The Maid-At-Arms Part 6

Dorothy clasped both hands under her chin, rested her bare elbows on the table, and leaned close to me, whispering confidentially: "Because of the war with the Boston people. The country is overrun with rebels--rebel troops at Albany, rebel gunners at Stanwix, rebels at Edward and Hunter and Johnstown. A scout of ten men came here last week; they were harrying a war-party of Brant's Mohawks, and Stoner was with them, and that great ox in buckskin, Jack Mount. And do you know what he said to father? He said, 'For Heaven's sake, turn red or blue, Sir Lupus, for if you don't we'll hang you to a crab-apple and chance the color.' And father said, 'I'm no partisan King's man'; and Jack Mount said, 'You're the joker of the pack, are you?' And father said, 'I'm not in the shuffle, and you can bear me out, you rogue!' And then Jack Mount wagged his big forefinger at him and said, 'Sir Lupus, if you're but a joker, one or t'other side must discard you!' And they rode away, priming their rifles and laughing, and father swore and shook his cane at them."

In her eagerness her lips almost touched my ear, and her breath warmed my cheek.

"All that I saw and heard," she whispered, "and I know father told Walter Butler, for a scout came yesterday, saying that a scout from the Rangers and the Royal Greens had crossed the hills, and I saw some of Sir John's Scotch loons riding like warlocks on the new road, and that great fool, Francy McCraw, tearing along at their head and crowing like a c.o.c.k."

"Cousin, cousin," I protested, "all this--all these names--even the causes and the manners of this war, are incomprehensible to me."

"Oh," she said, in surprise, "have you in Florida not heard of our war?"

"Yes, yes--all know that war is with you, but that is all. I know that these Boston men are fighting our King; but why do the Indians take part?"

She looked at me blankly, and made a little gesture of dismay.

"I see I must teach you history, cousin," she said. "Father tells us that history is being made all about us in these days--and, would you believe it? Benny took it that books were being made in the woods all around the house, and stole out to see, spite of the law that father made--"

"Who thaw me?" shouted Benny.

"Hush! Be quiet!" said Dorothy.

Benny lay back in his chair and beat upon the table, howling defiance at his sister through Harry's shouts of laughter.

"Silence!" cried Dorothy, rising, flushed and furious. "Is this a corn-feast, that you all sit yelping in a circle? Ruyven, hold that door, and see that no one follows us--"

"What for?" demanded Ruyven, rising. "If you mean to keep our cousin Ormond to yourself--"

"I wish to discuss secrets with my cousin Ormond," said Dorothy, loftily, and stepped from her chair, nose in the air, and that heavy-lidded, insolent glance which once before had withered Ruyven, and now withered him again.

"We will go to the play-room," she whispered, pa.s.sing me; "that room has a bolt; they'll all be kicking at the door presently. Follow me."

Ere we had reached the head of the stairs we heard a yell, a rush of feet, and she laughed, crying: "Did I not say so? They are after us now full bark! Come!"

She caught my hand in hers and sped up the few remaining steps, then through the upper hallway, guiding me the while her light feet flew; and I, embarra.s.sed, bewildered, half laughing, half shamed to go a-racing through a strange house in such absurd a fashion.

"Here!" she panted, dragging me into a great, bare chamber and bolting the door, then leaned breathless against the wall to listen as the chase galloped up, clamoring, kicking and beating on panel and wall, baffled.

"They're raging to lose their new cousin," she breathed, smiling across at me with a glint of pride in her eyes. "They all think mightily of you, and now they'll be mad to follow you like hound-pups the whip, all day long." She tossed her head. "They're good lads, and Cecile is a sweet child, too, but they must be made to understand that there are moments when you and I desire to be alone together."

"Of course," I said, gravely.

"You and I have much to consider, much to discuss in these uncertain days," she said, confidently. "And we cannot babble matters of import to these children--"

"I'm seventeen!" howled Ruyven, through the key-hole. "Dorothy's not eighteen till next month, the little fool--"

"Don't mind him," said Dorothy, raising her voice for Ruyven's benefit.

"A lad who listens to his elders through a key-hole is not fit for serious--"

A heavy a.s.sault on the door drowned Dorothy's voice. She waited calmly until the uproar had subsided.

"Let us sit by the window," she said, "and I will tell you how we Varicks stand betwixt the deep sea and the devil."

