The pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna a descriptive tale |
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| 19. | CHAPTER XIX. |
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 | CHAPTER XIX. The pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna |  |
19. CHAPTER XIX.
My father's awful ghost appears.”
Gertrude of Wyoming.
For an hour after Louisa Grant was left by
Miss Temple, in the situation already mentioned,
she continued in feverish anxiety, awaiting the
return of her friend. But, as the time passed by
without the re-appearance of Elizabeth, the terrors
of Louisa gradually increased, until her alarmed
fancy had conjured every species of danger that appertained
to the woods, excepting the one that
really existed. The heavens had become obscured,
by degrees, and vast volumes of smoke were pouring
over the valley; but the thoughts of Louisa
were still recurring to beasts, without dreaming of
the real cause for apprehension. She was stationed
in the edge of the low pines and chestnuts
that succeed the first or large growth of the forest,
and directly above the angle where the highway
turned from the straight course to the village
and ascended the mountain, laterally. Consequently
she commanded a view not only of the valley,
but of the road beneath her. The few travellers
that passed, she observed, were engaged in earnest
conversation, and frequently raised their eyes
to the hill, and at length she saw the people leaving
the court-house, and gazing upward also. While
unusual movements, reluctant to go, and yet fearful
to remain, Louisa was startled by the low,
cracking, but cautious treads, of some one approaching
through the bushes. She was on the
eve of flight, when Natty emerged from the cover,
and stood at her side. The old man laughed
as he shook her kindly by a hand that was passive
with fear, and said—
“I am glad to meet you here, child, for the
back of the mountain is a-fire, and it would be
dangerous to go up it now, till it has been burnt
over once, and the dead wood is gone. There's
a foolish man, the comrad of that varmint,
who has given me all this trouble, digging for
ore, on the east side. I told him that the kearless
fellows who thought to catch a practys'd hunter
in the woods after dark, had thrown the lighted
pine knots in the brush, and that 'twould kindle
like tow, and warned him to leave the hill.
But he was set upon his business, and nothing
short of Providence could move him. If he isn't
burnt and buried in a grave of his own digging,
he's made of salamanders. Why, what ails the
child! you look as skeary as if you see'd more
painters! I wish there was some to be found,
they'd count up faster than the beaver. But,
where's the good child of a bad father? did she
forget her promise to the old man?”
“The hill! the hill!” shrieked Louisa; “she
seeks you on the hill, with the powder!”
Natty recoiled for several feet, at this unexpected
intelligence, and exclaimed—
“The Lord of Heaven have mercy on her!
She's on the Vision, and that's a sheet of fire ag'in
this. Child, if ye love the dear one, and hope
to find a friend when you need it most, to the village,
and give the alarm. The men be us'd to
I bid ye fly! nor stop even for breath.”
The Leather-stocking had no sooner uttered
this injunction, than he disappeared in the bushes,
and when last seen by Louisa, was rushing up the
mountain with the activity of youth, and with a
speed that none but those who were accustomed to
the toil could attain.
“Have I found ye!” the old man exclaimed,
when he burst out of the smoke; “God be praised,
that I've found ye; but follow, there is no time
left for talking.”
“My dress!” said Elizabeth; “it would be fatal
to trust myself nearer to the flames in it.”
“I bethought me of your flimsy things,” cried
Natty, throwing loose the folds of a covering of
buckskin that he carried on his arm, and wrapping
her form in it, in such a manner as to envelope
her whole person; “now follow, for it's a matter
of life and death to us all.”
“But John! what will become of John,” cried
Edwards; “can we leave the old warrior here to
perish?”
The eyes of Natty followed the direction of Edwards'
finger, when he beheld the Indian, still
seated as before, with the very earth under his feet
consuming with fire. Without delay, the hunter
approached the spot, and cried in Delaware—
“Up and away, Chingachgook! will ye stay
here to burn, like a tortured Mingo, at the stake!
The Moravians have teached ye better, I hope.
The Lord preserve me if the powder hasn't flashed
a-tween his legs, and the skin of his back is roasting.
Will ye come, I say? will ye follow?”
“Why should Mohegan go?” returned the Indian,
gloomily. “He has seen the days of an
eagle, and his eye grows dim. He looks on the
valley; he looks on the water; he looks in the
Every one has a white skin. My fathers say, from
the far-off land, come. My women, my young
warriors, my tribe, say, come. The Great Spirit
says, come. No—let Mohegan die.”
