The Little Red Foot. Chambers Robert William

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СКАЧАТЬ enchantment of this young thing, so wise in stratagems and spoils of Love, and I chose to leave my scalp hang drying at her lodge door beside the scanter pol of Billy Alexander.

      For God knows this vixen-virgin spared neither young nor old, but shot them through and through at sight with those heavenly darts from her twin eyes.

      And no man, so far, could boast of obtaining from Mistress Swift the least token or any serious guerdon that his quest might lead him by a single step toward Hymen's altar, but only to that cruel arena where all her victims agonized under the mocking sweetness of her smile, and her pretty, down-turned and merciless thumbs – the little Vestal villain!

      "No, Claudia," quoth I, "you have taken my bow and spear, and shorn me of my thatch like any Mohawk. No; I go to Fonda's Bush – " I smiled, " – to heal, perhaps, my heart, as you say; but, anyhow, to consult my soul, and armour it in a wilderness."

      "A hermit!" she exclaimed scornfully, " – and afeard of a maid armed only with two matched eyes, a nose, a mouth and thirty teeth!"

      "Afeard of a monster more frightful than that," said I, laughing.

      "Of what monster, John Drogue?"

      "Of that red monster that is surely, surely creeping northward to surprise and rend us all," said I in a low voice. "And so I shall retire to question my secret soul, and arm it cap-à-pie as God directs."

      She was looking at me intently. After a silence she said:

      "I do love you; and Billy Alexander; and all gay and brave young men whose unstained swords hedge the women of County Tryon from this same red monster that you mention." And watched me to see how I swallowed this.

      I said warily: "Surely, Claudia, all women command our swords … no matter which cause we espouse."

      "Jack!"

      "I hear you, Claudia."

      But, "Oh, my God!" she breathed; and put her hands to her face. A moment she stood so, then, eyes still covered by one hand, extended the other to me. I kissed it lightly; then kissed it again.

      "Do you leave us, Jack?"

      I understood.

      "It is you who leave me, Claudia."

      She, too, understood. It was my first confession that all was not right betwixt my conscience and my King. For that was the only thing I was certain about concerning her: she never betrayed a confidence, whatever else she did. And so I made plain to her where my heart and honour lay – not with the King's men in this coming struggle – but with my own people.

      I think she knew, too, that I had never before confessed as much to any living soul, for she took her other hand from her eyes and looked at me as though something had happened in which she took a sorrowful pride.

      Then I kissed her hand for the third time, and let it free. And, going:

      "God be with you," she said with a slight smile; "you are my dear friend, John Drogue."

      At the Hall porch she turned, the mischief glimmering in her eyes: " – And so is Billy Alexander," quoth she.

      So she went into the darkened Hall.

      It was many months before I saw our Sacharissa again – not until Major André had made many another verse for many another inamorata, and his soldier-actors had played more than one of his farces in besieged Boston to the loud orchestra of His Excellency's rebel cannon.

      CHAPTER III

      THE POT BOILS

      Sir William died on the 24th of June in the year 1774; which was the twentieth year of my life.

      On the day after he was buried in Saint John's Church in Johnstown, which he had built, I left the Hall for Fonda's Bush, which was a wilderness and which lay some nine miles distant in the Mohawk country, along the little river called Kennyetto.

      I speak of Fonda's Bush as a wilderness; but it was not entirely so, because already old Henry Stoner, the trapper who wore two gold rings in his ears, had built him a house near the Kennyetto and had taken up his abode there with his stalwart and handsome sons, Nicholas and John, and a little daughter, Barbara.

      Besides this family, who were the pioneers in that vast forest where the three patents2 met, others now began settling upon the pretty little river in the wilderness, which made a thousand and most amazing windings through the Bush of Major Fonda.

      There came, now, to the Kennyetto, the family of one De Silver; also the numerous families of John Homan, and Elias Cady; then the Salisburys, Putnams, Bowmans, and Helmers arrived. And Benjamin De Luysnes followed with Joseph Scott where the Frenchman, De Golyer, had built a house and a mill on the trout brook north of us. There was also a dour Scotchman come thither – a grim and decent man with long, thin shanks under his kilts, who roved the Bush like a weird and presently went away again.

      But before he took himself elsewhere he marked some gigantic trees with his axe and tied a rag of tartan to a branch.

      And, "Fonda's Bush is no name," quoth he. "Where a McIntyre sets his mark he returns to set his foot. And where he sets foot shall be called Broadalbin, or I am a great liar!"

      And he went away, God knows where. But what he said has become true; for when again he set his foot among the dead ashes of Fonda's Bush, it became Broadalbin. And the clans came with him, too; and they peppered the wilderness with their Scottish names, – Perth, Galway, Scotch Bush, Scotch Church, Broadalbin, – but my memory runs too fast, like a young hound giving tongue where the scent grows hotter! – for the quarry is not yet in sight, nor like to be for many a bloody day, alas! —

      There was a forest road to the Bush, passable for waggons, and used sometimes by Sir William when he went a-fishing in the Kennyetto.

      It was by this road I travelled thither, well-horsed, and had borrowed the farm oxen to carry all my worldly goods.

      I had clothing, a clock, some books, bedding of my own, and sufficient pewter.

      I had my own rifle, a fowling piece, two pistols, and sufficient ammunition.

      And with these, and, as I say, well horsed, I rode out of Johnstown on a June morning, all alone, my heart still heavy with grief for Sir William, and deeply troubled for my country.

      For the provinces, now, were slowly kindling, warmed with those pure flames that purge the human soul; and already the fire had caught and was burning fiercely in Massachusetts Bay, where John Hancock fed the flames, daintily, cleverly, with all the circumstance, impudence, and grace of your veritable macaroni who will not let an inferior outdo him in a bow, but who is sometimes insolent to kings.

      Well, I was for the forest, now, to wrest from a sunless land a mouthful o' corn to stop the stomach's mutiny.

      And if the Northland caught fire some day – well, I was as inflammable as the next man, who will not suffer violation of house or land or honour.

      As Brent-Meester to Sir William, my duties took me everywhere. I knew old man Stoner, and Nick had become already my warm friend, though I was now a grown man of more than twenty and he still of boy's age. Yet, in many ways, he seemed more mature than I.

      I think Nick Stoner was the most mischievous lad I ever СКАЧАТЬ