peg's war for social eminence would now move bravely. the tale of that double reception with its polite throngs pushing forward ===in honor of her and her “good little secretary,” and the general's presence thereat, stately yet deferential, fluttered from lip to lip like some bright bird. and, as such birds will, the farther it fluttered the brighter it grew. i've told you how i own no warrant, whether of education or natural trend, to descant on wax-lights and polished floors and satins; but so far as i might trap the murmur of folk who should have such matters of gossamer and music on their tongues' ends, the most guarded decision went to it that peg's position had become thereby as surely fixed as the pole-star, and might with as much safety be observed and steered by whenever any of your blind mariners of the drawing rooms should lose a course or find himself in deep, strange waters.
like a great captain who in the wake of victory makes speed to again strike the enemy while yet the latter is disorganized and before he can re-collect formation or even hope, peg was next and swiftly in the field with that dinner for her glory at the russian legation, tendered by the wily baron krudener—he of the earrings and the scarlet heels. the tartar, as the general called him, zealous for the favor of the general and van buren, was keen to note how a civility done peg would become a key to the best good will of both. after krudener's, came the cabinet reception at our “good little secretary's,” where peg would reign; and since van buren lived but a half-dozen houses north from peg's, it was hardly to step beyond her own door. then followed the ball given by the british with peg in the place of esteem, and the viscount vaughn to lead peg forth in the first figure with his own diplomatic hand.
who could have been more delighted than the general with this splendor of salon success now spread to our pretty peg's uninterrupted feet, and that under the jaundiced eyes of her enemies? the general could not be present at either the “good little secretary's,” the russian or the english house; but he was indomitable to hear; and never exquisite, nor macaroni, nor buck about london town, gave ear of warmer ardor to the nightly annals of mayfair than did the general to those stories of peg's victories. who were there and what they did and said, would be his constant curiosity; and indeed he carried question-putting to the verge of what stood foppish.
“but can't you see, sir,” demanded the general, when i told him how his heat to trace peg's skirts through every dance, or learn the calling list of each reception, would jostle one's better conception of him, “can't you see that with the world and the law as made, this is the trial of peg's standing, and freighted of life or death?”
“no,” said i, full bluntly; “and if you will have my notion then, i call these things mere antic matters of apeish trick and chatter, not worth a man's attention.”
“you are a barbarian,” retorted the general, oracularly. “these functions—these dinners and dances and receptions—are trials by jury where the repute of folk, peculiarly the repute of women folk, is passed upon. the verdict in her favor means the world and all for peg. it is the law.”
“and if it be,” said i, “it is but a bad law and a cheap law, and one whereat i should snap my fingers.”
“and yet, sir,” replied the general, “wondrous highly as you hold yourself, you are not yet grown to be the world. it's peg's happiness—a matter of being within the pale, without which she would feel decided against and spurned. and remember this, sir, while you flourish with your defiances, that a bad law is none the less a law, with penalty in nowise to be mollified because of that badness at which you rail. wherefore i deem, these drawing-room trinkets of a first weight in peg's concerns; i shall know as much of them as i well may, and take my chance of falling in your graces.”
after that, and somewhat in the broader manner of a jest, i would each day lay out to the general whatever of polite gaities took place the night before; and while i recited those present, and what they did or said, or failed to do or say, and particularly when such relation told for peg, he would smoke, and listen, and exult, and on occasion comment like unto any grandmother gossip who still enjoys by second hands those scenes which long ago her years taught her to desert.
these exploits of waxed floors and dinner tables, while the general might have neither art nor lot therein, drew me along with them—for all i loved them not—like a magnet. for one thing, i would behold how peg fared; and then, the general would have me attend, to the purpose that he be given their story.
it was at the russian's i was called on to witness the iron steadiness of peg—albeit i could have wished the dutch jade, who offended, a man, that i might pinch his neck. you must know, then, how the minister from the netherlands was a bloated creature of beer and butter-tub proportions—a herr huygens, he was; and frau huygens, his lady—save the mark!—was as dropsical as he. the latter ungentlewoman would be a waddling, duck-built cabbage thing of fifty years; and of no little standing for a money-prudence and strict economy, since while as rich as that commerce of gin by which her spouse had builded up their fortunes, she owned celebration for but one frock—a most fantastic garment for color and flounce like the garb of a clown in a kirmess.
