5 Enter the Major

There could be no gayety at the ball after the ghastly news that Zebedee Crane had brought. The earl seemed quite overpowered by it, when he had so fondly been expecting news from Webb that he had redeemed the disgraceful disaster of William Henry and restored the fortunes of the campaign. As I gazed at his blanched face, where he still sat on his throne, sucking his dry lips, I felt no sorrow for him. He had idled and frolicked his hour away, and had taken no care to avoid the blow which had been struck so hard. All my pity was reserved for our bleeding frontier.

There was a great turmoil in the ballroom for a little while. Then they began to put out the lights. The band had ceased to play already. In the universal agitation Zebedee Crane had disappeared, but the fatal letter from Webb was still there, a witness that he had told the truth.

I thought at once of the de St. Maurs. Such sudden and terrible news would bring them many frowns, for these two were French. I found the seigneur first. He stood by the wall, his face calm and immovable, though of course he had seen all that passed. But he did not show any exultation, and when I spoke of the news he merely said:

“It is the fortune of war; it may be our turn next to fall back.”

But I knew that in his heart he did not think so; that he thought the French would always advance.

I suggested as delicately as I could that it would be best for him and Mlle. de St. Maur to leave at once, and I offered to find mademoiselle. He assented, and thanked me. It was well that I sought Mlle. de St. Maur, for I found that all our New York girls were withdrawing from her presence and looking most coldly upon her.

Mr. Kennedy, with the same object in view, had already ordered his coach. We quietly helped the de St. Maurs into it, and they drove away unnoticed in the confusion. Then I went back into the house to see how it all would end.

The earl had roused himself from his stupor, and with his hand on his sword hilt, and a show of bravado on his face, was leaving the house surrounded by his staff. There was a great clack of voices around him, which he made no attempt to check. Culverhouse and I followed, and then all of us went out into the street. The news, spreading with a speed for which I can not account, was known already in the town, and there was a crowd gathered outside. When the earl stepped into the clear, cool moonlight, two or three persons in the crowd hissed. It was not possible to tell from whom the hisses proceeded, but all knew for whom they were intended. But the earl took no apparent note of them, save to raise his head a little more haughtily. Then he strode down the street, the torchbearers going in front, and the swords of his staff clanking at his heels. The crowd followed.

“It might be worth while to follow and see what may happen,” said Culverhouse. “If I mistake not, affairs have a threatening look.”

He was right, for more hisses came from the pursuing crowd, and Culverhouse and I strolled along, keeping aloof from either party, but holding both in clear view.

It was evident that the earl intended to return at once to his quarters. As he advanced the crowd pressed closer upon the heels of his staff, and some one threw a stone. It is true it flew high over the heads of the earl’s party, as the man who threw it probably intended that it should, but it struck a board wall with a resounding thwack. The earl stopped and turned around.

“Gentlemen,” he said in a high voice to his officers, “clear away this rabble!”

The officers drew their swords, and, laying about them with the flats of the blades, soon put the crowd to flight. In truth, the people made no resistance, for they had been content with expressing their displeasure in such a manifest way. The earl and his staff passed on without further disturbance. Then we discovered that we were not the only officers who had followed to see what might happen. A dozen or more stood about in the moonlight discussing the affairs of the evening. Among them I noticed Spencer and Graham, who were together. They were only a few yards from us, and Spencer’s glance fell upon us.

“Bad news to-night, eh, Lieutenant Charteris?” he said jauntily; “but all this will be changed when the regular troops reach the scene of action.”

“The regular troops seem to have been of very little avail so far,” I said.

“I do not understand. I think it is our colonial levies that have been experiencing these disasters,” said Spencer.

He knew better, for I had told him so at the coffeehouse. He raised his eyebrows as he spoke, and there was something rasping in his tone.

“What could you expect from provincials?” put in Graham, who had taken wine enough to upset his balance. “When the trained troops from the old country reach the frontier, they will scatter the French and their red friends as the wind scatters the dry leaves.”

“It was not so at Fort Duquesne,” I remarked.

Spencer flushed at the taunt, given the second time.

“We were surprised there,” he said.

“Surprise seems to be your customary condition,” I said. “You seem to forget, gentlemen, that it is your people and not ours who have been directing the affairs on the border, and that your own leaders have suffered these disasters.”

I think that Spencer would have let the matter pass, as he knew he had begun the trouble, had it not been for that drunken Graham.

