In the Valley

By

Harold Frederic

Copyright 1890

Dedication. 

_When, after years of preparation, the pleasant task of writing this talewas begun, I had my chief delight in the hope that the completed bookwould gratify a venerable friend, to whose inspiration my first idea ofthe work was due, and that I might be allowed to place his honored nameupon this page. The ambition was at once lofty and intelligible. While hewas the foremost citizen of New York State, we of the Mohawk Valleythought of him as peculiarly our own. Although born elsewhere, his wholeadult life was spent among us, and he led all others in his love for theValley, his pride in its noble history, and his broad aspirations for thewelfare and progress in wise and good ways of its people. His approval efthis book would have been the highest honor it could possibly have won. Long before it was finished, he had been laid in his last sleep upon thebosom of the hills that watch over our beautiful river. With reverentaffection the volume is brought now to lay as a wreath upon hisgrave--dedicated to the memory of Horatio Seymour. _

London, _September 11_, 1890

Contents. 

Chapter I. "The French Are in the Valley!"Chapter II. Setting Forth How the Girl Child Was Brought to Us. Chapter III. Master Philip Makes His Bow--And Behaves BadlyChapter IV. In Which I Become the Son of the House. Chapter V. How a Stately Name Was Shortened and Sweetened. Chapter VI. Within Sound of the Shouting Waters. Chapter VII. Through Happy Youth to Man's Estate. Chapter VIII. Enter My Lady Berenicia Cross. Chapter IX. I See My Sweet Sister Dressed in Strange Attire. Chapter X. The Masquerade Brings Me Nothing but Pain. Chapter XI. As I Make My Adieux Mr. Philip Comes In. Chapter XII. Old-Time Politics Pondered under the Starlight. Chapter XIII. To the Far Lake Country and Home Again. Chapter XIV. How I Seem to Feel a Wanting Note in the Chorus of Welcome. Chapter XV. The Rude Awakening from My Dream. Chapter XVI. Tulp Gets a Broken Head to Match My Heart. Chapter XVII. I Perforce Say Farewell to My Old Home. Chapter XVIII. The Fair Beginning of a New Life in Ancient Albany. Chapter XIX. I Go to a Famous Gathering at the Patroon's Manor House. Chapter XX. A Foolish and Vexatious Quarrel Is Thrust upon Me. Chapter XXI. Containing Other News Besides that from Bunker Hill. Chapter XXII. The Master and Mistress of Cairncross. Chapter XXIII. How Philip in Wrath, Daisy in Anguish, Fly Their Home. Chapter XXIV. The Night Attack Upon Quebec--And My Share in It. Chapter XXV. A Crestfallen Return to Albany. Chapter XXVI. I See Daisy and the Old Home Once More. Chapter XXVII. The Arrest of Poor Lady Johnson. Chapter XXVIII. An Old Acquaintance Turns Up in Manacles. Chapter XXIX. The Message Sent Ahead from the Invading Army. Chapter XXX. From the Scythe and Reaper to the Musket. Chapter XXXI. The Rendezvous of Fighting Men at Fort Dayton. Chapter XXXII. "The Blood Be on Your Heads. "Chapter XXXIII. The Fearsome Death-Struggle in the Forest. Chapter XXXIV. Alone at Last with My Enemy. Chapter XXXV. The Strange Uses to Which Revenge May Be Put. Chapter XXXVI. A Final Scene in the Gulf which My Eyes Are Mercifully Spared. Chapter XXXVII. The Peaceful Ending of It All. 

In The Valley

Chapter I. 

"The French Are in the Valley!"

It may easily be that, during the many years which have come and gonesince the eventful time of my childhood, Memory has played tricks upon meto the prejudice of Truth. I am indeed admonished of this by study of myson, for whose children in turn this tale is indited, and who is now ableto remember many incidents of his youth--chiefly beatings and likeparental cruelties--which I know very well never happened at all. He isgood enough to forgive me these mythical stripes and bufferings, but henurses their memory with ostentatious and increasingly succinctrecollection, whereas for my own part, and for his mother's, our enduringfear was lest we had spoiled him through weak fondness. By good fortunethe reverse has been true. He is grown into a man of whom any parentsmight be proud--tall, well-featured, strong, tolerably learned, honorable, and of influence among his fellows. His affection for us, too, is verygreat. Yet in the fashion of this new generation, which speaks withoutwaiting to be addressed, and does not scruple to instruct on all subjectsits elders, he will have it that he feared me when a lad--and with cause!If fancy can so distort impressions within such short span, it does notbecome me to be too set about events which come back slowly through themist and darkness of nearly threescore years. 

Yet they return to me so full of color, and cut in such precision andkeenness of outline, that at no point can I bring myself to say, "PerhapsI am in error concerning this, " or to ask, "Has this perchance beenconfused with other matters?" Moreover, there are few now remaining who oftheir own memory could controvert or correct me. And if they essay to doso, why should not my word be at least as weighty as theirs? And so tothe story:

 * * * * *

I was in my eighth year, and there was snow on the ground. 

The day is recorded in history as November 13, A. D. 1757, but I am afraidthat I did not know much about years then, and certainly the month seemsnow to have been one of midwinter. The Mohawk, a larger stream then by farthan in these days, was not yet frozen over, but its frothy flood ran verydark and chill between the white banks, and the muskrats and the beaverswere all snug in their winter holes. Although no big fragments of icefloated on the current, there had already been a prodigious scattering ofthe bateaux and canoes which through all the open season made a thrivingthoroughfare of the river. This meant that the trading was over, and thatthe trappers and hunters, white and red, were either getting ready to goor had gone northward into the wilderness, where might be had during thewinter the skins of dangerous animals--bears, wolves, catamounts, andlynx--and where moose and deer could be chased and yarded over the crust, not to refer to smaller furred beasts to be taken in traps. 

I was not at all saddened by the departure of these rude, foul men, ofwhom those of Caucasian race were not always the least savage, for theydid not fail to lay hands upon traps or nets left by the heedless withintheir reach, and even were not beyond making off with our boats, cursingand beating children who came unprotected in their path, and putting thewomen in terror of their very lives. The cold weather was welcome not onlyfor clearing us of these pests, but for driving off the black flies, mosquitoes, and gnats which at that time, with the great forests so closebehind us, often rendered existence a burden, particularly justafter rains. 

Other changes were less grateful to the mind. It was true I would nolonger be held near the house by the task of keeping alight the smokingkettles of dried fungus, designed to ward off the insects, but at the sametime had disappeared many of the enticements which in summer oft made thisduty irksome. The partridges were almost the sole birds remaining in thebleak woods, and, much as their curious ways of hiding in the snow, andthe resounding thunder of their strange drumming, mystified and attractedme, I was not alert enough to catch them. All my devices of horse-hairand deer-hide snares were foolishness in their sharp eyes. The water-fowl, too--the geese, ducks, cranes, pokes, fish-hawks, and others--had flown, sometimes darkening the sky over our clearing by the density of theirflocks, and filling the air with clamor. The owls, indeed, remained, but Ihated them. 

The very night before the day of which I speak, I was awakened by one ofthese stupid, perverse birds, which must have been in the cedars on theknoll close behind the house, and which disturbed my very soul by hisceaseless and melancholy hooting. For some reason it affected me more thancommonly, and I lay for a long time nearly on the point of tears withvexation--and, it is likely, some of that terror with which uncanny noisesinspire children in the darkness. I was warm enough under my fox-robe, snuggled into the husks, but I was very wretched. I could hear, betweenthe intervals of the owl's sinister cries, the distant yelping of thetimber wolves, first from the Schoharie side of the river, and then fromour own woods. Once there rose, awfully near the log wall against which Inestled, a panther's shrill scream, followed by a long silence, as if thelesser wild things outside shared for the time my fright. I remember thatI held my breath. 

It was during this hush, and while I lay striving, poor little fellow, todispel my alarm by fixing my thoughts resolutely on a rabbit-trap I hadset under some running hemlock out on the side hill, that there rose thenoise of a horse being ridden swiftly down the frosty highway outside. Thehoofbeats came pounding up close to our gate. A moment later there was agreat hammering on the oak door, as with a cudgel or pistol handle, and Iheard a voice call out in German (its echoes ring still in my old ears):

"The French are in the Valley!"

I drew my head down under the fox-skin as if it had been smitten sharply, and quaked in solitude. I desired to hear no more. 

Although so very young a boy, I knew quite well who the French were, andwhat their visitations portended. Even at that age one has recollections. I could recall my father, peaceful man of God though he was, taking downhis gun some years before at the rumor of a French approach, and my motherclinging to his coat as he stood in the doorway, successfully pleadingwith him not to go forth. I had more than once seen Mrs. Markell ofMinden, with her black knit cap worn to conceal the absence of her scalp, which had been taken only the previous summer by the Indians, who sold itto the French for ten livres, along with the scalps of her murderedhusband and babe. So it seemed that adults sometimes parted with thisportion of their heads without losing also their lives. I wondered ifsmall boys were ever equally fortunate. I felt softly of my hair and wept. 

How the crowding thoughts of that dismal hour return to me! I recallconsidering in my mind the idea of bequeathing my tame squirrel toHendrick Getman, and the works of an old clock, with their delightfulmystery of wooden cogs and turned wheels, which was my chief treasure, tomy negro friend Tulp--and then reflecting that they too would share myfate, and would thus be precluded from enjoying my legacies. The whimsicalaspect of the task of getting hold upon Tulp's close, woolly scalp wasmomentarily apparent to me, but I did not laugh. Instead, the verysuggestion of humor converted my tears into vehement sobbings. 

When at last I ventured to lift my head and listen again, it was to hearanother voice, an English-speaking voice which I knew very well, sayinggravely from within the door:

"It is well to warn, but not to terrify. There are many leagues between usand danger, and many good fighting men. When you have told your tidings toSir William, add that I have heard it all and have gone back to bed. "

Then the door was closed and barred, and the hoofbeats died away down theValley. 

These few words had sufficed to shame me heartily of my cowardice. I oughtto have remembered that we were almost within hail of Fort Johnson and itsgreat owner the General; that there was a long Ulineof forts between us andthe usual point of invasion with many soldiers; and--most important ofall--that I was in the house of Mr. Stewart. 

If these seem over-mature reflections for one of my age, it should beexplained, that, while a veritable child in matters of heart and impulse, I was in education and association much advanced beyond my years. Themaster of the house, Mr. Thomas Stewart, whose kind favor had provided mewith a home after my father's sad demise, had diverted his leisure withmy instruction, and given me the great advantage of daily conversationboth in English and Dutch with him. I was known to Sir William and to Mr. Butler and other gentlemen, and was often privileged to listen when theyconversed with Mr. Stewart. Thus I had grown wise in certain respects, while remaining extremely childish in others. Thus it was that I trembledfirst at the common hooting of an owl, and then cried as if to die athearing the French were coming, and lastly recovered all my spirits at thereassuring sound of Mr. Stewart's voice, and the knowledge that he wascontent to return to his sleep. 

I went soundly to sleep myself, presently, and cannot remember to havedreamed at all. 

Chapter II. 

Setting Forth How the Girl Child Was Brought to Us. 

When I came out of my nest next morning--my bed was on the floor of asmall recess back of the great fireplace, made, I suspect, because theoriginal builders lacked either the skill or the inclination, whichever itmight be, to more neatly skirt the chimney with the logs--it was quitelate. Some meat and corn-bread were laid for me on the table in Mr. Stewart's room, which was the chief chamber of the house. Despite the bigfire roaring on the hearth, it was so cold that the grease had hardenedwhite about the meat in the pan, and it had to be warmed again before Icould sop my bread. 

During the solitary meal it occurred to me to question my aunt, thehousekeeper, as to the alarm of the night, which lay heavily once moreupon my mind. But I could hear her humming to herself in the back room, which did not indicate acquaintance with any danger. Moreover, it might aswell be stated here that my aunt, good soul though she was, did notcommand especial admiration for the clearness of her wits, having beencruelly stricken with the small-pox many years before, and owing heremployment, be it confessed, much more to Mr. Stewart's excellence ofheart than to her own abilities. She was probably the last person in theValley whose judgment upon the question of a French invasion, or indeedany other large matter, I would have valued. 

Having donned my coon-skin cap, and drawn on my thick pelisse over myapron, I put another beech-knot on the fire and went outside. The stingingair bit my nostrils and drove my hands into my pockets. Mr. Stewart was atthe work which had occupied him for some weeks previously--hewing out logson the side hill. His axe strokes rang through the frosty atmosphere nowwith a sharp reverberation which made it seem much colder, and yet morecheerful. Winter had come, indeed, but I began to feel that I liked it. Ialmost skipped as I went along the hard, narrow path to join him. 

He was up among the cedars, under a close-woven net of boughs, which, themselves heavily capped with snow, had kept the ground free. He noddedpleasantly to me when I wished him good-morning, then returned to hislabor. Although I placed myself in front of him, in the hope that he wouldspeak, and thus possibly put me in the way to learn something about thisFrench business, he said nothing, but continued whacking at the deeplynotched trunk. The temptation to begin the talk myself came near masteringme, so oppressed with curiosity was I; and finally, to resist it thebetter, I walked away and stood on the brow of the knoll, whence one couldlook up and down the Valley. 

It was the only world I knew--this expanse of flats, broken by wedges offorest stretching down from the hills on the horizon to the very water'sedge. Straight, glistening lines of thin ice ran out here and there fromthe banks of the stream this morning, formed on the breast of the floodthrough the cold night. 

To the left, in the direction of the sun, lay, at the distance of a mileor so, Mount Johnson, or Fort Johnson, as one chose to call it. It couldnot be seen for the intervening hills, but so important was the fact ofits presence to me that I never looked eastward without seeming to beholdits gray stone walls with their windows and loopholes, its stockade oflogs, its two little houses on either side, its barracks for the guardupon the ridge back of the gristmill, and its accustomed groups ofgrinning black slaves, all eyeballs and white teeth, of saturnine Indiansin blankets, and of bold-faced fur-traders. Beyond this place I had neverbeen, but I knew vaguely that Schenectady was in that direction, where theFrench once wrought such misery, and beyond that Albany, the great town ofour parts, and then the big ocean which separated us from England andHolland. Civilization lay that way, and all the luxurious things which, being shown or talked of by travellers, made our own rough life seem ruderstill by contrast. 

Turning to the right I looked on the skirts of savagery. Some fewadventurous villages of poor Palatine-German farmers and traders therewere up along the stream, I knew, hidden in the embrace of the wilderness, and with them were forts and soldiers But these latter did not preventhouses being sacked and their inmates tomahawked every now and then. 

It astonished me, that, for the sake of mere furs and ginseng and potash, men should be moved to settle in these perilous wilds, and subject theirwives and families to such dangers, when they might live in peace atAlbany, or, for that matter, in the old countries whence they came. For mypart, I thought I would much rather be oppressed by the Grand Duke'stax-collectors, or even be caned now and again by the Grand Duke himself, than undergo these privations and panics in a savage land. I was toolittle then to understand the grandeur of the motives which impelled mento expatriate themselves and suffer all things rather than submit toreligious persecution or civil tyranny. Sometimes even now, in my old age, I feel that I do not wholly comprehend it. But that it was a grand thing, I trust there can be no doubt. 

While I still stood on the brow of the hill, my young head filled withthese musings, and my heart weighed down almost to crushing by the senseof vast loneliness and peril which the spectacle of naked marsh-lands anddark, threatening forests inspired, the sound of the chopping ceased, andthere followed, a few seconds later, a great swish and crash downthe hill. 

As I looked to note where the tree had fallen, I saw Mr. Stewart lay downhis axe, and take into his hands the gun which stood near by. He motionedto me to preserve silence, and himself stood in an attitude of deepattention. Then my slow ears caught the noise he had already heard--amixed babel of groans, curses, and cries of fear, on the road to thewestward of us, and growing louder momentarily. 

After a minute or two of listening he said to me, "It is nothing. Thecries are German, but the oaths are all English--as they generally are. "

All the same he put his gun over his arm as he walked down to thestockade, and out through the gate upon the road, to discover the cause ofthe commotion. 

Five red-coated soldiers on horseback, with another, cloaked to the eyesand bearing himself proudly, riding at their heels; a negro following on, also mounted, with a huge bundle in his arms before him, and a shivering, yellow-haired lad of about my own age on a pillion behind him; clusteringabout these, a motley score of poor people, young and old, some bearinghousehold goods, and all frightened out of their five senses--this is whatwe saw on the highway. 

What we heard it would be beyond my power to recount. From the chaos ofterrified exclamations in German, and angry cursing in English, I gatheredgenerally that the scared mob of Palatines were all for flying the Valley, or at the least crowding into Fort Johnson, and that the troopers weresomewhat vigorously endeavoring to reassure and dissuade them. 

Mr. Stewart stepped forward--I following close in his rear--and beganphrasing in German to these poor souls the words of the soldiers, leavingout the blasphemies with which they were laden. How much he had knownbefore I cannot guess, but the confidence with which he told them that theFrench and Indian marauders had come no farther than the Palatine Villageabove Fort Kouarie, that they were but a small force, and that HonikolHerkimer had already started out to drive them back, seemed to his simpleauditors born of knowledge. They at all events listened to him, which theyhad not done to the soldiers, and plied him with anxious queries, which hein turn referred to the mounted men and then translated their sulkyanswers. This was done to such good purpose that before long the wiser ofthe Palatines were agreed to return to their homes up the Valley, and theothers had become calm. 

As the clamor ceased, the soldier whom I took to be an officer removed hiscloak a little from his face and called out gruffly:

"Tell this fellow to fetch me some brandy, or whatever cordial is to behad in this God-forgotten country, and stir his bones about it, too!"

To speak to Mr. Thomas Stewart in this fashion! I looked at my protectorin pained wrath and apprehension, knowing his fiery temper. 

With a swift movement he pushed his way between the sleepy soldiersstraight to the officer. I trembled in every joint, expecting to see himcut down where he stood, here in front of his own house!

He plucked the officer's cloak down from his face with a laugh, and thenput his hands on his hips, his gun under his arm, looked the other squarein the face, and laughed again. 

All this was done so quickly that the soldiers, being drowsy with theirall-night ride, scarcely understood what was going forward. The officerhimself strove to unwrap the muffled cloak that he might grasp his sword, puffing out his cheeks with amazement and indignation meanwhile, andstaring down fiercely at Mr. Stewart. The fair-haired boy on the horsewith the negro was almost as greatly excited, and cried out, "Kill him, some one! Strike him down!" in a stout voice. At this some of the soldierswheeled about, prepared to take part in the trouble when they shouldcomprehend it, while their horses plunged and reared into the others. 

The only cool one was Mr. Stewart, who still stood at his ease, smiling atthe red-faced, blustering officer, to whom he now said:

"When you are free of your cloak, Tony Cross, dismount and let usembrace. "

The gentleman thus addressed peered at the speaker, gave an exclamation ortwo of impatience, then looked again still more closely. All at once hisface brightened, and he slapped his round, tight thigh with a noise likethe rending of an ice-gorge. 

"Tom Lynch!" he shouted. "Saints' breeches! 'tis he!" and off his horsecame the officer, and into Mr. Stewart's arms, before I could catchmy breath. 

It seemed that the twain were old comrades, and had been like brothers inforeign wars, now long past. They walked affectionately, hand in hand, tothe house. The negro followed, bringing the two horses into the stockade, and then coming inside with the bundle and the boy, the soldiers beingdespatched onward to the fort. 

While my aunt, Dame Kronk, busied herself in bringing bottles and glasses, and swinging the kettle over the fire, the two gentlemen could not keepeyes off each other, and had more to say than there were words for. It waseleven years since they had met, and, although Mr. Stewart had learned(from Sir William) of the other's presence in the Valley, Major Cross hadlong since supposed his friend to be dead. Conceive, then, the warmth oftheir greeting, the fondness of their glances, the fervor of thereminiscences into which they straightway launched, sitting wide-kneed bythe roaring hearth, steaming glass in hand. 

The Major sat massively upright on the bench, letting his thick cloak fallbackward from his broad shoulders to the floor, for, though the heat ofthe flames might well-nigh singe one's eyebrows, it would be cold behind. I looked upon his great girth of chest, upon his strong hands, which yetshowed delicately fair when they were ungloved, and upon his round, full-colored, amiable face with much satisfaction. I seemed to swell withpride when he unbuckled his sword, belt and all, and handed it to me, Ibeing nearest, to put aside for him. It was a ponderous, severe-lookingweapon, and I bore it to the bed with awe, asking myself how many peopleit was likely to have killed in its day. I had before this handled otherswords--including Sir William's--but never such a one as this. Nor had Iever before seen a soldier who seemed to my boyish eyes so like what awarrior should be. 

It was not our habit to expend much liking upon English officers ortroopers, who were indeed quite content to go on without our friendship, and treated us Dutch and Palatines in turn with contumacy and roughness, as being no better than their inferiors. But no one could help likingMajor Anthony Cross--at least when they saw him under his old friend'sroof-tree, expanding with genial pleasure. 

For the yellow-haired boy, who was the Major's son, I cared much less. Ibelieve truly that I disliked him from the very first moment out on thefrosty road, and that when I saw him shivering there with the cold, I wasnot a whit sorry. This may be imagination, but it is certain that he didnot get into my favor after we came inside. 

Under this Master Philip's commands the negro squatted on his haunches andunrolled the blankets from the bundle I had seen him carrying. Out of thisbundle, to my considerable amazement, was revealed a little child, perhapsbetween three and four years of age. 

This tiny girl blinked in the light thus suddenly surrounding her, andlooked about the room piteously, with her little lips trembling and hereyes filled with tears. She was very small for her years, and had long, tumbled hair. Her dress was a homespun frock in a single piece, and herfeet were wrapped for warmth in wool stockings of a grown woman's measure. She looked about the room, I say, until she saw me. No doubt my Dutch facewas of the sort she was accustomed to, for she stretched out her hands tome. Thereupon I went and took her in my arms, the negro smiling uponus both. 

I had thought to bear her to the fire-place, where Master Philip wasalready toasting himself, standing between Mr. Stewart's knees, and boldlyspreading his hands over the heat. But when he espied me bringing forwardthe child he darted to us and sharply bade me leave the girl alone. 

"Is she not to be warmed, then?" I asked, puzzled alike at his rudebehavior and at his words. 

"I will do it myself, " he answered shortly, and made to take the child. 

He alarmed her with his imperious gesture, and she turned from him, clinging to my neck. I was vexed now, and, much as I feared discourtesy toone of Mr. Stewart's guests, felt like holding my own. Keeping the littlegirl tight in my arms, I pushed past him toward the fire. To my greatwrath he began pulling at her shawl as I went, shouting that he would haveher, while to make matters worse the babe herself set up a loud wail. Thusyou may imagine I was in a fine state of confusion and temper when I stoodfinally at the side of the hearth and felt Mr. Stewart's eyes upon me. ButI had the girl. 

"What is the tumult?" he demanded, in a vexed tone. "What are you doing, Douw, and what child is this?"

"It is my child, sir!" young Philip spoke up, panting from his exertions, and red with color. 

The two men broke out in loud laughter at this, so long sustained thatPhilip himself joined it, and grinned reluctantly. I was too angry to evenfeel relieved that the altercation was to have no serious consequences forme--much less to laugh myself. I opened the shawl, that the little onemight feel the heat, and said nothing. 

"Well, the lad is right, in a way, " finally chuckled the Major. "It's asmuch his child as it is anybody's this side of heaven. "

The phrase checked his mirth, and he went on more seriously:

"She is the child of a young couple who had come to the Palatine Villageonly a few weeks before. The man was a cooper or wheelwright, one or theother, and his name was Peet or Peek, or some such Dutch name. WhenBellêtre fell upon the town at night, the man was killed in the firstattack. The woman with her child ran with the others to the ford. There inthe darkness and panic she was crushed under and drowned; but strangeenough--who can tell how these matters are ordered?--the infant was insome way got across the river safe, and fetched to the Fort. But there, sogreat is the throng, both of those who escaped and those who now, alarmedfor their lives, flock in from the farms round about, that no one had timeto care for a mere infant. Her parents were new-comers, and had nofriends. Besides, every one up there is distracted with mourning orfrantic with preparation for the morrow. The child stood about among thecattle, trying to get warm in the straw, when we came out last night tostart. She looked so beseechingly at us, and so like my own littleCordelia, by God! I couldn't bear it! I cursed a trifle about theirbrutality, and one of 'em offered at that to take her in; but my boy heresaid, 'Let's bring her with us, father, ' and up she came on to Bob'ssaddle, and off we started. At Herkimer's I found blankets for her, andone of the girls gave us some hose, big enough for Bob, which webundled her in. "

"There! said I not truly she was mine?" broke in the boy, shaking hisyellow hair proudly, and looking Mr. Stewart confidently in the eye. 

"Rightly enough, " replied Mr. Stewart, kindly. "And so you are my oldfriend Anthony Cross's son, eh? A good, hearty lad, seeing the worldyoung. Can you realize easily, Master Philip, looking at us two oldpeople, that we were once as small as you, and played together then on theGalway hills, never knowing there could be such a place as America? Andthat later we slept together in the same tent, and thanked our stars fornot being bundled together into the same trench, years upon years?"

"Yes, and I know who you are, what's more!" said the pert boy, unabashed. 

"Why, that's wisdom itself, " said Mr. Stewart, pleasantly. 

"You are Tom Lynch, and your grandfather was a king----"

"No more, " interposed Mr. Stewart, frowning and lifting his finger. "Thatfolly is dead and in its grave. Not even so fair a youth as you must giveit resurrection. "

"Here, Bob, " said the Major, with sudden alacrity. "Go outside with thesechildren, and help them to some games. "

Chapter III. 

Master Philip Makes His Bow--And Behaves Badly. 

My protector and chief friend was at this time, as near as may be, fiftyyears of age; yet he bore these years so sturdily that, if one should seehim side by side with his gossip and neighbor, Sir William Johnson, therewould be great doubt which was the elder--and the Baronet was not aboveforty-two. Mr. Stewart was not tall, and seemed of somewhat slight frame, yet he had not only grace of movement, but prodigious strength of wristand shoulders. For walking he was not much, but he rode like a knight. Hewas of strictest neatness and method concerning his clothes; not so much, let me explain, as to their original texture, for they were always plain, ordinary garments, but regarding their cleanliness and order. He had aswift and ready temper, and could not brook to be disputed by his equals, much less by his inferiors, yet had a most perfect and winning politenesswhen agreed with. 

All these, I had come to know, were traits of a soldier, yet he had manyother qualities which puzzled me, not being observable in other troopers. He swore very rarely, he was abstemious with wines and spirits, and heloved books better than food itself. Of not even Sir William, greatwarrior and excellent scholar though he was, could all these things besaid. Mr. Stewart had often related to me, during the long winter days andevenings spent of necessity by the fire, stories drawn from his campaignsin the Netherlands and France and Scotland, speaking freely and mostinstructively. But he had never helped me to unravel the mystery why he, so unlike other soldiers in habits and tastes, should have chosen theprofession of arms. 

A ray of light was thrown upon the question this very day by the forwardprattle of the boy Philip. In after years the full illumination came, andI understood it all. It is as well, perhaps, to outline the story here, although at the time I was in ignorance of it. 

In Ireland, nearly eighty years before, that is to say in 1679, there hadbeen born a boy to whom was given the name of James Lynch. His mother wasthe smooth-faced, light-hearted daughter of a broken Irish gentleman, wholoved her boy after a gusty fashion, and bore a fierce life of scorn andsneers on his behalf. His father was--who? There were no proofs in court, of course, but it seems never to have been doubted by any one that thefather was no other than the same worthless prince to wear whose titlesthe two chief towns of my State were despoiled of their honest Dutchnames--I mean the Duke of York and Albany. 

Little James Lynch, unlike so many of his luckier brothers and cousins, got neither a peerage nor a gentle breeding. Instead he was rearedmeagrely, if not harshly, under the maternal roof and name, until he grewold enough to realize that he was on an island where bad birth is notforgiven, even if the taint be royal. Then he ran away, reached the coastof France, and made his way to the French court, where his father was now, and properly enough, an exile. He was a fine youth, with a prompt tongueand clever head, and some attention was finally shown him. They gave him asword and a company, and he went with the French through all the wars ofMarlborough, gaining distinction, and, what is more, a fat purse. 

With his money he returned to Ireland, wedded a maid of whom he haddreamed during all his exile, and settled down there to beggar himself ina life of bibulous ease, gaming, fox-hunting, and wastefulness generally. After some years the wife died, and James Lynch drifted naturally into theconspiracy which led to the first rising for the Pretender, involvinghimself as deeply as possible, and at its collapse flying once more toFrance, never to return. 

He bore with him this time a son of eight years--my Mr. Stewart. Thisboy, called Thomas, was reared on the skirts of the vicious French court, now in a Jesuit school, now a poor relation in a palace, always reflectingin the vicissitudes of his condition the phases of his sire's vagrantexistence. Sometimes this father would be moneyed and prodigal, anondestitute and mean, but always selfish to the core, and merrily regardlessalike of canons and of consequences. He died, did this adventurousgentleman, in the very year which took off the first George in Hanover, and left his son a very little money, a mountain of debts, and aninjunction of loyalty to the Stewarts. 

Young Thomas, then nearly twenty, thought much for a time of becoming apriest, and was always a favorite with the British Jesuits aboutVersailles, but this in the end came to nothing. He abandoned thereligious vocation, though not the scholar's tastes, and became a soldier, for the sake of a beautiful face which he saw once when on a secret visitto England. He fell greatly in love, and ventured to believe that theemotion was reciprocated. As Jacob served Laban for his daughter, so didTom Lynch serve the Pretender's cause for the hope of some day returning, honored and powerful, to ask the hand of that sweet daughter of theJacobite gentleman. 

One day there came to him at Paris, to offer his sword to the Stewarts, ayoung Irish gentleman who had been Tom's playmate in childhood--AnthonyCross. This gallant, fresh-faced, handsome youth was all ablaze withardor; he burned to achieve impossible deeds, to attain glory at a stroke. He confessed to Tom over their dinner, or the wine afterward perhaps, thathis needs were great because Love drove. He was partly betrothed to thedaughter of an English Jacobite--yet she would marry none but one who hadgained his spurs under his rightful king. They drank to the health of thisexacting, loyal maiden, and Cross gave her name. Then Tom Lynch rose fromthe table, sick at heart, and went away in silence. 

Cross never knew of the hopes and joys he had unwittingly crushed. Thetwo young men became friends, intimates, brothers, serving in half thelands of Europe side by side. The maiden, an orphan now, and of substanceand degree, came over at last to France, and Lynch stood by, calm-faced, and saw her married to his friend. She only pleasantly remembered him; henever forgot her till his death. 

Finally, in 1745, when both men were nearing middle age, the time forstriking the great blow was thought to have arrived. The memory of Lynch'slineage was much stronger with the romantic young Pretender of hisgeneration than had been the rightfully closer tie between their moreselfish fathers, and princely favor gave him a prominent position amongthose who arranged that brilliant melodrama of Glenfinnan and Edinburghand Preston Pans, which was to be so swiftly succeeded by the tragedy ofCulloden. The two friends were together through it all--in its triumph, its disaster, its rout--but they became separated afterward in theHighlands, when they were hiding for their lives. Cross, it seems, wasable to lie secure until his wife's relatives, through some Whiginfluence, I know not what, obtained for him amnesty first, then leave tolive in England, and finally a commission under the very sovereign he hadfought. His comrade, less fortunate, at least contrived to make way toIreland and then to France. There, angered and chagrined at unjust andpeevish rebukes offered him, he renounced the bad cause, took the name ofStewart, and set sail to the New World. 

This was my patron's story, as I gathered it in later years, and whichperhaps I have erred in bringing forward here among my childishrecollections. But, it seems to belong in truth much more to this day onwhich, for the first and last time I beheld Major Cross, than to thesucceeding period when his son became an actor in the drama of my life. 

 * * * * *

The sun was now well up in the sky, and the snow was melting. While Istill moodily eyed my young enemy and wondered how I should go about toacquit myself of the task laid upon me--to play with him--he solved thequestion by kicking into the moist snow with his boots and calling out:

"Aha! we can build a fort with this, and have a fine attack. Bob, make mea fort!"

Seeing that he bore no malice, my temper softened toward him a little, andI set to helping the negro in his work. There was a great pile of logs inthe clearing close to the house, and on the sunny side near this thelittle girl was placed, in a warm, dry spot; and here we two, with sticksand balls of snow, soon reared a mock block-house. The English boy did nowork, but stood by and directed us with enthusiasm. When the structure wasto his mind, he said:

"Now we will make up some snowballs, and have an attack I will be theEnglishman and defend the fort; you must be the Frenchman and come todrive me out. You can have Bob with you for a savage, if you like; only hemust throw no balls, but stop back in the woods and whoop. But first wemust have some hard balls made, so that I may hit you good when you comeup. --Bob, help this boy make some balls for me!"

Thus outlined, the game did not attract me. I did not so much mind doinghis work for him, since he was company, so to speak, but it did go againstmy grain to have to manufacture the missiles for my own hurt. 

"Why should I be the Frenchman?" I said, grumblingly. "I am no more aFrenchman than you are yourself. "

"You're a Dutchman, then, and it's quite the same, " he replied. "Allforeigners are the same. "

"It is you who are the foreigner, " I retorted with heat. "How can I be aforeigner in my own country, here where I was born?"

He did not take umbrage at this, but replied with argument: "Why, ofcourse you're a foreigner. You wear an apron, and you are not able to evenspeak English properly. "

This reflection upon my speech pained even more than it nettled me. Mr. Stewart had been at great pains to teach me English, and I had begun tohope that he felt rewarded by my proficiency. Years afterward he was wontto laughingly tell me that I never would live long enough to use Englishcorrectly, and that as a boy I spoke it abominably, which I dare say wastrue enough. But just then my childish pride was grievously piqued byPhilip's criticism. 

"Very well, I'll be on the outside, then, " I said. "I won't be aFrenchman, but I'll come all the same, and do you look out for yourselfwhen I _do_ come, " or words to that purport. 

We had a good, long contest over the snow wall. I seem to remember it allbetter than I remember any other struggle of my life, although there weresome to come in which existence itself was at stake, but boys' mimicfights are not subjects upon which a writer may profitably dwell. It isenough to say that he defended himself very stoutly, hurling the ballswhich Bob had made for him with great swiftness and accuracy, so that myhead was sore for a week. But my blood was up, and at last over the wall Iforced my way, pushing a good deal of it down as I went, and, grapplinghim by the waist, wrestled with and finally threw him. We were both down, with our faces in the snow, and I held him tight. I expected that he wouldbe angry, and hot to turn the play into a real fight; but he said instead, mumbling with his mouth full of snow:

"Now you must pretend to scalp me, you know. "

My aunt called us at this, and we all trooped into the house again. Thelittle girl had crowed and clapped her hands during our struggle, allunconscious of the dreadful event of which it was a juvenile travesty. Wetwo boys admired her as she was borne in on the negro's shoulder, andPhilip said:

"I am going to take her to England, for a playmate. Papa has said I may. My brother Digby has no sport in him, and he is much bigger than me, besides. So I shall have her all for my own. Only I wish sheweren't Dutch. "

When we entered the house the two gentlemen were seated at the table, eating their dinner, and my aunt had spread for us, in the chimney-corner, a like repast. She took the little girl off to her own room, the kitchen, and we fell like famished wolves upon the smoking venison and onions. 

The talk of our elders was mainly about a personage of whom I could notknow anything then, but whom I now see to have been the Young Pretender. They spoke of him as "he, " and as leading a painfully worthless anddisreputable life. This Mr. Stewart, who was twelve years the Chevalier'ssenior, and, as I learned later, had been greatly attached to his person, deplored with affectionate regret. But Major Cross, who related incidentsof debauchery and selfishness which, being in Europe, had come to hisknowledge about the prince, did not seem particularly cast down. 

"It's but what might have been looked for, " he said, lightly, in answer tosome sad words of my patron's. "Five generations of honest men havetrusted to their sorrow in the breed, and given their heads or theirestates or their peace for not so much as a single promise kept, or asingle smile without speculation in it. Let them rot out, I say, and bedamned to them!"

"But he was such a goodly lad, Tony. Think of him as we knew him--andnow!"

"No, I'll _not_ think, Tom, " broke in the officer, "for, when I do, then Itoo get soft-hearted. And I'll waste no more feeling or faith on any of'em--on any of 'em, save the only true man of the lot, who's had the witto put the ocean 'twixt him and them. And you're content here, Tom?"

"Oh, ay! Why not?" said Mr. Stewart. "It is a rude life in some ways, nodoubt, but it's free and it's honest. I have my own roof, such as it is, and no one to gainsay me under it. I hunt, I fish, I work, I study, Idream--precisely what pleases me best. "

"Ay, but the loneliness of it!"

"Why, no! I see much of Johnson, and there are others round about to talkwith, when I'm driven to it. And then there's my young Dutchman--Douw, yonder--who bears me company, and fits me so well that he's like asecond self. "

The Major looked over toward my corner with a benevolent glance, butwithout comment. Presently he said, while he took more meat uponhis plate:

"You've no thought of marrying, I suppose?"

"None!" said my patron, gravely and with emphasis. 

The Major nodded his handsome head meditatively. "Well, there's a deal tobe said on that side, " he remarked. "Still, children about the hearth helpone to grow old pleasantly. And you always had a weakness for brats. "

Mr. Stewart said again: "I have my young Dutchman. "

Once more the soldier looked at me, and, I'll be bound, saw me blushingfuriously. He smiled and said:

"He seems an honest chap. He has something of your mouth, methinks. "

My patron pushed his dish back with a gesture of vexation. 

"No!" he said, sharply. "There's none of that. His father was a dominieover the river; his mother, a good, hard-working lady, left a widow, struggles to put bread in a dozen mouths by teaching a little home-schoolfor infants. I have the boy here because I like him--because I want him. We shall live together--he and I. As he gets older this hut will doubtlessgrow into a house fit for gentlemen. Indeed, already I have the logs cutout in part for an addition, on the other side of the chimney. "

The Major rose at this, smiling again, and frankly put out his hand. 

"I meant no harm, you know, Tom, by my barracks jest. Faith! I envy thelad the privilege of living here with you. The happiest days of my life, dear friend, were those we spent together while I was waiting formy bride. "

Mr. Stewart returned his smile rather sadly, and took his hand. 

The time for parting had come. The two men stood hand in hand, withmoistened eyes and slow-coming words, meeting for perhaps the last time inthis life; for the Major was to stop but an hour at Fort Johnson, andthence hasten on to New York and to England, bearing with him weightydespatches. 

While they still stood, and the negro was tying Master Philip's hat overhis ears, my aunt entered the room, bearing in her arms the poor littlewaif from the massacre. The child had been washed and warmed, and woreover her dress and feet a sort of mantle, which the good woman had hastilyand somewhat rudely fashioned meantime. 

"Oh, we came near forgetting her!" cried Philip. "Wrap her snug and warm, Bob, for the journey. "

The Major looked blank at sight of the child, who nestled in my aunt'sarms. "What am I to do with her?" he said to my patron. 

"Why, papa, you know she is going to England with us, " said the boy. 

"Tut, lad!" spoke the Major, peremptorily; then, to Mr. Stewart: "CouldSir William place her, think you, or does that half-breed swarm of hisfill the house? It seemed right enough to bring her out from the Palatinecountry, but now that she's out, damme! I almost wish she was back again. What a fool not to leave her at Herkimer's!"

I do not know if I had any clear idea of what was springing up in Mr. Stewart's mind, but it seems to me that I must have looked at himpleadingly and with great hope in my eyes, during the moment of silencewhich followed. Mr. Stewart in turn regarded the child attentively. 

"Would it please you to keep her here, Dame Kronk?" he asked at last. 

As my aunt made glad assent, I could scarcely refrain from dancing. Iwalked over to the little girl and took her hand in mine, filled withdeep joy. 

"You render me very grateful, Tom, " said Major Cross, heartily. "It's aload off my mind. --Come, Philip, make your farewells. We must be off. "

"And isn't the child to be mine--to go with us?" the boy asked, vehemently. 

"Why be childish, Philip?" demanded the Major. "Of course it's out of thequestion. "

The English lad, muffled up now for the ride, with his large flat hatpressed down comically at the sides by the great knitted comforter whichBob had tied under his chin, scowled in a savage fashion, bit his lips, and started for the door, too angry to say good-by. When he passed me, red-faced and wrathful, I could not keep from smiling, but truly rather athis swaddled appearance than at his discomfiture. He had sneered at myapron, besides. 

With a cry of rage he whirled around and struck me full in the face, knocking me head over heels into the ashes on the hearth. Then he burstinto a fit of violent weeping, or rather convulsions more befitting awild-cat than a human being, stamping furiously with his feet, andscreaming that he _would_ have the child. 

I picked myself out of the ashes, where my hair had been singed a trifleby the embers, in time to see the Major soundly cuff his offspring, andthen lead him by the arm, still screaming, out of the door. There Bobenveloped him in his arms, struggling and kicking, and put him onthe horse. 

Major Cross, returning for a final farewell word, gave me a shilling as asalve for my hurts, physical and mental, and said:

"I am sorry to have so ill-tempered a son. He cannot brook denial, whenonce he fixes his heart on a thing. However, he'll get that beaten out ofhim before he's done with the world. And so, Tom, dear, dear old comrade, a last good-by. God bless you, Tom! Farewell. "

"God bless you--and yours, _mon frère_!"

We stood, Mr. Stewart and I, at the outer gate, and watched them down theriver road, until the jutting headland intervened. As we walked slowlyback toward the house, my guardian said, as if talking partly to himself:

"There is nothing clearer in natural law than that sons inherit from theirmothers. I know of only two cases in all history where an able man had afather superior in brain and energy to the mother--Martin Luther and thepresent King of Prussia. Perhaps it was all for the best. "

To this I of course offered no answer, but trudged along through themelting snow by his side. 

Presently, as we reached the house, he stopped and looked the logstructure critically over. 

"You heard what I said, Douw, upon your belonging henceforth to thishouse--to me?"

"Yes, Mr. Stewart. "

"And now, lo and behold, I have a daughter as well! To-morrow we must planout still another room for our abode. "

Thus ended the day on which my story properly and propheticallybegins--the day when I first met Master Philip Cross. 

Chapter IV. 

In Which I Become the Son of the House. 

The French, for some reason or other, did not follow up their advantageand descend upon the lower Valley; but had they done so there couldscarcely have been a greater panic among the Palatines. All during theyear there had been seen at times, darkly flitting through the woods nearthe sparse settlements, little bands of hostile Indians. It was said thattheir purpose was to seize and abduct Sir William; failing in this, theydid what other mischief they could, so that the whole Valley was kept inconstant alarm. No household knew, on going to bed, that they would not beroused before morning by savage war-cries. No man ventured out of sight ofhis home without entertaining the idea that he might never get back alive. Hence, when the long-expected blow was really struck, and the town on theGerman Flatts devastated, everybody was in an agony of fear. To makematters worse, Sir William was at his home ill in bed, and there was sometrouble between him and the English commanders, which stood in the way oftroops being sent to our aid. 

Those few days following the dreadful news of the attack above us seemstill like a nightmare. The settlers up the river began sending theirhousehold goods down to Albany; women and children, too, passed us ingreat parties, to take refuge in Fort Hunter or at Schenectady. The riversuddenly became covered with boats once more, but this time representingthe affrighted flight of whole communities instead of a peaceful commerce. 

During this season of terror I was, as may be conceived, indeed unhappy. Ihad no stomach even for play with the new addition to our household, yetscarcely dared to show my nose outside the stockade. Mr. Stewart spent hisdays abroad, either with Sir William, or up at Caughnawaga concertingmeans of defence with our friends the Fondas. He did, however, find timeto cross the river and reassure my mother, who trembled with apprehensionfor her great brood of young, but was brave as a lion for herself. Weeksafterward, when I visited her once more, I saw baskets of lime in theattic which this devoted woman had stored there, to throw with water onthe Indians when they came. This device she had learned from the familytraditions of her ancestors' doings, when the Spaniards were in Holland. 

Gradually the alarm wore away. The French and Indians, after killing fiftyPalatines and taking thrice that number prisoners, turned tail and marchedback to the Lake again, with some of Honikol Herkimer's lead in theirmiserable bodies. The Valley was rarely to be cursed with their presenceagain. It was as if a long fever had come to its climax in a tremendousconvulsion, and then gone off altogether. We regained confidence, andfaced the long winter of '57 with content. 

Before the next snowfall succeeded to that first November flurry, and theseason closed in in earnest, Mr. Stewart was able, by the aid of a numberof neighbors, to build and roof over two additions to his house. Thestructure was still all of logs, but with its new wings became almost aslarge, if not as imposing, as any frame-house round about. One of thesewings was set aside for Dame Kronk and the little girl. The other, much tomy surprise, was given to me. At the same time my benefactor formallypresented me with my little black playmate, Tulp. He had heretofore beenmy friend; henceforth he was my slave, yet, let me add, none the lessmy friend. 

All this was equivalent to my formal adoption as Mr. Stewart's son. It wasthe custom in those days, when a slave child came of a certain age, topresent it to the child of the family who should be of the same age andsex. The presentation was made at New Year's, ordinarily, and the whitechild acknowledged it by giving the little black a piece of money and apair of shoes. My mother rather illogically shed some tears at this tokenthat I was to belong henceforth to Mr. Stewart; but she gave me a brightSpanish dollar out of her small hoard, for Tulp, and she had old WilliamDietz, the itinerant cobbler of Schoharie, construct for him a verynotable pair of shoes, which did him no good since his father promptlysold them over at Fort Hunter for rum. The old rascal would have madeaway with the coin as well, no doubt, but that Mr. Stewart threatened himwith a hiding, and so Tulp wore it on a leather string about his neck. 

I did not change my name, but continued to be Douw Mauverensen. This wasat the wish of both Mr. Stewart and my mother, for the name I bore was anhonorable one. My father had been for years a clergyman in the Valley, preaching now in Dutch, now in German, according to the nationality of thepeople, and leading a life of much hardship, travelling up and down amongthem. It is not my business to insist that he was a great man, but it iscertain that through all my younger years I received kindnesses from manypeople because I was my father's son. For my own part I but faintlyremember him, he having been killed by a fractious horse when I was a verysmall boy. 

As he had had no fixed charge during life, but had ministered to half adozen communities, so it was nobody's business in particular to care forhis family after his death. The owner of the horse did send my mother abushel of apples, and the congregation at Stone Arabia took up a littlemoney for her. But they were all poor people in those days, wresting ascanty livelihood from the wilderness, and besides, I have never noticedthat to be free with their money is in the nature of either the Dutch orthe Palatines. The new dominie, too, who came up from Albany to take myfather's place, was of the opinion that there was quite little enoughcoming in for the living pastor, without shearing it, as he said, to keepalive dead folk's memories. Thus sadly a prospect of great destitutionopened before my mother. 

But she was, if I say it myself, a superior woman. Her father, CaptainBaltus Van Hoorn, had been a burgher of substance in old Dorp, until theknavery of a sea-captain who turned pirate with a ship owned by mygrandfather drove the old gentleman into poverty and idleness. For yearshis younger daughter, my mother, kept watch over him, contrived by hook orby crook to collect his old credits outstanding, and maintained at leastenough of his business to ward the wolf from the door. It was only afterhis death, and after her older sister Margaret had gone to Coeymans withher husband, Kronk, that my mother married the elderly DominieMauverensen. When he was so untowardly killed, fifteen years later, shewas left with eight children, of whom I, a toddling urchin, was among theyoungest. She had no money save the pittance from Stone Arabia, no meansof livelihood, nor even a roof of her own over her head, since the newdominie made harsh remarks about her keeping him out of his own every timehe visited our village. To add to the wretchedness of her plight, at thisvery time her sister Margaret came back in destitution and weakness toher, having been both widowed and sorely shaken in wits by the small-pox. 

It was then that Mr. Stewart, who had known my father, came to our relief. He first lent my mother a small sum of money--she would take no more, andwas afterward very proud to repay him penny for penny. He furtherinterested Sir William Johnson, Mr. Douw Fonda, Mr. John Butler, andothers in the project of aiding her to establish a small school at FortHunter, where little children might be taught pure Dutch. 

This language, which I have lived to see almost entirely fade from use, was even then thought to be most probably the tongue of the future in thecolony, and there was the more need to teach it correctly, since, by thebarbarous commingling of Rhenish peasant dialects, Irish and Scotchperversions of English, Indian phrases, the lingo of the slaves, and thecurious expressions of the Yankees from the East, the most villanousjargon ever heard was commonly spoken in our Valley. My mother knew thenoble language of her fathers in all its strength and sweetness, and herteaching was so highly prized that soon the school became a source ofsteady support to us all. Old "Uncle" Conrad--or Coonrod as we used tocall him--the high-shouldered old pedagogue who was at once teacher, tithing-man, herb-doctor, and fiddler for our section, grumbled a littleat the start; but either he had not the heart to take the bread from ourmouths, or his own lips were soon silenced by the persuasion ofour patrons. 

It was out of respect for one of these, good old Douw Fonda, who came fromSchenectady to live at Caughnawaga when I was two years old, that I hadbeen named. But even more we all owed to the quiet, lonely man who hadbuilt the log house opposite Aries Creek, and who used so often to comeover on Sunday afternoons in the warm weather and pay us afriendly visit. 

My earliest recollections are of this Mr. Stewart, out of whom my boyishfancy created a beneficent sort of St. Nicholas, who could be good all theyear round instead of only at New Year's. As I grew older his visitsseemed more and more to be connected with me, for he paid little attentionto my sisters, and rarely missed taking me on his knee, or, later on, leading me out for a walk. Finally I was asked to go over and stay withhim for a week, and this practically was the last of my life with mymother. Soon afterward my aunt was engaged as his housekeeper, and Itacitly became a part of the household as well. Last of all, on my eighthbirthday, in this same November of '57, I was formally installed as son ofthe house. 

It was a memorable day, as I have said, in that Tulp was given me for myown. But I think that at the time I was even more affected by the factthat I was presented with a coat, and allowed to forever lay aside myodious aprons. These garments, made by my mother's own hands, had longbeen the bane of my existence. To all my entreaties to be dressed as theother boys of my age were, like Matthew Wormuth or Walter Butler insteadof like a Dutch infant, she was accustomed to retort that young PeterHansenius, the son of the dominie at Schenectady, had worn aprons until hewas twelve. I had never seen Peter Hansenius, nor has it ever since beenmy fortune so to do, but I hated him bitterly as the cause of myhumiliation. 

Yet when I had got my coat, and wore it, along with breeches of the samepearl-gray color, dark woollen stockings, copper buckles on my shoes, andplain lace at my wrists and neck and on my new hat, I somehow did not feelany more like the other boys than before. 

It was my bringing up, I fancy, which made me a solitary lad. Continualcontact with Mr. Stewart had made me older than my years. I knew thehistory of Holland almost as well, I imagine, as any grown man in theneighborhood, and I had read many valuable books on the history of othercountries and the lives of famous men, which were in Mr. Stewart'spossession. Sir William also loaned me numerous books, including the_Gentleman's Magazine, _ which I studied with delight. I had also from him_Roderick Random_, which I did not at all enjoy, nor do I even nowunderstand how it, or for that matter any of its rowdy fellows, foundfavor with sensible people. 

My reading was all very serious--strangely so, no doubt, for a littleboy--but in truth reading of any sort would have served to make me an oddsheep among my comrades. I wonder still at the unlettered condition of theboys about me. John Johnson, though seven years my senior, was so ignorantas scarcely to be able to tell the difference between the Dutch and theGermans, and whence they respectively came. He told me once, some yearsafter this, when I was bringing an armful of volumes from his father'smansion, that a boy was a fool to pore over books when he could ride andfish and hunt instead. Young Butler was of a better sort mentally, but hetoo never cared to read much. Both he and the Groats, the Nellises, theCosselmans, young Wormuth--in fact, all the boys of good families I knewin the Valley--derided education, and preferred instead to go into thewoods with a negro, and hunt squirrels while he chopped, or to play withtheir traps. 

Perhaps they were not to be blamed much, for the attractions of the roughout-of-door life which they saw men leading all about them might veryeasily outweigh the quiet pleasures of a book. But it was a misfortunenone the less in after-years to some of them, when they allowed uninformedprejudices to lead them into a terrible course of crime against theircountry and their neighbors, and paid their estates or their lives as thepenalty for their ignorance and folly. 

Fortunately, things are better ordered for the youth of the land in thesedays. 

Chapter V. 

How a Stately Name Was Shortened and Sweetened. 

It was on the morrow after my birthday that we became finally convinced ofthe French retreat. Mr. Stewart had returned from his journeys, contented, and sat now, after his hot supper, smoking by the fire. I lay at his feeton a bear-skin, I remember, reading by the light of the flames, when myaunt brought the baby-girl in. 

During the week that she had been with us, I had been too much terrifiedby the menace of invasion to take much interest in her, and Mr. Stewarthad scarcely seen her. He smiled now, and held out his hands to her. Shewent to him very freely, and looked him over with a wise, wonderingexpression when he took her on his knee. It could be seen that she wasvery pretty. Her little white rows of teeth were as regular and pearly asthe upper kernels on an ear of fresh sweet corn. She had a ribbon in herlong, glossy hair, and her face shone pleasantly with soap. My aunt hadmade her some shoes out of deer-hide, which Mr. Stewart chuckled over. 

"What a people the Dutch are!" he said, with a smile. "The child ispolished like the barrel of a gun. What's your name, little one?"

The girl made no answer, from timidity I suppose. 

"Has she no name? I should think she would have one, " said I. It was thefirst time I had ever spoken to Mr. Stewart without having been addressed. But my new position in the house seemed to entitle me to this muchliberty, for once. 

"No, " he replied, "your aunt is not able to discover that she has aname--except that she calls herself Pulkey, or something like that. "

"That is not a good name to the ear, " I said, in comment. 

"No; doubtless it is a nickname. I have thought, " he added, musingly, "ofcalling her Desideria. "

I sat bolt upright at this. It did not become me to protest, but I couldnot keep the dismay from my face, evidently, for Mr. Stewartlaughed aloud. 

"What is it, Douw? Is it not to your liking?"

"Y-e-s, sir--but she is such a very little girl!"

"And the name is so great, eh? She'll grow to it, lad, she'll grow to it. And what kind of a Dutchman are you, sir, who are unwilling to do honor tothe greatest of all Dutchmen? The Dr. Erasmus upon whose letters you areto try your Latin this winter--his name was Desiderius. Can you tell whatit means? It signifies 'desired, ' as of a mother's heart, and he took aform of the Greek verb _erao_, meaning about the same thing, instead. It'sa goodly famous name, you see. We mean to make our little girl the truestlady, and love her the best, of all the women in the Valley. And so we'llgive her a name--a fair-sounding, gracious, classical name--which noother woman bears, and one that shall always suggest home love--eh, boy?"

"But if it be so good a name, sir, " I said, gingerly being conscious ofpresumption, "why did Dr. Erasmus not keep it himself instead of turningit into Greek?"

My patron laughed heartily at this. "A Dutchman for obstinacy!" he said, and leaned over to rub the top of my head, which he did when I speciallypleased him. 

Late that night, as I lay awake in my new room, listening to the whistlingof the wind in the snow-laden branches outside, an idea came to me which Idetermined to put into action. So next evening, when the little girl wasbrought in after our supper, I begged that she might be put down on thefur before the fire, to play with me, and I watched my opportunity. Mr. Stewart was reading by the candles on the table. Save for the singing ofthe kettle on the crane--for the mixing of his night-drink later on--andthe click of my aunt's knitting-needles, there was perfect silence. Imustered my bravery, and called my wee playmate "Daisy. "

I dared not look at the master, and could not tell if he had heard or not. Presently I spoke the name again, and this time ventured to steal anapprehensive glance at him, and fancied I saw the workings of a smilerepressed in the deep lines about his mouth. "A Dutchman for obstinacy"truly, since two days afterward Mr. Stewart himself called the girl"Daisy"--and there was an end of it. Until confirmation time, when sheplayed a queenly part at the head of the little class of farmers' andvillagers' daughters whom Dominie Romeyn baptized into full communion, the ponderous Latin name was never heard of again. Then it indeed emergedfor but a single day, to dignify a state occasion, and disappearedforever. Except alone on the confirmation register of the Stone Church atCaughnawaga, she was Daisy thenceforth for all time and to all men. 

The winter of 1757-58 is still spoken of by us old people as a season ofgreat severity and consequent privation. The snow was drifted over theroads up to the first branches of the trees, yet rarely formed a goodcrust upon which one could move with snow-shoes. Hence the outlyingsettlements, like Cherry Valley and Tribes Hill, had hard work toget food. 

I do not remember that our household stood in any such need, butoccasionally some Indian who had been across the hills carrying venisonwould come in and rest, begging for a drink of raw rum, and giving forth astrong smell like that of a tame bear as he toasted himself by the fire. Mr. Stewart was often amused by these fellows, and delighted to talk withthem as far as their knowledge of language and inclination to use it went, but I never could abide them. 

It has become the fashion now to be sentimental about the red man, andyoung people who never knew what he really was like find it easy to extolhis virtues, and to create for him a chivalrous character. No doubt therewere some honest creatures among them; even in Sodom and Gomorrah a fewjust people were found. It is true that in later life I once had occasionto depend greatly upon the fidelity of two Oneidas, and they did not failme. But as a whole the race was a bad one--full of laziness and lies andcowardly ferocity. From earliest childhood I saw a good deal of them, andI know what I say. 

Probably there was no place on the whole continent where these Indianscould be better studied than in the Mohawk Valley, near to Sir William'splace. They came to him in great numbers, not only from the Six Nations, but often from far-distant tribes living beyond the Lakes and north of theSt. Lawrence. They were on their best behavior with him, and no doubt hadan affection for him in their way, but it was because he flattered theiregregious vanity by acting and dressing in Indian fashion, and made itworth their while by constantly giving them presents and rum. Their likingseemed always to me to be that of the selfish, treacherous cat, ratherthan of the honest dog. Their teeth and claws were always ready for yourflesh, if you did not give them enough, and if they dared to strike. Andthey were cowards, too, for all their boasting. Not even Sir William couldget them to face any enemy in the open. Their notion of war was midnightskulking and shooting from behind safe cover. Even in battle they weremurderers, not warriors. 

In peace they were next to useless. There was a little colony of them inour orchard one summer which I watched with much interest. The men neverdid one stroke of honest work all the season long, except to trot onerrands when they felt like it, and occasionally salt and smoke fishwhich they caught in the river. 

But the wretched squaws--my word but _they_ worked enough for both! Thesewomen, wrinkled, dirty, sore-eyed from the smoke in their miserable huts, toiled on patiently, ceaselessly, making a great variety of woodenutensils and things of deer-hide like snow-shoes, moccasins, and shirts, which they bartered with the whites for milk and vegetables and rum. Eventhe little girls among them had to gather berries and mandrake, and, inthe fall, the sumach blows which the Indians used for savoring their food. And if these poor creatures obtained in their bartering too much bread andmilk and too little rum and tobacco, they were beaten by their men as nowhite man would beat the meanest animal. 

Doubtless much of my dislike for the Indian came from his ridiculous andhateful assumption of superiority over the negro. To my mind, and to allsensible minds I fancy, one simple, honest, devoted black was worth ascore of these conceited, childish brutes. I was so fond of my boy Tulp, that, even as a little fellow, I deeply resented the slights and cuffswhich he used to receive at the hands of the savages who lounged about inthe sunshine in our vicinity. His father, mother, and brothers, who herdedtogether in a shanty at the edge of the clearing back of us, had theirfaults, no doubt; but they would work when they were bid, and they weregrateful to those who fed and clothed and cared for them. These werereasons for their being despised by the Indians--and they seemed alsoreasons why I should like them, as I always did. 

There were other reasons why I should be very fond of Tulp. He was aqueer, droll little darky as a boy, full of curious fancies and comicalsayings, and I never can remember a time when he would not, I veritablybelieve, have laid down his life for me. We were always together, indoorsor out. He was exceedingly proud of his name, which was in a way a badgeof ancient descent--having been borne by a long line of slaves, hisancestors, since that far-back time when the Dutch went crazy overcollecting tulip-bulbs. 

His father had started in life with this name, too, but, passing into thepossession of an unromantic Yankee at Albany, had been re-christenedEli--a name which he loathed yet perforce retained when Mr. Stewart boughthim. He was a drunken, larcenous old rascal, but as sweet-tempered as theday is long, and many's the time I've heard him vow, with maudlin tears inhis eyes, that all his evil habits came upon him as the result of changinghis name. If he had continued to be Tulp, he argued, he would have hadsome incentive to an honorable life; but what self-respecting nigger couldhave so low-down a name as Eli, and be good for anything? All thiswarranted my boy in being proud of his name, and, so to speak, livingup to it. 

I have gossiped along without telling much of the long winter of 1757. Intruth, there is little to tell. I happen to remember that it was a seasonof cruel hardship to many of our neighbors. But it was a happy time forme. What mattered it that the snow was piled outside high above my head;that food in the forest was so scarce that the wolves crept yelping closeto our stockade; that we had to eat cranberries to keep off the scurvy, until I grew for all time to hate their very color; or that for five longmonths I never saw my mother and sisters, or went to church? It was verypleasant inside. 

I seem still to see the square, home-like central room of the old house, with Mr. Stewart's bed in one corner, covered with a great robe of piecedpanther skins. The smoky rafters above were hung with strings of onions, red-peppers, and long ears of Indian corn, the gold of which shone throughpale parted husks and glowed in the firelight. The rude home-made table, chairs, and stools stood in those days upon a rough floor of hewn planks, on projecting corners of which an unlucky toe was often stubbed. Therewere various skins spread on this floor, and others on the log walls, hungup to dry. Over the great stone mantel were suspended Mr. Stewart's guns, along with his sword and pistols. Back in the corners of the fireplacewere hung traps, nets, and the like, while on the opposite side of theroom was the master's bookcase, well filled with volumes in English, Latin, and other tongues. Three doors, low and unpanelled, opened fromthis room to the other chambers of the house--leading respectively to thekitchen, to my room, and to the room now set apart for my aunt andlittle Daisy. 

