THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT
Toward sunset, on the same day that witnessed Catharine Montour’s
interview with the missionary, Mary Derwent wandered alone into the
forest, for her spirit more than ever felt the need of solitude. With a
strong religious principle, which had gradually strengthened in her
young heart during her daily communion with the high things in nature,
she had striven to conquer the sweet impulses of love that are the
heritage of womanhood, and to lend all her soul toward that heaven to
which the missionary had so tenderly pointed her.
She wandered through the forest, indulging in a tranquil happiness which
had never visited her before. The flowers seemed smiling with a new
beauty as she turned aside, that they might not be trodden into the moss
by her footsteps; the birds seemed vocal with a sweeter music, and the
air came balmy to her lips; yet the day, in reality, was no finer than a
hundred others had been.
Mary lingered awhile on the shelf of rocks, which we have described in a
former chapter, as overhanging the Susquehanna, nearly opposite
Monockonok Island, before she went down to the canoe which she had
moored at its base. It seemed as if this spot was henceforth to be a
scene of adventure to her, for scarcely had she been there a moment,
when the copsewood above her head was agitated, as it had been on the
previous day, and a young man, of two or three and twenty, stepped
cautiously out upon the platform which shot above the shelf on which she
stood, and where the Indian girl had previously appeared.
Mary sank back to the birch, where she could command a full view of his
person without being herself seen. He was scarcely above the middle
height, and of slight person, but muscular, and giving, in every firmly
knitted limb, indications of strength greater than his size would have
warranted. The face was one which might have been pronounced
intellectual and striking. His forehead, low and broad, was shaded by
hair of the deepest brown; the nose, a little too prominent for beauty,
was thin and finely cut, and the large black eyes full of brilliancy,
which was a part of themselves rather than a light from the soul, gave a
masculine spirit to his head, which redeemed the more earthly and
coarser mould of the mouth and chin.
He was expensively dressed for the period and condition of our country,
but his neckcloth was loosened at the throat, as if to refresh himself
with air after some severe physical exertion, and his richly laced
hand-ruffles hung dripping with water over a pair of wrists which were
by far too slender and white ever to have submitted to much labor. His
garments throughout were dashed with waterdrops, and he had evidently
been rowing hard upon the river. He wiped away the perspiration which
stood in large drops on his forehead, and looked cautiously about, till
his eyes settled in a long, anxious gaze up the stream.
In its side position Mary obtained a more perfect view of his face, and
her heart throbbed with a painful feeling of surprise, for she
recognized the matured lineaments of Walter Butler, a Tory officer, who
had visited the valley some months before and was the intimate friend of
young Wintermoot, the young man who had so cruelly insulted her
deformity when both were school-children. In his previous visit Butler
had by many a rude outrage and insolent speech shocked the moral sense
of the inhabitants, and it was an evil sign when he and the Wintermoots
were sheltered under the same roof. The poor girl shrunk timidly behind
the birch, for she was terrified and afraid of being discovered, but she
did not withdraw so far as to prevent herself watching his movements.
After waiting a few moments, he went down, so as to preclude all
possibility of being observed from the island, and uttered the same
sharp whistle that had answered the Indian girl’s summons on the
previous day. Mary almost started from her concealment with surprise,
when the brushwood was again torn back, and a strange woman, singularly
attired, stepped down on the platform, and stood directly before the
young man as he arose from his stooping position.
Butler started back almost to the verge of the precipice, when he found
himself thus unexpectedly confronted. His face became crimson to the
temples, and he looked with an air of extreme embarrassment, now on the
strange woman, then on the path which led from the precipice, as if
meditating an escape. The strange woman kept her eyes fixed keenly upon
his movements; when he stepped a pace forward, as if about to leave her
presence, she made a detaining motion with her hand.
“You were expecting Tahmeroo, the Shawnee maiden. I am Catharine
Montour, her mother.”
The blood suddenly left the young man’s face. He bit his lips
impatiently, for a half-checked oath trembled upon them; but his
confusion was too overwhelming for any attempt at an answer. After a
moment’s pause, Catharine, who kept her piercing gaze steadily fixed on
his face, drew forth the string of red coral which had been given to her
daughter, and said:
“Last night my daughter told me all that you bade her conceal; from your
first meeting on the shores of Seneca Lake, down to the crafty falsehood
of this pledge, I know everything.”
The crimson flush again spread over the young man’s face, his eyes sunk
beneath the scrutiny fixed upon him, and he turned his head aside,
muttering:
“The beautiful witch has exposed me at last,” then he looked Catharine
Montour in the face with an affectation of cool effrontery, and said:
“Well, madam, if Tahmeroo has chosen to confide in her mother, I do not
see anything remarkable in it, except that I should be sought out as a
party in the affair.”
“Young man,” exclaimed the unhappy mother, in a voice of stern and
bitter anguish, which made even his heart recoil, “you know not what you
have done—you cannot dream of the wretchedness which you have heaped on
a being who never injured you. I can find no words to tell how dear that
child was to me, how completely every thought and wish was centred in
her pure existence. I had guarded her as the strings of my own
heart—every thought of her young mind was pure—every impulse an
affectionate one—I will not reproach you, man! I will try not to hate
you, though, Heaven is my judge, I have just cause for hate. Listen to
me—I did not come here to heap invectives on you——”
“May I be permitted to ask what you did come for?” interrupted Butler,
with a cool effrontery, which was now real, for his awe of Catharine
Montour abated when he saw her sternness giving way to the grief and
indignation of a wronged mother. “I really am at a loss to know why you
should address me in this strange manner. I have not stolen the girl
from your wigwam, nor have I the least intention of doing so foolish a
thing. You have your daughter, what more do you require?”
Catharine Montour drew her lips hard together, and her frame shook with
a stern effort to preserve her composure.
“I would have justice done my child,” said she, in a voice so low and
calm, yet with such iron determination in its tone, that the young man
grew pale as it fell upon his ear; and though his words continued bold,
the voice in which they were uttered was that of a man determined to
keep his position, though he begins to feel the ground giving way
beneath his feet.
“This demand, in the parlance of our nation, would mean that I should
submit to a marriage with the girl,” he said; “but even her mother can
hardly suppose that I, a descendant of one of England’s proudest
families, should marry with a Shawnee half-breed, though she were
beautiful as an angel, and amiable as her respected mamma. You have
evidently seen something of life, madam, and must see how impossible it
is that I should marry your daughter, yet in what other form this
strange demand is to be shaped, I cannot imagine.”
Catharine Montour forced herself to hear him out, though a scornful
cloud gathered on her forehead. Her lips writhed, her eyes flashed with
the angry contempt which filled her soul against the arrogance and
selfishness betrayed in the being before her.
“It is a legal marriage, nevertheless, which I require of you,” she
said. “Listen before you reply—I have that to offer which may reconcile
you even to an union with the daughter of a Shawnee chief. You but now
boasted of English birth and of noble lineage. You are young, and one’s
native land is very dear; you should wish to dwell in it. Make my
daughter your wife—go with her to your own country, where her Indian
blood will be unsuspected, or, if known, will be no reproach, and I
pledge myself, within one week after your marriage, to put you in
possession of fifty thousand pounds as her dowry—to relinquish her
forever,” here Catharine’s voice trembled in spite of her effort to
speak firmly, “and to hold communion with her only on such terms as you
may yourself direct. Nay, do not speak, but hear me out before you
answer. I make this offer because the happiness of my child is dearer to
me than my own life. I cannot crush her young life by separating her
from you forever; better far that I should become childless and desolate
again. Take her to your own land; be a kind, generous protector to her,
and there is wealth in England that will make the amount I offer of
little moment. For her sake I will once more enter the world, and claim
my own. But deal harshly with her—let her feel a shadow of unkindness
after you take her from the shelter of my love, and my vengeance shall
follow you to the uttermost ends of the earth. Give me no answer yet,
but reflect on the alternative should you refuse one who has but to
speak her will, and a thousand fierce savages are on your track by day
and by night, till your heart is haunted to death by its own fears, or
is crushed beneath the blow which sooner or later some dark hand will
deal in the requital of the disgrace which you have put upon the
daughter of a Shawnee.”
Before Butler could recover from his astonishment at her extraordinary
proposal, Catharine had disappeared among the brushwood. He stood as if
lost in deep thought for several minutes after her departure, then
walked the platform to and fro with an air of indecision and excitement,
which was more than once denoted by a low laugh, evidently at the
singular position in which he found himself placed. Once he muttered a
few indistinct words, and looked towards the island with a smile which
Mary was at a loss to understand. There was something of the plotting
demon in it, which made her tremble as if some harm had been intended to
herself.
When Catharine Montour returned, Butler was the first to speak. “Should
I be inclined to accept your proposal,” he said, “and to speak candidly,
your daughter is beautiful enough to tempt a man to commit much greater
folly; how can I be certain of your power to endow her as you promise?”
Catharine drew up her heavy sleeve and displayed the jewelled serpent
coiled around her arm.
“This is some proof of my power to command wealth; at the encampment you
shall be convinced beyond the possibility of a doubt.”
“But how am I to be secure of personal safety, should the proof be
insufficient to satisfy me, or should I see other reason to decline this
strange contract. Once in the power of your savage tribe, I shall have
but little chance of independent choice.”
Catharine made no reply, but a smile of peculiar meaning passed over her
face. She took a small whistle from her bosom, blew a shrill call and
stood quietly enjoying the surprise of her companion, as some fifty or
sixty red warriors started up from behind the shattered rocks and
stunted trees that towered back from the precipice on which they stood,
each armed with a rifle and with a tomahawk gleaming at his girdle.
“Were compulsion intended, you see I am not without power; were I but to
lift this hand, you would be in eternity before it dropped to my side
again; but fear nothing; go with me to the encampment, and on the honor
of an Englishwoman, you shall be free should I fail to return and make
good my promise.”
“You give me excellent proofs of freedom,” said the young man, glancing
at the dusky faces lowering on him from, the shrubbery on every side.
Catharine stepped forward, and spoke a few words in the Indian tongue.
Directly each swarthy form left its station, and the whole force
departed in a body over the back of the precipice. Directly a fleet of
canoes was unmoored from the sheltering underbrush that fringed the
shore, and shot away up stream towards the Lackawanna gap. When the
tramp of their receding feet died away in the forest, Catharine returned
to the young man.
“You must be convinced, now, that no treachery is intended; that you are
free to decide.”
“I do not exactly fancy the idea of being forced to take a wife, whether
I will or not; and at best, all this looks marvellously like it. But
without farther words, I accept your proposal, on condition, however,
that Tahmeroo is suffered to remain with her people till I may wish to
retreat to England.
“There is an aristocratic old gentleman in the valley of the Mohawk, who
calls himself my father; he might not fancy the arrangement, were I to
introduce my Indian bride to the companionship of his wife and
daughters. Arrange it that she remains with the tribe for the present,
and settle the rest as you will.”
Catharine gave a joyful start, which she strove in vain to suppress. The
happiness of keeping her child a little longer made every nerve in her
body thrill; but she grew calm in an instant, and coldly consented to
that which she would have given worlds to obtain, but dared not propose.
Butler spoke again.
“Now, madam, I entreat you to return to the camp. I give my honor that I
will follow in a half-hour’s time, but in mercy grant me a few minutes’
breathing-space. The thought of this sudden marriage affects me like a
shower-bath; it is like forcing a man to be happy at the point of the
bayonet. Think of having a half a dozen of those savage-looking rascals
for groomsmen—rifles, scalping-knives, and all. I wish my dear, stern
old father were here to give the bride away; the thought of his fury
half reconciles me to the thing, independent of the thousands. Who,
under heavens, would have thought of seeking an heiress among a nest of
Shawnee squaws?”
The latter part of his speech was spoken in soliloquy, for Catharine had
departed at his first request, without any apparent suspicion of his
good faith. The concealed girl was both surprised and touched to observe
that tears were streaming down the face which had appeared so stern and
calm but a moment before.
“She is left to me a little longer—I could have blessed him when he said
it.”
Mary heard these words as the extraordinary woman passed, and her pure
heart ached for the unhappy mother.
Butler remained on the rock till Catharine Montour had entirely
disappeared; then he darted down the hill, and before Mary dared to
venture forth from her concealment, his canoe was cutting across the
river toward Monockonok Island.
Mary stood almost petrified with astonishment when she saw the direction
he was taking. “What had Walter Butler to do in the vicinity of her
home?” Her heart throbbed painfully as she connected this question with
the conversation which she had overheard between her sister and Edward
Clark, on the previous day. She stood motionless till his canoe shot
into the little cove where her own was always moored, and when a sharp
whistle sounded from that direction, she bent breathlessly forward with
her eyes fixed intently on the door of her own dwelling. It opened, and
her sister, Jane, came out with her sun-bonnet in her hand, and walked
swiftly toward the cove.
But the poor deformed girl pressed her hands hard upon her heart, and
groaned aloud, when her suspicions were thus painfully confirmed. She
sank upon the ground, and burying her face in her hands, prayed
fervently and with an earnestness of purpose that brought something of
relief to her fears. For half an hour she sat upon the rock with her
pale face looking toward the island, watching the cove through the tears
which almost blinded. Her silent, anxious sorrow was more like that of
an angel grieving over the apostasy of a sister spirit, than that of a
mortal suffering under the conviction of moral wrong in a beloved
object. She saw her sister slowly return to the house, and remarked that
she stopped more than once to look after Walter Butler, as he urged his
canoe toward the precipice again. Mary buried her face in her hands, and
held her breath, as his footsteps smote along the neighboring path, and
were lost in the forest.
[Illustration: Campbell’s Ledge and Scoville’s Island]
Catharine Montour sat in the door of her lodge at the foot of Campbell’s
Ledge. The encampment was almost deserted. Few women ever followed the
warriors when they were called to a distant council-fire, and the men
had gone into the forests on the opposite shore of the river, to meet
their brethren from the Wind gap. The Tories from about Fort Wintermoot
were to join the council, and from her high lodge Catharine could see a
hundred council-fires gleaming out from the dense foliage which clothed
the opposite hill.
The night was overcast, the moon and stars floated in soft gray vapors
overhead, or were covered with black clouds sometimes sending pale
ghastly gleams upon the mountains, and again whelming everything in
darkness. Catharine was accustomed to the gloom of the forest, and her
spirit always rose to meet the storms that swept over it; but now there
was really no tempest, nothing but sombre stillness all around. The
winds muttered and moaned along the mountain side. The waters rushed
heavily down the valley, and those council-fires were suggestive of
scenes more gloomy still. Like the black clouds overhead, they were full
of brooding destruction.
But more sombre than all was the heart of Catharine Montour. On the
morrow she was to resign all right over her only child to a man against
whom her whole soul revolted. A bad, cruel man, whose name had even now
become a terror wherever his foot had trod. She knew well that his
influence among the Indians had always been pernicious; that as the war
of the Revolution gathered strength, he had instigated the various
savage tribes to participate in the contest and urged on cruelties that
even savage warfare had not yet invented. A thousand times would that
woman have died rather than given her daughter up to his wicked power,
but here her supremacy was at fault. Tahmeroo loved the man, and the
mother had suffered so bitterly in her own life from thwarted affection,
that she dared not interpose a stern authority over the wishes of her
child, otherwise the heathenish bond that already united those two
persons would have been rent asunder, though she had died in the effort.
But now she had tenderness for her child, and the savage ambition of the
Shawnee chief to contend against. It had long been his policy to unite
his daughter with some white leader of power, for he was sufficiently
educated himself to feel how unfit she would become for the savage life
in which she was born; besides he wished to strengthen his political
alliance with the whites and Col. John Butler, the father of this young
man, was well known to the Indians as an officer of high authority among
the Tories. His Tioga Rangers carried terror wherever they went, and the
Shawnees had fought side by side with them in the Revolution too often
for any doubt of their leader or his son. In acts of bravery, stern
revenge and subtle diplomacy, such as the savages respected most, Walter
Butler surpassed his father; and when Catharine looked toward the
council-fires, she knew well that this young man was there, pouring his
poisonous counsel into the listening ears of her people. How terribly
that poison might work against herself, she did not yet know. In fact
many events had transpired in the tribe during her absence from the
settlement on Seneca Lake, of which she was not fully informed. Her grim
mother-in-law, Queen Esther, had been busy during her late sojourn in
the Mohawk Valley, and the effects of her crafty statesmanship were felt
among the struggling revolutionists during the entire war. In this bold
bad youth the cruel woman had found an ally, wicked and relentless as
herself; in the war-councils of the Shawnees, and at the council-table
of the whites he was her firm supporter.
Queen Esther had never forgiven Catharine’s first refusal of her son;
the indignity galled her savage pride. To this was added jealousy of the
influence and power which the younger woman had soon obtained over the
chief and his tribe. In the intelligence, beauty, and stern will of
Catharine, Queen Esther found a rival whom she could neither overpower,
despise, or intimidate. Both as a white woman and an Indian princess,
she soon learned to regard her daughter-in-law with intense hate.
Like her son, Queen Esther had resolved to strengthen herself by an
alliance with Tahmeroo and some partisan of her own. The chief loved his
daughter with all the strength of his rude and poetic nature, and
readily listened to anything that promised to give her happiness, and
which should also forward these purposes.
When he learned from the crafty old queen that Tahmeroo had met the
young white chief, Walter Butler, on the lake shore, while out in her
canoe, and that an attachment had sprung up between them, both his
ambition and his affections were aroused. Notwithstanding the great
influence that Catharine had obtained over him, the pride of manhood was
strong within him, and his own right of action he yielded to no one. In
this Indian blood and breeding spoke out. Over his wife, his child, and
his tribe, he kept dominion. Against his will even Catharine was
powerless.
When he questioned Tahmeroo, and learned how completely the young white
man had wound himself around her heart; when Butler himself, knowing
well how lightly such ties were regarded by his own people, came and
asked his daughter in marriage, according to the usages of the tribe,
Gi-en-gwa-tah, regardless of the mother’s absence, gave his child away,
and adopted the young man as a Shawnee brave. With the Indians these
ceremonies were solemn rites—with Walter Butler only one of the wild
adventures he delighted in.
Directly after this heathen marriage, that section of the tribe which
inhabited the head of Seneca Lake went to meet their brother Shawnees,
who still remained on the Susquehanna. A swift runner was sent to inform
Catharine Montour of the movement, and when she rejoined the warriors of
her tribe, they were encamped in the Lackawanna gap, where a lodge had
already been erected for her.
On the day of her arrival, and before she knew anything of these events,
Tahmeroo had stealthily left the camp and made her way down the river in
search of Butler. She knew well that some special ceremony was necessary
to a marriage among the whites, and shrunk with terror from the very
thought of confiding what had passed to her mother, till these forms
were added to the Indian customs that already united them.
Butler had pacified her entreaties by the gift of coral, which Catharine
took from under her pillow, and which led to that midnight explanation,
and afterward to her interview with the missionary.
And now the unhappy woman sat waiting for the time of her sacrifice to
arrive. As the shadows gathered darker and darker around her, Tahmeroo
stole softly to the door and sat down on the turf at her feet; an hour
back Catharine had spent some time in arraying her child for the
ceremony that was to follow the breaking up of the council. With but
silent indignation at the wrong that had been done her by the chief and
his mother, she had performed her task. Of all her unhappy life this
hour was filled with the heaviest and deepest trouble to that unhappy
woman. Tahmeroo nestled close to her mother, took one hand in hers very
tenderly, and laid her cheek in the palms.
“Mother, why are you so sad? Tahmeroo is very happy, but when she begins
to smile this mournful look turns her joy into sighs.”
Catharine turned her heavy eyes on that beautiful face. How strange it
looked! The costly raiment which had displaced her savage costume seemed
unnatural alike to mother and child.
“And you are truly happy, my child? say it again.”
“Very happy!” answered the maiden, smiling.
“And you love this man very—very much?”
“Oh, _so_ much, dear mother!”
“I am glad of this my child. I have no hope for you except in this
love.”
“No hope save in this love! Then your whole life may be full of hope.
Without this love, Tahmeroo would die; for it fills all the world to
her. Oh, mother, I did not know how beautiful the earth was till he
came; the water down which his canoe passes grows pure as I look; if his
hand touches a flower, it brightens to a star under my eye; the
winter-berries turn to gold as he gathers them for me; I could kneel
down and kiss the moss which his foot has walked over; the sound of his
moccasins, away off in the forest, makes my heart leap for joy. Is not
this love, mother?”
Catharine sobbed aloud; every sweet word that fell from her child
brought its memory to stab her.
“Speak to me, mother; are you offended that I love him so much?”
Catharine writhed in her chair; it seemed as if she must die. Had she
fled to the wilderness only to crucify her heart over again in the
person of her child? Were the consequences of one error to follow her
forever and ever? She lifted her clasped hands to heaven, and wildly
asked these questions as if the lurid stars could answer her from the
blackness that covered them. “Are you sorry that I love him so?” said
Tahmeroo, weeping softly.
Catharine buried her face in both hands, while a struggle for composure
shook her whole frame.
“See, see,” whispered Tahmeroo, pointing toward the opposite mountains,
“the council-fires have gone out. There, now that the moon gleams, I can
see their canoes on the water. In a few moments he will be here.”
Catharine looked suddenly up.
“Come,” she said, taking Tahmeroo by the hand, “we must be ready.”
As she spoke, a noise in the brushwood made her pause and listen;
directly a man came forward, walking quietly toward the lodge.
Even in the darkness Tahmeroo could see that her mother turned pale.
It was the missionary who, punctual to his appointment, had found his
way to the encampment. He sat down in the dim lights of the lodge. No
one spoke; for he, too, seemed impressed by the solemn sadness of the
hour. The next ten minutes were spent in dead silence—you could almost
have heard the wild bound of Tahmeroo’s heart, when sound of coming
footsteps came up from the forest. Still no word was spoken. The pine
knots heaped on the hearth gleamed up suddenly, and sent a ruddy glow
over the lodge, revealing a strange, strange picture.
Catharine Montour sat on the couch of scarlet cloth and soft furs, robed
in the same dress which she wore in the morning. Her arms were folded
over her bosom, and her eyes dwelt sadly on the ground, though at every
noise from without they were directed with a sharp, anxious look towards
the door, that changed to a dull troubled glow, as if the approaching
footsteps had something terrible in them.
Tahmeroo nestled to her mother’s side, and looked wonderingly around the
lodge; now upon the missionary, who sat in a rude chair opposite, with
his face shaded by his hand, then on her own strange dress, with a sort
of shy curiosity; she did not quite recognize herself in that rich satin
and those yellow old laces. Indeed her dress would have been remarkable
to any one, either savage or civilized. Her Indian costume had been
replaced by a robe of gold-colored satin, of an obsolete but graceful
fashion, which had prevailed twenty years before in England. A chain of
massive gold was interwoven among the braids of long hair, for the first
time enwreathed about her beautiful head, after the fashion of the
whites; and a pair of long filagree earrings broke the exquisite outline
of her throat on the other side.
There was something a little stiff and awkward in the solemn stillness
of those around her, and in the strangeness of her dress, which kept her
bright eyes on the ground, and sent the smile quivering from her lips as
the tramp of feet came nearer and nearer to the lodge.
While the inmates of the lodge remained waiting in silent anxiety, a
shadow fell across the opening, and Butler appeared before them with his
clothes in much disorder, and evidently fatigued from his long walk
through the forest.
Tahmeroo sprang impulsively to meet him; the wild joy of her Indian
blood revelled in her cheek, and sparkled in her dark eyes, till they
met her mother’s reproving look, and felt the pitying gaze which the
missionary fixed upon her. Then she shrunk back to her seat, blushing
and trembling as if her natural joy at seeing the man she loved were
something to be reproached for.
“Ha, my jewel of a red skin, have they made you afraid of me already?”
said Butler, approaching her with a reckless kind of gaiety in his
demeanor, and without appearing to observe the presence of any one
except herself—“but why the deuce did you allow them to trick you out in
this manner? You were a thousand times more piquant in the old dress.
Come, don’t look frightened, you are beautiful enough in anything. Pray,
what are these good people waiting for?”
Then turning to Catharine Montour, who had risen at his bold approach,
he said, with insolent familiarity:
“Thank you, my stately madam, for sending away your nest of Shawnee
friends, though you have made me expend a great deal of fierce courage
for nothing. I had prepared myself to run the gantlet bravely among the
red devils. Thank you again—but I hope my solemn father-in-law is to be
present, I left him camped around a burning circle of pitch and hemlock,
settling all creation over his calumet.”
Catharine listened with a frowning brow to his flippant speech, without
deigning to answer.
“Upon my soul, this is pleasant,” said the young man, turning to the
missionary. “I am invited to my own wedding, but find only faces that
would make tears unnecessary at a funeral. Faith, if this is considered
a cordial reception into the wigwam of one’s father-in-law, I’ll
retire.”
The missionary looked gravely in his face, but did not speak; while
Catharine arose with a frowning brow, and thrusting her hand under the
pillows of the couch, drew forth a crimson-velvet casket, encrusted with
gold, and set with three or four exquisitely painted medallions, each in
itself a gem. She then drew an ebony box from under the couch, and
unlocked it with some difficulty, for the spring turned heavily from
disuse. This box she proceeded to open, though her hands looked cold as
death, and her face was like marble as she lifted the lid.
Butler kept his eyes fixed on her movements, while he continued his
unbecoming freedom of speech.
“Upon my honor,” he whispered, glancing at the happy face of Tahmeroo,
and drawing her towards him, “that smile is refreshing after the gloomy
brow of your august mother. Pray, my dear——”
He broke off suddenly, for that instant the Shawnee chief swept aside
the bear-skin from the door of his lodge and stood in the opening, with
his council-robe gathered in cumbrous drapery about his imposing person,
and his high, dusky brow crowned with a coronet of scarlet feathers,
whence a plume shot up from the left side of his head. He was entirely
unarmed, and held his calumet loosely in his right hand.
With a single stride he confronted the young man so abruptly that he
drew back, catching his breath.
“Young brave,” he said, in pure, stern English, “when the chief of the
Shawnees bows his head to a woman, all other men speak low and look on
the ground, listening for her voice. You speak fast. Your words come
like the mountain brook that is shallow and breaks into foam, which is
not good to drink. It is not well.”
The stern grandeur of this rebuke brought the blood into Butler’s face.
He muttered something about a cold reception, but threw aside the
flippant air which had been so offensive. It was not for his interest,
or safety either, to brave the haughty Shawnee in his own encampment.
Catharine Montour came forward. She had several old documents in her
hands, title deeds and letters patent, written on vellum, with broad
seals, and the yellow tinge of age bespeaking their antiquity. These
documents she placed in Butler’s hands.
A keen, hungry greed broke into the young man’s eyes as he read. Once or
twice he turned his look from the parchment to Catharine’s face, with
increasing wonder and respect.
“And all this you consent to resign in behalf of Tahmeroo,” he said, “or
rather, in behalf of her husband.”
“So far as the law permits, I resign it to my daughter,” answered
Catharine.
A flush stole over the young man’s forehead; he knew by her voice that
she comprehended all his meanness. But he was now more anxious than
Catharine herself for the ceremony that gave so much wealth to his
control; and this eager wish increased when he saw the casket open in
her hand. She raised a necklace and a bracelet of magnificent diamonds
from among the gems which it contained, and held them out for his
inspection.
“Make yourself certain of their value,” she said, in a dry, business
tone, that had something of sarcasm in it, “for they are the security
which I am about to offer, that my draft on Sir William Johnson shall be
honorably met in a week from this date.”
“I see that you intend to make a business transaction of the affair,”
replied Butler, carelessly receiving the jewels, which, however, he
scrutinized with a closeness which betrayed a rapacious interest in
their worth.
Catharine placed the casket in his hands with a smile of keen contempt.
“After you are fully satisfied of their value, this reverend man will
receive them in trust. He has my sanction to deliver them to you three
weeks from this day, should the draft which you hold in your hand remain
at the time unpaid. Are you content with this arrangement?”
“I know little of the value of jewels,” replied Butler, slowly closing
the casket, “but should suppose that these might be sufficient security
for the money.”
“Perhaps this gentleman’s opinion will satisfy your doubts,” and taking
the casket from Butler’s hand, Catharine again touched the spring and
held it before the missionary.
“No, no; I am not a judge,” exclaimed the missionary, drawing back in
his chair and pushing the casket away; but after a moment he looked up
more composedly and said: “Excuse me, lady, I need not examine the
jewels; from what I saw of them in the young gentleman’s hand, I am
certain that they are worth more than the sum named.”
“Are you convinced?” said Catharine, again turning to Butler.
“Perfectly—let the ceremony proceed.”
With a kingly gesture, the chief lifted the bear-skin again, and taking
Tahmeroo by the hand, led her out upon the turf in front of her mother’s
lodge. Here a scene of wild grandeur presented itself. The whole
encampment was surrounded by warriors in full costume, and glittering
with arms. The Shawnees had risen from their council-fires, and moved in
single file through the woods to the foot of Campbell’s Ledge. Here they
wound themselves, rank after rank, round the encampment, till the chief
and his family were hedged in by a living wall. Those in the front rank
held torches of pitch pine knots kindled at the dying council-brands,
which flamed up in one vast girdle of fire, lighting up the savages in
their gorgeous dresses, the dense forest trees in the background, and
throwing smoky gleams on the bold face of the ledge itself.
The eyes of the Shawnee chief flamed up with natural triumph as he stood
upon the forest sward, which those broad lights were turning to gold
under his feet, and, with a wave of his hand, motioned Butler to his
side.
“White brave,” he said, “two moons ago I led my daughter to your wigwam,
and, in the face of our tribe, she became your wife. It was well. But
Catharine Montour is not content; she mourns that her child was given
away, and she not there to rejoice. She says that your people have other
laws, and that a wife given by the Shawnees is not a wife with our white
fathers. Catharine is wise, and speaks well. The white brave shall make
Tahmeroo his wife before his white brother here, who takes his law from
the Great Spirit himself. Warriors, draw near and listen, while the
young white brave makes his vow.”
The chief placed Tahmeroo’s hand in Butler’s, and grasped them both in
his own, while he waved one arm on high, thus commanding the warriors to
draw near.
There was a stir among the savages; rank glided into rank, circle closed
upon circle, till a triple ring of torches encircled the young pair, and
a sea of waving plumes, wild faces, and sharp, glittering eyes, surged
back into the forest. All this concourse of men stood motionless,
obedient to the lifted hand of their chief.
Catharine Montour came forth from the lodge, pale and rigid, as if she
were going to execution; after her walked the missionary, with a
movement so still that it seemed a shadow gliding over the grass. He
took his place before the young couple, opened his prayer-book, and
commenced the ceremony. There was a slight delay, for Butler was
unprovided with a ring. Catharine drew one from her finger, and gave it
to the missionary. He touched her hand in receiving this ring. It was
cold as ice.
It was a wonderful sound in the heart of that dense forest, the voice of
a devout Christian giving that solemn marriage benediction, girded round
by savages who had scarcely ever heard of the true God in their lives.
But a strange sight it was when the haughty chief, the proud English
lady, the minister, and that newly married couple sank gently to their
knees, and all that tribe of savages fell to the earth also, with their
swarthy foreheads in the dust, while the voice of that good man rose
clear and loud, piercing the heavens with its solemn eloquence. Even the
savages looked at each other with awe, and trod stealthily as they broke
up in bands, and moved back toward the woods.
It was, indeed, a holy hour; for, though blood, flame, and rapine marked
the course of that tribe for years after that august ceremony, the
Indians sometimes grew less relentless when a cry for mercy reminded
them of the marriage of their chief’s daughter. When all was over, the
missionary departed noiselessly as he came. The chief was disappointed
when he looked round and saw that he was gone. He had munificently
prepared a present of furs and wampum, which he desired to present,
after the fashion of the whites. Catharine Montour saw nothing; she was
still prostrate on the earth.
Butler went away soon after the missionary, scarcely deigning to make an
excuse for his absence or name the time of his return. Tahmeroo gazed
after him till great tears gathered in her eyes. Then a sudden thought—a
quick pain; and, while her father gave orders to his warriors, and her
mother bowed herself in the dust, she darted into the woods. Still
dressed in those singular wedding garments, she forced her path through
the forest along the mountain stream, and down the steep ramparts of
Falling Spring, till she came out upon the river. Fragments of golden
satin and rich lace were torn from her dress, and left clinging to
brushwood and thorns in her passage, but she took no heed; the Indian
blood in her veins was all on fire with jealousy. As she reached the
foot of Falling Spring, a canoe shot out from the ravine through which
its waters plunged to the river. She saw the waves glitter in its track,
sprang downward, unmoored her own little craft, and flew along the
windings of the Susquehanna like a sparrow hawk.