THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS (_continued_).
Mountain’s story, as it was laid before Sir William Johnson and my
lord, was shorn, of course, of all the earlier particulars, and the
expedition described to have proceeded uneventfully, until the Master
sickened. But the latter part was very forcibly related, the speaker
visibly thrilling to his recollections; and our then situation, on the
fringe of the same desert, and the private interests of each, gave him
an audience prepared to share in his emotions. For Mountain’s
intelligence not only changed the world for my Lord Durrisdeer, but
materially affected the designs of Sir William Johnson.
These I find I must lay more at length before the reader. Word had
reached Albany of dubious import; it had been rumoured some hostility
was to be put in act; and the Indian diplomatist had, thereupon, sped
into the wilderness, even at the approach of winter, to nip that
mischief in the bud. Here, on the borders, he learned that he was come
too late; and a difficult choice was thus presented to a man (upon the
whole) not any more bold than prudent. His standing with the painted
braves may be compared to that of my Lord President Culloden among the
chiefs of our own Highlanders at the ’forty-five; that is as much as to
say, he was, to these men, reason’s only speaking trumpet, and counsels
of peace and moderation, if they were to prevail at all, must prevail
singly through his influence. If, then, he should return, the province
must lie open to all the abominable tragedies of Indian war—the houses
blaze, the wayfarer be cut off, and the men of the woods collect their
usual disgusting spoil of human scalps. On the other side, to go
farther forth, to risk so small a party deeper in the desert, to carry
words of peace among warlike savages already rejoicing to return to
war: here was an extremity from which it was easy to perceive his mind
revolted.
“I have come too late,” he said more than once, and would fall into a
deep consideration, his head bowed in his hands, his foot patting the
ground.
At length he raised his face and looked upon us, that is to say upon my
lord, Mountain, and myself, sitting close round a small fire, which had
been made for privacy in one corner of the camp.
“My lord, to be quite frank with you, I find myself in two minds,” said
he. “I think it very needful I should go on, but not at all proper I
should any longer enjoy the pleasure of your company. We are here still
upon the water side; and I think the risk to southward no great matter.
Will not yourself and Mr. Mackellar take a single boat’s crew and
return to Albany?”
My lord, I should say, had listened to Mountain’s narrative, regarding
him throughout with a painful intensity of gaze; and since the tale
concluded, had sat as in a dream. There was something very daunting in
his look; something to my eyes not rightly human; the face, lean, and
dark, and aged, the mouth painful, the teeth disclosed in a perpetual
rictus; the eyeball swimming clear of the lids upon a field of
blood-shot white. I could not behold him myself without a jarring
irritation, such as, I believe, is too frequently the uppermost feeling
on the sickness of those dear to us. Others, I could not but remark.
were scarce able to support his neighbourhood—Sir William eviting to be
near him, Mountain dodging his eye, and, when he met it, blenching and
halting in his story. At this appeal, however, my lord appeared to
recover his command upon himself.
“To Albany?” said he, with a good voice.
“Not short of it, at least,” replied Sir William. “There is no safety
nearer hand.”
“I would be very sweir [11] to return,” says my lord. “I am not
afraid—of Indians,” he added, with a jerk.
“I wish that I could say so much,” returned Sir William, smiling;
“although, if any man durst say it, it should be myself. But you are to
keep in view my responsibility, and that as the voyage has now become
highly dangerous, and your business—if you ever had any,” says he,
“brought quite to a conclusion by the distressing family intelligence
you have received, I should be hardly justified if I even suffered you
to proceed, and run the risk of some obloquy if anything regrettable
should follow.”
My lord turned to Mountain. “What did he pretend he died of?” he asked.
“I don’t think I understand your honour,” said the trader, pausing like
a man very much affected, in the dressing of some cruel frost-bites.
For a moment my lord seemed at a full stop; and then, with some
irritation, “I ask you what he died of. Surely that’s a plain
question,” said he.
“Oh! I don’t know,” said Mountain. “Hastie even never knew. He seemed
to sicken natural, and just pass away.”
“There it is, you see!” concluded my lord, turning to Sir William.
“Your lordship is too deep for me,” replied Sir William.
