Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  He gave me a grateful glance. “Yes,” he said, shyly.

  Sir George Covert, a trifle pallid, but bland and urbane, strolled out to the porch, saluting us gracefully. He paused beside Dorothy, who slipped her needle through her work and held out her hand for him to salute.

  “Are you also going to the wars?” she asked, with a friendly smile.

  “Where are they?” he inquired, pretending a fierce eagerness. “Point out some wars and I’ll go to ’em post haste!”

  “They’re all around us,” said Sammy, solemnly.

  “Then we’d best get to horse and lose no time, Mr. Ormond,” he observed, passing his arm through mine. In a lower voice he added: “Headache?”

  “Oh no,” I said, hastily.

  “Lucky dog. Sir Lupus lies as though struck by lightning. I’m all a-quiver, too. A man of my years is a fool to do such things. But I do, Ormond, I do; ass that I am. Do you ride bounds with Sir Lupus?”

  “If he desires it,” I said.

  “Then I’ll see you when you pass my villa on the Vlaie, where you’ll find a glass of wine waiting. Do you ride, Miss Dorothy?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  A stable lad brought his horse to the porch. He took leave of Dorothy with a grace that charmed even me; yet, in his bearing towards her I could detect the tender pride he had in her, and that left me cold and thoughtful.

  All liked him, though none appeared to regard him exactly as a kinsman, nor accorded him that vague shade of intimacy which is felt in kinship, not in comradeship alone, and which they already accorded me.

  Dorothy walked with him to the stockade gate, the stable lad following with his horse; and I saw them stand there in low-voiced conversation, he lounging and switching at the weeds with his riding-crop; she, head bent, turning the gold thimble over and over between her fingers. And I wondered what they were saying.

  Presently he mounted and rode away, a graceful, manly figure in the saddle, and not turning like a fop to blow a kiss at his betrothed, nor spurring his horse to show his skill — for which I coldly respected him.

  Harry, Cecile, and the children gathered their paints and books and went into the house, demanding that I should follow.

  “Dorothy is beckoning us,” observed Ruyven, gathering up his paints.

  I looked towards her and she raised her hand, motioning us to come.

  “About father’s watch,” she said. “I have just consulted Sir George, and he says that neither I nor Ruyven have won, seeing that Ruyven used the coin he did—”

  “Very well,” cried Ruyven, triumphantly. “Then let us match dates again. Have you a shilling, Cousin Ormond?”

  “I’ll throw hunting-knives for it,” suggested Dorothy.

  “Oh no, you won’t,” retorted her brother, warily.

  “Then I’ll race you to the porch.”

  He shook his head.

  She laughed tauntingly.

  “I’m not afraid,” said Ruyven, reddening and glancing at me.

  “Then I’ll wrestle you.”

  Stung by the malice in her smile, Ruyven seized her.

  “No, no! Not in these clothes!” she said, twisting to free herself. “Wait till I put on my buckskins. Don’t use me so roughly, you tear my laced apron. Oh! you great booby!” And with a quick cry of resentment she bent, caught her brother, and swung him off his feet clean over her left shoulder slap on the grass.

  “Silly!” she said, cheeks aflame. “I have no patience to be mauled.” Then she laughed uncertainly to see him lying there, too astonished to get up.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Who taught you that hold?” he demanded, indignantly, scrambling to his feet. “I thought I alone knew that.”

  “Why, Captain Campbell taught you last week and ... I was at the window ... sewing,” she said, demurely.

  Ruyven looked at me, disgusted, muttering, “If I could learn things the way she does, I’d not waste time at King’s College, I can tell you.”

  “You’re not going to King’s College, anyhow,” said his sister. “York is full o’ loyal rebels and Tory patriots, and father says he’ll be damned if you can learn logic where all lack it.”

  She held out her hand, smiling. “No malice, Ruyven, and we’ll forgive each other.”

  Her brother met the clasp; then, hands in his pockets, followed us back through the stockade towards the porch. I was pleased to see that his pride had suffered no more than his body from the fall he got, which augured well for a fair-minded manhood.

  As we approached the house I heard hollow noises within, like groans; and I stopped, listening intently.

  “It is Sir Lupus snoring,” observed Ruyven. “He will wake soon; I think I had best call Tulip,” he added, exchanging a glance with his sister; and entered the house calling, “Cato! Cato! Tulip! Tulip! I say!”

  “Who is Tulip?” I asked of Dorothy, who lingered at the threshold folding her embroidery into a bundle.

  “Tulip? Oh, Tulip cooks for us — black as a June crow, cousin. She is voodoo.”

  “Evil-eye and all?” I asked, smiling.

  Dorothy looked up shyly. “Don’t you believe in the evil-eye?”

  I was not perfectly sure whether I did or not, but I said “No.”

  “To believe is not necessarily to be afraid,” she added, quickly.

  Now, had I believed in the voodoo craft, or in the power of an evil-eye, I should also have feared. Those who have ever witnessed a sea-island witch-dance can bear me out, and I think a man may dread a hag and be no coward either. But distance and time allay the memories of such uncanny works. I had forgotten whether I was afraid or not. So I said, “There are no witches, Dorothy.”

  She looked at me, dreamily. “There are none ... that I fear.”

  “Not even Catrine Montour?” I asked, to plague her.

  “No; it turns me cold to think of her running in the forest, but I am not afraid.”

  She stood pensive in the doorway, rolling and unrolling her embroidery. Harry and Cecile came out, flourishing alder poles from which lines and hooks dangled. Samuel and Benny carried birchen baskets and shallow nets.

  “If we’re to have Mohawk chubbs,” said Cecile, “you had best come with us, Dorothy. Ruyven has a book and has locked himself in the play-room.”

  But Dorothy shook her head, saying that she meant to ride the boundary with us; and the children, after vainly soliciting my company, trooped off towards that same grist-mill in the ravine below the bridge which I had observed on my first arrival at Varick Manor.

  “I am wondering,” said Dorothy, “how you mean to pass the morning. You had best steer wide of Sir Lupus until he has breakfasted.”

  “I’ve a mind to sleep,” I said, guiltily.

  “I think it would be pleasant to ride together. Will you?” she asked; then, laughing, she said, frankly, “Since you have come I do nothing but follow you.... It is long since I have had a young companion, ... and, when I think that you are to leave us, it spurs me to lose no moment that I shall regret when you are gone.”

  No shyness marred the pretty declaration of her friendship, and it touched me the more keenly perhaps. The confidence in her eyes, lifted so sweetly, waked the best in me; and if my response was stumbling, it was eager and warm, and seemed to please her.

  “Tulip! Tulip!” she cried, “I want my dinner! Now!” And to me, “We will eat what they give us; I shall dress in my buckskins and we will ride the boundary and register the signs, and Sir Lupus and the others can meet us at Sir George Covert’s pleasure-house on the Vlaie. Does it please you, Cousin George?”

  I looked into her bright eyes and said that it pleased me more than I dared say, and she laughed and ran up-stairs, calling back to me that I should order our horses and tell Cato to tell Tulip to fetch meat and claret to the gun-room.

  I whistled a small, black stable lad and bade him bring our mounts to the porch, then wandered at random down the hallway, following my nose, which sce
nted the kitchen, until I came to a closed door.

  Behind that door meats were cooking — I could take my oath o’ that — so I opened the door and poked my nose in.

  “Tulip,” I said, “come here!”

  An ample black woman, aproned and turbaned, looked at me through the steam of many kettles, turned and cuffed the lad at the spit, dealt a few buffets among the scullions, and waddled up to me, bobbing and curtsying.

  “Aunt Tulip,” I said, gravely, “are you voodoo?”

  “Folks says ah is, Mars’ Ormon’,” she said, in her soft Georgia accent.

  “Oh, they do, do they? Look at me, Aunt Tulip. What do my eyes tell you of me?”

  Her dark eyes, fixed on mine, seemed to change, and I thought little glimmers of pure gold tinted the iris, like those marvellous restless tints in a gorgeous bubble. Certainly her eyes were strange, almost compelling, for I felt a faint rigidity in my cheeks and my eyes returned directly to hers as at an unspoken command.

  “Can you read me, aunty?” I asked, trying to speak easily, yet feeling the stiffness growing in my cheeks.

  “Ah sho’ can,” she said, stepping nearer.

  “What is my fate, then?”

  “Ah ‘spec’ yo’ gwine fine yo’se’f in love,” she said, softly; and I strove to smile with ever-stiffening lips.

  A little numbness that tingled spread over me; it was pleasant; I did not care to withdraw my eyes. Presently the tightness in my face relaxed, I moved my lips, smiling vaguely.

  “In love,” I repeated.

  “Yaas, Mars’ Ormon’.”

  “When?”

  “‘Fore yo’ know h’it, honey.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “‘Spec’ ah done tole yo’ too much, honey.” She looked at me steadily. “Pore Mars’ Gawge,” she murmured, “‘spec’ ah done tole yo’ too much. But it sho’ am a-comin’, honey, an’ h’it gwine come pow’ful sudden, an’ h’it gwine mek yo’ pow’ful sick.”

  “Am I to win her?”

  “No, honey.”

  “Is there no hope, Aunt Tulip?”

  She hesitated as though at fault; I felt the tenseness in my face once more; then, for one instant, I lost track of time; for presently I found myself standing in the hallway watching Sir Lupus through the open door of the gun-room, and Sir Lupus was very angry.

  “Dammy!” he roared, “am I to eat my plate? Cato! I want my porridge!”

  Confused, I stood blinking at him, and he at table, bibbed like a babe, mad as a hornet, hammering on the cloth with a great silver spoon and bellowing that they meant to starve him.

  “I don’t remember how I came here,” I began, then flushed furiously at my foolishness.

  “Remember!” he shouted. “I don’t remember anything! I don’t want to remember anything! I want my porridge! I want it now! Damnation!”

  Cato, hastening past me with the steaming dish, was received with a yelp. But at last Sir Lupus got his spoon into the mess and a portion of the mess into his mouth, and fell to gobbling and growling, paying me no further attention. So I closed the door of the gun-room on the great patroon and walked to the foot of the stairway.

  A figure in soft buckskins was descending — a blue-eyed, graceful youth who hailed me with a gesture.

  “Dorothy!” I said, fascinated.

  Her fringed hunting-shirt fell to her knees, the short shoulder-cape from throat to breast; gay fringe fluttered from shoulder to wrist, and from thigh to ankle; and her little scarlet-quilled moccasins went pat-patter-pat as she danced down the stairway and stood before me, sweeping her cap from her golden head in exaggerated salute.

  She seemed smaller in her boy’s dress, fuller, too, and rounder of neck and limb; and the witchery of her beauty left me silent — a tribute she found delightful, for she blushed very prettily and bowed again in dumb acknowledgment of the homage all too evident in my eyes.

  Cato came with a dish of meat and a bottle of claret; and we sat down on the stairs, punishing bottle and platter till neither drop nor scrap remained.

  “Don’t leave these dishes for Sir Lupus to fall over!” she cried to Cato, then sprang to her feet and was out of the door before I could move, whistling for our horses.

  As I came out the horses arrived, and I hastened forward to put her into her saddle, but she was up and astride ere I reached the ground, coolly gathering bridle and feeling with her soft leather toes for the stirrups.

  Astonished, for I had never seen a girl so mounted, I climbed to my saddle and wheeled my mare, following her out across the lawn, through the stockade and into the road, where I pushed my horse forward and ranged up beside her at a gallop, just as she reached the bridge.

  “See!” she cried, with a sweep of her arm, “there are the children down there fishing under the mill.” And she waved her small cap of silver fox, calling in a clear, sweet voice the Indian cry of triumph, “Kôue!”

  VIII

  RIDING THE BOUNDS

  For the first half-mile our road lay over that same golden, hilly country, and through the same splendid forests which I had traversed on my way to the manor. Then we galloped past cultivated land, where clustered spears of Indian corn sprouted above the reddish golden soil, and sheep fed in stony pastures.

  Around the cabins of the tenantry, fields of oats and barley glimmered, thin blades pricking the loam, brilliant as splintered emeralds.

  A few dropping blossoms still starred the apple-trees, pears showed in tiny bunches, and once I saw a late peach-tree in full pink bloom and an old man hoeing the earth around it. He looked up as we galloped past, saluted sullenly, and leaned on his hoe, looking after us.

  Dorothy said he was a Palatine refugee and a rebel, like the majority of Sir Lupus’s tenants; and I gazed curiously at these fields and cabins where gaunt men and gaunter women, laboring among their sprouting vegetables, turned sun-dazzled eyes to watch us as we clattered by; where ragged children, climbing on the stockades, called out to us in little, shrill voices; where feeding cattle lifted sober heads to stare; where lank, yellow dogs rushed out barking and snapping till a cut of the whip sent them scurrying back.

  Once a woman came to her gate and hailed us, asking if it was true that the troops had been withdrawn from Johnstown and Kingsborough.

  “Which troops?” I asked.

  “Ours,” began the woman, then checked herself, and shot a suspicious glance at me.

  “The Provincials are still at Johnstown and Kingsborough,” said Dorothy, gently.

  A gleam of relief softened the woman’s haggard features. Then her face darkened again and she pointed at two barefooted children shrinking against the fence.

  “If my man and I were alone we would not be afraid of the Mohawks; but these—”

  She made a desperate gesture, and stood staring at the blue Mayfield hills where, perhaps at that moment, painted Mohawk scouts were watching the Sacandaga.

  “If your men remain quiet, Mrs. Schell, you need fear neither rebel, savage, nor Tory,” said Dorothy. “The patroon will see that you have ample protection.”

  Mrs. Schell gave her a helpless glance. “Did you not know that the district scout-call has gone out?” she asked.

  “Yes; but if the tenants of Sir Lupus obey it they do so at their peril,” replied Dorothy, gravely. “The militia scouts of this district must not act hastily. Your husband would be mad to answer a call and leave you here alone.”

  “What would you have him do?” muttered the woman.

  “Do?” repeated Dorothy. “He can do one thing or the other — join his regiment and take his family to the district fort, or stay at home and care for you and the farm. These alarms are all wrong — your men are either soldiers or farmers; they cannot be both unless they live close enough to the forts. Tell Mr. Schell that Francy McCraw and his riders are in the forest, and that the Brandt-Meester of Balston saw a Mohawk smoke-signal on the mountain behind Mayfield.”

  The woman folded her bony arms in her apron, cast
one tragic glance at her children, then faced us again, hollow-eyed but undaunted.

  “My man is with Stoner’s scout,” she said, with dull pride.

  “Then you must go to the block-house,” began Dorothy, but the woman pointed to the fields, shaking her head.

  “We shall build a block-house here,” she said, stubbornly. “We cannot leave our corn. We must eat, Mistress Varick. My man is too poor to be a Provincial soldier, too brave to refuse a militia call—”

  She choked, rubbed her eyes, and bent her stern gaze on the hills once more. Presently we rode on, and, turning in my saddle, I saw her standing as we had left her, gaunt, rigid, staring steadily at the dreaded heights in the northwest.

  As we galloped, cultivated fields and orchards became rarer; here and there, it is true, some cabin stood on a half-cleared hill-side, and we even passed one or two substantial houses on the flat ridge to the east, but long, solid stretches of forest intervened, and presently we left the highway and wheeled into a cool wood-road bordered on either side by the forest.

  “Here we find our first landmark,” said Dorothy, drawing bridle.

  A white triangle glimmered, cut in the bark of an enormous pine; and my cousin rode up to the tree and patted the bark with her little hand. On the triangle somebody had cut a V and painted it black.

  “This is a boundary mark,” said Dorothy. “The Mohawks claim the forest to the east; ride around and you will see their sign.”

  I guided my horse around the huge, straight trunk. An oval blaze scarred it and on the wood was painted a red wolf.

  “It’s the wolf-clan, Brant’s own clan of the Mohawk nation,” she called out to me. “Follow me, cousin.” And she dashed off down the wood-road, I galloping behind, leaping windfalls, gullies, and the shallow forest brooks that crossed our way. The road narrowed to a trodden trail; the trail faded, marked at first by cut undergrowth, then only by the white scars on the tree-trunks.

  These my cousin followed, her horse at a canter, and I followed her, halting now and again to verify the white triangle on the solid flank of some forest giant, passing a sugar-bush with the shack still standing and the black embers of the fire scattered, until we came to a logging-road and turned into it, side by side. A well-defined path crossed this road at right angles, and Dorothy pointed it out. “The Iroquois trail,” she said. “See how deeply it is worn — nearly ten inches deep — where the Five Nations have trodden it for centuries. Over it their hunting-parties pass, their scouts, their war-parties. It runs from the Kennyetto to the Sacandaga and north over the hills to the Canadas.”