Cardigan Part 50

"Do you mean it?" she asked, looking at me strangely.

"Mean it! Have you ever doubted it?"

The colour in her face surged to her hair.

"You speak like a lover," she said, with a catch in her breath.

"I speak like a man, proud of his kin!" said I, suspiciously, alert to repel ridicule. Lover! What did she mean by that? Had I not asked pardon for my foolishness in Johnson Hall? And must she still taunt me?

If she read my suspicions I do not know, but I think she did, for the colour died out in her face and she set her lips together as she always did when meaning mischief.

"I pray you, dear friend," she said, wearily, "concern yourself with your kin as little as I do. Bid me good-bye, now. I am tired, Michael--tired to the soul of me."

She held out her slim hand. I took it, then I bent to touch it with my lips.

"You will not wed Dunmore?" I asked.

She did not reply.

"And you will come with me to Johnstown on the morrow, Silver Heels?"

There was no answer.

"Silver Heels?"

"If you are strong enough to take me from Dunmore, take me," she said, in a dull, tired voice.

"And--and from the other--the one you love--the fool?"

"He will leave me--when you leave me," she answered.

"You mean to say this pitiful a.s.s will follow you and me to Johnstown!" I cried, excited.

"Truly, he will!" she said, hysterically, and covered her face with her hands. But whether she was laughing or crying or doing both together I could not determine; and I stalked wrathfully away, determined to teach this same fool that his folly was neither to my taste nor fancy.

And as I pa.s.sed swiftly southward through the darkening town I heard the monotonous call of the town watchman stumping his beat:

"Lanthorn, and a whole candle-light! Hang out your lights here!

Light--ho! Maids, hang out your light, and see your lamp be clear and bright!"

CHAPTER XIV

I had learned from our host of the "Virginia Arms" that the so-called "Governor's Hall," which stood within the limits of the fortifications, had been built by the French in 1755. Poor Braddock's brief debut before Fort Duquesne in that same year interrupted the building of "Governor's Hall," which was called by the French "La Fortresse de la Reine," and which, with the exception of our stone fort at Johnstown, was the only formidable and solidly fortified edifice of stone west of the Hudson.

When in '58 our troops seized Fort Duquesne and razed it, they not only spared La Fortresse de la Reine, but completed it--in exceeding poor taste--set the arms of Virginia over the portal, ran up their red, powder-stained flag, and saluted "Governor's Hall" with hurrahs of satisfaction, drums and fifes playing "The White c.o.c.kade."

Now the hall served sometimes as a court-house, sometimes as a temporary jail, often as a ballroom, occasionally as the Governor's residence when he came to Fort Pitt from Williamsburg.

In it he gave audiences to all plaintiffs, white or Indian; in it he received deputies from other colonies or from England.

The Governor of Virginia lived on the second floor while sojourning at Pittsburg; under his white and gold apartments stretched a long, blank, stone hall, around the walls of which ran a wooden balcony half way between the stone flagging and the ceiling of ma.s.sive buckeye beams.

It was in this naked and gloomy hall, damp and rank with the penetrating odour of mortar and dropping, mouldy plaster, that my Lord Dunmore consented to receive the old Cayuga chief, Logan, of the clan of the Wolf, and by right of birth--which counts not with chiefs unless they be sachems, too--the chief also of the Oquacho of the Oneida nation.

Towards dusk a company of red-coated British infantry, with drummers leading, left the barracks opposite our inn, the "Virginia Arms," and marched away towards "Governor's Hall," drummers beating "The Huron."

A crowd of men and boys trailed along on either flank of the column, drawn by curiosity to catch a glimpse of Logan, "The White Man's Friend," who was to ask justice this night of the most n.o.ble Governor of Virginia, the great Earl of Dunmore.

When the distant batter of the drums, echo and beat, had died away down the dark vista of the King's Road, I left my window in the "Virginia Arms" and descended the stairway into the street below, where Jack Mount and the Weasel ruffled it bravely and swaggered to and fro, awaiting my coming.

Mulled wine and sundry cups of cider, mixed rashly with long libations of James Rolfe's humming ale, had set their heads and tongues a-buzzing. They were glorious in their dingy buckskins, c.o.o.n-skin caps c.o.c.ked over their left ears, thumbs hooked jauntily under their arm-pits. They now occupied the middle of the street and patrolled it gayly, singing and shouting and interrupting traffic, returning a jest for a gibe, a laugh for a smile, or a terrible threat for any wayfarer who dared complain of being hustled or trodden on.

Men instinctively accorded them the room they seemed to desire; women understood them better, and took right of way, smiling the reproof which always brought the swaggerers up, cap-tails sweeping the street in extravagant salute. For there appeared, in those two graceless bibbers of wines, that gravity and politeness of intoxication which so grotesquely parodies the dignity of gallantry, and with which it is almost hopeless for sober people to contend.

However, I spoke to them so cuttingly that they relapsed into injured silence and ambled along on either side of me without serious offence to pa.s.sing citizens.

We soon found ourselves in a crowd, the current of which swept down the King's Road towards the fortress; and we followed in the wake, while past us rode companies of officers, gentlemen, and sometimes squads of the Governor's horse--those same gay, flame-coloured Virginians whom I had so admired at Johnstown a month ago.

Coaches pa.s.sed us, too, rolling towards the fortress, and through the gla.s.s windows we caught glimpses of ladies in cloaks of swan's-down, with their plumes and jewels shining in the rays of the coach-lamps.

Gilded sedan-chairs began to appear, gayer and more painted and polished than our chairs in Johnstown, and the bearers often in handsome liveries, with a major-domo leading the way and footmen to heel, and my lady peeping out at us shabby foot-farers plodding along in the street beside her.

Cresap's men were plentiful among the crowd, some of them sullen and muttering, others loud in their demands for Cresap's release, threatening trouble for those who had jailed their leader, and careless who heard them. There were a few forest-runners dressed as we were, numbers of riflemen in green capes and gray wool shirts, and rangers in brown and yellow deer-skins, with thrums dyed scarlet or purple.

A short, thick-set fellow, wearing a baldrick fringed with scalps, was pointed out by people as one of Boone's and Harrod's dare-devils; and truly he looked his part, though the scalp-belt pleased me not.

I heard him boasting that the trophies were Wyandotte scalps, which news, if true, meant one more ally for the Cayuga and one more enemy for the colonies when the breach with England came. It sickened me to hear the great fool boast.

The bulk of the throng, however, was made up of sober, peaceful citizens, men of the quiet cla.s.ses, in homespun and snuffy hats, guiltless of the silver buckle on knee or shoe, silent, reserved, thoughtful men of moderate gesture and earnest eyes, whose rare voices disturbed no one and whose inoffensive conduct rebuked the rufflers as no words could do.

Jack Mount, who at first appeared inclined to play the role of a marching orator and distribute morsels of his wit and learning to all who would pay him the fee of their attention, subsided of his own accord among the quiet company wherein we now found ourselves and contented himself and the Weasel with a series of prodigious yawns, at which they both never seemed to tire of laughing.

They also sang in a subdued chorus:

"Quak'ress, Quak'ress, whither away?

Pray thee stay thee, Quak'ress gray.

I thy Quaker fain would be, Yet dare not swear I care for thee!"

However, the few Quakers in the throng took no offence, and I presently nudged my mannerless comrades into a snickering silence.

The people ahead of us had now stopped, and, looking over their heads, I saw the dark shape of the "Governor's Hall," partly illuminated by two great lanthorns set in iron sockets flanking the portal. Shining in the feeble light moved the bayonets of the guards above the darkly ma.s.sed crowd, while coach after coach rolled up and chair after chair deposited its burden of bejewelled beauty at the gateway. And all these people, all these dainty dames and gallants, had come to see the famous Logan--to hear the great Cayuga orator, "The Friend of the White Man," ask why his little children had been slain by the white men, whose faithful friend he had been so long. Truly, there might be here something newer than the stale play at the Theatre Royal. It was not every day that my lady might hear and see an old man asking why his children had been murdered.

The crowd in front of us was compact, yet when Mount set his broad chest against it, the people hastily made a lane for him. The Weasel and I followed our big companion, elbowing our way to the portal, where Mr. Patrick Henry awaited us and pa.s.sed us through the sentries and guards and pompous big-bellied tip-staves who turned up their vinous noses at the three shabby men from the forest.

Candle-light softened the bare walls and benches; candle-light set silks and jewels in a blaze where the ladies, banked up like beds of rustling roses, choked the wooden balcony above our heads, murmuring, whispering, fluttering fans and scarfs till the perfumed breeze from their stirrings fanned my cheeks. And more of them were arriving every moment; the wooden stairway leading to the gallery was ablaze with starred sashes and petticoats, and twinkling satin shoon, with now and then the sparkle of a hilt as some scented gallant ascended with his fluttering and gorgeous convoy.

The scarlet coats of colonial and British officers spotted the galleries; here and there a silver gorget caught the light, blinding the eyes with brilliancy, only to turn and sink to a cinder as the wearer moved.