No doubt it was a poor abode, and scantily enough furnished, judged bypresent standards, but we were very comfortable in it, none the less. Iworked pretty hard that winter on my Latin, conning Cæsar for labor andDr. Erasmus for play, and kept up my other studies as well, reading forthe first time, I remember, the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. For therest, I busied myself learning to make snow-shoes, to twist cords out offlax, to mould bullets, and to write legibly, or else played withDaisy and Tulp. 

To confess how simply we amused ourselves, we three little ones, would beto speak in an unknown tongue, I fear, to modern children. Our stock ofplaythings was very limited. We had, as the basis of everything, thewooden works of the old clock, which served now for a gristmill like thatof the Groats, now for a fort, again for a church. Then there were thespindles of a discarded spinning-wheel, and a small army of spools whichmy aunt used for winding linen thread. These we dressed in odd rags fordolls--soldiers, Indians, and fine ladies, and knights of old. To ourcontented fancy, there was endless interest in the lives and doings ofthese poor puppets. I made them illustrate the things I read, and theslave boy and tiny orphan girl assisted and followed on with equalenthusiasm, whether the play was of Alexander of Macedon, or Captain Kidd, or only a war-council of Delaware Indians, based upon Mr. Colden's book. 

Sometimes, when it was warm enough to leave the hearth, and Mr. Stewartdesired not to be disturbed, we would transport ourselves and our games tomy aunt's room. This would be a dingy enough place, I suppose, even to myeyes now, but it had a great charm then. Here from the rafters hung thedried, odoriferous herbs--sage, summer-savory, and mother-wort; bottles ofcucumber ointment and of a liniment made from angle-worms--famous for cutsand bruises; strings of dried apples and pumpkins; black beans in theirwithered pods; sweet clover for the linen--and I know not what elsebesides. On the wall were two Dutch engravings of the killing of Jan andCornelis de Wit by the citizens of The Hague, which, despite their hideousfidelity to details, had a great fascination for me. 

My childhood comes back vividly indeed to me as I recall the good oldwoman, in her white cap and short gown (which she had to lift to get atthe pocket tied over her petticoat by a string to her waist), walking upand down with the yarn taut from the huge, buzzing wheel, crooning Dutchhymns to herself the while, and thinking about our dinner. 

Chapter VI. 

Within Sound of the Shouting Waters. 

If I relied upon my memory, I could not tell when the French war ended. Ithad practically terminated, so far as our Valley was concerned, with theepisode already related. Sir William Johnson was away much of the timewith the army, and several of the boys older than myself--John Johnson, John Frey, and Adam Fonda among them--went with him. We heard vague newsof battles at distant places, at Niagara, at Quebec, and elsewhere. Once, indeed, a band of Roman Catholic Indians appeared at Fort Herkimer and didbloody work before they were driven off, but this time there was no panicin the lower settlements. 

Large troops of soldiers continually passed up and down on the river inthe open seasons, some of them in very handsome clothes. 

I remember one body of Highlanders in particular whose dress and mienimpressed me greatly. Mr. Stewart, too, was much excited by the memoriesthis noble uniform evoked, and had the officers into the house to eat anddrink with him. I watched and listened to these tall, fierce, bare-kneedwarriors in awe, from a distance. He brought out bottles from his rarestock of Madeira, and they drank it amid exclamations which, if I mistakenot, were highly treasonable. This was almost the last occasion on which Iheard references made to his descent, and he did his best to discouragethem then. Most of these fine red-haired men, I learned afterward laidtheir bones on the bloody plateau overlooking Quebec. 

Far fresher in my recollection than these rumors of war is the fact thatmy Tulp caught the small-pox, in the spring of '60, the malady having beenspread by a Yankee who came up the Valley selling sap-spouts that wereturned with a lathe instead of being whittled. The poor little chap wascarried off to a sheep-shed on the meadow clearing, a long walk from ourhouse, and he had to remain there by himself for six weeks. At my urgentrequest, I was allowed to take his food to him daily, leaving it on astone outside and then discreetly retiring. He would come out and get it, and then we would shout to each other across the creek. I took up some ofour dolls to him, but he did not get much comfort out of them, beingunable to remember any of the stories which I illustrated with them, or toinvent any for himself. At his suggestion I brought him instead a piece oftanned calf-skin, with a sailor's needle and some twine, and the littlefellow made out of this a lot of wallets for his friends, which had to beburied a long time before they could be safely used. I have one of theseyet--mildewed with age, and most rudely stitched, but still a veryprecious possession. 

Tulp came out finally, scarred and twisted so that he was ever afterwardrepellent to the eye, and as crooked as Richard the Third. I fear thatDaisy never altogether liked him after this. To me he was dearer thanever, not because my heart was tenderer than hers, of course, but becausewomen are more delicately made, and must perforce shudder at ugliness. 

How happily the years went by! The pictures in my memory, save those ofthe snug winter rooms already referred to, are all of a beautiful Valley, embowered in green, radiant with sunshine--each day live-longwith delight. 

There was first of all in the spring, when the chorus of returningsong-birds began, the gathering of maple-sap, still sacred to boyhood. Thesheep were to be washed and sheared, too, and the awkward, weak-kneedcalves to be fed. While the spring floods ran high, ducks and geesecovered the water, and muskrats came out, driven from their holes. Thenappeared great flocks of pigeons, well fattened from their winter'ssojourn in the South, and everybody, young and old, gave himself up totheir slaughter; while this lasted, the crack! crack! of guns was heardall the forenoon long, particularly if the day was cloudy and the birdswere flying low--and ah! the buttered pigeon pies my aunt made, too. 

As the floods went down, and the snow-water disappeared, the fishingbegan, first with the big, silly suckers, then with wiser and more valuedfish. The woods became dry, and then in long, joyous rambles we set trapsand snares, hunted for nests among the low branches and in themarsh-grass, smoked woodchucks out of their holes, gathered wild flowers, winter-green, and dye-plants, or built great fires of the dead leaves andpithless, scattered branches, as boys to the end of time will delightto do. 

When autumn came, there were mushrooms, and beech-nuts, butter-nuts, hickory-nuts, wild grapes, pucker-berries, not to speak of loads ofelder-berries for making wine. And the pigeons, flying southward, darkenedthe sky once more; and then the horses were unshod for treading out thewheat, and we children fanned away the chaff with big palm-leaves; and thecombs of honey were gathered and shelved; and the October husking began byour having the first kettleful of white corn, swollen and hulled by beingboiled in lye of wood ashes, spooned steaming into our porringers of milkby my aunt. 

Ah, they were happy times indeed!

Every other Sunday, granted tolerable weather, I crossed the river earlyin the morning to attend church with my mother and sisters. It is noreflection upon my filial respect, I hope, to confess that these arewearisome memories. We went in solemn procession, the family beinginvariably ready and waiting when I arrived. We sat in a long row in a pewquite in front of the slate-colored pulpit--my mother sitting sternlyupright at the outer end, my tallest sister next, and so on, in regularprogression, down to wretched baby Gertrude and me. The very color of thepew, a dull Spanish brown, was enough to send one to sleep, and its high, uncompromising back made all my bones ache. 

Yet I was forced to keep awake, and more, to look deeply interested. I wasa clergyman's son, and the ward of an important man; I was thebest-dressed youngster in the congregation, and brought a slave of my ownto church with me. So Dominie Romeyn always fixed his lack-lustre eye onme, and seemed to develop all his long, prosy arguments one by one to mepersonally. Even when he turned the hour-glass in front of him, he seemedto indicate that it was quite as much my affair as his. I dared not twistclear around, to see Tulp sitting among the negroes and Indians, on one ofthe backless benches under the end gallery; it was scarcely possible evento steal glances up to the side galleries, where the boys of lower degreewere at their mischief, and where fits of giggling and horse-play rose andspread from time to time until the tithing-man, old Conrad to wit, burstin and laid his hickory gad over their irreverent heads. 

When at last I could escape without discredit, and get across the riveragain, it was with the consoling thought that the next Sunday would be Mr. Stewart's Sunday. 

This meant a good long walk with my patron. Sometimes we would go down toMount Johnson, if Sir William was at home, or to Mr. Butler's, or someother English-speaking house, where I would hear much profitableconversation, and then be encouraged to talk about it during our leisurelyhomeward stroll. But more often, if the day were fine, we would leaveroads and civilization behind us, and climb the gradual elevation to thenorth of the house, through the woodland to an old Indian trail which ledto our favorite haunt--a wonderful ravine. 

The place has still a local fame, and picnic parties go there to play atforestry, but it gives scarcely a suggestion now of its ancient wildness. As my boyish eyes saw it, it was nothing short of awe-inspiring. Thecreek, then a powerful stream, had cut a deep gorge in its exultant leapover the limestone barrier. On the cliffs above, giant hemlocks seemed tobrush the very sky with their black, tufted boughs. Away below, on theshadowed bottomland, which could be reached only by feet trained todifficult descents, strange plants grew rank in the moisture of thewaterfall, and misshapen rocks wrapped their nakedness in heavy folds ofunknown mosses and nameless fern-growths. Above all was the ceaselessshout of the tumbling waters, which had in my ears ever a barbaric messagefrom the Spirit of the Wilderness. 

The older Mohawks told Mr. Stewart that in their childhood this weird spotwas held to be sacred to the Great Wolf, the totem of their tribe. Here, for more generations than any could count, their wise men had gatheredabout the mystic birch flame, in grave council of war. Here the tribe hadassembled to seek strength of arm, hardness of heart, cunning of brain, for its warriors, in solemn incantations and offerings to the Unknown. Here hostile prisoners had been tortured and burned. Some mishap or omenor shift of superstitious feeling had led to the abandonment of thiscouncil place. Even the trail, winding its tortuous way from the Valleyover the hills toward the Adirondack fastnesses, had been deserted foranother long before--so long, in fact, that the young brave who chanced tofollow the lounging tracks of the black bear down the creek to the gorge, or who turned aside from the stealthy pursuit of the eagle's flight tolearn what this muffled roar might signify, looked upon the remains of thecouncil fire's circle of stone seats above the cataract, and down into thechasm of mist and foam underneath, with no knowledge that they were a partof his ancestral history. 

Mr. Stewart told me that when he first settled in the Valley, adisappointed and angry man, this gulf had much the satisfaction for himthat men in great grief or wrath find in breasting a sharp storm. Therewas something congenial to his ugly unrest in this place, with its violentclamor, its swift dashing of waters, its dismal shadows, and dampchilliness of depths. 

But we were fallen now upon calmer, brighter days. He was no longer thediscouraged, sullen misanthropist, but had come to be instead a pacific, contented, even happy, gentleman. And lo! the meaning of the wild gorgechanged to reflect his mood. There was no stain of savagery upon thedelight we had in coming to this spot. As he said, once listened rightlyto, the music of the falling waters gave suggestions which, if they weresobering, were still not sad. 

This place was all our own, and hither we most frequently bent our stepson Sundays, after the snow-water had left the creek, and the danger oflurking colds had been coaxed from the earth by the May sun. Here he wouldsit for hours on one of the stones in the great Druid-like circle whichsome dead generation of savages had toiled to construct. Sometimes Iwould scour the steep sides of the ravine and the moist bottom for curiousplants to fetch to him, and he would tell me of their structure anddesign. More often I would sit at his feet, and he, between whiffs at hispipe, would discourse to me of the differences between his Old World andthis new one, into which I providentially had been born. He talked of hispast, of my future, and together with this was put forth an indescribablewealth of reminiscence, reflection, and helpful anecdote. 

On this spot, with the gaunt outlines of mammoth primeval trunks andtwisted boughs above us, with the sacred memorials of extinct rites aboutus, and with the waters crashing down through the solitude beneath us ontheir way to turn Sir William's mill-wheel, one could get broad, comprehensive ideas of what things really meant. One could see wherein theage of Pitt differed from and advanced upon the age of Colbert, on thisnew continent, and could as in prophecy dream of the age of Jefferson yetto come. Did I as a lad feel these things? Truly it seems to me thatI did. 

Half a century before, the medicine-man's fire had blazed in this circle, its smoky incense crackling upward in offering to the gods of the pagantribe. Here, too, upon this charred, barren spot, had been heaped theblazing fagots about the limbs of the captive brave, and the victim boundto the stake had nerved himself to show the encircling brutes that noteven the horrors of this death could shake his will, or wring a groanfrom his heaving breast. Here, too, above the unending din of thewaterfall and the whisper of these hemlocks overhead, had often risen somesuch shrill-voiced, defiant deathsong, from the smoke and anguish of thestake, as that chant of the Algonquin son of Alknomuk which mygrandchildren still sing at their school. This dead and horrible past ofheathendom I saw as in a mirror, looking upon these council-stones. 

The children's children of these savages were still in the Valley. Theircouncil fires were still lighted, no further distant than the SaltSprings. In their hearts burned all the old lust for torture and massacre, and the awful joys of rending enemies limb by limb. But the spell ofEurope was upon them, and, in good part or otherwise, they bowed under it. So much had been gained, and two peaceful white people could come and talkin perfect safety on the ancient site of their sacrifices and cruelties. 

Yet this spell of Europe, accomplishing so much, left much to be desired. It was still possible to burn a slave to death by legal process, here inour Valley; and it was still within the power of careless, greedy noblemenin London, who did not know the Mohawk from the Mississippi, to sign awaygreat patents of our land, robbing honest settlers of their all. There wasto come the spell of America, which should remedy these things. I cannotget it out of my head that I learned to foresee this, to feel and to lookfor its coming, there in the gorge as a boy. 

But there are other reasons why I should remember the place--to be toldlater on. 

The part little Daisy played in all these childhood enjoyments of mine ishardly to be described in words, much less portrayed in incidents. I canrecall next to nothing to relate. Her presence as my sister, my comrade, and my pupil seems only an indefinable part of the sunshine which gildsthese old memories. We were happy together--that is all. 

I taught her to read and write and cipher, and to tell mushrooms fromtoadstools, to eschew poisonous berries, and to know the weather signs. For her part, she taught me so much more that it seems effrontery to callher my pupil. It was from her gentle, softening companionship that Ilearned in turn to be merciful to helpless creatures, and to be honest andcleanly in my thoughts and talk. She would help me to seek for birds'nests with genuine enthusiasm, but it was her pity which prevented theirbeing plundered afterward. Her pretty love for all living things, herdelight in innocent, simple amusements, her innate repugnance to coarseand cruel actions--all served to make me different from the roughboys about me. 

Thus we grew up together, glad in each other's constant company, andholding our common benefactor, Mr. Stewart, in the greatest love andveneration. 

Chapter VII. 

Through Happy Youth to Man's Estate. 

As we two children became slowly transformed into youths, the Valley withno less steadiness developed in activity, population, and wealth. Goodroads were built; new settlements sprang up; the sense of being in thehollow of the hand of savagery wore off. Primitive conditions lapsed, disappeared one by one. We came to smile at the uncouth dress and unshavenfaces of the "bush-bauer" Palatines--once so familiar, now well nighoutlandish. Families from Connecticut and the Providence Plantations beganto come in numbers, and their English tongue grew more and more to be thecommon language. People spoke now of the Winchester bushel, instead of theSchoharie spint and skipple. The bounty on wolves' heads went up to apound sterling. The number of gentlemen who shaved every day, woreruffles, and even wigs or powder on great occasions, and maintainedhunting with hounds and horse-racing, increased yearly--so much so thatsome innocent people thought England itself could not offer moreattractions. 

There was much envy when John Johnson, now twenty-three years old, wassent on a visit to England, to learn how still better to play thegentleman--and even more when he came back a knight, with splendid Londonclothes, and stories of what the King and the princes had said to him. 

The Johnsons were a great family now, receiving visits from notable peopleall over the colony at their new hall, which Sir William had built on thehills back of his new Scotch settlement. Nothing could have better shownhow powerful Sir William had become, and how much his favor was to becourted, than the fact that ladies of quality and strict propriety, whofancied themselves very fine folk indeed, the De Lanceys and Phillipsesand the like, would come visiting the widower baronet in his hall, andclose their eyes to the presence there of Miss Molly and her half-breedchildren. Sir William's neighbors, indeed, overlooked this from their lovefor the man, and their reliance in his sense and strength. But the others, the aristocrats, held their tongues from fear of his wrath, and of hisinfluence in London. 

They never liked him entirely; he in turn had so little regard for themand their pretensions that, when they came, he would suffer none of themto markedly avoid or affront the Brant squaw, whom indeed they had oftento meet as an associate and equal. Yet this bold, independent, reallygreat man, so shrewdly strong in his own attitude toward these gildedwater-flies, was weak enough to rear his own son to be one of them, tovalue the baubles they valued, to view men and things through theirpainted spectacles--and thus to come to grief. 

Two years after Johnson Hall was built, Mr. Stewart all at once decidedthat he too would have a new house; and before snow flew the handsome, spacious "Cedars, " as it was called, proudly fronted the Valley highway. Of course it was not, in size, a rival of the Hall at Johnstown, but itnone the less was among the half-dozen best houses in the Mohawk Valley, and continued so to be until John Johnson burned it to the ground fifteenyears later. It stood in front of our old log structure, now turned overto the slaves. It was of two stories, with lofty and spacious rooms, andfrom the road it presented a noble appearance, now that the old stockadehad given place to a wall of low, regular masonry. 

With this new residence came a prodigious change in our way of life. Daisywas barely twelve years old, but we already thought of her as the lady ofthe house, for whom nothing was too good. The walls were plastered, andstiff paper from Antwerp with great sprawling arabesques, and figures ofnymphs and fauns chasing one another up and down with ceaseless, fruitlesspersistency, was hung upon them, at least in the larger rooms. The floorswere laid smoothly, each board lapping into the next by a then noveljoiner's trick. 

On the floor in Daisy's room there was a carpet, too, a rare andremarkable thing in those days, and also from the Netherlands. In thissame chamber, as well, were set up a bed of mahogany, cunningly carved anddecorated, and a tall foreign cabinet of some rich dark wood, for linen, frocks, and the like. Here, likewise, were two gilt cages from Paris, inwhich a heart-breaking succession of native birds drooped and died, untilfour Dublin finches were at last imported for Daisy's special delight; anda case with glass doors and a lock, made in Boston, wherein to store herbooks; and, best of all, a piano--or was it a harpsichord?--standing onits own legs, which Mr. Stewart heard of as for sale in New York andbought at a pretty high figure. This last was indeed a rickety, janglingold box, but Daisy learned in a way to play upon it, and we men-folk, sitting in her room in the candle-light, and listening to her voice cooingto its shrill tinkle of accompaniment, thought the music as sweet as thatof the cherubim. 

Mr. Stewart and I lived in far less splendor. There was no foreignfurniture to speak of in our portions of the house; we slept on beds thecords of which creaked through honest American maple posts; we walked onfloors which offered gritty sand to the tread instead of carpet-stuffs. But there were two great stands laden with good books in our living-room;we had servants now within sound of a bell; we habitually wore garmentsbefitting men of refinement and substance; we rode our own horses, and wecould have given Daisy a chaise had the condition of our roads made itdesirable. 

I say "we" because I had come to be a responsible factor in the control ofthe property. Mr. Stewart had never been poor; he was now close upon beingwealthy. Upon me little by little had devolved the superintendence ofaffairs. I directed the burning over and clearing of land, which everyyear added scores of tillable acres to our credit; saw to the planting, care, and harvesting of crops; bought, bred, and sold the stock; watchedprices, dickered with travelling traders, provisioned the house--in aword, grew to be the manager of all, and this when I was barely twenty. 

Mr. Stewart bore his years with great strength, physically, but he readilygave over to me, as fast as I could assume them, the details of out-doorwork. The taste for sitting indoors or in the garden, and reading, ortalking with Daisy--the charm of simply living in a home made beautiful bya good and clever young girl--gained yearly upon him. 

Side by side with this sedentary habit, curiously enough, came up a secondgrowth of old-world, mediæval notions--a sort of aristocratic aftermath. It was natural, no doubt. His inborn feudal ideas had not been killed byingratitude, exile, or his rough-and-ready existence on the edge of thewilderness, but only chilled to dormancy; they warmed now into life underthe genial radiance of a civilized home. But it is not my purpose to dwellupon this change, or rather upon its results, at this stage of the story. 

Social position was now a matter for consideration. With improved means ofintercourse and traffic, each year found some family thrifty enough tothrust its head above the rude level of settlers' equality, and take onthe airs of superiority. Twenty years before, it had been Colonel Johnsonfirst, and nobody else second. Now the Baronet-General was stillpreeminently first; but every little community in the Valley chain had itstwo or three families holding themselves only a trifle lower thanthe Johnsons. 

Five or six nationalities were represented. Of the Germans, there were theHerkimers up above the Falls, the Lawyers at Schoharie, the Freys (whowere commonly thus classed, though they came originally from Switzerland), and many others. Of important Dutch families, there were the Fondas atCaughnawaga, the Mabies and Groats at Rotterdam, below us, and theQuackenbosses to the west of us, across the river. The Johnsons andButlers were Irish. Over at Cherry Valley the Campbells and Clydes wereScotch--the former being, indeed, close blood relatives of the greatArgyll house. Colonel Isaac Paris, a prominent merchant near Stone Arabia, came from Strasbourg, and accounted himself a Frenchman, though he spokeGerman better than French, and attended the Dutch Calvinistic church. There were also English families of quality. I mention them all to showhow curious was the admixture of races in our Valley. One cannotunderstand the terrible trouble which came upon us later without someknowledge of these race divisions. 

Mr. Stewart held a place in social estimation rather apart from any ofthese cliques. He was both Scotch and Irish by ancestry; he was French byeducation; he had lived and served in the Netherlands and sundry Germanstates. Thus he could be all things to all men--yet he would not. Heindeed became more solitary as he grew older, for the reasons I havealready mentioned. He once had been friendly with all his intelligentneighbors, no matter what their nationality. Gradually he came to beintimate with only the Johnsons and Butlers on the theory that they werealone well born. Hours upon hours he talked with them of the Warrens andthe Ormund-Butlers in Ireland, from whom they claimed descent, and of theassurance of Dutch and German cobblers and tinkers, in setting up forgentlemen. 

Sir William, in truth, had too much sense to often join or sympathize withthese notions. But young Sir John and the Butlers, father and son, adoptedthem with enthusiasm, and I am sorry to say there were both Dutch andGerman residents, here and there, mean-spirited enough to accept thesereflections upon their ancestry, and strive to atone for their assumedlack of birth by aping the manners, and fawning for the friendship, oftheir critics. 

But let me defer these painful matters as long as possible. There arestill the joys of youth to recall. 

I had grown now into a tall, strong young man, and I was in the way ofmeeting no one who did not treat me as an equal. It seems to me now that Iwas not particularly popular among my fellows, but I was conscious of noloneliness then. I had many things to occupy my mind, besides my regulartasks. Both natural history and botany interested me greatly, and I wasprivileged also to assist Sir William's investigations in the noble pathsof astronomy. He had both large information and many fine thoughts on thesubject, and used laughingly to say that if he were not too lazy he wouldwrite a book thereon. This was his way of saying that he had more labor toget through than any other man in the Colony. It was his idea that sometime I should write the work instead; upon the Sacondaga hills, he said, we saw and read the heavens without Old-World dust in our eyes, and ourbook that was to be should teach the European moles the very alphabet ofplanets. Alas! I also was too indolent--truly, not figuratively; the bookwas never written. 

In those days there was royal sport for rod and gun, but books also had asolid worth. We did not visit other houses much--Daisy and I--but heldourselves to a degree apart. The British people were, as a whole, nearerour station than the others, and had more ideas in common with us; butthey were not of our blood, and we were not drawn toward many of them. Asthey looked down upon the Dutch, so the Dutch, in turn, were supercilioustoward the Germans. I was Dutch, Daisy was German: but by a sort of tacitconsent we identified ourselves with neither race, and this aided ourisolation. 

There was also the question of religion. Mr. Stewart had been bred aPapist, and at the time of which I write, after the French war, Jesuitpriests of that nation several times visited him to renew old Europeanfriendships. But he never went to mass, and never allowed them or anybodyelse to speak with him on the subject, no matter how deftly theyapproached it. This was prudent, from a worldly point of view, because theValley, and for that matter the whole upper Colony, was bitterly opposedto Romish pretensions, and the first Scotch Highlanders who brought themass into the Valley above Johnstown were openly denounced as idolaters. But it was certainly not caution which induced Mr. Stewart's backsliding. He was not the man to defer in that way to the prejudices of others. Thetruth was that he had no religious beliefs or faith whatever. But hisscepticism was that of the French noble of the time, that of Voltaire andMirabeau, rather than of the English plebeian and democrat, Thomas Paine. 

Naturally Daisy and I were not reared as theologians. We nominallybelonged to the Calvinistic church, but not being obliged to attend itsservices, rarely did so. This tended to further separate us from ourneighbors, who were mainly prodigious church-goers. 

But, more than all else, we lived by ourselves because, by constantcontact with refined associations, we had grown to shrink from thecoarseness which ruled outside. All about us marriages were made betweenmere children, each boy setting up for himself and taking a wife as soonas he had made a voyage to the Lakes and obtained a start in fur-trading. There was precious little sentiment or delicacy in these early courtshipsand matches, or in the state of society which they reflected--uncultured, sordid, rough, unsympathetic, with all its elementary instincts bluntlyexposed and expressed. This was of course a subject not to be discussed byus. Up to the spring of 1772, when I was twenty-three years of age andDaisy was eighteen, no word of all the countless words which young men andwomen have from the dawn of language spoken on this great engrossing topichad ever been exchanged between us. In earlier years, when we were on thethreshold of our teens, Mr. Stewart had more than once thought aloud inour hearing upon the time when we should inherit his home and fortune as amarried couple. Nothing of that talk, though, had been heard for along while. 

I had not entirely forgotten it; but I carried the idea along in the atticof my mind, as a thing not to be thrown away, yet of no present use orvalue or interest. 

Occasionally, indeed, I did recall it for the moment, and cast a diffidentconjecture as to whether Daisy also remembered. Who shall say? I have beenyoung and now am old, yet have I not learned the trick of reading awoman's mind. Very far indeed was I from it in those callow days. 

And now, after what I fear has been a tiresome enough prologue, my storyawaits. 

Chapter VIII. 

Enter My Lady Berenicia Cross. 

It is averred that all the evils and miseries of our existence wereentailed upon us by the meddlesome and altogether gratuitous perversenessof one weak-headed woman. Although faith in the personal influence of Eveupon the ages is visibly waning in these incredulous, iconoclastic times, there still remains enough respect for the possibilities for mischiefinherent within a single silly woman to render Lady Berenicia Cross andher works intelligible, even to the fifth and sixth generations. 

I knew that she was a fool the moment I first laid eyes on her--as shestood courtesying and simpering to us on the lawn in front of JohnsonHall, her patched and raddled cheeks mocking the honest morning sunlight. I take no credit that my eyes had a clearer vision than those of mycompanions, but grieve instead that it was not ordered otherwise. 

We had ridden up to the hall, this bright, warm May forenoon, on our firstvisit of the spring to the Johnsons. There is a radiant picture of thismorning ride still fresh in my memory. Daisy, I remember, sat on a pillionbehind Mr. Stewart, holding him by the shoulder, and jogging pleasantlyalong with the motion of the old horse. Our patron looked old in thisfull, broad light; the winter had obviously aged him. His white, queuedhair no longer needed powder; his light blue eyes seemed larger than everunder the bristling brows, still dark in color; the profile of his leanface, which had always been so nobly commanding in outline, had grownsharper of late, and bended nose and pointed chin were closer together, from the shrinking of the lips. But he sat erect as of old, proud ofhimself and of the beautiful girl behind him. 

And she _was_ beautiful, was our Daisy! Her rounded, innocent face beamedwith pleasure from its camlet hood, as sweet and suggestive of fragranceas a damask rose against the blue sky. It was almost a childish face inits simplicity and frankness, yet already beginning to take on a woman'sthoughtfulness and a woman's charm of tint and texture. We often thoughtthat her parents must have had other than Palatine peasant blood, sodelicate and refined were her features, not realizing that books andthoughts help far more toward making faces than does ancestry. Just theedge of her wavy light-brown hair could be seen under the frill of thehood, with lines of gold upon it painted by the sun. 

She laughed and talked gayly as our horses climbed the hills. I thought, as I rode by their side, how happy we all were, and how beautiful wasshe--this flower plucked from the rapine and massacre of the Old War! AndI fancy the notion that we were no longer children began dancing in myhead a little, too. 

It would have been strange otherwise, for the day and the scene must havestirred the coldest pulse. We moved through a pale velvety panorama ofgreen--woodland and roadside and river reflections and shadows, all ofliving yet young and softening green; the birds all about us filled thewarm air with song; the tapping of the woodpeckers and the shrill chatterof squirrels came from every thicket; there was nothing which did notreflect our joyous, buoyant delight that spring had come again. And I rodeby Daisy's side, and thought more of her, I'm bound, than I did of theflood-dismantled dike on the river-bend at home which I had leftunrestored for the day. 

Over the heads of the negroes, who, spying us, came headlong to take ourhorses, we saw Sir William standing in the garden with an unknown lady. The baronet himself, walking a little heavily with his cane, approached uswith hearty salutations, helped Daisy to unmount, and presented us to thisstranger--Lady Berenicia Cross. 

I am not so sure that people can fall in love at first sight. But neverdoubt their ability to dislike from the beginning! I know that I feltindignantly intolerant of this woman even before, hat in hand, I hadfinished my bow to her. 

Yet it might well have been that I was over-harsh in my judgment. She hadbeen a pretty woman in her time, and still might be thought well-favored. At least _she_ must have thought so, for she wore more paint and ribbons, and fal-lals generally, than ever I saw on another woman, before or since. Her face was high, narrow, and very regular; oddly enough, it was inoutline, with its thin, pursed-up mouth, straight nose, and full eyelidsand brows, very like a face one would expect to see in a nun's hood. Yetso little in the character of the cloister did this countenance keep, thatit was plastered thick with chalk and rouge, and sprinkled with ridiculousblack patches, and bore, as it rose from the low courtesy before me, anunnatural smile half-way between a leer and a grin. 

I may say that I was a wholesome-enough looking young fellow, very talland broad-shouldered, with a long, dark face, which was ugly in childhood, but had grown now into something like comeliness. I am not paradingspecial innocence either, but no woman had ever looked into my eyes withso bold, I might say impudent, an expression as this fine lady put on togreet me. And she was old enough to be my mother, almost, intothe bargain. 

But even more than her free glances, which, after all, meant no harm, butonly reflected London manners, her dress grated upon me. We were notunaccustomed to good raiment in the Valley. Johnson Hall, which reared itsbroad bulk through the trees on the knoll above us, had many a timesported richer and costlier toilets in its chambers than this before us. But on my lady the gay stuffs seemed painfully out of place--like herfeather fan, and smelling-salts, and dainty netted purse. The mountainsand girdling forests were real; the strong-faced, burly, handsome baronet, whose words spoken here in the back-woods were law to British king andParliament, was real; we ourselves, suitably and decently clad, andknowing our position, were also genuine parts of the scene. The Englishlady was pinchbeck by contrast with all about her. 

"Will you give the ladies an arm, Douw?" said Sir William. "We werewalking to see the lilacs I planted a year ago. We old fellows, with somuch to say to each other, will lead the way. "

Nothing occurred to me to say to the new acquaintance, who further annoyedme by clinging to my arm with a zeal unpleasantly different from Daisy'ssoft touch on the other side. I walked silent, and more or less sulky, between them down the gravelled path. Lady Berenicia chattered steadily. 

"And so this is the dear little Mistress Daisy of whom Sir William talksso much. How happy one must be to be such a favorite everywhere! And youcontent to live here, too, leading this simple, pastoral life! How sweet!And you never weary of it--never sigh when it is time to return to it fromNew York?"

"I never have been to New York, nor Albany either, " Daisy made answer. 

Lady Berenicia held up her fan in pretended astonishment. 

"Never to New York! nor even to Albany! _Une vraie belle sauvage!_ How youamaze me, poor child!"

"Oh, I crave no pity, madam, " our dear girl answered, cheerily. "My fatherand brother are so good to me--just like a true father and brother--thatif I but hinted a wish to visit the moon, they would at once set about toarrange the voyage. I do not always stay at home. Twice I have been on avisit to Mr. Campbell, at Cherry Valley, over the hills yonder. And thenonce we made a grand excursion up the river, way to Fort Herkimer, andbeyond to the place where my poor parents lost their lives. "

As we stood regarding the lilac bushes, planted in a circle on the slope, and I was congratulating myself that my elbows were free again, twogentlemen approached us from the direction of the Hall. 

Daisy was telling the story of her parents' death, which relation LadyBerenicia had urgently pressed, but now interrupted by saying: "There, that is my husband, with young Mr. Butler. "

Mr. Jonathan Cross seemed a very honest and sensible gentleman when wecame to converse with him; somewhat austere, in the presence of hisrattle-headed spouse at least, but polite and well-informed. He spokepleasantly with me, saying that he was on his way to the farther Lakecountry on business, and that his wife was to remain, until his return, atJohnson Hall. 

His companion was Walter Butler, and of him I ought to speak more closely, since long generations after this tale is forgotten his name will remainwritten, blood-red, in the Valley's chronicles. I walked away from thelilacs with him, I recall, discussing some unremembered subject. I alwaysliked Walter: even now, despite everything, there continues a soft spot inmy memory for him. 

He was about my own age, and, oh! such a handsome youth, with features cutas in a cameo, and pale-brown smooth skin, and large deep eyes, that lookupon me still sometimes in dreams with ineffable melancholy. He wassomewhat beneath my stature, but formed with perfect delicacy. 

In those old days of breeches and long hose, a man's leg went for a gooddeal. I have often thought that there must be a much closer connectionbetween trousers and democracy than has ever been publicly traced. A manlike myself, with heavy knee-joints and a thick ankle, was almost always aWhig in the Revolutionary time--as if by natural prejudice against thewould-be aristocrats, who liked to sport a straight-sinking knee-cap anddapper calf. When the Whigs, after the peace, became masters of their owncountry, and divided into parties again on their own account, it was stilllargely a matter of lower limbs. The faction which stood nearest Old-Worldideas and monarchical tastes are said to have had great delight in thesymmetry of Mr. Adams's underpinning, so daintily displayed in satin andsilk. And when the plainer majority finally triumphed with the inductionof Mr. Jefferson, some fifteen years since, was it not truly a victory ofrepublican trousers--a popular decree that henceforth all men should beequal as to legs?

To return. Walter Butler was most perfectly built--a living picture ofgrace. He dressed, too, with remarkable taste, contriving always to appearthe gentleman, yet not out of place in the wilderness. He wore his ownblack hair, carelessly tied or flowing, and with no thought of powder. 

We had always liked each other, doubtless in that we were both of a solemnand meditative nature. We had not much else in common, it is true, for hewas filled to the nostrils with pride about the Ormond-Butlers, whom heheld to be his ancestors, and took it rather hard that I should not alsobe able to revere them for upholding a false-tongued king against therights of his people. For my own part, I did not pin much faith upon hisdescent, being able to remember his grandfather, the old lieutenant, whoseemed a peasant to the marrow of his bones. 

Nor could I see any special value in the fact of descent, even were itunquestioned. Walter, it seemed to me, would do much better to work at thelaw, to which he was bred, and make a name for himself by his ownexertions. Alas, he did make a name!

But though our paths would presently diverge we still were good friends, and as we walked he told me what he had heard that day of Lady BereniciaCross. It was not much. She had been the daughter of a penniless, disreputable Irish earl, and had wedded early in life to escape thewretchedness of her paternal home. She had played quite a splendid partfor a time in the vanities of London court-life, after her husband gainedhis wealth, but had latterly found her hold upon fashion's favor loosened. Why she had accompanied her serious spouse on this rough and wearisomejourney was not clear. It might be that she came because he did not carefor her company. It might be that he thought it wisest not to leave her inLondon to her own devices. In any case, here she indubitably was, andWalter was disposed to think her rather a fine woman for her years, which he took to be about twoscore. 

 * * * * *

We strolled back again to the lilacs, where the two women were seated on abench, with Mr. Cross and Colonel Claus--the brighter and better of SirWilliam's two sons-in-law--standing over them. Lady Berenicia beckoned tomy companion with her fan. 

"Pray come and amuse us, Mr. Butler, " she said, in her high, mincingtones. "Were it not for the fear of ministering to your vanity, I mightconfess we two have been languishing for an hour for your company. Mistress Daisy and I venerate these cavaliers of ours vastly--we holdtheir grave wisdom in high regard--but our frivolous palates need lighterthings than East India Companies and political quarrels in Boston. Icommand you to discourse nonsense, Mr. Butler--pure, giddy nonsense. "

Walter bowed, and with a tinge of irony acknowledged the compliment, butall pleasantly enough. I glanced at our Daisy, expecting to discover myown distaste for this silly speech mirrored on her face. It vexed me alittle to see that she seemed instead to be pleased with the London lady. 

"What shall it be, my lady?" smiled Walter; "what shall be theshuttlecock--the May races, the ball, the Klock scandal, the--"

If it was rude, it is too late to be helped now. I interrupted the foolishtalk by asking Colonel Claus what the news from Boston was, for thepost-boy had brought papers to the Hall that morning. 

"The anniversary speech is reported. Some apothecary, named Warren, heldforth this year, and his seems the boldest tongue yet. If his talk stinksnot of treason in every line, why then I have no smelling sense. They aretalking of it in the library now; but I am no statesman, and it suits mebetter out here in the sun. "

"But, " I replied, "I have heard of this Dr. Warren, and he is not reputedto be a rash or thoughtless speaker. "

Young Butler burst into the conversation with eager bitterness:

"Thoughtless! Rash! No--the dogs know better! There'll be no word that canbe laid hold upon--all circumspect outside, with hell itself underneath. Do we not know the canters? Oh, but I'd smash through letter and seal ofthe law alike to get at them, were I in power! There'll be no peace tillsome strong hand does do it. "

Walter's deep eyes flashed and glowed as he spoke, and his face wasshadowed with grave intensity of feeling. 

There was a moment's silence--broken by the thin voice of the London lady:"_Bravo_! admirable! Always be in a rage, Mr. Butler, it suits you somuch. --Isn't he handsome, Daisy, with his feathers all on end?"

While our girl, unused to such bold talk, looked blushingly at the younggrass, Mr. Cross spoke:

"Doubtless you gentry of New York have your own good reasons for dislikingBoston men, as I find you do. But why rasp your nerves and spoil yourdigestion by so fuming over their politics? I am an Englishman: if I cankeep calm on the subject, you who are only collaterally aggrieved, as itwere, should surely be able to do so. My word for it, young men, lifebrings vexations enough to one's very door, without setting out inquest of them. "

"Pray, Mr. Cross, " languidly sneered my lady, "what is there in theheavens or on the earth, or in the waters under the earth, which couldstir your blood by one added beat an hour, save indigo and spices?"

There was so distinct a menace of domestic discord in this iced query thatButler hastened to take up the talk:

"Ah, yes, _you_ can keep cool! There are thousands of miles of waterbetween you English and the nest where this treason is hatched. It's closeto us. Do you think you can fence in a sentiment as you can cattle? No: itwill spread. Soon what is shouted in Boston will be spoken in Albany, whispered in Philadelphia, winked and nodded in Williamsburg, thought inCharleston. And how will it be here, with us? Let me tell you, Mr. Cross, we are really in an alien country here. The high Germans above us, likethat Herkimer you saw here Tuesday, do you think they care a pistareen forthe King? And these damned sour-faced Dutch traders below, have theyforgotten that this province was their grandfathers'? The moment itbecomes clear to their niggard souls that there's no money to be lost bytreason, will they not delight to help on any trouble the Yankees contriveto make for England? I tell you, sir, if you knew these Dutch as I knowthem--their silent treachery, their jealousy of us, their greed--"

This seemed to have gone far enough. "Come, you forget that I am aDutchman, " I said, putting my hand on Butler's shoulder. 

Quivering with the excitement into which he had worked himself, he shookoff my touch, and took a backward step, eying me angrily. I returned hisgaze, and I dare say it was about as wrathful as his own. 

Lady Berenicia made a diversion. "It grows cool, " she said. "Come insidewith me, Mistress Daisy, and I will show you all my chests and boxes. Mr. Cross made a great to-do about bringing them, but--"

As the ladies rose, Walter came to me with outstretched hand. "I was atfault, Douw, " said he, frankly. "Don't think more about it. "

I took his hand, though I was not altogether sure about forgetting hiswords. 

Lady Berenicia looked at us over her shoulder, as she moved away, withdisappointment mantling through the chalk on her cheeks. 

"My word! I protest they're not going to fight after all, " she said. 

Chapter IX. 

I See My Sweet Sister Dressed in Strange Attire. 

In the library room of the Hall, across from the dining-chamber, and atthe foot of the great staircase, on the bannister of which you may stillsee the marks of Joseph Brant's hatchet, we men had a long talk in theafternoon. I recall but indifferently the lesser topics of conversation. There was, of course, some political debate, in which Sir William and Iwere alone on the side of the Colonist feeling, and Mr. Stewart, the twoButlers, and Sir John Johnson were all for choking discontent with therope. Nothing very much to the point was said, on our part at least; forthe growing discord pained Sir William too deeply to allow him pleasure inits discussion, and I shrank from appearing to oppose Mr. Stewart, hatefulas his notions seemed. 

Young Sir John stood by the window, I remember, sulkily drumming on thediapered panes, and purposely making his interjections as disagreeable tome as he could; at least, I thought so. So, apparently, did his fatherthink, for several times I caught the wise old baronet glancing at his sonin reproof, with a look in his grave gray eyes as of dawning doubt aboutthe future of his heir. 

Young Johnson was now a man of thirty, blond, aquiline-faced, with coldblue eyes and thin, tight lips, which pouted more readily than theysmiled. His hair was the pale color of bleached hay, a legacy from his lowborn German mother, and his complexion was growing evenly florid from toomuch Madeira wine. We were not friends, and we both knew it. 

There was other talk--about the recent creation of our part into a countyby itself to be named after the Governor; about the behavior of the Frenchtraders at Oswego and Detroit, and a report from Europe in the latestgazettes that the "Young" Pretender, now a broken old rake, was at last tobe married. This last was a subject upon which Mr. Stewart spoke mostentertainingly, but with more willingness to let it be known that he had akinsman's interest in the matter than he would formerly have shown. He wasgetting old, in fact, and an almost childish pride in his equivocalancestry was growing upon him. Still his talk and reminiscences wereextremely interesting. 

They fade in my recollection, however, before the fact that it was at thislittle gathering, this afternoon, that my career was settled for me. Therehad been some talk about me while I remained alone outside to confer withSir William's head farmer, and Mr. Cross had agreed with Mr. Stewart andSir William that I was to accompany him on his trip to the far Westernregion the following week. My patron had explained that I needed someadded knowledge of the world and its affairs, yet was of too serious aturn to gather this in the guise of amusement, as Mr. John Butler advisedI should, by being sent on a holiday to New York. Mr. Cross had been goodenough to say that he liked what he had seen of me, and should be glad ofmy company. 

Of all this I knew nothing when I entered the library. The air was heavywith tobacco-smoke, and the table bore more bottles and glassesthan books. 

"Find a chair, Douw, " said Sir William. "I have sent for my man, EnochWade, who is to go westward with Mr, Cross next week. If he's drunk enoughthere'll be some sport. "

There entered the room a middle-aged man, tall, erect, well-knit in frame, with a thin, Yankeeish face, deeply browned, and shrewd hazel eyes. Hebowed to nobody, but stood straight, looking like an Indian in his clothesof deer-hide. 

"This is Enoch Wade, gentlemen, " said the baronet, indicating thenew-comer with a wave of his glass, and stretching out his legs to enjoythe scene the more. "He is my land-sailor. Between his last sale atAlbany, and his first foot westward from here, he professes all the vicesand draws never a sober breath. Yet when he is in the woods he isabstemious, amiable, wise, resourceful, virtuous as a statue--a paragon oftrappers. You can see him for yourselves. Yet, I warn you, appearances aredeceitful; he is always drunker than he looks. He was, I know, mostsinfully tipsy last night. "

"It was in excellent good company, General, " said the hunter, drawling hiswords and no whit abashed. 

"He has no manners to speak of, " continued the baronet, evidently withmuch satisfaction to himself; "he can outlie a Frontenac half-breed, he ismore greedy of gain than a Kinderhook Dutchman, he can drink all theMohawks of both castles under the bench, and my niggers are veritableJosephs in comparison with him--wait a moment, Enoch!--this is while he isin contact with civilization. Yet once on the trail, so to speak, he isprobity personified. I know this, since he has twice accompanied meto Detroit. "

"Oh, in the woods, you know, some one of the party must remain sober, "said Enoch, readily, still stiffly erect, but with a faint grin twitchingon the saturnine corners of his mouth. 

This time Sir William laughed aloud, and pointed to a decanter and glass, from which the trapper helped himself with dignity. 

"Look you, rogue, " said the host, "there is a young gentleman to be addedto your party next week, and doubtless he will of needs have a nigger withhim. See to it that the boat and provision arrangements are altered tomeet this, and to-morrow be sober enough to advise him as to his outfit. For to-night, soak as deep as you like. "

Enoch poured out for himself a second tumbler of rum, but not showing thefirst signs of unsteadiness in gait or gesture. 

"This young gentleman"--he said, gravely smacking his lips--"about him; ishe a temperate person, one of the sort who can turn a steadfast back uponthe bottle?"

A burst of Homeric laughter was Sir William's reply--laughter in whichall were fain to join. 

"It's all right, General, " said Enoch, as he turned to go; "don't mind myasking. One never can tell, you know, what kind of company he is like topick up with here at the Hall. "

 * * * * *

My surprise and delight when I learned that I was the young gentleman inquestion, and that I was really to go to the Lakes and beyond, may beimagined. I seemed to walk on air, so great was my elation. You will notmarvel now that I fail to recall very distinctly the general talkwhich followed. 

Conversation finally lagged, as the promptings of hunger, not less thanthe Ethiopian shouting and scolding from the kitchen below, warned us ofapproaching dinner. 

The drinking moderated somewhat, and the pipes were one by one laid aside, in tacit preparation for the meal. The Butlers rose to go, and werepersuaded to remain. Mr. Stewart, who had an Old-World prejudice againsttippling during the day, was induced by the baronet to taste a thimble ofhollands, for appetite's sake. So we waited, with only a decent pretenceof interest in the fitful talk. 

There came a sharp double knock on the door, which a second later waspushed partly open. Some of us rose, pulling our ruffles into place, andready to start at once, for there were famous appetites in the wild Valleyof those days. But the voice from behind the door was not a servant's, nordid it convey the intelligence we all awaited. It was, instead, thesharp, surface voice of Lady Berenicia, and it said:

"We are weary of waiting for you in civilized quarters of the Hall. May wecome in here, or are you too much ashamed of your vices to courtinspection?"

Walter Butler hastened to open the door, bowing low as he did so, anddelivering himself of some gallant nonsense or other. 

The London lady entered the room with a mincing, kittenish affectation ofcarriage, casting bold smirks about her, like an Italian dancer. 

If her morning attire had seemed over-splendid, what shall I say of herappearance now? I looked in amazement upon her imposing tower of whitenedhair, upon the great fluffs of lace, the brocaded stomacher and train, theshining satin petticoat front, the dazzling, creamy surfaces of throat andshoulders and forearms, all rather freely set forth. 

If the effect was bewildering, it was not unpleasant. The smoke-laden airof the dim old room seemed suddenly clarified, made radiant. A movement ofchairs and of their occupants ran through the chamber, like a murmur ofapplause, as we rose to greet the resplendent apparition. But there came averitable outburst of admiration when my lady's companion appearedin view. 

It was our Daisy, robed like a princess, who dawned upon our vision. Shewas blushing as much from embarrassment as from novel pride, yet managedto keep her pretty head up, smiling at us all, and to bear herselfwith grace. 

Lady Berenicia, from the wealth of finery in those bulky chests whichhonest Mr. Cross in vain had protested against bringing over the ocean andup to this savage outpost, had tricked out the girl in wondrous fashion. Her gown was not satin, like the other, but of a soft, lustreless stuff, whose delicate lavender folds fell into the sweetest of violet shadows. Iwas glad to see that her neck and arms were properly covered. The laces onthe sleeves were tawny with age; the ribbon by which the little whiteshawl was decorously gathered at the bosom carried the faint suggestion ofyellow to a distinct tone, repeated and deepened above by the color of themaiden's hair. This hair, too, was a marvel of the dresser's art--rearedstraight and tight from the forehead over a high-arched roll, and losingstrictness of form behind in ingenious wavy curls, which seemed the verytriumph of artlessness; it was less wholly powdered than Lady Berenicia's, so that the warm gold shone through the white dust in soft gradations ofhalf tints; at the side, well up, was a single salmon tea-rose, thatserved to make everything else more beautiful. 

Picture to yourself this delicious figure--this face which had seemedlovely before, and now, with deft cosmetics, and a solitary tiny patch, and the glow of exquisite enjoyment in the sweet hazel eyes, was nothingless than a Greuze's dream--picture our Daisy to yourself, I say, and youmay guess in part how flattering was her reception, how high and fast rosethe gallant congratulations that the Valley boasted such a beauteousdaughter. Sir William himself gave her his arm, jovially protesting thatthis was not the Mohawk country, but France--not Johnson Hall, butVersailles. 

I came on at the tail of the dinner procession, not quite easy in my mindabout all this. 

Chapter X. 

The Masquerade Brings Me Nothing but Pain. 

There were, in all, ten of us at the table. Sir William beamed upon usfrom the end nearest the windows, with Daisy on his left hand and theLondon dame on the other--in the place of distinction to which she was, Isuppose, entitled. Below Lady Berenicia sat Mr. Stewart, Sir John, andWalter Butler. I was on the left side below Mr. Cross. These details comeback to me as if they were of yesterday, when I think of that dinner. 

I could not see Daisy from where I sat, but all through the meal I watchedthe effect she was producing upon those opposite us. To do her justice, Lady Berenicia seemed to have no alloy of jealousy in the delight withwhich she regarded the result of her handiwork. Mr. Stewart could not keephis fond eyes off the girl; they fairly glowed with satisfied pride andaffection. Both Sir John and Walter gave more attention to our beautifulmaiden than they did to their plates, and both faces told an open tale ofadmiration, each after its kind. 

There was plenty of gay talk at the head of the table--merry chatter ofwhich I recall nothing, save vaguely that it was about the triumph of artover unadorned nature at which we were assisting. 

Mr. Cross and I bore our small part in the celebration in silence for atime. Then we fell to talking quietly of the journey upon which we were sosoon to embark; but our minds were not on the subject, and after a littleits discussion lapsed. All at once he said, as if speaking the thoughtswhich tied my tongue:

"To my mind the young woman is not improved by these furbelows andfal-lals my wife has put upon her. What wit or reason is there in ahomely, sensible little maiden like this--a pretty flower growing, as Goddesigned it to, in modest sweetness on its own soil--being garnished outin the stale foppery of the last London season?"

"But it is only a masquerade, sir, " I pleaded--as much to my own judgmentas to his--"and it does make her very beautiful, does it not?"

"She _was_ beautiful before, " he replied, in the same low tones. "Can afew trumpery laces and ribbons, a foolish patch, a little powder, affectwhat is real about a woman, think you? And do any but empty heads valueunreal things?"

"True enough, sir; but this is nothing more than harmless pleasantry. Women are that way. See how pleased she is--how full of smiles andhappiness she seems. It's a dull sort of life here in the woods. PoorDaisy, she sees so little of gayety, it would be cruel to begrudge herthis innocent pleasure. "

"Innocent--yes, no doubt; but, do you know, she will never be the samegirl again. She will never feel quite the same pretty little MistressDaisy, in her woollen gown and her puttical kerchief. She will never getthe taste of this triumph out of her mouth. You do not know women, youngman, as I do. I have studied the sex in a very celebrated and costlyschool. Mark my words, ideas have been put into her head that will nevercome out. "

I tried to believe that this was not so. "Ah, " I said, "to know otherwomen is not to know our Daisy. Why, she is good sense itself--so prudentand modest and thoughtful that she makes the other girls roundabout seemall hoydens or simpletons. She has read the most serious books--neveranything else. Her heart is as good as her mind is rich. Never fear, Mr. Cross! not all the silks in China or velvets in Genoa could turn herdear head. "

He smiled, somewhat compassionately I thought, and made no answer. 

Was I so firm in my faith, after all? The doubt rose in my thoughts, andwould not down, as the gallant talk flowed and bubbled around me. _Would_this Daisy be quite the same next day, or next week, singing to us at theold harpsichord in the twilight, with the glare of the blaze on the hearthmaking red gold of that hair, plaited once more in simple braids? I triedwith all my might to call up this sweet familiar figure before my mentalvision: it would not freely come. 

She was laughing now, with a clear ripple of joyousness, at some passingquip between our host and sharp-tongued Lady Berenicia, both of whomemployed pretty liberally their Irish knack of saying witty, bitingthings. The sound came strangely to my ears, as if it were some other thanDaisy laughing. 

I was still in this brown study when Sir William called the health of theladies, with some jocose words of compliment to them, congratulation toourselves. I rose mechanically after the other gentlemen, glass in hand, to hear Mr. Stewart make pleasant and courtly acknowledgment, and to seethe two women pass out in a great rustling of draperies and hoops, withWalter Butler holding open the door and bowing profoundly. The faint scentof powder left on the air annoyed me, as something stifling those thoughtsof the good little adopted sister, whom I had brought to the Hall and lostthere, which I would fain dwell upon. 

We sat over our Madeira and pipes longer than usual. Candles were broughtin by Sir William's young body-servant Pontiac, for there was a full moon, and we might thus prolong our stay after nightfall. The talk was chieflyabout our coming trip--a very serious undertaking. Sir William and Mr. Butler had adventures of their own early trading days to recall, and theygave us great stores of advice drawn from experience, and ranging fromchoice of shirts and spirits to needful diplomacy with the Algonquinsand Sakis. 

Then the company drank the health of Mr. Cross, and were good enough tocouple mine with it. A comical little yellow boy danced for us before thehearth--an admiring wall of black faces and rolling white eyeballs fillingup the open door meanwhile. Walter Butler sang a pretty song--everybody, negroes and all, swelling the chorus. Rum was brought in, and mixed in hotglasses, with spice, molasses, and scalding water from the kettle on thecrane. So evening deepened to night; but I never for a moment, not evenwhen they drank my health, shook off the sense of unrest born of Daisy'smasquerade. 

It was Molly Brant herself, nobly erect and handsome in her dark, sinisterway, who came to us with word that the moon was up over the pine-ridgedhills, and that Mistress Daisy was attired for the homeward ride, and waiting. 

Of all the pictures in Memory's portfolio, none is more distinct than thisof the departure that evening from the Hall. A dozen negroes were aboutthe steps, two or three mounted ready to escort us home, others bearinghorn lanterns which the moonlight darkened into inutility, still otherspulling the restive horses about on the gravel. Mr. Stewart swung himselfinto the saddle, and Daisy stepped out to mount behind him. She wore herown garments once more, but there was just a trace of powder on the hairunder the hood, and the patch was still on her chin. I moved forward tolift her to the pillion as I had done hundreds of times before, but shedid not see me. Instead, I was almost pushed away by the rush of Sir Johnand young Butler to her side, both eager to assist. It was the knight, flushed and a little unsteady with wine, who won the privilege, and heldDaisy's foot. I climbed into my saddle moodily, getting offence out ofeven this. 

So we rode away, pursued down the path to the lilacs by shouts of"Good-night! Safe home!" Looking back to lift my hat for the last adieu, Isaw the honest old baronet, bareheaded in the clear moonlight, waving hishand from the lowest step, with Lady Berenicia and the others standingabove him, outlined upon the illumined doorway, and the negroes grouped oneither side, obscurely gesticulating in the shadows of the broad, darkfront of the Hall, which glowed against the white sky. 

As I recall the scene, it seems to me that then and there I said farewell, not alone to pleasant friends, but to the Daisy of my childhood and youth. 

 * * * * *

The Hall slaves rode well ahead in the narrow road; we could just hearfaintly the harmony of the tune they were humming in concert, as one hearsthe murmur of an Æolian harp. As a guard, they were of course ridiculous:the veriest suspicion of peril would have sent them all gallopinghelter-skelter, with frantic shrieks of fright. But the road was perfectlysafe, and these merry fellows were to defend us from loneliness, not danger. 

I did indeed rest my free hand on the pistol in my holster as I joggedalong close behind the old gray horse and his double burden; but the actwas more an unconscious reflection of my saturnine mood, I fear, than arecognition of need. There was every reason why I should dwell withdelight upon the prospect opening before me--upon the idea of the greatjourney so close at hand; but I scarcely thought of it at all, and I wasnot happy. The moon threw a jaundiced light over my mind, and in itsdiscolored glare I saw things wrongly, and with gratuitous pain to myself. 

In fact, my brooding was the creature of the last few hours, born of achildish pique. But as I rode gloomily silent behind my companions, itseemed as if I had long suffered a growing separation from them. "Three isa clumsy number, " I said to myself, "in family affection not less than inlove; there was never any triad of friends since the world began, nomatter how fond their ties, in which two did not build a little interiorcourt of thoughts and sympathies from which the third was shut out. Thesetwo people whom I hold dearer than everything else on earth--this goodgentleman to whom I owe all, this sweet girl who has grown up frombabyhood in my heart--would scout the idea that there was any line ofdivision running through our household. They do not see it--cannot see it. Yet they have a whole world of ideas and sentiments in common, a wholeworld of communion, which I may never enter. "

This was what, in sulky, inchoate fashion, I said to myself, under thespur of the jealous spirits which sometimes get rein over the thoughts ofthe best of us. And it was all because the London woman had tricked outour Daisy, for but a little hour or two, in the presentment of acourt lady!

Conversation went briskly forward, meanwhile, from the stout back of thegray horse. 

"Did you note, papa, how white and soft her hands were?" said Daisy. "Mine were so red beside them! It is working in the garden, I believe, although Mary Johnson always wore gloves when she was out among theflowers and vegetables, and her hands were red, too. And Lady Bereniciawas so surprised to learn that I had never read any of the romances whichthey write now in England! She says ladies in London, and in the provincestoo, do not deem themselves fit to converse unless they keep abreast ofall these. She has some of them in her chests, and there are others in theHall, she has found, and I am to read them, and welcome. "

"You are old enough now, my girl, " replied Mr. Stewart. "They seem to meto be trivial enough things, but no doubt they have their use. I would nothave you seem as inferior to other ladies in knowledge of the matters theytalk of, as they are inferior to you in honest information. "

"How interested she was when I told her of the serious books I read, andof my daily occupations--moulding the candles, brewing the beer, cardingwool, making butter, and then caring for the garden! She had never seencelery in trenches, she said, and would not know beans from gourds if shesaw them growing. It seems that in England ladies have nothing to do withtheir gardens--when, indeed, they have any at all--save to pluck a rosenow and then, or give tea to their gentlemen under the shrubbery when itis fine. And I told her of our quilting and spinning bees, and thecoasting on clear winter evenings, and of watching the blacks on Pinksternight, and the picnics in the woods, and she vowed London had nopleasures like them. She was jesting though, I think. Oh, shall we ever goto London, papa?"

"By all means, let us go, " chuckled Mr. Stewart. "You would see somethingthere she never saw--my grizzled old head upon Temple Bar. Shall we be offto-morrow? My neck tingles with anticipation. "

"Old tease!" laughed Daisy, patting his shoulder. "You know there havebeen no heads put there since long before I was born. Never flatteryourself that they would begin again now with yours. They've forgottenthere was ever such a body as you. "

"Faith! the world doesn't go round so fast as you young people think. Onlyto-day I read in the London mail that two months ago one of the polls thathad been there since '46 fell down; but if it was Fletcher's or Townley'sno one can tell--like enough not even they themselves by this time. Sothere's a vacant spike now for mine. No, child--I doubt these old boneswill ever get across the sea again. But who knows?--it may be your fortuneto go some time. "

"Lady Berenicia says I must come to the Hall often, papa, while she isthere, " said the girl, returning to the subject which bewitched her; "andyou must fetch me, of course. She admires you greatly; she says gentlemenin London have quite lost the fine manner that you keep up here, with yourbow and your compliments. You must practise them on me now. We are to keepeach other company as much as possible, she and I, while her husband andDouw go off together. You should have seen her mimic them--the twosolemn, long-faced men boring each other in the depths of the wilderness. "

The talk had at last got around to me. Daisy laughed gayly at recollectionof the London woman's jesting. Surely never a more innocent, lessmalicious laugh came from a maiden's merry lips, but it fell sourly onmy ears. 

"It is easy for people to be clever who do not scruple to bedisagreeable, " I said, without much relevancy. 

"What is this, Douw?" Mr. Stewart turned half-way in his saddle andglanced inquiry back at me. "What is wrong with you? You were as glum allthe evening long as a Tuscarora. Isn't the trip with Mr. Cross toyour liking?"

"Oh, ay! I shall be glad to go. "

It was on my perverse tongue's end to add the peevish thought that nobodywould specially miss me, but I held it back. 

"He has had a perfect Dutch fit on to-day, " said Daisy, with good-naturedsisterly frankness; "for all the world such as old Hon Yost Polhemus haswhen his yeast goes bitter. Whenever I looked down the table to him, atdinner, he was scowling across at poor Walter Butler or Sir John, as if hewould presently eat them both. He was the only one who failed to tell me Ilooked well in the--the citified costume. "

"Rather say I was the only one whose opinion you did not care for. "

She was too sweet-tempered to take umbrage at my morose rejoinder, andwent on with her mock-serious catalogue of my crimes:

"And what do you think, papa? Who should it be but our patient, equableMaster Douw that was near quarrelling with Walter Butler, out by thelilacs, this very morning--and in the presence of ladies, too. "

"No one ever saw me quarrel, 'ladies' or anybody else, " I replied. 

"Faith! then I did myself, " Mr. Stewart laughingly called out. "And it wasbefore a lady too--or the small beginnings of one. I saw him with my owneyes, Daisy, get knocked into the ashes by a young man, and jump up andrun at him with both fists out--and all on your account, too, my lady;and then--"

"Oh, I am reminded!"

