Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  She had turned quite pale; her eyes seemed set and fascinated, and she wished me happiness in a low voice, as though uncertain of her own words.

  Chilled by her lifeless greeting, I returned to Sir William, who presented me to the guests with unconcealed pride:

  “My kinsman, Mr. Cardigan, gentlemen; Captain Cardigan’s only son!”

  The officers, all in full dress, brilliant with the red, green, and gold of the Royal Americans, greeted me most kindly, some claiming acquaintance with my honoured father, and all speaking of his noble death before Quebec.

  Before we sat at table, they gave me a standing toast, all touching glasses with me, and Sir William, smiling, with one arm around my shoulder.

  So we sat down to breakfast, a breakfast I, being excited, scarcely tasted; but I listened with all my ears to the discourse touching the late troubles in New York and Massachusetts, concerning the importation of tea by the East India Company. The discussion soon became a monologue, for the subject was one which Sir William understood from A to Zed, and his eloquence upon it had amazed and irritated people of more importance than our Governor Tryon himself.

  “Look you,” said Sir William, in his clear voice like a bell; “look you, gentlemen; I yield to no man in loyalty and love to my King; but this I know and dare maintain here or at St. James: that his Majesty whom I serve and honour is misled by his ministers, and neither he nor they suspect the truth concerning these colonies!”

  The officers were all attention, some leaning forward to lose no word or inflection; Mistress Molly poured the roundly abused tea, and her gentle dark eyes ever stole proudly towards Sir William.

  “Gentlemen,” said Sir William, blandly, “you all are aware that since last December the Atlantic Ocean is become but a vast pot of cold tea.”

  The laughter which followed sounded to me a trifle strained, as well it might be, considering the insolence of the people who had flung this defiance into the King’s ocean.

  “Very well,” said Sir William, with that tight crease running around his jaw which meant his mind was made up. “This is the true history of that trouble, gentlemen. Judge for yourselves where lies the blame.” And, leaning back in his chair, one hand lifted, he began:

  “That damned East India Company, floundering about with the non-importation pill in its gullet, found itself owing the government fourteen hundred thousand pounds, with seventeen million pounds of unsold tea on its hands.

  “Nobody likes bankruptcy, so off go the East India gentlemen with their petition to Parliament for permission to export their tea to America, free of duty, and so put it in the power of the company to sell tea here cheaper than in England. And now I ask you, gentlemen, whether in all these broad colonies there are not some few men whose motives are other than sordid?

  “Your answers must be ‘yes!’ — because the colonists themselves so answered when they burned the Gaspee! — when they gathered at Griffin’s wharf and made tea enough for the world to drink! — when John Lamb set his back to the portcullis of the fort and the tea commissioners ran like rabbits!

  “God forbid that I, a humble loyal subject of my King, should ever bear out the work of rebels or traitors. But I solemnly say to you that the rebels and traitors are not the counterfeit Indians of Griffin’s wharf, not the men who fired the Gaspee aflame from sprit to topmast, not that man who set his back to the fort in New York! But they are those who whisper evil to my King at St. James — and may God have mercy on their souls!”

  In the silence which followed, Sir William leaned forward, 49 his heavy chin set on his fists, his eyes looking into the future which he alone saw so clearly.

  None durst interrupt him. The officers watched him silently — this great man — this great Irishman who had been the sole architect of his own greatness; this great American who saw what we, even now, cannot see as clearly as did he.

  There he sat, dumb, eyes on vacancy; a plain man, a Baronet of the British realm, a member of the King’s Council, a major-general of militia, and the superintendent of the Indian Department in North America.

  A plain man; but a vast land-holder, the one man in America trusted blindly by the Indians, a man whose influence was enormous; a man who was as simple as a maid, as truthful as a child, as kind as the Samaritan who passed not on the other side.

  A plain man, but a prophet.

  There was a step at the door; Mr. Duncan spoke in a low tone with the orderly, then returned to Sir William.

  “The Indian belt-bearer is at the block-house, sir,” he said.

  Sir William rose. The officers made their adieux and left. Only Sir William, Mistress Molly, Silver Heels, and I remained in the dining-hall.

  The Baronet looked across at Mistress Molly, and a sad smile touched his eyes.

  She took Silver Heels by the hand and quietly left the room.

  “Michael,” said Sir William; “listen closely, but remain silent concerning what this belt-bearer has to say. My honour is at stake, my son. Promise!”

  “I promise, sir,” said I, under my breath.

  The next moment the door behind me opened and the Indian stole into the room.

  CHAPTER IV

  I now for the first time obtained a distinct view of the stranger as he stepped forward, throwing the blanket from him, and stood revealed, stark naked save for clout and pouch, truly a superb figure, and perfect, in the Greek sense, barring that racial leanness below knee and calf, and the sinewy feet planted parallel instead of diverging, as in our race.

  But so splendid was his presence that Sir William, standing to receive him, unconsciously raised his chin and squared his shoulders as though bracing for a trial of strength with this tall red forester from the West.

  For a space they stood face to face in silence; then the belt-bearer, looking warily around at the empty room, asked why Chief Warragh received his brother alone.

  “My brother comes alone,” replied Sir William, with emphasis. “It is the custom of the Cayuga to send three with each belt. Does my brother bear but a fragment of one belt? Or does he think us of little consequence that he comes without attestants?”

  “I bear three belts,” said the Indian, haughtily. “Nine of my people started from the Ohio; I alone live.”

  Sir William bowed gravely; and, motioning me to be seated, drew up an arm-chair of velvet and sat down, folding his arms in silence.

  Then, for the first time in my life, I sat at a figurative council fire and listened to an orator of those masters of oratory, the peoples of the Six Nations.

  Dignified, chary of gesture, clean, yet somewhat sad and over-grave of speech, the Cayuga, facing the Baronet, related briefly his name, Quider, which in Iroquois means Peter; his tribe, which was the tribe of the Wolf, the totem being plain on his breast. He spoke of his journey from the 51 Ohio, the loss of the eight who had started with him; all dying from the small-pox within a week. He spoke respectfully of Sir William as the one man who had protected the Six Nations from unjust laws, from incursions, from white men’s violence and deception. He admitted that Sir William was the only man in America who to-day retained the absolute trust and confidence of the Indians, adding that it was for this reason that he had come.

  And then he began his brief speech, drawing from his pouch a black belt of wampum:

  “Brother: With this belt we breathe upon the embers which are asleep, and we cause the council fire to burn in this place and on the Ohio, which are our proper fireplaces. With this belt we sweep this fireplace clean, removing from it all that is impure, that we may sit around it as brothers.”

  (A belt of seven rows.)

  “Brother: The unhappy oppression of our brethren by Colonel Cresap’s men, near the Ohio carrying-place, is the occasion for our coming here. Our nation would not be at rest, nor easy, until they had spoken to you about it. They have now spoken — with this belt!”

  (A black and white belt.)

  “Brother: What are we to do? Lord Dunmore will not hear us. Co
lonel Cresap and his men, to whom we have done no harm, are coming to clear the forest and cross our free path which lies from Saint Sacrement to the Ohio, and which path our brother’s belts, which we still possess, have long since swept clear. What shall we do? Instead of polishing our knives we have come to our brother Warragh. Instead of seeking our kin the Mohawk and the Oneida with painted war belts to throw between us and them, we come to our brother and ask him, by this belt, what is left for us to do? Our brothers have taught us there is a God. Teach us He is a just God — by this belt!”

  (A black belt of five rows.)

  During this speech Sir William sat as still as death, neither by glance nor gesture nor change of colour betraying the surprise, indignation, and alarm which this exposure of Colonel Cresap’s doings caused him.

  As for me, I, of course, vaguely understood the breach of 52 faith committed by Colonel Cresap in invading the land of our allies, and the danger we might run should this Cayuga chief go to our Mohawks and Oneidas with war-belts and inflammatory appeals for vengeance on Cresap and his men.

  That he had instead come to us, braving all dangers, losing indeed all his comrades, on this mission of peace, most splendidly attested to the power and influence of Sir William among these savages whose first instinct is to draw the hatchet and begin the horrid vengeance which they consider their right when unjustly molested.

  It is seldom the custom to reply to a speech before the following day. Custom and tradition rule among the Six Nations. Deliberation and profound reflection they give to all spokesmen who petition them, and they require it in turn, regarding with suspicion and contempt a hasty reply, which, they consider, indicates either premeditated treachery, or a shallow mind incapable of weighty and mature reflection.

  I was prepared, therefore, when Sir William, holding in his right hand the three belts of wampum, rose and thanked the Cayuga for his talk, praising him and his tribe for resorting to arbitration instead of the hatchet, and promising an answer on the morrow.

  The Cayuga listened in silence, then resuming his blanket turned on his heel and passed slowly and noiselessly from the room, leaving Sir William standing beside the arm-chair, and me erect in the embrasure of the casement.

  Now, for the first time in my life, I saw a trace of physical decline in my guardian. His hand, holding the belts, had fallen a-trembling; he made a feeble gesture for me to be seated, and sank back into his arm-chair, listless eyes on the floor, absently running his fingers over the polished belts.

  “At sixty,” he said, as though to himself, “strong men should be in that mellow prime to which a sober life conducts.”

  After a moment he went on: “My life has been sober and without excess — but hard! very hard! I am an old man; a tired old man.”

  Looking up to meet my eyes, he smiled, watching the sympathy which twitched my face.

  “All these wars! All these wars! Thirty years of war!” 53 he murmured, caressing the belts and letting them slip through his fingers like smooth shining serpents. “War with the French, war with the Maquas, the Hurons, the Shawanese, the Ojibways! War in the Canadas, war in the Carolinas, war east and west and north and south! And — I am tired.”

  He flung the slippery belts to the floor, where they twisted and coiled up in a heap.

  “I have worked with my hands,” he said. “This land has drunk the sweat of my body. I have not spared myself in sickness or in health. My eyes are dim; I have used them by day, by starlight, by the glimmer of moons long dead, by candle-wood, by torch, by the flicker of smoke from green fires.

  “My arms are tired; I have hewn forests away; my limbs ache; I have journeyed far through snow, through heat, from the Canadas to the Gulf — all my life I have journeyed on business for other men — for men I have never seen, and shall never see — men yet to be born!”

  There came a flush of earnest colour into his face. He leaned forward towards me, elbow resting on the table, hand outstretched.

  “Why, look you, Michael,” he said, with childlike eagerness; “I found a wilderness and I leave a garden! Look at the valley! Can England grow such grain? Look at Tryon County! Look at this Province of New York? Ay — look farther — wherever my Indians have set their boundaries! There are roads, lad, roads where I found runways; turnpikes where I followed Mohawk trails; mills turning where the wild-cat squatted, fishing with big flat paws! Lad, you cannot recall it, yet this village was but a carrying-place when I came. Look at it; look from the window, lad! Is it not fair and pretty to the eye? One hundred and eighty families! Three churches, counting my new stone church; a free school, a court-house, a jail, barracks — all built by me; stores with red and blue swinging signs, bravely painted, inns with the good green bush a-swing! Listen to the cock-crows; listen to the barking! Might it not be a Devonshire town? Ah — I forgot; you have never seen old England.”

  Smiling still, kind eyes dreaming, his head sank a little, and he clasped his hands in his la

  “Lad,” he said, softly, “the English hay smells sweet, but not so sweet as the Mohawk Valley hay to me. This is my country — my country first, last, and all the time. I am too old to change where in my youth I took root among these hills. To transplant me means my end.”

  The sunlight stole into the room through leaded diamond-panes and fell across his knees like a golden robe. The music from the robins in the orchard filled my ears; soft winds stirred the lace on Sir William’s cuffs and collarette.

  Presently he roused, shaking the dream from his eyes; and, watching him, it seemed to me I could see the very tide of life swelling flesh and muscle into new vigour. The colour came back into his face and hands; the light grew in his eyes.

  “Come!” he said, in a voice that had lost its tremour. “Life has but one meaning — to go on, ever on, lad! ’Tis a long doze awaits us at the journey’s end.” And he fumbled for his snuff-box and lace hanker, blowing a vigorous blast and exclaiming, “Aha! Ho!” in deep tones which, when very young, awed me.

  I bent and picked up the three belts, placing them on the table near him.

  “Thank you, Michael,” he said, heartily; “and I must say that in this matter of the Cayuga, you have conducted admirably. Mr. Duncan has told me all; it was wisely done. Had you received the Cayuga with less welcome or more suspicion, or had you met him haughtily, I do not doubt that he would have made mischief for me among my Mohawks.”

  “He had war-sticks painted red, in his pouch, sir,” I replied.

  “No doubt! No doubt! And a red war-belt, too, belike! They were meant for my Mohawks had he met with a rebuff here. Oh, I know them, Michael, I know them. A painted war-belt flung between that Cayuga and the sachems of my Mohawks would have set the whole Six Nations — save, perhaps, the Oneidas — a-shining up rifle and hatchet for Cresap and his men!”

  Sir William struck the mahogany table with clinched fist.

  “Damn Cresap!” he bawled, in one of his familiar fits of fury — fits which were never witnessed outside his family circle. “Damn the fatuous fool to go a-meddling with the 55 Cayugas in their own lands, held by them in solemn covenant forever inviolate! What does the sorry ass want? A border war, with all this trouble betwixt King and colonies hatching? Does Colonel Cresap not know that a single scalp taken from the Cayugas will set the Six Nations on fire — ay, the Lenape, too?”

  Sir William slapped the table again with the flat of his hand.

  “Look, Michael; should war come betwixt King and colonies, neither King nor colonies should forget that our frontiers are crowded with thousands of savages who, if adroitly treated, will remain neutral and inoffensive. Yet here is this madman Cresap, on the very eve of a struggle with the greatest power in the world, turning the savages against the colonies by his crazy pranks on the Ohio!”

  “But,” said I, “in his blindness and folly, Colonel Cresap is throwing into our arms these very savages as allies!”

  Sir William stopped short and stared at me with cold, steady eyes.


  “Michael,” said he, presently, “when this war comes — as surely it will come — choose which cause you will embrace, and then stand by it to the end. As for me, I cannot believe that God would let me live to see such a war; that He would leave me to choose between the King who has honoured me and mine own people in this dear land of mine!”

  He raised his head and passed one hand over his eyes.

  “But should He in His wisdom demand that I choose — and if the sorrow kills me not — then, when the time comes, I shall choose.”

  “Which way, sir?” I said, in a sort of gasp.

  But he only answered, “Wait!”

  Stupefied, I watched him. It had never entered my head that there could be any course save unquestioned loyalty to the King in all things; that there could be any doubt or hesitation or pondering or praying for light when it came time to choose between King and rebel.

  I now recalled what Sir William had said to me in the school-room. Putting this with what he now said, or left unsaid, together with his anger at Colonel Cresap for endangering the peace betwixt the Indians and the colonies, I 56 came to the frightened conclusion that Sir William’s loyalty might be questioned. But by whom? Who in America was great enough to call Sir William to account? Not Governor Tryon; not Lord Dunmore; not General Gage.

  Feeling as though the bottom had fallen out of something, I sat there, my fascinated eyes never leaving Sir William’s sombre face.

  What then were these tea-hating rebels that Sir William should defend them at breakfast and in the faces of half a dozen of his Majesty’s officers? I knew nothing of the troubles in Massachusetts save from soldiers’ talk or the gossip of the townsmen, most of them being tenants of Sir William. I had heard vaguely about one turbulent fellow named Hancock, and a mischief-making jack-at-all-trades called Franklin. I knew that the trouble concerned taxes, but as all this bother appeared to be about a few pennies, and as I myself never wanted for money, I had little sympathy for people who made such an ado about a shilling or two. Moreover, if the King needed money, the idea of not placing one’s all at his Majesty’s disposal seemed contemptible to me. It is true that I had never earned a farthing in all my life, and so had nothing to offer my sovereign, save what fortune my father had left in trust for me. It is also true that I knew nothing of the value of money, having neither earned it nor wanted for it.