mists at sunrise.”
Dorothy’s voice died away; she stretched out one arm.
“THIS IS THE END, O YOU WISE MEN AND SACHEMS!”.
“This is the end, O you wise men and sachems, told since the beginning to us People of the Morning. Hiro [I have spoken]!”
Then a startling thing occurred; up from the underbrush behind us rose a tall Indian warrior, naked to the waist, painted from belt to brow with terrific, nameless emblems and signs. I sprang to my feet, horror-struck; the savage folded his arms, quietly smiling; and I saw knife and hatchet resting in his belt and a long rifle on the moss at his feet.
“Kôue! That was a true tale,” he said, in good English. “It is a miracle that one among you sings the truth concerning us poor Mohawks.”
“Do you come in peace?” I asked, almost stunned.
He made a gesture. “Had I come otherwise, you had known it!” He looked straight at Dorothy. “You are the patroon’s daughter. Does he speak as truthfully of the Mohawks as do you?”
“Who are you?” I asked, slowly.
He smiled again. “My name is Brant,” he said.
“Joseph Brant! Thayendanegea!” murmured Dorothy, aloud.
“A cousin of his,” said the savage, carelessly. Then he turned sternly on me. “Tell that man who follows me that I could have slain him twice within the hour; once at the ford, once on Stoner’s hill. Does he take me for a deer? Does he believe I wear war-paint? There is no war betwixt the Mohawks and the Boston people — yet! Tell that fool to go home!”
