Elsin, resting one elbow on the table, listened and looked out into the village street where farmers and soldiers were passing, some arm in arm, gravely smoking their clay pipes and discussing matters in the sunshine, others entering or leaving the few shops where every sort of ware was exposed for sale, still others gathered on the bridge, some fishing in the Bronx, some looking on or reading fresh newspapers from New England or Philadelphia, or a stale and tattered Gazette which had found its way out of New York.

At a nod from me the landlord signaled the servants and withdrew, leaving us there alone together with a bottle of claret on the table and a dish of cakes and raisins.

"So these good folk are rebels," mused Elsin, gazing at the people in the street below. "They seem much like other people, Carus."

"They are," I said, laughing.

"Well," she said, "they told me otherwise in New York. But I can see no very great ferocity in your soldiers' countenances. Nor do they dress in rags. Mr. De Lancey told me that the Continentals scarce mustered a pair of breeches to a brigade."

"It has been almost as bad as that," I said gravely. "These troops are no doubt clothed in uniforms sent from France, but I fear there are rags and to spare in the south, where Greene and Lafayette are harrying Cornwallis—God help them!"

"Amen," she said softly, looking at me.

Touched as I had never been by her, I held out my hand; she laid hers in mine gravely.

"So that they keep clear of Canada, I say God speed men who stand for their own homes, Carus! But," she added innocently, "I could not be indifferent to a cause which you serve. Come over here to the window—draw your chair where you can see. Look at that officer, how gallant he is in his white uniform faced with green!"

"That is a French officer," I said. "Those three soldiers passing yonder who wear white facing on their blue coats, and black spatterdashes from ankle to thigh, are infantry of the New England line. The soldiers smoking under the tree are New York and New Jersey men; they wear buff copper-clouts, and their uniform is buff and blue. Maryland troops wear red facings; the Georgia line are faced with blue, edged around by white. There goes an artilleryman; he's all blue and scarlet, with yellow on his hat; and here stroll a dozen dragoons in helmet and jack-boots and blue jackets laced, lined, and faced with white. Ah, Elsin, these same men have limped barefoot, half-naked, through snow and sun because his Excellency led them."

"It is strange," she said, "how you turn grave and how a hush comes, a little pause of reverence, whenever you name—his Excellency. Do all so stand in awe of him?"

"None names him lightly, Elsin."

"Have you ever seen him?"

"Never, child."

"And yet you approach even his name in hushed respect."

"Yes, even his name. I should like to see him," I continued wistfully, "to hear him speak once, to meet his calm eye. But I never shall. My service is of such a nature that it is inexpedient for him to receive me openly. So I never shall see him—save, perhaps, when the long war ends—God knows——"

She dropped her hand on mine and leaned lightly back against my shoulder.

"You must not fret," she murmured. "Remember that staff-officer said he praised you."

"I do, I do remember!" I repeated gratefully. "It was a reward I never dared expect—never dreamed of. His Excellency has been kind to me, indeed."

It was now past four o'clock in the afternoon, and Elsin, who had noted the wares in the shop-windows, desired to price the few simple goods offered for sale; so we went out into the dusty village street to see what was to be seen, but the few shops we entered were full of soldiers and not overclean, and the wares offered for sale were not attractive. I remember she bought points and some stuff for stocks, and needles and a reel of thread, and when she offered a gold piece everybody looked at us, and the shopkeeper called her "My lady" and me "My lord," and gave us in change for the gold piece a great handful of paper money.

We emerged from the shop amazed, and doubtful of the paper stuff, and walked up the street and out into the country, pausing under a great maple-tree to sort this new Continental currency, of which we had enough to stuff a pillow.

Scrip by scrip I examined the legal tender of my country, Elsin, her chin on my shoulder, scrutinizing the printed slips of yellow, brown, and red in growing wonder. One slip bore three arrows on it, under which was printed:

Fifty Dollars. Printed by H. A. L. L. and S. E. L. 1778.

Upon the other side was a pyramid in a double circle, surmounted by the legend:

PERENNIS.

And it was further decorated with the following:

"No. 16780 Fifty Dollars. This Bill entitles the Bearer to receive Fifty Spanish milled dollars or the value thereof in Gold or Silver, according to the Resolution passed by Congress at Philadelphia, September 26th, 1788.

"J. WATKINS; I. K."

And we had several dozen of these of equal or less denomination.

"Goodness," exclaimed Elsin, "was my guinea worth all these dollars? And do you suppose that we could buy anything with these paper bills?"

"Certainly," I said, loyal to my country's currency; "they're just as good as silver shillings—if you only have enough of them."

"But what use will they be to me in Canada?"

That was true enough. I immediately pocketed the mass of paper and tendered her a guinea in exchange, but she refused it, and we had a pretty quarrel there under the maple-tree.

"Carus," she said at last, "let us keep them, anyhow, and never, never spend them. Some day we may care to remember this July afternoon, and how you and I went a-shopping as sober as a wedded pair in Hanover Square."

There was a certain note of seriousness in her voice that sobered me, too. I drew her arm through mine, and we strolled out into the sunshine and northward along the little river, where in shallow brown pools scores of minnows stemmed the current, and we saw the slim trout lying in schools under the bush's shadows, and the great silver and blue kingfishers winging up and down like flashes of azure fire.

A mile out a sentinel stopped us, inquiring our business, and as we had none we turned back, for it mattered little to us where we sauntered. Farmers were cutting hay in the river-meadows, under the direction of a mounted sergeant of dragoons; herds of cattle and sheep grazed among the hills, shepherded by soldiers. Every now and again dragoons rode past us, convoying endless lines of wagons piled up with barrels, crates, sacks of meal, and sometimes with bolts of coarse cloth.

To escape the dust raised by so many hoofs and wheels we took to the fields and found a shady place on a hill which overlooked the country. Then for the first time I realized the nearness of the army, for everywhere in the distance white tents gleamed against the green, and bright flags were flying from hillocks, and on a level plain that stretched away toward the Hudson I saw long dark lines moving, or halted motionless, with the glimmer of steel playing through the sunshine; and I, for the first time, beheld a brigade of our army at exercise.

We were too far away to see, yet it was a sight to stir one who had endured that prison city so long, never seeing a Continental soldier except as a prisoner marched through the streets to the jails or the hulks in the river. But there they were—those men of White Plains, of Princeton, of Camden, and of the Wilderness—the men of Long Island, and Germantown, and Stony Point!—there they were, wheeling by the right flank, wheeling by the left, marching and countermarching, drilling away, busy as bees in the July sun.

"Ah, Elsin," I said, "when they storm New York the man who misses that splendid climax will miss the best of his life—and never forget that he has missed it as long as he lives to mask his vain regret!"

"Why is it that you are not content?" she asked. "For four years you have moved in the shadow of destruction."

"But I have never fought in battle," I said; "never fired a single shot in earnest, never heard the field-horn of the light infantry nor the cavalry-trumpet above the fusillade, never heard the officers shouting, the mad gallop of artillery, the yelling onset—why, I know nothing of the pleasures of strife, only the smooth deceit and bland hypocrisy, only the eavesdropping and the ignoble pretense! At times I can scarcely breathe in my desire to wash my honor in the rifle flames—to be hurled pell-mell among the heaving, straining melee, thrusting, stabbing, cutting my fill, till I can no longer hear or see. Four years, Elsin! think of it—think of being chained in the midst of this magnificent activity for four years! And now, when I beg a billet among the dragoons, they tell me I am fashioned for diplomacy, not for war, and hint of my usefulness on the frontier!"

"What frontier?" she asked quickly.

"Tryon County, I suppose."

"Where that dreadful work never ceases?"

"Hatchet and scalping-knife are ever busy there," I said grimly. "Who knows? I may yet have my fill and to spare!"

She sat silent for so long that I presently turned from the distant martial spectacle to look at her inquiringly. She smiled, drawing a long breath, and shaking her head.

"I never seem to understand you, Carus," she said. "You have done your part, yet it appears already you are planning to go hunting about for some obliging savage to knock you in the head with a death-maul."

"But the war is not ended, Elsin."

"No, nor like to be until it compasses your death. Then, indeed, will it be ended for me, and the world with it!"

"Why, Elsin!" I laughed, "this is a new note in your voice."

"Is it? Perhaps it is. I told you, Carus, that there is no happiness in love. And, just now, I love you. It is strange, is it not?—when aught threatens you, straightway I begin to sadden and presently fall in love with you; but when there's no danger anywhere, and I have nothing to sadden me, why, I'm not at all sure that I love you enough to pass the balance of the day in your companionship—only that when you are away I desire to know where you are and what you do, and with whom you walk and talk and laugh. Deary me! deary me! I know not what I want, Carus. Let us go to the Blue Fox and drink a dish of tea."

We walked back to the inn through the sweetest evening air that I had breathed in many a day, Elsin stopping now and then to add a blossom to the great armful of wild flowers that she had gathered, I lingering, happy in my freedom as a lad loosed from school, now pausing to skip flat stones across the Bronx, now creeping up to the bank to surprise the trout and see them scatter like winged shadows over the golden gravel, now whistling to imitate that rosy-throated bird who sits so high in his black-and-white livery and sings into happiness all who hear him.

The sun was low over the Jersey highlands; swarms of swallows rose, soared, darted, and dipped in the evening sky. I heard the far camp-bugles playing softly, the dulled roll of drums among the eastern hills; then, as the red sun went out behind the wooded heights, bang! the evening gun's soft thunder shook the silence. And our day was ended.



CHAPTER VIII

DESTINY

On Sunday, having risen early—though not so early as the post relief, whose day begins as soon as a sentry can see clearly for a thousand yards—I dressed me by the rosy light of the rising sun, and, before I breakfasted, wrote a long letter to my parents, who, as I have said, were now residing near Paris, where my great-grandfather's estate lay.

When I had finished my letter, sanded and sealed it, I went out to leave it with the packages of post matter collected from the French regiments across the Hudson, and destined for France by an early packet, which was to sail as soon as the long-expected French fleet arrived from the West Indies.

I delivered my letter to the staff-officer detailed for that duty, and then, hearing military music, went back to the Blue Fox in time to see a funeral of an officer slowly passing eastward, gun-carriage, horses, men, in strange silhouette against the level and dazzling white disk of the rising sun. Truly, the slow cortege seemed moving straight into the flaming gates of heaven, the while their solemn music throbbed and throbbed with the double drum-beat at the finish of each line. The tune was called "Funeral Thoughts." They changed to "Roslyn Castle" as they crossed the bridge; yet an hour had scarce passed when I heard their volley-firing not very far away, and back they came, the Fife-Major leading, drums, fifes, and light-infantry horns gaily sounding "The Pioneer," and the men swinging back briskly to fall in with the Church details, now marching in from every direction to the admonitory timing of a single drum-beat.

The music had awakened Elsin, and presently she came a-tapping at my door, barefoot, her cardinal tightly wrapped around her, hair tumbled, drowsily rubbing her heavy lids.

"Good morning, Carus," she said sleepily. "I should dearly like to hear a good, strong sermon on damnation to-day—being sensible of my present state of sin, and of yours. Do they preach hell-fire in Rebeldom?"

"The landlord says that Hazen's mixed brigade and other troops go to service in the hay-field above the bridge," I answered, laughing. "Shall we ride thither?"

She nodded, yawning, then pulling her foot-mantle closer about her shoulders, pattered back into her chamber, and I went below and ordered our horses saddled, and breakfast to be served us as soon as might be.

And so it happened that, ere the robins had done caroling their morning songs, and the far, sweet anthems of the hermit-birds still rang in dewy woodlands, Elsin and I dismounted in Granger's hay-field just as the troops marched up in a long, dense column, the massed music of many regiments ahead, but only a single drum timing the steady tread.

All was done in perfect decorum and order. A hay-wagon was the pulpit; around it the drummers piled their drums, tier rising on tier; the ensigns draped the national colors over the humble platform, setting regimental and state standards at the corners; and I noted there some curious flags, one borne by a Massachusetts battalion, white, with a green tree on it; another, a yellow naval flag with a coiled rattlesnake; another, carried by a company of riflemen, on which was this design:

1776. XI VIRGINIA REG'T,

and I knew that I was looking upon the famous regimental standard of Morgan's Rifles.

Without confusion, with only a low-spoken command here and there, battalion after battalion marched up, stacked arms, forming three sides of a hollow square, the pulpit, with its flags and tiers of drums, making the fourth side. The men stood at ease, hands loosely clasped and hanging in front of them. The brigade chaplain quietly crossed the square to his rude pulpit, mounted it, and, as he bowed his head in prayer, every cocked hat came off, every head was lowered.

Country-folk, yokels, farmers, had gathered from all directions; invalids from the camp hospitals were there, too, faces clay-color, heads and limbs heavily bandaged. One of these, a sergeant of the New York line, who wore a crimson heart sewed on his breast, was led to his place between two comrades, he having both eyes shot out; and the chaplain looked at him hard for a moment, then gave out the hymn, leading the singing in a deep, full voice:

"Through darkest night I know that Thou canst see. Night blinds my sight, Yet my small voice shall praise Thee constantly. Under Thy wing, Whose shadow blinds mine eyes, Fearless I sing Thy sweetness and Thy mercy to the skies!"

The swelling voices of the soldiers died away. Standing there between our horses, Elsin's young voice still echoing in my ears, I looked up at the placid face of the preacher, saw his quiet glance sweep the congregation, saw something glimmer in his eyes, and his lips tighten as he laid open his Bible, and, extending his right arm, turn to the south, menacing the distant city with his awful text:

"The horseman lifteth up the bright sword and the glittering spear!

"Woe to the bloody city! The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways! They shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. They shall make haste to the wall; the defense shall be prepared.

"For that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

"A day of the trumpet and alarm against fenced cities, and against high towers.

"For the horseman lifteth up the bright sword.... Woe to the bloody city!"

Out over the sunlit fields rang the words of Zephaniah and of Nahum. I saw the motionless ranks suddenly straighten; a thousand sunburned faces were upturned, a thousand pairs of eyes fastened themselves upon the steady eyes of the preacher.

For an hour he spoke to them, beginning with his Excellency's ever-to-be-remembered admonition: "To the character of a patriot it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian"; then continued upon that theme nearest the hearts of all, the assault upon New York, which everybody now deemed imminent, thrilling the congregation with hope, inspiring them with high endeavor. I remember that he deprecated revenge, although the score was heavy enough! I remember he preached dignity and composure in adversity, mercy in victory, and at the word his voice rang with prophecy, and the long ranks stirred as dry leaves stir in a sudden wind.

When at last he asked the blessing, and the ranks had knelt in the stubble, Elsin and I on our knees breathed the Amen, lifted our sun-dazzled eyes, and rose together to mount and ride back through the dust to the Blue Fox, where we were to confer concerning the long-delayed letter which decency required us to write to Sir Peter and Lady Coleville, and also take counsel in other matters touching the future, which seemed as obscure as ever.

Since that first visit from Colonel Hamilton I had received orders from headquarters to be ready to leave for the north at an hour's notice, and that suitable quarters would be ready at West Point for my wife.

There were a dozen officers lodged at the tavern, but my acquaintance with them advanced nothing beyond a civil greeting, for I cared not to join them in the coffee-room, where sooner or later some question concerning Elsin must annoy me. It was sufficient that they knew my name and nothing more either of my business or myself or Elsin. No doubt some quiet intimation from headquarters had spared us visits from quartermasters and provost marshals, for nobody interfered with us, and, when at the week's end I called for our reckoning—my habits of method ever uppermost in my mind—the landlord refused to listen, saying that our expenses were paid as long as we remained at the Blue Fox, and that if we lacked for anything I was to write to Colonel Hamilton.

This I had done, being sadly in need of fresh linen, and none to be had in the shops opposite. Also I enclosed a list of apparel urgently desired by Elsin, she having writ the copy, which was as long as I am tall; but I sent it, nevertheless, and we expected to hear from Colonel Hamilton before evening. For all we had was the clothing we wore on our backs, and though for myself I asked nothing but linen, I should have been glad of a change of outer garments, too.

We dined together at our little table by the window, decorously discussing damnation, predestination, and other matters fitting that sunny Sabbath noontide. And at moments, very, very far away, I heard the faint sound of church-bells, perhaps near North Castle, perhaps at Dobbs Ferry, so sweet, so peaceful, that it was hard to believe in eternal punishment and in a God of wrath; hard, too, to realize that war ruled half a continent, and that the very dogs of war, unchained, prowled all around us, fangs bared, watching the sad city at the river's ends.

When the servants had removed the cloth, and had fetched the materials for writing which I had ordered, we drew our chairs up side by side, and leaned upon the table to confer in regard to a situation which could not, of course, continue much longer.

"The first thing to consider," said I, "is the flag to take you north." And I looked curiously at Elsin.

"How can we decide that yet?" she asked, aggrieved. "I shall not require a flag if we—fall in love."

"We've had a week to try," I argued, smiling.

"Yes, but we have not tried; we have been too happy to try. Still, Carus, we promised one another to attempt it."

"Well, shall we attempt it at once?"

"Goodness, I'm too lazy, too contented, too happy, to worry over such sad matters as love!"

"Well, then, I had better write to Hamilton asking a flag——"

"I tell you not to hasten!" she retorted pettishly. "Moonlight changes one's ideas. My noonday sentiments never correspond to my evening state of mind."

"But," I persisted, "if we only cherish certain sentiments when the moon shines——"

"Starlight, too, silly! Besides, whenever I take time to think of your late peril, I straightway experience a tender sentiment for you. I tell you be not too hasty to ask a flag for me. Come, let us now consider and be wise. Once in Canada all is ended, for Sir Frederick Haldimand would sooner see me fall from Cape Eternity to the Saguenay than hear of me in love with you. Therefore I say, let us remember, consider, and await wisdom."

"But," I argued, "something must be settled before fresh orders from headquarters send me north and you to West Point."

"Oh, I shall go north, too," she observed calmly.

"Into battle, for example?" I asked, amused.

"I shall certainly not let you go into battle all alone! You are a mere child when it comes to taking precaution in danger."

"You mean you would actually gallop into battle to see I came to no mischief?" I demanded, laughing.

"Aye, clip my hair and dress the trooper, jack-boots and all, if you drive me to it!" she exclaimed, irritated. "You may as well know it, Carus; you shall not go floundering about alone, and that's flat! See what a mess of it you were like to make in New York!"

"Then," said I, still laughing, yet touched to the heart, "I shall instruct you in the duties and amenities of wedded life, and we may as well marry and be done with it. Once married, I, of course, shall do as I please in the matter of battles——"

"No, you shall not! You shall consider me! Do you think to go roaming about, nose in the air, and leaving me to sit quaking at home, crying my eyes out over your foolishness? Do I not already know the terror of it with you in New York there, and only ten minutes to save your neck from Cunningham? Thank you, I am already instructed in the amenities of wedded life—if they be like the pleasures of betrothal—though I cared not a whit what happened to Walter Butler, it is true, yet fell sick o' worry when you and Rosamund Barry went a-sailing—not that I feared you'd drown, either. O Carus, Carus, you distract me, you worry me; you tell me nothing, nothing, and I never knew what you were about there in New York when you were not with me!—doubtless a-courting every petticoat on Hanover Square, for all I know!"

"Well," said I, amazed and perplexed, "if you think, under the circumstances, there is any prospect of our falling in love after marriage, and so continuing, I will wed you—now——"

"No!" she interrupted angrily; "I shall not marry you, nor even betroth myself. It may be that I can see you leave me and bid you a fair journey, unmoved. I would to God I could! I feel that way now, and may continue, if I do not fall a-pondering, and live over certain hours with you that plague me at times into a very passion. But at moments like this I weary of you, so that all you say and do displeases, and I'm sick of the world and I know not what! O Carus, I am sick of life—and I dare not tell you why!"

She rested her head on her hands, staring down at her blurred image, reflected in the polished table-top.

"I have sometimes thought," she mused, "that the fault lay with you—somewhat."

"With me!"

"That you could force me to love you, if you dared. The rest would not matter, then. Misery me! I wish that we had never met! And yet I can not let you go, because you do not know how to care for yourself. If you will sail to France on the next packet, and remain with your mother, I'll say nothing. I'll go with a flag I care not where—only to know you are safe. Will you? O Carus, I would my life were done and all ended!"

She was silent for a while, leaning on the table, tracing with her finger the outline of her dull reflection in the shining surface. Presently she looked up gaily, a smile breaking in her eyes.

"All that I said is false. I desire to live, Carus. I am not unhappy. Pray you, begin your writing!"

I drew the paper to me, dipped a quill full of ink from the musty horn, rested my elbow, pen lifted, and began, dating the letter from the Blue Fox, and addressing it most respectfully to Sir Peter and Lady Coleville.

First I spoke of the horses we had taken, and would have promised payment by draft enclosed, but that Elsin, looking over my shoulder, stayed my pen.

"Did you not see me leave a pile of guineas?" she demanded. "That was to pay for our stable theft!"

"But not for the horse I took?"

"Certainly, for your horse, too."

"But you could not know that I was to ride saddle to the Coq d'Or!" I insisted.

"No, but I saddled two horses," she replied, delighted at my wonder, "two horses, monsieur, one of which stood ready in the stalls of the Coq d'Or! So when you came a-horseback, it was not necessary to use the spare mount I had led there at a gallop. Now do you see, Mr. Renault? All this I did for you, inspired by—foresight, which you lack!"

"I see that you are as wise and witty as you are beautiful!" I exclaimed warmly, and caught her fingers to kiss them, but she would have none of my caress, urging me to write further, and make suitable excuse for what had happened.

"It is not best to confess that we are still unwedded," I said, perplexed.

"No. They suppose we are; let be as it is," she answered. "And you shall not say that you were a spy, either, for that must only pain Sir Peter and his lady. They will never believe Walter Butler, for they think I fled with you because I could not endure him. And—perhaps I did," she added; and that strange smile colored her eyes to deepest azure.

"Then what remains to say?" I asked, regarding her thoughtfully.

"Say we are happy, Carus."

"Are you?"

"Truly I am, spite of all I complain of. Write it!"

I wrote that we were happy; and, as I traced the words, a curious thrill set my pen shaking.

"And that we love—them."

I wrote it slowly, half-minded to write "one another" instead of "them." Never had I been so near to love.

"And—and—let me see," she mused, finger on lip—"I think it not too impudent to ask their blessing. It may happen, you know, though Destiny fight against it; and if it does, why there we have their blessing all ready!"

I thought for a long while, then wrote, asking their blessing upon our wedded union.

"That word 'wedded,'" observed Elsin, "commits us. Scratch it out. I have changed my mind. Destiny may accept the challenge, and smite me where I sit."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean—nothing. Yet that word 'wedded' must not stand. It is an affront to—to Destiny!"

"I fear nothing from Destiny—with you, Elsin."

"If you write that word, then, I tell you we must betroth ourselves this instant!—and fight Fate to its knees. Dare you?"

"I am ready," said I coolly.

She looked at me sidewise in quick surprise, chin resting in her clasped hands. Then she turned, facing me, dropping her elbows on the polished table.

"You would wed me, Carus?" she said slowly.

"Yes."

"Because—because—you—love me?"

"Yes."

A curious tremor possessed my body; it was not as though I spoke; something within me had stirred and awakened and was twitching at my lips. I stared at her through eyes not my own—eyes that seemed to open on her for the first time. And, as I stared, her face whitened, her eyes closed, and she bowed her head to her hands.

"Keep pity for others," she said wearily; "keep your charity for some happier maid who may accept it, Carus. I would if I dared. I have no pride left. But I dare not. This is the end of all, I think. I shall never ask alms of Love again."

Then a strange thing happened, quick as a thrust; and my very soul leaped, quivering, smitten through and through with love of her. In the overwhelming shock I stretched out my hand like a man dazed, touching her fingers, and the thrill of it seemed to stun me.

Never, never could I endure to have her look at another as she looked at me when our hands touched, but I could not utter a word; and I saw her lip quiver, and the hopeless look deaden her eyes again.

I rose blindly to my feet, speechless, heart hammering at my throat, and made to speak, but could not.

She, too, had risen, gazing steadily at me; and still I could not utter a word, the blood surging through me and my senses swimming. Love! It blinded me with its clamor; it frightened me with its rushing tide; it dinned in my ears, it ran riot, sweeping every vein, choking speech, while it surged on, wave on wave mounting in flame.

She stood there, pallidly uncertain, looking on the conflagration love had wrought. Then something of its purport seemed to frighten her, and she shrank away step by step, passing the portal of her chamber, retreating, yet facing me still, fascinated eyes on mine.

I heard a voice unlike my own, saying: "I love you, Elsin. Why do you repulse me?"

And as she answered nothing, I went to her and took her hand. But the dismayed eyes only widened, the color faded from her parted lips.

"Can you not see," I whispered, "can you not see I love you?"

"You—love—me!"

I caught her in my arms. A bright blush stained neck and face, and she threw back her head, avoiding my lips.



"Elsin, I beg you—I beg you to love me! Can you not see what you have done to me?—how I am awakened?"

"Wait," she pleaded, resisting me, "wait, Carus. I—I am afraid——"

"Of love, sweetheart?"

"Wait," she panted—"give me time—till morning—then if I change not—if my heart stirs again so loudly when you hold me—thus—and—and crush me so close to you—so close—and promise to love me——"

"Elsin, Elsin, I love you!"

"Wait—wait, Carus!—my darling. Oh, you must not—kiss me—until you know—what I am——"

Her face burned against mine; her eyes closed. Through the throbbing silence her head drooped, lower, lower, yielding her mouth to mine; then, with a cry she turned in my arms, twisting to her knees, and dropped her head forward on the bed. And, as I bent beside her, she gasped: "No—no—wait, Carus! I know myself! I know myself! Take your lips from my hands—do not touch me! My brain has gone blind, I tell you! Leave me to think—if I can——"

"I will not leave you here in tears. Elsin, Elsin, look at me!"

"The tears help me—help us both," she sobbed. "I know what I know. Leave me—lest the very sky fall to crush us in our madness——"

I bent beside her, a new, fierce tenderness choking me; and at my touch she straightened up, tear-stained face lifted, and flung both arms around my neck.

"I love you, Carus! I love you!" she stammered. "I care for that, only—only for that! If it be for a week, if it be for a day, an hour, an instant, it is what I was made for, it is what I was fashioned for—to love you, Carus! There is nothing else—nothing else in all the world! Love me, take me, do with me what you will! I yield all you ask, all you beg, all you desire—all save wedlock!"

She swayed in my arms. A deadly pallor whitened her; then her knees trembled and she gave way, sinking to the floor, her head buried in the flowering curtains of the bed; and I to drop on my knees beside her, seeking to lift her face while the sobs shook her slender body, and she wept convulsively, head prostrate in her arms.

"I—I am wicked!" she wailed. "Oh, I have done that which has damned me forever, Carus!—forever and ever. I can not wed you—I love you so!—yet I can not wed you! What wild folly drove me to go with you? What devil has dragged me here to tempt you—whom I love so truly? Oh, God pity us both—God pity us!"

"Elsin," I said hoarsely, "you are mad to say it! Is there anything on earth to bar us from wedlock?"

"Yes, Carus, yes!" she cried. "It is—it is too late!"

"Too late!" I repeated, stunned.

"Aye—for I am a wedded wife! Now you know! Oh, this is the end of all!"

A while she lay there sobbing her heart out, I upright on my knees beside her, staring at blank space, which reeled and reeled, so that the room swam all awry, and I strove to steady it with fixed gaze, lest the whole world come crashing upon us.

At last she spoke, lifting her tear-marred face from the floor to the bed, forehead resting heavily in her hands:

"I ask your pardon—for the sin I have committed. Hear me out—that is my penance; spurn me—that is my punishment!"

She pressed her wet eyes, shuddering. "Are you listening, Carus? The night before I sailed from Canada—he sought me——"

"Who?" My lips found the question, but no sound came.

"Walter Butler! O God! that I have done this thing!"

In the dreadful silence I heard her choking back the cry that strangled her. And after a while she found her voice again: "I was a child—a vain, silly thing of moods and romance, ignorant of men, innocent of the world, flattered by the mystery with which he cloaked his passion, awed, fascinated by this first melancholy lover who had wrung from me through pity, through vanity, through a vague fear of him, perhaps, a promise of secret betrothal."

She lifted her head and set her chin on one clinched hand, yet never looked at me:

"Sir Frederick was abed; I all alone in the great arms-gallery, nose to the diamond window-panes, and looking out at the moon—and waiting for him. Suddenly I saw him there below.... Heaven is witness I meant no harm nor dreamed of any. He was not alone. My heart and my affections were stirred to warmth—I sailing from Canada and friends next day at dawn—and I went down to the terrace and out among the trees where he stood, his companion moving off among the trees. I had come only to bid him the farewell I had promised, Carus—I never dreamed of what he meant to do."

She cleared her hair from her brow.

"I—I swear to you, Carus, that never has Walter Butler so much as laid the weight of his little finger on my person! Yet he swayed me there—using that spell of melancholy, clothed in romance—and—I know not how it was—or how I listened, or how consented—it is scarce more than a dreadful dream—the trees in the moonlight, his voice so gentle, so pitiful, trembling, beseeching—and he had brought a clergyman"—again her hands covered her eyes—"and, ere I was aware of it, frightened, stunned in the storm of his passion, he had his way with me. The clergyman stood between us, saying words that bound me. I heard them, I was mute, I shrank from the ring, yet suffered it—for even as he ringed me he touched me not with his hand. Oh, if he had, I think the spell had broken!"

Again her tears welled up, falling silently; and presently the strength returned to her voice, and she went on:

"From the first moment that I saw you, Carus, I understood what love might be. From the very first I closed my ears to the quick cry of caution. I saw you meet coquetry unmoved, I knew the poison of my first passion was in me, stealing through every vein; and every moment with you was the more hopeless for me. I played a hundred roles—you smiled indifference on all. A mad desire to please you grew with your amused impatience of me. Curiosity turned to jealousy. I longed for your affection as I never longed for anything on earth—or heaven. I had never had a lover to love before. O Carus, I had never loved, and love crazed me! Day after day I wondered if I had been fashioned to inspire love in such a man as you. I was bewildered by my passion and your coldness; yet had I not been utterly mad I must have known the awful end of such a flame once kindled. But could I inspire love? Could you love me? That was all in the world I cared about—thinking nothing of the end, knowing all hope was dead for me, and nothing in life unless you loved me. O Carus, if I have inspired one brief moment of tenderness in you, deal mercifully with the sin! Guilty as I am, false as I am, I can not add a lie and say that I am sorry that you love me, that for one blessed moment you said you loved me. Now it is ended. I can not be your wife. I am too mean, too poor a thing for hate. Deal with me gently, Carus, lest your wrath strike me dead here at the altar of outraged Love!"

I rose to my feet, feeling blindly for support, and rested against the great carved columns of the bed. A cold rage froze me, searching every vein with icy numbness that left me like a senseless thing. That passed; I roused, breathing quietly and deeply, and looked about, furtive, lest the familiar world around had changed to ashes, too.

Presently my dull senses were aware of what was at my feet, kneeling there, face buried in clasped hands, too soft, too small, too frail to hold a man's whole destiny. And, as I bent to kiss them, I scarce dared clasp them, scarce dared lift her to my arms, scarce dared meet the frightened wonder in her eyes, and the full sweetness of them, and the love breaking through their azure, as I think day must dawn in paradise!

"Now, in the name of God," I breathed, "we two, always forever one, through life, through death, here upon earth, and afterward! I wed you now with heart and soul, and ring your body with my arms! I stand your champion, I kneel your lover, Elsin, till that day breaks on a red reckoning with him who did this sin! Then I shall wed you. Will you take me?"

She placed her hands on my shoulders, gazing at me from her very soul.

"You need not wed me—so that you love me, Carus."

Arms enlacing one another, we walked the floor in silence, slowly passing from her chamber into mine, and back again, heads erect, challenging that Destiny whose shadowy visage we could now gaze on unafraid.

The dusk of day was dissolving to a silvery night, through which the white-throat's song floated in distant, long-drawn sweetness. The little stream's whisper grew louder, too; and I heard the trees stirring in slumber, and the breeze in the river-reeds.

There, at the open window, standing, she lifted her sweet face, looking into mine.

"What will you do with me? I am yours."

"Wait for you."

"You need not wait, if it be your will."

"It is not my will that we ever part. Nor shall we, wedded or not. Yet we must wait our wedded happiness."

"You need not, Carus."

"I know it and I wait."

"So then—so then you hold me innocent—you raise me back to the high place I fell from, blinded by love——"

"You never fell from your high place, Elsin."

"But my unpardonable sin——"

"What sin? The evil lies with him."

"Yet, wedded, I sought you—I loved you—I love you now—I offer my amends to you—myself to do with as it pleases you."

"Sweetheart, you could not stir from the high place where you reign enthroned though I and Satan leagued to pull you down. I, not you, owe the amends; I, not you, await your pleasure. Yours to command, mine to obey. Now, tell me, love, where my honor lies?"

"Linked with mine, Carus."

"And yours?"

"In the high places, where I sit unsullied, waiting for you."

For a long while we stood there together at the window. Candle-light faded from the dim casements of the shops; the patrol passed, muskets glittering in the starlight, and the tavern lamp went out.

And when the last tap-room loiterer had slunk away to camp or cabin, and when the echo of the patrol's tread had died out in the fragrant darkness, came one to the door below, hammering the knocker; and I saw his spurs and scabbard shining in the luster of the stars, and in my heart a still voice repeated, "This is Destiny came a-knocking, armed with Fate. This is the place and the hour!"

And it was so, for presently the landlord came to the door, calling me softly. "I come," I answered, and turned to Elsin. "Shall I to-morrow find you the same sweet maid I have loved from the first all blindly?—the same dear tyrant, plaguing me, coaxing me, blaming, praising, unreasoning, inconstant—the same brave, impulsive, loyal friend that one day, God willing, shall become my wife?"

"Yes, Carus."

We kissed one another; hands tightened, lingered, and fell apart. And so I went away down the dim stairs, strangely aware that Destiny was waiting there for me. And it was, shaped like Colonel Hamilton, who rose to meet me, offering the hand of Fate; and I took it and held it, looking him straight between the eyes.

"I know why you have come," I said, smiling. "I am to journey north and move heaven and earth to thwart this hell's menace flung at us by Walter Butler. Ah, sir, I was certain of it—I knew it, Colonel Hamilton. You make me very, very happy. Pray you, inform his Excellency of my deep gratitude. He has chosen fire to fight fire, I think. Every thought, every nerve in me is directed to the ruin of this man. Waking, sleeping, in sickness, in health, in adversity, in prosperity, soul and body and mind are bent on his undoing. I shall speak to the Oneidas with clan authority; I shall speak to the Iroquois at Thendara; I shall listen to the long roll of the dead; I shall read the record of ages from the sacred belts. The eyes of the forest shall see for me; the ears of the wilderness listen for me; every tree shall whisper for me, every leaf spy for me; and the voices of a thousand streams shall guide me, and the eight winds shall counsel me, and the stars stretch out their beams for me, pointing the way, so that this man shall die and his wickedness be ended forever."

I held out my hand and took the written order in silence, reading it at a glance.

"It shall be done, Colonel Hamilton. When am I to leave?"

"Now. The schooner starts when you set foot aboard, Mr. Renault."

And, after a moment: "Madam goes with you?"

"To West Point."

"I trust that she finds some few comforts aboard the Wind-Flower. I could not fill all the list, Mr. Renault; but a needle will do much, and the French fabrics are pretty——"

He looked at me, smiling: "For you, sir, there are shirts and stockings and a forest dress of deerskin."

"A rifle, too?"

"The best to be had, and approved by Jack Mount. Murphy himself has sighted it. Have I done well?"

"Yes," said I grimly, and, opening the door of the kitchen, bade the landlord have our horses saddled and brought around, and asked him to send a servant to warn Elsin that we must leave within the quarter.

Presently I heard our horses at the block, stamping the sod, and a moment later Elsin came, eager, radiant, sweetly receiving Colonel Hamilton when I named him. He saluted her hand profoundly; then, as it still rested lightly on his fingers, he turned to me, almost bluntly: "Never, Mr. Renault, can we officers forgive you for denying us this privilege. I have heard, sir, that Mrs. Renault was beautiful and amiable; I never dreamed that such loveliness could be within our lines. One day you shall make amends for this selfishness to every lady and every officer on the Hudson."

At the word which named her as my wife her face crimsoned, but in her eyes the heavenly sweetness dawned like a star, dazzling me.

"Colonel Hamilton," she said, "in quieter days—when this storm passes—we hope to welcome you and those who care to wait upon a wife whose life is but a quiet study for her husband's happiness. Those whom he cares for I care for. We shall be glad to receive those he counts as friends."

"May I be one, Renault?" he said impulsively, offering both hands.

"Yes," I said, returning his clasp.

We stood silent a moment, Elsin's gloved fingers resting on my sleeve; then we moved to the door, and I lifted Elsin to the saddle and mounted, Hamilton walking at my stirrup, and directing me in a low voice how I must follow the road to the river, how find the wharf, what word to give to the man I should find there waiting. And he cautioned me to breathe no word of my errand; but when I asked him where my reports to his Excellency were to be sent, he drew a sealed paper from his coat and handed it to me, saying: "Open that on the first day of September, and on your honor, not one hour before. Then you shall hear of things undreamed of, and understand all that I may not tell you now. Be cautious, be wise and deadly. We know you; our four years' trust in you has proved your devotion. But his Excellency warns you against rashness, for it was rashness that made you useless in New York. And I now say to you most solemnly that I regard you as too unselfish, too good a soldier, too honorable a gentleman to let aught of a personal nature come between you and duty. And your duty is to hold the Iroquois, warn the Oneidas, and so conduct that Butler and his demons make no movement till you and Colonel Willett hold the checkmate in your proper hands. Am I clear, Mr. Renault?"

"Perfectly," I said.

He stepped aside, raising his cocked-hat; we passed him at a canter with precise salute, then spurred forward into the star-spangled night.



CHAPTER IX

INTO THE NORTH

Head winds, which began with a fresh breeze off King's Ferry and culminated in a three days' hurricane, knocked us about the Tappan Zee, driving us from point to cove; and for forty-eight hours I saw our gunboats, under bare poles, tossing on the gray fury of the Hudson, and a sloop of war, sprit on the rocks, buried under the sprouting spray below Dobbs Ferry. Safer had we been in the open ocean off the Narrows, where the great winds drive bellowing from the Indies to the Pole; but these yelling gales that burst from the Highlands struck us like the successive discharges of cannon, and the Wind-Flower staggered and heeled, reeling through the Tappan Zee as a great water-fowl, crippled and stung to terror, drives blindly into the spindrift, while shot on shot strikes, yet ends not the frantic struggle.

Once we were beaten back so far that, in the dark whirlwind of dawn, I saw a fire-ball go whirring aloft and spatter the eastern horizon. Then, through the shrilling of the tempest, a gun roared to starboard, and at the flash a gun to port boomed, shaking our decks. We had beaten back within range of the British lines, and the batteries on Cock Hill opened on us, and a guard-ship to the west had joined in. Southeast a red glare leaped, and died out as Fort Tryon fired a mortar, while the Wind-Flower, bulwarks awash, heeled and heeled, staggering to the shelter of Tetard's Hill. Southward we saw the beacons ablaze, marking the chevaux de frise below Fort Lee, and on the Jersey shore the patrol's torches flashing along the fort road. But we had set a bit o' rag under Tetard's Hill, and slowly we crept north again past Yonkers, struggling desperately at Phillips, but making Boar's Hill and Dobbs Ferry by mid-afternoon. And that night the wind shifted so suddenly that from Tappan to Tarrytown was but a jack-snipe's twist, and we lay snug in Haverstraw Bay, under the lee of the Heights of North Castle, scarce an hour's canoe-paddle from the wharf where we had embarked four days before.

And now delay followed delay, a gunboat holding us twenty-four hours at Dobbs Ferry—why, I never knew—and, at the Chain, two days' delay were required before they let us pass.

When at last we signaled West Point, at the close of one long, calm August afternoon, through the flaming mountain sunset, the black fortress beckoned us to anchor, nor had we any choice but to obey the silent summons from those grim heights, looming like a thunder-cloud against the cinders of the dying sun.

That night a barge put out, and an officer boarded us, subjecting us to a most rigid scrutiny. Since the great treason a savage suspicion had succeeded routine vigilance; the very guns among the rocks seemed alive, alert, listening, black jaws parted to launch a thunderous warning. A guard was placed on deck; we were not allowed to send a boat ashore; not even permitted to communicate with the fishing-smack and rowboats that hovered around us, curious as gulls around a floating plank.

And all this time—from the very instant of departure, through three days and a night of screaming winds and cataracts of water, through the delays where we rode at anchor below the Chain and Dobbs Ferry, under a vertical sun that started the pitch in every seam—Elsin Grey, radiant, transfigured, drenched to the skin, faced storm and calm in an ecstasy of reckless happiness.

Wild winds from the north, shouting among the mountains, winds of the forests, that tore the cries of exultation from our lips and scattered sound into space, winds of my own northland that poured through our veins, cleansing us of sordid care and sad regret and doubt, these were the sorcerers that changed us back to children while the dull roaring of their incantations filled the world. We two alone on earth, and the vast, veiled world spread round, outstretching to the limits of eternity, all ours to conquer, ours for our pleasure, ours to reign in till the moon cracked and the stars faded, and the sun went down forever and a day, and all was chaos save for the blazing trail of blessed souls, soaring to glory through the majesty of endless night.

In the sunlit calms, riding at our moorings, much we discussed eternity and creation. Doctrines once terrible seemed now harmless and without menace, dogmas dissolved into thinnest air, blown to the nothingness from whence they came; for, strangely, all teachings and creeds and laws of faith narrowed to the oldest of precepts; and, ponder and question as we might, citing prophet and saint and holy men inspired, all came to the same at last, expressed in that cardinal precept so safe in its simplicity—the one law embodied in one word governing heaven and commanding earth.

"Aye," said she, "but how interpret it? For a misstep means certain damnation, Carus. Once when I spelled out 'Love' for you, I stumbled and should have fallen had you not held me up."

"You held me up, sweetheart! I was closer to the brink than you."

She looked thoughtfully at the fortress; the shore was so near that, through the calm darkness, we could hear the sentinels calling from post to post and the ripple of the Hudson at the base of the rocks.

But these conferences concerning the philosophy of ethics overweighted two hearts as young as ours; and while our new love and the happiness of it at times reacted in solemn argument and the naive searching of our souls, mostly a reckless delight in one another and in our freedom dominated; and we lived for the moment only, chary and shy of stirring slumbering embers that must one day die out or flash to a flame as fierce as that blaze that bars the gates of heaven from lost souls.

Knowing the need of haste, and having in my pocket instructions which I believed overweighed even the voiceless orders of the West Point cannon, I argued with the officer of the guard on deck, day after day, to let us go; but it was only after fifteen days' detention there at anchor that I found out that it was an order from his Excellency himself which held us there.

Then, one morning in early September, boats from the fortress put off loaded with provisions for the Wind-Flower; the guard disembarked in their barge, and an officer, in a cockle-shell, shouted: "Good luck to you! The Mouse-trap's sprung, and the Mouse is squeaking!" And with that he tossed a letter on deck. It was addressed to me:

"HEADQUARTERS, PHILADELPHIA, "September 2d, '81.

"CARUS RENALT, ESQ'RE:

"Sir—On receipt of this order you will immediately proceed from your anchorage off West Point to Albany, disembark, and travel by way of Schenectady to Johnstown, and from there to Butlersbury, where you will establish yourself in the manor-house, making it your headquarters, unless force of circumstances prevent. Fifty Tryon County Rangers, to be employed as one scout or several, are placed under your authority; the militia, and such companies of Continental troops as are now or may later be apportioned to Tryon County, will continue under the orders of Colonel Marinus Willett. Your duties you are already familiar with; your policy must emanate from your own nature and deliberate judgment concerning the situation as it is or as it threatens. Close and cordial cooperation with Colonel Willett, and with the various civil and military authorities in Tryon County, should eventually accomplish the object of your mission, which is, first, to prevent surprise from all invasion; second, to prevent a massacre of the Oneida Nation.

"Authority is herewith given you to open and read the sealed orders delivered to you by myself on your departure."

The letter was signed by Colonel Hamilton. I stared at his signature, then at the name of the city from whence the letter was dated—Philadelphia. What in Heaven's name were "Headquarters" doing in Philadelphia? Was his Excellency there? Was the army there? Impossible—the army which for months had been preparing to storm New York?—impossible!

I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of my coat, drew out the sealed orders, tore them open, and read:

"Until further notice such reports as you are required to render to his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, should be sent to headquarters, near Yorktown, Virginia——"

Virginia! The army that I had seen at Dobbs Ferry, at White Plains, at North Castle, was that army on its way to Virginia? What! hurl an entire army a thousand miles southward? And had Sir Henry Clinton permitted it?

In a sort of stupor I read and reread the astonishing words: "Virginia? There was a British army in Virginia. Yorktown? Yes, that British army was at Yorktown, practically at bay, with a youth of twenty-three—my own age—harassing it—the young General Lafayette! Greene, too, was there, his chivalry cutting up the light troops of General Lord Cornwallis——"

"By Heaven!" I cried, springing to my feet, "his Excellency never meant to storm New York! The French fleet has sailed for the Chesapeake! Lafayette is there, Greene is there, Morgan, Sumter, Lee, Pickens, all are there! His Excellency has gone to catch Cornwallis in a mouse-trap, and Sir Henry is duped!"

Mad with excitement and delight, I looked up at the great fortress on the river, and knew that it was safe in its magnificent isolation—safe with its guns and ramparts and its four thousand men—knew that the key to the Hudson was ours, and would remain ours, although the army, like a gigantic dragon, had lifted its great wings and soared southward, so silently that none, not even the British spies, had dreamed its destination was other than the city of New York.

And, as I looked, the signals on the fortress changed; the guard-boats hailed us, the harmless river-craft gave us right of way, and we spread our white sails once more, drawing slowly northward, under the rocky pulpits of the heights, past shore forests yet unbroken, edged with acres of reeds and marshes, from which the water-fowl arose in clouds; past pine-crowned capes and mountains, whose bases were bathed in the great river; past lonely little islands, on, on, into the purple mystery of the silent north.

Now there remained no high sky-bastion to halt us with voiceless signal and dumb cannon, nothing beyond but Albany; and, beyond Albany, the frontier; and beyond the frontier a hellish war of murder and the torch, a ceaseless conflict of dreadful reprisals, sterile triumphs, terrible vengeance, a saturnalia of private feuds, which spared neither the infirm nor the infant—nay, the very watch-dog at the door received no quarter in the holocaust.

Elsin had begged and begged that she should not be left there at West Point, saying that Albany was safer, though I doubted the question of safety weighed in her choice; but she pleaded so reasonably, so sweetly, arms around my neck, and her lips whispering so that my cheek felt their soft flutter, that I consented. There I was foolish, for no sooner were we in sight of the Albany hills than arms and lips were persuading again, guilelessly explaining how simple it would be for her to live at Johnstown, while I, at Butlersbury, busied myself with my own affairs.

And so we stood in earnest conference, while nearer and nearer loomed the hills, with the Dutch town atop, brick houses, tiled roofs, steep streets, becoming plainer and plainer to the eye.

There seemed to be an unusual amount of shipping at the Albany wharves as we glided in, and a great number of wagons and people scurrying about. In fact, I had never before observed such a bustle in Albany streets, but thought nothing of it at the moment, for I had not seen the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and our sea-chests which the men bore shoreward and up the steep hill to the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued, she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common threshold to continue a discussion in which tears, lips, and arms soon supplanted logic and reason.

Had she remained at West Point, although that fortress could not have been taken except by a regular siege, still she might have been subjected to all the horrors of blockade and bombardment, for since his Excellency had abandoned the Hudson with his army and was already half-way to Virginia, nothing now stood between West Point and the heavy British garrison of New York.

It was my knowledge of that more than her pleading that reconciled me to leave her in Albany.

But I was soon to learn that she was by no means secure in the choice I had made for her; for presently she retired to her own chamber and lay down on her bed to rest for an hour or so before supper, in order to recover from the fatigue and the constant motion of the long voyage; and I went out into the town to inquire where Colonel Willett might be found.

The sluggish Dutch burghers of Albany appeared to be active enough that lovely September afternoon; hurrying hither and thither through the streets, and not one among them sufficiently civil to stop and give me an answer to my question concerning Colonel Willett. At first I could make nothing of this amazing bustle and hurry; wagons, loaded with household furniture, clattered through the streets or toiled up and down the hills, discharging bedding, pots and pans, chairs, tables, the family clock, and Heaven knows what, on to the wharves, where a great many sloops and other craft were moored, the Wind-Flower among them.

In the streets, too, wagons were standing before fine residences and shops; servants and black slaves piled them high with all manner of goods. I even saw a green parrot in a cage, perched atop of a pile of corded bedding, and the bird cocked his head and called out continually: "Gad-a-mercy! Gad-a-mercy! Gad-a-mercy!"

An invalid soldier of Colonel Livingston's regiment, his right arm bandaged in splints, was standing across the street, apparently vastly amused by the bird in the wagon; and I crossed over to him and asked what all this exodus might signify.

"Why, the town is in a monstrous fright, friend," he drawled, cradling his shattered arm and puffing away at his cob-pipe. "Since April, when them red-devils of Brant's struck Cherry Valley for the second time, and cleaned up some score and odd women and children, these here thrifty Dutchmen in Albany have been ready to pack up and pull foot at the first breath o' foul news."

"But," said I, "what news has alarmed them now?"

"Hey? Scairt 'em? Waal, rumors is thicker than spotted flies in the sugar-bush. Some say the enemy are a-scalping at Torlock, some say Little Falls. We heard last week that Schenectady was threatened. It may be true, for there's a pest o' Tories loose in the outlying county, and them there bloody Iroquois skulk around the farms and shoot little children in their own dooryards."

"Do you believe there is any danger in Albany?" I asked incredulously.

He shrugged his shoulders, nursing his bandaged arm.

Then, troubled and apprehensive, I asked him where I might find Colonel Willett, and he said that a scout was now out toward Johnstown, and that Willett led it. This was all he knew, all the information I could get from him. Returning along the dusty, steep streets to the Half-Moon Tavern, I called in the stolid Dutch landlord, requesting information; but he knew nothing at all except that a number of timid people were packing up because an express had come in the night before with news that a body of Tories and Indians had attacked Cobleskill, taken a Mr. Warner, and murdered the entire family of a Captain Dietz—father, mother, wife, four little children, and a Scotch servant-girl, Jessie Dean.

Observing the horror with which I received the news he shook his head, pulled at his long pipe for a few moments in thoughtful silence, and said:

"What shall we do, sir? They kill us everywhere. Better die at home than in the bush. I think a man's as safe here in Albany as in any place, unless he quits all and leaves affairs to go to ruin to skulk in one o' the valley forts. But they've even burned Stanwix now, and the blockhouses are poor defense against Iroquois fire-arrows. If I had a wife I'd take her to Johnstown Fort; it's built of stone, they say. Besides, Marinus Willett is there. I wish to God he were here!"

We lingered in the empty tap-room for a while, talking in low voices of the peril; and I was certainly amazed, so utterly unprepared was I to find such a town as Albany in danger from the roaming scalping parties infesting the frontier.

Still, had my own headquarters been in Albany, I should have considered it the proper place for Elsin; but under these ominous, unlooked-for conditions I dared not leave her here, even domiciled with some family of my acquaintance, as I had intended. Indeed, I learned that the young patroon himself had gone to Heldeberg to arm his tenantry, and I knew that when Stephen Van Rensselaer took alarm it was not at the idle whistling of a kill-deer plover.

As far as I could see there was now nothing for Elsin but to go forward with me—strange irony of fate!—to Johnstown, perhaps to Butlersbury, the late residence of that mortal enemy of mine, who had brought upon her this dreadful trouble. How great a trouble it might prove to be I dared not yet consider, for the faint hope was ever in me that this unholy marriage might not stand the search of Tryon County's parish records—that the poor creature he had cast off might not have been his mistress after all, but his wife. Yes, I dared hope that he had lied, remembering what Mount and the Weasel told me. At any rate, I had long since determined to search what parish records might remain undestroyed in a land where destruction had reigned for four terrible years. That, and the chance that I might slay him if he appeared as he had threatened, were the two fixed ideas that persisted. There was little certainty, however, in either case, for, as I say, the records, if extant, might only confirm his pledged word, and, on the other hand, I was engaged by all laws of honor not to permit a private enmity to swerve me from my public duty. Therefore, I could neither abandon all else to hunt him down if he appeared as he promised to appear, nor take time in record-searching, unless the documents were close at hand.

Perplexed, more than anxious, I went up-stairs and entered my chamber. The door between our rooms still swung open, and, as I stepped forward to close it, I saw Elsin there, asleep on her bed, fingers doubled up in her rosy palms. So young, so pitifully alone she seemed, lying there sleep-flushed, face upturned, that my eyes dimmed as I gazed. Bitter doubts assailed me. I knew that I should have asked a flag and sent her north to Sir Frederick Haldimand—even though it meant a final separation for us—rather than risk the chances of my living through the armed encounter, the intrigues, the violence which were so surely approaching. I could do so still; it was not too late. Colonel Willett would give me a flag!

Miserable, undecided, overwhelmed with self-reproach, I stood there looking upon the unconscious sleeper. Sunlight faded from the patterned wall; that violet tint, which lingers with us in the north after the sun has set, deepened to a sadder color, then slowly thickened to obscurity; and from the window I saw the new moon hanging through tangled branches, dull as a silver-poplar leaf in November.

What if I die here on the frontier? The question persisted, repeating itself again and again. And my thoughts ran on in somber disorder: If I die—then we shall never know wedded happiness—never know the sweetest of intimacies. Our lives, uncompleted, what meaning is there in such lives? As for me, were my life to end all incomplete, why was I born? To live on, year after year, escaping the perils all are heir to, and then, when for the first instant life's true meaning is disclosed, to die, sterile, blighting, desolating another life, too? And must we put away offered happiness to wait on custom at our peril?—to sit cowed before convention, juggling with death and passion?

Darkness around me, darkness in my soul, I stood staring at her where she lay, arms bent back and small hands doubled up; and an overwhelming rush of tenderness and apprehension drew me forward to bend above her, hovering there, awed by the beauty of her—the pure lids, the lashes resting on the cheeks, the red mouth so exquisitely tranquil, curled like a scarlet petal of a flower fallen on snow.

Her love and mine! What cared we for laws that barred it?—what mattered any law that dared attempt to link her destiny with that man who might, perhaps, wear a title as her husband—and might not. Who joined them? No God that I feared or worshiped. Then, why should I not sunder a pact inspired by hell itself; and if the law of the land made by men of the land permitted us no sanctuary in wedlock, then why did we not seek that shelter in a happiness the law forbids, inspired by a passion no law could forbid?

I had but to reach forward, to bend and touch her, and where was Death's triumph if I fell at last? What vague and terrible justice could rob us of these hours? Never, never had I loved her as I did then. She breathed so quietly, lying there, that I could not see her body stir; her stillness awed me, fascinated me; so still, so inert, so marvelously motionless, that her very soul seemed asleep within her. Should I awake her, this child whose calm, closed lids, whose soft lashes and tinted skin, whose young soul and body were in my keeping here under a strange roof, in a strange land?

Slowly, very slowly, a fear grew in me that took the shape of horror. My reasoning was the reasoning of Walter Butler!—my argument his damning creed! Dazed, shaken, I sank to my knees, overwhelmed by my own perfidy; and she stirred in her slumber and stretched out one little hand. All the chivalry, all the manhood in me responded to that appeal in a passion of loyalty which swept my somber heart clean of selfishness.

And there in the darkness I learned the lesson that she believed I had taught to her—a lesson so easily forgotten when the heart's loud clamor drowns all else, and every pulse throbs reckless response. And it was cold reasoning and chill logic for cooling hot young blood—but it was neither reason nor logic which prevailed, I think, but something—I know not what—something inborn that conquered spite of myself, and a guilty and rebellious heart that, after all, had only asked for love, at any price—only love, but all of it, its sweetness unbridled, its mystery unfathomed—lest the body die, and the soul, unsatisfied, wing upward to eternal ignorance.

As I crouched there beside her, in the darkness below the tall hall-clock fell a-striking; and she moved, sighed, and sat up—languid-eyed and pink from slumber.

"Carus," she murmured, "how long have I slept? How long have you been here, my darling? Heigho! Why did you wake me? I was in paradise with you but now. Where are you? I am minded to drowse, and go find you in paradise again."

She pushed her hair aside and turned, resting her chin on one hand, regarding me with sweet, sleepy, humorous eyes that glimmered like amethysts in the moonlight.

"Were ever two lovers so happy?" she asked. "Is there anything on earth that we lack?—possessing each other so completely. Tell me, Carus."

"Nothing," I said.

"Nothing," she echoed, leaning toward me and resting in my arms for a moment, then laid her hands on my shoulders, and, raising herself to a sitting posture, fell a-laughing to herself.

"While you were gone this afternoon," she said, "and I was lying here, eyes wide open, seeming to feel the bed sway like the ship, I fell to counting the ticking of the stair-clock below, and thinking how each second was recording the eternity of my love for you. And as I lay a-listening and thinking, came one by the window singing 'John O'Bail', and I heard voices in the tap-room and the clatter of pewter flagons. On a settle outside the tap-room window, full in the sun, sat the songster and his companions, drinking new ale and singing 'John O'Bail'—a song I never chanced to hear before, and I shall not soon forget it for lack of schooling"—and she sang softly, sitting there, clasping her knees, and swaying with the quaint rhythm:

"'Where do you wend your way, John O'Bail, Where do you wend your way?' 'I follow the spotted trail Till a maiden bids me stay,' 'Beware of the trail, John O'Bail, Beware of the trail, I say!'

"Thus it runs, Carus, the legend of this John O'Bail, how he sought the wilderness, shunning his kind, and traveled and trapped and slew the deer, until one day at sunrise a maid of the People of the Morning hailed him, bidding him stay:

"'Turn to the fire of dawn, John O'Bail, Turn to the fire of dawn; The doe that waits in the vale Was a fawn in the year that's gone!' And John O'Bail he heeds the hail And follows her on and on.

"Oh, Carus, they sang it and sang it, hammering their pewters together, and roaring the chorus, and that last dreadful verse:

"'Where is the soul of you, John O'Bail, Where is the soul you slew? There's Painted Death on the trail, And the moccasins point to you. Shame on the name of John O'Bail——'"

She hesitated, peering through the shadows at me: "Who was John O'Bail, Carus? What is the Painted Death, and who are the People of the Morning?"

"John O'Bail was a wandering fellow who went a-gipsying into the Delaware country. The Delawares call themselves 'People of the Morning.' This John O'Bail had a son by an Indian girl—and that's what they made the ballad about, because this son is that mongrel demon, Cornplanter, and he's struck the frontier like a catamount gone raving mad. He is the 'Painted Death.'"

"Oh," she said thoughtfully, "so that is why they curse the name of John O'Bail."

After a moment she went on again: "Well, you'll never guess who it was singing away down there! I crept to my windows and peeped out, and there, Carus, were those two queer forest-running fellows who stopped us on the hill that morning——"

"Jack Mount!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, dear, and the other—the little wrinkled fellow, who had such strangely fine manners for a Coureur-de-Bois——"

"The Weasel!"

"Yes, Carus, but very drunk, and boisterous, and cutting most amazing capers. They went off, finally, arm in arm, shuffling, reeling, and anon breaking into a solemn sort of dance; and everybody gave them wide berth on the street, and people paused to look after them, marking them with sour visages and wagging heads—" She stopped short, finger on lips, listening.

Far up the street I heard laughter, then a plaintive, sustained howling, then more laughter, drawing nearer and nearer.

Elsin nodded in silence. I sprang up and descended the stairs. The tap-room was lighted with candles, and the sober burghers who sat within, savoring the early ale, scarce noted my entrance, so intent were they listening to the approaching tumult.

The peculiar howling had recommenced. Stepping to the open door I looked out, and beheld a half-dozen forest-runners, in all the glory of deep-fringed buckskin and bright wampum, slowly hopping round and round in a circle, the center of which was occupied by an angry town watchman, lanthorn lighted, pike in hand. As they hopped, lifting their moccasined feet as majestically as turkeys walking in a muddy road, fetching a yelp at every step, I perceived in their grotesque evolutions a parody upon a Wyandotte scalp-dance, the while they yapped and yowled, chanting:

"Ha-wa-sa-say Ha! Ha! Ha-wa-sa-say!"

"Dance, watchman, dance!" shouted one of the rangers, whom I knew to be Jack Mount, poking the enraged officer in the short ribs with the muzzle of his rifle; and the watchman, with a snarl, picked up his feet and began to tread a reluctant measure, calling out that he did not desire to dance, and that they were great villains and rogues and should pay for it yet.

I saw some shopkeepers putting up the shutters before their lighted windows, while the townspeople stood about in groups, agape, to see such doings in the public streets.

"Silence!" shouted Mount, raising his hand. "People of Albany, we have shown you the famous Wyandotte dance; we will now exhibit a dancing bear! Houp! Houp! Weasel, take thy tin cup and collect shillings! Ow! Ow!" And he dropped his great paws so that they dangled at the wrist, laid his head on one side, and began sidling around in a circle with the grave, measured tread of a bear, while the Weasel, drinking-cup in hand, industriously trotted in and out among the groups of scandalized burghers, thrusting the tin receptacle at them, and talking all the while: "Something for the bear, gentlemen—a trifle, if you please. Everybody is permitted to contribute—you, sir, with your bones so nicely wadded over with fat—a shilling from you. What? How dare you refuse? Stop him, Tim!"

A huge ranger strode after the amazed burgher, blocking his way; the thrifty had taken alarm, but the rangers herded them back with persuasive playfulness, while the little Weasel made the rounds, talking cheerfully all the time, and Mount, great fists dangling, minced round and round, with a huge simper on his countenance, as though shyly aware of his own grace.

"Tim Murphy should go into the shops," he called out. "There are a dozen fat Dutchmen a-peeking through the shutters at me, and I dance before no man for less than a shilling. Houp! Houp! How much is in thy cup, Cade? Lord, what a thirst is mine! Yet I dance—villains, do you mark me? Oh, Cade, yonder pretty maid who laughs and shows her teeth is welcome to the show and naught to pay—unless she likes. Tim, I can dance no more! Elerson, bring the watchman!"

The Weasel trotted up, rattling the coins so unwillingly contributed by the economical; the runner addressed as Elerson tucked his arm affectionately into the arm of the distracted watchman and strolled up, followed by Tim Murphy, the most redoubtably notorious shot in North America.

Laughing, disputing, shouting, they came surging toward the Half-Moon Tavern, dragging the watchman, on whom they lavished many endearments. The crowd parted with alacrity as Mount, thumbs in his armpits, silver-moleskin cap pushed back on his clustering curls, swaggered ahead, bowing right and left as though an applauding throng heralded the progress of an emperor and his suite.

Here and there a woman laughed at the handsome, graceless fellows; here and there a burgher managed to pull a grin, spite of the toll exacted.

"Now that our means permit us, we are going to drink your healths, good people," said Mount affably, shaking the tin cup; "and the health of that pretty maid who showed her teeth at me. Ladies of Albany, if you but knew the wealth of harmless frolic caged in the heart that beats beneath a humble rifle-frock! Eh, Tim? Off with thy coonskin, and sweep the populace with thy courtly bow!"

Murphy lifted his coonskin cap, flourishing it till the ringed fur-tail became a blur. Elerson, in a spasm of courtesy, removed the watchman's tricorn as well as his own; the little Weasel backed off, bowing step by step, until he backed past me into the tap-room, followed by the buckskinned crew.

"Now, watchman, have at thee!" roared Mount, as the sloppy pewters were brought.

And the watchman, resigned, pulled away at his mug, furtive eyes on the landlord, who, with true delicacy, looked the other way. At that moment Mount espied me and rose, pewter in hand, with a shout that brought all to their feet.

"Death to the Iroquois!" he thundered, "and a health to Captain Renault of the Rangers!"

Every eye was on me; the pewters were lifted, reversed, and emptied. The next instant I was in the midst of a trampling, buckskinned mob; they put me up on their shoulders and marched around the tap-room, singing "Morgan's Men"; they set me on their table amid the pools of spilled ale, and, joining hands, danced round and round, singing "The New Yorker" and "John O'Bail," until more ale was fetched and a cup handed up to me.

"Silence! The Captain speaks!" cried Mount.

"Captain?" said I, laughing. "I am no officer."

There was a mighty roar of laughter, amid which I caught cries of "He doesn't know." "Where's the 'Gazette'?" "Show him the 'Gazette'!"

The stolid landlord picked up a newspaper from a table, spread it deliberately, drew his horn spectacles from his pocket, wiped them, adjusted them, and read aloud a notice of my commission from Governor Clinton to be a senior captain in the Tryon County Rangers. Utterly unprepared, dumb with astonishment, I stared at him through the swelling din. Somebody thrust the paper at me. I read the item, mug in one hand, paper in t'other.

"Death to the Iroquois!" they yelled. "Hurrah for Captain Renault!"

"Silence!" bawled Mount. "Listen to the Captain!"

"Rangers of Tryon," I said, hesitating, "this great honor which our Governor has done me is incomprehensible to me. What experience have I to lead such veterans?—men of Morgan's, men of Hand's, men of Saratoga, of Oriska, of Stillwater?—I who have never laid rifle in anger—I who have never seen a man die by violence?"

The hush was absolute.

"It must be," said I, "that such service as I have had the honor to render has made me worthy, else this commission had been an affront to the Rangers of Tryon County. And so, my brothers, that I may not shame you, I ask two things: obedience to orders; respect for my rank; and if you render not respect to my character, that will be my fault, not your own."

I raised my pewter: "The sentiment I give you is: 'The Rangers! My honor in their hands; theirs in mine!' Pewters aloft! Drink!"

Then the storm broke loose; they surged about the table, cheering, shaking their rifles and pewters above their heads, crying out for me to have no fear, that they would aid me, that they would be obedient and good—a mob of uproarious, overgrown children, swayed by sentiment entirely. And I even saw the watchman, maudlin already, dancing all by himself in a corner, and waving pike and lanthorn in martial fervor.

"Lads," I said, raising my hand for silence, "there is ale here for the asking, and nothing to pay. But we leave at daybreak for Butlersbury."

There was a dead silence.

"That is all," I said, smiling; and, laying my hand on the table, leaped lightly to the floor.

"Are we to drink no more?" asked Jack Mount, coming up, with round blue eyes widening.

"I did not say so. I said that we march at day-break. You veterans of the pewter know best how much ale to carry with you to bed. All I require are some dozen steady legs in the morning."

A roar of laughter broke out.

"You may trust us, Captain! Good night, Captain! A health to you, sir! We will remember!"

Instead of returning to my chamber to secure a few hours' rest, I went out into the dimly lighted street, and, striking a smart pace, arrived in a few moments at the house of my old friend, Peter Van Schaick, now Colonel in command of the garrison. The house was pitch-dark, and it was only after repeated rapping that the racket of the big bronze knocker aroused an ancient negro servant, who poked his woolly pate from the barred side-lights and informed me, in a quavering voice, that Colonel Van Schaick was not at home, refusing all further information concerning him.

