Mistress Madcap/Chapter 2
FOR long minutes the two girls and their mother stood there, minutes that seemed like months, that seemed like years. Then Squire Condit's voice hailed them from the dooryard and soon, as Mistress Condit took the candle that Mehitable had brought her and held it aloft, they saw him staggering toward them half-carrying, half-dragging a human form.
"Wine, Mary, for this poor fellow!" he gasped, stumbling past her into the kitchen.
As the firelight flashed upon the still figure their father had placed upon the floor, the two girls drew back with exclamations of fear.
"An Indian, Father?" faltered Mehitable.
"Aye—an Indian! But a human being like you or me, Hitty, and as such, subject to death as we!" answered her father reprovingly.
"Poor Indian!" said Charity immediately, in her gentle voice. Then she shrank back, for at that instant the Indian's eyes flew open and he stared at her with the uncanny alertness of a wild wood-thing caught in a trap.
"Here, take a sip of this, my man," said Squire Condit, raising the Indian's head to the pewter mug Mistress Condit had handed him. "I'll warrant ye that will put new life into your veins!" he added half jokingly.
But the Indian's eyes searched the room, stared at the little group of householders around him with no abatement of tension in their depths, and at last, giving a sudden spring, he regained his feet and stood, tall and straight, before them.
"Ugh! I go now!" he grunted, turning toward the door. But the Squire seized him by the arm.
"What—out into that storm!" he exclaimed. "Nay, 'twould be sure death and that—Indian or no Indian—I'll see no man go to! So stay ye here before the fire. To-morrow ye may go." And he commenced laboriously to pantomime the act of going to sleep before the fire. Charity and Mehitable watching him with breathless interest.
The Indian, however, for the first time allowed a gleam of wintry amusement to flit across his face as he watched the exaggerated antics his host was performing to make his meaning perfectly clear.
"Spik English," he offered at last, when the Squire, worn out by his efforts, had dropped in exhaustion upon the fireside settle.
"Speak English! Well, gadzooks, why didn't ye say so!" roared the Squire indignantly. "Did ye ever hear the like, Mary?" he complained to his wife. "And I tiring myself out to give him understanding!"
Mistress Condit smiled. "Nay, he meant no harm, Samuel," she answered soothingly. "Let us to bed, now. It waxes late. The Indian may place the black bearskin beneath him and wrap in that buffalo robe, an he likes. Charity, the warming pan!"
Charity, obediently taking down the brass warming pan and filling it with embers from the fire, was turning away when the Indian touched her lightly upon the arm. She shot a glance of half terror at him and then an imploring one at her parents and sister at the other end of the kitchen; but they were busily conversing and she stopped, tremblingly.
The Indian turned and pointed to the silhouette hanging over the chimney shelf.
"Him—John?" he muttered, in so low a tone that Charity had to incline her ear toward him to catch his words. She started back in astonishment.
"You know John?" Unconsciously she, too, whispered it.
She was wheeling toward her parents to acquaint them with this amazing fact when the Indian's swift fingers lightly touched her lips and glancing up at him she saw him give a slight, imperative shake of his head. Mistress Condit, turning soon afterward, stared in displeasure.
"What! Loitering, Charity!" she frowned. And Charity, with a little shiver of excitement, stepped past the strange guest toward the narrow stairs that led to the loft rooms above.
Upstairs there was no loitering. Swiftly the beds were warmed by means of the warming pan inserted between the icy sheets and moved up and dovm over the smooth surface of the lower one. Night attire, including snugly fitting nightcaps, was donned, and stepping up the queer little wooden steps into their high four-posted bed, Mehitable and Charity sank almost out of sight in the feather mattress and were soon fast asleep.
But down below, lying upon the hearth with his eyes focussed upon the silhouette of young Dr. John Condit, the Indian lay for a long time awake, while the storm beat and howled at the door and the wolves upon the Newark mountain above him howled, too.