“Why,” says my lord, “this in a matter of succession; my son’s title
may be called in doubt; and the man being supposed to be dead of nobody
can tell what, a great deal of suspicion would be naturally roused.”
“But, God damn me, the man’s buried!” cried Sir William.
“I will never believe that,” returned my lord, painfully trembling.
“I’ll never believe it!” he cried again, and jumped to his feet. “Did
he _look_ dead?” he asked of Mountain.
“Look dead?” repeated the trader. “He looked white. Why, what would he
be at? I tell you, I put the sods upon him.”
My lord caught Sir William by the coat with a hooked hand. “This man
has the name of my brother,” says he, “but it’s well understood that he
was never canny.”
“Canny?” says Sir William. “What is that?”
“He’s not of this world,” whispered my lord, “neither him nor the black
deil that serves him. I have struck my sword throughout his vitals,” he
cried; “I have felt the hilt dirl [12] on his breastbone, and the hot
blood spirt in my very face, time and again, time and again!” he
repeated, with a gesture indescribable. “But he was never dead for
that,” said he, and I sighed aloud. “Why should I think he was dead
now? No, not till I see him rotting,” says he.
Sir William looked across at me with a long face. Mountain forgot his
wounds, staring and gaping.
“My lord,” said I, “I wish you would collect your spirits.” But my
throat was so dry, and my own wits so scattered, I could add no more.
“No,” says my lord, “it’s not to be supposed that he would understand
me. Mackellar does, for he kens all, and has seen him buried before
now. This is a very good servant to me, Sir William, this man
Mackellar; he buried him with his own hands—he and my father—by the
light of two siller candlesticks. The other man is a familiar spirit;
he brought him from Coromandel. I would have told ye this long syne,
Sir William, only it was in the family.” These last remarks he made
with a kind of a melancholy composure, and his time of aberration
seemed to pass away. “You can ask yourself what it all means,” he
proceeded. “My brother falls sick, and dies, and is buried, as so they
say; and all seems very plain. But why did the familiar go back? I
think ye must see for yourself it’s a point that wants some clearing.”
“I will be at your service, my lord, in half a minute,” said Sir
William, rising. “Mr. Mackellar, two words with you;” and he led me
without the camp, the frost crunching in our steps, the trees standing
at our elbow, hoar with frost, even as on that night in the Long
Shrubbery. “Of course, this is midsummer madness,” said Sir William, as
soon as we were gotten out of bearing.
“Why, certainly,” said I. “The man is mad. I think that manifest.”
“Shall I seize and bind him?” asked Sir William. “I will upon your
authority. If these are all ravings, that should certainly be done.”
I looked down upon the ground, back at the camp, with its bright fires
and the folk watching us, and about me on the woods and mountains;
there was just the one way that I could not look, and that was in Sir
William’s face.
“Sir William,” said I at last, “I think my lord not sane, and have long
thought him so. But there are degrees in madness; and whether he should
be brought under restraint—Sir William, I am no fit judge,” I
concluded.
“I will be the judge,” said he. “I ask for facts. Was there, in all
that jargon, any word of truth or sanity? Do you hesitate?” he asked.
“Am I to understand you have buried this gentleman before?”
“Not buried,” said I; and then, taking up courage at last, “Sir
William,” said I, “unless I were to tell you a long story, which much
concerns a noble family (and myself not in the least), it would be
impossible to make this matter clear to you. Say the word, and I will
do it, right or wrong. And, at any rate, I will say so much, that my
lord is not so crazy as he seems. This is a strange matter, into the
tail of which you are unhappily drifted.”
“I desire none of your secrets,” replied Sir William; “but I will be
plain, at the risk of incivility, and confess that I take little
pleasure in my present company.”
“I would be the last to blame you,” said I, “for that.”
“I have not asked either for your censure or your praise, sir,”
returned Sir William. “I desire simply to be quit of you; and to that
effect, I put a boat and complement of men at your disposal.”
“This is fairly offered,” said I, after reflection. “But you must
suffer me to say a word upon the other side. We have a natural
curiosity to learn the truth of this affair; I have some of it myself;
my lord (it is very plain) has but too much. The matter of the Indian’s
return is enigmatical.”
“I think so myself,” Sir William interrupted, “and I propose (since I
go in that direction) to probe it to the bottom. Whether or not the man
has gone like a dog to die upon his master’s grave, his life, at least,
is in great danger, and I propose, if I can, to save it. There is
nothing against his character?”