“But you forget your friend,” cried Edwards.
“'Tis useless to talk to an Indian with the
death-fit on him, lad,” interrupted Natty, who
seized the strips of the blanket, and with wonderful
dexterity strapped the passive chieftain to his
own back; when he turned, and with a strength
that seemed to bid defiance, not only to his years,
but to his load, he led the way to the point
whence he had issued. Even as they crossed the
little terrace of rock, one of the dead trees, that
had been tottering for several minutes, fell on the
spot where they had stood, and filled the air with
its cinders.
Such an event quickened the steps of the party,
who followed the Leather-stocking with the urgency
required by the occasion.
“Tread on the soft ground,” he cried, when
they were in a gloom where sight availed them
but little, “and keep in the white smoke; keep the
skin close on her lad; she's a precious one, I tell
you, sich another will be hard to be found.”
Obedient to the hunter's directions, they followed
his steps and advice implicitly, and although
the narrow passage along the winding of the spring
led amid burning logs and falling branches, yet
they happily achieved it in safety. No one but
a man long accustomed to the woods could have
traced his route through a smoke, in which respiration
was difficult, and sight nearly useless;
but the experience of Natty conducted them to an
opening through the rocks, where, with a little difficulty,
they soon descended to another terrace, and
emerged at once into a tolerably clear atmosphere.
The feelings of Edwards and Elizabeth, at reaching
this spot, may be imagined, though not easily
described. No one seemed to exult more
than their guide, who turned, with Mohegan still
lashed to his back, and laughing in his own manner,
said—
“I know'd 'twas the Frenchman's powder, gal;
it went so altogether like; your coarse grain will
squib for a minute. The Iroquois had none of the
best powder when I went ag'in the Canada tribes,
under Sir William. Did I ever tell you the story,
lad, consarning the skrimmage with”—
“For God's sake, tell me nothing now, Natty,
until we are entirely safe. Where shall we go
next?”
“Why, on the platform of rock over the cave,
to be sure; you will be safe enough there, or
we'll go into it, if you be so minded.”
The young man started, and appeared agitated
with a strong emotion, but looking around him
with an anxious eye, said quickly—
“Shall we be safe on the rock? cannot the fire
reach us there, too?”
“Can't the boy see?” said Natty, with the
coolness of one who was accustomed to the kind
of danger he had just encountered. “Had ye
staid in the place above ten minutes longer, you
would both have been in ashes, but here you may
stay for ever, and no fire can touch you, until they
burn the rocks as well as the woods.”
With this assurance, which was obviously true,
they proceeded to the spot, and Natty deposited
his load, placing the Indian on the ground with
his back against a fragment of the rocks. Elizabeth
sunk on the ground, and buried her face in
her hands, while her heart was swelling with a variety
of conflicting emotions.
“Let me urge you to take a restorative, Miss
frame will sink else.”
“Leave, leave me,” she said, raising her beaming
eyes for a moment to his; “I feel too much
for words! I am grateful, Oliver, for this miraculous
escape; and next to my God to you.”
Edwards withdrew to the edge of the rock, and
shouted—“Benjamin! where are you, Benjamin?”
A hoarse voice replied, as if from the bowels of
the earth, “Here, away, master; stow'd in this
here bit of a hole, which is all the same as hot as the
cook's coppers. I'm tired of my birth d'ye see, and
if-so-be that Leather-stocking has got much overhauling
to do before he sails after them said beaver,
I'll go into dock again, and ride out my
quarantine 'till I can get prottick from the law,
and so hold on upon the rest of my 'spaniolas.”
“Bring up a glass of water from the spring,”
continued Edwards, “and throw a little wine in
it; hasten, I entreat you.”
“I knows but little of your small drink, master
Oliver,” returned the steward, his voice issuing
out of the cave into the open air, “and the Jamaiky
held out no longer than to take a parting
kiss with Billy Kirby, when he anchored me
alongside the highway last night, where you run
me down in the chase. But here's sum'mat of a
red colour that may suit a weak stomach, mayhap.
That master Kirby is no first rate in a boat, but
he'll tack a cart among the stumps, all the same
as a Lon'on pilot will back and fill through the
colliers in the Pool.”
As the steward ascended while talking, by the
time he had ended his speech, he appeared on the
rock, with the desired restoratives, exhibiting the
worn out and bloated features of a man who had
run deep in a debauch, and that lately.
Elizabeth took from the hand of Edwards the
liquor which he offered, and then motioned to be
left again to herself.
The youth turned at her bidding, and observed
Natty kindly assiduous around the person of Mohegan.
When their eyes met, the hunter said
sorrowfully—
“His time has come, lad; I see it in his eye;
—when an Indian fixes his eye, he means to go
but to one place; and what the wilful creaters
put their minds on, they're sure to do.”
A quick tread diverted the reply of the youth,
and in a few moments, to the amazement of the
whole party, Mr. Grant was seen clinging to the
side of the mountain, and striving to reach the
place where they stood. Oliver sprang to his
assistance, and by their united efforts, the worthy
divine was soon placed safely among them.
“How came you added to our number?” cried
Edwards; “Is the hill alive with people, at a
time like this?”
The hasty, but pious thanksgivings of the clergyman
were soon ejaculated; and when he succeeded
in collecting his bewildered senses, he replied—
“I heard that my child was seen coming to the
mountain; and when the fire broke over its summit,
my uneasiness drew me up the road, where
I found Louisa, in terror for Miss Temple. It
was to seek her that I came into this dangerous
place; and I think but for God's mercy, through
the dogs of Natty, I should have perished in the
flames myself.”
“Ay! follow the hounds, and if there's an
opening they'll scent it out,” said Natty; “their
noses be given to them the same as man's reason.”
“I did so, and they led me to this place; but,
well.”
“No, no,” returned the hunter; “safe we be,
but as for well, John can't be called in a good
way, unless you'll say that for a man that's taking
his last look at the 'arth.”
“He speaks the truth!” said the divine, with
the holy awe with which he ever approached the
dying;—“I have been by too many death-beds,
not to see that the hand of the tyrant is laid on this
old warrior. Oh! how consoling it is, to know that
he has not rejected the offered mercy, in the hour
of his strength and of worldly temptations! The
offspring of a race of heathens, he has in truth been
`as a brand plucked from the burning.' ”
“No, no,” returned Natty, who alone stood
with him by the side of the dying warrior, “it's
no burning that ails him, though his Indian feelings
made him scorn to move, unless it be the
burning of man's wicked thoughts for near fourscore
years; but it's nater giving out in a chase that's
run too long.—Down with ye, Hector! down, I
say!—Flesh isn't iron, that a man can live for
ever, and see his kith and kin driven to a far
country, and he left to mourn, with none to keep
him company.”
“John,” said the divine, tenderly, “do you
hear me? do you wish the prayers appointed by
the church, at this trying moment?”
The Indian turned his ghastly face to the speaker,
and fastened his dark eyes on him, steadily,
but vacantly. No sign of recognition was made;
and in a moment he moved his head again slowly
towards the vale, and begun to sing, using his
own language, in those low, guttural tones, that
have been so often mentioned, his notes rising
with his theme, till they swelled to fulness, if not
to harmony:—
“I will come! I will come! to the land of the
just I will come! No Delaware fears his end; no
Mohican shrinks from death; for the Great Spirit
calls, and he goes. My father I have honoured;
I have cherished my mother; to my tribe
I've been faithful and true. The Maquas I have
slain!—I have slain the Maquas! and the Great
Spirit calls to his son. I will come! I will come!
to the land of the just I will come!”
“What says he, Leather-stocking?” inquired
the priest, with tender interest; “sings he the Redeemer's
praise?”
“No, no—'tis his own praise that he speaks
now,” said Natty, turning in a melancholy manner
from the sight of his dying friend; “and a
good right he has to say it all, for I know every
word of it to be true.”
“May Heaven avert such self-righteousness
from his heart!” exclaimed the divine. “Humility
and penitence are the seals of christianity; and
without feeling them deeply seated in the soul,
all hope is delusive, and leads to vain expectations.
Praise himself! when his whole soul and
body should unite to praise his Maker! John!
you have enjoyed the blessing of a gospel ministry,
and have been called from out a multitude
of sinners and pagans, and, I trust, for a wise and
gracious purpose. Do you now feel what it is to
be justified by your Saviour's death, and reject
all weak and idle dependence on good works,
that spring from man's pride and vain-glory?”
