THE JAIL AT ALBANY
An Indian girl—no uncommon thing in the streets of Albany in the days of
the Revolution—stood patiently waiting before the entrance to the jail
at Albany. She had remained in the same spot at least six hours, without
moving from the stone abutment against which she leaned, or turning her
eyes from the door, with its iron knobs and enormous lock, which was
sunk deep into the gable-end of that old building. The hot noonday sun
had beat upon her head; she drew the crimson shawl a little more over
her face, but gave no signs of moving. The quaint gables threw their
lacework shadows down where the sun had been; but she took no heed. It
was only when some step approached near the jail, or a sound came from
within, that she gave signs of the quick life burning in her bosom.
Three or four times during that day had Tahmeroo beat her hands against
that cruel door, hoping madly that some one might come and let her in.
But prison portals do not yield readily to human impatience, either from
within or without, and the poor girl had nothing left but that long
watch, where she stood motionless, though on the alert, full of fiery
impatience, but of stubborn resolution too.
As she stood upon this steady watch, a horseman rode up the street,
followed by a servant. Instead of galloping on, as so many had done
during the day, he drew up before the jail, flung his bridle to the
attendant, and going up to the door which Tahmeroo was eyeing so
wistfully struck it a blow with the loaded handle of his riding-whip.
Tahmeroo sprang forward when she heard the bolts begin to move, but she
was an instant too late. A dark passage within engulfed the visitor, and
the door swung back to its lock again with a loud jar, which made the
poor girl almost cry out, so great was the shock of her disappointment.
The servant saw the anguish in her face, and being a good-natured
fellow, with nothing else to employ him at the moment, moved towards the
jail, and kindly inquired what she wanted.
“I only want that door to open and let me in,” she said, casting a
pitiful look at the entrance, from which she had been so cruelly
excluded.
“And who is it you want to see, my purty red bird? Now, I tell you what,
it’s easier getting into that door than getting out again, as many a
poor feller can tell you. Who is it you are after?”
“I want to see my husband.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes, Captain Walter Butler.”
“Hallo! and you are his wife? Why, the general has just gone in to see
with his own eyes if the Tory spy is as sick as he pretends.”
“Sick—is he sick, did you say?” cried Tahmeroo, turning of an ashen
paleness.
“Don’t turn so pale—don’t fret about it—I’ve an idea its all sham; but
the general will soon find out—it isn’t easy cheating him.”
“But he is sick—I must see him this moment—do you hear? this moment—tell
me where I can carry this letter; they told me the gentleman was not
here, but I will go where he is—I’ll follow on, and on, forever to find
the man that has power to pass me through that door!”
“Let me look at the letter.”
Tahmeroo gave it to him, trembling with impatience to be off.
“Why this is to General Schuyler himself! All right—just wait here and
give it to him as he comes out—don’t be afraid; for all his grand looks,
he’s tenderhearted as a baby. Come, come; don’t get so down in the
mouth; it’ll all turn out right somehow—things always do.”
“And was that the man who holds my husband in prison?” said Tahmeroo,
flushing with indignation. “By what right—how dares he?”
“Hush—hush!—that talk’ll never do; soft words are better than bullets
here; just let them bright tears creep into your eyes again, if you can
just as easy as not; they’ll do more for you than a hull artillery of
curses.”
Tahmeroo scarcely heard his advice, but stood with the letter in her
hand, keenly watching the door. She placed herself directly between the
restive war-horse and the entrance to the jail. At last there was a
clang of bolts, a sudden swing of the ponderous door, and Tahmeroo saw
in the darkness beyond two men who paused together in that gloomy arch
for a moment’s conversation.
One of these men the Indian girl recognized at once, by the glitter of
his uniform and the singular dignity of his countenance, which in
breadth of forehead and the grave composure, which marks a
well-regulated character, was not unlike that of General Washington
himself.
After a moment Schuyler stepped out of the darkness. He was then
forty-four years of age; a period when the impulses of youth are
mellowed, but not hardened, in the bosoms of truly great men.
“Now—now!” whispered the attendant.
Tahmeroo held her breath, and went slowly forward, her bright, steady
glance fastened on the general’s face, till their very intensity drew
his glance that way.
“What is this?” he said, stopping short with the missionary’s letter in
his hand, but perusing that young face with a penetrating glance before
he opened it. “A letter from——, ha! I understand it now—and have you
come all this distance to see your husband? so young, too!”
Tahmeroo could only point to the door with her trembling finger.
“My husband—he is there—oh, make them open the door. Tahmeroo has no
breath to speak with till they let her in yonder.”
Schuyler smiled, turned upon his heel, and knocked again at the prison
door. It was promptly opened.
“Conduct this young woman to Captain Butler’s room; she is his wife,” he
said, addressing the jailer.
“See that no one treats her rudely—but this one interview must be
enough; to-morrow the young man will be removed to the custody of a
private family, where his health can be cared for; he frets like a caged
panther here.”
Turning to Tahmeroo, before he mounted his horse, the general said in a
kindly, paternal way: “Now make the best of your time, my poor girl; it
is well you caught me here, for I should have been off to the camp again
in less than an hour.”
Tahmeroo could not speak; she saw the door open, and casting back one
brilliant glance of gratitude darted through.
Schuyler smiled quietly, muttered, “Poor thing, poor thing!” once or
twice, and mounting his horse, rode away.
“My husband—Walter!”
Butler sprang to his feet, with an exclamation of delight. He was
prostrate on a low camp-bed when she entered, as General Schuyler had
left him, apparently exhausted by illness.
“Tahmeroo, my hawk—my pretty rattlesnake.”
“Oh, you are sick; you are dying!” cried the heart-stricken wife, losing
all strength and dropping on her knees by the bed he had just left.
“Hush, hush! child—don’t make all this outcry. It isn’t sickness at all;
see, I am strong enough to lift you.” And taking the young Indian in his
arms, he bore her across the small room and returning again, sat down on
the bed, still holding her in his embrace.
She did not speak, she did not weep; to breathe then and there was
happiness enough for her.
“Ah, but you cheat Tahmeroo. Your face is white as snow; you, you——”
“I tell you I am well, never better in my life,” he whispered,
hurriedly; “but my only chance of escape lay in seeming ill. I have
petitioned again and again to see General Schuyler, but until to-day he
never came. I have made my face white and my voice weak for him. It has
done its work, Tahmeroo; to-morrow I shall be taken from this gloomy
place, and confined in a private family, from which there is some chance
of escape. Now, are you satisfied that I am not dying?”
Tahmeroo laughed, and clasped her hands hard to keep from clapping them,
in her joy. Her eyes shone like diamonds. The whole thing fired her
Indian blood, which delighted in craft almost as much as in courage.
“And I shall go with you—I shall see you every day. Oh, I remember
now—that proud man said that I must only come this once—only once.”
“Don’t cry; don’t begin to tremble after this fashion. An Indian wife
should be brave,” said Butler, terrified by her agitation.
She lifted her head, and shook back the hair from her temples with a
gesture of queenly pride.
“Tahmeroo is brave. See, if you can find tears in her eyes.”
“That’s right; now listen. Since you have come in I have thought of
something. If you only had an old dress with you, such as white people
wear; but these things are too fanciful; they will never do.”
[Illustration: As the door opened Tahmeroo darted forward exclaiming,
“My husband—Walter.”]
“How! you want a poor dress, stained by water and faded by the sun; is
that it?”
“Exactly; but this toggery can never be brought into the right
condition.”
“Look; will this do?”
Tahmeroo untied a little bundle which she had carried under her shawl,
and displayed the dress Mary Derwent had given her, worn and faded by a
long journey on horseback; and which, notwithstanding the missionary’s
advice to the contrary, she had exchanged for her own more brilliant
costume, before visiting her husband.
“Do! it is just the thing. Put it up—put it up, before the jailer comes
in. Now listen—thank Heaven, you can read. In this paper you will find
the name of a family with which they intend to confine me. The people
excused themselves from taking me to-day from want of help. Servants are
not easily got in Albany these times—do you comprehend?”
“Yes,” answered Tahmeroo, taking up his thoughts quick as lightning. “I
am to put on this dress, comb back my hair, look like a white girl used
to work, and be a servant to these people. Then, then—some night, after
all are asleep, I must watch the sentinel, give him firewater, or take
the flint from his gun, and then away for the forest.”
“My brave, bright girl!”
Tahmeroo went on:
“My warriors are in the neighborhood, waiting with their horses—I have
gold in my dress—I am strong, proud—it seems as if all our warriors were
fighting for you, and I leading them on, this moment!”
She fell into his arms, trembling for very joy.
He held her to his heart—it was not all base when that noble creature
lay against it. He kissed her warmly. There was a world of selfishness
in that kiss, but Tahmeroo guessed nothing of that.
“Now go, my lark, go—search out the house they intend for my prison.
To-morrow I shall find you there.”
Tahmeroo arose; she was in haste to be at work; the idea of saving her
husband made her forget that he was eager to send her away. No one but
the jailer saw her when she departed; but he wondered at the splendor of
her beauty, which seemed to have heightened tenfold since she entered
the building.
A middle-aged gentleman and lady sat in one of those quaint parlors,
which occupied the gable-front of an old Dutch house, such as may be
seen in Albany, as relics of a past age, even to this day. The room was
neat, almost to chilliness; blue tiles ornamented the chimney-piece;
blue tiles ran in a border round the oaken floor; the gentleman’s coat
was of blue; his stockings were seamed with blue and his dame’s linen
dress was striped with the same color. Thus they sat in this
coldly-tinted apartment, after dinner, conversing together about the
strange guest they had consented to receive into their house, at the
urgent request of General Schuyler, who believed that close confinement
had really endangered Butler’s life, and wished to be humane; while he
was not willing to set a man so dangerous at perfect liberty.
While the good Dutchman and his wife were talking over the difficulties
of this arrangement, which became more important from the fact that
their only maid-servant had left her place, on hearing of the new claim
likely to be made on her labors, a staid old man, who had been detailed
to guard the prisoner when he came, entered the room and announced a
country girl from across the river who wished to hire herself out.
This was a piece of good fortune which neither of the occupants of the
parlor had expected—for servants were not to be had for the asking, when
so much wild land lay ready for tillage, and labor was mostly applied in
building up homes for the working classes.
While they were quietly congratulating themselves, the applicant came
into the room. She was a plain, and rather shabbily dressed
girl—singularly handsome, notwithstanding the poverty of her raiment—who
entered the parlor with the free grace of a fawn, and spoke in accents
which would have appeared far too pure for her humble appearance with
any one to whom the English language was a native tongue.
The Dutchman, fortunately, understood very little English, and the
country girl was profoundly ignorant of Dutch; so as the conversation
was necessarily carried on between the soldier and the girl, the matter
of reference was easily settled. In half an hour after her entrance, the
maid was busy at her work in the kitchen.
The next day Butler was brought to his new prison, seeming very feeble,
and scarcely strong enough to walk to the chamber, far up in the peaked
roof, which had been assigned for his safe keeping. The soldier observed
that he looked earnestly at the new maid-servant in passing upstairs,
and that a smile quivered on his lip when he saw her. But this was not
strange; older eyes than his might have kindled at the sight of that
beautiful face; it almost made a fool of the tenderhearted soldier
himself.
After the prisoner had been installed in his chamber, the new servant
would linger there a little, after serving his meals, and once the
sentinel fancied that he saw the two whispering together as she sat down
the dishes; but when the rustic beauty came out she was sure to drive
all suspicion from his head with an arch smile that intoxicated him more
deliciously than the best corn whisky he ever drank.
On the third day what little heart the poor fellow had left after his
first interview was completely gone; and when she came up at nine
o’clock, and asked him, with a charming smile, to step down into the
kitchen and taste a mug of hot punch with lemon in it, which she had
just been brewing, it required all his patriotism to refuse; and he
apologized for doing his duty, with humility, as if it had been a sin.
The new servant pouted at first, but took better thought and suffered
herself to be appeased; so, as a pledge of perfect reconciliation, after
the little quarrel, she proposed to run to the kitchen and bring the jug
of punch up to his post, where he might drink and smoke at his leisure,
while she filled the glass.
This was a charming arrangement, and the sentinel enjoyed it amazingly;
he drank of the punch, and tried the Dutchman’s best pipe, which the
maid brought surreptitiously from the parlor, after the master had
retired to bed. Thus he drank and smoked till everything became foggy
around him, and he seemed to be encompassed by half a dozen pretty
girls, all serving out punch for him, to say nothing of any number of
grotesque pipes that danced under his nose, and a whole stock of muskets
that crowded round his own trusty shooting-iron, which rested against
the door.
After this singular phenomenon, the trusty sentinel kept his post with
great pertinacity—but he was sound asleep, and breathing like an engine
under a double head of steam.
Then the chamber-door was softly unlocked, and the pretty maid-servant
gave a signal to some one within. Directly Butler appeared, ready
dressed, and, treading softly over the sentinel, followed his Indian
wife down stairs, out of the house, and along the narrow streets of
Albany.
A quick walk to the outskirts of the town, a low whistle, and out from a
piece of woods came half a dozen mounted savages, leading two horses,
forest bred, and swift as deer.
Tahmeroo leaped upon one, Butler mounted the other, and away for the
Valley of Wyoming, where Butler knew that his father would soon meet him
with an avenging army.