The Little Red Foot

"Nick and I, both."

"Why?"

"Because we design to live as free as God made us, and not as king-fashioned slaves."

"Oh, la!" quoth she, opening her eyes wide, "you use very mighty words to me, Mr. Drogue. There are young men in red coats and gilt lace on their hats who would call you rebel."

"I am."

"No," she whispered, putting both arms around my neck. "You are a pretty boy and no Yankee! I do not wish you to be a Boston rebel."

"Are all your lovers King's men?"

"My lovers?"

"Yes."

"Are you one?"

At which I laughed and lifted the saucy wench from my saddle, and stood so in the starlight, her arms still around my neck.

"No," said I, "I never had a sweetheart, and, indeed, would not know how to conduct – "

"We could learn."

But I only laughed, disengaging her arms, and passing my own around her supple waist.

"Listen," said I, "Nick and I mean no harm in a starlit frolic, where we tarry for a kiss from a pretty maid."

"No harm?"

"Neither that nor better, Jessica. Nor do you; and I know that very well. With me it's a laugh and a kiss and a laugh; and into my stirrups and off… And you are young and soft and sweet as new maple-sap in the snow. But if you dream like other little birds, of nesting – "

"May a lass not dream in springtime?"

"Surely. But let it end so, too."

"In dreams."

"It is wiser."

"There is no wisdom in me, pretty boy in buckskin. And I love thrums better than red-coats and lace."

"Love spinning better than either!"

"Oh, la! He preaches of wheels and spindles when my mouth aches for a kiss!"

"And mine," said I, " – but my legs ache more for my saddle; and I must go."

At that moment when I said adieu with my lips, and she did not mean to unlink her arms, came Nick on noiseless tread to twitch my arm. And, "Look," said he, pointing toward the long, low rampart of Maxon Ridge.

I turned, my hand still retaining Jessica's: and saw the Iroquois signal-flame mount thin and high, tremble, burn red against the stars, then die there in the darkness.

Northward another flame reddened on the hills, then another, fire answering fire.

"What the devil is this?" growled Nick. "These are no times for Indians to talk to one another with fire."

"Get into your saddle," said I, "and we shall ride by Varick's, for I've a mind to see what will-o'-the-wisps may be a-dancing over the great Vlaie!"

So the tall lad took his leave of his little pigeon of Pigeon-Wood, who seemed far from willing to let him loose; and I made my adieux to Jessica, who stood a-pouting; and we mounted and set off at a gallop for Varick's, by way of Summer House Point.

I could not be certain, but it seemed to me that there was a light at the Point, which came through the crescents from behind closed shutters; but that was within reason, Sir John being at liberty to keep open the hunting lodge if he chose.

As for the Drowned Lands, as far as we could see through the night there was not a spark over that desolate wilderness.

The Mohawk fires on the hills, too, had died out. Fish House, if still burning candles, was too far away to see; we galloped through Varick's, past the mill where, from its rocky walls, Frenchman's Creek roared under the stars; then turned west along the Brent-Meester's trail toward Fonda's Bush and home.

"Those Iroquois fires trouble me mightily," quoth Nick, pushing his lank horse forward beside my mare.

"And me," said I.

"Why should they talk with fire on the night Hiakatoo comes to the Hall?"

"I do not know," said I. "But when I am home I shall write it in a letter to Albany that this night the Mohawks have talked among themselves with fire, and that a Seneca was present."

"And that mealy-mouthed Ensign, Moucher; and Hare and Steve Watts!"

"I shall so write it," said I, very seriously.

"Good!" cried he with a jolly slap on his horse's neck. "But the sweeter part of this night's frolic you and I shall carry locked in our breasts. Eh, John? By heaven, is she not fresh and pink as a dewy strawberry in June – my pretty little wench? Is she not apt as a school-learned lass with any new lesson a man chooses to teach?"

"Yes, too apt, perhaps," said I, shaking my head but laughing. "But I think they have had already a lesson or two in such frolics, less innocent, perhaps, than the lesson we gave."

"I'll break the back of any red-coat who stops at Pigeon-Wood!" cried Nick Stoner with an oath. "Yes, red-coat or any other colour, either!"

"You would not take our frolic seriously, would you, Nick?"

"I take all frolics seriously," said he with a gay laugh, smiting both thighs, and his bridle loose. "Where I place my mark with my proper lips, let roving gallants read and all roysterers beware! – even though I so mark a dozen pretty does!"

"A very Turk," said I.

"An antlered stag in the blue-coat that brooks no other near his herd!" cried he with a burst of laughter. And fell to smiting his thighs and tossing up both arms, riding like a very centaur there, with his hair flowing and his thrums streaming in the starlight.

And, "Lord God of Battles!" he cried out to the stars, stretching up his powerful young arms. "Thou knowest how I could love tonight; but dost Thou know, also, how I could fight if I had only a foe to destroy with these two empty hands!"

"Thou murderous Turk!" I cried in his ear. "Pray, rather, that there shall be no war, and no foe more deadly than the pretty wench of Pigeon-Wood!"

"Love or war, I care not!" he shouted in his spring-tide frenzy, galloping there unbridled, his lean young face in the wind. "But God send the one or the other to me very quickly – or love or war – for I need more than a plow or axe to content my soul afire!"