"I wish to come in!" shouted Ruyven, in a threatening voice. Dorothy laughed, and pointed to a great arm-chair of leather and oak. "I will sit there; place it by the window, cousin."

I placed the chair for her; she seated herself with unconscious grace, and motioned me to bring another chair for myself.

"Are you going to let me in?" cried Ruyven.

"Oh, go to the--" began Dorothy, then flushed and glanced at me, asking pardon in a low voice.

A nice parent, Sir Lupus, with every child in his family ready to swear like Flanders troopers at the first breath!

Half reclining in her chair, limbs comfortably extended, Dorothy crossed her ankles and clasped her hands behind her head, a picture of indolence in every line and curve, from satin shoon to the dull gold of her hair, which, as I have said, the powder scarcely frosted.

"To comprehend properly this war," she mused, more to herself than to me, "I suppose it is necessary to understand matters which I do not understand; how it chanced that our King lost his city of Boston, and why he has not long since sent his soldiers here into our county of Tryon."

"Too many rebels, cousin," I suggested, flippantly. She disregarded me, continuing quietly;

"But this much, however, I do understand, that our province of New York is the centre of all this trouble; that the men of Tryon hold the last pennyweight, and that the balanced scales will tip only when we patroons cast in our fortunes, ... either with our King or with the rebel Congress which defies him. I think our hearts, not our interests, must guide us in this affair, which touches our honor."

Such pretty eloquence, thoughtful withal, was not what I had looked for in this new cousin of mine--this free-tongued maid, who, like a painted peach-fruit all unripe, wears the gay livery of maturity, tricking the eye with a false ripeness.

"I have thought," she said, "that if the issues of this war depend on us, we patroons should not draw sword too hastily--yet not to sit like house-cats blinking at this world-wide blaze, but, in the full flood of the crisis, draw!--knowing of our own minds on which side lies the right."

"Who taught you this?" I asked, surprised to over-bluntness.

"Who taught me? What? To think?" She laughed. "Solitude is a rare spur to thought. I listen to the gentlemen who talk with father; and I would gladly join and have my say, too, but that they treat me like a fool, and I have my questions for my pains. Yet I swear I am dowered with more sense than Sir John Johnson, with his pale eyes and thick, white flesh, and his tarnished honor to dog him like the shadow of a d.a.m.ned man sold to Satan--"

"Is he dishonored?"

"Is a parole broken a dishonor? The Boston people took him and placed him on his honor to live at Johnson Hall and do no meddling. And now he's fled to Fort Niagara to raise the Mohawks. Is that honorable?"

After a moment I said: "But a moment since you told me that Sir John comes here."

She nodded. "He comes and gees in secret with young Walter Butler--one of your Ormond-Butlers, cousin--and old John Butler, his father, Colonel of the Rangers, who boast they mean to scalp the whole of Tryon County ere this blood-feud is ended. Oh, I have heard them talk and talk, drinking o' nights in the gun-room, and the escort's horses stamping at the porch with a man to each horse, to hold the poor brutes' noses lest they should neigh and wake the woods. Councils of war, they call them, these revels; but they end ever the same, with Sir John borne off to bed too drunk to curse the slaves who shoulder his fat bulk, and Walter Butler, sullen, stunned by wine, a brooding thing of malice carved in stone; and father roaring his same old songs, and beating time with his long pipe till the stem snaps, and he throws the glowing bowl at Cato--"

"Dorothy, Dorothy," I said, "are these the scenes you find already too familiar?"

"Stale as last month's loaf in a ratty cupboard."

"Do they not offend you?"

"Oh, I am no prude--"

"Do you mean to say Sir Lupus sanctions it?"

"What? My presence? Oh, I amuse them; they dress me in Ruyven's clothes and have me to wine--lacking a tenor voice for their songs--and at first, long ago, their wine made me stupid, and they found rare sport in baiting me; but now they tumble, one by one, ere the wine's fire touches my face, and father swears there is no man in County Tryon can keep our company o' nights and show a steady pair of legs like mine to bear him bedwards."

After a moment's silence I said: "Are these your Northern customs?"

"They are ours--and the others of our kind. I hear the plain folk of the country speak ill of us for the free life we lead at home--I mean the Palatines and the canting Dutch, not our tenants, though what even they may think of the manor house and of us I can only suspect, for they are all rebels at heart, Sir John says, and wear blue noses at the first run o' king's cider."