The Maid-At-Arms Part 22

I looked towards her and she raised her hand, motioning us to come.

"About father's watch," she said. "I have just consulted Sir George, and he says that neither I nor Ruyven have won, seeing that Ruyven used the coin he did--"

"Very well," cried Ruyven, triumphantly. "Then let us match dates again.

Have you a shilling, Cousin Ormond?"

"I'll throw hunting-knives for it," suggested Dorothy.

"Oh no, you won't," retorted her brother, warily.

"Then I'll race you to the porch."

He shook his head.

She laughed tauntingly.

"I'm not afraid," said Ruyven, reddening and glancing at me.

"Then I'll wrestle you."

Stung by the malice in her smile, Ruyven seized her.

"No, no! Not in these clothes!" she said, twisting to free herself.

"Wait till I put on my buckskins. Don't use me so roughly, you tear my laced ap.r.o.n. Oh! you great b.o.o.by!" And with a quick cry of resentment she bent, caught her brother, and swung him off his feet clean over her left shoulder slap on the gra.s.s.

"Silly!" she said, cheeks aflame. "I have no patience to be mauled."

Then she laughed uncertainly to see him lying there, too astonished to get up.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Who taught you that hold?" he demanded, indignantly, scrambling to his feet. "I thought I alone knew that."

"Why, Captain Campbell taught you last week and ... I was at the window ... sewing," she said, demurely.

Ruyven looked at me, disgusted, muttering, "If I could learn things the way she does, I'd not waste time at King's College, I can tell you."

"You're not going to King's College, anyhow," said his sister. "York is full o' loyal rebels and Tory patriots, and father says he'll be d.a.m.ned if you can learn logic where all lack it."

She held out her hand, smiling. "No malice, Ruyven, and we'll forgive each other."

Her brother met the clasp; then, hands in his pockets, followed us back through the stockade towards the porch. I was pleased to see that his pride had suffered no more than his body from the fall he got, which augured well for a fair-minded manhood.

As we approached the house I heard hollow noises within, like groans; and I stopped, listening intently.

"It is Sir Lupus snoring," observed Ruyven. "He will wake soon; I think I had best call Tulip," he added, exchanging a glance with his sister; and entered the house calling, "Cato! Cato! Tulip! Tulip! I say!"

"Who is Tulip?" I asked of Dorothy, who lingered at the threshold folding her embroidery into a bundle.

"Tulip? Oh, Tulip cooks for us--black as a June crow, cousin. She is voodoo."

"Evil-eye and all?" I asked, smiling.

Dorothy looked up shyly. "Don't you believe in the evil-eye?"

I was not perfectly sure whether I did or not, but I said "No."

"To believe is not necessarily to be afraid," she added, quickly.

Now, had I believed in the voodoo craft, or in the power of an evil-eye, I should also have feared. Those who have ever witnessed a sea-island witch-dance can bear me out, and I think a man may dread a hag and be no coward either. But distance and time allay the memories of such uncanny works. I had forgotten whether I was afraid or not. So I said, "There are no witches, Dorothy."

She looked at me, dreamily. "There are none ... that I fear."

"Not even Catrine Montour?" I asked, to plague her.

"No; it turns me cold to think of her running in the forest, but I am not afraid."

She stood pensive in the doorway, rolling and unrolling her embroidery.

Harry and Cecile came out, flourishing alder poles from which lines and hooks dangled. Samuel and Benny carried birchen baskets and shallow nets.

"If we're to have Mohawk chubbs," said Cecile, "you had best come with us, Dorothy. Ruyven has a book and has locked himself in the play-room."

But Dorothy shook her head, saying that she meant to ride the boundary with us; and the children, after vainly soliciting my company, trooped off towards that same grist-mill in the ravine below the bridge which I had observed on my first arrival at Varick Manor.

"I am wondering," said Dorothy, "how you mean to pa.s.s the morning. You had best steer wide of Sir Lupus until he has breakfasted."

"I've a mind to sleep," I said, guiltily.

"I think it would be pleasant to ride together. Will you?" she asked; then, laughing, she said, frankly, "Since you have come I do nothing but follow you.... It is long since I have had a young companion, ... and, when I think that you are to leave us, it spurs me to lose no moment that I shall regret when you are gone."

No shyness marred the pretty declaration of her friendship, and it touched me the more keenly perhaps. The confidence in her eyes, lifted so sweetly, waked the best in me; and if my response was stumbling, it was eager and warm, and seemed to please her.

"Tulip! Tulip!" she cried, "I want my dinner! Now!" And to me, "We will eat what they give us; I shall dress in my buckskins and we will ride the boundary and register the signs, and Sir Lupus and the others can meet us at Sir George Covert's pleasure-house on the Vlaie. Does it please you, Cousin George?"

I looked into her bright eyes and said that it pleased me more than I dared say, and she laughed and ran up-stairs, calling back to me that I should order our horses and tell Cato to tell Tulip to fetch meat and claret to the gun-room.

I whistled a small, black stable lad and bade him bring our mounts to the porch, then wandered at random down the hallway, following my nose, which scented the kitchen, until I came to a closed door.

Behind that door meats were cooking--I could take my oath o' that--so I opened the door and poked my nose in.

"Tulip," I said, "come here!"

An ample black woman, ap.r.o.ned and turbaned, looked at me through the steam of many kettles, turned and cuffed the lad at the spit, dealt a few buffets among the scullions, and waddled up to me, bobbing and curtsying.

"Aunt Tulip," I said, gravely, "are you voodoo?"

"Folks says ah is, Mars' Ormon'," she said, in her soft Georgia accent.

"Oh, they do, do they? Look at me, Aunt Tulip. What do my eyes tell you of me?"