 | CHAPTER XVI. The prairie |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
Therefore, I pray you, stay not to discourse,
But mount you presently;—”
Shakspeare.
An hour had slid by, in hasty and nearly incoherent
questions and answers, before Middleton, hanging
over his recovered treasure with that sort of jealous
watchfulness with which a miser would regard his
hoards, closed the disjointed narrative of his own
proceedings by demanding—
“And you, my Inez; in what manner were you
treated?”
“In every thing, but the great injustice they did
in separating me so forcibly from my friends, as well
perhaps as the circumstances of my captors would
allow. I think the man, who is certainly the master
here, is but a new beginner in wickedness. He quarrelled
frightfully in my presence, with the wretch
who seized me, and then they made an impious bargain,
to which I was compelled to acquiesce, and to
which they bound me as well as themselves by oaths.
Ah! Middleton, I fear the heretics are not so heedful
of their vows as we who are nurtured in the
bosom of the true church!”
“Believe it not; these villains are of no religion;
did they forswear themselves?”
“No, not perjured: but was it not awful to call
upon the good God to witness so sinful a compact?”
“And so we think, Inez, as truly as the most virtuous
cardinal of Rome. But how did they observe
their oath, and what was its purport?”
“They conditioned to leave me unmolested, and
free from their odious presence, provided I would
give a pledge to make no effort to escape; and that
masters saw fit to name.”
“And that time?” demanded the impatient Middleton,
who so well knew the religious scruples of
his wife—“That time?”
“It is already passed. I was sworn by my patron
saint, and faithfully did I keep the vow, until the man
they call Ishmael forgot the terms by offering violence.
I then made my appearance on the rock,
for the time too was passed; though I even think
father Ignatius would have absolved me from the
vow, on account of the treachery of my keepers.”
“If he had not,” muttered the youth between his
compressed teeth, “I would have absolved him forever
from his spiritual care of your conscience!”
“You, Middleton!” returned his wife looking up
into his flushed face, while a bright blush suffused
her own sweet countenance; “you may receive my
vows, but surely you can have no power to absolve
me from their observance!”
“No, no, no. Inez, you are right. I know but
little of these conscientious subtilties, and I am any
thing but a priest: yet tell me, what has induced
these monsters to play this desperate game—to trifle
thus with my happiness?”
“You know my ignorance of the world, and how
ill I am qualified to furnish reasons for the conduct
of beings so different from any I have ever seen before.
But does not love of money drive men to acts
even worse than this? I believe they thought that
an aged and wealthy father could be tempted to pay
them a rich ransom for his child; and, perhaps,” she
added, stealing an inquiring glance, through her
tears, at the attentive Middleton, “they counted
something on the fresh affections of a bridegroom.”
“They might have extracted the blood from my
heart, drop by drop!”
“Yes,” resumed his young and timid wife, instantly
hurriedly pursuing the train of the discourse, as if
glad to make him forget the liberty she had just taken,
“I have been told, there are men so base as to
perjure themselves at the altar, in order to command
the gold of ignorant and confiding girls; and if love
of money will lead to such baseness, we may surely
expect it will hurry those, who devote themselves to
gain, into acts of lesser fraud.”
“It must be so; and now Inez, though I am here
to guard you with my life, and we are in possession
of this rock, our difficulties, perhaps our dangers
are not ended. You will summon all your courage
to meet the trial and prove yourself a soldier's wife,
my Inez?”
“I am ready to depart this instant. The letter,
you sent by the physician, had prepared me to hope
for the best, and I have every thing arranged for flight,
at the shortest warning.”
“Let us then leave this place and join our friends.”
“Friends!” interrupted Inez, glancing her eyes
around the little tent in quest of the form of Ellen.
“I, too, have a friend who must not be forgotten,
but who is pledged to pass the remainder of her life
with us. She is gone!”
Middleton gently led her from the spot, as he
smilingly answered—
“She may have had, like myself, her own private
communications for some favoured ear.”
The young man had not however done justice to
the motives of Ellen Wade. The sensitive and intelligent
girl had readily perceived how little her
presence was necessary in the interview that has
just been related, and had retired with that intuitive
delicacy of feeling which seems to belong more properly
to her sex. She was now to be seen seated on a
point of the rock, with her person so entirely enveloped
in her dress as entirely to conceal her features.
to address her, and as it appeared to her
own quick and jealous eyes, totally unobserved. In
the latter particular, however, even the vigilance of
the quick-sighted Ellen was deceived.
The first act of Paul Hover, on finding himself the
master of Ishmael's citadel, had been to sound the
note of victory, after the quaint and ludicrous manner
that is so often practised among the borderers of
the West. Flapping his sides with his hands, as the
conquering game-cock is wont to do with his wings,
he raised a loud and laughable imitation of the exultation
of this bird; a cry which might have proved
a dangerous challenge had any one of the athletic
sons of the squatter been within hearing.
“This has been a regular knock-down and dragout,”
he cried, “and no bones broke! How now,
old trapper, you have been one of your training,
platoon, rank and file soldiers in your day, and have
seen forts taken and batteries stormed before this—
am I right?”
“Ay, ay, that have I,” answered the old man, who
still maintained his post at the foot of the rock, so
little disturbed by what he had just witnessed, as to
return the grin of Paul, with a hearty indulgence in
his own silent and peculiar laughter; “you have
gone through the exploit like men!”
“Now tell me, is it not in rule, to call over the
names of the living, and to bury the dead, after every
bloody battle?”
“Some did and other some didn't. When Sir
William push'd the German, Dieskau, thro' the defiles
at the foot of the Hori—”
“Your Sir William was a drone to Sir Paul, and
knew nothing of regularity. So here begins the roll-call—by-the-bye
old man, what between bee-hunting
and buffaloe humps and certain other matters, I have
been too busy to ask your name, for I intend to begin
front is too busy to answer.”
“Lord, lad, I've been called in my time by as
many names as there are people among whom I've
dwelt. Now, the Delawares nam'd me for my eyes,
and I was called after the far-sighted hawk. Then,
ag'in, the settlers in the Otsego hills christened me
anew, from the fashion of my leggings; and various
have been the names by which I have gone through
life; but little will it matter when the time shall
come, that all are to be muster'd, face to face, by
what titles a mortal has played his part! I humbly
trust I shall be able to answer to any of mine in a
loud and manly voice.”
Paul paid little or no attention to this reply, more
than half of which was lost in the distance, but pursuing
the humour of the moment, he called out in a
stentorian voice to the naturalist to answer to his
name. Dr. Battius had not thought it necessary to
push his success beyond the comfortable niche, which
accident had so opportunely formed for his protection,
and in which he now reposed from his labours
with a pleasing consciousness of security, added to
great exultation at the possession of the botanical
treasure, already mentioned.
“Mount, mount, my worthy mole-catcher! come
and behold the prospect of skirting Ishmael; come
and look nature boldly in the face, and not go sneaking
any longer, among the prairie grass and mullein
tops, like a gobbler nibbling for grasshoppers.”
The mouth of the light-hearted and reckless bee-hunter
was instantly closed, and he was rendered as
mute, as he had just been boisterous and talkative,
by the appearance of Ellen Wade. When the melancholy
maiden took her seat on the point of the
rock as mentioned, Paul affected to employ himself
in conducting a close inspection of the household
effects of the squatter. He rummaged the drawers
finery of her girls on the ground, without the
least deference to its quality or elegance, and tossed
her pots and kettles here and there, as though they
had been vessels of wood instead of iron. All this
industry was however manifestly without an object.
He reserved nothing for himself, not even appearing
to be conscious of the nature of the articles which
suffered by his familiarity. When he had examined
the inside of every cabin, taken a fresh survey of the
spot where he had confined the children, and where
he had thoroughly secured them with cords, and
kicked one of the pails of the woman, like a football,
fifty feet into the air, in sheer wantonness, he
returned to the edge of the rock, and thrusting both
his hands through his wampum belt, he began to
whistle the `Kentucky Hunters' as diligently as if
he had been hired to supply his auditors with music
by the hour. In this manner passed the remainder
of the time, until Middleton, as has been related, led
Inez forth from the tent, and gave a new direction to
the thoughts of the whole party. He summoned
Paul from his flourish of music, tore the Doctor
from the study of his plant, and, as acknowledged
leader, gave the necessary orders for their immediate
departure.
In the bustle and confusion that were likely to succeed
such a mandate, there was little opportunity to
indulge in complaints or reflections. As the adventurers
had not come unprepared for victory, each individual
employed himself in such offices as was
best adapted to his strength and situation. The trapper
had already made himself master of the patient
Asinus, who was quietly feeding at no great distance
from the rock, and he was now busy in fitting his
back with the complicated machinery that Dr. Battius
saw fit to term a saddle of his own invention
herbals, and collection of insects, which he quickly
transferred from the encampment of the squatter to
certain pockets in the aforesaid ingenious invention,
and which the trapper as uniformly cast away the
moment his back was turned. Paul shewed his dexterity
in removing such light articles as Inez and
Ellen had prepared for their flight to the foot of the
citadel, while Middleton, after mingling threats and
promises, in order to induce the children to remain
quietly in their bondage, assisted the females to descend.
As time began to press upon them, and there
was great danger of Ishmael's returning, these several
movements were made with singular industry and
despatch.
The trapper bestowed such articles as he conceived
were necessary to the comfort of the weaker and
more delicate members of the party in those pockets,
from which he had so unceremoniously expelled
the treasures of the unconscious naturalist, and then
gave way for Middleton to place Inez in one of those
seats, which he had prepared on the back of the
animal for her and her companion.
“Go, child,” the old man said, motioning to Ellen
to follow the example of the lady, and turning his
head a little anxiously to examine the waste behind
him. “It cannot be long afore the owner of this
place will be coming to look after his household;
and he is not a man to give up his property, however
obtained, without complaint!”
“It is true,” cried Middleton; “we have wasted
moments that are precious, and have the utmost
need of all our industry.”
“Ay, ay, I thought it; and would have said it,
captain; but I remembered how your grand'ther
used to love to look upon the face of her he led
away for a wife, in the days of his youth and his
give way a little before its feelings, than to try to
stop a current that will have its course.”
Ellen advanced to the side of the beast, and seizing
Inez by the hand, she said, with heart-felt
warmth, after struggling to suppress an emotion that
nearly choked her—
“God bless you, sweet lady! I hope you will forget
and forgive the wrongs you have received from
my uncle—”
The humbled and sorrowful girl could say no
more, her voice becoming entirely inaudible in an
ungovernable burst of grief.
“How is this?” cried Middleton; “did you not
say, Inez, that this excellent young woman was to
accompany us, and to live with us for the remainder
of her life; or, at least, until she found some more
agreeable residence for herself?”
“I did; and I still hope it. She has always given
me reason to believe, that after having shown so
much commiseration and friendship in my misery,
she would not desert me, should happier times return.”
“I cannot—I ought not,” continued Ellen, getting
the better of her momentary weakness. “It has
pleased God to cast my lot among these people, and
I ought not to quit them. It would be adding the
appearance of treachery to what will already seem
bad enough, with one of his opinions. He has been
kind to me, an orphan, after his rough customs, and
I cannot steal from him at such a moment.”
“She is just as much a relation of skirting Ishmael,
as I am a bishop!” said Paul, with a loud hem,
as if his throat wanted clearing. “If the old fellow
has done the honest thing by her in giving her a morsel
of venison, now and then, or a spoon around his
homminy dish, hasn't she pay'd him in teaching the
young devils to read their bible, or in helping old
Tell me that a drone has a sting, and I'll believe you
as easily as I will that this young woman is a debtor
to any of the tribe of Bush!”
“It is but little matter who owes me, or where I
am in debt. There are none to care for a girl who
is fatherless and motherless, and whose nearest kin
are the offcasts of all honest people. No, no; go,
lady, and Heaven for ever bless you! I am better
here, in this desert, where there are none to know
my shame.”
“Now, old trapper,” retorted Paul, “this is what
I call knowing which way the wind blows! You ar'
a man that has seen life, and you know something of
fashions; I put it to your judgment, plainly, isn't it
in the nature of things for the hive to swarm when
the young get their growth, and if children will quit
their parents, ought one who is of no kith nor kin—”
“Hist!” interrupted the man he addressed, “Hector
is discontented. Say it out, plainly, pup; what
is it dog—what is it?”
The venerable hound had risen, and was scenting
the fresh breeze which continued to sweep heavily
over the prairie. At the words of his master he
growled and contracted the muscles of his lips, as if
half disposed to threaten with the remnants of his
teeth. The younger dog, who was resting after the
chace of the morning, also made some signs that his
nose detected a taint in the air, and then the two
resumed their slumbers, as though they had done
enough.
The trapper seized the bridle of the ass and cried,
as he urged the beast onward—
“There is no time for words. The squatter an
his brood are within a mile or two of this blessed
spot.”
Middleton lost all recollection of Ellen, in the
danger which now so imminently beset his recovered
did not wait for a second admonition to commence
his retreat.
Following the route indicated by the old man,
they turned the rock in a body, and pursued their
way as fast as possible across the prairie, under the
favour of the cover the light afforded.
Paul Hover, however, remained in his tracks, sullenly
leaning on his rifle. Near a minute had elapsed
before he was observed by Ellen, who had buried
her face in her hands, as if to conceal her fancied
desolation from herself.
“Why do you not fly?” the weeping girl exclaimed,
the instant she perceived that she was not alone.
“I'm not used to it.”
“My uncle will soon be here! you have nothing
to hope from his pity.”
“Nor from that of his niece, I reckon. Let him
come; he can only knock me on the head.”
“Paul, Paul, if you love me, fly.”
“Alone!—if I do may I be—.”
“If you value your life, fly!”
“I value it not, compared to you.”
“Paul!”
“Ellen!”
She extended both her hands and burst into another
and a still more violent flood of tears. The
bee-hunter put one of his sturdy arms around her
thin waist, and in another moment he was urging
her over the plain, in rapid pursuit of their flying
friends.
| CHAPTER XVI. The prairie | |