Cardigan Part 52

"Hearken, _Brothers_! I have withstood the storms of many winters.

Leaves and branches have been stripped from me. My eyes are dim, my limbs totter, I must soon fall. I, who could make the dry leaf turn green again; I, who could take the rattlesnake in my palm; I, who had communion with the dead, dreaming and waking; I am powerless. The wind blows hard! The old tree trembles! Its branches are gone! Its sap is frozen! It bends! It falls! Peace! Peace!

"Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!"

The old man bent his withered head and covered his face with his blanket. Through the frightful stillness the painful breathing of the people swept like a smothered cry; women in the balcony were sobbing; somewhere a child wept uncomforted.

Patrick Henry leaned across to me; his eyes were dim, his voice choked in his throat.

"The great orator!" he whispered. "Oh, the great man!--greatest of all! The last word has been said for Logan! I shall not speak, Mr.

Cardigan--it were sacrilege--now."

He rose and laid one arm about the motionless chief, then very gently he drew him out into the aisle. There was not a sound in the hall as they pa.s.sed slowly out together, those great men who had both struck to the hilt for the honour of their kindred and of their native land.

Now, when at last he had disappeared, a living spectre of reproach, which the guilt of men had raised to confound the lords of the New World, those gathered there to listen breathed again, and hastened to forget that glimpse which they had caught of the raw heart of all tragedy--man's inhumanity to man.

Dunmore came slowly from his trance, mechanically preening his silken plumage and ruffling like a meagre bird; Connolly rose from his seat and shook himself, and, finding nothing better to do, went about the platform, snuffing the candles, a duty pertaining to servants, but which he was doubtless thankful to perform as it brought his back to the spectators and gave his heavy, burning face a respite from the pillory of eyes. Gibson leaned heavily on his writing-table, wan, loose-jawed, and vacant-eyed. As for Captain Murdy, he sat serenely in his chair, shapely legs crossed, examining the lid of his snuff-box with ever-freshening interest.

Above us in the galleries some people had risen and were about to leave. The rustle of silks and satins seemed to break the heavy quiet; people breathed deeply, s.h.i.+fted in their seats, and turned around.

Some stood up to go; chairs and benches grated on the stones; shoes shuffled and tapped sharply.

I had already determined to defer my interview with Lord Dunmore, because, after the great chief's speech, my poor words must fall stale on ears attuned to the majestic music of a mighty soul. So, in the stir and noise around us, I rose and touched Jack Mount, motioning him to follow. But before he could find his feet and summon his wits to set them in motion, and ere I myself had edged half-way to the aisle, I heard Doctor Connolly speaking in that loud, hectoring tone, and I caught the name of Sir William Johnson shouted from the platform.

"If the messenger from Johnstown be present," continued Doctor Connolly, "let him be a.s.sured of a warm welcome from his Lords.h.i.+p, the Earl of Dunmore, Governor of Virginia."

So the infatuated Dunmore, grasping at a straw to dam the current of public sentiment, thought to fill empty minds with the news of his betrothal, trusting that as all the world loves a lover, this same planet might find an opportunity to take him to its sentimental bosom.

His purpose was plain to me and perfectly loathsome; and as I stood there, watching him, I could see the rouge crack when he simpered. But I would not speak now.

Presently, looking around, I found that all those who had risen had again seated themselves, and that I, fascinated by the repulsive visage of Dunmore, stood there all alone.

My first impulse was to sit down hastily; my next to keep my feet, for it was too late to seek cover now, and Connolly was smiling at me, and Gibson nodded like a dazed mandarin. Dunmore, too, was peering at me and tapping his snuff-box complacently, and the sight of him brought the blood to my head and opened my mouth. But no sound issued. A woman in the gallery laughed outright.

"Are you not a messenger from Sir William Johnson?" prompted Connolly, with his domineering smile of patronage.

"Yes, Doctor Connolly," I replied, slowly. As I spoke, fright vanished.

There was a pause. Dunmore tapped on his box and moistened his slitted mouth with a tongue which looked perfectly blue to me, and he fell a-smirking and bridling, with sly, rheumy glances at the gallery.

"Lord Dunmore," I said, steadily, "ere I inform you why I am here, you shall know me better than you think you do.

"I am not here to tell you of that chain which links the Governor of Virginia with the corpse of Logan's youngest child!--nor to count the links of that chain backward, from Greathouse to Murdy, to Gibson, to Connolly, to--"

"Stop!" burst out Connolly, springing to his feet. "Who are you? What are you? How dare you address such language to the Earl of Dunmore?"

Astonished, furious, eyes injected with blood, he stood shaking his mottled red fists at me; Dunmore sat in a heap, horrified, with the simper on his face stamped into a grin of terror. The interruption stirred up my blood to the boiling; I clutched the back of the bench in front of me, and fixed my eyes on Connolly.

"I do not reply to servants," I said; "my business here is not with Lord Dunmore's lackeys. If the Earl of Dunmore knows not my name and t.i.tle, he shall know it now! I am Michael Cardigan, cornet in the Border Horse, and deputy of Sir William Johnson, Baronet, his Majesty's Superintendent of Indian Affairs for North America!

"Who dares deny me right of speech?"

Dunmore lay in his chair, a shrunken mess of lace and ribbon; Connolly appeared paralyzed; Gibson stared at me over his table.

"I am not here," I said, coolly, "to ask your Lords.h.i.+p why this war, falsely called Cresap's war, should be known to honest men as 'Dunmore's war.' Nor do I come to ask you why England should seek the savage allies of the Six Nations, which this war, so cunningly devised, has given her--"

"Treason! Treason!" bawled a voice behind me. It was Wraxall; I recognized his whine.

"But," I resumed, pointing my finger straight at the staring Governor, "I am here to demand an account of your stewards.h.i.+p! Where are those Cayugas whom you have sworn to protect from the greed of white men?

Where are they? Answer, sir! Where are Sir William Johnson's wards of the Long House? Where are the Shawanese, the Wyandottes, the Lenape, the Senecas, who keep the western portals of the Long House? Answer, sir! for this is my mission from Sir William Johnson. Answer! lest the King say to him, 'O thou unfaithful steward!"

Hubbub and outcry and tumult rose around me. Dunmore was getting on his feet; Connolly flew to his aid, but the Governor snarled at him and pushed him, and went shambling out of the door behind the platform, while, in the hall, the uproar swelled into an angry shout: "Shame on Dunmore! G.o.d save Virginia!"

An officer in the gallery leaned over the edge, waving his gold-laced hat.

"G.o.d save the King!" he roared, and many answered, "G.o.d save the King!" but that shout was drowned by a thundering outburst of cheers: "G.o.d save our country! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

"Three cheers for Boston!" bawled Jack Mount, jumping up on his bench; and the rolling cheers echoed from balcony to pavement till the throng went wild and even the sober Quakers flung up their broad-brimmed hats. In the gallery ladies were cheering, waving scarfs and mantles; the British soldiers at the door looked in at the astounding scene, some with sheepish grins, some gaping, some scowling under their mitred head-gear.

Mount had caught me up in his arms and was shouldering his way towards the door, yelping like a Mohawk at a corn feast; and presently others crowded around, patting my legs and cheering, bearing me onward and out past the sentinels, where, for a moment, I thought soldiers and people would come to blows.

But Mount waved his cap and shouted an ear-splitting watchword: "The ladies! Honour the ladies!" and the crowd fell back as the excited dames and maidens from the balcony issued in silken procession from the hall, filing between the soldiers and the crowd, to enter coaches and chairs and disappear into the depths of the starlight.

I could not find Silver Heels, and presently I gave up that hope, for the throng, hustled by the soldiers, began shoving and scuffling and pressing, now forward, now backward, until the breath was near squeezed from my body and I made out to slip back with Mount and Renard to the open air.

Mount was enthusiastic. "Look sharp!" he said eagerly. "There will be heads to break anon. Ha! See them running yonder! Hark! Do you not hear that, Cade? Clink--whack! Bayonet against cudgel! They're at it, lad! Come on! Come on! Give it to the d.a.m.ned Tories!"

The next instant we were enveloped in the crowd, buffeted, pushed, trodden, hurled about like shuttle-c.o.c.ks, yet ever retreating before the line of gun-stocks which rose and fell along the outer edge of the mob.

The fight was desperate and silent, save for the whipping swish of ramrods whistling, the dull shocks of blows, or the ringing crack of a cudgel on some luckless pate. Under foot our moccasins moved and trampled among fallen hats and wigs, and sometimes we stumbled over an insensible form, victim of gun-stock or club or a buffet from some swinging fist.

Once, forced to the front where the soldiers were jabbing and las.h.i.+ng the mob with gun-b.u.t.t, ramrod, and leather belt, a drummer boy ran at me and fell to thumping me with his drum, while a soldier cuffed my ears till I reeled. Astonished and enraged by such scurvy treatment I made out to wrest the drum from the boy and jam it violently upon the head of the soldier, so that his head and mitre-cap stuck out through the bursted parchment.

A roar of laughter greeted the unfortunate man, who backed away, distracted, clawing at the drum like a cat with its head in a bag.

Then the battle was renewed with fury afresh; a citizen wrested a firelock from a soldier, drove the b.u.t.t into the pit of his stomach, and struck out st.u.r.dily in all directions, shouting, "Long live our country!" Another knocked a soldier senseless and tore off his white leggings for trophies--an operation that savoured of barbarism.

"Scalp their legs! Skin 'em!" bawled the man, waving the leggings in triumph; and I saw he was that same ranger of Boone and Harrod who wore a baldrick of Wyandotte scalps.

It began to go hard with the King's soldiers, but they stuck to the mob like bulldogs, giving blow for blow so stanchly and so heartily that my blood tingled with pleasure and pride, and I called out to Jack Mount: "Look at them, Jack! What very gluttons for punishment!

n.o.body but British could stand up to us like that!"

A crack on the sconce from a belt transformed my admiration into fury, and I drove my right fist into the eye of one of these same British soldiers, and followed it with a swinging blow which sent him spinning, receiving at the same moment such a jolt in the body that I, too, went sprawling and gasping about until Mount pulled me out of the crush.

When I had found my breath again, and had mastered that sick faintness which comes from a blow in the stomach, I prepared to return to the fray, which had now taken on a more sinister aspect. Bayonets had already been used, not as clubs but as daggers; a man was leaning against a tree near me, bleeding from a wound in the neck, and another reeled past, tugging at a bayonet which had transfixed his shoulder.

But the end came suddenly now; hors.e.m.e.n were galloping up behind the jaded soldiers; I saw Shemuel dart out of the swaying throng and take to his heels, not even stopping to gather up hats, handkerchiefs, and wigs, of which the sack on his back was full to the top.

When Shemuel left a stricken field it was time for others to think of flight; this I perceived at once when the Weasel came scurrying past and called out to me. Mount followed, lumbering on at full speed; the throng melted and scattered in every direction, and I with them. Trust me, there was fine running done that night in Pittsburg streets, and many a tall fellow worked his legs as legs are seldom worked, for the gentlemen of the Governor's horse-guards were riding us hard, and we legged it for cover, each fox to his own spinny, each rabbit to the first unstopped earth. Tally-ho! Stole away! Faith, it was merry hunting that night in Pittsburg town, with the towns-people at every window and the town-watch bawling at our heels, and the gentlemen riders pelting down the King's Road till those who could double back doubled, and walked panting to cover, with as innocent mien as they could muster.