The Little Red Foot. Chambers Robert William
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belts and straps, buttoned spatter-dashes, or placed a sprig of hemlock above the black and white cockades on their felt hats.
Balty Weed, who lived east of me, a thin fellow with red rims to his eyes and dry, sparse hair tied in a queue with a knot of buckskin, asked me in his stealthy way what I thought about our present business, and if our Provincial Congress had not, perhaps, unjustly misjudged Sir John.
I replied cautiously. I had never trusted Balty because he frequented taverns where few friends to liberty cared to assemble; and he was far too thick with Philip and John Helmer and with Charlie Cady to suit my taste.
We, in the little hamlet of Fonda's Bush, were scarce thirty families, all counted; and yet, even here in this trackless wilderness, out of which each man had hewed for himself a patch of garden and a stump pasture along the little river Kennyetto, the bitter quarrel had long smouldered betwixt Tory and Patriot – King's man and so-called Rebel.
And this was the Mohawk country. And the Mohawks stood for the King of England.
The road, I say, ended here; but there was a Mohawk path through twenty odd miles of untouched forest to those healing springs called Saratoga.
Except for this path and a deep worn war-trail north to the Sacandaga, which was the Iroquois road to Canada, and except for the wood road to Sir William's Mayfield and Fish House settlements, we of Fonda's Bush were utterly cut off. Also, save for the new Block House at Mayfield, we were unprotected in a vast wilderness which embodied the very centre of the Mohawk country.
True, north of us stood that little pleasure house built for his hour of leisure by Sir William, and called "The Summer House."
Painted white and green, it stood on a hard ridge jutting out into those dismal, drowned lands which we call the Great Vlaie. But it was not fortified.
Also, to the north, lay the Fish House, a hunting lodge of Sir William. But these places were no protection for us. On the other hand, they seemed a menace; for Tories, it had been rumoured, were ever skulking along the Vlaie and the Sacandaga; and for aught we knew, these buildings were already designed to be made into block-houses and to be garrisoned by our enemies as soon as the first rifle-shot cracked out in the cause of liberty.
Our company of the Mohawk Regiment numbered thirty-six rifles – all that now remained of the old company, three-fourths of which had already deserted to the Canadas with Butler. All our officers had fled; Joe Scott of Maxon, formerly a sergeant, now commanded us; Benjamin de Luysnes was our lieutenant; Dries Bowman and Phil Helmer our sergeants – both already suspected.
Well, we got away from Stoner's, marching in double file, and only the little creatures of the forest to hear our drums and fifes.
But the old discipline which had obtained in all our Tryon regiments when Sir William was our Major General and the landed gentry our officers seemed gone; a dull sense of bewilderment reigned, confusing many among us, as when leaderless men begin to realize how they had depended upon a sturdy staff now broken forever.
We marched with neither advanced guard nor flankers for the first half mile; then Joe Scott halted us and made Nick Stoner put away his beloved fife and sent him out on our right flank where the forest was heavy.
Me he selected to scout forward on the left – a dirty job where alders and willows grew thick above the bogs.
But why in God's name our music played to advertise our coming I can not guess, for our men needed no heartening, having courage and resolution, only the lack of officers causing them any anxiety at all.
On the left flank of the little column I kept very easily in touch because of this same silly drumming and fifing. And I was glad when we came to high ground and breasted the hills which lead to that higher plateau, over which runs the road to Johnstown.
Plodding along in the bush, keeping a keen watch for any enemy who might come in paint or in scarlet coat, and the far rhythm of our drums thumping dully in my ears, I wondered whether other companies of my regiment were marching on Johnstown, and if other Tryon regiments – or what was left of them – were also afoot that day.
Was this, then, the beginning of the war in the Northland? And, when we made a prisoner of Sir John, would all the dusky forests glow with scarlet war-paint and scarlet coats?
Today birds sang. Tomorrow the terrific panther-slogan of the Iroquois might break out into hell's own uproar among these purple hills.
Was this truly the beginning? Would these still, leafy trails where the crested partridge strutted witness bloody combats between old neighbors – all the horrors of a fratricidal war?
Would the painted men of the woods hold their hands while Tory and patriot fought it out? Or was this utter and supreme horror to be added to this unnatural conflict?
Reflecting very seriously upon these matters, I trotted forward, rifle a-trail, and saw nothing living in the woods save a big hare or two in the alders, and the wild brown poultry of the woods, that ran to cover or rose into thunderous flight among the thickets.
About four o'clock came to me Godfrey Shew, of Fish House, a private soldier like myself, with news of a halt on the Johnstown road, and orders that I eat a snack and rest in my tracks.
He told me that a company of horse from Albany was out scouting along the Mohawk, and that a column of three thousand men under Colonel Dayton were marching on Johnstown and had passed Schenectady about noon.
Other news he had none, excepting that our company was to remain where we had halted, in order to stop the road to Fonda's Bush and Saratoga, in case Sir John should attempt to retire this way.
"Well, Godfrey," said I, "if Sir John truly turns out to be without shame and honour, and if he marches this way, there is like to be a lively time for us of the Bush, because Sir John has three hundred Highlanders to thirty odd of ourselves, and enough Borderers and Tory militia to double the count."
"We all know that," said Shew calmly, "and are not afraid."
"Do you think our people mean to stand?"
"Yes," said he simply.
A hot thrill of pride tingled my every vein. Suddenly I completely comprehended that these plain folk of Fonda's Bush were my own people; that I was one of them; that, as they meant to stand for the ancient liberties of all Englishmen, now wickedly denied them, so I also meant to stand to the end.
And now, at last, I comprehended that I was in actual revolt against that King and against that nobility and gentry who were deserting us when we had so desperate need of them in this coming battle for human freedom in a slave-cursed world.
The cleavage had come at last; the Northland was clean split; the red livery of the King's men had suddenly become a target for every honest rifle in Tryon.
"Godfrey," I said, "the last chance for truce is passing as you and I stand here, – the last chance for any reconciliation and brotherly understanding between us and our Tory neighbors."
"It is better that way," he said, giving me a sombre look.
I nodded, but all the horror of civil war lay heavy in my heart and I thought of my many friends in Tryon who would wear the scarlet coat tomorrow, and whom I now must try to murder with my proper hands, lest they do the like for me.
Around us, where we were standing, a golden dusk reigned in the forest, into which, through the roof of green above, fell a long sunbeam, lighting the wooded aisle as a single candle on the altar gleams athwart the gloom of some still cathedral.
At five o'clock Godfrey and I had not moved from that silent place where we stood on watch, leaning upon our rifles.
Twice soldiers came to bid us keep close guard in these open woods which, being primeval, were clear of underbrush and deep with the brown carpet of dead leaves.
At last, toward six o'clock, we heard our drums rolling in the distance – signal to scout forward. I ran out among the great trees and started on toward Johnstown, keeping Godfrey in view on my left hand.
Very soon I came out of the forest on the edge of cleared land. Against the evening sky I saw the spires of Johnstown, stained crimson in the westering