The Maid-At-Arms Part 32

"That is all, sir."

"And what about your properties in Florida?"

"I can do nothing there. If they confiscate them in my absence, they might do worse were I to go back and defy them. I believe my life is worth something to our cause, and it would be only to waste it foolishly if I returned to fight for a few indigo-vats and canefields."

"While you can remain here and fight for other people's hen-coops, eh?"

"No, sir; only to take up the common quarrel and stand for that liberty which we inherited from those who now seek to dispossess us."

"Quite an orator!" he observed, grimly. "The Ormonds were formerly more ready with their swords than with their tongues."

"I trust I shall not fail to sustain their traditions," I said, controlling my anger with a desperate effort.

He burst out into a hollow laugh.

"There you go, red as a turkey-c.o.c.k and madder than a singed tree-cat!

George, can't you let me plague you in comfort! Dammy, it's undutiful!

For pity's sake! let me sneer--let me gibe and jeer if it eases me."

I glared at him, half inclined to laugh.

"Curse it!" he said, wrathfully, "I'm serious. You don't know how serious I am. It's no laughing matter, George. I must do something to ease me!" He burst out into a roar, swearing in volleys.

"D' ye think I wish to appear contemptible?" he shouted. "D' ye think I like to sit here like an old wife, scolding in one breath and preaching thrift in the next? A weak-kneed, chicken-livered, white-bellied old bullfrog that squeaks and jumps, plunk! into the puddle when a footstep falls in the gra.s.s! Am I not a patroon? Am I not Dutch? Granted I'm fat and slow and a glutton, and lazy as a wolverine. I can fight like one, too! Don't make any mistake there, George!"

His broad face flushed crimson, his little, green eyes snapped fire.

"D' ye think I don't love a fight as well as my neighbor? D' ye think I've a stomach for insults and flouts and winks and nudges? Have I a liver to sit doing sums on my thumbs when these impudent British are kicking my people out of their own doors? Am I of a kidney to smile and bow, and swallow and digest the orders of Tory swashbucklers, who lay down a rule of conduct for men who should be framing rules of common decency for them? D' ye think I'm a snail or a potato or an empty pair o' breeches? d.a.m.nation!"

Rage convulsed him. He recovered his self-command slowly, smashing his pipe in the interval; and I, astonished beyond measure, waited for the explanation which he appeared to be disposed to give.

"If I'm what I am," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "an old jack-a.s.s he-hawing 'Peace! peace! thrift! thrift!' it is because I must and not because the music pleases me.... And I had not meant to tell you why--for none other suspects it--but my personal honor is at stake. I am in debt to a friend, George, and unless I am left in peace here to collect my t.i.thes and till my fields and run my mills and ship my pearl-ashes, I can never hope to pay a debt of honor incurred--and which I mean to pay, if I live, so help me G.o.d!

"Lad, if this house, these farms, these acres were my own, do you think I'd hesitate to polish up that old sword yonder that my father carried when Schenectady went up in flames?... Know me better, George!... Know that this condemnation to inaction is the bitterest trial I have ever known. How easy it would be for me to throw my own property into one balance, my sword into the other, and say, 'Defend the one with the other or be robbed!' But I can't throw another man's lands into the balance. I can't raise the war-yelp and go careering about after glory when I owe every shilling I possess and thousands more to an honorable and generous gentleman who refused all security for the loan save my own word of honor.

"And now, simple, brave, high-minded as he is, he offers to return me my word of honor, free me from his debt, and leave me unshackled to conduct in this coming war as I see fit.

"But that is more than he can do, George. My word once pledged can only be redeemed by what it stood for, and he is powerless to give it back.

"That is all, sir.... Pray think more kindly of an old fool in future, when you plume yourself upon your liberty to draw sword in the most just cause this world has ever known."

"It is I who am the fool, Sir Lupus," I said, in a low voice.

XI

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

I remember it was the last day of May before I saw my cousin Dorothy again.

Late that afternoon I had taken a fishing-rod and a book, The Poems of Pansard, and had set out for the grist-mill on the stream below the log-bridge; but did not go by road, as the dust was deep, so instead crossed the meadow and entered the cool thicket, making a shorter route to the stream.

Through the woodland, as I pa.s.sed, I saw violets in hollows and blue innocence starring moist glades with its heavenly color, and in the drier woods those slender-stemmed blue bell-flowers which some call the Venus's looking-gla.s.s.

In my saddened and rebellious heart a more innocent pa.s.sion stirred and awoke--the tender pleasure I have always found in seeking out those shy people of the forest, the wild blossoms--a harmless pleasure, for it is ever my habit to leave them undisturbed upon their stalks.

