The Hidden Children

She broke another morsel from her bread:

"You dare not cross a camp-parade beside me. At least the plaything of an officer should walk in silk, whatever clothes a soldier's trull. Sir, do you suppose I do not know?"

She looked up at the stars, and then quietly at me.

"The open comradeship of any man with me but marks us both. Only his taste is criticized, not his morals. But the world's judgment leaves me nothing to cover me except the silk or rags I chance to wear. And if I am brave and fine it would be said of me, 'The hussy's gown is brave and fine!' And if I go in tatters, 'What slattern have we here, flaunting her boldness in the very sun?' So a comradeship with any man is all one to me. And I go my way, neither a burden nor a plaything, a scandal only to myself, involving no man high or low save where their advances wrong us both in the world's eyes—as did those of your friend, yonder by a dead fire asleep."

"All men are not so fashioned. Can you not believe me?"

"You say so, sir."

"Yes; and I say that I am not."

"Birds sing."

"Lois, will you let me aid you?"

"In what? The Sagamore feeds me; and the Middle Fort is not so far."

"And at the Middle Fort how will you live?"

"As I have lived; wash for the soldiers; sew for them—contrive to find a living as I journey."

"Whither?"

"It is my own affair."

"May I not aid?"

"You could not if you would; you would not if you could."

"Ask me, Lois."

"No." She shook her head. Then, slowly: "I do thank you for the wish, Mr. Loskiel. But the Siwanois himself refuses what I ask. And you would, also, did you know my wish."

"What is your wish?"

She shook her head: "It is useless to voice it—useless."

She gathered the scant fragments of her meal, wrapped them in a bit of silver birch-bark, unrolled her bundle, and placed them there. Then she drained the tin cup of its chilly water, and, still sitting there cross-legged on the rock, tied the little cup to her girdle. It seemed to me, there in the dusk, that she smiled very faintly; and if it was so it was the first smile I had had of her when she said:

"I travel light, Mr. Loskiel. But otherwise there is nothing light about me."

"Lois, I pray you, listen. As I am a man, I can not leave you here."

"For that reason, sir, you will presently take your leave."

"No, I shall remain if you will not come into camp with us."

She said impatiently:

"I lie safer here than you around your fire. You mean well; now take your leave of me—with whatever flight of fancy," she added mockingly, "that my present condition invests me with in the eyes of a very young man."

The rudeness of the fling burnt my face, but I answered civilly:

"A scalping party may be anywhere in these woods. It is the season; and neither Oneida Lake nor Fort Niagara itself are so distant that their far-hurled hatchets may not strike us here."

"I will not go with you," said she, making of her bundle a pillow. Then, very coolly, she extended her slim body and laid her head on the bundle.

I made no answer, nor any movement for fully an hour. Then, very stealthily, I leaned forward to see if she truly slept. And found her eyes wide open.

"You waste time mounting sentry over me," she said in a low voice. "Best employ your leisure in the sleep you need."

"I can not sleep."

"Nor I—if you remain here awake beside me."

She raised herself on her elbow, peering through the darkness toward the stream.

"The Siwanois has been standing yonder by the stream watching us this full hour past. Let him mount sentry if he wishes."

"You have a tree-cat's eyes," I said. "I see nothing."

Then I rose and unbuckled my belt. Hatchet and knife dangled from it. I stooped and laid it beside her. Then, stepping backward a pace or two, I unlaced my hunting shirt of doe-skin, drew it off, and, rolling it into a soft pillow, lay down, cradling my cheek among the thrums.

I do not know how long I lay there before I fell asleep from very weariness of the new and deep emotions, as strange to me as they were unwelcome. The restlessness, the misgivings which, since I first had seen this maid, had subtly invaded me, now, grown stronger, assailed me with an apprehension I could neither put from me nor explain. Nor was this vague fear for her alone; for, at moments, it seemed as though it were for myself I feared—fearing myself.

So far in my brief life, I had borne myself cleanly and upright, though the times were loose enough, God knows, and the master of Guy Park had read me no lesson or set me no example above the morals and the customs of his class and of the age.

It may have been pride—I know not what it was, that I could notice the doings of Sir John and of young Walter Butler and remain aloof, even indifferent. Yet, this was so. Never had a woman's beauty stirred me otherwise than blamelessly, never had I entertained any sentiment toward fashionable folly other than aversion and a kind of shamed contempt.

Nor had I been blind at Guy Park and Butlersbury and Tribes Hill, nor in Albany, either. I knew Clarissa Putnam; I also knew Susannah Wormwood and her sister Elizabeth, and all that pretty company; and many another pretty minx and laughing, light-minded lass in county Tryon. And a few in Cambridge, too. So I was no niais, no naive country fool, unless to remain aloof were folly. And I often wondered to myself how this might really be, when Boyd rallied me and messmates laughed.

And now, as I lay there under the clustered stars, my head pillowed on my deer-skin shirt, my mind fell a-groping for reason to bear me out in my strained and strange perplexity.

Why, from the time I first had spoken to her, should thoughts of this strange and ragged maid have so possessed me that each day my memory of her returned, haunting me, puzzling me, plaguing my curiosity till imagination awoke, spurring my revery to the very border of an unknown land where rides Romance, in armour, vizor down.

Until this night I had not crossed that border, nor ever thought to, or dreamed of doing it. No beggar-maiden-seeking king was I by nature, nor ever felt for shabby dress and common folk aught but the mixture of pity and aversion which breeds a kind of charity. And, I once supposed, were the Queen of Sheba herself to pass me in a slattern's rags, only her rags could I ever see, for all her beauty.

But how was it now with me that, from the very first, I had been first conscious of this maid herself, then of her rags. How was it that I felt no charity, nor pity of that sort, only a vague desire that she should understand me better—know that I meant her kindness—God knows what I wished of her, and why her grey eyes haunted me, and why I could not seem to put her from my mind.

That now she fully possessed my mind I convinced myself was due to my very natural curiosity concerning her; forgetting that a week ago I should not have condescended to curiosity.

Who and what was she? She had been schooled; that was plain in voice and manner. And, though she used me with scant courtesy, I was convinced she had been schooled in manners, too, and was no stranger to usages and customs which mark indelibly where birth and breeding do not always.

Why was she here? Why alone? Where were her natural protectors then? What would be her fate a-gypsying through a land blackened with war, or haunting camps and forts, penniless, in rags—and her beauty ever a flaming danger to herself, despite her tatters and because of them.

I slept at last; I do not know how long. The stars still glittered overhead when I awoke, remembered, and suddenly sat upright.