University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX.

The future historian of the Western church may learn,
from this chapter, that the company of believers of which
Mr. Hilsbury was a bishop, whenever about three or four
such can be found, form an ecclesiastical court, with spiritual
jurisdiction over a given district. A court of this
kind was constituted his autumn in Glenville at the episcopal
residence. The smallest legitimate number of clergy
composed it, and every reverend gentleman was honoured
with an office:—Mr. Hilsbury was made President, Mr.
Shrub, of Timberopolis, Clerk, and Mr. Merry, (a bishop,
in transitu,) Treasurer. And thus was shown, after all,
the practicability of Locke's celebrated Fundamental Constitution
of Carolina, found impracticable in Sayle's province,—the
offices and dignities requiring every man in the
colony.

Mr. Welden, Sen., and some other excellent old woodsmen,
had seats as lay delegates. These, however, managed
only the secular business of the Assembly; for instance,
such as to bring in a pitcher of water, keep a small fire
alive on the hearth, and contribute each twenty-five cents

cash to the sub-treasury. Farther east, I am told, lay delegates
are even more useful, volunteering to let down
bars, open gates and the like, between the lodgings of the
clergy and the chapel where the court is in session. Normally,
it is said, the lay and clerical delegates are on equal
footing in the House, both having a right to talk either
sense or nonsense as long as they see fit; and yet, in practice,
the lay members are not considered as on a par with
the clerical ones. For instance, in debates, discussions
and so forth, the commoners are never called—brother,
except collectively under the appellation, brethren; and
even then prime reference is intended to the clergy. But
the commoners are termed variously, as “the worthy person
or member”—“the good old man that has just spoken”
—“Esquire Cleverly”—“Lawyer Counselton,” &c. &c.:
yet mostly they are all spoken to and about as plain—
“Mister.”

In my wanderings I have, indeed, stumbled into assemblies
of their sort composed of Misters and Brothers, where
qualified lay gentlemen chose freely to exercise their privileges,
and where “the person” or “the worthy old man”
has so spoken and argued a subject as to lead the assembly
to adopt measures much more common-sense-like and democratical
than some, and especially the “younger brethren”
at first contemplated. Nay, an acute and eloquent
Mister occasionally would be seen to demolish a rash
brother; or in our parlance out there—to use him up.
Hence, being myself a reformed democrat, this admixture
of Misters and Brothers in ecclesiastical Houses, did upon
the whole then strike me as the best and very best form of
religious associations for our republican institutions; and
then it occurred that if the lay delegates would always
qualify themselves properly and use judiciously and boldly
all their ecclesiastical privileges, that both State and

Church would even be more benefitted than ever by these
true republican bodies.[24]

We beg leave now to introduce more especially to the reader,
the President of the Court, the Rt. Rev. Brother Bishop
Hilsbury. Besides being pastor of the Welden Parish, he was
missionary bishop over a vast diocese, through which he
was ever riding, preaching, lecturing, praying and catechising,
and beyond which he often made excursions, to bestow
gratuitous and extra labour on the Macedonians—i. e.
wilderness folks that had no bishop to care for them. His
public discourses averaged, therefore, one a day, to say
nothing of baptisms, visits to sick, funeral services, cum
multis aliis: and the miles he rode were about one hundred
each week, or somewhere near five thousand annually!—
indeed, like other laborious missionaries in the West, he
lived on horseback. And when at home, a few days each
month, he retired not to his study, as he fain would have
done, but he betook himself to his cornfield: and not rarely
he wielded an axe in his clearing or deadening—working,
in short, not like “a nigger,” but a galley slave. Negroes,
under kind and judicious masters, work only little
more than the half of every day; a western bishop works
all day and part of the night. Brother Hilsbury was in
many perils—in the wilderness—in the flood—and among
false brethren; we subjoin a specimen of each sort: and

Firstly—we are to discourse of the Wilderness. Part
of an unsettled forest was once to be crossed by him to
reach a new settlement where he had engaged to bestow
some extra clerical labour. The path was nearly impassable;

and at sunset he was alone in the wilds, and more
than fourteen miles from the intended place. About dark,
he came to a deserted Indian hovel, where he resolved to
“put up,” rather than “camp-out” or travel in the dark;
and accordingly he dismounted, stripped his horse and secured
him by halter and bridle; and then had barely time
to get under the shelter of the half-roofless shantee, before
a tempest, long gathering its pitchy blackness, burst around
in floods of rain and flashes of keen fire with its appalling
thunder. By the glare, however, of the lightning, a rude
clap-board bedstead was discerned fastened to a side of the
hut, and on this fixture, after feeling with the end of his
whip if any chance snake was coiled in that nest, our
primitive bishop laid his saddle and other gear; and then
on and surrounded by these, passed that dreary night as
comfortably as—possible; and hungry, wet, and melancholy.
Having thus spoken briefly to our first head, we pass
to the consideration of the second thing proposed, which
was

Peril by Flood. Here, by way of preface, it may be remarked,
that reverend gentlemen intended for New Purchase
bishoprics, ought unto all their Christian gifts and
graces to add—the art of swimming. For want of this,
Bishop H. was in jeopardy oft of his life. Indeed, considering
his inability to swim, he was, my dear brethren, a
little rash; for in his company we have several times come
to creeks broad and muddy with “back-water” from a
neighbouring river, where the speaker, although a swimmed,
refused to enter; but our bishop either having more faith
or more courage, would, spite of all remonstrances, plunge
in, horse foremost, venturing on till the turbid waves reached
his saddle skirts and the tail—(of his horse)—began to
float! And that being symptomatic of a swimming head—
nay, of a whole body—our friend would return but still reluctant:

and we would then proceed up the stream till beyond
the influence of the back water.

