University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

The sun shone out clearly and brilliantly, and
the tree-tops, from which the winds had already
shaken the rain, rustled freshly to the more moderate
breezes that had succeeded them; and
Roland, animated by the change, by the brisk
pace at which he was riding, and by the hope of
soon overtaking his fellow-exiles, met the joyous
looks of his kinswoman with a countenance no
longer disturbed by care.

And yet there was a solemnity in the scene
around them that might have called for other and
more sombre feelings. The forest into which
they had plunged, was of the grand and gloomy
character, which the fortility of the soil, and the
absence of the axe for a thousand years, imprint
on the western woodlands, especially in the vicinity
of rivers. Oaks, elms, and walnuts, tulip-trees
and beeches, with other monarchs of the
wilderness, lifted their trunks like so many pillars,
green with mosses and ivies, and swung their majestic
arms, tufted with mistletoe, far over head,
supporting a canopy,—a series of domes and arches
without end,—that had for ages overshadowed the
soil. Their roots, often concealed by a billowy
undergrowth of shrubs and bushes, oftener by
brakes of the gigantic and evergreen cane, forming
fences as singular as they were, for the most
part, impenetrable, were yet at times visible,
where open glades stretched through the woods,

broken only by buttressed trunks, and by the
stems of colossal vines, hanging from the boughs
like cables, or the arms of an Oriental banyan;
while their luxuriant tops rolled in union with the
leafy roofs that supported them. The vague and
shadowy prospects opened by these occasional
glades, stirred the imagination and produced a
feeling of solitude in the mind, greater perhaps
than would have been felt, had the view been continually
bounded by a green wall of canes.

The road, if such it could be called, through
this noble forest was, like that the emigrants had
so long pursued through the wilderness, a mere
path, designated, where the wood was open, by
blazes, or axe-marks on the trees; and, where the
undergrowth was dense, a narrow track cut
through the canes and shrubs, scarce sufficient in
many places to allow the passage of two horsemen
abreast; though when, as was frequently the
case, it followed the ancient routes of the bisons
to fords and salt-licks, it presented, as Bruce had
described, a wide and commodious highway, practicable
even to wheeled carriages.

The gait of the little party over this road was
at first rapid and cheery enough; but by and by,
having penetrated deeper into the wood, where
breezes and sunbeams were alike unknown, they
found their progress impeded by a thousand pools
and sloughs, the consequences of the storm, that
stretched from brake to brake. These interruptions
promised to make the evening journey longer
than Roland had anticipated; but he caught, at
intervals, the fresh foot-prints of his comrades in
the soil where it was not exposed to the rains, and
reflected with pleasure, that, travelling even at the
slowest pace, he must reach the ford where he
expected to find them encamped, long before dark.

He felt therefore no uneasiness at the delay; nor
did he think any of those obstacles to rapid progress
a cause for regret that gave him the better
opportunity to interchange ideas with his fair kinswoman.

His only concern arose from the conduct of his
guide, a rough, dark-visaged man, who had betrayed,
from the first moment of starting, a sullen
countenance, indicative of his disinclination to
the duty assigned him; which feeling evidently
grew stronger the further he advanced, notwithstanding
sundry efforts Forrester made to bring
him into a better humour. He displayed no desire
to enter into conversation with the soldier,
replying to such questions as were directed at him
with a brevity little short of rudeness; and his
smothered exclamations of impatience, whenever
his delicate followers slackened their pace at
a bog or gully, which he had himself dashed
through with a manly contempt of mud and
mire, somewhat stirred the choler of the young
captain.

They had perhaps followed him a distance of
four miles into the forest, when the occurrence
of a wider and deeper pool than ordinary producing
a corresponding delay on the part of Roland,
who was somewhat averse to plunging with
Edith up to the saddle-girths in mire, drew from
him a very unmannerly, though not the less hearty
execration on the delicacy of `them thar persons
who,' as he expressed it, `stumped at a mud-hole
as skearily as if every tadpole in it war a screeching
Injun.'

Of this explosion of ill-temper Roland took no
notice, until he had, with the assistance of Emperor,
the negro, affected a safe passage for Edith
over the puddle; in the course of which he had

leisure to observe that the path now struck into a
wide buffalo-street, that swept away through a
wilderness of wood and cane-brake, in nearly a
straight line, for a considerable distance. He observed
also, that the road looked drier and less
broken than usual; his satisfaction at which had
the good effect of materially abating the rage into
which he had been thrown by the uncivil bearing
of the guide. Nevertheless, he had no sooner
brought his kinswoman safely to land, than, leaving
her in the charge of Emperor, he galloped up
to the side of his conductor, and gave vent to his
indignation in the following pithy query:

“My friend,” said he, “will you have the goodness
to inform me whether you have ever lived in
a land where courtesy to strangers, and kindness
and respect to women, are ranked among the
virtues of manhood?”

The man replied only by a fierce and angry
stare; and plying the ribs of his horse with his
heels, he dashed onwards. But Roland kept at
his side, not doubting that a little more wholesome
reproof would be of profit to the man, as well as
advantageous to his own interests.

“I ask that question,” he continued, “because a
man from such a land, seeing strangers, and one
of them a female, struggling in a bog, would, instead
of standing upon dry land, making disrespectful
remarks, have done his best to help them
through it.”

“Strannger;” said the man, drawing up his
horse, and looking, notwithstanding his anger, as
if he felt the rebuke to be in a measure just, “I
am neither hog nor dog, Injun nor outlandish niggur,
but a man,—a man, strannger! outside and
inside, in flesh, blood, and spirit, jest as my Maker
made me: though thar may be something of the

scale-bark and parsimmon about me, I'll not deny;
for I've heer'd on it before. I axes the lady's pardon,
if I've offended; and thar's the eend on't.”

“The end of it,” said Forrester, “will be much
more satisfactory, if you give no further occasion
for complaint. But now,” he continued, Edith
drawing nigh, “let us ride on, and as fast as you
like; for the road seems both open and good.”

“Strannger,” said the guide, without budging
an inch, “you have axed me a question; and according
to the fa'r rule of the woods, it's my
right to ax you another.”

“Very well,” said Roland, assenting to the justice
of the rule: “ask it, and be brief.”

“What you war saying of the road is true; thar
it goes, wide, open, cl'ar and straight, with as good
a fence on both sides of it to keep in stragglers,
as war ever made of ash, oak, or chestnut rails,—
though it's nothing but a natteral bank of cane-brake:
and so it runs, jest as cl'ar and wide, all
the way to the river.”

“I am glad to hear it,” was the soldier's reply:
“but now for your question?”

“Hy'ar it is,” said the man, flinging out his hand
with angry energy: “I wants to ax of you, as a
sodger, for I've heer'd you're of the reggelar sarvice,
whether it's a wiser and more christian
affa'r, when thar's Injuns in the land a murdering
of your neighbour's wives and children, and all
the settlements in a screech and a cry, to send an
able-bodied man to fight them; or to tote him off,
a day's journey thar and back ag'in, to track a
road that a blind man on a blind horse could
travel, without axing questions of any body?
Thar's my question,” he added, somewhat vehemently;
“and now let's have a sodger's answer!”

“My good friend,” said Roland, a little offended,
and yet more embarrassed, by the interrogatory,
“none can tell better than yourself how much,
or how little occasion I may have for a guide.
Your question, therefore, I leave you to answer
yourself. If you think your duty calls you to
abandon a woman in the wild woods to such guidance
as one wholly unacquainted with them can
give, you can depart as soon as you think fit; for
I cannot—”

The guide gave him no time to finish the sentence.
“You're right, strannger,” he cried;
“that is your road, as plain as the way up a
hickory, b'aring to a camp of old friends and acquaintances,—and
hy'ar is mine, running right slap
among fighting Injuns!”

And with that he turned his horse's head, and
flourishing his right hand, armed with the ever-constant
rifle, above his own, and uttering a whoop
expressive of the wild pleasure he felt at being released
from his ignoble duty, he dashed across the
pool, and galloped in a moment out of sight, leaving
Roland and his party confounded at the desertion.

“`An outlandish niggur'!” muttered old Emperor,
on whom this expression of the guide had
produced no very favourable effect; “guess the
gemman white-man is a niggur himself, and a
rogue, and a potater, or whatsomever you call
'em! Leab a lady and a gemman lost in the
woods, and neither take 'em on nor take 'em back!
—lor-a-massy!”

To this half-soliloquized expression of indignation
the soldier felt inclined to add a few bitter
invectives of his own; but Edith treating the matter
lightly, and affecting to be better pleased at the
rude man's absence than she had been with his

company, he abated his own wrath, and acknowledged
that the desertion afforded the best proof
of the safety of the road; since he could not believe
that the fellow, with all his roughness and
inhumanity, would have been so base as to leave
them, while really surrounded by difficulties. He
remembered enough of Bruce's description of the
road, which he had taken care should be minute
and exact, to feel persuaded that the principal obstructions
were now over, and that, as the guide
had said, there was no possibility of wandering
from the path. They had already travelled nearly
half the distance to the river, and to accomplish
the remainder, they had yet four hours of day-light.
He saw no reason why they should not
proceed alone, trusting to their good fate for a
fortunate issue to the enterprise. To return to the
fort would be only to separate themselves further
from their friends, without insuring them a better
guide, or, indeed, any guide at all, since it was
highly probable they would find it only occupied
by women and children. In a word, he satisfied
himself that nothing remained for him but to continue
his journey, and trust to his own sagacity to
end it to advantage.

He set out accordingly, followed by Edith and
Emperor, the latter bringing up the rear in true
military style, and handling his rifle, as if almost
desirous of finding an opportunity to use it in the
service of his young mistress.

In this manner, they travelled onwards with but
little interruption for more than a mile; and Roland
was beginning anxiously to look for the path
that led to the Lower Ford, when Emperor galloped
to the van and brought the party to a halt by reporting
that he heard the sound of hoofs following
at a distance behind.

“Perhaps,—perhaps,” said Edith, while the
gleam of her eye, shining with sudden pleasure,
indicated how little real satisfaction she had felt
at the desertion of their conductor,—“perhaps it
is the sour fellow, the guide, coming back, ashamed
of his misconduct.”

“We will soon see,” said Roland, turning his
horse to reconnoitre; a proceeding that was, however,
rendered unnecessary by the hurried speed
of the comer, who, dashing suddenly round a bend
in the road, disclosed to his wondering eyes, not
the tall frame and sullen aspect of the guide, but
the lighter figure and fairer visage of the girl, Telie
Doe. She was evidently arrayed for travel,
having donned her best attire of blue cloth, with
a little cap of the same colour on her head, under
which her countenance, beaming with exercise
and anxiety, looked, in both Roland's and Edith's
eyes, extremely pretty; much more so, indeed,
than either had deemed her to be; while, secured
behind the cushion, or pillion, on which she rode,
—for not a jot of saddle had she,—was a little
bundle containing such worldly comforts as were
necessary to one seriously bent upon a journey.
She was mounted upon a sprightly pony, which
she managed with more address and courage than
would have been augured from her former timorous
demeanour; and it was plain that she had put
him to his mettle through the woods, with but little
regard to the sloughs and puddles which had
so greatly embarrassed the fair Edith. Indeed, it
appeared, that the exercise which had infused
animation into her countenance had bestowed a
share also on her spirit; for having checked her
horse an instant, and looked a little abashed at the
sudden sight of the strangers, she recovered herself
in a moment, and riding boldly up, she proceeded,

without waiting to be questioned, to explain
the cause of her appearance. She had met the
deserter, she said, returning to the Station, and
thinking it was not right the stranger lady should
be left without a guide in the woods, she had ridden
after her to offer her services.

“It was at least somewhat surprising,” Roland
could not avoid saying, “that the fellow should
have found you already equipt in the woods?”

At this innuendo, Telie was somewhat embarrassed,
but more so, when, looking towards Edith,
as if to address her reply to her, she caught the
inquiring look of the latter, made still more expressive
by the recollection which Edith retained
of the earnest entreaty Telie had made the preceding
night, to be taken into her service.

“I will not tell you a falsehood, ma'am,” she
said at last, with a firm voice: “I was not on the
road by chance: I came to follow you. I knew,
the man you had to guide you was unwilling to
go, and I thought he would leave you, as he has
done. And, besides, the road is not so clear as it
seems; it branches off to so many of the salt-licks,
and the tracks are so washed away by the
rains, that none but one that knows it can be sure
of keeping it long.”

“And how,” inquired Edith, very pointedly,—
for, in her heart, she suspected the little damsel
was determined to enter her service, whether she
would or not, and had actually run away from her
friends for the purpose,—“how, after you have
led us to our party, do you expect to return again
to your friends?”

“If you will let me go with you as far as Jackson's
Station,”—(the settlement at which it was
originally determined the emigrants should pass
the night,) said the maiden, humbly, “I will find

friends there who will take me home; and perhaps
our own people will come for me,—for they
are often visiting about among the Stations.”

This declaration, made in a tone that convinced
Edith the girl had given over all hopes of being
received into her protection, unless she could remove
opposition by the services she might render
on the way, pointed out also an easy mode of getting
rid of her, when a separation should be advisable,
and thus removed the only objection she
felt to accept her proffered guidance. As for Roland,
however, he expressed much natural reluctance
to drag a young and inexperienced female
so far from her home, leaving her afterwards
to return as she might. But he perceived
that her presence gave courage to his kinswoman;
he felt that her acquaintance with the path was
more to be relied upon than his own sagacity; and
he knew not, if he even rejected her offered services
altogether, how he could with any grace
communicate the refusal, and leave her abandoned
to her own discretion in the forest. He felt a
little inclined, at first, to wonder at the interest
she seemed to have taken in his cousin's welfare;
but, by and by, he reflected that perhaps, after all,
her motive lay in no better or deeper feeling than
a mere girlish desire to make her way to the
neighbouring Station, (twenty miles make but a
neighbourly distance in the wilderness,) to enjoy a
frolic among her gadding acquaintance. This reflection
ended the struggle in his mind; and turning
to her with a smiling countenance, he said,
“If you are so sure of getting home, my pretty
maid, you may be as certain we will be glad of
your company and guidance. But let us delay no
longer.”

The girl, starting at these words with alacrity,

switched her pony and darted to the head of the
little party, as if addressing herself to her duty in
a business-like way; and there she maintained her
position with great zeal, although Roland and
Edith endeavoured, for kindness' sake, to make
her sensible they desired her to ride with them as
a companion, and not at a distance like a pioneer.
The faster they spurred, however, the more zealonsly
she plied her switch, and her pony being
both spirited and fresh, while their own horses
were both not a little the worse for their long
journey, she managed to keep in front, maintaining
a gait that promised in a short time to bring
them to the banks of the river.

They had ridden perhaps a mile in this manner,
when a sudden opening in the cane-brake on
the right hand, at a place where stood a beech-tree,
riven by a thunderbolt in former years, but
still spreading its shattered ruins in the air, convinced
Roland that he had at last reached the
road to the Lower Ford, which Bruce had so strictly
cautioned him to avoid. What, therefore, was
his surprise, when Telie, having reached the tree,
turned at once into the by-road, leaving the direct
path which they had so long pursued, and which
still swept away before them, as spacious and uninterrupted,
save by occasional pools, as ever.

“You are wrong,” he cried, checking his steed.

“This is the road, sir,” said the girl, though in
some trepidation.

“By no means,” said Forrester: “that path
leads to the Lower Ford: here is the shivered
beech, which the Colonel described to me.”

“Yes, sir,” said Telie, hurriedly; “it is the
mark: they call it the Crooked Finger-post.”

“And a crooked road it is like to lead us, if we
follow it,” said Roland. “It leads to the Lower

Ford, and is not therefore our road. I remember
the Colonel's direction.”

“Yes, sir,” said Telie, anxiously,—“to take the
beech on the right shoulder, and then down, four
miles, to the water.”

“Precisely so,” said the soldier; “with only
this difference, (for, go which way we will, the
tree being on the right side of each path, we must
still keep it on the right shoulder,) that the road to
the Upper Ford, which I am now travelling, is the
one for our purposes. Of this I am confident.”

“And yet, Roland,” said Edith, somewhat
alarmed at this difference of opinion, where unanimity
was so much more desirable, “the young
woman should know best.”

“Yes!” cried Telie, eagerly: “I have lived
here almost seven years, and been across the
river more than as many times. This is the
shortest and safest way.”

“It may be both the shortest and safest,” said
Forrester, whose respect for the girl's knowledge
of the woods and ability to guide him through
them, began to be vastly diminished; “but this is
the road Mr. Bruce described. Of this I am positive;
and to make the matter still more certain, if
need be, here are horse-tracks, fresh, numerous,
scarcely washed by the rain, and undoubtedly
made by our old companions; whereas that path
seems not to have been trodden for a twelve-month.”

“I will guide you right,” faltered Telie, with
anxious voice.

“My good girl,” said the soldier, kindly, but
positively, “you must allow me to doubt your
ability to do that,—at least, on that path. Here is
our road; and we must follow it.”

He resumed it, as he spoke, and Edith, conquered
by his arguments which seemed decisive, followed
him; but looking back, after having proceeded
a few steps, she saw the baffled guide still
lingering on the rejected path, and wringing her
hands with grief and disappointment.

“You will not remain behind us?” said Edith,
riding back to her: “You see, my cousin is positive:
you must surely be mistaken?”

“I am not mistaken,” said the girl, earnestly;
“and, oh, he will repent that ever he took his own
way through this forest.”

“How can that be? What cause have you to
say so?”

“I do not know,” murmured the damsel, in
woful perplexity; “but,—but, sometimes, that road
is dangerous.”

“Sometimes all roads are so,” said Edith, her
patience failing, when she found Telie could give
no better reason for her opposition. “Let us continue:
my kinsman is waiting us, and we must lose
no more time by delay.”

With these words, she again trotted forward,
and Telie, after hesitating a moment, thought fit
to follow.

But now the animation that had, a few moments
before, beamed forth in every look and gesture of
the maiden, gave place to dejection of spirits, and
even, as Edith thought, to alarm. She seemed as
anxious now to linger in the rear as she had been
before to preserve a bold position in front. Her
eyes wandered timorously from brake to tree, as
if in fear lest each should conceal a lurking
enemy; and often, as Edith looked back, she was
struck with the singularly mournful and distressed
expression of her countenance.