"Say it," she murmured. "It is happiness to hear you."
"Then hear me," I said, slowly. "Loyalty, devotion, tenderness, all are
your due; not alone for the fair body that holds your soul imprisoned,
but for the pure tenant that dwells in it so sweetly behind the blue
windows of your eyes! Dorothy! Dorothy! Have I said too much? Yet I beg
that you remember it, lest you forget me when I have gone from you....
And say to Sir George that I said it.... Tell him after you are wedded,
and say that all men envy him, yet wish him well. For the day he weds he
weds the noblest woman in all the confines of this earth!"
Dazed, she stared at me through the fading light; and I saw her eyes all
wet in the shadow of her tangled hair and the pulse beating in
her throat.
"You are so good--so pitiful," she said; "and I cannot even find the
words to tell you of those deep thoughts you stir in me--to tell you how
sweetly you use me--"
"Tell me no more," I stammered, all a-quiver at her voice. She shrank
back as at a blow, and I, head swimming, frighted, penitent, caught her
small hand in mine and drew her nearer; nor could I speak for the loud
beating of my heart.
"What is it?" she murmured. "Have I pained you that you tremble so? Look
at me, cousin. I can scarce see you in the dusk. Have I hurt you? I love
you dearly."
Her horse moved nearer, our knees touched. In the forest darkness I
found I held her waist imprisoned, and her arms were heavy on my
shoulders. Then her lips yielded and her arms tightened around my neck,
and that swift embrace in the swimming darkness kindled in me a flame
that has never died--that shall live when this poor body crumbles into
dust, lighting my soul through its last dark pilgrimage.
As for her, she sat up in her saddle with a strange little laugh, still
holding to my hand. "Oh, you are divine in all you lead me to," she
whispered. "Never, never have I known delight in a kiss; and I have been
kissed, too, willing and against my will. But you leave me breathing my
heart out and all a-tremble with a tenderness for you--no, not again,
cousin, not yet."
Then slowly the full wretchedness of guilt burned me, bone and soul, and
what I had done seemed a black evil to a maid betrothed, and to the man
whose wine had quenched my thirst an hour since.
Something of my thoughts she may have read in my bent head and face
averted, for she leaned forward in her saddle, and drawing me by the
arm, turned me partly towards her.
"What troubles you?" she said, anxiously.
"My treason to Sir George."
"What treason?" she said, amazed.
"That I--caressed you."
She laughed outright.
"Am I not free-until I wed? Do you imagine I should have signed my
liberty away to please Sir George? Why, cousin, if I may not caress whom
I choose and find a pleasure in the way you use me, I am no better than
the winter log he buys to toast his shins at!"
Then she grew angry in her impatience, slapping her bridle down to range
her horse up closer to mine.
"Am I not to wed him?" she said. "Is not that enough? And I told him so,
flatly, I warrant you, when Captain Campbell kissed me on the
porch--which maddened me, for he was not to my fancy--but Sir George
saw him and there was like to be a silly scene until I made it plain
that I would endure no bonds before I wore a wedding-ring!" She laughed
deliciously. "I think he understands now that I am not yoked until I
bend my neck. And until I bend it I am free. So if I please you, kiss
me, ... but leave me a little breath to draw, cousin, ... and a saddle
to cling to.... Now loose me--for the forest ends!"
[Illustration: "NOW LOOSE ME--FOR THE FOREST ENDS!".]
A faint red light grew in the woodland gloom; a rushing noise like
swiftly flowing water filled my ears--or was it the blood that surged
singing through my heart?
"Broadalbin Bush," she murmured, clearing her eyes of the clouded hair
and feeling for her stirrups with small, moccasined toes. "Hark! Now we
hear the Kennyetto roaring below the hill. See, cousin, it is sunset,
the west blazes, all heaven is afire! Ah! what sorcery has turned the
world to paradise--riding this day with you?"
She turned in her saddle with an exquisite gesture, pressed her
outstretched hand against my lips, then, gathering bridle, launched her
horse straight through the underbrush, out into a pasture where, across
a naked hill, a few log-houses reddened in the sunset.
There hung in the air a smell of sweetbrier as we drew bridle before a
cabin under the hill. I leaned over and plucked a handful of the leaves,
bruising them in my palm to savor the spicy perfume.
