"So you see, Euan, that the half naked little gypsy of Poundridge camp comes not entirely shameless to her husband after all. Oh, my own soldier, hasten—hasten! Every day I hear drums in Albany streets and run out to see; every evening I sit with my mother on the stoop and watch the river redden in the sunset. Over the sandy plains of pines comes blowing the wind of the Western wilderness. I feel its breath on my cheek, faintly frosty, and wonder if the same wind had also touched your dear face ere it blew east to me."
Often I read this letter on the march to the Hudson; ever wondering at the history of this sweet mistress of my affections, marvelling at its mystery, its wonders, and eternally amazed at this young girl's courage, her loyalty and chaste devotion.
I remember one day when we were halted at a cavalry camp, not far from the Hudson, conversing with three soldiers—Van Campen, Perry, and Paul Sanborn, they being the three men who first discovered poor Boyd's body; and then noticed me a-digging in the earth with bleeding fingers and a broken blade.
And they knew the history of Lois, and how she had dressed her in rifle-dress, and how she had come to French Catharines. And they told me that in the cavalry camp there was talk of a young English girl, not yet sixteen, who had clipped her hair, tied it in a queue, powdered it, donned jack-boots, belt, and helmet, and come across the seas enlisted in a regiment of British Horse, with the vague idea of seeking her lover who had gone to America with his regiment.
Further, they told me that, until taken by our men in a skirmish, her own comrades had not suspected her sex; that she was a slim, boyish, pretty thing; that His Excellency had caused inquiry to be made; and that it had been discovered that her lover was serving in Sir John's regiment of Royal Greens.
This was a true story, it seemed; and that very morning His Excellency had sent her North to Haldimand with a flag, offering her every courtesy and civility and recommendation within his power.
Which pretty history left me very thoughtful, revealing as it did to me that my own heart's mistress was not the solitary and bright exception in a sex which, like other men, I had deemed inferior in every virile and mental virtue, and only spiritually superior to my own. And I remembered the proud position of social and political equality enjoyed by the women of the Long House; and vaguely thought it was possible that in this matter the Iroquois Confederacy was even more advanced in civilization than the white nations, who regarded its inhabitants as debased and brutal savages.
In three months I had seen an Empire crash to the ground; already in the prophetic and visionary eyes of our ragged soldiery, a mightier empire was beginning to crumble under the blasts from the blackened muzzles of our muskets. Soon kings would live only in the tales of yesterday, and the unending thunder of artillery would die away, and the clouds would break above the smoky field, revealing as our very own all we had battled for so long—the right to live our lives in freedom, self-respect, and happiness.
And I wondered whether generations not yet born would pay to us the noble tribute which the sons of the Long House so often and reverently offered to the dead who had made for them their League of Peace—alas! now shattered for all time.
And in my ears the deep responses seemed to sound, solemnly and low, as the uncorrupted priesthood chanted at Thendara: