CHAPTER VII.
Let us see what can be made out of a walk. It began with a bad number,though one that is generally assumed to be lucky. But, on the presentoccasion, no one felt himself the third; and Walter, and Edith, andLord H----, conversed as freely as if only two had been present. Firstcame a discussion between Edith and her brother as to what path theyshould take; and then they referred it to their companion, and he,with a smile, reminded them that he knew none but that by which he hadcome thither; and so Edith had her own way, and led towards the west.
By dint of labour and taste, aided, in some degree, by accident, notless than fifty acres of ground had been cleared around the house ofMr. Prevost--not partially cleared, with large black stumps of treessticking up in the fields, and assuming every sort of strange form,all hideous; but perfectly and entirely, leaving the ground (some partof which had, indeed, been free of forest when Mr. Prevost firstsettled there) smooth and trim as that of the fair farms of England.The fences, too, were all in good order, and the buildings neat andpicturesque.
Beyond the cultivated ground, as you descended the gentle hill, laythe deep forest, at the distance of about three hundred yards; and atits edge Edith paused, and made her companion turn to see howbeautiful the cottage looked upon its eminence, shaded by gorgeousmaple-trees, in their gold and crimson garb of autumn, with a tallrock or two, grey and mossy, rising up amidst them.
Lord H---- gazed at the house, and saw that it was picturesque andbeautiful--very different, indeed, from any other dwelling he hadbeheld on the western side of the Atlantic; but his eyes expressed anabsent thoughtfulness, and Edith thought he did not admire it halfenough.
Close by the spot where she had stopped appeared the entrance of abroad road, cut, probably, by the Dutch settlers many years before. Itcould not be called good, for it was furrowed and indented with many arut and hollow, and roughened by obtrusive stones and rock; but therewere no stumps of trees upon it, no fallen trunks lying across, which,for a forest road in America, at that time, was rare perfection. Forabout a quarter of a mile it was bordered on each side by tangledthicket, with gigantic pine-trees rising out of an impenetrable massof underwood, in which berries of many a hue supplied the place offlowers. But flowers seem hardly wanting to an American autumn; foralmost every leaf becomes a flower, and the whole forest glows withall the hues of yellow, red, and green, from the soft primrose-colourof the fading white-wood and sycamore, through every tint of orange,scarlet, and crimson on the maple, and of yellow and green on thelarch, the pine, and the hemlock.
"How strange are man's prejudices and prepossessions!" ejaculated LordH----, as they paused to gaze at a spot where a large extent ofwoodland lay open to the eye below them. "We are incredulous ofeverything we have not seen, or to the conception of which we have notbeen led by very near approaches. Had any one shown me, before Ireached these shores, a picture of an autumn scene in America, thoughit had been perfect as a portrait, hue for hue, or even inferior inits striking colouring to the reality, I should have laughed at it asa most extravagant exaggeration. Did not the first autumn you passedhere make you think yourself in fairy-land?"
"No; I was prepared for it," replied Edith; "my father had describedthe autumn scenery to me often before we came."
"Then was he ever in America before he came to settle?" asked hercompanion.
"Yes, once," answered Edith. She spoke in a very grave tone, and thenceased suddenly.
But her brother took the subject up with a boy's frankness,saying--"Did you never hear that my grandfather and my father's sisterboth died in Virginia? He was in command there, and my father cameover just before my birth."
"It is a long story, and a sad one, my lord," interposed Edith, with asigh; "but look now as we mount the hill, how the scene changes. Everystep upon the hill-side gives us a different sort of tree, and thebrush disappears from amidst the trunks. This grove is my favouriteevening seat, where I can read and think under the broad shady boughs,with nothing but beautiful sights around me."
They had reached a spot where, upon the summit of an eminence, numbersof large oaks crested the forest. Wide apart, and taller than theEnglish oak, though not so large in stem, the trees suffered the eyeto wander over the grassy ground, somewhat broken by rock, whichsloped down between hundreds of large bolls to the tops of the lowerforest trees, and thence to a scene of almost matchless beauty beyond.Still slanting downwards with a gentle sweep, the woodlands were seenapproaching the banks of a small lake, about two miles distant, while,beyond the sheet of water, which lay glittering like gold in the clearmorning sunshine, rose up high purple hills, with the shadows of grandclouds floating over them. Around the lake, on every side, were rockypromontories and slanting points of lower land jutting out into thewater; and, where they stood above, they could see all the fairfeatures of the scene itself, and the images of the clouds and skyredoubled by the golden mirror. To give another charm to the spot, andmake ear and eye combine in enjoyment, the voices of distant waterscame upon the breeze, not with a roar exactly, but with rather morethan a murmur, showing that some large river was pouring over a steepnot far away.
"Hark!" ejaculated Lord H----. "Is there a waterfall near?"
"Too far to go to it to-day," answered Edith. "We must economize ourscenes, lest we should exhaust them all before you go, and you shouldthink more than ever that our country wants variety."
"I cannot think so with that prospect before my eyes," replied theyoung nobleman. "Look how it has changed already! The mountain is allin shade, and so is the lake; but those low, wavy, wood-covered hills,which lie between the two, are starting out in the prominence ofsunshine. A truly beautiful scene is full of variety in itself. Everyday changes its aspect, every hour, every season. The light ofmorning, and evening, and mid-day, alters it entirely; and the springand the summer, the autumn and the winter, robe it in different hues.I have often thought that a fair landscape is like a fine mind, inwhich every varying event of life brings forth new beauties."
"Alas, that the mind is not always like the landscape!" exclaimedEdith. "God willed it so, I doubt not, for there is harmony in all Hisworks; but man's will and God's will are not always one."
"Perhaps, after all," said her companion, thoughtfully, "the best wayto keep them in harmony is for man, as much as may be, to recur toNature, which is but an expression of God's will."
"Oh yes!" cried Walter Prevost, eagerly; "I am sure the more we giveourselves up to the factitious and insincere contrivances of what wecall society, the more we alienate ourselves from truth and God."
The young nobleman gazed at him with a smile almost melancholy.
"Very young," he thought, "to come to such sad conclusions. But do younot, my friend Walter," added he aloud, "think there might be such athing as extracting from society all that is good and fine in it, andleaving the chaff and dross for others? The simile of the bee and thepoisonous flower holds good with man. Let us take what is sweet andbeneficial in all we find growing in the world's garden, and rejectall that is worthless, poisonous, and foul. But truly this is anenchanting scene. It wants, methinks, only the figure of an Indianin the foreground. And there comes one, I fancy, to fill up thepicture.--Stay, stay, we shall want no rifles. It is but a womancoming through the trees."
"It is Otaitsa--it is the Blossom!" cried Edith and Walter in abreath, as they looked forward to a spot where, across the yellowsunshine as it streamed through the trees, a female figure, clad inthe gaily-embroidered and brightly-coloured _gakaah_ or petticoat ofthe Indian women, was seen advancing with a rapid yet somewhatdoubtful step.
Without pause or hesitation, Edith sprang forward to meet the newcomer, and, in a moment after, the beautiful arms of the Indian girlwho had sat with Walter in the morning were round the fair form of hissister, and her lips pressed on hers. There was a warmth and eagernessin their meeting, unusual on the part of the red race; but, while theyoung Oneida almost lay upon the bosom of her white friend, herbeautiful dark eyes were turned to
wards her lover, as, with a mixtureof the bashful feelings of youth and the consciousness of havingsomething to conceal, Walter, with a glowing cheek, lingered a step ortwo behind his sister.
"Art thou coming to our lodge, dear Blossom?" asked Edith, and thenadded, "Where is thy father?"
"We both come," answered the girl, in fluent English, with no more ofthe Indian accent than served to give a peculiar softness to hertones. "I wait the Black Eagle here since dawn of day. He has gonetowards the morning, with our father the White Heron; for we heard ofHurons by the side of Corlear, and some thought the hatchet would beunburied; so he journeyed to hear more from our friends by theHoricon, and bade me stay and tell you and our brother Walter toforbear that road if I saw you turn your eyes towards the east wind.He and the White Heron will be by your father's council-fire with thefirst star."
A good deal of this speech was unintelligible to Lord H----, who hadnow approached, and on whom Blossom's eyes were turned with a sort oftimid and inquiring look. But Walter hastened to interpret, saying--
"She means that her father and the missionary, Mr. Gore, have heardthat there are hostile Indians on the shores of Lake Champlain, andhave gone down towards Lake George to inquire; for Black Eagle--thatis her father--is much our friend, and he always fancies that myfather has chosen a dangerous situation here just at the verge of theterritory of the Five Nations, or their Long House, as they call it."
"Well, come to the lodge with us, dear Blossom," said Edith, while herbrother was giving this explanation; "thou knowest my father lovesthee well, and will be glad to have the Blossom with us. Here, too, isan English chief, dwelling with us, who knows not what sweet blossomsgrow on Indian trees."
But the girl shook her head, saying--
"Nay, I must do the father's will. It was with much praying that helet me come hither with him; and he bade me stay here from the whiterock to the stream. So I must obey."
"But it may be dangerous," replied Edith, "if there be Hurons so near;and it is sadly solitary, dear sister."
"Then stay with me for a while," said the girl, who could not affectto deny that her lonely watch was somewhat gloomy.
"I will stay with her, and protect her," cried Walter eagerly; "for,dearest Blossom, should there be danger, my sister must fly to thelodge."
"Yes, stay with her, Walter. Oh, yes, stay with her," ejaculated theunconscious Edith. And so it was settled, for Otaitsa made noopposition, though, with a cheek in which something glowed warmlythrough the brown, and with a lip that curled gently with a meaningsmile, she said--
"Perhaps my brother Walter would be elsewhere? He may find a longwatch wearisome on the hill and in the wood."
Well was it that others were present, or the lips that spoke wouldhave paid for their insincerity. But perhaps the Blossom would nothave so spoken had they been alone; for woman feels a fear ofplayfulness, and knows that it needs a safeguard; while deep passionand pure tenderness seem to have a holy safeguard in themselves, andoften in their very weakness find strength.
"Let us stay awhile ourselves," said Lord H----, seating himself onthe grass, and gazing forth with a look of interest over the prospect:"methinks this is a place where one may well dream away an hour,without the busiest mind reproaching itself for inactivity."
There was no ceremony certainly in his manner, and yet no assumption.Had there been older persons present, women nearer his own age,perhaps the formal decorums of the time might have put upon him a moreceremonious bearing: he might have asked their wishes--waited tillthey were seated--bowed, and assisted them to a commodious spot. ButEdith was so young, that a feeling of her being almost a child wasunconsciously present in his mind--a very dangerous feeling, inasmuchas it put him wholly off his guard; and, acting as plain naturetaught, he cast himself down there to enjoy an hour of pleasantidleness, in a beautiful scene, with one too lovely, too deep-toned inmind--ay, too mature in heart and in body--to be so treated withimpunity.
That hour passed by, and another came and went, while into histhoughts and into his breast's inmost caves were stealing strange newsensations. A dreamy charm was over him, a golden spell around him,more powerful than Circe ever threw, or the Siren ever sung. Oh, theLotus!--he was eating the Lotus, that sweet fruit, the magic taste ofwhich could never be forgotten--which was destined thenceforth and forever to draw him back, with irresistible power, to the spot where itgrew.
Surely that nectareous fruit, which transformed the whole spirit intodesire for itself, was but an image of love, pure and bright, growingwild upon the bank of the sacred river. And the first taste, too, gaveno warning of its power. Thus he was all unconscious of what wascoming over him, but yielded himself calmly to the enjoyment of themoment, and imagined that in the next he could be free again in everythought.
The reader may ask--"Was he thus early in love? Had the impassionedhaste of Italian love--the love of Romeo and Juliet--flown across thewide Atlantic?"
No! I answer, no. But he was yielding himself to thoughts andfeelings, scenes, circumstances, and companionships, which were sureto light it up in his heart--yielding without resistance. He wastasting the Lotus-fruit; and its effects were inevitable.
For two hours the four companions sat there on the hill-side, beneaththe tall shady trees, with the wind breathing softly upon them--thelake glittering before their eyes--the murmur of the waterfall sendingmusic through the air. But to the young Englishman these were butaccessories. The fair face of Edith was before his eyes, the melody ofher voice in his ear.
At length, however, they rose to go, promising to send one of theslaves from the house with food for Walter and Otaitsa at the hour ofnoon; and Lord H---- and his fair companion took their way backtowards the house.
The distance was not very far, but they were somewhat long upon theway. They walked slowly back, and by a different path from that bywhich they went; and often they stopped to admire some pleasant scene;often Lord H---- had to assist his fair companion over some rock, andher soft hand rested in his. He gathered flowers for her--the fringedgentia and other late blossoms; they paused to examine them closely,and comment on their loveliness. Once he made her sit down beside himon a bank, and tell the names of all the different trees; and fromtrees his conversation went on into strange, dreamy, indefinite talkof human things and human hearts.
Thus noon was not far distant when they reached the house; and bothEdith and her companion were very thoughtful.