It was Daisy who cried out, and with visible excitement. Then she clappedher hand to her mouth with a pretty gesture; then she said:

"Or no! I will not tell you yet. It is so famous a secret, it must comeout little by little. Tell me, papa, did you know that this Mr. Cross upat the Hall--Lady Berenicia's husband--is a cousin to the old Major whobrought me to you, out of the rout at Kouarie?"

"Is _that_ your secret, miss? I knew it hours ago. "

"How wise! And perhaps you knew that the Major became a Colonel, and thena General, and died last winter, poor man. "

"Alas, yes, poor Tony! I heard that too from his cousin. Heigh-ho! We allwalk that way. "

Daisy bent forward to kiss the old man. "Not you, for many a long year, papa. And now tell me, did not this Major--_my_ Major, though I do notremember him--take up a patent of land here, or hereabouts, through SirWilliam, while he was on this side of the water?"

"Why, we should be on his land now, " said Mr. Stewart, reining up thehorse. 

We sat thus in the moonlight while he pointed out to us, as nearly as heknew them, the confines of the Cross patent. To the left of us, over atract covered thick with low, gnarled undergrowth, the estate stretchedbeyond the brow of the hill, distant a mile or more. On our right, maskedby a dense tangle of fir-boughs, lay a ravine, also a part of theproperty. We could hear, as we passed there, the gurgle of the waterrunning at the gulf's bottom, on its way to the great leap over the rockwall, farther down, of which I have already written. 

"Yes, this was what Tony Cross took up. I doubt he ever saw it. Why do youask, girl?"

"_Now_ for my secret, " said Daisy. "The Major's elder son, Digby, inheritsthe English house and lands. The other son, Philip--the boy you foughtwith, Douw--is given this American land, and money to clear and settle it. He sailed with the others--he is in New York--he is coming here to live!"

"We'll make him welcome, " cried Mr. Stewart, heartily. 

"I hope his temper is bettered since last he was here, " was the civillestcomment I could screw my tongue to. 

Clouds dimmed the radiance of the moon, threatening darkness, and wequickened our pace. There was no further talk on the homeward ride. 

Chapter XI. 

As I Make My Adieux Mr. Philip Comes In. 

When the eventful day of departure came, what with the last packing, thesearches to see that nothing should be forgotten, the awkwardness andslowness of hands unnerved by the excitement of a great occasion, it washigh noon before I was ready to start. I stood idly in the hall, while myaunt put final touches to my traps, my mind swinging like a pendulumbetween fear that Mr. Cross, whom I was to join at Caughnawaga, would bevexed at my delay, and genuine pain at leaving my dear home and itsinmates, now that the hour had arrived. 

I had made my farewells over at my mother's house the previous day, dutifully kissing her and all the sisters who happened to be at home, butwithout much emotion on either side. Blood is thicker than water, theadage runs. Perhaps that is why it flowed so calmly in all our Dutch veinswhile we said good-by. But here in my adopted home--my true home--my heartquivered and sank at thought of departure. 

"I could not have chosen a better or safer man for you to travel with thanJonathan Cross, " Mr. Stewart was saying to me. "He does not look on allthings as I do, perhaps, for our breeding was as different as the desk isdifferent from the drum. But he is honest and courteous, well informedafter his way, and as like what you will be later on as two peas in a pod. You were born for a trader, a merchant, a man of affairs; and you will beat a good school with him. "

He went on in his grave, affectionate manner, telling me in a hundredindirect ways that I belonged to the useful rather than to the ornamentalorder of mankind, with never a thought in his good heart of wounding myfeelings, or of letting me know that in his inmost soul he would havepreferred me to be a soldier or an idler with race-horses and a velvetcoat. Nor did he wound me, for I had too great a love for him, and yetfelt too thorough a knowledge of myself to allow the two to clash. Ilistened silently, with tears almost ready at my eyes, but with thoughtsvagrantly straying from his words to the garden outside. 

Tulp was to go with me, and his parents and kin were filling the air withadvice and lamentations in about equal measure, and all in the major key. Their shouts and wailing--they could not have made more ado if he had justbeen sold to Jamaica--came through the open door. It was not of this din Ithought, though, nor of the cart which the negroes, while they wept, werepiling high with my goods, and which I could see in the highway beyond. 

I was thinking of Daisy, my sweet sister, who had gone into the garden togather a nosegay for me. 

Through the door I could see her among the bushes, her lithe form bendingin the quest of blossoms. Were it midsummer, I thought, and the gardenfilled with the whole season's wealth of flowers, it could hold nothingmore beautiful than she. Perhaps there was some shadow of my moody fit, the evening after the dinner at the Hall, remaining to sadden my thoughtsof parting from her. I cannot tell. I only know that they were indeed sadthoughts. I caught myself wondering if she would miss me much--this deargirl who had known no life in which I had not had daily share. Yes, thetears _were_ coming, I felt. I wrung my good old patron's hand, and turnedmy head away. 

There came a clattering of hoofs on the road and the sound of male voices. Tulp ran in agape with the tidings that Sir John and a strange gentlemanhad ridden up, and desired to see Mr. Stewart. We at once walked out tothe garden, a little relieved perhaps by the interruption. 

Both visitors had had time to alight and leave their horses outside thewall. The younger Johnson stood in the centre path of the garden, presenting his companion to Daisy, who, surprised at her task, and withher back to us, was courtesying. Even to the nape of her neck shewas blushing. 

There was enough for her to blush at. The stranger was bowing very low, putting one hand up to his breast. With the other he had taken her fingersand raised them formally to his lips. This was not a custom in our parts. Sir William did it now and then on state occasions, but young men, particularly strangers, did not. 

As we advanced, this gallant morning-caller drew himself up and turnedtoward us. You may be sure I looked him over attentively. 

I have seen few handsomer young men. In a way, so far as light hair, blueeyes, ruddy and regular face went, he was not unlike Sir John. But he wasmuch taller, and his neck and shoulders were squared proudly--a trickJohnson never learned. The fine effect of his figure was enhanced by afawn-colored top-coat, with a graceful little cape falling over theshoulders. His clothes beneath, from the garnet coat with mother-of-pearlbuttons down to his shining Hessians, all fitted him as if he had been runinto them as into a mould. He held his hat, a glossy sugar-loaf beaver, inone hand, along with whip and gloves. The other hand, white and shapely inits ruffles, he stretched out now toward Mr. Stewart with a free, pleasant gesture. 

"With my father's oldest friend, " he said, "I must not wait for ceremony. I am Philip Cross, from England, and I hope you will be my friend, sir, now that my father is gone. "

That this speech found instant favor need not be doubted. Mr. Stewartshook him again and again by the hand, and warmly bade him welcome to theValley and the Cedars a dozen times in as many breaths. Young Crossmanaged to explain between these cordial ejaculations, that he hadjourneyed up from New York with the youthful Stephen Watts--to whosesister Sir John was already betrothed; that they had reached Guy Park theprevious evening; that Watts was too wearied this morning to think ofstirring out, but that hardly illness itself could have prevented him, Cross, from promptly paying his respects to his father's ancient comrade. 

The young man spoke easily and fluently, looking Mr. Stewart frankly inthe eye, with smiling sincerity in glance and tone. He went on:

"How changed everything is roundabout!--all save you, who look scarcelyolder or less strong. When I was here as a boy it was winter, cold andbleak. There was a stockade surrounded by wilderness then, I remember, anda log-house hardly bigger than the fireplace inside it. Where we stand nowthe ground was covered with brush and chips, half hidden by snow. Now--_presto!_ there is a mansion in the midst of fields, and a gardenneatly made, and"--turning with a bow to Daisy--"a fair mistress for themall, who would adorn any palace or park in Europe, and whom I remember asa frightened little baby, with stockings either one of which would haveheld her entire. "

"I saw the cart laden outside, " put in Sir John, "and fancied perhaps weshould miss you. "

"Why, no, " said Mr. Stewart; "I had forgotten for the moment that this wasa house of mourning. Douw is starting to the Lake country this very day. Mr. Cross, you must remember my boy, my Douw?"

The young Englishman turned toward me, as I was indicated by Mr. Stewart'sgesture. He looked me over briefly, with a half-smile about his eyes, nodded to me, and said:

"You were the Dutch boy with the apron, weren't you?"

I assented by a sign of the head, as slight as I could politely make it. 

"Oh, yes, I recall you quite distinctly. I used to make my brother Digbylaugh by telling about your aprons. He made quite a good picture of you inone of them, drawn from my descriptions. We had a fort of snow, too, didwe not? and I beat you, or you me, I forget which. I got snow down theback of my neck, I know, and shivered all the way to the fort. "

He turned lightly at this to Mr. Stewart, and began conversation again. Iwent over to where Daisy stood, by the edge of the flower-bed. 

"I must go now, dear sister, " I said. The words were choking me. 

We walked slowly to the house, she and I. When I had said good-by to myaunt, and gathered together my hat, coats, and the like, I stoodspeechless, looking at Daisy. The moment was here, and I had no word forit which did not seem a mockery. 

She raised herself on tiptoe to be kissed. "Good-by, big brother, " shesaid, softly. "Come back to us well and strong, and altogether homesick, won't you? It will not be like home, without you, to either of us. "

And so the farewells were all made, and I stood in the road prepared tomount. Tulp was already on the cart, along with another negro who was tobring back my horse and the vehicle after we had embarked in the boats. There was nothing more to say--time pressed--yet I lingered dumb andirresolute. At the moment I seemed to be exchanging everything fornothing--committing domestic suicide. I looked at them both, the girl andthe old man, with the gloomy thought that I might never lay eyes on themagain. I dare say I wore my grief upon my face, for Mr. Stewart triedcheerily to hearten me with, "Courage, lad! We shall all be waiting foryou, rejoiced to welcome you back safe and sound. "

Daisy came to me now again, as I put my hand on the pommel, and pinnedupon my lapel some of the pale blue blossoms she had gathered. 

"There's 'rosemary for remembrance, '" she murmured. "Poor Ophelia couldscarce have been sadder than we feel, Douw, at your going. "

"And may I be decorated too--for remembrance' sake?" asked handsome youngPhilip Cross, gayly. 

"Surely, sir, " the maiden answered, with a smile of sweet sorrowfulness. "You have a rightful part in the old memories--in a sense, perhaps, thegreatest part of all. "

"Ay, you two were friends before ever you came to us, dear, " said Mr. Stewart. 

So as I rode away, with smarting eyes and a heart weighing like lead, mylast picture of the good old home was of Daisy fastening flowers on theyoung Englishman's breast, just as she had put these of mine intheir place. 

Chapter XII. 

Old-Time Politics Pondered Under the Forest Starlight. 

Among the numerous books which at one time of another I had resolved towrite, and which the evening twilight of my life finds still unwritten, was one on Fur-trading. This volume, indeed, came somewhat nearer to astate of actual existence than any of its unborn brethren, since I haveyet a great store of notes and memoranda gathered for its construction inearlier years. My other works, such as the great treatise on AstronomicalDelusions--which Herschel and La Place afterward rendered unnecessary--andthe "History of the Dutch in America, " never even progressed to this pointof preparation. I mention this to show that I resist a genuine temptationnow in deciding not to put into this narrative a great deal about myexperiences in, and information concerning, the almost trackless West ofmy youth. My diary of this first and momentous journey with Mr. JonathanCross, yellow with age and stained by damp and mildew, lies here beforeme; along with it are many odd and curious incidents and reflectionsjotted down, mirroring that strange, rude, perilous past which seems sofar away to the generation now directing a safe and almost eventlesscommerce to the Pacific and the Gulf. But I will draw from my stock onlythe barest outlines, sufficient to keep in continuity the movement ofmy story. 

When we reached Caughnawaga Mr. Cross and his party were waiting for us atthe trading store of my godfather, good old Douw Fonda. I was relieved tolearn that I had not delayed them; for it was still undecided, I found, whether we should all take to the river here, or send the boats forwardwith the men, and ourselves proceed to the Great Carrying Place at FortStanwix by the road. Although it was so early in the season, the Mohawkran very low between its banks. Major Jelles Fonda, the eldest son of mygodfather, and by this time the true head of the business, had onlyreturned from the Lakes, and it was by his advice that we settled uponriding and carting as far as we could, and leaving the lightened boats tofollow. So we set out in the saddle, my friend and I, stopping one nightwith crazy old John Abeel--he who is still remembered as the father of theSeneca half-breed chieftain Corn-Planter--and the next night withHonnikol Herkimer. 

This man, I recall, greatly impressed Mr. Cross. We were now in anexclusively German section of the Valley, where no Dutch and very littleEnglish was to be heard. Herkimer himself conversed with us in a dialectthat must often have puzzled my English friend, though he gravely forboreshowing it. I had known Colonel Herkimer all my life; doubtless it wasthis familiarity with his person and speech which had prevented myrecognizing his real merit, for I was not a little surprised when Mr. Cross said to me that night: "Our host is one of the strongest and mostsagacious men I have ever encountered in the Colonies; he is worth athousand of your Butlers or Sir Johns. "

It became clear in later years that my friend was right. I remember that Iregarded the hospitable Colonel, at breakfast next morning, with a closerand more respectful attention than ever before, but it was not easy todiscern any new elements of greatness in his talk. 

Herkimer was then a middle-aged, undersized man, very swart andsharp-eyed, and with a quick, almost vehement way of speaking. It took notime at all to discover that he watched the course of politics in theColonies pretty closely, and was heart and soul on the anti-English side. One thing which he said, in his effort to make my friend understand thedifference between his position and the more abstract and educateddiscontent of New England and Virginia, sticks in my memory. 

"We Germans, " he said, "are not like the rest. Our fathers and mothersremember their sufferings in the old country, kept ragged and hungry andwretched, in such way as my negroes do not dream of, all that somescoundrel baron might have gilding on his carriage, and that the Electormight enjoy himself in his palace. They were beaten, hanged, robbed oftheir daughters, worked to death, frozen by the cold in their nakedness, dragged off into the armies to be sold to any prince who could pay fortheir blood and broken bones. The French who overran the Palatinate werebad enough; the native rulers were even more to be hated. The exiles ofour race have not forgotten this; they have told it all to us, theirchildren and grandchildren born here in this Valley. We have made a newhome for ourselves over here, and we owe no one but God anything for it. If they try to make here another aristocracy over us, then we will diefirst before we will submit. "

The case for the Mohawk Valley's part in the great revolt has never beenmore truly stated, I think, than it was thus, by the rough, uneducated, little frontier trader, in his broken English, on that May morning yearsbefore the storm broke. 

We rode away westward in the full sunshine that morning, in high spirits. The sky was pure blue overhead; the birds carolled from every clump offoliage about us; the scenery, to which Mr. Cross paid much delightedattention, first grew nobly wild and impressive when we skirted the LittleFalls--as grand and gloomy in its effect of towering jagged cliffs andfoaming cataracts as one of Jacob Ruysdael's pictures--and then softenedinto a dream of beauty as it spread out before us the smiling, emboweredexpanses of the German Flatts. Time and time again my companion and Ireined up our horses to contemplate the charms of this lovely scene. 

We had forded the river near Fort Herkimer, where old Hon Yost Herkimer, the father of the Colonel, lived, and were now once more on the northside. From an open knoll I pointed out to my friend, by the apple and pearblossoms whitening the deserted orchards, the site of the Palatines'village where Daisy's father had been killed, fifteen years ago, in themidnight rout and massacre. 

"It was over those hills that the French stole in darkness. Back yonder, at the very ford we crossed, her poor mother was trampled under foot anddrowned in the frightened throng. It was at the fort there, where we hadthe buttermilk and _Kuchen, _ that your cousin, Major Cross, found thelittle girl. I wonder if he ever knew how deeply grateful to him wewere--and are. "

This brought once more to my mind--where indeed it had often enough beforeintruded itself--the recollection of young Philip's arrival at the Cedars. For some reason I had disliked to speak of it before, but now I told Mr. Cross of it as we walked our horses along over the rough, muddy road, under the arching roof of thicket. 

"I'll be bound Mr. Stewart welcomed him with open arms, " said mycompanion. 

"Ay, indeed! No son could have asked a fonder greeting. "

"Yes, the lad is very like his mother; that of itself would suffice towarm the old gentleman's heart. You knew he was a suitor for her hand longbefore Tony Cross ever saw her?"

I didn't know this, but I nodded silently. 

"Curious creature she was, " mused he, as if to himself. "Selfish, suspicious, swift to offence, jealous of everything and everybody abouther--yet with moods when she seemed to all she met the most amiable anddelightful of women. She had her fine side, too. She would have given herlife gladly for the success of the Jacobites, of that I'm sure. Andproud!--no duchess could have carried her head higher. "

"You say her son is very like her?"

"As like as two leaves on a twig. Perhaps he has something of his father'sIrish openness of manner as well. His father belonged to the younger, whatwe call the Irish, branch of our family, you know, though it is as Englishin the matter of blood as I am. We were only second cousins, in point offact, and his grandfather was set up in Ireland by the bounty of mine. YetMaster Philip condescends to me, patronizes me, as if the case had beenreversed. "

Mr. Cross did not speak as if he at all resented this, but in a calm, analytical manner, and with a wholly impersonal interest. I have neverknown another man who was so totally without individual bias, and regardedall persons and things with so little reference to his own feelings. If hehad either prejudices or crotchets on any point, I never discovered them. He was, I feel assured, a scrupulously honest and virtuous gentleman, yethe never seemed to hate people who were not so. He was careful not to letthem get an advantage over him, but for the rest he studied them andobserved their weaknesses and craft, with the same quiet interest hedisplayed toward worthier objects. A thoroughly equable nature washis--with little capacity for righteous indignation on the one side, andno small tendencies toward envy or peevishness on the other. There was nota wrinkle on his calm countenance, nor any power of angry flashing in hissteadfast, wide-apart, gray eyes. But his tongue could cut deepon occasion. 

We were now well beyond the last civilized habitation in the Valley of theMohawk, and we encamped that night above the bank of a little rivulet thatcrossed the highway some four miles to the east of Fort Stanwix. Tulp andthe Dutchman, Barent Coppernol, whom Mr. Cross had brought along, partially unpacked the cart, and set to with their axes. Soon there hadbeen constructed a shelter for us, half canvas, half logs and brush, undera big beech-tree which stood half-way up the western incline from thebrook, and canopied with its low boughs a smooth surface of clear ground. We had supper here, and then four huge night-fires were built as an outerwall of defence, and Barent went to sleep, while young Tulp, crouching andcrooning by the blaze, began his portion of the dreary watch to keep upthe fires. 

We lay awake for a long time on our bed of hemlock twigs and brake, wellwrapped up, our heads close to the beech-trunk, our knees raised to keepthe fierce heat of the flames from our faces. From time to time we heardthe barking of the wolves, now distant, now uncomfortably near. When themoon came up, much later, the woods seemed alive with strange vocal noisesand ominous rustlings in the leaves and brakes. It was my Londoncompanion's first night in the open wilderness; but while he was veryacute to note new sounds and inquire their origin, he seemed to be in nodegree nervous. 

We talked of many things, more particularly, I remember, of what Herkimerhad said at breakfast. And it is a very remarkable thing that, as wetalked thus of the German merchant-farmer and his politics, we were lyingon the very spot where, five years later, I was to behold him sitting, wounded but imperturbable, smoking his pipe and giving orders of battle, under the most hellish rain of bullets from which man ever shrankaffrighted. And the tranquil moon above us was to look down again uponthis little vale, and turn livid to see its marsh and swale choked withfresh corpses, and its brook rippling red with blood. And the very wolveswe heard snapping and baying in the thicket were to raise a ghastlyhalloo, here among these same echoes, as they feasted on the flesh of myfriends and comrades. 

We did not guess this fearsome future, but instead lay peacefully, contentedly under the leaves, with the balmy softness of the firs in theair we breathed, and the flaming firelight in our eyes. Perhaps lank, uncouth Barent Coppernol may have dreamed of it, as he snored by the outerheap of blazing logs. If so, did he, as in prophecy, see his own form, with cleft skull, stretched on the hill-side?

"I spoke about Philip's having some of his father's adopted Irish traits, "said Mr. Cross, after a longer interval of silence than usual. "One ofthem is the desire to have subordinates, dependents, about him. There isno Irishman so poor or lowly that he will not, if possible, encourage somestill poorer, lowlier Irishman to hang to his skirts. It is a reflectionof their old Gaelic tribal system, I suppose, which, between its chiefsabove and its clansmen below, left no place for a free yeomanry. I notethis same thing in the Valley, with the Johnsons and the Butlers. So faras Sir William is concerned, the quality I speak of has been of service tothe Colony, for he has used his fondness and faculty for attractingretainers and domineering over subordinates to public advantage. But thenhe is an exceptional and note-worthy man--one among ten thousand. But hisson Sir John, and his son-in-law Guy Johnson, and the Butlers, father andson, and now to them added our masterful young Master Philip--these own nosuch steadying balance-wheel of common-sense. They have no restrainingnotion of public interest. Their sole idea is to play the aristocrat, tosurround themselves with menials, to make their neighbors concede to themsubmission and reverence. It was of them that Herkimer spoke, plainlyenough, though he gave no names. Mark my words, they will come to griefwith that man, if the question be ever put to the test. "

I had not seen enough of Englishmen to understand very clearly thedifferences between them and the Irish, and I said so. The conversationdrifted upon race questions and distinctions, as they were presented bythe curiously mixed population of New York province. 

My companion was of the impression that the distinctly Britishsettlements, like those of Massachusetts and Virginia, were far morepowerful and promising than my own polyglot province. No doubt from hispoint of view this notion was natural, but it nettled me. To this day Icannot read or listen to the inflated accounts this New England and thisSouthern State combine to give of their own greatness, of their wonderfulpatriotism and intelligence, and of the tremendous part they played in theRevolution, without smashing my pipe in wrath. Yet I am old enough now tosee that all this is largely the fault of the New Yorkers themselves. Wehave given our time and attention to the making of money, and have left itto others to make the histories. If they write themselves down large, andus small, it is only what might have been expected. But at the time ofwhich I am telling I was very young, and full of confidence in not onlythe existing superiority but the future supremacy of my race. I could notforesee how we were to be snowed under by the Yankees in our own State, and, what is worse, accept our subjugation without a protest--so thatto-day the New York schoolboy supposes Fisher Ames, or any other of adozen Boston talkers, to have been a greater man than Philip Schuyler. 

I remember that I greatly vaunted the good qualities of the Dutch thatnight. I pointed out how they alone had learned the idea of religioustoleration toward others in the cruel school of European persecution; howtheir faith in liberty and in popular institutions, nobly exemplified athome in the marvellous struggle with Spain, had planted roots of civil andreligious freedom in the New World which he could find neither to the eastnor to the south of us; and how even the early Plymouth Puritans hadimbibed all they knew of clemency and liberty during their stayin Holland. 

I fear that Mr. Cross inwardly smiled more or less at my enthusiasm andextravagance, but his comments were all serious and kindly. He concededthe justice of much that I said, particularly as to the admirableresolution, tenacity, and breadth of character the Dutch had displayedalways in Europe. But then he went on to declare that the Dutch could nothope to hold their own in strange lands against the extraordinaryconquering and colonizing power of the more numerous English, who, bysheer force of will and energy, were destined in the end to dominateeverything they touched. Note how Clive and the English had graduallyundermined or overthrown French, Portuguese, and Dutch alike in theIndies, he said; the same thing has happened here, either by bloodshed orbarter. No nation could resist the English in war; no people couldmaintain themselves in trade or the peaceful arts against the English. 

"But you yourself predicted, not an hour ago, that the young gentry downthe Valley would come to grief in their effort to lord it over the Dutchand Palatines. "

"Oh, that indeed, " my friend replied. "They are silly sprouts, grown upweak and spindling under the shadow of Sir William; when he is cut downthe sun will shrivel them, no doubt. But the hardier, healthier plantswhich finally take their place will be of English stock--not Dutchor German. "

I hope devoutly that this lengthened digression into politics has notproved wearisome. I have touched upon but one of a hundred likeconversations which we two had together on our slow journey, and thisbecause I wanted to set forth the manner of things we discussed, and theviews we severally had. Events proved that we both were partially right. The United States of the Netherlands was the real parent of the UnitedStates of America, and the constitution which the Dutch made for theinfant State of New York served as the model in breadth and in freedom forour present noble Federal Constitution. In that much my faith wasjustified. But it is also true that my State is no longer Dutch, butEnglish, and that the language of my mother has died out from among us. 

Before noon next day we reached Fort Stanwix, the forest-girdledblock-house commanding the Great Carrying Place. Here we waited one dayfor the boats to come up, and half of another to get them through thesluices into Wood Creek. Then, as the horses and carts returned, weembarked and set our faces toward the Lakes. 

Chapter XIII. 

To the Far Lake Country and Home Again. 

We had left what it pleases us to call civilization behind. Until ourreturn we were scarcely again to see the blackened fields of stumpssurrounding clearings, or potash kettles, or girdled trees, or chimneys. 

Not that our course lay wholly through unbroken solitude; but the men wefor the most part encountered were of the strange sort who had pushedwestward farther and farther to be alone--to get away from their fellows. The axe to them did not signify the pearlash of commerce, but firewood andhoney and coon-skins for their own personal wants. They traded a little, in a careless, desultory fashion, with the proceeds of their traps andrifles. But their desires were few--a pan and kettle, a case of needlesand cord, some rum or brandy from cider or wild grapes, tobacco, lead, andpowder--chiefly the last three. They fed themselves, adding to their ownfish and game only a little pounded maize which they got mostly from theIndians, and cooked in mush or on a baking stone. In the infrequent caseswhere there were women with them, we sometimes saw candles, either dips orof the wax of myrtle-berries, but more often the pine-knot was used. Occasionally they had log-houses, with even here and there a second storyabove the puncheon-floor, reached by a ladder; but in the main theirhabitations were half-faced camps, secured in front at night by fires. They were rough, coarse, hardened, drunken men as a rule, generallydisagreeable and taciturn; insolent, lazy, and miserable from my point ofview, but I judge both industrious and contented from their own. 

We should have had little favor or countenance from these fellows, I doubtnot, but for Enoch Wade. He seemed to know all the saturnine, shaggy, lounging outcasts whom we met in unexpected places; if he did not, theyknew him at a glance for one of their own kidney, which came to the samething. It was on his account that we were tolerated, nay, even advised andhelped and entertained. 

Enoch had been a prodigious traveller--or else was a still more prodigiousliar--I never quite decided which. He told them, when we chanced to sitaround their fires of an evening, most remarkable stories of field andforest--of caribou and seals killed in the North; of vast herds of bisonon far Western prairies; of ice-bound winters spent in the Hudson BayCompany's preserves beyond the Lakes; of houses built of oyster-shells andcement on the Carolina coast. They listened gravely, smoking theircob-and-reed pipes, and eying him attentively. They liked him, and theydid not seem to dislike Coppernol and our other white servants. But theyshowed no friendliness toward my poor Tulp, and exhibited only scant, frigid courtesy to Mr. Cross and me. 

The fact that my companion was a power in the East India Company, and adirector in the new Northwestern Fur Company, did not interest them, atleast favorably. It was indeed not until after we had got beyond theSandusky that Enoch often volunteered this information, for the trappersof the East had little love for companies, or organized commerce andproperty of any sort. 

I like better to recall the purely physical side of our journey. Now ourlittle flotilla would move for hours on broad, placid, still waters, flanked on each side by expanses of sedge and flags--in which great broodsof water-fowl lived--and beyond by majestic avenues formed of pines, towering mast-like sheer sixty feet before they burst into intertwiningbranches. Again, we would pass through darkened, narrow channels, whereadverse waters sped swiftly, and where we battled not only with deepcurrents, but had often to chop our way through barriers of greentree-trunks, hickory, ash, and birch, which the soft soil on the banks hadbeen unable to longer hold erect. Now we flew merrily along under sail orenergetic oars; now we toiled laboriously against strong tides, by polesor by difficult towing. 

But it was all healthful, heartening work, and we enjoyed it to the full. Toward sundown we would begin to look for a brook upon which to pitch ourcamp. When one was found which did not run black, showing its origin in atamarack swamp, a landing was made with all the five boats. Thesesecured, axes were out with, and a shelter soon constructed, while othersheaped the fire, prepared the food and utensils, and cooked the welcomemeal. How good everything tasted! how big and bright the stars looked! howsweet was the odor of the balsam in the air, later, as we lay on ourblankets, looking skyward, and talked! Or, if the night was wild and wet, how cheerily the great fires roared in the draught, and how snugly we layin our shelter, blinking at the fierce blaze!

When in early July we drew near the country of the Outagamis, having leftthe Detroit settlement behind us, not to speak of Oswego and Niagara, which seemed as far off now as the moon, an element of personal danger wasadded to our experiences. Both white hunters and Indians were warmlyaffected toward the French interest, and often enough we found reason tofear that we would be made to feel this, though luckily it never came toanything serious. It was a novel experience to me to be disliked onaccount of the English, whom I had myself never regarded with friendship. I was able, fortunately, being thus between the two rival races, as itwere, to measure them each against the other. 

I had no prejudice in favor of either, God knows. My earliestrecollections were of the savage cruelty with which the French haddevastated, butchered, and burned among the hapless settlements at thehead of the Mohawk Valley. My maturer feelings were all colored with thestrong repulsion we Dutch felt for the English rule, which so scornfullymisgoverned and plundered our province, granting away our lands to courtfavorites and pimps, shipping to us the worst and most degraded ofOld-World criminals, quartering upon us soldiers whose rude vices madethem even more obnoxious than the convicts, and destroying our commerce byselfish and senseless laws. 

From the Straits west I saw the Frenchman for the first time, and read thereasons for his failure to stand against the English. Even while wesuspected grounds for fearing his hostility, we found him a more courteousand affable man than the Englishman or Yankee. To be pleasant with usseemed a genuine concern, though it may really have been otherwise. TheIndians about him, too, were a far more satisfactory lot than I had knownin the Valley. Although many of our Mohawks could read, and some fewwrite, and although the pains and devotion of my friend Samuel Kirklandhad done much for the Oneidas, still these French-spoken, Jesuit-taughtIndians seemed a much better and soberer class than my neighbors of theIroquois. They drank little or no rum, save as English traders furtivelyplied them with it, for the French laws were against its sale. They livedmost amicably with the French, too, neither hating nor fearing them; andthis was in agreeable contrast to the wearisome bickering eternally goingon in New York between the Indians striving to keep their land, and theEnglish and Dutch forever planning to trick them out of it. So much forthe good side. 

The medal had a reverse. The Frenchman contrived to get on with theIndian by deferring to him, cultivating his better and more generous side, and treating him as an equal. This had the effect of improving andsoftening the savage, but it inevitably tended to weaken and lower theFrenchman--at least, judged by the standard of fitness to maintain himselfin a war of races. No doubt the French and Indians lived together muchmore quietly and civilly than did the English and Indians. But when thesetwo systems came to be tested by results, it was shown that theFrenchman's policy and kindliness had only enervated and emasculated him, while the Englishman's rough domineering and rule of force had hardenedhis muscles and fired his resolution. To be sure, measured by the receivedlaws of humanity, the Frenchman was right and the other wrong. But is itso certain, after all, that the right invariably wins?

 * * * * *

It was well along in September when, standing on the eminence to the eastof Fort Stanwix, I first looked again on my beloved Mohawk. 

The trip had been a highly successful one. Enoch was bringing back fourbateaux well packed under thin oilskin covers with rare peltries, including some choice black-beaver skins and sea-otter furs from theremote West, which would fetch extravagant prices. On the best estimate ofhis outward cargo of tea, spirits, powder, traps, calico, duffle, andsilver ear-bobs, breast-buckles, and crosses, he had multiplied its valuetwenty-fold. 

Of course, this was of secondary importance. The true object of thejourney had been to enable Mr. Jonathan Cross to see for himself theprospects of the new Northwestern Company--to look over the territoryembraced in its grants, estimate its probable trade, mark points for theestablishment of its forts and posts, and secure the information necessaryto guard the company from the frauds or failings of agents. He professedhimself vastly gratified at the results, physical as well as financial, ofhis experience, and that was the great thing. 

Or no!--perhaps for the purposes of this story there was something moreimportant still. It is even now very pleasant to me to recall that heliked me well enough, after this long, enforced intimacy, to proffer methe responsible and exacting post of the company's agent at Albany. 

To say that the offer made me proud and glad would be to feebly understatemy emotions. I could not be expected to decide all at once. Independent ofthe necessity of submitting the proposition to Mr. Stewart, there was avery deep distaste within me for fur-trading at Albany--of the meannessand fraudulency of which I had heard from boyhood. A good many hardstories are told of the Albanians, which, aside from all possible bias ofrace, I take the liberty of doubting. I do not, for instance, believe allthe Yankee tales that the Albany Dutchmen bought from the Indians thesilver plate which the latter seized in New England on the occasions ofthe French and Indian incursions--if for no other reason than the absenceof proof that they ever had any plate in New England. But that theIndians used to be most shamefully drugged and cheated out of theireye-teeth in Albany, I fear there can be no reasonable doubt. An evilrepute attached to the trade there, and I shrank from embarking in it, even under such splendid auspices. All the same, the offer gratifiedme greatly. 

To be in the woods with a man, day in and day out, is to know him throughand through. If I had borne this closest of all conceivable forms ofscrutiny, in the factor's estimation, there must be something good in me. 

So there was pride as well as joy in this first glance I cast upon thesoft-flowing, shadowed water, upon the spreading, stately willows, uponthe far-off furrow in the hazy lines of foliage--which spoke to me ofhome. Here at last was my dear Valley, always to me the loveliest onearth, but now transfigured in my eyes, and radiant beyond all dreams ofbeauty--because in it was my home, and in that home was the sweet maidI loved. 

Yes--I was returned a man, with the pride and the self-reliance and theheart of a man. As I thought upon myself, it was to recognize that theswaddlings of youth had fallen from me. I had never been conscious oftheir pressure; I had not rebelled against them, nor torn them asunder. Yet somehow they were gone, and my breast swelled with a longer, deeperbreath for their absence. I had almost wept with excess of boyish feelingwhen I left the Valley--my fond old mother and protector. I gazed upon itnow with an altogether variant emotion--as of one coming to takepossession. Ah, the calm elation of that one moment, there alone on theknoll, with the sinking September sun behind me, and in front but thetrifle of sixty miles of river route--when I realized that I was a man!

Perhaps it was at this moment that I first knew I loved Daisy; perhaps ithad been the truly dominant thought in my mind for months, gathering vigorand form from every tender, longing memory of the Cedars. I cannot decide, nor is it needful that I should. At least now my head was full of thetriumphant thoughts that I returned successful and in high favor with mycompanion, that I had a flattering career opened for me, that the peopleat home would be pleased with me--and that I should marry Daisy. 

These remaining twenty leagues grew really very tedious before they weredone with. We went down with the boats this time. I fear that Mr. Crossfound me but poor company these last three days, for I sat mute in the bowmost of the time, twisted around to look forward down the winding course, as if this would bring the Cedars nearer. I had not the heart to talk. "Now she is winding the yarn for my aunt, " I would think; "now she isscattering oats for the pigeons, or filling Mr. Stewart's pipe, or runningthe candles into the moulds. Dear girl, does she wonder when I am coming?If she could know that I was here--here on the river speeding toher--what, would she think?"

And I pictured to myself the pretty glance of surprise, mantling into aflush of joyous welcome, which would greet me on her face, as she rangladly to my arms. Good old Mr. Stewart, my more than father, would stareat me, then smile with pleasure, and take both my hands in his, with warm, honest words straight from his great heart. What an evening it would bewhen, seated snugly around the huge blaze--Mr. Stewart in his arm-chair tothe right, Daisy nestling on the stool at his knee and looking up into myface, and Dame Kronk knitting in the chimney-shadow to the left--I shouldtell of my adventures! How goodly a recital I could make of them, thoughthey had been even tamer than they were, with such an audience! And howhappy, how gratified they would be when I came to the climax, artfullypostponed, of Mr. Cross's offer to me of the Albany agency!

And then how natural, how easy, while these dear people were still smilingwith pride and satisfaction at my good fortune, to say calmly--yes, calmlyin tone, though my heart should be beating its way through my breast:

"Even more, sir, I prize the hope that Daisy will share it with me--as mywife!"

What with the delay at Caughnawaga, where Mr. Cross debarked, and MajorFonda would have us eat and drink while he told us the news, and Tulp'scrazy rowing later, through excitement at nearing home, it was twilightbefore the boat was run up into our little cove, and I set my foot onland. The Cedars stood before us as yet lightless against the northernsky. The gate was open. The sweet voice of a negro singing arose from thecabins on the dusky hill-side. Tears came to my eyes as I turned to Tulp, who was gathering up the things in the boat, and said:

"Do you see, boy? We're home--home at last!"

Chapter XIV. 

How I Seem to Feel a Wanting Note in the Chorus of Welcome. 

I could hear the noisy clamor among the negroes over the advent of Tulp, whom I had sent off, desiring to be alone, while I still stood irresoluteon the porch. My hand was on the familiar, well-worn latch, yet I almosthesitated to enter, so excited was I with eager anticipations of welcome. 

The spacious hall--our sitting-room--was deserted. A fire was blazing onthe hearth, and plates were laid on the oak table as in preparation for ameal, but there was no one to speak to me. I lighted a candle, and openedthe door to the kitchen; here too there was a fire, but my aunt was notvisible. Mr. Stewart's room to the right of the hall, and mine to theleft, were alike unoccupied. I threw aside my hat and watch-coat here, andthen with the light went up-stairs, whistling as was my wont to warn Daisyof my coming. There was no sound or sign of movement. The door of herouter room stood open, and I entered and looked about. 

The furniture and appointments had been changed in position somewhat, sothat the chamber seemed strange to me. There were numerous novel objectsscattered through the rooms as well. A Spanish guitar which I had neverseen before stood beside the old piano. There were several elegantly boundbooks, new to me, on the table; on the mantel-shelf were three miniatures, delicately painted, depicting a florid officer in scarlet, a handsome, proud-looking lady with towering powdered coiffure, and a fair-haired, proud-looking youth. This last I knew in an instant to be the likeness ofMaster Philip Cross, though it seemingly portrayed him at an age half-waybetween the two times I had seen him as boy and man. His resemblance tothe lady, and then my own recurring recollection of the officer'sfeatures, helped me to place them as his parents. 

I called out "Daisy!" My voice had a faltering, mournful sound, and therewas no answer. 

I came down the stairs again, burdened with a sudden sense of mentaldiscomfort. Already the visions I had had of an enthusiastic welcome werebut vague outlines of dreams. There had sprung up in my mind instead asudden, novel doubt of my position in this house--a cruel idea thatperhaps the affection which had so swelled and buoyed my heart was notreciprocated. I put this notion away as foolish and baseless, but all thesame the silent hall-room down-stairs seemed now larger and colder, andthe flames curled and writhed toward the flue with a chill, metallicaspect, instead of the bright, honest glow of greeting. 

While I stood before the fire-place, still holding the candle in my hand, my aunt entered the room from the kitchen door. At sight of me the goodsoul gave a guttural exclamation, dropped flat an apronful of chips shewas bringing in, and stared at me open-mouthed. When she was at lastpersuaded that I was in proper person and not the spirit, she submitted tobe kissed by me--it was not a fervent proceeding, I am bound to add--butit was evident the shock had sent her wits wool-gathering. Her hands werea bright brown from the butternut dye, and the pungent, acrid odor shebrought in with her garments made unnecessary her halting explanation thatshe had been out in the smoke-house. 

"Philip sent down two haunches yesterday by Marinus Folts, " she said, apologetically, "and this muggy weather I was afraid they wouldn't keep. "

"This is the Dutch conception of a welcome after five months!" I could nothelp thinking to myself, uncharitably forgetting for the moment my aunt'sinfirmities. Aloud I said:

"How are they all--Mr. Stewart and Daisy? And where are they? And how havethe farms been doing?"

"Well, " answered Dame Kronk, upon reflection, "I maintain that the wool isthe worst we ever clipped. Was the shearing after you went? Yes, of courseit was. Well, how I'm going to get out enough fine for the stockingsalone, is more than I can see. It's downright poor. "

"But Mr. Stewart and Daisy--are they well? Where are they?"

"But the niggers have gathered five times as much ginseng as they ever didbefore. The pigs are fattening fit to eat alive. Eli's been drunk some, bur his girls are really a good deal of help. There are going to be moreelder-berries this fall than you can shake a stick at; they're justbreaking the branches. And the--"

"Oh, aunt, " I broke in, "do tell me! Are Daisy and Mr. Stewart well?"

"Why, of course they are, " she answered; "that is, they were when theyleft here a week come Thursday. And Marinus Folts didn't say anything tothe contrary yesterday. Why shouldn't they be well? They don't do anythingbut gad about, these days. Daisy hasn't done a stitch of work all summerbut knit a couple of comforters--and the time she's been about it! When Iwas her age I could have knit the whole side of a house in less time. Oneof them is for you. "

Dear girl, I had wronged her, then. She had been thinking of me--workingfor me. My heart felt lighter. 

"But where _are_ they?" I repeated. 

"Oh, where are they? Up at Sir William's new summer-house that he's justbuilt. I don't know just where it is, but it's fourteen miles from theHall, up somewhere on the Sacondaga Vlaie, where two creeks join. He'smade a corduroy road out to it, and he's painted it white and green, andhe's been having a sort of fandango out there--a house-warming, I take it. Marinus Folts says he never saw so much drinking in his born days. He'dhad his full share himself, I should judge. They're coming back to-night. "

I sat down at this, and stared into the fire. It was not just thehome-coming which I had looked forward to, but it would be all right whenthey returned Ah, but would it? Yes, I forced myself to believe so, andbegan to find comfort of mind again. 

My aunt picked up the chips and dumped them into the wood-box. Then shecame over and stood for a long time looking at me. Once she said: "I'mgoing to get supper for them when they get back. Can you wait till then, or shall I cook you something now?" Upon my thanking her and saying Iwould wait, she relapsed into silence, but still keeping her eyes on me. Iwas growing nervous under this phlegmatic inspection, and idly investingit with some occult and sinister significance, when she broke out with:

"Oh, I know what it was I wanted to ask you. Is it really true that thetrappers and men in the woods out there eat the hind-quarters of frogsand toads?"

This was the sum of my relative's interest in my voyage. When I hadanswered her, she gathered up my luggage and bundles and took them off tothe kitchen, there to be overhauled, washed, and mended. 

I got into my slippers and a loose coat, lighted a pipe, and settledmyself in front of the fire to wait. Tulp came over, grinning with delightat being among his own once more, to see if I wanted anything. I sent himoff, rather irritably I fear, but I couldn't bear the contrast which hisjocose bearing enforced on my moody mind, between my reception and his. This slave of mine had kin and friends who rushed to fall upon his neck, and made the night echoes ring again with their shouts of welcome. I couldhear that old Eli had got down his fiddle, and between the faint squeakingstrains I could distinguish choruses of happy guffaws and bursts ofchild-like merriment. Tulp's return caused joy, while mine----

Then I grew vexed at my peevish injustice in complaining because my dearones, not being gifted with second-sight, had failed to exactly anticipatemy coming; and in blaming my poor aunt for behaving just as the dear oldslow-witted creature had always behaved since she was stricken withsmall-pox, twenty years before. Yet this course of candid self-reproachupon which I entered brought me small relief. I was unhappy, and whetherit was my own fault or that of somebody else did not at all help thematter. And I had thought to be so exaltedly happy, on this of all thenights of my life!

At length I heard the sound of hoofs clattering down the road, and ofvoices lifted in laughing converse. Eli's fiddle ceased its droning, andon going to the window I saw lanterns scudding along to the gate from theslaves' cabins, like fireflies in a gale. I opened the window softly, enough to hear. Not much was to be seen, for the night had set in dark;but there were evidently a number of horsemen outside the gate, and, judging from the noise, all were talking together. The bulk of the party, I understood at once, were going on down the river road, to make a nightof it at Sir John's bachelor quarters in old Fort Johnson, or at one ofthe houses of his two brothers-in-law. I was relieved to hear theseroisterers severally decline the invitations to enter the Cedars for atime, and presently out of the gloom became distinguishable the forms ofthe two for whom I had been waiting. Both were muffled to the eyes, forthe air had turned cold, but it seemed as if I should have recognized themin any disguise. 

I heard Tulp and Eli jointly shouting out the news of my arrival--forwhich premature disclosure I could have knocked their woolly headstogether--but it seemed that the tidings had reached them before. In fact, they had met Mr. Cross and Enoch on the road down from Johnstown, as Ilearned afterward. 

All my doubts vanished in the warm effusion of their welcome to me, assincere and honest as it was affectionate. I had pictured it to myselfalmost aright. Mr. Stewart did come to me with outstretched arms, andwring my hands, and pat my shoulder, and well-nigh weep for joy at seeingme returned, safe and hale. Daisy did not indeed throw herself upon mybreast, but she ran to me and took my hands, and lifted her face to bekissed with a smile of pleasure in which there was no reservation. 

And it was a merry supper-table around which we sat, too, half an hourlater, and gossiped gayly, while the wind rose outside, and the sparksflew the swifter and higher for it. There was so much to tell onboth sides. 

Somehow, doubtless because of my slowness of tongue, my side did not seemvery big compared with theirs. One day had been very much like anotherwith me, and, besides, the scenes through which I had passed did notpossess the novelty for these frontier folk that they would have forpeople nowadays. 

But their budget of news was fairly prodigious, alike in range andquantity. The cream of this, so to speak, had been taken off by hospitableJelles Fonda at Caughnawaga, yet still a portentous substance remained. Some of my friends were dead, others were married. George Klock was infresh trouble through his evil tricks with the Indians. A young half-breedhad come down from the Seneca nation and claimed John Abeel as his father. Daniel Claus had set up a pack of hounds, equal in breed to Sir William's. It was really true that Sir John was to marry Miss Polly Watts of NewYork, and soon too. Walter Butler had been crossed in love, and was verymelancholy and moody, so much so that he had refused to join thehouse-warming party at the new summer-house on Sacondaga Vlaie, which SirWilliam had christened Mount Joy Pleasure Hall--an ambitious enough name, surely, for a forest fishing-cottage. 

Naturally a great deal was told me concerning this festival from whichthey had just returned. It seems that Lady Berenicia Cross and Daisy werethe only ladies there. They were given one of the two sleeping-rooms, while Sir William and Mr. Stewart shared the other. The younger men hadridden over to Fish House each night, returning next day. Without itsbeing said in so many words, I could see that the drinking and carousingthere had disturbed and displeased Daisy. There had even, I fancied, beena dispute on this subject between her and our guardian, for he was atpains several times to insist upon telling me incidents which it was plainshe desired left unmentioned, and to rather pointedly yet good-humoredlylaugh at her as a little puritan, who did not realize that young gentlemenhad their own particular ways, as proper and natural to them as were otherhabits and ways to young foxes or fishes. Her manner said clearly enoughthat she did not like these ways, but he pleasantly joked her down. 

I noted some slight changes in Mr. Stewart, which gave me a sense ofuneasiness. He seemed paler than before, and there were darker pits underhis prominent, bright eyes. He had been visibly exhausted on entering thehouse, but revived his strength and spirits under the influence of thefood and wine. But the spirits struck, somehow, a false note on my ear. They seemed not to come from a natural and wholesome fund, as of old, butto have a ring of artificiality in them. I could not help thinking, as Ilooked at him, of the aged French noblemen we read about, who, at an ageand an hour which ought to have found them nightcapped and asleep, nourishing their waning vitality, were dancing attendance in ladies'boudoirs, painted, rouged, padded, and wigged, aping the youth they hadparted with so long ago. Of course, the comparison was ridiculous, butstill it suggested itself, and, once framed in my mind, clung there. 

It dawned upon me after a time that it was contact with that LadyBerenicia which had wrought this change in him, or, rather, had broughtforth in his old age a development of his early associations, that, butfor her, would to the end have lain hidden, unsuspected, under the manlycover of his simple middle life. 

If there were alterations of a similar sort in Daisy, I could not see themthis night. I had regard only for the beauty of the fire-glow on her faircheek, for the sweet, maidenly light in her hazel eyes, for the soft smilewhich melted over her face when she looked upon me. If she was quieter andmore reserved in her manner than of old, doubtless the same was true ofme, for I did not notice it. 

I had learned at Fonda's that young Philip Cross was cutting a greatswath, socially, in the Valley, and that he was building a grand mansion, fully as large as Johnson Hall, nearly at the summit of the eminence whichcrowned his patent. Major Fonda was, indeed, contracting to furnish thebricks for what he called the "shimlies, " and the house was, by allaccounts, to be a wonderful affair. I heard much more about it, in detail, this evening, chiefly from Mr. Stewart. Nay, I might say entirely, forDaisy never once mentioned Philip's name if it could be avoided. Mr. Stewart was evidently much captivated by the young man's spirit and socialqualities and demeanor generally. 

"He is his father's own boy, ay, and his mother's too, " said the old man, with sparkling eyes. "Not much for books, perhaps, though no dullard. Buthe can break a wild colt, or turn a bottle inside out, or bore apencilled hole with a pistol-bullet at thirty paces, or tell a story, orsing a song, or ride, dance, box, cross swords, with any gentleman in theColony. You should have seen him stand Walrath the blacksmith on his headat the races a fortnight ago! I never saw it better done in theTweed country. "

"A highly accomplished gentleman, truly, " I said, with as little obvioussatire as possible. 

"Ah, but he has mind as well as muscle, " put in Mr. Stewart. "He is a veryBolingbroke with the ladies. It carries me back to my days at the play, Iswear, to hear him and Lady Berenicia clashing rapiers in badinage. Youshall hear them, my boy, and judge. And there's a sweet side to histongue, too, or many a pretty, blushing cheek belies the little earbehind it. "

The old gentleman chuckled amiably to himself as he spoke, and poured moreMadeira into my glass and his. Daisy somewhat hurriedly rose, bade us"good-night, " and left us to ourselves. 

Oh, if I had only spoken the word that night!

Chapter XV. 

The Rude Awakening from My Dream. 

I look back now upon the week which followed this home-coming as a seasonof much dejection and unhappiness. Perhaps at the time it was not allunmixed tribulation. There was a great deal to do, naturally, andoccupation to a healthful and vigorous young man is of itself a sovereignbarrier against undue gloom. Yet I think of it now as all sadness. 

Mr. Stewart had really grown aged and feeble. For the first time, too, there was a petulant vein in his attitude toward me. Heretofore he hadtreated my failure to grow up into his precise ideal of a gentleman withaffectionate philosophy, being at pains to conceal from me whateverdisappointment he felt, and, indeed, I think, honestly trying to persuadehimself that it was all for the best. 

But these five months had created a certain change in the socialconditions of the Valley. For years the gulf had been insensibly widening, here under our noses, between the workers and the idlers; during myabsence there had come, as it were, a landslide, and the chasm was nowmanifest to us all. Something of this was true all over the Colonies: nodoubt what I noticed was but a phase of the general movement, part social, part religious, part political, now carrying us along with a perceptibleglide toward the crisis of revolution. But here in the Valley, more thanelsewhere, this broadening fissure of division ran through farms, throughhouses, ay, even through the group gathered in front of the familyfire-place--separating servants from employers, sons from fathers, husbands from wives. And, alas! when I realized now for the first time theexistence of this abyss, it was to discover that my dearest friend, theman to whom I most owed duty and esteem and love, stood on one side of itand I on the other. 

This was made clear to me by his comments--and even more by hismanner--when I told him next day of the great offer which Mr. Cross hadmade. Not unnaturally I expected that he would be gratified by this proofof the confidence I had inspired, even if he did not favor my acceptanceof the proffered post. Instead, the whole matter seemed to vex him. When Iventured to press him for a decision, he spoke unjustly and impatiently tome, for the first time. 

"Oh, ay! that will serve as well as anything else, I suppose, " he said. "If you are resolute and stubborn to insist upon leaving me, and tossingaside the career it has been my pleasure to plan for you, by all means goto Albany with the other Dutchmen, and barter and cheapen to your heart'scontent. You know it's no choice of mine, but please yourself!"

This was so gratuitously unfair and unlike him, and so utterly at variancewith the reception I had expected for my tidings, that I stood astounded, looking at him. He went on:

"What the need is for your going off and mixing yourself up with thesepeople, I fail for the life of me to see. I suppose it is in the blood. Any other young man but a Dutchman, reared and educated as you have been, given the society and friendship of gentlefolk from boyhood, and placed, by Heaven! as you are here, with a home and an estate to inherit, andpeople about you to respect and love--I say nothing of obeying them--wouldhave appreciated his fortune, and asked no more. But no! You must, forsooth, pine and languish to be off tricking drunken Indians out oftheir peltry, and charging some other Dutchman a shilling for fourpenceworth of goods!"

What could I say? What could I do but go away sorrowfully, and with aheavy heart take up farm affairs where I had left them? It was very hardto realize that these rough words, still rasping my ears, had issued fromMr. Stewart's lips. I said to myself that he must have had causes forirritation of which I knew nothing, and that he must unconsciously havevisited upon me the peevishness which the actions of others hadengendered. All the same, it was not easy to bear. 

Daily contact with Daisy showed changes, too, in her which disturbed me. Little shades of formalism had crept here and there into her manner, eventoward me. She was more distant, I fancied, and mistress-like, toward mypoor old aunt. She rose later, and spent more of her leisure timeup-stairs in her rooms alone. Her dress was notably more careful andelegant, now, and she habitually wore her hair twisted upon the crown ofher head, instead of in a simple braid as of old. 

If she was not the Daisy I had so learned to love in my months of absence, it seemed that my heart went out in even greater measure to this newDaisy. She was more beautiful than ever, and she was very gentle and softwith me. A sense of tender pity vaguely colored my devotion, for the deargirl seemed to my watchful solicitude to be secretly unhappy. Once ortwice I strove to so shape our conversation that she would be impelled toconfide in me--to throw herself upon my old brotherly fondness, if shesuspected no deeper passion. But she either saw through my clumsy devices, or else in her innocence evaded them; for she hugged the sorrow closer toher heart, and was only pensively pleasant with me. 

I may explain now, in advance of my story, what I came to learn longafterward; namely, that the poor little maiden was truly in sore distressat this time--torn by the conflict between her inclination and herjudgment, between her heart and her head. She was, in fact, hesitatingbetween the glamour which the young Englishman and Lady Berenicia, withtheir polished ways, their glistening surfaces, and their attractive, idlers' views of existence, had thrown over her, and her own innate, womanly repugnance to the shallowness and indulgence, not to say license, beneath it all. It was this battle the progress of which I unwittinglywatched. Had I but known what emotions were fighting for mastery behindthose sweetly grave hazel eyes--had I but realized how slight a pressuremight have tipped the scales my way--how much would have been different!

But I, slow Frisian that I was, comprehended nothing of it all, and so wasby turns futilely compassionate--and sulky. 

For again, at intervals, she would be as gay and bright as a June rose, tripping up and down through the house with a song on her lips, and theold laugh rippling like sunbeams about her. Then she would deftly perchherself on the arm of Mr. Stewart's chair, and dazzle us both with thejoyous merriment of her talk, and the sparkle in her eyes--or sing for usof an evening, up-stairs, playing the while upon the lute (which youngCross had given her) instead of the discarded piano. Then she would wear abunch of flowers--I never suspecting whence they came--upon her breast, and an extra ribbon in her hair. And then I would be wretched, andgloomily say to myself that I preferred her unhappy, and next morning, when the cloud had gathered afresh upon her face, would long again to seeher cheerful once more. 

And so the week went by miserably, and I did not tell my love. 

One morning, after breakfast, Mr. Stewart asked Daisy to what conclusionshe had come about our accepting Philip Cross's invitation to join aluncheon-party on his estate that day. I had heard this gatheringmentioned several times before, as a forthcoming event of great promise, and I did not quite understand either the reluctance with which Daisyseemed to regard the thought of going, or the old gentleman's mingledinsistence and deference to her wishes in the matter. 

To be sure, I had almost given up in weary heart-sickness the attempt tounderstand his new moods. Since his harsh words to me, I had had nothingbut amiable civility from him--now and then coming very near to hisold-time fond cordiality--but it was none the less grievously apparent tome that our relations would never again be on the same footing. I could nolonger anticipate his wishes, I found, or foresee what he would think orsay upon matters as they came up. We two were wholly out of chord, be thefault whose it might. And so, I say, I was rather puzzled than surprisedto see how much stress was laid between them upon the question whether ornot Daisy would go that day to Cairncross, as the place was to be called. 

Finally, without definitely having said "yes, " she appeared dressed forthe walk, and put on a mock air of surprise at not finding us also ready. She blushed, I remember, as she did so. There was no disposition on mypart to make one of the party, but when I pleaded that I had not beeninvited, and that there was occupation for me at home, Mr. Stewart seemedso much annoyed that I hastened to join them. 

It was a perfect autumn day, with the sweet scent of burning leaves in theair, and the foliage above the forest path putting on its first palechanges toward scarlet and gold. Here and there, when the tortuous wayapproached half-clearings, we caught glimpses of the round sun, opaquelyred through the smoky haze. 

Our road was the old familiar trail northward over which Mr. Stewart andI, in the happy days, had so often walked to reach our favorite haunt thegulf. The path was wider and more worn now--almost a thoroughfare, infact. It came to the creek at the very head of the chasm, skirting themysterious circle of sacred stones, then crossing the swift water on a newbridge of logs, then climbing the farther side of the ravine by a steepzigzag course which hung dangerously close to the precipitous wall of darkrocks. I remarked at the time, as we made our way up, that there ought tobe a chain, or outer guard of some sort, for safety. Mr. Stewart said hewould speak to Philip about it, and added the information that this sideof the gulf was Philip's property. 

"It is rough enough land, " he went on to say, "and would never be worthclearing. He has some plan of keeping it in all its wildness, and buildinga little summer-house down below by the bridge, within full sound of thewaterfall. No doubt we shall arrange to share the enterprise together. Youknow I have bought on the other side straight to the creek. "

Once the road at the top was gained, Cairncross was but a pleasant walkingmeasure, over paths well smoothed and made. Of the mansion in process oferection, which, like Johnson Hall, was to be of wood, not much except theskeleton framework met the eye, but this promised a massive and imposingedifice. A host of masons, carpenters, and laborers, sufficient to havequite depopulated Johnstown during the daylight hours, were hammering, hewing, or clinking the chimney-bricks with their trowels, within andabout the structure. 

At a sufficient distance from this tumult of construction, and on a level, high plot of lawn, was a pretty marquee tent. Here the guests wereassembled, and thither we bent our steps. 

Young Cross came forth eagerly to greet us--or, rather, mycompanions--with outstretched hands and a glowing face. He was bareheaded, and very beautifully, though not garishly clad. In the reddish, dimmedsunlight, with his yellow hair and his fresh, beaming face, he certainlywas handsome. 

He bowed ceremoniously to Mr. Stewart, and then took him warmly by thehand. Then with a frank gesture, as if to gayly confess that the realdelight was at hand, he bent low before Daisy and touched her fingerswith his lips. 

"You make me your slave, your very happy slave, dear lady, by coming, " hemurmured, loud enough for me to hear. She blushed, and smiled withpleasure at him. 

To me our young host was civil enough. He called me "Morrison, " it istrue, without any "Mr. , " but he shook hands with me, and said affably thathe was glad to see me back safe and sound. Thereafter he paid no attentionwhatsoever to me, but hung by Daisy's side in the cheerful circleoutside the tent. 

Sir William was there, and Lady Berenicia, of course, and a dozen others. By all I was welcomed home with cordiality--by all save the Lady, who wasdistant, not to say supercilious in her manner, and Sir John Johnson, whotook the trouble only to nod at me. 

Inquiring after Mr. Jonathan Cross, I learned that my late companion wasconfined to the Hall, if not to his room, by a sprained ankle. There beingnothing to attract me at the gathering, save, indeed, the girl who wasmonopolized by my host, and the spectacle of this affording me morediscomfort than satisfaction, the condition of my friend at the Halloccurred to me as a pretext for absenting myself. I mentioned it to Mr. Stewart, who had been this hour or so in great spirits, and who now waschuckling with the Lady and one or two others over some tale shewas telling. 

"Quite right, " he said, without turning his head; and so, beckoning toTulp to follow me, I started. 

It was a brisk hour's walk to the Hall, and I strode along at a pace whichforced my companion now and again into a trot. I took rather a savagecomfort in this, as one likes to bite hard on an aching tooth; for I had aprofound friendship for this poor black boy, and to put a hardship uponhim was to suffer myself even more than he did. Tulp had come up misshapenand undersized from his long siege with the small-pox, and with veryrickety and unstable legs. I could scarcely have sold him for a hundreddollars, and would not have parted with him for ten thousand, if for noother reason than his deep and dog-like devotion to me. Hence, when Imade this poor fellow run and pant, I must have been possessed of anunusually resolute desire to be disagreeable to myself. And in truthI was. 

 * * * * *

Mr. Jonathan Cross made me very welcome. His accident had befallen on thevery day following his return, and he had seen nobody save the inmates ofthe Hall since that time. We had many things to talk about--among others, of my going to Albany to take the agency. I told him that this had notbeen quite decided as yet, but avoided giving reasons. I could not welltell this born-and-bred merchant that my guardian thought I ought to feelabove trade. His calm eyes permitted themselves a solitary twinkle as Istumbled over the subject, but he said nothing. 

He did express some interest, however, when I told him whence I had come, and what company I had quitted to visit him. 

"So Mistress Daisy is there with the rest, is she?" he said, with morevigor in his voice than I had ever heard there before. "So, so! The applehas fallen with less shaking than I thought for. "

I do not think that I made any remark in reply. If I did, it must havebeen inconsequential in the extreme, for my impression is of a long, heart-aching silence, during which I stared at my companion, andsaw nothing. 

At last I know that he said to me--I recall the very tone to this day:

"You ought to be told, I think. Yes, you ought to know. Philip Crossasked her to be his wife a fortnight ago. She gave no decided answer. Fromwhat Philip and Lady Berenicia have said to each other here, since, I knowit was understood that if she went to him to-day it meant 'yes. '"

This time I know I kept silence for a long time. 

I found myself finally holding the hand he had extended to me, and saying, in a voice which sounded like a stranger's:

"I will go to Albany whenever you like. "

I left the Hall somehow, kicking the drunken Enoch Wade fiercely out of mypath, I remember, and walking straight ahead as if blindfolded. 

Chapter XVI. 

Tulp Gets a Broken Head to Match My Heart. 

Without heed as to the direction, I started at a furious pace up the roadwhich I found myself upon--Tulp at my heels. If he had not, from utterweariness, cried out after a time, I should have followed the trackstraight, unceasing, over the four leagues and more to the Sacondaga. Asit was, I had presently to stop and retrace my steps to where he sat on awayside stump, dead beat. 

"Don't you wait for me, Mass' Douw, if you're bound to get there quick, "he said, gasping for breath. "Don't mind me. I'll follow along the bestI can. "

The phrase "get there"--it was almost the only English which poor Tulp hadput into the polyglot sentence he really uttered--arrested my attention. "Get where?" I had been headed for the mountains--for the black waterwhich dashed foaming down their defiles, and eddied in sinister depths attheir bases. I could see the faint blue peaks on the horizon from where Istood, by the side of the tired slave. The sight sobered me. To this day Icannot truly say whether I had known where I was going, and if there hadnot been in my burning brain the latent impulse to throw myself into theSacondaga. But I could still find the spot--altered beyond recollectionas the face of the country is--where Tulp's fatigue compelled me to stop, and where I stood gazing out of new eyes, as it were, upon the paleAdirondack outlines. 

As I looked, the aspect of the day had changed The soft, somnolent hazehad vanished from the air. Dark clouds were lifting themselves in the eastand north beyond the mountains, and a chill breeze was blowing from themupon my brow. I took off my hat, and held up my face to get all itscooling touch. Tulp, between heavy breaths, still begged that hisinfirmity might not be allowed to delay me. 

"Why, boy, " I laughed bitterly at him, "I have no place to go to. Nobodyis waiting for me--nobody wants me. "

The black looked hopeless bewilderment at me, and offered no comment. Longafterward I learned that he at the moment reached the reluctant conclusionthat I had taken too much drink in the Hall. 

"Or no!" I went on, a thought coming to the surface in the hurly-burly ofmy mind. "We are going to Albany. That's where we're going. "

Tulp's sooty face took on a more dubious look, if that were possible. Hehumbly suggested that I had chosen a roundabout route; perhaps I was goingby the way of the Healing Springs. But it must be a long, lonesome road, and the rain was coming on. 

Sure enough the sky was darkening: a storm was in the air, and already thedistant mountain-tops were hidden from view by the rain-mist. 

Without more words I put on my hat, and we turned back toward thesettlements. The disposition to walk swiftly, which before had been acontrolling thing, was gone. My pace was slow enough now, descending thehill, for even Tulp, who followed close upon my heels. But my head was notmuch clearer. It was not from inability to think: to the contrary, thevividness and swift succession of my thoughts, as they raced through mybrain, almost frightened me. 

I had fancied myself miserable that very morning, because Mr. Stewart hadspoken carelessly to me, and she had been only ordinarily pleasant. Ah, fool! My estate that morning had been that of a king, of a god, incontrast to this present wretchedness. Then I still had a home--stillnourished in my heart a hope--and these _were_ happiness! I laughed aloudat my folly in having deemed them less. 

She had put her hand in his--given herself to him! She had with her eyesopen promised to marry this Englishman--fop! dullard! roisterer! insolentcub!--so the rough words tumbled to my tongue. In a hundred ways Ipictured her--called up her beauty, her delicacy, her innocence, hergrace, the refined softness of her bearing, the sweet purity of her smile, the high dignity of her thoughts--and then ground my teeth as I placedagainst them the solitary image my mind consented to limn of him--brawlingdandy with fashionable smirk and false blue eyes, flushed with wine, andproud of no better achievement than throwing a smith in a drunkenwrestling-bout. It was a sin--a desecration! Where were their eyes, thatthey did not read this fellow's worthlessness, and bid him stand back whenhe sought to lay his coarse hands upon her?

Yet who were these that should have saved her? Ah! were they not all ofhis class, or of his pretence to class?

Some of them had been my life-long friends. To Mr. Stewart--and I couldnot feel bitterly toward him even now--I owed home, education, rearing, everything; Sir William had been the earliest and kindest of my otherfriends, eager and glad always to assist, instruct, encourage me; JohnButler had given me my first gun, and had petted me in his rough way fromboyhood. Yet now, at a touch of that hateful, impalpable thing "class, "these all vanished away from my support, and were to me as if they hadnever been. I saw them over on the other side, across the abyss from me, grouped smiling about this new-comer, praising his brute ability to drinkand race and wrestle, complimenting him upon his position among thegentry--save the mark!--of Tryon County, and proud that they had by neverso little aided him to secure for a wife this poor trembling, timid, fascinated girl. Doubtless they felt that a great honor had been done her;it might be that even she dreamed this, too, as she heard theircongratulations. 

And these men, honest, fair-minded gentlemen as they were in otheraffairs, would toss me aside like a broken pipe if I ventured to challengetheir sympathy as against this empty-headed, satined, and powderedstranger. They had known and watched me all my life. My smallest action, my most trivial habit, was familiar to them. They had seen me grow beforetheir eyes--dutiful, obedient, diligent, honest, sober, truthful. In theirhearts they knew that I deserved all these epithets. They themselves timeout of mind had applied them to me. I stood now, at my early age, and onmy own account, on the threshold of a career of honorable trade, surely asworthy now as it was when Sir William began at it far more humbly. Yetwith all these creditable things known to them, I could not stand for amoment in their estimation against this characterless new-comer!

Why? He was a "gentleman, " and I was not. 

Not that he was better born--a thousand times no! But I had drawn from theself-sacrificing, modest, devoted man of God, my father, and the resolute, tireless, hard working, sternly honest housewife, my mother, the fatalnotion that it was not beneath the dignity of a Mauverensen or a Van Hoornto be of use in the world. My ancestors had fought for their littlecountry, nobly and through whole generations, to free it from the accursedrule of that nest of aristocrats, Spain; but they had not been ashamedalso to work, in either the Old World or the New. This other, thisEnglishman--I found myself calling him that as the most comprehensiveexpletive I could use--the son of a professional butcher and of anintriguing woman, was my superior here, in truth, where I had lived allmy life and he had but shown his nose, because he preferred idleness toemployment!

It was a mistake, then, was it, to be temperate and industrious? It wasmore honorable to ride at races, to play high stakes, and drain threebottles at dinner, than to study and to do one's duty? To be a gentlemanwas a matter of silk breeches and perukes and late hours? Out upon theblundering playwright who made Bassanio win with the leaden casket! Portiawas a woman, and would have wrapped her picture--nay, herself--in tinselgilt, the gaudier the better!

But why strive to trace further my wrathful meditations? There is nothingpleasant or profitable in the contemplation of anger, even when reasonruns abreast of it. And I especially have no pride in this three hours'wild fury. There were moments in it, I fear, when my rage was well-nighmurderous in its fierceness. 

The storm came--a cold, thin, driving rain, with faint mutterings ofthunder far behind. I did not care to quicken my pace or fasten my coat. The inclemency fitted and echoed my mood. 

On the road we came suddenly upon the Hall party, returning in haste fromthe interrupted picnic. The baronet's carriage, with the hood drawn, rumbled past without a sign of recognition from driver or inmates. Ahalf-dozen horsemen cantered behind, their chins buried in their collars, and their hats pulled down over their eyes. One of the last of these--itwas Bryan Lefferty--reined up long enough to inform me that Mr. Stewartand Daisy had long before started by the forest path for their home, andthat young Cross had made short work of his other guests in order toaccompany them. 

"We're not after complaining, though, " said the jovial Irishman; "it'shuman nature to desert ordinary mortals like us when youth and beautybeckon the other way. "

I made some indifferent answer, and he rode away after his companions. Weresumed our tramp over the muddy track, with the rain and wind gloomilypelting upon our backs. 

When we turned off into the woods, to descend the steep side-hill to thewaterfall, it was no easy matter to keep our footing. The narrow trailwas slippery with wet leaves and moss. Looking over the dizzy edge, youcould see the tops of tall trees far below. The depths were an indistinctmass of dripping foliage, dark green and russet. We made our way gingerlyand with extreme care, with the distant clamor of the falls in our ears, and the peril of tumbling headlong keeping all our senses painfully alert. 

At a turn in the path, I came sharply upon Philip Cross. 

He was returning from the Cedars: he carried a broken bough to use as awalking-stick in the difficult ascent, and was panting with the exertion;yet the lightness of his heart impelled him to hum broken snatches of asong as he climbed. The wet verdure under foot had so deadened sound thatneither suspected the presence of the other till we suddenly stood, onthis slightly widened, overhanging platform, face to face!

He seemed to observe an unusual something on my face, but it did notinterest him enough to affect his customary cool, off-hand civilitytoward me. 

"Oh, Morrison, is that you?" he said, nonchalantly. "You're drenched, Isee, like the rest of us. Odd that so fine a day should end like this"--and made as if to pass me on the inner side. 

I blocked his way and said, with an involuntary shake in my voice which Icould only hope he failed to note:

"You have miscalled me twice to-day. I will teach you my true name, if youlike--here! now!"

He looked at me curiously for an instant--then with a frown. "You aredrunk, " he cried, angrily. "Out of my way!"

"No, you are again wrong, " I said, keeping my voice down, and looking himsquare in the eye. "I'm not of the drunken set in the Valley. No man wasever soberer. But I am going to spell my name out for you, in such mannerthat you will be in no danger of forgetting it to your dying day. "

The young Englishman threw a swift glance about him, to measure hissurroundings. Then he laid down his cudgel, and proceeded to unbutton hisgreat-coat, which by some strange freak of irony happened to be one ofmine that they had lent him at the Cedars for his homeward journey. 

If the words may be coupled, I watched him with an enraged admiration. There was no sign of fear manifest in his face or bearing. With all hisknowledge of wrestling, he could not but have felt that, against mysuperior size and weight, and long familiarity with woodland footing, there were not many chances of his escaping with his life: if I went over, he certainly would go too--and he might go alone. Yet he unfastened hiscoats with a fine air of unconcern, and turned back his ruffles carefully. I could not maintain the same calm in throwing off my hat and coat, andwas vexed with myself for it. 

We faced each other thus in our waistcoats in the drizzling rain for afinal moment, exchanging a crossfire sweep of glances which took in notonly antagonist, but every varying foot of the treacherous ground we stoodupon, and God knows what else beside--when I was conscious of a swiftmovement past me from behind. 

I had so completely forgotten Tulp's presence that for the second thatfollowed I scarcely realized what was happening. Probably the faithfulslave had no other thought, as he glided in front of me, than to thusplace himself between me and what he believed to be certain death. 

To the Englishman the sudden movement may easily have seemed an attack. 

There was an instant's waving to and fro of a light and a dark body closebefore my startled eyes. Then, with a scream which froze the very marrowin my bones, the negro boy, arms whirling wide in air, shot over the sideof the cliff!

Friends of mine in later years, when they heard this story from my lipsover a pipe and bowl, used to express surprise that I did not that verymoment throw myself upon Cross, and fiercely bring the quarrel to an end, one way or the other. I remember that when General Arnold came up theValley, five years after, and I recounted to him this incident, whichrecent events had recalled, he did not conceal his opinion that I hadchosen the timid part. "By God!" he cried, striking the camp-table tillthe candlesticks rattled, "I would have killed him or he would have killedme, before the nigger struck bottom!" Very likely he would have done as hesaid. I have never seen a man with a swifter temper and resolution thanpoor, brave, choleric, handsome Arnold had; and into a hideously hopelessmorass of infamy they landed him, too! No doubt it will seem to myreaders, as well, that in nature I ought upon the instant to have grappledthe Englishman. 

The fact was, however, that this unforeseen event took every atom of fightout of both of us as completely as if we had been struck by lightning. 

With a cry of horror I knelt and hung over the shelving edge as far aspossible, striving to discover some trace of my boy through the mistymasses of foliage below. I could see nothing--could hear nothing but thefar-off dashing of the waters, which had now in my ears an unspeakablysinister sound. It was only when I rose to my feet again that I caughtsight of Tulp, slowly making his way up the other side of the ravine, limping and holding one hand to his head. He had evidently been hurt, butit was a great deal to know that he was alive. I turned to myantagonist--it seemed that a long time had passed since I last lookedat him. 

The same idea that the struggle was postponed had come to him, evidently, for he had put on his coats again, and had folded his arms. He too hadbeen alarmed for the fate of the boy, but he affected now not to see him. 

I drew back to the rock now, and Cross passed me in silence, with his chindefiantly in the air. He turned when he had gained the path above, andstood for a moment frowning down at me. 

"I am going to marry Miss Stewart, " he called out. "The sooner you find anew master, and take yourself off, the better. I don't want to seeyou again. "

"When you do see me again, " I made answer, "be sure that I will breakevery bone in your body. "

With this not very heroic interchange of compliments we parted. Icontinued the descent, and crossed the creek to where the unfortunate Tulpwas waiting for me. 

Chapter XVII. 

I Perforce Say Farewell to My Old Home. 

The slave sat upon one of the bowlders in the old Indian circle, holdinghis jaw with his hand, and rocking himself like a child with the colic. 

He could give me no account whatever of the marvellous escape he had hadfrom instant death, and I was forced to conclude that his fall had beenmore than once broken by the interposition of branches or clumps of vines. He seemed to have fortunately landed on his head. His jaw was broken, andsome of his teeth loosened, but none of his limbs were fractured, thoughall were bruised. I bound up his chin with my handkerchief, and put myneckcloth over one of his eyes, which was scratched and swollen shut, asby some poisonous thing. Thus bandaged, he hobbled along behind me overthe short remaining distance. The rain and cold increased as nightfallcame on, and, no longer sustained by my anger, I found the walk a very wetand miserable affair. 

When I reached the Cedars, and had sent Tulp to his parents with a promiseto look in upon him later, I was still without any definite plan of whatto say or do upon entering. The immensity of the crisis which hadovertaken me had not shut my mind to the fact that the others, so farfrom being similarly overwhelmed, did not even suspect any reason on mypart for revolt or sorrow. I had given neither of them any cause, by wordor sign, to regard me as a rival to Cross--at least, of late years. So faras they were concerned, I had no ground to stand upon in making a protest. Yet when did this consideration restrain an angry lover? I had a savagefeeling that they ought to have known, if they didn't. And reflection uponthe late scene on the gulf side--upon the altercation, upon the abortiveway in which I had allowed mastery of the situation to slip through myfingers, and upon poor Tulp's sufferings--only served to swell mymortification and rage. 

When I entered--after a momentary temptation to make a stranger of myselfby knocking at the door--Daisy was sitting by the fire beside Mr. Stewart;both were looking meditatively into the fire, which gave the only light inthe room, and she was holding his hand. My heart melted for a second asthis pretty, home-like picture met my eyes, and a sob came into my throatat the thought that I was no longer a part of this dear home-circle. Thensulkiness rose to the top again. I muttered something about the weather, lighted a candle at the fire, and moved past them to the door of my room. 

"Why, Douw, " asked Daisy, half rising as she spoke, "what has happened?There's blood on your ruffles! Where is your neckcloth?"

I made answer, standing with my hand upon the latch, and glowering at her:

"The blood comes from my Tulp's broken head: I used my neckcloth to tieit up. He was thrown over the side of Kayaderosseros gulf, an hour ago, bythe gentleman whom it is announced you are going to marry!"

Without waiting to note the effect of these words, I went into my room, closing the door behind me sharply. I spent a wretched hour or so, sortingover my clothes and possessions, trinkets and the like, and packing themfor a journey. Nothing was very clear in my mind, between bitter repiningat the misery which had come upon me and the growing repulsion I felt formaking these two unhappy, but it was at least obvious that I must as soonas possible leave the Cedars. 

When at last I reentered the outer room, the table was spread for supper. Only Mr. Stewart was in the room, and he stood in his favorite attitude, with his back to the fire and his hands behind him. He preserved acomplete silence, not even looking at me, until my aunt had brought in thesimple evening meal. To her he said briefly that Mistress Daisy had goneto her room, weary and with a headache, and would take no supper. I feltthe smart of reproof to me in every word he uttered, and even more in hiscurt tone. I stood at the window with my back to him, looking through thedripping little panes at the scattered lights across the river, and notceasing for an instant to think forebodingly of the scene which wasimpendent. 

Dame Kronk had been out of the room some moments when he said, testily:

"Well, sir! will you do me the honor to come to the table, or is it yourwish that I should fetch your supper to you?" The least trace of softnessin his voice would, I think, have broken down my temper. If he had beenonly grieved at my behavior, and had shown to me sorrow instead oftruculent rebuke, I would have been ready, I believe, to fall at his feet. But his scornful sternness hardened me. 

"Thank you, sir, " I replied, "I have no wish for supper. "

More seconds of silence ensued. The streaming windows and blurredfragments of light, against the blackness outside, seemed to mirror thechaotic state of my mind. I ought to turn to him--a thousand times over, Iknew I ought--and yet for my life I could not. At last he spoke again:

"Perhaps, then, you will have the politeness to face me. My associationhas chiefly been with gentlemen, and I should mayhap be embarrassed bywant of experience if I essayed to address you to your back. "

I had wheeled around before half his first sentence was out, thoroughlyashamed of myself. In my contrition I had put forth my hand as I movedtoward him. He did not deign to notice--or rather to respond to--theapologetic overture, and I dropped the hand and halted. He looked me overnow, searchingly and with a glance of mingled curiosity and anger. Heseemed to be searching for words sufficiently formal and harsh, meanwhile, and he was some time in finding them. 

"In the days when I wore a sword for use, young man, and moved among myequals, " he began, deliberately, "it was not held to be a safe or smallmatter to offer me affront. Other times, other manners. The treatmentwhich then I would not have brooked from Cardinal York himself, I findmyself forced to submit to, under my own roof, at the hands of a personwho, to state it most lightly, should for decency's sake put on theappearance of respect for my gray hairs. "

He paused here, and I would have spoken, but he held up his slender, ruffled hand with a peremptory "Pray, allow me!" and presently went on:

"In speaking to you as I ought to speak, I am at the disadvantage of beingwholly unable to comprehend the strange and malevolent change which hascome over you. Through nearly twenty years of close and even dailyobservation, rendered at once keen and kindly by an affection to which Iwill not now refer, you had produced upon me the impression of a dutiful, respectful, honorable, and polite young man. If, as was the case, youdeveloped some of the to me less attractive and less generous virtues ofyour race, I still did not fail to see that they were, in their way, virtues, and that they inured both to my material profit and to yourcredit among your neighbors. I had said to myself, after muchconsideration, that if you had not come up wholly the sort of gentleman Ihad looked for, still you were a gentleman, and had qualities which, takenaltogether, would make you a creditable successor to me on the portions ofmy estate which it was my purpose to entail upon you and yours. "

"Believe me, Mr. Stewart, " I interposed here, with a broken voice, as hepaused again, "I am deeply--very deeply grateful to you. "

He went on as if I had not spoken:

"Judge, then, my amazement and grief to find you returning from yourvoyage to the West intent upon leaving me, upon casting aside the positionand duties for which I had trained you, and upon going down to Albany todicker for pence and ha'pence with the other Dutchmen there. I did notforbid your going. I contented myself by making known to you mydisappointment at your selection of a career so much inferior to youreducation and position in life. Whereupon you have no better conception ofwhat is due to me and to yourself than to begin a season of sulky poutingand sullenness, culminating in the incredible rudeness of open insults tome, and, what is worse, to my daughter in my presence. She has gone to herchamber sick in head and heart alike from your boorish behavior. I wouldfain have retired also, in equal sorrow and disgust, had it not seemed myduty to demand an explanation from you before the night passed. "

The blow--the whole crushing series of blows--had fallen. How I sufferedunder them, how each separate lash tore savagely through heart and souland flesh, it would be vain to attempt to tell. 

Yet with the anguish there came no weakening. I had been wrong andfoolish, and clearly enough I saw it, but this was not the way to corrector chastise me. A solitary sad word would have unmanned me; this long, stately, satirical speech, this ironically elaborate travesty of myactions and motives, had an opposite effect. I suffered, but I stubbornlystood my ground. 

"If I have disappointed you, sir, I am more grieved than you can possiblybe, " I replied. "If what I said was in fact an affront to you, andto--her--then I would tear out my tongue to recall the words. But how canthe simple truth affront?"

"What was this you called out so rudely about the gulf--about Tulp's beingthrown over by--by the gentleman my daughter is to marry? since you chooseto describe him thus. "

"I spoke the literal truth, sir. It was fairly by a miracle that the poordevil escaped with his life. "

"How did it happen? What was the provocation? Even in Caligula's daysslaves were not thrown over cliffs without some reason. "

"Tulp suffered for the folly of being faithful to me--for notunderstanding that it was the fashion to desert me, " I replied, withrising temerity. "He threw himself between me and this Cross of yours, aswe faced each other on the ledge--where we spoke this morning of the needfor a chain--and the Englishman flung him off. "

"Threw himself between you! Were you quarrelling, you two, then?"

"I dare say it would be described as a quarrel. I think I should havekilled him, or he killed me, if the calamity of poor Tulp's tumble had notput other things in our heads. "

"My faith!" was Mr. Stewart's only comment. He stared at me for a time, then seated himself before the fire, and looked at the blaze and smoke inapparent meditation. Finally he said, in a somewhat milder voice thanbefore: "Draw a chair up here and sit down. Doubtless there is more inthis than I thought. Explain it to me. "

I felt less at my ease, seated now for a more or less moderate conference, than I had been on my feet, bearing my part in a quarrel. 

"What am I to explain?" I asked. 

"Why were you quarrelling with Philip?"

"Because I felt like it--because I hate him!"

"Tut, tut! That is a child's answer. What is the trouble between you two?I demand to know!"

"If you will have it"--and all my resentment and sense of loss burst forthin the explanation--"because he has destroyed my home for me; because hehas ousted me from the place I used to have, and strove so hard to beworthy of, in your affections; because, after a few months here, with hisfine clothes and his dashing, wasteful ways, he is more regarded by youand your friends than I am, who have tried faithfully all my life todeserve your regard; because he has taken--" But I broke down here. Mythroat choked the sound in sobs, and I turned my face away that he mightnot see the tears which I felt scalding my eyes. 

My companion kept silent, but he poked the damp, smudging sticks about inthe fire-place vigorously, took his spectacles out of their case, rubbedthem, and put them back in his pocket, and in other ways long sincefamiliar to me betrayed his uneasy interest. These slight signs of growingsympathy--or, at least, comprehension--encouraged me to proceed, and myvoice came back to me. 

"If you could know, " I went mournfully on, "the joy I felt when I firstlooked on the Valley--_our_ Valley--again at Fort Stanwix; if you couldonly realize how I counted the hours and minutes which separated me fromthis home, from you and her, and how I cried out at their slowness; if youcould guess how my heart beat when I walked up the path out there thatevening, and opened that door, and looked to see you two welcome me--ah, then you could feel the bitterness I have felt since! I came home burningwith eagerness, homesickness, to be in my old place again near you andher--and the place was filled by another! If I have seemed rude andsullen, _that_ is the reason. If I had set less store upon your love, andupon her--her--liking for me, then doubtless I should have borne thedisplacement with better grace. But it put me on the rack. Believe me, ifI have behaved to your displeasure, and hers, it has been from very excessof tenderness trampled underfoot. "

At least the misunderstanding had been cleared up, and for a time, at allevents, the heart of my life-long friend had warmed again to me as of old. He put his hand paternally upon my knee, and patted it softly. 

"My poor boy, " he said, with a sympathetic half-smile, and in his old-timegravely gentle voice: "even in your tribulation you must be Dutch! Why nothave said this to me--or what then occurred to you of it--at the outset, the first day after you came? Why, then it could all have been put rightin a twinkling. But no! in your secretive Dutch fashion you must needs goaloof, and worry your heart sore by all sorts of suspicions and jealousiesand fears that you have been supplanted--until, see for yourself what amelancholy pass you have brought us all to! Suppose by chance, while thesesullen devils were driving you to despair, you had done injury toPhilip--perhaps even killed him! Think what your feelings, and ours, wouldbe now. And all might have been cleared up, set right, by a word at thebeginning. "

I looked hard into the fire, and clinched my teeth. 

"Would a word have given me Daisy?" I asked from between them. 

He withdrew his hand from my knee, and pushed one of the logs petulantlywith his foot. "What do you mean?" he demanded. 

"I mean that for five years I have desired--for the past six months have, waking or sleeping, thought of nothing else but this desire of myheart--to have Daisy for my wife. "

As he did not speak, I went on with an impassioned volubility altogetherstrange to my custom, recalling to him the tender intimacy in which sheand I had grown up from babyhood; the early tacit understanding that wewere to inherit the Cedars and all its belongings, and his own notinfrequent allusions in those days to the vision of our sharing it, andall else in life, together. Then I pictured to him the brotherly fondnessof my later years, blossoming suddenly, luxuriantly, into the fervor of alover's devotion while I was far away in the wilds, with no gracious, civilizing presence (save always Mr. Cross) near me except the dear imageof her which I carried in my heart of hearts. I told him, too, of thedelicious excitement with which, day by day, I drew nearer to the homethat held her, trembling now with nervousness at my slow progress, nowwith timidity lest, grasping this vast happiness too swiftly, I shouldcrush it from very ecstasy of possession. I made clear to him, moreover, that I had come without ever dreaming of the possibility of a rival--asinnocently, serenely confident of right, as would be a little childapproaching to kiss its mother. 

"Fancy this child struck violently in the face by this mother, from whomit had never before received so much as a frown, " I concluded; "then youwill understand something of the blow which has sent me reeling. "

His answering words, when finally he spoke, were sympathetic and friendlyenough, but not very much to the point. This was, doubtless, due to nofault of his; consolation at such times is not within the power of thevery wisest to bestow. 

He pointed out to me that these were a class of disappointmentsexceedingly common to the lot of young men; it was the way of the world. In the process of pairing off a generation, probably ninety-nine out ofevery hundred couples would secretly have preferred some otherdistribution; yet they made the best of it, and the world wagged on justthe same as before. With all these and many other jarring commonplaces heessayed to soothe me--to the inevitable increase of my bitter discontent. He added, I remember, a personal parallel:

"I have never spoken of it to you, or to any other, but I too had mygrievous disappointment. I was in love with the mother of this youngPhilip Cross. I worshipped her reverently from afar; I had no otherthought or aim in life but to win her favor, to gain a position worthy ofher; I would have crossed the Channel, and marched into St. James's, andhacked off the Hanoverian's heavy head with my father's broadsword, Iverily believe, to have had one smile from her lips. Yet I had to pocketthis all, and stand smilingly by and see her wedded to my tent-mate, TonyCross. I thought the world had come to an end--but it hadn't. Women arekittle cattle, my boy. They must have their head, or their blood turnssour. Come! where is the genuineness of your affection for our girl, ifyou would deny her the gallant of her choice?"

"If I believed, " I blurted out, "that it _was_ her own free choice!"

"Whose else, then, pray?"

"If I felt that she truly, deliberately preferred him--that she had notbeen decoyed and misled by that Lady Ber--"

"Fie upon such talk!" said the old gentleman, with a shade of returningtestiness in his tone. "Do you comprehend our Daisy so slightly, after allthese years? Is she a girl not to know her own mind? Tut! she loves theyoungster; she has chosen him. If you had stopped at home, if you hadspoken earlier instead of mooning, Dutch fashion, in your own mind, itmight have been different. Who can say? But it may not be altered now. Wewho are left must still plan to promote her happiness. A hundredbridegrooms could not make her less our Daisy than she was. There must beno more quarrels between you boys, remember! I forbid it, your ownjudgment will forbid it. He will make a good husband to the girl, and Imistake much if he does not make a great man of himself in the Colony. Perhaps--who knows?--he may bring her a title, or even a coronet, some ofthese days. The Crown will have need of all its loyal gentlemen here, soonenough, too, as the current runs now, and rewards and honors will flowfreely. Philip will lose no chance to turn the stream Cairncross way. "

My aunt came in to take away the untouched dishes--Mr. Stewart could neverabide negroes in their capacity as domestics--and soon thereafter we wentto bed; I, for one, to lie sleepless and disconsolate till twilight came. 

The next morning we two again had the table to ourselves, for Daisy sentdown word that her head was still aching, and we must not wait the mealfor her. It was a silent and constrained affair, this breakfast, and wehurried through it as one speeds a distasteful task. 

It was afterward, as we walked forth together into the garden, where thewet earth already steamed under the warm downpour of sunlight, that I toldMr. Stewart of my resolution to go as soon as possible to Albany, andtake up the proffered agency. 

He seemed to have prepared himself for this, and offered no strongopposition. We had both, indeed, reached the conclusion that it was thebest way out of the embarrassment which hung over us. He still clung, ormade a show of clinging, to his regret that I had not been satisfied withmy position at the Cedars. But in his heart, I am sure, he was relieved bymy perseverance in the project. 

Two or three days were consumed in preparations at home and in conferenceswith Jonathan Cross, either at Johnson Hall or at our place, whither hewas twice able to drive. He furnished me with several letters, and withvoluminous suggestions and advice. Sir William, too, gave me letters, andmuch valuable information as to Albany ways and prejudices. I had, amongothers from him, I remember, a letter of presentation to Governor Tryon, who with his lady had visited the baronet during my absence, but which Inever presented, and another to the uncle of the boy-Patroon, which was ofmore utility. 

In the hurry and occupation of making ready for so rapid and momentous adeparture, I had not many opportunities of seeing Daisy. During the fewtimes that we were alone together, no allusion was made to the scene ofthat night, or to my words, or to her betrothal. How much she knew of theincident on the gulf-side, or of my later explanation and confession toMr. Stewart, I could not guess. She was somewhat reserved in her manner, Ifancied, and she seemed to quietly avoid being alone in the room with me. At the final parting, too, she proffered me only her cheek to touch withmy lips. Yet I could not honestly say that, deep in her heart, she was notsorry for me and tender toward me, and grieved to have me go. 

It was on the morning of the last day of September, 1772, that I beganlife alone, for myself, by starting on the journey to Albany. If I carriedwith me a sad heart, there yet were already visible the dawnings ofcompensation. At least, I had not quarrelled with the dear twain ofthe Cedars. 

As for Philip Cross, I strove not to think of him at all. 

Chapter XVIII. 

The Fair Beginning of a New Life in Ancient Albany. 

The life in Albany was to me as if I had become a citizen of some newworld. I had seen the old burgh once or twice before, fleetingly and withbut a stranger's eyes; now it was my home. As I think upon it at thisdistance, it seems as if I grew accustomed to the novel environment almostat the outset. At least, I did not pine overmuch for the Valley I hadleft behind. 

For one thing, there was plenty of hard work to keep my mind from moping. I had entirely to create both my position and my business. This latterwas, in some regards, as broad as the continent; in others it waspitifully circumscribed and narrow. It is hard for us now, with our eagernational passion for opening up the wilderness and peopling waste places, to realize that the great trading companies of Colonial days had exactlythe contrary desire. It was the chief anxiety of the fur companies toprevent immigration--to preserve the forests in as savage a state aspossible. One can see now that it was a fatal error in England's policy toencourage these vast conservators of barbarism, instead of wholesomesettlement by families--a policy which was avowedly adopted because it waseasier to sell monopolies to a few companies than to collect taxes fromscattered communities. I do not know that I thought much upon this then, however. I was too busy in fitting myself to Albany. 

Others who saw the city in these primitive Dutch days have found much init and its inhabitants to revile and scoff at. To my mind it was a mostdelightful place. Its Yankee critics assail a host of features which wereto me sources of great satisfaction--doubtless because they and I wereequally Dutch. I loved its narrow-gabled houses, with their yellow pressedbrick, and iron girders, and high, hospitable stoops, and projectingwater-spouts--which all spoke to me of the dear, brave, good old Holland Ihad never seen. It is true that these eaves-troughs, which in theNetherlands discharged the rainfall into the canal in front of the houses, here poured their contents upon the middle of the sidewalks, and NewEngland carpers have made much of this. But to me there was always apretty pathos in this resolution to reproduce, here in the wilderness, theconditions of the dear old home, even if one got drenched for it. 

And Albany was then almost as much in the wilderness as Caughnawaga. Therewere a full score of good oil-lamps set up in the streets; some Scotchmenhad established a newspaper the year before, which print was to be hadweekly; the city had had its dramatic baptism, too, and people still toldof the theatrical band who had come and performed for a month at thehospital, and of the fierce sermon against them which DominieFreylinghuysen had preached three years before. Albany now is a greattown, having over ten thousand souls within its boundaries; then itspopulation was less than one-third of that number. But the three or fourhundred houses of the city were spread over such an area of ground, andwere so surrounded by trim gardens and embowered in trees, that the effectwas that of a vastly larger place. Upon its borders, one stepped off thegrassy street into the wild country-road or wilder forest-trail. Thewilderness stretched its dark shadows to our very thresholds. It isthought worthy of note now by travellers that one can hear, from the stepsof our new State House, the drumming of partridges in the woods beyond. Then we could hear, in addition, the barking of wolves skulking down fromthe Helderbergs, and on occasion the scream of a panther. 

Yet here there was a feeling of perfect security and peace. The days whenmen bore their guns to church were now but a memory among the elders. Theonly Indians we saw were those who came in, under strict espionage, tobarter their furs for merchandise and drink--principally drink--andoccasional delegations of chiefs who came here to meet the governor or hisrepresentatives--these latter journeying up from New York for the purpose. For the rest, a goodly and profitable traffic went sedately andcomfortably forward. We sent ships to Europe and the West Indies, and evento the slave-yielding coast of Guinea. In both the whaling and deep-seafisheries we had our part. As for furs and leather and lumber, no othertown in the colonies compared with Albany. We did this business in ourown way, to be sure, without bustle or boasting, and so were accountedslow by our noisier neighbors to the east and south. 

There were numerous holidays in this honest, happy old time, although thefiring of guns on New Year's was rather churlishly forbidden by theAssembly the year after my arrival. It gives me no pleasure now, in my oldage, to see Pinkster forgotten, and Vrouwen-dagh and Easter passunnoticed, under the growing sway of the New England invaders, who knowhow neither to rest nor to play. 

But my chief enjoyment lay, I think, in the people I came to know. Up inthe Valley, if exception were made of four or five families alreadysketched in this tale, there were no associates for me who knew aught ofbooks or polite matters in general. Of late, indeed, I had felt myselfalmost wholly alone, since my few educated companions or acquaintanceswere on the Tory side of the widening division, and I, much as I wasrepelled by their politics, could find small intellectual equivalent forthem among the Dutch and German Whigs whose cause and political sympathieswere mine. 

But here in Albany I could hate the English and denounce their rule andrulers in excellent and profitable company. I was fortunate enough at theoutset to produce a favorable impression upon Abraham Ten Broeck, theuncle and guardian of the boy-Patroon, and in some respects the foremostcitizen of the town. Through him I speedily became acquainted with othersnot less worthy of friendship--Colonel Philip Schuyler, whom I had seenbefore and spoken with in the Valley once or twice, but now came uponterms of intimacy with; John Tayler and Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, youngermen, and trusted friends of his; Peter Gansevoort, who was of my own age, and whom I grew to love like a brother--and so on, through a long list. 

These and their associates were educated and refined gentlemen, notinferior in any way to the Johnsons and Butlers I had left behind me, orto the De Lanceys, Phillipses, Wattses, and other Tory gentry whom I hadseen. If they did not drink as deep, they read a good deal more, and weremasters of as courteous and distinguished a manner. Heretofore I hadsuffered not a little from the notion--enforced upon me by all mysurroundings--that gentility and good-breeding went hand in hand withloyalty to everything England did, and that disaffection was but anothername for vulgarity and ignorance. Despite this notion, I had still chosendisaffection, but I cannot say that I was altogether pleased with theostracism from congenial companionship which this seemed to involve. Hencethe charm of my discovery in Albany that the best and wisest of itscitizens, the natural leaders of its social, commercial, and politicallife, were of my way of thinking. 

More than this, I soon came to realize that this question for and againstEngland was a deeper and graver matter than I had dreamed it to be. Up inour slow, pastoral, uninformed Valley the division was of recent growth, and, as I have tried to show, was even now more an affair of race andsocial affiliations than of politics. The trial of Zenger, the Stamp Actcrisis, the Boston Massacre--all the great events which were so bitterlydiscussed in the outer Colonial world--had created scarcely a ripple inour isolated chain of frontier settlements. We rustics had been consciousof disturbances and changes in the atmosphere, so to speak, but had lackedthe skill and information--perhaps the interest as well--to interpretthese signs of impending storm aright. Here in Albany I suddenly foundmyself among able and prudent men who had as distinct ideas of the evilsof English control, and as deep-seated a resolution to put an end to it, as our common ancestors had held in Holland toward the detested Spaniards. Need I say that I drank in all this with enthusiastic relish, and becamethe most ardent of Whigs?

Of my business it is not needful to speak at length. Once established, there was nothing specially laborious or notable about it. The wholecurrent of the company's traffic to and fro passed under my eye. Therewere many separate accounts to keep, and a small army of agents to govern, to supply, to pay, and to restrain from fraud--for which they had aconsiderable talent, and even more inclination. There were cargoes ofprovisions and merchandise to receive from our company's vessels atAlbany, and prepare for transportation across country to the West; andthere were return-cargoes of peltries and other products to be shippedhence to England. Of all this I had charge and oversight, but with noobligation upon me to do more of the labor than was fit, or to spareexpense in securing a proper performance of the residue by others. 

Mr. Jonathan Cross and his lady came down to Albany shortly after I hadentered upon my duties there, and made a stay of some days. He was as kindand thoughtful as ever, approving much that I had done, suggestingalterations and amendments here and there, but for the most part talkingof me and my prospects. He had little to say about the people at theCedars, or about the young master of Cairncross, which was now approachingcompletion, and I had small heart to ask him for more than he volunteered. Both Mr. Stewart and Daisy had charged him with affectionate messages forme, and that was some consolation; but I was still sore enough over thecollapse of my hopes, and still held enough wrath in my heart againstPhilip, to make me wish to recall neither more often than could be helped. The truth is, I think that I was already becoming reconciled to mydisappointment and to my change of life, and was secretly ashamed ofmyself for it, and so liked best to keep my thoughts and talk uponother things. 

Lady Berenicia I saw but once, and that was once too often. It pleased herladyship to pretend to recall me with difficulty, and, after she hadestablished my poor identity in her mind, to treat me with great coolness. I am charitable enough to hope that this gratified her more than it vexedme, which was not at all. 

The ill-assorted twain finally left Albany, taking passage on one of thecompany's ships. Mr. Cross's last words to me were: "Do as much business, push trade as sharply, as you can. There is no telling how long Englishcharters, or the King's writ for that matter, will continue to runover here. "

So they set sail, and I never saw either of them again. 

It was a source of much satisfaction and gain to me that my position heldme far above the bartering and dickering of the small traders. It is truethat I went through the form of purchasing a license to trade in the city, for which I paid four pounds sterling--a restriction which has alwaysseemed to me as unintelligent as it was harmful to the interests of thetown--but it was purely a form. We neither bought nor sold in Albany. Thismade it the easier for me to meet good people on equal terms--not that Iam silly enough to hold trade in disrespect, but because the merchants whocame in direct contact with the Indians and trappers suffered inestimation from the cloud of evil repute which hung over their business. 

I lived quietly, and without ostentation, putting aside some money eachquarter, and adventuring my savings to considerable profit in thecompany's business--a matter which Mr. Cross had arranged for me. I wentto many of the best houses of the Whig sort. In some ways, perhaps, myprogress in knowledge and familiarity with worldly things were purchasedat the expense of an innocence which might better have been retained. Butthat is the manner of all flesh, and I was no worse, I like to hope, thanthe best-behaved of my fellows. I certainly laughed more now in a yearthan I had done in all my life before; in truth, I may be said to havelearned to laugh here in Albany, for there were merry wights among mycompanions. One in particular should be spoken of--a second-cousin ofmine, named Teunis Van Hoorn, a young physician who had studied at Leyden, and who made jests which were often worthy to be written down. 

So two years went by. I had grown somewhat in flesh, being now decentlyrounded out and solid. Many of my timid and morose ways had been droppedmeantime. I could talk now to ladies and to my elders without feelingtongue-tied at my youthful presumption. I was a man of affairs, twenty-five years of age, with some money of my own, an excellentposition, and as good a circle of friends as fortune ever gave tomortal man. 

Once each month Mr. Stewart and I exchanged letters. Through thiscorrespondence I was informed, in the winter following my departure, ofthe marriage of Daisy and Philip Cross. 

Chapter XIX. 

I Go to a Famous Gathering at the Patroon's Manor House. 

We come to a soft, clear night in the Indian summer-time of 1774--a nightnot to be forgotten while memory remains to me. 

There was a grand gathering and ball at the Manor House of the Patroons, and to it I was invited. Cadwallader Golden, the octogenarianlieutenant-governor, and chief representative of the Crown now that Tryonwas away in England, had come up to Albany in state, upon some businesswhich I now forget, and he was to be entertained at the Van Rensselaermansion, and with him the rank, beauty, and worth of all the countryroundabout. I had heard that a considerable number of invitations had beendespatched to the Tory families in my old neighborhood, and that, despitethe great distance, sundry of them had been accepted. Sir William Johnsonhad now been dead some months, and it was fitting that his successor, SirJohn, newly master of all the vast estates, should embrace thisopportunity to make his first appearance as baronet in public. In fact, hehad arrived in town with Lady Johnson, and it was said that they came incompany with others. I could not help wondering, as I attired myself, withmore than ordinary care, in my best maroon coat and smallclothes andflowered saffron waistcoat, who it was that accompanied the Johnsons. WasI at last to meet Daisy?

Succeeding generations have discovered many tricks of embellishment anddecoration of which we old ones never dreamed. But I doubt if even themost favored of progressive moderns has laid eyes upon any sight morebeautiful than that which I recall now, as the events of this eveningreturn to me. 

You may still see for yourselves how noble, one might say palatial, wasthe home which young Stephen Van Rensselaer built for himself, there onthe lowlands at the end of Broadway, across the Kissing Bridge. But nopower of fancy can restore for _you_--sober-clad, pre-occupied, democraticpeople that you are--the flashing glories of that spectacle: the broad, fine front of the Manor House, with all its windows blazing in welcome;the tall trees in front aglow with swinging lanterns and colored lights, hung cunningly in their shadowy branches after some Italian device; thestately carriages sweeping up the gravelled avenue, and discharging theirpassengers at the block; the gay procession up the wide stone steps--richvelvets and costly satins, powdered wigs and alabaster throats, brighteyes, and gems on sword-hilts or at fair breasts--all radiant in thehospitable flood of light streaming from the open door; the throng ofgaping slaves with torches, and smartly dressed servants holding thehorses or helping with my lady's train and cloak; the resplendent body ofcolor, and light, and sparkling beauty, which the eye caught in thespacious hall within, beyond the figures of the widowed hostess and herson, the eight-year-old Patroon, who stood forth to greet their guests. No! the scene belongs to its own dead century and fading generation. Youshall strive in vain to reproduce it, even in fancy. 

The full harvest-moon, which hung in the lambent heavens above all, pictures itself to my memory as far fairer and more luminous than is thebest of nowaday moons. Alas! my old eyes read no romance in the silverybeams now, but suspect rheumatism instead. 

This round, lustrous orb, pendant over the Hudson, was not plainer toevery sight that evening than was to every consciousness the fact thatthis gathering was a sort of ceremonial salute before a duel. The stormwas soon to break; we all felt it in the air. There was a subdued, almoststiff, politeness in the tone and manner when Dutchman met Englishman, when Whig met Tory, which spoke more eloquently than words. Beneath theformal courtesy, and careful avoidance of debatable topics, one could seesidelong glances cast, and hear muttered sneers. We bowed low to oneanother, but with anxious faces, knowing that we stood upon the thin crustover the crater, likely at any moment to crash through it. 

It was my fortune to be well known to Madame Van Rensselaer, our hostess. She was a Livingston, and a patriot, and she knew me for one as well. "TheTories are here in great muster, " she whispered to me, when I bowed beforeher; "I doubt not it is the last time you will ever see them under myroof. The Colonel has news from Philadelphia to-day. There istrouble brewing. "

I could see Colonel Schuyler standing beside one of the doors to the left, but to reach him was not easy. First I must pause to exchange a few wordswith Dominie Westerlo, the learned and good pastor of the Dutch church, ofwhose intended marriage with the widow, our hostess, there were even thenrumors. And afterward there was the mayor, Abraham Cuyler, whom we allliked personally, despite his weak leaning toward the English, and itwould not do to pass him by unheeded. 

While I still stood with him, talking of I know not what, the arrival ofthe lieutenant-governor was announced. A buzz of whispering ran round thehall. In the succeeding silence that dignitary walked toward us, a spaceclearing about him as he did so. The mayor advanced to meet him, and Iperforce followed. 

I knew much about this remarkable Mr. Colden. Almost my first English bookhad been his account of the Indian tribes, and in later years I had beenequally instructed by his writings on astronomy and scientific subjects. Even in my boyhood I had heard of him as a very old man, and here he wasnow, eighty-six years of age, the highest representative in the Colony ofEnglish authority. I could feel none of the hostility I ought from hisoffice to have felt, when I presently made my obeisance, and he offeredme his hand. 

It was a pleasant face and a kindly eye which met my look. Despite hisgreat age, he seemed scarcely older in countenance and bearing than hadMr. Stewart when last I saw him. He was simply clad, and I saw from hislong, waving, untied hair why he was called "Old Silver Locks. " His fewwords to me were amiable commonplaces, and I passed to make room forothers, and found my way now to where Schuyler stood. 

"The old fox!" he said, smilingly nodding toward Colden. "One may not butlike him, for all his tricks. If England had had the wit to keep that rudeboor of a Tryon at home, and make Colden governor, and listen to him, matters would have gone better. Who is that behind him? Oh, yes, De Lancey. "

Oliver de Lancey was chiefly notable on account of his late brother James, who had been chief justice and lieutenant-governor, and the mostbrilliant, unscrupulous, masterful politician of his time. Oliver washimself a man of much energy and ambition. I observed him curiously, forhis mother had been a Van Cortlandt, and I had some of that blood in myveins as well. So far as it had contributed to shape his face, I was notproud of it, for he had a selfish and arrogant mien. 

It was more satisfactory to watch my companion, as he told me the names ofthe Tories who followed in Colden's wake, and commented on theircharacters. I do not recall them, but I remember every line of PhilipSchuyler's face, and every inflection of his voice. He was then not quiteforty years of age, almost of my stature--that is to say, a tall man. Heheld himself very erect, giving strangers the impression of a haughty air, which his dark face and eyes, and black lines of hair peeping from underthe powder, helped to confirm. But no one could speak in amity with himwithout finding him to be the most affable and sweet-natured of men. If hehad had more of the personal vanity and self-love which his bearing seemedto indicate, it would have served him well, perhaps, when New Englandjealousy assailed and overbore him. But he was too proud to fight forhimself, and too patriotic not to fight for his country, whether the justreward came or was withheld. 

Colonel Schuyler had been chosen as one of the five delegates of theColony to attend the first Continental Congress, now sitting atPhiladelphia, but ill-health had compelled him to decline the journey. Hehad since been to New York, however, where he had learned much of thesituation, and now was in receipt of tidings from the Congress itself. Bya compromise in the New York Assembly, both parties had been representedin our delegation, the Whigs sending Philip Livingston and Isaac Low, theTories James Duane and John Jay, and the fifth man, one Alsopp, being aneutral-tinted individual to whom neither side could object. Theinformation which Schuyler had received was to the effect that all five, under the tremendous and enthusiastic pressure they had encountered inPhiladelphia, had now resolved to act together in all things for theColonies and against the Crown. 

"That means, " said he, "that we shall all adopt Massachusetts's cause asour own. After Virginia led the way with Patrick Henry's speech, there wasno other course possible for even Jay and Duane. I should like to hearthat man Henry. He must be wonderful. "

The space about Mr. Colden had shifted across the room, so that we werenow upon its edge, and Schuyler went to him with outstretched hand. Thetwo men exchanged a glance, and each knew what the other was thinking of. 

"Your excellency has heard from Philadelphia, " said the Colonel, more as astatement of fact than as an inquiry. 

"Sad, sad!" exclaimed the aged politician, in a low tone. "It is a griefinstead of a joy to have lived so long, if my life must end amidcontention and strife. "

"He is really sincere in deploring the trouble, " said Schuyler, when hehad rejoined me. "He knows in his heart that the Ministry are pig-headedlywrong, and that we are in the right. He would do justice if he could, buthe is as powerless as I am so far as influencing London goes, and here heis in the hands of the De Lanceys. To give the devil his due, I believeSir William Johnson was on our side, too, at heart. "

We had talked of this before, and out of deference to my sentiments ofliking and gratitude to Sir William, he always tried to say amiable thingsabout the late baronet to me. But they did not come easily, for there wasan old-time feud between the two families. The dislike dated back to thebeginning of young Johnson's career, when, by taking sides shrewdly in apolitical struggle between Clinton and De Lancey, he had ousted JohnSchuyler, Philip's grandfather, from the Indian commissionership andsecured it for himself. In later years, since the Colonel had come tomanhood, he had been forced into rivalry, almost amounting to antagonismat times, with the baronet, in Colonial and Indian affairs; and even now, after the baronet's death, it was hard for him to acknowledge theexistence of all the virtues which my boyish liking had found in SirWilliam. But still he did try, if only to please me. 

As we spoke, Sir John Johnson passed us, in company with several youngermen, pushing toward the room to the right, where the punch-bowlwas placed. 

"At least, _he_ is no friend of yours?" said Schuyler, indicating thered-faced young baronet. 

"No man less so, " I replied, promptly. Two years ago I doubt I should havebeen so certain of my entire enmity toward Sir John. But in the interimall my accumulating political fervor had unconsciously stretched back toinclude the Johnstown Tories; I found myself now honestly hating them allalike for their former coolness to me and their present odious attitudetoward my people. And it was not difficult, recalling all my boyishdislike for John Johnson and his steadily contemptuous treatment of me, tomake him the chief object of my aversion. 

We talked of him now, and of his wife, a beautiful, sweet-faced girl oftwenty, who had been Polly Watts of New York. My companion pointed her outto me, as one of a circle beyond the fire-place. He had only soft wordsand pity for her--as if foreseeing the anguish and travail soon to bebrought upon her by her husband's misdeeds--but he spoke very slightinglyand angrily of Sir John. To Schuyler's mind there was no good in him. 

"I have known him more or less since he was a boy and followed his fatherin the Lake George campaign. The officers then could not abide him, thoughsome were submissive to him because of his father's position. So now, fifteen years afterward, although he has many toadies and flatterers, Idoubt his having any real friends. Through all these score of years, Ihave yet to learn of any gracious or manly thing he has done. "

"At least he did gallop from the Fort to the Hall at news of his father'sdeath, and kill his horse by the pace, " I said. 

"Heirs can afford to ride swiftly, " replied the Colonel, in a dry tone. "No: he has neither the honesty to respect the rights of others, nor thewit to enforce those which he arrogates to himself. Look at his managementin the Mohawk Valley. Scarce two months after the old baronet'sdeath--before he was barely warm in his father's bed--all the Dutch andPalatines and Cherry Valley Scotch were up in arms against him and hisfriends. I call that the work of a fool. Why, Tryon County ought, by allthe rules, to be the Tories' strongest citadel. There, of all otherplaces, they should be able to hold their own. Old Sir William would havecontrived matters better, believe me. But this sulky, slave-driving cubmust needs force the quarrel from the start. Already they have theircommittee in the Palatine district, with men like Frey and Yates and Parison it, and their resolutions are as strong as any we have heard. "

Others came up at this, and I moved away, thinking to pay my respects tofriends in the rooms on the left. The fine hall was almost overcrowded. One's knee struck a sword, or one's foot touched a satin train, at everystep. There were many whom I knew, chiefly Albanians, and my progress wasthus rendered slow. At the door I met my kinsman, Dr. Teunis Van Hoorn. 

"Ha! well met, Cousin Sobriety!" he cried. "Let us cross the hall, and getnear the punch-bowl. "

"It is my idea that you have had enough, " I answered. 

"'Too much is enough, ' as the Indian said. He was nearer the truth thanyou are, " replied Teunis, taking my arm. 

"No, not now! First let me see who is here. "

"Who is here? Everybody--from Hendrik Hudson and Killian the First down. Old Centenarian Colden is telling them about William the Silent, whom heremembers very well. "

"I have never heard any one speak of Teunis the Silent. "

"Nor ever will! It is not my _métier_, as the French students used to say. Well, then, I will turn back with you; but the punch will all be gone, mark my words. I saw Johnson and Watts and their party headed for the bowlfive-and-twenty minutes ago. We shall get not so much as a lemon-seed. ButI sacrifice myself. "

We entered the room, and my eyes were drawn, as by the force of a millionmagnets, to the place where Daisy sat. 

For the moment she was unattended. She was very beautifully attired, andjewels glistened from her hair and throat. Her eyes were downcast--lookingupon the waxed floor as if in meditation. Even to this sudden, momentaryglance, her fair face looked thinner and paler than I remembered it--andah, how well did I remember it! With some muttered word of explanation Ibroke away from my companion, and went straight to her. 

She had not noted my presence or approach, and only looked up when I stoodbefore her. There was not in her face the look of surprise which I hadexpected. She smiled in a wan way, and gave me her hand. 

"I knew you were here, " she said, in a soft voice which I scarcelyrecognized, so changed, I might say saddened, was it by the introductionof some plaintive, minor element. "Philip told me. I thought that sooneror later I should see you. "

"And I have thought of little else but the chance of seeing you, " Ireplied, speaking what was in my heart, with no reflection save that thiswas our Daisy, come into my life again. 

She was silent for a moment, her eyes seeking the floor and a faint glowcoming upon her cheeks. Then she raised them to my face, with something ofthe old sparkle in their glance. 

"Well, then, " she said, drawing aside her skirts, "sit here, and see me. "

Chapter XX. 

A Foolish and Vexatious Quarrel Is Thrust Upon Me. 

I sat beside Daisy, and we talked. It was at the beginning a highlysuperficial conversation, as I remember it, during which neither looked atthe other, and each made haste to fill up any threatened lapse intosilence by words of some sort, it mattered not much what. 

She told me a great deal about Mr. Stewart's health, which I learned wasfar less satisfactory than his letters had given reason to suspect. Inreply to questions, I told her of my business and my daily life here inAlbany. I did not ask her in return about herself. She seemed eager toforestall any possible inquiry on this point, and hastened to inform me asto my old acquaintances in the Valley. 

From her words I first realized how grave the situation there had suddenlybecome. It was not only that opposition to the Johnsons had been openlyformulated, but feuds of characteristic bitterness had sprung up withinfamilies, and between old-time friends, in consequence. Colonel HenryFrey, who owned the upper Canajoharie mills, took sides with the Tories, and had fiercely quarrelled with his brother John, who was one of the WhigCommittee. There was an equally marked division in the Herkimer family, where one brother, Hon-Yost Herkimer, and his nephew, outraged the othersby espousing the Tory cause. So instances might be multiplied. Already onone side there were projects of forcible resistance, and on the other uglythreats of using the terrible Indian power, which hung portentous on thewestern skirt of the Valley, to coerce the Whigs. 

I gained from this recital, more from her manner than her words, that hersympathies were with the people and not with the aristocrats. She went onto say things which seemed to offer an explanation of this. 

The tone of Valley society, at least so far as it was a reflection ofJohnson Hall, had, she said, deteriorated wofully since the old baronet'sdeath. A reign of extravagance and recklessness both as to money andtemper--of gambling, racing, hard drinking, low sports, and coarsemanners--had set in. The friends of Sir John were now a class bythemselves, having no relations to speak of with the body of Whig farmers, merchants, inn-keepers, and the like. Rather it seemed to please the Toryclique to defy the good opinion of their neighbors, and show by veryexcess and license contempt for their judgment. Some of the young men whomI had known were of late sadly altered. She spoke particularly of WalterButler, whose moodiness had now been inflamed, by dissipation and by theevil spell which seemed to hang over everything in the Valley, into asinister and sombre rage at the Whigs, difficult to distinguish sometimesfrom madness. 

In all this I found but one reflection--rising again and again as shespoke--and this was that she was telling me, by inference, the story ofher own unhappiness. 

Daisy would never have done this consciously--of that I am positive. Butit was betrayed in every line of her face, and my anxious ear caught it inevery word she uttered as to the doings of the Johnson party. Doubtlessshe did not realize how naturally and closely I would associate herhusband with that party. 

Underneath all our talk there had been, on both sides, I dare say, a senseof awkward constraint. There were so many things which we must not speakof--things which threatened incessantly to force their way to the surface. 

I thought of them all, and wondered how much she knew of the events thatpreceded my departure--how much she guessed of the heart-breaking griefwith which I had seen her go to another. It came back to me now, veryvividly, as I touched the satin fold of her gown with my shoe, and said tomyself, "This is really she. "

The two years had not passed so uncomfortably, it is true; work andpre-occupation and the change of surroundings had brought me back my peaceof mind and taken the keen edge from my despair--which was to have beenlife-long, and had faded in a month. Yet now her simple presence--with thevague added feeling that she was unhappy--sufficed to wipe out the wholeepisode of Albany, and transport me bodily back to the old Valley days. Ifelt again all the anguish at losing her, all the bitter wrath at thetriumph of my rival--emphasized and intensified now by the impliedconfession that he had proved unworthy. 

To this gloom there presently succeeded, by some soft, subtle transition, the consciousness that it was very sweet to sit thus beside her. The airabout us seemed suddenly filled with some delicately be-numbing influence. The chattering, smiling, moving throng was here, close upon us, envelopingus in its folds. Yet we were deliciously isolated. Did she feel it asI did?

I looked up into her face. She had been silent for I know not how long, following her thoughts as I had followed mine. It was almost a shock to meto find that the talk had died away, and I fancied that I read a kindredembarrassment in her eyes. I seized upon the first subject whichentered my head. 

"Tulp would be glad to see you, " I said, foolishly enough. 

She colored slightly, and opened and shut her fan in a nervous way. "PoorTulp!" she said, "I don't think he ever liked me as he did you. Ishe well?"

"He has never been quite the same since--since he came to Albany. He is afaithful body-servant now--nothing more. "

"Yes, " she said, softly, with a sigh; then, after a pause, "Philip spokeof offering to make good to you your money loss in Tulp, but I told him hewould better not. "

"It _was_ better not, " I answered. 

Silence menaced us again. I did not find myself indignant at thisinsolent idea of the Englishman's. Instead, my mind seemed to distinctlyclose its doors against the admission of his personality. I was nearDaisy, and that was enough; let there be no thoughts of him whatsoever. 

"You do Tulp a wrong, " I said. "Poor little fellow! Do you remember--" andso we drifted into the happy, sunlit past, with its childish memories forboth of games and forest rambles, and innocent pleasures making every daya little blissful lifetime by itself, and all the years behind our partingone sweet prolonged delight. 

Words came freely now; we looked into each other's faces withoutconstraint, and laughed at the pastimes we recalled. It was so pleasant tobe together again, and there was so much of charm for us both in the timewhich we remembered together. 

Sir John Johnson and his party had left the punch--or what remained ofit--and came suddenly up to us. Behind the baronet I saw young Watts, young De Lancey, one or two others whom I did not know, and, yes!--it washe--Philip Cross. 

He had altered in appearance greatly. The two years had added much fleshto his figure, which was now burly, and seemed to have diminished hisstature in consequence. His face, which even I had once regarded ashandsome, was hardened now in expression, and bore an unhealthy, reddishhue. For that matter, all these young men were flushed with drink, and hadentered rather boisterously, attracting attention as they progressed. Thisattention was not altogether friendly. Some of the ladies had drawn intheir skirts impatiently, as they passed, and beyond them I saw a group ofDutch friends of mine, among them Teunis, who were scowling dark looks atthe new-comers. 

Sir John recognized me as he approached, and deigned to say, "Ha!Mauverensen--you here?" after a cool fashion, and not offering his hand. 

I had risen, not knowing what his greeting would be like. It was onlydecent now to say: "I was much grieved to hear of your honored father'sdeath last summer. "

"Well you might be!" said polite Sir John. "He served you many a goodpurpose. I saw you talking out yonder with Schuyler, that coward who darednot go to Philadelphia and risk his neck for his treason. I dare say he, too, was convulsed with grief over my father's death!"

"Perhaps you would like to tell Philip Schuyler to his face that he is acoward, " I retorted, in rising heat at the unprovoked insolence in histone. "There is no braver man in the Colony. "

"But he didn't go to Philadelphia, all the same. He had a very prettyscruple about subscribing his name to the hangman's list. "

"He did not go for a reason which is perfectly well known--his illnessforbade the journey. "

"Yes, " sneered the baronet, his pale eyes shifting away from my glance;"too ill for Philadelphia, but not too ill for New York, where, I am told, he has been most of the time since your--what d'ye call it?--Congressassembled. "

I grew angry. "He went there to bury General Bradstreet. That, also, iswell known. Information seems to reach the Valley but indifferently, SirJohn. Everywhere else people understand and appreciate the imperativenature of the summons which called Colonel Schuyler to New York. Thefriendship of the two men has been a familiar matter of knowledge thisfifteen years. I know not your notions of friendship's duties; but for agentleman like Schuyler, scarcely a mortal illness itself could serve tokeep him from paying the last respect to a friend whose death was such anaffliction to him. "

Johnson had begun some response, truculent in tone, when an interruptioncame from a most unexpected source. Philip Cross, who had looked at meclosely without betraying any sign of recognition, put his hand now on SirJohn's shoulder. 

"Bradstreet?" he said. "Did I not know him? Surely he is the man who foundhis friend's wife so charming that he sent that friend to distantposts--to England, to Quebec, to Oswego, and Detroit--and amused himselfhere at home during the husband's absence. I am told he even built amansion for her while the spouse was in London _on business. _ So he isdead, eh?"

I had felt the bitter purport of his words, almost before they were out. It was a familiar scandal in the mouths of the Johnson coterie--this foulassertion that Mrs. Schuyler, one of the best and most faithful ofhelpmates, as witty as she was beautiful, as good as she was diligent, intruth, an ideal wife, had pursued through many years a course of deceitand dishonor, and that her husband, the noblest son of our Colony, hadbeen base enough to profit by it. Of all the cruel and malignant things towhich the Tories laid their mean tongues, this was the lowest and mostfalse. I could not refrain from putting my hand on my sword-hilt asI answered:

"Such infamous words as these are an insult to every gentleman, the worldover, who has ever presented a friend to his family!"

Doubtless there was apparent in my face, as in the exaggerated formalityof my bow to Cross, a plain invitation to fight. If there had not been, then my manner would have wofully belied my intent. It was, in fact, soplain that Daisy, who sat close by my side, and, like some others near athand, had heard every word that had passed, half-started to her feet andclutched my sleeve, as with an appeal against my passionate purpose. 

Her husband had not stirred from his erect and arrogant posture until hesaw his wife's frightened action. I could see that he noted this, and thatit further angered him. He also laid his hand on his sword now, andfrigidly inclined his wigged head toward me. 

"I had not the honor of addressing you, sir, " he said, in a low voice, very much at variance with the expression in his eyes. "I had no wish toexchange words with you, or with any of your sour-faced tribe. But if youdesire a conversation--a lengthy and more private conversation--I am atyour disposition. Let me say here, however, "--and he glanced with fiercemeaning at Daisy as he spoke--"I am not a Schuyler; I do not encourage'friends. '"

Even Sir John saw that this was too much. 

"Come, come, Cross!" he said, going to his friend. "Your tongue runs awaywith you. " Then, in a murmur, he added: "Damn it, man! Don't drag yourwife into the thing. Skewer the Dutchman outside, if you like, and if youare steady enough, but remember what you are about. "

I could hear this muttered exhortation as distinctly as I had heardCross's outrageous insult. Sir John's words appealed to me even more thanthey did to his companion. I was already ashamed to have been led into adisplay of temper and a threat of quarrelling, here in the company ofladies, and on such an occasion. We were attracting attention, moreover, and Teunis and some of his Dutch friends had drawn nearer, evidentlyunderstanding that a dispute was at hand. The baronet's hint about Daisycompleted my mortification. _I_ should have been the one to think of her, to be restrained by her presence, and to prevent, at any cost, her namebeing associated with the quarrel by so much as the remotest inference. 

So I stood irresolute, with my hand still on my sword, and black ragestill tearing at my heart, but with a mist of self-reproach and indecisionbefore my eyes, in which lights, costumes, powdered wigs, gay figuresabout me, all swam dizzily. 

Stephen Watts, a man in manner, though a mere stripling in years, hadapproached me from the other group, a yard off, in a quiet way to avoidobservation. He whispered:

"There must be no quarrel _here_, Mr. Mauverensen. And there must be nonotice taken of his last words--spoken in heat, and properly due, I daresay, to the punch rather than to the man. "

"I feel that as deeply as you can, " I replied. 

"I am glad, " said Watts, still in a sidelong whisper. "If you must fight, let there be some tolerable pretext. "

"We have one ready standing, " I whispered back. "When we last met I warnedhim that at our next encounter I should break every bone in his skin. Isnot that enough?"

"Capital! Who is your friend?"

By some remarkable intuition my kinsman Teunis was prompted to advance atthis. I introduced the two young men to each other, and they saunteredoff, past where Sir John was still arguing with Cross, and into the outerhall. I stood watching them till they disappeared, then looking aimlesslyat the people in front of me, who seemed to belong to some strangephantasmagoria. 

It was Daisy's voice which awakened me from this species of trance. Shespoke from behind her fan, purposely avoiding looking up at me. 

"You are going to fight--you two!" she murmured. 

I could not answer her directly, and felt myself flushing withembarrassment. "He spoke in heat, " I said, stumblingly. "Doubtless he willapologize--to you, at least. "

"You do not know him. He would have his tongue torn out before he wouldadmit his wrong, or any sorrow for it. "

To this I could find no reply. It was on my tongue's end to say that menwho had a pride in combining obstinacy with insolence must reap what theysow, but I wisely kept silence. 

She went on:

"Promise me, Douw, that you will not fight. It chills my heart, even thethought of it. Let it pass. Go away now--anything but a quarrel! Ibeseech you!"

"'Tis more easily said than done, " I muttered back to her. "Men cannotslip out of du--out of quarrels as they may out of coats. "

"For my sake!" came the whisper, with a pleading quaver in it, from behindthe feathers. 

"It is all on one side, Daisy, " I protested. "I must be ridden over, insulted, scorned, flouted to my face--and pocket it all! That is anigger's portion, not a gentleman's. You do not know what I haveborne already. "

"Do I not? Ah, too well! For my sake, Douw, for the sake of our memoriesof the dear old home, I implore you to avoid an encounter. Will younot--for me?"

"It makes a coward out of me! Every Tory in the two counties will cackleover the story that a Dutchman, a Whig, was affronted here under thePatroon's very roof, and dared not resent it. "

"How much do you value their words? Must a thing be true for them to sayit? The real manhood is shown in the strength of restraint, not theweakness of yielding to the impulse of the moment. And you can be strongif you choose, Douw!"

While I still pondered these words Teunis Van Hoorn returned to me, havingfinished his consultation with Watts, whom I now saw whispering to SirJohn and the others who clustered about Cross. 

The doctor was in good spirits. He sidled up to me, uttering aloud somemerry commonplace, and then adding, in a low tone:

"I was a match for him. He insisted that they were the aggrieved party, and chose swords. I stuck to it that we occupied that position, and hadthe right to choose pistols. You are no Frenchman, to spit flesh with awire; but you _can_ shoot, can't you? If we stand to our point, theymust yield. "

I cast a swift glance toward the sweet, pleading face at my side, and madeanswer:

"I will not fight!"

My kinsman looked at me with surprise and vexation. 

"No, " I went on, "it is not our way here. You have lived so long abroadthat duelling seems a natural and proper thing. But we stay-at-homes nomore recognize the right of these English fops to force their fightingcustoms upon us than we rush to tie our hair in queues because it istheir fashion. "

I will not pretend that I was much in love with the line of action thuslamely defended. To the contrary, it seemed to me then a cowardly andunworthy course; but I had chosen it, and I could not retreat. 

There was upon the moment offered temptation enough to test my resolutionsorely. 

Many of the ladies had in the meantime left the room, not failing to letit be seen that they resented the wrangling scene which had been thrustupon them. Mistress Daisy had crossed the floor to where Lady Johnsonstood, with others, and this frightened group were now almost our soleobservers. 

Philip Cross shook himself loose from the restraining circle of friends, and strode toward me, his face glowing darkly with passion, and hishands clinched. 

"You run away, do you?" he said. "I have a mind, then, to thrash you whereyou stand, you canting poltroon! Do you hear me?--here, where you stand!"

"I hear you, " I made answer, striving hard to keep my voice down and myresolution up. "Others hear you, too. There are ladies in the room. If youhave any right to be among gentlemen, it is high time for you to show it. You are acting like a blackguard. "

"Hear the preaching Dutchman!" he called out, with a harsh, scornfullaugh, to those behind him. "He will teach me manners, from hishiding-place behind the petticoats. --Come out, you skunk-skin pedler, andI'll break that sword of yours over your back!"

Where this all would have ended I cannot tell. My friends gathered aroundbeside me, and at my back. Cross advanced a step or two nearer to me, hiscompanions with him. I felt, rather than saw, the gestures preceding thedrawing of swords. I cast a single glance toward the group of women acrossthe room--who, huddled together, were gazing at us with pale faces andfixed eyes--and I dare say the purport of my glance was that I had borneall I could, and that the results were beyond my control--when suddenlythere came an unlooked-for interruption. 

The dignified, sober figure of Abraham Ten Broeck appeared in our wrathfulcircle. Some one had doubtless told him, in the outer hall, of thequarrel, and he had come to interfere. A hush fell over us all athis advent. 

"What have we here, gentlemen?" asked the merchant, looking from one toanother of our heated faces with a grave air of authority. "Are you welladvised to hold discussions here, in what ought to be a pleasant andsocial company?"

No ready answer was forthcoming. The quarrel was none of my manufacture, and it was not my business to explain it to him. The Tories were secretlydisgusted, I fancy, with the personal aspects of the dispute, and hadnothing to say. Only Cross, who unfortunately did not know the new-comer, and perhaps would not have altered his manner if he had known him, saiduncivilly:

"The matter concerns us alone, sir. It is no affair of outsiders. "

I saw the blood mount to Mr. Ten Broeck's dark cheeks, and the fire flashin his eyes. But the Dutch gentleman kept tight bit on his tongueand temper. 

"Perhaps I am not altogether an outsider, young sir, " he replied, calmly. "It might be thought that I would have a right to civil answers here. "

"Who is he?" asked Cross, contemptuously turning his head toward Sir John. 

Mr. Ten Broeck took the reply upon himself. "I am the uncle and guardianof your boy-host, " he said, quietly. "In a certain sense I am myself yourhost--though it may be an honor which I shall not enjoy again. "

There was a stateliness and solidity about this rebuke which seemed toimpress even my headstrong antagonist. He did not retort upon the instant, and all who listened felt the tension upon their emotions relaxed. Some onthe outskirts began talking of other things, and at least one of theprincipals changed his posture with a sense of relief. 

Philip Cross presently went over to where the ladies stood, exchanged afew words with them, and then with his male friends left the room, affecting great composure and indifference. It was departing time; theouter hall was beginning to display cloaks, hoods, and tippets, and fromwithout could be heard the voices of the negroes, bawling out demands forcarriages. 

I had only a momentary chance of saying farewell to Daisy. Doubtless Iought to have held aloof from her altogether, but I felt that to beimpossible. She gave me her hand, looking still very pale and distrait, and murmured only, "It was brave of you, Douw. "

I did not entirely agree with her, so I said in reply: "I hope you willbe happy, dear girl; that I truly hope. Give my love and duty to Mr. Stewart, and--and if I may be of service to you, no matter in how exactingor how slight a matter, I pray you command me. "

We exchanged good-byes at this, with perfunctory words, and then she leftme to join Lady Johnson and to depart with their company. 

Later, when I walked homeward with Teunis, sauntering in the moonlight, heimparted something to me which he had heard, in confidence of course, fromone of the ladies who had formed the anxious little group that watchedour quarrel. 

"After Ten Broeck came in, Cross went over to his wife, and brusquely saidto her, in the hearing of her friends, that your acquaintance with her wasan insult to him, and that he forbade her ever again holding conversewith you!"

We walked a considerable time in silence after this, and I will not essayto describe for you my thoughts. We had come into the shadow of the oldDutch church in the square, I know, before Teunis spoke again. 

"Be patient yet a little longer, Douw, " he said. "The break must come soonnow, and then we will drive all these insolent scoundrels before usinto the sea!"

I shook hands with him solemnly on this, as we parted. 

Chapter XXI. 

Containing Other News Besides that from Bunker Hill. 

To pass from October, 1774, to mid-June of 1775--from the moonlit streetsof sleeping Albany to the broad noonday of open revolt in the MohawkValley--is for the reader but the turning of a page with his fingers. Tous, in those trying times, these eight months were a painfullylong-drawn-out period of anxiety and growing excitement. 

War was coming surely upon us--and war under strange and sinisterconditions. Dull, horse-racing, dog-fighting noblemen were comfortingthemselves in Parliament, at London, by declaring that the Americans werecowards and would not fight. We boasted little, but we knew ourselvesbetter. There was as yet small talk of independence, of separation. Another year was to elapse before Thomas Paine's _Common Sense_ shouldflash a flood of light as from some new sun upon men's minds, and show usboth our real goal and the way to attain it. But about fighting, we hadresolved our purpose. 

We should have been slaves otherwise. 

Turn and turn about, titled imbecile had succeeded distinguished incapableat London in the task of humiliating and bullying us into subjection. Nowit was Granville, now Townshend, now Bedford, now North--all tediouslyalike in their refusal to understand us, and their slow obstinacy ofdetermination to rule us in their way, not in ours. To get justice, oreven an intelligent hearing, from these people, was hopeless. Theylistened to their own little clique in the colonies--a coterie ofofficials, land-owners, dependents of the Crown, often men of tooworthless a character to be tolerated longer in England--who lied usimpudently and unblushingly out of court. To please these gentry, themusty statutes of Tudor despotism were ransacked for a law by which wewere to be haled over the seas for trial by an English jury for sedition;the port of Boston was closed to traffic, and troops crowded into the townto overawe and crush its citizens; a fleet of war-ships was despatchedunder Lord Howe to enforce by broadsides, if needs be, the wicked andstupid trade and impost laws which we resented; everywhere the Crownauthorities existed to harass our local government, affront such honestmen as we selected to honor, fetter or destroy our business, and eat upour substance in wanton taxation. 

There had been a chance that the new Parliament, meeting for the firsttime in the January of this 1775, would show more sense, and strive tohonestly set matters right. We had appealed from Crown and Commons to theEnglish people; for a little we fancied the result might be favorable. Butthe hope speedily fell to the ground. The English, with that strangerushing of blood to the head which, from age to age, on occasion blindstheir vision, confuses their judgment, and impels them to rude and brutalcourses, decreed in their choler that we should be flogged at thecart-tail. 

To this we said no!

In Albany, on this day in the latter part of June, when the thread of thestory is again resumed, there were notable, but distressingly vague, tidings. Following upon the blow struck at Concord in April, a host ofarmed patriots, roughly organized into something like military form, wereinvesting Boston, and day by day closing in the cordon around thebeleaguered British General Gage. A great battle had been fought near thetown--this only we knew, and not its result or character. But it meantWar, and the quiet burgh for the nonce buzzed with the hum ofexcited comment. 

The windows of my upper room were open, and along with the streamingsunlight came snatches of echoing words from the street below. Men hadgone across the river, and horses were to be posted farther on upon theBerkshire turnpike, to catch the earliest whisper from across themountains of how the fight had gone. No one talked of anything else. Assuredly I too would have been on the street outside, eager to learn anddiscuss the news from Boston, but that my old friend Major Jelles Fondahad come down from Caughnawaga, bearing to me almost as grave intelligencefrom the Mohawk Valley. 

How well I remember him still, the good, square-set, solidmerchant-soldier, with his bold broad face, resolute mouth, and calm, resourceful, masterful air! He sat in his woollen shirt-sleeves, for theday was hot, and slowly unfolded to me his story between meditative anddeliberate whiffs of his pipe. I listened with growing interest, until atlast I forgot to keep even one ear upon the sounds from the street, whichbefore had so absorbed me. He had much to tell. 

More than a month before, the two contending factions had come tofisticuffs, during a meeting held by the Whigs in and in front of JohnVeeder's house, at Caughnawaga. They were to raise a liberty pole there, and the crowd must have numbered two hundred or more. While they weredeliberating, up rides Guy Johnson, his short, pursy figure waddling inthe saddle, his arrogant, high-featured face redder than ever with rage. Back of him rode a whole company of the Hall cabal--Sir John Johnson, Philip Cross, the Butlers, and so on--all resolved upon breaking up themeeting, and supported by a host of servants and dependents, well armed. Many of these were drunk. Colonel Guy pushed his horse into the crowd, andbegan a violent harangue, imputing the basest motives to those who hadsummoned them thither. Young Jake Sammons, with the characteristicboldness of his family, stood up to the Indian superintendent and answeredhim as he deserved, whereat some half-dozen of the Johnson men fell uponJake, knocked him down, and pummelled him sorely. Some insisted that itwas peppery Guy himself who felled the youngster with his loadedriding-whip, but on this point Major Jelles was not clear. 

"But what were our people about, to let this happen?" I asked, with someheat. 

"To tell the truth, " he answered, regretfully, "they mostly walked away. Only a few of us held our place. Our men were unarmed, for one thing. Moreover, they are in awe of the power of the Hall. The magistrates, thesheriff, the constables, the assessors--everybody, in fact, who has officein Tryon County--take orders from the Hall. You can't get people to forgetthat. Besides, if they had resisted, they would have been shot down. "

Major Jelles went on to tell me, that, despite this preponderance of armedforce on the side of the Johnsons, they were visibly alarmed at the temperof the people and were making preparations to act on the defensive. SirJohn had set up cannon on the eminence crowned by the Hall, and his RomanCatholic Highlanders were drilling night and day to perfect themselves asa military body. All sorts of stories came down from Johnstown and up fromGuy Park, as to the desperate intentions of the aristocrats and theirretainers. Peculiarly conspicuous in the bandying of these threats werePhilip Cross and Walter Butler, who had eagerly identified themselves withthe most violent party of the Tories. To them, indeed, was directlytraceable the terrible rumor, that, if the Valley tribes proved to havebeen too much spoiled by the missionaries, the wilder Indians were to becalled down from the headwaters of the Three Rivers, and from the Lakeplains beyond, to coerce the settlements in their well-known fashion, ifrebellion was persisted in. 

"But they would never dare do that!" I cried rising to my feet. 

"Why not?" asked Jelles, imperturbably sucking at his pipe. "After all, that is their chief strength. Make no mistake! They are at work with thered-skins, poisoning them against us. Guy Johnson is savage at themealy-mouthed way in which they talked at his last council, at Guy Park, and he has already procured orders from London to remove Dominie Kirkland, the missionary who has kept the Oneidas heretofore friendly to us. Thatmeans--You can see as well as the rest of us what it means. "

"It means war in the Valley--fighting for your lives. "

"Well, let it! My customers owe me three thousand pounds and more. I willgive every penny of that, and as much besides, and fight with my gun fromthe windows of my house, sooner than tolerate this Johnson nonsense anylonger. And my old father and my brothers say it with me. My brother Adam, he thinks of nothing but war these days; he can hardly attend to his work, his head is so full of storing powder, and collecting cherry and red maplefor gun-stocks, and making bullets. That reminds me--Guy Johnson took allthe lead weights out of the windows at Guy Park, and hid them, to keepthem from our bullet-moulds, before he ran away. "

"Before he ran away? Who ran away?"

"Why, Guy, of course, " was the calm reply. 

I stared at the man in open-mouthed astonishment. "You never mentionedthis!" I managed to say at last. 

"I hadn't got to it yet, " the Dutchman answered, filling his pipe slowly. "You young people hurry one so. "

By degrees I obtained the whole story from him--the story which he hadpurposely come down, I believe, to tell me. As he progressed, my fancy ranbefore him, and pictured the conclave of desperate plotters in the greatHall on the hill which I knew so well. 

I needed not his assurances to believe that Molly Brant, who had come downfrom the upper Mohawk Castle to attend this consultation, led and spurredon all the rest into malevolent resolves. 

I could conceive her, tall, swart, severely beautiful still, seated at thetable where in Sir William's time she had been mistress, and now was but avisitor, yet now as then every inch a queen. I could see her watching withsilent intentness--first the wigged and powdered gentlemen, Sir John, Colonel Guy, the Butlers, Cross, and Claus, and then her own brotherJoseph, tall like herself, and darkly handsome, but, unlike her, engrafting upon his full wolf-totem Mohawk blood the restraints of tongueand of thought learned in the schools of white youth. No one of the males, Caucasian or aboriginal, spoke out clearly what was in their minds. Eachin turn befogged his suggestions by deference to what the world--which tothem meant London--would think of their acts. No one, not even JosephBrant, uttered bluntly the one idea which lay covert in their hearts--towit: that the recalcitrant Valley should be swept as with a besom of fireand steel in the hands of the savage horde at their command. This, whenit came her time, the Indian woman said for them frankly, and withscornful words on their own faint stomachs for bloodshed. I could fancyher darkling glances around the board, and their regards shrinking awayfrom her, as she called them cowards for hesitating to use in his interestthe powers with which the king had intrusted them. 

It was not hard, either, to imagine young Walter Butler and Philip Crossrising with enthusiasm to approve her words, or how these, speaking hotand fast upon the echo of Mistress Molly's contemptuous rebuke, shouldhave swept away the last restraining fears of the others, and committedall to the use of the Indians. 

So that day, just a week since, it had been settled that Colonel Guy andthe two Butlers, father and son, should go west, ostensibly to hold acouncil near Fort Schuyler, but really to organize the tribes againsttheir neighbors; and promptly thereafter, with a body of retainers, theyhad departed. Guy had taken his wife, because, as a daughter of the greatSir William, she would be of use in the work; but Mrs. John Butler hadgone to the Hall--a refuge which she later was to exchange for the lowerIndian Castle. 

The two houses thus deserted--Guy Park and the Butlers' home on Switzer'sHill--had been in a single night almost despoiled by their owners of theircontents; some of which, the least bulky, had been taken with them intheir flight, the residue given into safe-keeping in the vicinity, or hidden. 

"My brother Adam went to look for the lead in the windows, " honest JellesFonda concluded, "but it was all gone. So their thoughts were on bulletsas well as his. He has his eye now on the church roof at home. "

Here was news indeed! There could be no pretence that the clandestineflight of these men was from fear for their personal safety. To thecontrary, Colonel Guy, as Indian superintendent, had fully five hundredfighting men, Indian and otherwise, about his fortified residence. Theyhad clearly gone to enlist further aid, to bring down fresh forces toassist Sir John, Sheriff White, and their Tory minions to hold TryonCounty in terror, and, if need be, to flood it with our blood. 

We sat silent for a time, as befitted men confronting so grave asituation. At last I said:

"Can I do anything? You all must know up there that I am with you, heartand soul. "

Major Jelles looked meditatively at me, through his fog of smoke. 

"Yes, we never doubted that. But we are not agreed how you can best serveus. You are our best-schooled young man; you know how to write well, andto speak English like an Englishman. Some think you can be of most usehere, standing between us and the Albany committee; others say that thingswould go better if we had you among us. Matters are very bad. John Johnsonis stopping travellers on the highways and searching them; we are tryingto watch the river as closely as he does the roads, but he has the courtsand the sheriff, and that makes it hard for us. I don't know what toadvise you. What do you think?"

While we were still debating the question thus raised by MajorFonda--although I have written it in an English which the worthy soulnever attained--my cousin Teunis Van Hoorn burst into the room withtidings from Boston which had just arrived by courier. Almost before hecould speak, the sound of cheering in the streets told me the burden ofhis story. It was the tale of Bunker Hill which he shouted out to us--thatstory still so splendid in our ears, but then, with all its freshness ofvigor and meaning upon us, nothing less than soul-thrilling!

An hour later Major Jelles rose, put on his coat, and said he must be off. 

He would sleep that night at Mabie's, so as to have all the Tryon Countypart of his ride by daylight next day, when the roads would be safer. 

It was only when we were shaking hands with him at the door that I foundhow the secretive Dutchman had kept his greatest, to me most vital, tidings for the last. 

"Oh, yes!" he said, as he stood in the doorway; "perhaps I did not mentionit. Young Cross has left his home and gone to join Guy Johnson and theButlers. They say he had angry words with his wife--your Daisy--before hedeserted her. She has come back to the Cedars again to live!"

Chapter XXII. 

The Master and Mistress of Cairncross. 

There is the less need to apologize for now essaying to portray sundryscenes of which I was not an actual witness, in that the reader must bythis time be heartily disposed to welcome an escape from my wearisome_ego_, at any expense whatsoever of historical accuracy. Nor is itessential to set forth in this place the means by which I later came to befamiliar with the events now to be described--means which will be apparentenough as the tale unfolds. 

Dusk is gathering in the great room to the right and rear of the wide hallat Cairncross, and a black servant has just brought in candles, to beplaced on the broad marble mantel, and on the oaken table in the centre ofthe room. The soft light mellows the shadows creeping over the white andgold panelling of the walls, and twinkles faintly in reflection back fromthe gilt threads in the heavy curtains; but it cannot dispel the gloomwhich, like an atmosphere, pervades the chamber. Although it is June, andwarm of mid-days, a fire burns on the hearth, slowly and spiritlessly, asif the task of imparting cheerfulness to the room were beyondits strength. 

Close by the fireplace, holding over it, in fact, his thin, wrinkledhands, sits an old man. At first glance, one would need to be told that itwas Mr. Stewart, so heavily has Time laid his weight upon him in theselast four years. There are few enough external suggestions now of theerect, soldierly gentleman, swift of perception, authoritative of tone, the prince of courtiers in bearing, whom we used to know. The white hairis still politely queued, and the close-shaven cheeks glisten with theneat polish of the razor's edge; but, alas! it is scarcely the same face. The luminous glow of the clear blue eyes has faded; the corners of themouth, eloquently resolute no longer, depend in weakness. As he turns nowto speak to his companion, there is a moment's relief: the voice is stillcalm and full, with perhaps just a thought of change toward thequerulous in tone. 

"I heard something like the sound of hoofs, " he says; "doubtless it isPhilip. "

"Perhaps, father; but he is wont to be late, nowadays. "

Here the change _is_ in the voice, if little else be altered. It is Daisywho speaks, standing by his chair, with one hand upon his shoulder, theother hanging listlessly at her side. Like him she looks at thesmouldering fire, preferring the silence of her own thoughts to emptyefforts at talk. The formal, unsympathetic walls and hangings seem to takeup the sad sound of her murmured words and return it to her, as if toemphasize her loneliness. 

"The rooms are so large--so cold, " she says again, after a long pause, incomment upon a little shiver which shakes the old man's bent shoulders. "If we heaped the fireplace to the top, it could not make them seemhome-like. "

The last words sink with a sigh into the silence of the great room, and nomore are spoken. Both feel, perhaps, that if more were spoken there mustbe tears as well. Only the poor girl presses her hand upon his arm with amute caress, and draws closer to his side. There is nothing of novelty tothem in this tacitly shared sense of gloom. This Thursday is as Mondaywas, as any day last year was, as seemingly all days to come will be. 

The misery of this marriage has never been discussed between these two. The girl is too fond to impute blame, the old gentleman too proud toaccept it; in both minds there is the silent consciousness that into thiscalamity they walked with eyes open, and must needs bear the resultswithout repining. And more, though there is true sympathy between the twoup to a certain point, even Daisy and Mr. Stewart have drifted apartbeyond it. Both view Philip within the house with the same eyes; thePhilip of the outer world--the little Valley-world of hot passions, strongambitions, fierce intolerances, growing strife and rancor--they seedifferently. And this was the saddest thing of all. 

Philip Cross entered abruptly, his spurs clanking with a sharp ring at hisboot-heels, and nodded with little enough graciousness of manner to thetwo before the fire. 

"I have not ordered supper to be laid, " said Daisy; "your coming was souncertain. Shall I ring for it now?"

"I have eaten at the Hall, " said the young man, unlocking an escritoire atthe farther end of the room as he spoke, and taking from it some papers. He presently advanced toward the fire, holding these in his hand. Hewalked steadily enough, but there was the evil flush upon his temples andneck--a deep suffusion of color, against which his flaxen, powdered hairshowed almost white--which both knew too well. 

"Who is at the Hall?" asked Mr. Stewart. 

"There were good men there to-day--and a woman, too, who topped them allin spirit and worth. We call the Indians an inferior race, but, by God!they at least have not lost the trick of breeding women who do notwhine--who would rather show us blood than tears!"

Thus young Mr. Cross spoke, with a sulky inference in his tone, as he heldup his papers to the candle, and scanned the writings by its light. 

"Ah, " Mr. Stewart made answer, dissembling what pique he might have felt, and putting real interest into his words. "Is Molly Brant, then, come downfrom the Castle? What does she at the Hall? I thought Lady Johnson wouldhave none of her. "

"Yes, she is at the Hall, or was when I left. She was sorely needed, too, to put something like resolution into the chicken-hearts there. Thingswill move now--nay, are moving! As for Lady Johnson, she is too dutifuland wise a woman to have any wishes that are not her husband's. I would toGod there were others half so obedient and loyal as Polly Watts!"

Again there was the obvious double meaning in his sullen tone. A swiftglance flashed back and forth between Mr. Stewart and the pale-faced youngwife, and again Mr. Stewart avoided the subject at which Cross hinted. Instead he turned his chair toward the young man, and said:

"Things are moving, you say. What is new?"

"Why, this is new, " answered Cross, lowering the papers for the moment, and looking down upon his questioner: "blood runs now at last instead ofmilk in the veins of the king's men. We will know where we stand. We willmaster and punish disloyalty; we will brook not another syllable ofrebellion!"

"Yes, it has been let to run overlong, " said Mr. Stewart. "Often enough, since Sir William died, have I wished that I were a score of yearsyounger. Perhaps I might have served in unravelling this unhappy tangle ofmisunderstandings. The new fingers that are picking at the knot are honestenough, but they have small cunning. "

"That as you will; but there is to be no more fumbling at the knot. Wewill cut it now at a blow--cut it clean and sharp with the tomahawk!"

An almost splendid animation glowed in the young man's eyes as he spoke, and for the nonce lit up the dogged hardness of his face. So might thestolid purple visage of some ancestral Cross have become illumined, overhis heavy beef and tubs of ale, at the stray thought of spearing a boar atbay, or roasting ducats out of a Jew. The thick rank blood of centuriesof gluttonous, hunting, marauding progenitors, men whose sum of delightslay in working the violent death of some creature--wild beast or human, itmattered little which--warmed in the veins of the young man now, at theprospect of slaughter. The varnish of civilization melted from hissurface; one saw in him only the historic fierce, blood-letting islander, true son of the men who for thirty years murdered one another by tens ofthousands all over England, nominally for a York or a Lancaster, but trulyfrom the utter wantonness of the butcher's instinct, the while we Dutchwere discovering oil-painting and perfecting the noble craft of printingwith types. 

"Yes!" he repeated, with a stormy smile. "We will cut the knot with thetomahawk!"

The quicker wit of the young woman first scented his meaning. 

"You are going to bring down the savages?" she asked, with dilated eyes, and in her emotion forgetting that it was not her recent habit tointerrogate her husband. 

He vouchsafed her no answer, but made a pretence of again being engrossedwith his papers. 

After a moment or two of silence the old gentleman rose to his feet, walked over to Philip, and put his hand on the young man's arm. 

"I will take my leave now, " he said, in a low voice; "Eli is here waitingfor me, and the evenings grow cold. "

"Nay, do not hasten your going, Mr. Stewart, " said Philip, with aperfunctory return to the usages of politeness. "You are everwelcome here. "

"Yes, I know, " replied Mr. Stewart, not in a tone of complete conviction. "But old bones are best couched at home. "

There was another pause, the old gentleman still resting his handaffectionately, almost deprecatingly, on the other's sleeve. 

"I would speak plainly to you before I go, Philip, " he said, at last. "Ipray you, listen to the honest advice of an old man, who speaks to you, God knows, from the very fulness of his heart. I mislike this adventure atwhich you hint. It has an evil source of inspiration. It is a gloomy dayfor us here, and for the Colony, and for the cause of order, when thecounsels of common-sense and civilization are tossed aside, and the wordsof that red she-devil regarded instead. No good will come out of it--nogood, believe me. Be warned in time! I doubt you were born when I firstcame into this Valley. I have known it for decades, almost, where you haveknown it for years. I have watched its settlements grow, its fields pushsteadily, season after season, upon the heels of the forest. I understandits people as you cannot possibly do. Much there is that I do not like. Many things I would change, as you would change them. But those errcruelly, criminally, who would work this change by the use ofthe savages. "

"All other means have been tried, short of crawling on our bellies tothese Dutch hinds!" muttered the young man. 

"You do not know what the coming of the tribes in hostility means, "continued Mr. Stewart, with increasing solemnity of earnestness. "You weretoo young to realize what little you saw, as a child here in the Valley, of Bellêtre's raid. Sir John and Guy know scarcely more of it than you. Twenty years, almost, have passed since the Valley last heard the Mohawkyell rise through the night-air above the rifle's crack, and woke interror to see the sky red with the blaze of roof-trees. All over the worldmen shudder still at hearing of the things done then. Will you be awilling party to bringing these horrors again upon us? Think what it isthat you would do!"

"It is not I alone, " Philip replied, in sullen defence. "I but cast my loton the king's side, as you yourself do. Only you are not called upon tofit your action to your words; I am! Besides, " he went on, sulkily, "Ihave already chosen not to go with Guy and the Butlers. Doubtless theydeem me a coward for my resolution. That ought to please you. "

"Go with them? Where are they going?"

"Up the river; perhaps only to the Upper Castle; perhaps to Oswego;perhaps to Montreal--at all events, to get the tribes well in hand, andhold them ready to strike. That is, " he added, as an afterthought, "if itreally becomes necessary to strike at all. It may not come to that, you know. "

"And this flight is actually resolved upon?"

"If you call it a flight, yes! The Indian superintendent goes to see theIndians; some friends go with him--that is all. What more natural? Theyhave in truth started by this time, well on their way. I was sorelypressed to accompany them; for hours Walter Butler urged all the pleas athis command to shake my will. "

"Of course you could not go; that would have been madness!" said Mr. Stewart, testily. Both men looked toward the young wife, with instinctiveconcert of thought. 

She sat by the fire, with her fair head bent forward in meditation; if shehad heard the conversation, or knew now that they were thinking of her, she signified it not by glance or gesture. 

"No, of course, " said Philip, with a faltering disclaimer. "Yet they urgedme strenuously. Even now they are to wait two days at Thompson's onCosby's Manor, for my final word--they choosing still to regard my comingas possible. "

"Fools!" broke in the old gentleman. "It is not enough to force war upontheir neighbors, but they must strive to destroy what little happiness Ihave remaining to me!" His tone softened to one of sadness, and again heglanced toward Daisy. "Alas, Philip, " he said, mournfully, "that it_should_ be so little!"

The young man shifted his attitude impatiently, and began scanning hispapers once more. A moment later he remarked, from behind the manuscripts:

"It is not we who begin this trouble. These committees of the rebelscoundrels have been active for months, all about us. Lying accounts toour prejudice are ceaselessly sent down to the committees at Schenectadyand Albany, and from these towns comes back constant encouragement todisorder and bad blood. If they will have it so, are we to blame? Youyourself spoke often to me, formerly, of the dangerous opinions held bythe Dutch here, and the Palatines up the river, and, worst of all, bythose canting Scotch-Irish Presbyterians over Cherry Valley way. Yet nowthat we must meet this thing, you draw back, and would tie my hands aswell. But doubtless you are unaware of the lengths to which the Albanyconspirators are pushing their schemes. "

"I am not without information, " replied Mr. Stewart, perhaps in his desireto repudiate the imputation of ignorance revealing things which uponreflection he would have reserved. "I have letters from my boy Douwregularly, and of late he has told me much of the doings of the Albanycommittee. "

Young Cross put his papers down from before his face with a swift gesture. Whether he had laid a trap for Mr. Stewart or not, is doubtful; we whoknew him best have ever differed on that point. But it is certain that hismanner and tone had changed utterly in the instant before he spoke. 

"Yes!" he said, with a hard, sharp inflection; "it is known that you holdregular correspondence with this peculiarly offensive young sneak and spy. Let me tell you frankly, Mr. Stewart, that this thing is not likedovermuch. These are times when men, even old men, must choose their sideand stand to it. People who talk in one camp and write to the othersubject themselves to uncomfortable suspicions. Men are beginning torecall that you were in arms against His Majesty King George the Second, and to hint that perhaps you are not precisely overflowing with loyalty tohis grandson, though you give him lip-service readily enough. As you werepleased to say to me a few minutes ago, 'Be warned in time, ' Mr. Stewart!"

The old gentleman had started back as if struck by a whip at the firsthaughty word's inflection. Gradually, as the impertinent sentencesfollowed, he had drawn up his bent, slender frame until he stood nowerect, his hooked nose in the air, and his blue eyes flashing. Only theshrunken lips quivered with the weakness of years, as he looked tall youngMr. Cross full in the face. 

"Death of my life!" he stammered. "_You_ are saying these things to _me_!It is Tony Cross's son whom I listen to--and _her_ son--the young man towhom I gave my soul's treasure!"

Then he stopped, and while his eyes still glowed fiery wrath the tremblinglips became piteous in their inability to form words. For a full minutethe fine old soldier stood, squared and quivering with indignation. Whathe would have said, had he spoken, we can only guess. But no utterancecame. He half-raised his hand to his head with a startled movement; then, seeming to recover himself, walked over to where Daisy sat, ceremoniouslystooped to kiss her forehead, and, with a painfully obvious effort to keephis gait from tottering, moved proudly out of the room. 

When Philip, who had dumbly watched the effect of his words, turnedabout, he found himself confronted with a woman whom he scarcely knew tobe his wife, so deadly pale and drawn was her face, so novel and startlingwere the glance and gesture with which she reared herself before him. 

Chapter XXIII. 

How Philip in Wrath, Daisy in Anguish, Fly Their Home. 

"You are, then, not even a gentleman!"

The ungracious words came almost unbidden from Daisy's pallid lips, ashusband and wife for the first time faced each other in anger. She couldnot help it. Passive, patient, long-suffering she had been the while themortifications and slights were for herself. But it was beyond thestrength of her control to sit quietly by when Mr. Stewart was alsoaffronted. 

Through all the years of her life she had been either so happy in herfirst home, or so silently loyal to duty in her second, that no one haddiscovered in Daisy the existence of a strong spirit. Sweet-tempered, acquiescent, gentle, every one had known her alike in joy or under theburden of disappointment and disillusion. "As docile as Daisy" might havebeen a proverb in the neighborhood, so general was this view of hernature. Least of all did the selfish, surly-tempered, wilful youngEnglishman who was her husband, and who had ridden rough-shod over hertender thoughts and dreams these two years, suspect that she had in herthe capabilities of flaming, wrathful resistance. 

He stared at her now, at first in utter bewilderment, then with theinstinct of combat in his scowl. 

"Be careful what you say!" he answered, sharply. "I am in no mood forfolly. "

"Nay, mood or no mood, I shall speak. Too long have I held my peace. Youshould be ashamed in every recess of your heart for what you have said anddone this day!" She spoke with a vibrant fervency of feeling which for themoment pierced even his thick skin. 

"He was over-hasty, " he muttered, in half-apology. "What I said was forhis interest. I intended no offence. "

"Will you follow him, and say so?"

"Certainly not! If he chooses to take umbrage, let him. It's no affair ofmine. "

"Then _I_ will go--and not return until he comes with me, invited by you!"

The woman's figure, scornfully erect, trembled with the excitement of theposition she had on the moment assumed; but her beautiful face, refinedand spiritualized of late by the imprint of womanhood's saddening wisdom, was coldly resolute. By contrast with the burly form and red, roughcountenance of the man she confronted, she seemed made of another clay. 

"Yes, I will go!" she went on, hurriedly. "This last is too much! It isnot fit that I should keep up the pretence longer. "

The husband burst out with a rude and somewhat hollow laugh. "Pretence, you say! Nay, madam, you miscall it. A pretence is a thing that deceives, and I have never been deceived. Do not flatter yourself. I have read youlike a page of large print, these twenty months. Like the old gafferwhose feathers I ruffled here a while ago with a few words of truth, yourtongue has been here, but your thoughts have been with the Dutchmanin Albany!"

The poor girl flushed and recoiled under the coarse insult, and the wordsdid not come readily with which to repel it. 

"I know not how to answer insolence of this kind, " she said, at last. "Ihave been badly reared for such purposes. "

She felt her calmness deserting her as she spoke; her eyes began to burnwith the starting tears. This crisis in her life had sprung into beingwith such terrible swiftness, and yawned before her now, as reflectioncame, with such blackness of unknown consequences, that her woman'sstrength quaked and wavered. The tears found their way to her cheeks now, and through them she saw, not the heavy, half-drunken young husband, butthe handsome, slender, soft-voiced younger lover of three years ago. Andthen the softness came to her voice too. 

"How _can_ you be so cruel and coarse, Philip, so unworthy of your realself?" She spoke despairingly, not able wholly to believe that the oldself was the true self, yet clinging, woman-like, to the hope that shewas mistaken. 

"Ha! So my lady has thought better of going, has she?"

"Why should you find pleasure in seeking to make this home impossible forme, Philip?" she asked, in grave gentleness of appeal. 

"I thought you would change your tune, " he sneered back at her, throwinghimself into a chair. "I have a bit of counsel for you. Do not ventureupon that tone with me again. It serves with Dutch husbands, no doubt; butI am not Dutch, and I don't like it. "

She stood for what seemed to be a long time, unoccupied and irresolute, inthe centre of the room. It was almost impossible for her to think clearlyor to see what she ought to do. She had spoken in haste about leaving thehouse, and felt now that that would be an unwise and wrongful step totake. Yet her husband had deliberately insulted her, and had coldlyinterpreted as weak withdrawals her conciliatory words, and it was veryhard to let this state of affairs stand without some attempt at itsimprovement. Her pride tugged bitterly against the notion of addressinghim again, yet was it not right that she should do so?

The idea occurred to her of ringing for a servant and directing him todraw off his master's boots. The slave-boy who came in was informed by amotion of her finger, and, kneeling to the task, essayed to lift one ofthe heavy boots from the tiled hearth. The amiable Mr. Cross allowed thefoot to be raised into the boy's lap. Then he kicked the lad backward, head over heels, with it, and snapped out angrily:

"Get away! When I want you, I'll call!"

The slave scrambled to his feet and slunk out of the room. The master satin silence, moodily sprawled out before the fire. At last the wifeapproached him, and stood at the back of his chair. 

"You are no happier than I am, Philip, " she said. "Surely there must besome better way to live than this. Can we not find it, and spare ourselvesall this misery?"

"What misery?" he growled. "There is none that I know, save the misery ofhaving a wife who hates everything her husband does. The weather-cock onthe roof has more sympathy with my purposes and aims than you have. Atleast once in a while he points my way. "

"Wherein have I failed? When have you ever temperately tried to set mearight, seeing my errors?"

"There it is--the plausible tongue always. 'When have I done this, orthat, or the other?' It is not one thing that has been done, madam, butten thousand left undone! What did I need--having lands, money, position--to make me the chief gentleman of Tryon County, and this houseof mine the foremost mansion west of Albany, once Sir William was dead?Naught but a wife who should share my ambitions, enter into my plans, gladly help to further my ends! I choose for this a wife with a prettyface, a pretty manner, a tidy figure which carries borrowed satinsgracefully enough--as I fancy, a wife who will bring sympathy anddistinction as well as beauty. Well, I was a fool! This precious wife ofmine is a Puritan ghost who gazes gloomily at me when we are alone, andchills my friends to the marrow when they are ill-advised enough to visitme. She looks at the wine I lift to my lips, and it sours in the glass. She looks into my kennels, and it is as if turpentine had been rubbed onthe hounds' snouts. This great house of mine, which ought of right to bethe gallant centre of Valley life and gayety, stands up here, by God! Likea deserted churchyard. Men avoid it as if a regicide had died here. Imight have been Sir Philip before this, and had his Majesty's commissionin my pocket, but for this petticoated skeleton which warns off pleasureand promotion. And then she whines, 'What have I done?'"

"You are clever enough, Philip, to have been anything you wanted to be, ifonly you had started with more heart and less appetite for pleasure. It isnot your wife, but your wine, that you should blame. "

"Ay, there it comes! And even if it were true--as it is not, for I am astemperate as another--it would be you who had driven me to it. "

"What folly!"

"Folly, madam? By Heaven, I will not--"

"Nay, listen to me, Philip, for the once. We may not speak thus franklyagain; it would have been better had we freed our minds in this plainfashion long ago. It is not poor me, but something else, that in two yearshas changed you utterly. To-day you could no more get your mind into thesame honest course of thoughts you used to hold than you could your bodyinto your wedding waistcoat. You talk now of ambitions; for the moment youreally think you had ambitions, and because they are only memories, youaccuse me. Tell me truly, what were your ambitions? To do nothing butplease yourself--to ride, hunt, gamble, scatter money, drink till youcould drink no more. Noble aspirations these for which to win the sympathyof a wife!"

Philip had turned himself around in his chair, and was looking steadily ather. She found the courage to stand resolute under the gaze and return it. 

"There is one point on which I agree with you, " he said, slowly: "I am notlike ever again to hear talk of this kind under my roof. But while we arethus amiably laying our hearts bare to each other, there is another thingto be said. Everywhere it is unpleasantly remarked that I am not master inmy own house--that here there are two kinds of politics--that I am loyaland my wife is a rebel. "

"Oh, that is unfair! Truly, Philip, I have given no cause for such speech. Not a word have I spoken, ever, to warrant this. It would be not onlywrong but presuming to do so, since I am but a woman, and have no morethan a woman's partial knowledge of these things. If you had ever asked meI would have told you frankly, that, as against the Johnsons and Butlersand Whites, my feelings were with the people of my own flesh and blood;but as to my having ever spoken--"

"Yes, I know what you would say, " he broke in, with cold, measured words. "I can put it for you in a breath--I am an English gentleman; you are aDutch foundling!"

She looked at him, speechless and mentally staggered. In all her life ithad never occurred to her that this thing could be thought or said. Thatit should be flung thus brutally into her face now by her husband--and hethe very man who as a boy had saved her life--seemed to her astonishedsense so incredible that she could only stare, and say nothing. 

While she still stood thus, the young aristocrat rose, jerked thebell-cord fiercely, and strode again to the escritoire, pulling forthpapers from its recesses with angry haste. 

"Send Rab to me on the instant!" he called out to the slave who appeared. 

The under-sized, evil-faced creature who presently answered this summonswas the son of a Scotch dependent of the Johnsons, half tinker, halftrapper, and all ruffian, by an Indian wife. Rab, a young-old man, had thecleverness and vices of both strains of blood, and was Philip's mosttrusted servant, as he was Daisy's especial horror. He came in now, hisblack eyes sparkling close together like a snake's, and his miscoloredhair in uncombed tangle hanging to his brows. He did not so much as glanceat his mistress, but went to Philip, with a cool--

"What is it?"

"There is much to be done to-night, Rab, " said the master, assortingpapers still as he spoke. "I am leaving Cairncross on a journey. It may bea long one; it may not. "

"It will at least be as long as Thompson's is distant, " said the familiar. 

"Oh, you know, then, " said Philip. "So much the better, when one dealswith close tongues. Very well. I ride to-night. Do you gather the thingsI need--clothes, money, trinkets, and what not--to be taken with me. Havethe plate, the china, the curtains, pictures, peltries, and such like, properly packed, to be sent over to the Hall with the horses and dogs inthe early morning. I shall ride all night, and all to-morrow if needs be. When you have seen the goods safely at the Hall, deliver certain letterswhich I shall presently write, and return here. I leave you in charge ofthe estate; you will be master--supreme--and will account only to me, whenthe king's men come back. I shall take Caesar and Sam with me. Have themsaddle the roan for me, and they may take the chestnut pair and leadFirefly. Look to the saddle-bags and packs yourself. Let everything beready for my start at eleven; the moon will be up by then. "

The creature waited for a moment after Philip had turned to his papers. 

"Will you take my lady's jewels?" he asked. 

"Damnation! No!" growled Philip. 

"_If you do not, they shall be thrown after you_!"

It was Daisy who spoke--Daisy, who leaned heavily upon the chair-back tokeep erect in the whirling dream of bewilderment which enveloped her. Thewords when they had been uttered seemed from some other lips than hers. There was no thought in her mind which they reflected. She was too nearupon swooning to think at all. 

Only dimly could she afterward recall having left the room, and the memorywas solely of the wicked gleam in the serpent eyes of her enemy Rab, andof the sound of papers being torn by her husband, as she, dazed andfainting, managed to creep away and reach her chamber. 

 * * * * *

The wakeful June sun had been up for an hour or so, intent upon theself-appointed and gratuitous task of heating still more the sultry, motionless morning air, when consciousness returned to Daisy. All abouther the silence was profound. As she rose, the fact that she was alreadydressed scarcely interested her. She noted that the lace and velvethangings were gone, and that the apartment had been despoiled of much elsebesides, and gave this hardly a passing thought. 

Mechanically she took from the wardrobe a hooded cloak, put it about her, and left the room. The hallways were strewn with straw and the litter ofpacking. Doors of half-denuded rooms hung open. In the corridor below twonegroes lay asleep, snoring grotesquely, beside some chests at which theyhad worked. There was no one to speak to her or bar her passage. The doorwas unbolted. She passed listlessly out, and down the path towardthe gulf. 

It was more like sleep-walking than waking, conscious progress--thismelancholy journey. The dry, parched grass, the leaves depending wiltedand sapless, the leaden air, the hot, red globe of dull light hangingbefore her in the eastern heavens--all seemed a part of the lifeless, hopeless pall which weighed from every point upon her, deadening thoughtand senses. The difficult descent of the steep western hill, the passageacross the damp bottom and over the tumbling, shouting waters, the milderascent, the cooler, smoother forest walk toward the Cedars beyond--thesevaguely reflected themselves as stages of the crisis through which she hadpassed: the heart-aching quarrel, the separation, the swoon, and now theapproaching rest. 

Thus at last she stood before her old home, and opened the familiar gate. The perfume of the flowers, heavily surcharging the dewless air, seemed toawaken and impress her. There was less order in the garden than before, but the plants and shrubs were of her own setting. A breath of risingzephyr stirred their blossoms as she regarded them in passing. 

"They nod to me in welcome, " her dry lips murmured. 

A low, reverberating mutter of distant thunder came as an echo, and aswifter breeze lifted the flowers again, and brought a whispered greetingfrom the lilac-leaves clustered thick about her. 

The door opened at her approach, and she saw Mr. Stewart standing there onthe threshold, awaiting her. It seemed natural enough that he should be upat this hour, and expecting her. She did not note the uncommon whitenessof his face, or the ceaseless twitching of his fallen lips. 

"I have come home to you, father, " she said, calmly, wearily. 

He gazed at her without seeming to apprehend her meaning. 

"I have no longer any other home, " she added. 

She saw the pallid face before her turn to wax shot over with green andbrazen tints. The old hands stretched out as if to clutch hers--thenfell inert. 

Something had dropped shapeless, bulky at her feet and she could not seeMr. Stewart. Instead here was a reeling vision of running slaves of a formlifted and borne in, and then nothing but a sinking away of self amid theworld-shaking roar of thunder and blazing lightning streaks. 

Chapter XXIV. 

The Night Attack upon Quebec--And My Share in It. 

Of these sad occurrences it was my fortune not to be informed for manymonths. In some senses this was a beneficent ignorance. Had I known that, under the dear old roof which so long sheltered me, Mr. Stewart washelplessly stricken with paralysis, and poor Daisy lay ill unto death witha brain malady, the knowledge must have gone far to unfit me for the workwhich was now given into my hands. And it was work of great magnitude andimportance. 

Close upon the heels of the Bunker Hill intelligence came the news that aContinental army had been organized; that Colonel Washington of Virginiahad been designated by Congress as its chief, and had started to assumecommand at Cambridge; and that our own Philip Schuyler was one of the fourofficers named at the same time as major-generals. There was greatpleasure in Albany over the tidings; the patriot committee began toprepare for earnest action, and our Tory mayor, Abraham Cuyler, sagaciously betook himself off, ascending the Mohawk in a canoe, andmaking his way to Canada. 

Among the first wishes expressed by General Schuyler was one that Ishould assist and accompany him, and this, flattering enough in itself, was made delightful by the facts that my friend Peter Gansevoort was namedas another aide, and that my kinsman Dr. Teunis was given a professionalplace in the general's camp family. We three went with him to theheadquarters at Cambridge very shortly after, and thenceforward were toosteadily engrossed with our novel duties to give much thought tohome affairs. 

It was, indeed, a full seven months onward from the June of which I havewritten that my first information concerning the Cedars, and the dear folkwithin its walls, came to me in a letter from my mother. This letter foundme, of all unlikely places in the world, lying in garrison on the frozenbank of the St. Lawrence--behind us the strange, unnatural silence of thenorthern waste of snow, before us the black, citadel-crowned, fire-spitting rock of Quebec. 

Again there presses upon me the temptation to put into this book the storyof what I saw there while we were gathering our strength and resolutionfor the fatal assault. If I am not altogether proof against its wiles, atleast no more shall be told of it than properly belongs here, insomuch asthis is the relation of my life's romance. 

We had started in September with the expedition against Canada, while itwas under the personal command of our general; and when his old sicknesscame unluckily upon him and forced his return, it was at his request thatwe still kept on, under his successor, General Richard Montgomery. It wasthe pleasanter course for us, both because we wanted to see fighting, andbecause Montgomery, as the son-in-law of Mr. Livingston, was known to usand was our friend. And so with him we saw the long siege of St. John'sended, and Chambly, and then Montreal, Sorel, and Three Rivers, one by onesubmit, and the _habitants_ acclaim us their deliverers as we swept thecountry clean to the gates of Quebec. 

To this place we came in the first week of December, and found bold Arnoldand his seven hundred scarecrows awaiting us. These men had been here fora month, yet had scarcely regained their strength from the horriblesufferings they encountered throughout their wilderness march. We were bythis time not enamoured of campaigning in any large degree, from our ownexperience of it. Yet when we saw the men whom Arnold and Morgan had ledthrough the trackless Kennebec forest, and heard them modestly tell thestory of that great achievement--of their dreadful sustained battle withcold, exhaustion, famine, with whirling rapids, rivers choked with ice, and dangerous mountain precipices--we felt ashamed at having supposed weknew what soldiering was. 

Three weeks we lay waiting. Inside, clever Carleton was straining heavenand earth in his endeavor to strengthen his position; without, we couldonly wait. Those of us who were from the Albany and Mohawk country came tolearn that some of our old Tory neighbors were within the walls, and theknowledge gave a new zest to our eager watchfulness. 

This, it should be said, was more eager than sanguine. It was evident fromthe outset that, in at least one respect, we had counted without our host. The French-Canadians were at heart on our side, perhaps, but they were notgoing to openly help us; and we had expected otherwise. Arnold himself, who as an old horse-dealer knew the country, had especially believed intheir assistance and sympathy, and we had bills printed in the Frenchlanguage to distribute, calling upon them to rise and join us. That theydid not do so was a grievous disappointment from the beginning. 

Yet we might have been warned of this. The common people were friendly tous--aided us privily when they could--but they were afraid of theirseigneurs and curés. These gentry were our enemies for a good reason--intheir eyes we were fighting New England's fight, and intolerant NewEngland had only the year before bitterly protested to Parliament againstthe favor shown the Papist religion in Quebec. These seigneurs and priestsstood together in a common interest. England had been shrewd enough toguarantee them their domains and revenues. Loyalty meant to them thesecurity of their _rentes et dîmes_, and they were not likely to riskthese in an adventure with the Papist-hating Yankees. Hence they stood byEngland, and, what is more, held their people practically aloof from us. 

But even then we could have raised Canadian troops, if we had had thewherewithal to feed or clothe or arm them. But of this Congress had takenno thought. Our ordnance was ridiculously inadequate for a siege; ourclothes were ragged and foul, our guns bad, our powder scanty, and ourfood scarce. Yet we were deliberately facing, in this wretched plight, themost desperate assault of known warfare. 

The weeks went by swiftly enough. Much of the time I was with thecommander at our headquarters in Holland House, and I grew vastly attachedto the handsome, gracious, devoted young soldier. Brigadier-GeneralMontgomery had not, perhaps, the breadth of character that made Schuylerso notable; which one of all his contemporaries, save Washington, for thatmatter, had? But he was very single-minded and honorable, and had muchcharm of manner. Often, during those weeks, he told me of his beautifulyoung wife, waiting for his return at their new home on the Hudson, and ofhis hope soon to be able to abandon the strife and unrest of war, andsettle there in peace. Alas! it was not to be so. 

And then, again, we would adventure forth at night, when there was nomoon, to note what degree of vigilance was observed by the beleagueredforce. This was dangerous, for the ingenious defenders hung out at theends of poles from the bastions either lighted lanterns or iron potsfilled with blazing balsam, which illuminated the ditch even better thanthe moon would have done. Often we were thus discovered and fired upon, and once the General had his horse killed under him. 

I should say that he was hardly hopeful of the result of the attackalready determined upon. But it was the only thing possible to be done, and with all his soul and mind he was resolved to as nearly do it asmight be. 

The night came, the last night but one of that eventful, momentous year1775. Men had passed each day for a week between our quarters and ColonelArnold's at St. Roch, concerting arrangements. There were Frenchmen insidethe town from whom we were promised aid. What we did not know was thatthere were other Frenchmen, in our camp, who advised Carleton of all ourplans. The day and evening were spent in silent preparations for thesurprise and assault--if so be it the snow-storm came which was agreedupon as the signal. Last words of counsel and instruction were spoken. Suppressed excitement reigned everywhere. 

The skies were clear and moonlit in the evening; now, about midnight, adamp, heavy snowfall began and a fierce wind arose. So much the better forus and our enterprise, we thought. 

We left Holland House some hours after midnight, without lights and onfoot, and placed ourselves at the head of the three hundred and fifty menwhom Colonel Campbell (not the Cherry Valley man, but a vain and cowardlycreature from down the Hudson, recently retired from the British army)held in waiting for us. Noiselessly we descended from the heights, passedWolfe's Cove, and gained the narrow road on the ledge under the mountain. 

The General and his aide, McPherson, trudged through the deep snow aheadof all, with Gansevoort, and me keeping up to them as well as we could. What with the very difficult walking, the wildness of the gale, and thenecessity for silence, I do not remember that anything was said. We pantedheavily, I know, and more than once had to stop while the slender and lesseager carpenters who formed the van came up. 

It was close upon the fence of wooden pickets which stretched across thecauseway at Cape Diamond that the last of these halts was made. Throughthe darkness, rendered doubly dense by the whirling snowflakes with whichthe wind lashed our faces, we could only vaguely discern the barrier andthe outlines of the little block-house beyond it. 

"Here is our work!" whispered the General to the half-dozen nearest him, and pointing ahead with his gauntleted hand. "Once over this and into theguard-house, and we can never be flanked, whatever else betide. "

We tore furiously at the posts, even while he spoke--we four with ourhands, the carpenters with their tools. It was the work of a moment to laya dozen of these; another moment and the first score of us were knee-deepin the snow piled to one side of the guard-house door. There was a murmurfrom behind which caused us to glance around. The body of Campbell'stroops, instead of pressing us closely, had lingered to take down morepickets. Somebody--it may have been I--said, "Cowards!" Some one else, doubtless the General, said, "Forward!"

Then the ground shook violently under our feet, a great bursting roardeafened us, and before a scythe-like sweep of fire we at the fronttumbled and fell!

I got to my feet again, but had lost both sword and pistol in the snow. Ihad been hit somewhere--it seemed in the side--but of that I scarcelythought. I heard sharp firing and the sound of oaths and groans all aroundme, so it behooved me to fight, too. There were dimly visible dark formsissuing from the guard-house, and wrestling or exchanging blows with otherforms, now upright, now in the snow. Here and there a flash of fire fromsome gun or pistol gave an instant's light to this Stygian hurly-burly. 

A heavy man, coming from the door of the block-house, fired a pistolstraight at me; the bullet seemed not to have struck me, and I leaped uponhim before he could throw the weapon. We struggled fiercely backwardtoward the pickets, I tearing at him with all my might, and striving withtremendous effort to keep my wits as well as my strength about me, inorder to save my life. Curiously enough, I found that the simplestwrestling tricks I tried I had not the power for; even in this swiftminute, loss of blood was telling on me. A ferocious last effort I made toswing and hurl him, and, instead, went staggering down into the drift withhim on top. 

As I strove still to turn, and lifted my head, a voice sounded close in myear, "It's you, is it? Damn you!" and then a great mashing blow on my faceended my fight. 

Doubtless some reminiscence in that voice caused my mind to carry on thestruggle in the second after sense had fled, for I thought we still werein the snow wrestling, only it was inside a mimic fort in the clearingaround Mr. Stewart's old log-house, and I was a little boy in an apron, and my antagonist was a yellow-haired lad with hard fists, with which hebeat me cruelly in the face--and so off into utter blackness and voidof oblivion. 

One morning in the latter half of January, nearly three weeks after, Iwoke to consciousness again. Wholly innocent of the lapse of time, Iseemed to be just awakening from the dream of the snow fort, and of myboyish fight with little Philip Cross. I smiled to myself as I thought ofit, but even while I smiled the vague shadows of later happenings cameover my mind. Little by little the outlines of that rough December nighttook shape in my puzzled wits. 

I had been wounded, evidently, and had been borne back to Holland House, for I recognized the room in which I lay. My right arm was in stiffsplints; with the other hand I felt of my head and discovered that my hairhad been cut close, and that my skull and face were fairly thatched withcrossing strips of bandage. My chest, too, was girdled by similarmedicated bands. My mental faculties moved very sedately, it seemed, and Ihad been pondering these phenomena for a long time when my cousin Dr. Teunis Van Hoorn came tip-toeing into the room. 

This worthy young man was sincerely delighted to find me come by mysenses once more. In his joy he allowed me to talk and to listen more thanwas for my good, probably, for I had some bad days immediately following;but the relapse did not come before I had learned much that was gravelyinteresting. 

It is a story of sufficient sorrow and shame to American ears evennow--this tale of how we failed to carry Quebec. Judge how grievously therecital fell upon my ears then, in the little barrack-chamber of HollandHouse, within hearing of the cannonade by which the farce of a siege wasstill maintained from day to day! Teunis told me how, by that first volleyof grape at the guard-house, the brave and noble Montgomery had beeninstantly killed; how Arnold, forcing his way from the other direction atthe head of his men, and being early shot in the leg, had fought andstormed like a wounded lion in the narrow Sault-au-Matelot; how he and thegallant Morgan had done more than their share in the temerariousadventure, and had held the town and citadel at their mercy if only themiserable Campbell had pushed forward after poor Montgomery fell, and goneon to meet those battling heroes in the Lower Town. But I have not thepatience, even at this late day, to write about this melancholy andmortifying failure. 

Some of our best men--Montgomery, Hendricks, Humphreys, Captain Cheseman, and other officers, and nearly two hundred men--had been killed out-right, and the host of wounded made veritable hospitals of both theheadquarters. Nearly half of our total original force had been takenprisoners. With the shattered remnants of our little army we were stillkeeping up the pretence of a siege, but there was no heart in ouroperations, since reverse had broken the last hope of raising assistanceamong the French population. We were too few in numbers to be able now toprevent supplies reaching the town, and everybody gloomily foresaw thatwhen the river became free of ice, and open for the British fleet to throwin munitions and re-enforcements, the game would be up. 

All this Dr. Teunis told me, and often during the narration it seemed asif my indignant blood would burst off the healing bandages, so angrily didit boil at the thought of what poltroonery had lost to us. 

It was a relief to turn to the question of my own adventure. It appearedthat I had been wounded by the first and only discharge of the cannon atthe guard-house, for there was discovered, embedded in the muscles over myribs, a small iron bolt, which would have come from no lesser firearm. They moreover had the honor of finding a bullet in my right forearm, whichwas evidently a pistol-ball. And, lastly, my features had been beaten intoan almost unrecognizable mass of bruised flesh by either a heavy-ringedfist or a pistol-butt. 

"Pete Gansevoort dragged you off on his back, " my kinsman concluded. "Someof our men wanted to go back for the poor General, and for Cheseman andMcPherson, but that Campbell creature would not suffer them. Instead, heand his cowards ran back as if the whole King's army were at their heels. You may thank God and Gansevoort that you were not found frozen stiff withthe rest, next morning. "

"Ah, you may be sure I do!" I answered. "Can I see Peter?"

"Why, no--at least not in this God-forgotten country. He has been made acolonel, and is gone back to Albany to join General Schuyler. And we areto go--you and I--as soon as it suits your convenience to be able totravel. There are orders to that purport. So make haste and get well, ifyou please. "

"I have been dangerously ill, have I not?"

"Scarcely that, I should say. At least, I had little fear for you afterthe first week. Neither of the gunshot wounds was serious. But somebodymust have dealt you some hearty thwacks on the poll, my boy. It was these, and the wet chill, and the loss of blood, which threw you into a fever. But I never feared for you. "

Later in the year, long after I was wholly recovered, my cousin confidedto me that this was an amiable lie, designed to instil me with thatconfidence which is so great a part of the battle gained, and that for aweek or so my chance of life had been held hardly worth a _son marquee_. But I did not now know this, and I tried to fasten my mind upon thatencounter in the drift by the guard-house, which was my last recollection. Much of it curiously eluded my mental grasp for a time; then all at onceit came to me. 

"Do you know, Teunis, " I said, "that I believe it was Philip Cross whobroke my head with his pistol-butt?"

"Nonsense!"

"Yes, it surely was--and he knew me, too!" And I explained the grounds formy confidence. 

"Well, young man, " said Dr. Teunis, at last, "if you do not find thatgentleman out somewhere, sometime, and choke him, and tear him up intofiddle-strings, you've not a drop of Van Hoorn blood in yourwhole carcass!"

Chapter XXV. 

A Crestfallen Return to Albany. 

For a man who had his physician's personal assurance that there wasnothing serious in his case, I recovered my strength with vexatiousslowness. There was a very painful and wearing week, indeed, before itbecame clear to me that I was even convalescent, and thereafter myprogress was wofully halting and intermittent. Perhaps health would havecome more rapidly if with every sound of the guns from the platforms, andevery rattle of the drums outside, I had not wrathfully asked myself, "Ofwhat use is all this now, alas!"

These bad days were nearing their end when Dr. Teunis one afternoon camein with tidings from home. An express had arrived from Albany, bringingthe intelligence that General Wooster was shortly to come withre-enforcements, to take over our headless command. There were manyletters for the officers as well, and among these were two for me. Thephysician made some show of keeping these back from me, but the cousinrelented, and I was bolstered up in bed to read them. 

One was a business epistle from Albany, enclosing a brief memorandum ofthe disposition of certain moneys and goods belonging to the Englishtrading company whose agent I had been, and setting my mind at easeconcerning what remained of its interests. 

The other was a much longer missive, written in my mother's neat, painstaking hand, and in my mother's language. My story can be advanced inno better way than by translating freely from the original Dutch document, which I still have, and which shows, if nothing else, that DameMauverensen had powers of directness and brevity of statement notinherited by her son. 

"_January 9, _ A. D. 1776. 

"Dearly Beloved Son: This I write, being well and contented for the mostpart, and trusting that you are the same. It is so long since I have seenyou--now nearly four years--that your ways are beyond me, and I offer youno advice. People hereabout affect much satisfaction in your promotion tobe an officer. I do not conceal my preference that you should have been aGod-fearing man, though you were of humbler station. However, that Isurrendered your keeping to a papistical infidel is my own blame, and I donot reproach you. 

"The nigger Tulp, whom you sent to me upon your departure for the wars, was more trouble than he was worth, to say nothing of his keep. He wasboth lame and foolish, getting forever in my way, and crying by the hourwith fears for your safety. I therefore sent him to his old home, theCedars, where, as nobody now does any manner of work (your aunt beingdead, and an incapable sloven having taken her place), he will not get inthe way, and where others can help him to weep. 

"When Mistress Cross came down to the Cedars last summer, having beendeserted by her worthless husband, and found Mr. Stewart stricken withparalysis, I was moved to offer my assistance while they both lay ill. Theburden of their illness was so great that your aunt broke down under it, but she did not die until after Mistress Cross had recovered from herfever, and Mr Stewart had regained his speech and a small portion of hiswits. Mistress Cross was in a fair way to be despoiled of all her rightfulbelongings, for she brought not so much as a clean smock away with herfrom her husband's house, and there was there in charge an insolent rascalnamed Rab, who, when I demanded the keys and his mistress's chattels, essayed to turn me away. I lectured him upon his behavior in such termsthat he slunk off like a whipped dog, and presently sent to me a servantfrom whom I received what I came for. She would otherwise have obtainednothing, for, obstinate as she is in some matters, she is a timid soul atbest, and stands in mortal fear of Rab's malevolence. 

"Mr. Stewart's mind is still in a sad way. He is childish beyond belief, and talks about you as if you were a lad again, and then speaks of foreignmatters of which we know nothing, so long past are they, as if they werestill proceeding. In bodily health, he seems now somewhat stronger. Iknitted him some woollen stockings, but he would not wear them, sayingthat they scratched his legs. Mistress Cross might have persuaded him outof this nonsense, but did not see fit to do so. She also humors him in thematter of taking him to the Papist church at Johnstown whenever the roadsare open, he having become highly devotional in his second childhood. Iwas vigorously opposed to indulging this idea of his, which is almost assinful in her as it is superstitious and silly in him; but she would goher own gait, and so she may for all of me. 

"She insisted, too, on having one of Adam Wemple's girls in to do the workwhen your aunt fell ill. I recommended to her the widow of Dirck Tappan, aworthy and pious woman who could not sleep if there was so much as a speckof dust on the floor under her bed, but she would not listen to me, sayingthat she liked Moll Wemple and wanted her, and that she did not like DameTappan and did not want her. Upon this I came home, seeing clearly that mycompany was not desired longer. 

"I send you the stockings which I knitted for Mr. Stewart, and sundryother woollen trifles. Your sisters are all well, but the troubles in theValley take young men's thoughts unduly off the subject of marriage. Ifthe committee would only hang John Johnson or themselves, there would bepeace, one way or the other, and girls would get husbands again. But allsay matters will be worse before they mend. 

"Affectionately, your mother, "Katharine Mauverensen. "

As I look at this ancient, faded letter, which brought to me in belatedand roundabout form the tidings of Mr. Stewart's helpless condition and ofDaisy's illness and grief, I can recall that my first impulse was tolaugh. There was something so droll, yet so thoroughly characteristic ofmy honest, bustling, resolute, domineering mother in the thing, that itshumor for the moment overbalanced the gravity of the news. There was nomore helpful, valuable, or good-hearted woman alive than she, providedalways it was permitted her to manage and dictate everything foreverybody. There was no limit to the trouble she would undertake, nothingin the world she would not do, for people who would consent to be donefor, and would allow her to dominate all their thoughts and deeds. But themoment they revolted, or showed the weakest inclination to do things theirown way, she blazed up and was off like a rocket. Her taste for governingwas little short of a mania, and I could see, in my mind's eye, just howshe had essayed to rule Daisy, and how in her failure she had written tome, unconsciously revealing her pique. 

Poor Daisy! My thoughts had swung quickly enough from my mother to her, and, once there, persistently lingered. She had, then, been at the Cedarssince June; she had been very ill, but now was in health again; she was afugitive from her rightful home, and stood in fear of her former servants;she had upon her hands a broken old invalid, and to all his freaks andfoibles was a willing slave; she was the saddened, solitary mistress of alarge estate, with all its anxieties multiplied a hundred-fold by thefact that these were war-times, that passions ran peculiarly high andfierce all about her, and that her husband's remaining friends, now herbitter foes perhaps, were in a desperate state of temper and daring. 

From this grewsome revery I roused myself to exclaim: "Teunis, every daycounts now. The sooner I get home the better. "

"Quite so, " said he, with ready sarcasm. "We will go on snow-shoes toSorel to-morrow morning. "

"No: you know what I mean. I want to----"

"Oh, yes, entirely so. We might, in fact, start this evening. The wolvesare a trifle troublesome just now, but with a strong and active companion, like you, I should fear nothing. "

"Will you cease jesting, Teunis! What I want now is to exhaust all meansof gaining strength--to make every hour tell upon the work of myrestoration. There is urgent need of me at home. See for yourself!" And Igave him my mother's letter. 

My cousin had had from me, during our long camp intercourse, sufficientdetails of my early life to enable him to understand all my mother'sallusions. He read the letter through carefully, and smiled. Then he wentover it again, and turned grave, and began to look out of the window andwhistle softly. 

"Well, " I asked, impatiently, "what is your judgment?"

"My judgment is that your mother was, without doubt, the daughter of mygreat-uncle Baltus. When I was fourteen years old my father put me out ofhis house because I said that cocoa-nuts grew on trees, he having beencredibly informed by a sailor that they were dug from the ground likepotatoes. Everybody said of my father, when they learned of this: 'Howmuch he is like his uncle, Captain Baltus. ' She has the true family piety, too. The saying in Schenectady used to be: 'The Van Hoorns are aGod-fearing people--and they have reason to be. '"

I could not but laugh at this, the while I protested that it was his viewsupon the tidings in the letter that I wished. 

"I agree with you that the sooner you get home the better, " he said, seriously. "The troubles in the Valley will be ripe ere long. The lettersfrom Albany, just arrived, are filled, they tell me, with rumors of thedoings of Johnson. General Schuyler had, at last accounts, gone up towardJohnstown with a regiment, to discover the baronet's intentions. So getwell as fast as you like, and we will be off. "

This was easy enough to say, but nearly two months went by before I wasjudged able to travel. We indeed did not make a start until after GeneralWooster arrived with more troops, and assumed command. Our return wasaccomplished in the company of the express he sent back with news of hisarrival, and his report of the state of affairs in front of Quebec. Fromour own knowledge this was very bad, what with the mutinous character ofmany of the men, the total absence of subordination, and the bitterjealousies which existed among the rival officers. Even above the joy ofturning our faces once more toward home, there rose in both of us a senseof relief at cutting loose from an expedition which had done no good, andthat, too, at such a sad cost of suffering and bloodshed. It wasimpossible to have any pride whatever in the adventure, and we had smalldisposition to look people in the face, or talk with them of the siege andattack. To do them justice, the residents of the sparsely settleddistricts through which we slowly passed were civil enough. But we feltthat we were returning like detected impostors, and we had no heart fortheir courtesies. 

Albany was reached at last, and there the news that the British hadevacuated Boston put us in better spirits. The spring was backward, but itwas April by the calendar if not by the tree-buds and gardens, and busypreparations for the season's campaign were going forward. GeneralSchuyler took me into his own house, and insisted upon my having a fullfortnight's rest, telling me that I needed all my strength for the work hehad in mind for me. The repose was in truth grateful, after the long anddifficult journey I had performed in my enfeebled condition; and what withbooks and pictures, and the journals of events that had transpired duringmy long absence, and the calls of friends, and the careful kindness of theGeneral and his good wife, I ought to have felt myself indeed happy. 

But in some senses it was to me the most vexatious fortnight of the wholespring, for no hour of it all passed in which I was not devoured withanxiety to be among my own people again. The General was so pre-occupiedand burdened with the stress of public and martial business, always in hiscase carried on for the most part under the embarrassment of recurringillness, that I shrank from questioning him, and the fear haunted me thatit was his intention to send me away again without a visit to my old home. It is true that I might have pleaded an invalid's privileges, but I wasreally well enough to work with prudence, and I could not offer to shirkduty at such a time. 

But in his own good time the General relieved my mind and made me ashamedthat I had ever doubted his considerateness. After breakfast onemorning--it was the first, I remember, upon which I wore the new uniformwith which I had been forced to replace the rags brought from Quebec--hecalled me to him in his library, and unfolded to me his plans:

"John Johnson lied to me last January, when I went up there, disarmed hisScotchmen, and took his parole. He lied to me here in March, when he camedown and denied that he was receiving and despatching spies through thewoods to and from Canada. The truth is not in him. During the past monthmuch proof has come to my hands of his hiding arms and powder and leadnear the Hall, and of his devil's work among the Mohawks, whom he plotsday and night to turn against us. All this time he keeps a smooth tonguefor us, but is conspiring with his Tory neighbors, and with those whofollowed Guy to Canada, to do us a mischief. Now that General Washingtonis master at Boston, and affairs are moving well elsewhere, there is noreason for further mincing of matters in Tryon County. It is my purpose tosend Colonel Dayton to Johnstown with part of his regiment, to settle thething once for all. He will have the aid of Herkimer's militia if he needsthem, and will arrest Sir John, the leaders of his Scotch followers, andall others, tenants and gentlemen alike, whose freedom is a threat to theneighborhood. In short, he will stamp out the whole wasps nest. 

"You know the Valley well, and your people are there. It is the place foryou just now. Here is your commission as major. But you are still attachedto my staff. I lend you merely to the Tryon County committee. You will gowith Dayton as far as you like--either to Caughnawaga or some nearplace--perhaps your old home would suit you best. Please yourself. Youneed not assist in the arrests at Johnstown; that might be painful to you. But after Dayton's return with his prisoners you will be my representativein that district. You have four days in which to make ready. I see theprospect pleases you. Good! To-morrow we will discuss it further. "

When I got outside I fairly leaped for joy. 

Chapter XXVI. 

I See Daisy and the Old Home Once More. 

I rode beside Colonel Elias Dayton one forenoon some ten days later, upthe Valley road, my pulses beating fast at the growing familiarity of thescene before us. We had crossed the Chuctenunda Creek, and were withinsight of the gray walls of Guy Park. Beyond rose the hills behind whichlay Fort Johnson. I was on the very threshold of my boyhood'splayfield--within a short hour's walk of my boyhood's home. 

The air was full of sounds. Birds sang with merry discordance all throughthe thicket to our right, flitting among the pale green tangle of spring'sfoliage. The May sunshine had lured forth some pioneer locusts, whoseshrill cries came from who could tell where--the tall swale-grass on theriver edge, erect now again after the April floods, or the brownbroom-corn nearer the road, or from the sky above? We could hear thesquirrels' mocking chatter in the tree-tops, the whir of the kingfishersalong the willow-fringed water--the indefinable chorus of Nature's myriadsmall children, all glad that spring was come. But above these our earstook in the ceaseless clang of the drums, and the sound of hundreds ofarmed men's feet, tramping in unison upon the road before us, behind us, at our side. 

For my second return to the Valley was at the head of troops, bringingviolence, perhaps bloodshed, in their train. I could not but contrast itin my mind with that other home-coming, four years before, when I satturned to look eastward in the bow of Enoch's boat, and every soft dip ofthe oars timed the glad carol in my heart of home and friends--and thesweet maid I loved. I was so happy then!--and now, coming from the otherdirection, with suggestions of force and cruel purposes in every echo ofour soldiers' tread, I was, to tell the plain truth, verymiserable withal. 

My talk with Colonel Dayton had, in a way, contributed to this gloomyfeeling. We had, from choice, ridden side by side for the better part oftwo days, and, for very need of confiding in some one, I had talked withhim concerning my affairs more freely than was my wont. This was theeasier, because he was a contemplative, serious, and sensible man, whosewords and manner created confidence. Moreover, he was neither Dutchman norYankee, but a native Jerseyman, and so considered my story from an equableand fair point of view, without bias. 

It was, indeed, passing strange that this man, on his way to seize orcrush the Johnson clique, as the case might be, should have been the oneto first arouse in my mind the idea that, after all, the Tories had theirgood side, and were doing what to them seemed right, at tremendous costand sacrifice to themselves. I had been telling him what a ruffian wasPhilip Cross, and what grounds I had for hating him, and despitefullydescribing the other chief Tories of the district. He said in reply, I remember:

"You seem to miss the sad phase of all this, my friend. Your young bloodfeels only the partisan promptings of dislike. Some day--soon, perhaps--you will all at once find this youthful heat gone; you will begin to walkaround men and things, so to speak, and study them from all sides. Thisstage comes to every sober mind; it will come to you. Then you willrealize that this baronet up yonder is, from his own stand-point, achivalrous, gallant loyal gentleman, who imperils estates, power, peace, almost life itself, rather than do what he holds to be weak or wrong. Why, take even this enemy of yours, this Cross. He was one of the notables ofthese parts--rich, popular, influential; he led a life of utmost luxuryand pleasure. All this he has exchanged for the rough work of a soldier, with its privations, cold, fatigue, and the risk of death. Ask yourselfwhy he did it. "

"I see what you would enforce, " I said. "Your meaning is that these men, as well as our side, think the right is theirs. "

"Precisely. They have inherited certain ideas. We disagree with them; wedeem it our duty to silence them, fight them, drive them out of thecountry, and, with God's help, we will do it. But let us do this with oureyes open, and with the understanding that they are not necessarilyscoundrels and heathen because they fail to see things as we see them. "

"But you would not defend, surely, their plotting to use the savagesagainst their neighbors--against helpless women and children. That must beheathenish to any mind. "

"Defend it? No! I do not defend any acts of theirs. Rid your mind of theidea that because a man tries to understand a thing he therefore defendsit. But I can see how they would defend it to their own consciences--justas these thrifty Whig farmers hereabout explain in their own minds aspatriotic and public-spirited their itching to get hold of Johnson'sManor. Try and look at things in this light. Good and bad are relativeterms; nothing is positively and unchangeably evil. Each group of men hasits own little world of reasons and motives, its own atmosphere, its ownstandard of right and wrong. If you shut your eyes, and condemn or praisethese wholly, without first striving to comprehend them, you may or maynot do mischief to them; you assuredly injure yourself. "

Thus, and at great length, spoke the philosophical colonel. I could nothelp suspecting that he had too open a mind to be a very valuable fighter, and, indeed, this proved to be true. He subsequently built some good andserviceable forts along the Mohawk, one of which to this day bears hisname, but he attained no distinction as a soldier in the field. 

But, none the less, his words impressed me greatly. What he said had neverbeen put to me in clear form before, and at twenty-seven a man's mind isin that receptive frame, trembling upon the verge of the meditativestage, when the presentation of new ideas like these often marks adistinct turn in the progress and direction of his thoughts. It seemsstrange to confess it, but I still look back to that May day of 1776 asthe date of my first notion that there could be anything admirable inmy enemies. 

At the time, these new views and the tone of our talk helped to disquietme. The swinging lines of shoulders, the tramp! tramp! in the mud, thesight of the guns and swords about me, were all depressing. They seemed togive a sinister significance to my return. It was my home, the dearestspot on earth--this smiling, peaceful, sunlit Mohawk Valley--and I wasentering it with soldiers whose mission was to seize and despoil the sonof my boyhood's friend, Sir William. More than one of my old play-mates, now grown to man's estate, would note with despair our approach, and curseme for being of it. The lady of Johnson Hall, to whom all this would behorrible nigh unto death, was a close, warm friend of Daisy's. So mythoughts ran gloomily, and I had no joy in any of the now familiar sightsaround me. 

The march up from Schenectady had been a most wearisome one for the men, owing to the miserable condition of the road, never over-smooth and nowrendered doubly bad and difficult by the spring freshets and the oozingfrost. When we reached the pleasant little hollow in which Fort Johnsonnestles, a halt was accordingly ordered, and the tired soldiers preparedto refresh themselves with food by the banks of the creek. It was nowafternoon; we were distant but a short mile from the Cedars, and I couldnot abide the thought of lingering here, to no purpose, so close to thegoal of all my longings. I therefore exchanged some plans and suggestionswith Colonel Dayton and his companion Judge Duer, who represented thecivil law in the expedition, and so clapped spurs and dashed forwardup the road. 

"It seems ten years, not four, since I was last here, " I was saying toDaisy half an hour later, and unconsciously framing in words the thoughtswhich her face suggested. 

I know not how to describe the changes which this lapse of time hadwrought upon her countenance and carriage. In the more obvious, outwardsense, it had scarcely aged her. She was now twenty-three years of age, and I doubt a stranger would have deemed her older. Yet, looking upon herand listening to her, I seemed to feel that, instead of being four yearsher senior, I was in truth the younger of the two. The old buoyant, girlish air was all gone, for one thing. She spoke now with gentle, sweet-toned gravity; and her eyes, frankly meeting mine as of old, had intheir glance a soft, reposeful dignity which was new to me. 

Almost another Daisy, too, she seemed in face. It was the woman in herfeatures, I dare say, which disconcerted me. I had expected changes, perhaps, but not upon these lines. She had been the prettiest maiden ofthe Valley, beyond all others. She was not pretty now, I should say, butshe _was_ beautiful--somewhat pallid, yet not to give an air of unhealth;the delicate chiselling of features yielded now not merely the pleasureof regularity, but the subtler charm of sensitive, thoughtful character. The eyes and hair seemed a deeper hazel, a darker brown, than they hadbeen. The lips had lost some, thing of their childish curve, and met eachother in a straight line--fairer than ever, I thought, because more firm. 

I am striving now, you see, against great odds, to revive in words theimpressions of difference which came to me in those first hours, as Iscanned her face. They furnish forth no real portrait of the dear lady:how could I hope they should? But they help to define, even if dimly, thechanges toward strength and self-control I found in her. 

I was, indeed, all unprepared for what awaited me here at the Cedars. Myheart had been torn by all manner of anxieties and concern. I had hastenedforward, convinced that my aid and protection were direly needed. I satnow, almost embarrassed, digesting the fact that the fortunes of theCedars were in sufficient and capable hands. 

Mr. Stewart's condition was in truth sad enough. He had greeted me withsuch cordiality and clear-wittedness of utterance and manner that at firstI fancied his misfortunes to have been exaggerated in my mother's letter. His conversation for a moment or two was also coherent and timely. But hismind was prone to wander mysteriously. He presently said: "Assuredly Itaught you to shave with both hands. I knew I could not be mistaken. " Istole a glance toward Daisy at this, and her answering nod showed me thewhole case. It was after old Eli had come in and wheeled Mr. Stewart inhis big chair out into the garden, that I spoke to Daisy of thedifferences time had wrought. 

"Ay, " she said, "it must be sadly apparent to you--the change ineverything. "

How should I approach the subject--the one thing of which I knew we wereboth thinking? There seemed a wall between us. She had been unaffectedlyglad to see me; had, for the instant, I fancied, thought to offer me hercheek to kiss--yet was, with it all, so self-possessed and reserved that Ishrank from touching upon her trouble. 

"Perhaps not everything is sad, " I made answer, falteringly. "Poor Mr. Stewart--that is indeed mournful; but, on the other hand--" I brokeoff abruptly. 

"On the other hand, " she took up my words calmly, "you are thinking that Iam advantaged by Philip's departure. "

My face must have showed that I could not deny it. 

"In some respects, " she went on, "yes; in others, no. I am glad to be ableto speak freely to you, Douw, for you are nearest to me of all that areleft. I do not altogether know my own mind; for that matter, does any one?The Philip to whom I gave my heart and whom I married is one person; thePhilip who trampled on the heart and fled his home seems quite another anda different man. I hesitate between the two sometimes. I cannot always sayto myself: 'The first was all fancy; the second is the reality. ' Rather, they blend themselves in my mind, and I seem to see the fond loverremaining still the good husband, if only I had had the knowledge andtenderness to keep him so!"

"In what are you to be reproached, Daisy?" I said this somewhat testily, for the self-accusation nettled me. 

"It may easily be that I was not wise, Douw. Indeed, I showed small wisdomfrom the beginning. "

"It was all the doing of that old cat, Lady Berenicia!" I said, withmelancholy conviction. 

"Nay, blame not her alone. I was the silly girl to be thus befooled. Myheart would have served me better if it had been all good. The longing forfinery and luxury was my own. I yearned to be set above the rest. Idreamed to be called 'My lady, ' too, in good time. I forgot that I camefrom the poor people, and that I belonged to them. So well and truly did Iforget this that the fact struck me like a whip when--when it was broughtto my notice. "

"He taunted you with it, then!" I burst forth, my mind working quickly foronce. 

She made no answer for the time, but rose from her chair and looked outupon the group in the garden. From the open door she saw the van ofDayton's soldiers trudging up the Valley road. I had previously told herof their mission and my business. 

"Poor Lady Johnson, " she said, resting her head against her hand on thedoor-frame, and looking upon the advancing troops with a weary expressionof face. "Her trouble is coming--mine is past. " Then, after a pause:"Will they be harsh with Sir John, think you? I trust not. They have bothbeen kind to me since--since Philip went. Sir John is not bad at heart, Douw, believe me. You twain never liked each other, I know. He is a bitterman with those who are against him, but his heart is good if you touchit aright. "

I had not much to say to this. "I am glad he was good to you, " I managedto utter, not over-graciously, I fear. 

The troops went by, with no sound of drums now, lest an alarm be raisedprematurely. We watched them pass in silence, and soon after I took myleave for the day, saying that I would go up to see the Fondas atCaughnawaga, and cross the river to my mother's home, and would returnnext morning. We shook hands at parting, almost with constraint. 

Chapter XXVII. 

The Arrest of Poor Lady Johnson. 

Early the next day, which was May 20th, we heard to our surprise andconsternation that on the preceding afternoon, almost as Colonel Daytonand his soldiers were entering Johnstown, Sir John and the bulk of hisHighlanders and sympathizers, to the number of one hundred and thirty, hadprivately taken to the woods at the north of the Hall, and struck outfor Canada. 

Over six weeks elapsed before we learned definitely that the baronet andhis companions had traversed the whole wilderness in safety and reachedMontreal, which now was once more in British hands--our ill-starred Quebecexpedition having finally quitted Canada earlier in the month. We couldunderstand the stories of Sir John's travail and privations, for the snowwas not yet out of the Adirondack trails, and few of his company wereskilled in woodmen's craft. But they did accomplish the journey, and thatin nineteen days. 

I, for one, was not very much grieved at Johnson's escape, for hisimprisonment would have been an embarrassment rather than a service to us. But Colonel Dayton was deeply chagrined at finding the bird flown, and Ifear that in the first hours of his discomfiture he may have forgottensome of his philosophical toleration for Tories in general. He had, moreover, the delicate question on his hands of what to do with LadyJohnson. Neither Judge Duer nor I could advise him, and so everything washeld in suspense for the better part of a week, until General Schuyler'sdecision could be had. 

Meanwhile my time was fairly occupied in the fulfilment of mattersintrusted to me by the General. I had to visit Colonel Herkimer at hishome below Little Falls, and talk with him about the disagreeable factthat his brother, Hon-Yost Herkimer, had deserted the militia commandgiven him by the Whigs and fled to Canada. The stout old German was freeto denounce his brother, however, and I liked the looks and blunt speechof Peter Bellinger, who had been made colonel of the deserted battalion ofGerman Flatts. There were also conversations to be had with Colonel Klock, and Ebenezer Cox, and the Fondas, at their several homes, and a day tospend with my friend John Frey, now sheriff in place of the Tory White. Itthus happened that I saw very little of the people at the Cedars, and hadno real talk again with Daisy, until a full week had passed. 

It was a cool, overcast forenoon when I alighted next at the familiargate, and gave my horse into Tulp's charge. The boy, though greatlyrejoiced to see me back again, had developed a curious taciturnity inthese latter years--since his accident, in fact--and no longer shouted outthe news to me at sight. Hence I had to ask him, as I neared the door, what strange carriage was that in the yard beyond, and why it was there. As I spoke, a couple of men lounged in view from the rear of the house, and I recognized them as of Dayton's command. Tulp explained that LadyJohnson was being taken away, and that she had tarried here to rest onher journey. 

If I had known this at the gate, I doubt I should have stopped at all; butI had been seen from the window, and it was too late now to turn about. SoI entered, much wishing that I had left off my uniform, or, still better, that I had stayed away altogether. 

There were present in the great room Daisy, Lady Johnson, a young lady whowas her sister, two children--and a man in civilian's garb, with some fewmilitary touches, such as a belt and sword and a cockade, who sat by thewindow, his knees impudently spread apart and his hat on his head. Ilooked at this fellow in indignant inquiry. 

Daisy came eagerly to me, with an explanation on her lips:

"It is the officer who is to take Lady Johnson to Albany. He insists uponforcing his presence upon us, and will not suffer us to be alone togetherin any room in the house. "

"Who are you?--and off with your hat!" I said to the man, sharply. 

My uniform was of service, after all. He looked me over, and evidentlyremembered having seen me with his colonel, for he stood up and took offhis hat. "I am a lieutenant of the Connecticut line, " he said, in aYankee snarl, "and I am doing my duty. "

"I am a major in the Continental line, and I should be doing _my_ duty ifI sent you back in irons to your colonel, " I answered. "Get out of here, what time Lady Johnson is to remain, and leave these ladies tothemselves!"

He was clearly in two minds about obeying me, and I fancy it was mysuperior size rather than my rank that induced him to go, which he did inas disagreeable a fashion as possible. I made my bow to Lady Johnson, andsaid something about being glad that I had come, if I had been of use. 

She, poor young woman, was in a sad state of nervous excitement, what withher delicate condition and the distressing circumstances of the past week. She was, moreover, a very beautiful creature, naturally of soft andrefined manners, and this made me the readier to overlook the way in whichshe met my kindly meant phrases. 

"I marvel that you are not ashamed, Mr. Mauverensen, " she said, heatedly, "to belong to an army made up of such ruffians. Every rag of raiment thatman has on he stole from my husband's wardrobe at the Hall. To think ofcalling such low fellows officers, or consorting with them!"

I answered as gently as I could that, unfortunately, there were many suchill-conditioned men in every service, and pointed out that the man, by hisspeech, was a New Englander. 

"And who fetched them into this province, I should like to know!"

Nothing was further from my thoughts than to hold a political discussionwith this poor troubled wife, who saw her husband's peril, her own plight, and the prospective birth of her first child in captivity constantlybefore her eyes! So I strove to bring the talk upon other grounds, but notwith much success. She grew calmer, and with the returning calmness came afine, cool dignity of manner and tone which curiously reminded me of LadyBerenicia Cross; but she could talk of nothing save her wrongs, or ratherthose of her husband. She seemed not to have very clear notions of whatthe trouble was all about, but ascribed it loosely, I gathered, to thejealousy of Philip Livingston, who was vexed that the Scotch did notsettle upon his patent instead of on Sir John's land, and to the malice ofGeneral Schuyler, whose feud with the Johnsons was notorious. 

"And to think, too, " she added, "that Mr. Schuyler's mother and mymother's mother were sisters! A very pleasant and valuable cousin he is, to be sure! Driving my husband off into the forest to perhaps die ofhunger, and dragging me down to Albany, in my condition, and thrusting alow Connecticut cobbler into my carriage with me! If my sickness overtakesme on the road, and I die, my blood will be on the head of PhilipSchuyler. "

I read in Daisy's eyes a way out of this painful conversation, and sosaid: "Lady Johnson, it will perhaps render your journey less harrowing ifI have some talk with this officer who is your escort. Let me leave youwomen-folk together here in peace, the while"--and went out into thegarden again. 

I found the lieutenant in the garden to the rear of the house, gossipingin familiar style with his half-dozen men, and drew him aside for someprivate words. He was sensible enough, at bottom, and when I had pointedout to him that his prisoner was a good and kindly soul, who had been, through no fault of her own, nurtured in aristocratic ideas and ways; thatthose of whatever party who knew her well most heartily esteemed her; andthat, moreover, she was nearly related by blood to General Schuyler--heprofessed himself ready to behave toward her with more politeness. 

The trouble with him really lay in his abiding belief that peopleunderestimated his importance, and hence he sought to magnify his positionin their eyes by insolent demeanor. Therein I discerned the true Yankee. 

That the men of the New England States have many excellent parts, I wouldbe the last to deny; but that they were in the main a quarrelsome, intractable, mutinous, and mischief-making element in our armies duringthe Revolution, is not to be gainsaid. I know, of my own knowledge, howtheir fractious and insubordinate conduct grieved and sorely disheartenedpoor Montgomery while we lay before Quebec. I could tell many tales, too, of the harm they did to the cause in New York State, by their prejudicesagainst us, and their narrow spite against General Schuyler. Somischievous did this attitude become at last--when old General Woostercame to us with his Connecticut troops, and these set themselves up to beindependent of all our plans or rules, refusing even to mess with theothers or to touch Continental provisions and munitions--that Congress hadto interfere and put them sharply back into their proper places. Jerseymen, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and men from the Carolinas willbear me out in saying these things about the New England soldiery. I speaknot in blame or bitterness. The truth is that they were too much akin inblood and conceit to the English not to have in themselves many of thedisagreeable qualities which had impelled us all to revolt againstBritish rule. 

When the lieutenant had ordered the horses to be brought out for a start, I went back into the house. The women had been weeping, I could see. LadyJohnson had softened in her mood toward me, and spoke now some gentlewords of thanks for the little I had done. When I told her, in turn, thather escort would henceforth be more considerate in his conduct toward her, she was for a moment pleased, but then tears filled her eyes at thethoughts of the journey before her. 

"When I am out of sight of this house, " she said, sadly, "it will seem asif my last friend had been left behind. Why could they not have left me atthe Hall? I gave them the keys; I yielded up everything! What harm could Ihave done them--remaining there? I had no wish to visit my relatives inAlbany! It is a trick--a device! I doubt I shall ever lay eyes on my dearhome again. "

And, poor lady, she never did. 

We strove to speak words of comfort to her, but they came but feebly, andcould not have consoled her much. When the lieutenant opened the door, thewomen made a tearful adieu, with sobs and kisses upon which I could notbear to look. Lady Johnson shook hands with me, still with a patheticquivering of the lips. But then in an instant she straightened herself toher full height, bit her lips tight, and walked proudly past the obnoxiousescort down the path to the carriage, followed by her weeping sister andthe two big-eyed wondering children. 

"Will she ever come back?" said Daisy, half in inquiry, half in despairingexclamation, as we saw the last of the carriage and its guard. "How willit all end, Douw?"

"Who can foresee?" I answered. "It is war now, at last, war open anddesperate. I can see no peaceful way out of it. These aristocraticlandlords, these Johnsons, Butlers, Phillipses, De Lanceys, and the rest, will not give up their estates without a hard fight for them. Of that youmay be sure. _They_ will come back, if their wives do not, and all thatthey can do, backed by England, to regain their positions, will be done. They may win, and if they do, it will be our necks that will be put intothe yoke--or the halter. At all events, it has gone too far to be patchedover now. We can only stand up and fight as stoutly as we may, and leavethe rest to fate. "

"And it really was necessary to fight--I suppose it could not have been inreason avoided?"

"They would have it so. They clung to the faith that they were by rightthe masters here, and we the slaves, and so infatuated were they that theybrought in English troops and force to back them up. There was noalternative but to fight. Would you have had me on the other side--on theEnglish side, Daisy?"

"Oh, no, Douw, " she answered, in a clear voice. "If war there must be, why, of course, the side of my people is my side. "

I was not surprised at this, but I said, "You speak of your people, Daisy--but surely mere birth does not count for more than one's wholetraining afterward, and you have been bred among another class altogether. Why, I should think nine out of every ten of your friends here in theMohawk district must be Tories. "

"Not so great a proportion as that, " she went on, with a faint smile uponher lips, but deep gravity in her eyes. "You do not know the value ofthese 'friends, ' as you call them, as closely as I do. Never have theyforgotten on their side, even if I did on mine, that my parents werePalatine peasants. And you speak of my being bred among them! In what waymore than you were? Was I not brought up side by side with you? Was thereany difference in our rearing, in our daily life until--until you left us?Why should I not be a patriot, sir, as well as you?"

She ended with a little laugh, but the voice quivered beneath it. We bothwere thinking, I felt, of the dear old days gone by, and of the melancholyfate which clouded over and darkened those days, and drove us apart. 

We still stood by the open door, whence we had watched the carriagedisappear. After some seconds of silence I essayed to bring back theconversation to Lady Johnson, and talked of her narrow, ill-informed, purely one-sided way of regarding the troubles, and of how impossible itwas that the class to which she belonged, no matter how amiable and goodthey might be, could ever adapt themselves to the enlarging socialconditions of this new country. 

While I talked, there burst forth suddenly the racket of fifes and drumsin the road. Some militia companies were marching past on their way tojoin Colonel Dayton's force. We stood and watched these go by, and in thenoise that they made we failed to hear Mr. Stewart's tottering footstepsbehind us. 

The din of the drums had called him out of his lethargy, and he cameforward to watch the yeoman-soldiery. 

"They march badly--badly, " he said, shielding his eyes from the sun withhis hand. "I do not know the uniform. But I have been away so long, andeverything is changed since the King of Prussia began his wars. Yet I amhappier here as I am--far happier with my fields, and my freedom, and mychildren. "

He had spoken in the tone, half-conversational, half-dreamy, which of latestrangely marked most of his speech. He turned now and looked at us; apleasant change came over his wan face, and he smiled upon us with acurious reflection of the old fond look. 

"You are good children, " he said; "you shall be married in due time, andcome after me when I am gone. There will be no handsomer, happier twain inthe province. "

Daisy flushed crimson and looked pained at the old gentleman's childishbabbling, and I made haste to get away. 

Chapter XXVIII. 

An Old Acquaintance Turns Up In Manacles. 

A truly miserable fourteen months' period of thankless labor, and ofunending yet aimless anxiety, follows here in my story. It was my businessto remain in the Valley, watch its suspected figures, invigorate andencourage its militia, and combat the secret slander and open cowardicewhich there menaced the cause of liberty. Fortunately I had, from time totime, assurance that my work was of actual advantage to General Schuyler, and occasionally I had leisure hours to spend at the Cedars. If thesepleasurable things had been denied me, there would have been in the wholeContinental service no more unenviable post than mine. 

I have never pretended, least of all to myself, to be much enamoured offighting; nor have I ever been regardless of personal comfort, and of thesatisfaction of having warm clothes, sufficient food, and a good bed inwhich to sleep. Yet I would gladly have exchanged my state for that of themost wretched private soldier, barefooted and famished, on the frozenDelaware or at Morristown. War is a hateful and repellent enough thing;but it is at least better to be in the thick of it, to smell burningpowder and see and feel the enemy, even if he be at your heels, than to beposted far away from the theatre of conflict, spying upon an outwardlypeaceful community for signs of treason and disaffection. 

I should not like to put down in black and white, here in my old age, allthe harsh and malignant things which I thought of my Mohawk Valleyneighbors, or some of them, during those fourteen months. I am able to seenow that they were not altogether without excuse. 

The affairs of the revolted Colonies were, in truth, going very badly. Nosooner had Congress summoned the resolution to decree Continentalindependence than the fates seemed to conspire to show that thedeclaration was a mistake. Our successes in the field came to a suddenhalt; then disasters followed in their place. Public confidence, which hadbeen too lightly raised, first wavered, then collapsed. Against themagnificent army of English and Hessian regulars which Howe mustered inNew York, General Washington could not hold his own, and Congress lost thenerve to stand at his back. Our militia threw up the service, disheartened. Our commissariat faded out of existence. The patriot forcebecame the mere skeleton of an army, ragged, ill-fed, discouraged, andalmost hopeless. In battle after battle the British won--by overwhelmingnumbers or superior fortune, it mattered not which; the result was equallylamentable. 

There had been, indeed, a notable week at Christmas-time, when the swiftstrong blows struck at Trenton and Princeton lifted for a moment the cloudwhich hung over us. But it settled down again, black and threatening, before spring came. 

The Colonies quarrelled with one another; their generals plotted andintrigued, or sullenly held aloof. Cool men, measuring on the one sidethis lax and inharmonious alliance of jealous States, without money, without public-spirited populations, and, above all, without confidence intheir own success, and on the other the imposing power of rich andresolute England, with its splendid armies and fleets in the St. Lawrenceand in New York Harbor, and with its limitless supply of hired Germanauxiliaries--cool men, I say, weighing dispassionately these two opposingforces, came pretty generally to believe that in the end GeneralWashington would find himself laid by the heels in the Tower at London. 

I cannot honestly say now whether I ever shared this despondent view ornot. But I do know that I chafed bitterly under the orders which kept mein the Valley, and not only prevented my seeing what fighting there was, but put me to no better task than watching in a ten-acre field forrattlesnakes. I can in no apter way describe my employment from May of1776 to July of the following year. There was unending work, but novisible fruit, either for the cause or for myself. The menace of impendingdanger hung over us constantly--and nothing came of it, month after month. I grew truly sick of it all. Besides, my wounds did not heal well, and mybad health from time to time induced both melancholy and anirritable mind. 

The situation in the Valley was extremely simple. There was a smalloutspoken Tory party, who made no secret of their sympathies, and kept upcommunications with the refugees in Canada. These talked openly of thetime soon to arrive when the King's troops would purge the Valley ofdisloyalty, and loyalists should come by more than their own. There was asomewhat larger Whig party, which by word and deed supported Congress. Between these two, or rather, because of their large number, surroundingthem, was the great neutral party, who were chiefly concerned to so trimtheir sails that they should ship no water whichever way the wind blew. 

Up to the time of the Declaration of Independence these peaceful peoplehad leaned rather toward the Whigs. But when General Washington evacuatedLong Island, and the Continental prospects seemed to dwindle, it waswonderful to note how these same trimmers began again, first furtively, then with less concealment, to drink the King's health. 

Roughly speaking, the majority of the avowed Tories were in the lowerdistrict of Tryon County, that called the Mohawk district, embracing alleast of Anthony's Nose, including Johnstown, Tribes Hill, and Caughnawaga. They had, indeed, out-numbered the Whigs by five to one before the flightsto Canada began; and even now enough remained to give a strong Britishcolor to the feeling of the district. In the western districts of thecounty, where the population was more purely Dutch and Palatine, the Whigsentiment was very much stronger. But here, too, there were Tories, confessed and defiant; and everywhere, as time passed, the dry-rot ofdoubt spread among those who were of neither party. It came at last thatnearly every week brought news of some young man's disappearance fromhome--which meant another recruit for the hostile Canadian force; andscarcely a day went by without the gloomy tidings that this man or theother, heretofore lukewarm, now spoke in favor of submission to the King. 

It was my function to watch this shifting public opinion, to sway it whereI could, but to watch it always. No more painful task could have beenconceived. I lived in an atmosphere of treachery and suspicion. Wherever Iturned I saw humanity at its worst. Men doubted their brothers, theirsons, even their wives. The very ground underneath us was honeycombed withintrigues and conspiracies. Intelligence from Canada, with its burden ofpromises to speedily glut the passions of war, circulated stealthily allabout us. How it came, how it was passed from hearth to hearth, defied ourpenetration. We could only feel that it was in the air around us, andstrive to locate it--mainly in vain--and shudder at its sinister omens. 

For all felt a blow to be impending, and only marvelled at its being solong withheld. It was two years now since Colonel Guy Johnson, with theButlers and Philip Cross, had gone westward to raise the Indians. It wasmore than a year since Sir John and his retainers had joined them. Some ofthese had been to England in the interim, and we vaguely heard of othersflitting, now in Quebec, now at Niagara or Detroit; yet none doubted thatthe dearest purpose of all of them was to return with troops and savagesto reconquer the Valley. This was the sword which hung daily, nightly, over our heads. 

And as the waiting time lengthened out it grew terrible to weak andselfish minds. More and more men sought to learn how they might soften andturn its wrath aside, not how they might meet and repel its stroke. 

Congress would not believe in our danger--perhaps could not have helped usif it would. And then our own friends at this lost heart. The flights toCanada multiplied; our volunteer militiamen fell away from the drills andpatrols. Stories and rumors grew thicker of British preparations, ofIndian approaches, of invasion's red track being cleared up to the verygates of the Valley. And no man saw how the ruin was to be averted. 

It was in the second week of July, at almost the darkest hour in thatgloomy first part of 1777, that a singular link in the chain of my storywas forged. 

Affairs were at their worst, abroad and at home. General Washington's callfor more troops had fallen on deaf ears, and it seemed impossible that hispoor force could withstand the grand army and fleet mustering at New York. The news of St. Clair's wretched evacuation of Ticonderoga had come in, and we scarcely dared look one another in the face when it was told. Apparently matters were nearing a climax, so far at least as we in NewYork State were involved. For Burgoyne was moving down through theChamplain country upon Albany, with none to stay his progress, and anauxiliary force was somewhere upon the great northern water frontier ofour State, intending to sweep through the Mohawk Valley to join him. Oncethis junction was formed, the Hudson lay open--and after that? We darednot think!

I cannot hope to make young people realize what all this meant to us. Tocomprehend this, one must have had not only a neck menaced by the halter, but mother, sisters, dear ones, threatened by the tomahawk and knife. Thinking back upon it now, I marvel that men did not go mad under thishorrible stress of apprehension. Apparently there was no hope. The old NewEngland spite and prejudice against General Schuyler had stirred up now afierce chorus of calumny and attack. He was blamed for St. Clair'spusillanimous retreat, for Congressional languor, for the failure of themilitia to come forward--for everything, in fact. His hands were tied bysuspicion, by treason, by popular lethargy, by lack of money, men, andmeans. Against these odds he strove like a giant, but I think not even he, with all his great, calm confidence, saw clearly through the black cloudjust then. 

I had gone to bed late one hot July night, and had hardly fallen asleep, for gloomy musing upon these things, when I was awakened by a loudpounding on the door beneath. I was at my mother's house, fortunately, andthe messenger had thus found me out promptly. 

Tulp had also been aroused, and saddled my horse while I dressed, inresponse to the summons. I was wanted at Johnstown by Sheriff Frey, onsome matter which would not wait for the morrow. This much I gatheredfrom the messenger, as we rode together in the starlight, but he couldtell me little more, save that an emissary from the Tories in Canada hadbeen captured near the Sacondaga, and it was needful that I should seehim. I wondered somewhat at this as a reason for routing me out of mysleep, but cantered silently along, too drowsy to be querulous. 

Daylight broke before we crossed the river, and the sunrise gun sounded aswe rode up into the court-house square at Johnstown. Soldiers were alreadyto be seen moving about outside the block-houses at the corners of thepalisade which, since Sir John's flight, had been built around the jail. Our coming seemed to be expected, for one of the soldiers told us to waitwhile he went inside, and after a few minutes John Frey came out, rubbinghis eyes. As I dismounted, he briefly explained matters to me. 

It seemed that a Tory spy had made his way in from the woods, haddelivered letters both at Cairncross and at the Cedars, and had thenstarted to return, but by the vigilance of one of the Vrooman boys hadbeen headed off and taken. 

"He is as close as the bark on a beech-tree, " concluded the sheriff. "Wecould get nothing out of him. Even when I told him he would be hanged thismorning after breakfast, he did not change color. He only said that ifthis was the case he would like first to see you; it seems he knows you, and has some information for you--probably about Philip Cross's wife. Perhaps he will tell _you_ what was in the letter he brought to her. "

It occurred to me on the instant that this was the real reason for mybeing summoned. These were days of universal suspicion, and the worthysheriff had his doubts even of Daisy. 

"All right! Let me see the man, " I said, and we entered the jail. 

When the soldier in charge had opened the cell-door, the object of ourinterest was discovered to be asleep. Frey shook him vigorously by theshoulder. He sat bolt upright on the instant, squinting his eyes toaccustom them to the light, but evincing no special concern atour presence. 

"Is your hanging-party ready?" he said, and yawned, stretching his arms asfreely as the manacles would admit. 

I looked curiously at him--a long, slender, wiry figure, with thin, cordedneck, and twisted muscles showing on so much of his hairy breast as theopen buckskin shirt exposed. The face was pointed and bony, and brown asleather. For the moment I could not place him; then his identity dawned onme. I stepped forward, and said:

"Is that you, Enoch Wade?"

He looked up at me, and nodded recognition, with no show of emotion. 

"It might have been my ghost, cap'n, " he said, "if you hadn't hurriedright along. These friends of yours were bent on spoiling a good man tomake bad meat. They wouldn't listen to any kind of reason. Can I have apalaver with you, all by yourself?"

"What does he mean by a 'palaver'?" asked the honest Swiss sheriff. 

I explained that it was a common enough Portuguese word, signifying"talk, " which Enoch in his wanderings had picked up. Furthermore, I toldFrey that I knew the man, and wished to speak with him apart, whereuponthe sheriff and the soldier left us. 

"It is all in my eye--their hanging me, " began Enoch, with a sardonicsmile slowly relaxing his thin lips. "I wasn't fooled a minute by that. "

"Perhaps you are mistaken there, my man, " I said, as sternly as I could. 

"Oh, no, not a bit! What's more, they wouldn't have caught me if I hadn'twanted to be caught. You know me. You have travelled with me. HonestInjun, now, do you take me for the kind of a man to be treed by a youngDutch muskrat-trapper if I have a mind not to be?"

I had to admit that my knowledge of his resourceful nature had notprepared me for such an ignoble catastrophe, but I added that all the morehis conduct mystified me. 

"Quite so!" he remarked, with another grim smile of complacency. "Sitdown here on this bed, if you can find room, and I'll tell you allabout it. "

The tale to which I listened during the next half-hour, full of deepinterest as it was for me, would not bear repeating here at length. Itsessential points were these:

After Sir William's death Enoch had remained on at the Hall, not feelingparticularly bound to the new baronet, but having a cat's attachment tothe Hall itself. When Sir John finally resolved to avoid arrest by flight, Enoch had been in two minds about accompanying him, but had finallyyielded to the flattering reliance placed by all upon the value andthoroughness of his knowledge as a woodsman. It was largely due to hisskill that the party got safely through the great wilderness, and reachedMontreal so soon. Since his arrival in Canada, however, things had notbeen at all to his liking. There was but one thought among all his refugeecompanions, which was to return to the Mohawk Valley and put their oldneighbors to fire and sword--and for this Enoch had no inclinationwhatever. He had accordingly resisted all offers to enrol him in the Toryregiment which Sir John was raising in Canada, and had looked for anopportunity to get away quietly and without reproach. This chance had onlycome to him a week or so ago, when Philip Cross offered to pay him well totake two letters down the Valley--one to his servant Rab, the other toMrs. Cross. He had accepted this errand, and had delivered the letters asin duty bound. There his responsibility ended. He had no intention toreturn, and had allowed himself to be arrested by a slow and uninventiveyoung man, solely because it seemed the best way of achieving his purpose. 

"What is your purpose, Enoch?"

"Well, to begin with, it is to make your hair stand on end. I started fromBuck's Island, on the St. Lawrence, on the 9th of this month. Do you knowwho I left there? Seven hundred uniformed soldiers, English and Tory, with eight cannons, commanded by a British colonel--Sillinger they calledhim--and Sir John Johnson. They are coming to Oswego, where they will meetthe Butlers with more Tories, and Dan Claus with five hundred Indians. Then the whole force is to march on Fort Stanwix, capture it, and comedown the Valley!"

You may guess how eagerly I listened to the details which Enochgave--details of the gravest importance, which I must hasten to send westto Herkimer and east to Schuyler. When this vital talk was ended, Ireturned to the personal side of the matter with a final query:

"But why get yourself arrested?"

"Because I wanted to see you. My errand wasn't finished till I had givenyou Philip Cross's message. 'Tell that Dutchman, ' he said, 'if you cancontrive to do it without peril to yourself, that when I come into theValley I will cut out his heart, and feed it to a Missisague dog!'"

Chapter XXIX. 

The Message Sent Ahead from the Invading Army. 

The whole forenoon of this eventful day was occupied in transmitting tothe proper authorities the great tidings which had so fortuitously cometo us. 

For this purpose, after breakfast, John Frey, who was the brigade major aswell as sheriff, rode down to Caughnawaga with me, four soldiers bringingEnoch in our train. It was a busy morning at the Fonda house, where wedespatched our business, only Jelles Fonda and his brother Captain Adamand the staunch old Samson Sammons being admitted to our counsels. 

Here Enoch repeated his story, telling now in addition that one-half ofthe approaching force was composed of Hanau Chasseurs--skilled marksmenrecruited in Germany from the gamekeeper or forester class--and thatJoseph Brant was expected to meet them at Oswego with the Iroquois warparty, Colonel Claus having command of the Missisaguesor Hurons from theFar West. As he mentioned the names of various officers in Sir John'sregiment of Tories, we ground our teeth with wrath. They were the names ofmen we had long known in the Valley--men whose brothers and kinsmen werestill among us, some even holding commissions in our militia. Old Sammonscould not restrain a snort of rage when the name of Hon-Yost Herkimer wasmentioned in this list of men who wore now the traitor's "Royal Green"uniform, and carried commissions from King George to fight against theirown blood. 

"You saw no Sammons in that damned snake's nest, I'll be bound!" heshouted fiercely at Enoch. 

"Nor any Fonda, either, " said Major Jelles, as firmly. 

But then both bethought them that these were cruel words to say in thehearing of the stalwart John Frey, who could not help it that his brother, Colonel Hendrick, was on parole as a suspected Tory, and that anotherbrother, Bernard, and a nephew, young Philip Frey, Hendrick's son, werewith Johnson in Canada. So the family subject was dropped. 

More or less minute reports of all that Enoch revealed, according to theposition of those for whom they were intended, were written out by me, anddespatched by messenger to General Schuyler at Albany; toBrigadier-General Herkimer near the Little Falls; to Colonel Campbell atCherry Valley; and to my old comrade Peter Gansevoort, now a full colonel, and since April the commandant at Fort Stanwix. Upon him the first bruntof the coming invasion would fall. He had under him only five hundredmen--the Third New York Continentals--and I took it upon myself to urgenow upon General Schuyler that more should be speeded to him. 

This work finally cleared away, and all done that was proper until themilitary head of Tryon County, Brigadier Herkimer, should take action, there was time to remember my own affairs. It had been resolved that noword of what we had learned should be made public. The haying had begun, and a panic now would work only disaster by interfering with this mostimportant harvest a day sooner than need be. There was no longer anyquestion of keeping Enoch in prison, but there was a real fear that if hewere set at large he might reveal his secret. Hence John Frey suggestedthat I keep him under my eye, and this jumped with my inclination. 

Accordingly, when the noon-day heat was somewhat abated, we set out downthe Valley road toward the Cedars. There was no horse for him, but hewalked with the spring and tirelessness of a grey-hound, his hand on thepommel of my saddle. The four soldiers who had come down from Johnstownfollowed in our rear, keeping under the shade where they could, andpicking berries by the way. 

The mysterious letter from Philip to his deserted wife lay heavily upon mythoughts. I could not ask Enoch if he knew its contents--which it turnedout he did not--but I was unable to keep my mind from speculatingupon them. 

During all these fourteen months Daisy and I had rarely spoken of herrecreant ruffian of a husband--or, for that matter, of any other phase ofher sad married life. There had been some little constraint between us fora time, after Mr. Stewart's childish babbling about us as still youth andmaiden. He never happened to repeat it, and the embarrassment graduallywore away. But we had both been warned by it--if indeed I ought to speakof her as possibly needing such a warning--and by tacit consent the wholesubject of her situation was avoided. I did not even tell her that I owedthe worst and most lasting of my wounds to Philip. It would only haveadded to her grief, and impeded the freedom of my arm when the chance forrevenge should come. 

That my heart had been all this while deeply tender toward the poor girl, I need hardly say. I tried to believe that I thought of her only as thedear sister of my childhood, and that I looked upon her when we met withno more than the fondness which may properly glow in a brother's eyes. Forthe most part I succeeded in believing it, but it is just to add that theneighborhood did not. More than once my mother had angered me by reportingthat people talked of my frequent visits to the Cedars, and faint echoesof this gossip had reached my ears from other sources. 

"You did not stop to see Mistress Cross open her letter, then?" I askedEnoch. 

"No: why should I? Nothing was said about that. He paid me only to deliverit into her hands. "

"And what was his mood when he gave it to you?"

"Why, it was what you might call the Madeira mood--his old accustomedtemper. He had the hiccoughs, I recall, when he spoke with me. Mostgenerally he does have them. Yet, speak the truth and shame the devil! heis sober two days to that Colonel Sillinger's one. If their expeditionfails, it won't be for want of rum. They had twenty barrels when theystarted from La Chine, and it went to my heart to see men make such beastsof themselves. "

I could not but smile at this. "The last time I saw you before to-day, " Isaid, "there could not well have been less than a quart of rum insideof you. "

"No doubt! But it is quite another thing to guzzle while your work isstill in hand. That I never would do. And it is that which makes me doubtthese British will win, in the long-run. Rum is good to rest upon--it isrest itself--when the labor is done; but it is ruin to drink it when yourtask is still ahead of you. To tell the truth, I could not bear to seethese fellows drink, drink, drink, all day long, with all their hardfighting to come. It made me uneasy. "

"And is it your purpose to join us? We are the sober ones, you know. "

"Well, yes and no. I don't mind giving your side a lift--it's more my wayof thinking than the other--and you seem to need it powerfully, too. But"--here he looked critically over my blue and buff, from cockade toboot-tops--"you don't get any uniform on me, and I don't join anyregiment. I'd take my chance in the woods first. It suits you to a 't, 'but it would gag me from the first minute. "

We talked thus until we reached the Cedars. I left Enoch and the escortwithout, and knocked at the door. I had to rap a second time before MollyWemple appeared to let me in. 

"We were all up-stairs, " she said, wiping her hot and dusty brow with herapron, "hard at it! I'll send her down to you. She needs a littlebreathing-spell. "

The girl was gone before I could ask what extra necessity for labor hadfallen upon the household this sultry summer afternoon. 

Daisy came hurriedly to me, a moment later, and took both my hands inhers. She also bore signs of work and weariness. 

"Oh, I am _so_ glad you are come!" she said, eagerly. "Twice I have sentTulp for you across to your mother's. It seemed as if you neverwould come. "

"Why, what is it, my girl? Is it about the letter from--from----"

"You know, then!"

"Only that a letter came to you yesterday from him. The messenger--he isan old friend of ours--told me that much, nothing more. "

Daisy turned at this and took a chair, motioning me to another. Thepleased excitement at my arrival--apparently so much desired--wassucceeded all at once by visible embarrassment. 

"Now that you are here, I scarcely know why I wanted you, or--or how totell you what it is, " she said, speaking slowly. "I was full of the ideathat nothing could be done without your advice and help--and yet, now youhave come, it seems that there is nothing left for you to say or do. " Shepaused for a moment, then added: "You know we are going back toCairncross. "

I stared at her, aghast. The best thing I could say was, "Nonsense!"

She smiled wearily. "So I might have known you would say. But it is thetruth, none the less. "

"You must be crazy!"

"No, Douw, only very, very wretched!"

The poor girl's voice faltered as she spoke, and I thought I saw theglisten of tears in her eyes. She had borne so brave and calm a frontthrough all her trouble, that this suggestion of a sob wrung my heart withthe cruelty of a novel sorrow. I drew my chair nearer to her. 

"Tell me about it all, Daisy--if you can. "

Her answer was to impulsively take a letter from her pocket and hand it tome. She would have recalled it an instant later. 

"No--give it me back, " she cried. "I forgot! There are things in it youshould not see. "

But even as I held it out to her, she changed her mind once again. 

"No--read it, " she said, sinking back in her chair; "it can make nodifference--between _us_. You might as well know all!"

The "all" could not well have been more hateful. I smoothed out the foldedsheet over my knee, and read these words, written in a loose, boldcharacter, with no date or designation of place, and with the signaturescrawled grandly like the sign-manual of a duke, at least:

"Madam:--It is my purpose to return to Cairncross forthwith, though youare not to publish it. 

"If I fail to find you there residing, as is your duty, upon my arrival, Ishall be able to construe the reasons for your absence, and shall actaccordingly. 

"I am fully informed of your behavior in quitting my house the instant myback was turned, and in consorting publicly with my enemies, and withruffian foes to law and order generally. 

"All these rebels and knaves will shortly be shot or hanged, includingwithout fail your Dutch gallant, who, I am told, now calls himself amajor. His daily visits to you have all been faithfully reported to me. After his neck has been properly twisted, I may be in a better humor tolisten to such excuses as you can offer in his regard, albeit I makeno promise. 

"I despatch by this same express my commands to Rab, which will serve asyour further instructions. 

"Philip. "

One clearly had a right to time for reflection, after having read such aletter as this. I turned the sheet over and over in my hands, re-readinglines here and there under pretence of study, and preserving silence, until finally she asked me what I thought of it all. Then I had perforceto speak my mind. 

"I think, if you wish to know, " I said, deliberately, "that this husbandof yours is the most odious brute God ever allowed to live!"

There came now in her reply a curious confirmation of the familiar saying, that no man can ever comprehend a woman. A long life's experience hasconvinced me that the simplest and most direct of her sex must be, in theinner workings of her mind, an enigma to the wisest man that ever existed;so impressed am I with this fact that several times in the course of thisnarrative I have been at pains to disavow all knowledge of why the womenfolk of my tale did this or that, only recording the fact that they did doit; and thus to the end of time, I take it, the world's stories mustbe written. 

This is what Daisy actually said:

"But do you not see running through every line of the letter, and butindifferently concealed, the confession that he is sorry for what he hasdone, and that he still loves me?"

"I certainly see nothing of the kind!"

She had the letter by heart. "Else why does he wish me to return to hishome?" she asked. "And you see he is grieved at my having been friendlywith those who are not his friends; that he would not be if he carednothing for me. Note, too, how at the close, even when he has shown thatby the reports that have reached him he is justified in suspecting me, heas much as says that he will forgive me. "

"Yes--perhaps--when once he has had his sweet fill of seeing me kicking atthe end of a rope! Truly I marvel, Daisy, how you can be so blind, afterall the misery and suffering this ruffian has caused you. "

"He is my husband, Douw, " she said, simply, as if that settled everything. 

"Yes, he is your husband--a noble and loving husband, in truth! He firstmakes your life wretched at home--you know you _were_ wretched, Daisy!Then he deserts you, despoiling your house before your very eyes, humiliating you in the hearing of your servants, and throwing the povertyof your parents in your face as he goes! He stops away two years--havingyou watched meanwhile, it seems--yet never vouchsafing you so much as aword of message! Then at last, when these coward Tories have bought helpenough in Germany and in the Indian camps to embolden them to come downand look their neighbors in the face, he is pleased to write you thisletter, abounding in coarse insults in every sentence. He tells you of hiscoming as he might notify a tavern wench. He hectors and orders you as ifyou were his slave. He pleasantly promises the ignominious death of yourchief friends. And all this you take kindly--sifting his brutal words insearch for even the tiniest grain of manliness. My faith, I am astonishedat you! I credited you with more spirit. "

She was not angered at this outburst, which had in it more harsh phrasesthan she had heard in all her life from me before, but, after a littlepause, said to me quite calmly:

"I know you deem him all bad. You never allowed him any good quality. "

"You know him better than I--a thousand times better, more's the pity. Very well! I rest the case with you. Tell me, out of all your knowledge ofthe man, what 'good quality' he ever showed, how he showed it, and when!"

"Have you forgotten that he saved my life?"

"No; but he forgot it--or rather made it the subject of taunts, in placeof soft thoughts. "

"And he loved me--ah! he truly did--for a little!"

"Yes, he loved you! So he did his horses, his kennel, his wine cellar;and a hundred-fold more he loved himself and his cursed pride. "

"How you hate him!"

"Hate him? Yes! Have I not been given cause?"

"He often said that he was not in fault for throwing Tulp over thegulf-side. He knew no reason, he avowed, why you should have sought aquarrel with him that day, and forced it upon him, there in the gulf; andas for Tulp--why, the foolish boy ran at him. Is it not so?"

"Who speaks of Tulp?" I asked, impatiently. "If he had tossed all Ethiopiaover the cliff, and left me _you_--I--I----"

The words were out!

I bit my tongue in shamed regret, and dared not let my glance meet hers. Of all things in the world, this was precisely what I should not haveuttered--what I wanted least to say. But it had been said, and I wascovered with confusion. The necessity of saying something to bridge overthis chasm of insensate indiscretion tugged at my senses, andfinally--after what had seemed an age of silence--I stammered on:

"What I mean is, we never liked each other. Why, the first time we evermet, we fought. You cannot remember it, but we did. He knocked me into theashes. And then there was our dispute at Albany--in the Patroon's mansion, you will recall. And then at Quebec. I have never told you of this, " Iwent on, recklessly, "but we met that morning in the snow, as Montgomeryfell. He knew me, dark as it still was, and we grappled. This scar here, "I pointed to a reddish seam across my temple and cheek, "this washis doing. "

I have said that I could never meet Daisy in these days without feelingthat, mere chronology to the opposite notwithstanding, she was much theolder and more competent person of the two. This sense of juvenilityoverwhelmed me now, as she calmly rose and put her hand on my shoulder, and took a restful, as it were maternal, charge of me and my mind. 

"My dear Douw, " she said, with as fine an assumption of quiet, composedsuperiority as if she had not up to that moment been talking the veriestnonsense, "I understand just what you mean. Do not think, if I seemsometimes thoughtless or indifferent, that I am not aware of yourfeelings, or that I fail to appreciate the fondness you have always givenme. I know what you would have said----"

"It was exactly what I most of all would _not_ have said, " I broke inwith, in passing. 

"Even so. But do you think, silly boy, that the thought was new to me? Ofcourse we shall never speak of it again, but I am not altogether sorry itwas referred to. It gives me the chance to say to you"--her voice softenedand wavered here, as she looked around the dear old room, reminiscent inevery detail of our youth--"to say to you that, wherever my duty may be, my heart is here, here under this roof where I was so happy, and where thetwo best men I shall ever know loved me so tenderly, so truly, as daughterand sister. "

There were tears in her eyes at the end, but she was calm andself-sustained enough. 

She was very firmly of opinion that it was her duty to go to Cairncrossat once, and nothing I could say sufficed to dissuade her. So it turnedout that the afternoon and evening of this important day were devoted toconvoying across to Cairncross the whole Cedars establishment, I myselfaccompanying Daisy and Mr. Stewart in the carriage around by the Johnstownroad. Rab was civil almost to the point of servility, but, to makeassurance doubly sure, I sent up a guard of soldiers to the house thatvery night, brought Master Rab down to be safely locked up by the sheriffat Johnstown, and left her Enoch instead. 

Chapter XXX. 

From the Scythe and Reaper to the Musket. 

And now, with all the desperate energy of men who risked everything thatmortal can have in jeopardy, we prepared to meet the invasion. 

The tidings of the next few days but amplified what Enoch had told us. Thomas Spencer, the half-breed, forwarded full intelligence of theapproaching force; Oneida runners brought in stories of its magnitude, with which the forest glades began to be vocal; Colonel Gansevoort, working night and day to put into a proper state of defence thedilapidated fort at the Mohawk's headwaters, sent down urgent demands forsupplies, for more men, and for militia support. 

At the most, General Schuyler could spare him but two hundred men, forAlbany was in sore panic at the fall of Ticonderoga and the menace ofBurgoyne's descent in force through the Champlain country. We watched thislittle troop march up the river road in a cloud of dust, and realized thatthis was the final thing Congress and the State could do for us. What morewas to be done we men of the Valley must do for ourselves. 

It was almost welcome, this grim, blood-red reality of peril which nowstared us in the face, so good and wholesome a change did it work in thespirit of the Valley. Despondency vanished; the cavillers who haddisparaged Washington and Schuyler, sneered at stout Governor Clinton, anddoubted all things save that matters would end badly, ceased theirgrumbling and took heart; men who had wavered and been lukewarm orsuspicious came forward now and threw in their lot with their neighbors. And if here and there on the hillsides were silent houses whence no helpwas to come, and where, if the enemy once broke through, he would bewelcomed the more as a friend if his hands were spattered with ourblood--the consciousness, I say, that we had these base traitors in ourmidst only gave us a deeper resolution not to fail. 

General Herkimer presently issued his order to the Tryon militia, apprising them of the imminent danger, and summoning all between sixteenand sixty to arms. There was no doubt now where the blow would fall. Cherry Valley, Unadilla, and the Sacondaga settlements no longer fearedraids from the wilderness upon their flanks. The invaders were comingforward in a solid mass, to strike square at the Valley's head. There wemust meet them!

It warms my old heart still to recall the earnestness and calm courage ofthat summer fortnight of preparation. All up and down the Valleybottom-lands the haying was in progress. Young and old, rich and poor, cameout to carry forward this work in common. The meadows were taken in theirorder, some toiling with scythe and sickle, others standing guard at theforest borders of the field to protect the workers. It was a goodly yieldthat year, I remember, and never in my knowledge was the harvest gatheredand housed better or more thoroughly than in this period of genuinedanger, when no man knew whose cattle would feed upon his hay a monthhence. The women and girls worked beside the men, and brought them coolingdrinks of ginger, molasses, and vinegar, and spread tables of food in theearly evening shade for the weary gleaners. These would march home inbodies, a little later, those with muskets being at the front and rear;and then, after a short night's honest sleep, the rising sun would findthem again at work upon some other farm. 

There was something very good and strengthening in this banding togetherto get the hay in for all. During twenty years of peace and security, wehad grown selfish and solitary--each man for himself. We had forgotten, inthe strife for individual gain and preferment, the true meaning of thatfine old word "neighbor"--the husbandman, or _boer_, who is nigh, and towhom in nature you first look for help and sympathy and friendship. It wasin this fortnight of common peril that we saw how truly we sharedeverything, even life itself, and how good it was to work for as well asto fight for one another--each for all, and all for each. Forty years havegone by since that summer, yet still I seem to discover in the MohawkValley the helpful traces of that fortnight's harvesting in common. Thepoor _bauers_ and squatters from the bush came out then and did theirshare of the work, and we went back with them into their forest clearingsand beaver-flies and helped them get in their small crops, in turn. And tothis day there is more brotherly feeling here between the needy and thewell-to-do than I know of anywhere else. 

When the barns were filled, and the sweet-smelling stacks outside properlybuilt and thatched, the scythe was laid aside for the musket, the sicklefor the sword and pistol. All up the Valley the drums' rattle drowned thedrone of the locusts in the stubble. The women moulded bullets now andfilled powder-horns instead of making drinks for the hay-field. There wasno thought anywhere save of preparation for the march. Guns were cleaned, flints replaced, new hickory ramrods whittled out, and the grindstonesthrew off sparks under the pressure of swords and spear-heads. Even thelittle children were at work rubbing goose-grease into the hard leather oftheir elders' foot-gear, against the long tramp to Fort Stanwix. 

By this time, the first of August, we knew more about the foe we were tomeet. The commander whom Enoch had heard called Sillinger was learned tobe one Colonel St. Leger, a British officer of distinction, which mighthave been even greater if he had not embraced the Old-World military viceof his day--grievous drunkenness. The gathering of Indians at Oswego underClaus and Brant was larger than the first reports had made it. The regulartroops, both British and German, intended for our destruction, were saidto alone outnumber the whole militia force which we could hope to opposeto them. But most of all we thought of the hundreds of our old Toryneighbors, who were bringing this army down upon us to avenge their ownfancied wrongs; and when we thought of them we moodily rattled the bulletsin our deerskin bags, and bent the steel more fiercely upon the whirling, hissing stone. 

I have read much of war, both ancient and modern. I declare solemnly thatin no chronicle of warfare in any country, whether it be of greatcampaigns like those of Marlborough and the late King of Prussia, and thatstrange Buonaparte, half god, half devil, who has now been caged at lastat St. Helena; of brutal invasions by a foreign enemy, as when the Frenchoverran and desolated the Palatinate; or of buccaneering and piraticalenterprise by the Spaniards and Portuguese; or of the fighting of savagesor of the Don Cossacks--in none of these records, I aver, can you find somuch wanton baseness and beast-like bloodthirstiness as these native-bornTories showed toward us. Mankind has not been capable of more uttercruelty and wickedness than were in their hearts. Beside them the lowestpainted heathen in their train was a Christian, the most ignorant Hessianpeasant was a nobleman. 

Ever since my talk with Colonel Dayton I had been trying to look uponthese Tories as men who, however mistaken, were acting from a sense ofduty. For a full year it seemed as if I had succeeded; indeed, more thanonce, so temperately did I bring myself in my new philosophy to think ofthem, I was warned by my elders that it would be better for me to keep mygenerous notions to myself. But now, when the stress came, all thisphilanthropy fell away. These men were leading down to their old home anarmy of savages and alien soldiers; they were boasting that we, theirrelatives or whilom school-fellows, neighbors, friends, should beslaughtered like rats in a pit; their commander, St. Leger, published attheir instigation general orders offering his Indians twenty dollarsapiece for the scalps of our men, women, and children! How could onepretend not to hate such monsters?

At least I did not pretend any longer, but worked with an enthusiasm I hadnever known before to marshal our yeomanry together. 

Under the pelting July sun, in the saddle from morning till night--toCherry Valley, to Stone Arabia, to the obscure little groups of cabins inthe bush, to the remote settlements on the Unadilla and the EastCreek--organizing, suggesting, pleading, sometimes, I fear, also cursing alittle, my difficult work was at last done. The men of the Mohawk districtregiment, who came more directly under my eye, were mustered atCaughnawaga, and some of the companies that were best filled despatchedforward under Captain Adam Fonda, who was all impatience to get first toFort Dayton, the general rendezvous. In all we were likely to gathertogether in this regiment one hundred and thirty men, and this was betterthan a fortnight ago had seemed possible. 

They were sturdy fellows for the most part, tall, deep-chested, and hardof muscle. They came from the high forest clearings of Kingsland andTribes Hill, from the lower Valley flatlands near to Schenectady, from thebush settlements scattered back on Aries Creek, from the rich farms andvillages of Johnstown, and Caughnawaga, and Spraker's. There were amongthem all sorts and conditions of men, thrifty and thriftless, cautious andimprudent, the owners of slaves along with poor yokels of scarcely higherestate than the others' niggers. Here were posted thick in the roll-callsuch names as Fonda, Starin, Yates, Sammons, Gardenier, and Wemple. Manyof the officers, and some few of the men, had rough imitations of uniform, such as home-made materials and craft could command, but these variedlargely in style and color. The great majority of the privates wore simplytheir farm homespun, gray and patched, and some had not even theirhat-brims turned up with a cockade. But they had a look on theirsunburned, gnarled, and honest faces which the Butlers and Johnsons mightwell have shrunk from. 

These men of the Mohawk district spoke more Dutch than anything else, though there were both English and High German tongues among them. Theyhad more old acquaintances among the Tories than had their Palatinefriends up the river, for this had been the Johnsons' own district. Hence, though in numbers we were smaller than the regiments that mustered aboveat Stone Arabia and Zimmerman's, at Canajoharie and Cherry Valley, we werericher in hate. 

At daybreak on August 2, the remaining companies of this regiment were tostart on their march up the Valley. I rode home to my mother's house latein the afternoon of the 1st, to spend what might be a last night under herroof. On the morrow, Samson Sammons and Jelles Fonda, members of theCommittee of Safety, and I, could easily overtake the column onour horses. 

I was greatly perplexed and unsettled in mind about Daisy and my dutytoward her, and, though I turned this over in my thoughts the wholedistance, I could come to no satisfactory conclusion. On the one hand, Iyearned to go and say farewell to her; on the other, it was not clear, after that letter of her husband's, that I could do this without unjustlyprejudicing her as a wife. For the wife of this viper she still was, andwho could tell how soon she might not be in his power again?

I was still wrestling with this vexatious question when I came to mymother's house. I tied the horse to the fence till Tulp should come outfor him, and went in, irresolutely. At every step it seemed to me as if Iought instead to be going toward Cairncross. 

Guess my surprise at being met, almost upon the threshold, by the verywoman of whom of all others I had been thinking! My mother and she hadapparently made up their differences, and stood together waiting for me. 

"Were you going away, Douw, without coming to see me--to say good-by?"asked Daisy, with a soft reproach in her voice. "Your mother tells me ofyour starting to-morrow--for the battle. "

I took her hand, and, despite my mother's presence, continued to hold itin mine. This was bold, but there was little enough of bravery inmy words. 

"Yes, we go to-morrow; I wanted to come--all day I have been thinking oflittle else--yet I feared that my visit might--might----"

Very early in this tale it was my pride to explain that my mother was asuperior woman. Faults of temper she may have had, and eke narrowprejudices on sundry points. But she had also great good sense, which sheshowed now by leaving the room. 

"I came to you instead, you see, " my dear girl said, trying to smile, yetwith a quivering lip; "I could not have slept, I could not have borne tolive almost, it seems, if I had let you ride off without a word, withouta sign. "

We stood thus facing each other for a moment--mumbling forth somecommonplaces of explanation, she looking intently into my eyes. Then witha sudden deep outburst of anguish, moaning piteously, "_Must you trulygo_?" she came, nay, almost fell into my arms, burying her face on myshoulder and weeping violently. 

It is not meet that I should speak much of the hour that followed. Iwould, in truth, pass over it wholly in silence--as being too sacred athing for aught of disclosure or speculation--were it not that some might, in this case, think lightly of the pure and good woman who, unduly wrungby years of grief, disappointment, and trial, now, from very weariness ofsoul, sobbed upon my breast. And that would be intolerable. 

We sat side by side in the little musty parlor. I did not hold her hand, or so much as touch her gown with my knee or foot. 

We talked of impersonal things--of the coming invasion, of the chances ofrelieving Fort Stanwix, of the joy it would be to me if I could bear agood part in rescuing my dear friend Gansevoort, its brave youngcommandant. I told her about Peter, and of how we two had consortedtogether in Albany, and later in Quebec. And this led us back--as we hadso often returned before during these latter hateful months--to the sweetcompanionship of our own childhood and youth. She, in turn, talked of Mr. Stewart, who seemed less strong and contented in his new home atCairncross. He had much enjoyment now, she said, in counting over a rosaryof beads which had been his mother's, reiterating a prayer for each one inthe Romish fashion, and he was curiously able to remember theselong-disused formulas of his boyhood, even while he forgot the things ofyesterday. I commented upon this, pointing out to her that this is thestrange quality of the Roman faith--that its forms and customs, learned inyouth, remain in the affections of Papists to their dying day, even aftermany years of neglect and unbelief; whereas in the severe, Spanish-drabProtestantism to which I was reared, if one once loses interest in thetenets themselves, there is nothing whatever left upon which the mind maylinger pleasantly. 

Thus our conversation ran--decorous and harmless enough, in allconscience. And if the thoughts masked by these words were all of aforbidden subject; if the very air about us was laden with sweetinfluences; if, when our eyes met, each read in the other's glance a wholeworld of meaning evaded in our talk--were we to blame?

I said "no" then, in my own heart, honestly. I say it now. Why, think you!This love of ours was as old as our intelligence itself. Looking back, wecould trace its soft touch upon every little childish incident we had incommon memory; the cadence of its music bore forward, tenderly, sweetly, the song of all that had been happy in our lives. We were man and womannow, wise and grave by reason of sorrow and pain and great trials. Thesehad come upon us both because neither of us had frankly said, at a timewhen to have said it would have been to alter all, "I love you!" And thiswe must not say to each other even now, by all the bonds of mutual honorand self-respect. But not any known law, human or divine, could hold ourthoughts in leash. So we sat and talked of common things, calmly andwithout restraint, and our minds were leagues away, in fields of their ownchoosing, amid sunshine and flowers and the low chanting oflove's cherubim. 

We said farewell, instinctively, before my mother returned. I held herhands in mine, and, as if she had been a girl again, gently kissed thewhite forehead she as gently inclined to me. 

"Poor old father is to burn candles for your safety, " she said, with asoft smile, "and I will pray too. Oh, do spare yourself! Come back to us!"

"I feel it in my bones, " I answered, stoutly. "Fear nothing, I shall comeback. "

The tall, bright-eyed, shrewd old dame, my mother, came in at this, andDaisy consented to stop for supper with us, but not to spend the nightwith one of my sisters as was urged. I read her reason to be that sheshrank from a second and public farewell in the morning. 

The supper was almost a cheery meal. The women would have readily enoughmade it doleful, I fancy, but my spirits were too high for that. Therewere birds singing in my heart. My mother from time to time looked at mesearchingly, as if to guess the cause of this elation, but I doubt she wasas mystified as I then thought. 

At twilight I stood bareheaded and watched Daisy drive away, with Enochand Tulp as a mounted escort. The latter was also to remain with herduring my absence--and Major Mauverensen almost envied his slave. 

Chapter XXXI. 

The Rendezvous of Fighting Men at Fort Dayton. 

I shall not easily forget the early breakfast next morning, or the calmyet serious air with which my mother and two unmarried sisters went aboutthe few remaining duties of preparing for my departure. For all they said, they might have been getting me ready for a fishing excursion, but itwould be wrong to assume that they did not think as gravely as if they hadflooded the kitchen with tears. 

Little has been said of these good women in the course of my story, forthe reason that Fate gave them very little to do with it, and thenarrative is full long as it is, without the burden of extraneouspersonages. But I would not have it thought that we did not all love oneanother, and stand up for one another, because we kept cool about it. 

During this last year, in truth, my mother and I had seen more of eachother than for all the time before since my infancy, and in the main hadgot on admirably together. Despite the affectation of indifference in herletter, she did not lack for pride in my being a major; it is true thatshe exhibited little of this emotion to me, fearing its effect upon myvanity, doubtless, but her neighbors and gossips heard a good deal fromit, I fancy. It was in her nature to be proud, and she had right to be;for what other widow in the Valley, left in sore poverty with a householdof children, had, like her, by individual exertions, thrift, and keenmanagement, brought all that family well up, purchased and paid for herown homestead and farm, and laid by enough for a comfortable old age? Notone! She therefore was justified in respecting herself and exactingrespect from others, and it pleased me that she should have satisfactionas well in my advancement. But she did ruffle me sometimes by seeking tomanage my business for me--she never for a moment doubting that it waswithin her ability to make a much better major than I was--and by ever andanon selecting some Valley maiden for me to marry. This last became averitable infliction, so that I finally assured her I should nevermarry--my heart being irrevocably fixed upon a hopelesslyunattainable ideal. 

I desired her to suppose that this referred to some Albany woman, but Iwas never skilful in indirection, and I do not believe that she was atall deceived. 

The time came soon enough when I must say good-by. My carefully packedbags were carried out and fastened to the saddle. Tall, slender, high-browed Margaret sadly sewed a new cockade of her own making upon myhat, and round-faced, red-cheeked Gertrude tied my sash and belt about mein silence. I kissed them both with more feeling than in all their livesbefore I had known for them, and when my mother followed me to thehorse-block, and embraced me again, the tears could not be kept back. After all, I was her only boy, and it was to war in its deadliest formthat I was going. 

And then the thought came to me--how often in that cruel week it had cometo fathers, husbands, brothers, in this sunny Valley of ours, leavinghomes they should never see again!--that nothing but our right arms couldsave these women, my own flesh and blood, from the hatchet andscalping-knife. 

I swung myself into the saddle sternly at this thought, and gripped thereins hard and pushed my weight upon the stirrups. By all the gods, Ishould not take this ride for nothing!

"Be of good heart, mother, " I said, between my teeth. "We shall drive thescoundrels back--such as we do not feed to the wolves. "

"Ay! And do you your part!" said this fine old daughter of the men whothrough eighty years of warfare broke the back of Spain. "Remember thatyou are a Van Hoorn!"

"I shall not forget. "

"And is that young Philip Cross--_her_ husband--with Johnson's crew?"

"Yes, he is. "

"Then if he gets back to Canada alive, you are not the man yourgrandfather Baltus was!"

These were her last words, and they rang in my ears long after I hadjoined Fonda and Sammons at Caughnawaga, and we had started westward toovertake the regiment. If I could find this Philip Cross, there wasnothing more fixed in my mind than the resolve to kill him. 

We rode for the most part without conversation along the rough, sun-bakedroad, the ruts of which had here and there been trampled into fine dust bythe feet of the soldiers marching before. When we passed houses near thehighway, women and children came to the doors to watch us; other women andchildren we could see working in the gardens or among the rows of tallcorn. But save for now and then an aged gaffer, sitting in the sunshinewith his pipe, there were no men. All those who could bear a musket weregone to meet the invasion. Two years of war in other parts had drained theValley of many of its young men, who could not bear peace at home whilethere were battles at the North or in the Jerseys, and were serving inevery army which Congress controlled, from Champlain and the Delaware toCharleston. And now this levy for home defence had swept the farms clean. 

We had late dinner, I remember, at the house of stout old Peter Wormuth, near the Palatine church. Both he and his son Matthew--a friend of minefrom boyhood, who was to survive Oriskany only to be shot down near CherryValley next year by Joseph Brant--had of course gone forward with thePalatine militia. The women gave us food and drink, and I recall thatMatthew's young wife, who had been Gertrude Shoemaker and was GeneralHerkimer's niece, wept bitterly when we left, and we shouted back to herpromises to keep watch over her husband. It is curious to think that whenI next saw this young woman, some years later, she was the wife of MajorJohn Frey. 

It was a stiff ride on to overtake the stalwart yeomen of our regiment, which we did not far from a point opposite the upper Canajoharie Castle. The men had halted here, weary after their long, hot march, and weresprawling on the grass and in the shade of the bushes. The sun was gettinglow on the distant hills of the Little Falls, and there came up arefreshing stir of air from the river. Some were for encamping here forthe night; others favored going on to the Falls. It annoyed me somewhat tofind that this question was apparently to be left to the men themselves, Colonel Visscher not seeming able or disposed to decide for himself. 

Across the stream, in the golden August haze, we could see the roofs ofthe Mohawks' village--or castle as they called it. Some of the men idlyproposed to go over and stampede or clear out this nest of red vermin, butthe idea was not seriously taken up. Perhaps if it had been, much mighthave been changed for the better. Nothing is clearer than that MollyBrant, who with her bastard brood and other Mohawk women was then livingthere, sent up an emissary to warn her brother Joseph of our coming, andthat it was upon this information he acted to such fell purpose. Doubtlessif we had gone over and seized the castle and its inmates then, thatmessenger would never have been sent. But we are all wise when welook backward. 

 * * * * *

By the afternoon of the next day, August 3, the mustering at Fort Daytonwas complete. No one of the thirty-three companies of Tryon County militiawas absent, and though some sent barely a score of men, still no morewere to be expected Such as the little army was, it must suffice. Therewere of more or less trained militiamen nearly six hundred. Of artisanvolunteers, of farmers who had no place in the regular company formations, and of citizens whose anxiety to be present was unfortunately much inexcess of their utility, there were enough to bring the entire total up toperhaps two-score over eight hundred. Our real and effective fightingforce was about half-way between these two figures--I should say aboutseven hundred strong. 

It was the first time that the whole Tryon militia had been gatheredtogether, and we looked one another over with curiosity. Though calledinto common action by a common peril, the nearness of which made theMohawk Valley seem a very small place and its people all close neighbors, the men assembled here represented the partial settlement of a countrylarger than any one of several European monarchies. 

As there were all sorts and grades of dress, ranging from the spruce blueand buff of some of the officers, through the gray homespun andlinsey-woolsey of the farmer privates, to the buckskin of the trappers andhuntsmen, so there were all manner of weapons, all styles of head-gear andequipment, all fashions of faces. There were Germans of half a dozendifferent types, there were Dutch, there were Irish and ScotchPresbyterians, there were stray French Huguenots, and even Englishmen, andhere and there a Yankee settler from New England. Many there were whowith difficulty understood each other, as when the Scotch Campbells andClydes of Cherry Valley, for example, essayed to talk with thebush-Germans from above Zimmerman's. 

Notable among the chief men of the communities here, so to speak, huddledtogether for safety, was old Isaac Paris, the foremost man of StoneArabia. He should now be something over sixty years of age, yet hadchildren at home scarce out of the cradle, and was so hale and strong inbearing that he seemed no less fit for battle and hardship than hisstrapping son Peter, who was not yet eighteen. These two laid their livesdown together within this dread week of which I write. I shall neverforget how fine and resolute a man the old colonel looked, with his goodclothes of citizen make, as became a member of the State Senate and one ofthe Committee of Safety, yet with as martial a bearing as any. He was aFrenchman from Strasbourg, but spoke like a German; no man of us alllooked forward to fighting with greater appetite, though he had beenalways a quiet merchant and God-fearing, peaceful burgher. 

Colonel Ebenezer Cox, a somewhat arrogant and solitary man for whom I hadsmall liking, now commanded the Canajoharie regiment in place of Herkimerthe Brigadier-General; there were at the head of the other regiments stoutColonel Peter Bellinger, the capable and determined Colonel Jacob Klock, and our own Colonel Frederick Visscher. Almost all of the Committee ofSafety were here--most of them being also officers in the militia; butothers, like Paris, John Dygert, Samson Sammons, Jacob Snell, and SamuelBillington, coming merely as lookers-on. In short, no well-known Whig ofthe Valley seemed absent as we looked the gathering over, and scarcely afamiliar family name was lacking on our lists, which it was now mybusiness to check off. 

Whole households of strong men marched together. There were nine Snells, all relatives, in the patriot ranks; so far as I can remember, there werefive Bellingers, five Seebers, five Wagners, and five Wollovers--and itmay well be five of more than one other family. 

The men of the different settlements formed groups by themselves at thefirst, and arranged their own separate camping-places for the night. Butsoon, as was but natural, they discovered acquaintances from other parts, and began to mingle, sitting in knots or strolling about the outerpalisades or on the clearing beyond. The older men who had borne a part inthe French war told stories of that time, which, indeed, had now a new, deep interest for us, not only in that we were to face an invading forcegreater and more to be dreaded than was Bellêtre's, but because we wereencamped on historic ground. 

From the gentle knoll upon which the block-house and stockade of FortDayton were now reared we could see the site of that first little Palatinesettlement that had then been wiped so rudely from the face of the earth;and our men revived memories of that dreadful night, and talked of them ina low voice as the daylight faded. 

The scene affected me most gravely. I looked at the forest-clad range ofnorthern hills over which the French and Indian horde stole in the night, and tried to picture their stealthy approach in my mind. Below us, flowingtranquilly past the willow-hedged farms of the German Flatts settlers, laythe Mohawk. The white rippling overcast on the water marked the shallowford through which the panic-stricken refugees crowded in affright in thewintry darkness, and where, in the crush, that poor forgotten woman, thewidow of an hour, was trampled under foot, swept away by thecurrent, drowned!

How miraculous it seemed that her baby girl should have been saved, shouldhave been brought to Mr. Stewart's door, and placed in the very sanctuaryof my life, by the wilful freak of a little English boy! And howmarvellous that this self-same boy, her husband now, should be among thecaptains of a new and more sinister invasion of our Valley, and that Ishould be in arms with my neighbors to stay his progress! Truly here wasfood enough for thought. 

But there was little time for musing. After supper, when most of the restwere free to please themselves, to gossip, to set night-lines in the riveragainst breakfast, or to carve rough initials on their powder-horns inemulation of the art-work displayed by the ingenious Petrie boys, I wascalled to the council held by General Herkimer in one of the rooms of thefort. There were present some of those already mentioned, and I think thatColonel Wesson, the Massachusetts officer whose troops garrisoned theplace, was from courtesy also invited to take part, though if he wasthere he said nothing. Thomas Spencer, the Seneca half-breed blacksmith, who had throughout been our best friend, had come down, and with him wasSkenandoah, the war-chief of the Oneidas, whom Dominie Kirkland had keptin our interest. 

The thing most talked of, I remember, was the help that these Oneidascould render us. General Schuyler had all along shrunk from the use ofsavages on the Continental side, and hence had required only friendlyneutrality of the Oneidas, whose chief villages lay between us and thefoe. But these Indians now saw clearly, that, if the invasion succeeded, they would be exterminated not a whit the less ruthlessly by theirIroquois brothers because they had held aloof. In the grim code of thesavage, as in the softened law of the Christian, those who were not forhim were against him. So the noble old Oneida war-chief had come to us tosay that his people, standing as it were between the devil and the deepsea, preferred to at least die like men, fighting for their lives. Skenandoah was reputed even then to be seventy years of age, but he hadthe square shoulders, full, corded neck, and sharp glance of a man offorty. Only last year he died, at a great age--said to be one hundred andten years--and was buried on Clinton Hill beside his good friend Kirkland, whom for half a century he had loved so well. 

There were no two opinions in the council: let the Oneidas join us withtheir war-party, by all means. 

After this had been agreed upon, other matters came up--the quantity ofstores we should take, the precedence of the regiments, the selection ofthe men to be sent ahead to apprise Gansevoort of our approach. But thesedo not concern the story. 

It was after this little gathering had broken up, and the candles beenblown out, that General Herkimer put his hand on my shoulder and said, inhis quaint German dialect:

"Come, walk with me outside the fort. "

We went together across the parade in the growing dusk. Most of those whomwe passed recognized my companion, and greeted him--more often, I am boundto say, with "Guten Abend, Honikol!" than with the salute due to his rank. There was, indeed, very little notion of discipline in this rough, simplemilitia gathering. 

We walked outside the ditch to a grassy clearing toward the Flatts wherewe could pace back and forth without listeners, and yet could see thesentries posted at the corners of the forest enclosure. Then the honestold Brigadier laid open his heart to me. 

"I wish to God we were well out of this all, " he said, almost gloomily. 

I was taken aback at this. Dejection was last to be looked for in thisbrave, stout-hearted old frontier fighter. I asked, "What is wrong?"feeling that surely there must be some cause for despondency I knewnot of. 

"_I_ am wrong, " he said, simply. 

"I do not understand you, Brigadier. "

"Say rather that _they_, who ought to know me better, do not understandme. "

"They? Whom do you mean?"

"All these men about us--Isaac Paris, Ebenezer Cox the colonel of my ownregiment, Fritz Visscher, and many more. I can see it--they suspect me. Nothing could be worse than that. "

"Suspect _you_, Brigadier! It is pure fancy! You are dreaming!"

"No, I am very much awake, young man. You have not heard them--I have! Ithas been as much as flung in my face to-day that my brother Hon-Yost is acolonel with Johnson--up yonder. "

The little man pointed westward with his hand to where the last red lightsof day were paling over the black line of trees. 

"He is with them, " he said, bitterly, "and I am blamed for it. Then, too, my brother Hendrick hides himself away in Stone Arabia, and is not of us, and his son _is_ with the Tories--up yonder. "

"But your brother George is here with us, as true a man as will marchto-morrow. "

"Then I have a sister married to Dominie Rosencranz, and he is a Tory; andanother married to Hendrick Frey, and _he_ is a Tory, too. All this isthrown in my teeth. I do not pass two men with their heads together but Ifeel they are talking of this. "

"Why should they? You have two other brothers-in-law here in camp--PeterBellinger and George Bell. You imagine a vain thing, Brigadier. Believeme, I have seen or heard no hint of this. "

"You would not. You are an officer of the line--the only one here. Besides, you are Schuyler's man. They would not talk before you. "

"But I am Valley born, Valley bred, as much as any of you. Wherein am Idifferent from the others? Why should they keep me in the dark? They areall my friends, just as--if you would only believe it--they are yoursas well. "

"Young man, " said the General, in a low, impressive voice, and filling andlighting his pipe as he slowly spoke, "if you come back alive, and if youget to be of my age, you will know some things that you don't know now. Danger makes men brave; it likewise makes them selfish and jealous. We aregoing out together, all of us, to try what, with God's help, we can do. Behind us, down the river, are our wives or our sweethearts; some of youleave children, others leave mothers and sisters. We are going forward tosave them from death or worse than death, and to risk our lives for themand for our homes. Yet, I tell you candidly, there are men here--back herein this fort--who would almost rather see us fail, than see me win my rankin the State line. "

"I cannot credit that. "

"Then--why else should they profess to doubt me? Why should they bring upmy brothers' names to taunt me with their treason?"

Alas! I could not tell. We walked up and down, I remember, until longafter darkness fell full upon us, and the stars were all aglow--I tryingmy best to dissuade the honest Brigadier from his gloomy conviction. 

To be frank, although he doubtless greatly exaggerated the feelingexisting against him, it to a degree did exist. 

The reasons for it are not difficult of comprehension. There were not afew officers in our force who were better educated than bluff, unletteredold Honikol Herkimer, and who had seen something of the world outside ourValley. It nettled their pride to be under a plain little German, whospoke English badly, and could not even spell his own name twice alike. There were at work under the surface, too, old trade and race jealousies, none the less strong because those upon whom they acted scarcely realizedtheir presence. The Herkimers were the great family on the river from theLittle Falls westward, and there were ancient rivalries, unexpressed butstill potent, between them and families down the Valley. Thus, when someof the Herkimers and their connections--a majority, for thatmatter--either openly joined the enemy or held coldly apart from us, itwas easy for these jealous promptings to take the form of doubt andsuspicions as to the whole-hearted loyalty of the Brigadier himself. Oncebegun, these cruelly unjust suspicions rankled in men's minds and spread. 

All this I should not mention were it not the key to the horrible tragedywhich followed. It is this alone which explains how a trained Indianfighter, a veteran frontiersman like Herkimer, was spurred and stung intorushing headlong upon the death-trap, as if he had been any ignorant andwooden-headed Braddock. 

We started on the march westward next day, the 4th, friendly Indiansbringing us news that the van of the enemy had appeared on the evening ofthe 2d before Fort Stanwix, and had already begun an investment. We fordedthe river at Fort Schuyler, just below where Utica now stands, and pushedslowly forward through the forest, over the rude and narrow road, to theOneida village of Oriska, something to the east of the large creek whichbears the name Oriskany. 

Here we halted a second time, encamping at our leisure, and despatching, on the evening of the 5th, Adam Helmer and two other scouts to penetrateto the fort and arrange a sortie by the garrison, simultaneous withour attack. 

Chapter XXXII. 

"The Blood Be on Your Heads. "

A bright, hot sun shone upon us the next morning--thenever-to-be-forgotten 6th. There would have been small need for any wakingrattle of the drums; the sultry heat made all willing to rise from thehard, dry ground, where sleep had been difficult enough even in the coolerdarkness. At six o'clock the camp, such as it was, was all astir. 

Breakfast was eaten in little groups squatted about in the clearing, or inthe shade of the trees at its edges, members of families or closeneighbors clustering together in parties once more, to share victualsprepared by the same housewives--it may be from the same oven or spit. Itmight well happen that for many of us this was the last meal on earth, forwe were within hearing of the heavy guns of the fort, and when three ofthese should be fired in succession we were to take up our finalsix-miles' march. But this reflection made no one sad, apparently. Everywhere you could hear merry converse and sounds of laughter. Listening, no one would have dreamed that this body of men stood upon thethreshold of so grave an adventure. 

I had been up earlier than most of the others, and had gone over to thespot where the horses were tethered. Of these animals there were somedozen, all told, and their appearance showed that they had had a bad nightof it with the flies. After I had seen them led to water and safelybrought back, and had watched that in the distribution of the scanty storeof oats my steed had his proper share, I came back to breakfast with theStone Arabia men, among whom I had many acquaintances. I contributed somesausages and slices of bread and meat, I remember, to the general stock offood, which was spread out upon one of Isaac Paris's blankets. We ate witha light heart, half-lying on the parched grass around the extemporizedcloth. Some of the young farmers, their meal already finished, were up ontheir feet, scuffling and wrestling in jest and high spirits. They laughedso heartily from time to time that Mr. Paris would call out: "Less noisethere, you, or we shall not hear the cannon from the fort!"

No one would have thought that this was the morning before a battle. 

Eight o'clock arrived, and still there had been no signal. Allpreparations had long since been made. The saddle-horses of the officerswere ready under the shade, their girths properly tightened. Blankets hadbeen rolled up and strapped, haversacks and bags properly repacked, a lastlook taken to flints and priming. The supply-wagon stood behind where theGeneral's tent had been, all laden for the start, and with the horsesharnessed to the pole. Still no signal came!

The men began to grow uneasy with the waiting. It had been against theprevalent feeling of impatience that we halted here the preceding day, instead of hastening forward to strike the blow. Now every minute'sinaction increased this spirit of restlessness. The militiamen'sfaces--already saturnine enough, what with broken rest and three days'stubble of beard--were clouding over with dislike for the delay. 

The sauntering to and fro began to assume a general trend toward theheadquarters of the Brigadier. I had visited this spot once or twicebefore during the early morning to offer suggestions or receive commands. I went again now, having it in mind to report to the General the evidentimpatience of the men. A doubt was growing with me, too, whether we werenot too far away to be sure of hearing the guns from the fort--quite sixmiles distant. 

The privacy of the commander was indifferently secured by the posting ofsentries, who guarded a square perhaps forty feet each way. In the centreof this enclosure was a clump of high bushes, with one or two young trees, bunched upon the bank of a tiny rivulet now almost dried up. Here, duringthe night, the General's small army-tent had been pitched, and here now, after the tent had been packed on the wagon, he sat, on the only chair incamp, under the shadow of the bushes, within full view of his soldiers. These were by this time gathered three or four deep around the three frontsides of the square, and were gradually pushing the sentries in. Five orsix officers stood about the General, talking earnestly with him and withone another, and the growing crowd outside the square were visibly anxiousto hear what was going on. 

I have said before, I think, that I was the only officer of theContinental line in the whole party. This fact, and some triflingdifferences between my uniform and that of the militia colonels andmajors, had attracted notice, not wholly of an admiring sort. I had hadthe misfortune, moreover, to learn in camp before Quebec to shave everyday, as regularly as if at home, with the result that I was probably theonly man in the clearing that morning who wore a clean face. This servedfurther to make me a marked man among such of the farmer boys as knew meonly by sight. As I pushed my way through the throng to get inside thesquare, I heard various comments by strangers from Canajoharie or CherryValley way. 

"There goes Schuyler's Dutchman, " said one. "He has brought his _friseur_with him. "

"It would have been more to the point if he had brought some soldiers. Albany would see us hang before she would help us, " growled another. 

"Make way for Mynheer, " said a rough joker in the crowd, half-laughing, half-scowling. "What they need inside yonder is some more Dutch prudence. When they have heard him they will vote to go into winter quarters andfight next spring!"

All this was disagreeable enough, but it was wisest to pretend not tohear, and I went forward to the groups around the Brigadier. 

The question under debate was, of course, whether we should wait longerfor the signal; or, rather, whether it had not been already fired, and thesound failed to reach us on the sultry, heavy air. There were two opinionsupon this, and for a time the difference was discussed in amiability, ifwith some heat. The General felt positive that if the shots had been firedwe must have heard them. 

I seem to see him now, the brave old man, as he sat there on the roughstool, imperturbably smoking, and maintaining his own against thedissenting officers. Even after some of them grew vexed, and declared thateither the signal had been fired or the express had been captured, andthat in either case it would be worse than folly to longer remain here, heheld his temper. Perhaps his keen black eyes sparkled the brighter, but hekept his tongue calm, and quietly reiterated his arguments. Thebeleaguering force outside the fort, he said, must outnumber ours two toone. They had artillery, and they had regular German troops, the best inEurope, not to mention many hundreds of Indians, all well armed andmunitioned. It would be next to impossible to surprise an army thussupplied with scouts; it would be practically hopeless to attack them, unless we were backed up by a simultaneous sortie in force from the fort. In that, the Brigadier insisted, lay our only chance of success. 

"But I say the sortie _will_ be made! They are waiting for us--only we aretoo far off to hear their signal!" cried one of the impatient colonels. 

"If the wind was in the east, " said the Brigadier, "that might be thecase. But in breathless air like this I have heard the guns from thatfort two miles farther back. "

"Our messengers may not have got through the lines last night, " put inThomas Spencer, the half-breed. "The swamp back of the fort is difficulttravelling, even to one who knows it better than Helmer does, and Butler'sIndians are not children, to see only straight ahead of their noses. "

"Would it not be wise for Spencer here, and some of our young trappers, orsome of Skenandoah's Indians, to go forward and spy out the land for us?"I asked. 

"These would do little good now, " answered Herkimer; "the chief thing isto know when Gansevoort is ready to come out and help us. "

"The chief thing to know, by God, " broke forth one of the colonels, with agreat oath, "is whether we have a patriot or a Tory at our head!"

Herkimer's tanned and swarthy face changed color at this taunt. He stole aswift glance at me, as if to say, "This is what I warned you was to belooked for, " and smoked his pipe for a minute in silence. 

His brother-in-law, Colonel Peter Bellinger, took the insult less tamely. 

"The man who says Honikol Herkimer is a Tory lies, " he said, bluntly, withhis hand on his sword-hilt, and honest wrath in his gray eyes. 

"Peace, Peter, " said the Brigadier. "Let them think what they like. It isnot my affair. My business is to guard the lives of these young men here, as if I were their father. I am a childless man, yet here I am as theparent of all of them. I could not go back again and look their mothersin the eye if I had led them into trouble which could be avoided. "

"We are not here to avoid trouble, but rather to seek it, " shouted ColonelCox, angrily. 

He spoke loud enough to be heard by the throng beyond, which now numberedfour-fifths of our whole force, and there rolled back to us from them aloud answering murmur of approval. At the sound of this, others camerunning up to learn what was going on; and the line, hitherto withdifficulty kept back by the sentries, was broken in in more than oneplace. Matters looked bad for discipline, or wise action of any sort. 

"A man does not show his bravery by running his head at a stone wall, "said the Brigadier, still striving to keep his temper, but rising to hisfeet as he spoke. 

"_Will_ you give the order to go on?" demanded Cox, in a fierce tone, pitched even higher. 

"Lead us on!" came loud shouts from many places in the crowd. There was ageneral pushing in of the line now, and some men at the back, misinterpreting this, began waving their hats and cheering. 

"Give us the word, Honikol!" they yelled. 

Still Herkimer stood his ground, though with rising color. 

"What for a soldier are you, " he called out, sharply, "to make mutiny likethis? Know you not your duty better?"

"Our duty is to fight, not to sit around here in idleness. At least _we_are not cowards, " broke in another, who had supported Cox from the outset. 

"_You_!" cried Herkimer, all roused at last. "_You_ will be the first torun when you see the British!"

There was no longer any pretence of keeping the square. The excitedfarmers pressed closely about us now, and the clamor was risingmomentarily. All thought of order or military grade was gone. Men who hadno rank whatever thrust their loud voices into the council, so that wecould hear nothing clearly. 

There was a brief interchange of further hot words between the Brigadier, Colonel Bellinger, and John Frey on the one side, and the mutinouscolonels and men on the other. I heard the bitter epithets of "Tory" and"coward" hurled at the old man, who stood with chin defiant in air, anddark eyes ablaze, facing his antagonists. The scene was so shameful that Icould scarce bear to look upon it. 

There came a hurly-burly of confusion and tumult as the shouts of thecrowd grew more vehement, and one of the refractory colonels impetuouslydrew his sword and half turned as if to give the command himself. 

Then I heard Herkimer, too incensed to longer control himself, cry: "Ifyou will have it so, the blood be on your heads. " He sprang upon the stoolat this, waved his sword, and shouted so that all the eight hundredcould hear:

"VORWÄRTS!"

The tall pines themselves shook with the cheer which the yeomen raised. 

There was a scramble on the instant for muskets, bags, and belongings. Torush was the order. We under-officers caught the infection, and with nodignity at all hurried across the clearing to our horses. We cantered backin a troop, Barent Coppernol leading the Brigadier's white mare at ahand-gallop by our side. Still trembling with excitement, yet perhapssomewhat reconciled to the adventure by the exultant spirit of the scenebefore him, General Herkimer got into the saddle, and watched closely theefforts of the colonels, now once more all gratified enthusiasm, to bringtheir eager men into form. It had been arranged that Cox with hisCanajoharie regiment should have the right of the line, and this body wasready and under way in less time, it seemed, than I have taken to write ofit. The General saw the other three regiments trooped, told Visscher tobring the supply-wagon with the rear, and then, with Isaac Paris, JellesFonda, and myself, galloped to the head of the column, where Spencer andSkenandoah with the Oneida Indians were. 

So marching swiftly, and without scouts, we started forth at about nine inthe morning. 

The road over which we hurried was as bad, even in those hot, dry days ofAugust, as any still to be found in the Adirondacks. The bottom-lands ofthe Mohawk Valley, as is well known, are of the best farming soil in theworld, but for that very reason they make bad roads. The highway leadingto the fort lay for the most part over low and springy land, and was cutthrough the thick beech and hemlock forest almost in a straight line, regardless of swales and marshy places. These had been in some instancesbridged indifferently by corduroys of logs, laid the previous spring whenGansevoort dragged up his cannon for the defence of the fort, and by thistime too often loose and out of place. We on horseback found these roughspots even more trying than did the footmen; but for all of us progresswas slow enough, after the first excitement of the start had passed away. 

There was no outlook at any point. We were hedged in everywhere by wallsof foliage, of mossy tree-trunks covered with vines, of tangledundergrowth and brush. When we had gained a hill-top, nothing more was tobe seen than the dark-brown band of logs on the gully bottom before us, and the dim line of road losing itself in a mass of green beyond. 

Neither Herkimer nor Paris had much to say, as we rode on in the van. Major Fonda made sundry efforts to engage them in talk, as if there hadbeen no recent dispute, no harsh words, no angry recriminations, butwithout special success. For my part, I said nothing whatever. Surelythere was enough to think of, both as to the miserable insubordination ofan hour back, and as to what the next hour might bring. 

We had passed over about the worst of these patches of corduroy road, inthe bottom of a ravine between two hills, where a little brook, dammed inpart by the logs, spread itself out over the swampy soil on both sides. Wein the van had nearly gained the summit of the farther eminence, and wereresting for the moment to see how Visscher should manage with his wagonin the rear. Colonel Cox had also turned in his saddle, some ten yardsfarther down the hill, and was calling back angrily to his men to keep inthe centre of the logs and not tip them up by walking on the ends. 

While I looked Barent Coppernol called out to me: "Do you remember? Thisis where we camped five years ago. "

Before I could answer I heard a rifle report, and saw Colonel Cox fallheadlong upon the neck of his horse. 

There was a momentary glimpse of dark forms running back, a strange yell, a shot or two--and then the gates of hell opened upon us. 

Chapter XXXIII. 

The Fearsome Death-Struggle in the Forest. 

Were I Homer and Shakespeare and Milton, merged all in one, I should stillnot know how fitly to depict the terrible scene which followed. 

I had seen poor headstrong, wilful Cox pitch forward upon the mane of hishorse, as if all at once his spine had been turned, into limp string; Isaw now a ring of fire run out in spitting tongues of flame around thegulf, and a circle of thin whitish smoke slowly raise itself through thedark leaves of the girdling bushes. It was an appalling second of mentalnumbness during which I looked at this strange sight, and seemed not atall to comprehend it. 

Then Herkimer cried out, shrilly: "My God! here it is!" and, whirling hismare about, dashed down the hill-side again. I followed him, keeping aheadof Paris, and pushing my horse forward through the aimlessly swarmingfootmen of our van with a fierce, unintelligent excitement. 

The air was filled now with shouts--what they were I did not know. Thesolid body of our troops on the corduroy bridge were huddling togetherlike sheep in a storm. From the outer edges of this mass men were sinkingto the ground. The tipping, rolling logs tossed these bodies on their endsoff into the water, or under the feet of the others. Cox's horse hadjumped sidelong into the marsh, and now, its hind-quarters sinking in themire, plunged wildly, flinging the inert body still fastened in thestirrups from side to side. Some of our men were firing their guns atrandom into the underbrush. 

All this I saw in the swift gallop down the hill to rejoin the Brigadier. 

As I jerked up my horse beside him, a blood-curdling chorus of strangebarking screams, as from the throats of maniac women, rose at the fartherside of the ravine, drowning the shouts of our men, the ping-g-g of thewhistling bullets, and even the sharp crack of the muskets. It was theIndian war-whoop! A swarm of savages were leaping from the bush in alldirections, and falling upon our men as they stood jammed together on thecauseway. It was a horrible spectacle--of naked, yelling devils, daubedwith vermilion and ghastly yellow, rushing with uplifted hatchets andflashing knives upon this huddled mass of white men, our friends andneighbors. These, after the first bewildering shock, made what defencethey could, shooting right and left, and beating down their assailantswith terrific smashing blows from their gun-stocks. But the throng on thesliding logs made them almost powerless, and into their jumbled ranks keptpouring the pitiless rain of bullets from the bush. 

By God's providence there were cooler brains and wiser heads than mine, here in the ravine, to face and grapple with this awful crisis. 

Old Herkimer seemed before my very eyes to wax bigger and stronger andcalmer in the saddle, as this pandemonium unfolded in front of us. Hisorders I forget now--or what part I played at first in carrying themout--but they were given swiftly and with cool comprehension of all ourneeds. I should think that within five minutes from the first shot of theattack, our forces--or what was left of them--had been drawn out of thecruel helplessness of their position in the centre of the swamp. Thiscould never have been done had not Honikol Herkimer kept perfectly hisself-control and balance, like an eagle in a tempest. 

Visscher's regiment, in the rear, had not got fairly into the gulf, owingto the delay in dragging the wagon along, when the ambushed Indians firedtheir first volley; and he and his men, finding themselves outside thefiery circle, promptly ran away. They were followed by many of theIndians, which weakened the attacking force on the eastern side of theravine. Peter Bellinger, therefore, was able to push his way back againfrom the beginning of the corduroy bridge into the woods on both sides ofthe road beyond, where cover was to be had. It was a noble sight to seethe stalwart Palatine farmers of his regiment--these Petries, Weavers, Helmers, and Dygerts of the German Flatts--fight their path backwardthrough the hail of lead, crushing Mohawk skulls as though they had beenegg-shells with the mighty flail-like swing of their clubbed muskets, andreturning fire only to kill every time. The bulk of Cox's Canajoharieregiment and of Klock's Stone Arabia yeomen were pulled forward to therising ground on the west side, and spread themselves out in the timberas well as they could, north and south of the road. 

While these wise measures were being ordered, we three horsemen had, strangely enough, been out of the range of fire; but now, as we turned toride back, a sudden shower of bullets came whizzing past us. My horse wasstruck in the head, and began staggering forward blindly. I leaped fromhis back as he toppled, only to come in violent collision with GeneralHerkimer, whose white mare, fatally wounded, had toppled toward me. TheBrigadier helped extricate himself from the saddle, and started with therest of us to run up the hill for cover, but stumbled and stopped after astep or two. The bone of his right leg had been shattered by the ballwhich killed his steed, and his high boot was already welling with blood. 

It was in my arms, never put to better purpose, that the honest old manwas carried up the side-hill. Here, under a low-branched beech some tworods from the road, Dr. William Petrie stripped off the boot, andbandaged, as best he could, the wounded leg. The spot was not wellsheltered, but here the Brigadier, a little pale, yet still calm andresolute, said he would sit and see the battle out. Several young men, ata hint from the doctor, ran down through the sweeping fire to the edge ofthe morass, unfastened the big saddle from his dead mare, and safelybrought it to us. On this the brave old German took his seat, with themaimed leg stretched out on some boughs hastily gathered, and coollylighting his pipe, proceeded to look about him. 

"Can we not find a safer place for you farther back, Brigadier?" I asked. 

"No; here I will sit, " he answered, stoutly. "The men can see me here; Iwill face the enemy till I die. "

All this time the rattle of musketry, the screech of flying bullets, thehoarse din and clamor of forest warfare, had never for an instant abated. Looking down upon the open space of the gully's bottom, we could see morethan two-score corpses piled upon the logs of the road, or upon littlemounds of black soil which showed above the level of the slough, half-hidden by the willows and tall, rank tufts of swamp-grass. Save forthe dead, this natural clearing was well-nigh deserted. Captain JacobSeeber was in sight, upon a hillock below us to the north, with a score ofhis Canajoharie company in a circle, firing outward at the enemy. Acrossthe ravine Captain Jacob Gardenier, a gigantic farmer, armed with acaptured Indian spear, had cut loose with his men from Visscher's retreat, and had fought his way back to help us. Farther to the south, some of theCherry Valley men had got trees, and were holding the Indians at bay. 

The hot August sun poured its fiercest rays down upon the heaps of deadand wounded in this forest cockpit, and turned into golden haze the mistof smoke encircling it. Through this pale veil we saw, from time to time, forms struggling in the dusk of the thicket beyond. Behind each tree-trunkwas the stage whereon a life-drama was being played, with a sickening andtragic sameness in them all. The yeoman from his cover would fire; if hemissed, forth upon him would dart the savage, raised hatchet gleaming--andthere would be a widow the more in some one of our Valley homes. 

"Put two men behind each tree, " ordered keen-eyed Herkimer. "Then, whenone fires, the other's gun will be loaded for the Indian on his runningforward. " After this command had been followed, the battle went betterfor us. 

There was a hideous fascination in this spectacle stretched before us. Anhour ago it had been so softly peaceful, with the little brook picking itsclean way in the sunlight through the morass, and the kingfisher flittingamong the willows, and the bees' drone laying like a spell of indolenceupon the heated air. Now the swale was choked with corpses! The rivuletran red with blood, and sluggishly spread its current around barriers ofdead men. Bullets whistled across the gulf, cutting off boughs of trees aswith a knife, and scattering tufts of leaves like feathers from a hawkstricken in its flight. The heavy air grew thick with smoke, dashed byswift streaks of dancing flame. The demon-like screams of the savages, theshouts and moans and curses of our own men, made hearing horrible. Yes--horrible is the right word!

A frightened owl, I remember, was routed by the tumult from its sleepyperch, and flew slowly over the open space of the ravine. So curious acompound is man!--we watched the great brown-winged creature flap itspurblind way across from wood to wood, and speculated there, as we stoodin the jaws of death, if some random ball would hit it!

I am writing of all this as if I did nothing but look about me whileothers fought. Of course that could not have been the case. I recall nowthese fragmentary impressions of the scene around me with a distinctnessand with a plenitude of minutiæ which surprise me, the more that Iremember little enough of what I myself did. But when a man is in a fightfor his life there are no details. He is either to come out of it or heisn't, and that is about all he thinks of. 

I have put down nothing about what was now the most serious part of thestruggle--the combat with the German mercenaries and Tory volunteers onthe high ground beyond the ravine. I conceive it to have been the plan ofthe enemy to let the Indians lie hidden round about the gulf until ourrear-guard had entered it. Then they were to disclose their ambuscade, sweeping the corduroy bridge with fire, while the Germans and Tories, meeting our van up on the crown of the hill beyond, were to attack anddrive it back upon our flank in the gulf bottom, when we should have beenwholly at the mercy of the encircling fusilade from the hills. FortunatelySt. Leger had given the Indians a quart of rum apiece before they started;this was our salvation. The savages were too excited to wait, and closedtoo soon the fiery ring which was to destroy us all. This premature actioncut off our rear, but it also prevented our van reaching the point wherethe white foe lay watching for us. Thus we were able to form upon ourcentre, after the first awful shock was over, and to then force our waybackward or forward to some sort of cover before the Germans and Toriescame upon us. 

The fighting in which I bore a part was at the farthest western point, where the remnants of four or five companies, half buried in the gloom ofthe impenetrable wood, on a line stretching along the whole crest of thehill, held these troops at bay. We lay or crouched behind leafy coverts, crawling from place to place as our range was reached by the enemy, shooting from the shield of tree-trunks or of tangled clumps of smallfirs, or, best of all, of fallen and prostrate logs. 

Often, when one of us, creeping cautiously forward, gained a spot whichpromised better shelter, it was to find it already tenanted by a corpse, perhaps of a near and dear friend. It was thus that I came upon the bodyof Major John Eisenlord, and later upon what was left of poor BarentCoppernol, lying half-hidden among the running hemlock, scalpless andcold. It was from one of these recesses, too, that I saw stout old IsaacParis shot down, and then dragged away a prisoner by the Tories, to behanded over to the hatchets of their Indian friends a few days hence. 

Fancy three hours of this horrible forest warfare, in which every minutebore a whole lifetime's strain and burden of peril!

We knew not then how time passed, and could but dimly guess how thingswere going beyond the brambled copse in which we fought. Vagueintimations reached our ears, as the sounds of battle now receded, nowdrew near, that the issue of the day still hung in suspense. The war-yellsof the Indians to the rear were heard less often now. The conflict seemedto be spreading out over a greater area, to judge from the faintness ofsome of the rifle reports which came to us. But we could not tell whichside was giving way, nor was there much time to think of this: all ourvigilance and attention were needed from moment to moment to keepourselves alive. 

All at once, with a terrific swoop, there burst upon the forest a greatstorm, with loud-rolling thunder and a drenching downfall of rain. We hadbeen too grimly engrossed in the affairs of the earth to note thedarkening sky. The tempest broke upon us unawares. The wind fairly roaredthrough the branches high above us; blinding flashes of lightning blazedin the shadows of the wood. Huge boughs were wrenched bodily off by theblast. Streaks of flame ran zigzag down the sides of the tall, straighthemlocks. The forest fairly rocked under the convulsion of the elements. 

We wrapped our neckcloths or kerchiefs about our gunlocks, and crouchedunder shelter from the pelting sheets of water as well as might be. As forthe fight, it ceased utterly. 

While we lay thus quiescent in the rain, I heard a low, distant reportfrom the west, which seemed distinct among the growlings of the thunder;there followed another, and a third. It was the belated signal fromthe fort!

I made my way back to the hill-side as best I could, under the drippingbrambles, over the drenched and slippery ground vines, upon the chancethat the Brigadier had not heard the reports. 

The commander still sat on his saddle under the beech-tree where I hadleft him. Some watch-coats had been stretched over the lowest branchesabove him, forming a tolerable shelter. His honest brown face seemed tohave grown wan and aged during the day. He protested that he had little orno pain from his wound, but the repressed lines about his lips beliedtheir assurance. He smiled with gentle irony when I told him of what I hadheard, and how I had hastened to apprise him of it. 

"I must indeed be getting old, " he said to his brother George. "The youngmen think I can no longer hear cannon when they are fired off. "

The half-dozen officers who squatted or stood about under the tree, avoiding the streams which fell from the holes in the improvised roof, told me a terrible story of the day's slaughter. Of our eight hundred, nearly half were killed. Visscher's regiment had been chased northwardtoward the river, whither the fighting from the ravine had also in largepart drifted. How the combat was going down there, it was difficult tosay. There were dead men behind every tree, it seemed. Commands were sobroken up, and troops so scattered by the stern exigencies of forestfighting, that it could not be known who was living and who was dead. 

What made all this doubly tragic in my ears was that these officers, whorecounted to me our losses, had to name their own kinsmen among the slain. Beneath the general grief and dismay in the presence of this greatcatastrophe were the cruel gnawings of personal anguish. 

"My son Robert lies out there, just beyond the tamarack, " said ColonelSamuel Campbell to me, in a hoarse whisper. 

"My brother Stufel killed two Mohawks before he died; he is on the knollthere with most of his men, " said Captain Fox. 

Major William Seeber, himself wounded beyond help, said gravely: "God onlyknows whether my boy Jacob lives or not; but Audolph is gone, and mybrother Saffreness and his son James. " The old merchant said this with dryeyes, but with the bitterness of a broken heart. 

I told them of the shooting and capture of Paris and the death ofEisenlord. My news created no impression, apparently. Our minds weresaturated with horror. Of the nine Snells who came with us, seven weresaid to be dead already. 

The storm stopped as abruptly as it had come upon us. Of a sudden it grewlighter, and the rain dwindled to a fine mist. Great luminous masses ofwhite appeared in the sky, pushing aside the leaden clouds. Then all atonce the sun was shining. 

On that instant shots rang out here and there through the forest. Thefight began again. 

The two hours which followed seem to me now but the indistinct space of afew minutes. Our men had seized upon the leisure of the lull to eat whatfood was at hand in their pockets, and felt now refreshed in strength. They had had time, too, to learn something of the awful debt of vengeancethey owed the enemy. A sombre rage possessed them, and gave to theirhearts a giant's daring. Heroes before, they became Titans now. 

The vapors steaming up in the sunlight from the wet earth seemed to bearthe scent of blood. The odor affected our senses. We ran forth in partiesnow, disdaining cover. Some fell; we leaped over their writhing forms, dashed our fierce way through the thicket to where the tell-tale smokearose, and smote, stabbed, stamped out the life of, the ambushed foe. Under the sway of this frenzy, timorous men swelled into veritablepaladins. The least reckless of us rushed upon death with breast bared andwith clinched fists. 

A body of us were thus scouring the wood on the crest of the hill, pushingthrough the tangle of dead brush and thick high brake, which soaked usafresh to the waist, resolute to overcome and kill whomsoever we couldreach. Below us, in the direction of the river, though half a mile thisside of it, we could hear a scattering fusillade maintained, which bespokebush-fighting. Toward this we made our way, firing at momentary glimpsesof figures in the thicket, and driving scattered groups of the foe beforeus as we ran. 

Coming out upon the brow of the hill, and peering through the saplings andunderbrush, we could see that big Captain Gardenier and his Caughnawagamen were gathered in three or four parties behind clumps of alders in thebottom, loading and firing upon an enemy invisible to us. While we werelooking down and hesitating how best to go to his succor, one of oldSammons's sons came bounding down the side-hill, all excitement, crying:

"Help is here from the fort!"

Sure enough, close behind him were descending some fourscore men, whosemusket-barrels and cocked hats we could distinguish swaying above thebushes, as they advanced in regular order. 

I think I see huge, burly Gardenier still, standing in his woollenshirt-sleeves, begrimed with powder and mud, one hand holding his spear, the other shading his eyes against the sinking sun as he scanned thenew-comers. 

"Who's there?" he roared at them. 

"From the fort!" we could hear the answer. 

Our hearts leaped with joy at this, and we began with one accord to get tothe foot of the hill, to meet these preservers. Down the steep side weclambered, through the dense second-growth, in hot haste and allconfidence. We had some friendly Oneidas with us, and I had to tell themto keep back, lest Gardenier, deeming them Mohawks, should fire upon them. 

Coming to the edge of the swampy clearing we saw a strange sight. 

Captain Gardenier was some yards in advance of his men, struggling like amad Hercules with half a dozen of these new-comers, hurling them right andleft, then falling to the ground, pinned through each thigh by a bayonet, and pulling down his nearest assailant upon his breast to serve asa shield. 

While we took in this astounding spectacle, young Sammons was dancingwith excitement. 

"In God's name, Captain, " he shrieked, "you are killing our friends!"

"Friends be damned!" yelled back Gardenier, still struggling with all hisvast might. "These art Tories. _Fire_! you fools! _Fire_!"

It was the truth. They were indeed Tories--double traitors to their formerfriends. As Gardenier shouted out his command, these ruffians raised theirguns, and there sprang up from the bushes on either side of them as manymore savages, with weapons lifting for a volley. 

How it was I know not, but they never fired that volley. Our musketsseemed to poise and discharge themselves of their own volition, and ascore of the villains, white and red, tumbled before us. Gardenier's menhad recovered their senses as well, and, pouring in a deadly fusillade, dashed furiously forward with clubbed muskets upon the unmasked foe. Theselatter would now have retreated up the hill again, whence they could fireto advantage, but we at this leaped forth upon their flank, and they, witha futile shot or two, turned and fled in every direction, we all inwild pursuit. 

Ah, that chase! Over rotten, moss-grown logs, weaving between gnarledtree-trunks, slipping on treacherous twigs, the wet saplings whipping ourfaces, the boughs knocking against our guns, in savage heat we toreforward, loading and firing as we ran. 

The pursuit had a malignant pleasure in it: we knew the men we weredriving before us. Cries of recognition rose through the woods; names ofrenegades were shouted out which had a sinister familiarity in allour ears. 

I came upon young Stephen Watts, the boyish brother of Lady Johnson, lyingpiteously prone against some roots, his neck torn with a hideous wound ofsome sort; he did not know me, and I passed him by with a bitter hardeningof the heart. What did he here, making war upon my Valley? One of thePapist Scots from Johnstown, Angus McDonell, was shot, knocked down, andleft senseless behind us. So far from there being any pang of compassionfor him, we cheered his fall, and pushed fiercely on. The scent of bloodin the moist air had made us wild beasts all. 

I found myself at last near the river, and on the edge of a morass, wherethe sun was shining upon the purple flowers of the sweet-flag, and tallrushes rose above little miry pools. I had with me a young Dutchfarmer--John Van Antwerp--and three Oneida Indians, who had apparentlyattached themselves to me on account of my epaulettes. We had followedthus far at some distance a party of four or five Tories and Indians; wecame to a halt here, puzzled as to the course they had taken. 

While my Indians, bent double, were running about scanning the soft groundfor a trail, I heard a well-known voice close behind me say:

"They're over to the right, in that clump of cedars. Better get behind atree. "

I turned around. To my amazement Enoch Wade stood within two yards of me, his buckskin shirt wide open at the throat, his coon-skin cap on the backof his head, his long rifle over his arm. 

"In Heaven's name, how did you come here?"

"Lay down, I tell ye!" he replied, throwing himself flat on his face as hespoke. 

We were too late. They had fired on us from the cedars, and a bulletstruck poor Van Antwerp down at my feet. 

"Now for it, before they can load, " cried Enoch, darting past me andleading a way on the open border of the swale, with long, unerring leapsfrom one raised point to another. The Indians raced beside him, crouchingalmost to a level with the reeds, and I followed. 

A single shot came from the thicket as we reached it, and I felt amomentary twinge of pain in my arm. 

"Damnation! I've missed him! Run for your lives!" I heard shoutedexcitedly from the bush. 

There came a crack, crack, of two guns. One of my Indians rolled headlongupon the ground; the others darted forward in pursuit of some flittingforms dimly to be seen in the undergrowth beyond. 

"Come here!" called Enoch to me. He was standing among the low cedars, resting his chin on his hands, spread palm down over the muzzle of hisgun, and looking calmly upon something on the ground before him. 

I hurried to his side. There, half-stretched on the wet, blood-stainedgrass, panting with the exertion of raising himself on his elbow, andlooking me square in the face with distended eyes, lay Philip Cross. 

Chapter XXXIV. 

Alone at Last with My Enemy. 

My stricken foe looked steadily into my face; once his lips parted tospeak, but no sound came from them. 

For my part I did not know what to say to him. A score of thoughts pressedupon my tongue for utterance, but none of them seemed suited to thisstrange occasion. Everything that occurred to me was either weak orover-violent. Two distinct ideas of this momentary irresolution Iremember--one was to leave him in silence for my Oneidas to tomahawk andscalp; the other was to curse him where he lay. 

There was nothing in his whitening face to help me to a decision. The lookin his eyes was both sad and savage--an expression I could not fathom. Forall it said to me, he might be thinking wholly of his wound, or of nothingwhatever. The speechless fixity of this gaze embarrassed me. For relief Iturned to Enoch, and said sharply:

"You haven't told me yet what you were doing here. "

The trapper kept his chin still on its rest, and only for a second turnedhis shrewd gray eyes from the wounded quarry to me. 

"You can see for yourself, can't ye?" he said. "What do people mostly dowhen there's shooting going on, and they've got a gun?"

"But how came you here at all? I thought you were to stay at--at the placewhere I put you. "

"That was likely, wasn't it! Me loafing around the house like a tame catamong the niggers while good fighting was going on up here!"

"If you wanted to come, why not have marched with us? I asked you. "

"I don't march much myself. It suits me to get around on my own legs in myown way. I told you I wouldn't go into any ranks, or tote my gun on myshoulder when it was handier to carry it on my arm. But I didn't tell youI wouldn't come up and see this thing on my own hook. "

"Have you been here all day?"

"If you come to that, it's none of your business, young man. I got hereabout the right time of day to save _your_ bacon, anyway. That's enoughfor _you_, ain't it?"

The rebuke was just, and I put no further questions. 

A great stillness had fallen upon the forest behind us. In the distance, from the scrub-oak thickets on the lowlands by the river, there soundedfrom time to time the echo of a stray shot, and faint Mohawk cries of"Oonah! Oonah!" The battle was over. 

"They were beginning to run away before I came down, " said Enoch, incomment upon some of these dying-away yells of defeat which came to us. "They got handled too rough. If their white officers had showed themselvesmore, and took bigger risks, they'd have stood their ground. But theseTory fine gentlemen are a pack of cowards. They let the Injuns get killed, but they kept darned well hid themselves. "

The man on the ground broke silence here. 

"You lie!" he said, fiercely. 

"Oh! you can talk, can you?" said Enoch. "No, I don't lie, Mr. Cross. I'mtalking gospel truth. Herkimer's officers came out like men, and foughtlike men, and got shot by dozens; but till we struck you, I never laideyes on one of you fellows all day long, and my eyesight's pretty good, too. Don't you think it is? I nailed you right under the nipple, there, within a hair of the button I sighted on. I leave it to you if that ain'tpretty fair shooting. "

The cool brutality of this talk revolted me. I had it on my tongue tointerpose, when the wounded man spoke again, with a new accent of gloomin his tone. 

"What have I ever done to you?" he said, with his hand upon his breast. 

"Why, nothing at all, Mr. Cross, " answered Enoch, amiably. "There wasn'tany feeling about it, at least on my part. I'd have potted you just ascarefully if we'd been perfect strangers. "

"Will you leave us here together for a little while, Enoch?" I broke in. "Come back in a few minutes; find out what the news is in the gulf--howthe fight has gone. I desire some words with this--this gentleman. "

The trapper nodded at this, and started off with his cat-like, springingwalk, loading his rifle as he went. "I'll turn up in about a quarter ofan hour, " he said. 

I watched his lithe, leather-clad figure disappear among the trees, andthen wheeled around to my prostrate foe. 

"I do not know what to say to you, " I said, hesitatingly, looking downupon him. 

He had taken his hand away from his breast, and was fumbling with it onthe grass behind him. Suddenly he raised it, with a sharp cry of--

"I know what to say to you!"

There was a pistol in the air confronting me, and I, taken all aback, looked full into the black circle of its barrel as he pulled the trigger. The flint struck out a spark of flame, but it fell upon priming dampenedby the wet grass. 

The momentary gleam of eagerness in the pallid face before me diedpiteously away when no report came. If he had had the strength he wouldhave thrown the useless weapon at me. As it was, it dropped from hisnerveless fingers. He closed his eyes under the knit brows, upon whichcold sweat stood out, and groaned aloud. 

"I do not know what to say to you, " I went on, the episode of the pistolseeming, strangely enough, to have cleared my thoughts. "For twoyears--yes, for five years--I have been picturing to myself some suchscene as this, where you should lie overthrown before me, and I shouldcrush the life out of your hateful body with my heel, as one does withsnakes. But now that it has come about, I am at a strange loss for words. "

"That you were not formerly, " said the wounded man. "Since I have knownyou, you have fought always exceedingly well with your mouth. It was onlyin deeds that you were slow. "

He made this retort with a contemptuous coolness of tone which was beliedby his white face and drawn brows, and by the troubled, clinging gaze inhis eyes. I found myself looking with a curious impersonal interest uponthis heavy, large-featured countenance, always heretofore so deeplyflushed with color, and now coarsely blotched with varying depthsof pallor. 

"Doubtless it would be best to leave you here. None of your party willstraggle this way. They have all fled. You can lie here and think of yourmisdeeds until-----"

"Until the wolves come, you mean. Yes, go away. I prefer them to you. "

The sky to the west was one great lurid, brassy glare, overhung with banksof sinister clouds, a leaden purple above, fiery crimson below. Theunnatural light fell strongly upon us both. A big shadow passed for aninstant across the sunset, and we, looking instinctively up, saw thecircling bulk of some huge bird of prey. I shuddered at the sight. 

"Yes, leave me to _them_!" he said, bitterly. "Go back and seize my lands, my house. While the beasts and the birds tear me to bits here in theforest, do you fatten upon my substance at home. You and they are ofa kidney. "

"You know I would touch nothing of yours. "

"No--not even my wife!"

The thrust went home. There was a world of sardonic disdain in his voiceas he spoke, but in truth I thought little of his tone. The wordsthemselves seemed to open a gulf before my feet. Was it indeed true, inwelcoming this man's death, that I was thinking of the woman it would setfree--for me?

It seemed a long, long time before I found tongue again. I walked up anddown among the small cedars, fighting out in my own mind the issue ofhonor which had been with such brutal frankness raised. I could not makeit seem wholly untrue--this charge he so contemptuously flung at me. Therewas no softening of my heart toward him: he was still the repellent, evilruffian I had for years held him to be. I felt that I hated him the morebecause he had put me in the wrong. I went back to him, ashamed for thesource of the increase of temper I trembled under, yet powerless todissemble it. 

"Why should I not kill you where you lie?" I shouted at him. 

He made an effort at shrugging his shoulders, but vouchsafed no otherreply. 

"You"--I went on, in a whirl of rage at myself, at him, at the entireuniverse--"you have made my whole manhood bitter. I fought you the firsttime I saw you, when we were little boys. Even then you insulted, injuredme. I have always hated you. You have always given me reason to hate you. It was you who poisoned Mr. Stewart's mind against me. It was you whostole my sweet sister away from me. Did this content you? No. You mustdrive the good old gentleman into paralysis and illness unto death--out ofhis mind--and you must overwhelm the poor, gentle girl with drunkenbrutality and cruelty, and to cap all, with desertion. And this is notenough--my God! think of it! _this_ is not enough!--but you must come withthe others to force Indian war upon our Valley, upon your old neighbors!There are hundreds lying dead here to-day in these woods--honest men whosewives, parents, little children, are waiting for them at home. They willnever lay eyes on them again. Why? Because of you and your scoundrelfriends. You have done too much mischief already. It is high time to putan end to you. "

The wounded man had listened to me wearily, with his free hand clutchedtight over his wound, and the other tearing spasmodically at the grassbeside him. 

"I am bleeding to death, " he said, with a voice obviously weakened sincehis last preceding words. "So much the better for you. You would like itso. You are not bold enough to knock me on the head, or merciful enough togo about your business and leave me in peace. I ought to be above bandyingwords with you; nor would I if it did not take my mind from my hurt. Youare right--you have always been my enemy. You were jealous of me as alittle boy. You had an apron, and you envied me my coat. When, like afool, I came again to this cursed wilderness, your sour face rose up infront of me like an ugly dream. It was my first disagreeable thing. Stillyou were jealous of me, for I was a gentleman; you were a skin-pedler. Imarried a maiden who had beauty and wit enough to grace my station, eventhough she had not been born to it. It was you who turned her mind againstme, and incited her to unhappiness in the home I had given her. It was youwho made a damned rebel out of her, and drove me into going to Canada. Shehas ever been more your friend than mine. You are of her sort. An Englishgentleman could rightly have had no part or lot with either of you. Goback to her now--tell her you left me here waiting for the wolves--andthat my dying message was--"

He followed with some painfully bitter and malignant words which I havenot the heart to set down here in cold blood against him. 

"Let me see your wound, " I said, when he had finished and sank back, exhausted. 

I knelt beside him and opened his green coat, and the fine, ruffled shirtbeneath it. Both were soaked with blood on the whole right side, but thesoft cambric had, in a measure, checked the flow. He made no resistance, and I spread over the ugly aperture some of the plaster with which mymother had fitted me out, and bound it fast, with some difficulty, bypassing my sash under his body and winding it about his chest. 

He kept his eyes closed while I was doing this. I could not tell whetherhe was conscious or not. Nor could I explain to myself why I wasconcerning myself with his wound. Was it to save, if possible, his life?Was it to lengthen out his term of torture here in the great finalsolitude, helplessly facing the end, with snarling wolves and screamingkites for his death-watch? I scarcely knew which. 

I try now to retrace the courses by which my thoughts, in the confusedsearchings of those few moments, reached finally a good conclusion; butthe effort is beyond my powers. I know only that all at once it becamequite clear to my mind that I must not leave my enemy to die. How much ofthis was due to purely physical compassion for suffering, how much to thehigher pleadings of humanity, how much to the feeling that his taunts ofbaseness must be proved untrue, I cannot say. 

I was still kneeling beside him, I know, when Enoch suddenly stood infront of me. His practised footsteps had made no sound. He glanced gravelyat me and at the white, inanimate face of Cross. Emotions did not playlightly upon Enoch's leather-like visage; there was nothing in his look totell whether he was surprised or not. 

"Well, what news? How has the day gone?" I asked him. 

"Your people hold the gulf. The British have gone back. It seems they wereattacked in their rear from the fort. The woods are full of dead men. "

"What is Herkimer going to do?"

"They were making a litter to carry him off the field. They are going homeagain--down the Valley. "

"So, then, we have lost the fight. "

"Well, seeing that every three sound men have got to tote back one woundedman, and that about half the people you brought here are dead to beginwith, it don't look much like a victory, does it?"

"But the British have retreated, you say, and there was a sortie from thefort?"

"Yes, it's about six of one and half-dozen of t'other. I should say thatboth sides had got their bellyful of fighting. I guess they'll both wantto rest for a spell. "

I made no answer, being lost in a maze of thoughts upon the hideouscarnage of the day, and upon what was likely to come of it. Enoch went on:

"They seemed to be pretty nigh through with their litter-making. They mustbe about ready to start. You'd better be spry if you want to go alongwith 'em. "

"Did you speak to any one of me? Did you tell them where I was?"

"I ain't quite a fool, young man, " said the trapper, with a gaunt sort ofsmile. "If they'd caught sight of me, I wouldn't have got much chance toexplain about myself, let alone you. It kind of occurred to me thatstrangers found loafing around in the woods wouldn't get much of anopening for polite conversation just now--especially if those strangerswere fellows who had come down from Sillinger's camp with letters only afortnight ago. "

All this time Cross had been stretched at my knees, with his eyes closed. He opened them here, at Enoch's last words, and broke into ourconversation with a weak, strangely altered voice:

"I know you now--damn you! I couldn't think before. You are the fellow Igave my letters to, there on Buck's Island. I paid you your own price--inhard gold--and now you shoot me in return. You are on the right side now. You make a good rebel. "

"Now look here, Mr. Cross, " put in Enoch, with just a trace of temper inhis tone. "You paid me to carry those letters because I was going thatway, and I carried 'em straight. You didn't pay me for anything else, andyou couldn't, neither. There ain't been gold enough minted yet to hire meto fight for your King George against Congress. Put that in your pipe andsmoke it!"

"Come, Enoch, " I here interrupted, "enough of that. The man is suffering. You must not vex him further by words. "

"Suffering or not, " returned the trapper, "he might keep a civil tongue inhis head. --Why, I even did something you didn't pay me for, " he went on, scowling down at the prostrate soldier. "I delivered your message here tothis man" (indicating me with a gesture of his thumb)--"all that, youknow, about cutting out his heart when you met him, and feeding it to aMissisague dog. "

Enoch's grim features relaxed into a sardonic smile as he added: "Theremay be more or less heart-eating round about here presently, but it don'tlook much as if it would be his, and the dogs that'll do it don't belongto anybody--not even to a Missisague buck. "

The wounded man's frame shook under a spasm of shuddering, and he gloweredat us both wildly, with a look half-wrath, half-pitiful pleading, whichhelped me the better to make up my mind. 

Enoch had turned to me once more:

"Come, " he said, "we better hustle along. It will be all right with me solong as I am with you, and there is no time to lose. They must be startingfrom the gulf by this time. If we step along brisk, we'll soon catch them. As for this chap here, I guess we'd better leave him. He won't last longanyway, and your folks don't want any wounded prisoners. They've got toomany litters to carry already. "

"No, " I made answer, with my resolve clear now before me. "We will makeour own litter, and we will carry him to his home ourselves--by theriver--away from the others. "

"The hell you say!" said Enoch. 

Chapter XXXV. 

The Strange Uses to Which Revenge May Be Put. 

In after-times, when it could do no harm to tell this story, people werewont to regard as its most remarkable feature the fact that we made thetrip from the Oriskany battle-field to Cairncross in five days. There wasnever exhibited any special interest in the curious workings of mind, andconscience too if you like, which led me to bring my enemy home. Some few, indeed, like General Arnold, to whom I recounted the affair a fortnightlater when he marched up the Valley, frankly said that I was a fool for mypains, and doubtless many others dissembled the same opinion. But theyall, with one accord, expressed surprise, admiration, even incredulity, atthe despatch with which we accomplished the difficult journey. 

This achievement was, of course, entirely due to Enoch. At the outset heprotested stoutly against the waste of time and trouble involved in myplan. It was only after much argument that I won him over to consenting, which he did with evident reluctance. But it is right to say that, onceembarked on the adventure, he carried it through faithfully and with zeal. 

The wounded man lay silent, with closed eyes, while our discussion wenton. He seemed in a half-lethargic state, probably noting all that we said, yet under too heavy a spell of pain and weakness to care to speak. It wasnot until we two had woven a rough sort of litter out of hickory saplings, covered thick with moss and hemlock twigs, and Enoch had knelt by his sideto look to his wounds again, that Cross spoke:

"Leave me alone!" he groaned, angrily. "It makes me worse to have youtouch me. Are you not satisfied? I am dying; that ought to be enoughfor you. "

"Don't be a fool, Mr. Cross, " said Enoch, imperturbably, moving his handalong the course of the bandage. "We're trying to save your life. I don'tknow just why, but we are. Don't make it extra hard for us. All the helpwe want from you is for you to hold your jaw. "

"You are going to give me up to your Oneidas!" cried the suffering man, raising his head by a violent effort at the words, and staringaffrightedly straight ahead of him. 

There, indeed, were the two friendly Indians who had come with me to theswamp, and had run forward in pursuit of Cross's companions. They hadreturned with absolute noiselessness, and stood now some ten feet awayfrom us, gazing with stolid composure at our group. 

A hideous bunch of fresh scalp-locks dangled from the belt of each, and, on the bare legs beneath, stains of something darker than vermilionmingled with the pale ochre that had been rubbed upon the skin. Thesavages breathed heavily from their chase, and their black eyes werefairly aflame with excitement, but they held the muscles of their faces inan awesome rigidity. They were young men whom pious Samuel Kirkland hadlaboriously covered, through years of effort, with a Christian veneering. If the good dominie could have been there and seen the glances they bentupon the wounded enemy at our feet, I fear me he would have groanedin spirit. 

"Keep them off!" shrieked Cross, his head all in a tremble with thesustained exertion of holding itself up. "I will not be scalped! So helpme God, I will not!"

The Indians knew enough of English to understand this frantic cry. Theylooked at me as much as to say that this gentleman's resolution did notmaterially alter the existing situation, the probabilities of which wereall on the other side. 

"Lay your head down, Mr. Cross, " said Enoch, almost gently. "Just keepcool, or you'll bust your bandages off. They won't hurt you till we give'em the word. "

Still he made fitful efforts to rise, and a faint purplish color came intohis throat and cheeks as he strove excitedly. If Enoch had not held hisarm he would have torn off the plaster from his breast. 

"It shall not be done! I will die now! You shall not save me to betortured--scalped--by these devils!"

I intervened here. "You need fear nothing from these Indians, " I said, bending over him. "Lie back again and calm yourself. We are different fromthe brutes in your camp. We pay no price for scalps. "

"Perhaps those are not scalps they have hanging there. It is like yourcanting tongue to deny it. "

It was easy to keep my temper with this helpless foe. "These savages havetheir own way of making war, " I answered, calmly. "They are defendingtheir own homes against invasion, as well as we are. But we do not bribethem to take scalps. "

"Why not be honest--you!" he said, disdainfully. "You are going to give meup. Don't sicken me with preaching into the bargain. "

"Why be silly--you!" I retorted. "Does the trouble we propose taking foryou look like giving you up? What would be easier than to leave youhere--for the wolves, or these Indians here? Instead of that we are goingto carry you all the way to your home. We are going to _hide_ you atCairncross, until I can get a parole for you from General Schuyler. _Now_will you keep still?"

He did relapse into silence at this--a silence that was born alike ofmystification and utter weakness. 

Enoch explained to the Oneidas, mainly in their own strange tongue, myproject of conveying this British prisoner, intact so far as hair went, down the Valley. I could follow him enough to know that he described me asa warrior of great position and valor; it was less flattering to have himexplain that Cross was also a leading chief, and that I would get amagnificent ransom by delivering him up to Congress. 

Doubtless it was wise not to approach the Indian mind with less practicalarguments. I saw this, and begged Enoch to add that much of this rewardshould be theirs if they would accompany us on our journey. 

"They would be more trouble than they are worth, " he said. "They wouldn'thelp carry him more than ten minutes a day. If they'll tell me where oneof their canoes is hid, betwixt here and Fort Schuyler, that willbe enough. "

The result was that Enoch got such information of this sort as he desired, together with the secret of a path near by which would lead us to theriver trail. I cut two buttons from my coat in return, and gave them tothe savages; each being a warranty for eight dollars upon production at myhome, half way between the old and the new houses of the great andlamented Warraghiyagey, as they had called Sir William Johnson. This done, and the trifling skin-wound on my arm re-dressed, we lifted Cross upon therude litter and started for the trail. 

I seem to see again the spectacle upon which I turned to look for a lasttime before we entered the thicket. The sky beyond the fatal forest worestill its greenish, brassy color, and the clouds upon the upper limits ofthis unnatural glare were of a vivid, sinister crimson, like clots offresh blood. In the calm gray blue of the twilight vault above, birds ofprey circled, with a horrible calling to one another. No breath of airstirred the foliage or the bending rushes in the swale. We could hear nosound from our friends at the head of the ravine, a full half-mile away. Save for the hideous noises of the birds, a perfect silence rested uponthis blood-soaked oasis of the wilderness. The little brook babbled softlypast us; the strong western light flashed upon the rain-drops among theleaves. On the cedar-clad knoll the two young Indians stood motionless inthe sunset radiance, watching us gravely. 

We passed into the enfolding depths of the woods, leaving the battle-fieldto the furred and feathered scavengers and scalping-knives of theforest primeval. 

 * * * * *

Our slow and furtive course down the winding river was one long misery. Irecall no other equally wretched five days in my life. 

The canoe which Enoch unearthed on our first evening was a small andfragile affair, in which only one beside the wounded man could beaccommodated. The other must take his way as best he could through thesprawling tangle of water-alders, wild artichoke, and vines, facingmyriads of flies and an intolerable heat in all the wet places, with theirsweltering luxuriance of rank vegetation. One day of this nearly reducedme to the condition of our weak and helpless prisoner. I staggered blindlyalong toward its close, covered to the knees with black river-mud, my faceand wounded arm stinging with the scratches of poisonous ivy and brambles, my brain aching savagely, my strength and spirit all gone. I could havewept like a child from sheer exhaustion when at last I came to the nook onthe little stream where Enoch had planned to halt, and flung myself onthe ground utterly worn out. 

We were somewhat below Fort Schuyler, as near to the first settlements onthe German Flatts as we might with safety venture by daylight. Thereafterwe must hide during the days, and steal down the river at night. Enoch hada small store of smoked beef; for the rest we ate berries, wild grapes, and one or two varieties of edible roots which he knew of. We dared notbuild a fire. 

Philip Cross passed most of his time, while we lay hiding under cover, ina drowsy, restless stupor, broken by feverish intervals of nervousactivity of mind which were often very like delirium. The heat, thefly-pest, and the malarial atmosphere of the dank recesses in which welay, all combined to make his days very bad. At night in the canoe, floating noiselessly down the stream, Enoch said he seemed to suffer lessand to be calmer in his mind. But at no time, for the first three days atleast, did he evince any consciousness that we were doing for him morethan might under the circumstances be expected. His glance seemedsometimes to bespeak puzzled thoughts. But he accepted all ourministrations and labors with either the listless indifference of a manill unto death, or the composure of an aristocrat who took personalservice and attention for granted. 

After we had passed the Little Falls--which we did on our third nightout--the chief danger from shallows and rifts was over, and Enoch was ableto exchange places with me. It was no great trouble to him, skilfulwoodsman that he was, to make his way along the bank even in the dark, while in the now smooth and fairly broad course I could manage the canoewell enough. 

The moon shone fair upon us, as our little bark glided down the river. Wewere in the deep current which pushes forcefully forward under the newpressure of the East Canada waters, and save for occasional guidance therewas small need of my paddle. The scene was very beautiful to the eye--thewhite light upon the flood, the soft calm shadows of the willowed banks, the darker, statelier silhouettes of the forest trees, reared blackagainst the pale sky. 

There is something in the restful radiance of moonlight which mellowshearts. The poets learned this, ages since; I realized it now, as myglance fell upon the pallid face in the bow before me. We were looking atone another, and my hatred of him, nursed through years, seemed suddenlyto have taken to itself wings. I had scarcely spoken to him during thevoyage, other than to ask him of his wound. Now a thousand gentle impulsesstirred within me, all at once, and moved my tongue. 

"Are you out of pain to-night?" I asked him. "The journey is a hard one atbest for a wounded man. I would we could have commanded a larger and morecommodious boat. "

"Oh, ay! So far as bodily suffering goes, I am free from it, " he madeanswer, languidly. Then, after a little pause, he went on, in a low, musing voice: "How deathly still everything is! I thought that in thewilderness one heard always the night-yelping of the wolves. We did atCairncross, I know. Yet since we started I have not heard one. It is as ifwe were going through a dead country. "

Enoch had explained the reason for this silence to me, and I thoughtlesslyblurted it out. 

"Every wolf for forty miles round about is up at the battle-field, " Isaid. "It is fairly marvellous how such intelligence spreads among thesebrutes. They must have a language of their own. How little we reallyunderstand of the animal creation about us, with all our pride of wisdom!Even the shark, sailors aver, knows which ship to pursue. "

He shuddered and closed his eyes as I spoke. I thought at first that hehad been seized with a spasm of physical anguish, by the drawn expressionof his face; then it dawned upon me that his suffering was mental. 

"Yes, I dare say they are all there, " he said, lifting his voice somewhat. "I can hear them--see them! Do you know, " he went on, excitedly, "all daylong, all night long, I seem to have corpses all about me. They are therejust the same when I close my eyes--when I sleep. Some of them are myfriends; others I do not know, but they all know me. They look at me outof dull eyes; they seem to say they are waiting for me--and then there arethe wolves!"

He began shivering at this again, and his voice sank into a piteousquaver. 

"These are but fancies, " I said, gently, as one would speak to a childawakened in terror by a nightmare. "You will be rid of them once you getwhere you can have rest and care. "

It seemed passing strange that I should be talking thus to a man of aspowerful frame as myself, and even older in years. Yet he was so wan andweak, and the few days of suffering had so altered, I may say refined, hisface and mien, that it was natural enough too, when one thinks of it. 

He became calmer after this, and looked at me for a long time as I paddledthrough a stretch of still water, in silence. 

"You must have been well born, after all, " he said, finally. 

I did not wholly understand his meaning, but answered:

"Why, yes, the Van Hoorns are a very good family--noble in some branches, in fact--and my father had his sheepskin from Utrecht. But what of it?"

"What I would say is, you have acted in all this like a gentleman. "

I could not help smiling to myself, now that I saw what was in his mind. "For that matter, " I answered, lightly, "it does not seem to me thateither the Van Hoorns or the dead Mauverensens have much to do with it. " Iremembered my mother's parting remark to me, and added: "The only VanHoorn I know of in the Valley will not be at all pleased to learn I havebrought you back. "

"Nobody will be pleased, " he said, gloomily. 

After that it was fit that silence should again intervene, for I could notgainsay him. He closed his eyes as if asleep, and I paddled on in thealternate moonlight and shadow. 

The recollection of my mother's words brought with it a great train ofthoughts, mostly bitter. I was bearing home with me a man who was not onlynot wanted, but whose presence and continued life meant the annihilationof all the inchoate hopes and dreams my heart these last two years had fedupon. It was easy to be civil, even kind, to him in his present helpless, stricken state; anybody with a man's nature could do that. But it was notso easy to look resignedly upon the future, from which all light andhappiness were excluded by the very fact that he was alive. 

More than once during this revery, be it stated in frankness, thereflection came to me that by merely tipping the canoe over I could evennow set everything right. Of course I put the evil thought away from me, but still it came obstinately back more than once. Under the momentaryspell of this devilish suggestion, I even looked at the form recumbentbefore me, and noted how impossible it was that it should ever reach thebank, once in the water. Then I tore my mind forcibly from the idea, asone looking over a dizzy height leaps back lest the strange, latentimpulse of suicide shall master him, and fixed my thoughts instead uponthe man himself. 

His talk about my being well born helped me now to understand hischaracter better than I had before been able to do. I began to realize theexistence in England--in Europe generally, I dare say--of a kind of manstrange to our American ideas, a being within whom long tradition andsedulous training had created two distinct men--one affable, honorable, generous, likeable, among his equals; the other cold, selfish, haughty, and harsh to his inferiors. It struck me now that there had always beentwo Philips, and that I had been shown only the rude and hateful onebecause my station had not seemed to entitle me to consort with the other. 

Once started upon this explanation, I began to comprehend the whole story. To tell the truth, I had never understood why this young man should havebehaved so badly as he did; there had been to me always a certainwantonness of brutality in his conduct wholly inexplicable. The thing wasplainer now. In his own country he would doubtless have made a tolerablehusband, a fair landlord, a worthy gentleman in the eyes of the only classof people whose consideration he cared for. But over here, in the newland, all the conditions had been against him. He had drawn down uponhimself and all those about him overwhelming calamity, simply because hehad felt himself under the cursed obligation to act like a "gentleman, " ashe called it. His contemptuous dislike of me, his tyrannical treatment ofhis wife when she did not fall in with his ambitions, his sulky resort todissipation, his fierce espousal of the Tory side against the commonherd--I could trace now the successive steps by which obstinacy had ledhim down the fell incline. 

I do not know that I had much satisfaction from this analysis, even when Ihad worked it all out. It was worth while, no doubt, to arrive at aknowledge of Philip's true nature, and to see that under othercircumstances he might have been as good a man as another. But all thesame my heart grew heavy under the recurring thought that the saving ofhis life meant the destruction of all worth having in mine. 

Every noiseless stroke of my paddle in the water, bearing him toward homeas it did, seemed to push me farther back into a chill, unknown world ofgloom and desolation. Yet, God help me, I could do no other!

Chapter XXXVI. 

A Final Scene in the Gulf which My Eyes Are Mercifully Spared. 

Just before daybreak of the fifth day we stole past the sleeping hamlet ofCaughnawaga, and as the sun was rising over the Schoharie hills I drew upthe canoe into the outlet of Dadanoscara Creek, a small brook which camedown through the woods from the high land whereon Cairncross stood. Ourjourney by water was ended. 

Enoch was waiting for us, and helped me lift Cross from the canoe. Hisbody hung inert in our arms; not even my clumsy slipping on the bank ofthe rivulet startled him from the deep sleep in which he had lain forhours in the boat. 

"I have been frightened. Can he be dying?" I asked. 

Enoch knelt beside him, and put his hand over the patient's heart. Heshook his head dubiously after a moment, and said: "It's tearing alonglike a racehorse. He's in a fever--the worst kind. This ain'tsleep--it's stupor. "

He felt the wounded man's pulse and temples. "If you're bent on saving hislife, " he added, "you'd better scoot off and get some help. Before we canmake another litter for him, let alone taking him up this creek-bed tohis house, it may be too late. If we had a litter ready, it might bedifferent. As it is, I don't see but you will have to risk it, and bringsomebody here. "

For once in my life my brain worked in flashes. I actually thought ofsomething which had not occurred to Enoch!

"Why not carry him in this canoe?" I asked. "It is lighter than any litterwe could make. "

The trapper slapped his lank, leather-clad thigh in high approval. "Byhokey!" he said, "you've hit it!"

We sat on the mossy bank, on either side of the insensible Philip, and atethe last remaining fragments of our store of food. Another day of this andwe should have been forced to shoot something, and light a fire to cook itover, no matter what the danger. Enoch had, indeed, favored this coursetwo days before, but I clung to my notion of keeping Cross's presence inthe Valley an absolute secret. His life would have been in deadly perilhereabouts, even before the battle. How bitterly the hatred of him and histraitor-fellows must have been augmented by the slaughter of that cruelambuscade, I could readily imagine. With what words could I have protectedhim against the righteous rage of a Snell, for example, or a Seeber, orany one of a hundred others who had left kinsmen behind in that fatalgulch? No! There must be no risk run by meeting any one. 

With the scanty meal finished our rest was at an end. We ought to lose notime. Each minute's delay in getting the wounded man under a roof, inbed, within reach of aid and nursing, might be fatal. 

It was no light task to get the canoe upon our shoulders, after we had putin it our guns, covered these with ferns and twigs, and upon these laidPhilip's bulky form, and a very few moments' progress showed that the workbefore us was to be no child's play. The conformation of the canoe made ita rather awkward thing to carry, to begin with. To bear it right side up, laden as it was, over eight miles of almost continuous ascent, through aperfectly unbroken wilderness, was as laborious an undertaking as it iseasy to conceive. 

We toiled along so slowly, and the wretched little brook, whose bed westrove to follow, described such a wandering course, and was so oftenrendered fairly impassable by rocks, driftwood, and overhanging thicket, that when the sun hung due south above us we had covered barely half ourjourney, and confronted still the hardest portion of it. We were soexhausted when this noon hour came, too, that I could make no objectionwhen Enoch declared his purpose of getting some trout from the brook, andcooking them. Besides, we were far enough away from the river highway andfrom all habitations now to render the thing practically safe. AccordinglyI lighted a small fire of the driest wood to be found, while the trapperstole up and down the brook, moving with infinite stealth and dexterity, tracking down fish and catching them with his hands under the stones. 

Soon he had enough for a meal--and, my word! it was a feast for emperorsor angels. We stuffed the pink dainties with mint, and baked them in ballsof clay. It seemed as if I had not eaten before in years. 

We tried to rouse Cross sufficiently to enable him to eat, and in a smallway succeeded; but the effect upon him was scarcely beneficial, itappeared to us. His fever increased, and when we started out once moreunder our burden, the motion inseparable from our progress affected hishead, and he began to talk incoherently to himself. 

Nothing can be imagined more weird and startling than was the sound ofthis voice above us, when we first heard it. Both Enoch and Iinstinctively stopped. For the moment we could not tell whence the soundcame, and I know not what wild notions about it flashed through my mind. Even when we realized that it was the fever-loosed tongue of our companionwhich spoke, the effect was scarcely less uncanny. Though I could not seehim, the noise of his ceaseless talking came from a point close to myhead; he spoke for the most part in a bold, high voice--unnaturally raisedabove the pitch of his recent faint waking utterances. Whenever a fallenlog or jutting bowlder gave us a chance to rest our load without theprospect of too much work in hoisting it again, we would set the canoedown, and that moment his lips would close. There seemed to be some occultconnection between the motion of our walking and the activity of hisdisordered brain. 

For a long time--of course in a very disconnected way--he babbled abouthis mother, and of people, presumably English, of whom I knew nothing, save that one name, Digby, was that of his elder brother Then there beganto be interwoven with this talk stray mention of Daisy's name, and soonthe whole discourse was of her. 

The freaks of delirium have little significance, I believe, as clews tothe saner courses of the mind, but he spoke only gently in his imaginaryspeeches to his wife. I had to listen, plodding wearily along with achingshoulders under the burden of the boat, to fond, affectionate wordsaddressed to her in an incessant string. The thread of his ideas seemed tobe that he had arrived home, worn-out and ill, and that he was resting hishead upon her bosom. Over and over again, with tiresome iteration, he keptentreating plaintively: "You _are_ glad to see me? You do _truly_ forgiveme, and love me?"

Nothing could have been sadder than to hear him. I reasoned that thisceaseless dwelling upon the sweets of a tender welcome doubtless reflectedthe train of his thoughts during the journey down from the battle-field. He had forborne to once mention Daisy's name during the whole voyage, buthe must have thought deeply, incessantly of her--in all likelihood with agreat softening of heart and yearning for her compassionate nursing. Itwas not in me to be unmoved by this. I declare that as I went painfullyforward, with this strangely pathetic song of passion repeating itself inmy ears, I got fairly away from the habit of mind in which my own love forDaisy existed, and felt myself only an agent in the working out of somesombre and exalted romance. 

In Foxe's account of the English martyrs there are stories of men at thestake who, when a certain stage of the torture was reached, really forgottheir anguish in the emotional ecstasy of the ideas born of that terriblemoment. In a poor and imperfect fashion I approached that same strangestate--not far removed, in sober fact, from the delirium of the man inthe canoe. 

The shadows were lengthening in the woods, and the reddening blaze of thesun flared almost level in our eyes through the tree-trunks, when at lastwe had crossed the water-shed of the two creeks, and stood looking downinto the gulf of which I have so often spoken heretofore. 

We rested the canoe upon a great rock in the mystic circle of ancientIndian fire worship, and leaned, tired and panting, against its side. Myarm was giving me much pain, and what with insufficient food and feverishsleep, great immediate fatigue, and the vast nervous strain of these pastsix days, I was well-nigh swooning. 

"I fear I can go no farther, Enoch, " I groaned. "I can barely keep my feetas it is. "

The trapper himself was as close to utter exhaustion as one may be andhave aught of spirit left, yet he tried to speak cheerily. 

"Come, come!" he said, "we mustn't give out now, right here at thefinish. Why, it's only down over that bridge, and up again--and therewe are!"

I smiled in a sickly way at him, and strove to nerve myself manfully for afinal exertion. "Very well, " I made answer. "Just a moment's more rest, and we'll at it again. "

While we stood half reclining against the bowlder, looking withtrepidation at the stiff ascent before us on the farther side of the gulf, the scene of the old quarrel of our youth suddenly came to my mind. 

"Do you see that spruce near the top, by the path--the one hanging overthe edge? Five years ago I was going to fight this Philip Cross there, onthat path. My little nigger Tulp ran between us, and he threw him headover heels to the bottom. The lad has never been himself since. "

"Pretty tolerable fall, " remarked Enoch, glancing down the precipitous, brush-clad wall of rock. "But a nigger lands on his head as a cat does onher feet, and it only scratches him where it would kill anybody else. "

We resumed our burden now, and made our way with it down the winding pathto the bottom. Here I was fain to surrender once for all. 

"It is no use, Enoch, " I said, resolutely. "I can't even try to climb upthere with this load. You must wait here; I will go ahead to Cairncross, prepare them for his coming, and send down some slaves to fetch him therest of the way. "

 * * * * *

The great square mansion reared before me a closed and inhospitable front. The shutters of all the windows were fastened. Since the last rain nowheels had passed over the carriage-way. For all the signs of lifevisible, Cairncross might have been uninhabited a twelve-month. 

It was only when I pushed my way around to the rear of the house, withinview of the stables and slave quarters, that I learned the place had notbeen abandoned. Half a dozen niggers, dressed in their holiday, church-going raiment, were squatting in a close circle on the grass, intent upon the progress of some game. Their interest in this was so deepthat I had drawn near to them, and called a second time, before theybecame aware of my presence. 

They looked for a minute at me in a perplexed way--my mud-baked clothes, unshaven face, and general unkempt condition evidently rendering me astranger in their eyes. Then one of them screamed: "Golly! Mass' Douw'sghost!" and the nimble cowards were on their feet and scampering likescared rabbits to the orchard, or into the basement of the great house. 

So I was supposed to be dead! Curiously enough, it had not occurred to mebefore that this would be the natural explanation of my failure to returnwith the others. The idea now gave me a queer quaking sensation about theheart, and I stood stupidly staring at the back balcony of the house, withmy mind in a whirl of confused thoughts. It seemed almost as if I _had_come back from the grave. 

While I still stood, faint and bewildered, trying to regain control of myideas, the door opened, and a white-faced lady, robed all in black, cameswiftly out upon the porch. It was Daisy, and she was gazing at me withdistended eyes and parted lips, and clinging to the carved balustradefor support. 

As in a dream I heard her cry of recognition, and knew that she wasgliding toward me. Then I was on my knees at her feet, burying my face inthe folds of her dress, and moaning incoherent nothings from sheerexhaustion and rapture. 

When at last I could stand up, and felt myself coming back to somethinglike self-possession, a score of eager questions and as many outbursts ofdeep thanksgiving were in my ears--all from her sweet voice. And I hadtongue for none of them, but only looked into her dear face, and pattedher hands between mine, and trembled like a leaf with excitement. So muchwas there to say, the sum of it beggared language. 

When finally we did talk, I was seated in a great chair one of the slaveshad brought upon the sward, and wine had been fetched me, and my dear girlbent gently over me from behind, softly resting my head against her waist, her hands upon my arms. 

"You shall not look me in the face again, " she said--with ah! suchcompassionate, tender playfulness--"until I have been told. How did youescape? Were you a prisoner? Were you hurt?"--and oh! a host ofother things. 

Suddenly the sky seemed to be covered with blackness, and the joy in myheart died out as by the stroke of death. I had remembered something. Myparched and twitching lips did their best to refuse to form the words:

"I have brought Philip home. He is sorely wounded. Send the slaves tobring him from the gulf. "

After a long silence, I heard Daisy's voice, clear and without a tremor, call out to the blacks that their master had been brought as far as thegulf beyond, and needed assistance. They started off helter-skelter atthis, with many exclamations of great surprise, a bent and misshapenfigure dragging itself with a grotesque limping gait at their tail. 

I rose from my chair, now in some measure restored to calmness and coldresolution. In mercy I had been given a brief time of blind happiness--ofbliss without the alloy of a single thought. Now I must be a man, and walkerect, unflinching, to the sacrifice. 

"Let us go and meet them. It is best, " I said. The poor girl raised hereyes to mine, and their startled, troubled gaze went to my heart. Theremust have been prodigious effort in the self-command of her tone to theslaves, for her voice broke down utterly now, as she faltered:

"You have--brought--him home! For what purpose? How will this all end? Itterrifies me!"

We had by tacit consent begun to walk down the path toward the road. Itwas almost twilight. I remember still how the swallows wheeled swiftly inthe air about the eaves, and how their twittering and darting seemed toconfuse and tangle my thoughts. 

The situation was too sad for silence. I felt the necessity of talking, ofuttering something which might, at least, make pretence of occupying thesewretched minutes, until I should say:

"This is your husband--and farewell!"

"It was clear enough to me, " I said. "My duty was plain. I would havebeen a murderer had I left him there to die. It was very strange about myfeelings. Up to a certain moment they were all bitter and merciless towardhim. So many better men than he were dead about me, it seemed littleenough that his life should go to help avenge them. Yet when the momentcame--why, I could not suffer it. Not that my heart relented--no; I wasstill full of rage against him. But none the less it was my duty to savehis life. "

"And to bring him home to _me_. " She spoke musingly, completing mysentence. 

"Why, Daisy, would you have had it otherwise? Could I have left him there, to die alone, helpless in the swamp?"

"I have not said you were not right, Douw, " she answered, with saddenedslowness. "But I am trying to think. It is so hard to realize--coming likethis. I was told you were both dead. His name was reported in their camp, yours among our people. And now you are both here--and it is all sostrange, so startling--and what is right seems so mingled and bound upwith what is cruel and painful! Oh, I cannot think! What will come of it?How will it all end?"

"We must not ask how it will end!" I made answer, with lofty decision. "That is not our affair. We can but do our duty--what seems clearlyright--and bear results as they come. There is no other way. You ought tosee this. "

"Yes, I ought to see it, " she said, slowly and in a low, distressed voice. 

As she spoke there rose in my mind a sudden consciousness that perhaps mywisdom was at fault. How was it that I--a coarse-fibred male animal, returned from slaughter, even now with the blood of fellow-creatures on myhands--should be discoursing of duty and of good and bad to this pure andgentle and sweet-souled woman? What was my title to do this?--to rebukeher for not seeing the right? Had I been in truth generous? Rather had Inot, in the purely selfish desire to win my own self-approbation, broughtpain and perplexity down upon the head of this poor woman? I had thoughtmuch of my own goodness--my own strength of purpose and self-sacrifice andfidelity to duty. Had I given so much as a mental glance at the effect ofmy acts upon the one whom, of all others, I should have first guarded fromtrouble and grief?

My tongue was tied. Perhaps I had been all wrong. Perhaps I should nothave brought back to her the man whose folly and obstinacy had sowell-nigh wrecked her life. I could no longer be sure. I kept silence, feeling indirectly now that her woman's instinct would be truer and betterthan my logic. She was thinking; she would find the real right and wrong. 

Ah, no! To this day we are not settled in our minds, we two old people, asto the exact balance between duty and common-sense in that strangequestion of our far-away youth. 

There broke upon our ears, of a sudden, as we neared the wooded crest ofthe gulf, a weird and piercing scream--an unnatural and repellent yell, like a hyena's horrid hooting! It rose with terrible distinctness from thethicket close before us. As its echoes returned, we heard confused soundsof other voices, excited and vibrant. 

Daisy clutched my arm, and began hurrying me forward, impelled by someformless fear of she knew not what. 

"It is Tulp, " she murmured, as we went breathlessly on. "Oh, I should havekept him back! Why did I not think of it?"

"What about Tulp?" I asked, with difficulty keeping beside her in thenarrow path. "I had no thought of him. I did not see him. He was not amongthe others, was he?"

"He has gone mad!"

"What--Tulp, poor boy? Oh, not as bad as that, surely! He has been strangeand slow of wit for years, but--"

"Nay, the tidings of your death--you know I told you we heard that youwere dead--drove him into perfect madness. I doubt he knew you when youcame. Only yesterday we spoke of confining him, but poor old fatherpleaded not. When you see Tulp, you shall decide. Oh! what has happened?Who is this man?"

In the path before us, some yards away, appeared the tall, gaunt form ofEnoch, advancing slowly. In the dusk of the wooded shades behind himhuddled the group of slaves. They bore nothing in their hands. Where wasthe canoe? They seemed affrighted or oppressed by something out of thecommon, and Enoch, too, wore a strange air. What could it mean?

When Enoch saw us he lifted his hand in a warning gesture. 

"Have her go back!" he called out, with brusque sharpness. 

"Will you walk back a little?" I asked her. "There is something here we donot understand. I will join you in a moment. 

"For God's sake, what is it, Enoch?" I demanded, as I confronted him. "Tell me quick. "

"Well, we've had our five days' tussle for nothing, and you're minus anigger. That's about what it comes to. "

"Speak out, can't you! Is he dead? What was the yell we heard?"

"It was all done like a flash of lightning. We were coming up the sidenighest us here--we had got just where that spruce, you know, hangsover--when all at once that hump-backed nigger of yours raised a screamlike a painter, and flung himself head first against the canoe. Over itwent, and he with it--rip, smash, plumb to the bottom!"

The negroes broke forth in a babel of mournful cries at this, andclustered about us. I grew sick and faint under this shock of freshhorrors, and was fain to lean on Enoch's arm, as I turned to walk back towhere I had left Daisy. She was not visible as we approached, and I closedmy eyes in abject terror of some further tragedy. 

Thank God, she had only swooned, and lay mercifully senseless in the tallgrass, her waxen face upturned in the twilight. 

Chapter XXXVII. 

The Peaceful Ending of It All. 

In the general paralysis of suffering and despair which rested now uponthe Valley, the terrible double tragedy of the gulf passed almost unnoted. Women everywhere were mourning for the husbands, sons, lovers who wouldnever return. Fathers strove in vain to look dry-eyed at familiar placeswhich should know the brave lads--true boys of theirs--no more. The playand prattle of children were hushed in a hundred homes where some honestfarmer's life, struck fiercely at by a savage or Tory, still hung in thedread balance. Each day from some house issued forth the procession ofdeath, until all our little churchyards along the winding river had morenew graves than old--not to speak of that grim, unconsecrated God's-acrein the forest pass, more cruel still to think upon. And with all this tobear, there was no assurance that the morrow might not bring the torch andtomahawk of invasion to our very doors. 

So our own strange tragedy had, as I have said, scant attention. Peoplelistened to the recital, and made answer: "Both dead at the foot of thecliff, eh? Have you heard how William Seeber is to-day?" or "Is it truethat Herkimer's leg must be cut off?"

In those first few days there was little enough heart to measure or boastof the grandeur of the fight our simple Valley farmers had waged, there inthe ambushed ravine of Oriskany. Still less was there at hand informationby the light of which the results of that battle could be estimated. Nothing was known, at the time of which I write, save that there had beenhideous slaughter, and that the invaders had forborne to immediatelyfollow our shattered forces down the Valley. It was not until muchlater--until definite news came not only of St. Leger's flight back toCanada, but of the capture of the whole British army at Saratoga--that themen of the Mohawk began to comprehend what they had really done. 

To my way of thinking, they have ever since been unduly modest about thistruly historic achievement. As I wrote long ago, we of New York havechosen to make money, and to allow our neighbors to make histories. Thusit happens that the great decisive struggle of the whole long war forIndependence--the conflict which, in fact, made America free--is sufferedto pass into the records as a mere frontier skirmish. Yet, if one will butthink, it is as clear as daylight that Oriskany was the turning-point ofthe war. The Palatines, who had been originally colonized on the upperMohawk by the English to serve as a shield against savagery for their ownAtlantic settlements, reared a barrier of their own flesh and bones, thereat Oriskany, over which St. Leger and Johnson strove in vain to pass. Thatfailure settled everything. The essential feature of Burgoyne's plan hadbeen that this force, which we so roughly stopped and turned back in theforest defile, should victoriously sweep down our Valley, raising the Torygentry as they progressed, and join him at Albany. If that had been done, he would have held the whole Hudson, separating the rest of the coloniesfrom New England, and having it in his power to punish and subdue, firstthe Yankees, then the others at his leisure. 

Oriskany prevented this! Coming as it did, at the darkest hour ofWashington's trials and the Colonies' despondency, it altered the face ofthings as gloriously as does the southern sun rising swiftly upon theheels of night. Burgoyne's expected allies never reached him; he wascompelled, in consequence, to surrender--and from that day there was nodoubt who would in the long-run triumph. 

Therefore, I say, all honor and glory to the rude, unlettered, greatsouled yeomen of the Mohawk Valley, who braved death in the wildwood gulchat Oriskany that Congress and the free Colonies might live. 

But in these first few days, be it repeated, nobody talked or thought muchof glory. There were too many dead left behind--too many maimed andwounded brought home--to leave much room for patriotic meditations aroundthe saddened hearth-stones. And personal grief was everywhere too deep andgeneral to make it possible that men should care much about the strangeoccurrence by which Philip and Tulp lost their lives together in the gulf. 

I went on the following day to my mother, and she and my sister Margaretreturned with me to Cairncross, to relieve from smaller cares, as much asmight be, our poor dear girl. All was done to shield both her and thestricken old gentleman, our common second father, from contact withmaterial reminders of the shock that had fallen upon us, and as soon aspossible afterward they were both taken to Albany, out of reach of thescene's sad suggestions. 

From the gulf's bottom, where Death had dealt his double stroke, thesoldier's remains were borne one way, to his mansion; the slave's theother, to his old home at the Cedars. Between their graves the turbulentstream still dashes, the deep ravine still yawns. For years I could notvisit the spot without hearing, in and above the ceaseless shouting of thewaters, poor mad Tulp's awful death-scream. 

During the month immediately following the event, my time was closelyengaged in public work. It was my melancholy duty to go up to the Falls torepresent General Schuyler and Congress at the funeral of brave oldBrigadier Nicholas Herkimer, who succumbed to the effects of an unskilfulamputation ten days after the battle. A few days later I went with Arnoldand his relieving force up the Valley, saw the siege raised and the floodof invasion rolled back, and had the delight of grasping Peter Gansevoort, the stout commander of the long-beleaguered garrison, once more by thehand. On my return I had barely time to lease the Cedars to a good tenant, and put in train the finally successful efforts to save Cairncross fromconfiscation, when I was summoned to Albany to attend upon my chief. Itwas none too soon, for my old wounds had broken out again, under theexposure and travail of the trying battle week, and I was more fit for ahospital than for the saddle. 

I found the kindliest of nursing and care in my old quarters in theSchuyler mansion. It was there, one morning in January of the new year1778, that a quiet wedding breakfast was celebrated for Daisy and me; andneither words nor wishes could have been more tender had we been truly thechildren of the great man, Philip Schuyler, and his good dame. The exactdate of this ceremony does not matter; let it be kept sacred within theknowledge of us two old people, who look back still to it as to thesunrise of a new long day, peaceful, serene, and almost cloudless, and notless happy even now because the ashen shadows of twilight begin gently togather over it. 

Though the war had still the greater half of its course to run, my partthereafter in it was far removed from camp and field. No opportunity cameto me to see fighting again, or to rise beyond my major's estate. Yet Iwas of as much service, perhaps, as though I had been out in the thick ofthe conflict; certainly Daisy was happier to have it so. 

Twice during the year 1780 did we suffer grievous material loss at thehands of the raiding parties which malignant Sir John Johnson piloted intothe Valley of his birth. In one of these the Cairncross mansion was rifledand burned, and the tenants despoiled and driven into the woods. Thismeant a considerable monetary damage to us; yet our memories of the placewere all so sad that its demolition seemed almost a relief, particularlyas Enoch, to whom we had presented a freehold of the wilder part of thegrant, that nearest the Sacondaga, miraculously escaped molestation. 

But it was a genuine affliction when, later in the year, Sir Johnpersonally superintended the burning down of the dear old Cedars, the homeof our youth. If I were able to forgive him all other harm he has wrought, alike to me and to his neighbors, this would still remain obstinately tosteel my heart against him, for he knew that we had been good to his wife, and that we loved the place better than any other on earth. We were verymelancholy over this for a long time, and, to the end of his placid daysof second childhood passed with us, we never allowed Mr. Stewart to learnof it. But even here there was the recompense that the ruffians, thoughthey crossed the river and frightened the women into running for safety tothe woods, did not pursue them, and thus my mother and sisters, along withMrs. Romeyn and others, escaped. Alas! that the Tory brutes could not alsohave forborne to slay on his own doorstep my godfather, honest oldDouw Fonda!

There was still another raid upon the Valley the ensuing year, but ittouched us only in that it brought news of the violent death of WalterButler, slain on the bank of the East Canada Creek by the Oneida chiefSkenandoah. Both Daisy and I had known him from childhood, and had in theold times been fond of him. Yet there had been so much innocent bloodupon those delicate hands of his, before they clutched the gravel on thelonely forest stream's edge in their death-grasp, that we could scarcelywish him alive again. 

Our first boy was born about this time--a dark-skinned, brawny man-childwhom it seemed the most natural thing in the world to christen Douw. Hebears the name still, and on the whole, though he has forgotten all theDutch I taught him, bears it creditably. 

In the mid-autumn of the next year--it was in fact the very day on whichthe glorious news of Yorktown reached Albany--a second little boy wasborn. He was a fair-haired, slender creature, differing from the other assunshine differs from thunder-clouds. He had nothing like the other'sbreadth of shoulders or strength of lung and limb, and we petted himaccordingly, as is the wont of parents. 

When the question of his name came up, I sat, I remember, by his mother'sbedside, holding her hand in mine, and we both looked down upon the tiny, fair babe nestled upon her arm. 

"Ought we not to call him for the dear old father--give him the two names, 'Thomas' and 'Stewart'?" I asked. 

Daisy stroked the child's hair gently, and looked with tender melancholyinto my eyes. 

"I have been thinking, " she murmured, "thinking often of late--it is allso far behind us now, and time has passed so sweetly and softened so muchour memories of past trouble and of the--the dead--I nave been thinking, dear, that it would be a comfort to have the lad called Philip. "

I sat for a long time thus by her side, and we talked more freely than wehad ever done before of him who lay buried by the ruined walls ofCairncross. Time had indeed softened much. We spoke of him now with gentlesorrow--as of a friend whose life had left somewhat to be desired, yetwhose death had given room for naught but pity. He had been handsome andfearless and wilful--and unfortunate; our minds were closed against anyharsher word. And it came about that when it was time for me to leave theroom, and I bent over to kiss lightly the sleeping infant, I was glad inmy heart that he was to be called Philip. Thus he was called, and thoughthe General was his godfather at the old Dutch church, we did not concealfrom him that the Philip for whom the name was given was another. It waseasily within Schuyler's kindly nature to comprehend the feelings whichprompted us, and I often fancied he was even the fonder of the childbecause of the link formed by his name with his parents' time of grief andtragic romance. 

In truth, we all made much of this light-haired, beautiful, imperiouslittle boy, who from the beginning quite cast into the shade his elder andslower brother, the dusky-skinned and patient Douw. Old Mr. Stewart, inparticular, became dotingly attached to the younger lad, and scarce couldbear to have him out of sight the whole day long. It was a prettyspectacle indeed--one which makes my old heart yearn in memory, evennow--to see the simple, soft-mannered, childish patriarch gravelyobeying the whims and freaks of the boy, and finding the chief delight ofhis waning life in being thus commanded. Sometimes, to be sure, my heartsmote me with the fear that poor quiet Master Douw felt keenly underneathhis calm exterior this preference, and often, too, I grew nervous lest ourfondness was spoiling the younger child. But it was not in us toresist him. 

The little Philip died suddenly, in his sixth year, and within the monthMr. Stewart followed him. Great and overpowering as was our grief, itseemed almost perfunctory beside the heart-breaking anguish of the oldman. He literally staggered and died under the blow. 

 * * * * *

There is no story in the rest of my life. The years have flowed on aspeacefully, as free from tempest or excitement, as the sluggish waters ofa Delft canal. No calamity has since come upon us; no great trial or largeadvancement has stirred the current of our pleasant existence. Havingalways a sufficient hold upon the present, with means to live in comfort, and tastes not leading into venturesome ways for satisfaction, it has cometo be to us, in our old age, a deep delight to look backward together. Weseem now to have walked from the outset hand in hand. The joys of ourchildhood and youth spent under one roof--the dear smoky, raftered roof, where hung old Dame Kronk's onions and corn and perfumed herbs--are verynear to us. There comes between this scene of sunlight and the not lesspeaceful radiance of our later life, it is true, the shadow for a time ofa dark curtain. Yet, so good and generous a thing is memory, even thisinterruption appears now to have been but of a momentary kind, and has forus no harrowing side. As I wrote out the story, page by page, it seemed toboth of us that all these trials, these tears, these bitter feuds andfights, must have happened to others, not to us--so swallowed up inhappiness are the griefs of those young years, and so free are our heartsfrom scars.