Part 71 (1/2)
”Yes. I saw you there against a cannon's rising cloud.... And a white shape near you.”
”You said it was Death,” I reminded her.
”Death or a bride.... I did not wish to see that vision. I never desire to see such things.”
”Pooh! Do you really believe in dreams, Penelope?”
”There were strange uniforms there,” she murmured, ”--not red-coats.”
”Oh; green-coats!”
”No. I never saw the like. I never saw such soldiery in England or in France or in America.”
”They were only dream soldiers,” said I gaily. ”So now you must laugh a little, and take heart, Penelope, because if we two have been made homeless this night by fire, still we are young, and in health, and have all life before us. Come, then! Shall we be melancholy? And if there are to be battles in the North, why, there will be battles, and some must die and some survive.
”So, in the meanwhile, shall we be merry?”
”If you wish, sir.”
”Excellent! Sing me a pretty French song--low voiced--in my ear, Penelope, whilst I guide my horse.”
”What song, sir?”
”What you will.”
So, holding my arm with both her hands, she leaned close to me on the jolting seat and placed her lips at my ear; and sang ”Malbrook,” as we drove toward Johnstown through the dark forest under the April stars.
Something hot touched my cheek.
”Why, Penelope!” said I, ”are you weeping?”
She shook her head, rested her forehead a moment against my shoulder, and, sitting so, strove to continue--
”Il ne--ne reviendra--”
Her voice sank to a tremulous whisper and she bowed her face in her two hands and rested so in silence, her slender form swaying with the swaying waggon.
It was plain to me that the child was afeard. The shock of flight, the lurid tokens of catastrophe in the heavens, the alarming rumours in those darkening hours, anxiety, suspense, all had contributed to shake a heart both gentle and courageous.
For in the thickening gloom around us a very murk of murder seemed to brood over this dark and threatened land, seeming to grow more sinister and more imminent as the fading crimson in the northern heavens paled to a sickly hue in the first faint pallor of the coming dawn.
CHAPTER XXV
BURKE'S TAVERN
Now, whether it was the wetting I got on Mayfield Creek and the chill I took on the long night's journey to Johnstown, or if my thigh-wound became inflamed from that day's exertion at Fish House, Summer House, and Mayfield, I do not know for certain.
But when at sunrise we drove up to Jimmy Burke's Tavern in Johnstown, I discovered that I could not move my right leg; and, to my mortification, Nick and my Indian were forced to make a swinging chair of their linked hands, and carry me into the tavern, Penelope following forlornly, her arms full of furs and blankets.