 | CHAPTER XV. The prairie |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
Wrest once the law, to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong.”
Shakspeare.
Ishmael awaited long and patiently for the motley
train of Hard-Heart to disappear. When his scout
reported that the last straggler of the Indians, who
had joined their chief so soon as he was at such a
by their numbers, had gone behind the most
distant swell of the prairie, he gave forth the order
to strike his tents. The cattle were already in the
gears, and the moveables were soon transferred to
their usual places in the different vehicles. When
all these arrangements were completed, the little
wagon, which had so long been the tenement of Inez,
was drawn before the tent, into which the insensible
body of the kidnapper had been borne, and preparations
were evidently made for the reception of
another prisoner. Then it was, as Abiram appeared,
pale, terrified, and tottering beneath a load of detected
guilt, that the younger members of the family
were first apprized that he still belonged to the class
of the living. A general and superstitious impression
had spread among them that his crime had been visited
by a terrible retribution from Heaven, and they
now gazed at him, as at a being who belonged rather
to another world, than as a mortal, who like themselves
had still to endure the last agony, before the
great link of human existence could be broken.
The criminal himself appeared to be in a state in
which the most sensitive and startling terror was
singularly combined with total physical apathy. The
truth was, that while his person had been numbed
by the shock, his susceptibility to apprehension kept
his agitated mind in unrelieved distress. When he
found himself in the open air, he looked about him,
in order to gather, if possible, some evidences of his
future fate from the countenances of those who were
gathered round. Seeing every where grave but
composed features, and meeting in no eye any expression
that threatened immediate violence, the
miserable man began to revive, and, by the time he
was seated in the wagon, his artful faculties were beginning
to plot the expedients of parrying the just
resentment of his kinsmen, or, if these should fail
his forebodings told him would be terrible.
Throughout the whole of these preparations Ishmael
had rarely spoken. A gesture, or a glance of
the eye, had served to indicate his pleasure to his
sons, and with these simple methods of communication,
all parties appeared perfectly content. When
the signal was made to proceed, the squatter threw
his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and his axe across
his shoulder, taking the lead as usual. Esther had
buried herself in the wagon which contained her
daughters; the young men took their customary
places among the cattle, or nigh the teams, and the
whole proceeded, at their ordinary, dull, but unremitted
gait.
For the first time in many a day, the squatter turned
his back towards the setting sun. The route he
held was in the direction of the settled country,
and the manner in which he moved sufficed to tell
his children, who had learned to read their father's
determinations in his mien, that their journey on the
prairie was shortly to have an end. Still nothing
else transpired for hours, that might denote the existence
of any sudden or violent revolution in the
purposes or feelings of Ishmael. During all that
time he marched alone, keeping a few hundred rods
in front of his teams, seldom giving any sign of extraordinary
excitement. Once or twice, indeed, his huge
figure was seen standing on the summit of some distant
swell, with the head bent towards the earth, as
he leaned on his rifle; but then these moments of
intense thought were rare and of short continuance.
The train had long thrown its shadows towards the
east before any material alteration was made in the
disposition of their march. Water-courses were
waded, plains were passed, and rolling ascents risen
and descended, without producing the smallest
change. Long practised in the difficulties of that
the squatter avoided the more impracticable
obstacles of their route by a sort of instinct, invariably
inclining to the right or left in season, as the
formation of the land, the presence of trees, or the
signs of rivers forewarned him of the necessity of
such movements.
At length the hour arrived when charity to man
and beast required a temporary suspension of labour.
Ishmael chose the required spot with all his customary
sagacity. The regular formation of the country, such
as it has been described in the earlier pages of our
book, had long been interrupted by a more unequal
and broken surface. There were, it is true, in general,
the same wide and empty wastes, the same rich
and extensive bottoms, and that wild and singular
combination of swelling fields and of nakedness,
which gives that region the appearance of an ancient
country, incomprehensibly stripped of its people and
their dwellings. But these distinguishing features of
the rolling prairies had long been interrupted by
irregular hillocks, occasional masses of rock, and
broad belts of forest.
Ishmael chose a spring, that broke out of the base
of a rock some forty or fifty feet in elevation, as a
place well suited to the wants of his herds. The
water moistened a small swale that lay beneath the
spot, which yielded, in return for the fecund gift a
scanty growth of grass. A solitary willow had taken
root in the alluvion, and profiting by its exclusive
possession of the soil, the tree had sent up its stem
far above the crest of the adjacent rock, whose peaked
summit had once been shadowed by its branches.
But its loveliness had gone with the mysterious principle
of life. As if in mockery of the meagre show
of verdure that the spot exhibited, it remained a
noble and solemn monument of former fertility. The
larger, ragged and fantsatic branches still obtruded
stood naked and tempest-riven. Not a leaf, nor a
sign of vegetation was to be seen about it. In all
things it proclaimed the frailty of existence and the
fulfilment of time.
Here Ishmael, after making the customary signal
for the train to approach, threw his vast frame upon
the earth, and seemed to muse on the deep responsibility
of his present situation. His sons were not
long in arriving, for the cattle no sooner scented the
food and water than they quickened their pace, and
then succeeded the usual bustle and avocations of a
halt.
The impression made by the scene of that morning
was not so deep or lasting on the children of Ishmael
and Esther, as to induce them to forget the wants of
nature. But while the sons were searching among
their stores, for something substantial to appease their
hunger, and the younger fry were wrangling about
their simple dishes, the parents of the unnurtured
family were far differently employed.
When the squatter saw that all, even to the reviving
Abiram, were busy in administering to their
appetites, he gave his downcast partner a glance of
his eye, and withdrew towards a distant roll of the
land, which bounded the view towards the east. The
meeting of the pair, in this naked spot, was like an
interview held above the grave of their murdered
son. Ishmael signed to his wife to take a seat beside
him on a fragment of rock, and then followed a space,
during which neither seemed disposed to speak.
“We have journeyed together long, through good
and bad,” Ishmael at length commenced; “much
have we had to try us, and some bitter cups have we
been made to swallow, my woman; but nothing like
this has ever before lain in my path.”
“It is a heavy cross for a poor, misguided, and
sinful woman to bear!” returned Esther, bowing her
her dress. “A heavy and a burdensome weight is this
to be laid upon the shoulders of a sister and a
mother!”
“Ay; therein lies the hardship of the case. I had
brought my mind to the punishment of that houseless
trapper, with no great strivings, for the man had done
me few favours, and God forgive me if I suspected
him wrongfully of much evil! This is, however,
bringing shame in at one door of my cabin, in order
to drive it out at the other. But shall a son of mine
be murdered, and he who did it go at large?—the
boy would never rest!”
“Oh, Ishmael, we pushed the matter far! Had
little been said, who would have been the wiser?
Our consciences might then have been quiet.”
“Eest'er,” said the husband, turning on her a reproachful
but still a dull regard, “the hour has been,
my woman, when you thought another hand had done
this wickedness?”
“I did, I did! the Lord gave me the feeling, as a
punishment for my sins! but his mercy was not slow
in lifting the veil; I looked into the book, Ishmael,
and there I found the words of comfort.”
“Have you that book at hand, woman; it may
happen to advise in such a dreary business.”
Esther fumbled in her pocket and was not long in
producing the fragment of a bible, which had been
thumbed and smoke-dried till the print was nearly
illegible. It was the only article, in the nature of a
book, that was to be found among the chattels of the
squatter, and it had been preserved by his wife, as a
melancholy relic of more prosperous, and possibly
of more innocent days. She had long been in the
habit of resorting to it, under the pressure of such
circumstances as were palpably beyond human redress,
though her spirit and resolution rarely needed
support under those that admitted of reparation
this manner Esther had made a sort of convenient
ally of the word of God; rarely troubling it for counsel,
however, except when her own incompetency
to avert an evil was too apparent to be disputed. We
shall leave casuists to determine how far she resembled
any other believers in this particular, and proceed
directly with the matter before us.
“There are many awful passages in these pages,
Ishmael,” she said, when the volume was opened,
and the leaves were slowly turning under her finger,
“and some there ar' that teach the rules of punishment.”
Her husband made a gesture for her to find one of
those brief rules of conduct, which have been received
among all Christian nations as the direct mandates
of the Creator, and which have been found so just,
that even they, who deny their high authority, admit
their wisdom. Ishmael listened with grave attention,
as his companion read all those verses, which her
memory suggested, and which were thought applicable
to the situation in which they found themselves.
He made her show him the words, which he regarded
with a sort of strange reverence. A resolution
once taken was usually irrevocable, in one who was
moved with so much difficulty. He put his hand
upon the book, and closed the pages himself, as much
as to apprize his wife that he was satisfied. Esther,
who so well knew his character, trembled at the
action, and casting a glance at his steady but contracting
eye, she said—
“And yet, Ishmael, my blood, and the blood of my
children, is in his veins! cannot mercy be shown?”
“Woman,” he answered sternly, “when we believed,
that miserable old trapper had done this deed,
nothing was said of mercy!”
Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon
her breast, she sat silent and thoughtful for many minutes.
upon the countenance, of her husband, where she
found all passion and care apparently buried in the
coldest apathy. Satisfied now, that the fate of her
brother was sealed, and possibly conscious how well
he merited the punishment that was meditated, she
no longer thought of mediation. No more words
passed between them. Their eyes met for an instant,
and then both arose and walked in profound silence
towards the encampment.
The squatter found his children expecting his return,
in the usual listless manner with which they
awaited all coming events. The cattle were already
herded, and the horses in their gears, in readiness to
proceed so soon as he should indicate that such was
his pleasure. The children were already in their
proper vehicle, and, in short, nothing delayed the departure
but the absence of the parents of the wild
brood.
“Abner,” said the father, with the deliberation
with which all his proceedings were characterized,
“take the brother of your mother from the wagon,
and let him stand on the 'arth.”
Abiram issued from his place of concealment,
trembling, it is true, but far from destitute of hopes,
as to his final success in appeasing the just resentment
of his kinsman. After throwing a glance around
him, with the vain wish of finding a single countenance
in which he might detect a solitary gleam of
sympathy, he endeavoured to smother those apprehensions,
that were by this time reviving in all their
original violence, by forcing a sort of friendly communication
between himself and the squatter—
“The beasts are getting jaded, brother,” he said;
“and as we have made so good a march already, is
it not time to 'camp. To my eye you may go far,
before a better place than this is found to pass the
night in.”
“ 'Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar' likely
to be long. My sons, draw nigh and listen. Abiram
White,” he added, lifting his cap, and speaking with
a solemnity and steadiness, that rendered even his
dull mien imposing, “you have slain my first-born,
and according to the laws of God and man must you
die!”
The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden
sentence, with the terror that one would exhibit who
unexpectedly found himself in the grasp of a monster,
from whose power there was no retreat. Although
filled with the most serious forebodings of
what might be his lot, his courage had not been equal
to look his danger in the face, and with the deceitful
consolation, with which timid tempers are apt to
conceal their desperate condition from themselves, he
had rather courted a treacherous relief in his cunning,
than prepared himself for the worst.
“Die!” he repeated in a voice, that scarcely issued
from his chest; “a man is surely safe among his
friends!”
“So thought my boy,” returned the squatter, motioning
for the team, that contained his wife and the
girls, to proceed, as he very coolly examined the
priming of his piece. “By the rifle did you destroy
my son, and it is fit and just that you meet your end
by the same weapon.”
Abiram stared about him with a gaze that, for the
moment, bespoke an unsettled reason. He even
laughed, as if he would not only persuade himself
but others that what he heard was some pleasantry,
intended to try his nerves. But no where did his
frightful merriment meet with an answering echo.
All around was solemn and still. The visages of his
nephews were excited, but cold towards him, and
that of his former confederate frightfully determined.
This very steadiness of mien was a thousand times
more alarming and hopeless than any violence could
his spirit and awakened resistance, but the former
threw him entirely on the feeble resources of himself.
“Brother,” he said, in a hurried, unnatural whisper,
“did I hear you?”
“My words are plain, Abiram White; you have
done murder, and for the same must you die!”
“Where is Esther? sister, sister, will you leave
me! Oh! Sister! do you hear my call?”
“I hear one speak from the grave!” returned the
husky tones of Esther, as the wagon passed the spot
where the criminal stood. “It is the voice of my
first-born, calling aloud for justice! God have mercy,
God have mercy on your soul!”
The team slowly pursued its route, and the deserted
Abiram now found himself deprived of the
smallest vestige of hope. Still he could not summon
fortitude to meet his death, and had not his limbs refused
to aid him, he would yet have attempted to fly.
Then, by a sudden revolution from hope to utter
despair, he fell upon his knees, and commenced a
prayer, in which cries for mercy to God and to his
kinsman were wildly and blasphemously mingled.
The sons of Ishmael turned away in horror at the
disgusting spectacle, and even the stern nature of the
squatter began to bend before such abject misery.
“May that, which you ask of Him, be granted,”
he said; but a father can never forget a murdered
child.”
He was answered by the most humble appeals for
time. A week, a day, an hour, were each implored,
with an earnestness commensurate to the value they
receive, when a whole life is compressed into their
short duration. The squatter was troubled, and at
length he yielded in part to the petitions of the criminal.
His final purpose was not altered, though he
changed the means; “Abner,” he said, “mount the
none are nigh.”
