 | CHAPTER SECOND.
YOCONOK. Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon |  |
2. CHAPTER SECOND.
YOCONOK.
Within the farm-house the details of a strangely interesting picture,
lighted by the warmth of a capacious hearth, await us.
Yet ere we enter, we must go back to the hour of sunset, and gaze upon
a far different scene.
The rays of the setting sun, streaming through the thick pines, gave
their faint and uncertain light to a lonely nook in the forest of Wissahikon.
It was a circular space, not more than twenty yards in diameter. The
trunks of pine and fir trees, starting side by side from the sod, formed an
impenetrable wall around it; their branches, meeting overhead and woven
together, shadowed it like a roof. It is a silent place, enlivened only by
a ray of light—that streams over the frozen snow like a golden thread,
and is gone ere you can look again.
The deep green of the branches forms a strong contrast to the slight
mantle of snow, which has drifted into this lonely nook.
Yonder, between those two huge trunks, you discern something, which
may be the resting-place of a man, and yet looks like the lair of a wild
beast.
This lair or hut, whatever you may choose to call it, is formed after the
simplest style of architecture. The trunks of those trees supply the place
of door-posts; the skins of wild beasts stretched from branch to branch,
compose the roof; some wild moss scattered on the sod beneath, at once
the bed and floor of the rude home.
Beside that hut, or lair, stands a rifle, with a stock of dark mahogany
inlaid with silver.
In the centre of the scene, seated on the trunk of that fallen tree—
blasted last summer by the lightning—you behold the figure of a Man.
A Man, though his dark-red visage wears the wrinkles of an hundred
years. A single tuft of snow-white hair waves from the centre of his
skull. A blanket, much worn and tattered, falls back from his shoulders
and discloses the shrunken outlines of that once broad and sinewy chest.
His thin limbs are cased in leather leggings, and he wears moccasins on
his long, straight feet.
The downcast head, sunken on the chest in an attitude of stolid apathy,
at once arrests our attention. The high cheek-bones, the nose curved
like an eagle's beak, the bold arch of the brow, the forehead lofty in proportion
to its width, all indicate an organization once full of physical and
mental power.
But age has fallen on that noble head and iron form. The deep wrinkles
on either side of the compressed lips, the cavernous hollow beneath
each cheek-bone, the muscles of the neck, resembling cords of iron, all
speak of that stern life, whose sands have been falling for an hundred
years. Those sands are well-nigh run. A little while, and those dark
eyes, now glaring with vacant despair upon the sod, will be darkened forever
by the shadow of the falling clod.
It is an Indian that we behold. One hundred years ago he was born,
in this very forest, the child of a King. Seventy years gone by, he strode
this soil, and looked, with a quivering pulse, upon the forms of his dusky
warriors. His wigwam was here; here his squaw, with the brown cheek
and sad, deep eyes, and his child, encased in its rude cradle, quivered in
its slumber upon yonder tree.
They are all gone now. His race has passed; they are forgotten by
the strange white race, who now people the woods, and rear their stone
wigwams on the plain.
Of all his race, he is the Last.
Think of the powerful People, who walked these woods an hundred
years ago—the smoke of their wigwams rising from every dell, the gleam
of their many-colored wampum belts seen from every hill-top—and then
behold this stern image of their Destiny—
—An old man, withered by the long winter of an hundred years, seated
alone in the silent forest, suffering at once from intense hunger and cold,
and dying by inches!—
Go to the white man's home, and beg for bread! The old Indian is
too proud for that, even though no morsel has passed his lips for two
days. He will die—Hark! you hear that low murmur from his thin,
cold lips?
It is the Death-Song of Yoconok, the last of his tribe.
He will die,—alone,—desolate as the winter which howls around him—
but die proud and uncomplaining.
“Ghosts of my fathers, hear my voice, for it is your child, it is Yoconok
that calls!
“The old man is cold—no corn, no fire! But he is coming, Fathers
of the Red Men—he is coming to the happy hunting-grounds, he is
coming to the land of Manitto! He is cold now, but soon he will be
warmed by the sun that never shines upon winter or snow! He is
hungry, the old warrior, but there, the deer wander without ceasing,
through woods whose greenness never dies!
“You are there, my fathers. Yoconok sees you, as you stand upon the
high mountain, which guards the happy hunting-grounds. The sunlight
is upon your faces. The smoke of the calumet encircles your heads.
