HENRY W. SHOEMAKER.

Department of Forestry,

State Capitol, Harrisburg,

February 23, 1922.

P. S.–Thanks are also due to Mrs. E. Horace Quinn, late of Bucknell

University, for her kindness in revising the proofs.

9-5-22.

[Illustration]

I

_Tulliallan_

“Why, yes, you may accompany your Uncle Thomas and myself to select the

plate which we plan to present to the battleship of the line, ‘The

Admiral Penn,’ which the First Lord, His Grace, Duke of Bedford, has

graciously named in honor of your distinguished grandsire,” said Richard

Penn, pompously, answering a query addressed to him by his young son,

John.

The youth, who was about eighteen years of age and small and slight,

seemed delighted, and waited impatiently with his father for Uncle

Thomas’ arrival. Soon a liveried footman announced the arrival of Thomas

Penn, and the brothers, after embracing, started from the imposing

mansion in New Street, Spring Gardens (near the Admiralty Arch),

accompanied by the younger scion and a retinue of secretaries, retainers

and footmen.

It so happened that the leading silversmith in the city, James Cox, was

of the Quaker faith, to which William Penn, the famous founder of

Pennsylvania, and father of Richard and Thomas, belonged, and was

particularly pleased to be the recipient of this costly and important

order. It was an occasion of such importance to him that his wife, sons

and daughter had come to his place of business to witness the

transaction and, perhaps, meet the aristocratic customers.

As they entered the establishment, the tradesman himself opened the

door, bowing low as the two portly gentlemen, with their plum-colored

coats, snuff boxes and walking sticks, entered arm in arm, followed by

the diminutive John, in a long, red coat, while the minions of various

degrees waited outside, clustered about the gilded chairs.

It must be understood that these sons of William Penn were not members

of the Society of Friends, but had assumed the faith of their

grandfather, the Admiral, and founder of the family fortunes, and young

John was nominally a member of the same faith.

The portly and self-important gentlemen were soon absorbed in studying

the various designs of silver services, while the restless and

half-interested gaze of young John wandered about the salesroom. It was

not long in falling on the slender, demure form of Maria Cox, the

silversmith’s only daughter. Clad in her Quaker garb and bonnet, she was

certainly a picture of loveliness, almost seventeen years old, with deep

blue eyes, dark brows and lashes, fair complexion, with features

exaggerately clearcut, made John Penn’s senses reel in a delirium of

enthusiasm.

Ordinarily he would have become impatient at the delay in selecting the

silver service, for the older gentlemen were slow of decision and he was

a spoiled child, but this time he was lost in admiration and he cared

not if they remained in the shop for the balance of the day. John Penn,

himself, for a small lad was not unprepossessing; his hair was golden,

his eyes expressive and blue, his complexion like a Dresden china

doll’s, his form erect and very slim, yet few girls had fancied him, for

he was selfish and not inclined to talk.

Seeing that he was not assisting his elders in selecting the silverware,

Mrs. Cox, the wife, and a woman of some tact and breeding, introduced

conversation with the young man, eventually drawing her daughter into

it, and it was a case of love quickly on both sides.

When, after four hours of selecting and changing and selecting again,

the Penns finally accepted a design and placed their order, John had

arranged that he was to dine with the Cox family and see the young

beauty frequently. All went well until the day appointed for the visit

to the home of the silversmith. John Penn presented himself before his

father attired in his best red velvet coat with gold facings, white

satin knee breeches, pumps with diamond buckles, his face much powdered,

and sporting a pearl inlaid sword. The elder Penn demanded to know the

cause of the youth’s magnificence, for ordinarily his Quaker blood

showed itself in a distaste for fancy apparel.

“To dine with Mr. and Mrs. James Cox and their charming daughter, whom I

much admire,” was the calm rejoinder.

“What, what,” fairly shouted the father, almost having an apoplectic

attack on the spot; “dining with common tradespeople! You must be in a

frenzy, son; we’ll have you in Bedlam.”

“I don’t see why you talk that way, father,” said John, retaining his

composure. “Are we so very different? It was only a few generations back

when the Penns were plain rural yeomen, and Madame van der Schoulen, or

Grandmother Penn, your own mother, was she not the daughter of a Dutch

tradesman?”

“Don’t speak that way, lad; the servants may hear, and lose respect,”

said the father.

The lad had touched a sore subject, and he preferred to let him keep his

engagement rather than to have an expose on the subject of ancestry.

The dinner and visit were followed by others, but at home John’s romance

did not run smoothly, and he quickly realized that his father and Uncle

Thomas, whose heir he was to be, would never consent to his marriage

with the daughter of a silversmith. Consequently, a trip to Gretna Green

was executed, and John Penn, aged nineteen, and Maria Cox, seventeen,

were duly made man and wife.

When Richard Penn and his brother Thomas were apprised of what he had

done they locked him in his room, and after night got him to the

waterfront and on a ship bound for the French coast. He was carried to

Paris and there carefully watched, but meanwhile supplied with money,

all that he could spend. Temporarily he forgot all about Maria Cox,

plunging into the gaieties of the French Capital, gambling and betting

on horse races, the “sport of kings” having been only recently

introduced in France, until he was deeply in debt. He became very ill,

and was taken to Geneva to recuperate. There he was followed by

representatives of his creditors, who threatened to have him jailed for

debt–a familiar topic in family talk to him, for his grandfather,

William Penn, despite his ownership of Pennsylvania, had been arrested

for debt many times and was out on bail on a charge of non-payment of

loans made from his steward at the time of his death.

John wrote frantically to his father in London, who turned a deaf ear to

the prodigal; not so Uncle Thomas. He replied that he would save the boy

from jail and pay his debts, provided he would divorce his wife and go

to Pennsylvania for an indefinite period. John was ready to promise

anything; a representative of the Penn’s financial interests settled all

the claims in and out of Paris, and John Penn was free.

While waiting at Lille for a ship to take him from Rotterdam to

Philadelphia, the young man was advised to come to London for a day to

say good-bye to his relatives. The packet was expected in the Thames on

a certain day, but got into a terrific storm and was tossed about the

North Sea and the Channel for a week, and no one was at the dock to meet

the dilapidated youth on his arrival at Fleet Street.

As he passed up the streets in Cheapside, to his surprise he ran into

the fair figure of his bride, the deserted Maria Cox-Penn. He was again

very much in love, and she ready to forgive. They spent the balance of

the day together, enjoying a fish ordinary at a noted restaurant in

Bird-in-Hand Court. Over the meal it was arranged that Maria should

follow her husband to America; meanwhile, he would provide a home for

her over there under an assumed name, until he became of age, when he

would defy his family to again tear them asunder.

None of John Penn’s family had the slightest suspicion of anything out

of the usual when he presented himself in their midst, and he returned

quietly to Lille, where he remained until the ship was announced as

ready to take him to America. He arrived in New York during a terrible

tornado, in November, 1752. At Philadelphia he evinced little interest

in anything except to take a trip into the interior. As he had plenty of

money, he could accomplish most anything he wanted, and was not watched.

On his way to the Susquehanna country he traveled with an armed

bodyguard, as there were even then renegade Indians and road agents

abroad. A number of less distinguished travelers and their servants

were, for safety’s sake, allowed to accompany the party. Among them was

a man of fifty-five, named Peter Allen, to whom young John took a

violent fancy.

It was not unusual, for Peter Allen was what the Indians recognized as a

_gentleman_, although he was only a cadet, or what we would call

nowadays a “poor relation” of the proud Allen family, the head of which

was William Allen, Chief Justice of the Province, a man about Peter

Allen’s age, and for whom Northampton or Allensville, now Allentown, was

named.

Peter Allen had built a stone house or trading post, which he called

“Tulliallan” after one of the ancestral homes of the Allen family in

Scotland, on the very outpost of civilization, twenty miles west of

Harris’ Ferry, where all manner of traders, hunters, missionaries,

explorers and sometimes Indians congregated, where balls were held with

Indian princesses as guests of honor, and the description of this place

fired John Penn’s fancy.

The idea had flashed through his mind that Maria could harbor there

unknown until he became of age, and some day, despite the silly family

opposition, she would become the Governor’s Lady. John Penn went to

Peter Allen’s, and not only found a refuge for his bride, but liked the

frontier life so well that it was as if he had been born in the

wilderness. Mountains and forests appealed to him, and his latent

democracy found full vent among the diversified types who peopled the

wilderness.

Peter Allen had three young daughters, Barbara, Nancy and Jessie, whom

he wished schooled, and John Penn arranged that Maria should teach them

and, perhaps, have a select school for other children of the better sort

along the Susquehanna. Peter Allen was secretly peeved at his family for

not recognizing him more, and lent himself to anything that, while not

dishonorable, would bend the proud spirit of the Proprietaries and their

favorites, one of whom was the aforementioned “Cousin Judge” William

Allen.

John Penn returned to Philadelphia, from where he sent a special

messenger, a sort of valet, to London, who met and safely escorted Maria

to America. She landed at Province Island on the Delaware, remaining in

retirement there for a month, until John could slip away and escort her

personally to Peter Allen’s.

The girl was bright, well-educated and sensible, and found the new life

to her liking, and her young husband loving and considerate.

It was in the spring of 1754 when they reached the stone house at the

foot of the Fourth or Peter’s Mountain, and during the ensuing year she

taught the young Allen girls and three other well-bred children, and was

visited frequently by her husband. She assumed the name of Mary Warren,

her mother’s maiden name, which proved her undoing. All went well until

representatives of the Penns in London learned that Maria Cox-Penn was

missing, and they traced her on shipboard through the name “Mary

Warren,” eventually locating her as the young school-mistress at

“Tulliallan.”

The next part of this story is a hard one to write, as one hates to make

accusations against dead and gone worthies who helped to found our

beloved Pennsylvania; but, at any rate, without going into whys and

wherefores, “Mary Warren” mysteriously disappeared. Simultaneously went

Joshua, the friendly Indian who lived at the running spring on the top

of Peter’s Mountain, and Arvas, or “Silver Heels,” another Indian, whose

cabin was on the slopes of Third (now called Short) Mountain, near

Clark’s Creek.

[Illustration: VIRGIN WHITE PINES, WARREN COUNTY, 1912]

It was in the early summer of 1755 when John Penn, accompanied only by

one retainer, John Monkton, a white-bearded veteran of Preston, rode out

of the gateway of the stockade of John Harris’ trading post, bound for

Peter Allen’s. His heart was glad and his spirits elated for, moody lad

that he was, he dearly loved his wife and her influence over him was

good.

On the very top of the Second Mountain he drew rein, and in the clear

stillness of the Sunday morning listened to a cheewink poised on the

topmost twig of a chestnut sprout, and viewed the scenes below him. In

an ample clearing at the foot of Fourth Mountain he could see Peter

Allen’s spacious stone mansion, where his love was probably at that

minute instructing the little class in the beauties of revealed

religion. They would soon be united, and he was so wonderfully happy!

As the cool morning breeze swayed the twig on which the cheewink

perched, it sang again and again, “Ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee!” in

a high key, and with such an ecstasy of joy and youth that all the world

seemed animated with its gladness, yet Penn’s thought as he rode on was,

“I wonder where that bird will be next year; what will it have to

undergo before it can feel the warmth and sunlight of another spring?”

He hurried his horse so that it stumbled many times going down the

mountain, and splashed the water all over old Monkton in his anxiety to

ford Clark’s Creek. He lathered his horse forcing him to trot up the

steep contrefort which leads to “Tulliallan,” though he weighed hardly

more than one hundred and twenty pounds. He drew rein before the door;

no one rushed out to greet him, even the dogs were still. He made his

escort dismount and pound the heavy brass knocker, fashioned in the form

of an Indian’s head. After some delay, Peter Allen himself appeared,

looking glum and deadly pale.

“What is wrong?” cried Penn who was naturally as intuitive as a woman,

noting his altered demeanor.

“Can I tell you, sir, in the presence of your bodyguard?”

“Out, out with it, Allen,” shouted Penn, “I must know _now_.”

“Mary Warren has been gone a fortnight, we know not whither. She had

taken the Berryhill children home after classes, and left them about

five o’clock in the evening. She did not return, and we have searched

everywhere. Strange to relate, George Smithgall, the young serving man

whom you left here to look after your apartments, and who accompanied

Mary from London is gone also; draw your own inferences.”

John Penn’s fair face was as red as his scarlet cloak. Despite Allen’s

urging he would not dismount, but turned his horse’s head toward the

river. He rode to Queenaskawakee, now called Clark’s Ferry, where there

was a famous fording, and, accompanied by his guard, he made the

crossing and posted for the Juniata country. Near Raystown Branch he

caught up with the company of riflemen and scouts organized by “Black

Jack,” the Wild Hunter of the Juniata, who was waiting for General

Braddock’s arrival to enlist in the proposed attack on Fort Duquesne at

Shannopin’s Town, now Pittsburg. Black Jack was no stranger to him,

having often met him at social gatherings at Peter Allen’s, and the

greeting between the two men was very friendly. John Penn occupied the

same cabin as the Wild Hunter, and he told him his story.

“It is not news to me,” said Captain Jack. “I heard it before, from

Smithgall. He went through here last week hunting for Mary.”

Despite this reassuring information, Penn refused to believe anything

but that the lovely Quakeress had proved false and eloped with the

German-American serving man. Word came in a few days that the vanguard

of General Braddock’s army had reached the Loyalhanna, and were encamped

there. Captain Jack, with John Penn riding at his side, and followed by

his motley crew with their long rifles–Germans, Swiss, Frenchmen,

Dutchmen, Indians, half breeds, Negroes and Spaniards–approached the

luxurious quarters of General Edward Braddock, late of the Coldstream

Guards. The portly General, his breast blazing with decorations, wearing

his red coat, was seated in a carved armchair in front of a log cabin

erected for his especial use by his pioneers, who preceded him on the

march. A Sergeant-Major conveyed the news of “The Wild Hunter’s”

presence to the General’s Aide, who in turn carried it to the august

presence.

“I cannot speak to such a fellow, let alone accept him as a brother

officer,” said Braddock, irritably. “Besides, his methods of fighting

are contrary to all discipline, and I want no Pennsylvania troops. Tell

him that if he insists I will make him top-sergeant, and place my own

officers over his company.”

Captain Jack was half angry, half amused, when the rebuff was handed to

him via the sergeant major.

“My father was a Spanish gentleman from the Minisink, and my mother a

woman of tolerably good Hessian blood. I see no reason for such rank

exclusiveness.”

Quickly turning his horse’s head, the sturdy borderer ordered his troop

to proceed eastward.

“Don’t act too rashly, Captain,” entreated Penn. “General Braddock is

ignorant of this country and Indian methods of warfare. He may have

orders not to enlist native troops, yet without your aid I fear for the

success of his expedition. Please let me intercede with him; he will do

it when he hears that I am your friend.”

“To the devil with him and his kind, the swinish snob,” growled Captain

Jack, while his black eyes flashed a diabolical hatred; his Spanish

temper was uncontrollable. That night, when Captain Jack and John Penn

were seated at their camp fire at Laurel Run, a messenger, a Major, not

a Sergeant Major, from General Braddock was announced.

Saluting, the officer asked to be allowed to speak with John Penn,

Esquire. Penn received the officer without rising, and was cooly civil

throughout the interview, which consisted principally of reading a

letter from Braddock, expressing deep regret “that he had not known that

the son of his dear friend, Richard Penn, had been with –-- Jack,” and

offering Penn the captaincy of _Black Jack’s_ company of scouts, “–--

Jack to be First Lieutenant.”

Naturally, Captain Jack was more enraged than ever, but he said: “Take

it, John, I’ll withdraw and turn my men, who, you know, are the best

shots in the Province, over to you. They would go through hell for you.”

“Never fear,” replied Penn, and, turning to the Major, he said: “Tell

General Braddock, with my compliments, that I decline to accept a

commission which he has no authority to tender. As for my companion,

Captain Jack (laying emphasis on the Captain) the General had _his_

decision earlier in the day. Goodnight, Major.”

Thus terminated the “conference” which might have changed the face of

history. As the result of Braddock’s pride and folly, his defeat and

death are a part of history, known by every Pennsylvanian.

John Penn was wretchedly unhappy, even though Captain Jack tried to

console him, when he shrewdly inferred that “Mary” had been kidnapped by

emissaries of his relatives, and had not eloped with a vile serving man.

His heart was too lacerated to remain longer with the Wild Hunter, now

that no active service was to be experienced; so, accompanied by

Monkton, the veteran of Preston, he set out the next morning for the

West Branch of the Susquehanna to the unexplored countries.

At Waterford Narrows they passed the body of a trader recently killed

and scalped by Indians.

“May I draw one of his teeth, sir?” said the old soldier, “and you can

carry it in your pocket, for the old people say ‘The only thing that can

break the enchantment of love is the tooth of a dead man’.”

Penn shook his head and rode on. For a considerable time Penn and Old

Monkton visited with Dagonando (Rock Pine), a noted Indian Chief in

Brush Valley (Centre County), for the young man, like the founder of

Pennsylvania, possessed the same irresistible charm over the redmen.

Years afterwards, in Philadelphia, speaking to General Thomas Mifflin,

Dagonando stated that had it not been for his unhappy love affairs, John

Penn would have been the equal of his grandfather as Governor, and

prevented the Revolutionary War. But his spirit was crushed; even a mild

love affair with Dagonando’s daughter ended with shocking disaster.

Reaching Fort Augusta, Penn became very ill; a “nervous breakdown” his

ailment would be diagnosed today. During his illness he was robbed of

his diary. He reached Philadelphia in the fall, and almost immediately

set sail for England. He remained abroad until 1763, when he returned as

Governor of Pennsylvania. He arrived in Philadelphia on October 30, in

the midst of the terrific earthquake of that year, and on November 5,

George Roberts in a letter to Samuel Powell, in describing the new Chief

Magistrate, says:

“His Honor, Penn, is a little gentleman, though he may govern equal to

one seven feet high.”

Charles P. Keith has thus summed up Penn’s career from the time of his

first arrival in Pennsylvania: “He was one of the Commissioners to the

Congress at Albany in the summer of 1754, and made several journeys to

the neighboring colonies. Nevertheless, his trouble made him again

despondent; he began to shun company; he would have joined Braddock’s

army had any Pennsylvania troops formed part of it, and perhaps have

died on the field which that officer’s imprudence made so disastrous.

Some two months after the defeat he returned to England.”

On June 6, 1766, a brilliant marriage occurred in Philadelphia. John

Penn, Lieutenant Governor, aged thirty-seven years, married Anne, the

daughter of William Allen, Chief Justice; a strange fate had united the

relative of Peter Allen of “Tulliallan” to the husband of Maria Cox,

pronounced legally dead after an absence of eleven years in parts

unknown. Commenting on this alliance, Nevin Moyer, the gifted Historian,

remarks: “The marriage was an unpleasant one, on his (Penn’s) account,

for he was found very seldom at home.” It was during the wedding that a

fierce electrical storm occurred, unroofing houses and shattering many

old trees.

It was not long after this marriage when a feeling of restlessness

impelled him to start another of his many trips to the interior. This

time it was given out that he wished to visit Penn’s Valley, the

“empire” discovered in the central part of the province by Captains

Potter and Thompson, and named in his honor, and Penn’s Cave, the source

of the Karoondinha, a beautiful, navigable stream, rechristened “John

Penn’s Creek.” He managed to stop over night, as everyone of any

consequence did, at “Tulliallan,” and slept in the room with the Scotch

thistles carved on the woodwork, and saw Peter Allen for the first time

in twelve years.

A foul crime had recently been committed in the neighborhood. Indian

Joshua, who used to live at the running spring, had gone to Canada the

year of Braddock’s defeat (the year of Mary’s disappearance, Penn always

reckoned it) and had lately returned to his old abode. He had been shot,

as a trail of blood from his cabin down the mountain had been followed

clear to Clark’s Creek, where it was lost. In fact, pitiful wailing had

been heard one night all the way across the valley, but it was supposed

to be a traveling panther. Arvas, or Silver Heels, had also come back

for a time, but, after Joshua’s disappearance, had gone away.

“Maybe he killed his friend,” whispered Allen, looking down guiltily, as

he spoke what he knew to be untruthful words.

“It is all clear to me now, Allen,” said Penn. “I should have believed

Captain Jack, when in ’55 he told me that my late wife was carried off

to Canada by Indians; the kidnappers came back, and for fear that they

would levy hush money on those who had caused my Mary to be stolen,

murdered Joshua as a warning.”

Allen did not answer, but Penn said: “You have kept a public house so

long that you have forgotten to be a gentleman, and I do not expect you

to tell the truth.”

In 1840 seekers after nestlings of the vultures climbed to the top of

the King’s Stool, the dizzy pinnacle of the Third Mountain. There they

found the skeleton of an Indian. It was all that was left of Joshua, who

had climbed there in his agony and died far above the scenes which he

loved so dearly. The hunters put the bones in their hunting pouches and

climbed down the “needle,” and buried them decently at the foot of the

rocks.

The King’s Stool is named for a similar high point near Lough Foyle,

Ireland, and there are also King’s Stools in Juniata and Perry Counties.

The North of Ireland pioneers were glad to recognize scenes similar to

the natural wonders of the Green Isle!

A great light had come to John Penn, but he accepted his fate

philosophically, just as he had the abuse heaped upon him for his

vacillating policy towards the Indians. He followed up his vigorous

attempt to punish the Paxtang perpetrators of the massacres of the

Conestoga Indians at Christmas time, 1763, by promulgating the infamous

scalp bounty of July, 1764, which bounty, to again quote Professor

Moyer, paid “$134 for an Indian’s scalp, and $150 for a live Indian, and

$50 for an Indian female or child’s scalp.”

There are not enough Indians to make hunting for bounties in

Pennsylvania a paying occupation today, so instead there is a bounty on

Wildcats and foxes, wiping out desirable wild life to satisfy the

politicians’ filthy greed.

John Penn returned to Philadelphia without visiting Penn’s Valley or

Penn’s Cave or John Penn’s Creek. He had seen them previously in 1755

when they bore their original Indian names, and his heart was still sad.

It was not long after returning that he again started on another

expedition up the Susquehanna, traveling by canoe, just as his

grandfather, William Penn, had done in his supposedly fabulous trip to

the sources of the West Branch at Cherry Tree, in 1700. A stop was made

at Fisher’s stone house, Fisher’s Ferry. A group of pioneers had heard

of his coming and gave the little Governor a rousing ovation. He felt

nearest to being happy when among the frontier people, who understood

him, and his trials had, like Byron, made him “the friend of mountains”;

he was still simple at heart. In the kitchen, seated by the inglenook,

he heard someone’s incessant coughing in an inner room. He asked the

landlord, old Peter Fisher, who was suffering so acutely.

“Why, sir,” replied Fisher, “it’s an Englishwoman dying.”

In those days people’s nationalities in Pennsylvania were more sharply

defined, and any English-speaking person was always called an

“Englishwoman” or an “Englishman,” as the case might be.

“Tell me about her,” said the Governor, with ill-concealed curiosity.

“It’s a strange story, it might give Your Worship offense,” faltered the

old innkeeper. “They tell it, sir, though it’s doubtless a lie, that

Your Excellency cared for this Englishwoman, and your enemies had her

kidnapped by two Indians and taken to Canada. The Indians were paid for

keeping her there until a few years ago, when their remittances suddenly

stopped and they came home; one, it is said, was murdered soon after.

Arvas, his companion, was accused of the crime, but he stopped here for

a night, a few weeks afterwards, and swore to me that he was guiltless.

The Englishwoman finally got away and walked all the way back from a

place called Muskoka, but she caught cold and consumption on the way,

and is on her death-bed now. I knew her in all her youth and beauty at

Peter Allen’s, where she was always the belle of the balls there; she

had been brought up a Quaker, but my, how she could dance. You would not

know her now.”

“I want to see her,” said the Governor, rising to his feet.

It was getting dark, so Fisher lit a rushlight, and led the way. He

opened the heavy door without rapping. His wife and daughter sat on

high-backed rush-bottomed chairs on either side of the big four-poster

bed, which had come from the Rhine country. On the bed lay a woman of

about forty years, frightfully emaciated by suffering, whose

exaggeratedly clear-cut features were accentuated in their marble look

by the pallor of oncoming dissolution. Her wavy, dark hair, parted in

the middle, made her face seem even whiter.

“Mary, Mary,” said the little Governor, as he ran to her side, seizing

the white hands which lay on the flowered coverlet.

“John, my darling John,” gasped the dying woman.

“Leave us alone together,” commanded the Governor.

The women looked at one another as they retired. The thoughts which

their glances carried indicated “well, after all the story’s true.”

They had been alone for about ten minutes when Penn ran out of the door

calling, “Come quick, someone, I fear she’s going.”

The household speedily assembled, but in another ten minutes “Mary

Warren,” alias Maria Cox-Penn had yielded up the ghost. She is buried on

the brushy African-looking hillside which faces the “dreamy

Susquehanna,” the Firestone Mountains and the sunset, near where

travelers across Broad Mountain pass every day. John Penn returned to

Philadelphia and took no more trips to the interior. He divided his time

between his town house, 44 Pine Street, and his country seat

“Lansdowne.”

During the Revolution he was on parole. He died childless. February 9,

1795, and is said to be buried under the floor, near the chancel, in the

historic Christ Church, Philadelphia, which bears the inscription that

he was “One of the Late Proprietors of Pennsylvania.” Most probably his

body was later taken to England. His wife, _nee_ Allen, survived him

until 1813.

The other night in the grand hall of the Historical Society of

Pennsylvania in the Quaker City, a notable reception was given in honor

of the grand historian-governor, William C. Sproul, fresh from his

marvelous restoration of the Colonial Court House at Chester. As he

stood there, the embodiment of mental and physical grace and strength,

the greatest Governor of a generation, receiving the long line of those

who came to pay their respects and well wishes, Albert Cook Myers, famed

historian of the Quakers, mentioned that the present Governor of the

Commonwealth was standing just beneath the portrait of John Penn, one of

the last of the Proprietaries. And what a contrast there was! Penn

looked so effete and almost feminine with his child-like blonde locks,

his pink cheeks, weak, half-closed mouth, his slender form in a red

coat, so different from the vigorous living Governor. Penn was also so

inferior to the other notable portraits which hung about him–the sturdy

Huguenot, General Henri Bouquet, the deliverer of Fort Duquesne in 1758

and 1763; the stalwart Scot, General Arthur St. Clair, of Miami fame,

who was left to languish on a paltry pension of $180 a year at his

rough, rocky farm on Laurel Ridge; the courageous-looking Irishman,

General Edward Hand; and, above all, the bold and dashing eagle face of

General “Mad Anthony” Wayne. Such company for the last of the Penns to

keep! Though lacking the manly outlines of his fellows on canvas, who

can say that his life had one whit less interest than theirs–probably

much more so, for his spirit had felt the thrill of an undying love,

which in the end surmounted all difficulties and left his heart master

of the field.

Though his record for statecraft can hardly be written from a favorable

light, and few of his sayings or deeds will live, he has joined an

immortal coterie led down the ages by Anthony and the beautiful Egyptian

queen, by Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura,

Alfieri and the Countess of Albany, and here in Pennsylvania by Hugh H.

Brackenridge and the pioneer girl, Sabina Wolfe, and Elisha Kent Kane,

and the spiritualist, Maria Fox. Love is a force that is all-compelling,

all-absorbing and never dies, and is the biggest thing in life, and the

story of John Penn and Maria Cox will be whispered about in the

backwoods cabins and wayside inns of the Pennsylvania Mountains long

after seemingly greater men and minds have passed to forgetfulness.

But for a few lines in the writings of Charles P. Keith, H. M. Jenkins,

Nevin W. Moyer and various Penn biographers, such as Albert Cook Myers,

the verbal memories of ’Squire W. H. Garman, James Till, Mrs. H. E.

Wilvert and other old-time residents of the vicinity of “Tulliallan,”

all would be lost, and the inspiration of a story of overwhelming

affection unrecorded in the annals of those who love true lovers.

II

_At His Bedside_

When old Jacob Loy passed away at the age of eighty years, he left a pot

of gold to be divided equally among his eight children. It was a pot of

such goodly proportions that there was a nice round sum for all, and the

pity of it was after the long years of privation which had collected it,

that some of the heirs wasted it quickly on organs, fast horses, cheap

finery and stock speculations, for it was before the days of

player-pianos, victrolas and automobiles.

Yolande, his youngest daughter, was a really attractive girl, even had

she not a share in the pot of gold, and had many suitors. Though farm

raised and inured to hardships she was naturally refined, with wonderful

dark eyes and hair, and pallid face–the perfect type of Pennsylvania

Mountain loveliness.

Above all her admirers she liked best of all Adam Drumheller, a shrewd

young farmer of the neighborhood, and eventually married him. Three

children were born in quick succession, in the small tenant house on his

father’s farm in Chest Township, where the young couple had gone to live

immediately after their wedding.

Shortly after the birth of the last child old Jacob Drumheller died, and

the son and his family moved into the big stone farmhouse near the banks

of the sulphurous Clearfield Creek. It was not long after this

fortuitous move that the young wife began to show signs of the favorite

Pennsylvania mountain malady–consumption. Whether it was caused by a

deep-seated cold or came about from sleeping in rooms with windows

nailed shut, no one could tell, but the beautiful young woman became

paler and more wax-like, until she realized that a speedy end was

inevitable. Many times she found comfort in her misfortune by having her

husband promise that in the event of her death he would never remarry.

“Never, never,” he promised. “I could never find your equal again.”

He was sincere in some respects; it would be hard to find her

counterpart, and she had made a will leaving him everything she

possessed, and he imagined that the pot of gold transformed into a bank

balance or Government bonds would be found somewhere among her effects.

Before ill health had set in he had quizzed her many times, as openly as

he dared, on the whereabouts of her share of the pot.

“It is all safe,” she would say. “It will be forthcoming some time when

you need it more than you do today,” and he was satisfied.

As she grew paler and weaker Adam began to think more of Alvira Hamel,

another comely girl whom he had loved when he railroaded out of

Johnstown, at Kimmelton, and whom he planned to claim as his own should

Yolande pass away.

[Illustration: SCENE IN SNYDER-MIDDLESWARTH PARK]

Perhaps his thoughts dimly reflected on the dying wife’s sub-conscious

mind, for she became more insistent every day that he promise never to

remarry.

“Think of our dear little children,” she kept saying, “sentenced to have

a stepmother; I would come back and _haunt_ you if you perpetrate such a

cruelty to me and mine.”

Adam had little faith in a hereafter, and less in ghosts, so he readily

promised anything, vowing eternal celebacy cheerfully and profoundly.

When Yolande did finally fade away, she died reasonably happy, and at

least died bravely. She never shed a tear, for it is against the code of

the Pennsylvania Mountain people to do so–perhaps a survival of the

Indian blood possessed by so many of them.

Three days after the funeral Adam hied himself to Ebensburg to “settle

up the estate,” but also to look up Alvira Hamel, who was now living

there. She seemed glad to see him, and when he broached a possible union

she acted as if pleased at everything except to go on to that lonely

farm on the polluted Clearfield Creek.

By promising to sell out when he could and move to Barnesboro or

Spangler, a light came in her dark eyes, and though he did not visit the

lawyer in charge of his late wife’s affairs, his day in town was

successful in arranging for the new alliance with his sweetheart of

other days.

In due course of time it was discovered that the equivalent of Yolande’s

share of the pot of gold left by old Jacob Loy was not to be found. “She

may have kept it in coin and buried it in the orchard,” was some of the

very consoling advice that the lawyer gave.

At any rate it was not located by the time that Adam and Alvira were

married, but the bridegroom was well to do and could afford to wait.

After a short trip to Pittsburg and Wheeling the newly married couple

took up housekeeping in the big brick farmstead above the creek.

The first night that they were back from the honeymoon–it was just about

midnight and Alvira was sleeping peacefully–Adam thought that he heard

footsteps on the stairs. He could not be mistaken. Noiselessly the door

opened, and the form of Yolande glided into the room; she was in her

shroud, all white, and her face was whiter than the shroud, and her long

hair never looked blacker.

Along the whitewashed wall by the bedside was a long row of hooks on

which hung the dead woman’s wardrobe. It had never been disturbed;

Alvira was going to cut the things up and make new garments out of them

in the Spring. Adam watched the apparition while she moved over to the

clothing, counting them, and smoothed and caressed each skirt or waist,

as if she regretted having had to abandon them for the steady raiment of

the shroud.

Then she came over to the bed and sat on it close to Adam, eyeing him

intently and silently. Just then Alvira got awake, but apparently could

see nothing of the ghost, although the room was bright as day, bathed in

the full moon’s light.

Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten minutes, then passed

through the alcove into the room where the children were sleeping and

stood by their bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating the

same performance, the next night, and the next, and still the next, each

night remaining longer, until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the

morning as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk which led to the

kitchen door, they would meet Yolande, in her shroud coming from the

house, and passing out of the back gate. On one occasion Alvira was

pumping water on the porch, but made no move as she passed, being

evidently like so many persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had

known Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her spooking in

daylight, but refrained from saying anything to the new wife.

Every day for a week after that she appeared on the kitchen porch, or on

the boardwalk, in the yard, on the road, and was seen by her former

husband many times, and also her night prowling went on as of yore. The

hired men began to complain; it might make them sick if a ghost was

around too much; these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much as

copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” away, and they

threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” All of them had seen spooks

before, on occasion, but a daily visitation of the same ghost was more

than they cared about.

Had it not been for the excitable hired men, Adam, whose nerves were

like iron, could have stood Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he

thought it rather nice of her to come back and see him and the children

“for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands must be conserved at any cost,

even to the extent of laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit.

The next night when she appeared, he made bold and spoke to her: “What

do you want, Yolande,” he said softly, so as not to wake the soundly

sleeping Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”

Yolande came very close beside him, and bending down whispered in his

ear: “Adam,” said she, “how can you ask me why I am here? You surely

know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never to marry again, if

I died, for the sake of our darling children? Did you not make such a

promise, and see how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can hold no

resentments, so I forgive you for all your transgressions, but I hope

that Alvira will be good to our children. I have one request to make:

After I left you, you were keen to find what I did with my share of

daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the orchard at my old home,

under the Northern Spy, but after we moved here, one time when you went

deer hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it over here and

buried it in the cellar of this house. It is here now. There are just

one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my

share. The children and the money were on my mind, not your broken

promise and rash marriage, which you will repent, and which I tell you

again I forgive you for. I want my children to have that money, every

one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces. I

buried it a little to the east of the spring in the cellar, about two

feet under ground, in a tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning,

and if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and give every

one to the children, I will never come again and upset your hired men.

Why I have Myron Shook about half scared to death already, but if you

don’t find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you do, or if

you hold it back from the children, you will not be able to keep a

hireling on this place, or any other place to which you move. Many live

folks can’t see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never worry

until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and have you make sale and move

to town. Be square and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble

you again.”

“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, “you are no trouble to me,

not in the least. I love to have you visit me at night, and look at the

children, but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. That part

you must quit.”

“That’s enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke Yolande, in a sterner tone

of voice. “Talk less like a fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money

in the morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll be glad

never to see you again.”

To be reproached by a ghost was too much for Adam, and he lapsed into

silence, while Yolande slipped out of the room, over to the bedside of

the sleeping children, where she lingered until daylight.

Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and early the next morning,

starting to dress just as the ghost glided out of the door. By six

o’clock he had exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which was

buried exactly as her ghostly self had described.

It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to the children, or rather

to take it to Ebensburg and start savings accounts in their names. But

he did it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, gave him a

present of a new whip, of a special kind that he had made to order at

Pittsburg, so he came home happy and contented.

Night was upon him, and supper over, he retired early, dozing a bit

before the “witching hour.” As the old Berks County tall clock in the

entry struck twelve, he began to watch for Yolande’s accustomed

entrance. But not a shadow appeared. The clock struck the quarter, the

half, three quarters and one o’clock. No Yolande or anything like her

came; she was true to her promise, as true as he had been false. It was

an advantage to be a ghost in some ways. They were honorable creatures.

Adam did not know whether to feel pleased or not. His vanity had been

not a little appealed to by a dead wife visiting him nightly; now he was

sure that it wasn’t for love of him or jealousy, she had been coming

back, but to see that the children got the money that had been buried in

the cellar. And at last she had spoken rather unkindly, so the great

change called death had ended her love, and she wasn’t grieving over his

second marriage at all. However, he fell to consoling himself that she

had chided him for breaking his word and marrying again; she must have

cared for him or she would not have said those things. Then the thought

came to him that she wasn’t really peeved at anything concerning his

marriage to Alvira except that the children had gotten a stepmother. He

wondered if Alvira would continue to be kind to them. Just as he went to

sleep he had forgotten both Yolande and Alvira, chuckling over a pretty

High School girl he had seen on the street at the ’burg, and whom he had

winked at.

[Illustration]

III.

_The Prostrate Juniper_

Weguarran was a young warrior of the Wyandots, who lived on the shores

of Lake Michigan. In the early spring of 1754 he was appointed to the

body-guard of old Mozzetuk, a leader of the tribe, on an embassy to

Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, to prevail on the holy men there, as many

Indians termed the Moravians, to send a band of Missionaries to the

Wyandot Country, with a view of Christianizing the tribe, and acting as

advisors and emissaries between the Wyandots and allied nations with the

French and other white men, who were constantly encroaching on the

redmen’s territories.

Weguarran the youngest and the handsomest of the escort, was very

impressionable, and across Ohio and over the Alleghenies, he made

friends with the Indian maidens of the various encampments passed en

route.

The reception at Bethlehem was cordial, but not much hope was held out

for an immediate despatch of Missionaries as the Moravians were anxious

to avoid being drawn into the warlike aspirations of the English and

French, preferring to promote the faith in pacified regions, as very few

of them were partisans, but if they had a leaning at all, it was toward

the French. This was due to the fact that the French always understood

the Indians better than the English, were more sympathetic colonizers,

and while many French Missionaries carried forward the tenets of Rome,

there was no religious intolerance, and Missionaries of every faith

seemed to thrive under their leadership.

While at Bethlehem and Nazareth, Weguarran was much favored by the

Indian maids of those localities, but did not wholly lose his heart

until one afternoon at the cabin of an old Christian Pequot named

Michaelmas. This old Indian, a native of Connecticut, lived in a log

cabin on a small clearing near the Lehigh River, where he cultivated a

garden of rare plants and trees, and raised tobacco. All his pastimes

were unusual; he captured wild pigeons, which he trained to carry

messages, believing that they would be more valuable in wartime than

runners. He also practiced falconry, owning several hawks of race,

goshawks, marsh hawks and duck hawks. The goshawks he used for grouse,

wood-cocks and quails; the marsh hawks for rabbits, hares and ’coons;

and the duck hawks for wild ducks and other water birds, which fairly

swarmed on the Lehigh in those days. He was a religious old man, almost

a recluse, strong in his prejudices, and was much enthused by the

Wyandot embassy, giving his waning hopes a new burst of life for an

Indian renaissance.

He took a great fancy to the manly and handsome Weguarran, inviting him

to his cabin, and it was there that the youthful warrior met the old

man’s lovely daughter, Wulaha. She was an only child, eighteen years of

age. Her mother belonged to the Original People and was also a

Christian.

Love progressed very rapidly between Weguarran and Wulaha, and as the

time drew near for the embassy to depart, the young girl intimated to

her lover that he must discuss the subject with old Michaelmas, and

secure his approval and consent, after the manner of white Christians.

The old Pequot was not averse to the union, which would add another

strain of Indian blood to the family, but stated that a marriage could

only take place on certain conditions. Weguarran, in his conversations

with Michaelmas, had told him of his military affiliations with the

French, which had filled the old man’s heart with joy for the hopes of a

new order of things that it seemed to kindle. When he asked the hand of

the fair Wulaha in marriage, Michaelmas “came back” with the following

proposition:

“Weguarran, I am getting old and feeble,” he said. “I may pass away any

time, and I could not bear the thought of my squaw being left alone,

which would be the case if you married Wulaha and took her to the

distant shores of Lake Michigan. However, there are greater things than

my death and my squaw’s loneliness, the future of the red race, now

crushed to earth by the Wunnux, as we call the white men, but some day

to be triumphant. You have told me that within this very year the French

and Indians are sure to engage the English in a mighty battle which will

decide the future history of the Continent. You can marry Wulaha right

after that battle, if you are victorious; otherwise you can do as the

Missionaries tell us the Romans did–fall on your sword. You can never

return here, as I do not want my daughter to marry and continue the race

of a beaten people. I would far rather have her die single, and have our

seed perish, for if this victory is not won, doomed is every redman on

this Continent. The only wish of the English is to encompass our

extermination. Wulaha will remain at home until after that battle, when

you can come for her and claim her as your own, and we will give her to

you with rejoicing.”

“What you say is surely fair enough, Father Michaelmas,” replied

Weguarran, “for I would see no future for Wulaha and myself if the

English are victorious in this inevitable battle. As soon as it is

won–and it will be won, for the high resolve of every Indian warrior is

to go in to win–I will hurry back to the banks of the Lehigh, never

stopping to rest, sleep or eat, to tell you of the glad tidings, and

bear away my beloved Wulaha. I want to ask one special favor of you. I

have admired your wonderful cage of trained wild pigeons, which you say

will carry messages hundreds of miles. Lend me one of these pigeons, and

as soon as the victory is won, I will release the bird, and while I am

speeding eastward on foot, our feathered friend will fly on ahead and

end the suspense, and bring joy to yourself, your squaw and Wulaha.”

“I will gladly let you have my best trained pigeon, or hawk, or anything

I possess, if I can learn of the victory, but in turn I will ask a favor

of you. I listened with breathless interest to your tales of the

Prostrate Junipers which grow on the shores of the great lakes, which

cover two thousand square feet, and are hundreds of years old. You

promised to bring me a scion of one of those curious trees, so that I

might plant it in my garden of rare trees and shrubs. Now, here will be

a chance to associate it with the great victory; pluck a stout but small

scion, and if the victory is won, affix it firmly to one of the pigeon’s

legs and let it go. If it comes back without the twig of Juniper I will

know that our cause has lost, and while you fall on your sword, I and my

family will jump into the Lehigh.”

“I will gladly do as you say, Father Michaelmas,” said Weguarran, “and

will send a twig that will grow, and some day make a noble tree, and in

years to come, our people will call it Weguarran’s Victory Tree. The

fact that it is a Prostrate Tree makes it all the more appropriate, as

it will represent the English race lying prostrated, crushed by the red

race they wronged, and by our kindly and just French allies.”

Weguarran was so inspired by the thought of the pigeon messenger, the

sprig of Prostrate Juniper, and the impending victory that it assuaged

his grief at the parting from Wulaha, sending him away determined to

give a good account of himself in all things.

Old Michaelmas selected a handsome cock pigeon, with a dragon’s blood

red breast–his very best and most intelligent, and surest flyer, named

Wuskawhan, which he placed in a specially built, bottle shaped basket,

which had no lid, yet the top was too small for the bird to escape. In

this way it could rise up and peer out, as it was carried along, and not

bruise its wing coverts or head, as it would if it flew against the top

of a square basket with a lid.

After a touching parting with Wulaha, her mother and father, the young

warrior went his way with his precious burden.

The Indians, even old Mozzetuk, were rapid travellers, and in due time

they reached the country of the Prostrate Junipers on the shores of Lake

Michigan. They arrived in what seemed like an armed camp, for all the

braves had been called to arms, which plotted to drive Indians and

French to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Weguarran was quickly mobilized, and a musket in one hand and tomahawk

in the other, while on his back he bore the sacred pigeon, he marched

toward his foes. In the excitement he had not forgotten to slip into his

pouch at his belt a sprig of the Prostrate Juniper, which would be the

emblem of the English race prostrate under the foot of French and Indian

allies.

In due course of time the army of which the picked Wyandot warriors

formed a part, met their English foemen on Braddock’s Field, completely

routing and all but annihilating them. General Braddock himself was shot

from behind by one of his own men in the wild stampede, and the French

and Indians were completely victorious.

Surveying the gorey scene, every wooded glade lying thick with dead

redcoats and broken accoutrements, Weguarran carefully opened the

panther skin pouch at his best, taking out the sprig of Prostrate

Juniper. Then he lifted the handsome wild pigeon from its bottle-nosed

cage of oak withes, and with a light leathern string, affixed the little

twig, on which the berries still clustered, to the bird’s leg, then

tossed the feathered messenger up into the air.

The pigeon quickly rose above the trees, circled a few times, and then

started rapidly for the east, as fast as his broad, strong wings could

carry him.

This done, Weguarran visited his chief, obtaining leave to proceed to

Bethlehem to claim his bride, promising to report back with her on the

banks of the Ohio as speedily as possible. The pigeon naturally had a

good start, and by the next morning was flying over the palisaded walls

of John Harris’ Trading Post on the Susquehanna.

A love story was being enacted within those walls, in the shadow of one

of the huge sheds used in winter to store hides. Keturah Lindsay,

Harris’ niece, an attractive, curly-haired Scotch girl, was talking with

a young Missionary whom she admired very much, Reverend Charles Pyrleus,

the protege of Col. Conrad Weiser.

Unfortunately they had to meet by stealth as his attentions were not

favored by the girl’s relatives, who considered him of inferior

antecedents. They had met in the shed this fair July morning, whether by

design or accident, no one can tell, and were enjoying one another’s

society to the utmost.

In the midst of their mutual adoration, the dinner gong was sounded at

the trading house, and Keturah, fearful of a scolding, reluctantly broke

away. As she came out into the sunlight, she noticed a handsome wild

pigeon drop down, as if exhausted, on one of the topmost stakes of the

palisade which surrounded the trading house and sheds.

Keturah, like many frontier girls, always carried a gun, and quickly

taking aim, fired, making the feathers fly, knocking the bird off its

perch, and it seemed to fall to the ground outside the stockade. In a

minute it rose, and started to fly off towards the east. She had

reloaded, so fired a second time, but missed.

“How strange to see a wild pigeon travelling through here at this time

of year,” she thought, as carrying her smoking firearm, she hurried to

the mess room of the big log trading house.

The messenger pigeon had been grievously hurt, but was determined to go

“home.” On and on it went, sometimes “dipping” like a swallow, from loss

of blood, but by sheer will power keeping on the wing. As it neared the

foothills of the South Mountains, near the village of Hockersville, with

old Derry Church down in the vale, it faltered, spun about like a pin

wheel, and fell with a thud. Gulping and blinking a few times, it spread

out its wide pinions and lay on its breastbone–stone dead–the twig of

Prostrate Juniper still affixed to one of its carmine feet. There it

lay, brave in death, until the storms and winds shivered it, and it

rotted into the ground.

Weguarran was a rapid traveler, and in forced marches came to the shady

banks of the Lehigh in three or four days. He was so excited that he

swam the stream. He brought the first news of the great victory in the

west to the surprised Michaelmas and his friends. But where was the

prized wild pigeon, Wuskawhan? It could not have gone astray, for such a

bird’s instinct never erred. “Caught by a hawk or shot down by some

greedy fool of a Wunnux” was the way in which old Michaelmas explained

its non-appearance.

The news spread to the white settlements and to the towns, and there was

consternation among all sympathizers with the Crown–with all except a

few Moravians who were mum for policy’s sake, and the Indians, whose

stoical natures alone kept them from disclosing the elation that was in

their hearts.

[Illustration: A MAMMOTH SHORT-LEAF PINE]

“The English never wanted the Indians civilized,” said Michaelmas,

boldly. “They drove the Moravians out of Schadikoke and from the

Housatonic when they saw the progress they made with our people; were it

not for the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they would have had no place to

harbor; those of us who felt the need of these kind friends followed

them in their exile, but we can never forgive that we had to leave the

Connecticut country of our birth under such circumstances. I am glad

that our enemies were beaten and annihilated.”

Weguarran was baptized, and he and the lovely Wulaha were married by one

of the Moravian preachers, and started for the great lake country, which

was to be their permanent home.

Michaelmas and his squaw were too old to make the long journey, but they

were happy in their garden of rare trees and plants, the wild pigeons,

the hawks of race, and the dreams of an Indian _renaissance_. They lived

many years afterwards, and are buried with the other Christian Indians

at Bethlehem.

Out in the foothills of the South Mountains, overlooking old Derry

Church, in the fertile Lebanon Valley among the pines and oaks and tulip

trees, a strange seedling appeared in the spring of 1756, different from

anything that the mountain had known since prehistoric times. Instead of

growing upward and onward as most brave trees do, it spread out wider

and greater and vaster, until, not like the symbol of the Anglo-Saxon

prone beneath the heel of French and Indian, it was the symbol of the

all diffusing power of the English speaking race, which has grafted its

ideals and hopes and practical purposes over the entire American

Continent. Nourished by the life’s blood of the travelling pigeon that

bore it there, it had a flying start in the battle of existence, and

today, after all these years, bids fair to last many years longer, to be

the arboral marvel and wonder of the Keystone State.

Well may the Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown feel proud to be the honorary

custodians of this unique tree with its spread of 2,000 feet, for apart

from its curious appearance and charm, it has within it memories of

history and romance, of white men and red, that make it a veritable

treasure trove for the historian and the folk-lorist, and all those who

love the great outdoors in this wonderful Pennsylvania of ours!

[Illustration]

IV.

_Out of the Ashes_

Last Autumn we were crossing Rea’s Hill one afternoon of alternate

sunshine and shadow, and as we neared the summit, glanced through

several openings in the trees at the wide expanse of Fulton County

valleys and coves behind us, on to the interminable range upon range of

dark mountains northward. In the valleys here and there were dotted

square stone houses, built of reddish sandstone, with high roofs and

chimneys, giving a foreign or Scottish air to the scene. Some of these

isolated structures were deserted, with windows gaping and roofs gone,

pictures of desolation and bygone days.

Just as the crest of the mountain was gained, we came upon a stone house

in process of demolition, in fact all had been torn away, and the

sandstone blocks piled neatly by the highway, all but the huge stone

chimney and a small part of one of the foundation walls. Work of the

shorers had temporarily ceased for it was a Saturday afternoon. Affixed

to the chimney was a wooden mantel, painted black, of plain, but antique

design, exposed, and already stained by the elements, and evidently to

be abandoned by those in charge of the demolition.

The house stood on the top of a steep declivity, giving a marvelous view

on four sides, almost strategic enough to have been a miniature

fortress!

It was the first time in a dozen years that we had passed the site; in

1907 the house was standing and tenanted, and pointed out as having been

a temporary resting place of General John Forbes on his eastern march,

after the successful conquest of Fort Duquesne, in 1758. Now all is

changed, historic memories had not kept the old house inviolate; it was

to be ruthlessly destroyed, perhaps, like the McClure Log College near

Harrisburg, to furnish the foundations for a piggery, or some other

ignoble purpose.

As we passed, a pang of sorrow overcame us at the lowly state to which

house and fireplace had fallen, and we fell to recounting some of the

incidents of the historic highway, in military and civil history, the

most noteworthy road in the Commonwealth. The further, on we traveled,

the more we regretted not stopping and trying to salvage the old wooden

mantel, but one of our good friends suggested that if we did not are to

return for it, we should mention the matter to the excellent and

efficient Leslie Seylar at McConnellsburg, who knew everyone and

everything, and could doubtless obtain the historic relic and have it

shipped to our amateur “curio shop.”

The genial Seylar, famed for his temperamental and physical resemblance

to the lamented “Great Heart,” was found at his eyrie and amusement

centre on top of Cove Mountain, and he gladly consented to securing the

abandoned mantel. As a result it is now in safe hands, a priceless

memento of the golden age of Pennsylvania History.

But now for the story or the legend of the mantel, alluded to briefly

last year in the chapter called the “Star of the Glen,” in this writer’s

“South Mountain Sketches.” The story, as an old occupant of the house

told it, and he survived on until early in the Nineteenth Century was,

that General Forbes, on this victorious eastern march, was seized many

times with fainting fits. On every occasion his officers and orderlies

believed that the end had come, so closely did he simulate death. But he

had always been delicate, at least from his first appearance in

Pennsylvania, though when campaigning with the gallant Marshal Ligonier

in France, Flanders and on the Rhine, participating in the battles of

Dettingen, Fontenoy and Lauffeld, no such symptoms were noted. Although

less than fifty years of age when he started towards the west, he was

regarded, from his illnesses, as an aged person, Sherman Day in his

inimitable “Historical Collections” states that there was “much

dissatisfaction in the choice of a leader of the expedition against Fort

Duquesne, as General Forbes, the commander, was a decrepit old man.”

What caused his ill health history has not uncovered at this late date.

It has been said that he was an epileptic, like Alexander and other

great generals, or a sufferer from heart trouble or general debility.

His military genius outweighed his physical frailties, so that he rose

superior to him, but it must not be forgotten that he was aided by two

brilliant officers, Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet.

His immediate entourage was a remarkable one, even for a soldier of many

wars. Like a true Scotsman, he carried his own piper with him, Donald

MacKelvie, said to be a descendant of the mighty MacCrimmons; and his

bodyguard was also headed by a Highlander, Andrew MacCochran, who had

been a deer stalker on one of the estates owned by the General’s father.

Forbes himself, being a younger son, was not a man of property, and

Pittencrief House, his birth-place, was already occupied by an older

brother, from whom, so Dr. Burd S. Patterson tells us, all who claim

relationship to him are descended.

The General was carried in a hammock, with frequent stops, from Harris’

Ferry to Fort Duquesne, and back again, borne by four stalwart

Highlanders, in their picturesque native costumes, wearing the tartan of

the Forbes clan. The deerstalker, MacCochran, was the major domo, and

even above the chief of staff and Brigade Surgeon, gave the orders to

halt when the General’s lean weazened face indicated an over-plussage of

fatigue.

It was late in the afternoon as the returning army had neared the summit

of Rea’s Hill; the pipers were playing gaily Blaz Sron, to cheer foot

soldiers and wagoners up the steep, rocky, uneven grade, with the

General in the van. The ascent was a hard one, and the ailing

commander-in-chief was shaken about considerably, so much so that

MacCochran was glad to note the little stone house, where he might give

him his much needed rest.

Old Andrew McCreath and his wife, a North of Ireland couple, the former

a noted hunter, occupied the house; their son was serving in the

Pennsylvania Regiment, which formed a part of General Forbes’

expeditionary forces. The old folks were by the roadside, having heard

the bagpipes at a great distance, eager to see the visitors, and catch a

glimpse of their hero son. They were surprised and pleased when

MacCochran signalled the halt in front of their door, which meant that

the entire procession would bivouac for the night in the immediate

vicinity. There were several good springs of mountain water, so all

could await the General’s pleasure.

Permission was asked to make the house “general headquarters” for the

night, which, of course, was quickly given, as the old couple were

honored to have such a distinguished visitor. There was a great couch,

or what we would today call a “Davenport” in front of the fire, and

there the General was laid, the room dark, save for the ruddy glow of

the roaring fire, which illuminated every nook and corner, and made it

at once as cheerful as it was warm and comfortable.

The General’s eyes were wide open, and he gazed about the room, while

his faithful domestics watched him to anticipate every wish. When he was

ill he excluded his Staff, but kept his servants with him, and they,

with McCreath and his wife, stood in the corners of the room, back of

the couch, waiting for his commands.

The piper asked if he could liven his master with a “wee tune or two,”

but the General shook his head; his sandy locks had become untied, and

flapped about his bony face; he made a motion with his hand that

indicated that he wanted to be alone, to try and get some sleep.

McCreath and his wife, and their stalwart son, the other bearers of the

hammock and litters, and the surgeon of the expedition, Major McLanahan,

who had slipped into the room, withdrew, leaving the piper and

MacCochran standing in the corner back of the couch, to aid the General

should he become violently ill in his sleep.

The General dozed, and the bodyguard became very tired, for they had had

a hard march, and sank down on the floor, with their backs to the wall.

All was still, save for the tramp, tramp of the sentry outside the

window, or the crackle of some giant bonfire in the general campground,

or the barking of some camp follower’s dog. The fire had died down a

little, but threw great fitful shadows, like a pall, over the sleeping

General, and caused an exaggerated shadow of his bold profile to appear

on the wall.

All at once, without the slightest warning, he jumped to his feet, with

the elasticity of a youth, and arms outstretched, seemed to rush towards

the fire. He might have tripped over the pile of cord wood, and fallen

in face foremost, had not the ever watchful piper and MacCochran,

springing forward, caught him simultaneously in their strong arms. They

did not find him excited, or his mind wandering, like a man suddenly

aroused from slumbers. On the contrary, he was strangely calm. He

whispered in MacCochran’s ear:

“Andy, I have seen my lady of Dunkerck. She came out of the ashes

towards me. I rushed forward to greet her, and she went back into the

hearth and was gone.”

The General would say nothing further, but allowed himself to be laid

out on the couch once more, and be covered with buffalo robes, and while

he lay quiet, he slept no more that night, but every minute or so kept

looking into the fire. At daybreak, at the sounding of Surachan on the

pipes, he was able to start, and the balance of the march executed

without incident.

He reached Philadelphia in safety, but within a short time after

arriving there he passed away unexpectedly, and was buried in historic

Old Christ Church, where a tablet with the following inscription was

erected in the Chancel by the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society of

Colonial Wars: “To the Memory of Brigadier-General John Forbes, Colonel

of the 17th Regiment of Foot, born at Pittencrief, Fifeshire, 1710, died

in Philadelphia, March 11, 1759.”

MacCochran was released from the army, and being enamored of the wild

mountain country in the interior of Pennsylvania, returned to the

forests. Later, though nearly fifty years old, he enlisted and served

through the Revolutionary War in Captain Parr’s Riflemen. After peace

was declared he bought the little stone house on Rea’s Hill from young

McCreath, who had served with him in the Rifle Brigade, and lived there

alone until he died about 1803. He said that he liked the place for its

memories of General Forbes, and he was always fond of telling to his

mountaineer friends when they dropped in of an evening for a smoke and a

toddy, of his hero’s exploits in peace and war, and more than once

recounted the tale of the wraith which appeared to the General at the

fireplace, during his eastward journey from Fort Duquesne.

General Forbes, he said, as noted previously, was a younger son, and had

entered the army early in life. He had been too busy campaigning to

marry, but not always too busy to fall in love. Yet he was a

serious-minded man, and his romances were always of the better sort, and

would have ended happily on one or more occasions but for the exigencies

of his strenuous campaigns, which moved him from place to place.

Of all his love affairs, the one that hit him the hardest, and lasted

the longest, occurred after the victory of Lauffeld, won by Marshal

Ligonier, when, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he was quartered with his

regiment at Dunkerck, preparatory to embarking for England. Colonel

Forbes’ billet was with one Armand Violet, a rich shipowner, who resided

in a mediaeval chateau, which his wealth had enabled him to purchase

from some broken-down old family, on the outskirts of the town. It was

built on a bare, chalky cliff, overlooking the sea, where the waves beat

over the rocks, and sent the spray against the walls on stormy nights,

and the wind, banshee-like, moaned incessantly among the parapets.

Violet was away a good deal, and his wife was an invalid, and peculiar,

but their one daughter, Amethyst Violet, was a ray of sunshine enough to

illuminate and radiate the gloomiest fortress-like chateau. She was

under eighteen, about the middle height, slimly and trimly built, with

chestnut brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion; her hair was worn

in puffs over her ears and brushed back from her brows, just as the

girls are again wearing it today; she was vivacious and intelligent, and

detected in the Colonel, despite his thirty-seven years, a man of

superior personality and charm.

In the long wait, due to conflicting orders, and the non-arrival of the

transport, Forbes and Amethyst became very well acquainted, in fact the

Colonel was very much in love, but would not dream of mentioning his

passion, as he deemed it folly for a man of his years and experience to

espouse a mere child. The girl was equally smitten, but more impulsive,

and less self-contained.

Every evening the pair were together in the great hall, sitting before

the fire in the old hearth, their glances, which often met, indicating

their feelings, but the Colonel confined his talk to descriptions of

military life, Scotland, its glens and locks and wild game, old legends

and ballads which he loved to recite. He was particularly fond of

repeating the old ballad of Barbara Livingston.

One night while the wind was howling, and the spray was lashing against

the castle walls, and the rain dashed and hissed against the panes, the

time to retire had come, and Amethyst, instead of tripping away, sprang

right into Forbes’ arms, and lay her fluffy head against his bespangled

breast.

“You are the coldest man in the world” she sobbed, looking up with

tear-dimmed blue eyes. “What have you meant all these nights, we two

alone for hours and hours, your eyes on only the sparks as they swept

upwards through the ‘louvre,’ and your thoughts only on battles and

mountain scenery. I love you more than all the world, and yet you could

not see it, or did not care. I can restrain my feelings no longer; tell

me the truth, for I cannot bear the suspense and live.”

Forbes revealed his love by holding her very tight, and covering her

wet, hot eyelids with kisses. “Oh, foolish, darling Amethyst,” he said,

“I love you just as much as you care for me. I have from the first

moment I saw you, and hoped that the transport would never come, but I

am twice your age, and battered by many hard campaigns, and while I

think I could make you happy now, ten years hence I would be an old man,

and you would despise me.”

Amethyst looked up into his sad, steady eyes, saying, “I don’t care what

happens ten years from now; we might both be dead. I love you, and I

want you. I will give you a week to decide; if you do not, I will jump

off the highest parapet into the sea, and you can have yourself all to

yourself, and prosper if you will with your stern Covenanter’s

principles.”

The Colonel, though moved, was too prudent a Scot to capitulate. He took

the case under advisement, and every night for a week, though chivalrous

and charming, neglected to set the beautiful girl’s mind at rest. Yet

when he retired to his room, he paced the floor all night, for he knew

that the exquisite girl could revive his youth.

The fatal night arrived. Perhaps the result might have been different if

Amethyst had reminded her lover of her threat. She was too proud to do

so, and the Colonel, thinking that she had forgotten her rash words–to

some extent at least–was mum, and they parted gaily, Amethyst darting

out of the hall humming the old love song of Barbara Livingston as light

on foot, and apparently as light-hearted as any carefree child.

She was never seen again–at least not until Forbes saw her come out of

the embers at the fireplace on Rea’s Hill, more than thirteen years

later.

When the word came that her room in one of the turrets was empty, a

general search was made, revealing the trap-door to the parapet open. In

her haste she had omitted dropping it. From that Forbes knew that the

worst had happened. When MacCochran told it to him, standing pale and

frigid by the ancient hearth, he tried to stroke his small military

mustache, to show his sang-froid, but fell in a swoon on the stone

floor, lying unconscious for a week.

That was the beginning of the fainting fits that plagued him for the

rest of his life, and the commencement of his distaste of life, which

caused him to ask for active service in America, in a new and wild

environment, far from scenes similar to the terrible tragedy of his love

and pride. And yet, out of the fire, in distant Pennsylvania, had

appeared the long lost Amethyst Violet, perhaps as a “warning” of his

fast approaching end, to open the portals to that better world where

they would be together, and all things be as they should.

MacCochran, philosophic and superstitious Scot that he was, had many

reasons for lingering in the little stone house. Often he said, when he

sat smoking late at night, the shadows from the dying fire would cast

dark shapes, much like General Forbes’ bold features, on the walls, and

he felt the magnetic spell of his old Master’s presence. Perhaps out of

the ashes would emerge Amethyst Violet, or her spirit self, and the

lovers could be re-united before his eyes in a shadowland.

But nothing ever happened so fortuitous, and the engraved likenesses of

“Bonnie Prince Charlie” and Madame d’Albany, unhappy lovers also, which

hung on either side of his Revolutionary rifle, above the mantel, looked

down on him as if in sympathy, for his fidelity which had survived the

grave. The long looked for visitations never came; perhaps among the

vaults and cornices and lofts of Old Christ Church, where the General is

resting, the reunion of the lovers has taken place, but wherever it has,

the place is known only to the spirits of Forbes and the fair Amethyst

Violet; there are no witnesses.

And now the present owner of “General Forbes’ Fireplace,” as he calls

it, is waiting to set it up in some study or hunting lodge, beneath the

skull and antlers of the extinct Irish elk, from Ballybetag Bog, where

amid forest surroundings, in the dead of night, he can keep vigil like

MacCochran, after reading “Volumes of Quaint and Forgotten Lore,” and

maybe be rewarded by a sight of the true lovers from out of the ashes.

[Illustration]

V

_Wayside Destiny_

Like many natives of the Pennsylvania Mountains, Ammon Tatnall was a

believer in dreams and ghosts. Even in his less prosperous days, when

life was considerable of a struggle, he had time to ponder over the

limitless possibilities of the unseen world. Probably his faith in the

so-called supernatural was founded on a dream he had while clerking in a

hotel at Port Allegheny, during the active days of the lumber business

in that part of the Black Forest.

It seemed that his mother was lying at the point of death, and wanted

him to come to her, but as she did not know his whereabouts, was

suffering much mental anguish. Just in the midst of the dream the alarm

clock went off, but he awoke and got up with the impression that his

vision had been real. In the office he informed the landlord of his

dream. Like a true mountain man, the proprietor merely asked him to come

back as soon as he could, such occurrences being not unusual in his

range of experience.

[Illustration: AMONG THE VIRGIN HEMLOCKS, BLACK FOREST. (_Photograph by_

W. T. Clarke.)]

At home, in the Wyoming Valley, he found conditions exactly as

reproduced in the dream. His sudden coming proved the turning point in

his mother’s illness; she rallied and got well. During her

convalescence, for Tatnall remained longer than he had expected, she

told him of a story which her mother had told her of the straight

dreaming of some of their ancestors, pioneers of the North Branch.

The woman in question, who lived many years before, dreamed one night

that her daughter who lived in Connecticut, and who had married just as

they left for Wyoming, appeared to her with a baby in her arms. She said

she herself was dead and she desired the baby to be given to the

grandmother. As a sign of the reality of the vision, she placed her hand

on the wrist of the grandmother, leaving a mark on it that could never

be effaced.

The grandmother took the long journey to Connecticut and found that

everything had happened as told in the dream. The child grew up, and

became the wife of a well-known Methodist preacher, and was famed

throughout Northern Pennsylvania for her good deeds.

Tatnall gradually advanced in life, and became agent or traveling

salesman for several wholesale lumber concerns. He had gotten his start

by being polite to the manager of one of the companies who came up from

Pittsburg every week and stopped at the hotel. He made a success as a

salesman, and it was a matter of quiet satisfaction to him that in ten

years he had sold 160,000,000 feet of lumber. But he had been too busy

to marry, too busy to have a home; was a driving, pushing machine in the

interests of his employers. Sometimes on the trains he met with

intelligent people, but generally his associates were like himself,

human dynamos, but without his interest in the supernatural.

There was one railway journey which he took frequently, and on fast

trains. His westbound trips carried him through the most mountainous

part of the country in the late afternoon, but there was generally light

enough to show the various aspects of the wild, rugged landscape. There

was a little abandoned graveyard, all overgrown, with an uneven stone

wall around it, near where the tracks crossed the river bridge. Standing

among the lop-sided and battered tombstones, the tips of some of the

older ones of brownstone being barely visible, looking as if they were

sinking into the earth, he would always see the figure of a young woman

attired completely in grey. The train was always traveling so fast that

he counted a different number of stones every time he went by–there were

probably a “Baker’s Dozen.”

For a long time he thought that she must be some particularly devoted

mourner, a recently bereaved widow, but it did seem a strange

coincidence that she should be there on the same days and hour that he

passed by in the fast train. Once he called his seat-mate’s attention to

the figure, but the companion could see nothing, and laughingly said:

“Why, you must be seeing a ghost.”

The word _ghost_ sent a thrill through Tatnall, and after that he said

no more to anyone, but conceded to himself that the girl in grey was a

wraith of some kind. Though the train did not pass close to the

graveyard, and was always moving rapidly, he fancied that he could

discern the ghost’s type of feature, or imagined he did; at any rate he

had an exact mental picture of what he thought she looked like, and

would pick her out in a crowd if he ever saw her in hailing distance.

This had kept up for five years, and he began to feel that it was

getting on his nerves; he must either abandon that particular train or

go to the graveyard and investigate. He chose the latter course, and one

afternoon arrived at the nearest station, via a local train. The

graveyard was on the opposite side of the river, and there seemed to be

very little hurry on the part of the boatman, who lived on the far

shore, to carry him across. It was late in the fall, after Thanksgiving,

and the trees were bare of leaves, and shook and rattled their bare

branches in the gusts of wind that came out of the east.

He sat down on an old rotting shell of a dugout by the bank, watching

the cold, grey current, for the river was high after many days of fall

rains. It was a dreary, but imposing scene, the wide, swollen river, the

wooded banks and hills beyond, and back of him, high rocky mountains,

partly covered with scrubby growth and dead pines.

Finally, in response to frequent calling, he could see the boat

launched; it looked like a black speck at first, and gradually drew

nearer to him and beached. The boatman was a tiny man, with a long

drooping mustache and goatee, wearing a Grand Army button; he was

pleasant, but inquisitive, though he “allowed” Tatnall could have no

other business than to be a “drummer” bound for the crossroads store on

the opposite bank.

Tatnall had remembered a small, dingy store in a hamlet, about half mile

from the little cemetery; he had intended going there as he wanted

information concerning the families who were buried there. Perhaps he

could learn all he wanted to know from the riverman, and save the walk

down the track to the store, but for some reason held his tongue.

The boatman’s final remark was that it was strange for anyone to be

willing to pay a dollar to be ferried across the river, when most people

walked the railroad bridge. It was trespassing on railroad property, and

dangerous to do it, but it was worth the risk, many travelers thought.

Arriving safely across the roily current, Tatnall paid and thanked the

boatman, and started in the direction of the little country store. In

front of the store was a row of mature Ailanthus trees, which seemed

like sturdy guards over the old stone structure, which had once been a

tavern stand. The porch was filled with packing cases and barrels.

As Tatnall opened the door, he could see a number of habitues seated

about on crates and barrels. One of them, a white bearded Civil War

Veteran, rose up, leaning heavily on his cane, and bid the stranger

welcome. Almost before he had a chance to engage in conversation with

the regulars, he glanced behind the counter, where he beheld a young

woman, who had just emerged from an inner apartment behind the store

room.

In the dim half-light, the dark aquiline face and meagre figure seemed

strangely familiar. She was more Oriental than Indian in type, with that

curly hair and wonderful nose, those thin lips, and complexion, the deep

pink tone of a wild pigeon’s breast. Where had they met before? For a

moment his mind refused to correlate, then like a flash, he realized

that she was the counterpart of the girl in grey who haunted the little

disused cemetery so regularly. And the way she looked at him was as if

they had seen one another before; on her face was a look of mild

surprise.

Addressing some pleasantries to her, they were soon engaged in

conversation, as if they had known each other for years. It was getting

late, time to light lamps and fires at home, so the long-winded

dissertations of the habitues were left off, to be continued after

supper. One by one they filed out of the store; if they had any opinion

of the stranger conversing with Elma Hacker, the store-keeper’s niece,

it was that he was probably some traveling man, “talking up” his line of

goods.

When the last one had gone, and the acquaintance had progressed far

enough, Tatnall, leaning over the counter, confided bravely the purpose

of his visit to the remote neighborhood. For five years he had been

seeing a figure in grey, in the late afternoons, while passing by the

little graveyard in the western express. No one else could see it, yet

he was certain that his senses were not deceiving him. Did she know

anything of this, and could she help him fathom the mystery?

The dark girl dropped her eyes and was silent for a moment. She was

hesitating as to whether to disclaim all knowledge, or to be frank and

divulge a story which concerned her soul.

“Yes, I do know all about it, how very funny! I, too, have had the power

of seeing that figure in grey, though very few others have ever been

able to, and many’s the time I’ve been called crazy when I mentioned it.

‘The girl in grey,’ as you call her, strangely enough was an ancestress

of mine, or rather belonged to my father’s family, and while I have the

same name, Elma Hacker, I don’t know whether I was named for her or not,

as my parents died when I was a little girl.

“It used to make me feel terrible when I was a little girl and told

about seeing the figure. I hated to be regarded as untruthful or

‘dullness,’ but at last my uncle, hearing of it, came to the rescue and

told me not to mind what anyone said, that, from the description, he was

sure I had seen the ghost. He had never had the power to see her, but

his father, my grandfather had, and other members of the family.

“It was a sad and curious story. It all happened in the days of the very

first white settlers in these mountains, when my ancestors kept the

first stopping place for travellers, a Stone fortress-like house, in

Black Wolf Gap; the ruins of the foundations are still visible, and

folks call it ‘The Indian Fort.’ The Hackers were friendly with the

Indians, who often came for square meals, and other favors from the

genial pioneer landlord and his wife. The Elma Hacker of those days had

a sweetheart who lived alone on the other side of the Gap; his name was

Ammon Quicksall, and from all accounts, he was a fine, manly fellow, a

great hunter and fighter.

“He would often drop in on his beloved on his way home from his hunting

trips, at all hours of the day. One one occasion four Indians appeared

at the tavern, intimating that they were hungry, as Indians generally

were. Elma carried a pewter dish containing all the viands the house

afforded to each, which they sat eating on a long bench outside the

door.

“One of the Indians was a peculiar, half-witted young wretch who went by

the name of Chansops. He came to the public house quite often, being

suspected of having a fondness for Elma and for hard cider. She always

treated him pleasantly, but kept him at a distance, and never felt fear

of any kind in his presence. No doubt his feelings were of a volcanic

order, and under his stoical exterior burned a consuming passion. He was

munching his lunch, apparently most interested in his food, when Ammon

Quicksall and his hunting dogs hove in sight.

“Their barking and yelping were a signal to Elma, who rushed out of the

house to greet her lover, perhaps showing her feelings a trifle too

much; though she had no reason to imagine she should restrain herself in

the presence of the Indians. All the while Chansops was eyeing her with

gathering rage and fury. When Elma took her lover’s arm–she must have

been a very impulsive girl–and rested her head against his shoulder, it

was too much for the irate Indian.

“He jumped up, firing his pewter dish into the creek which flowed near

the house, and danced up and down in sheer fury. His companions tried

hard to calm him, as they wanted to keep on good terms with the

innkeeper’s family, but he was beyond all control. Quicksall and Elma

were walking on the path which led along the creek; their backs were

turned, and they little dreamed of the drama being enacted behind them.

The other Indians, realizing that Chansops meant trouble, lay hold of

him, but he wrenched himself free with a superhuman strength,

threatening to kill anyone who laid hands on him again.

“Old Adam Hacker, Elma’s father, finally heard the commotion and came

out, and asked in Dutch what the trouble was all about. One of the

Indians, the oldest and most sensible, replied that it was only Chansops

having a jealous fit because he saw Elma walking off with Quicksall.

While these words were being said, Chansops was edging further away, and

looking around furtively, saw that he had a chance to get away, and

sprang after the retreating couple. Bounding like a deer, he was a few

paces behind Quicksall in a twinkling of an eye. He had a heavy old

flint-lock pistol with him, which he drew and fired point blank into the

young lover’s back at two or three paces. With a groan, Quicksall sank

down on the ground, dying before Elma could comfort him.

“Before Adam Hacker or the friendly Indians could reach the scene of the

horrid tragedy, Chansops had escaped into the forests, followed by

Quicksall’s hounds yelping at his heels. He was seen no more. The dogs,

tired and dejected, re-appeared the next day; evidently they had been

outraced by the fleet Indian runner.

“It was a blow from which the bereaved girl could not react. She was

brave enough at the time, but she was never the same again. She

gradually pined away, until she was about my age, she died, and was

buried not in the little graveyard, but in her father’s yard. That was

done because it was feared that the crazy Chansops might return and dig

up her body, and carry it away to his lodge in the heart of the forest.

Quicksall was buried in the pioneer cemetery, and that is the place

where Elma Hacker of those days evidently frequents, trying to be near

her sweetheart’s last resting place, and to reason out the tragedy of

her unfulfilled existence.

“It is a very strange story, but odder still, to me, that you, a

stranger, should have seen the apparition so frequently, when others do

not, and been interested enough to have come here to unravel the

mystery.”

“It is a strange story,” said Tatnall, after a pause. He was figuring

out just what he could say, and not say too much. “The strangest part is

that the figure I have been seeing is the image of yourself, bears the

same name, and my name, Ammon Tatnall, has a somewhat similar sound, in

fact is cousin-german to ‘Ammon Quicksall.’”

In the gloom Elma Hacker hung her pretty head still further. She was

glad that there was no light as she did not want Tatnall to see the hot

purple flush which she felt was suffusing her dark cheeks.

“The minute I came into the store,” Tatnall continued, “you looked

familiar; it did not take me a minute to identify you as the grey lady.”

“And you,” broke in Elma, “appear just as I always supposed Ammon

Quicksall looked.”

How much more intimate the talk would have become, there is no telling,

but just then the door was swung open, and in came old Mrs. Becker, a

neighbor woman, to buy some bread.

“You must be getting moonstruck, Elma,” she said, “to be here and not

light the lamps. Why, it is as dark as Egypt in this room, and you were

always so prompt to light them.”

Elma bestirred herself to find the matches, and soon the swinging lamps

were lit, and the store aglow.

Again the door was thrown open, and Elma’s uncle came in. He was Adam

Hacker, namesake of the old-time landlord, and proprietor of the store.

Mrs. Becker got her bread and departed, and Elma introduced Tatnall to

the storekeeper. Soon she explained to him the stranger’s business, to

which the uncle listened sympathetically. At the conclusion he said:

“It is really curious, after all these years, to have an Adam Hacker, an

Elma Hacker and an Ammon Tatnall–almost Quicksall–here together; if

Chansops was here it would be as if the past had risen again.”

“Let us hope there’ll be no Chansops this time,” said Tatnall. “Let us

feel that everything that was unfulfilled and went wrong in those old

days is to be righted now.”

It was a bold statement, but somehow it went unchallenged.

“I believe in destiny, the destiny of wayside cemeteries, of chance and

opportunity,” he resumed. “It can be the only road to true happiness

after all.”

“How happy we’d all be,” said Elma demurely, “if through all this we

could only lay the ghost of my poor ancestress, the grey lady.”

“Nothing that is started is ever left unfinished,” answered Tatnall.

“And we of this generation become unconscious actors in the final scenes

of a drama that began a couple of centuries ago. In that way the cycle

of existence is carried out harmoniously, else this world could not go

on if it was merely a jumble of odds and ends, and starts without

finishes; as it is, everything that is good, that is worthwhile,

sometimes comes to a rounded out and completed fulfillment.”

The moon, which had come out clear, was three parts full, and shed a

glowing radiance over the rugged landscape. After supper Ammon and Elma

strolled out along the white, moon-bathed road. Coming to a cornfield

the girl pointed to a great white oak with a plume-like crest which

stood on a knoll, facing the valley, the river, and the hills beyond;

they climbed the high rail fence, and slipping along quietly, seated

themselves beneath the giant tree. Of the many chapters of human life

and destiny enacted beneath the oak’s spreading branches, none was

stranger than this one. There until the flaming orb had commenced to

wane in the west, they sat, perfectly content. “Oh, how I like to rest

on the earth,” said she. “How I love to be here, and look at your

wonderful face,” he whispered, as he stroked the perfect lines of her

nose, lips, chin and throat.

[Illustration]

VI

_The Holly Tree_

It was while on a mountain climbing trip in the French Alps, when

stormstayed at a small inn at Grenoble, that a chance acquaintance

showed The Viscount Adare a copy of “The Travels of Thomas Ashe,” a book

which had recently appeared in London and created a sensation in the

tourist world. The Viscount had already perused “Travels Beyond the

Alleghenies,” by the younger Michaux, but the volume by Ashe, so full of

human interest, more than sharpened his old desire to travel in the

United States, now that a stable peace between the young republic and

the Mother Country was a matter of some years standing.

The mountains, as described by both Michaux and Ashe, seemed stupendous

and inspiring, wild game and mighty forests were everywhere, and a

glimpse might be caught of the vanishing redmen, without journeying as

far west as the Mississippi River.

Thomas Ashe excelled in descriptions of the life along the mountain

highways, though nothing could be more vivid than Michaux’s pen picture

of his feast on venison cooked on the coals on the hearth at Statler’s

stone tavern on the Allegheny summits, near Buckstown. This ancient

hostelry is, by the way, still standing, though misnamed “The Shot

Factory,” by modern chroniclers, much to the disgust of the accurate

historian of Somerset County, George W. Grove.

All during his trip among the Alps of Savoy, and Dauphiny, The Viscount

Adare was planning the excursion to Pennsylvania. His love of wild

scenery was one compelling reason, but perhaps another was Ashe’s

description of his meeting and brief romance with the beautiful Eleanor

Ancketell, daughter of the innkeeper on the Broad Mountain, above Upper

Strasburg, Franklin County.