CHAPTER XI. GRAVITY OUT OF BED.

CHAPTER XI.

GRAVITY OUT OF BED.

A week later I had a visit from old Mercer. He came to my house in the evening just after the closing of the store. First of all, he paid out to me the gold I had lost from my ship at Accomac, with all the gravity in the world, as if it had been an ordinary merchant's bargain. Then he produced some papers, and putting on big horn spectacles, proceeded to instruct me in them. They were lists, fuller than those I had already got, of men up and down the country whom Lawrence trusted. Some I had met, many I knew of, but two or three gave me a start. There was a planter in Henricus who had treated me like dirt, and some names from Essex county that I did not expect. Especially there were several in James Town itself--one a lawyer body I had thought the obedient serf of the London merchants, one the schoolmaster, and another a drunken skipper of a river boat. But what struck me most was the name of Colonel Beverley.

"Are you sure of all these?" I asked.

"Sure as death," he said. "I'm not saying that they're all friends of yours, Mr. Garvald. Ye've trampled on a good wheen toes since you came to these parts. But they're all men to ride the ford with, if that should come which we ken of."

Some of the men on the list were poor settlers, and it was our business to equip them with horse and gun. That was to be my special duty--that and the establishing of means by which they could be summoned quickly. With the first Mercer could help me, for he had his hand on all the lines of the smuggling business, and there were a dozen ports on the coast where he could land arms. Horses were an easy matter, requiring only the doling out of money. But the summoning business was to be my particular care. I could go about the country in my ordinary way of trade without exciting suspicion, and my house was to be the rendezvous of every man on the list who wanted news or guidance.

"Can ye trust your men?" Mercer asked, and I replied that Faulkner was as staunch as cold steel, and that he had picked the others.

"Well, let's see your accommodation," and the old fellow hopped to his feet, and was out of doors before I could get the lantern.

Mercer on a matter of this sort was a different being from the decayed landlord of the water-side tavern. His spectacled eyes peered everywhere, and his shrewd sense judged instantly of a thing's value. He approved of the tobacco-shed as a store for arms, for he could reach it from the river by a little-used road through the woods. It was easy so to arrange, the contents that a passing visitor could guess nothing, and no one ever penetrated to its recesses but Faulkner and myself. I summoned Faulkner to the conference, and told him his duties, which, he undertook with sober interest. He was a dry stick from Fife, who spoke seldom and wrought mightily.

Faulkner attended to Mercer's consignments, and I took once more to the road. I had to arrange that arms from the coast or the river-sides could be sent inland, and for this purpose I had a regiment of pack horses that delivered my own stores as well. I had to visit all the men on the list whom I did not know, and a weary job it was. I repeated again my toil of the first year, and in the hot Virginian summer rode the length and breadth of the land. My own business prospered hugely, and I bought on credit such a stock of tobacco as made me write my uncle for a fourth ship at the harvest sailing. It seemed a strange thing, I remember, to be bargaining for stuff which might never be delivered, for by the autumn the dominion might be at death grips.

In those weeks I discovered what kind of force Lawrence leaned on. He who only knew James Town and the rich planters knew little of the true Virginia. There were old men who had long memories of Indian fights, and men in their prime who had risen with Bacon, and young men who had their eyes turned to the unknown West. There were new-comers from Scotland and North Ireland, and a stout band of French Protestants, most of them gently born, who had sought freedom for their faith beyond the sway of King Louis. You cannot picture a hardier or more spirited race than the fellows I thus recruited. The forest settler who swung an axe all day for his livelihood could have felled the ordinary fine gentleman with one blow of his fist. And they could shoot too, with their rusty matchlocks or clumsy snaphances. In some few the motive was fear, for they had seen or heard of the tender mercies of the savages. But in most, I think, it was a love of bold adventure, and especially the craving to push the white man's province beyond the narrow borders of the Tidewater. If you say that this was something more than defence, I claim that the only way to protect a country is to make sure of its environs. What hope is there of peace if your frontier is the rim of an unknown forest?

My hardest task was to establish some method of sending news to the outland dwellers. For this purpose I had to consort with queer folk. Shalah, who had become my second shadow, found here and there little Indian camps, from which he chose young men as messengers. In one place I would get a settler with a canoe, in another a woodman with a fast horse; and in a third some lad who prided himself on his legs. The rare country taverns were a help, for most of their owners were in the secret. The Tidewater is a flat forest region, so we could not light beacons as in a hilly land. But by the aid of Shalah's woodcraft I concocted a set of marks on trees and dwellings which would speak a language to any initiate traveller. The Indians, too, had their own silent tongue, by which they could send messages over many leagues in a short space. I never learned the trick of it, though I tried hard with Shalah as interpreter; for that you must have been suckled in a wigwam.