at the krudener dinner, your frau huygens, whose place was next to peg's, would up and leave her chair immediately she was seated; and all with a lofty face as of one insulted, and following a great looking of peg over through a spying glass.
spurred by this rudeness, krudener directed a servant to remove the chair and plate and table furniture of that place. this was swiftly done; and next, to show his own feeling of the insolence offered under his roof, our russian would have the plate and the rest, including the gilt chair, broken to pieces in one corner of the apartment and thrown upon the blaze in the vast fireplace.
“they have been used by that woman of canals and gin-casks,” explained krudener—under his exterior of quiet diplomacy and with his eye on van buren, i could tell how the muscovite was in a towering rage—“and i have no servant so low he would now eat off that plate or sit in that chair. let them be destroyed, and with them the recollection of the offence to our fair guest, which throughout my life i shall deplore.” with this krudener bowed deeply to peg.
“since you say so much, baron,” responded peg, “i am driven to tell you that you need have been to no disturbance. i should have remarked that person's going only for the relief it gave to be free of the nearness of one so gross.”
this our pretty peg got off in a way of relieved superiority that was invincible; she lost nothing through the episode, but would gain ground thereby for her bearing.
in my first ill-humor to see this reasonless slight put upon our peg, i looked about for the rotund herr huygens, with a view, i suppose—although i remember no clear plan in my angry head at the time—to have his opinion on the conduct of that wife, since he as her lord would be responsible. he was not present, nor had he been; it was as well, for i might have forgotten his sacred character as a minister and said or done that which should be a further and more depressing jolt to the proprieties.
the general, when he learned of the business, was even warmer than myself. he was all for having van buren give herr huygens his walking papers, and would scarce listen to less. the “good little secretary,” with peg, herself, to aid, won him from his mood to banish the dutchman and that offensive frau. it bred a sharp alarm in the bosom of herr huygens, for he would as soon lay down his life as his post of minister, over the proud eminence whereof he gloated much.
an incident more to be merry with, and one carrying within itself the elements of fair reproof, came off in the house of the english.
by this time your drawing-room forces had greatly abandoned the vice-president's wife and the ladies berrien, branch and ingham, to follow peg. among these, and glittering in the van, shone the vainglorious pigeon-breast. it was at the dance of the viscount vaughn that pigeon-breast, after deeply considering the butter on his bread, made obviously and obsequiously up to peg.
in his earlier advances i did not see the tinsel fellow or i might have interposed to dash his good resolves; i was to first know of him in these bright relations of friendship for our side when i gained a glimpse of him across the wide ball room where, with peg's hand held high, and maintaining a mighty respectful distance between them as though peg were majesty itself, he led her through one of those slow dances—more, indeed, like a promenade than any dance—which had vogue of that hour.
i waited with much irritation until the dance was to its end and peg at liberty. i remembered, however, in her defence, that peg was not aware of pigeon-breast for one who had sought her harm. no one had told her of that splendid long speech to the general when pigeon-breast chose to represent “mrs. calhoun and the ladies of washington,” which latter term, under the scorching fire of peg's successes, had dwindled to a sour handful scarce equal to the task of filling a dinner table or constructing a quadrille.
“why should you dance,” said i, when now i had gotten peg by herself near a window, “why should you dance with such a coxcomb?”
“you mean,” returned peg, “to tell me that he is no friend. as for that, i've known him for an ill-wisher and, as far as his frail strength went, an ill-doer, from the beginning.”
“and how would that news come to you?” said i. “has the rogue said anything?”
“not so fierce, watch-dog, not so fierce!” whispered peg. “folk present are not cognizant of your mastiff sort and might wonder to learn of it. wherefore, go quietly about me with your guardianship.” peg would be amused by the energy of my distaste of pigeon-breast. “the 'rogue' has said nothing. i knew he was my wrong-wisher from yourself.”
“me?” cried i. “and how should you have had it from me when i have not breathed of the popinjay's existence?”
“how? why, from your face, where i've been long wont to read much more than your tongue has ever told.”
“what of my face, then?”
“and i have wished you might see it! whoever it was to approach me, i had but to watch your brow. was your brow frank, open, friendly: he who came was a friend. did you lower and gloom hatefully: he was an enemy who rapped at the gate. now you gave this fop the look of a fiend when one day he would pass us in the square. and so by the light, or rather the twilight of your frown, i read him.”
“all exceeding clever,” said i, half made to laugh by the airy fashion wherein peg would toss this off, “all exceeding clever. but it brings me with interest to my question, why, then, did you honor him with a dance?”
“for the same reason,” said peg, with a look of funny malice, “that an indian scalps his foe.”
“now what should that mean?”
“wait and see, oh watch-dog!”
it was a bit later when peg was again by my side.
“do you know why i am back with you?” she asked. “well, aside from the profound pleasure of your company, the more profound by contrast with that of those vapid ones”—here she would include the ball room males with a sweep of her round arm—“i thought i would scalp my enemy before your eyes. you have a violent nature, watch-dog, and i reflected how the exhibition might bring you joy. since you do not dance, your time must lie on your hands like iron; i would do somewhat to lighten it.”
before i could ask peg to unravel the intent of her long speech, pigeon-breast was pushing valourously our way.
“he comes for a second dance,” said peg. “see, his name is next on my card.”
“and call you that scalping?” cried i. “at that rate, every man in the room will compete for your cruelty! scalping, say you! i wish for the simple humor of it, a seminole might hear you.”
the truth was i had fallen into a dudgeon with peg for her notion of taking a trophy; she would confer heaven on this pigeon-breast and call it “scalping!”
“i believe,” observed pigeon-breast, with his nose fairly to the floor, so deeply would he bow, “i believe i will have the honor of another dance”—here another bow as lowly louted as the first.
as pigeon-breast resumed the perpendicular, he crooked his gallant arm invitingly and would lead peg to her place.
but peg drew back, as much to my bewilderment as that of the wonder-smitten pigeon-breast himself, and with a manner coldly polite said:
“there is a mistake, sir; i could have promised you no dance, since i do not know you.”
“mistake!” gasped pigeon-breast.
“mistake,” repeated peg, with, if anything, an access of ice. “i never before saw you; i could have put you down for no dance. one does not dance with strangers.” then to me: “your arm, if you please.”
as i carried peg away, pigeon-breast was heard to inarticulately moan and whine like a high wind in a keyhole. later i beheld him desperately, in the refreshment room, drinking strong waters with both hands and as though he had a fish in his stomach.
“and now,” said i to peg, as we moved away from the crushed pigeon-breast, “why were you so bitter? that empty fellow was not worth so much. besides, you have shamed him before the town; you hurt him to the heart.”
“hurt him to the vanity,” corrected peg. “if it be true that nothing dries more quickly than a woman's tear—and it is true, watch-dog—nothing cures more quickly than the hurt vanity of a man. that dandy will anon be as gay as a peacock. however, i would punish him. i have made him an ishmael of the drawing-rooms; i have driven him forth from us, and he cannot return to the others for his apostasy of their cause is known. did i not tell you, watch-dog, i was a revengeful woman?”
altogether, i might have wished our peg had taken another course with pigeon-breast.
thus to publicly drum him out of camp was a thought too hardy. however, pigeon-breast had wrought for what he received, and i think, too, peg was more moved by the audacious fun of the business than any darkling taste to have a vengeance, for all her word.
the general, i am minded, was of my view; it was the frolic of the thing to carry peg away.
“peg is young,” quoth the general, amiably; “our peg is young. what would you have? she shall be older one day and more upon dignity. what shall more bound and frisk and play than your scapegrace kitten? and yet what more gravely decorous than your cat? by joshua's horn! on the whole, i'm glad your pigeon-breast was brought up with a round turn.”
it was one afternoon when the general came to me with a request that i seek out noah at the indian queen and confer with him over the merits of a gentleman who lusted to hold a certain office.
“this individual comes to me well spoken of,” said the general, “and yet i would know more of him, and that from one who has no axe to be grinded.”
while i made ready for my walk to the indian queen, the general unpouched another piece of interesting news.
“by the way,” said he, “our peg has settled on april as a time for that dinner and ball. she would have had it sooner; but she does not now need the white house for any direct aid to her arms. she will save it for the close, and make the affair a sort of celebration.”
“it is a good thought,” said i. “it is wiser, since she has won her way with what should be her own resources, not to subtract from that success by any full blown movement of the white house upon the scene. mean folk would say she could not have come through without you to be her ally.”
“and that is my notion, too!” coincided the general. “peg's position is complete; the white house now would but divide her glory. we will offer her our east room courtesies in april, and let it be for an old-time roman triumph as when a victor returns from war. peg well deserves a triumph; the vice-presidential coterie and all whom it might control have moved heaven and earth for peg's disaster and pulled and hauled like common sailor-folk on any rope to do her harm.”
“does not april,” said i, “mark an unheard-of span for your social season? i had thought it might end with lent.”
“and so it would,” smiled the general, “if now we were only federalists like adams, and remembered the church of england as a guide. this, however, is a presbyterian administration; wherefore, we shall abide none of your lents, but drink and dance and dine as far into spring flowers as we will.”
“being the earliest instance,” added i, “when to drink and to dance and to dine were called an evidence of calvinism.”
noah was pen-employed over certain wisdom which should find subsequent exposition in his paper.
“there are large money influences,” remarked noah, thoughtfully, when we had talked a moment, “which have grown alluringly friendly about my associate, watson webb. they are offering a loan to our paper of fifty thousand dollars. you know”—this with his satirical air—“how papers are ever in want of a loan. these money folk bank on that to win us; perhaps, too, they find hope in my being a jew.”
“and what would your associate do?” i asked.
“to be frank,” returned noah, “he grants admiring ear to this song of siren money. i think we shall part company—webb and i.”
“and yet,” said i, with a bent for banter, “you are ever in one kind or another laying emphasis on your jewish readiness for gold. now you see it is the jew who can not be moved, while our gentile, with an eye to the yellow chance, would not be found so sentimental.”
“for all that,” remarked noah, “the jew is a profound money hunter. it is but natural he should be. that cupidity, or, if you prefer, that gold-greed, has been through centuries developed as his one hope for safety. in the oppressions which have borne upon him, and which in all countries save this still bear him down, your jew has found in money his last cave of retreat. he might bulwark himself with riches. with others, gold would mean luxury; with the jew, it stood for life itself, and to go wanting it was to be tooth and nail about the digging of his own grave.”
“and it is your theory, then,” said i, “that the great need for gold which for ages was to stare the jew in the face, became the seed of that genius, to gather which now the race is heir to?”
“without question,” said noah. “more; since the jew has been safe of his goods and his blood in this land of ours, and the rowels of that great need no longer lance the flanks of effort and set it to the leap, we rear a kind of jew who owns no mighty care for money. i will find you jews in our midst who can still be hawks to swoop, but who have no hold to keep. they will spend you their riches or give them away like water. we shall yet rear an american jew who has no skill to get money. still, going back to that first thought—for it is worrying my soul like a dog—of those money influences busy with the enlistment of webb, i am free to say that even in his worst hour your jew would never take a bribe. he would sell neither his friend nor his principle; those were never jewish ways of money-finding.”
“your jew makes a stout patriot,” said i. “i could want no better american than a jew.”
“why, then,” responded noah, “there be none to whom america means so much. you, being of the strain of saxon-dane, would have justice in england, welcome in russia, friendship in france. what would your jew meet? your jew loves america because he loves himself; he is a patriot since he is a jew.”
“and yet,” i protested, “it is no question of cool selfishness with your jew. he is as spontaneously the patriot as any other. take judah touro: whose money or whose blood was more at the beck of his country that january day at new orleans?”
“why, yes, that is true,” said noah. “but you should reflect: patriotism, like every other emotion—if it be a mother's love for her child—has ever its first feet in selfishness. that would be the tale of jew or gentile the wide world round. selfishness seems but a rough, unworthy root, but from it have flowered art, poetry, science, or what you will. the lineage of each sentiment of beauty, whether it be the tenderest charity or that self-sacrifice that lays down its life, begins with selfishness—that mighty cornerstone of the world.”
“beware of metaphysics,” said i. “that, at least, would be our matter-of-fact general's caution.”
“who? the president?” noah laughed. “i will let you in with a secret. there is only one to be more the sentimentalist than your 'matter-of-fact general,' and that, my friend, is yourself. however, keeping from the personal, i would still stand firm to it that selfishness is the beginning of the virtues. those better expressions, charity and love, come by its cultivation just as the generous apple has for its forebear that bitter, thorny, sour creature, the wild crab. now, your jew has been vastly cultivated”—here came noah's look of satire—“he has been ploughed by adversity and harrowed of oppression. thus farmed, your jew will produce those judah touros you tell of. there were mates for touro throughout our years of revolution. there dwelt but seven hundred families of jews in this land when concord and lexington and bunker hill fell forth. from lexington until cornwallis, those jews were busy with their ducats and their blood for freedom. they gave millions. old haym salomon alone gave six hundred thousand dollars he was the richest of his day; he died copper poor to the obolary point of groats and farthings. at his end he said: 'i die broken and in the talons of want; but i die happy since i have lived to see civil and religious liberty established on this soil.'”
rivera, broad of shoulder, mild of eye, here drew near and made a slight motion, as one who points with his thumb, towards the tap-room of the tavern. noah would seem instantly to understand his wordless satellite.
“come,” said noah, eagerly, “i can show you those catron thugs i warned you against. it may serve you to know their faces.”
“i had forgotten to ask,” i returned. “has any of them gone about to molest you? i see you still safe.”
“it is because i am looked on,” returned noah, lightly, “as a jew most perilous. those catron five minutes at gadsby's did me good service. also, since i love quiet, i would have gossip give wings to it how i carry a knife. the truth is, these caitiff folk mistrust me as a trap of death.”
there was a rude group gathered about a table in the bar. the members were drinking rum from tin measures, and their vivid noses and features much aflame would not have said the habit was one lately taken up.
“those be our friends,” whispered noah. “that animal with the shoulders of a buffalo, the iron jaw, and no forehead to speak of, is a prize-fighter of renown. he was brought over to be a counter-weight for rivera. i would wager, should they come together, that my man beats him to a pumice.”
the light in noah's eyes showed no sloth of appetite for such a battle.
the rogues about the table were made uneasy by our presence. we looked them up and down at no little length, noah with an eye of rawest insolence, enough of itself to draw resentment from an image. noah called rivera from where he lounged against the doorpost and held whispered converse with him touching the fellows, and all in a most apparent way of insult. but beyond a wrathful growl one might not lure them; they turned their shifty, evil eyes away, and hastily gulping the rum, shuffled from the place.
“if those ruffians are come to town for a motive of trouble,” said i, “why do not they go upon their mission? they have been weeks here. has this catron so much money to waste?”
“doubtless catron has money enough,” replied noah. “like yourself, however, i can not find reason for this stage-wait in the tragedy. i have tempted them to a rupture with my eye a score of times, but their conduct was always what you saw.”
noah went with me to the general, to reply to the latter's interest concerning the ambitious one.
“he is wise and brave and true,” said noah; “that is the worst i know of him.”
“and that should be enough,” said the general, decisively. “what more may one want than 'wise and brave and true?'”
“then you care only for the man,” said i, “and ask nothing of his principles of politics?”
“added to those cardinals,” laughed the general, “of 'wise and brave and true,' one would need but the other virtue of being my friend. when you say 'principles of politics,' major, i should know what you mean. still, with a now and then calhoun exception, i am free to say i care only for your man and nothing for a measure. if it were an election, now, i should vote for a good man on a bad platform rather than a bad man on a good platform.”
“and why?” asked noah. “for myself, i am not so sure.”
“you will turn sure,” replied the general, “if you but pause and recall your own experience. measures are like batteries aboard ship. it is ever the man behind the measure, as it is the man behind the gun. if he be 'wise and brave and true,' good. if he be otherwise;—why, hang him and have you another man.”
as i was returning alone to my workshop, i overheard the voices of peg and jim within the room.
“an' so, miss peg,” jim was saying, “as soon as ever your mammy gives jim d'message an' that mouthful of whiskey, jim shore lights out for you. honey, jim comes that fas', jim does, he jes' natcherally leaves things on both sides of d'road. your mammy's plumb sick, an' thar aint no sort o' doubt of it. plumbago is what jim allows it is.”
“my mother is ill,” said peg, when i came in. “i sent your jim down to get word from her. she wants me, and i would ask you to go with me to her if i dared.”
“that should call for no desperate courage,” said i.
the deep snows had been melting for many days, and, while the ground was now quite bare, it lay wet as a sponge, and the roads not to be thought of for horses. peg's mother, however, lived but a little mile distant, and our way would lie through woodland for the most, with paths to wind in and out among the trees. these walks, being grassy, would do well enough for folk afoot.
“we must walk,” said peg, “and since that be the order, i must go back for stronger boots to fend against this wet.”
when peg returned from her own home and we would be setting forth, it was six years off her age to merely see her. for what mud and water we might meet, peg had donned thick-soled, high-laced boots, and with these, and skirts cut short to match her boots, peg appeared not an hour older than sixteen.
“you look like a schoolgirl,” said i, in comment. “you will be now more than ever the child with me.”
“'tis a good uniform to walk in,” said peg, “and to balk mire and water.”
peg's mother was in no strait of weakened health more than stood proper with her days. but she was grown peevish and with nerves on edge to see her daughter; for since rout and dinner and reception made such claim on peg, she had not visited the good old lady as often as was her wont.
and now when we were there, the old mother would hear no soon word for our departure; we must stay to supper; peg should cook for us, she said.
it was not without surprise that i observed how this command to turn herself a cook would fit with peg's temper like a glove. in the first, peg hung upon uncertainties; the paths were bad, there were mire and pool. but when told that she should cook for me, her face brightened and she was instantly moved to recall that a great moon would shine and so put those night-dangers of pool and mire to rest.
so patent stood peg's satisfaction in her new duties that, as she would heap and heap again my plate—scarce eating a morsel herself—i was driven to ask reason.
“and you don't know?” said peg, pausing with a new-baked tin of light-bread in her little hands—these latter white with flour. “it is because this is the first natural woman thing i've done for months. you may be very sure, watch-dog, whenever you see me bowing and scraping at a reception, or dismissing some pigeon-breast from my royal presence at a ball, that i would give the stockings off my feet to be busy about a fireplace instead, and cooking bread and meat for you. you see, i am so much more the woman than the lady. there is my defect.”
“and was it that,” said i, attacking a second steak with the fury of a farm-hand, while peg glowed to see me dispatch it, “was it that to teach you to warn me i must be a man rather than a gentleman when i dealt with you?”
“now i shouldn't wonder,” replied peg, going for more coffee.
this kitchen mood of peg's—and somehow i liked it as much as ever she did—and her word for it how she preferred cookery to balls, set me to put questions as we twined along our path among the trees on homeward journey. the night, as peg foretold when she so favored supper-getting, was full of a white radiance that one might read print by, for the air was as clear as glass and the moon both big and round.
“you were speaking as one weary,” said i, “of dance and reception, and declared how you would sooner cook. now that puts me in a fog; i should have supposed you the happiest, as you should be the proudest, woman in the world.”
“i said i would sooner cook for you,” said peg. “you are uncouth enough to forget that part. or perhaps, now it was your timidity. i am proud enough, doubtless; but why, watch-dog, should you think me happy?”
“is it not reason enough,” returned i, “that you have stifled your enemies, and stand on the last summit of our society?”
“i am happy only as it makes my friends happy,” returned peg; “the good general and yourself. i would not, for my own part, waste one moment on it.”
“i can not understand,” said i. “that i should love nothing of drawing-rooms does not amaze me; the day is on in middle life with me and i've seen too much of grass and sky to now care for floors and frescoes. but for a woman:—i should have said her joy would be there.”
“watch-dog, i am too much the woman,” said peg; “or, since you may better understand, i'm too much the savage. i've climbed the social mountain. i stand on its summit; there is nowhere higher. and yet what will it all mean?”
“what will it not mean?” i asked.
“watch-dog, i'll tell you what it will not mean.” peg spoke in a tone of tired earnestness. “it will not mean sympathy or love or trust. society, as we've agreed, is like a mountain. and like a mountain, you find less and less of vegetation as you climb—fewer of the green, good virtues that stand so thickly rank in the poor valleys below. as you climb, it would turn ever barer and colder; and at the last no virtues—nothing but lichens and livid mosses. we are at the summit, watch-dog. and now what find we other than the dead cold snow? you have told me i stand on the social summit; you see i keep repeating. do you know now what it is in my heart to do? there lies no peril of a slip; i have too much the sure foot of the ibex. do you know what i am moved to do?—me on my high snow social peak? why, then, dash myself into that common valley far below.”
“now, that is not our peg who speaks,” cried i, not a trifle put about by peg's alpine parables. “it is the talk of a tongue and means mere wildness.”
“and that is it, watch-dog,” returned peg, in a way of mourning. “i am not tame; i am like the wild things that will not bear a cage. now here; see how strange i am. i do not like women; i will not trust one with a word; i must watch myself to treat them with a fair face. then i am all to talk and go about with men. i should have been born one of those indian girls of whom you told me. a campfire and a petticoat of buckskin, a wigwam and a husband—big and broad like you, watch-dog—to fight and to hunt for me; that would be my dream.”
there arose a rough laugh, and if my ears were true, a rum-sodden laugh. i turned my head, and there, a hundred yards to our rear, came rolling and stumbling the drunken crew whom noah had been at pains to show me in the indian queen. over my shoulder i watched them for a moment. they were in sottish glee, and would shout, and now and then troll a bar or two of some pot-house ballad.
my nature was on watch in a moment; i suspected how these ruffians would be after us. we were in a lonely strip of trees, and no folk near the spot but just ourselves—a safe theatre for villainy. i counted our roaring drunkards; there were eleven, and among them i could pick out the yard-wide shoulders of that gladiator to whom noah had pointed.
peg, as well as i, could see these creatures coming; but then she had not my news, and would only know them for roysterers returning from some drinking bout. i glanced at peg; her face was bright and free, and for all her late lamentations over society and its dead cold wastes of proper snow, mighty wide awake and vivacious. i never beheld her more brisk; in the white moonlight her picture shone out as clear as day.
peg was on my right arm. i began to go more slowly so that those who followed should overtake us, and to push a little off the path to the right, for i would have peg out of the midst of them when trouble fell.
as i would loiter and go with a slower foot, the eleven behind quickened their step. they came on, roaring and jesting among themselves; not together, but by twos and threes, and straggling along the path like geese. i think it was their plan to push ahead of peg and me and bar our way; for they went lumbering and lurching by, making a rude joke to toss from tongue to tongue, but no one to so much as look on us direct until the last one came up. he would be lagging behind for a purpose, too, since he was gone on no more than a yard ahead of peg and myself when he sings out to his fellows with an oath:
“d'ye see whom we have here? why, here is our big lover and his light o' love—no less!”
with that, stepping before peg, i seized the scoundrel with my left hand. it was his arm above the elbow i took hold on, and a soft snick like a snapping of the clay stem of a pipe, and the grotesque way in which the hand dangled, palm outward, showed me how i had broken the bone.
the creature's scream brought the others to his rescue. that was no loss, for it would have been their plan from the first to return and fall upon me. as they came on in a blundering file, whirling forth oaths, i took the one in my hand with a grip about his middle. heaving him over my head, i dashed him at the others as they drew near. the villain would do beautifully as a projectile, too, for he mowed down three like a chain-shot, his boot making a fine gash in the face of one of them.
on the point of going forward to meet the others, i was stayed by a shout, loud and musical, yet much like the muffled roar of some deep-lunged animal. then came one from the the rear with the speed of an arrow at top flight. in the moonlight i could tell him for rivera the son of that spanish bull-fighter, running like a stag. he flashed by me; and the next moment he struck one of the roughs with his fist. it was a hammer-like blow, and that one who would stop it fell with the crash of a tree.
