"They are ours--and the others of our kind. I hear the plain folk of the
country speak ill of us for the free life we lead at home--I mean the
Palatines and the canting Dutch, not our tenants, though what even they
may think of the manor house and of us I can only suspect, for they are
all rebels at heart, Sir John says, and wear blue noses at the first run
o' king's cider."
She gave a reckless laugh and crossed her knees, looking at me under
half-veiled lids, smooth and pure as a child's.
"Food for the devil, they dub us in the Palatine church," she added,
yawning, till I could see all her small, white teeth set in rose.
A nice nest of kinsmen had I uncovered in this hard, gray Northern
forest! The Lord knows, we of the South do little penance for the
pleasures a free life brings us under the Southern stars, yet such
license as this is not to our taste, and I think a man a fool to teach
his children to review with hardened eyes home scenes suited to
a tavern.
Yet I was a guest, having accepted shelter and eaten salt; and I might
not say my mind, even claiming kinsman's privilege to rebuke what seemed
to me to touch the family honor.
Staring through the unwashed window-pane, moodily brooding on what I had
learned, I followed impatiently the flight of those small, gray swallows
of the North, colorless as shadows, whirling in spirals above the cold
chimneys, to tumble in like flakes of gray soot only to drift out again,
wind--blown, aimless, irrational, senseless things. And again that
hatred seized me for all this pale Northern world, where the very birds
gyrated like moon-smitten sprites, and the white spectre of virtue sat
amid orgies where bloodless fools caroused.
"Are you homesick, cousin?" she asked.
"Ay--if you must know the truth!" I broke out, not meaning to say my
fill and ease me. "This is not the world; it is a gray inferno, where
shades rave without reason, where there is no color, no repose, nothing
but blankness and unreason, and an air that stings all living life to
spasms of unrest. Your sun is hot, yet has no balm; your winds plague
the skin and bones of a man; the forests are unfriendly; the waters all
hurry as though bewitched! Brooks are cold and tasteless as the fog; the
unsalted, spiceless air clogs the throat and whips the nerves till the
very soul in the body strains, fluttering to be free! How can decent
folk abide here?"
I hesitated, then broke into a harsh laugh, for my cousin sat staring at
me, lips parted, like a fair shape struck into marble by a breath
of magic.
"Pardon," I said. "Here am I, kindly invited to the council of a family
whose interests lie scattered through estates from the West Indies to
the Canadas, and I requite your hospitality by a rudeness I had not
believed was in me."
I asked her pardon again for the petty outburst of an untravelled
youngster whose first bath in this Northern air-ocean had chilled his
senses and his courtesy.
"There is a land," I said, "where lately the gray bastions of St.
Augustine reflected the gold and red of Spanish banners, and the blue
sea mirrors a bluer sky. We Ormonds came there from the Western Indies,
then drifted south, skirting the Matanzas to the sea islands on the
Halifax, where I was born, an Englishman on Spanish soil, and have lived
there, knowing no land but that of Florida, treading no city streets
save those walled lanes of ancient Augustine. All this vast North is new
to me, Dorothy; and, like our swamp-haunting Seminoles, my rustic's
instinct finds hostility in what is new and strange, and I forget my
breeding in this gray maze which half confuses, half alarms me."
"I am not offended," she said, smiling, "only I wonder what you find
distasteful here. Is it the solitude?"
"No, for we also have that."
"Is it us?"
"Not you, Dorothy, nor yet Ruyven, nor the others. Forget what I said.
As the Spaniards have it, 'Only a fool goes travelling,' and I'm not too
notorious for my wisdom, even in Augustine. If it be the custom of the
people here to go mad, I'll not sit in a corner croaking, 'Repent and
be wise!' If the Varicks and the Butlers set the pace, I promise you to
keep the quarry, Mistress Folly, in view--perhaps outfoot you all to
Bedlam!... But, cousin, if you, too, run this uncoupled race with the
pack, I mean to pace you, neck and neck, like a keen whip, ready to turn
and lash the first who interferes with you."
"With me?" she repeated, smiling. "Am I a youngster to be coddled and
protected? You have not seen our hunting. I lead, my friend;
you follow."
She unclasped her arms, which till now had held her bright head cradled,
and sat up, hands on her knees, grave as an Egyptian goddess
guarding tombs.
"I'll wager I can outrun you, outshoot you, outride you, throw you at
wrestle, cast the knife or hatchet truer than can you, catch more fish
than you--and bigger ones at that!"
With an impatient gesture, peculiarly graceful, like the half-salute of
a friendly swordsman ere you draw and stand on guard:
"Read the forest with me. I can outread you, sign for sign, track for
track, trail in and trail out! The forest is to me Te-ka-on-do-duk [the
place with a sign-post]. And when the confederacy speaks with five
tongues, and every tongue split into five forked dialects, I make no
answer in finger-signs, as needs must you, my cousin of the
Se-a-wan-ha-ka [the land of shells]. We speak to the Iroquois with our
lips, we People of the Morning. Our hands are for our rifles! Hiro [I
have spoken]!"
She laughed, challenging me with eye and lip.
"And if you defy me to a bout with bowl or bottle I will not turn
coward, neah-wen-ha [I thank you]! but I will drink with you and let my
father judge whose legs best carry him to bed! Koue! Answer me, my
cousin, Tahoontowhe [the night hawk]."
We were laughing now, yet I knew she had spoken seriously, and to plague
her I said: "You boast like a Seminole chanting the war-song."
"I dare you to cast the hatchet!" she cried, reddening.
"Dare me to a trial less rude," I protested, laughing the louder.
"No, no! Come!" she said, impatient, unbolting the heavy door; and,
willy-nilly, I followed, meeting the pack all sulking on the stairs, who
rose to seize me as I came upon them.
"Let him alone!" cried Dorothy; "he says he can outcast me with the
war-hatchet! Where is my hatchet? Sammy! Ruyven! find hatchets and come
to the painted post."
"Sport!" cried Harry, leaping down-stairs before us. "Cecile, get your
hatchet--get mine, too! Come on, Cousin Ormond, I'll guide you; it's the
painted post by the spring--and hark, Cousin George, if you beat her
I'll give you my silvered powder-horn!"
Cecile and Sammy hastened up, bearing in their arms the slim
war-hatchets, cased in holsters of bright-beaded hide, and we took our
weapons and started, piloted by Harry through the door, and across the
shady, unkempt lawn to the stockade gate.
Dorothy and I walked side by side, like two champions in amiable confab
before a friendly battle, intimately aloof from the gaping crowd which
follows on the flanks of all true greatness.
Out across the deep-green meadow we marched, the others trailing on
either side with eager advice to me, or chattering of contests past,
when Walter Butler and Brant--he who is now war-chief of the loyal
Mohawks--cast hatchets for a silver girdle, which Brant wears still; and
the patroon, and Sir John, and all the great folk from Guy Park were
here a-betting on the Mohawk, which, they say, so angered Walter Butler
that he lost the contest. And that day dated the silent enmity between
Brant and Butler, which never healed.
This I gathered amid all their chit-chat while we stood under the
willows near the spring, watching Ruyven pace the distance from the post
back across the greensward towards us.
Then, making his heel-mark in the grass, he took a green willow wand and
set it, all feathered, in the turf.
"Is it fair for Dorothy to cast her own hatchet?" asked Harry.
"Give me Ruyven's," she said, half vexed. Aught that touched her sense
of fairness sent a quick flame of anger to her cheeks which I admired.
"Keep your own hatchet, cousin," I said; "you may have need of it."
"Give me Ruyven's hatchet," she repeated, with a stamp of her foot which
Ruyven hastened to respect. Then she turned to me, pink with defiance:
"It is always a stranger's honor," she said; so I advanced, drawing my
light, keen weapon from its beaded sheath, which I had belted round me;
and Ruyven took station by the post, ten paces to the right.
The post was painted scarlet, ringed with white above; below, in
outline, the form of a man--an Indian--with folded arms, also drawn in
white paint. The play was simple; the hatchet must imbed its blade close
to the outlined shape, yet not "wound" or "draw blood."
"Brant at first refused to cast against that figure," said Harry,
laughing. "He consented only because the figure, though Indian, was
painted white."
