The Hidden Children by Robert W. Chambers (the speed reading book TXT) 📕

to my hut there were many fish smoking hot on their bark plates, and Lana and Lois in dry woollen dresses, worsted stockings, and stout, buckled shoon, already at porridge.

So I sat down with them and ate, and it was, or seemed to be, a happy company there before our little hut, with officers and troops passing to and fro and glancing curiously at us, and our Indians squatted behind us all a-row, and shining up knife and hatchet and rifle; and the bugle-horns of the various regiments sounding prettily at intervals, and the fifers and drummers down by the river at distant morning practice.

"You love best the bellowing conch-horn of the rifles," observed Lana to Lois, with a touch of her old-time impudence.

"I?" exclaimed Lois.

"You once told me that every blast of it sets you a-trembling," insisted Lana. "Naturally I take it that you quiver with delight—having some friend in that corps——"

"Lana! Have done, you little baggage!"

"Lord!" said Lana. "'Twas Major Parr I meant. What does an infant Ensign concern such aged dames as you and I?"

Lois, lovely under her mounting colour, continued busy with her porridge. Lana said in my ear:

"She is a wild thing, Euan, and endures neither plaguing nor wooing easily. How I have gained her I do not know.... Perhaps because I am aging very fast these days, and she hath a heart as tender as a forest dove's."

Lois looked up, seeing us whispering together.

"Uncouth manners!" said she. "I am greatly ashamed of you both."

I thought to myself, wondering, how utter a change had come over the characters of these two in twice as many weeks! Lois had now something of that quick and mischievous gaiety that once was Lana's; and the troubled eyes that once belonged to Lois now were hers no longer, but Lana's. It seemed very strange and sad to me.

"Had I a dozen beaux," quoth Lois airily, "I might ask of one o' them another bit of trout." And, "Oh!" she exclaimed, in affected surprise, as I aided her. "It would seem that I have at least one young man who aspires to that ridiculous title. Do you covet it, Euan? And humbly?"

"Do I merit it?" I asked, laughing.

"Upon my honour," she exclaimed, turning to Lana, "I believe the poor young gentleman thinks he does merit the title. Did you ever hear of such insufferable conceit? And merely because he offers me a bit of trout."

"I caught them, too," said I. "That should secure me in my title."

"Oh! You caught them too, did you! And so you deem yourself entitled to be a beau of mine? Lana, do you very kindly explain to the unfortunate Ensign that you and I were accustomed at Otsego to a popularity and an adulation of which he has no conception. Colonels and majors were at our feet. Inform him very gently, Lana."

"Yes," said Lana, "you behaved very indiscreetly at Otsego Camp, dear one—sitting alone for hours and hours over this young gentleman's letters——"

"Traitor!" exclaimed Lois, blushing. "It was a letter from his solicitor, Mr. Hake, that you found me doting on!"

"Did you then hear from Mr. Hake?" I asked, laughing and very happy.

"Indeed I did, by every post! That respectable Albany gentleman seemed to feel it his duty to write me by every batteau and inquire concerning my health, happiness, and pleasure, and if I lacked anything on earth to please me. Was it not most extraordinary behaviour, Euan?"

She was laughing when she spoke, and for a moment her eyes grew strangely tender, but they brightened immediately and she tossed her head.

"Oh, Lana!" said she. "I think I may seriously consider Mr. Hake and his very evident intentions. So I shall require no more beaux, Euan, and thank you kindly for volunteering. Besides, if I want 'em, this camp seems moderately furnished with handsome and gallant young officers," she added airily, glancing around her. "Lana! Do you please observe that tall captain with the red facings! And the other staff-major yonder in blue and buff! Is he not beautiful as Apollo? And I make no doubt that this agreeable young Ensign of ours will presently make them known to us for our proper diversion."

Somehow, now, with the prospect of all these officers besetting her with their civilities and polite assiduities, nothing of the old and silly jealousy seemed to stir within me. Perhaps because, although for days I had not seen her, I knew her better. And also I had begun to know myself. Even though she loved not me in the manner I desired, yet the lesser, cruder, and more unworthy solicitude which at first seemed to have possessed me in her regard was now gone. And if inexperience and youth had inspired me with unworthy jealousies I do not know; but I do know that I now felt myself older—years older than when first I knew Lois; and perhaps my being so honestly in love with her wrought the respectable change in me. For real love ages the mind, even when it makes more youthful the body, and so controls both body and mind. And I think it was something that way with me.

Presently, as we sat chattering there, came men to take away Lana's box to Block-House No. 2 on the peninsula. So Lana went into the bush-hut and refilled and locked the box, and then we all walked together to the military works which were being erected on a cleared knoll overlooking both rivers, and upon which artillerymen were now mounting the three-pounder and the cohorn, or "grasshopper," as our men had named it, because our artillery officers had taken it from its wooden carriage and had mounted it on a tripod. And at every discharge it jumped into the air and kicked over backward.

This miniature fortress, now called Fort Sullivan, was about three hundred feet square, with strong block-forts at the four corners, so situated as to command both rivers; and these fortifications were now so nearly completed that the men of the invalid corps who were to garrison the place had already marched into their barracks, and were now paraded for inspection.

The forts had been very solidly constructed of great logs, the serrated palisade, deeply and solidly embedded, rose twelve feet high. A rifle platform ran inside this, connecting the rough barracks and stables, which also were built of logs, the crevices stuffed with moss and smeared and plastered with blue clay from the creek.

These, with the curtain, block-forts, and a deep ditch over which was a log bridge, composed the military works at Tioga; and this was the place into which we now walked, a sentry directing us to Block-House No. 2, which overlooked the Chemung.

And no sooner had we entered and climbed the ladder to the women's quarters overhead, than:

"What luxury!" exclaimed Lois, looking down at her bed of fresh-cut balsam, over which their blankets had been cast. "Could any reasonable woman demand more? With a full view of the pretty river in the rain, and a real puncheon floor, and a bed of perfume to dream on, and a brave loop to shoot from! What more could a vain maid ask?" She glanced at me with sweet and humorous eyes, saying: "Fort Orange is no safer than this log bastion, so scowl on me no more, Euan, but presently take Lanette and me to the parapet where other and lovelier wonders are doubtless to be seen."

"What further wonders?" asked Lana indifferently.

"Why, sky and earth and river, dear, and the little dicky birds all a-preening under this sweet, sunny veil of rain. Is not all this mystery of nature wonderful enough to lure us to the rifle-platform?"

Said Lana listlessly: "I had liefer court a deeper mystery."

"Which, dear one?"

"Sleep," said Lana briefly; and I saw how pale she was, kneeling there beside the opened box and sorting out the simple clothing they had brought with them.

For a few minutes longer we conversed, talking of Otsego and of our friends there; and I learned how Colonel Gansevoort had left with his regiment and Lieutenant-Colonel Willet, and was marching hither with Clinton after all.

A soldier brought a wooden bowl, an iron sap-kettle full of sweet water, a hewn bench, and nailed up a blanket cutting the room in two. Their quarters were now furnished.

I pushed aside the blanket, walked to the inner loop, and gazed down on the miniature parade where the invalids were now being inspected by Colonel Shreve. When I returned, Lana had changed to a levete and was lying on her balsam couch, cheek on hand, looking up at Lois, who knelt beside her on the puncheon floor, smoothing back her thick, bright hair. And in the eyes of these two was an expression the like of which I had never before seen, and I stepped back instinctively, like a man who intrudes on privacy unawares.

"Come in, Euan!" cried Lois, with a gaiety which seemed slightly forced; and I came, awkwardly, not meeting their eyes, and made for the ladder to get myself below.

Whereat both laughed. Lois rose and went behind the blanket to the loop, and Lana said, with a trace of her former levity:

"Broad-brim! Do you fly blushing from my levete? The Queen of France receives in scanter attire, I hear. Sit you on yonder bench and play courtier amiably for once."

She seemed so frail and white and young, lying there, her fair hair unpowdered and tumbled about her face—so childlike and helpless—that a strange and inexplicable apprehension filled me; and, scarce thinking what I did, I went over to her and knelt down beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders.

Her expression, which had been smiling and vaguely audacious, changed subtly. She lay looking up at me very wistfully for a moment, then lifted her hands a little way. I laid them to my lips, looking over them down into her altered eyes.

"Always," she said under her breath, "always you have been kind and true, Euan, even when I have used you with scant courtesy."

"You have never used me ill."

"No—only to plague you as a girl torments what she truly loves.... Lois and I have spoken much of you together——" She turned her head. "Where are you, sweeting?"

Lois came from behind the blanket and knelt down so close to me that the fragrance of her freshened the air; and once again, as it happened at the first day's meeting in Westchester, the same thrill invaded me. And I thought of the wild rose that starlight night, and how fitly was it her symbol and her flower.

Lana looked at us both, unsmiling; then drew her hands from mine and crook'd her arms behind her neck, cradling her head on them, looking at us both all the while. Presently her lids drooped on her white cheeks.

When we rose on tiptoe, I thought she was asleep, but Lois was not certain; and as we crept out onto the rifle-platform and seated ourselves in a sheltered corner under the parapet, she said uneasily:

"Lanette is a strange maid, Euan. At first I knew she disliked me. Then, of a sudden, one day she came to me and clung like a child afraid. And we loved from that minute.... It is strange."

"Is she ill?"

"In mind, I think."

"Why?"

"I do not know, Euan."

"Is it love, think you—her disorder?"

"I do not know, I tell you. Once I thought it was—that. But knew not how to be certain."

"Does Boyd still court her?"

"No—I do not know," she said with a troubled look.

"Is it that affair which makes her unhappy?"

"I thought so once. They were ever together. Then she avoided him—or seemed to. It was Betty Bleecker who interfered between them. For Mrs. Bleecker was very wrathful, Euan, and Lana's indiscretions madded her.... There was a scene.... So Boyd came no more, save when other officers came, which was every day. Somehow I have never been certain that he and Lana did not meet in secret when none suspected."

"Have you proof?" I asked, cold with rage.

She shook her head, and her gaze grew vague and remote. After a while she seemed to put away her apprehensions, and, smiling, she turned to me, challenging me with her clear, sunny eyes:

"Come, Euan, you shall do me reason, now that my curly pate is innocent of powder, no French red to tint my lips and hide my freckles, and but a linsey-woolsey gown instead of chintz and silk to cover me! So tell me honestly, does not the enchantment break that for a little while seemed to hold you near me?"

"Do you forget," said I, "that I first saw my enchantress in rags and tattered shoon?"

"Oh!" she said, tossing her pretty head. "Extremes attract all men. But now in this sober and common guise of every day, I am neither Cinderella nor yet the Princess—merely a frowsy, rustic, freckled maid with a mouth