LOIS
When I came to the log house by the Spring Waiontha, lantern in hand
and my packet tucked beneath my arm, it was twilight, and the starless
skies threatened rain. Road and field and forest were foggy and silent;
and I thought of the first time I had ever set eyes on Lois, in the
late afternoon stillness which heralded a coming storm.
I had with me, as I say, a camp lantern which enabled me to make my way
through the thicket to the Spring Waiontha. Not finding her there, I
retraced my steps and crossed the charred and dreary clearing to the
house of logs.
No light burned within; doubtless this widow woman was far too poor to
afford a light of any sort. But my lantern still glimmered, and I went
up to the splintered door and rapped.
Lois opened it, her knitting gathered in her hand, and stood aside for
me to enter.
At first, so dusky was the room that I perceived no other occupant
beside ourselves. Then Lois said: "Mrs. Rannock, Mr. Loskiel, of whom I
spoke at supper, is to be made known to you."
Then first I saw a slight and ghostly figure rise, take shape in the
shadows, and move slowly into my lantern's feeble beams----a frail and
pallid woman, who made her reverence as though dazed, and uttered not a
word.
Lois whispered in my ear:
"She scarcely seems to know she is alive, since Cherry Valley. A Tory
slew her little sister with a hatchet; then her husband fell; and then,
before her eyes, a blue-eyed Indian pinned her baby to its cradle with
a bayonet."
I crossed the room to where she stood, offering my hand; and she laid
her thin and work-worn fingers listlessly in mine.
"Madam," I said gently, "there are today two thousand widows such as
you betwixt Oriska and Schenectady. And, to our cause, each one of you
is worth a regiment of men, your sorrows sacred to us all,
strengthening our vows, steeling us to a fierce endeavour. No innocent
death in this long war has been in vain; no mother's agony. Yet, only
God can comfort such as you."
She shook her head slowly.
"No God can comfort me," she said, in a voice so lifeless that it
sounded flat as the words that sleepers utter, dreaming of trouble.
"Shall we be seated outside on the door-sill?" whispered Lois. "The
only seat within is on the settle, where she sits."
"Is this the only room?"
"Yes--save for the mouse-loft, where I sleep on last year's corn-husks.
Shall we sit outside? We can speak very low. She will not heed us."
Pity for all this stark and naked wretchedness left me silent; then, as
the lantern's rays fell on this young girl's rags, I remembered my
packet.
"Yes, we will sit outside. But first, I bring you a little gift----"
She looked up quickly and drew back a step, "Oh, but such a little
gift, Lois--a nothing--a mere jest of mine which we shall enjoy between
us. Take it as I offer it, lightly, and without constraint."
Reluctantly she permitted me to lay the packet in her arms, displeasure
still darkening her brow. Then I set my lantern on the puncheon floor
and stepped outside, closing the hatchet-battered door behind me.
How long I paced the foggy strip of clearing I do not know. The mist
had thickened to rain when I heard the door creak; and, turning in my
tracks, caught the lantern's sparkle on the threshold, and the dull
gleam of her Oneida finery.
I picked up the lantern and held it high above us.
Smiling and bashful she stood there in her clinging skirt and
wampum-broidered vest, her slender, rounded limbs moulded into soft
knee-moccasins of fawn-skin, and the Virgin's Girdle knotted across her
thighs in silver-tasselled seawan.
And, "Lord!" said I, surprised by the lovely revelation. "What a
miracle are you in your forest masquerade!"
"Am I truly fine to please you, Euan?"
I said, disturbed, but striving to speak lightly:
"Little Oneida goddess in your bridal dress, the Seven Dancers are
laughing at me from your eyes; and the Day-Sun and the Night-Sun hang
from your sacred girdle, making it flash like silvery showers of
seawan. Salute, O Watcher at the Gates of Dawn! Onwa oyah! Na-i! A-i!
Lois!" And I drew my light war-hatchet from its sheath and raised it
sparkling, in salute.
She laughed a little, blushed a little, and bent her dainty head to
view her finery once more, examining it gravely to the last red quill
sewed to the beaded toe-point.
Then, still serious, she lifted her grey eyes to me:
"I seem to find no words to thank you, Euan. But my heart
is--very--full----" She hesitated, then stretched forth her hand to me,
smiling; and as I touched it ceremoniously with finger-tip and lip:
"Ai-me!" she exclaimed, withdrawing under shelter. "It is raining,
Euan! Your rifle-shirt is wet already, and you are like to take a
chill! Come under shelter instantly!"
"Fancy a man of Morgan's with a chill!" I said, but nevertheless obeyed
her, set the lantern on the puncheon floor, brushed the fine drops from
thrums and hatchet-sheath, rubbed the bright-edged little axe with
buck-skinned elbow, and wiped my heavy knife from hilt to blade.
