The Little Red Foot Part 71

"Yes. I saw you there against a cannon's rising cloud.... And a white shape near you."

"You said it was Death," I reminded her.

"Death or a bride.... I did not wish to see that vision. I never desire to see such things."

"Pooh! Do you really believe in dreams, Penelope?"

"There were strange uniforms there," she murmured, "--not red-coats."

"Oh; green-coats!"

"No. I never saw the like. I never saw such soldiery in England or in France or in America."

"They were only dream soldiers," said I gaily. "So now you must laugh a little, and take heart, Penelope, because if we two have been made homeless this night by fire, still we are young, and in health, and have all life before us. Come, then! Shall we be melancholy? And if there are to be battles in the North, why, there will be battles, and some must die and some survive.

"So, in the meanwhile, shall we be merry?"

"If you wish, sir."

"Excellent! Sing me a pretty French song--low voiced--in my ear, Penelope, whilst I guide my horse."

"What song, sir?"

"What you will."

So, holding my arm with both her hands, she leaned close to me on the jolting seat and placed her lips at my ear; and sang "Malbrook," as we drove toward Johnstown through the dark forest under the April stars.

Something hot touched my cheek.

"Why, Penelope!" said I, "are you weeping?"

She shook her head, rested her forehead a moment against my shoulder, and, sitting so, strove to continue--

"Il ne--ne reviendra--"

Her voice sank to a tremulous whisper and she bowed her face in her two hands and rested so in silence, her slender form swaying with the swaying waggon.

It was plain to me that the child was afeard. The shock of flight, the lurid tokens of catastrophe in the heavens, the alarming rumours in those darkening hours, anxiety, suspense, all had contributed to shake a heart both gentle and courageous.

For in the thickening gloom around us a very murk of murder seemed to brood over this dark and threatened land, seeming to grow more sinister and more imminent as the fading crimson in the northern heavens paled to a sickly hue in the first faint pallor of the coming dawn.

CHAPTER XXV

BURKE'S TAVERN

Now, whether it was the wetting I got on Mayfield Creek and the chill I took on the long night's journey to Johnstown, or if my thigh-wound became inflamed from that day's exertion at Fish House, Summer House, and Mayfield, I do not know for certain.

But when at sunrise we drove up to Jimmy Burke's Tavern in Johnstown, I discovered that I could not move my right leg; and, to my mortification, Nick and my Indian were forced to make a swinging chair of their linked hands, and carry me into the tavern, Penelope following forlornly, her arms full of furs and blankets.

Here was a pretty dish! But try as I might I could not set my foot to the ground; so they laid me upon a bed and stripped me, and my Saguenay wrapped my leg in hot blankets and laid furs over me, till I was wet with sweat to the hair.

Presently comes Jimmy Burke himself--that lively, lovable scamp, to whom all were friendly; for he was both kind and gay, though a great braggart, and few believed that he had any stomach for the deeds he said he meant to do in battle.

"Faith," says he, "it's Misther Drogue, G.o.d bless him, an' in a sad plight along o' the b.l.o.o.d.y Sacandaga Tories! Wisha then, sorr, had I been there it's me would ha' trimmed the hair o' them!"

"Are you well, Jimmy?" I inquired, smiling, spite my pain.

"Am I well? I am that! I was never fitter f'r to fight thim dirty green coats of Sir John's. Och--the poor lad! Lave me fetch a hot brick----"

"I'm lame as a one-legged duck, Jimmy," said I. "Send word to the Fort that I've an account to render, and beg the Commandant to overlook my tardiness until I can be carried thither on a litter."

"And th' yoong leddy, sorr? Will she bait here?"

"Yes; where is she?"

"She lies on a wolf-skin on the bed in the next chamber, foreninst the wall, sorr. There's tears on her purty face, but I think she sleeps, f'r all that. Is she hurted, too, Misther Drogue?"

"Oh, no. When she wakes send a maid-servant to care for her. Find a loft-bed for my Indian and give him no rum--mind that, James Burke!--or we quarrel."

"Th' red divil gets no sup in my shabeen!" said he. "Do I lave him gorge or no?"

"Certainly. Let him stuff himself. And let no man use him with contempt.

He is faithful and brave. He is my _friend._ Do you mark me, Jimmy?"

"I do, sorr. And Nick Stoner--that long-legged limb of Satan!--av he plays anny thricks on Jimmy Burke may G.o.d help him--the poor little scut!----"

I had some faint recollection of pranks played upon Burke by Nick in this same tavern; but what he had done to Jimmy I did not remember, save that it had set Sir William and the town all a-laughing.

"Nick is a good lad and my friend," said I. "Use him kindly. Your wit is a match for his, anyway, and so are your fists."

"Is it so!" muttered Burke, casting a smouldering side-look at me. "D'ye mind what he done three year come Shrove Tuesday? The day I gave out I was a better man than Sir William's new blacksmith? Well, then--av ye disremember--that scut of a Nick shtole me breeches, an' he put them on a billy-goat, an' tuk him to the tap-room where was company. An', 'Here,' says he, 'is a better Irishman than you, Jimmy Burke!--an' a better fighter, too.' An' wid that the d.a.m.ned goat rares up an' b.u.t.ts me over; an' up I gets an' he b.u.t.ts me over, an' up an' down I go, an' the five wits clean knocked out o' me, an' the company an' Sir William all yelling like loons an' laying odds on the goat----"

I lay there convulsed with laughter, remembering now this prank of the most mischievous boy I ever knew.

Burke licked his lips grimly at the memory of that ancient wrong.

"Sure, he's th' bould wan f'r to come into me house wid the score unreckoned an' all that balance agin' him."

"Touch pewter with him and forgive the lad," said I. "These are sterner days, Jimmy, and we should cherish no private malice here where we may be put to it to stand siege."

"Is it thrue, sor, that the destructives are on the Sacandaga?"

"Yes, it is true. Fish House, Summer House, and Fonda's Bush are in ashes, Jimmy, and your late friend, Sir John, is at Buck Island with a thousand Indians, regulars, and Tories, and like to pay us a call before planting time."

"Oh, my G.o.d," says Burke, "the divil take Sir John an' the black heart of him av he comes back here to murther his old neighbors! Sorra the day we let him scape!--him an' Alex White, an' Toby Tice an' moody Wally Butler,--an' ould John, an' Indian Claus, an' Black Guy!--may the divil take the whole Tory ruck o' them!----"