“Unshrinking from the storm,
Well have ye borne your part,
With woman's fragile form,
But more than manhood's heart”--_Whittier_
The observation is no less true than trite, that no one knows till he
has tried it, what he can do or endure. And as just as is the remark
in a general application, it is, we apprehend, more strikingly so when
applied to the gentler sex; for, from the position they occupy in social
life, their powers of action or endurance are so seldom fully put to the
test, that they are generally far less conscious than men of what deeds
they might accomplish or what degree of suffering they might endure,
in emergencies calculated to call forth the highest energies of their
physical and moral natures. And if there be any disparity between the
number of heroes and heroines in the world, such emergencies as we have
named are only wanting, we believe, to make up any deficiency that may
be found in the latter.
When Miss Haviland ascertained that her too venturous companion had
been intercepted and retaken, in the manner mentioned in the preceding
chapter, she for a moment greatly hesitated whether to return and yield
herself again to her captors, or persevere in her attempt to escape.
But, beginning to suspect the true source of the present misfortune,
which, if her suspicions were just, pointed only at herself, and
thinking that her escape would soon lead to the voluntary release of
her companion, she quickly decided on the latter alternative, and glided
noiselessly away into the depths of the forest.
After proceeding in a direct course from the camp to such a distance as
should preclude the possibility that any ordinary sound made in walking
through the woods would reach her captors, unless they were in actual
pursuit behind, of which her often strained senses had as yet given her
no evidence, she turned short to the south, and, in pursuance of the
hasty plan formed by herself and companion at the outset, now made her
way, as fast as the darkness and the usual obstacles of the woods would
permit, towards the road, her only guide being the parallel swells of
land, which, running north and south, rose, as she had luckily noticed
before dark, in successive lifts up the mountain to the west. Still
hearing no sounds of pursuit, she began to entertain strong hopes that
she should be permitted to reach the road unmolested. In this, however,
she was doomed to be disappointed; for, in a short time, a cracking, as
of dry twigs under the tread of some one stealthily advancing, arrested
her attention, and brought her to a stand. Fortunately, no part of her
dress was sufficiently light-colored to betray her. And, having nothing
to fear from this, and believing that, by placing herself in close
contact with some natural object, she might still have a good chance to
be passed undetected, she glided to the nearest tree, and, placing her
back to the side opposite to the suspected foe, awaited his approach in
breathless silence. Presently he came up, and, after pausing a moment
within a few yards of her, apparently to listen and reconnoitre, he
passed by so near as to graze the bark of the tree behind which she
stood, and moved carelessly on some distance before again pausing to
repeat his _reconnoissance_.
She drew a long breath; but, before she dared move from her stand, the
sounds of other approaching feet reached her ears. And soon two more
men, evidently on the same search, passed by her, at different distances
to the east, and, like the first one, bent their courses northward.
After waiting till all sound of their receding steps had wholly died
away, she again moved forward, and soon had the satisfaction of finding
herself in the road, but a short distance from the spot where, a few
hours before, she and her attendant had been captured. It remained now
to get beyond the tory encampment. Could she be permitted to pass down
the mountain, in the road, but a half mile, she might then consider the
danger mostly over, and proceed on to the tavern in comparative safety.
And, though aware that this portion of the way might be scarcely less
dangerous than any she had passed over, yet, tempted by the facility
with which it could be accomplished in the road, she resolved to make
the attempt, and accordingly, with a guarded but rapid step, began to
move down the sloping way before her. But she had proceeded but a short
distance, when she was startled by the loud report of firearms in the
direction of the tory encampment, which, as already described, were,
just at that moment, being discharged at the escaping canoe. While
pausing in doubt at the meaning of this unexpected outbreak, the random
firing of Woodburn's party which we noted as soon following that of the
tories, now burst from the forest a little before her on the left, and
greatly in creased her perplexity. Suddenly conceiving the idea, from
these circumstances, that the tories had been assailed in their rear,
and were now retreating towards her, and this notion being the next
moment confirmed by the glimpses she caught of a dark form emerging from
the bushes on the left, whom she mistook for a foe, she hastily turned
and fled, in agitation and alarm, into the opposite forest bordering the
road on the south, having thus approached within a few rods of the
very men who were in search of her, and thus unconsciously eluded their
friendly grasp. Though intending soon to turn her course eastward, so
as to come out again into the road at such a point as should place her
beyond any danger of a recapture, yet, urged by her fears lest her foes
should cross the road and overtake her, she pressed on so far into the
depths of the woods, that when she paused to change her course, she
became confused and doubtful respecting the direction she should take to
regain the road in the manner she had proposed. She had now no further
knowledge of the make of the land, or the situation of the hills, by
which she could be guided. But at length, fixing on a course which she
thought most likely to be the right one, she again set forward, slowly
picking her way through the swampy and tangled tract of forest into
which she seemed now to have entered. In this manner she pursued her
dubious course onward nearly an hour, every moment expecting that the
next would bring her out into the road. At length she fell in with a
small stream, which she rightly judged to be one of the brooks running
into Black River, and which, from what she knew of the course of that
river, she supposed would lead nearly in the direction she sought to go.
But on stooping down to feel the current, she, to her great surprise,
found it running in a course directly opposite from what she expected.
Scarcely knowing now which way to direct her steps, she passed over the
stream, and, with a sense of desolation, growing out of the thought that
she was lost in the depths of the wilderness, which she had never before
experienced, wandered on, and on, for several of the successive hours of
that dark and dismal night. At last she came to the top of a high swell,
where, the new aspect presented in the slope of the forest before her
naturally causing her to pause, she dropped down upon an old mossy log
to rest her worn and wearied frame, and try to collect her confused
and scattered faculties. While here endeavoring to rally her sinking
spirits, and compose her thoughts so as to look more coolly on her
situation, she began to discern, through the openings of the foliage,
the dark outlines of a high mountain, rising, at the distance of two or
three miles, directly in front of her. It now occurred to her that, like
other persons lost in the woods, of whom she had heard, she might have
been, all this time, wandering in a circle, and that the mountain before
her might be the very one she supposed she had left far behind her, west
of the tory encampment. If this supposition should prove correct, the
long-sought road must lie somewhere between her and the mountain
in view, and a little more perseverance in that direction would
consequently put an end to those perplexities which were now becoming
more painful and dread than any sensations she had experienced from
the pursuit of her enemies. Encouraged by the gleam of hope which this
thought imparted to her almost despairing mind, she started up, and
again nerved herself for the task of meeting the many difficulties which
she knew, at the best, yet remained to be overcome. It had, by this
time, in consequence of a scattering of the clouds, or the rising of
a waning moon, become perceptibly lighter, and, for the next hour, her
progress was much more direct and easy. By this time, she came to a spot
in the forest which was sufficiently open to give her another and fairer
view of the mountain she had been approaching. She looked upon its
dark sides a moment, and the pleasant delusion under which she had been
laboring wholly vanished from her mind. She saw it could not be the
mountain she had hoped to find it, nor indeed any she had ever seen; and
she again gave herself up as lost, perhaps, irretrievably lost, far away
and deep in the dark recesses of a howling wilderness, from which she
might never be extricated. And yet her usual firmness did not wholly
forsake her. “_Is not your life of more value than many sparrows_ in the
sight of Him who careth for all?” she mentally exclaimed; and she was
calmed and comforted by the ready affirmative which her faith responded.
While casting about her in doubt respecting the next step to be taken,
she discovered traces of what was evidently once an imperfect road,
or path, which seemed to extend through a partial opening towards the
mountain. Thinking it might possibly lead to some human habitation,
or at least to some place preferable to the open forest for rest and
shelter till the return of daylight, she resolved to follow it. As she
proceeded on, she began to detect marks of the woodman's or hunter's axe
in the trees, here entirely cut down, and there girdled, or denuded of
their bark as high as the hand could reach. These indications of the
former presence of men appeared to grow more frequent as she went on;
and at length she came out into a small opening in the forest in the
midst of which stood a roughly-constructed log-house, or shanty, with
a regularly-formed bark roof still standing. The remains of smaller and
less durable shanties were also visible in the vicinity of the former.
[Footnote: Colonel Hawks, while traversing the wilderness of Vermont, in
the French wars, with a regular force, among whom was the then Captain
John Stark, once encamped near the foot of the mountain, in the south
part of Cavendish, where the incident we are narrating is supposed to
have occurred. The mountain still bears the name of Hawks's Mountain,
and the traces of the encampment, it is said are still visible.]
With a cautious and hesitating step, Miss Haviland drew near to
this rude structure, and at once perceived, by the appearance of the
unguarded loop-hole window, and the open entrance, before which the
untrodden wild weeds were growing, that it was untenanted. Approaching
still nearer, and peering into the window, she discovered, in one
corner of the deserted apartment, a comfortable-looking bed, composed of
branches of the hemlock, which she rightly concluded had been collected
and used by hunters, who occasionally made the place their quarters for
the night. Immediately concluding to avail herself of the advantages
which this shelter and primitive couch seemed to promise for obtaining
the rest her exhausted system so much needed, she entered, and, throwing
herself down on the soft and yielding boughs, soon surrendered herself
to the influence of the grateful repose, and fell asleep. She was
soon, however, awakened--by what she knew not, unless by the feeling
of uneasiness and apprehension, by which she now found herself
unaccountably agitated. She had heard, or read, of those mysterious
intimations, by which, it is said, we sometimes instinctively become
apprised of impending danger, when there is no apparent cause for
apprehension, and when reason utters no warning. If such instances ever
in reality occurred, this might be one of them; or the impression might
have been unconsciously received from actual sounds, which came from
foes now secretly lurking near, and which, as it is known often to be
the case, had fallen on her slumbering ear, and disturbed and troubled,
without fully awakening her. But whatever the cause of the strange
foreboding, the effect soon became too strong and exciting to permit her
longer to remain passive. And she arose to examine the apartment, and
see what precautions could be taken to render it more safe against the
intrusion of enemies, whether they should come in the shape of men or
wild beasts. On approaching the entrance, she discovered, standing by
the side of it against the wall a sort of rough door made of long cuts
of thick bark, confined by withes to two cross-pieces, and intended,
evidently, as there were no contrivances for hanging it, to be set up
against the entrance on the inside as a barrier against the cold, or
the unwelcome intrusion of any thing from without. But it had become so
water-soaked and heavy, and the end on which it stood so firmly set in
the ground, that she found, on making the attempt, her strength unequal
to the task of removing it. And she turned away to look for other
means of protecting herself from danger. Casting her eyes upward, she
perceived, lying loose on the beams, or rather poles, extending across
the room above, several long pieces of bark, which had been left there,
probably, when the roof, of the same material, was constructed. And it
immediately occurred to her, that, if she could mount this loft, she
might so dispose of herself there as to escape the observation of any
human intruders, and, at the same time, be out of reach of any wild
beasts that should enter the room below. Accordingly, going to one
corner, she began to mount by stepping on the projecting sides of the
logs in the two converging walls, and soon succeeded in reaching the
loft, and forming, from the bark, a piece of flooring sufficiently
strong and broad to bear her weight and screen her person from
observation. Upon this she extended herself, face downwards, with her
eyes placed to a small aperture, to enable her to see what might happen
in the room below, and silently, but with highly excited expectation,
awaited the event. But what event did she expect? She could not tell;
and yet she was wholly unable to divest herself of the continually
intruding idea that something fearful was about to occur; and impelled
by the singular apprehension, she could not help listening for sounds
which might herald the approaching evil. For some time, however, no
sounds reached her ears, except those low, mingled murmurs which are
peculiar to the forest in the stillness of night. But at length her
quickened organs were greeted by some noise which she knew was not a
fancied one; and the next moment the sound of human footsteps became
distinctly audible. Presently she heard voices at the door, and then saw
two dark forms cautiously entering the room below. After walking around
the apartment and thrusting the muzzles of their guns into corners,
with the apparent purpose of ascertaining whether any one was concealed
within, they approached the pile of boughs before described, and
gave vent to their satisfaction at finding so good a bed, in a short,
guttural _ugh!_ which proclaimed them, to the trembling listener above,
to be Indians, and of those, doubtless, who had been sent out in pursuit
of her. They then proceeded to draw up the old door and barricade the
entrance after which they set their guns against the wall, and camped
down on the bed in the corner.
It would be difficult to describe the sensations with which the hapless
girl witnessed what had occurred; and these, with the fear of what might
still be in store for her, nearly filled the measure of her distress
and perplexity; for although she had thus far escaped observation, and
although she soon had the satisfaction of knowing, by the heavy and
measured breathing which reached her ears, that her foes had sunk into
a deep sleep, yet how was she, even now, to avoid falling into their
merciless hands? Should she attempt to descend and escape through the
window, could she effect her purpose without being heard and detected?
She feared not. And should she remain in her present situation till
daylight, would her terrible visitors then awaken and depart without
discovering her? This alternative appeared to her even less promising
than the other. And yet one of the two courses must be adopted. Which
should it be? While anxiously reflecting on the subject, fresh noises
in the woods arrested her attention. These were also the sounds of
footsteps, but evidently not those of any human prowler. With a light,
quick pat, pat, pat, the animal came up to the door, paused, and snuffed
the air through the crevices. He then moved along to the window, reared
himself on his hind legs, thrust in his nose, and after giving two or
three quick, eager snuffs there also, withdrew, and trotted off, at a
moderate pace, a short distance into the forest, where he appeared to
come to a sudden halt. The next moment, the long, unearthly howl of a
wolf rose shrill and tremulous from the spot, and died slowly away,
in strange, wild cadences, among the echoing mountains around. Sabrey
instinctively shuddered at the fearful sound, but instantly turned her
attention to the sleeping Indians, whom she expected to hear rousing up
and rushing out with their guns after the insidious prowler. But they,
to her surprise, snored on, unconscious of the danger. The howl was
soon repeated, when short, faint responses, in the same shrill, savage
modulations, became audible in every direction in the surrounding
forest. These answering cries, growing more distinct and loud every
moment, in their evident approach to the spot where the first signal
howl was given, now fully apprised the agitated listener of the fearful
character of the scene which was likely soon to occur beneath or around
her. In an incredibly short space of time, the gathering troop of
famished monsters seemed to be arriving and arranging themselves under
their invoking leader to be led on to the promised prey. And soon the
trampling of multitudinous feet evinced that they were in motion and
cautiously advancing towards the house. The next moment, they all
appeared to have assembled under the window, and paused as if to plan
the mode of attack. After a brief interval, in which no sounds could
be distinguished but the low, suppressed snuffling of the troop for the
scented prey, a large wolf leaped up into the narrow aperture paused
a second and then quickly thrusting his balanced body forward, dropped
noiselessly down on the ground floor within. Another, and another, and
another, followed in rapid succession, till more than half a score
of the gaunt, grim monsters had landed inside, and silently arranged
themselves in a row before the bed of their intended victims, who still
strangely slept on. One more fearful pause succeeded, in which the
greedy band seemed to be eagerly eyeing the fated sleepers, and marking
out portions of their bodies for the deadly gripe; when suddenly
springing forward, they all fiercely pounced upon the victims, and,
with the seeming noise of a thousand wrangling fiends, mingled with the
sharp, short, half-stifled screeches of human agony, that were heard in
the hideous din, seized, throttled, and tore them, limb from limb, to
pieces, and bore off the dissevered parts, munching and snarling, to
different corners of the room. The noise now for a short time subsided,
and nothing was heard but the low, broken growls of the cannibal troop,
as they busily craunched the bones, and tore the flesh on which they
were raking their horrid feast. Then followed the fierce and noisy
encounters for the decreasing fragments, till none were left worth
contending for.
At this juncture, two of the half-glutted but still ravenous gang,
relinquishing the well-picked bones on which they had been laboring,
rose, and, advancing into the middle of the room, stood a moment
listlessly viewing the operations of the rest; when they suddenly
started, and, turning slowly round and round, began busily to snuff
the air, and throw their noses upward in search of some fresh game
that appeared now to have struck their keen olfactories. The affrighted
maiden, who had been witnessing this hideous scene from her hitherto
unsuspected concealment above, with blood curdling in horror at the
sights and sounds that reached her recoiling senses, now shuddered
in fresh alarm; for she but too well understood what this new
and fearfully-significant movement of the wolves portended. And,
instinctively withdrawing her face from her loop-hole of observation,
she hastily drew herself up in the middle of her frail support, so as to
be as far as possible out of the reach of her expected assailants. But
they at once detected the slight sounds occasioned by her movement, and,
now guided by two senses instead of one, instantly began to gnash their
teeth, and, with wild howls, to leap upward after their newly-discovered
prey. And although her position was more than seven feet from the
ground,--a height which, it might be supposed, could not have been
reached by this class of animals in a perpendicular leap,--yet so
desperate had the present gang become by the taste of human blood, that
they soon, in their determined and constantly-repeated efforts, began
to strike and seize the beams with their teeth, by which they would hang
suspended a moment, and then drop back again to the ground for another
trial. The terrified maiden now gave herself up as lost, and tried
to quell the tumult of her frenzied feelings, that she might meet her
approaching fate, as dreadful as it was, with calmness and resignation.
But the terrific noise of her maddened assailants, as they leaped up,
snapping, snarling, and howling, in demoniac chorus, and made nearer
and nearer approaches every moment to her person, once more aroused her
natural instinct for self-preservation; and she arose, and, standing
upon her feet, involuntarily bent over one end of her support to catch a
view of what was passing below.
In withdrawing her shrinking gaze from the fiercely upheaving heads
and fiery eyeballs which there greeted her, she espied the guns of the
Indians still standing against the wall, almost directly beneath her,
with the muzzles extending upward within the reach of her arm. With the
rapid process of thought which danger is known often to beget, a new
plan of deliverance, suggested by the discovery just made, was instantly
formed and digested in her mind. And in its pursuance, she drew a white
handkerchief from her pocket, and, hastily folding it together, threw it
down to the farthest corner of the room below. As she had anticipated,
the whole gang rushed after it. And instantly seizing the opportunity
thus afforded to execute her design, she hastily balanced herself on the
edge of the bark the most nearly over the guns, reached down her arm,
grasped one of the muzzles, and drew up the heavy weapon, just in time
to escape the baffled brutes as they came bounding back, with redoubled
howls of rage and disappointment, to the spot. Too much accustomed, in
the new settlement in which she had been mostly reared, to the sight and
even handling of fire-arms not to know how to use them, she cocked the
piece, and, again advancing to the edge of her platform, pointed down
into the thickest of the infuriated pack, and fired. One wild, piercing
yelp followed the deafening explosion, and, the next instant, all
the survivors of the hushed and frightened gang were heard scrambling
through the window, and scattering and fleeing off with desperate speed
into the surrounding forest. With the last sounds of the retreating
steps of the wolves, and with the relief which a returning sense of
safety brought to the over-wrought feelings of the maiden, all her
strength gave way, and, sinking down, weak and helpless as an infant,
she sobbed out, in the broken murmurs of an overflowing heart, her
gratitude to Heaven for her deliverance from the horrid death from which
she had so narrowly escaped. For a while she could only tremble and
weep; but at length the violence of her emotions began gradually to
subside, exhausted nature would be cheated no longer, and she sunk into
slumber, too sound, happily, to permit her to dream over the fearful
scenes of the past.
When she awoke, it was broad daylight, and all was quiet within, while
without the birds were chanting their morning melodies. At first she
could scarcely believe that the scene she had passed through was not
the distempered imaginings of some frightful dream. But there, on the
blood-stained floor beneath her, lay the carcass of a dead wolf, and the
scattered bones of the slain Indians, to attest the dreadful reality.
Hastening down from the loft into the room, and averting her eyes from
the revolting spectacle, she hurried forward with a shudder to the door,
effected an opening sufficient for her egress, and rushed out into
the open air, of which she now drew a long, grateful inhalation,
more expressive than words of the deep sense of inward pleasure she
experienced in being freed from this den of horrors.
Believing that, by the advantages daylight would now afford her, she
might be able to retrace her way to the road, she immediately sought out
and entered the old path by which she had approached the cabin; and this
serving to indicate the general course she must pursue to accomplish her
purpose, she followed it back to the end, and then passed on through the
forest in the same direction. She had proceeded but a short distance,
however, before she was startled by the unexpected appearance of a man
advancing through the thick intervening undergrowth directly towards
her. As she was about to strike out obliquely into the forest to avoid
him, her steps were arrested by his voice calling out to her.
“Don't be alarmed at a friend, young lady,” he said, in a plausible
manner, as he came forward and stopped at a respectful distance--“don't
be alarmed at my appearance at all; for you are the one, I take it, that
we are searching for. It is Miss Haviland, is it not?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the latter, looking doubtfully at the man whom she
thought she had somewhere before seen--“yes, that is my name; but as
there may be both friends and foes out in search of me, you will excuse
me for saying that I do not know to which of these you belong.”
“True, true,” said the other, in a wheedling tone--“true; I don't blame
you for being a little cautious. So I must tell you that, living in
these parts, and being acquainted with Captain Woodburn, I volunteered,
when I heard you were lost last night, to go with the rest in search of
you. And being now so lucky as to find you, I will conduct you out to
Coffin's--four or five miles from this, I suppose--where your friends
are anxiously waiting to see or get word of you.”
Although our heroine was not exactly pleased with the manner and
countenance of the man, yet the charm of the name of Woodburn, to whom
he had so artfully referred, restored her confidence, and she at once
and thankfully accepted of his proffered guidance, little suspecting
that she had yielded herself to the most subtle of her foes--the
deceitful and treacherous David Redding!