Robert Chambers - The Little Red Foot

But I said only that I hoped this county might escape the conflagration now roaring through all New England and burning very fiercely in Virginia and the Carolinas. Then, smiling, I made her a compliment on her hair, which her Irish maid was dressing very prettily, and laughed at her man's banyan which she so saucily wore in place of a levete. Only a young and pretty woman could presume to wear a flowered silk banyan at her toilet; but it mightily became Polly Johnson.

"Claudia is here," she remarked with a kindly malice perfectly transparent.

I took the news in excellent part, and played the hopeless swain for a while, to amuse her, and so cunningly, too, that presently the charming child felt bound to comfort me.

"Claudia is a witch," says she, "and does vast damage to no purpose but that it feeds her vanity. And this I have said frequently to her very face, and shall continue until she chooses to refrain from such harmful coquetry, and seems inclined to a more serious consideration of life and duty."

"Claudia serious!" I exclaimed. "When Claudia becomes pensive, beware of her!"

"Claudia should marry early – as I did," said she. But her features grew graver as she said it, and I saw not in them that inner light which makes delicately radiant the face of happy wifehood.

I thought, "God pity her," but I said gaily enough that retribution must one day seize Claudia's dimpled hand and place it in the grasp of some gentleman fitly fashioned to school her.

We both laughed; then she being ready for her stays and gown, I retired to the library below, where, to my chagrin, who should be lounging but Hiakatoo, war chief of the Senecas, in all his ceremonial finery. Despite what dear Mary Jamison has written of him, nor doubting that pure soul's testimony, I knew Hiakatoo to be a savage beast and a very devil, the more to be suspected because of his terrible intelligence.

With him was a Mr. Hare, sometime Lieutenant in the Mohawk Regiment, with whom I had a slight acquaintance. I knew him to be Tory to the bone, a deputy of Guy Johnson for Indian affairs, and a very shifty character though an able officer of county militia and a scout of no mean ability.

Hare gave me good evening with much courtesy and self-possession. Hiakatoo, also, extended a muscular hand, which I was obliged to take or be outdone in civilized usage by a savage.

"Well, sir," says Hare in his frank, misleading manner, "the last o' the sugar is a-boiling, I hear, and spring plowing should begin this week."

Neither he nor Hiakatoo had as much interest in husbandry as two hoot-owls, nor had they any knowledge of it, either; but I replied politely, and, at their request, gave an account of my glebe at Fonda's Bush.

"There is game in that country," remarked Hiakatoo in the Seneca dialect.

Instantly it entered my head that his remark had two interpretations, and one very sinister; but his painted features remained calmly inscrutable and perhaps I had merely imagined the dull, hot gleam that I thought had animated his sombre eyes.

"There is game in the Bush," said I, pleasantly, – "deer, bear , turkeys, and partridges a-drumming the long roll all day long. And I have seen a moose near Lake Desolation."

Now I had replied to the Seneca in the Canienga dialect; and he might interpret in two ways my reference to bears , and also what I said concerning the drumming of the partridges.

But his countenance did not change a muscle, nor did his eyes. And as for Hare, he might not have understood my play upon words, for he seemed interested merely in a literal interpretation, and appeared eager to hear about the moose I had seen near Lake Desolation.

So I told him I had watched two bulls fighting in the swamp until the older beast had been driven off.

"Civilization, too, will soon drive away the last of the moose from Tryon," quoth Hare.

"How many families at Fonda's Bush?" asked Hiakatoo abruptly.

I was about to reply, telling him the truth, and checked myself with lips already parted to speak.

There ensued a polite silence, but in that brief moment I was convinced that they realized I suddenly suspected them.

What I might have answered the Seneca I do not exactly know, for the next instant Sir John entered the room with Ensign Moucher, of the old Mohawk Regiment, and young Captain Watts from New York, brother to Polly, Lady Johnson, a handsome, dissipated, careless lad, inclined to peevishness when thwarted, and marred, perhaps, by too much adulation.

Scarce had compliments been exchanged with snuff when Lady Johnson entered the room with Claudia Swift, and I thought I had seldom beheld two lovelier ladies in their silks and powder, who curtsied low on the threshold to our profound bows.

As I saluted Lady Johnson's hand again, she said: "This is most kind of you, Jack, because I know that all farmers now have little time to waste."

"Like Cincinnatus," said I, smilingly, "I leave my plow in the furrow at the call of danger, and hasten to brave the deadly battery of your bright eyes."

Whereupon she laughed that sad little laugh which I knew so well, and which seemed her manner of forcing mirth when Sir John was present.

I took her out at her request. Sir John led Claudia; the others paired gravely, Hare walking with the Seneca and whispering in his ear.

Candles seemed fewer than usual in the dining hall, but were sufficient to display the late Sir William's plate and glass.

The scented wind from Claudia's fan stirred my hair, and I remembered it was still the hair of a forest runner, neither short nor sufficiently long for the queue, and powdered not a trace.

I looked around at Claudia's bright face, more brilliant for the saucy patches and newly powdered hair.

"La," said she, "you vie with Hiakatoo yonder in Mohawk finery, Jack, – all beads and thrums and wampum. And yet you have a pretty leg for a silken stocking, too."

"In the Bush," said I, "the backwoods aristocracy make little of your silk hosen, Claudia. Our stockings are leather and our powder black, and our patches are of buckskin and are sewed on elbow and knee with pack-thread or sinew. Or we use them, too, for wadding."

"It is a fashion like another," she remarked with a shrug, but watching me intently over her fan's painted edge.

"The mode is a tyrant," said I, "and knows neither pity nor good taste."

"How so?"

"Why, Hiakatoo also wears paint, Claudia."

"Meaning that I wear lip-rouge and lily-balm? Well, I do, my impertinent friend."

"Who could suspect it?" I protested, mockingly.

"You might have suspected it long since had you been sufficiently adventurous."

"How so?" I inquired in my turn.

"By kissing me, pardieu! But you always were a timid youth, Jack Drogue, and a woman's 'No,' with the proper stare of indignation, always was sufficient to route you utterly."

In spite of myself I reddened under the smiling torment.

"And if any man has had that much of you," said I, "then I for one will believe it only when I see your lip-rouge on his lips!"

"Court me again and then look into your mirror," she retorted calmly.

"What in the world are you saying to each other?" exclaimed Lady Johnson, tapping me with her fan. "Why, you are red as a squaw-berry, Jack, and your wine scarce tasted."

Claudia said: "I but ask him to try his fortune, and he blushes like a silly."

"Shame," returned Lady Johnson, laughing; "and you have Mr. Hare's scalp fresh at your belt!"

Hare heard it, and laughed in his frank way, which instantly disarmed most people who had not too often heard it.

"I admit," said he, "that I shall presently perish unless this cruel lady proves kinder, or restores to me my hair."

"It were more merciful," quoth Ensign Moucher, "to slay outright with a single glance. I myself am long since doubly dead," he added with his mealy-mouthed laugh, and his mean reddish eyes a-flickering at Lady Johnson.