BOOK II. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM
CHAPTER I. IN THE CABIN
The Eden of one man may be the Inferno of his neighbor, and now I am tothrow to the winds, like leaves of a worthless manuscript, some years oftime, and introduce you to a new Kentucky,--a Kentucky that was not forthe pioneer. One page of this manuscript might have told of a fearfulwinter, when the snow lay in great drifts in the bare woods, when Tomand I fashioned canoes or noggins out of the great roots, when a new andfeminine bit of humanity cried in the bark cradle, and Polly Ann seweddeer leather. Another page--nay, a dozen--could be filled with Indianhorrors, ambuscades and massacres. And also I might have told how theredrifted into this land, hitherto unsoiled, the refuse cast off by theolder colonies. I must add quickly that we got more than our share oftheir best stock along with this.
No sooner had the sun begun to pit the snow hillocks than wild creaturescame in from the mountains, haggard with hunger and hardship. Theyhad left their homes in Virginia and the Carolinas in the autumn; anunheralded winter of Arctic fierceness had caught them in its grip.Bitter tales they told of wives and children buried among the rocks.Fast on the heels of these wretched ones trooped the spring settlers indroves; and I have seen whole churches march singing into the forts,the preacher leading, and thanking God loudly that He had deliveredthem from the wilderness and the savage. The little forts would not holdthem; and they went out to hew clearings from the forest, and to buildcabins and stockades. And our own people, starved and snowbound, wentout likewise,--Tom and Polly Ann and their little family and myselfto the farm at the river-side. And while the water flowed between thestumps over the black land, we planted and ploughed and prayed, alwaysalert, watching north and south, against the coming of the Indians.
But Tom was no husbandman. He and his kind were the scouts, the advanceguard of civilization, not tillers of the soil or lovers of closecommunities. Farther and farther they went afield for game, and alwaysthey grumbled sorely against this horde which had driven the deer fromhis cover and the buffalo from his wallow.
Looking back, I can recall one evening when the long summer twilightlingered to a close. Tom was lounging lazily against the big persimmontree, smoking his pipe, the two children digging at the roots, and PollyAnn, seated on the door-log, sewing. As I drew near, she looked up atme from her work. She was a woman upon whose eternal freshness industrymade no mar.
“Davy,” she exclaimed, “how ye’ve growed! I thought ye’d be a wizenedlittle body, but this year ye’ve shot up like a cornstalk.”
“My father was six feet two inches in his moccasins,” I said.
“He’ll be wallopin’ me soon,” said Tom, with a grin. He took a longwhiff at his pipe, and added thoughtfully, “I reckon this ain’t no placefer me now, with all the settler folks and land-grabbers comin’ throughthe Gap.”
“Tom,” said I, “there’s a bit of a fall on the river here.”
“Ay,” he said, “and nary a fish left.”
“Something better,” I answered; “we’ll put a dam there and a mill and ahominy pounder.”
“And make our fortune grinding corn for the settlers,” cried Polly Ann,showing a line of very white teeth. “I always said ye’d be a rich man,Davy.”
Tom was mildly interested, and went with us at daylight to measure thefall. And he allowed that he would have the more time to hunt if themill were a success. For a month I had had the scheme in my mind, wherethe dam was to be put, the race, and the wondrous wheel rimmed with cowhorns to dip the water. And fixed on the wheel there was to be a crankthat worked the pounder in the mortar. So we were to grind until I couldarrange with Mr. Scarlett, the new storekeeper in Harrodstown, to havetwo grinding-stones fetched across the mountains.
While the corn ripened and the melons swelled and the flax flowered, ouraxes rang by the river’s side; and sometimes, as we worked, Cowanand Terrell and McCann and other Long Hunters would come and jeergood-naturedly because we were turning civilized. Often they gave us alift.
It was September when the millstones arrived, and I spent a joyousmorning of final bargaining with Mr. Myron Scarlett. This Mr. Scarlettwas from Connecticut, had been a quartermaster in the army, and atmuch risk brought ploughs and hardware, and scissors and buttons, andbroadcloth and corduroy, across the Alleghanies, and down the Ohio inflatboats. These he sold at great profit. We had no money, not eventhe worthless scrip that Congress issued; but a beaver skin was wortheighteen shillings, a bearskin ten, and a fox or a deer or a wildcatless. Half the village watched the barter. The rest lounged sullenlyabout the land court.
The land court--curse of Kentucky! It was just a windowless log housebuilt outside the walls, our temple of avarice. The case was this:Henderson (for whose company Daniel Boone cut the wilderness road)believed that he had bought the country, and issued grants therefor. Tomheld one of these grants, alas, and many others whom I knew. Virginiarepudiated Henderson. Keen-faced speculators bought acre upon acre andtract upon tract from the State, and crossed the mountains to extort.Claims conflicted, titles lapped. There was the court set in thesunlight in the midst of a fair land, held by the shameless, throngedday after day by the homeless and the needy, jostling, quarrelling,beseeching. Even as I looked upon this strife a man stood beside me.
“Drat ‘em,” said the stranger, as he watched a hawk-eyed extortioner indrab, for these did not condescend to hunting shirts, “drat ‘em, ef Ihad my way I’d wring the neck of every mother’s son of ‘em.”
I turned with a start, and there was Mr. Daniel Boone.
“Howdy, Davy,” he said; “ye’ve growed some sence ye’ve ben with Clark.” He paused, and then continued in the same strain: “‘Tis the sameat Boonesboro and up thar at the Falls settlement. The crittersis everywhar, robbin’ men of their claims. Davy,” said Mr. Boone,earnestly, “you know that I come into Kaintuckee when it waren’t nothin’but wilderness, and resked my life time and again. Them varmints iswuss’n redskins,--they’ve robbed me already of half my claims.”
“Robbed you!” I exclaimed, indignant that he, of all men, should suffer.
“Ay,” he said, “robbed me. They’ve took one claim after another, tractsthat I staked out long afore they heerd of Kaintuckee.” He rubbed hisrifle barrel with his buckskin sleeve. “I get a little for my skins,and a little by surveyin’. But when the game goes I reckon I’ll go afterit.”
“Where, Mr. Boone?” I asked.
“Whar? whar the varmints cyant foller. Acrost the Mississippi into theSpanish wilderness.”
“And leave Kentucky?” I cried.
“Davy,” he answered sadly, “you kin cope with ‘em. They tell me you’rebuildin’ a mill up at McChesney’s, and I reckon you’re as cute as any of‘em. They beat me. I’m good for nothin’ but shootin’ and explorin’.”
We stood silent for a while, our attention caught by a quarrel whichhad suddenly come out of the doorway. One of the men was Jim Willis,--myfriend of Clark’s campaign,--who had a Henderson claim near ShawaneeSprings. The other was the hawk-eyed man of whom Mr. Boone had spoken,and fragments of their curses reached us where we stood. The huntingshirts surged around them, alert now at the prospect of a fight; mencame running in from all directions, and shouts of “Hang him! Tomahawkhim!” were heard on every side. Mr. Boone did not move. It was a commonenough spectacle for him, and he was not excitable. Moreover, he knewthat the death of one extortioner more or less would have no effect onthe system. They had become as the fowls of the air.
“I was acrost the mountain last month,” said Mr. Boone, presently,“and one of them skunks had stole Campbell’s silver spoons at Abingdon.Campbell was out arter him for a week with a coil of rope on his saddle.But the varmint got to cover.”
Mr. Boone wished me luck in my new enterprise, bade me good-by, and setout for Redstone, where he was to measure a tract for a Revolutioner.The speculator having been rescued from Jim Willis’s clutches by thesheriff, the crowd good-naturedly helped us load our stones betweenpack-horses, and
some of them followed us all the way home that theymight see the grinding. Half of McAfee’s new station had heard the news,and came over likewise. And from that day we ground as much corn ascould be brought to us from miles around.
Polly Ann and I ran the mill and kept the accounts. Often of a crispautumn morning we heard a gobble-gobble above the tumbling of the waterand found a wild turkey perched on top of the hopper, eating his fill.Some of our meat we got that way. As for Tom, he was off and on. Whenthe roving spirit seized him he made journeys to the westward with Cowanand Ray. Generally they returned with packs of skins. But sometimessoberly, thanking Heaven that their hair was left growing on theirheads. This, and patrolling the Wilderness Road and other militiaduties, made up Tom’s life. No sooner was the mill fairly started thanoff he went to the Cumberland. I mention this, not alone because Iremember well the day of his return, but because of a certain happeningthen that had a heavy influence on my after life.
The episode deals with an easy-mannered gentleman named Potts, who wasthe agent for a certain Major Colfax of Virginia. Tom owned under aHenderson grant; the Major had been given this and other lands for hisservices in the war. Mr. Potts arrived one rainy afternoon and found mestanding alone under the little lean-to that covered the hopper. How weserved him, with the aid of McCann and Cowan and other neighbors, andhow we were near getting into trouble because of the prank, will be seenlater. The next morning I rode into Harrodstown not wholly easy in mymind concerning the wisdom of the thing I had done. There was no one toadvise me, for Colonel Clark was far away, building a fort on the banksof the Mississippi. Tom had laughed at the consequences; he cared littleabout his land, and was for moving into the Wilderness again. Butfor Polly Ann’s sake I wished that we had treated the land agent lesscavalierly. I was soon distracted from these thoughts by the sight ofHarrodstown itself.
I had no sooner ridden out of the forest shade when I saw that the placewas in an uproar, men and women gathering in groups and running hereand there between the cabins. Urging on the mare, I cantered across thefields, and the first person I met was James Ray.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Matter enough! An army of redskins has crossed the Ohio, and not aman to take command. My God,” cried Ray, pointing angrily at the swarmsabout the land office, “what trash we have got this last year! Kentuckycan go to the devil, half the stations be wiped out, and not a thrip dothey care.”
“Have you sent word to the Colonel?” I asked.
“If he was here,” said Ray, bitterly, “he’d have half of ‘em swinginginside of an hour. I’ll warrant he’d send ‘em to the right-about.”
I rode on into the town, Potts gone out of my mind. Apart from theland-office crowds, and looking on in silent rage, stood a group of theold settlers,--tall, lean, powerful, yet impotent for lack of a leader.A contrast they were, these buckskin-clad pioneers, to the ill-assortedhumanity they watched, absorbed in struggles for the very lands they hadwon.
“By the eternal!” said Jack Terrell, “if the yea’th was ter swaller ‘emup, they’d keep on a-dickerin’ in hell.”
“Something’s got to be done,” Captain Harrod put in gloomily; “the redvarmints ‘ll be on us in another day. In God’s name, whar is Clark?”
“Hold!” cried Fletcher Blount, “what’s that?”
The broiling about the land court, too, was suddenly hushed. Men stoppedin their tracks, staring fixedly at three forms which had come out ofthe woods into the clearing.
“Redskins, or there’s no devil!” said Terrell.
Redskins they were, but not the blanketed kind that drifted every daythrough the station. Their war-paint gleamed in the light, and the whiteedges of the feathered head-dresses caught the sun. One held up in hisright hand a white belt,--token of peace on the frontier.
“Lord A’mighty!” said Fletcher Blount, “be they Cricks?”
“Chickasaws, by the headgear,” said Terrell. “Davy, you’ve got a hoss.Ride out and look ‘em over.”
Nothing loath, I put the mare into a gallop, and I passed over the veryplace where Polly Ann had picked me up and saved my life long since. TheIndians came on at a dog trot, but when they were within fifty paces ofme they halted abruptly. The chief waved the white belt around his head.
“Davy!” says he, and I trembled from head to foot. How well I knew thatvoice!
“Colonel Clark!” I cried, and rode up to him. “Thank God you are come,sir,” said I, “for the people here are land-mad, and the NorthernIndians are crossing the Ohio.”
He took my bridle, and, leading the horse, began to walk rapidly towardsthe station.
“Ay,” he answered, “I know it. A runner came to me with the tidings,where I was building a fort on the Mississippi, and I took Willis hereand Saunders, and came.”
I glanced at my old friends, who grinned at me through the berry-stainon their faces. We reached a ditch through which the rain of the nightbefore was draining from the fields Clark dropped the bridle, stoopeddown, and rubbed his face clean. Up he got again and flung the feathersfrom his head, and I thought that his eyes twinkled despite thesternness of his look.
“Davy, my lad,” said he, “you and I have seen some strange thingstogether. Perchance we shall see stranger to-day.”
A shout went up, for he had been recognized. And Captain Harrod and Rayand Terrell and Cowan (who had just ridden in) ran up to greet him andpress his hand. He called them each by name, these men whose loyalty hadbeen proved, but said no word more nor paused in his stride until he hadreached the edge of the mob about the land court. There he stood for afull minute, and we who knew him looked on silently and waited.
The turmoil had begun again, the speculators calling out in stridenttones, the settlers bargaining and pushing, and all clamoring to beheard. While there was money to be made or land to be got they had noear for the public weal. A man shouldered his way through, roughly, andthey gave back, cursing, surprised. He reached the door, and, flingingthose who blocked it right and left, entered. There he was recognized,and his name flew from mouth to mouth.
“Clark!”
He walked up to the table, strewn with books and deeds.
“Silence!” he thundered. But there was no need,--they were still foronce. “This court is closed,” he cried, “while Kentucky is in danger.Not a deed shall be signed nor an acre granted until I come back fromthe Ohio. Out you go!”
Out they went indeed, judge, brokers, speculators--the evicted and thetriumphant together. And when the place was empty Clark turned the keyand thrust it into his hunting shirt. He stood for a moment on the step,and his eyes swept the crowd.
“Now,” he said, “there have been many to claim this land--who willfollow me to defend it?”
As I live, they cheered him. Hands were flung up that were pastcounting, and men who were barely rested from the hardships of theWilderness Trail shouted their readiness to go. But others slunk away,and were found that morning grumbling and cursing the chance that hadbrought them to Kentucky. Within the hour the news had spread to thefarms, and men rode in to Harrodstown to tell the Colonel of many whowere leaving the plough in the furrow and the axe in the wood, andstarting off across the mountains in anger and fear. The Colonel turnedto me as he sat writing down the names of the volunteers.
“Davy,” said he, “when you are grown you shall not stay at home, Ipromise you. Take your mare and ride as for your life to McChesney, andtell him to choose ten men and go to the Crab Orchard on the WildernessRoad. Tell him for me to turn back every man, woman, and child who triesto leave Kentucky.”
I met Tom coming in from the field with his rawhide harness over hisshoulders. Polly Ann stood calling him in the door, and the squirrelbroth was steaming on the table. He did not wait for it. Kissing her, heflung himself into the saddle I had left, and we watched him mutely ashe waved back to us from the edge of the woods.
