Complete weird tales of.., p.179
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 179
“What fool?” I asked, troubled.
“You will meet him — journeying the wrong way,” said the Indian, grimly.
With a quick, guarded motion he picked up his rifle, turned short, and passed swiftly northward straight into the forest, leaving us listening there together long after he had disappeared.
“That chief was Joseph Brant, ... but he wore no war-paint,” whispered my cousin. “He was painted for the secret rites of the False-Faces.”
“He could have slain us as we sat,” I said, bitterly humiliated.
She looked up at me thoughtfully; there was not in her face the slightest trace of the deep emotions which had shocked me.
“A tribal fire is lighted somewhere,” she mused. “Chiefs like Brant do not travel alone — unless — unless he came to consult that witch Catrine Montour, or to guide her to some national council-fire in the North.”
She pondered awhile, and I stood by in silence, my heart still beating heavily from my astonishment at the hideous apparition of a moment since.
“Do you know,” she said, “that I believe Brant spoke the truth. There is no war yet, as far as concerns the Mohawks. The smoke we saw was a secret signal; that hag was scuttling around to collect the False-Faces for a council. They may mean war; I’m sure they mean it, though Brant wore no war-paint. But war has not yet been declared; it is no scant ceremony when a nation of the Iroquois decides on war. And if the confederacy declares war the ceremonies may last a fortnight. The False-Faces must be heard from first. And, Heaven help us! I believe their fires are lighted now.”
“What ghastly manner of folk are these False-Faces?” I asked.
“A secret clan, common to all Northern and Western Indians, celebrating secret rites among the six nations of the Iroquois. Some say the spectacle is worse than the orgies of the Dream-feast — a frightful sight, truly hellish; and yet others say the False-Faces do no harm, but make merry in secret places. But this I know; if the False-Faces are to decide for war or peace, they will sway the entire confederacy, and perhaps every Indian in North America; for though nobody knows who belongs to the secret sect, two-thirds of the Mohawks are said to be numbered in its ranks; and as go the Mohawks, so goes the confederacy.”
“How is it you know all this?” I asked, amazed.
“My playmate was Magdalen Brant,” she said. “Her playmates were pure Mohawk.”
“Do you mean to tell me that this painted savage is kin to that lovely girl who came with Sir John and the Butlers?” I demanded.
“They are related. And, cousin, this ‘painted savage’ is no savage if the arts of civilization which he learned at Dr. Wheelock’s school count for anything. He was secretary to old Sir William. He is an educated man, spite of his naked body and paint, and the more to be dreaded, it appears to me.... Hark! See those branches moving beside the trail! There is a man yonder. Follow me.”
On the sandy bank our shoes made little sound, yet the unseen man heard us and threw up a glittering rifle, calling out: “Halt! or I fire.”
Dorothy stopped short, and her hand fell on my arm, pressing it significantly. Out into the middle of the trail stepped a tall fellow clad from throat to ankle in deer-skin. On his curly head rested a little, round cap of silvery mole-skin, light as a feather; his leggings’ fringe was dyed green; baldrick, knife-sheath, bullet-pouch, powder-horn, and hatchet-holster were deeply beaded in scarlet, white, and black, and bands of purple porcupine-quills edged shoulder-cape and moccasins, around which were painted orange-colored flowers, each centred with a golden bead.
“A forest-runner,” she motioned with her lips, “and, if I’m not blind, he should answer to the name of Mount — and many crimes, they say.”
The forest-runner stood alert, rifle resting easily in the hollow of his left arm.
“Who passes?” he called out.
“White folk,” replied Dorothy, laughing. Then we stepped out.
“Well, well,” said the forest-runner, lifting his mole-skin cap with a grin; “if this is not the pleasantest sight that has soothed my eyes since we hung that Tory whelp last Friday — and no disrespect to Mistress Varick, whose father is more patriot than many another I might name!”
“I bid you good-even, Jack Mount,” said Dorothy, smiling.
“To you, Mistress Varick,” he said, bowing the deeper; then glanced keenly at me and recognized me at the same moment. “Has my prophecy come true, sir?” he asked, instantly.
“God save our country,” I said, significantly.