Yoconok sees you all—he is coming! There, the squaw of Yoconok,
there his child—his People—all! Ghosts of my fathers, sing the song of
the war-path, for Yoconok is coming to the happy land, where the sun
never sets, and the leaf never dies!”
Thus, in our imperfect way, have we endeavored to translate the stern
and simple death-song of the old Indian chief. When he spoke in the
tongue of the pale face, his words were few and grotesque, but in his
own tongue, the language of his fathers, Yoconok was eloquent. Look
upon him now, with that glassy eye brightening into new life, that chest
throbbing with quick pulsations, that brow raised proudly in the wandering
gleam of the setting sun!
Fired with that last impulse of life, he started to his feet and seized the
rifle, and stood erect, with his chest thrown forward, as if in the act of
confronting a mortal foe. His eye was lighted with fire of forty years
ago, his nostrils quivered with a quick nervous motion.
“Yoconok is on the war-path once more! Let the foe come—the old
warrior is young again—he knows no fear!”
It was a glorious picture in the history of the Red Man; that solitary
nook, walled and roofed by trees, mantled with a slight covering of snow,
with the dying warrior erect in the centre, his chest bared, his arm raised
in the act of battle.
But it was only for a moment. The impulse died away, and the old
warrior sank helpless and exhausted upon the blasted tree. The rifle was
in his grasp, but his arm was nerveless, his sight dim and fast failing.
As he sank upon the log, the blanket falling from his shoulders, he
murmured in his Indian tongue —
“She was the only friend of the old warrior, but she comes to the wigwam
no more. The White Doe dwells in the home of the pale face.
When Yoconok was sick, the White Doe came—when he was cold, she
built his fire—her hands fed him, when the old man could go forth on the
hunting-path no more. But Yoconok is dying, and the White Doe comes
not. The warrior is forgotten; the home of the pale face has fire and
water. The wigwam of Yoconok is dark!”
Chilled by the intense cold, fevered by the want of food, the old warrior
sank exhausted and insensible on the log. His eyes were glassy;
his arms hung nerveless by his side.
There was a step upon the snowy moss—a light, soft-echoing step, like
the rustling of a withered leaf. From an interval between the trees, toward
the west, the form of a woman appeared, and a woman's face looked
in upon the gloom of the lonely covert.
A wandering ray of sunlight shone over her brown hair, and gleamed
upon her humble garb, as she stood, with her hands raised in a gesture of
surprise and alarm.
She was a girl of not more than eighteen years, clad in the boddice and
coarse linsey skirt, which formed the costume of a peasant woman, in the
early days of Pennsylvania. Yet that boddice displayed the outline of a
full bosom, and from beneath that coarse skirt appeared two small feet
encased in rude moccasins.
From the folds of the brown cloak, which hung from her shoulders,
her round bare arms were visible, with a glimpse of the white neck and
fairer bosom rising slowly into view.
“Yoconok!” she cried, and, springing along the sod, stood over the insensible
chief.
The sunlight, gushing suddenly through an opening in the boughs,
lighted up her face, while her form and the figure of the old man were
wrapt in soft shadow.
In that sudden light, which played over her brown cheeks, and shone
upon the unbound masses of her chesnut hair, the face of the young girl
looked like the countenance of a virgin saint, encircled in a glory.
“Yoconok!” she cried, in the Indian tongue, “awake! the White
Doe is here—she has not forgotten you! She brings you food—ah!”
she exclaimed, in English, “he does not hear me, he is dead—”
Her voice seemed to call back to the old warrior's heart, the last impulse
of life. His glassy eyes glowed with faint lustre; his motionless
lips were unclosed again.
“Good!” he muttered in English, with a deep guttural accent—“Madlin'—White
Doe—Good!”
It would have made your heart beat quicker, to behold the angel-like
tenderness of that brown-cheeked maiden.
“You are cold, Yoconok”— and she pressed his chilled hands to her
beside him, she drew some corn bread from the small basket which she
carried on her arm, but the old man could not eat.
“The fire-water!” he cried, clutching her cloak, as he pointed to his
throat. “Yoconok is dry—Yoconok has not drank for two days—”
“I have forgotten the flask!” she exclaimed, as she tossed the contents
of the basket on the ground—“The fire-water is not good for the Red
Man. It burns his heart, and puts the Evil Manitto in his veins! Wait,
Yoconok—I will bring you water from the Wissahikon—”
As she whispered these words in the Indian tongue, bending her lips to
his ear, a quick, pattering sound broke the deep silence of the shadowy
nook.