“Nothing, Sir William,” I replied.
“And the other?” he said. “I have heard my lord, of course; but, from
the circumstances of his servant’s loyalty, I must suppose he had some
noble qualities.”
“You must not ask me that!” I cried. “Hell may have noble flames. I
have known him a score of years, and always hated, and always admired,
and always slavishly feared him.”
“I appear to intrude again upon your secrets,” said Sir William,
“believe me, inadvertently. Enough that I will see the grave, and (if
possible) rescue the Indian. Upon these terms, can you persuade your
master to return to Albany?”
“Sir William,” said I, “I will tell you how it is. You do not see my
lord to advantage; it will seem even strange to you that I should love
him; but I do, and I am not alone. If he goes back to Albany, it must
be by force, and it will be the death-warrant of his reason, and
perhaps his life. That is my sincere belief; but I am in your hands,
and ready to obey, if you will assume so much responsibility as to
command.”
“I will have no shred of responsibility; it is my single endeavour to
avoid the same,” cried Sir William. “You insist upon following this
journey up; and be it so! I wash my hands of the whole matter.”
With which word, he turned upon his heel and gave the order to break
camp; and my lord, who had been hovering near by, came instantly to my
side.
“Which is it to be?” said he.
“You are to have your way,” I answered. “You shall see the grave.”
The situation of the Master’s grave was, between guides, easily
described; it lay, indeed, beside a chief landmark of the wilderness,
a certain range of peaks, conspicuous by their design and altitude,
and the source of many brawling tributaries to that inland sea, Lake
Champlain. It was therefore possible to strike for it direct, instead
of following back the blood-stained trail of the fugitives, and to
cover, in some sixteen hours of march, a distance which their
perturbed wanderings had extended over more than sixty. Our boats we
left under a guard upon the river; it was, indeed, probable we should
return to find them frozen fast; and the small equipment with which we
set forth upon the expedition, included not only an infinity of furs
to protect us from the cold, but an arsenal of snow-shoes to render
travel possible, when the inevitable snow should fall. Considerable
alarm was manifested at our departure; the march was conducted with
soldierly precaution, the camp at night sedulously chosen and
patrolled; and it was a consideration of this sort that arrested us,
the second day, within not many hundred yards of our destination—the
night being already imminent, the spot in which we stood well
qualified to be a strong camp for a party of our numbers; and Sir
William, therefore, on a sudden thought, arresting our advance.
Before us was the high range of mountains toward which we had been all
day deviously drawing near. From the first light of the dawn, their
silver peaks had been the goal of our advance across a tumbled lowland
forest, thrid with rough streams, and strewn with monstrous boulders;
the peaks (as I say) silver, for already at the higher altitudes the
snow fell nightly; but the woods and the low ground only breathed upon
with frost. All day heaven had been charged with ugly vapours, in the
which the sun swam and glimmered like a shilling piece; all day the
wind blew on our left cheek barbarous cold, but very pure to breathe.
With the end of the afternoon, however, the wind fell; the clouds,
being no longer reinforced, were scattered or drunk up; the sun set
behind us with some wintry splendour, and the white brow of the
mountains shared its dying glow.
It was dark ere we had supper; we ate in silence, and the meal was
scarce despatched before my lord slunk from the fireside to the margin
of the camp; whither I made haste to follow him. The camp was on high
ground, overlooking a frozen lake, perhaps a mile in its longest
measurement; all about us, the forest lay in heights and hollows; above
rose the white mountains; and higher yet, the moon rode in a fair sky.
There was no breath of air; nowhere a twig creaked; and the sounds of
our own camp were hushed and swallowed up in the surrounding stillness.
Now that the sun and the wind were both gone down, it appeared almost
warm, like a night of July: a singular illusion of the sense, when
earth, air, and water were strained to bursting with the extremity of
frost.
