 | CHAPTER IV. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
“I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
In this strange stare?”
Tempest.
As a girl, Ruth Harding had been one of the
mildest and gentlest of the human race. Though
new impulses had been given to her naturally kind
affections by the attachments of a wife and mother,
her disposition suffered no change by marriage.
Obedient, disinterested, and devoted to those she
loved, as her parents had known her, so, by the
experience of many years, had she proved to
Content. In the midst of the utmost equanimity of
temper and of deportment, her watchful solicitude
in behalf of the few who formed the limited circle
of her existence, never slumbered. It dwelt unpretendingly
but active in her gentle bosom, like a
great and moving principle of life. Though circumstances
frontier, where time had not been given for the
several customary divisions of employments, she
was unchanged in habits, in feelings, and in character.
The affluence of her husband had elevated
her above the necessity of burthensome toil; and,
while she had encountered the dangers of the
wilderness, and neglected none of the duties of her
active station, she had escaped most of those injurious
consequences which are a little apt to
impair the peculiar loveliness of woman. Notwithstanding
the exposure of a border life, she remained
feminine, attractive, and singularly youthful.
The reader will readily imagine the state of
mind, with which such a being watched the distant
form of a husband, engaged in a duty like that we
have described. Notwithstanding the influence of
long habit, the forest was rarely approached, after
night-fall, by the boldest woodsman, without some
secret consciousness that he encountered a positive
danger. It was the hour when its roaming and
hungry tenants were known to be most in motion;
and the rustling of a leaf, or the snapping of a dried
twig beneath the light tread of the smallest animal,
was apt to conjure images of the voracious and
fire-eyed panther, or perhaps of a lurking biped,
which, though more artful, was known to be scarcely
less savage. It is true, that hundreds experienced
the uneasiness of such sensations, who were never
fated to undergo the realities of the fearful pictures.
Still, facts were not wanting to supply sufficient
motive for a grave and reasonable apprehension.
Histories of combats with beasts of prey, and of
massacres by roving and lawless Indians, were the
moving legends of the border. Thrones might be
subverted, and kingdoms lost and won, in distant
Europe, and less should be said of the events, by
of peculiar and striking forest incident, that called
for the exercise of the stout courage and the keen
intelligence of a settler. Such a tale passed from
mouth to mouth, with the eagerness of powerful
personal interest, and many were already transmitted
from parent to child, in the form of tradition,
until, as in more artificial communities, graver
improbabilities creep into the doubtful pages of
history, exaggeration became too closely blended
with truth, ever again to be separated.
Under the influence of these feelings, and perhaps
prompted by his never-failing discretion, Content
had thrown a well-tried piece over his shoulder;
and when he rose the ascent on which his
father had met the stranger, Ruth caught a glimpse
of his form, bending on the neck of his horse, and
gliding through the mistry light of the hour, resembling
one of those fancied images of wayward
and hard-riding sprites, of which the tales of the
eastern continent are so fond of speaking.
Then followed anxious moments, during which
neither sight nor hearing could in the least aid the
conjectures of the attentive wife. She listened
without breathing, and once or twice she thought
the blows of hoofs, falling on the earth harder and
quicker than common, might be distinguished; but
it was only as Content mounted the sudden ascent
of the hill-side, that he was again seen, for a brief
instant, while dashing swiftly into the cover of the
woods.
Though Ruth had been familiar with the cares
of the frontier, perhaps she had never known a
moment more intensely painful than that, when the
form of her husband became blended with the dark
trunks of the trees. The time was to her impatience
longer than usual, and under the excitement
of a feverish inquietude, that had no definite object,
closed, and passed entirely without the stockade.
To her oppressed senses, the palisadoes appeared
to place limits to her vision. Still, weary minute
passed after minute, without bringing relief. During
these anxious moments, she became more than usually
conscious of the insulated situation in which
he and all who were dearest to her heart were
placed. The feelings of a wife prevailed. Quitting
the side of the acclivity, she began to walk slowly
along the path her husband had taken, until apprehension
insensibly urged her into a quicker movement.
She had paused only when she stood nearly
in the centre of the clearing, on the eminence
where her father had halted that evening to contemplate
the growing improvement of his estate.
Here her steps were suddenly arrested, for she
thought a form was issuing from the forest, at that
interesting spot which her eyes had never ceased
to watch. It proved to be no more than the passing
shadow of a cloud denser than common, which
threw the body of its darkness on the trees, and a
portion of its outline on the ground near the margin
of the wood. Just at this instant, the recollection
that she had incautiously left the postern open
flashed upon her mind, and, with feelings divided
between husband and children, she commenced her
return, in order to repair a neglect, to which habit,
no less than prudence, imparted a high degree of
culpability. The eyes of the mother, for the feelings
of that sacred character were now powerfully
uppermost, were fastened on the ground, as she
eagerly picked her way along the uneven surface;
and, so engrossed was her mind by the omission of
duty with which she was severely reproaching herself,
that they drank in objects without conveying
distinct or intelligible images to her brain.
Notwithstanding the one engrossing thought of
even the vacant organ to recoil, and every fibre in
her frame to tremble with terror. There was a
moment in which delirium nearly heightened terror
to madness. Reflection came only when Ruth had
reached the distance of many feet from the spot
where this startling object had half-unconsciously
crossed her vision. Then for a single and a fearful
instant she paused, like one who debated on the
course she ought to follow. Maternal love prevailed,
and the deer of her own woods scarcely bounds
with greater agility, than the mother of the sleeping
and defenceless family now fled towards the
dwellings. Panting and breathless she gained the
postern, which was closed, with hands that performed
their office more by instinct than in obedience
to thought, and doubly and trebly barred.
For the first time in some minutes, Ruth now
breathed distinctly and without pain. She strove
to rally her thoughts, in order to deliberate on the
course that prudence and her duty to Content, who
was still exposed to the danger she had herself escaped,
prescribed. Her first impulse was to give
the established signal that was to recall the laborers
from the field, or to awake the sleepers, in the
event of an alarm; but better reflection told her
that such a step might prove fatal to him who balanced
in her affections against the rest of the world.
The struggle in her mind only ended, as she clearly
and unequivocally caught a view of her husband,
issuing from the forest, at the very point where he
had entered. The return path unfortunately led
directly past the spot where such sudden terror had
seized her mind. She would have given worlds to
have known how to apprize him of a danger with
which her own imagination was full, without communicating
the warning to other and terrible ears.
The night was still, and though the distance was
chances of success desperate. Scarcely knowing
what she did, and yet preserving, by a sort of instinctive
prudence, the caution which constant exposure
weaves into all our habits, the trembling
woman made the effort.
“Husband! husband!” she cried, commencing
plaintively, but her voice rising with the energy of
excitement. “Husband, ride swiftly; our little Ruth
lyeth in the agony. For her life and thine, ride at
thy horse's speed. Seek not the stables, but come
with all haste to the postern; it shall be open to
thee.”
This was certainly a fearful summons for a father's
ear, and there is little doubt that, had the
feeble powers of Ruth succeeded in conveying the
words as far as she had wished, they would have
produced the desired effect. But in vain did she
call; her weak tones, though raised on the notes of
the keenest apprehension, could not force their way
across so wide a space. And yet, had she reason to
think they were not entirely lost, for once her husband
paused and seemed to listen, and once he
quickened the pace of his horse; though neither of
these proofs of intelligence was followed by any
further signs of his having understood the alarm.
Content was now upon the hillock itself. If Ruth
breathed at all during its passage, it was more imperceptibly
than the gentlest respiration of the
sleeping infant. But when she saw him trotting
with unconscious security along the path on the
side next the dwellings, her impatience broke
through all restraint, and throwing open the postern,
she renewed her cries, in a voice that was no
longer useless. The clattering of the unshodden
hoof was again rapid, and in another minute her
husband galloped unharmed to her side.
“Enter!” said the nearly dizzy wife, seizing the
“Enter, husband, for the love of all that is thine;
enter, and be thankful.”
“What meaneth this terror, Ruth?” demanded
Content, in as much displeasure, perhaps, as he
could manifest to one so gentle, for a weakness betrayed
in his own behalf; “is thy confidence in him
whose eye never closeth, and who equally watcheth
the life of man and that of the falling sparrow,
lost?”
Ruth was deaf. With hurried hands she drew
the fastenings, let fall the bars, and turned a key
which forced a triple-bolted lock to perform its
office. Not till then did she feel either safe herself,
or at liberty to render thanks for the safety of him,
over whose danger she had so lately watched, in
agony.
“Why this care? Hast forgotten that the horse
will suffer hunger, at this distance from the rack
and manger?”
“Better that he starve, than hair of thine should
come to harm.”
“Nay, nay, Ruth; dost not remember that the
beast is the favorite of my father, who will ill brook
his passing a night within the palisadoes?”
“Husband, you err; there is one in the fields!”
“Is there place, where one is not?”
“But I have seen creature of mortal birth, and
creature too that hath no claim on thee, or thine,
and who trespasseth on our peace, no less than on
our natural rights, to be where he lurketh.”
“Go to; thou art not used to be so late from thy
pillow, my poor Ruth; sleep hath come over thee,
whilst standing on thy watch. Some cloud hath left
its shadow on the fields, or, truly, it may be that
the hunt did not drive the beasts as far from the
clearing as we had thought. Come; since thou wilt
while I ease him of his burthen.”
As Content coolly proceeded to the task he had
mentioned, the thoughts of his wife were momentarily
diverted from their other sources of uneasiness,
by the object which lay on the crupper of the nag,
and which, until now, had entirely escaped her
observation.
“Here is, indeed, the animal this day missing from
our flock!” she exclaimed, as the carcass of a sheep
fell heavily on the ground.
“Ay; and killed with exceeding judgment, if not
aptly dressed to our hands. Mutton will not be
wanting for the husking-feast, and the stalled creature
whose days were counted may live another
season.”
“And where didst find the slaughtered beast?”
“On the limb of a growing hickory. Eben Dudley,
with all his sleight in butchering, and in setting forth
the excellence of his meats, could not have left an
animal hanging from the branch of a sapling, with
greater knowledge of his craft. Thou seest, but a
single meal is missing from the carcass, and that
thy fleece is unharmed.”
“This is not the work of a Pequod!” exclaimed
Ruth, surprised at her own discovery; “the red
men do their mischief with less care.”
“Nor has the tooth of wolf opened the veins of
poor Straight-Horns. Here has been judgment in
the slaughtering, as well as prudence in consumption
of the food. The hand that cut so lightly, had
intention of a second visit.”
“And our father bid thee seek the creature
where it was found! Husband, I fear some heavy
judgment for the sins of the parents, is likely to
befall the children.”
“The babes are quietly in their slumbers, and,
thus far, little wrong hath been done us. I'll cast
Straight-Horns shall content us for the husking.
We may have mutton less savory, for this evil
chance, but the number of thy flock will be un-altered.”
“And where is he, who hath mingled in our
prayers, and hath eaten of our bread; he who
counselled so long in secret with our father, and
who hath now vanished from among us, like a
vision?”
“That indeed is a question not readily to be
answered,” returned Content, who had hitherto
maintained a cheerful air, in order to appease what
he was fain to believe a causeless terror in the
bosom of his partner, but who was induced by this
question to drop his head like one that sought reasons
within the repository of his own thoughts. “It
mattereth not, Ruth Heathcote; the ordering of
the affair is in the hands of a man of many years
and great experience; should his aged wisdom fail,
do we not know that one even wiser than he, hath
us in his keeping? I will return the beast to his
rack, and when we shall have jointly asked favor
of eyes that never sleep, we will go in confidence
to our rest.”
“Husband, thou quittest not the palisadoes again
this night,” said Ruth, arresting the hand that had
already drawn a bolt, ere she spoke. “I have a
warning of evil.”
“I would the stranger had found some other
shelter in which to pass his short resting season.
That he hath made free with my flock, and that
he hath administered to his hunger at some cost,
when a single asking would have made him welcome
to the best that the owner of the Wish-Ton-Wish
can command, are truths that may not be denied.
Still is he mortal man, as a goodly appetite hath
proven, even should our belief in Providence so far
suffer beings of injustice to wander in our forms
and substance. I tell thee, Ruth, that the nag will
be needed for to-morrow's service, and that our
father will give but ill thanks should we leave it to
make a bed on this cold hill-side. Go to thy rest
and to thy prayers, trembler; I will close the
postern with all care. Fear not; the stranger is of
human wants, and his agency to do evil must needs
be limited by human power.”
“I fear none of white blood, nor of Christian
parentage: the murderous heathen is in our fields.”
“Thou dreamest, Ruth!”
“'Tis not a dream. I have seen the glowing eye-balls
of a savage. Sleep was little like to come
over me, when set upon a watch like this. I thought
me that the errand was of unknown character,
and that our father was exceedingly aged, and that
perchance his senses might be duped, and how an
obedient son ought not to be exposed.—Thou knowest,
Heathcote, that I could not look upon the danger
of my children's father with indifference, and I
followed to the nut-tree hillock.”
“To the nut-tree! It was not prudent in thee—
but the postern?”
“It was open; for were the key turned, who
was there to admit us quickly, had haste been
needed?” returned Ruth, momentarily averting
her face to conceal the flush excited by conscious
delinquency. “Though I failed in caution, 'twas
for thy safety, Heathcote. But on that hillock, and
in the hollow left by a fallen tree, lies concealed a
heathen!”
“I passed the nut-wood in going to the shambles
of our strange butcher, and I drew the rein to
give breath to the nag near it, as we returned with
the burthen. It cannot be; some creature of the
forest hath alarmed thee.”
“Ay! creature, formed, fashioned, gifted like
ourselves, in all but color of the skin and blessing
of the faith.”
“This is strange delusion! If there were enemy
at hand, would men subtle as those you fear, suffer
the master of the dwelling, and truly I may say it
without vain-glory, one as likely as another to
struggle stoutly for his own, to escape, when an
ill-timed visit to the woods had delivered him unresisting
into their hands? Go, go, good Ruth; thou
mayst have seen a blackened log—perchance the
frosts have left a fire-fly untouched, or it may be
that some prowling bear has scented out the sweets
of thy lately-gathered hives.”
Ruth again laid her hand firmly on the arm of
her husband, who had withdrawn another bolt,
and, looking him steadily in the face, she answered
by saying solemnly, and with touching pathos—
“Think'st thou, husband, that a mother's eye
could be deceived?”
It might have been that the allusion to the tender
beings whose fate depended on his care, or that the
deeply serious, though mild and gentle manner of
his consort, produced some fresher impression on
the mind of Content. Instead of undoing the fastenings
of the postern as he had intended, he deliberately
drew its bolts again and paused to think.
“If it produce no other benefit than to quiet
thy fears, good Ruth,” he said, after a moment of
reflection, “a little caution will be well repaid.
Stay you, then, here, where the hillock may be
watched, while I go wake a couple of the people.
With stout Eben Dudley and experienced Reuben
Ring to back me, my father's horse may surely be
stabled.”
Ruth contentedly assumed a task that she was
quite equal to perform with intelligence and zeal.
“Hie thee to the laborers' chambers, for I see a
was the answer she gave to a proposal that at least
quieted the intenseness of her fears for him in
whose behalf they had so lately been excited nearly
to agony.
“It shall be quickly done; nay, stand not thus
openly between the beams, wife. Thou mayst
place thyself, here, at the doublings of the wood,
beneath the loop, where harm would scarcely reach
thee, though shot from artillery were to crush the
timber.”
With this admonition to be wary of a danger that
he had so recently affected to despise, Content departed
on his errand. The two laborers he had mentioned
by name, were youths of mould and strength,
and they were well inured to toil, no less than to the
particular privations and dangers of a border life.
Like most men of their years and condition, they
were practised too in the wiles of Indian cunning;
and though the Province of Connecticut, compared
to other settlements, had suffered but little in this
species of murderous warfare, they both had martial
feats and perilous experiences of their own to
recount, during the light labors of the long winter
evenings.
Content crossed the court with a quick step; for,
notwithstanding his steady unbelief, the image of
his gentle wife posted on her outer watch hurried
his movements. The rap he gave at the door, on
reaching the apartment of those he sought, was loud
as it was sudden.
“Who calls?” demanded a deep-toned and firm
voice from within, at the first blow of the knuckles
on the plank.
“Quit thy beds quickly, and come forth with the
arms appointed for a sally.”
“That is soon done,” answered a stout woodsman,
throwing open the door and standing before Content
“We were just dreaming that the night was not to
pass without a summons to the loops.”
“Hast seen aught?”
“Our eyes were not shut, more than those of
others; we saw him enter that no man hath seen
depart.”
“Come, fellow; Whittal Ring would scarce give
wiser speech than this cunning reply of thine. My
wife is at the postern, and it is fit we go to relieve
her watch. Thou wilt not forget the horns of powder,
since it would not tell to our credit, were there
service for the pieces, and we lacking in where-withal
to give them a second discharge.”
The hirelings obeyed, and, as little time was
necessary to arm those who never slept without
weapons and ammunition within reach of their
hands, Content was speedily followed by his dependants.
Ruth was found at her post, but when urged
by her husband to declare what had passed in his
absence, she was compelled to admit that, though
the moon had come forth brighter and clearer from
behind the clouds, she had seen nothing to add to
her alarm.
“We will then lead the beast to his stall, and close
our duty by setting a single watcher for the rest of
the night,” said the husband. “Reuben shall keep
the postern, while Eben and I will have a care for
my father's nag, not forgetting the carcass for the
husking-feast. Dost hear, deaf Dudley?—cast the
mutton upon the crupper of the beast, and follow to
the stables.”
“Here has been no common workman at my office,”
said the blunt Eben, who, though an ordinary
farm-laborer, according to an usage still very generally
prevalent in the country, was also skilful in the
craft of the butcher. “I have brought many a
wether to his end, but this is the first sheep, within
a portion of the body has been in the pot! Lie there,
poor Straight-Horns, if quiet thou canst lie after
such strange butchery. Reuben, I paid thee, as the
sun rose, a Spanish piece in silver, for the trifle of
debt that lay between us, in behalf of the good turn
thou didst the shoes, which were none the better for
the last hunt in the hills. Hast ever that pistareen
about thee?”
This question, which was put in a lowered tone,
and only to the ear of the party concerned, was answered
in the affirmative.
“Give it me, lad; in the morning, thou shalt be
paid, with usurer's interest.”
Another summons from Content, who had now led
the nag loaded with the carcass of the sheep without
the postern, cut short the secret conference.
Eben Dudley, having received the coin, hastened to
follow. But the distance to the out-buildings was
sufficient to enable him to effect his mysterious purpose
without discovery. Whilst Content endeavored
to calm the apprehensions of his wife, who still persisted
in sharing his danger, by such reasons as he
could on the instant command, the credulous Dudley
placed the thin piece of silver between his teeth,
and, with a pressure that denoted the prodigious
force of his jaws, caused it to assume a beaten and
rounded shape. He then slily dropped the battered
coin into the muzzle of his gun, taking care to secure
its presence, until he himself should send it on
its disenchanting message, by a wad torn from the
lining of part of his vestments. Supported by this
redoubtable auxiliary, the superstitious but still
courageous borderer followed his companion, whistling
a low air that equally denoted his indifference
to danger of an ordinary nature, and his sensibility
to impressions of a less earthly character.
They who dwell in the older districts of America,
clear the earth of its inequalities, and to remove
the vestiges of a state of nature, can form but little
idea of the thousand objects that may exist in a
clearing, to startle the imagination of one who has
admitted alarm, when seen in the doubtful light of
even a cloudless moon. Still less can they who have
never quitted the old world, and who, having only
seen, can only imagine fields smooth as the surface
of tranquil water, picture the effect produced by
those lingering remnants, which may be likened to
so many mouldering monuments of the fallen forest,
scattered at such an hour over a broad surface of
open land. Accustomed as they were to the sight,
Content and his partner, excited by their fears,
fancied each dark and distant stump a savage; and
they passed no angle in the high and heavy fences,
without throwing a jealous glance to see that some
enemy did not lie stretched within its shadows.
Still no new motive for apprehension arose, during
the brief period that the two adventurers were employed
in administering to the comfort of the Puritan's
steed. The task was ended, the carcass of the
slaughtered Straight-Horns had been secured, and
Ruth was already urging her husband to return,
when their attention was drawn to the attitude and
mien of their companion.
“The man hath departed as he came,” said Eben
Dudley, who stood shaking his head in open doubt,
before an empty stall; “here is no beast, though
with these eyes did I see the half-wit bring hither a
well-filled measure of speckled oats, to feed the nag.
He who favored us with his presence at the supper
and the thanksgiving, hath tired of his company before
the hour of rest had come.”
“The horse is truly wanting,” said Content: “the
man must needs be in exceeding haste, to have ridden
into the forest as the night grew deepest, and
a better hack than that he rode to another Christian
dwelling. There is reason for this industry, but
it is enough that it concerns us not. We will now
seek our rest, in the certainty that one watcheth
our slumbers whose vigilance can never fail.”
Though man could not trust himself to sleep in
that country without the security of bars and bolts,
we have already had occasion to say that property
was guarded with but little care. The stable-door
was merely closed by a wooden latch, and the party
returned from this short sortie, with steps that were
a little quickened by a sense of an uneasiness that
beset them in forms suited to their several characters.
But shelter was at hand, and it was speedily
regained.
“Thou hast seen nothing?” said Content to Reuben
Ring, who had been chosen for his quick eye,
and a sagacity that was as remarkable as was his
brother's impotency; “thou hast seen nothing at thy
watch?”
“Nought unusual; and yet I like not yonder billet
of wood, near to the fence against the knoll. If it
were not so plainly a half-burnt log, one might fancy
there is life in it. But when fancy is at work, the
sight is keen. Once or twice I have thought it seemed
to be rolling towards the brook; I am not, even
now, certain that when first seen it did not lie eight
or ten feet higher against the bank.”
“It may be a living thing!”
“On the faith of a woodman's eye, it well may
be,” said Eben Dudley; “but should it be haunted
by a legion of wicked spirits, one may bring it to
quiet from the loop at the nearest corner. Stand
aside, Madam Heathcote,” for the character and
wealth of the proprietors of the valley, gave Ruth
a claim to this term of respect among the laborers;
“let me thrust the piece through the—stop, there
sinful to waste on such a creature. It may be no
more than some sweet-toothed bear. I will answer
for the charge at my own cost, if thou wilt lend me
thy musket, Reuben Ring.”
“It shall not be,” said his master; “one known
to my father hath this night entered our dwelling
and fed at our board; if he hath departed in a way
but little wont among those of this Colony, yet hath
he done no great wrong. I will go nigh, and examine
with less risk of error.”
There was, in this proposal, too much of that
spirit of right-doing which governed all of those
simple regions, to meet serious opposition. Content,
supported by Eben Dudley, again quitted the postern,
and proceeded directly, though still not without
sufficient caution, towards the point where the
suspicious object lay. A bend in the fence had first
brought it into view, for previously to reaching that
point, its apparent direction might for some distance
have been taken under shelter of the shadows of
the rails, which, at the immediate spot where it was
seen, were turned suddenly in a line with the eyes
of the spectators. It seemed as if the movements
of those who approached were watched; for the
instant they left the defences, the dark object was
assuredly motionless; even the keen eye of Reuben
Ring beginning to doubt whether some deception
of vision had not led him, after all, to mistake a
billet of wood for a creature of life.
But Content and his companion were not induced
to change their determination. Even when within
fifty feet of the object, though the moon fell full
and brightly upon the surface, its character baffled
conjecture. One affirmed it was the end of a charred
log, many of which still lay scattered about the
fields, and the other believed it some cringing animal
of the woods. Twice Content raised his piece to
do injury to even a quadruped of whose character
he was ignorant. It is more than probable that his
less considerate, and but half-obedient companion
would have decided the question soon after leaving
the postern, had not the peculiar contents of his
musket rendered him delicate of its uses.
“Look to thy weapons,” said the former, loosening
his own hunting-knife in its sheath. “We will
draw near, and make certainty of what is doubtful.”
They did so, and the gun of Dudley was thrust
rudely into the side of the object of their distrust,
before it again betrayed life or motion. Then, indeed,
as if further disguise was useless, an Indian
lad, of some fifteen years, rose deliberately to his
feet, and stood before them in the sullen dignity
of a captured warrior. Content hastily seized the
stripling by an arm, and followed by Eben, who occasionally
quickened the footsteps of the prisoner
by an impetus obtained from the breech of his own
musket, they hurriedly returned within the defences.
“My life against that of Straight-Horns, which
is now of no great value,” said Dudley, as he pushed
the last bolt of the fastenings into its socket, “we
hear no more of this red skin's companions to-night.
I never knew an Indian raise his whoop, when a
scout had fallen into the hands of the enemy.”
“This may be true,” returned the other, “and
yet must a sleeping household be guarded. We
may be brought to rely on the overlooking favor of
Providence, working with the means of our own
manhood, ere the sun shall arise.”
Content was a man of few words, but one of exceeding
steadiness and resolution in moments of
need. He was perfectly aware that an Indian
youth, like him he had captured, would not have
been found in that place, and under the circumstances
in which he was actually taken, without a
The tender age of the stripling, too, forbade the
belief that he was unaccompanied. But he silently
agreed with his laboring man that the capture would
probably cause the attack, if any such were meditated,
to be deferred. He therefore instructed his
wife to withdraw into her chamber, while he took
measures to defend the dwelling in the last emergency.
Without giving any unnecessary alarm, a
measure that would have produced less effect on
an enemy without, than the imposing stillness which
now reigned within the defences, he ordered two
or three more of the stoutest of his dependants to
be summoned to the palisadoes. A keen scrutiny
was made into the state of all the different outlets
of the place; muskets were carefully examined;
charges were given to be watchful, and regular
sentinels were stationed within the shadows of the
buildings, at points where, unseen themselves, they
could look out in safety upon the fields.
Content then took his captive, with whom he had
made no attempt to exchange a syllable, and led
him to the block-house. The door which communicated
with the basement of this building was always
open, in readiness for refuge in the event of
any sudden alarm. He entered, caused the lad to
mount by a ladder to the floor above, and then
withdrawing the means of retreat, he turned the
key without, in perfect confidence that his prisoner
was secure.
Notwithstanding all this care, morning had nearly
dawned before the prudent father and husband
sought his pillow. His steadiness however had prevented
the apprehensions, which kept his own eyes
and those of his gentle partner so long open, from
extending beyond the few whose services were, in
such an emergency, deemed indispensable to safety.
Towards the last watches of the night, only, did
just passed, become dim and confused, and then
both husband and wife slept soundly, and happily
without disturbance.
| CHAPTER IV. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish | |