Part 24 (1/2)

SUMMER HOUSE POINT

The sun in my eyes and the noise of drums awoke me, where, relieved on post by Nick, I had been sleeping on the veranda.

Beyond the orchard on the Johnstown road, mounted officers in blue and buff were riding amid undulating ranks of moving muskets; and I knew that the Continental Line had arrived at Summer House Point, and was glad of it.

As I shook loose my blanket and stood up, black Flora and Colas came up from their kitchen below ground, and seemed astonished to see me still there.

”Is your mistress awake?” I demanded. But they did not know; so I bade Flora go inside and awaken Lady Johnson. Then I went down to the well in the orchard, where Nick stood sentry, looking through the blossoming boughs at what was pa.s.sing on the mainland road beyond the Point.

It was a soft, sunny morning, and a pleasant scent from the apple bloom, which I remember was full o' bees.

Through the orchard, on the small peninsula, now came striding toward us a dozen or more officers of the regiments of Colonels Dayton and Livingston, all laughing together and seeming very merry; and some, as they pa.s.sed under the flowering branches, plucked twigs of white and pink flowers and made themselves nosegays.

Their major, who seemed to know me as an officer, though I did not know him, called out in high good humour:

”Well, my lord Northesk, did you and your rangers arrive in time to close the cage on our pretty bird?”

”Yes, sir,” said I, reddening, and not pleased.

”Lady Johnson is here then?”

”Yes, Major.”

At that instant the front door opened and Lady Johnson came out quickly and stood on the veranda, the sun striking across her pallid face, which paleness was more due to her condition than to any fear of our soldiery.

She was but partly robed, and that hastily; her hair all unpowdered and undressed, and only a levete of China silk flung about her girlish figure, and making still more evident her delicate physical condition.

But in her eyes I saw storms a-brewing, and her lips and features went white as she stood there, clenching and unclenching one hand, and still a little blinded by the sun in her face.

We all had uncovered before her, bowing very low; and, if she noticed me at first, I am not certain, but she gave our Major such a deadly stare that it checked his speech and put him clean out o' countenance, leaving him a-twiddling his sword-knot and dumb as a fish.

”What does this mean?” said she, her lip trembling with increasing pa.s.sion. ”Have you come here to arrest me?”

And, as n.o.body replied, she stamped her bare foot in its silken chamber-shoe, like any angry child in petty fury when disobliged.

”Is it not enough,” she continued, ”that you drive my unhappy husband out of his own house, but you must presently follow me here to mock and insult me? What has our family done to merit this outrage?”

Our Major, astonished and out o' countenance, attempted a civil word to calm her, but she swept us all with scornful eyes and stamped her foot again in such anger that her shoe fell off and landed on the gra.s.s.

”Our only crime is loyalty to a merciful and Christian King!” she cried, paying no heed to the shoe. ”Our punishment is that we are like to be hunted as they hunt wild beasts! By a pack of rebels, too! Shame, gentlemen! Is this worthy even of embattled shop-keepers?”

”Madame, I beg you----”

But she had no patience to listen.

”You have forced me out of my home in Johnstown,” she said bitterly, ”and I thought to find refuge under this poor roof. But now you come hunting me here! Very well, gentlemen, I leave you in possession and go to Fish House. And if you hunt me out o' Fish House, I shall go on, G.o.d knows where!--for I do not choose to endure the insult with which your mere presence here affronts me!”

I had picked up her silk shoe and now went to her with it, where she stood on the veranda, biting at her lip, and her eyes all a-glitter with angry tears.

”For G.o.d's sake, madam,” said I, ”do not use us so harshly. We mean no insult and no harm----”