I scarce heard him as I stood measuring with my eyes the distance. Then,
taking one step forward to the willow wand, I hurled the hatchet, and it
landed quivering in the shoulder of the outlined figure on the post.
"A wound!" cried Cecile; and, mortified, I stepped back, biting my lip,
while Harry notched one point against me on the willow wand and Dorothy,
tightening her girdle, whipped out her bright war-axe and stepped
forward. Nor did she even pause to scan the post; her arm shot up, the
keen axe-blade glittered and flew, sparkling and whirling, biting into
the post, chuck! handle a-quiver. And you could not have laid a June
willow-leaf betwixt the Indian's head and the hatchet's blade.
She turned to me, lips parted in a tormenting smile, and I praised the
cast and took my hatchet from Ruyven to try once more. Yet again I broke
skin on the thigh of the pictured captive; and again the glistening axe
left Dorothy's hand, whirring to a safe score, a grass-stem's width from
the Indian's head.
I understood that I had met my master, yet for the third time strove;
and my axe whistled true, standing point-bedded a finger's breadth from
the cheek.
"Can you mend that, Dorothy?" I asked, politely.
She stood smiling, silent, hatchet poised, then nodded, launching the
axe. Crack! came the handles of the two hatchets, and rattled together.
But the blade of her hatchet divided the space betwixt my blade and the
painted face, nor touched the outline by a fair hair's breadth.
Astonishment was in my face, not chagrin, but she misread me, for the
triumph died out in her eyes, and, "Oh!" she said; "I did not mean to
win--truly I did not," offering her hands in friendly amend.
But at my quick laugh she brightened, still holding my hands, regarding
me with curious eyes, brilliant as amethysts.
"I was afraid I had hurt your pride--before these silly children--" she
began.
"Children!" shouted Ruyven. "I bet you ten shillings he can outcast you
yet!"
"Done!" she flashed, then, all in a breath, smiled adorably and shook
her head. "No, I'll not bet. He could win if he chose. We understand
each other, my cousin Ormond and I," and gave my hands a little friendly
shake with both of hers, then dropped them to still Ruyven's clamor
for a wager.
"You little beast!" she said, fiercely; "is it courteous to pit your
guests like game-cocks for your pleasure?"
"You did it yourself!" retorted Ruyven, indignantly--"and entered the
pit yourself."
"For a jest, silly! There were no bets. Now frown and vapor and wag your
finger--do! What do you lack? I will wrestle you if you wait until I don
my buckskins. No? A foot-race?--and I'll bet you your ten shillings on
myself! Ten to five--to three--to one! No? Then hush your silly head!"
"Because," said Ruyven, sullenly, coming up to me, "she can outrun me
with her long legs, she gives herself the devil's own airs and graces.
There's no living with her, I tell you. I wish I could go to the war."
"You'll have to go when father declares himself," observed Dorothy,
quietly polishing her hatchet on its leather sheath.
"But he won't declare for King or Congress," retorted the boy.
"Wait till they start to plague us," murmured Dorothy. "Some fine July
day cows will be missed, or a barn burned, or a shepherd found scalped.
Then you'll see which way the coin spins!"
"Which way will it spin?" demanded Ruyven, incredulous yet eager.
"Ask that squirrel yonder," she said, briefly.
"Thanks; I've asked enough of chatterers," he snapped out, and came to
the tree where we were sitting in the shadow on the cool, thick carpet
of the grass--such grass as I had never seen in that fair Southland
which I loved.
The younger children gathered shyly about me, their active tongues
suddenly silent, as though, all at once, they had taken a sudden alarm
to find me there.
The reaction of fatigue was settling over me--for my journey had been a
long one that day--and I leaned my back against the tree and yawned,
raising my hand to hide it.
"I wonder," I said, "whether anybody here knows if my boxes and servant
have arrived from Philadelphia."
"Your boxes are in the hallway by your bed-chamber," said Dorothy. "Your
servant went to Johnstown for news of you--let me see--I think it was
Saturday--"
"Friday," said Ruyven, looking up from the willow wand which he was
peeling.
"He never came back," observed Dorothy. "Some believe he ran away to
Albany, some think the Boston people caught him and impressed him to
work on the fort at Stanwix."