 | III. Edwin Brothertoft |  |
3. III.
“Ah mon camarade! ma belle Moustache!
My Petare!” cried Colonel La Radière, as Skerrett
entered. “Soyez le bienvenu!”
The ardent Parisian officer of engineers rushed
forward, and embraced his young friend with effusion.
“Glad to see you, Peter!” says Captain Livingston,
a dry fellow, son of the Patroon. “Now,
Radière, there 's a second man who talks French,
to fire back your sacrebleus. Moi et Anthony's
Nose sommes fatigués à vous faire echo.”
“Come, boys,” says old Put, “talk Continental!”
The other officers in turn made Skerrett
welcome, and the business of brewing blunders
went on.
Does any one want a historic account of that
Council of War, and what it did not do?
The want is easily supplied. Rap for the spirit
of Colonel Humphreys, then late of Derby, Connecticut,
late of Yale College, late tutor at Phillipse-Manor.
He was Putnam's aide, and wrote
He was afterwards pompous gold-stick to Mr.
President Washington. He went as Plenipo to
Madrid, returned, became a model of deportment,
and was known to his countrymen as the Ambassador
from Derby.
(Raps are heard. Enter the Ghost of Humphreys.
“Now then, Ghost, talk short and sharp, not,
as you used to, — to borrow two favorite words
of yours, — sesquipedalian and stentorophonic!
Tell us what was done at that council, and be
spry about it!”
“Young Sir, I shall report your impertinence
to George Washington and Christopher Columbus
in Elysium. Christopher will say, `Founder the
continent!' George will say, `Perish the country!'
if its youth have drawn in and absorbed
their bump of reverence.”
“O, belay that, old boy! Tell us what you
did at the Council!”
“Nothing, your nineteenth-centuryship!” responds
Ghost, quelled and humble. “We pondered,
and propounded, and finally concluded to
do nothing, and let the enemy make the next
move.”
“Which he proceeded to do by sending up
General Vaughan to burn Kingston. That 's
enough! Avaunt, Ghost!”
Exit Humphreys to tell Chris and George
that America is going to the dogs.)
“Well,” said Putnam at last, “we 've discussed
and discussed, and I don't see that there 's any
way of getting a crack at the enemy, unless one
of you boys wants to swim down the river, with
a torch in his teeth, and set one of those frigates
below the Highlands on fire. Who speaks?”
“Cold weather for swimming!” says Livingston.
“Well, boys, you must contrive something to
keep our spirits up,” Putnam resumed. “When
I was up to Fort Ti in '58, and fighting was dull,
we used to go out alone and bushwhack for a
private particular Indian.”
“Perhaps I can offer a suggestion,” said Major
Scrammel, Putnam's other aide, re-entering the
room after a brief absence.
Scrammel was a handsomish man with a bad-dish
face. A man with his cut of jib and shape
of beak hardly ever weathers the lee shore of
perdition. For want of a moustache to twirl, he
had a trick of pulling his nose. Perhaps he was
training that feature for tweaks to come.
“Blaze away, Scrammel!” said his General;
“you always have some ambush or other in your
head.”
“Lady Brothertoft's nigger, the butler, is up
here with the latest news from below. I have
just been out to speak to him.”
“What, Scrammel!” says Livingston, sotto
voce. “A billet-doux from the fair Lucy?”
“La plus belle personne en Amerique!” Radière
sighs.
“You don't except the mother?” Livingston
inquired; “that mature, magnificent Amazon!”
“No,” replied the Frenchman, laboriously
building, brick by brick, a Gallo-American sentence.
“The mother of the daughtare is too
much in the Ladie Macquebeth. I figure to myself
a poniard, enormous sharpe, in her fine
ouhite hand, and at my heart. I seem to see
her poot ze-pardon! the poison in the basin —
the bowl — the gobbelit. I say, `Radière, care
thyself! It is a dame who knows to stab.' Mais,
Mees Lucie! Ah, c'est autre chose!”
“Come, Scrammel!” Putnam said, impatiently;
“we are waiting for your news.”
“The nigger stole away on some business of
his own, which he is mysterious about; but he
tells me that his mistress consoled herself at
once for our retirement from Peekskill after we
lost the forts. She had some of her friends
from the British ships and Clinton's army at her
house as soon as we were gone.”
“I believe she is as dangerous a Tory as lives
in all Westchester,” said the General. “She
ought to be put in security.”
“What! after all those dinners of hers we
have eaten, General?” says Livingston.
“I wish the dinners were out of me, and had
never been in me,” Old Put rejoined, sheepishly.
“I 'm afraid we used to talk too much after her
Madeira.”
The Council was evidently of that opinion, as
a look whisking about the circle testified.
A very significant look, with a great basis of
facts behind it. Suppose we dig into the brain of
one of these officers, — say that keen Livingston's,
— and unearth a few facts about Mrs.
Brothertoft, as she is at the beginning of Part
II. of this history.
Now, then, off with Livingston's scalp, and the
top of his skull! and here we go rummaging
among the convolutions of his brain for impressions
branded, “Brothertoft, Mrs.” We strike
a lead. We find a pocket. How compact this
brain stows its thoughts! It must, for it has
the millions on millions of a lifetime to contain.
We have read of a thousand leagues of lace
packed into a nut-shell. We have seen the Declaration
of Independence photographed within
the periphery of a picayune. Here 's closer
stowage, — a packet of thoughts of actual material
dimensions, but so infinitesimal that we shall
have to bring a microscope to bear before we
can apply the micrometer. Come, Sirius, nearest
thy beams through our lens and magnify this
record! Thanks, Sirius! Quite plain now!
That little black point has taken length and
breadth, and here 's the whole damnation in
large pica, — Heaven save us from the like!
Livingston Junior on Mrs. Brothertoft. Abstract
of Record: —
“By scalps and tomahawks, what a splendid
virago! She must be, this summer of 1777,
some thirty-five or thirty-six, and in her primest
prime. Heart's as black as her hair, some say.
Crushed her husband's spirit, and he took himself
off to kingdom come. Ambitious? I should
think so. Tory, and peaches to the enemy? Of
course. She uses her womanhood as a blind,
and her beauty as a snare. Very well for her to
say, `My business is to protect my property, and
establish my daughter. Women don't understand
politics, and hate bloodshed.' Bah! she
understands her kind of politics, like a Catherine
de' Medici. Bloodshed! She could stab a man
and see him writhe. But she gives capital dinners,
— more like England than any others in
America. Poor old Put, honest, frank, simple-hearted
fellow! look at him on the sofa there
with her, and a pint too much of her Madeira
under his belt! She knows just how near to let
his blue sleeve and buff cuff come to that shoulder
'll whisper 'em to a little bird, and pounce! one
of these fine days the redcoats will be upon us.
Upon us and on her sofa! Yes, and a good
many inches nearer than Old Put is allowed
to sit. For they do whisper scandal about Madam.
When she dropped Julia Peartree Smith,
the old tabby talked as old cats always talk about
their ex-friends. Scandal! Yes, by the acre;
but it 's splendid to see how she walks right over
it. And several of us fine fellows will not hear
or speak scandal of a house where that lovely
Lucy lives, — the sweet, pure, innocent angel.
They say the mother means to trade her off to
a redcoat as soon as she can find one to suit.
Mamma wants a son-in-law who will give her,
scandal and all, a footing among stars and garters
in England, when she has seen her estates
safe through the war. It 's too bad. I 'd go
down and kidnap that guileless, trustful victim
myself, if I was n't so desperately lazy. There 's
Scrammel too, — he would play one of his meanest
tricks to get her. Scrammel was almost the
only one of us boys in buff and blue that was
not taboo from Miss Lucy's side. Mamma was
not over cordial to our color unless it was buttoned
over breasts that held secrets. Her black
eyes very likely saw scoundrel in Scrammel's
face, and used him. Poor Lucy! It looks dark
what her mother is.”
Enough, Livingston! Thanks for this bit of
character! Here 's your dot of a record, labelled
“Brothertoft, Mrs.”! Now trepan your self with
your own skull, clap your scalp back again on
your sinciput, and listen to what Scrammel is
saying!
“The old nigger tells me,” he was saying,
“that Sir Henry Clinton and his Adjutant spent
the night after Forts Clinton and Montgomery
were taken quietly at Brothertoft Manor-House.”
“Well,” said the General, “then they had a
better night than we had, running away through
the Highlands. We can't protect our friends.
If the enemy have only made themselves welcome
at the Manor-House, instead of burning it
for its hospitality to us, Madam is lucky.”
“She seems to have made her new guests
welcome. The nigger thinks she knew they
were coming.”