In the night I found myself sitting up in bed, listening to a runningand stamping near the cabin. r />
Polly Ann was stirring. “Davy,” she whispered, “the stock is oneasy.”
We peered out of the loophole together and through the little orchard wehad planted. The moon flooded the fields, and beyond it the forest wasa dark blur. I can recall the scene now, the rude mill standing by thewater-side, the twisted rail fences, and the black silhouettes of thehorses and cattle as they stood bunched together. Behind us little Tomstirred in his sleep and startled us. That very evening Polly Ann hadfrightened him into obedience by telling him that the Shawanees wouldget him.
What was there to do? McAfee’s Station was four miles away, and Ray’sclearing two. Ray was gone with Tom. I could not leave Polly Ann alone.There was nothing for it but to wait.
Silently, that the children might not be waked and lurking savage mightnot hear, we put the powder and bullets in the middle of the room andloaded the guns and pistols. For Polly Ann had learned to shoot. Shetook the loopholes of two sides of the cabin, I of the other two, andthen began the fearful watching and waiting which the frontier knowsso well. Suddenly the cattle stirred again, and stampeded to the othercorner of the field. There came a whisper from Polly Ann.
“What is it?” I answered, running over to her.
“Look out,” she said; “what d’ye see near the mill?”
Her sharp eyes had not deceived her, for mine perceived plainly a darkform skulking in the hickory grove. Next, a movement behind the railfence, and darting back to my side of the house I made out a longblack body wriggling at the edge of the withered corn-patch. They weresurrounding us. How I wished that Tom were home!
A stealthy sound began to intrude itself upon our ears. Listeningintently, I thought it came from the side of the cabin where the lean-towas, where we stored our wood in winter. The black shadow fell on thatside, and into a patch of bushes; peering out of the loophole, I couldperceive nothing there. The noise went on at intervals. All at oncethere grew on me, with horror, the discovery that there was diggingunder the cabin.
How long the sound continued I know not,--it might have been an hour,it might have been less. Now I thought I heard it under the wall, nowbeneath the puncheons of the floor. The pitchy blackness within was suchthat we could not see the boards moving, and therefore we must needskneel down and feel them from time to time. Yes, this one was liftingfrom its bed on the hard earth beneath. I was sure of it. It rose aninch--then an inch more. Gripping the handle of my tomahawk, I prayedfor guidance in my stroke, for the blade might go wild in the darkness.Upward crept the board, and suddenly it was gone from the floor. I swunga full circle--and to my horror I felt the axe plunging into soft fleshand crunching on a bone. I had missed the head! A yell shattered thenight as the puncheon fell with a rattle on the boards, and my tomahawkwas gone from my hand. Without, the fierce war-cry of the Shawanees thatI knew so well echoed around the log walls, and the door trembled with ablow. The children awoke, crying.
There was no time to think; my great fear was that the devil in thecabin would kill Polly Ann. Just then I heard her calling out to me.
“Hide!” I cried, “hide under the shake-down! Has he got you?”
I heard her answer, and then the sound of a scuffle that maddened me.Knife in hand, I crept slowly about, and put my fingers on a man’s neckand side. Next Polly Ann careened against me, and I lost him again.“Davy, Davy,” I heard her gasp, “look out fer the floor!”
It was too late. The puncheon rose under me, I stumbled, and it fellagain. Once more the awful changing notes of the war-whoop soundedwithout. A body bumped on the boards, a white light rose before my eyes,and a sharp pain leaped in my side. Then all was black again, but I hadmy senses still, and my fingers closed around the knotted muscles of anarm. I thrust the pistol in my hand against flesh, and fired. Two of usfell together, but the thought of Polly Ann got me staggering to my feetagain, calling her name. By the grace of God I heard her answer.
“Are ye hurt, Davy?”
“No,” said I, “no. And you?”
We drifted together. ‘Twas she who had the presence of mind.
“The chest--quick, the chest!”
We stumbled over a body in reaching it. We seized the handles, and withall our strength hauled it athwart the loose puncheon that seemed to belifting even then. A mighty splintering shook the door.
“To the ports!” cried Polly Ann, as our heads knocked together.
To find the rifles and prime them seemed to take an age. Next I wasstaring through the loophole along a barrel, and beyond it were threeblack forms in line on a long beam. I think we fired--Polly Ann andI--at the same time. One fell. We saw a comedy of the beam droppingheavily on the foot of another, and he limping off with a guttural howlof rage and pain. I fired a pistol at him, but missed him, and then Iwas ramming a powder charge down the long barrel of the rifle. Suddenlythere was silence,--even the children had ceased crying. Outside, in thedooryard, a feathered figure writhed like a snake towards the fence. Themoon still etched the picture in black and white.
Shots awoke me, I think, distant shots. And they sounded like theripping and tearing of cloth for a wound. ‘Twas no new sound to me.
“Davy, dear,” said a voice, tenderly.
Out of the mist the tear-stained face of Polly Ann bent over me. I putup my hand, and dropped it again with a cry. Then, my senses coming witha rush, the familiar objects of the cabin outlined themselves: Tom’swinter hunting shirt, Polly Ann’s woollen shift and sunbonnet on theirpegs; the big stone chimney, the ladder to the loft; the closed door,with a long, jagged line across it where the wood was splintered; and,dearest of all, the chubby forms of Peggy and little Tom playing on thetrundle-bed. Then my glance wandered to the floor, and on the puncheonswere three stains. I closed my eyes.
Again came a far-off rattle, like stones falling from a great heightdown a rocky bluff.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“They’re fighting at McAfee’s Station,” said Polly Ann. She put her coolhand on my head, and little Tom climbed up on the bed and looked up intomy face, wistfully calling my name.
“Oh, Davy,” said his mother, “I thought ye were never coming back.”
“And the redskins?” I asked.
She drew the child away, lest he hurt me, and shuddered.
“I reckon ‘twas only a war-party,” she answered. “The rest is atMcAfee’s. And if they beat ‘em off--” she stopped abruptly.
“We shall be saved,” I said.
I shall never forget that day. Polly Ann left my side only to feed thechildren and to keep watch out of the loopholes, and I lay on my back,listening and listening to the shots. At last these became scattered.Then, though we strained our ears, we heard them no more. Was the forttaken? The sun slid across the heavens and shot narrow blades of light,now through one loophole and now through another, until a ray slantedfrom the western wall and rested upon the red-and-black paint of twodead bodies in the corner. I stared with horror.
“I was afeard to open the door and throw ‘em out,” said Polly Ann,apologetically.
Still I stared. One of them had a great cleft across his face.
“But I thought I hit him in the shoulder,” I exclaimed.
Polly Ann thrust her hand, gently, across my eyes. “Davy, ye mustn’ttalk,” she said; “that’s a dear.”
Drowsiness seized me. But I resisted.
“You killed him, Polly Ann,” I murmured, “you?”
“Hush,” said Polly Ann.
And I slept again.
CHAPTER II. “THE BEGGARS ARE COME TO TOWN”
“They was that destitute,” said Tom, “‘twas a pity to see ‘em.”
“And they be grand folks, ye say?” said Polly Ann.
“Grand folks, I reckon. And helpless as babes on the Wilderness Trail.They had two niggers--his nigger an’ hers--and they was tuckered, too,fer a fact.”
“Lawsy!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “Be still, honey!” Taking a piece ofcorn-pone from the cupboard, she bent over and thrust it be
tween littlePeggy’s chubby fingers “Be still, honey, and listen to what your Pasays. Whar did ye find ‘em, Tom?”
“‘Twas Jim Ray found ‘em,” said Tom. “We went up to Crab Orchard,accordin’ to the Colonel’s orders, and we was thar three days. Ye oughtto hev seen the trash we turned back, Polly Ann! Most of ‘em was scaredplum’ crazy, and they was fer gittin ‘out ‘n Kaintuckee at any cost.Some was fer fightin’ their way through us.”
“The skulks!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “They tried to kill ye? What did yedo?”
Tom grinned, his mouth full of bacon.
“Do?” says he; “we shot a couple of ‘em in the legs and arms, and bound‘em up again. They was in a t’arin’ rage. I’m more afeard of a scar’tman,--a real scar’t man--nor a rattler. They cussed us till they washoarse. Said they’d hev us hung, an’ Clark, too. Said they hed a rightto go back to Virginny if they hed a mind.”
“An’ what did ye say?” demanded Polly Ann, pausing in her work, her eyesflashing with resentment. “Did ye tell ‘em they was cowards to want tosettle lands, and not fight for ‘em? Other folks’ lands, too.”
“We didn’t tell ‘em nothin’,” said Tom; “jest sent ‘em kitin’ back tothe stations whar they come from.”
“I reckon they won’t go foolin’ with Clark’s boys again,” said PollyAnn, resuming a vigorous rubbing of the skillet. “Ye was tellin’ meabout these fine folks ye fetched home.” She tossed her head in thedirection of the open door, and I wondered if the fine folks wereoutside.
“Oh, ay,” said Tom; “they was comin’ this way, from the Carolinys. JimRay went out to look for a deer, and found ‘em off ‘n the trail. By theetarnal, they was tuckered. He was the wust, Jim said, lyin’ down on abed of laurels she and the niggers made. She has sperrit, that woman.Jim fed him, and he got up. She wouldn’t eat nothin’, and made Jim puthim on his hoss. She walked. I can’t mek out why them aristocrats wantsto come to Kaintuckee. They’re a sight too tender.”
“Pore things!” said Polly Ann, compassionately. “So ye fetched ‘emhome.”
“They hadn’t a place ter go,” said he, “and I reckoned ‘twould give ‘emtime ter ketch breath, an’ turn around. I told ‘em livin’ in Kaintuckwas kinder rough.”
“Mercy!” said Polly Ann, “ter think that they was use’ ter silverspoons, and linen, and niggers ter wait on ‘em. Tom, ye must shoota turkey, and I’ll do my best to give ‘em a good supper.” Tom roseobediently, and seized his coonskin hat. She stopped him with a word.“Tom.”
“Ay?”
“Mayhap--mayhap Davy would know ‘em. He’s been to Charlestown with thegentry there.”
“Mayhap,” agreed Tom. “Pore little deevil,” said he, “he’s hed a hardtime.”
“He’ll be right again soon,” said Polly Ann. “He’s been sleepin’that way, off and on, fer a week.” Her voice faltered into a note oftenderness as her eyes rested on me.
“I reckon we owe Davy a heap, Polly Ann,” said he.
I was about to interrupt, but Polly Ann’s next remark arrested me.
“Tom,” said she, “he oughter be eddicated.”
“Eddicated!” exclaimed Tom, with a kind of dismay.
“Yes, eddicated,” she repeated. “He ain’t like you and me. He’sdifferent. He oughter be a lawyer, or somethin’.”
Tom reflected.
“Ay,” he answered, “the Colonel says that same thing. He oughter be sentover the mountain to git l’arnin’.”
“And we’ll be missing him sore,” said Polly Ann, with a sigh.
I wanted to speak then, but the words would not come.
“Whar hev they gone?” said Tom.
“To take a walk,” said Polly Ann, and laughed. “The gentry has sechfancies as that. Tom, I reckon I’ll fly over to Mrs. McCann’s an’ begsome of that prime bacon she has.”
Tom picked up his rifle, and they went out together. I lay for a longtime reflecting. To the strange guests whom Tom in the kindness of hisheart had brought back and befriended I gave little attention. I wasoverwhelmed by the love which had just been revealed to me. And so I wasto be educated. It had been in my mind these many years, but I had neverspoken of it to Polly Ann. Dear Polly Ann! My eyes filled at the thoughtthat she herself had determined upon this sacrifice.
There were footsteps at the door, and these I heard, and heeded not.Then there came a voice,--a woman’s voice, modulated and trained in theperfections of speech and in the art of treating things lightly. At thesound of that voice I caught my breath.
“What a pastoral! Harry, if we have sought for virtue in the wilderness,we have found it.”
“When have we ever sought for virtue, Sarah?”
It was the man who answered and stirred another chord of my memory.
“When, indeed!” said the woman; “‘tis a luxury that is denied us, I fearme.”
“Egad, we have run the gamut, all but that.”
I thought the woman sighed.
“Our hosts are gone out,” she said, “bless their simple souls! ‘TisArcady, Harry, ‘where thieves do not break in and steal.’ That’sBiblical, isn’t it?” She paused, and joined in the man’s laugh. “Iremember--” She stopped abruptly.
“Thieves!” said he, “not in our sense. And yet a fortnight ago thissylvan retreat was the scene of murder and sudden death.”
“Yes, Indians,” said the woman; “but they are beaten off and forgotten.Troubles do not last here. Did you see the boy? He’s in there, in thecorner, getting well of a fearful hacking. Mrs. McChesney says he savedher and her brats.”
“Ay, McChesney told me,” said the man. “Let’s have a peep at him.”
In they came, and I looked on the woman, and would have leaped frommy bed had the strength been in me. Superb she was, though herclose-fitting travelling gown of green cloth was frayed and torn by thebriers, and the beauty of her face enhanced by the marks of I know notwhat trials and emotions. Little, dark-pencilled lines under the eyeswere nigh robbing these of the haughtiness I had once seen and hated.Set high on her hair was a curving, green hat with a feather, ill-suitedto the wilderness.
I looked on the man. He was as ill-equipped as she. A London tailormust have cut his suit of gray. A single band of linen, soiled by thejourney, was wound about his throat, and I remember oddly thebuttons stuck on his knees and cuffs, and these silk-embroidered in acriss-cross pattern of lighter gray. Some had been torn off. As for hisface, ‘twas as handsome as ever, for dissipation sat well upon it.
My thoughts flew back to that day long gone when a friendless boy rodeup a long drive to a pillared mansion. I saw again the picture. Thehorse with the craning neck, the liveried servant at the bridle,the listless young gentleman with the shiny boots reclining on thehorse-block, and above him, under the portico, the grand lady whoselaugh had made me sad. And I remembered, too, the wild, neglected ladwho had been to me as a brother, warm-hearted and generous, who hadshared what he had with a foundling, who had wept with me in my firstgreat sorrow. Where was he?
For I was face to face once more with Mrs. Temple and Mr. Harry Riddle!
The lady started as she gazed at me, and her tired eyes widened. Sheclutched Mr. Riddle’s arm.
“Harry!” she cried, “Harry, he puts me in mind of--of some one--I cannotthink.”
Mr. Riddle laughed nervously.
“There, there, Sally,” says he, “all brats resemble somebody. I haveheard you say so a dozen times.”
She turned upon him an appealing glance.
“Oh!” she said, with a little catch of her breath, “is there no suchthing as oblivion? Is there a place in the world that is not haunted? Iam cursed with memory.”
“Or the lack of it,” answered Mr. Riddle, pulling out a silver snuff-boxfrom his pocket and staring at it ruefully. “Damme, the snuff I fetchedfrom Paris is gone, all but a pinch. Here is a real tragedy.”
“It was the same in Rome,” the lady continued, unheeding, “when we metthe Izards, and at Venice that nast
y Colonel Tarleton saw us at theopera. In London we must needs run into the Manners from Maryland. InParis--”
“In Paris we were safe enough,” Mr. Riddle threw in hastily.
“And why?” she flashed back at him.
He did not answer that.
“A truce with your fancies, madam,” said he. “Behold a soul of goodnature! I have followed you through half the civilized countries ofthe globe--none of them are good enough. You must needs cross the oceanagain, and come to the wilds. We nearly die on the trail, are pickedup by a Samaritan in buckskin and taken into the bosom of his worthyfamily. And forsooth, you look at a backwoods urchin, and are nigh toswooning.”
“Hush, Harry,” she cried, starting forward and peering into my face; “hewill hear you.”
“Tut!” said Harry, “what if he does? London and Paris are words tohim. We might as well be speaking French. And I’ll take my oath he’ssleeping.”
The corner where I lay was dark, for the cabin had no windows. And if mylife had depended upon speaking, I could have found no fit words then.
She turned from me, and her mood changed swiftly. For she laughedlightly, musically, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Perchance I am ghost-ridden,” she said.
“They are not ghosts of a past happiness, at all events,” he answered.
She sat down on a stool before the hearth, and clasping her fingers uponher knee looked thoughtfully into the embers of the fire. Presently shebegan to speak in a low, even voice, he looking down at her, his feetapart, his hand thrust backward towards the heat.
“Harry,” she said, “do you remember all our contrivances? How you usedto hold my hand in the garden under the table, while I talked brazenlyto Mr. Mason? And how jealous Jack Temple used to get?” She laughedagain, softly, always looking at the fire.
“Damnably jealous!” agreed Mr. Riddle, and yawned. “Served him devilishright for marrying you. And he was a blind fool for five long years.”
“Yes, blind,” the lady agreed. “How could he have been so blind? Howwell I recall the day he rode after us in the woods.”
“‘Twas the parson told, curse him!” said Mr. Riddle. “We should havegone that night, if your courage had held.”
“My courage!” she cried, flashing a look upwards, “my foresight. Apretty mess we had made of it without my inheritance. ‘Tis small enough,the Lord knows. In Europe we should have been dregs. We should havestarved in the wilderness with you a-farming.”
He looked down at her curiously.
“Devilish queer talk,” said he, “but while we are in it, I wonder whereTemple is now. He got aboard the King’s frigate with a price on hishead. Williams told me he saw him in London, at White’s. Have--have youever heard, Sarah?”
She shook her head, her glance returning to the ashes.
“No,” she answered.
“Faith,” says Mr. Riddle, “he’ll scarce turn up here.”
She did not answer that, but sat motionless.
“He’ll scarce turn up here, in these wilds,” Mr. Riddle repeated, “andwhat I am wondering, Sarah, is how the devil we are to live here.”
“How do these good people live, who helped us when we were starving?”
Mr. Riddle flung his hand eloquently around the cabin. There wassomething of disgust in the gesture.
“You see!” he said, “love in a cottage.”
“But it is love,” said the lady, in a low tone.
He broke into laughter.
“Sally,” he cried, “I have visions of you gracing the board at which wesat to-day, patting journey-cakes on the hearth, stewing squirrel brothwith the same pride that you once planned a rout. Cleaning the pots andpans, and standing anxious at the doorway staring through a sunbonnetfor your lord and master.”
“My lord and master!” said the lady, and there was so much of scorn inthe words that Mr. Riddle winced.
“Come,” he said, “I grant now that you could make pans shine likepier-glasses, that you could cook bacon to a turn--although I would havelaid an hundred guineas against it some years ago. What then? Are you tobe contented with four log walls? With the intellectual companionship ofthe McChesneys and their friends? Are you to depend for excitement uponthe chances of having the hair neatly cut from your head by red fiends?Come, we’ll go back to the Rue St. Dominique, to the suppers and thecard parties of the countess. We’ll be rid of regrets for a life uponwhich we have turned our backs forever.”
She shook her head, sadly.
“It’s no use, Harry,” said she, “we’ll never be rid of regrets.”
“We’ll never have a barony like Temple Bow, and races every week, andgentry round about. But, damn it, the Rebels have spoiled all that sincethe war.”
“Those are not the regrets I mean,” answered Mrs. Temple.
“What then, in Heaven’s name?” he cried. “You were not wont to be thus.But now I vow you go beyond me. What then?”
She did not answer, but sat leaning forward over the hearth, he staringat her in angry perplexity. A sound broke the afternoon stillness,--thepattering of small, bare feet on the puncheons. A tremor shook thewoman’s shoulders, and little Tom stood before her, a quaint figure in abutternut smock, his blue eyes questioning. He laid a hand on her arm.
Then a strange thing happened. With a sudden impulse she turned andflung her arms about the boy and strained him to her, and kissed hisbrown hair. He struggled, but when she released him he sat very stillon her knee, looking into her face. For he was a solemn child. The ladysmiled at him, and there were two splashes like raindrops on her faircheeks.
As for Mr. Riddle, he went to the door, looked out, and took a lastpinch of snuff.
“Here is the mistress of the house coming back,” he cried, “and singinglike the shepherdess in the opera.”
It was Polly Ann indeed. At the sound of his mother’s voice, little Tomjumped down from the lady’s lap and ran past Mr. Riddle at the door.Mrs. Temple’s thoughts were gone across the mountains.
“And what is that you have under your arm?” said Mr. Riddle, as he gaveback.
“I’ve fetched some prime bacon fer your supper, sir,” said Polly Ann,all rosy from her walk; “what I have ain’t fit to give ye.”
Mrs. Temple rose.
“My dear,” she said, “what you have is too good for us. And if you dosuch a thing again, I shall be very angry.”
“Lord, ma’am,” exclaimed Polly Ann, “and you use’ ter dainties an’silver an’ linen! Tom is gone to try to git a turkey for ye.” Shepaused, and looked compassionately at the lady. “Bless ye, ma’am, ye’rethat tuckered from the mountains! ‘Tis a fearsome journey.”
“Yes,” said the lady, simply, “I am tired.”
“Small wonder!” exclaimed Polly Ann. “To think what ye’ve beenthrough--yere husband near to dyin’ afore yere eyes, and ye a-reskin’yere own life to save him--so Tom tells me. When Tom goes out a-fightin’redskins I’m that fidgety I can’t set still. I wouldn’t let him knowwhat I feel fer the world. But well ye know the pain of it, who loveyere husband like that.”
The lady would have smiled bravely, had the strength been given her. Shetried. And then, with a shudder, she hid her face in her hands.
“Oh, don’t!” she exclaimed, “don’t!”
Mr. Riddle went out.
“There, there, ma’am,” she said, “I hedn’t no right ter speak, and yefair worn out.” She drew her gently into a chair. “Set down, ma’am,and don’t ye stir tell supper’s ready.” She brushed her eyes with hersleeve, and, stepping briskly to my bed, bent over me. “Davy,” she said,“Davy, how be ye?”
“Davy!”
It was the lady’s voice. She stood facing us, and never while I liveshall I forget that which I saw in her eyes. Some resemblance it boreto the look of the hunted deer, but in the animal it is dumb,appealing. Understanding made the look of the woman terrible tobehold,--understanding, ay, and courage. For she did not lack this lastquality. Polly Ann gave
back in a kind of dismay, and I shivered.
“Yes,” I answered, “I am David Ritchie.”
“You--you dare to judge me!” she cried.
I knew not why she said this.
“To judge you?” I repeated.
“Yes, to judge me,” she answered. “I know you, David Ritchie, and theblood that runs in you. Your mother was a foolish--saint” (she laughed),“who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple. Thatwas her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousandsermons. A doting saint, because she followed your father into themountain wilds to her death for a whim of his. And your father. ACalvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particularweakness of his own--”
“Stop, Mrs. Temple!” I cried, lifting up in bed. And to my astonishmentshe was silenced, looking at me in amazement. “You had your vengeancewhen I came to you, when you turned from me with a lift of yourshoulders at the news of my father’s death. And now--”
“And now?” she repeated questioningly.
“Now I thought you were changed,” I said slowly, for the excitement wastelling on me.
“You listened!” she said.
“I pitied you.”
“Oh, pity!” she cried. “My God, that you should pity me!” Shestraightened, and summoned all the spirit that was in her. “I wouldrather be called a name than have the pity of you and yours.”
“You cannot change it, Mrs. Temple,” I answered, and fell back on thenettle-bark sheets. “You cannot change it,” I heard myself repeating,as though it were another’s voice. And I knew that Polly Ann was bendingover me and calling me.
“Where did they go, Polly Ann?” I asked.
“Acrost the Mississippi, to the lands of the Spanish King,” said PollyAnn.
“And where in those dominions?” I demanded.
“John Saunders took ‘em as far as the Falls,” Polly Ann answered. “He‘lowed they was goin’ to St. Louis. But they never said a word. I reckonthey’ll be hunted as long as they live.”
I had thought of them much as I lay on my back recovering from thefever,--the fever for which Mrs. Temple was to blame. Yet I bore herno malice. And many other thoughts I had, probing back into childhoodmemories for the solving of problems there.
“I knowed ye come of gentlefolks, Davy,” Polly Ann had said when wetalked together.
So I was first cousin to Nick, and nephew to that selfish gentleman, Mr.Temple, in whose affectionate care I had been left in Charlestown by myfather. And my father? Who had he been? I remembered the speech thathe had used and taught me, and how his neighbors had dubbed him“aristocrat.” But Mrs. Temple was gone, and it was not in likelihoodthat I should ever see her more.