For the first half-mile our road lay over that same golden, hilly country, and through the same splendid forests which I had traversed on my way to the manor. Then we galloped past cultivated land, where clustered spears of Indian corn sprouted above the reddish golden soil, and sheep fed in stony pastures.
Around the cabins of the tenantry, fields of oats and barley glimmered, thin blades pricking the loam, brilliant as splintered emeralds.
A few dropping blossoms still starred the apple-trees, pears showed in tiny bunches, and once I saw a late peach-tree in full pink bloom and an old man hoeing the earth around it. He looked up as we galloped past, saluted sullenly, and leaned on his hoe, looking after us.
Dorothy said he was a Palatine refugee and a rebel, like the majority of Sir Lupus's tenants; and I gazed curiously at these fields and cabins where gaunt men and gaunter women, laboring among their sprouting vegetables, turned sun-dazzled eyes to watch us as we clattered by; where ragged children, climbing on the stockades, called out to us in little, shrill voices; where feeding cattle lifted sober heads to stare; where lank, yellow dogs rushed out barking and snapping till a cut of the whip sent them scurrying back.
Once a woman came to her gate and hailed us, asking if it was true that the troops had been withdrawn from Johnstown and Kingsborough.
"Which troops?" I asked.
"Ours," began the woman, then checked herself, and shot a suspicious glance at me.
"The Provincials are still at Johnstown and Kingsborough," said Dorothy, gently.
A gleam of relief softened the woman's haggard features. Then her face darkened again and she pointed at two barefooted children shrinking against the fence.
"If my man and I were alone we would not be afraid of the Mohawks; but these--"
She made a desperate gesture, and stood staring at the blue Mayfield hills where, perhaps at that moment, painted Mohawk scouts were watching the Sacandaga.
"If your men remain quiet, Mrs. Schell, you need fear neither rebel, savage, nor Tory," said Dorothy. "The patroon will see that you have ample protection."
Mrs. Schell gave her a helpless glance. "Did you not know that the district scout-call has gone out?" she asked.
"Yes; but if the tenants of Sir Lupus obey it they do so at their peril," replied Dorothy, gravely. "The militia scouts of this district must not act hastily. Your husband would be mad to answer a call and leave you here alone."
"What would you have him do?" muttered the woman.
"Do?" repeated Dorothy. "He can do one thing or the other--join his regiment and take his family to the district fort, or stay at home and care for you and the farm. These alarms are all wrong--your men are either soldiers or farmers; they cannot be both unless they live close enough to the forts. Tell Mr. Schell that Francy McCraw and his riders are in the forest, and that the Brandt-Meester of Balston saw a Mohawk smoke-signal on the mountain behind Mayfield."
The woman folded her bony arms in her apron, cast one tragic glance at her children, then faced us again, hollow-eyed but undaunted.
"My man is with Stoner's scout," she said, with dull pride.
"Then you must go to the block-house," began Dorothy, but the woman pointed to the fields, shaking her head.
"We shall build a block-house here," she said, stubbornly. "We cannot leave our corn. We must eat, Mistress Varick. My man is too poor to be a Provincial soldier, too brave to refuse a militia call--"
She choked, rubbed her eyes, and bent her stern gaze on the hills once more. Presently we rode on, and, turning in my saddle, I saw her standing as we had left her, gaunt, rigid, staring steadily at the dreaded heights in the northwest.
As we galloped, cultivated fields and orchards became rarer; here and there, it is true, some cabin stood on a half-cleared hill-side, and we even passed one or two substantial houses on the flat ridge to the east, but long, solid stretches of forest intervened, and presently we left the highway and wheeled into a cool wood-road bordered on either side by the forest.
"Here we find our first landmark," said Dorothy, drawing bridle.
A white triangle glimmered, cut in the bark of an enormous pine; and my cousin rode up to the tree and patted the bark with her little hand. On the triangle somebody had cut a V and painted it black.
"This is a boundary mark," said Dorothy. "The Mohawks claim the forest to the east; ride around and you will see their sign."
I guided my horse around the huge, straight trunk. An oval blaze scarred it and on the wood was painted a red wolf.
"It's the wolf-clan, Brant's own clan of the Mohawk nation," she called out to me. "Follow me, cousin." And she dashed off down the wood-road, I galloping behind, leaping windfalls, gullies, and the shallow forest brooks that crossed our way. The road narrowed to a trodden trail; the trail faded, marked at first by cut undergrowth, then only by the white scars on the tree-trunks.
These my cousin followed, her horse at a canter, and I followed her, halting now and again to verify the white triangle on the solid flank of some forest giant, passing a sugar-bush with the shack still standing and the black embers of the fire scattered, until we came to a logging-road and turned into it, side by side. A well-defined path crossed this road at right angles, and Dorothy pointed it out. "The Iroquois trail," she said. "See how deeply it is worn--nearly ten inches deep--where the Five Nations have trodden it for centuries. Over it their hunting-parties pass, their scouts, their war-parties. It runs from the Kennyetto to the Sacandaga and north over the hills to the Canadas."
We halted and looked down the empty, trodden trail, stretching away through the forest. Thousands and thousands of light, moccasined feet had worn it deep and patted it hard as a sheep-path. On what mission would the next Mohawk feet be speeding on that trail?
"Those people at Fonda's Bush had best move to Johnstown," said Dorothy. "If the Mohawks strike, they will strike through here at Balston or Saratoga, or at the half-dozen families left at Fonda's Bush, which some of them call Broadalbin."
"Have these poor wretches no one to warn them?" I asked.
"Oh, they have been warned and warned, but they cling to their cabins as cats cling to soft cushions. The Palatines seem paralyzed with fear, the Dutch are too lazy to move in around the forts, the Scotch and English too obstinate. Nobody can do anything for them--you heard what that Schell woman said when I urged her to prudence."
I bent my eyes on the ominous trail; its very emptiness fascinated me, and I dismounted and knelt to examine it where, near a dry, rotten log, some fresh marks showed.
Behind me I heard Dorothy dismount, dropping to the ground lightly as a tree-lynx; the next moment she laid her hand on my shoulder and bent over where I was kneeling.
"Can you read me that sign?" she asked, mischievously.
"Something has rolled and squatted in the dry wood-dust--some bird, I think."
"A good guess," she said; "a cock-partridge has dusted here; see those bits of down? I say a cock-bird because I know that log to be a drumming-log."
She raised herself and guided her horse along the trail, bright eyes restlessly scanning ground and fringing underbrush.
"Deer passed here--one--two--three--the third a buck--a three-year old," she said, sinking her voice by instinct. "Yonder a tree-cat dug for a wood-mouse; your lynx is ever hanging about a drumming-log."
I laid my hand on her arm and pointed to a fresh, green maple leaf lying beside the trail.
"Ay," she murmured, "but it fell naturally, cousin. See; here it parted from the stalk, clean as a poplar twig, leaving the shiny cup unbruised. And nothing has passed here--this spider's web tells that, with a dead moth dangling from it, dead these three days, from its brittle shell."
"I hear water," I said, and presently we came to it, where it hurried darkling across the trail.
There were no human signs there; here a woodcock had peppered the mud with little holes, probing for worms; there a raccoon had picked his way; yonder a lynx had left the great padded mark of its foot, doubtless watching for yonder mink nosing us from the bank of the still pool below.
Silently we mounted and rode out of the still Mohawk country; and I was not sorry to leave, for it seemed to me that there was something unfriendly in the intense stillness--something baleful in the silence; and I was glad presently to see an open road and a great tree marked with Sir Lupus's mark, the sun shining on the white triangle and the painted V.
Entering a slashing where the logging-road passed, we moved on, side by side, talking in low tones. And my cousin taught me how to know these Northern trees by bark and leaf; how to know the shrubs new to me, like that strange plant whose root is like a human body and which the Chinese value at its weight in gold; and the aromatic root used in beer, and the bark of the sweet-birch whose twigs are golden-black.
Now, though the birds and many of the beasts and trees were familiar to me in this Northern forest, yet I was constantly at fault, as I have said. Plumage and leaf and fur puzzled me; our gray rice-bird here wore a velvet livery of black and white and sang divinely, 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-stemmed pines softened sombre forest depths; no great tiger-striped butterflies told me that the wild orange was 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 moment, 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-reined 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 lent 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 Vlaie--it is that immense flat country of lake and marsh and forest which is wedged in just south of the mountain-gap where the last of the Adirondacks split into the Mayfield 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 Sir George Covert has leased it from Sir John. That is our trysting-place."
To hear Sir George's name now vaguely disturbed me, yet I could not think why, for I admired and liked him. But at the bare mention of his name a dull uneasiness came over me and I turned impatiently 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 question," I muttered.
"I thought you meant to speak, cousin."