As I looked up, busy with my side-arms, I caught her eye. We smiled at
each other; then, as though a common instinct stirred us to caution, we
turned and looked silently toward the settle in the corner, where the
widow sat brooding alone.
"May we speak freely here, Lois?" I whispered.
She cast a cautious glance at the shadowy figure, then, lowering her
voice and leaning nearer:
"I scarcely know whether she truly heeds and hears. She may
not--yet--she may. And I do not care to share my confidences with
anyone--save you. I promised to tell you something about myself.... I
mean to, some day."
"Then you will not tell me now?"
"How can I, Euan?"
We stood silent, thinking. Presently my eyes fell on the rough ladder
leading to the loft above. She followed my gaze, hesitated, shot a keen
and almost hostile glance at me, softened and coloured, then stole
across the room to the ladder's foot.
I lifted the lantern, followed her, and mounted, lighting the way for
her along low-hanging eaves among the rustling husks. She dropped the
trap-door silently, above the ladder, took the lantern from my hand,
set it on the floor, and seated herself beside it on the husks, her
cheeks still brightly flushed.
"Is this then your intimate abode?" I asked, half-smiling.
"Could I desire a snugger one?" she answered gaily. "Here is both
warmth and shelter; and a clean bed of husks; and if I am lonely, there
be friendly little mice to bear me company o' nights. And here my mice
and I lie close and listen to the owls."
"And you were reared in comfort!" I said with sudden bitterness.
She looked up quickly, then, shrugging her shoulders:
"There is still some comfort for those who can remember their brief day
of ease--none for those who never knew it. I have had days of comfort."
"What age are you, Lois?"
"Twenty, I think."
"Scarce that!" I insisted.
"Do I not seem so?" she asked, smiling.
"Eighteen at most--save for the--sadness--in your eyes that now and
then surprises me--if it be sadness that I read there."
"Perhaps it is the wisdom I have learned--a knowledge that means
sadness, Euan. Do my eyes betray it, then, so plainly?"
"Sometimes," I said, A faint sound from below arrested our attention.
Lois whispered:
"It is Mrs. Rannock weeping. She often weeps like that at night. And so
would I, Euan, had I beheld the horrors which this poor thing was born
to look upon--God comfort her! Have you never heard how the
destructives slew her husband, her baby, and her little sister eight
years old? The baby lay in its cradle smiling up at its murderers. Even
the cruel Senecas turned aside, forbearing to harm it. But one of
Walter Butler's painted Tories spies it and bawls out: 'This also will
grow to be a rebel!' And with that he speared the little smiling
creature on his bayonet, tossed it, and caught it--Oh, Euan--Euan!"
Shuddering, she flung her arm across her face as though to shut out the
vision.
"That villainy," said I, "was done by Newberry or Chrysler, if I
remember. And Newberry we caught and hung before we went to
Westchester. I saw him hang with that wretched Lieutenant Hare. God!
how we cheered by regiments marching back to camp!"
Through the intense stillness I could still hear the woman sobbing in
the dark below.
"Lois--little Lois," I whispered, touching her trembling arm with a
hand quite as unsteady.
She dropped her arm from her face, looking up at me with eyes widened
still in horror.
I said: "Do you then wonder that the thought of you, roaming these
woods alone, is become a living dread to me, so that I think of nothing
else?"
She smiled wanly, and sat thinking for a while, her pale face pressed
between her hands. Presently she looked up.
"Are we so truly friends then, Euan? At the Spring Waiontha it almost
seemed as though it could come true."
"You know it has come true."
"Do I?"
"Do you not know it, little Lois?"
"I seem to know it, somehow.... Tell me, Euan, does a true and
deathless friendship with a man--with you--mean that I am to strip my
heart of every secret, hiding nothing from you?"
"Dare you do it, Lois?" I said laughingly, yet thrilled with the
candour of her words.
"I could not let you think me better than I am. That would be stealing
friendship from you. But if you give it when you really know me--that
will be dear and wonderful----" She drew a swift breath and smiled.
Surprised, then touched, I met the winning honesty of her gaze in
silence.
"Unless you truly know me--unless you know to whom you give your
friendship--you can not give it rightly. Can you, Euan? You must learn
all that I am and have been, Is not this necessary?"
"I--I ask you nothing," I stammered. "All that I know of you is
wonderful enough----" Suddenly the danger of the moment opened out
before me, checking my very thoughts.
She laid both hands against her temple, pressing them there till her
cheeks cooled. So she pondered for a while, her gaze remote. Then,
looking fearlessly at me:
"Euan, I am of that sad company of children born without name. I have
lately dared to guess who was my father. Presently I will tell you who
he was." Her grey and troubled eyes gazed into space now, dreamily. "He
died long since. But my mother is living. And I believe she lives near
Catharines-town to-day!"
"What! Why do you think so?" I exclaimed, astounded.
"Is not the Vale Yndaia there, near Catharines-town?"
"Yes. But why----"
"Then listen, Euan. Every year upon a certain day--the twelfth of
May--no matter where I chance to be, always outside my door I find two
little beaded moccasins. I have had them thirteen times in thirteen
years. And every year--save the last two--the moccasins have been made
a little larger, as though to fit my growing years. Now, for the last
two years, they have remained the same in size, fitting me perfectly.
And--I never yet have worn them more than to fit them on and take them
off."
"Why?" I asked vaguely.
"I save them for my journey."
"What journey?"
"The long trail through the Long House--straight through it, Euan, to
the Western Door. That is the trail I dream of."
"Who leaves these strange moccasins at your threshold every year?"
"I do not know."
"From where do you suppose they come?" I asked, amazed.
"From Catharines-town."
"Do you believe your mother sends them?"
"Oh, Euan, I know it now! Until two years ago I did not understand. But
now I know it!"
"Why are you so certain Lois? Is any written message sent with them?"
"Always within one of each pair of moccasins is sewed a strip of silver
birch. Always the message written is the same; and this is what is
always written:
"Swift moccasins for little feet as swift against the day that the long
trail is safe. Then, in the Vale Yndaia, little Lois, seek her who bore
you, saved you, lost you, but who love you always.
"Pray every day for him who died in the Regiment de la Reine.
"Pray too for her who waits for you, in far Yndaia."
"What a strange message!" I exclaimed.
"I must heed it," she said under her breath. "The trail is open, and my
hour is come."
"But, Lois, that trail means death!"
"Your army makes it safe at last. And now the time is come when I must
follow it."
"Is that why you have followed us?"
"Yes, that is why. Until that night in the storm at Poundridge-town I
had never learned where the Vale Yndaia lay. Month after month I
haunted camps, asking for information concerning Yndaia and the
Regiment de la Reine. But of Yndaia I learned nothing, until the
Sagamore informed me that Yndaia lay near Catharines-town. And,
learning you were of the army, and that the army was bound thither, I
followed you."
"Why did you not tell me this at Poundridge? You should have camped
with us," I said.
"Because of my fear of men--except red men. And I had already quite
enough of your Lieutenant Boyd."
I looked at her seriously; and she comprehended the unasked questions
that were troubling me.
"Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how I have learned my dread of
men--how it has been with me since my foster parents found me lying at
their door strapped to a painted cradle-board?"
"You!"
"Aye; that was my shameful beginning, so they told me afterward--long
afterward. For I supposed they were my parents--till two years ago. Now
shall I tell you all, Euan? And risk losing a friendship you might have
given in your ignorance of me?"
Quick, hot, unconsidered words flew to my lips--so sweet and fearless
were her eyes. But I only muttered:
"Tell me all."
"From the beginning, then--to scour my heart out for you! So, first and
earliest my consciousness awoke to the sound of drums. I am sure of
this because when I hear them it seems as though they were the first
sounds that I ever heard.... And once, lately, they were like to be the
last.... And next I can remember playing with a painted mask of wood,
and how the paint tasted, and its odour.... Then, nothing more can I
remember until I was a little child with--him I thought to be my
father. I may not name him. You will understand presently why I do not."
She looked down, pulling idly at the thrums along her beaded leggins.
"I told you I was near your age--twenty. But I do not really know how
old I am, I guess that I am twenty--thereabouts."
"You look sixteen; not more--except the haunting sorrow----"
"I can remember full that length of time.... I must be twenty, Euan.
When I was perhaps seven years old--or thereabout--I went to
school--first in Schenectady to a Mistress Lydon; where were a dozen
children near my age. And pretty Mistress Lydon taught us A--B--C and
manners--and nothing else that I remember now. Then for a long while I
was at home--which meant a hundred different lodgings--for we were ever
moving on from place to place, where his employment led him, from one
house to another, staying at one tavern only while his task remained
unfinished, then to the road again, north, south, west, or east,
wherever his fancy sped before to beckon him.... He was a strange man,
Euan."
"Your foster father?"
"Aye. And my foster mother, too, was a strange woman."
"Were they not kind to you?"
"Y-es, after their own fashion. They both were vastly different to
other folk. I was fed and clothed when anyone remembered to do it, And
when they had been fortunate, they sent me to the nearest school to be
rid of me, I think. I have attended many schools, Euan--in Germantown,
in Philadelphia, in Boston, in New York. I stayed not long in school at
New York because there our affairs went badly. And no one invited us in
that city--as often we were asked to stay as guests while the work
lasted--not very welcome guests, yet tolerated."
"What was your foster father's business?"
"He painted portraits.... I do not know how well he painted. But he
cared for nothing else, except his wife. When he spoke at all it was to
her of Raphael, and of Titian, and particularly of our Benjamin West,
who had his first three colours of the Indians, they say."
"I have heard so, too."
She nodded absently, fingering her leggin-fringe; then, with a sudden,
indrawn breath:
"We were no more than roving gypsies, you see, living from hand to
mouth, and moving on, always moving from town to town, remaining in one
place while there were portraits to paint--or tavern-signs, or
wagons--anything to keep us clothed and fed. Then there came a day in
Albany when matters mended over night, and the Patroon most kindly
commanded portraits of himself and family. It started our brief
prosperity.
"Other and thrifty Dutchmen now began to bargain for their portraits.
We took an old house on Pearl Street, and I was sent to school at Mrs.
Pardee's Academy for young ladies as a day pupil, returning home at
evening. About that time my foster mother became ill. I remember that
she lay on a couch all day, watching her husband paint. He and his art
were all she cared for. Me she seldom seemed to see--scarcely noticed
when she saw me--almost never spake to me, and there were days and
weeks, when I saw nobody in that silent house, and sat at meat
alone--when, indeed, anyone remembered I was a hungry, growing child,
and made provision for me.
"Schoolmates, at first, asked me to their homes. I would not go because
I could not ask them to my home in turn. And so grew up to womanhood
alone, and shy, and silent among my fellows; alone at home among the
shadows of that old Dutch house; ever alone. Always a haunted twilight
seemed to veil the living world from me, save when I walked abroad
along the river, thinking, thinking.
"Yet, in one sense I was not alone, Euan, for I was fanciful; and
roamed accompanied by those bright visions that unawakened souls
conjure for company; companioned by all creatures of the mind, from
saint to devil. Ai-me! For there were moments when I would have
welcomed devils, so that they rid me of my solitude, at hell's own
price!"
She drew a long, light breath, smiled at me; then:
"My foster mother died. And when she died the end also began for him. I
was taken from my school. So dreadfully was he broken that for months
he lay abed never speaking, scarcely eating. And all day long during
those dreary months I sat alone in that hushed house of death.
"Debt came first; then sheriffs; then suddenly came this war upon us.
But nothing aroused him from his lethargy; and all day long he brooded
there in silence, day after day, until our creditors would endure no
longer, and the bailiff menaced him. Confused and frightened, I
implored him to leave the city--jails seeming to me far more terrible
than death--and at last persuaded him to the old life once more.
"So, to avoid a debtor's prison, we took the open road again. But war
was ravishing the land; there was no work for him to do. We starved
slowly southward, day by day, shivered and starved from town to town
across the counter.
"Near to a camp of Continental troops there was a farm house. They took
me there as maid-at-all-work, out of charity, I think. My father
wandered over to the camp, and there, God alone knows why, enlisted--I
shall not tell you in what regiment. But it was Continental Line--a
gaunt, fierce, powder-blackened company, disciplined with iron. And
presently a dreadful thing befell us. For one morning before sunrise,
as I stood scouring the milk-pans by the flare of a tallow-dip, came to
me a yawning sergeant of this same regiment to tell me that, as my
foster father was to be shot at sunrise, therefore, he desired to see
me. And I remember how he yawned and yawned, this lank and bony
sergeant, showing within his mouth his yellow fangs!
"Oh, Euan! When I arrived, my foster father--who I then supposed was my
own father--lay in a tent a condemned deserter, seeming not even to
care, or to comprehend his dreadful plight. All the defence he ever
made, they say was that he had tired of dirty camps and foolish drums,
and wished to paint again. Euan, it was terrible. He did not
understand. He was a visionary--a man of endless silences, dreamy of
eye, gentle and vague of mind--no soldier, nor fitted to understand a
military life at all.
"I remember the smoky lantern burning red within the tent, and the vast
shadows it cast; and how he stood there, looking tranquilly at nothing
while I, frightened, sobbed on his breast. 'Lois,' he said, smiling,
'there is a bright company aloft, and watching me. Raphael and Titian
are of them. And West will come some day.' And, 'God!' he murmured,
wonderingly, 'What fellowship will be there! What knowledge to be
acquired a half hour hence--and leave this petty sphere to its own
vexed and petty wrangling, its kings and congresses, and its foolish
noise of drums.'
"For a while he paid me no attention, save in an absent-minded way to
pat my arm and say, 'There, there, child! There's nothing to it--no,
not anything to weep for. In less than half an hour my wife and I will
be together, listening while Raphael speaks--or Christ, perhaps, or
Leonardo.'
"Twice the brigade chaplain came to the tent, but seeing me retired.
The third time he appeared my foster father said: 'He's come to talk to
me of Christ and Raphael. It is pleasant to hear his kind assurance
that the journey to them is a swift one, done in the twinkling of an
eye.... So--I will say good-bye. Now go, my child.'
"Locked in my desperate embrace, his wandering gaze came back and met
my terror-stricken eyes. And after another moment a slow colour came
into his wasted face. 'Lois,' he said, 'before I go to join that
matchless company, I think you ought to know that which will cause you
to grieve less for me.... And so I tell you that I am not your
father.... We found you at our door in Caughnwagha, strapped to a
Seneca cradle-board. Nor had you any name. We did not seek you, but,
having you so, bowed to God's will and suffered you to remain with us.
