T.S. Arthur - "Home Scenes, and Home Influence"

Fergus Hume (1859 1932) - "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab"

E. P. Roe - "Nature's Serial Story"

A. Merritt - "The Moon Pool"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Hidden Children

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> The Hidden Children



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The Hidden Children

by Robert W. Chambers, 1914


TO MY MOTHER

Whatever merit may lie in this book is due to her wisdom, her sympathy
and her teaching


AUTHOR'S PREFACE

No undue liberties with history have been attempted in this romance.
Few characters in the story are purely imaginary. Doubtless the
fastidious reader will distinguish these intruders at a glance, and
very properly ignore them. For they, and what they never were, and
what they never did, merely sugar-coat a dose disguised, and gild the
solid pill of fact with tinselled fiction.

But from the flames of Poundridge town ablaze, to the rolling smoke of
Catharines-town, Romance but limps along a trail hewed out for her
more dainty feet by History, and measured inch by inch across the
bloody archives of the nation.

The milestones that once marked that dark and dreadful trail were dead
men, red and white. Today a spider-web of highways spreads over that
Dark Empire of the League, enmeshing half a thousand towns now all
a-buzz by day and all a-glow by night.

Empire, League, forest, are vanished; of the nations which formed the
Confederacy only altered fragments now remain. But their memory and
their great traditions have not perished; cities, mountains, valleys,
rivers, lakes, and ponds are endowed with added beauty from the lovely
names they wear-- a tragic yet a charming legacy from Kanonsis and
Kanonsionni, the brave and mighty people of the Long House, and those
outside its walls who helped to prop or undermine it, Huron and
Algonquin.

Perhaps of all national alliances ever formed, the Great Peace, which
is called the League of the Iroquois, was as noble as any. For it was
a league formed solely to impose peace. Those who took up arms against
the Long House were received as allies when conquered-- save only the
treacherous Cat Nation, or Eries, who were utterly annihilated by the
knife and hatchet or by adoption and ultimate absorption in the Seneca
Nation.

As for the Lenni-Lenape, when they kept faith with the League they
remained undisturbed as one of the "props" of the Long House, and
their role in the Confederacy was embassadorial, diplomatic and
advisory-- in other words, the role of the Iroquois married women. And
in the Confederacy the position of women was one of importance and
dignity, and they exercised a franchise which no white nation has ever
yet accorded to its women.

But when the Delawares broke faith, then the lash fell and the term
"women" as applied to them carried a very different meaning when spat
out by Canienga lips or snarled by Senecas.

Yet, of the Lenape, certain tribes, offshoots, and clans remained
impassive either to Iroquois threats or proffered friendship. They,
like certain lithe, proud forest animals to whom restriction means
death, were untamable. Their necks could endure no yoke, political or
purely ornamental. And so they perished far from the Onondaga
firelight, far from the open doors of the Long House, self-exiled,
self-sufficient, irreconcilable, and foredoomed. And of these the
Mohicans were the noblest.

In the four romances-- of which, though written last of all, this is
the third, chronologically speaking-- the author is very conscious of
error and shortcoming. But the theme was surely worth attempting; and
if the failure to convince be only partial then is the writer grateful
to the Fates, and well content to leave it to the next and better man.

BROADALBIN,

Early Spring, 1913.
_________________________________________________________________

NOTE

During the serial publication of "The Hidden Children" the author
received the following interesting letters relating to the authorship
of the patriotic verses quoted in Chapter X., These letters are
published herewith for the general reader as well as for students of
American history.

R. W. C.


149 WEST EIGHTY-EIGHTH STREET,

NEW YORK CITY.

MRS. HELEN DODGE KNEELAND:

DEAR MADAM: Some time ago I accidentally came across the verses
written by Samuel Dodge and used by R. W. Chambers in story "Hidden
Children." I wrote to him, inviting him to come and look at the
original manuscript, which has come down to me from my mother, whose
maiden name was Helen Dodge Cocks, a great-granddaughter of Samuel
Dodge, of Poughkeepsie, the author of them.

So far Mr. Chambers has not come, but he answered my note, inclosing
your note to him. I have written to him, suggesting that he insert a
footnote giving the authorship of the verses, that it would gratify
the descendants of Samuel Dodge, as well as be a tribute to a
patriotic citizen.

These verses have been published a number of times. About three years
ago by chance I read them in the December National Magazine, p. 247
(Boston), entitled "A Revolutionary Puzzle," and stating that the
author was unknown. Considering it my duty to place the honor where it
belonged, I wrote to the editor, giving the facts, which he
courteously published in the September number, 1911, p. 876.

