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"My ear is open, and my heart prepared:
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:
Say, is my kingdom lost?" |
Shakespeare. It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy co... |
But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practised native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satia... |
Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies between the headwaters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes. |
The facilities that nature had offered to the march of the combatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of Lake Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the borders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural passage across half the distance that the French were ... |
Winding its way among countless islands and imbedded in mountains, the "holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still farther to the south. With the high plain that interposed itself to the further passage of the water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a po... |
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges of the Alleghany. It may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. This district beca... |
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to retain. |
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed by the talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fas... |
The alarmed colonists believed that the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their recoll... |
They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible—an army led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only saved from annih... |
[2] A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers. |
Even the most confident and the stoutest hearts began to think that the issue of the contest was becoming doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their ... |
The veteran Scotchman who had just been named held the first position, with a regiment of regulars and a few provincials; a force that was really by far too small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay General Webb, who commande... |
When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort, which covered the southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army "numerous as the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted with more of the craven reluctance of fear than ... |
It has already been mentioned that the distance between these two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which originally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the son of the forest in two hours might easily be effected... |
But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and men appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow on their adva... |
After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a rumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the fort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn, for William Henry, t... |
According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the army was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling echoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista of the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall pines of the vicinity on the opening ... |
In an instant, the whole camp was in motion; the meanest soldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. |
While the regular and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right of the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position on its left, with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The scouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering vehicles that bore th... |
A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the travelling mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the pleasure of those they served. At a respectf... |
The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be borne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had already disappeared in pursuit. But there still remained the signs of another departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and accommodations, in front of which those sentinels pa... |
A sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of the evil-disposed. |
Erect, his stature surpassed that of his fellows; seated, he appeared reduced within the ordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed to exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not delicate. His legs ... |
The ill-assorted and injudicious attire of the individual only served to render his awkwardness more conspicuous. |
His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use. Clouded cotton stockings and shoes, on one of the latter of which was a plated spur, completed the costume of the lower extremity of this figure, no curve or angle of ... |
He had all the bones and joints of other men, without any of their proportions. |
The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without being in any particular manner deformed. |
While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of Webb, the figure we have described stalked in the centre of the domestics, freely expressing his censures or commendations on the merits of the horses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his judgment. |
He said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and sweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions: "I may speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at both havens; that which is situated at the mouth of the Thames, and is named after the capital of Old England, and that whi... |
"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the blue water?" |
Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which, in truth, as it was delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some sort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the Holy Book turned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed himself, and found a new and more powerf... |
The colors of the war-paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and repulsive than if art had attempted an effect which had been thus produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a fiery star amid lowering clouds, was to be seen i... |
It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of gentle voices, announced the approach of... |
A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted two females to their steeds. The females were prepared to encounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the most juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue ey... |
She smiled, as if in pity at her own momentary forgetfulness. Discovering by the act, she found a row of teeth that would have shamed the purest ivory. When she replaced the veil, she bowed her face and rode in silence, like one whose thoughts were abstracted from the scene around her. |
No sooner were these females seated than their attendant sprang lightly into the saddle of the war-horse. When the whole three bowed to Webb, who, in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of his cabin. Turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow amble, followed by their train, towards the northern ... |
The tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood, that seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither coarseness nor a want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely regular... |
"Sola, sola, wo, ha, ho, sola!" exclaimed Shakespeare. While one of the lovely beings we have so cursorily presented to the reader was thus lost in thought, the other quickly recovered from the alarm that induced the exclamation, and, laughing at her own weakness, she inquired of the youth who rode by her side,-- |
Are such spectres frequent in the woods, Heyward; or is this sight an especial entertainment on our behalf? If the latter, gratitude must close our mouths; but if the former, both Cora and I shall have need to draw largely on that stock of hereditary courage which we boast, even before we are made to encounter the redo... |
"I like him not," said the lady, shuddering. She was partly in assumed terror, yet more in real terror. "You know him, Duncan," she said, "or you would not trust yourself so freely to his keeping?" |
He was brought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which your father was interested, and in which the savage was rigidly dealt with—but I forget the idle tale; it is enough, that he is now our friend. |
He is said to be a Canadian, too; and yet he served with our friends the Mohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations. |
Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he would not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. |
"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the now really anxious girl. |
"Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me avow my faith in the tones of the human voice! |
"It would be in vain; and he answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.
Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be ignorant of the English, and least of all will he condescend to speak it, now that war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But he stops; the private path by which we ... |
The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the military road, a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little inconvenience, receive one person at a time, became visible. |
"Here, then, lies our way," said the young man, in a low voice. "Manifest no distrust, or you may invite the danger you appear to apprehend." |
"Cora, what do you think?" asked the reluctant fair one. "If we journey with the troops, though we may find their presence irksome, shall we not feel better assurance of our safety?" |
"Being little accustomed to the practices of the savages," said Heyward, "Alice, you mistake the place of real danger. If enemies have reached the portage at all, a thing by no means probable, as our scouts are abroad, they will surely be found skirting the column where scalps abound the most. The route of the detachme... |
"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners," coldly asked Cora, "and that his skin is dark?" |
The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the distant sound of horses' hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken way in his rear, caused him to check his charger; and, as his companions drew their reins at the same instant, the whole party came to a halt, in order to obtain an explanation of the un... |
In a few moments, a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow deer, among the straight trunks of the pines. And, in another instant, the person of the ungaudy man described in the preceding chapter came into view, with as much rapidity as he could excite his meager beast to endure without coming to an open rupture. Until no... |
The industry and movements of the rider were not less remarkable than those of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and diminishings of the stature as baffled eve... |
The frown that had gathered around the handsome, open, and manly brow of Heyward gradually relaxed, and his lips curled into a slight smile as he regarded the stranger. Alice made no very powerful effort to control her merriment; and even the dark, thoughtful eye of Cora lighted with a humor that, it would seem, the ha... |
"Seek you any here?" demanded Heyward, when the other had arrived sufficiently nigh to abate his speed; "I trust you are no messenger of evil tidings?" |
"Even so," replied the stranger, making diligent use of his triangular castor, to produce a circulation in the close air of the woods, and leaving his hearers in doubt to which of the young man's questions he responded. When, however, he had cooled his face and recovered his breath, he continued, "I hear you are riding... |
"You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote," returned Heyward. "We are three, whilst you have consulted no one but yourself." |
Even so, the first point to be obtained is to know one's own mind. Once sure of that, and where women are concerned, it is not easy, the next is to act up to the decision. |
"If you journey to the lake, you have mistaken your route," said Heyward, haughtily; "the highway thither is at least half a mile behind you." |
"Even so," returned the stranger, nothing daunted by this cold reception. "I have tarried at 'Edward' a week," he said, "and I should be dumb not to have inquired about the road I was to journey; and if dumb, there would be an end to my calling."
After simpering in a small way, like one whose modesty prohibited a more... |
"A most arbitrary, if not a hasty decision!" exclaimed Heyward. He was undecided whether to give vent to his growing anger, or to laugh in the other's face. "But you speak of instruction, and of a profession," he said. "Are you an adjunct to the provincial corps, as a master of the noble science of defence and offence;... |
The stranger regarded his interrogator a moment, in wonder; and then, losing every mark of self-satisfaction in an expression of solemn humility, he answered:— |
Of offence, I hope there is none, to either party: of defence, I make none—by God's good mercy, having committed no palpable sin since last entreating his pardoning grace. I understand not your allusions about lines and angles; and I leave expounding to those who have been called and set apart for that holy office. I l... |
"The man is, most manifestly, a disciple of Apollo," cried the amused Alice. "And I take him under my own especial protection. Nay, throw aside that frown, Heyward, and in pity to my longing ears, suffer him to journey in our train. Besides," she added, in a low and hurried voice, "casting a glance at the distant Cora,... |
Think you, Alice, that I would trust those I love by this secret path? Did I imagine such need could happen? |
"Nay, nay, I think not of it now," said she. "But this strange man amuses me; and if he hath music in his soul, let us not churlishly reject his company." She pointed persuasively along the path with her riding whip, while their eyes met in a look that the young man lingered a moment to prolong. Then, yielding to her g... |
"I am glad to encounter thee, friend," continued the maiden, waving her hand to the stranger, "to proceed," as she urged her Narragansett to renew its amble. "Partial relatives have almost persuaded me that I am not entirely worthless in a duet myself; and we may enliven our wayfaring by indulging in our favorite pursu... |
"It is refreshing both to the spirits and to the body to indulge in psalmody, in befitting seasons," returned the master of song, unhesitatingly complying with her intimation to follow. "And nothing would relieve the mind more than such a consoling communion. But four parts are altogether necessary to the perfection of... |
That officer of the king, who hesitated to admit me to his company, might fill the latter, if one may judge from the intonations of his voice in common dialogue. |
"Judge not too rashly from hasty and deceptive appearances," said the lady, smiling; "though Major Heyward can assume such deep notes on occasion, believe me, his natural tones are better fitted for a mellow tenor than the bass you heard." |
"Is he, then, much practised in the art of psalmody?" demanded her simple companion. Alice felt disposed to laugh, though she succeeded in suppressing her merriment, ere she answered. |
"I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song. The chances of a soldier's life are but little fitted for the encouragement of more sober inclinations." |
None can say they have ever known me to neglect my gifts! I am thankful that, though my boyhood may be said to have been set apart, like the youth of the royal David, for the purposes of music, no syllable of rude verse has ever profaned my lips. |
Man's voice is given to him, like his other talents, to be used, and not to be abused. |
"You have, then, limited your efforts to sacred song?" "Even so. As the psalms of David exceed all other language, so does the psalmody that has been fitted to them by the divines and sages of the land, surpass all vain poetry. |
Happily, I may say that I utter nothing but the thoughts and the wishes of the King of Israel himself; for though the times may call for some slight changes, yet does this version, which we use in the colonies of New England, so much exceed all other versions, that, by its richness, its exactness, and its spiritual sim... |
I never abide in any place, sleeping or waking, without an example of this gifted work. 'Tis the six-and-twentieth edition, promulgated at Boston, Anno Domini 1744; and is entitled, "The Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testaments; faithfully translated into English Metre, for the use, edification,... |
During this eulogium on the rare production of his native poets, the stranger had drawn the book from his pocket, and, fitting a pair of iron-rimmed spectacles to his nose, opened the volume with a care and veneration suited to its sacred purposes. Then, without circumlocution or apology, he first pronounced the word "... |
How good it is, O see,
And how it pleaseth well,
Together, even in unity,
For brethren so to dwell. It's like the choice ointment,
From the head to the beard did go:
Down Aaron's beard, that downward went,
His garment's skirts unto. |
It would seem that long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment necessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had selected for the close of his verse had been duly delivered like a word of two syllables. |
The delivery of these skilful rhymes was accompanied, on the part of the stranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand, which terminated at the descent by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on the leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish of the member as none but the initiated ma... |
Such an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not fail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in advance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward, who, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for the time, closing his musical e... |
Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey through this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will, then, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments by requesting this gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity. |
"You will diminish them, indeed," returned the arch girl. "For never did I hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language, than that to which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you broke the charm of my musings by... |
He paused and turned his head quickly towards a thicket. Then he bent his eyes suspiciously on their guide, who continued his steady pace in undisturbed gravity. The young man smiled to himself, for he believed he had mistaken some shining berry of the woods for the glistening eyeballs of a prowling savage. He rode for... |
"I know not what you call my bass," said Heyward, piqued at her remark. "But I know that your safety, and that of Cora, is far dearer to me than could be any orchestra of Handel's music." |
Major Heyward was mistaken only in suffering his youthful and generous pride to suppress his active watchfulness. The cavalcade had not long passed before the branches of the bushes that formed the thicket were cautiously moved asunder, and a human visage, as fiercely wild as savage art and unbridled passions could mak... |
"Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
The melody of waters filled
the fresh and boundless wood;
And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,
and fountains spouted in the shade." |
Bryant. Leaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous inmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them. |
On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid stream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those who awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some expected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of the river, overhanging the water an... |
Still, that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy sultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot. It was interrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy tap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or the dull roar of a distant waterfall. |
His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well-known and chivalrous scalping tuft[5] was preserved, was without ornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume, that crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. |
A tomahawk and scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a short military rifle, of that sort with which the whites armed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy knee. |
The expanded chest, full-formed limbs, and grave countenance of this warrior would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days, though no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood. |
These feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the foresters to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of their dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited, through the mask of his rude and nearly savage eq... |
His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the natives, while the only part of his under-dress that appeared below the hunting-frock was a pair of buckskin leggings, that laced at the sides, and which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A pouch and horn completed his personal accoutreme... |
The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung and indurated by unremitted exposure and toi... |
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