A man came to the door of the cabin and stared at us; a tap-room
sluggard, a-sunning on the west fence-rail, chewed his cud solemnly and
watched us with watery eyes.
"Andrew Bowman, have you seen aught to fright folk on the mountain?"
asked Dorothy, gravely.
The man in the doorway shook his head. From the cabins near by a few
men and women trooped out into the road and hastened towards us. One of
the houses bore a bush, and I saw two men peering at us through the open
window, pewters in hand.
"Good people," said Dorothy, quietly, "the patroon sends you word of a
strange smoke seen this day in the hills."
"There's smoke there now," I said, pointing into the sunset.
At that moment Peter Van Horn galloped up, halted, and turned his head,
following the direction of my outstretched arm. Others came, blinking
into the ruddy evening glow, craning their necks to see, and from the
wretched tavern a lank lout stumbled forth, rifle shouldered, pewter
a-slop, to learn the news that had brought us hither at that hour.
"It is mist," said a woman; but her voice trembled as she said it.
"It is smoke," growled Van Horn. "Read it, you who can."
Whereat the fellow in the tavern window fell a-laughing and called down
to his companion: "Francy McCraw! Francy McCraw! The Brandt-Meester says
a Mohawk fire burns in the north!"
"I hear him," cried McCraw, draining his pewter.
Dorothy turned sharply. "Oh, is that you, McCraw? What brings you to the
Bush?"
The lank fellow turned his wild, blue eyes on her, then gazed at the
smoke. Some of the men scowled at him.
"Is that smoke?" I asked, sharply. "Answer me, McCraw!"
"A canna' deny it," he said, with a mad chuckle.
"Is it Indian smoke?" demanded Van Horn.
"Aweel," he replied, craning his skinny neck and cocking his head
impudently--"aweel, a'll admit that, too. It's Indian smoke; a canna
deny it, no."
"Is it a Mohawk signal?" I asked, bluntly.
At which he burst out into a crowing laugh.
"What does he say?" called out the man from the tavern. "What does he
say, Francy McCraw?"
"He says it maun be Mohawk smoke, Danny Redstock."
"And what if it is?" blustered Redstock, shouldering his way to McCraw,
rifle in hand. "Keep your black looks for your neighbors, Andrew Bowman.
What have we to do with your Mohawk fires?"
"Herman Salisbury!" cried Bowman to a neighbor, "do you hear what this
Tory renegade says?"
"Quiet! Quiet, there," said Redstock, swaggering out into the road.
"Francy McCraw, our good neighbors are woful perplexed by that thread o'
birch smoke yonder."
"Then tell the feckless fools tae watch it!" screamed McCraw, seizing
his rifle and menacing the little throng of men and women who had closed
swiftly in on him. "Hands off me, Johnny Putnam--back, for your life,
Charley Cady! Ay, stare at the smoke till ye're eyes drop frae th'
sockets! But no; there's some foulk 'ill tak' nae warnin'!"
He backed off down the road, followed by Redstock, rifles cocked.
"An' ye'll bear me out," he shouted, "that there's them wha' hear these
words now shall meet their weirds ere a hunter's moon is wasted!"
He laughed his insane laugh and, throwing his rifle over his shoulder,
halted, facing us.
"Hae ye no heard o' Catrine Montour?" he jeered. "She'll come in the
night, Andrew Bowman! Losh, mon, but she's a grewsome carlin', wi' the
witch-locks hangin' to her neck an' her twa een blazin'!"
"You drive us out to-night!" shouted Redstock. "We'll remember it when
Brant is in the hills!"
"The wolf-yelp! Clan o' the wolf!" screamed McCraw. "Woe! Woe to
Broadalbane! 'Tis the pibroch o' Glencoe shall wake ye to the woods
afire! Be warned! Be warned, for ye stand knee-deep in ye're shrouds!"
In the ruddy dusk their dark forms turned to shadows and were gone.
Van Horn stirred in his saddle, then shook his shoulders as though
freeing them from a weight.
"Now you have it, you Broadalbin men," he said, grimly. "Go to the forts
while there's time."
In the darkness around us children began to whimper; a woman broke down,
sobbing.
"Silence!" cried Bowman, sternly. And to Dorothy, who sat quietly on her
horse beside him, "Say to the patroon that we know our enemies. And you,
Peter Van Horn, on whichever side you stand, we men of the Bush thank
you and this young lady for your coming."
