Susquehannock

“ There is the certainty of a smile or even a kiss from the black-browed Nanna to recompense my good-nature, and a possible secret hanging in the wind. Finally, the off chance that the Shining One is not so hopelessly out of fashion as we have been led to think. In this backsliding age he should appreciate the honor of my attendance in person, to say nothing of the venison and the wine." Kurt, the Knacker, laughed silently under his curtain of black beard, and then stumped over to a bench in the gateway, sheltered from the wind and open to the sun. ”

“ And here’s where the bushes end, so we can see for ourselves.”
[76]
It turned out that Giraffe was correct, for there was a makeshift of a boat out on the current of the river, containing a boy who was clumsily trying to turn its head in the direction of the shore. The obstructions in the Susquehanna make it a very treacherous stream, with eddies and stealthy currents that take one unawares, and “Johnny” was making a sorry mess of his work, Thad saw at a glance.
“He’s apt to get upset if he doesn’t take care!” exclaimed Bob White, who knew the signs all too well. ”

“ All’s hunting here, it seems—you cannot speak without some stupid talk of fox, or hounds, or fences. For my part, I like Will Underwood. He’s smooth and easy, and a respite from the weather.”
“Yes. He is that,” assented Nance, with something of the other’s irony.
“He’s a rest, somehow, from all the wind and rain and downrightness of Lancashire. But, there! We shall not agree, Nance. You’re too like your father and Sir Jasper. Come indoors, and get those wet clothes off. We shall take a chill, the two of us, if we stand here.” ”

“ With entire disregard of anything that had gone before, Squire Demaine filled another measure for his guest, pointed to the chair across the hearth, and was about to give the news from Scotland, word by word, when he remembered Nance. “It will be only recruiting-talk, Nance—men to be counted on in one place, and men we doubt in t’other. It would only weary you.”
Nance came and stood between them, slim and passionate. “I choose to stay, father. Your talk of men, of arms hidden in the hay-mows and the byres, of the marching-out—that is your part of the battle. ”

“ Nance, too, lay awake. She was busy with what Lady Royd had named the rosemary of life. All her instincts rose in warm defence of that view of honour which Sir Jasper’s wife had slighted. And there were men, men in their own midst, who could love in the old knightly way. There was Will Underwood—and so she lost herself, half between waking and dreaming, in a maze of high perfection that she reared about his person. Of a truth Wild Will was in danger, had he known it. He had pressed his suit on Nance, had urged it, in and out of season, during the months that preceded this upset of the Rising. ”

“ His rebel, obscenely jocose, impaling a child, might, though a detail in a crowded etching, have been drawn for Scotland Yard; so too might a woman squatting and smoking while a wretch writhes on four pikes which take his weight and give it him back in torture. England is to glow, Ireland is to blush as she looks at Cruikshank's people of '98. As clear on the memory as his Irish ruffianism is his portrait of the little drummer dying with his leg through his drum to protect its voice from dishonour. ”

“ One of the guardsmen held out a full ox-horn of wine, and the Knacker seized it and forced it into Constans's hand.
"After all, the good malt is for stronger stomachs; wine is the tipple for women, boys, and priests. Down [Pg 178] with it right cheerfully or take a sousing in the butt itself—to drown there or drink it dry."
It was not a prudent thing to do, but Constans was angry. Seizing the ox-horn, he dashed its contents full in his tormentor's face, and Kurt, the Knacker, half strangled, fell back coughing and breathing stertorously. ”

“ Where else?”
“At Windyhough. No, girl, I’ll have no arguments about it. You’ll be protected there.”
Will Underwood laughed, and somehow Nance liked him none the better for it. “Sir Jasper will go with us, and Maurice, and every able-bodied man about the place—who will be left to play guardian to Nance?”
“Rupert, unless I’ve misjudged the lad,” snapped the Squire.
“He cannot protect himself, sir.”
“No. May be not—just yet. But I’ve faith in that lad, somehow. He’ll look after other folk’s cattle better than his own. Some few are made in that mould, Will. It’s a good mould, and rare.” ”

“ He was only here for as long as his message lasted, and off again for Sir Jasper’s at Windyhough.”
“And his news?” asked Will Underwood, watching the fire-glow play about Nance’s clear-cut face and maidish figure.
The Squire drew them close to him, and glanced about him again and, for all his would-be secrecy, his voice rang like a trumpet-call before he had half told them of the doings up in Scotland. For his loyalty was sane and vastly simple.
They were silent for a while, until Nance turned slowly and stood looking at the two men. “It is all like a dream come true. ”

“ There are no beasts in the croft.”
“I’m not here to argufy. When you find a gate shut, shut it behind ye—that’s what I was taught as a lad.”
It had been a day of insults for Gaunt, and he longed to snap some hasty answer out and ride away; but his errand robbed him of this slight consolation, and he made the best of an awkward matter.
“Billy, just run and shut that gate,” he said.
The natural turned at last, puffing gently at his pipe. “Would oblige ye, I, but ’tis one o’ my playtime-days, Mr. Reuben Gaunt. I’d have bad dreams to-night if I did any work.” ”

“ Taking full advantage of the cover afforded by the country, Elcho placed his men behind the hedges and stone walls, and as the first of the dusk came down the Duke’s soldiery delivered their attack. It was a sharp, bewildering skirmish, ended speedily by nightfall; but to Rupert, fighting in the open after the stifled days at Windyhough, it was easy to show a gallantry that roused the applause of men grown old and hard to combat. And ever he thought less of Nance, and more of this new comrade, danger, whose face was bright, alluring. ”

“ The devil, who ought to be civil upon such occasions, forgot himself in the present instance, and brought up Lord Southesk ‘in propria persona’: his Royal Highness’s equipage had been sent home, because my lady had assured him that her husband was gone to see a bear and a bull baiting, an entertainment in which he took great delight, and from whence he seldom returned until it was very late; so that Southesk, not seeing any equipage at the door, little imagined that he had such good company in his house ”

“ Into the scented room, with its candles shining from their silver sconces, Lady Royd came, tremulous and white of face, from watching Oliphant of Muirhouse ride out.
“Nance, my dear, I—I am tired,” she said.
“I think we all are,” Nance answered, rising from the spinet with a deference that had no heart in it.
“Oh, you’re querulous, and so am I,” said the other, with a shrewd glance at the girl’s face. “If our men could see us now—our men who fight for us—they would be astonished, Nance. We’re so little like their dreams of us. ”

“ She was soaked to the skin, and her mare was fidgeting on the bridle which she still held over-tight, forgetting that she grasped it.
“You will come indoors, Nance?” said Lady Royd, shivering at the door. “They’ve gone, and we are left—and that’s the woman’s story always. Men do not care for us, except as playthings when they see no chance of shedding blood.”
Nance came out from her dreams. Not the quiet riding-out, not the rain and the bitter wind, had chilled her as did the knowledge that Will Underwood was absent from the meet. ”

“ One day, in his early volunteer days, when passing down Ludgate Hill in his striking uniform, of which a tall feather and tight green trousers were the conspicuous features, he was laughed at, and followed by some men and boys. He turned upon them and singled out the chief aggressor. A ring was formed in the street, and Private Cruikshank gave his assailant a sound thrashing, treating his second to a pot of beer afterwards by way of acknowledgment. * Robert Cruikshank was even more smitten with soldiering than George, and the weakness remained with him to the end of his life. ”

“ It is impossible to describe the deep significance which Susy's blue eyes gave to this expression. After a pause she went on—
“No! We must never meet again, Clarence, unless Mary Rogers helps. She is my best, my ONLIEST friend, and older than I; having had trouble herself, and being expressly forbidden to see him again. You can speak to her about Suzette—that's my name now; I was rechristened Suzette Alexandra Peyton by mamma. And now, Clarence,” dropping her voice and glancing shyly around the saloon, “you may kiss me just once under my hat, for good-by.” ”

“ Lady Royd was standing apart, as if nothing mattered, now she had heard that Sir Jasper lay wounded at the farm; if her man had not been strong enough to ride in and guard her at such a time, he must be near to death, she felt. She had made him her idol, starving her sons of love because the father claimed it; and she was paying her debts now, in confusion and humiliation. Nance scarcely heeded her. Her eyes passed from Simon and Ben Shackleton to the slim, erect figure at the gate, and instinctively she crossed to Rupert’s side. ”

“ His secret trouble, and his jealousy of any man who threatened to come close to Nance, swept Will Underwood’s prudence clean away. He should have known by now this bluff, uncompromising tone of the Squire’s. “She’s safer here, sir,” he blundered on. “We all know Rupert for a scholar—I’d rather trust Nance to her own women-servants.”
“But I would not,” put in old Roger dryly, “and I happen [16] to have a say in the matter. If Rupert’s a fool—well, he shall have his chance of proving it. Nance, you go to Windyhough. That’s understood? The house down yonder can stand a siege, and this cannot. ”

“ The proprietor, Earl, was an unprincipled man, who persuaded George Cruikshank to put his name to a bill. When it fell due, the drawer was in the Fleet prison. The acceptor’s mother was not a lady to take such a deception lightly. She repaired to the Fleet, but obtained no satisfaction from the debtor. The editor of the Scourge, “Jack,” or “Mad” Mitford, was worthy of the proprietor. He had been an officer in the navy, but fell through infamous conduct to be the rhymester of running patterers. ”

“ Now matters were hastening to a climax rapidly, when Wheaton or the panther must finish their hunting on the mountains of the Susquehanna, for if old smooth-bore should flash in the pan, or miss her aim, the die would be cast, as a second load would be impossible ere her claws would have sundered his heart strings in the tree where he was, or if he should but partially wound her the same must have been his fate. ”

“ Gaunt, I. Dan says he’s up yonder. Now, ’twould be terrible pranksome if he happened to die on’t himself. There’d be such a clearing o’ the air, as a body might say.”
Hirst little as he cared for Reuben Gaunt was shocked by the quietness with which Billy uttered the wish. This lad, who was peaceable and kindly of face as Garth street itself, was asking a terrible punishment for his one enemy.
“Oh, tuts, lad!” said the yeoman, patting him roughly on the shoulder. “We don’t pray fever on any man, surely, whether we like him or no.” ”

“ Even Thad became worried, for it was impossible to guess what would happen next. Then again that impenetrable blackness with which they were enveloped on all sides must be anything but reassuring to even the bravest heart. If they could only see out, and prepare for each new and surprising shock, it might not be quite so bad.
Minutes dragged along until they seemed almost like hours to the scouts who, imprisoned in that small cabin, found themselves at the mercy and sport of the flood that was pouring down the Susquehanna. ”

“ Late that night, when Nance had left them together for a while, Lady Royd came and laid a hand on her son’s arm. “You have done enough,” she said. “Oh, I know! There are still many broken men, waiting for a passage. They must take their chance, Rupert. Your father was not ashamed to cross to France, with my help.”
He put an arm about her, for he had learned tenderness in a hard school. “Mother, he was not ashamed, because his work was done here. Mine is not. What Oliphant knew of the byways—what the last months have taught me—I cannot take the knowledge with me, to rust in France. ”

“ It was Nance who broke in now. She had forgotten Rupert, standing hungry and forlorn up the high moor and looking down on his inheritance of Windyhough. Her old liking for Will Underwood—a liking that had come near, during these last days, to love and hero-worship—bade her defend their guest against a tongue that was sharper than her father guessed.
“I know he will be true. Why should you doubt him, father?”
“Oh, there, child! Who said I doubted him? It’s the whole younger race of men I distrust. Will here must be scapegoat—and, by that token, your glass is empty, Will.” ”

“ Nance, is there real work to be done at last?”
“Oh, my dear, you ask too much. Nothing ever happens at Windyhough; nothing will ever happen again, I think. We’re derelict, Rupert; the Highlandmen are playing their Prince into his kingdom by this time, and we”—she grew bitter, petulant, for the silence and the waiting were sapping her buoyant health, her courage, her trust in high endeavour—“and we in Lancashire are churning our butter every week, Rupert, and selling cows on market days, and dozing by the hearth. ”