m " I SAT DOWN HEAVILY IN HOMESICK SOLITUDE" *OB I. THE ROAD TO VARICKS* , , i II. IN THE HALLWAY 13 III. COUSINS 23 IV. SIR LUPUS 45 V. A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S 67 VI. DAWN 89 VII. AFTERMATH . . 101 VIII. RIDING THE BOUNDS 117 IX. HIDDEN FIRE 129 X. Two LESSONS 145 XI. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 160 XII. THE GHOST-RING 178 XIII. THE MAID-AT-ARMS 190 XIV. ON DUTY 205 XV. THE FALSE-FACES 231 XVI. ON SCOUT 244 XVII. THE FLAG 252 XVIII. ORISKANY 264 XIX. THE HOME TRAIL 284 XX. COCK-CROW 33 XXI. THE CRISIS 318 XXII. THE END OF THE BEGINNING .. ... 332 THE MAID-AT-ARMS i THE ROAD TO VARICKS' WE drew bridle at the cross-roads; he stretched his legs in his stirrups, raised his arms, yawned, and dropped his huge hands upon either thigh with a resounding slap. "Well, good-bye/' he said, gravely, but made no movement to leave me. " Do we part here?" I asked, sorry to quit my chance acquaintance of the Johnstown highway. He nodded, yawned again, and removed his round cap of silver-fox fur to scratch his curly head. " We certainly do part at these cross-roads, if you are bound for Varicks'," he said. I waited a moment, then thanked him for the pleas- ant entertainment his company had afforded me, and wished him a safe journey. " A safe journey?" he repeated, carelessly. " Oh yes, of course; safe journeys are rare enough in these parts. I'm obliged to you for the thought. You are very civil, sir. Good-bye." Yet neither he nor I gathered bridle to wheel our horses, but sat there in mid-road, looking at each other. "My name is Mount/' he said at length; "let me I THE MAID-AT-ARMS guess yours. \o, sir! don't tell me. Give me three spoi hunting-knife against the wheat straw you are chewing!" "With pleasure," I said, amused, "but you could scarcely guess it. ' Your name is Varick?" I shook my head. "Butk "No. Look sharp to your knife, friend." "Oh, then I have guessed it. he said, coolly; "your name is Ormond and I'm glad of it "Why are you glad of it?" I asked, curiously, won- i, too, at his knowledge of me, a stranger. "You will answer that question for yourself when you meet your kin, the Varicks and Butlers," he said; and the reply had an insolent ring that did not please me, yet I was loath to quarrel with this boyish giant whose amiable company I had found agreeable on my long journey through a land so new to me. "My friend," I said, "you are blur ly in spt lu- rephe " I mean Sir Lupus Vai "Yes; I know him I know Sir Lupus. Wecall him the patroon, though he's not of the same litter as the Livingstons, the Cosbys, the Phillipses, Van Re-nssel- aers, and those feudal gentlemen who juggle with the li justice, the middle, and the low and who will juggle no more." 2 THE ROAD TO VARICKS' " Am I mistaken/' said I, " in taking you for a Boston man?" "In one sense you are/' he said, opening his eyes, "I was born in Vermont." "Then you are a rebel?" "Lord!" he said, laughing, "how you twist our English tongue! Tis his Majesty across the waters who rebels at our home-made Congress." "Is it not dangerous to confess such things to a stranger?" I asked, smiling. His bright eyes reassured me. " Not to all strangers/' he drawled, swinging his free foot over his horse's neck and settling his bulk on the saddle. One big hand fell, as by accident, over the pan of his long rifle. Watch- ing, without seeming to, I saw his forefinger touch the priming, stealthily, and find it dry. "You are no King's man," he said, calmly. "Oh, do you take me for a rebel, too?" I de- manded. "No, sir; you are neither the one nor the other like a tadpole with legs, neither frog nor pollywog. But you will be." "Which?" I asked, laughing. "My wisdom cannot draw that veil for you, sir/' he said. " You may take your chameleon color from your friends the Varicks and remain gray, or from the But- lers and turn red, or from the Schuylers and turn blue and buff." "You credit me with little strength of character/' I said. "I credu you with some twenty -odd years and no experience." " With nothing more?" "Yes, sir; with sincerity and a Spanish rifle which you may have need of ere this month of May has melted into June." 3 THE MAID-AT-AR.MS scatters its seeds with a faint report when the pods are touched? There is in this land a red bud which has burst thundering into crimson bloom, scattering seeds o' death to the eight winds. And every seed breeds a battle, and every root drinks blood!" He straightened in his stirrups, blue eyes ablaze, face burning under its heavy mask of tan and dust iow a man when 1 see him, I know you, he said, "(iod save our country, friend, upon this sweet May day." I replied, tingling. "And God save the King the \\l\n\c pea Ideated, with a disagreeable laugh, "God save the King; he is past all human aid now, and headed straight to hell. Friend, let us part ere we quarrel. You will be with me or against ; day week. 1 knew it was a man I addressed, and no tavern- post' 1 " Yet this brawl with Boston is no affair oi I said, troubled. "Who touches the ancient liber of Kimlishmen touches my country, that is all I liich country, m reater I. "And when Greater Britain divides?" " It must not!" "It has." I unbound the scarlet handkerchief which I wore for a cap, and held it between my fingers to dry its sweat in the breeze. Watching it flutter, I said : " Friend, in my country we never cross the branch till we come to it, nor leave the hammock till the river- sands are beneath our feet. No hunting-shirt is sewed till the bullet has done its errand, nor do men fish for gray mullet with a hook and line. There is always time to pray for wisdom/' 6 THE ROAD TO VARICKS "Friend/' replied Mount, "I wear red quills on my moccasins, you wear bits of sea -shell. That is all the difference between us. Good-bye. Varick Manor is the first house four miles ahead/' He wheeled his horse, then, as at a second thought, checked him and looked back at me. "You will see queer folk yonder at the patroon's," he said. " You are accustomed to the manners of your peers; you were bred in that land where hospitality, courtesy, and deference are shown to equals; where dignity and graciousness are expected from the elders; where duty and humility are inbred in the young. So is it with us except where you are going. The great patroon families, with their vast estates, their patents, their feudal systems, have stood supreme here for years. Theirs is the power of Ijfe and death over their retainers; they reign absolute in their manors, they account only to God for their trusts. And they are great folk, sir, even yet these Livingstons, these Van Rensselaers, these Phillipses, lords of their manors still; Dutch of descent, polished, courtly, proud, bear- ing the title of patroon as a noble bears his coronet." He raised his hand, smiling. " It is not so with the Varicks. They are patroons, too, yet kin to the John- sons, of Johnson Hall and Guy Park, and kin to the Ormond-Butlers. But they are different from either Johnson or Butler vastly different from the Schuylers or the Livingstons " He shrugged his broad shoulders and dropped his hand : " The Varicks are all mad, sir. Good-bye." He struck his horse with his soft leather heels; the animal bounded out into the western road, and his rider swung around once more towards me with a gest- ure partly friendly, partly, perhaps, in menace. " Tell Sir Lupus to go to the devil!" he cried, gayly, and cantered away through the golden dust. 7 THE MAID-AT-ARMS I sat my horse to watch him; presently, far a\vay on the hill's crest, the sun caught his rifle and sparkled for a space, thpn the point of white lire went out, and there was nothing on the hill-top save the dust drift- in-. elier than I had yet been since that day, threG months gone, when I had set out from our plantation on the shallow Halifax, which the hammock scared; separates from the ocean, I gathered In-idle with list- less fingers and spoke to my mare. "Isene, we must be moving eastward always moving, sweethi Come, lass, there's grain somewhere m this Northern land where you have carried me." And to myself, muttering aloud as I rode: "A fine name he has gi to my cousins the Vancks. this uiant forest-runner, with his boy's face and limbs of iron! And he was none too Co imi^ the Butlers, either cous- ins, too, but in what degree they must tell me, 1 don't know" road entering the forest, I ceased m net, and again for the thousandth time 1 sniffed at odors new to me, and scanned leafy depths for those familiar trees which stand warden in our South forests. There were pines, but they were not our \ >; these feathery, dark -stemmed trees; there were oaks, hut neither our golden water oaks nor our great . and-silver live-oaks. Little, pale flowers bloomed shadows only of our bright blossoms of South; and the rare birds I saw were gray and sn and chary of song, as though the stillness that sl< pt in th;< Northern forest was a danjz '<> be aw. ened. Loneliness fell on me: my shoulders 1* my head huni: heavily, [aeoe, my mart-, paced the soft forest- road without a sound, so quietly that the squatting rabbit leaped from between her forelegs, . the slim, striped, squirrel-like creatures crouched par- o THE ROAD TO VARICKS alyzed as we passed ere they burst into their shrill chatter of fright or anger, I know not which. Had I a night to spend in this wilderness I should not know where to find a palmetto - fan for a torch, where to seek light-wood for splinter. It was all new to me; signs read riddles; tracks were sealed books; the east winds brought rain, where at home they bring heaven's own balm to us of the Spanish grants on the seaboard; the northwest winds that we dread turn these Northern skies to sapphire, and set bees a-humming on every bud. There was no salt in the air, no citrus scent in the breeze, no heavy incense of the great magnolia bloom perfuming the wilderness like a cathedral aisle where a young bride passes, clouded in lace. But in the heat a heavy, sweetish odor hung ; bal- s;mi it is called, and mingled, too, with a faint scent like our bay, which comes from a woody bush called sweet-fern. That, and the strong smell of the bluish, sh< rt-needled pine, was ever clogging my nostrils and confusing me. Once I thought to scent a 'possum, but the musky taint came from a rotting log; and a stale fox might have crossed to windward and I not noticed, so blunted had grown my nose in this un- familiar Northern world. Musing, restless, dimly confused, and doubly watch- ful, I rode through the timber-belt, and out at last into a dusty, sunny road. And straightway I sighted a house. The house was of stone, and large and square and gray, with only a pillared porch instead of the long double galleries we build; and it had a row of win- dows in the roof, called dormers, and was surrounded by a stockade of enormous timbers, in the four cor- ners of which were set little forts pierced for rifle fire. Noble trees stood within the fortified lines; outside, 9 THE MAID-AT-ARMS green meadows ringed the place ; and the grass was thick and soft, and vivid as a green jewel in color-^- such grass as we never see save for a spot here and there in swampy places where the sun falls in early spring. The house was yet a hundred rods away to the east- : d. I rode on slowly, noticing the neglected fences on either hand, and thought that my cousin Vanck might have found an hour to mend them, for his pride's sake. Isene, my mare, had already scented the distant stables, and was pricking forward her beautiful ears as I Hushing my broad hat of plaited palmetto and placed it on ray head, the better to salute my hosts wlu-n I should ride to their threshold in the Spanish fashion we followed at home. So, cantering on, I crossed a log bridge which spanned a ravine, below which I saw a grist-mill ; and so came to the stockade. The gate was open and unguarded, and I guided my mare through without a challenge from the small corner forts, and rode straight to porch, where an ancient negro serving-man stood, dressed in a tawdry livery too large for him. A drew bridle he gave me a dull, almost sullen glar and it was not until I spoke sharply to him that IK shambled forward and descended the two steps to hold my stirrup. "Is Sir Lupus at home?" I asked, looking curiously at this mute, dull-eyed black, so different from our grinning lads at home. " Yaas, suh, he done come home, suh " " Then announce Mr. George Ormond," I said. He stared, but did not offer to move. "Did you hear me?" 1 asked, astonished, aas, suh, I done hear yoh, suh." I looked him over in amazement, then walked past him towards the door. 10 THE ROAD TO VARICKS' "Is you gwine look fob Mars' Lupus?" he asked, barring my way with one wrinkled, blue-black hand on the brass door-knob. " Kaze ef you is, you don't had better, suh." I could only stare. "Kaze Mars' Lupus done say he gwine kill de fustest man what 'sturb him, suh," continued the black man, in a listless monotone. " An' I spec' he gwine do it." "Is Sir Lupus abed at this hour?" I asked. "Yaas, suh." There was no emotion in the old man's voice. Some- thing made me think that he had given the same mes- sage to visitors many times. I was very angry at the discourtesy, for he must have known when to expect me from my servant, who had accompanied me by water with my boxes from St. Augustine to Philadelphia, where I lingered while he went forward, bearing my letter with him. Yet, an- gry and disgusted as I was, there was nothing for me to do except to swallow the humiliation, walk in, and twiddle my thumbs until the boorish lord of the manor waked to greet his invited guest. "I suppose I may enter," I said, sarcastically. "Yaas, suh; Miss Dorry done say: 'Cato,' she say, 'ef de young gem 'man come when Mars' Lupus am drunk, jess take care n' him, Cato ; put him mos' any- where 'cep in mah bed, Cato, an' jess call me ef I ain' busy 'bout mah business ' " Still rambling on, he opened the door, and I entered a wide hallway, dirty and disordered. As I stood hesi- tating, a terrific crash sounded from the floor above. "Spec' Miss Dorry busy," observed the old man, raising his solemn, wrinkled face to listen. "Uncle," I said, "is it true that you are all mad in this house?" II THE MAID-AT-ARMS "We sho' is, suh/' he replied, without interest. "Are you too crazy to care for ni} r horse?" "Oh no, suh." "Then go and rub her down, and feed her, and let me sit here in the hallway. I want to think. " Another crash shook the ceiling of solid oak; very far away I heard a young girl's laughter, tlu n a stifled chorus of voices from the floor above. "Das Miss Dorry an' de chilluns," observed the old man. "Who are the others?" \\aal dey is Miss Celia, an' Mars' Harry, an' Mars' Ruyven, an' Mars' Sam'l, an' de babby, li'l Mars' Bem "All madr "Yaas, suh ." I 11 be, too, if I remain here," I said. "Is there an inn near by?" "De Turkle-dove an' Olives." "Bout five mile long de pike, suh/' "Feed ray horse," I said, sullenly, and sat down on a settle, rifle cradled between my knees, and in my heart wrath immeasurable against my kin th* Varicks. II IN THE HALLWAY SO this was Northern hospitality! This a North en gentleman's home, with its cobwebbed ceiling, its little window-panes opaque with stain of rain and dust, its carpetless floors innocent of wax, littered with odds and ends here a battered riding -cane; there a pair of tarnished spurs; yonder 1 a scarlet hunting- coat a-trail on the banisters, with skirts all mud from feet that mayhap had used it as a mat in rainy ireatherl I leaned forward and picked up the riding-crop; its cane end was capped with heavy gold. The spurs I also lifted for inspection ; they were beautifully wrought in silver. Faugh! Here was no poverty, but the shiftlessness of a sot, trampling good things into the mire! I looked into the fireplace. Ashes of dead embers choked it; the andirons, smoke-smeared and crusted, stood out stark against the sooty maw of the hearth. Still, for all, the hall was made in good and even noble proportion; simple, as should be the abode of a gentleman; over-massive, perhaps, and even destitute of those gracious and symmetrical galleries which we of the South think no shame to take pride in ; for the banisters were brutally heavy, and the rail above like a rampart, and for a newel-post some ass had set a bronze cannon, breech upward; and it was green and beautiful, but offensive to sane consistency. 13 THE MAID-AT-ARMS Standing, the better to observe the hall on all I it came to me that some one had stripped a fine English mansion of fine but ancient furniture, to bring it across an ocean and through a forest for the embellishment of this coarse house. For there were pictures in frames showing generals and statesmen of the Ormond-But- lers, one even of the great duke who fled to France ; and there were pictures of the Varicks before they mingled with us Irish apple-cheeked Dutehi cadaverous youths bearing matchlocks, and one, an admiral, with star and sash across his varnish-cracked corselet of blue steel, looking at me with pale, smoky eyes Rusted suits of mail, and groups of weapons made into star shapes and circles, points outward, were ranged between the heavy pictures, each centred with a moth ravaged stag's head, smothered in <1 As I slowly paced the panelled wall, nose in air to observe these neglected trophies, I came to anoi picture, hung all alone near the wall where it passes under the staircase, and at first, for the darkness, I Id not see. Imperceptibly the outlines of the shape grew in the gloom from a deep, rich background, and I made out a figure of a youth all cased in armor save for tlu helmet, which was borne in one smooth, blue-veined hand. The face, too, began to assume fon;i ; rounded, deli- cate, crowned with a mass of golden hair; and sud- denly I perceived the eyes, and they seemed to open sweetly, like violets in a dim wood. "What Ormond is this?" I muttered, bewitched, yet sullen to see such feminine roundness in any youth and, with my sleeve of buckskin, I rubbed the dust from the gilded plate set in the lower frame. " The Maid-at-Arms," I read aloud. 14 IN THE HALLWAY Then there came to me, at first like the far ring of a voice scarcely heard through southern winds, the faint echo of a legend told me ere my mother died perhaps told me by her in those drifting hours of a child- hood nigh forgotten. Yet I seemed to see white, sun- drenched sands and the long, blue swell of a summer sea, and I heard winds in the palms, and a song truly rt was my mother's; I knew it now and, of a sudden, the words came borne on a whisper of ancient melody: " This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms, Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Anns I" Memory was stirring at last, and the gray legend grew from the past, how a maid, Helen of Ormond, for love of her cousin, held prisoner in his own house at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, sheared off her hair, clothed her limbs in steel, and rode away to seek him; and how she came to the house at Ashby and rode straight into the gateway, forcing her horse to the great hall where her lover lay, and flim^ him, all in chains, across her saddle-bow, riding like a demon to freedom through the Desmonds, his enemies. Ah 1 now my throat was aching with the memory of the song, and of that strange line I never understood " Wearing the ghost- ring!" and, of themselves, the words grew and died, formed on my silent lips : * This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms, Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms I ** Though for all time the lords of Ormond be Butlers to Majesty, Yet shall new honors fail upon her Who, armored, rode for love to Ashby Farms | Let this her title be : A Maid-at-Anns I * Serene mid love's alarms, For all time shall the Maids-at-Anns, IS THE MAID-AT-ARMS Wearing th* ghost-ring, triumph with their constancy. And sweetly conquer with a sigh And vanquish with a tear Captains a trembling world might fear. " This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms* Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Anns I" Staring at the picture, lips quivering with the Boundless words, such wivtchc-d loneliness came over me that a dryness in my throat set me gulping, and I groped my way back to the settle by the fireplace and sat down heavily in homesick solitude. Then hate came, a quick hatred for these Northern skies, and these strangers of the North who d, ( l.urn km with me, to lure me northward with false offer of council and mockery of hospitality. .s on my feet again in a flash, hot with anger, ready with insult to meet insult, for I meant to go ere I had greeted my host an insult, indeed, and a dead- ly one among us. Furious, I bent to snatch my riilc- from the settle where it lay, and, as I flung it to mv shoulder, wheeling to go, my eyes fell upon a fijj stealing down the stairway from above, a woman in flowered silk, bare of throat and elbow, fingers scarce- ly touch i TILT the banisters as she mo She hesitated, one foot poised for the step below; then it fell noiselessly, and she stood ne. Anger died out under the level beauty of lu-r i^i/c. I bowed, just as I caught a trace of mockery in tin mouth's scarlet curve, and bowed the lower for it, too, straightening slowly to the dignity her mischievous eyes seemed to flout; and her Lips, too, defied me, .ill silently nay, in every limb and from every finger-tij she seemed to flout me, and the slow, deep courtesy made me was too slow and far too low, and her re- covery a marvel of plastic malice. 16 IN THE HALLWAY "My cousin Ormond?" she lisped; "I am Dorothy Varick." We measured each other for a moment in silence. There was a trace of powder on her bright hair, like a mist of snow on gold ; her gown's yoke was torn, for all its richness, and a wisp of lace in rags fell, clouding the delicate half - sleeve of China silk. Her face, colored like palest ivory with rose, was no doll's face, for all its symmetry and a forgotten patch to balance the dimple in her rounded chin ; it was even noble in a sense, and, if too chaste for sensuous beauty, yet touched with a strange and pensive sweetness, like 'witched marble waking into flesh. Suddenly a voice came from above : " Dorothy, come here!" My cousin frowned, glanced at me, then laughed. "Dorothy, I want my watch!" repeated the voice. Still looking at me, my cousin slowly drew from her bosom a huge, jewelled watch, and displayed it for my inspection. "We were matching mint-dates with shillings for father's watch; I won it," she observed. "Dorothy!" insisted the voice. "Oh, la!" she cried, impatiently, "will you hush?" "No, I won't!" "Then our cousin Ormond will come up-stairs and give you what Paddy gave the kettle-drum won't you?" she added, raising her eyes to me. "And what was that?" I asked, astonished. Somebody on the landing above went off into fits of laughter; and, as I reddened, my cousin Dorothy, too, began to laugh, showing an edge of small, white teeth under the red lip's line. "Are you vexed because we laugh?" she asked. My tongue stung with a retort, but I stood silent 17 THE MAID-AT-AKMS These Varicks might forget their manners, but I might not forget mine. She honored me with a smile, sweeping me from d to foot with her bright eyes. My buckskins were dirty from travel, and the thrums in rags; and 1 k: that she noted all these matters. "Cousin," she lisped, "I fear you are something of a macaroni." Instantly a fresh volley of laugh UT rattled from the landing such clear, hearty laughter that it infected me, spite my chagrin. "He's a good fellow, our cousin Onnond!" came a fresh young voice from above. " He shall be one of us!" cried another ; and I thought to catch a glimpse of a flowered petticoat whisked f i the gallery's edge. 1 looked at my cousin Dorothy Varick; she stood at gaze, laughter in her eyes, but the mouth < usin Dorothy," said I, "I believe I am a good fellow, even though ragged and respectable. If these qualities be not bars to your society, give me \ hand in fellowship, for upon my soul I am ni^h for a welcome from somebody in this unfriendly land." Still at gaze, she slowly raised her arm and held out to me a fresh, sun-tanned hand ; and I had im to press it, but a sudden shyness scotched me, and, as the soft fingers rested in my palm, I raised them and touched them with ray lips in silent respect. "You have pretty manners," she said, looking at her hand, but not withdrawing it from where it TV Then, of an impulse, her fingers closed on mine firmly, and she looked me straight in the eye. "You are a good comrade; welcome to Varicks', in Onnond!" Our hands fell apart, and, glancing up, I perceived a group of youthful barbarians on the stairs, intently 18 IN THE HALLWAY watching us. As my eyes fell on them they scattered, then closed in together defiantly. A red-haired lad of seventeen came down the steps, offering his hand awk- wardly. "I'm Ruyven Varick," he said. "These girls are fools to bait men of our age " He broke off to seize Dorothy by the arm. " Give me that watch, you vixen ! " His sister scornfully freed her arm, and Ruyvfn stood sullenly clutching a handful of torn lace. "Why don't you present us to our cousin Ormond?" spoke up a maid of sixteen. "Who wants to make your acquaintance?" retort- ed Ruyven, edging again towards his sister. I protested that I did ; and Dorothy, with mock em- pressement, presented me to Cecile Butler, a slender, olive-skinned girl with pretty, dark eyes, who offered me her hand to kiss in such determined manner that I bowed very low to cover my smile, knowing that she had witnessed my salute to my cousin Dorothy and meant to take nothing less for herself. "And those boys yonder are Harry Varick and Sam Butler, my cousins," observed Dorothy, non- chalantly relapsing into barbarism to point them out separately with her pink-tipped thumb ; " and that lad on the stairs is Benny. Come on, we're to throw hunting-knives for pennies. Can you? but of course you can." I looked around at my barbarian kin, who had pro- duced hunters' knives from recesses in their clothing, and now gathered impatiently around Dorothy, who appeared to be the leader in their collective deviltries. "All the same, that watch is mine," broke out Ruy- ven, defiantly. "I'll leave it to our cousin Ormond " but Dorothy cut in : " Cousin, it was done in this man- ner : father lost his timepiece, and the law is that who- ever finds things about the house may keep them. So 19 THE MAID-AT-ARMS we all ran to the porch where father had fallen <>IT his horse last ni^ht, and I think we all saw it at the same and I, being the older and stronger " >u're not the stronger!" cried Sam and. Harry, in the same breath. "I/' repeated Dorothy, serenely, "being not only older than Ruyven by a year, but also stronger than y m all together, kept the spite of your silly el, mor and mean to keej> "Then we matched shillings for it!" cried Cecil e. was only fair; we all discovered it me "Oh Dorothv her lip, "I forgot. Come with me, cousin 1 " She seized a bell-rope and rang it furiously, and a loud gong filled the hall with its brazen hut nobody came. "Where the devil are those blacks?" said Dorothy, MR off her words with a crisp snap that startled more than her profanity. "Catol Where are you, you lazy " "Ahm hyah. Miss Dorry," came a patient voice trom the kitchen sta 20 IN THE HALLWAY "Then bring something to eat bring it to the gun- room instantly something for Captain Ormond and a bottle of Sir Lupus's own claret and two glasses " "Three glasses 1" cried Ruyven. " Four ! " " Five ! " shouted Harry and Cecile. "Six!" added Samuel; and little Benny piped out, "Theven!" "Then bring two bottles, Cato," called out Doro- thy. "I want some small-beer I" protested Benny. "Oh, go suck your thumbs," retorted Ruyven, with an elder brother's brutality ; but Dorothy ordered the small-beer, and bade the negro hasten. " We all mean to bear you company, Cousin," said Ruyven, cheerfully, patting my arm for my reassur- ance ; and truly I lacked something of assurance among these kinsmen of mine, who appeared to lack none. "You spoke of me as Captain Ormond/' I said, turning with a smile to Dorothy. "Oh, it's all one," she said, gayly; "if you're not a captain now, you will be soon, I'll wager but I'm not to talk of that before the children " "You may talk of it before me," said Ruyven. "Harry, take Benny and Sam and Cecile out of ear- shot" "Pooh!" cried Harry, "I know all about Sir John's new regiment " "Will you hush your head, you little fool I" cut in Dorothy. "Servants and asses have long ears, and I'll clip yours if you bray again!" The jingling of glasses on a tray put an end to the matter; Cato, the black, followed by two more blacks, entered the hall bearing silver salvers, and at a nod from Dorothy we all trooped after them. "Guests first!" hissed Dorothy, in a fierce whisper, as Ruyven crowded past me, and he slunk back, mor- 21 THE MAID-AT-ARMS tified, while Dorothy, in a languid voice and with the air of a duchess, drawled, "Your arm, cousin, and slipped her hand into ray arm, tossing her head with a heavy-lidded, insolent glance at poor kuyven. And thus we entered the gun-room, I with Dorothy Varick on my arm, and behind me, though I was not at first aware of it, Harry, gravely conducting Cecile in a similar manner, followed by Samuel and funny, arm-in-arm, while Ruyven trudged sulkily by him self. Ill COUSINS T^HERE was a large, discolored table in the armory, 1 or gun-room, as they called it ; and on this, with- out a cloth, our repast was spread by Cato, while the other servants retired, panting and grinning like over- fat hounds after a pack-run. And, by Heaven! they lacked nothing for solid silver, my cousins the Varicks, nor yet for fine glass, which I observed without appearance of vulgar curiosity while Cato carved a cold joint of butcher's roast and cracked the bottles of wine a claret that perfumed the room like a garden in September. " Cousin Dorothy, I have the honor to raise my glass to you," I said. "I drink your health, Cousin George/' she said, gravely "Benny, let that wine alone I Is there no small-beer there, that you go coughing and staining your bib over wine forbidden? Take his glass away, Ruyven! Take it quick, I say!" Benny, deprived of his claret, collapsed moodily into a heap, and sat swinging his legs and clipping the table, at every kick of his shoon, until my wine danced in my glass and soiled the table. "Stop that, you!" cried Cecile. Benny subsided, scowling. Though Dorothy was at some pains to assure me that they had dined but an hour before, that did not appear to blunt their appetites. And the manner in 23 THE MAID-AT-ARMS which they drank astonished me, a glass of wine be- iniT considered sufficient for young ladies at home, and a half-glass for lads like Harry and Sam. Yet when I emptied my glass Dorothy emptied hers, and the servants refilled hers when they refilled mine, till I grew anxious and watched to see that her face Bushed not, but had my anxiety for my pains, as she changed not a pulse-beat for all the red wine she swallowed. And Lordl how busy were her little wluu Uvth, while her pretty eyes roved about, watchful that onK-r be kept at this gypsy repast. Cecile and Harry fell to struggling for a glass, which snapped and flew to flakes under their clutching fingers, drenching them "Silence!" cried Dorothy, rising, eyes ablaze. "Do you wish our cousin Ormond to take us for manner- less savaires?" retorted Harry. "We are!" "Oh, Lud!" drawled Cecile, languidly f.-mninir her flushed face, " I would I had drunk small-beer Harry, if you kick me again Til pinch!" s a shame," observed Ruyven. "th.it Lrentlemen of our age may not take a glass of wine together in ;\>rt" "Your age!" laughed Dorothy. "Cousin Ormond is hree. silly, and I'm eighteen or close t< "And I'm seventeen," retorted Ruyven. "Yet I throw you at wrestling," observed Doro- thy, with a shrug. "Oh, your big feet! Who can move them?" he re- joined. "Big feet? Mine?" She bent, tore a satin shoe from her foot, and slapped it down on the table in chai- se to all to equal it a small, silver-buckled thing of Paddington's make, with a smart red heel and a :ider body, slim as the crystal slipper of romance. 24 COUSINS There was no denying its shapeliness; presently she removed it, and, stooping, slowly drew it on her foot. " Is that the shoe Sir John drank your health from?" sneered Ruyven. A rich flush mounted to Dorothy's hair, and she caught at her wine-glass as though to throw it at her brother. "A married man, too," he laughed "Sir John Johnson, the fat baronet of the Mohawks " "Damn you, will you hold your silly tongue?" she cried, and rose to launch the glass, but I sprang to my feet, horrified and astounded, arm outstretched. "Ruyven," I said, sharply, "is it you who fling such a taunt to shame your own kin? If there is aught of impropriety in what this man Sir John has done, is it not our affair with him in place of a silly gibe at Dorothy?" "I ask pardon," stammered Ruyven; "had there been impropriety in what that fool, Sir John, did I should not have spoke, but have acted long since, Cousin Ormond." "I'm sure of it," I said, warmly. "Forgive me, Ruyven. " Oh, la!" said Dorothy, her lips twitching to a smile, " Ruyven only said it to plague me. I hate that baro- net, and Ruyven knows it, and harps ever on a foolish drinking-bout where all fell to the table, even Walter Butler, and that slow adder Sir John among the first. And they do say," she added, with scorn, "that the baronet did find one of my old shoon and filled it to my health damn him! " "Dorothy!" I broke in, "who in Heaven's name taught you such shameful oaths?" " Oaths?" Her face burned scarlet. " Is it a shame- ful oath to say 'Damn him'?" THE MAID- AT- ARMS "It is a common oath men use not gentlewomen/' I said. "Oh! I supposed it harmless. They all laugh when I say it father and Guy Johnson and the rest; and they swear other oaths wofdi 1 would not say it 1 could but I did not know there was harm in a good smart 'damn! She leaned back, one slender hand playing with UK* stem of her glass; and the flush faded from her face like an afterglow from a serene hon/.m. I fear/' she said, "you of the South wear a polish we lack." "Best mirror your faults in it while you ha\v chance," said Harry, promi "We lack polish even Walter Butler and (inv Johnson sneer at us under father's nose/' said Ruy- ven. "What the devil is it in us Varicks that set folk \vhi>i>iTini: and snu-lvt-nnir and nudging a or? Am I parti-colored, like an Oneida at a scalp- dance? Docs Harry wear bat's wings for ears? Are Dorothy's legs crooked, that they al Its y.ur ivd head," observed Cecile. "The good folk think to see the noon-sun setting in the wood " "Oh, tally I you always say that," snapped Ruy- ven. Dorothy, leaning forward, looked at me with dreamy blue eyes that saw beyond me "We are doubtless a little mad, ... as they say," she mused " Otherwise we seem to be like other folk. We have clothing befitting, when we choose to wear 1 1 ; we were schooled in Albany; we are people of quality. like the other patroons; we lack nothing for servants or tenants what ails them all, to nudge and stare and grin when we pass?" "Mr. Livingston says our deportment shocks all," murmured Cecile. 26 COUSINS " The Schuylers will have none of us," added Harry, plaintively "and I admire them, too." " Oh, they all conduct shamefully when I go to school in Albany/' burst out Sammy; "and I thrashed that puling young patroon, too, for he saw me and refused my salute. But I think he will render me my bow next time." " Do the quality not visit you here?" I asked Doro- thy. "Visit us? No, cousin. Who is to receive them? Our mother is dead." Cecile said: "Once they did come, but Uncle Var- ick had that mistress of Sir John's to sup with them and they took offence." "Mrs. Van Cortlandt said she was a painted hus- sy " began Harry. " The Van Rensselaers left the house, vowing that Sir Lupus had used them shamefully," added Cecile; " and Sir Lupus said : ' Tush ! tush ! When the Van Rensselaers are too good for the Putnams of Tribes Hill I'll eat my spurs 1' and then he laughed till he cried." "They never came again; nobody of quality ever came; nobody ever comes," said Ruyven. "Excepting the Johnsons and the Butlers," cor- rected Sammy. "And then everybody geths tight; they were here lath night and Uncle Varick is sthill abed," said little Benny, innocently. "Will you all hold your tongues?" cried Dorothy, fiercely. "Father said we were not to tell anybody that Sir John and the Ormond-Butlers visited us." "Why not?" I asked. Dorothy clasped both hands under her chin, rested her bare elbows on the table, and leaned close to me, whispering confidentially : " Because of the war with the 27 THE MAID-AT-ARMS Boston people. The country is overrun with rebels n-bel troops at Albany, rebel gunners at Stanwix. rebels at Edward and Hunter and Johnstown. A scout of ten men came here last week; they were har- rying a war-party of Brant's Mohawks, and St< s with them, and that great ox in buckskin, Jack Mount And do you know what he said to father? He said, 'For Heaven's sake, turn red or blue, Lupus, for if you don't we'll hang you to a crab- apple and chance the color/ And father said, 'I'm no partisan King's man'; and Jack Mom 'You're the joker of the pack, are you?' And fat i , ' I'm not in the shuffle, and you can bear out, you rogue!' And then Jack Mount wagged his big forefinger at him and raid, 'Sir Lupu.s if you're but a joker, one or t'otlu : mst discard you I' And they rode away, priming t laughing, and father swore and shook his cant tlu, In lur eagerness her lips almost touched my ear, and her breath wanned ek. th.it 1 saw and heard, whispered, ";md 1 Know father told Walter Butler, for a scout cr yesterday, saying that a scout from the Rangers and the Royal Greens had crossed the hills, and I saw some of Sir John's Scotch loons rid mi; like warlo on the new road, and that great fool, Francy McCraw, tearing along at their head and crowing like a k." "Cousin, cousin," I protested, "all this .ill t names even the causes and the manners of this war, are incomprehensible to me." "Oh," she said, in surprise, "have you in Florida not heard of our war?" "Yes, yes all know that war is with you, hut that is all. I know that these Boston men 28 COUSINS fighting our King ; but why do the Indians take part?" She looked at me blankly, and made a little gesture of dismay. "I see I must teach you history, cousin/' she said. " Father tells us that history is being made all about us in these days and, would you believe it? Benny took it that books were being made in the woods all around the house, and stole out to see, spite of the law that father made" "Who thaw me?" shouted Benny. " Hush I Be quiet I " said Dorothy. Benny lay back in his chair and beat upon the table, howling defiance at his sister through Harry's shouts of laughter. "Silence!" cried Dorothy, rising, flushed and furi- ous. "Is this a corn-feast, that you all sit yelping in a circle? Ruyven, hold that door, and see that no one follows us " "What for?" demanded Ruyven, ri ng. "If you mean to keep our cousin Ormond to yourself " "I wish to discuss secrets with my cousin Ormond/' said Dorothy, loftily, and stepped from her chair, nose in the air, and that heavy-lidded, insolent glance which once before had withered Ruyven, and now withered him again. "We will go to the play-room/' she whispered, pass- ing me; "that room has a bolt; they'll all be kicking at the door presently. Follow me/' Ere we had reached the head of the stairs we heard a yell, a rush of feet, and she laughed, crying : " Did I not say so? They are after us now full bark! Come!" She caught my hand in hers and sped up the few remaining steps, then through the upper hallway, guiding me the while her light feet flew; and I, em- barrassed, bewildered, half laughing, half shamed 29 THE MAID-AT-ARMS to go a-racing through a strange house in such absurd a fashion. "Here!" she panted, dragging me into a great. 