The Little Red Foot Part 58

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 a.s.s was I.

CHAPTER XXII

HAG-RIDDEN

So pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

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 b.u.t.ter 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. b.u.t.ternuts 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 a.s.s; 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 a.s.s, differing only from other a.s.ses 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.

G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed,--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 G.o.d knows I meant her no wrong, nor had pa.s.sion, so far, played any role 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 a.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstance 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.