The Indian did not regard his interrogator, but
he raised his head again, and said, in a low,
distinct voice—
“Who can say that the Maquas know the back
of Mohegan! What enemy that trusted in him did
not see the morning? What Mingo that he chased
ever sung the song of triumph? Did Mohegan ever
could come out of him. In his youth, he was a
warrior, and his moccasins left the stain of blood. In
his age, he was wise; and his words at the council
fire did not blow away with the winds.”
“Ah! he has abandoned that vain relic of paganism,
his songs,” cried the good divine;—
“what says he now? is he sensible of his lost state?”
“Lord! man,” said Natty, “he knows his ind
is at hand as well as you or I, but, so far from
thinking it a loss to him, he believes it to be a
great gain. He is now old and stiff, and you've
made the game so scearce and shy, that better shots
than him find it hard to get a livelihood. Now
he thinks he shall travel where it will always
be good hunting; where no wicked or unjust Indians
can go; and where he shall meet all his
tribe together ag'in. There's not much loss in
that, to a man whose hands be hardly fit for basket-making.
Loss! if there be any loss, 'twill
be to me. I'm sure, after he's gone, there will be
but little left for me to do but to follow.”
“His example and end, which, I humbly trust,
shall yet be made glorious,” returned Mr. Grant,
“should lead your mind to dwell on the things of
another life. But I feel it to be my duty to smooth
the way for the parting spirit. This is the moment,
John, when the reflection that you did not
reject the mediation of the Redeemer, will bring
balm to your soul. Trust not to any act of former
days, but lay the burthen of your sins at his
feet, and you have his own blessed assurance that
he will not desert you.”
“Though all you say be true, and you have
scripter gospels for it, too,” said Natty, “you
will make nothing of the Indian. He hasn't
seen a Moravian priest sin' the war; and it's hard
to keep them from going back to their native
the old man pass in peace. He's happy now; I
know it by his eye; and that's more than I would
say for the chief, sin' the time the Delawares broke
up from the head-waters of their river, and went
west. Ahs! me! 'tis a grievous long time that,
and many dark days have we both seen together,
sin' it.”
“Hawk-eye!” said Mohegan, rousing with the
last glimmering of life. “Hawk-eye! listen to
the words of your brother.”
“Yes, John,” said the hunter, in English,
strongly affected by the appeal, and drawing to
his side; “we have been brothers; and more so
than it means in the Indian tongue. What would
ye have with me, Chingachgook?”
“Hawk-eye! my fathers call me to the happy
hunting-grounds. The path is clear, and the
eyes of Mohegan grow young. I look—but I
see no white-skins; there are none to be seen but
just and brave Indians. Farewell, Hawk-eye—
you shall go with the Fire-eater and the Young
Eagle, to the white man's heaven; but I go after
my fathers. Let the bow, and tomahawk, and
pipe, and the wampum, of Mohegan, be laid
in his grave; for when he starts 'twill be in the
night, like a warrior on a war-party, and he cannot
stop to seek them.”
“What says he, Nathaniel?” cried Mr. Grant,
earnestly, and with obvious anxiety; “does he
recall the promises of the mediation? and trust
his salvation to the Rock of ages?”
Although the faith of the hunter was by no
means clear, yet the fruits of early instruction had
not entirely fallen in the wilderness. He believed
in one God, and in one heaven; and when
the strong feeling excited by the leave-taking of
his old companion, which was exhibited by the
beaten face, suffered him to speak, he replied—
“No—no—he trusts only to the Great Spirit
of the savages, and to his own good deeds. He
thinks, like all his people, that he is to be young
ag'in, and to hunt, and be happy to the ind of
etarnity. It's pretty much the same with all colours,
parson. I could never bring myself to
think that I shall meet with these hounds, or my
piece, in another world; though the thoughts of
leaving them for ever, sometimes brings hard feelings
over me, and makes me cling to life with a
greater craving than beseems three-score-and-ten.”
“The Lord in his mercy, avert such a death
from one who has been sealed with the sign of
the cross!” cried the minister, in holy fervour.
“John—”
He paused; for the scene, and the elements;
seemed to conspire to oppress the powers of humanity.
During the period occupied by the
events which we have related, the dark clouds in
the horizon had continued to increase in numbers
and magnitude; and the awful stillness that now
pervaded the air, announced a crisis in the state
of the atmosphere. The flames, which yet continued
to rage along the sides of the mountain,
no longer whirled in the uncertain currents of
their own eddies, but blazed high and steadily
towards the heavens. There was even a
quietude in the ravages of the destructive element,
as if it foresaw that a hand, greater than
even its own desolating power, was about to stay
its progress. The piles of smoke which lay above
the valley began to rise, and were dispelling rapidly;
and streaks of vivid lightning were dancing
through the masses of clouds that impended
over the western hills. While Mr. Grant
was speaking, a flash, which sent its quivering
opposite horizon, was followed by a loud crash
of thunder, that rolled away among the hills,
seeming to shake the foundations of the earth to
their centre. Mohegan raised himself, as if in
obedience to a signal for his departure, and
stretched forth his wasted arm towards the west.
His dark face lighted with a look of joy; which,
with all other expression, gradually disappeared;
the muscles stiffening as they retreated to a state
of rest; a slight convulsion played, for a single
instant, about his lips; and his arm slowly dropped,
rigid and motionless, by his side; leaving
the frame of the dead warrior reposing against the
rock, with its glassy eyes open, and fixed on the
distant hills, as if the deserted shell were tracing
the flight of the spirit to its new abode.
All this Mr. Grant witnessed, in silent awe;
but when the last echoes of the thunder died
away, he clasped his hands together, with pious
energy, and repeated, in the full rich tones of assured
faith—
“O Lord! how unsearchable are thy judgments:
aud thy ways past finding out! `I know
that my Redeemer liveth, aud that he shall stand
at the latter day upon the earth: And though after
my skin, worms destroy this body, yet
in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.'
”
As the divine closed this burst of devotion, he
bowed his head meekly to his bosom, and looked
all the dependence and humility that the inspired
language expressed.
When Mr. Grant retired from the body, the hunter
approached, and taking the rigid hand of his
friend, looked him wistfully in the face for some
time without speaking; when he gave vent to his
who felt deeply—
“Red skin, or white, it's all over now! He's
to be judged by a righteous Judge, and by no
laws that's made to suit times, and new ways.
Well, there's only one more death, and the world
will be left to me and the hounds. Ahs! me! a
man must wait the time of God's pleasure, but I
begin to weary of my life. There is scearcely a tree
standing that I know, and it's hard to find a face
that I was acquainted with in my younger days.”
Large drops of rain began now to fall, and
diffuse themselves over the dry rock, while the approach
of the thunder shower was rapid and certain.
The body of the Indian was hastily removed
into the cave beneath, followed by the
whining hounds, who missed, and moaned for, the
look of intelligence that had always met their salutations
to the chief.
Edwards made some hasty and confused excuse
for not taking Elizabeth into the same place,
which was now completely closed in front with
logs and bark, saying something that she hardly
understood about its darkness, and the unpleasantness
of being with the dead body. Miss Temple,
however, found a sufficient shelter against the
torrent of rain that fell, under the projection of a
rock which overhung them. But long before the
shower was over, the sounds of voices were heard
below them, crying aloud for Elizabeth, and men
soon appeared, beating the dying embers of the
bushes, as they worked their way cautiously
among the unextinguished brands.
At the first short cessation in the rain, Oliver
conducted the heiress to the road, where he left
her. Before parting, however, he found time to
say, in a fervent manner, that his companion was
now at no loss to interpret—
“The moment of concealment is over, Miss
Temple. By this time to-marrow, I shall remove
a veil that perhaps it has been weakness to keep
around me and my affairs so long. But I have
had romantic and foolish wishes and weaknesses;
and who has not, that is young and torn by conflicting
passions! God bless you! I hear your
father's voice; he is coming up the road, and I
would not, just now, subject myself to detention.
Thank Heaven, you are safe again, and that alone
removes the weight of a world from my spirit!”
He waited for no answer, but sprung into the
woods. Elizabeth, notwithstanding she heard
the piercing cries of her father as he called upon
her name, paused until he was concealed among
the smoking trees, when she turned, and in a moment
rushed into the arms of her half-distracted
parent.
A carriage had been provided, to remove her
body, living or dead as Heaven had directed her fate,
into which Miss Temple hastily entered; when
the cry was passed along the hill, that the lost one
was found, and the people returned to the village,
wet and dirty, but elated with the thought that
the daughter of their landlord had escaped from so
horrid and untimely an end.
| CHAPTER XIX. The pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna | |