there is none like your wanderer to settle himself coseywise by a warm hearth. an outcast and adventurer from boyhood, exiled from england for adherence to the pretender, my estates forfeited, dependent for bread upon the earnings of my sword in a foreign service, fate tossed me across the broad atlantic to this new world of ours—and in one short year i had found marjory and fortune!
i became straightway as sedate as any dutch burgher betwixt port george and the stockade of the outward. camp-bred and forest-schooled, i yet discovered zest in the problems of merchantry and exulted in the petty tasks of the householder. i was a model of husbandry. but fate was not satisfied with its work. two years of joy i had; then came the fever that the portuguese snow brought north from the main to scourge new york. in a week my joy was turned to ashes. she, who had braved the perils of the wilderness with me, wilted and died.
but there is justice in fate. give it time, and 'twill rebuild what it has marred, provided always that we who are its toys keep heads up and courage undaunted—easier deeds to write of than to perform, god knows. and truly, the day fate stepped forward to redress the balance found me with head bowed and spirit breaking, treading bitterly the narrow groove of duties i lacked the will to escape.
i sat at my desk in the counting-room, fumbling through a file of papers. there was a breath of spring in the air, and outside in the trees of pearl street the bluebirds and robins bickered together, and the people who passed the door were no less irresponsibly gay. in all new york, it seemed, none save i lacked cause for pleasure. john allen, the young dorset bondman whose liberty i had purchased when i hired him for clerk, whistled between his teeth as he labored his quill across the ledgers—when he was not glancing askance at me. upstairs i heard the crooning of scots elspeth, and the strident plaint of my son objecting to her ministrations.
why should that baby voice be potent only to evoke for me the bitter memories of my loss? i frowned as i sanded the last sheet of a letter to my london correspondents.
"an early spring after an easy winter," remarked allen tentatively. "that should mean a rare flood of furs from the far savages, master ormerod."
i growled an assent. i knew the boy meant well. he was ever trying to draw me out of myself.
upstairs a door opened, and a yelp of infant glee rang in my ears. i leaped to my feet and ran into the hall.
"elspeth!" i roared.
her plump features and decent gray locks appeared at the upper landing.
"eh, sir!" she answered. "i can hear ye fine."
"and i can hear naught but mouthing of silly rhymes and puling babble," i snapped savagely.
"and gey prrroud ye micht well be of that same," she retorted. "it's what ma douce lamb that's gone wad be tellin' ye, if——"
'twas hopeless to argue with her, and cursing, i crossed the lower hall to the room i devoted to my private affairs and slammed the door after me. but even as i sank into the chair beside the cold hearth, i knew that i might not find escape from that sweet ghost that haunted me, so real, so vital—yet so remote. wherever i went in that house she followed me. it was as if she sat now in the opposite chair, a bit of embroidery in her lap, her brown eyes dwelling fondly on my face.
i rose and walked to the window, turning my back on the picture which persisted in shaping itself upon the hearth-rug. westward across the houseroofs that stretched to hudson's river the sun was slowly sinking in one of those magnificent displays of coloring that only the new world can show. it meant nothing to me. i turned impatiently, and retraced my steps.
a myriad ghosts swarmed before my eyes, ghosts of london, of paris, of the wilderness, of many other places, kings, queens, great lords, priests, soldiers, merchants, heroes and cowards, honest men and scoundrels, indians in war paint, courtiers in five-pound ruffles—but in front of them all stood the one ghost i could never avoid, lips always parted as if for a kiss, brown eyes glowing with love.
i shuddered.
the door opened behind me.
"master ormerod!" 'twas allen. "i knocked, but you did not hear. there are gentry to see you, sir."
"i'm in no mood to see people," i answered fiercely.
"but these——"
"send them away. i'll not be annoyed with them."
the door was thrown open again with a crash.
"how now, ormerod," bellowed a choleric voice. "is this the way to treat my dignity, let alone my friendship? must you keep me cooling my heels on your doorstep the while you consider the order of my admittance? look to yourself, lad, or i'll have you shackled in the dungeons of fort george. ay, and there's another hath reason for distemper with you. whilst i have walked so far from the bowling green, he is new-arrived from the iroquois country, and mainly that he may deliver you a belt, if what i hear be true."
i jumped to my feet, shocked out of my evil mood, and chagrined by the discourtesy i had put upon the greatest man in our province, ay, the governor himself, master burnet, to whom we all owe more than we shall ever be able to repay for the diligent statecraft with which he nursed our community to increased wealth and prosperity. i know there are those who cry out against him, more especially since he was transferred to massachusetts to wrestle with the dour puritan folk and fell foul of their sanctimonious ways and contentious habits; but i account such no more than fools. he had a stern eye for the king's prerogatives, i grant you, and a jealous opinion of his own authority. but on questions of policy he was right ten times where his antagonists were right once.
he was a stout personage, ruddy of countenance and with strongly carved features, blunt, dogmatic, yet quaintly logical, a staunch friend and a fearless foe. he stood now in the doorway, feet planted wide, and drove home his words with thuds of his cane.
"your excellency!" i gasped. "i was at fault. i pray you——"
"tush!"
he waved his hand in a gesture of derision, but a kindly gleam showed in his prominent eyes.
"say no more, lad. i know what is wrong with you. 'tis that brings me here—and other friends, too."
he stepped aside, and i exclaimed with surprise as my eyes discerned the two figures that slipped noiselessly out of the hall shadows.
"tawannears! peter!"
the first was an indian, whose lithe body was naked above the tanned deerskin thigh-leggins and gaka, or breechcloth. on his chest was painted a wolf's head in yellow, white and black pigments. tomahawk and knife hung in sheaths against either thigh. a single eagle's-feather was thrust into his scalp-lock. his bronzed face, with its high-arched nose, broad forehead and square jaw, was lit by a grim smile.
"kwa, otetiani,"* he said, giving me the indian name that the keepers of the faith had bestowed in placing me upon the roll of the wolf clan of the senecas.
* "hail. always-ready."
and he lifted his right hand arm-high in the splendid iroquois gesture of salutation. i answered as befitted one who was not only my clan brother and friend, but the war chief of the great league, and as such, warden of the western door of the long house.
after him entered a mountain of a man, whose vast bulk was absurdly over-emphasized by the loose shirt and trousers of buckskin he wore and the coonskin cap that crowned his lank yellow locks. others might be deceived by the rolls of fat, the huge paunch, the stupid simplicity of the broad, flat face, with insignificant features dabbed here and there, the little mild blue eyes that blinked behind ramparts of loose flesh, but i knew peter corlaer for the strongest, craftiest forest-runner of the frontier. beneath his layers of blubber were muscles of forged steel and capacities for endurance that had never been plumbed.
"zounds, man, but i'm glad to see you," i cried, trusting my fingers to his bear's grip.
"ja," he answered vacantly in a tiny squeaky voice that issued incongruously from his immense frame.
i saw allen staring at him in amazement, and i could not restrain a laugh—i who had not smiled in six months.
"i shall be merry now, john," i said. "they are old friends i had not expected to see so soon."
the governor clapped his hand on the clerk's shoulder.
"ay, my lad, y'are safe to leave your master with us," he said in his kindly fashion. "y'are a good youth. we have room for your like in new york. here what ye have been matters not. 'tis what ye are that counts. but leave us now, for we have much to discuss."
i turned again to tawannears, as allen closed the door behind him.
"what brings you, brother? you are welcome—that i need not say. but you two are the last i should have looked to see walk in here out of pearl street. tell me all! how are my brethren of the long house? have any challenged the warders of the door? what news from beyond the lakes? are the french——?"
"god-a-mercy!" protested master burnet. "accept reason, ormerod. a question at a time, and in due order, if it pleases you. and may a guest sit in your house?"
i laughed again—as i doubt not he intended—and waved to all three of them.
"prithee, content yourselves," i bade. "y'are not such strangers as to require an invitation."
the governor let himself down into my armchair. tawannears, his white teeth exposed in a pleasant grin—for, like all indians, he had a keen sense of humor—sank upon the bearskin rug, and after a moment's hesitation, corlaer imitated him.
"my brother will not take it amiss if corlaer and tawannears slight his chairs?" inquired the indian in his cadenced, musical english that took on something of the sonorous rhythm of his own tongue. "we forest people are not used to setting our haunches at right angles to our feet. i learned much from the missionaries when i went to school with them as a boy, gaengwarago,* but i never became accustomed to the white man's chairs. hawenneyu, the great spirit, meant the earth to sit on, as well as to walk on. it is the only chair i know."
* "great swift arrow"—indian name for governor of new york.
"but corlaer, it seems, has been to school to your people to better advantage than you were with us," retorted the governor.
"the white man learns more readily than the indian," affirmed the seneca. "that is the reason why he will some day push the indian from his path."
"from his path?" i repeated, interested as always in the thoughts of this learned savage, who combined in his own mind to an amazing degree the philosophy of the civilized white man and the mental reactions of his untutored people.
"yes, brother," he answered. "the time will come when the white man will push the indian out of all this country."
"but where will your people go?" i asked.
"who knows? only hawenneyu can tell. perhaps he will care for them in some new land, out there, beyond the sunset."
and tawannears waved his hand toward the kindling glory that overhung the west.
the governor leaned forward in his chair.
"ay, that was what i had in my mind," he declared. "what lies there beyond the sunset? you know something of it, tawannears, but you do not know all. 'tis knowledge of that i crave. in a manner of speaking 'tis that brings us together here."
he was silent for a moment, and we all watched him, resting his chin upon the clasped hands that supported his cane, his eyes glued upon the western sky.
"tell your story, tawannears," he said abruptly. "that is the simplest way to expound an involved situation. and do you heed him, ormerod. there is more than a whim of mine in this. it may be your own future well-being is at stake."
i fixed my eyes upon the indian's face.
"yes, tell your story," i urged.
he bowed his head in assent.
"i will tell, brother. tawannears speaks also for corlaer. is it not so, peter?"
the big dutchman's mouth opened to emit a shrill "ja."
"first, my brother, ormerod, whom we of the hodenosaunee* call otetiani," the indian resumed, "i will strive to answer the questions that you asked. i bring you greetings from your foster-father, my uncle, the royaneh** donehogaweh. he bids me say to you that his heart longs for his white son. he keeps a place always prepared for you in his lodge. he took counsel with me before i left the long house, and advised me to seek you out. all is well with my people. the western door is secure. no enemies have challenged it. but tawannears has been idle, and so his thoughts have turned to the hunger in his heart, that my brother will remember was there in other days."
* people of the long house.
** hereditary chief, erroneously called sachem.
he rose to his feet, like all indian orators, unable to find comfort in delivery whilst seated. arms folded across his naked chest, his eagle's-feather well-nigh touching the ceiling, he towered above us, an incarnate spirit of the wilderness.
"my brother has not forgotten that once tawannears loved a maid of his people, daughter of your foster-father, who was called gahano, and was stolen from him by a french dog, and who died that tawannears might live.
"my brother knows that there is an old tale of my people that the lost souls of the dead go to the land of the lost souls which is ruled by ataentsic* and her grandson jousekeha, which is beyond dayedadogowar, the great home of the winds, beyond haniskaonogeh, the dwelling place of the evil-minded, ay, beyond the setting sun.
* she whose body is ancient.
"my brother knows it is said that once a warrior of my people, placing his trust in hawenneyu and the honochenokeh,* traveled westward after the setting sun, and daring all things, came at last to the land of the lost souls, where he found a maiden whom he had loved dancing with other lost souls before ataentsic. and jouskeha, taking pity on his love, gave him a hollowed pumpkin, and they placed the lost soul of the maiden in the pumpkin, and the warrior carried it back to the long house, and his people made a feast and they raised up the soul of the maiden from the pumpkin shell.
* subordinate good spirits.
"my brother remembers that two winters since tawannears and corlaer left the long house to search for the land of lost souls, but there was trouble between the hodenosaunee and the shawnee, and whilst tawannears and corlaer were in the country of the dakota, across the great river mississippi, they were called back by a message from the hoyarnagowar.* six young warriors of ten lost their lives that the message might be delivered. tawannears returned. since then he has discharged the duties of his people. now he is free again."
* the council of the royanehs, governing body of the iroquois.
he took a step toward me, his face blazing with the keen intelligence that was his outstanding characteristic.
"oh, my brother, so much i have said of tawannears. i speak next of you. word came to deonundagaa* in the first moon of the winter that the flower that had twined around your heart had withered and died. oh, my brother, great was our grief; but in grief words are as nothing. i thought. i knew your loss because i, too, had suffered it. it said to myself: 'otetiani is a man. he cannot weep. he has withstood the torture-stake. but he will suffer greatly in his mind—even as i have suffered. what will aid him?"
* chief village of the senecas and site of the western door.
"and then, oh, my brother, i saw what should be done. i summoned corlaer, and i said to him: 'we will go to new york and find our brother ormerod and take him with us to hunt again for the land of lost souls. a strange trail is best for the man whose mind is burdened with sad thoughts. if we find the land of lost souls, perhaps the souls of the white people will be there, and he may recover her whom he has lost. if we find nothing, still he will have the journey, strange trails, new countries—and the pain in his heart will be dulled.'
"so, my brother, corlaer and tawannears came to new york, and lest my thought should be a wrong one—for tawannears, after all, is an indian and cannot know always what is best for a white man—we went first to gaengwarago, who is wise in the ways of all people, and spoke with him. and now it is time for him to deliver his judgment.
"na-ho."*
* "i have finished."
"but, tawannears," i cried, as he dropped gracefully to the floor, "you forget that i am a christian! my religion tells me nothing of a land whence the dead may be recovered. think, brother, you were schooled in the natural sciences by the missionaries. how can you credit this—this myth. 'tis true i have heard you tell it before, and i forebore to question because i would not add to your sorrow. but now i may not pass it by in silence. forgive me, brother, if my words hurt you. i strive to speak with a straight tongue, as brothers should."
he lifted tranquil eyes to mine from his seat on the bearskin.
"my brother does not hurt tawannears," he said. "a straight tongue cannot hurt. brothers often disagree. it is true that the missionaries taught me as you say. it is true that i have read the bible. the missionaries are good men. the bible is a good book. there is wisdom in it. but the men who wrote it did not even know that the indians existed. they had never heard of this country. how, then, brother, could they know what the great spirit devised for the indian? no, ormerod, i think that the great spirit who made the world, who put the salt water in the ocean, which men use only for travel, and fresh water in the rivers, where men go to drink, may well have created a different after-world for the indian than for the white man."
"nay," i insisted, overwrought by this mingling of superstition and rare friendship coming on the heels of my mental anguish. "the soul that leaves the body is bodiless. it cannot be touched or seen. remember, tawannears, the great spirit sent his son to dwell awhile with the white men, to give his life for the saving of mankind. yet he said naught of this belief of yours."
tawannears smiled scornfully.
"that is why i reject your religion, brother. it cannot be complete if it does not include the indian, for the indian has a soul as has the white man. but i say again: i promise nothing. i shall seek. hawenneyu, and tharon the sky-holder, will decide if it is best for me to find—as for you, also. life, brother, is a search. religion is a struggle. i seek for what i love. i struggle for truth and justice. and i believe that the great spirit thinks of the indian as often as he does of the white man."
master burnet tapped his cane on the floor.
"you waste time, ormerod," he said testily. "my father was a bishop, and i have had enough of religion in my life to know that godly debates are endless. let be, prithee! for myself, i care not whether tawannears be right or wrong. yet the longer i live, the less sure i am of what is and is not. this continent is so incredibly gigantic that it may contain wonders our work-a-day minds have never dreamed on. a land of lost souls! well, why not? there were miracles in judea. why not in this wonderland? but hist! bishop gilbert, my father, hath just turned in his grave. i will ha' done. i am no casuist or scots catechist, forever probing the chances of salvation. nay, nay! i have heard many creeds in my time, but i have yet to hear one that surpasses tawannears'."
i chuckled, despite myself.
"already you succumb to the lure you deride," i pointed out.
he grinned back at me.
"true, i give thanks for the warning. let us forget it."
his manner grew serious.
"for you, ormerod, the consideration is not what tawannears believes. you know him for a tried friend. that should suffice. his offer to you is designed to lift you from this routine, in which, dear lad—to be brutally explicit for the once—you are unable to subdue the pricking memories of that fair mistress marjory whom we all loved. i urge you, scorn it not. i have watched over you of late with misgivings. y'are unsound in your mind, lad, and that's the truth on it.
