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12	None	Such was Welbeck's tale, listened to by me with an eagerness in which every faculty was absorbed. How adverse to my dreams were the incidents that had just been related! The curtain was lifted, and a scene of guilt and ignominy disclosed where my rash and inexperienced youth had suspected nothing but loftiness and magnanimity. For a while the wondrousness of this tale kept me from contemplating the consequences that awaited us. My unfledged fancy had not hitherto soared to this pitch. All was astounding by its novelty, or terrific by its horror. The very scene of these offences partook, to my rustic apprehension, of fairy splendour and magical abruptness. My understanding was bemazed, and my senses were taught to distrust their own testimony. From this musing state I was recalled by my companion, who said to me, in solemn accents, "Mervyn! I have but two requests to make. Assist me to bury these remains, and then accompany me across the river. I have no power to compel your silence on the acts that you have witnessed. I have meditated to benefit as well as to injure you; but I do not desire that your demeanour should conform to any other standard than justice. You have promised, and to that promise I trust. "If you choose to fly from this scene, to withdraw yourself from what you may conceive to be a theatre of guilt or peril, the avenues are open; retire unmolested and in silence. If you have a manlike spirit, if you are grateful for the benefits bestowed upon you, if your discernment enables you to see that compliance with my request will entangle you in no guilt and betray you into no danger, stay, and aid me in hiding these remains from human scrutiny. "Watson is beyond the reach of further injury. I never intended him harm, though I have torn from him his sister and friend, and have brought his life to an untimely close. To provide him a grave is a duty that I owe to the dead and to the living. I shall quickly place myself beyond the reach of inquisitors and judges, but would willingly rescue from molestation or suspicion those whom I shall leave behind." What would have been the fruit of deliberation, if I had had the time or power to deliberate, I know not. My thoughts flowed with tumult and rapidity. To shut this spectacle from my view was the first impulse; but to desert this man, in a time of so much need, appeared a thankless and dastardly deportment. To remain where I was, to conform implicitly to his direction, required no effort. Some fear was connected with his presence, and with that of the dead; but, in the tremulous confusion of my present thoughts, solitude would conjure up a thousand phantoms. I made no preparation to depart. I did not verbally assent to his proposal. He interpreted my silence into acquiescence. He wrapped the body in the carpet, and then, lifting one end, cast at me a look which indicated his expectations that I would aid him in lifting this ghastly burden. During this process, the silence was unbroken. I knew not whither he intended to convey the corpse. He had talked of burial, but no receptacle had been provided. How far safety might depend upon his conduct in this particular, I was unable to estimate. I was in too heartless a mood to utter my doubts. I followed his example in raising the corpse from the floor. He led the way into the passage and down-stairs. Having reached the first floor, he unbolted a door which led into the cellar. The stairs and passage were illuminated by lamps that hung from the ceiling and were accustomed to burn during the night. Now, however, we were entering darksome and murky recesses. "Return," said he, in a tone of command, "and fetch the light. I will wait for you." I obeyed. As I returned with the light, a suspicion stole into my mind, that Welbeck had taken this opportunity to fly; and that, on regaining the foot of the stairs, I should find the spot deserted by all but the dead. My blood was chilled by this image. The momentary resolution it inspired was to follow the example of the fugitive, and leave the persons whom the ensuing day might convene on this spot, to form their own conjectures as to the cause of this catastrophe. Meanwhile, I cast anxious eyes forward. Welbeck was discovered in the same place and posture in which he had been left. Lifting the corpse and its shroud in his arms, he directed me to follow him. The vaults beneath were lofty and spacious. He passed from one to the other till we reached a small and remote cell. Here he cast his burden on the ground. In the fall, the face of Watson chanced to be disengaged from its covering. Its closed eyes and sunken muscles were rendered in a tenfold degree ghastly and rueful by the feeble light which the candle shed upon it. This object did not escape the attention of Welbeck. He leaned against the wall, and, folding his arms, resigned himself to reverie. He gazed upon the countenance of Watson, but his looks denoted his attention to be elsewhere employed. As to me, my state will not be easily described. My eye roved fearfully from one object to another. By turns it was fixed upon the murdered person and the murderer. The narrow cell in which we stood, its rudely-fashioned walls and arches, destitute of communication with the external air, and its palpable dark scarcely penetrated by the rays of a solitary candle, added to the silence which was deep and universal, produced an impression on my fancy which no time will obliterate. Perhaps my imagination was distempered by terror. The incident which I am going to relate may appear to have existed only in my fancy. Be that as it may, I experienced all the effects which the fullest belief is adapted to produce. Glancing vaguely at the countenance of Watson, my attention was arrested by a convulsive motion in the eyelids. This motion increased, till at length the eyes opened, and a glance, languid but wild, was thrown around. Instantly they closed, and the tremulous appearance vanished. I started from my place and was on the point of uttering some involuntary exclamation. At the same moment, Welbeck seemed to recover from his reverie. "How is this?" said he. "Why do we linger here? Every moment is precious. We cannot dig for him a grave with our hands. Wait here, while I go in search of a spade." Saying this, he snatched the candle from my hand, and hasted away. My eye followed the light as its gleams shifted their place upon the walls and ceilings, and, gradually vanishing, gave place to unrespited gloom. This proceeding was so unexpected and abrupt, that I had no time to remonstrate against it. Before I retrieved the power of reflection, the light had disappeared and the footsteps were no longer to be heard. I was not, on ordinary occasions, destitute of equanimity; but perhaps the imagination of man is naturally abhorrent of death, until tutored into indifference by habit. Every circumstance combined to fill me with shuddering and panic. For a while, I was enabled to endure my situation by the exertions of my reason. That the lifeless remains of a human being are powerless to injure or benefit, I was thoroughly persuaded. I summoned this belief to my aid, and was able, if not to subdue, yet to curb, my fears. I listened to catch the sound of the returning footsteps of Welbeck, and hoped that every new moment would terminate my solitude. No signal of his coming was afforded. At length it occurred to me that Welbeck had gone with no intention to return; that his malice had seduced me hither to encounter the consequences of his deed. He had fled and barred every door behind him. This suspicion may well be supposed to overpower my courage, and to call forth desperate efforts for my deliverance. I extended my hands and went forward. I had been too little attentive to the situation and direction of these vaults and passages, to go forward with undeviating accuracy. My fears likewise tended to confuse my perceptions and bewilder my steps. Notwithstanding the danger of encountering obstructions, I rushed towards the entrance with precipitation. My temerity was quickly punished. In a moment, I was repelled by a jutting angle of the wall, with such force that I staggered backward and fell. The blow was stunning, and, when I recovered my senses, I perceived that a torrent of blood was gushing from my nostrils. My clothes were moistened with this unwelcome effusion, and I could not but reflect on the hazard which I should incur by being detected in this recess, covered by these accusing stains. This reflection once more set me on my feet and incited my exertions. I now proceeded with greater wariness and caution. I had lost all distinct notions of my way. My motions were at random. All my labour was to shun obstructions and to advance whenever the vacuity would permit. By this means, the entrance was at length found, and, after various efforts, I arrived, beyond my hopes, at the foot of the staircase. I ascended, but quickly encountered an insuperable impediment. The door at the stair-head was closed and barred. My utmost strength was exerted in vain, to break the lock or the hinges. Thus were my direst apprehensions fulfilled. Welbeck had left me to sustain the charge of murder; to obviate suspicions the most atrocious and plausible that the course of human events is capable of producing. Here I must remain till the morrow; till some one can be made to overhear my calls and come to my deliverance. What effects will my appearance produce on the spectator? Terrified by phantoms and stained with blood, shall I not exhibit the tokens of a maniac as well as an assassin? The corpse of Watson will quickly be discovered. If, previous to this disclosure, I should change my blood-stained garments and withdraw into the country, shall I not be pursued by the most vehement suspicions, and, perhaps, hunted to my obscurest retreat by the ministers of justice? I am innocent; but my tale, however circumstantial or true, will scarcely suffice for my vindication. My flight will be construed into a proof of incontestable guilt. While harassed by these thoughts, my attention was attracted by a faint gleam cast upon the bottom of the staircase. It grew stronger, hovered for a moment in my sight, and then disappeared. That it proceeded from a lamp or candle, borne by some one along the passages, was no untenable opinion, but was far less probable than that the effulgence was meteorous. I confided in the latter supposition, and fortified myself anew against the dread of preternatural dangers. My thoughts reverted to the contemplation of the hazards and suspicions which flowed from my continuance in this spot. In the midst of my perturbed musing, my attention was again recalled by an illumination like the former. Instead of hovering and vanishing, it was permanent. No ray could be more feeble; but the tangible obscurity to which it succeeded rendered it conspicuous as an electrical flash. For a while I eyed it without moving from my place, and in momentary expectation of its disappearance. Remarking its stability, the propriety of scrutinizing it more nearly, and of ascertaining the source whence it flowed, was at length suggested. Hope, as well as curiosity, was the parent of my conduct. Though utterly at a loss to assign the cause of this appearance, I was willing to believe some connection between that cause and the means of my deliverance. I had scarcely formed the resolution of descending the stair, when my hope was extinguished by the recollection that the cellar had narrow and grated windows, through which light from the street might possibly have found access. A second recollection supplanted this belief, for in my way to this staircase my attention would have been solicited, and my steps, in some degree, been guided, by light coming through these avenues. Having returned to the bottom of the stair, I perceived every part of the long-drawn passage illuminated. I threw a glance forward to the quarter whence the rays seemed to proceed, and beheld, at a considerable distance, Welbeck in the cell which I had left, turning up the earth with a spade. After a pause of astonishment, the nature of the error which I had committed rushed upon my apprehension. I now perceived that the darkness had misled me to a different staircase from that which I had originally descended. It was apparent that Welbeck intended me no evil, but had really gone in search of the instrument which he had mentioned. This discovery overwhelmed me with contrition and shame, though it freed me from the terrors of imprisonment and accusation. To return to the cell which I had left, and where Welbeck was employed in his disastrous office, was the expedient which regard to my own safety unavoidably suggested. Welbeck paused, at my approach, and betrayed a momentary consternation at the sight of my ensanguined visage. The blood, by some inexplicable process of nature, perhaps by the counteracting influence of fear, had quickly ceased to flow. Whether the cause of my evasion, and of my flux of blood, was guessed, or whether his attention was withdrawn, by more momentous objects, from my condition, he proceeded in his task in silence. A shallow bed and a slight covering of clay were provided for the hapless Watson. Welbeck's movements were hurried and tremulous. His countenance betokened a mind engrossed by a single purpose, in some degree foreign to the scene before him. An intensity and fixedness of features were conspicuous, that led me to suspect the subversion of his reason. Having finished the task, he threw aside his implement. He then put into my hand a pocket-book, saying it belonged to Watson, and might contain something serviceable to the living. I might make what use of it I thought proper. He then remounted the stairs, and, placing the candle on a table in the hall, opened the principal door and went forth. I was driven, by a sort of mechanical impulse, in his footsteps. I followed him because it was agreeable to him and because I knew not whither else to direct my steps. The streets were desolate and silent. The watchman's call, remotely and faintly heard, added to the general solemnity. I followed my companion in a state of mind not easily described. I had no spirit even to inquire whither he was going. It was not till we arrived at the water's edge that I persuaded myself to break silence. I then began to reflect on the degree in which his present schemes might endanger Welbeck or myself. I had acted long enough a servile and mechanical part; and been guided by blind and foreign impulses. It was time to lay aside my fetters, and demand to know whither the path tended in which I was importuned to walk. Meanwhile I found myself entangled among boats and shipping. I am unable to describe the spot by any indisputable tokens. I know merely that it was the termination of one of the principal streets. Here Welbeck selected a boat and prepared to enter it. For a moment I hesitated to comply with his apparent invitation. I stammered out an interrogation:--"Why is this? Why should we cross the river? What service can I do for you? I ought to know the purpose of my voyage before I enter it." He checked himself and surveyed me for a minute in silence. "What do you fear?" said he. "Have I not explained my wishes? Merely cross the river with me, for I cannot navigate a boat by myself. Is there any thing arduous or mysterious in this undertaking? we part on the Jersey shore, and I shall leave you to your destiny. All I shall ask from you will be silence, and to hide from mankind what you know concerning me." He now entered the boat and urged me to follow his example. I reluctantly complied, I perceived that the boat contained but one oar, and that was a small one. He seemed startled and thrown into great perplexity by this discovery. "It will be impossible," said he, in a tone of panic and vexation, "to procure another at this hour: what is to be done?" This impediment was by no means insuperable. I had sinewy arms, and knew well how to use an oar for the double purpose of oar and rudder. I took my station at the stern, and quickly extricated the boat from its neighbours and from the wharves. I was wholly unacquainted with the river. The bar by which it was encumbered I knew to exist, but in what direction and to what extent it existed, and how it might be avoided in the present state of the tide, I knew not. It was probable, therefore, unknowing as I was of the proper track, that our boat would speedily have grounded. My attention, meanwhile, was fixed upon the oar. My companion sat at the prow, and was in a considerable degree unnoticed. I cast my eyes occasionally at the scene which I had left. Its novelty, joined with the incidents of my condition, threw me into a state of suspense and wonder which frequently slackened my hand and left the vessel to be driven by the downward current. Lights were sparingly seen, and these were perpetually fluctuating, as masts, yards, and hulls were interposed, and passed before them. In proportion as we receded from the shore, the clamours seemed to multiply, and the suggestion that the city was involved in confusion and uproar did not easily give way to maturer thoughts. _Twelve_ was the hour cried, and this ascended at once from all quarters, and was mingled with the baying of dogs, so as to produce trepidation and alarm. From this state of magnificent and awful feeling I was suddenly called by the conduct of Welbeck. We had scarcely moved two hundred yards from the shore, when he plunged into the water. The first conception was that some implement or part of the boat had fallen over-board. I looked back and perceived that his seat was vacant. In my first astonishment I loosened my hold of the oar, and it floated away. The surface was smooth as glass, and the eddy occasioned by his sinking was scarcely visible. I had not time to determine whether this was designed or accidental. Its suddenness deprived me of the power to exert myself for his succour. I wildly gazed around me, in hopes of seeing him rise. After some time my attention was drawn, by the sound of agitation in the water, to a considerable distance. It was too dark for any thing to be distinctly seen. There was no cry for help. The noise was like that of one vigorously struggling for a moment, and then sinking to the bottom. I listened with painful eagerness, but was unable to distinguish a third signal. He sunk to rise no more. I was for a time inattentive to my own situation. The dreadfulness and unexpectedness of this catastrophe occupied me wholly. The quick motion of the lights upon the shore showed me that I was borne rapidly along with the tide. How to help myself, how to impede my course or to regain either shore, since I had lost the oar, I was unable to tell. I was no less at a loss to conjecture whither the current, if suffered to control my vehicle, would finally transport me. The disappearance of lights and buildings, and the diminution of the noises, acquainted me that I had passed the town. It was impossible longer to hesitate. The shore was to be regained by one way only, which was swimming. To any exploit of this kind, my strength and my skill were adequate. I threw away my loose gown; put the pocket-book of the unfortunate Watson in my mouth, to preserve it from being injured by moisture; and committed myself to the stream. I landed in a spot incommoded with mud and reeds. I sunk knee-deep into the former, and was exhausted by the fatigue of extricating myself. At length I recovered firm ground, and threw myself on the turf to repair my wasted strength, and to reflect on the measures which my future welfare enjoined me to pursue. What condition was ever parallel to mine? The transactions of the last three days resembled the monstrous creations of delirium. They were painted with vivid hues on my memory; but so rapid and incongruous were these transitions, that I almost denied belief to their reality. They exercised a bewildering and stupefying influence on my mind, from which the meditations of an hour were scarcely sufficient to relieve me. Gradually I recovered the power of arranging my ideas and forming conclusions. Welbeck was dead. His property was swallowed up, and his creditors left to wonder at his disappearance. All that was left was the furniture of his house, to which Mrs. Wentworth would lay claim, in discharge of the unpaid rent. What now was the destiny that awaited the lost and friendless Mademoiselle Lodi? Where was she concealed? Welbeck had dropped no intimation by which I might be led to suspect the place of her abode. If my power, in other respects, could have contributed aught to her relief, my ignorance of her asylum had utterly disabled me. But what of the murdered person? He had suddenly vanished from the face of the earth. His fate and the place of his interment would probably be suspected and ascertained. Was I sure to escape from the consequences of this deed? Watson had relatives and friends. What influence on their state and happiness his untimely and mysterious fate would possess, it was obvious to inquire. This idea led me to the recollection of his pocket-book. Some papers might be there explanatory of his situation. I resumed my feet. I knew not where to direct my steps. I was dropping with wet, and shivering with the cold. I was destitute of habitation and friend. I had neither money nor any valuable thing in my possession. I moved forward mechanically and at random. Where I landed was at no great distance from the verge of the town. In a short time I discovered the glimmering of a distant lamp. To this I directed my steps, and here I paused to examine the contents of the pocket-book. I found three bank-notes, each of fifty dollars, enclosed in a piece of blank paper. Besides these were three letters, apparently written by his wife, and dated at Baltimore. They were brief, but composed in a strain of great tenderness, and containing affecting allusions to their child. I could gather, from their date and tenor, that they were received during his absence on his recent voyage; that her condition was considerably necessitous, and surrounded by wants which their prolonged separation had increased. The fourth letter was open, and seemed to have been very lately written. It was directed to Mrs. Mary Watson. He informed her in it of his arrival at Philadelphia from St. Domingo; of the loss of his ship and cargo; and of his intention to hasten home with all possible expedition. He told her that all was lost but one hundred and fifty dollars, the greater part of which he should bring with him, to relieve her more pressing wants. The letter was signed, and folded, and superscribed, but unsealed. A little consideration showed me in what manner it became me, on this occasion, to demean myself. I put the bank-notes in the letter, and sealed it with a wafer; a few of which were found in the pocket-book. I hesitated some time whether I should add any thing to the information which the letter contained, by means of a pencil which offered itself to my view; but I concluded to forbear. I could select no suitable terms in which to communicate the mournful truth. I resolved to deposit this letter at the post-office, where I knew letters could be left at all hours. My reflections at length reverted to my own condition. What was the fate reserved for me? How far my safety might be affected by remaining in the city, in consequence of the disappearance of Welbeck, and my known connection with the fugitive, it was impossible to foresee. My fears readily suggested innumerable embarrassments and inconveniences which would flow from this source. Besides, on what pretence should I remain? To whom could I apply for protection or employment? All avenues, even to subsistence, were shut against me. The country was my sole asylum. Here, in exchange for my labour, I could at least purchase food, safety, and repose. But, if my choice pointed to the country, there was no reason for a moment's delay. It would be prudent to regain the fields, and be far from this detested city before the rising of the sun. Meanwhile I was chilled and chafed by the clothes that I wore. To change them for others was absolutely necessary to my ease. The clothes which I wore were not my own, and were extremely unsuitable to my new condition. My rustic and homely garb was deposited in my chamber at Welbeck's. These thoughts suggested the design of returning thither. I considered that, probably, the servants had not been alarmed. That the door was unfastened, and the house was accessible. It would be easy to enter and retire without notice; and this, not without some waverings and misgivings, I presently determined to do. Having deposited my letter at the office, I proceeded to my late abode. I approached, and lifted the latch with caution. There were no appearances of any one having been disturbed. I procured a light in the kitchen, and hied softly and with dubious footsteps to my chamber. There I disrobed, and resumed my check shirt, and trowsers, and fustian coat. This change being accomplished, nothing remained but that I should strike into the country with the utmost expedition. In a momentary review which I took of the past, the design for which Welbeck professed to have originally detained me in his service occurred to my mind. I knew the danger of reasoning loosely on the subject of property. To any trinket or piece of furniture in this house I did not allow myself to question the right of Mrs. Wentworth; a right accruing to her in consequence of Welbeck's failure in the payment of his rent; but there was one thing which I felt an irresistible desire, and no scruples which should forbid me, to possess, and that was, the manuscript to which Welbeck had alluded, as having been written by the deceased Lodi. I was well instructed in Latin, and knew the Tuscan language to be nearly akin to it. I despaired not of being at some time able to cultivate this language, and believed that the possession of this manuscript might essentially contribute to this end, as well as to many others equally beneficial. It was easy to conjecture that the volume was to be found among his printed books, and it was scarcely less easy to ascertain the truth of this conjecture. I entered, not without tremulous sensations, into the apartment which had been the scene of the disastrous interview between Watson and Welbeck. At every step I almost dreaded to behold the spectre of the former rise before me. Numerous and splendid volumes were arranged on mahogany shelves, and screened by doors of glass. I ran swiftly over their names, and was at length so fortunate as to light upon the book of which I was in search. I immediately secured it, and, leaving the candle extinguished on a table in the parlour, I once more issued forth into the street. With light steps and palpitating heart I turned my face towards the country. My necessitous condition I believed would justify me in passing without payment the Schuylkill bridge, and the eastern sky began to brighten with the dawn of morning not till I had gained the distance of nine miles from the city. Such is the tale which I proposed to relate to you. Such are the memorable incidents of five days of my life; from which I have gathered more instruction than from the whole tissue of my previous existence. Such are the particulars of my knowledge respecting the crimes and misfortunes of Welbeck; which the insinuations of Wortley, and my desire to retain your good opinion, have induced me to unfold.	{ "id": "18508" }
13	None	Mervyn's pause allowed his auditors to reflect on the particulars of his narration, and to compare them with the facts with a knowledge of which their own observation had supplied them. My profession introduced me to the friendship of Mrs. Wentworth, by whom, after the disappearance of Welbeck, many circumstances respecting him had been mentioned. She particularly dwelt upon the deportment and appearance of this youth, at the single interview which took place between them, and her representations were perfectly conformable to those which Mervyn had himself delivered. Previously to this interview, Welbeck had insinuated to her that a recent event had put him in possession of the truth respecting the destiny of Clavering. A kinsman of his had arrived from Portugal, by whom this intelligence had been brought. He dexterously eluded her entreaties to be furnished with minuter information, or to introduce this kinsman to her acquaintance. As soon as Mervyn was ushered into her presence, she suspected him to be the person to whom Welbeck had alluded, and this suspicion his conversation had confirmed. She was at a loss to comprehend the reasons of the silence which he so pertinaciously maintained. Her uneasiness, however, prompted her to renew her solicitations. On the day subsequent to the catastrophe related by Mervyn, she sent a messenger to Welbeck, with a request to see him. Gabriel, the black servant, informed the messenger that his master had gone into the country for a week. At the end of the week, a messenger was again despatched with the same errand. He called and knocked, but no one answered his signals. He examined the entrance by the kitchen, but every avenue was closed. It appeared that the house was wholly deserted. These appearances naturally gave birth to curiosity and suspicion. The house was repeatedly examined, but the solitude and silence within continued the same. The creditors of Welbeck were alarmed by these appearances, and their claims to the property remaining in the house were precluded by Mrs. Wentworth, who, as owner of the mansion, was legally entitled to the furniture, in place of the rent which Welbeck had suffered to accumulate. On examining the dwelling, all that was valuable and portable, particularly linen and plate, was removed. The remainder was distrained, but the tumults of pestilence succeeded and hindered it from being sold. Things were allowed to continue in their former situation, and the house was carefully secured. We had no leisure to form conjectures on the causes of this desertion. An explanation was afforded us by the narrative of this youth. It is probable that the servants, finding their master's absence continue, had pillaged the house and fled. Meanwhile, though our curiosity with regard to Welbeck was appeased, it was obvious to inquire by what series of inducements and events Mervyn was reconducted to the city and led to the spot where I first met with him. We intimated our wishes in this respect, and our young friend readily consented to take up the thread of his story and bring it down to the point that was desired. For this purpose, the ensuing evening was selected. Having, at an early hour, shut ourselves up from all intruders and visitors, he continued as follows. * * * * * I have mentioned that, by sunrise, I had gained the distance of many miles from the city. My purpose was to stop at the first farm-house, and seek employment as a day-labourer. The first person whom I observed was a man of placid mien and plain garb. Habitual benevolence was apparent amidst the wrinkles of age. He was traversing his buckwheat-field, and measuring, as it seemed, the harvest that was now nearly ripe. I accosted him with diffidence, and explained my wishes. He listened to my tale with complacency, inquired into my name and family, and into my qualifications for the office to which I aspired. My answers were candid and full. "Why," said he, "I believe thou and I can make a bargain. We will, at least, try each other for a week or two. If it does not suit our mutual convenience, we can change. The morning is damp and cool, and thy plight does not appear the most comfortable that can be imagined. Come to the house and eat some breakfast." The behaviour of this good man filled me with gratitude and joy. Methought I could embrace him as a father, and entrance into his house appeared like return to a long-lost and much-loved home. My desolate and lonely condition appeared to be changed for paternal regards and the tenderness of friendship. These emotions were confirmed and heightened by every object that presented itself under this roof. The family consisted of Mrs. Hadwin, two simple and affectionate girls, his daughters, and servants. The manners of this family, quiet, artless, and cordial, the occupations allotted me, the land by which the dwelling was surrounded, its pure airs, romantic walks, and exhaustless fertility, constituted a powerful contrast to the scenes which I had left behind, and were congenial with every dictate of my understanding and every sentiment that glowed in my heart. My youth, mental cultivation, and circumspect deportment, entitled me to deference and confidence. Each hour confirmed me in the good opinion of Mr. Hadwin, and in the affections of his daughters. In the mind of my employer, the simplicity of the husbandman and the devotion of the Quaker were blended with humanity and intelligence. The sisters, Susan and Eliza, were unacquainted with calamity and vice through the medium of either observation or books. They were strangers to the benefits of an elaborate education, but they were endowed with curiosity and discernment, and had not suffered their slender means of instruction to remain unimproved. The sedateness of the elder formed an amusing contrast with the laughing eye and untamable vivacity of the younger; but they smiled and they wept in unison. They thought and acted in different but not discordant keys. On all momentous occasions, they reasoned and felt alike. In ordinary cases, they separated, as it were, into different tracks; but this diversity was productive not of jarring, but of harmony. A romantic and untutored disposition like mine may be supposed liable to strong impressions from perpetual converse with persons of their age and sex. The elder was soon discovered to have already disposed of her affections. The younger was free, and somewhat that is more easily conceived than named stole insensibly upon my heart. The images that haunted me at home and abroad, in her absence and her presence, gradually coalesced into one shape, and gave birth to an incessant train of latent palpitations and indefinable hopes. My days were little else than uninterrupted reveries, and night only called up phantoms more vivid and equally enchanting. The memorable incidents which had lately happened scarcely counterpoised my new sensations or diverted my contemplations from the present. My views were gradually led to rest upon futurity, and in that I quickly found cause of circumspection and dread. My present labours were light, and were sufficient for my subsistence in a single state; but wedlock was the parent of new wants and of new cares. Mr. Hadwin's possessions were adequate to his own frugal maintenance, but, divided between his children, would be too scanty for either. Besides, this division could only take place at his death, and that was an event whose speedy occurrence was neither desirable nor probable. Another obstacle was now remembered. Hadwin was the conscientious member of a sect which forbade the marriage of its votaries with those of a different communion. I had been trained in an opposite creed, and imagined it impossible that I should ever become a proselyte to Quakerism. It only remained for me to feign conversion, or to root out the opinions of my friend and win her consent to a secret marriage. Whether hypocrisy was eligible was no subject of deliberation. If the possession of all that ambition can conceive were added to the transports of union with Eliza Hadwin, and offered as the price of dissimulation, it would have been instantly rejected. My external goods were not abundant nor numerous, but the consciousness of rectitude was mine; and, in competition with this, the luxury of the heart and of the senses, the gratifications of boundless ambition and inexhaustible wealth, were contemptible and frivolous. The conquest of Eliza's errors was easy; but to introduce discord and sorrow into this family was an act of the utmost ingratitude and profligacy. It was only requisite for my understanding clearly to discern, to be convinced of the insuperability of this obstacle. It was manifest, therefore, that the point to which my wishes tended was placed beyond my reach. To foster my passion was to foster a disease destructive either of my integrity or my existence. It was indispensable to fix my thoughts upon a different object, and to debar myself even from her intercourse. To ponder on themes foreign to my darling image, and to seclude myself from her society, at hours which had usually been spent with her, were difficult tasks. The latter was the least practicable. I had to contend with eyes which alternately wondered at and upbraided me for my unkindness. She was wholly unaware of the nature of her own feelings, and this ignorance made her less scrupulous in the expression of her sentiments. Hitherto I had needed not employment beyond myself and my companions. Now my new motives made me eager to discover some means of controlling and beguiling my thoughts. In this state, the manuscript of Lodi occurred to me. In my way hither, I had resolved to make the study of the language of this book, and the translation of its contents into English, the business and solace of my leisure. Now this resolution was revived with new force. My project was perhaps singular. The ancient language of Italy possessed a strong affinity with the modern. My knowledge of the former was my only means of gaining the latter. I had no grammar or vocabulary to explain how far the meanings and inflections of Tuscan words varied from the Roman dialect. I was to ponder on each sentence and phrase; to select among different conjectures the most plausible, and to ascertain the true by patient and repeated scrutiny. This undertaking, fantastic and impracticable as it may seem, proved, upon experiment, to be within the compass of my powers. The detail of my progress would be curious and instructive. What impediments, in the attainment of a darling purpose, human ingenuity and patience are able to surmount; how much may be done by strenuous and solitary efforts; how the mind, unassisted, may draw forth the principles of inflection and arrangement; may profit by remote, analogous, and latent similitudes, would be forcibly illustrated by my example; but the theme, however attractive, must, for the present, be omitted. My progress was slow; but the perception of hourly improvement afforded me unspeakable pleasure. Having arrived near the last pages, I was able to pursue, with little interruption, the thread of an eloquent narration. The triumph of a leader of outlaws over the popular enthusiasm of the Milanese and the claims of neighbouring potentates was about to be depicted. The _Condottiero_ Sforza had taken refuge from his enemies in a tomb, accidentally discovered amidst the ruins of a Roman fortress in the Apennines. He had sought this recess for the sake of concealment, but found in it a treasure by which he would be enabled to secure the wavering and venal faith of that crew of ruffians that followed his standard, provided he fell not into the hands of the enemies who were now in search of him. My tumultuous curiosity was suddenly checked by the following leaves being glued together at the edges. To dissever them without injury to the written spaces was by no means easy. I proceeded to the task, not without precipitation. The edges were torn away, and the leaves parted. It may be thought that I took up the thread where it had been broken; but no. The object that my eyes encountered, and which the cemented leaves had so long concealed, was beyond the power of the most capricious or lawless fancy to have prefigured; yet it bore a shadowy resemblance to the images with which my imagination was previously occupied. I opened, and beheld--_a bank-note_! To the first transports of surprise, the conjecture succeeded, that the remaining leaves, cemented together in the same manner, might enclose similar bills. They were hastily separated, and the conjecture was verified. My sensations at this discovery were of an inexplicable kind. I gazed at the notes in silence. I moved my finger over them; held them in different positions; read and reread the name of each sum, and the signature; added them together, and repeated to myself--"_Twenty thousand dollars! _ They are mine, and by such means!" This sum would have redeemed the fallen fortunes of Welbeck. The dying Lodi was unable to communicate all the contents of this inestimable volume. He had divided his treasure, with a view to its greater safety, between this volume and his pocket-book. Death hasted upon him too suddenly to allow him to explain his precautions. Welbeck had placed the book in his collection, purposing some time to peruse it; but, deterred by anxieties which the perusal would have dissipated, he rushed to desperation and suicide, from which some evanescent contingency, by unfolding this treasure to his view, would have effectually rescued him. But was this event to be regretted? This sum, like the former, would probably have been expended in the same pernicious prodigality. His career would have continued some time longer; but his inveterate habits would have finally conducted his existence to the same criminal and ignominious close. But the destiny of Welbeck was accomplished. The money was placed, without guilt or artifice, in my possession. My fortune had been thus unexpectedly and wondrously propitious. How was I to profit by her favour? Would not this sum enable me to gather round me all the instruments of pleasure? Equipage, and palace, and a multitude of servants; polished mirrors, splendid hangings, banquets, and flatterers, were equally abhorrent to my taste and my principles. The accumulation of knowledge, and the diffusion of happiness, in which riches may be rendered eminently instrumental, were the only precepts of duty, and the only avenues to genuine felicity. "But what," said I, "is my title to this money? By retaining it, shall I not be as culpable as Welbeck? It came into his possession, as it came into mine, without a crime; but my knowledge of the true proprietor is equally certain, and the claims of the unfortunate stranger are as valid as ever. Indeed, if utility, and not law, be the measure of justice, her claim, desolate and indigent as she is, unfitted, by her past life, by the softness and the prejudices of her education, for contending with calamity, is incontestable. "As to me, health and diligence will give me, not only the competence which I seek, but the power of enjoying it. If my present condition be unchangeable, I shall not be unhappy. My occupations are salutary and meritorious; I am a stranger to the cares as well as to the enjoyment of riches; abundant means of knowledge are possessed by me, as long as I have eyes to gaze at man and at nature, as they are exhibited in their original forms or in books. The precepts of my duty cannot be mistaken. The lady must be sought and the money restored to her." Certain obstacles existed to the immediate execution of this scheme. How should I conduct my search? What apology should I make for withdrawing thus abruptly, and contrary to the terms of an agreement into which I had lately entered, from the family and service of my friend and benefactor Hadwin? My thoughts were called away from pursuing these inquiries by a rumour, which had gradually swelled to formidable dimensions; and which, at length, reached us in our quiet retreats. The city, we were told, was involved in confusion and panic, for a pestilential disease had begun its destructive progress. Magistrates and citizens were flying to the country. The numbers of the sick multiplied beyond all example; even in the pest-affected cities of the Levant. The malady was malignant and unsparing. The usual occupations and amusements of life were at an end. Terror had exterminated all the sentiments of nature. Wives were deserted by husbands, and children by parents. Some had shut themselves in their houses, and debarred themselves from all communication with the rest of mankind. The consternation of others had destroyed their understanding, and their misguided steps hurried them into the midst of the danger which they had previously laboured to shun. Men were seized by this disease in the streets; passengers fled from them; entrance into their own dwellings was denied to them; they perished in the public ways. The chambers of disease were deserted, and the sick left to die of negligence. None could be found to remove the lifeless bodies. Their remains, suffered to decay by piecemeal, filled the air with deadly exhalations, and added tenfold to the devastation. Such was the tale, distorted and diversified a thousand ways by the credulity and exaggeration of the tellers. At first I listened to the story with indifference or mirth. Methought it was confuted by its own extravagance. The enormity and variety of such an evil made it unworthy to be believed. I expected that every new day would detect the absurdity and fallacy of such representations. Every new day, however, added to the number of witnesses and the consistency of the tale, till, at length, it was not possible to withhold my faith.	{ "id": "18508" }
14	None	This rumour was of a nature to absorb and suspend the whole soul. A certain sublimity is connected with enormous dangers that imparts to our consternation or our pity a tincture of the pleasing. This, at least, may be experienced by those who are beyond the verge of peril. My own person was exposed to no hazard. I had leisure to conjure up terrific images, and to personate the witnesses and sufferers of this calamity. This employment was not enjoined upon me by necessity, but was ardently pursued, and must therefore have been recommended by some nameless charm. Others were very differently affected. As often as the tale was embellished with new incidents or enforced by new testimony, the hearer grew pale, his breath was stifled by inquietudes, his blood was chilled, and his stomach was bereaved of its usual energies. A temporary indisposition was produced in many. Some were haunted by a melancholy bordering upon madness, and some, in consequence of sleepless panics, for which no cause could be assigned, and for which no opiates could be found, were attacked by lingering or mortal diseases. Mr. Hadwin was superior to groundless apprehensions. His daughters, however, partook in all the consternation which surrounded them. The eldest had, indeed, abundant reason for her terror. The youth to whom she was betrothed resided in the city. A year previous to this, he had left the house of Mr. Hadwin, who was his uncle, and had removed to Philadelphia in pursuit of fortune. He made himself clerk to a merchant, and, by some mercantile adventures in which he had successfully engaged, began to flatter himself with being able, in no long time, to support a family. Meanwhile, a tender and constant correspondence was maintained between him and his beloved Susan. This girl was a soft enthusiast, in whose bosom devotion and love glowed with an ardour that has seldom been exceeded. The first tidings of the _yellow fever_ was heard by her with unspeakable perturbation. Wallace was interrogated, by letter, respecting its truth. For a time, he treated it as a vague report. At length, a confession was extorted from him that there existed a pestilential disease in the city; but he added that it was hitherto confined to one quarter, distant from the place of his abode. The most pathetic entreaties were urged by her that he would withdraw into the country. He declared his resolution to comply when the street in which he lived should become infected and his stay should be attended with real danger. He stated how much his interests depended upon the favour of his present employer, who had used the most powerful arguments to detain him, but declared that, when his situation should become, in the least degree, perilous, he would slight every consideration of gratitude and interest, and fly to _Malverton_. Meanwhile, he promised to communicate tidings of his safety by every opportunity. Belding, Mr. Hadwin's next neighbour, though not uninfected by the general panic, persisted to visit the city daily with his _market-cart_. He set out by sunrise, and usually returned by noon. By him a letter was punctually received by Susan. As the hour of Belding's return approached, her impatience and anxiety increased. The daily epistle was received and read, in a transport of eagerness. For a while her emotion subsided, but returned with augmented vehemence at noon on the ensuing day. These agitations were too vehement for a feeble constitution like hers. She renewed her supplications to Wallace to quit the city. He repeated his assertions of being, hitherto, secure, and his promise of coming when the danger should be imminent. When Belding returned, and, instead of being accompanied by Wallace, merely brought a letter from him, the unhappy Susan would sink into fits of lamentation and weeping, and repel every effort to console her with an obstinacy that partook of madness. It was, at length, manifest that Wallace's delays would be fatally injurious to the health of his mistress. Mr. Hadwin had hitherto been passive. He conceived that the entreaties and remonstrances of his daughter were more likely to influence the conduct of Wallace than any representations which he could make. Now, however, he wrote the contumacious Wallace a letter, in which he laid his commands upon him to return in company with Belding, and declared that by a longer delay the youth would forfeit his favour. The malady had, at this time, made considerable progress. Belding's interest at length yielded to his fears, and this was the last journey which he proposed to make. Hence our impatience for the return of Wallace was augmented; since, if this opportunity were lost, no suitable conveyance might again be offered him. Belding set out, as usual, at the dawn of day. The customary interval between his departure and return was spent by Susan in a tumult of hopes and fears. As noon approached, her suspense arose to a pitch of wildness and agony. She could scarcely be restrained from running along the road, many miles, towards the city; that she might, by meeting Belding half-way, the sooner ascertain the fate of her lover. She stationed herself at a window which overlooked the road along which Belding was to pass. Her sister and her father, though less impatient, marked, with painful eagerness, the first sound of the approaching vehicle. They snatched a look at it as soon as it appeared in sight. Belding was without a companion. This confirmation of her fears overwhelmed the unhappy Susan. She sunk into a fit, from which, for a long time, her recovery was hopeless. This was succeeded by paroxysms of a furious insanity, in which she attempted to snatch any pointed implement which lay within her reach, with a view to destroy herself. These being carefully removed, or forcibly wrested from her, she resigned herself to sobs and exclamations. Having interrogated Belding, he informed us that he occupied his usual post in the market-place; that heretofore Wallace had duly sought him out, and exchanged letters; but that, on this morning, the young man had not made his appearance, though Belding had been induced, by his wish to see him, to prolong his stay in the city much beyond the usual period. That some other cause than sickness had occasioned this omission was barely possible. There was scarcely room for the most sanguine temper to indulge a hope. Wallace was without kindred, and probably without friends, in the city. The merchant in whose service he had placed himself was connected with him by no considerations but that of interest. What then must be his situation when seized with a malady which all believed to be contagious, and the fear of which was able to dissolve the strongest ties that bind human beings together? I was personally a stranger to this youth. I had seen his letters, and they bespoke, not indeed any great refinement or elevation of intelligence, but a frank and generous spirit, to which I could not refuse my esteem; but his chief claim to my affection consisted in his consanguinity to Mr. Hadwin, and his place in the affections of Susan. His welfare was essential to the happiness of those whose happiness had become essential to mine. I witnessed the outrages of despair in the daughter, and the symptoms of a deep but less violent grief in the sister and parent. Was it not possible for me to alleviate their pangs? Could not the fate of Wallace be ascertained? This disease assailed men with different degrees of malignity. In its worst form perhaps it was incurable; but, in some of its modes, it was doubtless conquerable by the skill of physicians and the fidelity of nurses. In its least formidable symptoms, negligence and solitude would render it fatal. Wallace might, perhaps, experience this pest in its most lenient degree; but the desertion of all mankind, the want not only of medicines but of food, would irrevocably seal his doom. My imagination was incessantly pursued by the image of this youth, perishing alone, and in obscurity; calling on the name of distant friends, or invoking, ineffectually, the succour of those who were near. Hitherto distress had been contemplated at a distance, and through the medium of a fancy delighting to be startled by the wonderful, or transported by sublimity. Now the calamity had entered my own doors, imaginary evils were supplanted by real, and my heart was the seat of commiseration and horror. I found myself unfit for recreation or employment. I shrouded myself in the gloom of the neighbouring forest, or lost myself in the maze of rocks and dells. I endeavoured, in vain, to shut out the phantoms of the dying Wallace, and to forget the spectacle of domestic woes. At length it occurred to me to ask, May not this evil be obviated, and the felicity of the Hadwins re-established? Wallace is friendless and succourless; but cannot I supply to him the place of protector and nurse? Why not hasten to the city, search out his abode, and ascertain whether he be living or dead? If he still retain life, may I not, by consolation and attendance, contribute to the restoration of his health, and conduct him once more to the bosom of his family? With what transports will his arrival be hailed! How amply will their impatience and their sorrow be compensated by his return! In the spectacle of their joys, how rapturous and pure will be my delight! Do the benefits which I have received from the Hadwins demand a less retribution than this? It is true that my own life will be endangered; but my danger will be proportioned to the duration of my stay in this seat of infection. The death or the flight of Wallace may absolve me from the necessity of spending one night in the city. The rustics who daily frequent the market are, as experience proves, exempt from this disease; in consequence, perhaps, of limiting their continuance in the city to a few hours. May I not, in this respect, conform to their example, and enjoy a similar exemption? My stay, however, may be longer than the day. I may be condemned to share in the common destiny. What then? Life is dependent on a thousand contingencies, not to be computed or foreseen. The seeds of an early and lingering death are sown in my constitution. It is in vain to hope to escape the malady by which my mother and my brothers have died. We are a race whose existence some inherent property has limited to the short space of twenty years. We are exposed, in common with the rest of mankind, to innumerable casualties; but, if these be shunned, we are unalterably fated to perish by _consumption_. Why then should I scruple to lay down my life in the cause of virtue and humanity? It is better to die in the consciousness of having offered an heroic sacrifice, to die by a speedy stroke, than by the perverseness of nature, in ignominious inactivity and lingering agonies. These considerations determined me to hasten to the city. To mention my purpose to the Hadwins would be useless or pernicious. It would only augment the sum of their present anxieties. I should meet with a thousand obstacles in the tenderness and terror of Eliza, and in the prudent affection of her father. Their arguments I should be condemned to hear, but should not be able to confute; and should only load myself with imputations of perverseness and temerity. But how else should I explain my absence? I had hitherto preserved my lips untainted by prevarication or falsehood. Perhaps there was no occasion which would justify an untruth; but here, at least, it was superfluous or hurtful. My disappearance, if effected without notice or warning, will give birth to speculation and conjecture; but my true motives will never be suspected, and therefore will excite no fears. My conduct will not be charged with guilt. It will merely be thought upon with some regret, which will be alleviated by the opinion of my safety, and the daily expectation of my return. But, since my purpose was to search out Wallace, I must be previously furnished with directions to the place of his abode, and a description of his person. Satisfaction on this head was easily obtained from Mr. Hadwin; who was prevented from suspecting the motives of my curiosity, by my questions being put in a manner apparently casual. He mentioned the street, and the number of the house. I listened with surprise. It was a house with which I was already familiar. He resided, it seems, with a merchant. Was it possible for me to be mistaken? What, I asked, was the merchant's name? _Thetford. _ This was a confirmation of my first conjecture. I recollected the extraordinary means by which I had gained access to the house and bedchamber of this gentleman. I recalled the person and appearance of the youth by whose artifices I had been entangled in the snare. These artifices implied some domestic or confidential connection between Thetford and my guide. Wallace was a member of the family. Could it be he by whom I was betrayed? Suitable questions easily obtained from Hadwin a description of the person and carriage of his nephew. Every circumstance evinced the identity of their persons. Wallace, then, was the engaging and sprightly youth whom I had encountered at Lesher's; and who, for purposes not hitherto discoverable, had led me into a situation so romantic and perilous. I was far from suspecting that these purposes were criminal. It was easy to infer that his conduct proceeded from juvenile wantonness and a love of sport. My resolution was unaltered by this disclosure; and, having obtained all the information which I needed, I secretly began my journey. My reflections, on the way, were sufficiently employed in tracing the consequences of my project; in computing the inconveniences and dangers to which I was preparing to subject myself; in fortifying my courage against the influence of rueful sights and abrupt transitions; and in imagining the measures which it would be proper to pursue in every emergency. Connected as these views were with the family and character of Thetford, I could not but sometimes advert to those incidents which formerly happened. The mercantile alliance between him and Welbeck was remembered; the allusions which were made to the condition of the latter in the chamber-conversation of which I was an unsuspected auditor; and the relation which these allusions might possess with subsequent occurrences. Welbeck's property was forfeited. It had been confided to the care of Thetford's brother. Had the cause of this forfeiture been truly or thoroughly explained? Might not contraband articles have been admitted through the management or under the connivance of the brothers? and might not the younger Thetford be furnished with the means of purchasing the captured vessel and her cargo,--which, as usual, would be sold by auction at a fifth or tenth of its real value? Welbeck was not alive to profit by the detection of this artifice, admitting these conclusions to be just. My knowledge will be useless to the world; for by what motives can I be influenced to publish the truth? or by whom will my single testimony be believed, in opposition to that plausible exterior, and, perhaps, to that general integrity, which Thetford has maintained? To myself it will not be unprofitable. It is a lesson on the principles of human nature; on the delusiveness of appearances; on the perviousness of fraud; and on the power with which nature has invested human beings over the thoughts and actions of each other. Thetford and his frauds were dismissed from my thoughts, to give place to considerations relative to Clemenza Lodi, and the money which chance had thrown into my possession. Time had only confirmed my purpose to restore these bills to the rightful proprietor, and heightened my impatience to discover her retreat. I reflected, that the means of doing this were more likely to suggest themselves at the place to which I was going than elsewhere. I might, indeed, perish before my views, in this respect, could be accomplished. Against these evils I had at present no power to provide. While I lived, I would bear perpetually about me the volume and its precious contents. If I died, a superior power must direct the course of this as of all other events.	{ "id": "18508" }
15	None	These meditations did not enfeeble my resolution, or slacken my pace. In proportion as I drew near the city, the tokens of its calamitous condition became more apparent. Every farm-house was filled with supernumerary tenants, fugitives from home, and haunting the skirts of the road, eager to detain every passenger with inquiries after news. The passengers were numerous; for the tide of emigration was by no means exhausted. Some were on foot, bearing in their countenances the tokens of their recent terror, and filled with mournful reflections on the forlornness of their state. Few had secured to themselves an asylum; some were without the means of paying for victuals or lodging for the coming night; others, who were not thus destitute, yet knew not whither to apply for entertainment, every house being already overstocked with inhabitants, or barring its inhospitable doors at their approach. Families of weeping mothers and dismayed children, attended with a few pieces of indispensable furniture, were carried in vehicles of every form. The parent or husband had perished; and the price of some movable, or the pittance handed forth by public charity, had been expended to purchase the means of retiring from this theatre of disasters, though uncertain and hopeless of accommodation in the neighbouring districts. Between these and the fugitives whom curiosity had led to the road, dialogues frequently took place, to which I was suffered to listen. From every mouth the tale of sorrow was repeated with new aggravations. Pictures of their own distress, or of that of their neighbours, were exhibited in all the hues which imagination can annex to pestilence and poverty. My preconceptions of the evil now appeared to have fallen short of the truth. The dangers into which I was rushing seemed more numerous and imminent than I had previously imagined. I wavered not in my purpose. A panic crept to my heart, which more vehement exertions were necessary to subdue or control; but I harboured not a momentary doubt that the course which I had taken was prescribed by duty. There was no difficulty or reluctance in proceeding. All for which my efforts were demanded was to walk in this path without tumult or alarm. Various circumstances had hindered me from setting out upon this journey as early as was proper. My frequent pauses to listen to the narratives of travellers contributed likewise to procrastination. The sun had nearly set before I reached the precincts of the city. I pursued the track which I had formerly taken, and entered High Street after nightfall. Instead of equipages and a throng of passengers, the voice of levity and glee, which I had formerly observed, and which the mildness of the season would, at other times, have produced, I found nothing but a dreary solitude. The market-place, and each side of this magnificent avenue, were illuminated, as before, by lamps; but between the verge of Schuylkill and the heart of the city I met not more than a dozen figures; and these were ghost-like, wrapped in cloaks, from behind which they cast upon me glances of wonder and suspicion, and, as I approached, changed their course, to avoid touching me. Their clothes were sprinkled with vinegar, and their nostrils defended from contagion by some powerful perfume. I cast a look upon the houses, which I recollected to have formerly been, at this hour, brilliant with lights, resounding with lively voices, and thronged with busy faces. Now they were closed, above and below; dark, and without tokens of being inhabited. From the upper windows of some, a gleam sometimes fell upon the pavement I was traversing, and showed that their tenants had not fled, but were secluded or disabled. These tokens were new, and awakened all my panics. Death seemed to hover over this scene, and I dreaded that the floating pestilence had already lighted on my frame. I had scarcely overcome these tremors, when I approached a house the door of which was opened, and before which stood a vehicle, which I presently recognised to be a _hearse_. The driver was seated on it. I stood still to mark his visage, and to observe the course which he proposed to take. Presently a coffin, borne by two men, issued from the house. The driver was a negro; but his companions were white. Their features were marked by ferocious indifference to danger or pity. One of them, as he assisted in thrusting the coffin into the cavity provided for it, said, "I'll be damned if I think the poor dog was quite dead. It wasn't the _fever_ that ailed him, but the sight of the girl and her mother on the floor. I wonder how they all got into that room. What carried them there?" The other surlily muttered, "Their legs, to-be-sure." "But what should they hug together in one room for?" "To save us trouble, to-be-sure." "And I thank them with all my heart; but, damn it, it wasn't right to put him in his coffin before the breath was fairly gone. I thought the last look he gave me told me to stay a few minutes." "Pshaw! He could not live. The sooner dead the better for him; as well as for us. Did you mark how he eyed us when we carried away his wife and daughter? I never cried in my life, since I was knee-high, but curse me if I ever felt in better tune for the business than just then. Hey!" continued he, looking up, and observing me standing a few paces distant, and listening to their discourse; "what's wanted? Anybody dead?" I stayed not to answer or parley, but hurried forward. My joints trembled, and cold drops stood on my forehead. I was ashamed of my own infirmity; and, by vigorous efforts of my reason, regained some degree of composure. The evening had now advanced, and it behooved me to procure accommodation at some of the inns. These were easily distinguished by their _signs_, but many were without inhabitants. At length I lighted upon one, the hall of which was open and the windows lifted. After knocking for some time, a young girl appeared, with many marks of distress. In answer to my question, she answered that both her parents were sick, and that they could receive no one. I inquired, in vain, for any other tavern at which strangers might be accommodated. She knew of none such, and left me, on someone's calling to her from above, in the midst of my embarrassment. After a moment's pause, I returned, discomfited and perplexed, to the street. I proceeded, in a considerable degree, at random. At length I reached a spacious building in Fourth Street, which the signpost showed me to be an inn. I knocked loudly and often at the door. At length a female opened the window of the second story, and, in a tone of peevishness, demanded what I wanted. I told her that I wanted lodging. "Go hunt for it somewhere else," said she; "you'll find none here." I began to expostulate; but she shut the window with quickness, and left me to my own reflections. I began now to feel some regret at the journey I had taken. Never, in the depth of caverns or forests, was I equally conscious of loneliness. I was surrounded by the habitations of men; but I was destitute of associate or friend. I had money, but a horse-shelter, or a morsel of food, could not be purchased. I came for the purpose of relieving others, but stood in the utmost need myself. Even in health my condition was helpless and forlorn; but what would become of me should this fatal malady be contracted? To hope that an asylum would be afforded to a sick man, which was denied to one in health, was unreasonable. The first impulse which flowed from these reflections was to hasten back to _Malverton_; which, with sufficient diligence, I might hope to regain before the morning light. I could not, methought, return upon my steps with too much speed. I was prompted to run, as if the pest was rushing upon me and could be eluded only by the most precipitate flight. This impulse was quickly counteracted by new ideas. I thought with indignation and shame on the imbecility of my proceeding. I called up the images of Susan Hadwin, and of Wallace. I reviewed the motives which had led me to the undertaking of this journey. Time had, by no means, diminished their force. I had, indeed, nearly arrived at the accomplishment of what I had intended. A few steps would carry me to Thetford's habitation. This might be the critical moment when succour was most needed and would be most efficacious. I had previously concluded to defer going thither till the ensuing morning; but why should I allow myself a moment's delay? I might at least gain an external view of the house, and circumstances might arise which would absolve me from the obligation of remaining an hour longer in the city. All for which I came might be performed; the destiny of Wallace be ascertained; and I be once more safe within the precincts of _Malverton_ before the return of day. I immediately directed my steps towards the habitation of Thetford. Carriages bearing the dead were frequently discovered. A few passengers likewise occurred, whose hasty and perturbed steps denoted their participation in the common distress. The house of which I was in quest quickly appeared. Light from an upper window indicated that it was still inhabited. I paused a moment to reflect in what manner it became me to proceed. To ascertain the existence and condition of Wallace was the purpose of my journey. He had inhabited this house; and whether he remained in it was now to be known. I felt repugnance to enter, since my safety might, by entering, be unawares and uselessly endangered. Most of the neighbouring houses were apparently deserted. In some there were various tokens of people being within. Might I not inquire, at one of these, respecting the condition of Thetford's family? Yet why should I disturb them by inquiries so impertinent at this unseasonable hour? To knock at Thetford's door, and put my questions to him who should obey the signal, was the obvious method. I knocked dubiously and lightly. No one came. I knocked again, and more loudly; I likewise drew the bell. I distinctly heard its distant peals. If any were within, my signal could not fail to be noticed. I paused, and listened, but neither voice nor footsteps could be heard. The light, though obscured by window-curtains, which seemed to be drawn close, was still perceptible. I ruminated on the causes that might hinder my summons from being obeyed. I figured to myself nothing but the helplessness of disease, or the insensibility of death. These images only urged me to persist in endeavouring to obtain admission. Without weighing the consequences of my act, I involuntarily lifted the latch. The door yielded to my hand, and I put my feet within the passage. Once more I paused. The passage was of considerable extent, and at the end of it I perceived light as from a lamp or candle. This impelled me to go forward, till I reached the foot of a staircase. A candle stood upon the lowest step. This was a new proof that the house was not deserted. I struck my heel against the floor with some violence; but this, like my former signals, was unnoticed. Having proceeded thus far, it would have been absurd to retire with my purpose uneffected. Taking the candle in my hand, I opened a door that was near. It led into a spacious parlour, furnished with profusion and splendour. I walked to and fro, gazing at the objects which presented themselves; and, involved in perplexity, I knocked with my heel louder than ever; but no less ineffectually. Notwithstanding the lights which I had seen, it was possible that the house was uninhabited. This I was resolved to ascertain, by proceeding to the chamber which I had observed, from without, to be illuminated. This chamber, as far as the comparison of circumstances would permit me to decide, I believed to be the same in which I had passed the first night of my late abode in the city. Now was I, a second time, in almost equal ignorance of my situation, and of the consequences which impended, exploring my way to the same recess. I mounted the stair. As I approached the door of which I was in search, a vapour, infectious and deadly, assailed my senses. It resembled nothing of which I had ever before been sensible. Many odours had been met with, even since my arrival in the city, less supportable than this. I seemed not so much to smell as to taste the element that now encompassed me. I felt as if I had inhaled a poisonous and subtle fluid, whose power instantly bereft my stomach of all vigour. Some fatal influence appeared to seize upon my vitals, and the work of corrosion and decomposition to be busily begun. For a moment, I doubted whether imagination had not some share in producing my sensation; but I had not been previously panic-struck; and even now I attended to my own sensations without mental discomposure. That I had imbibed this disease was not to be questioned. So far the chances in my favour were annihilated. The lot of sickness was drawn. Whether my case would be lenient or malignant, whether I should recover or perish, was to be left to the decision of the future. This incident, instead of appalling me, tended rather to invigorate my courage. The danger which I feared had come. I might enter with indifference on this theatre of pestilence. I might execute, without faltering, the duties that my circumstances might create. My state was no longer hazardous; and my destiny would be totally uninfluenced by my future conduct. The pang with which I was first seized, and the momentary inclination to vomit, which it produced, presently subsided. My wholesome feelings, indeed, did not revisit me, but strength to proceed was restored to me. The effluvia became more sensible as I approached the door of the chamber. The door was ajar; and the light within was perceived. My belief that those within were dead was presently confuted by sound, which I first supposed to be that of steps moving quickly and timorously across the floor. This ceased, and was succeeded by sounds of different but inexplicable import. Having entered the apartment, I saw a candle on the hearth. A table was covered with vials and other apparatus of a sick-chamber. A bed stood on one side, the curtain of which was dropped at the foot, so as to conceal any one within. I fixed my eyes upon this object. There were sufficient tokens that some one lay upon the bed. Breath, drawn at long intervals; mutterings scarcely audible; and a tremulous motion in the bedstead, were fearful and intelligible indications. If my heart faltered, it must not be supposed that my trepidations arose from any selfish considerations. Wallace only, the object of my search, was present to my fancy. Pervaded with remembrance of the Hadwins; of the agonies which they had already endured; of the despair which would overwhelm the unhappy Susan when the death of her lover should be ascertained; observant of the lonely condition of this house, whence I could only infer that the sick had been denied suitable attendance; and reminded, by the symptoms that appeared, that this being was struggling with the agonies of death; a sickness of the heart, more insupportable than that which I had just experienced, stole upon me. My fancy readily depicted the progress and completion of this tragedy. Wallace was the first of the family on whom the pestilence had seized. Thetford had fled from his habitation. Perhaps as a father and husband, to shun the danger attending his stay was the injunction of his duty. It was questionless the conduct which selfish regards would dictate. Wallace was left to perish alone; or, perhaps, (which, indeed, was a supposition somewhat justified by appearances,) he had been left to the tendance of mercenary wretches; by whom, at this desperate moment, he had been abandoned. I was not mindless of the possibility that these forebodings, specious as they were, might be false. The dying person might be some other than Wallace. The whispers of my hope were, indeed, faint; but they, at least, prompted me to snatch a look at the expiring man. For this purpose I advanced and thrust my head within the curtain.	{ "id": "18508" }
16	None	The features of one whom I had seen so transiently as Wallace may be imagined to be not easily recognised, especially when those features were tremulous and deathful. Here, however, the differences were too conspicuous to mislead me. I beheld one in whom I could recollect none that bore resemblance. Though ghastly and livid, the traces of intelligence and beauty were undefaced. The life of Wallace was of more value to a feeble individual; but surely the being that was stretched before me, and who was hastening to his last breath, was precious to thousands. Was he not one in whose place I would willingly have died? The offering was too late. His extremities were already cold. A vapour, noisome and contagious, hovered over him. The flutterings of his pulse had ceased. His existence was about to close amidst convulsion and pangs. I withdrew my gaze from this object, and walked to a table. I was nearly unconscious of my movements. My thoughts were occupied with contemplations of the train of horrors and disasters that pursue the race of man. My musings were quickly interrupted by the sight of a small cabinet, the hinges of which were broken and the lid half raised. In the present state of my thoughts, I was prone to suspect the worst. Here were traces of pillage. Some casual or mercenary attendant had not only contributed to hasten the death of the patient, but had rifled his property and fled. This suspicion would, perhaps, have yielded to mature reflections, if I had been suffered to reflect. A moment scarcely elapsed, when some appearance in the mirror, which hung over the table, called my attention. It was a human figure. Nothing could be briefer than the glance that I fixed upon this apparition; yet there was room enough for the vague conception to suggest itself, that the dying man had started from his bed and was approaching me. This belief was, at the same instant, confuted, by the survey of his form and garb. One eye, a scar upon his cheek, a tawny skin, a form grotesquely misproportioned, brawny as Hercules, and habited in livery, composed, as it were, the parts of one view. To perceive, to fear, and to confront this apparition were blended into one sentiment. I turned towards him with the swiftness of lightning; but my speed was useless to my safety. A blow upon my temple was succeeded by an utter oblivion of thought and of feeling. I sunk upon the floor prostrate and senseless. My insensibility might be mistaken by observers for death, yet some part of this interval was haunted by a fearful dream. I conceived myself lying on the brink of a pit, whose bottom the eye could not reach. My hands and legs were fettered, so as to disable me from resisting two grim and gigantic figures who stooped to lift me from the earth. Their purpose, methought, was to cast me into this abyss. My terrors were unspeakable, and I struggled with such force, that my bonds snapped and I found myself at liberty. At this moment my senses returned, and I opened my eyes. The memory of recent events was, for a time, effaced by my visionary horrors. I was conscious of transition from one state of being to another; but my imagination was still filled with images of danger. The bottomless gulf and my gigantic persecutors were still dreaded. I looked up with eagerness. Beside me I discovered three figures, whose character or office was explained by a coffin of pine boards which lay upon the floor. One stood with hammer and nails in his hand, as ready to replace and fasten the lid of the coffin as soon as its burden should be received. I attempted to rise from the floor, but my head was dizzy and my sight confused. Perceiving me revive, one of the men assisted me to regain my feet. The mist and confusion presently vanished, so as to allow me to stand unsupported and to move. I once more gazed at my attendants, and recognised the three men whom I had met in High Street, and whose conversation I have mentioned that I overheard. I looked again upon the coffin. A wavering recollection of the incidents that led me hither, and of the stunning blow which I had received, occurred to me. I saw into what error appearances had misled these men, and shuddered to reflect by what hairbreadth means I had escaped being buried alive. Before the men had time to interrogate me, or to comment upon my situation, one entered the apartment, whose habit and mien tended to encourage me. The stranger was characterized by an aspect full of composure and benignity, a face in which the serious lines of age were blended with the ruddiness and smoothness of youth, and a garb that bespoke that religious profession with whose benevolent doctrines the example of Hadwin had rendered me familiar. On observing me on my feet, he betrayed marks of surprise and satisfaction. He addressed me in a tone of mildness:-- "Young man," said he, "what is thy condition? Art thou sick? If thou art, thou must consent to receive the best treatment which the times will afford. These men will convey thee to the hospital at Bush Hill." The mention of that contagious and abhorred receptacle inspired me with some degree of energy. "No," said I, "I am not sick; a violent blow reduced me to this situation. I shall presently recover strength enough to leave this spot without assistance." He looked at me with an incredulous but compassionate air:--"I fear thou dost deceive thyself or me. The necessity of going to the hospital is much to be regretted, but, on the whole, it is best. Perhaps, indeed, thou hast kindred or friends who will take care of thee?" "No," said I; "neither kindred nor friends. I am a stranger in the city. I do not even know a single being." "Alas!" returned the stranger, with a sigh, "thy state is sorrowful. But how camest thou hither?" continued he, looking around him; "and whence comest thou?" "I came from the country. I reached the city a few hours ago. I was in search of a friend who lived in this house." "Thy undertaking was strangely hazardous and rash; but who is the friend thou seekest? Was it he who died in that bed, and whose corpse has just been removed?" The men now betrayed some impatience; and inquired of the last comer, whom they called Mr. Estwick, what they were to do. He turned to me, and asked if I were willing to be conducted to the hospital. I assured him that I was free from disease, and stood in no need of assistance; adding, that my feebleness was owing to a stunning blow received from a ruffian on my temple. The marks of this blow were conspicuous, and after some hesitation he dismissed the men; who, lifting the empty coffin on their shoulders, disappeared. He now invited me to descend into the parlour; "for," said he, "the air of this room is deadly. I feel already as if I should have reason to repent of having entered it." He now inquired into the cause of those appearances which he had witnessed. I explained my situation as clearly and succinctly as I was able. After pondering, in silence, on my story,--"I see how it is," said he; "the person whom thou sawest in the agonies of death was a stranger. He was attended by his servant and a hired nurse. His master's death being certain, the nurse was despatched by the servant to procure a coffin. He probably chose that opportunity to rifle his master's trunk, that stood upon the table. Thy unseasonable entrance interrupted him; and he designed, by the blow which he gave thee, to secure his retreat before the arrival of a hearse. I know the man, and the apparition thou hast so well described was his. Thou sayest that a friend of thine lived in this house: thou hast come too late to be of service. The whole family have perished. Not one was suffered to escape." This intelligence was fatal to my hopes. It required some efforts to subdue my rising emotions. Compassion not only for Wallace, but for Thetford, his father, his wife and his child, caused a passionate effusion of tears. I was ashamed of this useless and childlike sensibility; and attempted to apologize to my companion. The sympathy, however, had proved contagious, and the stranger turned away his face to hide his own tears. "Nay," said he, in answer to my excuses, "there is no need to be ashamed of thy emotion. Merely to have known this family, and to have witnessed their deplorable fate, is sufficient to melt the most obdurate heart. I suspect that thou wast united to some one of this family by ties of tenderness like those which led the unfortunate _Maravegli_ hither." This suggestion was attended, in relation to myself, with some degree of obscurity; but my curiosity was somewhat excited by the name that he had mentioned, I inquired into the character and situation of this person, and particularly respecting his connection with this family. "Maravegli," answered he, "was the lover of the eldest daughter, and already betrothed to her. The whole family, consisting of helpless females, had placed themselves under his peculiar guardianship. Mary Walpole and her children enjoyed in him a husband and a father." The name of Walpole, to which I was a stranger, suggested doubts which I hastened to communicate. "I am in search," said I, "not of a female friend, though not devoid of interest in the welfare of Thetford and his family. My principal concern is for a youth, by name Wallace." He looked at me with surprise. "Thetford! this is not his abode. He changed his habitation some weeks previous to the _fever_. Those who last dwelt under this roof were an Englishwoman and seven daughters." This detection of my error somewhat consoled me. It was still possible that Wallace was alive and in safety. I eagerly inquired whither Thetford had removed, and whether he had any knowledge of his present condition. They had removed to No. --, in Market Street. Concerning their state he knew nothing. His acquaintance with Thetford was imperfect. Whether he had left the city or had remained, he was wholly uninformed. It became me to ascertain the truth in these respects. I was preparing to offer my parting thanks to the person by whom I had been so highly benefited; since, as he now informed me, it was by his interposition that I was hindered from being enclosed alive in a coffin. He was dubious of my true condition, and peremptorily commanded the followers of the hearse to desist. A delay of twenty minutes, and some medical application, would, he believed, determine whether my life was extinguished or suspended. At the end of this time, happily, my senses were recovered. Seeing my intention to depart, he inquired why, and whither I was going. Having heard my answer,--"Thy design," resumed he, "is highly indiscreet and rash. Nothing will sooner generate this fever than fatigue and anxiety. Thou hast scarcely recovered from the blow so lately received. Instead of being useful to others, this precipitation will only disable thyself. Instead of roaming the streets and inhaling this unwholesome air, thou hadst better betake thyself to bed and try to obtain some sleep. In the morning, thou wilt be better qualified to ascertain the fate of thy friend, and afford him the relief which he shall want." I could not but admit the reasonableness of these remonstrances; but where should a chamber and bed be sought? It was not likely that a new attempt to procure accommodation at the inns would succeed better than the former. "Thy state," replied he, "is sorrowful. I have no house to which I can lead thee. I divide my chamber, and even my bed, with another, and my landlady could not be prevailed upon to admit a stranger. What thou wilt do, I know not. This house has no one to defend it. It was purchased and furnished by the last possessor; but the whole family, including mistress, children, and servants, were cut off in a single week. Perhaps no one in America can claim the property. Meanwhile, plunderers are numerous and active. A house thus totally deserted, and replenished with valuable furniture, will, I fear, become their prey. To-night nothing can be done towards rendering it secure, but staying in it. Art thou willing to remain here till the morrow? "Every bed in the house has probably sustained a dead person. It would not be proper, therefore, to lie in any one of them. Perhaps thou mayest find some repose upon this carpet. It is, at least, better than the harder pavement and the open air." This proposal, after some hesitation, I embraced. He was preparing to leave me, promising, if life were spared to him, to return early in the morning. My curiosity respecting the person whose dying agonies I had witnessed prompted me to detain him a few minutes. "Ah!" said he, "this, perhaps, is the only one of many victims to this pestilence whose loss the remotest generations may have reason to deplore. He was the only descendant of an illustrious house of Venice. He has been devoted from his childhood to the acquisition of knowledge and the practice of virtue. He came hither as an enlightened observer; and, after traversing the country, conversing with all the men in it eminent for their talents or their office, and collecting a fund of observations whose solidity and justice have seldom been paralleled, he embarked, three months ago, for Europe. "Previously to his departure, he formed a tender connection with the eldest daughter of this family. The mother and her children had recently arrived from England. So many faultless women, both mentally and personally considered, it was not my fortune to meet with before. This youth well deserved to be adopted into this family. He proposed to return with the utmost expedition to his native country, and, after the settlement of his affairs, to hasten back to America and ratify his contract with Fanny Walpole. "The ship in which he embarked had scarcely gone twenty leagues to sea, before she was disabled by a storm, and obliged to return to port. He posted to New York, to gain a passage in a packet shortly to sail. Meanwhile this malady prevailed among us. Mary Walpole pole was hindered by her ignorance of the nature of that evil which assailed us, and the counsel of injudicious friends, from taking the due precautions for her safety. She hesitated to fly till flight was rendered impracticable. Her death added to the helplessness and distraction of the family. They were successively seized and destroyed by the same pest. "Maravegli was apprized of their danger. He allowed the packet to depart without him, and hastened to rescue the Walpoles from the perils which encompassed them. He arrived in this city time enough to witness the interment of the last survivor. In the same hour he was seized himself by this disease: the catastrophe is known to thee. "I will now leave thee to thy repose. Sleep is no less needful to myself than to thee; for this is the second night which has passed without it." Saying this, my companion took his leave. I now enjoyed leisure to review my situation. I experienced no inclination to sleep. I lay down for a moment, but my comfortless sensations and restless contemplations would not permit me to rest. Before I entered this house, I was tormented with hunger; but my craving had given place to inquietude and loathing. I paced, in thoughtful and anxious mood, across the floor of the apartment. I mused upon the incidents related by Estwick, upon the exterminating nature of this pestilence, and on the horrors of which it was productive. I compared the experience of the last hours with those pictures which my imagination had drawn in the retirements of _Malverton_. I wondered at the contrariety that exists between the scenes of the city and the country; and fostered, with more zeal than ever, the resolution to avoid those seats of depravity and danger. Concerning my own destiny, however, I entertained no doubt. My new sensations assured me that my stomach had received this corrosive poison. Whether I should die or live was easily decided. The sickness which assiduous attendance and powerful prescriptions might remove would, by negligence and solitude, be rendered fatal; but from whom could I expect medical or friendly treatment? I had indeed a roof over my head. I should not perish in the public way; but what was my ground for hoping to continue under this roof? My sickness being suspected, I should be dragged in a cart to the hospital; where I should, indeed, die, but not with the consolation of loneliness and silence. Dying groans were the only music, and livid corpses were the only spectacle, to which I should there be introduced. Immured in these dreary meditations, the night passed away. The light glancing through the window awakened in my bosom a gleam of cheerfulness. Contrary to my expectations, my feelings were not more distempered, notwithstanding my want of sleep, than on the last evening. This was a token that my state was far from being so desperate as I suspected. It was possible, I thought, that this was the worst indisposition to which I was liable. Meanwhile, the coming of Estwick was impatiently expected. The sun arose, and the morning advanced, but he came not. I remembered that he talked of having reason to repent his visit to this house. Perhaps he, likewise, was sick, and this was the cause of his delay. This man's kindness had even my love. If I had known the way to his dwelling, I should have hastened thither, to inquire into his condition, and to perform for him every office that humanity might enjoin; but he had not afforded me any information on that head.	{ "id": "18508" }
17	None	It was now incumbent on me to seek the habitation of Thetford. To leave this house accessible to every passenger appeared to be imprudent. I had no key by which I might lock the principal door. I therefore bolted it on the inside, and passed through a window, the shutters of which I closed, though I could not fasten after me. This led me into a spacious court, at the end of which was a brick wall, over which I leaped into the street. This was the means by which I had formerly escaped from the same precincts. The streets, as I passed, were desolate and silent. The largest computation made the number of fugitives two-thirds of the whole people; yet, judging by the universal desolation, it seemed as if the solitude were nearly absolute. That so many of the houses were closed, I was obliged to ascribe to the cessation of traffic, which made the opening of their windows useless, and the terror of infection, which made the inhabitants seclude themselves from the observation of each other. I proceeded to search out the house to which Estwick had directed me as the abode of Thetford. What was my consternation when I found it to be the same at the door of which the conversation took place of which I had been an auditor on the last evening! I recalled the scene of which a rude sketch had been given by the _hearse-men_. If such were the fate of the master of the family, abounding with money and friends, what could be hoped for the moneyless and friendless Wallace? The house appeared to be vacant and silent; but these tokens might deceive. There was little room for hope; but certainty was wanting, and might, perhaps, be obtained by entering the house. In some of the upper rooms a wretched being might be immured; by whom the information, so earnestly desired, might be imparted, and to whom my presence might bring relief, not only from pestilence, but famine. For a moment, I forgot my own necessitous condition, and reflected not that abstinence had already undermined my strength. I proceeded to knock at the door. That my signal was unnoticed produced no surprise. The door was unlocked, and I opened. At this moment my attention was attracted by the opening of another door near me. I looked, and perceived a man issuing forth from a house at a small distance. It now occurred to me, that the information which I sought might possibly be gained from one of Thetford's neighbours. This person was aged, but seemed to have lost neither cheerfulness nor vigour. He had an air of intrepidity and calmness. It soon appeared that I was the object of his curiosity. He had, probably, marked my deportment through some window of his dwelling, and had come forth to make inquiries into the motives of my conduct. He courteously saluted me. "You seem," said he, "to be in search of some one. If I can afford you the information you want, you will be welcome to it." Encouraged by this address, I mentioned the name of Thetford; and added my fears that he had not escaped the general calamity. "It is true," said he. "Yesterday himself, his wife, and his child, were in a hopeless condition. I saw them in the evening, and expected not to find them alive this morning. As soon as it was light, however, I visited the house again; but found it empty. I suppose they must have died, and been removed in the night." Though anxious to ascertain the destiny of Wallace, I was unwilling to put direct questions. I shuddered, while I longed to know the truth. "Why," said I, falteringly, "did he not seasonably withdraw from the city? Surely he had the means of purchasing an asylum in the country." "I can scarcely tell you," he answered. "Some infatuation appeared to have seized him. No one was more timorous; but he seemed to think himself safe as long as he avoided contact with infected persons. He was likewise, I believe, detained by a regard to his interest. His flight would not have been more injurious to his affairs than it was to those of others; but gain was, in his eyes, the supreme good. He intended ultimately to withdraw; but his escape to-day, gave him new courage to encounter the perils of to-morrow. He deferred his departure from day to day, till it ceased to be practicable." "His family," said I, "was numerous. It consisted of more than his wife and children. Perhaps these retired in sufficient season." "Yes," said he; "his father left the house at an early period. One or two of the servants likewise forsook him. One girl, more faithful and heroic than the rest, resisted the remonstrances of her parents and friends, and resolved to adhere to him in every fortune. She was anxious that the family should fly from danger, and would willingly have fled in their company; but while they stayed, it was her immovable resolution not to abandon them. "Alas, poor girl! She knew not of what stuff the heart of Thetford was made. Unhappily, she was the first to become sick. I question much whether her disease was pestilential. It was, probably, a slight indisposition, which, in a few days, would have vanished of itself, or have readily yielded to suitable treatment. "Thetford was transfixed with terror. Instead of summoning a physician, to ascertain the nature of her symptoms, he called a negro and his cart from Bush Hill. In vain the neighbours interceded for this unhappy victim. In vain she implored his clemency, and asserted the lightness of her indisposition. She besought him to allow her to send to her mother, who resided a few miles in the country, who would hasten to her succour, and relieve him and his family from the danger and trouble of nursing her. "The man was lunatic with apprehension. He rejected her entreaties, though urged in a manner that would have subdued a heart of flint. The girl was innocent, and amiable, and courageous, but entertained an unconquerable dread of the hospital. Finding entreaties ineffectual, she exerted all her strength in opposition to the man who lifted her into the cart. "Finding that her struggles availed nothing, she resigned herself to despair. In going to the hospital, she believed herself led to certain death, and to the sufferance of every evil which the known inhumanity of its attendants could inflict. This state of mind, added to exposure to a noonday sun, in an open vehicle, moving, for a mile, over a rugged pavement, was sufficient to destroy her. I was not surprised to hear that she died the next day. "This proceeding was sufficiently iniquitous; yet it was not the worst act of this man. The rank and education of the young woman might be some apology for negligence; but his clerk, a youth who seemed to enjoy his confidence, and to be treated by his family on the footing of a brother or son, fell sick on the next night, and was treated in the same manner." These tidings struck me to the heart. A burst of indignation and sorrow filled my eyes. I could scarcely stifle my emotions sufficiently to ask, "Of whom, sir, do you speak? Was the name of the youth--his name--was----" "His name was Wallace. I see that you have some interest in his fate. He was one whom I loved. I would have given half my fortune to procure him accommodation under some hospitable roof. His attack was violent; but, still, his recovery, if he had been suitably attended, was possible. That he should survive removal to the hospital, and the treatment he must receive when there, was not to be hoped. "The conduct of Thetford was as absurd as it was wicked. To imagine the disease to be contagious was the height of folly; to suppose himself secure, merely by not permitting a sick man to remain under his roof, was no less stupid; but Thetford's fears had subverted his understanding. He did not listen to arguments or supplications. His attention was incapable of straying from one object. To influence him by words was equivalent to reasoning with the deaf. "Perhaps the wretch was more to be pitied than hated. The victims of his implacable caution could scarcely have endured agonies greater than those which his pusillanimity inflicted on himself. Whatever be the amount of his guilt, the retribution has been adequate. He witnessed the death of his wife and child, and last night was the close of his own existence. Their sole attendant was a black woman; whom, by frequent visits, I endeavoured, with little success, to make diligent in the performance of her duty." Such, then, was the catastrophe of Wallace. The end for which I journeyed hither was accomplished. His destiny was ascertained; and all that remained was to fulfil the gloomy predictions of the lovely but unhappy Susan. To tell them all the truth would be needlessly to exasperate her sorrow. Time, aided by the tenderness and sympathy of friendship, may banish her despair, and relieve her from all but the witcheries of melancholy. Having disengaged my mind from these reflections, I explained to my companion, in general terms, my reasons for visiting the city, and my curiosity respecting. Thetford. He inquired into the particulars of my journey, and the time of my arrival. When informed that I had come in the preceding evening, and had passed the subsequent hours without sleep or food, he expressed astonishment and compassion. "Your undertaking," said he, "has certainly been hazardous. There is poison in every breath which you draw, but this hazard has been greatly increased by abstaining from food and sleep. My advice is to hasten back into the country; but you must first take some repose and some victuals. If you pass Schuylkill before nightfall, it will be sufficient." I mentioned the difficulty of procuring accommodation on the road. It would be most prudent to set out upon my journey so as to reach _Malverton_ at night. As to food and sleep, they were not to be purchased in this city. "True," answered my companion, with quickness, "they are not to be bought; but I will furnish you with as much as you desire of both, for nothing. That is my abode," continued he, pointing to the house which he had lately left. "I reside with a widow lady and her daughter, who took my counsel, and fled in due season. I remain to moralize upon the scene, with only a faithful black, who makes my bed, prepares my coffee, and bakes my loaf. If I am sick, all that a physician can do, I will do for myself, and all that a nurse can perform, I expect to be performed by _Austin_. "Come with me, drink some coffee, rest a while on my mattress, and then fly, with my benedictions on your head." These words were accompanied by features disembarrassed and benevolent. My temper is alive to social impulses, and I accepted his invitation, not so much because I wished to eat or to sleep, but because I felt reluctance to part so soon with a being who possessed so much fortitude and virtue. He was surrounded by neatness and plenty. Austin added dexterity to submissiveness. My companion, whose name I now found to be Medlicote, was prone to converse, and commented on the state of the city like one whose reading had been extensive and experience large. He combated an opinion which I had casually formed respecting the origin of this epidemic, and imputed it, not to infected substances imported from the East or West, but to a morbid constitution of the atmosphere, owing wholly or in part to filthy streets, airless habitations, and squalid persons. As I talked with this man, the sense of danger was obliterated, I felt confidence revive in my heart, and energy revisit my stomach. Though far from my wonted health, my sensation grew less comfortless, and I found myself to stand in no need of repose. Breakfast being finished, my friend pleaded his daily engagements as reasons for leaving me. He counselled me to strive for some repose, but I was conscious of incapacity to sleep. I was desirous of escaping, as soon as possible, from this tainted atmosphere, and reflected whether any thing remained to be done respecting Wallace. It now occurred to me that this youth must have left some clothes and papers, and, perhaps, books. The property of these was now vested in the Hadwins. I might deem myself, without presumption, their representative or agent. Might I not take some measures for obtaining possession, or at least for the security, of these articles? The house and its furniture were tenantless and unprotected. It was liable to be ransacked and pillaged by those desperate ruffians of whom many were said to be hunting for spoil even at a time like this. If these should overlook this dwelling, Thetford's unknown successor or heir might appropriate the whole. Numberless accidents might happen to occasion the destruction or embezzlement of what belonged to Wallace, which might be prevented by the conduct which I should now pursue. Immersed in these perplexities, I remained bewildered and motionless. I was at length roused by some one knocking at the door. Austin obeyed the signal, and instantly returned, leading in--Mr. Hadwin! I know not whether this unlooked-for interview excited on my part most grief or surprise. The motive of his coming was easily divined. His journey was on two accounts superfluous. He whom he sought was dead. The duty of ascertaining his condition I had assigned to myself. I now perceived and deplored the error of which I had been guilty, in concealing my intended journey from my patron. Ignorant of the part I had acted, he had rushed into the jaws of this pest, and endangered a life unspeakably valuable to his children and friends. I should doubtless have obtained his grateful consent to the project which I had conceived; but my wretched policy had led me into this clandestine path. Secrecy may seldom be a crime. A virtuous intention may produce it; but surely it is always erroneous and pernicious. My friend's astonishment at the sight of me was not inferior to my own. The causes which led to this unexpected interview were mutually explained. To soothe the agonies of his child, he consented to approach the city, and endeavour to procure intelligence of Wallace. When he left his house, he intended to stop in the environs, and hire some emissary, whom an ample reward might tempt to enter the city, and procure the information which was needed. No one could be prevailed upon to execute so dangerous a service. Averse to return without performing his commission, he concluded to examine for himself. Thetford's removal to this street was known to him; but, being ignorant of my purpose, he had not mentioned this circumstance to me, during our last conversation. I was sensible of the danger which Hadwin had incurred by entering the city. Perhaps my knowledge of the inexpressible importance of his life to the happiness of his daughters made me aggravate his danger. I knew that the longer he lingered in this tainted air, the hazard was increased. A moment's delay was unnecessary. Neither Wallace nor myself were capable of being benefited by his presence. I mentioned the death of his nephew as a reason for hastening his departure. I urged him in the most vehement terms to remount his horse and to fly; I endeavoured to preclude all inquiries respecting myself or Wallace; promising to follow him immediately, and answer all his questions at _Malverton_. My importunities were enforced by his own fears, and, after a moment's hesitation, he rode away. The emotions produced by this incident were, in the present critical state of my frame, eminently hurtful. My morbid indications suddenly returned. I had reason to ascribe my condition to my visit to the chamber of Maravegli; but this and its consequences to myself, as well as the journey of Hadwin, were the fruits of my unhappy secrecy. I had always been accustomed to perform my journeys on foot. This, on ordinary occasions, was the preferable method, but now I ought to have adopted the easiest and swiftest means. If Hadwin had been acquainted with my purpose he would not only have approved, but would have allowed me, the use of a horse. These reflections were rendered less pungent by the recollection that my motives were benevolent, and that I had endeavoured the benefit of others by means which appeared to me most suitable. Meanwhile, how was I to proceed? What hindered me from pursuing the footsteps of Hadwin with all the expedition which my uneasiness, of brain and stomach, would allow? I conceived that to leave any thing undone, with regard to Wallace, would be absurd. His property might be put under the care of my new friend. But how was it to be distinguished from the property of others? It was, probably, contained in trunks, which were designated by some label or mark. I was unacquainted with his chamber, but, by passing from one to the other, I might finally discover it. Some token, directing my footsteps, might occur, though at present unforeseen. Actuated by these considerations, I once more entered Thetford's habitation. I regretted that I had not procured the counsel or attendance of my new friend; but some engagements, the nature of which he did not explain, occasioned him to leave me as soon as breakfast was finished.	{ "id": "18508" }
18	None	I wandered over this deserted mansion, in a considerable degree, at random. Effluvia of a pestilential nature assailed me from every corner. In the front room of the second story, I imagined that I discovered vestiges of that catastrophe which the past night had produced. The bed appeared as if some one had recently been dragged from it. The sheets were tinged with yellow, and with that substance which is said to be characteristic of this disease, the gangrenous or black vomit. The floor exhibited similar stains. There are many who will regard my conduct as the last refinement of temerity, or of heroism. Nothing, indeed, more perplexes me than a review of my own conduct. Not, indeed, that death is an object always to be dreaded, or that my motive did not justify my actions; but of all dangers, those allied to pestilence, by being mysterious and unseen, are the most formidable. To disarm them of their terrors requires the longest familiarity. Nurses and physicians soonest become intrepid or indifferent; but the rest of mankind recoil from the scene with unconquerable loathing. I was sustained, not by confidence of safety, and a belief of exemption from this malady, or by the influence of habit, which inures us to all that is detestable or perilous, but by a belief that this was as eligible an avenue to death as any other; and that life is a trivial sacrifice in the cause of duty. I passed from one room to the other. A portmanteau, marked with the initials of Wallace's name, at length attracted my notice. From this circumstance I inferred that this apartment had been occupied by him. The room was neatly arranged, and appeared as if no one had lately used it. There were trunks and drawers. That which I have mentioned was the only one that bore marks of Wallace's ownership. This I lifted in my arms with a view to remove it to Medlicote's house. At that moment, methought I heard a footstep slowly and lingeringly ascending the stair. I was disconcerted at this incident. The footstep had in it a ghost-like solemnity and tardiness. This phantom vanished in a moment, and yielded place to more humble conjectures. A human being approached, whose office and commission were inscrutable. That we were strangers to each other was easily imagined; but how would my appearance, in this remote chamber, and loaded with another's property, be interpreted? Did he enter the house after me, or was he the tenant of some chamber hitherto unvisited; whom my entrance had awakened from his trance and called from his couch? In the confusion of my mind, I still held my burden uplifted. To have placed it on the floor, and encountered this visitant, without this equivocal token about me, was the obvious proceeding. Indeed, time only could decide whether these footsteps tended to this, or to some other, apartment. My doubts were quickly dispelled. The door opened, and a figure glided in. The portmanteau dropped from my arms, and my heart's blood was chilled. If an apparition of the dead were possible, (and that possibility I could not deny,) this was such an apparition. A hue, yellowish and livid; bones, uncovered with flesh; eyes, ghastly, hollow, woe-begone, and fixed in an agony of wonder upon me; and locks, matted and negligent, constituted the image which I now beheld. My belief of somewhat preternatural in this appearance was confirmed by recollection of resemblances between these features and those of one who was dead. In this shape and visage, shadowy and death-like as they were, the lineaments of Wallace, of him who had misled my rustic simplicity on my first visit to this city, and whose death I had conceived to be incontestably ascertained, were forcibly recognised. This recognition, which at first alarmed my superstition, speedily led to more rational inferences. Wallace had been dragged to the hospital. Nothing was less to be suspected than that he would return alive from that hideous receptacle, but this was by no means impossible. The figure that stood before me had just risen from the bed of sickness, and from the brink of the grave. The crisis of his malady had passed, and he was once more entitled to be ranked among the living. This event, and the consequences which my imagination connected with it, filled me with the liveliest joy. I thought not of his ignorance of the causes of my satisfaction, of the doubts to which the circumstances of our interview would give birth, respecting the integrity of my purpose. I forgot the artifices by which I had formerly been betrayed, and the embarrassments which a meeting with the victim of his artifices would excite in him; I thought only of the happiness which his recovery would confer upon his uncle and his cousins. I advanced towards him with an air of congratulation, and offered him my hand. He shrunk back, and exclaimed, in a feeble voice, "Who are you? What business have you here?" "I am the friend of Wallace, if he will allow me to be so. I am a messenger from your uncle and cousins at _Malverton_. I came to know the cause of your silence, and to afford you any assistance in my power." He continued to regard me with an air of suspicion and doubt. These I endeavoured to remove by explaining the motives that led me hither. It was with difficulty that he seemed to credit my representations. When thoroughly convinced of the truth of my assertions, he inquired with great anxiety and tenderness concerning his relations; and expressed his hope that they were ignorant of what had befallen him. I could not encourage his hopes. I regretted my own precipitation in adopting the belief of his death. This belief had been uttered with confidence, and without stating my reasons for embracing it, to Mr. Hadwin. These tidings would be borne to his daughters, and their grief would be exasperated to a deplorable and perhaps to a fatal degree. There was but one method of repairing or eluding this mischief. Intelligence ought to be conveyed to them of his recovery. But where was the messenger to be found? No one's attention could be found disengaged from his own concerns. Those who were able or willing to leave the city had sufficient motives for departure, in relation to themselves. If vehicle or horse were procurable for money, ought it not to be secured for the use of Wallace himself, whose health required the easiest and speediest conveyance from this theatre of death? My companion was powerless in mind as in limbs. He seemed unable to consult upon the means of escaping from the inconveniences by which he was surrounded. As soon as sufficient strength was regained, he had left the hospital. To repair to _Malverton_ was the measure which prudence obviously dictated; but he was hopeless of effecting it. The city was close at hand; this was his usual home; and hither his tottering and almost involuntary steps conducted him. He listened to my representations and counsels, and acknowledged their propriety. He put himself under my protection and guidance, and promised to conform implicitly to my directions. His strength had sufficed to bring him thus far, but was now utterly exhausted. The task of searching for a carriage and horse devolved upon me. In effecting this purpose, I was obliged to rely upon my own ingenuity and diligence. Wallace, though so long a resident in the city, knew not to whom I could apply, or by whom carriages were let to hire. My own reflections taught me, that this accommodation was most likely to be furnished by innkeepers, or that some of those might at least inform me of the best measures to be taken. I resolved to set out immediately on this search. Meanwhile, Wallace was persuaded to take refuge in Medlicote's apartments; and to make, by the assistance of Austin, the necessary preparation for his journey. The morning had now advanced. The rays of a sultry sun had a sickening and enfeebling influence beyond any which I had ever experienced. The drought of unusual duration had bereft the air and the earth of every particle of moisture. The element which I breathed appeared to have stagnated into noxiousness and putrefaction. I was astonished at observing the enormous diminution of my strength. My brows were heavy, my intellects benumbed, my sinews enfeebled, and my sensations universally unquiet. These prognostics were easily interpreted. What I chiefly dreaded was, that they would disable me from executing the task which I had undertaken. I summoned up all my resolution, and cherished a disdain of yielding to this ignoble destiny. I reflected that the source of all energy, and even of life, is seated in thought; that nothing is arduous to human efforts; that the external frame will seldom languish, while actuated by an unconquerable soul. I fought against my dreary feelings, which pulled me to the earth. I quickened my pace, raised my drooping eyelids, and hummed a cheerful and favourite air. For all that I accomplished during this day, I believe myself indebted to the strenuousness and ardour of my resolutions. I went from one tavern to another. One was deserted; in another the people were sick, and their attendants refused to hearken to my inquiries or offers; at a third, their horses were engaged. I was determined to prosecute my search as long as an inn or a livery-stable remained unexamined, and my strength would permit. To detail the events of this expedition, the arguments and supplications which I used to overcome the dictates of avarice and fear, the fluctuation of my hopes and my incessant disappointments, would be useless. Having exhausted all my expedients ineffectually, I was compelled to turn my weary steps once more to Medlicote's lodgings. My meditations were deeply engaged by the present circumstances of my situation. Since the means which were first suggested were impracticable, I endeavoured to investigate others. Wallace's debility made it impossible for him to perform this journey on foot; but would not his strength and his resolution suffice to carry him beyond Schuylkill? A carriage or horse, though not to be obtained in the city, could, without difficulty, be procured in the country. Every farmer had beasts for burden and draught. One of these might be hired, at no immoderate expense, for half a day. This project appeared so practicable and so specious, that I deeply regretted the time and the efforts which had already been so fruitlessly expended. If my project, however, had been mischievous, to review it with regret was only to prolong and to multiply its mischiefs. I trusted that time and strength would not be wanting to the execution of this new design. On entering Medlicote's house, my looks, which, in spite of my languors, were sprightly and confident, flattered Wallace with the belief that my exertions had succeeded. When acquainted with their failure, he sunk as quickly into hopelessness. My new expedient was heard by him with no marks of satisfaction. It was impossible, he said, to move from this spot by his own strength. All his powers were exhausted by his walk from Bush Hill. I endeavoured, by arguments and railleries, to revive his courage. The pure air of the country would exhilarate him into new life. He might stop at every fifty yards, and rest upon the green sod. If overtaken by the night, we would procure a lodging, by address and importunity; but, if every door should be shut against us, we should at least enjoy the shelter of some barn, and might diet wholesomely upon the new-laid eggs that we should find there. The worst treatment we could meet with was better than continuance in the city. These remonstrances had some influence, and he at length consented to put his ability to the test. First, however, it was necessary to invigorate himself by a few hours' rest. To this, though with infinite reluctance, I consented. This interval allowed him to reflect upon the past, and to inquire into the fate of Thetford and his family. The intelligence which Medlicote had enabled me to afford him was heard with more satisfaction than regret. The ingratitude and cruelty with which he had been treated seemed to have extinguished every sentiment but hatred and vengeance. I was willing to profit by this interval to know more of Thetford than I already possessed. I inquired why Wallace had so perversely neglected the advice of his uncle and cousin, and persisted to brave so many dangers when flight was so easy. "I cannot justify my conduct," answered he. "It was in the highest degree thoughtless and perverse. I was confident and unconcerned as long as our neighbourhood was free from disease, and as long as I forbore any communication with the sick; yet I should have withdrawn to Malverton, merely to gratify my friends, if Thetford had not used the most powerful arguments to detain me. He laboured to extenuate the danger. " 'Why not stay,' said he, 'as long as I and my family stay? Do you think that we would linger here, if the danger were imminent? As soon as it becomes so, we will fly. You know that we have a country-house prepared for our reception. When we go, you shall accompany us. Your services at this time are indispensable to my affairs. If you will not desert me, your salary next year shall be double; and that will enable you to marry your cousin immediately. Nothing is more improbable than that any of us should be sick; but, if this should happen to you, I plight my honour that you shall be carefully and faithfully attended.' "These assurances were solemn and generous. To make Susan Hadwin my wife was the scope of all my wishes and labours. By staying, I should hasten this desirable event, and incur little hazard. By going, I should alienate the affections of Thetford; by whom, it is but justice to acknowledge, that I had hitherto been treated with unexampled generosity and kindness; and blast all the schemes I had formed for rising into wealth. "My resolution was by no means steadfast. As often as a letter from _Malverton_ arrived, I felt myself disposed to hasten away; but this inclination was combated by new arguments and new entreaties of Thetford. "In this state of suspense, the girl by whom Mrs. Thetford's infant was nursed fell sick. She was an excellent creature, and merited better treatment than she received. Like me, she resisted the persuasions of her friends, but her motives for remaining were disinterested and heroic. "No sooner did her indisposition appear, than she was hurried to the hospital. I saw that no reliance could be placed upon the assurances of Thetford. Every consideration gave way to his fear of death. After the girl's departure, though he knew that she was led by his means to execution, yet he consoled himself by repeating and believing her assertions, that her disease was not _the fever_. "I was now greatly alarmed for my own safety. I was determined to encounter his anger and repel his persuasions; and to depart with the market-man next morning. That night, however, I was seized with a violent fever. I knew in what manner patients were treated at the hospital, and removal thither was to the last degree abhorred. "The morning arrived, and my situation was discovered. At the first intimation, Thetford rushed out of the house, and refused to re-enter it till I was removed. I knew not my fate, till three ruffians made their appearance at my bedside, and communicated their commission. "I called on the name of Thetford and his wife. I entreated a moment's delay, till I had seen these persons, and endeavoured to procure a respite from my sentence. They were deaf to my entreaties, and prepared to execute their office by force. I was delirious with rage and terror. I heaped the bitterest execrations on my murderer; and by turns, invoked the compassion of, and poured a torrent of reproaches on, the wretches whom he had selected for his ministers. My struggles and outcries were vain. "I have no perfect recollection of what passed till my arrival at the hospital. My passions combined with my disease to make me frantic and wild. In a state like mine, the slightest motion could not be endured without agony. What then must I have felt, scorched and dazzled by the sun, sustained by hard boards, and borne for miles over a rugged pavement? "I cannot make you comprehend the anguish of my feelings. To be disjointed and torn piecemeal by the rack was a torment inexpressibly inferior to this. Nothing excites my wonder but that I did not expire before the cart had moved three paces. "I knew not how, or by whom, I was moved from this vehicle. Insensibility came at length to my relief. After a time I opened my eyes, and slowly gained some knowledge of my situation. I lay upon a mattress, whose condition proved that a half-decayed corpse had recently been dragged from it. The room was large, but it was covered with beds like my own. Between each, there was scarcely the interval of three feet. Each sustained a wretch, whose groans and distortions bespoke the desperateness of his condition. "The atmosphere was loaded by mortal stenches. A vapour, suffocating and malignant, scarcely allowed me to breathe. No suitable receptacle was provided for the evacuations produced by medicine or disease. My nearest neighbour was struggling with death, and my bed, casually extended, was moist with the detestable matter which had flowed from his stomach. "You will scarcely believe that, in this scene of horrors, the sound of laughter should be overheard. While the upper rooms of this building are filled with the sick and the dying, the lower apartments are the scene of carousals and mirth. The wretches who are hired, at enormous wages, to tend the sick and convey away the dead, neglect their duty, and consume the cordials which are provided for the patients, in debauchery and riot. "A female visage, bloated with malignity and drunkenness, occasionally looked in. Dying eyes were cast upon her, invoking the boon, perhaps, of a drop of cold water, or her assistance to change a posture which compelled him to behold the ghastly writhings or deathful _smile_ of his neighbour. "The visitant had left the banquet for a moment, only to see who was dead. If she entered the room, blinking eyes and reeling steps showed her to be totally unqualified for ministering the aid that was needed. Presently she disappeared, and others ascended the staircase, a coffin was deposited at the door, the wretch, whose heart still quivered, was seized by rude hands, and dragged along the floor into the passage. "Oh! how poor are the conceptions which are formed, by the fortunate few, of the sufferings to which millions of their fellow-beings are condemned. This misery was more frightful, because it was seen to flow from the depravity of the attendants. My own eyes only would make me credit the existence of wickedness so enormous. No wonder that to die in garrets, and cellars, and stables, unvisited and unknown, had, by so many, been preferred to being brought hither. "A physician cast an eye upon my state. He gave some directions to the person who attended him. I did not comprehend them, they were never executed by the nurses, and, if the attempt had been made, I should probably have refused to receive what was offered. Recovery was equally beyond my expectations and my wishes. The scene which was hourly displayed before me, the entrance of the sick, most of whom perished in a few hours, and their departure to the graves prepared for them, reminded me of the fate to which I, also, was reserved. "Three days passed away, in which every hour was expected to be the last. That, amidst an atmosphere so contagious and deadly, amidst causes of destruction hourly accumulating, I should yet survive, appears to me nothing less than miraculous. That of so many conducted to this house the only one who passed out of it alive should be myself almost surpasses my belief. "Some inexplicable principle rendered harmless those potent enemies of human life. My fever subsided and vanished. My strength was revived, and the first use that I made of my limbs was to bear me far from the contemplation and sufferance of those evils."	{ "id": "18508" }
19	None	Having gratified my curiosity in this respect, Wallace proceeded to remind me of the circumstances of our first interview. He had entertained doubts whether I was the person whom he had met at Lesher's. I acknowledged myself to be the same, and inquired, in my turn, into the motives of his conduct on that occasion. "I confess," said he, with some hesitation, "I meant only to sport with your simplicity and ignorance. You must not imagine, however, that my stratagem was deep-laid and deliberately executed. My professions at the tavern were sincere. I meant not to injure but to serve you. It was not till I reached the head of the staircase that the mischievous contrivance occurred. I foresaw nothings at the moment, but ludicrous mistakes and embarrassment. The scheme was executed almost at the very moment it occurred. "After I had returned to the parlour, Thetford charged me with the delivery of a message in a distant quarter of the city. It was not till I had performed this commission, and had set out on my return, that I fully revolved the consequences likely to flow from my project. "That Thetford and his wife would detect you in their bedchamber was unquestionable. Perhaps, weary of my long delay, you would have fairly undressed and gone to bed. The married couple would have made preparation to follow you, and, when the curtain was undrawn, would discover a robust youth, fast asleep, in their place. These images, which had just before excited my laughter, now produced a very different emotion. I dreaded some fatal catastrophe from the fiery passions of Thetford. In the first transports of his fury he might pistol you, or, at least, might command you to be dragged to prison. "I now heartily repented of my jest, and hastened home, that I might prevent, as far as possible, the evil effects that might flow from it. The acknowledgment of my own agency in this affair would, at least, transfer Thetford's indignation to myself, to whom it was equitably due. "The married couple had retired to their chamber, and no alarm or confusion had followed. This was an inexplicable circumstance. I waited with impatience till the morning should furnish a solution of the difficulty. The morning arrived. A strange event had, indeed, taken place in their bedchamber. They found an infant asleep in their bed. Thetford had been roused twice in the night, once by a noise in the closet, and afterwards by a noise at the door. "Some connection between these sounds and the foundling was naturally suspected. In the morning the closet was examined, and a coarse pair of shoes was found on the floor. The chamber door, which Thetford had locked in the evening, was discovered to be open, as likewise a window in the kitchen. "These appearances were a source of wonder and doubt to others, but were perfectly intelligible to me. I rejoiced that my stratagem had no more dangerous consequence, and admired the ingenuity and perseverance with which you had extricated yourself from so critical a state." This narrative was only the verification of my own guesses. Its facts were quickly supplanted in my thoughts by the disastrous picture he had drawn of the state of the hospital. I was confounded and shocked by the magnitude of this evil. The cause of it was obvious. The wretches whom money could purchase were, of course, licentious and unprincipled. Superintended and controlled, they might be useful instruments; but that superintendence could not be bought. What qualities were requisite in the governor of such an institution? He must have zeal, diligence, and perseverance. He must act from lofty and pure motives. He must be mild and firm, intrepid and compliant. One perfectly qualified for the office it is desirable, but not possible, to find. A dispassionate and honest zeal in the cause of duty and humanity may be of eminent utility. Am I not endowed with this zeal? Cannot my feeble efforts obviate some portion of this evil? No one has hitherto claimed this disgustful and perilous situation. My powers and discernment are small, but if they be honestly exerted they cannot fail to be somewhat beneficial. The impulse produced by these reflections was to hasten to the City Hall, and make known my wishes. This impulse was controlled by recollections of my own indisposition, and of the state of Wallace. To deliver this youth to his friends was the strongest obligation. When this was discharged, I might return to the city, and acquit myself of more comprehensive duties. Wallace had now enjoyed a few hours' rest, and was persuaded to begin the journey. It was now noonday, and the sun darted insupportable rays. Wallace was more sensible than I of their unwholesome influence. We had not reached the suburbs, when his strength was wholly exhausted, and, had I not supported him, he would have sunk upon the pavement. My limbs were scarcely less weak, but my resolutions were much more strenuous than his. I made light of his indisposition, and endeavoured to persuade him that his vigour would return in proportion to his distance from the city. The moment we should reach a shade, a short respite would restore us to health and cheerfulness. Nothing could revive his courage or induce him to go on. To return or to proceed was equally impracticable. But, should he be able to return, where should he find a retreat? The danger of relapse was imminent; his own chamber at Thetford's was unoccupied. If he could regain this house, might I not procure him a physician and perform for him the part of nurse? His present situation was critical and mournful. To remain in the street, exposed to the malignant fervours of the sun, was not to be endured. To carry him in my arms exceeded my strength. Should I not claim the assistance of the first passenger that appeared? At that moment a horse and chaise passed us. The vehicle proceeded at a quick pace. He that rode in it might afford us the succour that we needed. He might be persuaded to deviate from his course and convey the helpless Wallace to the house we had just left. This thought instantly impelled me forward. Feeble as I was, I even ran with speed, in order to overtake the vehicle. My purpose was effected with the utmost difficulty. It fortunately happened that the carriage contained but one person, who stopped at my request. His countenance and guise was mild and encouraging. "Good friend," I exclaimed, "here is a young man too indisposed to walk. I want him carried to his lodgings. Will you, for money or for charity, allow him a place in your chaise, and set him down where I shall direct?" Observing tokens of hesitation, I continued, "You need have no fears to perform this office. He is not sick, but merely feeble. I will not ask twenty minutes, and you may ask what reward you think proper." Still he hesitated to comply. His business, he said, had not led him into the city. He merely passed along the skirts of it, whence he conceived that no danger would arise. He was desirous of helping the unfortunate; but he could not think of risking his own life in the cause of a stranger, when he had a wife and children depending on his existence and exertions for bread. It gave him pain to refuse, but he thought his duty to himself and to others required that he should not hazard his safety by compliance. This plea was irresistible. The mildness of his manner showed that he might have been overpowered by persuasion or tempted by reward. I would not take advantage of his tractability; but should have declined his assistance, even if it had been spontaneously offered. I turned away from him in silence, and prepared to return to the spot where I had left my friend. The man prepared to resume his way. In this perplexity, the thought occurred to me that, since this person was going into the country, he might, possibly, consent to carry Wallace along with him. I confided greatly in the salutary influence of rural airs. I believed that debility constituted the whole of his complaint; that continuance in the city might occasion his relapse, or, at least, procrastinate his restoration. I once more addressed myself to the traveller, and inquired in what direction and how far he was going. To my unspeakable satisfaction, his answer informed me that his home lay beyond Mr. Hadwin's, and that this road carried him directly past that gentleman's door. He was willing to receive Wallace into his chaise, and to leave him at his uncle's. This joyous and auspicious occurrence surpassed my fondest hopes. I hurried with the pleasing tidings to Wallace, who eagerly consented to enter the carriage. I thought not at the moment of myself, or how far the same means of escaping from my danger might be used. The stranger could not be anxious on my account; and Wallace's dejection and weakness may apologize for his not soliciting my company, or expressing his fears for my safety. He was no sooner seated, than the traveller hurried away. I gazed after them, motionless and mute, till the carriage, turning a corner, passed beyond my sight. I had now leisure to revert to my own condition, and to ruminate on that series of abrupt and diversified events that had happened during the few hours which had been passed in the city: the end of my coming was thus speedily and satisfactorily accomplished. My hopes and fears had rapidly fluctuated; but, respecting this young man, had now subsided into calm and propitious certainty. Before the decline of the sun, he would enter his paternal roof, and diffuse ineffable joy throughout that peaceful and chaste asylum. This contemplation, though rapturous and soothing, speedily gave way to reflections on the conduct which my duty required, and the safe departure of Wallace afforded me liberty, to pursue. To offer myself as a superintendent of the hospital was still my purpose. The languors of my frame might terminate in sickness, but this event it was useless to anticipate. The lofty site and pure airs of Bush Hill might tend to dissipate my languors and restore me to health. At least while I had power, I was bound to exert it to the wisest purposes. I resolved to seek the City Hall immediately, and, for that end, crossed the intermediate fields which separated Sassafras from Chestnut Street. More urgent considerations had diverted my attention from the money which I bore about me, and from the image of the desolate lady to whom it belonged. My intentions, with regard to her, were the same as ever; but now it occurred to me, with new force, that my death might preclude an interview between us, and that it was prudent to dispose, in some useful way, of the money which would otherwise be left to the sport of chance. The evils which had befallen this city were obvious and enormous. Hunger and negligence had exasperated the malignity and facilitated the progress of the pestilence. Could this money be more usefully employed than in alleviating these evils? During my life, I had no power over it, but my death would justify me in prescribing the course which it should take. How was this course to be pointed out? How might I place it, so that I should effect my intentions without relinquishing the possession during my life? These thoughts were superseded by a tide of new sensations. The weight that incommoded my brows and my stomach was suddenly increased. My brain was usurped by some benumbing power, and my limbs refused to support me. My pulsations were quickened, and the prevalence of fever could no longer be doubted. Till now, I had entertained a faint hope that my indisposition would vanish of itself. This hope was at an end. The grave was before me, and my projects of curiosity or benevolence were to sink into oblivion. I was not bereaved of the powers of reflection. The consequences of lying in the road, friendless and unprotected, were sure. The first passenger would notice me, and hasten to summon one of those carriages which are busy night and day in transporting its victims to the hospital. This fate was, beyond all others, abhorrent to my imagination. To hide me under some roof, where my existence would be unknown and unsuspected, and where I might perish unmolested and in quiet, was my present wish. Thetford's or Medlicote's might afford me such an asylum, if it were possible to reach it. I made the most strenuous exertions; but they could not carry me forward more than a hundred paces. Here I rested on steps, which, on looking up, I perceived to belong to Welbeck's house. This incident was unexpected. It led my reflections into a new train. To go farther, in the present condition of my frame, was impossible. I was well acquainted with this dwelling. All its avenues were closed. Whether it had remained unoccupied since my flight from it, I could not decide. It was evident that, at present, it was without inhabitants. Possibly it might have continued in the same condition in which Welbeck had left it. Beds or sofas might be found, on which a sick man might rest, and be fearless of intrusion. This inference was quickly overturned by the obvious supposition that every avenue was bolted and locked. This, however, might not be the condition of the bath-house, in which there was nothing that required to be guarded with unusual precautions. I was suffocated by inward and scorched by external heat; and the relief of bathing and drinking appeared inestimable. The value of this prize, in addition to my desire to avoid the observation of passengers, made me exert all my remnant of strength. Repeated efforts at length enabled me to mount the wall; and placed me, as I imagined, in security. I swallowed large draughts of water as soon as I could reach the well. The effect was, for a time, salutary and delicious. My fervours were abated, and my faculties relieved from the weight which had lately oppressed them. My present condition was unspeakably more advantageous than the former. I did not believe that it could be improved, till, casting my eye vaguely over the building, I happened to observe the shutters of a lower window partly opened. Whether this was occasioned by design or by accident there was no means of deciding. Perhaps, in the precipitation of the latest possessor, this window had been overlooked. Perhaps it had been unclosed by violence, and afforded entrance to a robber. By what means soever it had happened, it undoubtedly afforded ingress to me. I felt no scruple in profiting by this circumstance. My purposes were not dishonest. I should not injure or purloin any thing. It was laudable to seek a refuge from the well-meant persecutions of those who governed the city. All I sought was the privilege of dying alone. Having gotten in at the window, I could not but remark that the furniture and its arrangements had undergone no alteration in my absence. I moved softly from one apartment to another, till at length I entered that which had formerly been Welbeck's bedchamber. The bed was naked of covering. The cabinets and closets exhibited their fastenings broken. Their contents were gone. Whether these appearances had been produced by midnight robbers, or by the ministers of law and the rage of the creditors of Welbeck, was a topic of fruitless conjecture. My design was now effected. This chamber should be the scene of my disease and my refuge from the charitable cruelty of my neighbours. My new sensations conjured up the hope that my indisposition might prove a temporary evil. Instead of pestilential or malignant fever, it might be a harmless intermittent. Time would ascertain its true nature; meanwhile, I would turn the carpet into a coverlet, supply my pitcher with water, and administer without sparing, and without fear, that remedy which was placed within my reach.	{ "id": "18508" }
20	None	I laid myself on the bed and wrapped my limbs in the folds of the carpet. My thoughts were restless and perturbed. I was once more busy in reflecting on the conduct which I ought to pursue with regard to the bank-bills. I weighed, with scrupulous attention, every circumstance that might influence my decision. I could not conceive any more beneficial application of this property than to the service of the indigent, at this season of multiplied distress; but I considered that, if my death were unknown, the house would not be opened or examined till the pestilence had ceased, and the benefits of this application would thus be partly or wholly precluded. This season of disease, however, would give place to a season of scarcity. The number and wants of the poor, during the ensuing winter, would be deplorably aggravated. What multitudes might be rescued from famine and nakedness by the judicious application of this sum! But how should I secure this application? To enclose the bills in a letter, directed to some eminent citizen or public officer, was the obvious proceeding. Both of these conditions were fulfilled in the person of the present chief-magistrate. To him, therefore, the packet was to be sent. Paper and the implements of writing were necessary for this end. Would they be found, I asked, in the upper room? If that apartment, like the rest which I had seen, and its furniture, had remained untouched, my task would be practicable; but, if the means of writing were not to be immediately procured, my purpose, momentous and dear as it was, must be relinquished. The truth, in this respect, was easily and ought immediately to be ascertained. I rose from the bed which I had lately taken, and proceeded to the _study_. The entries and staircases were illuminated by a pretty strong twilight. The rooms, in consequence of every ray being excluded by the closed shutters, were nearly as dark as if it had been midnight. The rooms into which I had already passed were locked, but its key was in each lock. I flattered myself that the entrance into the _study_ would be found in the same condition. The door was shut, but no key was to be seen. My hopes were considerably damped by this appearance, but I conceived it to be still possible to enter, since, by chance or by design, the door might be unlocked. My fingers touched the lock, when a sound was heard as if a bolt, appending to the door on the inside, had been drawn. I was startled by this incident. It betokened that the room was already occupied by some other, who desired to exclude a visitor. The unbarred shutter below was remembered, and associated itself with this circumstance. That this house should be entered by the same avenue, at the same time, and this room should be sought, by two persons, was a mysterious concurrence. I began to question whether I had heard distinctly. Numberless inexplicable noises are apt to assail the ear in an empty dwelling. The very echoes of our steps are unwonted and new. This, perhaps, was some such sound. Resuming courage, I once more applied to the lock. The door, in spite of my repeated efforts, would not open. My design was too momentous to be readily relinquished. My curiosity and my fears likewise were awakened. The marks of violence, which I had seen on the closets and cabinets below, seemed to indicate the presence of plunderers. Here was one who laboured for seclusion and concealment. The pillage was not made upon my property. My weakness would disable me from encountering or mastering a man of violence. To solicit admission into this room would be useless. To attempt to force my way would be absurd. These reflections prompted me to withdraw from the door; but the uncertainty of the conclusions I had drawn, and the importance of gaining access to this apartment, combined to check my steps. Perplexed as to the means I should employ, I once more tried the lock. The attempt was fruitless as the former. Though hopeless of any information to be gained by that means, I put my eye to the keyhole. I discovered a light different from what was usually met with at this hour. It was not the twilight which the sun, imperfectly excluded, produces, but gleams, as from a lamp; yet its gleams were fainter and obscurer than a lamp generally imparts. Was this a confirmation of my first conjecture? Lamplight at noonday, in a mansion thus deserted, and in a room which had been the scene of memorable and disastrous events, was ominous. Hitherto no direct proof had been given of the presence of a human being. How to ascertain his presence, or whether it were eligible by any means to ascertain it, were points on which I had not deliberated. I had no power to deliberate. My curiosity impelled me to call,--"Is there any one within? Speak." These words were scarcely uttered, when some one exclaimed, in a voice vehement but half-smothered, "Good God!" -- A deep pause succeeded. I waited for an answer; for somewhat to which this emphatic invocation might be a prelude. Whether the tones were expressive of surprise, or pain, or grief, was, for a moment, dubious. Perhaps the motives which led me to this house suggested the suspicion which presently succeeded to my doubts,--that the person within was disabled by sickness. The circumstances of my own condition took away the improbability from this belief. Why might not another be induced like me to hide himself in this desolate retreat? Might not a servant, left to take care of the house, a measure usually adopted by the opulent at this time, be seized by the reigning malady? Incapacitated for exertion, or fearing to be dragged to the hospital, he has shut himself in this apartment. The robber, it may be, who came to pillage, was overtaken and detained by disease. In either case, detection or intrusion would be hateful, and would be assiduously eluded. These thoughts had no tendency to weaken or divert my efforts to obtain access to this room. The person was a brother in calamity, whom it was my duty to succour and cherish to the utmost of my power. Once more I spoke:-- "Who is within? I beseech you answer me. Whatever you be, I desire to do you good and not injury. Open the door and let me know your condition. I will try to be of use to you." I was answered by a deep groan, and by a sob counteracted and devoured as it were by a mighty effort. This token of distress thrilled to my heart. My terrors wholly disappeared, and gave place to unlimited compassion. I again entreated to be admitted, promising all the succour or consolation which my situation allowed me to afford. Answers were made in tones of anger and impatience, blended with those of grief:--"I want no succour; vex me not with your entreaties and offers. Fly from this spot; linger not a moment, lest you participate my destiny and rush upon your death." These I considered merely as the effusions of delirium, or the dictates of despair. The style and articulation denoted the speaker to be superior to the class of servants. Hence my anxiety to see and to aid him was increased. My remonstrances were sternly and pertinaciously repelled. For a time, incoherent and impassioned exclamations flowed from him. At length, I was only permitted to hear strong aspirations and sobs, more eloquent and more indicative of grief than any language. This deportment filled me with no less wonder than commiseration. By what views this person was led hither, by what motives induced to deny himself to my entreaties, was wholly incomprehensible. Again, though hopeless of success, I repeated my request to be admitted. My perseverance seemed now to have exhausted all his patience, and he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, "Arthur Mervyn! Begone. Linger but a moment, and my rage, tiger-like, will rush upon you and rend you limb from limb." This address petrified me. The voice that uttered this sanguinary menace was strange to my ears. It suggested no suspicion of ever having heard it before. Yet my accents had betrayed me to him. He was familiar with my name. Notwithstanding the improbability of my entrance into this dwelling, I was clearly recognized and unhesitatingly named! My curiosity and compassion were in no wise diminished, but I found myself compelled to give up my purpose. I withdrew reluctantly from the door, and once more threw myself upon my bed. Nothing was more necessary, in the present condition of my frame; than sleep; and sleep had, perhaps, been possible, if the scene around me had been less pregnant with causes of wonder and panic. Once more I tasked memory in order to discover, in the persons with whom I had hitherto conversed, some resemblance, in voice or tones, to him whom I had just heard. This process was effectual. Gradually my imagination called up an image which, now that it was clearly seen, I was astonished had not instantly occurred. Three years ago, a man, by name Colvill, came on foot, and with a knapsack on his back, into the district where my father resided. He had learning and genius, and readily obtained the station for which only he deemed himself qualified; that of a schoolmaster. His demeanour was gentle and modest; his habits, as to sleep, food, and exercise, abstemious and regular. Meditation in the forest, or reading in his closet, seemed to constitute, together with attention to his scholars, his sole amusement and employment. He estranged himself from company, not because society afforded no pleasure, but because studious seclusion afforded him chief satisfaction. No one was more idolized by his unsuspecting neighbours. His scholars revered him as a father, and made under his tuition a remarkable proficiency. His character seemed open to boundless inspection, and his conduct was pronounced by all to be faultless. At the end of a year the scene was changed. A daughter of one of his patrons, young, artless, and beautiful, appeared to have fallen a prey to the arts of some detestable seducer. The betrayer was gradually detected, and successive discoveries showed that the same artifices had been practised, with the same success, upon many others. Colvill was the arch-villain. He retired from the storm of vengeance that was gathering over him, and had not been heard of since that period. I saw him rarely, and for a short time, and I was a mere boy. Hence the failure to recollect his voice, and to perceive that the voice of him immured in the room above was the same with that of Colvill. Though I had slight reasons for recognising his features or accents, I had abundant cause to think of him with detestation, and pursue him with implacable revenge, for the victim of his acts, she whose ruin was first detected, was--_my sister_. This unhappy girl escaped from the upbraidings of her parents, from the contumelies of the world, from the goadings of remorse, and the anguish flowing from the perfidy and desertion of Colvill, in a voluntary death. She was innocent and lovely. Previous to this evil, my soul was linked with hers by a thousand resemblances and sympathies, as well as by perpetual intercourse from infancy, and by the fraternal relation. She was my sister, my preceptress and friend; but she died--her end was violent, untimely, and criminal! I cannot think of her without heart-bursting grief; of her destroyer, without a rancour which I know to be wrong, but which I cannot subdue. When the image of Colvill rushed, upon this occasion, on my thought, I almost started on my feet. To meet him, after so long a separation, here, and in these circumstances, was so unlooked-for and abrupt an event, and revived a tribe of such hateful impulses and agonizing recollections, that a total revolution seemed to have been effected in my frame. His recognition of my person, his aversion to be seen, his ejaculation of terror and surprise on first hearing my voice, all contributed to strengthen my belief. How was I to act? My feeble frame could but ill second my vengeful purposes; but vengeance, though it sometimes occupied my thoughts, was hindered by my reason from leading me, in any instance, to outrage or even to upbraiding. All my wishes with regard to this man were limited to expelling his image from my memory, and to shunning a meeting with him. That he had not opened the door at my bidding was now a topic of joy. To look upon some bottomless pit, into which I was about to be cast headlong, and alive, was less to be abhorred than to look upon the face of Colvill. Had I known that he had taken refuge in this house, no power should have compelled me to enter it. To be immersed in the infection of the hospital, and to be hurried, yet breathing and observant, to my grave, was a more supportable fate. I dwell, with self-condemnation and shame, upon this part of my story. To feel extraordinary indignation at vice, merely because we have partaken in an extraordinary degree of its mischiefs, is unjustifiable. To regard the wicked with no emotion but pity, to be active in reclaiming them, in controlling their malevolence, and preventing or repairing the ills which they produce, is the only province of duty. This lesson, as well as a thousand others, I have yet to learn; but I despair of living long enough for that or any beneficial purpose. My emotions with regard to Colvill were erroneous, but omnipotent. I started from my bed, and prepared to rush into the street. I was careless of the lot that should befall me, since no fate could be worse than that of abiding under the same roof with a wretch spotted with so many crimes. I had not set my feet upon the floor before my precipitation was checked by a sound from above. The door of the study was cautiously and slowly opened. This incident admitted only of one construction, supposing all obstructions removed. Colvill was creeping from his hiding-place, and would probably fly with speed from the house. My belief of his sickness was now confuted. An illicit design was congenial with his character and congruous with those appearances already observed. I had no power or wish to obstruct his flight. I thought of it with transport, and once more threw myself upon the bed, and wrapped my averted face in the carpet. He would probably pass this door, unobservant of me, and my muffled face would save me from the agonies connected with the sight of him. The footsteps above were distinguishable, though it was manifest that they moved with lightsomeness and circumspection. They reached the stair and descended. The room in which I lay was, like the rest, obscured by the closed shutters. This obscurity now gave way to a light, resembling that glimmering and pale reflection which I had noticed in the study. My eyes, though averted from the door, were disengaged from the folds which covered the rest of my head, and observed these tokens of Colvill's approach, flitting on the wall. My feverish perturbations increased as he drew nearer. He reached the door, and stopped. The light rested for a moment. Presently he entered the apartment. My emotions suddenly rose to a height that would not be controlled. I imagined that he approached the bed, and was gazing upon me. At the same moment, by an involuntary impulse, I threw off my covering, and, turning my face, fixed my eyes upon my visitant. It was as I suspected. The figure, lifting in his right hand a candle, and gazing at the bed, with lineaments and attitude bespeaking fearful expectation and tormenting doubts, was now beheld. One glance communicated to my senses all the parts of this terrific vision. A sinking at my heart, as if it had been penetrated by a dagger, seized me. This was not enough: I uttered a shriek, too rueful and loud not to have startled the attention of the passengers, if any had, at that moment, been passing the street. Heaven seemed to have decreed that this period should be filled with trials of my equanimity and fortitude. The test of my courage was once more employed to cover me with humiliation and remorse. This second time, my fancy conjured up a spectre, and I shuddered as if the grave were forsaken and the unquiet dead haunted my pillow. The visage and the shape had indeed preternatural attitudes, but they belonged, not to Colvill, but to--WELBECK.	{ "id": "18508" }
21	None	He whom I had accompanied to the midst of the river; whom I had imagined that I saw sink to rise no more, was now before me. Though incapable of precluding the groundless belief of preternatural visitations, I was able to banish the phantom almost at the same instant at which it appeared. Welbeck had escaped from the stream alive; or had, by some inconceivable means, been restored to life. The first was the most plausible conclusion. It instantly engendered a suspicion, that his plunging into the water was an artifice, intended to establish a belief of his death. His own tale had shown him to be versed in frauds, and flexible to evil. But was he not associated with Colvill? and what, but a compact in iniquity, could bind together such men? While thus musing, Welbeck's countenance and gesture displayed emotions too vehement for speech. The glances that he fixed upon me were unsteadfast and wild. He walked along the floor, stopping at each moment, and darting looks of eagerness upon me. A conflict of passions kept him mute. At length, advancing to the bed, on the side of which I was now sitting, he addressed me:-- "What is this? Are you here? In defiance of pestilence, are you actuated by some demon to haunt me, like the ghost of my offences, and cover me with shame? What have I to do with that dauntless yet guiltless front? With that foolishly-confiding and obsequious, yet erect and unconquerable, spirit? Is there no means of evading your pursuit? Must I dip my hands, a second time, in blood; and dig for you a grave by the side of Watson?" These words were listened to with calmness. I suspected and pitied the man, but I did not fear him. His words and his looks were indicative less of cruelty than madness. I looked at him with an air compassionate and wistful. I spoke with mildness and composure:-- "Mr. Welbeck, you are unfortunate and criminal. Would to God I could restore you to happiness and virtue! but, though my desire be strong, I have no power to change your habits or rescue you from misery. "I believed you to be dead. I rejoice to find myself mistaken. While you live, there is room to hope that your errors will be cured; and the turmoils and inquietudes that have hitherto beset your guilty progress will vanish by your reverting into better paths. "From me you have nothing to fear. If your welfare will be promoted by my silence on the subject of your history, my silence shall be inviolate. I deem not lightly of my promises. They are given, and shall not be recalled. "This meeting was casual. Since I believed you to be dead, it could not be otherwise. You err, if you suppose that any injury will accrue to you from my life; but you need not discard that error. Since my death is coming, I am not averse to your adopting the belief that the event is fortunate to you. "Death is the inevitable and universal lot. When or how it comes, is of little moment. To stand, when so many thousands are falling around me, is not to be expected. I have acted an humble and obscure part in the world, and my career has been short; but I murmur not at the decree that makes it so. "The pestilence is now upon me. The chances of recovery are too slender to deserve my confidence. I came hither to die unmolested, and at peace. All I ask of you is to consult your own safety by immediate flight; and not to disappoint my hopes of concealment, by disclosing my condition to the agents of the hospital." Welbeck listened with the deepest attention. The wildness of his air disappeared, and gave place to perplexity and apprehension. "You are sick," said he, in a tremulous tone, in which terror was mingled with affection. "You know this, and expect not to recover. No mother, nor sister, nor friend, will be near to administer food, or medicine, or comfort; yet you can talk calmly; can be thus considerate of others--of me; whose guilt has been so deep, and who has merited so little at your hands! "Wretched coward! Thus miserable as I am and expect to be, I cling to life. To comply with your heroic counsel, and to fly; to leave you thus desolate and helpless, is the strongest impulse. Fain would I resist it, but cannot. "To desert you would be flagitious and dastardly beyond all former acts; yet to stay with you is to contract the disease, and to perish after you. "Life, burdened as it is with guilt and ignominy, is still dear--yet you exhort me to go; you dispense with my assistance. Indeed, I could be of no use; I should injure myself and profit you nothing. I cannot go into the city and procure a physician or attendant. I must never more appear in the streets of this city. I must leave you, then." He hurried to the door. Again, he hesitated. I renewed my entreaties that he would leave me; and encouraged his belief that his presence might endanger himself without conferring the slightest benefit upon me. "Whither should I fly? The wide world contains no asylum for me. I lived but on one condition. I came hither to find what would save me from ruin,--from death. I find it not. It has vanished. Some audacious and fortunate hand has snatched it from its place, and now my ruin is complete. My last hope is extinct. "Yes, Mervyn! I will stay with you. I will hold your head. I will put water to your lips. I will watch night and day by your side. When you die, I will carry you by night to the neighbouring field; will bury you, and water your grave with those tears that are due to your incomparable worth and untimely destiny. Then I will lay myself in your bed, and wait for the same oblivion." Welbeck seemed now no longer to be fluctuating between opposite purposes. His tempestuous features subsided into calm. He put the candle, still lighted, on the table, and paced the floor with less disorder than at his first entrance. His resolution was seen to be the dictate of despair. I hoped that it would not prove invincible to my remonstrances. I was conscious that his attendance might preclude, in some degree, my own exertions, and alleviate the pangs of death; but these consolations might be purchased too dear. To receive them at the hazard of his life would be to make them odious. But, if he should remain, what conduct would his companion pursue? Why did he continue in the study when Welbeck had departed? By what motives were those men led hither? I addressed myself to Welbeck:-- "Your resolution to remain is hasty and rash. By persisting in it, you will add to the miseries of my condition; you will take away the only hope that I cherished. But, however you may act, Colvill or I must be banished from this roof. What is the league between you? Break it, I conjure you, before his frauds have involved you in inextricable destruction." Welbeck looked at me with some expression of doubt. "I mean," continued I, "the man whose voice I heard above. He is a villain and betrayer. I have manifold proofs of his guilt. Why does he linger behind you? However you may decide, it is fitting that he should vanish." "Alas!" said Welbeck, "I have no companion, none to partake with me in good or evil. I came hither alone." "How?" exclaimed I. "Whom did I hear in the room above? Some one answered my interrogations and entreaties, whom I too certainly recognised. Why does he remain?" "You heard no one but myself. The design that brought me hither was to be accomplished without a witness. I desired to escape detection, and repelled your solicitations for admission in a counterfeited voice. "That voice belonged to one from whom I had lately parted. What his merits or demerits are, I know not. He found me wandering in the forests of New Jersey. He took me to his home. When seized by a lingering malady, he nursed me with fidelity and tenderness. When somewhat recovered, I speeded hither; but our ignorance of each other's character and views was mutual and profound. "I deemed it useful to assume a voice different from my own. This was the last which I had heard, and this arbitrary and casual circumstance decided my choice." This imitation was too perfect, and had influenced my fears too strongly, to be easily credited. I suspected Welbeck of some new artifice to baffle my conclusions and mislead my judgment. This suspicion, however, yielded to his earnest and repeated declarations. If Colvill were not here, where had he made his abode? How came friendship and intercourse between Welbeck and him? By what miracle escaped the former from the river, into which I had imagined him forever sunk? "I will answer you," said he, with candour. "You know already too much for me to have any interest in concealing any part of my life. You have discovered my existence, and the causes that rescued me from destruction may be told without detriment to my person or fame. "When I leaped into the river, I intended to perish. I harboured no previous doubts of my ability to execute my fatal purpose. In this respect I was deceived. Suffocation would not come at my bidding. My muscles and limbs rebelled against my will. There was a mechanical repugnance to the loss of life, which I could not vanquish. My struggles might thrust me below the surface, but my lips were spontaneously shut, and excluded the torrent from my lungs. When my breath was exhausted, the efforts that kept me at the bottom were involuntarily remitted, and I rose to the surface. "I cursed my own pusillanimity. Thrice I plunged to the bottom, and as often rose again. My aversion to life swiftly diminished, and at length I consented to make use of my skill in swimming, which has seldom been exceeded, to prolong my existence. I landed in a few minutes on the Jersey shore. "This scheme being frustrated, I sunk into dreariness and inactivity. I felt as if no dependence could be placed upon my courage, as if any effort I should make for self-destruction would be fruitless; yet existence was as void as ever of enjoyment and embellishment. My means of living were annihilated. I saw no path before me. To shun the presence of mankind was my sovereign wish. Since I could not die by my own hands, I must be content to crawl upon the surface, till a superior fate should permit me to perish. "I wandered into the centre of the wood. I stretched myself on the mossy verge of a brook, and gazed at the stars till they disappeared. The next day was spent with little variation. The cravings of hunger were felt, and the sensation was a joyous one, since it afforded me the practicable means of death. To refrain from food was easy, since some efforts would be needful to procure it, and these efforts should not be made. Thus was the sweet oblivion for which I so earnestly panted placed within my reach. "Three days of abstinence, and reverie, and solitude, succeeded. On the evening of the fourth, I was seated on a rock, with my face buried in my hands. Some one laid his hand upon my shoulder. I started and looked up. I beheld a face beaming with compassion and benignity. He endeavoured to extort from me the cause of my solitude and sorrow. I disregarded his entreaties, and was obstinately silent. "Finding me invincible in this respect, he invited me to his cottage, which was hard by. I repelled him at first with impatience and anger, but he was not to be discouraged or intimidated. To elude his persuasions I was obliged to comply. My strength was gone, and the vital fabric was crumbling into pieces. A fever raged in my veins, and I was consoled by reflecting that my life was at once assailed by famine and disease. "Meanwhile, my gloomy meditations experienced no respite. I incessantly ruminated on the events of my past life. The long series of my crimes arose daily and afresh to my imagination. The image of Lodi was recalled, his expiring looks and the directions which were mutually given respecting his sister's and his property. "As I perpetually revolved these incidents, they assumed new forms, and were linked with new associations. The volume written by his father, and transferred to me by tokens which were now remembered to be more emphatic than the nature of the composition seemed to justify, was likewise remembered. It came attended by recollections respecting a volume which I filled, when a youth, with extracts from the Roman and Greek poets. Besides this literary purpose, I likewise used to preserve in it the bank-bills with the keeping or carriage of which I chanced to be entrusted. This image led me back to the leather case containing Lodi's property, which was put into my hands at the same time with the volume. "These images now gave birth to a third conception, which darted on my benighted understanding like an electrical flash. Was it not possible that part of Lodi's property might be enclosed within the leaves of this volume? In hastily turning it over, I recollected to have noticed leaves whose edges by accident or design adhered to each other. Lodi, in speaking of the sale of his father's West-India property, mentioned that the sum obtained for it was forty thousand dollars. Half only of this sum had been discovered by me. How had the remainder been appropriated? Surely this volume contained it. "The influence of this thought was like the infusion of a new soul into my frame. From torpid and desperate, from inflexible aversion to medicine and food, I was changed in a moment into vivacity and hope, into ravenous avidity for whatever could contribute to my restoration to health. "I was not without pungent regrets and racking fears. That this volume would be ravished away by creditors or plunderers was possible. Every hour might be that which decided my fate. The first impulse was to seek my dwelling and search for this precious deposit. "Meanwhile, my perturbations and impatience only exasperated my disease. While chained to my bed, the rumour of pestilence was spread abroad. This event, however, generally calamitous, was propitious to me, and was hailed with satisfaction. It multiplied the chances that my house and its furniture would be unmolested. "My friend was assiduous and indefatigable in his kindness. My deportment, before and subsequent to the revival of my hopes, was incomprehensible, and argued nothing less than insanity. My thoughts were carefully concealed from him, and all that he witnessed was contradictory and unintelligible. "At length, my strength was sufficiently restored. I resisted all my protector's importunities to postpone my departure till the perfect confirmation of my health. I designed to enter the city at midnight, that prying eyes might be eluded; to bear with me a candle and the means of lighting it, to explore my way to my ancient study, and to ascertain my future claim to existence and felicity. "I crossed the river this morning. My impatience would not suffer me to wait till evening. Considering the desolation of the city, I thought I might venture to approach thus near, without hazard of detection. The house, at all its avenues, was closed. I stole into the back court. A window-shutter proved to be unfastened. I entered, and discovered closets and cabinets unfastened and emptied of all their contents. At this spectacle my heart sunk. My books, doubtless, had shared the common destiny. My blood throbbed with painful vehemence as I approached the study and opened the door. "My hopes, that languished for a moment, were revived by the sight of my shelves, furnished as formerly. I had lighted my candle below, for I desired not to awaken observation and suspicion by unclosing the windows. My eye eagerly sought the spot where I remembered to have left the volume. Its place was empty. The object of all my hopes had eluded my grasp, and disappeared forever. "To paint my confusion, to repeat my execrations on the infatuation which had rendered, during so long a time that it was in my possession, this treasure useless to me, and my curses of the fatal interference which had snatched away the prize, would be only aggravations of my disappointment and my sorrow. You found me in this state, and know what followed."	{ "id": "18508" }
22	None	This narrative threw new light on the character of Welbeck. If accident had given him possession of this treasure, it was easy to predict on what schemes of luxury and selfishness it would have been expended. The same dependence on the world's erroneous estimation, the same devotion to imposture, and thoughtlessness of futurity, would have constituted the picture of his future life, as had distinguished the past. This money was another's. To retain it for his own use was criminal. Of this crime he appeared to be as insensible as ever. His own gratification was the supreme law of his actions. To be subjected to the necessity of honest labour was the heaviest of all evils, and one from which he was willing to escape by the commission of suicide. The volume which he sought was mine. It was my duty to restore it to the rightful owner, or, if the legal claimant could not be found, to employ it in the promotion of virtue and happiness. To give it to Welbeck was to consecrate it to the purpose of selfishness and misery. My right, legally considered, was as valid as his. But, if I intended not to resign it to him, was it proper to disclose the truth and explain by whom the volume was purloined from the shelf? The first impulse was to hide this truth; but my understanding had been taught, by recent occurrences, to question the justice and deny the usefulness of secrecy in any case. My principles were true; my motives were pure: why should I scruple to avow my principles and vindicate my actions? Welbeck had ceased to be dreaded or revered. That awe which was once created by his superiority of age, refinement of manners, and dignity of garb, had vanished. I was a boy in years, an indigent and uneducated rustic; but I was able to discern the illusions of power and riches, and abjured every claim to esteem that was not founded on integrity. There was no tribunal before which I should falter in asserting the truth, and no species of martyrdom which I would not cheerfully embrace in its cause. After some pause, I said, "Cannot you conjecture in what way this volume has disappeared?" "No," he answered, with a sigh. "Why, of all his volumes, this only should have vanished, was an inexplicable enigma." "Perhaps," said I, "it is less important to know how it was removed, than by whom it is now possessed." "Unquestionably; and yet, unless that knowledge enables me to regain the possession, it will be useless." "Useless then it will be, for the present possessor will never return it to you." "Indeed," replied he, in a tone of dejection, "your conjecture is most probable. Such a prize is of too much value to be given up." "What I have said flows not from conjecture, but from knowledge. I know that it will never be restored to you." At these words, Welbeck looked at me with anxiety and doubt:--"You _know_ that it will not! Have you any knowledge of the book? Can you tell me what has become of it?" "Yes. After our separation on the river, I returned to this house. I found this volume and secured it. You rightly suspected its contents. The money was there." Welbeck started as if he had trodden on a mine of gold. His first emotion was rapturous, but was immediately chastened by some degree of doubt:--"What has become of it? Have you got it? Is it entire? Have you it with you?" "It is unimpaired. I have got it, and shall hold it as a sacred trust for the rightful proprietor." The tone with which this declaration was accompanied shook the new-born confidence of Welbeck. "The rightful proprietor! true, but I am he. To me only it belongs, and to me you are, doubtless, willing to restore it." "Mr. Welbeck! It is not my desire to give you perplexity or anguish; to sport with your passions. On the supposition of your death, I deemed it no infraction of justice to take this manuscript. Accident unfolded its contents. I could not hesitate to choose my path. The natural and legal successor of Vincentio Lodi is his sister. To her, therefore, this property belongs, and to her only will I give it." "Presumptuous boy! And this is your sage decision. I tell you that I am the owner, and to me you shall render it. Who is this girl? Childish and ignorant! Unable to consult and to act for herself on the most trivial occasion. Am I not, by the appointment of her dying brother, her protector and guardian? Her age produces a legal incapacity of property. Do you imagine that so obvious an expedient as that of procuring my legal appointment as her guardian was overlooked by me? If it were neglected, still my title to provide her subsistence and enjoyment is unquestionable. "Did I not rescue her from poverty, and prostitution, and infamy? Have I not supplied all her wants with incessant solicitude? Whatever her condition required has been plenteously supplied. The dwelling and its furniture was hers, as far a rigid jurisprudence would permit. To prescribe her expenses and govern her family was the province of her guardian. "You have heard the tale of my anguish and despair. Whence did they flow but from the frustration of schemes projected for her benefit, as they were executed with her money and by means which the authority of her guardian fully justified? Why have I encountered this contagious atmosphere, and explored my way, like a thief, to this recess, but with a view to rescue her from poverty and restore to her her own? "Your scruples are ridiculous and criminal. I treat them with less severity, because your youth is raw and your conceptions crude. But if, after this proof of the justice of my claim, you hesitate to restore the money, I shall treat you as a robber, who has plundered my cabinet and refused to refund his spoil." These reasonings were powerful and new. I was acquainted with the rights of guardianship. Welbeck had, in some respects, acted as the friend of this lady. To vest himself with this office was the conduct which her youth and helplessness prescribed to her friend. His title to this money, as her guardian, could not be denied. But how was this statement compatible with former representations? No mention had then been made of guardianship. By thus acting, he would have thwarted all his schemes for winning the esteem of mankind and fostering the belief which the world entertained of his opulence and independence. I was thrown, by these thoughts, into considerable perplexity. If his statement were true, his claim to this money was established; but I questioned its truth. To intimate my doubts of his veracity would be to provoke abhorrence and outrage. His last insinuation was peculiarly momentous. Suppose him the fraudulent possessor of this money: shall I be justified in taking it away by violence under pretence of restoring it to the genuine proprietor, who, for aught I know, may be dead, or with whom, at least, I may never procure a meeting? But will not my behaviour on this occasion be deemed illicit? I entered Welbeck's habitation at midnight, proceeded to his closet, possessed myself of portable property, and retired unobserved. Is not guilt imputable to an action like this? Welbeck waited with impatience for a conclusion to my pause. My perplexity and indecision did not abate, and my silence continued. At length, he repeated his demands, with new vehemence. I was compelled to answer. I told him, in few words, that his reasonings had not convinced me of the equity of his claim, and that my determination was unaltered. He had not expected this inflexibility from one in my situation. The folly of opposition, when my feebleness and loneliness were contrasted with his activity and resources, appeared to him monstrous and glaring; but his contempt was converted into rage and fear when he reflected that this folly might finally defeat his hopes. He had probably determined to obtain the money, let the purchase cost what it would, but was willing to exhaust pacific expedients before he should resort to force. He might likewise question whether the money was within his reach. I had told him that I had it, but whether it was now about me was somewhat dubious; yet, though he used no direct inquiries, he chose to proceed on the supposition of its being at hand. His angry tones were now changed into those of remonstrance and persuasion:-- "Your present behaviour, Mervyn, does not justify the expectation I had formed of you. You have been guilty of a base theft. To this you have added the deeper crime of ingratitude, but your infatuation and folly are, at least, as glaring as your guilt. Do you think I can credit your assertions that you keep this money for another, when I recollect that six weeks have passed since you carried it off? Why have you not sought the owner and restored it to her? If your intentions had been honest, would you have suffered so long a time to elapse without doing this? It is plain that you designed to keep it for your own use. "But, whether this were your purpose or not, you have no longer power to restore it or retain it. You say that you came hither to die. If so, what is to be the fate of the money? In your present situation you cannot gain access to the lady. Some other must inherit this wealth. Next to _Signora Lodi_, whose right can be put in competition with mine? But, if you will not give it to me on my own account, let it be given in trust for her. Let me be the bearer of it to her own hands. I have already shown you that my claim to it, as her guardian, is legal and incontrovertible, but this claim I waive. I will merely be the executor of your will. I will bind myself to comply with your directions by any oath, however solemn and tremendous, which you shall prescribe." As long as my own heart acquitted me, these imputations of dishonesty affected me but little. They excited no anger, because they originated in ignorance, and were rendered plausible to Welbeck by such facts as were known to him. It was needless to confute the charge by elaborate and circumstantial details. It was true that my recovery was, in the highest degree, improbable, and that my death would put an end to my power over this money; but had I not determined to secure its useful application in case of my death? This project was obstructed by the presence of Welbeck; but I hoped that his love of life would induce him to fly. He might wrest this volume from me by violence, or he might wait till my death should give him peaceable possession. But these, though probable events, were not certain, and would, by no means, justify the voluntary surrender. His strength, if employed for this end, could not be resisted; but then it would be a sacrifice, not a choice, but necessity. Promises were easily given, but were surely not to be confided in. Welbeck's own tale, in which it could not be imagined that he had aggravated his defects, attested the frailty of his virtue. To put into his hands a sum like this, in expectation of his delivering it to another, when my death would cover the transaction with impenetrable secrecy, would be, indeed, a proof of that infatuation which he thought proper to impute to me. These thoughts influenced my resolutions, but they were revolved in silence. To state them verbally was useless. They would not justify my conduct in his eyes. They would only exasperate dispute, and impel him to those acts of violence which I was desirous of preventing. The sooner this controversy should end, and I in any measure be freed from the obstruction of his company, the better. "Mr. Welbeck," said I, "my regard to your safety compels me to wish that this interview should terminate. At a different time, I should not be unwilling to discuss this matter. Now it will be fruitless. My conscience points out to me too clearly the path I should pursue for me to mistake it. As long as I have power over this money, I shall keep it for the use of the unfortunate lady whom I have seen in this house. I shall exert myself to find her; but, if that be impossible, I shall appropriate it in a way in which you shall have no participation." I will not repeat the contest that succeeded between my forbearance and his passions. I listened to the dictates of his rage and his avarice in silence. Astonishment at my inflexibility was blended with his anger. By turns he commented on the guilt and on the folly of my resolutions. Sometimes his emotions would mount into fury, and he would approach me in a menacing attitude, and lift his hand as if he would exterminate me at a blow. My languid eyes, my cheeks glowing and my temples throbbing with fever, and my total passiveness, attracted his attention and arrested his stroke. Compassion would take the place of rage, and the belief be revived that remonstrances and arguments would answer his purpose.	{ "id": "18508" }
23	None	This scene lasted I know not how long. Insensibly the passions and reasonings of Welbeck assumed a new form. A grief, mingled with perplexity, overspread his countenance. He ceased to contend or to speak. His regards were withdrawn from me, on whom they had hitherto been fixed; and, wandering or vacant, testified a conflict of mind terrible beyond any that my young imagination had ever conceived. For a time he appeared to be unconscious of my presence. He moved to and fro with unequal steps, and with gesticulations that possessed a horrible but indistinct significance. Occasionally he struggled for breath, and his efforts were directed to remove some choking impediment. No test of my fortitude had hitherto occurred equal to that to which it was now subjected. The suspicion which this deportment suggested was vague and formless. The tempest which I witnessed was the prelude of horror. These were throes which would terminate in the birth of some gigantic and sanguinary purpose. Did he meditate to offer a bloody sacrifice? Was his own death or was mine to attest the magnitude of his despair or the impetuosity of his vengeance? Suicide was familiar to his thoughts. He had consented to live but on one condition; that of regaining possession of this money. Should I be justified in driving him, by my obstinate refusal, to this fatal consummation of his crimes? Yet my fear of this catastrophe was groundless. Hitherto he had argued and persuaded; but this method was pursued because it was more eligible than the employment of force, or than procrastination. No. These were tokens that pointed to me. Some unknown instigation was at work within him, to tear away his remnant of humanity and fit him for the office of my murderer. I knew not how the accumulation of guilt could contribute to his gratification or security. His actions had been partially exhibited and vaguely seen. What extenuations or omissions had vitiated his former or recent narrative; how far his actual performances were congenial with the deed which was now to be perpetrated, I knew not. These thoughts lent new rapidity to my blood. I raised my head from the pillow, and watched the deportment of this man with deeper attention. The paroxysm which controlled him at length, in some degree, subsided. He muttered, "Yes. It must come. My last humiliation must cover me. My last confession must be made. To die, and leave behind me this train of enormous perils, must not be. "O Clemenza! O Mervyn! Ye have not merited that I should leave you a legacy of persecution and death. Your safety must be purchased at what price my malignant destiny will set upon it. The cord of the executioner, the note of everlasting infamy, is better than to leave you beset by the consequences of my guilt. It must not be." Saying this, Welbeck cast fearful glances at the windows and door. He examined every avenue and listened. Thrice he repeated this scrutiny. Having, as it seemed, ascertained that no one lurked within audience, he approached the bed. He put his mouth close to my face. He attempted to speak, but once more examined the apartment with suspicious glances. He drew closer, and at length, in a tone scarcely articulate, and suffocated with emotion, he spoke:--"Excellent but fatally-obstinate youth! Know at least the cause of my importunity. Know at least the depth of my infatuation and the enormity of my guilt. "The bills--surrender them to me, and save yourself from persecution and disgrace. Save the woman whom you wish to benefit, from the blackest imputations; from hazard to her life and her fame; from languishing in dungeons; from expiring on the gallows! "The bills--oh, save me from the bitterness of death! Let the evils to which my miserable life has given birth terminate here and in myself. Surrender them to me, for----" There he stopped. His utterence was choked by terror. Rapid glances were again darted at the windows and door. The silence was uninterrupted, except by far-off sounds, produced by some moving carriage. Once more he summoned resolution, and spoke:-- "Surrender them to me--for--_they are forged_! "Formerly I told you, that a scheme of forgery had been conceived. Shame would not suffer me to add, that my scheme was carried into execution. The bills were fashioned, but my fears contended against my necessities, and forbade me to attempt to exchange them. The interview with Lodi saved me from the dangerous experiment. I enclosed them in that volume, as the means of future opulence, to be used when all other and less hazardous resources should fail. "In the agonies of my remorse at the death of Watson, they were forgotten. They afterwards recurred to recollection. My wishes pointed to the grave; but the stroke that should deliver me from life was suspended only till I could hasten hither, get possession of these papers, and destroy them. "When I thought upon the chances that should give them an owner; bring them into circulation; load the innocent with suspicion; and lead them to trial, and, perhaps, to death, my sensations were fraught with agony; earnestly as I panted for death, it was necessarily deferred till I had gained possession of and destroyed these papers. "What now remains? You have found them. Happily they have not been used. Give them, therefore, to me, that I may crush at once the brood of mischiefs which they could not but generate." This disclosure was strange. It was accompanied with every token of sincerity. How had I tottered on the brink of destruction! If I had made use of this money, in what a labyrinth of misery might I not have been involved! My innocence could never have been proved. An alliance with Welbeck could not have failed to be inferred. My career would have found an ignominious close; or, if my punishment had been transmuted into slavery and toil, would the testimony of my conscience have supported me? I shuddered at the view of those disasters from which I was rescued by the miraculous chance which led me to this house. Welbeck's request was salutary to me and honourable to himself. I could not hesitate a moment in compliance. The notes were enclosed in paper, and deposited in a fold of my clothes. I put my hand upon them. My motion and attention were arrested, at the instant, by a noise which arose in the street. Footsteps were heard upon the pavement before the door, and voices, as if busy in discourse. This incident was adapted to infuse the deepest alarm into myself and my companion. The motives of our trepidation were, indeed, different, and were infinitely more powerful in my case than in his. It portended to me nothing less than the loss of my asylum, and condemnation to an hospital. Welbeck hurried to the door, to listen to the conversation below. This interval was pregnant with thought. That impulse which led my reflections from Welbeck to my own state passed away in a moment, and suffered me to meditate anew upon the terms of that confession which had just been made. Horror at the fate which this interview had enabled me to shun was uppermost in my conceptions. I was eager to surrender these fatal bills. I held them for that purpose in my hand, and was impatient for Welbeck's return. He continued at the door; stooping, with his face averted, and eagerly attentive to the conversation in the street. All the circumstances of my present situation tended to arrest the progress of thought and chain my contemplations to one image; but even now there was room for foresight and deliberation. Welbeck intended to destroy these bills. Perhaps he had not been sincere; or, if his purpose had been honestly disclosed, this purpose might change when the bills were in his possession. His poverty and sanguineness of temper might prompt him to use them. That this conduct was evil, and would only multiply his miseries, could not be questioned. Why should I subject his frailty to this temptation? The destruction of these bills was the loudest injunction of my duty; was demanded by every sanction which bound me to promote the welfare of mankind. The means of destruction was easy. A lighted candle stood on a table, at the distance of a few yards. Why should I hesitate a moment to annihilate so powerful a cause of error and guilt? A passing instant was sufficient. A momentary lingering might change the circumstances that surrounded me, and frustrate my project. My languors were suspended by the urgencies of this occasion. I started from my bed and glided to the table. Seizing the notes with my right hand, I held them in the flame of the candle, and then threw them, blazing, on the floor. The sudden illumination was perceived by Welbeck. The cause of it appeared to suggest itself as soon. He turned, and, marking the paper where it lay, leaped to the spot, and extinguished the fire with his foot. His interposition was too late. Only enough of them remained to inform him of the nature of the sacrifice. Welbeck now stood, with limbs trembling, features aghast, and eyes glaring upon me. For a time he was without speech. The storm was gathering in silence, and at length burst upon me. In a tone menacing and loud, he exclaimed,-- "Wretch! what have you done?" "I have done justly. These notes were false. You desired to destroy them, that they might not betray the innocent. I applauded your purpose, and have saved you from the danger of temptation by destroying them myself." "Maniac! Miscreant! To be fooled by so gross an artifice! The notes were genuine. The tale of their forgery was false and meant only to wrest them from you. Execrable and perverse idiot! Your deed has sealed my perdition. It has sealed your own. You shall pay for it with your blood. I will slay you by inches. I will stretch you, as you have stretched me, on the rack." During this speech, all was frenzy and storm in the countenance and features of Welbeck. Nothing less could be expected than that the scene would terminate in some bloody catastrophe. I bitterly regretted the facility with which I had been deceived, and the precipitation of my sacrifice. The act, however lamentable, could not be revoked. What remained but to encounter or endure its consequences with unshrinking firmness? The contest was too unequal. It is possible that the frenzy which actuated Welbeck might have speedily subsided. It is more likely that his passions would have been satiated with nothing but my death. This event was precluded by loud knocks at the street door, and calls by some one on the pavement without, of--"Who is within? Is any one within?" These noises gave a new direction to Welbeck's thoughts. "They are coming," said he. "They will treat you as a sick man and a thief. I cannot desire you to suffer a worse evil than they will inflict. I leave you to your fate." So saying, he rushed out of the room. Though confounded and stunned by this rapid succession of events, I was yet able to pursue measures for eluding these detested visitants. I first extinguished the light, and then, observing that the parley in the street continued and grew louder, I sought an asylum in the remotest corner of the house. During my former abode here, I noticed that a trap-door opened in the ceiling of the third story, to which you were conducted by a movable stair or ladder. I considered that this, probably, was an opening into a narrow and darksome nook formed by the angle of the roof. By ascending, drawing after me the ladder, and closing the door, I should escape the most vigilant search. Enfeebled as I was by my disease, my resolution rendered me strenuous. I gained the uppermost room, and, mounting the ladder, found myself at a sufficient distance from suspicion. The stair was hastily drawn up, and the door closed. In a few minutes, however, my new retreat proved to be worse than any for which it was possible to change it. The air was musty, stagnant, and scorchingly hot. My breathing became difficult, and I saw that to remain here ten minutes would unavoidably produce suffocation. My terror of intruders had rendered me blind to the consequences of immuring myself in this cheerless recess. It was incumbent on me to extricate myself as speedily as possible. I attempted to lift the door. My first effort was successless. Every inspiration was quicker and more difficult than the former. As my terror, so my strength and my exertions increased. Finally my trembling hand lighted on a nail that was imperfectly driven into the wood, and which, by affording me a firmer hold, enabled me at length to raise it, and to inhale the air from beneath. Relieved from my new peril by this situation, I bent an attentive ear through the opening, with a view to ascertain if the house had been entered or if the outer door was still beset, but could hear nothing. Hence I was authorized to conclude that the people had departed, and that I might resume my former station without hazard. Before I descended, however, I cast a curious eye over this recess. It was large enough to accommodate a human being. The means by which it was entered were easily concealed. Though narrow and low, it was long, and, were it possible to contrive some inlet for the air, one studious of concealment might rely on its protection with unbounded confidence. My scrutiny was imperfect by reason of the faint light which found its way through the opening; yet it was sufficient to set me afloat on a sea of new wonders and subject my fortitude to a new test. -- Here Mervyn paused in his narrative. A minute passed in silence and seeming indecision. His perplexities gradually disappeared, and he continued:-- * * * * * I have promised to relate the momentous incidents of my life, and have hitherto been faithful in my enumeration. There is nothing which I more detest than equivocation and mystery. Perhaps, however, I shall now incur some imputation of that kind. I would willingly escape the accusation, but confess that I am hopeless of escaping it. I might, indeed, have precluded your guesses and surmises by omitting to relate what befell me from the time of my leaving my chamber till I regained it. I might deceive you by asserting that nothing remarkable occurred; but this would be false, and every sacrifice is trivial which is made upon the altar of sincerity. Besides, the time may come when no inconvenience will arise from minute descriptions of the objects which I now saw, and of the reasonings and inferences which they suggested to my understanding. At present, it appears to be my duty to pass them over in silence; but it would be needless to conceal from you that the interval, though short, and the scrutiny, though hasty, furnished matter which my curiosity devoured with unspeakable eagerness, and from which consequences may hereafter flow, deciding on my peace and my life. Nothing, however, occurred which could detain me long in this spot. I once more sought the lower story and threw myself on the bed which I had left. My mind was thronged with the images flowing from my late adventure. My fever had gradually increased, and my thoughts were deformed by inaccuracy and confusion. My heart did not sink when I reverted to my own condition. That I should quickly be disabled from moving, was readily perceived. The foresight of my destiny was steadfast and clear. To linger for days in this comfortless solitude, to ask in vain, not for powerful restoratives or alleviating cordials, but for water to moisten my burning lips and abate the torments of thirst; ultimately to expire in torpor or frenzy, was the fate to which I looked forward; yet I was not terrified. I seemed to be sustained by a preternatural energy. I felt as if the opportunity of combating such evils was an enviable privilege, and, though none would witness my victorious magnanimity, yet to be conscious that praise was my due was all that my ambition required. These sentiments were doubtless tokens of delirium. The excruciating agonies which now seized upon my head, and the cord which seemed to be drawn across my breast, and which, as my fancy imagined, was tightened by some forcible hand, with a view to strangle me, were incompatible with sober and coherent views. Thirst was the evil which chiefly oppressed me. The means of relief was pointed out by nature and habit. I rose, and determined to replenish my pitcher at the well. It was easier, however, to descend than to return. My limbs refused to bear me, and I sat down upon the lower step of the staircase. Several hours had elapsed since my entrance into this dwelling, and it was now night. My imagination now suggested a new expedient. Medlicote was a generous and fearless spirit. To put myself under his protection, if I could walk as far as his lodgings, was the wisest proceeding which I could adopt. From this design, my incapacity to walk thus far, and the consequences of being discovered in the street, had hitherto deterred me. These impediments were now, in the confusion of my understanding, overlooked or despised, and I forthwith set out upon this hopeless expedition. The doors communicating with the court, and, through the court, with the street, were fastened by inside bolts. These were easily withdrawn, and I issued forth with alacrity and confidence. My perturbed senses and the darkness hindered me from discerning the right way. I was conscious of this difficulty, but was not disheartened. I proceeded, as I have since discovered, in a direction different from the true, but hesitated not till my powers were exhausted and I sunk upon the ground. I closed my eyes, and dismissed all fear, and all foresight of futurity. In this situation I remained some hours, and should probably have expired on this spot, had not I attracted your notice, and been provided, under this roof, with all that medical skill, that the tenderest humanity could suggest. In consequence of your care, I have been restored to life and to health. Your conduct was not influenced by the prospect of pecuniary recompense, of service, or of gratitude. It is only in one way that I am able to heighten the gratification which must flow from reflection on your conduct:--by showing that the being whose life you have prolonged, though uneducated, ignorant, and poor, is not profligate and worthless, and will not dedicate that life which your bounty has given, to mischievous or contemptible purposes. END OF VOL I. ARTHUR MERVYN; OR, MEMOIRS OF THE YEAR 1793. VOL. II. ARTHUR MERVYN.	{ "id": "18508" }
24	None	Here ended the narrative of Mervyn. Surely its incidents were of no common kind. During this season of pestilence, my opportunities of observation had been numerous, and I had not suffered them to pass unimproved. The occurrences which fell within my own experience bore a general resemblance to those which had just been related, but they did not hinder the latter from striking on my mind with all the force of novelty. They served no end, but as vouchers for the truth of the tale. Surely the youth had displayed inimitable and heroic qualities. His courage was the growth of benevolence and reason, and not the child of insensibility and the nursling of habit. He had been qualified for the encounter of gigantic dangers by no laborious education. He stepped forth upon the stage, unfurnished, by anticipation or experience, with the means of security against fraud; and yet, by the aid of pure intentions, had frustrated the wiles of an accomplished and veteran deceiver. I blessed the chance which placed the youth under my protection. When I reflected on that tissue of nice contingencies which led him to my door, and enabled me to save from death a being of such rare endowments, my heart overflowed with joy, not unmingled with regrets and trepidation. How many have been cut off by this disease, in their career of virtue and their blossom-time of genius! How many deeds of heroism and self-devotion are ravished from existence, and consigned to hopeless oblivion! I had saved the life of this youth. This was not the limit of my duty or my power. Could I not render that life profitable to himself and to mankind? The gains of my profession were slender; but these gains were sufficient for his maintenance as well as my own. By residing with me, partaking my instructions, and reading my books, he would, in a few years, be fitted for the practice of physic. A science whose truths are so conducive to the welfare of mankind, and which comprehends the whole system of nature, could not but gratify a mind so beneficent and strenuous as his. This scheme occurred to me as soon as the conclusion of his tale allowed me to think. I did not immediately mention it, since the approbation of my wife, of whose concurrence, however, I entertained no doubt, was previously to be obtained. Dismissing it, for the present, from my thoughts, I reverted to the incidents of his tale. The lady whom Welbeck had betrayed and deserted was not unknown to me. I was but too well acquainted with her fate. If she had been single in calamity, her tale would have been listened to with insupportable sympathy; but the frequency of the spectacle of distress seems to lessen the compassion with which it is reviewed. Now that those scenes are only remembered, my anguish is greater than when they were witnessed. Then every new day was only a repetition of the disasters of the foregoing. My sensibility, if not extinguished, was blunted; and I gazed upon the complicated ills of poverty and sickness with a degree of unconcern on which I should once have reflected with astonishment. The fate of Clemenza Lodi was not, perhaps, more signal than many which have occurred. It threw detestable light upon the character of Welbeck, and showed him to be more inhuman than the tale of Mervyn had evinced him to be. That man, indeed, was hitherto imperfectly seen. The time had not come which should fully unfold the enormity of his transgressions and the complexity of his frauds. There lived in a remote quarter of the city a woman, by name Villars, who passed for the widow of an English officer. Her manners and mode of living were specious. She had three daughters, well trained in the school of fashion, and elegant in person, manners, and dress. They had lately arrived from Europe, and, for a time, received from their neighbours that respect to which their education and fortune appeared to lay claim. The fallacy of their pretensions slowly appeared. It began to be suspected that their subsistence was derived not from pension or patrimony, but from the wages of pollution. Their habitation was clandestinely frequented by men who were unfaithful to their secret; one of these was allied to me by ties which authorized me in watching his steps and detecting his errors, with a view to his reformation. From him I obtained a knowledge of the genuine character of these women. A man like Welbeck, who was the slave of depraved appetites, could not fail of being quickly satiated with innocence and beauty. Some accident introduced him to the knowledge of this family, and the youngest daughter found him a proper subject on which to exercise her artifices. It was to the frequent demands made upon his purse, by this woman, that part of the embarrassments in which Mervyn found him involved are to be ascribed. To this circumstance must likewise be imputed his anxiety to transfer to some other the possession of the unhappy stranger. Why he concealed from Mervyn his connection with Lucy Villars may be easily imagined. His silence with regard to Clemenza's asylum will not create surprise, when it was told that she was placed with Mrs. Villars. On what conditions she was received under this roof, cannot be so readily conjectured. It is obvious, however, to suppose that advantage was to be taken of her ignorance and weakness, and that they hoped, in time, to make her an associate in their profligate schemes. The appearance of pestilence, meanwhile, threw them into panic, and they hastened to remove from danger. Mrs. Villars appears to have been a woman of no ordinary views. She stooped to the vilest means of amassing money; but this money was employed to secure to herself and her daughters the benefits of independence. She purchased the house which she occupied in the city, and a mansion in the environs, well built and splendidly furnished. To the latter, she and her family, of which the Italian girl was now a member, retired at the close of July. I have mentioned that the source of my intelligence was a kinsman, who had been drawn from the paths of sobriety and rectitude by the impetuosity of youthful passions. He had power to confess and deplore, but none to repair, his errors. One of these women held him by a spell which he struggled in vain to dissolve, and by which, in spite of resolutions and remorses, he was drawn to her feet, and made to sacrifice to her pleasure his reputation and his fortune. My house was his customary abode during those intervals in which he was persuaded to pursue his profession. Some time before the infection began its progress, he had disappeared. No tidings were received of him, till a messenger arrived, entreating my assistance. I was conducted to the house of Mrs. Villars, in which I found no one but my kinsman. Here, it seems, he had immured himself from my inquiries, and, on being seized by the reigning malady, had been deserted by the family, who, ere they departed, informed me by a messenger of his condition. Despondency combined with his disease to destroy him. Before he died, he informed me fully of the character of his betrayers. The late arrival, name, and personal condition of Clemenza Lodi were related. Welbeck was not named, but was described in terms which, combined with the narrative of Mervyn, enabled me to recognise the paramour of Lucy Villars in the man whose crimes had been the principal theme of our discourse. Mervyn's curiosity was greatly roused when I intimated my acquaintance with the fate of Clemenza. In answer to his eager interrogations, I related what I knew. The tale plunged him into reverie. Recovering, at length, from his thoughtfulness, he spoke:-- "Her condition is perilous. The poverty of Welbeck will drive him far from her abode. Her profligate protectors will entice her or abandon her to ruin. Cannot she be saved?" "I know not," answered I, "by what means." "The means are obvious. Let her remove to some other dwelling. Let her be apprized of the vices of those who surround her. Let her be entreated to fly. The will need only be inspired, the danger need only be shown, and she is safe, for she will remove beyond its reach." "Thou art an adventurous youth. Who wilt thou find to undertake the office? Who will be persuaded to enter the house of a stranger, seek without an introduction the presence of this girl, tell her that the house she inhabits is a house of prostitution, prevail on her to believe the tale, and persuade her to accompany him? Who will open his house to the fugitive? Whom will you convince that her illicit intercourse with Welbeck, of which the opprobrious tokens cannot be concealed, has not fitted her for the company of prostitutes, and made her unworthy of protection? Who will adopt into their family a stranger whose conduct has incurred infamy, and whose present associates have, no doubt, made her worthy of the curse?" "True. These are difficulties which I did not foresee. Must she then perish? Shall not something be done to rescue her from infamy and guilt?" "It is neither in your power nor in mine to do any thing." The lateness of the hour put an end to our conversation and summoned us to repose. I seized the first opportunity of imparting to my wife the scheme which had occurred, relative to our guest; with which, as I expected, she readily concurred. In the morning, I mentioned it to Mervyn. I dwelt upon the benefits that adhered to the medical profession, the power which it confers of lightening the distresses of our neighbours, the dignity which popular opinion annexes to it, the avenue which it opens to the acquisition of competence, the freedom from servile cares which attends it, and the means of intellectual gratification with which it supplies us. As I spoke, his eyes sparkled with joy. "Yes," said he, with vehemence, "I willingly embrace your offer. I accept this benefit, because I know that, if my pride should refuse it, I should prove myself less worthy than you think, and give you pain, instead of that pleasure which I am bound to confer. I would enter on the duties and studies of my new profession immediately; but somewhat is due to Mr. Hadwin and his daughters. I cannot vanquish my inquietudes respecting them, but by returning to Malverton and ascertaining their state with my own eyes. You know in what circumstances I parted with Wallace and Mr. Hadwin. I am not sure that either of them ever reached home, or that they did not carry the infection along with them. I now find myself sufficiently strong to perform the journey, and purposed to have acquainted you, at this interview, with my intentions. An hour's delay is superfluous, and I hope you will consent to my setting out immediately. Rural exercise and air, for a week or fortnight, will greatly contribute to my health." No objection could be made to this scheme. His narrative had excited no common affection in our bosoms for the Hadwins. His visit could not only inform us of their true state, but would dispel that anxiety which they could not but entertain respecting our guest. It was a topic of some surprise that neither Wallace nor Hadwin had returned to the city, with a view to obtain some tidings of their friend. It was more easy to suppose them to have been detained by some misfortune, than by insensibility or indolence. In a few minutes Mervyn bade us adieu, and set out upon his journey, promising to acquaint us with the state of affairs as soon as possible after his arrival. We parted from him with reluctance, and found no consolation but in the prospect of his speedy return. During his absence, conversation naturally turned upon those topics which were suggested by the narrative and deportment of this youth. Different conclusions were formed by his two auditors. They had both contracted a deep interest in his welfare, and an ardent curiosity as to those particulars which his unfinished story had left in obscurity. The true character and actual condition of Welbeck were themes of much speculation. Whether he were dead or alive, near or distant from his ancient abode, was a point on which neither Mervyn, nor any of those with whom I had means of intercourse, afforded any information. Whether he had shared the common fate, and had been carried by the collectors of the dead from the highway or the hovel to the pits opened alike for the rich and the poor, the known and the unknown; whether he had escaped to a foreign shore, or were destined to reappear upon this stage, were questions involved in uncertainty. The disappearance of Watson would, at a different time, have excited much inquiry and suspicion; but, as this had taken place on the eve of the epidemic, his kindred and friends would acquiesce, without scruple, in the belief that he had been involved in the general calamity, and was to be numbered among the earliest victims. Those of his profession usually resided in the street where the infection began, and where its ravages had been most destructive; and this circumstance would corroborate the conclusions of his friends. I did not perceive any immediate advantage to flow from imparting the knowledge I had lately gained to others. Shortly after Mervyn's departure to Malverton, I was visited by Wortley. Inquiring for my guest, I told him that, having recovered his health, he had left my house. He repeated his invectives against the villany of Welbeck, his suspicions of Mervyn, and his wishes for another interview with the youth. Why had I suffered him to depart, and whither had he gone? "He has gone for a short time into the country. I expect him to return in less than a week, when you will meet with him here as often as you please, for I expect him to take up his abode in this house." Much astonishment and disapprobation were expressed by my friend. I hinted that the lad had made disclosures to me, which justified my confidence in his integrity. These proofs of his honesty were not of a nature to be indiscriminately unfolded. Mervyn had authorized me to communicate so much of his story to Wortley, as would serve to vindicate him from the charge of being Welbeck's co-partner in fraud; but this end would only be counteracted by an imperfect tale, and the full recital, though it might exculpate Mervyn, might produce inconveniences by which this advantage would be outweighed. Wortley, as might be naturally expected, was by no means satisfied with this statement. He suspected that Mervyn was a wily impostor; that he had been trained in the arts of fraud, under an accomplished teacher; that the tale which he had told to me was a tissue of ingenious and plausible lies; that the mere assertions, however plausible and solemn, of one like him, whose conduct had incurred such strong suspicions, were unworthy of the least credit. "It cannot be denied," continued my friend, "that he lived with Welbeck at the time of his elopement; that they disappeared together; that they entered a boat, at Pine Street wharf, at midnight; that this boat was discovered by the owner in the possession of a fisherman at Redbank, who affirmed that he had found it stranded near his door, the day succeeding that on which they disappeared. Of all this I can supply you with incontestable proof. If, after this proof, you can give credit to his story, I shall think you made of very perverse and credulous materials." "The proof you mention," said I, "will only enhance his credibility. All the facts which you have stated have been admitted by him. They constitute an essential portion of his narrative." "What then is the inference? Are not these evidences of a compact between them? Has he not acknowledged this compact in confessing that he knew Welbeck was my debtor; that he was apprized of his flight, but that (what matchless effrontery!) he had promised secrecy, and would, by no means, betray him? You say he means to return; but of that I doubt. You will never see his face more. He is too wise to thrust himself again into the noose; but I do not utterly despair of lighting upon Welbeck. Old Thetford, Jamieson, and I, have sworn to hunt him through the world. I have strong hopes that he has not strayed far. Some intelligence has lately been received, which has enabled us to place our hounds upon his scent. He may double and skulk; but, if he does not fall into our toils at last, he will have the agility and cunning, as well as the malignity, of devils." The vengeful disposition thus betrayed by Wortley was not without excuse. The vigour of his days had been spent in acquiring a slender capital; his diligence and honesty had succeeded, and he had lately thought his situation such as to justify marriage with an excellent woman, to whom he had for years been betrothed, but from whom his poverty had hitherto compelled him to live separate. Scarcely had this alliance taken place, and the full career of nuptial enjoyments begun, when his ill fate exposed him to the frauds of Welbeck, and brought him, in one evil hour, to the brink of insolvency. Jamieson and Thetford, however, were rich, and I had not till now been informed that they had reasons for pursuing Welbeck with peculiar animosity. The latter was the uncle of him whose fate had been related by Mervyn, and was one of those who employed money, not as the medium of traffic, but as in itself a commodity. He had neither wines nor cloths, to transmute into silver. He thought it a tedious process to exchange to-day one hundred dollars for a cask or bale, and to-morrow exchange the bale or cask for one hundred _and ten_ dollars. It was better to give the hundred for a piece of paper, which, carried forthwith to the money-changers, he could procure a hundred twenty-three and three-fourths. In short, this man's coffers were supplied by the despair of honest men and the stratagems of rogues. I did not immediately suspect how this man's prudence and indefatigable attention to his own interest should allow him to become the dupe of Welbeck. "What," said I, "is old Thetford's claim upon Welbeck?" "It is a claim," he replied, "that, if it ever be made good, will doom Welbeck to imprisonment and wholesome labour for life." "How? Surely it is nothing more than debt." "Have you not heard? But that is no wonder. Happily you are a stranger to mercantile anxieties and revolutions. Your fortune does not rest on a basis which an untoward blast may sweep away, or four strokes of a pen may demolish. That hoary dealer in suspicions was persuaded to put his hand to three notes for eight hundred dollars each. The _eight_ was then dexterously prolonged to eigh_teen_; they were duly deposited in time and place, and the next day Welbeck was credited for fifty-three hundred and seventy-three, which, an hour after, were _told out_ to his messenger. Hard to say whether the old man's grief, shame, or rage, be uppermost. He disdains all comfort but revenge, and that he will procure at any price. Jamieson, who deals in the same _stuff_ with Thetford, was outwitted in the same manner, to the same amount, and on the same day. "This Welbeck must have powers above the common rate of mortals. Grown gray in studying the follies and the stratagems of men, these veterans were overreached. No one pities them. 'Twere well if his artifices had been limited to such, and he had spared the honest and the poor. It is for his injuries to men who have earned their scanty subsistence without forfeiting their probity, that I hate him, and shall exult to see him suffer all the rigours of the law." Here Wortley's engagements compelled him to take his leave.	{ "id": "18508" }
25	None	While musing upon these facts, I could not but reflect with astonishment on the narrow escapes which Mervyn's virtue had experienced. I was by no means certain that his fame or his life was exempt from all danger, or that the suspicions which had already been formed respecting him could possibly be wiped away. Nothing but his own narrative, repeated with that simple but nervous eloquence which we had witnessed, could rescue him from the most heinous charges. Was there any tribunal that would not acquit him on merely hearing his defence? Surely the youth was honest. His tale could not be the fruit of invention; and yet, what are the bounds of fraud? Nature has set no limits to the combinations of fancy. A smooth exterior, a show of virtue, and a specious tale, are, a thousand times, exhibited in human intercourse by craft and subtlety. Motives are endlessly varied, while actions continue the same; and an acute penetration may not find it hard to select and arrange motives, suited to exempt from censure any action that a human being can commit. Had I heard Mervyn's story from another, or read it in a book, I might, perhaps, have found it possible to suspect the truth; but, as long as the impression made by his tones, gestures, and looks, remained in my memory, this suspicion was impossible. Wickedness may sometimes be ambiguous, its mask may puzzle the observer; our judgment may be made to falter and fluctuate, but the face of Mervyn is the index of an honest mind. Calm or vehement, doubting or confident, it is full of benevolence and candour. He that listens to his words may question their truth, but he that looks upon his countenance when speaking cannot withhold his faith. It was possible, however, to find evidence supporting or confuting his story. I chanced to be acquainted with a family, by name Althorpe, who were natives of that part of the country where his father resided. I paid them a visit, and, after a few preliminaries, mentioned, as if by accident, the name of Mervyn. They immediately recognised this name as belonging to one of their ancient neighbours. The death of the wife and sons, and the seduction of the only daughter by Colvill, with many pathetic incidents connected with the fate of this daughter, were mentioned. This intelligence induced me to inquire of Mrs. Althorpe, a sensible and candid woman, if she were acquainted with the recent or present situation of this family. "I cannot say much," she answered, "of my own knowledge. Since my marriage, I am used to spend a few weeks of summer at my father's, but am less inquisitive than I once was into the concerns of my old neighbours. I recollect, however, when there, last year, during _the fever_, to have heard that Sawny Mervyn had taken a second wife; that his only son, a youth of eighteen, had thought proper to be highly offended with his father's conduct, and treated the new mistress of the house with insult and contempt. I should not much wonder at this, seeing children are so apt to deem themselves unjustly treated by a second marriage of their parent; but it was hinted that the boy's jealousy and discontent were excited by no common cause. The new mother was not much older than himself, had been a servant of the family, and a criminal intimacy had subsisted between her, while in that condition, and the son. Her marriage with his father was justly accounted by their neighbours a most profligate and odious transaction. The son, perhaps, had, in such a case, a right to scold, but he ought not to have carried his anger to such extremes as have been imputed to him. He is said to have grinned upon her with contempt, and even to have called her _strumpet_ in the presence of his father and of strangers. "It was impossible for such a family to keep together. Arthur took leave one night to possess himself of all his father's cash, mount the best horse in his meadow, and elope. For a time, no one knew whither he had gone. At last, one was said to have met with him in the streets of this city, metamorphosed from a rustic lad into a fine gentleman. Nothing could be quicker than this change, for he left the country on a Saturday morning, and was seen in a French frock and silk stockings, going into Christ's Church the next day. I suppose he kept it up with a high hand, as long as his money lasted. "My lather paid us a visit last week, and, among other country-news, told us that Sawny Mervyn had sold his place. His wife had persuaded him to try his fortune in the Western country. The price of his hundred acres here would purchase a thousand there, and the man, being very gross and ignorant, and, withal, quite a simpleton, found no difficulty in perceiving that a thousand are ten times more than a hundred. He was not aware that a rood of ground upon Schuylkill is tenfold better than an acre on the Tennessee. "The woman turned out to be an artful profligate. Having sold his ground and gotten his money, he placed it in her keeping, and she, to enjoy it with the more security, ran away to the city; leaving him to prosecute his journey to Kentucky moneyless and alone. Some time after, Mr. Althorpe and I were at the play, when he pointed out to me a group of females in an upper box, one of whom was no other than Betty Lawrence. It was not easy to recognise, in her present gaudy trim, all flaunting with ribbons and shining with trinkets, the same Betty who used to deal out pecks of potatoes and superintend her basket of cantaloupes in the Jersey market, in pasteboard bonnet and linsey petticoat. Her companions were of the infamous class. If Arthur were still in the city, there is no doubt that the mother and son might renew the ancient terms of their acquaintance. "The old man, thus robbed and betrayed, sought consolation in the bottle, of which he had been at all times over-fond. He wandered from one tavern to another till his credit was exhausted, and then was sent to jail, where, I believe, he is likely to continue till his death. Such, my friend, is the history of the Mervyns." "What proof," said I, "have you of the immoral conduct of the son? Of his mistreatment of his mother, and his elopement with his father's horse and money?" "I have no proof but the unanimous report of Mervyn's neighbours. Respectable and honest men have affirmed, in my hearing, that they had been present when the boy treated his mother in the way that I have described. I was, besides, once in company with the old man, and heard him bitterly inveigh against his son, and charge him with the fact of stealing his horse and money. I well remember that tears rolled from his eyes while talking on the subject. As to his being seen in the city the next day after his elopement, dressed in a most costly and fashionable manner, I can doubt that as little as the rest, for he that saw him was my father, and you, who know my father, know what credit is due to his eyes and his word. He had seen Arthur often enough not to be mistaken, and described his appearance with great exactness. The boy is extremely handsome, give him his due; has dark hazel eyes, auburn hair, and very elegant proportions. His air and gait have nothing of the clown in them. Take away his jacket and trousers, and you have as spruce a fellow as ever came from dancing-school or college. He is the exact picture of his mother, and the most perfect contrast to the sturdy legs, squat figure, and broad, unthinking, sheepish face of the father that can be imagined. You must confess that his appearance here is a pretty strong proof of the father's assertions. The money given for these clothes could not possibly have been honestly acquired. It is to be presumed that they were bought or stolen, for how else should they have been gotten?" "What was this lad's personal deportment during the life of his mother, and before his father's second marriage?" "Very little to the credit of his heart or his intellects. Being the youngest son, the only one who at length survived, and having a powerful resemblance to herself, he became the mother's favourite. His constitution was feeble, and he loved to stroll in the woods more than to plough or sow. This idleness was much against his father's inclination and judgment; and, indeed, it was the foundation of all his vices. When he could be prevailed upon to do any thing it was in a bungling manner, and so as to prove that his thoughts were fixed on any thing except his business. When his assistance was wanted he was never to be found at hand. They were compelled to search for him among the rocks and bushes, and he was generally discovered sauntering along the bank of a river, or lolling in the shade of a tree. This disposition to inactivity and laziness, in so young a man, was very strange. Persons of his age are rarely fond of work, but then they are addicted to company, and sports, and exercises. They ride, or shoot, or frolic; but this being moped away his time in solitude, never associated with other young people, never mounted a horse but when he could not help it, and never fired a gun or angled for a fish in his life. Some people supposed him to be half an idiot, or, at least, not to be right in his mind; and, indeed, his conduct was so very perverse and singular, that I do not wonder at those who accounted for it in this way." "But surely," said I, "he had some object of pursuit. Perhaps he was addicted to books." "Far from it. On the contrary, his aversion to school was as great as his hatred of the plough. He never could get his lessons or bear the least constraint. He was so much indulged by his mother at home, that tasks and discipline of any kind were intolerable. He was a perpetual truant; till, the master one day attempting to strike him, he ran out of the room and never entered it more. The mother excused and countenanced his frowardness, and the foolish father was obliged to give way. I do not believe he had two months' schooling in his life." "Perhaps," said I, "he preferred studying by himself, and at liberty. I have known boys endowed with great curiosity and aptitude to learning, who never could endure set tasks, and spurned at the pedagogue and his rod." "I have known such likewise, but this was not one of them. I know not whence he could derive his love of knowledge or the means of acquiring it. The family were totally illiterate. The father was a Scotch peasant, whose ignorance was so great that he could not sign his name. His wife, I believe, could read, and might sometimes decipher the figures in an almanac; but that was all. I am apt to think that the son's ability was not much greater. You might as well look for silver platters or marble tables in his house, as for a book or a pen. "I remember calling at their house one evening in the winter before last. It was intensely cold; and my father, who rode with me, having business with Sawny Mervyn, we stopped a minute at his gate; and, while the two old men were engaged in conversation, I begged leave to warm myself by the kitchen fire. Here, in the chimney-corner, seated on a block, I found Arthur busily engaged in _knitting stockings_! I thought this a whimsical employment for a young active man. I told him so, for I wanted to put him to the blush; but he smiled in my face, and answered, without the least discomposure, 'Just as whimsical a business for a young active woman. Pray, did you never knit a stocking?' " 'Yes; but that was from necessity. Were I of a different sex, or did I possess the strength of a man, I should rather work in my field or study my book.' " 'Rejoice that you are a woman, then, and are at liberty to pursue that which costs least labour and demands most skill. You see, though a man, I use your privilege, and prefer knitting yarn to threshing my brain with a book or the barn-floor with a flail.' " 'I wonder,' said I, contemptuously, 'you do not put on the petticoat as well as handle the needle.' " 'Do not wonder,' he replied; 'it is because I hate a petticoat encumbrance as much as I love warm feet. Look there,' (offering the stocking to my inspection:) 'is it not well done?' "I did not touch it, but sneeringly said, 'Excellent! I wonder you do not apprentice yourself to a tailor.' "He looked at me with an air of ridiculous simplicity, and said, 'How prone the woman is to _wonder_! You call the work excellent, and yet _wonder_ that I do not make myself a slave to improve my skill! Did you learn needlework from seven years' squatting on a tailor's board? Had you come to me, I would have taught you in a day.' " 'I was taught at school.' " 'And paid your instructor?' " 'To-be-sure.' " ''Twas liberty and money thrown away. Send your sister, if you have one, to me, and I will teach her without either rod or wages. Will you?' " 'You have an old and a violent antipathy, I believe, to any thing like a school.' " 'True. It was early and violent. Had not you?' " 'No. I went to school with pleasure; for I thought to read and write were accomplishments of some value.' " 'Indeed? Then I misunderstood you just now. I thought you said that, had you the strength of a man, you should prefer the plough and the book to the needle. Whence, supposing you a female, I inferred that you had a woman's love for the needle and a fool's hatred of books.' "My father calling me from without, I now made a motion to go. 'Stay,' continued he, with great earnestness, throwing aside his knitting-apparatus, and beginning in great haste to pull off his stockings. 'Draw these stockings over your shoes. They will save your feet from the snow while walking to your horse.' "Half angry, and half laughing, I declined the offer. He had drawn them off, however, and, holding them in his hand, 'Be persuaded,' said he; 'only lift your feet, and I will slip them on in a trice.' "Finding me positive in my refusal, he dropped the stockings; and, without more ado, caught me up in his arms, rushed out of the room, and, running barefoot through the snow, set me fairly on my horse. All was done in a moment, and before I had time to reflect on his intentions. He then seized my hand, and, kissing it with great fervour, exclaimed, 'A thousand thanks to you for not accepting my stockings. You have thereby saved yourself and me the time and toil of drawing on and drawing off. Since you have taught me to wonder, let me practise the lesson in wondering at your folly, in wearing worsted shoes and silk stockings at a season like this. Take my counsel, and turn your silk to worsted and your worsted to leather. Then may you hope for warm feet and dry. What! Leave the gate without a blessing on your counsellor?' "I spurred my horse into a gallop, glad to escape from so strange a being. I could give you many instances of behaviour equally singular, and which betrayed a mixture of shrewdness and folly, of kindness and impudence, which justified, perhaps, the common notion that his intellects were unsound. Nothing was more remarkable than his impenetrability to ridicule and censure. You might revile him for hours, and he would listen to you with invincible composure. To awaken anger or shame in him was impossible. He would answer, but in such a way as to show him totally unaware of your true meaning. He would afterwards talk to you with all the smiling affability and freedom of an old friend. Every one despised him for his idleness and folly, no less conspicuous in his words than his actions; but no one feared him, and few were angry with him, till after the detection of his commerce with _Betty_, and his inhuman treatment of his father." "Have you good reasons for supposing him to have been illicitly connected with that girl?" "Yes. Such as cannot be discredited. It would not be proper for me to state these proofs. Nay, he never denied it. When reminded, on one occasion, of the inference which every impartial person would draw from appearances, he acknowledged, with his usual placid effrontery, that the inference was unavoidable. He even mentioned other concurring and contemporary incidents, which had eluded the observation of his censurer, and which added still more force to the conclusion. He was studious to palliate the vices of this woman, as long as he was her only paramour; but, after her marriage with his father, the tone was changed. He confessed that she was tidy, notable, industrious; but, then, she was a prostitute. When charged with being instrumental in making her such, and when his companions dwelt upon the depravity of reviling her for vices which she owed to him, 'True,' he would say, 'there is depravity and folly in the conduct you describe. Make me out, if you please, to be a villain. What then? I was talking, not of myself, but of Betty. Still this woman is a prostitute. If it were I that made her such, with more confidence may I make the charge. But think not that I blame Betty. Place me in her situation, and I should have acted just so. I should have formed just such notions of my interest, and pursued it by the same means. Still, say I, I would fain have a different woman for my father's wife, and the mistress of his family.'"	{ "id": "18508" }
26	None	This conversation was interrupted by a messenger from my wife, who desired my return immediately. I had some hopes of meeting with Mervyn, some days having now elapsed since his parting from us, and not being conscious of any extraordinary motives for delay. It was Wortley, however, and not Mervyn, to whom I was called. My friend came to share with me his suspicions and inquietudes respecting Welbeck and Mervyn. An accident had newly happened which had awakened these suspicions afresh. He desired a patient audience while he explained them to me. These were his words:-- "To-day a person presented me a letter from a mercantile friend at Baltimore. I easily discerned the bearer to be a sea-captain. He was a man of sensible and pleasing aspect, and was recommended to my friendship and counsel in the letter which he brought. The letter stated, that a man, by name Amos Watson, by profession a mariner, and a resident at Baltimore, had disappeared in the summer of last year, in a mysterious and incomprehensible manner. He was known to have arrived in this city from Jamaica, and to have intended an immediate journey to his family, who lived at Baltimore; but he never arrived there, and no trace of his existence has since been discovered. The bearer had come to investigate, if possible, the secret of his fate, and I was earnestly entreated to afford him all the assistance and advice in my power, in the prosecution of his search. I expressed my willingness to serve the stranger, whose name was Williams; and, after offering him entertainment at my house, which was thankfully accepted, he proceeded to unfold to me the particulars of this affair. His story was this. " 'On the 20th of last June, I arrived,' said he, 'from the West Indies, in company with Captain Watson. I commanded the ship in which he came as a passenger, his own ship being taken and confiscated by the English. We had long lived in habits of strict friendship, and I loved him for his own sake, as well as because he had married my sister. We landed in the morning, and went to dine with Mr. Keysler, since dead, but who then lived in Water Street. He was extremely anxious to visit his family, and, having a few commissions to perform in the city, which would not demand more than a couple of hours, he determined to set out next morning in the stage. Meanwhile, I had engagements which required me to repair with the utmost expedition to New York. I was scarcely less anxious than my brother to reach Baltimore, where my friends also reside; but there was an absolute necessity of going eastward. I expected, however, to return hither in three days, and then to follow Watson home. Shortly after dinner we parted; he to execute his commissions, and I to embark in the mail-stage. " 'In the time prefixed I returned. I arrived early in the morning, and prepared to depart again at noon. Meanwhile, I called at Keysler's. This is an old acquaintance of Watson's and mine; and, in the course of talk, he expressed some surprise that Watson had so precipitately deserted his house. I stated the necessity there was for Watson's immediate departure _southward_, and added, that no doubt my brother had explained this necessity. " 'Why, (said Keysler,) it is true, Captain Watson mentioned his intention of leaving town early next day; but then he gave me reason to expect that he would sup and lodge with me that night, whereas he has not made his appearance since. Besides, his trunk was brought to my house. This, no doubt, he intended to carry home with him, but here it remains still. It is not likely that in the hurry of departure his baggage was forgotten. Hence, I inferred that he was still in town, and have been puzzling myself these three days with conjectures as to what is become of him. What surprises me more is, that, on inquiring among the few friends which he has in this city, I find them as ignorant of his motions as myself. I have not, indeed, been wholly without apprehensions that some accident or other has befallen him.' " 'I was not a little alarmed by this intimation. I went myself, agreeably to Keysler's directions, to Watson's friends, and made anxious inquiries, but none of them had seen my brother since his arrival. I endeavoured to recollect the commissions which he designed to execute, and, if possible, to trace him to the spot where he last appeared. He had several packets to deliver, one of which was addressed to Walter Thetford. Him, after some inquiry, I found out, but unluckily he chanced to be in the country. I found, by questioning a clerk, who transacted his business in his absence, that a person, who answered the minute description which I gave of Watson, had been there on the day on which I parted with him, and had left papers relative to the capture of one of Thetford's vessels by the English. This was the sum of the information he was able to afford me. " 'I then applied to three merchants for whom my brother had letters. They all acknowledged the receipt of these letters, but they were delivered through the medium of the post-office. " 'I was extremely anxious to reach home. Urgent engagements compelled me to go on without delay. I had already exhausted all the means of inquiry within my reach, and was obliged to acquiesce in the belief that Watson had proceeded homeward at the time appointed, and left, by forgetfulness or accident, his trunk behind him. On examining the books kept at the stage-offices, his name nowhere appeared, and no conveyance by water had occurred during the last week. Still, the only conjecture I could form was that he had gone homeward. " 'Arriving at Baltimore, I found that Watson had not yet made his appearance. His wife produced a letter, which, by the postmark, appeared to have been put into the office at Philadelphia, on the morning after our arrival, and on which he had designed to commence his journey. This letter had been written by my brother, in my presence, but I had dissuaded him from sending it, since the same coach that should bear the letter was likewise to carry himself. I had seen him put it unwafered in his pocket-book, but this letter, unaltered in any part, and containing money which he had at first intended to enclose in it, was now conveyed to his wife's hand. In this letter he mentioned his design of setting out for Baltimore on the _twenty-first_, yet on that day the letter itself had been put into the office. " 'We hoped that a short time would clear up this mystery, and bring the fugitive home; but, from that day till the present, no atom of intelligence has been received concerning him. The yellow fever, which quickly followed, in this city, and my own engagements, have hindered me, till now, from coming hither and resuming the search. " 'My brother was one of the most excellent of men. His wife loved him to distraction, and, together with his children, depended for subsistence upon his efforts. You will not, therefore, be surprised that his disappearance excited, in us, the deepest consternation and distress; but I have other and peculiar reasons for wishing to know his fate. I gave him several bills of exchange on merchants of Baltimore, which I had received in payment of my cargo, in order that they might, as soon as possible, be presented and accepted. These have disappeared with the bearer. There is likewise another circumstance that makes his existence of no small value. " 'There is an English family, who formerly resided in Jamaica, and possessed an estate of great value, but who, for some years, have lived in the neighbourhood of Baltimore. The head of this family died a year ago, and left a widow and three daughters. The lady thought it eligible to sell her husband's property in Jamaica, the island becoming hourly more exposed to the chances of war and revolution, and transfer it to the United States, where she purposes henceforth to reside. Watson had been her husband's friend, and, his probity and disinterestedness being well known, she intrusted him with legal powers to sell this estate. This commission was punctually performed, and the purchase-money was received. In order to confer on it the utmost possible security, he rolled up four bills of exchange, drawn upon opulent, merchants of London, in a thin sheet of lead, and, depositing this roll in a leathern girdle, fastened it round his waist, and under his clothes; a second set he gave to me, and a third he despatched to Mr. Keysler, by a vessel which sailed a few days before him. On our arrival in this city, we found that Keysler had received those transmitted to him, and which he had been charged to keep till our arrival. They were now produced, and, together with those which I had carried, were delivered to Watson. By him they were joined to those in the girdle, which he still wore, conceiving this method of conveyance to be safer than any other, and, at the same time, imagining it needless, in so short a journey as remained to be performed, to resort to other expedients. " 'The sum which he thus bore about him was no less than ten thousand pounds sterling. It constituted the whole patrimony of a worthy and excellent family, and the loss of it reduces them to beggary. It is gone with Watson, and whither Watson has gone it is impossible even to guess. " 'You may now easily conceive, sir, the dreadful disasters which may be connected with this man's fate, and with what immeasurable anxiety his family and friends have regarded his disappearance. That he is alive can scarcely be believed; for in what situation could he be placed in which he would not be able and willing to communicate some tidings of his fate to his family? " 'Our grief has been unspeakably aggravated by the suspicions which Mrs. Maurice and her friends have allowed themselves to admit. They do not scruple to insinuate that Watson, tempted by so great a prize, has secretly embarked for England, in order to obtain payment for these bills and retain the money for his own use. " 'No man was more impatient of poverty than Watson, but no man's honesty was more inflexible. He murmured at the destiny that compelled him to sacrifice his ease, and risk his life upon the ocean in order to procure the means of subsistence; and all the property which he had spent the best part of his life in collecting had just been ravished away from him by the English; but, if he had yielded to this temptation at any time, it would have been on receiving these bills at Jamaica. Instead of coming hither, it would have been infinitely more easy and convenient to have embarked directly for London; but none who thoroughly knew him can, for a moment, harbour a suspicion of his truth. " 'If he be dead, and if the bills are not to be recovered, yet to ascertain this will, at least, serve to vindicate his character. As long as his fate is unknown, his fame will be loaded with the most flagrant imputations, and, if these bills be ever paid in London, these imputations will appear to be justified. If he has been robbed, the robber will make haste to secure the payment, and the Maurices may not unreasonably conclude that the robber was Watson himself.' Many other particulars were added by the stranger, to show the extent of the evils flowing from the death of his brother, and the loss of the papers which he carried with him. "I was greatly at a loss," continued Wortley, "what directions or advice to afford this man. Keysler, as you know, died early of the pestilence; but Keysler was the only resident in this city with whom Williams had any acquaintance. On mentioning the propriety of preventing the sale of these bills in America, by some public notice, he told me that this caution had been early taken; and I now remembered seeing the advertisement, in which the bills had been represented as having been lost or stolen in this city, and a reward of a thousand dollars was offered to any one who should restore them. This caution had been published in September, in all the trading-towns from Portsmouth to Savannah, but had produced no satisfaction. "I accompanied Williams to the mayor's office, in hopes of finding in the records of his proceedings, during the last six months, some traces of Watson; but neither these records nor the memory of the magistrate afforded us any satisfaction. Watson's friends had drawn up, likewise, a description of the person and dress of the fugitive, an account of the incidents attending his disappearance, and of the papers which he had in his possession, with the manner in which these papers had been secured. These had been already published in the Southern newspapers, and have been just reprinted in our own. As the former notice had availed nothing, this second expedient was thought necessary to be employed. "After some reflection, it occurred to me that it might be proper to renew the attempt which Williams had made to trace the footsteps of his friend to the moment of his final disappearance. He had pursued Watson to Thetford's; but Thetford himself had not been seen, and he had been contented with the vague information of his clerk. Thetford and his family, including his clerk, had perished, and it seemed as if this source of information was dried up. It was possible, however, that old Thetford might have some knowledge of his nephew's transactions, by which some light might chance to be thrown upon this obscurity. I therefore called on him, but found him utterly unable to afford me the light that I wished. My mention of the packet which Watson had brought to Thetford, containing documents respecting the capture of a certain ship, reminded him of the injuries which he had received from Welbeck, and excited him to renew his menaces and imputations on that wretch. Having somewhat exhausted this rhetoric, he proceeded to tell me what connection there was between the remembrance of his injuries and the capture of this vessel. "This vessel and its cargo were, in fact, the property of Welbeck. They had been sent to a good market, and had been secured by an adequate insurance. The value of this ship and cargo, and the validity of the policy, he had taken care to ascertain by means of his two nephews, one of whom had gone out supercargo. This had formed his inducement to lend his three notes to Welbeck, in exchange for three other notes, the whole amount of which included the _equitable interest_ of _five per cent. per month_ on his own loan. For the payment of these notes he by no means relied, as the world foolishly imagined, on the seeming opulence and secret funds of Welbeck. These were illusions too gross to have any influence on him. He was too old a bird to be decoyed into the net by _such_ chaff. No; his nephew, the supercargo, would of course receive the produce of the voyage, and so much of this produce as would pay his debt he had procured the owner's authority to intercept its passage from the pocket of his nephew to that of Welbeck. In case of loss, he had obtained a similar security upon the policy. Jamieson's proceedings had been the same with his own, and no affair in which he had ever engaged had appeared to be more free from hazard than this. Their calculations, however, though plausible, were defeated. The ship was taken and condemned, for a cause which rendered the insurance ineffectual. "I bestowed no time in reflecting on this tissue of extortions and frauds, and on that course of events which so often disconcerts the stratagems of cunning. The names of Welbeck and Watson were thus associated together, and filled my thoughts with restlessness and suspicion. Welbeck was capable of any weakness. It was possible an interview had happened between these men, and that the fugitive had been someway instrumental in Watson's fate. These thoughts were mentioned to Williams, whom the name of Welbeck threw into the utmost perturbation. On finding that one of this name had dwelt in this city, and that he had proved a villain, he instantly admitted the most dreary forebodings. " 'I have heard,' said Williams, 'the history of this Welbeck a score of times from my brother. There formerly subsisted a very intimate connection between them. My brother had conferred, upon one whom he thought honest, innumerable benefits; but all his benefits had been repaid by the blackest treachery. Welbeck's character and guilt had often been made the subject of talk between us, but, on these occasions, my brother's placid and patient temper forsook him. His grief for the calamities which had sprung from this man, and his desire of revenge, burst all bounds, and transported him to a pitch of temporary frenzy. I often inquired in what manner he intended to act if a meeting should take place between them. He answered, that doubtless he should act like a maniac, in defiance of his sober principles, and of the duty which he owed his family. " 'What! (said I,) would you stab or pistol him? " 'No. I was not born for an assassin. I would upbraid him in such terms as the furious moment might suggest, and then challenge him to a meeting, from which either he or I should not part with life. I would allow time for him to make his peace with Heaven, and for me to blast his reputation upon earth, and to make such provision for my possible death as duty and discretion would prescribe. " 'Now, nothing is more probable than that Welbeck and my brother have met. Thetford would of course mention his name and interest in the captured ship, and hence the residence of this detested being in this city would be made known. Their meeting could not take place without some dreadful consequence. I am fearful that to that meeting we must impute the disappearance of my brother.'	{ "id": "18508" }
27	None	"Here was new light thrown upon the character of Welbeck, and new food administered to my suspicions. No conclusion could be more plausible than that which Williams had drawn; but how should it be rendered certain? Walter Thetford, or some of his family, had possibly been witnesses of something, which, added to our previous knowledge, might strengthen or prolong that clue, one end of which seemed now to be put into our hands; but Thetford's father-in-law was the only one of his family, who, by seasonable flight from the city, had escaped the pestilence. To him, who still resided in the country, I repaired with all speed, accompanied by Williams. "The old man, being reminded, by a variety of circumstances, of the incidents of that eventful period, was, at length, enabled to relate that he had been present at the meeting which took place between Watson and his son Walter, when certain packets were delivered by the former, relative, as he quickly understood, to the condemnation of a ship in which Thomas Thetford had gone supercargo. He had noticed some emotion of the stranger, occasioned by his son's mentioning the concern which Welbeck had in the vessel. He likewise remembered the stranger's declaring his intention of visiting Welbeck, and requesting Walter to afford him directions to his house. " 'Next morning at the breakfast-table,' continued the old man, 'I adverted to yesterday's incidents, and asked my son how Welbeck had borne the news of the loss of his ship. "He bore it," said Walter, "as a man of his wealth ought to bear so trivial a loss. But there was something very strange in his behaviour," says my son, "when I mentioned the name of the captain who brought the papers; and, when I mentioned the captain's design of paying him a visit, he stared upon me, for a moment, as if he were frighted out of his wits, and then, snatching up his hat, ran furiously out of the house." This was all my son said upon that occasion; but, as I have since heard, it was on that very night that Welbeck absconded from his creditors.' "I have this moment returned from this interview with old Thetford. I come to you, because I thought it possible that Mervyn, agreeably to your expectations, had returned, and I wanted to see the lad once more. My suspicions with regard to him have been confirmed, and a warrant was this day issued for apprehending him as Welbeck's accomplice." I was startled by this news. "My friend," said I, "be cautious how you act, I beseech you. You know not in what evils you may involve the innocent. Mervyn I know to be blameless; but Welbeck is indeed a villain. The latter I shall not be sorry to see brought to justice; but the former, instead of meriting punishment, is entitled to rewards." "So you believe, on the mere assertion of the boy, perhaps, his plausible lies might produce the same effect upon me; but I must stay till he thinks proper to exert his skill. The suspicions to which he is exposed will not easily be obviated; but, if he has any thing to say in his defence, his judicial examination will afford him the suitable opportunity. Why are you so much afraid to subject his innocence to this test? It was not till you heard his tale that your own suspicions were removed. Allow me the same privilege of unbelief. "But you do me wrong, in deeming me the cause of his apprehension. It is Jamieson and Thetford's work, and they have not proceeded on shadowy surmises and the impulses of mere revenge. Facts have come to light of which you are wholly unaware, and which, when known to you, will conquer even your incredulity as to the guilt of Mervyn." "Facts? Let me know them, I beseech you. If Mervyn has deceived me, there is an end to my confidence in human nature. All limits to dissimulation, and all distinctness between vice and virtue, will be effaced. No man's word, nor force of collateral evidence, shall weigh with me a hair." "It was time," replied my friend, "that your confidence in smooth features and fluent accents should have ended long ago. Till I gained from my present profession some knowledge of the world, a knowledge which was not gained in a moment, and has not cost a trifle, I was equally wise in my own conceit; and, in order to decide upon the truth of any one's pretensions, needed only a clear view of his face and a distinct hearing of his words. My folly, in that respect, was only to be cured, however, by my own experience, and I suppose your credulity will yield to no other remedy. These are the facts:-- "Mrs. Wentworth, the proprietor of the house in which Welbeck lived, has furnished some intelligence respecting Mervyn, whose truth cannot be doubted, and which furnishes the strongest evidence of a conspiracy between this lad and his employer. It seems that, some years since, a nephew of this lady left his father's family clandestinely, and has not been heard of since. This nephew was intended to inherit her fortunes, and her anxieties and inquiries respecting him have been endless and incessant. These, however, have been fruitless. Welbeck, knowing these circumstances, and being desirous of substituting a girl whom he had moulded for his purpose, in place of the lost youth, in the affections of the lady while living, and in her testament when dead, endeavoured to persuade her that the youth had died in some foreign country. For this end, Mervyn was to personate a kinsman of Welbeck who had just arrived from Europe, and who had been a witness of her nephew's death. A story was, no doubt, to be contrived, where truth should be copied with the most exquisite dexterity; and, the lady being prevailed upon to believe the story, the way was cleared for accomplishing the remainder of the plot. "In due time, and after the lady's mind had been artfully prepared by Welbeck, the pupil made his appearance; and, in a conversation full of studied ambiguities, assured the lady that her nephew was dead. For the present he declined relating the particulars of his death, and displayed a constancy and intrepidity in resisting her entreaties that would have been admirable in a better cause. Before she had time to fathom this painful mystery, Welbeck's frauds were in danger of detection, and he and his pupil suddenly disappeared. "While the plot was going forward, there occurred an incident which the plotters had not foreseen or precluded, and which possibly might have created some confusion or impediment in their designs. A bundle was found one night in the street, consisting of some coarse clothes, and containing, in the midst of it, the miniature portrait of Mrs. Wentworth's nephew. It fell into the hands of one of that lady's friends, who immediately despatched the bundle to her. Mervyn, in his interview with this lady, spied the portrait on the mantel-piece. Led by some freak of fancy, or some web of artifice, he introduced the talk respecting her nephew, by boldly claiming it as his; but, when the mode in which it had been found was mentioned, he was disconcerted and confounded, and precipitately withdrew. "This conduct, and the subsequent flight of the lad, afforded ground enough to question the truth of his intelligence respecting her nephew; but it has since been confuted, in a letter just received from her brother in England. In this letter, she is informed that her nephew had been seen by one who knew him well, in Charleston; that some intercourse took place between the youth and the bearer of the news, in the course of which the latter had persuaded the nephew to return to his family, and that the youth had given some tokens of compliance. The letter-writer, who was father to the fugitive, had written to certain friends at Charleston, entreating them to use their influence with the runaway to the same end, and, at any rate, to cherish and protect him. Thus, I hope you will admit that the duplicity of Mervyn is demonstrated." "The facts which you have mentioned," said I, after some pause, "partly correspond with Mervyn's story; but the last particular is irreconcilably repugnant to it. Now, for the first time, I begin to feel that my confidence is shaken. I feel my mind bewildered and distracted by the multitude of new discoveries which have just taken place. I want time to revolve them slowly, to weigh them accurately, and to estimate their consequences fully. I am afraid to speak; fearing that, in the present trouble of my thoughts, I may say something which I may afterwards regret, I want a counsellor; but you, Wortley, are unfit for the office. Your judgment is unfurnished with the same materials; your sufferings have soured your humanity and biassed your candour. The only one qualified to divide with me these cares, and aid in selecting the best mode of action, is my wife. She is mistress of Mervyn's history; an observer of his conduct during his abode with us; and is hindered, by her education and temper, from deviating into rigour and malevolence. Will you pardon me, therefore, if I defer commenting on your narrative till I have had an opportunity of reviewing it and comparing it with my knowledge of the lad, collected from himself and from my own observation?" Wortley could not but admit the justice of my request, and, after some desultory conversation, we parted. I hastened to communicate to my wife the various intelligence which I had lately received. Mrs. Althorpe's portrait of the Mervyns contained lineaments which the summary detail of Arthur did not enable us fully to comprehend. The treatment which the youth is said to have given to his father; the illicit commerce that subsisted between him and his father's wife; the pillage of money and his father's horse, but ill accorded with the tale which we had heard, and disquieted our minds with doubts, though far from dictating our belief. What, however, more deeply absorbed our attention, was the testimony of Williams and of Mrs. Wentworth. That which was mysterious and inscrutable to Wortley and the friends of Watson was luminous to us. The coincidence between the vague hints laboriously collected by these inquirers, and the narrative of Mervyn, afforded the most cogent attestation of the truth of that narrative. Watson had vanished from all eyes, but the spot where rested his remains was known to us. The girdle spoken of by Williams would not be suspected to exist by his murderer. It was unmolested, and was doubtless buried with him. That which was so earnestly sought, and which constituted the subsistence of the Maurices, would probably be found adhering to his body. What conduct was incumbent upon me who possessed this knowledge? It was just to restore these bills to their true owner; but how could this be done without hazardous processes and tedious disclosures? To whom ought these disclosures to be made? By what authority or agency could these half-decayed limbs be dug up, and the lost treasure be taken from amidst the horrible corruption in which it was immersed? This ought not to be the act of a single individual. This act would entangle him in a maze of perils and suspicions, of concealments and evasions, from which he could not hope to escape with his reputation inviolate. The proper method was through the agency of the law. It is to this that Mervyn must submit his conduct. The story which he told to me he must tell to the world. Suspicions have fixed themselves upon him, which allow him not the privilege of silence and obscurity. While he continued unknown and unthought of, the publication of his story would only give unnecessary birth to dangers; but now dangers are incurred which it may probably contribute to lessen, if not to remove. Meanwhile the return of Mervyn to the city was anxiously expected. Day after day passed, and no tidings were received. I had business of an urgent nature which required my presence in Jersey, but which, in the daily expectation of the return of my young friend, I postponed a week longer than rigid discretion allowed. At length I was obliged to comply with the exigence, and left the city, but made such arrangements that I should be apprized by my wife of Mervyn's return with all practicable expedition. These arrangements were superfluous, for my business was despatched, and my absence at an end, before the youth had given us any tokens of his approach. I now remembered the warnings of Wortley, and his assertions that Mervyn had withdrawn himself forever from our view. The event had hitherto unwelcomely coincided with these predictions, and a thousand doubts and misgivings were awakened. One evening, while preparing to shake off gloomy thoughts by a visit to a friend, some one knocked at my door, and left a billet containing these words:-- "_Dr. Stevens is requested to come immediately to the Debtors' Apartments in Prune Street. _" This billet was without signature. The handwriting was unknown, and the precipitate departure of the bearer left me wholly at a loss with respect to the person of the writer, or the end for which my presence was required. This uncertainty only hastened my compliance with the summons. The evening was approaching,--a time when the prison-doors are accustomed to be shut and strangers to be excluded. This furnished an additional reason for despatch. As I walked swiftly along, I revolved the possible motives that might have prompted this message. A conjecture was soon formed, which led to apprehension and inquietude. One of my friends, by name Carlton, was embarrassed with debts which he was unable to discharge. He had lately been menaced with arrest by a creditor not accustomed to remit any of his claims. I dreaded that this catastrophe had now happened, and called to mind the anguish with which this untoward incident would overwhelm his family. I knew his incapacity to take away the claim of his creditor by payment, or to soothe him into clemency by supplication. So prone is the human mind to create for itself distress, that I was not aware of the uncertainty of this evil till I arrived at the prison. I checked myself at the moment when I opened my lips to utter the name of my friend, and was admitted without particular inquiries. I supposed that he by whom I had been summoned hither would meet me in the common room. The apartment was filled with pale faces and withered forms. The marks of negligence and poverty were visible in all; but few betrayed, in their features or gestures, any symptoms of concern on account of their condition. Ferocious gayety, or stupid indifference, seemed to sit upon every brow. The vapour from a heated stove, mingled with the fumes of beer and tallow that were spilled upon it, and with the tainted breath of so promiscuous a crowd, loaded the stagnant atmosphere. At my first transition from the cold and pure air without, to this noxious element, I found it difficult to breathe. A moment, however, reconciled me to my situation, and I looked anxiously round to discover some face which I knew. Almost every mouth was furnished with a cigar, and every hand with a glass of porter. Conversation, carried on with much emphasis of tone and gesture, was not wanting. Sundry groups, in different corners, were beguiling the tedious hours at whist. Others, unemployed, were strolling to and fro, and testified their vacancy of thought and care by humming or whistling a tune. I fostered the hope that my prognostics had deceived me. This hope was strengthened by reflecting that the billet received was written in a different hand from that of my friend. Meanwhile I continued my search. Seated on a bench, silent and aloof from the crowd, his eyes fixed upon the floor, and his face half concealed by his hand, a form was at length discovered which verified all my conjectures and fears. Carlton was he. My heart drooped and my tongue faltered at this sight. I surveyed him for some minutes in silence. At length, approaching the bench on which he sat, I touched his hand and awakened him from his reverie. He looked up. A momentary gleam of joy and surprise was succeeded by a gloom deeper than before. It was plain that my friend needed consolation. He was governed by an exquisite sensibility to disgrace. He was impatient of constraint. He shrunk, with fastidious abhorrence, from the contact of the vulgar and the profligate. His constitution was delicate and feeble. Impure airs, restraint from exercise, unusual aliment, unwholesome or incommodious accommodations, and perturbed thoughts, were, at any time, sufficient to generate disease and to deprive him of life. To these evils he was now subjected. He had no money wherewith to purchase food. He had been dragged hither in the morning. He had not tasted a morsel since his entrance. He had not provided a bed on which to lie; or inquired in what room, or with what companions, the night was to be spent. Fortitude was not among my friend's qualities. He was more prone to shrink from danger than encounter it, and to yield to the flood rather than sustain it; but it is just to observe that his anguish, on the present occasion, arose not wholly from selfish considerations. His parents were dead, and two sisters were dependent on him for support. One of these was nearly of his own age. The other was scarcely emerged from childhood. There was an intellectual as well as a personal resemblance between my friend and his sisters. They possessed his physical infirmities, his vehement passions, and refinements of taste; and the misery of his condition was tenfold increased, by reflecting on the feelings which would be awakened in them by the knowledge of his state, and the hardships to which the loss of his succour would expose them.	{ "id": "18508" }
28	None	It was not in my power to release my friend by the payment of his debt; but, by contracting with the keeper of the prison for his board, I could save him from famine; and, by suitable exertions, could procure him lodging as convenient as the time would admit. I could promise to console and protect his sisters, and, by cheerful tones and frequent visits, dispel some part of the evil which encompassed him. After the first surprise had subsided, he inquired by what accident this meeting had been produced. Conscious of my incapacity to do him any essential service, and unwilling to make me a partaker in his miseries, he had forborne to inform me of his condition. This assurance was listened to with some wonder. I showed him the billet. It had not been written by him. He was a stranger to the penmanship. None but the attorney and officer were apprized of his fate. It was obvious to conclude, that this was the interposition of some friend, who, knowing my affection for Carlton, had taken this mysterious method of calling me to his succour. Conjectures as to the author and motives of this inter position were suspended by more urgent considerations. I requested an interview with the keeper, and inquired how Carlton could be best accommodated. He said that all his rooms were full but one, which, in consequence of the dismission of three persons in the morning, had at present but one tenant. This person had lately arrived, was sick, and had with him, at this time, one of his friends. Carlton might divide the chamber with this person. No doubt his consent would be readily given; though this arrangement, being the best, must take place whether he consented or not. This consent I resolved immediately to seek, and, for that purpose, desired to be led to the chamber. The door of the apartment was shut. I knocked for admission. It was instantly opened, and I entered. The first person who met my view was--Arthur Mervyn. I started with astonishment. Mervyn's countenance betrayed nothing but satisfaction at the interview. The traces of fatigue and anxiety gave place to tenderness and joy. It readily occurred to me that Mervyn was the writer of the note which I had lately received. To meet him within these walls, and at this time, was the most remote and undesirable of all contingencies. The same hour had thus made me acquainted with the kindred and unwelcome fate of two beings whom I most loved. I had scarcely time to return his embrace, when, taking my hand, he led me to a bed that stood in one corner. There was stretched upon it one whom a second glance enabled me to call by his name, though I had never before seen him. The vivid portrait which Mervyn had drawn was conspicuous in the sunken and haggard visage before me. This face had, indeed, proportions and lines which could never be forgotten or mistaken. Welbeck, when once seen or described, was easily distinguished from the rest of mankind. He had stronger motives than other men for abstaining from guilt, the difficulty of concealment or disguise being tenfold greater in him than in others, by reason of the indelible and eye-attracting marks which nature had set upon him. He was pallid and emaciated. He did not open his eyes on my entrance. He seemed to be asleep; but, before I had time to exchange glances with Mervyn, or to inquire into the nature of the scene, he awoke. On seeing me he started, and cast a look of upbraiding on my companion. The latter comprehended his emotion, and endeavoured to appease him. "This person," said he, "is my friend. He is likewise a physician; and, perceiving your state to require medical assistance, I ventured to send for him." Welbeck replied, in a contemptuous and indignant tone, "Thou mistakest my condition, boy. My disease lies deeper than his scrutiny will ever reach. I had hoped thou wert gone. Thy importunities are well meant, but they aggravate my miseries." He now rose from the bed, and continued, in a firm and resolute tone, "You are intruders into this apartment. It is mine, and I desire to be left alone." Mervyn returned, at first, no answer to this address. He was immersed in perplexity. At length, raising his eyes from the floor, he said, "My intentions are indeed honest, and I am grieved that I want the power of persuasion. To-morrow, perhaps, I may reason more cogently with your despair, or your present mood may be changed. To aid my own weakness I will entreat the assistance of this friend." These words roused a new spirit in Welbeck. His confusion and anger increased. His tongue faltered as he exclaimed, "Good God! what mean you? Headlong and rash as you are, you will not share with this person your knowledge of me?" Here he checked himself, conscious that the words he had already uttered tended to the very end which he dreaded. This consciousness, added to the terror of more ample disclosures, which the simplicity and rectitude of Mervyn might prompt him to make, chained up his tongue, and covered him with dismay. Mervyn was not long in answering:--"I comprehend your fears and your wishes. I am bound to tell you the truth. To this person your story has already been told. Whatever I have witnessed under your roof, whatever I have heard from your lips, have been faithfully disclosed to him." The countenance of Welbeck now betrayed a mixture of incredulity and horror. For a time his utterance was stifled by his complicated feelings:-- "It cannot be. So enormous a deed is beyond thy power. Thy qualities are marvellous. Every new act of thine outstrips the last, and belies the newest calculations. But this--this perfidy exceeds--this outrage upon promises, this violation of faith, this blindness to the future, is incredible." There he stopped; while his looks seemed to call upon Mervyn for a contradiction of his first assertion. "I know full well how inexpiably stupid or wicked my act will appear to you, but I will not prevaricate or lie. I repeat, that every thing is known to him. Your birth; your early fortunes; the incidents at Charleston and Wilmington; your treatment of the brother and sister; your interview with Watson, and the fatal issue of that interview--I have told him all, just as it was told to me." Here the shock that was felt by Welbeck overpowered his caution and his strength. He sunk upon the side of the bed. His air was still incredulous, and he continued to gaze upon Mervyn. He spoke in a tone less vehement:-- "And hast thou then betrayed me? Hast thou shut every avenue to my return to honour? Am I known to be a seducer and assassin? To have meditated all crimes, and to have perpetrated the worst? "Infamy and death are my portion. I know they are reserved for me; but I did not think to receive them at thy hands, that under that innocent guise there lurked a heart treacherous and cruel. But go; leave me to myself. This stroke has exterminated my remnant of hope. Leave me to prepare my neck for the halter, and my lips for this last and bitterest cup." Mervyn struggled with his tears, and replied, "All this was foreseen, and all this I was prepared to endure. My friend and I will withdraw, as you wish; but to-morrow I return; not to vindicate my faith or my humanity; not to make you recant your charges, or forgive the faults which I seem to have committed, but to extricate you from your present evil, or to arm you with fortitude." So saying, he led the way out of the room. I followed him in silence. The strangeness and abruptness of this scene left me no power to assume a part in it. I looked on with new and indescribable sensations. I reached the street before my recollection was perfectly recovered. I then reflected on the purpose that had led me to Welbeck's chamber. This purpose was yet unaccomplished. I desired Mervyn to linger a moment while I returned into the house. I once more inquired for the keeper, and told him I should leave to him the province of acquainting Welbeck with the necessity of sharing his apartment with a stranger. I speedily rejoined Mervyn in the street. I lost no time in requiring an explanation of the scene that I had witnessed. "How became you once more the companion of Welbeck? Why did you not inform me by letter of your arrival at Malverton, and of what occurred during your absence? What is the fate of Mr. Hadwin and of Wallace?" "Alas!" said he, "I perceive that, though I have written, you have never received my letters. The tale of what has occurred since we parted is long and various. I am not only willing but eager to communicate the story; but this is no suitable place. Have patience till we reach your house. I have involved myself in perils and embarrassments from which I depend upon your counsel and aid to release me." I had scarcely reached my own door, when I was overtaken by a servant, whom I knew to belong to the family in which Carlton and his sisters resided. Her message, therefore, was readily guessed. She came, as I expected, to inquire for my friend, who had left his home in the morning with a stranger, and had not yet returned. His absence had occasioned some inquietude, and his sister had sent this message to me, to procure what information respecting the cause of his detention I was able to give. My perplexity hindered me, for some time, from answering. I was willing to communicate the painful truth with my own mouth. I saw the necessity of putting an end to her suspense, and of preventing the news from reaching her with fallacious aggravations or at an unseasonable time. I told the messenger that I had just parted with Mr. Carlton, that he was well, and that I would speedily come and acquaint his sister with the cause of his absence. Though burning with curiosity respecting Mervyn and Welbeck, I readily postponed its gratification till my visit to Miss Carlton was performed. I had rarely seen this lady; my friendship for her brother, though ardent, having been lately formed, and chiefly matured by interviews at my house. I had designed to introduce her to my wife, but various accidents had hindered the execution of my purpose. Now consolation and counsel were more needed than ever, and delay or reluctance in bestowing it would have been, in a high degree, unpardonable. I therefore parted with Mervyn, requesting him to await my return, and promising to perform the engagement which compelled me to leave him, with the utmost despatch. On entering Miss Carlton's apartment, I assumed an air of as much tranquillity as possible. I found the lady seated at a desk, with pen in hand and parchment before her. She greeted me with affectionate dignity, and caught from my countenance that cheerfulness of which on my entrance she was destitute. "You come," said she, "to inform me what has made my brother a truant to-day. Till your message was received I was somewhat anxious. This day he usually spends in rambling through the fields; but so bleak and stormy an atmosphere, I suppose, would prevent his excursion. I pray, sir, what is it detains him?" To conquer my embarrassment, and introduce the subject by indirect and cautious means, I eluded her question, and, casting an eye at the parchment,--"How now?" said I; "this is strange employment for a lady. I knew that my friend pursued this trade, and lived by binding fast the bargains which others made; but I knew not that the pen was ever usurped by his sister." "The usurpation was prompted by necessity. My brother's impatient temper and delicate frame unfitted him for the trade. He pursued it with no less reluctance than diligence, devoting to the task three nights in the week, and the whole of each day. It would long ago have killed him, had I not bethought myself of sharing his tasks. The pen was irksome and toilsome at first, but use has made it easy, and far more eligible than the needle, which was formerly my only tool. "This arrangement affords my brother opportunities of exercise and recreation, without diminishing our profits; and my time, though not less constantly, is more agreeably, as well as more lucratively, employed than formerly." "I admire your reasoning. By this means provision is made against untoward accidents. If sickness should disable him, you are qualified to pursue the same means of support." At these words the lady's countenance changed. She put her hand on my arm, and said, in a fluttering and hurried accent, "Is my brother sick?" "No. He is in perfect health. My observation was a harmless one. I am sorry to observe your readiness to draw alarming inferences. If I were to say that your scheme is useful to supply deficiencies, not only when your brother is disabled by sickness, but when thrown, by some inhuman creditor, into jail, no doubt you would perversely and hastily infer that he is now in prison." I had scarcely ended the sentence, when the piercing eyes of the lady were anxiously fixed upon mine. After a moment's pause, she exclaimed, "The inference, indeed, is too plain. I know his fate. It has long been foreseen and expected, and I have summoned up my equanimity to meet it. Would to Heaven he may find the calamity as light as I should find it! but I fear his too irritable spirit." When her fears were confirmed, she started out into no vehemence of exclamation. She quickly suppressed a few tears which would not be withheld, and listened to my narrative of what had lately occurred, with tokens of gratitude. Formal consolation was superfluous. Her mind was indeed more fertile than my own in those topics which take away its keenest edge from affliction. She observed that it was far from being the heaviest calamity which might have happened. The creditor was perhaps vincible by arguments and supplications. If these should succeed, the disaster would not only be removed, but that security from future molestation be gained, to which they had for a long time been strangers. Should he be obdurate, their state was far from being hopeless. Carlton's situation allowed him to pursue his profession. His gains would be equal, and his expenses would not be augmented. By their mutual industry they might hope to amass sufficient to discharge the debt at no very remote period. What she chiefly dreaded was the pernicious influence of dejection and sedentary labour on her brother's health. Yet this was not to be considered as inevitable. Fortitude might be inspired by exhortation and example, and no condition precluded us from every species of bodily exertion. The less inclined he should prove to cultivate the means of deliverance and happiness within his reach, the more necessary it became for her to stimulate and fortify his resolution. If I were captivated by the charms of this lady's person and carriage, my reverence was excited by these proofs of wisdom and energy. I zealously promised to concur with her in every scheme she should adopt for her own or her brother's advantage; and, after spending some hours with her, took my leave. I now regretted the ignorance in which I had hitherto remained respecting this lady. That she was, in an eminent degree, feminine and lovely, was easily discovered; but intellectual weakness had been rashly inferred from external frailty. She was accustomed to shrink from observation, and reserve was mistaken for timidity. I called on Carlton only when numerous engagements would allow, and when, by some accident, his customary visits had been intermitted. On those occasions, my stay was short, and my attention chiefly confined to her brother. I now resolved to atone for my ancient negligence, not only by my own assiduities, but by those of my wife. On my return home, I found Mervyn and my wife in earnest discourse. I anticipated the shock which the sensibility of the latter would receive from the tidings which I had to communicate respecting Carlton. I was unwilling, and yet perceived the necessity of disclosing the truth. I desired to bring these women, as soon as possible, to the knowledge of each other, but the necessary prelude to this was an acquaintance with the disaster that had happened. Scarcely had I entered the room, when Mervyn turned to me, and said, with an air of anxiety and impatience, "Pray, my friend, have you any knowledge of Francis Carlton?" The mention of this name by Mervyn produced some surprise. I acknowledged my acquaintance with him. "Do you know in what situation he now is?" In answer to this question, I stated by what singular means his situation had been made known to me, and the purpose from the accomplishment of which I had just returned. I inquired in my turn, "Whence originated this question?" He had overheard the name of Carlton in the prison. Two persons were communing in a corner, and accident enabled him to catch this name, though uttered by them in a half whisper, and to discover that the person talked about had lately been conveyed thither. This name was not now heard for the first time. It was connected with remembrances that made him anxious for the fate of him to whom it belonged. In discourse with my wife, this name chanced to be again mentioned, and his curiosity was roused afresh. I was willing to communicate all that I knew, but Mervyn's own destiny was too remarkable not to absorb all my attention, and I refused to discuss any other theme till that were fully explained. He postponed his own gratification to mine, and consented to relate the incidents that had happened from the moment of our separation till the present.	{ "id": "18508" }
29	None	At parting with you, my purpose was to reach the abode of the Hadwins as speedily as possible. I travelled therefore with diligence. Setting out so early, I expected, though on foot, to reach the end of my journey before noon. The activity of muscles is no obstacle to thought. So far from being inconsistent with intense musing, it is, in my own case, propitious to that state of mind. Probably no one had stronger motives for ardent meditation than I. My second journey to the city was prompted by reasons, and attended by incidents, that seemed to have a present existence. To think upon them was to view, more deliberately and thoroughly, objects and persons that still hovered in my sight. Instead of their attributes being already seen, and their consequences at an end, it seemed as if a series of numerous years and unintermitted contemplation were requisite to comprehend them fully, and bring into existence their most momentous effects. If men be chiefly distinguished from each other by the modes in which attention is employed, either on external and sensible objects, or merely on abstract ideas and the creatures of reflection, I may justly claim to be enrolled in the second class. My existence is a series of thoughts rather than of motions. Ratiocination and deduction leave my senses unemployed. The fulness of my fancy renders my eye vacant and inactive. Sensations do not precede and suggest, but follow and are secondary to, the acts of my mind. There was one motive, however, which made me less inattentive to the scene that was continually shifting before and without me than I am wont to be. The loveliest form which I had hitherto seen was that of Clemenza Lodi. I recalled her condition as I had witnessed it, as Welbeck had described, and as you had painted it. The past was without remedy; but the future was, in some degree, within our power to create and to fashion. Her state was probably dangerous. She might already be forlorn, beset with temptation or with anguish; or danger might only be approaching her, and the worst evils be impending ones. I was ignorant of her state. Could I not remove this ignorance? Would not some benefit redound to her from beneficent and seasonable interposition? You had mentioned that her abode had lately been with Mrs. Villars, and that this lady still resided in the country. The residence had been sufficiently described, and I perceived that I was now approaching it. In a short time I spied its painted roof and five chimneys through an avenue of _catalpas_. When opposite the gate which led into this avenue, I paused. It seemed as if this moment were to decide upon the liberty and innocence of this being. In a moment I might place myself before her, ascertain her true condition, and point out to her the path of honour and safety. This opportunity might be the last. Longer delay might render interposition fruitless. But how was I to interpose? I was a stranger to her language, and she was unacquainted with mine. To obtain access to her, it was necessary only to demand it. But how should I explain my views and state my wishes when an interview was gained? And what expedient was it in my power to propose? "Now," said I, "I perceive the value of that wealth which I have been accustomed to despise. The power of eating and drinking, the nature and limits of existence and physical enjoyment, are not changed or enlarged by the increase of wealth. Our corporeal and intellectual wants are supplied at little expense; but our own wants are the wants of others, and that which remains, after our own necessities are obviated, it is always easy and just to employ in relieving the necessities of others. "There are no superfluities in my store. It is not in my power to supply this unfortunate girl with decent raiment and honest bread. I have no house to which to conduct her. I have no means of securing her from famine and cold. "Yet, though indigent and feeble, I am not destitute of friends and of home. Cannot she be admitted to the same asylum to which I am now going?" This thought was sudden and new. The more it was revolved, the more plausible it seemed. This was not merely the sole expedient, but the best that could have been suggested. The Hadwins were friendly, hospitable, unsuspicious. Their board, though simple and uncouth, was wholesome and plenteous. Their residence was sequestered and obscure, and not obnoxious to impertinent inquiries and malignant animadversion. Their frank and ingenuous temper would make them easy of persuasion, and their sympathies were prompt and overflowing. "I am nearly certain," continued I, "that they will instantly afford protection to this desolate girl. Why shall I not anticipate their consent, and present myself to their embraces and their welcomes in her company?" Slight reflection showed me that this precipitation was improper. Whether Wallace had ever arrived at Malverton, whether Mr. Hadwin had escaped infection, whether his house were the abode of security and quiet, or a scene of desolation, were questions yet to be determined. The obvious and best proceeding was to hasten forward, to afford the Hadwins, if in distress, the feeble consolations of my friendship; or, if their state were happy, to procure their concurrence to my scheme respecting Clemenza. Actuated by these considerations, I resumed my journey. Looking forward, I perceived a chaise and horse standing by the left-hand fence, at the distance of some hundred yards. This object was not uncommon or strange, and, therefore, it was scarcely noticed. When I came near, however, methought I recognised in this carriage the same in which my importunities had procured a seat for the languishing Wallace, in the manner which I have formerly related. It was a crazy vehicle and old-fashioned. When once seen it could scarcely be mistaken or forgotten. The horse was held by his bridle to a post, but the seat was empty. My solicitude with regard to Wallace's destiny, of which he to whom the carriage belonged might possibly afford me some knowledge, made me stop and reflect on what measures it was proper to pursue. The rider could not be at a great distance from this spot. His absence would probably be short. By lingering a few minutes an interview might be gained, and the uncertainty and suspense of some hours be thereby precluded. I therefore waited, and the same person whom I had formerly encountered made his appearance, in a short time, from under a copse that skirted the road. He recognised me with more difficulty than attended my recognition of him. The circumstances, however, of our first meeting were easily recalled to his remembrance. I eagerly inquired when and where he had parted with the youth who had been, on that occasion, intrusted to his care. He answered that, on leaving the city and inhaling the purer air of the fields and woods, Wallace had been, in a wonderful degree, invigorated and refreshed. An instantaneous and total change appeared to have been wrought in him. He no longer languished with fatigue or fear, but became full of gayety and talk. The suddenness of this transition; the levity with which he related and commented on his recent dangers and evils, excited the astonishment of his companion, to whom he not only communicated the history of his disease, but imparted many anecdotes of a humorous kind. Some of these my companion repeated. I heard them with regret and dissatisfaction. They betokened a mind vitiated by intercourse with the thoughtless and depraved of both sexes, and particularly with infamous and profligate women. My companion proceeded to mention that Wallace's exhilaration lasted but for a short time, and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. He was seized with deadly sickness, and insisted upon leaving the carriage, whose movements shocked his stomach and head to an insupportable degree. His companion was not void of apprehensions on his own account, but was unwilling to desert him, and endeavoured to encourage him. His efforts were vain. Though the nearest house was at the distance of some hundred yards, and though it was probable that the inhabitants of this house would refuse to accommodate one in his condition, yet Wallace could not be prevailed on to proceed; and, in spite of persuasion and remonstrance, left the carriage and threw himself on the grassy bank beside the road. This person was not unmindful of the hazard which he incurred by contact with a sick man. He conceived himself to have performed all that was consistent with duty to himself and to his family; and Wallace, persisting in affirming that, by attempting to ride farther, he should merely hasten his death, was at length left to his own guidance. These were unexpected and mournful tidings. I had fondly imagined that his safety was put beyond the reach of untoward accidents. Now, however, there was reason to suppose him to have perished by a lingering and painful disease, rendered fatal by the selfishness of mankind, by the want of seasonable remedies, and exposure to inclement airs. Some uncertainty, however, rested on his fate. It was my duty to remove it, and to carry to the Hadwins no mangled and defective tale. Where, I asked, had Wallace and his companion parted? It was about three miles farther onward. The spot, and the house within view from the spot, were accurately described. In this house it was possible that Wallace had sought an asylum, and some intelligence respecting him might be gained from its inhabitants. My informant was journeying to the city, so that we were obliged to separate. In consequence of this man's description of Wallace's deportment, and the proofs of a dissolute and thoughtless temper which he had given, I began to regard his death as an event less deplorable. Such a one was unworthy of a being so devoutly pure, so ardent in fidelity and tenderness, as Susan Hadwin. If he loved, it was probable that, in defiance of his vows, he would seek a different companion. If he adhered to his first engagements, his motives would be sordid, and the disclosure of his latent defects might produce more exquisite misery to his wife than his premature death or treacherous desertion. The preservation of this man was my sole motive for entering the infected city, and subjecting my own life to the hazards from which my escape may almost be esteemed miraculous. Was not the end disproportioned to the means? Was there arrogance in believing my life a price too great to be given for his? I was not, indeed, sorry for the past. My purpose was just, and the means which I selected were the best my limited knowledge supplied. My happiness should be drawn from reflecting on the equity of my intentions. That these intentions were frustrated by the ignorance of others, or my own, was the consequence of human frailty. Honest purposes, though they may not bestow happiness on others, will, at least, secure it to him who fosters them. By these reflections my regrets were dissipated, and I prepared to rejoice alike, whether Wallace should be found to have escaped or to have perished. The house to which I had been directed was speedily brought into view. I inquired for the master or mistress of the mansion, and was conducted to a lady of a plain and housewifely appearance. My curiosity was fully gratified. Wallace, whom my description easily identified, had made his appearance at her door on the evening of the day on which he left the city. The dread of _the fever_ was descanted on with copious and rude eloquence. I supposed her eloquence on this theme to be designed to apologize to me for her refusing entrance to the sick man. The peroration, however, was different. Wallace was admitted, and suitable attention paid to his wants. Happily, the guest had nothing to struggle with but extreme weakness. Repose, nourishing diet, and salubrious airs restored him in a short time to health. He lingered under this roof for three weeks, and then, without any professions of gratitude, or offers of pecuniary remuneration, or information of the course which he determined to take, he left them. These facts, added to that which I had previously known, threw no advantageous light upon the character of Wallace. It was obvious to conclude that he had gone to Malverton, and thither there was nothing to hinder me from following him. Perhaps one of my grossest defects is a precipitate temper. I choose my path suddenly, and pursue it with impetuous expedition. In the present instance, my resolution was conceived with unhesitating zeal, and I walked the faster that I might the sooner execute it. Miss Hadwin deserved to be happy. Love was in her heart the all-absorbing sentiment. A disappointment there was a supreme calamity. Depravity and folly must assume the guise of virtue before it can claim her affection. This disguise might be maintained for a time, but its detection must inevitably come, and the sooner this detection takes place the more beneficial it must prove. I resolved to unbosom myself, with equal and unbounded confidence, to Wallace and his mistress. I would choose for this end, not the moment when they were separate, but that in which they were together. My knowledge, and the sources of my knowledge, relative to Wallace, should be unfolded to the lady with simplicity and truth. The lover should be present, to confute, to extenuate, or to verify the charges. During the rest of the day these images occupied the chief place in my thoughts. The road was miry and dark, and my journey proved to be more tedious and fatiguing than I expected. At length, just as the evening closed, the well-known habitation appeared in view. Since my departure, winter had visited the world, and the aspect of nature was desolate and dreary. All around this house was vacant, negligent, forlorn. The contrast between these appearances and those which I had noticed on my first approach to it, when the ground and the trees were decked with the luxuriance and vivacity of summer, was mournful, and seemed to foretoken ill. My spirits drooped as I noticed the general inactivity and silence. I entered, without warning, the door that led into the parlour. No face was to be seen or voice heard. The chimney was ornamented, as in summer, with evergreen shrubs. Though it was now the second month of frost and snow, fire did not appear to have been lately kindled on this hearth. This was a circumstance from which nothing good could be deduced. Had there been those to share its comforts who had shared them on former years, this was the place and hour at which they commonly assembled. A door on one side led, through a narrow entry, into the kitchen. I opened this door, and passed towards the kitchen. No one was there but an old man, squatted in the chimney-corner. His face, though wrinkled, denoted undecayed health and an unbending spirit. A homespun coat, leathern breeches wrinkled with age, and blue yarn hose, were well suited to his lean and shrivelled form. On his right knee was a wooden bowl, which he had just replenished from a pipkin of hasty pudding still smoking on the coals; and in his left hand a spoon, which he had, at that moment, plunged into a bottle of molasses that stood beside him. This action was suspended by my entrance. He looked up and exclaimed, "Heyday! who's this that comes into other people's houses without so much as saying 'by your leave'? What's thee business? Who's thee want?" I had never seen this personage before. I supposed it to be some new domestic, and inquired for Mr. Hadwin. "Ah!" replied he, with a sigh, "William Hadwin. Is it him thee wants? Poor man! He is gone to rest many days since." My heart sunk within me at these tidings. "Dead!" said I; "do you mean that he is dead?" --This exclamation was uttered in a tone of some vehemence. It attracted the attention of some one who was standing without, who immediately entered the kitchen. It was Eliza Hadwin. The moment she beheld me she shrieked aloud, and, rushing into my arms, fainted away. The old man dropped his bowl; and, starting from his seat, stared alternately at me and at the breathless girl. My emotion, made up of joy, and sorrow, and surprise, rendered me for a moment powerless as she. At length he said, "I understand this. I know who thee is, and will tell her thee's come." So saying, he hastily left the room.	{ "id": "18508" }
30	None	In a short time this gentle girl recovered her senses. She did not withdraw herself from my sustaining arm, but, leaning on my bosom, she resigned herself to passionate weeping. I did not endeavour to check this effusion, believing that its influence would be salutary. I had not forgotten the thrilling sensibility and artless graces of this girl. I had not forgotten the scruples which had formerly made me check a passion whose tendency was easily discovered. These new proofs of her affection were, at once, mournful and delightful. The untimely fate of her father and my friend pressed with new force upon my heart, and my tears, in spite of my fortitude, mingled with hers. The attention of both was presently attracted by a faint scream, which proceeded from above. Immediately tottering footsteps were heard in the passage, and a figure rushed into the room, pale, emaciated, haggard, and wild. She cast a piercing glance at me, uttered a feeble exclamation, and sunk upon the floor without signs of life. It was not difficult to comprehend this scene. I now conjectured, what subsequent inquiry confirmed, that the old man had mistaken me for Wallace, and had carried to the elder sister the news of his return. This fatal disappointment of hopes that had nearly been extinct, and which were now so powerfully revived, could not be endured by a frame verging to dissolution. This object recalled all the energies of Eliza, and engrossed all my solicitude. I lifted the fallen girl in my arms; and, guided by her sister, carried her to her chamber. I had now leisure to contemplate the changes which a few months had made in this lovely frame. I turned away from the spectacle with anguish, but my wandering eyes were recalled by some potent fascination, and fixed in horror upon a form which evinced the last stage of decay. Eliza knelt on one side, and, leaning her face upon the bed, endeavoured in vain to smother her sobs. I sat on the other motionless, and holding the passive and withered hand of the sufferer. I watched with ineffable solicitude the return of life. It returned at length, but merely to betray symptoms that it would speedily depart forever. For a time my faculties were palsied, and I was made an impotent spectator of the ruin that environed me. This pusillanimity quickly gave way to resolutions and reflections better suited to the exigencies of the time. The first impulse was to summon a physician; but it was evident that the patient had been sinking by slow degrees to this state, and that the last struggle had begun. Nothing remained but to watch her while expiring, and perform for her, when dead, the rites of interment. The survivor was capable of consolation and of succour. I went to her and drew her gently into another apartment. The old man, tremulous and wonder-struck, seemed anxious to perform some service. I directed him to kindle a fire in Eliza's chamber. Meanwhile I persuaded my gentle friend to remain in this chamber, and resign to me the performance of every office which her sister's condition required. I sat beside the bed of the dying till the mortal struggle was past. I perceived that the house had no inhabitant besides the two females and the old man. I went in search of the latter, and found him crouched, as before, at the kitchen-fire, smoking his pipe. I placed myself on the same bench, and entered into conversation with him. I gathered from him that he had, for many years, been Mr. Hadwin's servant. That lately he had cultivated a small farm in this neighbourhood for his own advantage. Stopping one day in October, at the tavern, he heard that his old master had lately been in the city, had caught _the fever_, and after his return had died with it. The moment he became sick, his servants fled from the house, and the neighbours refused to approach it. The task of attending his sick-bed was allotted to his daughters, and it was by their hands that his grave was dug and his body covered with earth. The same terror of infection existed after his death as before, and these hapless females were deserted by all mankind. Old Caleb was no sooner informed of these particulars, than he hurried to the house, and had since continued in their service. His heart was kind, but it was easily seen that his skill extended only to execute the directions of another. Grief for the death of Wallace and her father preyed upon the health of the eldest daughter. The younger became her nurse, and Caleb was always at hand to execute any orders the performance of which was on a level with his understanding. Their neighbours had not withheld their good offices, but they were still terrified and estranged by the phantoms of pestilence. During the last week Susan had been too weak to rise from her bed; yet such was the energy communicated by the tidings that Wallace was alive, and had returned, that she leaped upon her feet and rushed down-stairs. How little did that man deserve so strenuous and immortal an affection! I would not allow myself to ponder on the sufferings of these women. I endeavoured to think only of the best expedients for putting an end to these calamities. After a moment's deliberation I determined to go to a house at some miles' distance; the dwelling of one who, though not exempt from the reigning panic, had shown more generosity towards these unhappy girls than others. During my former abode in this district, I had ascertained his character, and found him to be compassionate and liberal. Overpowered by fatigue and watching, Eliza was no sooner relieved, by my presence, of some portion of her cares, than she sunk into profound slumber. I directed Caleb to watch the house till my return, which should be before midnight, and then set out for the dwelling of Mr. Ellis. The weather was temperate and moist, and rendered the footing of the meadows extremely difficult. The ground, that had lately been frozen and covered with snow, was now changed into gullies and pools, and this was no time to be fastidious in the choice of paths. A brook, swelled by the recent _thaw_, was likewise to be passed. The rail which I had formerly placed over it by way of bridge had disappeared, and I was obliged to wade through it. At length I approached the house to which I was going. At so late an hour, farmers and farmers' servants are usually abed, and their threshold is intrusted to their watch-dogs. Two belonged to Mr. Ellis, whose ferocity and vigilance were truly formidable to a stranger; but I hoped that in me they would recognise an old acquaintance, and suffer me to approach. In this I was not mistaken. Though my person could not be distinctly seen by starlight, they seemed to scent me from afar, and met me with a thousand caresses. Approaching the house, I perceived that its tenants were retired to their repose. This I expected, and hastened to awaken Mr. Ellis, by knocking briskly at the door. Presently he looked out of a window above, and, in answer to his inquiries, in which impatience at being so unseasonably disturbed was mingled with anxiety, I told him my name, and entreated him to come down and allow me a few minutes' conversation. He speedily dressed himself, and, opening the kitchen door, we seated ourselves before the fire. My appearance was sufficiently adapted to excite his wonder; he had heard of my elopement from the house of Mr. Hadwin, he was a stranger to the motives that prompted my departure, and to the events that had befallen me, and no interview was more distant from his expectations than the present. His curiosity was written in his features, but this was no time to gratify his curiosity. The end that I now had in view was to procure accommodation for Eliza Hadwin in this man's house. For this purpose it was my duty to describe, with simplicity and truth, the inconveniences which at present surrounded her, and to relate all that had happened since my arrival. I perceived that my tale excited his compassion, and I continued with new zeal to paint to him the helplessness of this girl. The death of her father and sister left her the property of this farm. Her sex and age disqualified her for superintending the harvest-field and the threshing-floor; and no expedient was left but to lease the land to another, and, taking up her abode in the family of some kinsman or friend, to subsist, as she might easily do, upon the rent. Meanwhile her continuance in this house was equally useless and dangerous, and I insinuated to my companion the propriety of immediately removing her to his own. Some hesitation and reluctance appeared in him, which I immediately ascribed to an absurd dread of infection. I endeavoured, by appealing to his reason as well as to his pity, to conquer this dread. I pointed out the true cause of the death of the elder daughter, and assured him the youngest knew no indisposition but that which arose from distress. I offered to save him from any hazard that might attend his approaching the house, by accompanying her hither myself. All that her safety required was that his doors should not be shut against her when she presented herself before them. Still he was fearful and reluctant; and, at length, mentioned that her uncle resided not more than sixteen miles farther; that he was her natural protector, and, he dared to say, would find no difficulty in admitting her into his house. For his part, there might be reason in what I said, but he could not bring himself to think but that there was still some danger of _the fever_. It was right to assist people in distress, to-be-sure; but to risk his own life he did not think to be his duty. He was no relation of the family, and it was the duty of relations to help each other. Her uncle was the proper person to assist her, and no doubt he would be as willing as able. The marks of dubiousness and indecision which accompanied these words encouraged me in endeavouring to subdue his scruples. The increase of his aversion to my scheme kept pace with my remonstrances, and he finally declared that he would, on no account, consent to it. Ellis was by no means hard of heart. His determination did not prove the coldness of his charity, but merely the strength of his fears. He was himself an object more of compassion than of anger; and he acted like the man whose fear of death prompts him to push his companion from the plank which saved him from drowning, but which is unable to sustain both. Finding him invincible to my entreaties, I thought upon the expedient which he suggested of seeking the protection of her uncle. It was true that the loss of parents had rendered her uncle her legal protector. His knowledge of the world; his house and property and influence, would, perhaps, fit him for this office in a more eminent degree than I was fitted. To seek a different asylum might, indeed, be unjust to both; and, after some reflection, I not only dismissed the regret which Ellis's refusal had given me, but even thanked him for the intelligence and counsel which he had afforded me. I took leave of him, and hastened back to Hadwin's. Eliza, by Caleb's report, was still asleep. There was no urgent necessity for awakening her; but something was forthwith to be done with regard to the unhappy girl that was dead. The proceeding incumbent on us was obvious. All that remained was to dig a grave, and to deposit the remains with as much solemnity and decency as the time would permit. There were two methods of doing this. I might wait till the next day; till a coffin could be made and conveyed hither; till the woman, whose trade it was to make and put on the habiliments assigned by custom to the dead, could be sought out and hired to attend; till kindred, friends, and neighbours could be summoned to the obsequies; till a carriage were provided to remove the body to a burying-ground, belonging to a meeting-house, and five miles distant; till those whose trade it was to dig graves had prepared one, within the sacred enclosure, for her reception; or, neglecting this toilsome, tedious, and expensive ceremonial, I might seek the grave of Hadwin, and lay the daughter by the side of her parent. Perhaps I was strong in my preference of the latter mode. The customs of burial may, in most cases, be in themselves proper. If the customs be absurd, yet it may be generally proper to adhere to them; but doubtless there are cases in which it is our duty to omit them. I conceived the present case to be such a one. The season was bleak and inclement. Much time, labour, and expense would be required to go through the customary rites. There was none but myself to perform these, and I had not the suitable means. The misery of Eliza would only be prolonged by adhering to these forms, and her fortune be needlessly diminished by the expenses unavoidably to be incurred. After musing upon these ideas for some time, I rose from my seat, and desired Caleb to follow me. We proceeded to an outer shed where farmers' tools used to be kept. I supplied him and myself with a spade, and requested him to lead me to the spot where Mr. Hadwin was laid. He betrayed some hesitation to comply, and appeared struck with some degree of alarm, as if my purpose had been to molest, instead of securing, the repose of the dead. I removed his doubts by explaining my intentions; but he was scarcely less shocked, on discovering the truth, than he had been alarmed by his first suspicions. He stammered out his objections to my scheme. There was but one mode of burial, he thought, that was decent and proper, and he could not be free to assist me in pursuing any other mode. Perhaps Caleb's aversion to the scheme might have been easily overcome; but I reflected that a mind like his was at once flexible and obstinate. He might yield to arguments and entreaties, and act by their immediate impulse; but the impulse passed away in a moment, old and habitual convictions were resumed, and his deviation from the beaten track would be merely productive of compunction. His aid, on the present occasion, though of some use, was by no means indispensable. I forbore to solicit his concurrence, or even to vanquish the scruples he entertained against directing me to the grave of Hadwin. It was a groundless superstition that made one spot more suitable for this purpose than another. I desired Caleb, in a mild tone, to return to the kitchen, and leave me to act as I thought proper. I then proceeded to the orchard. One corner of this field was somewhat above the level of the rest. The tallest tree of the group grew there, and there I had formerly placed a bench, and made it my retreat at periods of leisure. It had been recommended by its sequestered situation, its luxuriant verdure, and profound quiet. On one side was a potato-field, on the other a _melon-patch_; and before me, in rows, some hundreds of apple-trees. Here I was accustomed to seek the benefits of contemplation and study the manuscripts of Lodi. A few months had passed since I had last visited this spot. What revolutions had since occurred, and how gloomily contrasted was my present purpose with what had formerly led me hither! In this spot I had hastily determined to dig the grave of Susan. The grave was dug. All that I desired was a cavity of sufficient dimensions to receive her. This being made, I returned to the house, lifted the corpse in my arms, and bore it without delay to the spot. Caleb, seated in the kitchen, and Eliza, asleep in her chamber, were wholly unapprized of my motions. The grave was covered, the spade reposited under the shed, and my seat by the kitchen-fire resumed in a time apparently too short for so solemn and momentous a transaction. I look back upon this incident with emotions not easily described. It seems as if I acted with too much precipitation; as if insensibility, and not reason, had occasioned that clearness of conceptions, and bestowed that firmness of muscles, which I then experienced. I neither trembled nor wavered in my purpose. I bore in my arms the being whom I had known and loved, through the whistling gale and intense darkness of a winter's night; I heaped earth upon her limbs, and covered them from human observation, without fluctuations or tremors, though not without feelings that were awful and sublime. Perhaps some part of my steadfastness was owing to my late experience, and some minds may be more easily inured to perilous emergencies than others. If reason acquires strength only by the diminution of sensibility, perhaps it is just for sensibility to be diminished.	{ "id": "18508" }
31	None	The safety of Eliza was the object that now occupied my cares. To have slept, after her example, had been most proper; but my uncertainty with regard to her fate, and my desire to conduct her to some other home, kept my thoughts in perpetual motion. I waited with impatience till she should awake and allow me to consult with her on plans for futurity. Her sleep terminated not till the next day had arisen. Having recovered the remembrance of what had lately happened, she inquired for her sister. She wanted to view once more the face and kiss the lips of her beloved Susan. Some relief to her anguish she expected to derive from this privilege. When informed of the truth, when convinced that Susan had disappeared forever, she broke forth into fresh passion. It seemed as if her loss was not hopeless or complete as long as she was suffered to behold the face of her friend and to touch her lips. She accused me of acting without warrant and without justice; of defrauding her of her dearest and only consolation; and of treating her sister's sacred remains with barbarous indifference and rudeness. I explained in the gentlest terms the reasons of my conduct. I was not surprised or vexed that she, at first, treated them as futile, and as heightening my offence. Such was the impulse of a grief which was properly excited by her loss. To be tranquil and steadfast, in the midst of the usual causes of impetuosity and agony, is either the prerogative of wisdom that sublimes itself above all selfish considerations, or the badge of giddy and unfeeling folly. The torrent was at length exhausted. Upbraiding was at an end; and gratitude, and tenderness, and implicit acquiescence in any scheme which my prudence should suggest, succeeded. I mentioned her uncle as one to whom it would be proper, in her present distress, to apply. She started and betrayed uneasiness at this name. It was evident that she by no means concurred with me in my notions of propriety; that she thought with aversion of seeking her uncle's protection. I requested her to state her objections to this scheme, or to mention any other which she thought preferable. She knew nobody. She had not a friend in the world but myself. She had never been out of her father's house. She had no relation but her uncle Philip, and he--she could not live with him. I must not insist upon her going to his house. It was not the place for her. She should never be happy there. I was, at first, inclined to suspect in my friend some capricious and groundless antipathy. I desired her to explain what in her uncle's character made him so obnoxious. She refused to be more explicit, and persisted in thinking that his house was no suitable abode for her. Finding her, in this respect, invincible, I sought for some other expedient. Might she not easily be accommodated as a boarder in the city, or some village, or in a remote quarter of the country? Ellis, her nearest and most opulent neighbour, had refused to receive her; but there were others who had not his fears. There were others, within the compass of a day's journey, who were strangers to the cause of Hadwin's death; but would it not be culpable to take advantage of that ignorance? Their compliance ought not to be the result of deception. While thus engaged, the incidents of my late journey recurred to my remembrance, and I asked, "Is not the honest woman, who entertained Wallace, just such a person as that of whom I am in search? Her treatment of Wallace shows her to be exempt from chimerical fears, proves that she has room in her house for an occasional inmate." Encouraged by these views, I told my weeping companion that I had recollected a family in which she would be kindly treated; and that, if she chose, we would not lose a moment in repairing thither. Horses, belonging to the farm, grazed in the meadows, and a couple of these would carry us in a few hours to the place which I had selected for her residence. On her eagerly assenting to this proposal, I inquired in whose care, and in what state, our present habitation should be left. The father's property now belonged to the daughter. Eliza's mind was quick, active, and sagacious; but her total inexperience gave her sometimes the appearance of folly. She was eager to fly from this house, and to resign herself and her property, without limitation or condition, to my control. Our intercourse had been short, but she relied on my protection and counsel as absolutely as she had been accustomed to do upon her father's. She knew not what answer to make to my inquiry. Whatever I pleased to do was the best. What did I think ought to be done? "Ah!" thought I, "sweet, artless, and simple girl! how wouldst thou have fared, if Heaven had not sent me to thy succour? There are beings in the world who would make a selfish use of thy confidence; who would beguile thee at once of innocence and property. Such am not I. Thy welfare is a precious deposit, and no father or brother could watch over it with more solicitude than I will do." I was aware that Mr. Hadwin might have fixed the destination of his property, and the guardianship of his daughters, by will. On suggesting this to my friend, it instantly reminded her of an incident that took place after his last return from the city. He had drawn up his will, and gave it into Susan's possession, who placed it in a drawer, whence it was now taken by my friend. By this will his property was now found to be bequeathed to his two daughters; and his brother, Philip Hadwin, was named executor, and guardian to his daughters till they should be twenty years old. This name was no sooner heard by my friend, than she exclaimed, in a tone of affright, "Executor! My uncle! What is that? What power does that give him?" "I know not exactly the power of executors. He will, doubtless, have possession of your property till you are twenty years of age. Your person will likewise be under his care till that time." "Must he decide where I am to live?" "He is vested with all the power of a father." This assurance excited the deepest consternation. She fixed her eyes on the ground, and was lost, for a time, in the deepest reverie. Recovering, at length, she said, with a sigh, "What if my father had made no will?" "In that case, a guardian could not be dispensed with, but the right of naming him would belong to yourself." "And my uncle would have nothing to do with my affairs?" "I am no lawyer," said I; "but I presume all authority over your person and property would devolve upon the guardian of your own choice." "Then I am free." Saying this, with a sudden motion, she tore in several pieces the will, which, during this dialogue, she had held in her hand, and threw the fragments into the fire. No action was more unexpected to me than this. My astonishment hindered me from attempting to rescue the paper from the flames. It was consumed in a moment. I was at a loss in what manner to regard this sacrifice. It denoted a force of mind little in unison with that simplicity and helplessness which this girl had hitherto displayed. It argued the deepest apprehensions of mistreatment from her uncle. Whether his conduct had justified this violent antipathy, I had no means of judging. Mr. Hadwin's choice of him, as his executor, was certainly one proof of his integrity. My abstraction was noticed by Eliza with visible anxiety. It was plain that she dreaded the impression which this act of seeming temerity had made upon me. "Do not be angry with me," said she; "perhaps I have been wrong, but I could not help it. I will have but one guardian and one protector." The deed was irrevocable. In my present ignorance of the domestic history of the Hadwins, I was unqualified to judge how far circumstances might extenuate or justify the act. On both accounts, therefore, it was improper to expatiate upon it. It was concluded to leave the care of the house to honest Caleb; to fasten closets and drawers, and, carrying away the money which was found in one of them, and which amounted to no inconsiderable sum, to repair to the house formerly mentioned. The air was cold; a heavy snow began to fall in the night; the wind blew tempestuously; and we were compelled to confront it. In leaving her dwelling, in which she had spent her whole life, the unhappy girl gave way afresh to her sorrow. It made her feeble and helpless. When placed upon the horse, she was scarcely able to maintain her seat. Already chilled by the cold, blinded by the drifting snow, and cut by the blast, all my remonstrances were needed to inspire her with resolution. I am not accustomed to regard the elements, or suffer them to retard or divert me from any design that I have formed. I had overlooked the weak and delicate frame of my companion, and made no account of her being less able to support cold and fatigue than myself. It was not till we had made some progress in our way, that I began to view, in their true light, the obstacles that were to be encountered. I conceived it, however, too late to retreat, and endeavoured to push on with speed. My companion was a skilful rider, but her steed was refractory and unmanageable. She was able, however, to curb his spirit till we had proceeded ten or twelve miles from Malverton. The wind and the cold became too violent to be longer endured, and I resolved to stop at the first house which should present itself to my view, for the sake of refreshment and warmth. We now entered a wood of some extent, at the termination of which I remembered that a dwelling stood. To pass this wood, therefore, with expedition, was all that remained before we could reach a hospitable asylum. I endeavoured to sustain, by this information, the sinking spirits of my companion. While busy in conversing with her, a blast of irresistible force twisted off the highest branch of a tree before us. It fell in the midst of the road, at the distance of a few feet from her horse's head. Terrified by this accident, the horse started from the path, and, rushing into the wood, in a moment threw himself and his rider on the ground, by encountering the rugged stock of an oak. I dismounted and flew to her succour. The snow was already dyed with the blood which flowed from some wound in her head, and she lay without sense or motion. My terrors did not hinder me from anxiously searching for the hurt which was received, and ascertaining the extent of the injury. Her forehead was considerably bruised; but, to my unspeakable joy, the blood flowed from the nostrils, and was, therefore, to be regarded as no mortal symptom. I lifted her in my arms, and looked around me for some means of relief. The house at which I proposed to stop was upwards of a mile distant. I remembered none that was nearer. To place the wounded girl on my own horse, and proceed gently to the house in question, was the sole expedient; but, at present, she was senseless, and might, on recovering, be too feeble to sustain her own weight. To recall her to life was my first duty; but I was powerless, or unacquainted with the means. I gazed upon her features, and endeavoured, by pressing her in my arms, to inspire her with some warmth. I looked towards the road, and listened for the wished-for sound of some carriage that might be prevailed on to stop and receive her. Nothing was more improbable than that either pleasure or business would induce men to encounter so chilling and vehement a blast. To be lighted on by some traveller was, therefore, a hopeless event. Meanwhile, Eliza's swoon continued, and my alarm increased. What effect her half-frozen blood would have in prolonging this condition, or preventing her return to life, awakened the deepest apprehensions. I left the wood, still bearing her in my arms, and re-entered the road, from the desire of descrying, as soon as possible, the coming passenger. I looked this way and that, and again listened. Nothing but the sweeping blast, rent and fallen branches, and snow that filled and obscured the air, were perceivable. Each moment retarded the course of my own blood and stiffened my sinews, and made the state of my companion more desperate. How was I to act? To perish myself, or see her perish, was an ignoble fate; courage and activity were still able to avert it. My horse stood near, docile and obsequious; to mount him and to proceed on my way, holding my lifeless burden in my arms, was all that remained. At this moment my attention was called by several voices issuing from the wood. It was the note of gayety and glee. Presently a sleigh, with several persons of both sexes, appeared, in a road which led through the forest into that in which I stood. They moved at a quick pace, but their voices were hushed, and they checked the speed of their horses, on discovering us. No occurrence was more auspicious than this; for I relied with perfect confidence on the benevolence of these persons, and, as soon as they came near, claimed their assistance. My story was listened to with sympathy, and one of the young men, leaping from the sleigh, assisted me in placing Eliza in the place which he had left. A female, of sweet aspect and engaging manners, insisted upon turning back and hastening to the house, where it seems her father resided, and which the party had just left. I rode after the sleigh, which in a few minutes arrived at the house. The dwelling was spacious and neat, and a venerable man and woman, alarmed by the quick return of the young people, came forth to know the cause. They received their guest with the utmost tenderness, and provided her with all the accommodations which her condition required. Their daughter relinquished the scheme of pleasure in which she had been engaged, and, compelling her companions to depart without her, remained to nurse and console the sick. A little time showed that no lasting injury had been suffered. Contusions, more troublesome than dangerous, and easily curable by such applications as rural and traditional wisdom has discovered, were the only consequences of the fall. My mind, being relieved from apprehensions on this score, had leisure to reflect upon the use which might be made of the present state of things. When I remarked the structure of this house, and the features and deportment of its inhabitants, methought I discerned a powerful resemblance between this family and Hadwin's. It seemed as if some benignant power had led us hither as to the most suitable asylum that could be obtained; and, in order to supply to the forlorn Eliza the place of those parents and that sister she had lost, I conceived that, if their concurrence could be gained, no abode was more suitable than this. No time was to be lost in gaining this concurrence. The curiosity of our host and hostess, whose name was Curling, speedily afforded me an opportunity to disclose the history and real situation of my friend. There were no motives to reserve or prevarication. There was nothing which I did not faithfully and circumstantially relate. I concluded with stating my wishes that they would admit my friend as a boarder into their house. The old man was warm in his concurrence. His wife betrayed some scruples; which, however, her husband's arguments and mine removed. I did not even suppress the tenor and destruction of the will, and the antipathy which Eliza had conceived for her uncle, and which I declared myself unable to explain. It presently appeared that Mr. Curling had some knowledge of Philip Hadwin, and that the latter had acquired the repute of being obdurate and profligate. He employed all means to accomplish his selfish ends, and would probably endeavour to usurp the property which his brother had left. To provide against his power and his malice would be particularly incumbent on us, and my new friend readily promised his assistance in the measures which we should take to that end.	{ "id": "18508" }
32	None	The state of my feelings may be easily conceived to consist of mixed, but, on the whole, of agreeable, sensations. The death of Hadwin and his elder daughter could not be thought upon without keen regrets. These it was useless to indulge, and were outweighed by reflections on the personal security in which the survivor was now placed. It was hurtful to expend my unprofitable cares upon the dead, while there existed one to whom they could be of essential benefit, and in whose happiness they would find an ample compensation. This happiness, however, was still incomplete. It was still exposed to hazard, and much remained to be done before adequate provision was made against the worst of evils, poverty. I now found that Eliza, being only fifteen years old, stood in need of a guardian, and that the forms of law required that some one should make himself her father's administrator. Mr. Curling, being tolerably conversant with these subjects, pointed out the mode to be pursued, and engaged to act on this occasion as Eliza's friend. There was another topic on which my happiness, as well as that of my friend, required us to form some decision. I formerly mentioned, that, during my abode at Malverton, I had not been insensible to the attractions of this girl. An affection had stolen upon me, for which it was easily discovered that I should not have been denied a suitable return. My reasons for stifling these emotions, at that time, have been mentioned. It may now be asked, what effect subsequent events had produced on my feelings, and how far partaking and relieving her distresses had revived a passion which may readily be supposed to have been, at no time, entirely extinguished. The impediments which then existed were removed. Our union would no longer risk the resentment or sorrow of her excellent parent. She had no longer a sister to divide with her the property of the farm, and make what was sufficient for both, when living together, too little for either separately. Her youth and simplicity required, beyond most others, a legal protector, and her happiness was involved in the success of those hopes which she took no pains to conceal. As to me, it seemed at first view as if every incident conspired to determine my choice. Omitting all regard to the happiness of others, my own interest could not fail to recommend a scheme by which the precious benefits of competence and independence might be honestly obtained. The excursions of my fancy had sometimes carried me beyond the bounds prescribed by my situation, but they were, nevertheless, limited to that field to which I had once some prospect of acquiring a title. All I wanted for the basis of my gaudiest and most dazzling structures was a hundred acres of plough-land and meadow. Here my spirit of improvement, my zeal to invent and apply new maxims of household luxury and convenience, new modes and instruments of tillage, new arts connected with orchard, garden, and cornfield, were supplied with abundant scope. Though the want of these would not benumb my activity, or take away content, the possession would confer exquisite and permanent enjoyments. My thoughts have ever hovered over the images of wife and children with more delight than over any other images. My fancy was always active on this theme, and its reveries sufficiently ecstatic and glowing; but, since my intercourse with this girl, my scattered visions were collected and concentrated. I had now a form and features before me; a sweet and melodious voice vibrated in my ear; my soul was filled, as it were, with her lineaments and gestures, actions and looks. All ideas, possessing any relation to beauty or sex, appeared to assume this shape. They kept an immovable place in my mind, they diffused around them an ineffable complacency. Love is merely of value as a prelude to a more tender, intimate, and sacred union. Was I not in love? and did I not pant after the irrevocable bounds, the boundless privileges, of wedlock? The question which others might ask, I have asked myself:--Was I not in love? I am really at a loss for an answer. There seemed to be irresistible weight in the reasons why I should refuse to marry, and even forbear to foster love in my friend. I considered my youth, my defective education, and my limited views. I had passed from my cottage into the world. I had acquired, even in my transient sojourn among the busy haunts of men, more knowledge than the lucubrations and employments of all my previous years had conferred. Hence I might infer the childlike immaturity of my understanding, and the rapid progress I was still capable of making. Was this an age to form an irrevocable contract; to choose the companion of my future life, the associate of my schemes of intellectual and benevolent activity? I had reason to contemn my own acquisitions; but were not those of Eliza still more slender? Could I rely upon the permanence of her equanimity and her docility to my instructions? What qualities might not time unfold, and how little was I qualified to estimate the character of one whom no vicissitude or hardship had approached before the death of her father,--whose ignorance was, indeed, great, when it could justly be said even to exceed my own! Should I mix with the world, enroll myself in different classes of society, be a witness to new scenes; might not my modes of judging undergo essential variations? Might I not gain the knowledge of beings whose virtue was the gift of experience and the growth of knowledge? who joined to the modesty and charms of woman the benefits of education, the maturity and steadfastness of age, and with whose character and sentiments my own would be much more congenial than they could possibly be with the extreme youth, rustic simplicity, and mental imperfections of Eliza Hadwin? To say truth, I was now conscious of a revolution in my mind. I can scarcely assign its true cause. No tokens of it appeared during my late retreat to Malverton. Subsequent incidents, perhaps, joined with the influence of meditation, had generated new views. On my first visit to the city, I had met with nothing but scenes of folly, depravity, and cunning. No wonder that the images connected with the city were disastrous and gloomy; but my second visit produced somewhat different impressions. Maravegli, Estwick, Medlicote, and you, were beings who inspired veneration and love. Your residence appeared to beautify and consecrate this spot, and gave birth to an opinion that, if cities are the chosen seats of misery and vice, they are likewise the soil of all the laudable and strenuous productions of mind. My curiosity and thirst of knowledge had likewise received a new direction. Books and inanimate nature were cold and lifeless instructors. Men, and the works of men, were the objects of rational study, and our own eyes only could communicate just conceptions of human performances. The influence of manners, professions, and social institutions, could be thoroughly known only by direct inspection. Competence, fixed property and a settled abode, rural occupations and conjugal pleasures, were justly to be prized; but their value could be known and their benefits fully enjoyed only by those who have tried all scenes; who have mixed with all classes and ranks; who have partaken of all conditions; and who have visited different hemispheres and climates and nations. The next five or eight years of my life should be devoted to activity and change; it should be a period of hardship, danger, and privation; it should be my apprenticeship to fortitude and wisdom, and be employed to fit me for the tranquil pleasures and steadfast exertions of the remainder of my life. In consequence of these reflections, I determined to suppress that tenderness which the company of Miss Hadwin produced, to remove any mistakes into which she had fallen, and to put it out of my power to claim for her more than the dues of friendship. All ambiguities, in a case like this, and all delays, were hurtful. She was not exempt from passion, but this passion, I thought, was young, and easily extinguished. In a short time her health was restored, and her grief melted down into a tender melancholy. I chose a suitable moment, when not embarrassed by the presence of others, to reveal my thoughts. My disclosure was ingenuous and perfect. I laid before her the whole train of my thoughts, nearly in the order, though in different and more copious terms than those, in which I have just explained them to you. I concealed nothing. The impression which her artless loveliness had made upon me at Malverton; my motives for estranging myself from her society; the nature of my present feelings with regard to her, and my belief of the state of her heart; the reasonings into which I had entered; the advantages of wedlock and its inconveniences; and, finally, the resolution I had formed of seeking the city, and, perhaps, of crossing the ocean, were minutely detailed. She interrupted me not, but changing looks, blushes, flutterings, and sighs, showed her to be deeply and variously affected by my discourse. I paused for some observation or comment. She seemed conscious of my expectation, but had no power to speak. Overpowered, at length, by her emotions, she burst into tears. I was at a loss in what manner to construe these symptoms. I waited till her vehemence was somewhat subsided, and then said, "What think you of my schemes? Your approbation is of some moment: do you approve of them or not?" This question excited some little resentment, and she answered, "You have left me nothing to say. Go, and be happy; no matter what becomes of me. I hope I shall be able to take care of myself." The tone in which this was said had something in it of upbraiding. "Your happiness," said I, "is too dear to me to leave it in danger. In this house you will not need my protection, but I shall never be so far from you as to be disabled from hearing how you fare, by letter, and of being active for your good. You have some money, which you must husband well. Any rent from your farm cannot be soon expected; but what you have got, if you remain with Mr. Curling, will pay your board and all other expenses for two years; but you must be a good economist. I shall expect," continued I, with a serious smile, "a punctual account of all your sayings and doings. I must know how every minute is employed and every penny is expended, and, if I find you erring, I must tell you so in good round terms." These words did not dissipate the sullenness which her looks had betrayed. She still forbore to look at me, and said, "I do not know how I should tell you every thing. You care so little about me that--I should only be troublesome. I am old enough to think and act for myself, and shall advise with nobody but myself." "That is true," said I. "I shall rejoice to see you independent and free. Consult your own understanding, and act according to its dictates. Nothing more is wanting to make you useful and happy. I am anxious to return to the city, but, if you will allow me, will go first to Malverton, see that things are in due order, and that old Caleb is well. From thence, if you please, I will call at your uncle's, and tell him what has happened. He may, otherwise, entertain pretensions and form views erroneous in themselves and injurious to you. He may think himself entitled to manage your estate. He may either suppose a will to have been made, or may actually have heard from your father, or from others, of that which you burnt, and in which he was named executor. His boisterous and sordid temper may prompt him to seize your house and goods, unless seasonably apprized of the truth; and, when he knows the truth, he may start into rage, which I shall be more fitted to encounter than you. I am told that anger transforms him into a ferocious madman. Shall I call upon him?" She shuddered at the picture which I had drawn of her uncle's character; but this emotion quickly gave place to self-upbraiding for the manner in which she had repelled my proffers of service. She melted once more into tears, and exclaimed,-- "I am not worthy of the pains you take for me. I am unfeeling and ungrateful. Why should I think ill of you for despising me, when I despise myself?" "You do yourself injustice, my friend. I think I see your most secret thoughts; and these, instead of exciting anger or contempt, only awaken compassion and tenderness. You love; and must, therefore, conceive my conduct to be perverse and cruel. I counted on your harbouring such thoughts. Time only and reflection will enable you to see my motives in their true light. Hereafter you will recollect my words, and find them sufficient to justify my conduct. You will acknowledge the propriety of my engaging in the cares of the world before I sit down in retirement and ease." "Ah! how much you mistake me! I admire and approve of your schemes. What angers and distresses me is, that you think me unworthy to partake of your cares and labours; that you regard my company as an obstacle and encumbrance; that assistance and counsel must all proceed from you; and that no scene is fit for me, but what you regard as slothful and inglorious. "Have I not the same claims to be wise, and active, and courageous, as you? If I am ignorant and weak, do I not owe it to the same cause that has made you so? and will not the same means which promote your improvement be likewise useful to me? You desire to obtain knowledge, by travelling and conversing with many persons, and studying many sciences; but you desire it for yourself alone. Me you think poor, weak, and contemptible; fit for nothing but to spin and churn. Provided I exist, am screened from the weather, have enough to eat and drink, you are satisfied. As to strengthening my mind and enlarging my knowledge, these things are valuable to you, but on me they are thrown away. I deserve not the gift." This strain, simple and just as it was, was wholly unexpected. I was surprised and disconcerted. In my previous reasonings I had certainly considered her sex as utterly unfitting her for those scenes and pursuits to which I had destined myself. Not a doubt of the validity of my conclusion had insinuated itself; but now my belief was shaken, though it was not subverted. I could not deny that human ignorance was curable by the same means in one sex as in the other; that fortitude and skill were of no less value to one than to the other. Questionless, my friend was rendered, by her age and inexperience, if not by sex, more helpless and dependent than I; but had I not been prone to overrate the difficulties which I should encounter? Had I not deemed unjustly of her constancy and force of mind? Marriage would render her property joint, and would not compel me to take up my abode in the woods, to abide forever in one spot, to shackle my curiosity, or limit my excursions. But marriage was a contract awful and irrevocable. Was this the woman with whom my reason enjoined me to blend my fate, without the power of dissolution? Would not time unfold qualities in her which I did not at present suspect, and which would evince an incurable difference in our minds? Would not time lead me to the feet of one who more nearly approached that standard of ideal excellence which poets and romancers had exhibited to my view? These considerations were powerful and delicate. I knew not in what terms to state them to my companion, so as to preclude the imputation of arrogance or indecorum. It became me, however, to be explicit, and to excite her resentment rather than mislead her judgment. She collected my meaning from a few words, and, interrupting me, said,-- "How very low is the poor Eliza in your opinion! We are, indeed, both too young to be married. May I not see you, and talk with you, without being your wife? May I not share your knowledge, relieve your cares, and enjoy your confidence, as a sister might do? May I not accompany you in your journeys and studies, as one friend accompanies another? My property may be yours; you may employ it for your benefit and mine; not because you are my husband, but my friend. You are going to the city. Let me go along with you. Let me live where you live. The house that is large enough to hold you will hold me. The fare that is good enough for you will be luxury to me. Oh! let it be so, will you? "You cannot think how studious, how thoughtful, how inquisitive, I will be. How tenderly I will nurse you when sick! it is possible you may be sick, you know, and, no one in the world will be half so watchful and affectionate as I shall be. Will you let me?" In saying this, her earnestness gave new pathos to her voice. Insensibly she put her face close to mine, and, transported beyond the usual bounds of reserve by the charms of that picture which her fancy contemplated, she put her lips to my cheek, and repeated, in a melting accent, "Will you let me?" You, my friends, who have not seen Eliza Hadwin, cannot conceive what effect this entreaty was adapted to produce in me. She has surely the sweetest voice, the most speaking features, and most delicate symmetry, that ever woman possessed. Her guileless simplicity and tenderness made her more enchanting. To be the object of devotion to a heart so fervent and pure was, surely, no common privilege. Thus did she tender me herself; and was not the gift to be received with eagerness and gratitude? No. I was not so much a stranger to mankind as to acquiesce in this scheme. As my sister or my wife, the world would suffer us to reside under the same roof; to apply to common use the same property; and daily to enjoy the company of each other; but she was not my sister, and marriage would be an act of the grossest indiscretion. I explained to her, in few words, the objections to which her project was liable. "Well, then," said she, "let me live in the next house, in the neighbourhood, or, at least, in the same city. Let me be where I may see you once a day, or once a week, or once a month. Shut me not wholly from your society, and the means of becoming, in time, less ignorant and foolish than I now am." After a pause, I replied, "I love you too well not to comply with this request. Perhaps the city will be as suitable a residence as any other for you, as it will, for some time, be most convenient to me. I shall be better able to watch over your welfare, and supply you with the means of improvement, when you are within a small distance. At present, you must consent to remain here, while I visit your uncle, and afterwards go to the city. I shall look out for you a suitable lodging, and inform you when it is found. If you then continue in the same mind, I will come, and, having gained the approbation of Mr. Curling, will conduct you to town." Here ended our dialogue.	{ "id": "18508" }
33	None	Though I had consented to this scheme, I was conscious that some hazards attended it. I was afraid of calumny, which might trouble the peace or destroy the reputation of my friend. I was afraid of my own weakness, which might be seduced into an indiscreet marriage by the charms or sufferings of this bewitching creature. I felt that there was no price too dear to save her from slander. A fair fame is of the highest importance to a young female, and the loss of it but poorly supplied by the testimony of her own conscience. I had reason for tenfold solicitude on this account, since I was her only protector and friend. Hence, I cherished some hopes that time might change her views, and suggest less dangerous schemes. Meanwhile, I was to lose no time in visiting Malverton and Philip Hadwin. About ten days had elapsed since we had deserted Malverton. These were days of successive storms, and travelling had been rendered inconvenient. The weather was now calm and clear, and, early in the morning that ensued the dialogue which I have just related, I set out on horseback. Honest Caleb was found eating his breakfast nearly in the spot where he had been first discovered. He answered my inquiries by saying, that, two days after our departure, several men had come to the house, one of whom was Philip Hadwin. They had interrogated him as to the condition of the farm, and the purpose of his remaining on it. William Hadwin they knew to have been some time dead; but where were the girls, his daughters? Caleb answered that Susy, the eldest, was likewise dead. These tidings excited astonishment. When died she, and how, and where was she buried? It happened two days before, and she was buried, he believed, but could not tell where. Not tell where? By whom, then, was she buried? Really, he could not tell. Some strange man came there just as she was dying. He went to the room, and, when she was dead, took her away, but what he did with the body was more than he could say, but he had a notion that he buried it. The man stayed till the morning, and then went off with Lizzy, leaving him to keep house by himself. He had not seen either of them, nor, indeed, a single soul since. This was all the information that Caleb could afford the visitants. It was so lame and incredible that they began to charge the man with falsehood, and to threaten him with legal animadversion. Just then Mr. Ellis entered the house, and, being made acquainted with the subject of discourse, told all that he himself knew. He related the midnight visit which I had paid him, explained my former situation in the family, and my disappearance in September. He stated the advice he had given me to carry Eliza to her uncle's, and my promise to comply with his counsel. The uncle declared he had seen nothing of his niece, and Caleb added, that, when she set out, she took the road that led to town. These hints afforded grounds for much conjecture and suspicion. Ellis now mentioned some intelligence that he had gathered respecting me in a late journey to ----. It seems I was the son of an honest farmer in that quarter, who married a tidy girl of a milkmaid that lived with him. My father had detected me in making some atrocious advances to my mother-in-law, and had turned me out of doors. I did not go off, however, without rifling his drawer of some hundreds of dollars, which he had laid up against a rainy day. I was noted for such pranks, and was hated by all the neighbours for my pride and laziness. It was easy, by comparison of circumstances, for Ellis to ascertain that Hadwin's servant Mervyn was the same against whom such heavy charges were laid. Previously to this journey, he had heard of me from Hadwin, who was loud in praise of my diligence, sobriety, and modesty. For his part, he had always been cautious of giving countenance to vagrants that came from nobody knew where, and worked their way with a plausible tongue. He was not surprised to hear it whispered that Betsy Hadwin had fallen in love with the youth, and now, no doubt, he had persuaded her to run away with him. The heiress of a fine farm was a prize not to be met with every day. Philip broke into rage at this news; swore that if it turned out so, his niece should starve upon the town, and that he would take good care to balk the lad. His brother he well knew had left a will, to which he was executor, and that this will would in good time be forthcoming. After much talk and ransacking the house, and swearing at his truant niece, he and his company departed, charging Caleb to keep the house and its contents for his use. This was all that Caleb's memory had retained of that day's proceedings. Curling had lately commented on the character of Philip Hadwin. This man was totally unlike his brother, was a noted brawler and bully, a tyrant to his children, a plague to his neighbours, and kept a rendezvous for drunkards and idlers, at the sign of the Bull's Head, at ----. He was not destitute of parts, and was no less dreaded for cunning than malignity. He was covetous, and never missed an opportunity of overreaching his neighbour. There was no doubt that his niece's property would be embezzled should it ever come into his hands, and any power which he might obtain over her person would be exercised to her destruction. His children were tainted with the dissoluteness of their father, and marriage had not repaired the reputation of his daughters, or cured them of depravity: this was the man whom I now proposed to visit. I scarcely need to say that the calumny of Betty Lawrence gave me no uneasiness. My father had no doubt been deceived, as well as my father's neighbours, by the artifices of this woman. I passed among them for a thief and a profligate, but their error had hitherto been harmless to me. The time might come which should confute the tale without my efforts. Betty, sooner or later, would drop her mask, and afford the antidote to her own poisons, unless some new incident should occur to make me hasten the catastrophe. I arrived at Hadwin's house. I was received with some attention as a guest. I looked, among the pimpled visages that filled the piazza, for that of the landlord, but found him in an inner apartment with two or three more seated round a table. On intimating my wish to speak with him alone, the others withdrew. Hadwin's visage had some traces of resemblance to his brother; but the meek, placid air, pale cheeks, and slender form of the latter were powerfully contrasted with the bloated arrogance, imperious brow, and robust limbs of the former. This man's rage was awakened by a straw; it impelled him in an instant to oaths and buffetings, and made his life an eternal brawl. The sooner my interview with such a personage should be at an end, the better. I therefore explained the purpose of my coming as fully and in as few words as possible. "Your name, sir, is Philip Hadwin. Your brother William, of Malverton, died lately and left two daughters. The youngest only is now alive, and I come, commissioned from her, to inform you that, as no will of her father's is extant, she is preparing to administer to his estate. As her father's brother, she thought you entitled to this information." The change which took place in the countenance of this man, during this address, was remarkable, but not easily described. His cheeks contracted a deeper crimson, his eyes sparkled, and his face assumed an expression in which curiosity was mingled with rage. He bent forward, and said, in a hoarse and contemptuous tone, "Pray, is your name Mervyn?" I answered, without hesitation, and as if the question were wholly unimportant, "Yes; my name is Mervyn." "God damn it! You then are the damned rascal"--(but permit me to repeat his speech without the oaths with which it was plentifully interlarded. Not three words were uttered without being garnished with a--"God damn it!" "damnation!" "I'll be damned to hell if"--and the like energetic expletives.) "You then are the rascal that robbed Billy's house; that ran away with the fool his daughter; persuaded her to burn her father's will, and have the hellish impudence to come into this house! But I thank you for it. I was going to look for you; you've saved me trouble. I'll settle all accounts with you here. Fair and softly, my good lad! If I don't bring you to the gallows--If I let you escape without such a dressing! Damned impudence! Fellow! I've been at Malverton. I've heard of your tricks. So! finding the will not quite to your mind, knowing that the executor would balk your schemes, you threw the will into the fire; you robbed the house of all the cash, and made off with the girl! --The old fellow saw it all, and will swear to the truth." These words created some surprise. I meant not to conceal from this man the tenor and destruction of the will, nor even the measures which his niece had taken or intended to take. What I supposed to be unknown to him appeared to have been communicated by the talkative Caleb, whose mind was more inquisitive and less sluggish than first appearances had led me to imagine. Instead of moping by the kitchen-fire when Eliza and I were conversing in an upper room, it now appeared that he had reconnoitred our proceedings through some keyhole or crevice, and had related what he had seen to Hadwin. Hadwin proceeded to exhaust his rage in oaths and menaces. He frequently clenched his fist and thrust it in my face, drew it back as if to render his blow more deadly; ran over the same series of exclamations on my impudence and villany, and talked of the gallows and the whipping-post; enforced each word by the epithets _damnable_ and _hellish_; closed each sentence with--"and be curst to you!" There was but one mode for me to pursue; all forcible opposition to a man of his strength was absurd. It was my province to make his anger confine itself to words, and patiently to wait till the paroxysm should end or subside of itself. To effect this purpose, I kept my seat, and carefully excluded from my countenance every indication of timidity and panic on the one hand, and of scorn and defiance on the other. My look and attitude were those of a man who expected harsh words, but who entertained no suspicion that blows would be inflicted. I was indebted for my safety to an inflexible adherence to this medium. To have strayed, for a moment, to either side, would have brought upon me his blows. That he did not instantly resort to violence inspired me with courage, since it depended on myself whether food should be supplied to his passion. Rage must either progress or decline; and, since it was in total want of provocation, it could not fail of gradually subsiding. My demeanour was calculated to damp the flame, not only by its direct influence, but by diverting his attention from the wrongs which he had received, to the novelty of my behaviour. The disparity in size and strength between us was too evident to make him believe that I confided in my sinews for my defence; and, since I betrayed neither contempt nor fear, he could not but conclude that I trusted to my own integrity or to his moderation. I seized the first pause in his rhetoric to enforce this sentiment. "You are angry, Mr. Hadwin, and are loud in your threats; but they do not frighten me. They excite no apprehension or alarm, because I know myself able to convince you that I have not injured you. This is an inn, and I am your guest. I am sure I shall find better entertainment than blows. Come," continued I, smiling, "it is possible that I am not so mischievous a wretch as your fancy paints me. I have no claims upon your niece but that of friendship, and she is now in the house of an honest man, Mr. Curling, where she proposes to continue as long as is convenient. "It is true that your brother left a will, which his daughter burnt in my presence, because she dreaded the authority which that will gave you, not only over her property, but person. It is true that on leaving the house she took away the money which was now her own, and which was necessary to subsistence. It is true that I bore her company, and have left her in an honest man's keeping. I am answerable for nothing more. As to you, I meant not to injure you; I advised not the burning of the will. I was a stranger, till after that event, to your character. I knew neither good nor ill of you. I came to tell you all this, because, as Eliza's uncle, you had a right to the information." "So! you come to tell me that she burnt the will, and is going to administer--to what, I beseech you? To her father's property? Ay, I warrant you. But take this along with you:--that property is mine; land, house, stock, every thing. All is safe and snug under cover of a mortgage, to which Billy was kind enough to add a bond. One was sued, and the other _entered up_, a week ago. So that all is safe under my thumb, and the girl may whistle or starve for me. I shall give myself no concern about the strumpet. You thought to get a prize; but, damn me, you've met with your match in me. Phil Haddin's not so easily choused, I promise you. I intended to give you this news, and a drubbing into the bargain; but you may go, and make haste. She burnt the will, did she, because I was named in it,--and sent you to tell me so? Good souls! It was kind of you, and I am bound to be thankful. Take her back news of the mortgage; and, as for you, leave my house. You may go scot-free this time; but I pledge my word for a sound beating when you next enter these doors. I'll pay it to you with interest. Leave my house, I say!" "A mortgage," said I, in a low voice, and affecting not to hear his commands; "that will be sad news for my friend. Why, sir, you are a fortunate man. Malverton is an excellent spot; well watered and manured; newly and completely fenced; not a larger barn in the county; oxen and horses and cows in the best order; I never set eyes on a finer orchard. By my faith, sir, you are a fortunate man. But, pray, what have you for dinner? I am hungry as a wolf. Order me a beef-steak, and some potation or other. The bottle there,--it is cider, I take it; pray, push it to this side." Saying this, I stretched out my hand towards the bottle which stood before him. I confided in the power of a fearless and sedate manner. Methought that, as anger was the food of anger, it must unavoidably subside in a contest with equability. This opinion was intuitive, rather than the product of experience, and perhaps I gave no proof of my sagacity in hazarding my safety on its truth. Hadwin's character made him dreaded and obeyed by all. He had been accustomed to ready and tremulous submission from men far more brawny and robust than I was, and to find his most vehement menaces and gestures totally ineffectual on a being so slender and diminutive at once wound up his rage and excited his astonishment. One motion counteracted and suspended the other. He lifted his hand, but delayed to strike. One blow, applied with his usual dexterity, was sufficient to destroy me. Though seemingly careless, I was watchful of his motions, and prepared to elude the stroke by shrinking or stooping. Meanwhile, I stretched my hand far enough to seize the bottle, and, pouring its contents into a tumbler, put it to my lips:-- "Come, sir, I drink your health, and wish you speedy possession of Malverton. I have some interest with Eliza, and will prevail on her to forbear all opposition and complaint. Why should she complain? While I live, she shall not be a beggar. No doubt your claim is legal, and therefore ought to be admitted. What the law gave, the law has taken away. Blessed be the dispensers of law! Excellent cider! open another bottle, will you, and, I beseech, hasten dinner, if you would not see me devour the table." It was just, perhaps, to conjure up the demon avarice to fight with the demon anger. Reason alone would, in such a contest, be powerless, but, in truth, I spoke without artifice or disguise. If his claim were legal, opposition would be absurd and pernicious. I meant not to rely upon his own assertions, and would not acknowledge the validity of his claim till I had inspected the deed. Having instituted suits, this was now in a public office, and there the inspection should be made. Meanwhile, no reason could be urged why I should part from him in anger, while his kindred to Eliza, and his title to her property, made it useful to secure his favour. It was possible to obtain a remission of his claims, even when the law enforced them; it would be imprudent at least to diminish the chances of remission by fostering his wrath and provoking his enmity. "What!" he exclaimed, in a transport of fury, "a'n't I master of my own house? Out, I say!" These were harsh terms, but they were not accompanied by gestures and tones so menacing as those which had before been used. It was plain that the tide, which so lately threatened my destruction, had begun to recede. This encouraged me to persist. "Be not alarmed, my good friend," said I, placidly and smiling. "A man of your bone need not fear a pigmy like me. I shall scarcely be able to dethrone you in your own castle, with an army of hostlers, tapsters, and cooks at your beck. You shall still be master here, provided you use your influence to procure me a dinner." His acquiescence in a pacific system was extremely reluctant and gradual. He laid aside one sullen tone and wrathful look after the other; and, at length, consented not only to supply me with a dinner, but to partake of it with me. Nothing was more a topic of surprise to himself than his forbearance. He knew not how it was. He had never been treated so before. He was not proof against entreaty and submission; but I had neither supplicated nor submitted. The stuff that I was made of was at once damnably tough and devilishly pliant. When he thought of my impudence, in staying in his house after he had bade me leave it, he was tempted to resume his passion. When he reflected on my courage, in making light of his anger, notwithstanding his known impetuosity and my personal inferiority, he could not withhold his esteem. But my patience under his rebukes, my unalterable equanimity, and my ready consent to the validity of his claims, soothed and propitiated him. An exemption from blows and abuse was all that I could gain from this man. I told him the truth, with regard to my own history, so far as it was connected with the Hadwins. I exhibited, in affecting colours, the helpless condition of Eliza; but could extort from him nothing but his consent that, if she chose, she might come and live with him. He would give her victuals and clothes for so much house-work as she was able to do. If she chose to live elsewhere, he promised not to molest her, or intermeddle in her concerns. The house and land were his by law, and he would have them. It was not my province to revile or expostulate with him. I stated what measures would be adopted by a man who regarded the interest of others more than his own; who was anxious for the welfare of an innocent girl, connected with him so closely by the ties of kindred, and who was destitute of what is called natural friends. If he did not cancel, for her sake, his bond and mortgage, he would, at least, afford her a frugal maintenance. He would extend to her, in all emergencies, his counsel and protection. All that, he said, was sheer nonsense. He could not sufficiently wonder at my folly, in proposing to him to make a free gift of a hundred rich acres, to a girl too who scarcely knew her right hand from her left; whom the first cunning young rogue like myself would _chouse_ out of the whole, and take herself into the bargain. But my folly was even surpassed by my impudence, since, as the _friend_ of this girl, I was merely petitioning on my own account. I had come to him, whom I never saw before, on whom I had no claim, and who, as I well knew, had reason to think me a sharper, and modestly said, "Here's a girl who has no fortune. I am greatly in want of one. Pray, give her such an estate that you have in your possession. If you do, I'll marry her, and take it into my own hands." I might be thankful that he did not answer such a petition with a horse-whipping. But if he did not give her his estate, he might extend to her, forsooth, his counsel and protection. "That I've offered to do," continued he. "She may come and live in my house, if she will. She may do some of the family work. I'll discharge the chambermaid to make room for her. Lizzy, if I remember right, has a pretty face. She can't have a better market for it than as chambermaid to an inn. If she minds her p's and q's she may make up a handsome sum at the year's end." I thought it time to break off the conference; and, my dinner being finished, took my leave, leaving behind me the character of _a queer sort of chap_. I speeded to the prothonotary's office, which was kept in the village, and quickly ascertained the truth of Hadwin's pretensions. There existed a mortgage, with bond and warrant of attorney, to so great an amount as would swallow up every thing at Malverton. Furnished with these tidings, I prepared, with a drooping heart, to return to Mr. Curling's.	{ "id": "18508" }
34	None	This incident necessarily produced a change in my views with regard to my friend. Her fortune consisted of a few hundreds of dollars, which, frugally administered, might procure decent accommodation in the country. When this was consumed, she must find subsistence in tending the big wheel or the milk-pail, unless fortune should enable me to place her in a more favourable situation. This state was, in some respects, but little different from that in which she had spent the former part of her life; but, in her father's house, these employments were dignified by being, in some degree, voluntary, and relieved by frequent intervals of recreation and leisure. Now they were likely to prove irksome and servile, in consequence of being performed for hire and imposed by necessity. Equality, parental solicitudes, and sisterly endearments, would be wanting to lighten the yoke. These inconveniences, however, were imaginary. This was the school in which fortitude and independence were to be learned. Habit, and the purity of rural manners, would, likewise, create anew those ties which death had dissolved. The affections of parent and sister would be supplied by the fonder and more rational attachments of friendship. These toils were not detrimental to beauty or health. What was to be dreaded from them was their tendency to quench the spirit of liberal curiosity; to habituate the person to bodily, rather than intellectual, exertions; to supersede and create indifference or aversion to the only instruments of rational improvement, the pen and the book. This evil, however, was at some distance from Eliza. Her present abode was quiet and serene. Here she might enjoy domestic pleasures and opportunities of mental improvement for the coming twelvemonth at least. This period would, perhaps, be sufficient for the formation of studious habits. What schemes should be adopted for this end would be determined by the destiny to which I myself should be reserved. My path was already chalked out, and my fancy now pursued it with uncommon pleasure. To reside in your family; to study your profession; to pursue some subordinate or casual mode of industry, by which I might purchase leisure for medical pursuits, for social recreations, and for the study of mankind on your busy and thronged stage, was the scope of my wishes. This destiny would not hinder punctual correspondence and occasional visits to Eliza. Her pen might be called into action, and her mind be awakened by books, and every hour be made to add to her stores of knowledge and enlarge the bounds of her capacity. I was spiritless and gloomy when I left ----; but reflections on my future lot, and just views of the situation of my friend, insensibly restored my cheerfulness. I arrived at Mr. Curling's in the evening, and hastened to impart to Eliza the issue of my commission. It gave her uneasiness, merely as it frustrated the design, on which she had fondly mused, of residing in the city. She was somewhat consoled by my promises of being her constant correspondent and occasional visitor. Next morning I set out on my journey hither, on foot. The way was not long; the weather, though cold, was wholesome and serene. My spirits were high, and I saw nothing in the world before me but sunshine and prosperity. I was conscious that my happiness depended not on the revolutions of nature or the caprice of man. All without was, indeed, vicissitude and uncertainty; but within my bosom was a centre not to be shaken or removed. My purposes were honest and steadfast. Every sense was the inlet of pleasure, because it was the avenue of knowledge; and my soul brooded over the world to ideas, and glowed with exultation at the grandeur and beauty of its own creations. This felicity was too rapturous to be of long duration. I gradually descended from these heights; and the remembrance of past incidents, connected with the images of your family, to which I was returning, led my thoughts into a different channel. Welbeck and the unhappy girl whom he had betrayed; Mrs. Villars and Wallace, were recollected anew. The views which I had formed, for determining the fate and affording assistance to Clemenza, were recalled. My former resolutions with regard to her had been suspended by the uncertainty in which the fate of the Hadwins was, at that time, wrapped. Had it not become necessary wholly to lay aside these resolutions? That, indeed, was an irksome conclusion. No wonder that I struggled to repel it; that I fostered the doubt whether money was the only instrument of benefit; whether caution, and fortitude, and knowledge, were not the genuine preservatives from evil. Had I not the means in my hands of dispelling her fatal ignorance of Welbeck and of those with whom she resided? Was I not authorized, by my previous though slender intercourse, to seek her presence? Suppose I should enter Mrs. Villars's house, desire to be introduced to the lady, accost her with affectionate simplicity, and tell her the truth? Why be anxious to smooth the way? why deal in apologies, circuities, and innuendoes? All these are feeble and perverse refinements, unworthy of an honest purpose and an erect spirit. To believe her inaccessible to my visit was absurd. To wait for the permission of those whose interest it might be to shut out visitants was cowardice. This was an infringement of her liberty which equity and law equally condemned. By what right could she be restrained from intercourse with others? Doors and passages may be between her and me. With a purpose such as mine, no one had a right to close the one or obstruct the other. Away with cowardly reluctances and clownish scruples, and let me hasten this moment to her dwelling. Mrs. Villars is the portress of the mansion. She will probably present herself before me, and demand the reason of my visit. What shall I say to her? The truth. To falter, or equivocate, or dissemble to this woman would be wicked. Perhaps her character has been misunderstood and maligned. Can I render her a greater service than to apprize her of the aspersions that have rested on it, and afford her the opportunity of vindication? Perhaps she is indeed selfish and profligate; the betrayer of youth and the agent of lasciviousness. Does she not deserve to know the extent of her errors and the ignominy of her trade? Does she not merit the compassion of the good and the rebukes of the wise? To shrink from the task would prove me cowardly and unfirm. Thus far, at least, let my courage extend. Alas! Clemenza is unacquainted with my language. My thoughts cannot make themselves apparent but by words, and to my words she will be able to affix no meaning. Yet is not that a hasty decision? The version from the dramas of Zeno which I found in her toilet was probably hers, and proves her to have a speculative knowledge of our tongue. Near half a year has since elapsed, during which she has dwelt with talkers of English, and consequently could not fail to have acquired it. This conclusion is somewhat dubious, but experiment will give it certainty. Hitherto I had strolled along the path at a lingering pace. Time enough, methought, to reach your threshold between sunrise and moonlight, if my way had been three times longer than it was. You were the pleasing phantom that hovered before me and beckoned me forward. What a total revolution had occurred in the course of a few seconds! for thus long did my reasonings with regard to Clemenza and the Villars require to pass through my understanding, and escape, in half-muttered soliloquy, from my lips. My muscles trembled with eagerness, and I bounded forward with impetuosity. I saw nothing but a vista of catalpas, leafless, loaded with icicles, and terminating in four chimneys and a painted roof. My fancy outstripped my footsteps, and was busy in picturing faces and rehearsing dialogues. Presently I reached this new object of my pursuit, darted through the avenue, noticed that some windows of the house were unclosed, drew thence a hasty inference that the house was not without inhabitants, and knocked, quickly and loudly, for admission. Some one within crept to the door, opened it with seeming caution, and just far enough to allow the face to be seen. It was the timid, pale, and unwashed face of a girl who was readily supposed to be a servant, taken from a cottage, and turned into a bringer of wood and water and a scourer of tubs and trenches. She waited in timorous silence the delivery of my message. Was Mrs. Villars at home? "No; she has gone to town." Were any of her daughters within? She could not tell; she believed--she thought--which did I want? Miss Hetty or Miss Sally? "Let me see Miss Hetty." Saying this, I pushed gently against the door. The girl, half reluctant, yielded way; I entered the passage, and, putting my hand on the lock of a door that seemed to lead into a parlour,--"Is Miss Hetty in this room?" No; there was nobody there. "Go call her, then. Tell her there is one who wishes to see her on important business. I will wait for her coming in this room." So saying, I opened the door, and entered the apartment, while the girl withdrew to perform my message. The parlour was spacious and expensively furnished, but an air of negligence and disorder was everywhere visible. The carpet was wrinkled and unswept; a clock on the table, in a glass frame, so streaked and spotted with dust as scarcely to be transparent, and the index motionless, and pointing at four instead of nine; embers scattered on the marble hearth, and tongs lying on the fender with the handle in the ashes; a harpsichord, uncovered, one end loaded with _scores_, tumbled together in a heap, and the other with volumes of novels and plays, some on their edges, some on their backs, gaping open by the scorching of their covers; rent; blurred; stained; blotted; dog-eared; tables awry; chairs crowding each other; in short, no object but indicated the neglect or the ignorance of domestic neatness and economy. My leisure was employed in surveying these objects, and in listening for the approach of Miss Hetty. Some minutes elapsed, and no one came. A reason for delay was easily imagined, and I summoned patience to wait. I opened a book; touched the instrument; surveyed the vases on the mantel-tree; the figures on the hangings, and the print of Apollo and the Sibyl, taken from Salvator, and hung over the chimney. I eyed my own shape and garb in the mirror, and asked how my rustic appearance would be regarded by that supercilious and voluptuous being to whom I was about to present myself. Presently the latch of the door was softly moved: it opened, and the simpleton, before described, appeared. She spoke, but her voice was so full of hesitation, and so near a whisper, that much attention was needed to make out her words:--Miss Hetty was not at home; she was gone to town with her _mistress_. This was a tale not to be credited. How was I to act? She persisted in maintaining the truth of it. --"Well, then," said I, at length, "tell Miss Sally that I wish to speak with her. She will answer my purpose just as well." Miss Sally was not at home neither. She had gone to town too. They would not be back, she did not know when; not till night, she supposed. It was so indeed; none of them wasn't at home; none but she and Nanny in the kitchen: indeed there wasn't. "Go tell Nanny to come here; I will leave my message with her." She withdrew, but Nanny did not receive the summons, or thought proper not to obey it. All was vacant and still. My state was singular and critical. It was absurd to prolong it; but to leave the house with my errand unexecuted would argue imbecility and folly. To ascertain Clemenza's presence in this house, and to gain an interview, were yet in my power. Had I not boasted of my intrepidity in braving denials and commands when they endeavoured to obstruct my passage to this woman? But here were no obstacles nor prohibition. Suppose the girl had said truth, that the matron and her daughters were absent, and that Nanny and herself were the only guardians of the mansion. So much the better. My design will not be opposed. I have only to mount the stair, and go from one room to another till I find what I seek. There was hazard, as well as plausibility, in this scheme. I thought it best once more to endeavour to extort information from the girl, and persuade her to be my guide to whomsoever the house contained. I put my hand to the bell and rung a brisk peal. No one came. I passed into the entry, to the foot of a staircase, and to a back-window. Nobody was within hearing or sight. Once more I reflected on the rectitude of my intentions, on the possibility that the girl's assertions might be true, on the benefits of expedition, and of gaining access to the object of my visit without interruption or delay. To these considerations was added a sort of charm, not easily explained, and by no means justifiable, produced by the very temerity and hazardness accompanying this attempt. I thought, with scornful emotions, on the bars and hinderances which pride, and caprice, and delusive maxims of decorum, raise in the way of human intercourse. I spurned at these semblances and substitutes of honesty, and delighted to shake such fetters into air and trample such impediments to dust. I wanted to see a human being, in order to promote her happiness. It was doubtful whether she was within twenty paces of the spot where I stood. The doubt was to be solved. How? By examining the space. I forthwith proceeded to examine it. I reached the second story. I approached a door that was closed. I knocked. After a pause, a soft voice said, "Who is there?" The accents were as musical as those of Clemenza, but were in other respects different. I had no topic to discuss with this person. I answered not, yet hesitated to withdraw. Presently the same voice was again heard:--"What is it you want? Why don't you answer? Come in!" I complied with the command, and entered the room. It was deliberation and foresight that led me hither, and not chance or caprice. Hence, instead of being disconcerted or vanquished by the objects that I saw, I was tranquil and firm. My curiosity, however, made me a vigilant observer. Two females, arrayed with voluptuous negligence, in a manner adapted to the utmost seclusion, and seated in a careless attitude on a sofa, were now discovered. Both darted glances at the door. One, who appeared to be the youngest, no sooner saw me, than she shrieked, and, starting from her seat, betrayed in the looks which she successively cast upon me, on herself, and on the chamber, whose apparatus was in no less confusion than that of the apartment below, her consciousness of the unseasonableness of this meeting. The other shrieked likewise, but in her it seemed to be the token of surprise rather than that of terror. There was, probably, somewhat in my aspect and garb that suggested an apology for this intrusion, as arising from simplicity and mistake. She thought proper, however, to assume the air of one offended, and, looking sternly,--"How now, fellow," said she, "what is this? Why come you hither?" This questioner was of mature age, but had not passed the period of attractiveness and grace. All the beauty that nature had bestowed was still retained, but the portion had never been great. What she possessed was so modelled and embellished by such a carriage and dress as to give it most power over the senses of the gazer. In proportion, however, as it was intended and adapted to captivate those who know none but physical pleasures, it was qualified to breed distaste and aversion in me. I am sensible how much error may have lurked in this decision. I had brought with me the belief of their being unchaste; and seized, perhaps with too much avidity, any appearance that coincided with my prepossessions. Yet the younger by no means inspired the same disgust; though I had no reason to suppose her more unblemished than the elder. Her modesty seemed unaffected, and was by no means satisfied, like that of the elder, with defeating future curiosity. The consciousness of what had already been exposed filled her with confusion, and she would have flown away, if her companion had not detained her by some degree of force. "What ails the girl? There's nothing to be frightened at. Fellow!" she repeated, "what brings you here?" I advanced and stood before them. I looked steadfastly, but, I believe, with neither effrontery nor anger, on the one who addressed me. I spoke in a tone serious and emphatical. "I come for the sake of speaking to a woman who formerly resided in this house, and probably resides here still. Her name is Clemenza Lodi. If she be here, I request you to conduct me to her instantly." Methought I perceived some inquietude, a less imperious and more inquisitive air, in this woman, on hearing the name of Clemenza. It was momentary, and gave way to peremptory looks. "What is your business with her? And why did you adopt this mode of inquiry? A very extraordinary intrusion! Be good enough to leave the chamber. Any questions proper to be answered will be answered below." "I meant not to intrude or offend. It was not an idle or impertinent motive that led me hither. I waited below for some time after soliciting an audience of you through the servant. She assured me you were absent, and laid me under the necessity of searching for Clemenza Lodi myself, and without a guide. I am anxious to withdraw, and request merely to be directed to the room which she occupies." "I direct you," replied she, in a more resolute tone, "to quit the room and the house." "Impossible, madam," I replied, still looking at her earnestly; "leave the house without seeing her! You might as well enjoin me to pull the Andes on my head! --to walk barefoot to Pekin! Impossible!" Some solicitude was now mingled with her anger. "This is strange insolence! unaccountable behaviour! --begone from my room! will you compel me to call the gentlemen?" "Be not alarmed," said I, with augmented mildness. There was, indeed, compassion and sorrow at my heart, and these must have somewhat influenced my looks. "Be not alarmed. I came to confer a benefit, not to perpetrate an injury. I came not to censure or expostulate with you, but merely to counsel and aid a being that needs both; all I want is to see her. In this chamber I sought not you, but her. Only lead me to her, or tell me where she is. I will then rid you of my presence." "Will you compel me to call those who will punish this insolence as it deserves?" "Dearest madam! I compel you to nothing. I merely supplicate. I would ask you to lead me to these gentlemen, if I did not know that there are none but females in the house. It is you who must receive and comply with my petition. Allow me a moment's interview with Clemenza Lodi. Compliance will harm you not, but will benefit her. What is your objection?" "This is the strangest proceeding! the most singular conduct! Is this a place fit to parley with you? I warn you of the consequence of staying a moment longer. Depend upon it, you will sorely repent it." "You are obdurate," said I, and turned towards the younger, who listened to this discourse in tremors and panic. I took her hand with an air of humility and reverence. "Here," said I, "there seems to be purity, innocence, and condescension. I took this house to be the temple of voluptuousness. Females I expected to find in it, but such only as traded in licentious pleasures; specious, perhaps not destitute of talents, beauty, and address, but dissolute and wanton, sensual and avaricious; yet in this countenance and carriage there are tokens of virtue. I am born to be deceived, and the semblance of modesty is readily assumed. Under this veil, perhaps, lurk a tainted heart and depraved appetites. Is it so?" She made me no answer, but somewhat in her looks seemed to evince that my favourable prepossessions were just. I noticed likewise that the alarm of the elder was greatly increased by this address to her companion. The thought suddenly occurred that this girl might be in circumstances not unlike those of Clemenza Lodi; that she was not apprized of the character of her associates, and might by this meeting be rescued from similar evils. This suspicion filled me with tumultuous feelings. Clemenza was for a time forgotten. I paid no attention to the looks or demeanour of the elder, but was wholly occupied in gazing on the younger. My anxiety to know the truth gave pathos and energy to my tones while I spoke:-- "Who, where, what are you? Do you reside in this house? Are you a sister or daughter in this family, or merely a visitant? Do you know the character, profession, and views of your companions? Do you deem them virtuous, or know them to be profligate? Speak! tell me, I beseech you!" The maiden confusion which had just appeared in the countenance of this person now somewhat abated. She lifted her eyes, and glanced by turns at me and at her who sat by her side. An air of serious astonishment overspread her features, and she seemed anxious for me to proceed. The elder, meanwhile, betrayed the utmost alarm, again upbraided my audacity, commanded me to withdraw, and admonished me of the danger I incurred by lingering. I noticed not her interference, but again entreated to know of the younger her true state. She had no time to answer me, supposing her not to want the inclination, for every pause was filled by the clamorous importunities and menaces of the other. I began to perceive that my attempts were useless to this end, but the chief and most estimable purpose was attainable. It was in my power to state the knowledge I possessed, through your means, of Mrs. Villars and her daughters. This information might be superfluous, since she to whom it was given might be one of this licentious family. The contrary, however, was not improbable, and my tidings, therefore, might be of the utmost moment to her safety. A resolute and even impetuous manner reduced my incessant interrupter to silence. What I had to say, I compressed in a few words, and adhered to perspicuity and candour with the utmost care. I still held the hand that I had taken, and fixed my eyes upon her countenance with a steadfastness that hindered her from lifting her eyes. "I know you not; whether you be dissolute or chaste, I cannot tell. In either case, however, what I am going to say will be useful. Let me faithfully repeat what I have heard. It is mere rumour, and I vouch not for its truth. Rumour as it is, I submit it to your judgment, and hope that it may guide you into paths of innocence and honour. "Mrs. Villars and her three daughters are Englishwomen, who supported for a time an unblemished reputation, but who, at length, were suspected of carrying on the trade of prostitution. This secret could not be concealed forever. The profligates who frequented their house betrayed them. One of them, who died under their roof, after they had withdrawn from it into the country, disclosed to his kinsman, who attended his death-bed, their genuine character. "The dying man likewise related incidents in which I am deeply concerned. I have been connected with one by name Welbeck. In his house I met an unfortunate girl, who was afterwards removed to Mrs. Villars's. Her name was Clemenza Lodi. Residence in this house, under the control of a woman like Mrs. Villars and her daughters, must be injurious to her innocence, and from this control I now come to rescue her." I turned to the elder, and continued,--"By all that is sacred, I adjure you to tell me whether Clemenza Lodi be under this roof! If she be not, whither has she gone? To know this I came hither, and any difficulty or reluctance in answering will be useless; till an answer be obtained, I will not go hence." During this speech, anger had been kindling in the bosom of this woman. It now burst upon me in a torrent of opprobrious epithets. I was a villain, a calumniator, a thief. I had lurked about the house, till those whose sex and strength enabled them to cope with me had gone. I had entered these doors by fraud. I was a wretch, guilty of the last excesses of insolence and insult. To repel these reproaches, or endure them, was equally useless. The satisfaction that I sought was only to be gained by searching the house. I left the room without speaking. Did I act illegally in passing from one story and one room to another? Did I really deserve the imputations of rashness and insolence? My behaviour, I well know, was ambiguous and hazardous, and perhaps wanting in discretion, but my motives were unquestionably pure. I aimed at nothing but the rescue of a human creature from distress and dishonour. I pretend not to the wisdom of experience and age; to the praise of forethought or subtlety. I choose the obvious path, and pursue it with headlong expedition. Good intentions, unaided by knowledge, will, perhaps, produce more injury than benefit, and therefore knowledge must be gained, but the acquisition is not momentary; is not bestowed unasked and untoiled for. Meanwhile, we must not be inactive because we are ignorant. Our good purposes must hurry to performance, whether our knowledge be greater or less.	{ "id": "18508" }
35	None	To explore the house in this manner was so contrary to ordinary rules, that the design was probably wholly unsuspected by the women whom I had just left. My silence, at parting, might have been ascribed by them to the intimidating influence of invectives and threats. Hence I proceeded in my search without interruption. Presently I reached a front chamber in the third story. The door was ajar. I entered it on tiptoe. Sitting on a low chair by the fire, I beheld a female figure, dressed in a negligent but not indecent manner. Her face, in the posture in which she sat, was only half seen. Its hues were sickly and pale, and in mournful unison with a feeble and emaciated form. Her eyes were fixed upon a babe that lay stretched upon a pillow at her feet. The child, like its mother, for such she was readily imagined to be, was meagre and cadaverous. Either it was dead, or could not be very distant from death. The features of Clemenza were easily recognised, though no contrast could be greater, in habit and shape and complexion, than that which her present bore to her former appearance. All her roses had faded, and her brilliancies vanished. Still, however, there was somewhat fitted to awaken the tenderest emotions. There were tokens of inconsolable distress. Her attention was wholly absorbed by the child. She lifted not her eyes till I came close to her and stood before her. When she discovered me, a faint start was perceived. She looked at me for a moment, then, putting one spread hand before her eyes, she stretched out the other towards the door, and waving it in silence, as if to admonish me to depart. This motion, however emphatical, I could not obey. I wished to obtain her attention, but knew not in what words to claim it. I was silent. In a moment she removed her hand from her eyes, and looked at me with new eagerness. Her features bespoke emotions which, perhaps, flowed from my likeness to her brother, joined with the memory of my connection with Welbeck. My situation was full of embarrassment. I was by no means certain that my language would be understood. I knew not in what light the policy and dissimulation of Welbeck might have taught her to regard me. What proposal, conducive to her comfort and her safety, could I make to her? Once more she covered her eyes, and exclaimed, in a feeble voice, "Go away! begone!" As if satisfied with this effort, she resumed her attention to her child. She stooped and lifted it in her arms, gazing, meanwhile, on its almost lifeless features with intense anxiety. She crushed it to her bosom, and, again looking at me, repeated, "Go away! go away! begone!" There was somewhat in the lines of her face, in her tones and gestures, that pierced to my heart. Added to this, was my knowledge of her condition; her friendlessness; her poverty; the pangs of unrequited love; and her expiring infant. I felt my utterance choked, and my tears struggling for passage. I turned to the window, and endeavoured to regain my tranquillity. "What was it," said I, "that brought me hither? The perfidy of Welbeck must surely have long since been discovered. What can I tell her of the Villars which she does not already know, or of which the knowledge will be useful? If their treatment has been just, why should I detract from their merit? If it has been otherwise, their own conduct will have disclosed their genuine character. Though voluptuous themselves, it does not follow that they have laboured to debase this creature. Though wanton, they may not be inhuman. "I can propose no change in her condition for the better. Should she be willing to leave this house, whither is it in my power to conduct her? Oh that I were rich enough to provide food for the hungry, shelter for the houseless, and raiment for the naked!" I was roused from these fruitless reflections by the lady, whom some sudden thought induced to place the child in its bed, and, rising, to come towards me. The utter dejection which her features lately betrayed was now changed for an air of anxious curiosity. "Where," said she, in her broken English,--"where is Signor Welbeck?" "Alas!" returned I, "I know not. That question might, I thought, with more propriety be put to you than me." "I know where he be; I fear where he be." So saying, the deepest sighs burst from her heart. She turned from me, and, going to the child, took it again into her lap. Its pale and sunken cheek was quickly wet with the mother's tears, which, as she silently hung over it, dropped fast from her eyes. This demeanour could not but awaken curiosity, while it gave a new turn to my thoughts. I began to suspect that in the tokens which I saw there was not only distress for her child, but concern for the fate of Welbeck. "Know you," said I, "where Mr. Welbeck is? Is he alive? Is he near? Is he in calamity?" "I do not know if he be alive. He be sick. He be in prison. They will not let me go to him. And"--here her attention and mine was attracted by the infant, whose frame, till now motionless, began to be tremulous. Its features sunk into a more ghastly expression. Its breathings were difficult, and every effort to respire produced a convulsion harder than the last. The mother easily interpreted these tokens. The same mortal struggle seemed to take place in her features as in those of her child. At length her agony found way in a piercing shriek. The struggle in the infant was past. Hope looked in vain for a new motion in its heart or its eyelids. The lips were closed, and its breath was gone forever! The grief which overwhelmed the unhappy parent was of that outrageous and desperate kind which is wholly incompatible with thinking. A few incoherent motions and screams, that rent the soul, were followed by a deep swoon. She sunk upon the floor, pale and lifeless as her babe. I need not describe the pangs which such a scene was adapted to produce in me. These were rendered more acute by the helpless and ambiguous situation in which I was placed. I was eager to bestow consolation and succour, but was destitute of all means. I was plunged into uncertainties and doubts. I gazed alternately at the infant and its mother. I sighed. I wept. I even sobbed. I stooped down and took the lifeless hand of the sufferer. I bathed it with my tears, and exclaimed, "Ill-fated woman! unhappy mother! what shall I do for thy relief? How shall I blunt the edge of this calamity, and rescue thee from new evils?" At this moment the door of the apartment was opened, and the younger of the women whom I had seen below entered. Her looks betrayed the deepest consternation and anxiety. Her eyes in a moment were fixed by the decayed form and the sad features of Clemenza. She shuddered at this spectacle, but was silent. She stood in the midst of the floor, fluctuating and bewildered. I dropped the hand that I was holding, and approached her. "You have come," said I, "in good season. I know you not, but will believe you to be good. You have a heart, it may be, not free from corruption, but it is still capable of pity for the miseries of others. You have a hand that refuses not its aid to the unhappy. See; there is an infant dead. There is a mother whom grief has, for a time, deprived of life. She has been oppressed and betrayed; been robbed of property and reputation--but not of innocence. She is worthy of relief. Have you arms to receive her? Have you sympathy, protection, and a home to bestow upon a forlorn, betrayed, and unhappy stranger? I know not what this house is; I suspect it to be no better than a brothel. I know not what treatment this woman has received. When her situation and wants are ascertained, will you supply her wants? Will you rescue her from evils that may attend her continuance here?" She was disconcerted and bewildered by this address. At length she said, "All that has happened, all that I have heard and seen, is so unexpected, so strange, that I am amazed and distracted. Your behaviour I cannot comprehend, nor your motive for making this address to me. I cannot answer you, except in one respect. If this woman has suffered injury, I have had no part in it. I knew not of her existence nor her situation till this moment; and whatever protection or assistance she may justly claim, I am both able and willing to bestow. I do not live here, but in the city. I am only an occasional visitant in this house." "What, then!" I exclaimed, with sparkling eyes and a rapturous accent, "you are not profligate; are a stranger to the manners of this house, and a detester of these manners? Be not a deceiver, I entreat you. I depend only on your looks and professions, and these may be dissembled." These questions, which indeed argued a childish simplicity, excited her surprise. She looked at me, uncertain whether I was in earnest or in jest. At length she said, "Your language is so singular, that I am at a loss how to answer it. I shall take no pains to find out its meaning, but leave you to form conjectures at leisure. Who is this woman, and how can I serve her?" After a pause, she continued:--"I cannot afford her any immediate assistance, and shall not stay a moment longer in this house. There" (putting a card in my hand) "is my name and place of abode. If you shall have any proposals to make, respecting this woman, I shall be ready to receive them in my own house." So saying, she withdrew. I looked wistfully after her, but could not but assent to her assertion, that her presence here would be more injurious to her than beneficial to Clemenza. She had scarcely gone, when the elder woman entered. There was rage, sullenness, and disappointment in her aspect. These, however, were suspended by the situation in which she discovered the mother and child. It was plain that all the sentiments of woman were not extinguished in her heart. She summoned the servants and seemed preparing to take such measures as the occasion prescribed. I now saw the folly of supposing that these measures would be neglected, and that my presence could not essentially contribute to the benefit of the sufferer. Still, however, I lingered in the room, till the infant was covered with a cloth, and the still senseless parent was conveyed into an adjoining chamber. The woman then, as if she had not seen me before, fixed scowling eyes upon me, and exclaimed, "Thief! villain! why do you stay here?" "I mean to go," said I, "but not till I express my gratitude and pleasure at the sight of your attention to this sufferer. You deem me insolent and perverse, but I am not such; and hope that the day will come when I shall convince you of my good intentions." "Begone!" interrupted she, in a more angry tone. "Begone this moment, or I will treat you as a thief." She now drew forth her hand from under her gown, and showed a pistol. "You shall see," she continued, "that I will not be insulted with impunity. If you do not vanish, I will shoot you as a robber." This woman was far from wanting a force and intrepidity worthy of a different sex. Her gestures and tones were full of energy. They denoted a haughty and indignant spirit. It was plain that she conceived herself deeply injured by my conduct; and was it absolutely certain that her anger was without reason? I had loaded her house with atrocious imputations, and these imputations might be false. I had conceived them upon such evidence as chance had provided; but this evidence, intricate and dubious as human actions and motives are, might be void of truth. "Perhaps," said I, in a sedate tone, "I have injured you; I have mistaken your character. You shall not find me less ready to repair, than to perpetrate, this injury. My error was without malice, and----" I had not time to finish the sentence, when this rash and enraged woman thrust the pistol close to my head and fired it. I was wholly unaware that her fury would lead her to this excess. It was a sort of mechanical impulse that made me raise my hand and attempt to turn aside the weapon. I did this deliberately and tranquilly, and without conceiving that any thing more was intended by her movement than to intimidate me. To this precaution, however, I was indebted for life. The bullet was diverted from my forehead to my left ear, and made a slight wound upon the surface, from which the blood gushed in a stream. The loudness of this explosion, and the shock which the ball produced in my brain, sunk me into a momentary stupor. I reeled backward, and should have fallen, had not I supported myself against the wall. The sight of my blood instantly restored her reason. Her rage disappeared, and was succeeded by terror and remorse. She clasped her hands, and exclaimed, "Oh! what! what have I done? My frantic passion has destroyed me." I needed no long time to show me the full extent of the injury which I had suffered and the conduct which it became me to adopt. For a moment I was bewildered and alarmed, but presently perceived that this was an incident more productive of good than of evil. It would teach me caution in contending with the passions of another, and showed me that there is a limit which the impetuosities of anger will sometimes overstep. Instead of reviling my companion, I addressed myself to her thus:-- "Be not frighted. You have done me no injury, and, I hope, will derive instruction from this event. Your rashness had like to have sacrificed the life of one who is your friend, and to have exposed yourself to infamy and death, or, at least, to the pangs of eternal remorse. Learn from hence to curb your passions, and especially to keep at a distance from every murderous weapon, on occasions when rage is likely to take place of reason. "I repeat that my motives in entering this house were connected with your happiness as well as that of Clemenza Lodi. If I have erred in supposing you the member of a vile and pernicious trade, that error was worthy of being rectified, but violence and invective tend only to confirm it. I am incapable of any purpose that is not beneficent; but, in the means that I use and in the evidence on which I proceed, I am liable to a thousand mistakes. Point out to me the road by which I can do you good, and I will cheerfully pursue it." Finding that her fears had been groundless as to the consequences of her rashness, she renewed, though with less vehemence than before, her imprecations on my intermeddling and audacious folly. I listened till the storm was nearly exhausted, and then, declaring my intention to revisit the house if the interest of Clemenza should require it, I resumed my way to the city.	{ "id": "18508" }
36	None	"Why," said I, as I hasted forward, "is my fortune so abundant in unforeseen occurrences? Is every man who leaves his cottage and the impressions of his infancy behind him ushered into such a world of revolutions and perils as have trammelled my steps? or is my scene indebted for variety and change to my propensity to look into other people's concerns, and to make their sorrows and their joys mine? "To indulge an adventurous spirit, I left the precincts of the barn-door, enlisted in the service of a stranger, and encountered a thousand dangers to my virtue under the disastrous influence of Welbeck. Afterwards my life was set at hazard in the cause of Wallace, and now am I loaded with the province of protecting the helpless Eliza Hadwin and the unfortunate Clemenza. My wishes are fervent, and my powers shall not be inactive in their defence; but how slender are these powers! "In the offers of the unknown lady there is, indeed, some consolation for Clemenza. It must be my business to lay before my friend Stevens the particulars of what has befallen me, and to entreat his directions how this disconsolate girl may be most effectually succoured. It may be wise to take her from her present abode, and place her under some chaste and humane guardianship, where she may gradually lose remembrance of her dead infant and her specious betrayer. The barrier that severs her from Welbeck must be high as heaven and insuperable as necessity. "But, soft! Talked she not of Welbeck? Said she not that he was in prison and was sick? Poor wretch! I thought thy course was at an end; that the penalty of guilt no longer weighed down thy heart; that thy misdeeds and thy remorses were buried in a common and obscure grave; but it seems thou art still alive. "Is it rational to cherish the hope of thy restoration to innocence and peace? Thou art no obdurate criminal; hadst thou less virtue, thy compunctions would be less keen. Wert thou deaf to the voice of duty, thy wanderings into guilt and folly would be less fertile of anguish. The time will perhaps come, when the measure of thy transgressions and calamities will overflow, and the folly of thy choice will be too conspicuous to escape thy discernment. Surely, even for such transgressors as thou, there is a salutary power in the precepts of truth and the lessons of experience. "But thou art imprisoned and art sick. This, perhaps, is the crisis of thy destiny. Indigence and dishonour were the evils to shun which thy integrity and peace of mind have been lightly forfeited. Thou hast found that the price was given in vain; that the hollow and deceitful enjoyments of opulence and dignity were not worth the purchase; and that, frivolous and unsubstantial as they are, the only path that leads to them is that of honesty and diligence. Thou art in prison and art sick; and there is none to cheer thy hour with offices of kindness, or uphold thy fainting courage by the suggestions of good counsel. For such as thou the world has no compassion. Mankind will pursue thee to the grave with execrations. Their cruelty will be justified or palliated, since they know thee not. They are unacquainted with the goadings of thy conscience and the bitter retributions which thou art daily suffering. They are full of their own wrongs, and think only of those tokens of exultation and complacency which thou wast studious of assuming in thy intercourse with them. It is I only that thoroughly know thee and can rightly estimate thy claims to compassion. "I have somewhat partaken of thy kindness, and thou meritest some gratitude at my hands. Shall I not visit and endeavour to console thee in thy distress? Let me, at least, ascertain thy condition, and be the instrument in repairing the wrongs which thou hast inflicted. Let me gain, from the contemplation of thy misery, new motives to sincerity and rectitude." While occupied by these reflections, I entered the city. The thoughts which engrossed my mind related to Welbeck. It is not my custom to defer till to-morrow what can be done to-day. The destiny of man frequently hangs upon the lapse of a minute. "I will stop," said I, "at the prison; and, since the moment of my arrival may not be indifferent, I will go thither with all possible haste." I did not content myself with walking, but, regardless of the comments of passengers, hurried along the way at full speed. Having inquired for Welbeck, I was conducted through a dark room, crowded with beds, to a staircase. Never before had I been in a prison. Never had I smelt so noisome an odour, or surveyed faces so begrimed with filth and misery. The walls and floors were alike squalid and detestable. It seemed that in this house existence would be bereaved of all its attractions; and yet those faces, which could be seen through the obscurity that encompassed them, were either void of care or distorted with mirth. "This," said I, as I followed my conductor, "is the residence of Welbeck. What contrasts are these to the repose and splendour, pictured walls, glossy hangings, gilded sofas, mirrors that occupied from ceiling to floor, carpets of Tauris, and the spotless and transcendent brilliancy of coverlets and napkins, in thy former dwelling! Here brawling and the shuffling of rude feet are eternal. The air is loaded with the exhalations of disease and the fumes of debauchery. Thou art cooped up in airless space, and, perhaps, compelled to share thy narrow cell with some stupid ruffian. Formerly, the breezes were courted by thy lofty windows. Aromatic shrubs were scattered on thy hearth. Menials, splendid in apparel, showed their faces with diffidence in thy apartment, trod lightly on thy marble floor, and suffered not the sanctity of silence to be troubled by a whisper. Thy lamp shot its rays through the transparency of alabaster, and thy fragrant lymph flowed from vases of porcelain. Such were formerly the decorations of thy hall, the embellishments of thy existence; but now--alas! ----" We reached a chamber in the second story. My conductor knocked at the door. No one answered. Repeated knocks were unheard or unnoticed by the person within. At length, lifting a latch, we entered together. The prisoner lay upon the bed, with his face turned from the door. I advanced softly, making a sign to the keeper to withdraw. Welbeck was not asleep, but merely buried in reverie. I was unwilling to disturb his musing, and stood with my eyes fixed upon his form. He appeared unconscious that any one had entered. At length, uttering a deep sigh, he changed his posture, and perceived me in my motionless and gazing attitude. Recollect in what circumstances we had last parted. Welbeck had, no doubt, carried away with him from that interview a firm belief that I should speedily die. His prognostic, however, was fated to be contradicted. His first emotions were those of surprise. These gave place to mortification and rage. After eyeing me for some time, he averted his glances, and that effort which is made to dissipate some obstacle to breathing showed me that his sensations were of the most excruciating kind. He laid his head upon the pillow, and sunk into his former musing. He disdained, or was unable, to utter a syllable of welcome or contempt. In the opportunity that had been afforded me to view his countenance, I had observed tokens of a kind very different from those which used to be visible. The gloomy and malignant were more conspicuous. Health had forsaken his cheeks, and taken along with it those flexible parts which formerly enabled him to cover his secret torments and insidious purposes beneath a veil of benevolence and cheerfulness. "Alas!" said I, loud enough for him to hear me, "here is a monument of ruin. Despair and mischievous passions are too deeply rooted in this heart for me to tear them away." These expressions did not escape his notice. He turned once more and cast sullen looks upon me. There was somewhat in his eyes that made me shudder. They denoted that his reverie was not that of grief, but of madness. I continued, in a less steadfast voice than before:-- "Unhappy Clemenza! I have performed thy message. I have visited him that is sick and in prison. Thou hadst cause for anguish and terror, even greater cause than thou imaginedst. Would to God that thou wouldst be contented with the report which I shall make; that thy misguided tenderness would consent to leave him to his destiny, would suffer him to die alone; but that is a forbearance which no eloquence that I possess will induce thee to practise. Thou must come, and witness for thyself." In speaking thus, I was far from foreseeing the effects which would be produced on the mind of Welbeck. I was far from intending to instil into him a belief that Clemenza was near at hand, and was preparing to enter his apartment; yet no other images but these would, perhaps, have roused him from his lethargy, and awakened that attention which I wished to awaken. He started up, and gazed fearfully at the door. "What!" he cried. "What! Is she here? Ye powers, that have scattered woes in my path, spare me the sight of her! But from this agony I will rescue myself. The moment she appears I will pluck out these eyes and dash them at her feet." So saying, he gazed with augmented eagerness upon the door. His hands were lifted to his head, as if ready to execute his frantic purpose. I seized his arm and besought him to lay aside his terror, for that Clemenza was far distant. She had no intention, and besides was unable, to visit him. "Then I am respited. I breathe again. No; keep her from a prison. Drag her to the wheel or to the scaffold; mangle her with stripes; torture her with famine; strangle her child before her face, and cast it to the hungry dogs that are howling at the gate; but--keep her from a prison. Never let her enter these doors." There he stopped; his eyes being fixed on the floor, and his thoughts once more buried in reverie. I resumed:-- "She is occupied with other griefs than those connected with the fate of Welbeck. She is not unmindful of you; she knows you to be sick and in prison; and I came to do for you whatever office your condition might require, and I came at her suggestion. She, alas! has full employment for her tears in watering the grave of her child." He started. "What! dead? Say you that the child is dead?" "It is dead. I witnessed its death. I saw it expire in the arms of its mother; that mother whom I formerly met under your roof blooming and gay, but whom calamity has tarnished and withered. I saw her in the raiment of poverty, under an accursed roof: desolate; alone; unsolaced by the countenance or sympathy of human beings; approached only by those who mock at her distress, set snares for her innocence, and push her to infamy. I saw her leaning over the face of her dying babe." Welbeck put his hands to his head, and exclaimed, "Curses on thy lips, infernal messenger! Chant elsewhere thy rueful ditty! Vanish! if thou wouldst not feel in thy heart fangs red with blood less guilty than thine." Till this moment the uproar in Welbeck's mind appeared to hinder him from distinctly recognising his visitant. Now it seemed as if the incidents of our last interview suddenly sprung up in his remembrance. "What! This is the villain that rifled my cabinet, the maker of my poverty and of all the evils which it has since engendered! That has led me to a prison! Execrable fool! you are the author of the scene that you describe, and of horrors without number and name. To whatever crimes I have been urged since that interview, and the fit of madness that made you destroy my property, they spring from your act; they flowed from necessity, which, had you held your hand at that fateful moment, would never have existed. "How dare you thrust yourself upon my privacy? Why am I not alone? Fly! and let my miseries want, at least, the aggravation of beholding their author. My eyes loathe the sight of thee! My heart would suffocate thee with its own bitterness! Begone!" "I know not," I answered, "why innocence should tremble at the ravings of a lunatic; why it should be overwhelmed by unmerited reproaches! Why it should not deplore the errors of its foe, labour to correct those errors, and----" "Thank thy fate, youth, that my hands are tied up by my scorn; thank thy fate that no weapon is within reach. Much has passed since I saw thee, and I am a new man. I am no longer inconstant and cowardly. I have no motives but contempt to hinder me from expiating the wrongs which thou hast done me in thy blood. I disdain to take thy life. Go; and let thy fidelity, at least, to the confidence which I have placed in thee, be inviolate. Thou hast done me harm enough, but canst do, if thou wilt, still more. Thou canst betray the secrets that are lodged in thy bosom, and rob me of the comfort of reflecting that my guilt is known but to one among the living." This suggestion made me pause, and look back upon the past. I had confided this man's tale to you. The secrecy on which he so fondly leaned was at an end. Had I acted culpably or not? But why should I ruminate, with anguish and doubt, upon the past? The future was within my power, and the road of my duty was too plain to be mistaken. I would disclose to Welbeck the truth, and cheerfully encounter every consequence. I would summon my friend to my aid, and take his counsel in the critical emergency in which I was placed. I ought not to rely upon myself alone in my efforts to benefit this being, when another was so near whose discernment and benevolence, and knowledge of mankind, and power of affording relief, were far superior to mine. Influenced by these thoughts, I left the apartment without speaking; and, procuring pen and paper, despatched to you the billet which brought about our meeting.	{ "id": "18508" }
37	None	Mervyn's auditors allowed no pause in their attention to this story. Having ended, a deep silence took place. The clock which stood upon the mantel had sounded twice the customary _larum_, but had not been heard by us. It was now struck a third time. It was _one_. Our guest appeared somewhat startled at this signal, and looked, with a mournful sort of earnestness, at the clock. There was an air of inquietude about him which I had never observed in an equal degree before. I was not without much curiosity respecting other incidents than those which had just been related by him; but, after so much fatigue as he had undergone, I thought it improper to prolong the conversation. "Come," said I, "my friend, let us to bed. This is a drowsy time, and, after so much exercise of mind and body, you cannot but need some repose. Much has happened in your absence, which is proper to be known to you; but our discourse will be best deferred till to-morrow. I will come into your chamber by day-dawn, and unfold to you particulars." "Nay," said he, "withdraw not on my account. If I go to my chamber, it will not be to sleep, but to meditate, especially after your assurance that something of moment has occurred in my absence. My thoughts, independently of any cause of sorrow or fear, have received an impulse which solitude and darkness will not stop. It is impossible to know too much for our safety and integrity, or to know it too soon. What has happened?" I did not hesitate to comply with his request, for it was not difficult to conceive that, however tired the limbs might be, the adventures of this day would not be easily expelled from the memory at night. I told him the substance of the conversation with Mrs. Althorpe. He smiled at those parts of the narrative which related to himself; but when his father's depravity and poverty were mentioned, he melted into tears. "Poor wretch! I, that knew thee in thy better days, might have easily divined this consequence. I foresaw thy poverty and degradation in the same hour that I left thy roof. My soul drooped at the prospect, but I said, It cannot be prevented, and this reflection was an antidote to grief; but, now that thy ruin is complete, it seems as if some of it were imputable to me, who forsook thee when the succour and counsel of a son were most needed. Thou art ignorant and vicious, but thou art my father still. I see that the sufferings of a better man than thou art would less afflict me than thine. Perhaps it is still in my power to restore thy liberty and good name, and yet--that is a fond wish. Thou art past the age when the ignorance and grovelling habits of a human being are susceptible of cure." There he stopped, and, after a gloomy pause, continued:-- * * * * * I am not surprised or afflicted at the misconceptions of my neighbours with relation to my own character. Men must judge from what they see; they must build their conclusions on their knowledge. I never saw in the rebukes of my neighbours any thing but laudable abhorrence of vice. They were too eager to blame, to collect materials of censure rather than of praise. It was not me whom they hated and despised. It was the phantom that passed under my name, which existed only in their imagination, and which was worthy of all their scorn and all their enmity. What I appeared to be in their eyes was as much the object of my own disapprobation as of theirs. Their reproaches only evinced the rectitude of their decisions, as well as of my own. I drew from them new motives to complacency. They fortified my perseverance in the path which I had chosen as best; they raised me higher in my own esteem; they heightened the claims of the reproachers themselves to my respect and my gratitude. They thought me slothful, incurious, destitute of knowledge and of all thirst of knowledge, insolent, and profligate. They say that in the treatment of my father I have been ungrateful and inhuman. I have stolen his property, and deserted him in his calamity. Therefore they hate and revile me. It is well; I love them for these proofs of their discernment and integrity. Their indignation at wrong is the truest test of their virtue. It is true that they mistake me, but that arises from the circumstances of our mutual situation. They examined what was exposed to their view, they grasped at what was placed within their reach. To decide contrary to appearances, to judge from what they knew not, would prove them to be brutish and not rational, would make their decision of no worth, and render them, in their turn, objects of neglect and contempt. It is true that I hated school; that I sought occasions of absence, and finally, on being struck by the master, determined to enter his presence no more. I loved to leap, to run, to swim, to climb trees and to clamber up rocks, to shroud myself in thickets and stroll among woods, to obey the impulse of the moment, and to prate or be silent, just as my humour prompted me. All this I loved more than to go to and fro in the same path, and at stated hours to look off and on a book, to read just as much and of such a kind, to stand up and be seated, just as another thought proper to direct. I hated to be classed, cribbed, rebuked, and feruled at the pleasure of one who, as it seemed to me, knew no guide in his rewards but caprice, and no prompter in his punishments but passion. It is true that I took up the spade and the hoe as rarely, and for as short a time, as possible. I preferred to ramble in the forest and loiter on the hill; perpetually to change the scene; to scrutinize the endless variety of objects; to compare one leaf and pebble with another; to pursue those trains of thought which their resemblances and differences suggested; to inquire what it was that gave them this place, structure, and form, were more agreeable employments than ploughing and threshing. My father could well afford to hire labour. What my age and my constitution enabled me to do could be done by a sturdy boy, in half the time, with half the toil, and with none of the reluctance. The boy was a bond-servant, and the cost of his clothing and food was next to nothing. True it is, that my service would have saved him even this expense, but my motives for declining the effort were not hastily weighed or superficially examined. These were my motives. My frame was delicate and feeble. Exposure to wet blasts and vertical suns was sure to make me sick. My father was insensible to this consequence; and no degree of diligence would please him but that which would destroy my health. My health was dearer to my mother than to me. She was more anxious to exempt me from possible injuries than reason justified; but anxious she was, and I could not save her from anxiety but by almost wholly abstaining from labour. I thought her peace of mind was of some value, and that, if the inclination of either of my parents must be gratified at the expense of the other, the preference was due to the woman who bore me; who nursed me in disease; who watched over my safety with incessant tenderness; whose life and whose peace were involved in mine. I should have deemed myself brutish and obdurately wicked to have loaded her with fears and cares merely to smooth the brow of a froward old man, whose avarice called on me to sacrifice my ease and my health, and who shifted to other shoulders the province of sustaining me when sick, and of mourning for me when dead. I likewise believed that it became me to reflect upon the influence of my decision on my own happiness; and to weigh the profits flowing to my father from my labour, against the benefits of mental exercise, the pleasures of the woods and streams, healthful sensations, and the luxury of musing. The pecuniary profit was petty and contemptible. It obviated no necessity. It purchased no rational enjoyment. It merely provoked, by furnishing the means of indulgence, an appetite from which my father was not exempt. It cherished the seeds of depravity in him, and lessened the little stock of happiness belonging to my mother. I did not detain you long, my friends, in portraying my parents, and recounting domestic incidents, when I first told you my story. What had no connection with the history of Welbeck and with the part that I have acted upon this stage I thought it proper to omit. My omission was likewise prompted by other reasons. My mind is enervated and feeble, like my body. I cannot look upon the sufferings of those I love without exquisite pain. I cannot steel my heart by the force of reason, and by submission to necessity; and, therefore, too frequently employ the cowardly expedient of endeavouring to forget what I cannot remember without agony. I told you that my father was sober and industrious by habit; but habit is not uniform. There were intervals when his plodding and tame spirit gave place to the malice and fury of a demon. Liquors were not sought by him; but he could not withstand entreaty, and a potion that produced no effect upon others changed him into a maniac. I told you that I had a sister, whom the arts of a villain destroyed. Alas! the work of her destruction was left unfinished by him. The blows and contumelies of a misjudging and implacable parent, who scrupled not to thrust her, with her new-born infant, out of doors; the curses and taunts of unnatural brothers, left her no alternative but death. ----But I must not think of this; I must not think of the wrongs which my mother endured in the person of her only and darling daughter. My brothers were the copyists of the father, whom they resembled in temper and person. My mother doted on her own image in her daughter and in me. This daughter was ravished from her by self-violence, and her other children by disease. I only remained to appropriate her affections and fulfil her hopes. This alone had furnished a sufficient reason why I should be careful of my health and my life, but my father's character supplied me with a motive infinitely more cogent. It is almost incredible, but nevertheless true, that the only being whose presence and remonstrances had any influence on my father, at moments when his reason was extinct, was myself. As to my personal strength, it was nothing; yet my mother's person was rescued from brutal violence; he was checked, in the midst of his ferocious career, by a single look or exclamation from me. The fear of my rebukes had even some influence in enabling him to resist temptation. If I entered the tavern at the moment when he was lifting the glass to his lips, I never weighed the injunctions of decorum, but, snatching the vessel from his hand, I threw it on the ground. I was not deterred by the presence of others; and their censures on my want of filial respect and duty were listened to with unconcern. I chose not to justify myself by expatiating on domestic miseries, and by calling down that pity on my mother which I knew would only have increased her distress. The world regarded my deportment as insolent and perverse to a degree of insanity. To deny my father an indulgence which they thought harmless, and which, indeed, was harmless in its influence on other men; to interfere thus publicly with his social enjoyments, and expose him to mortification and shame, was loudly condemned; but my duty to my mother debarred me from eluding this censure on the only terms on which it could have been eluded. Now it has ceased to be necessary to conceal what passed in domestic retirements, and I should willingly confess the truth before any audience. At first my father imagined that threats and blows would intimidate his monitor. In this he was mistaken, and the detection of this mistake impressed him with an involuntary reverence for me, which set bounds to those excesses which disdained any other control. Hence I derived new motives for cherishing a life which was useful, in so many ways, to my mother. My condition is now changed. I am no longer on that field to which the law, as well as reason, must acknowledge that I had some right, while there was any in my father. I must hazard my life, if need be, in the pursuit of the means of honest subsistence. I never spared myself while in the service of Mr. Hadwin; and, at a more inclement season, should probably have incurred some hazard by my diligence. These were the motives of my _idleness_,--for my abstaining from the common toils of the farm passed by that name among my neighbours; though, in truth, my time was far from being wholly unoccupied by manual employments, but these required less exertion of body or mind, or were more connected with intellectual efforts. They were pursued in the seclusion of my chamber or the recesses of a wood. I did not labour to conceal them, but neither was I anxious to attract notice. It was sufficient that the censure of my neighbours was unmerited, to make me regard it with indifference. I sought not the society of persons of my own age, not from sullen or unsociable habits, but merely because those around me were totally unlike myself. Their tastes and occupations were incompatible with mine. In my few books, in my pen, in the vegetable and animal existences around me, I found companions who adapted their visits and intercourse to my convenience and caprice, and with whom I was never tired of communing. I was not unaware of the opinion which my neighbours had formed of my being improperly connected with Betty Lawrence. I am not sorry that I fell into company with that girl. Her intercourse has instructed me in what some would think impossible to be attained by one who had never haunted the impure recesses of licentiousness in a city. The knowledge which a residence in this town for ten years gave her audacious and inquisitive spirit she imparted to me. Her character, profligate and artful, libidinous and impudent, and made up of the impressions which a city life had produced on her coarse but active mind, was open to my study, and I studied it. I scarcely know how to repel the charge of illicit conduct, and to depict the exact species of intercourse subsisting between us. I always treated her with freedom, and sometimes with gayety. I had no motives to reserve. I was so formed that a creature like her had no power over my senses. That species of temptation adapted to entice me from the true path was widely different from the artifices of Betty. There was no point at which it was possible for her to get possession of my fancy. I watched her while she practised all her tricks and blandishments, as I regarded a similar deportment in the _animal salax ignavumque_ who inhabits the sty. I made efforts to pursue my observations unembarrassed; but my efforts were made, not to restrain desire, but to suppress disgust. The difficulty lay, not in withholding my caresses, but in forbearing to repulse her with rage. Decorum, indeed, was not outraged, and all limits were not overstepped at once. Dubious advances were employed; but, when found unavailing, were displaced by more shameless and direct proceedings. She was too little versed in human nature to see that her last expedient was always worse than the preceding; and that, in proportion as she lost sight of decency, she multiplied the obstacles to her success. Betty had many enticements in person and air. She was ruddy, smooth, and plump. To these she added--I must not say what, for it is strange to what lengths a woman destitute of modesty will sometimes go. But, all her artifices availing her not at all in the contest with my insensibilities, she resorted to extremes which it would serve no good purpose to describe in this audience. They produced not the consequences she wished, but they produced another which was by no means displeasing to her. An incident one night occurred, from which a sagacious observer deduced the existence of an intrigue. It was useless to attempt to rectify his mistake by explaining appearances in a manner consistent with my innocence. This mode of explication implied a _continence_ in me which he denied to be possible. The standard of possibilities, especially in vice and virtue, is fashioned by most men after their own character. A temptation which this judge of human nature knew that _he_ was unable to resist, he sagely concluded to be irresistible by any other man, and quickly established the belief among my neighbours, that the woman who married the father had been prostituted to the son. Though I never admitted the truth of this aspersion, I believed it useless to deny, because no one would credit my denial, and because I had no power to disprove it.	{ "id": "18508" }
38	None	What other inquiries were to be resolved by our young friend, we were now, at this late hour, obliged to postpone till the morrow. I shall pass over the reflections which a story like this would naturally suggest, and hasten to our next interview. After breakfast next morning, the subject of last night's conversation was renewed. I told him that something had occurred in his absence, in relation to Mrs. Wentworth and her nephew, that had perplexed us not a little. "My information is obtained," continued I, "from Wortley; and it is nothing less than that young Clavering, Mrs. Wentworth's nephew, is, at this time, actually alive." Surprise, but none of the embarrassment of guilt, appeared in his countenance at these tidings. He looked at me as if desirous that I should proceed. "It seems," added I, "that a letter was lately received by this lady from the father of Clavering, who is now in Europe. This letter reports that this son was lately met with in Charleston, and relates the means which old Mr. Clavering had used to prevail upon his son to return home; means, of the success of which he entertained well-grounded hopes. What think you?" "I can only reject it," said he, after some pause, "as untrue. The father's correspondent may have been deceived. The father may have been deceived, or the father may conceive it necessary to deceive the aunt, or some other supposition as to the source of the error may be true; but an error it surely is. Clavering is not alive. I know the chamber where he died, and the withered pine under which he lies buried." "If she be deceived," said I, "it will be impossible to rectify her error." "I hope not. An honest front and a straight story will be sufficient." "How do you mean to act?" "Visit her, without doubt, and tell her the truth. My tale will be too circumstantial and consistent to permit her to disbelieve." "She will not hearken to you. She is too strongly prepossessed against you to admit you even to a hearing." "She cannot help it. Unless she lock her door against me, or stuff her ears with wool, she must hear me. Her prepossessions are reasonable, but are easily removed by telling the truth. Why does she suspect me of artifice? Because I seemed to be allied to Welbeck, and because I disguised the truth. That she thinks ill of me is not her fault, but my misfortune; and, happily for me, a misfortune easily removed." "Then you will try to see her?" "I will see her, and the sooner the better. I will see her to-day; this morning; as soon as I have seen Welbeck, whom I shall immediately visit in his prison." "There are other embarrassments and dangers of which you are not aware. Welbeck is pursued by many persons whom he has defrauded of large sums. By these persons you are deemed an accomplice in his guilt, and a warrant is already in the hands of officers for arresting you wherever you are found." "In what way," said Mervyn, sedately, "do they imagine me a partaker of his crime?" "I know not. You lived with him. You fled with him. You aided and connived at his escape." "Are these crimes?" "I believe not, but they subject you to suspicion." "To arrest and to punishment?" "To detention for a while, perhaps. But these alone cannot expose you to punishment." "I thought so. Then I have nothing to fear." "You have imprisonment and obloquy, at least, to dread." "True; but they cannot be avoided but by my exile and skulking out of sight,--evils infinitely more formidable. I shall, therefore, not avoid them. The sooner my conduct is subjected to scrutiny, the better. Will you go with me to Welbeck?" "I will go with you." Inquiring for Welbeck of the keeper of the prison, we were informed that he was in his own apartment, very sick. The physician attending the prison had been called, but the prisoner had preserved an obstinate and scornful silence; and had neither explained his condition, nor consented to accept any aid. We now went alone into his apartment. His sensibility seemed fast ebbing, yet an emotion of joy was visible in his eyes at the appearance of Mervyn. He seemed likewise to recognise in me his late visitant, and made no objection to my entrance. "How are you this morning?" said Arthur, seating himself on the bedside, and taking his hand. The sick man was scarcely able to articulate his reply:--"I shall soon be well. I have longed to see you. I want to leave with you a few words." He now cast his languid eyes on me. "You are his friend," he continued. "You know all. You may stay." There now succeeded a long pause, during which he closed his eyes, and resigned himself as if to an oblivion of all thought. His pulse under my hand was scarcely perceptible. From this in some minutes he recovered, and, fixing his eyes on Mervyn, resumed, in a broken and feeble accent:-- "Clemenza! You have seen her. Weeks ago, I left her in an accursed house; yet she has not been mistreated. Neglected and abandoned indeed, but not mistreated. Save her, Mervyn. Comfort her. Awaken charity for her sake. "I cannot tell you what has happened. The tale would be too long,--too mournful. Yet, in justice to the living, I must tell you something. My woes and my crimes will be buried with me. Some of them, but not all. "Ere this, I should have been many leagues upon the ocean, had not a newspaper fallen into my hands while on the eve of embarkation. By that I learned that a treasure was buried with the remains of the ill-fated Watson. I was destitute. I was unjust enough to wish to make this treasure my own. Prone to think I was forgotten, or numbered with the victims of pestilence, I ventured to return under a careless disguise. I penetrated to the vaults of that deserted dwelling by night. I dug up the bones of my friend, and found the girdle and its valuable contents, according to the accurate description that I had read. "I hastened back with my prize to Baltimore, but my evil destiny overtook me at last. I was recognised by emissaries of Jamieson, arrested and brought hither, and here shall I consummate my fate and defeat the rage of my creditors by death. But first----" Here Welbeck stretched out his left hand to Mervyn, and, after some reluctance, showed a roll of lead. "Receive this," said he. "In the use of it, be guided by your honesty and by the same advertisement that furnished me the clue by which to recover it. That being secured, the world and I will part forever. Withdraw, for your presence can help me nothing." We were unwilling to comply with his injunction, and continued some longer time in his chamber; but our kind intent availed nothing. He quickly relapsed into insensibility, from which he recovered not again, but next day expired. Such, in the flower of his age, was the fate of Thomas Welbeck. Whatever interest I might feel in accompanying the progress of my young friend, a sudden and unforeseen emergency compelled me again to leave the city. A kinsman, to whom I was bound by many obligations, was suffering a lingering disease, and, imagining, with some reason, his dissolution to be not far distant, he besought my company and my assistance, to soothe, at least, the agonies of his last hour. I was anxious to clear up the mysteries which Arthur's conduct had produced, and to shield him, if possible, from the evils which I feared awaited him. It was impossible, however, to decline the invitation of my kinsman, as his residence was not a day's journey from the city. I was obliged to content myself with occasional information, imparted by Mervyn's letters or those of my wife. Meanwhile, on leaving the prison, I hasted to inform Mervyn of the true nature of the scene which had just passed. By this extraordinary occurrence, the property of the Maurices was now in honest hands. Welbeck, stimulated by selfish motives, had done that which any other person would have found encompassed with formidable dangers and difficulties. How this attempt was suggested or executed, he had not informed us, nor was it desirable to know. It was sufficient that the means of restoring their own to a destitute and meritorious family were now in our possession. Having returned home, I unfolded to Mervyn all the particulars respecting Williams and the Maurices which I had lately learned from Wortley. He listened with deep attention, and, my story being finished, he said, "In this small compass, then, is the patrimony and subsistence of a numerous family. To restore it to them is the obvious proceeding--but how? Where do they abide?" "Williams and Watson's wife live in Baltimore, and the Maurices live near that town. The advertisements alluded to by Wortley, and which are to be found in any newspaper, will inform us; but, first, are we sure that any or all of these bills are contained in this covering?" The lead was now unrolled, and the bills which Williams had described were found enclosed. Nothing appeared to be deficient. Of this, however, we were scarcely qualified to judge. Those that were the property of Williams might not be entire, and what would be the consequence of presenting them to him, if any had been embezzled by Welbeck? This difficulty was obviated by Mervyn, who observed that the advertisement describing these bills would afford us ample information on this head. "Having found out where the Maurices and Mrs. Watson live, nothing remains but to visit them, and put an end, as far as lies in my power, to their inquietudes." "What! Would you go to Baltimore?" "Certainly. Can any other expedient be proper? How shall I otherwise insure the safe conveyance of these papers?" "You may send them by post." "But why not go myself?" "I can hardly tell, unless your appearance on such an errand may be suspected likely to involve you in embarrassments." "What embarrassments? If they receive their own, ought they not to be satisfied?" "The inquiry will naturally be made as to the manner of gaining possession of these papers. They were lately in the hands of Watson, but Watson has disappeared. Suspicions are awake respecting the cause of his disappearance. These suspicions are connected with Welbeck, and Welbeck's connection with you is not unknown." "These are evils, but I see not how an ingenious and open conduct is adapted to increase these evils. If they come, I must endure them." "I believe your decision is right. No one is so skilful an advocate in a cause, as he whose cause it is. I rely upon your skill and address, and shall leave you to pursue your own way. I must leave you for a time, but shall expect to be punctually informed of all that passes." With this agreement we parted, and I hastened to perform my intended journey.	{ "id": "18508" }
39	None	I am glad, my friend, thy nimble pen has got so far upon its journey. What remains of my story may be despatched in a trice. I have just now some vacant hours, which might possibly be more usefully employed, but not in an easier manner or more pleasant. So, let me carry on thy thread. First, let me mention the resolutions I had formed at the time I parted with my friend. I had several objects in view. One was a conference with Mrs. Wentworth; another was an interview with her whom I met with at Villars's. My heart melted when I thought upon the desolate condition of Clemenza, and determined me to direct my first efforts for her relief. For this end I was to visit the female who had given me a direction to her house. The name of this person is Achsa Fielding, and she lived, according to her own direction, at No. 40 Walnut Street. I went thither without delay. She was not at home. Having gained information from the servant as to when she might be found, I proceeded to Mrs. Wentworth's. In going thither my mind was deeply occupied in meditation; and, with my usual carelessness of forms, I entered the house and made my way to the parlour, where an interview had formerly taken place between us. Having arrived, I began, though somewhat unseasonably, to reflect upon the topics with which I should introduce my conversation, and particularly the manner in which I should introduce myself. I had opened doors without warning, and traversed passages without being noticed. This had arisen from my thoughtlessness. There was no one within hearing or sight. What was next to be done? Should I not return softly to the outer door, and summon the servant by knocking? Preparing to do this, I heard a footstep in the entry which suspended my design. I stood in the middle of the floor, attentive to these movements, when presently the door opened, and there entered the apartment Mrs. Wentworth herself! She came, as it seemed, without expectation of finding any one there. When, therefore, the figure of a man caught her vagrant attention, she started and cast a hasty look towards me. "Pray!" (in a peremptory tone,) "how came you here, sir? and what is your business?" Neither arrogance, on the one hand, nor humility, upon the other, had any part in modelling my deportment. I came not to deprecate anger, or exult over distress. I answered, therefore, distinctly, firmly, and erectly,-- "I came to see you, madam, and converse with you; but, being busy with other thoughts, I forgot to knock at the door. No evil was intended by my negligence, though propriety has certainly not been observed. Will you pardon this intrusion, and condescend to grant me your attention?" "To what? What have you to say to me? I know you only as the accomplice of a villain in an attempt to deceive me. There is nothing to justify your coming hither, and I desire you to leave the house with as little ceremony as you entered it." My eyes were lowered at this rebuke, yet I did not obey the command. "Your treatment of me, madam, is such as I appear to you to deserve. Appearances are unfavourable to me, but those appearances are false. I have concurred in no plot against your reputation or your fortune. I have told you nothing but the truth. I came hither to promote no selfish or sinister purpose. I have no favour to entreat, and no petition to offer, but that you will suffer me to clear up those mistakes which you have harboured respecting me. "I am poor. I am destitute of fame and of kindred. I have nothing to console me in obscurity and indigence, but the approbation of my own heart and the good opinion of those who know me as I am. The good may be led to despise and condemn me. Their aversion and scorn shall not make me unhappy; but it is my interest and my duty to rectify their error if I can. I regard your character with esteem. You have been mistaken in condemning me as a liar and impostor, and I came to remove this mistake. I came, if not to procure your esteem, at least to take away hatred and suspicion. "But this is not all my purpose. You are in an error in relation not only to my character, but to the situation of your nephew Clavering. I formerly told you, that I saw him die; that I assisted at his burial: but my tale was incoherent and imperfect, and you have since received intelligence to which you think proper to trust, and which assures you that he is still living. All I now ask is your attention, while I relate the particulars of my knowledge. "Proof of my veracity or innocence may be of no value in your eyes, but the fate of your nephew ought to be known to you. Certainty, on this head, may be of much importance to your happiness, and to the regulation of your future conduct. To hear me patiently can do you no injury, and may benefit you much. Will you permit me to go on?" During this address, little abatement of resentment and scorn was visible in my companion. "I will hear you," she replied. "Your invention may amuse if it does not edify. But, I pray you, let your story be short." I was obliged to be content with this ungraceful concession, and proceeded to begin my narration. I described the situation of my father's dwelling. I mentioned the year, month, day, and hour of her nephew's appearance among us. I expatiated minutely on his form, features, dress, sound of his voice, and repeated his words. His favourite gestures and attitudes were faithfully described. I had gone but a little way in my story, when the effects were visible in her demeanour which I expected from it. Her knowledge of the youth, and of the time and manner of his disappearance, made it impossible for me, with so minute a narrative, to impose upon her credulity. Every word, every incident related, attested my truth, by their agreement with what she herself previously knew. Her suspicious and angry watchfulness was quickly exchanged for downcast looks, and stealing tears, and sighs difficultly repressed. Meanwhile, I did not pause, but described the treatment he received from my mother's tenderness, his occupations, the freaks of his insanity, and, finally, the circumstances of his death and funeral. Thence I hastened to the circumstances which brought me to the city; which placed me in the service of Welbeck, and obliged me to perform so ambiguous a part in her presence. I left no difficulty to be solved, and no question unanticipated. "I have now finished my story," I continued, "and accomplished my design in coming hither. Whether I have vindicated my integrity from your suspicions, I know not. I have done what in me lay to remove your error; and, in that, have done my duty. What more remains? Any inquiries you are pleased to make, I am ready to answer. If there be none to make, I will comply with your former commands, and leave the house with as little ceremony as I entered it." "Your story," she replied, "has been unexpected. I believe it fully, and am sorry for the hard thoughts which past appearances have made me entertain concerning you." Here she sunk into mournful silence. "The information," she at length resumed, "which I have received from another quarter respecting that unfortunate youth, astonishes and perplexes me. It is inconsistent with your story, but it must be founded on some mistake, which I am, at present, unable to unravel. Welbeck, whose connection has been so unfortunate to you----" "Unfortunate! Dear madam! How unfortunate? It has done away a part of my ignorance of the world in which I live. It has led me to the situation in which I am now placed. It has introduced me to the knowledge of many good people. It has made me the witness and the subject of many acts of beneficence and generosity. My knowledge of Welbeck has been useful to me. It has enabled me to be useful to others. I look back upon that allotment of my destiny which first led me to his door, with gratitude and pleasure. "Would to heaven," continued I, somewhat changing my tone, "intercourse with Welbeck had been as harmless to all others as it has been to me! that no injury to fortune and fame, and innocence and life, had been incurred by others greater than has fallen upon my head! There is one being, whose connection with him has not been utterly dissimilar in its origin and circumstances to mine, though the catastrophe has, indeed, been widely and mournfully different. "And yet, within this moment, a thought has occurred from which I derive some consolation and some hope. You, dear madam, are rich. These spacious apartments, this plentiful accommodation, are yours. You have enough for your own gratification and convenience, and somewhat to spare. Will you take to your protecting arms, to your hospitable roof, an unhappy girl whom the arts of Welbeck have robbed of fortune, reputation, and honour, who is now languishing in poverty, weeping over the lifeless remains of her babe, surrounded by the agents of vice, and trembling on the verge of infamy?" "What can this mean?" replied the lady. "Of whom do you speak?" "You shall know her. You shall be apprized of her claims to your compassion. Her story, as far as is known to me, I will faithfully repeat to you. She is a stranger; an Italian; her name is Clemenza Lodi." "Clemenza Lodi! Good heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Wentworth; "why, surely--it cannot be. And yet--is it possible that you are that person?" "I do not comprehend you, madam." "A friend has related a transaction of a strange sort. It is scarcely an hour since she told it me. The name of Clemenza Lodi was mentioned in it, and a young man of most singular deportment was described. But tell me how you were engaged on Thursday morning." "I was coming to this city from a distance. I stopped ten minutes at the house of----" "Mrs. Villars?" "The same. Perhaps you know her and her character. Perhaps you can confirm or rectify my present opinions concerning her. It is there that the unfortunate Clemenza abides. It is thence that I wish her to be speedily removed." "I have heard of you; of your conduct upon that occasion." "Of me?" answered I, eagerly. "Do you know that woman?" So saying, I produced the card which I had received from her, and on which her name was written. "I know her well. She is my countrywoman and my friend." "Your friend? Then she is good; she is innocent; she is generous. Will she be a sister, a protectress, to Clemenza? Will you exhort her to a deed of charity? Will you be, yourself, an example of beneficence? Direct me to Miss Fielding, I beseech you. I have called on her already, but in vain, and there is no time to be lost." "Why are you so precipitate? What would you do?" "Take her away from that house instantly--bring her hither--place her under your protection--give her Mrs. Wentworth for a counsellor--a friend--a mother. Shall I do this? Shall I hie thither to-day, this very hour--now? Give me your consent, and she shall be with you before noon." "By no means," replied she, with earnestness. "You are too hasty. An affair of so much importance cannot be despatched in a moment. There are many difficulties and doubts to be first removed." "Let them be reserved for the future. Withhold not your helping hand till the struggle has disappeared forever. Think on the gulf that is already gaping to swallow her. This is no time to hesitate and falter. I will tell you her story, but not now; we will postpone it till to-morrow, and first secure her from impending evils. She shall tell it you herself. In an hour I will bring her hither, and she herself shall recount to you her sorrows. Will you let me?" "Your behaviour is extraordinary. I can scarcely tell whether this simplicity be real or affected. One would think that your common sense would show you the impropriety of your request. To admit under my roof a woman notoriously dishonoured, and from an infamous house----" "My dearest madam! How can you reflect upon the situation without irresistible pity? I see that you are thoroughly aware of her past calamity and her present danger. Do not these urge you to make haste to her relief? Can any lot be more deplorable than hers? Can any state be more perilous? Poverty is not the only evil that oppresses or that threatens her. The scorn of the world, and her own compunction, the death of the fruit of her error and the witness of her shame, are not the worst. She is exposed to the temptations of the profligate; while she remains with Mrs. Villars, her infamy accumulates; her further debasement is facilitated; her return to reputation and to virtue is obstructed by new bars." "How know I that her debasement is not already complete and irremediable? She is a mother, but not a wife. How came she thus? Is her being Welbeck's prostitute no proof of her guilt?" "Alas! I know not. I believe her not very culpable; I know her to be unfortunate; to have been robbed and betrayed. You are a stranger to her history. I am myself imperfectly acquainted with it. "But let me tell you the little that I know. Perhaps my narrative may cause you to think of her as I do." She did not object to this proposal, and I immediately recounted all that I had gained from my own observations, or from Welbeck himself, respecting this forlorn girl. Having finished my narrative, I proceeded thus:-- "Can you hesitate to employ that power which was given you for good ends, to rescue this sufferer? Take her to your home; to your bosom; to your confidence. Keep aloof those temptations which beset her in her present situation. Restore her to that purity which her desolate condition, her ignorance, her misplaced gratitude and the artifices of a skilful dissembler, have destroyed, if it be destroyed; for how know we under what circumstances her ruin was accomplished? With what pretences, or appearances, or promises, she was won to compliance?" "True. I confess my ignorance; but ought not that ignorance to be removed before she makes a part of my family?" "Oh, no! It may be afterwards removed. It cannot be removed before. By bringing her hither you shield her, at least, from future and possible evils. Here you can watch her conduct and sift her sentiments conveniently and at leisure. Should she prove worthy of your charity, how justly may you congratulate yourself on your seasonable efforts in her cause! If she prove unworthy, you may then demean yourself according to her demerits." "I must reflect upon it. --To-morrow----" "Let me prevail on you to admit her at once, and without delay. This very moment may be the critical one. To-day we may exert ourselves with success, but to-morrow all our efforts may be fruitless. Why fluctuate, why linger, when so much good may be done, and no evil can possibly be incurred? It requires but a word from you; you need not move a finger. Your house is large. You have chambers vacant and convenient. Consent only that your door shall not be barred against her; that you will treat her with civility: to carry your kindness into effect; to persuade her to attend me hither and to place herself in your care, shall be my province." These and many similar entreaties and reasonings were ineffectual. Her general disposition was kind, but she was unaccustomed to strenuous or sudden exertions. To admit the persuasions of such an advocate to so uncommon a scheme as that of sharing her house with a creature thus previously unknown to her, thus loaded with suspicion and with obloquy, was not possible. I at last forbore importunity, and requested her to tell me when I might expect to meet with Mrs. Fielding at her lodgings. Inquiry was made to what end I sought an interview. I made no secret of my purpose. "Are you mad, young man?" she exclaimed. "Mrs. Fielding has already been egregiously imprudent. On the faith of an ancient slight acquaintance with Mrs. Villars in Europe, she suffered herself to be decoyed into a visit. Instead of taking warning by numerous tokens of the real character of that woman, in her behaviour and in that of her visitants, she consented to remain there one night. The next morning took place that astonishing interview with you which she has since described to me. She is now warned against the like indiscretion. And, pray, what benevolent scheme would you propose to her?" "Has she property? Is she rich?" "She is. Unhappily, perhaps, for her, she is absolute mistress of her fortune, and has neither guardian nor parent to control her in the use of it." "Has she virtue? Does she know the value of affluence and a fair fame? And will not she devote a few dollars to rescue a fellow-creature from indigence and infamy and vice? Surely she will. She will hazard nothing by the boon. I will be her almoner. I will provide the wretched stranger with food and raiment and dwelling; I will pay for all, if Mrs. Fielding, from her superfluity, will supply the means. Clemenza shall owe life and honour to your friend, till I am able to supply the needful sum from my own stock." While thus speaking, my companion gazed at me with steadfastness:--"I know not what to make of you. Your language and ideas are those of a lunatic. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Fielding?" "Yes. I have seen her two days ago, and she has invited me to see her again." "And on the strength of this acquaintance you expect to be her almoner? To be the medium of her charity?" "I desire to save her trouble; to make charity as light and easy as possible. 'Twill be better if she perform those offices herself. 'Twill redound more to the credit of her reason and her virtue. But I solicit her benignity only in the cause of Clemenza. For her only do I wish at present to call forth her generosity and pity." "And do you imagine she will intrust her money to one of your age and sex, whom she knows so imperfectly, to administer to the wants of one whom she found in such a house as Mrs. Villars's? She never will. She mentioned her imprudent engagement to meet you, but she is now warned against the folly of such confidence. "You have told me plausible stories of yourself and of this Clemenza. I cannot say that I disbelieve them, but I know the ways of the world too well to bestow implicit faith so easily. You are an extraordinary young man. You may possibly be honest. Such a one as you, with your education and address, may possibly have passed all your life in a hovel; but it is scarcely credible, let me tell you. I believe most of the facts respecting my nephew, because my knowledge of him before his flight would enable me to detect your falsehood; but there must be other proofs besides an innocent brow and a voluble tongue, to make me give full credit to your pretensions. "I have no claim upon Welbeck which can embarrass you. On that score, you are free from any molestation from me or my friends. I have suspected you of being an accomplice in some vile plot, and am now inclined to acquit you; but that is all that you must expect from me, till your character be established by other means than your own assertions. I am engaged at present, and must therefore request you to put an end to your visit." This strain was much unlike the strain which preceded it. I imagined, by the mildness of her tone and manners, that her unfavourable prepossessions were removed; but they seemed to have suddenly regained their pristine force. I was somewhat disconcerted by this unexpected change. I stood for a minute silent and irresolute. Just then a knock was heard at the door, and presently entered that very female whom I had met with at Villars's. I caught her figure as I glanced through the window. Mrs. Wentworth darted at me many significant glances, which commanded me to withdraw; but, with this object in view, it was impossible. As soon as she entered, her eyes were fixed upon me. Certain recollections naturally occurred at that moment, and made her cheeks glow. Some confusion reigned for a moment, but was quickly dissipated. She did not notice me, but exchanged salutations with her friend. All this while I stood near the window, in a situation not a little painful. Certain tremors which I had not been accustomed to feel, and which seemed to possess a mystical relation to the visitant, disabled me at once from taking my leave, or from performing any useful purpose by staying. At length, struggling for composure, I approached her, and, showing her the card she had given me, said,-- "Agreeably to this direction, I called an hour ago, at your lodgings. I found you not. I hope you will permit me to call once more. When shall I expect to meet you at home?" Her eyes were cast on the floor. A kind of indirect attention was fixed on Mrs. Wentworth, serving to intimidate and check her. At length she said, in an irresolute voice, "I shall be at home this evening." "And this evening," replied I, "I will call to see you." So saying, I left the house. This interval was tedious, but was to be endured with equanimity. I was impatient to be gone to Baltimore, and hoped to be able to set out by the dawn of next day. Meanwhile, I was necessarily to perform something with respect to Clemenza. After dinner I accompanied Mrs. Stevens to visit Miss Carlton. I was eager to see a woman who could bear adversity in the manner which my friend had described. She met us at the door of her apartment. Her seriousness was not abated by her smiles of affability and welcome. "My friend!" whispered I, "how truly lovely is this Miss Carlton! Are the heart and the intelligence within worthy of these features?" "Yes, they are. The account of her employments, of her resignation to the ill fate of the brother whom she loves, proves that they are." My eyes were riveted to her countenance and person. I felt uncontrollable eagerness to speak to her, and to gain her good opinion. "You must know this young man, my dear Miss Carlton," said my friend, looking at me; "he is my husband's friend, and professes a great desire to be yours. You must not treat him as a mere stranger, for he knows your character and situation already, as well as that of your brother." She looked at me with benignity:--"I accept his friendship willingly and gratefully, and shall endeavour to convince him that his good opinion is not misplaced." There now ensued a conversation somewhat general, in which this young woman showed a mind vigorous from exercise and unembarrassed by care. She affected no concealment of her own condition, of her wants, or her comforts. She laid no stress upon misfortunes, but contrived to deduce some beneficial consequence to herself, and some motive for gratitude to Heaven, from every wayward incident that had befallen her. This demeanour emboldened me, at length, to inquire into the cause of her brother's imprisonment, and the nature of his debt. She answered frankly and without hesitation:--"It is a debt of his father's, for which he made himself responsible during his father's life. The act was generous but imprudent, as the event has shown; though, at the time, the unhappy effects could not be foreseen. "My father," continued she, "was arrested by his creditor, at a time when the calmness and comforts of his own dwelling were necessary to his health. The creditor was obdurate, and would release him upon no condition but that of receiving a bond from my brother, by which he engaged to pay the debt at several successive times and in small portions. All these instalments were discharged with great difficulty indeed, but with sufficient punctuality, except the last, to which my brother's earnings were not adequate." "How much is the debt?" "Four hundred dollars." "And is the state of the creditor such as to make the loss of four hundred dollars of more importance to him than the loss of liberty to your brother?" She answered, smiling, "That is a very abstract view of things. On such a question you and I might, perhaps, easily decide in favour of my brother; but would there not be some danger of deciding partially? His conduct is a proof of his decision, and there is no power to change it." "Will not argument change it? Methinks in so plain a case I should be able to convince him. You say he is rich and childless. His annual income is ten times more than this sum. Your brother cannot pay the debt while in prison; whereas, if at liberty, he might slowly and finally discharge it. If his humanity would not yield, his avarice might be brought to acquiesce." "But there is another passion which you would find it somewhat harder to subdue, and that is his vengeance. He thinks himself wronged, and imprisons my brother, not to enforce payment, but to inflict misery. If you could persuade him that there is no hardship in imprisonment, you would speedily gain the victory; but that could not be attempted consistently with truth. In proportion to my brother's suffering is his gratification." "You draw an odious and almost incredible portrait." "And yet such a one would serve for the likeness of almost every second man we meet." "And is such your opinion of mankind? Your experience must surely have been of a rueful tenor to justify such hard thoughts of the rest of your species." "By no means. It has been what those whose situation disables them from looking further than the surface of things would regard as unfortunate; but, if my goods and evils were equitably balanced, the former would be the weightiest. I have found kindness and goodness in great numbers, but have likewise met prejudice and rancor in many. My opinion of Farquhar is not lightly taken up. I saw him yesterday, and the nature of his motives in the treatment of my brother was plain enough." Here this topic was succeeded by others, and the conversation ceased not till the hour had arrived on which I had preconcerted to visit Mrs. Fielding. I left my two friends for this purpose. I was admitted to Mrs. Fielding's presence without scruple or difficulty. There were two females in her company, and one of the other sex, well-dressed, elderly, and sedate persons. Their discourse turned upon political topics, with which, as you know, I have but slight acquaintance. They talked of fleets and armies, of Robespierre and Pitt, of whom I had only a newspaper-knowledge. In a short time the women rose, and, huddling on their cloaks, disappeared, in company with the gentleman. Being thus left alone with Mrs. Fielding, some embarrassment was mutually betrayed. With much hesitation, which, however, gradually disappeared, my companion, at length, began the conversation:-- "You met me lately, in a situation, sir, on which I look back with trembling and shame, but not with any self-condemnation. I was led into it without any fault, unless a too hasty confidence may be styled a fault. I had known Mrs. Villars in England, where she lived with an untainted reputation, at least; and the sight of my countrywoman, in a foreign land, awakened emotions in the indulgence of which I did not imagine there was either any guilt or any danger. She invited me to see her at her house with so much urgency and warmth, and solicited me to take a place immediately in a chaise in which she had come to the city, that I too incautiously complied. "You are a stranger to me, and I am unacquainted with your character. What little I have seen of your deportment, and what little I have lately heard concerning you from Mrs. Wentworth, do not produce unfavourable impressions; but the apology I have made was due to my own reputation, and should have been offered to you whatever your character had been." There she stopped. "I came not hither," said I, "to receive an apology. Your demeanour, on our first interview, shielded you sufficiently from any suspicions or surmises that I could form. What you have now mentioned was likewise mentioned by your friend, and was fully believed upon her authority. My purpose, in coming, related not to you, but to another. I desired merely to interest your generosity and justice on behalf of one whose destitute and dangerous condition may lay claim to your compassion and your succour." "I comprehend you," said she, with an air of some perplexity. "I know the claims of that person." "And will you comply with them?" "In what manner can I serve her?" "By giving her the means of living." "Does she not possess them already?" "She is destitute. Her dependence was wholly placed upon one that is dead, by whom her person was dishonoured and her fortune embezzled." "But she still lives. She is not turned into the street. She is not destitute of home." "But what a home!" "Such as she may choose to remain in." "She cannot choose it. She must not choose it. She remains through ignorance, or through the incapacity of leaving it." "But how shall she be persuaded to a change?" "I will persuade her. I will fully explain her situation. I will supply her with a new home." "You will persuade her to go with you, and to live at a home of your providing and on your bounty?" "Certainly." "Would that change be worthy of a cautious person? Would it benefit her reputation? Would it prove her love of independence?" "My purposes are good. I know not why she should suspect them. But I am only anxious to be the instrument. Let her be indebted to one of her own sex, of unquestionable reputation. Admit her into this house. Invite her to your arms. Cherish and console her as your sister." "Before I am convinced that she deserves it? And even then, what regard shall I, young, unmarried, independent, affluent, pay to my own reputation in harbouring a woman in these circumstances?" "But you need not act yourself. Make me your agent and almoner. Only supply her with the means of subsistence through me." "Would you have me act a clandestine part? Hold meetings with one of your sex, and give him money for a purpose which I must hide from the world? Is it worth while to be a dissembler and impostor? And will not such conduct incur more dangerous surmises and suspicions than would arise from acting openly and directly? You will forgive me for reminding you, likewise, that it is particularly incumbent upon those in my situation to be circumspect in their intercourse with men and with strangers. This is the second time that I have seen you. My knowledge of you is extremely dubious and imperfect, and such as would make the conduct you prescribe to me, in a high degree, rash and culpable. You must not, therefore, expect me to pursue it." These words were delivered with an air of firmness and dignity. I was not insensible to the truth of her representations. "I confess," said I, "what you have said makes me doubt the propriety of my proposal; yet I would fain be of service to her. Cannot you point out some practicable method?" She was silent and thoughtful, and seemed indisposed to answer my question. "I had set my heart upon success in this negotiation," continued I, "and could not imagine any obstacle to its success; but I find my ignorance of the world's ways much greater than I had previously expected. You defraud yourself of all the happiness redounding from the act of making others happy. You sacrifice substance to show, and are more anxious to prevent unjust aspersions from lighting on yourself, than to rescue a fellow-creature from guilt and infamy. "You are rich, and abound in all the conveniences and luxuries of life. A small portion of your superfluity would obviate the wants of a being not less worthy than yourself. It is not avarice or aversion to labour that makes you withhold your hand. It is dread of the sneers and surmises of malevolence and ignorance. "I will not urge you further at present. Your determination to be wise should not be hasty. Think upon the subject calmly and sedately, and form your resolution in the course of three days. At the end of that period I will visit you again." So saying, and without waiting for comment or answer, I withdrew.	{ "id": "18508" }
40	None	I mounted the stage-coach at daybreak the next day, in company with a sallow Frenchman from St. Domingo, his fiddle-case, an ape, and two female blacks. The Frenchman, after passing the suburbs, took out his violin and amused himself with humming to his own _tweedle-tweedle_. The monkey now and then munched an apple, which was given to him from a basket by the blacks, who gazed with stupid wonder, and an exclamatory _La! La! _ upon the passing scenery, or chattered to each other in a sort of open-mouthed, half-articulate, monotonous, singsong jargon. The man looked seldom either on this side or that; and spoke only to rebuke the frolics of the monkey, with a "Tenez! Dominique! Prenez garde! Diable noir!" As to me, my thought was busy in a thousand ways. I sometimes gazed at the faces of my _four_ companions, and endeavoured to discern the differences and samenesses between them. I took an exact account of the features, proportions, looks, and gestures of the monkey, the Congolese, and the Creole Gaul. I compared them together, and examined them apart. I looked at them in a thousand different points of view, and pursued, untired and unsatiated, those trains of reflections which began at each change of tone, feature, and attitude. I marked the country as it successively arose before me, and found endless employment in examining the shape and substance of the fence, the barn, and the cottage, the aspect of earth and of heaven. How great are the pleasures of health and of mental activity! My chief occupation, however, related to the scenes into which I was about to enter. My imaginations were, of course, crude and inadequate; and I found an uncommon gratification in comparing realities, as they successively occurred, with the pictures which my wayward fancy had depicted. I will not describe my dreams. My proper task is to relate the truth. Neither shall I dwell upon the images suggested by the condition of the country through which I passed. I will confine myself to mentioning the transactions connected with the purpose of my journey. I reached Baltimore at night. I was not so fatigued but that I could ramble through the town. I intended, at present, merely the gratification of a stranger's curiosity. My visit to Mrs. Watson and her brother I designed should take place on the morrow. The evening of my arrival I deemed an unseasonable time. While roving about, however, it occurred to me, that it might not be impolitic to find the way to their habitation even now. My purposes of general curiosity would equally be served whichever way my steps were bent; and to trace the path to their dwelling would save me the trouble of inquiries and interrogations to-morrow. When I looked forward to an interview with the wife of Watson, and to the subject which would be necessarily discussed at that interview, I felt a trembling and misgiving at my heart. "Surely," thought I, "it will become me to exercise immeasurable circumspection and address; and yet how little are these adapted to the impetuosity and candour of my nature! "How am I to introduce myself? What am I to tell her? That I was a sort of witness to the murder of her husband? That I received from the hand of his assassin the letter which I afterwards transmitted to her? and, from the same hands, the bills contained in his girdle? "How will she start and look aghast! What suspicions will she harbour? What inquiries shall be made of me? How shall they be disarmed and eluded, or answered? Deep consideration will be necessary before I trust myself to such an interview. The coming night shall be devoted to reflection upon this subject." From these thoughts I proceeded to inquiries for the street mentioned in the advertisement, where Mrs. Watson was said to reside. The street, and, at length, the habitation, was found. Having reached a station opposite, I paused and surveyed the mansion. It was a wooden edifice of two stories, humble, but neat. You ascended to the door by several stone steps. Of the two lower windows, the shutters of one were closed, but those of the other were open. Though late in the evening, there was no appearance of light or fire within. Beside the house was a painted fence, through which was a gate leading to the back of the building. Guided by the impulse of the moment, I crossed the street to the gate, and, lifting the latch, entered the paved alley, on one side of which was a paled fence, and on the other the house, looking through two windows into the alley. The first window was dark like those in front; but at the second a light was discernible. I approached it, and, looking through, beheld a plain but neat apartment, in which parlour, kitchen, and nursery seemed to be united. A fire burned cheerfully in the chimney, over which was a tea-kettle. On the hearth sat a smiling and playful cherub of a boy, tossing something to a black girl who sat opposite, and whose innocent and regular features wanted only a different hue to make them beautiful. Near it, in a rocking-chair, with a sleeping babe in her lap, sat a female figure in plain but neat and becoming attire. Her posture permitted half her face to be seen, and saved me from any danger of being observed. This countenance was full of sweetness and benignity, but the sadness that veiled its lustre was profound. Her eyes were now fixed upon the fire and were moist with the tears of remembrance, while she sung, in low and scarcely-audible strains, an artless lullaby. This spectacle exercised a strange power over my feelings. While occupied in meditating on the features of the mother, I was unaware of my conspicuous situation. The black girl, having occasion to change her situation, in order to reach the ball which was thrown at her, unluckily caught a glance of my figure through the glass. In a tone of half surprise and half terror, she cried out, "Oh! see dare! a man!" I was tempted to draw suddenly back, but a second thought showed me the impropriety of departing thus abruptly and leaving behind me some alarm. I felt a sort of necessity for apologizing for my intrusion into these precincts, and hastened to a door that led into the same apartment. I knocked. A voice somewhat confused bade me enter. It was not till I opened the door and entered the room, that I fully saw in what embarrassments I had incautiously involved myself. I could scarcely obtain sufficient courage to speak, and gave a confused assent to the question, "Have you business with me, sir?" She offered me a chair, and I sat down. She put the child, not yet awakened, into the arms of the black, who kissed it and rocked it in her arms with great satisfaction, and, resuming her seat, looked at me with inquisitiveness mingled with complacency. After a moment's pause, I said, "I was directed to this house as the abode of Mr. Ephraim Williams. Can he be seen, madam?" "He is not in town at present. If you will leave a message with me, I will punctually deliver it." The thought suddenly occurred, whether any more was needful than merely to leave the bills suitably enclosed, as they already were, in a packet. Thus all painful explanations might be avoided, and I might have reason to congratulate myself on his seasonable absence. Actuated by these thoughts, I drew forth the packet, and put it into her hand, saying, "I will leave this in your possession, and must earnestly request you to keep it safe until you can deliver it into his own hands." Scarcely had I said this before new suggestions occurred. Was it right to act in this clandestine and mysterious manner? Should I leave these persons in uncertainty respecting the fate of a husband and a brother? What perplexities, misunderstandings, and suspenses might not grow out of this uncertainty? and ought they not to be precluded at any hazard to my own safety or good name? These sentiments made me involuntarily stretch forth my hand to retake the packet. This gesture, and other significances in my manners, joined to a trembling consciousness in herself, filled my companion with all the tokens of confusion and fear. She alternately looked at me and at the paper. Her trepidation increased, and she grew pale. These emotions were counteracted by a strong effort. At length she said, falteringly, "I will take good care of them, and will give them to my brother." She rose and placed them in a drawer, after which she resumed her seat. On this occasion all my wariness forsook me. I cannot explain why my perplexity and the trouble of my thoughts were greater upon this than upon similar occasions. However it be, I was incapable of speaking, and fixed my eyes upon the floor. A sort of electrical sympathy pervaded my companion, and terror and anguish were strongly manifested in the glances which she sometimes stole at me. We seemed fully to understand each other without the aid of words. This imbecility could not last long. I gradually recovered my composure, and collected my scattered thoughts. I looked at her with seriousness, and steadfastly spoke:--"Are you the wife of Amos Watson?" She started:--"I am indeed. Why do you ask? Do you know any thing of----?" There her voice failed. I replied with quickness, "Yes. I am fully acquainted with his destiny." "Good God!" she exclaimed, in a paroxysm of surprise, and bending eagerly forward, "my husband is then alive! This packet is from him. Where is he? When have you seen him?" " 'Tis a long time since." "But where, where is he now? Is he well? Will he return to me?" "Never." "Merciful Heaven!" (looking upwards and clasping her hands,) "I thank thee at least for his life! But why has he forsaken me? Why will he not return?" "For a good reason," said I, with augmented solemnity, "he will never return to thee. Long ago was he laid in the cold grave." She shrieked; and, at the next moment, sunk in a swoon upon the floor. I was alarmed. The two children shrieked, and ran about the room terrified and unknowing what they did. I was overwhelmed with somewhat like terror, yet I involuntarily raised the mother in my arms, and cast about for the means of recalling her from this fit. Time to effect this had not elapsed, when several persons, apparently Mrs. Watson's neighbours, and raised by the outcries of the girls, hastily entered the room. They looked at me with mingled surprise and suspicion; but my attitude, being not that of an injurer but helper; my countenance, which showed the pleasure their entrance, at this critical moment, afforded me; and my words, in which I besought their assistance, and explained, in some degree, and briefly, the cause of those appearances, removed their ill thoughts. Presently, the unhappy woman, being carried by the new-comers into a bedroom adjoining, recovered her sensibility. I only waited for this. I had done my part. More information would be useless to her, and not to be given by me, at least in the present audience, without embarrassment and peril. I suddenly determined to withdraw, and this, the attention of the company being otherwise engaged, I did without notice. I returned to my inn, and shut myself up in my chamber. Such was the change which, undesigned, unforeseen, half an hour had wrought in my situation. My cautious projects had perished in their conception. That which I had deemed so arduous, to require such circumspect approaches, such well-concerted speeches, was done. I had started up before this woman as if from the pores of the ground. I had vanished with the same celerity, but had left her in possession of proofs sufficient that I was neither spectre nor demon. "I will visit her," said I, "again. I will see her brother, and know the full effect of my disclosure. I will tell them all that I myself know. Ignorance would be no less injurious to them than to myself; but, first, I will see the Maurices."	{ "id": "18508" }
41	None	Next morning I arose betimes, and equipped myself without delay. I had eight or ten miles to walk, so far from the town being the residence of these people; and I forthwith repaired to their dwelling. The persons whom I desired to see were known to me only by name, and by their place of abode. It was a mother and her three daughters to whom I now carried the means not only of competence but riches; means which they, no doubt, had long ago despaired of regaining, and which, among all possible messengers, one of my age and guise would be the least suspected of being able to restore. I arrived, through intricate ways, at eleven o'clock, at the house of Mrs. Maurice. It was a neat dwelling, in a very fanciful and rustic style, in the bosom of a valley, which, when decorated by the verdure and blossoms of the coming season, must possess many charms. At present it was naked and dreary. As I approached it, through a long avenue, I observed two female figures, walking arm-in-arm and slowly to and fro, in the path in which I now was. "These," said I, "are daughters of the family. Graceful, well-dressed, fashionable girls they seem at this distance. May they be deserving of the good tidings which I bring!" Seeing them turn towards the house, I mended my pace, that I might overtake them and request their introduction of me to their mother. As I more nearly approached, they again turned; and, perceiving me, they stood as if in expectation of my message. I went up to them. A single glance, cast at each, made me suspect that they were not sisters; but, somewhat to my disappointment, there was nothing highly prepossessing in the countenance of either. They were what is every day met with, though less embellished by brilliant drapery and turban, in markets and streets. An air somewhat haughty, somewhat supercilious, lessened still more their attractions. These defects, however, were nothing to me. I inquired, of her that seemed to be the elder of the two, for Mrs. Maurice. "She is indisposed," was the cold reply. "That is unfortunate. Is it not possible to see her?" "No;" with still more gravity. I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed. A pause ensued. At length the same lady resumed, "What's your business? You can leave your message with me." "With nobody but her. If she be not _very_ indisposed----" "She is very indisposed," interrupted she, peevishly. "If you cannot leave your message, you may take it back again, for she must not be disturbed." This was a singular reception. I was disconcerted and silent. I knew not what to say. "Perhaps," I at last observed, "some other time----" "No," (with increasing heat,) "no other time. She is more likely to be worse than better. Come, Betsy," said she, taking hold of her companion's arm; and, hieing into the house, shut the door after her, and disappeared. I stood, at the bottom of the steps, confounded at such strange and unexpected treatment. I could not withdraw till my purpose was accomplished. After a moment's pause, I stepped to the door, and pulled the bell. A negro came, of a very unpropitious aspect, and, opening the door, looked at me in silence. To my question, Was Mrs. Maurice to be seen? he made some answer, in a jargon which I could not understand; but his words were immediately followed by an unseen person within the house:--"Mrs. Maurice can't be seen by anybody. Come in, Cato, and shut the door." This injunction was obeyed by Cato without ceremony. Here was a dilemma! I came with ten thousand pounds in my hands, to bestow freely on these people, and such was the treatment I received. "I must adopt," said I, "a new mode." I lifted the latch, without a second warning, and, Cato having disappeared, went into a room, the door of which chanced to be open, on my right hand. I found within the two females whom I had accosted in the portico. I now addressed myself to the younger:--"This intrusion, when I have explained the reason of it, will, I hope, be forgiven. I come, madam----" "Yes," interrupted the other, with a countenance suffused by indignation, "I know very well whom you come from, and what it is that prompts this insolence; but your employer shall see that we have not sunk so low as he imagines. Cato! Bob! I say." "My employer, madam! I see you labour under some great mistake. I have no employer. I come from a great distance. I come to bring intelligence of the utmost importance to your family. I come to benefit and not to injure you." By this time, Bob and Cato, two sturdy blacks, entered the room. "Turn this person," said the imperious lady, regardless of my explanations, "out of the house. Don't you hear me?" she continued, observing that they looked one upon the other and hesitated. "Surely, madam," said I, "you are precipitate. You are treating like an enemy one who will prove himself your mother's best friend." "Will you leave the house?" she exclaimed, quite beside herself with anger. "Villains! why don't you do as I bid you?" The blacks looked upon each other, as if waiting for an example. Their habitual deference for every thing _white_, no doubt, held their hands from what they regarded as a profanation. At last Bob said, in a whining, beseeching tone, "Why, missee, massa buckra wanna go for doo, dan he winna go fo' wee." The lady now burst into tears of rage. She held out her hand, menacingly. "Will you leave the house?" "Not willingly," said I, in a mild tone. "I came too far to return with the business that brought me unperformed. I am persuaded, madam, you mistake my character and my views. I have a message to deliver your mother which deeply concerns her and your happiness, if you are her daughter. I merely wished to see her, and leave with her a piece of important news; news in which her fortune is deeply interested." These words had a wonderful effect upon the young lady. Her anger was checked. "Good God!" she exclaimed, "are you Watson?" "No; I am only Watson's representative, and come to do all that Watson could do if he were present." She was now importunate to know my business. "My business lies with Mrs. Maurice. Advertisements, which I have seen, direct me to her, and to this house; and to her only shall I deliver my message." "Perhaps," said she, with a face of apology, "I have mistaken you. Mrs. Maurice is my mother. She is really indisposed, but I can stand in her place on this occasion." "You cannot represent her in this instance. If I cannot have access to her now, I must go; and shall return when you are willing to grant it." "Nay," replied she, "she is not, perhaps, so very sick but that I will go, and see if she will admit you." So saying, she left me for three minutes; and, returning, said her mother wished to see me. I followed up-stairs, at her request; and, entering an ill-furnished chamber, found, seated in an arm-chair, a lady seemingly in years, pale, and visibly infirm. The lines of her countenance were far from laying claim to my reverence. It was too much like the daughter's. She looked at me, at my entrance, with great eagerness, and said, in a sharp tone, "Pray, friend, what is it you want with me? Make haste; tell your story, and begone." "My story is a short one, and easily told. Amos Watson was your agent in Jamaica. He sold an estate belonging to you, and received the money." "He did," said she, attempting ineffectually to rise from her seat, and her eyes beaming with a significance that shocked me; "he did, the villain, and purloined the money, to the ruin of me and my daughters. But if there be justice on earth it will overtake him. I trust I shall have the pleasure one day--I hope to hear he's hanged. Well, but go on, friend. He _did_ sell it, I tell you." "He sold it for ten thousand pounds," I resumed, "and invested this sum in bills of exchange. Watson is dead. These bills came into my hands. I was lately informed, by the public papers, who were the real owners, and have come from Philadelphia with no other view than to restore them to you. There they are," continued I, placing them in her lap, entire and untouched. She seized the papers, and looked at me and at her daughter, by turns, with an air of one suddenly bewildered. She seemed speechless, and, growing suddenly more ghastly pale, leaned her head back upon the chair. The daughter screamed, and hastened to support the languid parent, who difficultly articulated, "Oh, I am sick; sick to death. Put me on the bed." I was astonished and affrighted at this scene. Some of the domestics, of both colours, entered, and gazed at me with surprise. Involuntarily I withdrew, and returned to the room below, into which I had first entered, and which I now found deserted. I was for some time at a loss to guess at the cause of these appearances. At length it occurred to me, that joy was the source of the sickness that had seized Mrs. Maurice. The abrupt recovery of what had probably been deemed irretrievable would naturally produce this effect upon a mind of a certain texture. I was deliberating whether to stay or go, when the daughter entered the room, and, after expressing some surprise at seeing me, whom she supposed to have retired, told me that her mother wished to see me again before my departure. In this request there was no kindness. All was cold, supercilious, and sullen. I obeyed the summons without speaking. I found Mrs. Maurice seated in her arm-chair, much in her former guise. Without desiring me to be seated, or relaxing aught in her asperity of looks and tones,--"Pray, friend, how did you _come by_ these papers?" "I assure you, madam, they were honestly _come by_," answered I, sedately and with half a smile; "but, if the whole is there that was missing, the mode and time in which they came to me is matter of concern only to myself. Is there any deficiency?" "I am not sure. I don't know much of these matters. There may be less. I dare say there is. I shall know that soon. I expect a friend of mine every minute who will look them over. I don't doubt you can give a good account of yourself." "I doubt not but I can--to those who have a right to demand it. In this case, curiosity must be very urgent indeed before I shall consent to gratify it." "You must know this is a suspicious case. Watson, to-be-sure, embezzled the money; to-be-sure, you are his accomplice." "Certainly," said I, "my conduct, on this occasion, proves that. What I have brought to you, of my own accord; what I have restored to you, fully and unconditionally, it is plain Watson embezzled, and that I was aiding in the fraud. To restore what was never stolen always betrays the thief. To give what might be kept without suspicion is, without doubt, arrant knavery. To be serious, madam, in coming thus far, for this purpose, I have done enough; and must now bid you farewell." "Nay, don't go yet. I have something more to say to you. My friend, I'm sure, will be here presently. There he is;" (noticing a peal upon the bell.) "Polly, go down, and see if that's Mr. Somers. If it is, bring him up." The daughter went. I walked to the window absorbed in my own reflections. I was disappointed and dejected. The scene before me was the unpleasing reverse of all that my fancy, while coming hither, had foreboded. I expected to find virtuous indigence and sorrow lifted, by my means, to affluence and exultation. I expected to witness the tears of gratitude and the caresses of affection. What had I found? Nothing but sordidness, stupidity, and illiberal suspicion. The daughter stayed much longer than the mother's patience could endure. She knocked against the floor with her heel. A servant came up. "Where's Polly, you slut? It was not you, hussy, that I wanted. It was her." "She is talking in the parlour with a gentleman." "Mr. Somers, I suppose; hey, fool? Run with my compliments to him, wench. Tell him, please walk up." "It is not Mr. Somers, ma'am." "No? Who then, saucebox? What gentleman can have any thing to do with Polly?" "I don't know, ma'am." "Who said you did, impertinence? Run, and tell her I want her this instant." The summons was not delivered, or Polly did not think proper to obey it. Full ten minutes of thoughtful silence on my part, and of muttered vexation and impatience on that of the old lady, elapsed before Polly's entrance. As soon as she appeared, the mother began to complain bitterly of her inattention and neglect; but Polly, taking no notice of her, addressed herself to me, and told me that a gentleman below wished to see me. I hastened down, and found a stranger, of a plain appearance, in the parlour. His aspect was liberal and ingenuous; and I quickly collected, from his discourse, that this was the brother-in-law of Watson, and the companion of his last voyage.	{ "id": "18508" }
42	None	My eyes sparkled with pleasure at this unexpected interview, and I willingly confessed my desire to communicate all the knowledge of his brother's destiny which I possessed. He told me, that, returning late to Baltimore, on the last evening, he found his sister in much agitation and distress, which, after a time, she explained to him. She likewise put the packets I had left into his hands. "I leave you to imagine," continued he, "my surprise and curiosity at this discovery. I was, of course, impatient to see the bearer of such extraordinary tidings. This morning, inquiring for one of your appearance at the taverns, I was, at length, informed of your arrival yesterday in the stage; of your going out alone in the evening; of your subsequent return; and of your early departure this morning. Accidentally I lighted on your footsteps; and, by suitable inquiries on the road, have finally traced you hither. "You told my sister her husband was dead. You left with her papers that were probably in his possession at the time of his death. I understand from Miss Maurice that the bills belonging to her mother have just been delivered to her. I presume you have no objection to clear up this mystery." "To you I am anxious to unfold every thing. At this moment, or at any time, but the sooner the more agreeable to me, I will do it." "This," said he, looking around him, "is no place; there is an inn, not a hundred yards from this gate, where I have left my horse; will you go thither?" I readily consented, and, calling for a private apartment, I laid before this man every incident of my life connected with Welbeck and Watson; my full, circumstantial, and explicit story appeared to remove every doubt which he might have entertained of my integrity. In Williams I found a plain, good man, of a temper confiding and affectionate. My narration being finished, he expressed, by unaffected tokens, his wonder and his grief on account of Watson's destiny. To my inquiries, which were made with frankness and fervour, respecting his own and his sister's condition, he said that the situation of both was deplorable till the recovery of this property. They had been saved from utter ruin, from beggary and a jail, only by the generosity and lenity of his creditors, who did not suffer the suspicious circumstances attending Watson's disappearance to outweigh former proofs of his probity. They had never relinquished the hopes of receiving some tidings of their kinsman. I related what had just passed in the house of Mrs. Maurice, and requested to know from him the history and character of this family. "They have treated you," he answered, "exactly as any one who knew them would have predicted. The mother is narrow, ignorant, bigoted, and avaricious. The eldest daughter, whom you saw, resembles the old lady in many things. Age, indeed, may render the similitude complete. At present, pride and ill-humour are her chief characteristics. "The youngest daughter has nothing in mind or person in common with her family. Where they are irascible, she is patient; where they are imperious, she is humble; where they are covetous, she is liberal; where they are ignorant and indolent, she is studious and skilful. It is rare, indeed, to find a young lady more amiable than Miss Fanny Maurice, or who has had more crosses and afflictions to sustain. "The eldest daughter always extorted the supply of her wants, from her parents, by threats and importunities; but the younger could never be prevailed upon to employ the same means, and, hence, she suffered inconveniences which, to any other girl, born to an equal rank, would have been, to the last degree, humiliating and vexatious. To her they only afforded new opportunities for the display of her most shining virtues,--fortitude and charity. No instance of their sordidness or tyranny ever stole a murmur from her. For what they had given, existence and a virtuous education, she said they were entitled to gratitude. What they withheld was their own, in the use of which they were not accountable to her. She was not ashamed to owe her subsistence to her own industry, and was only held by the pride of her family--in this instance their pride was equal to their avarice--from seeking out some lucrative kind of employment. Since the shock which their fortune sustained by Watson's disappearance, she has been permitted to pursue this plan, and she now teaches music in Baltimore for a living. No one, however, in the highest rank, can be more generally respected and caressed than she is." "But will not the recovery of this money make a favourable change in her condition?" "I can hardly tell; but I am inclined to think it will not. It will not change her mother's character. Her pride may be awakened anew, and she may oblige Miss Fanny to relinquish her new profession, and that will be a change to be deplored." "What good has been done, then, by restoring this money?" "If pleasure be good, you must have conferred a great deal on the Maurices; upon the mother and two of the daughters, at least,--the only pleasure, indeed, which their natures can receive. It is less than if you had raised them from absolute indigence, which has not been the case, since they had wherewithal to live upon besides their Jamaica property. But how?" continued Williams, suddenly recollecting himself; "have you claimed the reward promised to him who should restore these bills?" "What reward?" "No less than a thousand dollars. It was publicly promised under the hands of Mrs. Maurice and of Hemmings, her husband's executor." "Really," said I, "that circumstance escaped my attention, and I wonder that it did; but is it too late to repair the evil?" "Then you have no scruple to accept the reward?" "Certainly not. Could you suspect me of so strange a punctilio as that?" "Yes; but I know not why. The story you have just finished taught me to expect some unreasonable refinement upon that head. To be hired, to be bribed, to do our duty is supposed by some to be degrading." "This is no such bribe to me. I should have acted just as I have done, had no recompense been promised. In truth, this has been my conduct, for I never once thought of the reward; but, now that you remind me of it, I would gladly see it bestowed. To fulfil their engagements, in this respect, is no more than justice in the Maurices. To one in my condition the money will be highly useful. If these people were poor, or generous and worthy, or if I myself were already rich, I might less repine at their withholding it; but, things being as they are with them and with me, it would, I think, be gross injustice in them to withhold, and in me to refuse." "That injustice," said Williams, "will, on their part, I fear, be committed. 'Tis pity you first applied to Mrs. Maurice. Nothing can be expected from her avarice, unless it be wrested from her by a lawsuit." "That is a force which I shall never apply." "Had you gone first to Hemmings, you might, I think, have looked for payment. He is not a mean man. A thousand dollars, he must know, is not much to give for forty thousand. Perhaps, indeed, it may not yet be too late. I am well known to him, and, if you please, will attend you to him in the evening, and state your claim." I thankfully accepted this offer, and went with him accordingly. I found that Hemmings had been with Mrs. Maurice in the course of the day; had received from her intelligence of this transaction, and had entertained the expectation of a visit from me for this very purpose. While Williams explained to him the nature of my claim, he scanned me with great intentness. His austere and inflexible brow afforded me little room to hope for success, and this hopelessness was confirmed by his silence and perplexity when Williams had made an end. "To-be-sure," said he, after some pause, "the contract was explicit. To-be-sure, the conditions on Mr. Mervyn's side have been performed. Certain it is, the bills are entire and complete, but Mrs. Maurice will not consent to do her part, and Mrs. Maurice, to whom the papers were presented, is the person by whom, according to the terms of the contract, the reward must be paid." "But Mrs. Maurice, you know, sir, may be legally compelled to pay," said Williams. "Perhaps she may; but I tell you plainly, that she never will do the thing without compulsion. Legal process, however, in this case, will have other inconveniences besides delay. Some curiosity will naturally be excited, as to the history of these papers. Watson disappeared a twelvemonth ago. Who can avoid asking, Where have these papers been deposited all this while, and how came this person in possession of them?" "That kind of curiosity," said I, "is natural and laudable, and gladly would I gratify it. Disclosure or concealment in that case, however, would nowise affect my present claim. Whether a bond, legally executed, shall be paid, does not depend upon determining whether the payer is fondest of boiled mutton or roast beef. Truth, in the first case, has no connection with truth in the second. So far from eluding this curiosity, so far from studying concealment, I am anxious to publish the truth." "You are right, to-be-sure," said Hemmings. "Curiosity is a natural, but only an incidental, consequence in this case. I have no reason for desiring that it should be an unpleasant consequence to you." "Well, sir," said Williams, "you think that Arthur Mervyn has no remedy in this case but the law?" "Mrs. Maurice, to-be-sure, will never pay but on compulsion. Mervyn should have known his own interest better. While his left hand was stretched out to give, his right should have been held forth to receive. As it is, he must be contented with the aid of law. Any attorney will prosecute on condition of receiving _half the sum_ when recovered." We now rose to take our leave, when Hemmings, desiring us to pause a moment, said, "To-be-sure, in the utmost strictness of the terms of our promise, the reward was to be paid by the person who received the papers; but it must be owned that your claim, at any rate, is equitable. I have money of the deceased Mr. Maurice in my hands. These very bills are now in my possession. I will therefore pay you your due, and take the consequences of an act of justice on myself. I was prepared for you. Sign that receipt, and there is a _check_ for the amount."	{ "id": "18508" }
43	None	This unexpected and agreeable decision was accompanied by an invitation to supper, at which we were treated by our host with much affability and kindness. Finding me the author of Williams's good fortune as well as Mrs. Maurice's, and being assured by the former of his entire conviction of the rectitude of my conduct, he laid aside all reserve and distance with regard to me. He inquired into my prospects and wishes, and professed his willingness to serve me. I dealt with equal unreserve and frankness. "I am poor," said I. "Money for my very expenses hither I have borrowed from a friend, to whom I am, in other respects, much indebted, and whom I expect to compensate only by gratitude and future services. "In coming hither, I expected only an increase of my debts; to sink still deeper into poverty; but happily the issue has made me rich. This hour has given me competence, at least." "What! call you a thousand dollars competence?" "More than competence. I call it an abundance. My own ingenuity, while I enjoy health, will enable me to live. This I regard as a fund, first to pay my debts, and next to supply deficiencies occasioned by untoward accidents or ill health, during the ensuing three or four years at least." We parted with this new acquaintance at a late hour, and I accepted Williams's invitation to pass the time I should spend at Baltimore, under his sister's roof. There were several motives for prolonging this stay. What I had heard of Miss Fanny Maurice excited strong wishes to be personally acquainted with her. This young lady was affectionately attached to Mrs. Watson, by whose means my wishes were easily accomplished. I never was in habits of reserve, even with those whom I had no reason to esteem. With those who claimed my admiration and affection, it was impossible to be incommunicative. Before the end of my second interview, both these women were mistresses of every momentous incident of my life, and of the whole chain of my feelings and opinions, in relation to every subject, and particularly in relation to themselves. Every topic disconnected with these is comparatively lifeless and inert. I found it easy to win their attention, and to render them communicative in their turn. As full disclosures as I had made without condition or request, my inquiries and example easily obtained from Mrs. Watson and Miss Maurice. The former related every event of her youth, and the circumstances leading to her marriage. She depicted the character of her husband, and the whole train of suspenses and inquietudes occasioned by his disappearance. The latter did not hide from me her opinions upon any important subject, and made me thoroughly acquainted with her actual situation. This intercourse was strangely fascinating. My heart was buoyed up by a kind of intoxication. I now found myself exalted to my genial element, and began to taste the delights of existence. In the intercourse of ingenuous and sympathetic minds, I found a pleasure which I had not previously conceived. The time flew swiftly away, and a fortnight passed almost before I was aware that a day had gone by. I did not forget the friends whom I had left behind, but maintained a punctual correspondence with Stevens, to whom I imparted all occurrences. The recovery of my friend's kinsman allowed him in a few days to return home. His first object was the consolation and relief of Carlton, whom, with much difficulty, he persuaded to take advantage of the laws in favour of insolvent debtors. Carlton's only debt was owing to his uncle, and, by rendering up every species of property, except his clothes and the implements of his trade, he obtained a full discharge. In conjunction with his sister, he once more assumed the pen, and, being no longer burdened with debts he was unable to discharge, he resumed, together with his pen, his cheerfulness. Their mutual industry was sufficient for their decent and moderate subsistence. The chief reason for my hasty return was my anxiety respecting Clemenza Lodi. This reason was removed by the activity and benevolence of my friend. He paid this unfortunate stranger a visit at Mrs. Villars's. Access was easily obtained, and he found her sunk into the deepest melancholy. The recent loss of her child, the death of Welbeck, of which she was soon apprized, her total dependence upon those with whom she was placed, who, however, had always treated her without barbarity or indecorum, were the calamities that weighed down her spirits. My friend easily engaged her confidence and gratitude, and prevailed upon her to take refuge under his own roof. Mrs. Wentworth's scruples, as well as those of Mrs. Fielding, were removed by his arguments and entreaties, and they consented to take upon themselves, and divide between them, the care of her subsistence and happiness. They condescended to express much curiosity respecting me, and some interest in my welfare, and promised to receive me, on my return, on the footing of a friend. With some reluctance, I at length bade my new friends farewell, and returned to Philadelphia. Nothing remained, before I should enter on my projected scheme of study and employment, under the guidance of Stevens, but to examine the situation of Eliza Hadwin with my own eyes, and, if possible, to extricate my father from his unfortunate situation. My father's state had given me the deepest concern. I figured to myself his condition, besotted by brutal appetites, reduced to beggary, shut up in a noisome prison, and condemned to that society which must foster all his depraved propensities. I revolved various schemes for his relief. A few hundreds would take him from prison; but how should he be afterwards disposed of? How should he be cured of his indolent habits? How should he be screened from the contagion of vicious society? By what means, consistently with my own wants and the claims of others, should I secure to him an acceptable subsistence? Exhortation and example were vain. Nothing but restraint would keep him at a distance from the haunts of brawling and debauchery. The want of money would be no obstacle to prodigality and waste. Credit would be resorted to as long as it would answer his demand. When that failed, he would once more be thrown into a prison; the same means to extricate him would have to be repeated, and money be thus put into the pockets of the most worthless of mankind, the agents of drunkenness and blasphemy, without any permanent advantage to my father, the principal object of my charity. Though unable to fix on any plausible mode of proceeding, I determined, at least, to discover his present condition. Perhaps something might suggest itself, upon the spot, suited to my purpose. Without delay I proceeded to the village of Newtown, and, alighting at the door of the prison, inquired for my father. "Sawny Mervyn you want, I suppose," said the keeper. "Poor fellow! He came into limbo in a crazy condition, and has been a burden on my hands ever since. After lingering along for some time, he was at last kind enough to give us the slip. It is just a week since he drank his last pint--and _died_." I was greatly shocked at this intelligence. It was some time before my reason came to my aid, and showed me that this was an event, on the whole, and on a disinterested and dispassionate view, not unfortunate. The keeper knew not my relation to the deceased, and readily recounted the behaviour of the prisoner and the circumstances of his last hours. I shall not repeat the narrative. It is useless to keep alive the sad remembrance. He was now beyond the reach of my charity or pity; and, since reflection could answer no beneficial end to him, it was my duty to divert my thoughts into different channels, and live henceforth for my own happiness and that of those who were within the sphere of my influence. I was now alone in the world, so far as the total want of kindred creates solitude. Not one of my blood, nor even of my name, was to be found in this quarter of the world. Of my mother's kindred I knew nothing. So far as friendship or service might be claimed from them, to me they had no existence. I was destitute of all those benefits which flow from kindred, in relation to protection, advice, or property. My inheritance was nothing. Not a single relic or trinket in my possession constituted a memorial of my family. The scenes of my childish and juvenile days were dreary and desolate. The fields which I was wont to traverse, the room in which I was born, retained no traces of the past. They were the property and residence of strangers, who knew nothing of the former tenants, and who, as I was now told, had hastened to new-model and transform every thing within and without the habitation. These images filled me with melancholy, which, however, disappeared in proportion as I approached the abode of my beloved girl. Absence had endeared the image of my _Bess_--I loved to call her so--to my soul. I could not think of her without a melting softness at my heart, and tears in which pain and pleasure were unaccountably mingled. As I approached Curling's house, I strained my sight, in hopes of distinguishing her form through the evening dusk. I had told her of my purpose, by letter. She expected my approach at this hour, and was stationed, with a heart throbbing with impatience, at the roadside, near the gate. As soon as I alighted, she rushed into my arms. I found my sweet friend less blithesome and contented than I wished. Her situation, in spite of the parental and sisterly regards which she received from the Curlings, was mournful and dreary to her imagination. Rural business was irksome, and insufficient to fill up her time. Her life was tiresome, and uniform, and heavy. I ventured to blame her discontent, and pointed out the advantages of her situation. "Whence," said I, "can these dissatisfactions and repinings arise?" "I cannot tell," said she; "I don't know how it is with me. I am always sorrowful and thoughtful. Perhaps I think too much of my poor father and of Susan; and yet that can't be it, neither, for I think of them but seldom; not half as much as I ought, perhaps. I think of nobody almost but you. Instead of minding my business, or chatting and laughing with Peggy Curling, I love to get by myself,--to read, over and over, your letters, or to think how you are employed just then, and how happy I should be if I were in Fanny Maurice's place. "But it is all over now; this visit rewards me for every thing. I wonder how I could ever be sullen or mopeful. I will behave better, indeed I will, and be always, as now, a most happy girl." The greater part of three days was spent in the society of my friend, in listening to her relation of all that had happened during my absence, and in communicating, in my turn, every incident which had befallen myself. After this I once more returned to the city.	{ "id": "18508" }
44	None	I now set about carrying my plan of life into effect. I began with ardent zeal and unwearied diligence the career of medical study. I bespoke the counsels and instructions of my friend; attended him on his professional visits, and acted, in all practicable cases, as his substitute. I found this application of time more pleasurable than I had imagined. My mind gladly expanded itself, as it were, for the reception of new ideas. My curiosity grew more eager in proportion as it was supplied with food, and every day added strength to the assurance that I was no insignificant and worthless being; that I was destined to be _something_ in this scene of existence, and might some time lay claim to the gratitude and homage of my fellow men. I was far from being, however, monopolized by these pursuits. I was formed on purpose for the gratification of social intercourse. To love and to be loved; to exchange hearts and mingle sentiments with all the virtuous and amiable whom my good fortune had placed within the circuit of my knowledge, I always esteemed my highest enjoyment and my chief duty. Carlton and his sister, Mrs. Wentworth, and Achsa Fielding, were my most valuable associates beyond my own family. With all these my correspondence was frequent and unreserved, but chiefly with the latter. This lady had dignity and independence, a generous and enlightened spirit, beyond what her education had taught me to expect. She was circumspect and cautious in her deportment, and was not prompt to make advances, or accept them. She withheld her esteem and confidence until she had full proof of their being deserved. I am not sure that her treatment of me was fully conformable to her rules. My manners, indeed, as she once told me, she had never met with in another. Ordinary rules were so totally overlooked in my behaviour, that it seemed impossible for any one who knew me to adhere to them. No option was left but to admit my claims to friendship and confidence instantly, or to reject them altogether. I was not conscious of this singularity. The internal and undiscovered character of another weighed nothing with me in the question whether they should be treated with frankness or reserve. I felt no scruple on any occasion to disclose every feeling and every event. Any one who could listen found me willing to talk. Every talker found me willing to listen. Every one had my sympathy and kindness, _without_ claiming it; but I _claimed_ the kindness and sympathy of every one. Achsa Fielding's countenance bespoke, I thought, a mind worthy to be known and to be loved. The first moment I engaged her attention, I told her so. I related the little story of my family, spread out before her all my reasonings and determinations, my notions of right and wrong, my fears and wishes. All this was done with sincerity and fervour, with gestures, actions, and looks, in which I felt as if my whole soul was visible. Her superior age, sedateness, and prudence, gave my deportment a filial freedom and affection, and I was fond of calling her "_mamma_." I particularly dwelt upon the history of my dear country-girl; painted her form and countenance; recounted our dialogues, and related all my schemes for making her wise, and good, and happy. On these occasions my friend would listen to me with the mutest attention. I showed her the letters I received, and offered her for her perusal those which I wrote in answer, before they were sealed and sent. On these occasions she would look by turns on my face and away from me. A varying hue would play upon her cheek, and her eyes were fuller than was common, of meaning. "Such-and-such," I once said, "are my notions; now, what do _you_ think?" " _Think_!" emphatically, and turning somewhat aside, she answered; "that you are the most--_strange_ of human creatures." "But tell me," I resumed, following and searching her averted eyes; "am I right? would you do thus? Can you help me to improve my girl? I wish you knew the bewitching little creature. How would that heart overflow with affection and with gratitude towards you! She should be your daughter. No--you are too nearly of an age for that. A sister; her _elder_ sister, you should be. _That_, when there is no other relation, includes them all. Fond sisters you would be, and I the fond brother of you both." My eyes glistened as I spoke. In truth, I am in that respect a mere woman. My friend was more powerfully moved. After a momentary struggle she burst into tears. "Good heaven!" said I, "what ails you? Are you not well?" Her looks betrayed an unaccountable confusion, from which she quickly recovered:--"It was folly to be thus affected. Something ailed me, I believe, but it is past. But, come, you want some lines of finishing the description of the _Boa_ in La Cepide." "True. And I have twenty minutes to spare. Poor Franks is very ill indeed, but he cannot be seen till nine. We'll read till then." Thus on the wings of pleasure and improvement passed my time; not without some hues, occasionally, of a darker tint. My heart was now and then detected in sighing. This occurred when my thoughts glanced at the poor Eliza, and measured, as it were, the interval between us. "We are too--_too_ far apart," thought I. The best solace on these occasions was the company of Mrs. Fielding; her music, her discourse, or some book which she set me to rehearsing to her. One evening, when preparing to pay her a visit, I received the following letter from my Bess:-- _To A. Mervyn. _ CURLING'S, May 6, 1794. Where does this letter you promised me stay all this while? Indeed, Arthur, you torment me more than I deserve, and more than I could ever find it in my heart to do you. You treat me cruelly. I must say so, though I offend you. I must write, though you do not deserve that I should, and though I fear I am in a humour not very fit for writing. I had better go to my chamber and weep; weep at your--_unkindness_, I was going to say; but, perhaps, it is only forgetfulness; and yet what can be more unkind than forgetfulness? I am sure I have never forgotten you. Sleep itself, which wraps all other images in forgetfulness, only brings you nearer, and makes me see you more distinctly. But where can this letter stay? --Oh! that--hush! foolish girl! If a word of that kind escape thy lips, Arthur will be angry with thee; and then, indeed, thou mightest weep in earnest. _Then_ thou wouldst have some cause for thy tears. More than once already has he almost broken thy heart with his reproaches. Sore and weak as it now is, any new reproaches would assuredly break it quite. I _will_ be content. I will be as good a housewife and dairywoman, stir about as briskly, and sing as merrily, as Peggy Curling. Why not? I am as young, as innocent, and enjoy as good health. Alas! she has reason to be merry. She has father, mother, brothers; but I have none. And he that was all these, and more than all these, to me, has--_forgotten_ me. But, perhaps, it is some accident that hinders. Perhaps Oliver left the market earlier than he used to do; or you mistook the house; or perhaps some poor creature was sick, was taken suddenly ill, and you were busy in chafing his clay-cold limbs; it fell to you to wipe the clammy drops from his brow. Such things often happen (don't they, Arthur?) to people of your trade, and some such thing has happened now; and that was the reason you did not write. And if so, shall I repine at your silence? Oh no! At such a time the poor Bess might easily be, and ought to be, forgotten. She would not deserve your love if she could repine at a silence brought about this way. And oh! may it be so! May there be nothing worse than this! If the sick man--see, Arthur, how my hand trembles. Can you read this scrawl? What is always bad, my fears make worse than ever. I must not think that. And yet, if it be so, if my friend himself be sick, what will become of me? Of me, that ought to cherish you and comfort you; that ought to be your nurse. Endure for you your sickness, when she cannot remove it. Oh! that----I _will_ speak out--Oh that this strange scruple had never possessed you! Why should I _not_ be with you? Who can love you and serve you as well as I? In sickness and health, I will console and assist you. Why will you deprive yourself of such a comforter and such an aid as I would be to you? Dear Arthur, think better of it. Let me leave this dreary spot, where, indeed, as long as I am thus alone, I can enjoy no comfort. Let me come to you. I will put up with any thing for the sake of seeing you, though it be but once a day. Any garret or cellar in the dirtiest lane or darkest alley will be good enough for me. I will think it a palace, so that I can _but_ see you now and then. Do not refuse--do not argue with me, so fond you always are of arguing! My heart is set upon your compliance. And yet, dearly as I prize your company, I would not ask it, if I thought there was any thing improper. You say there is, and you talk about it in a way that I do not understand. For my sake, you tell me, you refuse; but let me entreat you to comply for my sake. Your pen cannot teach me like your tongue. You write me long letters, and tell me a great deal in them; but my soul droops when I call to mind your voice and your looks, and think how long a time must pass before I see you and hear you again. I have no spirit to think upon the words and paper before me. My eye and my thought wander far away. I bethink me how many questions I might ask you; how many doubts you might clear up if you were but within hearing. If you were but close to me; but I cannot ask them here. I am too poor a creature at the pen, and, somehow or another, it always happens, I can only write about myself or about you. By the time I have said all this, I have tired my fingers, and when I set about telling you how this poem and that story have affected me, I am at a loss for words; I am bewildered and bemazed, as it were. It is not so when we talk to one another. With your arm about me, and your sweet face close to mine, I can prattle forever. Then my heart overflows at my lips. After hours thus spent, it seems as if there were a thousand things still to be said. Then I can tell you what the book has told me. I can repeat scores of verses by heart, though I heard them only once read; but it is because _you_ have read them to me. Then there is nobody here to answer my questions. They never look into books. They hate books. They think it waste of time to read. Even Peggy, who you say has naturally a strong mind, wonders what I can find to amuse myself in a book. In her playful mood, she is always teasing me to lay it aside. I do not mind her, for I like to read; but, if I did not like it before, I could not help doing so ever since you told me that nobody could gain your love who was not fond of books. And yet, though I like it on that account more than I did, I don't read somehow so earnestly and understand so well as I used to do when my mind was all at ease, always frolicsome, and ever upon _tiptoe_, as I may say. How strangely (have you not observed it?) I am altered of late! --I, that was ever light of heart, the very soul of gayety, brimfull of glee, am now demure as our old _tabby_--and not half as wise. Tabby had wit enough to keep her paws out of the coals, whereas poor I have--but no matter what. It will never come to pass, I see that. So many reasons for every thing! Such looking forward! Arthur, are not men sometimes too _wise_ to be happy? I am now _so_ grave. Not one smile can Peggy sometimes get from me, though she tries for it the whole day. But I know how it comes. Strange, indeed, if, losing father and sister, and thrown upon the wide world, penniless and _friendless_ too, now that _you_ forget me, I should continue to smile. No. I never shall smile again. At least, while I stay here, I never shall, I believe. If a certain somebody suffer me to live with him,--_near_ him, I mean,--perhaps the sight of him as he enters the door, perhaps the sound of his voice, asking, "Where is my Bess?" might produce a smile. Such a one as the very thought produces now,--yet not, I hope, so transient, and so quickly followed by a tear. Women are born, they say, to trouble, and tears are given them for their relief. 'Tis all very true. Let it be as I wish, will you? If Oliver bring not back good tidings, if he bring not a letter from thee, or thy letter still refuses my request,--I don't know what may happen. Consent, if you love your poor girl. E.H.	{ "id": "18508" }
45	None	The reading of this letter, though it made me mournful, did not hinder me from paying the visit I intended. My friend noticed my discomposure. "What, Arthur! thou art quite the 'penseroso' to-night. Come, let me cheer thee with a song. Thou shalt have thy favourite ditty." She stepped to the instrument, and, with more than airy lightness, touched and sung:-- "Now knit hands and beat the ground In a light, fantastic round, Till the telltale sun descry Our conceal'd solemnity." Her music, though blithsome and aerial, was not sufficient for the end. My cheerfulness would not return even at her bidding. She again noticed my sedateness, and inquired into the cause. "This girl of mine," said I, "has infected me with her own sadness. There is a letter I have just received." She took it and began to read. Meanwhile, I placed myself before her, and fixed my eyes steadfastly upon her features. There is no book in which I read with more pleasure than the face of woman. _That_ is generally more full of meaning, and of better meaning too, than the hard and inflexible lineaments of man; and _this_ woman's face has no parallel. She read it with visible emotion. Having gone through it, she did not lift her eye from the paper, but continued silent, as if buried in thought. After some time, (for I would not interrupt the pause,) she addressed me thus:-- "This girl seems to be very anxious to be with you." "As much as I am that she should be so." My friend's countenance betrayed some perplexity. As soon as I perceived it, I said, "Why are you thus grave?" Some little confusion appeared, as if she would not have her gravity discovered. "There again," said I, "new tokens in your face, my good mamma, of something which you will not mention. Yet, sooth to say, this is not your first perplexity. I have noticed it before, and wondered. It happens only when my _Bess_ is introduced. Something in relation to her it must be, but what I cannot imagine. Why does _her_ name, particularly, make you thoughtful, disturbed, dejected? There now--but I must know the reason. You don't agree with me in my notions of this girl, I fear, and you will not disclose your thoughts." By this time, she had gained her usual composure, and, without noticing my comments on her looks, said, "Since you are both of one mind, why does she not leave the country?" "That cannot be, I believe. Mrs. Stevens says it would be disreputable. I am no proficient in etiquette, and must, therefore, in affairs of this kind, be guided by those who are. But would to heaven I were truly her father or brother! Then all difficulties would be done away." "Can you seriously wish that?" "Why, no. I believe it would be more rational to wish that the world would suffer me to act the fatherly or brotherly part, without the relationship." "And is that the only part you wish to act towards this girl?" "Certainly, the only part." "You surprise me. Have you not confessed your love for her?" "I _do_ love her. There is nothing upon earth more dear to me than my _Bess_." "But love is of different kinds. She was loved by her father----" "Less than by me. He was a good man, but not of lively feelings. Besides, he had another daughter, and they shared his love between them; but she has no sister to share _my_ love. Calamity, too, has endeared her to me; I am all her consolation, dependence, and hope, and nothing, surely, can induce me to abandon her." "Her reliance upon you for happiness," replied my friend, with a sigh, "is plain enough." "It is; but why that sigh? And yet I understand it. It remonstrates with me on my incapacity for her support. I know it well, but it is wrong to be cast down. I have youth, health, and spirits, and ought not to despair of living for my own benefit and hers; but you sigh again, and it is impossible to keep my courage when _you_ sigh. Do tell me what you mean by it." "You partly guessed the cause. She trusts to you for happiness, but I somewhat suspect she trusts in vain." "In vain! I beseech you, tell me why you think so." "You say you love her: why then not make her your wife?" "My wife! Surely her extreme youth, and my destitute condition, will account for that." "She is fifteen; the age of delicate fervour, of inartificial love, and suitable enough for marriage. As to your condition, you may live more easily together than apart. She has no false taste or perverse desires to gratify. She has been trained in simple modes and habits. Besides, that objection can be removed another way. But are these all your objections?" "Her youth I object to, merely in connection with her mind. She is too little improved to be my wife. She wants that solidity of mind, that maturity of intelligence which ten years more may possibly give her, but which she cannot have at this age." "You are a very prudential youth: then you are willing to wait ten years for a wife?" "Does that follow? Because my Bess will not be qualified for wedlock in less time, does it follow that I must wait for her?" "I spoke on the supposition that you loved her." "And that is true; but love is satisfied with studying her happiness as her father or brother. Some years hence, perhaps in half a year, (for this passion, called wedded or _marriage-wishing_ love, is of sudden growth,) my mind may change and nothing may content me but to have Bess for my wife. Yet I do not expect it." "Then you are determined against marriage with this girl?" "Of course; until that love comes which I feel not now; but which, no doubt, will come, when Bess has had the benefit of five or eight years more, unless previously excited by another." "All this is strange, Arthur. I have heretofore supposed that you actually loved (I mean with the _marriage-seeking_ passion) your _Bess_." "I believe I once did; but it happened at a time when marriage was improper; in the life of her father and sister, and when I had never known in what female excellence consisted. Since that time my happier lot has cast me among women so far above Eliza Hadwin,--so far above, and so widely different from any thing which time is likely to make her,--that, I own, nothing appears more unlikely than that I shall ever love her." "Are you not a little capricious in that respect, my good friend? You have praised your _Bess_ as rich in natural endowments; as having an artless purity and rectitude of mind, which somewhat supersedes the use of formal education; as being full of sweetness and tenderness, and in her person a very angel of loveliness." "All that is true. I never saw features and shape so delicately beautiful; I never knew so young a mind so quick-sighted and so firm; but, nevertheless, she is not the creature whom I would call my _wife_. My bosom-slave; counsellor; friend; the mother; the pattern; the tutoress of my children, must be a different creature." "But what are the attributes of this _desirable_ which Bess wants?" "Every thing she wants. Age, capacity, acquirements, person, features, hair, complexion, all, all are different from this girl's." "And pray of what kind may they be?" "I cannot portray them in words--but yes, I can:--The creature whom I shall worship:--it sounds oddly, but, I verily believe, the sentiment which I shall feel for my wife will be more akin to worship than any thing else. I shall never love but such a creature as I now image to myself, and _such_ a creature will deserve, or almost deserve, worship. But this creature, I was going to say, must be the exact counterpart, my good mamma--of _yourself_." This was said very earnestly, and with eyes and manner that fully expressed my earnestness; perhaps my expressions were unwittingly strong and emphatic, for she started and blushed, but the cause of her discomposure, whatever it was, was quickly removed, and she said,-- "Poor Bess! This will be sad news to thee!" "Heaven forbid!" said I; "of what moment can my opinions be to her?" "Strange questioner that thou art. Thou knowest that her gentle heart is touched with love. See how it shows itself in the tender and inimitable strain of this epistle. Does not this sweet ingenuousness bewitch you?" "It does so, and I love, beyond expression, the sweet girl; but my love is, in some inconceivable way, different from the passion which that _other_ creature will produce. She is no stranger to my thoughts. I will impart every thought over and over to her. I question not but I shall make her happy without forfeiting my own." "Would marriage with her be a forfeiture of your happiness?" "Not absolutely or forever, I believe. I love her company. Her absence for a long time is irksome. I cannot express the delight with which I see and hear her. To mark her features, beaming with vivacity; playful in her pleasures; to hold her in my arms, and listen to her prattle, always musically voluble, always sweetly tender, or artlessly intelligent--and this you will say is the dearest privilege of marriage; and so it is; and dearly should I prize it; and yet, I fear my heart would droop as often as that _other_ image should occur to my fancy. For then, you know, it would occur as something never to be possessed by me. "Now, this image might, indeed, seldom occur. The intervals, at least, would be serene. It would be my interest to prolong these intervals as much as possible, and my endeavours to this end would, no doubt, have some effect. Besides, the bitterness of this reflection would be lessened by contemplating, at the same time, the happiness of my beloved girl. "I should likewise have to remember, that to continue unmarried would not necessarily secure me the possession of the _other_ good----" "But these reflections, my friend," (broke she in upon me,) "are of as much force to induce you to marry, as to reconcile you to a marriage already contracted." "Perhaps they are. Assuredly, I have not a hope that the _fancied_ excellence will ever be mine. Such happiness is not the lot of humanity, and is, least of all, within my reach." "Your diffidence," replied my friend, in a timorous accent, "has not many examples; but your character, without doubt, is all your own, possessing all and disclaiming all,--is, in few words, your picture." "I scarcely understand you. Do you think I ever shall be happy to that degree which I have imagined? Think you I shall ever meet with an exact copy of _yourself_?" "Unfortunate you will be, if you do not meet with many better. Your Bess, in personals, is, beyond measure, _my_ superior, and in mind, allowing for difference in years, quite as much so." "But that," returned I, with quickness and fervour, "is not the object. The very counterpart of _you_ I want; neither worse nor better, nor different in any thing. Just such form, such features, such hues. Just that melting voice, and, above all, the same habits of thinking and conversing. In thought, word, and deed; gesture, look, and form, that rare and precious creature whom I shall love must be your resemblance. Your----" "Have done with these comparisons," interrupted she, in some hurry, "and let us return to the country-girl, thy Bess. "You once, my friend, wished me to treat this girl of yours as my sister. Do you know what the duties of a sister are?" "They imply no more kindness or affection than you already feel towards my Bess. Are you not her sister?" "I ought to have been so. I ought to have been proud of the relation you ascribe to me, but I have not performed any of its duties. I blush to think upon the coldness and perverseness of my heart. With such means as I possess, of giving happiness to others, I have been thoughtless and inactive to a strange degree; perhaps, however, it is not yet too late. Are you still willing to invest me with all the rights of an elder sister over this girl? And will she consent, think you?" "Certainly she will; she has." "Then the first act of sistership will be to take her from the country; from persons on whose kindness she has no natural claim, whose manners and characters are unlike her own, and with whom no improvement can be expected, and bring her back to her sister's house and bosom, to provide for her subsistence and education, and watch over her happiness. "I will not be a nominal sister. I will not be a sister by halves. _All_ the rights of that relation I will have, or none. As for you, you have claims upon her on which I must be permitted to judge, as becomes the elder sister, who, by the loss of all other relations, must occupy the place, possess the rights, and fulfil the duties, of father, mother, and brother. "She has now arrived at an age when longer to remain in a cold and churlish soil will stunt her growth and wither her blossoms. We must hasten to transplant her to a genial element and a garden well enclosed. Having so long neglected this charming plant, it becomes me henceforth to take her wholly to myself. "And now, for it is no longer in her or your power to take back the gift, since she is fully mine, I will charge you with the office of conducting her hither. I grant it you as a favour. Will you go?" "Go! I will fly!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of joy, "on pinions swifter than the wind. Not the lingering of an instant will I bear. Look! one, two, three--thirty minutes after nine. I will reach Curling's gate by the morn's dawn. I will put my girl into a chaise, and by noon she shall throw herself into the arms of her sister. But first, shall I not, in some way, manifest my gratitude?" My senses were bewildered, and I knew not what I did. I intended to kneel, as to my mother or my deity; but, instead of that, I clasped her in my arms, and kissed her lips fervently. I stayed not to discover the effects of this insanity, but left the room and the house, and, calling for a moment at Stevens's, left word with the servant, my friend being gone abroad, that I should not return till the morrow. Never was a lighter heart, a gayety more overflowing and more buoyant, than mine. All cold from a boisterous night, at a chilly season, all weariness from a rugged and miry road, were charmed away. I might have ridden; but I could not brook delay, even the delay of inquiring for and equipping a horse. I might thus have saved myself fatigue, and have lost no time; but my mind was in too great a tumult for deliberation and forecast. I saw nothing but the image of my girl, whom my tidings would render happy. The way was longer than my fond imagination had foreseen. I did not reach Curling's till an hour after sunrise. The distance was full thirty-five miles. As I hastened up the green lane leading to the house, I spied my Bess passing through a covered way, between the dwelling and kitchen. I caught her eye. She stopped and held up her hands, and then ran into my arms. "What means my girl? Why this catching of the breath? Why this sobbing? Look at me, my love. It is Arthur,--he who has treated you with forgetfulness, neglect, and cruelty." "Oh, do not," she replied, hiding her face with her hand. "One single reproach, added to my own, will kill me. That foolish, wicked letter--I could tear my fingers for writing it." "But," said I, "I will kiss them;" and put them to my lips. "They have told me the wishes of my girl. They have enabled me to gratify her wishes. I have come to carry thee this very moment to town." "Lord bless me, Arthur," said she, lost in a sweet confusion, and her cheeks, always glowing, glowing still more deeply, "indeed, I did not mean----I meant only----I will stay here----I would rather stay----" "It grieves me to hear that," said I, with earnestness; "I thought I was studying our mutual happiness." "It grieves you? Don't say so. I would not grieve you for the world; but, indeed, indeed, it is too soon. Such a girl as I am not yet fit to--live in your city." Again she hid her glowing face in my bosom. "Sweet consciousness! Heavenly innocence!" thought I; "may Achsa's conjectures prove false! --You have mistaken my design, for I do not intend to carry you to town with such a view as you have hinted; but merely to place you with a beloved friend, with Achsa Fielding, of whom already you know so much, where we shall enjoy each other's company without restraint or intermission." I then proceeded to disclose to her the plan suggested by my friend, and to explain all the consequences that would flow from it. I need not say that she assented to the scheme. She was all rapture and gratitude. Preparations for departure were easily and speedily made. I hired a chaise of a neighbouring farmer, and, according to my promise, by noon the same day, delivered the timid and bashful girl into the arms of her new sister. She was received with the utmost tenderness, not only by Mrs. Fielding, but by all my friends. Her affectionate heart was encouraged to pour forth all its feeling as into the bosom of a mother. She was reinspired with confidence. Her want of experience was supplied by the gentlest admonitions and instructions. In every plan for her improvement suggested by her new _mamma_, (for she never called her by any other name,) she engaged with docility and eagerness; and her behaviour and her progress exceeded the most sanguine hopes that I had formed as to the softness of her temper and the acuteness of her genius. Those graces which a polished education, and intercourse with the better classes of society, are adapted to give, my girl possessed, in some degree, by a native and intuitive refinement and sagacity of mind. All that was to be obtained from actual observation and instruction was obtained without difficulty; and in a short time nothing but the affectionate simplicity and unperverted feelings of the country-girl bespoke the original condition. "What art so busy about, Arthur? Always at thy pen of late. Come, I must know the fruit of all this toil and all this meditation. I am determined to scrape acquaintance with Haller and Linnæus. I will begin this very day. All one's friends, you know, should be ours. Love has made many a patient, and let me see if it cannot, in my case, make a physician. But, first, what is all this writing about?" "Mrs. Wentworth has put me upon a strange task,--not disagreeable, however, but such as I should, perhaps, have declined, had not the absence of my Bess, and her mamma, made the time hang somewhat heavy. I have, oftener than once, and far more circumstantially than now, told her my adventures, but she is not satisfied. She wants a written narrative, for some purpose which she tells me she will disclose to me hereafter. "Luckily, my friend Stevens has saved me more than half the trouble. He has done me the favour to compile much of my history with his own hand. I cannot imagine what could prompt him to so wearisome an undertaking; but he says that adventures and a destiny so singular as mine ought not to be abandoned to forgetfulness like any vulgar and _every-day_ existence. Besides, when he wrote it, he suspected that it might be necessary to the safety of my reputation and my life, from the consequences of my connection with Welbeck. Time has annihilated that danger. All enmities and all suspicions are buried with that ill-fated wretch. Wortley has been won by my behaviour, and confides in my integrity now as much as he formerly suspected it. I am glad, however, that the task was performed. It has saved me a world of writing. I had only to take up the broken thread, and bring it down to the period of my present happiness; and this was done, just as you tripped along the entry this morning. "To bed, my friend; it is late, and this delicate frame is not half so able to encounter fatigue as a youth spent in the hay-field and the dairy might have been expected to be." "I will, but let me take these sheets along with me. I will read them, that I am determined, before I sleep, and watch if you have told the whole truth." "Do so, if you please; but remember one thing. Mrs. Wentworth requested me to write not as if it were designed for her perusal, but for those who have no previous knowledge of her or of me. 'Twas an odd request. I cannot imagine what she means by it; but she never acts without good reason, and I have done so. And now, withdraw, my dear, and farewell."	{ "id": "18508" }
46	None	Move on, my quill! wait not for my guidance. Reanimated with thy master's spirit, all airy light! A heyday rapture! A mounting impulse sways him: lifts him from the earth. I must, cost what it will, rein in this upward-pulling, forward-going--what shall I call it? But there are times, and now is one of them, when words are poor. It will not do--down this hill, up that steep; through this thicket, over that hedge--I have _laboured_ to fatigue myself: to reconcile me to repose; to lolling on a sofa; to poring over a book, to any thing that might win for my heart a respite from these throbs; to deceive me into a few _tolerable_ moments of forgetfulness. Let me see; they tell me this is Monday night. Only three days yet to come! If thus restless to-day; if my heart thus bounds till its mansion scarcely can hold it, what must be my state to-morrow! What next day! What as the hour hastens on; as the sun descends; as my hand touches hers in sign of wedded unity, of love without interval; of concord without end! I must quell these tumults. They will disable me else. They will wear out all my strength. They will drain away life itself. But who could have thought! So soon! Not three months since I first set eyes upon her. Not three weeks since our plighted love, and only three days to terminate suspense and give me _all_. I must compel myself to quiet; to sleep. I must find some refuge from anticipations so excruciating. All extremes are agonies. A joy like this is too big for this narrow tenement. I must thrust it forth; I must bar and bolt it out for a time, or these frail walls will burst asunder. The pen is a pacifier. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her wanderings. It traces out and compels us to adhere to one path. It ever was my friend. Often it has blunted my vexations; hushed my stormy passions; turned my peevishness to soothing; my fierce revenge to heart-dissolving pity. Perhaps it will befriend me now. It may temper my impetuous wishes; lull my intoxication; and render my happiness supportable; and, indeed, it has produced partly this effect already. My blood, within the few minutes thus employed, flows with less destructive rapidity. My thoughts range themselves in less disorder. And, now that the conquest is effected, what shall I say? I must continue at the pen, or shall immediately relapse. What shall I say? Let me look back upon the steps that led me hither. Let me recount the preliminaries. I cannot do better. And first as to Achsa Fielding,--to describe this woman. To recount, in brief, so much of her history as has come to my knowledge will best account for that zeal, almost to idolatry, with which she has, ever since I thoroughly knew her, been regarded by me. Never saw I one to whom the term _lovely_ more truly belonged. And yet in stature she is too low; in complexion dark and almost sallow; and her eyes, though black and of piercing lustre, have a cast which I cannot well explain. It lessens without destroying their lustre and their force to charm; but all personal defects are outweighed by her heart and her intellect. There is the secret of her power to entrance the soul of the listener and beholder. It is not only when she sings that her utterance is musical. It is not only when the occasion is urgent and the topic momentous that her eloquence is rich and flowing. They are always so. I had vowed to love her and serve her, and been her frequent visitant, long before I was acquainted with her past life. I had casually picked up some intelligence, from others, or from her own remarks. I knew very soon that she was English by birth, and had been only a year and a half in America; that she had scarcely passed her twenty-fifth year, and was still embellished with all the graces of youth; that she had been a wife; but was uninformed whether the knot had been untied by death or divorce; that she possessed considerable, and even splendid, fortune; but the exact amount, and all besides these particulars, were unknown to me till some time after our acquaintance was begun. One evening she had been talking very earnestly on the influence annexed, in Great Britain, to birth, and had given me some examples of this influence. Meanwhile my eyes were fixed steadfastly on hers. The peculiarity in their expression never before affected me so strongly. A vague resemblance to something seen elsewhere, on the same day, occurred, and occasioned me to exclaim, suddenly, in a pause of her discourse,-- "As I live, my good mamma, those eyes of yours have told me a secret. I almost think they spoke to me; and I am not less amazed at the strangeness than at the distinctness of their story." "And, pr'ythee, what have they said?" "Perhaps I was mistaken. I might have been deceived by a fancied voice, or have confounded one word with another near akin to it; but let me die if I did not think they said that you were--_a Jew_." At this sound, her features were instantly veiled with the deepest sorrow and confusion. She put her hand to her eyes, the tears started, and she sobbed. My surprise at this effect of my words was equal to my contrition. I besought her to pardon me for having thus unknowingly alarmed and grieved her. After she had regained some composure, she said, "You have not offended, Arthur. Your surmise was just and natural, and could not always have escaped you. Connected with that word are many sources of anguish, which time has not, and never will, dry up; and the less I think of past events the less will my peace be disturbed. I was desirous that you should know nothing of me but what you see; nothing but the present and the future, merely that no allusions might occur in our conversation which will call up sorrows and regrets that will avail nothing. "I now perceive the folly of endeavouring to keep you in ignorance, and shall therefore, once for all, inform you of what has befallen me, that your inquiries and suggestions may be made and fully satisfied at once, and your curiosity have no motive for calling back my thoughts to what I ardently desire to bury in oblivion. "My father was indeed a _Jew_, and one of the most opulent of his nation in London,--a Portuguese by birth, but came to London when a boy. He had few of the moral or external qualities of Jews; for I suppose there is some justice in the obloquy that follows them so closely. He was frugal without meanness, and cautious in his dealings, without extortion. I need not fear to say this, for it was the general voice. "Me, an only child, and, of course, the darling of my parents, they trained up in the most liberal manner. My education was purely English. I learned the same things and of the same masters with my neighbours. Except frequenting their church and repeating their creed, and partaking of the same food, I saw no difference between them and me. Hence I grew more indifferent, perhaps, than was proper, to the distinctions of religion. They were never enforced upon me. No pains were taken to fill me with scruples and antipathies. They never stood, as I may say, upon the threshold. They were often thought upon, but were vague and easily eluded or forgotten. "Hence it was that my heart too readily admitted impressions that more zeal and more parental caution would have saved me from. They could scarcely be avoided, as my society was wholly English, and my youth, my education, and my father's wealth made me an object of much attention. And the same causes that lulled to sleep my own watchfulness had the same effect upon that of others. To regret or to praise this remissness is now too late. Certain it is, that my destiny, and not a happy destiny, was fixed by it. "The fruit of this remissness was a passion for one who fully returned it. Almost as young as I, who was only sixteen; he knew as little as myself what obstacles the difference of our births was likely to raise between us. His father, Sir Ralph Fielding, a man nobly born, high in office, splendidly allied, could not be expected to consent to the marriage of his eldest son, in such green youth, to the daughter of an alien, a Portuguese, a Jew; but these impediments were not seen by my ignorance, and were overlooked by the youth's passion. "But, strange to tell, what common prudence would have so confidently predicted did not happen. Sir Ralph had a numerous family, likely to be still more so; had but slender patrimony; the income of his offices nearly made up his all. The young man was headstrong, impetuous, and would probably disregard the inclinations of his family. Yet the father would not consent but on one condition,--that of my admission to the English Church. "No very strenuous opposition to these terms could be expected from me. At so thoughtless an age, with an education so unfavourable to religious impressions; swayed, likewise, by the strongest of human passions; made somewhat impatient, by the company I kept, of the disrepute and scorn to which the Jewish nation are everywhere condemned, I could not be expected to be very averse to the scheme. "My fears as to what my father's decision would be were soon at an end. He loved his child too well to thwart her wishes in so essential a point. Finding in me no scruples, no unwillingness, he thought it absurd to be scrupulous for me. My own heart having abjured my religion, it was absurd to make any difficulty about a formal renunciation. These were his avowed reasons for concurrence, but time showed that he had probably other reasons, founded, indeed, in his regard for my happiness, but such as, if they had been known, would probably have strengthened into invincible the reluctance of my lover's family. "No marriage was ever attended with happier presages. The numerous relations of my husband admitted me with the utmost cordiality among them. My father's tenderness was unabated by this change, and those humiliations to which I had before been exposed were now no more; and every tie was strengthened, at the end of a year, by the feelings of a _mother_. I had need, indeed, to know a season of happiness, that I might be fitted to endure the sad reverses that succeeded. One after the other my disasters came, each one more heavy than the last, and in such swift succession that they hardly left me time to breathe. "I had scarcely left my chamber, I had scarcely recovered my usual health, and was able to press with true fervour the new and precious gift to my bosom, when melancholy tidings came. I was in the country, at the seat of my father-in-law, when the messenger arrived. "A shocking tale it was! and told abruptly, with every unpitying aggravation. I hinted to you once my father's death. The _kind_ of death--oh! my friend! It was horrible. He was then a placid, venerable old man; though many symptoms of disquiet had long before been discovered by my mother's watchful tenderness. Yet none could suspect him capable of such a deed; for none, so carefully had he conducted his affairs, suspected the havoc that mischance had made of his property. "I, that had so much reason to love my father,--I will leave you to imagine how I was affected by a catastrophe so dreadful, so unlooked-for. Much less could I suspect the cause of his despair; yet he had foreseen his ruin before my marriage; had resolved to defer it, for his daughter's and his wife's sake, as long as possible, but had still determined not to survive the day that should reduce him to indigence. The desperate act was thus preconcerted--thus deliberate. "The true state of his affairs was laid open by his death. The failure of great mercantile houses at Frankfort and Liege was the cause of his disasters. "Thus were my prospects shut in. That wealth which, no doubt, furnished the chief inducement with my husband's family to concur in his choice, was now suddenly exchanged for poverty. "Bred up, as I had been, in pomp and luxury; conscious that my wealth was my chief security from the contempt of the proud and bigoted, and my chief title to the station to which I had been raised, and which I the more delighted in because it enabled me to confer so great obligations on my husband,--what reverse could be harder than this, and how much bitterness was added by it to the grief occasioned by the violent death of my father! "Yet loss of fortune, though it mortified my pride, did not prove my worst calamity. Perhaps it was scarcely to be ranked with evils, since it furnished a touchstone by which my husband's affections were to be tried; especially as the issue of the trial was auspicious; for my misfortune seemed only to heighten the interest which my character had made for me in the hearts of all that knew me. The paternal regards of Sir Ralph had always been tender, but that tenderness seemed now to be redoubled. "New events made this consolation still more necessary. My unhappy mother! --She was nearer to the dreadful scene when it happened; had no surviving object to beguile her sorrow; was rendered, by long habit, more dependent upon fortune than her child. "A melancholy, always mute, was the first effect upon my mother. Nothing could charm her eye, or her ear. Sweet sounds that she once loved, and especially when her darling child was the warbler, were heard no longer. How, with streaming eyes, have I sat and watched the dear lady, and endeavoured to catch her eye, to rouse her attention! --But I must not think of these things. "But even this distress was little in comparison with what was to come. A frenzy thus mute, motionless, and vacant, was succeeded by fits, talkative, outrageous, requiring incessant superintendence, restraint, and even violence. "Why led you me thus back to my sad remembrances? Excuse me for the present. I will tell you the rest some other time; to-morrow." To-morrow, accordingly, my friend resumed her story. "Let me now make an end," said she, "of my mournful narrative, and never, I charge you, do any thing to revive it again. "Deep as was my despondency, occasioned by these calamities, I was not destitute of some joy. My husband and my child were lovely and affectionate. In their caresses, in their welfare, I found peace; and might still have found it, had there not been----. But why should I open afresh wounds which time has imperfectly closed? But the story must some time be told to you, and the sooner it is told and dismissed to forgetfulness the better. "My ill fate led me into company with a woman too well known in the idle and dissipated circles. Her character was not unknown to me. There was nothing in her features or air to obviate disadvantageous prepossessions. I sought not her intercourse; I rather shunned it, as unpleasing and discreditable, but she would not be repulsed. Self-invited, she made herself my frequent guest; took unsolicited part in my concerns; did me many kind offices; and, at length, in spite of my counter-inclination, won upon my sympathy and gratitude. "No one in the world, did I fondly think, had I less reason to fear than Mrs. Waring. Her character excited not the slightest apprehension for my own safety. She was upwards of forty, nowise remarkable for grace or beauty; tawdry in her dress; accustomed to render more conspicuous the traces of age by her attempts to hide them; the mother of a numerous family, with a mind but slenderly cultivated; always careful to save appearances; studiously preserving distance with my husband, and he, like myself, enduring rather than wishing her society. What could I fear from the arts of such a one? "But alas! the woman had consummate address. Patience, too, that nothing could tire. Watchfulness that none could detect. Insinuation the wiliest and most subtle. Thus wound she herself into my affections, by an unexampled perseverance in seeming kindness; by tender confidence; by artful glosses of past misconduct; by self-rebukes and feigned contritions. "Never were stratagems so intricate, dissimulation so profound! But still, that such a one should seduce my husband; young, generous, ambitious, impatient of contumely and reproach, and surely not indifferent; before this fatal intercourse, not indifferent to his wife and child! --Yet so it was! "I saw his discontents; his struggles; I heard him curse this woman, and the more deeply for my attempts, unconscious as I was of her machinations, to reconcile them to each other, to do away what seemed a causeless indignation, or antipathy against her. How little I suspected the nature of the conflict in his heart, between a new passion and the claims of pride; of conscience and of humanity; the claims of a child and a wife; a wife, already in affliction, and placing all that yet remained of happiness, in the firmness of his virtue; in the continuance of his love; a wife, at the very hour of his meditated flight, full of terrors at the near approach of an event whose agonies demand a double share of a husband's supporting, encouraging love---- "Good Heaven! For what evils are some of thy creatures reserved! Resignation to thy decree, in the last and most cruel distress, was, indeed, a hard task. "He was gone. Some unavoidable engagement calling him to Hamburg was pleaded. Yet to leave me at such an hour! I dared not upbraid, nor object. The tale was so specious! The fortunes of a friend depended on his punctual journey. The falsehood of his story too soon made itself known. He was gone, in company with his detested paramour! "Yet, though my vigilance was easily deceived, it was not so with others. A creditor, who had his bond for three thousand pounds, pursued and arrested him at Harwich. He was thrown into prison, but his companion--let me, at least, say that in her praise--would not desert him. She took lodging near the place of his confinement, and saw him daily. That, had she not done it, and had my personal condition allowed, should have been my province. "Indignation and grief hastened the painful crisis with me. I did not weep that the second fruit of this unhappy union saw not the light. I wept only that this hour of agony was not, to its unfortunate mother, the last. "I felt not anger; I had nothing but compassion for Fielding. Gladly would I have recalled him to my arms and to virtue; I wrote, adjuring him, by all our past joys, to return; vowing only gratitude for his new affection, and claiming only the recompense of seeing him restored to his family; to liberty; to reputation. "But, alas! Fielding had a good but a proud heart. He looked upon his error with remorse, with self-detestation, and with the fatal belief that it could not be retrieved; shame made him withstand all my reasonings and persuasions, and, in the hurry of his feelings, he made solemn vows that he would, in the moment of restored liberty, abjure his country and his family forever. He bore indignantly the yoke of his new attachment, but he strove in vain to shake it off. Her behaviour, always yielding, doting, supplicative, preserved him in her fetters. Though upbraided, spurned, and banished from his presence, she would not leave him, but, by new efforts and new artifices, soothed, appeased, and won again and kept his tenderness. "What my entreaties were unable to effect, his father could not hope to accomplish. He offered to take him from prison; the creditor offered to cancel the bond, if he would return to me; but this condition he refused. All his kindred, and one who had been his bosom-friend from childhood, joined in beseeching his compliance with these conditions; but his pride, his dread of my merited reproaches, the merits and dissuasions of his new companion, whose sacrifices for his sake had not been small, were obstacles which nothing could subdue. "Far, indeed, was I from imposing these conditions. I waited only till, by certain arrangements, I could gather enough to pay his debts, to enable him to execute his vow: empty would have been my claims to his affection, if I could have suffered, with the means of his deliverance in my hands, my husband to remain a moment in prison. "The remains of my father's vast fortune was a jointure of a thousand pounds a year, settled on my mother, and, after her death, on me. My mother's helpless condition put this revenue into my disposal. By this means was I enabled, without the knowledge of my father-in-law or my husband, to purchase the debt, and dismiss him from prison. He set out instantly, in company with his paramour, to France. "When somewhat recovered from the shock of this calamity, I took up my abode with my mother. What she had was enough, as you perhaps will think, for plentiful subsistence; but to us, with habits of a different kind, it was little better than poverty. That reflection, my father's memory, my mother's deplorable state, which every year grew worse, and the late misfortune, were the chief companions of my thoughts. "The dear child, whose smiles were uninterrupted by his mother's afflictions, was some consolation in my solitude. To his instruction and to my mother's wants all my hours were devoted. I was sometimes not without the hope of better days. Full as my mind was of Fielding's merits, convinced by former proofs of his ardent and generous spirit, I trusted that time and reflection would destroy that spell by which he was now bound. "For some time, the progress of these reflections was not known. In leaving England, Fielding dropped all correspondence and connection with his native country. He parted with the woman at Rouen, leaving no trace behind him by which she might follow him, as she wished to do. She never returned to England, but died a twelvemonth afterwards in Switzerland. "As to me, I had only to muse day and night upon the possible destiny of this beloved fugitive. His incensed father cared not for him. He had cast him out of his paternal affections, ceased to make inquiries respecting him, and even wished never to hear of him again. My boy succeeded to my husband's place in his grandfather's affections, and in the hopes and views of the family; and his mother wanted nothing which their compassionate and respectful love could bestow. "Three long and tedious years passed away, and no tidings were received. Whether he were living or dead, nobody could tell. At length, an English traveller, going out of the customary road from Italy, met with Fielding, in a town in the Venaissin. His manners, habits, and language, had become French. He seemed unwilling to be recognised by an old acquaintance, but, not being able to avoid this, and becoming gradually familiar, he informed the traveller of many particulars in his present situation. It appeared that he had made himself useful to a neighbouring _seigneur_, in whose _château_ he had long lived on the footing of a brother. France he had resolved to make his future country, and, among other changes for that end, he had laid aside his English name, and taken that of his patron, which was _Perrin_. He had endeavoured to compensate himself for all other privations, by devoting himself to rural amusements and to study. "He carefully shunned all inquiries respecting me; but, when my name was mentioned by his friend, who knew well all that had happened, and my general welfare, together with that of his son, asserted, he showed deep sensibility, and even consented that I should be made acquainted with his situation. "I cannot describe the effect of this intelligence on me. My hopes of bringing him back to me were suddenly revived. I wrote him a letter, in which I poured forth my whole heart; but his answer contained avowals of all his former resolutions, to which time had only made his adherence more easy. A second and third letter were written, and an offer made to follow him to his retreat and share his exile; but all my efforts availed nothing. He solemnly and repeatedly renounced all the claims of a husband over me, and absolved me from every obligation as a wife. "His part in this correspondence was performed without harshness or contempt. A strange mixture there was of pathos and indifference; of tenderness and resolution. Hence I continually derived hope, which time, however, brought no nearer to certainty. "At the opening of the Revolution, the name of Perrin appeared among the deputies to the constituent assembly for the district in which he resided. He had thus succeeded in gaining all the rights of a French citizen; and the hopes of his return became almost extinct; but that, and every other hope respecting him, has since been totally extinguished by his marriage with Marguerite d'Almont, a young lady of great merit and fortune, and a native of Avignon. "A long period of suspense was now at an end, and left me in a state almost as full of anguish as that which our first separation produced. My sorrows were increased by my mother's death, and, this incident freeing me from those restraints upon my motions which before existed, I determined to come to America. "My son was now eight years old, and, his grandfather claiming the province of his instruction, I was persuaded to part with him, that he might be sent to a distant school. Thus was another tie removed, and, in spite of the well-meant importunities of my friends, I persisted in my scheme of crossing the ocean." I could not help, at this part of her narration, expressing my surprise that any motives were strong enough to recommend this scheme. "It was certainly a freak of despair. A few months would, perhaps, have allayed the fresh grief, and reconciled me to my situation; but I would not pause or deliberate. My scheme was opposed by my friends with great earnestness. During my voyage, affrighted by the dangers which surrounded me, and to which I was wholly unused, I heartily repented of my resolution; but now, methinks, I have reason to rejoice at my perseverance. I have come into a scene and society so new, I have had so many claims made upon my ingenuity and fortitude, that my mind has been diverted in some degree from former sorrows. There are even times when I wholly forget them, and catch myself indulging in cheerful reveries. "I have often reflected with surprise on the nature of my own mind. It is eight years since my father's violent death. How few of my hours since that period have been blessed with serenity! How many nights and days, in hateful and lingering succession, have been bathed in tears and tormented with regrets! That I am still alive, with so many causes of death, and with such a slow-consuming malady, is surely to be wondered at. "I believe the worst foes of man, at least of men in grief, are solitude and idleness. The same eternally-occurring round of objects feeds his disease, and the effects of mere vacancy and uniformity are sometimes mistaken for those of grief. Yes, I am glad I came to America. My relations are importunate for my return, and till lately I had some thoughts of it; but I think now I shall stay where I am for the rest of my days. "Since I arrived, I am become more of a student than I used to be. I always loved literature, but never, till of late, had I a mind enough at ease to read with advantage. I now find pleasure in the occupation which I never expected to find. "You see in what manner I live. The letters which I brought secured me a flattering reception from the best people in your country; but scenes of gay resort had nothing to attract me, and I quickly withdrew to that seclusion in which you now find me. Here, always at leisure, and mistress of every laudable means of gratification, I am not without the belief of serene days yet to come." I now ventured to inquire what were her latest tidings of her husband. "At the opening of the Revolution, I told you, he became a champion of the people. By his zeal and his efforts he acquired such importance as to be deputed to the National Assembly. In this post he was the adherent of violent measures, till the subversion of monarchy; and then, when too late for his safety, he checked his career." "And what has since become of him?" She sighed deeply. "You were yesterday reading a list of the proscribed under Robespierre. I checked you. I had good reason. But this subject grows too painful; let us change it." Some time after, I ventured to renew this topic; and discovered that Fielding, under his new name of Perrin d'Almont, was among the outlawed deputies of last year,[1] and had been slain in resisting the officers sent to arrest him. My friend had been informed that his _wife_, Marguerite d'Almont, whom she had reason to believe a woman of great merit, had eluded persecution, and taken refuge in some part of America. She had made various attempts, but in vain, to find out her retreat. "Ah!" said I, "you must commission me to find her. I will hunt her through the continent from Penobscot to Savannah. I will not leave a nook unsearched." [Footnote 1: 1793.]	{ "id": "18508" }
47	None	None will be surprised that, to a woman thus unfortunate and thus deserving, my heart willingly rendered up all its sympathies; that, as I partook of all her grief, I hailed, with equal delight, those omens of felicity which now, at length, seemed to play in her fancy. I saw her often,--as often as my engagements would permit, and oftener than I allowed myself to visit any other. In this I was partly selfish. So much entertainment, so much of the best instruction, did her conversation afford me, that I never had enough of it. Her experience had been so much larger than mine, and so wholly different, and she possessed such unbounded facility of recounting all she had seen and felt, and absolute sincerity and unreserve in this respect were so fully established between us, that I can imagine nothing equally instructive and delightful with her conversation. Books are cold, jejune, vexatious in their sparingness of information at one time and their impertinent loquacity at another. Besides, all they choose to give they give at once; they allow no questions, offer no further explanations, and bend not to the caprices of our curiosity. They talk to us behind a screen. Their tone is lifeless and monotonous. They charm not our attention by mute significances of gesture and looks. They spread no light upon their meaning by cadences and emphasis and pause. How different was Mrs. Fielding's discourse! So versatile; so bending to the changes of the occasion; so obsequious to my curiosity, and so abundant in that very knowledge in which I was most deficient, and on which I set the most value, the knowledge of the human heart; of society as it existed in another world, more abundant in the varieties of customs and characters, than I had ever had the power to witness. Partly selfish I have said my motives were, but not so, as long as I saw that my friend derived pleasure, in her turn, from my company. Not that I could add directly to her knowledge or pleasure, but that expansion of heart, that ease of utterance and flow of ideas which always were occasioned by my approach, were sources of true pleasure of which she had been long deprived, and for which her privation had given her a higher relish than ever. She lived in great affluence and independence, but made use of her privileges of fortune chiefly to secure to herself the command of her own time. She had been long ago tired and disgusted with the dull and fulsome uniformity and parade of the play-house and ballroom. Formal visits were endured as mortifications and penances, by which the delights of privacy and friendly intercourse were by contrast increased. Music she loved, but never sought it in places of public resort, or from the skill of mercenary performers; and books were not the least of her pleasures. As to me, I was wax in her hand. Without design and without effort, I was always of that form she wished me to assume. My own happiness became a secondary passion, and her gratification the great end of my being. When with her, I thought not of myself. I had scarcely a separate or independent existence, since my senses were occupied by her, and my mind was full of those ideas which her discourse communicated. To meditate on her looks and words, and to pursue the means suggested by my own thoughts, or by her, conducive, in any way, to her good, was all my business. "What a fate," said I, at the conclusion of one of our interviews, "has been yours! But, thank Heaven, the storm has disappeared before the age of sensibility has gone past, and without drying up every source of happiness. You are still young; all your powers unimpaired; rich in the compassion and esteem of the world; wholly independent of the claims and caprices of others; amply supplied with that means of usefulness, called money; wise in that experience which only adversity can give. Past evils and sufferings, if incurred and endured without guilt, if called to view without remorse, make up the materials of present joy. They cheer our most dreary hours with the widespread accents of 'well done,' and they heighten our pleasures into somewhat of celestial brilliancy, by furnishing a deep, a ruefully-deep, contrast. "From this moment, I will cease to weep for you. I will call you the happiest of women. I will share with you your happiness by witnessing it; but that shall not content me. I must some way contribute to it. Tell me how I shall serve you. What can I do to make you happier? Poor am I in every thing but zeal, but still I may do something. What--pray tell me, what can I do?" She looked at me with sweet and solemn significance. What it was exactly I could not divine, yet I was strangely affected by it. It was but a glance, instantly withdrawn. She made me no answer. "You must not be silent; you _must_ tell me what I can do for you. Hitherto I have done nothing. All the service is on your side. Your conversation has been my study, a delightful study, but the profit has only been mine. Tell me how I can be grateful: my voice and manner, I believe, seldom belie my feelings." At this time, I had almost done what a second thought made me suspect to be unauthorized. Yet I cannot tell why. My heart had nothing in it but reverence and admiration. Was she not the substitute of my lost mamma? Would I not have clasped that beloved shade? Yet the two beings were not just the same, or I should not, as now, have checked myself, and only pressed her hand to my lips. "Tell me," repeated I, "what can I do to serve you? I read to you a little now, and you are pleased with my reading. I copy for you when you want the time. I guide the reins for you when you choose to ride. Humble offices, indeed, though, perhaps, all that a raw youth like me can do for you; but I can be still more assiduous. I can read several hours in the day, instead of one. I can write ten times as much as now. "Are you not my lost mamma come back again? And yet, not _exactly_ her, I think. Something different; something better, I believe, if that be possible. At any rate, methinks I would be wholly yours. I shall be impatient and uneasy till every act, every thought, every minute, someway does you good. "How!" said I, (her eye, still averted, seemed to hold back the tear with difficulty, and she made a motion as if to rise,) "have I grieved you? Have I been importunate? Forgive me if I have offended you." Her eyes now overflowed without restraint. She articulated, with difficulty, "Tears are too prompt with me of late; but they did not upbraid you. Pain has often caused them to flow, but now it--is--_pleasure_." "What a heart must yours be!" I resumed. "When susceptible of such pleasures, what pangs must formerly have rent it! --But you are not displeased, you say, with my importunate zeal. You will accept me as your own in every thing. Direct me; prescribe to me. There must be _something_ in which I can be of still more use to you; some way in which I can be wholly yours----" "_Wholly mine! _" she repeated, in a smothered voice, and rising. "Leave me, Arthur. It is too late for you to be here. It was wrong to stay so late." "I have been wrong; but how too late? I entered but this moment. It is twilight still; is it not?" "No: it is almost twelve. You have been here a long four hours; short ones I would rather say,--but indeed you must go." "What made me so thoughtless of the time? But I will go, yet not till you forgive me." I approached her with a confidence and for a purpose at which, upon reflection, I am not a little surprised; but the being called Mervyn is not the same in her company and in that of another. What is the difference, and whence comes it? Her words and looks engross me. My mind wants room for any other object. But why inquire whence the difference? The superiority of her merits and attractions to all those whom I knew would surely account for my fervour. Indifference, if I felt it, would be the only just occasion of wonder. The hour was, indeed, too late, and I hastened home. Stevens was waiting my return with some anxiety. I apologized for my delay, and recounted to him what had just passed. He listened with more than usual interest. When I had finished,-- "Mervyn," said he, "you seem not be aware of your present situation. From what you now tell me, and from what you have formerly told me, one thing seems very plain to me." "Pr'ythee, what is it?" "Eliza Hadwin:--do you wish--could you bear--to see her the wife of another?" "Five years hence I will answer you. Then my answer may be, 'No; I wish her only to be mine.' Till then, I wish her only to be my pupil, my ward, my sister." "But these are remote considerations; they are bars to marriage, but not to love. Would it not molest and disquiet you to observe in her a passion for another?" "It would, but only on her own account; not on mine. At a suitable age it is very likely I may love her, because it is likely, if she holds on in her present career, she will then be worthy; but at present, though I would die to insure her happiness, I have no wish to insure it by marriage with her." "Is there no other whom you love?" "No. There is one worthier than all others; one whom I wish the woman who shall be my wife to resemble in all things." "And who is this model?" "You know I can only mean Achsa Fielding." "If you love her likeness, why not love herself?" I felt my heart leap. --"What a thought is that! Love her I _do_ as I love my God; as I love virtue. To love her in another sense would brand me for a lunatic." "To love her as a woman, then, appears to you an act of folly." "In me it would be worse than folly. 'Twould be frenzy." "And why?" "Why? Really, my friend, you astonish me. Nay, you startle me--for a question like that implies a doubt in you whether I have not actually harboured the thought." "No," said he, smiling, "presumptuous though you be, you have not, to-be-sure, reached so high a pitch. But still, though I think you innocent of so heinous an offence, there is no harm in asking why you might not love her, and even seek her for a wife." Achsa Fielding _my wife_! Good Heaven! --The very sound threw my soul into unconquerable tumults. "Take care, my friend," continued I, in beseeching accents, "you may do me more injury than you conceive, by even starting such a thought." "True," said he, "as long as such obstacles exist to your success; so many incurable objections: for instance, she is six years older than you." "That is an advantage. Her age is what it ought to be." "But she has been a wife and mother already." "That is likewise an advantage. She has wisdom, because she has experience. Her sensibilities are stronger, because they have been exercised and chastened. Her first marriage was unfortunate. The purer is the felicity she will taste in a second! If her second choice be propitious, the greater her tenderness and gratitude." "But she is a foreigner; independent of control, and rich." "All which are blessings to herself, and to him for whom her hand is reserved; especially if, like me, he is indigent." "But then she is unsightly as a _night-hag_, tawny as a Moor, the eye of a gipsy, low in stature, contemptibly diminutive, scarcely bulk enough to cast a shadow as she walks, less luxuriance than a charred log, fewer elasticities than a sheet pebble." "Hush! hush! blasphemer!" --(and I put my hand before his mouth)--"have I not told you that in mind, person, and condition, she is the type after which my enamoured fancy has modelled my wife?" "Oh ho! Then the objection does not lie with you. It lies with her, it seems. She can find nothing in you to esteem! And, pray, for what faults do you think she would reject you?" "I cannot tell. That she can ever balance for a moment, on such a question, is incredible. _Me! me! _ That Achsa Fielding should think of me!" "Incredible, indeed! You, who are loathsome in your person, an idiot in your understanding, a villain in your morals! deformed! withered! vain, stupid, and malignant. That such a one should choose _you_ for an idol!" "Pray, my friend," said I, anxiously, "jest not. What mean you by a hint of this kind?" "I will not jest, then, but will soberly inquire, what faults are they which make this lady's choice of you so incredible? You are younger than she, though no one, who merely observed your manners and heard you talk, would take you to be under thirty. You are poor: are these impediments?" "I should think not. I have heard her reason with admirable eloquence against the vain distinctions of property and nation and rank. They were once of moment in her eyes; but the sufferings, humiliations, and reflections of years have cured her of the folly. Her nation has suffered too much by the inhuman antipathies of religious and political faction; she, herself, has felt so often the contumelies of the rich, the high-born, and the bigoted, that----" "Pr'ythee, then, what dost imagine her objections to be?" "Why--I don't know. The thought was so aspiring; to call her _my wife_ was a height of bliss the very far-off view of which made my head dizzy." "A height, however, to attain which you suppose only her consent, her love, to be necessary?" "Without doubt, her love is indispensable." "Sit down, Arthur, and let us no longer treat this matter lightly. I clearly see the importance of this moment to this lady's happiness and yours. It is plain that you love this woman. How could you help it? A brilliant skin is not hers; nor elegant proportions; nor majestic stature: yet no creature had ever more power to bewitch. Her manners have grace and dignity that flow from exquisite feelings, delicate taste, and the quickest and keenest penetration. She has the wisdom of men and of books. Her sympathies are enforced by reason, and her charities regulated by knowledge. She has a woman's age, fortune more than you wish, and a spotless fame. How could you fail to love her? " _You_, who are her chosen friend, who partake her pleasures and share her employments, on whom she almost exclusively bestows her society and confidence, and to whom she thus affords the strongest of all indirect proofs of impassioned esteem,--how could you, with all that firmness of love, joined with all that discernment of her excellence, how could you escape the enchantment? "You have not thought of marriage. You have not suspected your love. From the purity of your mind, from the idolatry with which this woman has inspired you, you have imagined no delight beyond that of enjoying her society as you now do, and have never fostered a hope beyond this privilege. "How quickly would this tranquillity vanish, and the true state of your heart be evinced, if a rival should enter the scene and be entertained with preference! then would the seal be removed, the spell be broken, and you would awaken to terror and to anguish. "Of this, however, there is no danger. Your passion is not felt by you alone. From her treatment of you, your diffidence disables you from seeing, but nothing can be clearer to me than that she loves you." I started on my feet. A flush of scorching heat flowed to every part of my frame. My temples began to throb like my heart. I was half delirious, and my delirium was strangely compounded of fear and hope, of delight and of terror. "What have you done, my friend? You have overturned my peace of mind. Till now the image of this woman has been followed by complacency and sober rapture; but your words have dashed the scene with dismay and confusion. You have raised up wishes, and dreams, and doubts, which possess me in spite of my reason, in spite of a thousand proofs. "Good God! You say she loves,--loves _me_! --me, a boy in age; bred in clownish ignorance; scarcely ushered into the world; more than childishly unlearned and raw; a barn-door simpleton; a plough-tail, kitchen-hearth, turnip-hoeing novice! She, thus splendidly endowed; thus allied to nobles; thus gifted with arts, and adorned with graces; that she should choose me, me for the partner of her fortune; her affections; and her life! It cannot be. Yet, if it were; if your guesses should--prove--Oaf! madman! To indulge so fatal a chimera! So rash a dream! "My friend! my friend! I feel that you have done me an irreparable injury. I can never more look her in the face. I can never more frequent her society. These new thoughts will beset and torment me. My disquiet will chain up my tongue. That overflowing gratitude; that innocent joy, unconscious of offence, and knowing no restraint, which have hitherto been my titles to her favour, will fly from my features and manners. I shall be anxious, vacant, and unhappy in her presence. I shall dread to look at her, or to open my lips, lest my mad and unhallowed ambition should betray itself." "Well," replied Stevens, "this scene is quite new. I could almost find it in my heart to pity you. I did not expect this; and yet, from my knowledge of your character, I ought, perhaps, to have foreseen it. This is a necessary part of the drama. A joyous certainty, on these occasions, must always be preceded by suspenses and doubts, and the close will be joyous in proportion as the preludes are excruciating. Go to bed, my good friend, and think of this. Time and a few more interviews with Mrs. Fielding will, I doubt not, set all to rights."	{ "id": "18508" }
48	None	I went to my chamber, but what different sensations did I carry into it from those with which I had left it a few hours before! I stretched myself on the mattress and put out the light; but the swarm of new images that rushed on my mind set me again instantly in motion. All was rapid, vague, and undefined, wearying and distracting my attention. I was roused as by a divine voice, that said, "Sleep no more! Mervyn shall sleep no more." What chiefly occupied me was a nameless sort of terror. What shall I compare it to? Methinks, that one falling from a tree overhanging a torrent, plunged into the whirling eddy, and gasping and struggling while he sinks to rise no more, would feel just as I did then. Nay, some such image actually possessed me. Such was one of my reveries, in which suddenly I stretched my hand, and caught the arm of a chair. This act called me back to reason, or rather gave my soul opportunity to roam into a new track equally wild. Was it the abruptness of this vision that thus confounded me? was it a latent error in my moral constitution, which this new conjuncture drew forth into influence? These were all the tokens of a mind lost to itself; bewildered; unhinged; plunged into a drear insanity. Nothing less could have prompted so fantastically; for, midnight as it was, my chamber's solitude was not to be supported. After a few turns across the floor, I left the room, and the house. I walked without design and in a hurried pace. I posted straight to the house of Mrs. Fielding. I lifted the latch, but the door did not open. It was, no doubt, locked. "How comes this?" said I, and looked around me. The hour and occasion were unthought of. Habituated to this path, I had taken it spontaneously. "How comes this?" repeated I. "Locked upon _me_! but I will summon them, I warrant me,"--and rung the bell, not timidly or slightly, but with violence. Some one hastened from above. I saw the glimmer of a candle through the keyhole. "Strange," thought I; "a candle at noonday!" --The door was opened, and my poor Bess, robed in a careless and hasty manner, appeared. She started at sight of me, but merely because she did not, in a moment, recognise me. --"Ah! Arthur, is it you? Come in. My mamma has wanted you these two hours. I was just going to despatch Philip to tell you to come." "Lead me to her," said I. She led the way into the parlour. --"Wait a moment here; I will tell her you are come;"--and she tripped away. Presently a step was heard. The door opened again, and then entered a man. He was tall, elegant, sedate to a degree of sadness; something in his dress and aspect that bespoke the foreigner, the Frenchman. "What," said he, mildly, "is your business with my wife? She cannot see you instantly, and has sent me to receive your commands." "Your _wife_! I want Mrs. Fielding." "True; and Mrs. Fielding is my wife. Thank Heaven, I have come in time to discover her, and claim her as such." I started back. I shuddered. My joints slackened, and I stretched my hand to catch something by which I might be saved from sinking on the floor. Meanwhile, Fielding changed his countenance into rage and fury. He called me villain! bade me avaunt! and drew a shining steel from his bosom, with which he stabbed me to the heart. I sunk upon the floor, and all, for a time, was darkness and oblivion! At length, I returned as it were to life. I opened my eyes. The mists disappeared, and I found myself stretched upon the bed in my own chamber. I remembered the fatal blow I had received. I put my hand upon my breast; the spot where the dagger entered. There were no traces of a wound. All was perfect and entire. Some miracle had made me whole. I raised myself up. I re-examined my body. All around me was hushed, till a voice from the pavement below proclaimed that it was "past three o'clock." "What!" said I; "has all this miserable pageantry, this midnight wandering, and this ominous interview, been no more than--_a dream_?" It may be proper to mention, in explanation of this scene, and to show the thorough perturbation of my mind during this night, intelligence gained some days after from Eliza. She said, that about two o'clock, on this night, she was roused by a violent ringing of the bell. She was startled by so unseasonable a summons. She slept in a chamber adjoining Mrs. Fielding's, and hesitated whether she should alarm her friend; but, the summons not being repeated, she had determined to forbear. Added to this, was the report of Mrs. Stevens, who, on the same night, about half an hour after I and her husband had retired, imagined that she heard the street door opened and shut; but, this being followed by no other consequence, she supposed herself mistaken. I have little doubt that, in my feverish and troubled sleep, I actually went forth, posted to the house of Mrs. Fielding, rung for admission, and shortly after returned to my own apartment. This confusion of mind was somewhat allayed by the return of light. It gave way to more uniform but not less rueful and despondent perceptions. The image of Achsa filled my fancy, but it was the harbinger of nothing but humiliation and sorrow. To outroot the conviction of my own unworthiness, to persuade myself that I was regarded with the tenderness that Stevens had ascribed to her, that the discovery of my thoughts would not excite her anger and grief, I felt to be impossible. In this state of mind, I could not see her. To declare my feelings would produce indignation and anguish; to hide them from her scrutiny was not in my power; yet, what would she think of my estranging myself from her society? What expedient could I honestly adopt to justify my absence, and what employments could I substitute for those precious hours hitherto devoted to her? " _This_ afternoon," thought I, "she has been invited to spend at Stedman's country-house on Schuylkill. She consented to go, and I was to accompany her. I am fit only for solitude. My behaviour, in her presence, will be enigmatical, capricious, and morose. I must not go: yet what will she think of my failure? Not to go will be injurious and suspicious." I was undetermined. The appointed hour arrived. I stood at my chamber-window, torn by a variety of purposes, and swayed alternately by repugnant arguments. I several times went to the door of my apartment, and put my foot upon the first step of the staircase, but as often paused, reconsidered, and returned to my room. In these fluctuations the hour passed. No messenger arrived from Mrs. Fielding, inquiring into the cause of my delay. Was she offended at my negligence? Was she sick and disabled from going, or had she changed her mind? I now remembered her parting words at our last interview. Were they not susceptible of two constructions? She said my visit was too long, and bade me begone. Did she suspect my presumption, and is she determined thus to punish me? This terror added anew to all my former anxieties. It was impossible to rest in this suspense. I would go to her; I would lay before her all the anguish of my heart; I would not spare myself. She shall not reproach me more severely than I will reproach myself. I will hear my sentence from her own lips, and promise unlimited submission to the doom of separation and exile which she will pronounce. I went forth to her house. The drawing-room and summer-house were empty. I summoned Philip the footman: his mistress was gone to Mr. Stedman's. "How? --To Stedman's? --In whose company?" "Miss Stedman and her brother called for her in the carriage, and persuaded her to go with them." Now my heart sunk, indeed! Miss Stedman's _brother_! A youth, forward, gallant, and gay! Flushed with prosperity, and just returned from Europe, with all the confidence of age, and all the ornaments of education! She has gone with him, though pre-engaged to me! Poor Arthur, how art thou despised! This information only heightened my impatience. I went away, but returned in the evening. I waited till eleven, but she came not back. I cannot justly paint the interval that passed till next morning. It was void of sleep. On leaving her house, I wandered into the fields. Every moment increased my impatience. "She will probably spend the morrow at Stedman's," said I, "and possibly the next day. Why should I wait for her return? Why not seek her there, and rid myself at once of this agonizing suspense? Why not go thither now? This night, wherever I spend it, will be unacquainted with repose. I will go; it is already near twelve, and the distance is more than eight miles. I will hover near the house till morning, and then, as early as possible, demand an interview." I was well acquainted with Stedman's villa, having formerly been there with Mrs. Fielding. I quickly entered its precincts. I went close to the house; looked mournfully at every window. At one of them a light was to be seen, and I took various stations to discover, if possible, the persons within. Methought once I caught a glimpse of a female, whom my fancy easily imagined to be Achsa. I sat down upon the lawn, some hundred feet from the house, and opposite the window whence the light proceeded. I watched it, till at length some one came to the window, lifted it, and, leaning on her arms, continued to look out. The preceding day had been a very sultry one: the night, as usual after such a day and the fall of a violent shower, was delightfully serene and pleasant. Where I stood was enlightened by the moon. Whether she saw me or not, I could hardly tell, or whether she distinguished any thing but a human figure. Without reflecting on what was due to decorum and punctilio, I immediately drew near the house. I quickly perceived that her attention was fixed. Neither of us spoke, till I had placed myself directly under her; I then opened my lips, without knowing in what manner to address her. She spoke first, and in a startled and anxious voice:-- "Who is that?" "Arthur Mervyn; he that was two days ago your friend." "Mervyn! What is it that brings you here at this hour? What is the matter? What has happened? Is anybody sick?" "All is safe; all are in good health." "What then do you come hither for at such an hour?" "I meant not to disturb you; I meant not to be seen." "Good heavens! How you frighten me! What can be the reason of so strange----" "Be not alarmed. I meant to hover near the house till morning, that I might see you as early as possible." "For what purpose?" "I will tell you when we meet, and let that be at five o'clock; the sun will then be risen; in the cedar-grove under the bank; till when, farewell." Having said this, I prevented all expostulation, by turning the angle of the house, and hastening towards the shore of the river. I roved about the grove that I have mentioned. In one part of it is a rustic seat and table, shrouded by trees and shrubs, and an intervening eminence, from the view of those in the house. This I designed to be the closing scene of my destiny. Presently I left this spot, and wandered upward through embarrassed and obscure paths, starting forward or checking my pace, according as my wayward meditations governed me. Shall I describe my thoughts? Impossible! It was certainly a temporary loss of reason; nothing less than madness could lead into such devious tracks, drag me down to so hopeless, helpless, panicful a depth, and drag me down so suddenly; lay waste, as at a signal, all my flourishing structures, and reduce them in a moment to a scene of confusion and horror. What did I fear? What did I hope? What did I design? I cannot tell; my glooms were to retire with the night. The point to which every tumultuous feeling was linked was the coming interview with Achsa. That was the boundary of fluctuation and suspense. Here was the sealing and ratification of my doom. I rent a passage through the thicket, and struggled upward till I reached the edge of a considerable precipice; I laid me down at my length upon the rock, whose cold and hard surface I pressed with my bared and throbbing breast. I leaned over the edge; fixed my eyes upon the water and wept--plentifully; but why? May _this_ be my heart's last beat, if I can tell why? I had wandered so far from Stedman's, that, when roused by the light, I had some miles to walk before I could reach the place of meeting. Achsa was already there. I slid down the rock above, and appeared before her. Well might she be startled at my wild and abrupt appearance. I placed myself, without uttering a word, upon a seat opposite to her, the table between, and, crossing my arms upon the table, leaned my head upon them, while my face was turned towards and my eyes fixed upon hers. I seemed to have lost the power and the inclination to speak. She regarded me, at first, with anxious curiosity; after examining my looks, every emotion was swallowed up in terrified sorrow. "For God's sake! --what does all this mean? Why am I called to this place? What tidings, what fearful tidings, do you bring?" I did not change my posture or speak. "What," she resumed, "could inspire all this woe? Keep me not in this suspense, Arthur; these looks and this silence shock and afflict me too much." "Afflict you?" said I, at last; "I come to tell you what, now that I am here, I cannot tell----" There I stopped. "Say what, I entreat you. You seem to be very unhappy--such a change--from yesterday!" "Yes! From yesterday; all then was a joyous calm, and now all is--but then I knew not my infamy, my guilt----" "What words are these, and from you, Arthur? Guilt is to you impossible. If purity is to be found on earth, it is lodged in your heart. What have you done?" "I have dared--how little you expect the extent of my daring! That such as I should look upwards with this ambition." I stood up, and taking her hands in mine, as she sat, looked earnestly in her face:--"I come only to beseech your pardon. To tell you my crime, and then disappear forever; but first let me see if there be any omen of forgiveness. Your looks--they are kind; heavenly; compassionate still. I will trust them, I believe; and yet" (letting go her hands, and turning away) "this offence is beyond the reach even of _your_ mercy." "How beyond measure these words and this deportment distress me! Let me know the worst; I cannot bear to be thus perplexed." "Why," said I, turning quickly round and again taking her hands, "that Mervyn, whom you have honoured and confided in, and blessed with your sweet regards, has been----" "What has he been? Divinely amiable, heroic in his virtue, I am sure. What else has he been?" "This Mervyn has imagined, has dared--will you forgive him?" "Forgive you what? Why don't you speak? Keep not my soul in this suspense." "He has dared--But do not think that I am he. Continue to look as now, and reserve your killing glances, the vengeance of those eyes, as for one that is absent. ----Why, what--you weep, then, at last. That is a propitious sign. When pity drops from the eyes of our judge, then should the suppliant approach. Now, in confidence of pardon, I will tell you; this Mervyn, not content with all you have hitherto granted him, has dared--to _love_ you; nay, to think of you as of _his wife_!" Her eye sunk beneath mine, and, disengaging her hands, she covered her face with them. "I see my fate," said I, in a tone of despair. "Too well did I predict the effect of this confession; but I will go--_and unforgiven_." She now partly uncovered her face. The hand was withdrawn from her cheek, and stretched towards me. She looked at me. "Arthur! I _do_ forgive thee." --With what accents was this uttered! With what looks! The cheek that was before pale with terror was now crimsoned over by a different emotion, and delight swam in her eye. Could I mistake? My doubts, my new-born fears, made me tremble while I took the offered hand. "Surely," faltered I, "I am not--I cannot be--so blessed." There was no need of words. The hand that I held was sufficiently eloquent. She was still silent. "Surely," said I, "my senses deceive me. A bliss like this cannot be reserved for me. Tell me once more--set my doubting heart at rest." She now gave herself to my arms:--"I have not words--Let your own heart tell you, you have made your Achsa----" At this moment, a voice from without (it was Miss Stedman's) called, "Mrs. Fielding! where are you?" My friend started up, and, in a hasty voice, bade me begone. "You must not be seen by this giddy girl. Come hither this evening, as if by my appointment, and I will return with you." --She left me in a kind of trance. I was immovable. My reverie was too delicious;--but let me not attempt the picture. If I can convey no image of my state previous to this interview, my subsequent feelings are still more beyond the reach of my powers to describe. Agreeably to the commands of my mistress, I hastened away, evading paths which might expose me to observation. I speedily made my friends partake of my joy, and passed the day in a state of solemn but confused rapture. I did not accurately portray the various parts of my felicity. The whole rushed upon my soul at once. My conceptions were too rapid and too comprehensive to be distinct. I went to Stedman's in the evening. I found in the accents and looks of my Achsa new assurances that all which had lately passed was more than a dream. She made excuses for leaving the Stedmans sooner than ordinary, and was accompanied to the city by her friend. We dropped Mrs. Fielding at her own house, and thither, after accompanying Miss Stedman to her own home, I returned upon the wings of tremulous impatience. Now could I repeat every word of every conversation that has since taken place between us; but why should I do that on paper? Indeed, it could not be done. All is of equal value, and all could not be comprised but in many volumes. There needs nothing more deeply to imprint it on my memory; and, while thus reviewing the past, I should be iniquitously neglecting the present. What is given to the pen would be taken from her; and that, indeed, would be--but no need of saying what it would be, since it is impossible. I merely write to allay these tumults which our necessary separation produces; to aid me in calling up a little patience till the time arrives when our persons, like our minds, shall be united forever. That time--may nothing happen to prevent--but nothing can happen. But why this ominous misgiving just now? My love has infected me with these unworthy terrors, for she has them too. This morning I was relating my dream to her. She started, and grew pale. A sad silence ensued the cheerfulness that had reigned before:--"Why thus dejected, my friend?" "I hate your dream. It is a horrid thought. Would to God it had never occurred to you!" "Why, surely, you place no confidence in dreams?" "I know not where to place confidence; not in my present promises of joy,"--and she wept. I endeavoured to soothe or console her. Why, I asked, did she weep? "My heart is sore. Former disappointments were so heavy; the hopes which were blasted were so like my present ones, that the dread of a like result will intrude upon my thoughts. And now your dream! Indeed, I know not what to do. I believe I ought still to retract--ought, at least, to postpone an act so irrevocable." Now was I obliged again to go over my catalogue of arguments to induce her to confirm her propitious resolution to be mine within the week. I, at last, succeeded, even in restoring her serenity, and beguiling her fears by dwelling on our future happiness. Our household, while we stayed in America,--in a year or two we hie to Europe,--should be _thus_ composed. Fidelity, and skill, and pure morals, should be sought out, and enticed, by generous recompenses, into our domestic service. Duties which should be light and regular. --Such and such should be our amusements and employments abroad and at home: and would not this be true happiness? "Oh yes--if it may be so." "It shall be so; but this is but the humble outline of the scene; something is still to be added to complete our felicity." "What more can be added?" "What more? Can Achsa ask what more? She who has not been _only_ a wife----" But why am I indulging this pen-prattle? The hour she fixed for my return to her is come, and now take thyself away, quill. Lie there, snug in thy leathern case, till I call for thee, and that will not be very soon. I believe I will abjure thy company till all is settled with my love. Yes; I _will_ abjure thee; so let _this_ be thy last office, till Mervyn has been made the happiest of men. THE END.	{ "id": "18508" }
1	None	Have you seen the magnificent slope of our beloved Tamalpais, as it curves from the changing colour of the bay, till touching the fleecy fog rolling in from the Pacific, it passes from day to rest? If you have not, I hope you may, for the sooner you have this glorious picture on your memory's walls, the brighter will be your future, and you will have a bit of beauty which need not be forgotten even in heaven itself. There is one who, though passing his life beneath its shadow, enjoying the scented wind from its forests and the music of its birds and waterfalls and sighing madroños, does not see it, yet calls it his God, and believes it to be the Giver of all good, as we who have never seen our God feel that One who bestows blessings so bountiful must be beautiful beyond words. Many walks, miles in extent, have my Quito and I taken. I say my Quito, for he is my son, my only son; and beneath the thick shade of laurels, beside the roadside troughs, we have rested and spoken, he to me of the unheard, I to him of the unseen. Come back with me to the days of my youth, those merry days of California before the gold was about her dear form like prisoner's chains; before the greed of the States and England had forced us into the weary drudgery of the earth, and made us the slaves of misbegotten progress. We had our church then and dear old Padre Andreas at San Anselmo, and, my dear friends from the States, we also had cockles from Tomales, which were eaten with relish on the beach at Sausalito, just where George the Greek's is now, though then there was only a little hut kept by a man whom we called Victor--and we had feasts and fasts so well arranged, that dyspepsia was unknown. One day when I had been on a long tramp through the woods, gathering mushrooms, I came home tired and hungry, and found our old housekeeper, Catalina, smiling complacently, as she sat on the stepping block by the kitchen door, rolling tamales for supper. "Oh! Master Carlos," she cried, "we have had much to worry us to-day. Look at those poor, little ducks all dead and the mother hen also." "Who killed them, Catalina?" I asked in astonishment, as I saw my pet brood of ducks and their over careful mother lying dead in the grass. "I did," she replied, "and it was time that something was done. Madre Moreno has been busy again. The cows gave bloody milk last Friday, and to-day, while I was sorting some herbs, the hen and her brood began to act mysteriously, to tumble about as Victor might, after too much wine. All at once I saw the cause, Madre Moreno had bewitched them, and in three minutes I had cut all their throats and have given the wicked woman a lesson." "Catalina! Catalina!" I cried, "how can you be so cruel and superstitious?" Her face lighted up with supreme contempt for me, but she said nothing more. On the ground about her were bits of leaves which I recognized as nightshade and henbane, which could well account for the actions of the late hen and ducklings. "What are these?" I asked. "Little Pablo brought them for dinner; he thought they were mustard, but they were not, so I threw them away." "Poor ducks and poor Catalina," was all that I could say, and went laughing into the house, while she muttered to herself about the ignorance of the new generation. My home was, and is a beautiful one, low and long, with all the rooms opening on the broad veranda; it is part of adobe and part of wood, the sides being covered with a network of fuchsia, heliotrope and jasmine reaching to the eaves of the brown tile roof; a broad, branching fig tree is in the little court before it, and a clump of yuccas and fan palms to the right, while down to the road and along the front stretches a broken hedge of Castilian roses, which we Californians love as the gift of old Spain, our first good nurse, we must always have a nurse it seems, England, Spain, Mexico and our present, very dry one--but let us be content, our majority will come. There is a pretty stream from the mountains, brought through hollow logs, and two good wells to water the place, which is green in the hottest summer when all the hills and meadows are yellow and brown from drought; before it rise slopes of manzanita, and higher hills covered with redwoods, and then the sharply cut peak of Tamalpais, from which on clear days we not only may see the good St. Helena, but alas, as in all the world, Diablo, himself, is in view, black and barren, though we do sometimes call him San Diablo, as the old Greeks did the Eumenides, in propitiatory compliment. Madre Moreno was indeed a strange woman, and feared by the country people, before whom she lost no opportunity of playing her role of witch, and she was known by all for her remarkable skill in extracting the virtues of herbs, and brewing such efficacious drinks that even Pedirpozzo, the famous physician of the Alameda side, had been willing to consult with her. I was about twenty years old at this time and had but recently returned from the City of Mexico, where I had been graduated in the law, having also made a thorough study of botany, and was happily and lucratively employed in collecting specimens of the Californian flora for the old college, as well as for one in the States, and two in Europe. This pleasurable employment gave me an income, more than supplying the few wants of the primitive life at the little rancho, the herds of which were alone a good source of revenue. Just beyond my home, to the west, over the first hill, was a ruined adobe, surrounded by a great number of fig and olive trees; there had never been any windows in the house, but the arches for the doors were still standing, where ivy, poison oak and wild honey-suckle hung in profusion; the cellar, which was quite filled with stones, was overgrown with Solomon's seal, eschscholtzia and yerba santa, while a white rose and a shapeless clump of half wild artichokes grew where the garden had once been, also many flowers, hardly distinguishable from the weeds, having lost all they had ever gained by cultivation; a winding bed of ranunculus, or little frog, as Linnaeus wittily calls these water lovers, marked the course of a narrow stream which had long ago broken away from its former wooden trough. Among the stones and decaying beams were enormous bushes of nightshade, which seemed to poison the plants about them, all of which had a sickly green wherever they grew under its shadow. This place, with its surrounding acres, was my property, and had been before the fire which had destroyed the adobe house, one of the prettiest spots in the country. There had long been a spirited contest between my grandfather and the father of Madre Moreno over this bit of property, a strife which had caused much bad feeling in both families, and when it was at last settled in favour of our side, old Juan Moreno lost all control of his feelings, and in a fit of anger dropped dead at the very door of the court. Though the anger and chagrin at the loss of his case hastened his death, he had always been subject to a trouble of the heart which was liable to prove fatal at any moment under undue excitement. Ambrosia Moreno, who was called Madre, when she grew older, held our family to blame for this affliction, and made a vow that every generation of the Sotos should suffer through this plot of ground as long as she lived. This curse was first felt in the time of Ignacio de Soto, my grandfather, when the fig trees failed to put forth fruit and the olives were all blighted. By this, Ambrosia Moreno established her reputation in the country as a witch, and was never omitted from a christening or wedding or from any auspicious event where her ill will might, in any possible way, cause misfortune. In time Madre Moreno grew proud of this distinction awarded to her, dressing and acting so as to lead the people to believe her to have supernatural assistance, and when in the time of the next generation, the night of the marriage of my father with Neves Arguello, (to which celebration Madre Moreno was uninvited), the adobe house in the grove of figs, which had stood untenanted for years, was burned to the ground, her reputation as a witch was firmly established throughout the country; many a good woman after that event, when the wind carried off the clothes drying on the hedges, or the soot fell down the chimney into the kitchen at night, knew that the Madre was about, playing her mischievous pranks. One day Mercedes Dana, a girl whom we rather felt sorry for, (her mother, who was a de los Santos, having married an American from Boston), having less faith in Madre Moreno's power than the rest of her neighbours had tried that never-failing test for witchcraft, and placed a piece of steel under the chair where the Madre was sitting, but she, too, was at once converted from her skepticism, for when the Madre wanted to leave she was unable to move until the bit of steel was taken away. It was considered a dangerous experiment, and even Mercedes' little spark of Yankee "devil-may-care" burned very low after it, although the only thing that went wrong at the Dana's that year was that the hens laid soft-shelled eggs, which trouble was soon remedied by mixing a powder with their feed, which powder Madre Moreno herself supplied, and I strongly suspect that it was made of burned cockle shells. Madre Moreno dressed peculiarly; she wore when I first remember her, a short black skirt and waist; a little cape of red woolen cloth hung over her shoulders, about her neck was a white ruff which set off her peaked face and made it look even more withered and yellow; her hair was short, and over a silk skull cap was drawn a black reboso, the ends of which were embroidered in colour with odd designs. Her whole person was the perfection of neatness, and she was welcome from Bolinas to San Rafael for the good she did, as her knowledge of herb and even mineral medicines was extensive. At my christening it was thought that the curse would be removed, as Madre Moreno was invited to the ceremonies, and from that time was a constant visitor at the rancho for some years, always received with a welcome, mingled, perhaps, with a little fear, by all save Catalina, who, despite her dread of the queer woman, never could conceal her hatred for her, and when the sudden death of my father was closely followed by that of my mother, she forbade Madre Moreno the house. To this I could say nothing, as I have always a reverence for the woman who rules at home, and Catalina now was my housekeeper, in charge of broom and wash tub, and grand almoner of my dinners and luncheons.	{ "id": "18660" }
2	None	Madre Moreno never came again to my house, but always seemed to take an interest in me, who, when I reached an age when I could be trusted away from the garden, would wander with her through the woods while she was gathering her herbs, and from her I learned much that was of great benefit to me in after years. After my return from Mexico, we greeted in friendly manner, and she seemed to take great pleasure in my company. I never approached the ruin without a strange foreboding of something terrible about to happen, which always disappeared after I had been there a while and the charming beauty of the quiet spot had turned my thoughts into pleasanter channels; perhaps the feeling of fear was attributable to the stories I had heard during childhood, and had never outgrown. One day I saw Madre Moreno's red cloak showing out brightly from behind the rank growths of nightshade, the tenderer leaves of which she seemed to be carefully gathering. She was muttering to herself words unintelligible to me, and did not seem to notice me, although I stood for a long time very near where she was at work. "Good morning, Madre; you are very busy to-day," I said, after a while. She looked up, nodding in a friendly way, but not answering, while she continued her jargon as she carefully laid in the basket the oval-shaped, pointed leaves. As I drew nearer I noticed for the first time that it was not the common nightshade, which grew wild about the country, but was the atropa, a plant not indigenous to California. It was in flower; the bell-shaped blossoms, of a dead, violet-brown colour, with the green leaves about them, made a disagreeable combination seldom seen in any of nature's pictures. When she had completely filled her basket she turned to me and spoke: "I am glad to see thee, Carlos, for it has been long since we have met, and I began to think that thou hadst forgotten thy old friend, or, perhaps, hadst learned all about flowers and herbs, so that she could teach thee no more." "No, Madre; I shall never know so much about them as you do. I can learn their names and values only, while you put them all to so many good uses," I answered. "What do you do with the leaves you have just gathered? They are very poisonous, and you should wash your hands well after touching them, and especially after getting the juice on your fingers!" "But thou knowest poison makes little difference with one like me, who hath a charmed life," replied Madre Moreno, as she handed me the basket to carry while she nimbly stepped from stone to stone and climbed out of the hollow, here and there startling a snake or lizard that lay in the sunshine. "It is well done!" she abruptly said, and looking at me, burst into a fit of laughter which was so spontaneous and hearty that I joined with her, though I knew not at what I was laughing. My own laugh sounded strangely, however, and seemed to me to echo with another tone from the vine-covered walls as if some one were there, and like Madre Moreno, were also laughing at me. I stopped suddenly, and I felt my face change colour, and the same awe which I so often felt when about the ruined house came upon me with a force I had never known before; I trembled as I stood there beside this strange woman, who laughed louder and louder, striking her little hands together in seeming ecstacy, while the sounds echoed and re-echoed among the fig trees and heaps of stones, yet seeming all the time less like echoes than like the voices of innumerable, invisible creatures darting everywhere about the grove. The place grew darker, for clouds just then obscured the sun and covered the hills beyond Tamalpais. Madre Moreno came nearer to me and touched my forehead. . . . . . . . . Suddenly the sun shown bright as ever upon the fig and olive trees and gleamed from thousands of silver drops hanging from every leaf; the snakes and lizards lay quietly upon the steaming rocks and half burnt beams, while the rank vegetation sent forth a sweet scent of green life. "Why do you laugh at me, Madre?" I asked. "Only, Carlos," she answered, "because it is so odd to see thee carrying the old witch's basket with all the charms and thou knowing nothing about it all; oh it is very odd!" and the Madre laughed again. "The storm has gone over," she continued, "I feared it would last long, but winter is almost gone, and it passed without much rain falling here." "What storm?" I asked. "The storm which has just passed, hast thou not noted it?" "I saw no storm, you must be dreaming Madre, or trying some of your spells upon me. There has been no storm for the sun has been shining brightly, except when that cloud passed for a moment," I answered as I handed her the basket. "Whence came the drops of water which lie upon the leaves, Señor Carlos, if not from the clouds which thou canst still see passing over the hills toward San Anselmo? Thou knowest not all the power Ambrosia Moreno, thy little madre, hath. So thou hast held the basket with the flat green leaves." "Oh! Madre Moreno, I can never understand you, but you must be careful of the leaves you have just gathered, for they contain a most powerful poison. I am more afraid, since the plant is rare or even unknown in the Californias, that you do not know its power; you surely can never have found it before, and how it came to be growing here is incomprehensible to me." The witch bent her head and looking into my face from under her overhanging reboso, raised her finger and shook it before me saying as she did so, "Thou art a learned señorito, Carlos Sotos, but although Ambrosia Moreno hath never been in the college, she knows more of the little flowers and bright leaves of this plant thou speakest of than all the Jesuits or thy people shall ever learn. The very plant growing here among these fallen stones is as old as thou art, Carlos Sotos, and that almost to a year. It has ever grown on, season after season, and shall live until its duty is performed, then let it wither when it shall no longer be needed here. Thou must come down and see me, Carlos," she continued in an altered voice, "for I have some new flowers which thou shalt have; come for I am lonely and like young company, though I be a witch as they say. Where goest thou to-day?" "Above on the divide where I hope to find some of the Indian pinks for my new collection." "When doest thou return, before sundown?" asked Madre Moreno as she prepared to go. "Before that, surely," I answered, "I shall be back here at the ruin by four o'clock, though I had no idea that the time had gone so fast, it is almost noon; I must hurry or I shall have Catalina very hot waiting with a cold supper. By the way Madre, she sent her best respects to you and hopes that you will not bewitch any more of her poultry, for if you do, they will be a headless lot in a short time." Madre Moreno nodded knowingly, and closed one eye slyly as she answered, "Thou art the cleverest señorito in these parts, but little as thou believest in my influence with el bueno Diablo, as the old women call him, I could disclose to thee many strange events which shall come after this day, and from this meeting thou shall date thy future." She started but turned and said, "My son, I have learned to love thee, yet I have a duty beyond love; say that thou believest that my sainted father was unjustly treated, and thy life shall be blessed." "I cannot, Madre Moreno, I am sorry for the sad result of the case at court, but as you know, it was only justice." She said no more, but with a laugh, half broken by a sigh, the little woman walked briskly under the olives and down over the brow of the hill. The grass and trees were all wet, the great laurels by the path shown as if varnished, the huge madroño leaves each held a jewel on its tip; all evidences of a heavy rain were about me, yet I had not been aware of it falling. In a short time I was deep in the redwood forest, away from the world in companionship with God.	{ "id": "18660" }
3	None	It was nearly five o'clock when I approached the ruin on my return; the sun was now low enough to throw long shadows over the place, and made an effect of gloom which formed a good setting for the wall, with its green drapery standing out shining and warm in a glorious flood of golden sunshine. As I sat down to enjoy the picture, I became aware of some one walking behind the great clumps of nightshade, and presently a young woman stepped from behind the atropa where Madre Moreno had that morning been picking the poisonous leaves, and walked across the hollow, stepping gracefully from stone to stone till she came to the bright spot where the sun was shining, and seating herself at the foot of the wall, opened a book and began to read aloud. Beautiful as the scene had been before, it was now enhanced, and I did not stir, lest I should dispel the lovely vision. For fully half an hour I must have remained there before she became aware of my presence; when she saw me, she started a little, but regaining her composure quickly, closed her book, and rose to leave the place. In crossing the hollow she stumbled and fell, uttering a sharp cry of pain; I ran immediately to her assistance. Supporting the fainting girl, I helped, or rather carried, her to the bank where I had been sitting. By the time I reached the place, she had recovered consciousness, and in answer to my inquiry said that her ankle had been sprained by the fall, and that the pain was severe. As she spoke the tears came to her eyes, and she gave a cry when she tried to rise. "Do you live near here?" I asked, for she was a stranger to me, though I knew all the people for many miles around. "I should not call it far, under usual circumstances," she answered, "but now it is a long way. I live with my aunt, Ambrosia Moreno. Oh, I can never get there." "You must bathe the ankle here; there is a pool, and the rock beside it makes a good seat," and gently lifting her, I placed her beside the stream, which ran clear and cold from under the broad leaves. Without any show of false modesty, she did as I directed, and having saturated my handkerchief, I bound it about the sprain, and wrapping her long cloak of wool around her, put her shoe and stocking in my pocket, and then lifting her to my shoulder, started down the road to Madre Moreno's cottage. In appearance, the young woman was of small figure, delicately formed and graceful; her face full of life, with finely marked eyebrows of the same brown shade as her hair; her eyes were blue--a rare colour among us Californians--unusually full and brilliant, and to-day suffused with tears. I noticed that the pupils were remarkably large, sometimes covering the greater part, if not all, of the iris. Small and light as she was, I had to rest often, for the distance was nearly a mile, and the surface of the road was much broken. When reaching the top of the last rise of the road before arriving at Madre Moreno's I rested for the last time. "I am very sorry that this accident has occurred, and I can never thank you sufficiently for the kindness you have shown me; had you not come to the ruin I could never have reached home, and the thought of spending a night there makes me shudder even now," she said as she sat by the roadside. "I am sorry that we have to delay so long on the way, for your aunt will be much worried," I replied. "Aunt Ambrosia ought surely to make some use of her power and come out and carry me home on her broomstick steed," she answered, looking up at me with a smile. "I was much surprised to see you at the ruins this afternoon, and indeed almost thought that you were some spirit of the place, for I have never seen any woman but Madre Moreno there, as they are so afraid of the snakes and lizards which abound, and they also say that there is a curse upon the spot which is liable to affect any one who may stop there long enough. How did you find the ruin? It is so hidden from view by the trees that a stranger could scarcely have found it except by the merest chance." "Aunt Ambrosia told me of it, and said that the sun effects were beautiful there in the afternoon, and that I had better go to-day between four and five, as it was at the best then, when half of the ruin would be in shadow and the one standing wall receive the full sunlight. I was pleased with the picture, but had I known of the snakes this accident never could have happened. You were looking so intently at me when I discovered your presence that I was startled and even thought of Aunt Ambrosia's skill in the black art, and that you might be some supernatural friend of hers, hence my hasty retreat and consequent disaster." "It is a pity that I should have been the cause of the mishap," I answered; though truthfully I was much pleased at our novel meeting, and I knew the sprain was but slight. I again took her in my arms and started off at a brisk walk down the hill. It was dusk when we approached the house, and passed along the narrow path, and knocked at the open door of Madre Moreno's little house. I placed my fair burden in an arm chair, which stood on the veranda and, while waiting for an answer to my knock, looked into her beautiful face which was turned partly away from me, but even in the shadow where she was sitting, the wonderful brilliancy of her eyes was noticeable and seemed to illumine her whole face. Madre Moreno came to the door; she held a lighted candle, and as she recognized me, looked surprised and said, "Hast thou seen no one on the road Carlos? I have been waiting long for my niece, she went to the ruin this afternoon and has not yet returned; she must have lost her way, for she surely would not stay so late otherwise. I shall go out to search for her; I hope she has met with no accident. Help me search, Carlos." Madre Moreno seemed very anxious, and to have lost all the happy spirits and buoyancy she had shown in the morning. "I am here, Aunt Ambrosia, and thanks to this gentleman or I should still be out on the hill, in the moonlight with all the lizards and snakes, and perhaps some of your good friends also," spoke out the girl in a laughing voice. "That is good, good, good!" exclaimed Madre Moreno. "How didst thou, Ysidria, come to find our friend Carlos de Soto and he to take thee home?" and the Madre began to laugh boisterously. "Stay to sup with us Carlos," she said, when she had enough recovered from her fit of laughter to speak, "or perhaps thou art afraid of the old witch." In as few words as possible the accident was explained to Madre Moreno, and I again lifted her niece and placed her on a lounge in the house. "The Madre can bring you out all right, if anyone can," I said as I left the room, "I will take the liberty of inquiring for you in the morning." As I walked down the path to the gate, I spoke aloud, "What beautiful, beautiful eyes!" "Yes, that they are, Master Carlos!" said a voice seemingly beside me. I turned, the voice sounded like that of the Madre, but no one was to be seen, however, the large black cat which had followed me, put up her back to be stroked and purred and rubbed against my leg. As I closed the gate the same voice sounded again but more faintly. "Beautiful eyes hath Ysidria; beautiful eyes!"	{ "id": "18660" }
4	None	When I returned home, Catalina had a hot supper ready, and I sat down, forgetting, for the moment, the events of the day, in the odour of the good things on the table. "What success, Don Carlos, have you found the flowers you were searching for?" "Yes, Catalina, I found the plants just where I expected to find them, and I also found at the old adobe what I did not look for." I then gave an account of the day, however, making as modest enumeration of the charms of Madre Moreno's niece, as I was able, for fear of exciting Catalina's suspicions. I began to feel that I was much interested in the beautiful Ysidria, and hated to have old Catalina discover it, for the girls relationship to the Madre would, I knew, be the cause of much disquiet to the good woman. I sat before the door long after supper, building air castles, in all of which the fair stranger held a place. Her brilliant eyes were always before my mind, as I had first seen them that afternoon, sometimes of a deep blue colour, and then in a moment black as jet, when the dilated pupil covered the iris, and then her pretty smile and graceful form each had a great and wonderful charm for me. The only thing that troubled me, and I tried to laugh it out of my thoughts, was the connection with the reputed witch, but foolish as I knew such notions to be, I was, however, unable to banish them, and I often wished that the beautiful Ysidria was any one in the world but the niece of Ambrosia Moreno. Not that I had any dislike for the Madre, or that I bore her any ill will for the various misfortunes which had come to my family through her agency, as the country people believed, but it was unpleasant to me to think of this young creature living under the same roof with and under the influence of such a woman as I knew the Moreno to be, aside from her connection with el bueno Diablo, at which I could only laugh, and a story which I knew to be encouraged by the Madre herself, simply for the notoriety it gave her, and the power she was enabled through this belief to exercise over the people. Ysidria, I had already learned, was as skeptical as myself in regard to Madre Moreno's spells, for the laughing manner in which she had spoken of her aunt's charms and witcheries, when we were on the hill and even in the presence of the Madre herself, convinced me of her intelligence and education. It was not this that troubled me concerning Ysidria, but knowing Madre Moreno as I did, and what an unscrupulous, scheming and heartless woman she was, I felt that she had brought this lovely niece to her home for some purpose known only to herself. Of what that purpose could be I had not the faintest idea, but I knew the Madre never did anything without an object. I laughed at myself for the great interest I so suddenly felt in a person whom I had never seen before, and then only for a few hours. But laugh as I would, I had to own that I was something more than interested in the stranger, and the pleasure with which I looked forward to the promised call in the morning, and my anxiety for her recovery, plainly showed me that my heart was fast being lost, if indeed it were not already gone from me. Catalina sat at the door with me after her work was done, but I was so deep in my own thoughts, and often did not hear her remarks, that she left me and went to her room. I did not notice when she left, and not until the clock in the veranda struck eleven did I become aware of the length of time I had been dreaming awake. The moon was shining clear and full in the blue, cloudless sky, so bright that scarcely a star could be seen, illuminating the whole country so that everything not in shadow could be distinguished as well as if it were noontime. I walked out from the garden down by the Castilian hedge and along the road where the shadows of the oaks, with their twisted and mistletoe-covered branches, made grotesque forms. I was very fond of these solitary walks on moonlight nights, often going as far as the divide, from which Bolinas and the great ocean can be seen, and where Larsen's wayside inn now stands, but to-night there was a new sensation of loneliness which I had never felt before, and I longed for some one to be with me; then I began to wonder whom I would prefer for a companion, and thought of all my friends, even to old Madre Moreno, but none of them seemed to be the one to break the new and undefinable loneliness. Suddenly the form of the fair stranger, with her bright eyes and expressive face, came up before my fancy, and I exclaimed, "Yes, it is she; it is she alone!" "Alone!" sounded back upon my ear like a human voice, which startled me from my reverie, and I saw that I was standing beside the old adobe, whither I had wandered without knowing. Close at my feet lay a bit of white cloth which attracted my attention, and I picked it up. It was a handkerchief of fine cambric, in one corner of which was embroidered a name, which I could easily read in the moonlight, "Ysidria." I read the name aloud, and the great wall with its ivy glistening silver in the light echoed back the name. At the time I was not surprised to hear the the three syllables so fully pronounced by the echo. I enjoyed the sound of the name, and called it again and again. "Ysidria! Ysidria!" each time called back the ruined wall, and at last I had to laugh as I thought of the ludicrous appearance I presented, calling aloud a name and like a child being pleased with the voice of the unseen spirit, but as I laughed, that too, reverberated, but the sound seemed changed, and it made me involuntarily shudder as I remembered the scene of that very morning, when my laugh had produced the same strange feeling, half of awe and half of anger. I looked around as if I expected to find some one at my side. I started at every sound, and the long, creeping shadows made me tremble. I was certainly strong, and had often shown myself courageous in time of danger, but the mysterious awe which fell upon me here completely unnerved me, and a cold perspiration started, when from the wall I heard a whisper, distinctly audible, which pronounced the words, "Ysidria hath beautiful eyes!" I could not move, it seemed to me as if my heart ceased beating; I listened and strained my ears in agonizing suspense, but the voice did not come again, and the moon dropping suddenly behind the fig trees, cast the whole place into profound darkness. I felt free again, and pressing the handkerchief to my lips, imprinted a kiss upon it and then at the same moment called myself a fool for so suddenly becoming infatuated with the stranger in whom I had not the slightest reason for taking more than a passing interest at most, no more than common politeness required. Again I laughed aloud and again the same fearful, hollow echo came back to me from the ruined wall. I could stand it no longer, and turning, ran from the grove, over the brow of the hill to the road, fearing every moment lest the strange spell, from which I had just recovered, should seize me again. As I ascended the second hill, I saw, as I looked behind me, a female figure slowly walking down to the road from the grove of figs. I knew at once who it was from the odd manner of wearing her reboso, and by the lameness of her gait; it was Madre Moreno, the witch. The thought suddenly came to me that she must have been hidden in the ruin, and have heard me when I called the name of Ysidria, and I mentally cursed the old hag. Then I thought of the whispered sentence, and of the three syllabled echo; and knew they must have come from her. "What can the awful woman have in hand?" I asked myself, "What, but some wickedness. I wish she did not follow me so closely. Worse than all, she may tell the fair Ysidria what a fool I made of myself over her handkerchief; I almost wish with Catalina that the good old days were here again." I walked home more slowly, and entering the house quietly, reached my room just as the clock struck two.	{ "id": "18660" }
5	None	The winter went, and the hot summer passed pleasantly. It was about the beginning of October, when one morning, I walked down to Madre Moreno's house. I had become a constant visitor at the witch's cottage, and often dined there. The accident which had so oddly introduced Ysidria to me was not serious, and in a few days she was completely recovered. Ysidria served at the simple meals of Madre Moreno, and no one ever mixed my wine more to my taste than she did, and no one could make better cordial than Ysidria did with the sweet leaves of the yerba buena steeped in the sauternes which I made from my vineyard, and with which I supplied the Madre. Ysidria grew apparently more beautiful every day, and the brilliancy of her eyes, which had attracted my notice at first, became even more marked. I had begun reading aloud to her on afternoons, as we sat in the Moreno veranda, for Ysidria's eyes, though strong and of great power for distant vision, often entirely failed her when reading or looking at any near object, so I found great pleasure in my visits, and as the Madre was seldom present to annoy me, I thoroughly enjoyed every moment, as Ysidria had become a necessity to my happiness, and I loved her. On the morning of which I have spoken, I went to keep a walking engagement, and found Ysidria waiting for me in the garden. As I approached, I noticed that she held her reboso in her hand and was laughing immoderately, while she tripped from one end of the path to the other, singing snatches of songs or impromptu rhymes. As I stood by the gate she did not see me, though she came very near, near enough to have touched me. I felt a chill pass over me as I looked at the beautiful creature; there was something so unnatural, so weird about her actions, that I felt as if I were gazing upon a being from another world. Her eyes were brighter than ever before, but in them was no sight for what was near her; they seemed fixed upon objects far away. I could not speak, for when I tried to utter her name my voice refused to come, so I turned and went sorrowful and puzzled back to my home. The suspense I endured was almost unbearable. By the afternoon I went again to the Madre's house, and with strange forebodings knocked at the door, which was answered by Ysidria; she seemed to be completely recovered from her late mysterious attack, nor did she allude to anything having occurred during the morning out of the usual course, excepting that she twitted me for not keeping my engagement with her. She laughed as she took her reboso from the table, saying that she was out of patience, and that I must take the walk with her as punishment. I, of course said nothing of my morning visit, or what I had witnessed, but it troubled me greatly all the afternoon. We walked and talked, and now my good friends thank me for not reporting that conversation; it was fascinating, and even now I think there were glintings of common sense in it, but really not enough to warrant the extra type setting, (for which my publishers charge outrageously), required to give it. It was the same sort of thing you talked last summer with Guadaloupe at Catalina Island, Morris, and the same you talked with Vinnie in the Sierras, George, and the same you talked with all the girls in the States last year, Dickey. You don't want to hear it again, and I must cut expenses somewhere. It is enough to say, that though nothing was said, both Ysidria and I knew that we loved, and we knew whom. When we reached Madre Moreno's house, she came out and invited me to supper; there was a smile, a disagreeable, malicious smile on her face as she spoke, and not caring to alloy the pleasure of my afternoon with Ysidria by enduring the Madre's company, I refused, and walked over to my house.	{ "id": "18660" }
6	None	"Vengeance is mine and I will repay;" such was the text of Padre Arguello's discourse that hot October day, before his little congregation in Bolinas. The good father became as fervid as the day, and mopped his benevolent face many times before his panting audience was allowed to walk out in the open and catch a glimpse of the white ocean gleaming as a mass of melted silver till it met the dull, white horizon. A dozen fig trees before the door gave the only shade about the place excepting where the half ruined walls of the old church sheltered the Father's little garden. The congregation was soon dispersed, most of them riding to their homes in the foothills, while a few, who lived in the neighbourhood of the village, walked quietly down toward the sea, and the bright, cultivated gardens, which were kept green by the ever-flowing arroyo which here spread its rich alluvial deposits over the land in the winter time. I had ridden over the night before with all my household, and as many from the neighbouring ranchos had joined us on the way, there was as large a cavalcade as the little village had seen since Viscaino's pilot, Francisco Bolanos, christened the spot in 1602. It was Padre Arguello's farewell, as he was to sail for Acapulco in a few days, and the country people had come for many miles to do him honour. All had been much surprised when old Ambrosia Moreno entered the church and, with Ysidria, knelt through the service. Madre Moreno had not been to service or confession since her father's death, indeed I had heard her once make a blasphemous jest about the most holy Mass, and good Padre Andreas at San Anselmo, in whose flock she was the blackest sheep, gave her up as lost here and hereafter; so there was much surprise at the Madre's action. Catalina was simply indignant at this desecration, as she called it, and wondered that the beads had not burned her fingers. The sermon was long and dull, but I did not mind these defects, or rather thought them virtues, for my mind was not interrupted in the contemplation of Ysidria. I felt like laughing with delight all the day, and wore far from what is called now-a-days, a "Sunday face." There was a bull and bear fight in the afternoon, but Ysidria and I preferred a walk on the bluffs; of course, Madre Moreno went with us, but she considerately, or by chance, kept by herself. Madre Moreno had allowed her niece and myself a freedom of intercourse not at all in keeping with Californian customs, but she took upon her the duties of dueña at Bolinas, so that the many visitors should find no chance for wonder or remark. Catalina and the others of my household, went to the fight. There were not many at vespers, and Madre Moreno and Ysidria had started early for home with the Danas, so I had to myself the pleasure of kneeling in the spot where Ysidria had worshipped in the forenoon. Catalina and the servants were very gay, and her mind was so full of the entertainment, that she never spoke of the morning's wonder, but talked during all the moonlight homeward ride, about the tactics of the bull, which it seemed had been the victor. Catalina must have noticed a change in me, but she could not discover the cause, as she did not know where I had spent most of my time, thinking, that I as formerly, went out in the woods botanizing, though she must have wondered at the scarcity of my collections. Thus the wet season began and all the country grew green and the streams were filled, and the plants which had died or withered in the heat of summer, began to show new leaves, and the nightshade shot up tender green sprigs before the old growth had fairly died. Mercedes Dana, who never having had a love episode of her own, spent most of her time in ferreting out those of others and spreading the news with such exaggerations and embellishments as she thought needed, informed Catalina of the state of affairs which had already become the talk of the country. Catalina was astonished, for her thoughts were so occupied within the little circle of the rancho that she noted little of outside occurrences. She felt hurt, but, as she afterwards told me, she plainly saw why it was that I had never spoken to her on the subject, and she was grateful for the thoughtfulness which had so long kept from her the annoyance which the knowledge would have caused. She was grieved only at the relationship existing between Madre Moreno and Ysidria, and felt that in some way it was part of the curse. She said nothing to me of her discovery, acting as usual, only speaking often of the old family trouble between the Morenos and the Sotos, saying that she hoped the curse might pass over one generation, if not depart forever.	{ "id": "18660" }
7	None	The green December hills, with flaming spots of toyones, had long been inviting me to make a stroll among them to renew old acquaintanceship, and many a day I felt like starting out from the rancho and throwing myself into their great arms. The care of the flocks needed much of my attention in winter, and I had been greatly alarmed at the news of the terrible influx of "Yankees," as well as of the plots of the English, and the future of my beloved California was dark enough to cast my life in shadow. One day, however, I broke away. Gentle breezes from the purple canoñs floated by me laden with the scent of redwoods, and by the roadside the clumps of laurel gave out their vigourous perfume as their branches were stirred; then in the quietness of the air between these breaths, the steaming earth yielded to my grateful sense its own peculiar and rich odour. Few wild flowers were out, but on the gay manzanitas hung millions of little pink and white bells, so delicate that they seemed more like the bloom of some rare exotic than the winter gift of so hardy and rugged a shrub. I did not stop to rest until I had reached a high point of the path where a sudden turn along the edge of a precipice threw open the whole view of the valley. It was yet early morning, and I watched the floating bits of mist drifting above the dark canoñs, canoñs so narrow that the sun never reached their beds. Through clumps of leafless oaks the noisy arroyo could be seen hidden here and there by the thick foliage of some glistening madroño, with its red branches, or by dark, lustrous laurels. Bunches of mistletoe upon the dry branches of the oaks smiled fresh and green from their stolen perches like little oases in a desert of gray. Sometimes an early bee flew by me with hungry humming, and the sharp call of the jay would rise from the depths to mingle with the steady sighing of the wind through the giant redwoods. I had taken my favourite little mare, who never needed the bridle, being guided by my voice or slightest motion, and as I sat with arms akimbo under my poncho I felt as I were free again from all the trouble of life and could not but halloa for very exuberance of joy. Presently there came an answer from the cliffs above, and looking up I beheld Ysidria, mounted on the black horse I had some months before given to Madre Moreno, to be used by her niece, who was not so strong as she had been, and unable to walk so much as formerly. "Wait, and I will come down," she called and disappeared among the shrubs. Ysidria was much changed, she had grown thin and nervous during the year; yet, failing as she did in body, her eyes seemed every day to become more beautiful, as if they absorbed all her life. With the growing brilliancy of her eyes, increased also their defective sight, and she was quite unable to read, yet her power of extended vision was wonderful. Lately, I had cherished the thought of having Ysidria go to Santa Clara, or even to Mexico, to be under the care of some experienced occulist, and the fear of her becoming blind, when it might be too late to have anything done, made me very anxious, and Pedirpozza, whom I might have called, had gone for a time to the Colorado country. The day before this, on which I met Ysidria in the mountains, I had spoken to Madre Moreno of the subject nearest my heart. I had spoken but a few words when she said: "Thou needst not go any further, Señor Carlos, I know thy thoughts and have read them for a long time. Thou hast no one to ask for Ysidria but herself and the old witch, who is her only relative. I give my consent." I was so delighted that I could only express myself by kissing the forehead of Madre Moreno. "Be careful my Señorito!" she cried starting back and then laughing, "be careful how thou kissest the love of el bueno Diablo, or he may be jealous and play thee a bad trick." I always hated the Madre when she laughed, and I hurried away. In about ten minutes Ysidria reached the path where I was waiting, it having been necessary for her to come by a circuitous trail. "You are out early," I exclaimed. "Yes, Aunt Ambrosia's kindness often seems unbearable, and I fly from it; it is curious for one to run from kindness." "Your aunt is a strange creature, I can never understand her; sometimes I love her much, and then, without any apparent cause, I shun her as if she bore a plague." "I too feel so toward her, and scarcely know whether she loves me devotedly or hates me; her laugh though is unbearable, to me, there seems to be wickedness in it," replied Ysidria, "though I should not talk ill of her, for she is very kind, making me many little sweets and pasties, and there is one sweet drop of which she is very choice, never giving me more than one at a time. I have nearly grown into the habit of taking them each morning before breakfast, and I feel very wretched if I miss one. You must try them, and shall, if I can persuade Aunt Ambrosia for an extra drop; I think she will for you though." "We have been talking, Madre Moreno and I, and I have proposed that you shall go to Mexico or Santa Clara to have an oculist examine your eyes, for indeed I fear there is something which should be looked to at once. We would all hate to have your beautiful eyes, Ysidria, never reflect our faces more." We had by this time reached the old ruin, and turned, as if of one accord, toward the spot. "Yes, Señor Carlos," said Ysidria, as we dismounted, "every word of praise I hear about my eyes, seems like mockery to me; I, myself, am frightened at their strange changes, and fear that I shall soon be blind." "Then why not go at once to Santa Clara? It is your only hope. Why not go to-morrow?" I asked, as I took her hand in mine. "That cannot be; I am not able, nor is Aunt Ambrosia, to allow of the expense. I must be content to see while I may, and then live on with the remembrance of your kind faces ever before me." "Ysidria, do not despond; let me help you; it has been my dream for the past year. Will you be my wife?" I caught her in my arms, for she seemed as if about to fall. "Ah, Carlos, I am too happy," she murmured. "I love you, but I cannot be your wife with my infirmity. No, I cannot be so selfish; I will not put upon you a burden. I love you, but let us live as we do now, for you must never tire of me and still feel bound to me for life. I shall be blind. I love you too well." "Ysidria, I love you for your own dear self. Nor fear so for your sight. The trouble is, I trust, nothing but temporary; the loss for a time of the accommodation; it can easily be remedied when Pedirpozzo returns. So do not let the fear of being a burden, which you can never be to me, deter you from giving me the promise I so desire. Say you will be my wife, Ysidria." "I will," she replied, and then I took a ring of my mother's and placed it on her finger. "Let us go over to the wall and sit where I first saw you, Ysidria," I said, "and begin the world with hope." We started to cross the hollow, passing the atropa, which was just sending out its early shoots. I crushed it with my foot, and ground down each stem till not a bit of green was left, and then I placed some stones upon it; some way I enjoyed this little act, and Ysidria joined me in trampling down the plant. "It is an ill-favoured thing," I said, "and does more harm than good, but Madre Moreno, I scarcely think will thank me for destroying it, for she always gathered its leaves for some of her medicines." "Yes, she will, Señorito Carlos; she will thank thee," said a voice behind us, and turning we saw Madre Moreno. "I had come to do the same thing myself, and thou hast saved me the labour. Why didst thou not kill it before to-day? This is a strange day on which to kill the old plant!" The Madre had some chips of pine in her basket; these she placed above the plant and pouring a flask of turpentine over them, set it all afire; then piling up chunks of hard wood, she stood back to watch the blaze. "It is needed no more," she said, "so we will leave no vestige of it, for it must never spring up again." We looked at the witch in silence and wonder. "Art thou happy, Carlos Sotos, with thy love? Thank old Madre Moreno for it." She laughed aloud, and the wall echoed back the laugh mockingly.	{ "id": "18660" }
8	None	When I parted from Ysidria at Madre Moreno's that evening, after the destruction of the plant, I looked into her blue eyes, and suddenly the pupil spread over the entire iris. "Oh! Ysidria, your eyes are beautiful," and I pressed a kiss upon them, "good-bye, till we meet to-morrow. I am happy." "Good night," she answered, "I shall see you in the morning. I will rise as the first rays of the sun, come through my window, and my first thought will be of you." We parted, and I watched her graceful form as she walked up the path to the door; she turned and waved her hand to me as she passed from sight. "Her eyes, alas, are all the light I know!" I said aloud, and, with an indefinable feeling of sadness, walked briskly home. I told Catalina all, that evening, but the good woman said nothing to sadden me, but I could see sorrow in her face. There were clouds in the sky at sunset, and every prospect of a storm; the wind howled through the trees and rattled the doors of the old house. I sat till late watching the collecting clouds which were rolling on in turbulent masses, and very low, till all was dark, as the last rent was filled, through which the moon had been shining. It was a terrible storm, the worst I had ever known, and Catalina came to my door at about two o'clock, in great fright, saying that she had seen a figure like Madre Mareno, going by the house as if floating in the air, and had heard a loud report as if there had been thunder in the distance, coming from Tamalpais. I could hear the rumbling and could not tell what it was; but I laughed at her fears and told her that it must have been a shadow, for no human being even a witch, would be out in such a night, if they could help it. Catalina went back to her room, but was far from reassured, and sat the rest of the night with her beads in her hand, praying by candle light. The next morning the storm was over, though through the sky the clouds were driving fast, but the rising sun touched them with gold and all the trees looked bright and new. Early, after breakfast, I gathered some flowers, and, mounting my mare, rode down to Madre Moreno's cottage. The storm seemed to have been more severe here than at the rancho, for the garden was destroyed and the vines by the house were hanging, torn from the trellises. Knocking at the half open door, I waited some minutes, but receiving no answer, stepped into the room. Upon the table lay a sheet of paper, I took it up to read what was written on it, thinking it would tell where the Madre and Ysidria had gone. All that was upon it was my name, but under the sheet was an envelope addressed to me. I hurriedly broke the seal and spread the sheets before me; they read-- My dear Carlos: Scarcely do I know how to begin this letter to you, whom I love so much. My aunt, Ambrosia, came to me last night, soon after you left me at the gate; she was smiling and very happy, and resting her hand on my shoulder said: "Ysidria thou hast done well, thou couldst not have done better had I trained thee to it." I was surprised at her manner, and asked her to explain. She sat down beside me and taking my hand in hers began: "I know thou art willing to do much for thy old aunt, and I have made thee, unknowingly, do it, though then wilt not blame me when I tell the why I have." She then related to me a tale of her father's time, when he had some trouble with your grandfather, and of the curse which she had pronounced upon each generation of de Sotos; you know all this. I listened in surprise and disgust, for she seemed to gloat over the thought of avenging the fancied wrong. "I have had revenge upon two generations through that plot of ground, and now I must have it from the present, from their child, Carlos de Sotos, through that same plot and through thee." "Do you expect me to deceive him?" I cried in horror, "I will rather leave your house than that." She laughed loudly at this, and said: "It is too late now, Ysidria, the deed is already done." And then she related to me a story so full of scheming and horror that I can but write it in outline. She planned the terrible revenge many years ago, and would alas, have made you the victim. There is a plant called the atropa belladonna, a very poisonous shrub, which is rare in this country, but Ambrosia obtained one and planted it beside the little stream which runs by the ruined house. It was that which we destroyed. From this she extracted the juices as she well knows how. Now begins the awful scheme. She sent for me, who was living at the Convent de Santa Clara, to come and be her companion, as she was growing old. She knew that I was beautiful, and thinking to gain your love for me, tried in every way to bring us together. We met, and heaven knows we truly loved. Ever since my arrival she has given me a sweetmeat, of which I once told you. In this confection was the smallest quantity of the extract of the poisonous atropa, and some Chinese drug unknown to me, the taking of which in time became a necessity of my being, but not till to-night did I know the contents of these drops or the awful power to which I am a slave. The extract affected my eyes, causing their unnatural brilliancy and impaired vision. Having fixed this terrible habit upon me, she would wed me to you, and thus make your future life miserable, for in a few years the drug would ruin me in soul and body, and its only substitute could be found in the fatal opium. The revenge is the height of cruelty, and alas, I was to be the helpless medium. She thought that I should be proud of the use to which she had put me, for she said it was as much my duty to avenge the death of my grandfather as for her that of her father. I know not what I said, but my anger gave me words. I told her of the enormity of her crime, the inhumanity she had shown, and that I would do no more nor longer remain with her. She laughed and left the room. Presently returning, she handed me a packet of the confections and with a mocking smile said: "Make thy husband happy while these sweets last; they are my wedding present to thee." She left me. I know the terrible power this drug has over me, and nothing can ever cure. Even if the habit be not indulged in, I have gone so far that my existence would be worse than death. I will not make your life miserable; the dread of being blind is nothing to this. May the Holy Mother forgive me for all I have been the cause, innocent as I am, of bringing upon you. I love you too, too well, and it is thus that I destroy Ambrosia Moreno's curse. No more shall misfortune come upon you or yours, for with my life I have bought your freedom, I have gone to the old adobe, and this wedding gift of Ambrosia shall be my means of saving you. May good St. Joseph shield you and all the Saints bless you. I will meet you in the morning, Carlos, as I promised. Thank you deeply, heartily, for your love, and when some time you are happily wedded, think of Ysidria, and teach your wife to bless her for her love for you. One last request. Give whatever I have to the good sisters in the convent to take care of the statue of Our Lady of Santa Clara, and ask them to keep me in their prayers. YSIDRIA.	{ "id": "18660" }
9	None	I quickly mounted my mare and galloped down the road and over the hill to the adobe, and there, the morning sun shining full upon her face, lay my love, my Ysidria. By her side was a packet open and white pellets scattered on the grass. I bent and kissed the white face, and took the cold hand in mine, praying to the Blessed Virgin to give me strength to bear this killing trial. "Yes, Ysidria," I cried, as tears rolled down my cheeks, "we will meet again in the morning beneath the sunlight of God's love." My words were scarcely uttered when I noted a throb of her pulse, and then I felt as it were a dream, the beautiful eyes of Ysidria opened and gazed at me but did not seem to see me. I did not care then if it were a dream; swiftly I mounted my mare, bearing the light body of my love before me, and hurried back to the house of Madre Moreno. Near the house I met the frightened Catalina and, the Saints be praised, behind her my dear, old friend, Pedirpozzo, who had that morning returned. They had read Ysidria's letter which I had left on the table. Hot coffee was ready. The doctor took my all too light burden from me, and then for the first time I broke down and for a week knew nothing, waking one afternoon to find the ever faithful Catalina sitting at my bedside. Soon I learned from Pedirpozza that Ysidria was better and would recover, not only her normal eyesight, but also be easily cured of the craving for the fatal pellets. It seemed that she had fainted just as she was about to take the poison and my timely arrival had saved her life. Ambrosia, Madre Moreno, was never seen after the night of the great storm, and no one knew what became of her, though some years after, news came from the Rancho Laguna de la Merced, on the San Francisco side, that an old woman, answering to the description of the witch, had suddenly appeared there, and was living alone in a hut in one of the innumerable gullies, destitute and shunned by all. Catalina and the good women of the place never gave up the idea that the Evil One carried her off in the great storm, which left its lasting mark on the face of Mount Tamalpais. * * * * * A year passed, and Ysidria, under the care of the good Pedirpozzo, completely recovered her health, and one happy day in Easter Week we were wedded by Padre Andreas, at San Rafael, and we went to live at the rancho, with Catalina still as housekeeper, all of us feeling like people saved from a wreck and hoping never to suffer such sorrow again. By the next Easter there was great rejoicing at the rancho, and from all the country came my friends with their households to the christening of our son. The day was spent in games and feasting, and in the evening Henrico, or Quito, as we called him, was brought out to be toasted. There were many pretty speeches made, and Catalina carried them all to the happy mother. After all the guests had gone, Pedirpozzo led me aside and in his gentle way, so full of sympathy, he told me what his experienced eye had noted when little Quito was held before the company in the candle-light--he told me what you already know from the first of my story--Quito was hopelessly blind. Yet we have lived to be all happy and to bless God, and my dear wife so mercifully spared to me, clasps my hand in love and sympathy, when I think, but do not say aloud, "Our Quito has the beautiful eyes of Ysidria."	{ "id": "18660" }
1	THE FISHERMAN AND THE KNIGHT	A fisherman brought a stool to the doorway of his home and, sitting down, he began to mend his nets. His cottage stood in the midst of green meadows, and his eyes grew glad as he looked at the green grass. After the heat of the fair summer's day it was so cool, so refreshing. At the foot of the meadows lay a large lake of clear blue water. The fisherman knew it well. It was there his work was done, through sunshine or through storm. To-day, as his gaze wandered from the green meadows to the blue lake, he thought he saw the waters stretch out soft arms, until slowly they drew the fair meadows, the little cottage into a loving embrace. The fisherman, his wife and their foster-child lived very quietly on this pleasant spot. It was but seldom that any one passed their door, for between the beautiful meadows and the nearest town lay a wood. So wild and gloomy was the wood, so tangled its pathway, that no one cared to enter it. Moreover, it was said that there were strange beings lurking amid the gloom--ugly goblins, misshapen gnomes; and there were shadowy spirits too, which flitted through the branches of the strongest trees, and these even the bravest would not wish to see. Through this dark and haunted wood the old fisherman had often to journey. It was true that he entered the dreaded shades with fear, yet no spectre ever crossed his path. But perhaps that was because the thoughts of the old man were pure, or perhaps because he never entered the forest without singing a hymn in a clear brave voice. As the fisherman sat mending his nets on this fair summer eve he began to move restlessly, to glance around uneasily. Then a sudden terror fell upon him as he heard a noise in the forest behind. Ah, how the trees rustled and how the grass was being trampled underfoot! Could it be a horseman who made haste to escape from some terrible foe? And now, although he was wide awake, the fisherman seemed to see a figure, which he had seen before only in his dreams. He saw the figure of a tall, strong, snow-white man, who came with slow steps toward him, and at each step he took, the figure nodded his great white head. The fisherman rubbed his eyes as he glanced toward the wood. At the same moment the wind seemed to blow the leaves aside to make room for the snow-white man, whose head never ceased to nod. 'Well,' said the fisherman to himself, 'I have ever passed through the forest unharmed, why should I fear that evil will befall me here?' and he began to repeat aloud a verse of the Bible. At the sound of his own voice courage crept back into the heart of the fisherman, moreover the words of the Holy Book rebuked his fears. Nor was it long before he was able even to laugh and to see how foolish he had been. For listen! The white nodding man was after all only a stream which the fisherman knew very well, a stream which ran and bubbled out of the forest and fell into the lake. As for the rustling noise, the fisherman saw what had caused that, as a gaily clad knight rode forth from the forest shadows toward the little cottage. This was no spectre or spirit of the wood, this stranger who wore the garments of a knight of high degree. He rode a white horse, which stepped softly, so that the flowers in the meadows lifted their delicate heads uninjured by his tread. The fisherman raised his cap as the stranger drew near, and then quietly went on mending his nets. Now when the knight saw the old man's face it was welcome to him, as indeed any human face would have been after the terrors of the forest. There he had seen strange mocking faces peering at him whichever way he turned, there he had been followed by strange shadowy forms from which escape had been wellnigh impossible; here at length was a kind and friendly mortal. He would ask him for the food and shelter of which both he and his steed stood in need. 'Dear sir,' answered the fisherman when he had listened to the knight's request, 'dear sir, if you will deign to enter our lonely cottage, you will find a welcome with the food and shelter we offer. As for your horse, can it have a better stable than this tree-shaded meadow, or more delicious fodder than this green grass?' Well pleased with this answer, the knight dismounted, and together he and the fisherman freed the white horse from its saddle and bridle, and turned it loose into the waving meadow. Then the old man led the stranger into the cottage. Here, by the light of the kitchen fire, sat the fisherman's wife. She rose, with a kind greeting for the unexpected guest. Then seating herself again in her armchair, she pointed to an old stool with a broken leg. 'Sit there, good knight,' she said; 'only you must sit still, lest the broken leg prove too weak to bear you.' Carrying the stool over beside the old woman, the knight placed it carefully on the floor and seated himself as he was bidden. As he sat there talking with the good old fisherman and his wife, it seemed to him almost as though he were their son, who had come home again after journeying in a distant land. It was only when the knight began to speak of the wood that the fisherman grew restless and refused to listen. 'It were wiser, Sir Knight,' he said, 'not to talk of the wood at nightfall, or indeed to say much of it at any time.' And then the old couple told their guest how simply they lived in the little cottage by the lake, and they in their turn listened eagerly while the knight told them of himself. He was named Sir Huldbrand, and he dwelt in his castle of Ringstetten, which stood near the source of the river Danube. Now, as he talked or listened to the quiet tales of the old fisherman, the knight heard a strange sound that seemed to come from the direction of the window. Again and again it came, a strange sound as of water being dashed against the window-panes. It was plain that the fisherman heard it too, for at each splash a frown crossed his good-natured face. A louder splash, and a shower of water streamed through the loosely built window-frame into the kitchen. Then the old man could sit still no longer. He hastened to the window, and opening it called out in an angry voice, 'Undine, cease these childish tricks. A stranger, and he a knight, is in our cottage.' A low laugh answered him. Hearing it, the old man shut the window and sat down again, saying to his guest, 'Sir Knight, forgive this rude behaviour. Undine my foster-daughter is still only a child, although she is now nearly eighteen years of age. Yet her tricks are harmless, and she herself is full of kindness.' 'Ah,' said the old woman to her husband, 'to you, who are not with her save when the day's work is over, her pranks may seem harmless. But you would not talk so lightly of her ways were she by your side all day. Ever I must watch her, lest she spoil my baking, or undo my spinning or burn the soup. Nay--' 'It is true,' said the old man, interrupting his wife with a smile, 'it is true that you have the maiden by your side throughout the livelong day, while I have but the sea. Yet when the sea is rough and breaks down my dykes I do not love it the less. Even so do you love the little one no less for all her tricks and tiresome ways.' The old woman turned to her guest. 'Indeed, Sir Knight, he speaks truly. It is not possible to be angry with the maiden long.' At that moment the door flew open, and she, the maiden of whom they spoke, entered the little kitchen. She was fairer far than any one the knight had ever seen. 'Father,' she cried, 'where is he, the stranger guest?' Even as she spoke her eyes fell on the knight, who had sprung to his feet as she entered the cottage. He stood gazing in wonder at the marvellous beauty of the maiden. But before he could greet her, she was at his side, trustingly looking up into his face. Then kneeling before him, she seized his hand and made him seat himself again on the broken old stool. 'You are beautiful, Sir Knight,' she said, 'but how did you come to this little cottage? Have you looked for us long before you could find us? Have you had to pass through the terrible forest ere you could reach us, Sir Knight?' The knight would have told the maiden the story of his adventures in the wood, but Undine's foster-mother was already speaking, and her tones were loud and angry. 'Go, maiden, go get you to work, and trouble not the stranger with your questions.' Then Undine, unashamed, drew a little footstool near to Huldbrand, and sitting down to her spinning, cried, 'I shall work here, close to the beautiful knight.' The old fisherman took no notice of the wilful maiden, and began to speak of other things, hoping that the guest would forget his foster-daughter's questions. But even had the knight been able to forget, Undine did not mean to sit there quietly, her questions unanswered. Her sweet voice broke upon the silence. 'Our beautiful guest has not yet told me how he reached our cottage,' she said. 'It is even as you thought,' answered the knight. 'I journeyed through the haunted wood ere I found this safe and hospitable shelter.' 'Then tell me of your wonderful adventures,' demanded the maiden, 'for without these no one may pass through the forest.' Huldbrand shuddered as he remembered the strange beings who had startled him as he rode through the wood. He glanced distrustfully toward the window. Were the grim figures there, peering at him through the window-pane? No, he could see nothing save the dim night light, which now closed them in. The knight drew himself up, ashamed of his foolish fears, and turning toward the maiden, he was beginning to tell her of the wonders which had befallen him, when the fisherman hurriedly interrupted. 'Nay, now, Sir Knight,' he cried, 'tell not your tale until the hours of dark have passed.' At her foster-father's words Undine sprang angrily from the footstool and stood before him. Her eyes flashed and grew larger, colder. 'You say to the stranger not to tell his tale, father,' she cried, 'you say to him not to answer me. But he shall speak, he shall, he shall!' And in her anger she stamped her little feet. The knight wellnigh smiled as he watched the maiden's wrath, but the old man was grieved that the stranger should see the wayward behaviour of his foster-child, and he reproved her for her anger. The old woman also muttered her displeasure. Then Undine slipped quickly toward the door of the little cottage. She did not choose to listen to these rebukes. 'I will not stay with you, for you do nothing but scold me, and you will not do anything that I wish,' she cried, and before they could reach her she had opened the door, and was away and out, out into the dark night.	{ "id": "18752" }
2	UNDINE IS LOST	Huldbrand and the fisherman sprang after the maiden, but when they reached the door of the cottage and looked out into the night she was nowhere to be seen, nor could they catch the sound of her tiny feet to guide them whither she had fled. The knight looked in astonishment at his host. Was the beautiful maiden only another of the wonderful beings who had bewildered him in the forest? Was she some lovely elf or sprite who had come but to vex them with her pranks? But as he looked at the old man standing by his side, and saw the tears streaming from his eyes, he knew it was for no spirit of the wood that he thus grieved. 'Alas,' sighed the fisherman, 'this is not the first time that the maiden has treated us thus. It may be she will not return the livelong night, and until she returns it is not possible that we should close our eyes. For what terror may not seize upon her as she wanders hither and thither in the darkness.' 'We must follow her, father, follow her without delay!' cried the young knight. 'Nay,' answered the fisherman, 'my limbs are stiff. Though I knew whither she had fled, I could never follow with speed enough to reach her. Ever she would vanish as I drew near, for she is fleet, fleet as an arrow from the bow.' 'If we may not follow her, at least let us call and entreat her to return,' said the young knight, and without waiting for an answer he called, 'Undine! Undine!' But the old man shook his head. 'It is useless to call,' he said, 'the little one will not heed your voice.' Yet still the knight's cry rang out into the night, 'Undine, dear Undine, I pray you return!' No answer came back from the darkness, and at length Huldbrand returned with the fisherman to the cottage. The old woman, who seemed little troubled by Undine's flight, had gone to bed and the fire was wellnigh out. But the fisherman, drawing the ashes together, placed wood on the top of them, and soon the fire blazed brightly. Then in the light of the flames they sat and talked, yet they thought only of Undine. The window rattled. They raised their heads to listen. The rain fell in heavy drops, pitter, patter. They thought it was the tread of tiny feet. 'It is she, it is Undine!' they would cry, yet still the maiden did not come. Then they shook their heads sadly, but as they went on talking they listened still. 'It was fifteen years ago, on such a night of wind and rain, that she came,' murmured the old man. 'Our home was sad and desolate, for we had lost our own little child.' 'Ah,' said the knight, 'tell me how the beautiful maiden came to your little cottage.' Now this is the story the fisherman told to the knight. 'It is fifteen years ago,' began the old man, 'since I went through the forest, hoping to sell my fish in the city beyond. I was alone, for my wife was at home watching our little babe. Our little babe was dear to us and very fair. 'In the evening, having sold all my fish, I went home through the haunted forest, nor did I fear its gloom, for the Lord was at my right hand. 'But no sooner had I left the wood than I saw my wife running toward me, while tears streamed from her eyes. She had dressed herself, I noticed, in black garments, and this she was not used to do. I felt sure that trouble had befallen us. ' "Where is our child, our little one?" I cried, though even as I spoke my voice was choked with sobs. ' "Our child is with God, the great Father," answered my wife. 'Then in the midst of her tears the poor mother told her sad tale. ' "I took our child down to the edge of the lake, and there we played together, so happy, so merry. Suddenly the little one bent forward as though she saw something beautiful in the water. Then she smiled, and stretched out her tiny hands, and even as she did so, she slipped from my arms into the lake, and I saw her no more." 'That evening,' said the fisherman, 'my wife and I sat by our hearth in silence, we were too sad for words. Suddenly the door of our cottage flew open, and there before us,[1] on the threshold, stood a little maiden, three or four years of age. Her eyes were blue and her hair was gold and she was clothed in beautiful garments. [Footnote 1: See frontispiece.] 'We gazed in wonder at the tiny vision. Who was she? From whence had she come? Was she only a magic child come to mock us in our loneliness, or was she a real, a living child? 'Then as we looked we saw that water trickled from her golden hair and that little streams were gathering at her tiny feet, as the water dripped and dripped from her beautiful clothing. ' "She must have fallen into the lake," I said to my wife, "and in some strange way have wandered into our cottage. We have lost our own dear child, let us now do all we can to help this little one." Thus it came to pass that the little stranger slept in the cot in which until now our own babe had lain. 'When morning dawned my wife fed our tiny guest with bread and milk, and the little one looked upon us, and her blue eyes danced merrily, but never a word did she say. 'We asked her where her father and mother dwelt and how she had come to our cottage. But her only answer was some childish talk of crystal palaces and shining pearls. Even now indeed she speaks of things so marvellous that we know not what to think. 'After some days we asked her once again from whence she came. She told us that she had been on the sea with her mother, and had fallen from her arms into the water, nor had she known more until she awoke under the trees, close to our cottage, so well pleased with the fair shore that she felt no fear. 'Then we said, "Let us keep the little stranger, and care for her as we would have cared for our own lost child." We sent for a priest, who baptized her, giving her the name by which she called herself, though indeed it seemed no name for a Christian child. ' "Undine," said the priest as he performed the holy rite, while she, the little one, stood before him gentle and sweet. No sooner, however, was the service ended than she grew wild, wilful as was her way. For it is true that my wife has had much trouble with the maiden--' At that moment the knight interrupted the fisherman. 'Listen,' he cried, 'how the stream roars as it dashes past the window!' Together they sprang to the door. The moon had risen, and the knight and the fisherman saw that the stream which ran from the wood had burst its banks. It was now rushing wildly along, carrying with it stones and roots of trees. As they looked, the clouds grew dark and crept across the face of the moon, the wind rose and lashed the water of the lake into great waves. 'Undine! Undine!' cried the two men together, but no answer reached them save the shrieking of the wind among the trees of the forest. Then, careless of the storm, the fisherman and the knight rushed from the cottage in search of the maiden.	{ "id": "18752" }
3	UNDINE IS FOUND	As Huldbrand rushed out into the night, followed by the fisherman, the storm seemed to rage yet more fiercely. The old man was soon left far behind in the search for the lost maiden. The knight, battling bravely with the storm, hastened hither and thither, but all his efforts were vain. Undine was nowhere to be found. And now, as the rain dashed down upon him and the wind hustled him, Huldbrand grew bewildered. The storm seemed to have changed the peaceful meadows into a weary wilderness, and even the maiden herself seemed to flit before him as a phantom spirit of the wind. Could it all have been but a dream? Had the cottage, the fisherman and his wife been as unreal as the figures that had followed him in the haunted forest? No, that he would not believe, for even yet in the distance he could hear the faint echo of the fisherman's voice as he called out pitifully, 'Undine! Undine!' Now in his search the knight had reached the edge of the stream. The stream, as you know, had already overflowed its bank, and as the moon suddenly shone through the dark clouds, Huldbrand saw that the water was rushing back toward the forest. In this way the little bit of meadow-land on which the fisherman's cottage stood was turned into an island. A terrible thought struck the knight. Had Undine strayed into the fearful forest she could not now return to the cottage, save across the raging stream, nay, she might even now be surrounded by the spirits of the wood. She would be among them alone, helpless. At once Huldbrand made up his mind to cross the torrent. He plunged into the water, and even as he did so he seemed to see on the other shore the figure of a tall white man, who nodded his head and mocked him as he struggled on. Huldbrand knew the tall white figure only too well. It was the one that had followed him as he journeyed through the forest. Now; in his haste to find Undine, the knight was leaping from stone to stone, sometimes slipping into the water, then with a struggle placing his feet once again upon the stones. These, tossed by the rushing stream, gave no firm foothold to the knight, and he was forced to seize the branch of a fir-tree to help him across the dangerous passage. While he was still in the midst of the current, he heard a sweet voice crying, 'Trust not the stream, trust it not, for it is full of craft!' The knight knew the voice. It was that of the maiden for whom he sought. Yet though he peered eagerly through the gloom he could see no trace of her. 'See! you can find me now, Sir Knight, for the moon is shining clear,' cried the voice he longed to hear, and looking around him Huldbrand saw where Undine had found a shelter. It was on a little island, beneath the branches of a great tree, that the maiden sat. There was no terror of the storm in her eyes. She was even smiling happily as she nestled amid the sweet scented grass, safe from the fury of the storm. A few quick strides and the knight had crossed the stream and stood by the side of the maiden. She bade him sit down on the grass, and then, whispering low, she said, 'You shall tell me your story here, Sir Knight, on this quiet island here, where no cross old people will disturb us, and where we are sheltered from the storm that rages beyond.' [Illustration: Amid the sweet-scented grass, safe from the fury of the storm] Then Huldbrand forgot all about the old man who was still seeking for his child, forgot too all about the old woman who was alone in the little cottage by the lake, and he sat down to tell his tale as the maiden wished. Meanwhile the fisherman had reached the brink of the stream, and great was his surprise to see the knight seated by the side of his lost child. 'You have found her, you have found my little one!' he cried reproachfully. 'Why did you not hasten to tell me she was found, Sir Knight?' Then Huldbrand was ashamed, though, as he told the old man, it was but a little while since his search had ceased. 'Bring her without more delay to the mainland!' shouted the fisherman, when he had listened to the sorry excuse which was all the knight could offer. But Undine had no wish to go home. She would rather stay with the knight in the forest than go back to the cottage, for there, so she said, no one would do as she wished. Then, flinging her arms around the knight, she clung to him and begged him to stay with her in the forest. The old fisherman wept as he heard her words, yet Undine did not seem to notice his tears. But the knight could not help seeing the old man's grief, and he was troubled. 'Undine,' he cried, 'the tears of your foster-father have touched my heart. We will return to him.' The blue eyes of the maiden opened wide with surprise, yet she answered gently, 'Sir Knight, if this is indeed your will, we shall return to the mainland. There you must make the old man promise to listen in silence to all that you saw as you journeyed through the forest.' 'Only come, and you shall do all that you wish!' cried the fisherman, and he stretched out his arms and nodded his head, to show to the maiden how glad he was that she should do as she wished. But the knight shuddered as his eyes fell upon the fisherman. The nodding head, the white hair reminded him once again of the tall white man of the forest. Shaking off his fears he lifted Undine in his arms and bore her across the stream. Already the storm was wellnigh over and the waters flowed more quietly. It now seemed to the knight only a few steps from the grassy plot where he had found the maiden to the green meadows among which the cottage stood. 'Now will I hear the brave knight's story,' cried the maiden, and the old people smiled and said they too would hear the tale. And the sun rose slowly over the lake and the birds sang merrily on the wet and leafy trees, as the knight began his tale.	{ "id": "18752" }
4	THE KNIGHT'S STORY	'It must be about eight days ago now,' said the knight, 'since I left my castle of Ringstetten, and journeyed toward the city which lies beyond the haunted forest. 'The city was gay with lords and ladies who had come thither for the tournament which was then being held. 'I at once entered the lists, for my steed was strong and I myself was eager for the fray. Once, as I rested from the combat, my eyes fell upon a lady who was wondrous fair. She was looking down from a gallery upon the tournament. 'Bertalda was the name of the beautiful maiden, and she was the foster-child of a great duke. I knew that, as I again seized my lance, the lady's eyes followed me into the lists, and I fought even more bravely than before. 'In the evening a great festival was held, and here I met Bertalda, and danced with her; indeed, evening after evening we were together until the tournament drew to a close.' As Huldbrand spoke these words he felt a sharp pain in his left hand. It was hanging by his side, and as he looked down to see what had caused the pain, he found that Undine had fastened in it her little pearly teeth. The knight could see that the maiden's face was no longer smiling. She looked up at him, and there was sorrow in her large blue eyes as she whispered, 'Sir Knight, it is your own fault that I hurt you. I would not have you praise the lady Bertalda.' Then quickly, as though ashamed of her words, she hid her face in her hands. As the knight went on with his story, his face was grave. 'It is true,' he said, 'that Bertalda was a lovely maiden, yet as I knew her better I found her ways were cold and proud. She pleased me less as the days passed by, though, as she looked upon me with favour, I begged that as a token of it she would give me a glove. "You shall have it," answered she, "if you will go alone through the forest which men say is haunted, and bring me tidings of all that happens to you." 'I cared little for her glove, but I would not tarry to be asked a second time to go through the forest, lest the maiden should doubt my courage.' 'I thought Bertalda had loved you,' cried Undine, 'yet then had she not driven you from her into the haunted forest.' The knight smiled at the maiden's words and went on with his tale. 'It was but yesterday morning that I set forth on my adventure. The sun shone bright, so bright that it was not easy to believe that evil was lurking in the shadows beneath the rustling leaves. "I shall soon return," I said to myself, as I plunged into the green shade. 'But amid the maze of trees it was not long ere I lost sight of the path by which I had entered the wood. ' "It may be that I shall lose myself in this mighty forest," I thought, "but no other danger threatens me." 'I gazed up toward the sun, which had risen higher now than when first I entered the wood, and as I gazed I saw a black thing among the branches of a leafy oak. 'Was it a bear, I wondered, and my hand felt for the sword that hung by my side. 'But it was no bear, for ere long I heard a voice mocking me with rough and cruel words. "Aha, Sir Wiseacre," said the voice, "I am breaking twigs off these tall trees, so that at midnight I may light a fire in which to roast you." Then, before I could answer, the black thing grinned at me and rustled the branches, until my steed grew restless and at length galloped away.' Undine looked at the knight, her blue eyes sparkling as she cried, 'But indeed the wicked creature did not dare to roast you, Sir Knight!' 'In its terror,' continued Huldbrand, 'my horse dashed itself against the trees, reared and again rushed madly forward. Onward we flew, until at length I saw before me a dark abyss. Yet still I found it impossible to pull up my frightened steed. 'Then all at once a tall white man stood still directly in front of my maddened horse, which swerved aside as soon as it saw the tall man, and in that moment I was once more master of my steed. I saw also that my deliverer was not a tall white man, as I had imagined, but a brook, which shone silver in the sunlight.' 'Dear brook, I will be grateful to you for evermore,' cried Undine, clapping her hands as she spoke, in childish glee. But the fisherman shook his head and was silent. 'And now,' said the knight, 'I was anxious to hasten as quickly as possible through the forest, for it seemed to me that not only might I find it difficult to regain the pathway I had lost, but that strange beings might again startle both me and my noble steed. 'I turned my horse away from the dark chasm which lay before us, but even as I did so I found at my side a strange little man. He was uglier than any one I had ever seen. His nose was wellnigh as large as all the rest of his body, and his mouth was so big that it stretched from one ear to the other. 'This ugly creature, as soon as he saw that I had noticed him, grinned at me, until his mouth looked even larger than before. He scraped his feet along the ground and bowed mockingly to me a thousand times. 'My horse was trembling at the sight of the strange figure, so I resolved to ride on in search of further adventure, or if I found none, to ride back to the city which I had left in the morning. 'But the ugly little man did not mean to let me escape. Quick as lightning he sprang round and stood again in front of my horse. ' "Get out of the way," I now cried in anger, "lest my steed tramples you under its feet." 'This did not seem to frighten the strange creature. He laughed in my face, and then said in a gruff voice, "You must give me gold, for it was I who turned your horse aside from yonder dark abyss." ' "Nay, what you say is not true," I answered him, "for it was the silver brook that saved me and my horse from being dashed to pieces. Nevertheless, take thy gold and begone." 'As I spoke I flung a coin into the strange-shaped cap which he was holding before me, then putting spurs to my horse I rode quickly forward. 'I heard the ugly little man give a loud scream, then to my surprise there he was, running by my side, grinning and making horrible grimaces. 'My horse was galloping, and I thought I would soon get away from the little man. But it seemed impossible to go faster than he, for he took a spring, a jump, and there he was still by my side. He held up the piece of gold I had thrown to him, and in a hollow voice he cried, "It is a false coin, a false coin!" 'At length I could bear his horrible shrieks no longer. I pulled up my steed, and holding out two coins I called to him, "Take the gold, but follow me no farther!" 'Then the little ugly man began to scrape his feet and bow his head, but it was plain that he was not yet satisfied. ' "I do not wish your gold," he grumbled. "I have gold enough and to spare, as you shall soon see." 'As he spoke a strange thing happened. The beautiful green ground seemed to change into clear green glass. I looked through the glass and saw in a great cavern a group of little goblins. 'They were playing at ball, these little goblins, and I noticed that all their toys were made of silver or gold. Merry little creatures they were, running swiftly hither and thither after the ball, nor was it easy to see whether they were standing on their heads or on their heels, or whether they were running on their hands or on their feet. No sooner was their game ended than they pelted each other with their playthings, then in a mad frolic lifted handfuls of gold dust and flung it each in the other's eyes. 'All this time the ugly little man was standing half on the ground and half within the great cavern where the tiny goblins played their games. Now I heard him call to the mischievous imps to give him handfuls of gold. [Illustration: 'I saw in a great cavern a group of little goblins'] 'This they did, and then he, laughing in my face, showed the gold to me ere he flung it back again into the cavern. 'Then the ugly little man called to the tiny goblins to stop their pranks and look at the coins I had given to him. When they caught sight of them they held their little sides, shaking with laughter; then all at once they turned and hissed at me. 'In spite of myself terror crept over me. Again I plunged my spurs into my horse's sides, and it dashed madly off into the midst of the forest. 'When at length the flight ended, the evening lay cool and quiet around me. A white footpath seemed to point out the way which led back to the city. But each time I tried to approach it a face peered at me from between the trees. I turned to escape from this new phantom, but in vain, for whichever way I turned there was the face still staring at me. 'I grew angry and urged my horse in the direction of the shadowy face, only however to find myself drenched by a stream of white foam. 'Thus I was driven away from the white footpath, and only one way, rough and tangled, was left open to me. As soon as I began to follow it, the face, though it kept close behind, did me no further harm. 'Yet again and again I turned, hoping to find that the face had disappeared. Instead I found it closer than before, and now I could see that it belonged to a tall white man. It was true that at times the long white figure seemed to be but a wandering stream, but of this I was never sure. I was weary now and my horse was exhausted. It seemed useless to try any longer to force my way past the white face, so I went on riding quietly along the one path left open to me. The head of the tall man then began to nod, as though to say that at length I was doing as he wished. 'By this path I reached the end of the wood, and as the meadows and the lake came into sight the white man vanished, and I found myself standing near to your little cottage.' As the knight had now finished the story of his adventure, the fisherman began to talk to his guest of how he might return in safety to the city and to the followers who there awaited him. Huldbrand, listening to the old man, yet caught the soft ripple of Undine's laughter. 'Why do you laugh, Undine?' asked the knight. 'Are you so pleased to hear your foster-father talk of my return to the city?' 'I laugh for joy that you cannot leave us,' said the maiden. 'You have but to look to see that you must stay.' Huldbrand and the fisherman rose and saw that what the maiden had said was indeed true. It would not be possible for the knight to leave the little island until the stream had once more returned to its usual course. As they entered the cottage, Huldbrand whispered to the maiden, 'Undine, tell me that you are glad that I cannot yet return to the crowded city.' But the maiden's face was no longer glad, nor would she answer the knight's question. She had remembered Bertalda. When the stream had grown quiet the knight would go back to the lady for whose sake he had undergone such strange perils. And of that time the wilful maiden did not wish to think.	{ "id": "18752" }
5	THE KNIGHT STAYS AT THE COTTAGE	Day after day the forest stream rushed wildly on. The bed along which it thus hastened grew wider and wider, separating the island with the fisherman's cottage yet farther from the mainland. The knight was well pleased to linger where he was. Never had he found the days pass by so swiftly. He discovered an old crossbow in a corner of the cottage. When he had mended it he would wander forth in search of birds, and if he succeeded in bringing some down with his arrows, he would carry them back to fill the larder of the little cottage. And Undine, for she was pitiful, would not fail to upbraid the knight for taking the life of the little birds, so glad, so free. Seeing them lying there, quiet and still, she would weep. Yet, did Huldbrand return without his prey, so wilful was the maiden that she would blame him, and complain that she could now have nought to eat save fish or crabs. But the knight loved Undine's wayward words. And well he knew that after she had shown her anger most, she would in but a little while be again kind and gentle as before. On the quiet island Huldbrand heard no call to knightly deeds. His sword hung unused on the cottage wall, his steed fed undisturbed among the sweet-scented meadows. 'The maiden is the daughter of a great prince, thought the knight. 'It is not possible that she should remain in this humble cottage all her life. She shall be my bride, and in days to come she shall dwell in my castle of Ringstetten on the banks of the Danube.' Meanwhile, naught disturbed the dwellers in the little cottage, save now and again when her foster-mother would chide Undine in the presence of the knight. Now, though this displeased Huldbrand, he could not blame the old woman, for it was ever true that the maiden deserved reproof more often than she received it. At length wine and food began to grow scarce in the little cottage. In the evening, when the wind howled around their home, the fisherman and the knight had been used to cheer themselves with a flask of wine. But now that the fisherman was not able to reach the city, his supply of wine had come to an end. Without it the old man and the knight grew silent and dull. Undine teased them, laughed at them, but they did not join in her merriment. Then one evening the maiden left the cottage, to escape, so she said, from the gloomy faces in the little kitchen. It was a stormy night, and as it grew dark the wind began to blow, the waters to rise. Huldbrand and the fisherman thought of the terrible night on which they had sought so long in vain for the wilful maiden. They even began to fear that they had lost her again, and together they rushed to the door. But to their great delight Undine was standing there, laughing and clapping her little hands. 'Come with me,' she cried when she saw them, 'come with me and I will show you a cask which the stream has thrown ashore. If it is not a wine cask you may punish me as you will.' The men went with her, and there in a little creek they found the cask and began to roll it toward the cottage. But though they rolled it rapidly the storm crept quickly up. So black were the clouds, so threatening, that it seemed each moment that the rain would burst forth upon them. Undine helped the men to roll the cask, and as the sky grew yet more threatening she looked up at the dark clouds and said in a warning voice, 'Beware, beware that you wet us not.' 'It is wrong of you thus to try to rebuke the storm,' said her foster-father, but at his words the maiden only laughed low to herself in the darkness. It would seem, however, that Undine's warning had been of use, for it was not until the cask was rolled in at the cottage door that the storm broke. By the bright glow of the fire they opened the cask and found that it did indeed hold wine. They tasted it and found it very good, and soon they were once more as gay as the maiden could wish. Then suddenly the fisherman grew grave, grieving for him who had lost the cask. 'Nay, grieve not,' said the knight, 'I will seek for the owner and repay him for his loss when I come again to my castle at Ringstetten.' The fisherman smiled and was content. Undine, however, was angry with the knight. 'It is foolish,' said she, 'to talk of seeking for the owner of the cask. Were you lost in the search I should weep. Would you not rather stay by my side?' 'Yes, and that do you right well know,' answered the knight. 'Then,' said the maiden, 'why should you speak of helping other people. It is but foolish talk.' The foster-mother sighed as she listened to Undine's careless words, while the fisherman forgot his usual quiet and scolded her sharply. 'Your words are wild, and are such as no Christian maiden should utter,' he said. 'May God forgive both you and those who have allowed you thus to speak.' 'It is indeed true,' said Undine, 'that as I think I speak. Why, therefore, should you scold me for my words.' 'Say no more,' said the fisherman, for he was very angry. Then the maiden, who, for all her wilfulness, was timid as a bird, drew close to the knight and whispered, 'Are you also angry with me, Sir Knight.' Huldbrand could find no words with which to comfort the maiden, whom he had learned to love. He could only hold her hand and stroke her golden hair, but with this Undine was well content.	{ "id": "18752" }
6	THE WEDDING	Now it was on this same night on which the cask was found that, as the storm still raged, a knock was heard at the cottage door. It startled all within, for who was there could have crossed the stream that now separated them from the mainland? It could surely be no mortal who stood without. As the inhabitants of the little cottage sat silent, thinking these thoughts, the knock was heard again. It was followed by a low groan. Then the knight rose and took his sword from the wall where it had hung for many days. But the fisherman, watching him, shook his head as he muttered, 'A sword will be of but little use to-night.' Undine meanwhile had gone toward the door. She did not open it, but she called out in a loud voice, 'Remember, whoever you be, spirit of earth or fire, that if harm befall us my uncle Kühleborn will punish you.' These strange words made the knight marvel. But a voice answered the maiden, 'I am no wandering spirit, but an old frail man. For the love of God open your door and give me shelter from the storm.' At these words Undine, holding a lamp high in one hand, flung the door wide open with the other. Before her stood an old priest, who looked upon her with surprise. How came so fair a maiden to be dwelling in so lonely a home? he wondered, and in his bewilderment he stood still outside the shelter and warmth which awaited him. 'Will you not enter, holy Father?' said Undine. The priest roused himself to thank the beautiful maiden, and then entered the kitchen. Water flowed from his long robe and trickled from his long white beard and snowy locks. 'Come with me, Father,' said the fisherman, and he drew the priest into a little room and made him take off all his wet garments. Then, clad in a suit of dry clothes which belonged to his host, the priest returned to the kitchen. The old woman pulled forward her own armchair and made the priest sit in it, while Undine brought a little stool and put it beneath the feet of the stranger. Meanwhile food was placed before the priest. When he had eaten he was refreshed and able to tell his host how he had reached the island. 'It was but yesterday,' he said, 'that I was sailing across the lake, when a sudden storm arose. A wave dashed upon my boat, overturning it and throwing me on to the shore. I lay there stunned for some time. Then, as I slowly recovered my senses, I saw a footpath before me, and following it I reached the shelter of your cottage.' Then the fisherman said to the priest, 'Unless the stream subsides we shall, I fear, be in need of food. For days I have found it wellnigh impossible to fish in the lake, and even should I be able to do so I could not sell my fish. It would be too hard a task to reach the city beyond the wood until the stream once more runs quietly between its banks.' To Huldbrand as he listened it mattered not though the stream rushed on for ever. The world beyond the wood was becoming to the knight more and more as a dream. Also the little island on which he was living seemed to him the most beautiful spot on earth, for on it dwelt the maiden he loved so well. As these thoughts passed through the knight's mind he turned, and saw at once that Undine must have annoyed her foster-mother, for the old woman was casting angry looks upon the maiden. Perhaps the angry looks would be followed by harsh words, as had happened on other days. Quickly the knight made up his mind. Were Undine but his wife, no one would venture to reprove her. The priest was in the cottage. Why should he not marry the beautiful maiden without delay? He spoke a few words to Undine, then drawing her gently toward the priest he said, 'Father, you see before you the maiden whom I love, whom, if her foster-parents are willing, I would wed this very day.' The priest turned to the fisherman and his wife. 'You hear the words of the noble knight,' he said. 'Are you willing that he should wed the maiden?' It was easy to see that the old people were in no way startled by the priest's words. 'To no braver or more courteous knight could we give our foster-child,' said the fisherman, and his wife smiled and nodded as he spoke. Then the foster-mother brought two candles, which long years before had been blessed by a holy man, and placed them on the kitchen table, while the knight, unfastening the chain which hung around his neck, began to take off it two golden rings, one for Undine, the other for himself. 'Ah, do not so,' cried the maiden. 'Touch not the golden chain. Believe me, my parents, could they know, would wish us to use the rings they entrusted to my care when I was but a child.' She ran quickly from the room, and when she came back she held in her hand two radiant rings, one of which she gave to the knight, while the other she kept for herself. Her foster-parents looked at Undine in surprise, for they had neither seen the rings nor known that their foster-child had any jewels in her possession. Then the maiden, seeing their astonishment, told how her parents had stitched the rings into the little garments she had worn when first she came to them, a tiny child. 'They bid me also tell no one that they had given me these precious gems until the evening of my wedding-day.' Meanwhile the priest had clad himself again in his own garments, and lighting the candles, he called to Huldbrand and the maiden to come and kneel before him. [Illustration: In the little cottage were heard the solemn words of the marriage service] Gladly they obeyed, and then in the little cottage were heard the solemn words of the marriage service, and Undine became the wife of Huldbrand, the knight of Ringstetten. The maiden had been unusually quiet as she listened to the solemn words of the marriage service, but now a spirit of mischief seemed to seize her. She laughed and danced, she played childish tricks upon her husband, her foster-parents, even upon the priest himself. Her foster-mother would have rebuked Undine as of old, but the knight silenced her, for Undine was now his wife. Yet he himself was little pleased with her behaviour. When Undine saw a frown upon his brow, it is true that she would grow quieter, and sitting near him, would for a little while smooth his brow with her soft white hand. Soon, however, a new fancy would take hold of her, she would jump up, and her tricks would grow even more vexing than before. Then the priest spoke, and his voice was grave. 'Lady, you are fair to look on, but I pray you to cease these foolish ways, lest your soul become less beautiful than your face.' Undine's laughter ceased. After a while she looked at the priest and asked in a timid whisper, 'What is this thing which you call a soul, holy Father?' Over the little kitchen a hush fell as the holy man answered, 'How can I tell you what this strange thing which we call our soul really is? Yet can I tell you why God gives us this great gift. It is that we may learn to know and love Him. Our bodies will grow old, and we will lay them aside as a garment which we no longer need, while our souls will live and dwell with Him for ever.' Undine's eyes grew sad, tears streamed down her cheek. 'Ah,' she sobbed, 'I have no soul, no soul. I think it would hurt me to have a soul, yet fain would I have one.' Then, with one of those quick changes which had at times startled her foster-parents, she dried her tears, and ran quickly to the window. She looked out into the night. It seemed to call her forth to a careless, thoughtless life. Why should she stay when the wind whispered to her and the waters brought her messages from the depths of the sea? 'Ah no, I will have no soul!' cried Undine, turning once more toward the priest. 'I must be free, free as the breezes and the dancing waters.' 'Your love for me will change and grow cold,' said the knight sadly, 'unless you have a human soul. For none can love truly without this precious gift.' Yet even as he spoke Huldbrand was trying to stifle a fear that had begun to creep into his heart, a fear that the maiden he had wedded was a fairy or a mocking spirit from another world. But his beautiful wife was smiling softly, for as he had spoken his last words she had learned a secret. And as the knight looked into her blue love-lit eyes he too learned the secret. Through love Undine had won a soul, which is indeed the gift of God to every mortal.	{ "id": "18752" }
7	UNDINE'S STORY	Undine lost her wilful ways on her wedding-day. Her foster-parents watched her, bewildered, so gentle was she, so thoughtful. She, who had but seldom flung her arms around them, embraced them now, and thanked them with tears in her eyes for all their care. Nor would she let them go, until she saw that the old woman wished to prepare breakfast. Then she herself flew to the hearth, and making her foster-mother rest, she swept and dusted, and prepared the meal. It was strange that she had never thought of doing this before. And those who dwelt with her, as they watched her grow so gracious, so gentle, learned to love her even more than in the days when she had been wild and wilful. One evening Undine, with Huldbrand by her side, wandered along the bank of the forest stream. The knight marvelled that the waters had suddenly grown peaceful, and that now again they were gliding quietly along their usual course. 'To-morrow,' said his fair wife sorrowfully, 'to-morrow you can ride forth where you will.' 'But,' said Huldbrand, 'you know well that if I go I will not leave you behind.' 'I do not think you will leave me, Huldbrand. Yet carry me across to yonder little island, for there I will tell to you the story of the maiden you have made your wife. It may be that when you have heard it, you will ride away alone into the wide world.' Then silently the knight carried her, as she wished, across the stream to the tiny island, and laid her down on the green grass. It was on this very spot that he had found her on the night of the terrible storm. 'Sit there, where I can look into your eyes as I tell my tale,' said his wife, 'for as I look I shall be able to see what you are thinking, nor will there be any need for you to tell me.' 'In the world,' said Undine, 'there are many beings whom mortals seldom see, for should these beings hear a mortal drawing near, they quickly hide themselves. These beings of whom I tell you are spirits that dwell in fire, earth, air and water. 'Those who dwell in the flames are called salamanders, nor do these spirits wish for any other home, as they play merrily and fearlessly among the sparkling fires. 'Deep under the earth live the gnomes, rough and fearsome spirits they, full of malice too, should any mortal cross their path. 'In lofty forests dwell more fair and joyous spirits, guarding each some well-loved spot from a mortal's heavy tread. 'And better known and better loved than these of whom I have told you are the spirits who haunt the waters. These have their home in sea or lake, in river or in little brook. 'Deep down under the blue waters, hidden from mortal eyes, are the palaces of the water spirits. Their walls are built of crystal and are hung with coral, their floors are paved with shining pearls. 'Deep down under the blue waters are yellow sands. There the merry little water-spirits play their games and gambol all the glad long days, until they leave their childhood far behind. 'Pure and fair, more fair even than the race of mortals are the spirits of the water. Fishermen have chanced to see these water-nymphs or mermaidens, and they have spoken of their wondrous beauty. Mortals too have named these strange women Undines. Look upon me, Huldbrand, look long and well, for I, your wife, am an Undine!' The knight gazed sadly upon his beautiful wife. He wished to believe that she was but weaving fairy tales with which to charm him through the quiet eventide, yet as he gazed upon her he shuddered lest the tale she told was true. Undine saw that he shuddered, and tears sprang into her blue eyes as she went on with her story. 'When I was a child I lived in the depths of the sea. My father's crystal palace was my home, for he, my father, is the Lord of the Ocean. Kühleborn is my uncle. He used to watch me with his big eyes until I grew afraid, and even now, although I live above the waters, he comes to me and ofttimes he frightens me as though I were again a little child. 'Brothers and cousins, too, were mine and played with me on the yellow sands beneath the blue sea. 'Merry were our lives and free, for the sorrows of mortals came not near to us. We had no soul, the gift God gives to every mortal, and without a soul no pain could enter into our lives. 'Yet my father, the King of the Ocean, longed that I, his only daughter, should gain the great gift which is given to every mortal. And this he wished, though well he knew that to mortals was given, with the gift of a soul, the power to suffer. 'An Undine can gain a soul in one way alone. She must love and be loved by one of mortal birth. 'You, Huldbrand, you have given me my soul, and should you now despise me or drive me from you, I should suffer even as one of your own race. 'Yet if you care not to have an Undine for your wife, leave me, and I will plunge into the waters. Then Kühleborn, my uncle, who brought me a merry happy child to the fisherman, will come and carry me back to my ocean home. There will I live, loving, sorrowing, for into the depths of the blue sea will I carry my new-won soul.' Then Huldbrand forgot everything save the great love he bore his fair wife Undine. He took her in his arms and carried her across the little stream, whispering to her that she should never leave him. Together they went back to the cottage, and to the water-maiden the little dwelling gleamed more bright than the crystal palace of the Ocean King.	{ "id": "18752" }
8	HULDBRAND AND UNDINE LEAVE THE COTTAGE	The following day Undine was up and out early in the morning, to see if the forest stream was still flowing quietly within its banks. Now the forest stream was the one haunted by her uncle Kühleborn, and often he would use the waters for his own purposes. Sometimes Kühleborn's purposes were kind, sometimes they were unkind. Undine was, in the cottage again, preparing the morning meal, when Huldbrand entered the kitchen. She greeted him brightly. 'My uncle Kühleborn has made the waters calm,' she cried. 'The stream is gliding peaceful as of old through the forest. Neither in air nor water are there spirits to molest us. Should you wish it, you can journey homeward to-day.' Huldbrand did not like to hear Undine speak of her strange kinsfolk, yet so gentle was she, so full of grace, that he soon forgot his vexation. Together the knight and his wife went to the door of the cottage, and looked out at the meadows and the lake lying in the morning sunshine. 'Why should we leave this quiet spot to-day?' said Huldbrand, for well he loved the island where he had found his beautiful bride. 'In the great world we will spend no gladder days than in this simple meadow-land. Let us, then, yet linger here for a few days.' 'It shall be as you wish,' answered Undine. 'Yet will my foster-parents grieve the more when I leave them, should they learn that I have now a soul. To-day they only marvel that I am kind and thoughtful, thinking that to-morrow I will once again be wild and careless as of old. But should I dwell here much longer they will know that never in the days to come will I be thoughtless as in former days. For I cannot hide my new gift. They will hear it in my voice, they will feel it in my touch, they will see it in my eyes. And having known that now, at length, I could love them well, they would grieve to lose me.' 'We will leave to-day, this very hour,' said the knight, so pleased was he with Undine's new care for her kind old foster-parents. The priest who had found shelter in the cottage was also ready to return to his monastery. He would journey with the knight and his lady until they were safe from the perils of the haunted wood. Accordingly they sought the fisherman and his wife, and told them that now they must leave the shelter of their cottage and journey toward the city that lay beyond the forest. The farewells were said and Huldbrand lifted his beautiful wife and seated her on his horse. He himself would walk by her side. The three travellers soon reached the leafy shades of the forest. On one side of the lady walked the priest, clad in a long white robe, while, guarding her on the other side, was, as I told you, the knight. His armour was burnished and his sword was once more girt by his side. As Huldbrand and Undine talked joyfully together, a stranger joined the priest, yet they in their joy did not notice this. The stranger wore a garment such as a monk might wear. The hood was drawn forward and wellnigh hid his face, while the whole robe hung loosely around him, in great folds, so that at each step he must gather it up and throw it over his arm. [Illustration: The three travellers soon reached the leafy shades of the forest] 'I have lived in the forest for many years,' said the stranger to the priest, 'and I love it for its great beauty. As I flit in and out among the dark shadows of the trees, I play with the stray sunbeams as they cast their glances here and there on my white robe.' 'Tell me your name, for I would fain know who you are,' said the priest to his companion. 'Nay, tell me first who are you who ask?' said the stranger. 'Father Heilman is my name,' answered the priest, 'and I am journeying back to my monastery, after an absence of many days.' 'Now I,' said the stranger, 'am named Lord Kühleborn, though sometimes I am called Kühleborn the Free, for indeed I am free as the wild birds of the air to go hither and thither as I will. Meanwhile, Sir Priest, I bid you farewell, for I would speak to yonder lady.' Even as he spoke, Kühleborn left the priest and came close up to Undine. He bent forward as though he would whisper in her ear. But Undine drew herself quickly away, crying as she saw who was by her side, 'I no longer wish to have aught to do with you!' But her uncle only laughed at her words. 'You are my niece,' he said, 'and I am here to guide you through the forest. The goblins in the cavern beneath the earth might come forth to do you harm were I not here to keep them quiet. The priest, who is named Father Heilman, speaks to me more kindly than do you. Know you not that it was I who brought him in safety to the little island to be ready for your wedding-day?' Undine and the knight turned to the priest, but he was walking as one in deep thought, and had, it was easy to see, heard nothing that the stranger had said. Then Undine turned again to her uncle. 'See yonder,' she cried, 'I can see already the end of the wood. We need your help no longer. I pray you vanish and do not disturb us further.' When Kühleborn saw that Undine really wished him to leave her, he was angry. He made faces and shook his fist at his niece, until at length she screamed, 'Huldbrand, Huldbrand, save me, I entreat you!' The knight at once drew his sword and would have struck at the rude stranger. But as he thrust in the direction of Kühleborn he felt a waterfall come rushing down from a rock above him. He drew his wife back, that she might not be drenched, but as he did so a white spray was flung after them which wet them both to the skin. At that moment they heard, as they thought, a low mocking laugh. 'It is strange,' said the priest, 'that the ripple of the stream should sound almost as the voice of a man.' To Huldbrand the stream still seemed to be speaking, and these were the words he thought he heard. 'You were foolish, Sir Knight, to draw your sword, yet will I not be angry with you, nor will I quarrel with you so long as you guard well your beautiful wife. Yet be not again thus hasty, Sir Knight.' As the voice faded away into silence the travellers reached the end of the wood. Before them was the city, glowing red in the rays of the setting sun.	{ "id": "18752" }
9	THE KNIGHT RETURNS TO THE CITY	Now all this time the lady Bertalda had been very unhappy because of the knight's long absence. Indeed, she had no sooner sent Huldbrand forth into the haunted forest than she began to wish that she had kept him by her side. As day after day passed and he did not return, she grew fearful lest he had lost his way and perished in the mazes of the wood. When a little later she heard of the floods that had made the country around impassable, she wellnigh lost all hope of his return. In spite of this, however, she begged the knights who had taken part in the tournament to go in search of Huldbrand, but this they were unwilling to do. As for the knight's own servants, they would not leave the city without their master, yet neither would they follow him into the dreaded forest. They lingered on at an inn of the city, lamenting his absence, but doing nought to bring him back. It was now, when there seemed but little hope of his return, that Huldbrand, to the surprise of every one, appeared in the city, bringing with him a wife of wondrous beauty, as well as Father Heilman, the priest who had married them. Huldbrand's servants rejoiced to see their young master alive and well. And the town folk, who had heard of his disappearance, were glad that the light-hearted knight, who had always treated them with courtesy, had suffered no harm in his adventure. But the lady Bertalda, though she was glad that the knight had returned, was sad when she saw that he had not come back alone. She herself had loved him, and had hoped that, if ever he should return, he would claim her as his bride. Yet though Bertalda was sad, she was a wise maiden, and she received Undine kindly, thinking that she was a princess whom Huldbrand had rescued from a wicked wizard. For the true story of the beautiful Undine was known to none, save to the knight alone. As for Undine, she no sooner saw Bertalda than she loved her, and begged her to stay in the city until she and her husband left it. Nay, more, she even asked the maiden to promise to go with them when they set out for the castle of Ringstetten, which stood on the banks of the river Danube, and Bertalda was well pleased with this request. One evening they three together walked up and down in the public square. In the midst of the square stood a beautiful fountain, and here they lingered to watch the water as it tumbled and tossed. So violently did it do this that it seemed as though the fountain must break, and the water, bursting its bonds, must flow away far and free. At that moment a tall man came towards them from the market-place, and, bowing to the knight and Bertalda, he drew the young wife aside that he might speak to her alone. Huldbrand looked at the stranger, and as he looked he felt sure that he had seen him before. He grew a little angry, this hasty knight, as he watched his wife and the stranger whispering together. He caught a few words too, and they seemed to him to be in a foreign language, and this displeased him yet more. At this moment, however, Undine left the stranger. As she came toward her husband she was laughing merrily and clapping her hands. But the stranger, as she left him, shook his head and frowned. Then he walked with great strides toward the fountain, and stepping into it he vanished and was seen no more. 'It is Kühleborn, the spirit of the forest stream--I know him now,' thought Huldbrand to himself. But Bertalda seemed to see nothing unusual about the stranger. She thought he was the Master of the fountain, and turning to Undine she asked her what the man had said to make her laugh so gaily. 'The day after to-morrow is your birthday, dear Bertalda,' said Undine. 'Wait only until then, and I will tell you the reason of my joy.' Then, saying farewell to Bertalda, Undine and the knight walked toward their home. 'Was it Kühleborn who spoke to you by the fountain?' asked Huldbrand, and his voice sounded cold, for he did not wish to be reminded of his wife's strange relations. 'It was he,' answered Undine. 'He told me tidings that made me rejoice. I will tell you without delay, should you desire it, what the tidings were. Yet if you will but wait until Bertalda's birthday, you will give me great pleasure, and you yourself will enjoy a great surprise.' Listening to her gentle words, the knight forgot the ill-humour he had but lately felt, and willingly he agreed to wait until she herself wished to tell him the good news. And Undine, as she fell asleep that night, was smiling happily. 'Bertalda, dear Bertalda,' she murmured, 'how she will rejoice when I tell her the tidings brought to me by him whom she calls the Master of the fountain.'	{ "id": "18752" }
10	THE BIRTHDAY FEAST	It had been Undine's wish to give a great banquet in honour of Bertalda's birthday. The knight had ordered that all should be done as she desired. The feast was now spread, and the guests, of whom there were a great number, had already taken their seats. At the upper end of the table sat Bertalda, surrounded with flowers and jewels, gifts these which her foster-parents and friends had showered upon her. By her side sat the knight and his fair young wife. When at length the fruit was placed on the table, the doors of the banqueting-room were flung open. (In Germany, where the knight lived, it was usual to do this that the peasant folk might look in and see how their masters fared.) Wine and cakes were offered to those who on this evening came to show their pleasure in the joy of the knight and his young wife. Huldbrand and Bertalda, meanwhile, were watching Undine with eager eyes. Had she not a secret to tell them, which, when they knew it, would make them even happier than before? But Undine only smiled upon them as she caught their eyes, and shook her head slightly as though to say, 'No, it is still too soon, too soon.' At this moment the guests begged the young mistress of the feast to sing. She seemed pleased with the request, and taking her lute in her hands, she began to play softly, while her clear voice filled the room. It was a song of sunshine and green grass, of sweet flowers and sparkling waters, and the guests, listening spellbound, forgot all else save the singer and her song. But hark! the song is changing. Who is the child of whom Undine sings? A child who has been borne by the waves far from the home of her birth. The little one is lying like a flower among the meadow grass (the guests can see her as the singer sings) and reaches out her tiny hands for help. Ah! now they hear the tramp, tramp of a horse. A noble duke is riding slowly along. He halts, for he sees the little maid. He stoops and lifts her in his arms, and carries her off to his own castle, and surrounds her with splendour and with wealth. And now tears gather in the eyes of the guests. The song is drawing to a close, and Undine is singing of an unknown shore, where in a little cottage sit a father and mother, desolate and sad, for they have lost their little child, and they know not where to find her. Among all the guests were none who listened to the song more eagerly than Bertalda's noble foster-parents. 'She has sung the story of Bertalda, the little child we found so long ago,' they said each to the other. 'It was even thus we found her in the meadow, among the flowers.' And Bertalda herself cried out in haste, 'Undine, Undine, you know my parents, bring them to me, bring them to me, I entreat you!' Then Undine, with tears that were tears of joy in her eyes, looked at Bertalda, and said softly, 'They are here, your parents are here, dear maiden, and when you see them you will rejoice. Well do I know the tender care they will give to you, for it was even they who were my own foster-parents.' At a sign from Undine the old fisherman and his wife now stepped forward from the corner in which their foster-child had bidden them wait. It was she, Undine, who had sent for them that they might claim Bertalda, who was, as Kühleborn told her, their child. The eyes of all the guests were fixed in astonishment on the humble fisherman and his wife. Could these poor working folk be indeed the parents of the maiden who stood before them, so cold, so full of pride? 'Yes, here is your long-lost daughter,' said Undine softly, as the old people stood bewildered before Bertalda. Then they, taking courage from her words, threw their arms around their daughter. And as they embraced her, tears streamed down their old worn faces, while they thanked God for His goodness in giving them back their child. But Bertalda tore herself from their arms. She, the child of a poor old fisherman and his wife! She could not believe it. She did not wish to believe it. In her pride she had hoped to be known as the daughter of a beautiful princess, or even of a queen. Now in her anger she believed that Undine had brought the fisherman and his wife to the banquet only to crush her pride and to humble her before Huldbrand and his guests. The angry maiden took no pains to hide her rage. She reproached Undine, Undine who had only wished to give her joy, nor had she any words too bitter to fling at the fisherman and his wife. And Undine, who had hoped to make her friend and her foster-parents happy, listened sadly, now to Bertalda, now to the old fisherman and his wife. 'Bertalda,' she cried, 'Bertalda, do not be angry. Have you not a soul? Let it teach you not to grieve your parents more.' But Bertalda only grew more angry, and the poor parents, as they heard her scorn, more sad. As for the guests, they were talking loudly, some being sorry for the maiden, others for the fisherman and his wife. Then Undine begged the knight to let her speak to their guests. And he yielding to her wish, she walked to the upper end of the table, and while all eyes were fixed upon her, she spoke. 'My secret, which I thought would cause Bertalda joy, has caused her sorrow. Yet must I tell you that I have spoken the truth. For he who told me was he who, when Bertalda was but a little babe, drew her into the water, and thereafter laid her in the green meadow through which the duke rode toward his castle.' 'Do not listen to her words!' shouted Bertalda in her rage. 'She is a witch, a witch!' 'Nay, I am no witch. Look upon me that you may know,' answered Undine. And as they gazed upon her pure face and into her clear blue eyes, the guests knew that she spoke the truth. Undine was not a witch. 'If she is not a witch, she at least has not told the truth,' cried Bertalda, scorn in her cold voice. 'She has no proof that I am the child of these wretched old people.' Then, turning to her noble foster-parents, she entreated them to take her away at once from the city, where such shame had been brought upon her. But the duke did not move, while the duchess said in a firm voice, 'We shall not leave this room, nor shall you, proud maiden, until we know the truth.' Then the fisherman's wife drew near to the noble lady, and curtsying low she said, 'Should this bad maiden be indeed my daughter, as I do think she is, she will have between her shoulders a mark like a violet, and this mark also you will find on the instep of her left foot. Let the maiden come with me that--' But Bertalda rudely interrupted the old woman's words. 'I will not go with the peasant!' she said. 'But you will come with me into another room,' said the duchess, and Bertalda knew that she would have to go. 'And the old woman shall come with us,' added the noble lady in a kind voice. As the three went out of the banqueting-room, silence fell upon the guests. Now they would soon know the truth. Slowly the moments passed. At length the door opened and the duchess returned with Bertalda and the old woman. Bertalda looked pale and frightened. 'It is but just,' said the noble lady, looking round the room, 'it is but just that you should know the truth. It is as our hostess has said. Bertalda is indeed the daughter of the fisherman and his wife.' The duke and duchess then left the room, followed by their foster-child, the duke bidding Bertalda's true parents come with them also. In silence the other guests slipped away, to talk in their own homes over all that they had heard and seen, and Undine, left alone with her husband, wept bitterly.	{ "id": "18752" }
11	THE JOURNEY TO CASTLE RINGSTETTEN	The knight did all he could to comfort his wife, and although he was sorry to see her tears, he was glad to think that she, who had been so wild and wilful, had now a soul so kind and loving. 'If it is true that Undine has won through love a soul, it is one more pure than mortals know,' he thought to himself. As he comforted his wife Huldbrand made up his mind to take her away from the city as soon as possible. In the city the lady Bertalda was well known, and people talked of the strange story of her birth. But among them all none was heard to say an unkind word about Undine, while many there were who blamed Bertalda for her cruel behaviour toward her friend and the poor old fisherman and his wife. But this neither the knight nor his lady knew, nor would it have comforted Undine had she been told. The morning after the feast a beautiful carriage stood at the door. Huldbrand and his wife were ready to set out on their journey to the castle of Ringstetten. As the knight and Undine were stepping into the carriage a fisher-girl drew near, and begged them to buy her fish. 'We are leaving the city, we do not need any fish,' said the knight courteously. But at the sound of his voice the girl burst into tears, and Huldbrand saw with surprise that it was Bertalda who had spoken to him. 'Why do you weep so bitterly?' asked Undine, drawing Bertalda into the house, and the maiden, who had no pride left, told her story. 'My foster-parents,' she said between her sobs, 'my foster-parents are so displeased with my cruel behaviour to you and to the old fisherman and his wife, that they no longer wish me to live with them. They have given me a large sum of money and have sent me away into the wide world. The fisherman and his wife, to whom they have also given gifts, have gone back to their cottage by the lake. I was too fearful to wish to be left alone in the world, and fain would I have gone with them to their simple home, but he who is said to be my father--' [Illustration: At the sound of his voice the girl burst into tears] 'In truth he is your father,' interrupted Undine, and her voice was grave. 'Even if he be my father,' answered Bertalda, 'yet would he not take me with him to his cottage. Did I care for him or for his wife, he said, I would not fear to journey alone through the haunted forest, until I found my home. Nor would he welcome me should I go to him dressed in aught save the dress of a fisher-girl. Although the thought of the forest makes me tremble, yet will I do as he has said. But first I have come to you, gentle lady,' and as she spoke Bertalda looked entreatingly at Undine, 'I have come to ask your forgiveness for my behaviour yesterday. I believe that you did indeed wish to give me joy by bringing my poor parents to the feast. O forgive me, forgive all the bold and unkind words I spoke, for indeed I am very unhappy.' But the gentle Undine would let the miserable maiden say no more. She threw her arms around Bertalda's neck, and said, 'Bertalda, dear Bertalda, you shall live with me and be my sister. You shall come with me to Ringstetten this very day.' The maiden dried her tears and looked timidly at the knight. He also felt sorry for Bertalda, nor did it please him to think of her venturing alone into the forest. Too well he knew the terrors which might surround her there. He took her hand, as he saw her timid look, and said in a gentle voice, 'You shall live with us at Ringstetten, and I and my wife will take care of you. But lest the good old fisherman is troubled as the days pass and you do not reach the cottage, I will send to tell him that you have come with us and are safe at Castle Ringstetten.' Then, giving Bertalda his arm, he placed her in the carriage with Undine. The knight himself mounted his horse and rode along gaily by their side, and soon they left the city and all sad thoughts behind. At length, one fair summer evening, the travellers reached Ringstetten. There was much to make the knight busy after his long absence, and thus it was that Undine and Bertalda spent many days alone together. Often they would walk in the beautiful country which lay without the castle grounds. One day, as they wandered along the banks of the river Danube, a tall man came toward them, and would have spoken to Undine. But Undine, gentle as were her ways, had no welcome for the stranger. When she saw him, a frown crossed her sweet face and she bid him at once begone. Shaking his head the tall man yet obeyed, and walking with hasty steps toward a little wood, he soon disappeared. 'Is not the stranger he who spoke to you in the city, the Master of the fountain?' cried Bertalda fearfully. She would always be afraid of the man who had told Undine the secret of her birth. 'Fear nothing, dear Bertalda,' said Undine hastily, 'the Master of the fountain shall not do you harm. I will tell you who he is, and then you will no longer be afraid. His name is Kühleborn and he is my uncle. It was he who carried you away from your mother's arms and put me there in your place.' Then, as Bertalda listened with wide open eyes, Undine told her of her childhood's home in the crystal palace under the blue sea, and of the free and careless life she had lived in the cottage by the lake. She told her, too, of the coming of the knight, and of their wedding-day, when she had won for herself a soul, a gift given to no Undine save through the power of love. Bertalda listened to the strange story in silence, but as she listened she felt a faint feeling of dread creep into her heart. And the feeling grew and grew until at last it seemed to stand as a wall between her and the gentle Undine. At supper that evening she began to be sorry for the knight, who had married a lady beautiful indeed and good, yet one who seemed to belong to another world than theirs.	{ "id": "18752" }
12	CASTLE RINGSTETTEN	Now as the days passed, a change crept over those who dwelt in the castle. Huldbrand saw that Bertalda seemed to shrink away from his beautiful wife. And when at length he asked her the reason that she no longer loved Undine so well as she had been used to do, she told him that she now knew from whence his wife had come. 'And for the spirit world,' said Bertalda, 'I do not care, for I know it not. It and those who have dwelt there fill me with fear and dread.' Little by little the knight himself began to look at his wife with less loving eyes, little by little he began to shun her presence. Then Undine, seeing that her husband's love grew less, wept, and the knight, seeing her tears, would speak kindly to her, yet even as he spoke he would leave her side to walk with Bertalda. She, Bertalda, meanwhile grew once more rude and proud, nor could Undine's patience win her to behave more wisely. Then in the long dark passages of the old castle, spectres began to appear to Huldbrand and Bertalda, and worse than any was the tall form of Kühleborn, or the Master of the fountain, as the maiden still called him. Now one day, when Huldbrand had ridden to the hunt, Undine gathered all her servants together in the court of the castle and bade them bring a big stone to cover up the fountain which stood in the middle of the square. The servants, who loved their mistress, hastened to obey her commands. A huge stone was carried into the court, and was just about to be placed on the fountain when Bertalda came hurriedly to the spot. 'The fountain must not be closed,' she cried haughtily, 'for it is from it that water is drawn for my daily bath.' But Undine, who on other days had often given way to the wishes of Bertalda, was to-day determined that her will should be done. 'It is I who am mistress of the castle in the absence of my lord,' she said, and her voice was firm though it was kind, 'and the fountain shall be closed as I have commanded.' 'But look,' cried Bertalda angrily, 'the water itself bubbles and heaves as though disturbed at the thought of being shut out from the glad sunshine.' The water was indeed, as the maiden said, fretting against the stones and throwing out sudden jets as though in a violent passion. The more excited grew the water, however, the more determined grew Undine to have her order fulfilled, and that without delay. As for the servants, they had no wish to please the haughty Bertalda, they were even glad to disobey her when that might be. Accordingly they no longer delayed to do the will of their gentle mistress, and the stone was soon placed securely over the opening of the fountain. Undine then bent over it and silently wrote on the top of the stone some strange letters. That evening, when Huldbrand came home, Bertalda met him with tears in her eyes, and complained to him of his wife's strange conduct. 'Tell me why you have ordered that the fountain should be sealed,' said the knight, turning sullenly to his wife. 'It was a strange deed.' 'I will tell you the reason when we are alone,' said Undine. 'It was a grave one indeed.' 'It matters not if Bertalda should hear,' said the knight, and he did not hide the impatience that he felt. 'I will tell you in her presence if you so desire,' said Undine, 'but I beseech you, desire it not.' As the knight looked into her pleading face and let her sweet voice steal into his heart, he grew ashamed of himself. How could he ever be unkind to so fair, so good a wife! Thinking thus Huldbrand did not speak, but he drew Undine gently from the room, that she might speak to him alone as she wished to do. 'Ah, now I can tell you,' said Undine, and she smiled in her content. 'You know that Kühleborn, my uncle, has begun to haunt the castle. I send him away in my displeasure, yet again and again he returns. Now I have shut the door by which he comes, and here he will disturb our peace no more. It is true that the stone can easily be raised by strong men, in spite of the letters which I wrote upon it. If you wish to do as Bertalda demands, remove the stone, yet do I warn you that Kühleborn may well harm the maiden, for against her he bears more ill-will than he does against others.' Once more, as Huldbrand listened to his wife, he was ashamed. So gentle was she, so kind to the haughty maiden who but mocked at her for all her love. Peerless indeed was the soul of his beautiful wife, and once again love for her sprang up within his heart. 'The stone shall not be removed, nor shall anything that you order be undone, my sweet Undine,' said the knight. At these words, and yet more at the kindness of his voice, Undine rejoiced. Then, seizing Huldbrand's hand, she begged him to grant her one request. 'If at any time, in the days that are to come,' she said, 'you upbraid me, promise that this you will never do while we are sailing or while we are near to sea or lake or tiny rivulet. For should one of my race hear you use harsh words toward me, then would they regain their power, and snatch me away from you for ever. Then would I be forced to dwell all the rest of my life in the crystal palace below the blue sea. Nor could I ever come up to you unless, indeed, I was sent by my kindred, when alas! only great sadness would befall us both. Promise me, therefore, that when we are near water, you will remember what I have now told you.' Huldbrand promised, and hand in hand they went in search of Bertalda. She meanwhile had called together some workmen, and as she saw the knight and Undine drawing near, she gave her orders to the men in a loud, discontented voice. 'The stone may now be removed. Hasten, see that it be done immediately!' But the knight was angry with the maiden for daring thus to give what orders she pleased, and he shouted at once, so that the workmen might hear, 'The stone shall stay where it is! It shall not be removed!' And the men went away, well pleased that they need not undo what their gentle mistress had ordered to be done. Huldbrand then reproved Bertalda for her rude behaviour to his wife, but she scarcely heard his words, as she turned away in anger and hastened to her room. Soon supper was placed on the table, but Huldbrand and Undine waited in vain for Bertalda. At length they sent a servant to call her, but the maid came back only to tell them that she was nowhere to be found. In her room, however, a letter had been left addressed to the knight. Huldbrand opened it hastily and read:-- 'Forgive me, Sir Knight, that I have forgotten that I am only a poor fisher-girl. I will go to my father's miserable cottage, where I cannot well commit the same fault again. Fare you well, you and your beautiful wife.' 'You must go without delay to seek her and bring her back,' said Undine. And Huldbrand did not need to be urged. Already he had ordered his horse to be saddled that he might ride after the maiden. In vain he asked the servants in what direction Bertalda had gone. No one had seen her. It was only as the knight impatiently mounted his steed, that a page ran up to him crying, 'The lady Bertalda rode toward the Black Valley.' Without a pause the knight darted off in the direction of the valley. He did not hear his wife's voice crying after him, 'Huldbrand, Huldbrand, go not there, not to the valley, Huldbrand, or, if go you must, take me, I entreat of you.' Then when Undine saw that her cry was unheard, she ordered her palfrey to be saddled instantly, and mounting it, she rode forth alone to follow the knight into the Black Valley.	{ "id": "18752" }
13	THE BLACK VALLEY	The Black Valley was a gloomy place. Fir-trees grew tall and dark on the banks of the stream, casting strange shadows on the sunny waters. As the knight entered the valley, evening had fallen and the stream rushed, dark and sullen, between the rocks. Huldbrand glanced anxiously from side to side, but no trace could be found of the maiden whom he sought. He began to fear lest already she were in peril, and thinking thus he urged his horse yet further into the valley. Peering through the bushes as he rode, he at length caught sight of something white lying on the ground. Had he found Bertalda at last? He spurred his horse onward toward the white gleam which had caught his eye, but the animal no sooner saw the object which had gladdened his master's eye than it started violently and refused to move. Then the knight dismounted, and tying his now rearing steed to an elm, he pushed his way on foot through the brushwood. Thunder began to rumble around the mountains, and the evening dew fell cold and damp on the anxious knight. He could still see the white figure lying on the ground, but as he drew nearer to it a strange dread struck at Huldbrand's heart. 'Was Bertalda asleep,' he wondered, 'or did she lie there unconscious, perchance even dead?' He was close to her now, bending over her. She never stirred. He rustled the branches, rattled his sword. Still she lay there quiet, motionless. He called her by her name, 'Bertalda!' but no voice answered him. He called again, more loud, 'Bertalda!' but only a sorrowful echo answered his cry. Then the knight bent nearer yet to the maiden, but darkness hid the face on which he longed to gaze. Suddenly the whole valley was bright as at mid-day. A vivid flash of lightning showed to Huldbrand the face over which he bent. It was a terrible face. And a voice, awful as the face, rang out harsh and hollow. With a cry of terror the knight sprang away from the horrid vision. But was it a vision? Huldbrand knew that it was creeping after him, and he could catch some muttered words. 'Get you gone, get you gone,' he heard, 'there are evil spirits abroad. Get you gone, or I shall seize you and hold you fast,' and the white figure stretched out his bony arms to catch him. Ah! now the knight knew who it was that had given him so cruel a fright. It was none other than Kühleborn, the malicious water spirit. Seizing his sword, Huldbrand struck fiercely at the white figure, only however to see it vanish, while a heavy shower of water drenched him from head to foot. 'He may wish to drive me away, but he shall not succeed in doing so,' murmured the knight. 'Bertalda shall not be left to the vengeance of this evil spirit.' Huldbrand now turned back to go to his horse, but ere he reached the animal, he heard in the distance a sound of weeping. It reached his ears even though the thunder still rolled and the wind still blew. He hastened towards the spot from which the sound seemed to come. There, on the hillside, trying to climb up out of the darkness of the valley, he found Bertalda. The maiden was too glad to see Huldbrand to remember how but lately he had angered her. She clung to him, calling him her deliverer, her knight, for to her too the valley had been full of horrible forms and strange visions. Soothing her with kind words, Huldbrand led the maiden toward his horse. But no sooner did the animal see his master approach with Bertalda on his arm than it began to rear, beating the air madly with its forefeet. It was not possible to mount Bertalda, and the knight soon gave up the attempt. He drew the horse gently forward by the bridle, while with his other arm he supported the fearful maiden. But Bertalda, though she was anxious to escape from the dark valley, could walk but slowly, and at each step her strength grew less. For Kühleborn had played her many pranks ere she had been found. The storm also had bruised her slender form. At length she slipped from the knight's arm, and falling on the grass, she sighed, 'Leave me, noble knight, leave me to suffer the punishment I deserve.' 'I will never leave you, dear Bertalda,' cried the knight. As he spoke, the steed began to plunge even more furiously than before. It was impossible for Huldbrand to control the animal. All he could do was to force it away a few paces from where the maiden lay, for he feared lest the horse should trample her to death. He had gone but a few steps when he heard her calling to him, 'Huldbrand, Huldbrand, leave me not alone,' for already all her courage had faded away. As he hesitated, the knight heard the wheels of a wagon rumble slowly over the rough road that led through the valley. He at once called to the driver to come to his help. A man's voice called back quickly, 'Have but patience, and I will come.' Soon afterwards Huldbrand saw two white horses appear through the trees. Then a wagon covered with a great white hood was to be seen, and last of all the driver, who was dressed in a white carter's frock. The driver drew near to the knight and tried to help him to quiet his frightened steed. 'Do you know, Sir Knight, why your good horse shivers thus?' asked the carter, 'for if not I can tell you. A bad water spirit dwells in this valley, and often he would bewitch my horses when first I ventured through it. But now I have learned a little spell. If you wish it, I will whisper it in the ear of your steed, and he will stand steady as my greys.' 'You may try your spell,' said the knight, 'though I fear that it will be of but little use.' Then the driver of the wagon went quietly up to the panting steed, and said a few words to it. At once the horse stood still, without a trace of the fear which had made it so restless and unmanageable. Huldbrand had no time to wonder what the wagoner had said to his horse. He was too eager to get Bertalda out of the valley to think of anything else. 'My wagon will take the fair lady safely back to Ringstetten,' said the wagoner. 'She may sit in it in comfort, for it is filled with bags of the softest cotton.' The knight was glad to accept this offer, and as his horse, though quiet, was tired and weary, Huldbrand himself was easily persuaded that he also should ride in the wagon with Bertalda, while his steed was fastened behind. 'It is well,' said the wagoner, 'that the road is downhill. My trusty greys will step out bravely.' Thus they started, the driver walking by the side of his wagon. And Bertalda and the knight did not heed the jolting of the wagon, as they sat side by side on the soft bags of cotton. Suddenly they were startled by a loud shout from the driver. 'Steady, now, my trusty greys, steady, lest you fall.' Already the wagon was in the midst of a stream of rushing water, and it seemed as though the horses must be carried off their feet. The wagoner had sprung into the wagon untouched by the swirling waters. 'This is a strange way by which to drive us,' said Huldbrand to the wagoner. 'It seems to go right into the middle of the stream.' 'Nay, now, Sir Knight,' laughed the driver, 'if you look again, you will see that it is the stream which is rushing across our path. See, it has overflowed its banks.' The knight looked and saw that the whole valley was being rapidly flooded. Then, all at once, he knew that this was Kühleborn's doing. 'It is Kühleborn,' he cried aloud, 'Kühleborn the water spirit, who is doing his utmost to drown us. Do you not know a spell against his power?' 'Yea, by my troth I know a spell,' answered the wagoner, 'but ere I use it, I must tell you who I am.' 'I care not who you may be,' shouted the angry knight. 'See you not that there is no time to lose. The water is rising rapidly.' 'Nevertheless,' answered the man,' you shall hear my name, for I am Kühleborn!' He laughed a mocking laugh, and at that moment the wagon seemed to disappear, and Bertalda and the knight were struggling in the flood. Above them rose the wagoner, who was indeed, as he had said, Kühleborn. Taller and taller he towered above them, until he seemed at last to change into a great white wave. With horror-stricken eyes the maiden and the knight saw the wave swoop down upon the noble steed, which had been vainly struggling in the water. Then slowly once more the wave reared itself higher and higher yet above the heads of the two who watched and waited until they too should be for ever buried beneath the waters. But ere the great white wave rolled down upon them, they were saved. Through the tumult of the waters a sweet voice floated to Bertalda and the knight. Then, as the moon broke through the clouds, they saw Undine on a hill looking down into the valley. She rebuked the waters, she even threatened the vast wave that towered above Bertalda and the knight, until muttering gloomily it vanished from their sight. As the waters ran more quietly through the valley, Undine flew to them swiftly as a bird and drew them up out of reach of the water. Bidding them rest a while, for they were weary, she went a little way off to fetch her white palfrey. Then, telling the knight to place Bertalda on the saddle, she led them safely back to the castle.	{ "id": "18752" }
14	HULDBRAND FORGETS HIS PROMISE	Undine was full of joy when she had saved Bertalda and Huldbrand from the dangers of the Black Valley, and brought them back safely to Castle Ringstetten. Her joy grew daily greater as her husband became kind and gentle to her as he had used to be when they dwelt together in the cottage by the lake. Indeed the knight had grown ashamed of his careless words and ways. He would never again speak harshly to Undine or leave her side to spend long hours with Bertalda; so he thought to himself. For when she had hastened to save him and the maiden from the doom which had all but overtaken them, he had seen once more, in a flash, the soul of his beautiful young wife. It shone before him now, fair and spotless in its beauty. Bertalda, too, had been touched by the goodness of her friend. She no longer wished to mock her gentle words, and though her heart was cold, she grew more humble. Thus trouble and care passed away from Ringstetten, and spectres no longer haunted the dark corners of the castle. Winter came, cold and chill, but it had no power to freeze the hearts of Undine and the knight. Spring came, and the trees grew green, and the sky shone more blue, and the little birds began to use their wings. Soon the swallows and the storks came home from their long winter journeys. And those in the castle, as they thought of the fair countries these had seen, began themselves to wish to travel. One beautiful evening Huldbrand with his wife and Bertalda walked along the banks of the river Danube. The knight, who had ofttimes sailed down the river, told them tales of the wonderful countries through which it flowed, and of the beautiful town of Vienna, which rose so proudly on its banks. 'Ah!' said Bertalda, 'how I wish we might sail to this city of which you tell.' And Undine, ever anxious to give pleasure to her friend, said, 'Yes, let us visit Vienna while the spring is still fair.' Huldbrand also was pleased at the thought of the journey, only once he bent toward Undine and whispered, 'Kühleborn, will we not be in his power if we sail down the river?' His beautiful wife only laughed. She was too happy now to fear her uncle's power. They therefore got ready for the journey with much merriment and many hopes. When at length the three travellers, with their attendants, set out on their voyage, it seemed as though all would be as joyful as they had wished. As they sailed on, the river grew more broad, more green the grasses too in the rich meadow-lands. But erelong a shadow crept across their joy. The river, indeed, flowed smooth as before, the country smiled only more graciously upon the travellers, but Kühleborn had already begun to show that on this part of the river he could use his power. Undine, it is true, reproved her uncle before he had done more than play a few tricks upon them. Yet though he would cease his pranks when she spoke, it was but a few moments before he was as troublesome as ever. Soon the crew began to crowd together, whispering fearfully and glancing timidly at the knight and his fair ladies. Kühleborn was making them afraid. Huldbrand saw their strange glances and he began to grow angry. He even muttered crossly, 'This is Undine's mad uncle come to disturb us. I would her strange kindred would leave us alone.' Thinking thus, the knight looked with displeasure at his poor wife. She knew but too well what his glance meant, and worn out with sorrow and with her constant watch over Kühleborn, she at length fell fast asleep. But no sooner were her eyes closed than her uncle again began his tiresome tricks. It seemed to the sailors, and indeed to all on board, that they were bewitched, for look which way each one would, there before him, peering out of the water, was the head of a very ugly man. Each man turned, in his terror, to point out to his fellow the hideous head. But on every face the same horror was already painted. Then when each tried to tell the other what each one had seen, they ended by crying out together, 'See, here is the face! nay, look, it is here!' Undine awoke as the terrified crew broke into loud screams, and as she opened her eyes the ugly faces vanished. But Huldbrand had not been frightened. He had been growing more and more angry, and now he would have spoken roughly to his wife, had she not pleaded with loving eyes and soft voice, 'For God's sake, rebuke me not while we are on the water. Bethink you of your promise.' The knight was silent, for well he remembered how Undine had entreated him never to reprove her while she was near water. Then she, seeing he was silent, whispered, 'Let us give up this voyage, for now has our joy turned into sadness. Let us go back to the castle where nothing can disturb us.' Huldbrand, however, was not to be so easily restored to good humour. He answered her crossly, 'Why should I have to stay shut up at home? Even there can I have quiet only so long as the fountain remains sealed. I wish that your foolish kinsfolk--' He could say no more, for Undine's hand was over his lips, and her voice was beseeching him to be silent. Meanwhile Bertalda sat quietly in the ship, thinking of all the strange things that had happened. As she sat thus thinking, she unfastened a golden necklace which the knight had given to her, and holding it in her hand over the side of the bark she drew it carelessly through the water. Then dreamily she watched it as it gleamed and glistened in the light of the setting sun. All at once a huge white hand came up out of the river, seized the necklace, and disappeared with it below the water. Bertalda shrieked in terror, and a mocking laugh answered her cry. Then could the anger of the knight no longer be concealed. He sprang up, shouting to the water spirits to claim no kinship with him, but to come and learn from his sword-thrusts how much he hated them. The maiden meanwhile wept for her lost necklace. But Undine had thrust her hand into the water, and was murmuring strange words to herself, stopping from time to time to say to her husband, 'Chide me not here, Huldbrand, chide me not here, lest you lose me for ever.' And, indeed, though the knight shook with rage, yet he spoke no word of reproach to his wife. At length Undine drew out the hand which she had been holding under the water, and in it she held a coral necklace of wondrous beauty. 'Take it and weep no longer,' she said in her gentle voice, and she held the necklace out toward Bertalda. 'I have had it brought to me from the palaces below the sea. Grieve no longer for the one which you have lost.' But the knight saw in the necklace only another sign of Undine's strange dealings with the water spirits. He sprang between Bertalda and his wife and snatched from Undine's hand the beautiful necklace, flinging it far away into the river. Then in his passion he turned to his wife, and cried, 'Go and abide with your kindred! You are a witch, go, dwell with those who are as you are, and take with you your gifts! Go, trouble us no more!' Undine looked at Huldbrand. Tears were in her blue eyes, and she wept as a little blameless child might weep. 'Alas, beloved,' she sighed, 'farewell! No harm shall touch you while I have power to shield you from evil. Alas, alas! why have you sent me hence?' She seemed to glide as she spoke over the edge of the bark, and be drawn down into the river. And the little waves lapped against the boat and seemed to sob as they whispered, 'Alas, alas!' No sooner had the knight spoken than he knew what he had done. He had lost his wife, his beautiful fair-souled Undine. He lay on the deck stretching out empty arms, shedding bitter tears, until at length his misery made the strong man swoon. [Illustration: The little waves seemed to sob as they whispered, 'Alas! alas!']	{ "id": "18752" }
15	HULDBRAND AND BERTALDA	When he recovered, the knight of Ringstetten went back to his castle with Bertalda. So bitterly did he mourn the loss of his gentle wife, that at length he began to believe that he would never cease to weep for her. Bertalda wept by his side, and for a long time they lived quietly together, thinking and talking of none save the beautiful Undine. But as the months passed by, Huldbrand began to think a little less and yet a little less of his beautiful lost wife. Now about this time the old fisherman appeared at the castle. He had come to tell the knight that it was time that his daughter Bertalda should come to live with him in his lonely cottage by the lake. Then the knight began to think how strange and silent it would be in the castle if Bertalda left him. The more he thought about it the more he disliked the thought of being left alone. At length he spoke to the fisherman and begged him not to take Bertalda away. 'Let her stay with me and be my wife,' said the knight. And in time the fisherman yielded to the wishes of the knight, and the wedding-day was fixed. Then a letter was sent to Father Heilman, begging him to come without delay to the castle that he might perform the wedding-rite between the knight and the lady Bertalda. Now Father Heilman was the very priest who had wedded Huldbrand to Undine in the cottage by the lake. When the priest had read Huldbrand's letter he hastened at once to the castle. Huldbrand and Bertalda were sitting side by side under the trees, the fisherman near them, when they saw the priest enter the court. They all rose eagerly to welcome him, but Father Heilman began to speak without delay. 'Sir Knight, I have come with as great haste as my old limbs would carry me to tell you that I do not believe the beautiful Undine is dead. Last night and for many nights before, she was with me in my dreams, wringing her white hands, and crying, "Ah, holy Father, I live, I live. Let not Huldbrand forget me, for should he wed again great danger may, alas, come to him, nor will I have power to shield him. Help me, therefore, holy Father." What the dream meant I knew not until your letter reached me. Now have I come, not to marry you to Bertalda, but to tell you that Undine, your wife, is yet alive.' The knight himself, as well as Bertalda and the fisherman, believed in their hearts that what the priest said was true, yet would they not own that they believed his words. Even the old fisherman, who so dearly loved his foster-child, thought that as the marriage with Bertalda had been arranged, it were well it should take place without more delay. They all, therefore, refused to listen to the priest, when he reproached them for their conduct. They even told him, what was not really true, that they did not believe his foolish dreams. Sadly shaking his head, the priest left the castle. He saw that should he speak again no one would listen to his words. Nor would he linger to taste any of the refreshments that were placed before him. He had failed to make any one believe his dream, and he was too sad to eat. The following morning the knight sent to the nearest monastery for a priest, who promised to wed him to Bertalda in a few days.	{ "id": "18752" }
16	BERTALDA'S WEDDING	The wedding-day dawned bright and clear, the guests assembled in the castle and wore their gayest garments, yet over everything there brooded a dark cloud. It seemed to the knight, as well as to his guests, that some one was missing from the feast, and the thoughts of all turned to the beautiful Undine. The bride seemed happier than any one else, yet even she knew a cloud was in her sky. Slowly the hours of the wedding-day dragged on, but at length the ceremony was over, the feast ended, and the guests ready to depart. When they had gone, Bertalda, thinking to dispel the gloom which had now fallen upon her spirit, told her maids to spread out before her all her rich jewels and gorgeous robes. She would choose to-night the garments in which she would array herself on the morrow. Her waiting-maids did as they were told, and when the dresses and jewels were spread out before their new mistress, they began to flatter her and tell her that none was fairer than she. Bertalda listened with pleasure to their praises. Then looking at herself in the mirror she sighed. 'Alas, but see these little brown spots that have appeared on my neck.' The maids saw indeed, as their mistress said, that there were freckles on her neck, but still they flattered her, saying that the little spots only made her skin look the whiter. But Bertalda did not believe their words. She wanted to get rid of the freckles that had only lately appeared on her slender throat. 'Had I but water from the fountain, the spots would vanish in a day,' she cried pettishly. Then one of Bertalda's maids thought to herself, 'My mistress shall have the water she so much desires,' and laughing gaily to herself, she slipped from the room. In but a few moments heavy footsteps were heard in the court below. The footsteps tramped backward and forward. Bertalda, looking from her window, smiled, for she saw that the noisy steps were those of workmen, who were busy removing the stone which had been placed over the fountain. She guessed that this was the doing of one of her maids, but she still smiled contentedly. The freckles would not spoil her beauty for another day. The water from the fountain would make them disappear, and that was all she cared about just then. At first the workmen tried in vain to remove the stone. Perhaps some of them, remembering that their sweet young mistress Undine had ordered it to be placed there, did not try very hard to lift it from its place. All at once, however, the stone began to move. It almost seemed as though it were being pushed up from beneath. It moved slowly, then seemed to rise up into the air, after which it rolled on to the pavement with a tremendous crash. Then slowly, slowly there rose out of the mouth of the well a white figure, veiled and weeping. And those who gazed spellbound at the sight saw that the figure which stepped from the fountain was that of a woman. Weeping and wringing her hands, she walked slowly, sorrowfully toward the castle. The workmen now fled in terror from the court, while Bertalda with her maids still gazed from her window at the pale shadowy figure. As it passed beneath her window it looked upward, sobbing pitifully, and the bride saw under the veil the sweet sad face of the mistress of the castle, Undine. Bertalda called aloud to her maids to go fetch the knight, her husband, but not one was found with courage to go in search of him. On and on went the wanderer slowly, as though she would fain turn backward, on and up the stairs she knew so well, through the long quiet passages, and as she walked her tears fell yet more fast. In a room at the end of the long passages stood the knight. A torch burnt dully by his side. As he stood there thinking of the days that had passed away for ever, he heard steps coming slowly along the passage. He listened, and, as he listened, the slow footsteps halted outside his door. Soft fingers tapped, and then very gently the door was opened, and Huldbrand, standing before a long mirror, saw, without turning, a white-veiled figure enter and close the door. 'The stone has been taken away from the fountain, and I have come to you and you must die,' said a soft voice. Ah, it was Undine, his beautiful lost Undine, who had come back to him. How he longed to see her face, yet how he feared to have the veil removed lest she should have changed since last he gazed upon her. [Illustration: Slowly, slowly there rose out of the mouth of the well a white figure] 'If you are beauteous as in days gone by, if in your eyes I may see your soul tender as of old, draw aside your veil, that as I die I may gaze upon you,' faltered the knight. Silently Undine threw back her veil, and Huldbrand saw her, fair as on the day he had won her for his bride. As he looked upon her, he knew that he had never loved any one in all the wide world as he loved Undine. He bent toward the sweet face. Then Undine, kissing the knight, drew him into her arms and wept. And as she wept the tears flowed into his very heart and he also wept. Softly she laid him on his couch, and with her arms around him, Huldbrand died. Then sorrowfully Undine raised herself from the couch, and sorrowfully she passed from the chamber. 'My tears fell on his heart until, for very sorrow, it broke,' she said, as she glided, a pale veiled figure, through the terrified servants. And some who dared to follow her saw that she went slowly down toward the fountain.	{ "id": "18752" }
17	THE BURIAL	Now when Father Heilman heard that the knight was dead, he hastened to the castle to comfort Bertalda. The priest, who but the day before had married the maiden to the knight, had already fled from the haunted house. But Father Heilman found that the haughty spirit of the bride needed no comfort. She was more angry with Undine than sorrowful that she had lost the knight. Indeed, as she thought of the strange way in which Huldbrand had been snatched away from her, she cried aloud, 'Why did Huldbrand bring a water spirit to his home? She is worse than a mermaiden, she is a witch, a sorceress!' Then the old fisherman, who heard her cruel words, hushed her, saying, 'It was God's will that Huldbrand should die, and Undine alone, forsaken, weeps for his death in great sorrow of soul.' But if Father Heilman was not needed to comfort Bertalda, his presence was wanted at the burial of the knight. Not far off there was a little village church to which the lord of Ringstetten and others of his race had given gifts. It was arranged that in the churchyard the knight should be laid to rest. His shield and helmet were laid on his coffin and would be buried with him, for the knight of Ringstetten had left no son to bear them in the years that were to come. On the day that had been fixed the mourners walked slowly toward the churchyard, Father Heilman in front carrying a crucifix. Then slowly a figure clad in snow-white garments, and wringing her hands in great sorrow, came to join the mourners, who all wore black clothes as a sign of their grief. Those who noticed the white-veiled figure drew closer together, terror-stricken. Others, seeing them thus fearful, turned to see the reason of their fear, and soon these too drew aside, for the white-robed figure was in their very midst. Seeing the confusion among the mourners, some soldiers, trying to be brave, as was their duty, spoke to the white-robed figure and even tried to drive her away. But she glided quickly past them and followed onward, still toward the little church. The maids who were walking close to Bertalda saw that the white-veiled figure would soon be by their side, and they, lest she should harm them, drew back, so that it was easy for the shadowy form to keep close to the new-made bride. Softly, noiselessly she moved, so noiselessly that Bertalda neither heard nor saw the phantom figure. At length the mourners reached the churchyard and gathered around the grave. Then Bertalda, looking up, saw the white-veiled figure standing by her side, and knew that it was Undine. Fear whispered to Bertalda to leave the veiled figure undisturbed, anger bade Bertalda order that it should at once depart. And anger was going to have its way, for Bertalda opened her lips to speak, but Undine shook her head and held out her hands as though she begged for mercy. Then Bertalda remembered all the kindness Undine had shown toward her, and especially how lovingly she had held out to her the coral necklace as they were sailing on the Danube, and as she remembered her hard heart melted, and she wept. At that moment Father Heilman began to pray, and all the mourners knelt around the grave, in which the coffin bearing the shield and helmet of the knight had now been placed. When the prayer was ended the company arose, but the white-veiled figure was no longer to be seen. Only on the spot where she had knelt a stream of crystal water gushed out of the earth. Quietly it flowed around the grave of the knight and then onward until it joined the river which ran past the little village church. And in days to come the villagers would ofttimes point to the crystal stream as they told their children in solemn whispers that it, the little crystal stream, was none other than Undine, poor forsaken Undine, who thus surrounded and protected Huldbrand, her beloved. * * * * *	{ "id": "18752" }
1	None	The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My temple, Lord! that arch of thine; My censer's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers. MOORE The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye. The most abstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the most chastened of the poet's thoughts, crowd on the imagination as he gazes into the depths of the illimitable void. The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference; and the mind, even in the obscurity of night, finds a parallel to that grandeur, which seems inseparable from images that the senses cannot compass. With feelings akin to this admiration and awe--the offspring of sublimity--were the different characters with which the action of this tale must open, gazing on the scene before them. Four persons in all,--two of each sex,--they had managed to ascend a pile of trees, that had been uptorn by a tempest, to catch a view of the objects that surrounded them. It is still the practice of the country to call these spots wind-rows. By letting in the light of heaven upon the dark and damp recesses of the wood, they form a sort of oases in the solemn obscurity of the virgin forests of America. The particular wind-row of which we are writing lay on the brow of a gentle acclivity; and, though small, it had opened the way for an extensive view to those who might occupy its upper margin, a rare occurrence to the traveller in the woods. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the power that so often lays desolate spots of this description; some ascribing it to the whirlwinds which produce waterspouts on the ocean, while others again impute it to sudden and violent passages of streams of the electric fluid; but the effects in the woods are familiar to all. On the upper margin of the opening, the viewless influence had piled tree on tree, in such a manner as had not only enabled the two males of the party to ascend to an elevation of some thirty feet above the level of the earth, but, with a little care and encouragement, to induce their more timid companions to accompany them. The vast trunks which had been broken and driven by the force of the gust lay blended like jack-straws; while their branches, still exhaling the fragrance of withering leaves, were interlaced in a manner to afford sufficient support to the hands. One tree had been completely uprooted, and its lower end, filled with earth, had been cast uppermost, in a way to supply a sort of staging for the four adventurers, when they had gained the desired distance from the ground. The reader is to anticipate none of the appliances of people of condition in the description of the personal appearances of the group in question. They were all wayfarers in the wilderness; and had they not been, neither their previous habits, nor their actual social positions, would have accustomed them to many of the luxuries of rank. Two of the party, indeed, a male and female, belonged to the native owners of the soil, being Indians of the well-known tribe of the Tuscaroras; while their companions were--a man, who bore about him the peculiarities of one who had passed his days on the ocean, and was, too, in a station little, if any, above that of a common mariner; and his female associate, who was a maiden of a class in no great degree superior to his own; though her youth, sweetness and countenance, and a modest, but spirited mien, lent that character of intellect and refinement which adds so much to the charm of beauty in the sex. On the present occasion, her full blue eye reflected the feeling of sublimity that the scene excited, and her pleasant face was beaming with the pensive expression with which all deep emotions, even though they bring the most grateful pleasure, shadow the countenances of the ingenuous and thoughtful. And truly the scene was of a nature deeply to impress the imagination of the beholder. Towards the west, in which direction the faces of the party were turned, the eye ranged over an ocean of leaves, glorious and rich in the varied and lively verdure of a generous vegetation, and shaded by the luxuriant tints which belong to the forty-second degree of latitude. The elm with its graceful and weeping top, the rich varieties of the maple, most of the noble oaks of the American forest, with the broad-leaved linden known in the parlance of the country as the basswood, mingled their uppermost branches, forming one broad and seemingly interminable carpet of foliage which stretched away towards the setting sun, until it bounded the horizon, by blending with the clouds, as the waves and the sky meet at the base of the vault of heaven. Here and there, by some accident of the tempests, or by a caprice of nature, a trifling opening among these giant members of the forest permitted an inferior tree to struggle upward toward the light, and to lift its modest head nearly to a level with the surrounding surface of verdure. Of this class were the birch, a tree of some account in regions less favored, the quivering aspen, various generous nut-woods, and divers others which resembled the ignoble and vulgar, thrown by circumstances into the presence of the stately and great. Here and there, too, the tall straight trunk of the pine pierced the vast field, rising high above it, like some grand monument reared by art on a plain of leaves. It was the vastness of the view, the nearly unbroken surface of verdure, that contained the principle of grandeur. The beauty was to be traced in the delicate tints, relieved by graduations of light and shade; while the solemn repose induced the feeling allied to awe. “Uncle,” said the wondering, but pleased girl, addressing her male companion, whose arm she rather touched than leaned on, to steady her own light but firm footing, “this is like a view of the ocean you so much love!” “So much for ignorance, and a girl's fancy, Magnet,”--a term of affection the sailor often used in allusion to his niece's personal attractions; “no one but a child would think of likening this handful of leaves to a look at the real Atlantic. You might seize all these tree-tops to Neptune's jacket, and they would make no more than a nosegay for his bosom.” “More fanciful than true, I think, uncle. Look thither; it must be miles on miles, and yet we see nothing but leaves! what could one behold, if looking at the ocean?” “More!” returned the uncle, giving an impatient gesture with the elbow the other touched, for his arms were crossed, and the hands were thrust into the bosom of a vest of red cloth, a fashion of the times,--“more, Magnet! say, rather, what less? Where are your combing seas, your blue water, your rollers, your breakers, your whales, or your waterspouts, and your endless motion, in this bit of a forest, child?” “And where are your tree-tops, your solemn silence, your fragrant leaves, and your beautiful green, uncle, on the ocean?” “Tut, Magnet! if you understood the thing, you would know that green water is a sailor's bane. He scarcely relishes a greenhorn less.” “But green trees are a different thing. Hist! that sound is the air breathing among the leaves!” “You should hear a nor-wester breathe, girl, if you fancy wind aloft. Now, where are your gales, and hurricanes, and trades, and levanters, and such like incidents, in this bit of a forest? And what fishes have you swimming beneath yonder tame surface?” “That there have been tempests here, these signs around us plainly show; and beasts, if not fishes, are beneath those leaves.” “I do not know that,” returned the uncle, with a sailor's dogmatism. “They told us many stories at Albany of the wild animals we should fall in with, and yet we have seen nothing to frighten a seal. I doubt if any of your inland animals will compare with a low latitude shark.” “See!” exclaimed the niece, who was more occupied with the sublimity and beauty of the “boundless wood” than with her uncle's arguments; “yonder is a smoke curling over the tops of the trees--can it come from a house?” “Ay, ay; there is a look of humanity in that smoke,” returned the old seaman, “which is worth a thousand trees. I must show it to Arrowhead, who may be running past a port without knowing it. It is probable there is a caboose where there is a smoke.” As he concluded, the uncle drew a hand from his bosom, touched the male Indian, who was standing near him, lightly on the shoulder, and pointed out a thin line of vapor which was stealing slowly out of the wilderness of leaves, at a distance of about a mile, and was diffusing itself in almost imperceptible threads of humidity in the quivering atmosphere. The Tuscarora was one of those noble-looking warriors oftener met with among the aborigines of this continent a century since than to-day; and, while he had mingled sufficiently with the colonists to be familiar with their habits and even with their language, he had lost little, if any, of the wild grandeur and simple dignity of a chief. Between him and the old seaman the intercourse had been friendly, but distant; for the Indian had been too much accustomed to mingle with the officers of the different military posts he had frequented not to understand that his present companion was only a subordinate. So imposing, indeed, had been the quiet superiority of the Tuscarora's reserve, that Charles Cap, for so was the seaman named, in his most dogmatical or facetious moments, had not ventured on familiarity in an intercourse which had now lasted more than a week. The sight of the curling smoke, however, had struck the latter like the sudden appearance of a sail at sea; and, for the first time since they met, he ventured to touch the warrior, as has been related. The quick eye of the Tuscarora instantly caught a sight of the smoke; and for full a minute he stood, slightly raised on tiptoe, with distended nostrils, like the buck that scents a taint in the air, and a gaze as riveted as that of the trained pointer while he waits his master's aim. Then, falling back on his feet, a low exclamation, in the soft tones that form so singular a contrast to its harsher cries in the Indian warrior's voice, was barely audible; otherwise, he was undisturbed. His countenance was calm, and his quick, dark, eagle eye moved over the leafy panorama, as if to take in at a glance every circumstance that might enlighten his mind. That the long journey they had attempted to make through a broad belt of wilderness was necessarily attended with danger, both uncle and niece well knew; though neither could at once determine whether the sign that others were in their vicinity was the harbinger of good or evil. “There must be Oneidas or Tuscaroras near us, Arrowhead,” said Cap, addressing his Indian companion by his conventional English name; “will it not be well to join company with them, and get a comfortable berth for the night in their wigwam?” “No wigwam there,” Arrowhead answered in his unmoved manner--“too much tree.” “But Indians must be there; perhaps some old mess-mates of your own, Master Arrowhead.” “No Tuscarora--no Oneida--no Mohawk--pale-face fire.” “The devil it is? Well, Magnet, this surpasses a seaman's philosophy: we old sea-dogs can tell a lubber's nest from a mate's hammock; but I do not think the oldest admiral in his Majesty's fleet can tell a king's smoke from a collier's.” The idea that human beings were in their vicinity, in that ocean of wilderness, had deepened the flush on the blooming cheek and brightened the eye of the fair creature at his side; but she soon turned with a look of surprise to her relative, and said hesitatingly, for both had often admired the Tuscarora's knowledge, or, we might almost say, instinct,-- “A pale-face's fire! Surely, uncle, he cannot know _that_?” “Ten days since, child, I would have sworn to it; but now I hardly know what to believe. May I take the liberty of asking, Arrowhead, why you fancy that smoke, now, a pale-face's smoke, and not a red-skin's?” “Wet wood,” returned the warrior, with the calmness with which the pedagogue might point out an arithmetical demonstration to his puzzled pupil. “Much wet--much smoke; much water--black smoke.” “But, begging your pardon, Master Arrowhead, the smoke is not black, nor is there much of it. To my eye, now, it is as light and fanciful a smoke as ever rose from a captain's tea-kettle, when nothing was left to make the fire but a few chips from the dunnage.” “Too much water,” returned Arrowhead, with a slight nod of the head; “Tuscarora too cunning to make fire with water! Pale-face too much book, and burn anything; much book, little know.” “Well, that's reasonable, I allow,” said Cap, who was no devotee of learning: “he means that as a hit at your reading, Magnet; for the chief has sensible notions of things in his own way. How far, now, Arrowhead, do you make us, by your calculation, from the bit of a pond that you call the Great Lake, and towards which we have been so many days shaping our course?” The Tuscarora looked at the seaman with quiet superiority as he answered, “Ontario, like heaven; one sun, and the great traveller will know it.” “Well, I have been a great traveller, I cannot deny; but of all my v'y'ges this has been the longest, the least profitable, and the farthest inland. If this body of fresh water is so nigh, Arrowhead, and so large, one might think a pair of good eyes would find it out; for apparently everything within thirty miles is to be seen from this lookout.” “Look,” said Arrowhead, stretching an arm before him with quiet grace; “Ontario!” “Uncle, you are accustomed to cry 'Land ho!' but not 'Water ho!' and you do not see it,” cried the niece, laughing, as girls will laugh at their own idle conceits. “How now, Magnet! dost suppose that I shouldn't know my native element if it were in sight?” “But Ontario is not your native element, dear uncle; for you come from the salt water, while this is fresh.” “That might make some difference to your young mariner, but none to the old one. I should know water, child, were I to see it in China.” “Ontario,” repeated Arrowhead, with emphasis, again stretching his hand towards the north-west. Cap looked at the Tuscarora, for the first time since their acquaintance, with something like an air of contempt, though he did not fail to follow the direction of the chief's eye and arm, both of which were directed towards a vacant point in the heavens, a short distance above the plain of leaves. “Ay, ay; this is much as I expected, when I left the coast in search of a fresh-water pond,” resumed Cap, shrugging his shoulders like one whose mind was made up, and who thought no more need be said. “Ontario may be there, or, for that matter, it may be in my pocket. Well, I suppose there will be room enough, when we reach it, to work our canoe. But Arrowhead, if there be pale-faces in our neighborhood, I confess I should like to get within hail of them.” The Tuscarora now gave a quiet inclination of his head, and the whole party descended from the roots of the up-torn tree in silence. When they reached the ground, Arrowhead intimated his intention to go towards the fire, and ascertain who had lighted it; while he advised his wife and the two others to return to a canoe, which they had left in the adjacent stream, and await his return. “Why, chief, this might do on soundings, and in an offing where one knew the channel,” returned old Cap; “but in an unknown region like this I think it unsafe to trust the pilot alone too far from the ship: so, with your leave, we will not part company.” “What my brother want?” asked the Indian gravely, though without taking offence at a distrust that was sufficiently plain. “Your company, Master Arrowhead, and no more. I will go with you and speak these strangers.” The Tuscarora assented without difficulty, and again he directed his patient and submissive little wife, who seldom turned her full rich black eye on him but to express equally her respect, her dread, and her love, to proceed to the boat. But here Magnet raised a difficulty. Although spirited, and of unusual energy under circumstances of trial, she was but woman; and the idea of being entirely deserted by her two male protectors, in the midst of a wilderness that her senses had just told her was seemingly illimitable, became so keenly painful, that she expressed a wish to accompany her uncle. “The exercise will be a relief, dear sir, after sitting so long in the canoe,” she added, as the rich blood slowly returned to a cheek that had paled in spite of her efforts to be calm; “and there may be females with the strangers.” “Come, then, child; it is but a cable's length, and we shall return an hour before the sun sets.” With this permission, the girl, whose real name was Mabel Dunham, prepared to be of the party; while the Dew-of-June, as the wife of Arrowhead was called, passively went her way towards the canoe, too much accustomed to obedience, solitude, and the gloom of the forest to feel apprehension. The three who remained in the wind-row now picked their way around its tangled maze, and gained the margin of the woods. A few glances of the eye sufficed for Arrowhead; but old Cap deliberately set the smoke by a pocket-compass, before he trusted himself within the shadows of the trees. “This steering by the nose, Magnet, may do well enough for an Indian, but your thoroughbred knows the virtue of the needle,” said the uncle, as he trudged at the heels of the light-stepping Tuscarora. “America would never have been discovered, take my word for it, if Columbus had been nothing but nostrils. Friend Arrowhead, didst ever see a machine like this?” The Indian turned, cast a glance at the compass, which Cap held in a way to direct his course, and gravely answered, “A pale-face eye. The Tuscarora see in his head. The Salt-water (for so the Indian styled his companion) all eye now; no tongue.” “He means, uncle, that we had needs be silent, perhaps he distrusts the persons we are about to meet.” “Ay, 'tis an Indian's fashion of going to quarters. You perceive he has examined the priming of his rifle, and it may be as well if I look to that of my own pistols.” Without betraying alarm at these preparations, to which she had become accustomed by her long journey in the wilderness, Mabel followed with a step as elastic as that of the Indian, keeping close in the rear of her companions. For the first half mile no other caution beyond a rigid silence was observed; but as the party drew nearer to the spot where the fire was known to be, much greater care became necessary. The forest, as usual, had little to intercept the view below the branches but the tall straight trunks of trees. Everything belonging to vegetation had struggled towards the light, and beneath the leafy canopy one walked, as it might be, through a vast natural vault, upheld by myriads of rustic columns. These columns or trees, however, often served to conceal the adventurer, the hunter, or the foe; and, as Arrowhead swiftly approached the spot where his practised and unerring senses told him the strangers ought to be, his footstep gradually became lighter, his eye more vigilant, and his person was more carefully concealed. “See, Saltwater,” said he exulting, pointing through the vista of trees; “pale-face fire!” “By the Lord, the fellow is right!” muttered Cap; “there they are, sure enough, and eating their grub as quietly as if they were in the cabin of a three-decker.” “Arrowhead is but half right!” whispered Mabel, “for there are two Indians and only one white man.” “Pale-faces,” said the Tuscarora, holding up two fingers; “red man,” holding up one. “Well,” rejoined Cap, “it is hard to say which is right and which is wrong. One is entirely white, and a fine comely lad he is, with an air of respectability about him; one is a red-skin as plain as paint and nature can make him; but the third chap is half-rigged, being neither brig nor schooner.” “Pale-faces,” repeated Arrowhead, again raising two fingers, “red man,” showing but one. “He must be right, uncle; for his eye seems never to fail. But it is now urgent to know whether we meet as friends or foes. They may be French.” “One hail will soon satisfy us on that head,” returned Cap. “Stand you behind the tree, Magnet, lest the knaves take it into their heads to fire a broadside without a parley, and I will soon learn what colors they sail under.” The uncle had placed his two hands to his mouth to form a trumpet, and was about to give the promised hail, when a rapid movement from the hand of Arrowhead defeated the intention by deranging the instrument. “Red man, Mohican,” said the Tuscarora; “good; pale-faces, Yengeese.” “These are heavenly tidings,” murmured Mabel, who little relished the prospect of a deadly fray in that remote wilderness. “Let us approach at once, dear uncle, and proclaim ourselves friends.” “Good,” said the Tuscarora “red man cool, and know; pale-face hurried, and fire. Let the squaw go.” “What!” said Cap in astonishment; “send little Magnet ahead as a lookout, while two lubbers, like you and me, lie-to to see what sort of a landfall she will make! If I do, I--” “It is wisest, uncle,” interrupted the generous girl, “and I have no fear. No Christian, seeing a woman approach alone, would fire upon her; and my presence will be a pledge of peace. Let me go forward, as Arrowhead wishes, and all will be well. We are, as yet, unseen, and the surprise of the strangers will not partake of alarm.” “Good,” returned Arrowhead, who did not conceal his approbation of Mabel's spirit. “It has an unseaman-like look,” answered Cap; “but, being in the woods, no one will know it. If you think, Mabel--” “Uncle, I know. There is no cause to fear for me; and you are always nigh to protect me.” “Well, take one of the pistols, then--” “Nay, I had better rely on my youth and feebleness,” said the girl, smiling, while her color heightened under her feelings. “Among Christian men, a woman's best guard is her claim to their protection. I know nothing of arms, and wish to live in ignorance of them.” The uncle desisted; and, after receiving a few cautious instructions from the Tuscarora, Mabel rallied all her spirit, and advanced alone towards the group seated near the fire. Although the heart of the girl beat quick, her step was firm, and her movements, seemingly, were without reluctance. A death-like silence reigned in the forest, for they towards whom she approached were too much occupied in appeasing their hunger to avert their looks for an instant from the important business in which they were all engaged. When Mabel, however, had got within a hundred feet of the fire, she trod upon a dried stick, and the trifling noise produced by her light footstep caused the Mohican, as Arrowhead had pronounced the Indian to be, and his companion, whose character had been thought so equivocal, to rise to their feet, as quick as thought. Both glanced at the rifles that leaned against a tree; and then each stood without stretching out an arm, as his eyes fell on the form of the girl. The Indian uttered a few words to his companion, and resumed his seat and his meal as calmly as if no interruption had occurred. On the contrary, the white man left the fire, and came forward to meet Mabel. The latter saw, as the stranger approached that she was about to be addressed by one of her own color, though his dress was so strange a mixture of the habits of the two races, that it required a near look to be certain of the fact. He was of middle age; but there was an open honesty, a total absence of guile, in his face, which otherwise would not have been thought handsome, that at once assured Magnet she was in no danger. Still she paused. “Fear nothing, young woman,” said the hunter, for such his attire would indicate him to be; “you have met Christian men in the wilderness, and such as know how to treat all kindly who are disposed to peace and justice. I am a man well known in all these parts, and perhaps one of my names may have reached your ears. By the Frenchers and the red-skins on the other side of the Big Lakes, I am called La Longue Carabine; by the Mohicans, a just-minded and upright tribe, what is left of them, Hawk Eye; while the troops and rangers along this side of the water call me Pathfinder, inasmuch as I have never been known to miss one end of the trail, when there was a Mingo, or a friend who stood in need of me, at the other.” This was not uttered boastfully, but with the honest confidence of one who well knew that by whatever name others might have heard of him, who had no reason to blush at the reports. The effect on Mabel was instantaneous. The moment she heard the last _sobriquet_ she clasped her hands eagerly and repeated the word “Pathfinder!” “So they call me, young woman, and many a great lord has got a title that he did not half so well merit; though, if truth be said, I rather pride myself in finding my way where there is no path, than in finding it where there is. But the regular troops are by no means particular, and half the time they don't know the difference between a trail and a path, though one is a matter for the eye, while the other is little more than scent.” “Then you are the friend my father promised to send to meet us?” “If you are Sergeant Dunham's daughter, the great Prophet of the Delawares never uttered more truth.” “I am Mabel; and yonder, hid by the trees, are my uncle, whose name is Cap, and a Tuscarora called Arrowhead. We did not hope to meet you until we had nearly reached the shores of the lake.” “I wish a juster-minded Indian had been your guide,” said Pathfinder; “for I am no lover of the Tuscaroras, who have travelled too far from the graves of their fathers always to remember the Great Spirit; and Arrowhead is an ambitious chief. Is the Dew-of-June with him?” “His wife accompanies us, and a humble and mild creature she is.” “Ay, and true-hearted; which is more than any who know him will say of Arrowhead. Well, we must take the fare that Providence bestows, while we follow the trail of life. I suppose worse guides might have been found than the Tuscarora; though he has too much Mingo blood for one who consorts altogether with the Delawares.” “It is, then, perhaps, fortunate we have met,” said Mabel. “It is not misfortunate, at any rate; for I promised the Sergeant I would see his child safe to the garrison, though I died for it. We expected to meet you before you reached the Falls, where we have left our own canoe; while we thought it might do no harm to come up a few miles, in order to be of service if wanted. It is lucky we did, for I doubt if Arrowhead be the man to shoot the current.” “Here come my uncle and the Tuscarora, and our parties can now join.” As Mabel concluded, Cap and Arrowhead, who saw that the conference was amicable, drew nigh; and a few words sufficed to let them know as much as the girl herself had learned from the strangers. As soon as this was done, the party proceeded towards the two who still remained near the fire.	{ "id": "1880" }
2	None	Yea! long as Nature's humblest child Hath kept her temple undefiled By simple sacrifice, Earth's fairest scenes are all his own, He is a monarch and his throne Is built amid the skies! WILSON. The Mohican continued to eat, though the second white man rose, and courteously took off his cap to Mabel Dunham. He was young, healthful, and manly in appearance; and he wore a dress which, while it was less rigidly professional than that of the uncle, also denoted one accustomed to the water. In that age, real seamen were a class entirely apart from the rest of mankind, their ideas, ordinary language, and attire being as strongly indicative of their calling as the opinions, speech, and dress of a Turk denote a Mussulman. Although the Pathfinder was scarcely in the prime of life, Mabel had met him with a steadiness that may have been the consequence of having braced her nerves for the interview; but when her eyes encountered those of the young man at the fire, they fell before the gaze of admiration with which she saw, or fancied she saw, he greeted her. Each, in truth, felt that interest in the other which similarity of age, condition, mutual comeliness, and their novel situation would be likely to inspire in the young and ingenuous. “Here,” said Pathfinder, with an honest smile bestowed on Mabel, “are the friends your worthy father has sent to meet you. This is a great Delaware; and one who has had honors as well as troubles in his day. He has an Indian name fit for a chief, but, as the language is not always easy for the inexperienced to pronounce we naturally turn it into English, and call him the Big Sarpent. You are not to suppose, however, that by this name we wish to say that he is treacherous, beyond what is lawful in a red-skin; but that he is wise, and has the cunning which becomes a warrior. Arrowhead, there, knows what I mean.” While the Pathfinder was delivering this address, the two Indians gazed on each other steadily, and the Tuscarora advanced and spoke to the other in an apparently friendly manner. “I like to see this,” continued Pathfinder; “the salutes of two red-skins in the woods, Master Cap, are like the hailing of friendly vessels on the ocean. But speaking of water, it reminds me of my young friend, Jasper Western here, who can claim to know something of these matters, seeing that he has passed his days on Ontario.” “I am glad to see you, friend,” said Cap, giving the young fresh-water sailor a cordial grip; “though you must have something still to learn, considering the school to which you have been sent. This is my niece Mabel; I call her Magnet, for a reason she never dreams of, though you may possibly have education enough to guess at it, having some pretentions to understand the compass, I suppose.” “The reason is easily comprehended,” said the young man, involuntarily fastening his keen dark eye, at the same time, on the suffused face of the girl; “and I feel sure that the sailor who steers by your Magnet will never make a bad landfall.” “Ha! you do make use of some of the terms, I find, and that with propriety; though, on the whole, I fear you have seen more green than blue water.” “It is not surprising that we should get some of the phrases which belong to the land; for we are seldom out of sight of it twenty-four hours at a time.” “More's the pity, boy, more's the pity! A very little land ought to go a great way with a seafaring man. Now, if the truth were known, Master Western, I suppose there is more or less land all round your lake.” “And, uncle, is there not more or less land around the ocean?” said Magnet quickly; for she dreaded a premature display of the old seaman's peculiar dogmatism, not to say pedantry. “No, child, there is more or less ocean all round the land; that's what I tell the people ashore, youngster. They are living, as it might be, in the midst of the sea, without knowing it; by sufferance, as it were, the water being so much the more powerful and the largest. But there is no end to conceit in this world: for a fellow who never saw salt water often fancies he knows more than one who has gone round the Horn. No, no, this earth is pretty much an island; and all that can be truly said not to be so is water.” Young Western had a profound deference for a mariner of the ocean, on which he had often pined to sail; but he had also a natural regard for the broad sheet on which he had passed his life, and which was not without its beauties in his eyes. “What you say, sir,” he answered modestly, “may be true as to the Atlantic; but we have a respect for the land up here on Ontario.” “That is because you are always land-locked,” returned Cap, laughing heartily; “but yonder is the Pathfinder, as they call him, with some smoking platters, inviting us to share in his mess; and I will confess that one gets no venison at sea. Master Western, civility to girls, at your time of life, comes as easy as taking in the slack of the ensign halyards; and if you will just keep an eye to her kid and can, while I join the mess of the Pathfinder and our Indian friends, I make no doubt she will remember it.” Master Cap uttered more than he was aware of at the time. Jasper Western did attend to the wants of Mabel, and she long remembered the kind, manly attention of the young sailor at this their first interview. He placed the end of a log for a seat, obtained for her a delicious morsel of the venison, gave her a draught of pure water from the spring, and as he sat near her, fast won his way to her esteem by his gentle but frank manner of manifesting his care; homage that woman always wishes to receive, but which is never so flattering or so agreeable as when it comes from the young to those of their own age--from the manly to the gentle. Like most of those who pass their time excluded from the society of the softer sex, young Western was earnest, sincere, and kind in his attentions, which, though they wanted a conventional refinement, which, perhaps, Mabel never missed, had those winning qualities that prove very sufficient as substitutes. Leaving these two unsophisticated young people to become acquainted through their feelings, rather than their expressed thoughts, we will turn to the group in which the uncle had already become a principal actor. The party had taken their places around a platter of venison steaks, which served for the common use, and the discourse naturally partook of the characters of the different individuals which composed it. The Indians were silent and industrious the appetite of the aboriginal American for venison being seemingly inappeasable, while the two white men were communicative, each of the latter being garrulous and opinionated in his way. But, as the dialogue will put the reader in possession of certain facts that may render the succeeding narrative more clear, it will be well to record it. “There must be satisfaction in this life of yours, no doubt, Mr. Pathfinder,” continued Cap, when the hunger of the travellers was so far appeased that they began to pick and choose among the savory morsels; “it has some of the chances and luck that we seamen like; and if ours is all water, yours is all land.” “Nay, we have water too, in our journeyings and marches,” returned his white companion; “we bordermen handle the paddle and the spear almost as much as the rifle and the hunting-knife.” “Ay; but do you handle the brace and the bow-line, the wheel and the lead-line, the reef-point and the top-rope? The paddle is a good thing, out of doubt, in a canoe; but of what use is it in the ship?” “Nay, I respect all men in their callings, and I can believe the things you mention have their uses. One who has lived, like myself, in company with many tribes, understands differences in usages. The paint of a Mingo is not the paint of a Delaware; and he who should expect to see a warrior in the dress of a squaw might be disappointed. I am not yet very old, but I have lived in the woods, and have some acquaintance with human natur'. I never believe much in the learning of them that dwell in towns, for I never yet met with one that had an eye for a rifle or a trail.” “That's my manner of reasoning, Master Pathfinder, to a yarn. Walking about streets, going to church of Sundays, and hearing sermons, never yet made a man of a human being. Send the boy out upon the broad ocean, if you wish to open his eyes, and let him look upon foreign nations, or what I call the face of nature, if you wish him to understand his own character. Now, there is my brother-in-law, the Sergeant: he is as good a fellow as ever broke a biscuit, in his way; but what is he, after all? Why, nothing but a soldier. A sergeant, to be sure, but that is a sort of a soldier, you know. When he wished to marry poor Bridget, my sister, I told the girl what he was, as in duty bound, and what she might expect from such a husband; but you know how it is with girls when their minds are jammed by an inclination. It is true, the Sergeant has risen in his calling, and they say he is an important man at the fort; but his poor wife has not lived to see it all, for she has now been dead these fourteen years.” “A soldier's calling is honorable, provided he has fi't only on the side of right,” returned the Pathfinder; “and as the Frenchers are always wrong, and his sacred Majesty and these colonies are always right, I take it the Sergeant has a quiet conscience as well as a good character. I have never slept more sweetly than when I have fi't the Mingos, though it is the law with me to fight always like a white man and never like an Indian. The Sarpent, here, has his fashions, and I have mine; and yet have we fi't side by side these many years; without either thinking a hard thought consarning the other's ways. I tell him there is but one heaven and one hell, notwithstanding his traditions, though there are many paths to both.” “That is rational; and he is bound to believe you, though, I fancy, most of the roads to the last are on dry land. The sea is what my poor sister Bridget used to call a 'purifying place,' and one is out of the way of temptation when out of sight of land. I doubt if as much can be said in favor of your lakes up hereaway.” “That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow; but our lakes are bordered by the forests, and one is every day called upon to worship God in such a temple. That men are not always the same, even in the wilderness, I must admit for the difference between a Mingo and a Delaware is as plain to be seen as the difference between the sun and the moon. I am glad, friend Cap, that we have met, however, if it be only that you may tell the Big Sarpent here that there are lakes in which the water is salt. We have been pretty much of one mind since our acquaintance began, and if the Mohican has only half the faith in me that I have in him, he believes all that I have told him touching the white men's ways and natur's laws; but it has always seemed to me that none of the red-skins have given as free a belief as an honest man likes to the accounts of the Big Salt Lakes, and to that of their being rivers that flow up stream.” “This comes of getting things wrong end foremost,” answered Cap, with a condescending nod. “You have thought of your lakes and rifts as the ship; and of the ocean and the tides as the boat. Neither Arrowhead nor the Serpent need doubt what you have said concerning both, though I confess myself to some difficulty in swallowing the tale about there being inland seas at all, and still more that there is any sea of fresh water. I have come this long journey as much to satisfy my own eyes concerning these facts, as to oblige the Sergeant and Magnet, though the first was my sister's husband, and I love the last like a child.” “You are wrong, friend Cap, very wrong, to distrust the power of God in any thing,” returned Pathfinder earnestly. “They that live in the settlements and the towns have confined and unjust opinions consarning the might of His hand; but we, who pass our time in His very presence, as it might be, see things differently--I mean, such of us as have white natur's. A red-skin has his notions, and it is right that it should be so; and if they are not exactly the same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it. Still, there are matters which belong altogether to the ordering of God's providence; and these salt and fresh-water lakes are some of them. I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the duty of all to believe in them.” “Hold on there, Master Pathfinder,” interrupted Cap, not without some heat; “in the way of a proper and manly faith, I will turn my back on no one, when afloat. Although more accustomed to make all snug aloft, and to show the proper canvas, than to pray when the hurricane comes, I know that we are but helpless mortals at times, and I hope I pay reverence where reverence is due. All I mean to say is this: that, being accustomed to see water in large bodies salt, I should like to taste it before I can believe it to be fresh.” “God has given the salt lick to the deer; and He has given to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his thirst. It is unreasonable to think that He may not have given lakes of pure water to the west, and lakes of impure water to the east.” Cap was awed, in spite of his overweening dogmatism, by the earnest simplicity of the Pathfinder, though he did not relish the idea of believing a fact which, for many years, he had pertinaciously insisted could not be true. Unwilling to give up the point and, at the same time, unable to maintain it against a reasoning to which he was unaccustomed, and which possessed equally the force of truth, faith, and probability, he was glad to get rid of the subject by evasion. “Well, well, friend Pathfinder,” said he, “we will leave the argument where it is; and we can try the water when we once reach it. Only mark my words--I do not say that it may not be fresh on the surface; the Atlantic is sometimes fresh on the surface, near the mouths of great rivers; but, rely on it, I shall show you a way of tasting the water many fathoms deep, of which you never dreamed; and then we shall know more about it.” The guide seemed content to let the matter rest, and the conversation changed. “We are not over-conceited consarning our gifts,” observed the Pathfinder, after a short pause, “and well know that such as live in the towns, and near the sea--” “On the sea,” interrupted Cap. “On the sea, if you wish it, friend--have opportunities which do not befall us of the wilderness. Still, we know our own callings, and they are what I consider natural callings, and are not parvarted by vanity and wantonness. Now, my gifts are with the rifle, and on a trail, and in the way of game and scouting; for, though I can use the spear and the paddle, I pride not myself on either. The youth Jasper, there, who is discoursing with the Sergeant's daughter, is a different cratur'; for he may be said to breathe the water, as it might be, like a fish. The Indians and Frenchers of the north shore call him Eau-douce, on account of his gifts in this particular. He is better at the oar, and the rope too, than in making fires on a trail.” “There must be something about these gifts of which you speak, after all,” said Cap. “Now this fire, I will acknowledge, has overlaid all my seamanship. Arrowhead, there, said the smoke came from a pale-face's fire, and that is a piece of philosophy which I hold to be equal to steering in a dark night by the edges of the sand.” “It's no great secret,” returned Pathfinder, laughing with great inward glee, though habitual caution prevented the emission of any noise. “Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence than to larn its lessons. We should be as useless on a trail, or in carrying tidings through the wilderness, as so many woodchucks, did we not soon come to a knowledge of these niceties. Eau-douce, as we call him, is so fond of the water, that he gathered a damp stick or two for our fire; and wet will bring dark smoke, as I suppose even you followers of the sea must know. It's no great secret, though all is mystery to such as doesn't study the Lord and His mighty ways with humility and thankfulness.” “That must be a keen eye of Arrowhead's to see so slight a difference.” “He would be but a poor Indian if he didn't. No, no; it is war-time, and no red-skin is outlying without using his senses. Every skin has its own natur', and every natur' has its own laws, as well as its own skin. It was many years before I could master all these higher branches of a forest education; for red-skin knowledge doesn't come as easy to white-skin natur', as what I suppose is intended to be white-skin knowledge; though I have but little of the latter, having passed most of my time in the wilderness.” “You have been a ready scholar, Master Pathfinder, as is seen by your understanding these things so well. I suppose it would be no great matter for a man regularly brought up to the sea to catch these trifles, if he could only bring his mind fairly to bear upon them.” “I don't know that. The white man has his difficulties in getting red-skin habits, quite as much as the Indian in getting white-skin ways. As for the real natur', it is my opinion that neither can actually get that of the other.” “And yet we sailors, who run about the world so much, say there is but one nature, whether it be in the Chinaman or a Dutchman. For my own part, I am much of that way of thinking too; for I have generally found that all nations like gold and silver, and most men relish tobacco.” “Then you seafaring men know little of the red-skins. Have you ever known any of your Chinamen who could sing their death-songs, with their flesh torn with splinters and cut with knives, the fire raging around their naked bodies, and death staring them in the face? Until you can find me a Chinaman, or a Christian man, that can do all this, you cannot find a man with a red-skin natur', let him look ever so valiant, or know how to read all the books that were ever printed.” “It is the savages only that play each other such hellish tricks,” said Master Cap, glancing his eyes about him uneasily at the apparently endless arches of the forest. “No white man is ever condemned to undergo these trials.” “Nay, therein you are again mistaken,” returned the Pathfinder, coolly selecting a delicate morsel of the venison as his _bonne bouche_; “for though these torments belong only to the red-skin natur', in the way of bearing them like braves, white-skin natur' may be, and often has been, agonized by them.” “Happily,” said Cap, with an effort to clear his throat, “none of his Majesty's allies will be likely to attempt such damnable cruelties on any of his Majesty's loyal subjects. I have not served much in the royal navy, it is true; but I have served, and that is something; and, in the way of privateering and worrying the enemy in his ships and cargoes, I've done my full share. But I trust there are no French savages on this side the lake, and I think you said that Ontario is a broad sheet of water?” “Nay, it is broad in our eyes,” returned Pathfinder, not caring to conceal the smile which lighted a face which had been burnt by exposure to a bright red; “though I mistrust that some may think it narrow; and narrow it is, if you wish it to keep off the foe. Ontario has two ends, and the enemy that is afraid to cross it will be certain to come round it.” “Ah! that comes of your d----d fresh-water ponds!” growled Cap, hemming so loudly as to cause him instantly to repent the indiscretion. “No man, now, ever heard of a pirate or a ship getting round one end of the Atlantic!” “Mayhap the ocean has no ends?” “That it hasn't; nor sides, nor bottom. The nation which is snugly moored on one of its coasts need fear nothing from the one anchored abeam, let it be ever so savage, unless it possesses the art of ship building. No, no! the people who live on the shores of the Atlantic need fear but little for their skins or their scalps. A man may lie down at night in those regions, in the hope of finding the hair on his head in the morning, unless he wears a wig.” “It isn't so here. I don't wish to flurry the young woman, and therefore I will be in no way particular, though she seems pretty much listening to Eau-douce, as we call him; but without the edication I have received, I should think it at this very moment, a risky journey to go over the very ground that lies between us and the garrison, in the present state of this frontier. There are about as many Iroquois on this side of Ontario as there are on the other. It is for this very reason, friend Cap, that the Sergeant has engaged us to come out and show you the path.” “What! do the knaves dare to cruise so near the guns of one of his Majesty's works?” “Do not the ravens resort near the carcass of the deer, though the fowler is at hand? They come this-a-way, as it might be, naturally. There are more or less whites passing between the forts and the settlements, and they are sure to be on their trails. The Sarpent has come up one side of the river, and I have come up the other, in order to scout for the outlying rascals, while Jasper brought up the canoe, like a bold-hearted sailor as he is. The Sergeant told him, with tears in his eyes, all about his child, and how his heart yearned for her, and how gentle and obedient she was, until I think the lad would have dashed into a Mingo camp single-handed, rather than not a-come.” “We thank him, and shall think the better of him for his readiness; though I suppose the boy has run no great risk, after all.” “Only the risk of being shot from a cover, as he forced the canoe up a swift rift, or turned an elbow in the stream, with his eyes fastened on the eddies. Of all the risky journeys, that on an ambushed river is the most risky, in my judgment, and that risk has Jasper run.” “And why the devil has the Sergeant sent for me to travel a hundred and fifty miles in this outlandish manner? Give me an offing, and the enemy in sight, and I'll play with him in his own fashion, as long as he pleases, long bows or close quarters; but to be shot like a turtle asleep is not to my humor. If it were not for little Magnet there, I would tack ship this instant, make the best of my way back to York, and let Ontario take care of itself, salt water or fresh water.” “That wouldn't mend the matter much, friend mariner, as the road to return is much longer, and almost as bad as the road to go on. Trust to us, and we will carry you through safely, or lose our scalps.” Cap wore a tight solid queue, done up in eelskin, while the top of his head was nearly bald; and he mechanically passed his hand over both as if to make certain that each was in its right place. He was at the bottom, however, a brave man, and had often faced death with coolness, though never in the frightful forms in which it presented itself under the brief but graphic picture of his companion. It was too late to retreat; and he determined to put the best face on the matter, though he could not avoid muttering inwardly a few curses on the indiscretion with which his brother-in-law, the Sergeant, had led him into his present dilemma. “I make no doubt, Master Pathfinder,” he answered, when these thoughts had found time to glance through his mind, “that we shall reach port in safety. What distance may we now be from the fort?” “Little more than fifteen miles; and swift miles too, as the river runs, if the Mingos let us go clear.” “And I suppose the woods will stretch along starboard and larboard, as heretofore?” “Anan?” “I mean that we shall have to pick our way through these damned trees.” “Nay, nay, you will go in the canoe, and the Oswego has been cleared of its flood-wood by the troops. It will be floating down stream, and that, too, with a swift current.” “And what the devil is to prevent these minks of which you speak from shooting us as we double a headland, or are busy in steering clear of the rocks?” “The Lord! --He who has so often helped others in greater difficulties. Many and many is the time that my head would have been stripped of hair, skin, and all, hadn't the Lord fi't of my side. I never go into a skrimmage, friend mariner, without thinking of this great ally, who can do more in battle than all the battalions of the 60th, were they brought into a single line.” “Ay, ay, this may do well enough for a scouter; but we seamen like our offing, and to go into action with nothing in our minds but the business before us--plain broadside and broadside work, and no trees or rocks to thicken the water.” “And no Lord too, I dare to say, if the truth were known. Take my word for it, Master Cap, that no battle is the worse fi't for having the Lord on your side. Look at the head of the Big Sarpent, there; you can see the mark of a knife all along by his left ear: now nothing but a bullet from this long rifle of mine saved his scalp that day; for it had fairly started, and half a minute more would have left him without the war-lock. When the Mohican squeezes my hand, and intermates that I befriended him in that matter, I tell him no; it was the Lord who led me to the only spot where execution could be done, or his necessity be made known, on account of the smoke. Sartain, when I got the right position, I finished the affair of my own accord. For a friend under the tomahawk is apt to make a man think quick and act at once, as was my case, or the Sarpent's spirit would be hunting in the happy land of his people at this very moment.” “Come, come, Pathfinder, this palaver is worse than being skinned from stem to stem; we have but a few hours of sun, and had better be drifting down this said current of yours while we may. Magnet dear, are you not ready to get under way?” Magnet started, blushed brightly, and made her preparations for immediate departure. Not a syllable of the discourse just related had she heard; for Eau-douce, as young Jasper was oftener called than anything else, had been filling her ears with a description of the yet distant part towards which she was journeying, with accounts of her father, whom she had not seen since a child, and with the manner of life of those who lived in the frontier garrisons. Unconsciously she had become deeply interested, and her thoughts had been too intently directed to these matters to allow any of the less agreeable subjects discussed by those so near to reach her ears. The bustle of departure put an end to the conversation, and, the baggage of the scouts or guides being trifling, in a few minutes the whole party was ready to proceed. As they were about to quit the spot, however, to the surprise of even his fellow-guides, Pathfinder collected a quantity of branches and threw them upon the embers of the fire, taking care even to see that some of the wood was damp, in order to raise as dark and dense a smoke as possible. “When you can hide your trail, Jasper,” said he, “a smoke at leaving an encampment may do good instead of harm. If there are a dozen Mingos within ten miles of us, some of 'em are on the heights, or in the trees, looking out for smokes; let them see this, and much good may it do them. They are welcome to our leavings.” “But may they not strike and follow on our trail?” asked the youth, whose interest in the hazard of his situation had much increased since the meeting with Magnet. “We shall leave a broad path to the river.” “The broader the better; when there, it will surpass Mingo cunning, even, to say which way the canoe has gone--up stream or down. Water is the only thing in natur' that will thoroughly wash out a trail, and even water will not always do it when the scent is strong. Do you not see, Eau-douce, that if any Mingos have seen our path below the falls, they will strike off towards this smoke, and that they will naturally conclude that they who began by going up stream will end by going up stream. If they know anything, they now know a party is out from the fort, and it will exceed even Mingo wit to fancy that we have come up here just for the pleasure of going back again, and that, too, the same day, and at the risk of our scalps.” “Certainly,” added Jasper, who was talking apart with the Pathfinder, as they moved towards the wind-row, “they cannot know anything about the Sergeant's daughter, for the greatest secrecy has been observed on her account.” “And they will learn nothing here,” returned Pathfinder, causing his companion to see that he trod with the utmost care on the impression left on the leaves by the little foot of Mabel; “unless this old salt-water fish has been taking his niece about in the wind-row, like a fa'n playing by the side of the old doe.” “Buck, you mean, Pathfinder.” “Isn't he a queerity? Now I can consort with such a sailor as yourself, Eau-douce, and find nothing very contrary in our gifts, though yours belong to the lakes and mine to the woods. Hark'e, Jasper,” continued the scout, laughing in his noiseless manner; “suppose we try the temper of his blade and run him over the falls?” “And what would be done with the pretty niece in the meanwhile?” “Nay, nay, no harm shall come to her; she must walk round the portage, at any rate; but you and I can try this Atlantic oceaner, and then all parties will become better acquainted. We shall find out whether his flint will strike fire; and he may come to know something of frontier tricks.” Young Jasper smiled, for he was not averse to fun, and had been a little touched by Cap's superciliousness; but Mabel's fair face, light, agile form, and winning smiles, stood like a shield between her uncle and the intended experiment. “Perhaps the Sergeant's daughter will be frightened,” said he. “Not she, if she has any of the Sergeant's spirit in her. She doesn't look like a skeary thing, at all. Leave it to me, then, Eau-douce, and I will manage the affair alone.” “Not you, Pathfinder; you would only drown both. If the canoe goes over, I must go in it.” “Well, have it so, then: shall we smoke the pipe of agreement on the bargain?” Jasper laughed, nodded his head by way of consent, and then the subject was dropped, as the party had reached the canoe so often mentioned, and fewer words had determined much greater things between the parties.	{ "id": "1880" }
3	None	Before these fields were shorn and till'd, Full to the brim our rivers flow'd; The melody of waters fill'd The fresh and boundless wood; And torrents dash'd, and rivulets play'd, And fountains spouted in the shade. BRYANT. It is generally known that the waters which flow into the southern side of Ontario are, in general, narrow, sluggish, and deep. There are some exceptions to this rule, for many of the rivers have rapids, or, as they are termed in the language of the region, “rifts,” and some have falls. Among the latter was the particular stream on which our adventurers were now journeying. The Oswego is formed by the junction of the Oneida and the Onondaga, both of which flow from lakes; and it pursues its way, through a gently undulating country, some eight or ten miles, until it reaches the margin of a sort of natural terrace, down which it tumbles some ten or fifteen feet, to another level, across which it glides with the silent, stealthy progress of deep water, until it throws its tribute into the broad receptacle of the Ontario. The canoe in which Cap and his party had travelled from Fort Stanwix, the last military station of the Mohawk, lay by the side of this river, and into it the whole party now entered, with the exception of Pathfinder, who remained on the land, in order to shove the light vessel off. “Let her starn drift down stream, Jasper,” said the man of the woods to the young mariner of the lake, who had dispossessed Arrowhead of his paddle and taken his own station as steersman; “let it go down with the current. Should any of these infarnals, the Mingos, strike our trail, or follow it to this point they will not fail to look for the signs in the mud; and if they discover that we have left the shore with the nose of the canoe up stream, it is a natural belief to think we went up stream.” This direction was followed; and, giving a vigorous shove, the Pathfinder, who was in the flower of his strength and activity, made a leap, landing lightly, and without disturbing its equilibrium, in the bow of the canoe. As soon as it had reached the centre of the river or the strength of the current, the boat was turned, and it began to glide noiselessly down the stream. The vessel in which Cap and his niece had embarked for their long and adventurous journey was one of the canoes of bark which the Indians are in the habit of constructing, and which, by their exceeding lightness and the ease with which they are propelled, are admirably adapted to a navigation in which shoals, flood-wood, and other similar obstructions so often occur. The two men who composed its original crew had several times carried it, when emptied of its luggage, many hundred yards; and it would not have exceeded the strength of a single man to lift its weight. Still it was long, and, for a canoe, wide; a want of steadiness being its principal defect in the eyes of the uninitiated. A few hours practice, however, in a great measure remedied this evil, and both Mabel and her uncle had learned so far to humor its movements, that they now maintained their places with perfect composure; nor did the additional weight of the three guides tax its power in any particular degree, the breath of the rounded bottom allowing the necessary quantity of water to be displaced without bringing the gunwale very sensibly nearer to the surface of the stream. Its workmanship was neat; the timbers were small, and secured by thongs; and the whole fabric, though it was so slight to the eye, was probably capable of conveying double the number of persons which it now contained. Cap was seated on a low thwart, in the centre of the canoe; the Big Serpent knelt near him. Arrowhead and his wife occupied places forward of both, the former having relinquished his post aft. Mabel was half reclining behind her uncle, while the Pathfinder and Eau-douce stood erect, the one in the bow, and the other in the stern, each using a paddle, with a long, steady, noiseless sweep. The conversation was carried on in low tones, all the party beginning to feel the necessity of prudence, as they drew nearer to the outskirts of the fort, and had no longer the cover of the woods. The Oswego, just at that place, was a deep dark stream of no great width, its still, gloomy-looking current winding its way among overhanging trees, which, in particular spots, almost shut out the light of the heavens. Here and there some half-fallen giant of the forest lay nearly across its surface, rendering care necessary to avoid the limbs; and most of the distance, the lower branches and leaves of the trees of smaller growth were laved by its waters. The picture so beautifully described by our own admirable poet, and which we have placed at the head of this chapter, was here realized; the earth fattened by the decayed vegetation of centuries, and black with loam, the stream that filled the banks nearly to overflowing, and the “fresh and boundless wood,” being all as visible to the eye as the pen of Bryant has elsewhere vividly presented them to the imagination. In short, the entire scene was one of a rich and benevolent nature, before it had been subjected to the uses and desires of man; luxuriant, wild, full of promise, and not without the charm of the picturesque, even in its rudest state. It will be remembered that this was in the year 175-, or long before even speculation had brought any portion of western New York within the bounds of civilization. At that distant day there were two great channels of military communication between the inhabited portion of the colony of New York and the frontiers which lay adjacent to the Canadas,--that by Lakes Champlain and George, and that by means of the Mohawk, Wood Creek, the Oneida, and the rivers we have been describing. Along both these lines of communication military posts had been established, though there existed a blank space of a hundred miles between the last fort at the head of the Mohawk and the outlet of the Oswego, which embraced most of the distance that Cap and Mabel had journeyed under the protection of Arrowhead. “I sometimes wish for peace again,” said the Pathfinder, “when one can range the forest without searching for any other enemy than the beasts and fishes. Ah's me! many is the day that the Sarpent, there, and I have passed happily among the streams, living on venison, salmon, and trout without thought of a Mingo or a scalp! I sometimes wish that them blessed days might come back, for it is not my real gift to slay my own kind. I'm sartain the Sergeant's daughter don't think me a wretch that takes pleasure in preying on human natur'?” As this remark, a sort of half interrogatory, was made, Pathfinder looked behind him; and, though the most partial friend could scarcely term his sunburnt and hard features handsome, even Mabel thought his smile attractive, by its simple ingenuousness and the uprightness that beamed in every lineament of his honest countenance. “I do not think my father would have sent one like those you mention to see his daughter through the wilderness,” the young woman answered, returning the smile as frankly as it was given, but much more sweetly. “That he wouldn't; the Sergeant is a man of feeling, and many is the march and the fight that we have had--stood shoulder to shoulder in, as _he_ would call it--though I always keep my limbs free when near a Frencher or a Mingo.” “You are, then, the young friend of whom my father has spoken so often in his letters?” “His _young_ friend--the Sergeant has the advantage of me by thirty years; yes, he is thirty years my senior, and as many my better.” “Not in the eyes of the daughter, perhaps, friend Pathfinder;” put in Cap, whose spirits began to revive when he found the water once more flowing around him. “The thirty years that you mention are not often thought to be an advantage in the eyes of girls of nineteen.” Mabel colored; and, in turning aside her face to avoid the looks of those in the bow of the canoe, she encountered the admiring gaze of the young man in the stern. As a last resource, her spirited but soft blue eyes sought refuge in the water. Just at this moment a dull, heavy sound swept up the avenue formed by the trees, borne along by a light air that hardly produced a ripple on the water. “That sounds pleasantly,” said Cap, pricking up his ears like a dog that hears a distant baying; “it is the surf on the shores of your lake, I suppose?” “Not so--not so,” answered the Pathfinder; “it is merely this river tumbling over some rocks half a mile below us.” “Is there a fall in the stream?” demanded Mabel, a still brighter flush glowing in her face. “The devil! Master Pathfinder, or you, Mr. Eau-douce” (for so Cap began to style Jasper), “had you not better give the canoe a sheer, and get nearer to the shore? These waterfalls have generally rapids above them, and one might as well get into the Maelstrom at once as to run into their suction.” “Trust to us, friend Cap,” answered Pathfinder; “we are but fresh-water sailors, it is true, and I cannot boast of being much even of that; but we understand rifts and rapids and cataracts; and in going down these we shall do our endeavors not to disgrace our edication.” “In going down!” exclaimed Cap. “The devil, man! you do not dream of going down a waterfall in this egg shell of bark!” “Sartain; the path lies over the falls, and it is much easier to shoot them than to unload the canoe and to carry that and all it contains around a portage of a mile by hand.” Mabel turned her pallid countenance towards the young man in the stern of the canoe; for, just at that moment, a fresh roar of the fall was borne to her ears by a new current of the air, and it really sounded terrific, now that the cause was understood. “We thought that, by landing the females and the two Indians,” Jasper quietly observed, “we three white men, all of whom are used to the water, might carry the canoe over in safety, for we often shoot these falls.” “And we counted on you, friend mariner, as a mainstay,” said Pathfinder, winking to Jasper over his shoulder; “for you are accustomed to see waves tumbling about; and without some one to steady the cargo, all the finery of the Sergeant's daughter might be washed into the river and be lost.” Cap was puzzled. The idea of going over a waterfall was, perhaps, more serious in his eyes than it would have been in those of one totally ignorant of all that pertained to boats; for he understood the power of the element, and the total feebleness of man when exposed to its fury. Still his pride revolted at the thought of deserting the boat, while others not only steadily, but coolly, proposed to continue in it. Notwithstanding the latter feeling, and his innate as well as acquired steadiness in danger, he would probably have deserted his post; had not the images of Indians tearing scalps from the human head taken so strong hold of his fancy as to induce him to imagine the canoe a sort of sanctuary. “What is to be done with Magnet?” he demanded, affection for his niece raising another qualm in his conscience. “We cannot allow Magnet to land if there are enemy's Indians near?” “Nay, no Mingo will be near the portage, for that is a spot too public for their devilries,” answered the Pathfinder confidently. “Natur' is natur', and it is an Indian's natur' to be found where he is least expected. No fear of him on a beaten path; for he wishes to come upon you when unprepared to meet him, and the fiery villains make it a point to deceive you, one way or another. Sheer in, Eau-douce, and we will land the Sergeant's daughter on the end of that log, where she can reach the shore with a dry foot.” The injunction was obeyed, and in a few minutes the whole party had left the canoe, with the exception of Pathfinder and the two sailors. Notwithstanding his professional pride, Cap would have gladly followed; but he did not like to exhibit so unequivocal a weakness in the presence of a fresh-water sailor. “I call all hands to witness,” said he, as those who had landed moved away, “that I do not look on this affair as anything more than canoeing in the woods. There is no seamanship in tumbling over a waterfall, which is a feat the greatest lubber can perform as well as the oldest mariner.” “Nay, nay, you needn't despise the Oswego Falls, neither,” put in Pathfinder; “for, though they may not be Niagara, nor the Genessee, nor the Cahoos, nor Glenn's, nor those on the Canada, they are narvous enough for a new beginner. Let the Sergeant's daughter stand on yonder rock, and she will see the manner in which we ignorant backwoodsmen get over a difficulty that we can't get under. Now, Eau-douce, a steady hand and a true eye, for all rests on you, seeing that we can count Master Cap for no more than a passenger.” The canoe was leaving the shore as he concluded, while Mabel went hurriedly and trembling to the rock that had been pointed out, talking to her companion of the danger her uncle so unnecessarily ran, while her eyes were riveted on the agile and vigorous form of Eau-douce, as he stood erect in the stern of the light boat, governing its movements. As soon, however, as she reached a point where she got a view of the fall, she gave an involuntary but suppressed scream, and covered her eyes. At the next instant, the latter were again free, and the entranced girl stood immovable as a statue, a scarcely breathing observer of all that passed. The two Indians seated themselves passively on a log, hardly looking towards the stream, while the wife of Arrowhead came near Mabel, and appeared to watch the motions of the canoe with some such interest as a child regards the leaps of a tumbler. As soon as the boat was in the stream, Pathfinder sank on his knees, continuing to use the paddle, though it was slowly, and in a manner not to interfere with the efforts of his companion. The latter still stood erect; and, as he kept his eye on some object beyond the fall, it was evident that he was carefully looking for the spot proper for their passage. “Farther west, boy; farther west,” muttered Pathfinder; “there where you see the water foam. Bring the top of the dead oak in a line with the stem of the blasted hemlock.” Eau-douce made no answer; for the canoe was in the centre of the stream, with its head pointed towards the fall, and it had already begun to quicken its motion by the increased force of the current. At that moment Cap would cheerfully have renounced every claim to glory that could possibly be acquired by the feat, to have been safe again on shore. He heard the roar of the water, thundering, as it might be, behind a screen, but becoming more and more distinct, louder and louder, and before him he saw its line cutting the forest below, along which the green and angry element seemed stretched and shining, as if the particles were about to lose their principle of cohesion. “Down with your helm, down with your helm, man!” he exclaimed, unable any longer to suppress his anxiety, as the canoe glided towards the edge of the fall. “Ay, ay, down it is sure enough,” answered Pathfinder, looking behind him for a single instant, with his silent, joyous laugh,--“down we go, of a sartinty! Heave her starn up, boy; farther up with her starn!” The rest was like the passage of the viewless wind. Eau-douce gave the required sweep with his paddle, the canoe glanced into the channel, and for a few seconds it seemed to Cap that he was tossing in a caldron. He felt the bow of the canoe tip, saw the raging, foaming water careering madly by his side, was sensible that the light fabric in which he floated was tossed about like an egg-shell, and then, not less to his great joy than to his surprise, he discovered that it was gliding across the basin of still water below the fall, under the steady impulse of Jasper's paddle. The Pathfinder continued to laugh; but he arose from his knees, and, searching for a tin pot and a horn spoon, he began deliberately to measure the water that had been taken in the passage. “Fourteen spoonfuls, Eau-douce; fourteen fairly measured spoonfuls. I have, you must acknowledge, known you to go down with only ten.” “Master Cap leaned so hard up stream,” returned Jasper seriously, “that I had difficulty in trimming the canoe.” “It may be so; no doubt it _was_ so, since you say it; but I have known you go over with only ten.” Cap now gave a tremendous hem, felt for his queue as if to ascertain its safety, and then looked back in order to examine the danger he had gone through. His safety is easily explained. Most of the river fell perpendicularly ten or twelve feet; but near its centre the force of the current had so far worn away the rock as to permit the water to shoot through a narrow passage, at an angle of about forty or forty five degrees. Down this ticklish descent the canoe had glanced, amid fragments of broken rock, whirlpools, foam, and furious tossings of the element, which an uninstructed eye would believe menaced inevitable destruction to an object so fragile. But the very lightness of the canoe had favored its descent; for, borne on the crest of the waves, and directed by a steady eye and an arm full of muscle, it had passed like a feather from one pile of foam to another, scarcely permitting its glossy side to be wetted. There were a few rocks to be avoided, the proper direction was to be rigidly observed, and the fierce current did the rest. (1) (1) Lest the reader suppose we are dealing purely in fiction, the writer will add that he has known a long thirty-two pounder carried over these same falls in perfect safety. To say that Cap was astonished would not be expressing half his feelings; he felt awed: for the profound dread of rocks which most seamen entertain came in aid of his admiration of the boldness of the exploit. Still he was indisposed to express all he felt, lest it might be conceding too much in favor of fresh water and inland navigation; and no sooner had he cleared his throat with the afore-said hem, than he loosened his tongue in the usual strain of superiority. “I do not gainsay your knowledge of the channel, Master Eau-douce, and, after all, to know the channel in such a place is the main point. I have had cockswains with me who could come down that shoot too, if they only knew the channel.” “It isn't enough to know the channel,” said Pathfinder; “it needs narves and skill to keep the canoe straight, and to keep her clear of the rocks too. There isn't another boatman in all this region that can shoot the Oswego, but Eau-douce there, with any sartainty; though, now and then, one has blundered through. I can't do it myself unless by means of Providence, and it needs Jasper's hand and eye to make sure of a dry passage. Fourteen spoonfuls, after all, are no great matter, though I wish it had been but ten, seeing that the Sergeant's daughter was a looker-on.” “And yet you conned the canoe; you told him how to head and how to sheer.” “Human frailty, master mariner; that was a little of white-skin natur'. Now, had the Sarpent, yonder, been in the boat, not a word would he have spoken, or thought would he have given to the public. An Indian knows how to hold his tongue; but we white folk fancy we are always wiser than our fellows. I'm curing myself fast of the weakness, but it needs time to root up the tree that has been growing more than thirty years.” “I think little of this affair, sir; nothing at all to speak my mind freely. It's a mere wash of spray to shooting London Bridge which is done every day by hundreds of persons, and often by the most delicate ladies in the land. The king's majesty has shot the bridge in his royal person.” “Well, I want no delicate ladies or king's majesties (God bless 'em!) in the canoe, in going over these falls; for a boat's breadth, either way, may make a drowning matter of it. Eau-douce, we shall have to carry the Sergeant's brother over Niagara yet, to show him what may be done in a frontier.” “The devil! Master Pathfinder, you must be joking now! Surely it is not possible for a bark canoe to go over that mighty cataract?” “You never were more mistaken, Master Cap, in your life. Nothing is easier and many is the canoe I have seen go over it with my own eyes; and if we both live I hope to satisfy you that the feat can be done. For my part, I think the largest ship that ever sailed on the ocean might be carried over, could she once get into the rapids.” Cap did not perceive the wink which Pathfinder exchanged with Eau-douce, and he remained silent for some time; for, sooth to say, he had never suspected the possibility of going down Niagara, feasible as the thing must appear to every one on a second thought, the real difficulty existing in going up it. By this time the party had reached the place where Jasper had left his own canoe, concealed in the bushes, and they all re-embarked; Cap, Jasper, and his niece in one boat and Pathfinder, Arrowhead, and the wife of the latter in the other. The Mohican had already passed down the banks of the river by land, looking cautiously and with the skill of his people for the signs of an enemy. The cheek of Mabel did not recover all its bloom until the canoe was again in the current, down which it floated swiftly, occasionally impelled by the paddle of Jasper. She witnessed the descent of the falls with a degree of terror which had rendered her mute; but her fright had not been so great as to prevent admiration of the steadiness of the youth who directed the movement from blending with the passing terror. In truth, one much less sensitive might have had her feelings awakened by the cool and gallant air with which Eau-douce had accomplished this clever exploit. He had stood firmly erect, notwithstanding the plunge; and to those on the shore it was evident that, by a timely application of his skill and strength, the canoe had received a sheer which alone carried it clear of a rock over which the boiling water was leaping in _jets d'eau_,--now leaving the brown stone visible, and now covering it with a limpid sheet, as if machinery controlled the play of the element. The tongue cannot always express what the eyes view; but Mabel saw enough, even in that moment of fear, to blend for ever in her mind the pictures presented by the plunging canoe and the unmoved steersman. She admitted that insidious feeling which binds woman so strongly to man, by feeling additional security in finding herself under his care; and, for the first time since leaving Fort Stanwix, she was entirely at her ease in the frail bark in which she travelled. As the other canoe kept quite near her own, however, and the Pathfinder, by floating at her side, was most in view, the conversation was principally maintained with that person; Jasper seldom speaking unless addressed, and constantly exhibiting a wariness in the management of his own boat, which might have been remarked by one accustomed to his ordinarily confident, careless manner. “We know too well a woman's gifts to think of carrying the Sergeant's daughter over the falls,” said Pathfinder, looking at Mabel, while he addressed her uncle; “though I've been acquainted with some of her sex that would think but little of doing the thing.” “Mabel is faint-hearted, like her mother,” returned Cap; “and you did well, friend, to humor her weakness. You will remember the child has never been at sea.” “No, no, it was easy to discover that; by your own fearlessness, any one might have seen how little you cared about the matter. I went over once with a raw hand, and he jumped out of the canoe just as it tipped, and you many judge what a time he had of it.” “What became of the poor fellow?” asked Cap, scarcely knowing how to take the other's manner, which was so dry, while it was so simple, that a less obtuse subject than the old sailor might well have suspected its sincerity. “One who has passed the place knows how to feel for him.” “He was a _poor_ fellow, as you say; and a poor frontierman too, though he came out to show his skill among us ignoranters. What became of him? Why, he went down the falls topsy-turvey like, as would have happened to a court-house or a fort.” “If it should jump out of at canoe,” interrupted Jasper, smiling, though he was evidently more disposed than his friend to let the passage of the falls be forgotten. “The boy is right,” rejoined Pathfinder, laughing in Mabel's face, the canoes being now so near that they almost touched; “he is sartainly right. But you have not told us what you think of the leap we took?” “It was perilous and bold,” said Mabel; “while looking at it, I could have wished that it had not been attempted, though, now it is over, I can admire its boldness and the steadiness with which it was made.” “Now, do not think that we did this thing to set ourselves off in female eyes. It may be pleasant to the young to win each other's good opinions by doing things which may seem praiseworthy and bold; but neither Eau-douce nor myself is of that race. My natur' has few turns in it, and is a straight natur'; nor would it be likely to lead me into a vanity of this sort while out on duty. As for Jasper, he would sooner go over the Oswego Falls, without a looker-on, than do it before a hundred pair of eyes. I know the lad well from much consorting, and I am sure he is not boastful or vainglorious.” Mabel rewarded the scout with a smile, which served to keep the canoes together for some time longer; for the sight of youth and beauty was so rare on that remote frontier, that even the rebuked and self-mortified feelings of this wanderer of the forest were sensibly touched by the blooming loveliness of the girl. “We did it for the best,” Pathfinder continued; “'twas all for the best. Had we waited to carry the canoe across the portage, time would have been lost, and nothing is so precious as time when you are mistrustful of Mingos.” “But we have little to fear now. The canoes move swiftly, and two hours, you have said, will carry us down to the fort.” “It shall be a cunning Iroquois who hurts a hair of your head, pretty one; for all here are bound to the Sergeant, and most, I think, to yourself, to see you safe from harm. Ha, Eau-douce! what is that in the river, at the lower turn, yonder, beneath the bushes,--I mean standing on the rock?” “'Tis the Big Serpent, Pathfinder; he is making signs to us in a way I don't understand.” “'Tis the Sarpent, as sure as I'm a white man, and he wishes us to drop in nearer to his shore. Mischief is brewing, or one of his deliberation and steadiness would never take this trouble. Courage, all! We are men, and must meet devilry as becomes our color and our callings. Ah, I never knew good come of boasting! And here, just as I was vaunting of our safety, comes danger to give me the lie.”	{ "id": "1880" }
4	None	Art, stryving to compare With nature, did an arber greene dispred, Fram'd of wanton yvie flowing fayre, Through which the fragrant eglantines did spred. SPENSER. The Oswego, below the falls, is a more rapid, unequal stream than it is above them. There are places where the river flows in the quiet stillness of deep water, but many shoals and rapids occur; and at that distant day, when everything was in its natural state, some of the passes were not altogether without hazard. Very little exertion was required on the part of those who managed the canoes, except in those places where the swiftness of the current and the presence of the rocks required care; then, indeed, not only vigilance, but great coolness, readiness, and strength of arm became necessary, in order to avoid the dangers. Of all this the Mohican was aware, and he had judiciously selected a spot where the river flowed tranquilly to intercept the canoes, in order to make his communication without hazard to those he wished to speak. The Pathfinder had no sooner recognized the form of his red friend, than, with a strong sweep of his paddle, he threw the head of his own canoe towards the shore, motioning for Jasper to follow. In a minute both boats were silently drifting down the stream, within reach of the bushes that overhung the water, all observing a profound silence; some from alarm, and others from habitual caution. As the travellers drew nearer the Indian, he made a sign for them to stop; and then he and Pathfinder had a short but earnest conference. “The Chief is not apt to see enemies in a dead log,” observed the white man to his red associate; “why does he tell us to stop?” “Mingos are in the woods.” “That we have believed these two days: does the chief know it?” The Mohican quietly held up the head of a pipe formed of stone. “It lay on a fresh trail that led towards the garrison,”--for so it was the usage of that frontier to term a military work, whether it was occupied or not. “That may be the bowl of a pipe belonging to a soldier. Many use the red-skin pipes.” “See,” said the Big Serpent, again holding the thing he had found up to the view of his friend. The bowl of the pipe was of soap-stone, and was carved with great care and with a very respectable degree of skill; in its centre was a small Latin cross, made with an accuracy which permitted no doubt of its meaning. “That does foretell devilry and wickedness,” said the Pathfinder, who had all the provincial horror of the holy symbol in question which then pervaded the country, and which became so incorporated with its prejudices, by confounding men with things, as to have left its traces strong enough on the moral feeling of the community to be discovered even at the present hour; “no Indian who had not been parvarted by the cunning priests of the Canadas would dream of carving a thing like that on his pipe. I'll warrant ye, the knave prays to the image every time he wishes to sarcumvent the innocent, and work his fearful wickedness. It looks fresh, too, Chingachgook?” “The tobacco was burning when I found it.” “That is close work, chief. Where was the trail?” The Mohican pointed to a spot not a hundred yards from that where they stood. The matter now began to look very serious, and the two principal guides conferred apart for several minutes, when both ascended the bank, approached the indicated spot, and examined the trail with the utmost care. After this investigation had lasted a quarter of an hour, the white man returned alone, his red friend having disappeared in the forest. The ordinary expression of the countenance of the Pathfinder was that of simplicity, integrity, and sincerity, blended in an air of self-reliance which usually gave great confidence to those who found themselves under his care; but now a look of concern cast a shade over his honest face, that struck the whole party. “What cheer, Master Pathfinder?” demanded Cap, permitting a voice that was usually deep, loud, and confident to sink into the cautious tones that better suited the dangers of the wilderness. “Has the enemy got between us and our port?” “Anan?” “Have any of these painted scaramouches anchored off the harbor towards which we are running, with the hope of cutting us off in entering?” “It may be all as you say, friend Cap, but I am none the wiser for your words; and in ticklish times the plainer a man makes his English the easier he is understood. I know nothing of ports and anchors; but there is a direful Mingo trail within a hundred yards of this very spot, and as fresh as venison without salt. If one of the fiery devils has passed, so have a dozen; and, what is worse, they have gone down towards the garrison, and not a soul crosses the clearing around it that some of their piercing eyes will not discover, when sartain bullets will follow.” “Cannot this said fort deliver a broadside, and clear everything within the sweep of its hawse?” “Nay, the forts this-a-way are not like forts in the settlements, and two or three light cannon are all they have down at the mouth of the river; and then, broadsides fired at a dozen outlying Mingoes, lying behind logs and in a forest, would be powder spent in vain. We have but one course, and that is a very nice one. We are judgmatically placed here, both canoes being hid by the high bank and the bushes, from all eyes, except those of any lurker directly opposite. Here, then, we may stay without much present fear; but how to get the bloodthirsty devils up the stream again? Ha! I have it, I have it! if it does no good, it can do no harm. Do you see the wide-topped chestnut here, Jasper, at the last turn in the river--on our own side of the stream, I mean?” “That near the fallen pine?” “The very same. Take the flint and tinderbox, creep along the bank, and light a fire at that spot; maybe the smoke will draw them above us. In the meanwhile, we will drop the canoes carefully down beyond the point below, and find another shelter. Bushes are plenty, and covers are easily to be had in this region, as witness the many ambushments.” “I will do it, Pathfinder,” said Jasper, springing to the shore. “In ten minutes the fire shall be lighted.” “And, Eau-douce, use plenty of damp wood this time,” half whispered the other, laughing heartily, in his own peculiar manner; “when smoke is wanted, water helps to thicken it.” The young man was soon off, making his way rapidly towards the desired point. A slight attempt of Mabel to object to the risk was disregarded, and the party immediately prepared to change its position, as it could be seen from the place where Jasper intended to light his fire. The movement did not require haste, and it was made leisurely and with care. The canoes were got clear of the bushes, then suffered to drop down with the stream until they reached the spot where the chestnut, at the foot of which Jasper was to light the fire, was almost shut out from view, when they stopped, and every eye was turned in the direction of the adventurer. “There goes the smoke!” exclaimed the Pathfinder, as a current of air whirled a little column of the vapor from the land, allowing it to rise spirally above the bed of the river. “A good flint, a small bit of steel, and plenty of dry leaves makes a quick fire. I hope Eau-douce will have the wit to bethink him of the damp wood now when it may serve us all a good turn.” “Too much smoke--too much cunning,” said Arrowhead sententiously. “That is gospel truth, Tuscarora, if the Mingoes didn't know that they are near soldiers; but soldiers commonly think more of their dinner at a halt than of their wisdom and danger. No, no; let the boy pile on his logs, and smoke them well too; it will all be laid to the stupidity of some Scotch or Irish blunderer, who is thinking more of his oatmeal or his potatoes than of Indian sarcumventions or Indian rifles.” “And yet I should think, from all we have heard in the towns, that the soldiers on this frontier are used to the artifices of their enemies,” said Mabel, “and become almost as wily as the red men themselves.” “Not they. Experience makes them but little wiser; and they wheel, and platoon, and battalion it about, here in the forest, just as they did in their parks at home, of which they are all so fond of talking. One red-skin has more cunning in his natur' than a whole regiment from the other side of the water; that is, what I call cunning of the woods. But there is smoke enough, of all conscience, and we had better drop into another cover. The lad has thrown the river on his fire, and there is danger that the Mingoes will believe a whole regiment is out.” While speaking, the Pathfinder permitted his canoe to drift away from the bush by which it had been retained, and in a couple of minutes the bend in the river concealed the smoke and the tree. Fortunately a small indentation in the shore presented itself, within a few yards of the point they had just passed; and the two canoes glided into it, under the impulsion of the paddles. A better spot could not have been found for the purpose. The bushes were thick, and overhung the water, forming a complete canopy of leaves. There was a small gravelly strand at the bottom of the little bay, where most of the party landed to be more at their ease, and the only position from which they could possibly be seen was a point on the river directly opposite. There was little danger, however, of discovery from that quarter, as the thicket there was even denser than common, and the land beyond it was so wet and marshy as to render it difficult to be trodden. “This is a safe cover,” said the Pathfinder, after he had taken a scrutinizing survey of his position; “but it may be necessary to make it safer. Master Cap, I ask nothing of you but silence, and a quieting of such gifts as you may have got at sea, while the Tuscarora and I make provision for the evil hour.” The guide then went a short distance into the bushes, accompanied by the Indian, where the two cut off the larger stems of several alders and other bushes, using the utmost care not to make a noise. The ends of these little trees were forced into the mud, outside of the canoes, the depth of the water being very trifling; and in the course of ten minutes a very effectual screen was interposed between them and the principal point of danger. Much ingenuity and readiness were manifested in making this simple arrangement, in which the two workmen were essentially favored by the natural formation of the bank, the indentation in the shore, the shallowness of the water, and the manner in which the tangled bushes dipped into the stream. The Pathfinder had the address to look for bushes which had curved stems, things easily found in such a place; and by cutting them some distance beneath the bend, and permitting the latter to touch the water, the artificial little thicket had not the appearance of growing in the stream, which might have excited suspicion; but one passing it would have thought that the bushes shot out horizontally from the bank before they inclined upwards towards the light. In short, none but an unusually distrustful eye would have been turned for an instant towards the spot in quest of a hiding-place. “This is the best cover I ever yet got into,” said the Pathfinder, with his quiet laugh, after having been on the outside to reconnoitre; “the leaves of our new trees fairly touch those of the bushes over our heads. Hist! --yonder comes Eau-douce, wading, like a sensible boy, as he is, to leave his trail in the water; and we shall soon see whether our cover is good for anything or not.” Jasper had indeed returned from his duty above; and missing the canoes, he at once inferred that they had dropped round the next bend in the river, in order to get out of sight of the fire. His habits of caution immediately suggested the expediency of stepping into the water, in order that there might exist no visible communication between the marks left on the shore by the party and the place where he believed them to have taken refuge below. Should the Canadian Indians return on their own trail, and discover that made by the Pathfinder and the Serpent in their ascent from and descent to the river, the clue to their movements would cease at the shore, water leaving no prints of footsteps. The young man had therefore waded, knee-deep, as far as the point, and was now seen making his way slowly down the margin of the stream, searching curiously for the spot in which the canoes were hid. It was in the power of those behind the bushes, by placing their eyes near the leaves, to find many places to look through while one at a little distance lost this advantage. To those who watched his motions from behind their cover, and they were all in the canoes, it was evident that Jasper was totally at a loss to imagine where the Pathfinder had secreted himself. When fairly round the curvature in the shore, and out of sight of the fire he had lighted above, the young man stopped and began examining the bank deliberately and with great care. Occasionally he advanced eight or ten paces, and then halted again, to renew the search. The water being much shallower than common, he stepped aside, in order to walk with greater ease to himself and came so near the artificial plantation that he might have touched it with his hand. Still he detected nothing, and was actually passing the spot when Pathfinder made an opening beneath the branches, and called to him in a low voice to enter. “This is pretty well,” said the Pathfinder, laughing; “though pale-face eyes and red-skin eyes are as different as human spy-glasses. I would wager, with the Sergeant's daughter here, a horn of powder against a wampum-belt for her girdle, that her father's rijiment should march by this embankment of ours and never find out the fraud! But if the Mingoes actually get down into the bed of the river where Jasper passed, I should tremble for the plantation. It will do for their eyes, even across the stream, however, and will not be without its use.” “Don't you think, Master Pathfinder, that it would be wisest, after all,” said Cap, “to get under way at once, and carry sail hard down stream, as soon as we are satisfied that these rascals are fairly astern of us? We seamen call a stern chase a long chase.” “I wouldn't move from this spot until we hear from the Sarpent with the Sergeant's pretty daughter here in our company, for all the powder in the magazine of the fort below. Sartain captivity or sartain death would follow. If a tender fa'n, such as the maiden we have in charge, could thread the forest like old deer, it might, indeed, do to quit the canoes; for by making a circuit we could reach the garrison before morning.” “Then let it be done,” said Mabel, springing to her feet under the sudden impulse of awakened energy. “I am young, active, used to exercise, and could easily out-walk my dear uncle. Let no one think me a hindrance. I cannot bear that all your lives should be exposed on my account.” “No, no, pretty one; we think you anything but a hindrance or anything that is unbecoming, and would willingly run twice this risk to do you and the honest Sergeant a service. Do I not speak your mind, Eau-douce?” “To do _her_ a service!” said Jasper with emphasis. “Nothing shall tempt me to desert Mabel Dunham until she is safe in her father's arms.” “Well said, lad; bravely and honestly said, too; and I join in it, heart and hand. No, no! you are not the first of your sex I have led through the wilderness, and never but once did any harm befall any of them:--that was a sad day, certainly, but its like may never come again.” Mabel looked from one of her protectors to the other, and her fine eyes swam in tears. Frankly placing a hand in that of each, she answered them, though at first her voice was choked, “I have no right to expose you on my account. My dear father will thank you, I thank you, God will reward you; but let there be no unnecessary risk. I can walk far, and have often gone miles on some girlish fancy; why not now exert myself for my life? --nay, for your precious lives?” “She is a true dove, Jasper” said the Pathfinder, neither relinquishing the hand he held until the girl herself, in native modesty, saw fit to withdraw it, “and wonderfully winning! We get to be rough, and sometimes even hard-hearted, in the woods, Mabel; but the sight of one like you brings us back again to our young feelings, and does us good for the remainder of our days. I daresay Jasper here will tell you the same; for, like me in the forest, the lad sees but few such as yourself on Ontario, to soften his heart and remind him of love for his kind. Speak out now, Jasper, and say if it is not so?” “I question if many like Mabel Dunham are to be found anywhere,” returned the young man gallantly, an honest sincerity glowing in his face that spoke more eloquently than his tongue; “you need not mention the woods and lakes to challenge her equals, but I would go into settlements and towns.” “We had better leave the canoes,” Mabel hurriedly rejoined; “for I feel it is no longer safe to be here.” “You can never do it; you can never do it. It would be a march of more than twenty miles, and that, too, of tramping over brush and roots, and through swamps, in the dark; the trail of such a party would be wide, and we might have to fight our way into the garrison after all. We will wait for the Mohican.” Such appearing to be the decision of him to whom all, in their present strait, looked up for counsel, no more was said on the subject. The whole party now broke up into groups: Arrowhead and his wife sitting apart under the bushes, conversing in a low tone, though the man spoke sternly, and the woman answered with the subdued mildness that marks the degraded condition of a savage's wife. Pathfinder and Cap occupied one canoe, chatting of their different adventures by sea and land; while Jasper and Mabel sat in the other, making greater progress in intimacy in a single hour than might have been effected under other circumstances in a twelvemonth. Notwithstanding their situation as regards the enemy, the time flew by swiftly, and the young people, in particular, were astonished when Cap informed them how long they had been thus occupied. “If one could smoke, Master Pathfinder,” observed the old sailor, “this berth would be snug enough; for, to give the devil his due, you have got the canoes handsomely landlocked, and into moorings that would defy a monsoon. The only hardship is the denial of the pipe.” “The scent of the tobacco would betray us; and where is the use of taking all these precautions against the Mingo's eyes, if we are to tell him where the cover is to be found through the nose? No, no; deny your appetites; and learn one virtue from a red-skin, who will pass a week without eating even, to get a single scalp. Did you hear nothing, Jasper?” “The Serpent is coming.” “Then let us see if Mohican eyes are better than them of a lad who follows the water.” The Mohican had indeed made his appearance in the same direction as that by which Jasper had rejoined his friends. Instead of coming directly on, however, no sooner did he pass the bend, where he was concealed from any who might be higher up stream, than he moved close under the bank; and, using the utmost caution, got a position where he could look back, with his person sufficiently concealed by the bushes to prevent its being seen by any in that quarter. “The Sarpent sees the knaves!” whispered Pathfinder. “As I'm a Christian white man, they have bit at the bait, and have ambushed the smoke!” Here a hearty but silent laugh interrupted his words, and nudging Cap with his elbow, they all continued to watch the movements of Chingachgook in profound stillness. The Mohican remained stationary as the rock on which he stood full ten minutes; and then it was apparent that something of interest had occurred within his view, for he drew back with a hurried manner, looked anxiously and keenly along the margin of the stream, and moved quickly down it, taking care to lose his trail in the shallow water. He was evidently in a hurry and concerned, now looking behind him, and then casting eager glances towards every spot on the shore where he thought a canoe might be concealed. “Call him in,” whispered Jasper, scarcely able to restrain his impatience,--“call him in, or it will be too late! See! he is actually passing us.” “Not so, not so, lad; nothing presses, depend on it;” returned his companion, “or the Sarpent would begin to creep. The Lord help us and teach us wisdom! I _do_ believe even Chingachgook, whose sight is as faithful as the hound's scent, overlooks us, and will not find out the ambushment we have made!” This exultation was untimely; for the words were no sooner spoken than the Indian, who had actually got several feet lower down the stream than the artificial cover, suddenly stopped; fastened a keen-riveted glance among the transplanted bushes; made a few hasty steps backward; and, bending his body and carefully separating the branches, he appeared among them. “The accursed Mingos!” said Pathfinder, as soon as his friend was near enough to be addressed with prudence. “Iroquois,” returned the sententious Indian. “No matter, no matter; Iroquois, devil, Mingo, Mengwes, or furies--all are pretty much the same. I call all rascals Mingos. Come hither, chief, and let us convarse rationally.” When their private communication was over, Pathfinder rejoined the rest, and made them acquainted with all he had learned. The Mohican had followed the trail of their enemies some distance towards the fort, until the latter caught a sight of the smoke of Jasper's fire, when they instantly retraced their steps. It now became necessary for Chingachgook, who ran the greatest risk of detection, to find a cover where he could secrete himself until the party might pass. It was perhaps fortunate for him that the savages were so intent on this recent discovery, that they did not bestow the ordinary attention on the signs of the forest. At all events, they passed him swiftly, fifteen in number, treading lightly in each other's footsteps; and he was enabled again to get into their rear. After proceeding to the place where the footsteps of Pathfinder and the Mohican had joined the principal trail, the Iroquois had struck off to the river, which they reached just as Jasper had disappeared behind the bend below. The smoke being now in plain view, the savages plunged into the woods and endeavored to approach the fire unseen. Chingachgook profited by this occasion to descend to the water, and to gain the bend in the river also, which he thought had been effected undiscovered. Here he paused, as has been stated, until he saw his enemies at the fire, where their stay, however, was very short. Of the motives of the Iroquois the Mohican could judge only by their acts. He thought they had detected the artifice of the fire, and were aware that it had been kindled with a view to mislead them; for, after a hasty examination of the spot, they had separated, some plunging again into the woods, while six or eight had followed the footsteps of Jasper along the shore, and come down the stream towards the place where the canoes had landed. What course they might take on reaching that spot was only to be conjectured; for the Serpent had felt the emergency to be too pressing to delay looking for his friends any longer. From some indications that were to be gathered from their gestures, however, he thought it probable that their enemies might follow down in the margin of the stream, but could not be certain. As the Pathfinder related these facts to his companions, the professional feelings of the two other white men came uppermost, and both naturally reverted to their habits, in quest of the means of escape. “Let us run out the canoes at once,” said Jasper eagerly; “the current is strong, and by using the paddles vigorously we shall soon be beyond the reach of these scoundrels!” “And this poor flower, that first blossomed in the clearings--shall it wither in the forest?” objected his friend, with a poetry which he had unconsciously imbibed by his long association with the Delawares. “We must all die first,” answered the youth, a generous color mounting to his temples; “Mabel and Arrowhead's wife may lie down in the canoes, while we do our duty, like men, on our feet.” “Ay, you are active at the paddle and the oar, Eau-douce, I will allow, but an accursed Mingo is more active at his mischief; the canoes are swift, but a rifle bullet is swifter.” “It is the business of men, engaged as we have been by a confiding father, to run this risk--” “But it is not their business to overlook prudence.” “Prudence! a man may carry his prudence so far as to forget his courage.” The group was standing on the narrow strand, the Pathfinder leaning on his rifle, the butt of which rested on the gravelly beach, while both his hands clasped the barrel at the height of his own shoulders. As Jasper threw out this severe and unmerited imputation, the deep red of his comrade's face maintained its hue unchanged, though the young man perceived that the fingers grasped the iron of the gun with the tenacity of a vice. Here all betrayal of emotion ceased. “You are young and hot-headed,” returned Pathfinder, with a dignity that impressed his listeners with a keen sense of his moral superiority; “but my life has been passed among dangers of this sort, and my experience and gifts are not to be mastered by the impatience of a boy. As for courage, Jasper, I will not send back an angry and unmeaning word to meet an angry and an unmeaning word; for I know that you are true in your station and according to your knowledge; but take the advice of one who faced the Mingos when you were a child, and know that their cunning is easier sarcumvented by prudence than outwitted by foolishness.” “I ask your pardon, Pathfinder,” said the repentant Jasper, eagerly grasping the hand that the other permitted him to seize; “I ask your pardon, humbly and sincerely. 'Twas a foolish, as well as wicked thing to hint of a man whose heart, in a good cause, is known to be as firm as the rocks on the lake shore.” For the first time the color deepened on the cheek of the Pathfinder, and the solemn dignity which he had assumed, under a purely natural impulse, disappeared in the expression of the earnest simplicity inherent in all his feelings. He met the grasp of his young friend with a squeeze as cordial as if no chord had jarred between them, and a slight sternness that had gathered about his eye disappeared in a look of natural kindness. “'Tis well, Jasper,” he answered, laughing; “I bear no ill-will, nor shall any one on my behalf. My natur' is that of a white man, and that is to bear no malice. It might have been ticklish work to have said half as much to the Sarpent here, though he is a Delaware, for color will have its way--” A touch on his shoulder caused the speaker to cease. Mabel was standing erect in the canoe, her light, but swelling form bent forward in an attitude of graceful earnestness, her finger on her lips, her head averted, her spirited eyes riveted on an opening in the bushes, and one arm extended with a fishing-rod, the end of which had touched the Pathfinder. The latter bowed his head to a level with a look-out near which he had intentionally kept himself and then whispered to Jasper,-- “The accursed Mingos! Stand to your arms, my men, but lay quiet as the corpses of dead trees!” Jasper advanced rapidly, but noiselessly, to the canoe, and with a gentle violence induced Mabel to place herself in such an attitude as concealed her entire body, though it would have probably exceeded his means to induce the girl so far to lower her head that she could not keep her gaze fastened on their enemies. He then took his own post near her, with his rifle cocked and poised, in readiness to fire. Arrowhead and Chingachgook crawled to the cover, and lay in wait like snakes, with their arms prepared for service, while the wife of the former bowed her head between her knees, covered it with her calico robe, and remained passive and immovable. Cap loosened both his pistols in their belt, but seemed quite at a loss what course to pursue. The Pathfinder did not stir. He had originally got a position where he might aim with deadly effect through the leaves, and where he could watch the movements of his enemies; and he was far too steady to be disconcerted at a moment so critical. It was truly an alarming instant. Just as Mabel touched the shoulder of her guide, three of the Iroquois had appeared in the water, at the bend of the river, within a hundred yards of the cover, and halted to examine the stream below. They were all naked to the waist, armed for an expedition against their foes, and in their warpaint. It was apparent that they were undecided as to the course they ought to pursue in order to find the fugitives. One pointed down the river, a second up the stream, and the third towards the opposite bank. They evidently doubted.	{ "id": "1880" }
5	None	Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere. SHELLEY It was a breathless moment. The only clue the fugitives possessed to the intentions of their pursuers was in their gestures and the indications which escaped them in the fury of disappointment. That a party had returned already, on their own footsteps, by land, was pretty certain; and all the benefit expected from the artifice of the fire was necessarily lost. But that consideration became of little moment just then; for the party was menaced with an immediate discovery by those who had kept on a level with the river. All the facts presented themselves clearly, and as it might be by intuition, to the mind of Pathfinder, who perceived the necessity of immediate decision and of being in readiness to act in concert. Without making any noise, therefore, he managed to get the two Indians and Jasper near him, when he opened his communications in a whisper. “We must be ready, we must be ready,” he said. “There are but three of the scalping devils, and we are five, four of whom may be set down as manful warriors for such a skrimmage. Eau-douce, do you take the fellow that is painted like death; Chingachgook, I give you the chief; and Arrowhead must keep his eye on the young one. There must be no mistake, for two bullets in the same body would be sinful waste, with one like the Sergeant's daughter in danger. I shall hold myself in resarve against accident, lest a fourth reptile appear, for one of your hands may prove unsteady. By no means fire until I give the word; we must not let the crack of the rifle be heard except in the last resort, since all the rest of the miscreants are still within hearing. Jasper, boy, in case of any movement behind us on the bank, I trust to you to run out the canoe with the Sergeant's daughter, and to pull for the garrison, by God's leave.” The Pathfinder had no sooner given these directions than the near approach of their enemies rendered profound silence necessary. The Iroquois in the river were slowly descending the stream; keeping of necessity near the bushes which overhung the water, while the rustling of leaves and the snapping of twigs soon gave fearful evidence that another party was moving along the bank, at an equally graduated pace; and directly abreast of them. In consequence of the distance between the bushes planted by the fugitives and the true shore, the two parties became visible to each other when opposite that precise point. Both stopped, and a conversation ensued, that may be said to have passed directly over the heads of those who were concealed. Indeed, nothing sheltered the travellers but the branches and leaves of plants, so pliant that they yielded to every current of air, and which a puff of wind a little stronger than common would have blown away. Fortunately the line of sight carried the eyes of the two parties of savages, whether they stood in the water or on the land, above the bushes, and the leaves appeared blended in a way to excite no suspicion. Perhaps the very boldness of the expedient alone prevented an immediate exposure. The conversation which took place was conducted earnestly, but in guarded tones, as if those who spoke wished to defeat the intentions of any listeners. It was in a dialect that both the Indian warriors beneath, as well as the Pathfinder, understood. Even Jasper comprehended a portion of what was said. “The trail is washed away by the water!” said one from below, who stood so near the artificial cover of the fugitives, that he might have been struck by the salmon-spear that lay in the bottom of Jasper's canoe. “Water has washed it so clear that a Yengeese hound could not follow.” “The pale-faces have left the shore in their canoes,” answered the speaker on the bank. “It cannot be. The rifles of our warriors below are certain.” The Pathfinder gave a significant glance at Jasper, and he clinched his teeth in order to suppress the sound of his own breathing. “Let my young men look as if their eyes were eagles',” said the eldest warrior among those who were wading in the river. “We have been a whole moon on the war-path, and have found but one scalp. There is a maiden among them, and some of our braves want wives.” Happily these words were lost on Mabel; but Jasper's frown became deeper, and his face fiercely flushed. The savages now ceased speaking, and the party which was concealed heard the slow and guarded movements of those who were on the bank, as they pushed the bushes aside in their wary progress. It was soon evident that the latter had passed the cover; but the group in the water still remained, scanning the shore with eyes that glared through their war-paint like coals of living fire. After a pause of two or three minutes, these three began also to descend the stream, though it was step by step, as men move who look for an object that has been lost. In this manner they passed the artificial screen, and Pathfinder opened his mouth in that hearty but noiseless laugh that nature and habit had contributed to render a peculiarity of the man. His triumph, however, was premature; for the last of the retiring party, just at this moment casting a look behind him, suddenly stopped; and his fixed attitude and steady gaze at once betrayed the appalling fact that some neglected bush had awakened his suspicions. It was perhaps fortunate for the concealed that the warrior who manifested these fearful signs of distrust was young, and had still a reputation to acquire. He knew the importance of discretion and modesty in one of his years, and most of all did he dread the ridicule and contempt that would certainly follow a false alarm. Without recalling any of his companions, therefore, he turned on his own footsteps; and, while the others continued to descend the river, he cautiously approached the bushes, on which his looks were still fastened, as by a charm. Some of the leaves which were exposed to the sun had drooped a little, and this slight departure from the usual natural laws had caught the quick eyes of the Indian; for so practised and acute do the senses of the savage become, more especially when he is on the war-path, that trifles apparently of the most insignificant sort often prove to be clues to lead him to his object. The trifling nature of the change which had aroused the suspicion of this youth was an additional motive for not acquainting his companions with his discovery. Should he really detect anything, his glory would be the greater for being unshared; and should he not, he might hope to escape that derision which the young Indian so much dreads. Then there were the dangers of an ambush and a surprise, to which every warrior of the woods is keenly alive, to render his approach slow and cautious. In consequence of the delay that proceeded from these combined causes, the two parties had descended some fifty or sixty yards before the young savage was again near enough to the bushes of the Pathfinder to touch them with his hand. Notwithstanding their critical situation, the whole party behind the cover had their eyes fastened on the working countenance of the young Iroquois, who was agitated by conflicting feelings. First came the eager hope of obtaining success where some of the most experienced of his tribe had failed, and with it a degree of glory that had seldom fallen to the share of one of his years or a brave on his first war-path; then followed doubts, as the drooping leaves seemed to rise again and to revive in the currents of air; and distrust of hidden danger lent its exciting feeling to keep the eloquent features in play. So very slight, however, had been the alteration produced by the heat on the bushes of which the stems were in the water, that when the Iroquois actually laid his hand on the leaves, he fancied that he had been deceived. As no man ever distrusts strongly without using all convenient means of satisfying his doubts, however, the young warrior cautiously pushed aside the branches and advanced a step within the hiding-place, when the forms of the concealed party met his gaze, resembling so many breathless statues. The low exclamation, the slight start, and the glaring eye, were hardly seen and heard, before the arm of Chingachgook was raised, and the tomahawk of the Delaware descended on the shaven head of his foe. The Iroquois raised his hands frantically, bounded backward, and fell into the water, at a spot where the current swept the body away, the struggling limbs still tossing and writhing in the agony of death. The Delaware made a vigorous but unsuccessful attempt to seize an arm, with the hope of securing the scalp; but the bloodstained waters whirled down the current, carrying with them their quivering burden. All this passed in less than a minute, and the events were so sudden and unexpected, that men less accustomed than the Pathfinder and his associates to forest warfare would have been at a loss how to act. “There is not a moment to lose,” said Jasper, tearing aside the bushes, as he spoke earnestly, but in a suppressed voice. “Do as I do, Master Cap, if you would save your niece; and you, Mabel, lie at your length in the canoe.” The words were scarcely uttered when, seizing the bow of the light boat he dragged it along the shore, wading himself, while Cap aided behind, keeping so near the bank as to avoid being seen by the savages below, and striving to gain the turn in the river above him which would effectually conceal the party from the enemy. The Pathfinder's canoe lay nearest to the bank, and was necessarily the last to quit the shore. The Delaware leaped on the narrow strand and plunged into the forest, it being his assigned duty to watch the foe in that quarter, while Arrowhead motioned to his white companion to seize the bow of the boat and to follow Jasper. All this was the work of an instant; but when the Pathfinder reached the current that was sweeping round the turn, he felt a sudden change in the weight he was dragging, and, looking back, he found that both the Tuscarora and his wife had deserted him. The thought of treachery flashed upon his mind, but there was no time to pause, for the wailing shout that arose from the party below proclaimed that the body of the young Iroquois had floated as low as the spot reached by his friends. The report of a rifle followed; and then the guide saw that Jasper, having doubled the bend in the river, was crossing the stream, standing erect in the stern of the canoe, while Cap was seated forward, both propelling the light boat with vigorous strokes of the paddles. A glance, a thought, and an expedient followed each other quickly in one so trained in the vicissitudes of the frontier warfare. Springing into the stern of his own canoe, he urged it by a vigorous shove into the current, and commenced crossing the stream himself, at a point so much lower than that of his companions as to offer his own person for a target to the enemy, well knowing that their keen desire to secure a scalp would control all other feelings. “Keep well up the current, Jasper,” shouted the gallant guide, as he swept the water with long, steady, vigorous strokes of the paddle; “keep well up the current, and pull for the alder bushes opposite. Presarve the Sergeant's daughter before all things, and leave these Mingo knaves to the Sarpent and me.” Jasper flourished his paddle as a signal of understanding, while shot succeeded shot in quick succession, all now being aimed at the solitary man in the nearest canoe. “Ay, empty your rifles like simpletons as you are,” said the Pathfinder, who had acquired a habit of speaking when alone, from passing so much of his time in the solitude of the forest; “empty your rifles with an unsteady aim, and give me time to put yard upon yard of river between us. I will not revile you like a Delaware or a Mohican; for my gifts are a white man's gifts, and not an Indian's; and boasting in battle is no part of a Christian warrior; but I may say here, all alone by myself, that you are little better than so many men from the town shooting at robins in the orchards. That was well meant,” throwing back his head, as a rifle bullet cut a lock of hair from his temple; “but the lead that misses by an inch is as useless as the lead that never quits the barrel. Bravely done, Jasper! the Sergeant's sweet child must be saved, even if we go in without our own scalps.” By this time the Pathfinder was in the centre of the river, and almost abreast of his enemies, while the other canoe, impelled by the vigorous arms of Cap and Jasper, had nearly gained the opposite shore at the precise spot that had been pointed out to them. The old mariner now played his part manfully; for he was on his proper element, loved his niece sincerely, had a proper regard for his own person, and was not unused to fire, though his experience certainly lay in a very different species of warfare. A few strokes of the paddles were given, and the canoe shot into the bushes, Mabel was hurried to land by Jasper, and for the present all three of the fugitives were safe. Not so with the Pathfinder: his hardy self-devotion had brought him into a situation of unusual exposure, the hazards of which were much increased by the fact that, just as he drifted nearest to the enemy the party on the shore rushed down the bank and joined their friends who still stood in the water. The Oswego was about a cable's length in width at this point, and, the canoe being in the centre, the object was only a hundred yards from the rifles that were constantly discharged at it; or, at the usual target distance for that weapon. In this extremity the steadiness and skill of the Pathfinder did him good service. He knew that his safety depended altogether on keeping in motion; for a stationary object at that distance, would have been hit nearly every shot. Nor was motion of itself sufficient; for, accustomed to kill the bounding deer, his enemies probably knew how to vary the line of aim so as to strike him, should he continue to move in any one direction. He was consequently compelled to change the course of the canoe,--at one moment shooting down with the current, with the swiftness of an arrow; and at the next checking its progress in that direction, to glance athwart the stream. Luckily the Iroquois could not reload their pieces in the water, and the bushes that everywhere fringed the shore rendered it difficult to keep the fugitive in view when on the land. Aided by these circumstances, and having received the fire of all his foes, the Pathfinder was gaining fast in distance, both downwards and across the current, when a new danger suddenly, if not unexpectedly, presented itself, by the appearance of the party that had been left in ambush below with a view to watch the river. These were the savages alluded to in the short dialogue already related. They were no less than ten in number; and, understanding all the advantages of their bloody occupation, they had posted themselves at a spot where the water dashed among rocks and over shallows, in a way to form a rapid which, in the language of the country, is called a rift. The Pathfinder saw that, if he entered this rift, he should be compelled to approach a point where the Iroquois had posted themselves, for the current was irresistible, and the rocks allowed no other safe passage, while death or captivity would be the probable result of the attempt. All his efforts, therefore, were turned toward reaching the western shore, the foe being all on the eastern side of the river; but the exploit surpassed human power, and to attempt to stem the stream would at once have so far diminished the motion of the canoe as to render aim certain. In this exigency the guide came to a decision with his usual cool promptitude, making his preparations accordingly. Instead of endeavoring to gain the channel, he steered towards the shallowest part of the stream, on reaching which he seized his rifle and pack, leaped into the water, and began to wade from rock to rock, taking the direction of the western shore. The canoe whirled about in the furious current, now rolling over some slippery stone, now filling, and then emptying itself, until it lodged on the shore, within a few yards of the spot where the Iroquois had posted themselves. In the meanwhile the Pathfinder was far from being out of danger; for the first minute, admiration of his promptitude and daring, which are so high virtues in the mind of an Indian, kept his enemies motionless; but the desire of revenge, and the cravings for the much-prized trophy, soon overcame this transient feeling, and aroused them from their stupor. Rifle flashed after rifle, and the bullets whistled around the head of the fugitive, amid the roar of the waters. Still he proceeded like one who bore a charmed life; for, while his rude frontier garments were more than once cut, his skin was not razed. As the Pathfinder, in several instances, was compelled to wade in water which rose nearly to his arms, while he kept his rifle and ammunition elevated above the raging current, the toil soon fatigued him, and he was glad to stop at a large stone, or a small rock, which rose so high above the river that its upper surface was dry. On this stone he placed his powder-horn, getting behind it himself, so as to have the advantage of a partial cover for his body. The western shore was only fifty feet distant, but the quiet, swift, dark current that glanced through the interval sufficiently showed that here he would be compelled to swim. A short cessation in the firing now took place on the part of the Indians, who gathered about the canoe, and, having found the paddles, were preparing to cross the river. “Pathfinder,” called a voice from among the bushes, at the point nearest to the person addressed, on the western shore. “What would you have, Jasper?” “Be of good heart--friends are at hand, and not a single Mingo shall cross without suffering for his boldness. Had you not better leave the rifle on the rock, and swim to us before the rascals can get afloat?” “A true woodsman never quits his piece while he has any powder in his horn or a bullet in his pouch. I have not drawn a trigger this day, Eau-douce, and shouldn't relish the idea of parting with those reptiles without causing them to remember my name. A little water will not harm my legs; and I see that blackguard, Arrowhead, among the scamps, and wish to send him the wages he has so faithfully earned. You have not brought the Sergeant's daughter down here in a range with their bullets, I hope, Jasper?” “She is safe for the present at least; though all depends on our keeping the river between us and the enemy. They must know our weakness now; and, should they cross, no doubt some of their party will be left on the other side.” “This canoeing touches your gifts rather than mine, boy, though I will handle a paddle with the best Mingo that ever struck a salmon. If they cross below the rift, why can't we cross in the still water above, and keep playing at dodge and turn with the wolves?” “Because, as I have said, they will leave a party on the other shore; and then, Pathfinder, would you expose Mabel, to the rifles of the Iroquois?” “The Sergeant's daughter must be saved,” returned the guide, with calm energy. “You are right, Jasper; she has no gift to authorize her in offering her sweet face and tender body to a Mingo rifle. What can be done, then? They must be kept from crossing for an hour or two, if possible, when we must do our best in the darkness.” “I agree with you, Pathfinder, if it can be effected; but are we strong enough for such a purpose?” “The Lord is with us, boy, the Lord is with us; and it is unreasonable to suppose that one like the Sergeant's daughter will be altogether abandoned by Providence in such a strait. There is not a boat between the falls and the garrison, except these two canoes, to my sartain knowledge; and I think it will go beyond red-skin gifts to cross in the face of two rifles like these of yourn and mine. I will not vaunt, Jasper; but it is well known on all this frontier that Killdeer seldom fails.” “Your skill is admitted by all, far and near, Pathfinder; but a rifle takes time to be loaded; nor are you on the land, aided by a good cover, where you can work to the advantage you are used to. If you had our canoe, might you not pass to the shore with a dry rifle?” “Can an eagle fly, Jasper?” returned the other, laughing in his usual manner, and looking back as he spoke. “But it would be unwise to expose yourself on the water; for them miscreants are beginning to bethink them again of powder and bullets.” “It can be done without any such chances. Master Cap has gone up to the canoe, and will cast the branch of a tree into the river to try the current, which sets from the point above in the direction of your rock. See, there it comes already; if it float fairly, you must raise your arm, when the canoe will follow. At all events, if the boat should pass you, the eddy below will bring it up, and I can recover it.” While Jasper was still speaking, the floating branch came in sight; and, quickening its progress with the increasing velocity of the current, it swept swiftly down towards the Pathfinder, who seized it as it was passing, and held it in the air as a sign of success. Cap understood the signal, and presently the canoe was launched into the stream, with a caution and an intelligence that the habits of the mariner had fitted him to observe. It floated in the same direction as the branch, and in a minute was arrested by the Pathfinder. “This has been done with a frontier man's judgment Jasper,” said the guide, laughing; “but you have your gifts, which incline most to the water, as mine incline to the woods. Now let them Mingo knaves cock their rifles and get rests, for this is the last chance they are likely to have at a man without a cover.” “Nay, shove the canoe towards the shore, quartering the current, and throw yourself into it as it goes off,” said Jasper eagerly. “There is little use in running any risk.” “I love to stand up face to face with my enemies like a man, while they set me the example,” returned the Pathfinder proudly. “I am not a red-skin born, and it is more a white man's gifts to fight openly than to lie in ambushment.” “And Mabel?” “True, boy, true; the Sergeant's daughter must be saved; and, as you say, foolish risks only become boys. Think you that you can catch the canoe where you stand?” “There can be no doubt, if you give a vigorous push.” Pathfinder made the necessary effort; the light bark shot across the intervening space, and Jasper seized it as it came to land. To secure the canoe, and to take proper positions in the cover, occupied the friends but a moment, when they shook hands cordially, like those who had met after a long separation. “Now, Jasper, we shall see if a Mingo of them all dares cross the Oswego in the teeth of Killdeer! You are handier with the oar and the paddle and the sail than with the rifle, perhaps; but you have a stout heart and a steady hand, and them are things that count in a fight.” “Mabel will find me between her and her enemies,” said Jasper calmly. “Yes, yes, the Sergeant's daughter must be protected. I like you, boy, on your own account; but I like you all the better that you think of one so feeble at a moment when there is need of all your manhood. See, Jasper! Three of the knaves are actually getting into the canoe! They must believe we have fled, or they would not surely venture so much, directly in the very face of Killdeer.” Sure enough the Iroquois did appear bent on venturing across the stream; for, as the Pathfinder and his friends now kept their persons strictly concealed, their enemies began to think that the latter had taken to flight. Such a course was that which most white men would have followed; but Mabel was under the care of those who were much too well skilled in forest warfare to neglect to defend the only pass that, in truth, now offered even a probable chance for protection. As the Pathfinder had said, three warriors were in the canoe, two holding their rifles at a poise, as they knelt in readiness to aim the deadly weapons, and the other standing erect in the stern to wield the paddle. In this manner they left the shore, having had the precaution to haul the canoe, previously to entering it, so far up the stream as to have got into the comparatively still water above the rift. It was apparent at a glance that the savage who guided the boat was skilled in the art; for the long steady sweep of his paddle sent the light bark over the glassy surface of the tranquil river as if it were a feather floating in air. “Shall I fire?” demanded Jasper in a whisper, trembling with eagerness to engage. “Not yet, boy, not yet. There are but three of them, and if Master Cap yonder knows how to use the popguns he carries in his belt, we may even let them land, and then we shall recover the canoe.” “But Mabel--?” “No fear for the Sergeant's daughter. She is safe in the hollow stump, you say, with the opening judgmatically hid by the brambles. If what you tell me of the manner in which you concealed the trail be true, the sweet one might lie there a month and laugh at the Mingos.” “We are never certain. I wish we had brought her nearer to our own cover!” “What for, Eau-douce? To place her pretty little head and leaping heart among flying bullets? No, no: she is better where she is, because she is safer.” “We are never certain. We thought ourselves safe behind the bushes, and yet you saw that we were discovered.” “And the Mingo imp paid for his curiosity, as these knaves are about to do.” The Pathfinder ceased speaking; for at that instant the sharp report of a rifle was heard, when the Indian in the stern of the canoe leaped high into the air, and fell into the water, holding the paddle in his hand. A small wreath of smoke floated out from among the bushes of the eastern shore, and was soon absorbed by the atmosphere. “That is the Sarpent hissing!” exclaimed the Pathfinder exultingly. “A bolder or a truer heart never beat in the breast of a Delaware. I am sorry that he interfered; but he could not have known our condition.” The canoe had no sooner lost its guide than it floated with the stream, and was soon sucked into the rapids of the rift. Perfectly helpless, the two remaining savages gazed wildly about them, but could offer no resistance to the power of the element. It was perhaps fortunate for Chingachgook that the attention of most of the Iroquois was intently given to the situation of those in the boat, else would his escape have been to the last degree difficult, if not totally impracticable. But not a foe moved, except to conceal his person behind some cover; and every eye was riveted on the two remaining adventurers. In less time than has been necessary to record these occurrences, the canoe was whirling and tossing in the rift, while both the savages had stretched themselves in its bottom, as the only means of preserving the equilibrium. This natural expedient soon failed them; for, striking a rock, the light draft rolled over, and the two warriors were thrown into the river. The water is seldom deep on a rift, except in particular places where it may have worn channels; and there was little to be apprehended from drowning, though their arms were lost; and the two savages were fain to make the best of their way to the friendly shore, swimming and wading as circumstances required. The canoe itself lodged on a rock in the centre of the stream, where for the moment it became useless to both parties. “Now is our time, Pathfinder,” cried Jasper, as the two Iroquois exposed most of their persons while wading in the shallowest part of the rapids: “the fellow up stream is mine, and you can take the lower.” So excited had the young man become by all the incidents of the stirring scene, that the bullet sped from his rifle as he spoke, but uselessly, as it would seem, for both the fugitives tossed their arms in disdain. The Pathfinder did not fire. “No, no, Eau-douce,” he answered; “I do not seek blood without a cause; and my bullet is well leathered and carefully driven down, for the time of need. I love no Mingo, as is just, seeing how much I have consorted with the Delawares, who are their mortal and natural enemies; but I never pull trigger on one of the miscreants unless it be plain that his death will lead to some good end. The deer never leaped that fell by my hand wantonly. By living much alone with God in the wilderness a man gets to feel the justice of such opinions. One life is sufficient for our present wants; and there may yet be occasion to use Killdeer in behalf of the Sarpent, who has done an untimorsome thing to let them rampant devils so plainly know that he is in their neighborhood. As I'm a wicked sinner, there is one of them prowling along the bank this very moment, like one of the boys of the garrison skulking behind a fallen tree to get a shot at a squirrel!” As the Pathfinder pointed with his finger while speaking, the quick eye of Jasper soon caught the object towards which it was directed. One of the young warriors of the enemy, burning with a desire to distinguish himself, had stolen from his party towards the cover in which Chingachgook had concealed himself; and as the latter was deceived by the apparent apathy of his foes, as well as engaged in some further preparations of his own, he had evidently obtained a position where he got a sight of the Delaware. This circumstance was apparent by the arrangements the Iroquois was making to fire, for Chingachgook himself was not visible from the western side of the river. The rift was at a bend in the Oswego, and the sweep of the eastern shore formed a curve so wide that Chingachgook was quite near to his enemies in a straight direction, though separated by several hundred feet on the land, owing to which fact air lines brought both parties nearly equidistant from the Pathfinder and Jasper. The general width of the river being a little less than two hundred yards, such necessarily was about the distance between his two observers and the skulking Iroquois. “The Sarpent must be thereabouts,” observed Pathfinder, who never turned his eye for an instant from the young warrior; “and yet he must be strangely off his guard to allow a Mingo devil to get his stand so near, with manifest signs of bloodshed in his heart.” “See!” interrupted Jasper--“there is the body of the Indian the Delaware shot! It has drifted on a rock, and the current has forced the head and face above the water.” “Quite likely, boy, quite likely. Human natur' is little better than a log of driftwood, when the life that was breathed into its nostrils is departed. That Iroquois will never harm any one more; but yonder skulking savage is bent on taking the scalp of my best and most tried friend.” The Pathfinder suddenly interrupted himself by raising his rifle, a weapon of unusual length, with admirable precision, and firing the instant it had got its level. The Iroquois on the opposite shore was in the act of aiming when the fatal messenger from Killdeer arrived. His rifle was discharged, it is true, but it was with the muzzle in the air, while the man himself plunged into the bushes, quite evidently hurt, if not slain. “The skulking reptyle brought it on himself,” muttered Pathfinder sternly, as, dropping the butt of his rifle, he carefully commenced reloading it. “Chingachgook and I have consorted together since we were boys, and have fi't in company on the Horican, the Mohawk, the Ontario, and all the other bloody passes between the country of the Frenchers and our own; and did the foolish knave believe that I would stand by and see my best friend cut off in an ambushment?” “We have served the Sarpent as good a turn as he served us. Those rascals are troubled, Pathfinder, and are falling back into their covers, since they find we can reach them across the river.” “The shot is no great matter, Jasper, no great matter. Ask any of the 60th, and they can tell you what Killdeer can do, and has done, and that, too, when the bullets were flying about our heads like hailstones. No, no! this is no great matter, and the unthoughtful vagabond drew it down on himself.” “Is that a dog, or a deer, swimming towards this shore?” Pathfinder started, for sure enough an object was crossing the stream, above the rift, towards which, however, it was gradually setting by the force of the current. A second look satisfied both the observers that it was a man, and an Indian, though so concealed as at first to render it doubtful. Some stratagem was apprehended, and the closest attention was given to the movements of the stranger. “He is pushing something before him as he swims, and his head resembles a drifting bush,” said Jasper. “'Tis Indian devilry, boy; but Christian honesty shall circumvent their arts.” As the man slowly approached, the observers began to doubt the accuracy of their first impressions, and it was only when two-thirds of the stream were passed that the truth was really known. “The Big Sarpent, as I live!” exclaimed Pathfinder, looking at his companion, and laughing until the tears came into his eyes with pure delight at the success of the artifice. “He has tied bushes to his head, so as to hide it, put the horn on top, lashed the rifle to that bit of log he is pushing before him, and has come over to join his friends. Ah's me! The times and times that he and I have cut such pranks, right in the teeth of Mingos raging for our blood, in the great thoroughfare round and about Ty!” “It may not be the Serpent after all, Pathfinder; I can see no feature that I remember.” “Feature! Who looks for features in an Indian? No, no, boy; 'tis the paint that speaks, and none but a Delaware would wear that paint: them are his colors, Jasper, just as your craft on the lake wears St. George's Cross, and the Frenchers set their tablecloths to fluttering in the wind, with all the stains of fish-bones and venison steaks upon them. Now, you see the eye, lad, and it is the eye of a chief. But, Eau-douce, fierce as it is in battle, and glassy as it looks from among the leaves,”--here the Pathfinder laid his fingers lightly but impressively on his companion's arm,--“I have seen it shed tears like rain. There is a soul and a heart under that red skin, rely on it; although they are a soul and a heart with gifts different from our own.” “No one who is acquainted with the chief ever doubted that.” “I _know_ it,” returned the other proudly, “for I have consorted with him in sorrow and in joy: in one I have found him a man, however stricken; in the other, a chief who knows that the women of his tribe are the most seemly in light merriment. But hist! It is too much like the people of the settlements to pour soft speeches into another's ear; and the Sarpent has keen senses. He knows I love him, and that I speak well of him behind his back; but a Delaware has modesty in his inmost natur', though he will brag like a sinner when tied to a stake.” The Serpent now reached the shore, directly in the front of his two comrades, with whose precise position he must have been acquainted before leaving the eastern side of the river, and rising from the water he shook himself like a dog, and made the usual exclamation--“Hugh!”	{ "id": "1880" }
6	None	These, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. THOMSON. As the chief landed he was met by the Pathfinder, who addressed him in the language of the warrior's people: “Was it well done, Chingachgook,” said he reproachfully, “to ambush a dozen Mingos alone? Killdeer seldom fails me, it is true; but the Oswego makes a distant mark, and that miscreant showed little more than his head and shoulders above the bushes, and an onpractysed hand and eye might have failed. You should have thought of this, chief--you should have thought of this!” “The Great Serpent is a Mohican warrior--he sees only his enemies when he is on the war-path, and his fathers have struck the Mingos from behind, since the waters began to run.” “I know your gifts, I know your gifts, and respect them too. No man shall hear me complain that a red-skin obsarved red-skin natur'. But prudence as much becomes a warrior as valor; and had not the Iroquois devils been looking after their friends who were in the water, a hot trail they would have made of yourn.” “What is the Delaware about to do?” exclaimed Jasper, who observed at that moment that the chief had suddenly left the Pathfinder and advanced to the water's edge, apparently with an intention of again entering the river. “He will not be so mad as to return to the other shore for any trifle he may have forgotten?” “Not he, not he; he is as prudent as he is brave, in the main, though so forgetful of himself in the late ambushment. Hark'e, Jasper,” leading the other a little aside, just as they heard the Indian's plunge into the water,--“hark'e, lad; Chingachgook is not a Christian white man, like ourselves, but a Mohican chief, who has his gifts and traditions to tell him what he ought to do; and he who consorts with them that are not strictly and altogether of his own kind had better leave natur' and use to govern his comrades. A king's soldier will swear and he will drink, and it is of little use to try to prevent him; a gentleman likes his delicacies, and a lady her feathers and it does not avail much to struggle against either; whereas an Indian's natur' and gifts are much stronger than these, and no doubt were bestowed by the Lord for wise ends, though neither you nor me can follow them in all their windings.” “What does this mean? See, the Delaware is swimming towards the body that is lodged on the rock? Why does he risk this?” “For honor and glory and renown, as great gentlemen quit their quiet homes beyond seas--where, as they tell me, heart has nothing left to wish for; that is, such hearts as can be satisfied in a clearing--to come hither to live on game and fight the Frenchers.” “I understand you--your friend has gone to secure the scalp.” “'Tis his gift, and let him enjoy it. We are white men, and cannot mangle a dead enemy; but it is honor in the eyes of a red-skin to do so. It may seem singular to you, Eau-douce, but I've known white men of great name and character manifest as remarkable idees consarning their honor, I have.” “A savage will be a savage, Pathfinder, let him keep what company he may.” “It is well for us to say so, lad; but, as I tell you, white honor will not always conform to reason or to the will of God. I have passed days thinking of these matters, out in the silent woods, and I have come to the opinion, boy, that, as Providence rules all things, no gift is bestowed without some wise and reasonable end.” “The Serpent greatly exposes himself to the enemy, in order to get his scalp! This may lose us the day.” “Not in his mind, Jasper. That one scalp has more honor in it, according to the Sarpent's notions of warfare, than a field covered with slain, that kept the hair on their heads. Now, there was the fine young captain of the 60th that threw away his life in trying to bring off a three-pounder from among the Frenchers in the last skrimmage we had; he thought he was sarving honor; and I have known a young ensign wrap himself up in his colors, and go to sleep in his blood, fancying that he was lying on something softer even than buffalo-skins.” “Yes, yes; one can understand the merit of not hauling down an ensign.” “And these are Chingachgook's colors--he will keep them to show his children's children--” Here the Pathfinder interrupted himself, shook his head in melancholy, and slowly added, “Ah's me! no shoot of the old Mohican stem remains! He has no children to delight with his trophies; no tribe to honor by his deeds; he is a lone man in this world, and yet he stands true to his training and his gifts! There is something honest and respectable in these, you must allow, Jasper.” Here a great outcry from the Iroquois was succeeded by the quick reports of their rifles, and so eager did the enemy become, in the desire to drive the Delaware back from his victim, that a dozen rushed into the river, several of whom even advanced near a hundred feet into the foaming current, as if they actually meditated a serious sortie. But Chingachgook continued unmoved, as he remained unhurt by the missiles, accomplishing his task with the dexterity of long habit. Flourishing his reeking trophy, he gave the war-whoop in its most frightful intonations, and for a minute the arches of the silent woods and the deep vista formed by the course of the river echoed with cries so terrific that Mabel bowed her head in irrepressible fear, while her uncle for a single instant actually meditated flight. “This surpasses all I have heard from the wretches,” Jasper exclaimed, stopping his ears, equally in horror and disgust. “'Tis their music, boy; their drum and fife; their trumpets and clarions. No doubt they love those sounds; for they stir up in them fierce feelings, and a desire for blood,” returned the Pathfinder, totally unmoved. “I thought them rather frightful when a mere youngster; but they have become like the whistle of the whippoorwill or the song of the cat-bird in my ear now. All the screeching reptyles that could stand between the falls and the garrison would have no effect on my narves at this time of day. I say it not in boasting, Jasper; for the man that lets in cowardice through the ears must have but a weak heart at the best; sounds and outcries being more intended to alarm women and children than such as scout the forest and face the foe. I hope the Sarpent is now satisfied, for here he comes with the scalp at his belt.” Jasper turned away his head as the Delaware rose from the water, in pure disgust at his late errand; but the Pathfinder regarded his friend with the philosophical indifference of one who had made up his mind to be indifferent to things he deemed immaterial. As the Delaware passed deeper into the bushes with a view to wring his trifling calico dress and to prepare his rifle for service, he gave one glance of triumph at his companions, and then all emotion connected with the recent exploit seemed to cease. “Jasper,” resumed the guide, “step down to the station of Master Cap, and ask him to join us: we have little time for a council, and yet our plans must be laid quickly, for it will not be long before them Mingos will be plotting our ruin.” The young man complied; and in a few minutes the four were assembled near the shore, completely concealed from the view of their enemies, while they kept a vigilant watch over the proceedings of the latter, in order to consult on their own future movements. By this time the day had so far advanced as to leave but a few minutes between the passing light and an obscurity that promised to be even deeper than common. The sun had already set and the twilight of a low latitude would soon pass into the darkness of deep night. Most of the hopes of the party rested on this favorable circumstance, though it was not without its dangers also, as the very obscurity which would favor their escape would be as likely to conceal the movements of their wily enemies. “The moment has come, men,” Pathfinder commenced, “when our plans must be coolly laid, in order that we may act together, and with a right understanding of our errand and gifts. In an hour's time these woods will be as dark as midnight; and if we are ever to gain the garrison, it must be done under favor of this advantage. What say you, Master Cap? for, though none of the most experienced in combats and retreats in the woods, your years entitle you to speak first in a matter like this and in a council.” “Well, in my judgment, all we have to do is to go on board the canoe when it gets to be so dark the enemy's lookouts can't see us, and run for the haven, as wind and tide will allow.” “That is easily said, but not so easily done,” returned the guide. “We shall be more exposed in the river than by following the woods; and then there is the Oswego rift below us, and I am far from sartain that Jasper himself can carry a boat safely through it in the dark. What say you, lad, as to your own skill and judgment?” “I am of Master Cap's opinion about using the canoe. Mabel is too tender to walk through swamps and among roots of trees in such a night as this promises to be, and then I always feel myself stouter of heart and truer of eye when afloat than when ashore.” “Stout of heart you always be, lad, and I think tolerably true of eye for one who has lived so much in broad sunshine and so little in the woods. Ah's me! The Ontario has no trees, or it would be a plain to delight a hunter's heart! As to your opinion, friends, there is much for and much against it. For it, it may be said water leaves no trail--” “What do you call the wake?” interrupted the pertinacious and dogmatical Cap. “Anan?” “Go on,” said Jasper; “Master Cap thinks he is on the ocean--water leaves no trail--” “It leaves none, Eau-douce, hereaway, though I do not pretend to say what it may leave on the sea. Then a canoe is both swift and easy when it floats with the current, and the tender limbs of the Sergeant's daughter will be favored by its motion. But, on the other hand, the river will have no cover but the clouds in the heavens; the rift is a ticklish thing for boats to venture into, even by daylight; and it is six fairly measured miles, by water, from this spot to the garrison. Then a trail on land is not easy to be found in the dark. I am troubled, Jasper, to say which way we ought to counsel and advise.” “If the Serpent and myself could swim into the river and bring off the other canoe,” the young sailor replied, “it would seem to me that our safest course would be the water.” “If, indeed! and yet it might easily be done, as soon as it is a little darker. Well, well, I am not sartain it will not be the best. Though, were we only a party of men, it would be like a hunt to the lusty and brave to play at hide-and-seek with yonder miscreants on the other shore, Jasper,” continued the guide, into whose character there entered no ingredient which belonged to vain display or theatrical effect, “will you undertake to bring in the canoe?” “I will undertake anything that will serve and protect Mabel, Pathfinder.” “That is an upright feeling, and I suppose it is natur'. The Sarpent, who is nearly naked already, can help you; and this will be cutting off one of the means of them devils to work their harm.” This material point being settled, the different members of the party prepared themselves to put the project in execution. The shades of evening fell fast upon the forest; and by the time all was ready for the attempt, it was found impossible to discern objects on the opposite shore. Time now pressed; for Indian cunning could devise so many expedients for passing so narrow a stream, that the Pathfinder was getting impatient to quit the spot. While Jasper and his companion entered the river, armed with nothing but their knives and the Delaware's tomahawk, observing the greatest caution not to betray their movements, the guide brought Mabel from her place of concealment, and, bidding her and Cap proceed along the shore to the foot of the rapids, he got into the canoe that remained in his possession, in order to carry it to the same place. This was easily effected. The canoe was laid against the bank, and Mabel and her uncle entered it, taking their seats as usual; while the Pathfinder, erect in the stern, held by a bush, in order to prevent the swift stream from sweeping them down its current. Several minutes of intense and breathless expectation followed, while they awaited the results of the bold attempt of their comrades. It will be understood that the two adventurers were compelled to swim across a deep and rapid channel before they could reach a part of the rift that admitted of wading. This portion of the enterprise was soon effected; and Jasper and the Serpent struck the bottom side by side at the same instant. Having secured firm footing, they took hold of each other's hands, and waded slowly and with extreme caution in the supposed direction of the canoe. But the darkness was already so deep that they soon ascertained they were to be but little aided by the sense of sight, and that their search must be conducted on that species of instinct which enables the woodsman to find his way when the sun is hid, no stars appear, and all would seem chaos to one less accustomed to the mazes of the forest. Under these circumstances, Jasper submitted to be guided by the Delaware, whose habits best fitted him to take the lead. Still it was no easy matter to wade amid the roaring element at that hour, and retain a clear recollection of the localities. By the time they believed themselves to be in the centre of the stream, the two shores were discernible merely by masses of obscurity denser than common, the outlines against the clouds being barely distinguishable by the ragged tops of the trees. Once or twice the wanderers altered their course, in consequence of unexpectedly stepping into deep water; for they knew that the boat had lodged on the shallowest part of the rift. In short, with this fact for their compass, Jasper and his companion wandered about in the water for nearly a quarter of an hour; and at the end of that period, which began to appear interminable to the young man, they found themselves apparently no nearer the object of their search than they had been at its commencement. Just as the Delaware was about to stop, in order to inform his associate that they would do well to return to the land, in order to take a fresh departure, he saw the form of a man moving about in the water, almost within reach of his arm. Jasper was at his side, and he at once understood that the Iroquois were engaged on the same errand as he was himself. “Mingo!” he uttered in Jasper's ear. “The Serpent will show his brother how to be cunning.” The young sailor caught a glimpse of the figure at that instant, and the startling truth also flashed on his mind. Understanding the necessity of trusting all to the Delaware chief, he kept back, while his friend moved cautiously in the direction in which the strange form had vanished. In another moment it was seen again, evidently moving towards themselves. The waters made such an uproar that little was to be apprehended from ordinary sounds, and the Indian, turning his head, hastily said, “Leave it to the cunning of the Great Serpent.” “Hugh!” exclaimed the strange savage, adding, in the language of his people, “The canoe is found, but there were none to help me. Come, let us raise it from the rock.” “Willingly,” answered Chingachgook, who understood the dialect. “Lead; we will follow.” The stranger, unable to distinguish between voices and accents amid the raging of the rapid, led the way in the necessary direction; and, the two others keeping close at his heels, all three speedily reached the canoe. The Iroquois laid hold of one end, Chingachgook placed himself in the centre, and Jasper went to the opposite extremity, as it was important that the stranger should not detect the presence of a pale-face, a discovery that might be made by the parts of the dress the young man still wore, as well as by the general appearance of his head. “Lift,” said the Iroquois in the sententious manner of his race; and by a trifling effort the canoe was raised from the rock, held a moment in the air to empty it, and then placed carefully on the water in its proper position. All three held it firmly, lest it should escape from their hands under the pressure of the violent current, while the Iroquois, who led, of course, being at the upper end of the boat, took the direction of the eastern shore, or towards the spot where his friends waited his return. As the Delaware and Jasper well knew there must be several more of the Iroquois on the rift, from the circumstance that their own appearance had occasioned no surprise in the individual they had met, both felt the necessity of extreme caution. Men less bold and determined would have thought that they were incurring too great a risk by thus venturing into the midst of their enemies; but these hardy borderers were unacquainted with fear, were accustomed to hazards, and so well understood the necessity of at least preventing their foes from getting the boat, that they would have cheerfully encountered even greater risks to secure their object. So all-important to the safety of Mabel, indeed, did Jasper deem the possession or the destruction of this canoe, that he had drawn his knife, and stood ready to rip up the bark, in order to render the boat temporarily unserviceable, should anything occur to compel the Delaware and himself to abandon their prize. In the meantime, the Iroquois, who led the way, proceeded slowly through the water in the direction of his own party, still grasping the canoe, and dragging his reluctant followers in his train. Once Chingachgook raised his tomahawk, and was about to bury it in the brain of his confiding and unsuspicious neighbor; but the probability that the death-cry or the floating body might give the alarm induced that wary chief to change his purpose. At the next moment he regretted this indecision, for the three who clung to the canoe suddenly found themselves in the centre of a party of no less than four others who were in quest of it. After the usual brief characteristic exclamations of satisfaction, the savages eagerly laid hold of the canoe, for all seemed impressed with the necessity of securing this important boat, the one side in order to assail their foes, and the other to secure their retreat. The addition to the party, however, was so unlooked-for, and so completely gave the enemy the superiority, that for a few moments the ingenuity and address of even the Delaware were at fault. The five Iroquois, who seemed perfectly to understand their errand, pressed forward towards their own shore, without pausing to converse; their object being in truth to obtain the paddles, which they had previously secured, and to embark three or four warriors, with all their rifles and powder-horns, the want of which had alone prevented their crossing the river by swimming as soon as it was dark. In this manner, the body of friends and foes united reached the margin of the eastern channel, where, as in the case of the western, the river was too deep to be waded. Here a short pause succeeded, it being necessary to determine the manner in which the canoe was to be carried across. One of the four who had just reached the boat was a chief; and the habitual deference which the American Indian pays to merit, experience, and station kept the others silent until this individual had spoken. The halt greatly added to the danger of discovering the presence of Jasper, in particular, who, however, had the precaution to throw the cap he wore into the bottom of the canoe. Being without his jacket and shirt, the outline of his figure, in the obscurity, would now be less likely to attract observation. His position, too, at the stern of the canoe a little favored his concealment, the Iroquois naturally keeping their looks directed the other way. Not so with Chingachgook. This warrior was literally in the midst of his most deadly foes, and he could scarcely move without touching one of them. Yet he was apparently unmoved, though he kept all his senses on the alert, in readiness to escape, or to strike a blow at the proper moment. By carefully abstaining from looking towards those behind him, he lessened the chances of discovery, and waited with the indomitable patience of an Indian for the instant when he should be required to act. “Let all my young men but two, one at each end of the canoe, cross and get their arms,” said the Iroquois chief. “Let the two push over the boat.” The Indians quietly obeyed, leaving Jasper at the stern, and the Iroquois who had found the canoe at the bow of the light craft, Chingachgook burying himself so deep in the river as to be passed by the others without detection. The splashing in the water, the tossing arms, and the calls of one to another, soon announced that the four who had last joined the party were already swimming. As soon as this fact was certain, the Delaware rose, resumed his former station, and began to think the moment for action was come. One less habitually under self-restraint than this warrior would probably have now aimed his meditated blow; but Chingachgook knew there were more Iroquois behind him on the rift, and he was a warrior much too trained and experienced to risk anything unnecessarily. He suffered the Indian at the bow of the canoe to push off into the deep water, and then all three were swimming in the direction of the eastern shore. Instead, however, of helping the canoe across the swift current, no sooner did the Delaware and Jasper find themselves within the influence of its greatest force than both began to swim in a way to check their farther progress across the stream. Nor was this done suddenly, or in the incautious manner in which a civilized man would have been apt to attempt the artifice, but warily, and so gradually that the Iroquois at the bow fancied at first he was merely struggling against the strength of the current. Of course, while acted on by these opposing efforts, the canoe drifted down stream, and in about a minute it was floating in still deeper water at the foot of the rift. Here, however, the Iroquois was not slow in finding that something unusual retarded their advance, and, looking back; he first learned that he was resisted by the efforts of his companions. That second nature which grows up through habit instantly told the young Iroquois that he was alone with enemies. Dashing the water aside, he sprang at the throat of Chingachgook, and the two Indians, relinquishing their hold of the canoe, seized each other like tigers. In the midst of the darkness of that gloomy night, and floating in an element so dangerous to man when engaged in deadly strife, they appeared to forget everything but their fell animosity and their mutual desire to conquer. Jasper had now complete command of the canoe, which flew off like a feather impelled by the breath under the violent reaction of the struggles of the two combatants. The first impulse of the youth was to swim to the aid of the Delaware, but the importance of securing the boat presented itself with tenfold force, while he listened to the heavy breathings of the warriors as they throttled each other, and he proceeded as fast as possible towards the western shore. This he soon reached; and after a short search he succeeded in discovering the remainder of the party and in procuring his clothes. A few words sufficed to explain the situation in which he had left the Delaware and the manner in which the canoe had been obtained. When those who had been left behind had heard the explanations of Jasper, a profound stillness reigned among them, each listening intently in the vain hope of catching some clue to the result of the fearful struggle that had just taken place, if it were not still going on in the water. Nothing was audible beyond the steady roar of the rushing river; it being a part of the policy of their enemies on the opposite shore to observe the most deathlike stillness. “Take this paddle, Jasper,” said Pathfinder calmly, though the listeners thought his voice sounded more melancholy than usual, “and follow with your own canoe. It is unsafe for us to remain here longer.” “But the Serpent?” “The Great Sarpent is in the hands of his own Deity, and will live or die, according to the intentions of Providence. We can do him no good, and may risk too much by remaining here in idleness, like women talking over their distresses. This darkness is very precious.” A loud, long, piercing yell came from the shore, and cut short the words of the guide. “What is the meaning of that uproar, Master Pathfinder?” demanded Cap. “It sounds more like the outcries of devils than anything that can come from the throats of Christians and men.” “Christians they are not, and do not pretend to be, and do not wish to be; and in calling them devils you have scarcely misnamed them. That yell is one of rejoicing, and it is as conquerors they have given it. The body of the Sarpent, no doubt, dead or alive, is in their power. “And we!” exclaimed Jasper, who felt a pang of generous regret, as the idea that he might have averted the calamity presented itself to his mind, had he not deserted his comrade. “We can do the chief no good, lad, and must quit this spot as fast as possible.” “Without one attempt to rescue him? --without even knowing whether he be dead or living?” “Jasper is right,” said Mabel, who could speak, though her voice sounded huskily and smothered; “I have no fears, uncle, and will stay here until we know what has become of our friend.” “This seems reasonable, Pathfinder,” put in Cap. “Your true seaman cannot well desert a messmate; and I am glad to find that motives so correct exist among those fresh-water people.” “Tut! tut!” returned the impatient guide, forcing the canoe into the stream as he spoke; “ye know nothing and ye fear nothing. If ye value your lives, think of reaching the garrison, and leave the Delaware in the hands of Providence. Ah's me! the deer that goes too often to the lick meets the hunter at last!”	{ "id": "1880" }
7	None	And is this--Yarrow? --this the stream Of which my fancy cherish'd So faithfully a waking dream? An image that hath perish'd? Oh that some minstrel's harp were near, To utter notes of gladness, And chase this silence from the air, That fills my heart with sadness. WORDSWORTH. THE scene was not without its sublimity, and the ardent, generous-minded Mabel felt her blood thrill in her veins and her cheeks flush, as the canoe shot into the strength of the stream, to quit the spot. The darkness of the night had lessened, by the dispersion of the clouds; but the overhanging woods rendered the shore so obscure, that the boats floated down the current in a belt of gloom that effectually secured them from detection. Still, there was necessarily a strong feeling of insecurity in all on board them; and even Jasper, who by this time began to tremble, in behalf of the girl, at every unusual sound that arose from the forest, kept casting uneasy glances around him as he drifted on in company. The paddle was used lightly, and only with exceeding care; for the slightest sound in the breathing stillness of that hour and place might apprise the watchful ears of the Iroquois of their position. All these accessories added to the impressive grandeur of her situation, and contributed to render the moment much the most exciting which had ever occurred in the brief existence of Mabel Dunham. Spirited, accustomed to self-reliance, and sustained by the pride of considering herself a soldier's daughter, she could hardly be said to be under the influence of fear, yet her heart often beat quicker than common, her fine blue eye lighted with an exhibition of a resolution that was wasted in the darkness, and her quickened feelings came in aid of the real sublimity that belonged to the scene and to the incidents of the night. “Mabel!” said the suppressed voice of Jasper, as the two canoes floated so near each other that the hand of the young man held them together, “you have no dread? You trust freely to our care and willingness to protect you?” “I am a soldier's daughter, as you know, Jasper Western, and ought to be ashamed to confess fear.” “Rely on me--on us all. Your uncle, Pathfinder, the Delaware, were the poor fellow here, I myself, will risk everything rather than harm should reach you.” “I believe you, Jasper,” returned the girl, her hand unconsciously playing in the water. “I know that my uncle loves me, and will never think of himself until he has first thought of me; and I believe you are all my father's friends, and would willingly assist his child. But I am not so feeble and weak-minded as you may think; for, though only a girl from the towns, and, like most of that class, a little disposed to see danger where there is none, I promise you, Jasper, no foolish fears of mine shall stand in the way of your doing your duty.” “The Sergeant's daughter is right, and she is worthy of being honest Thomas Dunham's child,” put in the Pathfinder. “Ah's me, pretty one! many is the time that your father and I have scouted and marched together on the flanks and rear of the enemy, in nights darker than this, and that, too, when we did not know but the next moment would lead us into a bloody ambushment. I was at his side when he got the wound in his shoulder; and the honest fellow will tell you, when you meet, the manner in which we contrived to cross the river which lay in our rear, in order to save his scalp.” “He has told me,” said Mabel, with more energy perhaps than her situation rendered prudent. “I have his letters, in which he has mentioned all that, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the service. God will remember it, Pathfinder; and there is no gratitude that you can ask of the daughter which she will not cheerfully repay for her father's life.” “Ay, that is the way with all your gentle and pure-hearted creatures. I have seen some of you before, and have heard of others. The Sergeant himself has talked to me of his own young days, and of your mother, and of the manner in which he courted her, and of all the crossings and disappointments, until he succeeded at last.” “My mother did not live long to repay him for what he did to win her,” said Mabel, with a trembling lip. “So he tells me. The honest Sergeant has kept nothing back; for, being so many years my senior, he has looked on me, in our many scoutings together, as a sort of son.” “Perhaps, Pathfinder,” observed Jasper, with a huskiness in his voice that defeated the attempt at pleasantry, “he would be glad to have you for one in reality.” “And if he did, Eau-douce, where would be the sin of it? He knows what I am on a trail or a scout, and he has seen me often face to face with the Frenchers. I have sometimes thought, lad, that we all ought to seek for wives; for the man that lives altogether in the woods, and in company with his enemies or his prey, gets to lose some of the feeling of kind in the end. It is not easy to dwell always in the presence of God and not feel the power of His goodness. I have attended church-sarvice in the garrisons, and tried hard, as becomes a true soldier, to join in the prayers; for, though no enlisted sarvant of the king, I fight his battles and sarve his cause, and so I have endeavored to worship garrison-fashion, but never could raise within me the solemn feelings and true affection that I feel when alone with God in the forest. There I seem to stand face to face with my Master; all around me is fresh and beautiful, as it came from His hand; and there is no nicety or doctrine to chill the feelings. No no; the woods are the true temple after all, for there the thoughts are free to mount higher even than the clouds.” “You speak the truth, Master Pathfinder,” said Cap, “and a truth that all who live much in solitude know. What, for instance, is the reason that seafaring men in general are so religious and conscientious in all they do, but the fact that they are so often alone with Providence, and have so little to do with the wickedness of the land. Many and many is the time that I have stood my watch, under the equator perhaps, or in the Southern Ocean, when the nights are lighted up with the fires of heaven; and that is the time, I can tell you, my hearties, to bring a man to his bearings in the way of his sins. I have rattled down mine again and again under such circumstances, until the shrouds and lanyards of conscience have fairly creaked with the strain. I agree with you, Master Pathfinder, therefore, in saying, if you want a truly religious man, go to sea, or go into the woods.” “Uncle, I thought seamen had little credit generally for their respect for religion?” “All d----d slander, girl; for all the essentials of Christianity the seaman beats the landsman hand-over-hand.” “I will not answer for all this, Master Cap,” returned Pathfinder; “but I daresay some of it may be true. I want no thunder and lightning to remind me of my God, nor am I as apt to bethink on most of all His goodness in trouble and tribulations as on a calm, solemn, quiet day in a forest, when His voice is heard in the creaking of a dead branch or in the song of a bird, as much in my ears at least as it is ever heard in uproar and gales. How is it with you, Eau-douce? you face the tempests as well as Master Cap, and ought to know something of the feelings of storms.” “I fear that I am too young and too inexperienced to be able to say much on such a subject,” modestly answered Jasper. “But you have your feelings!” said Mabel quickly. “You cannot--no one can live among such scenes without feeling how much they ought to trust in God!” “I shall not belie my training so much as to say I do not sometimes think of these things, but I fear it is not so often or so much as I ought.” “Fresh water,” resumed Cap pithily; “you are not to expect too much of the young man, Mabel. I think they call you sometimes by a name which would insinuate all this: Eau-de-vie, is it not?” “Eau-douce,” quietly replied Jasper, who from sailing on the lake had acquired a knowledge of French, as well as of several of the Indian dialects. “It is a name the Iroquois have given me to distinguish me from some of my companions who once sailed upon the sea, and are fond of filling the ears of the natives with stories of their great salt-water lakes.” “And why shouldn't they? I daresay they do the savages no harm. Ay, ay, Eau-deuce; that must mean the white brandy, which may well enough be called the deuce, for deuced stuff it is!” “The signification of Eau-douce is sweet-water, and it is the manner in which the French express fresh-water,” rejoined Jasper, a little nettled. “And how the devil do they make water out of Eau-in-deuce, when it means brandy in Eau-de-vie? Besides, among seamen, Eau always means brandy; and Eau-de-vie, brandy of a high proof. I think nothing of your ignorance, young man; for it is natural to your situation, and cannot be helped. If you will return with me, and make a v'y'ge or two on the Atlantic, it will serve you a good turn the remainder of your days; and Mabel there, and all the other young women near the coast, will think all the better of you should you live to be as old as one of the trees in this forest.” “Nay, nay,” interrupted the single-hearted and generous guide; “Jasper wants not for friends in this region, I can assure you; and though seeing the world, according to his habits, may do him good as well as another, we shall think none the worse of him if he never quits us. Eau-douce or Eau-de-vie, he is a brave, true-hearted youth, and I always sleep as soundly when he is on the watch as if I was up and stirring myself; ay, and for that matter, sounder too. The Sergeant's daughter here doesn't believe it necessary for the lad to go to sea in order to make a man of him, or one who is worthy to be respected and esteemed.” Mabel made no reply to this appeal, and she even looked towards the western shore, although the darkness rendered the natural movements unnecessary to conceal her face. But Jasper felt that there was a necessity for his saying something, the pride of youth and manhood revolting at the idea of his being in a condition not to command the respect of his fellows or the smiles of his equals of the other sex. Still he was unwilling to utter aught that might be considered harsh to the uncle of Mabel; and his self-command was perhaps more creditable than his modesty and spirit. “I pretend not to things I don't possess,” he said, “and lay no claim to any knowledge of the ocean or of navigation. We steer by the stars and the compass on these lakes, running from headland to headland; and having little need of figures and calculations, make no use of them. But we have our claims notwithstanding, as I have often heard from those who have passed years on the ocean. In the first place, we have always the land aboard, and much of the time on a lee-shore, and that I have frequently heard makes hardy sailors. Our gales are sudden and severe, and we are compelled to run for our ports at all hours.” “You have your leads,” interrupted Cap. “They are of little use, and are seldom cast.” “The deep-seas.” “I have heard of such things, but confess I never saw one.” “Oh! deuce, with a vengeance. A trader, and no deep-sea! Why, boy, you cannot pretend to be anything of a mariner. Who the devil ever heard of a seaman without his deep-sea?” “I do not pretend to any particular skill, Master Cap.” “Except in shooting falls, Jasper, except in shooting falls and rifts,” said Pathfinder, coming to the rescue; “in which business even you, Master Cap, must allow he has some handiness. In my judgment, every man is to be esteemed or condemned according to his gifts; and if Master Cap is useless in running the Oswego Falls, I try to remember that he is useful when out of sight of land; and if Jasper be useless when out of sight of land, I do not forget that he has a true eye and steady hand when running the falls.” “But Jasper is not useless--would not be useless when out of sight of land,” said Mabel, with a spirit and energy that caused her clear sweet voice to be startling amid the solemn stillness of that extraordinary scene. “No one can be useless there who can do so much here, is what I mean; though, I daresay, he is not as well acquainted with ships as my uncle.” “Ay, bolster each other up in your ignorance,” returned Cap with a sneer. “We seamen are so much out-numbered when ashore that it is seldom we get our dues; but when you want to be defended, or trade is to be carried on, there is outcry enough for us.” “But, uncle, landsmen do not come to attack our coasts; so that seamen only meet seamen.” “So much for ignorance! Where are all the enemies that have landed in this country, French and English, let me inquire, niece?” “Sure enough, where are they?” ejaculated Pathfinder. “None can tell better than we who dwell in the woods, Master Cap. I have often followed their line of march by bones bleaching in the rain, and have found their trail by graves, years after they and their pride had vanished together. Generals and privates, they lay scattered throughout the land, so many proofs of what men are when led on by their love of great names and the wish to be more than their fellows.” “I must say, Master Pathfinder, that you sometimes utter opinions that are a little remarkable for a man who lives by the rifle; seldom snuffing the air but he smells gunpowder, or turning out of his berth but to bear down on an enemy.” “If you think I pass my days in warfare against my kind, you know neither me nor my history. The man that lives in the woods and on the frontiers must take the chances of the things among which he dwells. For this I am not accountable, being but an humble and powerless hunter and scout and guide. My real calling is to hunt for the army, on its marches and in times of peace; although I am more especially engaged in the service of one officer, who is now absent in the settlements, where I never follow him. No, no; bloodshed and warfare are not my real gifts, but peace and mercy. Still, I must face the enemy as well as another; and as for a Mingo, I look upon him as man looks on a snake, a creatur' to be put beneath the heel whenever a fitting occasion offers.” “Well, well; I have mistaken your calling, which I had thought as regularly warlike as that of a ship's gunner. There is my brother-in-law, now; he has been a soldier since he was sixteen, and he looks upon his trade as every way as respectable as that of a seafaring man, a point I hardly think it worth while to dispute with him.” “My father has been taught to believe that it is honorable to carry arms,” said Mabel, “for his father was a soldier before him.” “Yes, yes,” resumed the guide; “most of the Sergeant's gifts are martial, and he looks at most things in this world over the barrel of his musket. One of his notions, now, is to prefer a king's piece to a regular, double-sighted, long-barrelled rifle. Such conceits will come over men from long habit; and prejudice is, perhaps, the commonest failing of human natur'.” While the desultory conversation just related had been carried on in subdued voices, the canoes were dropping slowly down with the current within the deep shadows of the western shore, the paddles being used merely to preserve the desired direction and proper positions. The strength of the stream varied materially, the water being seemingly still in places, while in other reaches it flowed at a rate exceeding two or even three miles in the hour. On the rifts it even dashed forward with a velocity that was appalling to the unpractised eye. Jasper was of opinion that they might drift down with the current to the mouth of the river in two hours from the time they left the shore, and he and the Pathfinder had agreed on the expediency of suffering the canoes to float of themselves for a time, or at least until they had passed the first dangers of their new movement. The dialogue had been carried on in voices, too, guardedly low; for though the quiet of deep solitude reigned in that vast and nearly boundless forest, nature was speaking with her thousand tongues in the eloquent language of night in a wilderness. The air sighed through ten thousand trees, the water rippled, and at places even roared along the shores; and now and then was heard the creaking of a branch or a trunk, as it rubbed against some object similar to itself, under the vibrations of a nicely balanced body. All living sounds had ceased. Once, it is true, the Pathfinder fancied he heard the howl of a distant wolf, of which a few prowled through these woods; but it was a transient and doubtful cry, that might possibly have been attributed to the imagination. When he desired his companions, however, to cease talking, his vigilant ear had caught the peculiar sound which is made by the parting of a dried branch of a tree and which, if his senses did not deceive him, came from the western shore. All who are accustomed to that particular sound will understand how readily the ear receives it, and how easy it is to distinguish the tread which breaks the branch from every other noise of the forest. “There is the footstep of a man on the bank,” said Pathfinder to Jasper, speaking in neither a whisper nor yet in a voice loud enough to be heard at any distance. “Can the accursed Iroquois have crossed the river already, with their arms, and without a boat?” “It may be the Delaware. He would follow us, of course down this bank, and would know where to look for us. Let me draw closer into the shore, and reconnoitre.” “Go boy but be light with the paddle, and on no account venture ashore on an onsartainty.” “Is this prudent?” demanded Mabel, with an impetuosity that rendered her incautious in modulating her sweet voice. “Very imprudent, if you speak so loud, fair one. I like your voice, which is soft and pleasing, after the listening so long to the tones of men; but it must not be heard too much, or too freely, just now. Your father, the honest Sergeant, will tell you, when you meet him, that silence is a double virtue on a trail. Go, Jasper, and do justice to your own character for prudence.” Ten anxious minutes succeeded the disappearance of the canoe of Jasper, which glided away from that of the Pathfinder so noiselessly, that it had been swallowed up in the gloom before Mabel allowed herself to believe the young man would really venture alone on a service which struck her imagination as singularly dangerous. During this time, the party continued to float with the current, no one speaking, and, it might almost be said, no one breathing, so strong was the general desire to catch the minutest sound that should come from the shore. But the same solemn, we might, indeed, say sublime, quiet reigned as before; the washing of the water, as it piled up against some slight obstruction, and the sighing of the trees, alone interrupting the slumbers of the forest. At the end of the period mentioned, the snapping of dried branches was again faintly heard, and the Pathfinder fancied that the sound of smothered voices reached him. “I may be mistaken,” he said, “for the thoughts often fancy what the heart wishes; but these were notes like the low tones of the Delaware.” “Do the dead of the savages ever walk?” demanded Cap. “Ay, and run too, in their happy hunting-grounds, but nowhere else. A red-skin finishes with the 'arth, after the breath quits the body. It is not one of his gifts to linger around his wigwam when his hour has passed.” “I see some object on the water,” whispered Mabel, whose eye had not ceased to dwell on the body of gloom, with close intensity, since the disappearance of Jasper. “It is the canoe,” returned the guide, greatly relieved. “All must be safe, or we should have heard from the lad.” In another minute the two canoes, which became visible to those they carried only as they drew near each other, again floated side by side, and the form of Jasper was recognized at the stern of his own boat. The figure of a second man was seated in the bow; and, as the young sailor so wielded his paddle as to bring the face of his companion near the eyes of the Pathfinder and Mabel, they both recognized the person of the Delaware. “Chingachgook--my brother!” said the guide in the dialect of the other's people, a tremor shaking his voice that betrayed the strength of his feelings. “Chief of the Mohicans! My heart is very glad. Often have we passed through blood and strife together, but I was afraid it was never to be so again.” “Hugh! The Mingos are squaws! Three of their scalps hang at my girdle. They do not know how to strike the Great Serpent of the Delawares. Their hearts have no blood; and their thoughts are on their return path, across the waters of the Great Lake.” “Have you been among them, chief? and what has become of the warrior who was in the river?” “He has turned into a fish, and lies at the bottom with the eels! Let his brothers bait their hooks for him. Pathfinder, I have counted the enemy, and have touched their rifles.” “Ah, I thought he would be venturesome!” exclaimed the guide in English. “The risky fellow has been in the midst of them, and has brought us back their whole history. Speak, Chingachgook, and I will make our friends as knowing as ourselves.” The Delaware now related in a low earnest manner the substance of all his discoveries, since he was last seen struggling with his foe in the river. Of the fate of his antagonist he said no more, it not being usual for a warrior to boast in his more direct and useful narratives. As soon as he had conquered in that fearful strife, however, he swam to the eastern shore, landed with caution, and wound his way in amongst the Iroquois, concealed by the darkness, undetected, and, in the main, even unsuspected. Once, indeed, he had been questioned; but answering that he was Arrowhead, no further inquiries were made. By the passing remarks, he soon ascertained that the party was out expressly to intercept Mabel and her uncle, concerning whose rank, however, they had evidently been deceived. He also ascertained enough to justify the suspicion that Arrowhead had betrayed them to their enemies, for some motive that it was not now easy to reach, as he had not yet received the reward of his services. Pathfinder communicated no more of this intelligence to his companions than he thought might relieve their apprehensions, intimating, at the same time, that now was the moment for exertion, the Iroquois not having yet entirely recovered from the confusion created by their losses. “We shall find them at the rift, I make no manner of doubt,” continued he; “and there it will be our fate to pass them, or to fall into their hands. The distance to the garrison will then be so short, that I have been thinking of a plan of landing with Mabel myself, that I may take her in, by some of the by-ways, and leave the canoes to their chances in the rapids.” “It will never succeed, Pathfinder,” eagerly interrupted Jasper. “Mabel is not strong enough to tramp the woods in a night like this. Put her in my skiff, and I will lose my life, or carry her through the rift safely, dark as it is.” “No doubt you will, lad; no one doubts your willingness to do anything to serve the Sergeant's daughter; but it must be the eye of Providence, and not your own, that will take you safely through the Oswego rift in a night like this.” “And who will lead her safely to the garrison if she land? Is not the night as dark on shore as on the water? or do you think I know less of my calling than you know of yours?” “Spiritedly said, lad; but if I should lose my way in the dark--and I believe no man can say truly that such a thing ever yet happened to me--but, if I _should_ lose my way, no other harm would come of it than to pass a night in the forest; whereas a false turn of the paddle, or a broad sheer of the canoe, would put you and the young woman into the river, out of which it is more than probable the Sergeant's daughter would never come alive.” “I will leave it to Mabel herself; I am certain that she will feel more secure in the canoe.” “I have great confidence in you both,” answered the girl; “and have no doubts that either will do all he can to prove to my father how much he values him; but I confess I should not like to quit the canoe, with the certainty we have of there being enemies like those we have seen in the forest. But my uncle can decide for me in this matter.” “I have no liking for the woods,” said Cap, “while one has a clear drift like this on the river. Besides, Master Pathfinder, to say nothing of the savages, you overlook the sharks.” “Sharks! Who ever heard of sharks in the wilderness?” “Ay! Sharks, or bears, or wolves--no matter what you call a thing, so it has the mind and power to bite.” “Lord, lord, man! Do you dread any creatur' that is to be found in the American forest? A catamount is a skeary animal, I will allow, but then it is nothing in the hands of a practysed hunter. Talk of the Mingos and their devilries if you will; but do not raise a false alarm about bears and wolves.” “Ay, ay, Master Pathfinder, this is all well enough for you, who probably know the name of every creature you would meet. Use is everything, and it makes a man bold when he might otherwise be bashful. I have known seamen in the low latitudes swim for hours at a time among sharks fifteen or twenty feet long.” “This is extraordinary!” exclaimed Jasper, who had not yet acquired that material part of his trade, the ability to spin a yarn. “I have always heard that it was certain death to venture in the water among sharks.” “I forgot to say, that the lads always took capstan-bars, or gunners' handspikes, or crows with them, to rap the beasts over the noses if they got to be troublesome. No, no, I have no liking for bears and wolves, though a whale, in my eye, is very much the same sort of fish as a red herring after it is dried and salted. Mabel and I had better stick to the canoe.” “Mabel would do well to change canoes,” added Jasper. “This of mine is empty, and even Pathfinder will allow that my eye is surer than his own on the water.” “That I will, cheerfully, boy. The water belongs to your gifts, and no one will deny that you have improved them to the utmost. You are right enough in believing that the Sergeant's daughter will be safer in your canoe than in this; and though I would gladly keep her near myself, I have her welfare too much at heart not to give her honest advice. Bring your canoe close alongside, Jasper, and I will give you what you must consider as a precious treasure.” “I do so consider it,” returned the youth, not losing a moment in complying with the request; when Mabel passed from one canoe to the other taking her seat on the effects which had hitherto composed its sole cargo. As soon as this arrangement was made, the canoes separated a short distance, and the paddles were used, though with great care to avoid making any noise. The conversation gradually ceased; and as the dreaded rift was approached, all became impressed with the gravity of the moment. That their enemies would endeavor to reach this point before them was almost certain; and it seemed so little probable any one should attempt to pass it, in the profound obscurity which reigned, that Pathfinder was confident parties were on both sides of the river, in the hope of intercepting them when they might land. He would not have made the proposal he did had he not felt sure of his own ability to convert this very anticipation of success into a means of defeating the plans of the Iroquois. As the arrangement now stood, however, everything depended on the skill of those who guided the canoes; for should either hit a rock, if not split asunder, it would almost certainly be upset, and then would come not only all the hazards of the river itself, but, for Mabel, the certainty of falling into the hands of her pursuers. The utmost circumspection consequently became necessary, and each one was too much engrossed with his own thoughts to feel a disposition to utter more than was called for by the exigencies of the case. At the canoes stole silently along, the roar of the rift became audible, and it required all the fortitude of Cap to keep his seat, while these boding sounds were approached, amid a darkness which scarcely permitted a view of the outlines of the wooded shore and of the gloomy vault above his head. He retained a vivid impression of the falls, and his imagination was not now idle in swelling the dangers of the rift to a level with those of the headlong descent he had that day made, and even to increase them, under the influence of doubt and uncertainty. In this, however, the old mariner was mistaken, for the Oswego Rift and the Oswego Falls are very different in their characters and violence; the former being no more than a rapid, that glances among shallows and rocks, while the latter really deserved the name it bore, as has been already shown. Mabel certainly felt distrust and apprehension; but her entire situation was so novel, and her reliance on her guide so great, that she retained a self-command which might not have existed had she clearer perceptions of the truth, or been better acquainted with the helplessness of men when placed in opposition to the power and majesty of Nature. “Is that the spot you have mentioned?” she said to Jasper, when the roar of the rift first came distinctly on her ears. “It is; and I beg you to have confidence in me. We are not old acquaintances, Mabel; but we live many days in one, in this wilderness. I think, already, that I have known you years!” “And I do not feel as if you were a stranger to me, Jasper. I have every reliance on your skill, as well as on your disposition to serve me.” “We shall see, we shall see. Pathfinder is striking the rapids too near the centre of the river; the bed of the water is closer to the eastern shore; but I cannot make him hear me now. Hold firmly to the canoe, Mabel, and fear nothing.” At the next moment the swift current had sucked them into the rift, and for three or four minutes the awe-struck, rather than the alarmed, girl saw nothing around her but sheets of glancing foam, heard nothing but the roar of waters. Twenty times did the canoe appear about to dash against some curling and bright wave that showed itself even amid that obscurity; and as often did it glide away again unharmed, impelled by the vigorous arm of him who governed its movements. Once, and once only, did Jasper seem to lose command of his frail bark, during which brief space it fairly whirled entirely round; but by a desperate effort he brought it again under control, recovered the lost channel, and was soon rewarded for all his anxiety by finding himself floating quietly in the deep water below the rapids, secure from every danger, and without having taken in enough of the element to serve for a draught. “All is over, Mabel,” the young man cried cheerfully. “The danger is past, and you may now indeed hope to meet your father this very night.” “God be praised! Jasper, we shall owe this great happiness to you.” “The Pathfinder may claim a full share in the merit; but what has become of the other canoe?” “I see something near us on the water; is it not the boat of our friends?” A few strokes of the paddle brought Jasper to the side of the object in question: it was the other canoe, empty and bottom upwards. No sooner did the young man ascertain this fact, than he began to search for the swimmers, and, to his great joy, Cap was soon discovered drifting down with the current; the old seaman preferring the chances of drowning to those of landing among savages. He was hauled into the canoe, though not without difficulty, and then the search ended; for Jasper was persuaded that the Pathfinder would wade to the shore, the water being shallow, in preference to abandoning his beloved rifle. The remainder of the passage was short, though made amid darkness and doubt. After a short pause, a dull roaring sound was heard, which at times resembled the mutterings of distant thunder, and then again brought with it the washing of waters. Jasper announced to his companions that they now heard the surf of the lake. Low curved spits of land lay before them, into the bay formed by one of which the canoe glided, and then it shot up noiselessly upon a gravelly beach. The transition that followed was so hurried and great, that Mabel scarcely knew what passed. In the course of a few minutes, however, sentinels had been passed, a gate was opened, and the agitated girl found herself in the arms of a parent who was almost a stranger to her.	{ "id": "1880" }
8	None	A land of love, and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night: Where the river swa'd a living stream, And the light a pure celestial beam: The land of vision, it would seem A still, an everlasting dream. _Queen's Wake. _ The rest that succeeds fatigue, and which attends a newly awakened sense of security, is generally sweet and deep. Such was the fact with Mabel, who did not rise from her humble pallet--such a bed as a sergeant's daughter might claim in a remote frontier post--until long after the garrison had obeyed the usual summons of the drums, and had assembled at the morning parade. Sergeant Dunham, on whose shoulders fell the task of attending to these ordinary and daily duties, had got through all his morning avocations, and was beginning to think of his breakfast, before his child left her room, and came into the fresh air, equally bewildered, delighted, and grateful, at the novelty and security of her new situation. At the time of which we are writing, Oswego was one of the extreme frontier posts of the British possessions on this continent. It had not been long occupied, and was garrisoned by a battalion of a regiment which had been originally Scotch, but into which many Americans had been received since its arrival in this country; all innovation that had led the way to Mabel's father filling the humble but responsible situation of the oldest sergeant. A few young officers also, who were natives of the colonies, were to be found in the corps. The fort itself, like most works of that character, was better adapted to resist an attack of savages than to withstand a regular siege; but the great difficulty of transporting heavy artillery and other necessaries rendered the occurrence of the latter a probability so remote as scarcely to enter into the estimate of the engineers who had planned the defences. There were bastions of earth and logs, a dry ditch, a stockade, a parade of considerable extent, and barracks of logs, that answered the double purpose of dwellings and fortifications. A few light field-pieces stood in the area of the fort, ready to be conveyed to any point where they might be wanted, and one or two heavy iron guns looked out from the summits of the advanced angles, as so many admonitions to the audacious to respect their power. When Mabel, quitting the convenient, but comparatively retired hut where her father had been permitted to place her, issued into the pure air of the morning, she found herself at the foot of a bastion, which lay invitingly before her, with a promise of giving a _coup d'oeil_ of all that had been concealed in the darkness of the preceding night. Tripping up the grassy ascent, the light-hearted as well as light-footed girl found herself at once on a point where the sight, at a few varying glances, could take in all the external novelties of her new situation. To the southward lay the forest, through which she had been journeying so many weary days, and which had proved so full of dangers. It was separated from the stockade by a belt of open land, that had been principally cleared of its woods to form the martial constructions around her. This glacis, for such in fact was its military uses, might have covered a hundred acres; but with it every sign of civilization ceased. All beyond was forest; that dense, interminable forest which Mabel could now picture to herself, through her recollections, with its hidden glassy lakes, its dark rolling stream, and its world of nature. Turning from this view, our heroine felt her cheek fanned by a fresh and grateful breeze, such as she had not experienced since quitting the far distant coast. Here a new scene presented itself: although expected, it was not without a start, and a low exclamation indicative of pleasure, that the eager eyes of the girl drank in its beauties. To the north, and east, and west, in every direction, in short, over one entire half of the novel panorama, lay a field of rolling waters. The element was neither of that glassy green which distinguishes the American waters in general, nor yet of the deep blue of the ocean, the color being of a slightly amber hue, which scarcely affected its limpidity. No land was to be seen, with the exception of the adjacent coast, which stretched to the right and left in an unbroken outline of forest with wide bays and low headlands or points; still, much of the shore was rocky, and into its caverns the sluggish waters occasionally rolled, producing a hollow sound, which resembled the concussions of a distant gun. No sail whitened the surface, no whale or other fish gambolled on its bosom, no sign of use or service rewarded the longest and most minute gaze at its boundless expanse. It was a scene, on one side, of apparently endless forests, while a waste of seemingly interminable water spread itself on the other. Nature appeared to have delighted in producing grand effects, by setting two of her principal agents in bold relief to each other, neglecting details; the eye turning from the broad carpet of leaves to the still broader field of fluid, from the endless but gentle heavings of the lake to the holy calm and poetical solitude of the forest, with wonder and delight. Mabel Dunham, though unsophisticated, like most of her countrywomen of that period, and ingenuous and frank as any warm-hearted and sincere-minded girl well could be, was not altogether without a feeling for the poetry of this beautiful earth of ours. Although she could scarcely be said to be educated at all, for few of her sex at that day and in this country received much more than the rudiments of plain English instruction, still she had been taught much more than was usual for young women in her own station in life; and, in one sense certainly, she did credit to her teaching. The widow of a field-officer, who formerly belonged to the same regiment as her father, had taken the child in charge at the death of its mother; and under the care of this lady Mabel had acquired some tastes and many ideas which otherwise might always have remained strangers to her. Her situation in the family had been less that of a domestic than of a humble companion, and the results were quite apparent in her attire, her language, her sentiments, and even in her feelings, though neither, perhaps, rose to the level of those which would properly characterize a lady. She had lost the less refined habits and manners of one in her original position, without having quite reached a point that disqualified her for the situation in life that the accidents of birth and fortune would probably compel her to fill. All else that was distinctive and peculiar in her belonged to natural character. With such antecedents it will occasion the reader no wonder if he learns that Mabel viewed the novel scene before her with a pleasure far superior to that produced by vulgar surprise. She felt its ordinary beauties as most would have felt them, but she had also a feeling for its sublimity--for that softened solitude, that calm grandeur, and eloquent repose, which ever pervades broad views of natural objects yet undisturbed by the labors and struggles of man. “How beautiful!” she exclaimed, unconscious of speaking, as she stood on the solitary bastion, facing the air from the lake, and experiencing the genial influence of its freshness pervading both her body and her mind. “How very beautiful! and yet how singular!” The words, and the train of her ideas, were interrupted by a touch of a finger on her shoulder, and turning, in the expectation of seeing her father, Mabel found Pathfinder at her side. He was leaning quietly on his long rifle, and laughing in his quiet manner, while, with an outstretched arm, he swept over the whole panorama of land and water. “Here you have both our domains,” said he,--“Jasper's and mine. The lake is for him, and the woods are for me. The lad sometimes boasts of the breadth of his dominions; but I tell him my trees make as broad a plain on the face of this 'arth as all his water. Well, Mabel, you are fit for either; for I do not see that fear of the Mingos, or night-marches, can destroy your pretty looks.” “It is a new character for the Pathfinder to appear in, to compliment a silly girl.” “Not silly, Mabel; no, not in the least silly. The Sergeant's daughter would do discredit to her worthy father, were she to do or say anything that could be called silly.” “Then she must take care and not put too much faith in treacherous, flattering words. But, Pathfinder, I rejoice to see you among us again; for, though Jasper did not seem to feel much uneasiness, I was afraid some accident might have happened to you and your friend on that frightful rift.” “The lad knows us both, and was sartain that we should not drown, which is scarcely one of my gifts. It would have been hard swimming of a sartainty, with a long-barrelled rifle in the hand; and what between the game, and the savages and the French, Killdeer and I have gone through too much in company to part very easily. No, no; we waded ashore, the rift being shallow enough for that with small exceptions, and we landed with our arms in our hands. We had to take our time for it, on account of the Iroquois, I will own; but, as soon as the skulking vagabonds saw the lights that the Sergeant sent down to your canoe, we well understood they would decamp, since a visit might have been expected from some of the garrison. So it was only sitting patiently on the stones for an hour, and all the danger was over. Patience is the greatest of virtues in a woodsman.” “I rejoice to hear this, for fatigue itself could scarcely make me sleep, for thinking of what might befall you.” “Lord bless your tender little heart, Mabel! but this is the way with all you gentle ones. I must say, on my part, however, that I was right glad to see the lanterns come down to the waterside, which I knew to be a sure sign of _your_ safety. We hunters and guides are rude beings; but we have our feelings and our idees, as well as any general in the army. Both Jasper and I would have died before you should have come to harm--we would.” “I thank you for all you did for me, Pathfinder; from the bottom of my heart, I thank you; and, depend on it, my father shall know it. I have already told him much, but have still a duty to perform on this subject.” “Tush, Mabel! The Sergeant knows what the woods be, and what men--true red men--be, too. There is little need to tell him anything about it. Well, now you have met your father, do you find the honest old soldier the sort of person you expected to find?” “He is my own dear father, and received me as a soldier and a father should receive a child. Have you known him long, Pathfinder?” “That is as people count time. I was just twelve when the Sergeant took me on my first scouting, and that is now more than twenty years ago. We had a tramping time of it; and, as it was before your day, you would have had no father, had not the rifle been one of my natural gifts.” “Explain yourself.” “It is too simple for many words. We were ambushed, and the Sergeant got a bad hurt, and would have lost his scalp, but for a sort of inbred turn I took to the weapon. We brought him off, however, and a handsomer head of hair, for his time of life, is not to be found in the rijiment than the Sergeant carries about with him this blessed day.” “You saved my father's life, Pathfinder!” exclaimed Mabel, unconsciously, though warmly, taking one of his hard, sinewy hands into both her own. “God bless you for this, too, among your other good acts!” “Nay, I did not say that much, though I believe I did save his scalp. A man might live without a scalp, and so I cannot say I saved his life. Jasper may say that much consarning you; for without his eye and arm the canoe would never have passed the rift in safety on a night like the last. The gifts of the lad are for the water, while mine are for the hunt and the trail. He is yonder, in the cove there, looking after the canoes, and keeping his eye on his beloved little craft. To my eye, there is no likelier youth in these parts than Jasper Western.” For the first time since she had left her room, Mabel now turned her eyes beneath her, and got a view of what might be called the foreground of the remarkable picture she had been studying with so much pleasure. The Oswego threw its dark waters into the lake, between banks of some height; that on its eastern side being bolder and projecting farther north than that on its western. The fort was on the latter, and immediately beneath it were a few huts of logs, which, as they could not interfere with the defence of the place, had been erected along the strand for the purpose of receiving and containing such stores as were landed, or were intended to be embarked, in the communications between the different ports on the shores of Ontario. Two low, curved, gravelly points had been formed with surprising regularity by the counteracting forces of the northerly winds and the swift current, and, inclining from the storms of the lake, formed two coves within the river: that on the western side was the most deeply indented; and, as it also had the most water, it formed a sort of picturesque little port for the post. It was along the narrow strand that lay between the low height of the fort and the water of this cove, that the rude buildings just mentioned had been erected. Several skiffs, bateaux, and canoes were hauled up on the shore, and in the cove itself lay the little craft from which Jasper obtained his claim to be considered a sailor. She was cutter-rigged, might have been of forty tons burthen, was so neatly constructed and painted as to have something of the air of a vessel of war, though entirely without quarters, and rigged and sparred with so scrupulous a regard to proportions and beauty, as well as fitness and judgment, as to give her an appearance that even Mabel at once distinguished to be gallant and trim. Her mould was admirable, for a wright of great skill had sent her drafts from England, at the express request of the officer who had caused her to be constructed; her paint dark, warlike, and neat; and the long coach-whip pennant that she wore at once proclaimed her to be the property of the king. Her name was the _Scud_. “That, then, is the vessel of Jasper!” said Mabel, who associated the master of the little craft very naturally with the cutter itself. “Are there many others on this lake?” “The Frenchers have three: one of which, they tell me, is a real ship, such as are used on the ocean; another a brig; and a third is a cutter, like the _Scud_ here, which they call the _Squirrel_, in their own tongue, however; and which seems to have a natural hatred of our own pretty boat, for Jasper seldom goes out that the _Squirrel_ is not at his heels.” “And is Jasper one to run from a Frenchman, though he appears in the shape of a squirrel, and that, too, on the water?” “Of what use would valor be without the means of turning it to account? Jasper is a brave boy, as all on this frontier know; but he has no gun except a little howitzer, and then his crew consists only of two men besides himself, and a boy. I was with him in one of his trampooses, and the youngster was risky enough, for he brought us so near the enemy that rifles began to talk; but the Frenchers carry cannon and ports, and never show their faces outside of Frontenac, without having some twenty men, besides their _Squirrel_, in their cutter. No, no; this _Scud_ was built for flying, and the major says he will not put her in a fighting humor by giving her men and arms, lest she should take him at his word, and get her wings clipped. I know little of these things, for my gifts are not at all in that way; but I see the reason of the thing--I see its reason, though Jasper does not.” “Ah! Here is my uncle, none the worse for his swim, coming to look at this inland sea.” Sure enough, Cap, who had announced his approach by a couple of lusty hems, now made his appearance on the bastion, where, after nodding to his niece and her companion, he made a deliberate survey of the expanse of water before him. In order to effect this at his ease, the mariner mounted on one of the old iron guns, folded his arms across his breast, and balanced his body, as if he felt the motion of a vessel. To complete the picture, he had a short pipe in his mouth. “Well, Master Cap,” asked the Pathfinder innocently, for he did not detect the expression of contempt that was gradually settling on the features of the other; “is it not a beautiful sheet, and fit to be named a sea?” “This, then, is what you call your lake?” demanded Cap, sweeping the northern horizon with his pipe. “I say, is this really your lake?” “Sartain; and, if the judgment of one who has lived on the shores of many others can be taken, a very good lake it is.” “Just as I expected. A pond in dimensions, and a scuttle-butt in taste. It is all in vain to travel inland, in the hope of seeing anything either full-grown or useful. I knew it would turn out just in this way.” “What is the matter with Ontario, Master Cap? It is large, and fair to look at, and pleasant enough to drink, for those who can't get at the water of the springs.” “Do you call this large?” asked Cap, again sweeping the air with the pipe. “I will just ask you what there is large about it? Didn't Jasper himself confess that it was only some twenty leagues from shore to shore?” “But, uncle,” interposed Mabel, “no land is to be seen, except here on our own coast. To me it looks exactly like the ocean.” “This bit of a pond look like the ocean! Well, Magnet, that from a girl who has had real seamen in her family is downright nonsense. What is there about it, pray, that has even the outline of a sea on it?” “Why, there is water--water--water--nothing but water, for miles on miles--far as the eye can see.” “And isn't there water--water--water--nothing but water for miles on miles in your rivers, that you have been canoeing through, too? --Ay, and 'as far as the eye can see,' in the bargain?” “Yes, uncle, but the rivers have their banks, and there are trees along them, and they are narrow.” “And isn't this a bank where we stand? Don't these soldiers call this the bank of the lake? And aren't there trees in thousands? And aren't twenty leagues narrow enough of all conscience? Who the devil ever heard of the banks of the ocean, unless it might be the banks that are under water?” “But, uncle, we cannot see across this lake, as we can see across a river.” “There you are out, Magnet. Aren't the Amazon and Oronoco and La Plata rivers, and can you see across them? Hark'e Pathfinder, I very much doubt if this stripe of water here be even a lake; for to me it appears to be only a river. You are by no means particular about your geography, I find, up here in the woods.” “There _you_ are out, Master Cap. There is a river, and a noble one too, at each end of it; but this is old Ontario before you; and, though it is not my gift to live on a lake, to my judgment there are few better than this.” “And, uncle, if we stood on the beach at Rockaway, what more should we see than we now behold? There is a shore on one side, or banks there, and trees too, as well as those which are here.” “This is perverseness, Magnet, and young girls should steer clear of anything like obstinacy. In the first place, the ocean has coasts, but no banks, except the Grand Banks, as I tell you, which are out of sight of land; and you will not pretend that this bank is out of sight of land, or even under water?” As Mabel could not very plausibly set up this extravagant opinion, Cap pursued the subject, his countenance beginning to discover the triumph of a successful disputant. “And then them trees bear no comparison to these trees. The coasts of the ocean have farms and cities and country-seats, and, in some parts of the world, castles and monasteries and lighthouses--ay, ay--lighthouses, in particular, on them; not one of all which things is to be seen here. No, no, Master Pathfinder; I never heard of an ocean that hadn't more or less lighthouses on it; whereas, hereaway there is not even a beacon.” “There is what is better, there is what is better; a forest and noble trees, a fit temple of God.” “Ay, your forest may do for a lake; but of what use would an ocean be if the earth all around it were forest? Ships would be unnecessary, as timber might be floated in rafts, and there would be an end of trade, and what would a world be without trade? I am of that philosopher's opinion who says human nature was invented for the purposes of trade. Magnet, I am astonished that you should think this water even looks like sea-water! Now, I daresay that there isn't such a thing as a whale in all your lake, Master Pathfinder?” “I never heard of one, I will confess; but I am no judge of animals that live in the water, unless it be the fishes of the rivers and the brooks.” “Nor a grampus, nor a porpoise even? not so much as a poor devil of a shark?” “I will not take it on myself to say there is either. My gifts are not in that way, I tell you, Master Cap.” “Nor herring, nor albatross, nor flying-fish?” continued Cap, who kept his eye fastened on the guide, in order to see how far he might venture. “No such thing as a fish that can fly, I daresay?” “A fish that can fly! Master Cap, Master Cap, do not think, because we are mere borderers, that we have no idees of natur', and what she has been pleased to do. I know there are squirrels that can fly--” “A squirrel fly! --The devil, Master Pathfinder! Do you suppose that you have got a boy on his first v'y'ge up here among you?” “I know nothing of your v'y'ges, Master Cap, though I suppose them to have been many; for as for what belongs to natur' in the woods, what I have seen I may tell, and not fear the face of man.” “And do you wish me to understand that you have seen a squirrel fly?” “If you wish to understand the power of God, Master Cap, you will do well to believe that, and many other things of a like natur', for you may be quite sartain it is true.” “And yet, Pathfinder,” said Mabel, looking so prettily and sweetly even while she played with the guide's infirmity, that he forgave her in his heart, “you, who speak so reverently of the power of the Deity, appear to doubt that a fish can fly.” “I have not said it, I have not said it; and if Master Cap is ready to testify to the fact, unlikely as it seems, I am willing to try to think it true. I think it every man's duty to believe in the power of God, however difficult it may be.” “And why isn't my fish as likely to have wings as your squirrel?” demanded Cap, with more logic than was his wont. “That fishes do and can fly is as true as it is reasonable.” “Nay, that is the only difficulty in believing the story,” rejoined the guide. “It seems unreasonable to give an animal that lives in the water wings, which seemingly can be of no use to it.” “And do you suppose that the fishes are such asses as to fly about under water, when they are once fairly fitted out with wings?” “Nay, I know nothing of the matter; but that fish should fly in the air seems more contrary to natur' still, than that they should fly in their own element--that in which they were born and brought up, as one might say.” “So much for contracted ideas, Magnet. The fish fly out of water to run away from their enemies in the water; and there you see not only the fact, but the reason for it.” “Then I suppose it must be true,” said the guide quietly. “How long are their flights?” “Not quite as far as those of pigeons, perhaps; but far enough to make an offing. As for those squirrels of yours, we'll say no more about them, friend Pathfinder, as I suppose they were mentioned just as a make-weight to the fish, in favor of the woods. But what is this thing anchored here under the hill?” “That is the cutter of Jasper, uncle,” said Mabel hurriedly; “and a very pretty vessel I think it is. Its name, too, is the _Scud_.” “Ay, it will do well enough for a lake, perhaps, but it's no great affair. The lad has got a standing bowsprit, and who ever saw a cutter with a standing bowsprit before?” “But may there not be some good reason for it, on a lake like this, uncle?” “Sure enough--I must remember this is not the ocean, though it does look so much like it.” “Ah, uncle! Then Ontario does look like the ocean, after all?” “In your eyes, I mean, and those of Pathfinder; not in the least in mine, Magnet. Now you might set me down out yonder, in the middle of this bit of a pond, and that, too, in the darkest night that ever fell from the heavens, and in the smallest canoe, and I could tell you it was only a lake. For that matter, the _Dorothy_” (the name of his vessel) “would find it out as quick as I could myself. I do not believe that brig would make more than a couple of short stretches, at the most, before she would perceive the difference between Ontario and the old Atlantic. I once took her down into one of the large South American bays, and she behaved herself as awkwardly as a booby would in a church with the congregation in a hurry. And Jasper sails that boat? I must have a cruise with the lad, Magnet, before I quit you, just for the name of the thing. It would never do to say I got in sight of this pond, and went away without taking a trip on it.” “Well well, you needn't wait long for that,” returned Pathfinder; “for the Sergeant is about to embark with a party to relieve a post among the Thousand Islands; and as I heard him say he intended that Mabel should go along, you can join the company too.” “Is this true, Magnet?” “I believe it is,” returned the girl, a flush so imperceptible as to escape the observation of her companions glowing on her cheeks; “though I have had so little opportunity to talk with my dear father that I am not quite certain. Here he comes, however, and you can inquire of himself.” Notwithstanding his humble rank, there was something in the mien and character of Sergeant Dunham that commanded respect: of a tall, imposing figure, grave and saturnine disposition, and accurate and precise in his acts and manner of thinking, even Cap, dogmatical and supercilious as he usually was with landsmen, did not presume to take the same liberties with the old soldier as he did with his other friends. It was often remarked that Sergeant Dunham received more true respect from Duncan of Lundie, the Scotch laird who commanded the post, than most of the subalterns; for experience and tried services were of quite as much value in the eyes of the veteran major as birth and money. While the Sergeant never even hoped to rise any higher, he so far respected himself and his present station as always to act in a way to command attention; and the habit of mixing so much with inferiors, whose passions and dispositions he felt it necessary to restrain by distance and dignity, had so far colored his whole deportment, that few were altogether free from its influence. While the captains treated him kindly and as an old comrade, the lieutenants seldom ventured to dissent from his military opinions; and the ensigns, it was remarked, actually manifested a species of respect that amounted to something very like deference. It is no wonder, then, that the announcement of Mabel put a sudden termination to the singular dialogue we have just related, though it had been often observed that the Pathfinder was the only man on that frontier, beneath the condition of a gentleman, who presumed to treat the Sergeant at all as an equal, or even with the cordial familiarity of a friend. “Good morrow, brother Cap,” said the Sergeant giving the military salute, as he walked, in a grave, stately manner, on the bastion. “My morning duty has made me seem forgetful of you and Mabel; but we have now an hour or two to spare, and to get acquainted. Do you not perceive, brother, a strong likeness on the girl to her we have so long lost?” “Mabel is the image of her mother, Sergeant, as I have always said, with a little of your firmer figure; though, for that matter, the Caps were never wanting in spring and activity.” Mabel cast a timid glance at the stern, rigid countenance of her father, of whom she had ever thought, as the warm-hearted dwell on the affection of their absent parents; and, as she saw that the muscles of his face were working, notwithstanding the stiffness and method of his manner, her very heart yearned to throw herself on his bosom and to weep at will. But he was so much colder in externals, so much more formal and distant than she had expected to find him, that she would not have dared to hazard the freedom, even had they been alone. “You have taken a long and troublesome journey, brother, on my account; and we will try to make you comfortable while you stay among us.” “I hear you are likely to receive orders to lift your anchor, Sergeant, and to shift your berth into a part of the world where they say there are a thousand islands.” “Pathfinder, this is some of your forgetfulness?” “Nay, nay, Sergeant, I forgot nothing; but it did not seem to me necessary to hide your intentions so very closely from your own flesh and blood.” “All military movements ought to be made with as little conversation as possible,” returned the Sergeant, tapping the guide's shoulder in a friendly, but reproachful manner. “You have passed too much of your life in front of the French not to know the value of silence. But no matter; the thing must soon be known, and there is no great use in trying now to conceal it. We shall embark a relief party shortly for a post on the lake, though I do not say it is for the Thousand Islands, and I may have to go with it; in which case I intend to take Mabel to make my broth for me; and I hope, brother, you will not despise a soldier's fare for a month or so.” “That will depend on the manner of marching. I have no love for woods and swamps.” “We shall sail in the _Scud_; and, indeed, the whole service, which is no stranger to us, is likely enough to please one accustomed to the water.” “Ay, to salt-water if you will, but not to lake-water. If you have no person to handle that bit of a cutter for you, I have no objection to ship for the v'y'ge, notwithstanding; though I shall look on the whole affair as so much time thrown away, for I consider it an imposition to call sailing about this pond going to sea.” “Jasper is every way able to manage the _Scud_, brother Cap; and in that light I cannot say that we have need of your services, though we shall be glad of your company. You cannot return to the settlement until a party is sent in, and that is not likely to happen until after my return. Well, Pathfinder, this is the first time I ever knew men on the trail of the Mingos and you not at their head.” “To be honest with you, Sergeant,” returned the guide, not without a little awkwardness of manner, and a perceptible difference in the hue of a face that had become so uniformly red by exposure, “I have not felt that it was my gift this morning. In the first place, I very well know that the soldiers of the 55th are not the lads to overtake Iroquois in the woods; and the knaves did not wait to be surrounded when they knew that Jasper had reached the garrison. Then a man may take a little rest after a summer of hard work, and no impeachment of his goodwill. Besides, the Sarpent is out with them; and if the miscreants are to be found at all, you may trust to his inmity and sight: the first being stronger, and the last nearly, if not quite as good as my own. He loves the skulking vagabonds as little as myself; and, for that matter, I may say that my own feelings towards a Mingo are not much more than the gifts of a Delaware grafted on a Christian stock. No, no, I thought I would leave the honor this time, if honor there is to be, to the young ensign that commands, who, if he don't lose his scalp, may boast of his campaign in his letters to his mother when he gets in. I thought I would play idler once in my life.” “And no one has a better right, if long and faithful service entitles a man to a furlough,” returned the Sergeant kindly. “Mabel will think none the worse of you for preferring her company to the trail of the savages; and, I daresay, will be happy to give you a part of her breakfast if you are inclined to eat. You must not think, girl, however, that the Pathfinder is in the habit of letting prowlers around the fort beat a retreat without hearing the crack of his rifle.” “If I thought she did, Sergeant, though not much given to showy and parade evolutions, I would shoulder Killdeer and quit the garrison before her pretty eyes had time to frown. No, no; Mabel knows me better, though we are but new acquaintances, for there has been no want of Mingos to enliven the short march we have already made in company.” “It would need a great deal of testimony, Pathfinder, to make me think ill of you in any way, and more than all in the way you mention,” returned Mabel, coloring with the sincere earnestness with which she endeavored to remove any suspicion to the contrary from his mind. “Both father and daughter, I believe, owe you their lives, and believe me, that neither will ever forget it.” “Thank you, Mabel, thank you with all my heart. But I will not take advantage of your ignorance neither, girl, and therefore shall say, I do not think the Mingos would have hurt a hair of your head, had they succeeded by their devilries and contrivances in getting you into their hands. My scalp, and Jasper's, and Master Cap's there, and the Sarpent's too, would sartainly have been smoked; but as for the Sergeant's daughter, I do not think they would have hurt a hair of her head.” “And why should I suppose that enemies, known to spare neither women nor children, would have shown more mercy to me than to another? I feel, Pathfinder, that I owe you my life.” “I say nay, Mabel; they wouldn't have had the heart to hurt you. No, not even a fiery Mingo devil would have had the heart to hurt a hair of your head. Bad as I suspect the vampires to be, I do not suspect them of anything so wicked as that. They might have wished you, nay, forced you to become the wife of one of their chiefs, and that would be torment enough to a Christian young woman; but beyond that I do not think even the Mingos themselves would have gone.” “Well, then, I shall owe my escape from this great misfortune to you,” said Mabel, taking his hard hand into her own frankly and cordially, and certainly in a way to delight the honest guide. “To me it would be a lighter evil to be killed than to become the wife of an Indian.” “That is her gift, Sergeant,” exclaimed Pathfinder, turning to his old comrade with gratification written on every lineament of his honest countenance, “and it will have its way. I tell the Sarpent that no Christianizing will ever make even a Delaware a white man; nor any whooping and yelling convert a pale-face into a red-skin. That is the gift of a young woman born of Christian parents, and it ought to be maintained.” “You are right, Pathfinder; and so far as Mabel Dunham is concerned, it _shall_ be maintained. But it is time to break your fasts; and if you will follow me, brother Cap, I will show you how we poor soldiers live here on a distant frontier.”	{ "id": "1880" }
9	None	Now, my co-mates and partners in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam. _As You Like It. _ Sergeant Dunham made no empty vaunt when he gave the promise conveyed in the closing words of the last chapter. Notwithstanding the remote frontier position of the post they who lived at it enjoyed a table that, in many respects, kings and princes might have envied. At the Period of our tale, and, indeed, for half a century later, the whole of that vast region which has been called the West, or the new countries since the war of the revolution, lay a comparatively unpeopled desert, teeming with all the living productions of nature that properly belonged to the climate, man and the domestic animals excepted. The few Indians that roamed its forests then could produce no visible effects on the abundance of the game; and the scattered garrisons, or occasional hunters, that here and there were to be met with on that vast surface, had no other influence than the bee on the buckwheat field, or the humming-bird on the flower. The marvels that have descended to our own times, in the way of tradition, concerning the quantities of beasts, birds, and fishes that were then to be met with, on the shores of the great lakes in particular, are known to be sustained by the experience of living men, else might we hesitate about relating them; but having been eye-witnesses of some of these prodigies, our office shall be discharged with the confidence that certainty can impart. Oswego was particularly well placed to keep the larder of an epicure amply supplied. Fish of various sorts abounded in its river, and the sportsman had only to cast his line to haul in a bass or some other member of the finny tribe, which then peopled the waters, as the air above the swamps of this fruitful latitude are known to be filled with insects. Among others was the salmon of the lakes, a variety of that well-known species, that is scarcely inferior to the delicious salmon of northern Europe. Of the different migratory birds that frequent forests and waters, there was the same affluence, hundreds of acres of geese and ducks being often seen at a time in the great bays that indent the shores of the lake. Deer, bears, rabbits, and squirrels, with divers other quadrupeds, among which was sometimes included the elk, or moose, helped to complete the sum of the natural supplies on which all the posts depended, more or less, to relieve the unavoidable privations of their remote frontier positions. In a place where viands that would elsewhere be deemed great luxuries were so abundant, no one was excluded from their enjoyment. The meanest individual at Oswego habitually feasted on game that would have formed the boast of a Parisian table; and it was no more than a healthful commentary on the caprices of taste, and of the waywardness of human desires, that the very diet which in other scenes would have been deemed the subject of envy and repinings got to pall on the appetite. The coarse and regular food of the army, which it became necessary to husband on account of the difficulty of transportation, rose in the estimation of the common soldier; and at any time he would cheerfully desert his venison, and ducks, and pigeons, and salmon, to banquet on the sweets of pickled pork, stringy turnips, and half-cooked cabbage. The table of Sergeant Dunham, as a matter of course, partook of the abundance and luxuries of the frontier, as well as of its privations. A delicious broiled salmon smoked on a homely platter, hot venison steaks sent up their appetizing odors, and several dishes of cold meats, all of which were composed of game, had been set before the guests, in honor of the newly arrived visitors, and in vindication of the old soldier's hospitality. “You do not seem to be on short allowance in this quarter of the world, Sergeant,” said Cap, after he had got fairly initiated into the mysteries of the different dishes; “your salmon might satisfy a Scotsman.” “It fails to do it, notwithstanding, brother Cap; for among two or three hundred of the fellows that we have in this garrison there are not half a dozen who will not swear that the fish is unfit to be eaten. Even some of the lads, who never tasted venison except as poachers at home, turn up their noses at the fattest haunches that we get here.” “Ay, that is Christian natur',” put in Pathfinder; “and I must say it is none to its credit. Now, a red-skin never repines, but is always thankful for the food he gets, whether it be fat or lean, venison or bear, wild turkey's breast or wild goose's wing. To the shame of us white men be it said, that we look upon blessings without satisfaction, and consider trifling evils as matters of great account.” “It is so with the 55th, as I can answer, though I cannot say as much for their Christianity,” returned the Sergeant. “Even the major himself, old Duncan of Lundie, will sometimes swear that an oatmeal cake is better fare than the Oswego bass, and sigh for a swallow of Highland water, when, if so minded, he has the whole of Ontario to quench his thirst in.” “Has Major Duncan a wife and children?” asked Mabel, whose thoughts naturally turned towards her own sex in her new situation. “Not he, girl; though they do say that he has a betrothed at home. The lady, it seems, is willing to wait, rather than suffer the hardships of service in this wild region; all of which, brother Cap, is not according to my notions of a woman's duties. Your sister thought differently.” “I hope, Sergeant, you do not think of Mabel for a soldier's wife,” returned Cap gravely. “Our family has done its share in that way already, and it's high time that the sea was again remembered.” “I do not think of finding a husband for the girl in the 55th, or any other regiment, I can promise you, brother; though I do think it getting to be time that the child were respectably married.” “Father!” “'Tis not their gifts, Sergeant, to talk of these matters in so open a manner,” said the guide; “for I've seen it verified by experience, that he who would follow the trail of a virgin's good-will must not go shouting out his thoughts behind her. So, if you please, we will talk of something else.” “Well, then, brother Cap, I hope that bit of a cold roasted pig is to your mind; you seem to fancy the food.” “Ay, ay; give me civilized grub if I must eat,” returned the pertinacious seaman. “Venison is well enough for your inland sailors, but we of the ocean like a little of that which we understand.” Here Pathfinder laid down his knife and fork, and indulged in a hearty laugh, though in his always silent manner; then he asked, with a little curiosity in his manner,-- “Don't, you miss the skin, Master Cap? don't you miss the skin?” “It would have been better for its jacket, I think myself, Pathfinder; but I suppose it is a fashion of the woods to serve up shoats in this style.” “Well, well, a man may go round the 'arth and not know everything. If you had had the skinning of that pig, Master Cap, it would have left you sore hands. The cratur' is a hedgehog!” “Blast me, if I thought it wholesome natural pork either!” returned Cap. “But then I believed even a pig might lose some of its good qualities up hereaway in the woods.” “If the skinning of it, brother, does not fall to my duty. Pathfinder, I hope you didn't find Mabel disobedient on the march?” “Not she, not she. If Mabel is only half as well satisfied with Jasper and Pathfinder as the Pathfinder and Jasper are satisfied with her, Sergeant, we shall be friends for the remainder of our days.” As the guide spoke, he turned his eyes towards the blushing girl, with a sort of innocent desire to know her opinion; and then, with an inborn delicacy, which proved he was far superior to the vulgar desire to invade the sanctity of feminine feeling, he looked at his plate, and seemed to regret his own boldness. “Well, well, we must remember that women are not men, my friend,” resumed the Sergeant, “and make proper allowances for nature and education. A recruit is not a veteran. Any man knows that it takes longer to make a good soldier than it takes to make anything else.” “This is new doctrine, Sergeant,” said Cap with some spirit. “We old seamen are apt to think that six soldiers, ay, and capital soldiers too, might be made while one sailor is getting his education.” “Ay, brother Cap, I've seen something of the opinions which seafaring men have of themselves,” returned the brother-in-law, with a smile as bland as comported with his saturnine features; “for I was many years one of the garrison in a seaport. You and I have conversed on the subject before and I'm afraid we shall never agree. But if you wish to know what the difference is between a real soldier and man in what I should call a state of nature, you have only to look at a battalion of the 55th on parade this afternoon, and then, when you get back to York, examine one of the militia regiments making its greatest efforts.” “Well, to my eye, Sergeant, there is very little difference, not more than you'll find between a brig and a snow. To me they seem alike: all scarlet, and feathers, and powder, and pipeclay.” “So much, sir, for the judgment of a sailor,” returned the Sergeant with dignity; “but perhaps you are not aware that it requires a year to teach a true soldier how to eat?” “So much the worse for him. The militia know how to eat at starting; for I have often heard that, on their marches, they commonly eat all before them, even if they do nothing else.” “They have their gifts, I suppose, like other men,” observed Pathfinder, with a view to preserve the peace, which was evidently in some danger of being broken by the obstinate predilection of each of the disputants in favor of his own calling; “and when a man has his gift from Providence, it is commonly idle to endeavor to bear up against it. The 55th, Sergeant, is a judicous regiment in the way of eating, as I know from having been so long in its company, though I daresay militia corps could be found that would outdo them in feats of that natur' too.” “Uncle;” said Mabel, “if you have breakfasted, I will thank you to go out upon the bastion with me again. We have neither of us half seen the lake, and it would be hardly seemly for a young woman to be walking about the fort, the first day of her arrival, quite alone.” Cap understood the motive of Mabel; and having, at the bottom, a hearty friendship for his brother-in-law, he was willing enough to defer the argument until they had been longer together, for the idea of abandoning it altogether never crossed the mind of one so dogmatical and obstinate. He accordingly accompanied his niece, leaving Sergeant Dunham and his friend, the Pathfinder, alone together. As soon as his adversary had beat a retreat, the Sergeant, who did not quite so well understand the manoeuvre of his daughter, turned to his companion, and, with a smile which was not without triumph, he remarked,-- “The army, Pathfinder, has never yet done itself justice in the way of asserting its rights; and though modesty becomes a man, whether he is in a red coat or a black one, or, for that matter, in his shirt-sleeves, I don't like to let a good opportunity slip of saying a word in its behalf. Well, my friend,” laying his own hand on one of the Pathfinder's, and giving it a hearty squeeze, “how do you like the girl?” “You have reason to be proud of her, Sergeant. I have seen many of her sex, and some that were great and beautiful; but never before did I meet with one in whom I thought Providence had so well balanced the different gifts.” “And the good opinion, I can tell you, Pathfinder, is mutual. She told me last night all about your coolness, and spirit, and kindness,--particularly the last, for kindness counts for more than half with females, my friend,--and the first inspection seems to give satisfaction on both sides. Brush up the uniform, and pay a little more attention to the outside, Pathfinder, and you will have the girl heart and hand.” “Nay, nay, Sergeant, I've forgotten nothing that you have told me, and grudge no reasonable pains to make myself as pleasant in the eyes of Mabel as she is getting to be in mine. I cleaned and brightened up Killdeer this morning as soon as the sun rose; and, in my judgment, the piece never looked better than it does at this very moment.” “That is according to your hunting notions, Pathfinder; but firearms should sparkle and glitter in the sun, and I never yet could see any beauty in a clouded barrel.” “Lord Howe thought otherwise, Sergeant; and he was accounted a good soldier.” “Very true; his lordship had all the barrels of his regiment darkened, and what good came of it? You can see his 'scutcheon hanging in the English church at Albany. No, no, my worthy friend, a soldier should be a soldier, and at no time ought he to be ashamed or afraid to carry about him the signs and symbols of his honorable trade. Had you much discourse with Mabel, Pathfinder, as you came along in the canoe?” “There was not much opportunity, Sergeant, and then I found myself so much beneath her in idees, that I was afraid to speak of much beyond what belonged to my own gifts.” “Therein you are partly right and partly wrong, my friend. Women love trifling discourse, though they like to have most of it to themselves. Now you know I'm a man that do not loosen my tongue at every giddy thought; and yet there were days when I could see that Mabel's mother thought none the worse of me because I descended a little from my manhood. It is true, I was twenty-two years younger then than I am to-day; and, moreover, instead of being the oldest sergeant in the regiment, I was the youngest. Dignity is commanding and useful, and there is no getting on without it, as respects the men; but if you would be thoroughly esteemed by a woman, it is necessary to condescend a little on occasions.” “Ah's me, Sergeant, I sometimes fear it will never do.” “Why do you think so discouragingly of a matter on which I thought both our minds were made up?” “We did agree, if Mabel should prove what you told me she was, and if the girl could fancy a rude hunter and guide, that I should quit some of my wandering ways, and try to humanize my mind down to a wife and children. But since I have seen the girl, I will own that many misgivings have come over me.” “How's this?” interrupted the Sergeant sternly; “did I not understand you to say that you were pleased? --and is Mabel a young woman to disappoint expectation?” “Ah, Sergeant, it is not Mabel that I distrust, but myself. I am but a poor ignorant woodsman, after all; and perhaps I'm not, in truth, as good as even you and I may think me.” “If you doubt your own judgment of yourself, Pathfinder, I beg you will not doubt mine. Am I not accustomed to judge men's character? and am I often deceived? Ask Major Duncan, sir, if you desire any assurances in this particular.” “But, Sergeant, we have long been friends; have fi't side by side a dozen times, and have done each other many services. When this is the case, men are apt to think over kindly of each other; and I fear me that the daughter may not be so likely to view a plain ignorant hunter as favorably as the father does.” “Tut, tut, Pathfinder! You don't know yourself, man, and may put all faith in my judgment. In the first place you have experience; and, as all girls must want that, no prudent young woman would overlook such a qualification. Then you are not one of the coxcombs that strut about when they first join a regiment; but a man who has seen service, and who carries the marks of it on his person and countenance. I daresay you have been under fire some thirty or forty times, counting all the skirmishes and ambushes that you've seen.” “All of that, Sergeant, all of that; but what will it avail in gaining the good-will of a tender-hearted young female?” “It will gain the day. Experience in the field is as good in love as in war. But you are as honest-hearted and as loyal a subject as the king can boast of--God bless him!” “That may be too; but I'm afeared I'm too rude and too old and too wild like to suit the fancy of such a young and delicate girl as Mabel, who has been unused to our wilderness ways, and may think the settlements better suited to her gifts and inclinations.” “These are new misgivings for you, my friend; and I wonder they were never paraded before.” “Because I never knew my own worthlessness, perhaps, until I saw Mabel. I have travelled with some as fair, and have guided them through the forest, and seen them in their perils and in their gladness; but they were always too much above me to make me think of them as more than so many feeble ones I was bound to protect and defend. The case is now different. Mabel and I are so nearly alike, that I feel weighed down with a load that is hard to bear, at finding us so unlike. I do wish, Sergeant, that I was ten years younger, more comely to look at, and better suited to please a handsome young woman's fancy.” “Cheer up, my brave friend, and trust to a father's knowledge of womankind. Mabel half loves you already, and a fortnight's intercourse and kindness, down among the islands yonder will close ranks with the other half. The girl as much as told me this herself last night.” “Can this be so, Sergeant?” said the guide, whose meek and modest nature shrank from viewing himself in colors so favorable. “Can this be truly so? I am but a poor hunter and Mabel, I see, is fit to be an officer's lady. Do you think the girl will consent to quit all her beloved settlement usages, and her visitings and church-goings, to dwell with a plain guide and hunter up hereaway in the woods? Will she not in the end, crave her old ways, and a better man?” “A better man, Pathfinder, would be hard to find,” returned the father. “As for town usages, they are soon forgotten in the freedom of the forest, and Mabel has just spirit enough to dwell on a frontier. I've not planned this marriage, my friend, without thinking it over, as a general does his campaign. At first, I thought of bringing you into the regiment, that you might succeed me when I retire, which must be sooner or later; but on reflection, Pathfinder, I think you are scarcely fitted for the office. Still, if not a soldier in all the meanings of the word, you are a soldier in its best meaning, and I know that you have the good-will of every officer in the corps. As long as I live, Mabel can dwell with me, and you will always have a home when you return from your scoutings and marches.” “This is very pleasant to think of, Sergeant, if the girl can only come into our wishes with good-will. But, ah's me! It does not seem that one like myself can ever be agreeable in her handsome eyes. If I were younger, and more comely, now, as Jasper Western is, for instance, there might be a chance--yes, then, indeed, there might be some chance.” “That for Jasper Eau-douce, and every younker of them in or about the fort!” returned the Sergeant, snapping his fingers. “If not actually a younger, you are a younger-looking, ay, and a better-looking man than the _Scud's_ master--” “Anan?” said Pathfinder, looking up at his companion with an expression of doubt, as if he did not understand his meaning. “I say if not actually younger in days and years, you look more hardy and like whipcord than Jasper, or any of them; and there will be more of you, thirty years hence, than of all of them put together. A good conscience will keep one like you a mere boy all his life.” “Jasper has as clear a conscience as any youth I know, Sergeant, and is as likely to wear on that account as any in the colony.” “Then you are my friend,” squeezing the other's hand, “my tried, sworn, and constant friend.” “Yes, we have been friends, Sergeant, near twenty years before Mabel was born.” “True enough; before Mabel was born, we were well-tried friends; and the hussy would never dream of refusing to marry a man who was her father's friend before she was born.” “We don't know, Sergeant, we don't know. Like loves like. The young prefer the young for companions, and the old the old.” “Not for wives, Pathfinder; I never knew an old man, now, who had an objection to a young wife. Then you are respected and esteemed by every officer in the fort, as I have said already, and it will please her fancy to like a man that every one else likes.” “I hope I have no enemies but the Mingos,” returned the guide, stroking down his hair meekly and speaking thoughtfully. “I've tried to do right, and that ought to make friends, though it sometimes fails.” “And you may be said to keep the best company; for even old Duncan of Lundie is glad to see you, and you pass hours in his society. Of all the guides, he confides most in you.” “Ay, even greater than he is have marched by my side for days, and have conversed with me as if I were their brother; but, Sergeant, I have never been puffed up by their company, for I know that the woods often bring men to a level who would not be so in the settlements.” “And you are known to be the greatest rifle shot that ever pulled trigger in all this region.” “If Mabel could fancy a man for that, I might have no great reason to despair; and yet, Sergeant, I sometimes think that it is all as much owing to Killdeer as to any skill of my own. It is sartainly a wonderful piece, and might do as much in the hands of another.” “That is your own humble opinion of yourself, Pathfinder; but we have seen too many fail with the same weapon, and you succeed too often with the rifles of other men, to allow me to agree with you. We will get up a shooting match in a day or two, when you can show your skill, and when Mabel will form some judgment concerning your true character.” “Will that be fair, Sergeant? Everybody knows that Killdeer seldom misses; and ought we to make a trial of this sort when we all know what must be the result?” “Tut, tut, man! I foresee I must do half this courting for you. For one who is always inside of the smoke in a skirmish, you are the faintest-hearted suitor I ever met with. Remember, Mabel comes of a bold stock; and the girl will be as likely to admire a man as her mother was before her.” Here the Sergeant arose, and proceeded to attend to his never-ceasing duties, without apology; the terms on which the guide stood with all in the garrison rendering this freedom quite a matter of course. The reader will have gathered from the conversation just related, one of the plans that Sergeant Dunham had in view in causing his daughter to be brought to the frontier. Although necessarily much weaned from the caresses and blandishments that had rendered his child so dear to him during the first year or two of his widowerhood, he had still a strong but somewhat latent love for her. Accustomed to command and to obey, without being questioned himself or questioning others, concerning the reasonableness of the mandates, he was perhaps too much disposed to believe that his daughter would marry the man he might select, while he was far from being disposed to do violence to her wishes. The fact was; few knew the Pathfinder intimately without secretly believing him to be one of extraordinary qualities. Ever the same, simple-minded, faithful, utterly without fear, and yet prudent, foremost in all warrantable enterprises, or what the opinion of the day considered as such, and never engaged in anything to call a blush to his cheek or censure on his acts, it was not possible to live much with this being and not feel respect and admiration for him which had no reference to his position in life. The most surprising peculiarity about the man himself was the entire indifference with which he regarded all distinctions which did not depend on personal merit. He was respectful to his superiors from habit; but had often been known to correct their mistakes and to reprove their vices with a fearlessness that proved how essentially he regarded the more material points, and with a natural discrimination that appeared to set education at defiance. In short, a disbeliever in the ability of man to distinguish between good and evil without the aid of instruction, would have been staggered by the character of this extraordinary inhabitant of the frontier. His feelings appeared to possess the freshness and nature of the forest in which he passed so much of his time; and no casuist could have made clearer decisions in matters relating to right and wrong; and yet he was not without his prejudices, which, though few, and colored by the character and usages of the individual, were deep-rooted, and almost formed a part of his nature. But the most striking feature about the moral organization of Pathfinder was his beautiful and unerring sense of justice. This noble trait--and without it no man can be truly great, with it no man other than respectable--probably had its unseen influence on all who associated with him; for the common and unprincipled brawler of the camp had been known to return from an expedition made in his company rebuked by his sentiments, softened by his language, and improved by his example. As might have been expected, with so elevated a quality his fidelity was like the immovable rock; treachery in him was classed among the things which are impossible; and as he seldom retired before his enemies, so was he never known, under any circumstances that admitted of an alternative, to abandon a friend. The affinities of such a character were, as a matter of course, those of like for like. His associates and intimates, though more or less determined by chance, were generally of the highest order as to moral propensities; for he appeared to possess a species of instinctive discrimination, which led him, insensibly to himself, most probably, to cling closest to those whose characters would best reward his friendship. In short, it was said of the Pathfinder, by one accustomed to study his fellows, that he was a fair example of what a just-minded and pure man might be, while untempted by unruly or ambitious desires, and left to follow the bias of his feelings, amid the solitary grandeur and ennobling influences of a sublime nature; neither led aside by the inducements which influence all to do evil amid the incentives of civilization, nor forgetful of the Almighty Being whose spirit pervades the wilderness as well as the towns. Such was the man whom Sergeant Dunham had selected as the husband of Mabel. In making this choice, he had not been as much governed by a clear and judicious view of the merits of the individual, perhaps, as by his own likings; still no one knew the Pathfinder so intimately as himself without always conceding to the honest guide a high place in his esteem on account of these very virtues. That his daughter could find any serious objections to the match the old soldier did not apprehend; while, on the other hand, he saw many advantages to himself in dim perspective, connected with the decline of his days, and an evening of life passed among descendants who were equally dear to him through both parents. He had first made the proposition to his friend, who had listened to it kindly, but who, the Sergeant was now pleased to find, already betrayed a willingness to come into his own views that was proportioned to the doubts and misgivings proceeding from his humble distrust of himself.	{ "id": "1880" }
10	None	Think not I love him, though I ask for him; 'Tis but a peevish boy:--yet he talks well-- But what care I for words? A week passed in the usual routine of a garrison. Mabel was becoming used to a situation that, at first she had found not only novel, but a little irksome; and the officers and men in their turn, gradually familiarized to the presence of a young and blooming girl, whose attire and carriage had that air of modest gentility about them which she had obtained in the family of her patroness, annoyed her less by their ill-concealed admiration, while they gratified her by the respect which, she was fain to think, they paid her on account of her father; but which, in truth, was more to be attributed to her own modest but spirited deportment, than to any deference for the worthy Sergeant. Acquaintances made in a forest, or in any circumstances of unusual excitement, soon attain their limits. Mabel found one week's residence at Oswego sufficient to determine her as to those with whom she might be intimate and those whom she ought to avoid. The sort of neutral position occupied by her father, who was not an officer, while he was so much more than a common soldier, by keeping her aloof from the two great classes of military life, lessened the number of those whom she was compelled to know, and made the duty of decision comparatively easy. Still she soon discovered that there were a few, even among those that could aspire to a seat at the Commandant's table, who were disposed to overlook the halbert for the novelty of a well-turned figure and of a pretty, winning face; and by the end of the first two or three days she had admirers even among the gentlemen. The Quartermaster, in particular, a middle-aged soldier, who had more than once tried the blessings of matrimony already, but was now a widower, was evidently disposed to increase his intimacy with the Sergeant, though their duties often brought them together; and the youngsters among his messmates did not fail to note that this man of method, who was a Scotsman of the name of Muir, was much more frequent in his visits to the quarters of his subordinate than had formerly been his wont. A laugh, or a joke, in honor of the “Sergeant's daughter,” however, limited their strictures; though “Mabel Dunham” was soon a toast that even the ensign, or the lieutenant, did not disdain to give. At the end of the week, Duncan of Lundie sent for Sergeant Dunham, after evening roll-call, on business of a nature that, it was understood, required a personal conference. The old veteran dwelt in a movable hut, which, being placed on trucks, he could order to be wheeled about at pleasure, sometimes living in one part of the area within the fort, and sometimes in another. On the present occasion, he had made a halt near the centre; and there he was found by his subordinate, who was admitted to his presence without any delay or dancing attendance in an ante-chamber. In point of fact, there was very little difference in the quality of the accommodations allowed to the officers and those allowed to the men, the former being merely granted the most room. “Walk in, Sergeant, walk in, my good friend,” said old Lundie heartily, as his inferior stood in a respectful attitude at the door of a sort of library and bedroom into which he had been ushered;--“walk in, and take a seat on that stool. I have sent for you, man; to discuss anything but rosters and pay-rolls this evening. It is now many years since we have been comrades, and 'auld lang syne' should count for something, even between a major and his orderly, a Scot and a Yankee. Sit ye down, man, and just put yourself at your ease. It has been a fine day, Sergeant.” “It has indeed, Major Duncan,” returned the other, who, though he complied so far as to take the seat, was much too practised not to understand the degree of respect it was necessary to maintain in his manner; “a very fine day, sir, it has been and we may look for more of them at this season.” “I hope so with all my heart. The crops look well as it is, man, and you'll be finding that the 55th make almost as good farmers as soldiers. I never saw better potatoes in Scotland than we are likely to have in that new patch of ours.” “They promise a good yield, Major Duncan; and, in that light, a more comfortable winter than the last.” “Life is progressive, Sergeant, in its comforts as well as in its need of them. We grow old, and I begin to think it time to retire and settle in life. I feel that my working days are nearly over.” “The king, God bless him! sir, has much good service in your honor yet.” “It may be so, Sergeant Dunham, especially if he should happen to have a spare lieutenant-colonelcy left.” “The 55th will be honored the day that commission is given to Duncan of Lundie, sir.” “And Duncan of Lundie will be honored the day he receives it. But, Sergeant, if you have never had a lieutenant-colonelcy, you have had a good wife, and that is the next thing to rank in making a man happy.” “I have been married, Major Duncan; but it is now a long time since I have had no drawback on the love I bear his majesty and my duty.” “What, man! not even the love you bear that active little round-limbed, rosy-cheeked daughter that I have seen in the fort these last few days! Out upon you, Sergeant! old fellow as I am, I could almost love that little lassie myself, and send the lieutenant-colonelcy to the devil.” “We all know where Major Duncan's heart is, and that is in Scotland, where a beautiful lady is ready and willing to make him happy, as soon as his own sense of duty shall permit.” “Ay, hope is ever a far-off thing, Sergeant,” returned the superior, a shade of melancholy passing over his hard Scottish features as he spoke; “and bonnie Scotland is a far-off country. Well, if we have no heather and oatmeal in this region, we have venison for the killing of it and salmon as plenty as at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Is it true, Sergeant, that the men complain of having been over-venisoned and over-pigeoned of late?” “Not for some weeks, Major Duncan, for neither deer nor birds are so plenty at this season as they have been. They begin to throw their remarks about concerning the salmon, but I trust we shall get through the summer without any serious disturbance on the score of food. The Scotch in the battalion do, indeed, talk more than is prudent of their want of oatmeal, grumbling occasionally of our wheaten bread.” “Ah, that is human nature, Sergeant! pure, unadulterated Scotch human nature. A cake, man, to say the truth, is an agreeable morsel, and I often see the time when I pine for a bite myself.” “If the feeling gets to be troublesome, Major Duncan,--in the men, I mean, sir, for I would not think of saying so disrespectful a thing to your honor,--but if the men ever pine seriously for their natural food, I would humbly recommend that some oatmeal be imported, or prepared in this country for them, and I think we shall hear no more of it. A very little would answer for a cure, sir.” “You are a wag, Sergeant; but hang me if I am sure you are not right. There may be sweeter things in this world, after all, than oatmeal. You have a sweet daughter, Dunham, for one.” “The girl is like her mother, Major Duncan, and will pass inspection,” said the Sergeant proudly. “Neither was brought up on anything better than good American flour. The girl will pass inspection, sir.” “That would she, I'll answer for it. Well, I may as well come to the point at once, man, and bring up my reserve into the front of the battle. Here is Davy Muir, the quartermaster, disposed to make your daughter his wife, and he has just got me to open the matter to you, being fearful of compromising his own dignity; and I may as well add that half the youngsters in the fort toast her, and talk of her from morning till night.” “She is much honored, sir,” returned the father stiffly; “but I trust the gentlemen will find something more worthy of them to talk about ere long. I hope to see her the wife of an honest man before many weeks, sir.” “Yes, Davy is an honest man, and that is more than can be said for all in the quartermaster's department, I'm thinking, Sergeant,” returned Lundie, with a slight smile. “Well, then may I tell the Cupid-stricken youth that the matter is as good as settled?” “I thank your honor; but Mabel is betrothed to another.” “The devil she is! That will produce a stir in the fort; though I'm not sorry to hear it either, for, to be frank with you, Sergeant, I'm no great admirer of unequal matches.” “I think with your honor, and have no desire to see my daughter an officer's lady. If she can get as high as her mother was before her, it ought to satisfy any reasonable woman.” “And may I ask, Sergeant, who is the lucky man that you intend to call son-in-law?” “The Pathfinder, your honor.” “Pathfinder!” “The same, Major Duncan; and in naming him to you, I give you his whole history. No one is better known on this frontier than my honest, brave, true-hearted friend.” “All that is true enough; but is he, after all, the sort of person to make a girl of twenty happy?” “Why not, your honor? The man is at the head of his calling. There is no other guide or scout connected with the army who has half the reputation of Pathfinder, or who deserves to have it half as well.” “Very true, Sergeant; but is the reputation of a scout exactly the sort of renown to captivate a girl's fancy?” “Talking of girls' fancies, sir, is in my humble opinion much like talking of a recruit's judgment. If we were to take the movements of the awkward squad, sir, as a guide, we should never form a decent line in battalion, Major Duncan.” “But your daughter has nothing awkward about her: for a genteeler girl of her class could not be found in old Albion itself. Is she of your way of thinking in this matter? --though I suppose she must be, as you say she is betrothed.” “We have not yet conversed on the subject, your honor; but I consider her mind as good as made up, from several little circumstances which might be named.” “And what are these circumstances, Sergeant?” asked the Major, who began to take more interest than he had at first felt on the subject. “I confess a little curiosity to know something about a woman's mind, being, as you know, a bachelor myself.” “Why, your honor, when I speak of the Pathfinder to the girl, she always looks me full in the face; chimes in with everything I say in his favor, and has a frank open way with her, which says as much as if she half considered him already as a husband.” “Hum! and these signs, you think, Dunham, are faithful tokens of your daughter's feelings?” “I do, your honor, for they strike me as natural. When I find a man, sir, who looks me full in the face, while he praises an officer,--for, begging your honor's pardon, the men will sometimes pass their strictures on their betters,--and when I find a man looking me in the eyes as he praises his captain, I always set it down that the fellow is honest, and means what he says.” “Is there not some material difference in the age of the intended bridegroom and that of his pretty bride, Sergeant?” “You are quite right, sir; Pathfinder is well advanced towards forty, and Mabel has every prospect of happiness that a young woman can derive from the certainty of possessing an experienced husband. I was quite forty myself, your honor, when I married her mother.” “But will your daughter be as likely to admire a green hunting-shirt, such as that our worthy guide wears, with a fox-skin cap, as the smart uniform of the 55th?” “Perhaps not, sir; and therefore she will have the merit of self-denial, which always makes a young woman wiser and better.” “And are you not afraid that she may be left a widow while still a young woman? what between wild beasts, and wilder savages, Pathfinder may be said to carry his life in his hand.” “'Every bullet has its billet,' Lundie,” for so the Major was fond of being called in his moments of condescension, and when not engaged in military affairs; “and no man in the 55th can call himself beyond or above the chances of sudden death. In that particular, Mabel would gain nothing by a change. Besides, sir, if I may speak freely on such a subject, I much doubt if ever Pathfinder dies in battle, or by any of the sudden chances of the wilderness.” “And why so, Sergeant?” asked the Major. “He is a soldier, so far as danger is concerned, and one that is much more than usually exposed; and, being free of his person, why should he expect to escape when others do not?” “I do not believe, your honor, that the Pathfinder considers his own chances better than any one's else, but the man will never die by a bullet. I have seen him so often handling his rifle with as much composure as if it were a shepherd's crook, in the midst of the heaviest showers of bullets, and under so many extraordinary circumstances, that I do not think Providence means he should ever fall in that manner. And yet, if there be a man in his Majesty's dominions who really deserves such a death, it is Pathfinder.” “We never know, Sergeant,” returned Lundie, with a countenance grave with thought; “and the less we say about it, perhaps, the better. But will your daughter--Mabel, I think, you call her--will Mabel be as willing to accept one who, after all, is a mere hanger-on of the army, as to take one from the service itself? There is no hope of promotion for the guide, Sergeant.” “He is at the head of his corps already, your honor. In short, Mabel has made up her mind on this subject; and, as your honor has had the condescension to speak to me about Mr. Muir, I trust you will be kind enough to say that the girl is as good as billeted for life.” “Well, well, this is your own matter, and, now--Sergeant Dunham!” “Your honor,” said the other, rising, and giving the customary salute. “You have been told it is my intention to send you down among the Thousand Islands for the next month. All the old subalterns have had their tours of duty in that quarter--all that I like to trust at least; and it has at length come to your turn. Lieutenant Muir, it is true, claims his right; but, being quartermaster, I do not like to break up well-established arrangements. Are the men drafted?” “Everything is ready, your honor. The draft is made, and I understood that the canoe which got in last night brought a message to say that the party already below is looking out for the relief.” “It did; and you must sail the day after to-morrow, if not to-morrow night. It will be wise, perhaps, to sail in the dark.” “So Jasper thinks, Major Duncan; and I know no one more to be depended on in such an affair than young Jasper Western.” “Young Jasper Eau-douce!” said Lundie, a slight smile gathering around his usually stern mouth. “Will that lad be of your party, Sergeant?” “Your honor will remember that the _Scud_ never quits port without him.” “True; but all general rules have their exceptions. Have I not seen a seafaring person about the fort within the last few days?” “No doubt, your honor; it is Master Cap, a brother-in-law of mine, who brought my daughter from below.” “Why not put him in the _Scud_ for this cruise, Sergeant, and leave Jasper behind? Your brother-in-law would like the variety of a fresh-water cruise, and you would enjoy more of his company.” “I intended to ask your honor's permission to take him along; but he must go as a volunteer. Jasper is too brave a lad to be turned out of his command without a reason, Major Duncan; and I'm afraid brother Cap despises fresh water too much to do duty on it.” “Quite right, Sergeant, and I leave all this to your own discretion. Eau-douce must retain his command, on second thoughts. You intend that Pathfinder shall also be of the party?” “If your honor approves of it. There will be service for both the guides, the Indian as well as the white man.” “I think you are right. Well, Sergeant, I wish you good luck in the enterprise; and remember the post is to be destroyed and abandoned when your command is withdrawn. It will have done its work by that time, or we shall have failed entirely, and it is too ticklish a position to be maintained unnecessarily. You can retire.” Sergeant Dunham gave the customary salute, turned on his heels as if they had been pivots, and had got the door nearly drawn to after him, when he was suddenly recalled. “I had forgotten, Sergeant, the younger officers have begged for a shooting match, and to-morrow has been named for the day. All competitors will be admitted, and the prizes will be a silver-mounted powder horn, a leathern flask ditto,” reading from a piece of paper, “as I see by the professional jargon of this bill, and a silk calash for a lady. The latter is to enable the victor to show his gallantry by making an offering of it to her he best loves.” “All very agreeable, your honor, at least to him that succeeds. Is the Pathfinder to be permitted to enter?” “I do not well see how he can be excluded, if he choose to come forward. Latterly, I have observed that he takes no share in these sports, probably from a conviction of his own unequalled skill.” “That's it, Major Duncan; the honest fellow knows there is not a man on the frontier who can equal him, and he does not wish to spoil the pleasure of others. I think we may trust to his delicacy in anything, sir. Perhaps it may be as well to let him have his own way?” “In this instance we must, Sergeant. Whether he will be as successful in all others remains to be seen. I wish you good evening, Dunham.” The Sergeant now withdrew, leaving Duncan of Lundie to his own thoughts: that they were not altogether disagreeable was to be inferred from the smiles which occasionally covered a countenance hard and martial in its usual expression, though there were moments in which all its severe sobriety prevailed. Half an hour might have passed, when a tap at the door was answered by a direction to enter. A middle-aged man, in the dress of an officer, but whose uniform wanted the usual smartness of the profession, made his appearance, and was saluted as “Mr. Muir.” “I have come sir, at your bidding, to know my fortune,” said the Quartermaster, in a strong Scotch accent, as soon as he had taken the seat which was proffered to him. “To say the truth to you, Major Duncan, this girl is making as much havoc in the garrison as the French did before Ty: I never witnessed so general a rout in so short a time!” “Surely, Davy, you don't mean to persuade me that your young and unsophisticated heart is in such a flame, after one week's ignition? Why, man, this is worse than the affair in Scotland, where it was said the heat within was so intense that it just burnt a hole through your own precious body, and left a place for all the lassies to peer in at, to see what the combustible material was worth.” “Ye'll have your own way, Major Duncan; and your father and mother would have theirs before ye, even if the enemy were in the camp. I see nothing so extraordinar' in young people following the bent of their inclinations and wishes.” “But you've followed yours so often, Davy, that I should think by this time it had lost the edge of novelty. Including that informal affair in Scotland, when you were a lad, you've been married four times already.” “Only three, Major, as I hope to get another wife. I've not yet had my number: no, no; only three.” “I'm thinking, Davy, you don't include the first affair I mentioned; that in which there was no parson.” “And why should I Major? The courts decided that it was no marriage; and what more could a man want? The woman took advantage of a slight amorous propensity that may be a weakness in my disposition, perhaps, and inveigled me into a contract which was found to be illegal.” “If I remember right, Muir, there were thought to be two sides to that question, in the time of it?” “It would be but an indifferent question, my dear Major, that hadn't two sides to it; and I've known many that had three. But the poor woman's dead, and there was no issue; so nothing came of it after all. Then, I was particularly unfortunate with my second wife; I say second, Major, out of deference to you, and on the mere supposition that the first was a marriage at all; but first or second, I was particularly unfortunate with Jeannie Graham, who died in the first lustrum, leaving neither chick nor chiel behind her. I do think, if Jeannie had survived, I never should have turned my thoughts towards another wife.” “But as she did not, you married twice after her death; and are desirous of doing so a third time.” “The truth can never justly be gainsaid, Major Duncan, and I am always ready to avow it. I'm thinking, Lundie, you are melancholar this fine evening?” “No, Muir, not melancholy absolutely; but a little thoughtful, I confess. I was looking back to my boyish days, when I, the laird's son, and you, the parson's, roamed about our native hills, happy and careless boys, taking little heed to the future; and then have followed some thoughts, that may be a little painful, concerning that future as it has turned out to be.” “Surely, Lundie, ye do not complain of yer portion of it. You've risen to be a major, and will soon be a lieutenant-colonel, if letters tell the truth; while I am just one step higher than when your honored father gave me my first commission, and a poor deevil of a quartermaster.” “And the four wives?” “Three, Lundie; three only that were legal, even under our own liberal and sanctified laws.” “Well, then, let it be three. Ye know, Davy,” said Major Duncan, insensibly dropping into the pronunciation and dialect of his youth, as is much the practice with educated Scotchmen as they warm with a subject that comes near the heart,--“ye know, Davy, that my own choice has long been made, and in how anxious and hope-wearied a manner I've waited for that happy hour when I can call the woman I've so long loved a wife; and here have you, without fortune, name, birth, or merit--I mean particular merit--” “Na, na; dinna say that, Lundie. The Muirs are of gude bluid.” “Well, then, without aught but bluid, ye've wived four times--” “I tall ye but thrice, Lundie. Ye'll weaken auld friendship if ye call it four.” “Put it at yer own number, Davy; and it's far more than yer share. Our lives have been very different, on the score of matrimony, at least; you must allow that, my old friend.” “And which do you think has been the gainer, Major, speaking as frankly thegither as we did when lads?” “Nay, I've nothing to conceal. My days have passed in hope deferred, while yours have passed in--” “Not in hope realized, I give you mine honor, Major Duncan,” interrupted the Quartermaster. “Each new experiment I have thought might prove an advantage; but disappointment seems the lot of man. Ah! this is a vain world of ours, Lundie, it must be owned; and in nothing vainer than in matrimony.” “And yet you are ready to put your neck into the noose for the fifth time?” “I desire to say, it will be but the fourth, Major Duncan,” said the Quartermaster positively; then, instantly changing the expression of his face to one of boyish rapture, he added, “But this Mabel Dunham is a _rara avis! _ Our Scotch lassies are fair and pleasant; but it must be owned these colonials are of surpassing comeliness.” “You will do well to recollect your commission and blood, Davy. I believe all four of your wives--” “I wish my dear Lundie, ye'd be more accurate in yer arithmetic. Three times one make three.” “All three, then, were what might be termed gentlewomen?” “That's just it, Major. Three were gentlewomen, as you say, and the connections were suitable.” “And the fourth being the daughter of my father's gardener, the connection was unsuitable. But have you no fear that marrying the child of a non-commissioned officer, who is in the same corps with yourself, will have the effect to lessen your consequence in the regiment?” “That's just been my weakness through life, Major Duncan; for I've always married without regard to consequences. Every man has his besetting sin, and matrimony, I fear, is mine. And now that we have discussed what may be called the principles of the connection, I will just ask if you did me the favor to speak to the Sergeant on the trifling affair?” “I did, David; and am sorry to say, for your hopes, that I see no great chance of your succeeding.” “Not succeeding! An officer, and a quartermaster in the bargain, and not succeed with a sergeant's daughter!” “It's just that, Davy.” “And why not, Lundie? Will ye have the goodness to answer just that?” “The girl is betrothed. Hand plighted, word passed, love pledged,--no, hang me if I believe that either; but she is betrothed.” “Well, that's an obstacle, it must be avowed, Major, though it counts for little if the heart is free.” “Quite true; and I think it probable the heart is free in this case; for the intended husband appears to be the choice of the father rather than of the daughter.” “And who may it be, Major?” asked the Quartermaster, who viewed the whole matter with the philosophy and coolness acquired by use. “I do not recollect any plausible suitor that is likely to stand in my way.” “No, you are the only _plausible_ suitor on the frontier, Davy. The happy man is Pathfinder.” “Pathfinder, Major Duncan!” “No more, nor any less, David Muir. Pathfinder is the man; but it may relieve your jealousy a little to know that, in my judgment at least, it is a match of the father's rather than of the daughter's seeking.” “I thought as much!” exclaimed the Quartermaster, drawing a long breath, like one who felt relieved; “it's quite impossible that with my experience in human nature--” “Particularly hu-woman's nature, David.” “Ye will have yer joke, Lundie, let who will suffer. But I did not think it possible I could be deceived as to the young woman's inclinations, which I think I may boldly pronounce to be altogether above the condition of Pathfinder. As for the individual himself--why, time will show.” “Now, tell me frankly, Davy Muir,” said Lundie, stepping short in his walk, and looking the other earnestly in the face with a comical expression of surprise, that rendered the veteran's countenance ridiculously earnest,--“do you really suppose a girl like the daughter of Sergeant Dunham can take a serious fancy to a man of your years and appearance, and experience, I might add?” “Hout, awa', Lundie! ye dinna know the sax, and that's the reason yer unmarried in yer forty-fifth year. It's a fearfu' time ye've been a bachelor, Major!” “And what may be your age, Lieutenant Muir, if I may presume to ask so delicate a question?” “Forty-seven; I'll no' deny it, Lundie; and if I get Mabel, there'll be just a wife for every twa lustrums. But I didna think Sergeant Dunham would be so humble minded as to dream of giving that sweet lass of his to one like the Pathfinder.” “There's no dream about it, Davy; the man is as serious as a soldier about to be flogged.” “Well, well, Major, we are auld friends,”--both ran into the Scotch or avoided it, as they approached or drew away from their younger days, in the dialogue,--“and ought to know how to take and give a joke, off duty. It is possible the worthy man has not understood my hints, or he never would have thought of such a thing. The difference between an officer's consort and a guide's woman is as vast as that between the antiquity of Scotland and the antiquity of America. I'm auld blood, too, Lundie.” “Take my word for it Davy, your antiquity will do you no good in this affair; and as for your blood, it is not older than your bones. Well, well, man, ye know the Sergeant's answer; and so ye perceive that my influence, on which ye counted so much, can do nought for ye. Let us take a glass thegither, Davy, for auld acquaintance sake; and then ye'll be doing well to remember the party that marches the morrow, and to forget Mabel Dunham as fast as ever you can.” “Ah, Major! I have always found it easier to forget a wife than to forget a sweetheart. When a couple are fairly married, all is settled but the death, as one may say, which must finally part us all; and it seems to me awfu' irreverent to disturb the departed; whereas there is so much anxiety and hope and felicity in expectation like, with the lassie, that it keeps thought alive.” “That is just my idea of your situation, Davy; for I never supposed you expected any more felicity with either of your wives. Now, I've heard of fellows who were so stupid as to look forward to happiness with their wives even beyond the grave. I drink to your success, or to your speedy recovery from this attack, Lieutenant; and I admonish you to be more cautious in future, as some of these violent cases may yet carry you off.” “Many thanks, dear Major; and a speedy termination to an old courtship, of which I know something. This is real mountain dew, Lundie, and it warms the heart like a gleam of bonnie Scotland. As for the men you've just mentioned, they could have had but one wife a piece; for where there are several, the deeds of the women themselves may carry them different ways. I think a reasonable husband ought to be satisfied with passing his allotted time with any particular wife in this world, and not to go about moping for things unattainable. I'm infinitely obliged to you, Major Duncan, for this and all your other acts of friendship; and if you could but add another, I should think you had not altogether forgotten the play-fellow of your boyhood.” “Well, Davy, if the request be reasonable, and such as a superior ought to grant, out with it, man.” “If ye could only contrive a little service for me, down among the Thousand Isles, for a fortnight or so, I think this matter might be settled to the satisfaction of all parties. Just remember, Lundie, the lassie is the only marriageable white female on this frontier.” “There is always duty for one in your line at a post, however small; but this below can be done by the Sergeant as well as by the Quartermaster-general, and better too.” “But not better than by a regimental officer. There is great waste, in common, among the orderlies.” “I'll think of it, Muir,” said the Major, laughing, “and you shall have my answer in the morning. Here will be a fine occasion, man, the morrow, to show yourself off before the lady; you are expert with the rifle, and prizes are to be won. Make up your mind to display your skill, and who knows what may yet happen before the _Scud_ sails.” “I'm thinking most of the young men will try their hands in this sport, Major!” “That will they, and some of the old ones too, if you appear. To keep you in countenance, I'll try a shot or two myself, Davy; and you know I have some name that way.” “It might, indeed, do good. The female heart, Major Duncan, is susceptible in many different modes, and sometimes in a way that the rules of philosophy might reject. Some require a suitor to sit down before them, as it might be, in a regular siege, and only capitulate when the place can hold out no longer; others, again, like to be carried by storm; while there are hussies who can only be caught by leading them into an ambush. The first is the most creditable and officer-like process, perhaps; but I must say I think the last the most pleasing.” “An opinion formed from experience, out of all question. And what of the storming parties?” “They may do for younger men, Lundie,” returned the Quartermaster, rising and winking, a liberty that he often took with his commanding officer on the score of a long intimacy; “every period of life has its necessities, and at forty-seven it's just as well to trust a little to the head. I wish you a very good even, Major Duncan, and freedom from gout, with a sweet and refreshing sleep.” “The same to yourself, Mr. Muir, with many thanks. Remember the passage of arms for the morrow.” The Quartermaster withdrew, leaving Lundie in his library to reflect on what had just passed. Use had so accustomed Major Duncan to Lieutenant Muir and all his traits and humors, that the conduct of the latter did not strike the former with the same force as it will probably the reader. In truth, while all men act under one common law that is termed nature, the varieties in their dispositions, modes of judging, feelings, and selfishness are infinite.	{ "id": "1880" }
11	None	Compel the hawke to sit that is unmann'd, Or make the hound, untaught, to draw the deere, Or bring the free against his will in band, Or move the sad a pleasant tale to heere, Your time is lost, and you no whit the neere! So love ne learnes, of force the heart to knit: She serves but those that feel sweet fancies' fit. _Mirror for Magistrates. _ It is not often that hope is rewarded by fruition so completely as the wishes of the young men of the garrison were met by the state of the weather on the succeeding day. The heats of summer were little felt at Oswego at the period of which we are writing; for the shade of the forest, added to the refreshing breezes from the lake, so far reduced the influence of the sun as to render the nights always cool and the days seldom oppressive. It was now September, a month in which the strong gales of the coast often appear to force themselves across the country as far as the great lakes, where the inland sailor sometimes feels that genial influence which characterizes the winds of the ocean invigorating his frame, cheering his spirits, and arousing his moral force. Such a day was that on which the garrison of Oswego assembled to witness what its commander had jocularly called a “passage of arms.” Lundie was a scholar in military matters at least, and it was one of his sources of honest pride to direct the reading and thoughts of the young men under his orders to the more intellectual parts of their profession. For one in his situation, his library was both good and extensive, and its books were freely lent to all who desired to use them. Among other whims that had found their way into the garrison through these means, was a relish for the sort of amusement in which it was now about to indulge; and around which some chronicles of the days of chivalry had induced them to throw a parade and romance not unsuited to the characters and habits of soldiers, or to the insulated and wild post occupied by this particular garrison. While so earnestly bent on pleasure, however, they on whom that duty devolved did not neglect the safety of the garrison. One standing on the ramparts of the fort, and gazing on the waste of glittering water that bounded the view all along the northern horizon, and on the slumbering and seemingly boundless forest which filled the other half of the panorama, would have fancied the spot the very abode of peacefulness and security; but Duncan of Lundie too well knew that the woods might, at any moment, give up their hundreds, bent on the destruction of the fort and all it contained; and that even the treacherous lake offered a highway of easy approach by which his more civilized and scarcely less wily foes, the French, could come upon him at an unguarded moment. Parties were sent out under old and vigilant officers, men who cared little for the sports of the day, to scour the forest; and one entire company held the fort, under arms, with orders to maintain a vigilance as strict as if an enemy of superior force was known to be near. With these precautions, the remainder of the officers and men abandoned themselves, without apprehension, to the business of the morning. The spot selected for the sports was a sort of esplanade, a little west of the fort, and on the immediate bank of the lake. It had been cleared of its trees and stumps, that it might answer the purpose of a parade-ground, as it possessed the advantages of having its rear protected by the water, and one of its flanks by the works. Men drilling on it could be attacked, consequently, on two sides only; and as the cleared space beyond it, in the direction of the west and south, was large, any assailants would be compelled to quit the cover of the woods before they could make an approach sufficiently near to render them dangerous. Although the regular arms of the regiment were muskets, some fifty rifles were produced on the present occasion. Every officer had one as a part of his private provision for amusement; many belonged to the scouts and friendly Indians, of whom more or less were always hanging about the fort; and there was a public provision of them for the use of those who followed the game with the express object of obtaining supplies. Among those who carried the weapon were some five or six, who had reputation for knowing how to use it particularly well--so well, indeed, as to have given them a celebrity on the frontier; twice that number who were believed to be much better than common; and many who would have been thought expert in almost any situation but the precise one in which they now happened to be placed. The distance was a hundred yards, and the weapon was to be used without a rest; the target, a board, with the customary circular lines in white paint, having the bull's-eye in the centre. The first trials in skill commenced with challenges among the more ignoble of the competitors to display their steadiness and dexterity in idle competition. None but the common men engaged in this strife, which had little to interest the spectators, among whom no officer had yet appeared. Most of the soldiers were Scotch, the regiment having been raised at Stirling and its vicinity not many years before, though, as in the case of Sergeant Dunham, many Americans had joined it since its arrival in the colonies. As a matter of course, the provincials were generally the most expert marksmen; and after a desultory trial of half an hour it was necessarily conceded that a youth who had been born in the colony of New York, and who coming of Dutch extraction, was the most expert of all who had yet tried their skill. It was just as this opinion prevailed that the oldest captain, accompanied by most of the gentlemen and ladies of the fort, appeared on the parade. A train of some twenty females of humbler condition followed, among whom was seen the well-turned form, intelligent, blooming, animated countenance, and neat, becoming attire of Mabel Dunham. Of females who were officially recognized as belonging to the class of ladies, there were but three in the fort, all of whom were officers' wives; Mabel being strictly, as had been stated by the Quartermaster, the only real candidate for matrimony among her sex. Some little preparation had been made for the proper reception of the females, who were placed on a low staging of planks near the immediate bank of the lake. In this vicinity the prizes were suspended from a post. Great care was taken to reserve the front seat of the stage for the three ladies and their children; while Mabel and those who belonged to the non-commissioned officers of the regiment, occupied the second. The wives and daughters of the privates were huddled together in the rear, some standing and some sitting, as they could find room. Mabel, who had already been admitted to the society of the officers' wives, on the footing of a humble companion, was a good deal noticed by the ladies in front, who had a proper appreciation of modest self-respect and gentle refinement, though they were all fully aware of the value of rank, more particularly in a garrison. As soon as this important portion of the spectators had got into their places, Lundie gave orders for the trial of skill to proceed in the manner that had been prescribed in his previous orders. Some eight or ten of the best marksmen of the garrison now took possession of the stand, and began to fire in succession. Among them were officers and men indiscriminately placed, nor were the casual visitors in the fort excluded from the competition. As might have been expected of men whose amusements and comfortable subsistence equally depended on skill in the use of their weapons, it was soon found that they were all sufficiently expert to hit the bull's-eye, or the white spot in the centre of the target. Others who succeeded them, it is true, were less sure, their bullets striking in the different circles that surrounded the centre of the target without touching it. According to the rules of the day, none could proceed to the second trial who had failed in the first, and the adjutant of the place, who acted as master of the ceremonies, or marshal of the day, called upon the successful adventurers by name to get ready for the next effort, while he gave notice that those who failed to present themselves for the shot at the bull's-eye would necessarily be excluded from all the higher trials. Just at this moment Lundie, the Quartermaster, and Jasper Eau-douce appeared in the group at the stand, while the Pathfinder walked leisurely on the ground without his beloved rifle, for him a measure so unusual, as to be understood by all present as a proof that he did not consider himself a competitor for the honors of the day. All made way for Major Duncan, who, as he approached the stand in a good-humored way, took his station, levelled his rifle carelessly, and fired. The bullet missed the required mark by several inches. “Major Duncan is excluded from the other trials!” proclaimed the Adjutant, in a voice so strong and confident that all the elder officers and the sergeants well understood that this failure was preconcerted, while all the younger gentlemen and the privates felt new encouragement to proceed on account of the evident impartiality with which the laws of the sports were administered. “Now, Master Eau-douce, comes your turn,” said Muir; “and if you do not beat the Major, I shall say that your hand is better skilled with the oar than with the rifle.” Jasper's handsome face flushed, he stepped upon the stand, cast a hasty glance at Mabel, whose pretty form he ascertained was bending eagerly forward as if to note the result, dropped the barrel of his rifle with but little apparent care into the palm of his left hand, raised the muzzle for a single instant with exceeding steadiness, and fired. The bullet passed directly through the centre of the bull's-eye, much the best shot of the morning, since the others had merely touched the paint. “Well performed, Master Jasper,” said Muir, as soon as the result was declared; “and a shot that might have done credit to an older head and a more experienced eye. I'm thinking, notwithstanding, there was some of a youngster's luck in it; for ye were no' partic'lar in the aim ye took. Ye may be quick, Eau-douce, in the movement, but yer not philosophic nor scientific in yer management of the weepon. Now, Sergeant Dunham, I'll thank you to request the ladies to give a closer attention than common; for I'm about to make that use of the rifle which may be called the intellectual. Jasper would have killed, I allow; but then there would not have been half the satisfaction in receiving such a shot as in receiving one that is discharged scientifically.” All this time the Quartermaster was preparing himself for the scientific trial; but he delayed his aim until he saw that the eye of Mabel, in common with those of her companions, was fastened on him in curiosity. As the others left him room, out of respect to his rank, no one stood near the competitor but his commanding officer, to whom he now said in his familiar manner,-- “Ye see, Lundie, that something is to be gained by exciting a female's curiosity. It's an active sentiment is curiosity, and properly improved may lead to gentler innovations in the end.” “Very true, Davy; but ye keep us all waiting while ye make your preparations; and here is Pathfinder drawing near to catch a lesson from your greater experience.” “Well Pathfinder, and so _you_ have come to get an idea too, concerning the philosophy of shooting? I do not wish to hide my light under a bushel, and yer welcome to all ye'll learn. Do ye no' mean to try a shot yersel', man?” “Why should I, Quartermaster, why should I? I want none of the prizes; and as for honor, I have had enough of that, if it's any honor to shoot better than yourself. I'm not a woman to wear a calash.” “Very true; but ye might find a woman that is precious in your eyes to wear it for ye, as----” “Come, Davy,” interrupted the Major, “your shot or a retreat. The Adjutant is getting impatient.” “The Quartermaster's department and the Adjutant's department are seldom compliable, Lundie; but I'm ready. Stand a little aside, Pathfinder, and give the ladies an opportunity.” Lieutenant Muir now took his attitude with a good deal of studied elegance, raised his rifle slowly, lowered it, raised it again, repeated the manoeuvres, and fired. “Missed the target altogether!” shouted the man whose duty it was to mark the bullets, and who had little relish for the Quartermaster's tedious science. “Missed the target!” “It cannot be!” cried Muir, his face flushing equally with indignation and shame; “it cannot be, Adjutant; for I never did so awkward a thing in my life. I appeal to the ladies for a juster judgment.” “The ladies shut their eyes when you fired!” exclaimed the regimental wags. “Your preparations alarmed them.” “I will na believe such calumny of the leddies, nor sic' a reproach on my own skill,” returned the Quartermaster, growing more and more Scotch as he warmed with his feelings; “it's a conspiracy to rob a meritorious man of his dues.” “It's a dead miss, Muir,” said the laughing Lundie; “and ye'll jist sit down quietly with the disgrace.” “No, no, Major,” Pathfinder at length observed; “the Quartermaster _is_ a good shot for a slow one and a measured distance, though nothing extr'ornary for real service. He has covered Jasper's bullet, as will be seen, if any one will take the trouble to examine the target.” The respect for Pathfinder's skill and for his quickness and accuracy of sight was so profound and general, that, the instant he made this declaration, the spectators began to distrust their own opinions, and a dozen rushed to the target in order to ascertain the fact. There, sure enough, it was found that the Quartermaster's bullet had gone through the hole made by Jasper's, and that, too, so accurately as to require a minute examination to be certain of the circumstance; which, however, was soon clearly established, by discovering one bullet over the other in the stump against which the target was placed. “I told ye, ladies, ye were about to witness the influence of science on gunnery,” said the Quartermaster, advancing towards the staging occupied by the females. “Major Duncan derides the idea of mathematics entering into target-shooting; but I tell him philosophy colors, and enlarges, and improves, and dilates, and explains everything that belongs to human life, whether it be a shooting-match or a sermon. In a word, philosophy is philosophy, and that is saying all that the subject requires.” “I trust you exclude love from the catalogue,” observed the wife of a captain who knew the history of the Quartermaster's marriages, and who had a woman's malice against the monopolizer of her sex; “it seems that philosophy has little in common with love.” “You wouldn't say that, madam, if your heart had experienced many trials. It's the man or the woman that has had many occasions to improve the affections that can best speak of such matters; and, believe me, of all love, philosophical is the most lasting, as it is the most rational.” “You would then recommend experience as an improvement on the passion?” “Your quick mind has conceived the idea at a glance. The happiest marriages are those in which youth and beauty and confidence on one side, rely on the sagacity, moderation, and prudence of years--middle age, I mean, madam, for I'll no' deny that there is such a thing as a husband's being too old for a wife. Here is Sergeant Dunham's charming daughter, now, to approve of such sentiments, I'm certain; her character for discretion being already well established in the garrison, short as has been her residence among us.” “Sergeant Dunham's daughter is scarcely a fitting interlocutor in a discourse between you and me, Lieutenant Muir,” rejoined the captain's lady, with careful respect for her own dignity; “and yonder is the Pathfinder about to take his chance, by way of changing the subject.” “I protest, Major Duncan, I protest,” cried Muir hurrying back towards the stand, with both arms elevated by way of enforcing his words,--“I protest in the strongest terms, gentlemen, against Pathfinder's being admitted into these sports with Killdeer, which is a piece, to say nothing of long habit that is altogether out of proportion for a trial of skill against Government rifles.” “Killdeer is taking its rest, Quartermaster,” returned Pathfinder calmly, “and no one here thinks of disturbing it. I did not think, myself, of pulling a trigger to-day; but Sergeant Dunham has been persuading me that I shall not do proper honor to his handsome daughter, who came in under my care, if I am backward on such an occasion. I'm using Jasper's rifle, Quartermaster, as you may see, and that is no better than your own.” Lieutenant Muir was now obliged to acquiesce, and every eye turned towards the Pathfinder, as he took the required station. The air and attitude of this celebrated guide and hunter were extremely fine, as he raised his tall form and levelled the piece, showing perfect self-command, and a through knowledge of the power of the human frame as well as of the weapon. Pathfinder was not what is usually termed a handsome man, though his appearance excited so much confidence and commanded respect. Tall, and even muscular, his frame might have been esteemed nearly perfect, were it not for the total absence of everything like flesh. Whipcord was scarcely more rigid than his arms and legs, or, at need, more pliable; but the outlines of his person were rather too angular for the proportion that the eye most approves. Still, his motions, being natural, were graceful, and, being calm and regulated, they gave him an air and dignity that associated well with the idea, which was so prevalent, of his services and peculiar merits. His honest, open features were burnt to a bright red, that comported well with the notion of exposure and hardships, while his sinewy hands denoted force, and a species of use removed from the stiffening and deforming effects of labor. Although no one perceived any of those gentler or more insinuating qualities which are apt to win upon a woman's affections, as he raised his rifle not a female eye was fastened on him without a silent approbation of the freedom of his movements and the manliness of his air. Thought was scarcely quicker than his aim; and, as the smoke floated above his head, the butt-end of the rifle was seen on the ground, the hand of the Pathfinder was leaning on the barrel, and his honest countenance was illuminated by his usual silent, hearty laugh. “If one dared to hint at such a thing,” cried Major Duncan, “I should say that the Pathfinder had also missed the target.” “No, no, Major,” returned the guide confidently; “that _would_ be a risky declaration. I didn't load the piece, and can't say what was in it; but if it was lead, you will find the bullet driving down those of the Quartermaster and Jasper, else is not my name Pathfinder.” A shout from the target announced the truth of this assertion. “That's not all, that's not all, boys,” called out the guide, who was now slowly advancing towards the stage occupied by the females; “if you find the target touched at all, I'll own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the wood, but you'll find no wood cut by that last messenger.” “Very true, Pathfinder, very true,” answered Muir, who was lingering near Mabel, though ashamed to address her particularly in the presence of the officers' wives. “The Quartermaster did cut the wood, and by that means he opened a passage for your bullet, which went through the hole he had made.” “Well, Quartermaster, there goes the nail and we'll see who can drive it closer, you or I; for, though I did not think of showing what a rifle can do to-day, now my hand is in, I'll turn my back to no man that carries King George's commission. Chingachgook is outlying, or he might force me into some of the niceties of the art; but, as for you, Quartermaster, if the nail don't stop you, the potato will.” “You're over boastful this morning, Pathfinder; but you'll find you've no green boy fresh from the settlements and the towns to deal with, I will assure ye!” “I know that well, Quartermaster; I know that well, and shall not deny your experience. You've lived many years on the frontiers, and I've heard of you in the colonies, and among the Indians, too, quite a human life ago.” “Na, na,” interrupted Muir in his broadest Scotch, “this is injustice, man. I've no' lived so very long, neither.” “I'll do you justice, Lieutenant, even if you get the best in the potato trial. I say you've passed a good human life, for a soldier, in places where the rifle is daily used, and I know you are a creditable and ingenious marksman; but then you are not a true rifle-shooter. As for boasting, I hope I'm not a vain talker about my own exploits; but a man's gifts are his gifts, and it's flying in the face of Providence to deny them. The Sergeant's daughter, here, shall judge between us, if you have the stomach to submit to so pretty a judge.” The Pathfinder had named Mabel as the arbiter because he admired her, and because, in his eyes, rank had little or no value; but Lieutenant Muir shrank at such a reference in the presence of the wives of the officers. He would gladly keep himself constantly before the eyes and the imagination of the object of his wishes; but he was still too much under the influence of old prejudices, and perhaps too wary, to appear openly as her suitor, unless he saw something very like a certainty of success. On the discretion of Major Duncan he had a full reliance, and he apprehended no betrayal from that quarter; but he was quite aware, should it ever get abroad that he had been refused by the child of a non-commissioned officer, he would find great difficulty in making his approaches to any other woman of a condition to which he might reasonably aspire. Notwithstanding these doubts and misgivings, Mabel looked so prettily, blushed so charmingly, smiled so sweetly, and altogether presented so winning a picture of youth, spirit, modesty, and beauty, that he found it exceedingly tempting to be kept so prominently before her imagination, and to be able to address her freely. “You shall have it your own way, Pathfinder,” he answered, as soon as his doubts had settled down into determination; “let the Sergeant's daughter--his charming daughter, I should have termed her--be the umpire then; and to her we will both dedicate the prize, that one or the other must certainly win. Pathfinder must be humored, ladies, as you perceive, else, no doubt, we should have had the honor to submit ourselves to one of your charming society.” A call for the competitors now drew the Quartermaster and his adversary away, and in a few moments the second trial of skill commenced. A common wrought nail was driven lightly into the target, its head having been first touched with paint, and the marksman was required to hit it, or he lost his chances in the succeeding trials. No one was permitted to enter, on this occasion, who had already failed in the essay against the bull's-eye. There might have been half a dozen aspirants for the honors of this trial; one or two, who had barely succeeded in touching the spot of paint in the previous strife, preferring to rest their reputations there, feeling certain that they could not succeed in the greater effort that was now exacted of them. The first three adventurers failed, all coming very near the mark, but neither touching it. The fourth person who presented himself was the Quartermaster, who, after going through his usual attitudes, so far succeeded as to carry away a small portion of the head of the nail, planting his bullet by the side of its point. This was not considered an extraordinary shot, though it brought the adventurer within the category. “You've saved your bacon, Quartermaster, as they say in the settlements of their creaturs,” cried Pathfinder, laughing; “but it would take a long time to build a house with a hammer no better than yours. Jasper, here, will show you how a nail is to be started, or the lad has lost some of his steadiness of hand and sartainty of eye. You would have done better yourself, Lieutenant, had you not been so much bent on soldierizing your figure. Shooting is a natural gift, and is to be exercised in a natural way.” “We shall see, Pathfinder; I call that a pretty attempt at a nail; and I doubt if the 55th has another hammer, as you call it, that can do just the same thing over again.” “Jasper is not in the 55th, but there goes his rap.” As the Pathfinder spoke, the bullet of Eau-douce hit the nail square, and drove it into the target, within an inch of the head. “Be all ready to clench it, boys!” cried out Pathfinder, stepping into his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant. “Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is gone, and what I can see I can hit, at a hundred yards, though it were only a mosquito's eye. Be ready to clench!” The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail was buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead. “Well, Jasper, lad,” continued Pathfinder, dropping the butt-end of his rifle to the ground, and resuming the discourse, as if he thought nothing of his own exploit, “you improve daily. A few more tramps on land in my company, and the best marksman on the frontiers will have occasion to look keenly when he takes his stand ag'in you. The Quartermaster is respectable, but he will never get any farther; whereas you, Jasper, have the gift, and may one day defy any who pull trigger.” “Hoot, hoot!” exclaimed Muir; “do you call hitting the head of the nail respectable only, when it's the perfection of the art? Any one the least refined and elevated in sentiment knows that the delicate touches denote the master; whereas your sledge-hammer blows come from the rude and uninstructed. If 'a miss is as good as a mile,' a hit ought to be better, Pathfinder, whether it wound or kill.” “The surest way of settling this rivalry will be to make another trial,” observed Lundie, “and that will be of the potato. You're Scotch, Mr. Muir, and might fare better were it a cake or a thistle; but frontier law has declared for the American fruit, and the potato it shall be.” As Major Duncan manifested some impatience of manner, Muir had too much tact to delay the sports any longer with his discursive remarks, but judiciously prepared himself for the next appeal. To say the truth, the Quartermaster had little or no faith in his own success in the trial of skill that was to follow, nor would he have been so free in presenting himself as a competitor at all had he anticipated it would have been made; but Major Duncan, who was somewhat of a humorist in his own quiet Scotch way, had secretly ordered it to be introduced expressly to mortify him; for, a laird himself, Lundie did not relish the notion that one who might claim to be a gentleman should bring discredit on his caste by forming an unequal alliance. As soon as everything was prepared, Muir was summoned to the stand, and the potato was held in readiness to be thrown. As the sort of feat we are about to offer to the reader, however, may be new to him, a word in explanation will render the matter more clear. A potato of large size was selected, and given to one who stood at the distance of twenty yards from the stand. At the word “heave!” which was given by the marksman, the vegetable was thrown with a gentle toss into the air, and it was the business of the adventurer to cause a ball to pass through it before it reached the ground. The Quartermaster, in a hundred experiments, had once succeeded in accomplishing this difficult feat; but he now essayed to perform it again, with a sort of blind hope that was fated to be disappointed. The potato was thrown in the usual manner, the rifle was discharged, but the flying target was untouched. “To the right-about, and fall out, Quartermaster,” said Lundie, smiling at the success of the artifice. “The honor of the silken calash will lie between Jasper Eau-douce and Pathfinder.” “And how is the trial to end, Major?” inquired the latter. “Are we to have the two-potato trial, or is it to be settled by centre and skin?” “By centre and skin, if there is any perceptible difference; otherwise the double shot must follow.” “This is an awful moment to me, Pathfinder,” observed Jasper, as he moved towards the stand, his face actually losing its color in intensity of feeling. Pathfinder gazed earnestly at the young man; and then, begging Major Duncan to have patience for a moment, he led his friend out of the hearing of all near him before he spoke. “You seem to take this matter to heart, Jasper?” the hunter remarked, keeping his eyes fastened on those of the youth. “I must own, Pathfinder, that my feelings were never before so much bound up in success.” “And do you so much crave to outdo me, an old and tried friend? --and that, as it might be, in my own way? Shooting is my gift, boy, and no common hand can equal mine.” “I know it--I know it, Pathfinder; but yet--” “But what, Jasper, boy? --speak freely; you talk to a friend.” The young man compressed his lips, dashed a hand across his eye, and flushed and paled alternately, like a girl confessing her love. Then, squeezing the other's hand, he said calmly, like one whose manhood has overcome all other sensations, “I would lose an arm, Pathfinder, to be able to make an offering of that calash to Mabel Dunham.” The hunter dropped his eyes to the ground, and as he walked slowly back towards the stand, he seemed to ponder deeply on what he had just heard. “You never could succeed in the double trial, Jasper!” he suddenly remarked. “Of that I am certain, and it troubles me.” “What a creature is mortal man! He pines for things which are not of his gift and treats the bounties of Providence lightly. No matter, no matter. Take your station, Jasper, for the Major is waiting; and harken, lad,--I must touch the skin, for I could not show my face in the garrison with less than that.” “I suppose I must submit to my fate,” returned Jasper, flushing and losing his color as before; “but I will make the effort, if I die.” “What a thing is mortal man!” repeated Pathfinder, falling back to allow his friend room to take his arm; “he overlooks his own gifts, and craves those of another!” The potato was thrown, Jasper fired, and the shout that followed preceded the announcement of the fact that he had driven his bullet through its centre, or so nearly so as to merit that award. “Here is a competitor worthy of you, Pathfinder,” cried Major Duncan with delight, as the former took his station; “and we may look to some fine shooting in the double trial.” “What a thing is mortal man!” repeated the hunter, scarcely seeming to notice what was passing around him, so much were his thoughts absorbed in his own reflections. “Toss!” The potato was tossed, the rifle cracked,--it was remarked just as the little black ball seemed stationary in the air, for the marksman evidently took unusual heed to his aim,--and then a look of disappointment and wonder succeeded among those who caught the falling target. “Two holes in one?” called out the Major. “The skin, the skin!” was the answer; “only the skin!” “How's this, Pathfinder? Is Jasper Eau-douce to carry off the honors of the day?” “The calash is his,” returned the other, shaking his head and walking quietly away from the stand. “What a creature is mortal man! never satisfied with his own gifts, but for ever craving that which Providence denies!” As Pathfinder had not buried his bullet in the potato, but had cut through the skin, the prize was immediately adjudged to Jasper. The calash was in the hands of the latter when the Quartermaster approached, and with a polite air of cordiality he wished his successful rival joy of his victory. “But now you've got the calash, lad, it's of no use to you,” he added; “it will never make a sail, nor even an ensign. I'm thinking, Eau-douce, you'd no' be sorry to see its value in good siller of the king?” “Money cannot buy it, Lieutenant,” returned Jasper, whose eye lighted with all the fire of success and joy. “I would rather have won this calash than have obtained fifty new suits of sails for the _Scud! _” “Hoot, hoot, lad! you are going mad like all the rest of them. I'd even venture to offer half a guinea for the trifle rather than it should lie kicking about in the cabin of your cutter, and in the end become an ornament for the head of a squaw.” Although Jasper did not know that the wary Quartermaster had not offered half the actual cost of the prize, he heard the proposition with indifference. Shaking his head in the negative, he advanced towards the stage, where his approach excited a little commotion, the officers' ladies, one and all, having determined to accept the present, should the gallantry of the young sailor induce him to offer it. But Jasper's diffidence, no less than admiration for another, would have prevented him from aspiring to the honor of complimenting any whom he thought so much his superiors. “Mabel,” said he, “this prize is for you, unless--” “Unless what, Jasper?” answered the girl, losing her own bashfulness in the natural and generous wish to relieve his embarrassment, though both reddened in a way to betray strong feeling. “Unless you may think too indifferently of it, because it is offered by one who may have no right to believe his gift will be accepted.” “I do accept it, Jasper; and it shall be a sign of the danger I have passed in your company, and of the gratitude I feel for your care of me--your care, and that of the Pathfinder.” “Never mind me, never mind me!” exclaimed the latter; “this is Jasper's luck, and Jasper's gift: give him full credit for both. My turn may come another day; mine and the Quartermaster's, who seems to grudge the boy the calash; though what _he_ can want of it I cannot understand, for he has no wife.” “And has Jasper Eau-douce a wife? Or have you a wife yoursel', Pathfinder? I may want it to help to get a wife, or as a memorial that I have had a wife, or as proof how much I admire the sex, or because it is a female garment, or for some other equally respectable motive. It's not the unreflecting that are the most prized by the thoughtful, and there is no surer sign that a man made a good husband to his first consort, let me tell you all, than to see him speedily looking round for a competent successor. The affections are good gifts from Providence, and they that have loved one faithfully prove how much of this bounty has been lavished upon them by loving another as soon as possible.” “It may be so, it may be so. I am no practitioner in such things, and cannot gainsay it. But Mabel here, the Sergeant's daughter, will give you full credit for the words. Come, Jasper, although our hands are out, let us see what the other lads can do with the rifle.” Pathfinder and his companions retired, for the sports were about to proceed. The ladies, however, were not so much engrossed with rifle-shooting as to neglect the calash. It passed from hand to hand; the silk was felt, the fashion criticized, and the work examined, and divers opinions were privately ventured concerning the fitness of so handsome a thing passing into the possession of a non-commissioned officer's child. “Perhaps you will be disposed to sell that calash, Mabel, when it has been a short time in your possession?” inquired the captain's lady. “Wear it, I should think, you never can.” “I may not wear it, madam,” returned our heroine modestly; “but I should not like to part with it either.” “I daresay Sergeant Dunham keeps you above the necessity of selling your clothes, child; but, at the same time, it is money thrown away to keep an article of dress you can never wear.” “I should be unwilling to part with the gift of a friend.” “But the young man himself will think all the better of you for your prudence after the triumph of the day is forgotten. It is a pretty and a becoming calash, and ought not to be thrown away.” “I've no intention to throw it away, ma'am; and, if you please, would rather keep it.” “As you will, child; girls of your age often overlook the real advantages. Remember, however, if you do determine to dispose of the thing, that it is bespoke, and that I will not take it if you ever even put it on your own head.” “Yes, ma'am,” said Mabel, in the meekest voice imaginable, though her eyes looked like diamonds, and her cheeks reddened to the tints of two roses, as she placed the forbidden garment over her well-turned shoulders, where she kept it a minute, as if to try its fitness, and then quietly removed it again. The remainder of the sports offered nothing of interest. The shooting was reasonably good; but the trials were all of a scale lower than those related, and the competitors were soon left to themselves. The ladies and most of the officers withdrew, and the remainder of the females soon followed their example. Mabel was returning along the low flat rocks that line the shore of the lake, dangling her pretty calash from a prettier finger, when Pathfinder met her. He carried the rifle which he had used that day; but his manner had less of the frank ease of the hunter about it than usual, while his eye seemed roving and uneasy. After a few unmeaning words concerning the noble sheet of water before them, he turned towards his companion with strong interest in his countenance, and said,-- “Jasper earned that calash for you, Mabel, without much trial of his gifts.” “It was fairly done, Pathfinder.” “No doubt, no doubt. The bullet passed neatly through the potato, and no man could have done more; though others might have done as much.” “But no one did as much!” exclaimed Mabel, with an animation that she instantly regretted; for she saw by the pained look of the guide that he was mortified equally by the remark and by the feeling with which it was uttered. “It is true, it is true, Mabel, no one did as much then; but--yet there is no reason I should deny my gifts which come from Providence--yes, yes; no one did as much there, but you shall know what _can_ be done here. Do you observe the gulls that are flying over our heads?” “Certainly, Pathfinder; there are too many to escape notice.” “Here, where they cross each other in sailing about,” he added, cocking and raising his rifle; “the two--the two. Now look!” The piece was presented quick as thought, as two of the birds came in a line, though distant from each other many yards; the report followed, and the bullet passed through the bodies of both victims. No sooner had the gulls fallen into the lake, than Pathfinder dropped the butt-end of the rifle, and laughed in his own peculiar manner, every shade of dissatisfaction and mortified pride having left his honest face. “That is something, Mabel, that is something; although I have no calash to give you! But ask Jasper himself; I'll leave it all to Jasper, for a truer tongue and heart are not in America.” “Then it was not Jasper's fault that he gained the prize?” “Not it. He did his best, and he did well. For one that has water gifts, rather than land gifts, Jasper is uncommonly expert, and a better backer no one need wish, ashore or afloat. But it was my fault, Mabel, that he got the calash; though it makes no difference--it makes no difference, for the thing has gone to the right person.” “I believe I understand you, Pathfinder,” said Mabel, blushing in spite of herself, “and I look upon the calash as the joint gift of yourself and Jasper.” “That would not be doing justice to the lad, neither. He won the garment, and had a right to give it away. The most you may think, Mabel, is to believe that, had I won it, it would have gone to the same person.” “I will remember that, Pathfinder, and take care that others know your skill, as it has been proved upon the poor gulls in my presence.” “Lord bless you, Mabel! there is no more need of your talking in favor of my shooting on this frontier, than of your talking about the water in the lake or the sun in the heavens. Everybody knows what I can do in that way, and your words would be thrown away, as much as French would be thrown away on an American bear.” “Then you think that Jasper knew you were giving him this advantage, of which he had so unhandsomely availed himself?” said Mabel, the color which had imparted so much lustre to her eyes gradually leaving her face, which became grave and thoughtful. “I do not say that, but very far from it. We all forget things that we have known, when eager after our wishes. Jasper is satisfied that I can pass one bullet through two potatoes, as I sent my bullet through the gulls; and he knows no other man on the frontier can do the same thing. But with the calash before his eyes, and the hope of giving it to you, the lad was inclined to think better of himself, just at that moment, perhaps, than he ought. No, no, there's nothing mean or distrustful about Jasper Eau-douce, though it is a gift natural to all young men to wish to appear well in the eyes of handsome young women.” “I'll try to forget all, but the kindness you've both shown to a poor motherless girl,” said Mabel, struggling to keep down emotions she scarcely knew how to account for herself. “Believe me, Pathfinder, I can never forget all you have already done for me--you and Jasper; and this new proof of your regard is not thrown away. Here, here is a brooch that is of silver, and I offer it as a token that I owe you life or liberty.” “What shall I do with this, Mabel?” asked the bewildered hunter, holding the simple trinket in his hand. “I have neither buckle nor button about me, for I wear nothing but leathern strings, and them of good deer-skins. It's pretty to the eye, but it is prettier far on the spot it came from than it can be about me.” “Nay, put it in your hunting-shirt; it will become it well. Remember, Pathfinder, that it is a token of friendship between us, and a sign that I can never forget you or your services.” Mabel then smiled an adieu; and, bounding up the bank, she was soon lost to view behind the mound of the fort.	{ "id": "1880" }
12	None	Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight, Along the leaguer'd wall, and bristling bank, Of the arm'd river; while with straggling light, The stars peep through the vapor, dim and dank. BYRON. A few hours later Mabel Dunham was on the bastion that overlooked the river and the lake, seemingly in deep thought. The evening was calm and soft, and the question had arisen whether the party for the Thousand Islands would be able to get out that night or not, on account of the total absence of wind. The stores, arms, and ammunition were already shipped, and even Mabel's effects were on board; but the small draft of men that was to go was still ashore, there being no apparent prospect of the cutter's getting under way. Jasper had warped the _Scud_ out of the cove, and so far up the stream as to enable him to pass through the outlet of the river whenever he chose; but there he still lay, riding at single anchor. The drafted men were lounging about the shore of the cove, undecided whether or not to pull off. The sports of the morning had left a quiet in the garrison which was in harmony with the whole of the beautiful scene, and Mabel felt its influence on her feelings, though probably too little accustomed to speculate on such sensations to be aware of the cause. Everything near appeared lovely and soothing, while the solemn grandeur of the silent forest and placid expanse of the lake lent a sublimity that other scenes might have wanted. For the first time, Mabel felt the hold that the towns and civilization had gained on her habits sensibly weakened; and the warm-hearted girl began to think that a life passed amid objects such as those around her might be happy. How far the experience of the last days came in aid of the calm and holy eventide, and contributed towards producing that young conviction, may be suspected, rather than affirmed, in this early portion of our legend. “A charming sunset, Mabel!” said the hearty voice of her uncle, so close to the ear of our heroine as to cause her to start,--“a charming sunset, girl, for a fresh-water concern, though we should think but little of it at sea.” “And is not nature the same on shore or at sea--on a lake like this or on the ocean? Does not the sun shine on all alike, dear uncle; and can we not feel gratitude for the blessings of Providence as strongly on this remote frontier as in our own Manhattan?” “The girl has fallen in with some of her mother's books. Is not nature the same, indeed! Now, Mabel, do you imagine that the nature of a soldier is the same as that of a seafaring man? You've relations in both callings, and ought to be able to answer.” “But uncle, I mean human nature.” “So do I, girl; the human nature of a seaman, and the human nature of one of these fellows of the 55th, not even excepting your own father. Here have they had a shooting-match--target-firing I should call it--this day, and what a different thing has it been from a target-firing afloat! There we should have sprung our broadside, sported with round shot, at an object half a mile off, at the very nearest; and the potatoes, if there happened to be any on board, as very likely would not have been the case, would have been left in the cook's coppers. It may be an honorable calling, that of a soldier, Mabel; but an experienced hand sees many follies and weaknesses in one of these forts. As for that bit of a lake, you know my opinion of it already, and I wish to disparage nothing. No real seafarer disparages anything; but, d---me, if I regard this here Ontario, as they call it, as more than so much water in a ship's scuttle-butt. Now, look you here, Mabel, if you wish to understand the difference between the ocean and a lake, I can make you comprehend it with a single look: this is what one may call a calm, seeing that there is no wind; though, to own the truth, I do not think the calms are as calm as them we get outside--” “Uncle, there is not a breath of air. I do not think it possible for the leaves to be more immovably still than those of the entire forest are at this very moment.” “Leaves! what are leaves, child? there are no leaves at sea. If you wish to know whether it is a dead calm or not, try a mould candle,--your dips flaring too much,--and then you may be certain whether there is or is not any wind. If you were in a latitude where the air was so still that you found a difficulty in stirring it to draw it in in breathing, you might fancy it a calm. People are often on a short allowance of air in the calm latitudes. Here, again, look at that water! It is like milk in a pan, with no more motion now than there is in a full hogshead before the bung is started. On the ocean the water is never still, let the air be as quiet as it may.” “The water of the ocean never still, Uncle Cap? not even in a calm?” “Bless your heart, no, child! The ocean breathes like a living being, and its bosom is always heaving, as the poetizers call it, though there be no more air than is to be found in a siphon. No man ever saw the ocean still like this lake; but it heaves and sets as if it had lungs.” “And this lake is not absolutely still, for you perceive there is a little ripple on the shore, and you may even hear the surf plunging at moments against the rocks.” “All d----d poetry! Lake Ontario is no more the Atlantic than a Powles Hook periagila is a first-rate. That Jasper, notwithstanding, is a fine lad, and wants instruction only to make a man of him.” “Do you think him ignorant, uncle?” answered Mabel, prettily adjusting her hair, in order to do which she was obliged, or fancied she was obliged, to turn away her face. “To me Jasper Eau-douce appears to know more than most of the young men of his class. He has read but little, for books are not plenty in this part of the world; but he has thought much, as least so it seems to me, for one so young.” “He is ignorant, as all must be who navigate an inland water like this. No, no, Mabel; we both owe something to Jasper and the Pathfinder, and I have been thinking how I can best serve them, for I hold ingratitude to be the vice of a hog; for treat the animal to your own dinner, and he would eat you for the dessert.” “Very true, dear uncle; we ought indeed to do all we can to express our proper sense of the services of both these brave men.” “Spoken like your mother's daughter, girl, and in a way to do credit to the Cap family. Now, I've hit upon a traverse that will just suit all parties; and, as soon as we get back from this little expedition down the lake among them there Thousand Islands, and I am ready to return, it is my intention to propose it.” “Dearest uncle! this is so considerate in you, and will be so just! May I ask what your intentions are?” “I see no reason for keeping them a secret from you, Mabel, though nothing need be said to your father about them; for the Sergeant has his prejudices, and might throw difficulties in the way. Neither Jasper nor his friend Pathfinder can ever make anything hereabouts, and I propose to take both with me down to the coast, and get them fairly afloat. Jasper would find his sea-legs in a fortnight, and a twelvemonth's v'y'ge would make him a man. Although Pathfinder might take more time, or never get to be rated able, yet one could make something of him too, particularly as a look-out, for he has unusually good eyes.” “Uncle, do you think either would consent to this?” said Mabel smiling. “Do I suppose them simpletons? What rational being would neglect his own advancement? Let Jasper alone to push his way, and the lad may yet die the master of some square-rigged craft.” “And would he be any the happier for it, dear uncle? How much better is it to be the master of a square-rigged craft than to be master of a round-rigged craft?” “Pooh, pooh, Magnet! You are just fit to read lectures about ships before some hysterical society; you don't know what you are talking about; leave these things to me, and they'll be properly managed. Ah! Here is the Pathfinder himself, and I may just as well drop him a hint of my benevolent intentions as regards himself. Hope is a great encourager of our exertions.” Cap nodded his head, and then ceased to speak, while the hunter approached, not with his usual frank and easy manner, but in a way to show that he was slightly embarrassed, if not distrustful of his reception. “Uncle and niece make a family party,” said Pathfinder, when near the two, “and a stranger may not prove a welcome companion?” “You are no stranger, Master Pathfinder,” returned Cap, “and no one can be more welcome than yourself. We were talking of you but a moment ago, and when friends speak of an absent man, he can guess what they have said.” “I ask no secrets. Every man has his enemies, and I have mine, though I count neither you, Master Cap, nor pretty Mabel here among the number. As for the Mingos, I will say nothing, though they have no just cause to hate me.” “That I'll answer for, Pathfinder! for you strike my fancy as being well-disposed and upright. There is a method, however, of getting away from the enmity of even these Mingos; and if you choose to take it, no one will more willingly point it out than myself, without a charge for my advice either.” “I wish no enemies, Saltwater,” for so the Pathfinder had begun to call Cap, having, insensibly to himself, adopted the term, by translating the name given him by the Indians in and about the fort,--“I wish no enemies. I'm as ready to bury the hatchet with the Mingos as with the French, though you know that it depends on One greater than either of us so to turn the heart as to leave a man without enemies.” “By lifting your anchor, and accompanying me down to the coast, friend Pathfinder, when we get back from this short cruise on which we are bound, you will find yourself beyond the sound of the war-whoop, and safe enough from any Indian bullet.” “And what should I do on the salt water? Hunt in your towns? Follow the trails of people going and coming from market, and ambush dogs and poultry? You are no friend to my happiness, Master Cap, if you would lead me out of the shades of the woods to put me in the sun of the clearings.” “I did not propose to leave you in the settlements, Pathfinder, but to carry you out to sea, where a man can only be said to breathe freely. Mabel will tell you that such was my intention, before a word was said on the subject.” “And what does Mabel think would come of such a change? She knows that a man has his gifts, and that it is as useless to pretend to others as to withstand them that come from Providence. I am a hunter, and a scout, or a guide, Saltwater, and it is not in me to fly so much in the face of Heaven as to try to become anything else. Am I right, Mabel, or are you so much a woman as to wish to see a natur' altered?” “I would wish to see no change in you, Pathfinder,” Mabel answered, with a cordial sincerity and frankness that went directly to the hunter's heart; “and much as my uncle admires the sea, and great as is all the good that he thinks may come of it, I could not wish to see the best and noblest hunter of the woods transformed into an admiral. Remain what you are, my brave friend, and you need fear nothing short of the anger of God.” “Do you hear this, Saltwater? do you hear what the Sergeant's daughter is saying, and she is much too upright, and fair-minded, and pretty, not to think what she says. So long as she is satisfied with me as I am, I shall not fly in the face of the gifts of Providence, by striving to become anything else. I may seem useless here in a garrison; but when we get down among the Thousand Islands, there may be an opportunity to prove that a sure rifle is sometimes a Godsend.” “You are then to be of our party?” said Mabel, smiling so frankly and so sweetly on the guide that he would have followed her to the end of the earth. “I shall be the only female, with the exception of one soldier's wife, and shall feel none the less secure, Pathfinder, because you will be among our protectors.” “The Sergeant would do that, Mabel, though you were not of his kin. No one will overlook you. I should think your uncle here would like an expedition of this sort, where we shall go with sails, and have a look at an inland sea?” “Your inland sea is no great matter, Master Pathfinder, and I expect nothing from it. I confess, however, I should like to know the object of the cruise; for one does not wish to be idle, and my brother-in-law, the Sergeant, is as close-mouthed as a freemason. Do you know, Mabel, what all this means?” “Not in the least, uncle. I dare not ask my father any questions about his duty, for he thinks it is not a woman's business; and all I can say is, that we are to sail as soon as the wind will permit, and that we are to be absent a month.” “Perhaps Master Pathfinder can give me a useful hint; for a v'y'ge without an object is never pleasant to an old sailor.” “There is no great secret, Saltwater, concerning our port and object, though it is forbidden to talk much about either in the garrison. I am no soldier, however, and can use my tongue as I please, though as little given as another to idle conversation, I hope; still, as we sail so soon, and you are both to be of the party, you may as well be told where you are to be carried. You know that there are such things as the Thousand Islands, I suppose, Master Cap?” “Ay, what are so called hereaway, though I take it for granted that they are not real islands, such as we fall in with on the ocean; and that the thousand means some such matter as two or three.” “My eyes are good, and yet have I often been foiled in trying to count them very islands.” “Ay, ay, I've known people who couldn't count beyond a certain number. Your real land-birds never know their own roosts, even in a landfall at sea. How many times have I seen the beach, and houses, and churches, when the passengers have not been able to see anything but water! I have no idea that a man can get fairly out of sight of land on fresh water. The thing appears to me to be irrational and impossible.” “You don't know the lakes, Master Cap, or you would not say that. Before we get to the Thousand Islands, you will have other notions of what natur' has done in this wilderness.” “I have my doubts whether you have such a thing as a real island in all this region.” “We'll show you hundreds of them; not exactly a thousand, perhaps, but so many that eye cannot see them all, nor tongue count them.” “I'll engage, when the truth comes to be known, they'll turn out to be nothing but peninsulas, or promontories; or continents; though these are matters, I daresay, of which you know little or nothing. But, islands or no islands, what is the object of the cruise, Master Pathfinder?” “There can be no harm in giving you some idea of what we are going to do. Being so old a sailor, Master Cap, you've heard, no doubt, of such a port as Frontenac?” “Who hasn't? I will not say I've ever been inside the harbor, but I've frequently been off the place.” “Then you are about to go upon ground with which you are acquainted. These great lakes, you must know, make a chain, the water passing out of one into the other, until it reaches Erie, which is a sheet off here to the westward, as large as Ontario itself. Well, out of Erie the water comes, until it reaches a low mountain like, over the edge of which it passes.” “I should like to know how the devil it can do that?” “Why, easy enough, Master Cap,” returned Pathfinder, laughing, “seeing that it has only to fall down hill. Had I said the water went _up_ the mountain, there would have been natur' ag'in it; but we hold it no great matter for water to run down hill--that is, _fresh_ water.” “Ay, ay, but you speak of the water of a lake's coming down the side of a mountain; it's in the teeth of reason, if reason has any teeth.” “Well, well, we will not dispute the point; but what I've seen I've seen. After getting into Ontario, all the water of _all_ the lakes passes down into the sea by a river; and in the narrow part of the sheet, where it is neither river nor lake, lie the islands spoken of. Now Frontenac is a post of the Frenchers above these same islands; and, as they hold the garrison below, their stores and ammunition are sent up the river to Frontenac, to be forwarded along the shores of this and the other lakes, in order to enable the enemy to play his devilries among the savages, and to take Christian scalps.” “And will our presence prevent these horrible acts?” demanded Mabel, with interest. “It may or it may not, as Providence wills. Lundie, as they call him, he who commands this garrison, sent a party down to take a station among the islands, to cut off some of the French boats; and this expedition of ours will be the second relief. As yet they've not done much, though two bateaux loaded with Indian goods have been taken; but a runner came in last week, and brought such tidings that the Major is about to make a last effort to circumvent the knaves. Jasper knows the way, and we shall be in good hands, for the Sergeant is prudent, and of the first quality at an ambushment; yes, he is both prudent and alert.” “Is this all?” said Cap contemptuously; “by the preparations and equipments, I had thought there was a forced trade in the wind, and that an honest penny might be turned by taking an adventure. I suppose there are no shares in your fresh-water prize-money?” “Anan?” “I take it for granted the king gets all in these soldiering parties, and ambushments, as you call them.” “I know nothing about that, Master Cap. I take my share of the lead and powder if any falls into our hands, and say nothing to the king about it. If any one fares better, it is not I; though it is time I did begin to think of a house and furniture and a home.” Although the Pathfinder did not dare to look at Mabel while he made this direct allusion to his change of life, he would have given the world to know whether she was listening, and what was the expression of her countenance. Mabel little suspected the nature of the allusion, however; and her countenance was perfectly unembarrassed as she turned her eyes towards the river, where the appearance of some movement on board the _Scud_ began to be visible. “Jasper is bringing the cutter out,” observed the guide, whose look was drawn in the same direction by the fall of some heavy article on the deck. “The lad sees the signs of wind, no doubt, and wishes to be ready for it.” “Ay, now we shall have an opportunity of learning seamanship,” returned Cap, with a sneer. “There is a nicety in getting a craft under her canvas that shows the thoroughbred mariner as much as anything else. It's like a soldier buttoning his coat, and one can see whether he begins at the top or the bottom.” “I will not say that Jasper is equal to your seafarers below,” observed Pathfinder, across whose upright mind an unworthy feeling of envy or of jealousy never passed; “but he is a bold boy, and manages his cutter as skillfully as any man can desire, on this lake at least. You didn't find him backwards at the Oswego Falls, Master Cap, where fresh water contrives to tumble down hill with little difficulty.” Cap made no other answer than a dissatisfied ejaculation, and then a general silence followed, all on the bastion studying the movements of the cutter with the interest that was natural to their own future connection with the vessel. It was still a dead calm, the surface of the lake literally glittering with the last rays of the sun. The _Scud_ had been warped up to a kedge that lay a hundred yards above the points of the outlet, where she had room to manoeuvre in the river which then formed the harbor of Oswego. But the total want of air prevented any such attempt, and it was soon evident that the light vessel was to be taken through the passage under her sweeps. Not a sail was loosened; but as soon as the kedge was tripped, the heavy fall of the sweeps was heard, when the cutter, with her head up stream, began to sheer towards the centre of the current; on reaching which, the efforts of the men ceased, and she drifted towards the outlet. In the narrow pass itself her movement was rapid, and in less than five minutes the _Scud_ was floating outside of the two low gravelly points which intercepted the waves of the lake. No anchor was let go, but the vessel continued to set off from the land, until her dark hull was seen resting on the glossy surface of the lake, full a quarter of a mile beyond the low bluff which formed the eastern extremity of what might be called the outer harbor or roadstead. Here the influence of the river current ceased, and she became, virtually, stationary. “She seems very beautiful to me, uncle,” said Mabel, whose gaze had not been averted from the cutter for a single moment while it had thus been changing its position; “I daresay you can find faults in her appearance, and in the way she is managed; but to my ignorance both are perfect.” “Ay, ay; she drops down with a current well enough, girl, and so would a chip. But when you come to niceties, all old tar like myself has no need of spectacles to find fault.” “Well, Master Cap,” put in the guide, who seldom heard anything to Jasper's prejudice without manifesting a disposition to interfere, “I've heard old and experienced saltwater mariners confess that the _Scud_ is as pretty a craft as floats. I know nothing of such matters myself; but one may have his own notions about a ship, even though they be wrong notions; and it would take more than one witness to persuade me Jasper does not keep his boat in good order.” “I do not say that the cutter is downright lubberly, Master Pathfinder; but she has faults, and great faults.” “And what are they, uncle? If he knew them, Jasper would be glad to mend them.” “What are they? Why, fifty; ay, for that matter a hundred. Very material and manifest faults.” “Do name them, sir, and Pathfinder will mention them to his friend.” “Name them! it is no easy matter to call off the stars, for the simple reason that they are so numerous. Name them, indeed! Why, my pretty niece, Miss Magnet, what do you think of that main-boom now? To my ignorant eyes, it is topped at least a foot too high; and then the pennant is foul; and--and--ay, d---me, if there isn't a topsail gasket adrift; and it wouldn't surprise me at all if there should be a round turn in that hawser, if the kedge were to be let go this instant. Faults indeed! No seaman could look at her a moment without seeing that she is as full of faults as a servant who has asked for his discharge.” “This may be very true, uncle, though I much question if Jasper knows of them. I do not think he would suffer these things, Pathfinder, if they were once pointed out to him.” “Let Jasper manage his own cutter, Mabel. His gift lies that-a-way, and I'll answer for it, no one can teach him how to keep the _Scud_ out of the hands of the Frontenackers or their devilish Mingo friends. Who cares for round turns in kedges, and for hawsers that are topped too high, Master Cap, so long as the craft sails well, and keeps clear of the Frenchers? I will trust Jasper against all the seafarers of the coast, up here on the lakes; but I do not say he has any gift for the ocean, for there he has never been tried.” Cap smiled condescendingly, but he did not think it necessary to push his criticisms any further just as that moment. By this time the cutter had begun to drift at the mercy of the currents of the lake, her head turning in all directions, though slowly, and not in a way to attract particular attention. Just at this moment the jib was loosened and hoisted, and presently the canvas swelled towards the land, though no evidences of air were yet to be seen on the surface of the water. Slight, however, as was the impulsion, the light hull yielded; and in another minute the _Scud_ was seen standing across the current of the river with a movement so easy and moderate as to be scarcely perceptible. When out of the stream, she struck an eddy and shot up towards the land, under the eminence where the fort stood, when Jasper dropped his kedge. “Not lubberly done,” muttered Cap in a sort of soliloquy,--“not over lubberly, though he should have put his helm a-starboard instead of a-port; for a vessel ought always to come-to with her head off shore, whether she is a league from the land or only a cable's length, since it has a careful look, and looks are something in this world.” “Jasper is a handy lad,” suddenly observed Sergeant Dunham at his brother-in-law's elbow; “and we place great reliance on his skill in our expeditions. But come, one and all, we have but half an hour more of daylight to embark in, and the boats will be ready for us by the time we are ready for them.” On this intimation the whole party separated, each to find those trifles which had not been shipped already. A few taps of the drum gave the necessary signal to the soldiers, and in a minute all were in motion.	{ "id": "1880" }
13	None	The goblin now the fool alarms, Hags meet to mumble o'er their charms, The night-mare rides the dreaming ass, And fairies trip it on the grass. COTTON. The embarkation of so small a party was a matter of no great delay or embarrassment. The whole force confided to the care of Sergeant Dunham consisted of but ten privates and two non-commissioned officers, though it was soon positively known that Mr. Muir was to accompany the expedition. The Quartermaster, however, went as a volunteer, while some duty connected with his own department, as had been arranged between him and his commander, was the avowed object. To these must be added the Pathfinder and Cap, with Jasper and his subordinates, one of whom was a boy. The party, consequently, consisted of less than twenty men, and a lad of fourteen. Mabel and the wife of a common soldier were the only females. Sergeant Dunham carried off his command in a large bateau, and then returned for his final orders, and to see that his brother-in-law and daughter were properly attended to. Having pointed out to Cap the boat that he and Mabel were to use, he ascended the hill to seek his last interview with Lundie. It was nearly dark when Mabel found herself in the boat that was to carry her off to the cutter. So very smooth was the surface of the lake, that it was not found necessary to bring the bateaux into the river to receive their freights; but the beach outside being totally without surf, and the water as tranquil as that of a pond, everybody embarked there. When the boat left the land, Mabel would not have known that she was afloat on so broad a sheet of water by any movement which is usual to such circumstances. The oars had barely time to give a dozen strokes, when the boat lay at the cutter's side. Jasper was in readiness to receive his passengers; and, as the deck of the _Scud_ was but two or three feet above the water, no difficulty was experienced in getting on board of her. As soon as this was effected, the young man pointed out to Mabel and her companion the accommodations prepared for their reception. The little vessel contained four apartments below, all between decks having been expressly constructed with a view to the transportation of officers and men, with their wives and families. First in rank was what was called the after-cabin, a small apartment that contained four berths, and which enjoyed the advantage of possessing small windows, for the admission of air and light. This was uniformly devoted to females whenever any were on board; and as Mabel and her companion were alone, they had ample accommodation. The main cabin was larger, and lighted from above. It was now appropriated to the Quartermaster, the Sergeant, Cap, and Jasper; the Pathfinder roaming through any part of the cutter he pleased, the female apartment excepted. The corporals and common soldiers occupied the space beneath the main hatch, which had a deck for such a purpose, while the crew were berthed, as usual, in the forecastle. Although the cutter did not measure quite fifty tons, the draft of officers and men was so light, that there was ample room for all on board, there being space enough to accommodate treble the number, if necessary. As soon as Mabel had taken possession of her own really comfortable cabin, in doing which she could not abstain from indulging in the pleasant reflection that some of Jasper's favor had been especially manifested in her behalf, she went on deck again. Here all was momentarily in motion; the men were roving to and fro, in quest of their knapsacks and other effects; but method and habit soon reduced things to order, when the stillness on board became even imposing, for it was connected with the idea of future adventure and ominous preparation. Darkness was now beginning to render objects on shore indistinct, the whole of the land forming one shapeless black outline of even forest summits, to be distinguished from the impending heavens only by the greater light of the sky. The stars, however, soon began to appear in the latter, one after another, in their usual mild, placid lustre, bringing with them that sense of quiet which ordinarily accompanies night. There was something soothing, as well as exciting, in such a scene; and Mabel, who was seated on the quarter-deck, sensibly felt both influences. The Pathfinder was standing near her, leaning, as usual, on his long rifle, and she fancied that, through the growing darkness of the hour, she could trace even stronger lines of thought than usual in his rugged countenance. “To you, Pathfinder, expeditions like this can be no great novelty,” said she; “though I am surprised to find how silent and thoughtful the men appear to be.” “We learn this by making war ag'in Indians. Your militia are great talkers and little doers in general; but the soldier who has often met the Mingos learns to know the value of a prudent tongue. A silent army, in the woods, is doubly strong; and a noisy one, doubly weak. If tongues made soldiers, the women of a camp would generally carry the day.” “But we are neither an army, nor in the woods. There can be no danger of Mingos in the _Scud_.” “No one is safe from a Mingo, who does not understand his very natur'; and even then he must act up to his own knowledge, and that closely. Ask Jasper how he got command of this very cutter.” “And how _did_ he get command?” inquired Mabel, with an earnestness and interest that quite delighted her simple-minded and true-hearted companion, who was never better pleased than when he had an opportunity of saying aught in favor of a friend. “It is honorable to him that he has reached this station while yet so young.” “That is it; but he deserved it all, and more. A frigate wouldn't have been too much to pay for so much spirit and coolness, had there been such a thing on Ontario, as there is not, hows'ever, or likely to be.” “But Jasper--you have not yet told me how he got the command of the schooner.” “It is a long story, Mabel, and one your father, the Sergeant, can tell much better than I; for he was present, while I was off on a distant scouting. Jasper is not good at a story, I will own that; I have heard him questioned about this affair, and he never made a good tale of it, although every body knows it was a good thing. The _Scud_ had near fallen into the hands of the French and the Mingos, when Jasper saved her, in a way which none but a quick-witted mind and a bold heart would have attempted. The Sergeant will tell the tale better than I can, and I wish you to question him some day, when nothing better offers.” Mabel determined to ask her father to repeat the incidents of the affair that very night; for it struck her young fancy that nothing better could well offer than to listen to the praises of one who was a bad historian of his own exploits. “Will the _Scud_ remain with us when we reach the island?” she asked, after a little hesitation about the propriety of the question; “or shall we be left to ourselves?” “That's as may be: Jasper does not often keep the cutter idle when anything is to be done; and we may expect activity on his part. My gifts, however, run so little towards the water and vessels generally, unless it be among rapids and falls and in canoes, that I pretend to know nothing about it. We shall have all right under Jasper, I make no doubt, who can find a trail on Ontario as well as a Delaware can find one on the land.” “And our own Delaware, Pathfinder--the Big Serpent--why is he not with us to-night?” “Your question would have been more natural had you said, Why are _you_ here, Pathfinder? The Sarpent is in his place, while I am not in mine. He is out, with two or three more, scouting the lake shores, and will join us down among the islands, with the tidings he may gather. The Sergeant is too good a soldier to forget his rear while he is facing the enemy in front. It's a thousand pities, Mabel, your father wasn't born a general, as some of the English are who come among us; for I feel sartain he wouldn't leave a Frencher in the Canadas a week, could he have his own way with them.” “Shall we have enemies to face in front?” asked Mabel, smiling, and for the first time feeling a slight apprehension about the dangers of the expedition. “Are we likely to have an engagement?” “If we have, Mabel, there will be men enough ready and willing to stand between you and harm. But you are a soldier's daughter, and, we all know, have the spirit of one. Don't let the fear of a battle keep your pretty eyes from sleeping.” “I do feel braver out here in the woods, Pathfinder, than I ever felt before amid the weaknesses of the towns, although I have always tried to remember what I owe to my dear father.” “Ay, your mother was so before you. 'You will find Mabel, like her mother, no screamer, or a faint-hearted girl, to trouble a man in his need; but one who would encourage her mate, and help to keep his heart up when sorest prest by danger,' said the Sergeant to me, before I ever laid eyes on that sweet countenance of yours,--he did!” “And why should my father have told you this, Pathfinder?” the girl demanded a little earnestly. “Perhaps he fancied you would think the better of me if you did not believe me a silly coward, as so many of my sex love to make themselves appear.” Deception, unless it were at the expense of his enemies in the field,--nay, concealment of even a thought,--was so little in accordance with the Pathfinder's very nature, that he was not a little embarrassed by this simple question. In such a strait he involuntarily took refuge in a middle course, not revealing that which he fancied ought not to be told, nor yet absolutely concealing it. “You must know, Mabel,” said he, “that the Sergeant and I are old friends, and have stood side by side--or, if not actually side by side, I a little in advance, as became a scout, and your father with his own men, as better suited a soldier of the king--on many a hard fi't and bloody day. It's the way of us skirmishers to think little of the fight when the rifle has done cracking; and at night, around our fires, or on our marches, we talk of the things we love, just as you young women convarse about your fancies and opinions when you get together to laugh over your idees. Now it was natural that the Sergeant, having such a daughter as you, should love her better than anything else, and that he should talk of her oftener than of anything else,--while I, having neither daughter, nor sister, nor mother, nor kith, nor kin, nor anything but the Delawares to love, I naturally chimed in, as it were, and got to love you, Mabel, before I ever saw you--yes, I did--just by talking about you so much.” “And now you _have_ seen me,” returned the smiling girl, whose unmoved and natural manner proved how little she was thinking of anything more than parental or fraternal regard, “you are beginning to see the folly of forming friendships for people before you know anything about them, except by hearsay.” “It wasn't friendship--it isn't friendship, Mabel, that I feel for you. I am the friend of the Delawares, and have been so from boyhood; but my feelings for them, or for the best of them, are not the same as those I got from the Sergeant for you; and, especially, now that I begin to know you better. I'm sometimes afeared it isn't wholesome for one who is much occupied in a very manly calling, like that of a guide or scout, or a soldier even, to form friendships for women,--young women in particular,--as they seem to me to lessen the love of enterprise, and to turn the feelings away from their gifts and natural occupations.” “You surely do not mean, Pathfinder, that a friendship for a girl like me would make you less bold, and more unwilling to meet the French than you were before?” “Not so, not so. With you in danger, for instance, I fear I might become foolhardy; but before we became so intimate, as I may say, I loved to think of my scoutings, and of my marches, and outlyings, and fights, and other adventures: but now my mind cares less about them; I think more of the barracks, and of evenings passed in discourse, of feelings in which there are no wranglings and bloodshed, and of young women, and of their laughs and their cheerful, soft voices, their pleasant looks and their winning ways. I sometimes tell the Sergeant that he and his daughter will be the spoiling of one of the best and most experienced scouts on the lines.” “Not they, Pathfinder; they will try to make that which is already so excellent, perfect. You do not know us, if you think that either wishes to see you in the least changed. Remain as at present, the same honest, upright, conscientious, fearless, intelligent, trustworthy guide that you are, and neither my dear father nor myself can ever think of you differently from what we now do.” It was too dark for Mabel to note the workings of the countenance of her listener; but her own sweet face was turned towards him, as she spoke with an energy equal to her frankness, in a way to show how little embarrassed were her thoughts, and how sincere were her words. Her countenance was a little flushed, it is true; but it was with earnestness and truth of feeling, though no nerve thrilled, no limb trembled, no pulsation quickened. In short, her manner and appearance were those of a sincere-minded and frank girl, making such a declaration of good-will and regard for one of the other sex as she felt that his services and good qualities merited, without any of the emotion that invariably accompanies the consciousness of an inclination which might lead to softer disclosures. The Pathfinder was too unpractised, however, to enter into distinctions of this kind, and his humble nature was encouraged by the directness and strength of the words he had just heard. Unwilling, if not unable, to say any more, he walked away, and stood leaning on his rifle and looking up at the stars for full ten minutes in profound silence. In the meanwhile the interview on the bastion, to which we have already alluded, took place between Lundie and the Sergeant. “Have the men's knapsacks been examined?” demanded Major Duncan, after he had cast his eye at a written report, handed to him by the Sergeant, but which it was too dark to read. “All, your honor; and all are right.” “The ammunition--arms?” “All in order, Major Duncan, and fit for any service.” “You have the men named in my own draft, Dunham?” “Without an exception, sir. Better men could not be found in the regiment.” “You have need of the best of our men, Sergeant. This experiment has now been tried three times; always under one of the ensigns, who have flattered me with success, but have as often failed. After so much preparation and expense, I do not like to abandon the project entirely; but this will be the last effort; and the result will mainly depend on you and on the Pathfinder.” “You may count on us both, Major Duncan. The duty you have given us is not above our habits and experience, and I think it will be well done. I know that the Pathfinder will not be wanting.” “On that, indeed, it will be safe to rely. He is a most extraordinary man, Dunham--one who long puzzled me; but who, now that I understand him, commands as much of my respect as any general in his majesty's service.” “I was in hopes, sir, that you would come to look at the proposed marriage with Mabel as a thing I ought to wish and forward.” “As for that, Sergeant, time will show,” returned Lundie, smiling; though here, too, the obscurity concealed the nicer shades of expression; “one woman is sometimes more difficult to manage than a whole regiment of men. By the way, you know that your would-be son-in-law, the Quartermaster, will be of the party; and I trust you will at least give him an equal chance in the trial for your daughter's smiles.” “If respect for his rank, sir, did not cause me to do this, your honor's wish would be sufficient.” “I thank you, Sergeant. We have served much together, and ought to value each other in our several stations. Understand me, however, I ask no more for Davy Muir than a clear field and no favor. In love, as in war, each man must gain his own victories. Are you certain that the rations have been properly calculated?” “I'll answer for it, Major Duncan; but if they were not, we cannot suffer with two such hunters as Pathfinder and the Serpent in company.” “That will never do, Dunham,” interrupted Lundie sharply; “and it comes of your American birth and American training. No thorough soldier ever relies on anything but his commissary for supplies; and I beg that no part of my regiment may be the first to set an example to the contrary.” “You have only to command, Major Duncan, to be obeyed; and yet, if I might presume, sir--” “Speak freely, Sergeant; you are talking with a friend.” “I was merely about to say that I find even the Scotch soldiers like venison and birds quite as well as pork, when they are difficult to be had.” “That may be very true; but likes and dislikes have nothing to do with system. An army can rely on nothing but its commissaries. The irregularity of the provincials has played the devil with the king's service too often to be winked at any longer.” “General Braddock, your honor, might have been advised by Colonel Washington.” “Out upon your Washington! You're all provincials together, man, and uphold each other as if you were of a sworn confederacy.” “I believe his majesty has no more loyal subjects than the Americans, your honor.” “In that, Dunham, I'm thinking you're right; and I have been a little too warm, perhaps. I do not consider _you_ a provincial, however, Sergeant; for though born in America, a better soldier never shouldered a musket.” “And Colonel Washington, your honor?” “Well! --and Colonel Washington may be a useful subject too. He is the American prodigy; and I suppose I may as well give him all the credit you ask. You have no doubt of the skill of this Jasper Eau-douce?” “The boy has been tried, sir, and found equal to all that can be required of him.” “He has a French name, and has passed much of his boyhood in the French colonies; has he French blood in his veins, Sergeant?” “Not a drop, your honor. Jasper's father was an old comrade of my own, and his mother came of an honest and loyal family in this very province.” “How came he then so much among the French, and whence his name? He speaks the language of the Canadas, too, I find.” “That is easily explained, Major Duncan. The boy was left under the care of one of our mariners in the old war, and he took to the water like a duck. Your honor knows that we have no ports on Ontario that can be named as such, and he naturally passed most of his time on the other side of the lake, where the French have had a few vessels these fifty years. He learned to speak their language, as a matter of course, and got his name from the Indians and Canadians, who are fond of calling men by their qualities, as it might be.” “A French master is but a poor instructor for a British sailor, notwithstanding.” “I beg your pardon, sir: Jasper Eau-douce was brought up under a real English seaman, one that had sailed under the king's pennant, and may be called a thorough-bred; that is to say, a subject born in the colonies, but none the worse at his trade, I hope, Major Duncan, for that.” “Perhaps not, Sergeant, perhaps not; nor any better. This Jasper behaved well, too, when I gave him the command of the _Scud_; no lad could have conducted himself more loyally or better.” “Or more bravely, Major Duncan. I am sorry to see, sir, that you have doubts as to the fidelity of Jasper.” “It is the duty of the soldier who is entrusted with the care of a distant and important post like this, Dunham, never to relax in his vigilance. We have two of the most artful enemies that the world has ever produced, in their several ways, to contend with,--the Indians and the French,--and nothing should be overlooked that can lead to injury.” “I hope your honor considers me fit to be entrusted with any particular reason that may exist for doubting Jasper, since you have seen fit to entrust me with this command.” “It is not that I doubt you, Dunham, that I hesitate to reveal all I may happen to know; but from a strong reluctance to circulate an evil report concerning one of whom I have hitherto thought well. You must think well of the Pathfinder, or you would not wish to give him your daughter?” “For the Pathfinder's honesty I will answer with my life, sir,” returned the Sergeant firmly, and not without a dignity of manner that struck his superior. “Such a man doesn't know how to be false.” “I believe you are right, Dunham; and yet this last information has unsettled all my old opinions. I have received an anonymous communication, Sergeant, advising me to be on my guard against Jasper Western, or Jasper Eau-douce, as he is called, who, it alleges, has been bought by the enemy, and giving me reason to expect that further and more precise information will soon be sent.” “Letters without signatures to them, sir, are scarcely to be regarded in war.” “Or in peace, Dunham. No one can entertain a lower opinion of the writer of an anonymous letter, in ordinary matters, than myself; the very act denotes cowardice, meanness, and baseness; and it usually is a token of falsehood, as well as of other vices. But in matters of war it is not exactly the same thing. Besides, several suspicious circumstances have been pointed out to me.” “Such as is fit for an orderly to hear, your honor?” “Certainly, one in whom I confide as much as in yourself Dunham. It is said, for instance, that your daughter and her party were permitted to escape the Iroquois, when they came in, merely to give Jasper credit with me. I am told that the gentry at Frontenac will care more for the capture of the _Scud_, with Sergeant Dunham and a party of men, together with the defeat of our favorite plan, than for the capture of a girl and the scalp of her uncle.” “I understand the hint, sir, but I do not give it credit. Jasper can hardly be true, and Pathfinder false; and, as for the last, I would as soon distrust your honor as distrust him.” “It would seem so, Sergeant; it would indeed seem so. But Jasper is not the Pathfinder, after all; and I will own, Dunham, I should put more faith in the lad if he didn't speak French.” “It's no recommendation in my eyes, I assure your honor; but the boy learned it by compulsion, as it were, and ought not to be condemned too hastily for the circumstance, by your honor's leave.” “It's a d----d lingo, and never did any one good--at least no British subject; for I suppose the French themselves must talk together in some language or other. I should have much more faith in this Jasper, did he know nothing of their language. This letter has made me uneasy; and, were there another to whom I could trust the cutter, I would devise some means to detain him here. I have spoken to you already of a brother-in-law, who goes with you, Sergeant, and who is a sailor?” “A real seafaring man, your honor, and somewhat prejudiced against fresh water. I doubt if he could be induced to risk his character on a lake, and I'm certain he never could find the station.” “The last is probably true, and then, the man cannot know enough of this treacherous lake to be fit for the employment. You will have to be doubly vigilant, Dunham. I give you full powers; and should you detect this Jasper in any treachery, make him a sacrifice at once to offended justice.” “Being in the service of the crown, your honor, he is amenable to martial law.” “Very true; then iron him, from his head to his heels, and send him up here in his own cutter. That brother-in-law of yours must be able to find the way back, after he has once travelled the road.” “I make no doubt, Major Duncan, we shall be able to do all that will be necessary should Jasper turn out as you seem to anticipate; though I think I would risk my life on his truth.” “I like your confidence--it speaks well for the fellow; but that infernal letter! there is such an air of truth about it; nay, there is so much truth in it, touching other matters.” “I think your honor said it wanted the name at the bottom; a great omission for an honest man to make.” “Quite right, Dunham, and no one but a rascal, and a cowardly rascal in the bargain, would write an anonymous letter on private affairs. It is different, however, in war; despatches are feigned, and artifice is generally allowed to be justifiable.” “Military manly artifices, sir, if you will; such as ambushes, surprises, feints, false attacks, and even spies; but I never heard of a true soldier who could wish to undermine the character of an honest young man by such means as these.” “I have met with many strange events, and some stranger people, in the course of my experience. But fare you well, Sergeant; I must detain you no longer. You are now on your guard, and I recommend to you untiring vigilance. I think Muir means shortly to retire; and, should you fully succeed in this enterprise, my influence will not be wanting in endeavoring to put you in the vacancy, to which you have many claims.” “I humbly thank your honor,” coolly returned the Sergeant, who had been encouraged in this manner any time for the twenty preceding years, “and hope I shall never disgrace my station, whatever it may be. I am what nature and Providence have made me, and hope I'm satisfied.” “You have not forgotten the howitzer?” “Jasper took it on board this morning, sir.” “Be wary, and do not trust that man unnecessarily. Make a confidant of Pathfinder at once; he may be of service in detecting any villainy that may be stirring. His simple honesty will favor his observation by concealing it. He _must_ be true.” “For him, sir, my own head shall answer, or even my rank in the regiment. I have seen him too often tried to doubt him.” “Of all wretched sensations, Dunham, distrust, where one is compelled to confide, is the most painful. You have bethought you of the spare flints?” “A sergeant is a safe commander for all such details, your honor.” “Well, then, give me your hand, Dunham. God bless you! and may you be successful! Muir means to retire,--by the way, let the man have an equal chance with your daughter, for it may facilitate future operations about the promotion. One would retire more cheerfully with such a companion as Mabel, than in cheerless widowhood, and with nothing but oneself to love,--and such a self, too, as Davy's!” “I hope, sir, my child will make a prudent choice, and I think her mind is already pretty much made up in favor of Pathfinder. Still she shall have fair play, though disobedience is the next crime to mutiny.” “Have all the ammunition carefully examined and dried as soon as you arrive; the damp of the lake may affect it. And now, once more, farewell, Sergeant. Beware of that Jasper, and consult with Muir in any difficulty. I shall expect you to return, triumphant, this day month.” “God bless your honor! If anything should happen to me, I trust to you, Major Duncan, to care for an old soldier's character.” “Rely on me, Dunham--you will rely on a friend. Be vigilant: remember you will be in the very jaws of the lion;--pshaw! of no lion neither; but of treacherous tigers: in their very jaws, and beyond support. Have the flints counted and examined in the morning--and--farewell, Dunham, farewell!” The Sergeant took the extended hand of his superior with proper respect, and they finally parted; Lundie hastening into his own movable abode, while the other left the fort, descended to the beach, and got into a boat. It is not to be supposed that Sergeant Dunham, after he had parted from his commanding officer, was likely to forget the injunctions he had received. He thought highly of Jasper in general; but distrust had been insinuated between his former confidence and the obligations of duty; and, as he now felt that everything depended on his own vigilance, by the time the boat reached the side of the _Scud_ he was in a proper humor to let no suspicious circumstance go unheeded, or any unusual movement in the young sailor pass without its comment. As a matter of course, he viewed things in the light suited to his peculiar mood; and his precautions, as well as his distrust, partook of the habits, opinions, and education of the man. The _Scud's_ kedge was lifted as soon as the boat with the Sergeant, who was the last person expected, was seen to quit the shore, and the head of the cutter was cast to the eastward by means of the sweeps. A few vigorous strokes of the latter, in which the soldiers aided, now sent the light craft into the line or the current that flowed from the river, when she was suffered to drift into the offing again. As yet there was no wind, the light and almost imperceptible air from the lake, that had existed previously to the setting of the sun, having entirely failed. All this time an unusual quiet prevailed in the cutter. It appeared as if those on board of her felt that they were entering upon an uncertain enterprise, in the obscurity of night; and that their duty, the hour, and the manner of their departure lent a solemnity to their movements. Discipline also came in aid of these feelings. Most were silent; and those who did speak spoke seldom and in low voices. In this manner the cutter set slowly out into the lake, until she had got as far as the river current would carry her, when she became stationary, waiting for the usual land-breeze. An interval of half an hour followed, during the whole of which time the _Scud_ lay as motionless as a log, floating on the water. While the little changes just mentioned were occurring in the situation of the vessel, notwithstanding the general quiet that prevailed, all conversation had not been repressed; for Sergeant Dunham, having first ascertained that both his daughter and her female companion were on the quarter-deck, led the Pathfinder to the after-cabin, where, closing the door with great caution, and otherwise making certain that he was beyond the reach of eavesdroppers, he commenced as follows:-- “It is now many years, my friend, since you began to experience the hardships and dangers of the woods in my company.” “It is, Sergeant; yes it is. I sometimes fear I am too old for Mabel, who was not born until you and I had fought the Frenchers as comrades.” “No fear on that account, Pathfinder. I was near your age before I prevailed on the mind of her mother; and Mabel is a steady, thoughtful girl, one that will regard character more than anything else. A lad like Jasper Eau-douce, for instance, will have no chance with her, though he is both young and comely.” “Does Jasper think of marrying?” inquired the guide, simply but earnestly. “I should hope not--at least, not until he has satisfied every one of his fitness to possess a wife.” “Jasper is a gallant boy, and one of great gifts in his way; he may claim a wife as well as another.” “To be frank with you, Pathfinder, I brought you here to talk about this very youngster. Major Duncan has received some information which has led him to suspect that Eau-douce is false, and in the pay of the enemy; I wish to hear your opinion on the subject.” “Anan?” “I say, the Major suspects Jasper of being a traitor--a French spy--or, what is worse, of being bought to betray us. He has received a letter to this effect, and has been charging me to keep an eye on the boy's movements; for he fears we shall meet with enemies when we least suspect it, and by his means.” “Duncan of Lundie has told you this, Sergeant Dunham?” “He has indeed, Pathfinder; and, though I have been loath to believe anything to the injury of Jasper, I have a feeling which tells me I ought to distrust him. Do you believe in presentiments, my friend? “In what, Sergeant?” “Presentiments,--a sort of secret foreknowledge of events that are about to happen. The Scotch of our regiment are great sticklers for such things; and my opinion of Jasper is changing so fast, that I begin to fear there must be some truth in their doctrines.” “But you've been talking with Duncan of Lundie concerning Jasper, and his words have raised misgivings.” “Not it, not so in the least; for, while conversing with the Major, my feelings were altogether the other way; and I endeavored to convince him all I could that he did the boy injustice. But there is no use in holding out against a presentiment, I find; and I fear there is something in the suspicion after all.” “I know nothing of presentiments, Sergeant; but I have known Jasper Eau-douce since he was a boy, and I have as much faith in his honesty as I have in my own, or that of the Sarpent himself.” “But the Serpent, Pathfinder, has his tricks and ambushes in war as well as another.” “Ay, them are his nat'ral gifts, and are such as belong to his people. Neither red-skin nor pale-face can deny natur'; but Chingachgook is not a man to feel a presentiment against.” “That I believe; nor should I have thought ill of Jasper this very morning. It seems to me, Pathfinder, since I've taken up this presentiment, that the lad does not bustle about his deck naturally, as he used to do; but that he is silent and moody and thoughtful, like a man who has a load on his conscience.” “Jasper is never noisy; and he tells me noisy ships are generally ill-worked ships. Master Cap agrees in this too. No, no; I will believe naught against Jasper until I see it. Send for your brother, Sergeant, and let us question him in this matter; for to sleep with distrust of one's friend in the heart is like sleeping with lead there. I have no faith in your presentiments.” The Sergeant, although he scarcely knew himself with what object, complied, and Cap was summoned to join in the consultation. As Pathfinder was more collected than his companion, and felt so strong a conviction of the good faith of the party accused, he assumed the office of spokesman. “We have asked you to come down, Master Cap,” he commenced, “in order to inquire if you have remarked anything out of the common way in the movements of Eau-douce this evening.” “His movements are common enough, I daresay, for fresh water, Master Pathfinder, though we should think most of his proceedings irregular down on the coast.” “Yes, yes; we know you will never agree with the lad about the manner the cutter ought to be managed; but it is on another point we wish your opinion.” The Pathfinder then explained to Cap the nature of the suspicions which the Sergeant entertained, and the reasons why they had been excited, so far as the latter had been communicated by Major Duncan. “The youngster talks French, does he?” said Cap. “They say he speaks it better than common,” returned the Sergeant gravely. “Pathfinder knows this to be true.” “I'll not gainsay it,” answered the guide; “at least, they tell me such is the fact. But this would prove nothing ag'in a Mississauga, and, least of all, ag'in one like Jasper. I speak the Mingo dialect myself, having learnt it while a prisoner among the reptyles; but who will say I am their friend? Not that I am an enemy, either, according to Indian notions; though I am their enemy, I will admit, agreeable to Christianity.” “Ay Pathfinder; but Jasper did not get his French as a prisoner: he took it in his boyhood, when the mind is easily impressed, and gets its permanent notions; when nature has a presentiment, as it were, which way the character is likely to incline.” “A very just remark,” added Cap, “for that is the time of life when we all learn the catechism, and other moral improvements. The Sergeant's observation shows that he understands human nature, and I agree with him perfectly; it _is_ a damnable thing for a youngster, up here, on this bit of fresh water, to talk French. If it were down on the Atlantic, now, where a seafaring man has occasion sometimes to converse with a pilot, or a linguister, in that language, I should not think so much of it,--though we always look with suspicion, even there, at a shipmate who knows too much of the tongue; but up here, on Ontario, I hold it to be a most suspicious circumstance.” “But Jasper must talk in French to the people on the other shore,” said Pathfinder, “or hold his tongue, as there are none but French to speak to.” “You don't mean to tell me, Pathfinder, that France lies hereaway, on the opposite coast?” cried Cap, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Canadas; “that one side of this bit of fresh water is York, and the other France?” “I mean to tell you this is York, and that is Upper Canada; and that English and Dutch and Indian are spoken in the first, and French and Indian in the last. Even the Mingos have got many of the French words in their dialect, and it is no improvement, neither.” “Very true: and what sort of people are the Mingos, my friend?” inquired the Sergeant, touching the other on his shoulder, by way of enforcing a remark, the inherent truth of which sensibly increased its value in the eyes of the speaker: “no one knows them better than yourself, and I ask you what sort of a tribe are they?” “Jasper is no Mingo, Sergeant.” “He speaks French, and he might as well be, in that particular. Brother Cap, can you recollect no movement of this unfortunate young man, in the way of his calling, that would seem to denote treachery?” “Not distinctly, Sergeant, though he has gone to work wrong-end foremost half his time. It is true that one of his hands coiled a rope against the sun, and he called it _querling_ a rope, too, when I asked him what he was about; but I am not certain that anything was meant by it; though, I daresay, the French coil half their running rigging the wrong way, and may call it 'querling it down,' too, for that matter. Then Jasper himself belayed the end of the jib-halyards to a stretcher in the rigging, instead of bringing it to the mast, where they belong, at least among British sailors.” “I daresay Jasper may have got some Canada notions about working his craft, from being so much on the other side,” Pathfinder interposed; “but catching an idee, or a word, isn't treachery and bad faith. I sometimes get an idee from the Mingos themselves; but my heart has always been with the Delawares. No, no, Jasper is true; and the king might trust him with his crown, just as he would trust his eldest son, who, as he is to wear it one day, ought to be the last man to wish to steal it.” “Fine talking, fine talking!” said Cap; “all fine talking, Master Pathfinder, but d----d little logic. In the first place, the king's majesty cannot lend his crown, it being contrary to the laws of the realm, which require him to wear it at all times, in order that his sacred person may be known, just as the silver oar is necessary to a sheriff's officer afloat. In the next place, it's high treason, by law, for the eldest son of his majesty ever to covet the crown, or to have a child, except in lawful wedlock, as either would derange the succession. Thus you see, friend Pathfinder that in order to reason truly, one must get under way, as it might be, on the right tack. Law is reason, and reason is philosophy, and philosophy is a steady drag; whence it follows that crowns are regulated by law, reason, and philosophy.” “I know little of all this; Master Cap; but nothing short of seeing and feeling will make me think Jasper Western a traitor.” “There you are wrong again, Pathfinder; for there is a way of proving a thing much more conclusively than either seeing or feeling, or by both together; and that is by a circumstance.” “It may be so in the settlements; but it is not so here on the lines.” “It is so in nature, which is monarch over all. There was a circumstance, just after we came on board this evening, that is extremely suspicious, and which may be set down at once as a makeweight against this lad. Jasper bent on the king's ensign with his own hands; and, while he pretended to be looking at Mabel and the soldier's wife, giving directions about showing them below here, and a that, he got the flag union down!” “That might have been accident,” returned the Sergeant, “for such a thing has happened to myself; besides, the halyards lead to a pulley, and the flag would have come right, or not, according to the manner in which the lad hoisted it.” “A pulley!” exclaimed Cap, with strong disgust; “I wish, Sergeant Dunham, I could prevail on you to use proper terms. An ensign-halyard-block is no more a pulley than your halberd is a boarding-pike. It is true that by hoisting on one part, another part would go uppermost; but I look upon that affair of the ensign, now you have mentioned your suspicions, as a circumstance, and shall bear it in mind. I trust supper is not to be overlooked, however, even if we have a hold full of traitors.” “It will be duly attended to, brother Cap; but I shall count on you for aid in managing the _Scud_, should anything occur to induce me to arrest Jasper.” “I'll not fail you, Sergeant; and in such an event you'll probably learn what this cutter can really perform; for, as yet, I fancy it is pretty much matter of guesswork.” “Well, for my part,” said Pathfinder, drawing a heavy sigh, “I shall cling to the hope of Jasper's innocence, and recommend plain dealing, by asking the lad himself, without further delay, whether he is or is not a traitor. I'll put Jasper Western against all the presentiments and circumstances in the colony.” “That will never do,” rejoined the Sergeant. “The responsibility of this affair rests with me, and I request and enjoin that nothing be said to any one without my knowledge. We will all keep watchful eyes about us, and take proper note of circumstances.” “Ay, ay! circumstances are the things after all,” returned Cap. “One circumstance is worth fifty facts. That I know to be the law of the realm. Many a man has been hanged on circumstances.” The conversation now ceased, and, after a short delay, the whole party returned to the deck, each individual disposed to view the conduct of the suspected Jasper in the manner most suited to his own habits and character.	{ "id": "1880" }
14	None	Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, Drew Priam's Curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burned. SHAKESPEARE. All this time matters were elsewhere passing in their usual train. Jasper, like the weather and his vessel, seemed to be waiting for the land-breeze; while the soldiers, accustomed to early rising, had, to a man, sought their pallets in the main hold. None remained on deck but the people of the cutter, Mr. Muir, and the two females. The Quartermaster was endeavoring to render himself agreeable to Mabel, while our heroine herself, little affected by his assiduities, which she ascribed partly to the habitual gallantry of a soldier, and partly, perhaps, to her own pretty face, was enjoying the peculiarities of a scene and situation which, to her, were full of the charms of novelty. The sails had been hoisted, but as yet not a breath of air was in motion; and so still and placid was the lake, that not the smallest motion was perceptible in the cutter. She had drifted in the river-current to a distance a little exceeding a quarter of a mile from the land, and there she lay, beautiful in her symmetry and form, but like a fixture. Young Jasper was on the quarter-deck, near enough to hear occasionally the conversation which passed; but too diffident of his own claim, and too intent on his duties, to attempt to mingle in it. The fine blue eyes of Mabel followed his motions in curious expectation, and more than once the Quartermaster had to repeat his compliments before she heard them, so intent was she on the little occurrences of the vessel, and, we might add, so indifferent to the eloquence of her companion. At length, even Mr. Muir became silent, and there was a deep stillness on the water. Presently an oar-blade fell in a boat beneath the fort, and the sound reached the cutter as distinctly as if it had been produced on her deck. Then came a murmur, like a sigh of the night, a fluttering of the canvas, the creaking of the boom, and the flap of the jib. These well-known sounds were followed by a slight heel in the cutter, and by the bellying of all the sails. “Here's the wind, Anderson,” called out Jasper to the oldest of his sailors; “take the helm.” This brief order was obeyed; the helm was put up, the cutter's bows fell off, and in a few minutes the water was heard murmuring under her head, as the _Scud_ glanced through the lake at the rate of five miles in the hour. All this passed in profound silence, when Jasper again gave the order to “ease off the sheets a little and keep her along the land.” It was at this instant that the party from the after-cabin reappeared on the quarter-deck. “You've no inclination, Jasper lad, to trust yourself too near our neighbours the French,” observed Muir, who took that occasion to recommence the discourse. “Well, well, your prudence will never be questioned by me, for I like the Canadas as little as you can possibly like them yourself.” “I hug this shore, Mr. Muir, on account of the wind. The land-breeze is always freshest close in, provided you are not so near as to make a lee of the trees. We have Mexico Bay to cross; and that, on the present course, will give us quite offing enough.” “I'm right glad it's not the Bay of Mexico,” put in Cap, “which is a part of the world I would rather not visit in one of your inland craft. Does your cutter bear a weather helm, master Eau-douce?” “She is easy on her rudder, master Cap; but likes looking up at the breeze as well as another, when in lively motion.” “I suppose you have such things as reefs, though you can hardly have occasion to use them?” Mabel's bright eye detected the smile that gleamed for an instant on Jasper's handsome face; but no one else saw that momentary exhibition of surprise and contempt. “We have reefs, and often have occasion to use them,” quietly returned the young man. “Before we get in, Master Cap, an opportunity may offer to show you the manner in which we do so; for there is easterly weather brewing, and the wind cannot chop, even on the ocean itself, more readily than it flies round on Lake Ontario.” “So much for knowing no better! I have seen the wind in the Atlantic fly round like a coach-wheel, in a way to keep your sails shaking for an hour, and the ship would become perfectly motionless from not knowing which way to turn.” “We have no such sudden changes here, certainly,” Jasper mildly answered; “though we think ourselves liable to unexpected shifts of wind. I hope, however, to carry this land-breeze as far as the first islands; after which there will be less danger of our being seen and followed by any of the look-out boats from Frontenac.” “Do you think the French keep spies out on the broad lake, Jasper?” inquired the Pathfinder. “We know they do; one was off Oswego during the night of Monday last. A bark canoe came close in with the eastern point, and landed an Indian and an officer. Had you been outlying that night, as usual, we should have secured one, if not both of them.” It was too dark to betray the color that deepened on the weather-burnt features of the guide; for he felt the consciousness of having lingered in the fort that night, listening to the sweet tones of Mabel's voice as she sang ballads to her father, and gazing at the countenance which, to him, was radiant with charms. Probity in thought and deed being the distinguishing quality of this extraordinary man's mind, while he felt that a sort of disgrace ought to attach to his idleness on the occasion mentioned, the last thought that could occur would be to attempt to palliate or deny his negligence. “I confess it, Jasper, I confess it,” said he humbly. “Had I been out that night,--and I now recollect no sufficient reason why I was not,--it might, indeed, have turned out as you say.” “It was the evening you passed with us, Pathfinder,” Mabel innocently remarked; “surely one who lives so much of his time in the forest, in front of the enemy, may be excused for giving a few hours of his time to an old friend and his daughter.” “Nay, nay, I've done little else but idle since we reached the garrison,” returned the other, sighing; “and it is well that the lad should tell me of it: the idler needs a rebuke--yes, he needs a rebuke.” “Rebuke, Pathfinder! I never dreamt of saying anything disagreeable, and least of all would I think of rebuking you, because a solitary spy and an Indian or two have escaped us. Now I know where you were, I think your absence the most natural thing in the world.” “I think nothing of what you said, Jasper, since it was deserved. We are all human, and all do wrong.” “This is unkind, Pathfinder.” “Give me your hand, lad, give me your hand. It wasn't you that gave the lesson; it was conscience.” “Well, well,” interrupted Cap; “now this latter matter is settled to the satisfaction of all parties, perhaps you will tell us how it happened to be known that there were spies near us so lately. This looks amazingly like a circumstance.” As the mariner uttered the last sentence, he pressed a foot slily on that of the Sergeant, and nudged the guide with his elbow, winking at the same time, though this sign was lost in the obscurity. “It is known, because their trail was found next day by the Serpent, and it was that of a military boot and a moccasin. One of our hunters, moreover, saw the canoe crossing towards Frontenac next morning.” “Did the trail lead near the garrison, Jasper?” Pathfinder asked in a manner so meek and subdued that it resembled the tone of a rebuked schoolboy. “Did the trail lead near the garrison, lad?” “We thought not; though, of course, it did not cross the river. It was followed down to the eastern point, at the river's mouth, where what was doing in port, might be seen; but it did not cross, as we could discover.” “And why didn't you get under weigh, Master Jasper,” Cap demanded, “and give chase? On Tuesday morning it blew a good breeze; one in which this cutter might have run nine knots.” “That may do on the ocean, Master Cap,” put in Pathfinder, “but it would not do here. Water leaves no trail, and a Mingo and a Frenchman are a match for the devil in a pursuit.” “Who wants a trail when the chase can be seen from the deck, as Jasper here said was the case with this canoe? and it mattered nothing if there were twenty of your Mingos and Frenchmen, with a good British-built bottom in their wake. I'll engage, Master Eau-douce, had you given me a call that said Tuesday morning, that we should have overhauled the blackguards.” “I daresay, Master Cap, that the advice of as old a seaman as you might have done no harm to as young a sailor as myself, but it is a long and a hopeless chase that has a bark canoe in it.” “You would have had only to press it hard, to drive it ashore.” “Ashore, master Cap! You do not understand our lake navigation at all, if you suppose it an easy matter to force a bark canoe ashore. As soon as they find themselves pressed, these bubbles paddle right into the wind's eye, and before you know it, you find yourself a mile or two dead under their lee.” “You don't wish me to believe, Master Jasper, that any one is so heedless of drowning as to put off into this lake in one of them eggshells when there is any wind?” “I have often crossed Ontario in a bark canoe, even when there has been a good deal of sea on. Well managed, they are the driest boats of which we have any knowledge.” Cap now led his brother-in-law and Pathfinder aside, when he assured him that the admission of Jasper concerning the spies was “a circumstance,” and “a strong circumstance,” and as such it deserved his deliberate investigation; while his account of the canoes was so improbable as to wear the appearance of brow-beating the listeners. Jasper spoke confidently of the character of the two individuals who had landed, and this Cap deemed pretty strong proof that he knew more about them than was to be gathered from a mere trail. As for moccasins, he said that they were worn in that part of the world by white men as well as by Indians; he had purchased a pair himself; and boots, it was notorious, did not particularly make a soldier. Although much of this logic was thrown away on the Sergeant, still it produced some effect. He thought it a little singular himself, that there should have been spies detected so near the fort and he know nothing of it; nor did he believe that this was a branch of knowledge that fell particularly within the sphere of Jasper. It was true that the _Scud_ had, once or twice, been sent across the lake to land men of this character, or to bring them off; but then the part played by Jasper, to his own certain knowledge, was very secondary, the master of the cutter remaining as ignorant as any one else of the purport of the visits of those whom he had carried to and fro; nor did he see why he alone, of all present, should know anything of the late visit. Pathfinder viewed the matter differently. With his habitual diffidence, he reproached himself with a neglect of duty, and that knowledge, of which the want struck him as a fault in one whose business it was to possess it, appeared a merit in the young man. He saw nothing extraordinary in Jasper's knowing the facts he had related; while he did feel it was unusual, not to say disgraceful, that he himself now heard of them for the first time. “As for moccasins, Master Cap,” said he, when a short pause invited him to speak, “they may be worn by pale-faces as well as by red-skins, it is true, though they never leave the same trail on the foot of one as on the foot of the other. Any one who is used to the woods can tell the footstep of an Indian from the footstep of a white man, whether it be made by a boot or a moccasin. It will need better evidence than this to persuade me into the belief that Jasper is false.” “You will allow, Pathfinder, that there are such things in the world as traitors?” put in Cap logically. “I never knew an honest-minded Mingo,--one that you could put faith in, if he had a temptation to deceive you. Cheating seems to be their gift, and I sometimes think they ought to be pitied for it, rather than persecuted.” “Then why not believe that this Jasper may have the same weakness? A man is a man, and human nature is sometimes but a poor concern, as I know by experience.” This was the opening of another long and desultory conversation, in which the probability of Jasper's guilt or innocence was argued _pro_ and _con_, until both the Sergeant and his brother-in-law had nearly reasoned themselves into settled convictions in favor of the first, while their companion grew sturdier and sturdier in his defence of the accused, and still more fixed in his opinion of his being unjustly charged with treachery. In this there was nothing out of the common course of things; for there is no more certain way of arriving at any particular notion, than by undertaking to defend it; and among the most obstinate of our opinions may be classed those which are derived from discussions in which we affect to search for truth, while in reality we are only fortifying prejudice. By this time the Sergeant had reached a state of mind that disposed him to view every act of the young sailor with distrust, and he soon got to coincide with his relative in deeming the peculiar knowledge of Jasper, in reference to the spies, a branch of information that certainly did not come within the circle of his regular duties, as “a circumstance.” While this matter was thus discussed near the taffrail, Mabel sat silently by the companion-way, Mr. Muir having gone below to look after his personal comforts, and Jasper standing a little aloof, with his arms crossed, and his eyes wandering from the sails to the clouds, from the clouds to the dusky outline of the shore, from the shore to the lake, and from the lake back again to the sails. Our heroine, too, began to commune with her own thoughts. The excitement of the late journey, the incidents which marked the day of her arrival at the fort, the meeting with a father who was virtually a stranger to her, the novelty of her late situation in the garrison, and her present voyage, formed a vista for the mind's eye to look back through, which seemed lengthened into months. She could with difficulty believe that she had so recently left the town, with all the usages of civilized life; and she wondered in particular that the incidents which had occurred during the descent of the Oswego had made so little impression on her mind. Too inexperienced to know that events, when crowded, have the effect of time, or that the quick succession of novelties that pass before us in travelling elevates objects, in a measure, to the dignity of events, she drew upon her memory for days and dates, in order to make certain that she had known Jasper, and the Pathfinder, and her own father, but little more than a fortnight. Mabel was a girl of heart rather than of imagination, though by no means deficient in the last, and she could not easily account for the strength of her feelings in connection with those who were so lately strangers to her; for she was not sufficiently accustomed to analyze her sensations to understand the nature of the influences that have just been mentioned. As yet, however, her pure mind was free from the blight of distrust, and she had no suspicion of the views of either of her suitors; and one of the last thoughts that could have voluntarily disturbed her confidence would have been to suppose it possible either of her companions was a traitor to his king and country. America, at the time of which we are writing, was remarkable for its attachment to the German family that then sat on the British throne; for, as is the fact with all provinces, the virtues and qualities that are proclaimed near the centre of power, as incense and policy, get to be a part of political faith with the credulous and ignorant at a distance. This truth is just as apparent to-day, in connection with the prodigies of the republic, as it then was in connection with those distant rulers, whose merits it was always safe to applaud, and whose demerits it was treason to reveal. It is a consequence of this mental dependence, that public opinion is so much placed at the mercy of the designing; and the world, in the midst of its idle boasts of knowledge and improvement, is left to receive its truths, on all such points as touch the interests of the powerful and managing, through such a medium, and such a medium only, as may serve the particular views of those who pull the wires. Pressed upon by the subjects of France, who were then encircling the British colonies with a belt of forts and settlements that completely secured the savages for allies, it would have been difficult to say whether the Americans loved the English more than they hated the French; and those who then lived probably would have considered the alliance which took place between the cis-Atlantic subjects and the ancient rivals of the British crown, some twenty years later, as an event entirely without the circle of probabilities. Disaffection was a rare offence; and, most of all, would treason, that should favor France or Frenchmen, have been odious in the eyes of the provincials. The last thing that Mabel would suspect of Jasper was the very crime with which he now stood secretly charged; and if others near her endured the pains of distrust, she, at least, was filled with the generous confidence of a woman. As yet no whisper had reached her ear to disturb the feeling of reliance with which she had early regarded the young sailor, and her own mind would have been the last to suggest such a thought of itself. The pictures of the past and of the present, therefore, that exhibited themselves so rapidly to her active imagination, were unclouded with a shade that might affect any in whom she felt an interest; and ere she had mused, in the manner related, a quarter of an hour, the whole scene around her was filled with unalloyed satisfaction. The season and the night, to represent them truly, were of a nature to stimulate the sensations which youth, health, and happiness are wont to associate with novelty. The weather was warm, as is not always the case in that region even in summer, while the air that came off the land, in breathing currents, brought with it the coolness and fragrance of the forest. The wind was far from being fresh, though there was enough of it to drive the _Scud_ merrily ahead, and, perhaps, to keep attention alive, in the uncertainty that more or less accompanies darkness. Jasper, however, appeared to regard it with complacency, as was apparent by what he said in a short dialogue that now occurred between him and Mabel. “At this rate, Eau-douce,”--for so Mabel had already learned to style the young sailor,--said our heroine, “we cannot be long in reaching our place of destination.” “Has your father then told you what that is, Mabel?” “He has told me nothing; my father is too much of a soldier, and too little used to have a family around him, to talk of such matters. Is it forbidden to say whither we are bound?” “It cannot be far, while we steer in this direction, for sixty or seventy miles will take us into the St. Lawrence, which the French might make too hot for us; and no voyage on this lake can be very long.” “So says my uncle Cap; but to me, Jasper, Ontario and the ocean appear very much the same.” “You have then been on the ocean; while I, who pretend to be a sailor, have never yet seen salt water. You must have a great contempt for such a mariner as myself, in your heart, Mabel Dunham?” “Then I have no such thing in my heart, Jasper Eau-douce. What right have I, a girl without experience or knowledge, to despise any, much less one like you, who are trusted by the Major, and who command a vessel like this? I have never been on the ocean, though I have seen it; and, I repeat, I see no difference between this lake and the Atlantic.” “Nor in them that sail on both? I was afraid, Mabel, your uncle had said so much against us fresh-water sailors, that you had begun to look upon us as little better than pretenders?” “Give yourself no uneasiness on that account, Jasper; for I know my uncle, and he says as many things against those who live ashore, when at York, as he now says against those who sail on fresh water. No, no, neither my father nor myself think anything of such opinions. My uncle Cap, if he spoke openly, would be found to have even a worse notion of a soldier than of a sailor who never saw the sea.” “But your father, Mabel, has a better opinion of soldiers than of any one else? he wishes you to be the wife of a soldier?” “Jasper Eau-douce! --I the wife of a soldier! My father wishes it! Why should he wish any such thing? What soldier is there in the garrison that I could marry--that he could _wish me_ to marry?” “One may love a calling so well as to fancy it will cover a thousand imperfections.” “But one is not likely to love his own calling so well as to cause him to overlook everything else. You say my father wishes me to marry a soldier; and yet there is no soldier at Oswego that he would be likely to give me to. I am in an awkward position; for while I am not good enough to be the wife of one of the gentlemen of the garrison, I think even you will admit, Jasper, I am too good to be the wife of one of the common soldiers.” As Mabel spoke thus frankly she blushed, she knew not why, though the obscurity concealed the fact from her companion; and she laughed faintly, like one who felt that the subject, however embarrassing it might be, deserved to be treated fairly. Jasper, it would seem, viewed her position differently from herself. “It is true Mabel,” said he, “you are not what is called a lady, in the common meaning of the word.” “Not in any meaning, Jasper,” the generous girl eagerly interrupted: “on that head, I have no vanities, I hope. Providence has made me the daughter of a sergeant, and I am content to remain in the station in which I was born.” “But all do not remain in the stations in which they were born, Mabel; for some rise above them, and some fall below them. Many sergeants have become officers--even generals; and why may not sergeants' daughters become officers' ladies?” “In the case of Sergeant Dunham's daughter, I know no better reason than the fact that no officer is likely to wish to make her his wife,” returned Mabel, laughing. “_You_ may think so; but there are some in the 55th that know better. There is certainly one officer in that regiment, Mabel, who does wish to make you his wife.” Quick as the flashing lightning, the rapid thoughts of Mabel Dunham glanced over the five or six subalterns of the corps, who, by age and inclinations, would be the most likely to form such a wish; and we should do injustice to her habits, perhaps, were we not to say that a lively sensation of pleasure rose momentarily in her bosom, at the thought of being raised above a station which, whatever might be her professions of contentment, she felt that she had been too well educated to fill with perfect satisfaction. But this emotion was as transient as it was sudden; for Mabel Dunham was a girl of too much pure and womanly feeling to view the marriage tie through anything so worldly as the mere advantages of station. The passing emotion was a thrill produced by factitious habits, while the more settled opinion which remained was the offspring of nature and principles. “I know no officer in the 55th, or any other regiment, who would be likely to do so foolish a thing; nor do I think I myself would do so foolish a thing as to marry an officer.” “Foolish, Mabel!” “Yes, foolish, Jasper. You know, as well as I can know, what the world would think of such matters; and I should be sorry, very sorry, to find that my husband ever regretted that he had so far yielded to a fancy for a face or a figure as to have married the daughter of one so much his inferior as a sergeant.” “_Your_ husband, Mabel, will not be so likely to think of the father as to think of the daughter.” The girl was talking with spirit, though feeling evidently entered into her part of the discourse; but she paused for nearly a minute after Jasper had made the last observation before she uttered another word. Then she continued, in a manner less playful, and one critically attentive might have fancied in a manner slightly melancholy,-- “Parent and child ought so to live as not to have two hearts, or two modes of feeling and thinking. A common interest in all things I should think as necessary to happiness in man and wife, as between the other members of the same family. Most of all, ought neither the man nor the woman to have any unusual cause for unhappiness, the world furnishing so many of itself.” “Am I to understand, then, Mabel, you would refuse to marry an officer, merely because he was an officer?” “Have you a right to ask such a question, Jasper?” said Mabel smiling. “No other right than what a strong desire to see you happy can give, which, after all, may be very little. My anxiety has been increased, from happening to know that it is your father's intention to persuade you to marry Lieutenant Muir.” “My dear, dear father can entertain no notion so ridiculous--no notion so cruel!” “Would it, then, be cruel to wish you the wife of a quartermaster?” “I have told you what I think on that subject, and cannot make my words stronger. Having answered you so frankly, Jasper, I have a right to ask how you know that my father thinks of any such thing?” “That he has chosen a husband for you, I know from his own mouth; for he has told me this much during our frequent conversations while he has been superintending the shipment of the stores; and that Mr. Muir is to offer for you, I know from the officer himself, who has told me as much. By putting the two things together, I have come to the opinion mentioned.” “May not my dear father, Jasper,”--Mabel's face glowed like fire while she spoke, though her words escaped her slowly, and by a sort of involuntary impulse,--“may not my dear father have been thinking of another? It does not follow, from what you say, that Mr. Muir was in his mind.” “Is it not probable, Mabel, from all that has passed? What brings the Quartermaster here? He has never found it necessary before to accompany the parties that have gone below. He thinks of you for his wife; and your father has made up his own mind that you shall be so. You must see, Mabel, that Mr. Muir follows _you? _” Mabel made no answer. Her feminine instinct had, indeed, told her that she was an object of admiration with the Quartermaster; though she had hardly supposed to the extent that Jasper believed; and she, too, had even gathered from the discourse of her father that he thought seriously of having her disposed of in marriage; but by no process of reasoning could she ever have arrived at the inference that Mr. Muir was to be the man. She did not believe it now, though she was far from suspecting the truth. Indeed, it was her own opinion that these casual remarks of her father, which had struck her, had proceeded from a general wish to have her settled, rather than from any desire to see her united to any particular individual. These thoughts, however, she kept secret; for self-respect and feminine reserve showed her the impropriety of making them the subject of discussion with her present companion. By way of changing the conversation, therefore, after the pause had lasted long enough to be embarrassing to both parties, she said, “Of one thing you may be certain, Jasper,--and that is all I wish to say on the subject,--Lieutenant Muir, though he were a colonel, will never be the husband of Mabel Dunham. And now, tell me of your voyage;--when will it end?” “That is uncertain. Once afloat, we are at the mercy of the winds and waves. Pathfinder will tell you that he who begins to chase the deer in the morning cannot tell where he will sleep at night.” “But we are not chasing a deer, nor is it morning: so Pathfinder's moral is thrown away.” “Although we are not chasing a deer, we are after that which may be as hard to catch. I can tell you no more than I have said already; for it is our duty to be close-mouthed, whether anything depends on it or not. I am afraid, however, I shall not keep you long enough in the _Scud_ to show you what she can do at need.” “I think a woman unwise who ever marries a sailor,” said Mabel abruptly, and almost involuntarily. “This is a strange opinion; why do you hold it?” “Because a sailor's wife is certain to have a rival in his vessel. My uncle Cap, too, says that a sailor should never marry.” “He means salt-water sailors,” returned Jasper, laughing. “If he thinks wives not good enough for those who sail on the ocean, he will fancy them just suited to those who sail on the lakes. I hope, Mabel, you do not take your opinions of us fresh-water mariners from all that Master Cap says.” “Sail, ho!” exclaimed the very individual of whom they were conversing; “or boat, ho! would be nearer the truth.” Jasper ran forward; and, sure enough, a small object was discernible about a hundred yards ahead of the cutter, and nearly on her lee bow. At the first glance, he saw it was a bark canoe; for, though the darkness prevented hues from being distinguished, the eye that had become accustomed to the night might discern forms at some little distance; and the eye which, like Jasper's, had long been familiar with things aquatic, could not be at a loss in discovering the outlines necessary to come to the conclusion he did. “This may be an enemy,” the young man remarked; “and it may be well to overhaul him.” “He is paddling with all his might, lad,” observed the Pathfinder, “and means to cross your bows and get to windward, when you might as well chase a full-grown buck on snow-shoes!” “Let her luff,” cried Jasper to the man at the helm. “Luff up, till she shakes. There, steady, and hold all that.” The helmsman complied; and, as the _Scud_ was now dashing the water aside merrily, a minute or two put the canoe so far to leeward as to render escape impracticable. Jasper now sprang to the helm himself and, by judicious and careful handling, he got so near his chase that it was secured by a boat-hook. On receiving an order, the two persons who were in the canoe left it, and no sooner had they reached the deck of the cutter than they were found to be Arrowhead and his wife.	{ "id": "1880" }
15	None	What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up; But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? Tell me--and I will tell thee what is truth. COWPER. The meeting with the Indian and his wife excited no surprise in the majority of those who witnessed the occurrence; but Mabel, and all who knew of the manner in which this chief had been separated from the party of Cap, simultaneously entertained suspicions, which it was far easier to feel than to follow out by any plausible clue to certainty. Pathfinder, who alone could converse freely with the prisoners, for such they might now be considered, took Arrowhead aside, and held a long conversation with him, concerning the reasons of the latter for having deserted his charge and the manner in which he had been since employed. The Tuscarora met these inquiries, and he gave his answers with the stoicism of an Indian. As respects the separation, his excuses were very simply made, and they seemed to be sufficiently plausible. When he found that the party was discovered in its place of concealment, he naturally sought his own safety, which he secured by plunging into the woods. In a word, he had run away in order to save his life. “This is well,” returned Pathfinder, affecting to believe the other's apologies; “my brother did very wisely; but his woman followed?” “Do not the pale-faces' women follow their husbands? Would not Pathfinder have looked back to see if one he loved was coming?” This appeal was made to the guide while he was in a most fortunate frame of mind to admit its force; for Mabel and her blandishments and constancy were becoming images familiar to his thoughts. The Tuscarora, though he could not trace the reason, saw that his excuse was admitted, and he stood with quiet dignity awaiting the next inquiry. “This is reasonable and natural,” returned Pathfinder; “this is natural, and may be so. A woman would be likely to follow the man to whom she had plighted faith, and husband and wife are one flesh. Your words are honest, Tuscarora,” changing the language to the dialect of the other. “Your words are honest, and very pleasant and just. But why has my brother been so long from the fort? His friends have thought of him often, but have never seen him.” “If the doe follows the buck, ought not the buck to follow the doe?” answered the Tuscarora, smiling, as he laid a finger significantly on the shoulder of his interrogator. “Arrowhead's wife followed Arrowhead; it was right in Arrowhead to follow his wife. She lost her way, and they made her cook in a strange wigwam.” “I understand you, Tuscarora. The woman fell into the hands of the Mingos, and you kept upon their trail.” “Pathfinder can see a reason as easily as he can see the moss on the trees. It is so.” “And how long have you got the woman back, and in what manner has it been done?” “Two suns. The Dew-of-June was not long in coming when her husband whispered to her the path.” “Well, well, all this seems natural, and according to matrimony. But, Tuscarora, how did you get that canoe, and why are you paddling towards the St. Lawrence instead of the garrison?” “Arrowhead can tell his own from that of another. This canoe is mine; I found it on the shore near the fort.” “That sounds reasonable, too, for the canoe does belong to the man, and an Indian would make few words about taking it. Still, it is extraordinary that we saw nothing of the fellow and his wife, for the canoe must have left the river before we did ourselves.” This idea, which passed rapidly through the mind of the guide, was now put to the Indian in the shape of a question. “Pathfinder knows that a warrior can have shame. The father would have asked me for his daughter, and I could not give her to him. I sent the Dew-of-June for the canoe, and no one spoke to the woman. A Tuscarora woman would not be free in speaking to strange men.” All this, too, was plausible, and in conformity with Indian character and customs. As was usual, Arrowhead had received one half of his compensation previously to quitting the Mohawk; and his refraining to demand the residue was a proof of that conscientious consideration of mutual rights that quite as often distinguishes the morality of a savage as that of a Christian. To one as upright as Pathfinder, Arrowhead had conducted himself with delicacy and propriety, though it would have been more in accordance with his own frank nature to have met the father, and abided by the simple truth. Still, accustomed to the ways of Indians, he saw nothing out of the ordinary track of things in the course the other had taken. “This runs like water flowing down hill, Arrowhead,” he answered, after a little reflection, “and truth obliges me to own it. It was the gift of a red-skin to act in this way, though I do not think it was the gift of a pale-face. You would not look upon the grief of the girl's father?” Arrowhead made a quiet inclination of the body as if to assent. “One thing more my brother will tell me,” continued Pathfinder, “and there will be no cloud between his wigwam and the strong-house of the Yengeese. If he can blow away this bit of fog with his breath, his friends will look at him as he sits by his own fire, and he can look at them as they lay aside their arms, and forget that they are warriors. Why was the head of Arrowhead's canoe looking towards the St. Lawrence, where there are none but enemies to be found?” “Why were the Pathfinder and his friends looking the same way?” asked the Tuscarora calmly. “A Tuscarora may look in the same direction as a Yengeese.” “Why, to own the truth, Arrowhead, we are out scouting like; that is, sailing--in other words, we are on the king's business, and we have a right to be here, though we may not have a right to say _why_ we are here.” “Arrowhead saw the big canoe, and he loves to look on the face of Eau-douce. He was going towards the sun at evening in order to seek his wigwam; but, finding that the young sailor was going the other way, he turned that he might look in the same direction. Eau-douce and Arrowhead were together on the last trail.” “This may all be true, Tuscarora, and you are welcome. You shall eat of our venison, and then we must separate. The setting sun is behind us, and both of us move quick: my brother will get too far from that which he seeks, unless he turns round.” Pathfinder now returned to the others, and repeated the result of his examination. He appeared himself to believe that the account of Arrowhead might be true, though he admitted that caution would be prudent with one he disliked; but his auditors, Jasper excepted, seemed less disposed to put faith in the explanations. “This chap must be ironed at once, brother Dunham,” said Cap, as soon as Pathfinder finished his narration; “he must be turned over to the master-at-arms, if there is any such officer on fresh water, and a court-martial ought to be ordered as soon as we reach port.” “I think it wisest to detain the fellow,” the Sergeant answered; “but irons are unnecessary so long as he remains in the cutter. In the morning the matter shall be inquired into.” Arrowhead was now summoned and told the decision. The Indian listened gravely, and made no objections. On the contrary, he submitted with the calm and reserved dignity with which the American aborigines are known to yield to fate; and he stood apart, an attentive but calm observer of what was passing. Jasper caused the cutter's sails to be filled, and the _Scud_ resumed her course. It was now getting near the hour to set the watch, and when it was usual to retire for the night. Most of the party went below, leaving no one on deck but Cap, the Sergeant, Jasper, and two of the crew. Arrowhead and his wife also remained, the former standing aloof in proud reserve, and the latter exhibiting, by her attitude and passiveness, the meek humility that characterizes an Indian woman. “You will find a place for your wife below, Arrowhead, where my daughter will attend to her wants,” said the Sergeant kindly, who was himself on the point of quitting the deck; “yonder is a sail where you may sleep yourself.” “I thank my father. The Tuscaroras are not poor. The woman will look for my blankets in the canoe.” “As you wish, my friend. We think it necessary to detain you; but not necessary to confine or to maltreat you. Send your squaw into the canoe for the blankets and you may follow her yourself, and hand us up the paddles. As there may be some sleepy heads in the _Scud_, Eau-douce,” added the Sergeant in a lower tone, “it may be well to secure the paddles.” Jasper assented, and Arrowhead and his wife, with whom resistance appeared to be out of the question, silently complied with the directions. A few expressions of sharp rebuke passed from the Indian to his wife, while both were employed in the canoe, which the latter received with submissive quiet, immediately repairing an error she had made by laying aside the blanket she had taken and searching for another that was more to her tyrant's mind. “Come, bear a hand, Arrowhead,” said the Sergeant, who stood on the gunwale overlooking the movements of the two, which were proceeding too slowly for the impatience of a drowsy man; “it is getting late; and we soldiers have such a thing as reveille--early to bed and early to rise.” “Arrowhead is coming,” was the answer, as the Tuscarora stepped towards the head of his canoe. One blow of his keen knife severed the rope which held the boat, and then the cutter glanced ahead, leaving the light bubble of bark, which instantly lost its way, almost stationary. So suddenly and dexterously was this manoeuvre performed, that the canoe was on the lee quarter of the _Scud_ before the Sergeant was aware of the artifice, and quite in her wake ere he had time to announce it to his companions. “Hard-a-lee!” shouted Jasper, letting fly the jib-sheet with his own hands, when the cutter came swiftly up to the breeze, with all her canvas flapping, or was running into the wind's eye, as seamen term it, until the light craft was a hundred feet to windward of her former position. Quick and dexterous as was this movement, and ready as had been the expedient, it was not quicker or more ready than that of the Tuscarora. With an intelligence that denoted some familiarity with vessels, he had seized his paddle and was already skimming the water, aided by the efforts of his wife. The direction he took was south-westerly, or on a line that led him equally towards the wind and the shore, while it also kept him so far aloof from the cutter as to avoid the danger of the latter falling on board of him when she filled on the other tack. Swiftly as the _Scud_ had shot into the wind, and far as she had forced ahead, Jasper knew it was necessary to cast her ere she had lost all her way; and it was not two minutes from the time the helm had been put down before the lively little craft was aback forward, and rapidly falling off, in order to allow her sails to fill on the opposite tack. “He will escape!” said Jasper the instant he caught a glimpse of the relative bearings of the cutter and the canoe. “The cunning knave is paddling dead to windward, and the _Scud_ can never overtake him!” “You have a canoe!” exclaimed the Sergeant, manifesting the eagerness of a boy to join in the pursuit; “let us launch it, and give chase!” “It will be useless. If Pathfinder had been on deck, there might have been a chance; but there is none now. To launch the canoe would have taken three or four minutes, and the time lost would be sufficient for the purposes of Arrowhead.” Both Cap and the Sergeant saw the truth of this, which would have been nearly self-evident even to one unaccustomed to vessels. The shore was distant less than half a mile, and the canoe was already glancing into its shadows, at a rate to show that it would reach the land before its pursuers could probably get half the distance. The helm of the _Scud_ was reluctantly put up again, and the cutter wore short round on her heel, coming up to her course on the other tack, as if acting on an instinct. All this was done by Jasper in profound silence, his assistants understanding what was necessary, and lending their aid in a sort of mechanical imitation. While these manoeuvres were in the course of execution, Cap took the Sergeant by a button, and led him towards the cabin-door, where he was out of ear-shot, and began to unlock his stores of thought. “Hark'e, brother Dunham,” said he, with an ominous face, “this is a matter that requires mature thought and much circumspection.” “The life of a soldier, brother Cap, is one of constant thought and circumspection. On this frontier, were we to overlook either, our scalps might be taken from our heads in the first nap.” “But I consider this capture of Arrowhead as a circumstance; and I might add his escape as another. This Jasper Freshwater must look to it.” “They are both circumstances truly, brother; but they tell different ways. If it is a circumstance against the lad that the Indian has escaped, it is a circumstance in his favor that he was first taken.” “Ay, ay, but two circumstances do not contradict each other like two negatives. If you will follow the advice of an old seaman, Sergeant, not a moment is to be lost in taking the steps necessary for the security of the vessel and all on board of her. The cutter is now slipping through the water at the rate of six knots, and as the distances are so short on this bit of a pond, we may all find ourselves in a French port before morning, and in a French prison before night.” “This may be true enough. What would you advise me to do, brother?” “In my opinion you should put this Master Freshwater under arrest on the spot; send him below under the charge of a sentinel, and transfer the command of the cutter to me. All this you have power to perform, the craft belonging to the army, and you being the commanding officer of the troops present.” Sergeant Dunham deliberated more than an hour on the propriety of this proposal; for, though sufficiently prompt when his mind was really made up, he was habitually thoughtful and wary. The habit of superintending the personal police of the garrison had made him acquainted with character, and he had long been disposed to think well of Jasper. Still that subtle poison, suspicion, had entered his soul; and so much were the artifices and intrigues of the French dreaded, that, especially warned as he had been by his commander, it is not to be wondered that the recollection of years of good conduct should vanish under the influence of a distrust so keen, and seemingly so plausible. In this embarrassment the Sergeant consulted the Quartermaster, whose opinion, as his superior, he felt bound to respect, though at the moment independent of his control. It is an unfortunate occurrence for one who is in a dilemma to ask advice of another who is desirous of standing well in his favor, the party consulted being almost certain to try to think in the manner which will be the most agreeable to the party consulting. In the present instance it was equally unfortunate, as respects a candid consideration of the subject, that Cap, instead of the Sergeant himself, made the statement of the case; for the earnest old sailor was not backward in letting his listener perceive to which side he was desirous that the Quartermaster should lean. Lieutenant Muir was much too politic to offend the uncle and father of the woman he hoped and expected to win, had he really thought the case admitted of doubt; but, in the manner in which the facts were submitted to him, he was seriously inclined to think that it would be well to put the control of the _Scud_ temporarily into the management of Cap, as a precaution against treachery. This opinion then decided the Sergeant, who forthwith set about the execution of the necessary measures. Without entering into any explanations, Sergeant Dunham simply informed Jasper that he felt it to be his duty to deprive him temporarily of the command of the cutter, and to confer it on his own brother-in-law. A natural and involuntary burst of surprise, which escaped the young man, was met by a quiet remark, reminding him that military service was often of a nature that required concealment, and a declaration that the present duty was of such a character that this particular arrangement had become indispensable. Although Jasper's astonishment remained undiminished,--the Sergeant cautiously abstaining from making any allusion to his suspicions,--the young man was accustomed to obey with military submission; and he quietly acquiesced, with his own mouth directing the little crew to receive their further orders from Cap until another change should be effected. When, however, he was told the case required that not only he himself, but his principal assistant, who, on account of his long acquaintance with the lake, was usually termed the pilot, were to remain below, there was an alteration in his countenance and manner that denoted strong feeling, though it was so well mastered as to leave even the distrustful Cap in doubt as to its meaning. As a matter of course, however, when distrust exists, it was not long before the worst construction was put upon it. As soon as Jasper and the pilot were below, the sentinel at the hatch received private orders to pay particular attention to both; to allow neither to come on deck again without giving instant notice to the person who might then be in charge of the cutter, and to insist on his return below as soon as possible. This precaution, however, was uncalled for; Jasper and his assistant both throwing themselves silently on their pallets, which neither quitted again that night. “And now, Sergeant,” said Cap, as soon as he found himself master of the deck, “you will just have the goodness to give me the courses and distance, that I may see the boat keeps her head the right way.” “I know nothing of either, brother Cap,” returned Dunham, not a little embarrassed at the question. “We must make the best of our way to the station among the Thousand Islands, 'where we shall land, relieve the party that is already out, and get information for our future government.' That's it, nearly word for word, as it stands in the written orders.” “But you can muster a chart--something in the way of bearings and distances, that I may see the road?” “I do not think Jasper ever had anything of the sort to go by.” “No chart, Sergeant Dunham!” “Not a scrap of a pen even. Our sailors navigate this lake without any aid from maps.” “The devil they do! They must be regular Yahoos. And do you suppose, Sergeant Dunham, that I can find one island out of a thousand without knowing its name or its position, without even a course or a distance?” “As for the _name_, brother Cap, you need not be particular, for not one of the whole thousand _has_ a name, and so a mistake can never be made on that score. As for the position, never having been there myself, I can tell you nothing about it, nor do I think its position of any particular consequence, provided we find the spot. Perhaps one of the hands on deck can tell us the way.” “Hold on, Sergeant--hold on a moment, if you please, Sergeant Dunham. If I am to command this craft, it must be done, if you please, without holding any councils of war with the cook and cabin-boy. A ship-master is a ship-master, and he must have an opinion of his own, even if it be a wrong one. I suppose you know service well enough to understand that it is better in a commander to go wrong than to go nowhere. At all events, the Lord High Admiral couldn't command a yawl with dignity, if he consulted the cockswain every time he wished to go ashore. No sir, if I sink, I sink! but, d---me, I'll go down ship-shape and with dignity.” “But, brother Cap, I have no wish to go down anywhere, unless it be to the station among the Thousand Islands whither we are bound.” “Well, well, Sergeant, rather than ask advice--that is, direct, barefaced advice--of a foremast hand, or any other than a quarter-deck officer, I would go round to the whole thousand, and examine them one by one until we got the right haven. But there is such a thing as coming at an opinion without manifesting ignorance, and I will manage to rouse all there is out of these hands, and make them think all the while that I am cramming them with my own experience! We are sometimes obliged to use the glass at sea when there is nothing in sight, or to heave the lead long before we strike soundings. When a youngster, sailed two v'y'ges with a man who navigated his ship pretty much by the latter sort of information, which sometimes answers.” “I know we are steering in the right direction at present,” returned the Sergeant; “but in the course of a few hours we shall be up with a headland, where we must feel our way with more caution.” “Leave me to pump the man at the wheel, brother, and you shall see that I will make him suck in a very few minutes.” Cap and the Sergeant now walked aft, until they stood by the sailor who was at the helm, Cap maintaining an air of security and tranquillity, like one who was entirely confident of his own powers. “This is a wholesome air, my lad,” Cap observed, in the manner that a superior on board a vessel sometimes condescends to use to a favored inferior. “Of course you have it in this fashion off the land every night?” “At this season of the year, sir,” the man returned, touching his hat, out of respect, to his new commander and Sergeant Dunham's connection. “The same thing, I take it, among the Thousand Islands? The wind will stand, of course, though we shall then have land on every side of us.” “When we get farther east, sir, the wind will probably shift, for there can then be no particular land-breeze.” “Ay, ay; so much for your fresh water! It has always some trick that is opposed to nature. Now, down among the West India Islands, one is just as certain of having a land-breeze as he is of having a sea-breeze. In that respect there is no difference, though it's quite in rule it should be different up here on this bit of fresh water. Of course, my lad, you know all about these said Thousand Islands?” “Lord bless you, Master Cap, nobody knows all about them or anything about them. They are a puzzle to the oldest sailor on the lake, and we don't pretend to know even their names. For that matter, most of them have no more names than a child that dies before it is christened.” “Are you a Roman Catholic?” demanded the Sergeant sharply. “No, sir, nor anything else. I'm a generalizer about religion, never troubling that which don't trouble me.” “Hum! a generalizer; that is, no doubt, one of the new sects that afflict the country,” muttered Mr. Dunham, whose grandfather had been a New Jersey Quaker, his father a Presbyterian, and who had joined the Church of England himself after he entered the army. “I take it, John--” resumed Cap. “Your name is Jack, I believe?” “No, sir; I am called Robert.” “Ay, Robert, it's very much the same thing, Jack or Bob; we use the two indifferently. I say, Bob, it's good holding ground, is it, down at this same station for which we are bound?” “Bless you, sir! I know no more about it than one of the Mohawks, or a soldier of the 55th.” “Did you never anchor there?” “Never, sir. Master Eau-douce always makes fast to the shore.” “But in running in for the town, you kept the lead going, out of question, and must have tallowed as usual.” “Tallow! --and town, too! Bless your heart, Master Cap! there is no more town than there is on your chin, and not half as much tallow!” The Sergeant smiled grimly, but his brother-in-law did not detect this proof of humor. “No church tower, nor light, nor fort, ha? There is a garrison, as you call it hereaway, at least?” “Ask Sergeant Dunham, sir, if you wish to know that. All the garrison is on board the _Scud_.” “But in running in, Bob, which of the channels do you think the best? the one you went last, or--or--or--ay, or the other?” “I can't say, sir; I know nothing of either.” “You didn't go to sleep, fellow, at the wheel, did you?” “Not at the wheel, sir, but down in the fore-peak in my berth. Eau-douce sent us below, soldiers and all, with the exception of the pilot, and we know no more of the road than if we had never been over it. This he has always done in going in and coming out; and, for the life of me, I could tell you nothing of the channel, or the course, after we are once fairly up with the islands. No one knows anything of either but Jasper and the pilot.” “Here is a circumstance for you, Sergeant,” said Cap, leading his brother-in-law a little aside; “there is no one on board to pump, for they all suck from ignorance at the first stroke of the brake. How the devil am I to find the way to this station for which we are bound?” “Sure enough, brother Cap, your question is more easily put than answered. Is there no such thing as figuring it out by navigation? I thought you salt-water mariners were able to do as small a thing as that. I have often read of their discovering islands, surely.” “That you have, brother, that you have; and this discovery would be the greatest of them all; for it would not only be discovering one island, but one island out of a thousand.” “Still, the sailors of the lake have a method of finding the places they wish to go to.” “If I have understood you, Sergeant, this station or blockhouse is particularly private.” “It is, indeed, the utmost care having been taken to prevent a knowledge of its position from reaching the enemy.” “And you expect me, a stranger on your lake, to find this place without chart, course, distance, latitude, longitude, or soundings,--ay, d---me, or tallow! Allow me to ask if you think a mariner runs by his nose, like one of Pathfinder's hounds?” “Well, brother, you may yet learn something by questioning the young man at the helm; I can hardly think that he is as ignorant as he pretends to be.” “Hum! --this looks like another circumstance. For that matter, the case is getting to be so full of circumstances that one hardly knows how to foot up the evidence. But we will soon see how much the lad knows.” Cap and the Sergeant now returned to their station near the helm, and the former renewed his inquiries. “Do you happen to know what may be the latitude and longitude of this said island, my lad?” he asked. “The what, sir?” “Why, the latitude or longitude--one or both; I'm not particular which, as I merely inquire in order to see how they bring up young men on this bit of fresh water.” “I'm not particular about either myself, sir, and so I do not happen to know what you mean.” “Not what I mean! You know what latitude is?” “Not I, sir!” returned the man, hesitating. “Though I believe it is French for the upper lakes.” “Whe-e-e-w-!” whistled Cap, drawing out his breath like the broken stop of an organ; “latitude, French for upper lakes! Hark'e, young man, do you know what longitude means?” “I believe I do, sir; that is, five feet six, the regulation height for soldiers in the king's service.” “There's the longitude found out for you, Sergeant, in the rattling of a brace-block! You have some notion about a degree, and minutes and seconds, I hope?” “Yes, sir; degree means my betters; and minutes and seconds are for the short or long log-lines. We all know these things as well as the salt-water people.” “D---me, brother Dunham, if I think even Faith can get along on this lake, much as they say it can do with mountains. Well, my lad, you understand the azimuth, and measuring distances, and how to box the compass.” “As for the first, sir, I can't say I do. The distances we all know, as we measure them from point to point; and as for boxing the compass, I will turn my back to no admiral in his Majesty's fleet. Nothe, nothe and by east, nothe, nothe-east, nothe-east and by nothe, nothe-east, nothe-east and by east, east-nothe-east, east and by nothe-east--” “That will do, that will do. You'll bring about a shift of wind if you go on in this manner. I see very plainly, Sergeant,” walking away again, and dropping his voice, “we've nothing to hope for from that chap. I'll stand on two hours longer on this tack, when we'll heave-to and get the soundings, after which we will be governed by circumstances.” To this the Sergeant made no objections; and as the wind grew lighter, as usual with the advance of night, and there were no immediate obstacles to the navigation, he made a bed of a sail on deck, and was soon lost in the sound sleep of a soldier. Cap continued to walk the deck, for he was one whose iron frame set fatigue at defiance, and not once that night did he close his eyes. It was broad daylight when Sergeant Dunham awoke, and the exclamation of surprise that escaped him, as he rose to his feet and began to look about him, was stronger than it was usual for one so drilled to suffer to be heard. He found the weather entirely changed, the view bounded by driving mist that limited the visible horizon to a circle of about a mile in diameter, the lake raging and covered with foam, and the _Scud_ lying-to. A brief conversation with his brother-in-law let him into the secrets of all these sudden changes. According to the account of Master Cap, the wind had died away to a calm about midnight, or just as he was thinking of heaving-to, to sound, for islands ahead were beginning to be seen. At one A.M. it began to blow from the north-east, accompanied by a drizzle, and he stood off to the northward and westward, knowing that the coast of New York lay in the opposite direction. At half-past one he stowed the flying-jib, reefed the mainsail, and took the bonnet off the jib. At two he was compelled to get a second reef aft; and by half-past two he had put a balance-reef in the sail, and was lying-to. “I can't say but the boat behaves well, Sergeant,” the old sailor added, “but it blows forty-two pounders. I had no idea there were any such currents of air up here on this bit of fresh water, though I care not the knotting of a yarn for it, as your lake has now somewhat of a natural look; and if this d----d water had a savor of salt about it, one might be comfortable.” “How long have you been heading in this direction, brother Cap?” inquired the prudent soldier; “and at what rate may we be going through the water?” “Why, two or three hours, mayhap, and she went like a horse for the first pair of them. Oh, we've a fine offing now! for, to own the truth, little relishing the neighborhood of them said islands, although they are to windward, I took the helm myself, and run her off free for some league or two. We are well to leeward of them, I'll engage--I say to leeward; for though one might wish to be well to windward of one island, or even half a dozen, when it comes to a thousand, the better way is to give it up at once, and to slide down under their lee as fast as possible. No, no; there they are up yonder in the dingle; and there they may stay, for anything Charles Cap cares.” “As the north shore lies only some five or six leagues from us, brother, and I know there is a large bay in that quarter, might it not be well to consult some of the crew concerning our position, if, indeed, we do not call up Jasper Eau-douce, and tell him to carry us back to Oswego? For it is quite impossible we should ever reach the station with this wind directly in our teeth.” “There are several serious professional reasons, Sergeant, against all your propositions. In the first place, an admission of ignorance on the part of a commander would destroy discipline. No matter, brother; I understand your shake of the head, but nothing capsizes discipline so much as to confess ignorance. I once knew a master of a vessel who went a week on a wrong course rather than allow he had made a mistake; and it was surprising how much he rose in the opinions of his people, just because they could not understand him.” “That may do on salt water, brother Cap, but it will hardly do on fresh. Rather than wreck my command on the Canada shore, I shall feel it a duty to take Jasper out of arrest.” “And make a haven in Frontenac. No, Sergeant; the _Scud_ is in good hands, and will now learn something of seamanship. We have a fine offing, and no one but a madman would think of going upon a coast in a gale like this. I shall ware every watch, and then we shall be safe against all dangers but those of the drift, which, in a light low craft like this, without top-hamper, will be next to nothing. Leave it all to me, Sergeant, and I pledge you the character of Charles Cap that all will go well.” Sergeant Dunham was fain to yield. He had great confidence in his connection's professional skill, and hoped that he would take such care of the cutter as would amply justify his opinion of him. On the other hand, as distrust, like care, grows by what it feeds on, he entertained so much apprehension of treachery, that he was quite willing any one but Jasper should just then have the control of the fate of the whole party. Truth, moreover, compels us to admit another motive. The particular duty on which he was now sent of right should have been confided to a commissioned officer; and Major Duncan had excited a good deal of discontent among the subalterns of the garrison, by having confided it to one of the Sergeant's humble station. To return without having even reached the point of destination, therefore, the latter felt would be a failure from which he was not likely soon to recover, and the measure would at once be the means of placing a superior in his shoes.	{ "id": "1880" }
16	None	Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of eternity; the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. BYRON. As the day advanced, that portion of the inmates of the vessel which had the liberty of doing so appeared on deck. As yet the sea was not very high, from which it was inferred that the cutter was still under the lee of the islands; but it was apparent to all who understood the lake that they were about to experience one of the heavy autumnal gales of that region. Land was nowhere visible; and the horizon on every side exhibited that gloomy void, which lends to all views on vast bodies of water the sublimity of mystery. The swells, or, as landsmen term them, the waves, were short and curling, breaking of necessity sooner than the longer seas of the ocean; while the element itself, instead of presenting that beautiful hue which rivals the deep tint of the southern sky, looked green and angry, though wanting in the lustre that is derived from the rays of the sun. The soldiers were soon satisfied with the prospect, and one by one they disappeared, until none were left on deck but the crew, the Sergeant, Cap, Pathfinder, the Quartermaster, and Mabel. There was a shade on the brow of the last, who had been made acquainted with the real state of things, and who had fruitlessly ventured an appeal in favor of Jasper's restoration to the command. A night's rest and a night's reflection appeared also to have confirmed the Pathfinder in his opinion of the young man's innocence; and he, too, had made a warm appeal on behalf of his friend, though with the same want of success. Several hours passed away, the wind gradually getting heavier and the sea rising, until the motion of the cutter compelled Mabel and the Quartermaster to retreat also. Cap wore several times; and it was now evident that the _Scud_ was drifting into the broader and deeper parts of the lake, the seas raging down upon her in a way that none but a vessel of superior mould and build could have long ridden and withstood. All this, however, gave Cap no uneasiness; but, like the hunter that pricks his ears at the sound of the horn, or the war-horse that paws and snorts with pleasure at the roll of the drum, the whole scene awakened all that was man within him; and instead of the captious, supercilious, and dogmatic critic, quarrelling with trifles and exaggerating immaterial things, he began to exhibit the qualities of the hardy and experienced seaman which he truly was. The hands soon imbibed a respect for his skill; and, though they wondered at the disappearance of their old commander and the pilot, for which no reason had been publicly given, they soon yielded an implicit and cheerful obedience to the new one. “This bit of fresh water, after all, brother Dunham, has some spirit, I find,” cried Cap about noon, rubbing his hands in pure satisfaction at finding himself once more wrestling with the elements. “The wind seems to be an honest old-fashioned gale, and the seas have a fanciful resemblance to those of the Gulf Stream. I like this, Sergeant, I like this, and shall get to respect your lake, if it hold out twenty-four hours longer in the fashion in which it has begun.” “Land, ho!” shouted the man who was stationed on the forecastle. Cap hurried forward; and there, sure enough, the land was visible through the drizzle, at the distance of about half a mile, the cutter heading directly towards it. The first impulse of the old seaman was to give an order to “stand by, to ware off shore;” but the cool-headed soldier restrained him. “By going a little nearer,” said the Sergeant, “some of us may recognize the place. Most of us know the American shore in this part of the lake; and it will be something gained to learn our position.” “Very true, very true; if, indeed, there is any chance of that we will hold on. What is this off here, a little on our weather-bow? It looks like a low headland.” “The garrison, by Jove!” exclaimed the other, whose trained eye sooner recognized the military outlines than the less instructed senses of his connection. The Sergeant was not mistaken. There was the fort, sure enough, though it looked dim and indistinct through the fine rain, as if it were seen in the dusk of evening or the haze of morning. The low, sodded, and verdant ramparts, the sombre palisades, now darker than ever with water, the roof of a house or two, the tall, solitary flagstaff, with its halyards blown steadily out into a curve that appeared traced in immovable lines in the air, were all soon to be seen though no sign of animated life could be discovered. Even the sentinel was housed; and at first it was believed that no eye would detect the presence of their own vessel. But the unceasing vigilance of a border garrison did not slumber: one of the look-outs probably made the interesting discovery; a man or two were seen on some elevated stands, and then the entire ramparts next the lake were dotted with human beings. The whole scene was one in which sublimity was singularly relieved by the picturesque. The raging of the tempest had a character of duration that rendered it easy to imagine it might be a permanent feature of the spot. The roar of the wind was without intermission, and the raging water answered to its dull but grand strains with hissing spray, a menacing wash, and sullen surges. The drizzle made a medium for the eye which closely resembled that of a thin mist, softening and rendering mysterious the images it revealed, while the genial feeling that is apt to accompany a gale of wind on water contributed to aid the milder influences of the moment. The dark interminable forest hove up out of the obscurity, grand, sombre, and impressive, while the solitary, peculiar, and picturesque glimpses of life that were caught in and about the fort, formed a refuge for the eye to retreat to when oppressed with the more imposing objects of nature. “They see us,” said the Sergeant, “and think we have returned on account of the gale, and have fallen to leeward of the port. Yes, there is Major Duncan himself on the north-eastern bastion; I know him by his height, and by the officers around him.” “Sergeant, it would be worth standing a little jeering, if we could fetch into the river, and come safely to an anchor. In that case, too, we might land this Master Eau-douce, and purify the boat.” “It would indeed; but, as poor a sailor as I am, I well know it cannot be done. Nothing that sails the lake can turn to windward against this gale; and there is no anchorage outside in weather like this.” “I know it, I see it, Sergeant; and pleasant as is that sight to you landsmen, we must leave it. For myself, I am never so happy in heavy weather as when I am certain that the land is behind me.” The _Scud_ had now forged so near in, that it became indispensable to lay her head off shore again, and the necessary orders were given. The storm-staysail was set forward, the gaff lowered, the helm put up, and the light craft, that seemed to sport with the elements like a duck, fell off a little, drew ahead swiftly, obeyed her rudder, and was soon flying away on the top of the surges, dead before the gale. While making this rapid flight, though the land still remained in view on her larboard beam, the fort and the groups of anxious spectators on its rampart were swallowed up in the mist. Then followed the evolutions necessary to bring the head of the cutter up to the wind, when she again began to wallow her weary way towards the north shore. Hours now passed before any further change was made, the wind increasing in force, until even the dogmatical Cap fairly admitted it was blowing a thorough gale of wind. About sunset the _Scud_ wore again to keep her off the north shore during the hours of darkness; and at midnight her temporary master, who, by questioning the crew in an indirect manner, had obtained some general knowledge of the size and shape of the lake, believed himself to be about midway between the two shores. The height and length of the seas aided this impression; and it must be added that Cap by this time began to feel a respect for fresh water which twenty-four hours earlier he would have derided as impossible. Just as the night turned, the fury of the wind became so great that he found it impossible to bear up against it, the water falling on the deck of the little craft in such masses as to cause it to shake to the centre, and, though a vessel of singularly lively qualities, to threaten to bury it beneath its weight. The people of the _Scud_ averred that never before had they been out in such a tempest, which was true; for, possessing a perfect knowledge of all the rivers and headlands and havens, Jasper would have carried the cutter in shore long ere this, and placed her in safety in some secure anchorage. But Cap still disdained to consult the young master, who continued below, determining to act like a mariner of the broad ocean. It was one in the morning when the storm-staysail was again got on the _Scud_, the head of the mainsail lowered, and the cutter put before the wind. Although the canvas now exposed was merely a rag in surface, the little craft nobly justified the use of the name she bore. For eight hours did she scud in truth; and it was almost with the velocity of the gulls that wheeled wildly over her in the tempest, apparently afraid to alight in the boiling caldron of the lake. The dawn of day brought little change; for no other horizon became visible than the little circle of drizzling sky and water already described, in which it seemed as if the elements were rioting in a sort of chaotic confusion. During this time the crew and passengers of the cutter were of necessity passive. Jasper and the pilot remained below; but, the motion of the vessel having become easier, nearly all the rest were on deck. The morning meal had been taken in silence, and eye met eye, as if their owners asked each other, in dumb show, what was to be the end of this strife in the elements. Cap, however, was perfectly composed, and his face brightened, his step grew firmer, and his whole air more assured, as the storm increased, making larger demands on his professional skill and personal spirit. He stood on the forecastle, his arms crossed, balancing his body with a seaman's instinct, while his eyes watched the caps of the seas, as they broke and glanced past the reeling cutter, itself in such swift motion, as if they were the scud flying athwart the sky. At this sublime instant one of the hands gave the unexpected cry of “A sail!” There was so much of the wild and solitary character of the wilderness about Ontario, that one scarcely expected to meet with a vessel on its waters. The _Scud_ herself, to those who were in her, resembled a man threading the forest alone, and the meeting was like that of two solitary hunters beneath the broad canopy of leaves that then covered so many millions of acres on the continent of America. The peculiar state of the weather served to increase the romantic, almost supernatural appearance of the passage. Cap alone regarded it with practised eyes, and even he felt his iron nerves thrill under the sensations that were awakened by the wild features of the scene. The strange vessel was about two cables' length ahead of the _Scud_, standing by the wind athwart her bows, and steering a course to render it probable that the latter would pass within a few yards of her. She was a full-rigged ship; and, seen through the misty medium of the tempest, the most experienced eye could detect no imperfection in her gear or construction. The only canvas she had set was a close-reefed main-topsail, and two small storm-staysails, one forward and the other aft. Still the power of the wind pressed so hard upon her as to bear her down nearly to her beam-ends, whenever the hull was not righted by the buoyancy of some wave under her lee. Her spars were all in their places, and by her motion through the water, which might have equalled four knots in the hour, it was apparent that she steered a little free. “The fellow must know his position well,” said Cap, as the cutter flew down towards the ship with a velocity almost equalling that of the gale, “for he is standing boldly to the southward, where he expects to find anchorage or a haven. No man in his senses would run off free in that fashion, that was not driven to scudding, like ourselves, who did not perfectly understand where he was going.” “We have made an awful run, captain,” returned the man to whom this remark had been addressed. “That is the French king's ship, Lee-my-calm (_Le Montcalm_), and she is standing in for the Niagara, where her owner has a garrison and a port. We've made an awful run of it!” “Ay, bad luck to him! Frenchman-like, he skulks into port the moment he sees an English bottom.” “It might be well for us if we could follow him,” returned the man, shaking his head despondingly, “for we are getting into the end of a bay up here at the head of the lake, and it is uncertain whether we ever get out of it again!” “Pooh, man, pooh! We have plenty of sea room, and a good English hull beneath us. We are no Johnny Crapauds to hide ourselves behind a point or a fort on account of a puff of wind. Mind your helm, sir!” The order was given on account of the menacing appearance of the approaching passage. The _Scud_ was now heading directly for the fore-foot of the Frenchman; and, the distance between the two vessels having diminished to a hundred yards, it was momentarily questionable if there was room to pass. “Port, sir, port,” shouted Cap. “Port your helm and pass astern!” The crew of the Frenchman were seen assembling to windward, and a few muskets were pointed, as if to order the people of the _Scud_ to keep off. Gesticulations were observed, but the sea was too wild and menacing to admit of the ordinary expedients of war. The water was dripping from the muzzles of two or three light guns on board the ship, but no one thought of loosening them for service in such a tempest. Her black sides, as they emerged from a wave, glistened and seemed to frown; but the wind howled through her rigging, whistling the thousand notes of a ship; and the hails and cries that escape a Frenchman with so much readiness were inaudible. “Let him halloo himself hoarse!” growled Cap. “This is no weather to whisper secrets in. Port, sir, port!” The man at the helm obeyed, and the next send of the sea drove the _Scud_ down upon the quarter of the ship, so near her that the old mariner himself recoiled a step, in a vague expectation that, at the next surge ahead, she would drive bows foremost directly into the planks of the other vessel. But this was not to be: rising from the crouching posture she had taken, like a panther about to leap, the cutter dashed onward, and at the next instant she was glancing past the stern of her enemy, just clearing the end of her spanker-boom with her own lower yard. The young Frenchman who commanded the _Montcalm_ leaped on the taffrail; and, with that high-toned courtesy which relieves even the worst acts of his countrymen, he raised his cap and smiled a salutation as the _Scud_ shot past. There were _bonhomie_ and good taste in this act of courtesy, when circumstances allowed of no other communications; but they were lost on Cap, who, with an instinct quite as true to his race, shook his fist menacingly, and muttered to himself,-- “Ay, ay, it's d----d lucky for you I've no armament on board here, or I'd send you in to get new cabin-windows fitted. Sergeant, he's a humbug.” “'Twas civil, brother Cap,” returned the other, lowering his hand from the military salute which his pride as a soldier had induced him to return,--“'twas civil, and that's as much as you can expect from a Frenchman. What he really meant by it no one can say.” “He is not heading up to this sea without an object, neither. Well, let him run in, if he can get there, we will keep the lake, like hearty English mariners.” This sounded gloriously, but Cap eyed with envy the glittering black mass of the _Montcalm's_ hull, her waving topsail, and the misty tracery of her spars, as she grew less and less distinct, and finally disappeared in the drizzle, in a form as shadowy as that of some unreal image. Gladly would he have followed in her wake had he dared; for, to own the truth, the prospect of another stormy night in the midst of the wild waters that were raging around him brought little consolation. Still he had too much professional pride to betray his uneasiness, and those under his care relied on his knowledge and resources, with the implicit and blind confidence that the ignorant are apt to feel. A few hours succeeded, and darkness came again to increase the perils of the _Scud_. A lull in the gale, however, had induced Cap to come by the wind once more, and throughout the night the cutter was lying-to as before, head-reaching as a matter of course, and occasionally wearing to keep off the land. It is unnecessary to dwell on the incidents of this night, which resembled those of any other gale of wind. There were the pitching of the vessel, the hissing of the waters, the dashing of spray, the shocks that menaced annihilation to the little craft as she plunged into the seas, the undying howl of the wind, and the fearful drift. The last was the most serious danger; for, though exceedingly weatherly under her canvas, and totally without top-hamper, the _Scud_ was so light, that the combing of the swells would seem at times to wash her down to leeward with a velocity as great as that of the surges themselves. During this night Cap slept soundly, and for several hours. The day was just dawning when he felt himself shaken by the shoulder; and arousing himself, he found the Pathfinder standing at his side. During the gale the guide had appeared little on deck, for his natural modesty told him that seamen alone should interfere with the management of the vessel; and he was willing to show the same reliance on those who had charge of the _Scud_, as he expected those who followed through the forest to manifest in his own skill; but he now thought himself justified in interfering, which he did in his own unsophisticated and peculiar manner. “Sleep is sweet, Master Cap,” said he, as soon as the eyes of the latter were fairly open, and his consciousness had sufficiently returned,--“sleep is sweet, as I know from experience, but life is sweeter still. Look about you, and say if this is exactly the moment for a commander to be off his feet.” “How now? how now, Master Pathfinder?” growled Cap, in the first moments of his awakened faculties. “Are you, too, getting on the side of the grumblers? When ashore I admired your sagacity in running through the worst shoals without a compass; and since we have been afloat, your meekness and submission have been as pleasant as your confidence on your own ground. I little expected such a summons from you.” “As for myself, Master Cap, I feel I have my gifts, and I believe they'll interfere with those of no other man; but the case may be different with Mabel Dunham. She has her gifts, too, it is true; but they are not rude like ours, but gentle and womanish, as they ought to be. It's on her account that I speak, and not on my own.” “Ay, ay, I begin to understand. The girl is a good girl, my worthy friend; but she is a soldier's daughter and a sailor's niece, and ought not to be too tame or too tender in a gale. Does she show any fear?” “Not she! not she! Mabel is a woman, but she is reasonable and silent. Not a word have I heard from her concerning our doings; though I do think, Master Cap, she would like it better if Jasper Eau-douce were put into his proper place, and things were restored to their old situation, like. This is human natur'.” “I'll warrant it--girl-like, and Dunham-like, too. Anything is better than an old uncle, and everybody knows more than an old seaman. _This_ is human natur', Master Pathfinder, and d---me if I'm the man to sheer a fathom, starboard or port, for all the human natur' that can be found in a minx of twenty--ay, or” (lowering his voice a little) “for all that can be paraded in his Majesty's 55th regiment of foot. I've not been at sea forty years, to come up on this bit of fresh water to be taught human natur'. How this gale holds out! It blows as hard at this moment as if Boreas had just clapped his hand upon the bellows. And what is all this to leeward?” (rubbing his eyes)--“land! as sure as my name is Cap--and high land, too.” The Pathfinder made no immediate answer; but, shaking his head, he watched the expression of his companion's face, with a look of strong anxiety in his own. “Land, as certain as this is the _Scud! _” repeated Cap; “a lee shore, and that, too, within a league of us, with as pretty a line of breakers as one could find on the beach of all Long Island!” “And is that encouraging? or is it disheartening?” inquired the Pathfinder. “Ha! encouraging--disheartening! --why, neither. No, no, there is nothing encouraging about it; and as for disheartening, nothing ought to dishearten a seaman. You never get disheartened or afraid in the woods, my friend?” “I'll not say that, I'll not say that. When the danger is great, it is my gift to see it, and know it, and to try to avoid it; else would my scalp long since have been drying in a Mingo wigwam. On this lake, however, I can see no trail, and I feel it my duty to submit; though I think we ought to remember there is such a person as Mabel Dunham on board. But here comes her father, and he will naturally feel for his own child.” “We are seriously situated, I believe, brother Cap,” said the Sergeant, when he had reached the spot, “by what I can gather from the two hands on the forecastle? They tell me the cutter cannot carry any more sail, and her drift is so great we shall go ashore in an hour or two. I hope their fears have deceived them?” Cap made no reply; but he gazed at the land with a rueful face, and then looked to windward with an expression of ferocity, as if he would gladly have quarrelled with the weather. “It may be well, brother,” the Sergeant continued, “to send for Jasper and consult him as to what is to be done. There are no French here to dread; and, under all circumstances, the boy will save us from drowning if possible.” “Ay, ay, 'tis these cursed circumstances that have done all the mischief. But let the fellow come; let him come; a few well-managed questions will bring the truth out of him, I'll warrant you.” This acquiescence on the part of the dogmatical Cap was no sooner obtained, than Jasper was sent for. The young man instantly made his appearance, his whole air, countenance, and mien expressive of mortification, humility, and, as his observers fancied, rebuked deception. When he first stepped on deck, Jasper cast one hurried, anxious glance around, as if curious to know the situation of the cutter; and that glance sufficed, it would seem, to let him into the secret of all her perils. At first he looked to windward, as is usual with every seaman; then he turned round the horizon, until his eye caught a view of the high lands to leeward, when the whole truth burst upon him at once. “I've sent for you, Master Jasper,” said Cap, folding his arms, and balancing his body with the dignity of the forecastle, “in order to learn something about the haven to leeward. We take it for granted you do not bear malice so hard as to wish to drown us all, especially the women; and I suppose you will be man enough to help us run the cutter into some safe berth until this bit of a gale has done blowing!” “I would die myself rather than harm should come to Mabel Dunham,” the young man earnestly answered. “I knew it! I knew it!” cried the Pathfinder, clapping his hand kindly on Jasper's shoulder. “The lad is as true as the best compass that ever ran a boundary, or brought a man off from a blind trail. It is a mortal sin to believe otherwise.” “Humph!” ejaculated Cap; “especially the women! As if _they_ were in any particular danger. Never mind, young man; we shall understand each other by talking like two plain seamen. Do you know of any port under our lee?” “None. There is a large bay at this end of the lake; but it is unknown to us all, and not easy of entrance.” “And this coast to leeward--it has nothing particular to recommend it, I suppose?” “It is a wilderness until you reach the mouth of the Niagara in one direction, and Frontenac in the other. North and west, they tell me, there is nothing but forest and prairies for a thousand miles.” “Thank God! then, there can be no French. Are there many savages, hereaway, on the land?” “The Indians are to be found in all directions; though they are nowhere very numerous. By accident, we might find a party at any point on the shore; or we might pass months there without seeing one.” “We must take our chance, then, as to the blackguards; but, to be frank with you, Master Western, if this little unpleasant matter about the French had not come to pass, what would you now do with the cutter?” “I am a much younger sailor than yourself, Master Cap,” said Jasper modestly, “and am hardly fitted to advise you.” “Ay, ay, we all know that. In a common case, perhaps not. But this is an uncommon case, and a circumstance; and on this bit of fresh water it has what may be called its peculiarities; and so, everything considered, you may be fitted to advise even your own father. At all events, you can speak, and I can judge of your opinions, agreeably to my own experience.” “I think, sir, before two hours are over, the cutter will have to anchor.” “Anchor! --not out here in the lake?” “No, sir; but in yonder, near the land.” “You do not mean to say, Master Eau-douce, you would anchor on a lee shore in a gale of wind?” “If I would save my vessel, that is exactly what I would do, Master Cap.” “Whe-e-e-w! --this is fresh water, with a vengeance! Hark'e, young man, I've been a seafaring animal, boy and man, forty-one years, and I never yet heard of such a thing. I'd throw my ground-tackle overboard before I would be guilty of so lubberly an act!” “That is what we do on this lake,” modestly replied Jasper, “when we are hard pressed. I daresay we might do better, had we been better taught.” “That you might, indeed! No; no man induces me to commit such a sin against my own bringing up. I should never dare show my face inside of Sandy Hook again, had I committed so know-nothing an exploit. Why, Pathfinder, here, has more seamanship in him than that comes to. You can go below again, Master Eau-douce.” Jasper quietly bowed and withdrew; still, as he passed down the ladder, the spectators observed that he cast a lingering anxious look at the horizon to windward and the land to leeward, and then disappeared with concern strongly expressed in every lineament of his face.	{ "id": "1880" }
17	None	His still refuted quirks he still repeats; New-raised objections with new quibbles meets, Till sinking in the quicksand he defends, He dies disputing, and the contest ends. COWPER. As the soldier's wife was sick in her berth, Mabel Dunham was the only person in the outer cabin when Jasper returned to it; for, by an act of grace in the Sergeant, he had been permitted to resume his proper place in this part of the vessel. We should be ascribing too much simplicity of character to our heroine, if we said that she had felt no distrust of the young man in consequence of his arrest; but we should also be doing injustice to her warmth of feeling and generosity of disposition, if we did not add, that this distrust was insignificant and transient. As he now took his seat near her, his whole countenance clouded with the uneasiness he felt concerning the situation of the cutter, everything like suspicion was banished from her mind, and she saw in him only an injured man. “You let this affair weigh too heavily on your mind, Jasper,” said she eagerly, or with that forgetfulness of self with which the youthful of her sex are wont to betray their feelings when a strong and generous interest has attained the ascendency; “no one who knows you can, or does, believe you guilty. Pathfinder says he will pledge his life for you.” “Then you, Mabel,” returned the youth, his eyes flashing fire, “do not look upon me as the traitor your father seems to believe me to be?” “My dear father is a soldier, and is obliged to act as one. My father's daughter is not, and will think of you as she ought to think of a man who has done so much to serve her already.” “Mabel, I'm not used to talking with one like you, or saying all I think and feel with any. I never had a sister, and my mother died when I was a child, so that I know little what your sex most likes to hear--” Mabel would have given the world to know what lay behind the teeming word at which Jasper hesitated; but the indefinable and controlling sense of womanly diffidence made her suppress her curiosity. She waited in silence for him to explain his own meaning. “I wish to say, Mabel,” the young man continued, after a pause which he found sufficiently embarrassing, “that I am unused to the ways and opinions of one like you, and that you must imagine all I would add.” Mabel had imagination enough to fancy anything, but there are ideas and feelings that her sex prefer to have expressed before they yield them all their own sympathies, and she had a vague consciousness that these of Jasper might properly be enumerated in the class. With a readiness that belonged to her sex, therefore, she preferred changing the discourse to permitting it to proceed any further in a manner so awkward and so unsatisfactory. “Tell me one thing, Jasper, and I shall be content,” said she, speaking now with a firmness which denoted confidence, not only in herself, but in her companion: “you do not deserve this cruel suspicion which rests upon you?” “I do not, Mabel!” answered Jasper, looking into her full blue eyes with an openness and simplicity that might have shaken stronger distrust. “As I hope for mercy hereafter, I do not!” “I knew it--I could have sworn it!” returned the girl warmly. “And yet my father means well;--but do not let this matter disturb you, Jasper.” “There is so much more to apprehend from another quarter just now, that I scarcely think of it.” “Jasper!” “I do not wish to alarm you, Mabel; but if your uncle could be persuaded to change his notions about handling the _Scud_: and yet he is so much more experienced than I am, that he ought, perhaps, to place more reliance on his own judgment than on mine.” “Do you think the cutter in any danger?” demanded Mabel, quick as thought. “I fear so; at least she would have been thought in great danger by us of the lake; perhaps an old seaman of the ocean may have means of his own to take care of her.” “Jasper, all agree in giving you credit for skill in managing the _Scud_. You know the lake, you know the cutter; you _must_ be the best judge of our real situation.” “My concern for you, Mabel, may make me more cowardly than common; but, to be frank, I see but one method of keeping the cutter from being wrecked in the course of the next two or three hours, and that your uncle refuses to take. After all, this may be my ignorance; for, as he says, Ontario is merely fresh water.” “You cannot believe this will make any difference. Think of my dear father, Jasper! Think of yourself; of all the lives that depend on a timely word from you to save them.” “I think of you, Mabel, and that is more, much more, than all the rest put together!” returned the young man, with a strength of expression and an earnestness of look that uttered infinitely more than the words themselves. Mabel's heart beat quickly, and a gleam of grateful satisfaction shot across her blushing features; but the alarm was too vivid and too serious to admit of much relief from happier thoughts. She did not attempt to repress a look of gratitude, and then she returned to the feeling which was naturally uppermost. “My uncle's obstinacy must not be permitted to occasion this disaster. Go once more on deck, Jasper; and ask my father to come into the cabin.” While the young man was complying with this request, Mabel sat listening to the howling of the storm and the dashing of the water against the cutter, in a dread to which she had hitherto been a stranger. Constitutionally an excellent sailor, as the term is used among passengers, she had not hitherto bethought her of any danger, and had passed her time since the commencement of the gale in such womanly employments as her situation allowed; but now that alarm was seriously awakened, she did not fail to perceive that never before had she been on the water in such a tempest. The minute or two which elapsed before the Sergeant came appeared an hour, and she scarcely breathed when she saw him and Jasper descending the ladder in company. Quick as language could express her meaning, she acquainted her father with Jasper's opinion of their situation; and entreated him, if he loved her, or had any regard for his own life, or for those of his men, to interfere with her uncle, and to induce him to yield the control of the cutter again to its proper commander. “Jasper is true, father,” added she earnestly; “and if false, he could have no motive in wrecking us in this distant part of the lake at the risk of all our lives, his own included. I will pledge my own life for his truth.” “Ay, this is well enough for a young woman who is frightened,” answered the more phlegmatic parent; “but it might not be so excusable in one in command of an expedition. Jasper may think the chance of drowning in getting ashore fully repaid by the chance of escaping as soon as he reaches the land.” “Sergeant Dunham!” “Father!” These exclamations were made simultaneously, but they were uttered in tones expressive of different feelings. In Jasper, surprise was the emotion uppermost; in Mabel reproach. The old soldier, however, was too much accustomed to deal frankly with subordinates to heed either; and after a moment's thought, he continued as if neither had spoken. “Nor is brother Cap a man likely to submit to be taught his duty on board a vessel.” “But, father, when all our lives are in the utmost jeopardy!” “So much the worse. The fair-weather commander is no great matter; it is when things go wrong that the best officer shows himself in his true colors. Charles Cap will not be likely to quit the helm because the ship is in danger. Besides, Jasper Eau-douce, he says your proposal in itself has a suspicious air about it, and sounds more like treachery than reason.” “He may think so; but let him send for the pilot and hear his opinion. It is well known that I have not seen the man since yesterday evening.” “This does sound reasonably, and the experiment shall be tried. Follow me on deck then, that all may be honest and above-board.” Jasper obeyed, and so keen was the interest of Mabel, that she too ventured as far as the companion-way, where her garments were sufficiently protected against the violence of the wind and her person from the spray. Here maiden modesty induced her to remain, though an absorbed witness of what was passing. The pilot soon appeared, and there was no mistaking the look of concern that he cast around at the scene as soon as he was in the open air. Some rumors of the situation of the _Scud_ had found their way below, it is true; but in this instance rumor had lessened instead of magnifying the danger. He was allowed a few minutes to look about him, and then the question was put as to the course which he thought it prudent to follow. “I see no means of saving the cutter but to anchor,” he answered simply, and without hesitation. “What! out here in the lake?” inquired Cap, as he had previously done of Jasper. “No: but closer in; just at the outer line of the breakers.” The effect of this communication was to leave no doubt in the mind of Cap that there was a secret arrangement between her commander and the pilot to cast away the _Scud_; most probably with the hope of effecting their escape. He consequently treated the opinion of the latter with the indifference he had manifested towards that of the former. “I tell you, brother Dunham,” said he, in answer to the remonstrances of the Sergeant against his turning a deaf ear to this double representation, “that no seaman would give such an opinion honestly. To anchor on a lee shore in a gale of wind would be an act of madness that I could never excuse to the underwriters, under any circumstances, so long as a rag can be set; but to anchor close to breakers would be insanity.” “His Majesty underwrites the _Scud_, brother, and I am responsible for the lives of my command. These men are better acquainted with Lake Ontario than we can possibly be, and I do think their telling the same tale entitles them to some credit.” “Uncle!” said Mabel earnestly; but a gesture from Jasper induced the girl to restrain her feelings. “We are drifting down upon the breakers so rapidly,” said the young man, “that little need be said on the subject. Half an hour must settle the matter, one way or the other; but I warn Master Cap that the surest-footed man among us will not be able to keep his feet an instant on the deck of this low craft, should she fairly get within them. Indeed I make little doubt that we shall fill and founder before the second line of rollers is passed.” “And how would anchoring help the matter?” demanded Cap furiously, as if he felt that Jasper was responsible for the effects of the gale, as well as for the opinion he had just given. “It would at least do no harm,” Eau-douce mildly replied. “By bringing the cutter head to sea we should lessen her drift; and even if we dragged through the breakers, it would be with the least possible danger. I hope, Master Cap, you will allow the pilot and myself to _prepare_ for anchoring, since the precaution may do good, and can do no harm.” “Overhaul your ranges, if you will, and get your anchors clear, with all my heart. We are now in a situation that cannot be much affected by anything of that sort. Sergeant, a word with you aft here, if you please.” Cap led his brother-in-law out of ear-shot; and then, with more of human feeling in his voice and manner than he was apt to exhibit, he opened his heart on the subject of their real situation. “This is a melancholy affair for poor Mabel,” said he, blowing his nose, and speaking with a slight tremor. “You and I, Sergeant, are old fellows, and used to being near death, if not to actually dying; our trades fit us for such scenes; but poor Mabel! --she is an affectionate and kind-hearted girl, and I had hoped to see her comfortably settled, and a mother, before my time came. Well, well! we must take the bad with the good in every v'y'ge; and the only serious objection that an old seafaring man can with propriety make to such an event is, that it should happen on this bit of d----d fresh water.” Sergeant Dunham was a brave man, and had shown his spirit in scenes that looked much more appalling than this; but on all such occasions he had been able to act his part against his foes, while here he was pressed upon by an enemy whom he had no means of resisting. For himself he cared far less than for his daughter, feeling some of that self-reliance which seldom deserts a man of firmness who is in vigorous health, and who has been accustomed to personal exertions in moments of jeopardy; but as respects Mabel he saw no means of escape, and, with a father's fondness, he at once determined that, if either was doomed to perish, he and his daughter must perish together. “Do you think this must come to pass?” he asked of Cap firmly, but with strong feeling. “Twenty minutes will carry us into the breakers; and look for yourself, Sergeant: what chance will even the stoutest man among us have in that caldron to leeward?” The prospect was, indeed, little calculated to encourage hope. By this time the _Scud_ was within a mile of the shore, on which the gale was blowing at right angles, with a violence that forbade the idea of showing any additional canvas with a view to claw off. The small portion of the mainsail actually set, and which merely served to keep the head of the _Scud_ so near the wind as to prevent the waves from breaking over her, quivered under the gusts, as if at each moment the stout threads which held the complicated fabric together were about to be torn asunder. The drizzle had ceased; but the air, for a hundred feet above the surface of the lake, was filled with dazzling spray, which had an appearance not unlike that of a brilliant mist, while above all the sun was shining gloriously in a cloudless sky. Jasper had noted the omen, and had foretold that it announced a speedy termination to the gale, though the next hour or two must decide their fate. Between the cutter and the shore the view was still more wild and appalling. The breakers extended nearly half a mile; while the water within their line was white with foam, the air above them was so far filled with vapor and spray as to render the land beyond hazy and indistinct. Still it could be seen that the latter was high,--not a usual thing for the shores of Ontario,--and that it was covered with the verdant mantle of the interminable forest. While the Sergeant and Cap were gazing at this scene in silence, Jasper and his people were actively engaged on the forecastle. No sooner had the young man received permission to resume his old employment, than, appealing to some of the soldiers for aid, he mustered five or six assistants, and set about in earnest the performance of a duty which had been too long delayed. On these narrow waters anchors are never stowed in-board, or cables that are intended for service unbent, and Jasper was saved much of the labor that would have been necessary in a vessel at sea. The two bowers were soon ready to be let go, ranges of the cables were overhauled, and then the party paused to look about them. No changes for the better had occurred, but the cutter was falling slowly in, and each instant rendered it more certain that she could not gain an inch to windward. One long, earnest survey of the lake ended, Jasper gave new orders in a similar manner to prove how much he thought that the time pressed. Two kedges were got on deck, and hawsers were bent to them; the inner ends of the hawsers were bent, in their turns, to the crowns of the anchors, and everything was got ready to throw them overboard at the proper moment. These preparations completed, Jasper's manner changed from the excitement of exertion to a look of calm but settled concern. He quitted the forecastle, where the seas were dashing inboard at every plunge of the vessel, the duty just mentioned having been executed with the bodies of the crew frequently buried in the water, and walked to a drier part of the deck, aft. Here he was met by the Pathfinder, who was standing near Mabel and the Quartermaster. Most of those on board, with the exception of the individuals who have already been particularly mentioned, were below, some seeking relief from physical suffering on their pallets, and others tardily bethinking them of their sins. For the first time, most probably, since her keel had dipped into the limpid waters of Ontario, the voice of prayer was, heard on board the _Scud_. “Jasper,” commenced his friend, the guide, “I have been of no use this morning, for my gifts are of little account, as you know, in a vessel like this; but, should it please God to let the Sergeant's daughter reach the shore alive, my acquaintance with the forest may still carry her through in safety to the garrison.” “'Tis a fearful distance thither, Pathfinder!” Mabel rejoined, the party being so near together that all which was said by one was overheard by the others. “I am afraid none of us could live to reach the fort.” “It would be a risky path, Mabel, and a crooked one; though some of your sex have undergone even more than that in this wilderness. But, Jasper, either you or I, or both of us, must man this bark canoe; Mabel's only chance will lie in getting through the breakers in that.” “I would willingly man anything to save Mabel,” answered Jasper, with a melancholy smile; “but no human hand, Pathfinder, could carry that canoe through yonder breakers in a gale like this. I have hopes from anchoring, after all; for once before have we saved the _Scud_ in an extremity nearly as great as this.” “If we are to anchor, Jasper,” the Sergeant inquired, “why not do it at once? Every foot we lose in drifting now would come into the distance we shall probably drag when the anchors are let go.” Jasper drew nearer to the Sergeant, and took his hand, pressing it earnestly, and in a way to denote strong, almost uncontrollable feelings. “Sergeant Dunham,” said he solemnly, “you are a good man, though you have treated me harshly in this business. You love your daughter?” “That you cannot doubt, Eau-douce,” returned the Sergeant huskily. “Will you give her--give us all--the only chance for life that is left?” “What would you have me do, boy, what would you have me do? I have acted according to my judgment hitherto,--what would you have me do?” “Support me against Master Cap for five minutes, and all that man can do towards saving the _Scud_ shall be done.” The Sergeant hesitated, for he was too much of a disciplinarian to fly in the face of regular orders. He disliked the appearance of vacillation, too; and then he had a profound respect for his kinsman's seamanship. While he was deliberating, Cap came from the post he had some time occupied, which was at the side of the man at the helm, and drew nigh the group. “Master Eau-douce,” said he, as soon as near enough to be heard, “I have come to inquire if you know any spot near by where this cutter can be beached? The moment has arrived when we are driven to this hard alternative.” That instant of indecision on the part of Cap secured the triumph of Jasper. Looking at the Sergeant, the young man received a nod that assured him of all he asked, and he lost not one of those moments that were getting to be so very precious. “Shall I take the helm,” he inquired of Cap, “and see if we can reach a creek that lies to leeward?” “Do so, do so,” said the other, hemming to clear his throat; for he felt oppressed by a responsibility that weighed all the heavier on his shoulders on account of his ignorance. “Do so, Eau-douce, since, to be frank with you, I can see nothing better to be done. We must beach or swamp.” Jasper required no more; springing aft, he soon had the tiller in his own hands. The pilot was prepared for what was to follow; and, at a sign from his young commander, the rag of sail that had so long been set was taken in. At that moment, Jasper, watching his time, put the helm up; the head of a staysail was loosened forward, and the light cutter, as if conscious she was now under the control of familiar hands, fell off, and was soon in the trough of the sea. This perilous instant was passed in safety, and at the next moment the little vessel appeared flying down toward the breakers at a rate that threatened instant destruction. The distances had become so short, that five or six minutes sufficed for all that Jasper wished, and he put the helm down again, when the bows of the _Scud_ came up to the wind, notwithstanding the turbulence of the waters, as gracefully as the duck varies its line of direction on the glassy pond. A sign from Jasper set all in motion on the forecastle, and a kedge was thrown from each bow. The fearful nature of the drift was now apparent even to Mabel's eyes, for the two hawsers ran out like tow-lines. As soon as they straightened to a slight strain, both anchors were let go, and cable was given to each, nearly to the better-ends. It was not a difficult task to snub so light a craft with ground-tackle of a quality better than common; and in less than ten minutes from the moment when Jasper went to the helm, the _Scud_ was riding, head to sea, with the two cables stretched ahead in lines that resembled bars of iron. “This is not well done, Master Jasper!” angrily exclaimed Cap, as soon as he perceived the trick which had been played him; “this is not well done, sir. I order you to cut, and to beach the cutter without a moment's delay.” No one, however, seemed disposed to comply with this order; for so long as Eau-douce saw fit to command, his own people were disposed to obey. Finding that the men remained passive, Cap, who believed they were in the utmost peril, turned fiercely to Jasper, and renewed his remonstrances. “You did not head for your pretended creek,” added he, after dealing in some objurgatory remarks that we do not deem it necessary to record, “but steered for that bluff, where every soul on board would have been drowned, had we gone ashore.” “And you wish to cut, and put every soul ashore at that very spot!” Jasper retorted, a little drily. “Throw a lead-line overboard, and ascertain the drift!” Cap now roared to the people forward. A sign from Jasper sustaining this order, it was instantly obeyed. All on deck watched, with nearly breathless interest, the result of the experiment. The lead was no sooner on the bottom, than the line tended forward, and in about two minutes it was seen that the cutter had drifted her length dead in towards the bluff. Jasper looked gravely, for he well knew nothing would hold the vessel did she get within the vortex of the breakers, the first line of which was appearing and disappearing about a cable's length directly under their stern. “Traitor!” exclaimed Cap, shaking a finger at the young commander, though passion choked the rest. “You must answer for this with your life!” he added after a short pause. “If I were at the head of this expedition, Sergeant, I would hang him at the end of the main-boom, lest he escape drowning.” “Moderate your feelings, brother; be more moderate, I beseech you; Jasper appears to have done all for the best, and matters may not be so bad as you believe them.” “Why did he not run for the creek he mentioned? --why has he brought us here, dead to windward of that bluff, and to a spot where even the breakers are only of half the ordinary width, as if in a hurry to drown all on board?” “I headed for the bluff, for the precise reason that the breakers are so narrow at this spot,” answered Jasper mildly, though his gorge had risen at the language the other held. “Do you mean to tell an old seaman like me that this cutter could live in those breakers?” “I do not, sir. I think she would fill and swamp if driven into the first line of them; I am certain she would never reach the shore on her bottom, if fairly entered. I hope to keep her clear of them altogether.” “With a drift of her length in a minute?” “The backing of the anchors does not yet fairly tell, nor do I even hope that _they_ will entirely bring her up.” “On what, then, do you rely? To moor a craft, head and stern, by faith, hope, and charity?” “No, sir, I trust to the under-tow. I headed for the bluff because I knew that it was stronger at that point than at any other, and because we could get nearer in with the land without entering the breakers.” This was said with spirit, though without any particular show of resentment. Its effect on Cap was marked, the feeling that was uppermost being evidently that of surprise. “Under-tow!” he repeated; “who the devil ever heard of saving a vessel from going ashore by the under-tow?” “This may never happen on the ocean, sir,” Jasper answered modestly; “but we have known it to happen here.” “The lad is right, brother,” put in the Sergeant; “for, though I do not well understand it, I have often heard the sailors of the lake speak of such a thing. We shall do well to trust to Jasper in this strait.” Cap grumbled and swore; but, as there was no remedy, he was compelled to acquiesce. Jasper, being now called on to explain what he meant by the under-tow, gave this account of the matter. The water that was driven up on the shore by the gale was necessarily compelled to find its level by returning to the lake by some secret channels. This could not be done on the surface, where both wind and waves were constantly urging it towards the land, and it necessarily formed a sort of lower eddy, by means of which it flowed back again to its ancient and proper bed. This inferior current had received the name of the under-tow, and, as it would necessarily act on the bottom of a vessel which drew as much water as the _Scud_, Jasper trusted to the aid of this reaction to keep his cables from parting. In short, the upper and lower currents would, in a manner, counteract each other. Simple and ingenious as was this theory, however, as yet there was little evidence of its being reduced to practice. The drift continued; though, as the kedges and hawsers with which the anchors were backed took the strains, it became sensibly less. At length the man at the lead announced the joyful intelligence that the anchors had ceased to drag, and that the vessel had brought up! At this precise moment the first line of breakers was about a hundred feet astern of the _Scud_, even appearing to approach much nearer as the foam vanished and returned on the raging surges. Jasper sprang forward, and, casting a glance over the bows, he smiled in triumph, as he pointed exultingly to the cables. Instead of resembling bars of iron in rigidity, as before, they were curving downwards, and to a seaman's senses it was evident that the cutter rose and fell on the seas as they came in with the ease of a ship in a tides-way, when the power of the wind is relieved by the counteracting pressure of the water. “'Tis the under-tow!” he exclaimed with delight, fairly bounding along the deck to steady the helm, in order that the cutter might ride still easier. “Providence has placed us directly in its current, and there is no longer any danger.” “Ay, ay, Providence is a good seaman,” growled Cap, “and often helps lubbers out of difficulty. Under-tow or upper-tow, the gale has abated; and, fortunately for us all, the anchors have met with good holding-ground. Then this d----d fresh water has an unnatural way with it.” Men are seldom inclined to quarrel with good fortune, but it is in distress that they grow clamorous and critical. Most on board were disposed to believe that they had been saved from shipwreck by the skill and knowledge of Jasper, without regarding the opinions of Cap, whose remarks were now little heeded. There was half an hour of uncertainty and doubt, it is true, during which period the lead was anxiously watched; and then a feeling of security came over all, and the weary slept without dreaming of instant death.	{ "id": "1880" }
18	None	It is to be all made of sighs and tears; It is to be all made of faith and service; It is to be all made of phantasy; All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance; All humbleness, all patience, and impatience; All purity, all trial, all observance. SHAKESPEARE. It was near noon when the gale broke; and then its force abated as suddenly as its violence had arisen. In less than two hours after the wind fell, the surface of the lake, though still agitated, was no longer glittering with foam; and in double that time, the entire sheet presented the ordinary scene of disturbed water, that was unbroken by the violence of a tempest. Still the waves came rolling incessantly towards the shore, and the lines of breakers remained, though the spray had ceased to fly; the combing of the swells was more moderate, and all that there was of violence proceeded from the impulsion of wind which had abated. As it was impossible to make head against the sea that was still up, with the light opposing air that blew from the eastward, all thoughts of getting under way that afternoon were abandoned. Jasper, who had now quietly resumed the command of the _Scud_, busied himself, however, in heaving-up the anchors, which were lifted in succession; the kedges that backed them were weighed, and everything was got in readiness for a prompt departure, as soon as the state of the weather would allow. In the meantime, they who had no concern with these duties sought such means of amusement as their peculiar circumstances allowed. As is common with those who are unused to the confinement of a vessel, Mabel cast wistful eyes towards the shore; nor was it long before she expressed a wish that it were possible to land. The Pathfinder was near her at the time, and he assured her that nothing would be easier, as they had a bark canoe on deck, which was the best possible mode of conveyance to go through a surf. After the usual doubts and misgivings, the Sergeant was appealed to; his opinion proved to be favorable, and preparations to carry the whim into effect were immediately made. The party which was to land consisted of Sergeant Dunham, his daughter, and the Pathfinder. Accustomed to the canoe, Mabel took her seat in the centre with great steadiness, her father was placed in the bows, while the guide assumed the office of conductor, by steering in the stern. There was little need of impelling the canoe by means of the paddle, for the rollers sent it forward at moments with a violence that set every effort to govern its movements at defiance. More than once, before the shore was reached, Mabel repented of her temerity, but Pathfinder encouraged her, and really manifested so much self-possession, coolness, and strength of arm himself, that even a female might have hesitated about owning all her apprehensions. Our heroine was no coward; and while she felt the novelty of her situation, in landing through a surf, she also experienced a fair proportion of its wild delight. At moments, indeed, her heart was in her mouth, as the bubble of a boat floated on the very crest of a foaming breaker, appearing to skim the water like a swallow, and then she flushed and laughed, as, left by the glancing element, they appeared to linger behind as if ashamed of having been outdone in the headlong race. A few minutes sufficed for this excitement; for though the distance between the cutter and the land considerably exceeded a quarter of a mile, the intermediate space was passed in a very few minutes. On landing, the Sergeant kissed his daughter kindly, for he was so much of a soldier as always to feel more at home on _terra firma_ than when afloat; and, taking his gun, he announced his intention to pass an hour in quest of game. “Pathfinder will remain near you, girl, and no doubt he will tell you some of the traditions of this part of the world, or some of his own experiences with the Mingos.” The guide laughed, promised to have a care of Mabel, and in a few minutes the father had ascended a steep acclivity and disappeared in the forest. The others took another direction, which, after a few minutes of a sharp ascent also, brought them to a small naked point on the promontory, where the eye overlooked an extensive and very peculiar panorama. Here Mabel seated herself on a fragment of fallen rock to recover her breath and strength, while her companion, on whose sinews no personal exertion seemed to make any impression, stood at her side, leaning in his own and not ungraceful manner on his long rifle. Several minutes passed, and neither spoke; Mabel, in particular, being lost in admiration of the view. The position the two had obtained was sufficiently elevated to command a wide reach of the lake, which stretched away towards the north-east in a boundless sheet, glittering beneath the rays of an afternoon's sun, and yet betraying the remains of that agitation which it had endured while tossed by the late tempest. The land set bounds to its limits in a huge crescent, disappearing in distance towards the south-east and the north. Far as the eye could reach, nothing but forest was visible, not even a solitary sign of civilization breaking in upon the uniform and grand magnificence of nature. The gale had driven the _Scud_ beyond the line of those forts with which the French were then endeavoring to gird the English North American possessions; for, following the channels of communication between the great lakes, their posts were on the banks of the Niagara, while our adventurers had reached a point many leagues westward of that celebrated strait. The cutter rode at single anchor, without the breakers, resembling some well-imagined and accurately-executed toy, intended rather for a glass case than for struggles with the elements which she had so lately gone through, while the canoe lay on the narrow beach, just out of reach of the waves that came booming upon the land, a speck upon the shingles. “We are very far here from human habitations!” exclaimed Mabel, when, after a long survey of the scene, its principal peculiarities forced themselves on her active and ever brilliant imagination; “this is indeed being on a frontier.” “Have they more sightly scenes than this nearer the sea and around their large towns?” demanded Pathfinder, with an interest he was apt to discover in such a subject. “I will not say that: there is more to remind one of his fellow-beings there than here; less, perhaps, to remind one of God.” “Ay, Mabel, that is what my own feelings say. I am but a poor hunter, I know, untaught and unlarned; but God is as near me, in this my home, as he is near the king in his royal palace.” “Who can doubt it?” returned Mabel, looking from the view up into the hard-featured but honest face of her companion, though not without surprise at the energy of his manner. “One feels nearer to God in such a spot, I think, than when the mind is distracted by the objects of the towns.” “You say all I wish to say myself, Mabel, but in so much plainer speech, that you make me ashamed of wishing to let others know what I feel on such matters. I have coasted this lake in search of skins afore the war, and have been here already; not at this very spot, for we landed yonder, where you may see the blasted oak that stands above the cluster of hemlocks--” “How, Pathfinder, can you remember all these trifles so accurately?” “These are our streets and houses, our churches and palaces. Remember them, indeed! I once made an appointment with the Big Sarpent, to meet at twelve o'clock at noon, near the foot of a certain pine, at the end of six months, when neither of us was within three hundred miles of the spot. The tree stood, and stands still, unless the judgment of Providence has lighted on that too, in the midst of the forest, fifty miles from any settlement, but in a most extraordinary neighborhood for beaver.” “And did you meet at that very spot and hour?” “Does the sun rise and set? When I reached the tree, I found the Sarpent leaning against its trunk with torn leggings and muddied moecassins. The Delaware had got into a swamp, and it worried him not a little to find his way out of it; but as the sun which comes over the eastern hills in the morning goes down behind the western at night, so was he true to time and place. No fear of Chingachgook when there is either a friend or an enemy in the case. He is equally sartain with each.” “And where is the Delaware now? why is he not with us to-day?” “He is scouting on the Mingo trail, where I ought to have been too, but for a great human infirmity.” “You seem above, beyond, superior to all infirmity, Pathfinder; I never yet met with a man who appeared to be so little liable to the weaknesses of nature.” “If you mean in the way of health and strength, Mabel, Providence has been kind to me; though I fancy the open air, long hunts, active scoutings, forest fare, and the sleep of a good conscience, may always keep the doctors at a distance. But I am human after all; yes, I find I'm very human in some of my feelings.” Mabel looked surprised, and it would be no more than delineating the character of her sex, if we added that her sweet countenance expressed a good deal of curiosity, too, though her tongue was more discreet. “There is something bewitching in this wild life of yours, Pathfinder,” she exclaimed, a tinge of enthusiasm mantling her cheeks. “I find I'm fast getting to be a frontier girl, and am coming to love all this grand silence of the woods. The towns seem tame to me; and, as my father will probably pass the remainder of his days here, where he has already lived so long, I begin to feel that I should be happy to continue with him, and not to return to the seashore.” “The woods are never silent, Mabel, to such as understand their meaning. Days at a time have I travelled them alone, without feeling the want of company; and, as for conversation, for such as can comprehend their language, there is no want of rational and instructive discourse.” “I believe you are happier when alone, Pathfinder, than when mingling with your fellow-creatures.” “I will not say that, I will not say exactly that. I have seen the time when I have thought that God was sufficient for me in the forest, and that I have craved no more than His bounty and His care. But other feelings have got uppermost, and I suppose natur' will have its way. All other creatur's mate, Mabel, and it was intended man should do so too.” “And have you never bethought you of seeking a wife, Pathfinder, to share your fortunes?” inquired the girl, with the directness and simplicity that the pure of heart and the undesigning are the most apt to manifest, and with that feeling of affection which is inbred in her sex. “To me it seems you only want a home to return to from your wanderings to render your life completely happy. Were I a man, it would be my delight to roam through these forests at will, or to sail over this beautiful lake.” “I understand you, Mabel; and God bless you for thinking of the welfare of men as humble as we are. We have our pleasures, it is true, as well as our gifts, but we might be happier; yes, I do think we might be happier.” “Happier! in what way, Pathfinder? In this pure air, with these cool and shaded forests to wander through, this lovely lake to gaze at and sail upon, with clear consciences, and abundance for all their real wants, men ought to be nothing less than as perfectly happy as their infirmities will allow.” “Every creatur' has its gifts, Mabel, and men have theirs,” answered the guide, looking stealthily at his beautiful companion, whose cheeks had flushed and eyes brightened under the ardor of feelings excited by the novelty of her striking situation; “and all must obey them. Do you see yonder pigeon that is just alightin' on the beach--here in a line with the fallen chestnut?” “Certainly; it is the only thing stirring with life in it, besides ourselves, that is to be seen in this vast solitude.” “Not so, Mabel, not so; Providence makes nothing that lives to live quite alone. Here is its mate, just rising on the wing; it has been feeding near the other beach, but it will not long be separated from its companion.” “I understand you, Pathfinder,” returned Mabel, smiling sweetly, though as calmly as if the discourse was with her father. “But a hunter may find a mate, even in this wild region. The Indian girls are affectionate and true, I know; for such was the wife of Arrowhead, to a husband who oftener frowned than smiled.” “That would never do, Mabel, and good would never come of it. Kind must cling to kind, and country to country, if one would find happiness. If, indeed, I could meet with one like you, who would consent to be a hunter's wife, and who would not scorn my ignorance and rudeness, then, indeed, would all the toil of the past appear like the sporting of the young deer, and all the future like sunshine.” “One like me! A girl of my years and indiscretion would hardly make a fit companion for the boldest scout and surest hunter on the lines.” “Ah, Mabel! I fear me that I have been improving a red-skin's gifts with a pale-face's natur'? Such a character would insure a wife in an Indian village.” “Surely, surely, Pathfinder, you would not think of choosing one so ignorant, so frivolous, so vain, and so inexperienced as I for your wife?” Mabel would have added, “and as young;” but an instinctive feeling of delicacy repressed the words. “And why not, Mabel? If you are ignorant of frontier usages, you know more than all of us of pleasant anecdotes and town customs: as for frivolous, I know not what it means; but if it signifies beauty, ah's me! I fear it is no fault in my eyes. Vain you are not, as is seen by the kind manner in which you listen to all my idle tales about scoutings and trails; and as for experience, that will come with years. Besides, Mabel, I fear men think little of these matters when they are about to take wives: I do.” “Pathfinder, your words,--your looks:--surely all this is meant in trifling; you speak in pleasantry?” “To me it is always agreeable to be near you, Mabel; and I should sleep sounder this blessed night than I have done for a week past, could I think that you find such discourse as pleasant as I do.” We shall not say that Mabel Dunham had not believed herself a favorite with the guide. This her quick feminine sagacity had early discovered; and perhaps she had occasionally thought there had mingled with his regard and friendship some of that manly tenderness which the ruder sex must be coarse, indeed, not to show on occasions to the gentler; but the idea that he seriously sought her for his wife had never before crossed the mind of the spirited and ingenuous girl. Now, however, a gleam of something like the truth broke in upon her imagination, less induced by the words of her companion, perhaps, than by his manner. Looking earnestly into the rugged, honest countenance of the scout, Mabel's own features became concerned and grave; and when she spoke again, it was with a gentleness of manner that attracted him to her even more powerfully than the words themselves were calculated to repel. “You and I should understand each other, Pathfinder,” said she with an earnest sincerity; “nor should there be any cloud between us. You are too upright and frank to meet with anything but sincerity and frankness in return. Surely, surely, all this means nothing,--has no other connection with your feelings than such a friendship as one of your wisdom and character would naturally feel for a girl like me?” “I believe it's all nat'ral, Mabel, yes; I do: the Sergeant tells me he had such feelings towards your own mother, and I think I've seen something like it in the young people I have from time to time guided through the wilderness. Yes, yes, I daresay it's all nat'ral enough, and that makes it come so easy, and is a great comfort to me.” “Pathfinder, your words make me uneasy. Speak plainer, or change the subject for ever. You do not, cannot mean that--you cannot wish me to understand”--even the tongue of the spirited Mabel faltered, and she shrank, with maiden shame, from adding what she wished so earnestly to say. Rallying her courage, however, and determined to know all as soon and as plainly as possible, after a moment's hesitation, she continued,--“I mean, Pathfinder, that you do not wish me to understand that you seriously think of me as a wife?” “I do, Mabel; that's it, that's just it; and you have put the matter in a much better point of view than I with my forest gifts and frontier ways would ever be able to do. The Sergeant and I have concluded on the matter, if it is agreeable to you, as he thinks is likely to be the case; though I doubt my own power to please one who deserves the best husband America can produce.” Mabel's countenance changed from uneasiness to surprise; and then, by a transition still quicker, from surprise to pain. “My father!” she exclaimed,--“my dear father has thought of my becoming your wife, Pathfinder?” “Yes, he has, Mabel, he has, indeed. He has even thought such a thing might be agreeable to you, and has almost encouraged me to fancy it might be true.” “But you yourself,--you certainly can care nothing whether this singular expectation shall ever be realized or not?” “Anan?” “I mean, Pathfinder, that you have talked of this match more to oblige my father than anything else; that your feelings are no way concerned, let my answer be what it may?” The scout looked earnestly into the beautiful face of Mabel, which had flushed with the ardor and novelty of her sensations, and it was not possible to mistake the intense admiration that betrayed itself in every lineament of his ingenuous countenance. “I have often thought myself happy, Mabel, when ranging the woods on a successful hunt, breathing the pure air of the hills, and filled with vigor and health; but I now know that it has all been idleness and vanity compared with the delight it would give me to know that you thought better of me than you think of most others.” “Better of you! --I do, indeed, think better of you, Pathfinder, than of most others: I am not certain that I do not think better of you than of any other; for your truth, honesty, simplicity, justice, and courage are scarcely equalled by any of earth.” “Ah, Mabel, these are sweet and encouraging words from you! and the Sergeant, after all, was not so near wrong as I feared.” “Nay, Pathfinder, in the name of all that is sacred and just, do not let us misunderstand each other in a matter of so much importance. While I esteem, respect, nay, reverence you, almost as much as I reverence my own dear father, it is impossible that I should ever become your wife--that I--” The change in her companion's countenance was so sudden and so great, that the moment the effect of what she had uttered became visible in the face of the Pathfinder, Mabel arrested her own words, notwithstanding her strong desire to be explicit, the reluctance with which she could at any time cause pain being sufficient of itself to induce the pause. Neither spoke for some time, the shade of disappointment that crossed the rugged lineaments of the hunter amounting so nearly to anguish as to frighten his companion, while the sensation of choking became so strong in the Pathfinder that he fairly griped his throat, like one who sought physical relief for physical suffering. The convulsive manner in which his fingers worked actually struck the alarmed girl with a feeling of awe. “Nay, Pathfinder,” Mabel eagerly added, the instant she could command her voice,--“I may have said more than I mean; for all things of this nature are possible, and women, they say, are never sure of their own minds. What I wish you to understand is, that it is not likely that you and I should ever think of each other as man and wife ought to think of each other.” “I do not--I shall never think in that way again, Mabel,” gasped forth the Pathfinder, who appeared to utter his words like one just raised above the pressure of some suffocating substance. “No, no, I shall never think of you, or any one else, again in that way.” “Pathfinder, dear Pathfinder, understand me; do not attach more meaning to my words than I do myself: a match like that would be unwise, unnatural, perhaps.” “Yes, unnat'ral--ag'in natur'; and so I told the Sergeant, but he _would_ have it otherwise.” “Pathfinder! oh, this is worse than I could have imagined! Take my hand, excellent Pathfinder, and let me see that you do not hate me. For God's sake, smile upon me again.” “Hate you, Mabel! Smile upon you! Ah's me!” “Nay, give me your hand; your hardy, true, and manly hand--both, both, Pathfinder! for I shall not be easy until I feel certain that we are friends again, and that all this has been a mistake.” “Mabel!” said the guide, looking wistfully into the face of the generous and impetuous girl, as she held his two hard and sunburnt hands in her own pretty and delicate fingers, and laughing in his own silent and peculiar manner, while anguish gleamed over lineaments which seemed incapable of deception, even while agitated with emotions so conflicting,--“Mabel! the Sergeant was wrong.” The pent-up feelings could endure no more, and the tears rolled down the cheeks of the scout like rain. His fingers again worked convulsively at his throat; and his breast heaved, as if it possessed a tenant of which it would be rid, by any effort, however desperate. “Pathfinder! Pathfinder!” Mabel almost shrieked; “anything but this, anything but this! Speak to me, Pathfinder! Smile again, say one kind word, anything to prove you can forgive me.” “The Sergeant was wrong!” exclaimed the guide, laughing amid his agony, in a way to terrify his companion by the unnatural mixture of anguish and light-heartedness. “I knew it, I knew it, and said it; yes, the Sergeant was wrong after all.” “We can be friends, though we cannot be man and wife,” continued Mabel, almost as much disturbed as her companion, scarcely knowing what she said; “we can always be friends, and always will.” “I thought the Sergeant was mistaken,” resumed the Pathfinder, when a great effort had enabled him to command himself, “for I did not think my gifts were such as would please the fancy of a town-bred girl. It would have been better, Mabel, had he not over-persuaded me into a different notion; and it might have been better, too, had you not been so pleasant and confiding like; yes, it would.” “If I thought any error of mine had raised false expectations in you, Pathfinder, however unintentionally on my part, I should never forgive myself; for, believe me, I would rather endure pain in my own feelings than you should suffer.” “That's just it, Mabel, that's just it. These speeches and opinions, spoken in so soft a voice, and in a way I'm so unused to in the woods, have done the mischief. But I now see plainly, and begin to understand the difference between us better, and will strive to keep down thought, and to go abroad again as I used to do, looking for the game and the inimy. Ah's me, Mabel! I have indeed been on a false trail since we met.” “In a little while you will forget all this, and think of me as a friend, who owes you her life.” “This may be the way in the towns, but I doubt if it's nat'ral to the woods. With us, when the eye sees a lovely sight, it is apt to keep it long in view, or when the mind takes in an upright and proper feeling, it is loath to part with it.” “You will forget it all, when you come seriously to recollect that I am altogether unsuited to be your wife.” “So I told the Sergeant; but he would have it otherwise. I knew you was too young and beautiful for one of middle age, like myself, and who never was comely to look at even in youth; and then your ways have not been my ways; nor would a hunter's cabin be a fitting place for one who was edicated among chiefs, as it were. If I were younger and comelier though, like Jasper Eau-douce--” “Never mind Jasper Eau-douce,” interrupted Mabel impatiently; “we can talk of something else.” “Jasper is a worthy lad, Mabel; ay, and a comely,” returned the guileless guide, looking earnestly at the girl, as if he distrusted her judgment in speaking slightingly of his friend. “Were I only half as comely as Jasper Western, my misgivings in this affair would not have been so great, and they might not have been so true.” “We will not talk of Jasper Western,” repeated Mabel, the color mounting to her temples; “he may be good enough in a gale, or on the lake, but he is not good enough to talk of here.” “I fear me, Mabel, he is better than the man who is likely to be your husband, though the Sergeant says that never can take place. But the Sergeant was wrong once, and he may be wrong twice.” “And who is likely to be my husband, Pathfinder! This is scarcely less strange than what has just passed between us.” “I know it is nat'ral for like to seek like, and for them that have consorted much with officers' ladies to wish to be officers' ladies themselves. But, Mabel; I may speak plainly to you, I know; and I hope my words will not give you pain; for, now I understand what it is to be disappointed in such feelings, I wouldn't wish to cause even a Mingo sorrow on this head. But happiness is not always to be found in a marquee, any more than in a tent; and though the officers' quarters may look more tempting than the rest of the barracks, there is often great misery between husband and wife inside of their doors.” “I do not doubt it in the least, Pathfinder; and, did it rest with me to decide, I would sooner follow you to some cabin in the woods, and share your fortune, whether it might be better or worse, than go inside the door of any officer I know, with an intention of remaining there as its master's wife.” “Mabel, this is not what Lundie hopes, or Lundie thinks.” “And what care I for Lundie? He is major of the 55th, and may command his men to wheel and march about as he pleases; but he cannot compel me to wed the greatest or the meanest of his mess. Besides, what can you know of Lundie's wishes on such a subject?” “From Lundie's own mouth. The Sergeant had told him that he wished me for a son-in-law; and the Major, being an old and a true friend, conversed with me on the subject. He put it to me plainly, whether it would not be more ginerous in me to let an officer succeed, than to strive to make you share a hunter's fortune. I owned the truth, I did; and that was, that I thought it might; but when he told me that the Quartermaster would be his choice, I would not abide by the conditions. No, no, Mabel; I know Davy Muir well, and though he may make you a lady, he can never make you a happy woman, or himself a gentleman.” “My father has been very wrong if he has said or done aught to cause you sorrow, Pathfinder; and so great is my respect for you, so sincere my friendship, that were it not for one--I mean that no person need fear Lieutenant Muir's influence with me--I would rather remain as I am to my dying day than become a lady at the cost of being his wife.” “I do not think you would say that which you do not feel, Mabel,” returned Pathfinder earnestly. “Not at such a moment, on such a subject, and least of all to you. No; Lieutenant Muir may find wives where he can--my name shall never be on his catalogue.” “Thank you, thank you for that, Mabel, for, though there is no longer any hope for me, I could never be happy were you to take to the Quartermaster. I feared the commission might count for something, I did; and I know the man. It is not jealousy that makes me speak in this manner, but truth, for I know the man. Now, were you to fancy a desarving youth, one like Jasper Western, for instance--” “Why always mention Jasper Eau-douce, Pathfinder? he can have no concern with our friendship; let us talk of yourself, and of the manner in which you intend to pass the winter.” “Ah's me! --I'm little worth at the best, Mabel, unless it may be on a trail or with the rifle; and less worth now that I have discovered the Sergeant's mistake. There is no need, therefore, of talking of me. It has been very pleasant to me to be near you so long, and even to fancy that the Sergeant was right; but that is all over now. I shall go down the lake with Jasper, and then there will be business to occupy us, and that will keep useless thoughts out of the mind.” “And you will forget this--forget me--no, not forget me, either, Pathfinder; but you will resume your old pursuits, and cease to think a girl of sufficient importance to disturb your peace?” “I never knowed it afore, Mabel; but girls are of more account in this life than I could have believed. Now, afore I knowed you, the new-born babe did not sleep more sweetly than I used; my head was no sooner on the root, or the stone, or mayhap on the skin, than all was lost to the senses, unless it might be to go over in the night the business of the day in a dream like; and there I lay till the moment came to be stirring, and the swallows were not more certain to be on the wing with the light, than I to be afoot at the moment I wished to be. All this seemed a gift, and might be calculated on even in the midst of a Mingo camp; for I've been outlying in my time, in the very villages of the vagabonds.” “And all this will return to you, Pathfinder, for one so upright and sincere will never waste his happiness on a mere fancy. You will dream again of your hunts, of the deer you have slain, and of the beaver you have taken.” “Ah's me, Mabel, I wish never to dream again! Before we met, I had a sort of pleasure in following up the hounds, in fancy, as it might be; and even in striking a trail of the Iroquois--nay, I've been in skrimmages and ambushments, in thought like, and found satisfaction in it, according to my gifts; but all those things have lost their charms since I've made acquaintance with you. Now, I think no longer of anything rude in my dreams; but the very last night we stayed in the garrison I imagined I had a cabin in a grove of sugar maples, and at the root of every tree was a Mabel Dunham, while the birds among the branches sang ballads instead of the notes that natur' gave, and even the deer stopped to listen. I tried to shoot a fa'n, but Killdeer missed fire, and the creatur' laughed in my face, as pleasantly as a young girl laughs in her merriment, and then it bounded away, looking back as if expecting me to follow.” “No more of this, Pathfinder; we'll talk no more of these things,” said Mabel, dashing the tears from her eyes: for the simple, earnest manner in which this hardy woodsman betrayed the deep hold she had taken of his feelings nearly proved too much for her own generous heart. “Now, let us look for my father; he cannot be distant, as I heard his gun quite near.” “The Sergeant was wrong--yes, he was wrong, and it's of no avail to attempt to make the dove consort with the wolf.” “Here comes my dear father,” interrupted Mabel. “Let us look cheerful and happy, Pathfinder, as such good friends ought to look, and keep each other's secrets.” A pause succeeded; the Sergeant's foot was heard crushing the dried twigs hard by, and then his form appeared shoving aside the bushes of a copse just near. As he issued into the open ground, the old soldier scrutinized his daughter and her companion, and speaking good-naturedly, he said, “Mabel, child, you are young and light of foot--look for a bird that I've shot that fell just beyond the thicket of young hemlocks on the shore; and, as Jasper is showing signs of an intention of getting under way, you need not take the trouble to clamber up this hill again, but we will meet you on the beach in a few minutes.” Mabel obeyed, bounding down the hill with the elastic step of youth and health. But, notwithstanding the lightness of her steps, the heart of the girl was heavy, and no sooner was she hid from observation by the thicket, than she threw herself on the root of a tree and wept as if her heart would break. The Sergeant watched her until she disappeared, with a father's pride, and then turned to his companion with a smile as kind and as familiar as his habits would allow him to use towards any. “She has her mother's lightness and activity, my friend, with somewhat of her father's force,” said he. “Her mother was not quite so handsome, I think myself; but the Dunhams were always thought comely, whether men or women. Well, Pathfinder, I take it for granted you've not overlooked the opportunity, but have spoken plainly to the girl? women like frankness in matters of this sort.” “I believe Mabel and I understand each other at last, Sergeant,” returned the other, looking another way to avoid the soldier's face. “So much the better. Some people fancy that a little doubt and uncertainty makes love all the livelier; but I am one of those who think the plainer the tongue speaks the easier the mind will comprehend. Was Mabel surprised?” “I fear she was, Sergeant; I fear she was taken quite by surprise--yes, I do.” “Well, well, surprises in love are like an ambush in war, and quite as lawful; though it is not so easy to tell when a woman is surprised, as to tell when it happens to an enemy. Mabel did not run away, my worthy friend, did she?” “No, Sergeant, Mabel did not try to escape; _that_ I can say with a clear conscience.” “I hope the girl was too willing, neither! Her mother was shy and coy for a month, at least; but frankness, after all, is a recommendation in a man or woman.” “That it is, that it is; and judgment, too.” “You are not to look for too much judgment in a young creature of twenty, Pathfinder, but it will come with experience. A mistake in you or me, for instance, might not be so easily overlooked; but in a girl of Mabel's years, one is not to strain at a gnat lest they swallow a camel.” The reader will remember that Sergeant Dunham was not a Hebrew scholar. The muscles of the listener's face twitched as the Sergeant was thus delivering his sentiments, though the former had now recovered a portion of that stoicism which formed so large a part of his character, and which he had probably imbibed from long association with the Indians. His eyes rose and fell, and once a gleam shot athwart his hard features as if he were about to indulge in his peculiar laugh; but the joyous feeling, if it really existed, was as quickly lost in a look allied to anguish. It was this unusual mixture of wild and keen mental agony with native, simple joyousness, which had most struck Mabel, who, in the interview just related, had a dozen times been on the point of believing that her suitor's heart was only lightly touched, as images of happiness and humor gleamed over a mind that was almost infantile in its simplicity and nature; an impression, however, which was soon driven away by the discovery of emotions so painful and so deep, that they seemed to harrow the very soul. “You say true, Sergeant,” Pathfinder answered; “a mistake in one like you is a more serious matter.” “You will find Mabel sincere and honest in the end; give her but a little time.” “Ah's me, Sergeant!” “A man of your merits would make an impression on a rock, give him time, Pathfinder.” “Sergeant Dunham, we are old fellow-campaigners--that is, as campaigns are carried on here in the wilderness; and we have done so many kind acts to each other that we can afford to be candid--what has caused you to believe that a girl like Mabel could ever fancy one so rude as I am?” “What? --why, a variety of reasons, and good reasons too, my friend. Those same acts of kindness, perhaps, and the campaigns you mention; moreover, you are my sworn and tried comrade.” “All this sounds well, so far as you and I are consarned; but they do not touch the case of your pretty daughter. She may think these very campaigns have destroyed the little comeliness I may once have had; and I am not quite sartain that being an old friend of her father would lead any young maiden's mind into a particular affection for a suitor. Like loves like, I tell you, Sergeant; and my gifts are not altogether the gifts of Mabel Dunham.” “These are some of your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, for it prevents his railing at the non-commissioned officers before he knows what to rail at; I'm not sure it is out of place in a commissary or a parson, but it's the devil and all when it gets possession of a real soldier or a lover. Have as little to do with it as possible, if you would win a woman's heart. As for your doctrine that like loves like, it is as wrong as possible in matters of this sort. If like loved like, women would love one another, and men also. No, no, like loves dislike,”--the Sergeant was merely a scholar of the camp,--“and you have nothing to fear from Mabel on that score. Look at Lieutenant Muir; the man has had five wives already, they tell me, and there is no more modesty in him than there is in a cat-o'-nine-tails.” “Lieutenant Muir will never be the husband of Mabel Dunham, let him ruffle his feathers as much as he may.” “That is a sensible remark of yours, Pathfinder; for my mind is made up that you shall be my son-in-law. If I were an officer myself, Mr. Muir might have some chance; but time has placed one door between my child and myself, and I don't intend there shall be that of a marquee also.” “Sergeant, we must let Mabel follow her own fancy; she is young and light of heart, and God forbid that any wish of mine should lay the weight of a feather on a mind that is all gaiety now, or take one note of happiness from her laughter!” “Have you conversed freely with the girl?” the Sergeant demanded quickly, and with some asperity of manner. Pathfinder was too honest to deny a truth plain as that which the answer required, and yet too honorable to betray Mabel, and expose her to the resentment of one whom he well knew to be stern in his anger. “We have laid open our minds,” he said; “and though Mabel's is one that any man might love to look at, I find little there, Sergeant, to make me think any better of myself.” “The girl has not dared to refuse you--to refuse her father's best friend?” Pathfinder turned his face away to conceal the look of anguish that consciousness told him was passing athwart it, but he continued the discourse in his own quiet, manly tones. “Mabel is too kind to refuse anything, or to utter harsh words to a dog. I have not put the question in a way to be downright refused, Sergeant.” “And did you expect my daughter to jump into your arms before you asked her? She would not have been her mother's child had she done any such thing, nor do I think she would have been mine. The Dunhams like plain dealing as well as the king's majesty; but they are no jumpers. Leave me to manage this matter for you, Pathfinder, and there shall be no unnecessary delay. I'll speak to Mabel myself this very evening, using your name as principal in the affair.” “I'd rather not, I'd rather not, Sergeant. Leave the matter to Mabel and me, and I think all will come right in the ind. Young girls are like timorsome birds; they do not over-relish being hurried or spoken harshly to nither. Leave the matter to Mabel and me.” “On one condition I will, my friend; and that is, that you will promise me, on the honor of a scout, that you will put the matter plainly to Mabel the first suitable opportunity, and no mincing of words.” “I will ask her, Sergeant, on condition that you promise not to meddle in the affair--yes, I will promise to ask Mabel whether she will marry me, even though she laugh in my face at my doing so, on that condition.” Sergeant Dunham gave the desired promise very cheerfully; for he had completely wrought himself up into the belief that the man he so much esteemed himself must be acceptable to his daughter. He had married a woman much younger than himself, and he saw no unfitness in the respective years of the intended couple. Mabel was educated so much above him, too, that he was not aware of the difference which actually existed between the parent and child in this respect. It followed that Sergeant Dunham was not altogether qualified to appreciate his daughter's tastes, or to form a very probable conjecture what would be the direction taken by those feelings which oftener depend on impulses and passion than on reason. Still, the worthy soldier was not so wrong in his estimate of the Pathfinder's chances as might at first appear. Knowing all the sterling qualities of the man, his truth, integrity of purpose, courage, self-devotion, disinterestedness, it was far from unreasonable to suppose that qualities like these would produce a deep impression on any female heart; and the father erred principally in fancying that the daughter might know as it might be by intuition what he himself had acquired by years of intercourse and adventure. As Pathfinder and his military friend descended the hill to the shore of the lake, the discourse did not flag. The latter continued to persuade the former that his diffidence alone prevented complete success with Mabel, and that he had only to persevere in order to prevail. Pathfinder was much too modest by nature, and had been too plainly, though so delicately, discouraged in the recent interview to believe all he heard; still the father used so many arguments which seemed plausible, and it was so grateful to fancy that the daughter might yet be his, that the reader is not to be surprised when he is told that this unsophisticated being did not view Mabel's recent conduct in precisely the light in which he may be inclined to view it himself. He did not credit all that the Sergeant told him, it is true; but he began to think virgin coyness and ignorance of her own feelings might have induced Mabel to use the language she had. “The Quartermaster is no favorite,” said Pathfinder in answer to one of his companion's remarks. “Mabel will never look on him as more than one who has had four or five wives already.” “Which is more than his share. A man may marry twice without offence to good morals and decency, I allow! but four times is an aggravation.” “I should think even marrying once what Master Cap calls a circumstance,” put in Pathfinder, laughing in his quiet way, for by this time his spirits had recovered some of their buoyancy. “It is, indeed, my friend, and a most solemn circumstance too. If it were not that Mabel is to be your wife, I would advise you to remain single. But here is the girl herself, and discretion is the word.” “Ah's me, Sergeant, I fear you are mistaken!”	{ "id": "1880" }
19	None	Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view. MILTON. Mabel was in waiting on the beach, and the canoe was soon launched. Pathfinder carried the party out through the surf in the same skillful manner that he had brought it in; and though Mabel's color heightened with excitement, and her heart seemed often ready to leap out of her mouth again, they reached the side of the _Scud_ without having received even a drop of spray. Ontario is like a quick-tempered man, sudden to be angered, and as soon appeased. The sea had already fallen; and though the breakers bounded the shore, far as the eye could reach, it was merely in lines of brightness, that appeared and vanished like the returning waves produced by a stone which had been dropped into a pool. The cable of the _Scud_ was scarcely seen above the water, and Jasper had already hoisted his sails, in readiness to depart as soon as the expected breeze from the shore should fill the canvas. It was just sunset as the cutter's mainsail flapped and its stem began to sever the water. The air was light and southerly, and the head of the vessel was kept looking up along the south shore, it being the intention to get to the eastward again as fast as possible. The night that succeeded was quiet; and the rest of those who slept deep and tranquil. Some difficulty occurred concerning the command of the vessel, but the matter had been finally settled by an amicable compromise. As the distrust of Jasper was far from being appeased, Cap retained a supervisory power, while the young man was allowed to work the craft, subject, at all times, to the control and interference of the old seaman. To this Jasper consented, in preference to exposing Mabel any longer to the dangers of their present situation; for, now that the violence of the elements had ceased, he well knew that the _Montcalm_ would be in search of them. He had the discretion, however, not to reveal his apprehensions on this head; for it happened that the very means he deemed the best to escape the enemy were those which would be most likely to awaken new suspicions of his honesty in the minds of those who held the power to defeat his intentions. In other words, Jasper believed that the gallant young Frenchman, who commanded the ship of the enemy, would quit his anchorage under the fort at Niagara, and stand up the lake, as soon as the wind abated, in order to ascertain the fate of the _Scud_, keeping midway between the two shores as the best means of commanding a broad view; and that, on his part, it would be expedient to hug one coast or the other, not only to avoid a meeting, but as affording a chance of passing without detection by blending his sails and spars with objects on the land. He preferred the south because it was the weather shore, and because he thought it was that which the enemy would the least expect him to take, though it necessarily led near his settlements, and in front of one of the strongest posts he held in that part of the world. Of all this, however, Cap was happily ignorant, and the Sergeant's mind was too much occupied with the details of his military trust to enter into these niceties, which so properly belonged to another profession. No opposition was made, therefore, and before morning Jasper had apparently dropped quietly into all his former authority, issuing his orders freely, and meeting with obedience without hesitation or cavil. The appearance of day brought all on board on deck again; and, as is usual with adventurers on the water, the opening horizon was curiously examined, as objects started out of the obscurity, and the panorama brightened under the growing light. East, west, and north nothing was visible but water glittering in the rising sun; but southward stretched the endless belt of woods that then held Ontario in a setting of forest verdure. Suddenly an opening appeared ahead, and then the massive walls of a chateau-looking house, with outworks, bastions, blockhouses, and palisadoes, frowned on a headland that bordered the outlet of a broad stream. Just as the fort became visible, a little cloud rose over it, and the white ensign of France was seen fluttering from a lofty flagstaff. Cap gave an ejaculation as he witnessed this ungrateful exhibition, and he cast a quick suspicious glance at his brother-in-law. “The dirty tablecloth hung up to air, as my name is Charles Cap!” he muttered; “and we hugging this d----d shore as if it were our wife and children met on the return from an India v'y'ge! Hark'e, Jasper, are you in search of a cargo of frogs, that you keep so near in to this New France?” “I hug the land, sir, in the hope of passing the enemy's ship without being seen, for I think she must be somewhere down here to leeward.” “Ay, ay, this sounds well, and I hope it may turn out as you say. I trust there is no under-tow here?” “We are on a weather shore, now,” said Jasper, smiling; “and I think you will admit, Master Cap, that a strong under-tow makes an easy cable: we owe all our lives to the under-tow of this very lake.” “French flummery!” growled Cap, though he did not care to be heard by Jasper. “Give me a fair, honest, English-Yankee-American tow, above board, and above water too, if I must have a tow at all, and none of your sneaking drift that is below the surface, where one can neither see nor feel. I daresay, if the truth could be come at, that this late escape of ours was all a contrived affair.” “We have now a good opportunity, at least, to reconnoitre the enemy's post at Niagara, brother, for such I take this fort to be,” put in the Sergeant. “Let us be all eyes in passing, and remember that we are almost in face of the enemy.” This advice of the Sergeant needed nothing to enforce it; for the interest and novelty of passing a spot occupied by human beings were of themselves sufficient to attract deep attention in that scene of a vast but deserted nature. The wind was now fresh enough to urge the _Scud_ through the water with considerable velocity, and Jasper eased her helm as she opened the river, and luffed nearly into the mouth of that noble strait, or river, as it is termed. A dull, distant, heavy roar came down through the opening in the banks, swelling on the currents of the air, like the deeper notes of some immense organ, and occasionally seeming to cause the earth itself to tremble. “That sounds like surf on some long unbroken coast!” exclaimed Cap, as a swell, deeper than common, came to his ears. “Ay, that is such surf as we have in this quarter of the world,” Pathfinder answered. “There is no under-tow there, Master Cap; but all the water that strikes the rocks stays there, so far as going back again is consarned. That is old Niagara that you hear, or this noble stream tumbling down a mountain.” “No one will have the impudence to pretend that this fine broad river falls over yonder hills?” “It does, Master Cap, it does; and all for the want of stairs, or a road to come down by. This is natur', as we have it up hereaway, though I daresay you beat us down on the ocean. Ah's me, Mabel! a pleasant hour it would be if we could walk on the shore some ten or fifteen miles up this stream, and gaze on all that God has done there.” “You have, then, seen these renowned falls, Pathfinder?” the girl eagerly inquired. “I have--yes, I have; and an awful sight I witnessed at that same time. The Sarpent and I were out scouting about the garrison there, when he told me that the traditions of his people gave an account of a mighty cataract in this neighborhood, and he asked me to vary from the line of march a little to look at the wonder. I had heard some marvels consarning the spot from the soldiers of the 60th, which is my nat'ral corps like, and not the 55th, with which I have sojourned so much of late; but there are so many terrible liars in all rijiments that I hardly believed half they had told me. Well, we went; and though we expected to be led by our ears, and to hear some of that awful roaring that we hear to-day, we were disappointed, for natur' was not then speaking in thunder, as she is this morning. Thus it is in the forest, Master Cap; there being moments when God seems to be walking abroad in power, and then, again, there is a calm over all, as if His spirit lay in quiet along the 'arth. Well, we came suddenly upon the stream, a short distance above the fall, and a young Delaware, who was in our company, found a bark canoe, and he would push into the current to reach an island that lies in the very centre of the confusion and strife. We told him of his folly, we did; and we reasoned with him on the wickedness of tempting Providence by seeking danger that led to no ind; but the youth among the Delawares are very much the same as the youth among the soldiers, risky and vain. All we could say did not change his mind, and the lad had his way. To me it seems, Mabel, that whenever a thing is really grand and potent, it has a quiet majesty about it, altogether unlike the frothy and flustering manner of smaller matters, and so it was with them rapids. The canoe was no sooner fairly in them, than down it went, as it might be, as one sails through the air on the 'arth, and no skill of the young Delaware could resist the stream. And yet he struggled manfully for life, using the paddle to the last, like the deer that is swimming to cast the hounds. At first he shot across the current so swiftly, that we thought he would prevail; but he had miscalculated his distance, and when the truth really struck him, he turned the head upstream, and struggled in a way that was fearful to look at. I could have pitied him even had he been a Mingo. For a few moments his efforts were so frantic that he actually prevailed over the power of the cataract; but natur' has its limits, and one faltering stroke of the paddle set him back, and then he lost ground, foot by foot, inch by inch, until he got near the spot where the river looked even and green, and as if it were made of millions of threads of water, all bent over some huge rock, when he shot backwards like an arrow and disappeared, the bow of the canoe tipping just enough to let us see what had become of him. I met a Mohawk some years later who had witnessed the whole affair from the bed of the stream below, and he told me that the Delaware continued to paddle in the air until he was lost in the mists of the falls.” “And what became of the poor wretch?” demanded Mabel, who had been strongly interested by the natural eloquence of the speaker. “He went to the happy hunting-grounds of his people, no doubt; for though he was risky and vain, he was also just and brave. Yes, he died foolishly, but the Manitou of the red-skins has compassion on his creatur's as well as the God of a Christian.” A gun at this moment was discharged from a blockhouse near the fort; and the shot, one of light weight, came whistling over the cutter's mast, an admonition to approach no nearer. Jasper was at the helm, and he kept away, smiling at the same time as if he felt no anger at the rudeness of the salutation. The _Scud_ was now in the current, and her outward set soon carried her far enough to leeward to avoid the danger of a repetition of the shot, and then she quietly continued her course along the land. As soon as the river was fairly opened, Jasper ascertained that the _Montcalm_ was not at anchor in it; and a man sent aloft came down with the report that the horizon showed no sail. The hope was now strong that the artifice of Jasper had succeeded, and that the French commander had missed them by keeping the middle of the lake as he steered towards its head. All that day the wind hung to the southward, and the cutter continued her course about a league from the land, running six or eight knots the hour in perfectly smooth water. Although the scene had one feature of monotony, the outline of unbroken forest, it was not without its interest and pleasures. Various headlands presented themselves, and the cutter, in running from one to another, stretched across bays so deep as almost to deserve the name of gulfs. But nowhere did the eye meet with the evidences of civilization; rivers occasionally poured their tribute into the great reservoir of the lake, but their banks could be traced inland for miles by the same outlines of trees; and even large bays, that lay embosomed in woods, communicating with Ontario only by narrow outlets, appeared and disappeared, without bringing with them a single trace of a human habitation. Of all on board, the Pathfinder viewed the scene with the most unmingled delight. His eyes feasted on the endless line of forest, and more than once that day, notwithstanding he found it so grateful to be near Mabel, listening to her pleasant voice, and echoing, in feelings at least, her joyous laugh, did his soul pine to be wandering beneath the high arches of the maples, oaks, and lindens, where his habits had induced him to fancy lasting and true joys were only to be found. Cap viewed the prospect differently; more than once he expressed his disgust at there being no lighthouses, church-towers, beacons, or roadsteads with their shipping. Such another coast, he protested, the world did not contain; and, taking the Sergeant aside, he gravely assured him that the region could never come to anything, as the havens were neglected, the rivers had a deserted and useless look, and that even the breeze had a smell of the forest about it, which spoke ill of its properties. But the humors of the different individuals in her did not stay the speed of the _Scud_: when the sun was setting, she was already a hundred miles on her route towards Oswego, into which river Sergeant Dunham now thought it his duty to go, in order to receive any communications that Major Duncan might please to make. With a view to effect this purpose, Jasper continued to hug the shore all night; and though the wind began to fail him towards morning, it lasted long enough to carry the cutter up to a point that was known to be but a league or two from the fort. Here the breeze came out light at the northward, and the cutter hauled a little from the land, in order to obtain a safe offing should it come on to blow, or should the weather again get to be easterly. When the day dawned, the cutter had the mouth of the Oswego well under the lee, distant about two miles; and just as the morning gun from the fort was fired, Jasper gave the order to ease off the sheets, and to bear up for his port. At that moment a cry from the forecastle drew all eyes towards the point on the eastern side of the outlet, and there, just without the range of shot from the light guns of the works, with her canvas reduced to barely enough to keep her stationary, lay the _Montcalm_, evidently in waiting for their appearance. To pass her was impossible, for by filling her sails the French ship could have intercepted them in a few minutes; and the circumstances called for a prompt decision. After a short consultation, the Sergeant again changed his plan, determining to make the best of his way towards the station for which he had been originally destined, trusting to the speed of the _Scud_ to throw the enemy so far astern as to leave no clue to her movements. The cutter accordingly hauled upon a wind with the least possible delay, with everything set that would draw. Guns were fired from the fort, ensigns shown, and the ramparts were again crowded. But sympathy was all the aid that Lundie could lend to his party; and the _Montcalm_, also firing four or five guns of defiance, and throwing abroad several of the banners of France, was soon in chase under a cloud of canvas. For several hours the two vessels were pressing through the water as fast as possible, making short stretches to windward, apparently with a view to keep the port under their lee, the one to enter it if possible, and the other to intercept it in the attempt. At meridian the French ship was hull down, dead to leeward, the disparity of sailing on a wind being very great, and some islands were near by, behind which Jasper said it would be possible for the cutter to conceal her future movements. Although Cap and the Sergeant, and particularly Lieutenant Muir, to judge by his language, still felt a good deal of distrust of the young man, and Frontenac was not distant, this advice was followed; for time pressed, and the Quartermaster discreetly observed that Jasper could not well betray them without running openly into the enemy's harbor, a step they could at any time prevent, since the only cruiser of force the French possessed at the moment was under their lee and not in a situation to do them any immediate injury. Left to himself, Jasper Western soon proved how much was really in him. He weathered upon the islands, passed them, and on coming out to the eastward, kept broad away, with nothing in sight in his wake or to leeward. By sunset again the cutter was up with the first of the islands that lie in the outlet of the lake; and ere it was dark she was running through the narrow channels on her way to the long-sought station. At nine o'clock, however, Cap insisted that they should anchor; for the maze of islands became so complicated and obscure, that he feared, at every opening, the party would find themselves under the guns of a French fort. Jasper consented cheerfully, it being a part of his standing instructions to approach the station under such circumstances as would prevent the men from obtaining any very accurate notions of its position, lest a deserter might betray the little garrison to the enemy. The _Scud_ was brought to in a small retired bay, where it would have been difficult to find her by daylight, and where she was perfectly concealed at night, when all but a solitary sentinel on deck sought their rest. Cap had been so harassed during the previous eight-and-forty hours, that his slumbers were long and deep; nor did he awake from his first nap until the day was just beginning to dawn. His eyes were scarcely open, however, when his nautical instinct told him that the cutter was under way. Springing up, he found the _Scud_ threading the islands again, with no one on deck but Jasper and the pilot, unless the sentinel be excepted, who had not in the least interfered with movements that he had every reason to believe were as regular as they were necessary. “How's this, Master Western?” demanded Cap, with sufficient fierceness for the occasion; “are you running us into Frontenac at last, and we all asleep below, like so many mariners waiting for the 'sentry go'?” “This is according to orders, Master Cap, Major Duncan having commanded me never to approach the station unless at a moment when the people were below; for he does not wish there should be more pilots in those waters than the king has need of.” “Whe-e-e-w! a pretty job I should have made of running down among these bushes and rocks with no one on deck! Why, a regular York branch could make nothing of such a channel.” “I always thought, sir,” said Jasper, smiling, “you would have done better had you left the cutter in my hands until she had safely reached her place of destination.” “We should have done it, Jasper, we should have done it, had it not been for a circumstance; these circumstances are serious matters, and no prudent man will overlook them.” “Well, sir, I hope there is now an end of them. We shall arrive in less than an hour if the wind holds, and then you'll be safe from any circumstances that I can contrive.” “Humph!” Cap was obliged to acquiesce; and, as everything around him had the appearance of Jasper's being sincere, there was not much difficulty in making up his mind to submit. It would not have been easy indeed for a person the most sensitive on the subject of circumstances to fancy that the _Scud_ was anywhere in the vicinity of a port so long established and so well known on the frontiers as Frontenac. The islands might not have been literally a thousand in number, but they were so numerous and small as to baffle calculation, though occasionally one of larger size than common was passed. Jasper had quitted what might have been termed the main channel, and was winding his way, with a good stiff breeze and a favorable current, through passes that were sometimes so narrow that there appeared to be barely room sufficient for the _Scud's_ spars to clear the trees, while at other moments he shot across little bays, and buried the cutter again amid rocks, forests, and bushes. The water was so transparent that there was no occasion for the lead, and being of very equal depth, little risk was actually run, though Cap, with his maritime habits, was in a constant fever lest they should strike. “I give it up, I give it up, Pathfinder!” the old seaman at length exclaimed, when the little vessel emerged in safety from the twentieth of these narrow inlets through which she had been so boldly carried; “this is defying the very nature of seamanship, and sending all its laws and rules to the d---l!” “Nay, nay, Saltwater, 'tis the perfection of the art. You perceive that Jasper never falters, but, like a hound with a true nose, he runs with his head high as if he had a strong scent. My life on it, the lad brings us out right in the ind, as he would have done in the beginning had we given him leave.” “No pilot, no lead, no beacons, buoys, or lighthouses, no--” “Trail,” interrupted Pathfinder; “for that to me is the most mysterious part of the business. Water leaves no trail, as every one knows; and yet here is Jasper moving ahead as boldly as if he had before his eyes the prints of the moccasins on leaves as plainly as we can see the sun in the heaven.” “D---me, if I believe there is even any compass!” “Stand by to haul down the jib,” called out Jasper, who merely smiled at the remarks of his companion. “Haul down--starboard your helm--starboard hard--so--meet her--gently there with the helm--touch her lightly--now jump ashore with the fast, lad--no, heave; there are some of our people ready to take it.” All this passed so quickly as barely to allow the spectator time to note the different evolutions, ere the _Scud_ had been thrown into the wind until her mainsail shivered, next cast a little by the use of the rudder only, and then she set bodily alongside of a natural rocky quay, where she was immediately secured by good fasts run to the shore. In a word, the station was reached, and the men of the 55th were greeted by their expecting comrades, with the satisfaction which a relief usually brings. Mabel sprang up on the shore with a delight which she did not care to express; and her father led his men after her with an alacrity which proved how wearied he had become of the cutter. The station, as the place was familiarly termed by the soldiers of the 55th, was indeed a spot to raise expectations of enjoyment among those who had been cooped up so long in a vessel of the dimensions of the _Scud_. None of the islands were high, though all lay at a sufficient elevation above the water to render them perfectly healthy and secure. Each had more or less of wood; and the greater number at that distant day were clothed with the virgin forest. The one selected by the troops for their purpose was small, containing about twenty acres of land, and by some of the accidents of the wilderness it had been partly stripped of its trees, probably centuries before the period of which we are writing, and a little grassy glade covered nearly half its surface. The shores of Station Island were completely fringed with bushes, and great care had been taken to preserve them, as they answered as a screen to conceal the persons and things collected within their circle. Favored by this shelter, as well as by that of several thickets of trees and different copses, some six or eight low huts had been erected to be used as quarters for the officer and his men, to contain stores, and to serve the purposes of kitchen, hospital, etc. These huts were built of logs in the usual manner, had been roofed by bark brought from a distance, lest the signs of labor should attract attention, and, as they had now been inhabited some months, were as comfortable as dwellings of that description usually ever get to be. At the eastern extremity of the island, however, was a small, densely-wooded peninsula, with a thicket of underbrush so closely matted as nearly to prevent the possibility of seeing across it, so long as the leaves remained on the branches. Near the narrow neck that connected this acre with the rest of the island, a small blockhouse had been erected, with some attention to its means of resistance. The logs were bullet-proof, squared and jointed with a care to leave no defenceless points; the windows were loopholes, the door massive and small, and the roof, like the rest of the structure, was framed of hewn timber, covered properly with bark to exclude the rain. The lower apartment as usual contained stores and provisions; here indeed the party kept all their supplies; the second story was intended for a dwelling, as well as for the citadel, and a low garret was subdivided into two or three rooms, and could hold the pallets of some ten or fifteen persons. All the arrangements were exceedingly simple and cheap, but they were sufficient to protect the soldiers against the effects of a surprise. As the whole building was considerably less than forty feet high, its summit was concealed by the tops of the trees, except from the eyes of those who had reached the interior of the island. On that side the view was open from the upper loops, though bushes even there, more or less, concealed the base of the wooden tower. The object being purely defence, care had been taken to place the blockhouse so near an opening in the limestone rock that formed the base of the island as to admit of a bucket being dropped into the water, in order to obtain that great essential in the event of a siege. In order to facilitate this operation, and to enfilade the base of the building, the upper stories projected several feet beyond the lower in the manner usual to blockhouses, and pieces of wood filled the apertures cut in the log flooring, which were intended as loops and traps. The communications between the different stories were by means of ladders. If we add that these blockhouses were intended as citadels for garrisons or settlements to retreat to, in the cases of attacks, the general reader will obtain a sufficiently correct idea of the arrangements it is our wish to explain. But the situation of the island itself formed its principal merit as a military position. Lying in the midst of twenty others, it was not an easy matter to find it; since boats might pass quite near, and, by glimpses caught through the openings, this particular island would be taken for a part of some other. Indeed, the channels between the islands which lay around the one we have been describing were so narrow that it was even difficult to say which portions of the land were connected, or which separated, even as one stood in the centre, with the express desire of ascertaining the truth. The little bay in particular, which Jasper used as a harbor, was so embowered with bushes and shut in with islands, that, the sails of the cutter being lowered, her own people on one occasion had searched for hours before they could find the _Scud_, in their return from a short excursion among the adjacent channels in quest of fish. In short, the place was admirably adapted to its present objects, and its natural advantages had been as ingeniously improved as economy and the limited means of a frontier post would very well allow. The hour which succeeded the arrival of the _Scud_ was one of hurried excitement. The party in possession had done nothing worthy of being mentioned, and, wearied with their seclusion, they were all eager to return to Oswego. The Sergeant and the officer he came to relieve had no sooner gone through the little ceremonies of transferring the command, than the latter hurried on board the _Scud_ with his whole party; and Jasper, who would gladly have passed the day on the island, was required to get under way forthwith, the wind promising a quick passage up the river and across the lake. Before separating, however, Lieutenant Muir, Cap, and the Sergeant had a private conference with the ensign who had been relieved, in which the last was made acquainted with the suspicions that existed against the fidelity of the young sailor. Promising due caution, the officer embarked, and in less than three hours from the time when she had arrived the cutter was again in motion. Mabel had taken possession of a hut; and with female readiness and skill she made all the simple little domestic arrangements of which the circumstances would admit, not only for her own comfort, but for that of her father. To save labor, a mess-table was prepared in a hut set apart for that purpose, where all the heads of the detachment were to eat, the soldier's wife performing the necessary labor. The hut of the Sergeant, which was the best on the island, being thus freed from any of the vulgar offices of a household, admitted of such a display of womanly taste, that, for the first time since her arrival on the frontier, Mabel felt proud of her home. As soon as these important duties were discharged, she strolled out on the island, taking a path which led through the pretty glade, and which conducted to the only point not covered with bushes. Here she stood gazing at the limpid water, which lay with scarcely a ruffle on it at her feet, musing on the novel situation in which she was placed, and permitting a pleasing and deep excitement to steal over her feelings, as she remembered the scenes through which she had so lately passed, and conjectured those which still lay veiled in the future. “You're a beautiful fixture, in a beautiful spot, Mistress Mabel,” said David Muir, suddenly appearing at her elbow; “and I'll no' engage you're not just the handsomest of the two.” “I will not say, Mr. Muir, that compliments on my person are altogether unwelcome, for I should not gain credit for speaking the truth, perhaps,” answered Mabel with spirit; “but I will say that if you would condescend to address to me some remarks of a different nature, I may be led to believe you think I have sufficient faculties to understand them.” “Hoot! your mind, beautiful Mabel, is polished just like the barrel of a soldier's musket, and your conversation is only too discreet and wise for a poor d---l who has been chewing birch up here these four years on the lines, instead of receiving it in an application that has the virtue of imparting knowledge. But you are no' sorry, I take it, young lady, that you've got your pretty foot on _terra firma_ once more.” “I thought so two hours since, Mr. Muir; but the _Scud_ looks so beautiful as she sails through these vistas of trees, that I almost regret I am no longer one of her passengers.” As Mabel ceased speaking, she waved her handkerchief in return to a salutation from Jasper, who kept his eyes fastened on her form until the white sails of the cutter had swept round a point, and were nearly lost behind its green fringe of leaves. “There they go, and I'll no' say 'joy go with them;' but may they have the luck to return safely, for without them we shall be in danger of passing the winter on this island; unless, indeed, we have the alternative of the castle at Quebec. Yon Jasper Eau-douce is a vagrant sort of a lad, and they have reports of him in the garrison that it pains my very heart to hear. Your worthy father, and almost as worthy uncle, have none of the best opinion of him.” “I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Muir; I doubt not that time will remove all their distrust.” “If time would only remove mine, pretty Mabel,” rejoined the Quartermaster in a wheedling tone, “I should feel no envy of the commander-in-chief. I think if I were in a condition to retire, the Sergeant would just step into my shoes.” “If my dear father is worthy to step into your shoes, Mr. Muir,” returned the girl, with malicious pleasure, “I'm sure that the qualification is mutual, and that you are every way worthy to step into his.” “The deuce is in the child! you would not reduce me to the rank of a non-commissioned officer, Mabel?” “No, indeed, sir; I was not thinking of the army at all as you spoke of retiring. My thoughts were more egotistical, and I was thinking how much you reminded me of my dear father, by your experience, wisdom, and suitableness to take his place as the head of a family.” “As its bridegroom, pretty Mabel, but not as its parent or natural chief. I see how it is with you, loving your repartee, and brilliant with wit. Well, I like spirit in a young woman, so it be not the spirit of a scold. This Pathfinder is all extraordinair, Mabel, if truth may be said of the man.” “Truth should be said of him or nothing. Pathfinder is my friend--my very particular friend, Mr. Muir, and no evil can be said of him in my presence that I shall not deny.” “I shall say nothing evil of him, I can assure you, Mabel; but, at the same time, I doubt if much good can be said in his favor.” “He is at least expert with the rifle,” returned Mabel, smiling. “That you cannot deny.” “Let him have all the credit of his exploits in that way if you please; but he is as illiterate as a Mohawk.” “He may not understand Latin, but his knowledge of Iroquois is greater than that of most men, and it is the more useful language of the two in this part of the world.” “If Lundie himself were to call on me for an opinion which I admire more, your person or your wit, beautiful and caustic Mabel, I should be at a loss to answer. My admiration is so nearly divided between them, that I often fancy this is the one that bears off the palm, and then the other! Ah! the late Mrs. Muir was a paragon in that way also.” “The latest Mrs. Muir, did you say, sir?” asked Mabel, looking up innocently at her companion. “Hoot, hoot! That is some of Pathfinder's scandal. Now I daresay that the fellow has been trying to persuade you, Mabel, that I have had more than one wife already.” “In that case his time would have been thrown away, sir, as everybody knows that you have been so unfortunate as to have had four.” “Only three, as sure as my name is David Muir. The fourth is pure scandal--or rather, pretty Mabel, she is yet _in petto_, as they say at Rome; and that means, in matters of love, in the heart, my dear.” “Well, I'm glad I'm not that fourth person, _in petto_, or in anything else, as I should not like to be a scandal.” “No fear of that, charming Mabel; for were you the fourth, all the others would be forgotten, and your wonderful beauty and merit would at once elevate you to be the first. No fear of your being the fourth in any thing.” “There is consolation in that assurance, Mr. Muir,” said Mabel, laughing, “whatever there may be in your other assurance; for I confess I should prefer being even a fourth-rate beauty to being a fourth wife.” So saying she tripped away, leaving the Quartermaster to meditate on his success. Mabel had been induced to use her female means of defence thus freely, partly because her suitor had of late been so pointed as to stand in need of a pretty strong repulse, and partly on account of his innuendoes against Jasper and the Pathfinder. Though full of spirit and quick of intellect, she was not naturally pert; but on the present occasion she thought circumstances called for more than usual decision. When she left her companion, therefore, she believed she was now finally released from attentions which she thought as ill-bestowed as they were certainly disagreeable. Not so, however, with David Muir; accustomed to rebuffs, and familiar with the virtue of perseverance, he saw no reason to despair, though the half-menacing, half-self-satisfied manner in which he shook his head towards the retreating girl might have betrayed designs as sinister as they were determined. While he was thus occupied, the Pathfinder approached, and got within a few feet of him unseen. “'Twill never do, Quartermaster, 'twill never do,” commenced the latter, laughing in his noiseless way; “she is young and active, and none but a quick foot can overtake her. They tell me you are her suitor, if you are not her follower.” “And I hear the same of yourself, man, though the presumption would be so great that I scarcely can think it true.” “I fear you're right, I do; yes, I fear you're right;--when I consider myself, what I am, how little I know, and how rude my life has been, I altogether distrust my claim, even to think a moment of one so tutored, and gay, and light of heart, and delicate--” “You forget handsome,” coarsely interrupted Muir. “And handsome, too, I fear,” returned the meek and self-abased guide; “I might have said handsome at once, among her other qualities; for the young fa'n, just as it learns to bound, is not more pleasant to the eye of the hunter than Mabel is lovely in mine. I do indeed fear that all the thoughts I have harbored about her are vain and presumptuous.” “If you think this, my friend, of your own accord and natural modesty, as it might be, my duty to you as an old fellow-campaigner compels me to say--” “Quartermaster,” interrupted the other, regarding his companion keenly, “you and I have lived together much behind the ramparts of forts, but very little in the open woods or in front of the enemy.” “Garrison or tent, it all passes for part of the same campaign, you know, Pathfinder; and then my duty keeps me much within sight of the storehouses, greatly contrary to my inclinations, as ye may well suppose, having yourself the ardor of battle in your temperament. But had ye heard what Mabel had just been saying of you, ye'd no think another minute of making yourself agreeable to the saucy and uncompromising hussy.” Pathfinder looked earnestly at the lieutenant, for it was impossible he should not feel an interest in what might be Mabel's opinion; but he had too much of the innate and true feeling of a gentleman to ask to hear what another had said of him. Muir, however, was not to be foiled by this self-denial and self-respect; for, believing he had a man of great truth and simplicity to deal with, he determined to practise on his credulity, as one means of getting rid of his rivalry. He therefore pursued the subject, as soon as he perceived that his companion's self-denial was stronger than his curiosity. “You ought to know her opinion, Pathfinder,” he continued; “and I think every man ought to hear what his friends and acquaintances say of him: and so, by way of proving my own regard for your character and feelings, I'll just tell you in as few words as possible. You know that Mabel has a wicked, malicious way with them eyes of her own, when she has a mind to be hard upon one's feelings.” “To me her eyes, Lieutenant Muir, have always seemed winning and soft, though I will acknowledge that they sometimes laugh; yes, I have known them to laugh, and that right heartily, and with downright goodwill.” “Well, it was just that then; her eyes were laughing with all their might, as it were; and in the midst of all her fun, she broke out with an exclamation to this effect:--I hope 'twill no' hurt your sensibility, Pathfinder?” “I will not say Quartermaster, I will not say. Mabel's opinion of me is of no more account than that of most others.” “Then I'll no' tell ye, but just keep discretion on the subject; and why should a man be telling another what his friends say of him, especially when they happen to say that which may not be pleasant to hear? I'll not add another word to this present communication.” “I cannot make you speak, Quartermaster, if you are not so minded, and perhaps it is better for me not to know Mabel's opinion, as you seem to think it is not in my favor. Ah's me! if we could be what we wish to be, instead of being only what we are, there would be a great difference in our characters and knowledge and appearance. One may be rude and coarse and ignorant, and yet happy, if he does not know it; but it is hard to see our own failings in the strongest light, just as we wish to hear the least about them.” “That's just the _rationale_, as the French say, of the matter; and so I was telling Mabel, when she ran away and left me. You noticed the manner in which she skipped off as you approached?” “It was very observable,” answered Pathfinder, drawing a long breath and clenching the barrel of his rifle as if the fingers would bury themselves in the iron. “It was more than observable--it was flagrant; that's just the word, and the dictionary wouldn't supply a better, after an hour's search. Well, you must know, Pathfinder,--for I cannot reasonably deny you the gratification of hearing this,--so you must know the minx bounded off in that manner in preference to hearing what I had to say in your justification.” “And what could you find to say in my behalf, Quartermaster?” “Why, d'ye understand, my friend, I was ruled by circumstances, and no' ventured indiscreetly into generalities, but was preparing to meet particulars, as it might be, with particulars. If you were thought wild, half-savage, or of a frontier formation, I could tell her, ye know, that it came of the frontier, wild and half-savage life ye'd led; and all her objections must cease at once, or there would be a sort of a misunderstanding with Providence.” “And did you tell her this, Quartermaster?” “I'll no' swear to the exact words, but the idea was prevalent in my mind, ye'll understand. The girl was impatient, and would not hear the half I had to say; but away she skipped, as ye saw with your own eyes, Pathfinder, as if her opinion were fully made up, and she cared to listen no longer. I fear her mind may be said to have come to its conclusion?” “I fear it has indeed, Quartermaster, and her father, after all, is mistaken. Yes, yes; the Sergeant has fallen into a grievous error.” “Well, man, why need ye lament, and undo all the grand reputation ye've been so many weary years making? Shoulder the rifle that ye use so well, and off into the woods with ye, for there's not the female breathing that is worth a heavy heart for a minute, as I know from experience. Tak' the word of one who knows the sax, and has had two wives, that women, after all, are very much the sort of creatures we do not imagine them to be. Now, if you would really mortify Mabel, here is as glorious an occasion as any rejected lover could desire.” “The last wish I have, Lieutenant, would be to mortify Mabel.” “Well, ye'll come to that in the end, notwithstanding; for it's human nature to desire to give unpleasant feelings to them that give unpleasant feelings to us. But a better occasion never offered to make your friends love you, than is to be had at this very moment, and that is the certain means of causing one's enemies to envy us.” “Quartermaster, Mabel is not my inimy; and if she was, the last thing I could desire would be to give her an uneasy moment.” “Ye say so, Pathfinder, ye say so, and I daresay ye think so; but reason and nature are both against you, as ye'll find in the end. Ye've heard the saying 'love me, love my dog:' well, now, that means, read backwards, 'don't love me, don't love my dog.' Now, listen to what is in your power to do. You know we occupy an exceedingly precarious and uncertain position here, almost in the jaws of the lion, as it were?” “Do you mean the Frenchers by the lion, and this island as his jaws, Lieutenant?” “Metaphorically only, my friend, for the French are no lions, and this island is not a jaw--unless, indeed, it may prove to be, what I greatly fear may come true, the jaw-bone of an ass.” Here the Quartermaster indulged in a sneering laugh, that proclaimed anything but respect and admiration for his friend Lundie's sagacity in selecting that particular spot for his operations. “The post is as well chosen as any I ever put foot in,” said Pathfinder, looking around him as one surveys a picture. “I'll no' deny it, I'll no' deny it. Lundie is a great soldier, in a small way; and his father was a great laird, with the same qualification. I was born on the estate, and have followed the Major so long that I've got to reverence all he says and does: that's just my weakness, ye'll know, Pathfinder. Well, this post may be the post of an ass, or of a Solomon, as men fancy; but it's most critically placed, as is apparent by all Lundie's precautions and injunctions. There are savages out scouting through these Thousand Islands and over the forest, searching for this very spot, as is known to Lundie himself, on certain information; and the greatest service you can render the 55th is to discover their trails and lead them off on a false scent. Unhappily Sergeant Dunham has taken up the notion that the danger is to be apprehended from up-stream, because Frontenac lies above us; whereas all experience tells us that Indians come on the side which is most contrary to reason, and, consequently, are to be expected from below. Take your canoe, therefore, and go down-stream among the islands, that we may have notice if any danger approaches from that quarter.” “The Big Sarpent is on the look-out in that quarter; and as he knows the station well, no doubt he will give us timely notice, should any wish to sarcumvent us in that direction.” “He is but an Indian, after all, Pathfinder; and this is an affair that calls for the knowledge of a white man. Lundie will be eternally grateful to the man who shall help this little enterprise to come off with flying colors. To tell you the truth, my friend, he is conscious it should never have been attempted; but he has too much of the old laird's obstinacy about him to own an error, though it be as manifest as the morning star.” The Quartermaster then continued to reason with his companion, in order to induce him to quit the island without delay, using such arguments as first suggested themselves, sometimes contradicting himself, and not unfrequently urging at one moment a motive that at the next was directly opposed by another. The Pathfinder, simple as he was, detected these flaws in the Lieutenant's philosophy, though he was far from suspecting that they proceeded from a desire to clear the coast of Mabel's suitor. He did not exactly suspect the secret objects of Muir, but he was far from being blind to his sophistry. The result was that the two parted, after a long dialogue, unconvinced, and distrustful of each other's motives, though the distrust of the guide, like all that was connected with the man, partook of his own upright, disinterested, and ingenuous nature. A conference that took place soon after between Sergeant Dunham and the Lieutenant led to more consequences. When it was ended, secret orders were issued to the men, the blockhouse was taken possession of, the huts were occupied, and one accustomed to the movements of soldiers might have detected that an expedition was in the wind. In fact, just as the sun was setting, the Sergeant, who had been much occupied at what was called the harbor, came into his own hut, followed by Pathfinder and Cap; and as he took his seat at the neat table which Mabel had prepared for him, he opened the budget of his intelligence. “You are likely to be of some use here, my child,” the old soldier commenced, “as this tidy and well-ordered supper can testify; and I trust, when the proper moment arrives, you will show yourself to be the descendant of those who know how to face their enemies.” “You do not expect me, dear father, to play Joan of Arc, and to lead the men to battle?” “Play whom, child? Did you ever hear of the person Mabel mentions, Pathfinder?” “Not I, Sergeant; but what of that? I am ignorant and unedicated, and it is too great a pleasure to me to listen to her voice, and take in her words, to be particular about persons.” “I know her,” said Cap decidedly; “she sailed a privateer out of Morlaix in the last war; and good cruises she made of them.” Mabel blushed at having inadvertently made an allusion that went beyond her father's reading, to say nothing of her uncle's dogmatism, and, perhaps, a little at the Pathfinder's simple, ingenuous earnestness; but she did not forbear the less to smile. “Why, father, I am not expected to fall in with the men, and to help defend the island?” “And yet women have often done such things in this quarter of the world, girl, as our friend, the Pathfinder here, will tell you. But lest you should be surprised at not seeing us when you awake in the morning, it is proper that I now tell you we intend to march in the course of this very night.” “_We_, father! and leave me and Jennie on this island alone?” “No, my daughter; not quite as unmilitary as that. We shall leave Lieutenant Muir, brother Cap, Corporal M'Nab, and three men to compose the garrison during our absence. Jennie will remain with you in this hut, and brother Cap will occupy my place.” “And Mr. Muir?” said Mabel, half unconscious of what she uttered, though she foresaw a great deal of unpleasant persecution in the arrangement. “Why, he can make love to you, if you like it, girl; for he is an amorous youth, and, having already disposed of four wives, is impatient to show how much he honors their memories by taking a fifth.” “The Quartermaster tells me,” said Pathfinder innocently, “that when a man's feelings have been harassed by so many losses, there is no wiser way to soothe them than by ploughing up the soil anew, in such a manner as to leave no traces of what have gone over it before.” “Ay, that is just the difference between ploughing and harrowing,” returned the Sergeant, with a grim smile. “But let him tell Mabel his mind, and there will be an end of his suit. I very well know that _my_ daughter will never be the wife of Lieutenant Muir.” This was said in a way that was tantamount to declaring that no daughter of his ever _should_ become the wife of the person in question. Mabel had colored, trembled, half laughed, and looked uneasy; but, rallying her spirit, she said, in a voice so cheerful as completely to conceal her agitation, “But, father, we might better wait until Mr. Muir manifests a wish that your daughter would have him, or rather a wish to have your daughter, lest we get the fable of sour grapes thrown into our faces.” “And what is that fable, Mabel?” eagerly demanded Pathfinder, who was anything but learned in the ordinary lore of white men. “Tell it to us, in your own pretty way; I daresay the Sergeant never heard it.” Mabel repeated the well-known fable, and, as her suitor had desired, in her own pretty way, which was a way to keep his eyes riveted on her face, and the whole of his honest countenance covered with a smile. “That was like a fox!” cried Pathfinder, when she had ceased; “ay, and like a Mingo, too, cunning and cruel; that is the way with both the riptyles. As to grapes, they are sour enough in this part of the country, even to them that can get at them, though I daresay there are seasons and times and places where they are sourer to them that can't. I should judge, now, my scalp is very sour in Mingo eyes.” “The sour grapes will be the other way, child, and it is Mr. Muir who will make the complaint. You would never marry that man, Mabel?” “Not she,” put in Cap; “a fellow who is only half a soldier after all. The story of them there grapes is quite a circumstance.” “I think little of marrying any one, dear father and dear uncle, and would rather talk about it less, if you please. But, did I think of marrying at all, I do believe a man whose affections have already been tried by three or four wives would scarcely be my choice.” The Sergeant nodded at the guide, as much as to say, You see how the land lies; and then he had sufficient consideration for his daughter's feelings to change the subject. “Neither you nor Mabel, brother Cap,” he resumed, “can have any legal authority with the little garrison I leave behind on the island; but you may counsel and influence. Strictly speaking, Corporal M'Nab will be the commanding officer, and I have endeavored to impress him with a sense of his dignity, lest he might give way too much to the superior rank of Lieutenant Muir, who, being a volunteer, can have no right to interfere with the duty. I wish you to sustain the Corporal, brother Cap; for should the Quartermaster once break through the regulations of the expedition, he may pretend to command me, as well as M'Nab.” “More particularly, should Mabel really cut him adrift while you are absent. Of course, Sergeant, you'll leave everything that is afloat under my care? The most d----ble confusion has grown out of misunderstandings between commanders-in-chief, ashore and afloat.” “In one sense, brother, though in a general way, the Corporal is commander-in-chief. The Corporal must command; but you can counsel freely, particularly in all matters relating to the boats, of which I shall leave one behind to secure your retreat, should there be occasion. I know the Corporal well; he is a brave man and a good soldier; and one that may be relied on, if the Santa Cruz can be kept from him. But then he is a Scotchman, and will be liable to the Quartermaster's influence, against which I desire both you and Mabel to be on your guard.” “But why leave us behind, dear father? I have come thus far to be a comfort to you, and why not go farther?” “You are a good girl, Mabel, and very like the Dunhams. But you must halt here. We shall leave the island to-morrow, before the day dawns, in order not to be seen by any prying eyes coming from our cover, and we shall take the two largest boats, leaving you the other and one bark canoe. We are about to go into the channel used by the French, where we shall lie in wait, perhaps a week, to intercept their supply-boats, which are about to pass up on their way to Frontenac, loaded, in particular, with a heavy amount of Indian goods.” “Have you looked well to your papers, brother?” Cap anxiously demanded. “Of course you know a capture on the high seas is piracy, unless your boat is regularly commissioned, either as a public or a private armed cruiser.” “I have the honor to hold the Colonel's appointment as sergeant-major of the 55th,” returned the other, drawing himself up with dignity, “and that will be sufficient even for the French king. If not, I have Major Duncan's written orders.” “No papers, then, for a warlike cruiser?” “They must suffice, brother, as I have no other. It is of vast importance to his Majesty's interests, in this part of the world, that the boats in question should be captured and carried into Oswego. They contain the blankets, trinkets, rifles, ammunition, in short, all the stores with which the French bribe their accursed savage allies to commit their unholy acts, setting at nought our holy religion and its precepts, the laws of humanity, and all that is sacred and dear among men. By cutting off these supplies we shall derange their plans, and gain time on them; for the articles cannot be sent across the ocean again this autumn.” “But, father, does not his Majesty employ Indians also?” asked Mabel, with some curiosity. “Certainly, girl, and he has a right to employ them--God bless him! It's a very different thing whether an Englishman or a Frenchman employs a savage, as everybody can understand.” “But, father, I cannot see that this alters the case. If it be wrong in a Frenchman to hire savages to fight his enemies, it would seem to be equally wrong in an Englishman. _You_ will admit this, Pathfinder?” “It's reasonable, it's reasonable; and I have never been one of them that has raised a cry ag'in the Frenchers for doing the very thing we do ourselves. Still it is worse to consort with a Mingo than to consort with a Delaware. If any of that just tribe were left, I should think it no sin to send them out ag'in the foe.” “And yet they scalp and slay young and old, women and children!” “They have their gifts, Mabel, and are not to be blamed for following them; natur' is natur', though the different tribes have different ways of showing it. For my part I am white, and endeavor to maintain white feelings.” “This is all unintelligible to me,” answered Mabel. “What is right in King George, it would seem, ought to be right in King Louis.” As all parties, Mabel excepted, seemed satisfied with the course the discussion had taken, no one appeared to think it necessary to pursue the subject. Supper was no sooner ended than the Sergeant dismissed his guests, and then held a long and confidential dialogue with his daughter. He was little addicted to giving way to the gentler emotions, but the novelty of his present situation awakened feelings that he was unused to experience. The soldier or the sailor, so long as he acts under the immediate supervision of a superior, thinks little of the risks he runs, but the moment he feels the responsibility of command, all the hazards of his undertaking begin to associate themselves in his mind: with the chances of success or failure. While he dwells less on his own personal danger, perhaps, than when that is the principal consideration, he has more lively general perceptions of all the risks, and submits more to the influence of the feelings which doubt creates. Such was now the case with Sergeant Dunham, who, instead of looking forward to victory as certain, according to his usual habits, began to feel the possibility that he might be parting with his child for ever. Never before had Mabel struck him as so beautiful as she appeared that night. Possibly she never had displayed so many engaging qualities to her father; for concern on his account had begun to be active in her breast; and then her sympathies met with unusual encouragement through those which had been stirred up in the sterner bosom of the veteran. She had never been entirely at her ease with her parent, the great superiority of her education creating a sort of chasm, which had been widened by the military severity of manner he had acquired by dealing so long with beings who could only be kept in subjection by an unremitted discipline. On the present occasion, however, the conversation between the father and daughter became more confidential than usual, until Mabel rejoiced to find that it was gradually becoming endearing, a state of feeling that the warm-hearted girl had silently pined for in vain ever since her arrival. “Then mother was about my height?” Mabel said, as she held one of her father's hands in both her own, looking up into his face with humid eyes. “I had thought her taller.” “That is the way with most children who get a habit of thinking of their parents with respect, until they fancy them larger and more commanding than they actually are. Your mother, Mabel, was as near your height as one woman could be to another.” “And her eyes, father?” “Her eyes were like thine, child, too; blue and soft, and inviting like, though hardly so laughing.” “Mine will never laugh again, dearest father, if you do not take care of yourself in this expedition.” “Thank you, Mabel--hem--thank you, child; but I must do my duty. I wish I had seen you comfortably married before we left Oswego; my mind would be easier.” “Married! --to whom, father?” “You know the man I wish you to love. You may meet with many gayer, and many dressed in finer clother; but with none with so true a heart and just a mind.” “None father?” “I know of none; in these particulars Pathfinder has few equals at least.” “But I need not marry at all. You are single, and I can remain to take care of you.” “God bless you, Mabel! I know you would, and I do not say that the feeling is not right, for I suppose it is; and yet I believe there is another that is more so.” “What can be more right than to honor one's parents?” “It is just as right to honor one's husband, my dear child.” “But I have no husband, father.” “Then take one as soon as possible, that you may have a husband to honor. I cannot live for ever, Mabel, but must drop off in the course of nature ere long, if I am not carried off in the course of war. You are young, and may yet live long; and it is proper that you should have a male protector, who can see you safe through life, and take care of you in age, as you now wish to take care of me.” “And do you think, father,” said Mabel, playing with his sinewy fingers with her own little hands, and looking down at them, as if they were subjects of intense interest, though her lips curled in a slight smile as the words came from them,--“and do you think, father, that Pathfinder is just the man to do this? Is he not, within ten or twelve years, as old as yourself?” “What of that? His life has been one of moderation and exercise, and years are less to be counted, girl, than constitution. Do you know another more likely to be your protector?” Mabel did not; at least another who had expressed a desire to that effect, whatever might have been her hopes and her wishes. “Nay, father, we are not talking of another, but of the Pathfinder,” she answered evasively. “If he were younger, I think it would be more natural for me to think of him for a husband.” “'Tis all in the constitution, I tell you, child; Pathfinder is a younger man than half our subalterns.” “He is certainly younger than one, sir--Lieutenant Muir.” Mabel's laugh was joyous and light-hearted, as if just then she felt no care. “That he is--young enough to be his grandson; he is younger in years, too. God forbid, Mabel, that you should ever become an officer's lady, at least until you are an officer's daughter!” “There will be little fear of that, father, if I marry Pathfinder,” returned the girl, looking up archly in the Sergeant's face again. “Not by the king's commission, perhaps, though the man is even now the friend and companion of generals. I think I could die happy, Mabel, if you were his wife.” “Father!” “'Tis a sad thing to go into battle with the weight of an unprotected daughter laid upon the heart.” “I would give the world to lighten yours of its load, my dear sir.” “It might be done,” said the Sergeant, looking fondly at his child; “though I could not wish to put a burthen on yours in order to do so.” The voice was deep and tremulous, and never before had Mabel witnessed such a show of affection in her parent. The habitual sternness of the man lent an interest to his emotions which they might otherwise have wanted, and the daughter's heart yearned to relieve the father's mind. “Father, speak plainly!” she cried, almost convulsively. “Nay, Mabel, it might not be right; your wishes and mine may be very different.” “I have no wishes--know nothing of what you mean. Would you speak of my future marriage?” “If I could see you promised to Pathfinder--know that you were pledged to become his wife, let my own fate be what it might, I think I could die happy. But I will ask no pledge of you, my child; I will not force you to do what you might repent. Kiss me, Mabel, and go to your bed.” Had Sergeant Dunham exacted of Mabel the pledge that he really so much desired, he would have encountered a resistance that he might have found it difficult to overcome; but, by letting nature have its course, he enlisted a powerful ally on his side, and the warm-hearted, generous-minded Mabel was ready to concede to her affections much more than she would ever have yielded to menace. At that touching moment she thought only of her parent, who was about to quit her, perhaps for ever; and all of that ardent love for him, which had possibly been as much fed by the imagination as by anything else, but which had received a little check by the restrained intercourse of the last fortnight, now returned with a force that was increased by pure and intense feeling. Her father seemed all in all to her, and to render him happy there was no proper sacrifice which she was not ready to make. One painful, rapid, almost wild gleam of thought shot across the brain of the girl, and her resolution wavered; but endeavoring to trace the foundation of the pleasing hope on which it was based, she found nothing positive to support it. Trained like a woman to subdue her most ardent feelings, her thoughts reverted to her father, and to the blessings that awaited the child who yielded to a parent's wishes. “Father,” she said quietly, almost with a holy calm, “God blesses the dutiful daughter.” “He will, Mabel; we have the Good Book for that.” “I will marry whomever you desire.” “Nay, nay, Mabel, you may have a choice of your own--” “I have no choice; that is, none have asked me to have a choice, but Pathfinder and Mr. Muir; and between _them_, neither of us would hesitate. No, father; I will marry whomever you may choose.” “Thou knowest my choice, beloved child; none other can make thee as happy as the noble-hearted guide.” “Well, then, if he wish it, if he ask me again--for, father, you would not have me offer myself, or that any one should do that office for me,” and the blood stole across the pallid cheeks of Mabel as she spoke, for high and generous resolutions had driven back the stream of life to her heart; “no one must speak to him of it; but if he seek me again, and, knowing all that a true girl ought to tell the man she marries, he then wishes to make me his wife, I will be his.” “Bless you, my Mabel! God in heaven bless you, and reward you as a pious daughter deserves to be rewarded!” “Yes, father, put your mind at peace; go on this expedition with a light heart, and trust in God. For me you will have now no care. In the spring--I must have a little time, father--but in the spring I will marry Pathfinder, if that noble-hearted hunter shall then desire it.” “Mabel, he loves you as I loved your mother. I have seen him weep like a child when speaking of his feelings towards you.” “Yes, I believe it; I've seen enough to satisfy me that he thinks better of me than I deserve; and certainly the man is not living for whom I have more respect than for Pathfinder; not even for you, dear father.” “That is as it should be, child, and the union will be blessed. May I not tell Pathfinder this?” “I would rather you would not, father. Let it come of itself, come naturally.” The smile that illuminated Mabel's handsome face was angelic, as even her parent thought, though one better practised in detecting the passing emotions, as they betray themselves in the countenance, might have traced something wild and unnatural in it. “No, no, _we_ must let things take their course; father, you have my solemn promise.” “That will do, that will do, Mabel, now kiss me. God bless and protect you, girl! you are a good daughter.” Mabel threw herself into her father's arms--it was the first time in her life--and sobbed on his bosom like an infant. The stern soldier's heart was melted, and the tears of the two mingled; but Sergeant Dunham soon started, as if ashamed of himself, and, gently forcing his daughter from him, he bade her good-night, and sought his pallet. Mabel went sobbing to the rude corner that had been prepared for her reception; and in a few minutes the hut was undisturbed by any sound, save the heavy breathing of the veteran.	{ "id": "1880" }
20	None	Wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, By the dial stone, aged and green, One rose of the wilderness, left on its stalk, To mark where a garden had been. CAMPBELL. It was not only broad daylight when Mabel awoke, but the sun had actually been up some time. Her sleep had been tranquil, for she rested on an approving conscience, and fatigue contributed to render it sweet; and no sound of those who had been so early in motion had interfered with her rest. Springing to her feet and rapidly dressing herself, the girl was soon breathing the fragrance of the morning in the open air. For the first time she was sensibly struck with the singular beauties, as well as with the profound retirement, of her present situation. The day proved to be one of those of the autumnal glory, so common to a climate that is more abused than appreciated, and its influence was every way inspiriting and genial. Mabel was benefitted by this circumstance; for, as she fancied, her heart was heavy on account of the dangers to which a father, whom she now began to love as women love when confidence is created, was exposed. But the island seemed absolutely deserted. The previous night, the bustle of the arrival had given the spot an appearance of life which was now entirely gone; and our heroine had turned her eyes nearly around on every object in sight, before she caught a view of a single human being to remove the sense of utter solitude. Then, indeed, she beheld all who were left behind, collected in a group around a fire which might be said to belong to the camp. The person of her uncle, to whom she was so much accustomed, reassured Mabel; and she examined the remainder with a curiosity natural to her situation. Besides Cap and the Quartermaster, there were the Corporal, the three soldiers, and the woman who was cooking. The huts were silent and empty; and the low but tower-like summit of the blockhouse rose above the bushes, by which it was half concealed, in picturesque beauty. The sun was just casting its brightness into the open places of the glade, and the vault over her head was impending in the soft sublimity of the blue void. Not a cloud was visible, and she secretly fancied the circumstance might be taken as a harbinger of peace and security. Perceiving that all the others were occupied with that great concern of human nature, a breakfast, Mabel walked, unobserved, towards an end of the island where she was completely shut out of view by the trees and bushes. Here she got a stand on the very edge of the water, by forcing aside the low branches, and stood watching the barely perceptible flow and re-flow of the miniature waves which laved the shore; a sort of physical echo to the agitation that prevailed on the lake fifty miles above her. The glimpses of natural scenery that offered were very soft and pleasing; and our heroine, who had a quick eye for all that was lovely in nature, was not slow in selecting the most striking bits of landscape. She gazed through the different vistas formed by the openings between the islands, and thought she had never looked on aught more lovely. While thus occupied, Mabel was suddenly alarmed by fancying that she caught a glimpse of a human form among the bushes that lined the shore of the island which lay directly before her. The distance across the water was not a hundred yards; and, though she might be mistaken, and her fancy was wandering when the form passed before her sight, still she did not think she could be deceived. Aware that her sex would be no protection against a rifle bullet, should an Iroquois get a view of her, the girl instinctively drew back, taking care to conceal her person as much as possible by the leaves, while she kept her own look riveted on the opposite shore, vainly waiting for some time in the expectation of the stranger. She was about to quit her post in the bushes and hasten to her uncle, in order to acquaint him of her suspicions, when she saw the branch of an alder thrust beyond the fringe of bushes on the other island, and waved towards her significantly, and as she fancied in token of amity. This was a breathless and a trying moment to one as inexperienced in frontier warfare as our heroine and yet she felt the great necessity that existed for preserving her recollection, and of acting with steadiness and discretion. It was one of the peculiarities of the exposure to which those who dwelt on the frontiers of America were liable, to bring out the moral qualities of the women to a degree which they must themselves, under other circumstances, have believed they were incapable of manifesting; and Mabel well knew that the borderers loved to dwell in their legends on the presence of mind, fortitude, and spirit that their wives and sisters had displayed under circumstances the most trying. Her emulation had been awakened by what she had heard on such subjects; and it at once struck her that now was the moment for her to show that she was truly Sergeant Dunham's child. The motion of the branch was such as she believed indicated amity; and, after a moment's hesitation, she broke off a twig, fastened it to a stick and, thrusting it through an opening, waved it in return, imitating as closely as possible the manner of the other. This dumb show lasted two or three minutes on both sides, when Mabel perceived that the bushes opposite were cautiously pushed aside, and a human face appeared at an opening. A glance sufficed to let Mabel see that it was the countenance of a red-skin, as well as that of a woman. A second and a better look satisfied her that it was the face of the Dew-of-June, the wife of Arrowhead. During the time she had travelled in company with this woman, Mabel had been won by the gentleness of manner, the meek simplicity, and the mingled awe and affection with which she regarded her husband. Once or twice in the course of the journey she fancied the Tuscarora had manifested towards herself an unpleasant degree of attention; and on those occasions it had struck her that his wife exhibited sorrow and mortification. As Mabel, however, had more than compensated for any pain she might in this way unintentionally have caused her companion, by her own kindness of manner and attentions, the woman had shown much attachment to her, and they had parted, with a deep conviction on the mind of our heroine that in the Dew-of-June she had lost a friend. It is useless to attempt to analyze all the ways by which the human heart is led into confidence. Such a feeling, however, had the young Tuscarora woman awakened in the breast of our heroine; and the latter, under the impression that this extraordinary visit was intended for her own good, felt every disposition to have a closer communication. She no longer hesitated about showing herself clear of the bushes, and was not sorry to see the Dew-of-June imitate her confidence, by stepping fearlessly out of her own cover. The two girls, for the Tuscarora, though married, was even younger than Mabel, now openly exchanged signs of friendship, and the latter beckoned to her friend to approach, though she knew not the manner herself in which this object could be effected. But the Dew-of-June was not slow in letting it be seen that it was in her power; for, disappearing in a moment, she soon showed herself again in the end of a bark canoe, the bows of which she had drawn to the edge of the bushes, and of which the body still lay in a sort of covered creek. Mabel was about to invite her to cross, when her own name was called aloud in the stentorian voice of her uncle. Making a hurried gesture for the Tuscarora girl to conceal herself, Mabel sprang from the bushes and tripped up the glade towards the sound, and perceived that the whole party had just seated themselves at breakfast; Cap having barely put his appetite under sufficient restraint to summon her to join them. That this was the most favorable instant for the interview flashed on the mind of Mabel; and, excusing herself on the plea of not being prepared for the meal, she bounded back to the thicket, and soon renewed her communications with the young Indian woman. Dew-of-June was quick of comprehension; and with half a dozen noiseless strokes of the paddles, her canoe was concealed in the bushes of Station Island. In another minute, Mabel held her hand, and was leading her through the grove towards her own hut. Fortunately the latter was so placed as to be completely hid from the sight of those at the fire, and they both entered it unseen. Hastily explaining to her guest, in the best manner she could, the necessity of quitting her for a short time, Mabel, first placing the Dew-of-June in her own room, with a full certainty that she would not quit it until told to do so, went to the fire and took her seat among the rest, with all the composure it was in her power to command. “Late come, late served, Mabel,” said her uncle, between mouthfuls of broiled salmon; for though the cookery might be very unsophisticated on that remote frontier, the viands were generally delicious,--“late come, late served; it is a good rule, and keeps laggards up to their work.” “I am no laggard, Uncle; for I have been stirring nearly an hour, and exploring our island.” “It's little you'll make o' that, Mistress Mabel,” put in Muir; “that's little by nature. Lundie--or it might be better to style him Major Duncan in this presence” (this was said in consideration of the corporal and the common men, though they were taking their meal a little apart)--“has not added an empire to his Majesty's dominions in getting possession of this island, which is likely to equal that of the celebrated Sancho in revenues and profits--Sancho, of whom, doubtless, Master Cap, you'll often have been reading in your leisure hours, more especially in calms and moments of inactivity.” “I know the spot you mean, Quartermaster; Sancho's Island--coral rock, of new formation, and as bad a landfall, in a dark night and blowing weather, as a sinner could wish to keep clear of. It's a famous place for cocoanuts and bitter water, that Sancho's Island.” “It's no' very famous for dinners,” returned Muir, repressing the smile which was struggling to his lips out of respect to Mabel; “nor do I think there'll be much to choose between its revenue and that of this spot. In my judgment, Master Cap, this is a very unmilitary position, and I look to some calamity befalling it, sooner or later.” “It is to be hoped not until our turn of duty is over,” observed Mabel. “I have no wish to study the French language.” “We might think ourselves happy, did it not prove to be the Iroquois. I have reasoned with Major Duncan on the occupation of this position, but 'a wilfu' man maun ha' his way.' My first object in accompanying this party was to endeavor to make myself acceptable and useful to your beautiful niece, Master Cap; and the second was to take such an account of the stores that belong to my particular department as shall leave no question open to controversy, concerning the manner of expenditure, when they shall have disappeared by means of the enemy.” “Do you look upon matters as so serious?” demanded Cap, actually suspending his mastication of a bit of venison--for he passed alternately from fish to flesh and back again--in the interest he took in the answer. “Is the danger pressing?” “I'll no' say just that; and I'll no' say just the contrary. There is always danger in war, and there is more of it at the advanced posts than at the main encampment. It ought, therefore, to occasion no surprise were we to be visited by the French at any moment.” “And what the devil is to be done in that case? Six men and two women would make but a poor job in defending such a place as this, should the enemy invade us; as, no doubt, Frenchman-like, they would take very good care to come strong-handed.” “That we may depend on--some very formidable force at the very lowest. A military disposition might be made in defence of the island, out of all question, and according to the art of war, though we would probably fail in the force necessary to carry out the design in any very creditable manner. In the first place, a detachment should be sent off to the shore, with orders to annoy the enemy in landing; a strong party ought instantly to be thrown into the blockhouse, as the citadel, for on that all the different detachments would naturally fall back for support, as the French advanced; and an entrenched camp might be laid out around the stronghold, as it would be very unmilitary indeed to let the foe get near enough to the foot of the walls to mine them. Chevaux-de-frise would keep the cavalry in check; and as for the artillery, redoubts should be thrown up under cover of yon woods. Strong skirmishing parties, moreover, would be exceedingly serviceable in retarding the march of the enemy; and these different huts, if properly piqueted and ditched, would be converted into very eligible positions for that object.” “Whe-e-e-w-, Quartermaster! And who the d---l is to find all the men to carry out such a plan?” “The king, out of all question, Master Cap. It is his quarrel, and it's just he should bear the burthen o' it.” “And we are only six! This is fine talking, with a vengeance. You could be sent down to the shore to oppose the landing, Mabel might skirmish with her tongue at least, the soldier's wife might act chevaux-de-frise to entangle the cavalry, the corporal should command the entrenched camp, his three men could occupy the five huts, and I would take the blockhouse. Whe-e-e-w! you describe well, Lieutenant; and should have been a limner instead of a soldier.” “Na, I've been very literal and upright in my exposition of matters. That there is no greater force here to carry out the plan is a fault of his Majesty's ministers, and none of mine.” “But should our enemy really appear,” asked Mabel, with more interest than she might have shown, had she not remembered the guest in the hut, “what course ought we to pursue?” “My advice would be to attempt to achieve that, pretty Mabel, which rendered Xenophon so justly celebrated.” “I think you mean a retreat, though I half guess at your allusion.” “You've imagined my meaning from the possession of a strong native sense, young lady. I am aware that your worthy father has pointed out to the Corporal certain modes and methods by which he fancies this island could be held, in case the French should discover its position; but the excellent Sergeant, though your father, and as good a man in his duties as ever wielded a spontoon, is not the great Lord Stair, or even the Duke of Marlborough. I'll not deny the Sergeant's merits in his particular sphere; though I cannot exaggerate qualities, however excellent, into those of men who may be in some trifling degree his superiors. Sergeant Dunham has taken counsel of his heart, instead of his head, in resolving to issue such orders; but, if the fort fall, the blame will lie on him that ordered it to be occupied, and not on him whose duty it was to defend it. Whatever may be the determination of the latter, should the French and their allies land, a good commander never neglects the preparations necessary to effect a retreat; and I would advise Master Cap, who is the admiral of our navy, to have a boat in readiness to evacuate the island, if need comes to need. The largest boat that we have left carries a very ample sail; and by hauling it round here, and mooring it under those bushes, there will be a convenient place for a hurried embarkation; and then you'll perceive, pretty Mabel, that it is scarcely fifty yards before we shall be in a channel between two other islands, and hid from the sight of those who may happen to be on this.” “All that you say is very true, Mr. Muir; but may not the French come from that quarter themselves? If it is so good for a retreat, it is equally good for an advance.” “They'll no' have the sense to do so discreet a thing,” returned Muir, looking furtively and a little uneasily around him; “they'll no' have sufficient discretion. Your French are a head-over-heels nation, and usually come forward in a random way; so we may look for them, if they come at all, on the other side of the island.” The discourse now became exceedingly desultory, touching principally, however, on the probabilities of an invasion, and the best means of meeting it. To most of this Mabel paid but little attention; though she felt some surprise that Lieutenant Muir, an officer whose character for courage stood well, should openly recommend an abandonment of what appeared to her to be doubly a duty, her father's character being connected with the defence of the island. Her mind, however, was so much occupied with her guest, that, seizing the first favorable moment, she left the table, and was soon in her own hut again. Carefully fastening the door, and seeing that the simple curtain was drawn before the single little window, Mabel next led the Dew-of-June, or June, as she was familiarly termed by those who spoke to her in English, into the outer room, making signs of affection and confidence. “I am glad to see you, June,” said Mabel, with one of her sweetest smiles, and in her own winning voice,--“very glad to see you. What has brought you hither, and how did you discover the island?” “Speak slow,” said June, returning smile for smile, and pressing the little hand she held with one of her own that was scarcely larger, though it had been hardened by labor; “more slow--too quick.” Mabel repeated her questions, endeavoring to repress the impetuosity of her feelings; and she succeeded in speaking so distinctly as to be understood. “June, friend,” returned the Indian woman. “I believe you, June--from my soul I believe you; what has this to do with your visit?” “Friend come to see friend,” answered June, again smiling openly in the other's face. “There is some other reason, June, else would you never run this risk, and alone. You are alone, June?” “June wid you, no one else. June come alone, paddle canoe.” “I hope so, I think so--nay, I know so. You would not be treacherous with me, June?” “What treacherous?” “You would not betray me, would not give me to the French, to the Iroquois, to Arrowhead?” June shook her head earnestly. “You would not sell my scalp?” Here June passed her arm fondly around the slender waist of Mabel and pressed her to her heart with a tenderness and affection that brought tears into the eyes of our heroine. It was done in the fond caressing manner of a woman, and it was scarcely possible that it should not obtain credit for sincerity with a young and ingenuous person of the same sex. Mabel returned the pressure, and then held the other off at the length of her arm, looked her steadily in the face, and continued her inquiries. “If June has something to tell her friend, let her speak plainly,” she said. “My ears are open.” “June 'fraid Arrowhead kill her.” “But Arrowhead will never know it.” Mabel's blood mounted to her temples as she said this; for she felt that she was urging a wife to be treacherous to her husband. “That is, Mabel will not tell him.” “He bury tomahawk in June's head.” “That must never be, dear June; I would rather you should say no more than run this risk.” “Blockhouse good place to sleep, good place to stay.” “Do you mean that I may save my life by keeping in the blockhouse, June? Surely, surely, Arrowhead will not hurt you for telling me that. He cannot wish me any great harm, for I never injured him.” “Arrowhead wish no harm to handsome pale-face,” returned June, averting her face; and, though she always spoke in the soft, gentle voice of an Indian girl, now permitting its notes to fall so low as to cause them to sound melancholy and timid. “Arrowhead love pale-face girl.” Mabel blushed, she knew not why, and for a moment her questions were repressed by a feeling of inherent delicacy. But it was necessary to know more, for her apprehensions had been keenly awakened, and she resumed her inquiries. “Arrowhead can have no reason to love or to hate _me_,” she said. “Is he near you?” “Husband always near wife, here,” said June, laying her hand on her heart. “Excellent creature! But tell me, June, ought I to keep in the blockhouse to-day--this morning--now?” “Blockhouse very good; good for women. Blockhouse got no scalp.” “I fear I understand you only too well, June. Do you wish to see my father?” “No here; gone away.” “You cannot know that, June; you see the island is full of his soldiers.” “No full; gone away,”--here June held up four of her fingers,--“so many red-coats.” “And Pathfinder? would you not like to see the Pathfinder? He can talk to you in the Iroquois tongue.” “Tongue gone wid him,” said June, laughing; “keep tongue in his mout'.” There was something so sweet and contagious in the infantile laugh of an Indian girl, that Mabel could not refrain from joining in it, much as her fears were aroused by all that had passed. “You appear to know, or to think you know, all about us, June. But if Pathfinder be gone, Eau-douce can speak French too. You know Eau-douce; shall I run and bring him to talk with you?” “Eau-douce gone too, all but heart; that there.” As June said this, she laughed again; looked in different directions, as if unwilling to confuse the other, and laid her hand on Mabel's bosom. Our heroine had often heard of the wonderful sagacity of the Indians, and of the surprising manner in which they noted all things, while they appeared to regard none; but she was scarcely prepared for the direction the discourse had so singularly taken. Willing to change it, and at the same time truly anxious to learn how great the danger that impended over them might really be, she rose from the camp-stool on which she had been seated; and, by assuming an attitude of less affectionate confidence, she hoped to hear more of that she really desired to learn, and to avoid allusions to that which she found so embarrassing. “You know how much or how little you ought to tell me, June,” she said; “and I hope you love me well enough to give me the information I ought to hear. My dear uncle, too, is on the island, and you are, or ought to be, his friend as well as mine; and both of us will remember your conduct when we get back to Oswego.” “Maybe, never get back; who know?” This was said doubtingly, or as one who lays down an uncertain proposition, and not with a taunt, or a desire to alarm. “No one knows what will happen but God. Our lives are in His hands. Still, I think you are to be His instrument in saving us.” This passed June's comprehension, and she only looked her ignorance; for it was evident she wished to be of use. “Blockhouse very good,” she repeated, as soon as her countenance ceased to express uncertainty, laying strong emphasis on the last two words. “Well, I understand this, June, and will sleep in it to-night. Of course I am to tell my uncle what you have said?” The Dew-of-June started, and she discovered a very manifest uneasiness at the interrogatory. “No, no, no, no!” she answered, with a volubility and vehemence that was imitated from the French of the Canadas; “no good to tell Saltwater. He much talk and long tongue. Thinks woods all water, understand not'ing. Tell Arrowhead, and June die.” “You do my dear uncle injustice, for he would be as little likely to betray you as any one.” “No understand. Saltwater got tongue, but no eyes, no ears, no nose--not'ing but tongue, tongue, tongue!” Although Mabel did not exactly coincide in this opinion, she saw that Cap had not the confidence of the young Indian woman, and that it was idle to expect she would consent to his being admitted to their interview. “You appear to think you know our situation pretty well, June,” Mabel continued; “have you been on the island before this visit?” “Just come.” “How then do you know that what you say is true? My father, the Pathfinder, and Eau-douce may all be here within sound of my voice, if I choose to call them.” “All gone,” said June positively, smiling good-humoredly at the same time. “Nay, this is more than you can say certainly, not having been over the island to examine it.” “Got good eyes; see boat with men go away--see ship with Eau-douce.” “Then you have been some time watching us: I think, however, you have not counted them that remain.” June laughed, held up her four fingers again, and then pointed to her two thumbs; passing a finger over the first, she repeated the words “red-coats;” and touching the last, she added, “Saltwater,” “Quartermaster.” All this was being very accurate, and Mabel began to entertain serious doubts as to the propriety of her permitting her visitor to depart without her becoming more explicit. Still it was so repugnant to her feelings to abuse the confidence this gentle and affectionate creature had evidently reposed in her, that Mabel had no sooner admitted the thought of summoning her uncle, than she rejected it as unworthy of herself and unjust to her friend. To aid this good resolution, too, there was the certainty that June would reveal nothing, but take refuge in a stubborn silence, if any attempt were made to coerce her. “You think, then, June,” Mabel continued, as soon as these thoughts had passed through her mind, “that I had better live in the blockhouse?” “Good place for woman. Blockhouse got no scalp. Logs t'ick.” “You speak confidently, June; as if you had been in it, and had measured its walls.” June laughed; and she looked knowing, though she said nothing. “Does any one but yourself know how to find this island? Have any of the Iroquois seen it?” June looked sad, and she cast her eyes warily about her, as if distrusting a listener. “Tuscarora, everywhere--Oswego, here, Frontenac, Mohawk--everywhere. If he see June, kill her.” “But we thought that no one knew of this island, and that we had no reason to fear our enemies while on it.” “Much eye, Iroquois.” “Eyes will not always do, June, This spot is hid from ordinary sight, and few of even our own people know how to find it.” “One man can tell; some Yengeese talk French.” Mabel felt a chill at her heart. All the suspicions against Jasper, which she had hitherto disdained entertaining, crowded in a body on her thoughts; and the sensation that they brought was so sickening, that for an instant she imagined she was about to faint. Arousing herself, and remembering her promise to her father, she arose and walked up and down the hut for a minute, fancying that Jasper's delinquencies were naught to her, though her inmost heart yearned with the desire to think him innocent. “I understand your meaning, June,” she then said; “you wish me to know that some one has treacherously told your people where and how to find the island?” June laughed, for in her eyes artifice in war was oftener a merit than a crime; but she was too true to her tribe herself to say more than the occasion required. Her object was to save Mabel, and Mabel only; and she saw no sufficient reason for “travelling out of the record,” as the lawyers express it, in order to do anything else. “Pale-face know now,” she added. “Blockhouse good for girl, no matter for men and warriors.” “But it is much matter with me, June; for one of those men is my uncle, whom I love, and the others are my countrymen and friends. I must tell them what has passed.” “Then June be kill,” returned the young Indian quietly, though she evidently spoke with concern. “No; they shall not know that you have been here. Still, they must be on their guard, and we can all go into the blockhouse.” “Arrowhead know, see everything, and June be kill. June come to tell young pale-face friend, not to tell men. Every warrior watch his own scalp. June woman, and tell woman; no tell men.” Mabel was greatly distressed at this declaration of her wild friend, for it was now evident the young creature understood that her communication was to go no further. She was ignorant how far these people consider the point of honor interested in her keeping the secret; and most of all was she unable to say how far any indiscretion of her own might actually commit June and endanger her life. All these considerations flashed on her mind, and reflection only rendered their influence more painful. June, too, manifestly viewed the matter gravely; for she began to gather up the different little articles she had dropped in taking Mabel's hand, and was preparing to depart. To attempt detaining her was out of the question; and to part from her, after all she had hazarded to serve her, was repugnant to all the just and kind feelings of our heroine's nature. “June,” said she eagerly, folding her arms round the gentle but uneducated being, “we are friends. From me you have nothing to fear, for no one shall know of your visit. If you could give me some signal just before the danger comes, some sign by which to know when to go into the blockhouse, how to take care of myself.” June paused, for she had been in earnest in her intention to depart; and then she said quietly, “Bring June pigeon.” “A pigeon! Where shall I find a pigeon to bring you?” “Next hut; bring old one; June go to canoe.” “I think I understand you, June; but had I not better lead you back to the bushes, lest you meet some of the men?” “Go out first; count men, one, two, t'ree, four, five, six”--here June held up her fingers, and laughed--“all out of the way--good; all but one, call him one side. Then sing, and fetch pigeon.” Mabel smiled at the readiness and ingenuity of the girl, and prepared to execute her requests. At the door, however, she stopped, and looked back entreatingly at the Indian woman. “Is there no hope of your telling me more, June?” she said. “Know all now, blockhouse good, pigeon tell, Arrowhead kill.” The last words sufficed; for Mabel could not urge further communications, when her companion herself told her that the penalty of her revelations might be death by the hand of her husband. Throwing open the door, she made a sign of adieu to June, and went out of the hut. Mabel resorted to the simple expedient of the young Indian girl to ascertain the situation of the different individuals on the island. Instead of looking about her with the intention of recognizing faces and dresses, she merely counted them; and found that three still remained at the fire, while two had gone to the boat, one of whom was Mr. Muir. The sixth man was her uncle; and he was coolly arranging some fishing-tackle at no great distance from the fire. The woman was just entering her own hut; and this accounted for the whole party. Mabel now, affecting to have dropped something, returned nearly to the hut she had left, warbling an air, stooped as if to pick up some object from the ground, and hurried towards the hut June had mentioned. This was a dilapidated structure, and it had been converted by the soldiers of the last detachment into a sort of storehouse for their live stock. Among other things, it contained a few dozen pigeons, which were regaling on a pile of wheat that had been brought off from one of the farms plundered on the Canada shore. Mabel had not much difficulty in catching one of these pigeons, although they fluttered and flew about the hut with a noise like that of drums; and, concealing it in her dress, she stole back towards her own hut with the prize. It was empty; and, without doing more than cast a glance in at the door, the eager girl hurried down to the shore. She had no difficulty in escaping observation, for the trees and bushes made a complete cover to her person. At the canoe she found June, who took the pigeon, placed it in a basket of her own manufacturing, and, repeating the words, “blockhouse good,” she glided out of the bushes and across the narrow passage, as noiselessly as she had come. Mabel waited some time to catch a signal of leave-taking or amity after her friend had landed, but none was given. The adjacent islands, without exception, were as quiet as if no one had ever disturbed the sublime repose of nature, and nowhere could any sign or symptom be discovered, as Mabel then thought, that might denote the proximity of the sort of danger of which June had given notice. On returning, however, from the shore, Mabel was struck with a little circumstance, that, in an ordinary situation, would have attracted no attention, but which, now that her suspicions had been aroused, did not pass before her uneasy eye unnoticed. A small piece of red bunting, such as is used in the ensigns of ships, was fluttering at the lower branch of a small tree, fastened in a way to permit it to blow out, or to droop like a vessel's pennant. Now that Mabel's fears were awakened, June herself could not have manifested greater quickness in analyzing facts that she believed might affect the safety of the party. She saw at a glance that this bit of cloth could be observed from an adjacent island; that it lay so near the line between her own hut and the canoe as to leave no doubt that June had passed near it, if not directly under it; and that it might be a signal to communicate some important fact connected with the mode of attack to those who were probably lying in ambush near them. Tearing the little strip of bunting from the tree, Mabel hastened on, scarcely knowing what her duty next required of her. June might be false to her, but her manner, her looks, her affection, and her disposition as Mabel had known it in the journey, forbade the idea. Then came the allusion to Arrowhead's admiration of the pale-face beauties, some dim recollections of the looks of the Tuscarora, and a painful consciousness that few wives could view with kindness one who had estranged a husband's affections. None of these images were distinct and clear, but they rather gleamed over the mind of our heroine than rested in it, and they quickened her pulses, as they did her step, without bringing with them the prompt and clear decisions that usually followed her reflections. She had hurried onwards towards the hut occupied by the soldier's wife, intending to remove at once to the blockhouse with the woman, though she could persuade no other to follow, when her impatient walk was interrupted by the voice of Muir. “Whither so fast, pretty Mabel?” he cried; “and why so given to solitude? The worthy Sergeant will deride my breeding, if he hear that his daughter passes the mornings alone and unattended to, though he well knows it is my ardent wish to be her slave and companion from the beginning of the year to its end.” “Surely, Mr. Muir, you must have some authority here?” Mabel suddenly arrested her steps to say. “One of your rank would be listened to, at least, by a corporal?” “I don't know that, I don't know that,” interrupted Muir, with an impatience and appearance of alarm that might have excited Mabel's attention at another moment. “Command is command; discipline, discipline; and authority, authority. Your good father would be sore grieved did he find me interfering to sully or carry off the laurels he is about to win; and I cannot command the Corporal without equally commanding the Sergeant. The wisest way will be for me to remain in the obscurity of a private individual in this enterprise; and it is so that all parties, from Lundie down, understand the transaction.” “This I know, and it may be well, nor would I give my dear father any cause of complaint; but you may influence the Corporal to his own good.” “I'll no' say that,” returned Muir in his sly Scotch way; “it would be far safer to promise to influence him to his injury. Mankind, pretty Mabel, have their peculiarities; and to influence a fellow-being to his own good is one of the most difficult tasks of human nature, while the opposite is just the easiest. You'll no' forget this, my dear, but bear it in mind for your edification and government. But what is that you're twisting round your slender finger as you may be said to twist hearts?” “It is nothing but a bit of cloth--a sort of flag--a trifle that is hardly worth our attention at this grave moment. If--” “A trifle! It's no' so trifling as ye may imagine, Mistress Mabel,” taking the bit of bunting from her, and stretching it at full length with both his arms extended, while his face grew grave and his eye watchful. “Ye'll no' ha' been finding this, Mabel Dunham, in the breakfast?” Mabel simply acquainted him with the spot where and the manner in which she had found the bit of cloth. While she was speaking, the eye of the Quartermaster was not quiet for a moment, glancing from the rag to the face of our heroine, then back again to the rag. That his suspicions were awakened was easy to be seen, nor was he long in letting it be known what direction they had taken. “We are not in a part of the world where our ensigns and gauds ought to be spread abroad to the wind, Mabel Dunham!” he said, with an ominous shake of the head. “I thought as much myself, Mr. Muir, and brought away the little flag lest it might be the means of betraying our presence here to the enemy, even though nothing is intended by its display. Ought not my uncle to be made acquainted with the circumstance?” “I no' see the necessity for that, pretty Mabel; for, as you justly say, it is a circumstance, and circumstances sometimes worry the worthy mariner. But this flag, if flag it can be called, belongs to a seaman's craft. You may perceive that it is made of what is called bunting, and that is a description of cloth used only by vessels for such purposes, _our_ colors being of silk, as you may understand, or painted canvas. It's surprisingly like the fly of the _Scud's_ ensign. And now I recollect me to have observed that a piece had been cut from that very flag.” Mabel felt her heart sink, but she had sufficient self-command not to attempt an answer. “It must be looked to,” Muir continued, “and, after all, I think it may be well to hold a short consultation with Master Cap, than whom a more loyal subject does not exist in the British empire.” “I have thought the warning so serious,” Mabel rejoined, “that I am about to remove to the blockhouse, and to take the woman with me.” “I do not see the prudence of that, Mabel. The blockhouse will be the first spot assailed should there really be an attack; and it's no' well provided for a siege, that must be allowed. If I might advise in so delicate a contingency, I would recommend your taking refuge in the boat, which, as you may now perceive, is most favorably placed to retreat by that channel opposite, where all in it would be hid by the islands in one or two minutes. Water leaves no trail, as Pathfinder well expresses it; and there appears to be so many different passages in that quarter that escape would be more than probable. I've always been of opinion that Lundie hazarded too much in occupying a post so far advanced and so much exposed as this.” “It's too late to regret it now, Mr. Muir, and we have only to consult our own security.” “And the king's honor, pretty Mabel. Yes, his Majesty's arms and his glorious name are not to be overlooked on any occasion.” “Then I think it might be better if we all turned our eyes towards the place that has been built to maintain them instead of the boat,” said Mabel, smiling; “and so, Mr. Muir, I am for the blockhouse, intending to await there the return of my father and his party. He would be sadly grieved at finding we had fled when he got back successful himself, and filled with the confidence of our having been as faithful to our duties as he has been to his own.” “Nay, nay, for heaven's sake, do not misunderstand me, Mabel!” Muir interrupted, with some alarm of manner; “I am far from intimating that any but you females ought to take refuge in the boat. The duty of us men is sufficiently plain, no doubt, and my resolution has been formed from the first to stand or fall by the blockhouse.” “And did you imagine, Mr. Muir, that two females could row that heavy boat in a way to escape the bark canoe of an Indian?” “Ah, my pretty Mabel, love is seldom logical, and its fears and misgivings are apt to warp the faculties. I only saw your sweet person in the possession of the means of safety, and overlooked the want of ability to use them; but you'll not be so cruel, lovely creature, as to impute to me as a fault my intense anxiety on your own account.” Mabel had heard enough: her mind was too much occupied with what had passed that morning, and with her fears, to wish to linger longer to listen to love speeches, which in her most joyous and buoyant moments she would have found unpleasant. She took a hasty leave of her companion, and was about to trip away towards the hilt of the other woman, when Muir arrested the movement by laying a hand on her arm. “One word, Mabel,” said he, “before you leave me. This little flag may, or it may not, have a particular meaning; if it has, now that we are aware of its being shown, may it not be better to put it back again, while we watch vigilantly for some answer that may betray the conspiracy; and if it mean nothing, why, nothing will follow.” “This may be all right, Mr. Muir, though, if the whole is accidental, the flag might be the occasion of the fort's being discovered.” Mabel stayed to utter no more; but she was soon out of sight, running into the hut towards which she had been first proceeding. The Quartermaster remained on the very spot and in the precise attitude in which she had left him for quite a minute, first looking at the bounding figure of the girl and then at the bit of bunting, which he still held before him in a way to denote indecision. His irresolution lasted but for this minute, however; for he was soon beneath the tree, where he fastened the mimic flag to a branch again, though, from his ignorance of the precise spot from which it had been taken by Mabel, he left it fluttering from a part of the oak where it was still more exposed than before to the eyes of any passenger on the river, though less in view from the island itself.	{ "id": "1880" }
21	None	Each one has had his supping mess, The cheese is put into the press, The pans and bowls, clean scalded all, Reared up against the milk-house wall. COTTON. It seemed strange to Mabel Dunham, as she passed along on her way to find her female companion, that others should be so composed, while she herself felt as if the responsibilities of life and death rested on her shoulders. It is true that distrust of June's motives mingled with her forebodings; but when she came to recall the affectionate and natural manner of the young Indian girl, and all the evidences of good faith and sincerity she had seen in her conduct during the familiar intercourse of their journey, she rejected the idea with the unwillingness of a generous disposition to believe ill of others. She saw, however, that she could not put her companions properly on their guard without letting them into the secret of her conference with June; and she found herself compelled to act cautiously and with a forethought to which she was unaccustomed, more especially in a matter of so much moment. The soldier's wife was told to transport the necessaries into the blockhouse, and admonished not to be far from it at any time during the day. Mabel did not explain her reasons. She merely stated that she had detected some signs in walking about the island, which induced her to apprehend that the enemy had more knowledge of its position than had been previously believed, and that they two at least, would do well to be in readiness to seek a refuge at the shortest notice. It was not difficult to arouse the apprehension of this person, who, though a stout-hearted Scotchwoman, was ready enough to listen to anything that confirmed her dread of Indian cruelties. As soon as Mabel believed that her companion was sufficiently frightened to make her wary, she threw out some hints touching the inexpediency of letting the soldiers know the extent of their own fears. This was done with a view to prevent discussions and inquiries that might embarrass our heroine: she determining to render her uncle, the Corporal, and his men more cautious, by adopting a different course. Unfortunately, the British army could not have furnished a worse person for the particular duty that he was now required to discharge than Corporal M'Nab, the individual who had been left in command during the absence of Sergeant Dunham. On the one hand, he was resolute, prompt, familiar with all the details of a soldier's life, and used to war; on the other, he was supercilious as regards the provincials, opinionated on every subject connected with the narrow limits of his professional practice, much disposed to fancy the British empire the centre of all that is excellent in the world, and Scotland the focus of, at least, all moral excellence in that empire. In short, he was an epitome, though on a scale suited to his rank, of those very qualities which were so peculiar to the servants of the Crown that were sent into the colonies, as these servants estimated themselves in comparison with the natives of the country; or, in other words, he considered the American as an animal inferior to the parent stock, and viewed all his notions of military service, in particular, as undigested and absurd. A more impracticable subject, therefore, could not well have offered for the purpose of Mabel, and yet she felt obliged to lose no time in putting her plan in execution. “My father has left you a responsible command, Corporal,” she said, as soon as she could catch M'Nab a little apart; “for should the island fall into the hands of the enemy, not only should we be captured, but the party that is now out would in all probability become their prisoners also.” “It needs no journey from Scotland to this place to know the facts needful to be o' that way of thinking.” returned M'Nab drily. “I do not doubt your understanding it as well as myself, Mr. M'Nab, but I'm fearful that you veterans, accustomed as you are to dangers and battles, are a little apt to overlook some of the precautions that may be necessary in a situation as peculiar as ours.” “They say Scotland is no conquered country, young woman, but I'm thinking there must be some mistak' in the matter, as we, her children, are so drowsy-headed and apt to be o'ertaken when we least expect it.” “Nay, my good friend, you mistake my meaning. In the first place, I'm not thinking of Scotland at all, but of this island; and then I am far from doubting your vigilance when you think it necessary to practise it; but my great fear is that there may be danger to which your courage will make you indifferent.” “My courage, Mistress Dunham, is doubtless of a very pool quality, being nothing but Scottish courage; your father's is Yankee, and were he here among us we should see different preparations, beyond a doubt. Well, times are getting wrang, when foreigners hold commissions and carry halberds in Scottish corps; and I no wonder that battles are lost, and campaigns go wrang end foremost.” Mabel was almost in despair; but the quiet warning of June was still too vividly impressed on her mind to allow her to yield the matter. She changed her mode of operating, therefore, still clinging to the hope of getting the whole party within the blockhouse, without being compelled to betray the source whence she obtained her notices of the necessity of vigilance. “I daresay you are right, Corporal M'Nab,” she observed; “for I've often heard of the heroes of your country, who have been among the first of the civilized world, if what they tell me of them is true.” “Have you read the history of Scotland, Mistress Dunham?” demanded the Corporal, looking up at his pretty companion, for the first time with something like a smile on his hard, repulsive countenance. “I have read a little of it, Corporal, but I've heard much more. The lady who brought me up had Scottish blood in her veins, and was fond of the subject.” “I'll warrant ye, the Sergeant no' troubled himself to expatiate on the renown of the country where his regiment was raised?” “My father has other things to think of, and the little I know was got from the lady I have mentioned.” “She'll no' be forgetting to tall ye o' Wallace?” “Of him I've even read a good deal.” “And o' Bruce, and the affair of Bannockburn?” “Of that too, as well as of Culloden Muir.” The last of these battles was then a recent event, it having actually been fought within the recollection of our heroine, whose notions of it, however, were so confused that she scarcely appreciated the effect her allusion might produce on her companion. She knew it had been a victory, and had often heard the guests of her patroness mention it with triumph; and she fancied their feelings would find a sympathetic chord in those of every British soldier. Unfortunately, M'Nab had fought throughout that luckless day on the side of the Pretender; and a deep scar that garnished his face had been left there by the sabre of a German soldier in the service of the House of Hanover. He fancied that his wound bled afresh at Mabel's allusion; and it is certain that the blood rushed to his face in a torrent, as if it would pour out of his skin at the cicatrix. “Hoot! hoot awa'!” he fairly shouted, “with your Culloden and Sherriff muirs, young woman; ye'll no' be understanding the subject at all, and will manifest not only wisdom but modesty in speaking o' your ain country and its many failings. King George has some loyal subjects in the colonies, na doubt, but 'twill be a lang time before he sees or hears any guid of them.” Mabel was surprised at the Corporal's heat, for she had not the smallest idea where the shoe pinched; but she was determined not to give up the point. “I've always heard that the Scotch had two of the good qualities of soldiers,” she said, “courage and circumspection; and I feel persuaded that Corporal M'Nab will sustain the national renown.” “Ask yer own father, Mistress Dunham; he is acquaint' with Corporal M'Nab, and will no' be backward to point out his demerits. We have been in battle thegither, and he is my superior officer, and has a sort o' official right to give the characters of his subordinates.” “My father thinks well of you, M'Nab, or he would not have left you in charge of this island and all it contains, his own daughter included. Among other things, I well know that he calculates largely on your prudence. He expects the blockhouse in particular to be strictly attended to.” “If he wishes to defend the honor of the 55th behind logs, he ought to have remained in command himsel'; for, to speak frankly, it goes against a Scotchman's bluid and opinions to be beaten out of the field even before he is attacked. We are broadsword men, and love to stand foot to foot with the foe. This American mode of fighting, that is getting into so much favor, will destroy the reputation of his Majesty's army, if it no' destroy its spirit.” “No true soldier despises caution. Even Major Duncan himself, than whom there is none braver, is celebrated for his care of his men.” “Lundie has his weakness, and is fast forgetting the broadsword and open heaths in his tree and rifle practice. But, Mistress Dunham, tak' the word of an old soldier, who has seen his fifty-fifth year, when he talls ye that there is no surer method to encourage your enemy than to seem to fear him; and that there is no danger in this Indian warfare that the fancies and imaginations of your Americans have not enlarged upon, until they see a savage in every bush. We Scots come from a naked region, and have no need and less relish for covers, and so ye'll be seeing, Mistress Dunham--” The Corporal gave a spring into the air, fell forward on his face, and rolled over on his back, the whole passing so suddenly that Mabel had scarcely heard the sharp crack of the rifle that had sent a bullet through his body. Our heroine did not shriek--did not even tremble; for the occurrence was too sudden, too awful, and too unexpected for that exhibition of weakness; on the contrary, she stepped hastily forward, with a natural impulse to aid her companion. There was just enough of life left in M'Nab to betray his entire consciousness of all that had passed. His countenance had the wild look of one who had been overtaken by death by surprise; and Mabel, in her cooler moments, fancied that it showed the tardy repentance of a willful and obstinate sinner. “Ye'll be getting into the blockhouse as fast as possible,” M'Nab whispered, as Mabel leaned over him to catch his dying words. Then came over our heroine the full consciousness of her situation and of the necessity of exertion. She cast a rapid glance at the body at her feet, saw that it had ceased to breathe, and fled. It was but a few minutes' run to the blockhouse, the door of which Mabel had barely gained when it was closed violently in her face by Jennie, the soldier's wife, who in blind terror thought only of her own safety. The reports of five or six rifles were heard while Mabel was calling out for admittance; and the additional terror they produced prevented the woman within from undoing quickly the very fastenings she had been so expert in applying. After a minute's delay, however, Mabel found the door reluctantly yielding to her constant pressure, and she forced her slender body through the opening the instant it was large enough to allow of its passage. By this time Mabel's heart ceased to beat tulmultuously and she gained sufficient self-command to act collectedly. Instead of yielding to the almost convulsive efforts of her companion to close the door again, she held it open long enough to ascertain that none of her own party was in sight, or likely on the instant to endeavor to gain admission: then she allowed the opening to be shut. Her orders and proceedings now became more calm and rational. But a single bar was crossed, and Jennie was directed to stand in readiness to remove even that at any application from a friend. She then ascended the ladder to the room above, where by means of a loophole she was enabled to get as good a view of the island as the surrounding bushes would allow. Admonishing her associate below to be firm and steady, she made as careful an examination of the environs as her situation permitted. To her great surprise, Mabel could not at first see a living soul on the island, friend or enemy. Neither Frenchman nor Indian was visible, though a small straggling white cloud that was floating before the wind told her in which quarter she ought to look for them. The rifles had been discharged from the direction of the island whence June had come, though whether the enemy were on that island, or had actually landed on her own, Mabel could not say. Going to the loop that commanded a view of the spot where M'Nab lay, her blood curdled at perceiving all three of his soldiers lying apparently lifeless at his side. These men had rushed to a common centre at the first alarm, and had been shot down almost simultaneously by the invisible foe whom the Corporal had affected to despise. Neither Cap nor Lieutenant Muir was to be seen. With a beating heart, Mabel examined every opening through the trees, and ascended even to the upper story or garret of the blockhouse, where she got a full view of the whole island, so far as its covers would allow, but with no better success. She had expected to see the body of her uncle lying on the grass like those of the soldiers, but it was nowhere visible. Turning towards the spot where the boat lay, Mabel saw that it was still fastened to the shore; and then she supposed that by some accident Muir had been prevented from effecting his retreat in that quarter. In short, the island lay in the quiet of the grave, the bodies of the soldiers rendering the scone as fearful as it was extraordinary. “For God's holy sake, Mistress Mabel,” called out the woman from below; for, though her fear had become too ungovernable to allow her to keep silence, our heroine's superior refinement, more than the regimental station of her father, still controlled her mode of address,--“Mistress Mabel, tell me if any of our friends are living! I think I hear groans that grow fainter and fainter, and fear that they will all be tomahawked!” Mabel now remembered that one of the soldiers was this woman's husband, and she trembled at what might be the immediate effect of her sorrow, should his death become suddenly known to her. The groans, too, gave a little hope, though she feared they might come from her uncle, who lay out of view. “We are in His holy keeping, Jennie,” she answered. “We must trust in Providence, while we neglect none of its benevolent means of protecting ourselves. Be careful with the door; on no account open it without my directions.” “Oh, tell me, Mistress Mabel, if you can anywhere see Sandy! If I could only let him know that I'm in safety, the guid man would be easier in his mind, whether free or a prisoner.” Sandy was Jennie's husband, and he lay dead in plain view of the loop from which our heroine was then looking. “You no' tell me if you're seeing of Sandy,” the woman repeated from below, impatient at Mabel's silence. “There are some of our people gathered about the body of M'Nab,” was the answer; for it seemed sacrilegious in her eyes to tell a direct untruth under the awful circumstances in which she was placed. “Is Sandy amang them?” demanded the woman, in a voice that sounded appalling by its hoarseness and energy. “He may be certainly; for I see one, two, three, four, and all in the scarlet coats of the regiment.” “Sandy!” called out the woman frantically; “why d'ye no' care for yoursal', Sandy? Come hither the instant, man, and share your wife's fortunes in weal or woe. It's no' a moment for your silly discipline and vain-glorious notions of honor! Sandy! Sandy!” Mabel heard the bar turn, and then the door creaked on its hinges. Expectation, not to say terror, held her in suspense at the loop, and she soon beheld Jennie rushing through the bushes in the direction of the cluster of the dead. It took the woman but an instant to reach the fatal spot. So sudden and unexpected had been the blow, that she in her terror did not appear to comprehend its weight. Some wild and half-frantic notion of a deception troubled her fancy, and she imagined that the men were trifling with her fears. She took her husband's hand, and it was still warm, while she thought a covert smile was struggling on his lip. “Why will ye fool life away, Sandy?” she cried, pulling at the arm. “Ye'll all be murdered by these accursed Indians, and you no' takin' to the block like trusty soldiers! Awa'! awa'! and no' be losing the precious moments.” In her desperate efforts, the woman pulled the body of her husband in a way to cause the head to turn completely over, when the small hole in the temple, caused by the entrance of a rifle bullet, and a few drops of blood trickling over the skin, revealed the meaning of her husband's silence. As the horrid truth flashed in its full extent on her mind, the woman clasped her hands, gave a shriek that pierced the glades of every island near, and fell at length on the dead body of the soldier. Thrilling, heartreaching, appalling as was that shriek, it was melody to the cry that followed it so quickly as to blend the sounds. The terrific war-whoop arose out of the covers of the island, and some twenty savages, horrible in their paint and the other devices of Indian ingenuity, rushed forward, eager to secure the coveted scalps. Arrowhead was foremost, and it was his tomahawk that brained the insensible Jennie; and her reeking hair was hanging at his girdle as a trophy in less than two minutes after she had quitted the blockhouse. His companions were equally active, and M'Nab and his soldiers no longer presented the quiet aspect of men who slumbered. They were left in their gore, unequivocally butchered corpses. All this passed in much less time than has been required to relate it, and all this did Mabel witness. She had stood riveted to the spot, gazing on the whole horrible scene, as if enchained by some charm, nor did the idea of self or of her own danger once obtrude itself on her thoughts. But no sooner did she perceive the place where the men had fallen covered with savages, exulting in the success of their surprise, than it occurred to her that Jennie had left the blockhouse door unbarred. Her heart beat violently, for that defence alone stood between her and immediate death, and she sprang toward the ladder with the intention of descending to make sure of it. Her foot had not yet reached the floor of the second story, however, when she heard the door grating on its hinges, and she gave herself up for lost. Sinking on her knees, the terrified but courageous girl endeavored to prepare herself for death, and to raise her thoughts to God. The instinct of life, however, was too strong for prayer, and while her lips moved, the jealous senses watched every sound beneath. When her ears heard the bars, which went on pivots secured to the centre of the door, turning into their fastenings, not one, as she herself had directed, with a view to admit her uncle should he apply, but all three, she started again to her feet, all spiritual contemplations vanishing in her actual temporal condition, and it seemed as if all her faculties were absorbed in the sense of hearing. The thoughts are active in a moment so fearful. At first Mabel fancied that her uncle had entered the blockhouse, and she was about to descend the ladder and throw herself into his arms; then the idea that it might be an Indian, who had barred the door to shut out intruders while he plundered at leisure, arrested the movement. The profound stillness below was unlike the bold, restless movements of Cap, and it seemed to savor more of the artifices of an enemy. If a friend at all, it could only be her uncle or the Quartermaster; for the horrible conviction now presented itself to our heroine that to these two and herself were the whole party suddenly reduced, if, indeed, the two latter survived. This consideration held Mabel in check, and for full two minutes more a breathless silence reigned in the building. During this time the girl stood at the foot of the upper ladder, the trap which led to the lower opening on the opposite side of the floor; the eyes of Mabel were riveted on this spot, for she now began to expect to see at each instant the horrible sight of a savage face at the hole. This apprehension soon became so intense, that she looked about her for a place of concealment. The procrastination of the catastrophe she now fully expected, though it were only for a moment, afforded a relief. The room contained several barrels; and behind two of these Mabel crouched, placing her eyes at an opening by which she could still watch the trap. She made another effort to pray; but the moment was too horrible for that relief. She thought, too, that she heard a low rustling, as if one were ascending the lower ladder with an effort at caution so great as to betray itself by its own excess; then followed a creaking that she was certain came from one of the steps of the ladder, which had made the same noise under her own light weight as she ascended. This was one of those instants into which are compressed the sensations of years of ordinary existence. Life, death, eternity, and extreme bodily pain were all standing out in bold relief from the plane of every-day occurrences; and she might have been taken at that moment for a beautiful pallid representation of herself, equally without motion and without vitality. But while such was the outward appearance of the form, never had there been a time in her brief career when Mabel heard more acutely, saw more clearly, or felt more vividly. As yet, nothing was visible at the trap, but her ears, rendered exquisitely sensitive by intense feeling, distinctly acquainted her that some one was within a few inches of the opening in the floor. Next followed the evidence of her eyes, which beheld the dark hair of an Indian rising so slowly through the passage that the movements of the head might be likened to that of the minute-hand of a clock; then came the dark skin and wild features, until the whole of the swarthy face had risen above the floor. The human countenance seldom appears to advantage when partially concealed; and Mabel imagined many additional horrors as she first saw the black, roving eyes and the expression of wildness as the savage countenance was revealed, as it might be, inch by inch; but when the entire head was raised above the floor, a second and a better look assured our heroine that she saw the gentle, anxious, and even handsome face of June.	{ "id": "1880" }
22	None	Spectre though I be, I am not sent to scare thee or deceive; But in reward of thy fidelity. WORDSWORTH. It would be difficult to say which evinced the most satisfaction, when Mabel sprang to her feet and appeared in the centre of the room, our heroine, on finding that her visitor was the wife of Arrowhead, and not Arrowhead himself, or June, at discovering that her advice had been followed, and that the blockhouse contained the person she had so anxiously and almost hopelessly sought. They embraced each other, and the unsophisticated Tuscarora woman laughed in her sweet accents as she held her friend at arm's length, and made certain of her presence. “Blockhouse good,” said the young Indian; “got no scalp.” “It is indeed good, June,” Mabel answered, with a shudder, veiling her eyes at the same time, as if to shut out a view of the horrors she had so lately witnessed. “Tell me, for God's sake, if you know what has become of my dear uncle! I have looked in all directions without being able to see him.” “No here in blockhouse?” June asked, with some curiosity. “Indeed he is not: I am quite alone in this place; Jennie, the woman who was with me, having rushed out to join her husband, and perishing for her imprudence.” “June know, June see; very bad, Arrowhead no feel for any wife; no feel for his own.” “Ah, June, your life, at least, is safe!” “Don't know; Arrowhead kill me, if he know all.” “God bless and protect you, June! He _will_ bless and protect you for this humanity. Tell me what is to be done, and if my poor uncle is still living?” “Don't know. Saltwater has boat; maybe he go on river.” “The boat is still on the shore, but neither my uncle nor the Quartermaster is anywhere to be seen.” “No kill, or June would see. Hide away! Red man hide; no shame for pale-face.” “It is not the shame that I fear for them, but the opportunity. Your attack was awfully sudden, June!” “Tuscarora!” returned the other, smiling with exultation at the dexterity of her husband. “Arrowhead great warrior!” “You are too good and gentle for this sort of life, June; you cannot be happy in such scenes?” June's countenance grew clouded, and Mabel fancied there was some of the savage fire of a chief in her frown as she answered,-- “Yengeese too greedy, take away all hunting-grounds; chase Six Nation from morning to night; wicked king, wicked people. Pale-face very bad.” Mabel knew that, even in that distant day, there was much truth in this opinion, though she was too well instructed not to understand that the monarch, in this, as in a thousand other cases, was blamed for acts of which he was most probably ignorant. She felt the justice of the rebuke, therefore, too much to attempt an answer, and her thoughts naturally reverted to her own situation. “And what am I to do, June?” she demanded. “It cannot be long before your people will assault this building.” “Blockhouse good--got no scalp.” “But they will soon discover that it has got no garrison too, if they do not know it already. You yourself told me the number of people that were on the island, and doubtless you learned it from Arrowhead.” “Arrowhead know,” answered June, holding up six fingers, to indicate the number of the men. “All red men know. Four lose scalp already; two got 'em yet.” “Do not speak of it, June; the horrid thought curdles my blood. Your people cannot know that I am alone in the blockhouse, but may fancy my uncle and the Quartermaster with me, and may set fire to the building, in order to dislodge them. They tell me that fire is the great danger to such places.” “No burn blockhouse,” said June quietly. “You cannot know that, my good June, and I have no means to keep them off.” “No burn blockhouse. Blockhouse good; got no scalp.” “But tell me why, June; I fear they will burn it.” “Blockhouse wet--much rain--logs green--no burn easy. Red man know it--fine t'ing--then no burn it to tell Yengeese that Iroquois been here. Fader come back, miss blockhouse, no found. No, no; Indian too much cunning; no touch anything.” “I understand you, June, and hope your prediction may be true; for, as regards my dear father, should he escape--perhaps he is already dead or captured, June?” “No touch fader--don't know where he gone--water got no trail--red man can't follow. No burn blockhouse--blockhouse good; got no scalp.” “Do you think it possible for me to remain here safely until my father returns?” “Don't know; daughter tell best when fader come back.” Mabel felt uneasy at the glance of June's dark eye as she uttered this; for the unpleasant surmise arose that her companion was endeavoring to discover a fact that might be useful to her own people, while it would lead to the destruction of her parent and his party. She was about to make an evasive answer, when a heavy push at the outer door suddenly drew all her thoughts to the immediate danger. “They come!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps, June, it is my uncle or the Quartermaster. I cannot keep out even Mr. Muir at a moment like this.” “Why no look? plenty loophole, made purpose.” Mabel took the hint, and, going to one of the downward loops, that had been cut through the logs in the part that overhung the basement, she cautiously raised the little block that ordinarily filled the small hole, and caught a glance at what was passing at the door. The start and changing countenance told her companion that some of her own people were below. “Red man,” said June, lifting a finger in admonition to be prudent. “Four; and horrible in their paint and bloody trophies. Arrowhead is among them.” June had moved to a corner, where several spare rifles had been deposited, and had already taken one into her hand, when the name of her husband appeared to arrest her movements. It was but for an instant, however, for she immediately went to the loop, and was about to thrust the muzzle of the piece through it, when a feeling of natural aversion induced Mabel to seize her arm. “No, no, no, June!” said the latter; “not against your own husband, though my life be the penalty.” “No hurt Arrowhead,” returned June, with a slight shudder, “no hurt red man at all. No fire at 'em; only scare.” Mabel now comprehended the intention of June, and no longer opposed it. The latter thrust the muzzle of the rifle through the loophole; and, taking care to make noise enough to attract attraction, she pulled the trigger. The piece had no sooner been discharged than Mabel reproached her friend for the very act that was intended to serve her. “You declared it was not your intention to fire,” she said, “and you may have destroyed your own husband.” “All run away before I fire,” returned June, laughing, and going to another loop to watch the movements of her friends, laughing still heartier. “See! get cover--every warrior. Think Saltwater and Quartermaster here. Take good care now.” “Heaven be praised! And now, June, I may hope for a little time to compose my thoughts to prayer, that I may not die like Jennie, thinking only of life and the things of the world.” June laid aside the rifle, and came and seated herself near the box on which Mabel had sunk, under that physical reaction which accompanies joy as well as sorrow. She looked steadily in our heroine's face, and the latter thought that her countenance had an expression of severity mingled with its concern. “Arrowhead great warrior,” said the Tuscarora's wife. “All the girls of tribe look at him much. The pale-face beauty has eyes too?” “June! --what do these words--that look--imply? what would you say?” “Why you so 'fraid June shoot Arrowhead?” “Would it not have been horrible to see a wife destroy her own husband? No, June, rather would I have died myself.” “Very sure, dat all?” “That was all, June, as God is my judge! --and surely that was enough. No, no! there have been sufficient horrors to-day, without increasing them by an act like this. What other motive can you suspect?” “Don't know. Poor Tuscarora girl very foolish. Arrowhead great chief, and look all round him. Talk of pale-face beauty in his sleep. Great chief like many wives.” “Can a chief possess more than one wife, June, among your people?” “Have as many as he can keep. Great hunter marry often. Arrowhead got only June now; but he look too much, see too much, talk too much of pale-face girl.” Mabel was conscious of this fact, which had distressed her not a little, in the course of their journey; but it shocked her to hear this allusion, coming, as it did, from the mouth of the wife herself. She knew that habit and opinions made great differences in such matters; but, in addition to the pain and mortification she experienced at being the unwilling rival of a wife, she felt an apprehension that jealousy would be but an equivocal guarantee for her personal safety in her present situation. A closer look at June, however, reassured her; for, while it was easy to trace in the unpractised features of this unsophisticated being the pain of blighted affections, no distrust could have tortured the earnest expression of her honest countenance into that of treachery or hate. “You will not betray me, June?” Mabel said, pressing the other's hand, and yielding to an impulse of generous confidence. “You will not give up one of your own sex to the tomahawk?” “No tomahawk touch you. Arrowhead no let 'em. If June must have sister-wife, love to have you.” “No, June; my religion, my feelings, both forbid it; and, if I could be the wife of an Indian at all, I would never take the place that is yours in a wigwam.” June made no answer, but she looked gratified, and even grateful. She knew that few, perhaps no Indian girl within the circle of Arrowhead's acquaintance, could compare with herself in personal attractions; and, though it might suit her husband to marry a dozen wives, she knew of no one, beside Mabel, whose influence she could really dread. So keen an interest, however, had she taken in the beauty, winning manners, kindness, and feminine gentleness of our heroine, that when jealousy came to chill these feelings, it had rather lent strength to that interest; and, under its wayward influence, had actually been one of the strongest of the incentives that had induced her to risk so much in order to save her imaginary rival from the consequences of the attack that she so well knew was about to take place. In a word, June, with a wife's keenness of perception, had detected Arrowhead's admiration of Mabel; and, instead of feeling that harrowing jealousy that might have rendered her rival hateful, as would have been apt to be the case with a woman unaccustomed to defer to the superior rights of the lordly sex, she had studied the looks and character of the pale-face beauty, until, meeting with nothing to repel her own feelings, but everything to encourage them, she had got to entertain an admiration and love for her, which, though certainly very different, was scarcely less strong than that of her husband's. Arrowhead himself had sent her to warn Mabel of the coming danger, though he was ignorant that she had stolen upon the island in the rear of the assailants, and was now intrenched in the citadel along with the object of their joint care. On the contrary, he supposed, as his wife had said, that Cap and Muir were in the blockhouse with Mabel, and that the attempt to repel him and his companions had been made by the men. “June sorry the Lily”--for so the Indian, in her poetical language, had named our heroine--“June sorry the Lily no marry Arrowhead. His wigwam big, and a great chief must get wives enough to fill it.” “I thank you, June, for this preference, which is not according to the notion of us white women,” returned Mabel, smiling in spite of the fearful situation in which she was placed; “but I may not, probably never shall, marry at all.” “Must have good husband,” said June; “marry Eau-douce, if don't like Arrowhead.” “June! this is not a fit subject for a girl who scarcely knows if she is to live another hour or not. I would obtain some signs of my dear uncle's being alive and safe, if possible.” “June go see.” “Can you? --will you? --would it be safe for you to be seen on the island? is your presence known to the warriors, and would they be pleased to find a woman on the war-path with them?” All this Mabel asked in rapid connection, fearing that the answer might not be as she wished. She had thought it extraordinary that June should be of the party, and, improbable as it seemed, she had fancied that the woman had covertly followed the Iroquois in her own canoe, and had got in their advance, merely to give her the notice which had probably saved her life. But in all this she was mistaken, as June, in her imperfect manner, now found means to let her know. Arrowhead, though a chief, was in disgrace with his own people, and was acting with the Iroquois temporarily, though with a perfect understanding. He had a wigwam, it is true, but was seldom in it; feigning friendship for the English, he had passed the summer ostensibly in their service, while he was, in truth, acting for the French, and his wife journeyed with him in his many migrations, most of the distances being passed over in canoes. In a word, her presence was no secret, her husband seldom moving without her. Enough of this to embolden Mabel to wish that her friend might go out, to ascertain the fate of her uncle, did June succeed in letting the other know; and it was soon settled between them that the Indian woman should quit the blockhouse with that object the moment a favorable opportunity offered. They first examined the island, as thoroughly as their position would allow, from the different loops, and found that its conquerors were preparing for a feast, having seized upon the provisions of the English and rifled the huts. Most of the stores were in the blockhouse; but enough were found outside to reward the Indians for an attack that had been attended by so little risk. A party had already removed the dead bodies, and Mabel saw that their arms were collected in a pile near the spot chosen for the banquet. June suggested that, by some signs which she understood, the dead themselves were carried into a thicket and either buried or concealed from view. None of the more prominent objects on the island, however, were disturbed, it being the desire of the conquerors to lure the party of the Sergeant into an ambush on its return. June made her companion observe a man in a tree, a look-out, as she said, to give timely notice of the approach of any boat, although, the departure of the expedition being so recent, nothing but some unexpected event would be likely to bring it back so soon. There did not appear to be any intention to attack the blockhouse immediately; but every indication, as understood by June, rather showed that it was the intention of the Indians to keep it besieged until the return of the Sergeant's party, lest, the signs of an assault should give a warning to eyes as practised as those of Pathfinder. The boat, however, had been secured, and was removed to the spot where the canoes of the Indians were hid in the bushes. June now announced her intention to join her friends, the moment being particularly favorable for her to quit the blockhouse. Mabel felt some distrust as they descended the ladder; but at the next instant she was ashamed of the feeling, as unjust to her companion and unworthy of herself, and by the time they both stood on the ground her confidence was restored. The process of unbarring the door was conducted with the utmost caution, and when the last bar was ready to be turned June took her station near the spot where the opening must necessarily be. The bar was just turned free of the brackets, the door was opened merely wide enough to allow her body to pass, and June glided through the space. Mabel closed the door again, with a convulsive movement; and as the bar turned into its place, her heart beat audibly. She then felt secure; and the two other bars were turned down in a more deliberate manner. When all was fast again, she ascended to the first floor, where alone she could get a glimpse of what was going on without. Long and painfully melancholy hours passed, during which Mabel had no intelligence from June. She heard the yells of the savages, for liquor had carried them beyond the bounds of precaution; and occasionally caught glimpses of their mad orgies through the loops; and at all times was conscious of their fearful presence by sounds and sights that would have chilled the blood of one who had not so lately witnessed scenes so much more terrible. Toward the middle of the day, she fancied she saw a white man on the island, though his dress and wild appearance at first made her take him for a newly-arrived savage. A view of his face, although it was swarthy naturally, and much darkened by exposure, left no doubt that her conjecture was true; and she felt as if there was now one of a species more like her own present, and one to whom she might appeal for succor in the last emergency. Mabel little knew, alas! how small was the influence exercised by the whites over their savage allies, when the latter had begun to taste of blood; or how slight, indeed, was the disposition to divert them from their cruelties. The day seemed a month by Mabel's computation, and the only part of it that did not drag were the minutes spent in prayer. She had recourse to this relief from time to time; and at each effort she found her spirit firmer, her mind more tranquil, and her resignation more confirmed. She understood the reasoning of June, and believed it highly probable that the blockhouse would be left unmolested until the return of her father, in order to entice him into an ambuscade, and she felt much less apprehension of immediate danger in consequence; but the future offered little ground of hope, and her thoughts had already begun to calculate the chances of her captivity. At such moments, Arrowhead and his offensive admiration filled a prominent place in the background: for our heroine well knew that the Indians usually carried off to their villages, for the purposes of adoption, such captives as they did not slay; and that many instances had occurred in which individuals of her sex had passed the remainder of their lives in the wigwams of their conquerors. Such thoughts as these invariably drove her to her knees and to her prayers. While the light lasted the situation of our heroine was sufficiently alarming; but as the shades of evening gradually gathered over the island, it became fearfully appalling. By this time the savages had wrought themselves up to the point of fury, for they had possessed themselves of all the liquor of the English; and their outcries and gesticulations were those of men truly possessed by evil spirits. All the efforts of their French leader to restrain them were entirely fruitless, and he had wisely withdrawn to an adjacent island, where he had a sort of bivouac, that he might keep at a safe distance from friends so apt to run into excesses. Before quitting the spot, however, this officer, at great risk to his own life, had succeeded in extinguishing the fire, and in securing the ordinary means to relight it. This precaution he took lest the Indians should burn the blockhouse, the preservation of which was necessary to the success of his future plans. He would gladly have removed all the arms also, but this he found impracticable, the warriors clinging to their knives and tomahawks with the tenacity of men who regarded a point of honor as long as a faculty was left; and to carry off the rifles, and leave behind him the very weapons that were generally used on such occasions, would have been an idle expedient. The extinguishing of the fire proved to be the most prudent measure; for no sooner was the officer's back turned than one of the warriors in fact proposed to fire the blockhouse. Arrowhead had also withdrawn from the group of drunkards as soon as he found that they were losing their senses, and had taken possession of a hut, where he had thrown himself on the straw, and sought the rest that two wakeful and watchful nights had rendered necessary. It followed that no one was left among the Indians to care for Mabel, if, indeed, any knew of her existence at all; and the proposal of the drunkard was received with yells of delight by eight or ten more as much intoxicated and habitually as brutal as himself. This was the fearful moment for Mabel. The Indians, in their present condition, were reckless of any rifles that the blockhouse might hold, though they did retain dim recollections of its containing living beings, an additional incentive to their enterprise; and they approached its base whooping and leaping like demons. As yet they were excited, not overcome by the liquor they had drunk. The first attempt was made at the door, against which they ran in a body; but the solid structure, which was built entirely of logs, defied their efforts. The rush of a hundred men with the same object would have been useless. This Mabel, however, did not know; and her heart seemed to leap into her mouth as she heard the heavy shock at each renewed effort. At length, when she found that the door resisted these assaults as if it were of stone, neither trembling nor yielding, and only betraying its not being a part of the wall by rattling a little on its heavy hinges, her courage revived, and she seized the first moment of a cessation to look down through the loop, in order, if possible, to learn the extent of her danger. A silence, for which it was not easy to account, stimulated her curiosity; for nothing is so alarming to those who are conscious of the presence of imminent danger, as to be unable to trace its approach. Mabel found that two or three of the Iroquois had been raking the embers, where they had found a few small coals, and with these they were endeavoring to light a fire. The interest with which they labored, the hope of destroying, and the force of habit, enabled them to act intelligently and in unison, so long as their fell object was kept in view. A white man would have abandoned the attempt to light a fire in despair, with coals that came out of the ashes resembling sparks; but these children of the forest had many expedients that were unknown to civilization. By the aid of a few dry leaves, which they alone knew where to seek, a blaze was finally kindled, and then the addition of a few light sticks made sure of the advantage that had been obtained. When Mabel stooped down over the loop, the Indians were making a pile of brush against the door, and as she remained gazing at their proceedings, she saw the twigs ignite, the flame dart from branch to branch, until the whole pile was cracking and snapping under a bright blaze. The Indians now gave a yell of triumph, and returned to their companions, well assured that the work of destruction was commenced. Mabel remained looking down, scarcely able to tear herself away from the spot, so intense and engrossing was the interest she felt in the progress of the fire. As the pile kindled throughout, however, the flames mounted, until they flashed so near her eyes as to compel her to retreat. Just as she reached the opposite side of the room, to which she had retired in her alarm, a forked stream shot up through the loophole, the lid of which she had left open, and illuminated the rude apartment, with Mabel and her desolation. Our heroine now naturally enough supposed that her hour was come; for the door, the only means of retreat, had been blocked up by the brush and fire, with hellish ingenuity, and she addressed herself, as she believed, for the last time to her Maker in prayer. Her eyes were closed, and for more than a minute her spirit was abstracted; but the interests of the world too strongly divided her feelings to be altogether suppressed; and when they involuntarily opened again, she perceived that the streak of flame was no longer flaring in the room, though the wood around the little aperture had kindled, and the blaze was slowly mounting under the impulsion of a current of air that sucked inward. A barrel of water stood in a corner; and Mabel, acting more by instinct than by reason, caught up a vessel, filled it, and, pouring it on the wood with a trembling hand, succeeded in extinguishing the fire at that particular spot. The smoke prevented her from looking down again for a couple of minutes; but when she did her heart beat high with delight and hope at finding that the pile of blazing brush had been overturned and scattered, and that water had been thrown on the logs of the door, which were still smoking though no longer burning. “Who is there?” said Mabel, with her mouth at the loop. “What friendly hand has a merciful Providence sent to my succor?” A light footstep was audible below, and one of those gentle pushes at the door was heard, which just moved the massive beams on the hinges. “Who wishes to enter? Is it you, dear, dear uncle?” “Saltwater no here. St. Lawrence sweet water,” was the answer. “Open quick; want to come in.” The step of Mabel was never lighter, or her movements more quick and natural, than while she was descending the ladder and turning the bars, for all her motions were earnest and active. This time she thought only of her escape, and she opened the door with a rapidity which did not admit of caution. Her first impulse was to rush into the open air, in the blind hope of quitting the blockhouse; but June repulsed the attempt, and entering, she coolly barred the door again before she would notice Mabel's eager efforts to embrace her. “Bless you! bless you, June!” cried our heroine most fervently; “you are sent by Providence to be my guardian angel!” “No hug so tight,” answered the Tuscarora woman. “Pale-face woman all cry, or all laugh. Let June fasten door.” Mabel became more rational, and in a few minutes the two were again in the upper room, seated as before, hand in hand, all feeling of distrust between them being banished. “Now tell me, June,” Mabel commenced as soon as she had given and received one warm embrace, “have you seen or heard aught of my poor uncle?” “Don't know. No one see him; no one hear him; no one know anyt'ing. Saltwater run into river, I t'ink, for I no find him. Quartermaster gone too. I look, and look, and look; but no see' em, one, t'other, nowhere.” “Blessed be God! They must have escaped, though the means are not known to us. I thought I saw a Frenchman on the island, June.” “Yes: French captain come, but he go away too. Plenty of Indian on island.” “Oh, June, June, are there no means to prevent my beloved father from falling into the hands of his enemies?” “Don't know; t'ink dat warriors wait in ambush, and Yengeese must lose scalp.” “Surely, surely, June, you, who have done so much for the daughter, will not refuse to help the father?” “Don't know fader, don't love fader. June help her own people, help Arrowhead--husband love scalp.” “June, this is not yourself. I cannot, will not believe that you wish to see our men murdered!” June turned her dark eyes quietly on Mabel; and for a moment her look was stern, though it was soon changed into one of melancholy compassion. “Lily, Yengeese girl?” she said, as one asks a question. “Certainly, and as a Yengeese girl I would save my countrymen from slaughter.” “Very good, if can. June no Yengeese, June Tuscarora--got Tuscarora husband--Tuscarora heart--Tuscarora feeling--all over Tuscarora. Lily wouldn't run and tell French that her fader was coming to gain victory?” “Perhaps not,” returned Mabel, pressing a hand on a brain that felt bewildered,--“perhaps not; but you serve me, aid me--have saved me, June! Why have you done this, if you only feel as a Tuscarora?” “Don't only feel as Tuscarora; feel as girl, feel as squaw. Love pretty Lily, and put it in my bosom.” Mabel melted into tears, and she pressed the affectionate creature to her heart. It was near a minute before she could renew the discourse, but then she succeeded in speaking more calmly and with greater coherence. “Let me know the worst, June,” said she. “To-night your people are feasting; what do they intend to do to-morrow?” “Don't know; afraid to see Arrowhead, afraid to ask question; t'ink hide away till Yengeese come back.” “Will they not attempt anything against the blockhouse? You have seen what they can threaten if they will.” “Too much rum. Arrowhead sleep, or no dare; French captain gone away, or no dare. All go to sleep now.” “And you think I am safe for this night, at least?” “Too much rum. If Lily like June, might do much for her people.” “I am like you, June, if a wish to serve my countrymen can make a resemblance with one as courageous as yourself.” “No, no, no!” muttered June in a low voice; “no got heart, and June no let you, if had. June's moder prisoner once, and warriors got drunk; moder tomahawked 'em all. Such de way red skin women do when people in danger and want scalp.” “You say what is true,” returned Mabel, shuddering, and unconsciously dropping June's hand. “I cannot do that. I have neither the strength, the courage, nor the will to dip my hands in blood.” “T'ink that too; then stay where you be--blockhouse good--got no scalp.” “You believe, then, that I am safe here, at least until my father and his people return?” “Know so. No dare touch blockhouse in morning. Hark! all still now--drink rum till head fall down, and sleep like log.” “Might I not escape? Are there not several canoes on the island? Might I not get one, and go and give my father notice of what has happened?” “Know how to paddle?” demanded June, glancing her eye furtively at her companion. “Not so well as yourself, perhaps; but enough to get out of sight before morning.” “What do then? --couldn't paddle six--ten--eight mile!” “I do not know; I would do much to warn my father, and the excellent Pathfinder, and all the rest, of the danger they are in.” “Like Pathfinder?” “All like him who know him--you would like him, nay, love him, if you only knew his heart!” “No like him at all. Too good rifle--too good eye--too much shoot Iroquois and June's people. Must get his scalp if can.” “And I must save it if I can, June. In this respect, then, we are opposed to each other. I will go and find a canoe the instant they are all asleep, and quit the island.” “No can--June won't let you. Call Arrowhead.” “June! you would not betray me--you could not give me up after all you have done for me?” “Just so,” returned June, making a backward gesture with her hand, and speaking with a warmth and earnestness Mabel had never witnessed in her before. “Call Arrowhead in loud voice. One call from wife wake a warrior up. June no let Lily help enemy--no let Indian hurt Lily.” “I understand you, June, and feel the nature and justice of your sentiments; and, after all, it were better that I should remain here, for I have most probably overrated my strength. But tell me one thing: if my uncle comes in the night, and asks to be admitted, you will let me open the door of the blockhouse that he may enter?” “Sartain--he prisoner here, and June like prisoner better than scalp; scalp good for honor, prisoner good for feeling. But Saltwater hide so close, he don't know where he be himself.” Here June laughed in her girlish, mirthful way, for to her scenes of violence were too familiar to leave impressions sufficiently deep to change her natural character. A long and discursive dialogue now followed, in which Mabel endeavored to obtain clearer notions of her actual situation, under a faint hope that she might possibly be enabled to turn some of the facts she thus learned to advantage. June answered all her interrogatories simply, but with a caution which showed she fully distinguished between that which was immaterial and that which might endanger the safety or embarrass the future operations of her friends. The substance of the information she gave may be summed up as follows. Arrowhead had long been in communication with the French, though this was the first occasion on which he had entirely thrown aside the mask. He no longer intended to trust himself among the English, for he had discovered traces of distrust, particularly in Pathfinder; and, with Indian bravado, he now rather wished to blazon than to conceal his treachery. He had led the party of warriors in the attack on the island, subject, however, to the supervision of the Frenchman who has been mentioned, though June declined saying whether he had been the means of discovering the position of a place which had been thought to be so concealed from the enemy or not. On this point she would say nothing; but she admitted that she and her husband had been watching the departure of the _Scud_ at the time they were overtaken and captured by the cutter. The French had obtained their information of the precise position of the station but very recently; and Mabel felt a pang when she thought that there were covert allusions of the Indian woman which would convey the meaning that the intelligence had come from a pale-face in the employment of Duncan of Lundie. This was intimated, however, rather than said; and when Mabel had time to reflect on her companion's words, she found room to hope that she had misunderstood her, and that Jasper Western would yet come out of the affair freed from every injurious imputation. June did not hesitate to confess that she had been sent to the island to ascertain the precise number and the occupations of those who had been left on it, though she also betrayed in her _naive_ way that the wish to serve Mabel had induced her principally to consent to come. In consequence of her report, and information otherwise obtained, the enemy was aware of precisely the force that could be brought against them. They also knew the number of men who had gone with Sergeant Dunham, and were acquainted with the object he had in view, though they were ignorant of the spot where he expected to meet the French boats. It would have been a pleasant sight to witness the eager desire of each of these two sincere females to ascertain all that might be of consequence to their respective friends; and yet the native delicacy with which each refrained from pressing the other to make revelations which would have been improper, as well as the sensitive, almost intuitive, feeling with which each avoided saying aught that might prove injurious to her own nation. As respects each other, there was perfect confidence; as regarded their respective people, entire fidelity. June was quite as anxious as Mabel could be on any other point to know where the Sergeant had gone and when he was expected to return; but she abstained from putting the question, with a delicacy that would have done honor to the highest civilization; nor did she once frame any other inquiry in a way to lead indirectly to a betrayal of the much-desired information on that particular point: though when Mabel of her own accord touched on any matter that might by possibility throw a light on the subject, she listened with an intentness which almost suspended respiration. In this manner the hours passed away unheeded, for both were too much interested to think of rest. Nature asserted her rights, however, towards morning; and Mabel was persuaded to lie down on one of the straw beds provided for the soldiers, where she soon fell into a deep sleep. June lay near her and a quiet reigned on the whole island as profound as if the dominion of the forest had never been invaded by man. When Mabel awoke the light of the sun was streaming in through the loopholes, and she found that the day was considerably advanced. June still lay near her, sleeping as tranquilly as if she reposed on--we will not say “down,” for the superior civilization of our own times repudiates the simile--but on a French mattress, and as profoundly as if she had never experienced concern. The movements of Mabel, notwithstanding, soon awakened one so accustomed to vigilance; and then the two took a survey of what was passing around them by means of the friendly apertures.	{ "id": "1880" }
23	None	What had the Eternall Maker need of thee, The world in his continuall course to keepe, That doest all things deface? ne lettest see The beautie of his worke? Indeede in sleepe, The slouth full body that doth love to steepe His lustlesse limbs, and drowne his baser mind, Doth praise thee oft, and oft from Stygian deepe, Calles thee his goddesse, in his errour blind, And great dame Nature's hand-maide, chearing every kinde. _Faerie Queene. _ The tranquillity of the previous night was not contradicted by the movements of the day. Although Mabel and June went to every loophole, not a sign of the presence of a living being on the island was at first to be seen, themselves excepted. There was a smothered fire on the spot where M'Nab and his comrades had cooked, as if the smoke which curled upwards from it was intended as a lure to the absent; and all around the huts had been restored to former order and arrangement. Mabel started involuntarily when her eye at length fell on a group of three men, dressed in the scarlet of the 55th, seated on the grass in lounging attitudes, as if they chatted in listless security; and her blood curdled as, on a second look, she traced the bloodless faces and glassy eyes of the dead. They were very near the blockhouse, so near indeed as to have been overlooked at the first eager inquiry, and there was a mocking levity in their postures and gestures, for their limbs were stiffening in different attitudes, intended to resemble life, at which the soul revolted. Still, horrible as these objects were to those near enough to discover the frightful discrepancy between their assumed and their real characters, the arrangement had been made with so much art that it would have deceived a negligent observer at the distance of a hundred yards. After carefully examining the shores of the island, June pointed out to her companion the fourth soldier, seated, with his feet hanging over the water, his back fastened to a sapling, and holding a fishing-rod in his hand. The scalpless heads were covered with the caps, and all appearance of blood had been carefully washed from each countenance. Mabel sickened at this sight, which not only did so much violence to all her notions of propriety, but which was in itself so revolting and so opposed to natural feeling. She withdrew to a seat, and hid her face in her apron for several minutes, until a low call from June again drew her to a loophole. The latter then pointed out the body of Jennie seemingly standing in the door of a hut, leaning forward as if to look at the group of men, her cap fluttering in the wind, and her hand grasping a broom. The distance was too great to distinguish the features very accurately; but Mabel fancied that the jaw had been depressed, as if to distort the mouth into a sort of horrible laugh. “June! June!” she exclaimed; “this exceeds all I have ever heard, or imagined as possible, in the treachery and artifices of your people.” “Tuscarora very cunning,” said June, in a way to show that she rather approved of than condemned the uses to which the dead bodies had been applied. “Do soldier no harm now; do Iroquois good; got the scalp first; now make bodies work. By and by, burn 'em.” This speech told Mabel how far she was separated from her friend in character; and it was several minutes before she could again address her. But this temporary aversion was lost on June, who set about preparing their simple breakfast, in a way to show how insensible she was to feelings in others which her own habits taught her to discard. Mabel ate sparingly, and her companion, as if nothing had happened. Then they had leisure again for their thoughts, and for further surveys of the island. Our heroine, though devoured with a feverish desire to be always at the loops, seldom went that she did not immediately quit them in disgust, though compelled by her apprehensions to return again in a few minutes, called by the rustling of leaves, or the sighing of the wind. It was, indeed, a solemn thing to look out upon that deserted spot, peopled by the dead in the panoply of the living, and thrown into the attitudes and acts of careless merriment and rude enjoyment. The effect on our heroine was much as if she had found herself an observer of the revelries of demons. Throughout the livelong day not an Indian nor a Frenchman was to be seen, and night closed over the frightful but silent masquerade, with the steady and unalterable progress with which the earth obeys her laws, indifferent to the petty actors and petty scenes that are in daily bustle and daily occurrence on her bosom. The night was far more quiet than that which had preceded it, and Mabel slept with an increasing confidence; for she now felt satisfied that her own fate would not be decided until the return of her father. The following day he was expected, however, and when our heroine awoke, she ran eagerly to the loops in order to ascertain the state of the weather and the aspect of the skies, as well as the condition of the island. There lounged the fearful group on the grass; the fisherman still hung over the water, seemingly intent on his sport; and the distorted countenance of Jennie glared from out the hut in horrible contortions. But the weather had changed; the wind blew fresh from the southward, and though the air was bland, it was filled with the elements of storm. “This grows more and more difficult to bear, June,” Mabel said, when she left the window. “I could even prefer to see the enemy than to look any longer on this fearful array of the dead.” “Hush! Here they come. June thought hear a cry like a warrior's shout when he take a scalp.” “What mean you? There is no more butchery! --there can be no more.” “Saltwater!” exclaimed June, laughing, as she stood peeping through a loophole. “My dear uncle! Thank God! he then lives! Oh, June, June, _you_ will not let them harm _him? _” “June, poor squaw. What warrior t'ink of what she say? Arrowhead bring him here.” By this time Mabel was at a loop; and, sure enough, there were Cap and the Quartermaster in the hands of the Indians, eight or ten of whom were conducting them to the foot of the block, for, by this capture, the enemy now well knew that there could be no man in the building. Mabel scarcely breathed until the whole party stood ranged directly before the door, when she was rejoiced to see that the French officer was among them. A low conversation followed, in which both the white leader and Arrowhead spoke earnestly to their captives, when the Quartermaster called out to her in a voice loud enough to be heard. “Pretty Mabel! Pretty Mabel!” said he; “Look out of one of the loopholes, and pity our condition. We are threatened with instant death unless you open the door to the conquerors. Relent, then or we'll no' be wearing our scalps half an hour from this blessed moment.” Mabel thought there were mockery and levity in this appeal, and its manner rather fortified than weakened her resolution to hold the place as long as possible. “Speak to me, uncle,” said she, with her mouth at a loop, “and tell me what I ought to do.” “Thank God! thank God!” ejaculated Cap; “the sound of your sweet voice, Magnet, lightens my heart of a heavy load, for I feared you had shared the fate of poor Jennie. My breast has felt the last four-and-twenty hours as if a ton of kentledge had been stowed in it. You ask me what you ought to do, child, and I do not know how to advise you, though you are my own sister's daughter! The most I can say just now, my poor girl, is most heartily to curse the day you or I ever saw this bit of fresh water.” “But, uncle, is your life in danger--do _you_ think I ought to open the door?” “A round turn and two half-hitches make a fast belay; and I would counsel no one who is out of the hands of these devils to unbar or unfasten anything in order to fall into them. As to the Quartermaster and myself, we are both elderly men, and not of much account to mankind in general, as honest Pathfinder would say; and it can make no great odds to him whether he balances the purser's books this year or the next; and as for myself, why, if I were on the seaboard, I should know what to do, but up here, in this watery wilderness, I can only say, that if I were behind that bit of a bulwark, it would take a good deal of Indian logic to rouse me out of it.” “You'll no' be minding all your uncle says, pretty Mabel,” put in Muir, “for distress is obviously fast unsettling his faculties, and he is far from calculating all the necessities of the emergency. We are in the hands here of very considerate and gentlemanly pairsons, it must be acknowledged, and one has little occasion to apprehend disagreeable violence. The casualties that have occurred are the common incidents of war, and can no' change our sentiments of the enemy, for they are far from indicating that any injustice will be done the prisoners. I'm sure that neither Master Cap nor myself has any cause of complaint since we have given ourselves up to Master Arrowhead, who reminds me of a Roman or a Spartan by his virtues and moderation; but ye'll be remembering that usages differ, and that our scalps may be lawful sacrifices to appease the manes of fallen foes, unless you save them by capitulation.” “I shall do wiser to keep within the blockhouse until the fate of the island is settled,” returned Mabel. “Our enemies can feel no concern on account of one like me, knowing that I can do them no harm, and I greatly prefer to remain here as more befitting my sex and years.” “If nothing but your convenience were concerned, Mabel, we should all cheerfully acquiesce in your wishes, but these gentlemen fancy that the work will aid their operations, and they have a strong desire to possess it. To be frank with you, finding myself and your uncle in a very peculiar situation, I acknowledge that, to avert consequences, I have assumed the power that belongs to his Majesty's commission, and entered into a verbal capitulation, by which I have engaged to give up the blockhouse and the whole island. It is the fortune of war, and must be submitted to; so open the door, pretty Mabel, forthwith, and confide yourself to the care of those who know how to treat beauty and virtue in distress. There's no courtier in Scotland more complaisant than this chief, or who is more familiar with the laws of decorum.” “No leave blockhouse,” muttered June, who stood at Mabel's side, attentive to all that passed. “Blockhouse good--got no scalp.” Our heroine might have yielded but for this appeal; for it began to appear to her that the wisest course would be to conciliate the enemy by concessions instead of exasperating them by resistance. They must know that Muir and her uncle were in their power; that there was no man in the building, and she fancied they might proceed to batter down the door, or cut their way through the logs with axes, if she obstinately refused to give them peaceable admission, since there was no longer any reason to dread the rifle. But the words of June induced her to hesitate, and the earnest pressure of the hand and entreating looks of her companion strengthened a resolution that was faltering. “No prisoner yet,” whispered June; “let 'em make prisoner before 'ey take prisoner--talk big; June manage 'em.” Mabel now began to parley more resolutely with Muir, for her uncle seemed disposed to quiet his conscience by holding his tongue, and she plainly intimated that it was not her intention to yield the building. “You forget the capitulation, Mistress Mabel,” said Muir; “the honor of one of his Majesty's servants is concerned, and the honor of his Majesty through his servant. You will remember the finesse and delicacy that belong to military honor?” “I know enough, Mr. Muir, to understand that you have no command in this expedition, and therefore can have no right to yield the blockhouse; and I remember, moreover, to have heard my dear father say that a prisoner loses all his authority for the time being.” “Rank sophistry, pretty Mabel, and treason to the king, as well as dishonoring his commission and discrediting his name. You'll no' be persevering in your intentions, when your better judgment has had leisure to reflect and to make conclusions on matters and circumstances.” “Ay,” put in Cap, “this is a circumstance, and be d----d to it!” “No mind what'e uncle say,” ejaculated June, who was occupied in a far corner of the room. “Blockhouse good--got no scalp.” “I shall remain as I am, Mr. Muir, until I get some tidings of my father. He will return in the course of the next ten days.” “Ah, Mabel, this artifice will no' deceive the enemy, who, by means that would be unintelligible, did not our suspicions rest on an unhappy young man with too much plausibility, are familiar with all our doings and plans, and well know that the sun will not set before the worthy Sergeant and his companions will be in their power. Aweel! Submission to Providence is truly a Christian virtue!” “Mr. Muir, you appear to be deceived in the strength of this work, and to fancy it weaker than it is. Do you desire to see what I can do in the way of defence, if so disposed?” “I dinna mind if I do,” answered the Quartermaster, who always grew Scotch as he grew interested. “What do you think of that, then? Look at the loop of the upper story!” As soon as Mabel had spoken, all eyes were turned upward, and beheld the muzzle of a rifle cautiously thrust through a hole, June having resorted again to a _ruse_ which had already proved so successful. The result did not disappoint expectation. No sooner did the Indians catch a sight of the fatal weapon than they leaped aside, and in less than a minute every man among them had sought a cover. The French officer kept his eye on the barrel of the piece in order to ascertain that it was not pointed in his particular direction, and he coolly took a pinch of snuff. As neither Muir nor Cap had anything to apprehend from the quarter in which the others were menaced, they kept their ground. “Be wise, my pretty Mabel, be wise!” exclaimed the former; “and no' be provoking useless contention. In the name of all the kings of Albin, who have ye closeted with you in that wooden tower that seemeth so bloody-minded? There is necromancy about this matter, and all our characters may be involved in the explanation.” “What do you think of the Pathfinder, Master Muir, for a garrison to so strong a post?” cried Mabel, resorting to an equivocation which the circumstances rendered very excusable. “What will your French and Indian companions think of the aim of the Pathfinder's rifle?” “Bear gently on the unfortunate, pretty Mabel, and do not confound the king's servants--may Heaven bless him and all his royal lineage! --with the king's enemies. If Pathfinder be indeed in the blockhouse, let him speak, and we will hold our negotiations directly with him. He knows us as friends, and we fear no evil at his hands, and least of all to myself; for a generous mind is apt to render rivalry in a certain interest a sure ground of respect and amity, since admiration of the same woman proves a community of feeling and tastes.” The reliance on Pathfinder's friendship did not extend beyond the Quartermaster and Cap, however, for even the French officer, who had hitherto stood his ground so well, shrank back at the sound of the terrible name. So unwilling, indeed, did this individual, a man of iron nerves, and one long accustomed to the dangers of the peculiar warfare in which he was engaged, appear to remain exposed to the assaults of Killdeer, whose reputation throughout all that frontier was as well established as that of Marlborough in Europe, that he did not disdain to seek a cover, insisting that his two prisoners should follow him. Mabel was too glad to be rid of her enemies to lament the departure of her friends, though she kissed her hand to Cap through the loop, and called out to him in terms of affection as he moved slowly and unwillingly away. The enemy now seemed disposed to abandon all attempts on the blockhouse for the present; and June, who had ascended to a trap in the roof, whence the best view was to be obtained, reported that the whole party had assembled to eat, on a distant and sheltered part of the island, where Muir and Cap were quietly sharing in the good things which were going, as if they had no concern on their minds. This information greatly relieved Mabel, and she began to turn her thoughts again to the means of effecting her own escape, or at least of letting her father know of the danger that awaited him. The Sergeant was expected to return that afternoon, and she knew that a moment gained or lost might decide his fate. Three or four hours flew by. The island was again buried in a profound quiet, the day was wearing away, and yet Mabel had decided on nothing. June was in the basement, preparing their frugal meal, and Mabel herself had ascended to the roof, which was provided with a trap that allowed her to go out on the top of the building, whence she commanded the best view of surrounding objects that the island possessed; still it was limited, and much obstructed by the tops of trees. The anxious girl did not dare to trust her person in sight, knowing well that the unrestrained passions of some savage might induce him to send a bullet through her brain. She merely kept her head out of the trap, therefore, whence, in the course of the afternoon, she made as many surveys of the different channels about the island as “Anne, sister Anne,” took of the environs of the castle of Blue Beard. The sun had actually set; no intelligence had been received from the boats, and Mabel ascended to the roof to take a last look, hoping that the party would arrive in the darkness; which would at least prevent the Indians from rendering their ambuscade so fatal as it might otherwise prove, and which possibly might enable her to give some more intelligible signal, by means of fire, than it would otherwise be in her power to do. Her eye had turned carefully round the whole horizon, and she was just on the point of drawing in her person, when an object that struck her as new caught her attention. The islands lay grouped so closely, that six or eight different channels or passages between them were in view; and in one of the most covered, concealed in a great measure by the bushes of the shore, lay what a second look assured her was a bark canoe. It contained a human being beyond a question. Confident that if an enemy her signal could do no harm, and; if a friend, that it might do good, the eager girl waved a little flag towards the stranger, which she had prepared for her father, taking care that it should not be seen from the island. Mabel had repeated her signal eight or ten times in vain, and she began to despair of its being noticed, when a sign was given in return by the wave of a paddle, and the man so far discovered himself as to let her see it was Chingachgook. Here, then, at last, was a friend; one, too, who was able, and she doubted not would be willing to aid her. From that instant her courage and her spirits revived. The Mohican had seen her; must have recognized her, as he knew that she was of the party; and no doubt, as soon as it was sufficiently dark, he would take the steps necessary to release her. That he was aware of the presence of the enemy was apparent by the great caution he observed, and she had every reliance on his prudence and address. The principal difficulty now existed with June; for Mabel had seen too much of her fidelity to her own people, relieved as it was by sympathy for herself, to believe she would consent to a hostile Indian's entering the blockhouse, or indeed to her leaving it, with a view to defeat Arrowhead's plans. The half-hour which succeeded the discovery of the presence of the Great Serpent was the most painful of Mabel Dunham's life. She saw the means of effecting all she wished, as it might be within reach of her hand, and yet it eluded her grasp. She knew June's decision and coolness, notwithstanding all her gentleness and womanly feeling; and at last she came reluctantly to the conclusion that there was no other way of attaining her end than by deceiving her tried companion and protector. It was revolting to one so sincere and natural, so pure of heart, and so much disposed to ingenuousness as Mabel Dunham, to practise deception on a friend like June; but her own father's life was at stake, her companion would receive no positive injury, and she had feelings and interests directly touching herself which would have removed greater scruples. As soon as it was dark, Mabel's heart began to beat with increased violence; and she adopted and changed her plan of proceeding at least a dozen times in a single hour. June was always the source of her greatest embarrassment; for she did not well see, first, how she was to ascertain when Chingachgook was at the door, where she doubted not he would soon appear; and, secondly, how she was to admit him, without giving the alarm to her watchful companion. Time pressed, however; for the Mohican might come and go away again, unless she was ready to receive him. It would be too hazardous to the Delaware to remain long on the island; and it became absolutely necessary to determine on some course, even at the risk of choosing one that was indiscreet. After running over various projects in her mind, therefore, Mabel came to her companion, and said, with as much calmness as she could assume,-- “Are you not afraid, June, now your people believe Pathfinder is in the blockhouse, that they will come and try to set it on fire?” “No t'ink such t'ing. No burn blockhouse. Blockhouse good; got no scalp.” “June, we cannot know. They hid because they believed what I told them of Pathfinder's being with us.” “Believe fear. Fear come quick, go quick. Fear make run away; wit make come back. Fear make warrior fool, as well as young girl.” Here June laughed, as her sex is apt to laugh when anything particularly ludicrous crosses their youthful fancies. “I feel uneasy, June; and wish you yourself would go up again to the roof and look out upon the island, to make certain that nothing is plotting against us; you know the signs of what your people intend to do better than I.” “June go, Lily wish; but very well know that Indian sleep; wait for 'e fader. Warrior eat, drink, sleep, all time, when don't fight and go on war-trail. Den never sleep, eat, drink--never feel. Warrior sleep now.” “God send it may be so! but go up, dear June, and look well about you. Danger may come when we least expect it.” June arose, and prepared to ascend to the roof; but she paused, with her foot on the first round of the ladder. Mabel's heart beat so violently that she was fearful its throbs would be heard; and she fancied that some gleamings of her real intentions had crossed the mind of her friend. She was right in part, the Indian woman having actually stopped to consider whether there was any indiscretion in what she was about to do. At first the suspicion that Mabel intended to escape flashed across her mind; then she rejected it, on the ground that the pale-face had no means of getting off the island, and that the blockhouse was much the most secure place she could find. The next thought was, that Mabel had detected some sign of the near approach of her father. This idea, too, lasted but an instant; for June entertained some such opinion of her companion's ability to understand symptoms of this sort--symptoms that had escaped her own sagacity--as a woman of high fashion entertains of the accomplishments of her maid. Nothing else in the same way offering, she began slowly to mount the ladder. Just as she reached the upper floor, a lucky thought suggested itself to our heroine; and, by expressing it in a hurried but natural manner, she gained a great advantage in executing her projected scheme. “I will go down,” she said, “and listen by the door, June, while you are on the roof; and we will thus be on our guard, at the same time, above and below.” Though June thought this savored of unnecessary caution, well knowing that no one could enter the building unless aided from within, nor any serious danger menace them from the exterior without giving sufficient warning, she attributed the proposition to Mabel's ignorance and alarm; and, as it was made apparently with frankness, it was received without distrust. By these means our heroine was enabled to descend to the door, as her friend ascended to the roof. The distance between the two was now too great to admit of conversation; and for three or four minutes one was occupied in looking about her as well as the darkness would allow, and the other in listening at the door with as much intentness as if all her senses were absorbed in the single faculty of hearing. June discovered nothing from her elevated stand; the obscurity indeed almost forbade the hope of such a result; but it would not be easy to describe the sensation with which Mabel thought she perceived a slight and guarded push against the door. Fearful that all might not be as she wished, and anxious to let Chingachgook know that she was near, she began, though in tremulous and low notes, to sing. So profound was the stillness of the moment that the sound of the unsteady warbling ascended to the roof and in a minute June began to descend. A slight tap at the door was heard immediately after. Mabel was bewildered, for there was no time to lose. Hope proved stronger than fear; and with unsteady hands she commenced unbarring the door. The moccasin of June was heard on the floor above her when only a single bar was turned. The second was released as her form reached half-way down the lower ladder. “What you do?” exclaimed June angrily. “Run away--mad--leave blockhouse; blockhouse good.” The hands of both were on the last bar, and it would have been cleared from the fastenings but for a vigorous shove from without, which jammed the wood. A short struggle ensued, though both were disinclined to violence. June would probably have prevailed, had not another and a more vigorous push from without forced the bar past the trifling impediment that held it, when the door opened. The form of a man was seen to enter; and both the females rushed up the ladder, as if equally afraid of the consequences. The stranger secured the door; and, first examining the lower room with great care, he cautiously ascended the ladder. June, as soon as it became dark, had closed the loops of the principal floor, and lighted a candle. By means of this dim taper, then, the two females stood in expectation, waiting to ascertain the person of their visitor, whose wary ascent of the ladder was distinctly audible, though sufficiently deliberate. It would not be easy to say which was the more astonished on finding, when the stranger had got through the trap, that Pathfinder stood before them. “God be praised!” Mabel exclaimed, for the idea that the blockhouse would be impregnable with such a garrison at once crossed her mind. “O Pathfinder! what has become of my father?” “The Sergeant is safe as yet, and victorious; though it is not in the gift of man to say what will be the ind of it. Is not that the wife of Arrowhead skulking in the corner there?” “Speak not of her reproachfully, Pathfinder; I owe her my life, my present security. Tell me what has happened to my father's party--why you are here; and I will relate all the horrible events that have passed upon this island.” “Few words will do the last, Mabel; for one used to Indian devilries needs but little explanations on such a subject. Everything turned out as we had hoped with the expedition; for the Sarpent was on the look-out, and he met us with all the information heart could desire. We ambushed three boats, druv' the Frenchers out of them, got possession and sunk them, according to orders, in the deepest part of the channel; and the savages of Upper Canada will fare badly for Indian goods this winter. Both powder and ball, too, will be scarcer among them than keen hunters and active warriors may relish. We did not lose a man or have even a skin barked; nor do I think the inimy suffered to speak of. In short, Mabel, it has been just such an expedition as Lundie likes; much harm to the foe, and little harm to ourselves.” “Ah, Pathfinder, I fear, when Major Duncan comes to hear the whole of the sad tale, he will find reason to regret he ever undertook the affair.” “I know what you mean, I know what you mean; but by telling my story straight you will understand it better. As soon as the Sergeant found himself successful, he sent me and the Sarpent off in canoes to tell you how matters had turned out, and he is following with the two boats, which, being so much heavier, cannot arrive before morning. I parted from Chingachgook this forenoon, it being agreed that he should come up one set of channels, and I another, to see that the path was clear. I've not seen the chief since.” Mabel now explained the manner in which she had discovered the Mohican, and her expectation that he would yet come to the blockhouse. “Not he, not he! A regular scout will never get behind walls or logs so long as he can keep the open air and find useful employment. I should not have come myself, Mabel, but I promised the Sergeant to comfort you and to look after your safety. Ah's me! I reconnoitred the island with a heavy heart this forenoon; and there was a bitter hour when I fancied you might be among the slain.” “By what lucky accident were you prevented from paddling up boldly to the island and from falling into the hands of the enemy?” “By such an accident, Mabel, as Providence employs to tell the hound where to find the deer and the deer how to throw off the hound. No, no! these artifices and devilries with dead bodies may deceive the soldiers of the 55th and the king's officers; but they are all lost upon men who have passed their days in the forest. I came down the channel in face of the pretended fisherman; and, though the riptyles have set up the poor wretch with art, it was not ingenious enough to take in a practysed eye. The rod was held too high, for the 55th have learned to fish at Oswego, if they never knew how before; and then the man was too quiet for one who got neither prey nor bite. But we never come in upon a post blindly; and I have lain outside a garrison a whole night, because they had changed their sentries and their mode of standing guard. Neither the Sarpent nor myself would be likely to be taken in by these clumsy contrivances, which were most probably intended for the Scotch, who are cunning enough in some particulars, though anything but witches when Indian sarcumventions are in the wind.” “Do you think my father and his men may yet be deceived?” said Mabel quickly. “Not if I can prevent it, Mabel. You say the Sarpent is on the look-out too; so there is a double chance of our succeeding in letting him know his danger; though it is by no means sartain by which channel the party may come.” “Pathfinder,” said our heroine solemnly, for the frightful scenes she had witnessed had clothed death with unusual horrors,--“Pathfinder, you have professed love for me, a wish to make me your wife?” “I did ventur' to speak on that subject, Mabel, and the Sergeant has even lately said that you are kindly disposed; but I am not a man to persecute the thing I love.” “Hear me, Pathfinder, I respect you, honor you, revere you; save my father from this dreadful death, and I can worship you. Here is my hand, as a solemn pledge for my faith, when you come to claim it.” “Bless you, bless you, Mabel; this is more than I desarve--more, I fear, than I shall know how to profit by as I ought. It was not wanting, however, to make me sarve the Sergeant. We are old comrades, and owe each other a life; though I fear me, Mabel, being a father's comrade is not always the best recommendation with a daughter.” “You want no other recommendation than your own acts--your courage, your fidelity. All that you do and say, Pathfinder, my reason approves, and the heart will, nay, it _shall_ follow.” “This is a happiness I little expected this night; but we are in God's hands, and He will protect us in His own way. These are sweet words, Mabel; but they were not wanting to make me do all that man can do in the present circumstances; they will not lessen my endeavors, neither.” “Now we understand each other, Pathfinder,” Mabel added hoarsely, “let us not lose one of the precious moments, which may be of incalculable value. Can we not get into your canoe and go and meet my father?” “That is not the course I advise. I don't know by which channel the Sergeant will come, and there are twenty; rely on it, the Sarpent will be winding his way through them all. No, no! my advice is to remain here. The logs of this blockhouse are still green, and it will not be easy to set them on fire; and I can make good the place, bating a burning, ag'in a tribe. The Iroquois nation cannot dislodge me from this fortress, so long as we can keep the flames off it. The Sergeant is now 'camped on some island, and will not come in until morning. If we hold the block, we can give him timely warning, by firing rifles, for instance; and should he determine to attack the savages, as a man of his temper will be very likely to do, the possession of this building will be of great account in the affair. No, no! my judgment says remain, if the object be to sarve the Sergeant, though escape for our two selves will be no very difficult matter.” “Stay,” murmured Mabel, “stay, for God's sake, Pathfinder! Anything, everything to save my father!” “Yes, that is natur'. I am glad to hear you say this, Mabel, for I own a wish to see the Sergeant fairly supported. As the matter now stands, he has gained himself credit; and, could he once drive off these miscreants, and make an honorable retreat, laying the huts and block in ashes, no doubt, Lundie would remember it and sarve him accordingly. Yes, yes, Mabel, we must not only save the Sergeant's life, but we must save his reputation.” “No blame can rest on my father on account of the surprise of this island.” “There's no telling, there's no telling; military glory is a most unsartain thing. I've seen the Delawares routed, when they desarved more credit than at other times when they've carried the day. A man is wrong to set his head on success of any sort, and worst of all on success in war. I know little of the settlements, or of the notions that men hold in them; but up hereaway even the Indians rate a warrior's character according to his luck. The principal thing with a soldier is never to be whipt; nor do I think mankind stops long to consider how the day was won or lost. For my part, Mabel, I make it a rule when facing the inimy to give him as good as I can send, and to try to be moderate after a defeat, little need be said on that score, as a flogging is one of the most humbling things in natur'. The parsons preach about humility in the garrison; but if humility would make Christians, the king's troops ought to be saints, for they've done little as yet this war but take lessons from the French, beginning at Fort du Quesne and ending at Ty.” “My father could not have suspected that the position of the island was known to the enemy,” resumed Mabel, whose thoughts were running on the probable effect of the recent events on the Sergeant. “That is true; nor do I well see how the Frenchers found it out. The spot is well chosen, and it is not an easy matter, even for one who has travelled the road to and from it, to find it again. There has been treachery, I fear; yes, yes, there must have been treachery.” “Oh, Pathfinder! can this be?” “Nothing is easier, Mabel, for treachery comes as nat'ral to some men as eating. Now when I find a man all fair words I look close to his deeds; for when the heart is right, and really intends to do good, it is generally satisfied to let the conduct speak instead of the tongue.” “Jasper Western is not one of these,” said Mabel impetuously. “No youth can be more sincere in his manner, or less apt to make the tongue act for the head.” “Jasper Western! tongue and heart are both right with that lad, depend on it, Mabel; and the notion taken up by Lundie, and the Quartermaster, and the Sergeant, and your uncle too, is as wrong as it would be to think that the sun shone by night and the stars shone by day. No, no; I'll answer for Eau-douce's honesty with my own scalp, or, at need, with my own rifle.” “Bless you, bless you, Pathfinder!” exclaimed Mabel, extending her own hand and pressing the iron fingers of her companion, under a state of feeling that far surpassed her own consciousness of its strength. “You are all that is generous, all that is noble! God will reward you for it.” “Ah, Mabel, I fear me, if this be true, I should not covet such a wife as yourself; but would leave you to be sued for by some gentleman of the garrison, as your desarts require.” “We will not talk of this any more to-night,” Mabel answered in a voice so smothered as to seem nearly choked. “We must think less of ourselves just now, Pathfinder, and more of our friends. But I rejoice from my soul that you believe Jasper innocent. Now let us talk of other things--ought we not to release June?” “I've been thinking about the woman; for it will not be safe to shut our eyes and leave hers open, on this side of the blockhouse door. If we put her in the upper room, and take away the ladder, she'll be a prisoner at least.” “I cannot treat one thus who has saved my life. It would be better to let her depart, for I think she is too much my friend to do anything to harm me.” “You do not know the race, Mabel, you do not know the race. It's true she's not a full-blooded Mingo, but she consorts with the vagabonds, and must have larned some of their tricks. What is that?” “It sounds like oars; some boat is passing through the channel.” Pathfinder closed the trap that led to the lower room, to prevent June from escaping, extinguished the candle, and went hastily to a loop, Mabel looking over his shoulder in breathless curiosity. These several movements consumed a minute or two; and by the time the eye of the scout had got a dim view of things without, two boats had swept past and shot up to the shore, at a spot some fifty yards beyond the block, where there was a regular landing. The obscurity prevented more from being seen; and Pathfinder whispered to Mabel that the new-comers were as likely to be foes as friends, for he did not think her father could possibly have arrived so soon. A number of men were now seen to quit the boats, and then followed three hearty English cheers, leaving no further doubts of the character of the party. Pathfinder sprang to the trap, raised it, glided down the ladder, and began to unbar the door, with an earnestness that proved how critical he deemed the moment. Mabel had followed, but she rather impeded than aided his exertions, and but a single bar was turned when a heavy discharge of rifles was heard. They were still standing in breathless suspense, as the war-whoop rang in all the surrounding thickets. The door now opened, and both Pathfinder and Mabel rushed into the open air. All human sounds had ceased. After listening half a minute, however, Pathfinder thought he heard a few stifled groans near the boats; but the wind blew so fresh, and the rustling of the leaves mingled so much with the murmurs of the passing air, that he was far from certain. But Mabel was borne away by her feelings, and she rushed by him, taking the way towards the boats. “This will not do, Mabel,” said the scout in an earnest but low voice, seizing her by an arm; “this will never do. Sartain death would follow, and that without sarving any one. We must return to the block.” “Father! my poor, dear, murdered father!” said the girl wildly, though habitual caution, even at that trying moment, induced her to speak low. “Pathfinder, if you love me, let me go to my dear father.” “This will not do, Mabel. It is singular that no one speaks; no one returns the fire from the boats; and I have left Killdeer in the block! But of what use would a rifle be when no one is to be seen?” At that moment the quick eye of Pathfinder, which, while he held Mabel firmly in his grasp, had never ceased to roam over the dim scene, caught an indistinct view of five or six dark crouching forms, endeavoring to steal past him, doubtless with the intention of intercepting the retreat to the blockhouse. Catching up Mabel, and putting her under an arm, as if she were an infant, the sinewy frame of the woodsman was exerted to the utmost, and he succeeded in entering the building. The tramp of his pursuers seemed immediately at his heels. Dropping his burden, he turned, closed the door, and had fastened one bar, as a rush against the solid mass threatened to force it from the hinges. To secure the other bars was the work of an instant. Mabel now ascended to the first floor, while Pathfinder remained as a sentinel below. Our heroine was in that state in which the body exerts itself, apparently without the control of the mind. She relighted the candle mechanically, as her companion had desired, and returned with it below, where he was waiting her reappearance. No sooner was Pathfinder in possession of the light than he examined the place carefully, to make certain no one was concealed in the fortress, ascending to each floor in succession, after assuring himself that he left no enemy in his rear. The result was the conviction that the blockhouse now contained no one but Mabel and himself, June having escaped. When perfectly convinced on this material point, Pathfinder rejoined our heroine in the principal apartment, setting down the light and examining the priming of Killdeer before he seated himself. “Our worst fears are realized!” said Mabel, to whom the hurry and excitement of the last five minutes appeared to contain the emotions of a life. “My beloved father and all his party are slain or captured!” “We don't know that--morning will tell us all. I do not think the affair so settled as that, or we should hear the vagabond Mingos yelling out their triumph around the blockhouse. Of one thing we may be sartain; if the inimy has really got the better, he will not be long in calling upon us to surrender. The squaw will let him into the secret of our situation; and, as they well know the place cannot be fired by daylight, so long as Killdeer continues to desarve his reputation, you may depend on it that they will not be backward in making their attempt while darkness helps them.” “Surely I hear a groan!” “'Tis fancy, Mabel; when the mind gets to be skeary, especially a woman's mind, she often concaits things that have no reality. I've known them that imagined there was truth in dreams.” “Nay, I am _not_ deceived; there is surely one below, and in pain.” Pathfinder was compelled to own that the quick senses of Mabel had not deceived her. He cautioned her, however, to repress her feelings; and reminded her that the savages were in the practice of resorting to every artifice to attain their ends, and that nothing was more likely than that the groans were feigned with a view to lure them from the blockhouse, or, at least, to induce them to open the door. “No, no, no!” said Mabel hurriedly; “there is no artifice in those sounds, and they come from anguish of body, if not of spirit. They are fearfully natural.” “Well, we shall soon know whether a friend is there or not. Hide the light again, Mabel, and I will speak the person from a loop.” Not a little precaution was necessary, according to Pathfinder's judgment and experience, in performing even this simple act; for he had known the careless slain by their want of proper attention to what might have seemed to the ignorant supererogatory means of safety. He did not place his mouth to the loop itself, but so near it that he could be heard without raising his voice, and the same precaution was observed as regards his ear. “Who is below?” Pathfinder demanded, when his arrangements were made to his mind. “Is any one in suffering? If a friend, speak boldly, and depend on our aid.” “Pathfinder!” answered a voice that both Mabel and the person addressed at once knew to be the Sergeant's,--“Pathfinder, in the name of God, tell me what has become of my daughter.” “Father, I am here, unhurt, safe! and oh that I could think the same of you!” The ejaculation of thanksgiving that followed was distinctly audible to the two, but it was clearly mingled with, a groan of pain. “My worst forebodings are realized!” said Mabel with a sort of desperate calmness. “Pathfinder, my father must be brought within the block, though we hazard everything to do it.” “This is natur', and it is the law of God. But, Mabel, be calm, and endivor to be cool. All that can be effected for the Sergeant by human invention shall be done. I only ask you to be cool.” “I am, I am, Pathfinder. Never in my life was I more calm, more collected, than at this moment. But remember how perilous may be every instant; for Heaven's sake, what we do, let us do without delay.” Pathfinder was struck with the firmness of Mabel's tones, and perhaps he was a little deceived by the forced tranquillity and self-possession she had assumed. At all events, he did not deem any further explanations necessary, but descended forthwith, and began to unbar the door. This delicate process was conducted with the usual caution, but, as he warily permitted the mass of timber to swing back on the hinges, he felt a pressure against it, that had nearly induced him to close it again. But, catching a glimpse of the cause through the crack, the door was permitted to swing back, when the body of Sergeant Dunham, which was propped against it, fell partly within the block. To draw in the legs and secure the fastenings occupied the Pathfinder but a moment. Then there existed no obstacle to their giving their undivided care to the wounded man. Mabel, in this trying scene, conducted herself with the sort of unnatural energy that her sex, when aroused, is apt to manifest. She got the light, administered water to the parched lips of her father, and assisted Pathfinder in forming a bed of straw for his body and a pillow of clothes for his head. All this was done earnestly, and almost without speaking; nor did Mabel shed a tear, until she heard the blessings of her father murmured on her head for this tenderness and care. All this time Mabel had merely conjectured the condition of her parent. Pathfinder, however, had shown greater attention to the physical danger of the Sergeant. He had ascertained that a rifle-ball had passed through the body of the wounded man; and he was sufficiently familiar with injuries of this nature to be certain that the chances of his surviving the hurt were very trifling, if any.	{ "id": "1880" }
24	None	Then drink my tears, while yet they fall-- Would that my bosom's blood were balm; And--well thou knowest--I'd shed it all, To give thy brow one minute's calm. MOORE. The eyes of Sergeant Dunham had not ceased to follow the form of his beautiful daughter from the moment that the light appeared. He next examined the door of the block, to ascertain its security; for he was left on the ground below, there being no available means of raising him to the upper floor. Then he sought the face of Mabel; for as life wanes fast the affections resume their force, and we begin to value that most which we feel we are about to lose for ever. “God be praised, my child! you, at least, have escaped their murderous rifles,” he said; for he spoke with strength, and seemingly with no additional pain. “Give me the history of this sad business, Pathfinder.” “Ah's me, Sergeant! It _has_ been sad, as you say. That there has been treachery, and the position of the island has been betrayed, is now as sartain, in my judgment, as that we still hold the block. But--” “Major Duncan was right,” interrupted Dunham, laying a hand on the other's arm. “Not in the sense you mean, Sergeant--no, not in that p'int of view; never! At least, not in my opinion. I know that natur' is weak--human natur', I mean--and that we should none of us vaunt of our gifts, whether red or white; but I do not think a truer-hearted lad lives on the lines than Jasper Western.” “Bless you! bless you for that, Pathfinder!” burst forth from Mabel's very soul, while a flood of tears gave vent to emotions that were so varied while they were so violent. “Oh, bless you, Pathfinder, bless you! The brave should never desert the brave--the honest should sustain the honest.” The father's eyes were fastened anxiously on the face of his daughter, until the latter hid her countenance in her apron to conceal her tears; and then they turned with inquiry to the hard features of the guide. The latter merely wore their usual expression of frankness, sincerity, and uprightness; and the Sergeant motioned to him to proceed. “You know the spot where the Sarpent and I left you, Sergeant,” Pathfinder resumed; “and I need say nothing of all that happened afore. It is now too late to regret what is gone and passed; but I do think if I had stayed with the boats this would not have come to pass. Other men may be as good guides--I make no doubt they are; but then natur' bestows its gifts, and some must be better than other some. I daresay poor Gilbert, who took my place, has suffered for his mistake.” “He fell at my elbow,” the Sergeant answered in a low melancholy tone. “We have, indeed, all suffered for our mistakes.” “No, no, Sergeant, I meant no condemnation on you; for men were never better commanded than yourn, in this very expedition. I never beheld a prettier flanking; and the way in which you carried your own boat up ag'in their howitzer might have teached Lundie himself a lesson.” The eyes of the Sergeant brightened, and his face even wore an expression of military triumph, though it was of a degree that suited the humble sphere in which he had been an actor. “'Twas not badly done, my friend,” said he; “and we carried their log breastwork by storm.” “'Twas nobly done, Sergeant; though, I fear, when all the truth comes to be known, it will be found that these vagabonds have got their howitzer back ag'in. Well, well, put a stout heart upon it, and try to forget all that is disagreeable, and to remember only the pleasant part of the matter. That is your truest philosophy; ay, and truest religion too. If the inimy has got the howitzer ag'in, they've only got what belonged to them afore, and what we couldn't help. They haven't got the blockhouse yet, nor are they likely to get it, unless they fire it in the dark. Well, Sergeant, the Sarpent and I separated about ten miles down the river; for we thought it wisest not to come upon even a friendly camp without the usual caution. What has become of Chingachgook I cannot say; though Mabel tells me he is not far off, and I make no question the noble-hearted Delaware is doing his duty, although he is not now visible to our eyes. Mark my word, Sergeant, before this matter is over we shall hear of him at some critical time and that in a discreet and creditable manner. Ah, the Sarpent is indeed a wise and virtuous chief! and any white man might covet his gifts, though his rifle is not quite as sure as Killdeer, it must be owned. Well, as I came near the island I missed the smoke, and that put me on my guard; for I knew that the men of the 55th were not cunning enough to conceal that sign, notwithstanding all that has been told them of its danger. This made me more careful, until I came in sight of this mockfisherman, as I've just told Mabel; and then the whole of their infernal arts was as plain before me as if I saw it on a map. I need not tell you, Sergeant, that my first thoughts were of Mabel; and that, finding she was in the block, I came here, in order to live or die in her company.” The father turned a gratified look upon his child; and Mabel felt a sinking of the heart that at such a moment she could not have thought possible, when she wished to believe all her concern centred in the situation of her parent. As the latter held out his hand, she took it in her own and kissed it. Then, kneeling at his side, she wept as if her heart would break. “Mabel,” said he steadily, “the will of God must be done. It is useless to attempt deceiving either you or myself; my time has come, and it is a consolation to me to die like a soldier. Lundie will do me justice; for our good friend Pathfinder will tell him what has been done, and how all came to pass. You do not forget our last conversation?” “Nay, father, my time has probably come too,” exclaimed Mabel, who felt just then as if it would be a relief to die. “I cannot hope to escape; and Pathfinder would do well to leave us, and return to the garrison with the sad news while he can.” “Mabel Dunham,” said Pathfinder reproachfully, though he took her hand with kindness, “I have not desarved this. I know I am wild, and uncouth, and ungainly--” “Pathfinder!” “Well, well, we'll forget it; you did not mean it, you could not think it. It is useless now to talk of escaping, for the Sergeant cannot be moved; and the blockhouse must be defended, cost what it will. Maybe Lundie will get the tidings of our disaster, and send a party to raise the siege.” “Pathfinder--Mabel!” said the Sergeant, who had been writhing with pain until the cold sweat stood on his forehead; “come both to my side. You understand each other, I hope?” “Father, say nothing of that; it is all as you wish.” “Thank God! Give me your hand, Mabel--here, Pathfinder, take it. I can do no more than give you the girl in this way. I know you will make her a kind husband. Do not wait on account of my death; but there will be a chaplain in the fort before the season closes, and let him marry you at once. My brother, if living, will wish to go back to his vessel, and then the child will have no protector. Mabel, your husband will have been my friend, and that will be some consolation to you, I hope.” “Trust this matter to me, Sergeant,” put in Pathfinder; “leave it all in my hands as your dying request; and, depend on it, all will go as it should.” “I do, I do put all confidence in you, my trusty friend, and empower you to act as I could act myself in every particular. Mabel, child,--hand me the water,--you will never repent this night. Bless you, my daughter! God bless, and have you in His holy keeping!” This tenderness was inexpressibly touching to one of Mabel's feelings; and she felt at that moment as if her future union with Pathfinder had received a solemnization that no ceremony of the Church could render more holy. Still, a weight, as that of a mountain, lay upon her heart, and she thought it would be happiness to die. Then followed a short pause, when the Sergeant, in broken sentences, briefly related what had passed since he parted with Pathfinder and the Delaware. The wind had come more favorable; and, instead of encamping on an island agreeably to the original intention, he had determined to continue, and reach the station that night. Their approach would have been unseen, and a portion of the calamity avoided, he thought, had they not grounded on the point of a neighboring island, where, no doubt, the noise made by the men in getting off the boat gave notice of their approach, and enabled the enemy to be in readiness to receive them. They had landed without the slightest suspicion of danger, though surprised at not finding a sentinel, and had actually left their arms in the boat, with the intention of first securing their knapsacks and provisions. The fire had been so close, that, notwithstanding the obscurity, it was very deadly. Every man had fallen, though two or three subsequently arose and disappeared. Four or five of the soldiers had been killed, or so nearly so as to survive but a few minutes; though, for some unknown reason, the enemy did not make the usual rush for the scalps. Sergeant Dunham fell with the others; and he had heard the voice of Mabel, as she rushed from the blockhouse. This frantic appeal aroused all his parental feelings, and had enabled him to crawl as far as the door of the building, where he had raised himself against the logs in the manner already mentioned. After this simple explanation was made, the Sergeant was so weak as to need repose, and his companions, while they ministered to his wants, suffered some time to pass in silence. Pathfinder took the occasion to reconnoitre from the loops and the roof, and he examined the condition of the rifles, of which there were a dozen kept in the building, the soldiers having used their regimental muskets in the expedition. But Mabel never left her father's side for an instant; and when, by his breathing, she fancied he slept, she bent her knees and prayed. The half-hour that succeeded was awfully solemn and still. The moccasin of Pathfinder was barely heard overhead, and occasionally the sound of the breech of a rifle fell upon the floor, for he was busied in examining the pieces, with a view to ascertain the state of their charges and their primings. Beyond this, nothing was so loud as the breathing of the wounded man. Mabel's heart yearned to be in communication with the father she was so soon to lose, and yet she would not disturb his apparent repose. But Dunham slept not; he was in that state when the world suddenly loses its attractions, its illusions, and its power; and the unknown future fills the mind with its conjectures, its revelations, and its immensity. He had been a moral man for one of his mode of life, but he had thought little of this all-important moment. Had the din of battle been ringing in his ears, his martial ardor might have endured to the end; but there, in the silence of that nearly untenanted blockhouse, with no sound to enliven him, no appeal to keep alive factitious sentiment, no hope of victory to impel, things began to appear in their true colors, and this state of being to be estimated at its just value. He would have given treasures for religious consolation, and yet he knew not where to turn to seek it. He thought of Pathfinder, but he distrusted his knowledge. He thought of Mabel, but for the parent to appeal to the child for such succor appeared like reversing the order of nature. Then it was that he felt the full responsibility of the parental character, and had some clear glimpse of the manner in which he himself had discharged the trust towards an orphan child. While thoughts like these were rising in his mind, Mabel, who watched the slightest change in his breathing, heard a guarded knock at the door. Supposing it might be Chingachgook, she rose, undid two of the bars, and held the third in her hand, as she asked who was there. The answer was in her uncle's voice, and he implored her to give him instant admission. Without an instant of hesitation, she turned the bar, and Cap entered. He had barely passed the opening, when Mabel closed the door again, and secured it as before, for practice had rendered her expert in this portion of her duties. The sturdy seaman, when he had made sure of the state of his brother-in-law, and that Mabel, as well as himself, was safe, was softened nearly to tears. His own appearance he explained by saying that he had been carelessly guarded, under the impression that he and the Quartermaster were sleeping under the fumes of liquor with which they had been plied with a view to keep them quiet in the expected engagement. Muir had been left asleep, or seeming to sleep; but Cap had run into the bushes on the alarm of the attack, and having found Pathfinder's canoe, had only succeeded, at that moment, in getting to the blockhouse, whither he had come with the kind intent of escaping with his niece by water. It is scarcely necessary to say that he changed his plan when he ascertained the state of the Sergeant, and the apparent security of his present quarters. “If the worst comes to the worst, Master Pathfinder,” said he, “we must strike, and that will entitle us to receive quarter. We owe it to our manhood to hold out a reasonable time, and to ourselves to haul down the ensign in season to make saving conditions. I wished Master Muir to do the same thing when we were captured by these chaps you call vagabonds--and rightly are they named, for viler vagabonds do not walk the earth--” “You've found out their characters?” interrupted Pathfinder, who was always as ready to chime in with abuse of the Mingos as with the praises of his friends. “Now, had you fallen into the hands of the Delawares, you would have learned the difference.” “Well, to me they seem much of a muchness; blackguards fore and aft, always excepting our friend the Serpent, who is a gentleman for an Indian. But, when these savages made the assault on us, killing Corporal M'Nab and his men as if they had been so many rabbits, Lieutenant Muir and myself took refuge in one of the holes of this here island, of which there are so many among the rocks, and there we remained stowed away like two leaguers in a ship's hold, until we gave out for want of grub. A man may say that grub is the foundation of human nature. I desired the Quartermaster to make terms, for we could have defended ourselves for an hour or two in the place, bad as it was; but he declined, on the ground that the knaves wouldn't keep faith if any of them were hurt, and so there was no use in asking them to. I consented to strike, on two principles; one, that we might be said to have struck already, for running below is generally thought to be giving up the ship; and the other, that we had an enemy in our stomachs that was more formidable in his attacks than the enemy on deck. Hunger is a d----ble circumstance, as any man who has lived on it eight-and-forty hours will acknowledge.” “Uncle,” said Mabel in a mournful voice and with an expostulatory manner, “my poor father is sadly, sadly hurt!” “True, Magnet, true; I will sit by him, and do my best at consolation. Are the bars well fastened, girl? for on such an occasion the mind should be tranquil and undisturbed.” “We are safe, I believe, from all but this heavy blow of Providence.” “Well, then, Magnet, do you go up to the floor above and try to compose yourself, while Pathfinder runs aloft and takes a look-out from the cross-trees. Your father may wish to say something to me in private, and it may be well to leave us alone. These are solemn scenes, and inexperienced people, like myself, do not always wish what they say to be overheard.” Although the idea of her uncle's affording religious consolation by the side of a death-bed certainly never obtruded itself on the imagination of Mabel, she thought there might be a propriety in the request with which she was unacquainted, and she complied accordingly. Pathfinder had already ascended to the roof to make his survey, and the brothers-in-law were left alone. Cap took a seat by the side of the Sergeant, and bethought him seriously of the grave duty he had before him. A silence of several minutes succeeded, during which brief space the mariner was digesting the substance of his intended discourse. “I must say, Sergeant Dunham,” Cap at length commenced in his peculiar manner, “that there has been mismanagement somewhere in this unhappy expedition; and, the present being an occasion when truth ought to be spoken, and nothing but the truth, I feel it my duty to be say as much in plain language. In short, Sergeant, on this point there cannot well be two opinions; for, seaman as I am, and no soldier, I can see several errors myself, that it needs no great education to detect.” “What would you have, brother Cap?” returned the other in a feeble voice; “what is done is done; and it is now too late to remedy it.” “Very true, brother Dunham, but not to repent of it; the Good Book tells us it is never too late to repent; and I've always heard that this is the precious moment. If you've anything on your mind, Sergeant, hoist it out freely; for, you know, you trust it to a friend. You were my own sister's husband, and poor little Magnet is my own sister's daughter; and, living or dead, I shall always look upon you as a brother. It's a thousand pities that you didn't lie off and on with the boats, and send a canoe ahead to reconnoitre; in which case your command would have been saved, and this disaster would not have befallen us all. Well, Sergeant, we are _all_ mortal; that is some consolation, I make no doubt; and if you go before a little, why, we must follow. Yes, that _must_ give you consolation.” “I know all this, brother Cap; and hope I'm prepared to meet a soldier's fate--there is poor Mabel--” “Ay, ay, that's a heavy drag, I know; but you wouldn't take her with you if you could, Sergeant; and so the better way is to make as light of the separation as you can. Mabel is a good girl, and so was her mother before her; she was my sister, and it shall be my care to see that her daughter gets a good husband, if our lives and scalps are spared; for I suppose no one would care about entering into a family that has no scalps.” “Brother, my child is betrothed; she will become the wife of Pathfinder.” “Well, brother Dunham, every man has his opinions and his manner of viewing things; and, to my notion, this match will be anything but agreeable to Mabel. I have no objection to the age of the man; I'm not one of them that thinks it necessary to be a boy to make a girl happy, but, on the whole, I prefer a man of about fifty for a husband; still there ought not to be any circumstance between the parties to make them unhappy. Circumstances play the devil with matrimony, and I set it down as one that Pathfinder don't know as much as my niece. You've seen but little of the girl, Sergeant, and have not got the run of her knowledge; but let her pay it out freely, as she will do when she gets to be thoroughly acquainted, and you'll fall in with but few schoolmasters that can keep their luffs in her company.” “She's a good child--a dear, good child,” muttered the Sergeant, his eyes filling with tears; “and it is my misfortune that I have seen so little of her.” “She is indeed a good girl, and knows altogether too much for poor Pathfinder, who is a reasonable man and an experienced man in his own way; but who has no more idea of the main chance than you have of spherical trigonometry, Sergeant.” “Ah, brother Cap, had Pathfinder been with us in the boats this sad affair might not have happened!” “That is quite likely; for his worst enemy will allow that the man is a good guide; but then, Sergeant, if the truth must be spoken, you have managed this expedition in a loose way altogether. You should have hove-to off your haven, and sent in a boat to reconnoitre, as I told you before. That is a matter to be repented of, and I tell it to you, because truth, in such a case, ought to be spoken.” “My errors are dearly paid for, brother; and poor Mabel, I fear, will be the sufferer. I think, however, that the calamity would not have happened had there not been treason. I fear me, brother, that Jasper Eau-douce has played us false.” “That is just my notion; for this fresh-water life must sooner or later undermine any man's morals. Lieutenant Muir and myself talked this matter over while we lay in a bit of a hole out here, on this island; and we both came to the conclusion that nothing short of Jasper's treachery could have brought us all into this infernal scrape. Well, Sergeant, you had better compose your mind, and think of other matters; for, when a vessel is about to enter a strange port, it is more prudent to think of the anchorage inside than to be under-running all the events that have turned up during the v'y'ge. There's the log-book expressly to note all these matters in; and what stands there must form the column of figures that's to be posted up for or against us. How now, Pathfinder! is there anything in the wind, that you come down the ladder like an Indian in the wake of a scalp?” The guide raised a finger for silence and then beckoned to Cap to ascend the first ladder, and to allow Mabel to take his place at the side of the Sergeant. “We must be prudent, and we must be bold too,” said he in a low voice. “The riptyles are in earnest in their intention to fire the block; for they know there is now nothing to be gained by letting it stand. I hear the voice of that vagabond Arrowhead among them, and he is urging them to set about their devilry this very night. We must be stirring, Saltwater, and doing too. Luckily there are four or five barrels of water in the block, and these are something towards a siege. My reckoning is wrong, too, or we shall yet reap some advantage from that honest fellow's, the Sarpent, being at liberty.” Cap did not wait for a second invitation; but, stealing away, he was soon in the upper room with Pathfinder, while Mabel took his post at the side of her father's humble bed. Pathfinder had opened a loop, having so far concealed the light that it would not expose him to a treacherous shot; and, expecting a summons, he stood with his face near the hole, ready to answer. The stillness that succeeded was at length broken by the voice of Muir. “Master Pathfinder,” called out the Scotchman, “a friend summons you to a parley. Come freely to one of the loops; for you've nothing to fear so long as you are in converse with an officer of the 55th.” “What is your will, Quartermaster? what is your will? I know the 55th, and believe it to be a brave regiment; though I rather incline to the 60th as my favorite, and to the Delawares more than to either; but what would you have, Quartermaster? It must be a pressing errand that brings you under the loops of a blockhouse at this hour of the night, with the sartainty of Killdeer being inside of it.” “Oh, you'll no' harm a friend, Pathfinder, I'm certain; and that's my security. You're a man of judgment, and have gained too great a name on this frontier for bravery to feel the necessity of foolhardiness to obtain a character. You'll very well understand, my good friend, there is as much credit to be gained by submitting gracefully, when resistance becomes impossible, as by obstinately holding out contrary to the rules of war. The enemy is too strong for us, my brave comrade, and I come to counsel you to give up the block, on condition of being treated as a prisoner of war.” “I thank you for this advice, Quartermaster, which is the more acceptable as it costs nothing; but I do not think it belongs to my gifts to yield a place like this while food and water last.” “Well, I'd be the last, Pathfinder, to recommend anything against so brave a resolution, did I see the means of maintaining it. But ye'll remember that Master Cap has fallen.” “Not he, not he!” roared the individual in question through another loop; “and so far from that, Lieutenant, he has risen to the height of this here fortification, and has no mind to put his head of hair into the hands of such barbers again, so long as he can help it. I look upon this blockhouse as a circumstance, and have no mind to throw it away.” “If that is a living voice,” returned Muir, “I am glad to hear it; for we all thought the man had fallen in the late fearful confusion. But, Master Pathfinder, although ye're enjoying the society of our friend Cap,--and a great pleasure do I know it to be, by the experience of two days and a night passed in a hole in the earth,--we've lost that of Sergeant Dunham, who has fallen, with all the brave men he led in the late expedition. Lundie would have it so, though it would have been more discreet and becoming to send a commissioned officer in command. Dunham was a brave man, notwithstanding, and shall have justice done his memory. In short, we have all acted for the best, and that is as much as could be said in favor of Prince Eugene, the Duke of Marlborough, or the great Earl of Stair himself.” “You're wrong ag'in, Quartermaster, you're wrong ag'in,” answered Pathfinder, resorting to a ruse to magnify his force. “The Sergeant is safe in the block too, where one might say the whole family is collected.” “Well I rejoice to hear it, for we had certainly counted the Sergeant among the slain. If pretty Mabel is in the block still, let her not delay an instant, for heaven's sake, in quitting it, for the enemy is about to put it to the trial by fire. Ye know the potency of that dread element, and will be acting more like the discreet and experienced warrior ye're universally allowed to be, in yielding a place you canna' defend, than in drawing down ruin on yourself and companions.” “I know the potency of fire, as you call it, Quartermaster; and am not to be told, at this late hour, that it can be used for something else besides cooking a dinner. But I make no doubt you've heard of the potency of Killdeer, and the man who attempts to lay a pile of brush against these logs will get a taste of his power. As for arrows, it is not in their gift to set this building on fire, for we've no shingles on our roof, but good solid logs and green bark, and plenty of water besides. The roof is so flat, too, as you know yourself, Quartermaster, that we can walk on it, and so no danger on that score while water lasts. I'm peaceable enough if let alone; but he who endivors to burn this block over my head will find the fire squinched in his own blood.” “This is idle and romantic talk, Pathfinder, and ye'll no maintain it yourself when ye come to meditate on the realities. I hope ye'll no' gainsay the loyalty or the courage of the 55th, and I feel convinced that a council of war would decide on the propriety of a surrender forthwith. Na, na, Pathfinder, foolhardiness is na mair like the bravery o' Wallace or Bruce than Albany on the Hudson is like the old town of Edinbro'.” “As each of us seems to have made up his mind, Quartermaster, more words are useless. If the riptyles near you are disposed to set about their hellish job, let them begin at once. They can burn wood, and I'll burn powder. If I were an Indian at the stake, I suppose I could brag as well as the rest of them; but, my gifts and natur' being both white, my turn is rather for doing than talking. You've said quite enough, considering you carry the king's commission; and should we all be consumed, none of us will bear you any malice.” “Pathfinder, ye'll no' be exposing Mabel, pretty Mabel Dunham, to sic' a calamity!” “Mabel Dunham is by the side of her wounded father, and God will care for the safety of a pious child. Not a hair of her head shall fall, while my arm and sight remain true; and though _you_ may trust the Mingos, Master Muir, I put no faith in them. You've a knavish Tuscarora in your company there, who has art and malice enough to spoil the character of any tribe with which he consorts, though he found the Mingos ready ruined to his hands, I fear. But enough said; now let each party go to the use of his means and his gifts.” Throughout this dialogue Pathfinder had kept his body covered, lest a treacherous shot should be aimed at the loop; and he now directed Cap to ascend to the roof in order to be in readiness to meet the first assault. Although the latter used sufficient diligence, he found no less than ten blazing arrows sticking to the bark, while the air was filled with the yells and whoops of the enemy. A rapid discharge of rifles followed, and the bullets came pattering against the logs, in a way to show that the struggle had indeed seriously commenced. These were sounds, however, that appalled neither Pathfinder nor Cap, while Mabel was too much absorbed in her affliction to feel alarm. She had good sense enough, too, to understand the nature of the defences, and fully to appreciate their importance. As for her father, the familiar noises revived him; and it pained his child, at such a moment, to see that his glassy eye began to kindle, and that the blood returned to a cheek it had deserted, as he listened to the uproar. It was now Mabel first perceived that his reason began slightly to wander. “Order up the light companies,” he muttered, “and let the grenadiers charge! Do they dare to attack us in our fort? Why does not the artillery open on them?” At that instant the heavy report of a gun burst on the night; and the crashing of rending wood was heard, as a heavy shot tore the logs in the room above, and the whole block shook with the force of a shell that lodged in the work. The Pathfinder narrowly escaped the passage of this formidable missile as it entered; but when it exploded, Mabel could not suppress a shriek, for she supposed all over her head, whether animate or inanimate, destroyed. To increase her horror, her father shouted in a frantic voice to “charge!” “Mabel,” said Pathfinder, with his head at the trap, “this is true Mingo work--more noise than injury. The vagabonds have got the howitzer we took from the French, and have discharged it ag'in the block; but fortunately they have fired off the only shell we had, and there is an ind of its use for the present. There is some confusion among the stores up in this loft, but no one is hurt. Your uncle is still on the roof; and, as for myself, I've run the gauntlet of too many rifles to be skeary about such a thing as a howitzer, and that in Indian hands.” Mabel murmured her thanks, and tried to give all her attention to her father, whose efforts to rise were only counteracted by his debility. During the fearful minutes that succeeded, she was so much occupied with the care of the invalid that she scarcely heeded the clamor that reigned around her. Indeed, the uproar was so great, that, had not her thoughts been otherwise employed, confusion of faculties rather than alarm would probably have been the consequence. Cap preserved his coolness admirably. He had a profound and increasing respect for the power of the savages, and even for the majesty of fresh water, it is true; but his apprehensions of the former proceeded more from his dread of being scalped and tortured than from any unmanly fear of death; and, as he was now on the deck of a house, if not on the deck of a ship, and knew that there was little danger of boarders, he moved about with a fearlessness and a rash exposure of his person that Pathfinder, had he been aware of the fact, would have been the first to condemn. Instead of keeping his body covered, agreeably to the usages of Indian warfare, he was seen on every part of the roof, dashing the water right and left, with the apparent steadiness and unconcern he would have manifested had he been a sail trimmer exercising his art in a battle afloat. His appearance was one of the causes of the extraordinary clamor among the assailants; who, unused to see their enemies so reckless, opened upon him with their tongues, like a pack that has the fox in view. Still he appeared to possess a charmed life; for, though the bullets whistled around him on every side, and his clothes were several times torn, nothing cut his skin. When the shell passed through the logs below, the old sailor dropped his bucket, waved his hat, and gave three cheers; in which heroic act he was employed as the dangerous missile exploded. This characteristic feat probably saved his life; for from that instant the Indians ceased to fire at him, and even to shoot their flaming arrows at the block, having taken up the notion simultaneously, and by common consent, that the “Saltwater” was mad; and it was a singular effect of their magnanimity never to lift a hand against those whom they imagined devoid of reason. The conduct of Pathfinder was very different. Everything he did was regulated by the most exact calculation, the result of long experience and habitual thoughtfulness. His person was kept carefully out of a line with the loops, and the spot that he selected for his look-out was one quite removed from danger. This celebrated guide had often been known to lead forlorn hopes: he had once stood at the stake, suffering under the cruelties and taunts of savage ingenuity and savage ferocity without quailing; and legends of his exploits, coolness, and daring were to be heard all along that extensive frontier, or wherever men dwelt and men contended. But on this occasion, one who did not know his history and character might have thought his exceeding care and studied attention to self-preservation proceeded from an unworthy motive. But such a judge would not have understood his subject; the Pathfinder bethought him of Mabel, and of what might possibly be the consequences to that poor girl should any casualty befall himself. But the recollection rather quickened his intellect than changed his customary prudence. He was, in fact, one of those who was so unaccustomed to fear, that he never bethought him of the constructions others might put upon his conduct. But while in moments of danger he acted with the wisdom of the serpent, it was also with the simplicity of a child. For the first ten minutes of the assault, Pathfinder never raised the breech of his rifle from the floor, except when he changed his own position, for he well knew that the bullets of the enemy were thrown away upon the massive logs of the work; and as he had been at the capture of the howitzer he felt certain that the savages had no other shell than the one found in it when the piece was taken. There existed no reason, therefore, to dread the fire of the assailants, except as a casual bullet might find a passage through a loophole. One or two of these accidents did occur, but the balls entered at an angle that deprived them of all chance of doing any injury so long as the Indians kept near the block; and if discharged from a distance, there was scarcely the possibility of one in a hundred's striking the apertures. But when Pathfinder heard the sound of mocassined feet and the rustling of brush at the foot of the building, he knew that the attempt to build a fire against the logs was about to be renewed. He now summoned Cap from the roof, where, indeed, all the danger had ceased, and directed him to stand in readiness with his water at a hole immediately over the spot assailed. One less trained than our hero would have been in a hurry to repel this dangerous attempt also, and might have resorted to his means prematurely; not so with Pathfinder. His aim was not only to extinguish the fire, about which he felt little apprehension, but to give the enemy a lesson that would render him wary during the remainder of the night. In order to effect the latter purpose, it became necessary to wait until the light of the intended conflagration should direct his aim, when he well knew that a very slight effort of his skill would suffice. The Iroquois were permitted to collect their heap of dried brush, to pile it against the block, to light it, and to return to their covers without molestation. All that Pathfinder would suffer Cap to do, was to roll a barrel filled with water to the hole immediately over the spot, in readiness to be used at the proper instant. That moment, however, did not arrive, in his judgment, until the blaze illuminated the surrounding bushes, and there had been time for his quick and practised eye to detect the forms of three or four lurking savages, who were watching the progress of the flames, with the cool indifference of men accustomed to look on human misery with apathy. Then, indeed, he spoke. “Are you ready, friend Cap?” he asked. “The heat begins to strike through the crevices; and although these green logs are not of the fiery natur' of an ill-tempered man, they may be kindled into a blaze if one provokes them too much. Are you ready with the barrel? See that it has the right cut, and that none of the water is wasted.” “All ready!” answered Cap, in the manner in which a seaman replies to such a demand. “Then wait for the word. Never be over-impatient in a critical time, nor fool-risky in a battle. Wait for the word.” While the Pathfinder was giving these directions, he was also making his own preparations; for he saw it was time to act. Killdeer was deliberately raised, pointed, and discharged. The whole process occupied about half a minute, and as the rifle was drawn in the eye of the marksman was applied to the hole. “There is one riptyle the less,” Pathfinder muttered to himself; “I've seen that vagabond afore, and know him to be a marciless devil. Well, well! the man acted according to his gifts, and he has been rewarded according to his gifts. One more of the knaves, and that will sarve the turn for to-night. When daylight appears, we may have hotter work.” All this time another rifle was being got ready; and as Pathfinder ceased, a second savage fell. This indeed sufficed; for, indisposed to wait for a third visitation from the same hand, the whole band, which had been crouching in the bushes around the block, ignorant of who was and who was not exposed to view, leaped from their covers and fled to different places for safety. “Now, pour away, Master Cap,” said Pathfinder; “I've made my mark on the blackguards; and we shall have no more fires lighted to-night.” “Scaldings!” cried Cap, upsetting the barrel, with a care that at once and completely extinguished the flames. This ended the singular conflict; and the remainder of the night passed in peace. Pathfinder and Cap watched alternately, though neither can be said to have slept. Sleep indeed scarcely seemed necessary to them, for both were accustomed to protracted watchings; and there were seasons and times when the former appeared to be literally insensible to the demands of hunger and thirst and callous to the effects of fatigue. Mabel watched by her father's pallet, and began to feel how much our happiness in this world depends even on things that are imaginary. Hitherto she had virtually lived without a father, the connection with her remaining parent being ideal rather than positive; but now that she was about to lose him, she thought for the moment that the world would be a void after his death, and that she could never be acquainted with happiness again.	{ "id": "1880" }
25	None	There was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily, and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods. WORDSWORTH. As the light returned, Pathfinder and Cap ascended again to the roof, with a view to reconnoitre the state of things once more on the island. This part of the blockhouse had a low battlement around it, which afforded a considerable protection to those who stood in its centre; the intention having been to enable marksmen to lie behind it and to fire over its top. By making proper use, therefore, of these slight defences,--slight as to height, though abundantly ample as far as they went,--the two look-outs commanded a pretty good view of the island, its covers excepted, and of most of the channels that led to the spot. The gale was still blowing very fresh at south; and there were places in the river where its surface looked green and angry, though the wind had hardly sweep enough to raise the water into foam. The shape of the little island was nearly oval, and its greater length was from east to west. By keeping in the channels that washed it, in consequence of their several courses and of the direction of the gale, it would have been possible for a vessel to range past the island on either of its principal sides, and always to keep the wind very nearly abeam. These were the facts first noticed by Cap, and explained to his companion; for the hopes of both now rested on the chances of relief sent from Oswego. At this instant, while they stood gazing anxiously about them, Cap cried out, in his lusty, hearty manner, “Sail, ho!” Pathfinder turned quickly in the direction of his companion's face; and there, sure enough, was just visible the object of the old sailor's exclamation. The elevation enabled the two to overlook the low land of several of the adjacent islands; and the canvas of a vessel was seen through the bushes that fringed the shore of one that lay to the southward and westward. The stranger was under what seamen call low sail; but so great was the power of the wind, that her white outlines were seen flying past the openings of the verdure with the velocity of a fast-travelling horse--resembling a cloud driving in the heavens. “That cannot be Jasper,” said Pathfinder in disappointment; for he did not recognize the cutter of his friend in the swift-passing object. “No, no, the lad is behind the hour; and that is some craft which the Frenchers have sent to aid their friends, the accursed Mingos.” “This time you are out in your reckoning, friend Pathfinder, if you never were before,” returned Cap in a manner that had lost none of its dogmatism by the critical circumstances in which they were placed. “Fresh water or salt, that is the head of the _Scud's_ mainsail, for it is cut with a smaller gore than common; and then you can see that the gaff has been fished--quite neatly done, I admit, but fished.” “I can see none of this, I confess,” answered Pathfinder, to whom even the terms of his companion were Greek. “No! Well, I own that surprises me, for I thought your eyes could see anything! Now to me nothing is plainer than that gore and that fish; and I must say, my honest friend, that in your place I should apprehend that my sight was beginning to fail.” “If Jasper is truly coming, I shall apprehend but little. We can make good the block against the whole Mingo nation for the next eight or ten hours; and with Eau-douce to cover the retreat, I shall despair of nothing. God send that the lad may not run alongside of the bank, and fall into an ambushment, as befell the Sergeant!” “Ay, there's the danger. There ought to have been signals concerted, and an anchorage-ground buoyed out, and even a quarantine station or a lazaretto would have been useful, could we have made these Minks-ho respect the laws. If the lad fetches up, as you say, anywhere in the neighborhood of this island, we may look upon the cutter as lost. And, after all, Master Pathfinder, ought we not to set down this same Jasper as a secret ally of the French, rather than as a friend of our own? I know the Sergeant views the matter in that light; and I must say this whole affair looks like treason.” “We shall soon know, we shall soon know, Master Cap; for there, indeed, comes the cutter clear of the other island, and five minutes must settle the matter. It would be no more than fair, however, if we could give the boy some sign in the way of warning. It is not right that he should fall into the trap without a notice that it has been laid.” Anxiety and suspense, notwithstanding, prevented either from attempting to make any signal. It was not easy, truly, to see how it could be done; for the _Scud_ came foaming through the channel, on the weather side of the island, at a rate that scarcely admitted of the necessary time. Nor was any one visible on her deck to make signs to; even her helm seemed deserted, though her course was as steady as her progress was rapid. Cap stood in silent admiration of a spectacle so unusual. But, as the _Scud_ drew nearer, his practised eye detected the helm in play by means of tiller-ropes, though the person who steered was concealed. As the cutter had weatherboards of some little height, the mystery was explained, no doubt remaining that her people lay behind the latter, in order to be protected from the rifles of the enemy. As this fact showed that no force beyond that of the small crew could be on board, Pathfinder received his companion's explanation with an ominous shake of the head. “This proves that the Sarpent has not reached Oswego,” said he, “and that we are not to expect succor from the garrison. I hope Lundie has not taken it into his head to displace the lad, for Jasper Western would be a host of himself in such a strait. We three, Master Cap, ought to make a manful warfare: you, as a seaman, to keep up the intercourse with the cutter; Jasper, as a laker who knows all that is necessary to be done on the water; and I, with gifts that are as good as any among the Mingos, let me be what I may in other particulars. I say we ought to make a manful fight in Mabel's behalf.” “That we ought, and that we will,” answered Cap heartily; for he began to have more confidence in the security of his scalp now that he saw the sun again. “I set down the arrival of the _Scud_ as one circumstance, and the chances of Oh-deuce's honesty as another. This Jasper is a young man of prudence, you find; for he keeps a good offing, and seems determined to know how matters stand on the island before he ventures to bring up.” “I have it! I have it!” exclaimed Pathfinder, with exultation. “There lies the canoe of the Sarpent on the cutter's deck; and the chief has got on board, and no doubt has given a true account of our condition; for, unlike a Mingo, a Delaware is sartain to get a story right, or to hold his tongue.” “That canoe may not belong to the cutter,” said the captious seaman. “Oh-deuce had one on board when he sailed.” “Very true, friend Cap; but if you know your sails and masts by your gores and fishes, I know my canoes and my paths by frontier knowledge. If you can see new cloth in a sail, I can see new bark in a canoe. That is the boat of the Sarpent, and the noble fellow has struck off for the garrison as soon as he found the block besieged, has fallen in with the _Scud_, and, after telling his story, has brought the cutter down here to see what can be done. The Lord grant that Jasper Western be still on board her!” “Yes, yes; it might not be amiss; for, traitor or loyal, the lad has a handy way with him in a gale, it must be owned.” “And in coming over waterfalls!” said Pathfinder, nudging the ribs of his companion with an elbow, and laughing in his silent but hearty manner. “We will give the boy his due, though he scalps us all with his own hand.” The _Scud_ was now so near, that Cap made no reply. The scene, just at that instant, was so peculiar, that it merits a particular description, which may also aid the reader in forming a more accurate nature of the picture we wish to draw. The gale was still blowing violently. Many of the smaller trees bowed their tops, as if ready to descend to the earth, while the rushing of the wind through the branches of the groves resembled the roar of distant chariots. The air was filled with leaves, which, at that late season, were readily driven from their stems, and flew from island to island like flights of birds. With this exception, the spot seemed silent as the grave. That the savages still remained, was to be inferred from the fact that their canoes, together with the boats of the 55th, lay in a group in the little cove that had been selected as a harbor. Otherwise, not a sign of their presence was to be detected. Though taken entirely by surprise by the cutter, the sudden return of which was altogether unlooked-for, so uniform and inbred were their habits of caution while on the war-path, that the instant an alarm was given every man had taken to his cover with the instinct and cunning of a fox seeking his hole. The same stillness reigned in the blockhouse; for though Pathfinder and Cap could command a view of the channel, they took the precaution necessary to lie concealed. The unusual absence of anything like animal life on board the _Scud_, too, was still more remarkable. As the Indians witnessed her apparently undirected movements, a feeling of awe gained a footing among them, and some of the boldest of their party began to distrust the issue of an expedition that had commenced so prosperously. Even Arrowhead, accustomed as he was to intercourse with the whites on both sides of the lakes, fancied there was something ominous in the appearance of this unmanned vessel, and he would gladly at that moment have been landed again on the main. In the meantime the progress of the cutter was steady and rapid. She held her way mid-channel, now inclining to the gusts, and now rising again, like the philosopher that bends to the calamities of life to resume his erect attitude as they pass away, but always piling the water beneath her bows in foam. Although she was under so very short canvas, her velocity was great, and there could not have elapsed ten minutes between the time when her sails were first seen glancing past the trees and bushes in the distance and the moment when she was abreast of the blockhouse. Cap and Pathfinder leaned forward, as the cutter came beneath their eyrie, eager to get a better view of her deck, when, to the delight of both, Jasper Eau-douce sprang upon his feet and gave three hearty cheers. Regardless of all risk, Cap leaped upon the rampart of logs and returned the greeting, cheer for cheer. Happily, the policy of the enemy saved the latter; for they still lay quiet, not a rifle being discharged. On the other hand, Pathfinder kept in view the useful, utterly disregarding the mere dramatic part of warfare. The moment he beheld his friend Jasper, he called out to him with stentorian lungs,-- “Stand by us, lad, and the day's our own! Give 'em a grist in yonder bushes, and you'll put 'em up like partridges.” Part of this reached Jasper's ears, but most was borne off to leeward on the wings of the wind. By the time this was said, the _Scud_ had driven past, and in the next moment she was hid from view by the grove in which the blockhouse was partially concealed. Two anxious minutes succeeded; but, at the expiration of that brief space, the sails were again gleaming through the trees, Jasper having wore, jibed, and hauled up under the lee of the island on the other tack. The wind was free enough, as has been already explained, to admit of this manoeuvre; and the cutter, catching the current under her lee bow, was breasted up to her course in a way that showed she would come out to windward of the island again without any difficulty. This whole evolution was made with the greatest facility, not a sheet being touched, the sails trimming themselves, the rudder alone controlling the admirable machine. The object appeared to be a reconnoissance. When, however, the _Scud_ had made the circuit of the entire island, and had again got her weatherly position in the channel by which she had first approached, her helm was put down, and she tacked. The noise of the mainsail flapping when it filled, loose-reefed as it was, sounded like the report of a gun, and Cap trembled lest the seams should open. “His Majesty gives good canvas, it must be owned,” muttered the old seaman; “and it must be owned, too, that boy handles his boat as if he were thoroughly bred! D---me, Master Pathfinder, if I believe, after all that has been reported in the matter, that this Mister Oh-deuce got his trade on this bit of fresh water.” “He did; yes, he did. He never saw the ocean, and has come by his calling altogether up here on Ontario. I have often thought he has a nat'ral gift in the way of schooners and sloops, and have respected him accordingly. As for treason and lying and black-hearted vices, friend Cap, Jasper Western is as free as the most virtuousest of the Delaware warriors; and if you crave to see a truly honest man, you must go among that tribe to discover him.” “There he comes round!” exclaimed the delighted Cap, the _Scud_ at this moment filling on her original tack; “and now we shall see what the boy would be at; he cannot mean to keep running up and down these passages, like a girl footing it through a country-dance.” The _Scud_ now kept so much away, that for a moment the two observers on the blockhouse feared Jasper meant to come-to; and the savages, in their lairs, gleamed out upon her with the sort of exultation that the crouching tiger may be supposed to feel as he sees his unconscious victim approach his bed. But Jasper had no such intention: familiar with the shore, and acquainted with the depth of water on every part of the island, he well knew that the _Scud_ might be run against the bank with impunity, and he ventured fearlessly so near, that, as he passed through the little cove, he swept the two boats of the soldiers from their fastenings and forced them out into the channel, towing them with the cutter. As all the canoes were fastened to the two Dunham boats, by this bold and successful attempt the savages were at once deprived of the means of quitting the island, unless by swimming, and they appeared to be instantly aware of the very important fact. Rising in a body, they filled the air with yells, and poured in a harmless fire. While up in this unguarded manner, two rifles were discharged by their adversaries. One came from the summit of the block, and an Iroquois fell dead in his tracks, shot through the brain. The other came from the _Scud_. The last was the piece of the Delaware, but, less true than that of his friend, it only maimed an enemy for life. The people of the _Scud_ shouted, and the savages sank again, to a man, as if it might be into the earth. “That was the Sarpent's voice,” said Pathfinder, as soon as the second piece was discharged. “I know the crack of his rifle as well as I do that of Killdeer. 'Tis a good barrel, though not sartain death. Well, well, with Chingachgook and Jasper on the water, and you and I in the block, friend Cap, it will be hard if we don't teach these Mingo scamps the rationality of a fight.” All this time the _Scud_ was in motion. As soon as he had reached the end of the island, Jasper sent his prizes adrift; and they went down before the wind until they stranded on a point half a mile to leeward. He then wore, and came stemming the current again, through the other passage. Those on the summit of the block could now perceive that something was in agitation on the deck of the _Scud_; and, to their great delight, just as the cutter came abreast of the principal cove, on the spot where most of the enemy lay, the howitzer which composed her sole armament was unmasked, and a shower of case-shot was sent hissing into the bushes. A bevy of quail would not have risen quicker than this unexpected discharge of iron hail put up the Iroquois; when a second savage fell by a messenger sent from Killdeer, and another went limping away by a visit from the rifle of Chingachgook. New covers were immediately found, however; and each party seemed to prepare for the renewal of the strife in another form. But the appearance of June, bearing a white flag, and accompanied by the French officer and Muir, stayed the hands of all, and was the forerunner of another parley. The negotiation that followed was held beneath the blockhouse; and so near it as at once to put those who were uncovered completely at the mercy of Pathfinder's unerring aim. Jasper anchored directly abeam; and the howitzer, too, was kept trained upon the negotiators: so that the besieged and their friends, with the exception of the man who held the match, had no hesitation about exposing their persons. Chingachgook alone lay in ambush; more, however, from habit than distrust. “You've triumphed, Pathfinder,” called out the Quartermaster, “and Captain Sanglier has come himself to offer terms. You'll no' be denying a brave enemy honorable retreat, when he has fought ye fairly, and done all the credit he could to king and country. Ye are too loyal a subject yourself to visit loyalty and fidelity with a heavy judgment. I am authorized to offer, on the part of the enemy, an evacuation of the island, a mutual exchange of prisoners, and a restoration of scalps. In the absence of baggage and artillery, little more can be done.” As the conversation was necessarily carried on in a high key, both on account of the wind and of the distance, all that was said was heard equally by those in the block and those in the cutter. “What do you say to that, Jasper?” called out Pathfinder. “You hear the proposal. Shall we let the vagabonds go? Or shall we mark them, as they mark their sheep in the settlements, that we may know them again?” “What has befallen Mabel Dunham?” demanded the young man, with a frown on his handsome face, that was visible even to those on the block. “If a hair of her head has been touched, it will go hard with the whole Iroquois tribe.” “Nay, nay, she is safe below, nursing a dying parent, as becomes her sex. We owe no grudge on account of the Sergeant's hurt, which comes of lawful warfare; and as for Mabel--” “She is here!” exclaimed the girl herself, who had mounted to the roof the moment she found the direction things were taking,--“she is here! And, in the name of our holy religion, and of that God whom we profess to worship in common, let there be no more bloodshed! Enough has been spilt already; and if these men will go away, Pathfinder--if they will depart peaceably, Jasper--oh, do not detain one of them! My poor father is approaching his end, and it were better that he should draw his last breath in peace with the world. Go, go, Frenchmen and Indians! We are no longer your enemies, and will harm none of you.” “Tut, tut, Magnet!” put in Cap; “this sounds religious, perhaps, or like a book of poetry; but it does not sound like common sense. The enemy is just ready to strike; Jasper is anchored with his broadside to bear, and, no doubt, with springs on his cables; Pathfinder's eye and hand are as true as the needle; and we shall get prize-money, head-money, and honor in the bargain, if you will not interfere for the next half-hour.” “Well,” said Pathfinder, “I incline to Mabel's way of thinking. There _has_ been enough blood shed to answer our purpose and to sarve the king; and as for honor, in that meaning, it will do better for young ensigns and recruits than for cool-headed, obsarvant Christian men. There is honor in doing what's right, and unhonor in doing what's wrong; and I think it wrong to take the life even of a Mingo, without a useful end in view, I do; and right to hear reason at all times. So, Lieutenant Muir, let us know what your friends the Frenchers and Indians have to say for themselves.” “My friends!” said Muir, starting; “you'll no' be calling the king's enemies my friends, Pathfinder, because the fortune of war has thrown me into their hands? Some of the greatest warriors, both of ancient and modern times, have been prisoners of war; and yon is Master Cap, who can testify whether we did not do all that men could devise to escape the calamity.” “Ay, ay,” drily answered Cap; “escape is the proper word. We ran below and hid ourselves, and so discreetly, that we might have remained in the hole to this hour, had it not been for the necessity of re-stowing the bread lockers. You burrowed on that occasion, Quartermaster, as handily as a fox; and how the d---l you knew so well where to find the spot is a matter of wonder to me. A regular skulk on board ship does not trail aft more readily when the jib is to be stowed, than you went into that same hole.” “And did ye no' follow? There are moments in a man's life when reason ascends to instinct--” “And men descend into holes,” interrupted Cap, laughing in his boisterous way, while Pathfinder chimed in, in his peculiar manner. Even Jasper, though still filled with concern for Mabel, was obliged to smile. “They say the d---l wouldn't make a sailor if he didn't look aloft; and now it seems he'll not make a soldier if he doesn't look below!” This burst of merriment, though it was anything but agreeable to Muir, contributed largely towards keeping the peace. Cap fancied he had said a thing much better than common; and that disposed him to yield his own opinion on the main point, so long as he got the good opinion of his companions on his novel claim to be a wit. After a short discussion, all the savages on the island were collected in a body, without arms, at the distance of a hundred yards from the block, and under the gun of the _Scud_; while Pathfinder descended to the door of the blockhouse and settled the terms on which the island was to be finally evacuated by the enemy. Considering all the circumstances, the conditions were not very discreditable to either party. The Indians were compelled to give up all their arms, even to their knives and tomahawks, as a measure of precaution, their force being still quadruple that of their foes. The French officer, Monsieur Sanglier, as he was usually styled, and chose to call himself, remonstrated against this act as one likely to reflect more discredit on his command than any other part of the affair; but Pathfinder, who had witnessed one or two Indian massacres, and knew how valueless pledges became when put in opposition to interest where a savage was concerned, was obdurate. The second stipulation was of nearly the same importance. It compelled Captain Sanglier to give up all his prisoners, who had been kept well guarded in the very hole or cave in which Cap and Muir had taken refuge. When these men were produced, four of them were found to be unhurt; they had fallen merely to save their lives, a common artifice in that species of warfare; and of the remainder, two were so slightly injured as not to be unfit for service. As they brought their muskets with them, this addition to his force immediately put Pathfinder at his ease; for, having collected all the arms of the enemy in the blockhouse, he directed these men to take possession of the building, stationing a regular sentinel at the door. The remainder of the soldiers were dead, the badly wounded having been instantly despatched in order to obtain the much-coveted scalps. As soon as Jasper was made acquainted with the terms, and the preliminaries had been so far observed as to render it safe for him to be absent, he got the _Scud_ under weigh; and, running down to the point where the boats had stranded, he took them in tow again, and, making a few stretches, brought them into the leeward passage. Here all the savages instantly embarked, when Jasper took the boats in tow a third time, and, running off before the wind, he soon set them adrift full a mile to leeward of the island. The Indians were furnished with but a single oar in each boat to steer with, the young sailor well knowing that by keeping before the wind they would land on the shores of Canada in the course of the morning. Captain Sanglier, Arrowhead, and June alone remained, when this disposition had been made of the rest of the party: the former having certain papers to draw up and sign with Lieutenant Muir, who in his eyes possessed the virtues which are attached to a commission; and the latter preferring, for reasons of his own, not to depart in company with his late friends, the Iroquois. Canoes were detained for the departure of these three, when the proper moment should arrive. In the meantime, or while the _Scud_ was running down with the boats in tow, Pathfinder and Cap, aided by proper assistants, busied themselves with preparing a breakfast; most of the party not having eaten for four-and-twenty hours. The brief space that passed in this manner before the _Scud_ came-to again was little interrupted by discourse, though Pathfinder found leisure to pay a visit to the Sergeant, to say a few friendly words to Mabel, and to give such directions as he thought might smooth the passage of the dying man. As for Mabel herself, he insisted on her taking some light refreshment; and, there no longer existing any motive for keeping it there, he had the guard removed from the block, in order that the daughter might have no impediment to her attentions to her father. These little arrangements completed, our hero returned to the fire, around which he found all the remainder of the party assembled, including Jasper.	{ "id": "1880" }
26	None	You saw but sorrow in its waning form; A working sea remaining from a storm, Where now the weary waves roll o'er the deep, And faintly murmur ere they fall asleep. DRYDEN. Men accustomed to a warfare like that we have been describing are not apt to be much under the influence of the tender feelings while still in the field. Notwithstanding their habits, however, more than one heart was with Mabel in the block, while the incidents we are about to relate were in the course of occurrence; and even the indispensable meal was less relished by the hardiest of the soldiers than it might have been had not the Sergeant been so near his end. As Pathfinder returned from the block, he was met by Muir, who led him aside in order to hold a private discourse. The manner of the Quartermaster had that air of supererogatory courtesy about it which almost invariably denotes artifice; for, while physiognomy and phrenology are but lame sciences at the best, and perhaps lead to as many false as right conclusions, we hold that there is no more infallible evidence of insincerity of purpose, short of overt acts, than a face that smiles when there is no occasion, and the tongue that is out of measure smooth. Muir had much of this manner in common, mingled with an apparent frankness that his Scottish intonation of voice, Scottish accent, and Scottish modes of expression were singularly adapted to sustain. He owed his preferment, indeed, to a long-exercised deference to Lundie and his family; for, while the Major himself was much too acute to be the dupe of one so much his inferior in real talents and attainments, most persons are accustomed to make liberal concessions to the flatterer, even while they distrust his truth and are perfectly aware of his motives. On the present occasion, the contest in skill was between two men as completely the opposites of each other in all the leading essentials of character as very well could be. Pathfinder was as simple as the Quartermaster was practised; he was as sincere as the other was false, and as direct as the last was tortuous. Both were cool and calculating, and both were brave, though in different modes and degrees; Muir never exposing his person except for effect, while the guide included fear among the rational passions, or as a sensation to be deferred to only when good might come of it. “My dearest friend,” Muir commenced,--“for ye'll be dearer to us all, by seventy and sevenfold, after your late conduct than ever ye were,--ye've just established yourself in this late transaction. It's true that they'll not be making ye a commissioned officer, for that species of prefairment is not much in your line, nor much in your wishes, I'm thinking; but as a guide, and a counsellor, and a loyal subject, and an expert marksman, yer renown may be said to be full. I doubt if the commander-in-chief will carry away with him from America as much credit as will fall to yer share, and ye ought just to set down in content and enjoy yoursal' for the remainder of yer days. Get married, man, without delay, and look to your precious happiness; for ye've no occasion to look any longer to your glory. Take Mabel Dunham, for Heaven's sake, to your bosom, and ye'll have both a bonnie bride and a bonnie reputation.” “Why, Quartermaster, this is a new piece of advice to come from your mouth. They've told me I had a rival in you.” “And ye had, man, and a formidible one, too, I can tell you,--one that has never yet courted in vain, and yet one that has courted five times. Lundie twits me with four, and I deny the charge; but he little thinks the truth would outdo even his arithmetic. Yes, yes, ye had a rival, Pathfinder; but ye've one no longer in me. Ye've my hearty wishes for yer success with Mabel; and were the honest Sergeant likely to survive, ye might rely on my good word with him, too, for a certainty.” “I feel your friendship, Quartermaster, I feel your friendship, though I have no great need of any favor with Sergeant Dunham, who has long been my friend. I believe we may look upon the matter to be as sartain as most things in war-time; for, Mabel and her father consenting, the whole 55th couldn't very well put a stop to it. Ah's me! The poor father will scarcely live to see what his heart has so long been set upon.” “But he'll have the consolation of knowing it will come to pass, in dying. Oh, it's a great relief, Pathfinder, for the parting spirit to feel certain that the beloved ones left behind will be well provided for after its departure. All the Mistress Muirs have duly expressed that sentiment with their dying breaths.” “All your wives, Quartermaster, have been likely to feel this consolation.” “Out upon ye, man! I'd no' thought ye such a wag. Well, well; pleasant words make no heart-burnings between auld fri'nds. If I cannot espouse Mabel, ye'll no object to my esteeming her, and speaking well of her, and of yoursal', too, on all suitable occasions and in all companies. But, Pathfinder, ye'll easily understan' that a poor deevil who loses such a bride will probably stand in need of some consolation?” “Quite likely, quite likely, Quartermaster,” returned the simple-minded guide; “I know the loss of Mabel would be found heavy to be borne by myself. It may bear hard on your feelings to see us married; but the death of the Sergeant will be likely to put it off, and you'll have time to think more manfully of it, you will.” “I'll bear up against it; yes, I'll bear up against it, though my heart-strings crack! And ye might help me, man, by giving me something to do. Ye'll understand that this expedition has been of a very peculiar nature; for here am I, bearing the king's commission, just a volunteer, as it might be; while a mere orderly has had the command. I've submitted for various reasons, though my blood has boiled to be in authority, while ye war' battling, for the honor of the country and his Majesty's rights--” “Quartermaster,” interrupted the guide, “you fell so early into the enemy's hands that your conscience ought to be easily satisfied on that score; so take my advice, and say nothing about it.” “That's just my opinion, Pathfinder; we'll all say nothing about it. Sergeant Dunham is _hors de combat_--” “Anan?” said the guide. “Why, the Sergeant can command no longer, and it will hardly do to leave a corporal at the head of a victorious party like this; for flowers that will bloom in a garden will die on a heath; and I was just thinking I would claim the authority that belongs to one who holds a lieutenant's commission. As for the men, they'll no dare to raise any objaction; and as for yoursal', my dear friend, now that ye've so much honor, and Mabel, and the consciousness of having done yer duty, which is more precious than all, I expect to find an ally rather than one to oppose the plan.” “As for commanding the soldiers of the 55th, Lieutenant, it is your right, I suppose, and no one here will be likely to gainsay it; though you've been a prisoner of war, and there are men who might stand out ag'in giving up their authority to a prisoner released by their own deeds. Still no one here will be likely to say anything hostile to your wishes.” “That's just it, Pathfinder; and when I come to draw up the report of our success against the boats, and the defence of the block, together with the general operations, including the capitulation, ye'll no' find any omission of your claims and merits.” “Tut for my claims and merits, Quartermaster! Lundie knows what I am in the forest and what I am in the fort; and the General knows better than he. No fear of me; tell your own story, only taking care to do justice by Mabel's father, who, in one sense, is the commanding officer at this very moment.” Muir expressed his entire satisfaction with this arrangement, as well as his determination to do justice by all, when the two went to the group assembled round the fire. Here the Quartermaster began, for the first time since leaving Oswego, to assume some of the authority that might properly be supposed to belong to his rank. Taking the remaining corporal aside, he distinctly told that functionary that he must in future be regarded as one holding the king's commission, and directed him to acquaint his subordinates with the new state of things. This change in the dynasty was effected without any of the usual symptoms of a revolution; for, as all well understood the Lieutenant's legal claims to command, no one felt disposed to dispute his orders. For reasons best known to themselves, Lundie and the Quartermaster had originally made a different disposition; and now, for reasons of his own, the latter had seen fit to change it. This was reasoning enough for soldiers, though the hurt received by Sergeant Dunham would have sufficiently explained the circumstance had an explanation been required. All this time Captain Sanglier was looking after his own breakfast with the resignation of a philosopher, the coolness of a veteran, the ingenuity and science of a Frenchman, and the voracity of an ostrich. This person had now been in the colony some thirty years, having left France in some such situation in his own army as Muir filled in the 55th. An iron constitution, perfect obduracy of feeling, a certain address well suited to manage savages, and an indomitable courage, had early pointed him out to the commander-in-chief as a suitable agent to be employed in directing the military operations of his Indian allies. In this capacity, then, he had risen to the titular rank of captain; and with his promotion had acquired a portion of the habits and opinions of his associates with a facility and an adaptation of self which are thought in America to be peculiar to his countrymen. He had often led parties of the Iroquois in their predatory expeditions; and his conduct on such occasions exhibited the contradictory results of both alleviating the misery produced by this species of warfare, and of augmenting it by the broader views and greater resources of civilization. In other words, he planned enterprises that, in their importance and consequences, much exceeded the usual policy of the Indians, and then stepped in to lessen some of the evils of his own creating. In short, he was an adventurer whom circumstances had thrown into a situation where the callous qualities of men of his class might readily show themselves for good or for evil; and he was not of a character to baffle fortune by any ill-timed squeamishness on the score of early impressions, or to trifle with her liberality by unnecessarily provoking her frowns through wanton cruelty. Still, as his name was unavoidably connected with many of the excesses committed by his parties, he was generally considered in the American provinces a wretch who delighted in bloodshed, and who found his greatest happiness in tormenting the helpless and the innocent; and the name of Sanglier, which was a sobriquet of his own adopting, or of Flint Heart, as he was usually termed on the borders, had got to be as terrible to the women and children of that part of the country as those of Butler and Brandt became at a later day. The meeting between Pathfinder and Sanglier bore some resemblance to that celebrated interview between Wellington and Blucher which has been so often and graphically told. It took place at the fire; and the parties stood earnestly regarding each other for more than a minute without speaking. Each felt that in the other he saw a formidable foe; and each felt, while he ought to treat the other with the manly liberality due to a warrior, that there was little in common between them in the way of character as well as of interests. One served for money and preferment; the other, because his life had been cast in the wilderness, and the land of his birth needed his arm and experience. The desire of rising above his present situation never disturbed the tranquillity of Pathfinder; nor had he ever known an ambitious thought, as ambition usually betrays itself, until he became acquainted with Mabel. Since then, indeed, distrust of himself, reverence for her, and the wish to place her in a situation above that which he then filled, had caused him some uneasy moments; but the directness and simplicity of his character had early afforded the required relief; and he soon came to feel that the woman who would not hesitate to accept him for her husband would not scruple to share his fortunes, however humble. He respected Sanglier as a brave warrior; and he had far too much of that liberality which is the result of practical knowledge to believe half of what he had heard to his prejudice, for the most bigoted and illiberal on every subject are usually those who know nothing about it; but he could not approve of his selfishness, cold-blooded calculations, and least of all of the manner in which he forgot his “white gifts,” to adopt those that were purely “red.” On the other hand, Pathfinder was a riddle to Captain Sanglier. The latter could not comprehend the other's motives; he had often heard of his disinterestedness, justice, and truth; and in several instances they had led him into grave errors, on that principle by which a frank and open-mouthed diplomatist is said to keep his secrets better than one that is close-mouthed and wily. After the two heroes had gazed at each other in the manner mentioned, Monsieur Sanglier touched his cap; for the rudeness of a border life had not entirely destroyed the courtesy of manner he had acquired in youth, nor extinguished that appearance of _bonhomie_ which seems inbred in a Frenchman. “Monsieur le Pathfinder,” said he, with a very decided accent, though with a friendly smile, “_un militaire_ honor _le courage, et la loyaute_. You speak Iroquois?” “Ay, I understand the language of the riptyles, and can get along with it if there's occasion,” returned the literal and truth-telling guide; “but it's neither a tongue nor a tribe to my taste. Wherever you find the Mingo blood, in my opinion, Master Flinty-heart, you find a knave. Well, I've seen you often, though it was in battle; and I must say it was always in the van. You must know most of our bullets by sight?” “Nevvair, sair, your own; _une balle_ from your honorable hand be sairtaine deat'. You kill my best warrior on some island.” “That may be, that may be; though I daresay, if the truth was known, they would turn out to be great rascals. No offence to you, Master Flinty-heart, but you keep desperate evil company.” “Yes, sair,” returned the Frenchman, who, bent on saying that which was courteous himself, and comprehending with difficulty, was disposed to think he received a compliment, “you too good. But _un brave_ always _comme ca_. What that mean? ha! what that _jeune homme_ do?” The hand and eye of Captain Sanglier directed the look of Pathfinder to the opposite side of the fire, where Jasper, just at that moment, had been rudely seized by two of the soldiers, who were binding his arms under the direction of Muir. “What does that mean, indeed?” cried the guide, stepping forward and shoving the two subordinates away with a power of muscle that would not be denied. “Who has the heart to do this to Jasper Eau-douce? And who has the boldness to do it before my eyes?” “It is by my orders, Pathfinder,” answered the Quartermaster, “and I command it on my own responsibility. Ye'll no' tak' on yourself to dispute the legality of orders given by one who bears the king's commission to the king's soldiers?” “I'd dispute the king's words, if they came from the king's own mouth, did he say that Jasper desarves this. Has not the lad just saved all our scalps, taken us from defeat, and given us victory? No, no, Lieutenant; if this is the first use that you make of your authority, I, for one, will not respect it.” “This savors a little of insubordination,” answered Muir; “but we can bear much from Pathfinder. It is true this Jasper has _seemed_ to serve us in this affair, but we ought not to overlook past transactions. Did not Major Duncan himself denounce him to Sergeant Dunham before we left the post? Have we not seen sufficient with our own eyes to make sure of having been betrayed? And is it not natural, and almost necessary, to believe that this young man has been the traitor? Ah, Pathfinder! Ye'll no' be making yourself a great statesman or a great captain if you put too much faith in appearances. Lord bless me! Lord bless me! If I do not believe, could the truth be come at, as you often say yourself, Pathfinder, that hypocrisy is a more common vice than even envy, and that's the bane of human nature.” Captain Sanglier shrugged his shoulders; then he looked earnestly from Jasper towards the Quartermaster, and from the Quartermaster towards Jasper. “I care not for your envy, or your hypocrisy, or even for your human natur',” returned Pathfinder. “Jasper Eau-douce is my friend; Jasper Eau-douce is a brave lad, and an honest lad, and a loyal lad; and no man of the 55th shall lay hands on him, short of Lundie's own orders, while I'm in the way to prevent it. You may have authority over your soldiers; but you have none over Jasper and me, Master Muir.” “_Bon! _” ejaculated Sanglier, the sound partaking equally of the energies of the throat and of the nose. “Will ye no' hearken to reason, Pathfinder? Ye'll no' be forgetting our suspicions and judgments; and here is another circumstance to augment and aggravate them all. Ye can see this little bit of bunting; well, where should it be found but by Mabel Dunham, on the branch of a tree on this very island, just an hour or so before the attack of the enemy; and if ye'll be at the trouble to look at the fly of the _Scud's_ ensign, ye'll just say that the cloth has been cut from out it. Circumstantial evidence was never stronger.” “_Ma foi, c'est un peu fort, ceci,_” growled Sanglier between his teeth. “Talk to me of no ensigns and signals when I know the heart,” continued the Pathfinder. “Jasper has the gift of honesty; and it is too rare a gift to be trifled with, like a Mingo's conscience. No, no; off hands, or we shall see which can make the stoutest battle; you and your men of the 55th, or the Sarpent here, and Killdeer, with Jasper and his crew. You overrate your force, Lieutenant Muir, as much as you underrate Eau-douce's truth.” “_Tres bon! _” “Well, if I must speak plainly, Pathfinder, I e'en must. Captain Sanglier here and Arrowhead, this brave Tuscarora, have both informed me that this unfortunate boy is the traitor. After such testimony you can no longer oppose my right to correct him, as well as the necessity of the act.” “_Scelerat,_” muttered the Frenchman. “Captain Sanglier is a brave soldier, and will not gainsay the conduct of an honest sailor,” put in Jasper. “Is there any traitor here, Captain Flinty-heart?” “Ay,” added Muir, “let him speak out then, since ye wish it, unhappy youth! That the truth may be known. I only hope that ye may escape the last punishment when a court will be sitting on your misdeeds. How is it, Captain; do ye, or do ye not, see a traitor amang us?” “_Oui_--yes, sair--_bien sur_.” “Too much lie!” said Arrowhead in a voice of thunder, striking the breast of Muir with the back of his own hand in a sort of ungovernable gesture; “where my warriors? --where Yengeese scalp? Too much lie!” Muir wanted not for personal courage, nor for a certain sense of personal honor. The violence which had been intended only for a gesture he mistook for a blow; for conscience was suddenly aroused within him, and he stepped back a pace, extending his hand towards a gun. His face was livid with rage, and his countenance expressed the fell intention of his heart. But Arrowhead was too quick for him; with a wild glance of the eye the Tuscarora looked about him; then thrust a hand beneath his own girdle, drew forth a concealed knife, and, in the twinkling of an eye, buried it in the body of the Quartermaster to the handle. As the latter fell at his feet, gazing into his face with the vacant stare of one surprised by death, Sanglier took a pinch of snuff, and said in a calm voice,-- “_Voila l'affaire finie; mais,_” shrugging his shoulders, “_ce n'est qu'un scelerat de moins. _” The act was too sudden to be prevented; and when Arrowhead, uttering a yell, bounded into the bushes, the white men were too confounded to follow. Chingachgook, however, was more collected; and the bushes had scarcely closed on the passing body of the Tuscarora than they were again opened by that of the Delaware in full pursuit. Jasper Western spoke French fluently, and the words and manner of Sanglier struck him. “Speak, Monsieur,” said he in English; “_am_ I the traitor?” “_Le voila_,” answered the cool Frenchman, “dat is our _espion_--our _agent_--our friend--_ma foi_--_c'etait un grand scelerat_--_voici_.” While speaking, Sanglier bent over the dead body, and thrust his hand into a pocket of the Quartermaster, out of which he drew a purse. Emptying the contents on the ground, several double-louis rolled towards the soldiers, who were not slow in picking them up. Casting the purse from him in contempt, the soldier of fortune turned towards the soup he had been preparing with so much care, and, finding it to his liking, he began to break his fast with an air of indifference that the most stoical Indian warrior might have envied.	{ "id": "1880" }
27	None	The only amaranthian flower on earth Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth. COWPER. The reader must imagine some of the occurrences that followed the sudden death of Muir. While his body was in the hands of his soldiers, who laid it decently aside, and covered it with a greatcoat, Chingachgook silently resumed his place at the fire, and both Sanglier and Pathfinder remarked that he carried a fresh and bleeding scalp at his girdle. No one asked any questions; and the former, although perfectly satisfied that Arrowhead had fallen, manifested neither curiosity nor feeling. He continued calmly eating his soup, as if the meal had been tranquil as usual. There was something of pride and of an assumed indifference to fate, imitated from the Indians, in all this; but there was more that really resulted from practice, habitual self-command, and constitutional hardihood. With Pathfinder the case was a little different in feeling, though much the same in appearance. He disliked Muir, whose smooth-tongued courtesy was little in accordance with his own frank and ingenuous nature; but he had been shocked at his unexpected and violent death, though accustomed to similar scenes, and he had been surprised at the exposure of his treachery. With a view to ascertain the extent of the latter, as soon as the body was removed, he began to question the Captain on the subject. The latter, having no particular motive for secrecy now that his agent was dead, in the course of the breakfast revealed the following circumstances, which will serve to clear up some of the minor incidents of our tale. Soon after the 55th appeared on the frontiers, Muir had volunteered his services to the enemy. In making his offers, he boasted of his intimacy with Lundie, and of the means it afforded of furnishing more accurate and important information than usual. His terms had been accepted, and Monsieur Sanglier had several interviews with him in the vicinity of the fort at Oswego, and had actually passed one entire night secreted in the garrison. Arrowhead, however, was the usual channel of communication; and the anonymous letter to Major Duncan had been originally written by Muir, transmitted to Frontenac, copied, and sent back by the Tuscarora, who was returning from that errand when captured by the _Scud_. It is scarcely necessary to add that Jasper was to be sacrificed in order to conceal the Quartermaster's treason, and that the position of the island had been betrayed to the enemy by the latter. An extraordinary compensation--that which was found in his purse--had induced him to accompany the party under Sergeant Dunham, in order to give the signals that were to bring on the attack. The disposition of Muir towards the sex was a natural weakness, and he would have married Mabel, or any one else who would accept his hand; but his admiration of her was in a great degree feigned, in order that he might have an excuse for accompanying the party without sharing in the responsibility of its defeat, or incurring the risk of having no other strong and seemingly sufficient motive. Much of this was known to Captain Sanglier, particularly the part in connection with Mabel, and he did not fail to let his auditors into the whole secret, frequently laughing in a sarcastic manner, as he revealed the different expedients of the luckless Quartermaster. “_Touchez-la_,” said the cold-blooded partisan, holding out his sinewy hand to Pathfinder, when he ended his explanations; “you be _honnete_, and dat is _beaucoup_. We tak' de spy as we tak' _la medicine_, for de good; _mais, je les deteste! Touchez-la. _” “I'll shake your hand, Captain, I will; for you're a lawful and nat'ral inimy,” returned Pathfinder, “and a manful one; but the body of the Quartermaster shall never disgrace English ground. I did intend to carry it back to Lundie that he might play his bagpipes over it, but now it shall lie here on the spot where he acted his villainy, and have his own treason for a headstone. Captain Flinty-heart, I suppose this consorting with traitors is a part of a soldier's regular business; but, I tell you honestly, it is not to my liking, and I'd rather it should be you than I who had this affair on his conscience. What an awful sinner! To plot, right and left, ag'in country, friends, and the Lord! Jasper, boy, a word with you aside, for a single minute.” Pathfinder now led the young man apart; and, squeezing his hand, with the tears in his own eyes, he continued: “You know me, Eau-douce, and I know you,” said he, “and this news has not changed my opinion of you in any manner. I never believed their tales, though it looked solemn at one minute, I will own; yes, it did look solemn, and it made me feel solemn too. I never suspected you for a minute, for I know your gifts don't lie that-a-way; but, I must own, I didn't suspect the Quartermaster neither.” “And he holding his Majesty's commission, Pathfinder!” “It isn't so much that, Jasper Western, it isn't so much that. He held a commission from God to act right, and to deal fairly with his fellow-creaturs, and he has failed awfully in his duty.” “To think of his pretending love for one like Mabel, too, when he felt none.” “That was bad, sartainly; the fellow must have had Mingo blood in his veins. The man that deals unfairly by a woman can be but a mongrel, lad; for the Lord has made them helpless on purpose that we may gain their love by kindness and sarvices. Here is the Sergeant, poor man, on his dying bed; he has given me his daughter for a wife, and Mabel, dear girl, she has consented to it; and it makes me feel that I have two welfares to look after, two natur's to care for, and two hearts to gladden. Ah's me, Jasper! I sometimes feel that I'm not good enough for that sweet child!” Eau-douce had nearly gasped for breath when he first heard this intelligence; and, though he succeeded in suppressing any other outward signs of agitation, his cheek was blanched nearly to the paleness of death. Still he found means to answer not only with firmness, but with energy,-- “Say not so, Pathfinder; you are good enough for a queen.” “Ay, ay, boy, according to your idees of my goodness; that is to say, I can kill a deer, or even a Mingo at need, with any man on the lines; or I can follow a forest-path with as true an eye, or read the stars, when others do not understand them. No doubt, no doubt, Mabel will have venison enough, and fish enough, and pigeons enough; but will she have knowledge enough, and will she have idees enough, and pleasant conversation enough, when life comes to drag a little, and each of us begins to pass for our true value?” “If you pass for your value, Pathfinder, the greatest lady in the land would be happy with you. On that head you have no reason to feel afraid.” “Now, Jasper, I dare to say _you_ think so, nay, I _know_ you do; for it is nat'ral, and according to friendship, for people to look over-favorably at them they love. Yes, yes; if I had to marry you, boy, I should give myself no consarn about my being well looked upon, for you have always shown a disposition to see me and all I do with friendly eyes. But a young gal, after all, must wish to marry a man that is nearer to her own age and fancies, than to have one old enough to be her father, and rude enough to frighten her. I wonder, Jasper, that Mabel never took a fancy to you, now, rather than setting her mind on me.” “Take, a fancy to me, Pathfinder!” returned the young man, endeavoring to clear his voice without betraying himself; “what is there about me to please such a girl as Mabel Dunham? I have all that you find fault with in yourself, with none of that excellence that makes even the generals respect you.” “Well, well, it's all chance, say what we will about it. Here have I journeyed and guided through the woods female after female, and consorted with them in the garrisons, and never have I even felt an inclination for any, until I saw Mabel Dunham. It's true the poor Sergeant first set me to thinking about his daughter; but after we got a little acquainted like, I'd no need of being spoken to, to think of her night and day. I'm tough, Jasper; yes, I'm very tough; and I'm risolute enough, as you all know; and yet I do think it would quite break me down, now, to lose Mabel Dunham!” “We will talk no more of it, Pathfinder,” said Jasper, returning his friend's squeeze of the hand, and moving back towards the fire, though slowly, and in the manner of one who cared little where he went; “we will talk no more of it. You are worthy of Mabel, and Mabel is worthy of you--you like Mabel, and Mabel likes you--her father has chosen you for her husband, and no one has a right to interfere. As for the Quartermaster, his feigning love for Mabel is worse even than his treason to the king.” By this time they were so near the fire that it was necessary to change the conversation. Luckily, at that instant, Cap, who had been in the block in company with his dying brother-in-law, and who knew nothing of what had passed since the capitulation, now appeared, walking with a meditative and melancholy air towards the group. Much of that hearty dogmatism, that imparted even to his ordinary air and demeanor an appearance of something like contempt for all around him, had disappeared, and he seemed thoughtful, if not meek. “This death, gentlemen,” said he, when he had got sufficiently near, “is a melancholy business, make the best of it. Now, here is Sergeant Dunham, a very good soldier, I make no question, about to slip his cable; and yet he holds on to the better end of it, as if he was determined it should never run out of the hawse-hole; and all because he loves his daughter, it seems to me. For my part, when a friend is really under the necessity of making a long journey, I always wish him well and happily off.” “You wouldn't kill the Sergeant before his time?” Pathfinder reproachfully answered. “Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that matter, I've known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got to be of the least value.” Nothing had been further from Cap's real thoughts than the wish to hasten his brother-in-law's end. He had found himself embarrassed with the duties of smoothing a deathbed, and all he had meant was to express a sincere desire that the Sergeant were happily rid of doubt and suffering. A little shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had been put on his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the man, though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his own wishes justice. “You are too old and too sensible a person, Pathfinder,” said he, “to fetch a man up with a surge, when he is paying out his ideas in distress, as it might be. Sergeant Dunham is both my brother-in-law and my friend,--that is to say, as intimate a friend as a soldier well can be with a seafaring man,--and I respect and honor him accordingly. I make no doubt, moreover, that he has lived such a life as becomes a man, and there can be no great harm, after all, in wishing any one well berthed in heaven. Well! we are mortal, the best of us, that you'll not deny; and it ought to be a lesson not to feel pride in our strength and beauty. Where is the Quartermaster, Pathfinder? It is proper he should come and have a parting word with the poor Sergeant, who is only going a little before us.” “You have spoken more truth, Master Cap, than you've been knowing to, all this time. You might have gone further, notwithstanding, and said that we are mortal, the _worst_ of us; which is quite as true, and a good deal more wholesome, than saying that we are mortal, the _best_ of us. As for the Quartermaster's coming to speak a parting word to the Sergeant, it is quite out of the question, seeing that he has gone ahead, and that too with little parting notice to himself, or to any one else.” “You are not quite so clear as common in your language, Pathfinder. I know that we ought all to have solemn thoughts on these occasions, but I see no use in speaking in parables.” “If my words are not plain, the idee is. In short, Master Cap, while Sergeant Dunham has been preparing himself for a long journey, like a conscientious and honest man as he is, deliberately, the Quartermaster has started, in a hurry, before him; and, although it is a matter on which it does not become me to be very positive, I give it as my opinion that they travel such different roads that they will never meet.” “Explain yourself, my friend,” said the bewildered seaman, looking around him in search of Muir, whose absence began to excite his distrust. “I see nothing of the Quartermaster; but I think him too much of a man to run away, now that the victory is gained. If the fight were ahead instead of in our wake, the case would be altered.” “There lies all that is left of him, beneath that greatcoat,” returned the guide, who then briefly related the manner of the Lieutenant's death. “The Tuscarora was as venemous in his blow as a rattler, though he failed to give the warning,” continued Pathfinder. “I've seen many a desperate fight, and several of these sudden outbreaks of savage temper; but never before did I see a human soul quit the body more unexpectedly, or at a worse moment for the hopes of the dying man. His breath was stopped with the lie on his lips, and the spirit might be said to have passed away in the very ardor of wickedness.” Cap listened with a gaping mouth; and he gave two or three violent hems, as the other concluded, like one who distrusted his own respiration. “This is an uncertain and uncomfortable life of yours, Master Pathfinder, what between the fresh water and the savages,” said he; “and the sooner I get quit of it, the higher will be my opinion of myself. Now you mention it, I will say that the man ran for that berth in the rocks, when the enemy first bore down upon us, with a sort of instinct that I thought surprising in an officer; but I was in too great a hurry to follow, to log the whole matter accurately. God bless me! God bless me! --a traitor, do you say, and ready to sell his country, and to a rascally Frenchman too?” “To sell anything; country, soul, body, Mabel, and all our scalps; and no ways particular, I'll engage, as to the purchaser. The countrymen of Captain Flinty-heart here were the paymasters this time.” “Just like 'em; ever ready to buy when they can't thrash, and to run when they can do neither.” Monsieur Sanglier lifted his cap with ironical gravity, and acknowledged the compliment with an expression of polite contempt that was altogether lost on its insensible subject. But Pathfinder had too much native courtesy, and was far too just-minded, to allow the attack to go unnoticed. “Well, well,” he interposed, “to my mind there is no great difference 'atween an Englishman and a Frenchman, after all. They talk different tongues, and live under different kings, I will allow; but both are human, and feel like human beings, when there is occasion for it.” Captain Flinty-heart, as Pathfinder called him, made another obeisance; but this time the smile was friendly, and not ironical; for he felt that the intention was good, whatever might have been the mode of expressing it. Too philosophical, however, to heed what a man like Cap might say or think, he finished his breakfast, without allowing his attention to be again diverted from that important pursuit. “My business here was principally with the Quartermaster,” Cap continued, as soon as he had done regarding the prisoner's pantomime. “The Sergeant must be near his end, and I have thought he might wish to say something to his successor in authority before he finally departed. It is too late, it would seem; and, as you say, Pathfinder, the Lieutenant has truly gone before.” “That he has, though on a different path. As for authority, I suppose the Corporal has now a right to command what's left of the 55th; though a small and worried, not to say frightened, party it is. But, if anything needs to be done, the chances are greatly in favor of my being called on to do it. I suppose, however, we have only to bury our dead; set fire to the block and the huts, for they stand in the inimy's territory by position, if not by law, and must not be left for their convenience. Our using them again is out of the question; for, now the Frenchers know where the island is to be found, it would be like thrusting the hand into a wolf-trap with our eyes wide open. This part of the work the Sarpent and I will see to, for we are as practysed in retreats as in advances.” “All that is very well, my good friend. And now for my poor brother-in-law: though he is a soldier, we cannot let him slip without a word of consolation and a leave-taking, in my judgment. This has been an unlucky affair on every tack; though I suppose it is what one had a right to expect, considering the state of the times and the nature of the navigation. We must make the best of it, and try to help the worthy man to unmoor, without straining his messengers. Death is a circumstance, after all, Master Pathfinder, and one of a very general character too, seeing that we must all submit to it, sooner or later.” “You say truth, you say truth; and for that reason I hold it to be wise to be always ready. I've often thought, Saltwater, that he is the happiest who has the least to leave behind him when the summons comes. Now, here am I, a hunter and a scout and a guide, although I do not own a foot of land on 'arth, yet do I enjoy and possess more than the great Albany Patroon. With the heavens over my head to keep me in mind of the last great hunt, and the dried leaves beneath my feet, I tramp over the ground as freely as if I was its lord and owner; and what more need heart desire? I do not say that I love nothing that belongs to 'arth; for I do, though not much, unless it might be Mabel Dunham, that I can't carry with me. I have some pups at the higher fort that I vally considerable, though they are too noisy for warfare, and so we are compelled to live separate for awhile; and then I think it would grieve me to part with Killdeer; but I see no reason why we should not be buried in the same grave, for we are as near as can be of the same length--six feet to a hair's breadth; but, bating these, and a pipe that the Sarpent gave me, and a few tokens received from travellers, all of which might be put in a pouch and laid under my head, when the order comes to march I shall be ready at a minute's warning; and, let me tell you, Master Cap, that's what I call a circumstance too.” “'Tis just so with me,” answered the sailor, as the two walked towards the block, too much occupied with their respective morality to remember at the moment the melancholy errand they were on; “that's just my way of feeling and reasoning. How often have I felt, when near shipwreck, the relief of not owning the craft! 'If she goes,' I have said to myself, 'why, my life goes with her, but not my property, and there's great comfort in that.' I've discovered, in the course of boxing about the world from the Horn to Cape North, not to speak of this run on a bit of fresh water, that if a man has a few dollars, and puts them in a chest under lock and key, he is pretty certain to fasten up his heart in the same till; and so I carry pretty much all I own in a belt round my body, in order, as I say, to keep the vitals in the right place. D---me, Pathfinder, if I think a man without a heart any better than a fish with a hole in his air-bag.” “I don't know how that may be, Master Cap; but a man without a conscience is but a poor creatur', take my word for it, as any one will discover who has to do with a Mingo. I trouble myself but little with dollars or half-joes, for these are the favoryte coin in this part of the world; but I can easily believe, by what I've seen of mankind, that if a man _has_ a chest filled with either, he may be said to lock up his heart in the same box. I once hunted for two summers, during the last peace, and I collected so much peltry that I found my right feelings giving way to a craving after property; and if I have consarn in marrying Mabel, it is that I may get to love such things too well, in order to make her comfortable.” “You're a philosopher, that's clear, Pathfinder; and I don't know but you're a Christian.” “I should be out of humor with the man that gainsayed the last, Master Cap. I have not been Christianized by the Moravians, like so many of the Delawares, it is true; but I hold to Christianity and white gifts. With me, it is as on-creditable for a white man not to be a Christian as it is for a red-skin not to believe in his happy hunting-grounds; indeed, after allowing for difference in traditions, and in some variations about the manner in which the spirit will be occupied after death, I hold that a good Delaware is a good Christian, though he never saw a Moravian; and a good Christian a good Delaware, so far as natur 'is consarned. The Sarpent and I talk these matters over often, for he has a hankerin' after Christianity--” “The d---l he has!” interrupted Cap. “And what does he intend to do in a church with all the scalps he takes?” “Don't run away with a false idee, friend Cap, don't run away with a false idee. These things are only skin-deep, and all depend on edication and nat'ral gifts. Look around you at mankind, and tell me why you see a red warrior here, a black one there, and white armies in another place? All this, and a great deal more of the same kind that I could point out, has been ordered for some special purpose; and it is not for us to fly in the face of facts and deny their truth. No, no; each color has its gifts, and its laws, and its traditions; and one is not to condemn another because he does not exactly comprehend it.” “You must have read a great deal, Pathfinder, to see things so clear as this,” returned Cap, not a little mystified by his companion's simple creed. “It's all as plain as day to me now, though I must say I never fell in with these opinions before. What denomination do you belong to, my friend?” “Anan?” “What sect do you hold out for? What particular church do you fetch up in?” “Look about you, and judge for yourself. I'm in church now; I eat in church, drink in church, sleep in church. The 'arth is the temple of the Lord, and I wait on Him hourly, daily, without ceasing, I humbly hope. No, no, I'll not deny my blood and color; but am Christian born, and shall die in the same faith. The Moravians tried me hard; and one of the King's chaplains has had his say too, though that's a class no ways strenuous on such matters; and a missionary sent from Rome talked much with me, as I guided him through the forest, during the last peace; but I've had one answer for them all--I'm a Christian already, and want to be neither Moravian, nor Churchman, nor Papist. No, no, I'll not deny my birth and blood.” “I think a word from you might lighten the Sergeant over the shoals of death, Master Pathfinder. He has no one with him but poor Mabel; and she, you know, besides being his daughter, is but a girl and a child after all.” “Mabel is feeble in body, friend Cap; but in matters of this natur' I doubt if she may not be stronger than most men. But Sergeant Dunham is my friend, and he is your brother-in-law; so, now the press of fighting and maintaining our rights is over, it is fitting we should both go and witness his departure. I've stood by many a dying man, Master Cap,” continued Pathfinder, who had a besetting propensity to enlarge on his experience, stopping and holding his companion by a button,--“I've stood by many a dying man's side, and seen his last gasp, and heard his last breath; for, when the hurry and tumult of the battle is over, it is good to bethink us of the misfortunate, and it is remarkable to witness how differently human natur' feels at such solemn moments. Some go their way as stupid and ignorant as if God had never given them reason and an accountable state; while others quit us rejoicing, like men who leave heavy burthens behind them. I think that the mind sees clearly at such moments, my friend, and that past deeds stand thick before the recollection.” “I'll engage they do, Pathfinder. I have witnessed something of this myself, and hope I'm the better man for it. I remember once that I thought my own time had come, and the log was overhauled with a diligence I did not think myself capable of until that moment. I've not been a very great sinner, friend Pathfinder; that is to say, never on a large scale; though I daresay, if the truth were spoken, a considerable amount of small matters might be raked up against me, as well as against another man; but then, I've never committed piracy, nor high treason, nor arson, nor any of them sort of things. As to smuggling, and the like of that, why, I'm a seafaring man, and I suppose all callings have their weak spots. I daresay your trade is not altogether without blemish, honorable and useful as it seems to be?” “Many of the scouts and guides are desperate knaves; and, like the Quartermaster here, some of them take pay of both sides. I hope I'm not one of them, though all occupations lead to temptations. Thrice have I been sorely tried in my life, and once I yielded a little, though I hope it was not in a matter to disturb a man's conscience in his last moments. The first time was when I found in the woods a pack of skins that I knowed belonged to a Frencher who was hunting on our side of the lines, where he had no business to be; twenty-six as handsome beavers as ever gladdened human eyes. Well, that was a sore temptation; for I thought the law would have been almost with me, although it was in peace times. But then, I remembered that such laws wasn't made for us hunters, and bethought me that the poor man might have built great expectations for the next winter on the sale of his skins; and I left them where they lay. Most of our people said I did wrong; but the manner in which I slept that night convinced me that I had done right. The next trial was when I found the rifle that is sartainly the only one in this part of the world that can be calculated on as surely as Killdeer, and knowed that by taking it, or even hiding it, I might at once rise to be the first shot in all these parts. I was then young, and by no means so expart as I have since got to be, and youth is ambitious and striving; but, God be praised! I mastered that feeling; and, friend Cap, what is almost as good, I mastered my rival in as fair a shooting-match as was ever witnessed in a garrison; he with his piece, and I with Killdeer, and before the General in person too!” Here Pathfinder stopped to laugh, his triumph still glittering in his eyes and glowing on his sunburnt and browned cheek. “Well, the next conflict with the devil was the hardest of them all; and that was when I came suddenly upon a camp of six Mingos asleep in the woods, with their guns and horns piled in away that enabled me to get possession of them without waking a miscreant of them all. What an opportunity that would have been for the Sarpent, who would have despatched them, one after another, with his knife, and had their six scalps at his girdle, in about the time it takes me to tell you the story. Oh, he's a valiant warrior, that Chingachgook, and as honest as he's brave, and as good as he's honest!” “And what may _you_ have done in this matter, Master Pathfinder?” demanded Cap, who began to be interested in the result; “it seems to me you had made either a very lucky, or a very unlucky landfall.” “'Twas lucky, and 'twas unlucky, if you can understand that. 'Twas unlucky, for it proved a desperate trial; and yet 'twas lucky, all things considered, in the ind. I did not touch a hair of their heads, for a white man has no nat'ral gifts to take scalps; nor did I even make sure of one of their rifles. I distrusted myself, knowing that a Mingo is no favorite in my own eyes.” “As for the scalps, I think you were right enough, my worthy friend; but as for the armament and the stores, they would have been condemned by any prize-court in Christendom.” “That they would, that they would; but then the Mingos would have gone clear, seeing that a white man can no more attack an unarmed than a sleeping inimy. No, no, I did myself, and my color, and my religion too, greater justice. I waited till their nap was over, and they well on their war-path again; and, by ambushing them here and flanking them there, I peppered the blackguards intrinsically like” (Pathfinder occasionally caught a fine word from his associates, and used it a little vaguely), “that only one ever got back to his village, and he came into his wigwam limping. Luckily, as it turned out, the great Delaware had only halted to jerk some venison, and was following on my trail; and when he got up he had five of the scoundrels' scalps hanging where they ought to be; so, you see, nothing was lost by doing right, either in the way of honor or in that of profit.” Cap grunted an assent, though the distinctions in his companion's morality, it must be owned, were not exactly clear to his understanding. The two had occasionally moved towards the block as they conversed, and then stopped again as some matter of more interest than common brought them to a halt. They were now so near the building, however, that neither thought of pursuing the subject any further; but each prepared himself for the final scene with Sergeant Dunham.	{ "id": "1880" }
28	None	Thou barraine ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight: Whilome thy fresh spring flower'd: and after hasted Thy summer prowde, with daffodillies dight; And now is come thy winter's stormy state, Thy mantle mar'd wherein thou maskedst late. SPENSER. Although the soldier may regard danger and even death with indifference in the tumult of battle, when the passage of the soul is delayed to moments of tranquillity and reflection the change commonly brings with it the usual train of solemn reflections; of regrets for the past, and of doubts and anticipations for the future. Many a man has died with a heroic expression on his lips, but with heaviness and distrust at his heart; for, whatever may be the varieties of our religious creeds, let us depend on the mediation of Christ, the dogmas of Mahomet, or the elaborated allegories of the East, there is a conviction, common to all men, that death is but the stepping-stone between this and a more elevated state of being. Sergeant Dunham was a brave man; but he was departing for a country in which resolution could avail him nothing; and as he felt himself gradually loosened from the grasp of the world, his thoughts and feelings took the natural direction; for if it be true that death is the great leveller, in nothing is it more true than that it reduces all to the same views of the vanity of life. Pathfinder, though a man of peculiar habits and opinions, was always thoughtful, and disposed to view the things around him with a shade of philosophy, as well as with seriousness. In him, therefore, the scene in the blockhouse awakened no very novel feelings. But the case was different with Cap: rude, opinionated, dogmatical, and boisterous, the old sailor was little accustomed to view even death with any approach to the gravity which its importance demands; and notwithstanding all that had passed, and his real regard for his brother-in-law, he now entered the room of the dying man with much of that callous unconcern which was the fruit of long training in a school that, while it gives so many lessons in the sublimest truths, generally wastes its admonitions on scholars who are little disposed to profit by them. The first proof that Cap gave of his not entering so fully as those around him into the solemnity of the moment, was by commencing a narration of the events which had just led to the deaths of Muir and Arrowhead. “Both tripped their anchors in a hurry, brother Dunham,” he concluded; “and you have the consolation of knowing that others have gone before you in the great journey, and they, too, men whom you've no particular reason to love; which to me, were I placed in your situation, would be a source of very great satisfaction. My mother always said, Master Pathfinder, that dying people's spirits should not be damped, but that they ought to be encouraged by all proper and prudent means; and this news will give the poor fellow a great lift, if he feels towards them savages any way as I feel myself.” June arose at this intelligence, and stole from the blockhouse with a noiseless step. Dunham listened with a vacant stare, for life had already lost so many of its ties that he had really forgotten Arrowhead, and cared nothing for Muir; but he inquired, in a feeble voice, for Eau-douce. The young man was immediately summoned, and soon made his appearance. The Sergeant gazed at him kindly, and the expression of his eyes was that of regret for the injury he had done him in thought. The party in the blockhouse now consisted of Pathfinder, Cap, Mabel, Jasper, and the dying man. With the exception of the daughter, all stood around the Sergeant's pallet, in attendance in his last moments. Mabel kneeled at his side, now pressing a clammy hand to her head, now applying moisture to the parched lips of her father. “Your case will shortly be ourn, Sergeant,” said Pathfinder, who could hardly be said to be awestruck by the scene, for he had witnessed the approach and victories of death too often for that; but who felt the full difference between his triumphs in the excitement of battle and in the quiet of the domestic circle; “and I make no question we shall meet ag'in hereafter. Arrowhead has gone his way, 'tis true; but it can never be the way of a just Indian. You've seen the last of him, for his path cannot be the path of the just. Reason is ag'in the thought in his case, as it is also, in my judgment, ag'in it too in the case of Lieutenant Muir. You have done your duty in life; and when a man does that, he may start on the longest journey with a light heart and an actyve foot.” “I hope so, my friend: I've tried to do my duty.” “Ay, ay,” put in Cap; “intention is half the battle; and though you would have done better had you hove-to in the offing and sent a craft in to feel how the land lay, things might have turned out differently: no one here doubts that you meant all for the best, and no one anywhere else, I should think, from what I've seen of this world and read of t'other.” “I did; yes. I meant all for the best.” “Father! Oh, my beloved father!” “Magnet is taken aback by this blow, Master Pathfinder, and can say or do but little to carry her father over the shoals; so we must try all the harder to serve him a friendly turn ourselves.” “Did you speak, Mabel?” Dunham asked, turning his eyes in the direction of his daughter, for he was already too feeble to turn his body. “Yes, father; rely on nothing you have done yourself for mercy and salvation; trust altogether in the blessed mediation of the Son of God!” “The chaplain has told us something like this, brother. The dear child may be right.” “Ay, ay, that's doctrine, out of question. He will be our Judge, and keeps the log-book of our acts, and will foot them all up at the last day, and then say who has done well and who has done ill. I do believe Mabel is right; but then you need not be concerned, as no doubt the account has been fairly kept.” “Uncle! --Dearest father! this is a vain illusion! Oh, place all your trust in the mediation of our Holy Redeemer! Have you not often felt your own insufficiency to effect your own wishes in the commonest things? And how can you imagine yourself, by your own acts, equal to raise up a frail and sinful nature sufficiently to be received into the presence of perfect purity? There is no hope for any but in the mediation of Christ!” “This is what the Moravians used to tell us,” said Pathfinder to Cap in a low voice; “rely on it, Mabel is right.” “Right enough, friend Pathfinder, in the distances, but wrong in the course. I'm afraid the child will get the Sergeant adrift, at the very moment when we had him in the best of the water and in the plainest part of the channel.” “Leave it to Mabel, leave it to Mabel; she knows better than any of us, and can do no harm.” “I have heard this before,” Dunham at length replied. “Ah, Mabel! it is strange for the parent to lean on the child at a moment like this!” “Put your trust in God, father; lean on His holy and compassionate Son. Pray, dearest, dearest father; pray for His omnipotent support.” “I am not used to prayer. Brother, Pathfinder--Jasper, can you help me to words?” Cap scarcely knew what prayer meant, and he had no answer to give. Pathfinder prayed often, daily, if not hourly; but it was mentally, in his own simple modes of thinking, and without the aid of words at all. In this strait, therefore, he was as useless as the mariner, and had no reply to make. As for Jasper Eau-douce, though he would gladly have endeavored to move a mountain to relieve Mabel, this was asking assistance it exceeded his power to give; and he shrank back with the shame that is only too apt to overcome the young and vigorous, when called on to perform an act that tacitly confesses their real weakness and dependence on a superior power. “Father,” said Mabel, wiping her eyes, and endeavoring to compose features that were pallid, and actually quivering with emotion, “I will pray with you, for you, for _myself_; for us _all_. The petition of the feeblest and humblest is never unheeded.” There was something sublime, as well as much that was supremely touching, in this act of filial piety. The quiet but earnest manner in which this young creature prepared herself to perform the duty; the self-abandonment with which she forgot her sex's timidity and sex's shame, in order to sustain her parent at that trying moment; the loftiness of purpose with which she directed all her powers to the immense object before her, with a woman's devotion and a woman's superiority to trifles, when her affections make the appeal; and the holy calm into which her grief was compressed, rendered her, for the moment, an object of something very like awe and veneration to her companions. Mabel had been religiously educated; equally without exaggeration and without self-sufficiency. Her reliance on God was cheerful and full of hope, while it was of the humblest and most dependent nature. She had been accustomed from childhood to address herself to the Deity in prayer; taking example from the Divine mandate of Christ Himself, who commanded His followers to abstain from vain repetitions, and who has left behind Him a petition which is unequalled for sublimity, as if expressly to rebuke the disposition of man to set up his own loose and random thoughts as the most acceptable sacrifice. The sect in which she had been reared has furnished to its followers some of the most beautiful compositions in the language, as a suitable vehicle for its devotion and solicitations. Accustomed to this mode of public and even private prayer, the mind of our heroine had naturally fallen into its train of lofty thought; her task had become improved by its study, and her language elevated and enriched by its phrases. When she kneeled at the bedside of her father, the very reverence of her attitude and manner prepared the spectators for what was to come; and as her affectionate heart prompted her tongue, and memory came in aid of both, the petition and praises that she offered up were of a character which might have worthily led the spirits of angels. Although the words were not slavishly borrowed, the expressions partook of the simple dignity of the liturgy to which she had been accustomed, and was probably as worthy of the Being to whom they were addressed as they could well be made by human powers. They produced their full impression on the hearers; for it is worthy of remark, that, notwithstanding the pernicious effects of a false taste when long submitted to, real sublimity and beauty are so closely allied to nature that they generally find an echo in every heart. But when our heroine came to touch upon the situation of the dying man, she became the most truly persuasive; for then she was the most truly zealous and natural. The beauty of the language was preserved, but it was sustained by the simple power of love; and her words were warmed by a holy zeal, that approached to the grandeur of true eloquence. We might record some of her expressions, but doubt the propriety of subjecting such sacred themes to a too familiar analysis, and refrain. The effect of this singular but solemn scene was different on the different individuals present. Dunham himself was soon lost in the subject of the prayer; and he felt some such relief as one who finds himself staggering on the edge of a precipice, under a burthen difficult to be borne, might be supposed to experience when he unexpectedly feels the weight removed, in order to be placed on the shoulders of another better able to sustain it. Cap was surprised, as well as awed; though the effects on his mind were not very deep or very lasting. He wondered a little at his own sensations, and had his doubts whether they were so manly and heroic as they ought to be; but he was far too sensible of the influence of truth, humility, religious submission, and human dependency, to think of interposing with any of his crude objections. Jasper knelt opposite to Mabel, covered his face, and followed her words, with an earnest wish to aid her prayers with his own; though it may be questioned if his thoughts did not dwell quite as much on the soft, gentle accents of the petitioner as on the subject of her petition. The effect on Pathfinder was striking and visible: visible, because he stood erect, also opposite to Mabel; and the workings of his countenance, as usual, betrayed the workings of the spirit within. He leaned on his rifle, and at moments the sinewy fingers grasped the barrel with a force that seemed to compress the weapon; while, once or twice, as Mabel's language rose in intimate association with her thoughts, he lifted his eyes to the floor above him, as if he expected to find some visible evidence of the presence of the dread Being to whom the words were addressed. Then again his feelings reverted to the fair creature who was thus pouring out her spirit, in fervent but calm petitions, in behalf of a dying parent; for Mabel's cheek was no longer pallid, but was flushed with a holy enthusiasm, while her blue eyes were upturned in the light, in a way to resemble a picture by Guido. At these moments all the honest and manly attachment of Pathfinder glowed in his ingenuous features, and his gaze at our heroine was such as the fondest parent might fasten on the child of his love. Sergeant Dunham laid his hand feebly on the head of Mabel as she ceased praying, and buried her face in his blanket. “Bless you, my beloved child! bless you!” he rather whispered than uttered aloud; “this is truly consolation: would that I too could pray!” “Father, you know the Lord's Prayer; you taught it to me yourself while I was yet an infant.” The Sergeant's face gleamed with a smile, for he _did_ remember to have discharged that portion at least of the paternal duty, and the consciousness of it gave him inconceivable gratification at that solemn moment. He was then silent for several minutes, and all present believed that he was communing with God. “Mabel, my child!” he at length uttered, in a voice which seemed to be reviving,--“Mabel, I'm quitting you.” The spirit at its great and final passage appears ever to consider the body as nothing. “I'm quitting you, my child; where is your hand?” “Here, dearest father--here are both--oh, take both!” “Pathfinder,” added the Sergeant, feeling on the opposite side of the bed, where Jasper still knelt, and getting one of the hands of the young man by mistake, “take it--I leave you as her father--as you and she may please--bless you--bless you both!” At that awful instant, no one would rudely apprise the Sergeant of his mistake; and he died a minute or two later, holding Jasper's and Mabel's hands covered by both his own. Our heroine was ignorant of the fact until an exclamation of Cap's announced the death of her father; when, raising her face, she saw the eyes of Jasper riveted on her own, and felt the warm pressure of his hand. But a single feeling was predominant at that instant, and Mabel withdrew to weep, scarcely conscious of what had occurred. The Pathfinder took the arm of Eau-douce, and he left the block. The two friends walked in silence past the fire, along the glade, and nearly reached the opposite shore of the island in profound silence. Here they stopped, and Pathfinder spoke. “'Tis all over, Jasper,” said he,--“'tis all over. Ah's me! Poor Sergeant Dunham has finished his march, and that, too, by the hand of a venomous Mingo. Well, we never know what is to happen, and his luck may be yourn or mine to-morrow or next day!” “And Mabel? What is to become of Mabel, Pathfinder?” “You heard the Sergeant's dying words; he has left his child in my care, Jasper; and it is a most solemn trust, it is; yes,--it is a most solemn trust.” “It's a trust, Pathfinder, of which any man would be glad to relieve you,” returned the youth, with a bitter smile. “I've often thought it has fallen into wrong hands. I'm not consaited, Jasper; I'm not consaited, I do think I'm not; but if Mabel Dunham is willing to overlook all my imperfections and ignorances like, I should be wrong to gainsay it, on account of any sartainty I may have myself about my own want of merit.” “No one will blame you, Pathfinder, for marrying Mabel Dunham, any more than they will blame you for wearing a precious jewel in your bosom that a friend had freely given you.” “Do you think they'll blame Mabel, lad? I've had my misgivings about that, too; for all persons may not be so disposed to look at me with the same eyes as you and the Sergeant's daughter.” Jasper Eau-douce started as a man flinches at sudden bodily pain; but he otherwise maintained his self-command. “And mankind is envious and ill-natured, more particularly in and about the garrisons. I sometimes wish, Jasper, that Mabel could have taken a fancy to you,--I do; and that you had taken a fancy to her; for it often seems to me that one like you, after all, might make her happier than I ever can.” “We will not talk about this, Pathfinder,” interrupted Jasper hoarsely and impatiently; “you will be Mabel's husband, and it is not right to speak of any one else in that character. As for me, I shall take Master Cap's advice, and try and make a man of myself by seeing what is to be done on the salt water.” “You, Jasper Western! --you quit the lakes, the forests, and the lines; and this, too, for the towns and wasty ways of the settlements, and a little difference in the taste of the water. Haven't we the salt-licks, if salt is necessary to you? and oughtn't man to be satisfied with what contents the other creatur's of God? I counted on you, Jasper, I counted on you, I did; and thought, now that Mabel and I intend to dwell in a cabin of our own, that some day you might be tempted to choose a companion too, and come and settle in our neighborhood. There is a beautiful spot, about fifty miles west of the garrison, that I had chosen in my mind for my own place of abode; and there is an excellent harbor about ten leagues this side of it where you could run in and out with the cutter at any leisure minute; and I'd even fancied you and your wife in possession of the one place, and Mabel and I in possession of t'other. We should be just a healthy hunt apart; and if the Lord ever intends any of His creaturs to be happy on 'arth, none could be happier than we four.” “You forget, my friend,” answered Jasper, taking the guide's hand and forcing a friendly smile, “that I have no fourth person to love and cherish; and I much doubt if I ever shall love any other as I love you and Mabel.” “Thank'e, boy; I thank you with all my heart; but what you call love for Mabel is only friendship like, and a very different thing from what I feel. Now, instead of sleeping as sound as natur' at midnight, as I used to could, I dream nightly of Mabel Dunham. The young does sport before me; and when I raise Killdeer, in order to take a little venison, the animals look back, and it seems as if they all had Mabel's sweet countenance, laughing in my face, and looking as if they said, 'Shoot me if you dare!' Then I hear her soft voice calling out among the birds as they sing; and no later than the last nap I took, I bethought me, in fancy, of going over the Niagara, holding Mabel in my arms, rather than part from her. The bitterest moments I've ever known were them in which the devil, or some Mingo conjuror, perhaps, has just put into my head to fancy in dreams that Mabel is lost to me by some unaccountable calamity--either by changefulness or by violence.” “Oh, Pathfinder! If you think this so bitter in a dream, what must it be to one who feels its reality, and knows it all to be true, true, true? So true as to leave no hope; to leave nothing but despair!” These words burst from Jasper as a fluid pours from the vessel that has been suddenly broken. They were uttered involuntarily, almost unconsciously, but with a truth and feeling that carried with them the instant conviction of their deep sincerity. Pathfinder started, gazed at his friend for full a minute like one bewildered, and then it was that, in despite of all his simplicity, the truth gleamed upon him. All know how corroborating proofs crowd upon the mind as soon as it catches a direct clue to any hitherto unsuspected fact; how rapidly the thoughts flow and premises tend to their just conclusions under such circumstances. Our hero was so confiding by nature, so just, and so much disposed to imagine that all his friends wished him the same happiness as he wished them, that, until this unfortunate moment, a suspicion of Jasper's attachment for Mabel had never been awakened in his bosom. He was, however, now too experienced in the emotions which characterize the passion; and the burst of feeling in his companion was too violent and too natural to leave any further doubt on the subject. The feeling that first followed this change of opinion was one of deep humility and exquisite pain. He bethought him of Jasper's youth, his higher claims to personal appearance, and all the general probabilities that such a suitor would be more agreeable to Mabel than he could possibly be himself. Then the noble rectitude of mind, for which the man was so distinguished, asserted its power; it was sustained by his rebuked manner of thinking of himself, and all that habitual deference for the rights and feelings of others which appeared to be inbred in his very nature. Taking the arm of Jasper, he led him to a log, where he compelled the young man to seat himself by a sort of irresistible exercise of his iron muscles, and where he placed himself at his side. The instant his feelings had found vent, Eau-douce was both alarmed at, and ashamed of, their violence. He would have given all he possessed on earth could the last three minutes be recalled; but he was too frank by disposition and too much accustomed to deal ingenuously by his friend to think a moment of attempting further concealment, or of any evasion of the explanation that he knew was about to be demanded. Even while he trembled in anticipation of what was about to follow, he never contemplated equivocation. “Jasper,” Pathfinder commenced, in a tone so solemn as to thrill on every nerve in his listener's body, “this _has_ surprised me! You have kinder feelings towards Mabel than I had thought; and, unless my own mistaken vanity and consait have cruelly deceived me, I pity you, boy, from my soul I do! Yes, I think I know how to pity any one who has set his heart on a creature like Mabel, unless he sees a prospect of her regarding him as he regards her. This matter must be cleared up, Eau-douce, as the Delawares say, until there shall not be a cloud 'atween us.” “What clearing up can it want, Pathfinder? I love Mabel Dunham, and Mabel Dunham does not love me; she prefers you for a husband; and the wisest thing I can do is to go off at once to the salt water, and try to forget you both.” “Forget me, Jasper! That would be a punishment I don't desarve. But how do you know that Mabel prefars _me_? How do you know it, lad? To me it seems impossible like!” “Is she not to marry you, and would Mabel marry a man she does not love?” “She has been hard urged by the Sergeant, she has; and a dutiful child may have found it difficult to withstand the wishes of a dying parent. Have you ever told Mabel that you prefarred her, Jasper--that you bore her these feelings?” “Never, Pathfinder. I would not do you that wrong.” “I believe you, lad, I do believe you; and I think you would now go off to the salt water, and let the scent die with you. But this must not be. Mabel shall hear all, and she shall have her own way, if my heart breaks in the trial, she shall. No words have ever passed 'atween you, then, Jasper?” “Nothing of account, nothing direct. Still, I will own all my foolishness, Pathfinder; for I ought to own it to a generous friend like you, and there will be an end of it. You know how young people understand each other, or think they understand each other, without always speaking out in plain speech, and get to know each other's thoughts, or to think they know them, by means of a hundred little ways.” “Not I, Jasper, not I,” truly answered the guide; for, sooth to say, his advances had never been met with any of that sweet and precious encouragement which silently marks the course of sympathy united to passion. “Not I, Jasper; I know nothing of all this. Mabel has always treated me fairly, and said what she has had to say in speech as plain as tongue could tell it.” “You have had the pleasure of hearing her say that she loved you, Pathfinder?” “Why, no, Jasper, not just that in words. She has told me that we never could, never ought to be married; that _she_ was not good enough for _me_, though she _did_ say that she honored me and respected me. But then the Sergeant said it was always so with the youthful and timid; that her mother did so and said so afore her; and that I ought to be satisfied if she would consent on any terms to marry me, and therefore I have concluded that all was right, I have.” In spite of all his friendship for the successful wooer, in spite of all his honest, sincere wished for his happiness, we should be unfaithful chroniclers did we not own that Jasper felt his heart bound with an uncontrollable feeling of delight at this admission. It was not that he saw or felt any hope connected with the circumstance; but it was grateful to the jealous covetousness of unlimited love thus to learn that no other ears had heard the sweet confessions that were denied its own. “Tell me more of this manner of talking without the use of the tongue,” continued Pathfinder, whose countenance was becoming grave, and who now questioned his companion like one who seemed to anticipate evil in the reply. “I can and have conversed with Chingachgook, and with his son Uncas too, in that mode, afore the latter fell; but I didn't know that young girls practysed this art, and, least of all, Mabel Dunham.” “'Tis nothing, Pathfinder. I mean only a look, or a smile, or a glance of the eye, or the trembling of an arm or a hand when the young woman has had occasion to touch me; and because I have been weak enough to tremble even at Mabel's breath, or her brushing me with her clothes, my vain thoughts have misled me. I never spoke plainly to Mabel myself, and now there is no use for it, since there is clearly no hope.” “Jasper,” returned Pathfinder simply, but with a dignity that precluded further remarks at the moment, “we will talk of the Sergeant's funeral and of our own departure from this island. After these things are disposed of, it will be time enough to say more of the Sergeant's daughter. This matter must be looked into, for the father left me the care of his child.” Jasper was glad enough to change the subject, and the friends separated, each charged with the duty most peculiar to his own station and habits. That afternoon all the dead were interred, the grave of Sergeant Dunham being dug in the centre of the glade, beneath the shade of a huge elm. Mabel wept bitterly at the ceremony, and she found relief in thus disburthening her sorrow. The night passed tranquilly, as did the whole of the following day, Jasper declaring that the gale was too severe to venture on the lake. This circumstance detained Captain Sanglier also, who did not quit the island until the morning of the third day after the death of Dunham, when the weather had moderated, and the wind had become fair. Then, indeed, he departed, after taking leave of the Pathfinder, in the manner of one who believed he was in company of a distinguished character for the last time. The two separated like those who respect one another, while each felt that the other was all enigma to himself.	{ "id": "1880" }
29	None	Playful she turn'd that he might see The passing smile her cheek put on; But when she marked how mournfully His eyes met hers, that smile was gone. _Lalla Rookh. _ The occurrences of the last few days had been too exciting, and had made too many demands on the fortitude of our heroine, to leave her in the helplessness of grief. She mourned for her father, and she occasionally shuddered as she recalled the sudden death of Jennie, and all the horrible scenes she had witnessed; but on the whole she had aroused herself, and was no longer in the deep depression which usually accompanies grief. Perhaps the overwhelming, almost stupefying sorrow that crushed poor June, and left her for nearly twenty-four hours in a state of stupor, assisted Mabel in conquering her own feelings, for she had felt called on to administer consolation to the young Indian woman. This she had done in the quiet, soothing, insinuating way in which her sex usually exerts its influence on such occasions. The morning of the third day was set for that on which the _Scud_ was to sail. Jasper had made all his preparations; the different effects were embarked, and Mabel had taken leave of June, a painful and affectionate parting. In a word, all was ready, and every soul had left the island but the Indian woman, Pathfinder, Jasper, and our heroine. The former had gone into a thicket to weep, and the three last were approaching the spot where three canoes lay, one of which was the property of June, and the other two were in waiting to carry the others off to the _Scud_. Pathfinder led the way, but, when he drew near the shore, instead of taking the direction to the boats, he motioned to his companions to follow, and proceeded to a fallen tree which lay on the margin of the glade and out of view of those in the cutter. Seating himself on the trunk, he signed to Mabel to take her place on one side of him and to Jasper to occupy the other. “Sit down here Mabel; sit down there, Eau-douce,” he commenced, as soon as he had taken his own seat. “I've something that lies heavy on my mind, and now is the time to take it off, if it's ever to be done. Sit down, Mabel, and let me lighten my heart, if not my conscience, while I've the strength to do it.” The pause that succeeded lasted two or three minutes, and both the young people wondered what was to come next; the idea that Pathfinder could have any weight on his conscience seeming equally improbable to each. “Mabel,” our hero at length resumed, “we must talk plainly to each other afore we join your uncle in the cutter, where the Saltwater has slept every night since the last rally, for he says it's the only place in which a man can be sure of keeping the hair on his head, he does. Ah's me! What have I to do with these follies and sayings now? I try to be pleasant, and to feel light-hearted, but the power of man can't make water run up stream. Mabel, you know that the Sergeant, afore he left us, had settled it 'atween us two that we were to become man and wife, and that we were to live together and to love one another as long as the Lord was pleased to keep us both on 'arth; yes, and afterwards too?” Mabel's cheeks had regained a little of their ancient bloom in the fresh air of the morning; but at this unlooked-for address they blanched again, nearly to the pallid hue which grief had imprinted there. Still, she looked kindly, though seriously, at Pathfinder and even endeavored to force a smile. “Very true, my excellent friend,” she answered; “this was my poor father's wish, and I feel certain that a whole life devoted to your welfare and comforts could scarcely repay you for all you have done for us.” “I fear me, Mabel, that man and wife needs be bound together by a stronger tie than such feelings, I do. You have done nothing for me, or nothing of any account, and yet my very heart yearns towards you, it does; and therefore it seems likely that these feelings come from something besides saving scalps and guiding through woods.” Mabel's cheek had begun to glow again; and though she struggled hard to smile, her voice trembled a little as she answered. “Had we not better postpone this conversation, Pathfinder?” she said; “we are not alone; and nothing is so unpleasant to a listener, they say, as family matters in which he feels no interest.” “It's because we are not alone, Mabel, or rather because Jasper is with us, that I wish to talk of this matter. The Sergeant believed I might make a suitable companion for you, and, though I had misgivings about it,--yes, I had many misgivings,--he finally persuaded me into the idee, and things came round 'atween us, as you know. But, when you promised your father to marry me, Mabel, and gave me your hand so modestly, but so prettily, there was one circumstance, as your uncle called it, that you didn't know; and I've thought it right to tell you what it is, before matters are finally settled. I've often taken a poor deer for my dinner when good venison was not to be found; but it's as nat'ral not to take up with the worst when the best may be had.” “You speak in a way, Pathfinder, that is difficult to be understood. If this conversation is really necessary, I trust you will be more plain.” “Well then, Mabel, I've been thinking it was quite likely, when you gave in to the Sergeant's wishes, that you did not know the natur' of Jasper Western's feelings towards you?” “Pathfinder!” and Mabel's cheek now paled to the livid hue of death; then it flushed to the tint of crimson; and her whole frame shuddered. Pathfinder, however, was too intent on his own object to notice this agitation; and Eau-douce had hidden his face in his hands in time to shut out its view. “I've been talking with the lad; and, on comparing his dreams with my dreams, his feelings with my feelings, and his wishes with my wishes, I fear we think too much alike consarning you for both of us to be very happy.” “Pathfinder, you forget; you should remember that we are betrothed!” said Mabel hastily, and in a voice so low that it required acute attention in the listeners to catch the syllables. Indeed the last word was not quite intelligible to the guide, and he confessed his ignorance by the usual,-- “Anan?” “You forget that we are to be married; and such allusions are improper as well as painful.” “Everything is proper that is right, Mabel; and everything is right that leads to justice and fair dealing; though it _is painful_ enough, as you say, as I find on trial, I do. Now, Mabel, had you known that Eau-douce thinks of you in this way, maybe you never would have consented to be married to one as old and as uncomely as I am.” “Why this cruel trial, Pathfinder? To what can all this lead? Jasper Western thinks no such thing: he says nothing, he feels nothing.” “Mabel!” burst from out of the young man's lips, in a way to betray the uncontrollable nature of his emotions, though he uttered not another syllable. Mabel buried her face in both her hands; and the two sat like a pair of guilty beings, suddenly detected in the commission of some crime which involved the happiness of a common patron. At that instant, perhaps, Jasper himself was inclined to deny his passion, through an extreme unwillingness to grieve his friend; while Mabel, on whom this positive announcement of a fact that she had rather unconsciously hoped than believed, came so unexpectedly, felt her mind momentarily bewildered; and she scarcely knew whether to weep or to rejoice. Still she was the first to speak; since Eau-douce could utter naught that would be disingenuous, or that would pain his friend. “Pathfinder,” said she, “you talk wildly. Why mention this at all?” “Well, Mabel, if I talk wildly, I _am_ half wild, you know, by natur', I fear, as well as by habit.” As he said this, he endeavored to laugh in his usual noiseless way, but the effect produced a strange and discordant sound; and it appeared nearly to choke him. “Yes, I _must_ be wild; I'll not attempt to deny it.” “Dearest Pathfinder! my best, almost my only friend! You _cannot, do not_ think I intended to say that!” interrupted Mabel, almost breathless in her haste to relieve his mortification. “If courage, truth, nobleness of soul and conduct, unyielding principles, and a hundred other excellent qualities can render any man respectable, esteemed, or beloved, your claims are inferior to those of no other human being.” “What tender and bewitching voices they have, Jasper!” resumed the guide, now laughing freely and naturally. “Yes, natur' seems to have made them on purpose to sing in our ears, when the music of the woods is silent. But we must come to a right understanding, we must. I ask you again, Mabel, if you had known that Jasper Western loves you as well as I do, or better perhaps, though that is scarcely possible; that in his dreams he sees your face in the water of the lake; that he talks to you, and of you, in his sleep; fancies all that is beautiful like Mabel Dunham, and all that is good and virtuous; believes he never knowed happiness until he knowed you; could kiss the ground on which you have trod, and forgets all the joys of his calling to think of you and the delight of gazing at your beauty and in listening to your voice, would you then have consented to marry me?” Mabel could not have answered this question if she would; but, though her face was buried in her hands, the tint of the rushing blood was visible between the openings, and the suffusion seemed to impart itself to her very fingers. Still nature asserted her power, for there was a single instant when the astonished, almost terrified girl stole a glance at Jasper, as if distrusting Pathfinder's history of his feelings, read the truth of all he said in that furtive look, and instantly concealed her face again, as if she would hide it from observation for ever. “Take time to think, Mabel,” the guide continued, “for it is a solemn thing to accept one man for a husband while the thoughts and wishes lead to another. Jasper and I have talked this matter over, freely and like old friends, and, though I always knowed that we viewed most things pretty much alike, I couldn't have thought that we regarded any particular object with the very same eyes, as it might be, until we opened our minds to each other about you. Now Jasper owns that the very first time he beheld you, he thought you the sweetest and winningestest creatur' he had ever met; that your voice sounded like murmuring water in his ears; that he fancied his sails were your garments fluttering in the wind; that your laugh haunted him in his sleep; and that ag'in and ag'in has he started up affrighted, because he has fancied some one wanted to force you out of the _Scud_, where he imagined you had taken up your abode. Nay, the lad has even acknowledged that he often weeps at the thought that you are likely to spend your days with another, and not with him.” “Jasper!” “It's solemn truth, Mabel, and it's right you should know it. Now stand up, and choose 'atween us. I do believe Eau-douce loves you as well as I do myself; he has tried to persuade me that he loves you better, but that I will not allow, for I do not think it possible; but I will own the boy loves you, heart and soul, and he has a good right to be heard. The Sergeant left me your protector, and not your tyrant. I told him that I would be a father to you as well as a husband, and it seems to me no feeling father would deny his child this small privilege. Stand up, Mabel, therefore, and speak your thoughts as freely as if I were the Sergeant himself, seeking your good, and nothing else.” Mabel dropped her hands, arose, and stood face to face with her two suitors, though the flush that was on her cheeks was feverish, the evidence of excitement rather than of shame. “What would you have, Pathfinder?” she asked; “Have I not already promised my poor father to do all you desire?” “Then I desire this. Here I stand, a man of the forest and of little larning, though I fear with an ambition beyond my desarts, and I'll do my endivors to do justice to both sides. In the first place, it is allowed that, so far as feelings in your behalf are consarned, we love you just the same; Jasper thinks his feelings _must_ be the strongest, but this I cannot say in honesty, for it doesn't seem to me that it _can_ be true, else I would frankly and freely confess it, I would. So in this particular, Mabel, we are here before you on equal tarms. As for myself, being the oldest, I'll first say what little can be produced in my favor, as well as ag'in it. As a hunter, I do think there is no man near the lines that can outdo me. If venison, or bear's meat, or even birds and fish, should ever be scarce in our cabin, it would be more likely to be owing to natur' and Providence than to any fault of mine. In short, it does seem to me that the woman who depended on me would never be likely to want for food. But I'm fearful ignorant! It's true I speak several tongues, such as they be, while I'm very far from being expart at my own. Then, my years are greater than your own, Mabel; and the circumstance that I was so long the Sergeant's comrade can be no great merit in your eyes. I wish, too, I was more comely, I do; but we are all as natur' made us, and the last thing that a man ought to lament, except on very special occasions, is his looks. When all is remembered, age, looks, learning, and habits, Mabel, conscience tells me I ought to confess that I'm altogether unfit for you, if not downright unworthy; and I would give up the hope this minute, I would, if I didn't feel something pulling at my heart-strings which seems hard to undo.” “Pathfinder! Noble, generous Pathfinder!” cried our heroine, seizing his hand and kissing it with a species of holy reverence; “You do yourself injustice--you forget my poor father and your promise--you do not know _me_!” “Now, here's Jasper,” continued the guide, without allowing the girl's caresses to win him from his purpose, “with _him_ the case is different. In the way of providing, as in that of loving, there's not much to choose 'atween us; for the lad is frugal, industrious, and careful. Then he is quite a scholar, knows the tongue of the Frenchers, reads many books, and some, I know, that you like to read yourself, can understand you at all times, which, perhaps, is more than I can say for myself.” “What of all this?” interrupted Mabel impatiently; “Why speak of it now--why speak of it at all?” “Then the lad has a manner of letting his thoughts be known, that I fear I can never equal. If there's anything on 'arth that would make my tongue bold and persuading, Mabel, I do think it's yourself; and yet in our late conversations Jasper has outdone me, even on this point, in a way to make me ashamed of myself. He has told me how simple you were, and how true-hearted, and kind-hearted; and how you looked down upon vanities, for though you might be the wife of more than one officer, as he thinks, that you cling to feeling, and would rather be true to yourself and natur' than a colonel's lady. He fairly made my blood warm, he did, when he spoke of your having beauty without seeming ever to have looked upon it, and the manner in which you moved about like a young fa'n, so nat'ral and graceful like, without knowing it; and the truth and justice of your idees, and the warmth and generosity of your heart--” “Jasper!” interrupted Mabel, giving way to feelings that had gathered an ungovernable force by being so long pent, and falling into the young man's willing arms, weeping like a child, and almost as helpless. “Jasper! Jasper! Why have you kept this from me?” The answer of Eau-douce was not very intelligible, nor was the murmured dialogue that followed remarkable for coherency. But the language of affection is easily understood. The hour that succeeded passed like a very few minutes of ordinary life, so far as a computation of time was concerned; and when Mabel recollected herself, and bethought her of the existence of others, her uncle was pacing the cutter's deck in great impatience, and wondering why Jasper should be losing so much of a favorable wind. Her first thought was of him, who was so likely to feel the recent betrayal of her real emotions. “Oh, Jasper,” she exclaimed, like one suddenly self-convicted, “the Pathfinder!” Eau-douce fairly trembled, not with unmanly apprehension, but with the painful conviction of the pang he had given his friend; and he looked in all directions in the expectation of seeing his person. But Pathfinder had withdrawn, with a tact and a delicacy that might have done credit to the sensibility and breeding of a courtier. For several minutes the two lovers sat, silently waiting his return, uncertain what propriety required of them under circumstances so marked and so peculiar. At length they beheld their friend advancing slowly towards them, with a thoughtful and even pensive air. “I now understand what you meant, Jasper, by speaking without a tongue and hearing without an ear,” he said when close enough to the tree to be heard. “Yes, I understand it now, I do; and a very pleasant sort of discourse it is, when one can hold it with Mabel Dunham. Ah's me! I told the Sergeant I wasn't fit for her; that I was too old, too ignorant, and too wild like; but he _would_ have it otherwise.” Jasper and Mabel sat, resembling Milton's picture of our first parents, when the consciousness of sin first laid its leaden weight on their souls. Neither spoke, neither even moved; though both at that moment fancied they could part with their new-found happiness in order to restore their friend to his peace of mind. Jasper was pale as death, but, in Mabel, maiden modesty had caused the blood to mantle on her cheeks, until their bloom was heightened to a richness that was scarcely equalled in her hours of light-hearted buoyancy and joy. As the feeling which, in her sex, always accompanies the security of love returned, threw its softness and tenderness over her countenance, she was singularly beautiful. Pathfinder gazed at her with an intentness he did not endeavor to conceal, and then he fairly laughed in his own way, and with a sort of wild exultation, as men that are untutored are wont to express their delight. This momentary indulgence, however, was expiated by the pang which followed the sudden consciousness that this glorious young creature was lost to him for ever. It required a full minute for this simple-minded being to recover from the shock of this conviction; and then he recovered his dignity of manner, speaking with gravity, almost with solemnity. “I have always known, Mabel Dunham, that men have their gifts,” said he; “but I'd forgotten that it did not belong to mine to please the young, the beautiful, and l'arned. I hope the mistake has been no very heavy sin; and if it was, I've been heavily punished for it, I have. Nay, Mabel, I know what you'd say, but it's unnecessary; I _feel_ it all, and that is as good as if I _heard_ it all. I've had a bitter hour, Mabel. I've had a very bitter hour, lad.” “Hour!” echoed Mabel, as the other first used the word; the tell-tale blood, which had begun to ebb towards her heart, rushing again tumultuously to her very temples; “surely not an hour, Pathfinder?” “Hour!” exclaimed Jasper at the same instant; “No, no, my worthy friend, it is not ten minutes since you left us!” “Well, it may be so; though to me it has seemed to be a day. I begin to think, however, that the happy count time by minutes, and the miserable count it by months. But we will talk no more of this; it is all over now, and many words about it will make you no happier, while they will only tell me what I've lost; and quite likely how much I desarved to lose her. No, no, Mabel, 'tis useless to interrupt me; I admit it all, and your gainsaying it, though it be so well meant, cannot change my mind. Well, Jasper, she is yours; and, though it's hard to think it, I do believe you'll make her happier than I could, for your gifts are better suited to do so, though I would have strived hard to do as much, if I know myself, I would. I ought to have known better than to believe the Sergeant; and I ought to have put faith in what Mabel told me at the head of the lake, for reason and judgment might have shown me its truth; but it is so pleasant to think what we wish, and mankind so easily over-persuade us, when we over-persuade ourselves. But what's the use in talking of it, as I said afore? It's true, Mabel seemed to be consenting, though it all came from a wish to please her father, and from being skeary about the savages--” “Pathfinder!” “I understand you, Mabel, and have no hard feelings, I haven't. I sometimes think I should like to live in your neighborhood, that I might look at your happiness; but, on the whole, it's better I should quit the 55th altogether, and go back to the 60th, which is my natyve rigiment, as it might be. It would have been better, perhaps, had I never left it, though my sarvices were much wanted in this quarter, and I'd been with some of the 55th years agone; Sergeant Dunham, for instance, when he was in another corps. Still, Jasper, I do not regret that I've known you--” “And me, Pathfinder!” impetuously interrupted Mabel; “do you regret having known _me_? Could I think so, I should never be at peace with myself.” “You, Mabel!” returned the guide, taking the hand of our heroine and looking up into her countenance with guileless simplicity, but earnest affection; “How could I be sorry that a ray of the sun came across the gloom of a cheerless day--that light has broken in upon darkness, though it remained so short a time? I do not flatter myself with being able to march quite so light-hearted as I once used to could, or to sleep as sound, for some time to come; but I shall always remember how near I was to being undeservedly happy, I shall. So far from blaming you, Mabel, I only blame myself for being so vain as to think it possible I could please such a creatur'; for sartainly you told me how it was, when we talked it over on the mountain, and I ought to have believed you then; for I do suppose it's nat'ral that young women should know their own minds better than their fathers. Ah's me! It's settled now, and nothing remains but for me to take leave of you, that you may depart; I feel that Master Cap must be impatient, and there is danger of his coming on shore to look for us all.” “To take leave!” exclaimed Mabel. “Leave!” echoed Jasper; “You do not mean to quit us, my friend?” “'Tis best, Mabel, 'tis altogether best, Eau-douce; and it's wisest. I could live and die in your company, if I only followed feeling; but, if I follow reason, I shall quit you here. You will go back to Oswego, and become man and wife as soon as you arrive,--for all that is determined with Master Cap, who hankers after the sea again, and who knows what is to happen,--while I shall return to the wilderness and my Maker. Come, Mabel,” continued Pathfinder, rising and drawing nearer to our heroine, with grave decorum, “kiss me; Jasper will not grudge me one kiss; then we'll part.” “Oh, Pathfinder!” exclaimed Mabel, falling into the arms of the guide, and kissing his cheeks again and again, with a freedom and warmth she had been far from manifesting while held to the bosom of Jasper; “God bless you, dearest Pathfinder! You'll come to us hereafter. We shall see you again. When old, you will come to our dwelling, and let me be a daughter to you?” “Yes, that's it,” returned the guide, almost gasping for breath; “I'll try to think of it in that way. You're more befitting to be my daughter than to be my wife, you are. Farewell, Jasper. Now we'll go to the canoe; it's time you were on board.” The manner in which Pathfinder led the way to the shore was solemn and calm. As soon as he reached the canoe, he again took Mabel by the hands, held her at the length of his own arms, and gazed wistfully into her face, until the unbidden tears rolled out of the fountains of feeling and trickled down his rugged cheeks in streams. “Bless me, Pathfinder,” said Mabel, kneeling reverently at his feet. “Oh, at least bless me before we part!” That untutored but noble-minded being did as she desired; and, aiding her to enter the canoe, seemed to tear himself away as one snaps a strong and obstinate cord. Before he retired, however, he took Jasper by the arm and led him a little aside, when he spoke as follows:-- “You're kind of heart and gentle by natur', Jasper; but we are both rough and wild in comparison with that dear creatur'. Be careful of her, and never show the roughness of man's natur' to her soft disposition. You'll get to understand her in time; and the Lord, who governs the lake and the forest alike, who looks upon virtue with a smile and upon vice with a frown, keep you happy and worthy to be so!” Pathfinder made a sign for his friend to depart, and he stood leaning on his rifle until the canoe had reached the side of the _Scud_. Mabel wept as if her heart would break; nor did her eyes once turn from the open spot in the glade, where the form of the Pathfinder was to be seen, until the cutter had passed a point that completely shut out the island. When last in view, the sinewy frame of this extraordinary man was as motionless as if it were a statue set up in that solitary place to commemorate the scenes of which it had so lately been the witness.	{ "id": "1880" }
30	None	Oh! let me only breathe the air, The blessed air that's breath'd by thee; And, whether on its wings it bear Healing or death, 'tis sweet to me! MOORE. Pathfinder was accustomed to solitude; but, when the _Scud_ had actually disappeared, he was almost overcome with a sense of his loneliness. Never before had he been conscious of his isolated condition in the world; for his feelings had gradually been accustoming themselves to the blandishments and wants of social life; particularly as the last were connected with the domestic affections. Now, all had vanished, as it might be, in one moment; and he was left equally without companions and without hope. Even Chingachgook had left him, though it was but temporarily; still his presence was missed at the precise instant which might be termed the most critical in our hero's life. Pathfinder stood leaning on his rifle, in the attitude described in the last chapter, a long time after the _Scud_ had disappeared. The rigidity of his limbs seemed permanent; and none but a man accustomed to put his muscles to the severest proof could have maintained that posture, with its marble-like inflexibility, for so great a length of time. At length he moved away from the spot; the motion of the body being preceded by a sigh that seemed to heave up from the very depths of his bosom. It was a peculiarity of this extraordinary being that his senses and his limbs, for all practical purposes, were never at fault, let the mind be preoccupied with other interests as much as it might. On the present occasion neither of these great auxiliaries failed him; but, though his thoughts were exclusively occupied with Mabel, her beauty, her preference of Jasper, her tears, and her departure, he moved in a direct line to the spot where June still remained, which was the grave of her husband. The conversation that followed passed in the language of the Tuscaroras, which Pathfinder spoke fluently; but, as that tongue is understood only by the extremely learned, we shall translate it freely into the English; preserving, as far as possible, the tone of thought of each interlocutor, as well as the peculiarities of manner. June had suffered her hair to fall about her face, had taken a seat on a stone which had been dug from the excavation made by the grave, and was hanging over the spot which contained the body of Arrowhead, unconscious of the presence of any other. She believed, indeed, that all had left the island but herself, and the tread of the guide's moccasined foot was too noiseless rudely to undeceive her. Pathfinder stood gazing at the woman for several minutes in mute attention. The contemplation of her grief, the recollection of her irreparable loss, and the view of her desolation produced a healthful influence on his own feelings; his reason telling him how much deeper lay the sources of grief in a young wife, who was suddenly and violently deprived of her husband, than in himself. “Dew-of-June,” he said solemnly, but with an earnestness which denoted the strength of his sympathy, “you are not alone in your sorrow. Turn, and let your eyes look upon a friend.” “June has no longer any friend!” the woman answered. “Arrowhead has gone to the happy hunting-grounds, and there is no one left to care for June. The Tuscaroras would chase her from their wigwams; the Iroquois are hateful in her eyes, and she could not look at them. No! Leave June to starve over the grave of her husband.” “This will never do--this will never do. 'Tis ag'in reason and right. You believe in the Manitou, June?” “He has hid his face from June because he is angry. He has left her alone to die.” “Listen to one who has had a long acquaintance with red natur', though he has a white birth and white gifts. When the Manitou of a pale-face wishes to produce good in a pale-face heart He strikes it with grief; for it is in our sorrows, June, that we look with the truest eyes into ourselves, and with the farthest-sighted eyes too, as respects right. The Great Spirit wishes you well, and He has taken away the chief, lest you should be led astray by his wily tongue, and get to be a Mingo in your disposition, as you were already in your company.” “Arrowhead was a great chief,” returned the woman proudly. “He had his merits, he had; and he had his demerits, too. But June you are not desarted, nor will you be soon. Let your grief out--let it out, according to natur', and when the proper time comes I shall have more to say to you.” Pathfinder now went to his own canoe, and he left the island. In the course of the day June heard the crack of his rifle once or twice; and as the sun was setting he reappeared, bringing her birds ready cooked, and of a delicacy and flavor that might have tempted the appetite of an epicure. This species of intercourse lasted a month, June obstinately refusing to abandon the grave of her husband all that time, though she still accepted the friendly offerings of her protector. Occasionally they met and conversed, Pathfinder sounding the state of the woman's feelings; but the interviews were short, and far from frequent. June slept in one of the huts, and she laid down her head in security, for she was conscious of the protection of a friend, though Pathfinder invariably retired at night to an adjacent island, where he had built himself a hut. At the end of the month, however, the season was getting to be too far advanced to render her situation pleasant to June. The trees had lost their leaves, and the nights were becoming cold and wintry. It was time to depart. At this moment Chingachgook reappeared. He had a long and confidential interview on the island with his friend. June witnessed their movements, and she saw that her guardian was distressed. Stealing to his side, she endeavored to soothe his sorrow with a woman's gentleness and with a woman's instinct. “Thank you, June, thank you!” he said; “'tis well meant, though it's useless. But it is time to quit this place. To-morrow we shall depart. You will go with us, for now you've got to feel reason.” June assented in the meek manner of an Indian woman, and she withdrew to pass the remainder of her time near the grave of Arrowhead. Regardless of the hour and the season, the young widow did not pillow her head during the whole of that autumnal night. She sat near the spot that held the remains of her husband, and prayed, in the manner of her people, for his success on the endless path on which he had so lately gone, and for their reunion in the land of the just. Humble and degraded as she would have seemed in the eyes of the sophisticated and unreflecting, the image of God was on her soul, and it vindicated its divine origin by aspirations and feelings that would have surprised those who, feigning more, feel less. In the morning the three departed, Pathfinder earnest and intelligent in all he did, the Great Serpent silent and imitative, and June meek, resigned, but sorrowful. They went in two canoes, that of the woman being abandoned: Chingachgook led the way, and Pathfinder followed, the course being up stream. Two days they paddled westward, and as many nights they encamped on islands. Fortunately the weather became mild, and when they reached the lake it was found smooth and glassy as a pond. It was the Indian summer, and the calms, and almost the blandness of June, slept in the hazy atmosphere. On the morning of the third day they passed the mouth of the Oswego, where the fort and the sleeping ensign invited them in vain to enter. Without casting a look aside, Chingachgook paddled past the dark waters of the river, and Pathfinder still followed in silent industry. The ramparts were crowded with spectators; but Lundie, who knew the persons of his old friends, refused to allow them to be even hailed. It was noon when Chingachgook entered a little bay where the _Scud_ lay at anchor, in a sort of roadstead. A small ancient clearing was on the shore; and near the margin of the lake was a log dwelling, recently and completely, though rudely fitted up. There was an air of frontier comfort and of frontier abundance around the place, though it was necessarily wild and solitary. Jasper stood on the shore; and when Pathfinder landed, he was the first to take him by the hand. The meeting was simple, but very cordial. No questions were asked, it being apparent that Chingachgook had made the necessary explanations. Pathfinder never squeezed his friend's hand more cordially than in this interview; and he even laughed cordially in his face as he told him how happy and well he appeared. “Where is she, Jasper? Where is she?” the guide at length whispered, for at first he had seemed to be afraid to trust himself with the question. “She is waiting for us in the house, my dear friend, where you see that June has already hastened before us.” “June may use a lighter step to meet Mabel, but she cannot carry a lighter heart. And so, lad, you found the chaplain at the garrison, and all was soon settled?” “We were married within a week after we left you, and Master Cap departed next day. You have forgotten to inquire about your friend Saltwater.” “Not I, not I; the Sarpent has told me all that: and then I love to hear so much of Mabel and her happiness, I do. Did the child smile or did she weep when the ceremony was over?” “She did both, my friend; but--” “Yes, that's their natur', tearful and cheerful. Ah's me! They are very pleasant to us of the woods; and I do believe I should think all right, whatever Mabel might do. And do you think, Jasper, that she thought of me at all on that joyful occasion?” “I know she did, Pathfinder; and she thinks of you and talks of you daily, almost hourly. None love you as we do.” “I know few love me better than yourself, Jasper: Chingachgook is perhaps, now, the only creatur' of whom I can say that. Well, there's no use in putting it off any longer; it must be done, and may as well be done at once; so, Jasper, lead the way, and I'll endivor to look upon her sweet countenance once more.” Jasper did lead the way, and they were soon in the presence of Mabel. The latter met her late suitor with a bright blush, and her limbs trembled so, she could hardly stand; still her manner was affectionate and frank. During the hour of Pathfinder's visit (for it lasted no longer, though he ate in the dwelling of his friends), one who was expert in tracing the working of the human mind might have seen a faithful index to the feelings of Mabel in her manner to Pathfinder and her husband. With the latter she still had a little of the reserve that usually accompanies young wedlock; but the tones of her voice were kinder even than common; the glance of her eye was tender, and she seldom looked at him without the glow that tinged her cheeks betraying the existence of feelings that habit and time had not yet soothed into absolute tranquillity. With Pathfinder, all was earnest, sincere, even anxious; but the tones never trembled, the eye never fell; and if the cheek flushed, it was with the emotions that are connected with concern. At length the moment came when Pathfinder must go his way. Chingachgook had already abandoned the canoes, and was posted on the margin of the woods, where a path led into the forest. Here he calmly waited to be joined by his friend. As soon as the latter was aware of this fact, he rose in a solemn manner and took his leave. “I've sometimes thought that my own fate has been a little hard,” he said; “but that of this woman, Mabel, has shamed me into reason.” “June remains, and lives with me,” eagerly interrupted our heroine. “So I comprehend it. If anybody can bring her back from her grief, and make her wish to live, you can do it, Mabel; though I've misgivings about even your success. The poor creatur' is without a tribe, as well as without a husband, and it's not easy to reconcile the feelings to both losses. Ah's me! --what have I to do with other people's miseries and marriages, as if I hadn't affliction enough of my own? Don't speak to me, Mabel,--don't speak to me, Jasper,--let me go my way in peace, and like a man. I've seen your happiness, and that is a great deal, and I shall be able to bear my own sorrow all the better for it. No,--I'll never kiss you ag'in, Mabel, I'll never kiss you ag'in. Here's my hand, Jasper,--squeeze it, boy, squeeze it; no fear of its giving way, for it's the hand of a man;--and now, Mabel, do you take it,--nay, you must not do this,”--preventing Mabel from kissing it and bathing it in her tears,--“you must not do this--” “Pathfinder,” asked Mabel, “when shall we see you again?” “I've thought of that, too; yes, I've thought of that, I have. If the time should ever come when I can look upon you altogether as a sister, Mabel, or a child,--it might be better to say a child, since you're young enough to be my daughter,--depend on it I'll come back; for it would lighten my very heart to witness your gladness. But if I cannot,--farewell--farewell,--the Sergeant was wrong,--yes, the Sergeant was wrong!” This was the last the Pathfinder ever uttered to the ears of Jasper Western and Mabel Dunham. He turned away, as if the words choked him, and was quickly at the side of his friend. As soon as the latter saw him approach, he shouldered his own burthen, and glided in among the trees, without waiting to be spoken to. Mabel, her husband, and June all watched the form of the Pathfinder, in the hope of receiving a parting gesture, or a stolen glance of the eye; but he did not look back. Once or twice they thought they saw his head shake, as one trembles in bitterness of spirit; and a toss of the hand was given, as if he knew that he was watched; but a tread, whose vigor no sorrow could enfeeble, soon bore him out of view, and was lost in the depths of the forest. Neither Jasper nor his wife ever beheld the Pathfinder again. They remained for another year on the banks of Ontario; and then the pressing solicitations of Cap induced them to join him in New York, where Jasper eventually became a successful and respected merchant. Thrice Mabel received valuable presents of furs at intervals of years; and her feelings told her whence they came, though no name accompanied the gift. Later in life still, when the mother of several youths, she had occasion to visit the interior; and found herself on the banks of the Mohawk, accompanied by her sons, the eldest of whom was capable of being her protector. On that occasion she observed a man in a singular guise, watching her in the distance, with an intentness that induced her to inquire into his pursuits and character. She was told he was the most renowned hunter of that portion of the State,--it was after the Revolution,--a being of great purity of character and of as marked peculiarities; and that he was known in that region of country by the name of the Leatherstocking. Further than this Mrs. Western could not ascertain; though the distant glimpse and singular deportment of this unknown hunter gave her a sleepless night, and cast a shade of melancholy over her still lovely face, that lasted many a day. As for June, the double loss of husband and tribe produced the effect that Pathfinder had foreseen. She died in the cottage of Mabel, on the shores of the lake; and Jasper conveyed her body to the island, where he interred it by the side of that of Arrowhead. Lundie lived to marry his ancient love, and retired a war-worn and battered veteran; but his name has been rendered illustrious in our own time by the deeds of a younger brother, who succeeded to his territorial title, which, however, was shortly after merged in one earned by his valor on the ocean.	{ "id": "1880" }
1	: A Lost Father.	"There is no saying, lad, no saying at all. All I know is that your father, the captain, was washed ashore at the same time as I was. As you have heard me say, I owed my life to him. I was pretty nigh gone when I caught sight of him, holding on to a spar. Spent as I was, I managed to give a shout loud enough to catch his ear. He looked round. I waved my hand and shouted, 'Goodbye, Captain!' Then I sank lower and lower, and felt that it was all over, when, half in a dream, I heard your father's voice shout, 'Hold on, Ben!' I gave one more struggle, and then I felt him catch me by the arm. I don't remember what happened, until I found myself lashed to the spar beside him. " 'That is right, Ben,' he said cheerily, as I held up my head; 'you will do now. I had a sharp tussle to get you here, but it is all right. We are setting inshore fast. Pull yourself together, for we shall have a rough time of it in the surf. Anyhow, we will stick together, come what may.' "As the waves lifted us up, I saw the coast, with its groves of coconuts almost down to the water's edge, and white sheets of surf running up high on the sandy beach. It was not more than a hundred yards away, and the captain sang out, "'Hurrah! There are some natives coming down. They will give us a hand.' "Next time we came up on a wave, he said, 'When we get close, Ben, we must cut ourselves adrift from this spar, or it will crush the life out of us; but before we do that, I will tie the two of us together.' "He cut a bit of rope from the raffle hanging from the spar, and tied one end round my waist and the other round his own, leaving about five fathoms loose between us. " 'There,' he shouted in my ear. 'If either of us gets chucked well up, and the natives get a hold of him, the other must come up, too. Now mind, Ben, keep broadside on to the wave if you can, and let it roll you up as far as it will take you. Then, when you feel that its force is spent, stick your fingers and toes into the sand, and hold on like grim death.' "Well, we drifted nearer and nearer until, just as we got to the point where the great waves tumbled over, the captain cut the lashings and swam a little away, so as to be clear of the spar. Then a big wave came towering up. I was carried along like a straw in a whirlpool. Then there was a crash that pretty nigh knocked the senses out of me. I do not know what happened afterwards. It was a confusion of white water rushing past and over me. Then for a moment I stopped, and at once made a clutch at the ground that I had been rolling over. There was a big strain, and I was hauled backwards as if a team of wild horses were pulling at me. Then there was a jerk, and I knew nothing more, till I woke up and found myself on the sands, out of reach of the surf. "Your father did not come to for half an hour. He had been hurt a bit worse than I had, but at last he came round. "Well, we were kept three months in a sort of castle place; and then one day a party of chaps, with guns and swords, came into the yard where we were sitting. The man, who seemed the head of the fellows who had been keeping us prisoners, walked up with one who was evidently an officer over the chaps as had just arrived. He looked at us both, and then laid his hand on the captain. Then the others came up. "The captain had just time to say, 'We are going to be parted, Ben. God bless you! If ever you get back, give my love to my wife, and tell her what has happened to me, and that she must keep up her heart, for I shall make a bolt of it the first time I get a chance.' "The next day, I was taken off to a place they call Calicut. There I stopped a year, and then the rajah of the place joined the English against Tippoo, who was lord of all the country, and I was released. I had got, by that time, to talk their lingo pretty well, though I have forgotten it all now, and I had found out that the chaps who had taken your father away were a party sent down by Tippoo, who, having heard that two Englishmen had been cast on shore, had insisted upon one of them being handed over to him. "It is known that a great many of the prisoners in Tippoo's hands have been murdered in their dungeons. He has sworn, over and over again, that he has no European prisoners, but every one knows that he has numbers of them in his hands. Whether the captain is one of those who have been murdered, or whether he is still in one of Tippoo's dungeons, is more than I or any one else can say." "Well, as I have told you, Ben, that is what we mean to find out." "I know that is what your mother has often said, lad, but it seems to me that you have more chance of finding the man in the moon than you have of learning whether your father is alive, or not." "Well, we are going to try, anyhow, Ben. I know it's a difficult job, but Mother and I have talked it over, ever since you came home with the news, three years ago; so I have made up my mind, and nothing can change me. You see, I have more chances than most people would have. Being a boy is all in my favour; and then, you know, I talk the language just as well as English." "Yes, of course that is a pull, and a big one; but it is a desperate undertaking, lad, and I can't say as I see how it is to be done." "I don't see either, Ben, and I don't expect to see until we get out there; but, desperate or not, Mother and I are going to try." Dick Holland, the speaker, was a lad of some fifteen years of age. His father, who was captain of a fine East Indiaman, had sailed from London when he was nine, and had never returned. No news had been received of the ship after she touched at the Cape, and it was supposed that she had gone down with all hands; until, nearly three years later, her boatswain, Ben Birket, had entered the East India Company's office, and reported that he himself, and the captain, had been cast ashore on the territories of the Rajah of Coorg; the sole survivors, as far as he knew, of the Hooghley. After an interview with the Directors, he had gone straight to the house at Shadwell inhabited by Mrs. Holland. She had left there, but had removed to a smaller one a short distance away, where she lived upon the interest of the sum that her husband had invested from his savings, and from a small pension granted to her by the Company. Mrs. Holland was a half caste, the daughter of an English woman who had married a young rajah. Her mother's life had been a happy one; but when her daughter had reached the age of sixteen, she died, obtaining on her deathbed the rajah's consent that the girl should be sent to England to be educated, while her son, who was three years younger, should remain with his father. Over him she had exercised but little influence. He had been brought up like the sons of other native princes, and, save for his somewhat light complexion, the English blood in his veins would never have been suspected. Margaret, on the other hand, had been under her mother's care, and as the latter had always hoped that the girl would, at any rate for a time, go to her family in England, she had always conversed with her in that language, and had, until her decreasing strength rendered it no longer possible, given her an English education. In complexion and appearance, she took far more after her English mother than the boy had done; and, save for her soft, dark eyes, and glossy, jet-black hair, might have passed as of pure English blood. When she sailed, it was with the intention of returning to India, in the course of a few years; but this arrangement was overthrown by the fact that on the voyage, John Holland, the handsome young first mate of the Indiaman, completely won her heart, and they were married a fortnight after the vessel came up the Thames. The matter would not have been so hurried had not a letter she posted on landing, to her mother's sister, who had promised her a home, received an answer written in a strain which determined her to yield, at once, to John Holland's pressing entreaties that they should be married without delay. Her aunt had replied that she had consented to overlook the conduct of her mother, in uniting herself to a native, and to receive her for a year at the rectory; but that her behaviour, in so precipitately engaging herself to a rough sailor, rendered it impossible to countenance her. As she stated that she had come over with a sum sufficient to pay her expenses, while in England, she advised her to ask the captain--who, by the way, must have grossly neglected his duties by allowing an intimacy between her and his mate--to place her in some school, where she would be well looked after until her return to India. The Indian blood in Margaret's veins boiled fiercely, and she wrote her aunt a letter which caused that lady to congratulate herself on the good fortune that had prevented her from having to receive, under her roof, a girl of so objectionable and violent a character. Although the language that John Holland used concerning this letter was strong, indeed, he was well satisfied, as he had foreseen that it was not probable Margaret's friends would have allowed her to marry him, without communicating with her father; and that the rajah might have projects of his own for her disposal. He laid the case before the captain, who placed her in charge of his wife, until the marriage took place. Except for the long absences of her husband, Margaret's life had been a very happy one, and she was looking forward to the time when, after another voyage, he would be able to give up his profession and settle down upon his savings. When months passed by, and no news came of the Hooghley having reached port, Mrs. Holland at once gave up her house and moved into a smaller one; for, although her income would have been sufficient to enable her to remain where she was, she determined to save every penny she was able, for the sake of her boy. She was possessed of strong common sense and firmness of character, and when Ben Birket returned with his tale, he was surprised at the composure with which she received it. "I have always," she said, "had a conviction that John was still alive, and have not allowed Dick to think of his father as dead; and now I believe, as firmly as before, that someday John will be restored to me. I myself can do nothing towards aiding him. A woman can do little, here. She can do nothing in India, save among her own people. I shall wait patiently, for a time. It may be that this war will result in his release. But in the meantime, I shall continue to prepare Dick to take up the search for him, as soon as he is old enough. "I hear, once a year, from my brother, who is now rajah; and he will be able to aid my boy, in many ways. However, for a time I must be patient and wait. I have learnt to wait, during my husband's long absences; and besides, I think that the women of India are a patient race. I trust that John will yet come home to me, but if not, when it is time, we will try to rescue him." Ben said nothing, at the time, to damp her courage; but he shook his head, as he left the cottage. "Poor creature," he said. "I would not say anything to discourage her, but for a woman and boy to try to get a captive out of the claws of the Tiger of Mysore is just madness." Each time he returned from a voyage, Ben called upon Mrs. Holland. He himself had given up every vestige of hope, when it was known that the name of her husband was not among the list of those whom Tippoo had been forced to release. Margaret Holland, however, still clung to hope. Her face was paler, and there was a set, pathetic expression in it; so, when she spoke of her husband as being still alive, Ben would sooner have cut out his tongue than allow the slightest word, indicative of his own feeling of certainty as to the captain's fate, to escape him; and he always made a pretence of entering warmly into her plans. The training, as she considered it, of her son went on steadily. She always conversed with him in her father's language, and he was able to speak it as well as English. She was ever impressing upon him that he must be strong and active. When he was twelve, she engaged an old soldier, who had set up a sort of academy, to instruct him in the use of the sword; and in such exercises as were calculated to strengthen his muscles, and to give him strength and agility. Unlike most mothers, she had no word of reproach when he returned home from school with a puffed face, or cut lips; the signs of battle. "I do not want you to be quarrelsome," she often said to him, "but I have heard your father say that a man who can use his fists well is sure to be cool and quick, in any emergency. You know what is before you, and these qualities are of far more importance, in your case, than any book learning. Therefore, Dick, I say, never quarrel on your own account, but whenever you see a boy bullying a smaller one, take the opportunity of giving him a lesson while learning one yourself. In the days of old, you know, the first duty of a true knight was to succour the oppressed, and I want you to be a true knight. You will get thrashed sometimes, no doubt, but don't mind that. Perhaps, next time, you will turn the tables." Dick acted upon this advice and, by the time he was fifteen, had established a reputation among, not only the boys of his own school, but of the district. In addition to his strength and quickness, he had a fund of dogged endurance, and imperturbable good temper, that did not fail him; even on the rare occasions when, in combats with boys much older than himself, he was forced to admit himself defeated. The fact that he fought, not because he was angry, but as if it were a matter of business, gave him a great advantage; and his readiness to take up the cause of any boy ill-treated by another was so notorious, that "I will tell Dick Holland" became a threat that saved many a boy from being burned. Ten days before his conversation with Ben, his mother had said: "Dick, I can stand this no longer. I have tried to be patient, for six years, but I can be patient no longer. I feel that another year of suspense would kill me. Therefore, I have made up my mind to sail at once. The voyage will take us five months, and perhaps you may have to remain some little time, at my brother's, before you can start. "Now that the time is come, I think that perhaps I am about to do wrong, and that it may cost you your life. But I cannot help it, Dick. I dream of your father almost every night, and I wake up thinking that I hear him calling upon me to help him. I feel that I should go mad, if this were to last much longer." "I am ready, Mother," the boy said, earnestly. "I have been hoping, for some time, that you would say you would start soon; and though I have not, of course, the strength of a man, I think that will be more than made up by the advantage I should have, as a boy, in looking for my father; and at any rate, from what you tell me, I should think that I am quite as strong as an average native of your country. "Anyhow, Mother, I am sure that it will be best for us to go now. It must have been awful for you, waiting all this time; and though you have never said anything about it, I have noticed for a long time that you were looking ill, and was sure that you were worrying terribly. What would be the use of staying any longer? I should not be very much stronger in another year than I am now, and a year would seem an age, to Father." And so it was settled, and Mrs. Holland at once began to make preparations for their departure. She had already, without saying anything to Dick, given notice that she should give up the house. She had, during the six years, saved a sum of money amply sufficient for the expenses of the journey and outfit, and she had now only to order clothes for herself and Dick, and to part with her furniture. Ben, on his return, had heard with grave apprehension that she was about to carry out her intention; but, as he saw that any remonstrance on his part would be worse than useless, he abstained from offering any, and warmly entered into her plans. After an hour's talk, he had proposed to Dick to go out for a stroll with him. "I am glad to have a talk with you, Ben," Dick said. "Of course, I have heard, from Mother, what you told her when you came home; but I shall be glad to hear it from you, so as to know exactly how it all was. You know she feels sure that Father is still alive. I should like to know what your opinion really is about it. Of course, it will make no difference, as I should never say anything to her; but I should like to know whether you think there is any possibility of his being alive." To this Ben had replied as already related. He was silent when Dick asserted that, desperate or not, he intended to carry out his mother's plan. "I would not say as I think it altogether desperate, as far as you are concerned," he said thoughtfully. "It don't seem to me as there is much chance of your ever getting news of your father, lad; and as to getting him out of prison, if you do come to hear of him; why, honest, I would not give a quid of 'baccy for your chance; but I don't say as I think that it is an altogether desperate job, as far as you are concerned, yourself. Talking their lingo as you do, it's just possible as you might be able to travel about, in disguise, without anyone finding you out; especially as the Rajah, your uncle, ought to be able to help you a bit, and put you in the way of things, and perhaps send some trusty chap along with you. There is no doubt you are strong for your age, and being thin, and nothing but muscle, you would pass better as a native than if you had been thick and chunky. My old woman tells me as you have a regular name as a fighter, and that you have given a lesson to many a bully in the neighbourhood. Altogether, there is a lot in your favour, and I don't see why you should not pull through all right; at any rate, even should the worst come to the worst, and you do get news, somehow, that your poor father has gone down, I am sure it will be better for your mother than going on as she has done for the last six years, just wearing herself out with anxiety." "I am sure it will, Ben. I can tell you that it is as much as I can do, sometimes, not to burst out crying when I see her sitting, by the hour, with her eyes open, but not seeing anything, or moving as much as a finger--just thinking, and thinking, and thinking. "I wish we were going out in your ship, Ben." "I wish you was, lad; but it will be five or six weeks before we are off again. Anyhow, the ship you are going in--the Madras--is a fine craft, and the captain bears as high a character as anyone in the Company's fleet. "Well, lad, I hope that it will all turn out well. If I could have talked the lingo like a native, I would have been glad to have gone with you, and taken my chances. The captain saved my life in that wreck, and it would only have been right that I should risk mine for him, if there was but a shadow of chance of its being of use. But I know that, in a job of this sort, I could be of no good whatsomever, and should be getting you into trouble before we had gone a mile together." "I am sure that you would help, if you could, Ben; but, of course, you could be of no use." "And when do you think of being home again, lad?" "There is no saying, Ben--it may be years. But, however long it takes, I sha'n't give it up until I find out, for certain, what has become of my father." "And ain't there a chance of hearing how you are getting on, Dick? I shall think of you and your mother, often and often, when I am on deck keeping my watch at night; and it will seem hard that I mayn't be able to hear, for years, as to what you are doing." "The only thing that I can do, Ben, will be to write if I get a chance of sending a messenger, or for my mother to write to you, to the office." "That is it. You send a letter to Ben Birket, boatswain of the Madeira, care of East India Company, Leadenhall Street; and I shall get it, sooner or later. Of course, I shall not expect a long yarn, but just two or three words to tell me how you are getting on, and whether you have got any news of your father. And if you come back to England, leave your address at the Company's office for me; for it ain't an easy matter to find anyone out, in London, unless you have got their bearings right." Ten days later, Mrs. Holland and Dick embarked on the Madras. Dick had been warned, by his mother, to say nothing to anyone on board as to the object of their voyage. "I shall mention," she said, "that I am going out to make some inquiries respecting the truth of a report that has reached me, that some of those on board the Hooghley, of which my husband was captain, survived the wreck, and were taken up the country. That will be quite sufficient. Say nothing about my having been born in India, or that my father was a native rajah. Some of these officials--and still more, their wives--are very prejudiced, and consider themselves to be quite different beings to the natives of the country. I found it so on my voyage to England. "At any rate, we don't want our affairs talked about. It will be quite sufficient for people to know that we are, as I said, going out to make some inquiries about the truth of this rumour." "All right, Mother. At any rate, the captain has told you that he will look after you, and make things comfortable for you, so we need not care about anything else." "We certainly need not care, Dick; but it is much more agreeable to get on nicely with everyone. I was very pleased when Captain Barstow called yesterday and said that, having heard at the office that the Mrs. Holland on the passenger list was the widow of his old shipmate, John Holland, he had come round to see if there was anything that he could do for her, and he promised to do all in his power to make us comfortable. Of course, I told him that I did not regard myself as Captain Holland's widow--that all we knew was that he had got safely ashore, and had been taken up to Mysore; and, as I had a strong conviction he was still alive, I was going out to endeavour to ascertain, from native sources, whether he was still living. " 'Well, ma'am, I hope that you will succeed,' he said. 'All this is new to me. I thought he was drowned, when the Hooghley went ashore. Anyhow, Mrs. Holland, I honour you for making this journey, just on the off chance of hearing something of your husband, and you may be sure I will do all I can to make the voyage a pleasant one for you.' "So you see, we shall start favourably, Dick; for the captain can do a great deal towards adding to the comfort of a passenger. When it is known, by the purser and steward, that a lady is under the special care of the captain, it ensures her a larger share of civility, and special attentions, than she might otherwise obtain." As soon as they went on board, indeed, the captain came up to them. "Good morning, Mrs. Holland," he said. "You have done quite right to come on board early. It gives you a chance of being attended to, before the stewards are being called for by twenty people at once." He beckoned to a midshipman. "Mr. Hart, please tell the purser I wish to speak to him. "So this is your son, Mrs. Holland? A fine, straight-looking young fellow. Are you going to put him in the Service? You have a strong claim, you know, which I am sure the Board would acknowledge." "Do you know, Captain, it is a matter that I have hardly thought of--in fact, I have, for years, been so determined to go out and try and obtain some news of my husband, as soon as Dick was old enough to journey about as my protector, that I have not thought, as I ought to have done, what profession he should follow. However, he is only fifteen yet, and there will be time enough when he gets back." "If he is to go into the service, the sooner the better, ma'am--one can hardly begin too young. However, I don't say there are not plenty of good sailors, afloat, who did not enter until a couple of years older than he is--there is no strict rule as to age. "Only fifteen, is he? I should have taken him for at least a year older. However, if you like, Mrs. Holland, I will put him in the way of learning a good deal, during the voyage. He might as well be doing that as loafing about the deck all day." "Much better, Captain. I am very much obliged to you, and I am sure that he will be, too." "I should like it immensely, Captain," Dick exclaimed. At this moment, the purser came up. "Mr. Stevenson," the captain said, "this is Mrs. Holland. She is the wife of my old friend, John Holland--we were midshipmen together on board the Ganges. He commanded the Hooghley, which was lost, you know, five or six years ago, somewhere near Calicut. There were two or three survivors, and he was one of them, and it seems that he was taken up the country; so Mrs. Holland is going out to endeavour to ascertain whether he may not be still alive, though perhaps detained by one of those native princes. "Please do everything you can to make her comfortable, and tell the head steward that it is my particular wish she shall be well attended to. Who is she berthed with?" The purser took the passenger list from his pocket. "She is with Mrs. Colonel Williamson, and the wife of Commissioner Larkins." The captain gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. The purser went on. "There is a small cabin vacant, Captain. Two ladies who were to have it--a mother and daughter--have, I hear this morning, been unexpectedly detained, owing to the sudden illness of one of them. Their heavy baggage is all in the hold, and must go on, and they will follow in the next ship. Shall I put Mrs. Holland in there?" "Certainly. This is most fortunate. "I don't think that you would have been comfortable, with the other two, Mrs. Holland. I don't know the colonel's wife, but Mrs. Larkins has travelled with us before, and I had quite enough of her on that voyage." "Thank you very much, Captain. It will indeed be a comfort to have a cabin to myself." Dick found that he was berthed with two young cadets, whose names, he learned from the cards fastened over the bunks, were Latham and Fellows. Half an hour after the arrival of the Hollands on board, the passengers began to pour in rapidly, and the deck of the Madras was soon crowded with them, their friends, and their luggage. Below, all was bustle and confusion. Men shouted angrily to stewards; women, laden with parcels, blocked the gangway, and appealed helplessly to every one for information and aid; sailors carried down trunks and portmanteaus; and Mrs. Holland, when she emerged from her cabin, having stowed away her belongings and made things tidy, congratulated herself on having been the first on board, and so had not only avoided all this confusion, but obtained a separate cabin, which she might not otherwise have been able to do, as the captain would have been too busy to devote any special attention to her. After having handed her over to the care of the purser, Captain Barstow had spoken to the second officer, who happened to be passing. "Mr. Rawlinson," he said, "this is the son of my old friend, Captain Holland. He is going out with his mother. I wish you would keep your eye upon him, and let him join the midshipmen in their studies with you, in the morning. Possibly he may enter the Service, and it will be a great advantage to him to have got up navigation, a bit, before he does so. At any rate, it will occupy his mind and keep him out of mischief. A lad of his age would be like a fish out of water, among the passengers on the quarterdeck." "Ay, ay, sir. I will do what I can for him." And he hurried away. Dick saw that, for the present, there was nothing to be done but to look on, and it was not until the next morning, when the Madras was making her way south, outside the Goodwins, that the second officer spoke to him. "Ah, there you are, lad! I have been too busy to think of you, and it will be another day or two before we settle down to regular work. However, I will introduce you to one or two of the midshipmen, and they will make you free of the ship." Dick was, indeed, already beginning to feel at home. The long table, full from end to end, had presented such a contrast to his quiet dinner with his mother, that, as he sat down beside her and looked round, he thought he should never get to speak to anyone throughout the voyage. However, he had scarcely settled himself when a gentleman in a naval uniform, next to him, made the remark: "Well, youngster, what do you think of all this? I suppose it is all new to you?" "It is, sir. It seems very strange, at first, but I suppose I shall get accustomed to it." "Oh, yes. You will find it pleasant enough, by and bye. I am the ship's doctor. The purser has been telling me about you and your mother. "I made one voyage with your father. It was my first, and a kinder captain I never sailed with. I heard, from the purser, that there seems to be a chance of his being still alive, and that your mother is going out to try and find out something about him. I hope, most sincerely, that she may succeed in doing so; but he has been missing a long time now. Still, that is no reason why she should not find him. There have been instances where men have been kept for years by some of these rascally natives--why, goodness only knows, except, I suppose, because they fear and hate us; and think that, some time or other, an English prisoner may be useful to them. "Your mother looks far from strong," he went on, as he glanced across Dick to Mrs. Holland, who was talking to a lady on the other side of her. "Has she been ill?" "No, sir. I have never known her ill, yet. She has been worrying herself a great deal. She has waited so long, because she did not like to go out until she could take me with her. She has no friends in England with whom she could leave me. She looks a good deal better, now, than she did a month ago. I think, directly she settled to come out, and had something to do, she became better." "That is quite natural," the doctor said. "There is nothing so trying as inactivity. I have no doubt that the sea air will quite set her up again. It performs almost miracles on the homeward-bound passengers. They come on board looking pale, and listless, and washed out; at the end of a month at sea, they are different creatures altogether." The purser had taken pains to seat Mrs. Holland, at table, next to a person who would be a pleasant companion for her; and the lady she was now talking to was the wife of a chaplain in the army. She had, a year before, returned from India in the Madras, and he knew her to be a kind and pleasant woman. Dick did not care for his cabin mates. They were young fellows of about eighteen years of age. One was a nephew of a Director of the Company, the other the son of a high Indian official. They paid but little attention to him, generally ignoring him altogether, and conversing about things and people in India, in the tone of men to whom such matters were quite familiar. In three or four days, Dick became on good terms with the six midshipmen the Madras carried. Two of them were younger than himself, two somewhat older, while the others were nearly out of their time, and hoped that this would be their last trip in the midshipmen's berth. The four younger lads studied, two hours every morning, under the second officer's instruction; and Dick took his place at the table regularly with them. Mathematics had been the only subject in which he had at all distinguished himself at school, and he found himself able to give satisfaction to Mr. Rawlinson, in his studies of navigation. After this work was over, they had an hour's practical instruction by the boatswain's mate, in knotting and splicing ropes, and in other similar matters. In a fortnight, he had learned the names and uses of what had, at first, seemed to him the innumerable ropes; and long before that, had accompanied one of the midshipmen aloft. On the first occasion that he did so, two of the topmen followed him, with the intention of carrying out the usual custom of lashing him to the ratlines, until he paid his footing. Seeing them coming up, the midshipman laughed, and told Dick what was in store for him. The boy had been as awkward as most beginners in climbing the shrouds, the looseness and give of the ratlines puzzling him; but he had, for years, practised climbing ropes in the gymnasium at Shadwell, and was confident in his power to do anything in that way. The consequence was that, as soon as the sailors gained the top, where he and the midshipman were standing, Dick seized one of the halliards and, with a merry laugh, came down hand over hand. A minute later, he stood on the deck. "Well done, youngster," said the boatswain's mate, who happened to be standing by, as Dick's feet touched the deck. "This may be the first time you have been on board a ship, but it is easy to see that it isn't the first, by a long way, that you have been on a rope. Could you go up again?" "Yes, I should think so," Dick said. "I have never climbed so high as that, because I have never had the chance; but it ought to be easy enough." The man laughed. "There are not many sailors who can do it," he said. "Well, let us see how high you will get." As Dick was accustomed to go up a rope thirty feet high, hand over hand, without using his legs, he was confident that, with their assistance, he could get up to the main top, lofty as it was, and he at once threw off his jacket and started. He found the task harder than he had anticipated, but he did it without a pause. He was glad, however, when the two sailors above grasped him by the arms, and placed him beside them on the main top. "Well, sir," one said, admiringly, "we thought you was a Johnny Newcome, by the way you went up the ratlines, but you came up that rope like a monkey. "Well, sir, you are free up here, and if you weren't it would not make much odds to you, for it would take half the ship's company to capture you." "I don't want to get off paying my footing," Dick said, pulling five shillings from his pocket and handing them to the sailors; for his mother had told him that it was the custom, on first going aloft, to make a present to them, and had given him the money for the purpose. "I can climb, but I don't know anything about ropes, and I shall be very much obliged if you will teach me all you can."	{ "id": "18813" }
2	: A Brush With Privateers.	Dick was surprised when, on descending to the deck, he found that what seemed to him a by no means very difficult feat had attracted general attention. Not only did half a dozen of the sailors pat him on the back, with exclamations expressive of their surprise and admiration, but the other midshipmen spoke quite as warmly, the eldest saying: "I could have got up the rope, Holland, but I could not have gone up straight, as you did, without stopping for a bit to take breath. You don't look so very strong, either." "I think that it is knack more than strength," Dick replied. "I have done a lot of practice at climbing, for I have always wanted to get strong, and I heard that there was no better exercise." When, presently, Dick went aft to the quarterdeck, Captain Barstow said to him: "You have astonished us all, lad. I could hardly believe my eyes, when I saw you going up that rope. I first caught sight of you when you had climbed but twenty feet, and wondered how far you would get, at that pace. I would have wagered a hundred guineas to one that you would not have kept it up to the top. "Well, lad, whatever profession you take to, it is certain that you will be a good sailor spoilt." They had now been three weeks out, but had made slow progress, for the winds had been light, and mostly from the southwest. "This is very dull work," the doctor said to Dick one day, at dinner. "Here we are, three weeks out, and still hardly beyond the Channel. There is one consolation. It is not the fault of the ship. She has been doing well, under the circumstances, but the fates have been against her, thus far. I have no doubt there are a score of ships still lying in the Downs, that were there when we passed; and, tedious as it has been beating down the Channel, with scarce wind enough most of the time to keep our sails full, it would have been worse lying there, all the time." "Still, we have gained a good bit on them, sir." "If the wind were to change round, say to the northeast, and they brought it along with them, they would soon make up for lost time, for it would not take them three days to run here. However, we shall begin to do better, soon. I heard the captain say that he should change his course tomorrow. We are somewhere off Cork, and when he makes a few miles more westing, he will bear away south. If we had had a favourable wind, we should have taken our departure from the Start, but with it in this quarter we are obliged to make more westing, before we lay her head on her course, or we should risk getting in too close to the French coast; and their privateers are as thick as peas, there." "But we should not be afraid of a French privateer, doctor?" "Well, not altogether afraid of one, but they very often go in couples; and sometimes three of them will work together. I don't think one privateer alone would venture to attack us, though she might harass us a bit, and keep up a distant fire, in hopes that another might hear it and bear down to her aid. But it is always as well to keep free of them, if one can. You see, an unlucky shot might knock one of our sticks out of us, which would mean delay and trouble, if no worse. "We had a sharp brush with two of them, on the last voyage, but we beat them off. We were stronger then than we are now, for we had two hundred troops on board, and should have astonished them if they had come close enough to try boarding--in fact, we were slackening our fire, to tempt them to do so, when they made out that a large craft coming up astern was an English frigate, and sheered off. "I don't know what the end of it was, but I rather fancy they were taken. The frigate followed them, gaining fast; and, later on, we could hear guns in the distance." "You did not join in the chase then, doctor?" "Oh, no. Our business is not fighting. If we are attacked, of course we defend ourselves; but we don't go a foot out of our way, if we can help it." Three weeks at sea had done wonders for Mrs. Holland. Now that she was fairly embarked upon her quest, the expression of anxiety gradually died out. The sea air braced up her nerves, and, what was of still greater benefit to her, she was able to sleep soundly and dreamlessly, a thing she had not done for years. Dick was delighted at the change in her. "You look quite a different woman, Mother," he said. "I don't think your friends at Shadwell would know you, if they were to see you now." "I feel a different woman, Dick. I have not felt so well and so bright since your father sailed on his last voyage. I am more convinced than ever that we shall succeed. I have been trying very hard, for years, to be hopeful, but now I feel so without trying. Of course, it is partly this lovely weather and the sea air, and sleeping so well; and partly because everyone is so kind and pleasant." As soon as the Madras had been headed for the south, she began to make better way. The wind freshened somewhat, but continued in the same quarter. Grumbling ceased over the bad luck they were having, and hopeful anticipations that, after all, they would make a quick passage were freely indulged in. On the fourth day after changing her course, she was off the coast of Spain, which was but a hundred and fifty miles distant. At noon that day the wind dropped suddenly, and, an hour later, it was a dead calm. "We are going to have a change, Dick," the doctor said, as he stopped by the lad, who was leaning against the bulwark watching a flock of seabirds that were following a shoal of fish, dashing down among them with loud cries, and too intent upon their work to notice the ship, lying motionless a hundred yards away. "What sort of a change, doctor?" "Most likely a strong blow, though from what quarter it is too soon to say. However, we have no reason to grumble. After nearly a month of light winds, we must expect a turn of bad weather. I hope it will come from the north. That will take us down to the latitude of Madeira, and beyond that we may calculate upon another spell of fine weather, until we cross the Line." As the afternoon wore on, the weather became more dull. There were no clouds in the sky, but the deep blue was dimmed by a sort of haze. Presently, after a talk between the captain and the first officer, the latter gave the order, "All hands take in sail." The order had been expected, and the men at once swarmed up the rigging. In a quarter of an hour all the upper sails were furled. The light spars were then sent down to the deck. "You may as well get the top-gallant sails off her, too, Mr. Green," the captain said to the first officer. "It is as well to be prepared for the worst. It is sure to blow pretty hard, when the change comes." The top-gallant sails were got in, and when the courses had been brailed up and secured, the hands were called down. Presently the captain, after going to his cabin, rejoined Mr. Green. "The glass has gone up again," Dick heard him say. "That looks as if it were coming from the north, sir." "Yes, with some east in it. It could not come from a better quarter." He turned and gazed steadily in that direction. "Yes, there is dark water over there." "So there is, sir. That is all right. I don't mind how hard it blows, so that it does but come on gradually." "I agree with you. These hurricane bursts, when one is becalmed, are always dangerous, even when one is under bare poles." Gradually the dark line on the horizon crept up towards the ship. As it reached her the sails bellied out, and she began to move through the water. The wind increased in strength rapidly, and in half an hour she was running south at ten or eleven knots an hour. The thermometer had fallen many degrees, and as the sun set, the passengers were glad to go below for shelter. Before going to bed, Dick went up on deck for a few minutes. The topsails had been reefed down, but the Madras was rushing through the water at a high rate of speed. The sea was getting up, and the waves were crested with foam. Above, the stars were shining brilliantly. "Well, lad, this is a change, is it not?" the captain said, as he came along in a pea jacket. "We seem to be going splendidly, Captain." "Yes, we are walking along grandly, and making up for lost time." "It is blowing hard, sir." "It will blow a good deal harder before morning, lad, but I do not think it will be anything very severe. Things won't be so comfortable downstairs, for the next day or two, but that is likely to be the worst of it." The motion of the ship kept Dick awake for some time, but, wedging himself tightly in his berth, he presently fell off to sleep, and did not wake again until morning. His two cabin mates were suffering terribly from seasickness, but he felt perfectly well, although it took him a long time to dress, so great was the motion of the ship. On making his way on deck, he found that overhead the sky was blue and bright, and the sun shining brilliantly. The wind was blowing much harder than on the previous evening, and a heavy sea was running; but as the sun sparkled on the white crests of the waves, the scene was far less awe inspiring than it had been when he looked out before retiring to his berth. The ship, under closely-reefed main and fore-top sails, was tearing through the water at a high rate of speed, throwing clouds of spray from her bows, and occasionally taking a wave over them that sent a deluge of water along the deck. "What do you think of this, lad?" Mr. Rawlinson, who was in charge of the watch, asked him; as, after watching his opportunity, he made a rush to the side and caught a firm hold of a shroud. "It is splendid, sir," he said. "Has she been going like this all night?" The officer nodded. "How long do you think it will last, sir?" "Two or three days." "Will it be any worse, sir?" "Not likely to be. It is taking us along rarely, and it is doing us good in more ways than one. "Look there;" and as they rose on a wave, he pointed across the water, behind Dick. The lad turned, and saw a brig running parallel to their course, half a mile distant. "What of her, sir?" "That is a French privateer, unless I am greatly mistaken." "But she has the British ensign flying, sir." "Ay, but that goes for nothing. She may possibly be a trader, on her way down to the Guinea coast, but by the cut of her sails and the look of her hull, I have no doubt that she is a Frenchman." "We are passing her, sir." "Oh, yes. In a gale and a heavy sea, weight tells, and we shall soon leave her astern; but in fine weather, I expect she could sail round and round us. If the French could fight their ships as well as they can build them, we should not be in it with them." "Why don't we fire at her, Mr. Rawlinson?" The officer laughed. "How are you going to work your guns, with the ship rolling like this? No, lad, we are like two muzzled dogs at present--we can do nothing but watch each other. I am sorry to say that I don't think the fellow is alone. Two or three times I have fancied that I caught a glimpse of a sail on our starboard quarter. I could not swear to it, but I don't think I was mistaken, and I called the captain's attention that way, just before he went down ten minutes ago, and he thought he saw it, too. However, as there was nothing to be done, he went down for a caulk. He had not left the deck since noon, yesterday." "But if she is no bigger than the other, I suppose we shall leave her behind, too, Mr. Rawlinson?" "Ay, lad, we shall leave them both behind presently; but if they are what I think, we are likely to hear more of them, later on. They would not be so far offshore as this, unless they were on the lookout for Indiamen, which of course keep much farther out than ships bound up the Mediterranean; and, having once spotted us, they will follow us like hounds on a deer's trail. However, I think they are likely to find that they have caught a tartar, when they come up to us. "Ah! Here is the doctor. "Well, doctor, what is the report below?" "Only the usual number of casualties--a sprained wrist, a few contusions, and three or four cases of hysterics." "Is Mother all right, doctor?" Dick asked. "As I have heard nothing of her, I have no doubt she is. I am quite sure that she will not trouble me with hysterics. Women who have had real trouble to bear, Dick, can be trusted to keep their nerves steady in a gale." "I suppose you call this a gale, doctor?" "Certainly. It is a stiff north-easterly gale, and if we were facing it, instead of running before it, you would not want to ask the question. "That is a suspicious-looking craft, Rawlinson," he broke off, catching sight of the brig, now on their port quarter. "Yes, she is a privateer I have no doubt, and, unless I am mistaken, she has a consort somewhere out there to starboard. However, we need not trouble about them. Travelling as we are, we are going two knots an hour faster than the brig." "So much the better," the doctor said, shortly. "We can laugh at one of these fellows, but when it comes to two of them, I own that I don't care for their company. So the longer this gale holds on, the better." The mate nodded. "Well, Dick," the doctor went on, "do you feel as if you will be able to eat your breakfast?" "I shall be ready enough for it, doctor, but I don't see how it will be possible to eat it, with the vessel rolling like this." "You certainly will not be able to sit down to it--nothing would stay on the table a minute. There will be no regular breakfast today. You must get the steward to cut you a chunk of cold meat, put it between two slices of bread, and make a sandwich of it. As to tea, ask him to give you a bottle and to pour your tea into that; then, if you wedge yourself into a corner, you will find that you are able to manage your breakfast comfortably, and can amuse yourself watching people trying to balance a cup of tea in their hand." Not more than half a dozen passengers ventured on deck, for the next two days, but at the end of that time the force of the wind gradually abated, and on the following morning the Madras had all her sails set, to a light but still favourable breeze. Madeira had been passed, to Dick's disappointment; but, except for a fresh supply of vegetables, there was no occasion to put in there, and the captain grudged the loss of a day, while so favourable a wind was taking them along. "Do you think we shall see anything of that brig again, doctor?" Dick asked, as, for the first time since the wind sprang up, the passengers sat down to a comfortable breakfast. "There is no saying, Dick. If we gained two knots an hour during the blow (and I don't suppose we gained more than one and a half), they must be a hundred and twenty miles or so astern of us; after all, that is only half a day's run. I think they are pretty sure to follow us for a bit, for they will know that, in light winds, they travel faster than we do; and if we get becalmed, while they still hold the breeze, they will come up hand over hand. It is likely enough that, in another three days or so, we may get a sight of them behind us." This was evidently the captain's opinion also, for during the day the guns were overhauled, and their carriages examined, and the muskets brought up on deck and cleaned. On the following day the men were practised at the guns, and then had pike and cutlass exercise. None of the passengers particularly noticed these proceedings, for Dick had been warned by the captain to say nothing about the brig; and as he was the only passenger on deck at the time, no whisper of the privateers had come to the ears of the others. The party were just going down to lunch, on the third day, when a lookout in the maintop hailed the deck: "A sail astern." "How does she bear?" "She is dead astern of us, sir, and I can only make out her upper sails. I should say that they are her royals." Mr. Green ran up, with his telescope slung over his shoulder. "I cannot make much out of her, sir," he shouted to the captain. "She may be anything. She must be nearly thirty miles astern. I think, with Pearson, that it is her royals we see." "Take a look round, Mr. Green." The mate did so, and presently called down: "I can make out something else away on the starboard quarter, but so far astern that I can scarce swear to her. Still, it can be nothing but a sail." "Thank you, Mr. Green. I daresay that we shall know more about her, later on." When the captain joined the passengers at table, one of the ladies said: "You seem interested in that ship astern of us, captain." "Yes, Mrs. Seaforth. One is always interested in a ship, when one gets down as far as this. She may be another Indiaman, and although the Madras has no claim to any great speed in a light breeze like this, one never likes being passed." The explanation was considered as sufficient, and nothing more was said on the subject. By sunset, the upper sails of the stranger could be made out from the deck of the Madras. Mr. Green again went up, and had a look at her. "She is coming up fast," he said, when he rejoined the captain. "She keeps so dead in our wake that I can't make out whether she is a brig or a three master; but I fancy that she is a brig, by the size and cut of her sails. I can see the other craft plainly enough now; she is eight or ten miles west of the other, and has closed in towards her since I made her out before. I have no doubt that she is a large schooner." "Well, it is a comfort that they are not a few miles nearer, Mr. Green. There is no chance of their overtaking us before morning, so we shall be able to keep our watches as usual, and shall have time to get ready for a fight, if there is to be one." "The sooner the better sir, so that it is daylight. It is quite certain that they have the legs of us." In the morning, when Dick came up, he found that the wind had quite died away, and the sails hung loosely from the yards. Looking astern, he saw two vessels. They were some six miles away, and perhaps two miles apart. As they lay without steerage way, they had swung partly round, and he saw that they were a brig and a schooner. The former he had no doubt, from her lofty masts and general appearance, was the same the Madras had passed six days before. As the passengers came up, they were full of curiosity as to the vessels. "Of course, we know no more actually than you do yourselves," the captain said, as some of them gathered round and questioned him, "but I may as well tell you, frankly, that we have very little doubt about their being two French privateers. We passed them during the gale, and had some hopes that we should not see them again; but, in the light breeze we have been having during the last few days, they have made up lost ground, and I am afraid we shall have to fight them." Exclamations of alarm broke from some of the ladies who heard his words. "You need not be alarmed, ladies," he went on. "We carry twelve guns, you know, and I expect that all of them are of heavier metal than theirs. The Madras is a strongly-built ship, and will stand a good deal more hammering than those light craft will, so that I have no doubt we shall give a good account of ourselves." After breakfast, the hatches were opened and the gun cases belonging to the passengers brought on deck. Scarce one of them but had a rifle, and many had, in addition, a shotgun. The day passed without any change in the positions of the vessels, for they still lay becalmed. "Why don't they get out their boats, and tow their vessels up?" Dick asked the doctor. "Because they would be throwing away their chances, if they did so. They know that we cannot get away from them, and we might smash up their boats as soon as they came within range. Besides, their speed and superior handiness give them a pull over us, when fighting under sail. They may try to tow up during the night, if they think they are strong enough to take us by boarding, but I hardly think they will do so." The night, however, passed off quietly. But in the morning a light breeze sprang up from the east, the sails were trimmed, and the Madras again began to move through the water. By breakfast time, the craft behind had visibly decreased their distance. The meal was a silent one. When it was over, the captain said: "As soon as those fellows open fire, ladies, I must ask you all to go down into the hold. The sailors have already cleared a space, below the waterline, large enough for you; and they will take down some cushions, and so on, to make you as comfortable as possible, under the circumstances. Pray do not be alarmed at any noises you may hear. You will be below the waterline, and perfectly safe from their shot; and you may be sure that we shall do our best to keep the scoundrels from boarding us; and I will let you know, from time to time, how matters are going." The unmarried men at once went up on deck. The others lingered for a short time behind, talking to their wives and daughters, and then followed. "The wind has strengthened a bit, Mr. Green," the captain said, "and I fancy we shall get more." "I think so, too, Captain." "Then you may as well get off the upper sails, and make her snug. Get off everything above the top gallant. Then, if the wind increases, we shall not want to call the men away from the guns." The crew had, without orders, already mustered at quarters. The lashings had been cast off the guns, the boatswain had opened the magazines, and a pile of shot stood by each gun, together with cases of canister and grapeshot for close work. Boarding pikes and cutlasses were ranged along by the bulwarks. The men had thrown aside their jackets, and many of those at the guns were stripped to the waist. Some of them were laughing and talking, and Dick saw, by their air of confidence, that they had no doubt of their ability to beat off the assault of the privateers. The latter were the first to open the ball. A puff of smoke burst out from the brig's bows, followed almost instantly by one from the schooner. Both shots fell short, and, for a quarter of an hour, the three vessels kept on their way. "We have heavier metal than that," the captain said, cheerfully, "and I have no doubt we could reach them. But it is not our game to play at long bowls, for it is probable that both of them carry a long pivot gun, and if they were to draw off a bit, they could annoy us amazingly, while we could not reach them." Presently the privateers opened fire again. They were now about a mile away, and the same distance from each other. Their shot fell close to the Indiaman, and two or three passed through her sails. Still no reply was made. The men at the guns fidgeted, and kept casting glances towards the poop, in expectation of an order. It came at last, but was not what they had expected. "Double shot your guns, men," the captain said. Scarcely was the order obeyed when the brig, which was now on the port quarter, luffed up a little into the wind, and fired a broadside of eight guns. There was a crashing of wood. The Madras was hulled in three places; two more holes appeared in her sails; while the other shot passed harmlessly just astern of her. There was an angry growl among the sailors, as the schooner bore away a little, and also fired her broadside. Except that a man was struck down by a splinter from the bulwarks, no damage was done. "Bear up a little," the captain said to the second officer, who was standing by the helmsman. "I want to edge in a little towards the brig, but not enough for them to notice it. "Now, gentlemen," he went on, to the passengers, "I have no doubt that most of you are good shots, and I want you, after we have fired our broadside, to direct your attention to the brig's helmsmen. If you can render it impossible for the men to stand at the wheel, we will make mincemeat of this fellow in no time. Directly I have fired our port broadside, I am going to bring her up into the wind on the opposite tack, and give him the starboard broadside at close quarters. Don't fire until we have gone about, and then pick off the helmsmen, if you can. "Get ready, men." The brig was now but a little more than a quarter of a mile distant. "Aim at the foot of his mainmast," he went on. "Let each man fire as he gets the mast on his sight." A moment later the first gun fired, and the whole broadside followed in quick succession. "Down with the helm! Hard down, sheets and tacks!" The men whose duty it was to trim the sails ran to the sheets and braces. The Madras swept up into the wind, and, as her sails drew on the other tack, she came along on a course that would take her within a hundred yards of the brig. As she approached, three rifles cracked out on her poop. One of the men at the helm of the brig fell, and as he did so, half a dozen more shots were fired; and as his companion dropped beside him, the brig, deprived of her helm, flew up into the wind. Three men ran aft to the wheel, but the deadly rifles spoke out again. Two of them fell. The third dived under the bulwark, for shelter. "Steady, men!" the captain shouted. "Fetch her mainmast out of her!" As they swept along under the stern of the brig, each gun of their other broadside poured in its fire in succession, raking the crowded deck from end to end. A moment later, the mainmast was seen to sway, and a tremendous cheer broke from the Madras as it went over the side, dragging with it the foretopmast, with all its gear. "Down with the helm again!" the captain shouted. "Bring her head to wind, and keep her there!" The first officer sprang forward, to see that the order was carried into effect, and a minute later the Indiaman lay, with her sails aback, at a distance of a hundred yards, on the quarter of the brig. "Grape and canister!" the captain shouted, and broadside after broadside swept the decks of the brig, which, hampered by her wreckage, was lying almost motionless in the water. So terrible was the fire, that the privateer's men threw down the axes with which they were striving to cut away the floating spars, and ran below. "Double shot your guns, and give her one broadside between wind and water!" the captain ordered. "Haul on the sheets and braces, Mr. Green, and get her on her course again--the schooner won't trouble us, now." That craft had indeed, at first, luffed up, to come to the assistance of her consort; but on seeing the fall of the latter's mast, and that she was incapable of rendering any assistance, had again altered her course, feeling her incapacity to engage so redoubtable an opponent, single handed. Three hearty cheers broke from all on board the Madras as, after pouring in a broadside at a distance of fifty yards, she left the brig behind her, and proceeded on her way. "Then you don't care about taking prizes, captain?" one of the passengers said, as they crowded round to congratulate him upon his easy, and almost bloodless, victory. "No, taking prizes is not my business; and were I to weaken my crew, by sending some of them off in a prize, I might find myself short-handed if we met another of these gentlemen, or fell in with bad weather. Besides, she would not be worth sending home." "The brig is signalling to her consort, sir," Mr. Green said, coming up. "Ay, ay. I expect she wants help badly enough. I saw the chips fly close to her waterline, as we gave her that last broadside." "They are lowering a boat," one of the passengers said. "So they are. I expect they haven't got more than one that can swim. "I think she is settling down," the captain said, as he looked earnestly at the wreck astern. "See how they are crowding into that boat, and how some of the others are cutting and slashing, to get the wreckage clear of her." "She is certainly a good bit lower in the water than she was," the first officer agreed. "The schooner has come round, and won't be long before she is alongside of her." There was no doubt that the brig was settling down fast. Men stood on the bulwarks, and waved their caps frantically to the schooner. Others could be seen, by the aid of a glass, casting spars, hen coops, and other articles overboard, and jumping into the water after them; and soon the sea around the wreck was dotted with heads and floating fragments, while the wreckage of the mainmast was clustered with men. When the Madras was a mile away, the schooner was lying, thrown up head to wind, fifty yards from the brig; and her boats were already engaged in picking up the swimmers. Suddenly the brig gave a heavy lurch. "There she goes!" the captain exclaimed. A moment later the hull had disappeared, and the schooner remained alone. By this time, the whole of the ladies had ascended from their place of safety to the poop, and a general exclamation broke from the passengers, as the brig disappeared. "The schooner will pick them all up," the captain said. "They must have suffered heavily from our fire, but I don't think any will have gone down with her. The boat, which has already reached the schooner, must have taken a good many, and the mainmast and foretopmast and spars would support the rest, to say nothing of the things they have thrown overboard. There is one wasp the less afloat." No further adventure was met with, throughout the voyage. They had a spell of bad weather off the Cape, but the captain said it was nothing to the gales they often encountered there, and that the voyage, as a whole, was an exceptionally good one; for, even after the delays they had encountered at the start, the passage had lasted but four months and a half. They touched at Point de Galle for news, and to ascertain whether any French warships had been seen, of late, along the coast. A supply of fresh vegetables and fruit was taken on board, as the vessel, after touching at Madras, was to go on to Calcutta. A few of the passengers landed at Point de Galle, but neither Dick nor his mother went ashore. "You will have plenty of opportunities of seeing Indians, later on, Dick," Mrs. Holland had said; "and, as the gigs will not take all ashore, we may as well stop quietly here. I heard the captain say that he would weigh anchor again, in four hours." Dick was rather disappointed, but, as they would be at Madras before long, he did not much mind. Ten days later, they anchored off that town. Little was to be seen except the fort, a number of warehouses, and the native town, while the scenery contrasted strongly with that of Ceylon, with its masses of green foliage, with hills rising behind. For the last fortnight, Mrs. Holland had been somewhat depressed. Now that the voyage was nearly over, the difficulties of the task before her seemed greater than they had done when viewed from a distance, and she asked herself whether, after all, it would not have been wiser to have waited another two or three years, until Dick had attained greater strength and manhood. The boy, however, when she confided her doubts to him, laughed at the idea. "Why, you know, Mother," he said, "we agreed that I had a much greater chance, as a boy, of going about unsuspected, than I should have as a man. Besides, we could never have let Father remain any longer, without trying to get him out. "No, no, Mother, you know we have gone through it over and over again, and talked about every chance. We have had a first-rate voyage, and everything is going on just as we could have wished, and it would never do to begin to have doubts now. We have both felt confident, all along. It seems to me that, of all things, we must keep on being confident, at any rate until there is something to give us cause to doubt." On the following morning, they landed in a surf boat, and were fortunate in getting ashore without being drenched. There was a rush of wild looking and half-naked natives to seize their baggage; but upon Mrs. Holland, with quiet decision, accosting the men in their own language, and picking out four of them to carry the baggage up, to one of the vehicles standing on the road that ran along the top of the high beach, the rest fell back, and the matter was arranged without difficulty. After a drive of twenty minutes, they stopped at a hotel. "It is not like a hotel, Mother," Dick remarked, as they drew up. "It is more like a gentleman's house, standing in its own park." "Almost all the European houses are built so, here, Dick, and it is much more pleasant than when they are packed together." "Much nicer," Dick agreed. "If each house has a lot of ground like this, the place must cover a tremendous extent of country." "It does, Dick; but, as every one keeps horses and carriages, that does not matter much. Blacktown, as they call the native town, stands quite apart from the European quarter." As soon as they were settled in their rooms, which seemed to Dick singularly bare and unfurnished, mother and son went out for a drive, in one of the carriages belonging to the hotel. Dick had learned so much about India from her that, although extremely interested, he was scarcely surprised at the various scenes that met his eye, or at the bright and varied costumes of the natives. Many changes had taken place, during the seventeen years that had elapsed since Mrs. Holland had left India. The town had increased greatly in size. All signs of the effects of the siege by the French, thirty years before, had been long since obliterated. Large and handsome government buildings had been erected, and evidences of wealth and prosperity were everywhere present.	{ "id": "18813" }
3	: The Rajah.	"Now, Mother, let us talk over our plans," Dick said as, after dinner, they seated themselves in two chairs in the veranda, at some little distance from the other guests at the hotel. "How are we going to begin?" "In the first place, Dick, we shall tomorrow send out a messenger to Tripataly, to tell my brother of our arrival here." "How far is it, Mother?" "It is about a hundred and twenty miles, in a straight line, I think; but a good bit farther than that, by the way we shall go." "How shall we travel, Mother?" "I will make some inquiries tomorrow, but I think that the pleasantest way will be to drive from here to Conjeveram. I think that is about forty miles. There we can take a native boat, and go up the river Palar, past Arcot and Vellore, to Vaniambaddy. From there it is only about fifteen miles to Tripataly. "I shall tell my brother the way I propose going. Of course, if he thinks any other way will be better, we shall go by that." "Are we going to travel as we are, Mother, or in native dress?" "That is a point that I have been thinking over, Dick. I will wait, and ask my brother which he thinks will be the best. When out there I always dressed as a native, and never put on English clothes, except at Madras. I used to come down here two or three times every year, with my mother, and generally stayed for a fortnight or three weeks. During that time, we always dressed in English fashion, as by so doing we could live at the hotel, and take our meals at public tables without exciting comment. My mother knew several families here, and liked getting back to English ways, occasionally. "Of course, I shall dress in Indian fashion while I stay at my brother's, so it is only the question of how we shall journey there, and I think I should prefer going as we are. We shall excite no special observation, travelling as English, as it will only be supposed that we are on our way to pay a visit to some of our officers, at Arcot. At Conjeveram, which is a large place, there is sure to be a hotel of some sort or other, for it is on the main road from Madras south. On the way up, by water, we shall of course sleep on board, and we shall go direct from the boat to Tripataly. "However, we need not decide until we get an answer to my letter, for it will take a very short time to get the necessary dresses for us both. I think it most likely that my brother will send down one of his officers to meet us, or possibly may come down himself. "You heard what they were all talking about, at dinner, Dick?" "Yes, Mother, it was something about Tippoo attacking the Rajah of Travancore, but I did not pay much attention to it. I was looking at the servants, in their curious dresses." "It is very important, Dick, and will probably change all our plans. Travancore is in alliance with us, and every one thinks that Tippoo's attack on it will end in our being engaged in war with him. I was talking to the officer who sat next to me, and he told me that, if there had been a capable man at the head of government here, war would have been declared as soon as the Sultan moved against Travancore. Now that General Meadows had been appointed governor and commander-in-chief, there was no doubt, he said, that an army would move against Tippoo in a very short time--that it was already being collected, and that a force was marching down here from Bengal. "So you see, my boy, if this war really breaks out, the English may march to Seringapatam, and compel Tippoo to give up all the captives he has in his hands." "That would be splendid, Mother." "At any rate, Dick, as long as there is a hope of your father being rescued, in that way, our plans must be put aside." "Well, Mother, that will be better, in some respects; for of course, if Father is not rescued by our army, I can try afterwards as we arranged. It would be an advantage, in one way, as I should then be quite accustomed to the country, and more fit to make my way about." A week later, an old officer arrived from Tripataly. "Ah, Rajbullub," Mrs. Holland exclaimed, as he came up with a deep salaam; "I am, indeed, glad to see you again. I knew you were alive, for my brother mentioned you when he wrote last year." Rajbullub was evidently greatly pleased at the recognition. "I think I should have known you, lady," he said; "but eighteen years makes more changes in the young than in the old. Truly I am glad to see you again. There was great joy among us, who knew you as a child, when the Rajah told us that you were here. He has sent me on to say that he will arrive, tomorrow. I am to see to his apartments, and to have all in readiness. He intends to stay here, some days, before returning to Tripataly." "Will he come to this hotel?" "No, lady, he will take the house he always has, when he is here. It is kept for the use of our princes, when they come down to Madras. He bade me say that he hopes you will remain here, for that none of the rooms could be got ready, at such a short notice. "He has not written, for he hates writing, which is a thing that he has small occasion for. I was to tell you that his heart rejoiced, at the thought of seeing you again, and that his love for you is as warm as it was when you were a boy and girl together." "This is my son, Rajbullub. He has often heard me speak of you." "Yes, indeed," Dick said, warmly. "I heard how you saved her from being bitten by a cobra, when she was a little girl." "Ah! The young lord speaks our tongue," Rajbullub said, with great pleasure. "We wondered whether you would have taught it to him. If it had not been that you always wrote to my lord in our language, we should have thought that you, yourself, would surely have forgotten it, after dwelling so long among the white sahibs." "No, we always speak it when together, Rajbullub. I thought that he might, some day, come out here, and that he would find it very useful; and I, too, have been looking forward to returning, for a time, to the home where I was born." There were many questions to ask about her brother, his wife and two sons. They were younger than Dick, for Mrs. Holland was three years senior to the Rajah. At last, she said, "I will not detain you longer, Rajbullub. I know that you will have a great deal to do, to get ready for my brother's coming. At what time will he arrive?" "He hopes to be here by ten in the morning, before the heat of the day sets in." "I shall, of course, be there to meet him." "So he hoped, lady. He said that he would have come straight here, first, but he thought it would be more pleasant for you to meet him in privacy." "Assuredly it would," she agreed. "I will bring a carriage for you, here, at nine o'clock; and take you and my young lord to the Rajah's house." At the appointed time, a handsome carriage and pair drove up to the door of the hotel, and in ten minutes Mrs. Holland and Dick alighted in the courtyard of a large house. Four native servants were at the door, and the old officer led the way to a spacious room. This was carpeted with handsome rugs. Soft cushions were piled on the divan, running round the room, the divan itself being covered with velvet and silk rugs. Looking glasses were ranged upon the walls; a handsome chandelier hung from the roof; draperies of gauze, lightly embroidered with gold, hung across the windows. "Why, Rajbullub, you have done wonders--that is, if the house was unfurnished, yesterday." "It is simple," the Hindoo said. "My lord your brother, like other rajahs who use the house when they come down here, has a room upstairs; in which are kept, locked up, everything required for furnishing the rooms he uses. Four of his servants came down here, with me. We had but to call in sweepers, to clear the house from dust and wash down the marble floors, and then everything was put into its place. The cook, who also came down, has hired assistants, and all will be ready for my lord, when he arrives." In half an hour, one of the servants ran in, and announced that the Rajah was in the courtyard. There was a great trampling of hoofs, and a minute later he ascended the stairs, and was met by his sister and Dick at the door of the room. Mrs. Holland had attired herself handsomely, not so much for the sake of her brother, but that, as his sister, those with him would expect to see in her an English lady of position; and Dick thought that he had never seen her looking so well as when, in a dress of rich brocade, and with a flush of pleasure and expectation on her cheeks, she advanced to the door. She was still but a little over thirty-three years old, and although the long years of anxiety and sorrow had left their traces on her face, the rest and quiet of the sea voyage had done much to restore the fulness of her cheeks, and to soften the outline of her figure. The Rajah, a young and handsome-looking man of thirty, ascended the stairs with an eagerness and speed that were somewhat at variance with Dick's preconceived ideas of the stateliness of an Eastern prince. "My sister Margaret!" he exclaimed, in English, and embraced her with a warmth that showed that his affection for her was unimpaired by the years that had passed since he last saw her. Then he stood with his hands on her shoulders, looking earnestly at her. "I know you again," he said. "You are changed, but I can recall your face well. You are welcome, Margaret, most welcome. "And this is my nephew?" he went on, turning to Dick, and holding out both his hands to him. "You are taller than I expected--well nigh as tall as I am. You are like your mother and my mother; and you are bold and active and strong, she writes me. My boys are longing to see you, and you will be most welcome at Tripataly. "I have almost forgotten my English, Margaret "--and, indeed, he spoke with some difficulty, evidently choosing his words--"I should quite have forgotten it, had not I often had occasion to speak it with English officers. I see, by your letters, that you have not forgotten our tongue." "Not in the least, Mortiz. I have, for years, spoken nothing else with Dick, and he speaks it as well as I do." "That is good," the Rajah replied, in his own tongue, and in a tone of relief. "I was wondering how he would get on with us. "Now, let us sit down. We have so much to tell each other, and, moreover, I am ravenous for breakfast, as I have ridden forty miles since sunrise." Breakfast was speedily served, the Rajah eating in English fashion. "I cling to some of our mother's ways, you see, Margaret. As I have grown older, I have become more English than I was. Naturally, as a boy of thirteen, as I was when you last saw me, I listened to the talk of those around me, and was guided by their opinions a good deal. Among them, there was a feeling of regret that our father had married an English woman; and I, of course, was ever trying my hardest to show that in riding, or the chase, or in exercises of any kind, I was as worthy to be the son of an Indian rajah as if I had no white blood in my veins. "As I grew up, I became wiser. I saw how great the English were, how steadily they extended their dominions, and how vastly better off were our people, under their sway, than they were in the days when every rajah made war against his neighbour, and the land never had rest. Then I grew proud of my English blood, and although I am, to my people, Rajah of Tripataly, a native prince and lord of their destinies, keeping up the same state as my father, and ruling them in native fashion, in my inner house I have adopted many English ways. "My wife has no rival in the zenana. I encourage her to go about, as our mother did, to look after the affairs of the house, to sit at table with me, and to be my companion, and not a mere plaything. I am sure, Margaret, your stay with us will do her much good, and she will learn a great deal from you." "You have heard no news since you last wrote, Mortiz?" A slight cloud passed across the Rajah's animated face. "None, Margaret. We have little news from beyond the mountains. Tippoo hates us, who are the friends of the English, as much as he hates the English themselves, so there is little communication between Mysore and the possessions of the Nabob of Arcot. We will talk, later on, of the plans you wrote of in your last letter to me." "You do not think that they are hopeless, Mortiz?" Mrs. Holland asked, anxiously. "I would not say that they are hopeless," he said gently, "although it seems to me that, after all these years, the chances are slight, indeed, that your husband can be alive; and the peril and danger of the enterprise that, so far as I understood you, you intend your son to undertake, would be terrible, indeed." "We see that, Mortiz. Dick and I have talked it over, a thousand times. But so long as there is but a shadow of a chance of his finding his father, he is ready to undertake the search. He is a boy in years, but he has been trained for the undertaking, and will, when the trial comes, bear himself as well as a man." "Well, Margaret, I shall have plenty of opportunities for forming my own judgment; because, of course, he will stay with us a long time before he starts on the quest, and it will be better to say no more of this, now. "Now, tell me about London. Is it so much a greater city than Madras?" Mrs. Holland sighed. She saw, by his manner, that he was wholly opposed to her plan, and although she was quite prepared for opposition, she could not help feeling disappointed. However, she perceived that, as he said, it would be better to drop the subject for a time; and she accordingly put it aside, and answered his questions. "Madras is large--that is, it spreads over a wide extent; but if it were packed with houses, as closely as they could stand, it would not approach London in the number of its population." "How is it that the English do not send more troops out here, Margaret?" "Because they can raise troops here, and English soldiers cannot stand the heat as well as those born to it. Moreover, you must remember that, at present, England is at war, not only with France and half Europe, but also with America. She is also obliged to keep an army in Ireland, which is greatly disaffected. With all this on her hands, she cannot send a large army so far across the seas, especially when her force here is sufficient for all that can be required of it." "That is true," he said. "It is wonderful what they have done out here, with such small forces. But they will have harder work, before they conquer all India--as I believe they will do--than they have yet encountered. In spite of Tippoo's vauntings, they will have Mysore before many years are over. The Sultan seems to have forgotten the lesson they taught him, six or seven years back. But the next time will be the last, and Tippoo, tiger as he is, will meet the fate he seems bent on provoking. "But beyond Mysore lies the Mahratta country, and the Mahrattis alone can put thirty thousand horsemen into the field. They are not like the people of Bengal, who have ever fallen, with scarce an attempt at resistance, under the yoke of one tyrant after another. The Mahrattis are a nation of warriors. They are plunderers, if you will, but they are brave and fearless soldiers, and might, had they been united, have had all India under their feet before the coming of the English. That chance has slipped from them. But when we--I say 'we' you see, Margaret--meet them, it will be a desperate struggle, indeed." "We shall thrash them, Uncle," Dick broke in. "You will see that we shall beat them thoroughly." The Rajah smiled at Dick's impetuosity. "So you think English soldiers cannot be beaten, eh?" "Well, Uncle, somehow they never do get beaten. I don't know how it is. I suppose that it is just obstinacy. Look how we thrashed the French here, and they were just as well drilled as our soldiers, and there were twice as many of them." The Rajah nodded. "One secret of our success, Dick, is that the English get on better with the natives here than the French do--I don't know why, except what I have heard from people who went through the war. They say that the French always seemed to look down on the natives, and treated even powerful allies with a sort of haughtiness that irritated them, and made them ready to change sides at the first opportunity; while the British treated them pleasantly, so that there was a real friendship between them." Dick, finding that the conversation now turned to the time when his mother and uncle were girl and boy together, left them and went downstairs. He found some twenty horses ranged in the courtyard, while their riders were sitting in the shade, several of them being engaged in cooking. These were the escort who had ridden with the Rajah from Tripataly--for no Indian prince would think of making a journey, unless accompanied by a numerous retinue. Scarcely had he entered the yard than Rajbullub came up, with the officer in command of the escort, a fine-looking specimen of a Hindoo soldier. He salaamed, as Rajbullub presented him to Dick. The lad addressed him at once in his own tongue, and they were soon talking freely together. The officer was surprised at finding that his lord's nephew, from beyond the sea, was able to speak the language like a native. First, Dick asked the nature of the country, and the places at which they would halt on their way. Then he inquired what force the Rajah could put into the field, and was somewhat disappointed to hear that he kept up but a hundred horsemen, including those who served as an escort. "You see, Sahib, there is no occasion for soldiers. Now that the whites are the masters, they do the fighting for us. When the Rajah's father was a young man, he could put two thousand men under arms, and he joined at the siege of Trichinopoly with twelve hundred. But now there is no longer need for an army. There is no one to fight. Some of the young men grumble, but the old ones rejoice at the change. Formerly, they had to go to the plough with their spears and their swords beside them, because they never knew when marauders from the hills might sweep down; besides, when there was war, they might be called away for weeks, while the crops were wasting upon the ground. "As to the younger men who grumble, I say to them, 'If you are tired of a peaceful life, go and enlist in a Company's regiment;' and every year some of them do so. "In other ways, the change is good. Now that the Rajah has no longer to keep up an army, he is not obliged to squeeze the cultivators. Therefore, they pay but a light rent for their lands, and the Rajah is far better off than his father was; so that, on all sides, there is content and prosperity. But, even now, the fear of Mysore has not quite died out." "My position, Margaret," the Rajah said, after Dick had left the room, "is a very precarious one. When Hyder Ali marched down here, eight years ago, he swept the whole country, from the foot of the hills to the sea coast. My father would have been glad to stand neutral, but was, of course, bound to go with the English, as the Nabob of Arcot, his nominal sovereign, went with them. His sympathies were, of course, with your people; but most of the chiefs were, at heart, in favour of Hyder. It was not that they loved him, or preferred the rule of Mysore to that of Madras. But at that time Madras was governed by imbeciles. Its Council was composed entirely of timid and irresolute men. It was clear to all that, before any force capable of withstanding him could be put in the field, the whole country, beyond reach of the guns of the forts at Madras, would be at the mercy of Hyder. "What that mercy was, had been shown elsewhere. Whole populations had been either massacred, or carried off as slaves. Therefore, when the storm was clearly about to burst, almost all of them sent secret messages to Hyder, to assure him that their sympathies were with him, and that they would gladly hail him as ruler of the Carnatic. "My father was in no way inclined to take such a step. His marriage with an English woman, the white blood in my veins, and his long-known partiality for the English, would have marked him for certain destruction; and, as soon as he received news that Hyder's troops were in movement, he rode with me to Madras. At that time, his force was comparatively large, and he took three hundred men down with us. He had allowed all who preferred it to remain behind; and some four hundred stayed to look after their families. Most of the population took to the hills and, as Hyder's forces were too much occupied to spend time in scouring the ghauts in search of fugitives, when there was so much loot and so many captives ready to their hands on the plains, the fugitives for the most part remained there in safety. The palace was burnt, the town sacked and partly destroyed, and some fifteen hundred of our people, who had remained in their homes, killed or carried off. "My father did some service with our horse, and I fought by his side. We were with Colonel Baillie's force when it was destroyed, after for two days resisting the whole of Hyder All's army. Being mounted, we escaped, and reached Madras in safety, after losing half our number. But all that I can tell you about, some other day. "When peace was made and Hyder retired, we returned home, rebuilt the palace, and restored the town. But if Tippoo follows his father's example, and sweeps down from the hills, there will be nothing for it but to fly again. Tippoo commanded one of the divisions of Hyder's army, last time, and showed much skill and energy; and has, since he came to the throne, been a scourge to his neighbours in the north. So far as I can see, Madras will be found as unprepared as it was last time; and although the chiefs of Vellore, Arcot, Conjeveram, and other places may be better disposed towards the English than they were before--for the Carnatic had a terrible lesson last time--they will not dare to lift a finger against him, until they see a large British force assembled. "So you see, sister, your position will be a very precarious one at Tripataly; and it is likely that, at any time, we may be obliged to seek refuge here. The trouble may come soon, or it may not come for a year; but, sooner or later, I regard it as certain that Tippoo will strive to obtain what his father failed to gain--the mastership of the Carnatic. Indeed, he makes no secret of his intention to become lord of the whole of southern India. The Nizam, his neighbour in the north, fears his power, and could offer but a feeble resistance, were Tippoo once master of the south and west coast. The Mahrattis can always be bought over, especially if there is a prospect of plunder. He relies, too, upon aid from France; for although the French, since the capture of Pondicherry, have themselves lost all chance of obtaining India, they would gladly aid in any enterprise that would bring about the fall of English predominance here. "There are, too, considerable bodies of French troops in the pay of the Nizam, and these would, at any rate, force their master to remain neutral in a struggle between the English and Tippoo. "However, it will be quite unnecessary that you should resume our garb, or that Dick should dress in the same fashion. Did I intend to remain at Tripataly, I should not wish to draw the attention of my neighbours to the fact that I had English relations resident with me. Of course, every one knows that I am half English myself, but that is an old story now. They would, however, be reminded of it, and Tippoo would hear of it, and would use it as a pretext for attacking and plundering us. But, as I have decided to come down here, there is no reason why you should not dress in European fashion." "We would remain here, brother," Mrs. Holland said, "rather than bring danger upon you. Dick could learn the ways of the country here, as well as with you, and could start on his search without going to Tripataly." "Not at all, Margaret. Whether you are with me or not, I shall have to leave Tripataly when Tippoo advances, and your presence will not in any way affect my plans. My wife and sons must travel with me, and one woman and boy, more or less, will make no difference. At present, this scheme of yours seems to me to border on madness. But we need not discuss that now. I shall, at any rate, be very glad to have you both with me. The English side of me has been altogether in the background, since you went away; and though I keep up many of the customs our mother introduced, I have almost forgotten the tongue, though I force myself to speak it, sometimes, with my boys, as I am sure that, in the long run, the English will become the sole masters of southern India, and it will be a great advantage to them to speak the language. "However, I have many other things to see about, and the companionship of Dick will benefit them greatly. You know what it always is out here. The sons of a rajah are spoilt, early, by every one giving way to them, and their being allowed to do just as they like. Naturally, they get into habits of indolence and self indulgence, and never have occasion to exert themselves, or to obtain the strength and activity that make our mother's countrymen irresistible in battle. They have been taught to shoot and to ride, but they know little else, and I am sure it will do them an immense deal of good to have Dick with them, for a time. "If nothing comes of this search for your husband, I hope you will take up your residence, permanently, at Tripataly. You have nothing to go back to England for, and Dick, with his knowledge of both languages, should be able to find good employment in the Company's service." "Thank you greatly, brother. If, as you say, my quest should come to nothing, I would gladly settle down in my old home. Dick's inclinations, at present, turn to the sea, but I have no doubt that what you say is true, and that there may be far more advantageous openings for him out here. However, that is a matter for us to talk over, in the future." The Rajah stayed four days at Madras. Every morning the carriage came at nine o'clock to fetch Mrs. Holland, who spent several hours with her brother, and was then driven back to the hotel, while Dick wandered about with Rajbullub through the native town, asking questions innumerable, observing closely the different costumes and turbans, and learning to know, at once, the district, trade, or caste, from the colour or fashion of the turban, and other little signs. The shops were an endless source of amusement to him, and he somewhat surprised his companion by his desire to learn the names of all the little articles and trinkets, even of the various kinds of grain. Dick, in fact, was continuing his preparations for his work. He knew that ignorance of any trifling detail which would, as a matter of course, be known to every native, would excite more surprise and suspicion than would be caused by a serious blunder in other matters; and he wrote down, in a notebook, every scrap of information he obtained, so as to learn it by heart at his leisure. Rajbullub was much surprised at the lad's interest in all these little matters, which, as it seemed to him, were not worth a thought on the part of his lord's nephew. "You will never have to buy these things, Sahib," he said. "Why should you trouble about them?" "I am going to be over here some time, Rajbullub, and it is just as well to learn as much as one can. If I were to stroll into the market in Tripataly, and had a fancy to buy any trifle, the country people would laugh in my face, were I ignorant of its name." His companion shook his head. "They would not expect any white sahib to know such things," he said. "If he wants to buy anything, the white sahib points to it and asks, 'How much?' Then, whether it is a brass iota, or a silver trinket, or a file, or a bunch of fruit, the native says a price four times as much as he would ask anyone else. Then the sahib offers him half, and after protesting many times that the sum is impossible, the dealer accepts it, and both parties are well satisfied. "If you have seen anything that you want to buy, sahib, tell me, and I will go and get it for you. Then you will not be cheated." The start for Tripataly was made at daybreak. Dick and his mother drove, in an open carriage that had been hired for the journey. The Rajah rode beside it, or cantered on ahead. His escort followed the vehicle. The luggage had been sent off, two days before, by cart. The country as far as Arcot was flat, but everything was interesting to Dick; and when they arrived at the city, where they were to stop for the night at the house the Rajah had occupied on his way down, he sallied out, as soon as their meal was over, to inspect the fort and walls. He had, during his outward voyage, eagerly studied the history of Clive's military exploits, and the campaigns by which that portion of India had been wrested from the French; and he was eager to visit the fort, whose memorable defence, by Clive, had first turned the scale in favour of the British. These had previously been regarded, by the natives, as a far less warlike people than the French, who were expected to drive them, in a very short time, out of the country. Rajbullub was able to point out to him every spot associated with the stirring events of that time. " 'Tis forty-six years back, and I was but a boy of twelve; but six years later I was here, for our rajah was on the side of the English, although Tripataly was, and is now, under the Nabob of Arcot. But my lord had many causes of complaint against him, and when he declared for the French, our lord, who was not then a rajah, although chief of a considerable district, threw in his lot with the English; and, when they triumphed, was appointed rajah by them, and Tripataly was made almost wholly independent of the Nabob of Arcot. At one time a force of our men was here, with four companies of white troops, when it was thought that Dupleix was likely to march against us; and I was with that force, and so learned all about the fighting here." The next day the party arrived, late in the evening, at Tripataly. A large number of men, with torches, received them in front of the palace; and, on entering, Mrs. Holland was warmly received by the Rajah's wife, who carried her off at once to her apartments, which she did not leave afterwards, as she was greatly fatigued by the two long days of travel. Dick, on the contrary, although he had dozed in the carriage for the last two or three hours of the journey, woke up thoroughly as they neared Tripataly. As soon as they entered the house, the Rajah called his two sons, handsome, dark-faced lads of twelve and thirteen. "This is your cousin, boys," he said. "You must look after him, and see that he has everything he wants, and make his stay as pleasant as you can." Although a little awed by the, to them, tall figure, they evinced neither shyness or awkwardness, but, advancing to Dick, held out their hands one after the other, with grave courtesy. Their faces both brightened, as he said in their own language: "I hope we shall be great friends, cousins. I am older and bigger than you are, but everything is new and strange to me, and I shall have to depend upon you to teach me everything." "We did not think that you would be able to talk to us," the elder, whose name was Doast Assud, said, smiling. "We have been wondering how we should make you understand. Many of the white officers, who come here sometimes, speak our language, but none of them as well as you do." "You see, they only learn it after they come out here, while I learnt it from my mother, who has talked to me in it since I was quite a little boy; so it comes as naturally to me as to you." In a few minutes, supper was announced. The two boys sat down with their father and Dick, and the meal was served in English fashion. Dick had already become accustomed to the white-robed servants, at the hotel at Madras, and everything seemed to him pleasant and home-like. "Tomorrow, Dick," his uncle said, "you must have your first lesson in riding." The two boys looked up in surprise. They had been accustomed to horses from their earliest remembrance, and it seemed to them incredible that their tall cousin should require to be taught. Dick smiled at their look of astonishment. "It is not, with us in England, as it is here," he said. "Boys who live in the country learn to ride, but in London, which is a very great town, with nothing but houses for miles and miles everywhere, few people keep horses to ride. The streets are so crowded, with vehicles of all sorts, and with people on foot, that it is no pleasure to ride in them, and everyone who can afford it goes about in a carriage. Those who cannot, go in hired vehicles, or on foot. You would hardly see a person on horseback once in a week." "I do not like walking," Doast said gravely. "Well, you see, you have no occasion to walk, as you always have your horses. Besides, the weather here is very hot. But in England it is colder, and walking is a pleasure. I have walked over twenty miles a day, many times, not because I had to do it, but as a day's pleasure with a friend." "Can you shoot, cousin?" "No," Dick laughed. "There is nothing to shoot at. There are no wild beasts in England, and no game birds anywhere near London." Dick saw, at once, that he had descended many steps in his cousins' estimation. "Then what can you find to do?" the younger boy asked. "Oh, there is plenty to do," Dick said. "In the first place, there is school. That takes the best part of the day. Then there are all sorts of games. Then I used to take lessons in sword exercise, and did all sorts of things to improve my muscles, and to make me strong. Then, on holidays, three or four of us would go for a long walk, and sometimes we went out on the river in a boat; and every morning, early, we used to go for a swim. Oh, I can tell you, there was plenty to do, and I was busy from morning till night. But I want very much to learn to shoot, both with gun and pistol, as well as to ride." "We have got English guns and pistols," Doast said. "We will lend them to you. We have a place where we practise. "Our father says everyone ought to be able to shoot--don't you, Father?" The Rajah nodded. "Everyone out here ought to, Doast, because, you see, every man here may be called upon to fight, and everyone carries arms. But it is different in England. Nobody fights there, except those who go into the army, and nobody carries weapons." "What! Not swords, pistols, and daggers, Father?" Doast exclaimed, in surprise; for to him it seemed that arms were as necessary a part of attire as a turban, and much more necessary than shoes. "But, when people are attacked by marauders, or two chiefs quarrel with each other, what can they do if they have no arms?" "There are no marauders, and no chiefs," Dick laughed. "In the old times, hundreds of years ago, there were nobles who could call out all their tenants and retainers to fight their battles, and in those days people carried swords, as they do here. There are nobles still, but they have no longer any power to call out anyone, and if they quarrel they have to go before a court for the matter to be decided, just as everyone else does." This seemed, to Doast, a very unsatisfactory state of things, and he looked to his father for an explanation. "It is as your cousin says, Doast. You have been down with me to Madras, and you have seen that, except the officers in the army, none of the Europeans carry arms. It is the same in England. England is a great island, and as they have many ships of war, no enemy can land there. There is one king over the whole country, and there are written laws by which everyone, high and low alike, are governed. So you see, no one has to carry arms. All disputes are settled by the law, and there is peace everywhere; for as nothing would be settled by fighting, and the law would punish any one, however much in the right he might be, who fought, there is no occasion at all for weapons. It is a good plan, for you see no one, however rich, can tyrannise over others; and were the greatest noble to kill the poorest peasant, the law would hang him, just the same as it would hang a peasant who killed a lord. "And now, boys, you had better be off to bed. Your cousin has had a long day of it, and I have no doubt he will be glad to do so. Tomorrow we will begin to teach him to ride and to shoot, and I have no doubt that he will be ready, in return, to teach you a great deal about his country." The boys got up. But Doast paused to ask his father one last question. "But how is it, Father, if the English never carry weapons, and never fight, that they are such brave soldiers? For have they not conquered all our princes and rajahs, and have even beaten Tippoo Sahib, and made him give them much of his country?" "The answer would be a great deal too long to be given tonight, Doast. You had better ask your cousin about it, in the morning."	{ "id": "18813" }
4	: First Impressions.	The next morning Dick was up early, eager to investigate the palace, of which he had seen little the night before. The house was large and handsome, the Rajah having added to it gradually, every year. On passing the doors, the great hall was at once entered. Its roof, of elaborately carved stones, was supported by two rows of pillars with sculptured capitals. The floor was made of inlaid marble, and at one end was raised a foot above the general level. Here stood a stone chair, on which the Rajah sat when he adjudicated upon disputes among his people, heard petitions, and gave audiences; while a massive door on the left-hand side gave entrance to the private apartments. These were all small, in comparison with the entrance hall. The walls were lined with marble slabs, richly carved, and were dimly lighted by windows, generally high up in the walls, which were of great thickness. The marble floors were covered with thick rugs, and each room had its divan, with soft cushions and rich shawls and covers. The room in which they had supped the night before was the only exception. This had been specially furnished and decorated, in English fashion. The windows here were low, and afforded a view over the garden. Next to it were several apartments, all fitted with divans, but with low windows and a bright outlook. They could be darkened, during the heat of the day, by shutters. With the exception of these windows, the others throughout the house contained no glass, the light entering through innumerable holes that formed a filigree work in the thin slabs of stone that filled the orifices. The grounds round the palace were thickly planted with trees, which constituted a grove rather than a garden, according to Dick's English notions. This was, indeed, the great object of the planter, and numerous fountains added to the effect of the overhanging foliage. Dick wandered about, delighted. Early as it was, men with water skins were at work among the clumps of flowers and shrubs, that covered the ground wherever there was a break among the trees. Here and there were small pavilions, whose roofs of sculptured stone were supported by shafts of marble. The foliage of shrubs and trees alike was new to Dick, and the whole scene delighted him. Half an hour later, his two cousins joined him. "We wondered what had become of you," Doast said, "and should not have found you, if Rajbullub had not told us that he saw you come out here. "Come in, now. Coffee is ready. We always have coffee the first thing, except in very hot weather, when we have fruit sherbet. After that we ride or shoot till the sun gets hot, and then come in to the morning meal, at ten." On going in, Dick found that his mother and the ranee were both up, and they all sat down to what Dick considered a breakfast, consisting of coffee and a variety of fruit and bread. One or two dishes of meat were also handed round, but were taken away untouched. "Now come out to the stables, Dick," the Rajah said. "Anwar, the officer who commanded the escort, will meet us there. He will be your instructor." The stables were large. The horses were fastened to rings along each side, and were not, as in England, separated from each other by stalls. A small stone trough, with running water, was fixed against each wall at a convenient height, and beneath this was a pile of fodder before each horse. "This is the one that I have chosen for you," the Rajah said, stopping before a pretty creature, that possessed a considerable proportion of Arab blood, as was shown by its small head. "It is very gentle and well trained, and is very fast. When you have got perfectly at ease upon it, you shall have something more difficult to sit, until you are able to ride any horse in the stable, bare backed. Murad is to be your own property, as long as you are out here." A syce led the horse out. It was bridled but unsaddled, and Anwar gave a few instructions to Dick, and then said: "I will help you up, but in a short time you will learn to vault on to his back, without any assistance. See! you gather your reins so, in your left hand, place your right hand on its shoulder, and then spring up." "I can do that now," Dick laughed, and, placing his hand on the horse's shoulder, he lightly vaulted into his seat. "Well done, Dick," the Rajah said, while the two boys, who had been looking on with amused faces, clapped their hands. "Now, Sahib," Anwar went on, "you must let your legs hang easily. Press with your knees, and let your body sway slightly with the movement of the horse. Balance yourself, rather than try to hold on." "I understand," Dick said. "It is just as you do on board ship, when she is rolling a bit. Let go the reins." For half an hour the horse proceeded, at a walk, along the road that wound in and out through the park-like grounds. "I begin to feel quite at home," Dick said, at the end of that time. "I should like to go a bit faster now. It is no odds if I do tumble off." "Shake your rein a little. The horse will understand it," Anwar said. Dick did so, and Murad at once started at a gentle canter. Easy as it was, Dick thought several times that he would be off. However, he gripped as tightly as he could with his knees, and as he became accustomed to the motion, and learned to give to it, acquired ease and confidence. He was not, however, sorry when, at the end of another half hour, Anwar held up his hand as he approached him, and the horse stopped at the slightest touch of the rein. As he slid off, his legs felt as if they did not belong to him, and his back ached so that he could scarce straighten it. The Rajah and his sons had returned to the palace, and the boys were there waiting for him. "You have done very well, cousin," Doast said, with grave approval. "You will not be long before you can ride as well as we can. Now you had better go up at once and have a bath, and put on fresh clothes." Dick felt that the advice was good, as, bathed in perspiration, and stiff and sore in every limb, he slowly made his way to his room. For the next month, he spent the greater part of his time on horseback. For the first week he rode only in the grounds of the palace; then he ventured beyond, accompanied by Anwar on horseback; then his two cousins joined the party; and, by the end of the month, he was perfectly at home on Murad's back. So far, he had not begun to practise shooting. "It would be of no use," the Rajah said, when he one day spoke of it. "You want your nerves in good order for that, and it requires an old horseman to have his hand steady enough for shooting straight, after a hard ride. Your rides are not severe for a horseman, but they are trying for you. Leave the shooting alone, lad. There is no hurry for it." By this time, the Rajah had become convinced that it was useless to try and dissuade either his sister or Dick from attempting the enterprise for which they had come over. Possibly, the earnest conviction of the former that her husband was still alive influenced him to some extent, and the strength and activity of Dick showed him that he was able to play the part of a man. He said little, but watched the boy closely, made him go through trials of strength with some of his troopers, and saw him practise with blunted swords with others. Dick did well in both trials, and the Rajah then requested Anwar, who was celebrated for his skill with the tulwar, to give him, daily, half-an-hour's sword play, after his riding lesson. He himself undertook to teach him to use the rifle and pistol. Dick threw himself into his work with great ardour, and in a very short time could sit any horse in the stable, and came to use a rifle and pistol with an amount of accuracy that surprised his young cousins. "The boy is getting on wonderfully well," the Rajah said one day to his sister. "His exercises have given him so much nerve, and so steady a hand, that he already shoots very fairly. I should expect him to grow up into a fine man, Margaret, were it not that I have the gravest fears as to this mad enterprise, which I cannot help telling you, both for your good and his, is, in my opinion, absolutely hopeless." "I know, Mortiz," she said, "that you think it is folly, on my part, to cling to hope; and while I do not disguise from myself that there would seem but small chance that my husband has survived, and that I can give no reason for my faith in his still being alive, and my confidence that he will be restored to me some day, I have so firm a conviction that nothing will shake it. Why should I have such a confidence, if it were not well founded? In my dreams, I always see him alive, and I believe firmly that I dream of him so often, because he is thinking of me. "When he was at sea, several times I felt disturbed and anxious, though without any reason for doing so; and each time, on his return, I found, when we compared dates, that his ship was battling with a tempest at the time I was so troubled about him. I remember that, the first time this happened, he laughed at me; but when, upon two other occasions, it turned out so, he said: "'There are things we do not understand, Margaret. You know that, in Scotland, there are many who believe in second sight, as it is called; and that there are families there, and they say in Ireland, also, where a sort of warning is given of the death of a member of the family. We sailors are a superstitious people, and believe in things that landsmen laugh at. It does not seem to me impossible that, when two people love each other dearly, as we do, one may feel when the other is in danger, or may be conscious of his death. It may be said that such things seldom happen; but that is no proof that they never do so, for some people may be more sensitive to such feelings or impressions than others, and you may be one of them. " 'There is one thing, Margaret. The fact that you have somehow felt when I was in trouble should cheer you, when I am away, for if mere danger should so affect you, surely you will know should death befall me; and as long as you do not feel that, you may be sure that I shall return safe and sound to you.' "Now, I believe that firmly. I was once troubled--so troubled, that, for two or three days, I was ill--and so convinced was I that something had happened to Jack, and yet that he was not dead, that when, nigh two years afterwards, Ben came home, and I learned that it was on the day of the wreck of his ship that I had so suffered, I was not in the least surprised. Since then, I have more than once had the same feelings, and have always been sure that, at the time, Jack was in special danger; but I have never once felt that he was dead, never once thought so, and am as certain that he is still alive as if I saw him sitting in the chair opposite to me, for I firmly believe that, did he die, I should see his spirit, or that, at any rate, I should know for certain that he had gone. "So whatever you say, though reason may be altogether on your side, it will not shake my confidence, one bit. I know that Jack is alive, and I believe firmly, although of this I am not absolutely sure, that he will, someday, be restored to me." "You did not tell me this before, Margaret," the Rajah said, "and what you say goes for much, with me. Here in India there are many who, as is said, possess this power that you call second sight. Certainly, some of the Fakirs do. I have heard many tales of warnings they have given, and these have always come true. I will not try, in future, to damp your confidence; and will hope, with you, that your husband may yet be restored to you." One evening, Dick remarked: "You said down at Madras, Uncle, that you would, someday, tell me about the invasion by Hyder Ali. Will you tell me about it, now?" The Rajah nodded. His sons took their seats at his feet, and Dick curled himself up on the divan, by his side. "You must know," the Rajah began, "that the war was really the result of the intrigues of Sir Thomas Rumbold, the governor of Madras, and his council. In the first place, they had seriously angered the Nizam. The latter had taken a French force into his service, which the English had compelled Basult Jung to dismiss; and Madras sent an officer to his court, with instructions to remonstrate with him for so doing. At the same time, they gave him notice that they should no longer pay to him the tribute they had agreed upon, for the territory called the Northern Circars. This would have led to war, but the Bengal government promptly interfered, cancelled altogether the demands made by the Madras government, and for the time patched up the quarrel. The Nizam professed to be satisfied, but he saw that trouble might arise when the English were more prepared to enforce their demands. He therefore entered into negotiations with Hyder Ali and the Mahrattis for an alliance, whose object was the entire expulsion of the British from India. "The Mahrattis from Poonah were to operate against Bombay; those in Central India and the north were to make incursions into Bengal; the Nizam was to invade the Northern Circars; and Hyder was to direct his force against Madras. Hyder at once began to collect military stores, and obtained large quantities from the French at Mahe, a town they still retain, on the Malabar coast. "The Madras government prepared to attack Mahe, when Hyder informed them that the settlements of the Dutch, French, and English on the Malabar coast, being situated within his territory, were equally entitled to his protection; and that, if Mahe were attacked, he should retaliate by an incursion into the province of Arcot. In spite of this threat, Mahe was captured. Hyder for a time remained quiet, but the Madras government gave him fresh cause for offence by sending a force, in August, 1779, to the assistance of Basult Jung at Adoni. "To get there, this detachment had to pursue a route which led, for two hundred miles, through the most difficult passes, and through the territories both of the Nizam and Hyder. The Council altogether ignored the expressed determination, of both these princes, to oppose the march, and did not even observe the civility of informing them that they were going to send troops through their territory. "I do not say, Dick, that this made any real difference, in the end. The alliance between the three native Powers being made, it was certain that war would break out shortly. Still, had it not been for their folly, in giving Hyder and the Nizam a reasonable excuse for entering upon hostilities, it might have been deferred until the Madras government was better prepared to meet the storm. "The Bengal government, fortunately, again stepped in and undid at least a part of the evil. It took the entire management of affairs out of the hands of Rumbold's council; and its action was confirmed by the Board of Directors, who censured all the proceedings, dismissed Sir Thomas Rumbold and his two chief associates from the Council, and suspended other members. "The prompt and conciliatory measures, taken by the Bengal government, appeased the resentment felt by the Nizam, and induced him to withdraw from the Confederacy. Hyder, however, was bent upon war, and the imbecile government here took no steps, whatever, to meet the storm. The commissariat was entirely neglected, they had no transport train whatever, and the most important posts were left without a garrison. "It was towards the end of June that we received the news that Hyder had left his capital at the head of an army of ninety thousand men, of whom twenty-eight thousand were cavalry. He attempted no disguise as to his object, and moved, confident in his power, to conquer the Carnatic and drive the English into the sea. "My father had already made his preparations. Everything was in readiness, and as soon as the news reached him, he started for Madras, under the guard of his escort, with my mother and myself, most of the traders of the town, and the landowners, who had gathered here in fear and trembling. "It was a painful scene, as you may imagine, and I shall never forget the terrified crowds in the streets, and the wailing of the women. Many families who then left reached Madras in safety, but of those who remained in the town, all are dead, or prisoners beyond the hills. Hyder descended through the pass of Changama on the 20th of July, and his horsemen spread out like a cloud over the country, burning, devastating, and slaughtering. Hyder moved with the main army slowly, occupying town after town, and placing garrisons in them. "You must not suppose that he devastated the whole country. He was too wise for that. He anticipated reigning over it as its sovereign, and had no wish to injure its prosperity. It was only over tracts where he considered that devastation would hamper the movements of an English army, that everything was laid waste. "On the 21st of August he invested Arcot, and a week later, hearing that the British army had moved out from Madras, he broke up the siege and advanced to meet them. Sir Hector Munro, the British general, was no doubt brave, but he committed a terrible blunder. Instead of marching to combine his force with that of Colonel Baillie, who was coming down from Guntoor, he marched in the opposite direction to Conjeveram, sending word to Colonel Baillie to follow him. Baillie's force amounted to over two thousand eight hundred men, Munro's to five thousand two hundred. Had they united, the force would have exceeded eight thousand, and could have given battle to Hyder's immense army with fair hope of success. The English have won, before now, with greater odds against them. "My father had marched out with his cavalry, one hundred and fifty strong, with Munro. Of course, I was with him, and it was to him that the English general gave the despatch to carry to Colonel Baillie. We rode hard, for at any moment Hyder's cavalry might swoop down and bar the road; but we got through safely, and the next morning, the 24th, Baillie started. "The encampment was within twenty-five miles of Madras, and with one long forced march, we could have effected a junction with Munro. The heat was tremendous, and Baillie halted that night on the bank of the River Cortelour. The bed was dry, and my father urged him to cross before halting. The colonel replied that the men were too exhausted to move farther, and that, as he would the next day be able to join Munro, it mattered not on which side of the river he encamped. "That night the river rose, and for ten days we were unable to cross. On the 4th of September we got over; but by that time Tippoo, with five thousand picked infantry, six thousand horse, six heavy guns, and a large body of irregulars, detached by Hyder to watch us, barred the way. "Colonel Baillie, finding that there was no possibility of reaching Conjeveram without fighting, took up a position at a village, and on the 6th was attacked by Tippoo. The action lasted three hours, and although the enemy were four times more numerous than we were, the English beat off the attacks. We were not engaged, for against Tippoo's large cavalry force our few horsemen could do nothing, and were therefore forced to remain in the rear of the British line. But though Colonel Baillie had beaten off the attacks made on him, he felt that he was not strong enough to fight his way to Conjeveram, which was but fourteen miles distant; and he therefore wrote to Sir Hector Munro, to come to his assistance. "For three days Sir Hector did nothing, but on the evening of the 8th he sent off a force, composed of the flank companies of the regiments with him. These managed to make their way past the forces both of Hyder and Tippoo, and reached us without having to fire a shot. "Their arrival brought our force up to over three thousand seven hundred men. Had Munro made a feigned attack upon Hyder, and so prevented him from moving to reinforce Tippoo, we could have got through without much difficulty. But he did nothing; and Hyder, seeing the utter incapacity of the man opposed to him, moved off with his whole army and guns to join his son. "Our force set out as soon as it was dark, on the evening of the 9th; but the moment we started, we were harassed by the enemy's irregulars. The march was continued for five or six miles, our position becoming more and more serious, and at last Colonel Baillie took the fatal resolution of halting till morning, instead of taking advantage of the darkness to press forward. At daybreak, fifty guns opened on us. Our ten field pieces returned the fire, until our ammunition was exhausted. No orders were issued by the colonel, who had completely lost his head; so that our men were mowed down by hundreds, until at last the enemy poured down and slaughtered them relentlessly. "We did not see the end of the conflict. When the colonel gave the orders to halt, my father said to me: "'This foolish officer will sacrifice all our lives. Does he think that three thousand men can withstand one hundred thousand, with a great number of guns? We will go while we can. We can do no good here.' "We mounted our horses and rode off. In the darkness, we came suddenly upon a body of Tippoo's horsemen, but dashed straight at them and cut our way through, but with the loss of half our force, and did not draw rein until we reached Madras. "The roar of battle had been heard at Conjeveram, and the fury and indignation in the camp, at the desertion of Colonel Baillie's detachment, was so great that the general at last gave orders to march to their assistance. When his force arrived within two miles of the scene of conflict, the cessation of fire showed that it was too late, and that Baillie's force was well-nigh annihilated. Munro retired to Conjeveram, and at three o'clock the next morning retreated, with the loss of all his heavy guns and stores, to Madras. "The campaign only lasted twenty-one days, and was marked by almost incredible stupidity and incapacity on the part of the two English commanders. We remained at Madras. My father determined that he would take no more share in the fighting until some English general, possessing the courage and ability that had always before distinguished them, took the command. In the meantime, Hyder surrounded and captured Arcot, after six weeks' delay, and then laid siege to Amboor, Chingleput, and Wandiwash. "In November Sir Eyre Coote arrived from England and took the command. Confidence was at once restored, for he was a fine old soldier, and had been engaged in every struggle in India from the time of Clive; but with the whole country in the hands of Hyder, it was impossible to obtain draft animals or carts, and it was not until the middle of January that he was able to move. On the 19th he reached Chingleput, and on the 20th sent off a thousand men to obtain possession of the fort of Carangooly. It was a strong place, and the works had been added to by Hyder, who had placed there a garrison of seven hundred men. The detachment would not have been sent against it, had not news been obtained, on the way, that the garrison had fallen back to Chingleput. "Our troop of cavalry went with the detachment, as my father knew the country well. To the surprise of Captain Davis, who was in command, we found the garrison on the walls. " 'What do you think, Rajah?' Captain Davis, who was riding by his side, asked. 'My orders were that I was to take possession of the place, but it was supposed that I should find it empty.' " 'I should say that you had better try, with or without orders,' my father replied. 'The annihilation of Baillie's force, and the miserable retreat of Munro, have made a terribly bad impression through the country, and a success is sorely needed to raise the spirits of our friends.' " 'We will do it,' Captain Davis said, and called up a few English engineers, and a company of white troops he had with him, and ordered them to blow in the gate. "My father volunteered to follow close behind them, with his dismounted cavalry, and, when the word was given, forward we went. It was hot work, I can tell you. The enemy's guns swept the road, and their musketry kept up an incessant roar. Many fell, but we kept on until close to the gate, and then the white troops opened fire upon Hyder's men on the walls, so as to cover the sappers, who were fixing the powder bags. "They soon ran back to us. There was a great explosion, and the gates fell. With loud shouts we rushed forward into the fort; and close behind us came the Sepoys, led by Captain Davis. "It took some sharp fighting before we overcame the resistance of the garrison, who fought desperately, knowing well enough that, after the massacre of Baillie's force, little quarter would be given them. The British loss was considerable, and twenty of my father's little company were among the killed. Great stores of provisions were found here, and proved most useful to the army. "The news, of the capture of Carangooly, so alarmed the besiegers of Wandiwash that they at once raised the siege, and retreated; and, on the following day, Sir Eyre Coote and his force arrived there. It was a curious thing that, on the same day of the same month, Sir Eyre Coote had, twenty-one years before, raised the siege of Wandiwash by a victory over the army that was covering the operation. Wandiwash had been nobly defended by a young lieutenant named Flint, who had made his way in through the enemy's lines, a few hours before the treacherous native officer in command had arranged with Hyder to surrender it, and, taking command, had repulsed every attack, and had even made a sortie. "There was now a long pause. Having no commissariat train, Sir Eyre Coote was forced to make for the seashore, and, though hotly followed by Hyder, reached Cuddalore. A French fleet off the coast, however, prevented provisions being sent to him, and, even after the French had retired, the Madras government were so dilatory in forwarding supplies that the army was reduced to the verge of starvation. "It was not until the middle of June that a movement was possible, owing to the want of carriage. The country inland had been swept bare by Hyder, and, on leaving Cuddalore, Sir Eyre Coote was obliged to follow the seacoast. When he arrived at Porto Novo, the army was delighted to find a British fleet there, and scarcely less pleased to hear that Lord Macartney had arrived as governor of Madras. "Hyder's army had taken up a strong position, between the camp and Cuddalore, and Sir Eyre Coote determined to give him battle. Four days' rice was landed from the fleet, and with this scanty supply in their knapsacks, the troops marched out to attack Hyder. We formed part of the baggage guard and had, therefore, an excellent opportunity of seeing the fight. The march was by the sea. The infantry moved in order of battle, in two lines. After going for some distance, we could see the enemy's position plainly. It was a very strong one. On its right was high ground, on which were numerous batteries, which would take us in flank as we advanced, and their line extended from these heights to the sand hills by the shore. "They had thrown up several batteries, and might, for aught we knew, have many guns hidden on the high ground on either flank. An hour was spent in reconnoitring the enemy's position, during which they kept up an incessant cannonade, to which the English field guns attempted no reply. To me, and the officers of this troop, it seemed impossible that any force could advance to the attack of Hyder's position without being literally swept away by the crossfire that would be opened upon it; but when I expressed my fears, my father said: "'No; you will see no repetition of that terrible affair with Baillie's column. The English have now got a commander who knows his business, and when that is the case, there is never any fear as to what the result will be. I grant that the lookout seems desperate. Hyder has all the advantage of a very strong position, a very powerful artillery, and has six or seven to one in point of numbers; but for all that, I firmly believe that, before night, you will see us in possession of those hills, and Hyder's army in full flight.' "Presently, we saw a movement. The two lines of infantry formed into columns, and instead of advancing towards Hyder's position, turned down towards the sea, and marched along between it and the sand hills. We were at the same time set in motion, and kept along between the infantry and the sea, so as to be under their protection, if Hyder's cavalry should sweep down. All his preparations had been made under the supposition that we should advance by the main road to Cuddalore, and this movement entirely disconcerted his plans. The sand hills completely protected our advancing columns, and when they had reached a point almost in line with Hyder's centre, the artillery dashed up to the crest of the hills, and the first column passed through a break in them, and moved forward against the enemy, the guns above clearing a way for them. "A short halt was made, until the artillery of the second line came up, and also took their position on the hill. Then the first column, with its guns, moved forward again. "Hyder had, in the meantime, moved back his line and batteries into a position at right angles to that they had before occupied, and facing the passage through the sand hills by which the English were advancing. As soon as the column issued from the valley, a tremendous fire was poured upon it, but it again formed into line of battle, and, covered by the fire of the artillery, moved forward. "It was a grand sight. My father and I had left the baggage, which remained by the sea, and had ridden up on to a sand hill, from which we had a view of the whole of the battleground. It was astonishing to see the line of English infantry advancing, under that tremendous fire, against the rising ground occupied by the dense masses of the enemy. "Presently there was a movement opposite, and a vast body of cavalry moved down the slope. As they came the red English line suddenly broke up, and, as if by magic, a number of small squares, surrounded by glistening bayonets, appeared where it had stood. "Down rode Hyder's cavalry. Every gun on our side was turned upon them. But though we could see the confusion in the ranks, caused by the shot that swept them, they kept on. It seemed that the little red patches must be altogether overwhelmed by the advancing wave. But as it came closer, flashes of fire spurted out from the faces of the squares. We could see the horses recoil when close to the bayonets, and then the stream poured through the intervals between the squares. As they did so, crackling volleys broke out, while from the batteries on the sand hills an incessant fire was kept up upon them. Then, following the volleys, came the incessant rattle of musketry. The confusion among the cavalry grew greater and greater. Regiments were mixed up together, and their very numbers impeded their action. Many gallant fellows, detaching themselves from the mass, rode bravely at the squares, and died on the bayonets; others huddled together, confused and helpless against the storm of bullets and shot; and at last, as if with a sudden impulse, they rode off in all directions, and, sweeping round, regained their position in the rear of their infantry, while loud cheers broke from our side. "The squares again fell into line, which, advancing steadily, drove Hyder's infantry before it. As this was going on, a strong force of infantry and cavalry, with guns, was moved round by Hyder to fall on the British rear. These, however, were met by the second line, which had hitherto remained in reserve, and after fierce fighting were driven back along the sand hills. But, as they were retiring, the main body of Hyder's cavalry moved round to support the attack. Fortunately a British schooner, which had sailed from Porto Novo when the troops started, had anchored near the shore to give what protection she could to the baggage, and now opened fire with her guns upon the cavalry, as they rode along between the sand hills and the sea; and with such effect that they halted and wavered; and when two of the batteries on the sand hills also opened fire upon them, they fell back in haste. "This was Hyder's last effort. The British line continued to advance, until it had gained all the positions occupied by the enemy, and these were soon in headlong flight; Hyder himself, who had been almost forced by his attendants to leave the ground, being with them. It was a wonderful victory. The English numbered but 8,476 men, of whom 306 were killed or wounded. Hyder's force was about 65,000, and his loss was not less than 10,000. "The victory had an immense effect in restoring the confidence of the English troops, which had been greatly shaken by the misfortunes caused by the incapacity of Munro and Baillie. But it had no other consequences, for want of carriage, and a deficiency of provisions and equipment, prevented Sir Eyre Coote from taking the offensive, and he was obliged to confine himself to capturing a few forts near the coast. "On the 27th of August the armies met again, Hyder having chosen the scene of his victory over Baillie's force to give battle, believing the position to be a fortunate one for himself. Hyder had now been joined by Tippoo, who had not been present at the last battle, and his force numbered 80,000 men, while the English were 11,000 strong. "I did not see the battle, as we were, at the time, occupied in escorting a convoy of provisions from Madras. The fight was much better contested than the previous battle had been. Hyder was well acquainted with the ground, and made skilful use of his opportunities, by fortifying all the points at which he could be attacked. The fight lasted eight hours. At last Sir Eyre Coote's first division turned the enemy's left flank, by the capture of the village of Pillalore; while his second turned their right, and Hyder was obliged to fall back. But this was done in good order, and the enemy claimed that it was a drawn battle. This, however, was not the case, as the English, at night, encamped on the position occupied by Hyder in the morning. "Still, the scandalous mismanagement at Madras continued to cripple us. But, learning from the commandant at Vellore that, unless he were relieved, he would be driven to surrender for want of provisions, Sir Eyre Coote marched to his help. He met the enemy on the way. Hyder was taken by surprise, and was moving off when the English arrived. In order to give his infantry time to march away, he hurled the whole of his cavalry against the English. Again and again they charged down, with the greatest bravery, and although the batteries swept their ranks with grape, and the squares received them with deadly volleys, they persevered until Tippoo had carried off his infantry and guns; and then, having lost five thousand men, followed him. The English then moved on towards Vellore. Hyder avoided another encounter, and Vellore was relieved. Sir Eyre Coote handed over, to its commandant, almost the whole of the provisions carried by the army, and, having thus supplied the garrison with sufficient food for six weeks, marched back to Madras, his troops suffering greatly from famine on the way. "Nothing took place during the winter, except that Sir Eyre Coote again advanced and revictualled Vellore. In March a French fleet arrived off the coast, landed a force of three thousand men to assist Hyder, and informed him that a much larger division was on its way. Fortunately, this did not arrive, many of the ships being captured by the English on their way out. In the course of the year there were several fights, but none of any consequence, and things remained in the same state until the end of the year, when, on the 7th of December, Hyder died, and Tippoo was proclaimed his successor. "Bussy arrived with fresh reinforcements from France in April, and took the command of Hyder's French contingent, and in June there was a battle between him and a force commanded by General Stuart, the successor to Sir Eyre Coote, who had been obliged to resign from ill health, and who had died in the spring. "The French position was a very strong one, and was protected by numerous field works. The battle was the most sanguinary fought during the war, considering the numbers engaged. The English carried a portion of the works, and captured fourteen guns, and, as the French retired during the night, were able to claim a victory. Their loss, however, was over a thousand, while that of the French was not more than a third of that number. "During that year there was little fighting down here. A Bombay force, however, under the command of General Matthews, captured Bednore; but Tippoo hastened against him with a great force, besieged Bednore, and forced it to surrender, after a desperate defence. Tippoo violated the terms of capitulation, and made the defenders prisoners. Bangalore was next besieged by him, but resisted for nearly nine months, and only surrendered in January, 1784. "Tippoo had, by this time, lost the services of his French auxiliaries, as England and France had made peace at home. Negotiations between Tippoo and the English went on till March, when a treaty was signed. By its provisions, Tippoo should have handed back all his prisoners. He murdered large numbers of them, but 1000 British soldiers, and 1600 Sepoys obtained their liberty. No one knows how many were retained of the number, calculated at 200,000, of natives carried off from the countries overrun by Hyder's troops. Only 2000 were released. "More British would doubtless have been freed, had it not been for the scandalous cowardice of the three men sent up, as British commissioners, to Tippoo. They were treated with the greatest insult and contempt by him, and, in fear of their lives, were too glad to accept the prisoners he chose to hand over, without troubling themselves in the slightest about the rest, whom they basely deserted and left to their fate."	{ "id": "18813" }
5	: War Declared.	"That gives you a general idea, Dick, of the war with Tippoo. I saw little of the events after the battle of Porto Novo, as my father was taken ill soon after, and died at Madras. Seeing that there was no probability, whatever, of the English driving Hyder back, until they had much larger forces and a much better system of management, I remained in Madras until peace was made; then I came back here, rebuilt the palace, and have since been occupied in trying to restore the prosperity of my poor people. "It is, I feel, a useless task, for it is certain that, ere long, the English will again be engaged with Mysore; and if they are, it is well-nigh certain that Tippoo's hordes will again sweep down from the hills, and carry ruin and desolation everywhere. "He would, as Hyder had, have the advantage on his side at the beginning of the war. He has a score of passes to choose from, and can descend on to the plain by any one he may select. And, even were there a force here capable of giving battle to the whole Mysorean army, it could not watch all the passes, as to do so the army would have to be broken up into a dozen commands. Tippoo will therefore again be able to ravage the plains, for weeks, perhaps, before the English can force him to give battle. "But there is no army, at present, in existence of sufficient strength to meet him. The Madras force would have to wait until reinforcements arrived from Calcutta. It was bad before, but it will be worse, now. Hyder, no doubt, slaughtered many, but he was not cruel by nature. He carried off enormous quantities of people, with their flocks and herds, but he did this to enrich Mysore with their labour, and did not treat them with unnecessary cruelty. "Tippoo, on the other hand, is a human tiger. He delights in torturing his victims, and slays his prisoners from pure love of bloodshed. He is proud of the title of 'Tiger.' His footstool is a tiger's head, and the uniforms of his infantry are a sort of imitation of a tiger's stripes. He has military talent, and showed great judgment in command of his division--indeed, most of the successes gained during the last war were his work. Since then, he has laboured incessantly to improve his army. Numbers of regiments have been raised, composed of the captives carried off from here and from the west coast. They are drilled, in European fashion, by the English captives he still holds in his hands." "But why, Uncle, instead of giving time to Tippoo to come down here, should we not march up the passes, and compel him to keep his army up there to defend Seringapatam?" "Because, Dick, in the first place, there is not an army strong enough to do so; but even were there a force of fifty thousand men at Madras, they could not take the offensive in time. An English army cannot move without a great train to carry ammunition, stores and provisions; and to get such a train together would be the work of months. As I have been telling you, during the three years the last war lasted, the Madras authorities were never able to collect such a train, and the consequence was that their army was unable to go more than two or three days' march from the city. "On the other hand, Tippoo could, any day, order that three days' supply of rice or grain should be served out to each soldier, and could set out on his march the following morning; as, from the moment he reached the plains, his cavalry would have the whole of the resources of the country at their mercy." "I see, Uncle. Then, if war broke out, you would at once go to Madras again?" "There would be nothing else to do, Dick. I should send everything of value down there, as soon as I saw that war was inevitable. The traders here have already begun to prepare. The shops are half empty, for they have not replaced goods they have sold, and a very few hours would suffice for everything worth taking to be cleared out of the town. The country round here is comparatively uninhabited, and but a small portion of it tilled, so great was the number carried off by Hyder. Next time they will take to the hills at once, and I believe that many have already stored up grain in hiding places there. This time it may be hoped that a few weeks, or months at most, may see Tippoo driven back, and for that time the peasants can manage to exist in the hills. No doubt the richer sort, who have large flocks of goats, and many cattle, will, as soon as danger threatens, drive them down to Madras, where they are sure to fetch good prices for the use of the army. "I have already told all men who have bullock carts and teams, that they can, if forced to leave home, earn a good living by taking service in the English transport train. I hope, therefore, that the results will not be so disastrous as before. The town may be burnt down again, but unless they blow up my palace, they can do little harm to it. When I rebuilt it, seeing the possibility of another war, I would not have any wood whatever used in its construction. Therefore, when the hangings are taken down, and the furniture from these rooms cleared out, there will be nothing to burn, and they are not likely to waste powder in blowing it up. "As to the town, I warned the people who returned that it might be again destroyed before long, and therefore there has been no solid building. The houses have all been lightly run up with wood, which is plentiful enough in the hills, and no great harm, therefore, will be done if it is again burnt down. The pagoda and palace are the only stone buildings in it. They did some harm to the former, last time, by firing shot at it for a day or two; and, as you can see for yourself, no attempt has since been made to repair it, and I do not suppose they will trouble to damage it further. "So you see, Dick, we are prepared for the worst." "Will you fight again, as you did last time, Uncle?" "I do not know, Dick. I show my loyalty to the English rule by repairing to the capital; but my force is too small to render much service. You see, my revenues have greatly diminished, and I cannot afford to keep up so large a force as my father could. Fortunately, his savings had been considerable, and from these I was able to build this palace, and to succour my people, and have still enough to keep up my establishment here, without pressing the cultivators of the soil for taxes. This year is the first that I have drawn any revenue from that source; but, at any rate, I am not disposed to keep up a force which, while it would be insufficient to be of any great value in a war like this, would be a heavy tax on my purse." "Even the force you have must be that, Uncle." "Not so much as you would think, Dick, with your English notions. The pay here is very small--so small that it would seem to you impossible for a man to live on it; and yet, many of these men have wives and families. All of them have patches of land that they cultivate; only twenty, who are changed once a month, being kept on duty. They are necessary; for I should have but little respect from my people, and less still from other rajahs, did I not have sentries at the gates, and a guard ready to turn out in honour of any visitor who might arrive; to say nothing of an escort, of half a dozen men, when I ride through the country. Of course, all can be called out whenever I want them, as, for example, when I rode to Madras to meet you. The men think themselves well off upon the pay of three rupees a month, as they are practically only on duty two months each year, and have the rest of the time to cultivate their fields. Therefore, with the pay of the officers, my troop only costs me about four hundred rupees a month, which is, you know, equivalent to forty English pounds; so that you cannot call it an expensive army, even if it is kept for show rather than use." "No, indeed, Uncle! It seems ridiculous that a troop of a hundred men can be kept up, for five hundred pounds a year." "Of course, the men have some little privileges, Dick. They pay no rent or taxes for their lands. This is a great thing for them, and really costs me nothing, as there is so much land lying uncultivated. Then, when too old for service, they have a pension of two rupees a month for life, and on that, and what little land they can cultivate, they are comparatively comfortable." "Well, it does not seem to me, Uncle, that soldiering is a good trade in this country." "I don't know that it is a good trade, in the money way, anywhere. After all, the pay out here is quite as high, in comparison with the ordinary rate of earning of a peasant, as it is in England. It is never the pay that tempts soldiers. Among young men there are always great numbers who prefer the life to that of a peasant, working steadily from daylight to dark, and I don't know that I altogether blame them." "Then you think, Uncle, there is no doubt whatever that there will be war?" "Not a shadow of doubt, Dick--indeed, it may be said to have begun already; and, like the last, it is largely due to the incapacity of the government of Madras." "I have just received a message from Arcot," the Rajah said, two months later, "and I must go over and see the Nabob." "I thought," Mrs. Holland said, "that Tripataly was no longer subject to him. I understood that our father was made independent of Arcot?" "No, Margaret, not exactly that. The Nabob had involved himself in very heavy debts, during the great struggle. The Company had done something to help him, but were unable to take all his debts on their shoulders; and indeed, there was no reason why they should have done so, for although during most of the war he was their ally, he was fighting on his own behalf, and not on theirs. "In the war with Hyder it was different. He was then quite under English influence, and, indeed, could scarcely be termed independent. And as he suffered terribly--his lands were wasted, his towns besieged, and his people driven off into slavery--the Company are at present engaged in negotiations for assisting him to pay his debts, which are very heavy. "It was before you left, when the Nabob was much pressed for money, and had at that time no claim on the Company, that our father bought of him a perpetual commutation of tribute, taxes, and other monies and subsidies payable by Tripataly; thus I am no longer tributary to Arcot. Nevertheless, this forms a portion of the Nabob's territories, and I cannot act as if I were an independent prince. "I could not make a treaty with Mysore on my own account, and it is clear that neither Arcot nor the English could allow me to do so, for in that case Mysore could erect fortresses here, and could use Tripataly as an advanced post on the plain. Therefore, I am still subject to the Nabob, and could be called upon for military service by him. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why, even if I could afford it, I should not care to keep up a force of any strength. As it is, my troop is too small to be worth summoning. The Nabob has remonstrated with me more than once, but since the war with Hyder I have had a good excuse, namely, that the population has so decreased that my lands lie untilled, and it would be impossible for me to raise a larger force. I have, however, agreed that, in case of a fresh war, I will raise an additional hundred cavalry. "I expect it is in relation to this that he has sent for me to Arcot. We know that the English are bound, by their treaty with Travancore, to declare war. They ought, in honour, to have done it long ago, but they were unprepared. Now that they are nearly ready, they may do so at any time, and indeed the Nabob may have learned that fighting has begun. "The lookout is bad. The government of Madras is just as weak and as short sighted as it was during Hyder's war. There is but one comfort, and that is that Lord Cornwallis, at Calcutta, has far greater power than his predecessors; and as he is an experienced soldier, and is said to be an energetic man, he may bring up reinforcements from Calcutta without loss of time, and also set the troops of Bombay in motion. I expect that, as before, things will go badly at first; but hope that, this time, we shall end by giving Mysore so heavy a lesson that she will be powerless for mischief, in future." "And release all the captives," Mrs. Holland exclaimed, clasping her hands. "I sincerely trust so, Margaret," her brother said gravely; "but, after what happened last time, we must not be sanguine. Scattered about as they may be, in the scores of little hill forts that dot the whole country, we can, unhappily, never be sure that all are delivered, when we have only the word of a treacherous tyrant like Tippoo. We know that, last time, he kept back hundreds of prisoners, among whom, as we may hope, was your husband; and it may be that, however completely he may be defeated, he may yet retain some of them, knowing full well it is impossible that all these hill forts and their dungeons can be searched. However, doubtless if an English army marches to Seringapatam, many will be recovered, though we have reason to fear that many will, as before, be murdered before our arrival." When the Rajah returned from Arcot, on the following day, he brought back the news that General Meadows had moved to the frontier at Caroor, fifty miles beyond Trichinopoly, and that the war was really about to begin. "You know," he said, "how matters stand, up to now. Tippoo, after making peace with the Nizam and the Mahrattis, with whom he had been engaged in hostilities for some time, turned his attention to the western coast, where Coorg and Malabar had risen in rebellion. After, as usual, perpetrating horrible atrocities, and after sending a large proportion of the population as slaves to Mysore, he marched against Travancore. Now, Travancore was specially mentioned, in the treaty of Mangalore, as one of the allies of the English, with whom Tippoo bound himself not to make war; and had he not been prepared to fight the English, he would not have attacked their ally. The excuse for attacking Travancore was that some of the fugitives, from Coorg and Malabar, had taken refuge there. "Seeing that Tippoo was bent upon hostilities, Lord Cornwallis and his council at Calcutta directed, as I learnt from an official at Madras, the authorities there to begin at once to make preparations for war. Instead of doing so, Mr. Holland, the governor, gave the Rajah the shameful and cowardly advice to withdraw his protection from the fugitives. The Rajah refused to comply with such counsel, and after some months spent in negotiations, Tippoo attacked the wall that runs along the northern frontier of Travancore. "That was about six months ago. Yes, it was on the 28th of December--so it is just six months. His troops, fourteen thousand strong, made their way without difficulty through a breach, but they were suddenly attacked by a small body of Travancore men. A panic seized them. They rushed back to the breach, and in the wild struggle to pass through it, no less than two thousand were either killed or crushed to death. "It was nearly three months before Tippoo renewed his attack. The lines were weak, and his army so strong that resistance was impossible. A breach, three-quarters of a mile in length, was made in the wall, and marching through this, he devastated Travancore from end to end. "His unaccountable delay, before assaulting the position, has been of great advantage to us. Had he attacked us at once, instead of wasting his time before Travancore, he would have found the Carnatic as defenceless and as completely at his mercy as Hyder did. He would still have done so, had it depended upon Madras, but as the authorities here did nothing, Lord Cornwallis took the matter into his own hands. He was about to come here himself, when General Meadows, formerly Governor of Bombay, arrived, invested by the Company with the offices of both governor and of commander-in-chief. "He landed here late in February, and at once set to work to prepare for war. Lord Cornwallis sent, from Calcutta, a large amount of money, stores, and ammunition, and a battalion of artillerymen. The Sepoys objected to travel by sea, as their caste rules forbade them to do so, and he therefore sent off six battalions of infantry by land, and the Nabob tells me they are expected to arrive in four or five weeks' time. The Nabob of Arcot and the Rajah of Tanjore, both of whom are very heavily in debt to the government, are ordered, during the continuance of the war, to place their revenues at its disposal, a liberal allowance being made to them both for their personal expenses. "Tippoo is still in Travancore--at least, he was there ten days ago, and has been endeavouring to negotiate. The Nabob tells me he believes that the object of General Meadows, in advancing from Trichinopoly to Caroor, is to push on to Coimbatoor, where he will, if he arrives before Tippoo, cut him off from his return to his capital; and as Meadows has a force of fifteen thousand men, he ought to be able to crush the tyrant at a blow. "I fear, however, there is little chance of this. The Mysore troops move with great rapidity, and as soon as Tippoo hears that the English army is marching towards Caroor, he is sure to take the alarm, and by this time has probably passed Coimbatoor on his way back. With all his faults, Tippoo is a good general, and the Nabob's opinion--and I quite agree with him--is that, as soon as he regains the table land of Mysore, he will take advantage of the English army being far away to the south, and will pour down through the passes into this part of the Carnatic, which is at present absolutely defenceless. This being the case, I shall at once get ready to leave for Madras, and shall move as soon as I learn, for certain, that Tippoo has slipped past the English. "The Nabob has called upon me to join him with my little body of cavalry, and as soon as the news comes that Tippoo is descending the passes, I shall either join him or the English army. That will be a matter to decide afterwards." "You will take me with you, of course, Uncle?" Dick asked eagerly. "Certainly, Dick. If you are old enough to undertake the really perilous adventure of going up in disguise to Mysore, you are certainly old enough to ride with me. Besides, we may hope that, this time, the war is not going to be as one-sided as it was the last time, and that we may end by reaching Seringapatam; in which case we may rescue your father, if he is still alive, very much more easily than it could be managed in the way you propose." The news that the English army had marched to Caroor, and that there was no force left to prevent the Mysoreans from pouring down from the hills, spread quickly; and when Dick went out with the two boys into the town, groups of people were talking earnestly in the streets. Some of them came up, and asked respectfully if there was any later news. "Nothing later than you have heard," Dick said. "The Rajah is not going away yet, Sahib?" "No; he will not leave unless he hears that Tippoo has returned, with his army, to Seringapatam. Then he will go at once, for the sultan might come down through the passes at any moment, and can get here a fortnight before the English army can return from Caroor." "Yes; it will be no use waiting here to be eaten up, Sahib. Do you think Conjeveram would be safe? Because it is easy to go down there by boat." "I should think so. Hyder could not take it last time, and the English army is much stronger than it was then. Besides, there will be six thousand men arriving from Bengal, in a month's time, so I should think there is no fear of Conjeveram being taken." "It is little trouble getting there," the trader said, "but it is a long journey to Madras. We could go down with our families and goods in two days, in a boat; but there would not be boats enough for all, and it will be best, therefore, that some should go at once, for if all wait until there is news that Tippoo is coming, many will not be able to get away in time." "No, not in boats," Dick agreed; "but in three days a bullock cart would get you there." Next day, several of the shops containing the most valuable goods were shut up; and, day by day, the number remaining open grew smaller. "It is as I expected," the Rajah said, one morning, as he came into the room where the family was sitting. "A messenger has just come in from the Nabob, with the news that sickness broke out among the army, as soon as they arrived at Caroor, and in twenty-four hours a thousand men were in hospital. This delayed the movement, and when they arrived at Coimbatoor they were too late. Tippoo and his army had already passed, moving by forced marches back to Mysore. "Finish your packing, ladies. We will start at daybreak tomorrow morning. I secured three boats, four days ago, and have been holding them in readiness. Rajbullub will go in charge of you. There is not the least fear of Tippoo being here for another fortnight, at the earliest. "I shall ride with the troop. Dick and the boys will go with me. We shall meet you at Conjeveram. I have already arranged with some of our people, who have gone on in their bullock carts, with their belongings, and will unload them there, to be in readiness to take our goods on to Madras, so there will be no delay in getting forward." By nightfall, the apartments were completely dismantled. The furniture was all stowed away, in a vault which the Rajah had had constructed for the purpose, when the palace was rebuilt. Access was obtained to it through the floor in one of the private apartments. The floor was of tessellated marble, but some ten squares of it lifted up in a mass, forming together a trapdoor, from which steps led down into the vault. When the block was lowered again, the fit was so accurate that, after sweeping a little dust over the joint, the opening was quite imperceptible to any one not aware of the hiding place. The cushions of the divans were taken down here, as well as the furniture, and all the less valuable carpets, rugs and hangings, while the costlier articles were rolled up into bales, for transport. The silver cups and other valuables were packed in boxes, and were, during the night, carried by coolies down to the boats, over which a guard was placed until morning. Provisions for the journey down the river were also placed on board. The palace was astir long before daybreak. The cushions that had been slept on during the night were carried down to the boats, the boxes of wearing apparel closed and fastened, and a hasty meal was taken. The sun was just rising when they started. One boat had been fitted up with a bower of green boughs, for the use of the two ladies and their four attendants. The other two carried the baggage. After seeing them push off, the Rajah, his sons, and Dick returned to the palace. Here for a couple of hours he held a sort of audience, and gave his advice to the townspeople and others who came, in considerable numbers, to consult with him. When this was done they went into the courtyard, where all was ready for their departure. The troop had, during the past week, been raised to two hundred men, many of the young cultivators coming eagerly forward, as soon as they heard that the Rajah was going to increase his troop, being anxious to take a share in the adventures that might be looked for, and to avenge the sufferings that had been inflicted on their friends by Hyder's marauders. They were a somewhat motley troop, but this mattered little, as uniformity was unknown among the forces of the native princes. The majority were stout young fellows. All provided their own horses and arms, and although the former lacked the weight and bone of English cavalry horses, they were capable of performing long journeys, and of existing on rations on which an English horse would starve. All were well armed, for any deficiency had been made up from the Rajah's store, and from this a large number of guns had, three days before, been distributed among such of the ryots as intended to take to the hills on the approach of the enemy. Ammunition had also been distributed among them. Every man in the troop carried a shield and tulwar, and on his back was slung a musket or spear; and there were few without pistols in their girdles. They rode halfway to Conjeveram, and stopped for the night at a village--the men sleeping in the open air, while the Rajah, his sons, and Dick, were entertained by the chief man of the place. The next afternoon they rode into Conjeveram, where, just at sunset, the boats also arrived. The troop encamped outside the town, while the Rajah and his party occupied some rooms that had been secured beforehand for them. In the morning, the ladies proceeded in a native carriage; with the troop, an officer and ten men following, in charge of the bullock carts containing the baggage. On reaching Madras, they encamped on the Maidan--a large, open space used as a drill ground for the troops garrisoned there--and the Rajah and his party established themselves in the house occupied by him on the occasion of his last visit. The next day, the Rajah went to the Government House, and had an interview with the deputy governor. "I think," the latter said, after some conversation, "that your troop of cavalry will be of little use to the Nabob. If Tippoo comes down from the hills, he will not be able to take the field against him, and will need all his forces to defend Arcot, Vellore, and his smaller forts, and cavalry would be of no real use to him. Your troop would be of much greater utility to the battalions from Bengal, when they arrive. They will be here in three weeks or so, and as soon as they come, I will attach you to them. I will write to the Nabob, saying that you were about to join him, but that, in the interest of the general defence, I have thought it better, at present, to attach you to the Bengal contingent. You see, they will be entirely new to the country, and it will be a great advantage to them to have a troop like yours, many of whom are well acquainted with the roads and general geography of the country. Your speaking English, too, will add to your usefulness." "I have a nephew with me who speaks English perfectly, and also Hindustani," the Rajah said. "He is a smart young fellow, and I have no doubt that the officer in command would be able to make him very useful. He is eager to be of service. His father, who was an Englishman, was wrecked some years ago on the west coast, and sent up a prisoner to Mysore. He was not one of those handed over at the time of the peace, but whether he has been murdered, or is still a prisoner in Tippoo's hands, we do not know. My sister came out with the boy, three or four months ago, to endeavour to obtain some news of him." "I will make a note of it, Rajah. I have no doubt that he will be of great use to Colonel Cockerell." In the last week in July, the Rajah moved with his troop to Conjeveram, and on the 1st of August the Bengal forces arrived there. They were joined, at once, by three regiments of Europeans, one of native cavalry, and a strong force of artillery, raising their numbers to nine thousand, five hundred men. Colonel Kelly took command of the force, and begged the Rajah to advance with his horsemen, at once, to the foot of the ghauts, to break it up into half troops, and to capture or destroy any small parties of horse Tippoo might send down, by any of the passes, to reconnoitre the country and ascertain the movements and strength of the British forces. He was also to endeavour to obtain as much information as he could of what was going on in Mysore, and to ascertain whether Tippoo was still with his army, watching General Meadows in the west; or was moving, as if with the intention of taking advantage of the main force of the English being away south, to descend into the Carnatic. The order was a very acceptable one to the Rajah. His troop made a good appearance enough, when in company with those of the Nabob of Arcot, but he could not but feel that they looked a motley body by the side of the trained native and European troops; and he was frequently angered by hearing the jeering comments of English soldiers to each other, when he rode past them with his troop; and had not a little astonished the speakers, more than once, by turning round on his horse, and abusing them hotly in their own language. He was, therefore, glad to be off. For such work, his men were far better fitted than were even the native cavalry in the Company's service. They were stout, active fellows, accustomed to the hills, and speaking the dialect used by the shepherds and villagers among the ghauts. Proceeding northward through Vellore, he there divided his force into four bodies. He himself, with fifty men, took up a position at the mouth of the pass of Amboor. Another fifty were sent to the pass of Moognee, to the west of Chittoor, under the command of Anwar, the captain of the troop. The rest were distributed among the minor passes. Dick remained with his uncle, who established himself in a village, seven miles up the pass. He was well satisfied with the arrangement, for he was anxious to learn to go about among the hills as a spy, and was much more likely to get leave from his uncle to do so, than he would have been from any of the officers of the troop, who would not have ventured to allow the Rajah's nephew to run into danger. In the second place, his especial friend among the officers, a youth named Surajah, son of Rajbullub, was with the detachment. Surajah had been especially picked out, by the Rajah, as Dick's companion. He generally joined him in his rides, and they had often gone on shooting excursions among the hills. He was about three years Dick's senior, but in point of height there was but little difference between them. Every day half the troop, under an officer, rode up the pass until within a mile of the fort near the summit, garrisoned by Mysorean troops. They were able to obtain but little information, for the villages towards the upper end of the pass were all deserted and in ruins, the inhabitants never having ventured back since Hyder's invasion. The Rajah was vexed at being able to learn nothing of what was passing on the plateau, and was therefore more disposed than he might otherwise have been to listen to Dick's proposal. "Don't you think, Uncle," the latter said one evening, "that I might try to learn something by going up with Surajah alone? We could strike off into the hills, as if on a shooting expedition, just as we used to do from Tripataly, except that I should stain my face and hands. The people in the villages on the top of the ghauts are, every one says, simple and quiet. They have no love for Tippoo or Mysore, but are content to pay their taxes, and to work quietly in their fields. There will be little fear of our being interfered with by them." "You might find a party of Tippoo's troops in one of the villages, Dick, and get into trouble." "I don't see why we should, Uncle. Of course, we should not go up dressed as we are, but as shikarees, and when we went into a village, should begin by asking whether the people are troubled with any tigers in the neighbourhood. You see, I specially came out here to go into Mysore in disguise, and I should be getting a little practice in this way, besides obtaining news for you." "I am certainly anxious to get news, Dick. So far, I have had nothing to send down, except that the reports, from all the passes, agree in saying that they have learned nothing of any movement on the part of Tippoo, and that no spies have come down the passes, or any armed party whatever. This is good, so far as it goes, but it only shows that the other passes are, like this, entirely deserted. Therefore, we really know nothing whatever. Even at this moment, Tippoo may have fifty thousand men gathered on the crest of the hills, ready to pour down tomorrow through one of the passes; and therefore, as I do not think you would be running any great danger, I consent to your going with Surajah on a scouting expedition, on foot, among the hills. As you say, you must, of course, disguise yourselves as peasants. You had better, in addition to your guns, each take a brace of pistols, and so armed, even if any of the villagers were inclined to be hostile, they would not care about interfering with you." "Thank you, Uncle. When would you expect us back, if we start tomorrow morning?" "That must be entirely in your hands, Dick. You would hardly climb the ghauts and light upon a village in one day, and it might be necessary to go farther, before you could obtain any news. It is a broken country, with much jungle for some distance beyond the hills, and the villages lying off the roads will have but little communication with each other, and might know nothing, whatever, of what was happening in the cultivated plains beyond. At any rate, you must not go into any villages on the roads leading to the heads of the passes; for there are forts everywhere, and you would be certain to find parties of troops stationed in them. "Even before war broke out, I know that this was the case, as they were stationed there to prevent any captives, native or European, escaping from Mysore. You must, therefore, strictly avoid all the main roads, even though it may be necessary to proceed much farther before you can get news. I should think, if we say three days going and as many returning, it will be as little as we can count upon; and I shall not begin to feel at all uneasy, if you do not reappear for a week. It is of no use your returning without some information as to what is going on in Mysore; and it would be folly to throw away your work and trouble, when, in another day or two, you might get the news you want. I shall, therefore, leave it entirely to your discretion." Greatly pleased at having succeeded beyond his expectations, Dick at once sought out Surajah. The latter was very gratified, when he heard that he was to accompany the young Sahib on such an expedition, and at once set about the necessary preparations. There was no difficulty in obtaining, in the village, the clothes required for their disguises; and one of the sheep intended for the following day's rations was killed, and a leg boiled. "If we take, in addition to this, ten pounds of flour, a gourd of ghee, and a little pan for frying the cakes in, we shall be able to get on, without having to buy food, for four or five days; and of course, when we are once among the villages, we shall have no difficulty in getting more. You had better cut the meat off the bone, and divide it in two portions; and divide the flour, too; then we can each carry our share." "I will willingly carry it all, Sahib." "Not at all, Surajah. We will each take our fair share. You see, we shall have a gun, pistols, ammunition, and a tulwar; and that, with seven or eight pounds of food each, and our water bottles, will be quite enough to carry up the ghauts. The only thing we want now is some stain." "I will get something that will do, and bring it with me in the morning, Sahib. It won't take you a minute to put on. I will come for you at the first gleam of daylight." Dick returned to the cottage he occupied with his uncle, and told him what preparations they had made for their journey; and they sat talking over the details for another hour. The Rajah's last words, as they lay down for the night, were: "Don't forget to take a blanket, each. You will want it for sleeping in the open, which you will probably have to do several times, although you may occasionally be able to find shelter in a village." By the time the sun rose, the next morning, they were well upon their way. They had a good deal of toilsome climbing, but by nightfall had surmounted the most difficult portions of the ascent, and encamped, when it became dark, in a small wood. Here they lighted a fire, cooked some cakes of flour, and, with these and the cold meat, made a hearty meal. They had, during the day, halted twice; and had breakfasted and lunched off some bread, of which they had brought sufficient for the day's journey. "I suppose there is no occasion to watch, Surajah?" "I don't know, Sahib. I do not think it will be safe for us both to sleep. There are, as you know, many tigers among these hills; and though they would not approach us, as long as the fire is burning brightly, they might steal up and carry one of us off, when the fire gets low. I will, therefore, watch." "I certainly should not let you do that, without taking my turn," Dick said; "and I feel so tired with the day's work, that I do not think I could keep awake for ten minutes. It would be better to sleep in a tree than that." "You would not get much sleep in a tree, Sahib. I have done it once or twice, when I have been hunting in a tiger-infested neighbourhood; but I got scarcely any sleep, and was so stiff, in the morning, that I could hardly walk. I would rather sit up all night, and keep up a good fire, than do that." Dick thought for a minute or two, and then got up and walked about under the trees, keeping his eyes fixed upon the branches overhead. "This will do," he said at last. "Come here, Surajah. There! Do you see those two branches, coming out in the same direction? At one point, they are but five or six feet apart. We might fasten our blankets side by side, with the help of the straps of our water bottles and the slings of the guns; so as to make what are called, on board a ship, hammocks, and lie there perfectly safe and comfortable." Surajah nodded. "I have a coil of leather thong, Sahib. I thought that it might be useful, if we wanted to bind a prisoner, or for any other purpose, so I stuffed it into my waist sash." "That is good. Let us lose no time, for I am quite ready for sleep. I will climb up first." In ten minutes, the blankets were securely fastened side by side, between the branches. Surajah descended, threw another armful of wood on to the fire, placed their meat in the crutch of a bough, six feet above the ground, and then climbed the tree again. Thus, they were soon lying, side by side, in their blankets. These bagged rather inconveniently under their weight, but they were too tired to mind trifles, and were very soon fast asleep. Dick did not wake until Surajah called him. It was already broad daylight. His companion had slipped down quietly, stirred up the embers of the fire, thrown on more wood, and cooked some chupatties before waking him. "It is too bad, Surajah," Dick said, as he looked down; "you ought to have woke me. I will unfasten these blankets before I get down. It will save time after breakfast." Half an hour later, they were again on their way, and shortly came upon a boy herding some goats. He looked doubtfully at them, but, seeing that they were not Mysorean soldiers, he did not attempt to fly. "How far is it to the next village, lad?" Surajah asked; "and which is the way? We are shikarees. Are there any tigers about?" "Plenty of them," the boy said. "I drive the goats to a strong, high stockade every evening; and would not come out, before the sun rose, for all the money they say the sultan has. "Make for that tree, and close to it you will see a spring. Follow that down. It will take you to the village." After walking for six hours, they came to the village. It was a place of some little size, but there were few people about. Women came to the doors to look at Surajah and Dick as they came along. "Where are you from?" an old man asked, as he came out from his cottage. "From down the mountain side. Tigers are getting scarce there, and we thought we would come over and see what we could do, here." "Here there are many tigers," the old man said. "For the last twenty years, the wars have taken most of our young men away. Some are forced to go against their will; for when the order comes, to the head man of the village, that the sultan requires so many soldiers, he is forced to pick out those best fitted for service. Others go of their own free will, thinking soldiering easier work than tilling the fields, besides the chance of getting rich booty. So there are but few shikarees, and the tigers multiply and are a curse to us. "We are but poor people, but if you choose to stay here for a time, we will pay something for every tiger you kill; and we will send round to the other villages, within ten miles, and doubtless every one of them will contribute, so that you might get enough to pay you for your exertions." "We will think of it," Surajah replied. "We did not intend to stop in one village, but proposed to travel about in the jungle-covered district; and wherever we hear complaints of a tiger committing depredations, we will stop and do our best to kill the evil beast. We mean, first, to find out where they are most troublesome, and then we shall work back again. We hear that the sultan gives good prices, for those taken alive." "I have heard so," the old man said, "but none have been caught alive here, or by anyone in the villages round. The sultan generally gets them from the royal forests, where none are allowed to shoot, save with his permission. Sometimes, when there is a lack of them there, his hunters come into these districts, and catch them in pitfalls, and have nets and ropes with which the tigers are bound and taken away." A little crowd had, by this time, collected round them; and the women, when they heard that the strangers were shikarees, who had come up with the intention of killing tigers, brought them bowls of milk, cakes and other presents. "I suppose, now that the sultan is away at war," Dick said, "his hunters do not come here for tigers?" "We know nothing of his wars," a woman said. "They take our sons from us, and we do not see them again. We did hear a report that he had gone, with an army, to conquer Travancore. But why he should want to do it, none of us can make out. His dominions are as wide as the heart of man can require. It is strange that he cannot rest contented, but, like his father, should be always taking our sons away to fight. However, these things are beyond the understanding of poor people like us; but we can't help thinking that it would be better if he were to send his armies to destroy all the tigers. If he would do that, we should not grudge the sums we have to pay, when the tax gatherers come round." After pausing for an hour in the village, they continued on their way. Two or three other small collections of huts were passed, but it was not until the evening of the next day that they issued from the jungle-covered country, onto the cultivated plain. At none of the places they had passed was there anything known, as to Tippoo or his army, but they were told that there were parties of troops, in all the villages along the edge of the plain, as well as in the passes. "We must be careful now, Surajah," Dick said, as, after a long day's march, they sat down to rest, at a distance of half a mile from a large village. "Our tale, that we are shikarees, will not do here. Had that really been our object, we should have stopped at the first place we came to, and, at any rate, we should not have come beyond the jungle. We might still say that we are shikarees, but that tigers had become scarce on the other side of the hills, and, hearing a talk that Tippoo and the English are going to war with each other, we made up our minds to go to Seringapatam, and enlist in his army." "That would do very well," Surajah agreed. "They would have no reason for doubting us, and even if the officer here were to suggest that we should enlist under him, we could do so, as there would be no difficulty in slipping away, and making off into the jungle again." They waited until the sun set, and then walked on into the village. They had scarcely entered, when two armed men stopped them, and questioned them whence they came. Surajah repeated the story they had agreed upon, and the men appeared quite satisfied. "You will be just in time," one said. "We have news that the sultan has just moved, with his army, to Seringapatam. Officers came here, only yesterday, to buy up cattle and grain. These are to be retained here, until orders are received where they are to be sent, so I should say that he is coming this way, and will be going down the passes, as Hyder did. "We shall be very glad, for I suppose we shall join, as he passes along. It has been dull work here, and we are looking forward to gaining our share of the loot. It would be just as well for you to join us here now, as to go on to Seringapatam." "It would save us a long tramp," Surajah agreed. "We will think it over, and maybe we will have a talk with your officer, tomorrow morning." They sauntered along with the men, talking as they went, and so escaped being questioned by other soldiers. Presently, they made the excuse that they wanted, to buy some flour and ghee before the shops were closed; and, with a friendly nod to the two soldiers, stopped before the stall of a peasant who had, on a little stand in front of him, a large jar of ghee. Having purchased some, they went a little farther, and laid in a fresh supply of flour. "Things are very dear," Surajah remarked. "There is very little left in the village," the man said. "All the flour was bought up yesterday, for the sultan's army, which, they say, is coming in this direction; and I have only got what you see here. It has been pounded, by my wife and some other women, since morning." "That is good enough," Dick said, as they walked away. "Our work is done, Surajah, and it is not likely that we should learn anything more, if we were to stop here for a week. Let us turn down between these houses, and make our way round behind. We might be questioned again, by a fresh party of soldiers, if we were to go along the street." They kept along on the outskirts of the village, regained the road by which they had come, and walked on until they reached the edge of the jungle. Going a short distance among the trees, they collected some sticks, lit a fire, and sat down to cook their meal. At the last village or two, they had heard but little of tigers, and now agreed that they could safely lie down, and that it would not be necessary for them to rig up their blankets as hammocks, as they had done on the first two nights.	{ "id": "18813" }
6	: A Perilous Adventure.	They retraced their steps, without adventure, until they reached the village they had first stopped at. "There are soldiers here," Surajah exclaimed, as they entered. "We can't help it, now," Dick said. "There is nothing for it, but to go on boldly. I suppose that Tippoo has sent troops into all these frontier villages, to prevent any chance of news of his movements being taken to the plains. "Ah! There is the old chap who spoke to us last time. Let us stop at once, and talk with him." "So you are back again," the peasant said, as they came up to him. "Yes," Surajah replied. "We told you we should come back here, unless we got news of some tiger being marked down near one of the other villages. We have been as far as the edge of the jungle, and although we have heard of several, not one of them seems to be in the habit of coming back regularly to the same spot; so we thought we could not do better than return here, at once, and make it our headquarters. "I see you have got some soldiers here." "Yes," the old man said, discontentedly, "and a rough lot they are. They demand food, and instead of paying for it in money, their officer gives us bits of paper with some writing on them. He says that, when they go, we are to take them to him, and he will give us an order equal to the whole of them, for which we can receive money from the treasury at Seringapatam. "A nice thing, that! None of us have ever been to Seringapatam, and should not know what to do when we got there. Moreover, there would be no saying whether one would ever come back again. It is terrible. Besides, we have only grain enough for ourselves, and shall have to send down to the plains to buy more; and where the money is to come from, nobody can tell." "I think I could tell you how you had better proceed, if you will take us into your house," Surajah said. "This is not a place for talking. There are four or five soldiers there, watching us." The old man entered the house, and closed the door behind them. "How would you counsel us to proceed?" he asked, as soon as they had seated themselves on a divan, formed of a low bank of beaten earth, with a thick covering of straw. "It is simple enough," Surajah said. "One of you would take the order, on the sultan's treasury, to a large village down in the plain. You would go to a trader, and say that you wished to purchase so much grain and other goods, and would pay for them with an order on the sultan's treasury. It would probably be accepted as readily as cash, for the trader would send it to a merchant, or banker, at Seringapatam to get it cashed for him, to pay for goods he had obtained there; and either to send him any balance there might be, or to retain it for further purchases. An order of that kind is better than money, for trading purposes, for there would be no fear of its being stolen on the way, as it could be hidden in the hair, or shoe, or anywhere among the clothes of the messenger." "Wonderful!" the old peasant said. "Your words are a relief, indeed, to me, and will be to all the village, when they hear them." "And now," Dick broke in, "let us talk about tigers. While you have been speaking, those soldiers have passed the door twice, and have been looking suspiciously at the house. If they take it into their heads to come here, and to ask who we are and what is our business, it would not do to tell them that we have been discussing the value of the orders on the sultan's treasury. "Now, if our advice has been of any assistance to you in this matter, you, in turn, can render us aid in our business of killing tigers. We want you to find out, for us, when a tiger was last seen near the village; where its lair is supposed to be; and whether, according to its situation, we should have the best chance of killing it by digging a pitfall, on the path by which it usually comes from the jungle; or by getting a kid and tying it up, to attract the tiger to a spot where we shall be stationed in a tree." "I will assuredly do that, and every one here will be glad to assist, when I tell them the advice I have received from you--and would, indeed, do so in any case, for it will be a blessing to the village, if you can kill the tiger that so often carries off some of our sheep and goats." At this moment, there was a loud knocking at the door. On the peasant opening it, a group of soldiers demanded to see the men who had entered. "We are here," Surajah said, coming forward. "What do you want?" "We want to know who you are, and where you come from." "Any one in the village could have told you that," Surajah said. "We are shikarees, and have come here to destroy tigers. We were arranging, with this old man, to find us guides who can point out the tracks of the one which has, for some time, been preying on their animals." "Yes, and our children," the old man put in; "for three of them were carried off, from the street here, within the last month." The soldiers looked doubtful, but one of them said: "This is for our officer to inquire about. The men are strangers to the village, and he will want to question them." "We are quite ready to be questioned," Surajah said. "Our host, here, will bear me out in what I say, and there are others in the village who will tell you that we have been arranging, with them, to kill tigers in this neighbourhood; though as yet we have not settled what they will pay us for each beast we destroy." Accompanied by the peasant, they went with the soldiers to the guard house, with which each of the frontier villages was provided. It consisted of a group of huts, surrounded by a thick wall of sunburnt bricks. They were taken into the largest hut, where the officer of the party was seated on a rough divan. "Who have you here?" he asked irritably, for he had been awakened from a doze by their entry. "They are two young fellows, who are strangers here. They say they are shikarees, who have come into the village to gain a reward for killing a tiger that has been troublesome." "They were here three days ago, Sahib," the villager said, "and asked us many questions about the tigers, and were, when the soldiers came to the door, questioning me as to the tiger's place of retreat, and whether a pitfall, or a kid as a decoy, would be most suitable." "Where do you come from?" the officer asked Surajah. "We live in a little village, some distance down the ghauts. We heard that tigers were more abundant, in the jungle country up here, than they are below; and thought that we would, for a time, follow our calling here. We can get good prices for the skins, down below; and with that, and what we get from the villages for freeing them from the tigers, we hope, in a few months, to take back a good store of money." "Your story is a doubtful one," the officer said, harshly. "You may be what you say, and you may be spies." "If we had been spies," Surajah said, "we should not be here, but at Bangalore or Seringapatam. These villages are not the places where news is to be gained." This was so self evident that the officer had nothing to say against it. "At any rate," he said, after a pause, "there is no confirmation to your story, and, as I have orders to put all suspicious persons under arrest, I shall detain you." "It is very hard--" Surajah began; but the officer made an impatient gesture, while two of the soldiers put their hands on the shoulders of the prisoners, and led them from the hut. "You need not look so downcast," one of them said good naturedly. "I don't suppose you will be kept here long; and will, no doubt, be released when the sultan has gone down the passes, with his army. A week or two here will do you no harm--the tigers can wait for a bit. "There, give us your weapons. I daresay you will get them back again, when we go on; as I hope we shall do, for there is nothing to eat and nothing to do in this miserable place." The arms were taken into the officer's hut, and as there was a sentry at the gate, no further attention was paid to them. "I will get you some provisions, and bring them in," the old man said. "It is hard, indeed, that men cannot go about their business without being interfered with." "Thank you, but we have enough for two or three days. When that is gone, we will give you some money to buy more; for we have a few rupees with us, as we knew it might be some time before we should be able to kill a tiger." As soon as the old man had left them, they seated themselves on a large faggot of wood that had been brought in by the villagers, for fuel. "We cannot stay here, Surajah. It is most important that we should get back with the news, and I have no doubt that pig-headed brute in there will do as he says, and will hold us prisoners until Tippoo has gone down the passes. We must get off tonight, if possible. We are not likely to be looked after very sharply. I don't think that fellow really suspects us, but is simply keeping us to show his authority. There ought to be no difficulty in getting out. I suppose we shall be put into one of the soldiers' huts tonight, and if we crawl out when they are asleep, we have only to make our way up those narrow steps to the top of the wall, and then let ourselves down the other side. It is not above fifteen feet high, and even if we dropped, we should not be likely to hurt ourselves." "There will, most likely, be a sentry at the gate," Surajah observed, "and there is a moon tonight." "There ought to be no difficulty in pouncing on him suddenly, gagging him before he can give the alarm, and then tying him. We will walk round and see if there is any rope lying about. If not, I will tear my sash into strips. We can use yours to lower ourselves over the wall. I should like to get our weapons, if we could. The guns do not matter, but the pistols are good ones. And, if there is an alarm given, we may have to fight. Besides, it is not impossible that we may come across a tiger, as we go along. I vote that, when we have secured the sentry, we pay the officer a visit." Surajah nodded. He was quite ready to agree to anything that Dick might suggest, and felt a strong desire to repossess himself of his arms, for it seemed to him that it would be a humiliation to go back without them. "Of course," Dick went on, "if the sentry gives the alarm, before we can secure him, we must give up part of our plan; for, in that case, we should have to bolt. Once over the wall, we should be all right. They may fire away at us as we run, but there is no fear of their hitting us, half asleep as they will be, and not quite sure what it is all about. If we get a fair start of them, we need not have much fear of their catching us." "Not as long as it is straight running, Sahib; but if they follow us far, they may come up within range of us as we are making our way down some of those nasty places, where we came up the face of the ghaut." "If we once get well away from them, we will hide up somewhere, and then strike off on another line." "We might do that," Surajah agreed; "but you know, the place where we came up was the only one that seemed to us climbable, and it would be certainly better to make for it again, if we can find our way." "I quite agree with you there, Surajah. It would never do to go and find ourselves on the edge of a precipice that we could not get down, with the soldiers anywhere near us. Besides, it is of the greatest importance that we should take the news back as soon as possible, as every hour may be of importance. I only wish we could find out which pass Tippoo means to go by, but I don't suppose that will be known until he starts for it. Anyhow, our news will be very valuable, for at present he is supposed to be over on the other side, and he would have taken our troops entirely by surprise, if he had suddenly poured out onto the plain. So we must give up my idea of hiding up, for if we did so we should have to lie there all day, and it would mean the loss of twenty-four hours; for I would not go down those ghauts for any money, except in daylight. It is a very different thing going downhill to going up, and if we were to attempt it in the dark, we should break our necks for a certainty. If we can get away early, tonight, we shall be at the edge of that steep place by nine o'clock in the morning, and if we strike the right point, we might be back to the Rajah by nightfall." "It will be difficult to find our way back in the dark," Surajah said. "No doubt. Still, we can keep in the general direction, and even if we do not hit upon the stream tonight, we shall find it in the morning." It was late in the afternoon when they reached the village, and it was now growing dark. Two soldiers came up to them, and bade them follow them into one of the huts, and there pointed to the farther corner as their place. They wrapped themselves in their blankets, and at once lay down. "If they take it into their heads," Dick whispered to Surajah, "to put a sentry on guard at the door, it will upset all our plans. It would not be very difficult to cut our way through the mud wall behind us, but in the first place they have taken away our knives; and, even if we had them, it would be risky work trying it. "The chances are that they will sit and talk all night. Of course, we might surprise the sentry, but it would be a great risk with those fellows close at hand, and we should have to run straight for the steps, and might get a dozen balls after us, before we were over the wall." "I don't think there would be much chance of their hitting us," Surajah said. "Jumping up from their sleep in confusion, they would be a minute or so before they could find out what had happened, and we should be at the foot of the steps before they saw us, and then they would fire almost at random. "But, in that case, we should lose our weapons," he added regretfully. "We cannot help that. The arms are of no consequence at all, compared to our getting away--unless, of course, any of them happen to overtake us." For three or four hours, the soldiers, of whom there were ten in the hut, sat eating, talking, and smoking round the fire, which they kept burning on the earthen floor. One by one, however, they left it and lay down. When but three remained, one of them got up, with a grumble of discontent, took his musket, which was leaning against the wall, and went out of the hut. "What a nuisance!" Dick whispered. "He is evidently going on sentry duty." "Perhaps he has gone to the gate?" Surajah suggested. "I am afraid not. I expect the other hut is furnishing the sentry there. Listen!" During the pauses of the low conversation of the two men still sitting by the fire, they could hear a footfall outside. "That settles the question," Dick said. "Now, the sooner those fellows go to sleep, the better." "We had better wait for some time, after they do," Surajah replied. "One or two of the men, who lay down first, are sure to get up and go to the door and look out. They always do that, once or twice during the night. The sentry will soon get accustomed to the door being opened, and won't look round sharp." "That is a good idea," Dick agreed. "The moon is at the back of the hut, so we shall be in the shadow. I will spring upon him, and will try and grip him by the throat, so that he can't holloa. You wrench the musket from his hands, and snatch his belt of cartridges. That will give us a weapon, anyhow. As soon as you have got it, I will give him one sharp squeeze, and throw him down. It will be some time before he gets breath enough to holloa." In half an hour, the two men by the fire lay down. It was not long before, as Surajah predicted, one of the sleepers sat up and stretched himself; then he rose and walked to the door, opened it, and stood at the entrance; a moment later he was joined by another figure, and for a few minutes they stood, talking together. Then he came in again, shut the door, and lay down. During the next hour, three of the others followed his example, the last of them leaving the door ajar behind him, when he came in. "Now is our chance, Surajah. We must give him ten minutes to fall asleep again. Then we will move. Should one of them be lying awake, and notice us--which is not likely, for it is too dark in here to see figures distinctly--and ask where we are going, say, 'To the door, to get cool.' They won't imagine that we are thinking of escape, with one sentry at the door, and another at the gate." "Don't you think, Sahib, that it would be safer to kill the sentries?" "Safer or not, Surajah, we will not do it. At present, they have done us no harm. They are only acting as their officer ordered, and we have no grudge against them. When they take to shooting at us, we must shoot at them; but to kill this sentry would be nothing short of murder." After waiting a few minutes longer, Dick said: "We had better be off, now. If we were to wait longer, we should have another fellow getting up." They rose quietly to their feet, made their way to the door, and opened it noiselessly. The sentry was standing, leaning on his long matchlock, a few feet away. Suddenly a voice behind exclaimed, "Who is that?" The sentry was in the act of turning round, when Dick sprang upon him, and grasped him by the throat. No cry came from the man's lips, but the gun fell from his grasp, as he clutched convulsively at Dick's wrists, and went off as it fell. "Pick it up," Dick shouted, "and run." He released his grip from the man's throat, snatched the bandolier from his shoulder, and, tripping his feet from under him, threw him heavily to the ground, and then turned to run. The whole had occupied but a few seconds, but as he started a soldier ran out from the hut, shouting loudly. He had a gun in his hand. Dick changed his mind, turned, threw himself upon him, wrenched the gun from his hold, and, as the man staggered back, struck him with his right hand under the chin. The man fell back through the open door, as if shot. Dick seized the handle and closed it, and then ran, at full speed, towards the foot of the steps. They were but some twenty yards away. "Up you go, Surajah. We have not a moment to lose!" Dick sprang up the steps, Surajah following. As they reached the top of the wall, a shot was discharged at them by the sentry at the gate, who, ignorant of the cause of the sudden uproar, had been standing in readiness to fire. He was, however, too excited to take aim, and the bullet flew harmlessly over their heads. In another instant, they sprang over the parapet. "Lower yourself by your arms, and then drop." The wall, like many others of its sort, was thicker at the base than on the top, and the foot projected two feet beyond the upper line, so that it was a sharp slide, rather than an absolute fall. It was well that it was so, for although only some twelve feet high inside, it was eight feet higher on its outer face, as a dry ditch encircled it. Both came down in a heap on the sand that had crumbled from the face of the wall. As soon as they picked themselves up, Dick exclaimed, "Keep along the foot of the wall, Surajah," and they dashed along until they reached the angle. As they turned the corner, they heard a burst of voices from the wall where they had slid down, and several shots were fired. Dick led the way along the ditch to the next angle, then left it and entered the village, and dashed along the street. The sound of firing had roused many of the peasants. Doors were opening, and men coming out. Exclamations of surprise were heard, as the two figures rushed past, but no one thought of interfering with them. As they left the houses behind them, Surajah said: "You are going the wrong way, Sahib. You are going right away from the ghauts." "I know that well enough," Dick panted; "but I did it on purpose. We will turn and work round again. They will hear, from the villagers, that we have come this way, and will be following us down the road while we are making our way back to the ghauts." They ran for another hundred yards, then quitted the path, and made across the fields. From the fort and village they could hear a great hubbub, and above it could make out the voice of the officer, shouting orders. They continued to run, for another quarter of a mile, and then turned. "Now we can go quietly," Dick said, breaking into a walk. "This line will take us clear of the fort and village, and we have only to make straight for the ghauts. I think we have thrown them well off the scent, and unless the officer suspects that we have only gone the other way to deceive him, and that we are really making for the ghauts, we shall hear nothing more of them." "It is capital," Surajah said. "I could not think what you were doing, when you turned round the corner of the fort and made for the village, instead of going the other way. But where did you get that gun from?" Dick told him how it had come into his possession. "It was not so much that I cared for the gun," he said, "as that I wanted to prevent the man from using it. If he had followed me closely, he could hardly have helped hitting one of us, as we went up the steps. By shutting the door, we gained a few moments, for they were all in confusion in the dim light inside, and would certainly not learn anything, either from the man I pitched in among them, or from the sentry outside. "I don't suppose any of them had an idea of what had happened, until the sentry shouted to them that we had got over the wall. Then they rushed up, and fired at random from the top, thinking that we should be running straight from it." They walked along for a short distance, and then Dick said: "I have got my wind again, now. We will go on at a jog trot. I mistrust that officer. He had a crafty face, and as we said we belonged to a village down the ghauts, he may have a suspicion that we have been trying to throw him off our scent, and think we should be sure to double back and make for home." They kept on their way, sometimes dropping into a walk, but generally going at an easy trot, until day broke. "As soon as it gets a little lighter, Surajah, we will go up on to one of these rises, so as to have a good look down over the line we have come. If they are following us, we must go on at the top of our speed. If we see nothing of them, we can take it quietly. Of course, they can't have been following our steps, but it is quite likely that some of the villagers may know that the ghauts can be climbed at the point where we came up. You know we noticed signs of a path, two or three times, on the way up. In that case, if the officer really did think of pursuing us, he would take one of the villagers as guide." Half an hour later, they ascended a sharp rise, and threw themselves down on its crest. "I don't think that there is the least chance of their coming," Surajah said, carelessly. "When they had gone some distance, without overtaking us on the road, they may possibly have suspected that we had turned and made this way; but by the time they got back to the village, they would know, well enough, that there was no chance of overtaking us." Dick made no answer. He had a sort of uneasy conviction that the officer would at once suspect their plan, and that pursuit would have commenced very shortly after they had re-passed the fort. For some minutes, no words were spoken. No sign of life was to be seen; but in so broken a country, covered in many places with jungle or wood, a considerable body of men might be coming up, unperceived. Suddenly, Dick grasped Surajah's arm. "There they are. You see that I was right. Look at that clump of bush, half a mile away, well to the left of the line we came by. They have just come out from there. There are ten or twelve of them." "I see them," Surajah said. "They are running, too, but not very fast." "We will crawl back, till we are out of their sight, and then make a run for it. They must have got a guide, and are, no doubt, taking a more direct line than we are, for we may be a good bit off the stream we followed as we came along. I have not seen anything I recognise, since it got light, though I am sure we have been going somewhere near the right direction. Now, we have got to run for it." They dashed off, at a rate of speed much higher than that at which they had before been travelling; keeping, as much as possible, in ground covered from the sight of their pursuers; and bearing somewhat to the left, so as to place the latter directly behind them, and to strike the path Dick had no doubt their pursuers were keeping. "It is no use running too fast," he said, a few minutes later. "There is a good long way to go yet--another ten miles, I should think; and anyhow, I don't think we can get down that steep place, before they come to the edge of the cliff above. You see, we are not certain as to where it is. We might strike the cliffs a mile or two on either side of it, and I have no doubt they will go straight to the spot. I expect the man they have got as a guide has been in the habit of going down the ghauts, and knows his way. "If it were not that we are in such a hurry to get to Uncle with the news about Tippoo, it would be much better to turn off, altogether, and stay in a wood for a day or two. They would not stop very long at the top of the ghauts, for they cannot be sure that we are going that way, at all, and when a few hours passed, and we didn't come, the officer would suppose that he was mistaken, and that we really kept on in the line on which we started." They trotted along for some time in silence, and then Surajah said: "Do you not think that it would be better for us to make for the pass to the left? It is twenty miles off, but we should be there by the evening, and we should surely find some way of getting into it, below where the fort stands." Dick stopped running. "Why not go the other way, and make for the pass we know?" he said. "It can't be more than fifteen miles, at the outside, and once below the fort we know our way, and should get down to the village twelve hours sooner than if we went round by the other pass." "It would be the right plan, if we could do it," Surajah agreed; "but you know the rocks rise straight up on both sides of the fort, and the road passes up through a narrow cleft, with the fort standing at its mouth. That is why I proposed the other pass." "I think we had better try it, nevertheless, Surajah. We should not be more than three hours in going straight there, and shall have ample time to follow the edge of the precipice for the last five miles. We may discover some break, where we can get down. If we should find it impossible to descend anywhere, we must sleep till sunset, then strike the road above the fort, go down at night, and manage to slip past the sentry." "The only thing is, Sahib, that it seemed as if the fort lay right across the entrance to the gorge, and the road went through it." "It did look like that, Surajah. Certainly the road went through a gateway. But there must be a break somewhere. We could see that, in the wet season, a lot of water comes down there, so there must be some sort of passage for it; and if the passage is big enough for the storm water to go through, it must be big enough for us." Surajah agreed, and they turned off from the line that they had before been following; no longer hurrying, but walking at a leisurely pace. They were not pressed for time. There was no chance, whatever, of pursuit; and as they had been going, for some six hours, at the top of their speed, they were both feeling exhausted. After proceeding for two miles, they came upon a small stream. Here they sat down, lighted a fire, mixed some flour and water--for although the ghee had been taken from them, when they were disarmed, they had been allowed to retain their supply of flour, for their sustenance in prison--and made some small cakes. These they cooked in the glowing embers. They could not be termed a success, for the outside was burned black, while the centre was a pasty mass. However, they sufficed to satisfy their hunger, and after an hour's rest, they again went forward. It was not very long before they stood on the edge of the rock wall. They followed this along, but could nowhere find a spot where a descent seemed at all possible. After walking for an hour, they saw a road winding up a long valley below them. "That is our road," Dick exclaimed. "That clump of houses, Surajah, must be the one where we generally turned. I know that, from below, these rocks looked as steep as walls, so there is no chance of our finding a way down anywhere, between this and the fort." Surajah nodded. To him, also, the ascent of the ghauts had seemed impracticable. "It is no use following this line any more," Dick went on. "We may as well strike across, until we come onto the edge of the pass, somewhere above the fort; find a place where we can descend easily, and then lie down and sleep, till it is time to make our attempt." In another hour, they were looking down on the road, a mile or so above the fort. The slopes here were gradual, and could be descended without the least difficulty, even in the dark. "There! Do you see, Surajah? The water course runs along by the side of the road. There is a little water in it now. You know we used to meet with it, down below, and water our horses at a pool close to that ruined village. When we start, we can follow the road until we get close to the fort, and then crawl along in the water course, and take our chances. If we should find it so blocked up that we can't get through, we must then see how we can get past the place in some other way. If the gate is only barred, no doubt we should be able to overpower the sentry, and get the gate open before any alarm is given. If it is locked, we must do the best we can. We may calculate upon taking the sentry by surprise, as we did in the prison, and on silencing him at once; then we should have time to break up some cartridges, and pour the powder into the keyhole, which is sure to be a big one, make a slow match, and blow the lock open. We could make the slow match before we start, if we had some water." "Shall I go down to the stream, and get some?" "You have nothing to carry it up in, Surajah; and besides, someone might come along the valley." "We shall only want a little water. I will take off my sash, and dip it in the stream; that will give us plenty, when it is wrung out." "At any rate, Surajah, we will do nothing until it is getting dusk. See! There are some peasants, with three bullocks, coming down the valley, and there are four armed horsemen riding behind them. We will go back to those bushes, a hundred yards behind us, and sleep there until sunset; then we will make our way down to that heap of boulders close to the stream, manufacture our slow match, and hide up there until it is time to start. We want a rest, badly. We did not sleep last night, and if we get through, we must push on tonight without a stop, so we must have a good sleep, now." The sun was low when they woke. They watched it dip below the hills, and then, after waiting until it began to get dusk, started for the valley. No one was to be seen on the road, and they ran rapidly down the slope, until they reached the heap of boulders. Surajah tore off a strip of cotton, six inches long by an inch wide, from the bottom of his dress, went forward to the stream, and wetted it. When he came back, they squeezed the moisture from it, broke up a cartridge, rubbed the powder into the cotton, and then rolled it up longways. "That will be dry enough, by the time we want to start," Dick said. "I hope we sha'n't have to use it, but if there is no other way, we must do so." They remained where they were, until they thought that the garrison of the fort would be, for the most part, asleep. Then they crossed the stream, and walked along by the side of the road, taking care not to show themselves upon it, as their figures would be seen for a long distance, on its white, dusty surface. Presently, the sides of the valley approached more closely to each other; and, just where they narrowed, they could make out a number of dark objects, which were, they doubted not, the houses occupied by the garrison. They at once took to the bed of the stream, stooping low as they went, so that their bodies would be indistinguishable among the rocks. They could hear the murmur of voices, as they passed through the village. Once beyond it, they entered the gorge. Here there was but room enough for the road and the stream, whose bed was several feet below the causeway. A few hundred yards farther, the gorge widened out a bit, and in the moonlight they could see the wall of the fort stretching before them, and a square building standing close to it. "That is the guard house, no doubt," Dick said, in low tones. "It is too close to be pleasant, if we have to attack the sentry." Very carefully, they picked their way among the rocks, until close to the wall; then Dick gave a low exclamation of disappointment. The stream ran through a culvert, some twelve feet wide and ten feet high, but this was closed by iron bars, crossing each other at intervals of only five or six inches, the lower ends of the perpendicular bars being fixed in a stone dam, extending across the bed of the stream. Dick waded across the pool formed by the dam, and felt the bars, but found them perfectly solid and strong. "It is no good, Surajah," he said, when he returned. "There is no getting through there. There is nothing for it but the gate, unless we can find the steps up to the top of the wall, and get up unnoticed. Then we might tear up our sashes longways, knot them together, and slip down. "The first thing to do is to have a look round. I will get up close to the wall. It is in shadow there." Entering the pool again, he climbed up the steep bank, which was here faced with stones. He stopped when his eyes were above the level, and looked round. There was the gate, twelve feet away, and to his delight no sentry was to be seen. He was about to whisper Surajah to join him, when he heard voices. They came from above, and he at once understood that, instead of a man being posted behind the gate, two were on guard on the wall above it. He beckoned to Surajah to join him, and when he did so, whispered what he had discovered. "If the gate is only barred, we are all right now, Surajah; except that we shall have to run the risk of being shot by those fellows on the wall. We shall be a pretty easy mark, on that white road by moonlight. Our only plan will be to keep close to the wall, when we are through the gate, get down into the bed of the stream again, and then crawl along among the rocks. The bottom will be in shadow, and we may get off without being noticed. The only fear is that we shall make a noise in opening the gate. "Now, let us try it." Keeping close to the wall, they crept to the gateway. This projected two feet beyond the gate itself, and standing against the latter they could not be seen, even in the unlikely event of one of the sentries looking down. The only risk was of anyone in the guard house coming out. This, however, could not be avoided, and they at once began to examine the fastenings of the gate, which consisted of two massive bars of wood, running across it. These, by their united strength, they removed one after another. But when they tried it, they found the gate still immovable. "The beastly thing is locked," Dick said. "There is nothing to do, but to blow it open." He broke off the ends of three cartridges, poured the powder in at the keyhole, and then inserted the slow match. "Stand in the corner there, Surajah. I will go down to the stream again, to light the tinder. The noise is less likely to be heard there." He stole back again, sat down at the edge of the water, placed his tinder box in his lap, took his turban off and put it over his hands, so as to deaden the sound, and then struck the steel sharply against the flint. The first blow was successful. The spark fell on the tinder, and at once began to extend. He listened intently. The men on the wall were still talking, and the sound had evidently not reached their ears.	{ "id": "18813" }
7	: Besieged.	Dick hastily clambered up the wall, ran to the gate, blew the tinder, and then applied it to the slow match. A moment later, this began to fizz. "Round the corner of the wall, Surajah!" he exclaimed, running back himself. A few anxious seconds passed, then came a sharp explosion. In an instant they ran up. The gate stood two or three inches open. It yielded to a push, and they ran out. Loud shouts were heard from the men above, and a hubbub of cries from the guard house. "Run, Surajah! We must risk it. Keep on the edge of the road, and dodge as you go. The chances are they will run down below, to see what has happened." At the top of their speed, they dashed down the road. No shot was fired from the wall, Dick's conjecture that the first impulse of the sentries would be to run down below having been justified. They were a couple of hundred yards away, before two shots were fired from the gate. The bullets whistled by harmlessly. "We are all right now," Dick cried. "They can scarcely see us, and we shall soon be out of sight altogether." Five or six more shots were fired a few seconds later, as the men from the guard house reached the gate. On looking back, when they had gone another hundred yards, they saw a number of figures on the road. "Not quite so fast, Surajah," Dick said. "It is going to be a long chase, now. We have got three hundred yards start, and they won't be able to load again, running at full speed." For a time, their pursuers gained somewhat upon them; then, gradually, they began to straggle, as the effect of the speed at which they were running told upon them. When they reached the ruined village, there were four men running together, some three hundred yards behind. The rest were a considerable distance in the rear. "Another mile or two, and they will all give up the chase except these four, Surajah, and if they turn out better runners than we do, we can make a stand. There are some more huts another two miles farther, and we will fight them there." They were going slower now, for although the downward course of the road helped them a good deal, the run was telling on them. Not a word was spoken, until they reached the second village. When they came to the first house, they stopped simultaneously, and looked round. Their pursuers were not more than two hundred yards behind them. "In here, Surajah," Dick said, as he ran into the ruined hut. Its roof was gone, its door hung loose on its hinges. It had but one window, a small one, looking up the valley. Dick laid his gun on the sill, which was nearly level with his shoulder. "I must wait until they get pretty close," he said, "for I am panting so that I can't keep the barrel steady, even with this rest." "I will kneel down outside," Surajah said. "Mind, I will fire first, Surajah. Don't you fire until they are within twenty yards of you. By that time I shall have loaded again." Dick had more time than he had expected, for as soon as their pursuers saw them enter the hut, they slackened their pace considerably. They were within about eighty yards, when Dick held his breath and standing, for a moment, immovable, took a steady aim and fired. One of the men stumbled in his run, took a step or two forward, and then fell on his face. The others paused for a moment, and then, with a fierce yell, ran forward. The moment he had fired, Dick dropped the stock of his gun on to the ground, snatched a cartridge from the bandolier, bit off the end, and emptied the powder into the barrel, gave the gun a shake, so as to be sure that it ran into the touch hole, and then rammed down the bullet. As he was in the act of doing so, Surajah fired, and a loud yell told that his shot had been successful. Dick sprang to the door as Surajah entered. Two shots at the same instant rang out; but, at even so short a distance, the bullets went wide. Dick stepped out, and in turn fired. One of the two men fell; the other threw down his musket, and fled up the road. "Thank goodness that is over," Dick exclaimed. "I thought they had no chance with us, here. Now the first thing is to get our wind again." They stood for two or three minutes, breathing heavily; then, as their breath came again, they prepared to move, when Dick exclaimed suddenly, "What is that noise?" There was a dull, confused sound in the air, and then Surajah, pointing up the road, exclaimed, "Cavalry!" Far away on the white road, a dark mass could be seen. At first, Dick instinctively turned to resume their flight, but then he said: "It is of no use, Surajah. The sides of the valley are too steep to climb, and they will be up in five or six minutes. We must fight it out here. Run out to that man I shot, and bring in his gun, bandolier, pistols if he has any, and sword. I will take them from these two. It will make all the difference, having spare weapons." Surajah, without a word, hurried up the road, while Dick ran over to the house opposite, which seemed to be larger than the one they had first entered. He looked round. It contained only one room, but this was twenty feet square. There were three small windows, one looking into the street, one looking up the valley, and one behind. The floor was littered with the beams of the roof. The door was still in its place. Having ascertained this, he ran back to the bodies of the two men, picked up the three guns, took off their bandoliers, and removed the pistols from their sashes; and with these, and one of their swords, returned to the house, just as Surajah came back. "This is the best house to defend, Surajah. There are some beams with which we can block up the door." Laying down the arms inside, they set to work with the beams, and barricaded the door so firmly that, short of its being splintered to pieces, no entry could be effected. This done, they re-charged the six guns, examined the pistols, and finding that they were loaded, placed three of them in each of their sashes, and hung the swords by their sides. Then they went to the window looking up the valley. The horsemen, some twenty in number, were but a short quarter of a mile away, and were coming along at a gallop. "Don't fire, Surajah," Dick said. "They will have heard, from the man who has got away, that we are in the house opposite, and if they don't find us there, they will think that we have gone on, and will ride down the valley till they are sure they must be ahead of us. Then they will search the ground carefully, as they come back, and altogether we may gain an hour; and every moment is of use. It must be two o'clock now, and our troop generally gets here soon after seven." As he spoke, the horsemen drew up in front of the opposite hut. There was a momentary pause, and then a voice said: "It is empty." Then followed the command: "Ride on, men. They can't have got very far. We shall overtake them in ten minutes." As soon as they started, Dick said: "Take a ramrod, Surajah, and make some holes through the walls, to fire through. If we were to show ourselves at the windows, we might get shot." The walls were built of mud and clay, and with the iron ramrods they had no difficulty in making four holes, an inch wide and two inches high, on each side of the house. "Now we are ready for them," Dick said, when they had finished. "They have been gone half an hour, and it won't be long before they are back." In a few minutes, they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs. It ceased some forty or fifty yards away, and by the sound of voices and orders, it was evident that the other houses were being searched. Voices were also heard at the back of the house, and they guessed that the ground was being closely examined, up to the foot of the rock walls which enclosed the valley. "Now, Surajah, you can take a shot from the window of that side. The others will be here in a minute, and it is just as well to let them know where we are, before they get close up to our door." Surajah went to the window at the back. Four horsemen were making their way, at a walk, along the level ground between the rocks and the huts. The nearest was but some forty yards away. Surajah fired, and the man at once fell from his horse. The others instantly galloped on at full speed up the valley, and from the window at the end, Surajah saw them gather on the road three or four hundred yards away; and then, after a short consultation, cross to the other side of the valley, with the intention, he had no doubt, of rejoining their comrades. The sound of the gun had been followed by shouts and exclamations from the party in the village. Dick could hear a conference in low tones; then all was silent. He went to the loophole at the corner, laid his rifle in it, and waited, looking along the barrel. Two or three minutes later the hole was darkened, and he fired at once. There was a sound of a heavy fall, followed by cries of rage, and a moment later there was a rush of men against the door. Surajah ran across. Two spare guns were pushed through the loopholes, one on each side of it. These had not been bored straight through the wall, but at angles that would enable them to fire at anyone attacking it. Looking along the barrels, each could see one of the group in front, and fired at the same moment. With a yell of rage and surprise, the assailants of the door sprang back and ran down the street. "There are four less, anyhow," Dick said, as he and Surajah reloaded the empty guns. "Those loopholes will puzzle them, and I don't think they will care to come on again, for a bit." There was a pause for some minutes, and then, from the huts opposite, and from various points higher up the valley and behind, a dropping fire was opened. "Keep out of the line of the windows, whatever you do, Surajah; and it will be just as well to lie down for a bit, until we see whether any of their shots come through the wall. I think we are quite safe from the distant fire, but from the house opposite it is possible they may penetrate it. Anyhow, don't stand in the line of a loophole. A stray ball might find its way in." For a few minutes, the enemy fired away unanswered, and then Dick, who had been seated on the ground with his back against the end wall, got up and went along that facing the street, carefully examining it. "I don't think any of their balls have come through, Surajah. I should be able to see out into the moonlight, if they had done so. Now it is time for us to be doing something. I expect they are getting a little bolder, and will perhaps give us a chance. "You take this loophole. It is exactly in a line with the opposite hut, and the fellows in there must come to their door to fire. I will take this slanting hole by the doorpost. I can see one of the windows of the next hut to that we were in. I have no doubt that they are firing from there also. Don't wait for them to shoot, but fire directly a figure shows itself." In a very short time Surajah fired. Dick heard the clatter of a gun, as it fell to the ground. "You have hit him, Surajah." "Yes, but only wounded him. I think I hit him on the shoulder. He let his gun drop, and ran into the house." "Take a spare gun at once. If there are others there, they will think that you are loading, and may show themselves again." A moment later, Dick saw a gun thrust out through the window he was watching. Then the head and shoulders of a man appeared behind it. He fired, and the figure disappeared. Almost at the same instant, Surajah fired again. "I had one that time, Sahib!" It was now quiet for some little time. Then a horseman dashed suddenly past, and galloped up the valley at full speed. "The end window, Surajah! Bring him down, if you can." Surajah ran there and fired. "I have missed him!" he said, in a tone of deep disappointment. "It does not make much difference. If you had hit him, they could have sent another off close to the opposite side of the valley. There is no doubt as to what he has gone for. You see, they have lost six killed and one wounded, and they must know that they have not the slightest chance of taking this hut. I have no doubt that he has ridden back to bring down the infantry from the fort. From the number of huts round the gate, and the sound of talking, I should think there were fifty or sixty at least--perhaps a hundred. "If they send down fifty, we shall have sharp work. Our difficulty will be to prevent them from making a rush at all the windows together. If they were to get there, they could riddle us with balls." "Could we block them up, Sahib?" "That is just what I was thinking," Dick replied. "We might try, anyhow. It will be an hour and a half before they are down here. It must be past four now, and in another hour daylight will begin to break. "There is any amount of the old thatch down on the floor. The best way would be to fill up the window holes with it first, then to put two or three bits of wood across, and a strong piece down behind it, and to keep that in its place by wedging one of the long beams against it. If they came up and tried to pull the thatch out, we could fire through it with our pistols; and we will make a loophole below each when we have got the work done." It was not so difficult a business as they thought it would be. The windows were little more than a foot across and two feet high. It was but the work of a few minutes to fill these up with the masses of thatch. When this was done, they picked out thick pieces of wood for crossbars. Then they took a beam, eight feet long, made a hole with their tulwars in the clay floor close to the wall, put one end of the beam into it, and reared it upright against the window. Dick held it in its place, while Surajah hacked a deep notch in it--a by no means difficult matter, for it was half rotten with exposure. The notch was cut just opposite the middle of the window. The three crosspieces were then put into their place, and the upright pressed firmly against them. One end of a long beam was placed in the notch, the other in a slight hole made in the ground, thus forming a strut, which held the rest firmly in their positions. "That is a good job done," Dick said, "but a very hot one. Now, Surajah, sharpen three or four pieces of wood, and drive them down into the ground at the foot of that strut; then it will be as firm as a rock." They then proceeded, in the same way, with the other two windows. "It is getting light fast," Dick said, as he wiped the perspiration from his face. "Take a look out up the valley. They ought to be coming by this time." Surajah applied his eye to one of the loopholes. "I can see them," he said. "They are half a mile away. There are two mounted men. I expect one is their officer, and the other the man who rode back to fetch them." "Let us set to work at the loopholes under the windows, Surajah. It is most important to get them done. You make the one at the end, I will do that one looking into the street. Put it as close to the beam as you can." They worked hard, and it was not long before the walls were pierced. "Now, Surajah, you do the one at the back. The fellows will soon be within range, and I will give them a lesson to be careful. They will naturally break up, and go round behind the houses opposite, as they can find shelter nowhere else; and, for a bit at any rate, we shall get them all on one side of us, which is what we want." Dick carried the six guns to the end of the hut, and then applied his eye to the loophole there. The enemy were coming along at a run, in a confused mass. "I can't very well miss them," he muttered to himself, as he thrust his gun through a loophole, and fired. Without waiting to see the result, he thrust another gun out, aimed, and fired. "Never mind the hole, Surajah," he said. "Come here and reload." The four other shots were discharged in rapid succession. The Mysoreans at first opened an irregular fire on the hut. When the sixth shot was fired, they left the road in a body, and ran across the valley, leaving four of their number on the ground behind them. As soon as the guns were reloaded, Surajah returned to his work. It was now broad daylight, and the sun was shining upon the hilltops. A quarter of an hour passed, without a movement from the enemy. Dick and his companion occupied the time in further strengthening the door with crossbeams, kept in their place by struts. "If they break it to splinters," Dick said, when they had finished, "they will hardly be able to force their way in, for if they were to try to crawl in between those crossbeams, they would be completely at our mercy. "Now, we must get ready for a rush. I expect they will come all together. There are the six guns, and three pistols each. Keep one of the latter in reserve. We ought not to waste a shot; and if they lose ten men, I should think they will give up the attack on the door. "Stand clear of it, Surajah. They will probably fire into it before they charge--keep down below the level of the loopholes." Presently a volley of musketry was fired, and the door was riddled by bullets. Then a number of figures sprang from between the two opposite houses, and rushed at the door. Two of them carried a long, heavy beam. Two shots flashed out in return, from the hut. One of the men carrying the beam fell, as did an officer who was leading them; but instantly another caught up the end of the timber, and in a moment a crowd were clustered round the door. Several caught hold of the beam, and swung it as though they meant to use it as a battering ram. Two more puffs of smoke spurted out from the loopholes, and again two of the men fell. The others, however, swung it forward with a crash against the door. The end of the beam went right through the rotten woodwork. Dick and Surajah fired their last musket shots with as deadly effect as before. The next blow dashed the door from its hinges, and, split and shattered by the former shocks, it fell forward into the road, while a yell of triumph broke from the Mysoreans. This died away, however, when they saw the three crossbars blocking their entrance. Again two pistol shots carried death among them. "Load your guns, Surajah." But before Surajah had time to do so, the Mysoreans made a rush at the door. The defenders stepped forward and fired between the crossbars, and then, drawing their tulwars, ran the two men in front through the body. As they dropped, those behind them drew back. "The last pistols!" Dick shouted, and they fired two shots into the crowd. This completed the consternation of the enemy. It seemed to them that the defenders possessed an unlimited supply of firearms. Already twelve shots had been fired, and not one had failed to take effect. With a cry of consternation they fled down the street, leaving the ground in front of the fatal door strewn with bodies. The defenders instantly set about the work of recharging their firearms. They were not interrupted, but presently an irregular fire opened upon them, from the jungle that had taken the place of the garden between the opposite houses. "We may as well lie down at full length," Dick said, setting the example. "There is no use in running risks. You keep that side, and listen attentively. It is likely enough that they will work round behind, next time, and try the windows. By the way they are firing, I fancy there are not more than five or six of them opposite." Another half hour passed. Then Surajah exclaimed, "I can hear them on this side." Dick got up, and crossed at once. "I will take the loophole under this window. You go to the one at the end. I expect they will try both windows at once." Dick placed the muzzle of his gun in the loophole, and, glancing along, saw that something dark barred his view. He fired at once. There was a loud cry and a fall, then a rush to the window, and a moment later a hole appeared in the thatch. Dick discharged two pistols through it, and as he did so Surajah fired. The thatch was speedily pulled down, as the enemy had learned to avoid the loopholes. A yell of rage rose, as the fallen thatch showed them that the window was defended with crossbars, in the same way as the door. Immediately afterwards, Dick had a narrow escape from a shot fired through a loophole close to him. "Stoop down," he cried, and, crouching below the level of the loopholes, made his way to the end of the hut. "Recharge the guns first, Surajah. They may fire away through the loopholes as long as they like. It is lucky we made them so high, except the three under the windows. We must be careful in keeping out of the line of those. "You sit down where you can command the end window, and the one behind--I will watch the front window and door. A bold fellow might put his musket through, and pick one of us off, and that is what we have to prevent. So keep your gun in readiness, and if you see a head appear, don't miss it." The enemy now kept up a constant fire through the loopholes at the end and back of the house; but as these were shoulder high, and there was no altering the elevation of the guns, the shots flew harmlessly over the heads of the defenders. Several times, Dick went to one or other of the loopholes, pistol in hand, and, standing close beside it, waited until a shot was fired; and then, thrusting the barrel into the loophole, fired before another gun could be inserted, the discharge being generally followed by a sharp cry of pain. After this had gone on for nearly an hour, the assailants evidently became discouraged. The shots came from the loopholes less frequently, and presently ceased altogether. "I would give a good deal to know what they are up to," Dick said, after a long pause. "Shall I look through the loophole?" Surajah asked. "Certainly not. There will be a man standing at each of them, waiting in expectation of our taking a look out." "But there are none in front," Surajah said. "That is more than we can say. They have not been firing on that side, but they may have men there now. No, we will leave well alone, Surajah. The longer they delay, the better for us. "Keep your eye on the top of the wall, as well as on the window. They may have made some ladders by this time, and may intend to try a shot." "Perhaps they are gone?" Surajah suggested. "It is quite possible. They must know that our troop comes up here early, and as they have four miles to walk back to the fort, and several wounded to carry with them, they certainly won't stay much longer--if, as you say, they have not gone already." It was indeed well that Surajah had not attempted to look out at one of the loopholes; for, at the time he asked the question, a dark figure was standing at each, looking along the barrel of his gun, in readiness to fire the moment the light was obscured. A few minutes later Dick exclaimed: "How stupid! We can easily test whether there is any one there, Surajah;" and, taking up a piece of thatch he pushed it suddenly across one of the loopholes. No shot followed the action, and he went round the hut, and repeated the experiment at each of them. "They have all gone," he said confidently. "Had they been outside, they would certainly have fired directly the light was obscured." Standing a short distance back from the end window, he looked out between the crossbeams. "Hurrah!" he shouted. "There they go up the road. They are a quarter of a mile away. They are not more than half as strong as they were when they came down. They are carrying eight or ten figures on their shoulders, on litters, or doors." "I don't see the cavalry," Surajah said, as he joined him. "No. It is likely enough that they may be in hiding among the huts opposite, and are waiting, in hopes that we may be foolish enough to take it for granted that they are all gone, and pull down the bars of the door. I expect they will stay until they see our troop coming up the valley." They continued to look out from the window, from which they had now removed the bars. Half an hour later, Dick exclaimed: "There they go, up that side of the valley. I have no doubt they see our troop, and that in a few minutes we shall hear them coming." It was not long before they heard a trampling of horses, and a moment later the Rajah's voice exclaimed: "Why, what is this? Here are a dozen dead bodies. They are Mysoreans, by their dress." "All right, Uncle," Dick shouted, "we will be out as soon as we get these bars down. We have been standing a siege." It did not take long to remove the bars. The Rajah and his men had dismounted, as soon as some of the latter had gone round the hut, and had brought back the report that there were five more dead on that side. As Dick and his companion stepped out, the Rajah exclaimed: "What, are you alone?" "Yes; there is no one with us, Uncle." "Do you mean to say that you two have defended this place alone, and killed sixteen of the enemy, besides some I see lying farther up the road?" "Yes, Uncle. You see, it was a pretty strong position, and we had time to block up the doors and windows, and to make loopholes to fire through." "What think you of that, Anwar?" the Rajah exclaimed to the captain of the troop. "My nephew and Rajbullub's son have shown themselves brave fighters, have they not?" "It is wonderful," the captain said; and exclamations of admiration broke from the men standing round. "Tell us all about it, Dick," the Rajah went on. "It is a long story, Uncle; but the real news is that Tippoo, with his army, has left the head of the western passes, and has gone to Seringapatam. He is going to march down one of the passes, this side, at once. Provisions have been collected for his army to consume on the march. No one knows yet which pass he will come down by; but it will not be far from here, for they are buying up cattle in the villages at the top of the ghauts." "That is important, indeed, Dick, and we must ride off without delay; but first, I must have a look at this fortress of yours." He entered the hut, the soldiers crowding in after him, and examined the defences at the windows, and the loopholes; while Dick explained how the bars had been arranged to defend the door. "We began on the other side, Uncle. We had a fight with four men who came up with us there. Only one of them got away--and he left his gun behind. It was lucky, for their guns and pistols were of immense use to us. We could not have held out with only our own weapons. "About twenty of their cavalry came up a few minutes afterwards. We beat them off, and then they sent up to the fort for infantry, and about fifty men came down and attacked us, just at sunrise. They kept it up to within half an hour ago. Then the infantry marched back, knowing, of course, that your troop generally got here about seven. "The horsemen stayed here till within a few minutes of your arrival. No doubt they thought that we should suppose they had all gone, and might venture out, and let them get a shot at us." "Why, it must have been a veritable battle, Dick." "There was a good deal of noise, Uncle, though not much danger. So long as we kept below the level of the loopholes and windows, and out of the line of the door, there was no chance of our being hit." "They must have made a strong attack on the door," the Rajah said. "I see that the two lying next to it were both killed by sword thrusts." "Yes, that was the most critical moment, Uncle. We had emptied nearly all our barrels, and if they could have broken down the bars, which I have no doubt they could have done, if they had stuck to it, they would have made very short work of us." "Now let us be going," the Rajah said. "You can tell me the whole story, as we go along." Two of the sowars were ordered to give up their horses to Dick and Surajah, and to mount behind comrades. Then they started down the valley, Dick riding between his uncle and the captain, while Surajah took his place with the two other officers of the troop. They rode so rapidly that Dick's story was scarcely concluded by the time they reached the village where the troops were quartered. "Well, you have done marvelously well, Dick," his uncle said. "Surajah deserves the highest praise, too. Now I will write a note to the British officer with the Nabob, giving the news of Tippoo's movements, and will send it off by two of the troopers, at once. Where Colonel Maxwell's force is, I have no idea. It marched to join General Meadows, on the day we came up here. "In the meantime you can have a wash, while breakfast is being cooked. I have no doubt that you are ready for it." "I am indeed, Uncle. We had nothing, yesterday, but a few cakes made of flour and water; and have had nothing at all, since." "All right, lad. I will be ready almost as soon as breakfast is." After the meal was over, the Rajah lit his hookah, and said: "You must go through the story again, this evening, Dick. You cut short some of the details, as you told it to me on the road, and I want to understand it all thoroughly. You had better turn in now for a long sleep. You must want it badly enough, lad, after the work of the two last nights." Dick slept until his uncle roused him, at six o'clock. "Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. It is just as well that you should get up, for two or three hours. After that, you will be good for another sleep till morning. We shall have to look out sharp now, and keep a couple of vedettes always at that village; as, for all we know, this may be the pass by which Tippoo is coming down." Dick got up rather reluctantly, but he was not long in shaking off his drowsiness, and after dinner was able to go through the story again, with full details of his adventures. "I don't know what I should have done without Surajah, Uncle. He is a capital fellow, and if ever I go up by myself, into Mysore, to look for my father, I hope that you will let me take him." "That I will certainly do, Dick. Ever since I first heard of your plans, I have quite decided that you ought not to go alone. I daresay I should have chosen an older man to accompany you, but after what you and the lad have done together, I don't think you could do better than take him. Of course, such an affair would demand infinitely greater caution and care, though not greater courage, than you had occasion to use on this excursion. It is one thing to enter a village, to ask a few questions, make a purchase or two, and be off again; but it is a very different thing to be among people for weeks, or perhaps months, and to live as one of themselves. However, we may hope that this war will end in our army marching to Seringapatam, when we shall recover many of the prisoners in Tippoo's hands. "I do not say all. We know how many hundreds remained in his power last time, in spite of his promise to deliver them all up; and maybe something of the same sort will occur next time. Numbers may be sent away, by him, to the hill fortresses dotted all over the country; and we should never be able to obtain news of them. However, we must hope for the best." The next morning, the troopers arrived with a letter from the English resident at Arcot. The Rajah glanced through it, and handed it to Dick, with the remark: "You will not get the honour you deserve, Dick." The letter ran: "Dear Rajah: "Your news would be extremely valuable, were it correct; but unfortunately it is not so, and doubtless the reports brought down by your nephew were spread by Tippoo, for the purpose of deceiving us. Or, possibly, he may have intended to have come that way, but afterwards changed his mind. We have news that, just after Colonel Maxwell effected his junction with General Meadows, near Caveripatam, and was about to ascend the ghauts by the Tapour pass, Tippoo came down by that very route, slipped past them, and is marching on to Trichinopoly. That being the case, I see no further utility in your remaining with your troop in the passes, but think it were best that you should re-assemble them at once, and march here. There is no chance of Tippoo capturing Trichinopoly before Meadows, who is following him, can come up and force on a battle; so it is likely that the Mysore army may continue their march in this direction, in which case every fighting man will be of use, to defend this place until it is relieved by the general." Dick uttered an exclamation of disgust, as he laid the letter down. "It does not matter about my news turning out wrong," he said, "but it is very bad that General Meadows should have allowed Tippoo to pass him, as he may do frightful damage to the country, before he can be overtaken." "He never can be overtaken, as long as he chooses to keep ahead. He is hampered with no baggage train. He lives on the plunder of the country he passes through; and the British army, with all its baggage and provision train, has no more chance of overtaking him than it has of flying." Messengers were at once sent off, to call in the scattered portions of the troop. These were assembled in twenty-four hours, and at once started for Arcot, where they arrived after a two days' march. They there learned that Tippoo had appeared before Trichinopoly, and after pillaging and laying waste the sacred island of Seringham, had marched north. Day after day, news arrived of the devastation he was committing on his march. At Thiagur, however, he met with a serious repulse. Great numbers of the inhabitants from the surrounding country had crowded into the town with their valuables, and Tippoo, expecting a rich booty, attacked the town; but although its fortifications were insignificant, the little garrison was commanded by Captain Flint, the officer who had so bravely defended Wandiwash in the previous war, and two assaults were repulsed with serious loss. At Trinalee, thirty-five miles farther north, he was more successful, capturing the town, and putting the inhabitants to the sword. Here Tippoo changed his course, and marched for Pondicherry, capturing Permacoil by the way. The news that Tippoo had changed his course, to the southeast, was received with great joy at Arcot. Although confident that this capital would be able to resist any sudden attack, the belief had been general that the whole territory would be laid waste, as it had been by Hyder; and hopes were now entertained that the British army would arrive in time to bar Tippoo's further progress.	{ "id": "18813" }

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