It was early the next morning that Squire Condit, entering the kitchen unexpectedly, caught the Indian in the act of stealing a silver candlestick holder, a cherished heirloom brought over from England which occupied the position of honor on the dresser. The Squire's bushy eyebrows met in displeasure over angry eyes and, with an agility beyond his years, he leaped for and secured his flintlock from its hook near the door before the Indian could turn.
"Hands up!" he ordered then, sternly. The Indian, his lips tightening to a single narrow line, carefully replaced the candlestick holder in its place before raising his hands.
"Ye thievin' varmint!" ejaculated the Squire. "Not an honest hair to your head! Here I give ye shelter from last night's storm and this is your gratitude. Gratitude!" He repeated it contemptuously. "Charity!" he called, raising his voice.
"Yes, Father." Charity came running down the stairs to stop and stare in puzzled wonder at her father with his aimed gun.
"Fetch me that rawhide from the wall!"
A spasm of resentment gleamed in the red man's eyes, but his face maintained its stoical expression and his hands high above his proud head did not waver. Charity brought the evil-looking strap to her father and held it out tremblingly.
"Now take this flintlock and aim at the rascal's heart. I'll have no thievin' on my premises and I'm going to teach this fellow a lesson!"
But Charity, instead of doing as her father directed, suddenly clasped her hands and burst into tears.
"Ah, no, Father—please!" she sobbed.
The Squire, who it must be confessed was already repenting his rash threat, lowered his gun promptly.
"Ye hear that?" he asked the Indian fiercely. "Go, then, ingrate, and know ye owe your escape to the tender pleading of this little lass!"
The Indian turned with one movement of his lithe body and, without a look of gratitude at anyone, stalked to the door Charity had run to open for him and passed silently out into the November dawn.
"I thought I heard voices, Samuel," said Mistress Condit, entering at this point and going over to the fireplace to begin her breakfast preparations.
"I hope Amos is through his chores ere now, though I doubt it! This rheumatism—if only John were home to cure it, so I could be out attending things myself!" The Squire hobbled toward the door, where he turned to glance at his wife. "So ye did hear voices, Mary! That thievin' varmint! Tell your mother, Charity," he bade his young daughter.
"My silver candlestick holder!" exclaimed Mistress Condit, when, the Squire having disappeared in the direction of the stock barns, Charity gave her mother a hasty account of what had happened. Mistress Condit's thin cheeks flushed with anger. "And why did ye stop your father, since the scoundrel so well deserved his beating!"
Charity bit her lip at this reproof.
"I don't know why I did, Mother, in truth," she answered, a catch in her breath. "Except that—oh, he looked like a trapped beast of the woods here, to me—helpless—caught—I could not bear to have him hurt!"
"Humph! Remember, Charity, that these same wild things burn folks' houses i' the West and scalp women and children and dance their horrid war dances around the ruins," returned Mistress Condit grimly. "It were not wise to show too much sympathy for Indians!"
"But perhaps—he is a good Indian!" ventured Charity.
"There are no good Indians," answered her mother in a tone of finality. And with that the subject was closed.
The November days passed. Discouraging, indeed, was the war news that filtered across from the enemy, entrenched in New York City under Sir Henry Clinton, to the Newark Mountains, at the foot of which the Condit farm was situated. There were very few roads, or even paths, between the "Town by the River," as Newark was called then, and the outlying farms and plantations of the First and the Second mountains. Swamps and woodland separated these meagre hamlets.
General Washington, John Condit had written his father, after his successful siege and capture of Boston in the early spring of 1776, had passed a summer that, except for Colonel Moultrie's fine victory at Charleston, South Carolina, in which the British had lost and had sailed for New York, and the Declaration of Independence which had been adopted by Congress, was rather a discouraging one. The Americans had suffered a heavy loss on Long Island, thereby losing New York, so that since September Washington had been slowly but steadily retreating in an effort to hold some of New Jersey. Rumor had started vague tales of the Battle of White Plains in New York; but as yet no definite word had come from Dr. John Condit to his anxious family.
The two girls, however, were almost too busy to note the passing of the eventful days. Their time was completely filled, now, from morning, when they rose by candlelight, to bedtime, with all of those laborious household tasks which even the very young girls had to share. There were candle-dripping, soap-making, spinning, weaving, cooking—and even the simple operation of dish-washing became an intricate one when the water had to be brought by the well sweep—a long pole so weighted at one end that a slight pressure brought up the bucket attached to the other end—from the well, carried into the house, heated more or less slowly over the open fire and dipped from its heavy iron pot into the dishpan. The dishes were rarely of china—those were prized and saved. Trenchers of wood, perhaps beautifully turned and polished, gourds and pewter mugs, spoons and two-tined forks of pewter were the ordinary household essentials. But I am sure that the roasted meats served on the wooden trencher tasted exactly as savory as those now served on china or silver platters, and that the well water or icy spring water was fully as sweet as that now drawn from faucets.
One day, as it was growing dusk, Mistress Condit retired to the fireside settle and fell into a heavy, feverish sleep. The two girls had been invited to a sewing bee at Miranda Briggs's and had spent three happy hours there. But approaching their own home, what was their amazement to find the kitchen dark and still as they pushed open the door.
"Oh, Cherry, what do you suppose" Mehitable was beginning, when the blurred figure of her mother stirred in the shadows.
"Hitty?" asked Mistress Condit, in a hoarse voice.
Mehitable threw off her long cape to run over and stand beside her mother. "Yes, Mother, what is it? What is the matter?" she asked anxiously.
"I don't know," answered Mistress Condit vaguely. "I must have caught cold yesterday while out salting the pork and working around the smokehouse, for my head aches and my throat is sore—'tis doubtless a touch of chills and fever. Oh, how I wish your brother John were here!" She uttered a sudden exclamation of dismay. "Why the fire is out! However did that happen! And your father took the flint and steel with him to the north pasture to burn some stumps there!"
Charity was kneeling before the dark fireplace, tentatively poking among the dead embers.
"Why, even the back-log is out!" she said in a puzzled voice. "Whatever could have happened. Mother?"
"I remember now!" Mistress Condit dragged herself erect with a groan. "The soup upset, the bail slipped upon the crane—and such a hissing as took place!" She sat in rueful thought for a moment. "Well," she resumed, rousing herself with a sigh, "there is but one thing to do, Mehitable. We cannot wait until your father comes home—we must borrow some live coals from the Briggses. Take you the kettle and hurry, for I do dislike supper to be tardy when your father comes in from foddering the stock. You will not be afraid, Mehitable?"
"Why, Mother, indeed I am almost fifteen," answered Mehitable in a hurt voice. Her honest black eyes gazed at her mother in reproach. "But it won't take more than half an hour, I know. Sure, Miranda will be surprised to see me again so soon!" she finished, with an irrepressible twinkle.
Charity ran to get the iron bucket which was preserved for just such energencies, while Mehitable once more donned her heavy cape and pulled its hood well over her head.
"Don't you think I had better go, too?" asked the younger sister anxiously. "Won't you be afraid, Hitty? 'Tis monstrous dark outside and the path through the woods is a lonely one."
"Nonsense!" returned Mehitable sturdily, catching up the iron bucket. "Have I not trod that same path a hundred times in daylight! Why should I be afraid of shadows, Charity?"
"But perhaps—that Indian, you know!" began Charity.
"Silly child!" And Mehitable laughed with the superiority of fifteen years. "Father says he was doubtless an Indian runner for the British Army. I'm sure he's far away by now."
"Do not put foolish notions into your sister's head, Charity," interrupted Mistress Condit. She laid her own head back against the settle with a weary little sigh of pain.
"You must stay with Mother, Charity" whispered Mehitable. "Better cover her with the buffalo robe; it grows cold in here without the fire. Good-bye, Mother," she added aloud cheerfully. "I shall not be gone long."
"Promise me to go by the lower road and not by the wood path. 'Tis better!" said Mistress Condit, rousing herself with an effort.
Mehitable hesitated. The valley road, barely wide enough for an ox-cart, following the foot of the First Mountain, was a good twenty minutes longer than the wood path. But reading aright the anxiety on her mother's face, she nodded her head and slipped lightly out the door.
It was indeed lonely along the road. But at last the welcome lights of the Briggses' farmhouse revealed themselves through the gloom, and it was not long then before Mehitable was back in the kitchen she had just quitted an hour or so before.
Everything was in its usual prim order there. Every vestige of the sewing bee had disappeared and Mistress Briggs and her daughter were hastily preparing supper against the arrival of Squire Briggs. As a matter of fact, Squire Briggs, being notably close-fisted and penurious, knew nothing whatever about the sewing bee. All the party viands—the pound cake, the pumpkin pies, the tarts—had been prepared in secret by his wife, and now nothing remained to tell the tale save the happy light in Miranda's eyes and the high red spots of excitement in Mistress Briggs's cheeks.
"Why, Hitty child, what brings you back?" exclaimed the latter as the kitchen door opened and Mehitable stumbled laughingly in.
"I came after coal," explained Mehitable. "Charity and I got home to find our mother ill and the fire out."
"Your mother ill! Dear me!" said Mistress Briggs. She stooped, tongs in hand, and deftly lifted some burning embers into the iron bucket Mehitable held out. "There," she said, "those ought to last until you get home, Hitty. Let me know if your mother is not better to-morrow."
"What's this? What's this?" asked a querulous voice from the door. Everyone seemed to shrink, to become self-conscious, as a sharp, spare figure stepped across the threshold and Squire Briggs's hard eyes, beneath ill-natured brows, peered at them furtively.
"Just coals, Father! The Condits' fire is out," explained Miranda hastily, noticing her parent's gaze fixed suspiciously upon the iron bucket.
"Quite Quite so!" answered Squire Briggs peevishly. "Right to lend coals; but remember, sugar and flour are high and not to be borrowed."
"Indeed, Squire Briggs," commenced Mehitable spiritedly, then finding Mistress Briggs's eyes fastened upon her imploringly, she relapsed into silence and took up the bucket from the hearth.
"Young tongues should learn meekness," said Squire Briggs with a sour smile.
Miranda followed Mehitable to the door. "You must not mind Father," she said in a hasty whisper. "He is but peculiar."
"He is," agreed Mehitable grimly. Then she suddenly laughed into the other's sober face. "But you're a dear, Randy, and thank you indeed for the coals!"
At the Briggs's gatepost she hesitated. Long and dark the road home stretched before her, while leading up and around back of the house, into the forest itself, she knew the shorter woodland path would take her but half the time.
"I promised Mother I would come by the road," she said to herself, "but I didn't promise I would return by the road."
Poor Mehitable, she did not realize that a promise half broken is nearly as bad as a promise broken all the way! But she soon learned that disobedience inevitably brings its own punishment.
It was quite dark now, as she hurried along the narrow path that familiarity helped her to pass over safely. Upon either side rose the sheer forest. The wind shook the dry leaves that rattled and sighed as they fell. Far off a great owl hooted. But Mehitable was not in the least nervous.
She was thinking contentedly of the busy day planned for the morrow, of the happy afternoon she had just passed, hoping with the careless assurance and lack of worry of childhood that her mother would be better by the time she reached home, when all of a sudden, stepping lightly around a great boulder that centered the path, she stopped short—gasped—stiffened. A thrill of terror shot through her.
For facing her steadily, unmoving, menacing, two flaming eyes burned through the darkness, barring her pathway!