“Because you kissed me once, — as did Captain Watts.... And two other gentlemen.”
“Two other gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir. A cornet of horse, — his name escapes me — and Sir John.”
“Who!” I blurted angrily.
“Sir John Johnson.”
“The dissolute beast!” said I. “Had I known it that night at Johnson Hall — —” But here I checked my speech and waited till the hot blood in my face was done burning.
And when again I was cool: “I am sorry for my heat,” said I. “Your conduct is your own affair.”
“You once made it yours, sir, — for a moment.”
Again I went hot and red; and how I had conducted with this maid plagued me so that I found no word to answer.
She knitted for a little while. Then, lifting her dark young eyes:
“You have as secure a title to be my lover as has any man, Mr. Drogue. Which is no title at all.”
“Steve Watts took you in his arms near the lilacs.”
“What was that to you, Mr. Drogue?”
“He was a spy in our uniform and in our camp!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you gave him your lips.”
“He took what he took. I gave only what was in my heart to give to any friend in peril.”
“What was that?”
“Solicitude.”
“Oh. You warned him to leave? And he an enemy and a spy?”
“I begged him to go, Mr. Drogue.”
“Do you still call yourself a friend to liberty?” I asked angrily.
“Yes, sir. But I was his friend too. I did not know he had come here. And when by accident I recognized him I was frightened, because I thought he had come to carry news to Lady Johnson.”
“And so he did! Did he not?”
“He said he came for me.”
“To visit you?”
“Yes, sir. And I think that was true. For when he made himself known to his sister, she came near to fainting; and so he spoke no more to her at all but begged me for a tryst before he left.”
“Oh. And you granted it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“I was in great fright, fearing he might be taken.... Also I pitied him.”
“Why so?” I sneered.
“Because he had courted me at Caughnawaga.... And at first I think he made a sport of his courting, — like other young men of Tryon gentry who hunt and court to a like purpose.... And so, one day at Caughnawaga, I told him I was honest.... I thought he ought to know, lest folly assail us in unfamiliar guise and do us a harm.”
“Did you so speak to this young man?”
“Yes, sir. I told him that I am a maiden. I thought it best that he should know as much.... And so he courted me no more. But every day he came and glowered at other men.... I laughed secretly, so fiercely he watched all who came to Cayadutta Lodge.... And then Sir John fled. And war came.... Well, sir, there is no more to tell, save that Captain Watts dared come hither.”
“To take you in his arms?”
“He did so, — yes, sir, — for the first time ever.”
“Then he is honestly in love with you?”
“But you, also, did the like to me. Is it a consequence of honest love, Mr. Drogue, when a young man embraces a maiden’s lips?”
Her questions had so disconcerted me that I found now no answer to this one.
“I know nothing about love,” said I, looking out at the sunlit waters.
“Nor I,” said she.
“You seem willing to be schooled,” I retorted.
“Not willing, not unwilling. I do not understand men, but am not averse to learning something of their ways. No two seem similar, Mr. Drogue, save in the one matter.”
“Which?” I asked bluntly.
“The matter of paying court. All seem to do it naturally, though some take fire quicker, and some seem to burn more ardently than others.”
“It pleasures you to be courted? Gallantries suit you? And the flowery phrases suitors use?”
“They pleasurably perplex me. Time passes more agreeably when one is knitting. To be courted is not an unwelcome diversion to any woman, I think. And flowery phrases are pleasant to notice, — like music suitably played, and of which one is conscious though occupied with other matters.”
“If this be not coquetry,” I thought, “then it is most perilously akin to it.”
Obscurely yet deeply disturbed by the blind stirring of emotions I could not clearly analyze, I sat brooding there. Now I watched her fingers playing with the steels, and her young face lowered; now I gazed afar across the blue Vlaie Water to the bluer mountains beyond, which dented the horizon as the great blue waves of Lake Ontario make molten mountains against an azure sky.
So still was the world that the distant leap and splash of a great silver pike sounded like a gun-shot in that breathless, sun-drenched solitude.
Yet I found no solace now in all this golden peace; for, of the silence between this maid and me, had been born a vague and malicious thing; and like a subtle demon it had come, now, into my body to turn me sullen and restless with the scarce-formed, scarce-comprehended thoughts it hatched within me. And one of these had to do with Stevie Watts, and how he had come here for the sake of this girl.... And had taken her into his arms under the stars, near the lilacs.... And my lips still warm from hers.... Yet she had gone to him in the dusk.... Was afeard for him.... Pitied him.... And doubtless loved him, whatever she might choose to say to me.... Under any circumstances a coquette; and, innocent or wise, to the manner born at any rate.... And some Tryon County gallant likely to take her measure some day ere she awake from her soft bewilderment at the ways and conducting of mankind.
Nick came at eventide, carrying a pike by the gills, and showed us his fingers bleeding of the watery conflict.
“Is all calm on the Sacandaga?” I enquired.
“Calm as a roadside puddle, Jack. And every day I ask myself if there be truly any war in North America or no, so placid shines God’s sun on Tryon.... You mend apace, old friend. Do you suffer fatigue?”
“None, Nick. I shall sit at table tonight with Mistress Grant and you — —”
My voice ceased, and, without warning, the demon that had entered into me began a-whispering. Then the first ignoble and senseless pang of jealousy assailed me to remember that this girl and my comrade had been alone for weeks together — supped all alone at table — companioned each the other while I lay ill! ——
Senseless, miserable clod that I was to listen to that demon’s whispering till my very belly seemed sick-sore with the pain of it and my heart hurt me under the ribs.
Now she rose and looked at Nick and laughed; and they said a word or two I could not quite hear, but she laughed again as though with some familiar understanding, and went lightly away to her evening milking.
“We shall be content indeed,” said Nick, “that you sit at supper with us, old friend.”
But I had changed my mind, and said so.
“You will not sit with us tonight?” he asked, concerned.
I looked at him coldly:
“I shall go to bed,” said I, “and desire no supper.... Nor any aid whatever.... I am tired. The world wearies me.... And so do my own kind.”
And I got up and all alone walked to my little chamber.
So great an ass was I.
CHAPTER XXII
HAG-RIDDEN
So passed that unreal summer of ‘76; and so came autumn upon us with its crimsons, purples, and russet-gold; its cherry-red suns a-swimming in the flat marsh fogs; its spectral mists veiling Vlaie Water and curtaining the Sacandaga from shore to shore.
Rumours of wars came to us, but no war; gossip of armies and of battles, but no battles.
Armies of wild-fowl, however, came to us on the great Vlaie; duck and geese and companies of snowy swans; and at night I could hear their fairy trumpets in the sky heralding the white onset from the
North.
And pigeons came to the beech-woods, millions and millions, so that their flight was a windy roaring in the sky and darkened the sun.
Birches and elms and chestnuts and soft maples turned yellow; and so turned the ghostly tamaracks ere their needles fell. Hard maples and oaks grew crimson and scarlet and the blueberry bushes and sumachs glowed like piles of fire.
But the world of pines darkened to a deeper emerald; spruce and hemlock took on a more sober hue; and the flowing splendour of the evergreens now robed plain and mountain in sombre magnificence, dully brocaded here and there by an embroidery of silver balsam.
When I was strong enough to trail a rifle and walk my post on the veranda roof, my Saguenay Indian took to the Drowned Lands, scouting the meshed water-leads like a crested diving-duck; and his canoe nosed into every creek from Mayfield to Fish House.
Nick foraged, netting pigeons on the Stacking Ridge, shooting partridge, turkey, and squirrel as our need prompted, or dropping a fat doe at evening on the clearing’s edge beyond Howell’s house.
Of fish we had our fill, — chain-pike and silver-pike from Vlaie Water; trout out of Hans Creek and Frenchman’s Creek.
Corn, milled grain, and pork we drew a-horse from Johnstown or Mayfield; we had milk and butter of our own cows, and roasting ears and potatoes, squash, beets, and beans, and a good pumpkin for our pies, all from Summer House garden. And a great store of apples — for it was a year for that fruit — and we had so many that Nick pitted scores of bushels; and we used them to eat, also, and to cook.
Now, against first frost, Penelope had sewed for us sacks out o’ tow cloth; and when frost came to moss the world with spongy silver, we went after nuts, Nick and I, — chestnuts from the Stacking Ridge, and gathered beechnuts there, also. Butternuts we found, sticky and a-plenty, along the Sacandaga; and hickory nuts on every ridge, and hazel filberts bordering clearing and windfall in low, moist woods.
Sure we were well garnered if not well garrisoned at Summer House when the first snow flakes came a-drifting like errant feathers floating from a wild-fowl shot in mid-air.
The painted leaves dropped in November, settling earthward through still sunshine in gold and crimson clouds.
“Mother Earth hath put on war-paint,” quoth Penelope, knitting. She spoke to Nick, turning her head slightly. She spoke chiefly to him in these days, I having become, as I have said, a silent ass; and so strange and of so infrequent speech that they did not even venture to remark to me my reticence; and I think they thought my hurt had changed me in my mind and nature. Yet I was but a simple ass, differing only from other asses in that they brayed more frequently than I.
In silence I nursed a challenging in my breast, where love should have lain secure and warm; and I wrapped the feverish, mewling thing in envy, jealousy, and sullen pride, — fit rags to swaddle such a waif.
For once, coming upon Penelope unawares, I did see her gazing upon a miniature picture of Steve Watts, done bravely in his red regimentals.
Which, perceiving me, she hid in her bosom and took her milk-pails to the orchard without a word spoken, though the colour in her face was eloquent enough.
And very soon, too, I had learned for sure what I already believed of her, that she was a very jade; for it was plain that she had now ensnared Nick, and that they were thick as a pair o’ pup hounds, and had confidences between them in low voices and with smiles. Which my coming checked only so far. For it was mostly to him she spoke openly at table, when, the smoking dishes set, she took her seat between us, out o’ breath and sweet as a sun-hot rose.
God knows they were not to blame; for in one hour I might prove glum and silent as a stone; and in another I practiced carelessness and indifference in my speech; and in another, still, I was like to be garrulous and feverish, insisting upon any point raised; laughing without decent provocation; moody and dull, loquacious and quarrelsome by turns, — unstable, unhinged, out o’ balance and incapable of any decent equilibrium. Oh, the sorry spectacle a young man makes when that sly snake, jealousy, hath fanged him!
And my disorder was such that I knew I was sick o’ jealousy and sore hurt of it to the bones, yet conducted like a mindless creature that, trapped, falls to mutilating itself.
And so I was ever brooding how I might convince her of my indifference; how I might pain her by coldness; how I might subtly acquaint her of my own desirability and then punish her by a display of contempt and a mortifying revelation of the unattainable. Which was to be my proper self.
Jealousy is sure a strange malady and breaketh out in divers disorders in different young men, according to their age and kind.
I was jealous because she had been courted by others; was jealous because she had been caressed by other men; I was wildly jealous because of Steve Watts, their tryst by the lilacs; his picture which I discovered she wore in her bosom; I was madly jealous of her fellowship with my old comrade, Nick, and because, chilled by my uncivil conduct and by my silences, she conversed with him when she spoke at all.
And for all this silly grievance I had no warrant nor any atom of lucid reason. For until I had seen her no woman had ever disturbed me. Until that spring day in the flowering orchard I had never desired love; and if I even desired it now I knew not. I had certainly no desire for marriage or a wife, because I had no thought in my callow head of either.
Only jealousy of others and a desire to be first in her mind possessed me, — a fierce wish to clear out this rabble of suitors which seemed to gather in a very swarm wherever she passed, — so that she should turn to me alone, lean upon me, trust only me in the world to lend her countenance, shelter her, and defend her. And, though God knows I meant her no wrong, nor had passion, so far, played any rôle in this my ridiculous behaviour, I had not so far any clear intention in her regard. A fierce and selfish longing obsessed me to drive others off and keep her for my own where in some calm security we could learn to know each other.
And this — though I did not understand it — was merely the romantic desire of a very young man to study, unhurried and untroubled, the first female who ever had disturbed his peace of mind.
But all was vain and troubled and misty in my mind, and love — or its fretful changeling — weighed on my heart heavily. But I carried double weight: jealousy is a heavy hag, and I was hag-ridden morn and eve and all the livelong day to boot.
All asses are made to be ridden.
The first snow came, as I have said, like shot-scattered down from a wild-duck’s breast. Then days of golden stillness, with mornings growing ever colder and the frost whitening shady spots long after sun-up.
I remember a bear swam Vlaie Water, but galloped so swiftly into the bush that no rifle was ready to stop him.
We mangered our cattle o’ nights; and, as frosty grazing checks milk flow, Nick and I brought in hay from the stacks which the Continental soldiers had cut against a long occupation of Summer House Point.
Nights had become very cold and we burned logs all day long in the chimney place. My Indian was snug enough in the kitchen by the oven, where he ate and slept when not on post; and we, above, did very well by the blaze where we roasted nuts and apples and drank new cider from Johnstown and had a cask of ale from the Johnson Arms by waggon.
Also, in the cellar, was some store of Sir William’s — dusty bottles of French and Spanish wines; but of these I took no toll, because they belonged not to me.
But a strange circumstance presently placed these wines in my possession; for, upon a day before the first deep snow fell, comes galloping from Johnstown a man in caped riding coat, one Jerry Van Rensselaer, to nail a printed placard upon our Summer House — notice of sale by the Committee for Sequestration.
But who was to read this notice and attend the vendue save only the birds and beasts of the wilderness I do not know; for on the day of the sale, which was conducted by Commissioner Harry Outthout, only some half dozen farmer folk rode hither from Johnstown, and only one man among ’em bid in money
— a sullen fellow named Jim Huetson, who had Tory friends, I knew, if he himself were not of that complexion.
His bid was £5; which was but a beggarly offer, and angered me to see Sir William’s beloved Lodge come to so mean an end. So, having some little money, I showed the Schoharie fellow a stern countenance, doubled his bid, and took snuff which I do not love.
And Lord! Ere I realized it, Summer House Point, Lodge and contents, and riparian rights as far as Howell’s house were mine; and a clear deed promised.
Bewildered, I signed and paid the Sequestration Commissioner out o’ my buckskin pouch in hard coin.
“You should buy the cattle, too,” whispered Nick. “There be folk in Johnstown would pay well for such a breed o’ cow. And there’s the pig, Jack, and the sheep and the hens, and all that grain and hay so snug in the barn.”
So I asked very fiercely if any man desired to bid against me; and neither Huetson nor his sulky comrade, Davis, having any such stomach, I fetched ale and apples and nuts and made them eat and drink, and so drew aside the Commissioner and bargained with him like a Jew or a shoe-peg Yankee; and in the end bought all.
“Shall you move hither from Fonda’s Bush and sell your house?” asked Nick, who now was going out on watch.
But I made him no answer, for I had been bitten by an idea, the mere thought of which fevered me with excitement. Oh, I was mad as a March fox running his first vixen, in that first tide of romantic love, — clean daft and lacking reason.
So when Commissioner Outthout and those who had come for the vendue had drank as much of my new ale as they cared to carry home a-horse, and were gone a-bumping down the Johnstown road like a flock of Gilpins all, I took my parchment and went into my bed chamber; and there I sat upon my trundle bed and read what was writ upon my deed, making me the owner of Summer House and of all that appertained to the little hunting lodge.
But I had not purchased it selfishly; and the whole business began with an impulse born of love for Sir William, who had loved this place so well. But even as that impulse came, another notion took shape in my love-addled sconce.
I sat on my trundle bed a-thinking and — God forgive me — admiring my own lofty and romantic purpose.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 992