I had meant to say something. I did not know what.
"You seem to know when I am about to speak," I said; "that is twice you have responded to my unasked questions."
"I know it," she said, surprised and a trifle perplexed. "I seem to hear you when you are mute, and I turn 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 and think of on this ride I seem to see and think of, too, and know that you are observing with the same delight 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--not sadly, but in the sweetest peace--"
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 delight 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 too much; grief makes us purer, fitting us for the company of blessed souls. They say that even war may be a holy thing--though we are commanded otherwise.... Cousin, at moments a demon 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 Lupus learned that it had trodden and gored a man, and put me on my honor not to 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!"
She gathered bridle nervously, and we launched our horses through a willow fringe and away over a soft, sandy intervale, riding knee to knee till the wind whistled in our ears and the sand rose fountain high at every stride of our bounding horses.
"Ah!" she sighed, 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, smoky 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, dropping again amid a ceaseless chorus from the half-hidden flock. Over the marshes slow hawks sailed, rose, wheeled, and fell; the gray ducks, whose wings bear purple diamond-squares, quacked in the tussock ponds, guarded by their sentinels, the tall, blue herons. Everywhere the earth was sheeted with marsh-marigolds and violets.
Across the distant grassy flat two deer moved, grazing. We rode to the east, skirting the marshes, following a trail made by cattle, until beyond the flats we saw the green roof of the pleasure-house which Sir William Johnson had built for himself. Our ride together was nearly ended.
As at the same thought we tightened bridle and looked at each other gravely.
"All rides end," I said.
"Ay, like happiness."
"Both may be renewed."
"Until they end again."
"Until they end forever."
She clasped her bare hands on her horse's neck, sitting with bent head as though lost in sombre memories.
"What ends forever might endure forever," I said.
"Not our rides together," she murmured. "You must return to the South one day. I must wed.... Where shall we be this day a year hence?"
"Very far apart, cousin."
"Will you remember this ride?"
"Yes," I said, troubled.
"I will, too.... And I shall wonder what you are doing."
"And I shall think of you," I said, soberly.
"Will you write?"
"Yes. Will you?"
"Yes."
Silence fell between us like a shadow; then:
"Yonder rides Sir George Covert," she said, listlessly.
I saw him dismounting before his door, but said nothing.
"Shall we move forward?" she asked, but did not stir a finger towards the bridle lying on her horse's neck.
Another silence; and, impatiently:
"I cannot bear to have you go," she said; "we are perfectly contented together--and I wish you to know all the thoughts I have touching on the world and on people. I cannot tell them to my father, nor to Ruyven--and Cecile is too young--"
"There is Sir George," I said.
"He! Why, I should never think of telling him of these thoughts that please or trouble or torment me!" she said, in frank surprise. "He neither cares for the things you care for nor thinks about them at all."
"Perhaps he does. Ask him."
"I have. He smiles and says nothing. I am afraid to tax his courtesy with babble of beast and bird and leaf and flower; and why one man is rich and another poor; and whether it is right that men should hold slaves; and why our Lord permits evil, having the power to end it for all time. I should like to know all these things," she said, earnestly.
"But I do not know them, Dorothy."
"Still, you think about them, and so do I. Sir Lupus says you have liberated your Greeks and sent them back. I want to know why. Then, too, though neither you nor I can know our Lord's purpose in enduring the evil that Satan plans, it is pleasant, I think, to ask each other."
"To think together," I said, sadly.
"Yes; that is it. Is it not a pleasure?"
"Yes, Dorothy."
"It does not matter that we fail to learn; it is the happiness in knowing that the other also cares to know, the delight in seaching for reason together. Cousin, I have so longed to say this to somebody; and until you came I never believed it possible.... I wish we were brother and sister! I wish you were Cecile, and I could be with you all day and all night.... At night, half asleep, I think of wonderful things to talk about, but I forget them by morning. Do you?"
"Yes, cousin."
"It is strange we are so alike!" she said, staring at me thoughtfully.
After a few moments' silence we moved forward towards the pleasure-house, and we had scarcely started when down the road, from the north, came the patroon riding a powerful black horse, attended by old Cato mounted on a raw-boned hunter, and by one Peter Van Horn, the district Brandt-Meester, or fire-warden. As they halted at Sir George Covert's door, we rode up to join them at a gallop, and the patroon, seeing us far off, waved his hat at us in evident good humor.
"Not a landmark missing!" he shouted, "and my signs all witnessed for record by Peter and Cato! How do the southwest landmarks stand?"
"The tenth pine is blasted by lightning," said Dorothy, walking her beautiful gray to Sir Lupus's side.
"Pooh! We've a dozen years to change trees," said Sir Lupus, in great content. "All's well everywhere, save at the Fish-House near the Sacandaga ford, where some impudent rascal says he saw smoke on the hills. He's doubtless a liar. Where's Sir George?"
Sir George sauntered forth from the doorway where he had been standing, and begged us to dismount, but the patroon declined, saying that we had far to ride ere sundown, and that one of us should go around by Broadalbin. However, Dorothy and I slipped from our saddles to stretch our legs while a servant brought stirrup-cups and Sir George gathered a spray of late lilac which my cousin fastened to her leather belt.
"Tory lilacs," said Sir George, slyly; "these bushes came from cuttings of those Sir William planted at Johnson Hall."
"If Sir William planted them, a rebel may wear them," replied Dorothy, gayly.
"Ay, it's that whelp, Sir John, who has marred what the great baronet left as his monument," growled old Peter Van Horn.
"That's treason!" snapped the patroon. "Stop it. I won't have politics talked in my presence, no! Dammy, Peter, hold your tongue, sir!"
Dorothy, wearing the lilac spray, vaulted lightly into her saddle, and I mounted my mare. Stirrup-cups were filled and passed up to us, and we drained a cooled measure of spiced claret to the master of the pleasure-house, who pledged us gracefully in return, and then stood by Dorothy's horse, chatting and laughing until, at a sign from Sir Lupus, Cato sounded "Afoot!" on his curly hunting-horn, and the patroon wheeled his big horse out into the road, with a whip-salute to our host.
"Dine with us to-night!" he bawled, without turning his fat head or waiting for a reply, and hammered away in a torrent of dust. Sir George glanced wistfully at Dorothy.
"There's a district officer-call gone out," he said. "Some of the Palatine officers desire my presence. I cannot refuse. So ... it is good-bye for a week."
"Are you a militia officer?" I asked, curiously.
"Yes," he said, with a humorous grimace. "May I say that you also are a candidate?"
Dorothy turned squarely in her saddle and looked me in the eyes.
"At the district's service, Sir George," I said, lightly.
"Ha! That is well done, Ormond!" he exclaimed. "Nothing yet to inconvenience you, but our Governor Clinton may send you a billet doux from Albany before May ends and June begins--if this periwigged beau, St. Leger, strolls out to ogle Stanwix--"
Dorothy turned her horse sharply, saluted Sir George, and galloped away towards her father, who had halted at the cross-roads to wait for us.
"Good-bye, Sir George," I said, offering my hand. He took it in a firm, steady clasp.
"A safe journey, Ormond. I trust fortune may see fit to throw us together in this coming campaign."
I bowed, turned bridle, and cantered off, leaving him standing in the road before his gayly painted pleasure-house, an empty wine-cup in his hand.
"Damnation, George!" bawled Sir Lupus, as I rode up, "have we all day to stand nosing one another and trading gossip! Some of us must ride by Fonda's Bush, or Broadalbin, whatever the Scotch loons call it; and I'll say plainly that I have no stomach for it; I want my dinner!"
"It will give me pleasure to go," said I, "but I require a guide."
"Peter shall ride with you," began Sir Lupus; but Dorothy broke in, impatiently:
"He need not. I shall guide Mr. Ormond to Broadalbin."
"Oh no, you won't!" snapped the patroon; "you've done enough of forest-running for one day. Peter, pilot Mr. Ormond to the Bush."
And he galloped on ahead, followed by Cato and Peter; so that, by reason of their dust, which we did not choose to choke in, Dorothy and I slackened our pace and fell behind.
"Do you know why you are to pass by Broadalbin?" she asked, presently.
I said I did not.
"Folk at the Fish-House saw smoke on the Mayfield hills an hour since. That is twice in three days!"
"Well," said I, "what of that?"
"It is best that the Broadalbin settlement should hear of it."
"Do you mean that it may have been an Indian signal?"
"It may have been. I did not see it--the forest cut our view."
The westering sun, shining over the Mayfield hills, turned the dust to golden fog. Through it Cato's red coat glimmered, and the hunting-horn, curving up over his bent back, struck out streams of blinding sparks. Brass buttons on the patroon's broad coat-skirts twinkled like yellow stars, and the spurs flashed on his quarter-gaiters as he pounded along at a solid hand-gallop, hat crammed over his fat ears, pig-tail a-bristle, and the blue coat on his enormous body white with dust.
In the renewed melody of the song-birds there was a hint of approaching evening; shadows lengthened; the sunlight grew redder on the dusty road.
"The Broadalbin trail swings into the forest just ahead," said Dorothy, pointing with her whip-stock. "See, there where they are drawing bridle. But I mean to ride with you, nevertheless.... And I'll do it!"
The patroon was waiting for us when we came to the weather-beaten finger-post:
"FONDA'S BUSH4 MILES."
And Peter Van Horn had already ridden into the broad, soft wood-road, when Dorothy, swinging her horse past him at a gallop, cried out, "I want to go with them! Please let me!" And was gone like a deer, tearing away down the leafy trail.
"Come back!" roared Sir Lupus, standing straight up in his ponderous stirrups. "Come back, you little vixen! Am I to be obeyed, or am I not? Baggage! Undutiful tree-cat! Dammy, she's off!"
He looked at me and smote his fat thigh with open hand.
"Did you ever see the like of her!" he chuckled, in his pride. "She's a Dutch Varick for obstinacy, but the rest is Ormond--all Ormond. Ride on, George, and tell those rebel fools at Fonda's Bush that they should be hunting cover in the forts if folk at the Fish-House read that smoke aright. Follow the Brandt-Meester if Dorothy slips you, and tell her I'll birch her, big as she is, if she's not home by the new moon rise."
Then he dragged his hat over his mottled ears, grasped the bridle and galloped on, followed by old Cato and his red coat and curly horn.
I had ridden a cautious mile on the dim, leafy trail ere I picked up Van Horn, only to quit him. I had ridden full three before I caught sight of Dorothy, sitting her gray horse, head at gaze in my direction.
"What in the world set you tearing off through the forest like that?" I asked, laughing.
She turned her horse and we walked on, side by side.
"I wished to come," she said, simply. "The pleasures of this day must end only with the night. Besides, I was burning to ask you if it is true that you mean to stay here and serve with our militia?"
"I mean to stay," I said, slowly.
"And serve?"
"If they desire it."
"Why?" she asked, raising her bright eyes.
I thought a moment, then said:
"I have decided to resist our King's soldiers."
"But why here?" she repeated, clear eyes still on mine. "Tell me the truth."
"I think it is because you are here," I said, soberly.
The loveliest smile parted her lips.
"I hoped you would say that.... Do I please you? Listen, cousin: I have a mad impulse to follow you--to be hindered rages me beyond endurance--as when Sir Lupus called me back. For, within the past hour the strangest fancy has possessed me that we have little time left to be together; that I should not let one moment slip to enjoy you."
"Foolish prophetess," I said, striving to laugh.
"A prophetess?" she repeated under her breath. And, as we rode on through the forest dusk, her head drooped thoughtfully, shaded by her loosened hair. At last she looked up dreamily, musing aloud:
"No prophetess, cousin; only a child, nerveless and over-fretted with too much pleasure, tired out with excitement, having played too hard. I do not know quite how I should conduct. I am unaccustomed to comrades like you, cousin; and, in the untasted delights of such companionship, have run wild till my head swims wi' the humming thoughts you stir in me, and I long for a dark, still room and a bed to lie on, and think of this day's pleasures."
After a silence, broken only by our horses treading the moist earth: "I have been starving for this companionship.... I was parched!... Cousin, have you let me drink too deeply? Have you been too kind? Why am I in this new terror lest you--lest you tire of me and my silly speech? Oh, I know my thoughts have been too long pent! I could talk to you forever! I could ride with you till I died! I am like a caged thing loosed, I tell you--for I may tell you, may I not, cousin?"
"Tell me all you think, Dorothy."
"I could tell you all--everything! I never had a thought that I do not desire you to know, ... save one.... And that I do desire to tell you ... but cannot.... Cousin, why did you name your mare Isene?"
"An Indian girl in Florida bore that name; the Seminoles called her Issena."
"And so you named your mare from her?"
"Yes."
"Was she your friend--that you named your mare from her?"
"She lived a century ago--a princess. She wedded with a Huguenot."
"Oh," said Dorothy, "I thought she was perhaps your sweetheart."
"I have none."
"You never had one?"
"No."
"Why?"
I turned in my saddle.
"Why have you never had a gallant?"
"Oh, that is not the same. Men fall in love--or protest as much. And at wine they boast of their good fortunes, swearing each that his mistress is the fairest, and bragging till I yawn to listen.... And yet you say you never had a sweetheart?"
"Neither titled nor untitled, cousin. And, if I had, at home we never speak of it, deeming it a breach of honor."
"Why?"
"For shame, I suppose."
"Is it shameless to speak as I do?" she asked.
"Not to me, Dorothy. I wish you might be spared all that unlicensed gossip that you hear at table--not that it could harm such innocence as yours! For, on my honor, I never knew a woman such as you, nor a maid so nobly fashioned!"
I stopped, meeting her wide eyes.
"Say it," she murmured. "It is happiness to hear you."
"Then hear me," I said, slowly. "Loyalty, devotion, tenderness, all are your due; not alone for the fair body that holds your soul imprisoned, but for the pure tenant that dwells in it so sweetly behind the blue windows of your eyes! Dorothy! Dorothy! Have I said too much? Yet I beg that you remember it, lest you forget me when I have gone from you.... And say to Sir George that I said it.... Tell him after you are wedded, and say that all men envy him, yet wish him well. For the day he weds he weds the noblest woman in all the confines of this earth!"
Dazed, she stared at me through the fading light; and I saw her eyes all wet in the shadow of her tangled hair and the pulse beating in her throat.
"You are so good--so pitiful," she said; "and I cannot even find the words to tell you of those deep thoughts you stir in me--to tell you how sweetly you use me--"
"Tell me no more," I stammered, all a-quiver at her voice. She shrank back as at a blow, and I, head swimming, frighted, penitent, caught her small hand in mine and drew her nearer; nor could I speak for the loud beating of my heart.
"What is it?" she murmured. "Have I pained you that you tremble so? Look at me, cousin. I can scarce see you in the dusk. Have I hurt you? I love you dearly."
Her horse moved nearer, our knees touched. In the forest darkness I found I held her waist imprisoned, and her arms were heavy on my shoulders. Then her lips yielded and her arms tightened around my neck, and that swift embrace in the swimming darkness kindled in me a flame that has never died--that shall live when this poor body crumbles into dust, lighting my soul through its last dark pilgrimage.
As for her, she sat up in her saddle with a strange little laugh, still holding to my hand. "Oh, you are divine in all you lead me to," she whispered. "Never, never have I known delight in a kiss; and I have been kissed, too, willing and against my will. But you leave me breathing my heart out and all a-tremble with a tenderness for you--no, not again, cousin, not yet."
Then slowly the full wretchedness of guilt burned me, bone and soul, and what I had done seemed a black evil to a maid betrothed, and to the man whose wine had quenched my thirst an hour since.
Something of my thoughts she may have read in my bent head and face averted, for she leaned forward in her saddle, and drawing me by the arm, turned me partly towards her.
"What troubles you?" she said, anxiously.
"My treason to Sir George."
"What treason?" she said, amazed.
"That I--caressed you."
She laughed outright.
"Am I not free-until I wed? Do you imagine I should have signed my liberty away to please Sir George? Why, cousin, if I may not caress whom I choose and find a pleasure in the way you use me, I am no better than the winter log he buys to toast his shins at!"
Then she grew angry in her impatience, slapping her bridle down to range her horse up closer to mine.
"Am I not to wed him?" she said. "Is not that enough? And I told him so, flatly, I warrant you, when Captain Campbell kissed me on the porch--which maddened me, for he was not to my fancy--but Sir George saw him and there was like to be a silly scene until I made it plain that I would endure no bonds before I wore a wedding-ring!" She laughed deliciously. "I think he understands now that I am not yoked until I bend my neck. And until I bend it I am free. So if I please you, kiss me, ... but leave me a little breath to draw, cousin, ... and a saddle to cling to.... Now loose me--for the forest ends!"
"NOW LOOSE ME--FOR THE FOREST ENDS!".
A faint red light grew in the woodland gloom; a rushing noise like swiftly flowing water filled my ears--or was it the blood that surged singing through my heart?
"Broadalbin Bush," she murmured, clearing her eyes of the clouded hair and feeling for her stirrups with small, moccasined toes. "Hark! Now we hear the Kennyetto roaring below the hill. See, cousin, it is sunset, the west blazes, all heaven is afire! Ah! what sorcery has turned the world to paradise--riding this day with you?"
She turned in her saddle with an exquisite gesture, pressed her outstretched hand against my lips, then, gathering bridle, launched her horse straight through the underbrush, out into a pasture where, across a naked hill, a few log-houses reddened in the sunset.
There hung in the air a smell of sweetbrier as we drew bridle before a cabin under the hill. I leaned over and plucked a handful of the leaves, bruising them in my palm to savor the spicy perfume.
A man came to the door of the cabin and stared at us; a tap-room sluggard, a-sunning on the west fence-rail, chewed his cud solemnly and watched us with watery eyes.
"Andrew Bowman, have you seen aught to fright folk on the mountain?" asked Dorothy, gravely.
The man in the doorway shook his head. From the cabins near by a few men and women trooped out into the road and hastened towards us. One of the houses bore a bush, and I saw two men peering at us through the open window, pewters in hand.
"Good people," said Dorothy, quietly, "the patroon sends you word of a strange smoke seen this day in the hills."
"There's smoke there now," I said, pointing into the sunset.
At that moment Peter Van Horn galloped up, halted, and turned his head, following the direction of my outstretched arm. Others came, blinking into the ruddy evening glow, craning their necks to see, and from the wretched tavern a lank lout stumbled forth, rifle shouldered, pewter a-slop, to learn the news that had brought us hither at that hour.
"It is mist," said a woman; but her voice trembled as she said it.
"It is smoke," growled Van Horn. "Read it, you who can."
Whereat the fellow in the tavern window fell a-laughing and called down to his companion: "Francy McCraw! Francy McCraw! The Brandt-Meester says a Mohawk fire burns in the north!"
"I hear him," cried McCraw, draining his pewter.
Dorothy turned sharply. "Oh, is that you, McCraw? What brings you to the Bush?"
The lank fellow turned his wild, blue eyes on her, then gazed at the smoke. Some of the men scowled at him.
"Is that smoke?" I asked, sharply. "Answer me, McCraw!"
"A canna' deny it," he said, with a mad chuckle.
"Is it Indian smoke?" demanded Van Horn.
"Aweel," he replied, craning his skinny neck and cocking his head impudently--"aweel, a'll admit that, too. It's Indian smoke; a canna deny it, no."
"Is it a Mohawk signal?" I asked, bluntly.
At which he burst out into a crowing laugh.
"What does he say?" called out the man from the tavern. "What does he say, Francy McCraw?"
"He says it maun be Mohawk smoke, Danny Redstock."
"And what if it is?" blustered Redstock, shouldering his way to McCraw, rifle in hand. "Keep your black looks for your neighbors, Andrew Bowman. What have we to do with your Mohawk fires?"
"Herman Salisbury!" cried Bowman to a neighbor, "do you hear what this Tory renegade says?"
"Quiet! Quiet, there," said Redstock, swaggering out into the road. "Francy McCraw, our good neighbors are woful perplexed by that thread o' birch smoke yonder."
"Then tell the feckless fools tae watch it!" screamed McCraw, seizing his rifle and menacing the little throng of men and women who had closed swiftly in on him. "Hands off me, Johnny Putnam--back, for your life, Charley Cady! Ay, stare at the smoke till ye're eyes drop frae th' sockets! But no; there's some foulk 'ill tak' nae warnin'!"
He backed off down the road, followed by Redstock, rifles cocked.
"An' ye'll bear me out," he shouted, "that there's them wha' hear these words now shall meet their weirds ere a hunter's moon is wasted!"
He laughed his insane laugh and, throwing his rifle over his shoulder, halted, facing us.
"Hae ye no heard o' Catrine Montour?" he jeered. "She'll come in the night, Andrew Bowman! Losh, mon, but she's a grewsome carlin', wi' the witch-locks hangin' to her neck an' her twa een blazin'!"
"You drive us out to-night!" shouted Redstock. "We'll remember it when Brant is in the hills!"
"The wolf-yelp! Clan o' the wolf!" screamed McCraw. "Woe! Woe to Broadalbane! 'Tis the pibroch o' Glencoe shall wake ye to the woods afire! Be warned! Be warned, for ye stand knee-deep in ye're shrouds!"
In the ruddy dusk their dark forms turned to shadows and were gone.
Van Horn stirred in his saddle, then shook his shoulders as though freeing them from a weight.
"Now you have it, you Broadalbin men," he said, grimly. "Go to the forts while there's time."
In the darkness around us children began to whimper; a woman broke down, sobbing.
"Silence!" cried Bowman, sternly. And to Dorothy, who sat quietly on her horse beside him, "Say to the patroon that we know our enemies. And you, Peter Van Horn, on whichever side you stand, we men of the Bush thank you and this young lady for your coming."
And that was all. In silence we wheeled our horses northward, Van Horn riding ahead, and passed out of that dim hamlet which lay already in the shadows of an unknown terror.
Behind us, as we looked back, one or two candles flickered in cabin windows, pitiful, dim lights in the vast, dark ocean of the forest. Above us the stars grew clearer. A vesper-sparrow sang its pensive song. Tranquil, sweet, the serene notes floated into silver echoes never-ending, till it seemed as if the starlight all around us quivered into song.
I touched Dorothy, riding beside me, white as a spirit in the pale radiance, and she turned her sweet, fearless face to mine.
"There is a sound," I whispered, "very far away."
She laid her hand in mine and drew bridle, listening. Van Horn, too, had halted.
Far in the forest the sound stirred the silence; soft, stealthy, nearer, nearer, till it grew into a patter. Suddenly Van Horn's horse reared.
"It's there! it's there!" he cried, hoarsely, as our horses swung round in terror.
"Look!" muttered Dorothy.
Then a thing occurred that stopped my heart's blood. For straight through the forest came running a dark shape, a squattering thing that passed us ere we could draw breath to shriek; animal, human, or spirit, I knew not, but it ran on, thuddy-thud, thuddy-thud! and we struggling with our frantic horses to master them ere they dashed us lifeless among the trees.
"Jesu!" gasped Van Horn, dragging his powerful horse back into the road. "Can you make aught o' yonder fearsome thing, like a wart-toad scrabbling on two legs?"
Dorothy, teeth set, drove her heels into her gray's ribs and forced him to where my mare stood all a-quiver.
"It's a thing from hell," panted Van Horn, fighting knee and wrist with his roan. "My nag shies at neither bear nor wolf! Look at him now!"
"Nor mine at anything save a savage," said I, fearfully peering behind me while my mare trembled under me.
"I think we have seen a savage, that is all," fell Dorothy's calm voice. "I think we have seen Catrine Montour."
At the name, Van Horn swore steadily.
"If that be the witch Montour, she runs like a clansman with the fiery cross," I said, shuddering.
"And that is like to be her business," muttered Van Horn. "The painted forest-men are in the hills, and if Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas do not know it this night, it will be no fault of Catrine Montour."
"Ride on, Peter," said Dorothy, and checked her horse till my mare came abreast.
"Are you afraid?" I whispered.
"Afraid? No!" she said, astonished. "What should arouse fear in me?"
"Your common-sense!" I said, impatiently, irritated to rudeness by the shocking and unearthly spectacle which had nigh unnerved me. But she answered very sweetly:
"If I fear nothing, it is because there is nothing that I know of in the world to fright me. I remember," she added, gravely, "'A thousand shall fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand. And it shall not come nigh me.' How can I fear, believing that?"
She leaned from her saddle and I saw her eyes searching my face in the darkness.
"Silly," she said, tenderly, "I have no fear save that you should prove unkind."
"Then give yourself to me, Dorothy," I said, holding her imprisoned.
"How can I? You have me."
"I mean forever."
"But I have."
"I mean in wedlock!" I whispered, fiercely.
"How can I, silly--I am promised!"
"Can I not stir you to love me?" I said.
"To love you?... Better than I do?... You may try."
"Then wed me!"
"If I were wed to you would I love you better than I do?" she asked.
"Dorothy, Dorothy," I begged, holding her fast, "wed me; I love you."
She swayed back into her saddle, breaking my clasp.
"You know I cannot," she said.... Then, almost tenderly: "Do you truly desire it? It is so dear to hear you say it--and I have heard the words often enough, too, but never as you say them.... Had you asked me in December, ere I was in honor bound.... But I am promised; ... only a word, but it holds me like a chain.... Dear lad, forget it.... Use me kindly.... Teach me to love, ... an unresisting pupil, ... for all life is too short for me to learn in, ... alas!... God guard us both from love's unhappiness and grant us only its sweetness--which you have taught me; to which I am--I am awaking, ... after all these years, ... after all these years without you.
Perhaps it were kinder to let me sleep.... I am but half awake to love.
Is it best to wake me, after all? Is it too late?... Draw bridle in the starlight. Look at me.... It is too late, for I shall never sleep again."