“Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourn of Heaven,
Then leave the naked brain; be still the leaven
That, spreading in this dull and clodded earth,
Gives it a touch ethereal, a new birth.” KEATS.
It is not to be supposed that a lawsuit, or prosecution, in so new and
remote a settlement, especially one that involved so many interests,
and whose result must have so many and complicated bearings, as the
one described in the last chapter, would be suffered to pass away like
any ordinary occurrence and be forgotten. With the settlers, besides
the novelty of having a court held among them, for any cause, it was
an extraordinary occurrence that there should be any grounds for a
prosecution or lawsuit of this character,--extraordinary that any one
should be found base enough to violate the common faith and honesty
which the trappers and hunters had, up to that time, so implicitly
reposed in, and observed with each other,--and doubly extraordinary
that the perpetrator could not be detected and brought to punishment.
To them, such a flagitious betrayal of trust was a new and startling
event. They felt it deeply concerned them all; and the sensation it
produced was accordingly as profound as it was general, in all that
region of the country.
But, if such was the effect of the unfortunate occurrence in question,
on the community at large, how much more deeply would the effect be
naturally felt by the parties immediately concerned? By the loss of
their stock of furs, three families, at least, were deprived of the
means on which they had relied for supplying them with a large part
of the necessaries of life, through the ensuing winter; while, besides
this, many a wife and child were doomed to sad disappointment, in being
thus deprived of the fondly-anticipated purchases of articles of dress,
books, and various other little comforts, which had been promised them
on the division and sale of the peltries. Nor were these the only
interests and feelings affected by the event and its concomitants.
Friendships were broken, and even more tender relations were disturbed,
if, indeed, their further existence were not to be terminated. By the
open, and as was supposed irreconcilable, quarrel between Mark Elwood
and the terribly vindictive Gaut Gurley, their children, Claud and
Avis, who were understood to be under mutual engagement of marriage,
were placed in a position at once painful and embarrassing in the
extreme. And Claud, especially, although he had carefully abstained
from all accusations of Gaut, had taken no part in getting up the
prosecution, and purposely absented himself from the trial, yet felt
very keenly the perplexing dilemma into which he would be thrown, by
continuing the connecting link between two such deadly foes as he now
found his father, whom he could not desert, and Gaut Gurley, whom he
felt conscious he could not defend. And for this reason he had, from
time to time, deferred the visit to Avis, which he had designed, and
which she would naturally expect on his return from the expedition. But
still he could not see how a quarrel between the fathers discharged
him from his obligations to her; and he grew more and more doubtful
and uneasy in the position he found himself occupying. He was soon,
however, to be relieved. One day, a short time after the trial, while
he was anxiously revolving the subject in mind, a boy, who had come as
a special messenger from the Magalloway settlement (for the purpose, as
it appeared), brought him the following letter:
“DEAR CLAUD,--You do not know, you cannot know, what the effort
costs me to write this. You do not know, you cannot know, what I
have felt, what I have suffered since I became fully apprised of the
painful circumstances under which your late expedition was brought
to a close; and especially since I became apprised of the lamentable
scenes that occurred in the court, growing out of that unfortunate--O
how unfortunate, expedition! Before that court was held, and during
the doubtful days which intervened between it and your escape from the
terrible perils that attended your return, the hope that all would,
all _must_ turn out right, in some measure relieved my harrowing
fears and anxieties; though even then the latter was to the former
as days of cloud to minutes of sunshine. But, when I heard what
occurred at the trial,--the bitter crimination and recrimination, the
open rupture, the menaces exchanged, and the angry parting,--and,
more alarming than all, when I saw my father return in that fearful
mood, from which he still refuses to be diverted, the last gleam of
hope faded, and all became cloud, all gloom,--dark, impenetrable,
and forbidding. My nights, when sleep at length comes to close my
weeping eyes, are passed in troubled dreams; my days in more troubled
thoughts, which I would fain believe were dreams also. O, why need
this be? I have done nothing,--you have done nothing; and I have no
doubt of your faith and honor for performing all I shall ever require
at your hands. But, Claud, I love you, and all
‘Know love is woman’s happiness;’
and all know, likewise, that the ties of love are but gossamer
threads, which a word may rupture, a breath shake, and even the power
of unpleasant associations destroy. Still, is there not one hope,--the
hope that this thread, hitherto so blissfully uniting our hearts,
subtle and attenuated as it is, may yet be preserved unbroken, if we
suffer no opinion, no word, no syllable to escape our lips, respecting
the unfortunate affair that is embroiling our parents; if we wholly
deny ourselves the pleasure of that social intercourse which, to _me_,
at least, has thus far made this wilderness an Eden of delight? But
can it be thus preserved, if we keep up that intercourse, as in the
sunshine of our love,--those pleasant, fleeting, rosy months, when
I was so happy, O so very happy, in the feelings of the present and
the prospects of the future? No, no, it is not possible, it is not
possible for you to come here, and encounter my father in such a mood,
and then return and receive the upbraidings of your own, that you
are joining or upholding the house of his foes. It is not possible
for you to do this, and your heart receive no jar, and mine no fears
or suspicions of its continued fealty. I dare not risk it. Then do
not, dearest Claud, O do not come here, at least for the present.
Perhaps my dark forebodings, that our connection is not to be blessed
for our future happiness, may be groundless. Perhaps the storm that
now so darkly hangs over us may pass harmlessly away. Perhaps this
painful and perplexing misunderstanding--as I trust in Heaven’s mercy
it only is--may yet be placed in a light which will admit of a full
reconciliation between our respective families. But, till then, let
our relations to each other stand, if you feel disposed to let them,
precisely as we left them at our last mournfully happy parting; for,
till then, though it break my heart, I could never, never consent to
a renewal of our intercourse. Have I said enough, and not too much? I
could not, under the almost insupportable weight of grief, fear, and
anxiety, that is distracting my brain, and crushing my poor heart,--I
could not say less, I dare not say more. O Claud, Claud, why has this
dreadful cloud come over us? O, pray that it may be speedily removed,
and once more let in, on our pained and perplexed hearts, the sunshine
of their former happiness. Dearest Claud, good-by; don’t come, but
don’t forget
“AVIS.”
Claud felt greatly relieved, in some respects, by this unexpected
missive; in others, the contents caused him uneasiness and
self-condemnation. It relieved him from the sense of obligation
he had entertained, to make the dreaded visit to the house of Gaut
Gurley,--who, with every desire to arrive at a different conclusion,
he could no longer believe guiltless of the basest of frauds, and
the basest of means to conceal it. It relieved him, indeed, on this
point; but, as we have said, made him sad and thoughtful on others. The
great grief and distress under which the fair writer was so evidently
laboring, and the deep-rooted love for him which was revealed in
almost every line, but which her pride, in the bright hours of their
courtship, had never permitted her to disclose, keenly touched his
feelings, and rose in condemnation of the comparative indifference,
which, in spite of all his efforts to correct its waywardness, he
felt conscious had been gradually stealing over his heart, since his
admiration, to say the least, had been raised by a rival vision of
loveliness. In the newly-awakened feeling of the moment, however, he
bitterly upbraided himself for his tergiversations in suffering his
thoughts to vacillate between the Star of the Magalloway, who had his
plighted faith, and Flower of the Lakes, who had no claims to his
special consideration. But still, when his thoughts wandered over the
scenes of the past summer, which now, since trial and hardship had
brought his mind back within the dominion of reason and judgment,
seemed much more like dreams than realities,--when he thought of the
manner in which he became acquainted with Avis Gurley; how he persisted
in gaining her affections, and kindling into an over-mastering flame
his own fancy-lit love; and finally, how, against the known wishes of
his family, and the dictates of his own sober judgment, he had urged
her into an engagement of marriage, which he could now see had, as his
mother predicted, in all probability led to a renewal of the intimacy
between his father and Gaut Gurley, and that last intimacy to the
present disaster, and a new quarrel, whose consequences might yet well
be looked for with uneasiness and apprehension,--when he thought of
all this, he deeply condemned his own indiscretion, and could not help
wishing himself clear from an engagement, which, like every thing
connected with the schemes of that dark and dreaded man, who was now
an object of suspicion through the whole settlement, seemed destined
to lead only to trouble and disaster. Such was the maze of perplexity
by which the young man, now too late for an honorable retreat, found
himself on every side thickly environed. Yet, for all this, and in
despite of all these perplexities and misgivings, he resolved he would
not cease to play the man, but honorably fulfil all his obligations in
such manner as should be required of him.
So much for the love and its hapless entanglements, which had been so
deeply but so unsatisfactorily occupying, for the last few weeks, the
thoughts of Claud Elwood, who then little suspected that there was
another heart, besides that of the pure, proud, and impassioned Avis
Gurley, whose every pulse, in the great unseen system of intermingling
sympathies, beat in trembling vibration to his own,--a heart that had
been won uncourted and unknown,--a heart that had secretly nursed, in
the favoring solitudes of these wild lakes, and brooded over, a passion
more deep and intense than words could well be found to describe. There
_was_ such a heart; and that heart was now wildly beating, in the
agonizing uncertainties of a hoped reciprocation, in the bosom of that
peerless child of the forest, the beautiful Fluella; and all the more
intense were its workings, because confined to its own deep recesses,
where the hidden flame was laboring constantly for an outlet to its
pride-walled prison, but as constantly shrinking in terror from the
disclosure. She had once, however, through the violence of emotions
which she could not control, accidentally betrayed the state of her
feelings; but it was to one in whose discretion and friendship she was
soon made to repose undoubting confidence, and with whom, therefore,
she at length became reconciled to let her secret remain. The person
who had thus become the depositary of that secret was, as the reader
may remember, Mrs. Elwood. The consciousness that this lady knew all,
coupled as it was with the thought of the relation in which the latter
stood to the object of her secret idolatry, had irresistibly drawn to
her the yearning heart of the guileless maiden. She had longed for
another interview, but dare not seek it; longed for some excuse for
opening a communication with her, but could not find one. At length,
however, fortune opened the desired avenue; and, after much hesitation
and trembling, she summoned up the courage to avail herself of the
offered opportunity. Phillips, in his determination to ferret out the
outrage which had been committed on him and his companions, and of the
author of which he still entertained no doubt, had, immediately after
the trial, commenced a series of rapid journeys to all the nearest
villages or trading towns in Maine and New Hampshire, to ascertain
if any lot of furs, answering to those caught by his company, had
been sold in those places. And one of these journeys, for that and
other purposes, he had extended to the seaboard. On his return home,
he immediately repaired to his neighbor Elwood’s, and, unperceived,
slipped into the hands of Mrs. Elwood a letter, which the wondering
matron soon took to a private room, curiously opened, and, with a deep,
undefined interest and varying emotions, commenced reading. It ran thus:
“MRS. ELWOOD, MY FRIEND,--Our Mr. Phillips has been here, and told us
all that has happened in your settlement. Mrs. Elwood, I am greatly
troubled at the loss your family suffer, with the rest of the hunters,
but still more troubled and fearful for your husband and your noble
son, about what may grow out of the quarrel with that dark man. My
father knew him, time long past, and said there would be mischief done
the company, when we heard he was going with them. I hope Mr. Elwood
will keep out of his way; and I hope, Claud,--O, I cannot write the
thought. Mrs. Elwood, I am very unhappy. I sometimes wish your brave
and noble son had suffered me to go down and be lost in the dark,
wild waters of those fearful rapids. By the goodness of my white
father, whom I am proud to hope you may some time see with me in your
settlement, I have all the comforts and indulgences that a heart at
ease could desire; warm, carpeted rooms, dress, books, company, smooth
flatterers, who mean little, it may be, together with _real_ friends,
who mean much, and prove it by actions, which do not, like words, ever
deceive. And yet, Mrs. Elwood, they are all now without any charms
for me. My heart is in your settlement. The grand old forest, and the
bright lake, were always things of beauty for me, before I saw _him_;
but now, when associated _with_ him,--O, Mrs. Elwood, if I did not
know you had something of what I meant should forever be kept secret
from all but the Great Eye, in your keeping, and if you had not made
me feel you would be my discreet friend, and keep it as safe from all
as an unspoken thought, I would not for worlds write what I have, and
what I every moment find my pen on the point of writing more fully.
O, how I wish I could make you understand, without words, what I
feel,--how I grieve over what I almost know must be vain hopes, and
vainer visions of happiness! You have sometimes had, it may be, very
bright, delightful dreams, which seemed to bring you all your heart
desired; and then you suddenly awoke, and found all had vanished,
leaving you dark and sad with disappointment and regret. If you have,
you may fancy what my thoughts are undergoing every hour of the day.
O, how my heart is drawn away towards you! I often feel that I must
fly up, like a bird, to be there. I should come now, but for what
might be thought. I shall certainly be there in early spring. I can’t
stay away, though I may come only to see what I could bear less easy
than these haunting, troubled fancies. Mrs. Elwood, adieu. You won’t
show this, or breathe a word about it,--I know you won’t; you could
not be so cruel as that. Mrs. Elwood, may I not sign myself your
friend?
FLUELLA.”
On perusing this unexpected communication, Mrs. Elwood felt--she
scarcely knew herself what she felt, except a keenly appreciating
sense of the writer’s embarrassed feelings, and except, also, the
pleasurable emotions which this timid and tender outpouring of an
unsophisticated heart somehow afforded her. Ever since her singular
interview with this remarkable girl, as described in a former chapter,
Mrs. Elwood had not ceased to think of her as of some good angel, sent
by an interposing Providence, in answer to the agonizing supplications
which immediately preceded her unexpected appearance at the time,--sent
to be the means, in some unforeseen way, of extricating her family
from the fatal influences, as she viewed them, under which they had
insidiously been brought by their different connections with the
Gurleys. Especially had she been impressed that this would prove the
case, in all that related to her idolized son, Claud; whom, in her
disregard to all considerations of lineage, when relieved by such
excellence of beauty and character, she would a thousand times rather
have seen united to the Indian girl than to the one he appeared to
have chosen. She was, therefore, besides being touched by the broken
pathos of the letter, gratified by its reception; for it seemed to come
as a sort of confirmation of her grateful presentiment, that her son,
at least, was to be happily disenthralled. Nor was she, at this time,
without the evidence which led her to hope that her husband, also, had
now finally escaped from the toils that had, once and again, caused
him such calamity and suffering. The sudden and terrible outbreak of
indignation, which, with equal surprise and gratification, she had seen
him exhibit against Gaut, and the quarrel in court, which followed in
consequence, must, she thought, now forever keep them separate. If so,
poorly as her family could afford to suffer their part of the loss
of the avails of the fall’s work, she would cheerfully bear it, and
even look upon the event in the light of a Heaven-sent mercy. But even
of this poor comfort she was destined soon to be deprived. After the
trial, Mark Elwood--who, however bravely he bore himself at first, on
that occasion, was finally seen to quail under the terrible glances
of Gaut--soon became strangely silent respecting the prosecution
and supposed perpetration of the offence about which he had before
manifested so much zeal and indignation. And, in the active exertions
which Phillips and Codman, in the vain search for evidence or some
clue to the robbery of the furs, perseveringly kept up during the
whole of the long and dreary winter that followed, he could not be
induced to take any decided part. Nor would he, when they met him at
his own house, or that of Phillips, as they several times did, that
winter, to compare the discoveries and observations they had made, and
discuss the subject, any longer maintain the position he at first so
boldly took, respecting Gaut’s guilt, or say any thing in aid of their
deliberations. _He_, indeed, as _they_ grew more decided and convinced,
seemed to grow more wavering and doubtful. Such was his demeanor and
conduct in company of his late companions; while, with his own family,
he appeared moody, irresolute, and restless, and even, at length, he
began to throw out occasional hints tending to defend or extenuate the
conduct of the very man whom, a few weeks before, he had so confidently
denounced as a thief and a robber. Alarmed at these indications of
returning weakness and fatuity in her husband, Mrs. Elwood soon put
herself on inquiry, to ascertain the cause; and she was not long
in making discoveries that more than justified her worst fears and
suspicions.
It appeared that Gaut Gurley, after his arrest, and after his escape
from the punishment of the law, through the means, as was now generally
believed, which he had cunningly provided before he entered on the
commission of the offence charged, remained almost constantly at home,
during nearly the whole winter, brooding, in savage mood, over his own
dark thoughts and varying schemes for advantage and revenge, keeping
his family in continual awe of him, and causing all who approached him
to recoil, shuddering, from his presence, and mark him as a dangerous
man in the community. Towards spring, however, he appeared suddenly
to change his tactics, or, at least, to undergo a great change in
his deportment and conduct. All at once, he came round in his usual
manner. The dark cloud had been banished from his brow. He civilly
accosted every acquaintance he met, appeared cheerful and good-humored,
and desirous of prolonging the conversation with all with whom he
came in contact, without seeming to notice, in the least, the evident
inclination of most of the settlers to avoid his company. He came down,
every few days, to the little village before named as the place where
the court was held, and lounged for hours about the tavern; which,
during the winter season, was the common resort of the settlers. Here
he soon encountered his old companions, Phillips, Codman, and the
Elwoods, all of whom, notwithstanding the cold and demure manner with
which the two former, at least, turned away from him, he saluted with
careless ease, and as if nothing had happened to disturb their former
social relations. And, having thus surmounted the somewhat difficult
task of breaking the ice with them, without receiving the open and
absolute repulse which, however disposed, they did not deem it wise to
give him, he, at the next meeting, ventured to broach the subject of
their late quarrel, affecting to laugh at their mutual exhibitions of
folly in getting so angry with each other in court, under the belief,
on his part, that _they_ had got the furs, and, on their part, that
_he_ had made way with them; when neither of them were guilty, and
ought not to be charged with the offence. For himself, he said, he
was now satisfied, on thinking the matter over, who were the real
culprits. They were a couple of “cussed runagate Indians,” that had
strolled over from Canada, and, having discovered his camp, had laid
in wait for his absence. He had seen the tracks of two different-sized
moccasins in the sand on the lake-shore, but two days before he left;
but the circumstance was forgotten, or he should not have left the camp
unguarded. It was a great loss for them all; but it would not help the
matter to mourn now. It must be borne; and he knew of no way to make
it up but to try their luck in another expedition. He should, for his
part; for he had no notion of giving up so.
Such was the drift of his conversation at this interview; and, seeming
to think he had ventured far enough for one experiment on their
credulity, he dropped that subject and struck off on to others. But the
next time he met them he contrived to turn the conversation upon the
same theme; when, telling them with a confidential air that, a few days
before he left camp, he discovered, on a stream coming in at the upper
end of the Megantic, a succession of freshly-constructed beaver dams,
which, from the number of houses and other indications around each,
he thought must be occupied by one of the largest colonies of beavers
ever collected on one stream in that part of the country, he directly
proposed to them to join him, when the spring opened, in an expedition
to secure this extraordinary collection of the valuable animals that
were, unquestionably, still all there, and as unquestionably might be
captured.
This story, with the accompanying proposal, presented, as Gaut
well knew, the most tempting inducement that could be offered, to
trappers. But it made no impression on Phillips and Codman. They
deeply distrusted the man, his whole story, and the motives which
they believed moved him to concoct it. Spurning in their hearts,
therefore, the bait that had been so artfully laid for them, they
would have nothing to do with _him_ or his proposal. And, both then
and thereafter, they remained unmoved, and stood proof against all the
arguments his taxed ingenuity and devilish cunning could invent and
bring to bear upon them.
With the infatuated Mark Elwood, however, the case seemed to be almost
wholly reversed. He again listened,--was again lost. He, restless,
uneasy, and evidently apprehensive of something he did not disclose,
from continuing under the terrible displeasure which Gaut had so
significantly manifested towards him,--he had appeared, from the
first, to hail with pleasure the indications of the relenting mood of
the other, and seemed but too glad to be again noticed with favor.
He could see no reason to distrust the man’s sincerity, he said, when
others raised the question; and he was much inclined to adopt his
version of the robbery and burning of their camp. When, therefore, the
proposal of a new expedition was made, under the circumstances we have
named, the blinded Elwood seemed fully prepared to accept it; and he
would have openly and without reserve done so, but for the restraining
presence of his companions, who, he felt conscious, would disapprove
and deprecate his conduct. Gaut had noticed all this, and was not long
in bringing about a private interview with his dupe and victim, which
resulted, as might be supposed, in settling the matter in just the way
he intended.
From that time, the conduct of Mark Elwood became wholly inexplicable
to all his friends and acquaintances in the settlement. He commenced
with defending Gaut Gurley, thus giving the lie to all he had said,
and ended with declaring an intention of accompanying him in another
trapping expedition to the upper lakes, to be entered upon on a given
day in April, then near at hand. And, in spite of all the advice and
warnings of his late associates in the former disastrous campaign;
the remonstrances of his son, who shared in the apprehensions of
the others; and the agonizing tears and entreaties of his wife,
he strangely persisted in his purpose, and, like the fated one of
the Scriptures, steadily “set his face” towards his contemplated
destination.
“The man is _hurried_!” said Phillips to Codman, as they left Elwood’s
on a second and last visit, made with the sole object of dissuading
him from a step which they shrank from themselves,--that of going into
the distant forest with such a desperate fellow as they now deeply
suspected Gaut Gurley to be,--“the man is evidently _hurried_. When
I saw that look Gaut gave Elwood in court, I knew he was marked for
destruction, more especially than the rest of us, who are doubtless
both placed on the same list. And Elwood would see it himself, if he
was right-minded. Yes, he is _hurried_, and can’t help it. He will go,
and God grant my fears may not be realized.”
And he did go, but not alone. As soon as Claud became fully satisfied
that his father’s purpose was not to be shaken, he began earnestly
to debate in mind the question whether he himself should not, as a
filial duty, become a participant in the expedition, with the view of
making his presence instrumental in averting the apprehended danger.
And, although he perceived that his mother’s distress, all troubled
and doubtful as she was in deciding between her conflicting duties
of affection, would be enhanced by the step; and, although his mind
had been still more staggered by a brief confidential note from Avis
Gurley, advising him, if not too late, to find means to break up the
project of the expedition entirely, yet he finally made up his mind in
the affirmative. And, accordingly, on the morning of the appointed day,
both father and son, after a leave-taking with the despondent wife and
mother, more ominously sad and mournful than had ever before marked
their family trials, set forth again for the wild wastes of the lakes,
with their now doubly questionable companion.