The Little Red Foot

CHAPTER XX

IN SHADOW-LAND

When I became conscious, I was lying under blankets upon a trundle-bed, within the four walls of a very small room.

I wore a night-shift which was not mine, being finer and oddly ruffled; and under it my naked body was as stiff as a pike pole, and bound up like a mummy. My right thigh, too, was stiffly swathed and trussed, and I thought I should stifle from the heat of the blankets.

My mind was clear; I was aware of no sharp pain, no fever; but felt very weak, and could have slept again, only that perspiration drenched me and made me restless even as I dozed.

Sometime afterward – the same day, I think – I awoke in some pain, and realized that I was lying on my right side and that the wound in my thigh was being dressed.

The place smelled rank, like a pharmacy, and slightly sickened me.

There were several people in the little room. I saw Nick kneeling beside the bed, holding a pewter basin full of steaming water, and a Continental officer with his wrist-bands tucked up, choosing forceps from a battered leather case.

I could not move my body; my head seemed too heavy to lift; but I was aware of a woman standing close to where my head rested. I could see her two feet in their buckled shoes, and her petticoat of cotton stuff printed in flowers.

When the surgeon had done a-packing my wound with lint, pain had left me weak and indifferent, and I lay heavily, with lids closed.

Also, I had seen and heard enough to satisfy what languid curiosity I might have possessed. For I was in the gun-room at Summer House, whither, it appeared, they had taken me, despite my command to the contrary.

But now I was too weary to resent it; too listless to worry; too incurious to wonder who it might be that was at any pains to care for my broken body at Summer House Point.

Nick came, later, and I opened my eyes, but made no effort to speak. He seemed pleased, however, and gave me a filthy and bitter draught, which I swallowed, but which so madded me that I swore at him.

Whereupon he smiled and wiped my lips and tucked in the accursed blankets that had been stifling me and which now scraped my unshaven chin.

"Damnation!" I whispered, "you smother me, drown me in sweat, and feed me gall and wormwood!"

And I closed my eyes to sleep; but found my mind not so inclined, and lay half dozing, conscious of the sunlight on the floor.

So I was awake when he arrived again with a pot o' broth.

"Can you not leave me in peace!" said I, so savagely that he laughed outright and bent over, stirring the broth and grinning down at me.

Spoonful by spoonful I swallowed the broth. There was wine in it. This made me drowsy.

To keep account of time, whether it were still this day or the next, or how the hours were passing, had been a matter of indifference to me. Or how the world wagged outside the golden dusk of this small room had interested me not at all.

My Continental surgeon, whom they called Dr. Thatcher, came twice a day and went smartly about his business.

Nick dosed me and fed me. I had asked no questions; but my mind had become sullen and busy; and now I was groping backward and searching memory to find the time and place when I had lost touch with the world and with the business which had brought me into these parts.

All was clearly linked up to the time that Balty shot me. Afterward, only fragments of the chain of events remained in my memory. I heard again the thud of Balty's body on the puncheon floor, when Luysnes cut him down from the rafters of Howell's house. I remember that I saw men take ditch-spades to bury the dead. I remember that my body seemed all afire and that I became enraged and forbade them to take me to Summer House.

Further – and of the blank spaces between – I had no recollection save that the whole world seemed burning up in darkness and that my body was being consumed like a fagot in some hellish conflagration, where the flames were black and gave no light.

This day Dr. Thatcher and Nick washed me and closed my wounds.

There had been, it appeared, some drains left in them. The stiff harness on my ribs they left untouched. I breathed, now, without any pain, but itched most damnably.

My closed wounds itched. I desired broth no longer and demanded meat. But got none and swore at Nick.

A barber from the Continental camp arrived to trim me. He took a beard from me that amazed me, and enough hair to awake the envy of a school-girl – for I refused to wear a queue, and bade him trim my pol à la Coureur-du-Bois.

Now this barber, who was a private soldier, seemed willing to gossip; and of him I asked my first questions concerning the outside world and train of events.

But I soon perceived that all he knew was the veriest camp gossip, and that his budget of rumours and reports was of no value whatever. For he said that our armies were everywhere victorious; that the British armies were on the run; and that the war would be over in another month. Everybody, quoth he, would become rich and happy, with General Washington for our King, and every general a duke or marquis, and every soldier a landed proprietor, with nothing to do save sit on his porch, smoke his pipe, and watch his slaves plow his broad acres.

When this sorry ass took his leave, I had long since ceased to listen to him.

I felt very well, except for the accursed itching where my flesh was mending, and rib-bones knitting.

Dr. Thatcher came in. He was booted, spurred, wore pistols and sword, and a military foot-mantle.

When he caught my eyes he smiled slightly and asked me how I did. And I expressed my gratitude as suitably as I knew how, saying that I was well and desired to rise and be about my business.

"In two weeks," he said, which took me aback.

"Do you know how long you have been here?" he asked, amused.

"Some three or four days, I suppose.

"A month today, Mr. Drogue."

This stunned me. He seated himself on the camp-stool beside my trundle-bed.

"What preys upon your mind, Mr. Drogue?" he asked pleasantly.

"Sir?"

"I ask you what it is that troubles you."

I felt a slow heat in my cheeks:

"I have nothing on my mind, sir, save desire to return to duty."

He said in his kindly way: "You would mend more quickly, sir, if your mind were tranquil."

I felt my face flush to my hair:

"Why do you suppose that my mind is uneasy, Doctor?"

"You have asked no questions. A sick man, when recovering, asks many. You seem to remain incurious, indifferent. Yet, you are in the house of old friends."

He looked at me out of his kind, grave eyes: "Also," he said, "you had many days of fever."

My face burned: I feared to guess what he meant, but now I must ask.

"Did I babble?"

"A feverish patient often becomes loquacious."

"Of – of whom did I – rave?" I could scarce force myself to the question. Then, as he also seemed embarrassed, I added: "You need not name her, Doctor. But I beg you to tell me who besides yourself overheard me."

"Only your soldier, Nicholas Stoner, and a Saguenay Indian, who squats outside your door day and night."

"Nobody else?"

"I think not."

"Has Lady Johnson heard me? Or Mistress Swift? Or – Mistress Grant?" I stammered.

"Why, no," said he. "These ladies were most tender and attentive when your soldiers brought you hither; but two days afterward, while you still lay unconscious, – and your right lung filling solid, – there came a flag from General Schuyler, and an escort of Albany Horse for the ladies. And they departed as prisoners the following morning, with their flag, to be delivered and set at liberty inside the British lines."

"They are gone?"

"Yes, sir. Lady Johnson, while happy in her prospective freedom, and hopeful of meeting her husband in New York City, seemed very greatly distressed to leave you here in such a plight. And Mistress Swift offered to remain and care for you, but our military authorities would not allow it."

I said nothing.

He added, with a faint smile: "Our authorities, I take it, were impatient to be rid of responsibility for these fair prisoners, Mr. Drogue. I know that Schuyler is vastly relieved."

"Has Stephen Watts been taken?" I asked abruptly. "Or Hare, or Butler?"

"Not that I have heard of."

So they had got clean away, that spying crew! – Watts and Hare and Walter Butler! Well, that was better. God knows I had a million times rather meet Steve Watts in battle than take him skulking here inside our lines a-spying on our camp, exchanging information with his unhappy sister and with Claudia, or slinking about the shrubbery by night to press his sweetheart's waist and lips —

I turned my hot face on the pillow and lay a-thinking. The doctor laid back my blanket, looked at my hurts, then covered me.

"You do well," he said. "In two weeks you shall be out o' bed. Bones must knit and wounds scar before you carry pack again. And before your lung is strong you shall need six months rest ere you take the field."

Aghast at such news, I asked him the true nature of my hurts, and learned that Balty's bullet had broken three ribs into my right lung, then, glancing, had made a hole clean through my thigh, but not splintering the bone.

"That Oneida girl of Thomas Spencer's saved you," said he, "for she picked out the burnt wadding and bits of cloth, cleaned and checked the hemorrhage, and purged you. And there was no gangrene.

"She did all that anybody could have done; but the cold had already seized your lung before she arrived, and it was that which involved you so desperately."

After a silence: "Good God, doctor! Six months!"

"Six months before you take the field, sir."

"A half year of idleness? Why, that can not be, sir – "

"It is better than eternity in a coffin, sir," said he quietly.

Then he came and took my hand, saying that orders had come directing him to join our Northern Army at Crown Point, and that he was to set off within the hour.

"A little nursing and continued rest are all you now require," said he; "and so I leave you without anxiety, Mr. Drogue."

I strove to express my deep gratitude for his service to me; he pressed my hand, smilingly:

"If you would hasten convalescence," said he, "seek to recover that serenity of mind which is a surer medicine than any in my phials."

At the door he turned and looked back to me:

"I think," said he in an embarrassed voice, "that you have really no true reason for unhappiness, Mr. Drogue. If you have, then my experience of men and women has taught me nothing."

With that he went; and I heard his sword and spurs through the hallway, and the outer door close.

What had he meant?

For a long while I pondered this. Then into my mind came another and inevitable question: What had I said in my delirium?

I was hungry when Nick came.

"Well," says he, grinning at me, "our Continental saw-bones permits this fat wild pigeon. And now I hope I shall have no more cursing to endure."

Tears came into my eyes and I held out my hand. It was blanched white, and bony, and lay oddly in his great, brown paw.

"Lord," says he, "what a fright you have given us, John, what with coughing all day and night like a sick bullock – "

"I am mending, Nick."

"So says Major Squills. Here, lad, eat thy pigeon. Does it smack? And here is a little Spanish wine in this glass to nourish you. I had three bottles of the Continentals ere they marched – "

"Marched! Have they departed?" I demanded in astonishment.

"Horse, foot, and baggage," said he cheerily. "When I say 'horse,' I mean young Jack-boots, for he departed first with the flag that took my Lady Johnson to New York."

"So everybody has gone," said I, blankly.

"Why, yes, John. The flag came from Schuyler and off went the ladies, bag, baggage, and servants.

"Then come Colonels Van Schaick and Dayton from Johnstown to inspect our works at this place and at Fish House. And two days later orders come to abandon Fish House and Summer House Point… You do not remember hearing their drums?"

"No."

"You were very bad that day," he said soberly. "But when their music played you opened your eyes and nothing would do but you must rise and dress. Lord, how wild you talked, and I was heartily glad when their drumming died away on the Johnstown road."

"You mean to tell me that there is no longer any garrison on the Sacandaga?" I asked, amazed.

"None. And but a meagre one at Johnstown. It seems we need troops everywhere and have none to send anywhere. They've even taken your scout and your Oneidas."

"What!" I exclaimed.

"They left a week ago, John, to work on the new fort which is being fashioned out of old Fort Stanwix. So Dayton sends your scout thither to play with pick and mattock, and your Oneidas to prowl along Wood Creek and guard the batteaux."

"You tell me that the Sacandaga is left destitute of garrison or scouts!" I asked angrily. "And Tryon crawling alive with Tories! – and the Cadys and Helmers and Bowmans and Reeds and Butlers and Hares and Stephen Watts stirring the disloyal to violence in every settlement betwixt Schenectady and Ballston!"

"I tell you we are too few for all our need, John, – too few to watch all places threatened. Schuyler has but one regiment of Continentals now. Gates commands at Crown Point and draws to him all available men. His Excellency is pressed for men in the South, too. Albany is almost defenceless, Schenectady practically unguarded, and only a handful of our people guard Johnstown."

"Where are the militia?" I demanded.

"Farming – save when the district call sends a regiment on guard or to work on the forts. But Herkimer has them in hand against a crisis, and I have no doubt that those Palatines will turn out to a man if Sir John comes hither with his murderous hordes."

I sat in silence, picking the bones of my pigeon. Nick said:

"Colonel Dayton came in here and looked at you. And when he left he said to me that you had proven a valuable scout; and that, if you survived, he desired you to remain here at the Summer House with me and with your Saguenay."

"For what purpose?" I demanded, sullenly.

"On observation."

"A scout of three! To cover the Sacandaga! Do they think we have wings? Or are a company of tree-cats with nine lives apiece?"

"Well," said Nick, scratching his ear in perplexity, "I know not what our colonels and our generals are thinking; but the soldiers are gone, and our doctor has now departed, so if Dayton leaves us four people alone here in the Summer House it must be because there is nothing for the present to apprehend, either from Sir John or from any Indian or Tory marauders."

"Four people?" I repeated. "I thought you said we were but three here."

"Why," said he, "I mean that we are three men – three rifles!"

"Is there a servant woman, also?"

He looked at me oddly.

"The Caughnawaga girl came back."

"What!"

"The Scottish girl, Penelope."

"Came back! When?"

"Oh, that was long ago – after the flag left… It seems she had meant to travel only to Mayfield with them… She had not said so to anybody. But in the dark o' dawn she rides in on your mare, Kaya, having travelled all night long."

"'Why,' says I, 'what do you here on John Drogue's horse in the dark o' dawn?'

"'If there's danger,' says she calmly, 'this sick man should have a horse to carry him to Mayfield fort.'

"Which was true enough; and I said so, and stabled your mare where Lady Johnson's horses had left a warm and empty manger."

"Well," said I harshly, as he remained silent.

"Lord, Jack, that is all I know. She has cooked for you since, and has kept this house in order, washed dishes, fed the chickens and ducks and pig, groomed your horse, hoed the garden, sewed bandages, picked lint, knitted stockings and soldiers' vests – "

"Why?" I demanded.

"I asked her that, John. And she answered that there was nobody here to care for a sick man's comfort, and that Dr. Thatcher had told her you would die if they moved you to Johnstown hospital.

"I thought she'd become frightened and leave when the Continentals marched out; they all came – the officers – where she sat a-knitting by the apple-tree; but she only laughed at their importunities, made light of any dangers to be apprehended, and refused a seat on their camp wagon. And it pleased me, John, to see how doleful and crestfallen were some among those same young blue-and-buffs when they were obliged to ride away that morning and leave here there a-sewing up your shirt where Balty's bullet had rent it."

A slight thrill shot me through. But it died cold. And I thought of Steve Watts, and of her in his embrace under the lilacs.

If she now remained here it was for no reason concerning me. It was because she thought her lover might return some night and take her in his arms again. That was the reason.

And with this miserable conclusion, a more dreadful doubt seized me. What of the loyalty of a girl whose lover is a King's man?

I remembered how, in the blossoming orchard, she had whispered to me that she was a friend to liberty.

Was that to be believed of a maid whose lover came into our camp a spy?

I lay back on my pillow and closed my eyes. What was this girl to me that I should care one way or the other?

Nick took my platter and went away, leaving me to sleep as I seemed to desire it.

But I had no desire to sleep. And as I lay there, I became sensible that my entire and battered body was almost imperceptibly a-tremble.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DEMON

I think that summer was the strangest ever I have lived, – the most unreal days of life, – so still, so golden, so strangely calm the solitude that ringed me where I was slowly healing of my hurt.

Each dawn was heralded by gold fire, each evening by a rosy conflagration in the west. It rained only at night; and all that crystal clear mid-summer scarcely a shred of fleece dappled the empyrean.

Those winds which blow so frequently in our Northland seemed to have become zephyrs, too; and there was but a reedy breeze along the Vlaie Water, and scarce a ripple to rock the lily pads in shallow reach and cove.

It was strange. And, only for the loveliness of night and day, there might have seemed in this hushed tranquillity around me a sort of hidden menace.

For all around about was war, where Tryon County lay so peacefully in the sunshine, ringed within the outer tumult, and walled on all sides by battle smoke.

Above us our fever-stricken Northern army, driven from Crown Point, now lay and sickened at Ticonderoga, where General Gates did now command our people, while poor Arnold, turned ship's carpenter, laboured to match Guy Carleton's flotilla which the British were dragging piecemeal over Chambly Rapids to blow us out o' the lake.

From south of us came news of the Long Island disaster where His Excellency, driven from Brooklyn and New York, now lay along the Harlem Heights.

And it was a sorry business; for Billy Alexander, who is Lord Stirling, was taken a prisoner; and Sullivan also was taken; and their two brigades were practically destroyed.

But worse happened at New York City, where the New York militia ran and two New England brigades, seized with panic, fled in a shameful manner. And so out o' town our people pulled foot, riotous and disorderly in retreat, and losing all our heavy guns, nearly all our stores, and more than three hundred prisoners.

This was the news I had of the Long Island battle, where I lay in convalescence at Summer House that strange, still summer in the North.

And I thought very bitterly of what advantage was it that we had but just rung bells and fired off our cannon to salute our new Declaration of Independence, and had upset the prancing leaden King from his pedestal on the Bowling Green, if our militia ran like rabbits at sight of the red-coats, and general officers like Lord Stirling were mouse-trapped in their first battle.

Alas for poor New York, where fire and explosion had laid a third of the city in ruins; where the drums of the red-coats now rolled brazenly along the Broadway; where Delancy's horsemen scoured the island for friends to liberty; where that great wretch, Loring, lorded it like an unclean devil of the pit.

God! to think on it when all had gone so well; and Boston clean o' red-coats, and Canada all but in our grasp; and old Charleston shaking with her dauntless cannonade, and our people's volleys pouring into Dunmore's hirelings through the levelled cinders of Norfolk town!

What was the matter with us that these Southern gentlemen stood the British fire while, if we faced it, we crumpled and gave ground; or, if we shunned it, we ran disgracefully? Save only at Boston had we driven the red-coats on land. The British flame had scorched us on Long Island, singed us in New York, blasted us at Falmouth and Quebec, and left our armies writhing in the ashes from Montreal to Norfolk.

And yet how tranquil, how fair, how ominously calm lay our Valley Land in the sunshine, ringed here by our blue mountains where no slightest cloud brooded in an unstained sky!

And more still, more strange even than the untroubled calm of Tryon, lay the Summer House in its sunlit, soundless, and green desolation.

Where, through the long days, nothing moved on the waste of waters save where a sun-burnished reed twinkled. Where, under star-powdered skies, no wind stirred; and only the vague far cry of some wandering wild thing ever disturbed that vast and velvet silence.

Long before she came near me to speak to me, and even before she had glanced at me from the west porch, whither she took her knitting in the afternoons, I had seen Penelope.

From where I lay on my trundle in Sir William's old gun-room I could see out across the hallway and through the door, where the west veranda ran.

In the mornings either my Indian, Yellow-Leaf, or Nick Stoner mounted guard there, watching the green and watery wastes to the northward, while his comrade freshened my sheets and pillows and cleansed my room.

In the afternoons one o' them went a-fishing or prowling after meat for our larder, or, sometimes, Nick went a-horse to Mayfield on observation, or to Johnstown for news or a bag of flour. And t'other watched from the veranda roof, which was railed, and ran all around the house, so that a man might walk post there and face all points of the compass.