“Hearts will be prophets still.”
The week succeeding the logging bee was an extremely busy one with
the Elwoods, who still had a heavy task to perform on their new
field, before it could be considered properly cleared or fitted for
seeding and harrowing. Sixty days before, that field was covered with
a heavy growth of primitive forest, standing in its native majesty,
a mountain mass of green vigor and sturdy life, and as seemingly
invincible against the assaults of man as it had been against those
of the elements whose fury it had so long withstood. But the busy
and fatal axe had done its work. That towering forest had been laid
prostrate with the earth, and the first process of the Herculean
task of converting the forest into the field had been completed. The
second and third process, also, in the burning of the slash and the
gathering the trunks of the trees into log-heaps, as we have seen,
had been in turn successfully accomplished. But the fourth and last
process still remained to be performed. Those unseemly log-heaps,
cumbering no inconsiderable portion of the field, must be disposed of,
to complete the work. This was now the first task of the Elwoods, and
time pressed for its speedy execution. Accordingly, the next morning
after the bee, they sallied out, each with a blazing brand in his hand,
and commenced the work of firing the piles,--a work which, unlike that
of firing a combustible and readily catching slash, required not only
considerable time, but often the exercise of much skill and patience.
But they steadily persevered, and, before sunset, had the gratification
of beholding every one of those many scores of huge log-piles, that
thickly dotted the ground, clearly within the grasp of the devouring
element; and afterwards of seeing that grasp grow stronger and stronger
on the solid material on which it had securely fastened, till, to
the eye of fancy, the dark old forest seemed by day to be reproduced
in the numerous, thickly-set columns of smoke that shot upward and
spread out into over-arching canopies above, while, with the gathering
darkness of the night, that forest seemed gradually to take the form of
a distant burning city in the manifold tapering pillars of fire which
everywhere rose from the field, fiercely illuminating the dark and
sombre wood-wall of the surrounding forest, and dimly glimmering over
the sleeping waters of river and lake beyond.
They had now made the fire their servant, and got it safely at work for
them; but that servant, to insure its continued and profitable action,
must be constantly fed and fostered. The logs, becoming by the action
of the fire partially consumed, and, by thus losing their contact with
each other, ceasing to burn, required, every few hours, to be rolled
together, adjusted, and repacked; when, being already thoroughly heated
and still partly on fire, they would soon burst out again into a brisk
blaze. This tending and re-packing of the piles demanded, for many of
the succeeding days, the constant attention of the Elwoods; who, going
out early each morning, and keeping up their rounds at short intervals
through the day and to a late hour at night, assiduously pursued their
object, till they had seen every log-heap disappear from the field, and
the last step of their severe task fully accomplished.
Few of those who live in cities, villages, or other places than those
where agricultural pursuits prevail; few of those, indeed, who have
been tillers only of the subdued and time-mellowed soils of the old
States and countries, have any adequate conception of the immense
amount of hard labor required to clear off the primitive forest, and
prepare the land for the first crop; nor have they, consequently, any
just appreciation of the degree of resolution, energy, and endurance
necessary to insure continued perseverance in subduing one piece of
forest-land after another, till a considerable opening is effected.
It is the labor of one man’s life to clear up a new farm; and few
there be, among the multitudes found making the attempt, who have
the sustaining will and resolution--even if the pecuniary ability is
not wanting--to accomplish that formidable achievement. Probably not
one in five of all the first pioneer settlers of a new country ever
remain to become its permanent settlers. The first set of emigrants,
or pioneers, are seen beginning with great resolution and energy, and
persevering unfalteringly till the usual ten-acre lot is cleared,
the log-house thrown up, and the settlement of the family effected.
Another piece of forest is the next year attacked, but with a far less
determined will, and the clearing prosecuted with a proportionate lack
of energy and resolution; and the job, after being suffered to linger
along for months beyond the usual period for completion, is finally
finished. But, in view of the hard labors and prolonged struggles
they have experienced in their two former trials for conquering the
wilderness, they too often now falter and hesitate at a third attempt.
Perhaps the lack of means to hire that help, which would make the
toil more endurable, comes also into the case; and the result is that
no new clearing is begun. They live along a while as they are; but,
for want of the first crops of the newly-cleared land and the usual
accessions to their older fields, they soon find themselves on the
retrograde, and finally sell out to a new set of incoming settlers, who
in their turn begin with fresh vigor, and with more means generally
for prosecuting advantageously, the work which had discouraged or worn
out their predecessors. But even of this second set a large proportion
fail to succeed, and, like the former, eventually yield their places
to more enterprising and able men, who, with those of the two former
sets of settlers that had succeeded in overcoming the difficulties and
retaining their places, now join in making up the permanent settlers of
the country.
Such is generally the history of the early settlement of every new
country. Those who have endured the most hardship, encountered the
greatest difficulties, and performed the hardest labor, do not
generally reap the reward which might eventually crown their toils,
but leave that reward to be enjoyed by those to whom such hardships
and toils are comparatively unknown. This seems hard and unjust; but,
from the unequal conditions and characters of men, it is doubtless a
necessary state of things, and one which, though it may occasionally be
somewhat modified, will never, probably, as a general thing, be very
essentially altered.
The Elwoods, having now thus brought the labors of clearing to a
successful close, next proceeded to the lighter and more cleanly task
of taking the incipient step towards securing the ever-important first
crop which was to reward them, in a good part, for their arduous toils.
Accordingly, the previously engaged supply of winter wheat intended
for seed was brought home, the requisite help and ox-work enlisted,
the seed sown, and the harrows and hoes put in motion to insure its
lodgment beneath the surface of the broken soil. And, by the end of the
second day from its commencement, this task was also completed, leaving
our two persevering settlers only the work of gathering in the small
crops of grain and potatoes they had succeeded in raising on their
older grounds, to be performed before leaving home on the contemplated
trapping and hunting expedition; the appointed day for which was still
sufficiently distant to allow them abundant time to do this, and also
to make all other of the necessary arrangements and preparations for
that, to them, novel and interesting event.
But how, in the meanwhile, stood that domestic drama of love and its
entanglements, which was destined to be deeply interwoven with the
other principal incidents of this singular story? All on the surface
seemed as bright and unruffled as the halcyon waters of the sleeping
ocean before the days of storm have come to move and vex it. But how
was it within the vail of the heart and teeming mind, where the
currents and counter-currents of that subtle but powerful passion flow
and clash unseen, often gaining their full height and unmasterable
strength before any event shall occur to betray their existence to the
public. How was it there? We shall see.
While the events we have described in the last foregoing chapters
were transpiring, Mrs. Elwood held her peace, studiously avoiding
all allusion to what still constituted the burden of her mind,--the
thickening intimacy between her family and the Gurleys; but, though
she was silent on the subject, yet her heart was not any the less sad,
nor her thoughts any the less busy. She had been made aware that a
reconciliation had taken place between her husband and Gaut Gurley; and
she had seen how artfully the latter had brought it about, and regained
his old fatal influence over the former. She believed she fully
understood the motives which actuated Gaut in all these movements. And
she now looked on in helpless anguish of heart to see the toils thus
drawn tighter and tighter around the unconscious victims, and those
victims, too, her husband and son, with whose happiness and welfare
her own was indissolubly connected. She saw it with anguish, because
her feelings never for once were permitted even the alleviation of a
doubt that it could result in aught else than evil to her family. She
could not reason herself into any belief of Gaut’s reformation. She
felt his black heart constantly throwing its shadow on to her own; she
_felt_ this, but could not give to others, nor perhaps even to herself,
what might be deemed a satisfactory reason for her impressions and
forebodings; for in her was exemplified the words of the poet:
“The mind is capable to show
Thoughts of so dim a feature,
That consciousness can only know
Their presence and their nature.”
Such thoughts were hers,--dim and flitting, indeed; but she felt
conscious of their continued presence, of their general character, and
deeply conscious what they portended. They took one shape, moved in
one course, and all pointed one way, and that was to evil,--some great
impending evil to the two objects of her love and solicitude.
“But is there no hope?” she murmured aloud, in the fullness of her
heart, while deeply pondering the matter, one day, as she sat alone
at her open window, looking out on her husband and son engaged in
their harvest, which she knew they were hurrying on to a close, before
leaving her on the contemplated long, and perhaps perilous, expedition
into the wilderness,--a circumstance that doubtless caused the subject,
in the thus awakened state of her anxieties, to weigh at this time
peculiarly heavy on her mind. “Is there no hope,” she repeated, with
a sigh, “that this impending calamity may in some part be averted?
Must they both be sacrificed? Must the faults of the erring father
be visited on the innocent son, who had become the last hope of the
mother’s heart? Kind Heaven! may not that son, _at least_, be delivered
from the web of toils into which he has so strangely fallen, and yet be
saved? Grant, O grant that hope--that one ray of hope--in this my hour
of darkness!”
But what sound was that which now fell upon her ear, as if responsive
to her ejaculation? It was a light tap or two on the door, which, after
the customary bidding of _walk in_ had been pronounced, was gently
opened, when a young female of extreme beauty and loveliness entered.
Mrs. Elwood involuntarily rose, and stood a moment, mute with surprise,
in the unexpected presence. Soon recovering, however, she invited the
fair stranger to a seat, still deeply wondering who she could be and
what had occasioned her visit.
“You are the good woman of the house?--the wife of the new
settler?--the mother of Mr. Claud Elwood?” asked the stranger
girl, pausing between each interrogatory, till she had received an
affirmative nod from Mrs. Elwood.
“Yes,” replied the latter kindly, but with an air of increasing
curiosity, “yes, I am Mrs. Elwood. Would you like to see my son, Claud?”
“No,” rejoined the girl, in the same subdued and musical accents. “No,
it was not him, but you, I came to see and speak with,” she added,
carefully, withdrawing a screening handkerchief from a light parcel she
bore in her hand, and displaying a small work-basket of exquisite make,
which, advancing with hesitating steps, she presented to the other, as
she resumed:
“I came with this, good lady, to see if you would be suited to have
such an article?”
“It is very pretty,” said Mrs. Elwood, examining the workmanship with
admiration, “beautiful, indeed. Did you make it?”
“I did, lady,” said the other modestly.
“Well, it certainly does great credit to your skill and taste,”
rejoined the other. “I should, of course, be pleased to own it, but
I have little money to pay for such things. You ought to sell it for
quite a sum.”
“But I do not wish to sell it,” responded the girl, looking up to Mrs.
Elwood with an expostulating and wounded expression. “I do not wish to
take money for it; but hoped you would like it well enough to accept it
for a gift,--a small token.”
“O, I should,” said Mrs. Elwood, “if I was entitled to any such
present; but what have I ever done to deserve it of you? I do not even
know who you are, kind stranger.”
“They call me Fluella,” responded the other, the blood slightly
suffusing her fair, rounded cheek. “_You_ have not seen me, I know. You
have not done me the great favor that brings my gratitude. It is your
brave son that has done both.”
“O, I understand now,” exclaimed Mrs. Elwood. “You are the chief’s
daughter, whom Claud and Mr. Phillips helped out of a difficulty and
danger on the rapids, some time since. But your token should be given
to Claud, should it not?”
“It would be unsuitable, too much,” quickly replied the maiden, in a
low, hurried tone. “I could not do a thing like that. But if you would
accept such a small thing?”
“I cannot but appreciate and honor your delicacy,” returned Mrs.
Elwood, with a look of mingled admiration and respect. “I think you
must be an excellent girl; and I will accept your present,--yes,
thankfully,--and never forget the manner in which it was bestowed.”
“Your words are in my heart, lady. I came, feeling much doubtful; I
return, much happy,” said the maiden, rising to depart.
“Do not go yet,” interposed the matron, who was beginning to feel a
lively interest in the other; “do not go yet. Claud should know you are
here. I will call him,” she added, starting for the door.
“O no, no,--do not, do not. He would not wish to be troubled by one
like me,” hurriedly entreated the maiden, with a look of alarmed
delicacy.
“O, you are mistaken. He would be pleased to see you, and expect to
be called,” said Mrs. Elwood, in a tone of gentle remonstrance, while
pausing at the unexpected objection. “But it is unnecessary; for I see
that he is already coming, and in a moment will be here,” she added,
glancing out of the window.
Having made the announcement, she turned encouragingly to the maiden,
to reassure her, believing her request that Claud should not be called
in proceeded entirely from over-diffidence. But one glance of her quick
and searching eye was sufficient to apprise the former that there was
a deeper cause for those tender alarms. The cheeks of the beautiful
girl were deeply suffused with crimson, her bosom was heaving wildly,
and her whole frame was trembling like an aspen. As her eyes met the
surprised gaze of the matron, she became conscious that her looks had
betrayed the secret she was the most anxious to conceal; and she cast
an imploring look on the face of the other, as if to entreat the mercy
of shielding the weakness.
Mrs. Elwood understood the silent appeal; and, approaching and laying
her hand gently on the shoulder of the other, said, in a low, kindly
tone:
“Have no fears. You have made a friend of me.”
The girl silently removed the hand, brought it to her lips, and, as
a bright tear-drop fell upon it, kissed it eagerly. The two then
separated, and resumed their respective seats, to compose themselves
before the expected entrance should be made.
In a few moments Claud carelessly entered the house; but stopped
short in surprise, at the threshold, on so unexpectedly seeing the
well-remembered face and form of the heroine of his late romantic
adventure on the rapids, in the room with his mother. But, almost
instantly recovering his usual manner, he gallantly advanced to the
trembling maiden, took her by the hand, and respectfully inquired about
her welfare, and pleasantly adverted to the singular circumstances
under which they had become acquainted. Soon becoming in a good measure
assured, by a reception so much more condescending and cordial than
she had dared hope for, from one whose image she had been cherishing
as that of some superior being, the grateful and happy girl, now
forgetful of her wish to depart, gradually regained her natural ease
and vivacity, and sustained her part in the general conversation that
now ensued, with an intelligence and instinctive refinement of thought
and expression that equally charmed and surprised her listeners. She
at length, however, rose to depart, observing that her father, who
was in waiting for her at the landing, would chide her for her long
delay; when Claud offered to attend her to the lake. To this she at
first objected; but, on Claud’s assurance that he should be pleased
with the walk, and that it would afford him the opportunity of meeting
her father, whom he had a curiosity to see, she blushingly assented,
and the couple sociably took their way to the lake together, leaving
Mrs. Elwood deeply revolving in her mind the new train of thoughts that
had been awakened by the remarkable personal beauty and evident rare
qualities of her fair visitor, and the discovery of the state of her
feelings,--thoughts which the matron laid up in her heart, but forbade
her tongue to utter.
On reaching the landing, Fluella drew a bone whistle from her pocket,
and blew a blast so loud and shrill that the sound seemed to penetrate
the inmost depths of the surrounding forest. The next moment a similar
sound rose in response from the woods, apparently about half a mile
distant, on the right.
“He has heard me; that was my father’s whistle. He has been taking a
short bout in the woods with his rifle, but will now soon be here. And
Mr. Elwood will wait, I know, for the chief wishes to thank the brave
that rescued his daughter,” said the maiden, looking inquiringly at
Claud.
“Yes,” replied Claud, “yes, certainly; for, even without company, I am
never tired of standing on this commanding point, and looking out on
this beautiful lake and its surrounding scenery.”
“Ah! then you think, Mr. Elwood,” exclaimed Fluella, with a countenance
sparkling with animation, “you think of our woods life, like one of
your great writers, whom I have read to remember, and who so prettily
says:
‘And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.’
“One would almost think this wise writer must be one of my people, he
describes our ways of becoming instructed so truly; for we Indians,
Mr. Elwood, read few other books than those we see opened to us on the
face of nature, or hear or read few other sermons than those in the
outspread pages of the bright lake, the green woods, and the grand
mountain.”
“You Indians!” said Elwood, looking at the other with a playful yet
half-chiding expression. “Why, Fluella, should a stranger look at your
fair skin, hear you conversing so well in our language, and quoting so
appropriately from our books, he would hardly believe you an Indian, I
think, unless you told him.”
“Then I would tell him, Mr. Elwood,” responded the maiden, with
dignity, and a scarcely perceptible spice of offended pride in her
manner. “I _am_ one,--on my father’s side, at least, wholly so; and,
for the first ten or twelve years of my life, was but a child of the
woods and the wigwam; and I will never shame at my origin, so far as
that matters.”
“But you did not learn to read in the wigwam, Fluella?” said Claud,
inquiringly.
“No,” replied the girl; the proud air she had assumed, while speaking
of her origin, quickly subsiding into one of meekness. “No; but I
supposed that Mr. Phillips, who knows, might have told you that, for
many years past, I have lived much with your people, learned their
ways, been to their schools, and read their books. And, in owning my
natural red father, may be I should have also said, I have a good white
father, who has done every thing for the poor, ignorant, Indian girl.”
“But where does this good and generous white father live, and what is
his name?” asked Claud.
“He lives near the seaside city,” answered she, demurely; “I may say
so far. But I do not name him, ever. We think it not best. But, if he
comes here sometime, as he may, you shall see him, Mr. Elwood.”
At this point of the dialogue, the attention of its participants was
arrested by the sound of breaking twigs and other indications of the
near approach of some one from the forest; and, the next moment,
emerging through the thick underbrush, which he parted by the muzzle
of his rifle as he made his way, the expected visitant came into
view. Seemingly unmindful of the presence of others near by, or of
the curious and scrutinizing gaze of Claud, he advanced with a firm,
elastic tread, and stately bearing, exhibiting a strong, erect frame,
a large, intellectual head, and handsomely moulded features, with a
countenance of a grave and thoughtful cast, but now and then enlivened
by the keenly-glancing black eyes by which it was particularly
distinguished. With the exception of moccasins and wampum belt, he
was garbed in a good English dress; and, so far as his exterior was
in question, might have easily been mistaken, at a little distance,
for some amateur hunter from the cities; while, from the vigor of his
movements, and other general appearance, he might have equally well
passed for a man of the middle age, had not the frosts of time, which
were profusely sprinkled over his temples, and other visible parts of
his head, betrayed the secret of his advanced age.
“My daughter is not alone,” he said, in very fair English utterance,
coming to a stand ten or twelve yards distant from the young couple.
“No,” promptly replied the daughter, assuming the dignified tone and
attitude usual among those engaged in the ceremonies of some formal
presentation, or public introduction. “No, but my father will be
pleased to learn that this is the Mr. Claud Elwood, who did your
daughter such good service in her dangers on the rapids, and whom she
has now conducted here, that he might have the opportunity to see the
chief, and receive the thanks which it is more fitting for the father
than the daughter to bestow.”
“My daughter’s words are good,” said the chief. “The young brave has
our thanks to last; but the Red Man’s thanks are acted, the White Man’s
spoken. Does the young man understand the creed of our people?”
Fluella looked at Claud as if he was the one to answer the question,
and he accordingly remarked:
“I have ever heard, chief, that your people always notice a benefit
done to them, and that he who does them one secures their lasting
gratitude.”
“The young man,” rejoined the chief, considerately, “has heard words
that make, sometime, too much; they make true, the good-doer doing no
wrong to us after. But when he takes advantage of our gratitude he
wipes out the debt; he does more,--he stands to be punished like one an
enemy always.”
The maiden here cast an uneasy glance at Claud, and a deprecating one
at her father, at the unnecessary caution, as she believed it, which
she perceived the latter intended to convey by his words to the
former. But, to her relief, Claud did not appear as if he thought the
remarks had any application to himself, for he frankly responded:
“Your distinction is a just one, chief. Your views about these matters
are my own views. Your creed is a good creed, so far as the remembrance
of benefits is concerned; and I wish I could see it observed as
generally among my people as I believe it to be among yours. But,
chief, your daughter makes too much out of my assistance, the other
day. I did only a common duty,--what I should have been a coward not
to have done. I have no claim for any particular gratitude from her or
you.”
“Our gratitude was strong before; the young man now makes stronger,”
remarked the other, exchanging appreciating glances with his daughter.
“No, chief,” resumed Claud, “I did not come here to boast of that small
service, nor claim any thanks for it, but to see a sagamore, who could
give me the knowledge of the Red Man which I would like to possess; to
see one who, in times gone by, was as a king in this lake country. His
own history, and that of his people especially, I would like to hear.
They must be full of interest and instruction to an inquirer like me.
Will not the chief relate it briefly? I have leisure,--my ears are open
to his words.”
“Would the young man know the history of Wenongonet, alone?” said the
other, with a musing and melancholy air. “It may be told easier than
by words. Does the young man see on yonder hill that tall, green pine,
which stands braced on the rocks, and laughs at the storms, because it
is strong and not afraid?”
“I do.”
“That is Wenongonet fifty winters ago. Now, does the young man see that
tall, dry pine, in the quiet valley below, with a slender young tree
shooting up, and tenderly spreading its green branches around that
aged trunk, so it would shield its bare sides in the colds of winter,
and fan its leafless head in the heats of summer?”
“Yes, I see that, also.”
“That dry tree, already tottering to its fall, is Wenongonet now.”
“But what is the young tree with which you have coupled it?”
“The young man has eyes,” said the speaker, glancing affectionately at
his blushing daughter.
“But the young man,” he resumed after a thoughtful pause, “would know
more of the history of the Red Men who once held the country as their
own? Let him read it in the history of his own people, turned about
to the opposite. Let him call the white man’s increase from a little
beginning, the red man’s decrease from a great,--the white man’s
victories, the red man’s defeats,--the white man’s flourishing, the
red man’s fading; and he will have the history of the red men, and the
reasons of their sad history, in this country.
“Two hundred year-seasons ago, the Abenaques were the great nation
of the east. From the sea to the mountains they were the lords of
Mavoshen.[1] They were a nation of warriors and a wise and active
people. But, of all the four tribes--the Sokokis, the Anasquanticooks,
the Kenabas, the Wawenocks--who made up this great nation, the Sokokis
were the wisest and bravest. Wenongonet is proud when he thinks of
them. They were his tribe. All the land that sent its waters through
the Sawocotuc[2] to the sea was theirs. They stood with their warriors
at the outposts against the crowding white settlers from the west and
south. They were pleased to stand there, because it was the post
of danger and of honor in the nation. And there they bravely kept
their stand against that wide front of war, and took the battle on
themselves, till the snows of more than a hundred winters were made red
by their rifles and tomahawks. But those who court death must often
fall into his embrace. So with the Sokokis. They were at first a great
and many people; but they wasted and fell, as time, the bringer of new
and strange things, wore away, before the thick and more thick coming
of their greedy and pushing foes,--by their fire-water in peace and
their bullets in war, till the many became few, the great small. What
the bloody Church, with his swarm of picked warriors, had left after
his four terrible comings with fire and slaughter, the bold Lovewell
finished, on that black day when the great Paugus and all the flower
of the tribe found red graves round their ancient stronghold and
home,--their beloved Pegwacket.[3] This was the last time the tribe was
ever assembled as a separate people. The name of the Sokokis, at which
so many pale faces had been made paler, was buried in the graves of
the brave warriors who had here died to defend its glory. The feeble
remnant, panic-struck and heart-broken, fled northward, and, like the
withered leaves of the forest flying before the strong east wind,
were scattered and swept over the mountains into Canada; all but the
family of Paugus, who took their stand on these lakes, where his son,
Waurumba, took the empty title of chief, and, dying, left it still
more empty to Wenongonet, the last of the long line of sagamores,--the
last ever to stand here to tell the young white man the story of their
greatness, and the fate of their tribe.”
On concluding his story, the chief turned to his daughter and
significantly pointed to the lengthening shadows of the trees on the
water, with a motion of his head towards their home up the lakes.
“The chief thinks,” said Fluella, arousing herself from the
thoughtful attitude in which she had been silently listening to the
conversation,--“the chief thinks it time we were on the water, on our
way home. We shall have now to bid Mr. Elwood a good-evening.”
So saying, she stepped lightly into the canoe and took her seat. She
was immediately followed by the chief, who, quickly handling his oar,
sent the light craft, with a single stroke, some rods into the lake,
when, partially turning its bow towards the spot where Claud was
standing on the shore, he said:
“Should the young man ever stray from his companions in the hunt, or
find himself weary, or wet, or cold, or in want of food, when out on
the borders of the Molechunk-a-munk, let him feel, and doubt not, that
he will be welcome to the lodge of Wenongonet.”
“And, if Mr. Elwood should be in the vicinity of our lake this fall,
and _not_ happen to be in a so very sad condition, he might, perhaps,
find a good welcome on calling,--so, especially, if he come before the
time of the first snows,” added Fluella, playfully at first but with a
slight suffusion of the cheek as she proceeded to the close.
“I thank the chief,” responded Claud with a respectful bow. “And I
thank you, my fair friend,” he continued, turning more familiarly to
Fluella. “I hope to come, some time. But why do you speak of the first
snows?”
“O, the birds take wing for a warmer country about that time, and
perhaps some who have not wings may be off with them,” replied Fluella,
in the same tone of playfulness and emotion.
A stately bow from the father, and another with a sweetly eloquent
smile from the daughter, completed, on their part, the ceremonies
of the adieu; when the canoe was headed round, and, by the easy and
powerful paddle-strokes of the still vigorous old man, sent bounding
over the waters of the glassy lake.
Slowly and thoughtfully Claud turned and took his way homeward. “Who
could have expected,” he soliloquized, “to witness such an exhibition
of intellect and exalted tone of feeling in one of that despised race,
as that proud old man displayed, in his eloquently-told story? And that
daughter! Well, what is she to me? My faith is given to another. But
why feel this strange interest? Yet, after all, it is probably nothing
but what any one would naturally feel in the surprise occasioned on
beholding such qualities in such a place and person. No, no, it can be
nothing more; and I will whistle it to the winds.”
And he accordingly quickened his steps, and literally began to whistle
a lively tune, by way of silencing the unbidden sensation which he
felt conscious had often, since he first met this fair daughter of the
wilds, been lurking within. But, though he thus resolved and reasoned
the intruding feeling into nothing, yet he felt he would not like to
have Avis Gurley know how often the sparkling countenance and witching
smile of this new and beautiful face had been found mingling themselves
with the previously exclusive images of his dreams. But, if they did
so before this second interview, would they do it less now? His head
resolutely answered, “Yes, less, till they are banished.” His heart
softly whispered, “No.” And we will not anticipate by disclosing
whether head or heart was to prove the better prophet.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The name by which the Province of Maine was designated by the early
voyagers, and the Indian word probably from which the present name of
the State of Maine was derived.
[2] The Indian appellation of the river Saco, which is doubtless an
abbreviation of the Indian name here introduced.
[3] The name of a once populous Indian village, which occupied the
present bountiful site of the village of Fryeburg, Me., near Lovewell’s
Pond, where the sanguinary conflict here alluded to occurred in 1725.