Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Web Archive
https://archive.org/details/ticonderogastory00jameuoft
(University of Toronto)
A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley
By G. P. R. JAMES
Author of "Darnley, A Romance of the times
of Henry VIII."; "Richelieu, A Tale of
France in the Reign of King Louis XIII."
A. L. BURT COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
TICONDEROGA
CHAPTER I
The house was a neat, though a lowly one. It bore traces of newness, for the bark on the trunks which supported the little veranda had not yet mouldered away. Nevertheless, it was not built by the owner's own hands; for when he came there he had much to learn in the rougher arts of life; but with a carpenter from a village some nine miles off, he had aided to raise the building and directed the construction by his own taste. The result was satisfactory to him; and, what was more, in his eyes, was satisfactory to the two whom he loved best--at least, it seemed satisfactory to them, although those who knew them, even not so well as he did, might have doubted, and yet loved them all the better.
The door of the house was open, and custom admitted every visitor freely, whatever was his errand. It was a strange state of society that, in which men, though taught by daily experience that precaution was necessary, took none. They held themselves occasionally ready to repel open assault, which was rare, and neglected every safeguard against insidious attack, which was much more common.
It was the custom of the few who visited that secluded spot to enter without ceremony, and to search in any or every room in the house for some one of the inhabitants. But on this occasion the horse that came up the road stopped at the gate of the little fence, and the traveler, whoever he was, when he reached the door after dismounting, knocked with his whip before he entered.
The master of the house rose and went to the door. He was somewhat impatient of ceremony, but the aspect and demeanor of his visitor were not of a kind to nourish any angry feeling. He was a young and very handsome man, probably not more than thirty years of age, sinewy and well formed in person, with a noble and commanding countenance, a broad, high brow, and a keen but tranquil eye. His manner was courteous, but grave, and he said, without waiting to have his errand asked: "I know not, sir, whether I shall intrude upon you too far in asking hospitality for the night, but the sun is going down, and I was told by a lad whom I met in the woods just now that there is no other house for ten miles farther; and, to say the truth, I am very ignorant of the way."
"Come in," said the master of the cottage. "We never refuse to receive a visitor here, and, indeed, have sometimes to accommodate more than the house will well hold. We are alone, however, now, and you will not have to put up with the inconveniences which our guests are sometimes obliged to encounter. Stay! I will order your horse to be taken care of."
Thus saying, he advanced a step or two beyond the door and called in a loud voice for someone whom he named Agrippa. He had to shout more than once, however, before a negro appeared, blind in one eye, and somewhat lame withal, but yet, apparently, both active and intelligent. The necessary orders were soon given, and in a moment after the traveler was seated with his host in the little parlor of the cottage. The manner of the latter could not be called cordial, though it was polite and courteous.
The other seemed to feel it in some degree, and a certain stateliness appeared in his demeanor which was not likely to warm his host into greater familiarity. But suddenly the chilly atmosphere of the room was warmed in a moment, and a chain of sympathy established between the two by the presence of youth. A boy of sixteen, and a girl a little more than a year older, entered with gay and sunshiny looks, and the cloud was dispelled in a moment.
"My daughter Edith--my son Walter," said the master of the house, addressing the stranger, as the two young people bounded in; and then he added, with a slight inclination of the head: "It was an ancient and honorable custom in Scotland, when that country was almost as uncivilized as this, and possessed all the uncivilized virtues, never to inquire the name of a guest; and therefore I cannot introduce you to my children; but doubtless they will soon acknowledge you as their nameless friend."
"I am a friend of one of them already," answered the stranger, holding out his hand to the lad. "This is the young gentleman who told me that I should find the only house within ten miles about this spot, and his father willing to receive me, though he did not say that I should find a gem in the wilderness, and a gentleman in these wild woods."
"It has been a foolish fancy, perhaps," said the master of the house, "to carry almost into the midst of savage life some remnants of civilization. We keep the portraits of dead friends--a lock of hair--a trinket--a garment of the loved and departed. The habits and the ornaments of another state of society are to me like those friends, and I long to have some of their relics near me."
"Oh, my dear father," said Edith, seating herself by him and leaning her head upon his bosom, without timidity or restraint, "you could never do without them. I remember when we were coming hither, now three years ago, that you talked a great deal of free, unshackled existence; but I knew quite well, even then, that you could not be content till you had subdued the rough things around you to a more refined state."
"What made you think so, Edith?" asked her father, looking down at her with a smile.
"Because you never could bear the parson of the parish drinking punch and smoking tobacco pipes," answered the beautiful girl, with a laugh; "and I was quite sure that it was not more savage life you sought, but greater refinement."
"Oh, yes, my father," added the lad; "and you often said, when we were in England, that the red Indian had much more of the real gentleman in him than many a peer."
"Dreams, dreams," said their father, with a melancholy smile; and then, turning to the stranger, he added: "You see, sir, how keenly our weaknesses are read by even children. But come, Edith, our friend must be hungry with his long ride; see and hasten the supper. Our habits are primeval here, sir, like our woods. We follow the sun to bed, and wake with him in the morning."
"They are good habits," answered the stranger, "and such as I am accustomed to follow much myself. But do not, I pray you, hasten your supper for me. I am anything but a slave of times and seasons. I can fast long, and fare scantily, without inconvenience."
"And yet you are an Englishman," answered the master of the house, gravely, "a soldier, or I mistake; a man of station, I am sure; though all three would generally infer, as the world goes at this present time, a fondness for luxurious ease and an indulgence of all the appetites."
A slight flush came into his young companion's cheek, and the other hastened to add: "Believe me, I meant nothing discourteous. I spoke of the Englishman, the soldier, and the man of rank and station generally, not of yourself. I see it is far otherwise with you."
"You hit hard, my good friend," replied the stranger, "and there is some truth in what you say. But perhaps I have seen as many lands as you, and I boldly venture to pronounce that the fault is in the age, not in the nation, the profession, or the class."
As he spoke he rose, walked thoughtfully to the window, and gazed out for a moment or two in silence; and then, turning round, he said, addressing his host's son: "How beautifully the setting sun shines down yonder glade in the forest, pouring, as it were, in a golden mist through the needle foliage of the pines. Runs there a road down there?"
The boy answered in the affirmative, and drawing close to the stranger's side pointed out to him, by the undulation of the ground and the gaps in the tree tops, the wavy line that the road followed, down the side of the gentle hill, saying: "By a white oak and a great hemlock tree, there is a footpath to the left; at a clump of large cedars on the edge of the swamp the road forks out to the right and left, one leading eastward toward the river, and one out westward to the hunting grounds."
The stranger seemed to listen to him with pleasure, often turning his eyes to the lad's face as he spoke, rather than to the landscape to which he pointed; and when he had done he laid his hand on his shoulder, saying, "I wish I had such a guide as you, Walter, for my onward journey."
"Will it be far?" asked the youth.
"Good faith, I cannot well tell," answered the other. "It may be as far as Montreal, or even to Quebec, if I get not satisfaction soon."
"I could not guide you as far as that," replied the boy, "but I know every step toward the lakes, as well as an Indian."
"With whom he is very fond of consorting," said his father, with a smile.
But before the conversation could proceed farther, an elderly, respectable woman servant entered the room and announced that supper was on the table. Edith had not returned, but they found her in a large, oblong chamber to which the master of the house led the way. There was a long table in the midst, and four wooden chairs arranged round one end, over which a snowy tablecloth was spread. The rest of the table was bare, but there were a number of other seats and two or three benches in the room, while at equal distances on either side, touching the walls, lay a number of bear and buffalo skins, as if spread out for beds.
The eye of the stranger glanced over them as he entered, but his host replied to his thoughts, with a smile: "We will lodge you somewhat better than that, sir. We have, just now, more than one room vacant; but you must know there is no such thing as privacy in this land, and when we have any invasion of our Indian friends those skins make them supremely happy. I often smile to think how a redman would feel in Holland sheets. I tried it once, but it did not succeed. He pulled the blankets off the bed and slept upon the floor."
Seated at the table, the conversation turned to many subjects, general, of course, but yet personally interesting to both the elder members of the party.
More than an hour was beguiled at the table--a longer period than ordinary--and then the bright purple hues which spread over the eastern wall of the room, opposite the windows, told that the autumnal sun had reached the horizon. The master of the house rose to lead the way into another room again, but ere he moved from the table another figure was added to the group around it, though the foot was so noiseless that no one heard its entrance into the chamber.
The person who had joined the little party was a man of middle age, of a tall, commanding figure, upright and dignified carriage, and fine, but somewhat strongly marked features. The expression of his countenance was grave and noble, but yet there was a certain strangeness in it--a touch of wildness, perhaps I might call it--very difficult to define. It was not in the eyes, for they were good, calm, and steadfast, gazing straight at any object of contemplation, and fixed full upon the face of anyone he addressed. It was not in the lips, for, except when speaking, they were firm and motionless. Perhaps it was in the eyebrow, which, thick and strongly marked, was occasionally suddenly raised or depressed, without apparent cause.
His dress was very strange. He was evidently of European blood, although his skin was embrowned by much exposure to sun and weather. But yet he wore not altogether the European costume, the garb of the American backwoodsman, or that of the Indian. There was a mixture of all, which gave him a wild and fantastic appearance. His coat was evidently English, and had straps of gold lace upon the shoulders; his knee breeches and high riding boots would have looked English, also, had not the latter been destitute of soles, properly so called; for they were made somewhat like a stocking, and the part beneath the foot was of the same leather as the rest. Over his shoulder was a belt of rattlesnake skin, and round his waist a sort of girdle, formed from the claws of the bear, from which depended a string of wampum, while two or three knives and a small tomahawk appeared on either side. No other weapons had he whatever. But under his left arm hung a common powder flask, made of cow's horn, and beside it, a sort of wallet, such as trappers commonly used for carrying their little store of Indian corn. A round fur cap of bearskin, without any ornament whatever, completed his habiliments.
It would seem that in that house he was well known, for its master instantly held forth his hand to him, and the young people sprang forward and greeted him warmly. A full minute elapsed before he spoke, but nobody uttered a word till he did so, all seeming to understand his habits.
"Well, Mr. Prevost," he said, at length, "I have been a stranger to your wigwam for some time. How art thou, Walter? Not a man yet, in spite of all thou canst do? Edith, my sweet lady, time deals differently with thee from thy brother. He makes thee a woman against thy will." Then turning suddenly to the stranger, he said: "Sir, I am glad to see you. Were you ever at Kielmansegge?"
"Once," replied the stranger, laconically.
"Then we will confer presently," replied the newcomer. "How have you been this many a day, Mr. Prevost? You must give me food, for I have ridden far. I will have that bearskin, too, for my night's lodging place, if it be not pre-engaged. No, not that one, the next. I have told Agrippa to see to my horse, for I ever count upon your courtesy."
There was something extremely stately and dignified in his whole tone, and with frank straightforwardness, but without any indecorous haste, he seated himself at the table, drew toward him a large dish of cold meat, and while Edith and her brother hastened to supply him with everything else he needed, proceeded to help himself liberally to whatever was within his reach. Not a word more did he speak for several minutes, while Mr. Prevost and his guest stood looking on in silence, and the two young people attended the newcomer at the table.
As soon as he had done he rose abruptly, and then, looking first to Mr. Prevost, and next to the stranger, said: "Now, gentlemen, if you please, we will to council."
The stranger hesitated, and Mr. Prevost answered, with a smile: "I am not of the initiated, Sir William; but I and the children will leave you with my guest, whom you seem to know, but of whose name[1] and station I am ignorant."
"Stay! stay!" replied the other, to whom he spoke. "We shall need not only your advice but your concurrence. This gentleman I will answer for as a faithful and loyal subject of his majesty King George. He has been treated with that hardest of all treatments--neglect. But his is a spirit in which not even neglect can drown out loyalty to his king and love to his country. Moreover, I may say, that the neglect which he has met with has proceeded from a deficiency in his own nature. God, unfortunately, did not make him a grumbler, or he would have been a peer long ago. The Almighty endowed him with all the qualities that could benefit his fellow creatures, but denied him those which were necessary to advance himself. Others have wondered that he never met with honors, or distinction, or reward. I wonder not at all; for he is neither a charlatan, nor a coxcomb, nor a pertinacious beggar. He cannot stoop to slabber the hand of power, nor lick the spittle of the man in office. How can such a man have advancement? It is contrary to the course of the things of this world. But as he has loved his fellow men, so will he love them. As he has served his country, so will he serve it. As he has sought honor and truth more than promotion, honor and truth will be his reward--alas! that it should be the only one. But when he dies, if he dies unrecompensed, it will not be unregretted, or unvenerated. He must be of our council."
Mr. Prevost had stood by in silence, with his eyes bent upon the ground. But Edith sprang forward and caught Sir William Johnson's hand as he ended the praises of her father, and bending her head with exquisite grace, pressed her lips upon it. Her brother seemed inclined to linger for a moment, but saying, "Come, Walter," she glided out of the room, and the young lad, following, closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER II
"Who can he be?" said Walter Prevost, when they had reached the little sitting-room. "Sir William called him 'My Lord.'"
Edith smiled at her brother's curiosity. Oh, how much older women always are than men!
"Lords are small things here, Walter," she said.
"I do not think that lords are small things anywhere," answered her brother, who had not imbibed any of the republican spirit which was even then silently creeping over the American people. "Lords are made by kings for great deeds or great virtues."
"Then they are lords of their own making," answered Edith. "Kings only seal the patent nature has bestowed. That great red oak, Walter, was growing before the family of any man now living was ennobled by the hand of royalty."
"Pooh, nonsense!" answered her brother. "You are indulging in one of your day dreams. What has that oak to do with nobility?"
"I hardly know," replied his sister, "but yet something linked them together in my mind. It seemed as if the oak asked me, 'What is their antiquity to mine?' And yet the antiquity of their families is their greatest claim to our reverence."
"No! no!" cried Walter Prevost, eagerly. "Their antiquity is nothing, for we are all of as ancient a family as they are. But it is that they can show a line from generation to generation, displaying some high qualities, ennobled by some great acts. Granted that here or there a sluggard, a coward, or a fool may have intervened, or that the acts which have won praise in other days may not be reverenced now. Yet I have often heard my father say that, in looking back through records of noble houses, we shall find a sum of deeds and qualities suited to and honored by succeeding ages, which, tried by the standard of the times of the men, shows that hereditary nobility is not merely an honor won by a worthy father for unworthy children, but a bond to great endeavors, signed by a noble ancestor on behalf of all his descendants. Edith, you are not saying what you think."
"Perhaps not," answered Edith, with a quiet smile; "but let us have some lights, Walter, for I am well nigh in darkness."
The lights were brought, and Walter and his sister sat down to muse over books--I can hardly say to read--till their father reappeared; for the evening prayer and the parting kiss had never been omitted in their solitude ere they lay down to rest. The conference in the hall, however, was long, and more than an hour elapsed before the three gentlemen entered the room. Then a few minutes were passed in quiet conversation, and then, all standing round the table, Mr. Prevost raised his voice, saying: "Protect us, O Father Almighty, in the hours of darkness and unconsciousness. Give us thy blessing of sleep to refresh our minds and bodies; and if it be thy will, let us wake again to serve and praise thee through another day more perfectly than in the days past, for Christ's sake."
The Lord's Prayer succeeded, and then they separated to their rest.
Before daylight in the morning Sir William Johnson was on foot and in the stable. Some three or four negro slaves--for there were slaves then on all parts of the continent--lay sleeping soundly in a small sort of barrack hard by; and as soon as one of them could be roused, his horse was saddled, and he rode away without stopping to eat or say farewell. He bent his course direct toward the banks of the Mohawk, flowing at some twenty miles distance from the cottage of Mr. Prevost; and before he had been five minutes in the saddle was in the midst of the deep woods which surrounded the little well cultivated spot where the English wanderer had settled.
About a mile from the house a bright and beautiful stream crossed the road, flowing onward toward the greater river; but bridge there was none, and in the middle of the stream Sir William suffered his horse to stop and bend its head to drink. He gazed to the eastward, but all there was dark and gloomy under the thick overhanging branches. He turned his eyes to the westward, and they rested on a figure standing in the midst of the stream, with rod in hand, and his back turned toward him. He thought he saw another figure, too, amidst the trees upon the bank; but it was shadowy there, and the form seemed shadowy, too.
After gazing for a moment or two, he raised his voice and exclaimed: "Walter! Walter Prevost!"
The lad heard him, and laying his rod upon the bank, hastened along over the green turf to join him; but at the same moment the figure among the trees--if really figure it was--disappeared from sight.
"Thou art out early, Walter," said Sir William. "What do you at this hour?"
"I am catching trout for the stranger's breakfast," said the lad, with a gay laugh. "You should have had your share, had you but waited."
"Who was that speaking to you on the bank above?" asked the other, gravely.
"Merely an Indian girl, watching me fishing," replied Walter Prevost.
"I hope your talk was discreet," rejoined Sir William. "These are dangerous times, when trifles are of import, Walter."
"There was no indiscretion," replied the lad, with the color mounting slightly in his cheek. "She was noticing the feather flies with which I caught the fish, and blamed me for using them. She said it was a shame to catch anything with false pretences."
"She is wise," answered the other, with a faint smile, "but yet that is hardly the wisdom of her people. An Indian maiden!" he added, thoughtfully. "Of what tribe is she? One of the Five Nations, I trust."
"Oh, yes; an Oneida," replied Walter. "One of the daughters of the Stone, the child of a sachem who often lodges at our house."
"Well, be she who she may," said Sir William, "be careful of your speech, especially regarding your father's guest. I say not, to conceal that there is a stranger with you, for that cannot be; but whatever you see or guess of his station, or his errand, keep it to yourself, and let not a woman be the sharer of your thoughts till you have tried her with many a trial."
"She would not betray them, I am sure," answered the lad, warmly, and then added, with some slight embarrassment, as if he felt that he had in a degree betrayed himself, "but she has nothing to reveal or to conceal. Our talk was all of the river and the fish. We met by accident, and she is gone."
"Perhaps you may meet by accident again," said the other, "and then be careful. But now to more serious things. Perchance your father may have to send you to Albany--perchance to my castle. You can find your way speedily to either. Is it not so?"
"Further than either," replied the lad, gayly.
"But you may have a heavy burden to carry," rejoined Sir William. "Do you think you can bear it--I mean the burden of a secret?"
"I will not drop it by the way," answered Walter, gravely.
"Not if the sachem's daughter offer to divide the load?" asked his companion.
"Doubt me not," said Walter.
"I do not," said Sir William. "I do not; but I would have you warned. And now farewell. You are very young to meet maidens in the wood. Be careful. Farewell."
He rode on, and the boy tarried by the roadside and meditated.
In about two minutes he took his way up the stream again, still musing, toward the place where he had laid down his rod.
He sprang up the bank, and in amongst the maples; and some ten minutes after, the sun rising higher, poured its light through the stems upon a boy and girl seated at the foot of an old tree; he with his arms around her, and his hand resting on the soft, brown, velvety skin, and she with her head upon his bosom, and her warm lips within the reach of his.
Her skin was brown, I have said, yes, very brown, but still hardly browner than his own. Her eyes were dark and bright, of the true Indian hue, but larger and more open than is at all common in many of the tribes of Iroquois. Her lips, too, were rosy, and as pure of all tinge of brown as those of any child of Europe; and her fingers, also, were stained of Aurora's own hue. But her long, silky black hair would have spoken her race at once had not each tress terminated in a wavy curl. The lines of the form and of the face were all wonderfully lovely, too, and yet were hardly those which characterize so peculiarly the Indian nations. The nose was straighter, the cheek bones less prominent, the head more beautifully set upon the shoulders. The expression, too, as she rested there with her cheek leaning on his breast, was not that of the usual Indian countenance. It was softer, more tender, more impassioned; for though romance and poetry have done all they could to spiritualize the character of Indian love, I fear, from what I have seen and heard and known, it is rarely what it has been portrayed. Her face, however, was full of love and tenderness and emotion; and the picture of the two as they sat there told at once of a tale of love just spoken to a willing ear.
CHAPTER III
The hour of breakfast had arrived when Walter Prevost returned with his river spoil; but the party at the house had not yet sat down to table. The guest who had arrived on the preceding night was standing at the door talking with Edith, while Mr. Prevost himself was within in conference with some of the slaves. Shaded by the little rustic porch, Edith was leaning against the door post in an attitude of exquisite grace, and the stranger, with his arms crossed upon his broad, manly chest, now raising his eyes to her face, now dropping them to the ground, seemed to watch with interest the effect his words produced as it was written on that beautiful countenance.
"I know not," said the stranger, speaking as the young man approached, "I know not how I should endure it myself for any length of time. The mere abstract beauty of nature would, soon pall upon my taste, I fear, without occupation."
"But you would make occupation," answered Edith, earnestly; "you would find it. Occupation for the body is never wanting when you have to improve and cultivate and ornament; and occupation flows in from a thousand gushing sources in God's universe--even were one deprived of books and music."
"Aye, but companionships and social converse, and the interchange of thought with thought," said the stranger; "where could one find those?" and he raised his eyes to her face.
"Have I not my brother and my father?" she asked.
"True, you have," said the other; "but I should have no such resource."
He had seen a slight hesitation in her last reply. He thought that he had touched the point where the yoke of solitude galled the spirit. He was not the one to plant or to nourish discontent in anyone, and he turned at once to her brother, saying: "What, at the stream so early, my young friend? Have you had sport?"
"Not very great," answered Walter. "My fish are few, but they are large. Look here!"
"I call such sport excellent," said the stranger, looking into the basket. "I must have you take me with you some fair morning, for I am a great lover of the angle."
The lad hesitated, and turned somewhat redder in the cheek than he had been the moment before; but his sister saved him from reply, saying, in a musing tone: "I cannot imagine what delight men feel in what they call the sports of the field. To inflict death may be a necessity, but surely should not be an amusement."
"Man is a born hunter, Miss Prevost," replied the stranger, with a smile. "He must chase something. Oh, my dear young lady! few can tell the enjoyment, in the midst of busy, active, troublous life, of one calm day's angling by the side of a fair stream, with quiet beauty all around us, and no adversary but the speckled trout."
"And why should they be your foes?" asked Edith. "Why should you drag them from their cool, clear element to pant and die in the dry upper air?"
"'Cause we want to eat? em," said a voice from the door behind her; "they eats everything. Why shou'dn't we eat them? Darn this world; it is but a place for eating and being eaten. The bivers that I trap eat fish, and many a cunning trick the crafty critters use to catch 'em; the minks eat birds and birds' eggs. Men talk about beasts of prey. Why, everything is a beast of prey, eating the oxen and the sheep, and such like; and sometimes I have thought it hard to kill them, who never do harm to no one, and a great deal of good sometimes. But come, Master Walter, don't ye keep them fish in the sun. Give 'em to black Rosie, the cook, and let us have some on 'em for breakfast afore they're all wilted up."
The man who spoke might have been five feet five or six in height, and was anything but corpulent. Yet he was in chest and shoulders as broad as a bull; and though the lower limbs were more lightly formed than the upper, yet the legs, as well as the arms, displayed strong, rounded muscles, swelling forth at every movement. His hair was as black as jet, without the slightest mixture of gray, though he could not be less than fifty-four or fifty-five years of age; and his face, which was handsome, with features somewhat eagle-like, was browned by exposure to a color nearly resembling that of mahogany. With his shaggy bearskin cap, well worn, and a frock of deerskin, with the hair on, descending to the knees, he looked more like a bison than anything human; and, half expecting to hear him roar, the stranger was surprised to trace tones soft and gentle, though somewhat nasal, to such a rude and rugged form.
While Walter carried his basket of fish to the kitchen, and Mr. Prevost's guest was gazing at the newcomer, in whom Edith seemed to recognize an acquaintance, the master of the house himself approached from behind the latter, saying as he came. "Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Brooks, Major Kielmansegge--Captain Jack Brooks."
"Pooh, pooh, Prevost!" exclaimed the other. "Call me by my right name. I was Captain Brooks long agone. I'm new christened, and called Woodchuck now. That's because I burrow, Major. Them Ingians are wonderful circumdiferous; but they have found that when they try tricks with me, I can burrow under them; and so they call me Woodchuck, 'cause it's a burrowing sort of a beast."
"I do not exactly understand you," said the gentleman who had been called Major Kielmansegge. "What is the exact meaning of circumdiferous?"
"It means just circumventing like," answered the Woodchuck. "First and foremost, there's many of the Ingians--the Algonquin, for a sample--never tell a word of truth. No, no, not they. One of them told me so plainly one day. 'Woodchuck,' says he, 'Ingian seldom tell truth. He know better than that. Truth too good a thing to be used every day; keep that for time of need.' I believe at that precious moment he spoke the truth the first time for forty years."
The announcement that breakfast was ready interrupted the explanation of Captain Brooks, but seemed to afford him great satisfaction, and at the meal, certainly, he ate more than all the rest of the party put together, consuming everything set before him with a voracity truly marvelous. He seemed to think some apology necessary, indeed, for his furious appetite. "You see, Major," he said, as soon as he could bring himself to a pause sufficiently long to utter a sentence, "I eat well when I do eat; for sometimes I eat nothing for four or five days together. When I get to a lodge like this, I take in stores for my next voyage, as I can't tell what port I shall touch at again."
"Pray, do you anticipate a long cruise just now?" asked the stranger.
"No! no!" said the other, laughing; "but I always prepare against the worst. I am just going up the Mohawk for a step or two to make a trade with some of my friends of the Five Nations--the Iroquois, as the French folks call them. But I shall trot up afterward to Sandy Hill and Fort Lyman to see what is to be done there in the way of business. Fort Lyman I call it still, though it should be Fort Edward, for after the brush with Dieskau it has changed its name. Aye, that was a sharp affair, Major. You'd ha' liked to bin there, I guess."
"Were you there, Captain?" asked Mr. Prevost. "I did not know you had seen so much service."
"There I was," answered Woodchuck, with a laugh; "though, as to service, I did more than I was paid for, seeing I had no commission. I'll tell you how it was, Prevost. Just in the beginning of September--the seventh or eighth, I think--of the year afore last, that is, seventeen fifty-five, I was going up to the head of the lake to see if I could not get some paltry, for I had been unlucky down westward, and had made a bargain in Albany that I did not like to break. Just at the top of the hill, near where the King's road comes down to the ford, who should I stumble upon amongst the trees but old Hendrick, as they call him--why, I can't tell--the sachem of the Tortoise totem of the Mohawks. He was there with three young men at his feet; but we were always good friends, he and I, and over and above, I carried the calumet, so there was no danger. Well, we sat down, and he told me that the General, that is, Sir William as is now, had dug up the tomahawk, and was encamped near Fort Lyman, to give battle to You-non-de-yok; that is to say, in their jargon, the French governor. He told me, too, that he was on his way to join the General, but that he did not intend to fight, but only to witness the brave deeds of the Corlear men; that is to say, the English. He was a cunning old fox, old Hendrick, and I fancied from that he thought we should be defeated. But when I asked him, he said, no; that it was all on account of a dream he had had, forbidding him to fight on the penalty of his scalp. So I told him I was minded to go with him and see the fun. Well, we mustered before the sun was quite down well nigh upon three hundred Mohawks, all beautifully painted and feathered; but they all told me they had not sung their war song, nor danced their war dance before they left their lodges, so I could see well enough that they had no intention to fight, and the tarnation devil wouldn't make 'em. However, we got to the camp, where they were all busy throwing up breastworks, and we heard that Dieskau was coming down from Hunter's in force. The next morning we heard that he had turned back again from Fort Lyman, and Johnson sent out Williams with seven or eight hundred men to get hold of his haunches. I tried hard to get old Hendrick to go along, for I stuck fast by my Ingians, knowing the brutes can be serviceable when you trust them. But the sachem only grunted, and did not stir. In an hour and a half we heard a mighty large rattle of muskets, and the Ingians could not stand the sound quietly, but began looking at their rifle flints and fingering their tomahawks. However, they did not stir, and old Hendrick sat as grave and as brown as an old hemlock stump. Then we saw another party go out of camp to help the first; but in a very few minutes they came running back with Dieskau at their heels. In they tumbled over the breastworks head over heels--anyhow; and a pretty little considerable quantity of fright brought they with them. If Dieskau had charged straight on that minute, we should have all been smashed to everlasting flinders, and I don't doubt no more than that a bear's a critter that Hendrick and his painted devils would have had as many English scalps as French ones. But the old coon of a Garman halted up short some two hundred yards off, and Johnson did not give him much time to look about him, for he poured all the cannon shot he had got into him as hard as he could pelt. Well, the French Ingians, and there was a mighty sight of them, did not like that game of ball, and they squattered off to the right and left, some into the trees and some into the swamps; and I could stand it no longer, but up with my rifle and give them all I had to give; and old Hendrick, seeing how things were likely to go, took to the right end, too, but a little too fast, for the old devil came into him, and he must needs have scalps. So out he went with the rest, and just as he had got his forefinger in the hair of a young Frenchman, whiz came a bullet into his dirty red skin, and down he went like an old moose. Some twenty of his Ingians got shot, too; but, in the end, Dieskau had to run. Johnson was wounded, too; and them folks have since said that he had no right to the honor of the battle, but that it was Lyman, who took the command when he could fight no longer. But that's all trash! Dieskau had missed his chance, and all his irregulars were sent skimming by the first fire long before Johnson was hit. Lyman had nothing to do but hold what Johnson left him, and pursue the enemy. The first he did well enough, but the second he forgot to do, though he was a brave man and a good soldier, for all that."
This little narrative seemed to give matter for thought both to Mr. Prevost and his English guest, who, after a moment or two of somewhat gloomy consideration, asked the narrator whether the friendly Indians had on that occasion received any special offence to account for their unwillingness to give active assistance to their allies, or whether their indifference proceeded merely from a fickle or treacherous disposition.
"Somewhat of both," replied Captain Brooks; and after leaning his great, broad forehead on his hand for a moment or two in deep thought, he proceeded to give his views of the relations of the colonies with the Iroquois, in a manner and tone totally different from any he had used before. They were grave and almost stern; and his language had few, if any, of the coarse illustrations with which he ordinarily seasoned his conversation.
"They are a queer people, the Indians," he said, "and not so much savages as we are inclined to believe them. Sometimes I am ready to think that in one or two points they are more civilized than ourselves. They have not got our arts and sciences; and as they have got no books, one set of them cannot store up the knowledge they gain in their own time to be added to by every generation of them that comes after; and we all know that things which are sent down from mouth to mouth are soon lost or corrupted. But yet they are always thinking, and they have a calmness and a coolness in their thoughts that we white men very often want. They are quick enough in action when once they have determined upon a thing, and for perverseness they beat all the world; but they take a long time to consider before they do act, and it is really wonderful how quietly they do consider, and how steadily they stick in consideration to all their own old notions. We have not treated them well, sir, and we never did. They have borne a great deal, and they will bear more still; but yet they feel and know it, and some day they may make us feel it, too. They have not the wit to take advantage at present of our divisions, and by joining together themselves make us feel all their power; for they hate each other worse than they hate us; but if the same spirit were to take the whole redmen which got hold of the Five Nations many a long year ago, and they were to band together against the whites as those Five Nations did against the other tribes, they'd give us a great deal of trouble, and though we might thrash them at first, we might teach them to thrash us in the end. As it is, however, you see there are two sets of Indians and two sets of white men in this country, each as different from the other as anything can be. The Indians don't say, as they ought: The country is ours, and we will fight against all the whites till we drive them out; but they say: The whites are wiser and stronger than we are, and we will help those of them who are wisest and strongest. I don't mean to say they have not got their likings and dislikings, and that they are not moved by kindness or by being talked to; for they are great haters and great likers. But still what I have said is at the bottom of all their friendships with the white men. The Dutchmen helped the Five Nations, and taught them to believe they were a strong people. So the Five Nations liked the Dutch, and made alliance with them. Then came the English, and proved stronger than the Dutch, and the Five Nations attached themselves to the English. They have stuck fast to us for a long time, and would not go from us without cause. If they could help to keep us great and powerful they would, and I don't think a little adversity would make them turn. But still to see us whipped and scalped would make them think a good deal; and they won't stay by a people long they don't respect. They have got their own notions, too, about faith and want of faith. If you are quite friendly with them--altogether--out and out, they'll hold fast enough to their word with you; but a very little turning, or shaking, or doubting, will make them think themselves free from all engagements, and then take care of your scalp-lock. If I am quite sure when I meet an Indian, that, as the good book says, 'My heart is right with his heart,' that I have never cheated him, or thought of cheating him; that I have not doubted him, nor do I doubt him, I can lie down and sleep in his lodge as safe as if I were in the heart of Albany. But I should not sleep a wink if I knew there was the least little bit of insincerity in my own heart; for they are as cute as serpents, and they are not a people to wait for explanations. Put your wit against theirs at the back of the forest, and you'll get the worst of it."
"But have we cheated or attempted to cheat these poor people?" asked the stranger.
"Why, the less we say about that the better, Major," replied Woodchuck, shaking his head. "They have had to bear a great deal; and now, when the time comes that we look as if we were going to the wall, perhaps they may remember it."
"But I hope and trust we are not exactly going to the wall," said the other, with his color somewhat heightened. "There has been a great deal said in England about mismanagement of our affairs on this continent; but I have always thought, being no very violent politician myself, that party spirit dictated criticisms which were probably unjust."
"There has been mismanagement enough, Major," replied Captain Brooks; "hasn't there, Prevost?"
"I fear so, indeed," replied his host, with a sigh; "but quite as much on the part of the colonial authorities as on that of the government at home."
"And whose fault is that?" asked the other, somewhat warmly. "Why, that of the government at home, too. Why do they appoint incompetent men? Why do they appoint ignorant men? Why do they exclude from every office of honor, profit, trust, or emolument, the good men of the Provinces who know the situation and the wants and the habits of the Provinces, and put over us men who, if they were the best men in the world, would be inferior, from want of experience, to our own people, but who are nothing more than a set of presuming, ignorant, grasping blood-suckers, who are chosen because they are related to a minister or a minister's mistress, or perhaps his valet, and whose only object is to make as much out of us as they can, and then get back again. I do not say they are all so; but a great many of them are, and that is an insult and an injury to us."
He spoke evidently with a good deal of heat; but his feelings were those of a vast multitude of the American colonists, and those feelings were preparing the way for a great revolution.
"Come, come, Woodchuck!" exclaimed Walter Prevost, with a laugh, "you are growing warm; and when you are angry you bite. The Major wants to hear your notions of the state of the English power here, and not your censure of the King's government."
"God bless King George!" cried the other, warmly, "and send him all prosperity. There's not a more loyal man in the land than I am; but it vexes me all the more to see his ministers throwing away his people's hearts and losing his possessions into the bargain. But I'll tell you how it is, Major--at least how I think it is--and then you'll see. But I must go back a bit. Here are we, the English, in the middle of this North America; and we have got the French on both sides of us. Well, we have a right to the country all across the continent--and we must have it, for it is our only safety. But the French don't want us to be safe, and so they are trying to get behind us and push us into the sea. They have been trying it a long time, and we have taken no notice. They have pushed their posts from Canada right along by the Wabash and the Ohio from Lake Erie to the Mississippi, and they have built forts, and won over Ingians, drawing a string round us, which they will tighten every day unless we act. And what have the ministers been doing all the time? Why, for a long time they did nothing at all. First, the French were suffered boldly to call the country their own, and to carry our traders and trappers and send them into Canada; and never a word said by our people. Then they built fort after fort, till troops can march, and goods can go, with little or no trouble, from Quebec to New Orleans; and all that this produced was a speech from Governor Hamilton and a message from Governor Dinwiddie. The last indeed sent to England and made representation; but all he got was an order to repel force by force if he could, but to be quite sure that he did so on the undoubted territories of King George. Undoubted! Why, the French made the doubt, and then took advantage of it. Dinwiddie, however, had some spirit, and with what help he could get, he began to build a fort himself in the best chosen spot of the whole country, just by the meeting of the Ohio and the Monongahela. But he had only one man to the French ten, and not a regular company amongst them. So the French marched with a thousand soldiers and plenty of cannon and stores, turned his people out, took possession of his half finished fort and completed it themselves. That was not likely to make the Ingians respect us. Well, then Colonel Washington, the Virginian, and the best man in the land, built Fort Necessity; but they left him without forces to defend it, and he was obliged to surrender to Villiers and a force big enough to eat him up. That did not raise us with our redskins, and a French force never moved without a whole herd of Ingians, supposed to be in friendship with us, but ready to scalp us when we were defeated. Then came Braddock's mad march upon Fort Du Quesne, where he and almost all who were with him were killed by a handful of Ingians amongst the bushes--fifteen hundred men dispersed, killed and scalped by not four hundred savages--all the artillery taken and baggage beyond count--think of that! Then Shirley made a great parade of marching against Fort Niagara, but he turned back almost as soon as he set out; and had it not been for some good luck on the north side of Massachusetts Bay, and the victory of Johnson over Dieskau, you would not have had a tribe to hold fast to us. They were all wavering as fast as they could. I could see it as plain as possible from old Hendrick's talk; and the French Jesuits were in amongst them day and night to bring the Five Nations over. This was the year afore last. Well, what did they do last year? Nothing at all but lose Oswego. Lord Loudon and Abercrombie and Webb marched and countermarched and consulted and played the fool, while Montcalm was besieging Mercer, taking Oswego, breaking the terms he had expressly granted, and suffering his Ingians to scalp and torture his prisoners of war before his eyes. Well, this was just about the middle of August, but it was judged too late to do anything that year, and nothing was done. There was merry work in Albany, and people danced and sang; but the Ingians got a strange notion that the English lion was better at roaring than he was at biting. And now, Major, what have we done this year to make up for the blunders of the last five or six? Why, Lord Loudon stripped the whole of this province of its men and guns to go to Halifax and attack Louisburg. When he got to Halifax he exercised his men for a month, heard a false report that Louisburg was too strong and too well prepared to be taken, and sailed back to New York. In the meantime, Montcalm took Fort William Henry, on Lake George, and, as usual, let the garrison be butchered by the Ingians. So now the redskins see the English arms contemptible on every part of this continent, and the French complete masters of the lakes and the whole western country. The Five Nations see their Long House open to our enemies on three sides, and not a step taken to give them assistance or protection. We have abandoned them; can you expect them not to abandon us?"
The young officer, long before this painful question was asked, had leaned his elbow on the table and covered his eyes and part of his face with his hand. Walter and Edith both gazed at him earnestly, while their father bent his eyes gloomily down on the table--all three sympathizing with the feelings of a British officer while listening to such a detail. The expression they could not see, but the fine-cut ear appearing from beneath the curls of his hair glowed like fire before the speaker finished.
He did not answer, however, for more than a moment; but then raising his head, with a look of stern gravity he replied: "I cannot expect it. I cannot even understand how they have remained attached to us so long and so much."
"The influence of one man has done a great deal," replied Mr. Prevost. "Sir William Johnson is what is called the Indian agent, and whatever may be thought of his military ability, there can be no doubt that the Iroquois trust him, and love him more than they have ever trusted or loved a white man before. He is invariably just toward them; he always keeps his word with them; he never yields to importunity, or refuses to listen to reason; and he places that implicit confidence in them which enlists everything that is noble in the Indian character in his favor. Thus in his presence and in their dealings with him, they are quite a different people from what they are with others--all their fine qualities are brought into action, and all their wild passions are stilled."
"I should like to see them as they really are," said the young officer, eagerly; and then, turning to Woodchuck, he said: "You tell me you are going amongst them, my friend. Can you not take me with you?"
"Wait three days, and I will," replied the other. "I am first going up the Mohawk, as I told you, close by Sir William's castle and hall, as he calls the places. You'd see little there; but if you will promise to do just as I tell you, and take advice, I'll take you up to Sandy Hill and the creek, where you'll see enough of them. That will be arter I come back on Friday about noon."
Mr. Prevost looked at the young officer, and he at his entertainer, and then the former asked: "When will you bring him back, Captain? He must be here again by next Tuesday night."
"That he shall be, with or without his scalp," answered Woodchuck, with a laugh. "You get him ready to go; for you know, Prevost, the forest is not the parade ground."
"I will lend him my Gakaah and Giseha and Gostoweh," cried Walter. "We will make him quite an Indian."
"No! no!" answered Woodchuck. "That won't do, Walter. The man who tries to please an Ingian by acting like an Ingian, makes nought of it. They know it's a cheat, and they don't like it. We have our ways, they have theirs; and let each keep his own, like honest men. So I think, and so the Ingians think. Putting on a lion's skin will never make a man a lion. Get him some good, tough leggings, and a coat that won't tear, a rifle, and an axe, and a wood-knife--a bottle of brandy is no bad thing. But don't forget a calumet and a bunch of tobacco, for both may be needful. So now good-bye t'ye all. I must trot."
Thus saying, he rose from the table, and without more ceremonious adieu, left the room.
CHAPTER IV
When Brooks had left them, half an hour was spent in one of those pleasant after-breakfast dreams, when the mind seems to take a moment's hesitating pause before grappling with the active business of the day. But little was said; each gazed forth from window or from door; each thought perhaps of the other, and each drank in sweet sensations from the scene before the eyes.
Each thought of the other, I have said; and when such is the case, how infinite are the varieties into which thought moulds itself. Walter paused and pondered upon the stranger's state and objects--asked himself who he was, what could be his errand--how--why he came thither? Major Kielmansegge he knew him not to be. A chance word had shown him not only his rank and station, but shown also that there was a secret to be kept--a secret to which perhaps his imagination lent more importance than it deserved. He was an English peer, the young man knew, one of a rank with which in former years he had been accustomed to mingle, and for which, notwithstanding all that had passed, and lapse of time and varied circumstances, he retained an habitual veneration. But what could have led a British peer to that secluded spot? What could be the circumstances which, having led him thither, had suddenly changed his purpose of proceeding onward, and induced him to remain a guest in his father's cottage in a state of half-concealment? Could it be Lord Loudon, he asked himself, the commander-in-chief of the royal forces, whose conduct had been so severely censured in his own ears by the man just gone?
It was not by accident that Lord H---- and Edith Prevost met there. It was for the working out of their mutual destiny under the hand of God; for if there be a God, there is a special providence.
"This is very lovely, Miss Prevost," said the young soldier, when the long meditative lapse was drawing to a close, "but I should think the scene would become somewhat monotonous. Hemmed in by these woods, the country round, though beautiful in itself, must pall upon the taste."
"Oh, no!" cried Edith, eagerly. "It is full of variety. Each day affords something new, and every morning walk displays a thousand fresh beauties. Let us go and take a ramble, if you have nothing better to do; and I will show you there is no monotony. Come, Walter, take your rifle, and go with us. Father, this is not your hour. Can you never come before the sun has passed his height and see the shadows fall the other way?"
"Mine is the evening hour, my child," answered Mr. Prevost, somewhat sadly, "but go, Edith, and show our noble friend the scenes you so much delight in. He will need something to make his stay in this dull place somewhat less heavy."
The stranger made no complimentary reply, for his thoughts were busy with Edith; and he was at that moment comparing her frank, unconscious, undesigning offer to lead him through love-like woods and glades, with the wily hesitation of a court coquette.
"Perhaps you are not disposed to walk," said Edith, marking his reverie, and startling him from it.
"I shall be delighted," he said, eagerly, and truly, too. "You must forgive me for being somewhat absent, Miss Prevost. Your father knows I have much to think of, though indeed thought at present is vain; and you will confer a boon by banishing that idle but importunate companion."
"Oh, then, you shall not think at all when you are with me," said Edith, smiling, and away she ran to cover her head with one of those black wimples very generally worn by the women of that day.
Beyond the cultivated ground, as you descended the gentle hill, lay the deep forest at the distance of some three hundred yards, and at its edge Edith paused and made her companion turn to see how beautiful the cottage looked upon its eminence, shaded by gorgeous maple trees in their gold and crimson garb of autumn, with a tall rock or two of gray and mossy stone rising up amidst them.
Lord H---- gazed at the house and saw that it was picturesque and beautiful--very different indeed from any other dwelling he had seen on the western side of the Atlantic; but there was absent thoughtfulness in his eyes, and Edith thought he did not admire it half enough.
"How strange are men's prejudices and prepossessions," said Lord H----, as they paused to gaze at a spot where a large extent of low woodland lay open to the eye below them. "We are incredulous of everything we have not seen, or to the conception of which we have not been led by very near approaches. Had anyone shown me, ere I reached these shores, a picture of an autumn scene in America, though it had been perfect as a portrait, hue for hue, or even inferior, in its striking coloring, to the reality, I should have laughed at it as a most extravagant exaggeration. Did not the first autumn you passed here make you think yourself in fairyland?"
"No; I was prepared for it," replied Edith. "My father had described the autumn scenery to me often before we came."
"Then was he ever in America before he came to settle?" asked her companion.
"Yes, once," answered Edith. She spoke in a very grave tone, and then ceased suddenly.
But her brother took the subject up with a boy's frankness, saying: "Did you never hear that my grandfather and my father's sister died in Virginia? He was in command there, and my father came over just before my birth."
"It is a long story and a sad one, my lord," said Edith, with a sigh; "but look now as we mount the hill, and see how the scene changes. Every step upon the hillside gives us a different sort of tree, and the brush disappears from amidst the trunks. This grove is my favorite evening seat, where I can read and think under the broad, shady boughs, with nothing but beautiful sights around me."
"Truly, this is an enchanting scene. It wants, methinks, but the figure of an Indian in the foreground; and there comes one, I fancy, to fill up the picture--stay! stay! We shall want no rifles! It is but a woman coming through the trees."
"It is Otaitsa--it is the Blossom!" cried Edith and Walter in a breath, as they looked forward to a spot where across the yellow sunshine as it streamed through the trees, a female figure, clad in the gaily embroidered and bright-colored gakaah, or petticoat, of the Indian women, was seen advancing with a rapid yet somewhat doubtful step. Edith, without pause or hesitation, sprang forward to meet the newcomer, and in a moment after the beautiful arms of the Indian girl who had sat with Walter in the morning were round the fair form of his sister, and her lips pressed on hers. There was a warmth and eagerness in their meeting unusual on the part of the red race; but while the young Oneida almost lay upon the bosom of her white friend, her beautiful dark eyes were turned toward her lover, as with a mixture of the bashful feelings of youth and the consciousness of having something to conceal, Walter, with a glowing cheek, lingered a step or two behind his sister.
"Art thou coming to our lodge, dear Blossom?" asked Edith; and then added, "Where is thy father?"
"We both come," answered the girl, in pure English, with no more of the Indian accent than served to give a peculiar softness to her tones. "I wait the Black Eagle here since dawn of day. He has gone toward the morning with our father the White Heron; for we heard of Hurons by the side of Corlear, and some thought the hatchet would be unburied. So he journeyed to hear more from our friends by Horicon, and bade me stay and tell you and your brother Walter to forbear that road if I saw you turn your eyes toward the east wind. He and the White Heron will be by your father's council fire with the first star."
A good deal of this speech was unintelligible to Lord H----, who had now approached, and on whom Blossom's eyes were turned with a sort of timid and inquiring look. But Walter hastened to interpret, saying: "She means that her father and the missionary, Mr. Gore, have heard that there are hostile Indians on the shores of Lake Champlain, and have gone down toward Lake George to inquire; for Black Eagle--that is her father--is much our friend, and he always fancies that my father has chosen a dangerous situation here, just at the verge of the territory of the Five Nations, or their Long House, as they call it."
"Well, come to the lodge with us, dear Blossom," said Edith, while her brother was giving this explanation. "You know my father loves you well, and will be glad to have the Blossom with us. Here, too, is an English chief dwelling with us, who knows not what sweet blossoms grow on Indian trees."
But the girl shook her head, saying: "Nay; I must do the father's will. It was with much praying that he let me come hither with him; and he bade me stay here from the white rock to the stream. So must I obey."
"But it may be dangerous," replied Edith, "if there be Hurons so near; and it is sadly solitary, dear sister."
"Then stay with me for a while," said the girl, who would not affect to deny that her lonely watch was somewhat gloomy.
"I will stay with her and protect her," cried Walter, eagerly; "but, dearest Blossom, if we should see danger, you must fly to the lodge."
"Yes, stay with her, Walter--oh, yes, stay with her," said the unconscious Edith; and so it was settled, for Otaitsa made no opposition, though with a cheek in which something glowed through the brown, and with a lip that curled gently with a meaning smile, she asked: "Perhaps my brother Walter would be elsewhere? He may find a long watch wearisome on the hill and in the wood."
"Let us stay a while ourselves," said Lord H----, seating himself on the grass and gazing forth with a look of interest over the prospect. "Methinks this is a place where one may well dream away an hour without the busiest mind reproaching itself for inactivity."
For two hours the four sat there on the hillside, beneath the tall, shady trees, with the wind breathing softly upon them, the lake glittering before their eyes, the murmur of the waterfall sending music through the air. But to the young Englishman these were but accessories. The fair face of Edith was before his eyes, the melody of her voice in his ears.
At length, however, they rose to go, promising to send one of the slaves from the house with food for Walter and Otaitsa at the hour of noon; and Lord H---- and his fair companion took their way back toward the house. The distance was not very far, but they were somewhat long upon the way. They walked slowly back, and by a different path from that by which they went; and often they stopped to admire some pleasant scene; and often Lord H---- had to assist his fair companion over some rock, and her soft hand rested in his. He gathered for her flowers--the fringed gentian and other late blossoms, and they paused to examine them closely and comment on their loveliness; and once he made her sit down beside him on a bank and tell him the names of all the different trees; and from trees his conversation went on into strange, dreamy, indefinite talk of human beings and human hearts. Thus noon was not far distant when they reached the house, and both Edith and her companion were very thoughtful.
Edith was meditative through the rest of the day. Was it of herself she thought? Was it of him who had been her companion through the greater part of the morning?
There had been no word spoken; there had been no sign given; there had been no intimation to make the seal tremble on the fountain, but the master of its destiny was near. She had had a pleasant ramble with one such as she seldom saw--and that was all.
There had been something that day in the manner of her brother Walter, a hesitation, and yet an eagerness, a timidity unnatural, with a warmth that spoke of passion, which had not escaped her eye. In the sweet Indian girl, too, she had seen signs not equivocal: the fluttering blush, the look full of soul and feeling; the glance suddenly raised to the boy's face and suddenly withdrawn; the eyes full of liquid light, now beaming brightly under sudden emotion, now shaded beneath the long fringe like the moon beneath a passing cloud.
For the first time it seemed to her that a dark, impenetrable curtain was falling between herself and all the ancient things of history; that all indeed was to be new, and strange, and different; and yet she loved Otaitsa well, and had in the last two years seen many a trait which had won esteem as well as love. The old Black Eagle, as her father was called, had ever been a fast and faithful ally of the English; but to Mr. Prevost he had attached himself in a particular manner. An accidental journey on the part of the old sachem had first brought them acquainted, and from that day forward the distance of the Oneida settlement was no impediment to their meeting. Whenever the Black Eagle left his lodge he was sure, in his own figurative language, to wing his flight sooner or later toward the nest of his white brother; and in despite of Indian habits, he almost invariably brought his daughter with him. When any distance or perilous enterprise was on hand, Otaitsa was left at the lodge of the English family, and many a week had she passed there at a time, loved by and loving all its inmates. It was not there, however, that she had acquired her perfect knowledge of the English language, or the other characteristics which distinguished her from the ordinary Indian women. When she first appeared there she spoke the language of the settlers as perfectly as they did, and it was soon discovered that from infancy she had been under the care and instruction of one of the English missionaries--at that time, alas! few--who had sacrificed all that civilized life could bestow for the purpose of bringing the Indian savages into the fold of Christ.
Mr. Prevost judged it quite right that Walter should stay with Otaitsa, and he even sent out the old slave Agrippa, who somehow was famous as a marksman, with a rifle on his shoulder, to act as a sort of scout upon the hillside, and watch anything bearing a hostile aspect.
After dinner, too, he walked out himself, and sat for an hour with his son and the Indian girl, speaking words of affection to her that sunk deep into her heart, and more than once brought drops into her bright eyes. No father's tenderness could exceed that he showed her, and Otaitsa felt as if he were almost welcoming her as a daughter.
Evening had not lost its light when a shout from Walter's voice announced that he was drawing nigh the house, and in a moment after he was coming across the cleared land with his bright young companion and two other persons. One was a tall redman, upward of six feet in height, dressed completely in the Indian garb, but without paint. He could not have been less than sixty years of age, but his strong muscles seemed to have set at defiance the bending power of time. He was as upright as a pine, and he bore his heavy rifle in his right hand as lightly as if it had been a reed. In his left he carried a long pipe, showing that his errand was one of peace, though in his belt were a tomahawk and a scalping knife; and he wore the sort of feather crown, or gostoweh, distinguishing the chief. The other man might be of the same age, or a little older. He, too, seemed active and strong for his years, but he wanted the erect and powerful bearing of the other, and his gait and carriage, as much as his features and complexion, distinguished him from the Indian. His dress was a strange mixture of ordinary European costume and that of the half-savage rangers of the forest. He wore a black coat, or one that had once been black, but the rest of his garments were composed of skins, some tanned into red leather, after the Indian fashion, some with the hair still on and turned outward. He bore no arms whatever, unless a very long, sharp-pointed knife could be considered a weapon, though in his hands it only served the unusual service of dividing his food or carving willow whistles for the children of the sachem's tribe.