My lord (or what I still continued to call by his loved name) stood
with his elbow in one hand, and his chin sunk in the other, gazing
before him on the surface of the wood. My eyes followed his, and rested
almost pleasantly upon the frosted contexture of the pines, rising in
moonlit hillocks, or sinking in the shadow of small glens. Hard by, I
told myself, was the grave of our enemy, now gone where the wicked
cease from troubling, the earth heaped for ever on his once so active
limbs. I could not but think of him as somehow fortunate to be thus
done with man’s anxiety and weariness, the daily expense of spirit, and
that daily river of circumstance to be swum through, at any hazard,
under the penalty of shame or death. I could not but think how good was
the end of that long travel; and with that, my mind swung at a tangent
to my lord. For was not my lord dead also? a maimed soldier, looking
vainly for discharge, lingering derided in the line of battle? A kind
man, I remembered him; wise, with a decent pride, a son perhaps too
dutiful, a husband only too loving, one that could suffer and be
silent, one whose hand I loved to press. Of a sudden, pity caught in my
windpipe with a sob; I could have wept aloud to remember and behold
him; and standing thus by his elbow, under the broad moon, I prayed
fervently either that he should be released, or I strengthened to
persist in my affection.
“Oh God,” said I, “this was the best man to me and to himself, and now
I shrink from him. He did no wrong, or not till he was broke with
sorrows; these are but his honourable wounds that we begin to shrink
from. Oh, cover them up, oh, take him away, before we hate him!”
I was still so engaged in my own bosom, when a sound broke suddenly
upon the night. It was neither very loud, nor very near; yet, bursting
as it did from so profound and so prolonged a silence, it startled the
camp like an alarm of trumpets. Ere I had taken breath, Sir William was
beside me, the main part of the voyagers clustered at his back,
intently giving ear. Methought, as I glanced at them across my
shoulder, there was a whiteness, other than moonlight, on their cheeks;
and the rays of the moon reflected with a sparkle on the eyes of some,
and the shadows lying black under the brows of others (according as
they raised or bowed the head to listen) gave to the group a strange
air of animation and anxiety. My lord was to the front, crouching a
little forth, his hand raised as for silence: a man turned to stone.
And still the sounds continued, breathlessly renewed with a precipitate
rhythm.
Suddenly Mountain spoke in a loud, broken whisper, as of a man
relieved. “I have it now,” he said; and, as we all turned to hear him,
“the Indian must have known the cache,” he added. “That is he—he is
digging out the treasure.”
“Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Sir William. “We were geese not to have
supposed so much.”
“The only thing is,” Mountain resumed, “the sound is very close to our
old camp. And, again, I do not see how he is there before us, unless
the man had wings!”
“Greed and fear are wings,” remarked Sir William. “But this rogue has
given us an alert, and I have a notion to return the compliment. What
say you, gentlemen, shall we have a moonlight hunt?”
It was so agreed; dispositions were made to surround Secundra at his
task; some of Sir William’s Indians hastened in advance; and a strong
guard being left at our headquarters, we set forth along the uneven
bottom of the forest; frost crackling, ice sometimes loudly splitting
under foot; and overhead the blackness of pine-woods, and the broken
brightness of the moon. Our way led down into a hollow of the land; and
as we descended, the sounds diminished and had almost died away. Upon
the other slope it was more open, only dotted with a few pines, and
several vast and scattered rocks that made inky shadows in the
moonlight. Here the sounds began to reach us more distinctly; we could
now perceive the ring of iron, and more exactly estimate the furious
degree of haste with which the digger plied his instrument. As we
neared the top of the ascent, a bird or two winged aloft and hovered
darkly in the moonlight; and the next moment we were gazing through a
fringe of trees upon a singular picture.
A narrow plateau, overlooked by the white mountains, and encompassed
nearer hand by woods, lay bare to the strong radiance of the moon.
Rough goods, such as make the wealth of foresters, were sprinkled here
and there upon the ground in meaningless disarray. About the midst, a
tent stood, silvered with frost: the door open, gaping on the black
interior. At the one end of this small stage lay what seemed the
tattered remnants of a man. Without doubt we had arrived upon the scene
of Harris’s encampment; there were the goods scattered in the panic of
flight; it was in yon tent the Master breathed his last; and the frozen
carrion that lay before us was the body of the drunken shoemaker. It
was always moving to come upon the theatre of any tragic incident; to
come upon it after so many days, and to find it (in the seclusion of a
desert) still unchanged, must have impressed the mind of the most
careless. And yet it was not that which struck us into pillars of
stone; but the sight (which yet we had been half expecting) of Secundra
ankle deep in the grave of his late master. He had cast the main part
of his raiment by, yet his frail arms and shoulders glistered in the
moonlight with a copious sweat; his face was contracted with anxiety
and expectation; his blows resounded on the grave, as thick as sobs;
and behind him, strangely deformed and ink-black upon the frosty
ground, the creature’s shadow repeated and parodied his swift
gesticulations. Some night birds arose from the boughs upon our coming,
and then settled back; but Secundra, absorbed in his toil; heard or
heeded not at all.
I heard Mountain whisper to Sir William, “Good God! it’s the grave!
He’s digging him up!” It was what we had all guessed, and yet to hear
it put in language thrilled me. Sir William violently started.
“You damned sacrilegious hound!” he cried. “What’s this?”
Secundra leaped in the air, a little breathless cry escaped him, the
tool flew from his grasp, and he stood one instant staring at the
speaker. The next, swift as an arrow, he sped for the woods upon the
farther side; and the next again, throwing up his hands with a violent
gesture of resolution, he had begun already to retrace his steps.
“Well, then, you come, you help—” he was saying. But by now my lord had
stepped beside Sir William; the moon shone fair upon his face, and the
words were still upon Secundra’s lips, when he beheld and recognised
his master’s enemy. “Him!” he screamed, clasping his hands, and
shrinking on himself.
“Come, come!” said Sir William. “There is none here to do you harm, if
you be innocent; and if you be guilty, your escape is quite cut off.
Speak, what do you here among the graves of the dead and the remains of
the unburied?”
“You no murderer?” inquired Secundra. “You true man? you see me safe?”
“I will see you safe, if you be innocent,” returned Sir William. “I
have said the thing, and I see not wherefore you should doubt it.”
“There all murderers,” cried Secundra, “that is why! He kill—murderer,”
pointing to Mountain; “there two hire-murderers,” pointing to my lord
and myself—“all gallows—murderers! Ah! I see you all swing in a rope.
Now I go save the sahib; he see you swing in a rope. The sahib,” he
continued, pointing to the grave, “he not dead. He bury, he not dead.”
My lord uttered a little noise, moved nearer to the grave, and stood
and stared in it.
“Buried and not dead?” exclaimed Sir William. “What kind of rant is
this?”
“See, sahib,” said Secundra. “The sahib and I alone with murderers; try
all way to escape, no way good. Then try this way: good way in warm
climate, good way in India; here, in this dam cold place, who can tell?
I tell you pretty good hurry: you help, you light a fire, help rub.”
“What is the creature talking of?” cried Sir William. “My head goes
round.”
“I tell you I bury him alive,” said Secundra. “I teach him swallow his
tongue. Now dig him up pretty good hurry, and he not much worse. You
light a fire.”
Sir William turned to the nearest of his men. “Light a fire,” said he.
“My lot seems to be cast with the insane.”
“You good man,” returned Secundra. “Now I go dig the sahib up.”
He returned as he spoke to the grave, and resumed his former toil. My
lord stood rooted, and I at my lord’s side, fearing I knew not what.
The frost was not yet very deep, and presently the Indian threw aside
his tool, and began to scoop the dirt by handfuls. Then he disengaged a
corner of a buffalo robe; and then I saw hair catch among his fingers:
yet, a moment more, and the moon shone on something white. Awhile
Secundra crouched upon his knees, scraping with delicate fingers,
breathing with puffed lips; and when he moved aside, I beheld the face
of the Master wholly disengaged. It was deadly white, the eyes closed,
the ears and nostrils plugged, the cheeks fallen, the nose sharp as if
in death; but for all he had lain so many days under the sod,
corruption had not approached him, and (what strangely affected all of
us) his lips and chin were mantled with a swarthy beard.
“My God!” cried Mountain, “he was as smooth as a baby when we laid him
there!”
“They say hair grows upon the dead,” observed Sir William; but his
voice was thick and weak.
Secundra paid no heed to our remarks, digging swift as a terrier in the
loose earth. Every moment the form of the Master, swathed in his
buffalo robe, grew more distinct in the bottom of that shallow trough;
the moon shining strong, and the shadows of the standers-by, as they
drew forward and back, falling and flitting over his emergent
countenance. The sight held us with a horror not before experienced. I
dared not look my lord in the face; but for as long as it lasted, I
never observed him to draw breath; and a little in the background one
of the men (I know not whom) burst into a kind of sobbing.
“Now,” said Secundra, “you help me lift him out.”
Of the flight of time, I have no idea; it may have been three hours,
and it may have been five, that the Indian laboured to reanimate his
master’s body. One thing only I know, that it was still night, and the
moon was not yet set, although it had sunk low, and now barred the
plateau with long shadows, when Secundra uttered a small cry of
satisfaction; and, leaning swiftly forth, I thought I could myself
perceive a change upon that icy countenance of the unburied. The next
moment I beheld his eyelids flutter; the next they rose entirely, and
the week-old corpse looked me for a moment in the face.
So much display of life I can myself swear to. I have heard from others
that he visibly strove to speak, that his teeth showed in his beard,
and that his brow was contorted as with an agony of pain and effort.
And this may have been; I know not, I was otherwise engaged. For at
that first disclosure of the dead man’s eyes, my Lord Durrisdeer fell
to the ground, and when I raised him up, he was a corpse.
Day came, and still Secundra could not be persuaded to desist from his
unavailing efforts. Sir William, leaving a small party under my
command, proceeded on his embassy with the first light; and still the
Indian rubbed the limbs and breathed in the mouth of the dead body.
You would think such labours might have vitalised a stone; but, except
for that one moment (which was my lord’s death), the black spirit of
the Master held aloof from its discarded clay; and by about the hour
of noon, even the faithful servant was at length convinced. He took it
with unshaken quietude.
“Too cold,” said he, “good way in India, no good here.” And, asking for
some food, which he ravenously devoured as soon as it was set before
him, he drew near to the fire and took his place at my elbow. In the
same spot, as soon as he had eaten, he stretched himself out, and fell
into a childlike slumber, from which I must arouse him, some hours
afterwards, to take his part as one of the mourners at the double
funeral. It was the same throughout; he seemed to have outlived at once
and with the same effort, his grief for his master and his terror of
myself and Mountain.
One of the men left with me was skilled in stone-cutting; and before
Sir William returned to pick us up, I had chiselled on a boulder this
inscription, with a copy of which I may fitly bring my narrative to a
close:##
J. D.,
HEIR TO A SCOTTISH TITLE,
A MASTER OF THE ARTS AND GRACES,
ADMIRED IN EUROPE, ASIA, AMERICA,
IN WAR AND PEACE,
IN THE TENTS OF SAVAGE HUNTERS AND THE
CITADELS OF KINGS, AFTER SO MUCH
ACQUIRED, ACCOMPLISHED, AND
ENDURED, LIES HERE FORGOTTEN.
H. D.,
HIS BROTHER,
AFTER A LIFE OF UNMERITED DISTRESS,
BRAVELY SUPPORTED,
DIED ALMOST IN THE SAME HOUR,
AND SLEEPS IN THE SAME GRAVE
WITH HIS FRATERNAL ENEMY.
THE PIETY OF HIS WIFE AND ONE OLD
SERVANT RAISED THIS STONE
TO BOTH.
Footnotes.
[1] A kind of firework made with damp powder.
[2] _Note by Mr. Mackellar_. Should not this be Alan _Breck_ Stewart,
afterwards notorious as the Appin murderer? The Chevalier is sometimes
very weak on names.
[3] _Note by Mr. Mackellar_. This Teach of the _Sarah_ must not be
confused with the celebrated Blackbeard. The dates and facts by no
means tally. It is possible the second Teach may have at once borrowed
the name and imitated the more excessive part of his manners from the
first. Even the Master of Ballantrae could make admirers.
[4] _Note by Mr. Mackellar_. And is not this the whole explanation?
since this Dutton, exactly like the officers, enjoyed the stimulus of
some responsibility.
[5] _Note by Mr. Mackellar_: A complete blunder: there was at this date
no word of the marriage: see above in my own narration.
[6] Note by Mr. Mackellar.—Plainly Secundra Dass.—E. McK.
[7] Ordered.
[8] Land steward.
[9] Fooling.
[10] Tear-marked.
[11] Unwilling.
[12] Ring.