Nick of the woods, or, The Jibbenainosay a tale of Kentucky |
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| 13. | CHAPTER XIII. |
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 | CHAPTER XIII. Nick of the woods, or, The Jibbenainosay |  |
13. CHAPTER XIII.
The roar of the moving flood, for such, by its
noise, it seemed, as they descended the river-bank,
to which Nathan had so skilfully conducted them,
awoke in Roland's bosom a feeling of dismay.
“Fear not,” said the guide, to whom he imparted
his doubts of the safety of the ford; “there
is more danger in one single skulking Shawnee
than ten thousand such sputtering brooks. Verily,
the ford is good enough, though deep and rough;
and if the water should soil thee young women's
garments a little, thee should remember it will not
make so ugly a stain as the blood-mark of a
scalping savage.”
“Lead on,” said Pardon Dodge, with unexpected
spirit; “I am not one of them 'ere fellers as
fears a big river; and my hoss is a dreadful fine
swimmer.”
“In that case,” said Nathan, “if thee consents
to the same, I will get up behind thee, and so pass
over dry-shod; for the feel of wet leather-breeches
is quite uncomfortable.”
This proposal, being reasonable enough, was
readily acceded to, and Nathan was in the act of
climbing to the crupper of Dodge's horse, when
little Peter began to manifest a prudent desire to
pass the ford dry-shod also, by pawing at his master's
heels, and beseeching his notice with sundry
ow but expressive whinings. Such, at least, was
the interpretation which Roland, who perceived the
He was, therefore, not a little surprised when Nathan,
starting from the stirrup, into which he had
climbed, leaped again to the ground, staring around
him from right to left with every appearance of
alarm.
“Right, Peter!” he at last muttered, fixing his
eye upon the further bank of the river, a dark
mass of hill and forest that rose in dim relief
against the clouded sky, overshadowing the whole
stream, which lay like a pitchy abyss betwixt it
and the travellers,—“right, Peter! thee eyes is as
good as thee nose—thee is determined the poor
women shall not be murdered!”
“What is it you see?” demanded Forrester,
“and why do you talk of murdering?”
“Speak low, and look across the river,” whispered
the guide, in reply; “does thee see the
light glimmering among the rocks by the road-side?”
“I see neither rocks nor road,—all is to my
eyes confused blackness; and as for a light, I see
nothing—Stay! No; 'tis the gleam of a fire-fly.”
“The gleam of a fire-fly!” murmured Nathan,
with tones that seemed to mingle wonder and derision
with feelings of a much more serious character;
“it is such a fire-fly as might burn a house,
or roast a living captive at the stake:—it is a
brand in the hands of a 'camping Shawnee!
Look, friend; he is blowing it into a flame; and
presently thee will see the whole bank around it
in a glow.”
It was even as Nathan said. Almost while he
was yet speaking, the light, which all now clearly
beheld, at first a point as small and faint as the
spark of a lampyris, and then a star scarce bigger
suddenly grew in magnitude, projecting a long
and lance-like, though broken, reflection over the
wheeling current, and then as suddenly shot into
a bright and ruddy blaze, illumining hill and river,
and even the anxious countenances of the travellers.
At the same time, a dark figure, as of a man engaged
feeding the flame with fresh fuel, was plainly
seen twice or thrice to pass before it. How many
others, his comrades, might be watching its increasing
blaze, or preparing for their wild slumbers,
among the rocks and bushes where it was
kindled, it was impossible to divine. The sight of
the fire itself in such a solitary spot, and under
such circumstances, even if no attendant had been
seen by it, would have been enough to alarm the
travellers, and compel the conviction that their
enemies had not forgotten to station a force at
this neglected ford, as well as at the other more
frequented one above, and thus to deprive them of
the last hope of escape.
This unexpected incident, the climax of a long
series of disappointments, all of a character so
painful and exciting, drove the young soldier again
to despair; which feeling the tantalizing sense
that he was now within but a few miles of his
companions in exile, and separated from them only
by the single obstruction before him, exasperated
into a species of fury bordering almost upon
phrensy.
“There is but one way of escape,” he exclaimed,
without venturing even a look towards his
kinswoman, or seeking by idle words to conceal
the danger of their situation: “we must pass the
river. The roar of the water will drown the
noise of our footsteps; we can cross unheard and
unlooked for; and then, if there be no way of
rascals at their fire, and take advantage of their
confusion to gallop by. Look to the women, Nathan
Slaughter; and you, Pardon Dodge, and
Emperor, follow me, and do as you see me do.”
“Truly,” said Wandering Nathan, with admirable
coolness and complacency, “thee is a
courageous young man, and a young man of sense
and spirit,—that is to say, after thee own sense of
matters and things: and, truly, if it were not for
the poor women, and for the blazing fire, thee
might greatly confound and harmfully vanquish
the evil creatures, there placed so unluckily on
the bank, in the way and manner which thee
thinks of. But, friend, thee plan will not do: thee
might pass unheard indeed, but not unseen. Does
thee not see how brightly the fire blazes on the
water? Truly, we should all be seen and fired at,
before we reached the middle of the stream; and,
truly, I should not be surprised if the gleam of the
fire on the pale faces of thee poor women should
bring a shot upon us where we stand; and,
therefore, friend, the sooner we get us out of the
way, the better.”
“And where shall we betake us?” demanded
Roland, the sternness of whose accents but ill
disguised the gloom and hopelessness of his feelings.
“To a place of safety and of rest,” replied the
guide, “and to one that is nigh at hand; where
we may lodge us, with little fear of Injuns, until
such time as the waters shall abate a little, or the
stars give us light to cross them at a place where
are no evil Shawnees to oppose us. And then,
friend, as to slipping by these foolish creatures
who make such bright fires on the public highway,
do it with great ease.”
“Let us not delay,” said Roland; and added
sullenly, “though where a place of rest and safety
can be found in these detestable woods, I can no
longer imagine.”
“It is a place of rest, at least, for the dead,”
said Nathan, in a low voice, at the same time
leading the party back again up the bank, and
taking care to shelter them as he ascended, as
much as possible from the light of the fire, which
was now blazing with great brilliancy: “nine
human corses,—father and mother, grandam and
children,—sleep under the threshold at the door;
and there are not many, white men or Injuns, that
will, of their free will, step over the bosoms of
the poor murdered creatures, after nightfall; and,
the more especially, because there are them that
believe they rise at midnight, and roam round the
house and the clearings, mourning. Yet it is a
good hiding-place for them that are in trouble;
and many a night have little Peter and I sheltered
us beneath the ruined roof, with little fear of either
ghosts or Injuns; though, truly, we have sometimes
heard strange and mournful noises among
the trees around us. It is but a poor place and a
sad one; but it will afford thee weary women a
safe resting-place till such time as we can cross
the river.”
These words of Nathan brought to Roland's
recollection the story of the Ashburns, whom
Bruce had alluded to, as having been all destroyed
at their Station in a single night by the Indians,
and whose tragical fate, perhaps, more than any
other circumstance, had diverted the course of
travel from the ford, near to which they had
less frequented one.
It was not without reluctance that Roland prepared
to lead his little party to this scene of butchery
and sorrow; for, though little inclined himself
to superstitious feelings of any kind, he could
easily imagine what would be the effect of such
a scene, with its gloomy and blood-stained associations,
on the harassed mind of his cousin. But
suffering and terror, even on the part of Edith,
were not to be thought of, where they could purchase
escape from evils far more real and appalling;
and he therefore avoided all remonstrance
and opposition, and even sought to hasten the
steps of his conductor towards the ruined and
solitary pile.
The bank was soon re-ascended; and the party,
stealing along in silence, presently took their last
view of the ford, and the yet blazing fire that
had warned them so opportunely from its dangerous
vicinity. In another moment they had crept a
second time into the forest, though in the opposite
quarter from that whence they had come; making
their way through what had once been a broad
path, evidently cut by the hands of man, through
a thick cane-brake, though long disused, and now
almost choked by brambles and shrubs; and, by
and by, having followed it for somewhat less than
half a mile, they found themselves on a kind of
clearing, which, it was equally manifest, had been
once a cultivated field of several acres in extent.
Throughout the whole of this space, the trunks of
the old forest-trees, dimly seen in the light of a
clouded sky, were yet standing, but entirely leafless
and dead, and presenting such an aspect of
desolation as is painful to the mind, even when
sunshine, and the flourishing maize at their roots,
Such prospects are common enough in
all new American clearings, where the husbandman
is content to deprive the trees of life, by
girdling, and then leave them to the assaults of
the elements and the natural course of decay; and
where a thousand trunks, of the gigantic growth
of the West, are thus seen rising together in the
air, naked and hoary with age, they impress the
imagination with such gloom as is engendered by
the sight of ruined colonnades.
Such was the case with the present prospect:
years had passed since the axe had sapped
the strength of the mighty oaks and beeches;
bough after bough, and limb after limb, had fallen
to the earth, with here and there some huge trunk
itself, overthrown by the blast, and now rotting
among weeds on the soil which it cumbered. At
the present hour, the spectacle was peculiarly
mournful and dreary. The deep solitude of the
spot,—the hour itself,—the gloomy aspect of the
sky veiled in clouds,—the occasional rush of the
wind sweeping like a tempest through the woods,
to be succeeded by a dead and dismal calm,—the
roll of distant thunder reverberating among the
hills,—but, more than all, the remembrance of the
tragical event that had consigned the ill-fated settlement
to neglect and desolation, gave the deepest
character of gloom to the scene.
As the travellers entered upon the clearing,
there occurred one of those casualties which so
often increase the awe of the looker-on, in such
places. In one of the deepest lulls and hushes of
the wind, when there was no apparent cause in
operation to produce such an effect, a tall and
majestic trunk was seen to decline from the perpendicular,
topple slowly through the air, and then
earthquake.
The poet and the moralizing philosopher may
find food for contemplation in such a scene, and
such a catastrophe. He may see, in the lofty and
decaying trunks, the hoary relics and representatives
of a generation of better and greater spirits
than those who lead the destinies of his own,—
spirits, left not more as monuments of the past
than as models for the imitation of the present;
he may contrast their majestic serenity and rest,
their silence and immoveableness, with the turmoil
of the greener growth around, the uproar
and collision produced by every gust, and trace
the resemblance to the scene where the storms of
party, rising among the sons, hurtle so indecently
around the gray fathers of a republic, whose presence
should stay them; and, finally, he may behold
in the trunks, as they yield at last to decay,
and sink one by one to the earth, the fall of each
aged parent of his country,—a fall, indeed, as of
an oak of a thousand generations, shocking the
earth around, and producing for a moment, wonder,
awe, grief, and then a long forgetfulness.
But men in the situation of the travellers have
neither time nor inclination for moralizing. The
fall of the tree only served to alarm the weaker
members of the party, to some of whom, perhaps,
it appeared as an inauspicious omen. Apparently,
however, it woke certain mournful recollections in
the brains of both little Peter and his master, the
former of whom, as he passed it by, began to
snuffle and whine in a low and peculiar manner;
while Nathan immediately responded, as if in reply
to his counsellor's address, “Ay, truly, Peter!
—thee has a good memory of the matter; though
five long years is a marvellous time for thee little
they murdered the poor old granny, and brained
the innocent, helpless babe. Of a truth, it was a
sight that made my heart sick within me.”
“What!” asked Roland, who followed close at
his heels, and overheard the half-soliloquized expressions;
“were you present at the massacre?”
“Alas, friend,” replied Nathan, “it was neither
the first nor last massacre that I have seen with
these eyes. I dwelt, in them days, in a cabin a
little distance down the river; and these poor people,
the Ashburns, were my near neighbours;
though, truly, they were not to me as neighbours
should be, but held me in disfavour, because of
my faith, and ever repelled me from their doors
with scorn and ill-will. Yet was I sorry for them,
because of the little children they had in the
house, the same being afar from succour; and
when I found the tracks of the Injun party in the
wood, as it was often my fate to do, while rambling
in search of food, and saw that they were
bending their way towards my own little wigwam,
I said to myself, `Whilst they are burning
the same, I will get me to friend Ashburn, that he
may be warned and escape to friend Bruce's Station
in time, with his people and cattle.' But, verily,
they held my story light, and laughed at and
derided me; for, in them days, the people hardened
their hearts and closed their ears against
me, because I held it not according to conscience
to kill Injuns as they did, and so refused. And so,
friend, they drove me from their doors; seeing
which, and perceiving the poor creatures were in
a manner besotted, and bent upon their own destruction,
and the night coming on fast, I turned
my steps and ran with what speed I could to
friend Bruce's, telling him the whole story, and
horsemen to the place, so as to frighten the evil
creatures away; for, truly, I did not hold it right
that there should be bloodshed. But, truly and
alas, friend, I fared no better, and perhaps a little
worse, at the Station than I had fared before at
Ashburn's; wherefore, being left in despair, I said
to myself, I will go into the woods, and hide me
away, not returning to the river, lest I should be
compelled to look upon the shedding of the blood
of the women and little babes, which I had no
power to prevent. But it came into my mind,
that, perhaps, the Injuns, not finding me in my
wigwam, might lie in wait round about it, expecting
my return, and so delaying the attack upon
friend Ashburn's house; whereby I might have
time to reach him, and warn him of his danger
again; and this idea prevailed with me, so that I rose
me up again, and, with little Peter at my side, I
ran back again, until I had reached this very field;
when Peter gave me to know the Injuns were
hard by. Thee don't know little Peter, friend;
truly, he has the strongest nose for an Injun thee
ever saw. Does thee not hear how he whines and
snuffs along the grass? Now, friend, were it not
that this is a bloody spot that Peter remembers
well, because of the wicked deeds he saw performed,
I would know by his whining, as truly as
if he were to open his mouth and say as much in
words, that there were evil Injuns nigh at hand,
and that it behooved me to be up and a-doing.—
Well, friend, as I was saying,—it was with such
words as these that little Peter told me that mischief
was nigh; and, truly, I had scarce time to
hide me in the corn, which was then in the ear,
before I heard the direful yells with which the
blood-thirsty creatures, who were then round about
friend, I will not shock thee by telling thee what I
heard and saw. There was a fate on the family,
and even on the animals that looked to it for protection.
Neither horse nor cow gave them the
alarm; and even the house-dog slept so soundly,
that the enemies dragged loose brush into the porch
and fired it, before any one but themselves dreamed
of danger. It was when the flames burst out
that the warwhoop was sounded; and when the
eyes of the sleepers opened, it was only to see
themselves surrounded both by flames and raging
Shawnees. Then, friend,” continued Nathan,
speaking with a faltering and low voice, graduated
for the ears of Roland, for whom alone the story
was intended, though others caught here and there
some of its dismal revealments, “then, thee may
think, there was rushing out of men, women, and
children, with the cracking of rifles, the crashing
of hatchets, the plunge of knives, with yells and
shrieks such as would turn thee spirit into ice and
water, to hear. It was a fearful massacre; but,
friend, fearful as it was, these eyes of mine had
looked on one more dreadful before: thee would
not believe it, friend, but thee knows not what
them see, who have spent their lives on the Injun
border.—Well, friend,” continued the narrator,
after this brief digression, “while they were murdering
the stronger, I saw the weakest of all,—
the old grandam, with the youngest babe in her
arms, come flying into the corn; and she had
reached this very tree that has fallen but now, as
if to remind me of the story, when the pursuer,—
for it was but a single man they sent in chase of
the poor feeble old woman, caught up with her,
and struck her down with his tomahawk. Then,
friend,—for, truly, I saw it all in the light of the
poor babe from the dying woman's arms, and
struck it with the same bloody hatchet.—”
“And you!” exclaimed Roland, leaning from
his horse and clutching the speaker by the collar,
for he was seized with ungovernable indignation,
or rather fury, at what he esteemed the coldblooded
cowardice of Nathan, “You!” he cried,
grasping him as if he would have torn him to
pieces, “You, wretch! stood by and saw the
child murdered!”
“Friend!” said Nathan, with some surprise at
the unexpected assault, but still with great submissiveness,
“thee is as unjust to me as others.
Had I been as free to shed blood as thee theeself,
yet could I not have saved the babe in that way,
seeing that my gun was taken from me, and I was
unarmed. Thee forgets,—or rather I forgot to
inform thee,—how, when I told friend Bruce my
story, he took my gun from me, saying that `as I
was not man enough to use it, I should not be allowed
to carry it,' and so turned me out naked
from the fort. Truly, it was an ill thing of him
to take from me that which gave me my meat;
and, truly too, it was doubly ill of him, as it concerned
the child; for I tell thee, friend, when I
stood in the corn and saw the great brutal Injun
raise the hatchet to strike the little child, had
there been a gun in my hand, I should—I can't
tell thee, friend, what I might have done; but,
truly, I should not have permitted the evil creature
to do the bloody deed!”
“I thought so, by heaven!” said Roland, who
had relaxed his grasp, the moment Nathan mentioned
the seizure of the gun, which story was corroborated
by the account Bruce had himself
given of that stretch of authority,—“I thought
veriest dastard and dog that ever lived, could have
had arms in his hand, and, on such an occasion,
failed to use them! But you had humanity,—
you did something?”
“Friend,” said Nathan, meekly, “I did what I
could,—but, truly, what could I? Nevertheless,
friend, I did, being set beside myself by the sight,
snatch the little babe out of the man's hands, and
fly to the woods, hoping, though it was sore
wounded, that it might yet live. But alas, before
I had run a mile, it died in my arms, and I was
covered from head to foot with its blood. It was
a sore sight for friend Bruce, whom I found with
his people galloping to the ford, to see what there
might be in my story: for, it seems, as he told me
himself, that, after he had driven me away, he
could not sleep for thinking that perhaps I had
told the truth. And truth enough, he soon found,
I had spoken; for, galloping immediately to Ashburn's
house, he found nothing there but the corses
of the people, and the house partly consumed,—
for, being of green timber, it could not all burn.
There was not one of the poor family that escaped.”
“But they were avenged?” muttered the soldier.
“If thee calls killing the killers avenging,” replied
Nathan, “the poor deceased people had vengeance
enough. Of the fourteen murderers, for that was
the number, eleven were killed before day-dawn,
the pursuers having discovered where they had
built their fire, and so taken them by surprise;
and of the three that escaped, it was afterwards
said by returning captives, that only one made his
way home, the other two having perished in the
woods, in some way unknown.—But, truly,” continued
from the tragic theme to the motions of his dog,
“little Peter is more disturbed than is his wont.
Truly, he has never had a liking to the spot: I
have heard them that said a dog could scent the
presence of spirits!”
“To my mind,” said Roland, who had not forgotten
Nathan's eulogium on the excellence of the
animal's nose for scenting Indians, and who was
somewhat alarmed at what appeared to him the
evident uneasiness of little Peter, “he is more like
to wind another party of cursed Shawnees, than
any harmless disembodied spirits.”
“Friend,” said Nathan, “it may be that Injuns
have trodden upon this field this day, seeing that
the wood is full of them; and it is like enough that
those very evil creatures at the ford hard-by have
stolen hither, before taking their post, to glut their
eyes with the sight of the ruins, where the blood
of nine poor white persons was shed by their
brothers in a single night; though, truly, in that
case, they must have also thought of the thirteen
murderers that bled for the victims; which would
prove somewhat a drawback to their satisfaction.
No, friend: Peter has his likes and his dislikes,
like a human being; and this is a spot he ever
approaches with abhorrence,—as, truly, I do myself,
never coming hither, unless when driven, as
now, by necessity. But, friend, if thee is in fear,
thee shall be satisfied there is no danger before
thee: it shall never be said that I undertook to
lead thee poor women out of mischief, only to
plunge them into peril. I will go before thee to
the ruin, which thee sees there by the hollow, and
reconnoitre.”
“It needs not,” said Roland, who now seeing
hand, and perceiving that Peter's uneasiness had
subsided, dismissed his own as being groundless.
But notwithstanding, he thought proper, as Nathan
advanced, to ride forward himself, and inspect
the condition of the building, in which he
was about to commit the safety of the being he
held most dear, and on whose account, only, he
felt the thousand anxieties and terrors he never
could have otherwise experienced.
The building was a low cabin of logs, standing,
as it seemed, on the verge of an abyss, in which
the river could be heard dashing tumultuously, as
if among rocks and other obstructions. It was
one of those double cabins so frequently found in
the west; that is to say, it consisted of two separate
cots, or wings, standing a little distance apart,
but united by a common roof; which thus afforded
shelter to the open hall, or passage, between them;
while the roof being continued also from the
eaves, both before and behind, in pent-house-fashion,
it allowed space for wide porches, in
which, and in the open passage, the summer traveller,
resting in such a cabin, will always find
the most agreeable quarters.
How little soever of common wisdom and discretion
the fate of the builders might have shown
them to possess, they had not forgotten to provide
their solitary dwelling with such defences as were
common to all others in the land at that period.
A line of palisades, carelessly and feebly constructed
indeed, but perhaps sufficient for the purpose
intended, enclosed the ground on which the cabin
stood; and this being placed directly in the centre,
and joining it at the sides, thus divided it into two
little yards, one in front the other in the rear, in
as well as for the garrison, when called to repel
assailants. The enclosure behind extended to
the verge of the river-bank, which, falling down
a sheer precipice of forty or fifty feet, required
no defence of stakes, and seemed never to have
been provided with them; while that in front circumscribed
a portion of a cleared field entirely
destitute of trees, and almost of bushes.
Such had been the original plan and condition
of a fortified private-dwelling, a favourable specimen,
perhaps, of the family-forts of the day, and
which, manned by five or six active and courageous
defenders, might have bidden defiance to
thrice the number of barbarians that had actually
succeeded in storming it. Its present appearance
was ruinous and melancholy in the extreme. The
stockade was in great part destroyed, especially
in front, where the stakes seemed to have been
rooted up by the winds, or to have fallen from
sheer decay: and the right wing or cot, that
had suffered most from the flames, lay a blackened
and mouldering pile of logs, confusedly
heaped on its floor, or on the earth beneath. The
only part of the building yet standing was the
cot on the left hand, which consisted of but a
single room, and that, as Roland perceived at a
glance, almost roofless and ready to fall.
Nothing could be more truly cheerless and forbidding
than the appearance of the ruined pile;
and the hoarse and dismal rush of the river below,
heard the more readily by reason of a deep
rocky fissure, or ravine, running from the rear
yard to the water's edge, through which the
sound ascended in hollow echoes, added double
horror to its appearance. It was, moreover, obviously
enemy, to whom the ruins of the fallen wing
and stockade and the rugged depths of the ravine
offered much more effectual shelter, as well
as the best place of annoyance. The repugnance,
however, that Roland felt to occupy it
even for a few hours, was combatted by Nathan,
who represented that the ford at which
he designed crossing the river, several miles
farther down, could not be safely attempted until
the rise of the waning moon, or until the clouds
should disperse, affording them the benefit of the
dim star-light; that the road to it ran through
swamps and hollows, now submerged, in which
could be found no place of rest for the females,
exhausted by fatigue and mental suffering; and
that the ruin might be made as secure as the Station
the travellers had left; “for truly,” said he,
“it is not according to my ways or conscience to
leave any thing to chance or good luck, when
there is Injun scent in the forest, though it be
in the forest ten miles off. Truly, friend, I design,
when thee poor tired women is sleeping, to
keep watch round the ruin, with Peter to help
me; and if theeself and thee two male persons
have strength to do the same, it will be all the
better for the same.”
“It shall be done,” said Roland, as much relieved
by the suggestion as he was pleased by the
humane spirit that prompted it: “my two soldiers
can watch, if they cannot fight, and I shall take
care they watch well.”
Thus composing the difficulty, preparations
were immediately made to occupy the ruin, into
which Roland, having previously entered with
Emperor, and struck a light, introduced his weary
kinswoman with her companion Telie; while Nathan
ravine, where they could be easily confined, and
allowed to browse and drink at will, being at the
same time beyond the reach of observation from
any foe that might be yet prowling through the
forest.
| CHAPTER XIII. Nick of the woods, or, The Jibbenainosay | |