"do not mistake me. i am no fault-finder. your life has been a hard one. you have had over-much of trial. your loss is doubly bitter to you therefor. but that is the reason why you must drink some sharp purge of experience to cleanse your brain of the canker that gnaws now at your sanity. tawannears points the way."
i looked at him, bewildered. from him to the seneca, sitting cross-legged like a brazen statue, only his eyes burning with vivid emotion in his mask of a face. and from tawannears to corlaer, no less impassive, his little eyes almost wholly concealed behind their ramparts of flesh.
"but such a journey will require much time!" i protested.
"a year," assented tawannears. "perhaps more. who can say?"
"ja," endorsed corlaer when i turned to him.
"'tis impossible," i said. "there is my business."
a shriek of laughter came from upstairs. i guessed that elspeth, knowing i was with guests, had relaxed all repression for the nonce.
"and the child," i added.
"your reasons are not valid," replied the governor. "for your business, john allen can well conduct it, and i will give him such supervision as he requires. the child is better in elspeth's hands than any other's. you will mean nothing to him this next year at least. and mistress bnrnet shall keep an eye upon him."
"but there is great danger upon such a journey," i declared shamelessly.
"why, that is so," admitted master burnet. "we may not dodge it. but you had better die, ormerod, than linger on in the moods you have known this six-month past. you have enough fortune for the rearing of your son and his start in life. write your will and leave his guardianship to me. you may make your mind easy on that score."
"you seem uncommonly anxious for me to go," i observed a trifle disagreeably.
"i am," he answered promptly. "i will go so far as to urge you in my official capacity, lad. i am not satisfied with affairs. we checkmate the french at one point, or in a certain direction, and they start an intrigue elsewhere. 'tis an adventurous people, with a genius for military endeavor, that puts us to shame. and to the southward the spaniards are rearing a power that can be toppled over only by their own fecklessness. we english are hemmed in along the seaboard behind the allegheny mountains. we are as cramped as fleas at the end of a dog's tail."
"we have not yet begun to colonize adequately this province alone," i exclaimed.
"true, but we are only the vanguard of the armies of home-makers of the future. remember that. the time will come when our people will be striving to burst their bounds and move on onto the dim recesses of the wilderness country. what is that country? what is there beyond it? beyond the sunset, as tawannears said. that is what i need to know, what england must know."
he poked at me with his cane.
"look you, ormerod, there are three questions to be answered. first, to what extent are the french established on the mississippi? i know they have built lately a post they call vincennes on the river ouabache,* but i have not been able to learn if they have progressed permanently below that.
* wabash.
"second, how far have the spaniards extended their influence beyond the mississippi? concerning this we know practically nothing.
"third, what is the power of the far indian races beyond the great river, and what is their disposition toward us? something in answer to this question tawannears has told me, but i must know more."
"you have taken me by surprise," i temporized, turning in my mind recollections of bygone venturings, the soft clutch of moccasins on the feet, the pervading wood-smell of the forest, the feathered whispering of arrow flights, the thrill of the war-whoop, exultation in a close shot.
master burnet pressed his advantage.
"surely, i have taken you by surprise," he persisted. "but the fact is, dear lad, i have striven all winter for a diversion to lift you out of yourself and this house which is overfull of memories for your present good. tawannears fetched me what i was unable to conceive. but i would have you consider that it offers more than an opportunity to escape discomfort and ill-health. no englishman hath traversed the lands across the mississippi. french soldiers and jesuits have seen somewhat of it, but never an englishman. the man who sees it first, and brings home a true account, will deserve well of his people. he will have rendered a service to generations yet unborn."
i peered for the last time at the armchair that stood empty by the hearth. as always, the slim wraith that sat there raised black-coifed head in a mute gesture of affection. it seemed to me that she nodded in approval. the brown eyes welled with sudden tears.
"i'll go," i said.
tawannears regained his feet with the agility of a catamount.
"yo-hay!"* he boomed.
* "i have heard," i.e., approved.
"goodt," pronounced corlaer solemnly.
"'tis well," endorsed the governor. "you'll not regret it, ormerod. there's much to do. let's to it."