Deeper in the forest pink moccasin-flowers bloomed among rocks, and the air was tinctured with a honeyed smell from the spiked orchis cradled in its sheltering leaf under the hemlock shade.

Once, as I crossed a marshy place, about me floated a violet perfume, and I was at a loss to find its source until I espied a single purple blossom of the Arethusa bedded in st.u.r.dy thickets of rose-azalea, faintly spicy, and all humming with the wings of plundering bees.

Underfoot my shoes brushed through spikenard, and fell silently on carpets of moss-pinks, and once I saw a matted bed of late Mayflower, and the forest dusk grew sweeter and sweeter, saturating all the woodland, until each breath I drew seemed to intoxicate.

Spring languor was in earth and sky, and in my bones, too; yet, through this Northern forest ever and anon came faint reminders of receding snows, melting beyond the Canadas--delicate zephyrs, tinctured with the far scent of frost, flavoring the sun's balm at moments with a sharper essence.

Now traversing a ferny s.p.a.ce edged in with sweetbrier, a breeze accompanied me, caressing neck and hair, stirring a sudden warmth upon my cheek like a breathless maid close beside me, whispering.

Then through the rustle of leafy depths I heard the stream's laughter, very far away, and I turned to the left across the moss, walking more swiftly till I came to the log-bridge where the road crosses. Below me leaped the stream, deep in its ravine of slate, roaring over the dam above the rocky gorge only to flow out again between the ledge and the stone foundations of the grist-mill opposite. Down into the ravine and under the dam I climbed, using the mossy steps that nature had cut in the slate, and found a rock to sit on where the spray from the dam could not drench me. And here I baited my hook and cast out, so that the swirling water might carry my lure under the mill's foundations, where Ruyven said big, dusky trout most often lurked.

But I am no fisherman, and it gives me no pleasure to drag a finny creature from its element and see its poor mouth gasp and its eyes glaze and the fiery dots on its quivering sides grow dimmer. So when a sly trout s.n.a.t.c.hed off my bait I was in no mood to cover my hook again, but set the rod on the rocks and let the bright current waft my line as it would, harmless now as the dusty alder leaves dimpling yonder ripple. So I opened my book, idly attentive, reading The Poems of Pansard, while dappled shadows of cl.u.s.tered maple leaves moved on the page, and droning bees set old Pansard's lines to music.

"Like two sweet skylarks springing skyward, singing, Piercing the empyrean of blinding light, So shall our souls take flight, serenely winging, Soaring on azure heights to G.o.d's delight; While from below through sombre deeps come stealing The floating notes of earthward church-bells pealing."

My thoughts wandered and the yellow page faded to a glimmer amid pale spots of sunshine waning when some slow cloud drifted across the sun.

Again my eyes returned to the printed page, and again thought parted from its moorings, a derelict upon the tide of memory. Far in the forest I heard the white-throat's call with the endless, sad refrain, "Weep-wee-p! Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!" Though some vow that the little bird sings plainly, "Sweet-sw-eet! Canada, Canada, Canada!"

Then for a while I closed my eyes until, slowly, that awakening sense that somebody was looking at me came over me, and I raised my head.

Dorothy stood on the log-bridge above the dam, elbows on the rail, gazing pensively at me.

"Well, of all idle men!" she said, steadying her voice perceptibly.

"Shall I come down?"

And without waiting for a reply she walked around to the south end of the bridge and began to descend the ravine.

I offered a.s.sistance; she ignored it and picked her own way down the cleft to the stream-side.

"It seems a thousand years since I have seen you," she said. "What have you been doing all this while? What are you doing now? Reading? Oh!

fishing! And can you catch nothing, silly?... Give me that rod.... No, I don't want it, after all; let the trout swim in peace.... How pale you have grown, cousin!"

"You also, Dorothy," I said.

"Oh, I know that; there's a gla.s.s in my room, thank you.... I thought I'd come down.... There is company at the house--some of Colonel Gansevoort's officers, Third Regiment of the New York line, if you please, and two impudent young ensigns of the Half-moon Regiment, all on their way to Stanwix fort."

She seated herself on the deep moss and balanced her back against a silver-birch tree.

"They're at the house, all these men," she said; "and what do you think?

General Schuyler and his lady are to arrive this evening, and I'm to receive them, dressed in my best tucker!... and there may be others with them, though the General comes on a tour of inspection, being anxious lest disorder break out in this district if he is compelled to abandon Ticonderoga.... What do you think of that--George?"