Wyandotte - James Fenimore Cooper
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So absorbed was the captain with this extraordinary scene, that he
remained an hour on the staging, watching the course of events. The
breakfasts were soon over, having been later than common, and a little
hurried; then commenced the more important occupations of the day. A
field was already half ploughed, in preparation for a crop of winter
grain; thither Joel himself proceeded, with the necessary cattle,
accompanied by the labourers who usually aided him in that particular
branch of husbandry. Three ploughs were soon at work, with as much
regularity and order as if nothing had occurred to disturb the
tranquillity of the valley. The axes of the wood-choppers were next
heard, coming out of the forest, cutting fuel for the approaching
winter; and a half-finished ditch had its workmen also, who were soon
busy casting up the soil, and fashioning their trench. In a word, all
the suspended toil was renewed with perfect system and order.
"This beats the devil himself, Joyce!" said the captain, after a half-
hour of total silence. "Here are all these fellows at work as coolly as
if I had just given them their tasks, and twice as diligently. Their
unusual industry is a bad symptom of itself!"
"Your honour will remark one circumstance. Not a rascal of them all
comes within the fair range of a musket, for, as to throwing away
ammunition at such distances, it would be clearly unmilitary, and might
be altogether useless."
"I have half a mind to scatter them with a volley"--said the captain,
doubtingly. "Bullets would take effect among those ploughmen, could
they only be made to hit."
"And amang the cattle, too," observed the Scotsman, who had an eye on
the more economical part of the movement, as well as on that which was
military. "A ball would slay a horse as well as a man in such a
skairmish."
"This is true enough, Jamie; and it is not exactly the sort of warfare
I could wish, to be firing at men who were so lately my friends. I do
not see, Joyce, that the rascals have any arms with them?"
"Not a musket, sir. I noticed that, when Joel first detailed his
detachments. Can it be possible that the savages have retired?"
"Not they; else would Mr. Strides and his friends have gone with them.
No, serjeant, there is a deep plan to lead us into some sort of ambush
in this affair, and we will be on the look-out for them."
Joyce stood contemplating the scene for some, time, in profound
silence, when he approached the captain formally, and made the usual
military salute; a ceremony he had punctiliously observed, on all
proper occasions, since the garrison might be said to be placed under
martial law.
"If it's your honour's pleasure," he said, "I will detail a detachment,
and go out and bring in two or three of these deserters; by which means
we shall get into their secrets."
"A detachment, Joyce!" answered the captain, eyeing his subordinate a
little curiously--"What troops do you propose to tell-off for the
service?"
"Why, your honour, there's corporal Allen and old Pliny off duty; I
think the thing might be done with them, if your honour would have the
condescension to order corporal Blodget, with the two other blacks, to
form as a supporting party, under the cover of one of the fences."
"A disposition of my force that would leave captain Willoughby for a
garrison! I thank you, serjeant, for your offer and gallantry, but
prudence will not permit it. We may set down Strides and his companions
as so many knaves, and----"
"That may ye!" cried Mike's well-known voice, from the scuttle that
opened into the garrets, directly in front of which the two old
soldiers were conversing--"That may ye, and no har-r-m done the trut',
or justice, or for that matther, meself. Och! If I had me will of the
blackguards, every rogue of 'em should be bound hand and fut and laid
under that pratthy wather-fall, yon at the mill, until his sins was
washed out of him. Would there be confessions then?--That would there;
and sich letting out of sacrets as would satisfy the conscience of a
hog!"
By the time Mike had got through this sentiment he was on the staging,
where he stood hitching up his nether garment, with a meaning grin on
his face that gave a peculiar expression of heavy cunning to the
massive jaw and capacious mouth, blended with an honesty and good-
nature that the well-meaning fellow was seldom without when he
addressed any of the captain's family. Joyce glanced at the captain,
expecting orders to seize the returned run-away; but his superior read
at once good faith in the expression of his old retainer's countenance.
"You have occasioned us a good deal of surprise, O'Hearn, on more
accounts than one," observed the captain, who thought it prudent to
assume more sternness of manner than his feelings might have actually
warranted. "You have not only gone off yourself, but you have suffered
your prisoner to escape with you. Then your manner of getting into the
house requires an explanation. I shall hear what you have to say before
I make up my mind as to your conduct."
"Is it spake I will?--That will I, and as long as it plase yer honour
to listen. Och! Isn't that Saucy Nick a quare one? Divil burn me if I
thinks the likes of him is to be found in all Ameriky, full as it is of
Injins and saucy fellies! Well, now, I suppose, sarjeant, ye've set me
down as sin riding off with Misther Joel and his likes, if ye was to
open yer heart, and spake yer thrue mind?"
