The Maid-At-Arms: A Novel

by Robert W. Chambers

  THE MAID-AT-ARMS

  I

  THE ROAD TO VARICKS'

  We drew bridle at the cross-roads; he stretched his legs in hisstirrups, raised his arms, yawned, and dropped his huge hands uponeither thigh with a resounding slap.

  "Well, good-bye," he said, gravely, but made no movement to leave me.

  "Do we part here?" I asked, sorry to quit my chance acquaintance of theJohnstown highway.

  He nodded, yawned again, and removed his round cap of silver-fox fur toscratch his curly head.

  "We certainly do part at these cross-roads, if you are bound forVaricks'," he said.

  I waited a moment, then thanked him for the pleasant entertainment hiscompany had afforded me, and wished him a safe journey.

  "A safe journey?" he repeated, carelessly. "Oh yes, of course; safejourneys are rare enough in these parts. I'm obliged to you for thethought. You are very civil, sir. Good-bye."

  Yet neither he nor I gathered bridle to wheel our horses, but sat therein mid-road, looking at each other.

  "My name is Mount," he said at length; "let me guess yours. No, sir!don't tell me. Give me three sportsman's guesses; my hunting-knifeagainst the wheat straw you are chewing!"

  "With pleasure," I said, amused, "but you could scarcely guess it."

  "Your name is Varick?"

  I shook my head.

  "Butler?"

  "No. Look sharp to your knife, friend."

  "Oh, then I have guessed it," he said, coolly; "your name is Ormond--andI'm glad of it."

  "Why are you glad of it?" I asked, curiously, wondering, too, at hisknowledge of me, a stranger.

  "You will answer that question for yourself when you meet your kin, theVaricks and Butlers," he said; and the reply had an insolent ring thatdid not please me, yet I was loath to quarrel with this boyish giantwhose amiable company I had found agreeable on my long journey through aland so new to me.

  "My friend," I said, "you are blunt."

  "Only in speech, sir," he replied, lazily swinging one huge leg over thepommel of his saddle. Sitting at ease in the sunshine, he opened hisfringed hunting-shirt to the breeze blowing.

  "So you go to the Varicks?" he mused aloud, eyes slowly closing in thesunshine like the brilliant eyes of a basking lynx.

  "Do you know the lord of the manor?" I asked.

  "Who? The patroon?"

  "I mean Sir Lupus Varick."

  "Yes; I know him--I know Sir Lupus. We call him the patroon, though he'snot of the same litter as the Livingstons, the Cosbys, the Phillipses,Van Rensselaers, and those feudal gentlemen who juggle with the highjustice, the middle, and the low--and who will juggle no more."

  "Am I mistaken," said I, "in taking you for a Boston man?"

  "In one sense you are," he said, opening his eyes. "I was born inVermont."

  "Then you are a rebel?"

  "Lord!" he said, laughing, "how you twist our English tongue! 'Tis hisMajesty across the waters who rebels at our home-made Congress."

  "Is it not dangerous to confess such things to a stranger?" I asked,smiling.

  His bright eyes reassured me. "Not to all strangers," he drawled,swinging his free foot over his horse's neck and settling his bulk onthe saddle. One big hand fell, as by accident, over the pan of his longrifle. Watching, without seeming to, I saw his forefinger touch thepriming, stealthily, and find it dry.

  "You are no King's man," he said, calmly.

  "Oh, do you take me for a rebel, too?" I demanded.

  "No, sir; you are neither the one nor the other--like a tadpole withlegs, neither frog nor pollywog. But you will be."

  "Which?" I asked, laughing.

  "My wisdom cannot draw that veil for you, sir," he said. "You may takeyour chameleon color from your friends the Varicks and remain gray, orfrom the Butlers and turn red, or from the Schuylers and turn blueand buff."

  "You credit me with little strength of character," I said.

  "I credit you with some twenty-odd years and no experience."

  "With nothing more?"

  "Yes, sir; with sincerity and a Spanish rifle--which you may have needof ere this month of May has melted into June."

  I glanced at the beautiful Spanish weapon resting across my pommel.

  "What do you know of the Varicks?" I asked, smiling.

  "More than do you," he said, "for all that they are your kin. Look atme, sir! Like myself, you wear deer-skin from throat to ankle, and yournose is ever sniffing to windward. But this is a strange wind to you.You see, you smell, but your eyes ask, 'What is it?' You are a woodsman,but a stranger among your own kin. You have never seen a living Varick;you have never even seen a partridge."

  "Your wisdom is at fault there," I said, maliciously.

  "Have you seen a Varick?"

  "No; but the partridge--"

  "Pooh! a little creature, like a gray meadow-lark remoulded! You call itpartridge, I call it quail. But I speak of the crested thunder--drummingcock that struts all ruffed like a Spanish grandee of ancient times.Wait, sir!" and he pointed to a string of birds' footprints in the dustjust ahead. "Tell me what manner of creature left its mark there?"

  I leaned from my saddle, scanning the sign carefully, but the bird thatmade it was a strange bird to me. Still bending from my saddle, I heardhis mocking laugh, but did not look up.

  "You wear a lynx-skin for a saddle-cloth," he said, "yet that lynx neversqualled within a thousand miles of these hills."

  "Do you mean to say there are no lynxes here?" I asked.

  "Plenty, sir, but their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I donot mean to vex you; I read as I run, sir; it is my habit."

  "So you have traced me on a back trail for a thousand miles--fromhabit," I said, not exactly pleased.

  "A thousand miles--by your leave."

  "Or without it."

  "Or without it--a thousand miles, sir, on a back trail, through foreststhat blossom like gigantic gardens in May with flowers sweeter than ourwhite water-lilies abloom on trees that bear glossy leaves the yearround; through thickets that spread great, green, many-fingered hands atyou, all adrip with golden jasmine; where pine wood is fat as bacon;where the two oaks shed their leaves, yet are ever in foliage; where thethick, blunt snakes lie in the mud and give no warning when they dealdeath. So far, sir, I trail you, back to the soil where your babyfingers first dug--soil as white as the snow which you are yet to seefor the first time in your life of twenty-three years. A land wherethere are no hills; a land where the vultures sail all day withoutflapping their tip-curled wings; where slimy dragon things watch fromthe water's edge; where Greek slaves sweat at indigo-vats that drawvultures like carrion; where black men, toiling, sing all day on thesea-islands, plucking cotton-blossoms; where monstrous horrors, hornlessand legless, wallow out to the sedge and graze like cattle--"

  "Man! You picture a hell!" I said, angrily, "while I come fromparadise!"

  "The outer edges of paradise border on hell," he said. "Wait! Sniff thatodor floating."

  "It is jasmine!" I muttered, and my throat tightened with a homesickspasm.

  "It is the last of the arbutus," he said, dropping his voice to a gentlemonotone. "This is New York province, county of Tryon, sir, and yonderbird trilling is not that gray minstrel of the Spanish orange-tree,mocking the jays and the crimson fire-birds which sing 'Peet! peet!'among the china-berries. Do you know the wild partridge-pea of the pinebarrens, that scatters its seeds with a faint report when the pods aretouched? There is in this land a red bud which has burst thundering intocrimson bloom, scattering seeds o' death to the eight winds. And everyseed breeds a battle, and every root drinks blood!"

  He straightened in his stirrups, blue eyes ablaze, face burning underits heavy mask of tan and dust.

  "If I know a man when I see him, I know you," he said. "God save ourcountry, friend, upon this sweet May day."

  "Amen, sir," I replied, tingling. "And God save the King the whole yearround!"

  "Yes," he repeated, with a disa
greeable laugh, "God save the King; he ispast all human aid now, and headed straight to hell. Friend, let us partere we quarrel. You will be with me or against me this day week. I knewit was a man I addressed, and no tavern-post."

  "Yet this brawl with Boston is no affair of mine," I said, troubled."Who touches the ancient liberties of Englishmen touches my country,that is all I know."

  "Which country, sir?"

  "Greater Britain."

  "And when Greater Britain divides?"

  "It must not!"

  "It has."

  I unbound the scarlet handkerchief which I wore for a cap, and held itbetween my fingers to dry its sweat in the breeze. Watching itflutter, I said:

  "Friend, in my country we never cross the branch till we come to it, norleave the hammock till the river-sands are beneath our feet. Nohunting-shirt is sewed till the bullet has done its errand, nor do menfish for gray mullet with a hook and line. There is always time to prayfor wisdom."

  "Friend," replied Mount, "I wear red quills on my moccasins, you wearbits of sea-shell. That is all the difference between us. Good-bye.Varick Manor is the first house four miles ahead."

  He wheeled his horse, then, as at a second thought, checked him andlooked back at me.

  "You will see queer folk yonder at the patroon's," he said. "You areaccustomed to the manners of your peers; you were bred in that landwhere hospitality, courtesy, and deference are shown to equals; wheredignity and graciousness are expected from the elders; where duty andhumility are inbred in the young. So is it with us--except where you aregoing. The great patroon families, with their vast estates, theirpatents, their feudal systems, have stood supreme here for years. Theirsis the power of life and death over their retainers; they reign absolutein their manors, they account only to God for their trusts. And they aregreat folk, sir, even yet--these Livingstons, these Van Rensselaers,these Phillipses, lords of their manors still; Dutch of descent,polished, courtly, proud, bearing the title of patroon as a noble bearshis coronet."

  He raised his hand, smiling. "It is not so with the Varicks. They arepatroons, too, yet kin to the Johnsons, of Johnson Hall and Guy Park,and kin to the Ormond-Butlers. But they are different from eitherJohnson or Butler--vastly different from the Schuylers or theLivingstons--"

  He shrugged his broad shoulders and dropped his hand: "The Varicks areall mad, sir. Good-bye."

  He struck his horse with his soft leather heels; the animal bounded outinto the western road, and his rider swung around once more towards mewith a gesture partly friendly, partly, perhaps, in menace. "Tell SirLupus to go to the devil!" he cried, gayly, and cantered away throughthe golden dust.

  I sat my horse to watch him; presently, far away on the hill's crest,the sun caught his rifle and sparkled for a space, then the point ofwhite fire went out, and there was nothing on the hill-top save thedust drifting.

  Lonelier than I had yet been since that day, three months gone, when Ihad set out from our plantation on the shallow Halifax, which thehammock scarcely separates from the ocean, I gathered bridle withlistless fingers and spoke to my mare. "Isene, we must be movingeastward--always moving, sweetheart. Come, lass, there's grain somewherein this Northern land where you have carried me." And to myself,muttering aloud as I rode: "A fine name he has given to my cousins theVaricks, this giant forest-runner, with his boy's face and limbs ofiron! And he was none too cordial concerning the Butlers,either--cousins, too, but in what degree they must tell me, for Idon't know--"

  The road entering the forest, I ceased my prattle by instinct, and againfor the thousandth time I sniffed at odors new to me, and scanned leafydepths for those familiar trees which stand warden in our Southernforests. There were pines, but they were not our pines, these feathery,dark-stemmed trees; there were oaks, but neither our golden water oaksnor our great, green-and-silver live-oaks. Little, pale flowers bloomedeverywhere, shadows only of our bright blossoms of the South; and therare birds I saw were gray and small, and chary of song, as though thestillness that slept in this Northern forest was a danger not to beawakened. Loneliness fell on me; my shoulders bent and my head hungheavily. Isene, my mare, paced the soft forest-road without a sound, soquietly that the squatting rabbit leaped from between her forelegs, andthe slim, striped, squirrel-like creatures crouched paralyzed as wepassed ere they burst into their shrill chatter of fright or anger, Iknow not which.

  Had I a night to spend in this wilderness I should not know where tofind a palmetto-fan for a torch, where to seek light-wood for splinter.It was all new to me; signs read riddles; tracks were sealed books; theeast winds brought rain, where at home they bring heaven's own balm tous of the Spanish grants on the seaboard; the northwest winds that wedread turn these Northern skies to sapphire, and set bees a-humming onevery bud.

  There was no salt in the air, no citrus scent in the breeze, no heavyincense of the great magnolia bloom perfuming the wilderness like acathedral aisle where a young bride passes, clouded in lace.

  But in the heat a heavy, sweetish odor hung; balsam it is called, andmingled, too, with a faint scent like our bay, which comes from a woodybush called sweet-fern. That, and the strong smell of the bluish,short-needled pine, was ever clogging my nostrils and confusing me. OnceI thought to scent a 'possum, but the musky taint came from a rottinglog; and a stale fox might have crossed to windward and I not noticed,so blunted had grown my nose in this unfamiliar Northern world.

  Musing, restless, dimly confused, and doubly watchful, I rode throughthe timber-belt, and out at last into a dusty, sunny road. Andstraightway I sighted a house.

  The house was of stone, and large and square and gray, with only apillared porch instead of the long double galleries we build; and it hada row of windows in the roof, called dormers, and was surrounded by astockade of enormous timbers, in the four corners of which were setlittle forts pierced for rifle fire.

  Noble trees stood within the fortified lines; outside, green meadowsringed the place; and the grass was thick and soft, and vivid as a greenjewel in color--such grass as we never see save for a spot here andthere in swampy places where the sun falls in early spring.

  The house was yet a hundred rods away to the eastward. I rode on slowly,noticing the neglected fences on either hand, and thought that my cousinVarick might have found an hour to mend them, for his pride's sake.

  Isene, my mare, had already scented the distant stables, and waspricking forward her beautiful ears as I unslung my broad hat of plaitedpalmetto and placed it on my head, the better to salute my hosts when Ishould ride to their threshold in the Spanish fashion we followedat home.

  So, cantering on, I crossed a log bridge which spanned a ravine, belowwhich I saw a grist-mill; and so came to the stockade. The gate was openand unguarded, and I guided my mare through without a challenge from thesmall corner forts, and rode straight to the porch, where an ancientnegro serving-man stood, dressed in a tawdry livery too large for him.As I drew bridle he gave me a dull, almost sullen glance, and it was notuntil I spoke sharply to him that he shambled forward and descended thetwo steps to hold my stirrup.

  "Is Sir Lupus at home?" I asked, looking curiously at this mute,dull-eyed black, so different from our grinning lads at home.

  "Yaas, suh, he done come home, suh."

  "Then announce Mr. George Ormond," I said.

  He stared, but did not offer to move.

  "Did you hear me?" I asked, astonished.

  "Yaas, suh, I done hear yoh, suh."

  I looked him over in amazement, then walked past him towards the door.

  "Is you gwine look foh Mars' Lupus?" he asked, barring my way with onewrinkled, blue-black hand on the brass door-knob. "Kaze ef you is, youdon't had better, suh."

  I could only stare.

  "Kaze Mars' Lupus done say he gwine kill de fustest man what 'sturb him,suh," continued the black man, in a listless monotone. "An' I spec' hegwine do it."

  "Is Sir Lupus abed at this hour?" I asked.

  "Yaas, suh."

  There was no e
motion in the old man's voice. Something made me thinkthat he had given the same message to visitors many times.

  I was very angry at the discourtesy, for he must have known when toexpect me from my servant, who had accompanied me by water with my boxesfrom St. Augustine to Philadelphia, where I lingered while he wentforward, bearing my letter with him. Yet, angry and disgusted as I was,there was nothing for me to do except to swallow the humiliation, walkin, and twiddle my thumbs until the boorish lord of the manor waked togreet his invited guest.

  "I suppose I may enter," I said, sarcastically.

  "Yaas, suh; Miss Dorry done say: 'Cato,' she say, 'ef de young gem'mancome when Mars' Lupus am drunk, jess take care n' him, Cato; put himmos' anywhere 'cep in mah bed, Cato, an' jess call me ef I ain' busy'bout mah business--'"

  Still rambling on, he opened the door, and I entered a wide hallway,dirty and disordered. As I stood hesitating, a terrific crash soundedfrom the floor above.

  "Spec' Miss Dorry busy," observed the old man, raising his solemn,wrinkled face to listen.

  "Uncle," I said, "is it true that you are all mad in this house?"

  "We sho' is, suh," he replied, without interest.

  "Are you too crazy to care for my horse?"

  "Oh no, suh."

  "Then go and rub her down, and feed her, and let me sit here in thehallway. I want to think."

  Another crash shook the ceiling of solid oak; very far away I heard ayoung girl's laughter, then a stifled chorus of voices from thefloor above.

  "Das Miss Dorry an' de chilluns," observed the old man.

  "Who are the others?"

  "Waal, dey is Miss Celia, an' Mars' Harry, an' Mars' Ruyven, an' Mars'Sam'l, an' de babby, li'l Mars' Benny."

  "All mad?"

  "Yaas, suh."

  "I'll be, too, if I remain here," I said. "Is there an inn near by?"

  "De Turkle-dove an' Olives."

  "Where?"

  "'Bout five mile long de pike, suh."

  "Feed my horse," I said, sullenly, and sat down on a settle, riflecradled between my knees, and in my heart wrath immeasurable against mykin the Varicks.