The young girl raised her eyes and stood spell-bound with surprise.
There, not ten paces from where she stood, a wild deer was gazing in
her face, with its large eyes dilating as in wonder and alarm. It was a
beautiful doe, with sleek brown skin and slender and tapering limbs.
The maiden stood like a statue; the gloom shadowed her from the view
of the cautious animal, while the sunlight fell like a scarf of gold over its
quivering nostrils and dilating eyes.
At once the brave girl's resolution was taken.
“The old warrior has told me many a time, that the warm blood from
the neck of a dying doe, will save the life of the sick and starving.”
The doe gazed for a moment around the covert, with that peculiar
glance of fear and alarm—its short ears quivering all the while—and then,
stooping her head, began to browse the soft and fragrant moss, which
started from the intervals of the snow.
Even as the doe lowered her head, the young girl raised the rifle.
Her bosom heaved tremulously; it seemed a terrible sin to kill that
gentle thing, which fed so innocently before her eyes.
Again the doe raised her head, again elevated her ears and gazed
around, and all the while the rifle, lifted in the soft arms of the young
girl, was levelled at her breast.
Her aim was not the most certain in the world, yet as she raised the
rifle she murmured—“It is for Yoconok's life!” and placed her finger
on the trigger.
At this moment the sunlight, shifting, played more freely over the
beautiful head and graceful limbs of the doe. She stood encircled by
light, while all around was twilight gloom.
“For Yoconok's life!” murmured the girl, her finger placed upon the
trigger, when a sharp, quick, almost imperceptible sound echoed from the
opposite side of the forest. As quick as thought, Madeline turned, and
her blood grew cold.
For, glaring from the shadow of a pine branch which touched the ground
two brilliant points of flame sent their rays to her very breast.
These brilliant points of flame, were the eyes of a female panther
which, crouching on the snow, was about to spring upon the unconscious
deer.
The young girl saw that crouching form, darkly defined on the snow-covered
sod.
I need not tell you that her heart beat quickly, that her color went
and came, while the rifle was grasped by arms, that seemed suddenly
frozen into stone.
She could not stir; terror held her paralyzed and dumb. A moment
fled! Still those fiery eyes glared from the covert; still, on the opposite
side, in the sunlight browsed the unconscious doe, raising every moment
her mild eyes into the sun—glancing round—and then stooping her head
to feed again.
“The doe must die, or else Yoconok's life is gone! If I kill the doe,
the panther will spring upon me—if I turn the rifle upon the panther, the
doe will escape!”
Thus ran her wandering thoughts; but at once she was resolved upon
her course of action. While her bosom heaved in gasps, while the hands
which grasped the rifle, seemed chilled in every vein, with the ice of death,
she still had the presence of mind to retain her statue-like position.
Again the doe raised her head. It was for the last time. For even as
her large mild eyes glittered in that passing ray of sunshine, a whizzing
sound disturbed the dead silence—a dark body swept through the air, before
the very eyes of the maiden—and the doe lay mangled upon the sod,
its warm blood spouting over the panther's jaws.
The maiden beheld it all. Saw the fur of the wild beast glow sleek
and glossy in the sun, as, with a deep growl, she mangled the neck of the
quivering deer.
The rifle was raised. Hush! That sharp, quick report; how it
crashes on the silence!
Woe to the young girl now, woe to her, if her trembling aim has failed
to kill. For then, the jaws of the panther, which tore the palpitating
heart of the doe, will rend the bosom of the maiden, and grow crimson
with her blood.
She drew the trigger, and fell swooning on the ground.
But the sound of the rifle called the old warrior back to life. As we
gaze, in dumb surprise, he raises his head, starting into a sitting posture.
At a glance he beholds the dying doe, with the blood smoking as it pours
from the mangled throat. He does not heed the panther, which writhes
upon the sod, its skull cloven by the fortunate ball.
But tottering forward, he falls upon the sod, gathers the warm body of
the doe in his arms, and applies his lips to the wound in the throat.
He drinks the blood—aye, pure and fresh, as it pours from the palpitating
heart of the deer—he drinks the crimson current, with a mad delight.
“Ugh! Yoconok is a warrior! Yoconok will follow his foe on the
war path and drink his blood!”
It was some time before the young girl unclosed her eyes. Starting
from her swoon, Madeline saw that dark night had fallen upon the woods,
but the light of a cheerful flame shone in her face, and baptized those
giant trunks, the green canopy overhead, with a crimson glow.
She passed her hands over her eyes, and glanced hurriedly from side
to side. Before her, in the centre of the covert, a mass of ponderous
logs were blazing, their heat imparting a delicious temperature to the air
of the place, while by her side, crouched upon the sod, his face glowing
in the ruddy light, was Yoconok.
In one hand he held the calumet, from which he inhaled the peace-inspiring
fumes of tobacco; in the other a piece of peeled hickory, which,
inserted in a slice of venison, held the savory morsel over the hot coals.
There was a calm expression—a look of deep quiet, and dreamy composure—upon
each corded wrinkle of Yoconok's withered face.
When Madeline awoke, she discovered that her head was resting on
the Indian's knee. He had built the fire, and, like a kind nurse watching
over a sleeping babe—placed her head upon his knee, so that the full
light of the fire would shine into her face. In silence he guarded her
unconscious form.
“Ugh! White Doe is good”— he said in English, as she unclosed
her eyes—“White Doe kill deer. Blood save Yoconok life. Manitto
told the White Doe, old man hungry, old man dying. White Doe came,
Yoconok strong!”
With his fingers he tore the half-broiled venison, and devoured it with
all the eagerness of famine.
Madeline rose, and placed her hand upon the Indian's shoulder, and
stood in silence. The light of the fire streamed over her, and you might
freely read the expression of her face, and gaze upon each waving outline
of her form.
Around that face, whose rich brown hue deepened into vermilion on
the full lips and swelling cheek, swept the unbound masses of her brown
hair. Her eyes were large and shaded by long lashes. Their color was
a soft brown, darkening sometimes into black, but always brilliant and
sparkling as the stars that come forth in the purple of the twilight hour.
She was by no means tall, but that which her form lacked in height,
was supplied by its full and flowing outlines.
Her shoulders are seen above the coarse boddice, and like a wave that
swells without breaking, her young bosom comes gently into view.
The skirt of coarse texture which descended but a short distance below
the knee, gave some indications, by its folds, of the warm beauty of the
maiden's shape. Her cloak had fallen aside, and her arms glowed with
the clear hues and round outlines, in the light of the fire.
Altogether, a picture more interesting in its varied details cannot be imagined.
That fire, flashing over the bark of the encircling trees, and
lighting up the dark green branches above. The snow blushing into
crimson. Here the old Indian, a stern image of decay, seated on the
earth, his arms clasped on his knees, the smoke of the pipe winding
about his wrinkled features; there, a young girl clad in peasant attire,
yet with a ripening bloom glowing freshly from her brown face, and
waving in the outlines of her virgin form.
“You must forgive me, Yoconok”—she laid her hand upon the old
warrior's arm—“For two days I have not seen you. But I have not
been myself for two days. I have been wild—mad! There is a dark
cloud upon the path of your White Doe.”
As she spoke sadly in the dialect of the Indian, he inclined his head to
one side and listened in evident anxiety.
“Does the old man hear the voice of the child—or does the White
Doe speak the language of Dreams?”
Madeline crouched on the earth by his side, and clasping her hands
over her form, murmured with a faltering voice—
“Yoconok is my only friend. For years his words have been life to
the poor orphan girl. She comes to him now. She, who never saw the
face of father or mother, who has lived all her life, by the fire of the
stranger, in dependence on others, now comes to the old man for counsel.
—Tell me, father, what I must do, or I will die!”
Her cheek was flushed, her bosom panting; she looked very beautiful,
with her large eyes veiled in moisture. The old chief turned; something
like affection shone in his lustreless eyeballs, as he placed her soft palm
in his bony fingers.
“Shall the White Doe become the squaw of Gilbert the Hunter, the
Man who dwells in the forest, or of this Stranger, who comes from the
cities of the pale face, and has no name?”
“Yes—that is the question I would ask of you—three days since,
before I fell sick, I told you the whole story—”
“The heart of the White Doe inclines to Gilbert, the Man of the
Forest, but her soul wanders against her will to the Stranger who has
no name?”
“Yes”—faltered Madeline—“Yes—that is it! I love Gilbert; we
were children together; I have always loved him. But this stranger,
who, a month ago, appeared for the first time in our farm-house—ah!
His eye deprives me of all power; his voice fills me with a wild terror!
Wherever I move, I see him—at night he is in my dreams! I fear him, and
yet an unknown power draws me toward him, and makes me—No!
