CHAPTER XX.
THE STOCKADE AMONG THE PINES.
It took us a heavy day's work to get the stockade finished. There wereonly the two axes in the party, besides Shalah's tomahawk, and no onecan know the labour of felling and trimming trees tin he has tried it.We found the horses useful for dragging trunks, and but for them shouldhave made a poor job of it. Grey's white hands were all cut andblistered, and, though I boasted of my hardiness, mine were littlebetter. Ringan was the surprise, for you would not think that sailing aship was a good apprenticeship to forestry. But he was as skilful asBertrand and as strong as Donaldson, and he had a better idea offortification than us all put together.
The palisade which ran round the camp was six feet high, made of logslashed to upright stakes. There was a gate which could be barredheavily, and loopholes were made every yard or so for musket fire. Onone side--that facing the uplift of the ridge--the walls rose to ninefeet. Inside we made a division. In one half the horses were picketedat night, and the other was our dwelling.
For Elspeth we made a bower in one corner, which we thatched with pinebranches; but the rest of us slept in the open round the fire. It was arough place, but a strong one, for our water could not be cut off, and,as we had plenty of ball and powder, a few men could hold it against ahost. To each was allotted his proper station, in case of attack, andwe kept watch in succession like soldiers in war. Ringan, who hadfought in many places up and down the world, was our general in thesematters, and a rigid martinet we found him. Shalah was our scout, andwe leaned on him for all woodland work; but inside the palisadeRingan's word was law.
Our plan was to make this stockade the centre for exploring the hillsand ascertaining the strength and purposes of the Indian army. Wehoped, and so did Shalah, that our enemies would have no leisure tofollow us to the high ridges; that what risk there was would be run bythe men on their spying journeys; but that the stockade would bereasonably safe. It was my intention, as soon as I had sufficient news,to send word to Lawrence, and we thought that presently theRappahannock forces would have driven the Cherokees southward, and theway would be open to get Elspeth back to the Tidewater.
The worst trouble, as I soon saw, was to be the matter of food. Thesupplies we had carried were all but finished by what we ate after thestockade was completed. After that there remained only a single bag offlour, another bag of Indian meal, and a pound or two of boucannedbeef, besides three flasks of eau-de-vie, which Ringan had brought in aleather casket. The forest berries were not yet ripe, and the only foodto be procured was the flesh of the wild game. Happily in Donaldson andBertrand we had two practised trappers; but they were doubtful aboutsuccess, for they had no knowledge of what beasts lived in the hills. Ihave said that we had plenty of powder and ball, but I did not relishthe idea of shooting in the woods, for the noise would be a signal toour foes. Still, food we must have, and I thought I might find asecluded place where the echoes of a shot would be muffled.
The next morning I parcelled up the company according to their duties,for while Ringan was captain of the stockade, I was the leader of theventure. I sent out Bertrand and Donaldson to trap in the woods;Ringan, with Grey and Shalah, stayed at home to strengthen stillfurther the stockade and protect Elspeth; while I took my musket andsome pack-thongs and went up the hill-side to look for game. We weretrysted to be back an hour before sundown, and if some one of us didnot find food we should go supperless.
That day is a memory which will never pass from me. The weather wasgrey and lowering, and though the rain had ceased, the air was stillheavy with it, and every bush and branch dripped with moisture. It wasa poor day for hunting, for the eye could not see forty yards; but itsuited my purpose, since the dull air would deaden the noise of mymusket. I was hunting alone in a strange land among imminent perils,and my aim was not to glorify my skill, but to find the means of life.The thought strung me up to a mood where delight was more notable thancare. I was adventuring with only my hand to guard me in those ancient,haunted woods, where no white man had ever before travelled. Toexperience such moments is to live with the high fervour which God gaveto mortals before towns and laws laid their dreary spell upon them.
Early in the day I met a bear--the second I had seen in my life. I didnot want him, and he disregarded me and shuffled grumpily down thehill-side. I had to be very careful, I remember, to mark my path, sothat I could retrace it, and I followed the Border device of making achip here and there in the bark of trees, and often looking backward toremember the look of the place when seen from the contrary side. Trailswere easy to find on the soft ground, but besides the bear I saw nonebut those of squirrel and rabbit, and a rare opossum. But at last, in amarshy glen, I found the fresh slot of a great stag. For two hours andmore I followed him far north along the ridge, till I came up with himin a patch of scrub oak. I had to wait long for a shot, but when atlast he rose I planted a bullet fairly behind his shoulder, and hedropped within ten paces. His size amazed me, for he was as big as acart-horse in body, and carried a spread of branching antlers like aforest tree. To me, accustomed to the little deer of the Tidewater,this great creature seemed a portent, and I guessed that he was thatelk which I had heard of from the Border hunters. Anyhow he gave mewealth of food. I hid some in a cool place, and took the rest with me,packed in bark, in a great bundle on my shoulders.
The road back was easier than I had feared, for I had the slope of thehill to guide me; but I was mortally weary of my load before I plumpedit down inside the stockade. Presently Bertrand and Donaldson returned.They brought only a few rabbits, but they had set many traps, and in ahill burn they had caught some fine golden-bellied trout. Soon venisonsteaks and fish were grilling in the embers, and Elspeth set to bakingcakes on a griddle. Those left behind had worked well, and the palisadewas as perfect as could be contrived. A runlet of water had been ledthrough a hollow trunk into a trough--also hewn from a log--close byElspeth's bower, where she could make her toilet unperplexed by othereyes. Also they had led a stream into the horses' enclosure, so thatthey could be watered with ease.
The weather cleared in the evening, as it often does in a hill country.From the stockade we had no prospect save the reddening western sky,but I liked to think that in a little walk I could see old Studd'sPromised Land. That was a joy I reserved for myself on the morrow, Ilook back on that late afternoon with delight as a curious interlude ofpeace. We had forgotten that we were fugitives in a treacherous land, Ifor one had forgotten the grim purpose of our quest, and we cookedsupper as if we were a band of careless folk taking our pleasure in thewilds. Wood-smoke is always for me an intoxication like strong drink.It seems the incense of nature's altar, calling up the shades of theold forest gods, smacking of rest and comfort in the heart of solitude.And what odour can vie for hungry folk with that of roasting meat inthe clear hush of twilight? The sight of that little camp is still inmy memory. Elspeth flitted about busied with her cookery, the glow ofthe sunset lighting up her dark hair. Bertrand did the roasting,crouched like a gnome by the edge of the fire. Grey fetched and carriedfor the cooks, a docile and cheerful servant, with nothing in his lookto recall the proud gentleman of the Tidewater. Donaldson sat on a log,contentedly smoking his pipe, while Ringan, whistling a strathspey,attended to the horses. Only Shalah stood aloof, his eyes fixedvacantly on the western sky, and his ear intent on the multitudinousvoices of the twilit woods.
Presently food was ready, and our rude meal in that darkling place wasa merry one. Elspeth sat enthroned on a couch of pine branches--I cansee her yet shielding her face from the blaze with one little hand, anddividing her cakes with the other. Then we lit our pipes, and fell tothe long tales of the camp-fire. Ringan had a story of a black-hairedprincess of Spain, and how for love of her two gentlemen did marvels onthe seas. The chief one never returned to claim her, but died in afight off Cartagena, and wrote a fine ballad about his mistress whichRingan said was still sung in the taverns of the Main. He gave a verseof it, a wild, sad thing, with tears in it and the
joy of battle. Afterthat we all sang, all but me, who have no voice. Bertrand had a lay ofNormandy, about a lady who walked in the apple-orchards and fell inlove with a wandering minstrel; and Donaldson sang a rough ballad ofVirginia, in which a man weighs the worth of his wife against a tankardof apple-jack. Grey sang an English song about the north-country maidwho came to London, and a bit of the chanty of the Devon men who sackedSanta Fe and stole the Almirante's daughter. As for Elspeth, she sangto a soft Scots tune the tale of the Lady of Cassilis who followed thegipsy's piping. In it the gipsy tells of what he can offer the lady,and lo! it was our own case!--
"And ye shall wear no silken gown, No maid shall bind your hair; The yellow broom shall be your gem, Your braid the heather rare.
"Athwart the moor, adown the hill, Across the world away! The path is long for happy hearts That sing to greet the day, My love, That sing to greet the day."
I remember, too, the last verse of it:--
"And at the last no solemn stole Shall on thy breast be laid; No mumbling priest shall speed thy soul, No charnel vault thee shade. But by the shadowed hazel copse, Aneath the greenwood tree, Where airs are soft and waters sing, Thou'lt ever sleep by me, My love, Thou'lt ever sleep by me."
Then we fell to talking about the things in the West that no man hadyet discovered, and Shalah, to whom our songs were nothing, now lent anear.
"The first Virginians," said Grey, "thought that over the hills lay thewestern ocean and the road to Cathay. I do not know, but I am confidentthat but a little way west we should come to water. A great river orelse the ocean."
Ringan differed. He held that the land of America was very wide inthose parts, as wide as south of the isthmus where no man had yetcrossed it. Then he told us of a sea-captain who had travelled inlandin Mexico for five weeks and come to a land where gold was as common aschuckiestones, and a great people dwelt who worshipped a god who livedin a mountain. And he spoke of the holy city of Manoa, which Sir WalterRaleigh sought, and which many had seen from far hill-tops. Likewise ofthe wonderful kings who once dwelt in Peru, and the little isle in thePacific where all the birds were nightingales and the Tree of Lifeflourished; and the mountain north of the Main which was all oneemerald. "I think," he said, "that, though no man has ever had thefruition of these marvels, they are likely to be more true than false.I hold that God has kept this land of America to the last to be theloadstone of adventurers, and that there are greater wonders to be seenthan any that man has imagined. The pity is that I have spent my bestyears scratching like a hen at its doorstep instead of entering. I havea notion some day to travel straight west to the sunset. I think Ishould find death, but I might see some queer things first."
Then Shalah spoke:--
"There was once a man of my own people who, when he came to man'sstrength, journeyed westward with a wife. He travelled all his days,and when his eyes were dim with age he saw a great water. His spiritleft him on its shore, but on his road he had begotten a son, and thatson journeyed back towards the rising sun, and came after many years tohis people again. I have spoken with him of what he had seen."
"And what was that?" asked Ringan, with eager eyes.
"He told of plains so great that it is a lifetime to travel over them,and of deserts where the eagle flying from the dawn dies of drought bymidday, and of mountains so high that birds cannot cross them but arechanged by cold into stone, and of rivers to which our little watersare as reeds to a forest cedar. But especially he spoke of the fiercewarriors that ride like the wind on horses. It seems, brother, that hewho would reach that land must reach also the Hereafter."
"That's the place for me," Ringan cried. "What say you, Andrew? Whenthis affair is over, shall we make a bid for these marvels? I can cullsome pretty adventurers from the Free Companions."
"Nay, I am for moving a step at a time," said I. "I am a trader, andwant one venture well done before I begin on another, I shall becontent if we safely cross these mountains on which we are nowperched."
Ringan shook his head. "That was never the way of the Highlands,'Better a bone on the far-away hills than a fat sheep in the meadows,'says the Gael. What say you, mistress?" and he turned to Elspeth.
"I think you are the born poet," said she, smiling, "and that Mr.Garvald is the sober man of affairs. You will leap for the top of thewall and get a prospect while Mr. Garvald will patiently pull it down."
"Oh, I grant that Andrew has the wisdom," said Ringan. "That's why himand me's so well agreed. It's because we differ much, and so fittogether like opposite halves of an apple.... Is your traveller stillin the land of the living?" he asked Shalah.
But the Indian had slipped away from the fireside circle, and I saw himwithout in the moonlight standing rigid on a knoll and gazing at theskies.
* * * * *
Next day dawned cloudless, and Shalah and I spent it in a longjourney along the range. We kept to the highest parts, and at everyvantage-ground we scanned the glens for human traces. By this time Ihad found my hill legs, and could keep pace even with the Indian'sswift stride. The ridge of mountains, you must know, was not a singlebackbone, but broken up here and there by valleys into two and eventhree ranges. This made our scouting more laborious, and prevented usfrom getting the full value out of our high station. Mostly we kept incover, and never showed on a skyline. But we saw nothing to prove theneed of this stealth. Only the hawks wheeled, and the wild pigeonscrooned; the squirrels frisked among the branches; and now and then agreat deer would leap from its couch and hasten into the coverts.
But, though we got no news, that journey brought to me a revelation,for I had my glimpse of Studd's Promised Land. It came to me early inthe day, as we halted in a little glade, gay with willowherb andgoldenrod, which hung on a shelf of the hills looking westwards. Thefirst streamers of morn had gone, the mists had dried up from thevalleys, and I found myself looking into a deep cleft and across at asteep pine-clad mountain. Clearly the valley was split by this mountaininto two forks, and I could see only the cool depth of it and catch agleam of broken water a mile or two below. But looking more to thenorth, I saw where the vale opened, and then I had a vision worthy ofthe name by which Studd had baptized it. An immense green pasture landran out to the dim horizon. There were forests scattered athwart it,and single great trees, and little ridges, too, but at the height wherewe stood it seemed to the eye to be one verdant meadow as trim andshapely as the lawn of a garden. A noble river, the child of many hillstreams, twined through it in shining links. I could see dots, which Itook to be herds of wild cattle grazing, but no sign of any humandweller.
"What is it?" I asked unthinkingly.
"The Shenandoah," Shalah said, and I never stopped to ask how he knewthe name. He was gazing at the sight with hungry eyes, he whose gazewas, for usual, so passionless.
That prospect gave me a happy feeling of comfort; why, I cannot tell,except that the place looked so bright and habitable. Here was no sourwilderness, but a land made by God for cheerful human dwellings. Someday there would be orchards and gardens among those meadows, and milesof golden corn, and the smoke of hearth fires. Some day I would enterinto that land of Canaan which now I saw from Pisgah. Some day--and Iscarcely dared the thought--my children would call it home.