John Buchan

“ So strangely are we mortals made that, though I had won safety for myself and my people, I could not get the savour of it. I had passed too far beyond the limits of my strength. Now that the tension of peril was gone, my legs were like touchwood, which a stroke would shatter, and my foolish head swam like a merry-go-round. Shalah's arm was round me, and he lifted me up the steep bits till we came to the crown of the ridge. There we halted, and he fed me with sops of bread dipped in eau-de-vie, for he had brought Ringan's flask with him. The only result was to make me deadly sick. ”

“ Elspeth's clear voice, her dark, kind eyes, her young and joyous grace, filled again my memory. Was not such a lady better than any savage kingdom? Was not the service of my own folk nobler than any principate among strangers? Could the rivers of Damascus vie with the waters of Israel?
"Nay, Shalah," I said. "Mine is a quieter destiny. I go back to the Tidewater, but I shall not stay there. We have found the road to the hills, and in time I will plant the flag of my race on the Shenandoah."
He bowed his head. "So be it. Each man to his own path, but I would ours had run together. ”

“ And what odour can vie for hungry folk with that of roasting meat in the clear hush of twilight? The sight of that little camp is still in my memory. Elspeth flitted about busied with her cookery, the glow of the sunset lighting up her dark hair. Bertrand did the roasting, crouched like a gnome by the edge of the fire. Grey fetched and carried for the cooks, a docile and cheerful servant, with nothing in his look to recall the proud gentleman of the Tidewater. Donaldson sat on a log, contentedly smoking his pipe, while Ringan, whistling a strathspey, attended to the horses. ”

“ From the stockade we had no prospect save the reddening western sky, but I liked to think that in a little walk I could see old Studd's Promised Land. That was a joy I reserved for myself on the morrow, I look back on that late afternoon with delight as a curious interlude of peace. We had forgotten that we were fugitives in a treacherous land, I for one had forgotten the grim purpose of our quest, and we cooked supper as if we were a band of careless folk taking our pleasure in the wilds. Wood-smoke is always for me an intoxication like strong drink. ”

“ I had no doubt that the Cherokees were now broken. Stafford county would be full of Nicholson's militia, and Lawrence's strong hand lay on the line of the Borders. But what availed it? While Virginia was flattering herself that she had repelled the savages, and the Rappahannock men were notching their muskets with the tale of the dead, a wave was gathering to sweep down the Pamunkey or the James, and break on the walls of James Town. I did not think that Nicholson, forewarned and prepared, could stem the torrent; and if it caught him unawares the proud Tidewater would break like a rotten reed. ”

“ Your way is the way of the white man. You conquer slowly, but the line of your conquest goes not back. Slowly it eats its way through the forest, and fields and manors appear in the waste places, and cattle graze in the coverts of the deer. Listen, brother. Shalah has had his visions when his eyes were unsealed in the night watches. He has seen the white man pressing up from the sea, and spreading over the lands of his fathers. He has seen the glens of the hills parcelled out like the meadows of Henricus, and a great multitude surging ever on to the West. ”

“ The thought of Elspeth among savages maddened me, the more so as she had just spoken of Medwyn Glen, and had sent my memory back to fragrant hours of youth. We scrambled out of the thicket and put our weary beasts to a gallop. Happily it was harder ground, albeit much studded with clumps of fern, and though we all slipped and stumbled often, the horses kept their feet. I was growing so dizzy in the head that I feared every moment I would fall off. The mist had now come low down the hill, and lay before us, a line, of grey vapour drawn from edge to edge of the vale. ”

“ I looked at Ringan, and he was smiling, but his eyes were terrible. The Frenchman Bertrand was sobbing like a child.
We took the bones, and made a shallow grave for them in the rosary. We had no spades, but a stake did well enough to dig a resting-place for those few poor remains. I said over them the Twenty-third Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff shall comfort me."
Then suddenly our mood changed. Nothing that we could do could help the poor souls whose bones lay among the ashes. ”

“ Elspeth had had her wits sorely jangled by the storm, and in the revulsion was on the brink of tears. She was very tender towards Grey's condition, and the sight gave me no jealousy, for in that tense hour all things were forgotten but life and death. Donaldson, at Ringan's bidding, saw to the feeding of the horses as if he were in his own stable on the Rappahannock. It takes all sorts of men to make a world, but I thought at the time that for this business the steel nerves of the Borderer were worth many quicker brains and more alert spirits. ”

“ For these men were not the common Indian breed, but a race nurtured and armed for great wars, disciplined to follow one man, and sharpened to a needle-point in spirit. Perhaps if I had been myself a campaigner I should have been less awed by the spectacle; but having nothing with which to compare it, I judged this a host before which the scattered Border stockades and Nicholson's scanty militia would go down like stubble before fire.
At the head of the plateau, just under the brow of the hill, and facing the half-circle of level land, stood a big tent of skins. ”

“ If you desert us we lose our best musket, and you have as little chance of reaching the Tidewater as the moon. Arc you so madly enamoured of death, Mr. Garvald?" He spoke in the old stiff tones of the man I had quarrelled with.
I turned to Shalah. "Is there any hope of getting to the South Fork?"
He looked me very full in the face. "As much hope as a dove has who falls broken-winged into an eyrie of falcons! As much hope as the deer when the hunter's knife is at its throat! Yet the dove may escape, and the deer may yet tread the forest. While a man draws breath there is hope, brother." ”

“ There's plenty idolatry elsewhere in America to keep you busy for a lifetime, and you can lead your Gentiles elsewhere than against your own kin. Turn your face westward, John Gib. I, too, can dream dreams and see visions, and it is borne in on me that your road is plain before you. Lead this great people away from the little shielings of Virginia, over the hills and over the great mountains and the plains beyond, and on and on till you come to an abiding city. You will find idolaters enough to dispute your road, and you can guide your flock as the Lord directs you. ”

“ It behoved us now to go warily, and where the thickets grew thin we moved like hunters, in every hollow and crack that could shelter a man. Ringan led, and led well, for he had not stalked the red deer on the braes of Breadalbane for nothing. But no sign of life appeared in the green hollows on either hand, neither in the meadow spaces nor by the creeks of the growing streams. The world was dead silent; not even a bird showed in the whole firmament.
Lower and lower we went, till the end of the ridge was before us, a slope which melted into the river plains. ”

“ The hall where we sat was lined with portraits of men who had borne rule in Virginia. There was Captain John Smith, trim-bearded and bronzed; and Argall and Dale, grave and soldierly; there was Francis Wyat, with the scar got in Indian wars; there hung the mean and sallow countenance of Sir John Harvey. There, too, was Berkeley, with his high complexion and his love-locks, the great gentleman of a vanished age; and the gross rotundity of Culpepper; and the furtive eye of my lord Howard, who was even now the reigning Governor. ”

“ I opened my eyes to another day of pain and peril, with no hope of deliverance. For usual I am one of those who rise with a glad heart and a great zest for whatever the light may bring. Now, as I moved my limbs, I found aches everywhere, and but little strength in my bones. Slowly the events of the last day came back to me—the journey in the dripping woods, the fight in the ravine, the death of my comrade, the long horror of the hours of torture. No man can be a hero at such an awakening. I had not the courage of a chicken in my soul, and could have wept with weakness and terror. ”

“ Meantime I was busy with my viands, and no man ever punished a venison pie more heartily. As I ate and drank, I smiled at the strangeness of my fortunes—to come thus straight from the wild seas and the company of outlaws into a place of silver and damask and satin coats and lace cravats and orderly wigs. The soft hum of gentlefolks' speech was all around me, those smooth Virginian voices compared with which my Scots tongue was as strident as a raven's. But as I listened, I remembered Ringan and Lawrence, and, "Ah, my silken friends," thought I, "little you know the judgment that is preparing. ”

“ Still Shalah cried us on. I fell back to the rear, for if we were to escape I thought there might be need of fighting there. I felt in my belt for my loaded pistols.
We were now in a coppice again, where the trees were short and sparse. Beyond that lay another meadow, and, then, not a quarter-mile distant, the welcome line of the mist, every second drawing down on us.
A third time an arrow fell. Its flight was shorter and dropped almost under the nose of Elspeth's horse, which swerved violently, and would have unseated a less skilled horsewoman. ”

“ Down in the mists lay a new world. Studd had seen it, and we should see it; and some day the Virginian people would drive a road through Clearwater Gap and enter into possession. It is a subtle joy that which fills the heart of the pioneer, and mighty unselfish too. He does not think of payment, for the finding is payment enough. He does not even seek praise, for it is the unborn generations that will call him blessed. He is content, like Moses, to leave his bones in the wilderness if his people may pass over Jordan. ”

“ Suddenly Shalah's movements became stealthy. Crouching in every patch of shade, and crossing open spaces on our bellies, we turned from the stream, surmounted a knoll, and came down on a wooded valley. Shalah looked westwards, held up his hand, and stood poised for a minute like a graven image. Then he grunted and spoke. "We are safe," he said. "They are behind us, and are camped for the night," How he knew that I cannot tell; but I seemed to catch on the breeze a whiff of the rancid odour of Indian war-paint. ”

“ I am come from your own country-side to save you from a hellish wickedness, I know the length and breadth of Virginia, and the land is full of Scots, men of the Covenant you have forsworn, who are living an honest life on their bits of farms, and worshipping the God you have forsaken. There are women there like Alison Steel, and there are men there like yourself before you hearkened to the devil. Will you bring death to your own folk, with whom you once shared the hope of salvation? ”

“ A man brought a torch and lit the brushwood on the altar. Instantly a flame rose to heaven, through which the figure of the magician showed fitfully like a mountain in mist. That act broke the wizardry for me. To sacrifice a cat was monstrous and horrible, but it was also uncouthly silly. I saw the magic for what it was, a maniac's trickery. In the revulsion I grew angry, and my anger heartened me wonderfully. Was this stupendous quackery to bring ruin to the Tidewater? Though I had to choke the life with my own hands out of that warlock's throat, I should prevent it. ”

“ On the edge of the woods a multitude of horses were picketed, and there were booths that sold food and drink, merry-go-rounds and fiddlers, and an immense concourse of every condition of folk, black slaves and water-side Indians, squatters from the woods, farmers from all the valleys, and the scum and ruck of the plantations. I found some of my friends, and settled my business with them, but my eyes were always straying to the green awning where I knew that Elspeth sat.
I am no judge of racing, but I love the aspect of sleek, slim horses, and I could applaud a skill in which I had no share. ”

“ There are many who feel with me that Virginia can never grow to the fullness of a nation so long as she is cooped up in the Tidewater. New-comers arrive by every ship from England, and press on into the wilderness. But there can be no conquest of the wilderness till we have broken the Indian menace, and pushed our frontier up to the hills—ay, and beyond them. But tell that to the ordinary planter, and he will assign you to the devil. He fears these new-comers, who are simple fellows that do not respect his grandeur. He fears that some day they may control the assembly by their votes. ”

“ You will never hear a bird cry or a sheep bleat or a weasel scream. The only sound is the drum of the rain on the peat or its plash on a boulder, and the low surge of the swelling streams. It is the place and time for dark deeds, for the heart grows savage; and if two enemies met in the hollow of the mist only one would go away.
I climbed the hill above the Howe burn-head, keeping the wind on my right cheek as the girl had ordered. That took me along a rough ridge of mountain pitted with peat-bogs into which I often stumbled. ”

“ I saw the peril, but I could not think that such a race could vie with the Children of the Sun. But one black night, in the Moon of Wildfowl, the raiders descended in a torrent and took us unprepared. What had been a happy people dwelling with full barns and populous wigwams became in a night a desolation. Our wives and children were slain or carried captive, and on every Cherokee belt hung the scalps of my warriors. Some fled westwards to our nation, but they were few that lived, and the tribe of Shalah went out like a torch in a roaring river. ”

“ My feet grew leaden, and, to make matters worse, we dipped presently into a big swamp, where we mired to the knees and often to the middle. It would have been no light labour at any time to cross such a place, pulling oneself by the tangled shrubs on to the rare patches of solid ground. But now, when I was pretty weary, the toil was about the limit of my strength. When we emerged on hard land I was sobbing like a stricken deer. But Shalah had no mercy. ”

“ Shalah whispered, a strange light in his eyes. "If we twain joined the venture, I think we should not be the last in it. Shalah would make you a king. What is your life in the muddy Tidewater but a thing of little rivalries and petty wrangles and moping over paper? The hearth will soon grow cold, and the bright eyes of the fairest woman will dull with age, and the years will find you heavy and slow, with a coward's shrinking from death. What say you, brother? While the blood is strong in the veins shall we ride westward on the path of a king?" ”

“ Long ere we got to the Gap I was clean worn out. I remember that I fell constantly, and could scarcely rise. Then I stumbled, and the last power went out of will and sinew. I had a glimpse of Shalah's grave face as I slipped into unconsciousness.
I woke in a glow of firelight. Faces surrounded me, dim wraith-like figures still entangled in the meshes of my dreams. Slowly the scene cleared, and I recognized Grey's features, drawn and constrained, and yet welcoming. Bertrand was weeping after his excitable fashion. ”