 | CHAPTER XI. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
“I will watch to-night;
Perchance 't will walk again.”
Hamlet.
“May not this be a warning given in mercy?” the
Puritan, at all times disposed to yield credit to supernatural
manifestations of the care of Providence,
demanded with a solemnity that did not fail to produce
its impression on most of his auditors. “The
history of our Colonies is full of the evidences of
these merciful interpositions.”
“We will thus consider it;” returned the stranger,
to whom the question seemed more particularly
addressed. “The first measure shall be to seek out
the danger to which it points. Let the youth they
call Dudley, give me the aid of his powerful frame
meaning of these frequent speakings of the conch,
to me.”
“Surely, Submission, thou wilt not again be the
first to go forth!” exclaimed Mark, in a surprise
that was equally manifested by Content and Ruth,
the latter of whom pressed her little image to her
side as though the bare proposal presented a powerful
picture of supernatural danger. “ 'T will be well
to think maturely on the step, ere thou runnest the
hazard of such an adventure.”
“Better it should be I,” said Content, “who am
accustomed to forest signs, and all the usual testimonials
of the presence of those who may wish us
harm.”
“No,” said he, who for the first time had been
called `Submission,' a name that savored of the
religious enthusiasm of the times, and which might
have been adopted as an open avowal of his readiness
to bow beneath some peculiar dispensation of
Providence. “This service shall be mine. Thou art
both husband and father; and many are there who
look to thy safety as to their rock of earthly support
and comfort, while neither kindred, nor——but we
will not speak of things foreign to our purpose! Thou
knowest, Mark Heathcote, that peril and I are no
strangers. There is little need to bid me be prudent.
Come, bold woodsman; shoulder thy musket,
and be ready to do credit to thy manhood, should
there be reason to prove it.”
“And why not Reuben Ring?” said a hurried female
voice, that all knew to proceed from the lips
of the sister of the youth just named. “He is quick
of eye and ready of hand, in trials like these; would
it not be well to succor thy party with such aid?”
“Peace, girl,” meekly observed Ruth. “This matter
is already in the ordering of one used to command;
Faith shrunk back abashed, the flush which had
mantled over her brown cheek deepening to a tint
like that of blood.
Submission (we use the appellation in the absence
of all others) fastened a searching glance, for a single
moment, on the countenance of the girl; and
then, as if his intention had not been diverted from
the principal subject in hand, he rejoined coolly—
“We go as scouters and observers of that which
may hereafter call for the ready assistance of this
youth; but numbers would expose us to observation,
without adding to our usefulness—and yet,” he
added, arresting his footstep, which was already
turned towards the door, and looking earnestly and
long at the Indian boy, “perhaps there standeth
one who might much enlighten us, would he but
speak!”
This remark drew every eye on the person of the
captive. The lad stood the scrutiny with the undismayed
and immovable composure of his race.
But though his eye met the looks of those around
him haughtily and in pride, it was not gleaming with
any of that stern defiance which had so often been
known to glitter in his glances, when he had reason
to think that his fortunes, or his person, was the subject
of the peculiar observation of those with whom
he dwelt. On the contrary, the expression of his
dark visage was rather that of amity than of hatred,
and there was a moment when the look he cast
upon Ruth and her offspring was visibly touched
with a feeling of concern. A glance, charged with
such a meaning, could not escape the quick-sighted
vigilance of a mother.
“The child hath proved himself worthy to be
trusted,” she said; “and in the name of him who
more go forth.”
Her lips became sealed, for again the conch announced
the seeming impatience of those without to
be admitted. The full tones of the shell thrilled
on the nerves of the listeners, as though they proclaimed
the coming of some great and fearful judgment.
In the midst of these often-repeated and mysterious
sounds, Submission alone seemed calm and unmoved.
Turning his look from the countenance of
the boy, whose head had dropped upon his breast as
the last notes of the conch rang among the buildings,
he motioned hurriedly to Dudley to follow, and left
the place.
There was, in good truth, that in the secluded
situation of the valley, the darkness of the hour, and
the nature of the several interruptions, which might
readily awaken deep concern in the breasts of men
as firm even as those who now issued into the open
air, in quest of the solution of doubts that were becoming
intensely painful. The stranger, or Submission,
as we may in future have frequent occasion to
call him, led the way in silence to a point of the
eminence, without the buildings, where the eye
might overlook the palisadoes that hedged the sides
of the acclivity, and command a view beyond of all
that the dusky and imperfect light would reveal.
