NICK OF THE WOODS
Or, Adventures of Prairie Life
by
ROBERT M. BIRD, M.D.
Unenlightened man--
A savage, roaming through the woods and wilds
In quest of prey, and with th' unfashiomed fur
Bough clad.
THOMPSON.
PREFACE.
At the period when "Nick of the Woods" was written, the genius of
Chateaubriand and of Cooper had thrown a poetical illusion over the
Indian character; and the red men were presented--almost stereotyped in
the popular mind--as the embodiments of grand and tender sentiment--a new
style of the beau-ideal--brave, gentle, loving, refined, honourable,
romantic personages--nature's nobles, the chivalry of the forest. It
may be submitted that such are not the lineaments of the race--that
they never were the lineaments of any race existing in an uncivilised
state--indeed, could not be--and that such conceptions as _Atala_ and
_Uncas_ are beautiful unrealities and fictions merely, as imaginary and
contrary to nature as the shepherd swains of the old pastoral school of
rhyme and romance; at all events, that one does not find beings of this
class, or any thing in the slightest degree resembling them, among the
tribes now known to travellers and legislators. The Indian is doubtless a
gentleman; but he is a gentleman who wears a very dirty shirt, and lives
a very miserable life, having nothing to employ him or keep him alive
except the pleasures of the chase and of the scalp-hunt--which we
dignify with the name of war. The writer differed from his critical
friends, and from many philanthropists, in believing the Indian to be
capable--perfectly capable, where restraint assists the work of friendly
instruction--of civilisation: the Choctaws and Cherokees, and the
ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, prove it; but, in his natural barbaric
state, he is a barbarian--and it is not possible he could be anything
else. The purposes of the author, in his book, confined him to real
Indians. He drew them as, in his judgment, they existed--and as,
according to all observation, they still exist wherever not softened by
cultivation,--ignorant, violent, debased, brutal; he drew them, too, as
they appeared, and still appear, in war--or the scalp-hunt--when all the
worst deformities of the savage temperament receive their strongest and
fiercest development.
Having, therefore, no other, and certainly no worse, desire than to make
his delineations in this regard as correct and true to nature as he
could, it was with no little surprise he found himself taken to account
by some of the critical gentry, on the charge of entertaining the humane
design of influencing the passions of his countrymen against the remnant
of an unfortunate race, with a view of excusing the wrongs done to it by
the whites, if not of actually hastening the period of that "final
destruction" which it pleases so many men, against all probability, if
not against all possibility, to predict as a certain future event. Had
the accusation been confined to the reviewers, he might not, perhaps,
have thought it safe to complain; but currency was given to it in a
quarter which renders a disclaimer the more reasonable or the less
presumptuous. One may contend with a brother author who dares not resist
the verdict of the critics. In the English edition of the novel,
published at the same time as the American, in a preface furnished by Mr.
Ainsworth, the distinguished author of "Rookwood," "Crichton," &c. &c.,
to whom he is indebted for many polite and obliging expressions
respecting it, it is hinted, hypothetically, that the writer's views were
"coloured by national antipathy, and by a desire to justify the
encroachments of his countrymen upon the persecuted natives, rather than
by a reasonable estimate of the subject." The accused notices this fancy,
however injurious he first felt it to be, less to refute than to smile at
it. He prefers to make a more philosophic and practical application. The
real inference to be drawn is, that he has succeeded very ill in this,
somewhat essential, portion of his plan,--on the principle that the
composition must be amiss, the design of which is so readily
misapprehended. He may plead guilty to the defect; but he cannot admit
the charge to have had any foundation in truth.
The writer confesses to have felt a little concern at an imputation,
which was once faintly attempted to be made, he scarcely now remembers by
whom, that in the character of Nathan Slaughter he intended to throw a
slur upon the peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is described
as having been an unworthy member. This notion is undeserving of serious
challenge. The whole object was here to portray the peculiar
characteristics of a class of men, very limited, of course, in number,
but found, in the old Indian days, scattered, at intervals, along the
extreme frontier of every State, from New York to Georgia; men in whom
the terrible barbarities of the savages, suffered through their families,
or their friends and neighbours, had wrought a change of temper as
strange as fearful. That passion is the mightiest which overcomes the
most powerful restraints and prostrates the strongest barriers; and there
was a dramatic propriety, at least, in associating with such a character
as Nathan's, obstacles of faith and habit, which gave the greater force
to his deeds and a deeper mystery to his story. No one conversant with
the history of border affairs can fail to recollect some one or more
instances of solitary men, bereaved fathers or orphaned sons, the
sole survivors, sometimes, of exterminated households, who remained only
to devote themselves to lives of vengeance; and "Indian-hating" (which
implied the fullest indulgence of a rancorous animosity no blood could
appease) was so far from being an uncommon passion in some particular
districts, that it was thought to have infected, occasionally, persons,
otherwise of good repute, who ranged the woods, intent on private
adventures, which they were careful to conceal from the public eye. The
author remembers, in the published journal of an old traveller--an
Englishman, and, as he thinks, a Friend; but he cannot be certain of this
fact, the name having escaped him, and the loose memorandum he made at
the time, having been mislaid--who visited the region of the upper Ohio
towards the close of the last century, an observation on this subject,
which made too deep an impression to be easily forgotten. It was stated,
as the consequence of the Indian atrocities, that such were the extent
and depth of the vindictive feeling throughout the community, that it was
suspected in some cases to have reached men whose faith was opposed to
warfare and bloodshed. The legend of Wandering Nathan is, no doubt, an
idle and unfounded one, although some vague notions touching the
existence of just such a personage, whose habitat was referred to Western
Pennsylvania, used to prevail among the cotemporaries, or immediate
successors, of Boone and Kenton, M'Colloch and Wetzel. It is enough,
however, for the author to be sustained in such a matter by poetical
possibility; and he can afford to be indifferent to a charge which has
the scarce consistent merit of imputing to him, at one and the same time,
hostility towards the most warlike and the most peaceable of mankind.
NICK OF THE WOODS.
CHAPTER I.
The sun of an August afternoon, 1782, was yet blazing upon the rude
palisades and equally rude cabins of one of the principal stations in
Lincoln county, when a long train of emigrants, issuing from the
southern forest, wound its way over the clearings, and among the waving
maize-fields that surrounded the settlement, and approached the chief
gate of its enclosure.
The party was numerous, consisting perhaps of seven or eight score
individuals in all, men, women, and children, the last bearing that
proportion to the others in point of numbers usually found in a
borderer's family, and thus, with the help of pack-horses, cattle, and a
few negroes, the property of the more wealthy emigrants, scattered here
and there throughout the assemblage, giving to the whole train the
appearance of an army, or moving village, of Vandals in quest of some new
home to be won with the edge of the sword. Of the whole number there were
at least fifty well-armed; some of these, however, being striplings of
fourteen, and, in one or two instances, even of twelve, who balanced the
big rifle on their shoulders, or sustained it over their saddle-bows,
with all the gravity and dignity of grown warriors; while some few of
the negroes were provided with the same formidable weapons. In fact, the
dangers of the journey through the wilderness required that every
individual of a party should be well armed, who was at all capable of
bearing arms; and this was a kind of capacity which necessity instilled
into the American frontiersman in the earliest infancy.
Of this armed force, such as it was, the two principal divisions, all
well mounted, or at least provided with horses, which they rode or not
as the humour seized them, were distributed in military order on the
front and in the rear; while scouts, leading in the van, and flanking
parties beating the woods on either side, where the nature of the
country permitted, indicated still further the presence of a martial
spirit on the part of the leaders. The women and children, stowed
carefully away, for the most part with other valuable chattels, on the
backs of pack-horses, were mingled with droves of cattle in the centre,
many of which were made to bear burdens as well as the horses. Of wheeled
carriages there was not a single one in the whole train, the difficulties
of the road, which was a mere bridle-path, being such that they were
never, at that early day, attempted to be brought into the country,
unless when wafted in boats down the Ohio.
Thus marshalled, and stealing from the depth of the forest into the
clearings around the Station, there was something in the appearance of
the train--wild, singular, and striking. The tall and robust frames of
the men, wrapped in blanket coats and hunting-frocks,--some of which,
where the wearers were young and of gallant tempers, were profusely
decked with fringes of yellow, green, and scarlet; the gleam of their
weapons, and the tramp of their horses, gave a warlike air to the whole,
typical, it might be supposed, of the sanguinary struggle by which alone
the desert was to be wrung from the wandering barbarian; while the
appearance of their families, with their domestic beasts and the
implements of husbandry, was in harmony with what might be supposed the
future destinies of the land, when peaceful labour should succeed to the
strife of conquest.
The exiles were already in the heart of their land of promise, and many
within view of the haven where they were to end their wanderings. Smiles
of pleasure lighted their wayworn countenances, as they beheld the waving
fields of maize and the gleam of the distant cabins; and their
satisfaction was still further increased when the people of the Station,
catching sight of them, rushed out, some mounted and others on foot, to
meet them, uttering loud shouts of welcome, such as, in that day, greeted
every band of new comers; and adding to the clamour of the reception a
_feu-de-joie_, which they fired in honour of the numbers and martial
appearance of the present company. The salutation was requited, and the
stirring hurrahs returned, by the travellers, most of whom pressed
forward to the van in disorder, eager to take part in the merry-making
ere it was over, or perhaps to seek for friends who had preceded them in
the journey through the wilderness. Such friends were, in many instances,
found, and their loud and affectionate greetings were mingled with the
scarce less cordial welcomes extended by the colonists, even to the
unknown stranger. Such was the reception of the emigrants at that period
and in that country, where men were united together by a sense of common
danger; and where every armed visitor, besides being an accession to the
strength of the colonists, brought with him such news of absent friends
and still remembered homes as was sure to recommend him to favour.
The only individual who, on this occasion of rejoicing, preserved a
melancholy countenance, and who, instead of riding forward, like the
others, to shake hands with the people of the Station, betrayed an
inclination to avoid their greetings altogether, was a young man, who,
from the position he occupied in the band, and from other causes, was
entitled to superior attention. With the rank and nominal title of
second-captain,--a dignity conferred upon him by his companions, he was,
in reality, the commander of the party, the ostensible leader being,
although a man of good repute on the Virginia border, entirely wanting in
the military reputation and skill which the other had acquired in the
armies of the Republics, and of which the value was fully appreciated,
when danger first seemed to threaten the exiles on their march. He was a
youth of scarce twenty-three years of age; but five of those years had
been passed in camps and battles; and the labours, passions, and
privations of his profession had antedated the period of manhood. A frame
tall and athletic, a countenance which, although retaining the smoothness
and freshness of youth, was yet marked with the manly gravity and
decision of mature life, added, in appearance, at least six years to his
age. He wore a hunting-frock of the plainest green colour, with cap and
leggings of leather, such as were worn by many of the poorest or least
pretending exiles; like whom also he bore a rifle on his shoulder, with
the horn and other equipments of a hunter. There was little, therefore,
to distinguish him at the first view, from among his companions; although
his erect military bearing, and the fine blooded bay horse which he rode,
would have won him more than a passing look. The holsters at his
saddle-bow, and the sabre at his side, were weapons not indeed very
generally worn by frontiersmen, but still common enough to prevent their
being regarded as badges of rank.
With this youthful officer the rear-guard, which he commanded, having
deserted him, to press forward to the van, there remained only three
persons, two of whom were negro slaves, both mounted and armed, that
followed at a little distance behind, leading thrice their number of
pack-horses. The third was a female, who rode closely at his side, the
rein of her pony being, in fact, grasped in his hand; though he looked as
if scarce conscious that he held it,--a degree of insensibility that
would have spoken little in his favour to an observer; for his companion
was both young and beautiful, and watched his moody countenance on her
part with looks of the most anxious and affectionate interest. Her
riding-habit, chosen, like his own garments, with more regard to
usefulness than beauty, and perhaps somewhat the worse for its encounters
with the wind and forest, could not conceal the graceful figure it
defended; nor had the sunbeam, though it had darkened the bright
complexion exposed to its summer fury, during a journey of more than six
weeks, robbed her fair visage of a single charm. There was, in the
general cast of features, a sufficient resemblance between the two to
indicate near relationship; although it was plain that the gloom seated
upon the brow of her kinsmen, as if a permanent characteristic, was an
unwelcome and unnatural visitant on her own. The clear blue eye, the
golden locks floating over her temples, the ruddy cheek and look of
seventeen, and, generally, the frank and open character of her
expression, betokened a spirit too joyous and elastic to indulge in those
dark anticipations of the future or mournful recollections of the past,
which clouded the bosom of her relative. And well for her that such was
the cheerful temper of her mind; for it was manifest, from her whole
appearance, that her lot, as originally cast, must have been among the
gentle, the refined, and the luxurious, and that she was now, for the
first time, exposed to discomfort, hardship, and suffering, among
companions, who, however kind and courteous of conduct, were unpolished
in their habits, conversation, and feelings, and, in every other respect,
unfitted to be her associates.
She looked upon the face of her kinsman, and seeing that it grew the
darker and gloomier the nearer they approached the scene of rejoicing,
she laid her hand upon his arm, and murmured softly and affectionately--
"Roland,--cousin,--brother!--what is it that disturbs you? Will you not
ride forward, and salute the good people that are making us welcome?"
"Us!" muttered the young man, with a bitter voice; "who is there on
earth, Edith, to welcome us? Where shall _we_ look for the friends and
kinsfolk, that the meanest of the company are finding among yonder noisy
barbarians?"
"You do them injustice, Roland," said the maiden. "Yesternight we had
experience at the Station we left, that these wild people of the woods do
not confine their welcomes to kinsmen. Kinder and more hospitable people
do not exist in the world."
"It is not that, Edith," said the young man; "I were but a brute to doubt
their hospitality. But look, Edith; we are in Kentucky, almost at our
place of refuge. Yonder hovels, lowly, mean, and wretched--are they the
mansions that should shelter the child of my father's brother? Yonder
people, the outcasts of our borders, the poor, the rude, the savage--but
one degree elevated above the Indians, with whom they contend,--are they
the society from whom Edith Forrester should choose her friends?"
"They are," said Edith, firmly; "and Edith Forrester asks none better.
In such a cabin as these, and, if need be, in one still more humble,
she is content to pass her life, and dream that she is still in the
house of her fathers. From such people, too, she will choose her friends,
knowing that, even among the humblest of them, there are many worthy of
her regard and affection. What have we to mourn in the world we have
left behind us? We are the last of our name and race; fortune has left
us nothing to regret. My only relative on earth, saving yourself,
Roland,--saving yourself, my cousin, my brother,"--her lip quivered, and,
for a moment her eyes were filled with tears,--"my only other living
relation resides in this wilderness-land; and she, tenderly nurtured as
myself, finds in it enough to engage her thoughts and secure her
happiness. Why, then, should not I? Why should not _you_? Trust me, dear
Roland, I should myself be as happy as the day is long, could I only know
that you did not grieve for me."
"I cannot but choose it," said Roland. "It is to me you owe the loss of
fortune and your present banishment from the world."
"Say not so, Roland, for it is not true; no! I never can believe that our
poor uncle would have carried his resentment, for such a cause, so far.
But supposing that he could, and granting that all were as you say, I am
prouder to be the poor cousin of Roland Forrester, who has bled in the
battles of his country, than if I were the rich and courted kinswoman of
one who had betrayed the memory of his father."
"You are, at least, an angel," said the youth; "and I am but a villain to
say or do anything to give you pain. Farewell then to Fell-hallow, to old
James River, and all! If you can forget these things, Edith, so will I;
at all events, I will try."
"Now," said Edith, "you talk like my true cousin."
"Well, Edith, the world is before us; and shame be upon me, if I, who
have health, strength, and youth to back my ambition, cannot provide you
a refuge and a home. I will leave you for a while in the hands of this
good aunt at the Falls; and then, with old Emperor there for my adjutant,
and Sam for my rank and file, I will plunge into the forest, and scatter
it as I have seen a band of tories scattered by my old major (who, by the
bye, is only three years older than myself), Henry Lee, not many years
back. Then, when I have built me a house, furrowed my acres with my
martial plough-share (for to that, it appears, my sword must come), and
reaped my harvest with my own hands (it will be hard work to beat my
horse-pistols into a sickle), then, Edith--"
"Then, Roland," said the maiden, with a smile and a tear, "if you should
still remember your poor cousin, it will not be hard to persuade her to
follow you to your retreat, to share your fortunes of good and of evil,
and to love you better in your adversity than she ever expected to love
you in your prosperity."
"Spoken like my true Edith!" said the young officer, whose melancholy
fled before her soft accents, as the evil spirit of Saul before the
tinklings of the Jewish harp,--"spoken like my true Edith; for whom I
promise, if fate smile upon my exertions, to rear a new Fell-hallow on
the banks of the Ohio, in which I will be, myself, the first to forget
that on James River. And now, Edith, let us ride forward and meet yon gay
looking giant, whom, from his bustling demeanour, and fresh jerkin, I
judge to be the commander of the Station, the redoubtable Colonel Bruce
himself."
As he spoke the individual thus alluded to, separating himself from the
throng, galloped up to the speaker, and displayed a person which excited
the envy even of the manly looking Forrester. He was a man of at least
fifty years, but as hale as one of thirty, without a single gray hair to
deform the beauty of his raven locks, which fell down in masses nearly to
his shoulders. His stature was colossal, and the proportions of his frame
as just as they were gigantic; so that there was much in his appearance
of real native majesty. Nothing, in fact, could be well imagined more
truly striking and grand than his appearance, as seen at the first
glance; though the second revealed a lounging indifference of carriage,
amounting, at times, to something like awkwardness and uncouthness, which
a little detracted from the effect. Such men were oft-times, in those
days, sent from among the mountain counties of Virginia, to amaze the
lesser mortals of the plains, who regarded them as the genii of the
forest, and almost looked, as was said of the victor of the Kenhawa,[1]
himself of the race, to see the earth tremble beneath their footsteps.
With a spirit corresponding to his frame, he would have been the Nimrod
that he seemed. But nature had long before extinguished the race of
demigods; and the worthy Commander of the Station was not of them. He was
a mortal man, distinguished by little, save his exterior, from other
mortal men, and from the crowd of settlers who had followed him from the
fortress. He wore, it is true, a new and jaunty hunting-shirt of dressed
deer-skin, as yellow as gold, and fringed and furbelowed with shreds of
the same substance, dyed as red as blood-root could make them; but was
otherwise, to the view, a plain yeoman, endowed with those gifts of mind
only which were necessary to his station, but with the virtues which are
alike common to forest and city. Courage and hospitality, however, were
then hardly accounted virtues, being too universal to be distinguished as
such; and courtesy was equally native to the independent borderer.
[Footnote 1: Gen. Andrew Lewis.]
He shook the young officer heartily by the hand, a ceremony which he
instantly repeated with the fair Edith; and giving them to understand
that he claimed them as his own especial guests, insisted with much
honest warmth, that old companionship in arms with one of their late
nearest and dearest kinsmen had given him a double right to do so:--
"You must know," said he, "the good old Major your uncle, the brave
old Major Roly, as we called him, Major Roland Forrester: well,
K'-yaptin,--well, young lady,--my first battle war fought under his
command; and an excellent commander he war; it war on the bloody
Monongahela, whar the Frenchmen and Injuns trounced us so promiskous.
Perhaps you've h'ard him tell of big Tom Bruce,--for so they called me
then? I war a copporal in the first company of Rangers that crossed the
river. Lord! how the world is turning upside down! I war a copporal
then, and now I'm a k'-yunnel; a greater man in commission than war ever
my old Major; and the Lord, he nows, I thought my old Major Forrester
war the greatest man in all Virginnee, next to the G'-yovernor and
K'-yunnel George Washington! Well, you must know, we marched up the
g'yully that runs from the river; and bang went the savages' g'-yuns,
and smash went their hatchets; and it came to close quarters, a regular
rough-and-tumble, hard scratch! And so I war a-head of the Major, and the
Major war behind, and the fight had made him as vicious as a wild cat,
and he war hungry for a shot; and so says he to me, for I war right afore
him, 'Git out of my way, you damned big rascal, till I git a crack at
'em!' And so I got out of his way, for I war mad at being called a damned
big rascal, especially as I war doing my best, and covering him from
mischief besides. Well! as soon as I jumped out of his way, bang went his
piece, and bang went another, let fly by an Injun;--down went the Major,
shot right through the hips, slam-bang. And so said I, 'Major,'--for I
warn't well over my passion,--'if you'd 'a' taken things easy, I'd 'a' a
stopped that slug for you.' And so says he, 'Bang away you big fool, and
don't stand talking.' And so he swounded away; and that made me vicious,
too, and I killed two of the red niggurs, before you could say Jack
Robinson, just by way of satisfaction for the Major; and then I helped to
carry him off to the tumbrels. I never see'd my old Major from that day
to this; and it war only a month ago that I h'ard of his death. I honour
his memory; and so, K'-yaptin, you see, thar's a sort of claim to old
friendship between us."
To this characteristic speech, which was delivered with great
earnestness, Captain Forrester made a suitable response; and intimating
his willingness to accept the proffered hospitality of his uncle's
companion in arms, he rode forward with his host and kinswoman towards
the Station, of which, when once fairly relieved of the forest, he had a
clear view.
It seemed unusually populous, as indeed it was; but Roland, as he
rode by, remarked, on the skirts of the village, a dozen or more
shooting-targets set up on the green, and perceived it was a gala-day
which had drawn the young men from a distance to the fort. This, in fact,
he was speedily told by a youth, whom the worthy Bruce introduced to him
as his eldest son and namesake, "big Tom Bruce,--the third of that name;
the other two Toms,--for two others he had had,--having been killed by
the Injuns, and he having changed the boy's name, that he might have a
Tom in the family." The youth was worthy of his father, being full six
feet high, though scarcely yet out of his teens, and presented a visage
of such serene gravity and good-humoured simplicity as won the affections
of the soldier in a moment.
"Thar's a boy now, the brute," said Colonel Bruce, sending him off to
assist in the distribution of the guests among the settlers, "that comes
of the best stock for loving women and fighting Injuns in all Kentucky!
And so, captain, if young madam, your sister h'yar, is for picking a
husband out of Kentuck, I'll say it, and stand to it, thar's not a better
lad to be found than Tom Bruce, if you hunt the district all over. You'd
scarce believe it, mom," he continued, addressing Edith herself, "but the
young brute did actually take the scalp of a full-grown Shawnee before he
war fourteen y'ar old, and that in fa'r fight, whar thar war none to help
him. The way of it war this: Tom war out in the range, looking for a
neighbour's horse; when what should he see but two great big Shawnees
astride of the identicular beast he war hunting! Away went Tom, and away
went the bloody villians hard after, one of 'em afoot, the other on the
horse. 'Now,' said Tom, this won't do, no how;' and so he let fly at the
mounted feller; but being a little skeary, as how could he help it, the
young brute, being the first time he ever banged at an Injun, he hit the
horse, which dropped down in a flurry; and away comes the red devil over
his head, like a rocket, end on to a sapling. Up jumps Tom and picks up
the Injun's gun; and bang goes the other Shawnee at him, and jumps to a
tree. 'A bird in the hand,' said Tom, 'is worth two in a bush;' and with
that he blows out the first feller's brains, just as he is gitting up,
and runs into the fort, hard chased by the other. And then to see the
fellers, when I asked him why he didn't shoot the Injun that had fired at
him, and so make sure of both, the other being in a sort of swound-like
from the tumble, and ready to be knocked on the head at any moment?
'Lord!' said Tom, 'I never thought of it, I war such a fool!' and with
that he blubbered all night, to think he had not killed them both.
Howsomever, I war always of opinion that what he had done war good work
for a boy of fourteen.--But, come now, my lovely young mom; we are
entering the Station. May you never enter a house where you are less
welcome."