While his nephew was obeying this order, gleams
of reviving hope were seen shooting across the quivering
features of the kidnapper. The report was
favourable, nothing having life, the retiring teams excepted,
was to be seen. A messenger was, however,
coming from the latter, in great apparent haste. Ishmael
awaited its arrival. He received from the hands
of one of his wondering and frighted girls a fragment
of that book, which Esther had preserved with so
much care. The squatter beckoned the child away,
and placed the leaves in the hands of the criminal.
“Eest'er has sent you this,” he said, “that, in your
last moments, you may remember God.”
“Bless her, bless her! a good and kind sister has
she been to me! But time must be given, that I may
read; time, my brother, time!”
“Time shall not be wanting. You shall be your
own executioner, and this miserable office shall pass
away from my hands.”
Ishmael proceeded to put his new resolution in
force. The immediate apprehensions of the kidnapper
were quieted, by an assurance that he might
yet live for days, though his punishment was inevitable.
A reprieve, to one as abject and wretched as
Abiram, temporarily produced the same effects as a
pardon. He was even foremost in assisting in the
appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that
solemn tragedy, his voice alone was facetious and
jocular.
A thin shelf of the rock projected beneath one of
the ragged arms of the willow. It was many feet
from the ground, and admirably adapted to the
purpose which, in fact, its appearance had suggested.
On this little platform was the criminal
placed, his arms bound at the elbows behind his
back, beyond the possibility of liberation, with a
tree. The latter was so placed, that when suspended
the body could find no foot-hold. The fragment of
the bible was placed in his hands, and he was there
left to seek his consolation as he might from its
pages.
“And now, Abiram White,” said the squatter,
when his sons had descended from completing this
arrangement, “I give you a last and solemn asking.
Death is before you in two shapes. With this rifle
can your misery be cut short, or by that cord, sooner
or later, must you meet your end.”
“Let me yet live! Oh, Ishmael, you know not
how sweet life is, when the last moment draws so
nigh!”
“ 'Tis done;” said the squatter motioning for his
assistants to follow the herds and teams. “And now,
miserable man, that it may prove a consolation to
your end, I forgive you my wrongs and leave you to
your God.”
Ishmael then turned and pursued his way across
the plain at his ordinary sluggish and ponderous gait.
Though his head was bent a little towards the earth,
his inactive mind did not prompt him to cast a
look behind. Once, indeed, he thought he heard his
name called, in tones that were a little smothered,
but they failed to make him pause.
At the spot where he and Esther had conferred
he reached the boundary of the visible horizon from
the rock. Here he stopped, and ventured a glance
in the direction of the place he had just quitted.
The sun was near dipping into the plains beyond,
and its last rays lighted the naked branches of the
willow. He saw the ragged outline of the whole
drawn against the glowing heavens, and he even
traced the still upright form of the being he had left
to his misery. Turning the roll of the swell he proceeded
with the feelings of one, who had been suddenly
forever.
Within a mile the squatter overtook his teams.
His sons had found a place suited to the encampment
for the night, and merely awaited his approach
to confirm their choice. Few words were necessary
to express his acquiescence. Every thing passed in
a silence more general and remarkable than ever.
The chidings of Esther were not heard among her
young, or if heard, they were more in the tones of
softened admonition than in her usual upbraiding
key.
No questions nor explanations passed between the
husband and his wife. It was only as the latter was
about to withdraw among her children, for the night,
that the former saw her taking a furtive look at the
pan of his rifle. Ishmael bade his sons seek their
rest, announcing his intention to look to the safety of
the camp in person. When all was still, he walked
out upon the prairie, with a sort of sensation that he
found his breathing among the tents too straitened.
The night was well adapted to heighten the feelings,
which had been created by the events of the day.
The wind had risen with the moon, and it was
occasionally sweeping over the plain, in a manner
that made it not difficult for the sentinel to imagine
that strange and unearthly sounds were mingling in
the blast. Yielding to the extraordinary impulses of
which he was the subject, he cast a glance around to
see that all were slumbering in security, and then he
strayed towards the swell of land already mentioned.
Here the squatter found himself at a point that commanded
a view to the east and to the west. Light
fleecy clouds were driving before the moon, which
was cold and watery, though there were moments,
when its placid rays were shed from clear blue
fields, seeming to soften objects to its own mild
loveliness.
For the first time, in a life of so much wild adventure,
Ishmael felt a keen sense of solitude. The
naked prairies began to assume the forms of illimitable
and dreary wastes, and the rushing of the wind
sounded like the whisperings of the dead. It was
not long before he thought a shriek was borne past
him on a blast. It did not sound like a call from
earth, but it swept frightfully through the upper air,
mingled with the hoarse accompaniment of the wind.
The teeth of the squatter were compressed, and his
huge hand grasped the rifle, as though it would
crush the metal like paper. Then came a lull, a
fresher blast, and a cry of horror that seemed to have
been uttered at the very portals of his ears. A sort
of echo burst involuntarily from his own lips, as men
will often shout under unnatural excitement, and
throwing his rifle across his shoulder, he proceeded
towards the rock with the strides of a giant.
It was not often that the blood of Ishmael moved
at the rate with which the fluid circulates in the veins
of ordinary men; but now he felt it ready to gush
from every pore in his body. The animal was aroused
in his most latent energies. Ever as he advanced
he heard those shrieks, which sometimes seemed ringing
among the clouds, and sometimes passed so nigh
as to appear to brush the earth. At length there
came a cry, in which there could be no delusion, or
to which the imagination could lend no horror. It
appeared to fill each cranny of the air, as the visible
horizon is often charged to fulness by one dazzling
flash of the electric fluid. The name of God was
distinctly audible, but it was awfully and blasphemously
blended with sounds that may not be repeated.
The squatter stopped, and for a moment he covered
his ears with his hands. When he withdrew the latter,
a low and husky voice at his elbow asked in
smothered tones—
“Ishmael, my man, heard ye nothing?”
“Hist!” returned the husband, laying a powerful
arm on Esther, without manifesting the smallest surprise
at the unlooked-for presence of his wife. “Hist,
woman! if you have the fear of Heaven be still!”
A profound silence succeeded. Though the wind
rose and fell as before, its rushing was no longer mingled
with those fearful cries. The sounds were imposing
and solemn, but it was the solemnity and majesty
of nature in its solitude.
“Let us go on,” said Esther; “all is hushed.”
“Woman, what has brought you here?” demanded
her husband, whose blood had returned into its former
channels, and whose thoughts had already lost a
portion of their excitement.
“Ishmael, he murdered our first-born, but it is not
meet that the son of my mother should lie upon the
ground, like the carrion of a dog!”
“Follow;” returned the squatter again grasping
his rifle, and striding towards the rock. The distance
was still considerable, and their approach, as they
drew nigh the place of execution, was moderated by
awe. Many minutes had passed, before they reached
a spot where they might distinguish the outlines of
the dusky objects.
“Where have you put the body?” Whispered
Esther. “See, here are pick and spade, that a brother
of mine may sleep in the bosom of the earth!”
The moon broke from behind a mass of clouds,
and the eye of the woman was enabled to follow the
finger of Ishmael. It pointed to a human form swinging
in the wind, beneath the ragged and shining arm
of the willow. Esther bent her head and veiled her
eyes from the sight. But Ishmael drew nigher, and
long contemplated his work in awe, though not in
compunction. The leaves of the sacred book were
scattered on the ground, and even a fragment of the
shelf had been displaced by the kidnapper in his agony.
But all was now in the stillness of death. The
at times brought full into the light of the moon, and
again as the wind lulled, the fatal rope drew a dark
line across its bright disk. The squatter raised his
rifle, with extreme care, and fired. The cord was
cut and the body came lumbering to the earth, a
heavy and insensible mass.
Until now Esther had not moved nor spoken. But
her hand was not slow to assist in the labour of the
hour. The grave was soon dug. It was instantly
made to receive its miserable tenant. As the lifeless
form descended, Esther, who sustained the head, looked
up into the face of her husband with an expression
of anguish, and said—
“Ishmael, my man, it is very terrible! I cannot
kiss the corpse of my father's child!”
The squatter laid his broad hand on the bosom of
the dead, and said—
“Abiram White, we all have need of mercy; from
my soul do I forgive you! may God in Heaven have
pity on your sins!”
The woman bowed her face, and imprinted her
lips long and fervently on the pallid forehead of her
brother. After this came the falling clods and all the
solemn sounds of filling a grave. Esther lingered on
her knees, and Ishmael stood uncovered while the
woman muttered a prayer. All was then finished.
On the following morning the teams and herds of
the squatter were seen pursuing their course towards
the settlements. As they approached the confines
of society, the train was blended among a thousand
others. Though some of the numerous descendants
of this peculiar pair, were reclaimed from their lawless
and semi-barbarous lives, the principals of the
family, themselves, were never heard of more.
| CHAPTER XV. The prairie | |