No! Not love him! For I fear him too much. I cannot gaze into his
eye without a shudder!”
The old warrior did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the fire, the
her agitation Madeline had not so much addressed the Chief, as involuntarily
shaped her thoughts in words. Wondering at the continued silence
of Yoconok, she laid her hand lightly upon his arm—it was cold as ice.
With a shudder she looked into his face—the eyes were glassy.
“Yoconok! Speak to your child! Do not leave me alone, in the cold,
dark world!”
He spoke not, but a faint light, like the last ray of the expiring taper,
glanced from his motionless eyeballs. She flung herself upon him,
girded his gaunt form in her bared arms, and pressed her downy cheek
against his withered face. Cold the form, cold the cheek, cold as the ice
upon the Wissahikon.
“He is dead!” The wild shriek of Madeline rung through the woods
—“Mine only friend! The blood of the dying deer only called him
back to life for a moment—he is dead, gone to the land where his fathers
dwell, and without one parting word to his child!”
She was an orphan, one of those wandering children of God, whom
no one calls, Child! Alone in the world! Those words are full of
meaning, but to the orphan they speak in tones of horrible emphasis. To
the orphan they mean poverty and neglect, temptation and despair.
But she was not yet altogether alone. A few muttered words quivered
from the cold lips of the dying Indian. With the last gleam of life
playing over his motionless balls, he spoke—
“Fear this Stranger! as the Manitto of Evil fear him! Do not
put your trust in Gilbert. He is brave, he is true, but hands that he cannot
see, guide him on to a deed of falsehood and blood. Fear the stranger
—do not trust Gilbert—but dread the old man, whose roof gives you
shelter, dread him worse than hunger—cold—or death!”
With these words,—spoken not as we have written them, but in an Indian
dialect, which compresses a hundred separate ideas in a sentence,
—the old Chief, who had once grasped the hand of William Penn, lay
on the snow, as cold as the wind which swept his tawny cheeks, as motionless
as the great trunks which encircled the scene, rising in the fire-light,
like the unhewn pillars of a pagan temple.
Madeline was alone.
The same cheerful glow, which lighted up her young face, shone over
the mangled deer, and revealed the cold features of the dead Indian.
The woods were very still. Now and then, a gust of wind howled,
like a war-blast, down some midnight ravine, and again, every sound
save the crackling of the wild-wood fire died away, in an unearthly
stillness.
Her arms clasped, her beautiful profile cut distinctly on the dark background,
her large lustrous eye, her warm nether lip tinted by the fire, she
stood in an attitude of deep sorrow, gazing into the face of the corse.
As the old man died, he had folded his arms, and knit his brows; he
looked stern and unrelenting, even as a corse; there was a warrior's defiance
upon his red visage.
“He was my only friend! True, the old man at the Farm-House
gave me food and shelter, since the hour when I was discovered in these
woods—a poor, forsaken babe. But Yoconok was my friend; to him I
brought my sorrows, of him I asked advice. While he lived, I felt that
I was not alone! Now it is changed! This cold winter night is not
more desolate than the fate of the poor Orphan Girl!”
Beside the fire she knelt, and raised her eyes, and spread forth her
hands, and through the canopy of overarching pines, looked up to—God.
O, how softly, over her brown face, that expression of child-like Faith
stole, like a veil of light!
A step aroused her from her prayer—a hand was laid upon her shoulder
—with a half-uttered cry of fear, she sprang to her feet.
“The Wizard! The Ghost-seer!” she cried, clasping her hands to
her breast, with an accent and a gesture of shuddering fear.
“Nay, maiden, do not fear me. Old Isaac harms no one. He is but
a Watcher, in this dreary world. The Lord hath told him, “Watch
and I will come to thee;” and lo! Isaac watches evermore, seeking
the knowledge of the Life which is Eternal! Dost fear the old man,
maiden?”
In the light of the fire, stood a stunted figure, not more than five feet
in height, the chest narrow, the back bent, as if with years, the veins
swelling black and distinct on the pale face and dead-white hands.
That face—sunken on the breast—was marked by deep wrinkles, which
traversed the cheeks and brow, and added to the spiritual look of those
blue eyes, which seemed not so much to shine, as to burn, beneath the
white eyebrows. From a small cap of black cloth, which covered the
head of the stranger, long locks of straight hair fell like snow-flakes, and
waved in white masses, in the light of the fire.
He was clad after the costume of the olden time. A dark coat, much
faded and worn, with buttons of polished metal; a vest with white lappels,
descending half-way to the knees; black stockings, which fell in wrinkles
around the sunken limbs, and large shoes, glittering with silver
buckles.
This was the costume of the old man, whose form indicated extreme
old age, or premature decrepitude, while his blue eyes and white hair,
gave an almost hallowed look to his wrinkled face.
And yet the maiden shrunk from that withered form, with her hands
clasped on her bosom, and felt her blood grow chill, as she encountered
the glance of those mild blue eyes.
“Do not fear me, maiden. I am an old man—a poor withered frame
—and a brain, eaten by much toil, and the labors of long and dreary winters.
and this aged Indian: indeed I saw him gasp his last, as I was about to
come to his aid.—I will secure Christian burial for his corse.”—
“Do not—do not touch him!” cried Madeline, rushing forward, as the
hands of the old man were placed upon the arms of the dead Indian—
“For the sake of God, do not place your hands upon him. For they
say”—a shudder pervaded her form—“they say, that you”—
“What do they speak ill of me?” asked the old man, raising his mild
eyes—“Of me! A poor old withered man, who lives apart from the great
world, and cares not for its idle uproar, nor for its petty joys?”
“They say, that you have sold yourself to the Enemy of Mankind,”—
gasped Madeline, her eyes enchained, against her will, to the tranquil
glance of the stranger.
“Is that all?” and a smile stole over his wrinkled face—“Never heed
such fire-side gossip, my good girl. Now mark me—I will take the dead
body of your friend—will have it conveyed to my house on the other
side of the Wissahikon, near the Schuylkill—and bury it, with all the
rites of Christian burial.—Does that look like the act of one who is sold
to the Devil?”
“But let Yoconok rest among his woods and trees. What need of a
cold graveyard for him? Let him be buried among his pines, where the
Song of the Wissahikon will cheer his slumber, and a granite rock will
pillow his head.”—
The Maiden, in her earnestness, advanced and laid her hand upon the
“Wizard's” shoulder.
“Yoconok shall go with me!” he calmly said. “He has no friends;
I will be his friend, after he is dead. Hah! What is this I see?”
With a sudden gesture he seized the white hand, which rested on his
shoulder, and—his blue eyes dilating until they seemed fired with madness—turned
the palm towards the fire:
“No Bridal ring shall ever cross this hand! No child shall ever bless
your sight! I read it, in the lustre of your eye, which is lighted with
the fire of a changeless Destiny! Alas! Alas! I pity and I rejoice! Dishonor
and a Sudden Death will soon be yours!”
“It is false!” gasped Madeline, her cheek pale as marble—“In the
name of God, who loves us all, I defy your Master, who only hates and
cannot love!”
She covered her face, and stood with her head bowed, near the fire.
The old man gazed upon her trembling form with a look of overwhelming
compassion, which was soon displaced by an expression of singular
triumph. There was an unnatural joy in his parting lips, his eyes sparkling
with light, his face flushed with crimson.
Not a word was spoken; a silence, unbroken by a whisper, deepened
the interest of the scene.
“Pity me!” cried Madeline, as she raised her eyes—“Do not doom
me to an early death, and of all deaths,—ah! I dare not speak it!”
Isaac did not answer; still the mingled expression of triumph and
pity agitated his aged features.
“Come hither, Black David,” said Isaac the Wizard, turning toward the
darker recesses of the covert—“Take this body and bear it to my house.
Dost hear?”
From the shadows advanced a form, which Madeline—already appalled
by the words of the old man—beheld with indescribable fear.
It was a miserable wreck of humanity, not more than four feet in
height, with the crooked limbs trembling beneath the huge body, the
back rising in a shapeless hump, and the long, unnatural, we had almost
said, horse-like face, resting on the breast, and hidden beneath a shaggy
mass of straight black hair.
“Y-e-e-s, Master! I'se here! What wouldst do with 'un?”
From that mass of hair, two large eyes shot a strange unnatural gleam,
as the fire, rising in a sudden flame, tinted with strong light, the grotesque
points of this deformed figure.
He was clad in a coarse garb, a kind of mantle, wrapping the deep
chest and the protuberant hump, with the arms appearing from its folds,
covered with loose sleeves of dark cloth. His straight black hair, falling
in tangled masses, formed the only covering for his head.
Strange to say, the hands were small, white and delicate, presenting a
strong contrast to the chaotic physical vigor of the deformed man.
“Take the body of Yoconok—dost hear me? I would give him Christian
burial. Bear it to my mansion. I will reward you. Go!”
Madeline for a moment seemed deprived of all power of motion or
speech. All the wild legends which she had heard, concerning the old
man, Isaac the Wizard, and his Familiar Spirit, Black David, crowded on
her brain; she felt a creeping awe pervade her veins and pale her cheek.
In this pale-faced old man, she beheld a Servant of the Evil one; in
the poor wretch, whose physical deformity was at once hideous and pitiable,
she saw an Incarnate Demon.
Such was the Superstition of the olden time, when every old woman,
not remarkable for personal beauty, was burned as a Witch, and old men,
not regular in attendance at Meeting, and somewhat given to burning candles
late at night, were choked to death, as Wizards.—
“Do not touch him! He was my friend!”
Madeline started forward, and laid her hand upon the arm of the
wizard. A faint smile was visible on the old man's face; he regarded
for a moment her countenance, glowing with an intensity of fear, and
then taking her arm gently within his own, led her from the fire.
“Come,” he said, “the wood is dark, the way lonely. I will wait
upon you to the farm-house door. Come—never fear me! They tell
linked with me, in an infernal compact! Come—there is more wizard craft
in those black eyes of thine, than in all my lore.—Remember, David!”
He led the trembling girl—who looked up into his face with something
of reverence for his age, more of fear for his supernatural character,
manifested in her gaze—he led her into the shadows of the covert, and
the light streamed over the mangled deer, the dead chieftain, and the deformed
man.
Through the meshes of his tangled hair, he gazed after the old man
and the maiden, and then, like a beast on its haunches, crouched beside
the fire, his white hands supporting his cheeks, while his elbows rested
on his knees.
The hair was swept aside from his face, and his features appeared
distinctly, in the ruddy fire-light.
It must be confessed that the face was hideous, and its unnatural length,
the manner in which it seemed to rest directly on the chest, made the
resemblance which it bore to the head of a horse, more palpable and
repulsive.
The brow was heavy; the nose long and thin, the mouth small, the
chin round and full; the eyes deep-set and full of intense light. Such
was the general character of that face, with the hair falling in thick
straight masses on either side; but the sudden glow of the fire made the
cheek-bones seem unnaturally prominent, the hollow beneath more deep
and cavernous, and gave the brow a bolder outline, the lips a more decided
scorn, the eyes a wilder light.
He crouched by the fire, his distorted form darkly defined against the
snow-mantled earth. The pine-branches above bent slowly to the
winter blast, and the massy trees around, glowed from black into crimson.
Spreading forth his hands, which looked as white and delicate as the
marble hands of a sculptured Venus, he seemed absorbed in his own
wandering thoughts.
He spoke; the echo of his voice broke the deep silence, with a startling
emphasis, and yet that voice was soft, thrilling and musical, as the
tones of a beautiful woman.
“Three hundred years—it is a wilderness of strange memories!” thus
he murmured, without the slightest indication of ignorance or vulgarity in
his manner or his language—“In truth, it is a long while to—look back!
There was the bluff Harry, renowned for the number of his wives, and
the establishment of the Reformation. Pale-faced Edward, too young
to be criminal; Lady Grey, who passed from the throne to the block;
Mary called Bloody, and Elizabeth called Virgin; James the Pedant;
Charles the Martyr and Charles the Libertine—all are gone long ago.
Dust and ashes, despite their fine linen and royal blood. Yet I see
them all again, see them as plainly as when—Tut! Tut!”
He glanced around the covert, with his deep-set eyes kindling in a
more vivid light:
“They may hear me—call me Madman—ho! ho! Then to the
prison or the scaffold with the old dotard! Three hundred years! A
great while to live, but wearisome, very, very wearisome! To see one
century whirling along, bubbling and frothing just like the others, and
only bubbling and frothing with a more pitiful uproar as it goes down in
the great abyss, called Time Past, which has swallowed up the Dead
Ages! I am weary of it all, and”—
The body of the Indian Chief, resting stiff and motionless in the
warmth of the fire, met his gaze.
“He sleeps well! But as for me”—
And as he bent his face nearer to the fire, and clasped his white hands,
as in a gesture of supplication, it might be seen that there were tears in
the eyes of the Deformed Maniac.
| CHAPTER SECOND.
YOCONOK. Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon | |