University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE RIFLING OF THE HAWKSNEST.

Dana.

The Farmer's Homestead, from which the estate
of Greyslaer took its name, lay upon the banks of
the Mohawk, immediately at the mouth of one of
those wooded gorges through which the tributaries
of the river descend from the mountains of Montgomery
to unite with the parent stream. The
broad, low-eaved mansion reposed in a rich alluvial
meadow, amid a clump of weeping elms; the luxuriancy
of whose foliage betrayed the neighbourhood
of the brook that watered their roots; and
which, descending impatiently amid the copses of
hazel and wild cherry, from the upland in the rear
of the house, glided slowly and noiselessly through
the green pastures, as if unwilling at the last to
merge its current into the broader stream beyond.

“Here,” said Thayendagea to his European
friend, when, having stationed his band in the underwood
that lined the sides of the gorge, he began to
move cautiously toward the house, accompanied
only by MacDonald; “here is the Hawksnest of
which I have spoken, and within an hour we will
clip the wings of the wildest of the falcon brood.”

The two royalists now approached the house with
the most stealthy caution, and by glancing from one

outbuilding to another, keeping always within their
shadow, they at last attained a position in which,
screened behind a trellice covered by gourds and
hop-vines, that sheltered the cottage-like porch, they
could easily look into the low windows of the mansion.

The scene thus witnessed brought so vividly to
mind the recollections of his early home, that the
British officer again shrunk from the stern task in
which he had consented to share. The window
opened into a large room wainscoted with black
walnut, whose dusky panels were relieved here
and there by the glimmer of a brass-mounted press,
or an antique beaufet with its attendant service of
painted china, and other furniture of European manufacture,
which had probably been brought from
his fatherland by the first owner of the dwelling.
There was no carpet upon the floor of the apartment,
which seemed to be a sort of hall, or common
sitting-room of the family, and a large ducking-gun
supported upon a magnificent pair of antlers
over the fireplace, with other appointments and
trophies of the chase, indicated the predominant
tastes of its customary male occupants.

But there were traces also of the presence of woman
in this rural household, in the framed needle-work
that adorned the walls, the vase of freshly-gathered
flowers upon the mantelpiece, and, above all, in the
general air of neatness that pervaded its simple arrangements.
Nor did MacDonald long doubt to
whom these slight but indubitable evidences of feminine
taste were owing, when he gazed upon the occupants
of the apartment. These were an aged man
and his two daughters. A white-haired patriarch,
who sat a little aloof from the table, at which a slight-made,
invalid-looking girl was seated, reading aloud,
while the other, a dark-eyed, luxuriant beauty, stood

reeling some coloured worsted from the back of a
chair. The glow of health, the purple light of youth,
the pride of rich, resistless womanhood, seemed all
mantling in the cheek and animating the person of
the latter; and when the European gazed upon her
haughty, intellectual brow, her mouth, whose ripe
and melting softness was still redeemed from all
weakness of expression by something wayward
and aspiring even in its smiles; when glancing
from her white and exquisitely turned shoulders,
just touched by the light which polished her velvet
bodice, he looked to the noble contour of her person,
brought out as it was by the position in which
she stood, with one fairy foot upraised upon the
lower rung of the chair before her, the portrait of
more than one proud dame of princely courts rose
freshly radiant to his view; while the pale, passionless-looking
girl, upon whom the old father gazed
with eyes of such affectionate interest, seemed the
far fitter tenant of an abode so obscure.

“It is, indeed, a cruel duty, Sachem, to disturb
such a home as that,” he whispered to his companion.

“Yes, but still it is a duty,” muttered the Indian,
sternly.

“And yet not necessarily ours to-night; the
young man whom you seek is evidently not at
home; for see, now, the tall girl has laid aside her
work; they are preparing for family prayers, yet
Greyslaer is still absent.”

“Speak lower,” said Brant, in a suppressed tone,
which sounded like the hissing of a serpent in the
ear of the other; “that tall girl could wield the souls
of a hundred rebels with her eyes! She must be
placed out of the way till these fanatic boys of
the same traitorous household recover their senses.
Nay! murmur not at this decision; a hair of her
head shall not be injured. But, hist, what noise is

that?” he added, turning round as he retired a few
paces from the trellice, which interposed its leafy
curtain between him and the window.

“It is only some of your followers; you told them
to approach for the seizure, the moment that the rising
moon should cast her first beam above you
clump of maples.”

“Yes, but she yet lacks a hand's breadth of gaining
the top of the sugar-bush, and that tramp is
never made by an Indian moccasin.”

As the chieftain spoke, the sharp crack of a rifle,
followed instantly by the wild whoop of Indian war-fare,
rang out on the night air, while a young warrior,
whose approach had been hitherto unobserved
by Thayendanagea himself, stood suddenly before
them.

“A party of Corlaer's fighting men! but we out-number
them. Our warriors sent me to ask leave
to fight, but the foe has stirred their covert before
the message could reach my father.”

“And where was Au-neh-yesh, not to know of
their approach?” fiercely asked the chief of his son,
in their own language.

“Au-neh-yesh watched upon the hills above the
waterfall; Kan-au-gou in the fields below. The
sons of Corlaer came up the bed of the running water,
and Kan-au-gou must have mistaken the plashing
of footsteps on one side for the ripple of waters
on the other.”

“It is well; let our people stand fast till they
hear my signal from the hill behind them, and then
disperse as best they may.”

The chieftain spoke, and Au-neh-yesh disappeared
on the instant. “And now, Captain MacDonald,”
said Brant, “we have not a moment to lose
in securing our captive, while my young men keep
the rebels at bay. Nay, I pledge myself to the girl's

safety,” he added, with a jesture of impatience, observing
still symptoms of reluctance in his coadjutor.

But the feat, so often afterward, during the war,
accomplished by Brant with such consummate address,
was fated, in the present instance, to a more
serious result than could have been anticipated.

Of the different parties of Whigs, who, according
to previous concert, were to rendezvous at the
Hawksnest this evening, that of Greyslaer was the
only one which, for reasons that will be hereafter
mentioned moved to the proposed conference.
It was well that the band was better armed and better
ordered than were most yeomanry corps at the
commencement of our civil struggle, and that they
were commanded by one who, on this night, gave
as signal proofs of his quickness of resource and
ability as a partisan soldier, as he had formerly
shown evidence of high moral courage upon the occasions
we have already noticed. The twenty-four
hours which had elapsed since his deliverance from
the myrmidons of Sir John Johnson, Greyslaer knew
afforded sufficient time for that vigilant loyalist to
obtain information of the proceedings of the patriot
party, and to adopt measures to prevent the proposed
meeting. This, in the excited state of popular
feeling, could scarcely be effected by an open
exercise of his authority as a magistrate. A stroke
of address in seizing the rebel ringleaders, or the
cutting off the different parties in detail, by way-laying
them on their approach to the rendezvous,
seemed the only movement that could serve his purpose.
Fearful, therefore, of an ambuscade, Greyslaer
had exercised the greatest caution in approaching
the scene of danger.

Marching warily along the banks of the river, until
he came within half a mile of his destination, he

had turned aside upon reaching the mouth of the
tributary before mentioned; and, making the bed of
the smaller stream his highway, had struck inland
towards the hill, so as, by a serpentine course, to
approach the house from the rear. These precautions,
however, would only have served to throw
him into the midst of Brant's party, which, intent
upon the operation which had brought their chief to
the spot, lay concealed upon the banks of the brook
where it first descended to the lowlands, if the military
foresight of the young partisan had not added
another safeguard to his march by throwing out a
picket upon either side of the stream.

The worthy Balt, who chanced to be one of the
two persons detailed upon this duty, used always to
quote his deeds of this night in illustration of a favourite
assertion of his, that a true woodsman always
knew, by instinct, when an Indian was within fifty
yards of him. Certain it is, that he had not proceeded
in advance of his comrades a hundred yards
up the stream, when a faint whistle, like that of a
woodcock settling in a cornfield when a summer
shower has lured him from his favourite morass,
caused an instant halt of his party. The call was
answered by an Indian, who, rising slowly from a
brake, showed his shaven crown, for a moment, in
the moonlight, and then slunk back to his cover, as
if having, for the instant, mistaken the call of a real
bird for the signal of some comrade come to relieve
him at his post.

Some three minutes were now passed by Greyslaer's
party in breathless attention for another signal.
These were so skilfully employed by the
woodsman in gliding towards his foe, that they
measured the mortal existence of the unhappy Indian.
A short and desperate struggle, a smothered
cry, and the crashing of branches, as a heavy body

rolled through the thicket into the water, finished
the career of the warrior Kan-au-gou.

“Thank your stars, boys, that your lives are not
trusted to such a stupid lout as that,” whispered
Balt, joining his party the next instant. “Capting,
that chap was painted for a war-party, and you may
depend there is more vermilion in the neighbourhood.
The red devils must be beyond the rifts
upon the hill above us; God knows how many of
'em; but the best thing we can do is to change our
course, and strike straight through the fields to the
homestead, where we can stand a siege, if the worst
come to the worst.”

Greyslaer nodded approval, and instantly gave the
necessary order; while his men silently deployed
from the bed of the stream, and ascended the bank,
preparatory to making a swift movement across the
meadows to the house. Two fields, separated by a
high rail-fence, laid “worm-fashion,” intervened between
them and the homestead, and it was the sound
of their feet, in running across the first field, which
caught the quick ear of Thayendanagea, and in the
same moment alarmed his ambushed followers.
Au-neh-yesh, by the order of one of the chiefs, had
bounded off, on the instant, to communicate with the
Sachem, and had nearly reached the house, when,
casting his eyes behind him, he beheld Greyslaer's
party in the act of surmounting the division-fence
we have mentioned. Without waiting to select his
man, he instantly fired upon them, and the shot produced
at once the effect intended by the keen-witted
savage. The whites, finding themselves thus attacked
in the direction of the house, deemed that it
was already in possession of the enemy. They faltered
in their advance, and then, as a tumultuous
yell burst from the thickets on their flank, they
formed in the angles of the serpentine fence, as the

nearest cover at hand, and poured their fire upon the
advancing foe. The Mohawks recoiled on the instant,
and both parties lay now protected by their
cover, with a broad strip of moonlit meadow between
them, into which both were afraid to venture,
contenting themselves with keeping up a dropping
fire upon each other, as the gleam of weapons betrayed
here and there an object to aim at.

The situation of Greyslaer's party seemed now
precarious in the extreme.

“The Redskins are surrounding us, captain,” said
one of the brave but undisciplined yeomanry. “We
had better back out by crawling, in the shadow of
the fence, to the bushes on the river-side in our
rear.”

“Rayther,” said another, “let us go ahead, and
make a clean thing of it, by charging through the
varmint in front, and gain the heavy timber in their
rear.”

“Now my say is, boys,” quoth Balt, “just to do
neither one or t'other.”

“What, then, do you counsel, Balt? for we cannot
long maintain ourselves where we lie, if the Indians
are in any strength,” said Greyslaer.

“Why, the bizness is a bad one, anyhow you can
fix it, capting; but I think I understand the caper
on't. Don't you see—sarve you right, Bill; I told
you they'd spile that hat afore the night was over, if
you would pop up your head above the rider instead
of firing atween the rails—don't you see that we've
only had one shot from the house, while the old
fence is already pretty well riddled from the hillside?
Well—elevate a little lower, Adam, if it's that
skulking fellow by the big elm you're trying for—
well, then, as I was saying, it's pretty easy to guess
where the strength of the redskins must lie; and I
don't see that we can do better than streak it right

ahead for the house, and trust to legs and luck for
getting safe into it.”

The suggestion was too much in accordance with
Greyslaer's feelings not to be eagerly caught at by
him. Indeed, so overpowering was his anxiety for
the beloved inmates of the mansion, that nothing but
considerations of duty toward the party who had
trusted themselves to his guidance, had hitherto
prevented him from dashing forward to his destination
at all hazards. But if he had still hesitated as
to the course to adopt in the present exigency, all
doubt as to his movements was at once dispelled in
the moment that Balt finished speaking.

A sound of terror, the shriek of woman in distress,
with the hoarse cry of age imploring mercy
and assistance, rose suddenly from the dwelling,
chilling the blood of some, and making the pulses
of others leap with mad and vengeful impatience.
And it was then that, bursting simultaneously from
their cover, the red man and the white could be
seen urging their way with rival fleetness towards
the same goal, for the moment apparently regardless
of each other's neighbourhood; pausing not to strike
down a competitor in the race, but striving only who
first could reach the bourne. The one thirsting to
share in the massacre that seemed in the act of perpetration;
the other burning with fierce impatience
to arrest or avenge the butchery of his friends.

A light and agile youth, a fair-haired boy of sixteen,
was the first that gained the door of the mansion;
but even as he planted his foot upon the
threshold, his head was cloven asunder by an Indian
tomahawk, and, with limbs quivering in death,
his body rolled down the steps, while the exulting
savage who dealt the blow leaped over it brandishing
his fatal weapon. But his triumph was short.
Greyslaer was close upon him, and, as he strained

every nerve in rushing forward, he came with his
drawn rapier so impetuously upon the Indian, that
the point was driven through his back deep into the
panel of the door, which burst open from the shock.

Leaving his friends for the moment to make good
their entrance as best they could, by opposing their
hunting-knives and clubbed rifles to the tomahawks
and maces of the Indians, who instantly mingled
with them in wild melée around the porch, Greyslaer
rushed forward to the sitting-room of the family.
He shrunk aghast at the sight of horror which told
him that he had come too late. The master of the
house lay stunned and senseless upon the floor.
Alida, the beautiful Alida, had disappeared; but her
fair-haired sister lay weltering in her blood, while a
gash across her forehead, with the tangled locks
drawn backward from her brow and the print of
gory fingers fresh upon the golden tissue, called
Greyslaer's eye to a savage, who shook his scalping-knife
at him with a hideous grin of disappointed
malice as he sprang through the open window.
But there was no time now for grief to have its
way. The din of the conflict still rose fresh behind
him, and Greyslaer turned to the succour of his
friends whom it might avail.

“Powder, powder, capting!” shouted Balt, who
this moment presented himself. “There's a big
redskin keeping three of our men at bay with his
tomahawk; I must use him up at once, to give the
rest an opportunity of making a rush from the out-house;
our best men are still outside. Bedlow
and Boonhoven are both down; but big Hans, the
miller, yet holds the door stoutly, and Bill Stacey
has gone up with his axe to drop the gutter from
the eaves upon the redskins that are hammering at
the windows. Ah! there's the tool for my purpose,”
he added, seizing the ducking gun from the chimney,

and throwing down his half-loaded rifle; while
Greyslaer had, in the mean time, secured the window
through which the ferocious Au-neh-yesh had a moment
before made his entrance and escape.

Greyslaer now rushed to support the man who
was holding the door against odds so stoutly; while
Balt ascended the staircase, freshly priming the
ducking gun, and adding a handful of buckshot to
the already heavily charged piece as he went. He
gained a window in the same moment that Greyslaer,
sallying out from the house sword in hand,
cut down the sturdy warrior for whom Balt had
prepared his charge. A dozen Mohawks instantly
rushed forward to avenge the fall of their comrade.
But the heavy piece of Balt did good service in the
moment, or Greyslaer's career would have been cut
short for ever. A shower of buckshot drove them
quickly to regain their cover.

“Now, boys,” shouted the woodsman, “make a
rush for the house, while the red devils digest that
peppering.”

The handful of outlying whites did not wait for
the invitation to be repeated, but rushed pellmell
within the porch so furiously as to bear down each
other in the hall, while the sturdy miller made a
liberal use of his foot in pushing aside their bodies
while shutting the heavy oaken door.

Furious at being thus foiled, the brave Mohawks
made a simultaneous rush towards the entrance,
when, at that instant, the rude and ponderous gutter,
loosened from the eaves, descended with a crash
upon their heads; and, with a wild howl of grief
and dismay, the survivers of their party drew off
their wounded and disabled comrades, and left the
stout yeomen masters of the field.