The Maid-At-Arms. Robert W. Chambers
no! Come!" she said, impatient, unbolting the heavy door; and, willy-nilly, I followed, meeting the pack all sulking on the stairs, who rose to seize me as I came upon them.
"Let him alone!" cried Dorothy; "he says he can outcast me with the war-hatchet! Where is my hatchet? Sammy! Ruyven! find hatchets and come to the painted post."
"Sport!" cried Harry, leaping down-stairs before us. "Cecile, get your hatchet--get mine, too! Come on, Cousin Ormond, I'll guide you; it's the painted post by the spring--and hark, Cousin George, if you beat her I'll give you my silvered powder-horn!"
Cecile and Sammy hastened up, bearing in their arms the slim war-hatchets, cased in holsters of bright-beaded hide, and we took our weapons and started, piloted by Harry through the door, and across the shady, unkempt lawn to the stockade gate.
Dorothy and I walked side by side, like two champions in amiable confab before a friendly battle, intimately aloof from the gaping crowd which follows on the flanks of all true greatness.
Out across the deep-green meadow we marched, the others trailing on either side with eager advice to me, or chattering of contests past, when Walter Butler and Brant--he who is now war-chief of the loyal Mohawks--cast hatchets for a silver girdle, which Brant wears still; and the patroon, and Sir John, and all the great folk from Guy Park were here a-betting on the Mohawk, which, they say, so angered Walter Butler that he lost the contest. And that day dated the silent enmity between Brant and Butler, which never healed.
This I gathered amid all their chit-chat while we stood under the willows near the spring, watching Ruyven pace the distance from the post back across the greensward towards us.
Then, making his heel-mark in the grass, he took a green willow wand and set it, all feathered, in the turf.
"Is it fair for Dorothy to cast her own hatchet?" asked Harry.
"Give me Ruyven's," she said, half vexed. Aught that touched her sense of fairness sent a quick flame of anger to her cheeks which I admired.
"Keep your own hatchet, cousin," I said; "you may have need of it."
"Give me Ruyven's hatchet," she repeated, with a stamp of her foot which Ruyven hastened to respect. Then she turned to me, pink with defiance:
"It is always a stranger's honor," she said; so I advanced, drawing my light, keen weapon from its beaded sheath, which I had belted round me; and Ruyven took station by the post, ten paces to the right.
The post was painted scarlet, ringed with white above; below, in outline, the form of a man--an Indian--with folded arms, also drawn in white paint. The play was simple; the hatchet must imbed its blade close to the outlined shape, yet not "wound" or "draw blood."
"Brant at first refused to cast against that figure," said Harry, laughing. "He consented only because the figure, though Indian, was painted white."
I scarce heard him as I stood measuring with my eyes the distance. Then, taking one step forward to the willow wand, I hurled the hatchet, and it landed quivering in the shoulder of the outlined figure on the post.
"A wound!" cried Cecile; and, mortified, I stepped back, biting my lip, while Harry notched one point against me on the willow wand and Dorothy, tightening her girdle, whipped out her bright war-axe and stepped forward. Nor did she even pause to scan the post; her arm shot up, the keen axe-blade glittered and flew, sparkling and whirling, biting into the post, chuck! handle a-quiver. And you could not have laid a June willow-leaf betwixt the Indian's head and the hatchet's blade.
She turned to me, lips parted in a tormenting smile, and I praised the cast and took my hatchet from Ruyven to try once more. Yet again I broke skin on the thigh of the pictured captive; and again the glistening axe left Dorothy's hand, whirring to a safe score, a grass-stem's width from the Indian's head.
I understood that I had met my master, yet for the third time strove; and my axe whistled true, standing point-bedded a finger's breadth from the cheek.
"Can you mend that, Dorothy?" I asked, politely.
She stood smiling, silent, hatchet poised, then nodded, launching the axe. Crack! came the handles of the two hatchets, and rattled together. But the blade of her hatchet divided the space betwixt my blade and the painted face, nor touched the outline by a fair hair's breadth.
Astonishment was in my face, not chagrin, but she misread me, for the triumph died out in her eyes, and, "Oh!" she said; "I did not mean to win--truly I did not," offering her hands in friendly amend.
But at my quick laugh she brightened, still holding my hands, regarding me with curious eyes, brilliant as amethysts.
"I was afraid I had hurt your pride--before these silly children--" she began.
"Children!" shouted Ruyven. "I bet you ten shillings he can outcast you yet!"
"Done!" she flashed, then, all in a breath, smiled adorably and shook her head. "No, I'll not bet. He could win if he chose. We understand each other, my cousin Ormond and I," and gave my hands a little friendly shake with both of hers, then dropped them to still Ruyven's clamor for a wager.
"You little beast!" she said, fiercely; "is it courteous to pit your guests like game-cocks for your pleasure?"
"You did it yourself!" retorted Ruyven, indignantly--"and entered the pit yourself."
"For a jest, silly! There were no bets. Now frown and vapor and wag your finger--do! What do you lack? I will wrestle you if you wait until I don my buckskins. No? A foot-race?--and I'll bet you your ten shillings on myself! Ten to five--to three--to one! No? Then hush your silly head!"
"Because," said Ruyven, sullenly, coming up to me, "she can outrun me with her long legs, she gives herself the devil's own airs and graces. There's no living with her, I tell you. I wish I could go to the war."
"You'll have to go when father declares himself," observed Dorothy, quietly polishing her hatchet on its leather sheath.
"But he won't declare for King or Congress," retorted the boy.
"Wait till they start to plague us," murmured Dorothy. "Some fine July day cows will be missed, or a barn burned, or a shepherd found scalped. Then you'll see which way the coin spins!"
"Which way will it spin?" demanded Ruyven, incredulous yet eager.
"Ask that squirrel yonder," she said, briefly.
"Thanks; I've asked enough of chatterers," he snapped out, and came to the tree where we were sitting in the shadow on the cool, thick carpet of the grass--such grass as I had never seen in that fair Southland which I loved.
The younger children gathered shyly about me, their active tongues suddenly silent, as though, all at once, they had taken a sudden alarm to find me there.
The reaction of fatigue was settling over me--for my journey had been a long one that day--and I leaned my back against the tree and yawned, raising my hand to hide it.
"I wonder," I said, "whether anybody here knows if my boxes and servant have arrived from Philadelphia."
"Your boxes are in the hallway by your bed-chamber," said Dorothy. "Your servant went to Johnstown for news of you--let me see--I think it was Saturday--"
"Friday," said Ruyven, looking up from the willow wand which he was peeling.
"He never came back," observed Dorothy. "Some believe he ran away to Albany, some think the Boston people caught him and impressed him to work on the fort at Stanwix."
I felt my face growing hot.
"I should like to know," said I, "who has dared to interfere with my servant."
"So should I," said Ruyven, stoutly. "I'd knock his head off." The others stared. Dorothy, picking a meadow-flower to pieces, smiled quietly, but did not look up.
"What do you think has happened to my black?" I asked, watching her.
"I think Walter Butler's men