Part 66 (1/2)

said I cheerily.

She stretched out her hand. I took it, looked at her, then kissed her fingers. And so went away swiftly, to where our canoe lay, troubled because of this young girl whom I had no desire to fall truly in love with, and yet knew I had been near to it many times that spring.

I got into the canoe and took the stern paddle; my Saguenay kneeled down in the bow; and we shot out across the Vlaie Water.

Once I turned and looked back over my shoulder; and I saw Penelope standing there on the gra.s.s, and Nick awaiting her with Kaya.

But I did not wish to feel as I felt at that moment. I did not desire to fall in love. No!

”Au large!” I said to my Indian, and swept the birchen craft out into the deep and steady current.

CHAPTER XXIV

GREEN-COATS

Nothing stirred on the Drowned Lands as we drove our canoe at top speed between tall bronzed stalks of rushes and dead water-weeds. Vlaie Water was intensely blue and patched with golden debris of floating stuff--shreds of cranberry vine, rotting lily pads, and the like--and in twenty minutes we floated silently into the Spring Pool, opposite the Stacking Ridge, where hard earth bordered both sh.o.r.es and where maples and willows were now in l.u.s.ty bud.

Two miles away, against Maxon's st.u.r.dy bastion, a vast quant.i.ty of smoke was writhing upward in dark and cloudy convolutions. I could not see Fish House--that oblong, unpainted building a story and a half in height, with its chimneys of stone and the painted fish weather vane swimming in the sky. But I was convinced that it was afire.

We beached our canoe and drew it under the sh.o.r.e-reeds, and so pa.s.sed rapidly down the right bank of the stream along the quick water, holding our guns c.o.c.ked and primed, like hunters ready for a hazard shot at sight.

There was no snow left; all frost was out of the ground along the Drowned Lands; and the earth was sopping wet. Everywhere frail green spears of new gra.s.s p.r.i.c.ked the dead and matted herbage; and in sheltered places tiny green leaves embroidered stems and twigs; and I saw wind-flowers, and violets both yellow and blue, and the amber shoots of skunk cabbage growing thickly in wet places. The shadbush, too, was in exquisite white bloom along the stream, and I remember that I saw one tree in full flower, and a dozen bluejays sitting amid the snowy blossoms like so many lumps of sapphire.

Now, on the mainland, a clearing showed in the suns.h.i.+ne; and beyond it I saw a rail fence bounding a field still black and wet from last autumn's plowing.

We took to the brush and bore to the right, where on firm ground a grove of ash and b.u.t.ternut forested the ridge, and a sandy path ran through.

I knew this path. Sir William often used it when hunting, and his cows, kept at Fish House when his two daughters lived there, travelled this way to and from pasture.

Between us and the Sacandaga lay one of those gra.s.sy gulleys where, in time of flood, back-water from the Sacandaga spread deep.

My Indian and I now lay down and drew our bodies very stealthily toward the woods' edge, where the setback from the river divided us from Fish House.

Ahead of us, through the trees, dense volumes of smoke crowded upward and unfolded into strange, cloudy shapes, and we could hear a loud and steady crackling noise made by feeding flames.

Presently, through the trees, I saw Fish House all afire, and now only a glowing skeleton in the suns.h.i.+ne. But the dense smoke came not now from Fish House, but from three barracks of marsh-hay burning, which vomited thick smoke into the sky. Near the house some tall piles of hewn logs were blazing, also a corn-crib, a small barn, and a log farmhouse, where I think that d.a.m.ned rascal, Wormwood, once lived. And it had been bought by a tenant of Sir William,--one of the patriot Shews or Helmers, if I mistake not, who was given favourable advantages to undertake such a settlement, but now had fled to Johnstown.

G.o.dfrey Shew's own house, just over the knoll to the eastward, was also on fire: I could see the flames from it and a thin brownish smoke which belched out black cinders and shreds of charred bark.

I did not see a living creature near these fires, but farther toward the east clearing I heard voices and the sound of picks and axes; and my Saguenay and I crept thither along the bank of the flooded hollow.

Very soon I perceived the new earthwork and log-stockade made the previous summer by our Continentals; and there, to my astonishment, I saw a motley company of white men and Indians, who were chopping down the timbers of the palisades, levelling the earthwork with pick and shovel.

So near were they across the flooded hollow that I recognized Elias Beacraft, brother to Benjy, who had gone off with McDonald. Also, I saw and knew Captain James Hare, brother to Lieutenant Henry Hare, of Butler's regiment; and Henry, also, was there; and Captain Nellis, of the forester service. Both the Hares and Nellis were dressed in green uniforms, and there were two other green-coats whom I knew not, but all busy with their work of destruction, and their axes flas.h.i.+ng in the suns.h.i.+ne.

The others I had, of course, taken for very savages, for they were feathered and painted and wore Indian dress; but when one of these came down to the flooded hollow to fill his tin cup and drink, to my horror I saw that the eyes in that hideously-painted face were a _light blue_!

”Nai! Yengese!” whispered the Yellow Leaf.