When I got back to James Town, Faulkner would report on his visitors, and he seems to have had many. Rough fellows would ride up at the darkening, bringing a line from Mercer, or more often an agreed password, and he had to satisfy their wants and remember their news. So far I had had no word from Lawrence, though Mercer reported that Ringan was still sending arms. That tobacco-shed of mine would have made a brave explosion if some one had kindled it, and, indeed, the thing more than once was near happening through a negro's foolishness. I spent all my evenings, when at home, in making a map of the country. I had got a rough chart from the Surveyor-General, and filled up such parts as I knew, and over all I spread a network of lines which meant my ways of sending news. For instance, to get to a man in Essex county, the word would be passed by Middle Plantation to York Ferry. Thence in an Indian's canoe it would be carried to Aird's store on the Mattaponey, from which a woodman would take it across the swamps to a clump of hemlocks. There he would make certain marks, and a long-legged lad from the Rappahannock, riding by daily to school, would carry the tidings to the man I wanted. And so forth over the habitable dominion. I calculated that there were not more than a dozen of Lawrence's men who within three days could not get the summons and within five be at the proper rendezvous.

One evening I was surprised by a visit from Colonel Beverley. He came openly on a fine bay horse with two mounted negroes as attendants. I had parted from him dryly, and had been surprised to find that he was one of us; but when I had talked with him a little, it appeared that he had had a big share in planning the whole business. We mentioned no names, but I gathered that he knew Lawrence, and was at least aware of Ringan. He warned me, I remember, to be on my guard against some of the young bloods, who might visit me to make mischief. "It's not that they know anything of our affairs," he said, "but that they have got a prejudice against yourself, Mr. Garvald. They are foolish, hot-headed lads, very puffed up by their pride of gentrice, and I do not like the notion of their playing pranks in that tobacco-shed."

I asked him a question which had long puzzled me, why the natural defence of a country should be kept so secret. "The Governor, at any rate," I said, "would approve, and we are not asking the burgesses for a single guinea."

"Yes, but the Governor would play a wild hand," was the answer. "He would never permit the thing to go on quietly, but would want to ride at the head of the men, and the whole fat would be in the fire. You must know. Mr. Garvald, that politics run high in our Virginia. There are scores of men who would see in our enterprise a second attempt like Bacon's, and, though they might approve of our aims, would never hear of one of Bacon's folk serving with us. I was never a Bacon's man, for I was with Berkeley in Accomac and at the taking of James Town, but I know the quality of the rough fellows that Bacon led, and I want them all for this adventure. Besides, who can deny that there is more in our plans than a defence against Indians? There are many who feel with me that Virginia can never grow to the fullness of a nation so long as she is cooped up in the Tidewater. New-comers arrive by every ship from England, and press on into the wilderness. But there can be no conquest of the wilderness till we have broken the Indian menace, and pushed our frontier up to the hills--ay, and beyond them. But tell that to the ordinary planter, and he will assign you to the devil. He fears these new-comers, who are simple fellows that do not respect his grandeur. He fears that some day they may control the assembly by their votes. He wants the Tidewater to be his castle, with porters and guards to hound away strangers. Man alive, if you had tried to put reason into some of their heads, you would despair of human nature. Let them get a hint of our preparations, and there will be petitions to Council and a howling about treason, and in a week you will be in gaol, Mr. Garvald. So we must move cannily, as you Scots say."

That conversation made me wary, and I got Faulkner to keep a special guard on the place when I was absent. At the worst, he could summon Mercer, who would bring a rough crew from the water-side to his aid. Then once more I disappeared into the woods.

In these days a new Shalah revealed himself. I think he had been watching me closely for the past months, and slowly I had won his approval. He showed it by beginning to talk as he loped by my side in our forest wanderings. The man was like no Indian I have ever seen. He was a Senecan, and so should have been on the side of the Long House; but it was plain that he was an outcast from his tribe, and, indeed, from the whole Indian brotherhood. I could not fathom him, for he seemed among savages to be held in deep respect, and yet here he was, the ally of the white man against his race. His lean, supple figure, his passionless face, and his high, masterful air had a singular nobility in them. To me he was never the servant, scarcely even the companion, for he seemed like a being from another world, who had a knowledge of things hid from human ken. In woodcraft he was a master beyond all thought of rivalry. Often, when time did not press, he would lead me, clumsy as I was, so that I could almost touch the muzzle of a crouching deer, or lay a hand on a yellow panther, before it slipped like a live streak of light into the gloom. He was an eery fellow, too. Once I found him on a high river bank at sunset watching the red glow behind the blue shadowy forest.

"There is blood in the West," he said, pointing like a prophet with his long arm, "There is blood in the hills which is flowing to the waters. At the Moon of Stags it will flow, and by the Moon of Wildfowl it will have stained the sea."

He had always the hills at the back of his head. Once, when we caught a glimpse of them from a place far up the James River, he stood like a statue gazing at the thin line which hung like a cloud in the west. I am upland bred, and to me, too, the sight was a comfort as I stood beside him.

"The _Manitou_ in the hills is calling," he said abruptly. "I wait a little, but not long. You too will follow, brother, to where the hawks wheel and the streams fall in vapour. There we shall find death or love, I know not which, but it will be a great finding. The gods have written it on my heart."

Then he turned and strode away, and I did not dare to question him. There was that about him which stirred my prosaic soul into a wild poetry, till for the moment I saw with his eyes, and heard strange voices in the trees.

Apart from these uncanny moods he was the most faithful helper in my task. Without him I must have been a mere child. I could not read the lore of the forest; I could not have found my way as he found it through pathless places. From him, too, I learned that we were not to make our preparations unwatched.

Once, as we were coming from the Rappahannock to the York, he darted suddenly into the undergrowth below the chestnuts. My eye could see no clue on the path, and, suspecting nothing, I waited on him to return. Presently he came, and beckoned me to follow. Thirty yards into the coppice we found a man lying dead, with a sharp stake holding him to the ground, and a raw, red mass where had been once his head.

"That was your messenger, brother," he whispered, "the one who was to carry word from the Mattaponey to the north. See, he has been dead for two suns."

He was one of the tame Algonquins who dwelt by Aird's store.

"Who did it?" I asked, with a very sick stomach.

"A Cherokee. Some cunning one, and he left a sign to guide us."

He showed me a fir-cone he had picked up from the path, with the sharp end cut short and a thorn stuck in the middle.

The thing disquieted me horribly, for we had heard no word yet of any movement from the West. And yet it seemed that our enemy's scouts had come far down into the Tidewater, and knew enough to single out for death a man we had enrolled for service. Shalah slipped off without a word, and I was left to continue my journey alone. I will not pretend that I liked the business. I saw an Indian in every patch of shadow, and looked pretty often to my pistols before I reached the security of Aird's house.

Four days later Shalah appeared at James Town. "They were three," he said simply. "They came from the hills a moon ago, and have been making bad trouble on the Rappahannock. I found them at the place above the beaver traps of the Ooniche. They return no more to their people."

After that we sent out warnings, and kept a close eye on the different lodges of the Algonquins. But nothing happened till weeks later, when the tragedy on the Rapidan fell on us like a thunderclap.

* * * * *

All this time I had been too busy to go near the town or the horse-racings and holiday meetings where I might have seen Elspeth. But I do not think she was ever many minutes out of my mind. Indeed, I was almost afraid of a meeting, lest it should shatter the bright picture which comforted my solitude. But one evening in June as I jogged home from Middle Plantation through the groves of walnuts, I came suddenly at the turn of the road on a party. Doctor James Blair, mounted on a stout Flanders cob, held the middle of the path, and at his side rode the girl, while two servants followed with travelling valises. I was upon them before I could rein up, and the Doctor cried a hearty good-day. So I took my place by Elspeth, and, with my heart beating wildly, accompanied them through the leafy avenues and by the green melon-beds in the clearings till we came out on the prospect of the river.

The Doctor had a kindness for me, and was eager to talk of his doings. He was almost as great a moss-trooper as myself, and, with Elspeth for company, had visited near every settlement in the dominion. Education and Christian privileges were his care, and he deplored the backward state of the land. I remember that even then he was full of his scheme for a Virginian college to be established at Middle Plantation, and he wrote weekly letters to his English friends soliciting countenance and funds. Of the happy issue of these hopes, and the great college which now stands at Williamsburg, there is no need to remind this generation.

But in that hour I thought little of education. The Doctor boomed away in his deep voice, and I gave him heedless answers. My eyes were ever wandering to the slim figure at my side. She wore a broad hat of straw, I remember, and her skirt and kirtle were of green, the fairies' colour. I think she was wearied with the sun, for she spoke little; but her eyes when they met mine were kind. That day I was not ashamed of my plain clothes or my homely face, for they suited well with the road. My great boots of untanned buckskin were red with dust, I was bronzed like an Indian, and the sun had taken the colour out of my old blue coat. But I smacked of travel and enterprise, which to an honest heart are dearer than brocade. Also I had a notion that my very homeliness revived in her the memories of our common motherland. I had nothing to say, having acquired the woodland habit of silence, and perhaps it was well. My clumsy tongue would have only broken the spell which the sunlit forests had woven around us.

As we reached my house a cavalier rode up with a bow and a splendid sweep of his hat. 'Twas my acquaintance, Mr. Grey, come to greet the travellers. Elspeth gave me her hand at parting, and I had from the cavalier the finest glance of hate and jealousy which ever comforted the heart of a backward lover.

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”