“By George! — by Congress! I mean,” says
Put, wincing, “if I ever get back to Peekskill —”
“She seems to think, according to her butler's
story, that you are never to come back,” Scrammel
struck in.
“If that is all the news you have to tell, by
way of keeping our spirits up, you might as well
have been silent, sir!” growls Putnam.
“It 's not all,” Scrammel resumed. “The
nigger thinks they are getting up some new
expedition. But whether they do or not, the
adjutant don't go. He is to stay some days at
the Manor.”
“Lord Rawdon, is n't it?” Put asked. “Well,
he is a gentleman and a fine fellow, — not one of
those arrogant, insolent dogs that rile us so.”
“Not Rawdon. He was to be. But Major
Kerr got the appointment by family influence.”
“Kurr! c'est chien, n'est ce pas?” whispered
Radière to Livingston.
“Yes,” returned the Captain; “and this Kerr
is a sad dog. He bit Scrammel once badly at
cards in New York, before the war. Scrammel
don't forgive. He hates Kerr, and means to bite
back. Hear him snarl now!”
“The Honorable Major Kerr,” Scrammel continued,
“third son of the Earl of Bendigh, Adjutant-General
to Clinton's forces, a fellow who
hates us and abuses us and maltreats our prisoners,
but an officer of importance, is staying and
to stay several days, the only guest, at Brothertoft
Manor-House. Let me see; it can't be
more than twenty miles away.”
He marked his words, and glanced about the
circle. His eyes rested upon Livingston last.
“Oho!” says that gentleman. “I begin to
comprehend. You mean to use the Brothertoft
Prince at Newport. Woolly-head's skull is to
butt through Kerr's bedroom door, at dead of
night. Then, enter Scrammel, puts a pistol to
his captive's temple and marches him off to Fish-kill.
Bravo! Belle ideé, n'est ce pas, mon
Colonel?”
“Magnifique!” rejoined Radière. “I felicit
thee of it, my Scaramelle.”
“Now, boys!” says Put, “this begins to
sound like business. We need some important
fellow, like Kerr, taken prisoner and brought
here, to keep our spirits up. The thing 's easy
enough and safe enough. If I was twenty years
younger, general or no general, I 'd make a dash
to cut him out. Who volunteers to capture the
Adjutant?”
“I remember myself,” said Radière, gravely,
“of a billet, very short, very sharp, which our
Chief wrote to Sir Clinton, lately. It was of
one Edmund Palmer, taken — so this billet said —
as one espy, condemned as one espy, and hang-ged
as espy. Sir Clinton waits to answer that
little billet. But I do not wish to read in his
response the name of one of my young friends,
taken as espy and hang-ged.”
“Why does not Scrammel execute Scrammel's
plan?” asked Livingston.
“I cannot be spared,” the aide-de-camp responded.
“O yes! never mind me!” cried the General.
“Skerrett, here, can fill your place. Or Humphreys
can stop writing doggerel and do double
duty.”
Scrammel evidently was not eager to leave a
vacancy, or to gag his brother aide-de-camp's
muse.
“Why don't you volunteer yourself, Livingston?”
he said. “You know the country and
the house, and seemed to be well up in the
method of Prescott's capture at Newport.”
“I have not my reputation to make,” said the
other, haughtily. Indeed, his reckless pluck was
well known. “But I 'm desperately lazy,” which
was equally a notorious fact.
No other spoke, and presently all eyes were
making focus upon that blonde Moustache, which
the Marquis de Chastellux does not, and these
pages do, endow with a big M, and make historic.
It was only the other day that the wearer of
that decoration had become the hero of a famous
ballad, beginning, —
In number twelve or more,
As they sat tippling apple-jack,
Heard some one at the door.
“`Arise,' he cried, — 't was Skerrett spoke, —
`And trudge, or will or nill,
Twelve miles to General Washington,
At Pennibecker's Mill.”
Then the ballad went on to state, in stanzas
many and melodious, how it happened that the
“blades” of his Majesty's great knife, the Army,
were sheathed in a carouse, at an outpost near
Philadelphia, without sentries. Apple-jack, too,
— why they condescended to apple-jack, — that
required explanation: “And apple-jack, that tipple
base, Why did these heroes drain? O, where
were nobler taps that night, — Port, sherry, and
champagne?” Then the forced march of the unlucky
captives was depicted: “It rained. The
red coats on their backs Their skins did purple,
blue; The powder on their heads grew paste;
Each toe its boot wore through.” The poem
closed with Washington's verdict on the exploit:
“Skerrett, my lad, thou art a Trump, The ace of
all the pack; Come into Pennibecker's Mill, And
share my apple-jack!”
Hero once, hero always! When a man has
fairly compromised himself to heroism, there is
no let-up for him. The world looks to him at
once, when it wants its “deus ex machina.”
In the present quandary, all eyes turned to
Peter Skerrett, Captor of Captives and Washington's
Ace of Trumps.
“General,” said he, “I seem to be the only
unattached officer present. Nothing can be done
now about my mission. I do not love to be idle.
Allow me to volunteer in this service, if you
think it important.”
Old Put began to look grave. “You risk your
life. If they catch you in their lines, it is hanging
business.”
“I knew this morning,” thought the Major,
“that I should make a fool of myself before
night. I have!”
“No danger, General!” he said aloud. “I 've
got the knack of this work. I like it better than
the decapitation part of my trade.”
“Ah, Skerrett!” Livingston says, “that ballad
will be the death of you. You will be adding
Fitte after Fitte, until you get yourself discomfitted
at last. Pun!”
Mark this! It was the Continental Pun at its
point of development reached one year after the
Declaration of Independence. O let us be joyful!
Let us cry aloud with joy at our progress
since. Puns like the above are now deemed
senile, and tolerated only in the weekly newspapers.
No doggerel had been written about Scrammel.
No lyric named him hero. “Your friend
seems to have a taste for the office of kidnapper,”
he caitiffly sneered to Livingston, under cover of
his own hand, which tweaked the Scrammel nose
as he spoke.
“He has a taste for doing what no one else
dares,” rejoined the other. “Your nose is safe
from him, even if he overhears you. I say,
me with you. I know this country by leagues
and by inches.”
“No, Harry; General Putnam cannot spare
his Punster. One officer is enough. I shall
take Jierck Dewitt for my aide-de-camp. He
knows the Brothertoft-Manor country.”
“Empty Jierck of rum, cork him and green-seal
him, mouth and nose, and there cannot be
a better man.”
“Since you will go, you must,” says Put. “By
the way, if you want a stanch, steady man, take
Sergeant Lincoln. He somehow knows this
country as if he had crept over it from the
cradle. Where is that negro of Lady Brothertoft's,
Scrammel?”
“I left him talking to Lincoln. Major Skerrett
will easily find him.”
“He was my wiggy friend,” thought Skerrett.
“Don't fail to bag Kerr,” says Livingston.
“He wants a Yankee education, — so does all
England.”
“Yes,” says Radière, “we must have these
Kurr at school. We must teach to them civility
through our noses of rebels. We must flogge
them with roddes from the Liberté-Tree. They
shall partake our pork and bean. Yankee
Doodle shall play itself to them on our two
whistles and a tambour. Go, my Skerrett!
boy!”
All the officers gave him Good speed! and
Humphreys, Poetaster-General, began to bang
the two lobes of his brain together, like a pair
of cymbals, to strike out rhymes in advance
for a pæan on the conquering hero's return.
“You won't stay to dinner,” cries Put.
“There 's corned beef and apple-sauce, and a
York State buckskin pumpkin-pie, — I wish it
was a Connecticut one!”
“Yes,” says Livingston, “and I watched the
cook this morning coursing that dumb rooster
of yours, General, until he breathed his last.”
“Ah, my Skerrett!” sighed Radière. “Will
posterity appreciate our sacrifices? Will they remember
themselves — these oblivious posterity
— of the Frenchmen who abandoned the cuisines
of Paris to feed upon the swine and the
bean à discretion, to swallow the mush sans
melasse, to drink the Appel Jacque? Will they
build the marble mausoleum, inscribed, `Ci-Git
La Radière, Colonel. He was a Good
Heart and a Bad Stomach, and He shed his
Digestion for Liberty?'”
Skerrett laughed. “I will mention it to posterity,
Colonel,” he said, — and this page redeems
his promise.
Then, lest weeds might sprout under his feet,
moment announced, — and launched himself
upon the current of his new adventure.
“Down!” he soliloquized; “down, my longings
for buckskin pie, and for rooster dead of
congestion of the lungs from over coursing!
Tempt me not, ye banquets of Sybaris, until
my train is laid and waiting for the fusee.”
| III. Edwin Brothertoft | |