And that was all. In silence we wheeled our horses northward, Van Horn
riding ahead, and passed out of that dim hamlet which lay already in the
shadows of an unknown terror.
Behind us, as we looked back, one or two candles flickered in cabin
windows, pitiful, dim lights in the vast, dark ocean of the forest.
Above us the stars grew clearer. A vesper-sparrow sang its pensive song.
Tranquil, sweet, the serene notes floated into silver echoes
never-ending, till it seemed as if the starlight all around us quivered
into song.
I touched Dorothy, riding beside me, white as a spirit in the pale
radiance, and she turned her sweet, fearless face to mine.
"There is a sound," I whispered, "very far away."
She laid her hand in mine and drew bridle, listening. Van Horn, too, had
halted.
Far in the forest the sound stirred the silence; soft, stealthy, nearer,
nearer, till it grew into a patter. Suddenly Van Horn's horse reared.
"It's there! it's there!" he cried, hoarsely, as our horses swung round
in terror.
"Look!" muttered Dorothy.
Then a thing occurred that stopped my heart's blood. For straight
through the forest came running a dark shape, a squattering thing that
passed us ere we could draw breath to shriek; animal, human, or spirit,
I knew not, but it ran on, thuddy-thud, thuddy-thud! and we struggling
with our frantic horses to master them ere they dashed us lifeless among
the trees.
"Jesu!" gasped Van Horn, dragging his powerful horse back into the road.
"Can you make aught o' yonder fearsome thing, like a wart-toad
scrabbling on two legs?"
Dorothy, teeth set, drove her heels into her gray's ribs and forced him
to where my mare stood all a-quiver.
"It's a thing from hell," panted Van Horn, fighting knee and wrist with
his roan. "My nag shies at neither bear nor wolf! Look at him now!"
"Nor mine at anything save a savage," said I, fearfully peering behind
me while my mare trembled under me.
"I think we have seen a savage, that is all," fell Dorothy's calm voice.
"I think we have seen Catrine Montour."
At the name, Van Horn swore steadily.
"If that be the witch Montour, she runs like a clansman with the fiery
cross," I said, shuddering.
"And that is like to be her business," muttered Van Horn. "The painted
forest-men are in the hills, and if Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas do
not know it this night, it will be no fault of Catrine Montour."
"Ride on, Peter," said Dorothy, and checked her horse till my mare came
abreast.
"Are you afraid?" I whispered.
"Afraid? No!" she said, astonished. "What should arouse fear in me?"
"Your common-sense!" I said, impatiently, irritated to rudeness by the
shocking and unearthly spectacle which had nigh unnerved me. But she
answered very sweetly:
"If I fear nothing, it is because there is nothing that I know of in the
world to fright me. I remember," she added, gravely, "'A thousand shall
fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand. And it shall not come
nigh me.' How can I fear, believing that?"
She leaned from her saddle and I saw her eyes searching my face in the
darkness.
"Silly," she said, tenderly, "I have no fear save that you should prove
unkind."
"Then give yourself to me, Dorothy," I said, holding her imprisoned.
"How can I? You have me."
"I mean forever."
"But I have."
"I mean in wedlock!" I whispered, fiercely.
"How can I, silly--I am promised!"
"Can I not stir you to love me?" I said.
"To love you?... Better than I do?... You may try."
"Then wed me!"
"If I were wed to you would I love you better than I do?" she asked.
"Dorothy, Dorothy," I begged, holding her fast, "wed me; I love you."
She swayed back into her saddle, breaking my clasp.
"You know I cannot," she said.... Then, almost tenderly: "Do you truly
desire it? It is so dear to hear you say it--and I have heard the words
often enough, too, but never as you say them.... Had you asked me in
December, ere I was in honor bound.... But I am promised; ... only a
word, but it holds me like a chain.... Dear lad, forget it.... Use me
kindly.... Teach me to love, ... an unresisting pupil, ... for all life
is too short for me to learn in, ... alas!... God guard us both from
love's unhappiness and grant us only its sweetness--which you have
taught me; to which I am--I am awaking, ... after all these years, ...
after all these years without you.
* * * * *
Perhaps it were kinder to let me sleep.... I am but half awake to love.
* * * * *
Is it best to wake me, after all? Is it too late?... Draw bridle in the
starlight. Look at me.... It is too late, for I shall never
sleep again."
X