“He insults us, and he insults the whole army,” said the Scotchman. “Spencer, I would not endure his words.”

“It seems to me,” said Spencer to me, “that you assume rather a high tone. Perhaps your criticisms might be weightier if your experience were greater.”

“It does not take any experience at all,” I rejoined with a laugh, “to discern the faults of the leaders whom Britain has sent us. Their mistakes are so large that even the blind can see them.”

“You speak very plainly, sir,” said Spencer angrily, as he put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Men who use such words as yours should be prepared to prove them with deeds.”

“Oh, you can’t fight him!” said Graham with a drunken leer. “He is not of your rank. You mustn’t forget that any officer who holds a commission from the King, even if he be only a lieutenant, outranks any officer who holds a commission from a provincial government, even if he be a general.”

“For shame!” said Culverhouse, speaking for the first time. “That contention has never been proved, and it can not be raised here.”

“Without yielding the point, I waive it,” said Spencer. “I consider it my bounden duty to resent the gentlemen’s offensive remarks, and to demand the satisfaction which I trust he is ready to accord me.”

“I am ready at any time and place,” I replied.

“Gentlemen,” said Culverhouse, speaking with more warmth than he usually showed, “it seems to me that you are turning a very slight punctilio into a very serious matter. Surely this can be settled without a resort to violence. It were better for us to save the edge of our swords for the French.”

“And it were better for a King’s officer to consort with his own people,” said the drunken Graham, “instead of making cause with these colonials, who expect us to fight for them and to take ingratitude as our sole reward.”

“If I wished advice as to the choice of my friends, I would go to a better quarter,” said Culverhouse calmly.

But he made no further attempt to check the progress of our quarrel.

“There is a very secluded and pleasant spot some distance back of the city,” said Graham, who seemed much bent upon having us fight. “I noticed it two days ago, and it struck me then as an exceedingly favorable place for a passage at arms between gentlemen.”

“I am at the service of Lieutenant Charteris,” said Spencer politely. “As I consider myself the challenger, it is for him or his second to name the weapons and suggest a place.”

I turned to Culverhouse. He divined the question that was on my lips, and before I could coin it into words said:

“It will afford me pleasure to be your second in this affair, Charteris. I think I know the place of which Lieutenant Graham speaks, and it will serve our purpose well enough.”

Then he and Graham drew aside and talked for a little while. Presently he returned to the spot where Spencer and I were standing, stiff and silent, within a few feet of each other.

“You are to fight with small swords,” he said, “and you will meet to-morrow evening in the moonlight at the spot Lieutenant Graham has mentioned.”

Both Spencer and I said we were satisfied with the choice of weapons. There was a little more discussion as to the exact time of the meeting and other arrangements, and then we parted, Spencer and Graham going to the camp and Culverhouse and I remaining in the city.

Culverhouse left me at my quarters with a brief good-night and a remark that he would come around to see me in the morning. When he had gone I sat down at the window and looked out upon the town. I was still hot and angry. Spencer’s superciliousness and the wine-fed sneers of Graham had been an exceeding annoyance to me. The affectation of superiority shown by so many of the officers from the old country was very galling to us who were colonial born, and we were quick to resent it. In this and kindred things lay the seeds of the mortal quarrel which divided us forever twenty years later, and not a few among us were beginning to see it. My temples throbbed beneath the rush of wrathful blood. Then I felt sorry that the duel had been postponed twenty-four hours. Why could we not have fought the matter out at once?

But as I continued to look out upon the peaceful town the heat in my blood began to subside. There is something very soothing in a cool night breeze. I have noticed that men are much more warlike by sunlight than by moonlight.

When I had at last indulged in a quarter of an hour of serious reflection, my feelings made a complete change. Then I saw very clearly that I did not want to kill Spencer nor did I want him to kill me. I perceived also how trivial had been our cause of quarrel. Was a sneer or two sufficient excuse for the taking of life? Out of my sober mind I concluded that it was not. It was the duty of both Spencer and myself to risk our lives for the country, but the way to do it was by fighting the common enemy, and not by slashing at each other with our swords.

These thoughts convinced me that we had no right to fight each other when our Government had equipped and maintained us for its own service.

But I did not see any way to escape with honor from the quarrel. The challenge had been given, and I had accepted it. I must fight Spencer. My blood was not so warm now. On the contrary, it was a chill current in my veins. I was not afraid; that is, I had the will to face death, though I have the frankness to say that I did not want to die. But it is almost superfluous to say one does not want to die when he is only two-and-twenty and is dreaming of wearing a general’s uniform some day.

I had attained some proficiency with the sword, a rather unusual thing in the colonies, for, as the rifle and the axe were the weapons with which our people had won the country, they had small time or taste left for the sword. Nevertheless, I had practiced with the weapon, and I believed that in the coming encounter I would uphold the credit of our side of the Atlantic, in so far as credit was to be obtained from such an affair.

I had determined to go to sleep early, knowing that there was nothing for the nerves like a good night’s rest, and I would need a steady heart and hand on the morrow. But sleep would not come merely for the calling of it. I put out the candle and lay down upon my bed, only to stare up at the darkness with unwinking eyes. New troubles came to me then. Suppose I killed Spencer! What would my own people think of me? The duel was not so fashionable among us—at least, in the Northern colonies—as it was in Britain. Our steady people frowned very much upon it as one of the evils of the Old World that need not be transplanted to the New.

I heard the watchman call “Three o’clock, and all is well!” and I answered him under my breath, but with anger, that all was not well. Soon afterward I fell into some kind of a distempered sleep, from which I awoke unrested. I could not hope for further sleep, so I arose and went to the window. Although an officer, I had not yet been required for any regular service, and, having no quarters allotted to me at the camp, I had obtained a room for myself in the city. It was a narrow little place, but the window looked over the bay, and as I gazed out with hot eyes I saw a pale and slender line of light shoot up from the black and gray mass of the sea. It quivered on the water like a streak of melting silver, and I thought for a moment it was the reflection of a falling star, and would fade. But new lines rose, apparently from the depths of the ocean, and streaked its surface with silver. Under the rim of the eastern horizon a gray light was showing, and the silver arrows which fell across the water rapidly turned to gold, and the gray light itself gave way before the edge of a burning disk which rose slowly and proudly from the sea.

The eastern skies were spangled with gold as the sun, coming up from his night’s sleep in the ocean’s bed, shot his flaming darts in millions. The surface of the water became luminous. The sails of the ships in the bay showed white in the clear morning air. A polished bayonet on the wooded shores of Long Island, struck by a ray of light, threw off a flash and a gleam. Farther away the hills of Staten Island rose up in masses of green. The huge red globe of the sun now swung clear of the sea and crept imperceptibly up toward the zenith. The heavy note of a gun in the camp boomed over the hitherto silent waters, and the day had come to life again.

In a few minutes I heard voices in the street below me. The town was awake, and its busy life had begun. A sailor in a foreign garb sang a song in a foreign tongue. I knew not the words, but it was a joyful song. I looked out at the sailor. He was walking along in the queer rolling fashion of the men of the sea. But he was a happy fellow, and seemed to be all content with himself and his lot. How beautiful the world looked, flooded with the pure radiance of the morning! How hard to give it all up, when one was only two-and-twenty!

But I determined to cast aside such enervating thoughts, and when I had eaten some breakfast I felt in better mood for the sharp business that was to come. Culverhouse came presently.

“Everything is ready for our affair,” he said. “I think it will be a fine moonlight night. Plenty of light for the swords, and the place is far enough from the camp to prevent any interference. There will be only five present—you and Spencer, Graham and myself, and an army surgeon who has frequently acted at such affairs.”

Of a certainty they had been expeditious enough about it all. Culverhouse went away in a few minutes, saying he would meet me just outside the camp at six o’clock in the evening, and we would go then to the dueling ground.

My presence would be required at the camp for awhile that day, and accordingly I buckled on my sword and walked toward the fields beyond King Street, in which so many of the soldiers were encamped. As I walked along, somewhat absorbed, a heavy hand fell upon my shoulder, and a cheerful voice, speaking very good English, but giving a very strong Scotch twang to it, bade me good morning, adding thereto the remark that it was a very fine day for both men and beasts.

I looked around in some surprise, and recognized the stern-faced Scotch major whom I had seen in the boat with the earl the previous night, and later at the ball. He was a tall man, bent just a trifle about the shoulders. His appearance was sufficient to tell any observer that this was a soldier of long and varied experience.

“I am familiar, young man,” he said, “but you will charge it to my years. They are enough to stand it. I saw you at the ball last night, and you seemed to be less rattle-brained than most of the others of your age who were there. Your grave appearance this morning when I overtook you furthered that belief. Judging from your uniform, you are of the Royal Americans, is it not so?”

I replied in the affirmative. Then he asked me if I had seen any service. I said that I had seen none as yet, but hoped that the time would soon come.

“The time when we should be seeing service is at hand,” he said, “and of a certainty, after the news we received last night, action can not be postponed much longer.”

The old major’s eyes snapped as he spoke. It was quite evident that he was no sluggard at his trade.

“I believe,” I said respectfully, “that I am speaking to one who has seen much of the wars.”

“I am Major McLean, of the Black Watch, the Highlanders, you know,” he said, “and I have served in the King’s army since I began life in it as a drummer boy of twelve. That takes us far back, almost to the last century. I have served in many wars and in many parts of the world. I can say that, lad, without boasting or without adding a hair’s breadth to God’s truth.”

I saw that he had a touch of garrulity, but it did not decrease my respect for him. It was the privilege of age and great labors. Moreover, he aroused my curiosity, for I, a soldier who had heard the cannon nowhere, wished to listen to the soldier who had heard them everywhere.

“You began as a drummer boy?” I said insinuatingly.

“Yes,” he said, the flash coming again into his eyes, “and I followed Marlborough. It was at Blenheim that I first saw the cannon feed on human flesh. Was there ever such another victory? Then I was at Ramillies and Oudenarde and at Malplaquet. God, but I still see the field of Malplaquet sometimes at night, and I wonder if the grass has ever grown again on that piece of ground where so many good Englishmen and good Frenchmen slew each other in a dispute over a trumpery Spanish crown that mattered little to either. They may tell you, lad, that the French are fops and dandies, and can not fight, but do not believe it. If you want to know about the French, ask those who meet them on the battlefield, not those who stay snugly at their own hearthstones.”

“The colonies know too well the valor of the French,” I replied. “We are not prone to underrate them, for we must consider what has happened. But you served in many other campaigns?”

I was as eager as a child to hear more.

“It was the French most of the time,” he continued. “I heard a sergeant say once that the French and English were created merely that they might fight each other, and in truth it looks sometimes as if it were so. After the peace, it being a dull season, and having an adventurous spirit within me, I went to India and took a turn with John Company, but there was little in that save the prospect of dying of the plague in a ditch, and I came back to my own island. After awhile it was the French again. There was Dettingen and then Fontenoy. That was an evil place, was Fontenoy. The French got the better of us there, but it was the Irish who did it for them. A plague on their disloyal souls! But how they fight! I remember their vengeful faces when they crashed through our line at Fontenoy. I have never been able to understand, lad, why the bravest of races should remain in a subject condition, unless it be that they fight everybody’s battles but their own.”

I found that he was going to the camp also, and so we continued our walk together. On the way he continued his narrative.

“Before this war began I went back into the Highlands,” he said, “intending to live a quiet and religious life as became my age. But I found that life in the Highlands was more dangerous than life in the low countries when we were fighting the French there. I had been away so long, and had been so much absorbed in other things, that I had forgotten that the favorite diversion of my countrymen was to fight each other. I belonged to a clan, and it was my duty to kill members of another clan whenever and wherever I could. But the Government stepped in at the right time and shipped the fighting force of both clans to this country, in order that we might expend our valor upon the French to the great gain and glory of his Majesty, wherein I think that the Government showed much greater wisdom than is its wont.”

In the short walk Major McLean asked me many questions about the French and the Indians, and I answered him as well as I could. Though he did not say it in so many words, I gathered that he, like all the other officers from over seas, thought that we would have little trouble with our enemies when we really and seriously took the field. There was also a certain patronizing air when he spoke of the colonial portion of the army which reached the quick. At first I was disposed to resent this trait in him, but, upon reflection, I saw that it was but natural, and that time and experience would probably undeceive him in both particulars. Nevertheless, I realized to the full how unfortunate it was that the officers from the mother country should assume such an attitude, whether or not they intended offense by it.

When we reached the camp Major McLean left me, as it was his purpose to call immediately upon the earl, who wished to consult him about the campaign for which they were now making very hasty preparations. The major’s great experience, the gravity of his demeanor, and integrity of his character made him a man of high trust in the army, and of a certainty the earl could find no better adviser.

He seemed to have taken a fancy to me, and when we parted asked me to call upon him at his quarters at the first convenient opportunity. I was rejoiced to have made such a friend, one who was a master of the arts of my profession. I assured him that the invitation was right welcome, and by no chance would be neglected.

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