Part 47 (1/2)
We had doubled on them now, going almost due west. Far across the Vlaie I could see dark spots moving along the Dead Water, and here and there a distant rifle glimmering as the sun struck it. Now and then a faint shout was borne to our ears as we halted, dripping and panting in the birches to reconnoiter some open swale ahead, or some cranberry-bog crimsoning under the October sun.
We swam the marshy creek miles to the west, coming out presently into a rutty wagon-trail, which I knew ran south to Mayfield; but we dared not use it, so steered the dripping horse southeast, chancing rather to cross Frenchman's Creek, four miles above Varicks, and so, by a circle bearing east and south, reaching the Broadalbin trail, or some safe road between Galway and Perth, or, if driven to it, making for Saratoga as a last resort.
My face was burned deep red, and I was soaked from neck to heels, so that my moccasins rubbed and chafed at every step. The girl had sat her saddle while the horse swam, so that her legs only were wet. As for the Oneida, his oiled and painted skin shed water like the plumage of a duck. Lord knows, we left a trail broad and wet enough for even a Hessian to follow; and for that reason dared not halt north of Frenchman's Creek or short of Vanderveer's grist-mill.
As I plodded on, rifle atrail, I began to comprehend the full import of what had occurred since the day before, when I, with soul full of bitterness, had left Burke's Inn. Was it only a day ago? By Heaven, it seemed a year since I had looked upon Elsin Grey! And what a change in fortune had come upon us in these two score hours! Free to wed now--if we dared accept the heart-broken testimony of this poor girl--if we dared deny the perjured testimony of a dishonored magistrate, leagued with his fellow libertine, who, thank G.o.d, had at length learned something of the fury he used on others. Strange that in all this war I had never laid a rifle level save at him; strange that I had never seen blood shed in anger, through all these battle years, except the blood that now dried, clotting on my cheek-bone, where his shoulder-buckle had cut me in the struggle. His spurs, too, had caught in the skirt of my hunting-s.h.i.+rt, tearing it to the fringed hem, and digging a furrow across my instep; and the moccasin on that foot was stiff with blood.
Ah, if I might only have brought him off; if I might only have carried this guilty man to Johnstown! Yet I should have known that Sir John's men were likely to be within hail, fool that I was to take the desperate chance when a little parley, a little edging toward him, a sudden blow might have served. Yet I was glad in my heart that I had not used craft; cat traits are not instinctive with me; craft, stealth, a purring ambush--faugh! I was no coward to beat him down unawares. I had openly declared him prisoner, and I was glad I had done so. Why, I might have shot him as we talked, had I been of a breed to do murder--had I been inhuman enough to slay him, unwarned, before the very eyes of the woman he had wronged, and who still hoped for mercy from him lest she pa.s.s her life a loathed and wretched outcast among the people who had accepted her as an Iroquois.
Thinking of these things which so deeply concerned me, I plodded forward with the others, hour after hour, halting once to drink and to eat a little of our parched corn, then to the unspotted trail once more, imperceptibly gaining the slope of that watershed, the streams of which feed the Mayfield Creek, and ultimately the Hudson.
Varicks we skirted, not knowing but Sir John's scouts might be in possession, the peppery, fat patroon having closed his house and taken his flock to Albany; and so traveling the forest east by south, made for the head waters of that limpid trout-stream I had so often fished, spite of the posted warnings and the indignation of the fat patroon, who hated me.
I think it was about four o'clock in the afternoon when, pressing through brush and windfall, we came suddenly out into a sunny road.
Beside the road ran a stream clattering down-hill over its stony bed--a clear, noisy stream, with swirling brown trout-pools and rapids, rus.h.i.+ng between ledges, foaming around boulders, a joyous, rolicking, das.h.i.+ng, headlong stream, that seemed to cheer us with its gay clamor; and I saw the Oneida's stern eyes soften as he bent his gaze upon it.
Poor little Lyn Montour slipped, with a sigh, from her saddle, while my horse buried his dusty nose in the sparkling water, drawing deep, cold draughts through his hot throat. And here by the familiar head waters of Frenchman's Creek we rested in full sight of the grist-mill above us, where the road curved west. The mill-wheel was turning; a man came to the window overlooking the stream and stood gazing at us, and I waved my hand at him rea.s.suringly, recognizing old Vanderveer.
Beyond the mill I could see smoke rising from the chimneys of the unseen settlement. Presently a small barefoot boy came out of the mill, looked at us a moment, then turned and legged it up the road tight as he could go. The Oneida, smoking his pipe, saw the lad's hasty flight, and smiled slightly.
”Yes, Little Otter,” I said, ”they take us for some of Sir John's people. You'll see them coming presently with their guns. Hark! There goes a signal-shot now!”
The smacking crack of a rifle echoed among the hills; a conch-horn's melancholy note sounded persistently.
”Let us go on to the Yellow Tavern,” I said; and we rose and limped forward, leading the horse, whose head hung wearily.
Before we reached the Oswaya mill some men in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves shot at us, then ran down through an orchard, calling on us to halt. One carried a shovel, one a rifle, and the older man, whom I knew as a former tenant of my father, bore an ancient firelock. When I called out to him by name he seemed confused, demanding to know whether we were Whigs or Tories; and when at length he recognized me he appeared to be vastly relieved. It seemed that he, Wemple, and his two sons had been burying apples, and that hearing the shot fired, had started for their homes, where already the alarm had spread. Seeing us, and supposing we had cut him off from the settlement, he had decided to fight his way through to the mill.
”I'm mighty glad you ain't shot, Mr. Renault,” he said in his thin, high voice, scratching his chin, and staring hard at the Oneida.
”Seein' these here painted injuns sorter riled me up, an' I up an' let ye have it. So did Willum here. Lord, sir, we've been expecting Sir John for a month, so you must kindly excuse us, Mr. Renault!”
He shook his white head and looked up the road where a dozen armed men were already gathered, watching us from behind the fences.
”Sir John is on the Sacandaga,” I said. ”Why don't you go to Johnstown, Wemple? This is no place for your people.”
He stood, rubbing his hard jaw reflectively.
”Waal, sir,” he piped, ”it's kind er hard to leave all you've got in the world.” He added, looking around at his fields: ”I'd be a pauper if I quit. Mebbe they won't come here, after all. Mebbe Sir John will go down the Valley.”
”Besides, we ain't got our pumpkins in nor the winter corn stacked,”
observed one of his sons sullenly.
We all turned and walked slowly up the road in the direction of the big yellow tavern, old Wemple shaking his head, and talking all the while in a thin, flat, high-pitched voice: ”It seems kind'r hard that Sir John can't quit his pesterin' an' leave folks alone. What call has he to come back a-dodgin' 'round here year after year, a-butcherin' his old neighbors, Mr. Renault? 'Pears to me he's gone crazy as a mad dog, a-whirlin' round and round the same stump, b.u.t.tin' and bitin' and clawin' up the hull place. Sakes alive! ain't he got no human natur'?
Last Tuesday they come to Dan Norris's, five mile down the creek, an'
old man Norris he was in the barn makin' a ladder, an' Dan he was gone for the cow. A painted Tory run into the kitchen an' hit the old woman with his hatchet, an' she fetched a screech, an' her darter, 'Liza, she screeched, too. Then a Injun he hit the darter, and he kep' a-kickin'
an' a-hittin', an' old man Norris he heard the rumpus out to the barn, an' he run in, an' they pushed him out d.a.m.n quick an' shot him in the legs. A Tory clubbed him an' ripped his skelp off, the old man on his knees, a-bellowin' piteous, till they knifed him all to slivers an'
kicked what was left o' him into the road. The darter she prayed an'
yelled, but 'twan't no use, for they cut her that bad with hatchets she was dead when Dan came a-runnin'. 'G.o.d!' he says, an' goes at the inimy, swingin' his milk-stool--but, Lord, sir, what can one man do? He was that shot up it 'ud sicken you, Mr. Renault. An' then they was two little boys a-lookin' on at it, too frightened to move; but when the destructives was a-beatin' old Mrs. Norris to death they hid in the fence-hedge. An' they both of 'em might agot clean off, only the littlest one screamed when they tore the skelp off'n the old woman; an'