The Reckoning Part 34

"HEADQUARTERS, PHILADELPHIA, "September 2d, '81.

"CARUS RENALT, ESQ'RE:

"_Sir_--On receipt of this order you will immediately proceed from your anchorage off West Point to Albany, disembark, and travel by way of Schenectady to Johnstown, and from there to Butlersbury, where you will establish yourself in the manor-house, making it your headquarters, unless force of circ.u.mstances prevent. Fifty Tryon County Rangers, to be employed as one scout or several, are placed under your authority; the militia, and such companies of Continental troops as are now or may later be apportioned to Tryon County, will continue under the orders of Colonel Marinus Willett. Your duties you are already familiar with; your policy must emanate from your own nature and deliberate judgment concerning the situation as it is or as it threatens. Close and cordial cooperation with Colonel Willett, and with the various civil and military authorities in Tryon County, should eventually accomplish the object of your mission, which is, first, to prevent surprise from all invasion; second, to prevent a ma.s.sacre of the Oneida Nation.

"Authority is herewith given you to open and read the sealed orders delivered to you by myself on your departure."

The letter was signed by Colonel Hamilton. I stared at his signature, then at the name of the city from whence the letter was dated--_Philadelphia_.

What in Heaven's name were "Headquarters" doing in Philadelphia? Was his Excellency there? Was the army there? Impossible--the army which for months had been preparing to storm New York?--impossible!

I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of my coat, drew out the sealed orders, tore them open, and read:

"Until further notice such reports as you are required to render to his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, should be sent to headquarters, near Yorktown, Virginia----"

Virginia! The army that I had seen at Dobbs Ferry, at White Plains, at North Castle, was that army on its way to Virginia? What! hurl an entire army a thousand miles southward? And had Sir Henry Clinton permitted it?

In a sort of stupor I read and reread the astonishing words: "Virginia?

There was a British army in Virginia. Yorktown? Yes, that British army was at Yorktown, practically at bay, with a youth of twenty-three--my own age--hara.s.sing it--the young General Lafayette! Greene, too, was there, his chivalry cutting up the light troops of General Lord Cornwallis----"

"By Heaven!" I cried, springing to my feet, "his Excellency never meant to storm New York! The French fleet has sailed for the Chesapeake!

Lafayette is there, Greene is there, Morgan, Sumter, Lee, Pickens, all are there! His Excellency has gone to catch Cornwallis in a mouse-trap, and Sir Henry is duped!"

Mad with excitement and delight, I looked up at the great fortress on the river, and knew that it was safe in its magnificent isolation--safe with its guns and ramparts and its four thousand men--knew that the key to the Hudson was ours, and would remain ours, although the army, like a gigantic dragon, had lifted its great wings and soared southward, so silently that none, not even the British spies, had dreamed its destination was other than the city of New York.

And, as I looked, the signals on the fortress changed; the guard-boats hailed us, the harmless river-craft gave us right of way, and we spread our white sails once more, drawing slowly northward, under the rocky pulpits of the heights, past sh.o.r.e forests yet unbroken, edged with acres of reeds and marshes, from which the water-fowl arose in clouds; past pine-crowned capes and mountains, whose bases were bathed in the great river; past lonely little islands, on, on, into the purple mystery of the silent north.

Now there remained no high sky-bastion to halt us with voiceless signal and dumb cannon, nothing beyond but Albany; and, beyond Albany, the frontier; and beyond the frontier a h.e.l.lish war of murder and the torch, a ceaseless conflict of dreadful reprisals, sterile triumphs, terrible vengeance, a saturnalia of private feuds, which spared neither the infirm nor the infant--nay, the very watch-dog at the door received no quarter in the holocaust.

Elsin had begged and begged that she should not be left there at West Point, saying that Albany was safer, though I doubted the question of safety weighed in her choice; but she pleaded so reasonably, so sweetly, arms around my neck, and her lips whispering so that my cheek felt their soft flutter, that I consented. There I was foolish, for no sooner were we in sight of the Albany hills than arms and lips were persuading again, guilelessly explaining how simple it would be for her to live at Johnstown, while I, at Butlersbury, busied myself with my own affairs.

And so we stood in earnest conference, while nearer and nearer loomed the hills, with the Dutch town atop, brick houses, tiled roofs, steep streets, becoming plainer and plainer to the eye.

There seemed to be an unusual amount of shipping at the Albany wharves as we glided in, and a great number of wagons and people scurrying about. In fact, I had never before observed such a bustle in Albany streets, but thought nothing of it at the moment, for I had not seen the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and our sea-chests which the men bore sh.o.r.eward and up the steep hill to the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued, she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common threshold to continue a discussion in which tears, lips, and arms soon supplanted logic and reason.

Had she remained at West Point, although that fortress could not have been taken except by a regular siege, still she might have been subjected to all the horrors of blockade and bombardment, for since his Excellency had abandoned the Hudson with his army and was already half-way to Virginia, nothing now stood between West Point and the heavy British garrison of New York.

It was my knowledge of that more than her pleading that reconciled me to leave her in Albany.

But I was soon to learn that she was by no means secure in the choice I had made for her; for presently she retired to her own chamber and lay down on her bed to rest for an hour or so before supper, in order to recover from the fatigue and the constant motion of the long voyage; and I went out into the town to inquire where Colonel Willett might be found.

The sluggish Dutch burghers of Albany appeared to be active enough that lovely September afternoon; hurrying hither and thither through the streets, and not one among them sufficiently civil to stop and give me an answer to my question concerning Colonel Willett. At first I could make nothing of this amazing bustle and hurry; wagons, loaded with household furniture, clattered through the streets or toiled up and down the hills, discharging bedding, pots and pans, chairs, tables, the family clock, and Heaven knows what, on to the wharves, where a great many sloops and other craft were moored, the _Wind-Flower_ among them.

In the streets, too, wagons were standing before fine residences and shops; servants and black slaves piled them high with all manner of goods. I even saw a green parrot in a cage, perched atop of a pile of corded bedding, and the bird c.o.c.ked his head and called out continually: "Gad-a-mercy! Gad-a-mercy! Gad-a-mercy!"

An invalid soldier of Colonel Livingston's regiment, his right arm bandaged in splints, was standing across the street, apparently vastly amused by the bird in the wagon; and I crossed over to him and asked what all this exodus might signify.

"Why, the town is in a monstrous fright, friend," he drawled, cradling his shattered arm and puffing away at his cob-pipe. "Since April, when them red-devils of Brant's struck Cherry Valley for the second time, and cleaned up some score and odd women and children, these here thrifty Dutchmen in Albany have been ready to pack up and pull foot at the first breath o' foul news."

"But," said I, "what news has alarmed them now?"

"Hey? Scairt 'em? Waal, rumors is thicker than spotted flies in the sugar-bush. Some say the enemy are a-scalping at Torlock, some say Little Falls. We heard last week that Schenectady was threatened. It may be true, for there's a pest o' Tories loose in the outlying county, and them there b.l.o.o.d.y Iroquois skulk around the farms and shoot little children in their own dooryards."

"Do you believe there is any danger in Albany?" I asked incredulously.

He shrugged his shoulders, nursing his bandaged arm.

Then, troubled and apprehensive, I asked him where I might find Colonel Willett, and he said that a scout was now out toward Johnstown, and that Willett led it. This was all he knew, all the information I could get from him. Returning along the dusty, steep streets to the Half-Moon Tavern, I called in the stolid Dutch landlord, requesting information; but he knew nothing at all except that a number of timid people were packing up because an express had come in the night before with news that a body of Tories and Indians had attacked Cobleskill, taken a Mr.

Warner, and murdered the entire family of a Captain Dietz--father, mother, wife, four little children, and a Scotch servant-girl, Jessie Dean.

Observing the horror with which I received the news he shook his head, pulled at his long pipe for a few moments in thoughtful silence, and said:

"What shall we do, sir? They kill us everywhere. Better die at home than in the bush. I think a man's as safe here in Albany as in any place, unless he quits all and leaves affairs to go to ruin to skulk in one o' the valley forts. But they've even burned Stanwix now, and the blockhouses are poor defense against Iroquois fire-arrows. If I had a wife I'd take her to Johnstown Fort; it's built of stone, they say.

Besides, Marinus Willett is there. I wish to G.o.d he were here!"

We lingered in the empty tap-room for a while, talking in low voices of the peril; and I was certainly amazed, so utterly unprepared was I to find such a town as Albany in danger from the roaming scalping parties infesting the frontier.

Still, had my own headquarters been in Albany, I should have considered it the proper place for Elsin; but under these ominous, unlooked-for conditions I dared not leave her here, even domiciled with some family of my acquaintance, as I had intended. Indeed, I learned that the young patroon himself had gone to Heldeberg to arm his tenantry, and I knew that when Stephen Van Rensselaer took alarm it was not at the idle whistling of a kill-deer plover.

As far as I could see there was now nothing for Elsin but to go forward with me--strange irony of fate!--to Johnstown, perhaps to Butlersbury, the late residence of that mortal enemy of mine, who had brought upon her this dreadful trouble. How great a trouble it might prove to be I dared not yet consider, for the faint hope was ever in me that this unholy marriage might not stand the search of Tryon County's parish records--that the poor creature he had cast off might not have been his mistress after all, but his wife. Yes, I dared hope that he had lied, remembering what Mount and the Weasel told me. At any rate, I had long since determined to search what parish records might remain undestroyed in a land where destruction had reigned for four terrible years. That, and the chance that I might slay him if he appeared as he had threatened, were the two fixed ideas that persisted. There was little certainty, however, in either case, for, as I say, the records, if extant, might only confirm his pledged word, and, on the other hand, I was engaged by all laws of honor not to permit a private enmity to swerve me from my public duty. Therefore, I could neither abandon all else to hunt him down if he appeared as he promised to appear, nor take time in record-searching, unless the doc.u.ments were close at hand.

Perplexed, more than anxious, I went up-stairs and entered my chamber.

The door between our rooms still swung open, and, as I stepped forward to close it, I saw Elsin there, asleep on her bed, fingers doubled up in her rosy palms. So young, so pitifully alone she seemed, lying there sleep-flushed, face upturned, that my eyes dimmed as I gazed. Bitter doubts a.s.sailed me. I knew that I should have asked a flag and sent her north to Sir Frederick Haldimand--even though it meant a final separation for us--rather than risk the chances of my living through the armed encounter, the intrigues, the violence which were so surely approaching. I could do so still; it was not too late. Colonel Willett would give me a flag!

Miserable, undecided, overwhelmed with self-reproach, I stood there looking upon the unconscious sleeper. Sunlight faded from the patterned wall; that violet tint, which lingers with us in the north after the sun has set, deepened to a sadder color, then slowly thickened to obscurity; and from the window I saw the new moon hanging through tangled branches, dull as a silver-poplar leaf in November.

What if I die here on the frontier? The question persisted, repeating itself again and again. And my thoughts ran on in somber disorder: If I die--then we shall never know wedded happiness--never know the sweetest of intimacies. Our lives, uncompleted, what meaning is there in such lives? As for me, were my life to end all incomplete, why was I born?

To live on, year after year, escaping the perils all are heir to, and then, when for the first instant life's true meaning is disclosed, to die, sterile, blighting, desolating another life, too? And must we put away offered happiness to wait on custom at our peril?--to sit cowed before convention, juggling with death and pa.s.sion?

Darkness around me, darkness in my soul, I stood staring at her where she lay, arms bent back and small hands doubled up; and an overwhelming rush of tenderness and apprehension drew me forward to bend above her, hovering there, awed by the beauty of her--the pure lids, the lashes resting on the cheeks, the red mouth so exquisitely tranquil, curled like a scarlet petal of a flower fallen on snow.

Her love and mine! What cared we for laws that barred it?--what mattered any law that dared attempt to link her destiny with that man who might, perhaps, wear a t.i.tle as her husband--and might not. Who joined them? No G.o.d that I feared or worshiped. Then, why should I not sunder a pact inspired by h.e.l.l itself; and if the law of the land made by men of the land permitted us no sanctuary in wedlock, then why did we not seek that shelter in a happiness the law forbids, inspired by a pa.s.sion no law could forbid?

I had but to reach forward, to bend and touch her, and where was Death's triumph if I fell at last? What vague and terrible justice could rob us of these hours? Never, never had I loved her as I did then. She breathed so quietly, lying there, that I could not see her body stir; her stillness awed me, fascinated me; so still, so inert, so marvelously motionless, that her very soul seemed asleep within her.

Should I awake her, this child whose calm, closed lids, whose soft lashes and tinted skin, whose young soul and body were in my keeping here under a strange roof, in a strange land?

Slowly, very slowly, a fear grew in me that took the shape of horror.

My reasoning was the reasoning of Walter Butler!--my argument his d.a.m.ning creed! Dazed, shaken, I sank to my knees, overwhelmed by my own perfidy; and she stirred in her slumber and stretched out one little hand. All the chivalry, all the manhood in me responded to that appeal in a pa.s.sion of loyalty which swept my somber heart clean of selfishness.

And there in the darkness I learned the lesson that she believed I had taught to her--a lesson so easily forgotten when the heart's loud clamor drowns all else, and every pulse throbs reckless response. And it was cold reasoning and chill logic for cooling hot young blood--but it was neither reason nor logic which prevailed, I think, but something--I know not what--something inborn that conquered spite of myself, and a guilty and rebellious heart that, after all, had only asked for love, at any price--only love, but _all_ of it, its sweetness unbridled, its mystery unfathomed--lest the body die, and the soul, unsatisfied, wing upward to eternal ignorance.

As I crouched there beside her, in the darkness below the tall hall-clock fell a-striking; and she moved, sighed, and sat up--languid-eyed and pink from slumber.

"Carus," she murmured, "how long have I slept? How long have you been here, my darling? Heigho! Why did you wake me? I was in paradise with you but now. Where are you? I am minded to drowse, and go find you in paradise again."

She pushed her hair aside and turned, resting her chin on one hand, regarding me with sweet, sleepy, humorous eyes that glimmered like amethysts in the moonlight.

"Were ever two lovers so happy?" she asked. "Is there anything on earth that we lack?--possessing each other so completely. Tell me, Carus."

"Nothing," I said.