"Joshua! Joshua!" I said gently; "don't you know me?"

There was a silence, then a trembling: "Mars' Renault, suh, is dat you?"

"It is I, Joshua, back again after four years. Tell me where I may find your master?"

"Mars' Carus, suh, de Kunnel done gone to de Foht, suh—Foht Orange on de hill."

The old slave used the ancient name of the fort, but I understood.

"Does anybody live here now except the Colonel, Joshua?"

"No, suh, nobody 'cep' de Kunnel—'scusin' me, Mars' Carus."

"Joshua," I said, under my breath, "you know all the gossip of the country. Tell me, do you remember a young gentleman who used to come here before the war—a handsome, dark-eyed gentleman—Lieutenant Walter N. Butler?"

There was an interval of silence.

"Wuz de ossifer a-sparkin' de young misses at Gin'ral Schuyler's?"

"Yes, Joshua."

"A-co'tin' Miss Betty, suh?"

"Yes, yes. Colonel Hamilton married her. That is the man, Joshua. Tell me, did you ever hear of Mr. Butler's marriage in Butlersbury?"

A longer silence, then: "No, suh. Hit wuz de talk ob de town dat Suh John Johnsing done tuk Miss Polly Watts foh his lady-wife, an' all de time po'l'l Miss Claire wuz a-settin' in Foht Johnsing, dess a-cryin' her eyes out. But Mars' Butler he done tuk an' run off 'long o' dat half-caste lady de ossifers call Carolyn Montour——"

"What!"

"Yaas, suh. Dat de way Mars' Butler done carry on, suh. He done skedaddle 'long o' M'ss Carolyn. Hit wuz a Mohawk weddin', Mars' Carus."

"He never married her?"

"Mars' Butler he ain' gwine ma'hy nobody ef he ain' 'bleeged, suh. He dess lak all de young gentry, suh—'scusin' you'se'f, Mars' Carus."

I nodded in grim silence. After a moment I asked him to open the door for me, but he shook his aged head, saying: "Ef a ossifer done tell you what de Kunnel done tell me, what you gwine do, Mars' Carus, suh?"

"Obey," I said briefly. "You're a good servant, Joshua. When Colonel Van Schaick returns, say to him that Captain Renault of the Rangers marches to Butlersbury at sunup, and that if Colonel Van Schaick can spare six bat-horses and an army transport-wagon, to be at the Half-Moon at dawn, Captain Renault will be vastly obliged to him, and will certainly render a strict accounting to the proper authorities."

Then I turned, descended the brick stoop, and walked slowly back to my quarters, a prey to apprehension and bitter melancholy. For if it were true that Walter Butler had done this thing, the law of the land was on his side; and if the war ended with him still alive, the courts must sustain him in this monstrous claim on Elsin Grey. Thought halted. Was it possible that Walter Butler had dared invade the tiger-brood of Catrine Montour to satisfy his unslaked lust?

Was it possible that he dared affront the she-demon of Catherinestown by ignoring an alliance with her fiercely beautiful child?—an alliance that Catrine Montour must have considered legal and binding, however irregular it might appear to jurists.

I was astounded. Where passion led this libertine, nothing barred his way—neither fear nor pity. And he had even dared to reckon with this frightful hag, Catrine Montour—this devil's spawn of Frontenac—and her tawny offspring.

I had seen the girl, Carolyn, at Guy Park—a splendid young animal, of sixteen then, darkly beautiful, wild as a forest-cat. No wonder the beast in him had bristled at view of her; no wonder the fierce passion in her had leaped responsive to his forest courtship. By heaven, a proper mating in the shaggy hills of Danascara! Yes, but when the male beast emerges, yellow eyes fixed on the dead line that should bar him from the haunts of men, then, then it is time that a man shall arise and stand against him—stand for honor and right and light, and drive him back to the darkness of his lair again, or slay him at the sunlit gates of that civilization he dared to challenge.



CHAPTER X

SERMONS IN STONES

By sunup we had left the city on the three hills, Elsin, Colonel Van Schaick, and I, riding our horses at the head of the little column, followed by an escort of Rangers. Behind the Rangers plodded the laden bat-horses, behind them creaked an army transport-wagon, loaded with provisions and ammunition, drawn by two more horses, and the rear was covered by another squad of buckskinned riflemen, treading lightly in double file.

Nobody had failed me. My reckless, ale-swilling Rangers had kept the tryst with swollen eyes but steady legs; a string of bat-horses stood at the door of the Half-Moon when Elsin and I descended; and a moment later the army wagon came jolting and bumping down the hilly street, followed by Colonel Van Schaick and a dozen dragoons.

When he saw me he did not recognize me, so broad and tall had I become in these four years. Besides, I wore my forest-dress of heavily fringed doeskin, and carried the rifle given me by Colonel Hamilton.

"Hallo, Peter!" I called out, laughing.

"You! Can that be you, Carus!" he cried, spurring up to me where I sat my horse, and seizing me by both caped shoulders. "Lord! Look at the lad! Six feet, or I'm a Mohawk!—six feet in his moccasins, and his hair sheered close and his cap o' one side, like any forest-swaggering free-rifle! Carus! Carus! Damme, if I'll call you Captain! Didn't you greet me but now with your impudent 'Hallo, Peter!'? Didn't you, you undisciplined rogue? By gad, you've kept your promise for a heart-breaker, you curly-headed, brown-eyed forest dandy!"

He gave me a hug and a hearty shake, so that the thrums tossed, and my little round cap of doeskin flew from my head. I clutched it ere it fell, and keeping it in my hand, presented him to Elsin.

"We are affianced, Peter," I said quietly. "Colonel Willett must play guardian until this fright in Albany subsides."

"Oh, the luck o' that man Willett!" he exclaimed, beaming on Elsin, and saluting the hand she stretched out. "Why do you not choose a man like me, madam? Heaven knows, such a reward is all I ask of my country's gratitude! And you are going to marry this fellow Carus? Is this what sinners such as he may look for? Gad, madam, I'm done with decency, and shall rig me in fringed shirt and go whipping through the woods, if such maidens as you find that attractive!"

"I find you exceedingly attractive, Colonel Van Schaick," she said, laughing—"so attractive that I ask your protection against this man who desires to be rid of me at any cost."

Van Schaick swore that I was a villain, and offered to run off with her at the drop of her 'kerchief, but when I spoke seriously of the danger at Albany, he sobered quickly enough, and we rode to the head of the little column, now ready to move.

"March," I said briefly; and we started.

"I'll ride a little way with you," said the Colonel—"far enough to say that when Joshua gave me your message on my return last night I sent my orderly to find the wagon and animals and provision for three days' march. You can make it in two if you like, or even in twenty-four hours."

I thanked him and asked about the rumors which had so alarmed the people in Albany; but he shook his head, saying he knew nothing except that there were scalping parties out, and that he for one believed them to be the advance of an invading force from Canada.

"You ask me where this sweet lady will be safest," he continued, "and I answer that only God knows. Were I you, Carus, I should rather have her near me; so if your duty takes you to Johnstown it may be best that she remain with you until these rumors become definite. Then, it might be well that she return to Albany and stay with friends like the Schuylers, or the Van Rensselaers, or Colonel Hamilton's lady, if these worthy folk deem it safe to remain."

"Have they gone?" I asked.

"They're preparing to go," he said gloomily. "Oh, Carus, when we had Walter Butler safe in Albany jail in '78, why did we not hang him? He was taken as a spy, tried, and properly condemned. I remember well how he pretended illness, and how that tender-hearted young Marquis Lafayette was touched by his plight, and begged that he be sent to hospital in the comfortable house of some citizen. Ah, had we known what that human tiger was meditating! Think of it, Carus! You knew him, did you not, when he came a-courting Margaret Schuyler? Lord! who could believe that Walter Butler would so soon be smeared with the blood of women and children? Who could believe that this young man would so soon be damned with the guilt of Cherry Valley?"

We rode on in silence. I dared not glance at Elsin; I found no pretext to stop Van Schaick; and, still in perfect silence, we wheeled northwest into the Schenectady road, where Peter took leave of us in his own simple, hearty fashion, and wheeled about, galloping back up the slope, followed by his jingling dragoons.

I turned to take my last look at the three hills and the quaint Dutch city. Far away on the ramparts of the fort I saw our beloved flag fluttering, a gay spot in the sunshine, with its azure, rose, and silvery tints blending into the fresh colors of early morning. I saw, too, the ruined fort across the river, where that British surgeon, Dr. Stackpole, composed the immortal tune of "Yankee Doodle" to deride us—that same tune to which my Lord Cornwallis was now dancing, while we whistled it from West Point to Virginia.

As I sat my saddle there, gazing at the city I had thought so wonderful when I was a lad fresh from Broadalbin Bush, I seemed once more to wander with my comrades, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Steve Watts, and Jack Johnson—now Sir John—a-fishing troutlings from the Norman's Kill, that ripples through the lovely vale of Tawasentha. Once more I seemed to see the patroon's great manor-house through the drooping foliage of the park elms, and the stately mansion of our dear General Schuyler, with its two tall chimneys, its dormers, roof-rail, and long avenue of trees; and on the lawn I seemed to see pretty little Margaret, now grown to womanhood and affianced to the patroon; and Betty Schuyler, who scarce a year since wedded my handsome Colonel Hamilton—that same lively Betty who so soon sent Walter Butler about his business, though his veins were like to burst with pride o' the blood in them, that he declared came straight from the Earls of Arran and the great Dukes of Ormond and of Ossery.

"Of what are you thinking?" asked Elsin softly.

"Of my boyhood, dearest. Yonder is the first city I ever beheld. Shall I tell you of it—and of that shy country lad who came hither to learn something of deportment, so that he might venture to enter an assembly and forget his hands and feet?"