Salute to Adventurers
Page 16
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FORD OF THE RAPIDAN.
'Twas the same high summer weather through which I had ridden afortnight ago with a dull heart on my way to the duel. Now Grey rode bymy side, and my spirits were as light as a bird's. I had forgotten thegrim part of the enterprise, the fate that might await me, the horrorswe should certainly witness. I thought only of the joys of movementinto new lands with tried companions. These last months I had borne apretty heavy weight of cares. Now that was past. My dispositionscompleted, the thing was in the hands of God, and I was free to go myown road. Mocking-birds and thrushes cried in the thickets, squirrelsflirted across the path, and now and then a shy deer fled before us.There come moments to every man when he is thankful to be alive, andevery breath drawn is a delight; so at that hour I praised my Maker forHis good earth, and for sparing me to rejoice in it.
Grey had met me with a certain shyness; but as the sun rose and theland grew bright he, too, lost his constraint, and fell into the samehappy mood. Soon we were smiling at each other in the frankestcomradeship, we two who but the other day had carried ourselves likegame-cocks. He had forgotten his fine manners and his mincing Londonvoice, and we spoke of the outland country of which he knew nothing,and of the hunting of game of which he knew much, exchanging ourdifferent knowledges, and willing to learn from each other. Long ere wehad reached York Ferry I had found that there was much in commonbetween the Scots trader and the Virginian cavalier, and the chiefthing we shared was youth.
Mine, to be sure, was more in the heart, while Grey wore his open andfearless. He plucked the summer flowers and set them in his hat. He wasfull of catches and glees, so that he waked the echoes in the forestglades. Soon I, too, fell to singing in my tuneless voice, and Ianswered his "My lodging is on the cold ground" with some Scots ballador a song of Davie Lindsay. I remember how sweetly he sang ColonelLovelace's ode to Lucasta, writ when going to the wars:--
"True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield."
"Yet this inconstancy is such As thou too shalt adore: I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more."
I wondered if that were my case--if I rode out for honour, and not forthe pure pleasure of the riding. And I marvelled more to see the two ofus, both lovers of one lady and eager rivals, burying for the nonce ourfeuds, and with the same hope serving the same cause.
We slept the night at Aird's store, and early the next morning foundRingan. A new Ringan indeed, as unlike the buccaneer I knew as he wasunlike the Quaker. He was now the gentleman of Breadalbane, dressed forthe part with all the care of an exquisite. He rode a noble roan, inhis Spanish belt were stuck silver-hafted pistols, and a long swordswung at his side. When I presented Grey to him, he became at once thecavalier, as precise in his speech and polite in his deportment as anyWhitehall courtier. They talked high and disposedly of genteel matters,and you would have thought that that red-haired pirate had lived hislife among proud lords and high-heeled ladies. That is ever the way ofthe Highlander. He alters like a clear pool to every mood of the sky,so that the shallow observer might forget how deep the waters are.
Presently, when we had ridden into the chestnut forests of theMattaponey, he began to forget his part. Grey, it appeared, was astudent of campaigns, and he and Ringan were deep in a discussion ofConde's battles, in which both showed surprising knowledge. But theglory of the weather and of the woodlands, new as they were to aseafarer, set his thoughts wandering, and he fell to tales of his pastwhich consorted ill with his former decorum. There was a madcap zest inhis speech, something so merry and wild, that Grey, who had fallen backinto his Tidewater manners, became once more the careless boy. Westopped to eat in a glade by a slow stream, and from his saddle-bagsRingan brought out strange delicacies. There were sugared fruits fromthe Main, and orange sirop from Jamaica, and a kind of sweet punch madeby the Hispaniola Indians. As we ate and drank he would gossip aboutthe ways of the world; and though he never mentioned his own doings,there was such an air of mastery about him as made him seem the centrefigure of his tales, I could see that Grey was mightily captivated, andall afternoon he plied him with questions, and laughed joyously at hisanswers. As we camped that night, while Grey was minding his horseRingan spoke of him to me.
"I like the lad, Andrew. He has the makings of a very proper gentleman,and he has the sense to be young. What I complain of in you is thatyou're desperate old. I wonder whiles if you ever were a laddie. Forme, though I'm ten years the elder of the pair of you, I've no moreyears than your friend, and I'm a century younger than you. That's theHighland way. There's that in our blood that keeps our eyes youngthough we may be bent double. With us the heart is aye leaping tillDeath grips us. To my mind it's a lovable character that I fain wouldcherish. If I couldn't sing on a spring morning or say a hearty graceover a good dinner I'd be content to be put away in a graveyard."
And that, I think, is the truth. But at the time I was feeling prettyyouthful, too, though my dour face and hard voice were a bad clue to mysentiments.
Next day on the Rappahannock we found Shalah, who had gone on to warnthe two men I proposed to enlist. One of them, Donaldson, was a big,slow-spoken, middle-aged farmer, the same who had been with Bacon inthe fight at Occaneechee Island. He just cried to his wife to expecthim back when she saw him, slung on his back an old musket, cast a longleg over his little horse, and was ready to follow. The other, theFrenchman Bertrand, was a quiet, slim gentleman, who was some kin tothe murdered D'Aubignys. I had long had my eye on him, for he was verywise in woodcraft, and had learned campaigning under old Turenne. Hekissed his two children again and again, and his wife clung to hisarms. There were tears in the honest fellow's eyes as he left, and Ithought all the more of him, for he is the bravest man who has most torisk. I mind that Ringan consoled the lady in the French tongue, whichI did not comprehend, and would not be hindered from getting out hissaddle-bags and comforting the children with candied plums. He had nearas grave a face as Bertrand when we rode off, and was always lookingback to the homestead. He spoke long to the Frenchman in his ownspeech, and the sad face of the latter began to lighten.
I asked him what he said.
"Just that he was the happy man to have kind hearts to weep for him. Afine thing for a landless, childless fellow like me to say! But it'sgospel truth, Andrew. I told him that his bairns would be great folkssome day, and that their proudest boast would be that their father hadridden on this errand. Oh, and all the rest of the easy consolations.If it had been me, I would not have been muckle cheered. It's well Inever married, for I would not have had the courage to leave myfireside."
We were now getting into a new and far lovelier country. The heavyforests and swamps which line the James and the York had gone, andinstead we had rolling spaces of green meadowland, and little hillswhich stood out like sentinels of the great blue chain of mountainsthat hung in the west. Instead of the rich summer scents of theTidewater, we had the clean, sharp smell of uplands, and cool windsrelieved the noontide heat. By and by we struck the Rapidan, a watermore like our Scots rivers, flowing in pools and currents, verydifferent from the stagnant reaches of the Pamunkey. We were joined fora little bit by two men from Stafford county, who showed us the pathsthat horses could travel.
It was late in the afternoon that we reached a broad meadow hemmed inby noble cedars. I knew without telling that we were come to the sceneof the tragedy, and with one accord we fell silent. The place had beenwell looked after, for a road had been made through the woods, and hadbeen carried over marshy places on a platform of cedar piles. Presentlywe came to a log fence with a gate, which hung idly open. Within was apaddock, and beyond another fence, and beyond that a great pile ofblackened timber. The place was so smiling and homelike under thewestering sun that one looked to see a trim steading with the smoke ofhearth fires ascending, and to hear the cheerful sounds of labour andof children's voices.
Instead there was this grim, charred heap, withthe light winds swirling the ashes.
Every man of us uncovered his head as he rode towards the melancholyplace. I noticed a little rosary, which had been carefully tended, buthorses had ridden through it, and the blossoms were trailing crushed onthe ground. There was a flower garden too, much trampled, and in onecorner a little stream of water had been led into a pool fringed withforget-me-nots. A tiny water-wheel was turning in the fall, achildren's toy, and the wheel still turned, though its owners had gone.The sight of that simple thing fairly brought my heart to my mouth.
That inspection was a gruesome business. One of the doorposts of thehouse still stood, and it was splashed with blood. On the edge of theashes were some charred human bones. No one could tell whose they were,perhaps a negro's, perhaps the little mistress of the water-wheel. Ilooked at Ringan, and he was smiling, but his eyes were terrible. TheFrenchman Bertrand was sobbing like a child.
We took the bones, and made a shallow grave for them in the rosary. Wehad no spades, but a stake did well enough to dig a resting-place forthose few poor remains. I said over them the Twenty-third Psalm: "_Yea,though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear noevil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff shall comfort me_."
Then suddenly our mood changed. Nothing that we could do could help thepoor souls whose bones lay among the ashes. But we could bring theirmurderers to book, and save others from a like fate.
We moved away from the shattered place to the ford in the river wherethe road ran north. There we looked back. A kind of fury seized me as Isaw that cruel defacement. In a few hours we ourselves should be beyondthe pale, among those human wolves who were so much more relentlessthan any beasts of the field. As I looked round our little company, Inoted how deep the thing had bitten into our souls. Ringan's eyes stilldanced with that unholy blue light. Grey was very pale, and his jaw wasset grimly. Bertrand had ceased from sobbing, and his face had thefar-away wildness of the fanatic, such a look as his forbears may haveworn at the news of St. Bartholomew. The big man Donaldson lookedpuzzled and sombre. Only Shalah stood impassive and aloof, with notrace of feeling on the bronze of his countenance.
"This is the place for an oath," I said. "We are six men against anarmy, but we fight for a holy cause. Let us swear to wipe out this deedof blood in the blood of its perpetrators. God has made us theexecutors of His judgments against horrid cruelty."
We swore, holding our hands high, that, when our duty to the dominionwas done, we should hunt down the Cherokees who had done this deed tillno one of them was left breathing. At that moment of tense nerves, noother purpose would have contented us.
"How will we find them?" quoth Ringan. "To sift a score of murderersout of a murderous nation will be like searching the ocean for a wave."
Then Shalah spoke.
"The trail is ten suns old, but I can follow it. The men were of theMeebaw tribe by this token." And he held up a goshawk's feather. "Thebird that dropped that lives beyond the peaks of Shubash. The Meebaware quick hunters and gross eaters, and travel slow. We will find themby the Tewawha."
"All in good time," I said. "Retribution must wait till we havefinished our task. Can you find the Meebaw men again?"
"Yea," said Shalah, "though they took wings and flew over the seas Ishould find them."
Then we hastened away from that glade, none speaking to the other. Wecamped an hour's ride up the river, in a place secure against surprisesin a crook of the stream with a great rock at our back. We were outsidethe pale now, and must needs adopt the precautions of a campaign; so wesplit the night into watches, I did my two hours sentry duty at thatdead moment of the dark just before the little breeze which is theprecursor of dawn, and I reflected very soberly on the slender chancesof our returning from this strange wild world and its cruel mysteries.