VIII
RIDING THE BOUNDS
For the first half-mile our road lay over that same golden, hillycountry, and through the same splendid forests which I had traversed onmy way to the manor. Then we galloped past cultivated land, whereclustered spears of Indian corn sprouted above the reddish golden soil,and sheep fed in stony pastures.
Around the cabins of the tenantry, fields of oats and barley glimmered,thin blades pricking the loam, brilliant as splintered emeralds.
A few dropping blossoms still starred the apple-trees, pears showed intiny bunches, and once I saw a late peach-tree in full pink bloom and anold man hoeing the earth around it. He looked up as we galloped past,saluted sullenly, and leaned on his hoe, looking after us.
Dorothy said he was a Palatine refugee and a rebel, like the majority ofSir Lupus's tenants; and I gazed curiously at these fields and cabinswhere gaunt men and gaunter women, laboring among their sproutingvegetables, turned sun-dazzled eyes to watch us as we clattered by;where ragged children, climbing on the stockades, called out to us inlittle, shrill voices; where feeding cattle lifted sober heads to stare;where lank, yellow dogs rushed out barking and snapping till a cut ofthe whip sent them scurrying back.
Once a woman came to her gate and hailed us, asking if it was true thatthe troops had been withdrawn from Johnstown and Kingsborough.
"Which troops?" I asked.
"Ours," began the woman, then checked herself, and shot a suspiciousglance at me.
"The Provincials are still at Johnstown and Kingsborough," said Dorothy,gently.
A gleam of relief softened the woman's haggard features. Then her facedarkened again and she pointed at two barefooted children shrinkingagainst the fence.
"If my man and I were alone we would not be afraid of the Mohawks; butthese--"
She made a desperate gesture, and stood staring at the blue Mayfieldhills where, perhaps at that moment, painted Mohawk scouts were watchingthe Sacandaga.
"If your men remain quiet, Mrs. Schell, you need fear neither rebel,savage, nor Tory," said Dorothy. "The patroon will see that you haveample protection."
Mrs. Schell gave her a helpless glance. "Did you not know that thedistrict scout-call has gone out?" she asked.
"Yes; but if the tenants of Sir Lupus obey it they do so at theirperil," replied Dorothy, gravely. "The militia scouts of this districtmust not act hastily. Your husband would be mad to answer a call andleave you here alone."
"What would you have him do?" muttered the woman.
"Do?" repeated Dorothy. "He can do one thing or the other--join hisregiment and take his family to the district fort, or stay at home andcare for you and the farm. These alarms are all wrong--your men areeither soldiers or farmers; they cannot be both unless they live closeenough to the forts. Tell Mr. Schell that Francy McCraw and his ridersare in the forest, and that the Brandt-Meester of Balston saw a Mohawksmoke-signal on the mountain behind Mayfield."
The woman folded her bony arms in her apron, cast one tragic glance ather children, then faced us again, hollow-eyed but undaunted.
"My man is with Stoner's scout," she said, with dull pride.
"Then you must go to the block-house," began Dorothy, but the womanpointed to the fields, shaking her head.
"We shall build a block-house here," she said, stubbornly. "We cannotleave our corn. We must eat, Mistress Varick. My man is too poor to be aProvincial soldier, too brave to refuse a militia call--"
She choked, rubbed her eyes, and bent her stern gaze on the hills oncemore. Presently we rode on, and, turning in my saddle, I saw herstanding as we had left her, gaunt, rigid, staring steadily at thedreaded heights in the northwest.
As we galloped, cultivated fields and orchards became rarer; here andthere, it is true, some cabin stood on a half-cleared hill-side, and weeven passed one or two substantial houses on the flat ridge to the east,but long, solid stretches of forest intervened, and presently we leftthe highway and wheeled into a cool wood-road bordered on either side bythe forest.
"Here we find our first landmark," said Dorothy, drawing bridle.
A white triangle glimmered, cut in the bark of an enormous pine; and mycousin rode up to the tree and patted the bark with her little hand. Onthe triangle somebody had cut a V and painted it black.
"This is a boundary mark," said Dorothy. "The Mohawks claim the forestto the east; ride around and you will see their sign."
I guided my horse around the huge, straight trunk. An oval blaze scarredit and on the wood was painted a red wolf.
"It's the wolf-clan, Brant's own clan of the Mohawk nation," she calledout to me. "Follow me, cousin." And she dashed off down the wood-road, Igalloping behind, leaping windfalls, gullies, and the shallow forestbrooks that crossed our way. The road narrowed to a trodden trail; thetrail faded, marked at first by cut undergrowth, then only by the whitescars on the tree-trunks.
These my cousin followed, her horse at a canter, and I followed her,halting now and again to verify the white triangle on the solid flank ofsome forest giant, passing a sugar-bush with the shack still standingand the black embers of the fire scattered, until we came to alogging-road and turned into it, side by side. A well-defined pathcrossed this road at right angles, and Dorothy pointed it out. "TheIroquois trail," she said. "See how deeply it is worn--nearly ten inchesdeep--where the Five Nations have trodden it for centuries. Over ittheir hunting-parties pass, their scouts, their war-parties. It runsfrom the Kennyetto to the Sacandaga and north over the hills tothe Canadas."
We halted and looked down the empty, trodden trail, stretching awaythrough the forest. Thousands and thousands of light, moccasined feethad worn it deep and patted it hard as a sheep-path. On what missionwould the next Mohawk feet be speeding on that trail?
"Those people at Fonda's Bush had best move to Johnstown," said Dorothy."If the Mohawks strike, they will strike through here at Balston orSaratoga, or at the half-dozen families left at Fonda's Bush, which someof them call Broadalbin."
"Have these poor wretches no one to warn them?" I asked.
"Oh, they have been warned and warned, but they cling to their cabins ascats cling to soft cushions. The Palatines seem paralyzed with fear, theDutch are too lazy to move in around the forts, the Scotch and Englishtoo obstinate. Nobody can do anything for them--you heard what thatSchell woman said when I urged her to prudence."
I bent my eyes on the ominous trail; its very emptiness fascinated me,and I dismounted and knelt to examine it where, near a dry, rotten log,some fresh marks showed.
Behind me I heard Dorothy dismount, dropping to the ground lightly as atree-lynx; the next moment she laid her hand on my shoulder and bentover where I was kneeling.
"Can you read me that sign?" she asked, mischievously.
"Something has rolled and squatted in the dry wood-dust--some bird, Ithink."
"A good guess," she said; "a cock-partridge has dusted here; see thosebits of down? I say a cock-bird because I know that log to be adrumming-log."
She raised herself and guided her horse along the trail, bright eyesrestlessly scanning ground and fringing underbrush.
"Deer passed here--one--two--three--the third a buck--a three-year old,"she said, sinking her voice by instinct. "Yonder a tree-cat dug for awood-mouse; your lynx is ever hanging about a drumming-log."
I laid my hand on her arm and pointed to a fresh, green maple leaf lyingbeside the trail.
"Ay," she murmured, "but it fell naturally, cousin. See; here it partedfrom the stalk, clean as a poplar twig, leaving the shiny cup unbruised.And nothing has passed here--this spider's web tells that, with a deadmoth dangling from it, dead these three days, from its brittle shell."
"I hear water," I said, and presently we came to it, where it hurrieddarkling across the trail.
There were no human signs there; here a woodcock had peppered the mudwith little holes, probing for worms; there a raccoon had picked hisway; yonder a lynx had left the great padded mark of its foot, doubtlesswatching for yo
nder mink nosing us from the bank of the stillpool below.
Silently we mounted and rode out of the still Mohawk country; and I wasnot sorry to leave, for it seemed to me that there was somethingunfriendly in the intense stillness--something baleful in the silence;and I was glad presently to see an open road and a great tree markedwith Sir Lupus's mark, the sun shining on the white triangle and thepainted V.
Entering a slashing where the logging-road passed, we moved on, side byside, talking in low tones. And my cousin taught me how to know theseNorthern trees by bark and leaf; how to know the shrubs new to me, likethat strange plant whose root is like a human body and which the Chinesevalue at its weight in gold; and the aromatic root used in beer, and thebark of the sweet-birch whose twigs are golden-black.
Now, though the birds and many of the beasts and trees were familiar tome in this Northern forest, yet I was constantly at fault, as I havesaid. Plumage and leaf and fur puzzled me; our gray rice-bird here worea velvet livery of black and white and sang divinely, though with us heis mute as a mullet; many squirrels were striped with black and white;no rosy lichen glimmered on the tree-trunks; no pink-stemmed pinessoftened sombre forest depths; no great tiger-striped butterflies toldme that the wild orange was growing near at hand; no whirring,olive-tinted moth signalled the hidden presence of the oleander. But Isaw everywhere unfamiliar winged things, I heard unfamiliar bird-notes;new colors perplexed me, new shapes, nay, the very soil smelled foreign,and the water tasted savorless as the mist of pine barrens in February.
Still, my Maker had set eyes in my head and given me a nose to sniffwith; and I was learning every moment, tasting, smelling, touching,listening, asking questions unashamed; and my cousin Dorothy seemednever to tire in aiding me, nor did her eager delight and sympathyabate one jot.
Dressed in full deer-skin as was I, she rode her horse astride with agrace as perfect as it was unstudied and unconscious, neither affectingthe slothful carriage of our Southern saddle-masters nor the dragoons'rigid seat, but sat at ease, hollow-backed, loose-thighed, free-reinedand free-stirruped.
Her hair, gathered into a golden club at the nape of the neck, glitteredin the sun, her eyes deepened like the violet depths of mid-heaven.Already the sun had lent her a delicate, creamy mask, golden on hertemples where the hair grew paler; and I thought I had never seen suchwholesome sweetness and beauty in any living being.
We now rode through a vast flat land of willows, headed due north oncemore, and I saw a little river which twisted a hundred times upon itselflike a stricken snake, winding its shimmering coils out and in throughwoodland, willow-flat, and reedy marsh.
"The Kennyetto," said Dorothy, "flowing out of the great Vlaie to emptyits waters close to its source after a circle of half a hundred miles.Yonder lies the Vlaie--it is that immense flat country of lake and marshand forest which is wedged in just south of the mountain-gap where thelast of the Adirondacks split into the Mayfield hills and the long, lowspurs rolling away to the southeast. Sir William Johnson had a lodgethere at Summer-house Point. Since his death Sir George Covert hasleased it from Sir John. That is our trysting-place."
To hear Sir George's name now vaguely disturbed me, yet I could notthink why, for I admired and liked him. But at the bare mention of hisname a dull uneasiness came over me and I turned impatiently to mycousin as though the irritation had come from her and she mustexplain it.
"What is it?" she inquired, faintly smiling.
"I asked no question," I muttered.
"I thought you meant to speak, cousin."
I had meant to say something. I did not know what.
"You seem to know when I am about to speak," I said; "that is twice youhave responded to my unasked questions."
"I know it," she said, surprised and a trifle perplexed. "I seem to hearyou when you are mute, and I turn to find you looking at me, as thoughyou had asked me something."
We rode on, thoughtful, silent, aware of a new and wordless intimacy.
"It is pleasant to be with you," she said at last. "I have never beforefound untroubled contentment save when I am alone.... Everything thatyou see and think of on this ride I seem to see and think of, too, andknow that you are observing with the same delight that I feel.... Nordoes anything in the world disturb my happiness. Nor do you vex me withsilence when I would have you speak; nor with speech when I ridedreaming--as I do, cousin, for hours and hours--not sadly, but in thesweetest peace--"
Her voice died out like a June breeze; our horses, ear to ear moved onslowly in the fragrant silence.
"To ride ... forever ... together," she mused, "looking with perfectcontent on all the world.... I teaching you, or you me; ... it's all onefor the delight it gives to be alive and young.... And no trouble toawait us, ... nothing malicious to do a harm to any living thing.... Icould renounce Heaven for that.... Could you?"
"Yes.... For less."
"I know I ask too much; grief makes us purer, fitting us for the companyof blessed souls. They say that even war may be a holy thing--though weare commanded otherwise.... Cousin, at moments a demon rises in me and Idesire some forbidden thing so ardently, so passionately, that it seemsas if I could fight a path through paradise itself to gain what Idesire.... Do you feel so?"
"Yes."
"Is it not consuming--terrible to be so shaken?... Yet I never gain mydesire, for there in my path my own self rises to confront me, blockingmy way. And I can never pass--never.... Once, in winter, our agent, Mr.Fonda, came driving a trained caribou to a sledge. A sweet, gentlething, with dark, mild eyes, and I was mad to drive it--mad, cousin! ButSir Lupus learned that it had trodden and gored a man, and put me on myhonor not to drive it. And all day Sir Lupus was away at Kingsboroughfor his rents and I free to drive the sledge, ... and I was mad to doit--and could not. And the pretty beast stabled with our horses, andevery day I might have driven it.... I never did.... It hurts yet,cousin.... How strange is it that to us the single word, 'honor,' blocksthe road and makes the King's own highway no thorough-fare forever!"
She gathered bridle nervously, and we launched our horses through awillow fringe and away over a soft, sandy intervale, riding knee to kneetill the wind whistled in our ears and the sand rose fountain high atevery stride of our bounding horses.
"Ah!" she sighed, drawing bridle. "That clears the heart of sillytroubles. Was it not glorious? Like a plunge to the throat in anicy pool!"
Her face, radiant, transfigured, was turned to the north, where,glittering under the westward sun, the sunny waters of the Vlaiesparkled between green reeds and rushes. Beyond, smoky blue mountainstumbled into two uneven walls, spread southeast and southwest, flankingthe flat valley of the Vlaie.
Thousands of blackbirds chattered and croaked and trilled and whistledin the reeds, flitting upward, with a flash of scarlet on their wings;hovering, dropping again amid a ceaseless chorus from the half-hiddenflock. Over the marshes slow hawks sailed, rose, wheeled, and fell; thegray ducks, whose wings bear purple diamond-squares, quacked in thetussock ponds, guarded by their sentinels, the tall, blue herons.Everywhere the earth was sheeted with marsh-marigolds and violets.
Across the distant grassy flat two deer moved, grazing. We rode to theeast, skirting the marshes, following a trail made by cattle, untilbeyond the flats we saw the green roof of the pleasure-house which SirWilliam Johnson had built for himself. Our ride together wasnearly ended.
As at the same thought we tightened bridle and looked at each othergravely.
"All rides end," I said.
"Ay, like happiness."
"Both may be renewed."
"Until they end again."
"Until they end forever."
She clasped her bare hands on her horse's neck, sitting with bent headas though lost in sombre memories.
"What ends forever might endure forever," I said.
"Not our rides together," she murmured. "You must return to the Southone day. I must wed.... Where shall we be this day a year hence?"
"Very far apart, cousi
n."
"Will you remember this ride?"
"Yes," I said, troubled.
"I will, too.... And I shall wonder what you are doing."
"And I shall think of you," I said, soberly.
"Will you write?"
"Yes. Will you?"
"Yes."
Silence fell between us like a shadow; then:
"Yonder rides Sir George Covert," she said, listlessly.
I saw him dismounting before his door, but said nothing.
"Shall we move forward?" she asked, but did not stir a finger towardsthe bridle lying on her horse's neck.
Another silence; and, impatiently:
"I cannot bear to have you go," she said; "we are perfectly contentedtogether--and I wish you to know all the thoughts I have touching on theworld and on people. I cannot tell them to my father, nor to Ruyven--andCecile is too young--"
"There is Sir George," I said.
"He! Why, I should never think of telling him of these thoughts thatplease or trouble or torment me!" she said, in frank surprise. "Heneither cares for the things you care for nor thinks about themat all."
"Perhaps he does. Ask him."
"I have. He smiles and says nothing. I am afraid to tax his courtesywith babble of beast and bird and leaf and flower; and why one man isrich and another poor; and whether it is right that men should holdslaves; and why our Lord permits evil, having the power to end it forall time. I should like to know all these things," she said, earnestly.
"But I do not know them, Dorothy."
"Still, you think about them, and so do I. Sir Lupus says you haveliberated your Greeks and sent them back. I want to know why. Then, too,though neither you nor I can know our Lord's purpose in enduring theevil that Satan plans, it is pleasant, I think, to ask each other."
"To think together," I said, sadly.
"Yes; that is it. Is it not a pleasure?"
"Yes, Dorothy."
"It does not matter that we fail to learn; it is the happiness inknowing that the other also cares to know, the delight in seaching forreason together. Cousin, I have so longed to say this to somebody; anduntil you came I never believed it possible.... I wish we were brotherand sister! I wish you were Cecile, and I could be with you all day andall night.... At night, half asleep, I think of wonderful things to talkabout, but I forget them by morning. Do you?"
"Yes, cousin."
"It is strange we are so alike!" she said, staring at me thoughtfully.