Cardigan Part 36

The two companies of Virginia militia were marching and counter-marching at "support," halberdiers guiding, drummers and fifers leading off, and a long, lean major pacing to and fro, and watching the two captains with keen, wrinkled eyes.

The militia were mostly Virginians born, tall, stout fellows, smartly uniformed in drab and scarlet, and wearing the bugle on their cross-belts, indicating them to be light infantry. Truly, they wheeled and halted and marched and counter-marched most adroitly, carefully preserving distances and alignment; and I thought the major a martinet that he found nothing but fault with the officers and men. Certainly they paraded perfectly, their black knee-gaitered legs moving in unison, their muskets steady, their left arms swinging as one, which interested me because, in our militia of Tryon County, to swing the free arm is not allowed.

But I had no business to linger here; I felt that every minute redoubled my danger. Yet again I asked myself where under heaven I could go, and I thought bitterly of Mount for leaving me here neglected.

Plainly the first thing to be done was to get out of the fort. This I accomplished without the slightest trouble, n.o.body questioning me; and I shortly found myself in the road which appeared to be the main street of Cresap's village.

The fort, I now perceived, stood on a low hill in the centre of cleared ground. The road encircled the fort, then ran west through a roughly cultivated country, dotted with cabins of logs plastered over with blue clay. The circ.u.mference of the village itself appeared to be inconsiderable. Everywhere the dark circle of the forest seemed to crowd in the desolate hamlet; I say desolate, for indeed the scene was grim, even for the frontier. The whole country had a black appearance from the thousands of charred roots and stumps which choked the fields. Dead trees lay in heaps, stark patches of dead pines stood like gray spectres, blasted hemlocks, with foliage seared rusty, lined the landscape, marking the zones doomed to cultivation. These latter were girdled trees, but I saw no attempt to preserve any trees for shade around the cabins, or for shade along the fences, or for beauty.

We in Johnstown never girdled the bush without preserving rows of trees to ornament roads and fields, and this dismal destruction by fire and axe reacted on my sombre thoughts, depressing me dolefully.

Under a leaden sky, through which a pale sun peered fitfully, the blackened waste about me seemed horrible and ominous of horrors to come; the very soil in the fields was black with charcoal, through which the young corn struggled up into the fading sunshine as though strangling.

Cresap's Maryland colonists were busy everywhere with harrow and plough and axe and spade. The encircling woods echoed and re-echoed with their chopping; their voices rang out, guiding the slow ox-teams among the stumps. At intervals the crack of a rifle signalled the death of some partridge or squirrel close by.

There were men in the fields labouring half-naked at the unyielding roots; men in linen shirts and smalls, planting or weeding; men moving in distant fields, aimlessly perhaps, perhaps planning a rough home, perhaps a grave.

Women sometimes pa.s.sed along the paths, urging gaunt cattle to gaunter pasture; children peered from high door-sills, hung from unpainted windows, quarrelled in bare door-yards, half seen through stockades; some chopped fire-wood, some carried water, some played in the ditches or sailed chips in the dark, slow stream that crawled out across the land towards the Ohio.

And here and there, on little knolls dotting the scene, tall riflemen stood, leaning on their weapons; sentinels mounting guard over flock and family below.

I looked at the flag on the fort; its dull folds hung dark and lifeless under a darkening sky. Below it paced a sentry to and fro, to and fro, with the gray light on his musket shining dimly.

I looked towards the black woods. They seemed to promise more protection than fort and flag; there was less gloom under their branches than under these sad cabin-roofs.

Unconsciously I began to walk towards the forest, yet with no idea what I should do there. A child here and there saluted me from stockade gates; now and then an anxious woman's face appeared at a window, watching me out of sight along the charred road. Presently I pa.s.sed a double log-house, from the eaves of which dangled a green bush. The door bore a painted sign-board also, representing a large house with arms and legs like a man, at which I puzzled, but could not guess the significance.

I needed salt, having for the last week used white-wood ashes to savour my corn withal, so I entered the tavern and made known my needs to a coa.r.s.e-featured, thick-set fellow, who lay in a chair smoking a clay pipe.

He rose instanter, all bows and smiles and cringing to my orders, begging me to be seated until he could find the salt sack in the cellar; and I sat down, after saluting the company, which consisted of half a dozen men playing cards by the window.

They all returned my salute, some leaning clear around to look at me; and although they resumed their game I noticed that they began talking in whispers, pausing sometimes in a shuffle to turn their eyes on me.

Presently the landlord came in with my small bag of salt, and set it on the scales with many a bow and smirk at me to beg indulgence for his delay.

"You have travelled far, sir," he said, pointedly; "there is northern mud on your hunting-shirt and southern burrs on your legging fringe.

Ha! A stroke, sir! Touched, by your leave, sir! I have run the forests myself, sir, and I read as I run--I read as I run."

He was tying my sack up with gra.s.s, clumsily I thought for one who had lived as a forest-runner. But I waited patiently, he meanwhile conversing most politely. In fact, I could find no opportunity to courteously make an end to his garrulous chatter, and, ere I could refuse or prevent it, he had persuaded me to a pewter of home-brew and had set it before me, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with good stout foam.

"No water there, sir!" he observed, proudly; "body and froth hum like bee-hives in August! It is my own, sir, my own, barrel and malt and hops!"

I could do no less than taste the ale, and he picked up his pipe and begged the honour of sitting in my presence: all of which ceremony revealed to me that my language and bearing were not at all in concord with my buckskin and my pack, and that he was quite aware of the discrepancy.

"Perchance, sir, you have news from Boston?" he asked, with a jolly laugh.

I shook my head. The company at the table by the window had paused to listen.

"Well, well," he said, puffing his long clay into a glow, "these be parlous times, sir, the world over! And, between ourselves, sir, begging your pardon for the familiarity, sir, I have been wondering myself whether the King is wholly right."

The stillness in the room was intense.

"Doubt," said I, carelessly, "is no friend to loyalty."

I was drinking when I finished this choice philosophy, but through the gla.s.s bottom of my pewter I surprised a very cunning squint in his puffy eyes.

"Oho!" thought I, "you wish to know my politics, eh? Let us see how much you'll find out!" And I set down my pewter with a sigh of contentment and tossed him a shilling for my reckoning.

"But," he suggested, "cannot even the King be deceived by unscrupulous counsellors?"

"The King should know better than you whether his ministers be what you accuse them of being," I said, seriously.

"I meant no accusation," he said, hastily; "but I voiced the sentiments of many honest neighbours of mine."

"Sentiments which smack somewhat of treason," I interrupted, coldly.

Through the bottom of my mug again I saw he was still far from satisfied concerning my real sentiments. I listened as I drank: the card-players behind me were not playing.

"Landlord," I asked, carelessly, cutting short another argument, "what may your tavern sign mean with its house running loose on a pair o' legs?"

"It is my own name, sir," he laughed, "Greathouse! I flatter me there is some small wit in the conceit, sir, though I painted yon sign myself!"

So this was Greathouse, a notorious loyalist--this bloated lout who had been prying and picking at me to learn my sentiments? The slyness of the fellow disgusted me, and I could scarce control my open aversion, though I did succeed in leaving him with his suspicions lulled, and got out of the house without administering to him the kick which my leg was itching for.

From the corner of my eye I could see the card-players watching me from the window; it incensed me to be so spied upon, and I was glad when a turn in the scurvy, rutted road shut me out of their vision.

There were several houses just beyond me to the left; one displayed a holly-bush and wrinkled berries, a signal to me to avoid it, and I should have done so had I not perceived Jack Mount loafing in the doorway, and Shemuel seated on the horse-block, eating a dish of fish with his fingers.

From the blotched face and false smile of Greathouse to the filthy company of Shemuel was no advantage. If these two creatures were representatives of their respective causes, I had small stomach for either them or their parties. Tory and patriot, pot-licker and Jew, they disgusted me; and I returned Mount's cheery salute with a sullen nod, not pausing at the house as I pa.s.sed by.

He came out into the road after me, asking what had gone amiss; and I told him he had left me at the fort without advice or counsel, and that I had quitted the barracks, not caring to be caught there by Butler and his warrant.

"Shame on you, lad, for the thought!" said Mount, angrily. "Do you think we do things by halves, Cade and I? The Weasel has been in touch with Butler's men all night, ready to warn you the moment they started for this camp! He's asleep in there, now," jerking his huge thumb towards the inn, "and I've just returned from seeing Butler well on the trail towards Pittsburg."

Mortified and ashamed at my complaint, and deeply touched by the quiet kindness of these two men who had, spite of fatigue, voluntarily set out to watch while I slept, I silently offered my hand to Mount.

He took it fretfully, complaining that all the world had always misunderstood him as I had, and vowing he would never more do kindness to man or beast or good red herring!

"Small blame if the world requites your generosity as stupidly as I do," said I; whereat he fell a-laughing and drew me with him into the tavern, vowing we should wash out all bitterness in a draught of ale.

The inn, which was called "The Leather Bottle," appeared to be clean though rough. Tables and chairs were ma.s.sive, hewn out of buckeye; horn instead of gla.s.s filled the tiny squares in the window frames, and a shelf ran around the tap-room just below the loopholes, whereon men could stand to fire in any direction.

Mount presented me to a young man in homespun who had been sitting by the chimney, reading a letter--a quiet, modest gentleman of thirty, perhaps, somewhat travel-stained and spotted with reddish mud, which proclaimed him an arrival from the south.

He gave me a firm, cool clasp of the hand and a curiously sharp yet not unkindly smile, promising to join us when he had finished the letter he was reading.

I had meant to tell Mount of my conversations with Corporal Cloud and with Greathouse, but hesitated because the smallness of the room would carry even a whisper to the stranger by the chimney.

Mount must have divined my intentions, for he said, in his hearty, deep-chested voice, "You may say what you please here, Mr. Cardigan, and trust this gentleman from Maryland as you trust me, I hope."