A WILD WAGER.

That July morning in the forest gave me, if not popularity, at any rate peace.  I had made good my position.  Henceforth the word went out that I was to be let alone.  Some of the young men, indeed, showed signs of affecting my society, including that Mr. Kent of Gracedieu who had been stripped by Ringan.  The others treated me with courtesy, and I replied with my best manners.  Most of them were of a different world to mine, and we could not mix, so ’twas right that our deportment should be that of two dissimilar but amiable nations bowing to each other across a frontier.

All this was a great ease, but it brought one rueful consequence.  Elspeth grew cold to me.  Women, I suppose, have to condescend, and protect, and pity.  When I was an outcast she was ready to shelter me; but now that I was in some degree of favour with others the need for this was gone, and she saw me without illusion in all my angularity and roughness.  She must have heard of the duel, and jumped to the conclusion that the quarrel had been about herself, which was not the truth.  The notion irked her pride, that her name should ever be brought into the brawls of men.  When I passed her in the streets she greeted me coldly, and all friendliness had gone out of her eyes.

My days were so busy that I had little leisure for brooding, but at odd moments I would fall into a deep melancholy.  She had lived so constantly in my thoughts that without her no project charmed me.  What mattered wealth or fame, I thought, if she did not approve?  What availed my striving, if she were not to share in the reward?  I was in this mood when I was bidden by Doctor Blair to sup at his house.

I went thither in much trepidation, for I feared a great company, in which I might have no chance of a word from her.  But I found only the Governor, who was in a black humour, and disputed every word that fell from the Doctor’s mouth.  This turned the meal into one long wrangle, in which the high fundamentals of government in Church and State were debated by two choleric gentlemen.  The girl and I had no share in the conversation; indeed, we were clearly out of place:  so she could not refuse when I proposed a walk in the garden.  The place was all cool and dewy after the scorching day, and the bells of the flowers made the air heavy with fragrance.  Somewhere near a man was playing on the flageolet, a light, pretty tune which set her feet tripping.

I asked her bluntly wherein I had offended.

“Offended!” she cried, “Why should I take offence?  I see you once in a blue moon.  You flatter yourself strangely, Mr. Garvald, if you think you are ever in my thoughts.”

“You are never out of mine,” I said dismally.

At this she laughed, something of the old elfin laughter which I had heard on the wet moors.

“A compliment!” she cried, “To be mixed up eternally with the weights of tobacco and the prices of Flemish lace.  You are growing a very pretty courtier, sir.”

“I am no courtier,” I said.  “I think brave things of you, though I have not the words to fit them.  But one thing I will say to you.  Since ever you sang to the boy that once was me your spell has been on my soul.  And when I saw you again three months back that spell was changed from the whim of youth to what men call love.  Oh, I know well there is no hope for me.  I am not fit to tie your shoe-latch.  But you have made a fire in my cold life, and you will pardon me if I dare warm my hands.  The sun is brighter because of you, and the flowers fairer, and the birds’ song sweeter.  Grant me this little boon, that I may think of you.  Have no fears that I will pester you with attentions.  No priest ever served his goddess with a remoter reverence than mine for you.”

She stopped in an alley of roses and looked me in the face.  In the dusk I could not see her eyes.

“Fine words,” she said.  “Yet I hear that you have been wrangling over me with Mr. Charles Grey, and exchanging pistol shots.  Is that your reverence?”

In a sentence I told her the truth.  “They forced my back to the wall,” I said, “and there was no other way.  I have never uttered your name to a living soul.”

Was it my fancy that when she spoke again there was a faint accent of disappointment?

“You are an uncomfortable being, Mr. Garvald.  It seems you are predestined to keep Virginia from sloth.  For myself I am for the roses and the old quiet ways.”

She plucked two flowers, one white and one of deepest crimson.

“I pardon you,” she said, “and for token I will give you a rose.  It is red, for that is your turbulent colour.  The white flower of peace shall be mine.”

I took the gift, and laid it in my bosom.

Two days later, it being a Monday, I dined with his Excellency at the Governor’s house at Middle Plantation.  The place had been built new for my lord Culpepper, since the old mansion at James Town had been burned in Bacon’s rising.  The company was mainly of young men, but three ladies ­the mistresses of Arlington and Cobwell Manors, and Elspeth in a new saffron gown ­varied with their laces the rich coats of the men.  I was pleasantly welcomed by everybody.  Grey came forward and greeted me, very quiet and civil, and I sat by him throughout the meal.  The Governor was in high good humour, and presently had the whole company in the same mood.  Of them all, Elspeth was the merriest.  She had the quickest wit and the deftest skill in mimicry, and there was that in her laughter which would infect the glummest.

That very day I had finished my preparations.  The train was now laid, and the men were ready, and a word from Lawrence would line the West with muskets.  But I had none of the satisfaction of a completed work.  It was borne in upon me that our task was scarcely begun, and that the peril that threatened us was far darker than we had dreamed.  Ringan’s tale of a white leader among the tribes was always in my head.  The hall where we sat was lined with portraits of men who had borne rule in Virginia.  There was Captain John Smith, trim-bearded and bronzed; and Argall and Dale, grave and soldierly; there was Francis Wyat, with the scar got in Indian wars; there hung the mean and sallow countenance of Sir John Harvey.  There, too, was Berkeley, with his high complexion and his love-locks, the great gentleman of a vanished age; and the gross rotundity of Culpepper; and the furtive eye of my lord Howard, who was even now the reigning Governor.  There was a noble picture of King Charles the Second, who alone of monarchs was represented.  Soft-footed lackeys carried viands and wines, and the table was a mingling of silver and roses.  The afternoon light came soft through the trellis, and you could not have looked for a fairer picture of settled ease.  Yet I had that in my mind which shattered the picture.  We were feasting like the old citizens of buried Pompeii, with the lava even now, perhaps, flowing hot from the mountains.  I looked at the painted faces on the walls, and wondered which I would summon to our aid if I could call men from the dead.  Smith, I thought, would be best; but I reflected uneasily that Smith would never have let things come to such a pass.  At the first hint of danger he would have been off to the West to scotch it in the egg.

I was so filled with sober reflections that I talked little; but there was no need of me.  Youth and beauty reigned, and the Governor was as gay as the youngest.  Many asked me to take wine with them, and the compliment pleased me.  There was singing, likewise ­Sir William Davenant’s song to his mistress, and a Cavalier rant or two, and a throat ditty of the seas; and Elspeth sang very sweetly the old air of “Greensleeves.”  We drank all the toasts of fashion ­His Majesty of England, confusion to the French, the health of Virginia, rich harvests, full cellars, and pretty dames.  Presently when we had waxed very cheerful, and wine had risen to several young heads, the Governor called on us to brim our glasses.

“Be it known, gentlemen, and you, fair ladies,” he cried, “that to-day is a more auspicious occasion than any Royal festival or Christian holy day.  To-day is Dulcinea’s birthday.  I summon you to drink to the flower of the West, the brightest gem in Virginia’s coronal.”

At that we were all on our feet.  The gentlemen snapped the stems of their glasses to honour the sacredness of the toast, and there was such a shouting and pledging as might well have turned a girl’s head.  Elspeth sat still and smiling.  The mockery had gone out of her eyes, and I thought they were wet.  No Queen had ever a nobler salutation, and my heart warmed to the generous company.  Whatever its faults, it did due homage to beauty and youth.

Governor Francis was again on his feet.

“I have a birthday gift for the fair one.  You must know that once at Whitehall I played at cartes with my lord Culpepper, and the stake on his part was one-sixth portion of that Virginian territory which is his freehold.  I won, and my lord conveyed the grant to me in a deed properly attested by the attorneys.  We call the place the Northern Neck, and ’tis all the land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac as far west as the sunset.  It is undivided, but my lord stipulated that my portion should lie from the mountains westward.  What good is such an estate to an aging bachelor like me, who can never visit it?  But ’tis a fine inheritance for youth, and I propose to convey it to Dulcinea as a birthday gift.  Some day, I doubt not, ’twill be the Eden of America.”

At this there was a great crying out and some laughter, which died away when it appeared that the Governor spoke in all seriousness.

“I make one condition,” he went on.  “Twenty years back there was an old hunter, called Studd, who penetrated the mountains.  He travelled to the head-waters of the Rapidan, and pierced the hills by a pass which he christened Clearwater Gap.  He climbed the highest mountain in those parts, and built a cairn on the summit, in which he hid a powder-horn with a writing within.  He was the first to make the journey, and none have followed him.  The man is dead now, but he told me the tale, and I will pledge my honour that it is true.  It is for Dulcinea to choose a champion to follow Studd’s path and bring back his powder-horn.  On the day I receive it she takes sasine of her heritage.  Which of you gallants offers for the venture?”

To this day I do not know what were Francis Nicholson’s motives.  He wished the mountains crossed, but he cannot have expected to meet a pathfinder among the youth of the Tidewater.  I think it was the whim of the moment.  He would endow Elspeth, and at the same time test her cavaliers.  To the ordinary man it seemed the craziest folly.  Studd had been a wild fellow, half Indian in blood and wholly Indian in habits, and for another to travel fifty miles into the heart of the desert was to embrace destruction.  The company sat very silent.  Elspeth, with a blushing cheek, turned troubled eyes on the speaker.

As for me, I had found the chance I wanted.  I was on my feet in a second.  “I will go,” I said; and I had hardly spoken when Grey was beside me, crying, “And I.”

Still the company sat silent.  ’Twas as if the shadow of a sterner life had come over their young gaiety.  Elspeth did not look at me, but sat with cast-down eyes, plucking feverishly at a rose.  The Governor laughed out loud.

“Brave hearts!” he cried.  “Will you travel together?”

I looked at Grey.  “That can hardly be,” he said.

“Well, we must spin for it,” said Nicholson, taking a guinea from his pocket.  “Royals for Mr. Garvald, quarters for Mr. Grey,” he cried as he spun it.

It fell Royals.  We had both been standing, and Grey now bowed to me and sat down.  His face was very pale and his lips tightly shut.

The Governor gave a last toast “Let us drink,” he called, “to Dulcinea’s champion and the fortunes of his journey.”  At that there was such applause you might have thought me the best-liked man in the dominion.  I looked at Elspeth, but she averted her eyes.

As we left the table I stepped beside Grey.  “You must come with me,” I whispered.  “Nay, do not refuse.  When you know all you will come gladly.”  And I appointed a meeting on the next day at the Half-way Tavern.

I got to my house at the darkening, and found Ringan waiting for me.

This time he had not sought a disguise, but he kept his fiery head covered with a broad hat, and the collar of his seaman’s coat enveloped his lower face.  To a passer-by in the dusk he must have seemed an ordinary ship’s captain stretching his legs on land.

He asked for food and drink, and I observed that his manner was very grave.

“Are things in train, Andrew?” he asked.

I told him “to the last stirrup buckle.”

“It’s as well,” said he, “for the trouble has begun.”

Then he told me a horrid tale.  The Rapidan is a stream in the north of the dominion, flowing into the Rappahannock on its south bank.  Two years past a family of French folk ­D’Aubigny was their name ­had made a home in a meadow by that stream and built a house and a strong stockade, for they were in dangerous nearness to the hills, and had no neighbours within forty miles.  They were gentlefolk of some substance, and had carved out of the wilderness a very pretty manor with orchards and flower gardens.  I had never been to the place, but I had heard the praise of it from dwellers on the Rappahannock.  No Indians came near them, and there they abode, happy in their solitude ­a husband and wife, three little children, two French servants, and a dozen negroes.

A week ago tragedy had come like a thunderbolt.  At night the stockade was broke, and the family woke from sleep to hear the war-whoop and see by the light of their blazing byres a band of painted savages.  It seems that no resistance was possible, and they were butchered like sheep.  The babes were pierced with stakes, the grown folk were scalped and tortured, and by sunrise in that peaceful clearing there was nothing but blood-stained ashes.

Word had come down the Rappahannock.  Ringan said he had heard it in Accomac, and had sailed to Sabine to make sure.  Men had ridden out from Stafford county, and found no more than a child’s toy and some bloody garments.

“Who did it?” I asked, with fury rising in my heart.

“It’s Cherokee work.  There’s nothing strange in it, except that such a deed should have been dared.  But it means the beginning of our business.  D’you think the Stafford folk will sleep in their beds after that?  And that’s precisely what perplexes me.  The Governor will be bound to send an expedition against the murderers, and they’ll not be easy found.  But while the militia are routing about on the Rapidan, what hinders the big invasion to come down the James or the Chickahominy or the Pamunkey or the Mattaponey and find a defenceless Tidewater?  As I see it, there’s deep guile in this business.  A Cherokee murder is nothing out of the way, but these blackguards were not killing for mere pleasure.  As I’ve said before, I would give my right hand to have better information.  It’s this land business that fickles one.  If it were a matter of islands and ocean bays, I would have long ago riddled out the heart of it.”

“We’re on the way to get news,” I said, and I told him of my wager that evening.

“Man, Andrew!” he cried, “it’s providential.  There’s nothing to hinder you and me and a few others to ride clear into the hills, with the Tidewater thinking it no more than a play of daft young men.  You must see Nicholson, and get him to hold his hand till we send him word.  In two days Lawrence will be here, and we can post our lads on each of the rivers, for it’s likely any Indian raid will take one of the valleys.  You must see that Governor of yours first thing in the morning, and get him to promise to wait on your news.  Then he can get out his militia, and stir up the Tidewater.  Will he do it, think you?”

I said I thought he would.

“And there’s one other thing.  Would he agree to turning a blind eye to Lawrence, if he comes back?  He’ll not trouble them in James Town, but he’s the only man alive to direct our own lads.”

I said I would try, but I was far from certain.  It was hard to forecast the mind of Governor Francis.

“Well, Lawrence will come whether or no.  You can sound the man, and if he’s dour let the matter be.  Lawrence is now on the Roanoke, and his plan is to send out the word to-morrow and gather in the posts.  He’ll come to Frew’s place on the South Fork River, which is about the middle of the frontier line.  To-day is Monday, to-morrow the word will go out, by Friday the men will be ready, and Lawrence will be in Virginia.  The sooner you’re off the better, Andrew.  What do you say to Wednesday?”

“That day will suit me fine,” I said; “but what about my company?”

“The fewer the better.  Who were you thinking of?”

“You for one,” I said, “and Shalah for a second.”

He nodded.

“I want two men from the Rappahannock ­a hunter of the name of Donaldson and the Frenchman Bertrand.”

“That makes five.  Would you like to even the number?”

“Yes,” I said.  “There’s a gentleman of the Tidewater, Mr. Charles Grey, that I’ve bidden to the venture.”

Ringan whistled.  “Are you sure that’s wise?  There’ll be little use for braw clothes and fine manners in the hills.”

“All the same there’ll be a use for Mr. Grey.  When will you join us?”

“I’ve a bit of business to do hereaways, but I’ll catch you up.  Look for me at Aird’s store on Thursday morning.”