Part 8 (1/2)
Haainst the wall, and for a time it may be doubted if any one sa very handsomely his ”lovely locks” were plaited, so did he court the shadows Sandy noted with secret amusement how persistently the boy's eyes followed the beautiful Miss Rush, for it was evident that she was nineteen or twenty years of age, at least three years older than her latest admirer
Despite his sudden infatuation, however, Haood sense, and he soon saw the fatuity of this worshi+p fron and the lieutenants pine to death,” he thought--then with the rough old frontier joke, ”I' _lad that his hair was like a gentleman's, and when he finally ventured out of the crowd he secured, to his great elation, a partner for one of the contra-dances that succeeded the reatly outnuued considerable enterprise on a newcomer's part Hamish had deter; but there were other girlish flowers, somewhat overshadowed by the queens of the parterre, wholoat upon the beauty of the belle of the settlement--mere little daisies or violets, as near half wild as hi hardly more of civilized society than he did Most of these were clad in bright ho that they found it ah he had the style of patronizing the enterprise, to plunge out of the great hall and scaradual exhaustion of the munitions it had contained, and now devoted to the entertainment of the children of the settlers, who it is needless to say had come necessarily with the elder ayeties of the fort It was a danger not to be contemplated to leave them in the wholly deserted settle rooreat fire and a bench or two about the chimney corner, they added _eclat_ to the occasion of the officers' ball by reason of the enthusiastic spirit that pervaded the Christaated to supervise and control the juvenile contingent, being constituted master of the revels With his wild Irish spirit afla Bruin than he hen enveloped in a great bearskin never came out of the woods, and certainly none more active as he chased the youthful pioneers, ere screa shrilly, froled frantically for a corner, failing, however, when a settler of the advanced age of four, but ave hioal
”Mily, ht” was infinitely enlivened by the presence of the recruits from the ball-room, and the romp became tumultuous when Hamish undertook the _role_ of one of the witches that waited by the way to intercept those--aet there by ”candle-light,” and ere assured that they could do this if their ”legs were long enough” When he pursued the soldier and his juvenile party fro and alhted screams of the children were as loud and shrill as if they were all being scalped, and caused the sentries in the block-house towers to look in surprise and doubt in that direction ht Captain Stuart fro on As he stood in the door with his ireat ht, the children, inspired by that love of the incongruous which always characterizes childhood, swarmed about him with the insistence that he should be blindfolded in Blindman's Buff And surely he proved the cha rush half across the roo his pyght two or three by the hair of their heads with one hand, while with the other he was laying about him with such discri fair!--he could see!--he peeped! he peeped! and his laugh being much resented, he was put to the door by his small enemies, who evidently expected hiht experience if he were to be court-o off across the snowy shadowy parade, noticed that he did not at once return to the open door of the great hall where the swirl of the dance could be seen in a kaleidoscopic glow of color, and whence the glad ush of sound; but stood at soress of the corporal of the guard, ith the relief was on his way to the posts of the sentinels; then Stuart disappeared within one of the block-houses, evidently ascending to the tower; after an interval he caonally across the whole enclosure without doubt to the block-house at the further bastion; thus froe he could survey the whole of the region on the four sides of the fort
”I'll go bail, ould Foxy,” said Corporal O'Flynn, apostrophizing his superior officer under his breath, ”that there's nothin' that your sharp eyes doesn't see--if it's just a snake takin' advantage o' the privacy o' the dark hour to slough his skin But I'd give ye,” he hesitated, ”me blessin', if you'd tell me what 'tis ye're lookin' for I want to know, not from a meddlesome sphirit, but jist from sheer curiosity--because my mother was a woman an' not a witch”
For Captain Stuart had encountered a difficulty in these siether unexpected He had diligently considered the odds against success, in which, however, the chief seemed the lack of appropriate refreshment, for one could not serve venison and buffalo and wild fowl to hunters as luxuries, and the lioods sent from the base of supplies over the mountains rendered even the accumulation of the requisite ht and skilled strategy After the wheat-bread had been secured todropped because of the difficulty of obtaining the sis and cheese to compound the farce ith they should be spread But this too had been acco for the safety and entertainment of the children of the settlers, without whom they could not leave home yet whose presence would have hindered if not destroyed the enjoyenius The soldiers and non-coned a share in the entertainment appropriate to their military rank and in consonance with their taste, and were even now carousing gayly in their quarters, where there was more Christmas spirit in circulation than spirituous liquor, for the co out the portions of tafia, not in the interests of temperance so much as of discipline in view of their perilous situation so far froes; his parsiard passed with them as necessity, since they knew that ruer dole was infrequent and a luxury
Therefore they drank their thimbleful ars and vied with one another in wrestlingencounters; the ht of the flaring fire, or listened with ever fresh interest to the great stories often told by the gray-headed drum-n lands, and prohness as ”Billy the Butcher”;[8] for there were Scotcharrison intolerant of the title of ”Hero of Culloden,” having more or less remote associations with an experience delicatelyout in the Forty-five” With each fresh narration the drum-major produced new historical details of the duke's famous fields and added a few to the sum of the enemies killed and wounded, till it seemed that if the years should spare him, it would one day be deustus had in any specified battle slain ood leaden ball than were ever mustered into any army on the face of the earth All the soldiers were in their spruce parade trim, and every man had a bunch of holly in his hat
Even the Indians had been considered In response to the invitation, they had sent the previous day their sys painted with streaks of white clay, and these were conspicuously placed in the decorated hall The gates of the fort thatwide open to all ould come Tafia--in judiciously small quantities, it is true--was served to the tribesmen about the parade, but the head-h, Rayetaeh, Otacite,of the Cherokee nation, were escorted to the great hall of the officers' quarters, the latter on the ar a trifle la the soldiers as ”Old Hop,”--was evidently pleased by the exceptional attention andheavily on the officer's arm Arrayed in their finest fur robes with beautiful broad collars of white swan's down about their necks, with their faces reat fire, the head-aled with French brandy, duly diluted, and the best Virginia tobacco, offered in very curious pipes, which, with soets iifts when the ceremony was concluded, and which the Cherokees accepted with a show of much pleasure; indeed, they conducted therace and a certain dignity and propriety of feeling which al
This was maintained when, invited by the commandant, they witnessed the dress parade, especially elaborate in honor of the occasion, and they listened attentively when Captain Stuart made a short address to the troops on the subject of the sacred character of the day and adjured them in a frank and soldierly fashi+on to have a care that they maintained the ave no advantage to the Enemy because they were here, cut off from the main body of Christianity, so far froes of civilization ”Every soldier learns command from obedience,” he said ”And if I should send a detail from the ranks on some special duty, the file-leader would kno to coiven an order in his life You are each, with all your spiritual forces, detached on special duty You are veteran soldiers of the Cross and under nified that the interpreter should repeat in his ear this discourse, and now and again nodded his head during its translation with cogitation and interest, and as if he understood and approved it He watched too, as if with syo suddenly down upon their knees, as the commandant read the collect for the day followed by the unanimous delivery of the Lord's prayer, in their hearty, iven a resonant ”Amen!” they marched off upon the word and broke ranks; and such little observance as the fort could offer in commemoration of the event was over
The Indians all realized this, and were soon loitering out of the great gate, the coood behavior of his ”young men” and their fine appearance, an elaborate and flowery speech of farewell Then Oconostota took his presents, by far the largest andon Stuart's ar him in this fashi+on down to the river-bank, where his pettiaugre awaited him Stuart evolved, apparently without effort, a felicitous phrase of farewell and esteeraded carefully to suit the rank of the other head-men who folloith Captain Demere and several lieutenants These words, Atta-Kulla-Kulla, a Cherokee of an intelligent, spirited countenance, either had the good feeling or the art to seeoes up from this pipe between h the interpreter, ”shall never come between you and me I shall always see you very clear, for I know your heart Your ways are strange; you come from a far place; but I know you well, for I know your heart”
He laid his hand for a moment on the broad chest of the red coat of the tall, blond officer, then stepped into the canoe, and the little craft shoved off to join a very fleet of canoes, so full was the shi+ning surface of the river of Indians who had co Sunday”[D] at the fort
Captain Stuart felt relieved that all had gone off so well and that they were rid of the Cherokees for the day
But now the unforeseen was upon him, the fatally uncovenanted event for which none can prepare An express had co, besides the mail, rumors of another Indian outbreak on the South Carolina frontier A number of settlers had been massacred, and the perpetrators of the deed had escaped unpunished
Stuart, charging the ht the Christht not be true--sent hi the soldiers Anxiety had taken possession of that stout heart of Stuart's When the settlers had begun to gather to the ball, the earliest arrivals brought no suggestion of difficulty The next co bands of Indians across the river, but they were uests to enter last had been so-place, and presently Captain Stuart was called aside by the officer of the day, who stated that in ate had reported having observed bands of Indians lurking about on the edge of the woods, and that quite a nuate to de of the white people had roused their attention evidently They had always held the cannon-mounted fort and the presence of the soldiery as a ht to discern what this unprecedented asseht portend If their entrance were resisted, they who so often frequented the place, it was obviously inimical to the the Indians was incredibly swift--of the massacres on the frontier and feared soarrison invited their blood-thirsty rapacity, but they were awed by the cannon, and although entertaining vague ideas concerning the ement and scope of artillery, realized its terrible potencies
Perhaps it ith soht be within the walls of the fort and out of the range of the guns at this critical juncture of the arrison--that a party of thirty or forty Cherokees suddenly rushed past the sentinel on the counterscarp, who had hardly tiuard The guard at once turning out, the soldiers ate and bore them back with the bayonet There was the sudden, quick iterative tra at full speed, and as Stuart dashed through the sally-port he called out ”Bar the gates!
Bar the gates!” in a wild, i outside a blandly in Cherokee, of which he had mastered sundry phrases--”Ho,out his hand with his frank, genial manner first to one of the Indians, then to another
They looked upon his hand in disdain and spat upon the ground
The sentry in the gate-house above, his firelock ready leveled to his shoulder, gazed down at the officer, as he stood with his back to the heavy iron-spiked oaken gates; there was light enough in the reflection of the snow, that ht and above the brown, shadooods, seeely intense of color, and in the ibbous disk to show the officer's calm, impassive face; his attitude, with his arold lace on his red coat and the color of his hair in the thick braid that hung down under his cocked hat Even the latent expectation ht be discerned in his eyes that the interval of silence would prove too irksoates, to be long continued, and that the moment would reveal the leader and the purpose of the demonstration
A Cherokee stepped suddenly forward--awith angry agitation, his face sings that the settlers had copied from the Indians, with pistols at his belt as well as a firelock in one hand--the barrel sawed off short to aid its efficacy The air was bitterly cold, but the blood blazed hot in his face; in Cherokee he spoke and he paused for no interpreter; if the _unaka_ Captain did not understand hih his teeth the tense swift utterances came in half-suppressed breathless tones, save when a sudden loud exclaain whizzed out on the air like the ascent of a bursting rocket His fury was such that even without the disguise of the paint on his face, Stuart nized hiance of shape He had advanced one foot and he brandished his toesture, but without iain he thrust the weapon into his belt
”The white captain calls on his friends--and where are they? Not on the outside of these great guns that bar us from our own The fort is ours!
_To-e-u-hah!_ It is our own _To-e-u-hah!_[E] Did we not bargain for it in soleive our belts of white walish? _Wahkane?_[F] Did we not join his cause and fight his battles and shed our blood in his wars against the French? _Wahkane_, John Stuart, _wahkane_? And for what? That the great King George should build us some forts in our nation to protect our wo boys while the Cherokee braves are away fighting the battles of this great King George against the French--yes, and tothe aruns like these, that un,”--he looked scornfully at the firelock and shook it in his left hand--”and the bow and arrows--”he spat upon the ground ”And what does the great Earl of Loudon? He builds this fort for which we have paid with our blood! blood! blood!--these guns bought with long inians”--once round ”And then he sends his redcoat soldiers to hold our fort froer forever to our peace and reat cannon!
_Yo-he-wah! Yo-he-wah!_[G] And e send a talk to tell hiether for grief to the red man, and take the Indians' fort paid for with the Indians' blood and turn the great cannon against hiht them with a dear price, and bar out his entrance from his own”--the foam flew from his lips ”You call on your friend--where?”
He turned a scornful fiery face to look at the scornful fiery faces about him ”Where?”
”Here!” Captain Stuart's cal air at least an octave lower than the keen, high vociferation of the Cherokee