1 i uber and bolting the door, then leaned breathless against the wail to listen as the chase galloped up. loring, kicking and beating on panel and wall. baffled. ITiey're raging to lose their new coi he breathed, smiling across at me with a glint of ]>nw we Varicks stand betwixt the deep sea and the devil/' " I wish to come in!" shouted Ruyven, in a threaten- ing voice. Dorothy laughed, and pointed to a great arm-chair of leather and oak. " I will sit there ; place it by the window, cousin." 30 COUSINS I placed the chair for her ; she seated herself with un- conscious grace, and motioned me to bring another chair for myself. "Are you going to let me in?" cried Ruyven. "Oh, go to the" began Dorothy, then flushed and glanced at me, asking pardon in a low voice. A nice parent, Sir Lupus, with every child in his family ready to swear like Flanders troopers at the first breath! Half reclining in her chair, limbs comfortably ex- tended, Dorothy crossed her ankles and clasped her hands behind her head, a picture of indolence in every line and curve, from satin shoon to the dull gold of her hair, which, as I have said, the powder scarcely frosted. "To comprehend properly this war," she mused, more to herself than to me, " I suppose it is necessary to understand matters which I do not understand; how it chanced that our King lost his city of Boston, and why he has not long since sent his soldiers here into our county of Tryon." "Too many rebels, cousin," I suggested, flippantly. She disregarded me, continuing quietly : " But this much, however, I do understand, that our province of New York is the centre of all this trouble ; fhat the men of Tryon hold the last pennyweight, and that the balanced scales will tip only when we patroons cast in our fortunes, . . . either with our King or with the rebel Congress which defies him. I think our hearts, not our interests, must guide us in this affair, which touches our honor." Such pretty eloquence, thoughtful withal, was not what I had looked for in this new cousin of mine this free-tongued maid, who, like a painted peach-fruit all unripe, wears the gay livery of maturity, tricking the eye with a false ripeness. 31 THE MAID-AT-ARMS "I have thought/' she said, "that if the issues of this war depend on us, we patroons should not draw sword too hastily yet not to sit like house-cats blink- it this world-wide blaze, but, in the full flood of ihe drawl knowing of our own minds on which lies the right." " Who taught you this?" I asked, surprised to over- bluntness. "Who taught me? What? To think?" Shelaugh- ed. "Solitude is a rare spur to thought. I listen to the gentlemen who talk with father; and I would gladly join and have my say, too, but that they treat me like a fool, and I have my questions for my pains Yet I swear I am dowered with more sense than Sir John Johnson, with his pale eyes and t hite flesh, and his tarnished honor to dog him like tlu shadow of a damned man sold to Satan " "Is he dishonored?" a parole broken a dishonor? The Boston peo- ple took him and placed him on his honor to live at Johnson Hall and do no meddling. And now li fled to Fort Niagara to raise the Mohawks. Is that After a moment I said : " But a moment since you told me that Sir John comes hi She nodded. "He comes and goes in secret with young Walter Butler one of your ()rm<>iul-Rutlers v cousin and old John Butler, his father, Colonel of the Rangers, who boast they mean to scalp tlu v,h<>! Tryon County ere this blood-feud is ended. Oh, I have heard them talk and talk, drinking o' nights in ilu gun- room, and the escort's horses stamping at the porch with a man to each horse, to hold the poor brutes' noses they should n< 1 wake the woods. Coun- cils of war, they call them, these revels; but they end ever the same, with Sir John borne off to bed too drunk 32 COUSINS to curse the slaves who shoulder his fat bulk, and Wal- ter Butler, sullen, stunned by wine, a brooding thing of malice carved in stone; and father roaring his same old songs, and beating time with his long pipe till the stem snaps, and he throws the glowing bowl at Cato ' "Dorothy, Dorothy," I said, "are these the scenes you find already too familiar?" "Stale as last month's loaf in a ratty cupboard." "Do they not offend you?" "Oh, I am no prude " Do you mean to say Sir Lupus sanctions it?" "What? My presence? Oh, I amuse them; they dress me in Ruyven's clothes and have me to wine lacking a tenor voice for their songs and at first, long ago, their wine made me stupid, and they found rare sport in baiting me ; but now they tumble, one by one, ere the wine's fire touches my face, and father swears there is no man in County Tryon can keep our com- pany o' nights and show a steady pair of legs like mine to bear him bedwards." After a moment's silence I said: "Are these your Northern customs?" "They are ours and the others of our kind. I hear the plain folk of the country speak ill of us for the free life we lead at home I mean the Palatines and the canting Dutch, not our tenants, though wiiat even they may think of the manor house and of us I can only suspect, for they are all rebels at heart, Sir John says, and wear blue noses at the first run o' king's cider." She gave a reckless laugh and crossed her knees, looking at me under half-veiled lids, smooth and pure as a child's. "Food for the devil, they dub us in the Palatine church," she added, yawning, till I could see all her small, white teeth set in rose. * 33 THE MAID-AT-ARMS A nice nest of kinsmen had I uncovered in this hard, gray Northern forest ! The Lord knows, we of the South do little jK-nance for the pleasures a free life brings us under the Southern stars, yet such license as this is not to our taste, and I think a man a fool to teach his children to review with hardened eyes home scenes \-d to a tavern. Yet I was a guest, having accepted shelter and eat- en salt; and I might not say my mind, even claim kinsman's privilege to rebuke what seemed to me to touch the family honor. Staring through the unwashed window-pane, mood- ily brooding on what I had learned, I followed impa- tiently the flight of those small, gray swallows of the North, colorless as shadows, \\hHm:: in spirals above the cold chimneys, to tumble in like flakes of gray soot only to drift out again, wind - blown, aimless, irra- enseless things. And again that liatred seized for all this pale Northern \\lure the very !* gyrated like moon-smitten sprites, and ti spec t iv "f virtue sat amid here bloodless fools roused. " Are you homesick, cousin?" she asked. "Ay ii you must know the truthl" I broke out, now meaning to say my fill and ease me ' I Ins i. the world ; it is a gray inferno, where shades rave with- out reason, where there is no color, no repose, noth but blank ness and unreason, and an air that stings all living life to spasms of unrest Your sun is i yet has no balm; your winds plague the skin bones of a man; the forests are unfriendly ; the \vaters all hurry as though bewitched! Brooks are cold . tasteless as the fog ; the unsalted, spiceless air clogs the throat and whips the nerves till the very soul in the body strains, fluttering to be free! How can decent folk abide here?" 34 COUSINS I hesitated, then broke into a harsh laugh, for my cousin sat staring at me, lips parted, like a fair shape struck into marble by a breath of magic. " Pardon," I said. " Here am I, kindly invited to the council of a family whose interests lie scattered through estates from the West Indies to the Canadas, and I requite your hospitality by a rudeness I had not be- lieved was in me." I asked her pardon again for the petty outburst of an untravelled youngster whose first bath in this Northern air -ocean had chilled his senses and his courtesy. "There is a land," I said, "where lately the gray bastions of St. Augustine reflected the gold and red of Spanish banners, and the blue sea mirrors a bluer sky. We Ormonds came there from the Western Indies, then drifted south, skirting the Mutanzas to the sea islands on the Halifax, where I was born, an English- man on Spanish soil, and have lived there, knowing no land but that of Florida, treading no city streets save those walled lanes of ancient Augustine. All this vast North is new to me, Dorothy; and, like our swamp- haunting Seminoles, my rustic's instinct finds hostil- ity in what is new and strange, and I forget my breeding in this gray maze which half confuses, half alarms me." "I am not offended," she said, smiling, "only I wonder what you find distasteful here. Is it the soli- tude?" "No, for we also have that." "Is it us?" " Not you, Dorothy, nor yet Ruyven, nor the others. Forget what I said. As the Spaniards have it, ' Only a fool goes travelling/ and I'm not too notorious for my wisdom, even in Augustine. If it be the custom of the people here to go mad, I'll not sit in a corner croak 35 THE MAID-AT-ARMS incr, ' Repent and be wise!' If the Varicks and the Butlers set the pace, I promise you to keep the quarry, Mistress Folly, in view ]xrhaps outfoot you all to Bedlam 1 . . . But, cousin, if }*ou, too, run this un- coupled race with the pack, I mean to pace you, r and neck, like a keen whip, ready to turn and lash the first who interferes with you." "With me?" she repeated, smiling. "Am I a youngster to be coddled and protected? You have not seen our hunting. / lead, my friend; you fol- io* She unclasped her arms, which till now had held her bright head cradled, and sat up, hands on her knees, grave as an Egyptian goddess guarding tombs, 1 wager I can outrun tshoot you, out- i, throw you at wrestle, cast the knit truer than i, catch more fish than you and \ys ones at thai i an impatient gesture, peculiarly graceful, like the half-salute of a friendly swordsman ere you draw and stand on guard: * Read the forest with me. I can outread you, sign for sign, track for track, trail in and trail out! Thf forest is to me Te-ka-on-do-duk [the place with a sign -post]. And when the confederacy speaks with five tongues, and every tongue split into five forked dialects, I make no answer in finger-signs, as needs must you, my cousin of the Se-a-wan-ha-ka [the land )f shells]. We speak to the Iroquois with our lips, we People of the Morning. Our hands are for our rifles I Iliro[Ihavespoke: She laughed, challenging me with eye and lip. * And if you defy me to a bout with bowl or bottle I will not turn coward, neah-wen-ha [I thank you]! but I will drink with you and let my father judge whose Jfi COUSINS legs best carry him to bed! Koue! Answer me, my cousin, Tahoontowhe [the night hawk].'* We were laughing now, yet I knew she had spoken seriously, and to plague her I said: "You boast like a Seminole chanting the war-song." "I dare you to cast the hatchet 1" she cried, redden- ing, "Dare me to a trial less rude," I protested, laugh- ing the louder. "No, no! Come!" she said, impatient, unbolting the heavy door; and, willy-nilly, I followed, meeting the pack all sulking on the stairs, who rose to seize me as 1 came upon them. "Let him alone!" cried Dorothy; "he says he can outcast me with the war -hatchet! Where is my hatchet? Sammy! Ruyven! find hatchets and conic to the painted post." "Sport!" cried Harry, leaping down- stairs before us. "Cecile, get your hatchet get mine, too! Come on, Cousin Ormond, 111 guide you; it's the painted post by the spring and hark, Cousin George, if you beat her I'll give you my silvered powder- horn!" Cecile and Sammy hastened up, bearing in their arms the slim war-hatchets, cased in holsters of bright-bead- ed hide, and we took our weapons and started, piloted by Harry through the door, and across the shady, un- kempt lawn to the stockade gate. Dorothy and 1 walked side by side, like two cham- pions in amiable confab before a friendly battle, in- timately aloof from the gaping crowd which follows on the flanks of all true greatness. Out across the deep -green meadow we marched, the others trailing on either side with eager advice to me, or chattering of contests past, when Walter Butler and Brant he who is now war-chief of the loyal Mo- 37 THE MAID-AT-ARMS hawks cast hatchets for a silver girdle, which Bntnt wears still; and the patroon, and Sir John. ;uul all the great folk from Guy Park were here a-beitm- mi the Mohawk, which, they say, so angered Walter Butler that he lost the contest And that day dated the silent enmity between Brant and Butler, which never healed This I gathered amid all their chit-chat while we stood under the willows near the spring, watching Ruyven pace the disk* n the post back across the greensward towards us. Then, making his heel-mark in the grass, he took a green willow wand and set it, all feathered, in the turf "Is it fair for Dorothy to cast her own hatch asked Harry. ve me Ruyven 's," she said, half vexed. A that touched her sense of fairness sent a quick flame iger to her cheeks which I admired. "Keep your own hatchet, cousin," I said; " may have need of it " "Give me Ruyven 's hatchet/' she repeated, with a stamp of her foot which Ruyven hastened to re- spect Then she turned to me, pink with defiance : "It is always a stranger's honor/' she said; so I advanced, drawing my lieht, keen wcajxm from its beaded sheath, which I had belted round me; and Ruyven took station by the post, ten paces to the right The post was painted scarlet, rinered w ^ white above; below, in outline, the form of a man an Ind- ian with folded arms, also drawn in white paint The play was simple ; the hatch imbed its blade close to the outlined shape, yet not " wound " or " draw blood." * Brant at first refused to cast against that figure " 38 COUSINS said Harry, laughing. "He consented only because the figure, though Indian, was painted white." I scarce heard him as I stood measuring with my eyes the distance. Then, taking one step forward to the willow wand, I hurled the hatchet, and it landed quiv- ering in the shoulder of the outlined figure on the post. "A wound!" cried Cecile; and, mortified, I stepped back, biting my lip, while Harry notched one point against me on the willow wand, and Dorothy, light- ening her girdle, whipped out her i right war-axe and stepped forward. Nor did she even pause to scan the post; her arm shot up, the keen axe-blade glittered and flew, sparkling and whirling, biting into the post, chuck! handle a-quiver. And you could not have laid a June willow-leaf betwixt the Indian's head and the hatchet's blade. She turned to me, lips parted in a tormenting smile, and I praised the cast and took my hatchet from Ruy- ven to try once more. Yet again I broke skin on the thigh of the pictured captive; and again the glistening axe left Dorothy's hand, whirring to a safe score, a grass-stem's width from the Indian's head. I understood that I had met my master, yet for the third time strove; and my axe whistled true, standing point-bedded a finger's breadth from the cheek. "Can you mend that, Dorothy?" I asked, politely. She stood smiling, silent, hatchet poised, then nodded, launching the axe. Crack! came the handles of the two hatchets, and rattled together. But the blade of her hatchet divided the space betwixt my blade and the painted face, nor touched the outline by a fair hair's breadth. Astonishment was in my face, not chagrin, but she misread me, for the triumph died out in her eyes, and, "Oh!" she said: "I did not mean to win truly I did not." offering her hands in friendly amend. 39 THE MAID-AT-ARMS But at my quick laugh she brightened, still hold. inn: my hands, regarding me with curious eyes, brill- iant as amethysts. "I waa afraid I had hurt your pride before these silly children " she began. "Children!" shouted Ruyveru "I bet you ten shil- lings he can outcast y. u yell" "Done!" she flashed, then, all in a breath, smiled adorably and shcol ad. "No, I'll not bet. 1 L could win if he We understand each other, my cousin Ormond and I," and gave my kinds a i friendly shake with both of hers, then dropped them to still Ruyven's clamor for a wager. " You little beast!" she said, fiercely; "is it cour- teous to pit your guests like game-cocks for your pleasure?" ''You did it yourself!" retorted Ruyven, indignant- ly "and entered the pit yourself." r a jest, silly I There were no bets. Now frown and vapor and wag your finger do! What do you lack? I will wrestle you if you wait until I don my buckskins. No? A foot-race? and 111 bet you your ten shillings on myself! Ten to five to three to one! No? Then hush your silly head!" "Because," said Rnwm, sullenly, coming up to me, "she can outrun me with her long legs, she gives herself the dev i airs and graces. Tluiv's no livinir with her, I tell you. I wish I could go to the war." "You 11 have to go when father declares him observed Dorothy, quietly polishing her hatchet on heath. "But he won't declare for King or Congress," re- torted the boy. " Wait till they start to plague us/' murmured Doro- thy. "Some fine July day cows will be missed, or a 40 COUSINS barn burned, or a shepherd found scalped. Then you'll see which way the coin spins 1" "Which way will it spin?" demanded Ruyven, in- credulous yet eager. " Ask that squirrel yonder/' she said, briefly. "Thanks; I've asked enough of chatterers/' he snapped out, and came to the tree where we were sit- ting in the shadow on the cool, thick carpet of the grass such grass as I had never seen in that fair South land which I loved. The younger children gathered shyly about me, their active tongues suddenly silent, as though, all at once, they had taken a sudden alarm to find me there. The reaction of fatigue was settling over me for my journey had been a long one that day and I leaned my back against the tree and yawned, raising my hand to hide it "I wonder," I said, "whether anybody here knows if my boxes and servant have arrived from Phila- delphia/' " Your boxes are in the hallway by your bed-cham- ber/' said Dorothy. "Your servant went to Johns- town for news of you let me see I think it was Sat- urday " "Friday/* said Ruyven, looking up from the wil- low wand which he was peeling. "He never came back/' observed Dorothy. "Some believe he ran away to Albany, some think the Bos- ton people caught him and impressed him to work on the fort at Stanwix." I felt my face growing hot "I should like to know," said I, "who has dared to interfere with my servant" "So should I," said Ruyven, stoutly. "I'd knock his head off/' The others stared. Dorothy, picking M THE MAID-AT-ARMS a meadow-flower to pieces, smiled quietly, but did noi look u "What do you think has happened to my black?' I asked, watching her. " I think Walter Butler's men caught him and packed him off to Fort Niagara/' she said. " Why do you believe that?" I asked, angrily. "Because Mr. Butler came here looking for boat- men; and I know he tried to bribe Cato to go. Cato told me." She turned sharply to the olh But mind you say nothing to Sir Lupus of this until I choose aD himl" '* Have you proof that Mr. Butler was concerned in the disappearance of my servant?" I asked, with an unpleasant softness in my voice. "No proof/' replied Dorothy, also very softly. " Then I may not even question him," I saicL "No, you can do nothing n< I thought a moment, frowning, then glanced up to them all intently uat, lung me. "I should like/' said I, "to have a tub of clean water and fresh clothing, and to sleep for ,m hour ere I dress to dine with Sir Lupus. Hut. lirM, I should like to see my mare, that she is well bedded and " "I'll see to 1: r that in a moment of just provocation. It would grieve me if he were your enemy I should not sleep for think- ing." " Dorothy/' I said, smiling, "I use some weapons better than I do the war-axe. Are you afraid f She looked at me seri< In that little which I know there is much that terrifies men, yii I can say, without boast i UK. Dot, in my world, one living creature or o h or spirit that I dread no, not even Catrine Montour!" "And who is Catrine Montour?" I asked, amused at her earnestness. she could reply, Ruyven called from i that Cato had my tub of water all prepared, and she walked awaj, nodding a brief adieu, pausing at the door to give me one sweet, swift smile of friendly in- IV SIR LUPUS I HAD bathed and slept, and waked once more to the deep, resonant notes of a conch-shell blowing ; and I still lay abed, blinking at the sunset through the soiled panes of my western window, when Cato scraped at the door to enter, bearing my sea -boxes one by one. Reaching behind me, I drew the keys from under my pillow and tossed them to the solemn black, lying still once more to watch him unlock my boxes and lay out my clothes and linen to the air. "Company to sup, suh; geinmcn from de No'th an* Guy Pahk, suh," he hinted, rolling his eyes at me and holding up my best wristbands, made of my mother's lace. " I shall dress soberly, Cato/' said I, yawning. " Give me a narrow queue-ribbon, too." The old man mumbled and muttered, fussing about among the boxes until he found a full suit of silver- gray, silken stockings, and hound's-tongue shoes to match. " Dishyere clothes sho' is sober," he reflected aloud. "One li'l gole vine a-crawlin' on de cuffs, nuvver li'l gole vine a-creepin' up de wes'coat, gole buckles on de houn'-tongue Wharde hat? Hat done loose hisse'f! Here de hat! Gole lace on de hat Cap'in Ormond sho' is quality gemm'n. Ef he ain't, how come dishy ere gole lace on de hat?" 45 THE MAID-AT-ARMS "Come, Cato," I remonstrated, "am I dressing fora ball at Augustine, that you stand there pulling ; finery about to choose and pick? I tell you to give ;m a sober suit!" I snatched a flowered robe from the bed's foot-board, pulled it about me, and stepped to the floor. Cato brought a chair and bowl, and, when I had washed once more I seated myself while the old man shook out my hair, dusted it to n . i hen it 11 to combing and brushing. My hair, with its ob- stinate inclination to curl, needed neiiiuT iron nor pomade; so, silvering it with my best French j der, he tied the short queue with a black ribbon and ted my shoulders, critically considering me the while. " A plain shirt," I said, briefly. He brought a frilled one. " I want a plain shirt," I insisted " Dishyere sho't am des de plaincs' an* de " " You villain, don't I know what I want 7 " "No, suh!" And, upon my honor, I could not get that black mule to find me the shirt that I wished to wear. More than that, he utterly refused to permit me to dress in a certain suit of mouse-color without lace, but actually bundled me into the silver-gray, talking volubly all the while; and I, half laughing an v vexed, al- most minded to go burrowing myself among my boxes and risk peppering silk and vt h hair-powder. But he dressed me as it suited him, pat silk shoes into shape, smoothing coat-skirt and flowered vest-flap, shaking out the lace on stock and wrist with all the delicacy and cunning of a lady's-maid. "Idiot!" said I, "am I tricked out to please you?" " You she' is, Cap'in On ' ih," he said, the faint approach to a grin that I had seen wrinkling his 46 SIR LUPUS aged face. And with that he hung my small-sword, whisked the powder from my shoulders with a bit of cambric, chose a laced handkerchief for me, and, ere I could remonstrate, passed a tiny jewelled pin into my powdered hair, where it sparkled like a frost crystal. "I'm no macaroni!" I said, angrily; "take it away!" "Cap'in Ormond, suh, you sho' is de fines' young gemm'n in de province, suh," he pleaded. "Dess regahd yo'se'f, suh, in dishyere lookum-glass. What I done tell you? Look foh yo'se'f, suh! Cap'in But- ler gwine see how de quality gemm'n fixes up! Suh John Johnsing he gwine see! Dat ole Kunnel Butler he gwine see, too! Heah yo' is, suh, dess a-bloomin' L,!. -Lc pink-an '-silver ghos' flower wif de gole heart." "Cato," I asked, curiously, "why do you take pride in tricking out a stranger to dazzle your own people?" The old man stood silent a moment, then looked up with the mild eyes of an aged hound long privileged in honorable retirement. "Is you sho' a Ormond, suh?" "Yes, Cato." "Might you come f'om de Spanish grants, suh, 'long de Halifax?" " Yes, yes ; but we are English now. How did you know I came from the Halifax?" "I knowed it, suh; I knowed h'it muss be dat-a- way!" " How do you know it, Cato?" " I spec' you favor yo' pap, suh, de ole Kunnel " "My father!" " Mah ole marster, suh ; I was raised long Matanzas, suh. Spanish man done cotch me on de Tomoka an' ship me to Quebec. Ole Suh William Johnsing, he done buy me; Suh John, he done sell me; Mars Varick, he buy me; an' hyah ah is, suh heart dess daid foh de Halifax san's." 47 THE MAID-AT-ARMS He bent his withered head and laid his face on my hands, but no tear fell. After a moment he straightened, snuffled, and smiled, opening his lips with a dry clu " H'it's dat-a-way, suh. Ole Cato dess 'bleged to fix up de young marster. Pride o' famhly, suh. What lit you be desirin' now, Mars' Onnond? One li'l drap o' musk on yoh hanker? Lawd save us, but you sho' is gallus dishyere dayl Spec' Miss Dorry .:ie blink de vi'lets in her eyes. Yaas, suh. Miss Dorry am de only one, suh; de onliest Ormond in dishyere fambly. Seem mos' lak she done throw back to our folk, suh. Miss Dorry ain' no Varick; .A' Dorry all Onnond, suh, dess lak you an' me! Yaas, suh, h'its dat-a-way; h'it sho' is, Mars' Ormond." I drew a deep, quivering breath. li<>me seemed so 1 the old slave would never live to see it. I felt as though this steel -cold North held me, too, like a trap never to unclose. "Cato," I said, abruptly, "let us go home." He understood; a gleam of purest joy flickered in i yes, then died out, quenched in swelling tears. 1 Ie wept awhile, standing there in the centre of the room, smearing the tears away with the flapping sleeves of his tarnished livery, while, like a committed \ I paced the walls, to and fro, to and fro. heart aching for escape. The litrht in the west deepened above the forests; a IOIILT. ult'wini; erack opened between two thunderous clouds, like a hint of hidden hell, firing the whole sk\ . 1 in the blaze the crows winged, two and two, like hes flying home to the infernal pit, now all ablaze and kindling coal on coal along the dark sky's som- bre brink. Then the red bars faded on my wall to pink, to ashes; a fleck of rosy cloud in mid-zenith glimmered and 48 SIR LUPUS went out, and the round edges of the world were cur- tained with the night. Behind me, Cato struck flint and lighted two tall candles ; outside the lawn, near the stockade, a stable- lad set a conch-horn to his lips, blowing a deep, melodi- ous cattle-call, and far away I heard them coming tin, ton! tin, ton! tinkle! through the woods, slowly, slowly, till in the freshening dusk I smelled their milk and heard them lowing at the unseen pasture-bars. I turned sharply; the candle-light dazzled me. As I passed Cato, the old man bowed till his coat-cuffs hung covering his dusky, wrinkled fingers. "When we go, we go together, Cato," I said, husk- ily, and so passed on through the brightly lighted hall- way and down the stairs. Candle-light glimmered on the dark pictures, the rusted circles of arms, the stags' heads with their dusty eyes. A servant in yellow livery, lounging by tin door, rose from the settle as I appeared and threw open the door on the left, announcing, "Cap'm Ormond!" in a slovenly fashion which merited a rebuke from somebody. The room into which the yokel ushered me appeared to be a library, low of ceiling, misty with sour pipe smoke, which curled and floated level, wavering as the door closed behind me. Through the fog, which nigh choked me with its staleness, I perceived a bulky gentleman seated at ease, sucking a long clay pipe, his bulging legs cocked up on a card-table, his little, inflamed eyes twinkling red in the candle-light. " Captain Ormond ?" he cried. " Captain be damned ; you're my cousin, George Ormond, or I'm the fattest liar south of Montreal! Who the devil put 'em up to captaining you eh? Was it that minx Dorothy? Dammy, I took it that the old Colonel had come to 4 " 49 THE MAID-AT-ARMS irue me from his grave your father, sir! And a cd line fellow, if he was second cousin to a Varick, which he could not help, not he! though I've heard him damn his luck to my very face, sir! Yes, sir, lor my very nose!" .11 into a fit of fat coughing, and seized a glass of spirits-and- water which stood on the table near his feet. The draught allayed his spasm; lu wiped his broad, purple face, chuckled, tossed off the last of the liquor with a smack, and held out a mottled, fat hand, bare of wrist-lace. " Here's my heart with it, George!" IK cried. " I'd stand up to greet you, but minutes for me to find these feet o' mine, so I'll not keep you waiting. There's a chair; till it with th.-u pretty body of yours ; cock up your feet here's a pipe here's snuff here's the best rum north o' Norf which that ass Dunmore laid in ashes to spite those who kicked him on He squeezed ray hand affectionately. " Pn Dammy, but you'll break a heart or two, you roj. Oh. you are your father all over again; it's that v with you Ormonds all alike, and handsome as that young devil Lucifer; too proud to be proud o' your dukes and admirals, and a thousand years of wait on ng. As lads together your father used to take me by the ear and cufT me, crying, ' Beast! be i eat and drink too much! An Ormond lies not in his belly!' Ai ked back, fi^lr stoutly for the crust he dragged me from. Dammy, why not? There's more Dutch Varick than Irish Ormond in me. Rememlvr that, George, and we shall get on famously together, you and I. Forget it, and we quarrel. Hey! fill that t in glass for a toa ve you the family, George. May they keep tight hold on what is theirs through all this cursed war-folly. Here's to the patroons, (iod bless 'em!" 50 SIR LUPUS Forced by courtesy to drink ere I had yet tasted meat, I did my part with the best grace I could muster, turning the beautiful glass downward, with a bow to my host "The same trick o' grace in neck and wrist/' he muttered, thickly, wiping his lips. " All Ormond, all Ormond, George, like that vixen o' mine, Dorothy. Hey ! It's not too often that good blood throws back ; the mongrel shows of tenest ; but that big chit of a lass is no Varick ; she's Ormond to the bones of her. Ruy- ven's a red-head ; there's red in the rest o' them, and the slow Dutch blood. But Dorothy's eyes are like those wild iris -blooms that purple all our meadows, and she has the Ormond hair that thick, dull gold, which that French Ormond, of King Stephen's time, was dowered with by his Saxon mother, Helen. Eh? You see, I read it in that book your father k-ft us. If I'm no Ormond, I like to find out why, and I love to dispute the Ormond claim which Walter But- ler makes he with his dark face and hair, and those dusky, golden eyes of his, which turn so yellow when I plague him the mad wild-cat that he is." Another fit of choking closed his throat, and again lu soaked it open with his chilled toddy, rattling the stick to stir it well ere he drained it at a single, gob- bling gulp. A faint disgust took hold on me, to sit there smoth- ering in the fumes of pipe and liquor, while my gross kinsman guzzled and gabbled and guzzled again. "George," he gasped, mopping his crimsoned face, "I'll tell you now that we Varicks and you Ormonds must stand out for neutrality in this war. The But- lers mean mischief; they're mad to go to fighting, and that means our common ruin. They'll be here to-night, damn them." "Sir Lupus," I ventured, "we are all kinsmen, the THE MAID-AT-ARMS Butlers, the Varicks, and the Ormonds. We are to her here for self-protection during this rebellion. I am sure that in the presence of t non danger there can arise no family dissension." "Yes, there can!" he fairly yelled. "Here am I risking life and property to persuade these Hu tiers lh.it their ii. s in strictest neutrality. If Schuy- ler at Albany knew they visited me, his dragoons would gallop into Varick Manor and hang me to my 1>. door! Here am I, I say, doing my best to keep em quiet, and there's Sir John Johnson and all that brag- gim rom Guy Park combating me nay, would you believe their impudence? striving to win me to arm my tenantry for this King of Kngland, who has done nothing for me, save to make a knight of me t curry favor with the Dutch patroons in New York vince or state, as they call it now! And now I have you to count on for support, and we'll whistle an- other jig for them to-night, I'll warr. Me seized his unfilled glass, looked into it, and ied it from him peevishly. "Dammv," he said, "I'll not budge for them! I have thousands of acres, hundreds of t farms, sugar-bushes, manufactories for pearl-ash, <:nst -mills, saw-mills, and I'm damned if I draw sword t-ither way! Am I a madman, to risk all this? Am I a common fool, to chance '.' Do th< me in my dotage? Indeed, sir, if I drew blade, if I as much as raised a finger, both sides would come swarming all over us rebels a-looting and a-shooting, Indians whooping off my cattle, firing my barns, scalping my tenants rebels at heart every one, and Id not care tuppence who scalped 'em but that they pay me rent!" 1 Ie clinched his fat fists and beat the air angrily. n lord of this manor!" he bawled. " I'm Patroon Varick, and I'll do as I please I" 52 SIR LUPJS Amazed and mortified at his gross frankness, I sat silent, not knowing what to say. Interest alone swayed him ; the right and wrong of this quarrel were nothing to him ; he did not even take the trouble to pay a hypo- crite's tribute to principle ere he turned his back on it ; selfishness alone ruled, and he boasted of it, waving his short, fat arms in anger, or struggling to extend them heavenward, in protest against these people who dared urge him to declare himself and stand or fall with the cause he might embrace. A faint disgust stirred my pulse. We Ormonds had as much to lose as he, but yelled it not to the skies, nor clamored of gain and loss in such unseemly fashion, ignoring higher motive. "Sir Lupus," I said, "if we can remain neutral with honor, that surely is wisest. But can \ "Remain neutral! Of course we can!" he shouted. "Honorably?" "Eh? Where's honor in this mob-rule that breaks out in Boston to spot the whole land with a scurvy eruption! Honor? \Vlu-rv is it in this vile distemper which sets old neighbors here a-itching to cut each other's throats? One sr- racts in Tryon Coun.y whirh his i^reat father, Sir i, had left him when he died; that Col. Claus, st within gunshot of the British outpost at New Smyrna ; ot es. our lemons, our cane, our cotton, must *vither at a blast from the cannon of Saint Am rebels in Georgia threaten us, the Tories at Pensc*oola warn us, the Seminoles are gathering, the 54 SIR LUPUS Minorcans are arming, the blacks in the Carolinas watch us, and the British regiments at Augustine are all itching to ravage and plunder and drive us into the sea if we declare not for the King who pays them." Sir Lupus nodded, winked, and fell to slicing to- bacco with a small, gold knife. " We're all Quakers in these days eh, George? We can't fight no, we really can't 1 It's wrong, George, oh. very wrong." And he fell a-chuckling, so that his paunch shook like a jelly. " I think you do not understand me," I said. He looked up quickly. "We Ormonds are only waiting to draw sword." " Draw sword !" he cried. " What d' ye mean?" " I mean that, once convinced our honor demands it, we cannot choose but draw." "Don't be an ass!" he shouted. "Have I not told you that there's no honor in this bloody squabble? Lord save the lad, he's mad as Walter Butler 1" "Sir Lupus," I said, angrily, "is a man an ass to defend his own land?" "He is when it's not necessary! Lie snug; nobody is going to harm you. Lie snug, with both arms around your own land." "I meant my own native land, not the miserable acres my slaves plant to feed and clothe me." He glared, twisting his long pipe till the stem broke short " Well, which land do you mean to defend, England or these colonies?" he asked, staring. "That is what I desire to learn, sir," I said, respect- fully. " That is why I came North. With us in Flor- ida, all is, so far, faction and jealousy, selfish intrigue and prejudiced dispute. The truth, the vital truth, is obscured; the right is hidden in a petty storm where 55 THE MAID-AT-ARMS local tyrants fill the air with dust, striving each to blind the other." 1 leaned forward earnestly. "There must be i and wrong in this dispute; Truth stands naked some- where in the world. It is for us to find her. Why, mark me, Sir Lupus, men cannot sit and blink at villany, nor look with indifference on a struggle to the death. One side is right, t'other wrong. And we must learn how matters stand." "And what will it advance us to learn how matters stand?" he said, still staring, as though I were some persistent fool vexing him with unleavened babble ippose these rebels are right and, dammy, but I think they are and suppose our King's troops are roundly trouncing them and I think they are, too do you mean to say you'd draw sword and go a-prowl- ing, seeking for some obliging enemy to knock you in the lu.id or hang you for a rebel to your neighbor's "Something of that sort," I said, good-humoredly. "Oh, Don Quixote once more, eh?" he sneered, too mad to raise his voice to the more convenient bellow which seemed to soothe him as much as it distressed listener. " \\V11, vou've got a fool's mate in George Covert, the insufferable dandy 1 And all you two need is a pair o' Panzas and a brace of windmills. Bah!" He grew angrier. "Bah, I say!" He broke out "Damnation, sir! Go to the devil!" I said, calmly: "Sir Lupus, I hear your observa- with patience; I naturally receive your admoni- tion with respect, but your bearing towards me I re- sent. Pray, sir, remember that I am under your roof note, but when I quit it I am free to call you to account " hat! You'd fight i "Scarcely, sir; but I should expect somebody to make your words good." 56 SIR LUPUS "Bah! Who? Ruyven? He's a lad! Dorothy is the only one to " He broke out into a hoarse laugh. "Oh, you Ormonds! I might have saved myself the pains. And now you want to flesh your sword, it mat- ters not in whom Tory, rebel, neutral folk, they're all one to you, so that you fight! George, don't take offence; I naturally swear at those I differ with. I may love 'em and yet curse 'em like a sailor! Know me better, George! Bear with me; let me swear at you, lad! It's all I can do." He spread out his fat hands imploringly, recrossing his enormous legs on the card-table. "I can't fight, George; I would gladly, but I'm too fat. Don't grudge me a few kindly oaths now and then. It's all I can do." I was seized with a fit of laughter, utterly uncon- trollable. Sir Lupus observed me peevishly, twiddling his broken pipe, and I saw he longed to launch it at my head, which made me laugh till his large, round, red face grew grayer and foggier through the mirth- mist in my eyes. "Am I so droll?" he snapped. "Oh yes, yes, Sir Lupus," I cried, weakly. "Don't grudge me this laugh. It is all 1 can do." A grim smile came over his broad face. " Touched !" he said. " I've a fine pair on my hands now you and Sir George Covert to plague me and prick me with your wit, like mosquitoes round a drowsy man. A fine family conference we shall have, with Sir John Johnson and the Butlers shooting one way, you and Sir George Covert firing t'other, and me be- twixt you, singing psalms and getting all your arrows in me, fore and aft." "Who is Sir George Covert?" I asked. "One o' the Calverts, Lord Baltimore's kin, a sort of cousin of the Ormond-Butlers, a supercilious dandy, 57 THE MAID-AT-ARMS a languid macaroni; plagues me, damn his impudence, but I can't hate him no! Hate him? Faith, I owe him more than any man on earth . . . and love him fr it which is strange!" "Has he an estate in jeopardy?" I inquired. "Yes. He has a mansion in Albany, too, which he leases. He bought a mile on the great Vlaie and all alone, shooting, fishing, playing the guitar o' moony nights, which they say sets UK wild- cats wilder. Mark me, George, a petty mile square and a shooting and this languid ass says he means to fight for it. Lord lu-lp the man! I told him I'd buy him out to save him from embroiling us all, and what d' ye think? lie stared at me through his lorgnons as though 1 tad been some queer, n and, says he, 'Lud!' says h 'in- less sport in yu Lupus, but you don your title ri^ht/ says he. 'Change the a to an o and add an ell for good measure, and there you h says he, a-drawlin^. With \\hich lu minced off, dust- ing his nose with his lace handkerchief, and I'm damned if 1 see the joke yet in spelling patroon with an o for the a and an ell for good measi He paused, out of breath, to pour himself som Jc muttered. " Where the devil is it? 1 see no wit in that" And he picked up a fresh pipe fi the rack on tne table and moistened the cl. his i*t tongue. We sat in silence for a while. That this Sir George Covert should call the patroon a poltroon hurt me, for was kin to us both; yet it seemed that there might be truth in the insoKnt llmg, for selfishness and polu ery are too often linked. I raised my eyes and looked almost furtively at my cousin Varick. He had no neck; the spot where his bullet head joined his body was marked only by * SIR LUPUS narrow and soiled stock. His eyes alone relieved the monotony of a stolid countenance ; all else was fat. Sunk in my own reflections, lying back in my arm- chair, I watched dreamily the smoke pouring from the patroon's pipe, floating away, to hang wavering across the room, now lifting, now curling downward, as though drawn by a hidden current towards the un- waxed oaken floor. No, there was no Ormond in him ; he was all Varick, all Dutch, all patroon. I had never seen any man like him save once, when a red-faced Albany merchant came a-waddling to the sea-islands looking for cotton and indigo, and we all despised him for the eagerness with whkh he trimmed his shillings at the Augustine taverns. Thrift is a word abused, and serves too often as a mask for av- arice. As I sat there fashioning wise saws and proverbs in my busy mind, the hall door opened and the first guest was announced Sir George Covert And in he came, a well-built, lazy gentleman of forty, swinging gracefully on a pair o' legs no man need take shame in; ruffles on cuff and stock, hair perfumed, powdered, and rolled twice in French puffs, and on his hand a brilliant that sparkled purest fire. Under one arm he bore his gold-^dged hat, and as he strolled forward, peering coolly about him through his quizzing glass, I thought I had never seen such graceful assur- ance, nor such insolently handsome eyes, marred by the faint shadows of dissipation. Sir Lupus nodded a welcome and blew a great cloud of smoke into the air. "Ah/' observed Sir George, languidly, "Vesuvius in eruption?" " How de do/' said Sir Lupus, suspiciously. " The mountain welcomes Mohammed," commented 59 THE MAID-AT-ARMS Sir George. " Mohammed greets the mountain I I low de do, Sir Lupus! Ah!" He turned gracefully tow- ards me, bowing. "Pray present me, Sir Lupi "My cousin, George Ormond," said Sir Lupus. "George first, George second," he added, with a sneer. "No relation to George III., I trust, sir?" inquired Sir George, anxiously, offering his cool, well-k hand. "No," said I, laughing at his serious countenance and returning his clasp firmly. lat's well, that's well," murmured Sir George, apparently vastly relieved, and invited me to take snuff with him. We had scarcely exchanged a civil word or two ere the servant announced Captain Walter Butler, and I turned curiously, to see a dark, graceful youn^ man enter and stand for a moment staring haugli straight at me. He wore a very elegant black-. u id- orange uniform, without gorget ; a black military cloak hung from his shoulders, caught uj sword knot. With a quick movement he raised his hand and re- moved his officer's hat, and I saw on his ^.-untlei fine doeskin the Ormond arms, heavily embroidered. Instantly the affectation displeased "Come to the r i, brother prophet," said Sir George, waving his hand towards the seated patroon. He came, lightly as a panther, k, well-cut feat- ures softening a trifle; and I thought him handsome in his uniform, wearing his own dark hair unpow- dered, tied in a short queue; but when he turned full face to greet Sir George Covert, I was astonished to see the cruelty in his almost perfect features, which were smooth as a woman's, and lighted by a pair of clear, dark-golden e^es. Ah, those wonderful eyes of Walter Butler ever- changing eyes, now almost black, glimmeriTi 60 SIR LUPUS ardent fire, now veiled and amber, now suddenly a shallow yellow, round, staring, blank as the eyes of a caged eagle; and, still again, piercing, glittering, nar- rowing to a slit Terrible mad eyes, that I have never forgotten never, never can forget. As Sir Lupus named me, Walter Butler dropped Sir George's hand and grasped mine, too eagerly to please me. "Ormond and Ormond-Butler need no friends to rec- ommend them each to the other/' he said, and straight- way fell a-talking of the greatness of the Arrans and the Ormonds, and of that duke who, attainted, fled to France to save his neck. I strove to be civil, yet he embarrassed me before the others, babbling of petty matters interesting only to those whose taste invites them to go burrowing in parish records and ill-smelling volumes written by some toad-eater to his patron. For me, I am an Ormond, and I know tha{ it would be shameful if I turned rascal and besmirched my name. As to the rest the dukes, the glory, the great- ness I hold it concerns nobody bnt the dead, and it is a foolishness to plague folks' ears by boasting of deeds done by those you never knew, like a Seminole chant- ing ere he strikes the painted post Also, this Captain Walter Butler was overlarding his phrases with "Cousin Ormond/' so that I was soon cloyed, and nigh ready to damn the relationship to his face. Sir Lupus, who had managed to rise by this time, waddled off into the drawing-room across the hallway, motioning us to follow; and barely in time, too, for there came, shortly, Sir John Johnson with a company of ladies and gentlemen, very gay in their damasks, brocades, and velvets, which the folds of their foot mantles, capuchins, and cardinals revealed. 61 THE MAID-AT-ARMS The gentlemen had come a-horseback, and all \\<>rc very elegant uniforms under their sober cloaks, \vhkh were linked with gold chains at liic throat; the ladies, prettily powdered and patched, appeared a trifle <> colored, and their necks and shoulders, innocent of buffonts, gleamed pearl-tinted above their gay bn knots. And they made a sparkling bevy as t fluttered up the staircase to their cloak-room, \\hile ntered the drawing-room, followed by the other gentlemen, and stood in careless conversation with the patroon, while old Cato disembarrassed him of cloak and hat Sir John Johnson, son of the great Sir \Yilliam, as [ first saw him was a man of less than middle age, flabby, cold-eyed, heavy of foot and hand. On his light-colored hair he wore no powder; the rather long queue was tied with a green hair-ribbon; the thick, whitish folds of his double chin rested on a but! stock. For the rest, he wore a green-and-gold uniform of very elegant cut green being the garb of his region the Royal Greens, as I learned afterwards and his buff-topped boots and his metals were brilliant and plainly new. When the patroon named me to him he turned his lack-lustre eyes on me and offered me a large, d; hand. In tuni I was made acquainted with the several officers in his suite Colonel John Butler, father of Captain Walter Butler, broad and squat, a withered prophecy of what the son might one day be; Col' iel Claus, a rather merry and battered Indian fighter; Colonel Guy Johnson, of Guy Park, dark Captain Campbell, and a Captain McDon- ald of Perth. All wore the green uniform save the Butlers; all 62 SIR LUPUS greeted me with particular civility and conducted like the respectable company they appeared to be, politely engaging me in pleasant conversation, desiring news from Florida, or complimenting me upon my courtesy, which, they vowed, had alone induced me to travel a thousand miles for the sake of permitting my kins- men the pleasure of welcoming me. One by one the gentlemen retired to exchange their spurred top-boots for white silk stockings and silken pumps, and to arrange their hair or stick a patch here and there, and rinse their hands in rose-water to cleanse them of the bridle's odor. They were still thronging the gun-room, and I stood alone in the drawing-room with Sir George Covert, when a lady entered and courtesied low as we bowed together. And truly she was a beauty, with her skin of rose- ivory, her powdered hair a-gleam with brilliants, her eyes of purest violet, a friendly smile hovering on her fresh, scarlet mouth. "Well, sir," she said, "do you not know me?" And to Sir George : " I vow, he takes me for a guest in my own house!" And then I knew my cousin Dorothy Varick. She suffered us to salute her hand, gazing the while about her indifferently; and, as I released her slender fingers and raised my head, she, rounded arm still extended as though forgotten, snapped he" thumb and forefinger together in vexation with a "Plague on it! There's that odious Sir John!" " Is Sir John Johnson so offensive to your ladyship?" inquired Sir George, lazily. "Offensive! Have you not heard how the beast drank wine from my slipper! Never mind! I can- not endure him. Sir George, you must sit by me at table and you, too, Cousin Ormond, or he'll come 63 THE MAID-AT-ARMS bothering." She glanced at the open door of the gun- room, a frown on her white brow. "Oh, they're all here, I see. Sparks will fly ere sun-up. There's Campbell, and McDonald, too, wi' the meraor}' of Glen- coe still stewing betwixt them ; and there's Guy John- son, with a price on his head and ]>li-my to sell it for him in County Tryon, gentlemen! And there's youni; Walter Butler, cursing poor Cato that he touched his spur in drawing off his boots if he strikes Cato I'll strike him ! And where are their fine ladies, Sir G cor Still primping at the mirror? Oh, la!" She stepped back, laughing, raising her lovely arms a little. " Look at me. A in I well laced, with nobody to aid me save Cecile, poor child, and Benny to hold the candles he being young enough for the office?' 9 "Happy, happy Benny I" murmured Sir George, inspecting her through his quizzing-glass from head toe. "If you think it a happy office you may fill it your- self in future, Sir George/' she said. " I never knew an ass who failed to bray in ecstasy at mention of a pair o' stays." Sir George stared, and said, "Aha! clever very, very clever 1" in so patronizing a tone that Dorothy reddened and bit her lip in vexation. " That is ever your way/' she said, " when I parry you to -our confusion* Take your eyes from me, Sir Georgr Cousin Onnond, am I dressed to your taste or not?" She stood there in her gown of brocade, beautifully flowered in peach color, dainty, confident, challenging me to note one fault Nor could I, from the gold hair- pegs in her hair to the tip of her slim, pompadour shoes peeping from the lace of her petticoat, which she lifted a trifle to show her silken, flowered hose. And "There!" she cried, " I gowned myself, and I 64 SIR LUPUS wear no paint I wish you would tell them as much when they laugh at me." Now came the ladies, rustling down the stairway, and the gentlemen, strolling in from their toilet and stirrup-cups in the gun-room, and I noted that all wore service-swords, and laid their pistols on the table in the drawing-room. "Do they fear a surprise?" I whispered to Sir George Covert "Oh yes; Jack Mount and the Stoners are abroad. But Sir John has a troop of his cut-throat horsemen picketed out around us. You see, Sir John broke his parole, and Walter Butler is attainted, and it might go hard with some of these gentlemen if General Schuy- ler's dragoons caught them here, plotting nose to nose." "Who is this Jack Mount?" I asked, curiously, re- membering my companion of the Albany road. "One of Cresap's riflemen," he drawled, "sent back here from Boston to raise the country against the in- vasion. They say he was a highwayman once, but we Tories" he laughed shamelessly "say many things in these days which may not help us at the judgment day. Wait, there's that little rosebud, Claire Putnam, Sir John's flame. Take her in tc table; she's a pretty little plaything. Lady Johnson, who was Polly Watts, is in Montreal, you see." He made a languid gesture with outspread hands, smiling. The girl he indicated Mistress Claire Putnam, was a fragile, willowy creature, over-thin, perhaps, yet won- derfully attractive and pretty, and there was much of good in her face, and a tinge of pathos, too, for all her bright vivacity. " If Sir John Johnson put her away when he wedded Miss Watts," said Sir George, coolly, "I think he did it from interest and selfish calculation, not because he ceased to love her in his bloodless, fishy fashion. THE MAID-AT-ARMS And now that Lady Johnson has fled to Canada, Sii John makes no pretence of hiding his amours in the society which he haunts; nor does that society take umbrage at the no tionship so impudently renewed. We're a shameless lot, Mr. Onnoiul." At that moment I heard Sir John Johnson, at my elbow, saying to Sir Lupus: " Do you know what these damned lebels have had the impudence to do? I can scarce credit it myself, but it is said that their Congress has adopted a flag of thirteen tripes and thirteen stars on a blue field, and I'm cursed if I don't believe they mean to hoist the filthy rag in our TCTJ faces!" V A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S UNDER a flare of yellow candle-light we entered the dining -hall and seated ourselves before a table loaded with flowers and silver, and the most beautiful Flemish glass that I have ever seen ; though they say that Sir William Johnson's was finer. The square windows of the hall were closed, the dusty curtains closely drawn; the uir, though fresh, was heavily saturated with perfume. Between each window, and higher up, small, square loop-holes pierced the solid walls. The wooden flap-hoods of these were open; through them poured the fresh night air, stirring the clustered flowers and the jewelled aigrets in the ladies' hair. The spectacle was pretty, even beautiful; at every lady's cover lay a gift from the patroon, a crystal bosom- glass, mounted in silver filigree, filled with roses in scented water; and, at the sight, a gust of hand-clap- ping swept around the table, like the rattle of Decem- ber winds through dry palmettos. In a distant corner, slaves, dressed fancifully and turbaned like Barbary blackamoors, played on fiddles and guitars, and the music was such as I should have enjoyed, loving all melody as I do, yet could scarcely hear it in the flutter and chatter rising around me as the ladies placed the bosom-bottles in their stomachers and opened their Marlborough fans to set them wav* ing all like restless wings. THE MAID-AT-ARMS Yet, under this surface elegance and display, one could scarcely choose but note Imw everywhere an amazing shiftlessness reigned in the patroon's house. Cobwebs canopied the ceiling-beams with tl ragged banners afloat in the candle's heat; dust, like a velvet mantle, lay over the Dutch plates and teapots, ranged on shelves against the panelled wall midway ig and un waxed floor; the gaudy yellow ries of the black servants were soiled and tarnished and ill ' nd all wore slovenly rolls, tied to imitate scratch !ie effect of which was amazing. The passion for cleanliness in the Dutch lies not in their men folk; a Dutch mistress of this manor house had died o' shame long since or died o' scrubbing. I felt mean and ungracious to sit there spying at my host's table, and strove to forget it, yet was forced to wipe furtively spoon and fork upon the napkin on knees ere I durst acquaint them with my mouth; and so did others, as I saw ; but they did it openly and with- out pretence of concealment, and nobody took offence. Sir Lupus cared nothing for precedence at table, and said so when he seated us, which brought a sneer to Sir John Johnson's mouth and a scowl to Walter But- ler's brow : but this provincial boorishness appeared to be forgotten ere the decanters had slopped the cloth e, and fair faces flushed, and voices grew gayer, and the rattle of silver assaulting china and ! low ring of glasses swelled into a steady, melodious dm which stirred the blood to my cheeks. We Orraonds love gayety I choose the mildest phrase I know. Yet, take us at our worst, Irish that we are, and if there be a taint of license to our revels, and if we drink tin- toast to the devil's own un- doine, the vital spring of our people remains unpollu 'a strength and purity unsoiled, guarded forever by the chastity of our women. 68 A NIGHT AT THE PATROON $ S Savoring my claret, I glanced askance at ray neigh- bors ; on ray left sat ray cousin Dorothy Varick, frankly absorbed in a roasted pigeon, yet wielding knife and fork with much grace and address ; on my right Mag dalen Brant, step -cousin to Sir John, a lovely, soft- voiced girl, with velvety eyes and the faintest dusky tint, which showed the Indian blood through the car- mine in her fresh, curved cheeks. I started to speak to her, but there came a call from the end of the table, and we raised our glasses to Sir Lupus, for which civility he expressed his thanks and gave us the ladies, which we drank standing, and re- versed our glasses with a cheer. Then Walter Butler gave us "The Ormonds and the Earls of Arran," an amazing vanity, which shamed me so that I sat biting my lip, furious to see Sir John wink at Colonel Claus, and itching to fling my glass at the head of this young fool whose brain seemed cracked with brooding on his pedigree. Meat was served ere I was called on, but later, a de- licious Burgundy being decanted, all called me with a persistent clamor, so that I was obliged to ask per- mission of Sir Lupus, then rise, still tingling with the memory of the silly toast offered by Walter Butler. "I give you," I said, "a republic where self-respect balances the coronet, where there is no monarch, no high-priest, but only a clean altar, served by the par- liament of a united people. Gentlemen, raise your glasses to the colonies of America and their ancient liberties!" And, amazed at what I had said, and knowing that I had not meant to say it, I lifted my glass and drained it. Astonishment altered every face. Walter Butler mechanically raised his glass, then set it down, then raised it once more, gazing blankly at me; and I 69 THE MAID-AT-ARMS others hesitate, as though striving to recollect the ex- act terms of my toast. But, after a second'.- <>n, all drank sitting. Then each looked inquiringly at me, at neighbors, puzzU Iready partly reassured. "Gad!" said Colonel Claus, bluntlv, "I thought at first that Burgundy smacked somewhat of Bo- tea." "The Burgundy's sound enough," said Colonel John Butler, grimly. "So is the toast." bawled Sir Lnpu s a pa- cific toast, a soothing sentiment, neither one thing not t'other. Dammy, it's a toast no Quaker need re- r Lupus, your permission!" broke out Captain Campbell, "'lontlemen, it is strange that not < of his Majesty's officers has proposed tin ! 1 U looked straight at me and said, without turning his head: "All loyal at this table will fill. Indies, gen- tlemen, I give you his Majesty the King!" The toast was finished amid cheers. I drained mv ss and turned it down with a bow to Captain Camp- , who bowed to me as though greatly relieved. fiddles, bassoons, and guitars were playing and the slaves singing when the n<> iic cheering died away; and I heard Dorothy beside me humming the 1 tapping the floor with her silken shoe, while she moistened macaroons in a glass of Madeira and >led them with serene satisfaction. "You appear to be happy, i whispered. " Perfectly. I adore sweets. Will you try a dish ut cinnamon cake? Sop it in Burgundy; they har- monize to a most heavenly taste. . . . Look at M. dalen Brant, is she not sweet? Her cousin is Molly Brant, old Sir William's sweetheart, fled to Canada. . . . She follows this week with Betty Austin, th.a black-eyed little mischief-maker on Sir John's right, 70 A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S who owes her diamonds to Guy Johnson. La! What a gossip I grow! But it's county talk, and all know it, and nobody cares save the Albany blue-noses and the Van Cortlandts, who fall backward with standing too straight" "Dorothy," I said, sharply, "a blunted innocence is better than none, but it's a pity you know so much!" "How can I help it?" she asked, calmly, dipping another macaroon into her glass. " It's a pity, all the same," I said. "Dew on a duck's back, my friend," she observed, serenely. "Cousin, if I were fashioned for evil I had been tainted long since." She sat up straight and swept the table with a heavy-lidded, insolent glance, eyebrows raised. The cold purity of her profile, the undimmed innocence, the childish beauty of the curved cheek, touched me to the quick. Ah! the white flower to flourish here amid unconcealed corruption, with petals stainless, with bloom undimmed, with all its exquisite fragrance still fresh and wholesome in an air heavy with wine and the odor of dying roses. I looked around me. Guy Johnson, red in the face, was bending too closely beside his neighbor, Betty Austin. Colonel Claus talked loudly across the table to Captain McDonald, and swore fashionable oaths which the gaunt captain echoed obsequiously. Claire Putnam coquetted with her paddle-stick fan, defend- ing her roses from Sir George Covert, while Sir John Johnson stared at them in cold disapproval; and I saw Magdalen Brant, chin propped on her clasped hands, close her eyes and breathe deeply while the wine burned her face, setting torches aflame in either cheek. Later, when I spoke to her, she laughed piti- fully, saying that her ears hummed like bee-hives. Then she said that she meant to go, but made no move- THE MAID-AT-ARMS ment; and presently her dark eyes closed again, and I saw the fever pulse beating in her neck. Some one had overturned a silver basin full of flow- ers, and a servant, sopping up the water, had brushed Walter Butler so that he flew into a passion and fluiiLT a glass at the unified black, which set Sir Lupus laughing till he choked, but which enraged me that he should so conduct in the presence of his host's daughter. Yet if Sir Lupus could not <>nl\ overlook it, but laugh at it, I, certes, had no right to rebuke what to me seemed a gross insult. Toasts flew fast now, and there was a punch silver bowl as large as a bushel and spirits, too, \\ 1m h was strange, seeing that the ladies remained at ta Thai Captain Campbell would have all to dunk tlu Royal Greens, standing on chairs, one foot on the table, which appeared to be his ri ess cus- , and we did so, the ladies laughing and protest- hut finally planting their dainty shoes on the edge table; and Magdalen Brant ni h tVll if In r chair for lack of balance, as Sir Geoi tested, one foot alone being too small to sustain in r iderella complum-nt at our expense!" cried Betty Austin, but Sir Lupus cried ice all, and keep one foot on the table!" And a little black slave lad, scarce ian a babe, appeared, dressed in a \-skin, bearing a basket of pretty boxes woven out of scented grass and embroidered with silk (!... At every corner he laid a box, all exclaiming and wondering what the surprise might be, until tlu little black, arching his back, i I yowl like a lynx and ran out on all fours. ie gentlemen will open the boxes! Ladies, keep one foot on the table!" bawled Sir Lupus. We bent to open the boxes; Magdalen Brant and Dorothy Var- 72 A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S ick, each resting a hand on my shoulder to steady them, peeped curiously down to see. And, " Oh 1" cried everybody, as the lifted box-lids discovered snow-white pigeons sitting on great gilt eggs. The white pigeons fluttered out, some to the table, where they craned their necks and ruffled their snowy plumes ; others flapped up to the loop-holes, where they sat and watched us. "Break the eggs!" cried the patroon. I broke mine; inside was a pair of shoe-roses, each Bet with a pearl and clasped with a gold pin. Betty Austin clapped her hands in delight ; Dorothy bent double, tore off the silken roses from each shoe in turn, and I pinned on the new jewelled roses amid a gale of laughter. "A health to the patroon!" cried Sir George Covert, and we gave it with a will, glasses down. Then all settled to our seats once more to hear Sir George sing a song. A slave passed him a guitar ; he touched the strings and sang with good taste a song in question- able taste : "Jeanneton prend sa fauyille." A delicate melody and neatly done; yet the verse "Le deuxieme plus habile L'embrassant sous le mentpn" made me redden, and the envoi nigh burned me alive with blushes, yet was rapturously applauded, and the patroon fell a-choking with his gross laughter. Then Walter Butler would sing, and, I confess, did it well, though the song was sad and the words too /nelancholy to please. "I know a rebel song," cried Colonel Claus. "Here,, 73 THE MAID-AT-ARMS give me that fiddle and I'll fiddle it, daiiuny if I don't ay, and sing it, too!" In a shower of gibes and laughter the fiddle \\.is fetched, and the Indian fighter seized the bow and drew a most distressful strain, singing in a whining voice: " Come hearken to a bloody tale. Of how the soldiery Did murder men in Boston. As you full soon shall see. It came to pass on March the fifth Of seventeen^ r A regiment, the twenty ninth. i'rovi.krtl a .sad affray !" "Chorus!" shouted Captain Campbell, beating tiim : " FoKde-roWe-rol-de-ray^ Provoked a sad affray!" "That's not in the song!" protested Colonel Claus, but everybody sanu it in whining tones. "Continue!" cried Captain Campbell, amid a burst of laughter. And Claus gravely d fiddle-bow across the strings and sang: - In Kins Street, by the Butcher's Hal The soldiers on us fell, Likewise before their barracks (It I.H the truth I tell), And such a dreadful carnage In Boston ne'er was known; They killed Samuel Maverick gave a piteous groan/' And, "Fol-dcM-ol!" roared Captain Campbell, "He gave a piteous groa " John Dark he was wounded. On him they did fire; James Caldwell and Crispus Attacks Lay bleeding in the mire; A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S Their regiment, the twenty-ninth. Killed Monk and Sam I Gray. While Patrick Carr lay cold in death And could not flee away - "Oh, tally!" broke out Sir John; u are we to listen to such stuff all night?" More laughter ; and Sir George Covert said that he feared Sir John Johnson had no sense of humor. "I have heard that before/' said Sir John, turning his cold eyes on Sir George. "But if we've got to sing at wine, in Heaven's name let us sing something sensible." "No, no!" bawled Claus. "This is the abode of folly to-night!" And he sang a catch from "Pills to Purge Melancholy/' as broad a verse as I cared to hear in such company. "Cheer up, Sir John!" cried Betty Austin; "there are other slippers to drink from " Sir John stood up, exasperated, but could not face the storm of laughter, nor could Dorothy, silent and white in her anger ; and she rose to go, but seemed to think better of it and resumed her seat, disdainful eyes sweeping the table. "Face the fools," I whispered. "Your confusion is their victory." Captain McDonald, stirring the punch, filled all glasses, crying out that we should drink to our sweethearts in bumpers. "Drink 'em in wine," protested Captain Campbell, thickly. "Who but a feckless McDonald wud drink his leddy in poonch?" "I said poonch!" retorted McDonald, sternly. "If ye wish wine, drink it; but I'm thinkin' the Argyle Campbells are better judges o' blood than of red wine." "Stop that clan-feud!" bawled the patroon, angrily. But the old clan-feud blazed up, kindled from the 75 THE MAID-AT-ARMS ever -smouldering embers of Glencoe, which the mas- sacre of a whole clan had not extingui.^ .ill these years " And why should an Argyle Campbell judge blood?" cried Captain Campbell, in a menacing voice, " And why not?" retorted McDonald. " Breadalbane spilled enough to teach ye," "Teach who?" " Teach you 1 and the whole breed o' black Camp, bells from Perth to Galway and Fonda's Bush, \\\. ye dub Broadalbin. I had rather be a Monteith and have the betrayal of Wallace cast in my face than be a Campbell of Argyle wi' the memory o' Glencoe to >w me to hell" "Silence I" roared the patroon, struggling to his feet. Sir George Covert caught at Captain Cainpb* sleeve as he rose; Sir John Johnson stood up, 1 with anger. " Let this end nowl" he said, sternly. "Do oil of the Royal Greens conduct like yokels at a fair? >, Captain Campbell! And you, Capt McDonald! Take your seat, sir; and if I hear th.a cursed word 'Glencoe' again, the first who utters it faces a court-martial 1" Partly sobered, the Campbell glared mutely at the McDonald; the latter also appeared to have recov- ered a portion of his senses and resumed his seat in silence, glowering at the empty glasses before him. "Now be sensible, gentlemen/' said Colonel Clans, with a jovial nod to the patroon; "let pass, let pass. This is no time to raise the fiery cross in the hills. Gad, there's a new pibroch to inarch to these days "Pibroch o' HirokAuel Pibroch o' HirokaueP 70 A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S ne hummed, deliberately, but nobody laughed, and the grave, pale faces of the women turned questioningly one to the other. Enemies or allies, there was terror in the name of "Iroquois/' But Walter Butler looked up from his gloomy meditation and raised his glass with a ghastly laugh. " I drink to our red allies/' he said, slowly drained his glass till but a color remained in it, then dipped his finger in the dregs and drew upon the white table- cloth a blood-red cross. "There's your clan-sign, you Campbells, you Mc- Donalds/' he said, with a terrifying smile which none could misinterpret. Then Sir George Covert said : " Sir William Johnson knew best. Had he lived, there had been no talk of the Iroquois as allies or as enemies." I said, looking straight at Walter Butler: "Can there be any serious talk of turning these wild beasts loose against the settlers of Tryon County?" " Against rebels," observed Sir John Johnson, cold- ly. "No loyal man need fear our Mohawks/' A dead silence followed. Servants, clearing the round table of silver, flowers, cloth all, save glasses and decanters stepped noiselessly, and I knew the terror of the Iroquois name had sharpened their dull ears. Then came old Cato, tricked out in flame-col- ored plush, bearing the staff of major-domo; and the servants in their tarnished liveries marshalled behind him and filed out, leaving us seated before a bare table, \\ith only our glasses and bottles to break the expanse of polished mahogany and soiled cloth. Captain McDonald rose, lifted the steaming kettle from the hob, and set it on a great, blue tile, and the gentlemen mixed their spirits thoughtfully, or lighted long, clay pipes. 77 THE MAID-AT-ARMS The patroon, wreathed in smoke, lay back in his great chair and rattled his toddy-stick for attention an unnecessary noise, for all were watching him, and even Walter Butler's gloomy gaze constantly reverted to that gross, red face, almost buried in thick tobacco- smoke, like the head of some intemperate and gro- tesquely swollen Jupiter crowned with clouds. The plea of the patroon for neutrality in the war now sweeping towards the Mohawk Valley I had heard before. So, doubtless, had those present. He waxed pathetic over the danger to st es- tate; he pointed out the conservative attitude of the great patroons and lords of the manors of Livi Cosby, Phillipse, Van Rensselaer, and Van Cortlandt "What about Schm b I asked. "Schuyler's a fool!" he retorted, angrily. " landed proprietor here can become a rebel general in exchange for his estate! A fine bargain! A thrift v dicker! Let Philip Schuyler enjoy his brief reign in Albany. What's the market value of the glory he exchanged for his broad acres? Can you appraise it. Si Then Sir John Johnson arose, and, for the only mo- ment in his career, he stood upon a principle a falla- cious one, but still a principle ; and for that I respected him, and have never f risking property and lift in tins wretched teapot tempest; you all take credit for unchaining the Mohawks. But you give them no credit. What have the Iroquois to gain by aiding us? Why do they dig up the hatchet, hazard- ing the only thing they have their lives? Because they are led by a man who told the rebel Congress that the covenant chain whu h the King gave to the Mohawks is still unspotted by dishonor, un rusted by treachery, unbroken, intact, without one link missing I Gentlemen, I give ycu Joseph Brant, war-chief of the Mohawk nation 1 Hiro 1 " All filled and drank save three Sir George Covert, Dorothy Varick, and myself. I felt Walter Butler's glowing eyes upon me, and they seemed to burn out the last vestige of my patience. "Don't rise! Don't speak nowl" whispered Doro- thy, her hand closing on my arm. So A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S "I must speak/' I said, aloud, and all heard me and turned on me their fevered eyes. "Speak out, in God's name!" said Sir George Co- vert, and I rose, repeating, "In God's name, then!" "Give no offence to Walter Butler, I beg of you," whispered Dorothy. I scarcely heard her; through the candle-light I saw the ring of eyes shining, all watching me. "I applaud the loyal sentiments expressed by Sir John Johnson," I said, slowly. "Devotion to prin- ciple is respected by all men of honor. They tell me that our King has taxed a commonwealth against its will. You admit his Majesty's right to do so. That ranges you on one side. Gentlemen," I said, deliber- ately, "I deny the right of Englishmen to take away the liberties of Englishmen. That ranges me on the other side." A profound silence ensued. The ring of eyes glowed. " And now," said I, gravely, " that we stand arrayed, each on his proper side, honestly, loyally differing one from the other, let us, if we can, strive to avert a last resort to arms. And if we cannot, let us draw honorably, and trust to God and a stainless blade!" I bent my eyes on Walter Butler; he met them with a vacant glare. "Captain Butler," I said, "if our swords be to-day stainless, he who first dares employ a savage to do his work forfeits the right to bear the arms and title of a soldier." "Mr. Ormond! Mr. Onnond!" broke in Colonel Claus. "Do you impeach Lord George Germaine?" "I care not whom I impeach!" I said, hotly. "If Lord George Germaine counsels the employment of Indians against Englishmen, rebels though they be, he is a monstrous villain and a fool!" "Fool!" shouted Colonel Campbell, choking with 81 THi: MAID-AT-ARMS e. "He'd be a f<*>l t<> let these rebels win over the In*| fore we <'. "What rebel has sought to employ the Indians ;t [ (1. "If any in authority have dreamed of such a nor, they are guilty as though already judged and damned!" "Mr. Ormond," cut in < iuy Johnson, fairly trembling with fury, "you deal \ rlv in damnation. Do you perhaps assume the divine riirht which you deny rig?" " And do you find merit in crass treason burst out McDonald, striking the table with clinched 1 cut in Sir .Mm Johnson, "was the un- doing of a certain noble duke in Queen Anne's tin i are in error," I said, calmly. "Was James, Duke of Onnnd. not impeached by Stanhope in open Parliament?" shouted Captain McDonald. louse of Commons," I replied, calmly, "dis- honored itself and its traditions by bringing a bill of attainder against the Duke of Ormond. That could not make bun a traitor." lie was not a traitor," broke out Walter Butler, v.hite to the lips, "but you a: 1 said. With the awful hue of death stamped on his 1 Iter Butler rose and faced me; and though they dragged us to our seats, shouting and exclaiming the uproar made by falling chairs and the rush <>f feet, he still kept his eyes on me, shallow, yellow, depthless, terrible eyes. "A nice scene to pass in women's presence 1 " roared the patroon. "Dammy, Captain Butler, the fault lies first with you! Withdraw that word 'traitor/ which touches us all!" " He has so named himself," said Walter Butler. 82 A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S "Withdraw ill You foul your own nest, sir!" A moment passed. "I withdraw it/' motioned But- ler, with parched lips. "Then I withdraw the lie," I said, watching him. "That is well/' roared the patroon. ''That is as it should be. Shall kinsmen quarrel at such a time? Offer your hand, Captain Butler. Offer yours, George." "No," I said, and gazed mildly at the patroon. Sir George Covert rose and sauntered over to my chair. Under cover of the hubbub, not yet subsided, he said: "I fancy you will shortly require a discreet friend." " Not at all, sir," I replied, aloud. " If the war spares Mr. Butler and myself, then I shall call on you. I've another quarrel first." All turned to look at me, and I added, "A quarrel touching the liberties of English- men." Sir John Johnson sneered, and it was hard to s\v;ill<>\v, beinir the s word-master that I am. But the patroon broke out furiously. " Mr. Ormond honors himself. If any here so much as looks the word 'coward/ he will answer to me old and fat as I am! I've no previous engagement; I care not who prevails, King or Congress. I care nothing so they leave me my own! I'm free to resent a word, a look, a breath ay, the flutter of a lid, Sir John!" "Thanks, uncle," I said, touched to the quick. " These gentlemen are not fools, and only a fool could dream an Ormond coward." "Ay, a fool!" cried Walter Butler, "I am an Or- mond! There is no cowardice in the blood. He shall have his own time; he is an Ormond!" Dorothy Varick raised her bare, white arm and pointed straight at Walter Butler. "See that your sword remains unspotted, sir," she said, in a clear voice. " For if you hire the Iroquois to do your work 8.3 Till: MAID-AT-ARM you stand dishonored, and no true man will meet you on the field you forfeit 1" 1 What's that?" cried Sir John, astonished, and Sir George Covert cried : "Braval Bravissiraa! There speaks the Ormond through the Varick!" Walter Butler leaned forward, staring at me. " You refuse to meet me if I use our Mohawk And Dorothy, her voice trembling a little, picked up the word from his grinning teeth. "Mohawks in stand the word 'honor' better than do you, Captain Butler, if you are found fighting in their ranks!" She laid her hand on my arm, still facing him "My cousin shall not cross blade with a soiled blade! He dare not if only for my own poor honor's sake!" llun Colonel Claus rose, thumping violently on table, and, " Here's a pretty rumpus I" he bawled, "\\ith all right and all wrong, and nobody to snuff out the spreading Same, but every one a-flinging tal- low in a fire we all may rue! My Godl Are we n-a all kinsmen here, gathered to decent council how best to save our bai m.s pot a-boiling over? If Mr. Ormond and Captain Butler must tickle sword-points one day, that is no cause for dolorous looks or hot (Is no! Rather is it a family trick, a good, old- fashioned game that all boys play, and no harm, cither. Have I not played it, too? Has any gentleman pres- ent not pinked or been pinked on that debatable land we call the field of honor? Come, kinsmen, we have all had too much wine or too little." "Too little!" protested Captain Campbell, with a forced laugh; and Betty Austin loosed her tongue for the first time to cry out that her mouth was parched wi' swallowing so many words all piping-hot. Whereat or two laughed, and Colonel John Butler said . A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S Neither Mr. Ormond nor Sir George Covert are rebels. They differ from us in this matter touching on the Iroquois. If they think we soil our hands with war-paint, let them keep their own wristbands clean, but fight for their King as sturdily as shall we this time next month." "That is a very pleasant view to take," observed Sir George, with a smile. " A sensible view," suggested CampbelL "Amiable," said Sir George, blandly. "Oh, let us fill to the family 1" broke in McDonald, impatiently. "It's dry work cursing your friends 1 Fill up, Campbell, and I'll forget Glencoe . . . while I'm drinking." "Mr. Ormond," said Walter Butler, in a low voice, " I cannot credit ill of a man of your name. You are young and hot - blooded, and you perhaps lack as yet a capacity for reflection. I shall look for you among us when the time comes. No Ormond can desert his King." "Let it rest so, Captain Butler," I said, soberly. "I will say this: when I rose I had not meant to say all that I said. But I believe it to be the truth, though I chose the wrong moment to express it If I change this belief I will say so." And so the outburst of passion sank to ashes ; and if the fire was not wholly extinguished, it at least lay covered, like the heart of a Seminole council-fire after the sachems have risen and departed with covered heads. Drinking began again. The ladies gathered in a group, whispering and laughing their relief at the turn affairs were taking all save Dorothy, who sat serenely beside me, picking the kernels from walnut- shells and sipping a glass of port. Sir John Johnson found a coal in the embers on the 8s THE MAID-AT-ARMS hearth, and, leaning half over the table, began to draw on the table-cloth a rude map of Tryon County. "All know," he said, "that the province of New York is the key to the rebel strength. While they hold West Point and Albany and Stanwix, they hold Ti County by the throat. Let them occupy Philadelphia. Who cares? We can take it when we choose. Let :i hold their dirty lioston; let the rebel Washiim- sneak around the Jerseys. Who cares? There 11 be the finer hunting for us later. Gentlemen, as you know, the invasion of New York is at hand has al- ready begun. And that's no secret from the rebels, i -it her: they may turn and twist and double hen New York province, but they can't escape the trap, though they saw it long ago." He raised his head and glanced at " Here is a triangle," he said ; " that triangle is New Here is Albany, the objective of our three armies, the gate of Tryon County, the plai spot we are to cleanse, and the military centre. Now mark! Burgoyne moves through the lakes, south. ducing Ticonderoga and Edward, routing the i out of Saratoga, and approaches Albany so. Clin- moves i -nL r the Hudson to meet him so re ing the Highlands at Peekskill, taking West aving it for later punishment. Nothing can stop him ; he meets Burgoyne here, at Alba Again he looked at me. "You see, sir, that from angles of the triangle converging armies depart towards a common objectiv aid. "Now," he resumed, "the third force, und^r Colonel Barry St. Leger to which my regiment and the r ment of Colonel Butler have the honor to be attai! embarks from Canada, sails up the St. Lawrei disembarks at Oswego, on Lake Erie, marches straight 86 A NIGHT AT THE PATROON'S Cn Stanwix, reduces it, and joins the armies of Clinton and Burgoyne at Albany/' He stood up, casting his bit of wood-coal on the cloth before him. " That, sir/' he said to me, " is the plan of campaign, which the rebels know and cannot prevent. That means the invasion of New York, the scouring out of every plague-spot, the capture and destruction of every rebel between Albany and the Jerseys." He turned with a cold smile to Colonel Butler. " I think my estates will not remain long in rebel hands," he said. "Do you not understand, Mr. Ormond?" cried Cap- tain Campbell, twitching me by the sleeve, an im- pertinence 1 passed, considering him overflushed with wine. " Do you not comprehend how hopeless is this rebellion now?" "How hopeless?" drawled Sir George, looking over my shoulder, and, as though by accident, drawing Campbell's presumptuous hand through his own arm. "How hopeless?" echoed Campbell. "Why, here are three armies of his Majesty's troops concentrating on the heart of Tryon County. What can the rebels do?" " The patroons are with us, or have withdrawn from the contest," said Sir John; "the great folk, military men, and we of the landed gentry are for the King. What remains to defy his authority?" "Of what kidney are these Tryon County men?" I asked, quietly. Sir John Johnson misunderstood me. "Mr. Ormond," said Sir John, "Tryon County is habited by four races. First, the Scotch-Irish, many of them rebels, I admit, but many also loyal. Bal- ance these against my Highlanders, and cross quits. Second, the Palatines those men whose ances- tors came hither to escape the armies of Louis XIV. 87 THE MAID-AT-ARM^ when they devastated the Palatinate. And aj I admit these to be rebels. Third, those of Dutch blood, descended from brave ancestors, like our worthy patroon here. And once more I will admit that many of these also are tainted with rebel heresies. Fourth, the English, three-quarters of whom are Tories. And now I ask you, can these separate handfuls of mixed descent unite? And, if that were possible, can they stand for one day, one hour, against the trained troops of England?" .od knows," I Mid. VI DAWN I HAD stepped from the dining-hall out to the gun- room. Clocks in the house were striking midnight. In the dining-room the company had now taken to drinking in earnest, cheering and singing loyal songs, and through the open door whirled gusts of women's laughter, and I heard the thud of guitar-strings echo the song's gay words. All was cool and dark in the body of the house as I walked to the front door and opened it to bathe my face in the freshening night. I heard the whippoonvill in the thicket, and the drumming of the dew on the porch roof, and far away a sound like ocean stirring the winds in the pii. The Maker of all things has set in me a love for what- soever He has fashioned in His handiwork, whether it be furry beast or pretty bird, or a spray of April willow, or the tiny insect-creature that pursues its dumb, blind way through this our common world. So come I by my love for the voices of the night, and the eyes of the stars, and the whisper of growing things, and the spice in the air where, unseen, a million tiny blossoms hold up white cups for dew, or for the misty-winged things that woo them for their honey. Now, in the face of this dark, soothing truce that we call night, which is a buckler interposed between the arrows of two angry suns, I stood thinking of war and the wrong of it. And all around me in the dark- 89 THE MAID-AT-ARMS ness insects sang, and delicate, gauzy creatures chirked and throbbed and strummed in cadence, while the star's li^ht faintly silvered the still trees, and distant mono- tones of the forest made a sustained and steady rush- ing sound like the settling ebb of shallow seas. That to my conscience I stood committed, I could not doubt. 1 must draw sword, and draw it soon, too not for Tory or rebel, not for King or Congress, not for my estates nor for my kin, but for the ancient liberties of Englishmen, which England menaced to destroy. That meant time lost in a return to my own home; and yet why? Here in this county of Try on one might stand for liberty of thought and action as stanchly as at home. Here was a people with no tie or sympathy to weld them save that common love of liberty a scattered handful of races, without leaders, without resources, menaced by three armies, menaced by the five nations of the great confederacy the Iro- quois. To return to the sea islands on the Halifax and figrtf fr THY own acres was useless if through Nc\ the British armies entered to the heart of the rehelliMM, splitting the thirteen colonies with a flaming ifod At home I had no kin to defend; my elder hr had sailed to England, my superintendent, my over* seers, my clerks were all Tory; my slaves would join Minorcans or the blacks in Georgia, and I, single- handed, could not lift a finger to restrain them. But here, in the dire need of Tryon County, I lai^ht be of use. Here was the very forefront of battle where, beyond the horizon ion, uncoiling hydra folds, already raised three horrid, threatening crests. Ugh! the butcher's work that promised if the Iroquois were uncaged! It made me shudder, fur I knew something of that kind of war, having seen a slight sendee against the Seminoles in my seventeenth 00 DAWN year, and against the Chehaws and Tallassies a few months later. Also in November of 1775 I accom- panied Governor Tonyn to Picolata, but when I learned that our mission was the shameful one of securing the Indians as British allies I resigned my captaincy in the Royal Rangers and returned to the Halifax to wait and watch events. And now, thoughtful, sad, wondering a little how it all would end, I paced to and fro across the porch. The steady patter of the dew was like the long roll beating low, incessant, imperious and my heart leaped responsive to the summons, till I found myself standing rigid, staring into the darkness with fevered eyes. The smothered, double drumming of a guitar from the distant revel assailed my ears, and a fresh, sweet voice, singing: * As at my door I chanced to be A-spinning, Spinning, A grenadier he winked at me A-grinning, Grinning I As at my door I chanced to be A grenadier he winked at me, And now my song's begun, you aec} ' My grenadier he said to me, So jolly, Jolly, ' We tax the tea, but love is free. Sweet Molly, Molly!' My grenadier he said to me, ' We tax the tea, but love is freeP And so my song it ends, you sec, In folly, Folly I" 91 THE MAID-AT-ARMS I listened angrily; the voice was Dorothy Varick's, and I wondered that she had the heart to sing such foolishness for men whose grip was already on her people's throats. In the dining-hall somebody blew the view 1 on a hunting-horn, and I heard cheers and the dulled roar of a chorus: ** Rally your men J Campbell and Cameron, \-hunting gentlemen, Follow the Jacobite back to his deal Run with the runaway rogue to his runway, Stolen way I Stole* way I Gallop to Galway. Back to Broadalbin and double to Perth ; Ridel for the rebel is running to earth I" And the shrill, fierce Highland cry, "Gralloch lii echoed the infamous catch, till the night air rang f a i 1 1 1 1 y in the starlight. "Cruuchan!" shouted Captain Campbell; "the wild myrtle to clan Campbell, the heather to the McDonalds! An 't Arm, chlanna !" And a great shout answered him : " The army ! Sons of the army I" Sullen and troubled and restless, I paced the porch, and at length sat down on the steps to cool my hot head in my hands. And as I sat, there came my cousin Dorothy to the porch to look for me, fanning her flushed face with a great, plumy fan, the warm odor of roses still clinging to her silken skirts. ive they ended?" I asked, none too gracioi " They are beginning," she said, with a laugh, then drew a deep breath and waved her fan slowly. " Ah, the sweet May night!" she murmur^ ~ves fixed on 92 DAWN the north star. "Can you believe that men could dream of war in this quiet paradise of silence?" I made no answer, and she went on, fanning her hot cheeks: "They're off to Oswego by dawn, the whole company, gallant and baggage/' She laughed wick- edly. "I don't mean their ladies, cousin." " How could you?" I protested, grimly. "Their wagons/' she said, "started to-day at sun- down from Tribes Hill; Sir John, the Butlers, and the Glencoe gentlemen follow at dawn. There are post-chaises for the ladies out yonder, and an escort^ too. But nobody would stop them ; they're as safe as Catrine Montour." "Dorothy, who is this Catrine Montour?" I asked. "A woman, cousin; a terrible hag who runs through ihe woods, and none dare stop her. "A real hag? You mean a ghost?" "No, no; a real hag, with black locks hanging, and long arms that could choke an ox." "Why does she run through the woods?" I asked, amused. "Why? Who knows? She is always seen run- ning." " Where does she run to?" " I don't know. Once Henry Stoner, the huntei , fol- lowed her, and they say no one but Jack Mount can outrun him; but she ran and ran, and he after her, till the day fell down, and he fell gasping like a foundered horse. But she ran on." "Oh, tally," I said; "do you believe that?" "Why, I know it is true," she replied, ceasing her fanning to stare at me with calm, wide eyes. "Dc you doubt it?" " How can I ?" said I, laughing. " Who is this busy hag, Catrine Montour?" " They say," said Dorothy, waving her fan thought- 93 THE MAID-AT-ARMS fully, "that her father was that Count Frontenac who long ago governed the Canadas, and that her mother was a Huron woman. Many believe her to be a witch. 1 don't know. Milk curdles in the jxins when she is runnini: through the forest . . . they say. Once it rained blood on our front porch. " "Those red drops fall from flocks of butterflies," I said, laughing. "I have seen red showers in Flor- should like to he sure of that/' said Dorothy, musing. Then, raising her starry eyes, she can me laughing. "Tease me," she smiled. "I don't care. You may even make love to m choose." "Make love to you!" I repeated, reddening. " \Vhynot? It amuses and you're only a cou Astonishment was followed by annoyance as coolly disqualified me with a careless wave of her fan, the word " cousin " into my very teeth. "Suppose I paid court to you and gained your af- 1 said. You have them," she replied, serenely. ' I mean your heart?" >u have it ." I mean your love, Dor< "Ah," she said, with a faint smile, "I wish you could I wish somebody could." I was silent "And I never shall bye; 1 know it, I feel it h She pressed her side with a languid sidi that : into fits o' laughter <1 my n till it choked me, and looked at the sUu "Perhaps," said I, "the gentle passion might be awakened with patience . . . and practice." he said. "May I touch your hand?" 94 DAWN Indolently fanning, she extended her fingers. I took them in my hands. "I am about to begin/' I said. "Begin," she said. So, her hand resting in mine, I told her that she had robbed the skies and set two stars in violets for her eyes ; that nature's one miracle was wrought when in her cheeks roses bloomed beneath the snow; that the frosted gold she called her hair had been spun from December sunbeams, and that her voice was but the melodies stolen from breeze and brook and golden- throated birds. "For all those pretty words," she said, "love still lies sleeping." "Perhaps my arm around your waist " "Perhaps." "So?" "Yes. And, after a silence: "Has love stirred?" "Love sleeps the sounder." * And if I touched your lips?" "Best not" "Why?" "I'm sure that love would yawn.** Chilled, for unconsciously I had begun to find in this child-play an interest unexpected, I dropped her unresisting fingers. "Upon my word," I said, almost irritably, "I can believe you when you say you never mean to wed." " But I don't say it," she protested. " What? You have a mind to wed?" " Nor did I say that, either," she said, laughing. "Then what the deuce do you say?" "Nothing, unless I'm entreated politely." " I entreat you, cousin, most politely," I said. 95 THE MAID-AT-ARMS " Then I may tell you that, though I trouble my head nothing as to wedlock, I am betrothed." "Betrothed!" I repeated, angrily disapixrinUtl, yet I could not think why. "Yes- ,1." "To whom?" "To a man, silly." "Am;, " With two legs, two arms, and a head, cousin. " "You . . . love hi "No," she said, serenely. "It's only to wed and settle down some day." MI don't love him?" "No," she repeated, a trifle impatiently. "And you mean to wed him?" "Listen to the boy!" she exclaimed. "I've told him ten times that I am betrothed, which means a wedding. I am not one of those who break paroles." "Oh ... you are now free on par< "Prisoner on parole," she said, lightly. "I'm to name the day o f punishment, and I promise you it will not be soon." " Dorothy," I said, " suppose in the mean time you fell in 1 >," she said, sincerely. "But but what would you do then?" "Love, sil "And . . . many?" "Marry him whom I have promised n ut you would be wretched!" " Why? I can't fancy wedding one I love. 1 should be ashamed, I think. I if I loved I should not v. the man I loved to touch me not with gloves." "You little fool!" 1 said. "You don't know what you say." "Yes, I do!" she cried, hotly. "Once there was a 96 DAWN captain from Boston; I adored him. And once he kissed my hand and I hated him!" "I wish I'd been there/' I muttered. She, waving her fan to and fro, continued : " I often think of splendid men, and, dreaming in the sun- shine, sometimes I adore them. But always these day-dream heroes keep their distance; and we talk and talk, and plan to do great good in the world, until I fall a-napping. . . . Heigho! I'm yawning now." She covered her face with her fan and leaned back against a pillar, crossing her feet. "Tell me about London," she said. But I knew no more than she. "I'd be a belle there," she observed. "I'd have a train o' beaux and macaronis at my heels, I war- rant you I The f oppier, the more it would please me. Think, cousin ranks of them all a-simper, ogling me through a hundred quizzing -glasses I Heigho! There's doubtless some deviltry in me, as Sir Lupus says." She yawned again, looked up at the stars, then fell to twisting her fan with idle fingers. "I suppose," she said, more to herself than to me, "that Sir John is now close to the table's edge, and Colonel Claus is under it. . . Hark to their song, all off the key! But who cares? ... so that they quarrel not. . . . Like those twin brawlers of Glencoe, . . . brood- ing on feuds nigh a hundred years old. ... I have no patience with a brooder, one who treasures wrongs, . . f like Walter Butler." She looked up at me. " I warned you," she said. " It is not easy to avoid insulting him," 1 replied. " I warned you of that, too. Now you've a quarrel, and a reckoning in prospect." " The reckoning is far off," I retorted, ill-humoredly. " Far off yes. Further away than you know. You will never cross swords with Walter Butler. " t 97 THE MAID-AT-ARMS "And why not?" "He means to use the Iroquois." I was silent "For the honor of your women, you cannot fight such a man," she added, quietly "I wish I had the right to protect your honor," I said, so suddenly and so bitterly that I surprised my- " Have you not?" she asked, gravely. " 1 am your kinswoman." " Yes, yes, I know," I muttered, and fell to plucking at the lace on my wristbands. The dawn's chill was in the air, the dawn's sih too, and I saw the calm morning star on the horiion, watching the dark world the dark, sad world, 1\ so still, so patient, under the ancient sky. That melancholy whirh is an omen, too left me benumbed, adrift in a sort of pained contentment whu-h alternately soothed and troubled, so that at mo- ments I almost drowsed, and at moments I heard my heart stirring, as though in dull expectancy of beati- tudes undreamed of. Dorothy, too, sat listless, pensive, and in her eyes a sombre shadow, such as falls on children's eyes at mo- ments, leaving their elders silent. Once in the false dawn a cock crowed, and tin- shrill, far cry left the raw air emptier and the silence more profound. I looked wistfully at the maid beside me, chary of intrusion into the intimacy of her silence. Presently her vague eyes met mine, and, as though I had spoken, she said: "What is if" "Only this I am sorry you are pledged." Why, cousin "It is unfair." "To wh< "To you. Bid him undo it and release you." DAWN "What matters it?" she said, dully. "To wed, one should love," I muttered. "I cannot," she answered, without moving. "I would I could. This night has witched me to wish for love to desire it; and 1 sit here a-thinking, a-thinkinc. ... If love ever came to me 1 should think it would come now ere the dawn; here, where all is so dark and quiet and close to God. . . . Cousin, this night, Tor the first moment in all my life, I have desired love." "To beloved?" "No,... to love." I do not know how long our silence lasted ; the faint- est hint of silver touched the sky above the eastern for* est; a bird awoke, sleepily twit luring; another piped out fresh and clear, another, another; and, as the pallid tint spread in the east, all the woodlands burst out ringing into song. In the house a door opened and a hoarse voice mut- tered thickly. Dorothy paid no heed, but I rose and stepped into the hallway, where servants were guiding the patroon to bed, and a man hung to the bronze- cannon post, swaying and mumbling threats Colonel Claus, wig awry, stock unbuckled, and one shoe gone. Faugh! the stale, sour air sickened me. Then a company of gentlemen issued from the din- ing-hall, and, as I stepped back to the porch to give them room, their gray faces were turned to me with meaningless smiles or blank inquiry. " Where's my orderly?" hiccoughed Sir John John- son. "Here, you, call my rascals; get the chaises up! Dammy, I want my post-chaise, d' ye hear?" Captain Campbell stumbled out to the lawn and Jumbled about his lips with a whistle, which he finally succeeded in blowing. This accomplished, he gravely examined the sky. "There they are," said Dorothy, quietly; and I saw, 99 THE MAID-AT-ARMS the dim morning light, a dozen horsemen stirring in the shadows of the stockade. And present Iv Un- horses were brought up, followed by two post-chaises, with sleepy post-boys sitting their saddles and men afoot trailing rifles. Colonel Butler came out of the door with Magdalen Brant, who was half a id aided her to a cha Guy Johnson followed with Betty Austin, his arm around her, and climbed in after her. Then Sir John brought Claire Putnam to the other chaise, entering it himself behind her. And the post-boys wheeled their horses out through the stockade, followed at a gallop by the shadowy horsemen. And now the Butlers, father and son, set toe to stir- rup; and I saw Walter Butler kick the servant who held his stirrup why, I do not know, unless the poor, tired fellow's hands shook. Up into their saddles popped the Glencoe captains ; thm Campbell swore an oath and dismounted to look for Colonel Claus; and presently two blacks carried him nut and set him in Ins saddle, which he clung to, swaying like a ship in distress, his ridnn: -hnots slung md his neck, stockinged toes clutching the stirrups. Away they went, followed at a trot by the armed men on foot: fainter and fainter sounded the clink, clink of their horses' hoofs, then died away. he silence, the east reddened to a flame tin turned to the open do< Dorothy was gone, but old Cato stood there, withered hands clasped, peace- ful eyes on me. "Mawnin', suh," he said, sweet "Yaas, sun, de night done gone and de sun mos' up. 1 1 'it dat-a- way. Mars' George, suh, h'it jess natch 'ly dat-a-way in dishyere world day, night, mo' day. What de Bible say? Life, def, mo' life, suh. When we's daid we'll sho' find it dat-a-way." 100 VII AFTERMATH CATO at my bedside with basin, towel, and razor, a tub of water on the floor, and the sun shining on my chamber wall. These, and a stale taste on my tongue, greeted me as I awoke. First to wash teeth and mouth with orris, then to bathe, half asleep still; and yet again to lie a-think- ing in my arm-chair, robed in a banyan, cheeks all suds and nose sniffing the scented water in the chin- basin which I held none too steady ; and I said, peevish- ly, "What a fool a man is to play the fool! Do you hear me, Cato?" He said that he marked my words, and I bade him hold his tongue and tell me the hour. "Nine, suh." "Then I'll sleep again," I muttered, but could not, and after the morning draught felt better. Choco- late and bread, new butter and new eggs, put me in a kinder humor. Cato, burrowing in my boxes, drew out a soft, new suit of doeskin with new points, new girdle, and new moccasins. "Oh," said I, watching him, "am I to go forest- running to-day?" "Mars' Varick gwine ride de boun's,"he announced, cheerfully. "Ride to hounds?" I repeated, astonished. "In May?" "No, suh! Ride de boun's, suh." 101 THE MAID-AT-ARMS "Oh, ride the boundaries?" "Oh, i 1. Whi.t time docs he start 'Bin:: vjh." old man strove to straighten my short queue, but found it hopeless, so tied it close and dusted "No, no," interrupted Dorothy; "God saves His elect, 1 ti 11 you. Don't you remember what He says? " ' You sinners are, and such a share As sinners may expect ; Such you shall have; for I do aa*t None but my own eK And you see/' she added, confidently I think we all are elect, and there's nothing to be afraid of. Benny, stop sniffing!" "Are you tsked Cecile, gloomily. Dorothy, stitching serenely, answered : "I am sure God is fair." "Oh, everybody knows that," observed Cecile. "What we want to know is, \\hat does He mean to do with us." "If we're good," added Samuel, fervently. 104 AFTERMATH "He will damn us, perhaps/' said Ruyven, sucking his paint-brush and looking critically at his work. "Damn us? Why?" inquired Dorothy, raising her eyes. "Oh, for all that sin we were born in/' said Ruyven, absently. "But that's not fair/' said Dorothy. "Are you smarter than a clergyman?" sneered Ruyven Dorothy spread the white silk stocking over one knee. "I don't know/' she sighed, "sometimes I think I am/' "Pride," commented Cecile, complacently. "Pride is sin, so there you are, Dorothy/' "There you are, Dorothy!" said I, laughing from the doorway; and, "Oh, Cousin Ormond!" they all chorused, scrambling up to greet me. "Have a care!" cried Dorothy. "That is my wed- ding petticoat! Oh, he's slopped water on it! Benny, you dreadful villain! '' "No, he hasn't," said I, coming out to greet her and Cecile, with Samuel and Benny hanging to my belt, and Harry fast hold of one arm. "And what's all this about wedding finery? Is there a bride in this vicinity?" Dorothy held out a stocking. " A bride's white silk- en hose," she said, complacently. " Embroidered on the knee with the bride's initials/' added Cecile, proudly. "Yours, Dorothy?" I demanded. " Yes, but I shall not wear them for ages and ages. I told you so last night." "But I thought Dorothy had best make ready," remarked Cwle. "Dorothy is to carry that fan and rear those slippers and this petticoat and the white silk stockings when she weds Sir George." THE MAID-AT-ARMS "Sir George who?" I asked, bluntly. "Why, Sir George Covert Didn't you knmv?" >ked at Dorothy, incensed without a reason. ' \Vliy didn't you tell me?" I asked, ungraciou "Why didn't you ask me?" she replied, a trifle hurt I was silent. Cecile said: "I hope that Dorothy will marry him soon. I want to see ho AT she looks in this petticoat." "Ho!" sneered Harry, "you just want to wear one like it and be a bridesmaid and primp and give yourself airs. I know you I" "Sir George Covert is a good fellow," remarked Ruyven, with a jwiironi/ing nod at Dorothy; "hut I always said he was too old for you. You should see how gray are his temples when he wears no powd< " I le has fine eyes," murmured Cecile. I le's too old; he's forty," repeated Ruyven. I legs are shapely/' added Cecile, sentimentally. Dorothy gave a despairing upward glance at "Are these children not silly ? if she said, with a !r shrug. We may be children, and we may be silly," said Ruyven, "but if we were you we'd wed our con Ormond." " All of you together?" inquired Dorothy. Y i know what I mean/' he snapped. hy don't you?" demanded Harry, vaguely, twitching Dorothy by the apron. "Do what?" "Wed our cousin Ormond." "But he has not asked me," she said, smiling. Harry turned to me and took my arm affectionately in his. " You will ask her. won't you?" he murmured. " She's very nice when she chooses." "She wouldn't have me," I said, laughing. 1 06 AFTERMATH "Oh yes, she would; and then you need never leave us, which would be pleasant for all, I think. Won't you ask her, cousin?" " You ask her/' I said. "Dorothy/' he broke out, eagerly. "You will wed him, won't you? Our cousin Orraond says he will if you will. And I'll tell Sir George that it's just a fam- ily matter, and, besides, he's too old " "Yes, tell Sir George that," sneered Ruyven, who had listened in an embarrassment that certainly Doro- thy had not betrayed. "You're a great fool, Harry. Don't you know that when people want to wed they ask each other's permission to ask each other's father, and then their fathers ask each other, and then they ask each " " Other ! " cried Dorothy, laughing deliciously. " Oh, Ruyven, Ruyven, you certainly will be the death of me!" " All the same," said Harry, sullenly, " our cousin wishes to wed you." "Do you?" asked Dorothy, raising her amused eyes to me. " I fear I come too late," I said, forcing a smile I was not inclined to. "Ah, yes; too late," she sighed, pretending a dole* ful mien. "Why?" demanded Harry, blankly. Dorothy shook her head. " Sir George would never permit me such a liberty. If he would, our cousin Ormond and I could wed at once; you see I have my bride's stockings here; Cecile could do my hair, Sam- my carry my prayer-book, Benny my train, Ruyven read the service " Harry, flushing at the shout of laughter, gave Doro- thy a dark look, turned and eyed me, then scowled again at Dorothy. 107 THE MAID-AT-ARMS "All the same," he said, slowly, " you 're a great goose not to wed him. . . . And you'll be sorry . . . when he's dead!" At this veiled prophecy of my approaching disso- lution, all were silent save Dorothy and Ruyven, whose fresh laughter rang out peal on peal. "Laugh/* said Harry, gloomily; "but 3*ou won't laugh when he's killed in tlu war, . . . and scalped, too." Ruyven, suddenly sober, looked up at me. Doro- thy bent over her needle-work and examined it at: tm " Arc you going to the war?" asked Cecile, plain- tively. "Of course he's going; so am I," replied Ruyven, striking a careless pose against a pillar. "On which ride, Ruyven?" inquired Dorothy, sort- ing her silks. my cousin's side, of course," he said, uneasily. "Which side is that?" asked Cecile. Confused, flushing painfully, the boy looked at me; and I rescued him, saying, "We'll talk that over when we ride bounds this afternoon. Ruyven and I understand each ether, don't we, Ruyven?" He gave me a grateful glance. "Yes/' he said, shyly. Sir George Covert, a trifle pallid, but bland and urbane, strolled out to the porch, saluting us gracef u He paused beside Dorothy, who slipped her needle through her work and held out her hand for him to salute. "Are you also going to the wars?" she asked, \vith ) friendly sn "Where are they?" he inquired, pretending a fierce eagerness. "Point out some wars and 111 go to Vm post haste!" 108 AFTERMATH " They're all around us," said Sammy, solemnly. "Then we'd best get to horse and lose no time, Mr. Ormond," he observed, passing his arm through mine. In a lower voice he added: " Headache?" " Oh no/' I said, hastily. "Lucky dog. Sir Lupus lies as though struck by lightning. I'm all a-quiver, too. A man of my years is a fool to do such things. But I do, Ormond, I do ; ass that I am. Do you ride bounds with Sir Lupus?" " If he desires it," I said. "Then Til see you when you pass my villa on the Vlaie, where you'll find a glass of wine waiting. Do you ride, Miss Dorothy?" "Yes," she said. A stable lad brought his horse to the porch. He took leave of Dorothy with a grace that charmed even me; yet, in his bearing towards her I could detect the tender pride he had in her, and that left me cold and thoughtful. All liked him, though none appeared to regard him exactly as a kinsman, nor accorded him that vague shade of intimacy which is felt in kinship, not in com- radeship alone, and which they already accorded me. Dorothy walked with him to the stockade gate, the stable lad following with his horse; and I saw them stand there in low-voiced conversation, he lounging and switching at the weeds with his riding-crop; she, head bent, turning the gold thimble over and over be- tween her fingers. And I wondered what they were saying. Presently he mounted and rode away, a graceful, manly figure in the saddle, and not turning like a fop to blow a kiss at his betrothed, nor spurring his horse to show his skill for which I coldly respected him. Harry, Cecile, and the children gathered their paint? 109 THE MAID-AT-ARMS and books and went into the house, demanding that I should follow. "Dorothy is beckoning us/' observed Ruyven, ^atlKTiiiLT up his paints. I looked towards her and she raised her hand, mo- nir us to come. "About father's watch," she said. "I have just consulted Sir George, and he says that neither I nor Ruyven have won, seeing that Ruyven used the i he did" 4 \ erf ried Ruj'ven, triumphantly. "Then let us match dates again. Have you a shilling. Cousin OnnoodT" 41 I'll throw hunting-knives for it/' suggested Doro- thy. "Oh no, you won't," retorted her brother, warily. Then I'll race you to the porch." Ik shook his head. She 1 auLhcd tauntingly. i not afraid/' said Ruyven, reddening and glanc- ing at me. ben I'll wrestle you." MR by the malice in her smile, Ruyven seized "No, no! Not in these clothes!" she said, i\\\ to free herself. " I put on my bucksk Don't use me so roughly, y rice-bird 1. wore a vel\ v of black and white and sang di- vinely, though with us he is mute as a mullet ; many squirrels were striped with black and white; no rosy lichen glimmered on the tree-trunks; no pink-stem; pines softened sombre forest depths; no great figer- striped butterflies told me that the wild orange waa 122 RIDING THE BOUNDS growing near at hand ; no whirring, olive-tinted moth signalled the hidden presence of the oleander. But I saw everywhere unfamiliar winged things, I heard unfamiliar bird-notes; new colors perplexed me, new shapes, nay, the very soil smelled foreign, and the water tasted savorless as the mist of pine barrens in February. Still, my Maker had set eyes in my head and given me a nose to sniff with : and I was learning every mo- ment, tasting, smelling, touching, listening, asking questions unashamed ; and my cousin Dorothy seemed never to tire in aiding me, nor did her eager delight and sympathy abate one jot. Dressed in full deer-skin as was I, she rode her horse astride with a grace as perfect as it was unstudied and unconscious, neither affecting the slothful carriage of our Southern saddle-masters nor the dragoons' rigid seat, but sat at ease, hollow-backed, loose-thighed, free- rc'ined and free-stirruped. Her hair, gathered into a golden club at the nape of the neck, glittered in the sun, her eyes deepened like the violet depths of mid-heaven. Already the sun had Vnt her a delicate, creamy mask, golden on her temples where the hair grew paler; and I thought I had never seen such wholesome sweetness and beauty in any living being. We now rode through a vast flat land of willows, headed due north once more, and I saw a little river which twisted a hundred times upon itself like a stricken snake, winding its shimmering coils out and in through woodland, willow-flat, and reedy marsh. "The Kennyetto," said Dorothy, "flowing out of the great Vlaie to empty its waters close to its source after a circle of half a hundred miles. Yonder lies the VTaie it is that immense flat country of lake and marsh and forest which is wedged in just south of the moun- I2L1 THE MAID-AT-ARMS tain-gap where the last of the Adiron< put into the Ma fu Id hills and the long, low spurs rolling away to the southeast. Sir William Johnson had a lodge there at Summer-house Point. Since his death George Covert has leased it from Sir John. That is our try sting-place." To hear Sir George's name now vaguely disturbed me, yet I .ould not think why, for I admired and 1 him Hut at the bare mention of his name a dull un- easiness came over me and I turned iinj>atiently to my cousin as though the irritation had come from her and she must explain it What is it?" she inquired, faintly smiling. " I asked no quest muttered, " I thought you meant to speak, cous I had meant to say something. I did not know what. " You seem to know when I am about to speak said is twice you have responded to my unasked questions." "I know it," she said, surprised and a trifle per- plexed. " I seem to hear you when you are mute, and :rn to find you looking at me, as though you had asked me something." We rode on, thoughtful, silent, aware of a new and wordless intimacy. " It is pleasant to be with you," she said at last. " I have never before found untroubled contentment save when I am alone. . . . Everything that you see ;md think of on this ride I seem to see and think of, too, and know that you are observing with the same de- light that I feel. . . . Nor does anything in the world disturb my happiness. Nor do you vex me with silence when I would have you speak ; nor with speech when I ride dreaming as I do, cousin, for hours and hours sadly, but in the sweetest peace " 124 RIDING THE BOUNDS Her voice died out like a June breeze ; our horses, ear to ear moved on slowly in the fragrant silence. "To ride . . . forever . . . together/' she mused, " looking with perfect content on all the world. ... I teaching you, or you me; ... it's all one for the de- light it gives to be alive and young. . . . And no trouble to await us, ... nothing malicious to do a harm to any living thing. ... I could renounce Heaven for that. . . . Could you?" "Yes. ...For less." " I know I ask t^o much ; grief makes us purer, fit- ting us "or the company of blessed souls. They say that even war may be a holy thing though we are commanded otherwise. . . . Cousin, at moments a de- mon rises in me and I desire some forbidden thing so ardently, so passionately, that it seems as if I could fight a path through paradise itself to gain what I desire. ... Do you feel so? ' "Yes." " Is it not consuming terrible to be so shaken? . . . Yet I never gain my desire, for there in my path my own self rises to confront me, blocking my way. And I can never pass never. . . . Once, in winter, our agent, Mr. Fonda, came driving a trained caribou to a sledge. A sweet, gentle thing, with dark, mild eyes, and I was mad to drive it mad, cousin! But Sir Lu- pus learned that it had trodden and gored a man, and put me on my honor not ti drive it. And all day Sir Lupus was away at Kingsborough for his rents and I free to drive the sledge, . . . and I was mad to do it and could not. And the pretty beast stabled with our horses, and every day I might have driven it. ... I never did. ... It hurts yet, cousin. . . . How strange is it that to us the single word, 'honor/ blocks the road and makes the King's own highway no thorough- fare forever!" 125 THE MAID-AT-ARMS She gathered bridle nervously, and we launched out horses through a willow fringe and away over a soft, sandy intervale, riding knee to knee till the wind whis- tled in our ears and the sand rose fountain high at every stride of our bounding horses. "Ah!" she si-hed, drawing bridle That clears the heart of silly troubles. Was it not glorious? Like a plunge to the throat in an icy pool!" Her face, radiant, transfigured, was turned to the north, where, glittering under the westward sun, the sunny waters of the Vlaie sparkled between green reeds and rushes. Beyond, omoky blue mountains tumbled into two uneven walls, spread southeast and southwest, flanking the flat valley of the Vlaie. Thousands of blackbirds chattered and croaked and trilled and whistled in the reeds, flitting upward, with a flash of scarlet on their wings; hovering, drop- ping again amid a ceaseless chorus from the h hidden flock. Over the marshes slow hawks sailol, rose, wheeled, and fell ; the gray ducks, whose wings bear purple diamond-squares, quacked in the tussock ponds, guarded by their sen u tall, hliu ry where the earth was sheeted with inarsh-n golds and . Across the distant grassy flat two deer moved, graz- ing. We rode to the east, skirting the marshes, follow- ing a trail made by cattle, until beyond the flats we saw the green roof <>f the pleasure-house which Sir Will- iam Johnson had built for himself. Our ri