“Then I was right!” he said, and flushed with pleasure when I offered him my hand.
“If I am not too free,” he muttered, taking my hand in his great, hard paw, almost affectionately.
“You may walk with us if you journey our way,” said Dorothy; and the great fellow shuffled up beside her, cap in hand, and it amused me to see him strive to shorten his strides to hers, so that he presently fell into a strange gait, half-skip, half-toddle.
“Pray cover yourself,” said Dorothy, encouragingly, and Mount did so, dumb as a Matanzas oyster and crimson as a boiled sea-crab. Then, doubtless, deeming that gentility required some polite observation, he spoke in a high-pitched voice of the balmy weather and the sweet profusion of birds and flowers, when there was more like to be a “sweet profusion” of Indians; and I nigh stifled with laughter to see this lumbering, free-voiced forest-runner transformed to a mincing, anxious, backwoods macaroni at the smile of a pretty woman.
“Do you bring no other news save of the birds and blossoms?” asked Dorothy, mischievously. “Tell us what we all are fearful of. Have the Senecas and Cayugas risen to join the British?”
Mount stole a glance at me.
“I wish I knew,” he muttered.
“We will know soon, now,” I said, soberly.
“Sooner, perhaps, than you expect, sir,” he said. “I am summoned to the manor to confer with General Schuyler on this very matter of the Iroquois.”
“Is it true that the Mohawks are in their war-paint?” asked Dorothy, maliciously.
“Stoner and Timothy Murphy say so,” replied Mount. “Sir John and the Butlers are busy with the Onondagas and Oneidas; Dominic Kirkland is doing his best to keep them peaceable; and our General played his last cards at their national council. We can only wait and see, Mistress Varick.”
He hesitated, glancing at me askance.
“The fact is,” he said, “I’ve been sniffing at moccasin tracks for the last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and how that skulking brute got away from me I cannot think.”
He looked at us in an injured manner, for we were striving not to smile.
“I’m counted a good tracker,” he muttered. “I’m as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan’s riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound as Joseph Brant.”
He paused, in hurt surprise, for we were laughing. And then I told him of the Indian and what message he had sent by us, and Mount listened, red as a pippin, gnawing his lip.
“I am glad to know it,” he said. “This will be evil news to General Schuyler, I have no doubt. Lord! but it makes me mad to think how close to Brant I stood and could not drill his painted hide!”
“He spared you,” I said.
“That is his affair,” muttered Mount, striding on angrily.
“There speaks the obstinate white man, who can see no good in any savage,” whispered Dorothy. “Nothing an Indian does is right or generous; these forest-runners hate them, distrust them, fear them — though they may deny it — and kill all they can. And you may argue all day with an Indian-hater and have your trouble to pay you. Yet I have heard that this man Mount is brave and generous to enemies of his own color.”
We had now come to the road in front of the house, and Mount set his cap rakishly on his head, straightened cape and baldrick, and ran his fingers through the gorgeous thrums rippling from sleeve and thigh.
“I’d barter a month’s pay for a pot o’ beer,” he said to me. “I learned to drink serving with Cresap’s riflemen at the siege of Boston; a godless company, sir, for an innocent man to fall among. But Morgan’s rifles are worse, Mr. Ormond; they drink no water save when it rains in their gin toddy.”
“Sir Lupus says you tried to join them,” said Dorothy, to plague him.
“So I did, Mistress Varick, so I did,” he stammered; “to break ’em o’ their habits, ma’am. Trust me, if I had that corps I’d teach ’em to let spirits alone if I had to drink every drop in camp to keep ’em sober!”
“There’s beer in the buttery,” she said, laughing; “and if you smile at Tulip she’ll see you starve not.”
“Nobody,” said I, “goes thirsty or hungry at Varick Manor.”
“Indeed, no,” said Dorothy, much amused, as old Cato came down the path, hat in hand. “Here, Cato! do you take Captain Mount and see that he is comfortable and that he lacks nothing.”
So, standing together in the stockade gateway, we watched Cato conducting Mount towards the quarters behind the guard-house, then walked on to meet the children, who came dancing down the driveway to greet us.
