CHAPTER IV.
Before daylight in the morning, Sir William Johnson was on foot, andin the stable. Some three or four negro-slaves--for there were slavesthen on all parts of the American continent--lay sleeping soundly in asmall sort of barrack hard by; and, as soon as one of them could beroused, Sir William's horse was saddled, and he rode away, withoutpausing to eat, or to say farewell. He bent his course direct towardsthe Mohawk, flowing at some twenty miles' distance from the cottage ofMr. Prevost.
Before Sir William had been five minutes in the saddle, he was in themidst of the deep woods which surrounded the little well-cultivatedspot where the English wanderer had settled. It was a wild and rathergloomy scene into which he plunged; for, though something like aregular road had been cut, along which carts as well as horses couldtravel, yet that road was narrow, and the branches nearly metoverhead.
In some places the underwood, nourished by a moist and marshy soil,was too thick and tangled to be penetrated either by foot or eye. Inothers, where the path ascended to higher grounds, or passed amongstthe hard dry rocks, the aspect of the forest changed. Pine after pine,with now and then an oak, a chestnut, or a locust-tree, covered theface of the country, with hardly a shrub upon the ground below, whichwas carpeted with the brown slippery needles of the resinous trees;and between the huge trunks poured the grey, mysterious light of theearly dawn, while a thin, whitish vapour hung amongst the boughsoverhead.
About a mile from the house, a bright and beautiful stream crossed theroad, flowing on towards the greater river; but bridge there was none,and, in the middle of the stream, Sir William suffered his horse tostop, and bend its head to drink. He gazed to the westward, but allthere was dark and gloomy under the thick overhanging branches. Heturned his eyes to the eastward, where the ground was more open, andthe stream could be seen flowing on for nearly half a mile, withlittle cascades, and dancing rapids, and calm lapses of bright,glistening water, tinted with a rosy hue, where the morning skygleamed down upon it through some break in the forest canopy.
While thus gazing, his eye rested on a figure standing in the midst ofthe stream, with rod in hand, and the back turned towards him. Hethought he saw another figure also amongst the trees upon the bank;but it was shadowy there, and the form seemed shadowy too.
After gazing for a minute or so, he raised his voice, and exclaimed--
"Walter!--Walter Prevost!"
The lad heard him, and, laying his rod upon the bank, hastened alongover the green turf to join him; at the same moment the figure amongstthe trees--if really figure it was--disappeared from the sight.
"Thou art out early, Walter," said Sir William. "What do you at thishour?"
"I am catching trout for the stranger's breakfast," replied the lad,with a gay laugh. "You should have had your share, had you butwaited."
"Who was that speaking to you on the bank above?" asked the other,gravely.
"Merely an Indian girl watching me fishing," responded Walter Prevost.
"I hope your talk was discreet," rejoined Sir William. "These aredangerous times, when trifles are of import, Walter."
"There was no indiscretion," returned the lad, with the colourmounting slightly in his cheek. "She was remarking the feather-flieswith which I caught the trout, and blamed me for using them. She saidit was a shame to catch anything with false pretences."
"She is wise," observed the other, with a faint smile; "yet that ishardly the wisdom of her people. An Indian maiden!" he added,thoughtfully. "Of what tribe is she? One of the Five Nations, Itrust?"
"Oh, yes--an Oneida," replied Walter; "one of the daughters of theStone; the child of a Sachem, who often lodges at our house."
"Well, be she whom she may," rejoined Sir William, "be careful of yourspeech, Walter, especially regarding your father's guest. I say not,to conceal that there is a stranger with you, for that cannot be; but,whatever you see or guess of his station, or his errand, keep it toyourself, and let not a woman be the sharer of your thoughts, till youhave tried her with many a trial."
"She would not betray them, I am sure," said the lad, warmly; and thenadded, with slight embarrassment, as if he felt that he had in adegree betrayed himself, "but she has nothing to reveal, or toconceal. Our talk was all of the river, and the fish. We met byaccident, and she is gone."
"Perhaps you may meet again by accident," suggested the other, "andthen be careful. But now, to more serious things. Perchance yourfather may have to send you to Albany--perchance, to my castle. Youcan find your way speedily to either. Is it not so?"
"Farther than either," replied the lad, gaily.
"But you may have a heavy burden to carry," rejoined Sir William; "doyou think you can bear it?--I mean the burden of a secret."
"I will not drop it by the way," returned Walter, gravely.
"Not if the Sachem's daughter offers to divide the load?" asked hiscompanion.
"Doubt me not," replied Walter.
"I do not doubt you," said Sir William, "I do not. But I would haveyou warned. And now farewell. You are very young to meet maidens inthe wood. Be careful. Farewell."
He rode on, and the boy tarried by the wayside, and meditated. Hiswere very strange thoughts, and stranger feelings. They were thefeelings that only come to any person once in a lifetime--earlier withsome, later with others--the ecstatic thrill, the joyous emotion, thedancing of the young bright waters of early life, in the pure morningsunshine of first love--the dream--the vision--the trance ofindefinite joy--the never-to-be-forgotten, the never-to-be-renewed,first glance at the world of passion that is within us. Till thatmoment, he had been as one climbing a mountain with thick boughsshading from his eyes the things before him; but his friend's wordshad been a hand drawing back the branches on the summit, and showinghim a wondrous and lovely sight beyond.
Was he not very young to learn such things? O yes, he was very, veryyoung; but it was natural that in that land he should learn themyoung. All was young there: all is young: everything is rapid andprecocious; the boy has the feelings of the young man; the young manthe thoughts of maturity. The air, the climate, the atmosphere of theland and the people, all have their influence. The shrubs grow up inan hour: the flowers succeed each other with hasty profusion, and eventhe alien and the stranger-born feel the infection, and joinunresistingly in the rapid race. Well did the dreamers of the MiddleAges place the fountain of youth on the shores of the new world.
The boy, who stood there meditating, had lived half a lifetime in thefew short years he had spent upon that soil; and now, at Sir William'swords, as with him of old, the scales fell from his eyes, and he sawinto his own heart.
His reverie lasted not long, indeed; but it was long enough. In abouttwo minutes, he took his way up the stream again, still musing,towards the place where he had laid down his rod upon the bank. Heheeded not much where he set his feet. Sometimes it was on the dryground, by the side of the stream; sometimes it was in the gurglingwaters, and amongst the glossy pebbles.
He paused, at length, where he had stood fishing a few minutes before,and looked up to the bank covered with green branches. He could seenothing there in the dim obscurity; but even the murmur of the watersand the sighing of the wind did not prevent him from hearing asound--a gentle stirring of the boughs. He sprang up the bank, and inamongst the maples; and, about ten minutes after, the sun, risinghigher, poured its light through the stems upon a boy and girl, seatedat the foot of an old tree: he, with his arms around her, and his handresting on the soft, brown, velvety skin, and she, with her head uponhis bosom, and her warm lips within the reach of his. What, though asparkling drop or two gemmed her sunny cheek, they were but the dew ofthe sweetest emotion that ever refreshes the summer morning of ouryouth.
Her skin was brown, I have said--yes, very brown--but, still, hardlybrowner than his own. Her eyes were dark and bright, of the trueIndian hue, but larger and more open than is at all common in any ofthe tribes of Iroquois. Her lips, too, were as rosy and as pure of alltinge of brown, as those o
f any child of Europe; and her fingers,also, were stained of Aurora's own hue. But her long, silky, blackhair would have spoken her race at once, had not each tress terminatedin a wavy curl. The lines of the form and of the face were allwonderfully lovely too, and yet were hardly those which characterizeso peculiarly the Indian nations. The nose was straighter, thecheek-bones less prominent, the head more beautifully set upon theshoulders. The expression, also, as she rested there, with her cheekleaning on his breast, was not that of the usual Indian countenance.It was softer, more tender, more impassioned; for, though romance andpoetry have done all they could to spiritualize the character ofIndian love, I fear, from what I have seen, and heard, and known, itis rarely what it has been portrayed. Her face, however, was full oflove, and tenderness, and emotion; and the picture of the two, as theysat there, told, at once, the tale of love just spoken to a willingear.
There let us leave them. It was a short hour of joy; a sweet dream inthe dark, stormy night of life. They were happy, with the unalloyedhappiness so seldom known even for an hour, without fear, or doubt, orguilt, or remorse; and so let them be. What matters it if a snakeshould glide through the grass hard by? it may pass on, and not stingthem. What matters it if a cloud should hang over the distanthorizon?--the wind may waft away the storm. Forethought is a curse ora blessing, as we use it. To guard against evils that we see is wise,to look forth for those we cannot guard against is folly.