Chapter XII
VISIT OF WINGENUND TO MOOSHANNE.—HE REJOINS WAR–EAGLE, AND THEY RETURN TO THEIR BAND IN THE FAR WEST.—M. PERROT MAKES AN UNSUCCESSFUL ATTACK ON THE HEART OF A YOUNG LADY.
We must now return to Mooshanne, where Colonel Brandon received Wingenund very kindly; and within half an hour of the arrival of the party, they were all seated at his hospitable board, whereon smoked venison steaks, various kinds of fowls, a substantial ham, cakes of rice, and Indian maize. On the side–table were cream, wild honey, cheese, and preserved fruits, all these delicacies being admirably served under the superintendence of Aunt Mary, who was delighted with Wingenund, praised the extreme beauty of his eyes and features, telling the Colonel, in a whisper, that if she had been thirty–five years younger, she should have been afraid of losing her heart! The youth was indeed the hero of the day: all were grateful to him for his gallant preservation of Reginald’s life, and all strove with equal anxiety to make him forget that he was among strangers. Nor was the task difficult; for though he had only the use of one hand, it was surprising to see the tact and self–possession with which he conducted himself, the temperate quietness with which he ate and drank, and the ease with which he handled some of the implements at table, which he probably saw for the first time. Baptiste was a privileged person in the Colonel’s house, and was allowed to dine as he pleased, either with its master, or with Perrot and the other servants. On this occasion, he was present in the dining–room, and seemed to take a pleasure in drawing out the young Delaware, and in making him talk on subjects which he knew would be interesting to the rest of the party. Wingenund was quiet and reserved in his replies, except when a question was put to him by Lucy, to whom he gave his answers with the greatest naïveté, telling her more than once, that she reminded him of his sister Prairie–bird, but that the latter was taller, and had darker hair. Whilst addressing her, he kept his large speaking eyes so riveted upon Lucy’s countenance, that she cast her own to the ground, almost blushing at the boy’s earnest and admiring gaze. To relieve herself from embarrassment, she again inquired about this mysterious sister, saying, “Tell me, Wingenund, has she taught you to read, as well as to speak our tongue?”
“No,” said the youth; “Prairie–bird talks with the Great Spirit, and with paper books, and so does the Black Father; but Wingenund cannot understand them,—he is only a poor Indian.”
Here Reginald, whose curiosity was much excited, inquired, “Does the Prairie–bird look kindly on the young chiefs of the tribe?—Will she be the wife of a chief?”
There was something both of surprise and scorn in Wingenund’s countenance, as he replied, “Prairie–bird is kind to all—the young chiefs find wives among the daughters of the Delawares;—but the antelope mates not with the moose, though they feed on the same Prairie. The Great Spirit knows where the Prairie–bird was born! but her race is unknown to the wise men among the Tortoises.”
Reginald and his sister were equally at a loss to understand his meaning; both looked inquiringly at the guide, who was rubbing his ear, as if rather puzzled by the young Delaware’s answer. At length he said, “Why, Miss Lucy, you see, much of what the lad says is as plain to me as the sight on my rifle: for the tribes of the Lenapé are as well known to me as the totems of the Oggibeways. The Great nation is divided into three tribes:—the Minsi, or the Wolf–tribe (sometimes called also Puncsit, or round–foot); the Unalacticos, or the Turkey–tribe; and the Unamis, or the Tortoise–tribe. The last are considered the principal and most ancient; and as Wingenund’s family are of this band, he spoke just now of their wise men. But who, or what kin’ o’ crittur this Prairie–bird can be, would puzzle a Philadelphy lawyer to tell, let alone a poor hunter who knows little out of the line of his trade.”
“Then, Baptiste,” said Lucy, smiling; “your trade is a pretty extensive one, for I think you have more knowledge in your head on most subjects than half the lawyers and clerks in the territory.”
“There it is, Miss Lucy; you’re always a givin’ me a little dose of flattery, just as I give my patches a bit of grease to make the Doctor swallow his lead pills. You ladies think we’re all alike,—young sparks, and tough old chaps like me,—if you do but dip your fingers into the honey–pot, you know we shall lick them as soon as your backs are turned! But it is getting late,” he added, rising from his seat; “and I have much to say to this youth, who is already tired; with your leave, Miss, I will retire with him, and see that he has a comfortable sleeping quarter, and that he wants for nothing.”
“Pray do so,” said Lucy; “let him be treated as if he were one of our own family. I am sure, dear papa, such would be your wish,” she added, turning to her father.
“It is indeed, my child,” said the Colonel. “Wingenund, again I beg you to receive a father’s best thanks for your brave defence of his son.”
“It was nothing,” replied the boy modestly. “You are all good, too good to Wingenund; when he gets to the Far Prairie, he will tell the Prairie–bird and the Black Father to speak to the Great Spirit, that He may smile on my white father and on my brother; and,” he added, slowly raising his dark eloquent eyes to Lucy’s face, “that he may send down pleasant sunshine and refreshing dew on the Lily of Mooshanne.” So saying, he turned and left the room, accompanied by the guide.
“Well,” exclaimed the Colonel, as the youth disappeared, “they may call that lad a savage; but his feelings, ay, and his manners too, would put to shame those of many who think themselves fine gentlemen.”
“He is, indeed, a noble young fellow,” said Reginald, “and worthy to be the relative and pupil of my Indian brother. I would that you had seen him, father: you are in general rather sceptical as to the qualities of the red–skins. I think the War–Eagle would surprise you!”
“Indeed, Reginald,” said the Colonel, “I have seen among them so much cruelty, cunning, and drunkenness, that the romantic notions which I once entertained respecting them are completely dissipated. Nevertheless, I confess that many of their worst faults have arisen from their commerce with the whites; and they still retain some virtues which are extremely rare among us.”
“To which do you allude?” inquired Reginald.
“More especially, to patience under suffering, a padlocked mouth when entrusted with a secret, and unshaken fidelity in friendship.”
“These are indeed high and valuable qualities,” replied Reginald. “Moreover, it strikes me that in one principal feature of character the Indian is superior to us; he acts up to his creed. That creed may be entirely based on error; it may teach him to prefer revenge to mercy, theft to industry, violence to right; but such as he has learnt it from his fathers, he acts up to it more firmly and consistently than we do, ‘who know the right and still the wrong pursue.’”
“Your observation is just,” replied his father; “they are benighted, and do many of the deeds of darkness. What shall we say of those who do them under the light of a noonday sun?”
“And yet,” said Lucy, “this Wingenund seems half a Christian, and more than half a gentleman, either by nature, or by the instructions of the strange being he calls the Prairie–bird!”
“Upon my word, Lucy,” said her brother, with a malicious smile, “I thought, while the lad was speaking of his sister on the Prairie, his eyes were strangely fixed upon the white lady in the wigwam. It is fortunate he is going soon; and still more fortunate that a certain cruising captain is not returned from the West Indies.” As this impertinent speech was made in a whisper, it did not reach Aunt Mary or the Colonel; and the only reply it drew from Lucy, was a blushing threat of a repetition of the same punishment which she had inflicted in the morning for a similar offence. He begged pardon, and was forgiven; soon after which the little party broke up and retired to rest.
Meantime Baptiste, who knew that the well–intentioned offer of a bed–room and its comforts would be a great annoyance to Wingenund, took the lad out with him to a dry barn behind the house, where there was an abundant supply of clean straw, and where he intended to lodge him for the night. “Wingenund,” said he, “you will rest here for some hours; but we must go long before daylight to meet War–Eagle, according to my promise.”
“I will be ready,” replied the youth; and casting himself down on a bundle of straw, in five minutes his wounds and fatigues were forgotten in a refreshing sleep, over which hovered the bright dreams of youth, wherein the sweet tones of his sister’s voice were confused with the blue eyes of Lucy; and yet withal, a sleep such as guilt can never know, and the wealth of the Indies cannot purchase.
Before three o’clock on the following morning, the guide re–entered the barn with a light step; not so light, however, as to escape the quick ear of the young Indian, who leapt from his straw couch, and throwing his rifle over his shoulder, stood before the hunter. “I hope you slept well,” said the latter, “and that your arm gives you less pain?”
“I slept till you came,” said the boy, “and the pain sleeps still. I feel nothing of it.”
“Wingenund will be like his father,” said the guide; “he will laugh at pain and fatigue and danger; and his war–path will be sprinkled with the blood of his enemies.”
The youth drew himself proudly up; and though gratified by the guide’s observation, merely replied, “The Great Spirit knows.—I am ready; let us go.”
Baptiste had provided a couple of horses, and they started at a brisk pace, as he wished to reach the spot where he had appointed to meet War–Eagle soon after daylight. To one less familiar with the woods, the tangled and winding path through which he led the way would have offered many impediments; but Baptiste went rapidly forward without hesitation or difficulty, Wingenund following in silence; and after a brisk ride of three hours they came to an opening in the forest, where a log–hut was visible, and beyond it the broad expanse of Ohio’s stream.
The guide here whispered to Wingenund to remain concealed in the thicket with the horses, whilst he reconnoitred the hut; because he knew that it was sometimes used as a shelter and a rendezvous by some of the lawless and desperate characters on the borders of the settlements.
Having finished his examination, and ascertained that the hut was empty, he returned to Wingenund, and desired him to come down to the water’s edge, where he was to make a signal for War–Eagle, who ought to be now at no great distance. The youth accordingly went to the river’s bank, and understanding from the guide that there was no occasion for further concealment, he gave three whistles in a peculiar tone, but exceedingly loud and shrill. For some time they listened for a reply. Nothing was heard, except the beak of the woodpecker upon the bark of the elm, and the notes of the various feathered choristers chirping their matin song.
After a pause of several minutes, the guide said, “Surely some accident has detained War–Eagle! Perhaps he has failed in getting the canoe. Repeat the signal, Wingenund.”
“War–Eagle is here,” replied the youth, who was quietly leaning on his rifle, with an abstracted air.
Again, the guide listened attentively; and as he was unable to distinguish the slightest sound indicative of the chief’s approach, he was rather vexed at the superior quickness implied in Wingenund’s reply, and said somewhat testily, “A moose might hear something of him, or a bloodhound might find the wind of him, but I can make out nothing, and my ears an’t used to be stuffed with cotton, neither!”
“Grande–Hâche is a great warrior, and Wingenund would be proud to follow in his war–path; eyes and ears are the gift of the Great Spirit.”
“How know you that War–Eagle is here?” inquired the guide impatiently.
“By that,” replied the boy, pointing to a scarcely perceptible mark on the bank a few yards from his feet, “that is the mocassin of the War–Eagle; he has been to the hut this morning; below that foot–print you will see on the sand the mark of where his canoe has touched the ground.”
“The boy is right,” muttered Baptiste, examining the marks carefully. “I believe I am no hunter, but an ass after all, with no better ears and eyes than Master Perrot, or any other parlour–boarder.”
In a very few minutes the sound of the paddle was heard, and War–Eagle brought his canoe to the bank; a brief conversation now took place between him and Baptiste, in which some particulars were arranged for Reginald’s visit to the Western Prairie. The guide then taking from his wallet several pounds of bread and beef, and a large parcel of tobacco, added these to the stores in the bottom of the canoe, and having shaken hands heartily with the chief and Wingenund, returned leisurely on his homeward way; but he still muttered to himself as he went; and it was evident that he could not shake off the annoyance which he felt at being “out–crafted,” as he called it, “by a boy!”
We will not follow the tedious and toilsome voyage of War–Eagle and his young friend in the canoe, a voyage in which, after descending the Ohio, they had to make their way up the Mississippi to its junction with the Missouri, and thence up the latter river to the mouth of the Osage river, which they also ascended between two and three hundred miles before they rejoined their band. It is sufficient for the purposes of our tale to inform the reader that they reached their destination in safety, and that Wingenund recovered from the effects of his severe wound.
When Baptiste returned to Mooshanne, he found the family surprised and annoyed at the sudden disappearance of their young Indian guest; but when he explained to Reginald that he had gone to rejoin his chief by War–Eagle’s desire, Reginald felt that the best course had been adopted, as the boy might, if he had remained, have fallen in the way of the exasperated party who were seeking to revenge Hervey’s death.
It was about noon when Mike Smith, and several of those who accompanied him the preceding day, arrived at Mooshanne, and insisted upon Baptiste showing them the spot where he had told them that an Indian had been recently buried, Reginald declined being of the party, which set forth under the conduct of the guide, to explore the scene of the occurrences mentioned in a former chapter.
During their absence, Reginald was lounging in his sister’s boudoir, talking with her over the events of the preceding days, when they heard the sound of a vehicle driven up to the door, and the blood rushed into Lucy’s face as the thought occurred to her that it might be Ethelston; the delusion was very brief, for a moment afterwards the broad accent of David Muir was clearly distinguishable, as he said to his daughter, “Noo, Jessie, haud a grip o’ Smiler, whilst I gie a pull at the door–bell.”
Much to the surprise of the worthy “merchaunt” (by which appellation David delighted to be designated), the door was opened by no less a personage than Monsieur Gustave Perrot himself, who seeing the pretty Jessie in her father’s spring–cart, hastened with characteristic gallantry to assist her to descend; in the performance of which operation he extended both his hands to support her waist, saying, in his most tender tone, “Take care, Miss Jessie; now shump, and trust all your leetle weight with me.”
But while he was speaking, the active girl, putting one foot on the step, and touching him lightly on the arm, stood on the ground beside him.
“Weel, Mr. Parrot, and how’s a’ wi’ ye the day?” said David, who was busily employed in extracting various packages and parcels from the cart.
“All ver’ well, thank you, Mr. Muir; wonderful things happen, though. My young Mr. Reginald he be drowned and stabbed, and quite well!”
“Gude save us!” said David in horror; “drowned and stabbed, and quite well! Ye’re surely no in earnest, Mr. Parrot!”
“I speak only the truth always,—Miss Jessie, the fresh air and the ride make your cheek beautiful rosy.”
“Mr. Perrot,” replied Jessie, smiling, “that is a poor compliment! You are so gallant a gentleman, you should praise the roses in a lady’s cheek without mentioning that she owes them to a rough road and a fresh breeze!”
This dialogue on roses was here interrupted by David, who said, “May be, Mr. Parrot, ye’ll just let Smiler be ta’en round to the stable, and desire ane o’ the lads to help us in with these twa parcels; yon muckle basket, there, is brimfull of all the newest kick–shaws, and modes, as they call ‘em, frae Philadelphy; so Jessie’s just come wi’ me to gie Miss Lucy the first choice; and she’s a right to hae it too, for she’s the bonniest and the best young lady in the territory.”
Mr. Perrot, having given these necessary orders, David, with his papers, was soon closeted with the Colonel in his business room; and Jessie was ushered into the young lady’s boudoir, where her brother still sat, with the intention of giving his sister the benefit of his advice in the selection of what David called kick–shaws and modes for her toilet. Meanwhile Perrot was preparing a formidable attack upon Jessie’s heart, through the medium of some venison steaks, a delicate ragout of squirrel, and sundry other tit–bits, with which he hoped to propitiate the village beauty. As Jessie entered the room, her salutation of Lucy was modestly respectful; and she returned Reginald’s bow with an unembarrassed and not ungraceful courtesy. While she was drawing out and placing on a table the silken contents of her basket, Reginald inquired of her whether any news was stirring in Marietta.
“None,” replied she, “except the killing of Hervey. All the town is speaking of it, and they say it will cause more bloodshed; for Mike Smith vows, if he cannot find the real offender, he’ll shoot down the first Indian he finds in the woods.”
“Mike Smith is a hot–headed fool,” replied Reginald; but remembering sundry reports which had reached his ear, he added, “I beg your pardon, Miss Jessie, if the words give you offence.”
“Indeed you have given none, Master Reginald,” said Jessie, colouring a little at the implied meaning of his words; “Mike comes very often to our store, but I believe it is more for whiskey than any thing else.”
“Nay,” said Reginald; “I doubt you do him injustice. They say he prefers the end of the store which is the furthest from the bar.”
“Perhaps he may,” replied Jessie; “I am always better pleased when he stays away, for he is very ill–tempered and quarrelsome! Well, Miss,” continued she, “are not these pink ribbons beautiful, and these two light shawls,—they come from the British East India House?”
“They are indeed the prettiest and most delicate that I ever saw,” replied Lucy; “and see here, Reginald,” said she, drawing him aside, “these French bead necklaces will do famously for some of your Delaware friends.” She added in a whisper, “Ask her if there is no other news at the town?”
“What about?” inquired her brother. A silent look of reproach was her only reply, as she turned away, and again busied herself with the silks. He was instantly conscious and ashamed of his thoughtlessness, which, after a few moments’ silence, he proceeded to repair, saying, “Pray tell me, Miss Jessie, has your father received no intelligence of The Pride of the Ohio?”
“Alas! not a word,” replied the girl, in a tone of voice so melancholy, that it startled them both.
“But why speak you in so sad a voice about the vessel, Jessie, if you have heard no bad news regarding her?” said Reginald, quickly.
“Because, sir, she has been very long over–due, and there are many reports of French ships of war; and we, that is, my father, is much interested about her.”
Poor Lucy’s colour came and went; but she had not the courage to say a word. After a short pause, Reginald inquired, “Have any boats come up lately from New Orleans?”
“Yes, sir, Henderson’s came up only a few days ago, and Henry Gregson, who had been down on some business for my father, returned in her.”
“That is the young man who assists your father in the store? I believe he is a son of the mate on board The Pride. I have remarked that he is a very fine–looking young fellow!”
“He is the son of Captain Ethelston’s mate,” said Jessie, casting down her eyes, and busying herself with some of her ribbons and silks. “But I hope,” continued she, “that you, Mr. Reginald, are not seriously hurt. Mr. Perrot told me you had been drowned and stabbed!”
“Not quite so bad as that,” said Reginald, laughing; “I had, indeed, a swim in the Muskingum, and a blow from a horse’s hoof, but am none the worse for either. Do not forget, Miss Jessie, to send off a messenger immediately that any news arrive of The Pride. You know what a favourite she is, and how anxious we are here about her!”
“Indeed I will not forget,” replied Jessie.
Lucy sighed audibly; and after purchasing a few ribbons and shawls, as well as a stock of beads for her brother, she allowed Jessie to retire, begging, at the same time, her acceptance of one of the prettiest shawls in her basket. As the latter hesitated about receiving it, Lucy threw it over the girl’s shoulder, saying playfully, “Nay, Jessie, no refusal; I am mistress here; and nobody, not even Mr. Reginald, disputes my will in this room.”
Jessie thanked the young lady, and saluting her brother, withdrew to a back parlour, where Monsieur Perrot had already prepared his good things, and where her father only waited her coming to commence a dinner which his drive had made desirable, and which his olfactory nerves told him was more savoury than the viands set before him at Marietta by Mrs. Christie.
“Call ye this a squirrel ragoo?” said the worthy merchaunt; “weel now it’s an awfu’ thing to think how the Lord’s gifts are abused in the auld country! I hae seen dizens o’ they wee devils lilting and looping amaing the woods in the Lothians; and yet the hungry chaps wha can scarce earn a basin o’ porritch, or a pot o’ kail to their dinner, would as soon think o’ eatin’ a stoat or a foumart!”
While making this observation, Davie was despatching the “ragoo” with a satisfaction which showed how completely he had overcome his insular prejudices. Nor were Perrot’s culinary attentions altogether lost upon Miss Jessie; for although she might not repay them entirely according to the wishes of the gallant Maître d’Hôtel, she could not help acknowledging that he was a pleasant good–humoured fellow, and that his abilities as a cook were of the highest order. Accordingly, when he offered her a foaming glass of cider, she drank it to his health, with a glance of her merry eye sufficient to have turned the head of a man less vain and amorous than Monsieur Perrot.
The dinner passed pleasantly enough; and as David Muir drove his daughter back to Marietta, his heart being warmed and expanded by the generous cider (which, for the good of his health, he had crowned with a glass of old rum), he said, “Jessie, I’m thinking, that Maister Parrot is a douce and clever man; a lassie might do waur than tak’ up wi’ the like o’ him! I’se warrant his nest will no be ill feathered!”
“Perhaps not,” replied Jessie; and turning her head away, she sighed, and thought of Henry Gregson.
Chapter XIII
IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND THAT THE COUCH OF AN INVALID HAS PERILS NOT LESS FORMIDABLE THAN THOSE WHICH ARE TO BE ENCOUNTERED AT SEA.
We left Ethelston stretched on a sick couch in Guadaloupe, in the house of Captain L’Estrange, and tended by his daughter Nina, and by her brother, the young lieutenant. The latter grew daily more attached to the patient, who had been his captor, and was now his prisoner; but he was obliged, as soon as Ethelston was pronounced out of danger, to sail for Europe, as he was anxious to obtain that professional distinction which his parole prevented his gaining in service against the United States. And in France there seemed a promising harvest of combat and of glory, sufficient to satisfy the martial enthusiasm even of the most adventurous of her sons. When he sailed, he again and again pressed upon his sister to bestow every attention upon Ethelston; and as the Captain was much busied with his command, and as Madame L’Estrange was entirely devoted to her boudoir,—where, with two chattering parrots to amuse her, and a little black girl to fan her while listlessly poring over the pages of Florian in a fauteuil,—the whole charge devolved upon the willing and kind–hearted Nina. She was the third and youngest daughter of Monsieur and Madame L’Estrange; but (her two elder sisters being married) she was the only one resident with her parents.
Sixteen summers had now passed over her, and her disposition was like that of her brother,—frank, impetuous, and warm–hearted. Her feelings had never been guided or regulated by her handsome but indolent mother; her mind had been allowed to seek its food at hap–hazard among the romances, poems, and plays upon the shelves in the drawing–room. Her father spoilt and her brother petted her. A governess also she had, whom she governed, and to whose instructions she owed little, except a moderate proficiency in music. Her countenance was a very beautiful mirror, reflecting the warm and impassioned features of her character. Her complexion was dark, though clear, and her hair black and glossy. The pencilling of her eyebrows was exceedingly delicate; and the eyes themselves were large, speaking, and glowing with that humid lustre which distinguishes creole beauty. Nothing could exceed the rosy fulness of her lip, and the even whiteness of the teeth which her joyous smile disclosed. Her figure was exquisitely proportioned; and her every movement a very model of natural grace. She seemed, indeed, impregnated with the fervour of the sunny climate in which she had been reared; and her temper, her imagination, her passions, all glowed with its ardent but dangerous warmth. According to the usage of her country, she had been betrothed, when a child, to a neighbouring planter, one of the richest in the island; but as he was absent in Europe, and there remained yet two years before the time fixed for the fulfilment of the contract, she rarely troubled her head about the marriage or her future destiny.
Such was the girl who now officiated as nurse to Ethelston, and who, before she had seen him, had gathered from her brother such traits of his character as had called forth all the interest and sympathy of her romantic disposition. Although not eminently handsome, we have before noted that his countenance was manly and expressive, and his manners courteous and engaging. Perhaps also the weakness, remaining after the crisis of his fever, imparted to the usually gentle expression of his features that touching attraction which is called by a modern poet “a loving languor.” At all events, certain it is, that ere poor Nina had administered the third saline draughd to her grateful patient, her little heart beat vehemently; and when she had attended his feverish couch one short week, she was desperately in love!
How fared it in the meantime with Ethelston? Did his heart run any risk from the dark eloquent eyes, and the gracefully rounded form of the ministering angel who hovered about his sick–room? At present none, for Lucy was shrined there; and he had been taught by young L’Estrange to consider his sister in the light of a nursery–girl, still under the dominion of the governess.
Days and weeks elapsed, Ethelston’s recovery progressed, and he was able to stroll in the shade of the orange and citron groves which sheltered Captain L’Estrange’s villa to the northward. Here, with his eyes fixed on the sea, would he sometimes sit for hours, and devise schemes for returning to his home. On these occasions he was frequently accompanied by Nina, who walked by his side with her guitar in her hand; and under the pretence of receiving instructions from him in music, she would listen with delight, and hang with rapture on every syllable that he uttered. Though he could not avoid being sensible of her ripening beauty, his heart was protected by the seven–fold shield of a deep and abiding attachment; and as he still looked upon Nina as a lovely girl, completing her education in the nursery, he gladly gave her all the assistance that she asked under her musical difficulties; and this he was able to do, from having made no small proficiency in the science during his long residence in Germany.
Sometimes he paid his respects to Madame L’Estrange; but that lady was so indolent, and so exclusively devoted to her parrots and her lap–dog, that his visits to her were neither frequent nor of long duration. The Captain was very seldom ashore; and thus Ethelston was obliged to spend his time alone, or in the society of the young girl who had nursed him so kindly during his illness. Her character seemed to have undergone a sudden and complete change. The conquering god, who had at first only taken possession of the outworks of her fancy, had now made himself master of the citadel of her heart. She loved with all the intense absorbing passion of a nature that had never known control. The gaiety and buoyancy of her spirits had given place to a still, deep flood of feeling, which her reason never attempted to restrain. Even when with him she spoke little. Her happiness was too intense to find a vent in words; and thus she nursed and fed a flame, that needed only the breath of accident to make it burst forth with a violence that should burn up or overleap all the barriers of self–control.
Nor must the reader imagine that Ethelston was dull or blind, because he observed not the state of Nina’s affections. His own were firmly rooted elsewhere; he was neither of a vain nor a romantic disposition; and he had been duly informed by Monsieur L’Estrange, that in the course of two years Nina was to be married to Monsieur Bertrand, the young planter, to whom, as we have before mentioned, she had been betrothed by her parents since her thirteenth year. He could not help seeing that, although her intellect was quick, and her character enthusiastic, her education had been shamefully neglected both by Madame L’Estrange and the governess. Hence he spoke, counselled, and sometimes chid her, in the tone of an elder brother, heedless of the almost imperceptible line that separates friendship from love in the bosom of a girl nurtured under a West Indian sun.
In this state were matters, when, on a fine evening, Ethelston strolled alone into his favourite orange–grove, to look out upon the ocean, and, in the enjoyment of its refreshing breeze, to ruminate on his strange captivity, and revolve various plans of escape.
Captain L’Estrange had paid a visit to his home on the preceding day, and finding his prisoner so completely restored to health and strength, had said to him, jokingly, “Indeed, fair sir, I think I must put you on your parole, or in chains; for, after the character given of you by my son, I cannot allow so dangerous a person to be at large during the continuance of hostilities between our respective nations.”
Ethelston answered, half in earnest, and half in jest, “Nay, sir, then I must wear the chains, for assuredly I cannot give my parole; if an American vessel were to come in sight, or any other means of flight to offer itself, depend upon it, in spite of the kindness and hospitality I have met with here, I should weigh anchor in a moment.”
“Well, that is a fair warning,” said the old Commodore; “nevertheless I will not lock you up just yet, for I do not think it very likely that any strange sail will come under the guns of our fort; and I will run the risk of your flying away on the back of a sea–gull.” Thus had they parted; and the old gentleman was again absent on a cruise.
Ethelston was, as we have said, reclining listlessly under an orange–tree, inhaling the cool breeze, laden with the fragrance of its blossoms, now devising impossible plans of escape, and now musing on a vision of Lucy’s graceful figure, gliding among the deep woods around Mooshanne. As these thoughts passed through his mind, they imparted a melancholy shade to his brow, and a deep sigh escaped from his lips.
It was echoed by one yet deeper, close to his ear; and starting from his reverie, he beheld Nina, who had approached him unawares, and who, leaning on her guitar, had been for the last few minutes gazing on his countenance with an absorbed intensity, more fond and riveted than that with which the miser regards his treasure, or the widowed mother her only child.
When she found herself perceived, she came forward, and covering her emotion under an assumed gaiety, she said, “What is my kind instructor thinking of? He seems more grave and sad than usual.”
“He is thinking,” said Ethelston, good–humouredly, “that he ought to scold a certain young lady very severely for coming upon him slily, and witnessing that gravity and sadness in which a captive must sometimes indulge, but which her presence has already dissipated.”
“Nay,” said Nina, still holding her guitar, and sitting down on the bank near him; “you know that I am only obeying papa’s orders in watching you; for he says you would not give your parole, and I am sure you were thinking of your escape from Guadaloupe.”
“Perhaps you might have guessed more wide of the mark, Mademoiselle Nina,” said Ethelston.
“And are you then so very anxious to—to—see your home again?” inquired Nina, hesitating.
“Judge for yourself, Nina,” he replied, “when I remind you that for many months I have heard nothing of those who have been my nearest and dearest friends from childhood; nothing of the brave men who were captured with me when our poor brig was lost!”
“Tell me about your friends and your home. Is it very beautiful? Have you the warm sun, and the fresh sea–breeze, and the orange–flowers, that we have here?”
“Scarcely,” replied Ethelston, smiling at the earnest rapidity with which the beautiful girl based her inquiries on the scene before her; “but we have in their place rivers, on the bosom of which your father’s frigate might sail; groves and woods of deep shade, impenetrable to the rays of the hottest sun; and prairies smiling with the most brilliant and variegated flowers.”
“Oh! how I should love to see that land!” exclaimed Nina, her fervid imagination instantly grasping and heightening its beauties. “How I should love to dwell there!”
“Nay, it appears to me not unlikely that you should at some time visit it,” replied Ethelston. “This foolish war between our countries will soon be over, and your father may wish to see a region the scenery of which is so magnificent, and which is not difficult of access from here.”
“Papa will never leave these islands, unless he goes to France, and that he hates,” said Nina.
“Well then,” continued Ethelston, smiling, as he alluded for the first time to her marriage, “you must defer your American trip a year or two longer; then, doubtless, Monsieur Bertrand will gladly gratify your desire to see the Mississippi.”
Nina started as if stung by an adder; the blood rushed and mantled over her face and neck; her eyes glowed with indignation, as she exclaimed, “I abhor and detest Monsieur Bertrand. I would die before I would marry him!” Then adding in a low voice, the sadness of which went to his heart, “and this from you too!” She covered her face with her hands and wept.
Never was man more astonished than Ethelston at the sudden storm which he had inadvertently raised. Remembering that Madame L’Estrange had told him of the engagement as being known to Nina, he had been led to suppose from her usual flow of spirits, that the prospect was far from being disagreeable to her. Young L’Estrange had also told him that Bertrand was a good looking man, of high character, and considered, from his wealth, as the best match in the French islands; so that Ethelston was altogether unprepared for the violent aversion which Nina now avowed for the marriage, and for the grief by which she seemed so deeply agitated. Still he was as far as ever from divining the true cause of her emotion, and conjectured that she had probably formed an attachment to one of the young officers on board her father’s ship. Under this impression he took her hand, and sympathising with the grief of one so fair and so young, he said to her kindly, “Forgive me, Nina, if I have said any thing to hurt your feelings; indeed I always have believed that your engagement to Monsieur Bertrand was an affair settled by your parents entirely with your consent. I am sure Monsieur L’Estrange loves his favourite child too well to compel her to a marriage against her inclination. Will you permit your Mentor (as you have more than once allowed me to call myself) to speak with him on the subject?”
Nina made no reply, and the tears coursed each other yet faster down her cheek.
“Your brother is absent,” continued Ethelston; “you seem not to confide your little secrets to your mother—will you not let me aid you by my advice? I am many years older than you.—I am deeply grateful for all your kindness during my tedious illness; believe me, I will, if you will only trust me, advise you with the affectionate interest of a parent, or an elder brother.”
The little hand trembled violently in his, but still no reply escaped from Nina’s lips.
“If you will not tell me your secret,” pursued Ethelston, “I must guess it. Your aversion to the engagement arises not so much from your dislike to Monsieur Bertrand, as from your preference of some other, whom perhaps your parents would not approve?”
The hand was withdrawn, being employed in an ineffectual attempt to check her tears. The slight fillet which bound her black tresses had given way, and they now fell in disorder, veiling the deep crimson glow which again mantled over the neck of the weeping girl.
Ethelston gazed on her with emotions of deep sympathy. There was a reality, a dignity about her speechless grief, that must have moved a sterner heart than his; and as he looked upon the heaving of her bosom, and upon the exquisite proportions unconsciously developed in her attitude, he suddenly felt that he was speaking, not to a child in the nursery, but to a girl in whose form and heart the bud and blossom of womanhood were thus early ripened. It was, therefore, in a tone, not less kind, but more respectful than he had hitherto used, that he said, “Nay, Nina, I desire not to pry into your secrets—I only wish to assure you of the deep sympathy which I feel with your sorrow, and of my desire to aid or comfort you by any means within my power; but if my curiosity offends you, I will retire, in the hope that your own gentle thoughts may soon afford you relief.”
Again the little hand was laid upon his arm, as Nina, still weeping, whispered, “No, no,—you do not offend me.—Do not leave me, I entreat you!”
A painful silence ensued; and Ethelston, more than ever confirmed in the belief that she had bestowed her affections on some young middy, or lieutenant, under her father’s command, continued, in a tone which he attempted to render gay: “Well then, Nina, since you will not give your confidence to Mentor, he must appoint himself your confessor; and to commence, is he right in believing that your dislike to Monsieur Bertrand arises from your having given your heart elsewhere?”
There was no reply; but her head was bowed in token of acquiescence!
“I need not inquire,” pursued he, “whether the object of your choice is, in rank and character, worthy of your affection?”
In an instant the drooping head was raised, and the dark tresses thrown back from her brow, as, with her eyes flashing through the moisture by which they were still bedewed, Nina replied, “Worthy!—worthy the affection of a queen!”
Ethelston, startled by her energy, was about to resume his inquiries, when Nina, whose excited spirit triumphed for the moment over all restraint, stopped him, saying, “I will spare you the trouble of further questions. I will tell you freely, that till lately, very lately, I cared for none.—Monsieur Bertrand and all others were alike to me; but fate threw a stranger in my path.—He was a friend of my brother;—he was wounded.—For hours and hours I watched by his couch;—he revived;—his looks were gentle; his voice was music.—I drew counsel from his lips;—he filled my thoughts, my dreams, my heart, my being! But he—he considered me only as a silly child;—he understood not my heart;—he mocked my agony;—he saved my brother’s life,—and is now accomplishing the sister’s death!”
The excitement which supported Nina during the commencement of this speech gradually died away. Towards its close, her voice grew tremulous, and as the last words escaped her quivering lips, exhausted nature gave way under the burden of her emotion, and she fainted!
The feelings of Ethelston may be better imagined than described. As the dreadful import of the poor girl’s words gradually broke upon him, his cheeks grew paler and paler; and when, at their conclusion, her senseless form lay extended at his feet, the cold dew of agony stood in drops upon his forehead! But Nina’s condition demanded immediate aid and attention. Mastering himself by a powerful effort, he snatched a lemon from a neighbouring tree; he cut it in half, and sustaining the still insensible girl, he chafed her hands, and rubbed her temples with the cool refreshing juice of the fruit. After a time, he had the consolation of seeing her restored gradually to her senses; and a faint smile came over her countenance as she found herself supported by his arm. Still she closed her eyes, as if in a happy dream, which Ethelston could not bring himself to disturb; and, as the luxuriant black tresses only half veiled the touching beauty of her countenance, he groaned at the reflection that he had inadvertently been the means of shedding the blight of unrequited love on a budding flower of such exquisite loveliness. A long silence ensued, softened, rather than interrupted, by the low wind as it whispered through the leaves of the orange–grove; while the surrounding landscape, and the wide expanse of ocean, glowed with the red golden tints of the parting sun. No unplighted heart could have resisted all the assailing temptations of that hour. But Ethelston’s heart was not unplighted; and the high principle and generous warmth of his nature served only to deepen the pain and sadness of the present moment. He formed, however, his resolution; and as soon as he found that Nina was restored to consciousness, and to a certain degree of composure, he gently withdrew the arm which had supported her, and said, in a voice of most melancholy earnestness, “Dear Nina! I will not pretend to misunderstand what you have said. I have much to tell you; but I have not now enough command over myself to speak, while you are still too agitated to listen. Meet me here to–morrow at this same hour; meanwhile, I entreat you, recall those harsh and unkind thoughts which you entertained of me; and believe me, dear, dear sister, that I would, rather than have mocked your feelings, have died on that feverish couch, from which your care revived me.” So saying, he hastened from her presence in a tumult of agitation scarcely less than her own.
For a long time she sat motionless, in a kind of waking dream; his parting words yet dwelt in her ear, and her passionate heart construed them now according to its own wild throbbings, now according to its gloomiest fears. “He has much to tell me,” mused she; “he called me dear Nina; he spoke not in a voice of indifference; his eye was full of a troubled expression that I could not read. Alas! alas, ‘twas only pity! He called me ‘dear sister!’—what can he mean?—Oh that to–morrow were come! I shall not outlive the night unless I can believe that he loves me!” And then she fell again into a reverie; during which all the looks and tones that her partial fancy had interpreted, and her too faithful memory had treasured, were recalled, and repeated in a thousand shapes; until, exhausted by her agitation, and warned by the darkness of the hour, Nina retired to her sleepless couch.
Meanwhile Ethelston, when he found himself alone in his room, scrutinised with the most unsparing severity his past conduct, endeavouring to remember every careless or unheeded word by which he could have awakened or encouraged her unsuspected affection. He could only blame himself that he had not been more observant; that he had considered Nina too much in the light of a child; and had habitually spoken to her in a tone of playful and confidential familiarity. Thus, though his conscience acquitted him of the most remote intention of trifling with her feelings, he accused himself of having neglected to keep a watchful guard over his language and behaviour, and resolved, at the risk of incurring her anger or her hatred, to tell her firmly and explicitly on the morrow, that he could not requite her attachment as it deserved, his heart having been long and faithfully devoted to another.
Chapter XIV
NARRATING THE TRIALS AND DANGERS THAT BESET ETHELSTON; AND HOW HE ESCAPED FROM THEM, AND FROM THE ISLAND OF GUADALOUPE.
The night succeeding the occurrences related in the last chapter brought little rest to the pillow either of Nina or of Ethelston; and on the following day, as if by mutual agreement, they avoided each other’s presence, until the hour appointed for their meeting again in the orange–grove. Ethelston was firmly resolved to explain to her unreservedly his long engagement to Lucy, hoping that the feelings of Nina would prove, in this instance, rather impetuous than permanent. The tedious day appeared to her as if it never would draw to a close. She fled from her mother, and from the screaming parrots; she tried the guitar, but it seemed tuneless and discordant; her pencil and her book were by turns taken up, and as soon laid aside; she strolled even at midday into the orange–grove, to the spot where she had last sat by him, and a blush stole over her cheek when she remembered that she had been betrayed into an avowal of her love; and then came the doubt, the inquiry, whether he felt any love for her? Thus did she muse and ponder, until the hours, which in the morning had appeared to creep so slowly over the face of the dial, now glided unconsciously forward. The dinner–hour had passed unheeded; and before she had summoned any of the courage and firmness which she meant to call to her aid, Ethelston stood before her. He was surprised at finding Nina on this spot, and had approached it long before the appointed time, in order that he might prepare himself for the difficult and painful task which he had undertaken. But though unprepared, his mind was of too firm and regulated a character to be surprised out of a fixed determination; and he came up and offered his hand to Nina, greeting her in his accustomed tone of familiar friendship. She received his salutation with evident embarrassment; her hand and her voice trembled, and her bosom throbbed in a tumult of anxiety and expectation. Ethelston saw that he could not defer the promised explanation; and he commenced it with his usual gentleness of manner, but with a firm resolve that he would be honest and explicit in his language. He began by referring to his long illness, and, with gratitude, to her care and attention during its continuance; he assured her, that having been told both by Madame L’Estrange and her brother, that she was affianced to Monsieur Bertrand, he had accustomed himself to look on her as a younger sister; and, as such, had ventured to offer her advice and instruction in her studies. He knew not, he dreamt not, that she could ever look upon him in any other light than that of a Mentor.
Here he paused a moment, and continued in a deeper and more earnest tone “Nina—dear Nina, we must be as Mentor and his pupil to each other, or we must part. I will frankly lay my heart open to you. I will conceal nothing; then you will not blame me, and will, I hope, permit me to remain your grateful friend and brother. Nina, I am not blind either to your beauty, or to the many, many graces of your disposition. I do full justice to the warmth and truth of your affections: you deserve, when loved, to be loved with a whole heart—“
“O spare this!” interrupted Nina, in a hurried whisper: “Spare this, speak of yourself!”
“I was even about to do so,” continued Ethelston; “but, Nina, such a heart I have not to give. For many months and years, before I ever saw or knew you, I have loved, and still am betrothed to another.”
A cold shudder seemed to pass through Nina’s frame while these few words were spoken, as if in a moment the health, the hope, the blossom of her youth were blighted! Not a tear, not even a sob, gave relief to her agony; her bloodless lip trembled in a vain attempt to speak she knew not what, and a burning chill sat upon her heart. These words may appear to some strange and contradictory: happy, thrice happy, ye to whom they so appear! If you have never known what it is to feel at once a scorching heat parching the tongue, and drying up all the well–springs of life within, while a leaden weight of ice seems to benumb the heart, then have you never known the sharpest, extreme pangs of disappointed love!
Ethelston was prepared for some sudden and violent expression on the part of Nina, but this death–like, motionless silence almost overpowered him. He attempted, by the gentlest and the kindest words, to arouse her from this stupor of grief. He took her hand; its touch was cold. Again and again he called her name; but her ear seemed insensible, even to his voice. At length, unable to bear the sight of her distress, and fearful that he might no longer restrain his tongue from uttering words which would be treason to his first and faithful love, he rushed into the house, and hastily informing Nina’s governess that her pupil had been suddenly taken ill in the orange–grove, he locked himself in his room, and gave vent to the contending emotions by which he was oppressed.
It was in vain that he strove to calm himself by the reflection that he had intentionally transgressed none of the demands of truth and honour;—it was in vain that he called up all the long–cherished recollections of his Lucy and his home;—still the image of Nina would not be banished; now presenting itself as he had seen her yesterday, in the full glow of passion, and in the full bloom of youthful beauty,—and now, as he had just left her, in the deadly paleness and fixed apathy of despair. The terrible thought that, whether guiltily or innocently, he had been the cause of all this suffering in one to whom he owed protection and gratitude, wrung his heart with pain that he could not repress; and he found relief only in falling on his knees, and praying to the Almighty that the sin might not be laid to his charge, and that Nina’s sorrow might be soothed and comforted by Him, who is the God of consolation.
Meanwhile the governess had, with the assistance of two of the negro attendants, brought Nina into the house. The poor girl continued in the same state of insensibility to all that was passing around; her eyes were open, but she seemed to recognise no one, and a few vague indistinct words still trembled on her lips.
The doctor was instantly summoned, who pronounced, as soon as he had seen his patient, that she was in a dangerous fit, using sundry mysterious expressions about “febrile symptoms,” and “pressure on the brain,” to which the worthy leech added shakings of the head yet more mysterious.
For many days her condition continued alarming; the threatened fever came, and with it a protracted state of delirium. During this period Ethelston’s anxiety and agitation were extreme; and proportionate was the relief that he experienced, when he learnt that the crisis was past, and that the youthful strength of her constitution promised speedy recovery.
Meanwhile he had to endure the oft–repeated inquiries of the governess, “How he happened to find Mademoiselle just as the fit came on?” and of Madame L’Estrange, “How it was possible for Nina to be attacked by so sudden an illness, while walking in the orange–grove?”
When she was at length pronounced out of danger, Ethelston again began to consider various projects for his meditated escape from the island. He had more than once held communication with his faithful Cupid on the subject, who was ready to brave all risks in the service of his master; but the distance which must be traversed before they could expect to find a friendly ship or coast, seemed to exclude all reasonable hope of success.
It would be impossible to follow and portray the thousand changes that came over Nina’s spirit during her recovery. She remembered but too well the words that Ethelston had last spoken: at one moment she called him perfidious, ungrateful, heartless; then she chid herself for railing at him, and loaded his name with every blessing, and the expression of the fondest affection: now she resolved that she would never see nor speak to him more; then she thought that she must see him, if it were only to show how she had conquered her weakness. Amidst all these contending resolutions, she worked herself into the belief that Ethelston had deceived her; and that, because he thought her a child, and did not love her, he had invented the tale of his previous engagement to lessen her mortification. This soon became her settled conviction; and when it crossed her mind, she would start with passion and exclaim, “He shall yet love me, and me alone!”
The only confidant of her love was a young negress, who waited upon her, and who was indeed so devoted to her that she would have braved the Commodore’s utmost wrath, or perilled her life, to execute her mistress’ commands.
It happened one evening that this girl, whose name was Fanchette, went out to gather some fruit in the orange–grove; and while thus employed she heard the voice of some one speaking. On drawing nearer to the spot whence the sound proceeded, she saw Ethelston sitting under the deep shade of a tree, with what appeared a book before him.
Knowing that Nina was still confined to her room, he had resorted hither to consider his schemes without interruption, and was so busily employed in comparing distances, and calculating possibilities, on the map before him, that Fanchette easily crept to a place whence she could, unperceived, overhear and observe him. “I must and will attempt it,” he muttered aloud to himself; “we must steal a boat. Cupid and I can manage it between us; my duty and my love both forbid my staying longer here: with a fishing–boat we might reach Antigua or Dominica, or at all events chance to fall in with an American or a neutral vessel. Poor dear Nina,” he added, in a lower tone. “Would to God I had never visited this shore! this,” he continued, drawing a locket from his breast, “this treasured remembrance of one far distant has made me proof against thy charms, cold to thy love, but not, as Heaven is my witness, unmoved or insensible to thy sufferings.” So saying he relapsed into silent musing; and as he replaced the locket, Fanchette crept noiselessly from her concealment, and ran to communicate to her young mistress her version of what she had seen. Being very imperfectly skilled in English, she put her own construction upon those few words which she had caught, and thought to serve Nina best by telling her what she would most like to hear. Thus she described to her how Ethelston had spoken to himself over a map; how he had mentioned islands to which he would sail; how he had named her name with tenderness, and had taken something from his vest to press it to his lips.
Poor Nina listened in a tumult of joy; her passionate heart would admit no doubting suggestion of her reason. She was too happy to bear even the presence of Fanchette, and rewarding her for her good news by the present of a beautiful shawl which she wore at the moment, pushed the delighted little negress out of the room, and threw herself on her couch, where she repeated a hundred times that he had been to her orange–grove, where they had last parted, had named her name with tenderness, had pressed some token to his lips—what could that be? It might be a flower, a book, any thing—it mattered not—so long as she only knew he loved her! Having long wept with impassioned joy, she determined to show herself worthy of his love; and the schemes which she formed, and resolved to carry into effect, evinced the wild force and energy of her romantic character. Among her father’s slaves was one who, being a steady and skilful seaman, had the charge of a schooner (originally an American prize), which lay in the harbour, and which the Commodore sometimes used as a pleasure–yacht, or for short trips to other parts of the island: this man (whose name was Jacques) was not only a great favourite with the young lady, but was also smitten with the black eyes and plump charms of M’amselle Fanchette, who thus exercised over him a sway little short of absolute. Nina having held a conference with her abigail, sent for Jacques, who was also admitted to a confidential consultation, the result of which, after–occurrences will explain to the reader. When this was over, she acquired, rather than assumed, a sudden composure and cheerfulness: the delights of a plot seemed at once to restore her to health; and on the following day she sent to request that Ethelston would come to see her in her boudoir, where she received him with a calmness and self–possession for which he was altogether unprepared. “Mr. Ethelston,” said she, as soon as he was seated, “I believe you still desire to escape from your prison, and that you are devising various plans for effecting that object; you will never succeed unless you call me into your counsel.”
Ethelston, though extremely surprised at the composure of her manner and language, replied with a smile, “M’amselle Nina, I will not deny that you have rightly guessed my thoughts; but as your father is my jailor, I did not dare to ask your counsel in this matter.”
“Well, Mr. Mentor,” said the wayward girl, “how does your wisdom propose to act without my counsel?”
“I confess I am somewhat at a loss,” said Ethelston, good–humouredly; “I must go either through the air or the water; and the latter, being my proper element, is the path which I would rather attempt.”
“And what should you think of me, if I were to play the traitoress, and aid you in eluding the vigilance of my father, and afford the means of escape to so formidable an enemy?”
Ethelston was completely puzzled by this playful tone of banter, in one whom he had last seen under a paroxysm of passion, and in whose dark eye there yet lurked an expression which he could not define; but he resolved to continue the conversation in the same spirit, and replied, “I would not blame you for this act of filial disobedience; and though no longer your father’s prisoner, I would, if I escaped, ever remain his friend.”
“And would you show no gratitude to the lady who effected your release?”
“I owe her already more—far more, than I can pay; and, for this last crowning act of her generosity and kindness, I would—“
As he hesitated, she inquired, abruptly, “You would what, Ethelston?” For a moment she had forgotten the part she was acting; and both the look that accompanied these words, and the tone in which they were pronounced, reminded him that he stood on the brink of a volcanic crater.
“I would give her any proof of my gratitude that she would deign to accept, yes any,” he repeated earnestly, “even to life itself, knowing that she is too noble and generous to accept aught at my hands which faith and honour forbid me to offer.”
Nina turned aside for a moment, overcome by her emotion; but recovering herself quickly, she added, in her former tone of pleasantry, “She will not impose any hard conditions; but to the purpose; has your sailor–eye noticed a certain little schooner anchored in the harbour?”
“What!” said Ethelston, eagerly, “a beautiful craft, of about twenty tons, on the other side of the bay?”
“Even the same.”
“Surely I have! She is American built, and swims like a duck.”
“Well then,” replied Nina, “I think I shall do no great harm in restoring her to an American! How many men should you require to manage her?”
“I could sail her easily with one able seaman, besides my black friend Cupid.”
“Then,” said Nina, “I propose to lend her to you; you may send her back at your convenience; and I will also provide you an able seaman: write me a list of the stores and articles which you will require for the trip, and send it me in an hour’s time: prepare your own baggage, and be ready upon the shortest notice. It is now my turn to command, and yours to obey. Good–b’ye, Mr. Mentor.” So saying, she kissed her hand to him, and withdrew.
Ethelston rubbed his eyes as if he did not believe their evidence. “Could this merry, ready–witted girl be the same as the Nina whom he had seen, ten days before, heart–broken, and unable to conceal or repress the violence of her passion?” The longer he mused, the more was he puzzled; and he came at length to a conclusion at which many, more wise and more foolish than himself, had arrived, that a woman’s mind, when influenced by her affections, is a riddle hard to be solved. He had not, however, much time for reflection, and being resolved at all risks to escape from the island, he hastened to his room, and, within the hour specified by Nina, sent her a list of the stores and provisions for the voyage.
Meanwhile Fanchette had not been idle: she had painted to Jacques, in the liveliest colours, the wealth, beauty, and freedom of the distant land of Ohio, artfully mingling with this description promises and allurements which operated more directly on the feelings of her black swain; so that the latter, finding himself entreated by Fanchette, and commanded by his young mistress, hesitated no longer to betray his trust, and desert the Commodore.
Ethelston, having communicated the prosperous state of affairs to Cupid, and desired him to have all ready for immediate escape, hastened to obey another summons sent to him by Nina. He found her in a mood no less cheerful than before; and although she purposely averted her face, a smile, the meaning of which he could not define, played round the corner of her expressive mouth. Though really glad to escape homeward, and disposed to be grateful to Nina for her aid, he could not help feeling angry and vexed at the capricious eagerness with which she busied herself in contriving the departure of one to whom she had so lately given the strongest demonstration of tenderness; and although his heart told him that he could not love her, there was something in this easy and sudden withdrawal of her affection which wounded that self–love from which the best of men are not altogether free. These feelings gave an unusual coldness and constraint to his manner, when he inquired her further commands.
To this question Nina replied by saying, “Then, Mr. Ethelston, you are quite resolved to leave us, and to risk all the chances and perils of this voyage?”
“Quite,” he replied: “it is my wish, my duty, and my firm determination; and I entered the room,” he added, almost in a tone of reproof, “desirous of repeating to you my thanks for your kind assistance.”
Nina’s countenance changed; but, still averting it from Ethelston, she continued in a lower voice, “And do you leave us without pain—without regret?”
There was a tremor, a natural feeling in the tone in which she uttered these few words, that recalled to his mind all that he had seen her suffer, and drove from it the harsh thoughts which he had begun to entertain; and he answered, in a voice from which his self–command could not banish all traces of emotion, “Dear Nina, I shall leave you with regret that would amount to misery, if I thought that my visit had brought any permanent unhappiness into this house. I desire to leave you as a Mentor should leave a beloved pupil—as a brother leaves a sister; with a full hope, that when I am gone, you will fulfil your parents’ wishes, your own auspicious destinies, and that, after years and years of happiness among those whom Fate has decreed to be the companions of your life, you will look back upon me as upon a faithful adviser of your youth,—an affectionate friend, who——“
Nina’s nerves were not strung for the part she had undertaken: gradually her countenance had grown pale as marble; a choking sensation oppressed her throat; and she sunk in a chair, sobbing, rather than uttering, the word, “Water.” It was fortunately at hand; and having placed it in a glass by her side, Ethelston retired to the window to conceal his own emotion, and to allow time for that of Nina to subside.
After a few minutes she recovered her self–possession; and although still deadly pale, her voice was distinct and firm, as she said, “Ethelston, I am ashamed of this weakness; but it is over: we will not speak of the past, and will leave to Fate the future. Now listen to me: all the arrangements for your departure will be complete by to–morrow evening. At an hour before midnight, a small boat, with one man, will be at the Quai du Marché, below the Place St. Louis. It is far from the fort, and there is no sentry near the spot: you can then row to the vessel and depart. But is it not too dangerous?” she added. “Can you risk it? for the wind whistles terribly, and I fear the approach of a hurricane!”
Ethelston’s eye brightened as he replied, “A rough night is the fairest for the purpose, Nina.”
“Be it so,” she replied. “Now, in return for all that I have done for you, there is only one favour I have to ask at your hands.”
“Name it,” said Ethelston, eagerly.
“There is,” she continued, “a poor sick youth in the town, the child of respectable parents in New Orleans; he desires to go home, if it be only to die there: and a nurse will take care of him on the passage, if you will let him go with you?”
“Assuredly I will,” said Ethelston; “and will take as much care of him as if he were my brother.”
“Nay,” said Nina, “they tell me he is ordered to be perfectly quiet, and no one attends him but the nurse; neither will he give any trouble, as the coxswain says there is a small cabin where he can remain alone and undisturbed.”
“You may depend,” said Ethelston, “that all your orders about him shall be faithfully performed; and I will see, if I live, that he reaches his home in safety.”
“He and his nurse will be on board before you,” said Nina; “and as soon as you reach the vessel, you have nothing to do but to escape as quick as you can. Now I must bid you farewell! I may not have spirits to see you again!” She held out her hand to him; it was cold as ice; her face was still half–averted, and her whole frame trembled violently.
Ethelston took the offered hand, and pressed it to his lips, saying, “A thousand, thousand thanks for all your kindness! If I reach home alive I will make your honoured father ample amends for the theft of his schooner; and if ever you have an opportunity to let me know that you are well and happy, do not forget that such news will always gladden my heart.” He turned to look at her as he went; he doubted whether the cold rigid apathy of her form and countenance was that of despair or of indifference; but he dared not trust himself longer in her presence; and as he left the room she sunk on the chair against which she had been leaning for support.
When Ethelston found himself alone, he collected his thoughts, and endeavoured in vain to account for the strange deportment of Nina in bidding him farewell. The coldness of her manner, the abrupt brevity of her parting address, had surprised him; and yet the tremor, the emotion, amounting almost to fainting, the forced tone of voice in which she had spoken, all forbad him to hope that she had overcome her unhappy passion; he was grieved that he had scarcely parted from her in kindness; and the pity with which he regarded her was, for the moment, almost akin to love.
Shaking off this temporary weakness, he employed himself forthwith in the preparations for his departure: among the first of which was a letter, which he wrote to Captain L’Estrange, and left upon his table. On the following day he never once saw Nina; but he heard from one of the slaves that she was confined to her room by severe headache.
The wind blew with unabated force, the evening was dark and lowering, as, at the appointed hour, Ethelston, accompanied by his faithful Cupid, left the house with noiseless step. They reached the boat without obstruction; pushed off, and in ten minutes were safe on deck: the coxswain whispered that all was ready; the boat was hoisted up, the anchor weighed, and the schooner was soon dashing the foam from her bows on the open sea.
Chapter XV
WHAT TOOK PLACE AT MOOSHANNE DURING THE STAY OF ETHELSTON IN GUADALOUPE.—DEPARTURE OF REGINALD FOR THE FAR–WEST.
While the events related in the last two chapters occurred at Guadaloupe, Reginald was busily employed at Mooshanne in completing the preparations for his projected visit to the Delawares, in the Far–west; he had (by putting in practice the instructions given him by War–Eagle respecting Nekimi) at length succeeded in gaining that noble animal’s affection; he neighed at Reginald’s approach, knew and obeyed his voice, fed from his hand, and received and returned his caresses, as he had before done those of his Indian master. It was when mounted on Nekimi that our hero found his spirit most exulting and buoyant; he gave him the rein on the broadest of the neighbouring prairies, and loved to feel the springy fleetness and untiring muscles of this child of the western desert. Sometimes, after a gallop of many miles, he would leap from the saddle, to look with pride and pleasure on the spirited eye, the full veins, the expanded nostril of his favourite; at other times he would ride him slowly through the most tangled and difficult ground, admiring the instinctive and unerring sagacity with which he picked his way.
Among Reginald’s other accomplishments, he had learnt in Germany to play not unskilfully on the horn; and constantly carrying his bugle across his shoulders, Nekimi grew so accustomed to the sound, that he would come to it from any distance within hearing of its call. It appeared to Reginald so probable that the bugle might render him good service on his summer excursion, that he not only practised his horse to it, but he prevailed on Baptiste to learn his various signals, and even to reply on another horn to some of the simplest of them. The honest guide’s first attempts to sound the bugle were ludicrous in the extreme; but he good–humouredly persevered, until Reginald and he could, from a considerable distance, exchange many useful signals agreed upon between them, and of course intelligible to none but themselves. Among these were the following: “Beware!”—“Come to me,”—“Be still,”—“Bring my horse,” and one or two others for hunting purposes, such as “A bear!”—“Buffalo!” To these they added a reply, which was always to signify “I understand.” But if the party called was prevented from obeying, this signal was to be varied accordingly.
At the same time Reginald did not omit to learn from the guide a number of Delaware words and phrases, in order that when he arrived among his new friends he might not be altogether excluded from communication with such of them as should not understand English; in these preparations, and occasional hunts in company with Baptiste, his time would have glided on agreeably enough, had he not observed with anxiety the settled melancholy that was gradually creeping over his sister Lucy. It was in vain that he strove to comfort her by reminding her of the thousand trifling accidents that might have detained Ethelston in the West Indies, and have prevented his letters from reaching home. She smiled upon him kindly for his well–meant endeavours, and not only abstained from all complaint, but tried to take her part in conversation; yet he saw plainly that her cheerfulness was forced, and that secret sorrow was at her heart. She employed herself assiduously in tending her mother, whose health had of late become exceedingly precarious, and who was almost always confined to her apartments. Lucy worked by her side, conversed with her, read to her, and did all in her power to hide from her the grief that possessed her own bosom. Reginald marked the struggle, which strengthened, if possible, the love that he had always felt for his exemplary and affectionate sister.
One day he was sitting with her in the boudoir, which commanded, as we have before observed, a view of the approach to the house, where they saw a horseman coming at full speed. As he drew near, he seemed to be a middle–aged man, wearing a broad–brimmed hat, a coarse over–coat, and loose trowsers; his knees were high up on the saddle, and he rode in so careless and reckless a manner, that it was marvellous how the uncouth rider could remain on his horse in a gallop. Reginald threw open the window; and as the strange–looking figure caught a sight of him, the steed was urged yet faster, and the broad–brimmed hat was waved in token of recognition.
“Now Heaven be praised!” exclaimed Reginald aloud: “’tis Gregson the mate!” He turned towards his sister: the blood had fled from her cheeks and lip, her hands were clasped together, and she whispered, in a voice scarcely articulate, “Heaven be merciful!”
“Nay, Lucy,” said her sanguine brother, “why this grief? are you not glad that The Pride is returned?”
“Oh, Reginald!” said Lucy, looking on him reproachfully through the tears which now streamed from her eyes. “Think you that if he had been alive and well, he would have allowed another to come here before him! Go and speak to the man—I cannot see him—you will return and tell me all.”
Reginald felt the reproof, and, kissing her affectionately, hastened from the room.
Who shall attempt to lift the veil from Lucy’s heart during the suspense of the succeeding minutes? It is fortunate for human nature, that at such a moment the mind is too confused to be conscious of its own sufferings: the mingled emotions of hope and fear, the half–breathed prayer, the irresistible desire to learn, contending with the dread of more assured misery,—all these unite in producing that agony of suspense which it is impossible to describe in words, and of which the mind of the sufferer can scarcely realise afterwards a distinct impression.
After a short absence, Reginald returned, and said to his sister, “Lucy, Ethelston is not here, but he is alive and safe.”
She hid her face in her brother’s breast, and found relief in a flood of grateful tears. As soon as Lucy had recovered her composure, her brother informed her of Ethelston’s captivity, and of the serious, though not dangerous, wounds that he had received; but he mingled with the narration such warm praises of his friend’s heroic defence of the brig, and so many sanguine assurances of his speedy release and return, that her fears and her anxiety were for a time absorbed in the glow of pride with which she listened to the praises of her lover’s conduct, and in the anticipation of soon having his adventures from his own lips. The faithful mate received a kind welcome from the Colonel, and though the latter had sustained a severe loss in the brig, he viewed it as a misfortune for which no one could be blamed; and directed all his anxiety and his inquiries to the condition of Ethelston, whom he loved as his own son.
“Depend on’t, Colonel,” said Gregson, “he’ll come to no harm where is he; for L’Estrange is a fine old fellow, and Master Ethelston saved his son’s neck from my cutlass. I was cuttin’ at him in downright airnest, for my dander was up; and you know, Colonel, a man a’nt particular nice in a deck scurry like that!”
“And what made him so anxious to save the youngster?” inquired the Colonel.
“Why I s’pose he thought the day was our own, and the lieutenant too smart a lad to be roughly handled for naught; but the young mad–cap put a pistol–ball into his arm by way of thanks.”
“Well, and did Ethelston still protect him?”
“Ay, sir, all the same. I’ve served with a number of captains o’ one sort or other, smugglers, and slave cruisers, and old Burt, that the Cuba pirates used to call Gunpowder Jack, but I will say I never saw a better man than Ethelston step a deck, whether it’s ‘up stick and make sail,’ or a heavy gale on a lee–shore, or a game at long bowls, or a hammer–away fight at yard–arm to yard–arm, it’s all one to our skipper, he’s just as cool, and seems as well pleased, as when it’s a free breeze, a clear sea, and Black Cupid has piped to dinner.”
“He is a gallant young fellow,” said the Colonel, brushing a little moisture from the corner of his eye; “and we will immediately take all possible measures for his liberation, both by applying, through Congress, for his exchange, and by communicating with the French agents at New Orleans.”
The conversation was protracted for some time; and after its termination, the mate having satisfied himself that the Mooshanne cider had lost none of its flavour, and that Monsieur Perrot’s flask contained genuine cognac, returned in high spirits to Marietta.
The preparations for Reginald’s expedition now went briskly forward, as the business which the Colonel wished him to transact with the trading companies on the Mississippi did not admit of delay. A large canoe was fitted out at Marietta, capable of containing sixteen or eighteen persons, and possessing sufficient stowage for the provisions and goods required: the charge of it was given to an experienced voyageur, who had more than once accompanied Baptiste in his excursions to the Upper Mississippi and the Great Lakes; he was a steady determined man, on whose fidelity reliance might be placed, and well calculated, from the firmness of his character, to keep in order the rough and sturdy fellows who formed his crew. Born and bred in that wild border region which now forms the State of Michigan, the woods, rapids, and lakes had been familiar to him from his childhood; unlike most of his tribe, he was singularly grave and taciturn; he always wore a bearskin cap, and, whether in his bateau, his canoe, or his log–hut, his bed was of the same material, so that he was known only by the name of “Bearskin;” his paternal appellation, whatever it might have been originally, having become altogether obsolete and unknown. His crew consisted of four stout fellows, who, like most of the Indian borderers, were as skilful in the use of the paddle on the river as in that of the rifle on the land. Among them was the gigantic form of Mike Smith, before mentioned in this narrative; all these were engaged by the Colonel, at a liberal salary, for six months, which was to be proportionately increased if they were detained in his service for a longer period. It was also settled that Monsieur Gustave Perrot should take his passage in the canoe; and to his care were entrusted the Indian presents, clothes, and other articles, which were his master’s own property. Reginald had resolved to cross the territory on horseback, accompanied by Baptiste, and he therefore meant to carry with him only such arms, and other articles, as were likely to be required on the journey.
The orders given to Bearskin were, to make the best of his way to St. Louis, and having delivered the letters with which he was entrusted, there to await Reginald’s arrival. The cargo of the canoe consisted chiefly (with the exception of a full supply of arms and provisions) of powder, cutlery, clothes of various colours, paints, mirrors, and a great variety of beads. Her equipment was soon completed, and she left Marietta amid the cheers of the crowd assembled on the wooden pier in front of David Muir’s store, the latter observing to our old friend the mate, who stood at his elbow, “I’m thinking, Maister Gregson, they chaps will hae eneugh o’ the red–skin deevils, an’ fur–huntin’ amongst a wheen wild trappers and daft neer–do–weels ayont the Mississippi! Weel a weel, ye maun just step ben and tak’ a stoup o’ cognac to the success o’ Bearskin and his crew.”
Although there was much in the merchant’s harangue that was like Greek or Hebrew to the mate, the closing invitation being adapted as well to his comprehension as to his inclination, he expressed a brief but cheerful acquiescence, and the worthy couple entered the house together. As soon as they were seated in the parlour, Jessie placed on the table some excellent corn–cakes and cheese, together with the before–mentioned cognac, and busied herself with even more than her wonted alacrity, to offer these good things to the father of the youth towards whom she entertained, as we have said, a secret but very decided partiality. She carried her hospitality so far as to bring a bottle of old madeira from David’s favourite corner in the cellar, which she decanted with great dexterity, and placed before the mate. The jolly tar complimented the merchant, after his own blunt fashion, both on the excellence of his liquor, and the attractions of his daughter, saying, in reference to the latter, “I can tell you, Master Muir, that I hold Jessie to be as handsome and as handy a lass as any in the territory. If I were twenty years younger, I should be very apt to clap on all sail, and try to make a prize of her!”
At this moment his son entered from the store, under the pretext of speaking to David about the sale of some goods, but with the object of being for a few minutes near to Jessie. He had never spoken to her of love, being afraid that his suit would certainly be rejected by her parents, who, from their reputed wealth, would doubtless expect to marry their daughter to one of the principal personages in the commonwealth of Marietta. As he entered, his eyes encountered those of Jessie, who was still blushing from the effect of the compliment paid to her by his father.
“Harry, my boy,” shouted the mate, “you are just come in time; I have filled a glass of David’s prime 84, and you must give me a toast! Now, my lad, speak up; heave a–head!”
“Father, I am ashamed of you!” replied the youth, colouring. “How can you ask for another toast when Miss Jessie’s standing at your elbow?”
“The boy’s right,” said the sailor, “and he shall drink it, too; shan’t he, David?”
“I’m thinking ye’ll no need to ask him twice. Jessie, hand the lad a glass!”
At her father’s bidding she brought another glass from the cupboard; and in giving it to young Gregson, one or other of them was so awkward, that, instead of it, he took her hand in his; and although he relinquished it immediately, there was a pressure, unconscious perhaps, but so distinctly perceptible to Jessie, that she blushed still deeper, and felt almost relieved by hearing her name called from the store in the loudest key of her mother’s shrill voice, while it was repeated yet more loudly by the honest mate, who gave the toast as she left the room, “Here’s Jessie Muir,—a long life, and a happy one, to her!”
Henry Gregson drank the madeira, but he scarcely knew whether it was sweet or sour, for his blood still danced with the touch of Jessie’s hand; and setting down the glass, he returned abruptly to the store, whether in the hope of stealing another look at her, or to enjoy his own reflections on the last few minutes, the reader may determine for himself.
The mate and the merchant continued their sitting until the bottle of madeira was empty, and the flask of cognac was considerably diminished: and although their conversation was doubtless highly interesting, and worthy of being listened to with the greatest attention, yet, as it did not bear immediately upon the events of our narrative, we will leave it unrecorded amongst the many other valuable treasures of a similar kind which are suffered day by day to sink into oblivion.
M. Perrot being now fairly under way, and having taken with him all the articles required by Reginald for his Indian expedition, our hero resolved no longer to delay his own departure, being about to encounter a very tedious land journey before he could reach St. Louis, and being also desirous of performing it by easy marches, in order that Nekimi might arrive at the Osage hunting–camp fresh, and ready for any of those emergencies in which success might depend upon his strength and swiftness. Baptiste was now quite in his element; and an early day being fixed for their departure, he packed the few clothes and provisions which they were likely to require on the journey, in two capacious leather bags, which were to be slung across the rough hardy nag which had accompanied him on more than one distant expedition, and he was soon able to announce to Reginald that he was ready to start at an hour’s notice.
The parting of our hero from his family was somewhat trying to his firmness; for poor Lucy, whose nerves were much affected by her own sorrows, could not control her grief. Aunt Mary also shed tears, whilst, mingled with her repeated blessings, and excellent counsel, she gave him several infallible recipes for the cure of cuts, bruises, and the bite of rattlesnakes. The Colonel squeezed his hand with concealed emotion, and bid him remember those whom he left behind, and not incur any foolish risk in the pursuit of amusement, or in the excitement of Indian adventure. But it was in parting with his mother that his feelings underwent the severest trial, for her health had long been gradually declining; and although she evinced the resigned composure which marked her gentle uncomplaining character, there was a deep solemnity in her farewell benediction, arising from a presentiment that they might not meet again on this side of the grave. It required all the beauty of the scenery through which he passed, and all the constitutional buoyancy of his spirits, to enable Reginald to shake off the sadness which crept over him, when he caught from a rising ground the last glimpse of Mooshanne; but the fresh elasticity of youth ere long prevailed, and he ran his fingers through the glossy mane that hung over Nekimi’s arching crest, anticipating with pleasure the wild adventures by flood and field that they would share together.
Reginald wore the deer–skin hunting–suit that we have before described: his rifle he had sent with the canoe, the bugle was slung across his shoulders, a brace of horse–pistols were in the holsters, and a hunting–knife hanging at his girdle completed his equipment. The sturdy guide was more heavily armed; for besides his long rifle, which he never quitted, a knife hung on one side of his belt, and at the other was slung the huge axe which had procured him the name by which he was known among some of the tribes; but in spite of these accoutrements, and of the saddle–bags before mentioned, his hardy nag paced along with an enduring vigour that would hardly have been expected from one of so coarse and unpromising an exterior; sometimes their way lay through the vast prairies which were still found in the states of Indiana and Illinois; at others among dense woods and rich valleys, through which flowed the various tributaries that swell Ohio’s mighty stream, the guide losing no opportunity of explaining to Reginald as they went all the signs and secret indications of Indian or border wood–craft that occurred. They met with abundance of deer, and at night they made their fire; and, having finished their venison supper, camped under the shelter of some ancient oak or sycamore. Thus Reginald’s hardy frame became on this preliminary journey more inured to the exposure that he would have to undergo among the Osages and Delawares of the Far–west: they fell in now and then with straggling bands of hunters and of friendly Indians, but with no adventures worthy of record; and thus, after a steady march of twenty days, they reached the banks of the Mississippi, and crossed in the ferry to St. Louis.
Chapter XVI
THE ESCAPE OF ETHELSTON FROM GUADALOUPE, AND THE CONSEQUENCES WHICH ENSUED FROM THAT EXPEDITION.
We left Ethelston on the deck of the little schooner, which was bearing him rapidly from the shores of Guadaloupe, under the influence of an easterly wind, so strong that all his attention was absorbed in the management of the vessel. During the night the gale increased, and blew with unabated violence for forty–eight hours. The Seagull, for so she was called, scudded lightly before it; and on the third day, Ethelston had made by his log upwards of five hundred miles of westerly course.
Having only two hands on board, and the weather being so uncommonly boisterous, he had been kept in constant employment, and had only been able to snatch a few brief intervals for sleep and refreshment: he found Jacques the coxswain an active able seaman, but extremely silent and reserved, obeying exactly the orders he received, but scarcely uttering a word, even to Cupid; it was he alone who attended upon the invalid and the nurse in the after–cabin; and the weather having now moderated, Ethelston asked how the youth had borne the pitching and tossing of the vessel during the late gale. Jacques replied, that he was not worse, and seemed not to suffer from the sea. The captain was satisfied, and retired to his cabin; he had not been there long before Cupid entered; and carefully shutting the door behind him, stood before his master, with a peculiar expression of countenance, which the latter well knew to intimate some unexpected intelligence.
“Well, Cupid, what is it?” said Ethelston, “is there a suspicious sail in sight?”
“Very suspicious, Massa Ethelston,” replied the black, grinning and lowering his voice to a whisper, “and suspicious goods aboard the schooner.”
“What mean you, Cupid?”
“There is some trick aboard. I not like that Jacques that never speak, and I not like that sick boy and his nurse, that nobody never see.”
“But why should you be angry, Cupid, with the poor boy because he is sick? I have promised to deliver him safe to his friends at New Orleans, and I hope soon, with this breeze, to perform my promise.”
“Massa Ethelston, I believe it all one damn trick—I not believe there is one sick boy: when Jacques come in and go out of that cabin he creep, and look, and listen, and watch like the Colonel’s grey cat at the cheese cupboard. Cupid no pretend to much learnin’, but he no be made fool of by damn French nigger, and he no tell Massa Ethelston a lie.” So saying, the African withdrew as quietly as he had entered.
After musing some time on his follower’s communication and suspicions, he resolved to unravel whatever mystery might be attached to the matter, by visiting the invalid immediately. On his knocking gently at the door for admission, he was answered from within by the nurse that her patient was asleep, and ought not now to be disturbed; but being determined not to allow another day to pass in uncertainty, he went on deck, and summoning Jacques, told him to go down presently and inform the nurse that in the evening, as soon as her patient was awake, he should pay him a visit.
Jacques received this mandate with some confusion, and began to stammer something about the “poor boy not being disturbed.”
“Harkee, sir,” said Ethelston sternly; “I am captain on board this craft, and will be obeyed: as you go into that cabin three or four times a day to attend upon the invalid, methinks my presence cannot be so dangerous. I will take the risk upon myself: you hear my orders, sir, and they are not to be trifled with!”
Jacques disappeared, and Ethelston remained pacing the deck. In about half an hour the latter came up to him and said, “The young gentleman will receive the captain at sundown.”
“Very well,” replied Ethelston, and continued to pace the deck, revolving in his mind all the strange events of the last month,—his illness, the unfortunate passion of Nina, and her strange behaviour when he bid her farewell.
At the appointed time he went down, and again knocked at the side cabin door for admission: it was opened by the nurse, apparently a young woman of colour, who whispered to him in French, “Go in, sir, and speak gently to him, for he is very delicate.” So saying, she left the cabin, and closed the door behind her.
Ethelston approached the sofa, on which the grey evening light permitted him to see a slight figure, covered with a mantle; and addressing the invalid kindly, he said, “I fear, young sir, you must have suffered much during the gale.”
“No, I thank you,” was the reply, but so faintly uttered as to be scarcely audible.
“Can I do anything to make your stay on board more comfortable?”
“Yes,” was the whispered answer.
“Then tell me what, or how; as I have promised to do all in my power to make the voyage agreeable to you.”
After a pause of a minute, during which the invalid seemed struggling with repressed emotion, the mantle was suddenly thrown aside, the recumbent figure sprang from the sofa, and Nina stood before him! “Yes,” she said; “you have promised—and my ears drank in the promise: for it, and for you, I have abandoned home, country, kindred,—what do I say,—I have abandoned nothing; for you are to me home, kindred, country, every thing! Dear, dear Ethelston! this moment repays me for all I have suffered.” As she spoke thus, she threw her arms round his neck, and hid her blushing face upon his breast.
Ethelston was so completely taken by surprise, that for a moment he could not utter a syllable. Mistaking his silence for a full participation in her own impassioned feelings, and looking up in her face, her eyes beaming with undisguised affection, and her dark tresses falling carelessly over her beautiful neck, she continued, “Oh, speak—speak one gentle word,—nay, rather break not this delicious silence, and let me dream here for ever.”
If Ethelston was for a moment stupified, partly by surprise, and partly by the effect of her surpassing loveliness, it was but for a moment. His virtue, pride, and honour were aroused, and the suggestions of passion found no entrance to his heart. Firmly, but quietly replacing her on the sofa she had quitted, he said, in a voice more stern than he had ever before used when addressing her. “Nina, you have grieved me more than I can express; you have persisted in seeking a heart which I frankly told you was not mine to give. I see no longer in you the Nina whom I first knew in Guadaloupe,—gentle, affectionate, and docile,—but a wild, headstrong girl, pursuing a wayward fancy, regardless of truth, and of that maidenly reserve which is woman’s sweetest charm. Not only have you thus hurt my feelings, but you have brought a stain upon my honour,—nay, interrupt me not,” he added, seeing that she was about to speak; “for I must tell you the truth, and you must learn to bear it, even though it may sound harsh to your ears. I repeat, you have brought a stain upon my honour,—for what will your respected father think of the man whom he received wounded, suffering, and a prisoner—whom he cherished with hospitable kindness, and who now requites all his benefits by stealing from his roof the daughter of his love, the ornament and blessing of his home? Nina, I did not think that you would have brought this disgrace and humiliation upon my name! I have now a sacred and a painful duty before me, and I will see you no more until I have restored you to the arms of an offended father. I hope he will forgive you, as I do, for the wrong that you have done to both of us. Farewell, Nina.” With these words, spoken in a voice trembling with contending emotions, he turned and left the cabin.
Reader! have you ever dwelt in Sicily, or in any other southern island of volcanic formation? If so, you may have seen a verdant spot near the base of the mountain, where the flowers and the herbage were smiling in the fresh beauty of summer,—where the luxuriant vine mingled her tendrils with the spreading branches of the elm,—where the air was loaded with fragrance, and the ear was refreshed by the hum of bees and the murmur of a rippling stream: on a sudden, the slumbering mountain–furnace is aroused—the sulphurous crater pours forth its fiery deluge, and in a moment the spot so lately teeming with life, fertility, and fragrance is become the arid, barren abode of desolation. If, reader, you have seen this fearful change on the face of nature, or if you can place it vividly before your imagination, then may you conceive the state of Nina’s mind, when her long–cherished love was thus abruptly and finally rejected by the man for whom she had sacrificed her home, her parents, and her pride! It is impossible for language to portray an agony such as that by which all the faculties of her soul and body seemed absorbed and benumbed. She neither spoke nor wept, nor gave any outward sign of suffering, but, with bloodless and silent lips, sat gazing on vacancy.
Fanchette returned, and looked on her young mistress with fear and dread. She could neither elicit a word in reply, nor the slightest indication of her repeated entreaties being understood. Nina suffered her hands to be chafed, her temples to be bathed, and at length broke into a loud hysteric laugh, that rang through the adjoining cabin, and sent a thrill to the heart of Ethelston. Springing on deck, he ordered Jacques to go below, and aid Fanchette in attending on her young lady; and then, with folded arms, he leaned over the low bulwark, and sat meditating in deep silence on the events of the day.
The moon had risen, and her beams silvered the waves through which the schooner was cutting her way; scarcely a fleeting cloud obscured the brightness of the sky, and all nature seemed hushed in the calm and peaceful repose of night. How different from the fearful storm now raging in the bosom of the young girl from whom he was divided only by a few inches of plank! He shuddered when that thought arose, but his conscience told him that he was acting aright, and, indulging in the reverie that possessed him, he saw a distant figure in the glimmering moonlight, which, as it drew near, grew more and more distinct, till it wore the form, the features, and the approving smile of his Lucy! Confirmed and strengthened in his resolutions, he started from his seat, and bid the astonished Cupid, who was now at the helm, to prepare to go about, and stand to the eastward. Jacques was called from below, the order was repeated in a sterner voice, the sails were trimmed, and in a few minutes the schooner was close–hauled and laying her course, as near as the wind would permit, for Guadaloupe.
While these events were passing on board The Seagull, Captain L’Estrange had returned in the frigate to Point à Pitre. His grief and anger may be better imagined than described, when he learnt the flight of his daughter and of his prisoner, together with the loss of his yacht and two of his slaves.
Concluding that the fugitives would make for New Orleans, he dispatched The Hirondelle immediately in pursuit, with orders to discover them if possible, and to bring them back by stratagem or force. He also wrote to Colonel Brandon, painting in the blackest colours the treachery and ingratitude of Ethelston, and calling upon him, as a man of honour, to disown and punish the perpetrator of such an outrage on the laws of hospitality.
Meanwhile the latter was straining every nerve to reach again the island from which he had so lately escaped. In this object he was hindered, not only by baffling winds, but by the obstinacy of Jacques, who, justly fearing the wrath of his late master, practised every manœuvre to frustrate Ethelston’s design. But the latter was on his guard; and unless he was himself on deck, never trusted the helm in the coxswain’s hands.
He learnt from Fanchette that Nina was in a high fever, and quite delirious; but though he inquired constantly after her, and ordered every attention to be paid to her that was within his power, he adhered firmly to the resolution that he had formed of never entering her cabin.
After a few days’ sailing to the eastward, when Ethelston calculated that he should not now be at a great distance from Guadaloupe, he fell in with a vessel which proved to be The Hirondelle. The Seagull was immediately recognised; and the weather being fair, the lieutenant, and eight men, came on board. The French officer was no sooner on the deck than he ordered his men to seize and secure Ethelston, and to place the two blacks in irons.
It was in vain that Ethelston indignantly remonstrated against such harsh and undeserved treatment. The officer would listen to no explanation; and without deigning a reply, ordered his men to carry their prisoners on board The Hirondelle.
On reaching Point à Pitre, they were all placed in separate places of confinement; and Nina was, not without much risk and difficulty, conveyed to her former apartment in her father’s house. The delirium of fever seemed to have permanently affected the poor girl’s brain. She sang wild snatches of songs, and told those about her that her lover was often with her, but that he was invisible. Sometimes she fancied herself on board a ship, and asked them which way the wind blew, and whether they were near the shore. Then she would ask for a guitar, and tell them that she was a mermaid, and would sing them songs that the fishes loved to hear.
The distracted father often sat and listened to these incoherent ravings, until he left the room in an agony not to be described; and when alone, vented the most fearful imprecations on the supposed treachery and ingratitude of Ethelston. He could not bring himself to see the latter; “for,” said he, “I must kill him, if I set eyes on his hateful person:” but he one day wrote the following lines, which he desired to be delivered to his prisoner:—
“A father, whose indignation is yet greater than his agony, desires to know what plea you can urge in extenuation of the odious crimes laid to your charge:—the deliberate theft of his slaves and yacht, and the abduction and ruin of his child, in recompense for misplaced trust, kindness, and hospitality?”
Poor Ethelston, in the gloomy solitude of the narrow chamber where he was confined, read and re–read the above lines many times before he would trust himself to reply to them. He felt for the misery of L’Estrange, and he was too proud and too generous to exculpate himself by the narration of Nina’s conduct: nay, although he knew that by desiring L’Estrange to examine separately Fanchette and Jacques, his own innocence, and the deceit practised upon him, would be brought to light, he could not bring himself to forget that delicacy which Nina had herself forgotten; nor add, to clear himself, one mite to the heavy weight of visitation that had already fallen upon her. He contented himself with sending the following answer:—
“Sir,
“Your words, though harsh, would be more than merited by the crimes of which you believe me guilty. There is a Being above, who reads the heart, and will judge the conduct of us all. If I am guilty of the crimes imputed to me, His vengeance will inflict on me, through the stings of conscience, punishment more terrible even than the wrath of a justly offended father could desire for the destroyer of his child. If I am not guilty, He, in His own good time, will make it known, and will add to your other heavy sorrows regret for having unjustly charged with such base ingratitude
“Your servant and prisoner, “E. ETHELSTON.”
On receiving the above letter, which seemed dictated by a calm consciousness of rectitude, L’Estrange’s belief of his prisoner’s guilt was for a moment staggered; and had he bethought himself of cross–examining the other partners in the escape, he would doubtless have arrived at the truth; but his feelings were too violently excited to permit the exercise of his reason; and tearing the note to pieces, he stamped upon it, exclaiming in a paroxysm of rage, “Dissembling hypocrite! does he think to cozen me with words, as he has poisoned poor Nina’s peace?”
Her disorder now assumed a different character. The excitement of delirium ceased, and was succeeded by a feebleness and gradual wasting, which baffled all the resources of medicine; and such was the apathy and stupor that clouded her faculties, that even her father could scarcely tell whether she knew him or not. In this state she continued for several days; and the physician at length informed L’Estrange that he must prepare himself for the worst, and that all hope of recovery was gone.
Madame L’Estrange had, under the pressure of anxiety, forgotten her habitual listlessness, and watched by her daughter’s couch with a mother’s unwearied solicitude. On the night succeeding the above sad announcement, Nina sunk into a quiet sleep, which gave some hope to her sanguine parents, and induced them also to permit themselves a few hours’ repose.
In the morning she awoke: her eye no longer dwelt on vacancy: a slight flush was visible on her transparent cheek, and she called her father, in a voice feeble indeed, but clear and distinct. Who shall paint the rapture with which he hailed the returning dawn of reason and of hope? But his joy was of brief duration; for Nina, beckoning him to approach yet nearer, said “God be thanked that I may yet beg your blessing and forgiveness, dearest father!” then pressing her wasted hand upon her brow, she continued, after a short pause, “Yes, I remember it all now—all; the orange–grove—the flight—the ship—the last meeting! Oh; tell me, where is he?—where is Ethelston?”
“He is safe confined,” answered L’Estrange, scarcely repressing his rage; “he shall not escape punishment. The villain shall yet know the weight of an injured father’s—“ Ere he could conclude the sentence, Nina, by a sudden exertion, half rose in her bed, and grasping his arm convulsively, said, “Father, curse him not—you know not what you say; it is on me, on me alone, that all your anger should fall: listen, and speak not, for my hours are numbered, and my strength nearly spent.” She then proceeded to tell him in a faint but distinct voice, all the particulars already known to the reader, keeping back nothing in her own defence, and confessing how Ethelston had been deceived, and how she had madly persisted in her endeavours to win his love, after he had explicitly owned to her that his heart and hand were promised to another.
“I solemnly assure you,” she said in conclusion, “that he never spoke to me of love, that he warned me as a brother, and reproved me as a father; but I would not be counselled. His image filled my thoughts, my senses, my whole soul—it fills them yet; and if you wish your poor Nina to die in peace, let her see you embrace him as a friend and son.” So saying she sunk exhausted on her pillow.
L’Estrange could scarcely master the agitation excited by this narration. After a short pause he replied, “My poor child! I fear you dream again. I wrote only a few days ago to Ethelston, charging him with his villany, and asking what he could say in his defence? His reply was nothing but a canting subterfuge.”
“What was it?” inquired Nina, faintly.
L’Estrange repeated the words of the note. As he did so a sweet smile stole over her countenance; and clasping her hands together, she exclaimed, “Like himself—noble, generous Ethelston! Father, you are blind; he would not exculpate himself by proclaiming your daughter’s shame! If you doubt me, question Fanchette—Jacques—who know it all too well; but you will not doubt me, dear—dear father! By that Being to whose presence I am fast hastening, I tell you only the truth; by His name I conjure you to comfort my last moments, by granting my last request!”
L’Estrange averted his face: and rising almost immediately, desired an attendant to summon Ethelston without delay.
A long pause ensued: Nina’s lips moved as if in silent prayer; and her father, covering his face with his hands, struggled to control the anguish by which his firmness was all but overpowered. At length Ethelston entered the room; he had been informed that Nina was very ill, but was by no means aware of the extremity of her danger. Naturally indignant at the treatment he had lately received, knowing it to be undeserved, and ignorant of the purpose for which he was now called, his manner was cold, and somewhat haughty, as he inquired the commands which Captain L’Estrange might have for his prisoner.
The agonised father sought in vain for utterance: his only reply was to point to the almost lifeless form of his child.
One glance from the bed to the countenance of L’Estrange was sufficient to explain all to Ethelston, who sprang forward, and, wringing the old captain’s hand, faltered in a voice of deep emotion, “Oh! forgive me for so speaking,—I knew nothing—nothing of this dreadful scene!” then turning from him, he fixed his eyes upon Nina, while the convulsive working of his features showed that his habitual self–command was scarcely equal to support the present unexpected trial.
The deadly paleness of her brow contrasted with the disordered tresses of her dark hair, the long eyelashes, reposing upon the transparent cheek, which wore a momentary hectic glow, the colourless lip, and the thin wan fingers, crossed meekly upon her breast,—all gave to her form and features an air of such unearthly beauty, that Ethelston almost doubted whether the spirit still lingered in its lovely mansion: but his doubts were soon resolved; for having finished the unuttered but fervent prayer which she had been addressing to the Throne of Grace, she again unclosed her eyes; and when they rested upon his countenance, a sweet smile played round her lip, and a warmer flush came over her cheek. Extending her hand to him, she said, “Can you forgive me for all the wrong I have done you?”
In reply, he pressed her fingers to his lips, for he could not speak. She continued: “I know that I grievously wronged my parents; but the wrong which I did to you was yet more cruel. God be thanked for giving me this brief but precious hour for atonement. You more than once called me your sister and your friend!—be a brother to me now. And you, dearest father, if your love outweighs my fault,—if you wish your child to die happy, embrace him for my sake, and repair the injustice that you have done to his generous nature!”
The two men looked at each other; their hearts were melted, and their cordial embrace brought a ray of gladness to Nina’s eyes. “God be thanked!” she murmured faintly. “Let my mother now come, that I may receive her blessing too.”
While L’Estrange went to summon his wife to a scene which the weakness of her mind and nerves rendered her unequal to support, Nina continued: “Dear, dear Ethelston, let me hear your voice; the madness, the passion, the jealousy, that filled my bosom are all past; but the love is there, imperishable: tell me, my friend, counsellor, brother, that you are not angry with me for saying so now.”
Again the wasted fingers were pressed to his burning lip; his tongue could not yet find utterance, but a tear which fell upon them told to the sufferer that there was no indifference in that silence.
Captain L’Estrange now entered, accompanied by his wife. Although a weak and foolish woman, her heart was not dead to those natural affections of a mother which the present scene might be expected to call forth; she wept long and violently over her dying child, and perhaps her grief might be embittered by a whisper of conscience that her sufferings were more or less attributable to neglected education. Fearing that her mother’s excessive agitation might exhaust Nina’s scanty store of remaining strength, Ethelston suggested to Captain L’Estrange to withdraw her into the adjoining apartment; and approaching the sufferer, he whispered a few words in her ear. A sweet smile played upon her countenance as she answered, “Yes, and without delay.”
Following her retiring parents from the room, he motioned to the priest, who was waiting at the door, to enter; and the sad party remained together while the confessor performed the rites of his sacred office. Madame L’Estrange was so overpowered by her grief, that she was removed, almost insensible, to her own apartment; while, upon a signal from the holy man, Ethelston and the father re–entered that of Nina.
Addressing the latter, she said, in a faint voice, “Dearest father, I have made my peace with Heaven; let me add one more prayer to you for peace and forgiveness on earth!”
“Speak it, my child; it is already granted,” said the softened veteran.
“Pardon, for my sake, Fanchette and Jacques: they have committed a great offence; but it was I who urged them to it.”
“It is forgiven; and they shall not be punished,” replied L’Estrange: while Ethelston, deeply touched by this amiable remembrance of the offending slaves at such a moment, whispered to her in a low voice—
“‘Blessed are the peace–makers; for they shall be called the children of God!’”
A grateful pressure of the hand which he had placed in hers was the only reply, as she continued, addressing L’Estrange, “And let them marry, father; I know they love each other; and those who love should marry.” Here her voice became feebler and feebler, as, once more opening her dark eyes, which shone with preternatural lustre upon Ethelston, she added, “You, too, will marry; but none will ever love you like your ... sister!—closer—closer yet! let me feel your breath. Father, join your hand to his—so! This death is—Par——“
The closing word died upon her lips; but the angelic smile that lingered there seemed to emanate from that Paradise which their last moments strove in vain to name. Her earthly sorrows were at rest, and the bereaved father fell exhausted into Ethelston’s arms.
Chapter XVII
EXCURSION ON THE PRAIRIE.—THE PARTY FALL IN WITH A VETERAN HUNTER.
We must now return to Reginald and his trusty follower; Baptiste, whom we left at St. Louis, where they were busily employed in disposing of Colonel Brandon’s share of the peltries brought in by the trapping party, which he had partly furnished the preceding year. They did not find much difficulty in effecting an advantageous sale to two of the other partners in the expedition,—active, enterprising men, who, from their connection with the Mackinaw Fur Company, were sure of reselling at considerable profit.
As soon as these affairs were settled, Reginald, who had been joined by Perrot, Bearskin, and the remaining crew of the canoe, resolved to defer no longer his proposed journey into the Osage country. He left all the arrangements to Baptiste and Bearskin, under whose superintendence the preparations advanced so rapidly, that at the end of a week they were satisfactorily completed.
It had been determined to leave the canoe at St. Louis, and to perform the journey by land; for this purpose a strong saddle–horse was purchased for each of the party, together with six pack–horses, and as many mules, for the transfer of the ammunition, baggage, and presents for their Indian allies. Four additional Canadian “coureurs des bois” were engaged to take charge of the packs; so that, when they started for the Western Prairies, the party mustered twelve in number, whose rank and designation were as follow:—
Reginald Brandon; Baptiste, his lieutenant; Bearskin, who, in the absence of the two former, was to take the command; M. Perrot, Mike Smith, with three other border–hunters, and the four Canadians, completed the party.
Baptiste had taken care to place among the packages an abundance of mirrors, cutlery, and other articles most highly prized by the savages. He had also selected the horses with the greatest care, and two spare ones were taken, in case of accidents by the way. When all was ready, even the taciturn Bearskin admitted that he had never seen a party so well fitted out, in every respect, for an Indian expedition.
It was a lovely morning when they left St. Louis, and entered upon the broad track which led through the deep Missourian forest, with occasional openings of prairie towards a trading–post lately opened on the Osage, a river which runs from S. W. to N. E. and falls into the Missouri. Of all the party, none were in such exuberant spirits as Perrot, who, mounted on an active, spirited, little Mestang horse[22], capering beside the bulky figure of Mike Smith, addressed to him various pleasantries in broken English, which the other, if he understood them, did not deign to notice.
It was now near the close of May, and both the prairie and the woodland scenery were clad in the beautiful and varied colours of early summer; the grassy road along which they wound their easy way was soft and elastic to the horses’ hoofs; and as they travelled farther from the settlements scattered near St. Louis, the frequent tracks of deer which they observed tempted Reginald to halt his party, and encamp for the night, while he and Baptiste sallied forth to provide for them a venison supper.
After a short hunting ramble they returned, bearing with them the saddle of a fine buck. A huge fire was lighted; the camp–kettles and other cooking utensils were in immediate request, and the travellers sat down to enjoy their first supper in the Missourian wilderness.
Monsieur Perrot was now quite in his element, and became at once an universal favourite, for never had any of the party tasted coffee or flour–cakes so good, or venison steaks of so delicate a flavour. His good–humour was as inexhaustible as his inventive culinary talent; and they were almost disposed to believe in his boasting assurance, that so long as there was a buffalo–hide or an old mocassin left among them, they should never want a good meal.
Having supped and smoked a comfortable pipe, they proceeded to bivouac for the night. By the advice of Baptiste, Reginald had determined to accustom his party, from the first, to those precautionary habits which might soon become so essential to their safety; a regular rotation of sentry duty was established, the horses were carefully secured, and every man lay down with his knife in his belt, and his loaded rifle at his side: the packs were all carefully piled, so as to form a low breastwork, from behind which they might fire in case of sudden attack; and when these dispositions were completed, those who were not on the watch wrapped themselves in their blankets or buffalo skins, and, with their feet towards the fire, slept as comfortably as on a bed of down.
For two days they continued their march in a north–west direction, meeting with no incident worthy of record; the hunters found abundance of game of every description, and Monsieur Perrot’s skill was daily exercised upon prairie–hens, turkeys, and deer. On the third day, as they were wending their way leisurely down a wooded valley, the sharp crack of a rifle was heard at no great distance. Reginald, desiring to ascertain whether Indians or White men were hunting in the neighbourhood, halted his party, and went forward, accompanied by Baptiste, to endeavour, unperceived, to approach the person whose shot they had heard. A smooth grassy glade facilitated their project, and a slight column of smoke curling up from an adjoining thicket served to guide them towards the spot. Ere they had advanced far, the parting of the brushwood showed them that the object of their search was approaching the place where they stood, and they had barely time to conceal themselves in a bush of sumach, when the unknown hunter emerged from the thicket, dragging after him a fine deer. He was a powerful man of middling height, not very unlike Baptiste in dress and appearance, but even more embrowned and weather–beaten than the trusty guide; he seemed to be about fifty years of age, and the hair on his temples was scant and grey; his countenance was strikingly expressive of boldness and resolution, and his eye seemed as clear and bright as that of a man in the early prime of life. Leaning his rifle against an adjoining tree, he proceeded to handle and feel his quarry, to ascertain the proportions of fat and meat; the examination seemed not unsatisfactory, for when it was concluded he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and with a complacent smile muttered half aloud, “Ah, ‘t ain’t every day as a man can find a saddle like that in old Kentuck now—what with their dogs, and girdlins, and clearins, and hog–feedings, and the other devilments of the settlements, the deer’s all driven out of the country, or if it ain’t driven out, they run all the fat off, so that it’s only fit to feed one of your tradin’ town–bred fellows, who wouldn’t know a prime buck from a Lancaster sheep!”
After this brief soliloquy, the veteran sportsman tucked up the sleeve of his hunting–shirt, and proceeded to skin and cut up his quarry, with a skill and despatch that showed him to be a perfect master of his craft. Reginald and Baptiste had remained silent observers of his proceedings, but the former inferred from the pleased twinkle of the guide’s grey eyes, and the comic working of the muscles of his mouth, that the solitary hunter was no stranger to him: touching Baptiste lightly, he whispered, “I see that we have come across an acquaintance of yours in this remote place.”
“That we have Master Reginald,” said the guide; “and you’d have known him too, if you’d spent some of the years in Kentuck as you passed at those colleges in the old country; but we’ll just step out and hail him, for though he ain’t particular fond of company, he’s not the man to turn his back on a friend to whom he has once given his hand.”
So saying he rose from his hiding–place, and coming out on the open glade, before Reginald could inquire the stranger’s name, the guide said aloud, “A prime buck, colonel; I see your hand’s as steady as ever!”
At the first sound of a voice addressing him in his own language, a shade of displeasure came across the hunter’s countenance; but as he recognised the speaker it disappeared instantly, and he replied, “Ha! Baptiste, my old friend, is that you? What chase are you on here?”
So saying, he grasped the horney hand of the guide with a heartiness which proved that the latter was really welcome.
“Why, colonel, I’m out on a kind o’ mixed hunt this turn with this young gentleman, whose father, Colonel Brandon, you’ve known many a day. Master Reginald, I’m sure you’ll be glad to be acquainted with Colonel Boone, howbeit you little expected to find him in this part of the airth.”
At the mention of the stranger’s name, Reginald’s hand was raised unconsciously to his cap, which he doffed respectfully as he said, “I am indeed glad to meet the celebrated Daniel Boone, whose name is as familiar to every western hunter as that of Washington or Franklin in our cities.”
“My young friend,” said the colonel, laughing good–humouredly, “I am heartily glad to see your father’s son, but you must not bring the ways of the city into the woods, by flattering a rough old bear–hunter with fine words.”
“Nay,” said Reginald, “there is no flattery, for Baptiste here has spoken of you to me a hundred times, and has told me as often, that a better hunter or a better man does not breathe. You seem to have known him some time, and must therefore be able to judge whether he is of a flattering sort or not.”
“Why, it wasn’t much his trade, I allow,” replied the colonel, “in old times, when he and I hunted bear for three weeks together in the big laurel thicket at Kentucky Forks. I believe, Baptiste, that axe at your belt is the very one with which you killed the old she, who wasn’t pleased because we shot down two of her cubs; she hadn’t manners enough to give us time to load again: and when you split her skull handsomely, she was playing a mighty unpleasant game with the stock of my rifle. Ah, that was a reasonable quiet country in those days,” continued the colonel: “we had no trouble, but a lively bit of a skrimmage, now and then, with the Indians, until the Browns, and Frasers, and Micklehams, and heaven knows how many more, came to settle in it; and what with their infernal ploughs, and fences, and mills, the huntin’ was clean spoilt. I stayed as long as I could, for I’d a kind o’ likin’ to it; but at last I couldn’t go ten mile any way without comin’ to some clearin’ or log–hut; so says I to myself, ‘colonel, the sooner you clear out o’ this, the better you’ll be pleased.’”
“Well, colonel,” said the guide, “I heard you had moved away from the Forks, and had gone further down west, but they never told me you had crossed the big river.”
“I only came here last fall,” replied the colonel; “for I found, in Kentucky, that as fast as I moved, the settlers and squatters followed; so I thought I’d dodge ‘em once for all, and make for a country where the deer and I could live comfortably together.”
“As we have thus accidentally fallen in with you,” said Reginald, “I hope you will take a hunter’s meal with us before we part; our men and baggage are not a mile from this spot, and Colonel Boone’s company will be a pleasure to us all.”
The invitation was accepted as frankly as it was given.
Baptiste shouldered the colonel’s venison, and in a short time the three rejoined Reginald’s party. Daniel Boone’s name alone was sufficient in the west to ensure him a hearty welcome. Perrot’s talents were put into immediate requisition, and ere long the game and poultry of the prairie were roasting before a capital fire, while the indefatigable Frenchman prepared the additional and unusual luxuries of hot maize–cakes and coffee.
During the repast, Reginald learnt from Colonel Boone that various parties of Indians had been lately hunting in the neighbourhood. He described most of them as friendly, and willing to trade in meat or skins for powder and lead; he believed them to belong to the Konsas, a tribe once powerful, and resident on the river called by that name, falling into the Missouri, about a hundred miles to the north–west of the place where our party were now seated; but the tribe had been of late reduced by the ravages of the small–pox, and by the incursions of the Pawnees, a nation more numerous and warlike, whose villages were situated a hundred miles higher up the same river.[23]
The colonel described the neighbourhood as abounding in elk, deer, bear, and turkeys: but he said that the beaver and the buffalo were already scarce, the great demand for their skins having caused them to be hunted quite out of the region bordering on the settlements. After spending a couple of hours agreeably with our party, the veteran sportsman shouldered his trusty rifle, and wishing our hero a successful hunt and shaking his old comrade Baptiste cordially by the hand, walked off leisurely in a northerly direction, towards his present abode; which was not, he said, so far distant but that he should easily reach it before sundown.
As the last glimpse of his retiring figure was lost in the shades of the forest, the guide uttered one of those grunts which he sometimes unconsciously indulged. Reginald knew that on these occasions there was something on his mind: and guessing that it referred to their departed guest, he said,—
“Well, Baptiste, I am really glad to have seen Daniel Boone; and I can truly say I am not disappointed; he seems to be just the sort of man that I expected to see.”
“He is a sort,” said the guide, “that we don’t see every day, Master Reginald. Perhaps he ain’t much of a talker; and he don’t use to quarrel unless there’s a reason for ‘t; but if he’s once aggravated, or if his friend’s in a scrape, he’s rather apt to be dangerous.”
“I doubt it not,” said Reginald; “there is a quiet look of resolution about him; and, in a difficulty, I would rather have one such man with me than two or three of your violent, noisy brawlers.”
As he said this his eye inadvertently rested upon the huge figure of Mike Smith, who was seated at a little distance, lazily smoking his pipe, and leaning against a log of fallen timber. The guide observed the direction of Reginald’s eye, and guessed what was passing in his mind. A grave smile stole for a moment over his features; but he made no reply, and in a few minutes, the marching orders being issued, the party resumed their journey.
On the following day they reached a point where the track branched off in two directions; the broader, and more beaten, to the N. W.; the other towards the S. W. The guide informed them that the former led along by the few scattered settlements that were already made on the southern side of the Missouri, towards the ferry and trading–post near the mouth of the Konsas river; while the smaller, and less beaten track, led towards the branch of Osage river, on which the united party of Delawares and Osages, whom they sought, were encamped.
Having followed this track for fifty miles, they came to a spot well known among hunters by the name of the Elk Flats, where the branch of the Osage, called Grand River, is fordable. Here they crossed without accident or difficulty, except that M. Perrot’s horse missed his footing, and slipped into a deeper part of the stream. The horse swam lustily, and soon reached the opposite bank; but the Frenchman had cast himself off, and now grasped with both hands an old limb of a tree that was imbedded near the middle of the river; he could just touch the ground with his feet; but, being a bad swimmer, he was afraid to let go his hold, for fear of being again swept away by the current, while his rueful countenance, and his cries for assistance, provoked the mirth of all the party.
After enjoying his valet’s alarm for a few minutes, Reginald, who had already crossed, entered the river again with Nekimi, and approaching Perrot, desired him to grasp the mane firmly in his hand, and leave the rest to the animal’s sagacity, which instruction being obeyed, he was safely brought ashore, and in a short time was laughing louder than the rest at his own fright, and at the ludicrous predicament from which he had been extricated.
The packages were all conveyed across without accident, and the party found themselves encamped in what was then considered a part of the Osage country. Here they were obliged to use greater vigilance in the protection of their camp and of their horses during the night, as they had not yet smoked the pipe with the chiefs, and were liable to an attack from a party of warriors or horse–stealers.
The night passed, however, without any disturbance; and on the following day at noon they reached a spot which Baptiste recognised as a former camping–place of the Osages, and which he knew to be not distant from their present village. Here his attention was suddenly drawn to an adjoining maple, on the bark of which sundry marks were rudely cut, and in a fork of the tree were three arrows, and as many separate bunches of horsehair. He examined all these carefully, and replaced them exactly as he found them; after which he informed Reginald that three braves of the Osages had gone forward during the past night on a war–excursion towards the Konsas, and all these marks were left to inform their followers of their purpose, and the exact path which they intended to pursue. He also advised Reginald to halt his party here, while he went on himself with one of the men to the village, it being contrary to the customs of Indian etiquette for a great man to come among them unannounced.
Reginald adopted his counsel, and the sturdy guide, accompanied by one of the coureurs des bois, set out upon his mission, the result of which will appear in the following chapter.
XVIII. REGINALD AND HIS PARTY REACH THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT
The guide and his companion pursued their way leisurely along a beaten track, which led them through a well–timbered valley, watered by one of the branches of Grand River, until it emerged upon a rising slope of open prairie. Having gained its summit, they saw at a little distance the Indian encampment stretched along the banks of a rivulet, which, after curving round the base of the hill on which they now stood, found its way to the line of heavy timber that marked the course of the main river. They were soon hailed by a mounted Delaware scout, to whom Baptiste explained the peaceful nature of his mission, and desired to be shown into the presence of the principal chiefs.
As the guide walked through the scattered lodges of the Delawares, his eye rested on more than one Indian to whom he was well known; but as he was now acting in the capacity of ambassador, it was not consistent with Indian usage that he should speak or be spoken to by others on the way. So well did he know the habits of the people among whom he now found himself, that when he arrived before the lodge of the Great Chief, he passed by War–Eagle and Wingenund, who had come to its entrance on the approach of a stranger, and giving them merely a silent sign of recognition, took the place pointed out to him in the centre of the lodge, by the side of the venerable man who was the head of this emigrant band of the Lenapé; to whom, as the highest proof of their respect and veneration, they had given the name of Tamenund[24], by which alone he was now known throughout the nation.
The pipe of welcome having been presented, and been smoked for a few minutes with becoming gravity, Baptiste opened to Tamenund the object of his visit, and informed him that a white warrior and chief, already known to some of the Delawares present, desired to eat, to smoke, and to hunt with them for a season as a brother. To this Tamenund, who had already been informed by War–Eagle of the character and conduct of Reginald, as well as of his promised visit, replied with becoming dignity and hospitality, that the young white chief should be welcome; that his heart was known to be great among the Delawares, and that both he and his people should be held as brothers; at the same time he informed the guide, that as they were about to move their encampment immediately to a more favourable spot, it might be better for the white chief to join them on the following morning, when all should be prepared for his reception.
The guide having acceded to this suggestion, rose to take his leave, and retired with his companion from the village. Before they had gone a mile on their return, they heard behind them the trampling of horses, and Baptiste recognised War–Eagle and Wingenund approaching at full speed, who greeted him cordially, and made many inquiries about Netis and the Lily of Mooshanne.
Having acquired the desired information, it was agreed, that before noon on the following day Reginald should come to the spot where they were now conversing, and that War–Eagle should be there to escort and accompany him to his first meeting with the Delaware and Osage chiefs.
These preliminaries being arranged, the Indians galloped back to the village, and Baptiste returned without accident or interruption to Reginald’s camp, where he gave an account of his mission and of the arrangements for the morrow’s conference.
Early on the following morning they set forth towards the Indian village. By Baptiste’s advice, Reginald attired himself more gaily than usual; his hunting–shirt and leggins of elk–skin were ornamented with fringes; the bugle slung across his shoulders was suspended by a green cord adorned with tassels; on his head he wore a forage–cap, encircled by a gold band; a brace of silver–mounted pistols were stuck in his belt, and a German boar–knife hung at his side; he had allowed Baptiste to ornament Nekimi’s bridle with beads after the Indian fashion; and the noble animal pranced under his gallant rider, as if conscious that he was expected to show his beauty and his mettle. The dress and appearance of Reginald, though fanciful and strange, was rendered striking by the grace and muscular vigour of his frame, as well as by the open, fearless character of his countenance; and the party of white men went gaily forward, confident in the favourable impression which their young leader would make on their Indian allies.
When they reached the spot where Baptiste had, on the preceding day, parted from War–Eagle, they descried two Indians sitting at the root of an old maple–tree, as if awaiting their arrival: a single glance enabled Reginald to recognise them, and springing from his horse, he greeted War–Eagle and Wingenund with affectionate cordiality, and read in the looks of both, though they spoke little, that he was heartily welcome. When they had saluted Baptiste, Reginald introduced them in form to the other members of his party, and, among the rest, to Monsieur Perrot, who having as yet seen few Indians, and those of the meanest class, was surprised at the noble and dignified appearance of War–Eagle, to whom he doffed his cap with as much respect as if he had been a field–marshal of France.
Having made a short halt, during which the pipe was passed round, and some cakes of Indian corn and honey set before their guests, the party again moved forward, under the guidance of War–Eagle. Leaving the heavy timber in the valley, they ascended the opposite hill, where a magnificent prospect opened upon their view; below them was an undulating prairie of boundless extent, through the middle of which ran a tributary branch of Grand River; behind them lay the verdant mass of forest from which they had lately emerged; the plain in front was dotted with the lodges of the Delawares and Osages, while scattered groups of Indians, and grazing horses, gave life, animation, and endless variety to the scene.
Halting for a moment on the brow of the hill, War–Eagle pointed out to Reginald the lodge of his father Tamenund, distinguished above the rest by its superior size and elevation, and at the same time showed him at the other extremity of the encampment, a lodge of similar dimensions, which he described as being that of the Osage chief.
“How is he called?” inquired Reginald.
“Mahéga,” replied the War–Eagle.
At the mention of this name, the guide uttered one of those peculiar sounds, something between a whistle and a grunt, by which Reginald knew that something was passing in his mind; but on this occasion, without apparently noticing the interruption, he continued, addressing War–Eagle, “Will Mahéga receive me too as a brother—is the Osage chief a friend to the white men?”
“Mahéga is a warrior,” replied the Indian; “he hunts with the Lenapé, and he must be a friend of their brother.”
Not only did this answer appear evasive, but there was also something more than usually constrained in the tone and manner of War–Eagle, which did not escape the observation of Reginald, and with the straightforward openness of his character, he said, “War–Eagle, my heart is open to you, and my tongue can be silent if required—speak to me freely, and tell me if Mahéga is a friend or not; is he a brave or a snake?”
War–Eagle, fixing his searching eye upon Reginald’s countenance, replied, “Mahéga is a warrior—the scalps in his lodge are many—his name is not a lie, but his heart is not that of a Lenapé—War–Eagle will not speak of him:—Grande–Hâche knows him, and my brother’s eyes will be open.”
Having thus spoken, the young chief added a few words in his own tongue to Baptiste; and making a sign for Wingenund to follow, he galloped off at speed towards the encampment.
Reginald, surprised, and somewhat inclined to be displeased by their abrupt departure, turned to the guide, and inquired the cause of it, and also the meaning of War–Eagle’s last words.
Baptiste, shaking his head significantly, replied in a low voice, “I know Mahéga well—at least I have heard much of him; his name signifies ‘Red–hand,’ and, as the young chief says, it tells no lie, for he has killed many: last year he attacked a war–party of the Outagamis[25] near the Great River, and cut them off to a man; he himself killed their chief and several of their warriors: they say he is the strongest and the bravest man in the nation.”
“It seems to me,” said Reginald, “that War–Eagle and he are not very good friends.”
“They are not,” replied Baptiste; “the young Delaware has evidently some quarrel with him, and therefore would not speak of him—we shall learn what it is before many days are over: meanwhile, Master Reginald, say nothing to any others of the party on this subject, for they may take alarm, or show suspicion; and if they do, your summer hunt may chance to end in rougher play than we expect. I will keep my eye on ‘Red–hand,’ and will soon tell you what tree he’s making for.”
“Why did they gallop off so abruptly?” inquired Reginald.
“They are gone to rejoin the bands which are coming out to receive us on our entrance,” replied the guide. “We must put our party in the best array, and get the presents ready, for we have not many minutes to spare.”
The event proved the correctness of his calculation; for they had scarcely time to select from the packs those articles destined to be presented to the chiefs at this interview, before they saw two large bands of mounted Indians gallop towards them from the opposite extremities of the encampment. As they drew near that which came from the Delaware quarter, and was headed by War–Eagle in person, they checked their speed, and approached slowly; while their leader, advancing in front of the band, saluted Reginald and his party with dignified courtesy. Meanwhile the body of Osages continued their career with headlong speed, shouting, yelling, and going through all the exciting manœuvres of a mock fight, after their wild fashion. Their dress was more scanty and less ornamented than that of the Delawares; but being tricked out with painted horsehair, porcupine quills, and feathers, it bore altogether a more gay and picturesque appearance; neither can it be denied that they were, in general, better horsemen than their allies; and they seemed to delight in showing off their equestrian skill, especially in galloping up to Reginald’s party at the very top of their speed, and then either halting so suddenly as to throw their horses quite back upon their haunches, or dividing off to the right and to the left, and renewing their manœuvres in another quarter with increased extravagance of noise and gesture.
Reginald having learned from Baptiste that this was their mode of showing honour to guests on their arrival, awaited patiently the termination of their manœuvres; and when at length they ceased, and the Osage party reined their horses up by the side of the Delawares, he went forward and shook hands with their leader, a warrior somewhat older than War–Eagle, and of a fine martial appearance. As soon as he found an opportunity, Reginald, turning to Wingenund, who was close behind him, inquired, in English, if that Osage chief was Mahéga?
“No,” replied the youth, “that is a brave[26], called in their tongue the Black–Wolf. Mahéga,” he added, with a peculiar smile, “is very different.”
“How mean you, Wingenund?”
“Black–Wolf,” replied the youth, “is a warrior, and has no fear, but he is not like Mahéga;—an antelope is not an elk!”
While this conversation was going on, the party entered the encampment, and wound their way amongst its scattered lodges, towards that of Tamenund, where, as the War–Eagle informed Reginald, a feast was prepared for his reception, to which Mahéga and the other Osage leaders were invited.
On arriving before the Great Lodge, Reginald and his companions dismounted, and giving their horses to the youths in attendance, shook hands in succession with the principal chiefs and braves of the two nations. Reginald was much struck by the benevolent and dignified countenance of the Delaware chief; but in spite of himself, and of a preconceived dislike which he was inclined to entertain towards Mahéga, or Red–hand, his eye rested on that haughty chieftain with mingled surprise and admiration. He was nearly a head taller than those by whom he was surrounded; and his limbs, though cast in an Herculean mould, showed the symmetrical proportions which are so distinctive of the North American Indians: his forehead was bold and high, his nose aquiline, and his mouth broad, firm, and expressive of most determined character; his eye was rather small, but bright and piercing as a hawk’s; his hair had been all shaven from his head, with the exception of the scalp–lock on the crown, which was painted scarlet, and interwoven with a tuft of horsehair dyed of the same colour. Around his muscular throat was suspended a collar formed from the claws of the grisly bear, ornamented with party–coloured beads, entwined with the delicate fur of the white ermine; his hunting–shirt and leggins were of the finest antelope skin, and his mocassins were adorned with beads and the stained quills of the porcupine. He leant carelessly on a bow, which few men in the tribe could bend. At his back were slung his arrows in a quiver made with wolf–skin, so disposed that the grinning visage of the animal was seen above his shoulder; while a war–club and scalping–knife, fastened to his belt, completed the formidable Mahéga’s equipment.
As he glanced his eye over the party of white men, there was an expression of scornful pride on his countenance, which the quick temper of their youthful leader was ill–disposed to brook, had not the prudent counsels of the guide prepared him for the exercise of self–command. Nevertheless, as he turned from the Osage chief to the bulky proportions of his gigantic follower, Mike Smith, he felt that it was like comparing a lion with an ox; and that, in the event of a quarrel between them, the rifle alone could render its issue doubtful.
The feast of welcome was now prepared in the lodge of Tamenund, which was composed of bison–skins stretched upon poles, arranged in the form of a horse–shoe, and covering an extent of ground apparently not less than twenty yards in length. Reginald observed also several smaller lodges immediately adjoining that of the chief, on one side, and on the other a circular tent of wax–cloth, or painted canvasss, evidently procured from white men, as it was of excellent texture, and its door, or aperture, protected by double folds of the same material.
Whilst he was still looking at this comparatively civilised dwelling, with some curiosity to know by whom it might be tenanted, the folds of the opening were pushed aside, and an elderly man appeared, who, after contemplating for a moment the newly–arrived group, came forward to offer them a friendly salutation. He was apparently between fifty and sixty; but his years were not easily guessed, for his snow–white hair might seem to have numbered seventy winters; while from the uprightness of his carriage, and the elasticity of his step, he seemed scarcely past the vigour of middle life. In figure he was tall and slight; his countenance, though tanned by long exposure to the sun, was strikingly attractive, and his mild blue eye beamed with an expression of benevolence not to be mistaken. His dress was a black frock of serge, fastened at the waist by a girdle of the same colour, from which was suspended a small bag, wherein he carried the few simples and instruments requisite for his daily offices of charity and kindness. Dark grey trowsers of the coarsest texture, and mocassins of buffalo–hide, completed the dress of Paul Müller, already mentioned by Wingenund to Reginald as the “Black Father:” under which name, translated according to their various languages, the pious and excellent missionary was known among the Delawares, Osages, Ioways, Otoes, Konsas, and other tribes then inhabiting the regions lying between the Missouri and the Arkansas.
Such was the man who now came forward to greet the newly–arrived party; and such was the irresistible charm of his voice and manner, that from the first Reginald felt himself constrained to love and respect him.
The feast being now ready, and Reginald having pointed out Baptiste and Bearskin as his officers, or lieutenants, they were invited with him to sit down in the lodge of Tamenund, with the principal chiefs of the Delawares, the chief and Great Medicine–man[27] of the Osages, and the Black Father. (Mike Smith and the other white men being feasted by a brave in an adjoining lodge.) The pipe was lighted, and having been passed twice round the party with silent gravity, the Great Medicine–man made a speech, in which he praised the virtues and hospitality of Tamenund, and paid many compliments to the white guests; after which a substantial dinner was set before them, consisting of roasted buffalo–ribs, venison, and boiled maize.
Reginald had never before been present at an Indian feast, and though he had the appetite naturally belonging to his age and health, he soon found that he was no match, as a trencherman, for those among whom he was now placed; and before they had half finished their meal, he replaced his knife in its sheath, and announced himself satisfied.
The old chief smiled good–humouredly, and said that he would soon do better; whilst Mahéga, quietly commencing an attack upon a third buffalo–rib, glanced at him with a look of contempt, that he was at no pains to conceal, and which, as may well be imagined, increased our hero’s dislike for the gigantic Osage.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
SECOND VOLUME.
I. REGINALD AND HIS PARTY AT THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT
While Reginald and his two companions were feasting with Tamenund, a similar repast was laid before the rest of the party, in the lodge of a brave named Maque–o–nah, or the “Bear–asleep,” at which Mike Smith occupied the centre or principal seat, and next to him sat Monsieur Perrot,—the latter personage being very curious to see the culinary arrangements made for this, his first Indian banquet. He was horrified at observing the carelessness with which they thrust half the side of a buffalo to the edge of a huge fire of undried wood, leaving a portion of the meat to be singed and burnt, while other parts were scarcely exposed to the heat: he could not refrain from expressing to one of the Canadian coureurs des bois, in his own language, his contempt and pity for the ignorant savages who thus presumed to desecrate a noble science, which ranked higher, in his estimation, than poetry, painting, or sculpture: but he was warned that he must be very careful neither to reject nor show any distaste for the food set before him, as by so doing he would give mortal offence to his entertainers. It was ludicrous in the extreme to watch the poor Frenchman’s attempts at imparting to his features a smile of satisfaction, when a wooden bowl was placed before him, filled with half–boiled maize, and beside it one of the buffalo–ribs, evidently less favoured by the fire, as it was scarcely warmed through, and was tough and stringy as shoe–leather. After bestowing upon sundry portions of it many fruitless attempts at mastication, he contrived, unperceived, to slip what remained of the meat into the pocket of his jacket, and then laughed with great self–satisfaction at the trick he had played his uncivilised hosts.
When the feast was concluded in Tamenund’s lodge, Reginald desired his men to unpack one of the bales, which he pointed out, and to spread its contents before him; the savages gathered round the coveted and glittering objects with eager but silent astonishment, while he separated the presents which, by the advice of Baptiste, were now distributed among their chiefs; to Tamenund he apportioned a large blanket of scarlet cloth, a silver–mounted pistol, and a basket containing mirrors, beads, and trinkets, for his wives and daughters; to Mahéga, a bridle ornamented with beads, several pounds of tobacco, powder, and lead, a fowling–piece, and a blanket of blue woollen–stuff. The features of the Osage chief relaxed into a grim smile of satisfaction as he received these valuable gifts; and he so far overcame the repulsive sternness of his usual character as to seize Reginald’s hand, and to tell him that he was a great chief, and good to his Indian brothers. The other presents having been distributed among the chiefs and braves, according to their rank, the feast was broken up, and they retired to their respective lodges; Reginald, Baptiste, and M. Perrot being accommodated in that of Tamenund’s himself, and Bearskin, with the rest of the white men’s party, in those lodges which have before been mentioned as being contiguous to that of the old chief.
During the first night that he spent in his new quarters, the excitement and novelty of the scene banished sleep from the eyes of Reginald; and, finding himself restless, he arose half an hour before daybreak, to enjoy the early freshness of the morning. Throwing his rifle over his arm, he was about to leave the lodge, when Baptiste touched him, and inquired, in a low voice, if he were prepared with a reply in case of being challenged by any of the scouts around the encampment; with some shame he confessed he had forgotten it; and the guide then instructed him, if he were challenged, to say “Lenapé n’a ki Netis,” or “I am Netis, the friend of the Delawares.” Being thus prepared, and carrying with him the few articles requisite for a Prairie toilet, he stepped out into the open air. Close by the opening of the lodge, he saw a tall figure stretched on the grass, enveloped in a buffalo robe, the hairy fell of which was silvered with the heavy night–dew: it was War–Eagle, who rarely slept in lodge or tent, and whose quick eye, though he neither moved nor spoke, discerned his white brother in a moment, although the latter could not recognise his friend.
Reginald pursued his way through the encampment to its extremity, where the streamlet before mentioned wound its course among the dells and hillocks of the Prairie, until it reached the larger river that flowed through the distant forest. After following the banks of the stream for one or two miles, the red streaks in the eastern horizon gave notice of day’s approach, and observing near him a hill, somewhat more elevated than those by which it was surrounded, Reginald climbed to its top, in order to witness the effect of sunrise on that wild and picturesque scene.
To the westward, the undulations of the Prairie, wrapped in heavy folds of mist, rose in confused heaps, like the waves of a boundless ocean: to the south he could just distinguish the lodges and the smouldering fires of the encampment, whence, at intervals, there fell upon his ear mingled and indistinct sounds, disagreeable perhaps in themselves, but rendered harmonious by distance, and by their unison with the wildness of the surrounding objects; while to the eastward lay a dense and gloomy range of woods, over the summits of whose foliage the dawning sun was shedding a stream of golden light.
Reginald gazed upon the scene with wonder and delight; and every moment while he gazed called into existence richer and more varied beauties. The mists and exhalations rising from the plain curled themselves into a thousand fantastic shapes around the points and projections of the hills, where they seemed to hang like mantles which the earth had cast from her bosom, as being rendered unnecessary by the appearance of the day; swarms of children and of dusky figures began to emerge from the encampment, and troops of horses to crop the pasture on the distant hills; while the splendour of the sun, now risen in its full glory, lit up with a thousand varying hues the eastern expanse of boundless forest. Reginald’s heart was not insensible to the impressions naturally excited by such a scene; and while he admired its variegated beauties, his thoughts were raised in adoration to that almighty and beneficent Being, whose temple is the earth, and whose are the “cattle upon a thousand hills.”
Having made his way again to the banks of the stream, and found a spot sheltered by alder and poplar trees, he bathed and made his morning toilet; after which he returned towards the encampment, his body refreshed by his bathe, and his mind attuned to high and inspiring thoughts by the meditation in which he had been engaged. As he strolled leisurely along, he observed a spot where the trees were larger, and the shade apparently more dense than the other portions of the valley; and, being anxious to make himself acquainted with all the localities in the neighbourhood of his new home, he followed a small beaten path, which, after sundry windings among the alders, brought him to an open space screened on three sides by the bushes, and bounded on the fourth by the stream. Reginald cast his eyes around this pleasant and secluded spot, until they rested upon an object that riveted them irresistibly. It was a female figure seated at the root of an ancient poplar, over a low branch of which one arm was carelessly thrown, while with the other she held a book, which she was reading with such fixed attention as to be altogether unconscious of Reginald’s approach. Her complexion was dark, but clear and delicate, and the rich brown hair which fell over her neck and shoulders, still damp and glossy from her morning ablutions, was parted on her forehead by a wreath of wild flowers twined from amongst those which grew around the spot: the contour of her figure, and her unstudied attitude of repose, realised the classic dreams of Nymph and Nereid, while her countenance wore an expression of angelic loveliness, such as Reginald had never seen or imagined.
He gazed—and gazing on those sweet features, he saw the red full lips move unconsciously, while they followed the subject that absorbed her attention; and forgetful that he was intruding on retirement, he waited, entranced, until those downcast eyes should be raised. At length she looked up, and seeing the figure of a man within a few paces of her, she sprang to her feet with the lightness of a startled antelope; and darting on him a look of mingled surprise and reproof, suppressed the exclamation of alarm that rose to her lips. Reginald would fain have addressed the lovely being before him—he would fain have excused his unintended intrusion; but the words died upon his lips, and it was almost mechanically that he doffed his hunting–cap, and stood silent and uncovered before her! Recovering from the momentary confusion, she advanced a step towards him, and with an ingenuous blush held out her hand, saying in a gentle tone of inquiry, and with the purest accent, “Netis, my brother’s friend?”
“The same, fair creature,” replied Reginald, whose wonder and admiration were still more excited by the untaught grace and dignity of her manner, as well as by hearing his own tongue so sweetly pronounced; “but, in the name of Heaven, who—what—whence can you be?” Blushing more deeply at the animation and eagerness of his manner, she was for a moment silent; when he continued, striking his hand on his forehead:—“Oh, I have it, fool, tortoise, that I was. You are ‘Prairie–bird,’ the sister of whom Wingenund has told me so much.” Then, gently pressing the little hand which he had taken, he added, “Dear Wingenund! he saved my life; his sister will not consider me a stranger?”
Again a warmer blush mantled on the cheek of Prairie–bird, as she replied, “You are no stranger: you speak of Wingenund’s good deed: you are silent about your own! You drew War–Eagle from the deep and swift waters. I have heard it all, and have often wished to see you and thank you myself.” There was a modest simplicity in her manner, as she uttered these few words that confirmed the impression made on Reginald by the first glimpse of her lovely form and features; but beyond this there was something in the tone of her voice that found its way direct to his heart; it fell upon his ear like an old familiar strain of music, and he felt unwilling to break the silence that followed its closing accents.
It is not our province, in a simple narrative of this kind, to discuss the oft–disputed question, whether love at first sight deserves the name of love; whether it is merely a passing emotion, which, though apparently strong, a brief lapse of time may efface; or, whether there be really secret irresistible natural impulses, by which two human beings, who meet together for the first time, feel as if they had known and loved each other for years, and as if the early cherished visions of fancy, the aspirations of hope, the creations of imagination, the secret, undefined longings of the heart, were all at once embodied and realised.[28] We are inclined to believe that, although not frequent, instances sometimes occur of this instinctive sympathy and attraction, and that, when they do so, the tree of affection (like the fabled palm at the touch of the genius’ wand) starts into immediate luxuriance of flower and foliage, striking its tenacious roots far into the kindly soil, destined thenceforward to become the nurture of its verdant youth, the support of its mature strength, and at length the resting–place of its leafless and time–stricken decay.
Such seemed to be the case with Reginald and Prairie–bird; for, as they looked one at the other, each was unconsciously occupied with teeming thoughts that neither could define nor express, and both felt relieved at hearing approaching footsteps and the voice of the Black Father, who called out in English,
“Come, my child, I have allowed you full time this morning; we will return to the camp.” As he spoke his eye fell upon Reginald, and he added, courteously, “You have been early abroad, young sir.”
“I have,” replied Reginald. “I went to the top of yonder heights to see the sun rise, and was amply repaid by the beauty of the scene: on my return, I wandered accidentally into this secluded spot, and trust that my intrusion has been forgiven.”
“I believe that my dear child and pupil would forgive a greater offence than that, in one who has shown so much kindness to her brothers,” replied the missionary, smiling: and he added, in a low voice, addressing the Prairie–bird in his own language, “Indeed, my child, I think he deserves our friendly welcome; for, unless his countenance strongly belies his character, it expresses all those good qualities which Wingenund taught us to expect.”
“Stay, sir,” and Reginald, colouring highly; “let me not participate, without your knowledge, in your communications to Prairie–bird. I have travelled much in Germany, and the language is familiar to me.”
“Then, my young friend,” said Paul Müller, taking his hand kindly, “you have only learnt, from what I said, how hard a task you will have to fulfil the expectations that Wingenund has led us to entertain.”
“I can promise nothing,” replied Reginald, glancing towards the maiden, “but a true tongue, a ready hand, and an honest heart; if these can serve my friend’s sister, methinks she may expect them without being disappointed.”
The words in themselves were nothing remarkable, but there was an earnest feeling in the tone in which they were spoken that made Prairie–bird’s heart beat quicker: she answered him by a look, but said nothing. Wonderful is the expression, the magic eloquence of the human eye; and yet how is its power tenfold increased when the rays of its glance pass through the atmosphere even of dawning love. Reginald longed to know whence and who she could be, this child of the wilderness, who had so suddenly, so irresistibly, engaged his feelings; above all, he longed to learn whether her heart and affections were free; and that single look, translated by the sanguine self–partiality of love, made him internally exclaim, “Her heart is not another’s!” Whether his conjecture proved correct the after–course of this tale will show: meanwhile we cannot forbear our admiration at the marvellous rapidity with which our hero, at his first interview with Prairie–bird, settled this point to his own satisfaction. The little party now strolled towards the camp; and as they went, Reginald, seeing that Prairie–bird still held in her hand the book that he had seen her peruse with so much attention, said,
“May I inquire the subject of your studies this morning?”
“Certainly,” she replied, with grave and sweet simplicity; “it is the subject of my study every morning: the book was given me by my dear father and instructor now by my side. I have much to thank him for; all I know, all I enjoy, almost all I feel, but most of all for this book, which he has taught me to love, and in some degree to understand.”
As she spoke she placed in Reginald’s hand a small copy of Luther’s translation of the Bible. In the fly–leaf before the title–page was written, “Given to Prairie–bird by her loving father and instructor, Paul Müller.” Reginald read this inscription half aloud, repeating to himself the words “Müller,” “father;” and coupling them with the strange enigmas formerly uttered by Wingenund respecting the origin of Prairie–bird, he was lost in conjecture as to their meaning.
“I see your difficulty,” said the missionary, “you do not understand how she can call Wingenund and War–Eagle brothers, and me father. In truth, she has from her earliest childhood been brought up by Tamenund as his daughter, and as I reside chiefly with this Delaware band, I have made it my constant occupation and pleasure to give her such instruction as my humble means admit; she has been entrusted to us by the mysterious decrees of Providence; and though the blood of neither flows in her veins, Tamenund and I have, according to our respective offices, used our best endeavours to supply the place of natural parents.”
“Dear, dear father,” said Prairie–bird, pressing his hand to her lips, and looking up in his face with tearful eyes, “you are and have been every thing to me,—instructor, comforter, guide, and father! My Indian father, too, and my brothers, are all kind and loving to me. I have read in the books that you have lent me many tales and histories of unkindness and hatred between parents and children, among nations enlightened and civilised. I have had every wish gratified before expressed, and every comfort provided. What could a father do for a child that you have not done for me?”
As she spoke she looked up in the missionary’s face with a countenance so beaming with full affection, that the old man pressed her in his arms, and kissing her forehead, muttered over her a blessing that he was too much moved to pronounce aloud; after a pause of a few minutes, he said to Reginald, with his usual benevolent smile, “We only know you yet by your Indian name of ‘Netis’—how are you called in the States? We inquired of War–Eagle and Wingenund, but they either did not remember, or could not pronounce your name?”
“Reginald Brandon,” replied our hero.
Prairie–bird started, and abruptly said, “Again, again; say it once more?”
Reginald repeated it, and she pronounced the first name slowly after him, pressing her hand upon her forehead, and with her eye fixed on vacancy, while broken exclamations came from his lips.
“What are you thinking of, dear child?” said the missionary, somewhat surprised and alarmed by her manner.
“Nothing, dear father,” she replied, with a faint smile; “it was a dream, a strange dream, which that name recalled, and confused my head: we are now close to the camp, I will go in and rest awhile; perhaps you may like to talk more with Ne—I mean,” she added, hesitating, “with Reginald.” So saying, and saluting them with that natural grace which belonged to all her movements, she withdrew towards the camp, and Reginald’s eyes followed her retreating figure until it was lost behind the canvasss folds that protected the opening to her tent.
II. REGINALD HOLDS A CONVERSATION WITH THE MISSIONARY
Reginald still kept his eyes on the opening through which Prairie–bird had disappeared into the tent, as though they could have pierced through the canvasss that concealed from his view its lovely inhabitant: his feelings were in a state of confusion and excitement, altogether new to him; for if, in his European travels, he had paid a passing tribute of admiration to the beauties who had crossed his path, and whom his remarkable personal advantages had rendered by no means insensible to his homage, the surface only of his heart had been touched; whereas now its deepest fountains were stirred, and the troubled waters gushed forth with overwhelming force.
He was recalled to himself by the voice of the missionary, who, without appearing to notice his abstraction, said, “My son, if you choose that we should prolong our walk, I am ready to accompany you.” If the truth must be told, Reginald could at that moment scarcely endure the presence of any human being: he felt an impulse to rush into the woods, or over the plain, and to pour forth in solitude the torrent of feelings by which he was oppressed; but he controlled himself, not only because he really felt a respect for the good missionary, but also because he hoped through him to obtain some information respecting the extraordinary being who had taken such sudden possession of his thoughts: he replied, therefore, that he would willingly accompany him, and they took their way together along the banks of the streamlet, alternately observing on the scenery and surrounding objects.
This desultory conversation did not long suit the eager and straightforward character of Reginald Brandon; and he changed it by abruptly inquiring of his companion, whether he knew any thing of the history and parentage of Prairie–bird.
“Not much,” replied Paul Müller, smiling; “she was with this band of Delawares when I first came to reside among them: if any one knows her history, it must be Tamenund; but he keeps it a profound secret, and gives out among the tribe that she was sent to him by the Great Spirit, and that as long as she remains with the band they will be successful in hunting and in war.”
“But how,” inquired Reginald, “can he make such a tale pass current among a people who are well known to consider the female sex in so inferior and degraded a light?”
“He has effected it,” replied the missionary, “partly by accident, partly by her extraordinary beauty and endowments, and partly, I must own, by my assistance, which I have given because I thereby ensured to her the kindest and most respectful treatment, and also endeavoured, under God’s blessing, to make her instrumental in sowing the seed of His truth among these benighted savages.”
“Let me understand this more in detail,” said Reginald, “if the narration does not trouble you.”
“Her first appearance among the Delawares, as they have told me,” said the missionary, was as follows:—“Their prophet, or Great Medicine–man, dreamt that under a certain tree was deposited a treasure, that should enrich the tribe and render them fortunate: a party was sent by order of the chief to search the spot indicated; and on their arrival they found a female child wrapped in a covering of beaver–skin, and reposing on a couch of turkey–feathers: these creatures being supposed to preside peculiarly over the fate of the Delawares, they brought back the child with great ceremony to the village, where they placed her under the care of the chief; set apart a tent or lodge for her own peculiar use; and ever since that time have continued to take every care of her comfort and safety.”
“I suppose,” interrupted Reginald, “the dream of the Great Medicine, and all its accompaniments, were secretly arranged between him and the chief?”
“Probably they were,” replied Paul; “but you must beware how you say as much to any Delaware: if you did not risk your life, you would give mortal offence. After all, an imposition that has resulted in harm to no one, and in so much good to an interesting and unprotected creature, may be forgiven.”
“Indeed I will not gainsay it,” replied our hero: “pray continue your narrative.”
“My sacred office, and the kindly feelings entertained towards me by these Indians, gave me frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with Olitipa, or the ‘Prairie–bird;’ and I found in her such an amiable disposition, and so quick an apprehension, that I gave my best attention to the cultivation of talents which might, I hoped, some day produce a harvest of usefulness. In reading, writing, and in music, she needed but little instruction. I furnished her from time to time with books, and paper, and pencils: an old Spanish guitar, probably taken from some of the dwellings of that people in Missouri, enabled her to practise simple melodies; and you would be surprised at the sweetness with which she now sings words, strung together by herself in English and German, and also in the Delaware tongue, adapting them to wild airs, either such as she hears among the Indians, or invents herself. I took especial pains to instruct her in the practical elements of a science that my long residence among the different tribes has rendered necessary and familiar to me,—I mean that of medicine, as connected with the rude botany of the woods and prairies; and so well has she profited by my instruction, and by her own persevering researches, that there is scarcely a tree, or gum, or herb, possessing any sanatory properties, which she does not know and apply to the relief of those around her.”
“Indeed,” said Reginald, laughing; “I had not expected to find this last among the accomplishments of Prairie–bird.”
“You were mistaken then,” replied Paul Müller; “nay more, I fear that, in your estimate of what are usually termed female accomplishments, you have been accustomed to lay too much stress on those which are light or trifling, and too little on those which are useful and properly feminine: even in settled and civilised countries the most grievous fevers and ailments to which we are subject require the ministration of a female nurse; can it be then unreasonable that we should endeavour to mingle in their education some knowledge of the remedies which they may be called upon to administer, and of the bodily ills which it is to be their province to alleviate?”
“You are right,” answered Reginald, modestly; “and I entreat your pardon for the hasty levity with which I spoke on the subject. I am well aware that, in olden times, no young woman’s education was held to be complete without some knowledge both of the culinary and healing arts; and I much doubt whether society has not suffered from their having altogether abandoned the cultivation of these in favour of singing, dancing, and reading of the lightest kind.”
“It is the character of the artificial state to which society is fast verging,” replied Paul, “to prefer accomplishments to qualities, ornament to usefulness, luxury to comfort, tinsel to gold: setting aside the consideration of a future state, this system might be well enough, if the drawing–room, the theatre, and the ball were the sum of human life; but it is ill calculated to render man dignified in his character, and useful to his fellow–creatures, or woman what she ought to be,—the comfort, the solace, the ornament of home.”
“These observations may be true as regards England or France,” replied Reginald; “but you surely would not apply them to our country?”
“To a certain extent, I do,” answered the missionary. “I have been now thirty years on this continent, and have observed that, as colonists, the Americans have been very faithful imitators of these defects in their mother country; I am not sure that they will be rendered less so by their political emancipation.”
The conversation was now straying rather too far from the subject to which Reginald desired to confine it: waving, therefore, all reply to the missionary’s last observation, he said, “If I understood you aright, there were, beyond these studies and accomplishments of Prairie–bird, some other means employed by you, to give and preserve to her the extraordinary influence which you say that she possesses over the Indians.”
“There were,” replied Paul Müller: “amongst others, I enabled her to vaccinate most of the children in this band, by which means they escaped the fatal effects of a disorder that has committed dreadful ravages among the surrounding tribes: and I have instructed her in some of the elementary calculations of astronomy; owing to which they look upon her as a superior being, commissioned by the Great Spirit to live among them, and to do them good: thus her person is safe, and her tent as sacred from intrusion as the Great Medicine Lodge. I am allowed to occupy a compartment in it, where I keep our little stores of books and medicines; and she goes about the camp on her errands of benevolence, followed by the attachment and veneration of all classes and ages!”
“Happy existence!” exclaimed Reginald; “and yet,” added he, musing, “she cannot, surely, be doomed through life to waste such sweetness on an air so desert!”
“I know not,” answered the missionary. “God’s purposes are mysterious, and the instruments that he chooses for effecting them, various as the flowers on the prairie. Many an Indian warrior has that sweet child turned from the path of blood,—more than one uplifted tomahawk has fallen harmless at the voice of her entreaty; nay, I have reason to hope, that in Wingenund, and in several others of the tribe, she has partially uprooted the weeds of hatred and revenge; and sown in their stead the seeds of gospel truth. Surely, Reginald Brandon, you would not call such an existence wasted?”
“That would I not, indeed,” replied the young man, with emphasis. “It is an angel’s office!” he added, inaudibly, “and it is performed by an angel!”
Although he could have talked or listened on the subject of the Prairie–bird for hours together, Reginald began already to feel that sensitive reserve respecting the mention of her name to another which always accompanies even the earliest dawnings of love; and he turned the conversation by inquiring of the venerable missionary, whether he would kindly communicate something of his own history; and explain how he had come from so remote a distance to pass the evening of life among the Indians.
“The tale is very brief, and the motives very simple. I was born in Germany, and having early embraced the tenets of the United Brethren, of whom you have probably heard in that country under the name of ‘Herrn–Hüter,’ I received a pressing invitation from Heckewelder, then in England, to join him in his projected missionary journey to North America. I gladly accepted the offer, and after a short stay in London, embarked with that learned and amiable man,—who soon became what he now is, the nearest and dearest friend I have on earth;—and I placed myself under his guidance in the prosecution of the grand objects of our undertaking, which were these—to endeavour to convert the Indian nations to Christianity, not, as the Spaniards had pretended to attempt, by fire, and sword, and violence; but by going unarmed and peaceably among them, studying their languages, characters, and history; and while showing in our own persons an example of piety and self–denial, to eradicate patiently the more noxious plants from their moral constitution, and to mould such as were good and wholesome to the purposes of religious truth. God be praised, our labours have not been altogether without effect; but I blush for my white brethren when I confess that the greatest obstacle to our success has been found in the vices, the open profligacy, the violence, and the cruelty of those who have called themselves Christians. Heckewalder has confined his exertions chiefly to the Indians remaining in Pennsylvania and the Western territory; mine have been mostly employed among the wandering and wilder tribes who inhabit this remote and boundless region.”
“I have often heard your pious friend’s name,” said Reginald; “he enjoys the reputation of being the most eminent Indian linguist in our country, and he is supposed to know the Delaware language as well as his own.”
“He is indeed,” said Paul, “the most skilful and successful labourer in this rude but not unfruitful vineyard. Now and then, at remote intervals, I contrive, by means of some returning hunter or Indian agent, to communicate with him, and his letters always afford me matter of consolation and encouragement; though I was much cast down when he announced to me the cruel and wanton massacre of his Indian flock near the banks of the Ohio.”
“I have heard of it,” replied Reginald; “I regret to say that the outrage was committed not very far from the spot where my father lives.”
“Do you live in that neighbourhood?” exclaimed the missionary, suddenly catching his arm; “then you may, perhaps,—but no, it cannot be,” he muttered to himself; “this youth can know nothing of it—“
“My honoured friend,” replied Reginald, colouring at the idea suggested by the words which he had overheard, “I trust you do not believe that my father, or any of my kindred, had a share in those atrocities!”
“You misunderstood me altogether, I assure you,” answered the missionary; “my exclamation had reference to another subject. But I see War–Eagle coming this way; probably he is bent upon some hunting excursion, in which you may wish to be his companion.”
“I shall gladly do so,” replied Reginald, “as soon as I have breakfasted: my faithful follower, Perrot, desired very much that I should taste some collops of venison, which he said that he could dress in a style somewhat superior to that of the Indian cookery. Will you share them with me?”
The missionary excused himself, as he had already taken his morning meal, and was about to return to the tent of Prairie–bird.
Reginald assured the good man of the pleasure which he had found in his conversation, and expressed a hope that he would be enabled soon to enjoy it again, as there was much information respecting the habits, religion, and character of the different Indian tribes which he felt anxious to acquire, and which none could be better able to communicate.
“Whatever instruction or information I may have collected during my residence among them, is freely at your service,” replied Paul Müller; “and if you find yourself in any difficulty or embarrassment where my advice can be of use, you may always command it. You know,” he added, smiling, “they consider me Great Medicine, and thus I am able to say and do many things among them which would not be permitted in another white man.” So saying, he shook hands with Reginald, and returned slowly towards the encampment.
War–Eagle now came up, and greeting his friend with his usual cordiality, inquired whether he would accompany him in the chase of the elk, herds of which had been seen at no great distance. Reginald acceded to the proposal; and, having hastily dispatched the collops prepared by Perrot, the two friends left the village on foot, and took their way towards the timber in the valley.
The day was hot, and the speed at which the agile Indian unconsciously strode along, would have soon discomfited a less active pedestrian than Reginald; but having been well seasoned in his hunting excursions with Baptiste, he found no difficulty in keeping pace with his friend; and he amused himself, as they went, by asking him a variety of questions respecting the country, the tribe, and its language, to all of which War–Eagle replied with much intelligence and candour.
As Reginald had not seen Wingenund, he asked his companion how it happened that the youth did not accompany them. “He is gone,” replied War–Eagle, “to bring turkeys to the camp.”
“Does he shoot them?” inquired Reginald.
“No, he takes them—my white brother shall see; it is not far from the Elk Path.”
When they reached the wooded bottom, War–Eagle struck into a small track which seemed to have been made by a streamlet in spring, and having followed it for about a mile, they came to a more open woodland scene, where the Indian pointed, as they passed along, to scattered feathers, and foot–tracks of turkeys in abundance. They had not proceeded far, when he uttered a low exclamation of surprise as he discovered Wingenund stretched at the foot of a tree, with his eyes busily fixed upon something which he held in his hand, and which so riveted his attention that he was not aware of their approach. Beside him lay two old and two young turkeys, which he had caught and killed: the friends had not looked at him many seconds, before he raised his eyes and perceived them: starting to his feet, he made an ineffectual attempt to conceal that which he had been holding in his hand, which was, in fact, a sheet of coarse white paper. Reginald drew near and said to him, “Come, Wingenund, you must show Netis what you hold in your hand: I am sure it is no harm; and if it is a secret, I will keep it.”
Wingenund, in some confusion, handed the scroll to Reginald, who saw at the first glance that it was a fragment of an elementary vocabulary of Delaware and English words, written in a free bold character: he ran his eye over the paper, which contained chiefly phrases of the most simple kind, such as, “N’menne, I drink,” “N’ani pa wi, I stand,” “Tokelân, it rains,” “Loo, true,” “Yuni, this,” “Na–ni, that,” &c. &c., and a smile came over his features when his eye met his own name, “Netis,” with its translation, “dear friend.” Below this he read, “N’quti,” “Nisha,” “Nacha,” “Newo,” and a succession of single words, which he rightly conjectured to be numerals, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., and at the bottom of the page was a long sentence in the Lenapé tongue, which began as follows:—“Ki wetochemelenk talli epian awassagame, &c.”—“What is this last sentence, Wingenund?” inquired Reginald.
“It is the prayer,” replied the youth, “that the Good Spirit taught the white men to say, when he came to live among them.”
“And who wrote all these words for you?”
“Prairie–bird wrote them, and every day she teaches me to understand the marks on the paper.”
Reginald’s eyes strayed unconsciously to that part of the sheet where he had seen his own name written by the Prairie–bird’s hand. “Happy boy!” he mentally ejaculated, “to sit at her feet, and draw instruction from her lips!”—“With such a teacher, methinks I could learn the Lenapé tongue in a month!—What says my brother?” continued he aloud, addressing War–Eagle, whose fine countenance wore an expression of indifference, almost amounting to contempt. “What says my brother of this paper?”
“It is perhaps good,” replied the Indian gravely, “for the Black Father, and for the white man—but not for the Lenapé. The Great Spirit has given him a heart to feel, and a hand to fight, and eyes to see the smallest track on the grass—that is enough. Our fathers knew no more, and they were great, and strong, and brave!—chiefs among the nations! What are we now? Few, and weak, and wandering. It is better for us to live and die like them, and we shall hunt with them in the happy fields.—Let us go and show Netis where Wingenund takes the turkeys.” So saying, he turned and led the way, followed by his two companions.
Chapter III
AN ARRIVAL AT MOOSHANNE.—A CALM ASHORE AFTER A STORM AT SEA.
While the events, narrated in the preceding chapter, were occurring in the Western wilderness, the family at Mooshanne had been thrown into a state of the greatest dismay and confusion, by the arrival of Captain L’Estrange’s first letter announcing the flight of Ethelston with his daughter, and depicting his conduct in the blackest colours. Colonel Brandon had perused its contents half a dozen times, and they had produced traces of anxiety upon his countenance, too evident to escape the observation of Lucy, so that he was obliged to break to her by degrees the painful intelligence of her lover’s infidelity: with a calmness that surprised him, she insisted on reading the letter; as she proceeded her brow crimsoned with indignation, and those blue eyes, usually beaming with the gentlest expression, flashed with an angry lustre.
Colonel Brandon knew full well the affection she had long conceived for Ethelston, and though his own feelings were deeply wounded by the misconduct of one whom he had loved and trusted as a son, they were at present overpowered by the fears which he entertained of the effect which this unexpected blow might produce on Lucy’s health and happiness. He was, therefore, relieved by observing the anger expressed on her countenance, and prepared himself to hear the deserved reproaches on her former lover, which seemed ready to burst from her tongue. What was his surprise when he saw her tear the letter in pieces before his face, and heard her, while she set her pretty little foot upon them, exclaim,
“Dear, dear father, how could you for a moment believe such a tale of vile, atrocious falsehood?”
However disinclined the Colonel might be to believe any thing to the disadvantage of Ethelston, there was so much circumstantial evidence to condemn him, that he felt it his duty to prepare his child for the worst at once, and to point out to her how they already knew that Ethelston had been wounded and conveyed to the house of L’Estrange, that his long absence was unexplained, and lastly that the character of the French commodore, as an officer, and a man of honour, was unimpeached.
Lucy heard him to the end; the glow on her cheek assumed a warmer hue, and the little foot beat with a nervous and scarcely perceptible motion on the floor, as she replied, “Father I will believe that the letter is a forgery, or that the French officer, or commodore, or admiral, is a madman, but never that Ethelston is a villain.”
“My dear Lucy,” said the Colonel, “I am almost as unwilling to think ill of Ethelston as you can be yourself; but alas! I have seen more than you of the inconstancy of men; and I know, too well, that many who have enjoyed a good reputation have yet been found unable to withstand temptation, such as may have beset Ethelston while an inmate of the same house with the Creole beauty—“
“Dear father,” answered Lucy, colouring yet more deeply; “though it were possible that Ethelston, in the presence of greater attractions, may have yielded to them his affections, and withdrawn them from one who had hoped to possess and treasure them for life,—though this may be possible, it is not possible that he should be guilty of a violation of the laws of hospitality and honour, such as that slanderous paper lays to his charge. Promise me, dearest father, to suspend your belief, and never to speak on this subject again, until it is God’s pleasure that the truth shall be brought to light.”
“I promise you, my sweet child,” said her father; “and may that merciful Being grant that your trust be not disappointed!”
“I have no fears,” said Lucy; and, as she spoke, her eyes beamed with that full undoubting love such as can only be felt by one who has never known what it is to deceive or to be deceived.
Days and weeks passed on without any intelligence of Ethelston; and while the fears of Colonel Brandon became more confirmed, the agony of suspense and the sickness of deferred hope began to prey upon the spirits of his daughter: she never alluded to the forbidden subject; but her nervous anxiety, when the weekly letter–bag was opened, clearly showed that it was ever in her mind: nevertheless she continued her occasional excursions to Marietta, and visited, as usual, those around Mooshanne who were sick or in distress; so that neither her mother nor Aunt Mary detected the anxiety by which she was tortured. One evening, half an hour before sunset, as the family party were seated at their simple supper, the clatter of a horse’s hoofs was heard approaching at full speed, from which the rider dismounted, and, lifting the latch of the unlocked door, entered the house. Traversing the vestibule with hasty strides, and apparently guided by instinct to the apartment in which the family were assembled, he threw open the door, and Ethelston stood before the astonished party. His countenance was haggard from fatigue and exposure to the sun, and his whole appearance indicated exhaustion. Lucy turned deadly pale, and Colonel Brandon’s constrained manner, as he rose from his chair, must have convinced the new comer that his return was productive of other feelings than those of unmingled pleasure. He was moving, however, a few steps forward to pay his first respects to Mrs. Brandon, when the Colonel, touching him lightly on the arm, said, “Mr. Ethelston, I must crave a few words with you in the adjoining room.”
Hitherto Lucy had remained silent, with her eyes fixed intently on Ethelston’s countenance; he returned her look with one as long and fixed: the expression of his eyes was mournful, rather than joyous, but there was no trace of uneasiness or of shame. Springing from her seat, she placed her hand imploringly on the Colonel’s arm saying,
“Dear father, I told you so from the first,—I knew it always—I read it now plain as the sun in heaven,—that vile letter was a string of falsehoods;—he is returned as he left us, with an untarnished honour.”
“Thank you, dear Lucy,” said Ethelston, advancing and pressing her extended hands to his lips: “blessings on that trusting affection which has rendered it impossible for you to believe aught to the prejudice of one on whom you have deigned to fix it. Colonel Brandon,” he continued, “I can guess how you have been misled, and appearances were for a short time so much against me, that I acquit of all intentional malice those who have misled you. Judge for yourself whether, if I were stained by the crime of which I have been accused, I could now ask, on my bended knee, for the blessing of you, my second father, and thus hold in mine, as I dare to do, the hand of your pure, trusting, and beloved child.”
There was a truth in every tone of his voice, and a convincing dignity in his manner, that swept away all doubts like a torrent. The Colonel embraced him with cordial affection; Aunt Mary kissed her favourite nephew over and over again; Mrs. Brandon wept tears of joy on his neck; and Lucy was so overpowered by delight, that she was perhaps scarcely conscious of all that passed around.
After they were in some degree recovered from their emotion, and had pressed Ethelston to take some refreshment, he said to the Colonel, “Now I am prepared to give you an account of my adventures, and to explain those circumstances that led to the misunderstanding under which you have so long laboured.”
“Not a word—not a word will I hear of explanation to–night, my dear boy,” replied the Colonel. “I am already ashamed that I have not shown the same undoubting confidence in your rectitude, both of purpose and conduct, that has been evinced from first to last by Lucy. You are weary and exhausted; the agitation of this scene has been trying to all of us; we will defer your narrative until to–morrow. Our first duty this evening is to return our thanks to Providence for having protected you through all danger, and restored you safe to the comforts of home.”
As he spoke, the worthy old gentleman took down a Bible from the shelf; and having desired Lucy to summon all the servants into the room, he read an appropriate chapter, and added to the selected prayer for the evening a few impressive and affecting words of thanksgiving, for the safe return of the long–lost member of the family.
This duty was scarcely concluded, when the outer door was violently opened; a heavy step was heard approaching, and, without waiting to be admitted or announced, the sturdy figure of Gregson entered the room.
“The captain himself, as I live!” said the honest mate. “Beg pardon, Colonel Brandon, but I heard a report of his having been seen going ten knots an hour through Marietta. So up I sticks, made sail, and was in his wake in less time than our nigger cook takes to toss off a glass of grog.”
“Give me your hand, Gregson,” said Ethelston, kindly; “there is not a truer nor an honester one between Marietta and China.”
“Thank ye, thank ye, captain,” said the mate, giving him a squeeze that would have broken the knuckles of any hand but a sailor’s; “the flipper’s well enough in its way, and I trust the heart’s somewhere about the right place; but what the devil have they been at with you in Guadaloupe?” added he, observing his chief’s wearied and wasted appearance; “considering how long those rascally Frenchmen have had you in dock, they’ve sent you to sea in precious state, both as to hull and rigging.”
“I confess, I am not over ship–shape,” said Ethelston, laughing; “but my present condition is more owing to the fatigues of my tedious journey from New Orleans than to any neglect on the part of the Frenchmen.”
The Colonel now invited the worthy mate to be seated; and Lucy brewed for him, with her own fair fingers a large tumbler of toddy, into which, by her father’s desire, she poured an extra glass of rum. Ethelston, pretending to be jealous of this favour, insisted on his right to a draught, containing less potent ingredients, but administered by the same hand; and an animated conversation ensued, in the course of which Gregson inquired after the welfare of his old friend Cupid, the black cook.
“Poor fellow, he is no more,” replied Ethelston, in a tone of deep feeling; “he died as he had lived, proud, brave, faithful to the last. I cannot tell you the story now, it is too sad a one for this our first evening at home:” as he spoke, his eyes met those of Lucy, and there he read all that his overcharged heart desired to know.
Soon after the allusion to this melancholy incident, the little party broke up; the evening being already far advanced, Gregson returned to Marietta, and the members of the Colonel’s family retired to their respective apartments, leaving Ethelston alone in the drawing–room. For a few minutes he walked up and down, and pressed his hand upon his forehead, which throbbed with various and deep emotions. He took up the music whereon Lucy had written her name, and the needlework on which her fingers had been employed: he sat down on the chair she had just left, as if to satisfy himself with the assurance that all around him was not a dream; and again he vented the full gratitude of his heart in a brief but earnest ejaculation of thanksgiving. After a short indulgence in such meditations, he retired to that rest of which he stood so much in need. The room that had been prepared for him was up stairs, and, on crossing a broad passage that led to it, he suddenly met Lucy, who was returning to her own from her mother’s apartment. Whether this meeting was purely accidental, or whether Lucy, remembering that she had not said good–night quite distinctly to her lover, lingered in her mother’s room until she heard his step on the stair, we have no means of ascertaining, and therefore leave it undecided: certain it is, however, that they did meet in the passage above mentioned, and that Ethelston, putting down his candle on a table that stood by, took Lucy’s unresisting hand and pressed it in his own: he gazed on her blushing countenance with an intensity that can only be understood by those who, like him, have been suddenly restored to a beloved one, whose image had been ever present during a long absence, assuaging the pain of sickness, comforting him in trials, dwelling with him in the solitude of a prison, and sustaining him in the extremest perils of the storm, the fight, and the shipwreck! Though he had never been formally betrothed to her in words, and though his heart was now too full to give utterance to them, he had heard enough below to satisfy him that she had never doubted his faith—he felt that their troth was tacitly plighted to each other, and now it was almost unconsciously that their lips met and sealed the unspoken contract.
That first, long, passionate kiss of requited love! Its raptures have been the theme of glowing prose, of impassioned verse, in all ages and climes; the powers of language have been exhausted upon it, the tongue and the pen of genius have, for centuries, borrowed for its description the warmest hues of fancy and imagination—and yet how far short do they fall of the reality! how impossible to express in words an electric torrent of feeling, more tumultuous than joy, more burning than the desert’s thirst,—yet sweeter and more delicious than childhood’s dream of Paradise, pouring over the heart a stream of bliss, steeping the senses in oblivion of all earthly cares, and so mysteriously blending the physical with the immaterial elements of our nature, that we feel as if, in that embrace, we could transfuse a portion of our soul and spirit into the beloved object on whose lip that first kiss of long–treasured love is imprinted.
Brief and fleeting moments! they are gone almost before the mind is conscious of them! They could not, indeed, be otherwise than brief, for the agony of joy is like that of pain, and exhausted nature would sink under its continued excess. Precious moments, indeed! to none can they be known more than once in life; to very many, they can never be known at all. They can neither be felt nor imagined by the mere worldling, nor the sensualist; the sources of that stream of bliss must be unadulterated by aught low, or selfish; it is not enough that
“Heart and soul and sense in concert move:”
desire must go hand in hand with purity, and virtue be the handmaid of passion, or the blissful scene will lose its fairest and brightest hues.
The step of some servant was heard approaching; and Lucy, uttering a hasty good–night, returned to her room, where she bolted her door, and gave herself up to the varied emotions by which she was overcome. Tears bedewed her eyes, but they were not tears of grief; her bosom was agitated, but it was not the agitation of sorrow; her pillow was sleepless, but she courted not slumber, for her mind dwelt on the events of the past day; and gratitude for her lover’s return, together with the full assurance of his untarnished honour, and undiminished affection, rendered her waking thoughts sweeter than any that sleep could have borrowed from the land of dreams.
On the following morning, after breakfast, when the family were assembled in the library, Ethelston, at the request of Colonel Brandon, commenced the narrative of his adventures. As the reader is already acquainted with them, until the closing scene of poor Nina’s life, we shall make mention of that part of his tale no further than to state that, so far as truth would permit, in all that he told, as well as all that he forbore to tell, he feelingly endeavoured to shield her memory from blame; the sequel of his story we shall give in his own words.
“I remained only a few days with L’Estrange after his daughter’s death; during which time I used my best endeavours to console him; but, in spite of the affectionate kindness which he showed me, I felt that my presence must ever recall and refresh the remembrance of his bereavement, and I was much relieved when the arrival of one of his other married daughters, with her family, gave me an excuse and an opportunity for withdrawing from Guadaloupe. The vessel which had brought them from Jamaica proposed to return immediately, and I easily obtained L’Estrange’s permission to sail with her, only on the condition of not serving against France during the continuance of these hostilities: when I bade him farewell he was much affected, and embraced me as if he were parting with a son; so I have at least the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that I retain his best wishes and his esteem.
“My voyage to Port Royal was prosperous. On arriving I found a brig laden with fruit, just about to sail in a few days for New Orleans. I confess I did not much like the appearance either of the vessel or her commander; but such was my impatience to return to Mooshanne, that I believe I would have risked the voyage in an open boat.” Here Ethelston looked at Lucy, on whose countenance a blushing smile showed that she well knew the meaning of his words. “I embarked,” continued he, “accompanied by my faithful Cupid, on board the Dos Amigos: the captain was an ignorant rum–drinking Creole; besides himself there was only one white man in the crew, and the coloured men were from all countries and climates, the most reckless and turbulent gang that I had ever seen on board a ship. During the first half of the voyage, the weather being favourable, we crept along the southern coast of Cuba, and passed almost within sight of the Isla de Pinos, which I had so much cause to remember; thence we steered a north–westerly course, and doubled the Cape of Saint Antonio in safety, whence we had a prospect of a fair run to the Belise; but, two days after we had lost sight of the Cuban coast, it came on to blow a gale of wind, which gradually increased until it became almost a hurricane from the south–west.
“The brig drove helplessly before it; and from her leaky and shattered condition, as well as from the total want of seamanship exhibited by her drunken captain, I hourly expected that she would founder at sea: for twenty–four hours the gale continued with unabated violence, and the weather was so thick that no object could be discerned at two hundred yards’ distance. I remained constantly on deck, giving such assistance as I could render, and endeavouring to keep the captain’s lips from the rum–bottle, to which he had more frequent recourse as the danger became more imminent. Being at length wearied out, I threw myself in my clothes on my cot, and soon fell asleep. I know not how long I slept; but I was awakened by a violent shock, accompanied by a grating, grinding sound, from which I knew in an instant that the brig had struck on a rock. Almost before I had time to spring from my cot, Cupid dashed into the cabin, and, seizing me with the force of a giant, dragged me on deck. At this moment the foremast fell with a tremendous crash, and a heavy sea swept over the devoted vessel, carrying away the boat, all loose spars, and many of the crew. Cupid and I held on by the main rigging, and were not swept away; but wave after wave succeeded each other with resistless fury, and in a few moments we were both struggling, half stunned and exhausted, in the abyss of waters, holding on convulsively to a large hencoop, which had providentially been thrown between us.
“One wild shriek of despair reached my ear, after which nothing was heard but the tumultuous roar of the angry elements.”
At this part of Ethelston’s narrative, Lucy covered her face with her hands, as if she would thereby shut out the dreadful view, and in spite of all her struggle for self–command, a tear stole down her colourless cheek.
“It was, indeed, a fearful moment,” he continued, “and yet I did not feel deserted by hope; I was prepared for death, I prayed fervently, and I felt that my prayer was not unheard; even then, in that strife of foaming sea and roaring blast, God sent the vision of an angel to comfort and sustain me! It wore the form of one who has ever dwelt in my thoughts by day, and in my dreams by night; who seemed as near to me then, as she does now that her gentle tears are flowing at this recital of my trials.”
While speaking the last words, his low voice trembled until it fell into a whisper, and Lucy, overcome by her feelings, would have fallen from her chair, had not his ready arm supported her. A dead silence reigned in the room; Aunt Mary wept aloud, and Colonel Brandon walked to the window to conceal his emotion. After a few minutes, as he turned again towards them, Ethelston, who still supported Lucy, beckoned him to approach, and, addressing him in a tone of deep and earnest feeling, said,
“Colonel Brandon, my guardian, friend, and benefactor; add yet this one to all your former benefits, and my cup of gratitude will be full indeed:” as he spoke he took the unresisting hand of Lucy in his own: the Colonel looked inquiringly and affectionately at his daughter, who did not speak, but raised her tearful eyes to his, with an expression not to be misunderstood. Pressing their united hands between his own, and kissing Lucy’s forehead, he whispered,
“God bless you, my children:” after a pause he added, with a suppressed smile, “Ethelston shall finish his narrative presently;” and, taking Aunt Mary’s arm, he left the room.
We will imitate the Colonel’s discretion, and forbear to intrude upon the sacred quiet of a scene where the secret, long–cherished love of two overflowing hearts was at length unreservedly interchanged; we need only say that ere the Colonel returned with Aunt Mary, after an absence of half an hour, Lucy’s tears were dried, and her cheeks were suffused with a mantling blush, as she sprung into her father’s arms, and held him in a long and silent embrace.
“Come, my child,” said the Colonel, when he had returned her affectionate caress: “sit down, and let us hear the conclusion of Ethelston’s adventures—we left him in a perilous plight, and I am anxious to hear how he escaped from it.”
“Not without much suffering, both of mind and body, my dear sir,” continued Ethelston in a serious tone of voice; “for the sea dashed to and fro with such violence the frail basket–work to which Cupid and I were clinging, that more than once I was almost forced to quit my hold, and it was soon evident that its buoyant power was not sufficient to save us both, especially as Cupid’s bulk and weight were commensurate with his gigantic strength. His coolness under these trying circumstances was remarkable: observing that I was almost fainting from the effects of a severe blow on the head from a floating piece of the wreck, he poured into my mouth some rum from a small flask that he had contrived to secure, and then replacing the stopper, he thrust the flask into my breast pocket, saying, ‘Capt’n drink more when he want:’ at this moment a large spar from the wreck was driven past us, and the faithful creature said, ‘Capt’n, hencoop not big enough for two, Cupid swim and take spar to ride;’ and, ere I could stop him, he loosed his hold and plunged into the huge wave to seize the spar: more I could not see, for the spray dashed over me, and the gloom and the breakers hid him in a moment from my sight. I felt my strength failing, but enough remained for me to loose a strong silk kerchief from my neck, and to lash myself firmly to the hencoop. Again and again the wild sea broke over me; I felt a tremendous and stunning blow—as I thought, the last, and I was no more conscious of what passed around.
“When I recovered my senses, I found myself lying upon some soft branches, and sheltered by low bushes, a few hundred yards from the sea–beach; two strange men were standing near me, and gave evident signs of satisfaction when they saw my first attempts at speech and motion; they made me swallow several morsels of sea–biscuit steeped in rum, and I was soon so far restored as to be able to sit up, and to learn the particulars of my situation. The island near which the brig had been wrecked, was one of the Tortugas; the two men who had carried me up to a dry spot from the beach, belonged to a small fishing–craft, which had put in two days before the hurricane for a supply of water and in hopes of catching turtle. Their vessel was securely moored in a little natural harbour, protected by the outer ledge of rocks: the reef on which the brig had struck was upwards of a mile from the spot where they had found me; and I could not learn from them that they had seen any portion of her wreck, or any part of her crew, alive or dead.
“As soon as my bruised condition permitted me to drag my limbs along, I commenced a careful search along the low rocky shore, in hopes of learning something of the fate of Cupid, and at length was horrified on discovering the mutilated remains of the faithful creature, among some crevices in the rocks. He had clung to the spar which still lay beside him with the pertinacious strength of despair: his hands and limbs were dreadfully mangled, and his skull fractured by the violence with which he had been driven on the reef. I remembered how he had resigned the hencoop to save my life; and the grief that I evinced for his loss moved the compassion of the fishermen, who aided me to bury him decently on the island.
“We remained there two days longer, until the gale had subsided, during which time I frequently visited poor Cupid’s grave; and though many of our countrymen would be ashamed of owning such regret for one of his colour, I confess that when on that lonely spot I called to mind his faithful services, and his last noble act of generous courage, I mourned him as a friend and brother.
“When the fishing–smack put to sea, I prevailed on her captain to visit the reef where the brig had struck; but we found not a spar nor plank remaining; nor am I to this moment aware whether any others of her crew survived the wreck; but it is more than probable that they perished to a man. Upon the promise of a considerable sum of money, I prevailed upon the fishermen to give me a passage to New Orleans, where we arrived without accident or adventure, and my impatience to reach home only permitted me to stay in that city a few hours, when, having provided myself with a horse, I rode on hither by forced marches, and arrived in the travel–worn condition that you observed yesterday.”