The amulet: A novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

In the meantime the days dragged slowly by at Fort Prince George. The snow lay on the ground with that persistence which the weather-wise interpret as a waiting for another fall. All out-of-door diversions were interdicted. Sleighing was not to be essayed, for it was considered unsafe to venture beyond the range of the guns. There was no ice for curling. Save for the boisterous sport of the rank and file hurling snow-balls at each other about the parade, when the fall was fresh and the novelty an appeal to idleness, the storm had brought none of its characteristic pastimes.

There was a rumor heard in Keowee Town of a blockade higher up in the mountains, where the fall had been of unprecedented depth. It became bruited abroad somehow,—not that aught had been disclosed of the fact,—perhaps by subtle intuition, perhaps only because the circumstances warranted the surmise, that Captain Howard was extremely uneasy as to the progress and fate of Ensign Raymond and his soldiers. Now and again an Indian straggling from some party out on “the winter hunt” came in at Fort Prince George with a story of having met the detachment in the wilderness. He would be eagerly welcomed by Captain Howard, regaled with French brandy and roast beef to loosen his tongue, the fraud discovered only when too late, the man’s description of the personnel of the force, elicited under keen inquisition, failing to tally with the facts in a single particular. It was impossible for Captain Howard to set his mind at ease in the assurance that all were well and progressing finely, when the commander was described as a beautiful old man in buck-skin with a long white beard, or a squat fat man with a big stomach, and a red face, and a splendid bag-wig. The fumes of the brandy and the beef penetrated far beyond the gates of Fort Prince George, for rumor diffused and extended the aroma, and Indian idlers made their racial craft and tact serve the simple purpose of refreshing their inner man at the government’s expense by the simple expedient of professing to have seen Ensign Raymond in the mountains commanding Captain Howard’s soldiers. So anxious for news did he become that he seemed to have lost his normal suspicion, and on each occasion he returned to his hope of trustworthy information with an eager precipitancy that made him an easy prey.

Mervyn watched with cynical secret amusement this exhibition of vacillating character, as he deemed it. Why had Captain Howard despatched the detachment if he straightway wanted it back again, he demanded of himself. He was fond of observing from an outside standpoint the perplexity and the floundering mistakes of other men, especially his superiors in military rank, with the inner conviction how much more efficiently he could have discharged his obligations and disposed of the matter were he in their position. It was perhaps because of mental exercitations of this nature that he did not respond with the genial endorsement of the commandant’s course which Captain Howard obviously expected and coveted, when he said one evening as they sat in the parlor before the fire, after dinner, entirely apropos of nothing:—

“This snow-storm, now—I couldn’t possibly have foreseen this.”

He lifted his eyes, his bushy brows bent, and fixed them on Mervyn’s face interrogatively, yet with a certain challenge of denial.

“Well, sir,” Mervyn hesitated, primly, judicially, “I have never thought the backbone of the winter broken as yet.”

“Gad, sir—why didn’t you say so?” snapped Captain Howard. “If you are such a weather-prophet as to have foreseen a fall of twenty-six inches,—a thing never heard of before in this region,—why didn’t you give me the benefit of your wisdom?”

“Oh, sir,” said Mervyn, and there was rebuke even in his temperate voice, and his expression was calmly disclaiming, “I did not foresee the depth of the fall, of course. And it would ill become me to offer advice to an officer of your experience. I only thought the winter not fairly ended.”

Despite the chill in the outer air, the flowers seemed blooming in royal profusion in Arabella’s tambour-frame. She was constantly busy with the particolored skeins in these dark days, scarcely ever lifting her eyes as she listened. Now she sat close to the table for the sake of the light from the candles in the two tall candle-sticks. She had paused to thread her needle, and glanced up.

“The snow, papa, is out of all reasonable expectation—both as to season and depth. You must know that. You couldn’t doubt it, except for your over-anxious sense of responsibility for the safety of the expedition. Lord, sir, nobody ever heard, as you say, of such a snow.”