USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > North Kingstown > Facts and fancies concerning North Kingstown, Rhode Island > Part 7
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The Chief pursued his course in silence; at last the ascent grew less steep and gradually becoming level, showed that we had reached the top of the ridge. Somewhere near here should be the highway, if that had not gone the way of other landmarks, and indeed, just as I was thinking this, we came out of the woods into an opening so exactly as I had always seen it that it gave me something of a start. There, across the stretch of low blueberry bushes, arose the ledge of rock which overlooked the road and on which I had so often stood. As we approached it I saw the familiar wild roses that · grew about its base; we walked upon it, and there, too, was the little depres- sion at its top, with the same old tiny pool of water left by the last rain. But the road-where was it?
I turned to speak of this to the Indian, but he anticipated my question, and stretching out his long arm, pointed towardsthe ground a short distance away. Looking carefully, I discerned a path that led North and South. I did not have to ask him what it was-anyone who had lived in the Narragansett country would have known that we had come upon the Pequot Trail.
But the interest belonging to this actual sight of the old war-path was, for the moment, overcome by what I noticed in Canonicus himself. For the increasing spring and vigor of his stride as we had mounted the hill, were now accounted for by a change as great as any of the incredible changes amongst which I had been moving. His great age had dropped from him, and it was now a man in his prime who stood beside me-tall, muscular and lithe, with raven hair and the red glow of perfect health in his bronze skin. A superb figure of a man, with the savage aquiline beauty of his race; a warrior chieftain. Again I would have questioned him, but again his gesture held me back; this time he pointed down the path, to where it. emerged from the woods through a fringe of scattered birches. Something there that was moving caught my eye, and presently I could make out that men were coming in our direction, then that they were Indians. On they came in single file, advancing rapidly. They were half-naked, painted and decked with beads, each man with a bow in his hand and a quiver slung upon his back and in his belt a tomahawk.
"Who are these?" I asked.
"Pequots," said the Chief.
"Then they are," I said, "your enemies."
"Where I am now," Canonicus replied, "I have no longer any enemeies. You too will know that for yourself some day."
But this was surely a war-party, bent upon mischief and it looked very fierce, so that I could not but feel some apprehension, and as they now were coming very near I asked him;
"Are we quite safe from them here?"
He smiled as he answered me; "Why not safe? I have gone; you have not yet come; how can they hurt us?"
Well, they were upon us now, and argument was useless even though I found his answers hard to understand; but though the warrior glanced at us as they passed, they did not swerve from their silent hurried course and shortly passed out of sight into the woods above.
"Where are they going?" I demanded.
. "They went" said he, "to the Wampanoags, with whom they were at war. Now I shall make a little fire, for I think it will soon grow cold," and
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as he spoke I felt a breath of chilly air. He went down from the rock and I started after him, but "No," he said, "stay where you are. I alone must make the fire." Then he went over to the woods and I heard him chopping; presently he returned with his arms full of dry wood, which he carried up . on the rock and began to arrange. I wondered how he would light it and if I could venture to offer a match-and if I did whether it would burn. But when his fire was laid he drew from a little buckskin pouch at his waist, a flint and steel and some tinder.
"Your people gave me these," he said, and lit the fire. As it began to burn it gave out much smoke, which blew into my face and blinded me while at the same time I felt a harsh cold wind blowing on me. When the smoke cleared and I could see again, all about me had once more changed.
The sky was gray and hard; the trees were leafless save for the sombre evergreens that stood at intervals among them. Snow lay upon the ground and whitened the distance. Down the hill, to the eastward, I had a glimpse of the frozen pond and beyond it the land we had lately come from -- all white and gray. I saw clearings that looked like fields, but not where I knew them, nor were the two or three houses that appeared in view any I had ever seen. Far away was the line of the sea, leaden and gloomy, like' the sky. I could make out the trail, running through the bare bushes, whose tops just showed above the snow. It was bitter cold, and I crouched beside the fire, though the Sachem stood erect and did not seem to feel it. Age had again come upon him and it was an elderly man who kept me company.
"Look," said he, turning his face to the north, "here they come. Here come your people." And if he had not told me of his passage beyond the bounds of enmity, I should have thought that in his tone was something very like it.
From the woods there came a great procession-in all near upon a thousand, all armed. They were a motley crew, both as to dress and arma- ment. Every sort of head-gear; fur caps, three-cornered hats, round helmets; leather breeches and great boots; buff-coats or coats of heavy cloth, here and there a rusty cuirass; long clumsy guns, spears, pikes, cutlasses and axes-it was a rough-looking party and on the faces of all these men, strong faces most of them and weather-beaten, lay a look of grim determination. I checked my impulse to speak to them as the first of them reached us and began to pass us by, but then I asked the Sachem, "Who are these 'people of mine?' What is their errand?"
'They are," he answered me, "those whom none of my race could ever understand nor should have trusted. They are the neighbors of this Colony, coming into it from their bordering settlements to make war upon us, who were ever friendly with the dwellers here. Whether they hate red men or white Rhode Islanders the most, were hard to say, but in their hearts is but little of love for any. It is they who would make us take up their religion by preaching to us of peace and amity and showing us naught but violence and hatred. With fair words and gifts and with strange papers they took from us our lands and drove us from them-us who welcomed them and meant to give them all such rights as we would give to one another. We learned too late and were in any case too weak. Their errand is war-death to men, women and children-extermination of my people, gathered to- gether in their last refuge-all there but the craven Ninigret and his Nian-
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tics. The unheard-of cold makes the swamp no longer impassable-treachery does the rest."
"Then," I said, "these men are going to the Great Swamp." He nodded. "Where," I continued, "the leader of the Narragansetts is Canonchet."
"Yes," he replied, "Canonchet, my grandson, Chief Sachem after I had passed away."
"He was," I said, "if the reports be true, a brave man and a great Chief," and I should have said more, but for what now occurred.
The little army was tramping by, looking at us, but otherwise taking no notice of us, when a man who wore a sword and appeared to be an officer, left the path and strode toward us, staring at me. He was a burly individual, with a high complexion; his age hard to determine, for he had so muffled himself for protection from the cold, and his breath had con- gealed upon his beard and even his eyebrows. He had a flashing, angry eye, and when near me he burst out;
"So, then, you too are here, are you? You couldn't bide your time?"
It seem a strange sort of greeting, and I suppose I reflected something of his evident irritation, for I said:
"Well, I am glad to have a definite recognition of my presence. As for . my being here, I take it I have as good a right as you."
"Rhode Islander-renegade," he shouted, "forever prating about your rights. Massachusetts Bay was well rid of you and all your heresies and sins against the Lord. That such a knavish lot should strive to filch their territory from the God-fearing men of Connecticut is no wonder, but that they should be allowed to keep it is a scandal. And even so, so great are the disorders raised by your pretty men of Providence and this Narragansett Country-your Pettaquamscutt purchasers and the rest, with their everlast- ing wrangles among themselves and with their neighbors, that the King's Province is here to show you could not be trusted to be a colony."
"You visit the sins of the fathers, if sins they were," I replied, "upon very far distant children when you so speak to me."
· "Evade it then," he cried, "evade it, of course. Because you happened to be born so late, try to take refuge in that. But, remember, you choose to be here ahead of your time, and you shall taste the consequences."
"There has been precious little choice on my part," I said, "but if the consequences are to see you on your famous march, I must say that I am not sorry to witness it. I shall do as Rhode Island did on that occasion --- · remain passive while you invade her territory and assault her friends."
He had given some evidence of being a violent and hasty person, but now I thought he would explode. He danced up and down in the snow, waved his arms and shook his fists and fairly bellowed at me, "Invade, forsooth, invade-" he choked in his wrath; "your territory, is it? Terri- tory you are in under false pretenses-where honest men are jailed, jailed I say, locked up like felons because they declare for Connecticut, yet as honest men they can do no otherwise than accept the authority of that Colony which you here would cheat of its lands, lawfully held and in the fear of God, by juggling your boundaries. So when you find one among you who abides by law and order straightway he is clapped into prison. They were a scurvy crew, I tell you, I who know them, they that followed old Roger Williams-fit. indeed to have such friends as these you claim.
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Rascally redskins, these your friends, varmints, savages, beasts, treacherous murderers; it is the Lord's work we do who go to slay them, tear them up root and branch. Praised be the Lord."
What more this pious excited gentleman might have poured forth, I do not know; purple in the face and out of breath, he paused, and just then I saw that a man upon a horse was spurring past the marching line, appar- ently to pass to its head. He turned his horse and riding up to us, called out, "Come, Captain Church, enough. You have been both fighting with your enemies and quarreling with your friends, ahead of you in the Direful Swamp. Waste no more of your breath here." And without another word, but casting at me a surly glance, Church the Indian-Killer turned and walked away.
I bowed to the commander, who returned the salutation gravely and said, "Sir, you judge harshly men whose work is to make your country such that you may live in it. In your own day, look about you, and if you find naught but peace and truth and universal justice, then condemn us without mercy. Good-day, sir." He did not wait for any reply from me, and indeed I think it might not have been easy to make one. But he looked and spoke like one with whom good talk on interesting questions might have been held, so I should have been sorry to see him go had not the cold by this time so gripped me as to be painful. Had it not been for the fire, I should have been hard put to it, for I was not warmly clad. As I saw the last of the party from the United Colonies pass out of my sight I thought that the simple statement in their record, that "we lay out all that night at Pettisquamscutt' was worth more attention than I had ever given it. That was not far from here; was evening coming on? I had no way of telling, under so dull a sky, and I looked at the old Indian. Upon his face was a smile, so quizzical that I needed no words from him to tell me his thoughts.
Presently he faced about toward the pond, saying "There is another side to the picture. Look at it before the light goes, for night will soon be here. See down there, across the pond;" he pointed with his long arm; "through that hollow in the hillside, just to the left of the big pine -- do you see a little clearing?"
"Yes," I said, "at the edge of the pond, in the woods."
"That is it. And you see smoke rising there; now if you look closely you can make out a little hut under the trees, from which the smoke comes." I could just see the tiny building hidden among the trees.
"By that fireside," said the Sachem, "is one who carries a great price upon his head," and when I looked my query he went on, "Whailey they call him, and there have been those who named him 'Regicide'."
"Ah, yes," I said, " I have heard that story. But it has never been known that he was one of the King's judges. At most he would appear to have been one of those, who, in the discharge of their duty, carried out the sentence. And even that is by no means sure."
"However that may be," he answered, "enough of rumor and secrecy has gathered round him to make him a marked man. A little word would have brought imprisonment and perhaps death upon him. But amid all their fierce dissension, no man, whether of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut or this King's Province, has ever spoken that word. And so in
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safety he has lived and his bones lie quiet in the Nipmuc country just above us."
I looked at the little refuge of this man about whom is so much of mystery, whether or no he was a fugitive from the vengeance of a king, and thought of the dark loneliness of his life and what may have been its long anxiety, for he lived to be very old, he who had lived gently and among great things, this nephey of the Protector-then compelled to pass into furtive secrecy amid such lonely, wild surroundings. But the light faded rapidly and soon I could see no more at that distance. There was silence between us for a space, and, thoughtful myself, I could see that the old man was wrapped in his own reflections. At last he spoke again;
"We have spoken of the execution of a king. You may not give such a title to one of my people, and yet, what is it makes a king? Is it to be at the head of his nation; to be their leader in peace and in war; to be loyal to them; to suffer for them and at last, bearing himself nobly, to die for them? You need not answer me, but you shall see now what mortal eyes have never beheld."
He threw some more wood upon the fire, which blazed up brightly, sending a fountain of sparks straight into the darkness, for the wind had ceased. But with the calm and the coming of night, the cold had grown more intense and though the renewed fire was now giving forth a most comforting glow, it occurred to me that it could not last very long; in fact I found myself more preoccupied with this prospective condition than with his mysterious promise. But by now I was pretty well convinced that sug- gestions from me were out of place, and so I abandoned myself to the sense of well-being that the flames brought to me. Their flickering light showed with clear distinctness the little near-by bushes sticking up out of the snow, and the crisp tracks of those who had lately trampled it, but beyond that narrow foreground all was darkness, save when some sudden burst of flames caused a clump of the more distant birches to appear for an instant only in the deep surrounding gloom. Hotter and hotter grew the fire, and as I half sat, half lay, with my back to it, watching the play of its light upon the snow and the delicate complex pattern of shadows cast by the innumerable twigs, drowsiness stole over me. All about me grew dim and indistinct, as I passed into the pleasant borderland between sleep and waking. But I did not actually cross that border, though I became oblivious to the passage of time. I do not know how it was that I first grew con- scious of a changing condition, which in my befuddled dozing I vaguely laid to the warmth of the fire; all I recollect is that the warmth became more pervading, and the light more generally diffused. The first thing that definitely fixed my attention and roused me into waking, was the singing of a bird. The limpid sweetness of that warbling was so entirely a contra- diction of the winter night that I sat up and opened wide my drooping eyelids-to see the fresh and tender beauty of a fair dawn in spring and to hear the chorus of a thousand pipings from little feathered throats. The snow was gone, the sky was a soft misty blue, rosy in the East with the coming sun.
Trees and bushes were no longer bare and pinched, mounting sap now coloring their bark and swelling them; the first burgeoning of early leaf. and flower clothed them with all the delicate ethereal flush of the new
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season, pink and golden-bronze and palest of fresh green; the maples wore their gay livery of crimson blooms, the shad-bush raised its graceful sprays of purest white. From the south a soft breeze gently strayed to us, bearing warmth and fragrance. The dewy freshness was a supernal thing-it was like a morning in the morning of time. I stood up and gazed upon it all- with such delight that I instinctively turned to my companion for a sym- pathetic sharing. There had come upon him such a look as forbade me to intrude by speech. He stood erect, straight as a tall pine and motionless as any statue. His eyes were fixed upon the woods in an intent, unwavering gaze, but for all their keenness they were also soft. The expression of his face was hard to read and I could only be sure that he was under some great emotion. There was surely expectation, there seemed to be tenderness, but above all there was pride-a great pride. Just as the first rays of the rising sun touched the tops of the trees with golden light, and the chorus of the birds filled every corner of the air, a figure appeared at the edge of the woods, advancing towards us-again it was an Indian, and as I soon saw, a chief. He approached with footsteps so silent that he seemed almost to be borne upon some current of the air, and when at the foot of the rock, stood still, looking straight into the eyes of the old Sachem, and apparently unconscious of my presence.
He was in truth a splendid creature, so tall that among tall men his height would have been noticed, with the physique of an athlete. He carried no weapon of any sort but that this was not due to oversight I gathered from the singular perfection of his raiment. His garments were of finest deer- skin, dressed to a creamy white and of spotless cleanliness; rich and intri- cate embroidery adorned them. From the long feathers at his head, which denoted his rank, to the gay moccasins upon his feet, all was new and of the finest quality. What held me fascinated, though, was neither the beauty of his attire nor of his person, for he was distinctly handsome, but the look of his face, which I can only describe as luminous. It was a stern face, even a hard one, and yet it seemed to shine as though lit by some internal glow, so that as he stood there in the exquisite morning radiance, amid the singing of the little birds, he was invested with a quality of light that made him part of all the lovely scene. For a little space he stood motionless, and then he made the great obeisance, with its sweeping gesture of the right arm, and in a low deep voice, singularly musical, he spoke.
"Father, bid me welcome, for I have come. All is over; in our last refuge we fought with them to the very end. Old men and young, women and children, died at their hands like flies in frost, and the freshet of their blood reddened the snowy swamp. Now our nation is striken down never to rise again. With the poor remnant of my people I journeyed far, seeking safety, but famine came upon us, and that they might not utterly perish, I set out again to find for them some corn. By the river at our northern boundary my enemies at last overtook me and I had to yield. They told me that I must die, and I so answered them as not to disgrace our line. Since then I have not spoken, until now that I come to you, to ask if I am worthy to enter your great Council of the Chiefs."
Canonicus stepped slowly down from the rock and stood face to face with the younger man. Then with a gesture of such gentleness and dignity
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as a Tintoretto or a Rembrandt might have portrayed, the old Sachem placed his hand upon the other's shoulder.
"Welcome from all of us I give you, child," he said. "In our Council in the haze there waits a seat for you, whom we well know to be worthy of it. In peace and in war you have borne yourself as a Chief and as a man, true to your word, faithful to your friends, careful of your people and brave before your enemies. After you there will come to us none worth such notice. Hail, then, last Great Sachem of our race."
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He ceased, and as the other, whom I knew to be his grandson Canon- chet, bowed his head, he in turn made the obeisance. When he flung out his arm he partly turned and cast upon the smoldering embers of our fire some substance from his hand. It looked like dried leaves, and there at once arose a little cloud of aromatic smoke, like incense, which floated be- tween me and their two figures, obscuring them. As it slowly cleared away, the old man was standing there alone, with the same rapt look upon his face.
In what I had just seen there had been so much of pathos and of inti- macy that I hestitated to break his revery with my voice, and so stood silent. But he presently turned to me, and asked, "You knew him?"
"Yes," I said, "Canonchet. He died bravely, as he had lived. I am glad that I have seen him."
"What you saw," said the Sachem, "was because of that. But what you saw was the shadow of a shade; it was thus that the spirit of my grandson came here to me, after his enemies had sent him to his death."
Aye, to a dog's death they sent him, those hard men to whom we of today owe so much, and who felt of him that he was "Heir of all his Father's Pride and Insolency, as well as of his Malice against the English." But it was no common man who made that answer to his captors, when they told him he must die: "I like it well. I shall die before my heart is soft, or I have said anything unworthy of mystelf," and then never opened his lips again.
"Those were rough days," I said, "when men put little check upon their bloody passions. It is hard for us now to judge them fairly. There are many things I would like to know, which it seems that you, from where you are, could tell me."
"You must learn what you can from what you see, and wait until you too have been set free, before you may understand it all. Now I think," he went on in a brisker way, "you have seen overmuch of mine and should see something more of your own. Come, we will walk a little, to another place."
I was loath to leave the rock and the opening in the woods, where I had been so held by an absorbing series of events, but of course I set out after him as he began to walk towards the trees. We followed the Pequot Path and entered the woods. The sun by now was high and it began to be very warm, and as it so often is at that season of the year, quite hot in woods that shut out the breeze but yet give little shade. As we passed along it grew warmer and even oppressive; after a while the Chief left the trail and turned off along a little path that was barely discernible and which led us into a dense thicket of evergreen. Here we had literally to push our .way among the close-growing branches and I became uncomfortably hot, and wished that we were out of it, but no opening appeared. Other trees
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and bushes, as well as vines, began to mix with the cedars, but we had been struggling for some time through the thick tangle before I noticed that the leaves were larger and green-in fact that the woods were in full leaf. It seemed somehow to be a perfectly natural result of the increasing heat and . I suppose that by now I had become so accustomed to the changes which had followed one another in quick succession that one like this was accepted almost as a matter of course. At any rate my interest was far less in the phenomena of rapid growth than in the discomfort of our progress. By-and- by, however, that progress grew easier, not that the foliage was any less dense, but that the path we were following had grown wider, and soon I saw that it had the well-known aspect of an old, overgrown rough lane. Grass, rocks and overhanging branches were all there, just as I had so often seen them, and then --- yes, there was no mistake, ruts that meant old cart-tracks. And so, in the same familiar way, we came to a bar-way in a stone fence, and beyond it, an open field. All but the season, which was not that in which I had set out-was it that morning, or what morning? -- it was of today. We stopped at the bar-way, and I looked over it. I saw a green field, surrounded by well-built stone walls. In it cattle were grazing. Directly opposite, across the field, stood a gambrel-roofed house, shingled and looking new. Near it was a large barn, and there were various out- buildings. Through a gate, I could see into the barnyard, where chickens, ducks and geese were feeding, and a yoke of great oxen stood. Voices of men came from the fields which stretched about the homestead. Every- where was the look of tidiness, prosperity and happy country life. At first sight there was nothing here that I recognized as familiar in this particu- lar place.
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