THE MERITED LESSON
Tahmeroo heard the movement, sprang to her feet, and away, almost
throwing Mary down the steep, with her first impetuous leap.
Recovering from the shock, Mary followed her, calling desperately after
her sister.
In his hurry to reach the spring, Butler had dragged his canoe half-way
up the bank, and it took a few moments to shove it into the water again.
Frightened and weak, Jane had seated herself on a loose boulder, and
eagerly watched him as he tugged at the little craft. By this time
Tahmeroo confronted her husband, dragged the canoe desperately from his
hold, and with the strength of a lioness, sent it shooting into the
river.
The canoe was out of reach in a moment—for the quick current seized it,
and it was soon dancing down its own silver path on the “broken waters,”
leaving the baffled villain and his victim helpless on the shore.
Butler ground his teeth. If he did not again load the poor Indian with
rude epithets, it was from excess of rage. Tahmeroo was neither fierce
nor weak now. The iron of her nature was taking its white heat; all the
fiery sparks had been shot forth, but she was dangerous to trifle with
just then, even without arms, and so still.
Mary was pleading with her sister.
“You are wronging her, degrading yourself—throwing away your good name
forever,” she said. “The poor feeling he calls love was given to her
once, and you see how he outrages her now. Even though he had the power
to make you his wife, her fate would be yours, Jane.”
Jane turned her back upon the gentle pleader, repulsing her with both
hands.
“That young Indian is not his wife, I say,” she answered petulantly, and
weeping, as much from annoyance as any remorseful feeling. “It takes
something more than a savage pow-pow in the woods to bind an officer of
the king. What does it amount to if she does call herself his wife?”
“Nothing, nothing whatever,” said Butler, interposing, while Tahmeroo
stood proudly silent. “Such contracts never last beyond the moon in
which they are formed. If the Shawnee chief would insist on giving me
his daughter, am I to blame? Such hospitality is a habit of his tribe.”
“And dare you say that this is all the bond which unites you with this
poor girl?” questioned Mary, with great dignity.
“Dare I say that?—of course I dare. She knows it well enough—can you
think me a fool?”
“Yes,” said a voice, which made the audacious young man start, “if
cruelty and falsehood are folly, you are the worst of fools. How dare
you stand up in the face of high Heaven and disclaim vows yet warm on
your lips? Jane Derwent, for your father’s sake, believe me. This very
evening I, invested with sacred power by the church, married Walter
Butler to this young girl. He came from the Lodge, where this ceremony
was performed, directly here. I was myself coming to the island,
thinking to rest in your cabin till morning, but his arm was strongest
and he reached the shore first.”
“You hear him—you will believe this now!” said Mary tenderly, leaning
over her sister.
Jane began to sob.
“What is the difference, supposing he speaks the truth?” said Butler,
also bending over her. “I love you, and have the means of performing all
my promises. Who will know or care about this forest hawk in our world?”
Jane Derwent was weak and miserably vain, but not vicious. Butler had
enlisted no really deep feeling in his behalf. Indeed, but for her
terror of the Indian girl, it is doubtful if she would have followed him
to the shore. She had been taught from childhood up to regard the
missionary with reverence, and never for an instant dreamed of doubting
his word. Arising with an angry gesture, she put Butler aside and
submitted herself to the caressing arm of her sister.
“Go to your wife,” she said, with a burst of mortification. “She is only
too good for you. I am sorry for her and despise you—a pretty creature
you intended to make of me.”
“Not at all, my dear. It was the Lord that made you a pretty creature to
begin with, or I should never have troubled my head about you. After
all, I dare say the whole thing would have turned out more plague than
pleasure.”
“Or profit, either,” said the missionary, with the nearest approach to
sarcasm that his heavenly voice or features could express. “Remember,
for the present, I am that poor girl’s trustee; wrong her by another
word, and the draft upon Sir William Johnson shall be cancelled. Before
morning I will deliver it back, with the casket of jewels in my bosom,
to the lady whose munificence you have abused. Gold cannot re-kindle the
love that would give happiness to this unfortunate child, but it shall
save her from cruelty.”
“Upon my word, old gentleman, you should have been a lawyer; among that
hive of red skins up yonder. I really thought praying your vocation, but
you are rather hard upon my harmless enterprise. I only wanted to
torment little hunchback here, who has been following me round like a
wildcat the whole week; there was nothing serious in the matter, I
assure you, upon the honor of a gentleman.”
The missionary regarded him for a moment in dead silence; the audacity
of this falsehood was something new to him. It is probable he would have
rebuked this coarse attempt at deception, but Tahmeroo came proudly up
at the instant, and for her sake he refrained.
During this entire conversation the Indian bride had kept aloof,
standing alone on the banks of the cove; as she moved towards them
Butler’s last speech fell upon her ear. She drew a deep breath, and
listened for more. The light shone full upon her face; it was pale, but
very beautiful, with the new hope his words had aroused—her eyes shone
like stars. All the spirit of her fathers lay in the movement of that
slender form. With the elasticity of sudden hope she came back to her
old life.
Butler was eager to retaliate upon Jane, to convince the missionary and
appease his bride. With that quick transition of manner which rendered
him almost irresistible at times, he met Tahmeroo half way.
“There,” he said, holding out both hands, “have I punished you enough,
my fiery flamingo? Did you think I could not see that you were following
my canoe all the time? But for that I should have been in the fort long
ago; why, child, had it not been for my seeming wrath, you would have
killed that silly girl yonder, and that would have set every patriot in
the valley on your track.”
She stood looking at him, the haughtiness dropped away from her figure,
and her lips began to tremble.
“Tahmeroo’s heart is like a white flower on the rocks; it opens to the
rain, but folds itself close when thunder comes,” she said at last.
“Speak again, that she may know how to answer.”
He knew that she was trembling from head to foot; that a passionate
outbreak of forgiveness lay under those figurative words.
“What shall I say, Tahmeroo?—what is there to explain, where two people
love each other as we do?”
She gave him her hand then—she gathered both his against her heart, that
he might feel how loudly it was beating.
Butler cast a triumphant look on Jane. It pleased him that she witnessed
the passionate love, the ready forgiveness, of that spirited young
creature.
“Did you think, sir,” he said, leading his bride up to the missionary,
“that any man could earnestly seek another while a being like this
belonged to him?”
Poor Jane, she was no match for the audacity of this man, but fairly
burst into tears of mortified vanity. It was a salutary lesson, which no
one wished to render less impressive than it proved.
Tahmeroo stood by her husband in silence. All her sensitive modesty had
returned, and she was restless, like a wild bird eager to get back to
its cage.
The missionary did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what had gone
before, and stood mournfully gazing on that young face.
“God be thanked if I have saved her one pang,” he murmured, in answer to
some thought that arose at the sight of her beauty.
But the young man became impatient.
“Tahmeroo waits to take leave of you, reverend sir. I trust this
reckless escapade has done us no harm in your good opinion. The young
lady there will tell you it was but a wild freak to annoy her sister,
and to punish Tahmeroo a little for the jealousy which sent her off like
a wild hawk upon the night. I trust you will not think it worth while to
mention the affair to my august mother-in-law before we meet again in
the valley of the Mohawk!”
“I understand,” answered the missionary briefly, “and inform you that
the power to enforce the conditions of your marriage contract rests with
me, so let the fact of your visiting this island remain among
ourselves.”
“You are generous, sir,” answered Butler, covering the bitterness of his
defeat under an appearance of grateful feeling. “Come, Tahmeroo, show me
your craft, and I will take you back to the Ledge. My poor canoe is
half-way to Wilkesbarre by this time, I dare say.”
He wound his arm around the young Indian exactly as he had supported
Jane Derwent a few minutes before, passed by that astonished girl with a
careless nod of the head, and in this fashion was about to leave the
cove; but Tahmeroo disengaged herself from his arm, and came back with a
wild grace that touched the missionary to the heart. She knelt down
before him, and bent her head for a blessing, as she had bowed at his
feet once before that night.
He did not touch her head; some unaccountable feeling kept him from
that; but he lifted both hands to heaven and blessed her fervently.
Tahmeroo arose, passed Jane quickly, and, taking Mary’s hand, with a
look of ineffable gratitude laid it against her heart.
“When the war storm comes, Tahmeroo will remember the white bird.”
With a throb of affection, for which she could not account even to
herself, Mary wound her arms around that bending neck, and drew the
Indian girl close to her bosom. For an instant those two hearts beat
against each other with full heavy throbs. When Mary unlocked her arms,
it seemed as if a portion of her own life had been carried away, leaving
her richer than ever.
Before she had time to wonder at this, Tahmeroo and her husband had
disappeared.
Jane Derwent might well have trembled, had she known the vindictive
feelings that man took away with him.
Mary Derwent arose early in the morning. She had not slept over night,
but strove with many a gentle wile to soothe the indignant grief of her
sister, and win for her the sleep that forsook her own eyelids. All
night long she heard the missionary walking up and down the outer-room,
with a sad, heavy step, as if some painful subject kept him from rest.
At daybreak the front door closed, and his tread rose softly up from the
green sward as he passed down to the water.
Mary stole out of bed and followed him. Jane had dropped asleep at last,
and lay with the tears still trembling on her closed lashes and hot
cheeks. Both anger and penitence for the time were hushed in slumber.
Thus the deformed girl left the cabin unmolested, and overtook the
missionary just as he was getting into his canoe.
“May I go with you?” she said, bending her sweet, troubled face upon him
as he took up the oars.
“Why did you follow me, child?” he answered. “It is very early.”
“I do not know—I was awake all night—something told me to follow you.
They are all asleep and will not miss me—please take me in. I want to
feel the wind from the river—our room has been so close all night that I
can’t breathe.”
The missionary grew thoughtful while she was speaking; but at last he
smiled, and bade her step into the canoe. She placed herself at his
feet, sighing gently, as if some pain had left her heart.
“Is it far?” she asked, looking up stream toward Campbell’s Ledge.
The missionary had told her nothing of his object; but he answered as if
there had been some previous appointment between them.
“Last night they were encamped under the Ledge.”
“And you will tell this white queen what happened—you will keep that bad
man away from Monockonok?”
“It is for this I seek the camp; but why did you follow me?—how did you
guess where I was going?”
“I don’t know. That strange lady never spoke to me—never saw me in all
her life; but I want to look at her again. She seemed standing by the
bed all last night, asking me not to sleep. Sometimes I could almost see
her crimson feathers wave and hear the wampum fringes rattle on her
moccasins. I think that no shadow was ever so real before.”
“And it was this strange fancy that sent you out so early?”
“Yes, for it was a fancy. I could see, as the day broke, that
grandmother’s crimson cardinal, which hung again the wall, had flung its
shadow downward; but the idea of that strange lady had sunk into my
heart before the light told me what it was. I longed to hear her voice
again, to see her with the sunlight quivering about her head. Indeed,
sir, she was like a queen standing there upon the rock. I caught my
breath every time she spoke.”
“And yet she did not speak to you?”
“No; I was out of sight, behind the brushwood. She did not know that a
poor creature like me existed—how should she?”
The missionary bent heavily to his oars; drops of perspiration rose to
his forehead; he beat the water with heavy, desperate pulls; but it was
long before he answered.
They landed at Falling Spring, and made their way into the hills. A
trail was broken through the undergrowth, where the Indians had passed
up to the ledge the night before. Here and there a blackened pine-torch
lay in the path, and fragments of rude finery clung to the thorn bushes.
The missionary moved on, buried in thought. Mary followed after, panting
for breath, but unwilling to lag behind. At last he noticed that she
mounted the hill with pain, and began to reproach himself, tenderly
helping her forward. She saw that he grew pale with each advancing step,
and that his hand hung nervously as he took hers, in the ascent. Why,
she could not think. Surely he did not fear the savages then, after
having stood in their midst the night before.
At last they came out upon a pile of rocks that overlooked the
encampment. The whole basin, so full of savage life ten hours before,
lay empty at their feet; not a human being was in sight; trampled grass,
extinguished torches, and torn vines betrayed a scene of silent
devastation. In the midst of it all stood Catharine Montour’s lodge,
drearily empty. The bear-skin was torn down from the entrance; the rich
furs that had lined it were all removed; it was a heap of bare logs,
through which the morning winds went whispering—nothing more.
The missionary and Mary Derwent looked wistfully in each other’s faces;
a dead feeling of disappointment settled upon them both.
“They are gone,” he said, looking vaguely around; “gone without a sign;
we are too late, Mary.”
“It is dreary,” said the deformed, seating herself on the threshold of
Catharine’s lodge; “I had so hoped to find the white lady here.”
All at once she shaded her eyes with one hand, looking steadily
westward.
“See! see!”
“What, my child?”
Far off, up the banks of the Susquehanna, she saw glimpses of moving
crimson and warm russet breaking the green of the forest. The missionary
searched the distance, and saw those living masses also.
“It is the whole tribe in motion—another dream vanishing away,” he said,
following the train with a look of indescribable sadness. “Let us
descend, Mary; this is not God’s time, but it will come.”
Mary sat upon a fragment of rock, gazing up the river, with a feeling of
keen disappointment; she had hoped to see that stately white woman
again, and to have said one more kindly word to the young Indian bride;
but there was no chance of that left. Even as she gazed, those living
waves swept over a curve of the hills, and were lost in the green west.
The girl sighed heavily, and stood up to go.
They went silently down the mountain together, and then as silently
floated with the current of the river till their little shallop once
more shot into the cove at Monockonok Island.
Jane was still asleep when her sister entered their little room; but an
angry frown gathered on her face, and she muttered discontentedly as
Mary strove to arouse her. When they came forth, Mother Derwent had the
breakfast ready, waiting before the kitchen fire. The spider was turned
up before a bed of coals, and the johnnycake within rose round and
golden to the heat; a platter of venison steaks stood ready on the
hearth, and the potatoes she was slicing into the hot gravy which they
had left in the long-handled frying-pan hissed and browned over the
fire, while the old lady stood, with the handle in one hand and a
dripping knife in the other, waiting for the family to assemble around
the little pine table set out so daintily in the centre of the kitchen.
Jane came from her room sullen and angry. The old lady was a little
cross because no one had volunteered to help her get breakfast, and, as
the best of women in those olden times would, scolded generally as she
proceeded with her work.
“It was very strange,” she said, “what had come over the young people of
that day—the smartness had all gone out of them. When she was a girl,
things were different—children were brought up to be useful then. They
never thought of having parties, and dressing in chintz dresses—not
they. An apple-cut or a log-rolling once a year, was amusement enough.
True, some families did get up an extra husking, or quilting frolic, but
when such excessive dissipation crept into a neighborhood, the minister
took it up in his pulpit, and the sin was handled without mittens.”
Jane sat down by the window, moody and restless. At another time the old
granddame might have croned on with her complaints, and the girl would
scarcely have heard them, she was so used to this eternal exaltation of
the past over the present, which always has been, and always will be, a
pleasant recreation for old ladies; but now Jane was fractious, and
disposed to take offense at everything; so she broke into these running
complaints with a violent burst of weeping, which startled the old dame
till she almost dropped the frying-pan. The dear soul was quite
unconscious that she had been scolding all the morning, and Jane’s
injured looks startled her.
“Are you sick, Janey dear?” she inquired kindly.
“No, Janey was not sick—but she wished she was dead—that she had never
been born—in short, she didn’t know what people were born for at all,
especially girls that couldn’t help being good-looking, and that nobody
would let alone. If she had only been laid by her dear, dear father
under the cedar trees the whole world wouldn’t have been bent on
persecuting her, especially her grandmother!”
This touched the old lady’s heart to the centre. She forgot to stir the
potatoes, and let them brown to a crisp in the pan. Indeed, she went so
far as to rest that long handle on the back of a chair, and forsook her
post altogether.
“Why, Janey, what is all this about, dear? Grandma wasn’t scolding you,
only talking to herself in a promiscuous way about things in general.
Don’t cry so—that’s a darling. Come, now, grandma will get you something
nice for breakfast—some preserved plums.”
“No, Jane had no desire for preserved plums; she only wanted to die; it
was a cruel world, and she didn’t care, for her part, how soon she was
out of it. Everybody was set against her. Mary did nothing but find
fault, and as for Edward Clark—well, of course, some one would be
slandering her to him next. The missionary himself might do it—ministers
always must be meddling with other people’s business. She shouldn’t be
surprised if Clark were even to believe that she didn’t care for him,
but was disappointed that Captain Butler had demeaned himself into
marrying that little good-for-nothing squaw, who had been chasing after
him so long. In fact, such was her own opinion of human nature—she
shouldn’t be astonished at anything, not even if the missionary, who had
more silver on his head than he would ever get into his pocket, should
fall in love with Mary.”
At this, Grandma was horrified. How could Jane think of anything so
dreadful?—but then, poor child, she was out of temper, and said whatever
came uppermost—of course, it meant nothing, and Jane must not think she
was scolding again—nothing of the sort.
But Jane did think grandma was scolding. Perhaps it was right that she,
a poor orphan, who had only one dear grandmother in the wide, wide world
should have that grandmother set against her. This was her destiny, she
supposed, and submission was her duty; she only hoped nobody would be
sorry for it after she was dead and gone, that was all.
How long Jane Derwent might have kept up this state of martyrdom it is
difficult to say, but just as she was indulging in another outbreak of
sorrowful self-compassion, Mary came up from the cove, looking pale and
concerned. She had been to call the missionary to breakfast, and found
him bailing out his canoe, ready to start from the island. He had spoken
few words in leaving, but the hands which touched her forehead, as he
blessed her, were cold as ice. She felt the chill of that benediction,
holy as it was, at her heart yet; the sorrow upon her face startled Jane
into a little natural feeling. She forgot to torment that kind old
woman, and condescended to approach the breakfast table without more
tears.
“Where is the minister?—why don’t he come to breakfast?” inquired Mrs.
Derwent, looking ruefully at the crisp little pile of potatoes left in
the frying-pan. “I’ve had the table sot out a hull hour, and now
everything is done to death. I wonder what on earth has come over you
all!”
“The minister has gone away,” answered Mary, and the tears welled into
her eyes as she spoke.
“Gone away! marcy on us! and without a mouthful of breakfast. Why, gals!
what have you been a-doing to him? He ain’t mad nor nothing, is he?”
Mary smiled through her tears. The very idea of petty anger connected
with the missionary seemed strange to her.
“Oh, grandma, he is never angry,” she said; “but he seems anxious and
troubled about something.”
“Worried to death by them Injuns, I dare say,” muttered the granddame,
with a shake of the head that made her cap-borders tremble around the
withered face. “They’ll scalp him one of these days, for all the pains
he takes.”
“No, no; they love him too well—you don’t really think this, grandma,”
cried Mary, turning pale with sudden terror.
“Well, no; I suppose he stands as good a chance as the rest of us; but
that isn’t saying over-much, for I tell you what, gals! there’ll be
squally times in the valley afore another year goes over our heads, or I
lose my guess. All these ’ere forts and stockades ain’t being built for
nothing.”
Jane started up in affright. “You don’t think they mean to attack us at
once?—that they are camping under the ledge in order to pounce upon us
unawares, do you, grandma? Oh, I wish I was away! I wish I’d gone while
there was a chance! They’ll scalp me the very first one—I can almost
feel that horrid Indian girl’s knife in my hair!”
“Don’t fear,” said Mary; “they have left Campbell’s Ledge. I was up
there at daylight, and found the camp empty.”
“You up there at daylight, Mary? What for?” cried Jane, flushing with
angry surprise. “Who did you go to see?”
“I went with the missionary.”
“And who was he after, I should like to know?”
“I believe, Jane he wished to speak with the young girl whom he married
to Walter Butler last night, and perhaps to her mother, the strange
white lady, also.”
“And what about?—what business has that man with Walter Butler’s
affairs? I should think he’d meddled enough already,” cried the angry
beauty.
“It was not Butler, but his wife whom the minister went in search of.”
“His wife!” cried Jane, with a magnificent curve of the lip, and a lift
of the head that Juno might have envied. “What does an Indian wife
amount to in the law?”
“A great deal, if she has been married by the law.”
“But I don’t believe one word of that; Butler isn’t such a fool; he only
said it to torment me, to—to—”
Jane lost herself here, for the keen look which Grandmother Derwent
turned upon her brought caution with it.
“Well, gals, what on earth are you talking about? I don’t want the name
of that Tory captain mentioned under my cabin roof. His place is with
the Wintermoots, the Van Garders, and Van Alstyns—birds of a feather
flock together. While I live, the man that makes himself friends with
the off-scouring from York State had better keep clear of Monockonok
Island.”
Jane bit her lips with vexation, but she said nothing; for when the old
woman waxed patriotic there was no opposing her, and even the beautiful
favorite feared to urge the conversation farther.
Mother Derwent stepped to the door, and shading her eyes with one hand,
looked up and down the river. Her kind old heart was distressed at the
idea of the missionary going away without his breakfast. She saw his
canoe at last gliding along the opposite shore and turned briskly
around.
“There he is, neither out of sight nor hearing yet. Mary, run upstairs
and shake a white cloth out of the garret window. You, Jane, bring me
the tin dinner-horn. I’ll give him a blast that shall bring him back,
depend on’t.”
Mary ran to make the signal, and Jane took down a long tin dinner-horn
from behind the door, which Mother Derwin blew vigorously, rising on
tiptoe, and sending blast after blast upon the water, as if she had been
summoning an army. The missionary heard the sound, and saw Mary with her
white signal at the window. He waved his hand two or three times, sat
down again, and directly disappeared in a bend of the shore.
Mary watched him with a heavy heart. It seemed as his canoe was lost to
her sight that half her life had departed forever, and he, looking
mournfully back, saw the snowy signal floating from the window, with a
gush of tender sorrow. It was like the wing of an angel unfurling itself
with vain efforts to follow him.