Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  A faint disgust took hold on me, to sit there smothering in the fumes of pipe and liquor, while my gross kinsman guzzled and gabbled and guzzled again.

  “George,” he gasped, mopping his crimsoned face, “I’ll tell you now that we Varicks and you Ormonds must stand out for neutrality in this war. The Butlers mean mischief; they’re mad to go to fighting, and that means our common ruin. They’ll be here to-night, damn them.”

  “Sir Lupus,” I ventured, “we are all kinsmen, the Butlers, the Varicks, and the Ormonds. We are to gather here for self-protection during this rebellion. I am sure that in the presence of this common danger there can arise no family dissension.”

  “Yes, there can!” he fairly yelled. “Here am I risking life and property to persuade these Butlers that their interest lies in strictest neutrality. If Schuyler at Albany knew they visited me, his dragoons would gallop into Varick Manor and hang me to my barn door! Here am I, I say, doing my best to keep ’em quiet, and there’s Sir John Johnson and all that bragging crew from Guy Park combating me — nay, would you believe their impudence? — striving to win me to arm my tenantry for this King of England, who has done nothing for me, save to make a knight of me to curry favor with the Dutch patroons in New York province — or state, as they call it now! And now I have you to count on for support, and we’ll whistle another jig for them to-night, I’ll warrant!”

  He seized his unfilled glass, looked into it, and pushed it from him peevishly.

  “Dammy,” he said, “I’ll not budge for them! I have thousands of acres, hundreds of tenants, farms, sugar-bushes, manufactories for pearl-ash, grist-mills, saw-mills, and I’m damned if I draw sword either way! Am I a madman, to risk all this? Am I a common fool, to chance anything now? Do they think me in my dotage? Indeed, sir, if I drew blade, if I as much as raised a finger, both sides would come swarming all over us — rebels a-looting and a-shooting, Indians whooping off my cattle, firing my barns, scalping my tenants — rebels at heart every one, and I’d not care tuppence who scalped ’em but that they pay me rent!”

  He clinched his fat fists and beat the air angrily.

  “I’m lord of this manor!” he bawled. “I’m Patroon Varick, and I’ll do as I please!”

  Amazed and mortified at his gross frankness, I sat silent, not knowing what to say. Interest alone swayed him; the right and wrong of this quarrel were nothing to him; he did not even take the trouble to pay a hypocrite’s tribute to principle ere he turned his back on it; selfishness alone ruled, and he boasted of it, waving his short, fat arms in anger, or struggling to extend them heavenward, in protest against these people who dared urge him to declare himself and stand or fall with the cause he might embrace.

  A faint disgust stirred my pulse. We Ormonds had as much to lose as he, but yelled it not to the skies, nor clamored of gain and loss in such unseemly fashion, ignoring higher motive.

  “Sir Lupus,” I said, “if we can remain neutral with honor, that surely is wisest. But can we?”

  “Remain neutral! Of course we can!” he shouted.

  “Honorably?”

  “Eh? Where’s honor in this mob-rule that breaks out in Boston to spot the whole land with a scurvy irruption! Honor? Where is it in this vile distemper which sets old neighbors here a-itching to cut each other’s throats? One says, ‘You’re a Tory! Take that!’ and slips a knife into him. T’other says, ‘You’re a rebel!’ Bang! — and blows his head off! Honor? Bah!”

  He removed his wig to wipe his damp and shiny pate, then set the wig on askew and glared at me out of his small, ruddy eyes.

  “I’m for peace,” he said, “and I care not who knows it. Then, whether Tory or rebel win the day, here am I, holding to my own with both hands and caring nothing which rag flies overhead, so that it brings peace and plenty to honest folk. And, mark me, then we shall live to see these plumed and gold-laced glory-mongers slinking round to beg their bread at our back doors. Dammy, let ’em bellow now! Let ’em shout for war! I’ll keep my mills busy and my agent walking the old rent-beat. If they can fill their bellies with a mess of glory I’ll not grudge them what they can snatch; but I’ll fill mine with food less spiced, and we’ll see which of us thrives best — these sons of Mars or the old patroon who stays at home and dips his nose into nothing worse than old Madeira!”

  He gave me a cunning look, pushed his wig partly straight, and lay back, puffing quietly at his pipe.

  I hesitated, choosing my words ere I spoke; and at first he listened contentedly, nodding approval, and pushing fresh tobacco into his clay with a fat forefinger.

  I pointed out that it was my desire to save my lands from ravage, ruin, and ultimate confiscation by the victors; that for this reason he had summoned me, and I had come to confer with him and with other branches of our family, seeking how best this might be done.

  I reminded him that, from his letters to me, I had acquired a fair knowledge of the estates endangered; that I understood that Sir John Johnson owned enormous tracts in Tryon County which his great father, Sir William, had left him when he died; that Colonel Claus, Guy Johnson, the Butlers, father and son, and the Varicks, all held estates of greatest value; and that these estates were menaced, now by Tory, now by rebel, and the lords of these broad manors were alternately solicited and threatened by the warring factions now so bloodily embroiled.

  “We Ormonds can comprehend your dismay, your distress, your doubts,” I said. “Our indigo grows almost within gunshot of the British outpost at New Smyrna; our oranges, our lemons, our cane, our cotton, must wither at a blast from the cannon of Saint Augustine. The rebels in Georgia threaten us, the Tories at Pensacola warn us, the Seminoles are gathering, the Minorcans are arming, the blacks in the Carolinas watch us, and the British regiments at Augustine are all itching to ravage and plunder and drive us into the sea if we declare not for the King who pays them.”

  Sir Lupus nodded, winked, and fell to slicing tobacco with a small, gold knife.

  “We’re all Quakers in these days — eh, George? We can’t fight — no, we really can’t! It’s wrong, George, — oh, very wrong.” And he fell a-chuckling, so that his paunch shook like a jelly.

  “I think you do not understand me,” I said.

  He looked up quickly.

  “We Ormonds are only waiting to draw sword.”

  “Draw sword!” he cried. “What d’ye mean?”

  “I mean that, once convinced our honor demands it, we cannot choose but draw.”

  “Don’t be an ass!” he shouted. “Have I not told you that there’s no honor in this bloody squabble? Lord save the lad, he’s mad as Walter Butler!”

  “Sir Lupus,” I said, angrily, “is a man an ass to defend his own land?”

  “He is when it’s not necessary! Lie snug; nobody is going to harm you. Lie snug, with both arms around your own land.”

  “I meant my own native land, not the miserable acres my slaves plant to feed and clothe me.”

  He glared, twisting his long pipe till the stem broke short.

  “Well, which land do you mean to defend, England or these colonies?” he asked, staring.

  “That is what I desire to learn, sir,” I said, respectfully. “That is why I came North. With us in Florida, all is, so far, faction and jealousy, selfish intrigue and prejudiced dispute. The truth, the vital truth, is obscured; the right is hidden in a petty storm where local tyrants fill the air with dust, striving each to blind the other.”

  I leaned forward earnestly. “There must be right and wrong in this dispute; Truth stands naked somewhere in the world. It is for us to find her. Why, mark me, Sir Lupus, men cannot sit and blink at villany, nor look with indifference on a struggle to the death. One side is right, t’other wrong. And we must learn how matters stand.”

  “And what will it advance us to learn how matters stand?” he said, still staring, as though I were some persistent fool vexing him with unleavened babble. “Suppose these rebels are right — and, dammy, but I think they are — and s
uppose our King’s troops are roundly trouncing them — and I think they are, too — do you mean to say you’d draw sword and go a-prowling, seeking for some obliging enemy to knock you in the head or hang you for a rebel to your neighbor’s apple-tree?”

  “Something of that sort,” I said, good-humoredly.

  “Oh, Don Quixote once more, eh?” he sneered, too mad to raise his voice to the more convenient bellow which seemed to soothe him as much as it distressed his listener. “Well, you’ve got a fool’s mate in Sir George Covert, the insufferable dandy! And all you two need is a pair o’ Panzas and a brace of windmills. Bah!” He grew angrier. “Bah, I say!” He broke out: “Damnation, sir! Go to the devil!”

  I said, calmly: “Sir Lupus, I hear your observation with patience; I naturally receive your admonition with respect, but your bearing towards me I resent. Pray, sir, remember that I am under your roof now, but when I quit it I am free to call you to account.”

  “What! You’d fight me?”

  “Scarcely, sir; but I should expect somebody to make your words good.”

  “Bah! Who? Ruyven? He’s a lad! Dorothy is the only one to—” He broke out into a hoarse laugh. “Oh, you Ormonds! I might have saved myself the pains. And now you want to flesh your sword, it matters not in whom — Tory, rebel, neutral folk, they’re all one to you, so that you fight! George, don’t take offence; I naturally swear at those I differ with. I may love ’em and yet curse ’em like a sailor! Know me better, George! Bear with me; let me swear at you, lad! It’s all I can do.”

  He spread out his fat hands imploringly, recrossing his enormous legs on the card-table. “I can’t fight, George; I would gladly, but I’m too fat. Don’t grudge me a few kindly oaths now and then. It’s all I can do.”

  I was seized with a fit of laughter, utterly uncontrollable. Sir Lupus observed me peevishly, twiddling his broken pipe, and I saw he longed to launch it at my head, which made me laugh till his large, round, red face grew grayer and foggier through the mirth-mist in my eyes.

  “Am I so droll?” he snapped.

  “Oh yes, yes, Sir Lupus,” I cried, weakly. “Don’t grudge me this laugh. It is all I can do.”

  A grim smile came over his broad face.

  “Touched!” he said. “I’ve a fine pair on my hands now — you and Sir George Covert — to plague me and prick me with your wit, like mosquitoes round a drowsy man. A fine family conference we shall have, with Sir John Johnson and the Butlers shooting one way, you and Sir George Covert firing t’other, and me betwixt you, singing psalms and getting all your arrows in me, fore and aft.”

  “Who is Sir George Covert?” I asked.

  “One o’ the Calverts, Lord Baltimore’s kin, a sort of cousin of the Ormond-Butlers, a supercilious dandy, a languid macaroni; plagues me, damn his impudence, but I can’t hate him — no! Hate him? Faith, I owe him more than any man on earth ... and love him for it — which is strange!”

  “Has he an estate in jeopardy?” I inquired.

  “Yes. He has a mansion in Albany, too, which he leases. He bought a mile on the great Vlaic and lives there all alone, shooting, fishing, playing the guitar o’ moony nights, which they say sets the wild-cats wilder. Mark me, George, a petty mile square and a shooting shanty, and this languid ass says he means to fight for it. Lord help the man! I told him I’d buy him out to save him from embroiling us all, and what d’ ye think? He stared at me through his lorgnons as though I had been some queer, new bird, and, says he, ‘Lud!’ says he,’ there’s a world o’ harmless sport in you yet, Sir Lupus, but you don’t spell your title right,’ says he. ’Change the a to an o and add an ell for good measure, and there you have it,’ says he, a-drawling. With which he minced off, dusting his nose with his lace handkerchief, and I’m damned if I see the joke yet in spelling patroon with an o for the a and an ell for good measure!”

  He paused, out of breath, to pour himself some spirits. “Joke?” he muttered. “Where the devil is it? I see no wit in that.” And he picked up a fresh pipe from the rack on the table and moistened the clay with his fat tongue.

  We sat in silence for a while. That this Sir George Covert should call the patroon a poltroon hurt me, for he was kin to us both; yet it seemed that there might be truth in the insolent fling, for selfishness and poltroonery are too often linked.

  I raised my eyes and looked almost furtively at my cousin Varick. He had no neck; the spot where his bullet head joined his body was marked only by a narrow and soiled stock. His eyes alone relieved the monotony of a stolid countenance; all else was fat.

  Sunk in my own reflections, lying back in my arm-chair, I watched dreamily the smoke pouring from the patroon’s pipe, floating away, to hang wavering across the room, now lifting, now curling downward, as though drawn by a hidden current towards the unwaxed oaken floor.

  No, there was no Ormond in him; he was all Varick, all Dutch, all patroon.

  I had never seen any man like him save once, when a red-faced Albany merchant came a-waddling to the sea-islands looking for cotton and indigo, and we all despised him for the eagerness with which he trimmed his shillings at the Augustine taverns. Thrift is a word abused, and serves too often as a mask for avarice.

  As I sat there fashioning wise saws and proverbs in my busy mind, the hall door opened and the first guest was announced — Sir George Covert.

  And in he came, a well-built, lazy gentleman of forty, swinging gracefully on a pair o’ legs no man need take shame in; ruffles on cuff and stock, hair perfumed, powdered, and rolled twice in French puffs, and on his hand a brilliant that sparkled purest fire. Under one arm he bore his gold-edged hat, and as he strolled forward, peering coolly about him through his quizzing glass, I thought I had never seen such graceful assurance, nor such insolently handsome eyes, marred by the faint shadows of dissipation.

  Sir Lupus nodded a welcome and blew a great cloud of smoke into the air.

  “Ah,” observed Sir George, languidly, “Vesuvius in irruption?”

  “How de do,” said Sir Lupus, suspiciously.

  “The mountain welcomes Mohammed,” commented Sir George. “Mohammed greets the mountain! How de do, Sir Lupus! Ah!” He turned gracefully towards me, bowing. “Pray present me, Sir Lupus.”

  “My cousin, George Ormond,” said Sir Lupus. “George first, George second,” he added, with a sneer.

  “No relation to George III., I trust, sir?” inquired Sir George, anxiously, offering his cool, well-kept hand.

  “No,” said I, laughing at his serious countenance and returning his clasp firmly.

  “That’s well, that’s well,” murmured Sir George, apparently vastly relieved, and invited me to take snuff with him.

  We had scarcely exchanged a civil word or two ere the servant announced Captain Walter Butler, and I turned curiously, to see a dark, graceful young man enter and stand for a moment staring haughtily straight at me. He wore a very elegant black-and-orange uniform, without gorget; a black military cloak hung from his shoulders, caught up in his sword-knot.

  With a quick movement he raised his hand and removed his officer’s hat, and I saw on his gauntlets of fine doeskin the Ormond arms, heavily embroidered. Instantly the affectation displeased me.

  “Come to the mountain, brother prophet,” said Sir George, waving his hand towards the seated patroon. He came, lightly as a panther, his dark, well-cut features softening a trifle; and I thought him handsome in his uniform, wearing his own dark hair unpowdered, tied in a short queue; but when he turned full face to greet Sir George Covert, I was astonished to see the cruelty in his almost perfect features, which were smooth as a woman’s, and lighted by a pair of clear, dark-golden eyes.

  Ah, those wonderful eyes of Walter Butler — ever-changing eyes, now almost black, glimmering with ardent fire, now veiled and amber, now suddenly a shallow yellow, round, staring, blank as the eyes of a caged eagle; and, still again, piercing, glittering, narrowing to a slit. Terrible mad eyes, that I have never forgotten — never, never can
forget.

  As Sir Lupus named me, Walter Butler dropped Sir George’s hand and grasped mine, too eagerly to please me.

  “Ormond and Ormond-Butler need no friends to recommend them each to the other,” he said. And straightway fell a-talking of the greatness of the Arrans and the Ormonds, and of that duke who, attainted, fled to France to save his neck.

  I strove to be civil, yet he embarrassed me before the others, babbling of petty matters interesting only to those whose taste invites them to go burrowing in parish records and ill-smelling volumes written by some toad-eater to his patron.

  For me, I am an Ormond, and I know that it would be shameful if I turned rascal and besmirched my name. As to the rest — the dukes, the glory, the greatness — I hold it concerns nobody but the dead, and it is a foolishness to plague folks’ ears by boasting of deeds done by those you never knew, like a Seminole chanting ere he strikes the painted post.

  Also, this Captain Walter Butler was overlarding his phrases with “Cousin Ormond,” so that I was soon cloyed, and nigh ready to damn the relationship to his face.

  Sir Lupus, who had managed to rise by this time, waddled off into the drawing-room across the hallway, motioning us to follow; and barely in time, too, for there came, shortly, Sir John Johnson with a company of ladies and gentlemen, very gay in their damasks, brocades, and velvets, which the folds of their foot-mantles, capuchins, and cardinals revealed.

  The gentlemen had come a-horseback, and all wore very elegant uniforms under their sober cloaks, which were linked with gold chains at the throat; the ladies, prettily powdered and patched, appeared a trifle over-colored, and their necks and shoulders, innocent of buffonts, gleamed pearl-tinted above their gay breast-knots. And they made a sparkling bevy as they fluttered up the staircase to their cloak-room, while Sir John entered the drawing-room, followed by the other gentlemen, and stood in careless conversation with the patroon, while old Cato disembarrassed him of cloak and hat.

  Sir John Johnson, son of the great Sir William, as I first saw him was a man of less than middle age, flabby, cold-eyed, heavy of foot and hand. On his light-colored hair he wore no powder; the rather long queue was tied with a green hair-ribbon; the thick, whitish folds of his double chin rested on a buckled stock.