It was a scene that required familiarity with a
border life to be looked on, at any moment, with
indifference. The broad, nearly interminable, and
seemingly trackless forest lay about them, bounding
the view to the narrow limits of the valley, as though
it were some straitened oasis amidst an ocean of wilderness.
Within the boundaries of the cleared land,
objects were less indistinct; though even those nearest
and most known were now seen only in the confused
and gloomy outlines of night.
Across this dim prospect, Submission and his companion
gazed long and cautiously.
“There is nought but motionless stumps, and
fences loaded with snow,” said the former, when his
eye had roamed over the whole circuit of the view
which lay on the side of the valley where they stood.
“We must go forth, that we may look nearer to the
fields.”
“Thither then is the postern,” said Dudley, observing
that the other took a direction opposite to
that which led to the gate. But a gesture of authority
induced him at the next instant to restrain
his voice, and to follow whither his companion chose
to lead the way.
The stranger made a circuit of half the hill ere
he descended to the palisadoes, at a point where lay
long and massive piles of wood, which had been collected
for the fuel of the family. This spot was one
that overlooked the steepest acclivity of the eminence,
which was in itself, just there, so difficult of
ascent, as to render the provision of the pickets far
less necessary than in its more even faces. Still no
useful precaution for the security of the family had
been neglected, even at this strong point of the
works. The piles of wood were laid at such a distance
from the pickets as to afford no facilities for
scaling them, while, on the other hand, they formed
platforms and breast-works that might have greatly
added to the safety of those who should be required
to defend this portion of the fortress. Taking his
way directly amid the parallel piles, the stranger
descended rapidly through the whole of their mazes,
until he had reached the open space between the
outer of the rows and the palisadoes, a space that
was warily left too wide to be passed by the leap
of man.
“ 'Tis many a day since foot of mine has been in
this spot,” said Eben Dudley, feeling his way along
apparent hesitation. “My own hand laid this outer
pile, some winters since, and certain am I, that from
that hour to this, man hath not touched a billet of
the wood—And yet, for one who hath come from
over sea, it would appear that thou hast no great difficulty
in making way among the narrow lanes!”
“He that hath sight may well choose between air
and beechen logs,” returned the other, stopping at
the palisadoes, and in a place that was concealed
from any prying eyes within the works, by triple
and quadruple barriers of wood. Feeling in his girdle,
he then drew forth something which Dudley
was not long in discovering to be a key. While the
latter, aided by the little light that fell from the
heavens, was endeavoring to make the most of his
eyes, Submission applied the instrument to a lock
that was artfully sunk in one of the timbers, at the
height of a man's breast from the ground; and giving
a couple of vigorous turns, a piece of the palisado,
some half a fathom long, yielded on a powerful hinge
below, and, falling, made an opening sufficiently
large for the passage of a human body.
“Here is a sally-port ready provided for our
sortie,” the stranger coolly observed, motioning to
the other to precede him. When Dudley had passed,
his companion followed, and the opening was
then carefully closed and locked.
“Now is all fast again, and we are in the fields
without raising alarm to any of mortal birth, at
least,” continued the guide, thrusting a hand into
the folds of his doublet, as if to feel for a weapon,
and preparing to descend the difficult declivity
which still lay between him and the base of the
hill. Eben Dudley hesitated to follow. The interview
with the traveller in the mountains occurred
to his heated imagination, and the visions of a prestigious
agency revived with all their original force.
of his companion, was little likely to reassure a
mind disturbed with such images.
“There is a rumor going in the Colony,” muttered
the borderer, “that the invisibles are permitted
for a time to work their evil; and it may well happen
that some of their ungodly members shall journey
to the Wish-Ton-Wish, in lack of better employment.”
“Thou sayest truly,” replied the stranger; “but
the power that allows of their wicked torments
may have seen fit to provide an agent of its own, to
defeat their subtleties. We will now draw nearer
to the gate, in order that an eye may be kept on
their malicious designs.”
Submission spoke with gravity, and not without
a certain manner of solemnity. Dudley yielded,
though with a divided and a disturbed mind, to his
suggestion. Still he followed in the footsteps of the
stranger, with a caution that might well have eluded
the vigilance of any agency short of that which
drew its means of information from sources deeper
than any of human power.
When the two watches had found a secret and
suitable place, not far from the postern, they disposed
themselves in silence to await the result. The out-buildings
lay in deep quiet, not a sound of any sort
arising from all of the many tenants they were
known to contain. The lines of ragged fences; the
blackened stumps, capped with little pyramids of
snow; the taller and sometimes suspiciously-looking
stubs; an insulated tree, and finally the broad borber
of forest,—were alike motionless, gloomy, and
clothed in the doubtful forms of night. Still, the
space around the well-secured and trebly-barred
postern was vacant. A sheet of spotless snow served
as a back-ground, that would have been sure to betray
the presence of any object passing over its
from one of the timbers, as mute and inoffensive as
the hour when it had been washed by the waves,
on the sands of the sea-shore.
“Here will we watch for the coming of the
stranger, be he commissioned by the powers of air,
or be he one sent on an errand of earth;” whispered
Submission, preparing his arms for immediate
use, and disposing of his person, at the same time,
in a manner most convenient to endure the weariness
of a patient watch.
“I would my mind were at ease on the question
of right-doing in dealing harm to one who disturbs
the quiet of a border family,” said Dudley, in a
tone sufficiently repressed for caution; “it may be
found prudent to strike the first blow, should one
like an over-sea gallant, after all, be inclined to
trouble us at this hour.”
“In that strait, thou wilt do well to give little
heed to the order of the offences,” gloomily returned
the other. “Should another messenger of England
appear—”
He paused, for a note of the conch was heard
rising gradually on the air, until the whole of the
wide valley was filled with its rich and melancholy
sound.
“Lip of man is not at the shell!” exclaimed the
stranger, who like Dudley had made a forward
movement towards the postern, the instant the blast
reached his ear, and who like Dudley recoiled in
an amazement that even his practised self-command
could not conceal, as he undeniably perceived the
truth of that his speech affirmed. “This exceedeth
all former instances of marvellous visitations!”
“It is vain to pretend to raise the feeble nature
of man to the level of things coming from the invisible
world,” returned the woodsman at his side.
“In such a strait, it is seemly that sinful men should
our feebleness by the spiritual strivings of the Captain.”
To this discreet proposal the stranger raised no
objection. Without taking the time necessary to
effect their retreat with the precaution that had
been observed in their advance, the two adventurers
quickly found themselves at the secret entrance
through which they had so lately issued.
“Enter,” said the stranger, lowering the piece
of the palisado for the passage of his companion.
“Enter, of a Heaven's sake! for it is truly meet
that we assemble all our spiritual succor.”
Dudley was in the act of complying, when a dark
line, accompanied by a low rushing sound, cut the
air between his head and that of his companion.
At the next instant, a flint-headed arrow quivered
in the timber.
“The heathen!” shouted the borderer, recovering
all his manhood as the familiar danger became apparent,
and throwing back a stream of fire in the
direction from which the treacherous missile had
come. “To the palisadoes, men! the bloody heathen
is upon us!”
“The heathen!” echoed the stranger, in a deep,
steady, commanding voice, that had evidently often
raised the warning in scenes of even greater emergency,
and levelling a pistol, which brought a dark
form that was gliding across the snow to one knee.
“The heathen! the bloody heathen is upon us!”
As if both assailants and assailed paused, one
moment of profound stillness succeeded this fierce
interruption of the quiet of the night. Then the
cries of the two adventurers were answered by a
burst of yells from a wide circle, that nearly environed
the hill. At the same moment, each dark
object, in the fields, gave up a human form. The
shouts were followed by a cloud of arrows, that
palisadoes eminently hazardous. Dudley entered;
but the passage of the stranger would have been
cut off, by a leaping, whooping band that pressed
fiercely on his rear, had not a broad sheet of flame,
glancing from the hill directly in their swarthy and
grim countenances, driven the assailants back upon
their own footsteps. In another moment, the bolts
of the lock were passed, and the two fugitives were
in safety behind the ponderous piles of wood.
| CHAPTER XI. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish | |