The son of the white man sat in his house on the border of the Indian
nations, when there came a red man to his door, leading a beautiful
woman with a little child in her arms, and spoke thus:--
"Dost thou see the sun?"
"I see the sun," answered the white man, haughtily.
"Three times," said the Indian, "has that sun risen, and thrice has he
sunk from my eyes behind the dark hills of the west, since I or mine
have tasted food. For myself, I care little--I am a man of the woods,
a patient warrior; I can fast seven suns; I am not even now faint--but
a tender woman has not the soul of a strong warrior, and when she sees
not meat every day, she leans her head upon her hand, and when her
child droops for food she weeps. Give me food."
"Begone!" said the white man, "I earn my bread and meat by the sweat
of my brow--"
"On the lands of the Indian," interrupted the stern warrior.
"On my own lands--lands reclaimed from wildness--lands suffered to lie
waste for ages, and only made to be of use to human beings when my
race came hither with hard hands and patient souls, and felled the
trees, and rooted out the obstacles which kept out the beams of the
cherishing and invigorating sun. Begone to thy den in the wilderness!"
"Give me but food for the Sparrow and her little one, and the Hawk
will go without. He has yet strength enough left to enable him to
carry his feet to the wilds stocked with deer, and the Great Being
will himself direct the arrow which is to procure the means to sustain
life. But my wife and child, whose lives I value beyond my own, will
faint and die, ere that distant spot be gained."
"You shall have no food here; I will not feed lazy Indians," answered
the white man.
The Indian said nothing, but the pale and fainting mother looked on
her sick infant and burst into tears.
There was sitting on the greensward at the Englishman's door a
beautiful little girl not yet grown to perfect womanhood, but on its
verge--a fawn far in its second season--a tree wanting but a few more
suns to be clothed with the blossoms of maturity. She was the only
child of the white man--the only pledge of love left him by a beloved
wife who slept in the earth. She was most tenderly beloved by her
father, and seldom asked any thing in vain. At her side sat a boy,
perhaps two or three seasons older, playing with her the games of
childhood.
"Father," said she, rising and approaching him in a supplicating
manner, "suppose your daughter was cast friendless and hungry among
the sons of the forest, and they denied her food. Would not the wrath
of the Great Spirit be upon them for their inhumanity?"
The father looked thoughtful, but made no reply.
"Father, do you love your child?--If you do, permit her to feed the
good Indian father who would starve himself so those he loves could be
fed. Permit me to wipe the tears from the dark cheek of the mother,
and to take a crumb of bread from your plenteous store to put in the
mouth of the famished child."
The father could deny nothing to his beloved daughter, and, besides,
the little boy pleaded for the famished Pequods also, and he yielded.
With a light and bounding step the two children pursued the fainting
Indians and brought them back. Food was set before them till their
hunger was appeased; the little girl laid the little Indian babe on
her own knee and fed it with her own hand, nor were they permitted to
depart till refreshed by a rest of two days. They then returned to
their own homes in the wilderness, and their little benefactors
attended them to the skirts of the forest, two miles from the cruel
father's dwelling.
* * * * *
Several seasons had passed away; the little girl, who had so kindly
interposed to feed the miserable Indians, had grown to womanhood, and
had become the wife of that boy and a mother. Her husband was a
cultivator of the soil, and with the disposition to seek new lands,
and try untried regions, which every where belongs to white men, he
had built himself a cabin very far from the spot where he and his wife
drew their breath. On the banks of a distant river, on a pleasantly
situated little hill, which enjoyed the bright morning sun, he erected
his cabin and sowed his wheat. He went not, however, to the wilderness
alone: many other white men went with him, and, for protection against
the red men of the forest, whose wrongs had stirred them to bitter
hatred and revenge, they built a fort, to which they might retreat in
case of danger. The cabin of the benefactors of the starving Indian
family was at a distance of a mile from the fort--the husband being
the first who had ventured to reside at such a distance from a
garrison or fortified house.
"I shall return before dark," said he one day to his affectionate
wife, as he was preparing to go down to the fort on some business.
"There is no danger, my beloved," continued he, as he took up his
little son, and, kissing him, laid him in his fond mother's arms.
"But my dreams, my husband--my frightful dreams of tall savages and
shrill war-whoops!" said she.
"Oh! that should not frighten you," he replied. "Remember, you had
been listening all the evening to dark and terrific stories of what
had been done by the native warrior when he raised his arm in defence
of his birth-place. Dreams are caused by that which most engrosses our
thoughts--particularly just as we are going to sleep. There have not
been any traces of the Indians discovered this season, and I should be
sorry to raise an alarm among our friends merely upon account of a
dream."
"But you know, my husband," said she, "that they are a secret, as well
as a terrible enemy--they are, you know, eagles for daring, panthers
for fierceness, adders for secrecy, and foxes for cunning." And she
raised her mild eyes to her husband's face with that pleading
expression when tears seem ready to start, and are yet checked by the
fear of giving pain to the one beloved. A fond husband finds it
impossible to withstand the tears of his wife, and he said, quickly,
"I will not go to the garrison to-day."
"But you promised your father, and he will expect you," answered she.
"You must go. I know my fears are the fears of a child, but they shall
not make me wicked. I am too apt to think my security depends on your
presence. I forgot that the One mighty to save can defend me, and that
trust in Him is a shield to the believer. You must go."
"But I will not go without you," said her husband, who now began to
feel the fears she was endeavouring to shake off. "Come, prepare the
child, and we will go down together. If there has been any alarm, we
will not return to-night, but pass it under the protection of the
fort."
The wife paused a few moments, as if considering what she should do. I
need not tell you, for you know that nothing is so difficult to
explain--nothing so contradictory as the feelings and wishes of the
human heart. A few moments since she would have thought that if she
could accompany her husband she should be perfectly safe--that his
presence would obviate every danger ere it arose. But now other
considerations presented themselves to her mind. If he went not to the
council, he might incur reproof for listening to a woman's fears and
dreams; and dread of ridicule prevented her from accompanying him.
"I will have more fortitude," said she, smiling. "I will not make a
fool of you, though I appear like one myself--you shall not have
reason to be ashamed of your wife--I will not go." And she sat down
resolutely, determined to conquer her fears. It was in vain that her
husband urged her to accompany him. The more she saw his affectionate
anxiety on her account, the more she laboured to suppress her fears,
till finally she persuaded him, and herself too, that she felt no
uneasiness at all from the prospect of passing a lengthened period
alone, and he departed.
But she had affected resolution which she was far from feeling. She
felt a presentiment that danger was nigh, and it weighed heavily on
her heart. But she saw him depart without tears, and, after watching
him from the door till he entered the forest, betook herself to the
usual duties of a woman in the house of her husband. Yet she could not
forbear going frequently to the door, and sometimes she would wander
forth, and gaze all around their little field, and then watch the
progress of the sun, with an expression of countenance, that, to an
observer, would instantly have revealed the agitation and anxiety
which her heart was suffering. But she saw nothing to inspire
fears--indeed there was much to tranquillize them. Every thing abroad
was in perfect quiet. There was scarcely a breath of air perceptible;
and the waters of the beautiful Merrimack flowed without a ripple. The
calm sky of the last month of summer looked of a deeper and more
heavenly blue, seen as it was by her from a spot circumscribed by tall
trees, now clothed with such a fulness of foliage as made the forest
appear dark and almost impenetrable. Close around the house were
planted corn and vegetables; and a field of wheat, in front of the
dwelling, stretched in unbroken green to the river's brink. There was
not a sound to be heard--save the chirping of a robin that had built
her nest on a lofty chesnut which stood close to the south-east corner
of the house--the only tree suffered to grow within the enclosure. The
young birds were fully fledged, and, under the guidance of the
parents, were about quitting their nest. The lovely wife watched their
movements; the old birds now encouraging, now seeming to chide, their
timid offspring, till finally they reached the woods, and all
disappeared. Slight as the circumstance was, it touched her with a
feeling of loneliness. "Even the birds have left me," said she to
herself, and, pressing her boy closer to her bosom, she burst into
tears. She might well be excused these tears and feelings, for, though
a wife and mother, she had seen the leaves fall but seventeen times.
She watched the sun till it sunk behind the western hills, and then
she watched its beams on the clouds till the last faint tints had
departed: and, fixing her eyes stedfastly on that part of the forest,
from which she expected to see her husband emerge, she sat at the
door, with her child in her arms, watching, in vain, for his
appearance. As the evening waxed later, and her fears increased, she
sometimes imagined she saw strange figures and ferocious faces, with
eyes beaming wrath and vengeance, such as she had beheld in her dream,
moving about the dusky apartment. Ashamed of these fears, and knowing
that her husband, when he came home, would chide her for thus exposing
herself and her child to the evening dews, she breathed a short prayer
to Him who stilled the tempest, and entered the house. Her first care,
after placing her infant in his cradle, was, to light a candle, and
then, more reassured, she took the sacred book from which white men
gather their belief of the land of souls and of future happiness. That
book is the "charm," and the protecting "medicine" of the white men.
They believe that it guards them from evil, and guides them to good;
its pages are a direction in every difficulty--its promises a resource
in every trial. She read and prayed alternately, mingling the idea of
her husband, his safety and return, with every thought and wish, but
still he came not. She had no means of ascertaining the lapse of time,
except by the stars, as there was no moon; but she conjectured that it
must be past the hour of midnight. Again and again she went forth, and
examined with a searching glance every thing around, but nothing could
she see, except the dark forest in the distance, and, close around her
dwelling, the black stumps that stood like sentinels on guard--while
nothing was heard, save the soft murmur of the water, and, at times, a
low rustling, as the breeze stirred the leaves of the chesnut-tree, or
swept over the field of ripe wheat.
At length, as she stood at the corner of the cabin, beneath the shade
of the chesnut, of which I have before spoken, looking earnestly
towards the distant woods, she saw, or thought she saw, something
emerge from their shadow. Whatever it was, it vanished instantly. She
kept her eyes fixed on the spot. A bright starlight enabled her to
discern objects distinctly, even at a distance, especially when her
faculties were roused and stimulated, both by hope and fear. After
some time, she again and plainly saw a human figure. It rose from the
ground, looked and pointed towards her house, and then again
disappeared. She recollected her light. It could be seen from the
window, and probably had attracted the notice of the Indians, who, she
could no longer doubt, were approaching. They had, as she fancied,
waylaid and killed her husband--and were now coming to destroy herself
and her child. What should she do? She never thought of attempting to
escape without her babe; but in what direction should she fly, when,
perhaps, the Indians surrounded the cabin? There was one moment of
terrible agony, when the mangled form of her husband seemed before
her, and she heard, in idea, the shrieks of her babe beneath the
tortures of your race, till her breath failed, and reason seemed
deserting her. But she made a strong effort to recall her wandering
senses, and then, with her eyes and clasped hands raised to that place
where the white man believes his God to reside, she took her
resolution. With a noiseless step she entered her dwelling,
extinguished the light, took her infant in her arms, and again stole
softly forth, creeping along in the shadow of the house, till she
reached the spot whence she had first seen the object which alarmed
her. Here she stood perfectly still. Her infant lay on her bosom in
profound sleep--as quiet and seemingly as breathless as though his
spirit had already departed. She did not wait long before the same
dark figure again rose, looked around, and then sank down as before.
The moment it disappeared, she passed swiftly and softly, as a shadow,
over the space that separated the cabin from the chesnut-tree. This
tree was an uncommonly large one, and there was a separation of the
trunk into two branches, about half the height of a tall man from the
ground, where the shuddering wife thought it possible that she might
conceal herself. She gained it, and placed herself in a position which
allowed her to watch the door of her dwelling. All was silent for a
long time--more than that space, which among my people, is called an
hour, and she began to doubt the reality of what she had seen,
imagining she had been deceived, and taken a stump for a human figure;
and she was about to descend from the tree, where her situation had
become uncomfortable, when suddenly a forest warrior stept by her,
between the house and the tree. As another, and another, followed, it
was with difficulty she suppressed her screams. But she did suppress
them, and the only sign she gave of fear, was to press her infant
closer to her bosom. They reached the door, and a sound of surprise at
finding it open was muttered by the first who approached it, and
replied to by the second. After a short consultation they entered, and
she soon saw a light gleam, and supposed they had kindled it to search
for her. Her pulse beat wildly; yet, still she hoped to escape. It was
not probable that they would search a tree so near the cabin; they
would rather suppose she had fled to a distance. Presently a crackling
noise was heard in the cabin, and a bright light, as of flame, flashed
from the door and window. Presently the Indians rushed out, and,
raising their wild yell, danced around the cabin with their usual
demonstrations of joy, when they have accomplished a purpose of
revenge. The cabin was in flames.
Still the only sign she gave of fear was, as she unloosed the
handkerchief from her neck and threw it over her child's face to
screen his eyes from the glare of light that might awaken him, to
press him closer and closer to her heart.
The house was unfinished; there was nothing to delay, for a moment,
the progress of the fire which had been kindled in the centre of the
apartment, and fed by all the combustibles that could be found in the
dwelling. The flame very soon caught the rafters and boards, and it
seemed that she had scarcely time to breathe a dozen times, before the
blaze burst through the roof. The atmosphere, rarified by the heat
around the burning building, suddenly expanded, and the cold and more
dense air rushing in, it seemed as if a sudden wind was blowing
violently. The current drove the thick smoke, and showered the burning
cinders, directly on the chesnut-tree. She felt the scorching heat,
while the suffocating vapour almost deprived her of the power of
respiration. She grew dizzy; yet still the only movement she made was,
to turn her child a little in her arms, that he might be more
effectually shielded from the smoke. At that moment, one of the
warriors approached, in the wild movements of his dance, close to the
tree. An eddy of wind swept away the smoke; the light fell full on the
pale face of the horror-stricken woman; her eyes, as if by the power
of fascination, were rivetted on the tall and dusky form of the son of
the forest; his fiery glance was raised toward her, and their gaze
met. She gave a start; and the note of his wild war-song was shriller
as he intently regarded his victim. Suddenly he turned away. Murmuring
a short prayer to her God, the trembling woman resigned herself to
death, as she heard them all send forth a prolonged whoop.
"My boy! My husband! We shall meet, we shall all meet in Heaven!" she
cried.
But why did not the Indians approach? She listened, looked around, and
soon saw them flying with the speed of frighted deer across the space
of cleared land, illuminated by the bright glare, to the covert of the
wood. She did not pause to consider what had caused their flight; but,
obeying that instinct which bids us shun the present danger, perhaps
to encounter a greater more remote, she sprang from the tree, and
rushed towards the river. She recollected a spot where the bank
projected, beneath which, during the summer months, the bed of the
river was nearly dry; there she should, at least, be secure from the
fire.
And there she sheltered herself. Her feet were immersed in water, and
she stood in a stooping posture to screen herself from observation,
should the Indians return to seek her. In the mean time, her little
boy slumbered peacefully, and regardless of surrounding perils. None
of her fears or dangers disturbed his repose; and, when the morning
light allowed her to gaze on his sweet face, lit up by the smiles of
infantile joy, as he beheld the maternal eyes beaming love upon him,
tears of bliss and thankfulness flowed fast down her cheeks that she
had been enabled thus to shield that dear innocent from death.
Soon after the sun had risen she heard sounds as of people
approaching, and soon recognised the voices of her friends from the
garrison. She was conveyed, with her child, to the fort, which her
husband had left, she learned, about sunset the preceding evening.
Nothing was known, or could be discovered, of his fate; no track nor
trace remained to show whether he was to be reckoned among the dead or
the living.
* * * * *
The husband of her, whose escape from the wrath of red men I have
related to the Iroquois, was returning from the fort to his own
habitation, soon after the damps of evening were abroad on the earth.
He was joyous and merry at the thought of embracing his beloved wife
and child, and whistled and sang, as he went, like a lark in the
morning. Just as he was entering the edge of a deep valley, which lay
between his cabin and the protected dwellings of his friends, four
Pequods rushed from the thick woods upon him. One of them seized his
rifle before he had time to use it; while another struck him a blow on
the head with his tomahawk, which deprived him of recollection, until
near the return of the light.
When he did recover, he found himself lying at the foot of a tree, his
hands bound, and an Indian guarding him. All efforts to escape he
found would be vain, and he silently submitted to his fate. About
mid-day the other three of his captors joined the one who guarded him,
and, after conversing hastily a few moments, they began a hurried
march. The prisoner perceived one of them examining him often and
attentively, viewing him in various situations, apparently
endeavouring to make out a recognition of one formerly known. At
length, on the fourth day, as he was alone with the prisoner, he
seated himself upon the smooth sward, and, bidding the other do the
same, he addressed him in the following language:--
"Listen!"
"I listen," said the prisoner.
"Where hadst thou thy dwelling-place when thine arm was first able to
bend a healthy sprout of a single season, and thy heart first began to
count upon its strength to look upon the glaring eye-ball of a mad
wolf?"
"Far from here," answered the prisoner, his eyes filling with tears,
and sighs bursting from his heart, at the image of youthful love and
bliss recalled to his mind by the allusion to his birth-place. "Upon
the bank of a distant river, more than three suns travel from the spot
where I became the captive of the red man."
"White men have forked tongues," answered the Pequod; "but thou shalt
mark it out on the smooth surface of the white birch, that my memory
may tell me if thou hast spoken true."
The prisoner, with a piece of coal taken from their fire, marked out
the dwelling in which he resided at the period alluded to by the
Indian. He seemed satisfied.
"It is well," said he. "Now show me the cabin to which thou wert
going, when the red man paid a small part of his debt of vengeance on
thy race, by taking thee captive."
The prisoner made a second drawing, representing his little field and
his cabin, including the chesnut-tree.
"Was there another bird in the nest of thy father when thy soul first
began to feel the proud confidence and conciousness of approaching
manhood?" demanded the Pequod, eyeing him intently.
"There was," answered the captive--"a little maiden."
"And where is that bird now?"
"She is the wife of my bosom. _Is_, did I say--Alas! she may not be
living--she has undoubtedly perished by the hands of the accursed
beings who fired my dwelling, and chained the feet that would have
carried me, with the speed of a deer, to her side--and bound the hands
that would have unsheathed the sword of vengeance for her rescue."
The Indian made no answer to this burst of passion, but looked for a
moment kindly and compassionately on the poor captive, and then
relapsed into silence.
Early the next morning, the prisoner was awakened by the same man, who
motioned him to rise and follow him. The rest of the party were not in
sight. He obeyed, and they set out on their return, retracing their
steps with the ease and accuracy, which, in every clime, belong to the
forest hunter. Travelling rapidly, in silence, for two days, they
found themselves on the morning of the third on the banks of his own
river, the dark rolling Merrimack. Before the sun had reached the
highest part of the heavens, they came to a little hill, well and
fondly remembered by the affectionate husband, though now conveying
agonizing hopes and fears. It overlooked the little valley where once
his cabin stood, and where the ripe wheat still bowed itself, in
graceful undulations, before the light breeze of summer; and the
mighty chesnut-tree, blackened by the smoke of his burning dwelling,
still looked with lordly pride on all its less stately neighbours. "My
wife!" he said, in an almost inaudible voice.
"Thy bird will meet thee on another bough," exclaimed the warrior. "A
crust of bread, and a drink of cold water, offered to a famished
Indian--a tear of pity, and a sigh of compassion, saved her and thee."
And his own dusky countenance exhibited a touch of feeling but seldom
suffered to cross the face of him who deems it dishonour to betray an
emotion of pity, or compassion, or gratitude, or love(1).
"I do not understand you," said the white man, prisoner no longer.
"Listen," said the warrior--"The son of Annawan was caught, with the
dove of his nest and her squab, far from his own dwelling, and among
the men of thy colour. Thy race had killed or driven away the beasts
of the chace; and there was nothing upon which the red archer could
show the sleight of his hand and the truth of his eye. White men
would give him no food, but drove him from their cabins, saying, 'You
are an Indian.' At the door of thy father--"
"He was not my father," interrupted the other; "he was the brother of
my mother."
"At the door of the brother of thy mother hard words were showered on
the poor red man, and he was bidden to seek elsewhere the food for
which his soul panted--not that he might eat it himself, but bestow it
upon his famished wife and sick babe. Listen!
"There was a little maiden sitting at the door of the cabin--she was
not grown to womanhood, nor dreamed yet of tender lovers--she was a
fawn in its second season, a tree wanting but a few more suns to be
clothed with the blossoms of maturity. By her side sat a boy, who
might be two or three harvests older. The little maiden rose from the
smooth sward where she sat, and throwing her white arms around the
neck of her father, begged hard for the strangers. The boy came, and
joined her in her prayers. The hardhearted man granted to the
entreaties of his children what compassion would not bestow. The
Indian was fed--his wife was fed--his babe was fed. Dost thou hear?"
"I hear," said the delighted hunter, grasping the hand of the noble
warrior, while tears streamed down his sun-burnt cheek.
"That boy was the prisoner, whom the Pequods, four suns since, carried
away from yonder vale--and the famished hunter was he who unbound thy
limbs, and who saved that compassionate maiden, by the song he poured
into the ears of his brothers, of an angry spirit, seen by the light
of the blazing cabin among the boughs of the chesnut-tree.
"Learn, pale face, that an Indian can be grateful. A crust of bread,
and a draught of water, bestowed upon the red man, or those he loves,
weigh down the memory of a thousand wrongs--a kind look dispels the
frown from his brow--a kind word checks the purpose of vengeance,
which, unchecked, is like a fire carried by a high wind to a field of
dry grass. Thou and thine did me a deed of kindness--preserved the
life of her whose bright eyes are the light of my cabin--and of the
boy who will, one day, bend the bow of a hunter, and be taught to
utter the cry of vengeance on the hills--fear not, thou art safe in
the land whence his fathers were banished. Thou and thine did this for
the Son of Annawan, the Fleet Foot of his tribe, and he will never
forget it--till the stars forget to shine, and the moon to become the
lamp of the dark hours. Say, in the ears of the Fair Hair that I gave
her cabin to the devouring flames, before I knew it was hers. But the
season will soon come when the beaver will be sleek and glossy; and an
otter worth more than an arrow--the spoils of the Fleet Foot's winter
hunt shall rebuild the cabin of the flower of the the pale faces."
So saying, the Son of Annawan, the great chief, who once was the lord
of those boundless regions, disappeared in the forest, and was seen no
more among white men.