I stood in the pretty house, gazing desperately about me, sad to leave this place to flames, furious to realize that this little lodge must perish, which once was endeared to me because Sir William loved it, and now had become doubly dear because I had given it to a young girl whom I loved--and tenderly--yet desired not to become enamoured with.
Sunshine fell through the glazed windows, where chintz curtains stirred in the wind.
I looked around at the Windsor chairs, the table where we had supped together so often. I went into Penelope"s room and looked at her maple bed, so white and fresh.
There was a skein of wool yarn on the table. I took it; gazed at it with new and strange emotions a-fiddling at my throat and twitching eyes and lips; and placed it in the breast of my hunting shirt.
Then I listened; but my Indian overhead remained silent. So I went on through the house, and then down to the kitchen, where I saw all sweetly in order, and pan and china bright; and soupaan still simmering where Penelope had left it.
There was a bowl of milk there, and the cream thick on it. And she had set a dozen red apples handy, with flour and spices and a crock of lard for to fashion a pie, I think.
Slowly I went up stairs and then out the kitchen door, across the gra.s.s.
The Saguenay saw me from above and made a sign that all was still quiet on the Drowned Lands.
So I went to the manger again, and thence to the barn and around the house.
The lilacs had bursted their buds, and I could see tiny bunches pushing out on every naked stem where the fragrant, grape-like bunches of bloom should hang in May.
Then I looked down, and remembered where I had lain in the snow under these same lilacs, and how there Penelope had bullied me and then consented to kiss me on the mouth.... And, as I was thinking sadly of these things,--bang! went my Indian"s rifle from the veranda roof.
I sprang out upon the west lawn and saw the powder cloud drifting over the house, and my Indian, sheltered by the roof, reloading his piece on one knee.
"By water!" he called out softly, when he saw me.
At that I ran into the house by the front door, which faced south; closed and bolted the four heavy green shutters in the two rooms on the ground floor, barred the south door and the west, or kitchen door below; and sprang up the ladder to the low loft chamber, from whence, stooping, I crept out of the south-gable window upon the veranda.
This piazza promenade was nearly as high as the eaves. The gable ends of the roof, in which were windows, faced north and south, but the promenade ran all around the east end and sides, which, supported by columns, afforded a fine rifle-platform for defense against a water attack, and gave us a wide view out over the mysterious Drowned Lands.
It was a vast panorama that lay around us--a great misty amphitheatre more than a hundred miles in circ.u.mference. At our feet lay that immense marsh of fifteen thousand acres, called the Great Vlaie; mountains walled the Drowned Lands north, east, west; and to the south stretched a wilderness of pine and spectral tamaracks.
Lying flat on the roof, and peering cautiously between the spindles of the railing, I saw, below on the Vlaie Water, the same skiff I had seen at Fish House.
In the heavy skiff, the gunwales of which were barricaded with their military packs, lay six green-coats,--Captains Hare and Nellis, Sergeant Newberry, Beacraft, and two strangers in private"s uniform.
They had a white flag set in the prow.
But the two blue-eyed Indians, Barney Cane and George Cuck, were not with them, nor were the two Mohawks. And in a whisper I bade my Saguenay go around to the south gable and keep his eye on the gate and the Johnstown Road on the mainland.
Hare took the white flag from the prow and waved it, the two rowers continuing up creek and heading toward our landing.
Then I called out to them to halt and back water; and, as they paid no heed, I fired at their white flag, and knocked the staff and rag out of Hare"s hand without wounding him.
At that two or three cried out angrily, but their rowers ceased and began to back water hastily; and I, reloading, kept an eye on them.
Then Hare stood up in the skiff and bawled through his hollowed hand:
"Will you parley? Or do you wish to violate a flag?"
"Keep your interval, Henry Hare!" I retorted. "If you have anything to say, say it from where you are or I"ll drill you clean!"
"Is that John Drogue, the Brent-Meester?" he shouted.
"None other," said I. "What brings you to Summer House in such fair weather, Harry Hare?"
"I wish to land and parley," he replied. "You may blindfold me if you like."
"When I put out your lights," said I, "it will be a quicker job than that. What do you wish to do--count our garrison?"
Captain Nellis got up from his seat and replied that he knew how many people occupied Summer House, and that, desiring to prevent the useless effusion of blood, he demanded our surrender under promise of kind treatment.
I laughed at him. "No," said I, "my hair suits my head and I like it there rather than swinging all red and wet at the girdle of your blue-eyed Indians."
As I spoke I saw Newberry and Beacraft bring the b.u.t.ts of their rifles to their shoulders, and I shrank aside as their pieces cracked out sharply across the water.
Splinters flew from the painted column on the corner of the house; the green-coats all fell flat in their skiff and lay snug there, hidden by their packs.
Presently, as I watched, I saw an oar poked out.
Very cautiously somebody was sculling the skiff down stream and across in the direction of the reeds.
As the craft turned to enter the marsh, I had a fleeting view of the sculler--only his head and arm--and saw it was Eli Beacraft.
I was perfectly cool when I fired on him. He let go his oar and fell flat on the bottom of the boat. The echo of my shot died away in wavering cadences among the sh.o.r.eward woods; an intense stillness possessed the place.
Then, of a sudden, Beacraft fell to kicking his legs and screeching, and so flopped about in the bottom of the boat, like a stranded fish all over blood.
The boat nosed in between the marsh-gra.s.ses and tall sedge, and I could not see it clearly any more.
But the green-coats in it were no sooner hid than they began firing at Summer House, and the storm of lead ripped and splintered the gallery and eaves, tore off shingles, shattered chimney bricks, and rang out loud on the iron hinges of door and shutter.
I fired a few shots into their rifle-smoke, then lay watching and waiting, and listening ever for the loud explosion of my Indian"s piece, which would mean that the painted Tories and the Mohawks were stealing upon us from the mainland.
Every twenty minutes or so the men in the batteau-skiff let off a rifle shot at Summer House, and the powder-cloud rising among the dead weeds, pinxters, and b.u.t.ton-ball bushes, discovered the location of their craft.
Sometimes, as I say, I took a shot at the smoke; but time was the essence of my contract, and G.o.d knows it contented me to stand siege whilst Penelope and Nick, with waggon and cattle, were plodding westward toward Mayfield.
About four o"clock in the afternoon I was hungry and went to get me a piece in the pantry.
Then I took Yellow Leaf"s place whilst he descended to appease his hunger.
We ate our bread and meat together on the roof, our rifles lying c.o.c.ked across our knees.
"Brother," said I, munching away, "if, indeed, you be, as they say, a tree-eater, and live on bark and buds when there is no game to kill, then I think your stomach suffers nothing by such diet, for I want no better comrade in a pinch, and shall always be ready to bear witness to your bravery and fidelity."
He continued to eat in silence, sc.r.a.ping away at his hot soupaan with a pewter spoon. After he had licked both spoon and pannikin as clean as a cat licks a saucer, he pulled a piece of jerked deer meat in two and gravely chewed the morsel, his small, brilliant eyes ever roving from the water to the mainland.
Presently, without looking at me, he said quietly: