“Wo is the youth whom Fancy gains,
Winning from Reason’s hands the reins.”
The morning of the next day, serene and beautiful as a bride decked
in her fresh robes and redolent in her forest perfumery, came smiling
over the wilderness hills of the east, to greet our little pioneer
family on their deliverance from the perils of yesterday. The war
of the elements, that had raged so fearfully round their seemingly
devoted domicile, had all passed away; and, after sleeping off the
fatigue and excitement of the previous day, they rose to look around
them, to find themselves safe, and call themselves satisfied. Their
buildings had been, after all, but very slightly injured, and their
green crops but little damaged; their fences, indeed, were mostly
consumed; but these could be replaced from the timber of the burnt
slash, with little more labor than would be required to pile up and
burn that timber where it lay. But, whatever such additional labor
might be, it was more than compensated by the very intensity of the
fire which caused it, and which, at the same time, had so utterly
consumed all the underbrush, limbs of the trees, and even the smaller
trees themselves, that weeks less than with ordinary burns would be
required in the clearing. Elwood, therefore, came in from his morning
survey happily disappointed in the supposed extent of his losses; and,
joining his wife and son in the house, whom he found busily engaged in
cutting up, mealing, and placing in the hissing pan over the fire the
broad, red, and rich-looking pieces of trout, the fruit of yesterday’s
excursion on the lake, he told them, with a gratified air, the result
of his observation, which, on a merchant-like calculation of loss and
gain from the conflagration, he made out to show even a balance in
his favor. Mrs. Elwood rejoiced with her husband on the happy turn of
affairs, and wondered why her son did not manifest the same flow of
spirits. But the latter, for some reason or other, appeared unusually
abstracted during the whole morning; and, when asked to relate the
particulars of his perilous adventure with the moose, which he had
the evening before but briefly mentioned, he exhibited a hesitation,
and a sort of shying of the question, in that part of the adventure
relating to the rescued girl, which did not escape the quick eye of
the mother. It was evident to her that something was kept back. But
what that something was she was wholly unable to conjecture. It was so
unusual for her son to show any lack of frankness that the circumstance
disturbed her, and, though she knew not exactly why, sent a boding
chill over her heart, which caused her also to become thoughtful and
silent. And Mr. Elwood, who possessed none of those mental sympathies
which, in some, will often be found unconsciously mingling with the
thoughts of others, so far, at least, as to apprise them of the general
character and drift of those thoughts, now, in his turn, wondered why
his wife, as well as son, should all at once become so unsocial and
taciturn.
It will doubtless be generally said that this mental sympathy, or the
intuitive perception of the main drift of what is passing in the minds
of others, has an existence only in the fancy of fictionists. We,
however, after years of close observation, have wholly ceased to doubt
its reality. Scores of times have we been affected by thoughts and
intentions which we knew must have a source other than in our own mind.
Scores of times have we, in this manner, been put on our guard against
the selfish designs which others were harboring to our disadvantage,
of which no tongue had informed us, and of which, afterwards, we had
tangible proof. And, on careful inquiry among persons of thought and
sensibility, we have become convinced that the principle holds good
to a very considerable extent among others; and that attention to the
subject is only wanting to make it a generally received opinion. It
was this principle that now affected Mrs. Elwood: not that she had
the most distant idea that her son harbored aught of wrong intention
toward any of his family, but she felt that his mind was somehow
becoming subservient to schemes which existed somewhere in the minds of
others, which concerned her or her family. But she _felt_ rather than
thought this; and, knowing she could give no reason for her singular
impression, prudently kept it to herself.
“Good-morning, good-morning, gentlefolks,” rang out the cheery voice of
the hunter, who now looked in at the door as the Elwoods were rising
from their breakfast. “Things look a little altered round here, this
morning. I should hardly have known the place without the king pine,
which, in its prime, was a tree of a thousand.”
“That tree was an old acquaintance of yours, I suppose,” remarked
Elwood.
“Yes, of twenty years’ standing; and I shall miss and mourn it as an
old friend. But it died like a monarch, yielding only under the direct
blow of the Almighty.”
“Then you consider the lightning more especially the instrument of
Heaven than the wind, fire, and other elements, do you?”
“To be sure I do. Wind, we know what it is; fire we know; water we also
know; because we can see them, touch them, measure them. But who can
see a piece of lightning when not in motion? who can find the least
fragment of it after it has struck? It rends a tree, makes a smooth
hole through a board, and ploughs up the ground. But go to the tree
and there is nothing there; look under the board, it is the same; and
dig along the furrow it has ploughed to where it stopped, and it is
not there, as it would be if it was any material thing, like a bullet,
an axe, knife, or other instrument that produces such effects, in
all other instances. No, ’tis not matter; it is the power of God; and
your philosophers, who pretend to explain it, don’t know what they are
talking about. But enough of that. I came here to rally you out to go
up the river with the rest of us, for the moose. You will both go,
won’t you?”
“Claud will, doubtless,” replied Mr. Elwood. “Indeed, I have half a
mind to go myself.”
“Perhaps Claud, having had a fatiguing excursion yesterday, will stay
at home, and let his father go, to-day,” suggested Mrs. Elwood.
“It was not at all fatiguing, mother,” responded Claud.
“The wind blows up the river to-day, ma’am,” said the hunter, with a
knowing look.
Little more was said; but the result was that Claud and the hunter
now soon went off together on the proposed excursion. On reaching the
mouth of the Magalloway, they found four others waiting for them, with
their canoes, when the whole party commenced their little voyage up the
river. After leisurely rowing against the here slow and gentle current
of the stream for an hour or two, they reached their destination, and
hauled up at a point most convenient for gaining the spot where the
slaughtered moose had been left the evening before. Led on by the
hunter, all now started for the place just named, except Claud, who,
under pretence of taking a short gunning bout in the woods, and of soon
coming round to join his companions, proceeded, as soon as the latter
were out of sight, with slow and hesitating steps, up the river, for
the opening and supposed residence of the fair unknown who had so long
been the object of his wondering fancies, and who had, notwithstanding
the exciting scenes he had witnessed at home, been the especial subject
of his dreams after he retired to rest the night before. But what a
strange, wayward, timid, doubting, and inconsistent thing is the tender
passion in its incipient stages, especially when that passion has
principally been wrought up by the imagination! He soon came to the
clearing of which he was in quest, and obtained a clear view of the,
to him, charmed cottage. But, instead of entering the opening directly,
he went nearly round it, frequently pausing and advancing nearly to the
edge of the woods; but as often retreating, being unable quite to make
up his mind to show himself at all to the inmates of the cottage. Once
he gave it up entirely, and started off for his companions. But, after
he had proceeded a dozen rods, he came again to a stand, hesitated a
while, and, as if ashamed of his irresolution, wheeled rapidly about,
proceeded, with a quick, firm step, to the border of the woods, struck
directly for the house, and, with assumed unconcern, marched up to the
door,--where he was met, not by the young lady he expected first to
see, but by her father. But who was that father? To his utter surprise,
it was _his_ father’s old tempter and ruiner, the dark and inscrutable
Gaut Gurley!
With a manner, for him, unusually gracious, Gurley extended his hand
to Claud; ushered him into the house; formally introduced him to his
wife, an ordinary, abject-looking woman; and then to his daughter, the
fair, dark-eyed, tall, shapely, and every way magnificent Avis Gurley,
the girl who had so long, but unwittingly, been the object of the young
man’s dreamy fancies.
“I have but very lately discovered,” remarked Gurley, who seemed to
feel himself called on to lead off in the conversation, after the usual
commonplace remarks had been exchanged, “I have but lately discovered
that I had, by a singular coincidence, again cast my lot in the same
settlement with your family. Having made up my mind, a few months ago,
to try a new country, and coming across the owner of this place, who
was on a journey in New Hampshire, and who offered to sell and move off
at once, I came on with him, struck a bargain, returned for my family,
and brought them here about a fortnight ago. But, having been absent
most of the time since, I didn’t mistrust who my neighbors were.”
“And you probably perceived, sir,” said Avis, turning to Claud, with a
smile, “you probably perceived, in your yesterday’s adventure up here
in the woods, that I have been in as bad a predicament as my father.”
“How is that, Avis?” asked Gurley.
“Why, father,” responded the other, “Mr. Elwood will readily suppose
that I should not have been straying into the wood for flowers and
berries, had I known we had any such neighbors as the one from whose
pursuit he so kindly rescued me last evening.”
“I was as much surprised at the ferocity of the animal as you were, I
presume,” said Claud, in reply. “And I was far more indebted to the
hunter, Phillips, for my _own_ rescue, than _you_ were to _me_ for
_yours_. I merely turned the furious brute aside. It was he who, coming
up in the nick of time, brought him dead to the earth.”
“I supposed there were two of you,” remarked Gurley. “I was half a mile
up the river, yet I heard the firing plain enough; and, returning soon
after, and hearing my daughter’s story, I went to the place; but, by
that time, you had dressed the animal and were gone. By the voices I
heard in the woods, a short time ago, I concluded you came up, with
others, for the beef.”
“We did. You here should certainly be entitled to a liberal share. Will
you not go up there?”
“Yes; I was thinking about it before you came in. I will go; but,
as I wish to go a short distance into the woods, partly in another
direction, I will now walk on and come round to the spot; and, if I
don’t meet you there, you may just tell your father how surprised I
have been to find myself again in the same neighborhood with himself.”
“Umph!” half audibly exclaimed the hitherto mute wife, with a look
that seemed to say, “What a bouncer he is telling now!” and she was
evidently about to say something, comporting with the significant
exclamation, but a glance from her husband, as he passed out of the
door, quelled her into silence.
On the departure of Gurley, his wife rose and left the room; when
Claud, unexpectedly finding himself alone with his fair companion,
instead of entering into the easy conversation with her which the
dictates of common gallantry would seem to require, soon began to
manifest signs of constraint and embarrassment, which did not escape
the eye of the young lady, and which caused her no little surprise and
perplexity. She knew nothing of what had been passing in his mind, nor
once dreamed of the circumstance which had first impressed her image
there. She had, indeed, known nothing of the Elwoods, except what she
had heard her father say of them as a family, with whose head he had in
some way been formerly connected in business. Had she been asked, she
would doubtless have recalled the fact that her father had, the year
before, employed an artist to paint a miniature likeness of her, which
he subsequently pretended to have sent to a relative of his residing
in Quebec, and she never entertained the least suspicion that it was
not thus properly disposed of. She had never seen Claud till yesterday,
when he so opportunely appeared for her rescue; and, even then, she had
no idea who it was to whom she had thus become indebted. She, however,
had been much prepossessed with his appearance and manly bearing, and
felt a lively sense of gratitude for the voluntary service; and when,
by the introduction of her father, she became apprised of the character
of her deliverer, she felt doubly gratified that he had turned out to
be one who, she believed, would not take any mean advantage of the
obligation. For these reasons, she could not understand why he should
appear so reserved, unless it was that she had failed to interest him;
and, finally concluding that this must be the case, she did that which,
with her maidenly pride and high spirit, she would otherwise have
scorned to do, she exerted herself to the utmost to interest and please
him; and, when he rose to return to his companions, she followed him
into the yard, and smilingly said:
“You are fond of gunning excursions, are you not, Mr. Elwood?”
“Yes, O yes, quite so,” replied Claud, with awkward hesitation.
“And would not an occasional excursion in _this_ direction be as
pleasant as any other?” she asked, with playful significance.
But, instead of replying in the same spirit, the bewildered young man
turned, and sent a gaze into the depths of her lustrous dark eyes,
so serious and intense that it brought a blush to her cheek; when,
stammering out his intention of often taking her house in his way in
future, he hurriedly bade her good-by, and departed, leaving her more
perplexed than ever.
As for Claud, it would be difficult to describe his sensations on
leaving the house, or make any thing definite out of the operations
of his mind. Both heart and brain were working tumultuously, but not
in unison. The train which his imagination had been laying was on the
point of being kindled into a blaze by the reality. He knew it; he felt
it; but he knew also that it was the part of wisdom to smother the
flame while it yet might be controlled. The unexpected and startling
discovery which he had just made, that the girl who had so wrought
upon his fancy, both when seen in the picture and met in the original,
was the daughter of Gaut Gurley, raised difficulties and dangers in
the path he found himself entering, which his judgment told him could
only be avoided by his immediate desistance. For he was well aware how
deeply rooted was his mother’s aversion to this man, and how fatal had
been his influence over his father, who had but a few months before
escaped from his toils, and then only, perhaps, because there was no
more to be gained by keeping him in them any longer. A connection
with the daughter, therefore, however opposite in character from her
father, would not only greatly mar his mother’s happiness, but in all
probability lead to a renewal of the intimacy between his father and
Gurley; an event which he himself felt was to be deprecated. But the
Demon of Sophistry, who first taught self-deceiving man how to make
“the wish father to the thought,” here interposing, whispered to the
incipient lover that his father had reformed, and why not then Gaut
Gurley? This reasoning, however, could not be made to satisfy his
judgment; and again commenced the struggle between head and heart, one
pulling one way and the other in another way,--too often an unequal
struggle, too often like one of those contests between man and wife,
where reason succumbs and will comes off triumphant.
Such were the fluctuating thoughts and purposes which occupied the
agitated bosom of Claud Elwood, in his solitary walk to the place where
the boats had been left, and where the subject was now driven from
his mind, for a while, by the appearance of his companions and the
merry jokes of the hunter. They had cut up the moose meat, which they
had found in good condition, and brought all they deemed worth saving
down to the landing. And, being now ready to embark, they apportioned
the meat among the different canoes, and rowed with the now favoring
current rapidly down the river together till they reached its mouth,
when they separated, and bore their allotted portions of the moose to
their respective homes.
For the two succeeding days and nights the hapless Claud was the prey
of conflicting emotions,--the more oppressive because he carefully kept
them pent up in his own bosom. He dared not make the least allusion
before his parents to the lady whom they knew he had rescued, or
his visit to her home, for he could not do so without revealing the
fact that the dreaded Gaut Gurley, with his family, had found his
way into the vicinity; while, if he did disclose this fact, he felt
that he could not hold up his head before them till he had conquered
his feelings towards the daughter. And sometimes he thought he had
conquered them, and resolved that he would never see her again. But,
brooding over his feelings in the solitudes of the woods, he only
cherished and fanned the flame he was thinking to extinguish; and he
again relapsed,--again paused,--again “resolved, re-resolved, and
_did_ the same;” for, on the third day, under the excuse of taking
another excursion on the lake, he was drawn, as surely as the vibrating
needle to the pole, to the beautiful load-star of the Magalloway.
Suspecting the state of young Elwood’s feelings towards her, and
fearing that she might have been too forward in her advances at their
last interview, Avis Gurley, this time, received him with a dignity and
maidenly reserve, which, when contrasted with her former sociability
and cordiality of manner, seemed to him like studied coolness. This
soon led him, in turn, to sue for favor. And so earnestly did he
pursue his object, that, before he was aware of what he was saying,
he had revealed the secret of his heart. She received his remarks
in respectful silence, but gave no indication by which he could
judge whether the inadvertent disclosure was pleasing or otherwise,
except what might be gathered from her increased cordiality on other
subjects, to which she now adroitly turned the conversation. This was
just enough to encourage him, and at the same time leave him in that
degree of doubt and suspense which generally operate as the greatest
incentive to persevere in the pursuit of an object. It proved so in
his case; and, to this natural incentive to persevere, was now added
another, that of respect for her character,--a respect which every
hour’s conversation with her enhanced, and which he might accord to her
with entire justice. Gaut Gurley, like many other bad men, was proud
of having a good daughter. He early perceived that she inherited all
that was comely and good in him, physically and morally, without any
of his defects or faults of character. And, desirous so to rear her as
to make the most of her natural endowments, and so, at the same time,
that her character should not be marred by his example, he had been at
considerable expense with her education, and had even deported himself
with much circumspection in her presence. This, as will be readily
inferred of one of his designing character, he did from a mixed motive:
partly from parental pride and affection, and partly to make her,
through some advantageous marriage, subservient to his own personal
interests.
In this state of affairs between Claud and Avis, closed this, their
second interview. Another, and another, and yet another, succeeded at
brief intervals. And so rapid is the course of love, when springing up
in solitudes like these, where nothing occurs to divert the gathering
current, but every thing conspires to increase it,--where to our young
devotees all around them seemed to reflect their own feelings,--where
the æolian music of the whispering pines that embowered their solitary
walks seemed but to give voice to the melody that filled their own
hearts,--where to them the birds all sang of love,--where love smiled
upon them in the pensive beams of the moon, glistened in the stars,
and was stamped on all the expanse of blue sky above, and on all the
forms of beauty on the green earth beneath,--so rapid, we repeat, is
the course of love, thus born and thus fostered, that a fortnight had
scarcely elapsed before they had both yielded up heart and soul to the
dominion of the well-named blind god, and uttered their mutual vows of
love and constancy.
This was the sunshine of their love; but the storms were already
gathering in the distance.