The Story of Old Fort Loudon Read online

  CHAPTER V

  The next day ushered in a crisis in the affairs of the would-bestationers--the house-raising began. All the men of the settlementgathered to the fore, and the cabins--a substantial double-cabin thelarger was, and the other, one room and a loft--went up as if by magic.The stockade, boles of stout young trees sawed off in lengths of twentyfeet and sharply pointed at the upper end, the other end deeply sunkeninto the ground, began to grow apace. The spring was within theenclosure--a point of vast importance in that day, since in times ofdanger from the Indians it was not necessary to sally forth from theprotection of the stockade for the indispensable water-supply forhousehold and cattle. The prospects of many an early station wereblighted by overlooking in a period of comparative peace and comfortthis urgent advantage, and many a life was taken during some desperatesortie with piggins and pails by the defenders of the stockade, whocould have held out valiantly against the savage except for the menaceof death by thirst. The officers had urged this point upon thepioneers.

  "Of course in any emergency," Demere argued, "the forces at the fortwould relieve you at once. But the true military principle ought togovern even in such a minor stronghold. An unfailing water-supply oughtto be a definitely recognized necessity in every military post subjectto beleaguerment. Otherwise the station can be held only verytemporarily; one can lay in provisions and stand a siege, but drouthmeans death, for surrender is massacre."

  Nevertheless, eastward at the time, and later in westward settlements,this obvious precaution was often neglected and the obvious disaster asoften ensued.

  The woodland spring within the stockade was a charming and rocky spotwith no suggestion of flowing water till one might notice that the mossand mint beneath a gigantic tree were moist; then looking under a broad,flat, slab-like ledge might be descried a deep basin four feet indiameter filled with water, crystal, clear, and brown in the deepshadow--brown and liquid as the eyes of some water-nymph hidden amongthe rocks and the evergreen laurel.

  And, oh joy! the day when Odalie kindled her own fire once more on herown hearth-stone--good, substantial flagging; when traversing thepassage from one room to another she could look down through the opengate of the stockade at the silvery rushing of the Tennessee in itsbroad expanse under the blue sky, giving, as it swirled around, a longperspective, down the straight and gleaming reach before it curved anew.And oh, the moment of housewifely pride when the slender stock of goodswas unpacked and once more the familiar articles adjusted in theirplaces, her flax wheel in the chimney corner, her china ranged to itsbest advantage on the shelf; and often did she think about the littleblue jug that came from France and marvel what had been its fate! Allher linen that was saved, the pride of her heart, made, too, its braveshow. She had a white cloth on her table, albeit the table seemed tohave much ado to stand alone since its legs were of unequal length, andwhite counterpanes on her beds, and gay curtains at the windows openingwithin the stockade--the other side had but loop-holes--on which birdsof splendid plumage, cut from East Indian chintz, had been overcast onthe white dimity, and which looked when the wind stirred them, for therewas no glass and only a batten shutter, as if all the winged denizens ofthe brilliant tropics were seeking entrance to this happy bower; theroom had an added woodland suggestion because of the bark adhering tothe logs of the walls, for the timbers of these primitive houses wereunhewn, although the daubing and the chinking were stout and close, andwith the aid of the great flaring fires stood off Jack Frost with a veryvaliant bluff.

  So many things had she brought in small compass. When the fire wasa-flicker on a dull wintry afternoon, and the snow a-whirl outside, andthe tropical birds quite still on their shadowy perches against theclosed batten shutters, Odalie, Hamish, Fifine, and the cat were wont tocongregate together and sit on the buffalo rug spread on the puncheonfloor beside the hearth, and explore sundry horns of buffalo or elk inwhich many small articles of varying degrees of value had been compactlypacked. They all seemed of an age--and this a young age--when the joyousexclamations arose upon the recognition of sundry treasured trifleswhose utility had begun to be missed.

  "My emery bag!" her eyes dewy with delight, "and oh, my cake of wax!"

  "And Lord!" exclaimed Hamish, "there's my bullet-mould--whoever wouldhave thought of that!"

  "And your new ribbon; 'tis a very pretty piece," and Odalie let thelustrous undulations catch the firelight as she reeled it out. "The besttaffeta to tie up your queue."

  "And oh, the moment of housewifely pride!"]

  "I don't intend to plait my hair in a queue any more," Hamishdeclared contemptuously. "The men in this country," he continued with alofty air, "have too much men's work to do to busy themselves withplaiting hair and wearing a bobbing pig-tail at their ears." He shookhis own dangling curls as he spoke.

  Fifine babbled out an assortment of words with many an ellipsis and manya breathy aspiration which even those accustomed to the infantinfirmities of her tongue could with difficulty interpret. Both Odalieand Hamish, bending attentive eyes upon her, discerned at last the wordsto mean that Mr. Gilfillan had no hair to plait. At this Hamish lookedblank for a moment and in consternation; Odalie exclaimed, "Oh, oh!" butFifine infinitely admired Mr. Gilfillan, and nothing doubted him worthyof imitation.

  "I'll have none, but for a different reason. I'll cut my lovely locksclose with Odalie's shears as soon as she finds them," Hamish declared.

  He did not dream that they were already found and bestowed in a safenook in a crevice between the chinking where they would not be againdiscovered in a hurry, for he had earlier expressed his determination toforsake the gentility of long hair in emulation of sundry young wights,the roaring blades of single men about the settlement.