We strove to do our duty by you----' His vague gaze wandered toward the
tent door where the armed guard stood, terrible and grim and ragged.
Then he unloosened my suddenly limp arms about him, muttering to
himself of something he'd forgotten; and, rummaging in his pockets
found it presently--a packet laced in deerskin. 'This,' he said, 'is
all we ever knew of you. It should be yours. Good-bye.'
"I strove to speak, but he no longer heard me, and asked the guard
impatiently why the Chaplain tarried. And so I crept forth into the
dark of dawn, more dead than living. And presently the rising sun
blinded my tear-drowned eyes, where I was kneeling in a field under a
tall tree.... I heard the dead-march rolling from the drums, and saw
them passing, black against the sunrise.... Then, filing slowly as the
seconds dragged, a thousand years passed in processional during the
next half hour--ending in a far rattle of musketry and a light smoke
blowing east across the fields----"
She passed her fingers across her brow, clearing it of the clinging
curls.
"They played a noisy march--afterward. I saw the ragged ranks wheel and
manoeuvre, stepping out Briskly to the jolly drums and fifes.... I
stood by the grave while the detail filled it cheerily.... Then I went
back to the farm house, through the morning dew and sunshine.
"When I had opened my packet and had understood its contents, I made of
my clothes a bundle and took the highway to ask of all the world where
lay the road to the vale Yndaia, and where might be found the Regiment
de la Reine. Wherever was a camp of soldiers, there I loitered, asking
the same question, day after day, month after month. I asked of
Indians--our Hudson guides, and the brigaded White Plains Indians. None
seemed to know--or if they did they made no answer. And the soldiers
did not know, and only laughed, taking me for some camp wanton----"
Again she passed her slender hand slowly across her eyes, shaking her
head.
"That I am not wholly bad amazes me at times.... I wonder if you know
how hunger tampers with the will? I mean more than mere hunger; I mean
that dreadful craving never completely satisfied--so that the ceaseless
famine gnaws and gnaws while the sick mind still sickens, brooding over
what the body seems to need of meat and drink and warmth--day after
day, night after night, endless and terrible." She flushed, but
continued calmly: "I had nigh sold myself to some young officer--some
gay and heedless boy--a dozen times that winter--for a bit of
bread--and so I might lie warm.... The army starved at Valley Forge....
God knows where and how I lived and famished through all that bitter
blackness.... An artillery horse had trodden on my hip where I lay
huddled in a cow-barn under the straw close to the horses, for the sake
of warmth. I hobbled for a month.... And so ill was I become in mind as
well as body that had any man been kind--God knows what had happened!
And once I even crept abroad meaning to take what offered. Do you deem
me vile, Euan?"
"No--no--" I could not utter another word.
She sighed, gazing at space.
"And the cold! Well--this is July, and I must try to put it from my
mind. But at times it seems to be still in my bones--deep bitten to the
very marrow. Ai-me! I have seen two years of centuries. Their scars
remain."
She rocked slightly forward and backward where she sat, her fingers
interlaced, twisting and clenching with her memories.
"Ai-me! Hunger and cold and men! Hunger and--men. But it was solitude
that nigh undid me. That was the worst of all--the endless silence."
The rain now swept the roof of bark above us, gust after gust swishing
across the eaves. Beyond the outer circle of the lantern light a mouse
moved, venturing no nearer.
"Lois?"
She lifted her head. "All that is ended now. Strive to forget."
She made no response.
"Ended," I said firmly. "And this is how it ends. I have with my
solicitor, Mr. Simon Hake, of Albany, two thousand pounds hard
sterling. How I first came by it I do not know. But Guy Johnson placed
it there for me, saying that it was mine by right. Now, today, I have
written to Mr. Hake a letter. In this letter I have commanded some few
trifles to be bought for you, such as all women naturally require."
"Euan!" she exclaimed sharply.
"I will not listen!" said I excitedly. "Do you listen now to me, for I
mean to have my way with you--say what you may----"
"I know--I know--but you have done too much already----"
"I have done nothing! Listen! I have bespoken trifles of no
value--nothing more--stockings, and shifts, and stays, and
powder-puffs, and other articles----"
"I will not suffer this!" she said, an angry colour in her cheeks.
"You suffer now--for lack even of handkerchiefs! I must insist----"
"Euan! My shifts and stays and stockings are none of your affair!" she
answered hotly.
"I make them mine!"
"No--nor is it your privilege to offer them!"
"My--what?"
"Privilege!" she said haughtily, flushing clear to her curly hair; and
left me checked. She added: "What you offer is impertinence--however
kindly meant. No friendship warrants it, and I refuse."
I know not what it was--perhaps my hurt and burning silence under the
sudden lash of her rebuff--but presently I felt her hand steal over
mine and tighten. And looked up, scowling, to see her eyes brimming
with tears and merriment.
"How much of me must you have, Euan? Even my privacy and pride? You
have given me friendship; you have clothed me to your fancy. You have
had scant payment in exchange--only a poor girl's gratitude. What have
I left to offer in return if you bestow more gifts? Give me no more--so
that you take from me no more than--gratitude."
"Comrades neither give nor take, Lois. What they possess belongs to
both in common."
"I know--it is so said--but--you have had of me for all your bounty
only my thanks--and----" she smiled tremulously, "----a wild rose-bud.
And you have given so much--so much--and I am far too poor to
render----"
"What have I asked of you!" I said impatiently.
"Nothing. And so I am the more inclined to give--I know not what."
"Shall I tell you what to offer me? Then offer me the privilege of
giving. It is the rarest gift within your power."
She sat looking at me while the soft colour waned and deepened in her
cheeks.
"I--give," she said in a voice scarce audible.
"Then," said I, very happily, "I am free to tell you that I have
commanded for your comfort a host of pretty things, and a big box of
wood and brass, with a stout hide outside, to keep your clothing in!
The lady of Captain Cresson, of the levies, has a noble one. Yours is
its mate. And into yours will fit your gowns and shoon, patches and
powder, and the hundred articles which every woman needs by day and
night. Also I've named you to Mr. Hake, so that, first writing for me
upon a slip of paper that I may send it to him--then writing your
request to him, you may make draughts for what you need upon our money,
which now lies with him. Do you understand me, Lois? You will need
money when the army leaves."
Her head moved slightly, acquiescent.
"So far so good, then. Now, when this army moves into the wilderness,
and when I go, and you remain, you will have clothing that befits you;
you will have means to properly maintain you; and I shall send you by
batteau to Mr. Hake, who will find lodging suitable for you--and be
your friend, and recommend you to his friends not only for my sake,
but, when he sets his eyes on you, for your own sake." I smiled, and
added:
"Hiero! Little rosy-throated pigeon of the woods! Loskiel has spoken!"
Now, as I ended, this same and silly wild-thing fell silently a-crying;
and never had I dreamed that any maid could be so full o' tears, when
by all rights she should have sat dimpling there, happy and gay, and
eager as I.
Out o' countenance again, and vexed in my mind, I sat silent,
fidgetting, made strange and cold and awkward by her tears. The warm
flush of self-approval chilled in my heart; and by and by a vague
resentment grew there.
"Euan?" she ventured, lifting her wet eyes.
"What?" said I ungraciously.
"H--have you a hanker? Else I use my scandalous skirt again----"
And the next instant we both were laughing there, she still in tears, I
with blithe heart to see her now surrender at discretion, with her grey
eyes smiling at me through a starry mist of tears, and the sweet mouth
tremulous with her low-voiced thanks.
"Ai-me!" she said. "What manner of boy is this, to hector me and have
his will? And now he sits there laughing, and convinced that when the
army marches I shall wear his finery and do his bidding. And so I
shall--if I remain behind."
"Lois! You can not go to Catharines-town! That's flat!"
"I've wandered hungry and ragged for two years, asking the way. Do you
suppose I have endured in vain? Do you suppose I shall give up now?"
"Lois!" I said seriously, "if it is true that the Senecas hold any
white captives, their liberation is at hand. But that business concerns
the army. And I promise you that if your mother be truly there among
those unhappy prisoners she shall be brought back safely from the Vale
Yndaia. I will tell Major Parr of this; he shall inform the General.
Have no fear or doubt, dear maid. If she is there, and human power can
save her, then is she saved already, by God's grace."
She said in a quiet voice:
"I must go with you. And that is why--or partly why--I asked you here
tonight. Find me some way to go to Catharines-town. For I must go!"
"Why not inquire of me the road to hell?" I asked impatiently. She said
between her teeth:
"Oh, any man might show me that. And guide me, too. Many have offered,
Euan."
"What!"
"I ask your pardon. Two years of camps blunts any woman's speech."
"Lois," said I uneasily, "why do you wish to go to Catharines-town,
when an armed force is going?"
She sat considering, then, in a low, firm voice:
"To tell you why, is why I asked you here.... And first I must show you
what my packet held.... Shall I show you, Euan?"
"Surely, little comrade."
She drew the packet from her bosom, unlaced the thong, unrolled the
deer-hide covering.
"Here is a roll of bark," she said. "This I have never had interpreted.
Can you read it for me, Euan?"
And there in the lantern light I read it, while she looked down over my
shoulder.
"KADON!
"Aesa-yat-yen-enghdon, Lois!
"Etho!
[And here was painted a white dog lying dead, its tongue hanging
out sideways.]
"Hen-skerigh-watonte.
"Jatthon-ten-yonk, Lois!
"Jin-isaya-dawen-ken-wed-e-wayen.
[Here was drawn in outline the foot and claws of a forest lynx.]
"Niyi-eskah-haghs, na-yegh-nyasa-kenra-dake, niya-wennonh!" [Then a
white symbol.]
For a long time I gazed at the writing in shocked silence. Then I asked
her if she suspected what was written there in the Canienga dialect.
"I never have had it read. Indians refuse, shake their heads, and look
askance at me, and tell me nothing; interpreters laugh at me, saying
there is no meaning in the lines. Is there, Euan?"
"Yes," I said.
"You can interpret?"
"Yes."
"Will you?"
I was silent, pondering the fearful meaning which had been rendered
plainer and more hideous by the painted symbols.
"It has to do with the magic of the Seneca priesthood," I muttered.
"Here is a foul screed--and yet a message, too, to you."
Then, with an effort I found courage to read, as it was written:
"I speak! Thou, Lois, mightest have been destroyed! Thus! (Here the
white dog.) But I will frustrate their purpose. Keep listening to me,
Lois. That which has befallen you we place it here (or, 'we draw it
here'--i. e., the severed foot and claws of a lynx). Being born white
(literally, 'being born having a white neck'), this happened." And the
ghastly sign of Leshi ended it.
"But what does it all signify?" she asked, bewildered.
And even as she spoke, out of the dull and menacing horror of the
symbols, into my mind, leaped terrible comprehension.
I said coolly: "It must have been Amochol--and his Erie sorcerers! How
came you in Catharines-town?"
"I? In Catharines-town!" she faltered. "Was I, then, ever there?"
I pointed at the drawing of the dead white dog.
"Somebody saved you from that hellish sacrifice. I tell you it is plain
enough to read. The rite is practiced only by the red sorcerers of the
Senecas.... Look! It was because your 'neck' was 'white'! Look again!
Here is the symbol of the Cat-People--the Eries--the acolytes of
Amochol--here! This spread lynx-pad with every separate claw extended!
Yet, it is drawn severed--in symbol of your escape. Lois! Lois! It is
plain enough. I follow it all--almost all--nearly--but not quite----"
I hesitated, studying the bark intently, pausing to look at her with a
new and keenly searching question in my gaze.
"You have not shown me all," I said.
"All that is written in the Iroquois tongue. But there were other
things in the packet with this bark letter." She opened it again upon
her lap.
"Here is a soldier's belt-buckle," she said, offering it to me for my
inspection.
It was made of silver and there were still traces of French gilt upon
the device.
"Regiment de la Reine," I read. "What regiment is that, Lois? I'm sure
I've heard of it somewhere. Oh! Now I remember. It was a very
celebrated French regiment--cut all to pieces at Lake George by Sir
William Johnson in '55. This is an officer's belt-buckle."
"Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?"
"Utterly. In France they made the regiment again with new men and new
officers, and call it still by the same celebrated name."
"You say Sir William Johnson's men cut it to pieces--the Regiment de la
Reine?" she asked.
"His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it after that
bloody day."
She sat thoughtful for a while, then, bestirring herself, drew from the
deerhide packet a miniature on ivory, cracked across, and held together
only by the narrow oval frame of gold.
There was no need to look twice. This man, whoever he might be, was
this girl's father; and nobody who had ever seen her and this miniature
could ever doubt it.
She did not speak, nor did I, conscious that her eyes had never left my
face and must have read my startled mind with perfect ease.
Presently I turned the portrait over. There was a lock of hair there
under the glass--bright, curly hair exactly like her own. And at first
I saw nothing else. Then, as the glass-backed locket glanced in the
lantern-light, I saw that on the glass something had been inscribed
with a diamond. This is what I read, written across the glass:
"Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri."
I looked up at her.
"Jean Coeur," I repeated. "That is no name for a man----" Suddenly I
remembered, years ago--years and years since--hearing Guy Johnson
cursing some such man. Then in an instant all came back to me; and she
seemed to divine it, for her small hand clutched my arm and her eyes
were widening as I turned to meet them.
"Lois," I said unsteadily, "there was a man called Jean Coeur, deputy
to the adventurer, Joncaire. Joncaire was the great captain who all but
saved this Western Continent to France. Captain Joncaire was feared,
detested, but respected by Sir William Johnson because he held all
Canada and the Hurons and Algonquins in the hollow of his hand, and had
even gained part of the Long House--the Senecas. His clever deputy was
called Jean Coeur. Never did two men know the Indians as these two did."
I thought a moment, then: "Somewhere I heard that Captain Joncaire had
a daughter. But she married another man--one Louis de Contrecoeur----"
I hesitated, glanced again at the name scratched on the glass over the
lock of hair, and shook my head.
"Jean Coeur--Louis de Contrecoeur. The names scarce hang
together--yet----"
"Look at this!" she whispered in a low, tense voice, and laid a bit of
printing in my hand.
It was a stained and engraved sheet of paper--a fly-leaf detached from
a book of Voltaire. And above the scroll-encompassed title was written
in faded ink: "Le Capitaine Vicomte Louis Jean de Contrecoeur du
Regiment de la Reine." And under that, in a woman's fine handwriting:
"Mon coeur, malgre; mon coeur, se rendre a Contrecoeur, dit Jean Coeur;
coeur contre coeur."
"That," she said, "is the same writing that the birch bark bears, sewed
in my moccasins."
"Then," I said excitedly, "your mother was born Mademoiselle Joncaire,
and you are Lois de Contrecoeur!"
She sat with eyes lowered, fingering the stained and faded page. After
a moment she said:
"I wrote to France--to the Headquarters of the Regiment de la
Reine--asking about my--father."
"You had an answer?"
"Aye, the answer came.... Merely a word or two.... The Vicomte Louis
Jean de Contrecoeur fell at Lake George in '55----" She lifted her
clear eyes to mine. "And died--unmarried."
A chill passed through me, then the reaction came, taking me by the
throat, setting my veins afire.
"Then--by God!" I stammered. "If de Contrecoeur died unmarried, his
child shall not!"
"Euan! I do not credit what they wrote. If my father married here
perhaps they had not heard."
"Lois! Dearest of maids--whichever is the truth I wish to marry you!"
But she stopped her ears with both palms, giving me a frightened look;
and checked, but burning still, I stared at her.
"Is that then all you are?" she asked. "A wisp of tow to catch the
first spark that flies? A brand ever smouldering, which the first
breath o' woman stirs to flame?"
"Never have I loved before----"
"Love! Euan, are you mad?"
We both were breathing fast and brokenly.
"What is it then, if it be not love!" I asked angrily.
"What is it?" she repeated slowly. Yet I seemed to feel in her very
voice a faint, cool current of contempt. "Why, it is what always urges
men to speak, I fancy--their natural fire--their easily provoked
emotions.... I had believed you different."
"Did you not desire my friendship?" I asked in hot chagrin.
"Not if it be of this kind, Euan."
"You would not have me love you?"
"Love!" And the fine edge of her contempt cut clean. "Love!" she
repeated coolly. "And we scarcely know each other; have never passed a
day together; have never broken bread; know nothing, nothing of each
other's minds and finer qualities; have awakened nothing in each other
yet except emotions. Friendships have their deeps and shallows, but are
deathless only while they endure. Love hath no shallows, Euan, and
endures often when friendship dies.... I speak, having no knowledge.
But I believe it. And, believing nobly of true love--in ignorance of
it, but still in awe--and having been assailed by clamours of a
shameful passion calling itself love--and having builded in my heart
and mind a very lofty altar for the truth, how can I feel otherwise
than sorry that you spoke--hotly, unthinkingly, as you did to me?"
I was silent.
She rose, lifted the lantern, laid open the trap-door.
"Come," she whispered, beckoning.
I followed her as she descended, took the lantern from her hand,
glanced at the shadowy heap, asleep perhaps, on the corner settle, then
walked to the door and opened it. A thousand, thousand stars were
sparkling overhead.
On the sill she whispered:
"When will you come again?"
"Do you want me?" I said sullenly.
She made no answer for a moment; suddenly she caught my hand and
pressed it, crushing it between both of hers; and turning I saw her
almost helpless with her laughter.
"Oh, what an infant have I found in this tall gentleman of Morgan's
corps!" said she. "A boy one moment and a man the next--silly and wise
in the same breath--headlong, headstrong, tender, and generous, petty
and childish, grave and kind--the sacred and wondrous being, in point
of fact, known to the world as man! And now he asks, with solemn mien
and sadly ruffled and reproachful dignity whether a poor, friendless,
homeless, nameless girl desires his company again!"
She dropped my hand, caught at her skirt's edge, and made me a mocking
reverence.
"Dear sir," she said, "I pray you come again to visit me tomorrow,
while I am mending regimental shirts at tuppence each----"
"Lois!" I said sadly. "How can you use me so!"
She began to laugh again.
"Oh, Euan, I can not endure it if you're solemn and sorry for
yourself----"
"That is too much!" I exclaimed, furious, and marched out, boiling,
under the high stars. And every star o' them, I think, was laughing at
the sorriest ass who ever fell in love.
Nevertheless, that night I wrote her name in my letter to Mr. Hake; and
the ink on it was scarce sanded when an Oneida runner had it and was
driving his canoe down the Mohawk River at a speed that promised to win
for him the bonus in hard money which I had promised for a swift
journey and a swift return.
And far into the July morning I talked with the Sagamore of Amochol and
of Catharines-town; and he listened while he sat tirelessly polishing
his scalping-knife and hatchet.