Chapter XXIX: Fierce Feathers

The sunlight lay in patches on the steep roof of the Meeting-house of Easton Township, in the County of Saratoga, in the State of New York. It was a bright summer morning in the year 1775. The children of Easton Township liked their wooden house, although it was made only of rough-hewn logs, nailed hastily together in order to provide some sort of shelter for the worshipping Friends. They would not, if they could, have exchanged it for one of the more stately Meeting-houses at home in England, on the other side of the Atlantic. There, the windows were generally high up in the walls. English children could see nothing through the panes but a peep of sky, or the topmost branches of a tall tree. When they grew tired of looking in the branches of the tree for an invisible nest that was not there, there was nothing more to be hoped for, out of those windows. The children's eyes came back inside the room again, as they watched the slow shadows creep along the white-washed walls, or tried to count the flies upon the ceiling. But out here in America there was no need for that. The new Meeting-house of Easton had nearly as many possibilities as the new world outside. To begin with, its logs did not fit quite close together. If a boy or girl happened to be sitting in the corner seat, he or she could often see, through a chink, right out into the woods. For the untamed wilderness still stretched away on all sides round the newly-cleared settlement of Easton.

Moreover, there were no glass windows in the log house as yet, only open spaces provided with wooden shutters that could be closed, if necessary, during a summer storm. Another larger, open space at one end of the building would be closed by a door when the next cold weather came. At present the summer air met no hindrance as it blew in softly, laden with the fragrant scents of the flowers and pine-trees, stirring the children's hair as it lightly passed. Every now and then a drowsy bee would come blundering in by mistake, and after buzzing about for some time among the assembled Friends, he would make his perilous way out again through one of the chinks between the logs. The children, as they sat in Meeting, always hoped that a butterfly might also find its way in, some fine day--before the winter came, and before the window spaces of the new Meeting-house had to be filled with glass, and a door fastened at the end of the room to keep out the cold. Especially on a mid-week Meeting like to-day, they often found it difficult to 'think Meeting thoughts' in the silence, or even to attend to what was being said, so busy were they, watching for the entrance of that long desired butterfly.

For children thought about very much the same kind of things, and had very much the same kind of difficulties in Meeting, then as now; even though the place was far away, and it is more than a hundred years since that sunny morning in Easton Township, when the sunlight lay in patches on the roof.

It was not only the children who found silent worship difficult that still summer morning. There were traces of anxiety on the faces of many Friends and even on the placid countenances of the Elders in their raised seats in the gallery. There, at the head of the Meeting, sat Friend Zebulon Hoxie, the grandfather of most of the children who were present. Below him sat his two sons. Opposite them, their wives and families, and a sprinkling of other Friends. The children had never seen before one of the stranger Friends who sat in the gallery that day, by their grandfather's side. They had heard that his name was Robert Nisbet, and that he had just arrived, after having walked for two days, thirty miles through the wilderness country to sit with Friends at New Easton at their mid-week Meeting. The children had no idea why he had come, so they fixed their eyes intently on the stranger and stirred gently in their seats with relief when at last he rose to speak. They had liked his kind, open face as soon as they saw it. They liked still better the sound of the rich, clear voice that made it easy for even children to listen. But they liked the words of his text best of all: 'The Belovéd of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him. He shall cover them all the day long.'

Robert Nisbet lingered over the first words of his message as if they were dear to him. His voice was full and mellow, and the words seemed as if they were part of the rich tide of summer life that flowed around. He paused a moment, and then went on, 'And now, how shall the Belovéd of the Lord be thus in safety covered? Even as saith the Psalmist, "He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust."' Then, changing his tones a little and speaking more lightly, though gravely still, he continued: 'You have done well, dear Friends, to stay on valiantly in your homes, when all your neighbours have fled; and therefore are these messages sent to you by me. These promises of covering and of shelter are truly meant for you. Make them your own and you shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day.'

Here the boys and girls on the low benches under the gallery looked at one another. Now they knew what had brought the stranger! He had come because he had heard of the danger that threatened the little clearing of settlers in the woods. For though New Easton and East Hoosack lay thirty miles apart they were both links in the long chain of Quaker Settlements that had been formed to separate the territory belonging to the Dutch Traders (who dwelt near the Hudson River) from the English Settlements along the valley of the Connecticut. In former days disputes between the Dutch and English Colonists had been both frequent and fierce, until at length the Government had conceived the brilliant idea of establishing a belt of neutral ground between the disputants, and peopling it with unwarlike Quakers. The plan worked well. The Friends, in their settlements strung out over a long, narrow strip of territory, were on friendly terms with their Dutch and English neighbours on either side. Raids went out of fashion. Peace reigned, and for a time the authorities were well content.

A fiercer contest was now brewing, no longer between two handfuls of Colonists but between the inhabitants of two great Continents. For it was just before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War of 1775. The part of the country in which Easton Township was situated was already distressed by visits of scouting parties from both British and American armies, and the American Government, unable to protect the inhabitants, had issued a proclamation directing them to leave the country. This was the reason that all the scattered houses in the neighbourhood were deserted, save only the few tenanted by the handful of Friends.

'You did well, Friends,' the speaker continued, 'well to ask to be permitted to exercise your own judgment without blame to the authorities, well to say to them in all courtesy and charity, "You are clear of us in that you have warned us"--and to stay on in your dwellings and to carry out your accustomed work. The report of this your courage and faith hath reached us in our abiding place at East Hoosack, and the Lord hath charged me to come on foot through the wilderness country these thirty miles, to meet with you to-day, and to bear to you these two messages from Him, "The Belovéd of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him," and "He shall cover thee with His feathers all the day long."'

The visitor sat down again in his seat. The furrowed line of anxiety in old Zebulon Hoxie's high forehead smoothed itself away; the eyes of one or two of the younger women Friends filled with tears. As the speaker's voice ceased, little Susannah Hoxie's head, which had been drooping lower and lower, finally found a resting-place, and was encircled by her mother's arm. Young Mrs. Hoxie drew off her small daughter's shady hat, and put it on the seat beside her, while she very gently stroked back the golden curls from the child's high forehead. In doing this she caught a rebuking glance from her elder daughter, Dinah.

'Naughty, naughty Susie, to go to sleep in Meeting,' Dinah was thinking; 'it is very hot, and _I_ am sleepy too, but _I_ don't go to sleep. I do wish a butterfly would come in at the window just for once--or a bird, a little bird with blue, and red, and pink, and yellow feathers. I liked what that stranger Friend said about being 'covered with feathers all the day long.' I wish I was all covered with feathers like a little bird. I wish there were feathers in Meeting, or anywhere close outside.' She turned in her corner seat and looked through the slit in the wall--why there were feathers close outside the wall of the house, red, and yellow, and blue, and pink! What could they be? Very gently Dinah moved her head, so that her eye came closer to the slit. But, when she looked again, the feathers had mysteriously disappeared--nothing was to be seen now but a slight trembling of the tree branches in the wilderness woods at a little distance.

In the mean while her brother, Benjamin Hoxie, on the other low seat opposite the window, was also thinking of the stranger's sermon. 'He said it was a valiant thing to do, to stop on here when all the neighbours have left. I didn't know Friends could do valiant things. I thought only soldiers were valiant. But if a scouting party really did come--if those English scouts suddenly appeared, then even a Quaker boy might have a chance to show that he is not necessarily a coward because he does not fight.' Benjamin's eyes strayed also out of the open window. It was very hot and still in the Meeting-house. Yet the bushes certainly were trembling. How strange that there should be a breeze there and not here! 'Thou shall not be afraid for the arrow that flieth by day,' he thought to himself. 'Well, there are no arrows in this part of the country any longer, now that they say all the Indians have left. I wonder, if I saw an English gun pointing at me out of those bushes, should I be afraid?'

But it was gentle Mrs. Hoxie, with her arm still round her baby daughter, who kept the stranger's words longest in her heart. 'Shall dwell in safety by Him,--the Belovéd of the Lord,' she repeated to herself over and over again, 'yet my husband hath feared for me, and we have both been very fearful for the children. Truly, we have known the terror by night these last weeks in these unsettled times, even though our duty was plainly to stay here. Why were we so fearful? we of little faith. "The Belovéd of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him. He shall cover him with His feathers all the day long."'

And then, in her turn, Mrs. Hoxie looked up, as her little daughter had done, and saw the same three tall feathers creeping above the sill of the open Meeting-house window frame. For just one moment her heart, that usually beat so calmly under her grey Quaker robe, seemed to stand absolutely still. She went white to the lips. Then 'shall dwell in safety by Him,' the words flashed back to her mind. She looked across to where her husband sat--an urgent look. He met her eyes, read them, and followed the direction in which she gazed. Then he, too, saw the feathers--three, five, seven, nine, sticking up in a row. Another instant, and a dark-skinned face, an evil face, appeared beneath them, looking over the sill. The moment most to be dreaded in the lives of all American settlers--more terrible than any visit from civilised soldiers--had come suddenly upon the little company of Friends alone here in the wilderness. An Indian Chief was staring in at their Meeting-house window, showing his teeth in a cruel grin. In his hand he held a sheaf of arrows, poisoned arrows, only too ready to fly, and kill, by day.

All the assembled Friends were aware of his presence by this time, and were watching the window now, though not one of them moved. Mrs. Hoxie glanced towards her other little daughter, and saw to her great relief that Dinah too had fallen asleep, her head against the wooden wall. Dinah and Susie were the two youngest children in Meeting that morning. The others were mostly older even than Benjamin, who was twelve. They were, therefore, far too well-trained in Quaker stillness to move, for any Indians, until the Friends at the head of the Meeting should have shaken hands and given the signal to disperse. Nevertheless, the hearts of even the elder girls were beating very fast. Benjamin's lips were tightly shut, and with eyes that were unusually bright he followed every movement of the Indian Chief, who, as it seemed in one bound and without making the slightest noise, had moved round to the open doorway.

There he stood, the naked brown figure, in full war-paint and feathers, looking with piercing eyes at each man Friend in turn, as if one of them must have the weapons that he sought. But the Friends were entirely unarmed. There was not a gun, or a rifle, or a sword to be found in any of their dwelling-houses, so there could not be any in their peaceful Meeting.

A minute later, a dozen other Redskins, equally terrible, stood beside the Chief, and the bushes in the distance were quite still. The bushes trembled no longer. It was Benjamin who found it hard not to tremble now, as he saw thirteen sharp arrows taken from their quivers by thirteen skinny brown hands, and their notches held taut to thirteen bow-strings, all ready to shoot. Yet still the Friends sat on, without stirring, in complete silence.

Only Benjamin, turning his head to look at his grandfather, saw Zebulon Hoxie, the patriarch of the Meeting, gazing full at the Chief, who had first approached. The Indian's flashing eyes, under the matted black eyebrows, gazed back fiercely beneath his narrow red forehead into the Quaker's calm blue eyes beneath the high white brow and snowy hair. No word was spoken, but in silence two powers were measured against one another--the power of hate, and the power of love. For steady friendliness to his strange visitors was written in every line of Zebulon Hoxie's face.

The children never knew how long that steadfast gaze lasted. But at length, to Benjamin's utter astonishment, for some unknown reason the Indian's eyes fell. His head, that he had carried high and haughtily, sank towards his breast. He glanced round the Meeting-house three times with a scrutiny that nothing could escape. Then, signing to his followers, the thirteen arrows were noiselessly replaced in thirteen quivers, the thirteen bows were laid down and rested against the wall; many footsteps, lighter than falling snow, crossed the floor; the Indian Chief, unarmed, sat himself down in the nearest seat, with his followers in all their war-paint, but also unarmed, close round him.

The Meeting did not stop. The Meeting continued--one of the strangest Friends' Meetings, surely, that ever was held. The Meeting not only continued, it increased in solemnity and in power.

Never, while they lived, did any of those present that day forget that silent Meeting, or the brooding Presence, that, closer, clearer than the sunlight, filled the bright room.

'Cover thee with His feathers all the day long.'

The Friends sat in their accustomed stillness. But the Indians sat more still than any of them. They seemed strangely at home in the silence, these wild men of the woods. Motionless they sat, as a group of trees on a windless day, or as a tranquil pool unstirred by the smallest breeze; silent, as if they were themselves a part of Nature's own silence rather than of the family of her unquiet, human children.

The slow minutes slipped past. The peace brooded, and grew, and deepened. 'Am I dreaming?' Mrs. Hoxie thought to herself more than once, and then, raising her eyes, she saw the Indians still in the same place, and knew it was no dream. She saw, too, that Benjamin's eyes were riveted to some objects hanging from the strangers' waists, that none of the other Friends appeared to see.

At last, when the accustomed hour of worship was ended, the two Friends at the head of the Meeting shook hands solemnly. Then, and not till then, did old Zebulon Hoxie advance to the Indian Chief, and with signs he invited him and his followers to come to his house close at hand. With signs they accepted. The strange procession crossed the sunlit path. Susie and Dinah, wide awake now, but kept silent in obedience to their mother's whispers, were watching the feathers with clear, untroubled eyes that knew no fear. Only Benjamin shivered as if he were cold.

When the company had arrived at the house, Zebulon put bread and cheese on the table, and invited his unwonted guests to help themselves. They did so, thanking him with signs, as they knew little or no English. Robert Nisbet, the visiting Friend, who could speak and understand French, had a conversation with one of the Indians in that language, and this was what he said: 'We surrounded your house, meaning to destroy every living person within it. But when we saw you sitting with your door open, and _without weapons of defence_, we had no wish any longer to hurt you. Now, we would fight for you, and defend you ourselves from all who wish you ill.' Meanwhile the Chief who had entered first was speaking in broken English to old Zebulon Hoxie, gesticulating to make his meaning clear.

'Indian come White Man House,' he said, pointing with his finger towards the Settlement, 'Indian want kill white man, one, two, three, six, all!' and he clutched the tomahawk at his belt with a gruesome gesture. 'Indian come, see White Man sit in house; no gun, no arrow, no knife; all quiet, all still, worshipping Great Spirit. Great Spirit inside Indian too;' he pointed to his breast; 'then Great Spirit say: "Indian! No kill them!"' With these words, the Chief took a white feather from one of his arrows, and stuck it firmly over the centre of the roof in a peculiar way. 'With that white feather above your house,' the French-speaking Indian said to Robert Nisbet, 'your settlement is safe. We Indians are your friends henceforward, and you are ours.'

A moment later and the strange guests had all disappeared as noiselessly as they had come. But, when the bushes had ceased to tremble, Benjamin stole to his mother's side. 'Mother, did you _see_, did you _see_?' he whispered. 'They were _not_ friendly Indians. They were the very most savage kind. Did you,' he shuddered, 'did you, and father, and grandfather, and the others not notice what those things were, hanging from their waists? They were _scalps_--scalps of men and women that those Indians had killed,' and again he shuddered.

His mother stooped and kissed him. 'Yea, my son,' she answered, 'I did see. In truth we all saw, too well, save only the tender maids, thy sisters, who know naught of terror or wrong. But thou, my son, when thou dost remember those human scalps, pray for the slayers and for the slain. Only for thyself and for us, have no fear. Remember, rather, the blessing of that other Benjamin, for whom I named thee. "The Belovéd of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him. He shall cover him all the day long."'