“Dorothy! Dorothy!” cried Cecile, “we’ve shaved candles and waxed the library floors. Lady Schuyler is here and the General and the Carmichael girls we knew at school, and their cousin, Maddaleen Dirck, and Christie McDonald and Marguerite Haldimand — cousin to the Tory general in Canada — and—”
“I’m to walk a minuet with Madge Haldimand!” broke in Ruyven; “will you lend me your gold stock-buckle, Cousin Ormond?”
“I mean to dance, too,” cried Harry, crowding up to pluck my sleeve. “Please, Cousin Ormond, lend me a lace handkerchief.”
“Paltz Clavarack, of the Half-moon Regiment, asked me to walk a minuet,” observed Cecile, tossing her head. “I’m sure I don’t know what to say. He’s so persistent.”
Benny’s clamor broke out: “Thammy thtole papath betht thnuff-boxth! Thammy thtole papath betht thnuff-boxth!”
“Sammy!” cried Dorothy, “what did you steal your father’s best snuff-box for?”
“I only desired to offer snuff to General Schuyler,” said Sammy, sullenly, amid a roar of laughter.
“We’re to dine at eight! Everybody is dressing; come on, Dorothy!” cried Cecile. “Mr. Clavarack vowed he’d perish if I kept him waiting—”
“You should see the escort!” said Ruyven to me. “Dragoons, cousin, in leather helmets and jack-boots, and all wearing new sabres taken from the Hessian cavalry. They’re in the quarters with Tim Murphy, of Morgan’s, and, Lord! how thirsty they appear to be!”
“There’s the handsomest man I ever saw,” murmured Cecile to Dorothy, “Captain O’Neil, of the New York line. He’s dying to see you; he said so to Mr. Clavarack, and I heard him.”
Dorothy looked up with heightened color.
“Will you walk the minuet with me, Dorothy?” I whispered.
She looked down, faintly smiling:
“Perhaps,” she said.
“That is no answer,” I retorted, surprised and hurt.
“I know it,” she said, demurely.
“Then answer me, Dorothy!”
She looked at me so gravely that I could not be certain whether it was pretence or earnest.
“I am hostess,” she said; “I belong to my guests. If my duties prevent my walking the minuet with you, I shall find a suitable partner for you, cousin.”
“And no doubt for yourself,” I retorted, irritated to rudeness.
Surprise and disdain were in her eyes. Her raised brows and cool smile boded me no good.
“I thought I was free to choose,” she said, serenely.
“You are, and so am I,” I said. “Will you have me for the minuet?”
We paused in the hallway, facing each other.
She gave me a dangerous glance, biting her lip in silence.
And, the devil possessing me, I said, “For the last time, will you take me?”
“No!” she said, under her breath. “You have your answer now.”
“I have my answer,” I repeated, setting my teeth.
* * *
XII
THE GHOST-RING
I HAD BATHED and dressed me in my best suit of pale-lilac silk, with flapped waistcoat of primrose stiff with gold, and Cato was powdering my hair; when Sir Lupus waddled in, magnificent in scarlet and white, and smelling to heaven of French perfume and pomatum.
“George!” he cried, in his brusque, explosive fashion, “I like Schuyler, and I care not who knows it! Dammy! I was cool enough with him and his lady when they arrived, but he played Valentine to my Orson till I gave up; yes, I did, George, I capitulated. Says he, ‘Sir Lupus, if a painful misunderstanding has kept us old neighbors from an exchange of civilities, I trust differences may be forgotten in this graver crisis. In our social stratum there is but one great line of cleavage now, opened by the convulsions of war, sir.”
“‘Damn the convulsions of war, sir!’ says I.
“‘Quite right,’ says he, mildly; ‘war is always damnable, Sir Lupus.’
“‘General Schuyler,’ says I, ‘there is no nonsense about me. You and Lady Schuyler are under my roof, and you are welcome, whatever opinion you entertain of me and my fashion of living. I understand perfectly that this visit is not a visit of ceremony from a neighbor, but a military necessity.’
“‘Sir Lupus,’ says Lady Schuyler, ‘had it been only a military necessity I should scarcely have accompanied the General and his guests.’
“‘Madam,’ says I, ‘it is commonly reported that I offended the entire aristocracy of Albany when I had Sir John Johnson’s sweetheart to dine with them. And for that I have been ostracized. For which ostracism, madam, I care not a brass farthing. And, madam, were I to dine all Albany to-night, I should not ignore my old neighbors and friends, the Putnams of Tribes Hill, to suit the hypocrisy of a few strangers from Albany. Right is right, madam, and decency is decency! And I say now that to honest men Claire Putnam is Sir John’s wife by every law of honor, decency, and chivalry; and I shall so treat her in the face of a rotten world and to the undying shame of that beast, Sir John!’
“Whereupon — would you believe it, George? — Schuyler took both my hands in his and said my conduct honored me, and more of the same sort o’ thing, and Lady Schuyler gave me her hand in that sweet, stately fashion; and, dammy! I saluted her finger-tips. Heaven knows how I found it possible to bend my waist, but I did, George. And there’s an end to the whole matter!”
He took snuff, blew his nose violently, snapped his gold snuff-box, and waddled to the window, where, below, in the early dusk, torches and rush-lights burned, illuminating the cavalry horses tethered along their picket-rope, and the trooper on guard, pacing his beat, musket shining in the wavering light.
“That escort will be my undoing,” he muttered. “Folk will dub me a partisan now. Dammy! a man under my roof is a guest, be he Tory or rebel. I do but desire to cultivate my land and pay my debts of honor; and I’ll stick to it till they leave me in peace or hang me to my barn door!”
And he toddled out, muttering and fumbling with his snuff-box, bidding me hasten and not keep them waiting dinner.
I stood before the mirror with its lighted sconces, gazing grimly at my sober face while Cato tied my queue-ribbon and dusted my silken coat-skirts. Then I fastened the brilliant buckle under my chin, shook out the deep, soft lace at throat and wristband, and took my small-sword from Cato.
“Mars’ George,” murmured the old man, “yo’ look lak yo’ is gwine wed wif mah li’l Miss Dorry.”
I stared at him angrily. “What put that into your head?” I demanded.
“I dunno, suh; hit dess look dat-a-way to me, suh.”
“You’re a fool,” I said, sharply.
“No, suh, I ain’ no fool, Mars’ George. I done see de sign! Yaas, suh, I done see de sign.”
“What sign?”
The old man chuckled, looked slyly at my left hand, then chuckled again.
“Mars’ George, yo’ is wearin’ yo’ weddin’-ring now!”
“A ring! There is no ring on my hand, you rascal!” I said.
“Yaas, suh; dey sho’ is, Mars’ George,” he insisted, still chuckling.
“I tell you I never wear a ring,” I said, impatiently.
“‘Scuse me, Mars’ George, suh,” he said, humbly. And, lifting my left hand, laid it in his wrinkled, black palm, peering closely. I also looked, and saw at the base of my third finger a circle like the mark left by a wedding-ring.
“That is strange,” I said; “I never wore a ring in all my life!”
“Das de sign, suh,” muttered the old man; “das de Ormond sign, suh. Yo’ pap wore de ghos’-ring, an’ his pap wore it too, suh. All de Ormonds done wore de ghos’-ring fore dey wus wedded. Hit am dess dat-a-way. Mars’ George—”
He hesitated, looking up at me with gentle, dim eyes.
“Miss Dorry, suh—”
He stopped short, then dropped his voice to a whisper.
“‘Fore Miss Dorry git up outen de baid, suh, I done tote de bre’kfus in de mawnin’. An’ de fustest word dat li’l Miss Dorry say, ‘Cato,’ she say, ‘whar Mars’ George?’ she say. ‘He ‘roun’ de yahd, Miss Dorry,’ I say. ‘‘Pears lak he gettin’ mo’ res’less an’ mis’ble, Miss Dorry.’
“‘Cato,’ she ‘low, ‘I spec’ ma’ haid gwine ache if I lie hyah in dishyere baid mo’n two free day. Whar ma’ milk an’ co’n pone, Cato?’
“So I des sot de salver down side de baid, suh, an’ li’l Miss Dorry she done set up in de baid, suh, an’ hole out one li’l bare arm—”
He laid a wrinkled finger on his lips; his dark face quivered with mystery and emotion.