"You have been marked for a deserter, O'Hearn, and one, too, that
deserted from post."
"Post! Had I been _that_, I shouldn't have stirred, and ye'd be
wanting in the news I bring ye from the Majjor, and Mr. Woods, and the
savages, and the rest of the varmints."
"My son!--Is this possible, Michael? Have you seen _him_, or can
you tell us anything of his state?"
Mike now assumed a manner of mysterious importance, laying a finger on
his nose, and pointing towards the sentinel and Jamie.
"It's the sarjeant that I considers as one of the family," said the
county Leitrim-man, when his pantomime was through, "but it isn't
dacent to be bawling out sacrets through a whole nighbourhood; and
then, as for _Ould_ Nick--or Saucy Nick, or whatever ye calls
him--Och! isn't he a _pratthy_ Injin! Ye'll mar-r-ch t'rough
Ameriky, and never see his aiquel!"
"This will never do, O'Hearn. Whatever you have to say must be said
clearly, and in the simplest manner. Follow to the library, where I
will hear your report. Joyce, you will accompany us."
"Let him come, if he wishes to hear wonderful achaivements!" answered
Mike, making way for the captain to descend the steps; then following
himself, talking as he went. "He'll niver brag of his campaigns ag'in
to the likes of me, seeing that I've outdone him, ten--ay, forty times,
and boot. Och! that Nick's a divil, and no har-r-m said!"
"In the first place, O'Hearn," resumed the captain, as soon as the
three were alone in the library--"you must explain your own desertion."
"Me!--Desart! Sure, it isn't run away from yer honour, and the Missus,
and Miss Beuly, and pratthy Miss Maud, and the child, that's yer
honour's m'aning?"
This was said with so much nature and truth, that the captain had not
the heart to repeat the question, though Joyce's more drilled feelings
were less moved. The first even felt a tear springing to his eye, and
he no longer distrusted the Irishman's fidelity, as unaccountable as
his conduct did and must seem to his cooler judgment. But Mike's
sensitiveness had taken the alarm, and it was only to be appeased by
explanations.
"Yer honour's not sp'aking when I questions ye on that same?" he
resumed, doubtingly.
"Why, Mike, to be sincere, it did look a little suspicious when you not
only went, off yourself, but you let the Indian go off with you."
"Did it?"--said Mike, mus'ng--"No, I don't allow that, seein' that the
intent and object was good. And, then, I never took the Injin wid
_me_; but 'twas I, meself, that went wid _him_."
"I rather think, your honour," said Joyce, smiling, "we'll put
O'Hearn's name in its old place on the roster, and make no mark against
him at pay-day."
"I think it will turn out so, Joyce. We must have patience, too, and
let Mike tell his story in his own way."
"Is it tell a story, will I? Ah!--Nick's the cr'ature for that same!
See, he has given me foor bits of sticks, every one of which is to tell
a story, in its own way. This is the first; and it manes let the
captain into the sacret of your retrait; and how you got out of the
windie, and how you comes near to breaking yer neck by a fall becaase
of the fut's slipping; and how ye wint down the roof by a rope, the
divil a bit fastening it to yer neck, but houlding it in yer hand with
sich a grip as if 'twere the fait' of the church itself; and how Nick
led ye to the hole out of which ye hot' wint, as if ye had been two
cats going t'rough a door!"
Mike stopped to grin and look wise, as he recounted the manner of the
escape, the outlines of which, however, were sufficiently well known to
his auditors before he, began.
"Throw away that stick, now, and let us know where this hole is, and
what you mean by it."
"No"--answered Mike, looking at the stick, in a doubting manner--"I'll
not t'row it away, wid yer honour's l'ave, 'till I've told ye how we
got into the brook, forenent the forest, and waded up to the woods,
where we was all the same as if we had been two bits of clover tops hid
in a haymow. That Nick is a cr'ature at consailment!"
"Go on," said the captain, patiently, knowing that there was no use in
hurrying one of Mike's peculiar mode of communicating his thoughts.
"What came next?"
"That will I; and the r'ason comes next, as is seen by this oder stick.
And, so, Nick and meself was in the chaplain's room all alone, and
n'ither of us had any mind to dhrink; Nick becaase he was a prisoner
and felt crass, and full of dignity like; and meself becaase I was a
sentinel; and sarjeant Joyce, there, had tould me, the Lord knows how
often, that if I did my duty well, I might come to be a corporal, which
was next in rank to himself; barring, too, that I was a sentinel, and a
drunken sentinel is a disgrace to a man, sowl and body, and musket."
"And so neither of you drank?"--put in the captain, by way of a
reminder.
"For that same r'ason, and one betther still, as we had nothin' _to_
dhrink. Well, says Nick--'Mike,' says he--'you like cap'in, and
Missus, and Miss Beuly, and Miss Maud, and the babby?' Divil burn ye,
Nick,' says I, 'why do ye ask so foolish a question? Is it likes ye
would know? Well--then just ask yerself if you likes yer own kith and
kin, and ye've got yer answer.'"
"And Nick made his proposal, on getting this answer," interrupted the
captain, "which was--"
"Here it is, on the stick. 'Well,' says Nick, says he--'run away wid
Nick, and see Majjor; bring back news. Nick cap'in friend, but cap'in
don't know it--won't believe'--Fait', I can't _tell_ yer honour
all Nick said, in his own manner; and so, wid yer Pave, I'll just tell
it in my own way."
"Any way, Mike, so that you do but tell it."
"Nick's a cr'ature! His idee was for us two to get out of the windie,
and up on the platform, and to take the bedcord, and other things, and
slide down upon the ground--and we _did_ it! As sure as yer honour
and the sarjeant is there, we did _that same_, and no bones broke!
'Well,' says I, 'Nick, ye're here, sure enough, but how do you mane to
get _out_ of here? Is it climb the palisades ye will, and be shot
by a sentinel?'--if there was one, which there wasn't, yer honour,
seeing that all had run away--'or do ye mane to stay here,' says I,
'and be taken a prisoner of war ag'in, in which case ye'll be two
prisoners, seem' that ye've been taken wonst already, will ye Nick?'
says I. So Nick never spoke, but he held up his finger, and made a sign
for me to follow, as follow I did; and we just crept through the
palisade, and a mhighty phratty walk we had of it, alang the meadies,
and t'rough the lanes, the rest of the way."
"You crept through the palisades, Mike! There is no outlet of
sufficient size."
"I admits the hole is a tight squaze, but 'twill answer. And then it's
just as good for an inlet as it is for an outlet, seein' that I came
t'rough it this very marnin'. Och! Nick's a cr'ature! And how d'ye
think that hole comes there, barring all oversights in setting up the
sticks?"
"It has not been made intentionally, I should hope, O'Hearn?"
"'Twas made by Joel, and that by just sawing off a post, and forcin'
out a pin or two, so that the palisade works like a door. Och! it's
nately contrived, and it manes mischief."
"This must be looked to, at once," cried the captain; "lead the way,
Mike, and show us the spot."
As the Irishman was nothing loth, all three were soon in the court,
whence Mike led the way through the gate, round to the point where the
stockade came near the cliffs, on the eastern side of the buildings.
This was the spot where the path that led down to the spring swept
along the defences, and was on the very route by which the captain
contemplated retreating, as well as on that by which Maud had entered
the Hut, the night of the invasion. At a convenient place, a palisade
had been sawed off, so low in the ground that the sods, which had been
cut and were moveable, concealed the injury, while the heads of the
pins that ought to have bound the timber to the cross-piece, were in
their holes, leaving everything apparently secure. On removing the
sods, and pushing the timber aside, the captain ascertained that a man
might easily pass without the stockade. As this corner was the most
retired within the works, there was no longer any doubt that the hole
had been used by all the deserters, including the women and children.
In what manner it became known to Nick, however, still remained matter
of conjecture.
Orders were about to be given to secure this passage, when it occurred
to the captain it might possibly be of use in effecting his own
retreat. With this object in view, then, he hastened away from the
place, lest any wandering eye without might detect his presence near
it, and conjecture the cause. On returning to the library, the
examination of Mike was resumed.
As the reader must be greatly puzzled with the county Leitrim-man's
manner of expressing himself, we shall relate the substance of what he
now uttered, for the sake of brevity. It would seem that Nick had
succeeded in persuading Mike, first, that he, the Tuscarora, was a fast
friend of the captain and his family, confined by the former, in
consequence of a misconception of the real state of the Indian's
feelings, much to the detriment of all their interests; and that no
better service could be rendered the Willoughbys than to let Nick
depart, and for the Irishman to go with him. Mike, however, had not the
slightest idea of desertion, the motive which prevailed on him to quit
the Hut being a desire to see the major, and, if possible, to help him
escape. As soon as this expectation was placed before his eyes, Mike
became a convert to the Indian's wishes. Like all exceedingly zealous
men, the Irishman had an itching propensity to be doing, and he was
filled with a sort of boyish delight at the prospect of effecting a
great service to those whom he so well loved, without their knowing it.
Such was the history of Michael's seeming desertion; that of what
occurred after he quitted the works remains to be related.
The Tuscarora led his companion out of the Hut, within half an hour
after they had been left alone together, in the room of Mr. Woods. As
this was subsequently to Joel's flight, Nick, in anticipation of this
event, chose to lie in ambush a short time, in order to ascertain
whether the defection was likely to go any further. Satisfied on this
head, he quietly retired towards the mill. After making a sufficient
_detour_ to avoid being seen from the house, Nick gave himself no
trouble about getting into the woods, or of practising any of the
expedients of a time of real danger, as had been done by all of the
deserters; but he walked leisurely across the meadows, until he struck
the highway, along which he proceeded forthwith to the rocks. All this
was done in a way that showed he felt himself at home, and that he had
no apprehensions of falling into an ambush. It might have arisen from
his familiarity with the ground; or, it might have proceeded from the
consciousness that he was approaching friends, instead of enemies.
At the rocks, however, Nick did not deem it wise to lead Mike any
farther, without some preliminary caution. The white man was concealed
in one of the clefts, therefore, while the Indian pursued his way
alone. The latter was absent an hour; at the end of that time he
returned, and, after giving Mike a great many cautions about silence
and prudence, he led him to the cabin of the miller, in the buttery of
which Robert Willoughby was confined. To this buttery there was a
window; but, as it was so small as to prevent escape, no sentinel had
been placed on the outside of the building. For his own comfort, too,
and in order to possess his narrow lodgings to himself, the major had
given a species of parole, by which he was bound to remain in duresse,
until the rising of the next sun. Owing to these two causes, Nick had
been enabled to approach the window, and to hold communications with
the prisoner. This achieved, he returned to the rocks, and led Mike to
the same spot.
Major Willoughby had not been able to write much, in consequence of the
darkness. That which he communicated, accordingly, had to pass through
the fiery ordeal of the Irishman's brains. As a matter of course it did
not come with particular lucidity, though Mike did succeed in making
his auditors comprehend this much.
The major was substantially well treated, though intimations had been
given that he would be considered as a spy. Escape seemed next to
impossible; still, he should not easily abandon the hope. From all he
had seen, the party was one of that irresponsible character that would
render capitulation exceedingly hazardous, and he advised his father to
hold out to the last. In a military point of view, he considered his
captors as contemptible, being without a head; though many of the
men:--the savages in particular--appeared to be ferocious and
reckless. The whole party was guarded in discourse, and little was said
in English, though he was convinced that many more whites were present
than he had at first believed. Mr. Woods he had not seen, nor did he
know anything of his arrest or detention.
This much Mike succeeded in making the captain comprehend, though a
great deal was lost through the singular confusion that prevailed in
the mind of the messenger. Mike however, had still another
communication, which we reserve for the ears of the person to whom it
was especially sent.
This news produced a pause in captain Willoughby's determination. Some
of the fire of youth awoke within him, and he debated with himself on
the possibility of making a sortie, and of liberating his son, as a
step preliminary to victory; or, at least, to a successful retreat.
Acquainted with every foot of the ground, which had singular facilities
for a step so bold, the project found favour in his eyes each minute,
and soon became fixed.
Chapter XXIII.
Yet I well remember
The favours of these men: were they not mine?
Did they not sometimes cry, all hail! to me?
So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve
Found truth in all but one; I in twelve thousand none.
Willis.
While the captain and Joyce were digesting their plans Mike proceeded
on an errand of peculiar delicacy with which he had been entrusted by
Robert Willoughby. The report that he had returned flew through the
dwellings, and many were the hearty greetings and shakings of the hand
that the honest fellow had to undergo from the Plinys and Smashes, ere
he was at liberty to set about the execution of this trust. The
wenches, in particular, having ascertained that Mike had not broken his
fast, insisted on his having a comfortable meal, in a sort of servants'
hall, before they would consent to his quitting their sight. As the
county Leitrim-man was singularly ready with a knife and fork, he made
no very determined opposition, and, in a few minutes, he was hard at
work, discussing a cold ham, with the other collaterals of a
substantial American breakfast.
The blacks, the Smashes inclusive, had been seriously alarmed at the
appearance of the invading party. Between them and the whole family of
red-men there existed a sort of innate dislike; an antipathy that
originated in colour, and wool, and habits, and was in no degree
lessened by apprehensions on the score of scalps.
"How you look, ole Plin, widout wool?" Big Smash had reproachfully
remarked, not five minutes before Mike made his appearance in the
kitchen, in answer to some apologetic observation of her husband, as to
the intentions of the savages being less hostile than he had at first
imagined; "why you say dey _no_ murder, and steal and set fire,
when you know dey's Injin! Natur' be natur'; and dat I hear dominie
Woods say t'ree time one Sunday. What 'e dominie say _often_, he
mean, and dere no use in saying dey don't come to do harm."
As Great Smash was an oracle in her own set, there was no gainsaying
her dogmas, and Pliny the elder was obliged to succumb. But the
presence of Mike, one who was understood to have been out, _near_,
if not actually _in_, the enemy's camp, and a great favourite in
the bargain, was a circumstance likely to revive the discourse. In
fact, all the negroes, crowded into the hall, as soon as the Irishman
was seated at table, one or two eager to talk, the rest as eager to
listen.
"How near you been to sabbage, Michael?" demanded Big Smash, her two
large coal-black eyes seeming to open in a degree proportioned to her
interest in the answer.
"I wint as nigh as there was occasion, Smash, and that was nigher than
the likes of yer husband there would be thinking of travelling. Maybe
'twas as far as from my plate here to yon door; maybe not quite so far.
They 're a dhirty set, and I wish to go no nearer."
"What dey look like, in 'e dark?" inquired Little Smash--"Awful as by
daylight?"
"It's not meself that stopped to admire 'em. Nick and I had our
business forenent us, and when a man is hurried, it isn't r'asonable to
suppose he can kape turning his head about to see sights."
"What dey do wid Misser Woods?--What sabbage want wid dominie?"
"Sure enough, little one; and the question is of yer own asking. A
praist, even though he should be only a heretic, can have no great call
for his sarvices, in _sich_ a congregation. And, I don't think the
fellows are blackguards enough to scalp a parson."
Then followed a flood of incoherent questions that were put by all the
blacks in a body, accompanied by divers looks ominous of the most
serious disasters, blended with bursts of laughter that broke out of
their risible natures in a way to render the medley of sensations as
ludicrous as it was strange. Mike soon found answering a task too
difficult to be attempted, and he philosophically came to a
determination to confine his efforts to masticating.
Notwithstanding the terror that actually prevailed among the blacks, it
was not altogether unmixed with a resolution to die with arms in their
hands, in preference to yielding to savage clemency. Hatred, in a
measure, supplied the place of courage, though both sexes had
insensibly imbibed some of that resolution which is the result of
habit, and of which a border life is certain to instil more or less
into its subjects, in a form suited to border emergencies. Nor was this
feeling confined to the men; the two Smashes, in particular, being
women capable of achieving acts that would be thought heroic under
circumstances likely to arouse their feelings.
"Now, Smashes," said Mike, when, by his own calculation, he had about
three minutes to the termination of his breakfast before him, "ye'll do
what I tells ye, and no questions asked. Ye'll find the laddies,
Missus, and Miss Beuly, and Miss Maud, and ye'll give my humble
respects to 'em all--divil the bit, now, will ye be overlooking either
of the t'ree, but ye'll do yer errand genteely and like a laddy
yerself--and ye'll give my jewty and respects to 'em _all_, I
tells ye, and say that Michael O'Hearn asks the honour of being allowed
to wish 'em good morning."
Little Smash screamed at this message; yet she went, forthwith, and
delivered it, making reasonably free with Michael's manner and
gallantry in so doing.
"O'Hearn has something to tell us from Robert"--said Mrs. Willoughby,
who had been made acquainted with the Irishman's exploits and return;
"he must be suffered to come in as soon as he desires."
With this reply, Little Smash terminated her mission.
"And now, laddies and gentlemen," said Mike, with gravity, as he rose
to quit the servants' hall, "my blessing and good wishes be wid ye. A
hearty male have I had at yer hands and yer cookery, and good thanks it
desarves. As for the Injins, jist set yer hearts at rest, as not one of
ye will be scalp'd the day, seeing that the savages are all to be
forenent the mill this morning, houlding a great council, as I knows
from Nick himself. A comfortable time, then, ye may all enjoy, wid yer
heads on yer shoulters, and yer wool on yer heads."