  Odalie was too tactful to remonstrate. "And oh!" she exclaimed with asort of ecstasy. "My pouncet-box! how sweet! _delicieux!_" She presentedthe gold filigree at the noses successively of Hamish and Fifine and thecat, all of whom sniffed in polite ecstasy, but Kitty suddenly wiped hernose with her paw several times and then began to wash her face.

  "My poppet! my poppet!" cried Fifine, ecstatically, as a quaint and tinywooden doll of a somewhat Dutch build and with both arms stretched outstraight was fished out. She snuggled it up to her lips in rapture, thenshowed it to the cat, who evidently recognized it, and as it was dancedseductively before her on the buffalo rug, put out her paw and with adelicate tentative gesture and intent brow was about to play with itafter her fashion of toying with a mouse, when one of her claws caughtin a mesh of the doll's bobinet skirt. Now the doll's finery, whilelimited in compass to minuteness, was very fine, and as Josephine'sshort shriek of indignation, "_Quelle barbarie!_" arose on the air, thecat turned around carrying the splendidly arrayed poppet off on herunwilling claw--to be lost, who knew where, in the wilderness! Thefrantic little owner seized the tail of the _mignonne toute cherie_,which sent up a wail of poignant discordance; the romping Hamish, with awicked mimicry of the infantile babbling cry, "_Quelle barbarie!_"impeded the progress of Fifine by catching the skirt of her littlejacket, called a josie; whereupon Odalie, imitating his dislocatedFrench accent and boyish hoarseness in the exclamation, "_Quellebarbarie!_" laid hold upon his long curly hair, held together by aribbon as an apology for a pig-tail. There ensued an excited scramblearound on the buffalo rug before the fire, during which the horn wasturned over and some of its small treasures escaped amidst the long fur.This brought Odalie to a pause, for the lost articles were buttons ofFrench gilt, and they must be found in the fur and counted; for did theynot belong to Sandy's best blue coat, and could not be dispensed with?In the course of the merry-go-round the cat's claw had becomedisentangled from the doll's frock. Fifine had released the clutch ofreprisal on the cat's tail. Hamish had been visited with a fear that theend of Fifine's josie might give way in rents before her obstinacy wouldrelax; and Odalie had not the heart to pull his hair with more crueltythan she had heretofore indulged. So the magic circle gave way by itsown impulse as it had formed, and all the hea
ds were once more benttogether in earnest absorption in the search and the subsequentdisclosures of the buffalo horn. Such choice symposia as these wereusually reserved for the dusk of the afternoon in bad weather when theoutdoor work was done, and Odalie--her house all in order--needed morelight for her other vocations. It was quite incredible how soon a loomwas set up and warping-bars constructed, and all the details in motionof that pioneer home life, which added the labor and interests ofdomestic manufacture to the other absorbing duties of the housewife thathave survived in these times of machinery and delegated responsibility.

  These were the holiday moments of the day, but once when the mother andthe little girl and the cat sat intent upon the rug, their treasuresspread before them, Odalie's face paled and her heart almost sprang intoher mouth as she heard Hamish's step outside, quick and disordered. Ashe burst into the room she knew by his eyes that something of graveimport had happened. And yet, as she faced him speechless, he saidnothing. She noted his uncaring casual glance at that potent fascinator,the buffalo horn, and his hasty, unsettled gesture. He seemed resolvednot to speak--then he suddenly exclaimed solemnly:--

  "Odalie, there is the prettiest creature in this settlement that youever saw in your life--and--the gracefullest!"

  "A fawn?" said the mercurial Odalie, who recovered her poise as suddenlyas it was shaken.

  He looked at her in a daze for a moment.

  "A fawn? What absurdity!"

  "Nothing less than a dear, I must needs be sure."

  He apprehended her sarcasm. Then, too absorbed to be angry, he revertedto himself.

  "Oh," he cried with bitterness, "why do you let me go about inworshipful company with my hair like this?--" he clutched at his tousledlocks.

  "Yes--yes, I see. It always goes to the head," said Odalie, demurely.

  "Don't laugh at me," he exclaimed, "but how had you the heart--andSandy's hair always in such trim-wise, and you and Fifine like people offashion."

  Odalie could but laugh in truth; she had known such splendors ascolonial life at that day could present and she was well aware how theill-equipped wife of a pioneer on the furthest frontier failed of thatchoice aspect.

  "I thought," she said, still laughing, "that you were ambitious of thefashion of such coiffure as Mr. Gilfillan affects--oh, poor man!--andhad made up your mind to plait your hair no more."

  Hamish took this very ill, and in dudgeon would not divulge the name andquality of the fair maiden the sight of whom had so gone to his head.But it was the next evening only that they were to attend a ball in theofficers' mess-hall at the fort, in celebration of the joys ofChristmastide, and Odalie perceived the rancor of resentment graduallydeparting when he came and begged--not her pardon--but that she woulddo him the infinite favor to plait his hair. Try as he would, and he hadtried for an hour, he could not achieve a coiffure that seemedsatisfactory to him in the solicitous state of his feelings. Thisceremony she performed, perched upon what she called a _tabouret_, whichwas nothing but a stout, square billet of wood with a cover and valanceof a dull blue fustian, while he sat at her feet, and Sandy looked onwith outward gravity, but with a twinkle in his sober eyes that madeHamish's blood boil to realize that she had told his brother of thesudden reason for a change of heart touching the mode of wearing hishair, and that they had quietly laughed at him about it. Nevertheless,now he valued every strand of it as if it were spun gold, and would haveparted with it as hardly.

  The Christmas ball was indeed an affair of much splendor. Profusewreaths of holly, with berries all aflame, decorated the walls of thegreat hall, and among them the lines of buffalo horns and the antlers ofdeer and the waving banners showed with enhanced effect. From the centreof the ceiling the mystic mistletoe depended with such suggestivelywide-spreading boughs that it might seem that no fair guest could hopeto escape the penalty; this was the broad jest of the masculineentertainers. The hosts, all the commissioned officers being present,were in full uniform, seeming brilliant against the decorated walls andin the great flare of the fire; even lace ruffles were to be seen andmany a queue was braided and tied as fairly as Hamish's own. A huge Yulelog, such as could not be discredited by any that had ever sent upsparks and flame at this sacred season, made the great chimney place onevast scarlet glow; the door of necessity stood open, although the snowwas on the ground, and the dark, bare branches of the rows of trees leftin military alignment, down the centre of the parade, whitely glimmeredwith frost and ice akin to the chilly glitter of the wintry stars whichthey seemed to touch with their topmost boughs.

  The garrison had been surprised on the previous midnight by the suddenoutbreak of the sound on the icy air of certain familiar old Christmascarols sung by a few of the soldiers, who had the memory and the voiceto compass the feat, and who had been wont for a time to steal off tothe woods to rehearse in secret, in order to bring to the Yule-tide, sosurely coming, even to these far-away fastnesses, something of theblithe association and yet the spirit of sanctity of the old rememberedYule-tides of long distances agone both of time and place. Theenthusiasm that this reminder awakened nullified all thought of thebreach of discipline. The singers were summoned into the hall by thecommandant, and the embers stirred up, and they drank his health andthe king's as long as he dared let them have the liquor. And now, allunseen in the darkness, the waits were stationed at a little distance tomellow the sound, and were singing these old Christmas carols while theguests gathered. The rough martial voices rang out with a sort ofjubilant solemnity and a strongly defined _tempo giusto_, very naturalto men who "mark time" for their sins, and whose progress through lifeis to the sound of the drum.

  The iterative beat pulsed through the open doors to the groups about thebig Yule-tide fires and those coming in out of the dark wilderness, notdaring to stir without firelock, knife, and pistol, for fear of atreacherous foe. And in the hearts and minds of the full-armed guestswas roused a sentiment not new but half-forgotten, to hear in thoseconfident, mellow, assured tones--

  "God rest ye, merry gentlemen, Let nothing ye dismay; For Jesus Christ our Saviour Was born upon this day."

  Between each stanza when silence came unwelcome to the ear and thechatter of tongues seemed dull and trivial a bugle sang out suddenly,its golden-sweet notes vibrating and ringing in the air in the intervalsof this sweet old hymning theme.

  After this tribute, such as they could pay to the holier character ofthe day and the reminder of home, the festivity and jollity began. Theintroduction was auspicious and touched the sense of the picturesque ofthose to whom life was wont to show but a sordid aspect. The settlerswere pleased with the pomp and ceremony of their reception, genuinelydelighted with the effect of the carols and the summoning up of oldmemories and homing thoughts so tenderly stirred, satisfied withthemselves and disposed to admire each other.

  One would hardly have believed that there was so much finery in thesettlement--of different dates and fashions, it is true, and variousnationalities. The wife of one settler wore a good gown of brocade,although her husband seemed quite assured in his buckskins. Two or threeheads were held the higher from a proud consciousness of periwigs[7] andpowder. Mrs. Halsing had a tall, curious comb of filigree silver andgreat silver ear-rings, a sad-colored stuff gown, but a queer foreignapron across which were two straight bands of embroidery of a patternand style that might have graced a museum; Odalie, the expert,determined that the day was not far distant when she should sue for theprivilege of examining the stitch. She herself was clad in theprimrose-flowered paduasoy, with a petticoat of dark red satin and allher Mechlin lace for a fichu, while pearls--her grand'maman'snecklace--were in her dark hair. Mrs. Beedie had woven her own frockwith her own sturdy hands, and with a fresh mob-cap on her head and avery fresh rose on her cheek actively danced the whole night through.

  The widow of the man who had come hither to forward his passion for theministry to the Indian savages, and who had lost his life in thefruitless effort, now probably deemed dissent a grievous folly and hadretur
ned to earlier ways of thinking and conventional standards. Shewore no weeds--one could not here alter the fashion of one's dress, theimmutable thing, for so transitory a matter as grief. She regarded thescene with the face of one who has little share, although she wore apuce-colored satin with some fine lace frills and a modish cap on herthin hair.

  But the daughter! With a lordly carriage of her delicate head that mighthave been reminiscent of her grandfather, the bishop, and yet joyousgirlish red lips, full and smiling and set about with deep dimples; withher hair of red-gold, and sapphire eyes, she was eminently calculated toshatter what poor remnant of peace of mind the young ensign and twoyoung lieutenants who clustered about her had been able to keep in thisdesert place--the more precarious since it was well understood that thefair Belinda had high expectations, and as to matrimonial bait hoped forthe opportunity to "bob for whale." This gay exile herself, born andreared in the provinces and surrounded always by the little court herbeauty summoned about her, did not look forward to a life on thefrontier. She anticipated at some time an invasion of England and a lifeworthy the brilliance of her aspect, and occasionally when herinterlocutors were such as could attribute to her no braggart pride, shewould mention that she had relatives there--of good quality--who woulddoubtless be glad to receive her. The mother, poor sad-visaged martyr ofdeceit, would only draw her thin wrinkled collapsed lips the closer,holding hard hidden the fact that the girl's father had been looked uponby these relatives "of good quality" as a monster of ingratitude, and atthe same time as a candidate for a strait waist-coat, whose apostasy andvoluntary exile had hastened the good bishop's old age and broken hisheart; that the children of the ingrate would be avoided by thisconventional clique, like the leprosy, and esteemed sure to developsooner or later terrible and infinitely inconvenient heresies, andoccasion heaven only knew what bouleversement in any comely and orthodoxand reasonable method of life. She had not much vigor of sentiment, butsuch flicker of hatred as could burn among the ashes of her natureglowed toward those who had cut her husband off and ostracized him, andmade of his earnest sacrificial effort to do his duty, as it wasrevealed to him, a scoff, a burlesque, a reproach, and a bittercaricature. She knew, too, how much of money, of dress, and ofconnections it would require to return to that country where they wouldhave no base from which to organize the brave campaign that thebrilliantly equipped daughter contemplated with such gay and confidentcourage.

  The girl's brother, however, Hamilton Rush, five years her senior,forgetting that he was the grandson of a prelate and the son of a martyrby election, bent all the energies he had inherited from both in theeffort to build up home and wealth and a fair future in this rich land,which held out such bounties to the strong hand and the brave heart. Hewas here to-night, looking on at the scene of pleasure with as absentand absorbed a face as a London stockbroker might have worn in the midstof a financial crisis.

  The brilliant mirage before the shining anticipative eyes of the fairBelinda did not preclude her from entering with youthful ardor intothese festivities now _faute de mieux_ garbed in a canary-colored tabby,of which the moire effect, as we should say nowadays, glistened andshoaled in the light and the luster of the silk. It was worn openingover a skirt of white satin with yellow stripes, enclosing in each adelicate pattern of a vine of roses in several natural tints from pinkto a deep purplish red, all having that sere sort of freshness whichcomes from solicitous preservation rather than newness--like a pressedflower; one might imagine that garbed thus the galvanized widow hadcaptured the affections of the bishop's son, not then perhaps soseverely ascetic of outlook. But Miss Belinda danced as graciously withthe ensign as if she had no splendid ulterior views, and graced theminuet which Odalie and Captain Demere led. Hamish looking at themthought that though she was as unlike Odalie as a splendid tulip differsfrom the stately, tender sweetness of the aspect of a white rose, theyboth adorned the dance like flowers in a parterre. He resolved with aglow of fraternal pride that he would tell Odalie how beautiful she wasin her primrose-tinted gown and deep red jupon with her dark hair rolledhigh, and its string of white pearls, her step so deliberate and smoothwith its precision of grace as with uplifted clasped hands she and theofficer opened the dance.

  This minuet was a splendid maze to Hamish's limited experience, as thefirelight glowed and flashed on the scarlet uniforms and the delicate,dainty tints of the gowns of the ladies, giving out the gloss of satinand now and again showing the soft whiteness of a bare arm held upwardto the clasp of a partner's hand in a lace ruffle and a red sleeve inthe graceful attitudes prescribed by the dance. The measured and statelystep, the slow, smooth whirl, the swinging changing postures, the fairsmiling faces and shining eyes, all seemed curiously enhanced by theenvironment--the background of boughs of holly on the walls, and themilitary suggestions of the metallic flashing of the arms resting on theline of deer antlers that encircled the room--it was like a bird singingits roundelay perched in a cannon's mouth.

  Hamish himself stood against the wall, and for a time it may be doubtedif any one saw how very handsomely his "lovely locks" were plaited, sodid he court the shadows. Sandy noted with secret amusement howpersistently the boy's eyes followed the beautiful Miss Rush, for it wasevident that she was nineteen or twenty years of age, at least threeyears older than her latest admirer.

  Despite his sudden infatuation, however, Hamish was a person ofexcellent good sense, and he soon saw the fatuity of this worship fromafar. "Let the ensign and the lieutenants pine to death," hethought--then with the rough old frontier joke, "I'm saving _my_ scalpfor the Injuns." Nevertheless he was acutely glad that his hair was likea gentleman's, and when he finally ventured out of the crowd hesecured, to his great elation, a partner for one of the contra-dancesthat succeeded the minuet, for the men so greatly outnumbered the womenthat this argued considerable enterprise on a newcomer's part. Hamishhad determined to dance, if with nobody but Mrs. Halsing; but there wereother girlish flowers, somewhat overshadowed by the queens of theparterre, whom he found when his eyes had lost their dazing gloat uponthe beauty of the belle of the settlement--mere little daisies orviolets, as near half wild as himself, knowing hardly more of civilizedsociety than he did. Most of these were clad in bright homespun; one ortwo were so very young that they found it amazing sport, and in truth sodid he, although he had the style of patronizing the enterprise, toplunge out of the great hall and scamper across the snowy parade to aroom, emptied by the gradual exhaustion of the munitions it hadcontained, and now devoted to the entertainment of the children of thesettlers, who it is needless to say had come necessarily with the eldermembers of the pioneer families to participate in the gayeties of thefort. It was a danger not to be contemplated to leave them in the whollydeserted settlement; so, sequestered here in this big room, bare of allbut holly boughs upon the wall and a great fire and a bench or twoabout the chimney corner, they added _eclat_ to the occasion of theofficers' ball by reason of the enthusiastic spirit that pervaded theChristmas games under the direction of Corporal O'Flynn. He had beendelegated to supervise and control the juvenile contingent, beingconstituted master of the revels. With his wild Irish spirit aflame hewas in his element. A finer looking Bruin than he was when enveloped ina great bearskin never came out of the woods, and certainly none moreactive as he chased the youthful pioneers, who were screaming shrilly,from one side of the hall to the other. As "Poor Puss" he struggledfrantically for a corner, failing, however, when a settler of theadvanced age of four, but mighty enterprising, made in swiftly betweenhis knees, gave him a tremendous fall, and gained the coveted goal."Mily, mily bright" was infinitely enlivened by the presence of therecruits from the ball-room, and the romp became tumultuous when Hamishundertook the _role_ of one of the witches that waited by the way tointercept those--among whom was the corporal--who sought to get there by"candle-light," and who were assured that they could do this if their"legs were long enough." When he pursued the soldier and his juvenileparty from one side of the room to the other, winding and dou
bling andalmost tumbling into the fire, the delighted screams of the childrenwere as loud and shrill as if they were all being scalped, and causedthe sentries in the block-house towers to look in surprise and doubt inthat direction more than once, and finally brought Captain Stuart fromthe officers' quarters to see for himself what was going on. As he stoodin the door with his imperious face, his bluff manner, his militarydress, and his great muscular height, the children, inspired by thatlove of the incongruous which always characterizes childhood, swarmedabout him with the insistence that he should be blindfolded inBlindman's Buff. And surely he proved the champion blind man of theworld! After one benighted stumbling rush half across the room, amidst astorm of squealing ecstasy, he plunged among his pygmy enemies with suchstartling success as to have caught two or three by the hair of theirheads with one hand, while with the other he was laying about him withsuch discrimination that his craft became apparent. He was not playingfair!--he could see!--he peeped! he peeped! and his laugh being muchresented, he was put to the door by his small enemies, who evidentlyexpected him to feel such repentance as he might experience if he wereto be court-martialed.

  O'Flynn, watching him go off across the snowy shadowy parade, noticedthat he did not at once return to the open door of the great hall wherethe swirl of the dance could be seen in a kaleidoscopic glow of color,and whence the glad music came forth in a mellow gush of sound; butstood at some little distance watching the progress of the corporal ofthe guard, who with the relief was on his way to the posts of thesentinels; then Stuart disappeared within one of the block-houses,evidently ascending to the tower; after an interval he came out andagain traversed the parade, going diagonally across the whole enclosurewithout doubt to the block-house at the further bastion; thus from thesetwo coigns of vantage he could survey the whole of the region on thefour sides of the fort.

  "I'll go bail, ould Foxy," said Corporal O'Flynn, apostrophizing hissuperior officer under his breath, "that there's nothin' that your sharpeyes doesn't see--if it's just a snake takin' advantage o' the privacyo' the dark hour to slough his skin. But I'd give ye," he hesitated, "meblessin', if you'd tell me what 'tis ye're lookin' for. I want to know,not from a meddlesome sphirit, but jist from sheer curiosity--because mymother was a woman an' not a witch."

  For Captain Stuart had encountered a difficulty in these simplebackwoods Christmas festivities which was altogether unexpected. He haddiligently considered the odds against success, in which, however, thechief seemed the lack of appropriate refreshment, for one could notserve venison and buffalo and wild fowl to hunters as luxuries, and thelimited compass and utilitarian character of the goods sent from thebase of supplies over the mountains rendered even the accumulation ofthe requisite materials for the punch-bowl a matter of forethought andskilled strategy. After the wheat-bread had been secured to make theramequins this feature came near to being dropped because of thedifficulty of obtaining the simple ingredients of eggs and cheese tocompound the farce wherewith they should be spread. But this too hadbeen accomplished. The method of providing for the safety andentertainment of the children of the settlers, without whom they couldnot leave home yet whose presence would have hindered if not destroyedthe enjoyment of the elders, seemed a stroke of genius. The soldiers andnon-commissioned officers were satisfactorily assigned a share in theentertainment appropriate to their military rank and in consonance withtheir taste, and were even now carousing gayly in their quarters, wherethere was more Christmas spirit in circulation than spirituous liquor,for the commandant's orders were niggardly indeed as to serving out theportions of tafia, not in the interests of temperance so much as ofdiscipline in view of their perilous situation so far from help, soalone in the midst of hordes of inimical savages; his parsimony in thisregard passed with them as necessity, since they knew that rum was hardto come by, and even this meager dole was infrequent and a luxury.Therefore they drank their thimbleful with warm hearts and cool heads;the riotous roared out wild songs and vied with one another in wrestlingmatches or boxing encounters; the more sedate played cards or dominoesclose in to the light of the flaring fire, or listened with ever freshinterest to the great stories often told by the gray-headed drum-majorwho had served under the Duke of Cumberland in foreign lands, andpromptly smote upon the mouth any man who spoke of his royal highness as"Billy the Butcher";[8] for there were Scotchmen in the garrisonintolerant of the title of "Hero of Culloden," having more or lessremote associations with an experience delicately mentioned in Scotlandas "being out in the Forty-five." With each fresh narration thedrum-major produced new historical details of the duke's famous fieldsand added a few to the sum of the enemies killed and wounded, till itseemed that if the years should spare him, it would one day bedemonstrated that the warlike William Augustus had in any specifiedbattle slain more men by sword and bayonet and good leaden ball thanwere ever mustered into any army on the face of the earth. All thesoldiers were in their spruce parade trim, and every man had a bunch ofholly in his hat.

  Even the Indians had been considered. In response to the invitation,they had sent the previous day their symbolic white swan's wings paintedwith streaks of white clay, and these were conspicuously placed in thedecorated hall. The gates of the fort that morning had been flung wideopen to all who would come. Tafia--in judiciously small quantities, itis true--was served to the tribesmen about the parade, but the head-men,Atta-Kulla-Kulla, Willinawaugh, Rayetaeh, Otacite, more than all,Oconostota, the king of the Cherokee nation, were escorted to the greathall of the officers' quarters, the latter on the arm of Captain Stuarthimself; the Indian king, being a trifle lame of one leg,--he was knownamong the soldiers as "Old Hop,"--was evidently pleased by theexceptional attention and made the most of his infirmity, leaningheavily on the officer's arm. Arrayed in their finest fur robes withbeautiful broad collars of white swan's down about their necks, withtheir faces mild and devoid of paint, seated in state before the greatfire, the head-men were regaled with French brandy, duly diluted, andthe best Virginia tobacco, offered in very curious pipes, which, withsome medals and gorgets imported for the purpose, were presented asgifts when the ceremony was concluded, and which the Cherokees acceptedwith a show of much pleasure; indeed, they conducted themselves alwaysunder such circumstances with a very good grace and a certain dignityand propriety of feeling which almost amounted to good breeding.

  This was maintained when, invited by the commandant, they witnessed thedress parade, especially elaborate in honor of the occasion, and theylistened attentively when Captain Stuart made a short address to thetroops on the subject of the sacred character of the day and adjuredthem in a frank and soldierly fashion to have a care that theymaintained the moral discipline in which they had all been drilled andgave no advantage to the Enemy because they were here, cut off from themain body of Christianity, so far from the ministrations of a chaplainand the beneficent usages of civilization. "Every soldier learns commandfrom obedience," he said. "And if I should send a detail from the rankson some special duty, the file-leader would know how to command it,although he had never given an order in his life. You are each, with allyour spiritual forces, detached on special duty. You are veteransoldiers of the Cross and under marching orders!"

  Oconostota, with a kingly gesture, signified that the interpreter shouldrepeat in his ear this discourse, and now and again nodded his headduring its translation with cogitation and interest, and as if heunderstood and approved it. He watched too, as if with sympathy, theranks go suddenly down upon their knees, as the commandant read thecollect for the day followed by the unanimous delivery of the Lord'sprayer, in their hearty, martial voices.

  After the tap of the drum had given a resonant "Amen!" they marched offupon the word and broke ranks; and such little observance as the fortcould offer in commemoration of the event was over.

  The Indians all realized this, and were soon loitering out of the greatgate, the commandant receiving their compliments upon the good behaviorof his "young men" and their fine appearance, an elaborate and f
loweryspeech of farewell. Then Oconostota took his presents, by far thelargest and most elaborate of the collection, and, leaning on Stuart'sarm, left the fort, the officer attending him in this fashion down tothe river-bank, where his pettiaugre awaited him. Stuart evolved,apparently without effort, a felicitous phrase of farewell and esteem,graded carefully to suit the rank of the other head-men who followedwith Captain Demere and several lieutenants. These words,Atta-Kulla-Kulla, a Cherokee of an intelligent, spirited countenance,either had the good feeling or the art to seem to especially value.

  "Such smoke as goes up from this pipe between my face and your face, myfriend," he said through the interpreter, "shall never come between youand me. I shall always see you very clear, for I know your heart. Yourways are strange; you come from a far place; but I know you well, for Iknow your heart."

  He laid his hand for a moment on the broad chest of the red coat of thetall, blond officer, then stepped into the canoe, and the little craftshoved off to join a very fleet of canoes, so full was the shiningsurface of the river of Indians who had come from the towns above to thecelebration of the "big Sunday"[D] at the fort.

  Captain Stuart felt relieved that all had gone off so well and that theywere rid of the Cherokees for the day.

  But now the unforeseen was upon him, the fatally uncovenanted event forwhich none can prepare. An express had come after nightfall from overthe mountains, bringing, besides the mail, rumors of another Indianoutbreak on the South Carolina frontier. A number of settlers had beenmassacred, and the perpetrators of the deed had escaped unpunished.Stuart, charging the man to say nothing of his news to blight theChristmas festivities--since the reports might not be true--sent him tomake merry among the soldiers. Anxiety had taken possession of thatstout heart of Stuart's. When the settlers had begun to gather to theball, the earliest arrivals brought no suggestion of difficulty. Thenext comers, however, had seen straggling bands of Indians across theriver, but they were mentioned casually and with no sense ofpremonition. The guests to enter last had been somewhat surprised tonotice numbers of canoes at the landing-place, and presently CaptainStuart was called aside by the officer of the day, who stated that inmaking the rounds he had learned that the sentinel at the gate hadreported having observed bands of Indians lurking about on the edge ofthe woods, and that quite a number had come, singly and in groups, tothe gate to demand admission. The gathering of the white people hadroused their attention evidently. They had always held thecannon-mounted fort and the presence of the soldiery as a menace, andthey now sought to discern what this unprecedented assemblage mightportend. If their entrance were resisted, they who so often frequentedthe place, it was obviously inimical to them. They had heard--for thetransmission of news among the Indians was incredibly swift--of themassacres on the frontier and feared some effort at reprisal. The scantynumbers of the garrison invited their blood-thirsty rapacity, but theywere awed by the cannon, and although entertaining vague ideasconcerning the management and scope of artillery, realized its terriblepotencies.

  Perhaps it was with some idea of forcing an entrance by surprise--thatthey might be within the walls of the fort and out of the range of theguns at this critical juncture of the massing of the forces of thesettlers and the garrison--that a party of thirty or forty Cherokeessuddenly rushed past the sentinel on the counterscarp, who had hardlytime to level his firelock and to call lustily on the guard. The guardat once turning out, the soldiers met the onset of the savages at thegate and bore them back with the bayonet. There was the sudden, quickiterative tramp on the frozen ground of a man running at full speed, andas Stuart dashed through the sally-port he called out "Bar the gates!Bar the gates!" in a wild, imperative voice.

  In another moment he was standing outside among the savages, sayingblandly in Cherokee, of which he had mastered sundry phrases--"How now,my friends,--my best friends!" and holding out his hand with his frank,genial manner first to one of the Indians, then to another.

  They looked upon his hand in disdain and spat upon the ground.

  The sentry in the gate-house above, his firelock ready leveled to hisshoulder, gazed down at the officer, as he stood with his back to theheavy iron-spiked oaken gates; there was light enough in the reflectionof the snow, that made a yellow moon, rising higher and higher into theblue night and above the brown, shadowy woods, seem strangely intense ofcolor, and in the melancholy radiation from its weird, gibbous disk toshow the officer's calm, impassive face; his attitude, with his armsfolded, the rejected hand withdrawn; even the gold lace on his red coatand the color of his hair in the thick braid that hung down under hiscocked hat. Even the latent expectation might be discerned in his eyesthat the interval of silence would prove too irksome to the hot impulse,which had nerved the rush on the gates, to be long continued, and thatthe moment would reveal the leader and the purpose of the demonstration.

  A Cherokee stepped suddenly forward--a man with a tuft of eagle featherson his scalp-lock quivering with angry agitation, his face smeared withvermilion, clad in the buckskin shirt and leggings that the settlers hadcopied from the Indians, with pistols at his belt as well as a firelockin one hand--the barrel sawed off short to aid its efficacy. The air wasbitterly cold, but the blood blazed hot in his face; in Cherokee hespoke and he paused for no interpreter; if the _unaka_ Captain did notunderstand him, so much the worse for the _unaka_ Captain. Through histeeth the tense swift utterances came in half-suppressed breathlesstones, save when a sudden loud exclamation now and again whizzed out onthe air like the ascent of a bursting rocket. His fury was such thateven without the disguise of the paint on his face, Stuart might hardlyhave recognized him were it not for his peculiarly sinewy, slightelegance of shape. He had advanced one foot and he brandished histomahawk--a furious gesture, but without immediate intention, for nowand again he thrust the weapon into his belt.

  "The white captain calls on his friends--and where are they? Not on theoutside of these great guns that bar us from our own. The fort is ours!_To-e-u-hah!_ It is our own. _To-e-u-hah!_[E] Did we not bargain for itin solemn treaty! Did we not make our peace and smoke our pipe and giveour belts of white wampum and sign names to the treaty we made with thewhite English? _Wahkane?_[F] Did we not join his cause and fight hisbattles and shed our blood in his wars against the French? _Wahkane_,John Stuart, _wahkane_? And for what? That the great King George shouldbuild us some forts in our nation to protect our women and children,our old men and our young boys while the Cherokee braves are awayfighting the battles of this great King George against the French--yes,and to make strong the arm of our warriors should the French come herewith the great guns like these, that make naught of the small gun,"--helooked scornfully at the firelock and shook it in his left hand--"andthe bow and arrows--"he spat upon the ground. "And what does the greatEarl of Loudon? He builds this fort for which we have paid with ourblood! blood! blood!--these guns bought with long marches and burnttowns and the despiteful usage of the Virginians"--once more he spatupon the ground. "And then he sends his redcoat soldiers to hold ourfort from us and man our great guns and be a threat and a danger foreverto our peace and make us slaves to the fear of the great cannon!_Yo-he-wah! Yo-he-wah!_[G] And when we send a talk to tell him this, hesends more soldiers! And the white men gather together for grief to thered man, and take the Indians' fort paid for with the Indians' blood andturn the great cannon against him who bought them with a dear price, andbar out his entrance from his own"--the foam flew from his lips. "Youcall on your friend--where?"

  He turned a scornful fiery face to look at the scornful fiery facesabout him. "Where?"

  "Here!" Captain Stuart's calm, full voice struck the vibrating air atleast an octave lower than the keen, high vociferation of the Cherokee."Here is my friend! That is the moon, Atta-Kulla-Kulla, _neus-sea-nan-to-ge_"[H]--he lifted his arm and with his debonair, free gesturepointed at it. "Another sun has not risen. And yet this day, and beforethe sun was high, you told me that naught should come between you andme. You told me that even a cloud coming
between you and me could notseparate us because you knew my heart--and my heart swelled with prideat your words."

  He hesitated for a moment; he detected a sudden change in the Indian'sface. "My heart swelled with pride," he went on, firmly, "for I believedyou! And I believe you still, for"--he laid his hand on the Cherokee'sbreast in imitation of the gesture of Atta-Kulla-Kulla as he repeatedAtta-Kulla-Kulla's words--"for I know _your heart_."

  There was a moment of tense silence. Then not waiting for the dramaticeffect to be lost, he continued: "And now, if you say it is not well toshut the gates on this array of braves, I open them! I come here becauseI am sent--a _unaka_ soldier has no will of his own. He is held to astrict law, and has no liberty such as your young fighting men, whosometimes grow rash, however, and make the wisdom of the plans of your'beloved men,' your sage councils, mere folly. The Earl of Loudon sentthe garrison here. Perhaps if you send a 'talk' to the new head-man,General Amherst, he will take the soldiers away. I go or stay accordingto orders--I march at a word. But to-night the children of the settlersmake merry. I told you this morning of our religion. This day is thefestival of the Child. So the children make merry--you can hear them nowat their play." And indeed there was a sharp, wild squealing upon theair, and Stuart hoped that the beat of the dancing feet might besupposed to be of their making and the sound of the music for theirbehoof--for the dance of the Indians often heralds war and is not forsheer joy. "The parents bring them here and share their mirth. For thisis the festival of the Child. Now your warriors are brave and splendidand terrible to look upon. If they go through the gates, the littlechildren would be smitten with fear; the heart of a little child is likea leaf in the wind--so moved by fear. Do not the Cherokee children fleefrom me--who am not a great warrior and have not even paint for myface--when I come to visit you at Nachey Creek. Say the word--and I openthe gates."

  There was something in this Cherokee which Stuart saw both then andafterward, and which also attracted the attention of others, thatindicated not only an acute and subtle intelligence and a naturalbenignity, but a wide and varied scope of emotion, truly remarkable in asavage without education, of course, and without even the opportunity ofobserving those of a higher culture and exercising sentiments esteemedof value and grace in a civilized appraisement. Yet he was experiencingas poignant a humiliation to be convicted of an ungenerous attitude ofmind and upbraided with a protest belied as if he had been a Knight ofthe Round Table, bred to noble thoughts as well as to chivalrous deedsof arms, and had never taken the scalp of a child or treacherously slaina sleeping enemy.

  Stuart could feel the Cherokee's heart beat fast under his hand.Atta-Kulla-Kulla grasped it suddenly in his own, gripping it hard for amoment, while with his other hand he waved a command for his men toretire, which they did, slowly, with lowering, surprised eyes andclouded brows.

  "Go back!" he said to Stuart. "Hold the gate fast. You make your feast.Keep it. I believe your words. And because--" there was a slightconvulsion of his features--"of the wicked ways of the wicked EarlLoudon I have forgot to-night my words I said to-day, I say themagain--and I do not always forget!"

  He turned suddenly and went down toward the river, the sad, yellow moonsending his brown, elongated shadow with its quivering tuft of feathersfar along the stretches of white snow. Captain Stuart paused for amoment, leaning heavily against the gate; then as he slipped within itand into the shadow of the wall, he was full glad to hear the dancingfeet, all unconscious of the danger that had been so near, and thechildish treble scream of the unscalped children.

  "A little more, and there would have been another massacre of theinnocents," he said, walking slowly across the parade; he had hardly thestrength for a speedier gait. He rescinded the order concerning the hourat which "tattoo" and "lights out" should sound. "For," he thought,noticing the cheerful groups in the soldiers' quarters, "I could getthem under arms much more quickly if awake than by drumming them up outof their beds in barracks."

  He carried no sign of the agitation and the significance of theinterview just past when he returned to the prismatic tinted swirl ofthe dancing figures in the flaring light of the great fire, made morebrilliant by the glow of the holly boughs and the flutter of banners andthe flash of steel from the decorated walls about them. He, too, trod agay measure with the fair Belinda Rush, and never looked more at easeand care-free and jovially imperious than in the character of gallanthost. Even in the gray dawn as he stood at the sally-port of the fortand there took leave of the guests, as group by group departed, he wasas debonair and smiling throughout the handshaking as though the revelswere yet to begin.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [Footnote D: The Indians in North Carolina called the Christmas holidays_Winick-kesbuse_, or "the Englishman's God's moon."]

  [Footnote E: It is most true.]

  [Footnote F: Is it not so?]

  [Footnote G: It has been maintained that this exclamation constantlyused by the Cherokees in solemn adjuration signified "Jehovah."]

  [Footnote H: Literally "the sun of the night."]