The Message Sent Ahead from the Invading Army.
The whole forenoon of this eventful day was occupied in transmitting to
the proper authorities the great tidings which had so fortuitously come
to us.
For this purpose, after breakfast, John Frey, who was the brigade major as
well as sheriff, rode down to Caughnawaga with me, four soldiers bringing
Enoch in our train. It was a busy morning at the Fonda house, where we
despatched our business, only Jelles Fonda and his brother Captain Adam
and the staunch old Samson Sammons being admitted to our counsels.
Here Enoch repeated his story, telling now in addition that one-half of
the approaching force was composed of Hanau Chasseurs--skilled marksmen
recruited in Germany from the gamekeeper or forester class--and that
Joseph Brant was expected to meet them at Oswego with the Iroquois war
party, Colonel Claus having command of the Missisaguesor Hurons from the
Far West. As he mentioned the names of various officers in Sir John's
regiment of Tories, we ground our teeth with wrath. They were the names of
men we had long known in the Valley--men whose brothers and kinsmen were
still among us, some even holding commissions in our militia. Old Sammons
could not restrain a snort of rage when the name of Hon-Yost Herkimer was
mentioned in this list of men who wore now the traitor's "Royal Green"
uniform, and carried commissions from King George to fight against their
own blood.
"You saw no Sammons in that damned snake's nest, I'll be bound!" he
shouted 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 the
hearing of the stalwart John Frey, who could not help it that his brother,
Colonel Hendrick, was on parole as a suspected Tory, and that another
brother, Bernard, and a nephew, young Philip Frey, Hendrick's son, were
with Johnson in Canada. So the family subject was dropped.
More or less minute reports of all that Enoch revealed, according to the
position of those for whom they were intended, were written out by me, and
despatched by messenger to General Schuyler at Albany; to
Brigadier-General Herkimer near the Little Falls; to Colonel Campbell at
Cherry Valley; and to my old comrade Peter Gansevoort, now a full colonel,
and since April the commandant at Fort Stanwix. Upon him the first brunt
of the coming invasion would fall. He had under him only five hundred
men--the Third New York Continentals--and I took it upon myself to urge
now upon General Schuyler that more should be speeded to him.
This work finally cleared away, and all done that was proper until the
military head of Tryon County, Brigadier Herkimer, should take action,
there was time to remember my own affairs. It had been resolved that no
word 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 most
important harvest a day sooner than need be. There was no longer any
question of keeping Enoch in prison, but there was a real fear that if he
were set at large he might reveal his secret. Hence John Frey suggested
that I keep him under my eye, and this jumped with my inclination.
Accordingly, when the noon-day heat was somewhat abated, we set out down
the Valley road toward the Cedars. There was no horse for him, but he
walked with the spring and tirelessness of a grey-hound, his hand on the
pommel of my saddle. The four soldiers who had come down from Johnstown
followed in our rear, keeping under the shade where they could, and
picking berries by the way.
The mysterious letter from Philip to his deserted wife lay heavily upon my
thoughts. I could not ask Enoch if he knew its contents--which it turned
out he did not--but I was unable to keep my mind from speculating
upon them.
During all these fourteen months Daisy and I had rarely spoken of her
recreant ruffian of a husband--or, for that matter, of any other phase of
her sad married life. There had been some little constraint between us for
a time, after Mr. Stewart's childish babbling about us as still youth and
maiden. He never happened to repeat it, and the embarrassment gradually
wore away. But we had both been warned by it--if indeed I ought to speak
of her as possibly needing such a warning--and by tacit consent the whole
subject of her situation was avoided. I did not even tell her that I owed
the worst and most lasting of my wounds to Philip. It would only have
added to her grief, and impeded the freedom of my arm when the chance for
revenge 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 the
dear sister of my childhood, and that I looked upon her when we met with
no more than the fondness which may properly glow in a brother's eyes. For
the most part I succeeded in believing it, but it is just to add that the
neighborhood did not. More than once my mother had angered me by reporting
that people talked of my frequent visits to the Cedars, and faint echoes
of this gossip had reached my ears from other sources.
"You did not stop to see Mistress Cross open her letter, then?" I asked
Enoch.
"No: why should I? Nothing was said about that. He paid me only to deliver
it 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 accustomed
temper. He had the hiccoughs, I recall, when he spoke with me. Most
generally he does have them. Yet, speak the truth and shame the devil! he
is sober two days to that Colonel Sillinger's one. If their expedition
fails, it won't be for want of rum. They had twenty barrels when they
started from La Chine, and it went to my heart to see men make such beasts
of themselves."
I could not but smile at this. "The last time I saw you before to-day," I
said, "there could not well have been less than a quart of rum inside
of you."
"No doubt! But it is quite another thing to guzzle while your work is
still in hand. That I never would do. And it is that which makes me doubt
these British will win, in the long-run. Rum is good to rest upon--it is
rest itself--when the labor is done; but it is ruin to drink it when your
task is still ahead of you. To tell the truth, I could not bear to see
these fellows drink, drink, drink, all day long, with all their hard
fighting 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 way
of thinking than the other--and you seem to need it powerfully, too.
But"--here he looked critically over my blue and buff, from cockade to
boot-tops--"you don't get any uniform on me, and I don't join any
regiment. 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 escort
without, and knocked at the door. I had to rap a second time before Molly
Wemple appeared to let me in.
"We were all up-stairs," she said, wiping her hot and dusty brow with her
apron, "hard at it! I'll send her down to you. She needs a little
breathing-spell."
The girl was gone before I could ask what extra necessity for labor had
fallen upon the household this sultry summer afternoon.
Daisy came hurriedly to me, a moment later, and took both my hands in
hers. She also bore signs of work and weariness.
"Oh, I am _so_ glad you are come!" she said, eagerly. "Twice I have sent
Tulp for you across to your mother's. It seemed as if you never
would 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 is
an old friend of ours--told me that much, nothing more."
Daisy turned at this and took a chair, motioning me to another. The
pleased excitement at my arrival--apparently so much desired--was
succeeded all at once by visible embarrassment.
"Now that you are here, I scarcely know why I wanted you, or--or how to
tell you what it is," she said, speaking slowly. "I was full of the idea
that nothing could be done without your advice and help--and yet, now you
have come, it seems that there is nothing left for you to say or do." She
paused for a moment, then added: "You know we are going back to
Cairncross."
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 the
truth, 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 the
glisten of tears in her eyes. She had borne so brave and calm a front
through all her trouble, that this suggestion of a sob wrung my heart with
the 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 to
me. She would have recalled it an instant later.
"No--give it me back," she cried. "I forgot! There are things in it you
should 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 no
difference--between _us_. You might as well know all!"
The "all" could not well have been more hateful. I smoothed out the folded
sheet over my knee, and read these words, written in a loose, bold
character, with no date or designation of place, and with the signature
scrawled grandly like the sign-manual of a duke, at least:
"Madam:--It is my purpose to return to Cairncross forthwith, though you
are not to publish it.
"If I fail to find you there residing, as is your duty, upon my arrival, I
shall be able to construe the reasons for your absence, and shall act
accordingly.
"I am fully informed of your behavior in quitting my house the instant my
back was turned, and in consorting publicly with my enemies, and with
ruffian foes to law and order generally.
"All these rebels and knaves will shortly be shot or hanged, including
without fail your Dutch gallant, who, I am told, now calls himself a
major. 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 to
listen to such excuses as you can offer in his regard, albeit I make
no promise.
"I despatch by this same express my commands to Rab, which will serve as
your further instructions.
"Philip."
One clearly had a right to time for reflection, after having read such a
letter as this. I turned the sheet over and over in my hands, re-reading
lines here and there under pretence of study, and preserving silence,
until finally she asked me what I thought of it all. Then I had perforce
to speak my mind.
"I think, if you wish to know," I said, deliberately, "that this husband
of 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 has
convinced me that the simplest and most direct of her sex must be, in the
inner 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 this
narrative I have been at pains to disavow all knowledge of why the women
folk of my tale did this or that, only recording the fact that they did do
it; and thus to the end of time, I take it, the world's stories must
be written.
This is what Daisy actually said:
"But do you not see running through every line of the letter, and but
indifferently concealed, the confession that he is sorry for what he has
done, 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 his
home?" she asked. "And you see he is grieved at my having been friendly
with those who are not his friends; that he would not be if he cared
nothing for me. Note, too, how at the close, even when he has shown that
by the reports that have reached him he is justified in suspecting me, he
as much as says that he will forgive me."
"Yes--perhaps--when once he has had his sweet fill of seeing me kicking at
the end of a rope! Truly I marvel, Daisy, how you can be so blind, after
all 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 first
makes 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 poverty
of your parents in your face as he goes! He stops away two years--having
you watched meanwhile, it seems--yet never vouchsafing you so much as a
word of message! Then at last, when these coward Tories have bought help
enough in Germany and in the Indian camps to embolden them to come down
and look their neighbors in the face, he is pleased to write you this
letter, abounding in coarse insults in every sentence. He tells you of his
coming as he might notify a tavern wench. He hectors and orders you as if
you were his slave. He pleasantly promises the ignominious death of your
chief friends. And all this you take kindly--sifting his brutal words in
search for even the tiniest grain of manliness. My faith, I am astonished
at you! I credited you with more spirit."
She was not angered at this outburst, which had in it more harsh phrases
than she had heard in all her life from me before, but, after a little
pause, 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 of
the 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 place
of 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 the
gulf-side. He knew no reason, he avowed, why you should have sought a
quarrel with him that day, and forced it upon him, there in the gulf; and
as 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 Ethiopia
over 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 have
uttered--what I wanted least to say. But it had been said, and I was
covered with confusion. The necessity of saying something to bridge over
this chasm of insensate indiscretion tugged at my senses, and
finally--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 ever
met, we fought. You cannot remember it, but we did. He knocked me into the
ashes. 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," I
went on, recklessly, "but we met that morning in the snow, as Montgomery
fell. 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 was
his doing."
I have said that I could never meet Daisy in these days without feeling
that, mere chronology to the opposite notwithstanding, she was much the
older and more competent person of the two. This sense of juvenility
overwhelmed 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, composed
superiority as if she had not up to that moment been talking the veriest
nonsense, "I understand just what you mean. Do not think, if I seem
sometimes thoughtless or indifferent, that I am not aware of your
feelings, or that I fail to appreciate the fondness you have always given
me. I know what you would have said----"
"It was exactly what I most of all would _not_ have said," I broke in
with, in passing.
"Even so. But do you think, silly boy, that the thought was new to me? Of
course we shall never speak of it again, but I am not altogether sorry it
was referred to. It gives me the chance to say to you"--her voice softened
and wavered here, as she looked around the dear old room, reminiscent in
every 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 the
two best men I shall ever know loved me so tenderly, so truly, as daughter
and sister."
There were tears in her eyes at the end, but she was calm and
self-sustained enough.
She was very firmly of opinion that it was her duty to go to Cairncross
at once, and nothing I could say sufficed to dissuade her. So it turned
out that the afternoon and evening of this important day were devoted to
convoying across to Cairncross the whole Cedars establishment, I myself
accompanying Daisy and Mr. Stewart in the carriage around by the Johnstown
road. Rab was civil almost to the point of servility, but, to make
assurance doubly sure, I sent up a guard of soldiers to the house that
very night, brought Master Rab down to be safely locked up by the sheriff
at Johnstown, and left her Enoch instead.