Should you be in New York any time, I will take pleasure in showing
you the original manuscripts.

Very truly yours,

ROBERT S. MORRIS, M.D.


MR. ROBERT CHAMBERS,

New York.

DEAR SIR: I have not replied to your gracious letter, as I relied upon
Dr. Morris to prove to you the authorship of the verses you used in
your story of "The Hidden Children." I now inclose a letter from him,
hoping that you will carry out his suggestion. Is it asking too much
for you to insert a footnote in the next magazine or in the story when
it comes out in book form? I think with Dr. Morris that this should be
done as a "tribute to a patriotic citizen."

Trusting that you will appreciate the interest we have shown in this
matter, I am

Sincerely yours,

HELEN DODGE KNEELAND.

May 21st, 1914.

Ann Arbor, Michigan.

MRS. FRANK G. KNEELAND,

727 E. University Avenue.
_________________________________________________________________

THE LONG HOUSE


"Onenh jatthondek sewarih-wisa-anongh-kwe kaya-renh-kowah!
Onenh wa-karigh-wa-kayon-ne.
Onenh ne okne joska-wayendon.
Yetsi-siwan-enyadanion ne
Sewari-wisa-anonqueh."


"Now listen, ye who established the Great League!
Now it has become old.
Now there is nothing but wilderness.
Ye are in your graves who established it."

"At the Wood's Edge."
_________________________________________________________________

NENE KARENNA


When the West kindles red and low,
Across the sunset's sombre glow,
The black crows fly-- the black crows fly!
High pines are swaying to and fro
In evil winds that blow and blow.
The stealthy dusk draws nigh-- draws nigh,
Till the sly sun at last goes down,
And shadows fall on Catharines-town.


Oswaya swaying to and fro.


By the Dark Empire's Western gate
Eight stately, painted Sachems wait
For Amochol-- for Amochol!
Hazel and samphire consecrate
The magic blaze that burns like Hate,
While the deep witch-drums roll-- and roll.
Sorceress, shake thy dark hair down!
The Red Priest comes from Catharines-town.


Ha-ai! Karenna! Fate is Fate.


Now let the Giants clothed in stone
Stalk from Biskoonah; while, new grown,
The Severed Heads fly high-- fly high!
White-throat, White-throat, thy doom is known!
O Blazing Soul that soars alone
Like a Swift Arrow to the sky,
High winging-- fling thy Wampum down,
Lest the sky fall on Catharines-town.


White-throat, White-throat, thy course is flown.

R. W. C.
_________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER I

THE BEDFORD ROAD

In the middle of the Bedford Road we three drew bridle. Boyd lounged
in his reeking saddle, gazing at the tavern and at what remained of
the tavern sign, which seemed to have been a new one, yet now dangled
mournfully by one hinge, shot to splinters.

The freshly painted house itself, marred with buckshot, bore dignified
witness to the violence done it. A few glazed windows still remained
unbroken; the remainder had been filled with blue paper such as comes
wrapped about a sugar cone, so that the misused house seemed to be
watching us out of patched and battered eyes.

It was evident, too, that a fire had been wantonly set at the
northeast angle of the house, where sill and siding were deeply
charred from baseboard to eaves.

Nor had this same fire happened very long since, for under the eaves
white-faced hornets were still hard at work repairing their partly
scorched nest. And I silently pointed them out to Lieutenant Boyd.

"Also," he nodded, "I can still smell the smoky wood. The damage is
fresh enough. Look at your map."

He pushed his horse straight up to the closed door, continuing to
examine the dismantled sign which hung motionless, there being no wind
stirring.

"This should be Hays's Tavern," he said, "unless they lied to us at
Ossining. Can you make anything of the sign, Mr. Loskiel?"

"Nothing, sir. But we are on the highway to Poundridge, for behind us
lies the North Castle Church road. All is drawn on my map as we see it
here before us; and this should be the fine dwelling of that great
villain Holmes, now used as a tavern by Benjamin Hays."

"Rap on the door," said Boyd; and our rifleman escort rode forward and
drove his rifle-butt at the door, "There's a man hiding within and
peering at us behind the third window," I whispered.

"I see him," said Boyd coolly.

Through the heated silence around us we could hear the hornets buzzing
aloft under the smoke-stained eaves. There was no other sound in the
July sunshine.

The solemn tavern stared at us out of its injured eyes, and we three
men of the Northland gazed back as solemnly, sobered once more to
encounter the trail of the Red Beast so freshly printed here among the
pleasant Westchester hills.

And to us the silent house seemed to say: "Gentlemen, gentlemen! Look
at the plight I'm in-- you who come from the blackened North!" And
with never a word of lip our heavy thoughts responded: "We know, old
house! We know! But at least you still stand; and in the ashes of our
Northland not a roof or a spire remains aloft between the dwelling of
Deborah Glenn and the ford at the middle fort."

Boyd broke silence with an effort; and his voice was once more cool
and careless, if a little forced:

"So it's this way hereabouts, too," he said with a shrug and a sign to
me to dismount. Which I did stiffly; and our rifleman escort scrambled
from his sweatty saddle and gathered all three bridles in his mighty,
sunburnt fist.

"Either there is a man or a ghost within," I said again, "Whatever it
is has moved."

"A man," said Boyd, "or what the inhumanity of man has left of him."

And it was true, for now there came to the door and opened it a thin
fellow wearing horn spectacles, who stood silent and cringing before
us. Slowly rubbing his workworn hands, he made us a landlord's bow as
listless and as perfunctory as ever I have seen in any ordinary. But
his welcome was spoken in a whisper.

"God have mercy on this house," said Boyd loudly. "Now, what's amiss,
friend? Is there death within these honest walls, that you move about
on tiptoe?"

"There is death a-plenty in Westchester, sir," said the man, in a
voice as colorless as his drab smalls and faded hair. Yet what he said
showed us that he had noted our dress, too, and knew us for strangers.

"Cowboys and skinners, eh?" inquired Boyd, unbuckling his belt.

"And leather-cape, too, sir."

My lieutenant laughed, showing his white teeth; laid belt, hatchet,
and heavy knife on a wine-stained table, and placed his rifle against
it. Then, slipping cartridge sack, bullet pouch, and powder horn from
his shoulders, stood eased, yawning and stretching his fine, powerful
frame.

"I take it that you see few of our corps here below," he observed
indulgently.

The landlord's lack-lustre eyes rested on me for an instant, then on
Boyd:

"Few, sir."

"Do you know the uniform, landlord?"

"Rifles," he said indifferently.

"Yes, but whose, man? Whose?" insisted Boyd impatiently.

The other shook his head.

"Morgan's!" exclaimed Boyd loudly. "Damnation, sir! You should know
Morgan's! Sixth Company, sir; Major Parr! And a likelier regiment and
a better company never wore green thrums on frock or coon-tail on
cap!"

"Yes, sir," said the man vacantly.

Boyd laughed a little:

"And look that you hint as much to the idle young bucks hereabouts--
say it to some of your Westchester squirrel hunters----" He laid his
hand on the landlord's shoulder. "There's a good fellow," he added,
with that youthful and winning smile which so often carried home with
it his reckless will-- where women were concerned-- "we're down from
Albany and we wish the Bedford folk to know it. And if the gallant
fellows hereabout desire a taste of true glory-- the genuine article--
why, send them to me, landlord-- Thomas Boyd, of Derry, Pennsylvania,
lieutenant, 6th company of Morgan's-- or to my comrade here, Mr.
Loskiel, ensign in the same corps."

He clapped the man heartily on the shoulder and stood looking around
at the stripped and dishevelled room, his handsome head a little on
one side, as though in frankest admiration. And the worn and pallid
landlord gazed back at him with his faded, lack-lustre eyes-- eyes
that we both understood, alas-- eyes made dull with years of fear,
made old and hopeless with unshed tears, stupid from sleepless nights,
haunted with memories of all they had looked upon since His Excellency
marched out of the city to the south of us, where the red rag now
fluttered on fort and shipping from King's Bridge to the Hook.

Nothing more was said. Our landlord went away very quietly. An
hostler, presently appearing from somewhere, passed the broken
windows, and we saw our rifleman go away with him, leading the three
tired horses. We were still yawning and drowsing, stretched out in our
hickory chairs, and only kept awake by the flies, when our landlord
returned and set before us what food he had. The fare was scanty
enough, but we ate hungrily, and drank deeply of the fresh small beer
which he fetched in a Liverpool jug.

When we two were alone again, Boyd whispered:

"As well let them think we're here with no other object than
recruiting. And so we are, after a fashion; but neither this state nor
Pennsylvania is like to fill its quota here. Where is your map, once
more?"

I drew the coiled linen roll from the breast of my rifle shirt and
spread it out. We studied it, heads together.

"Here lies Poundridge," nodded Boyd, placing his finger on the spot so
marked. "Roads a-plenty, too. Well, it's odd, Loskiel, but in this
cursed, debatable land I feel more ill at ease than I have ever felt
in the Iroquois country."

"You are still thinking of our landlord's deathly face," I said.
"Lord! What a very shadow of true manhood crawls about this house!"

"Aye-- and I am mindful of every other face and countenance I have so
far seen in this strange, debatable land. All have in them something
of the same expression. And therein lies the horror of it all, Mr.
Loskiel God knows we expect to see deathly faces in the North, where
little children lie scalped in the ashes of our frontier-- where they
even scalp the family hound that guards the cradle. But here in this
sleepy, open countryside, with its gentle hills and fertile valleys,
broad fields and neat stone walls, its winding roads and orchards, and
every pretty farmhouse standing as though no war were in the land, all
seems so peaceful, so secure, that the faces of the people sicken me.
And ever I am asking myself, where lies this other hell on earth,
which only faces such as these could have looked upon?"

"It is sad," I said, under my breath. "Even when a lass smiles on us
it seems to start the tears in my throat."

"Sad! Yes, sir, it is. I supposed we had seen sufficient of human
degradation in the North not to come here to find the same cringing
expression stamped on every countenance. I'm sick of it, I tell you.
Why, the British are doing worse than merely filling their prisons
with us and scalping us with their savages! They are slowly but surely
marking our people, body and face and mind, with the cursed imprint of
slavery. They're stamping a nation's very features with the hopeless
lineaments of serfdom. It is the ineradicable scars of former slavery
that make the New Englander whine through his nose. We of the fighting
line bear no such marks, but the peaceful people are beginning to--
they who can do nothing except endure and suffer."

"It is not so everywhere," I said, "not yet, anyway."

"It is so in the North. And we have found it so since we entered the
'Neutral Ground.' Like our own people on the frontier, these
Westchester folk fear everybody. You yourself know how we have found
them. To every question they try to give an answer that may please; or
if they despair of pleasing they answer cautiously, in order not to
anger. The only sentiment left alive in them seems to be fear; all
else of human passion appears to be dead. Why, Loskiel, the very power
of will has deserted them; they are not civil to us, but obsequious;
not obliging but subservient. They yield with apathy and very quietly
what you ask, and what they apparently suppose is impossible for them
to retain. If you treat them kindly they receive it coldly, not
gratefully, but as though you were compensating them for evil done
them by you. Their countenances and motions have lost every trace of
animation. It is not serenity but apathy; every emotion, feeling,
thought, passion, which is not merely instinctive has fled their minds
forever. And this is the greatest crime that Britain has wrought upon
us." He struck the table lightly with doubled fist, "Mr. Loskiel," he
said, "I ask you-- can we find recruits for our regiment in such a
place as this? Damme, sir, but I think the entire land has lost its
manhood."

We sat staring out into the sunshine through a bullet-shattered
window.

"And all this country here seems so fair and peaceful," he murmured
half to himself, "so sweet and still and kindly to me after the
twilight of endless forests where men are done to death in the dusk.
But hell in broad sunshine is the more horrible."

"Look closer at this country," I said. "The highways are deserted and
silent, the very wagon ruts overgrown with grass. Not a scythe has
swung in those hay fields; the gardens that lie in the sun are but
tangles of weeds; no sheep stir on the hills, no cattle stand in these
deep meadows, no wagons pass, no wayfarers. It may be that the wild
birds are moulting, but save at dawn and for a few moments at sundown
they seem deathly silent to me."

He had relapsed again into his moody, brooding attitude, elbows on the
table, his handsome head supported by both hands. And it was not like
him to be downcast. After a while he smiled.

"Egad," he said, "it is too melancholy for me here in the open; and I
begin to long for the dusk of trees and for the honest scalp yell to
cheer me up. One knows what to expect in county Tryon-- but not here,
Loskiel-- not here."

"Our business here is like to be ended tomorrow," I remarked.

"Thank God for that," he said heartily, rising and buckling on his war
belt. He added: "As for any recruits we have been ordered to pick up
en passant, I see small chance of that accomplishment hereabout. Will
you summon the landlord, Mr. Loskiel?"

I discovered the man standing at the open door, his warn hands clasped
behind him, and staring stupidly at the cloudless sky. He followed me
back to the taproom, and we reckoned with him. Somehow, I thought he
had not expected to be paid a penny-- yet he did not thank us.

"Are you not Benjamin Hays?" inquired Boyd, carelessly retying his
purse.

The fellow seemed startled to hear his own name pronounced so loudly,
but answered very quietly that he was.

"This house belongs to a great villain, one James Holmes, does it
not?" demanded Boyd.

"Yes, sir," he whispered.

"How do you come to keep an ordinary here?"

"The town authorities required an ordinary. I took it in charge, as
they desired."

"Oh! Where is this rascal, Holmes?"

"Gone below, sir, some time since."

"I have heard so. Was he not formerly Colonel of the 4th regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"And deserted his men, eh? And they made him Lieutenant-Colonel below,
did they not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Colonel-- of what?" snarled Boyd in disgust.

"Of the Westchester Refugee Irregulars."

"Oh! Well, look out for him and his refugees. He'll be back here one
of these days, I'm thinking."

"He has been back."

"What did he do?"

The man said listlessly: "It was like other visits. They robbed,
tortured, and killed. Some they burnt with hot ashes, some they hung,
cut down, and hung again when they revived. Most of the sheep, cattle,
and horses were driven off. Last year thousands of bushels of fruit
decayed in the orchards; the ripened grain lay rotting where wind and
rain had laid it; no hay was cut, no grain milled."

"Was this done by the banditti from the lower party?"

"Yes, sir; and by the leather-caps, too. The leather-caps stood guard
while the Tories plundered and killed. It is usually that way, sir.
And our own renegades are as bad. We in Westchester have to entertain
them all."

"But they burn no houses?"

"Not yet, sir. They have promised to do so next time."

"Are there no troops here?"

"Yes, sir."

"What troops?"

"Colonel Thomas's Regiment and Sheldon's Horse and the Minute Men."

"Well, what the devil are they about to permit this banditti to
terrify and ravage a peaceful land?" demanded Boyd.

"The country is of great extent," said the man mildly. "It would
require many troops to cover it. And His Excellency has very, very
few."

"Yes," said Boyd, "that is true. We know how it is in the North-- with
hundreds of miles to guard and but a handful of men. And it must be
that way." He made no effort to throw off his seriousness and nodded
toward me with a forced smile. "I am twenty-two years of age," he
said, "and Mr. Loskiel here is no older, and we fully expect that when
we both are past forty we will still be fighting in this same old war.
Meanwhile," he added laughing, "every patriot should find some lass to
wed and breed the soldiers we shall require some sixteen years hence."

The man's smile was painful; he smiled because he thought we expected
it; and I turned away disheartened, ashamed, burning with a fierce
resentment against the fate that in three years had turned us into
what we were-- we Americans who had never known the lash-- we who had
never learned to fear a master.

Boyd said: "There is a gentleman, one Major Ebenezer Lockwood,
hereabouts. Do you know him?"

"No, sir."

"What? Why, that seems strange!"

The man's face paled, and he remained silent for a few moments. Then,
furtively, his eyes began for the hundredth time to note the details
of our forest dress, stealing stealthily from the fringe on legging
and hunting shirt to the Indian beadwork on moccasin and baldrick,
devouring every detail as though to convince himself. I think our
pewter buttons did it for him.

Boyd said gravely: "You seem to doubt us, Mr. Hays," and read in the
man's unsteady eyes distrust of everything on earth-- and little faith
in God.

"I do not blame you," said I gently. "Three years of hell burn deep."

"Yes," he said, "three years. And, as you say, sir, there was fire."

He stood quietly silent for a space, then, looking timidly at me, he
rolled back his sleeves, first one, then the other, to the shoulders.
Then he undid the bandages.

"What is all that?" asked Boyd harshly.

"The seal of the marauders, sir."

"They burnt you? God, man, you are but one living sore! Did any white
man do that to you?"

"With hot horse-shoes. It will never quite heal, they say."

I saw the lieutenant shudder. The only thing he ever feared was fire--
if it could be said of him that he feared anything. And he had told me
that, were he taken by the Iroquois, he had a pistol always ready to
blow out his brains.

Boyd had begun to pace the room, doubling and undoubling his nervous
fingers. The landlord replaced the oil-soaked rags, rolled down his
sleeves again, and silently awaited our pleasure.

"Why do you hesitate to tell us where we may find Major Lockwood?" I
asked gently.

For the first time the man looked me full in the face. And after a
moment I saw his expression alter. as though some spark-- something
already half dead within him was faintly reviving.