“Sir, I have the honour to be, etc., etc.,
“Ph. Schuyler,
“Maj: Gen’l.”
Twice I read the letter before I twisted it to a torch and burned it in the candle flame.
Then I called out to the express: “Say to the personage who sent you hither that his letter is destroyed, and his orders shall be instantly obeyed. Burke has fresh horses for those who ride express.”
Off downstairs he went in his jack-boots, equipments jingling and clanking, and I unfolded my map but scarce could hold it steady in my excitement.
Immediately I perceived that I did not need the map to find the rendezvous, for, as Brent-Meester, I had known that wilderness as perfectly as I knew the streets in Johnstown.
So I made another torch of the map, laughing under my breath to think that Sir William’s late forest warden should require such an article.
All this time, too, I had forgotten Penelope; and turned, now, and saw her watching me, slim and motionless and white as snow.
When her eyes met mine she strove to smile, asking me whether indeed she had not proven a true prophetess.
As she spoke, suddenly a great fear possessed me concerning her; and I stood staring at her in a terrible perplexity.
For now there seemed to be nothing for it but to leave her here, the Schenectady road already being unsafe, or so considered by Schuyler until more certain information could be obtained.
“Do you leave tonight?” she asked calmly.
“Yes, immediately.”
She cast a glance at my rifle standing in the corner, and at my pack, which I had always ready in the event of such sudden summons.
Now I went over to the corner where my baggage lay, lifted the pack and strapped it; put on powder horn, bullet pouch, and sack, slung my knife and my light war-hatchet, and took my cap and rifle.
The moment of parting was here. It scared and confused me, so swiftly had it come upon us.
As I went toward her she turned and walked to the door, and leaned against the frame awaiting me.
“If trouble comes,” I muttered, “the fort is strong.... But I wish to God you were in Albany.”
“I shall do well enough here.... Will you come again to Johnstown?”
“Yes. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, John Drogue.”
“Will you care for Kaya?”
“Yes.”
“And if I do not return you are to have all with which I die possessed. I have written it.”
“In that event I keep only my memory of you. The rest I offer to the needy — in your name.”
Her voice was steady, and her hand, too, where it lay passive in mine. But it crisped and caught my fingers convulsively when I kissed her; and crept up along my fringed sleeve to my shoulder-cape, and grasped the green thrums.
And now her arm lay tightly around my neck, and I looked down into the whitest face I ever had gazed upon.
“I love you dearly,” I said, “and am deep in love.... I want you, Penelope Grant.”
“I want you,” she said.
My heart was suffocating me:
“Shall we exchange vows?” I managed to say.
“What vows, sir?”
“Such as engage our honour. I want you to wife, Penelope Grant.”
“Dear lad! What are you saying? You should travel widely and at leisure before you commit your honour to an unconsidered vow. I desire that you first see great cities, other countries, other women — of your own caste.... And then ... if you return ... and are still of the same mind ... concerning me....”
“But you? There are other men in the world. And I must have your vows before I go!”
“Oh, if it be only mine you desire, then I promise you, John Drogue, to look at no man with kindness in your absence, think of no man excepting you, pray for none save only His Excellency and General Schuyler, dream of none, God willing, but you. And to remain in deed and thought and word and conduct constant and faithful to you alone.”
“Then,” said I, trembling, “I also promise — —”
“No!”
“But I — —”
“Wait! For God’s sake mind what you say; for I will not have it that your honour should ever summon you hither and not your heart! No! Let be as it is.”
Her sudden warmth and the quick flush of determination on her face checked and silenced me.
She said very coolly: “Any person of sense must know that a marriage is unsuitable between a servant to Douw Fonda and John Murray Drogue Forbes, Laird of Northesk, and a Stormont to boot!”
“Where got you that Forbes?” I demanded, astonished and angry.
She laughed. “Because I know the clan, my lord!”
“How do you know?” I repeated, astounded.
“Because it is my own clan and name. Drogue-Forbes, Grant-Forbes! — a claymore or a pair of scissors can snip the link when some Glencoe or Culloden of adversity scatters families to the four winds and seven seas.... Well, sir, as the saying is in Northesk, ‘a Drogue stops at nothing but a Forbes. And a Grant is as stubborn.’ Did you ever hear that?”
“Yes.... And you are a Forbes of Northesk?”
“Like yourself, sir, we stop before a liaison.”
Her rapier wit confused and amazed me; her sudden revelation of our kinship confounded me.
“Good God,” said I, “why have you never told me this, Penelope?”
She shook her yellow head defiantly: “A would na,” quoth she, her chin hanging down, but the brown eyes of her watching me. “And it was a servant-maid you asked to wife you, and none other either.... D’ye ken that, you Stormont lad? It was me — me! — who may wear the Beadlaidh, too! — me who can cry ‘Lonach! Lonach! Creag Ealachaidh!’ with as stout a heart and clean a pride as you, Ian Drogue, Laird o’ Northesk! — laird o’ my soul and heart — my lord — my dear, dear lord — —”
She flung her arms across her face and burst into a fit of weeping; and as I caught her in my arms she leaned so on my breast, sobbing out her happiness and fears and pride and love, and her gratitude to God that I should have loved her for herself in the body of a maid-servant, and that I had bespoken her fairly where in all the land no man had offered more than that which she might take from him out of his left hand.
So, for a long while, we stood there together, clasped breast to breast, dumb with tenderness and mazed in the spell of first young love.
I stammered my vows, and she now opposed me nothing, only clinging to me the closer, confident, submissive, acquiescent in all I wished and asked and said.
There were ink, paper, a quill, and sand in her chamber. We went thither, and I wrote out drafts upon Schenectady, and composed letters of assurance and recognition, which would be useful to her in case of necessity.
I got Jimmy Burke out o’ bed and shewed him all I had writ, and made him witness our signatures and engaged him to appear if necessary.
These papers and money drafts, together with Penelope’s papers and letters she had of Douw Fonda and of the Patroon, were sufficient to establish her with the new will I made and had witnessed at the fort a week before.
And so, at midnight, in her little chamber at Burke’s Inn, I parted from Penelope Grant, — dropped to my knee and kissed her feet, who had been servant to the county gentry and courted by the county quality, but had been mistress of none in all the world excepting only of herself.
When I was ready she handed me my rifle, buckled up my shoulder sack, smoothed my fringed cape with steady hands, walked with me to her chamber door.
Her face rested an instant against mine, but there were no tears, no trembling, only the swift passion of her lips; and then— “God be with you, John Drogue!” And so, with gay courage, closed her chamber door.
I turned and stumbled out along the corridor, carrying my rifle and feeling my way to the hand-rail, down the creaking stairway, and out into the starry night.
CHAPTER XXVII
FIRE-FLIES
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p; That night I lay on my blanket in the forest, but slept only three hours, and was awake in the gates of morning before the sun rose, ready to move on to the Wood of Brakabeen, our rendezvous in Schoharie.
Never shall I forget that August day so crowded with events.
And first in the yellow flare of sun-up, on the edge of a pasture where acres of dew sparkled, I saw a young girl milking; and went to her to beg a cup of new milk.
But she was very offish until she learned to what party I belonged, and then gave me a dipper full of sweet milk.
When I had satisfied my thirst, she took me by the hand and drew me into a grove of pines where none could observe us. And here she told me her name, which was Angelica Vrooman, and warned me not to travel through Schoharie by any highway.
For, said she, the district was all smouldering with disloyalty, and the Tories growing more defiant day by day with news of Sir John’s advance and McDonald also on the way from the southward to burn the place and murder all.
“My God, sir,” says she, in a very passion of horror and resentment, “I know not how we, in Schoharie, shall contrive, for Herkimer has called out our regiment and they march this morning to their rendezvous with the Palatine Regiment.
“What are we to do, sir? The Middle Fort alone is defensible; the Upper and Lower Forts are still a-building, and sodders still at labour, and neither ditch nor palisade begun.”
“You have your exempts,” said I, troubled, “and your rangers.”
“Our exempts work on the forts; our rangers are few and scattered, and Colonel Harper knows not where to turn for a runner or a rifleman!
“General Schuyler has writ to my father and says how he desires General Ten Broeck to order out the whole of the militia, only that he fears that they will behave like the Schenectady and Schoharie militia have done and that very few will march unless provision is made for their families’ security.
“A man rides express today to the garrison in the Highlands to pray for two hundred Continentals. Which is only just, as we are exposed to McDonald and Sir John, and have already sent most of our men to the Continental Line, and have left only our regiment, which marches today, and the remainder all disaffected and plotting treason.”
“Plotting treason? What do you mean, child?” I demanded anxiously.
“Why, sir, Captain Mann and his company refuse to march. He declares himself a friend to King George, has barricaded Brick House, is collecting Indians and Tories, and swears he will join McDonald’s outlaws and destroy us unless we lay down our arms and accept royal protection.”
“Why — why the filthy dog!” I stammered, “I have never heard the like of such treason!”
“Can you help us, sir?” she asked earnestly.
“I shall endeavour to do so,” said I, red with wrath.
“Our people have planned to seize and barricade Stone House,” said she. “My father rides express to Albany. Why, sir, so put to it are we that Henry Hager, an aged exempt of over seventy years, is scouting for our party. Is our situation not pitiful?”
“Have all the young men gone? Have you no brothers to defend this house?”
“No, sir.... I have a lover.... He is Lieutenant Wirt, of the Albany Light Horse. But he has writ to my father that he can not leave his cavalry to help us.”
It was sad enough; and I promised the girl I would do what I could; and so left her, continuing on along the fences in the shadow of the woods.
It was not long afterward when I heard military music in the distance. And now, from a hill, I saw long files of muskets shining in the early sun.
It was the Canajoharie Regiment marching with fife, drum, and bugle-horn to join Herkimer; and so near they passed at the foot of the low hill where I stood that I could see and recognize their mounted officers; and saw, riding with them, Spencer, the Oneida interpreter, splendidly horsed; and Colonel Cox, old George Klock’s smart son-in-law, who, when Brant asked him if he were not related to that thieving villain of the Moonlight Survey, replied: “Yes, I am, but what is that to you, you s — of an Indian!”
I saw and recognized Colonels Vrooman and Zielie, Majors Becker and Eckerson, and Larry Schoolcraft, the regimental adjutant; and, sitting upon their transport waggon, Dirck Larraway, Storm Becker, Jost Bouck of Clavarack, and Barent Bergen of Kinderhook.
So, in the morning sunshine, marched the 15th N. Y. Militia, carrying in its ranks the flower of the district’s manhood and the principal defenders of the Schoharie Valley.
Very soberly I turned away into the woods.
For it was a strange and moving and dreadful sight I had beheld, knowing personally almost every man who was marching there toward the British fire, and aware that practically every soldier in those sturdy ranks had a brother, or father, or son, or relative of some description in the ranks of the opposing party.
Here, indeed, were the seeds of horror that civil war sprouts! For I think that only the Hager family, and perhaps the Beckers, were all mustered in our own service. But there were Tory Vroomans, Swarts, Van Dycks, Eckersons, Van Slycks — aye, even Tory Herkimer, too, which most furiously saddened our brave old General Honikol.
Well, I took to the forest as I say, but it was so thick and the travelling so wearisome, that I bore again to the left, and presently came out along the clearings and pasture fences.
Venturing now to travel the highway for a little way, and being stopped by nobody, I became more confident; and when I saw a woman washing clothes by the Schoharie Creek, I did not trouble to avoid her, but strode on.
She heard me coming, and looked up over her shoulder; and I saw she was a notorious slattern of the Valley, whose name, I think, was Staats, but who was commonly known as Rya’s Pup.
“Aha!” says she, clearing the unkempt hair from her ratty face. “What is Forbes o’ Culloden doing in Schoharie? Sure,” says she, “there must be blood to sniff in the wind when a Northesk bloodhound comes here a-nosing northward!”
“Well, Madame Staats,” said I calmly, “you appear to know more about Culloden than do I myself. Did that great loon, McDonald, tell you all these old-wives’ tales?”
“Ho-ho!” says she, her two hands on her hips, a-kneeling there by the water’s edge, “the McDonalds should know blood, too, when they smell it.”
“You seem to be friends with that outlaw. And do you know where he now is?” I asked carelessly.
“If I do,” says the slut, with an oath, “it is my own affair and none of the Forbes or Drogues or such kittle-cattle either; — mark that, my young cockerel, and journey about your business!”
“You are not very civil, Madame Staats.”
“Why, you damned rebel,” says she, “would you teach me manners?”
“God forbid, madam,” said I, smiling. “I’d wear gray hairs ere you learned your a-b-c.”
“You’ll wear no hair at all when McDonald is done with you,” she cries, and bursts into laughter so shocking that I go on, shivering and sad to see in any woman such unkindness.
About noon I saw Lawyer’s Tavern; and from the fences north of the house I secretly observed it for a long while before venturing thither.
John Lawyer, whatever his political complexion, welcomed me kindly and gave me dinner.
I asked news, and he gave an account that Brick House was now but a barracks full of Tories and Schoharie Indians, led by Sethen and Little David or Ogeyonda, a runner, who now took British money and wore scarlet paint.
“We in this valley know not what to do,” said he, “nor dare, indeed, do aught save take protection from the stronger party, as it chances to be at the moment, and thank God we still wear our proper hair.”
And, try as I might, I could not determine to which party he truly belonged, so wary was mine host and so fearful of committing himself.
The sun hung low when I came to the Wood of Brakabeen; and saw the tall forest oaks, their tops all rosy in the sunset, and the great green pines wearing their gilded spires against the evening sky.
Dusk fell as I traversed the wood, where, deep within, a cool and ferny glade runs east and west, and a small and icy stream flows through the nodding grasses of the swale, setting the wet green things and spray-drenched blossoms quivering along its banks.
And here, suddenly, in the purple dusk, three Indians rose up and barred my way. And I saw, with joy, my three Oneidas, Tahioni the Wolf, Kwiyeh the Screech-owl, Hanatoh the Water-snake, all shaven, oiled, and in their paint; and all wearing the Tortoise and The Little Red Foot.
So deeply the encounter affected me that I could scarce speak as I pressed their extended hands, one after another, and felt their eager, caressing touch on my arms and shoulders.
“Brother,” they said, “we are happy to be chosen for the scout under your command. We are contented to have you with us again.
“We were told by the Saguenay, who passed here on his way to the Little Falls, that you had recovered of your hurts, but we are glad to see for ourselves that this is so, and that our elder brother is strong and well and fit once more for the battle-trail!”
I told them I was indeed recovered, and never felt better than at that moment. I inquired warmly concerning each, and how fortune had treated them. I listened to their accounts of stealthy scouting, of ambushes in silent places, of death-duels amid the eternal dusk of shaggy forests, where sunlight never penetrated the matted roof of boughs.
They shewed me their scalps, their scars, their equipment, accoutrement, finery. They related what news was to be had of the enemy, saying that Stanwix was already invested by small advance parties of Mohawks under forester officers; that trees had been felled across Wood Creek; that the commands of Gansevoort and Willett occupied the fort on which soldiers still worked to sod the parapets.
Of McDonald, however, they knew nothing, and nothing concerning Burgoyne, but they had brazenly attended the Iroquois Federal Council, when their nation was summoned there, and saw their great men, Spencer and Skenandoa treated with cold indifference when the attitude of the Oneida nation was made clear to the Indian Department and the Six Nations.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1001