At the time of his perilous-peril, Mr. H. was in company
with the Rev. Mr. Widdersarch, who also could not swim.
A large creek was raging with its swollen waters across their
way, rendering it necessary to cross or return; unless like
æsop's wise man they should wait the subsidence of the
flood. But that might be a long time yet, the waters still
rising; and beside it was absolutely necessary to go on—as
it always is when people are going anywhere, especially a
western minister, who usually, after riding many long miles,
and fording and swimming many dangerous creeks, to keep
with punctuality a gratuitous appointment, finds at the
preaching cabin a large congregation of—six: viz. the man
and his wife, with three little children and a help. For, of
course this thimblefull of folks would be too disappointed,
if the minister came not! And hence, valuable men feel
bound to be punctual out there, always at the risk of their
health, and not rarely their very lives.

The discussion in the present emergency soon ended by
the plunging of both brethren into the water; deeper, indeed,
than had been presumed! How deep was difficult
to say, the horses for some reason or other beginning to
swim immediately on entering the creek—perhaps, however,
unlike Dick, they could not resist a bloated stream
till the water went over their backs! Every thing proper
and customary was done with the ministerial legs to keep
the limbs dry; yet at the first souse those important appendages
were unpacked, all their capabilities being required
to hold on the riders—and nothing was now visible
above the turbid waters save two snorting horse heads, followed
by two human heads and busts.

And now the saddle-bags of Mr. Widdersarch, not being
rightly secured to the stirrup-leathers, floated off the saddle,
and, like hard ridden demagogues, went down with the

stream; upon which the owner not only made a very desperate
and very unsuccessful effort to arrest the articles,
but was, alas! by that very effort himself soused headlong
into the boiling waters! How, Mr. Widdersarch could
never tell, yet at the moment of his fall—(like Palinurus
grasping part of a helm in a fall from another poop)—he
felt and clutched with drowning energy, the floating tail of
his horse!—and holding to that he was carried safely till
his feet rested on the bottom. During all this Mr. Hilsbury
was in advance; but while he heard the fall and the cry
of his friend, he could render no assistance, having the
greatest difficulty to retain even his own seat; and by the
time he had reached the opposite bank in safety, his friend
could stand on the earth with his head above water; seeing
then the saddle-bags whirling in an eddy, Mr. H. hurried
with a long pole to a point whence it was thought the
leathery apparatus might be arrested. In his eagerness to
hook the bags as he leaned over the bank, that treacherous
bank gave way, and our excellent bishop himself was now
struggling for life in the whirlpool!

He was a man more than six feet high; yet in vain did
he try to stand on the bottom of his maelstroom, and hold up
his head in the world!—until driven violently against the
bank he managed with coolness certainly, if not presence
of mind, to clutch in one hand some roots in its side and
with the other and his feet to stick to its mud, till Mr. Widdersarch,
now landed, hastened to his assistance. In the
meantime, the saddle-wallets despairing of all rescue had
taken fresh start for some other port; but our involuntary
baptists running with poles to the next headland, were there
successful with their baitless bobbing, and had the satisfaction
of rescuing, and maybe from a watery grave, the
well-soaked conveniences! And so ends our second lesson.

The last trial was one of equanimity and patience—
more difficult to endure, however, than the other sorts.
Our friend, as has been often intimated, was forced to work
literally with his own hands. On one occasion he was
ploughing; when, to save his feet from injury, he had encased
or buried them in a pair of ungainly cow-hide shoes,
with exterior seams, like those of a hose, (viz: a leather
fire-engine,) such as no primitive apostle ever wore, and
most modern eastern parsons certainly never saw. They
had, indeed, been made at our tannery by a volunteer shoemaker
(such as a legislature will create some of these
days, when it is determined by them that every man may be
his own shoemaker,) so that they looked for all the world
as if they were vegetables and had grown on a shoe-tree!
Moreover, our clerical ploughman, like Cincinnatus, had
on no toga, and was in the state boys call, barelegged, or
to speak with modesty and taste, his limbs were destitute
of hose (or hoses.)

Now, in this “fix,” will any man of broadcloth and
French calf-skin, conjecture that our Rector's outer man
exhibited signs of worldly pride? And yet, my dear brethren,
the keen eyes of a parishioner saw pride in those
shoes!

“Impossible! unless it was deemed a pharisaical humility,
or a papistical penance.”

No, no! but on the contrary, the penance was not deemed
severe enough: for this Christian mister on finding his
bishop thus ploughing, reported through the whole diocese
that—

“Mr. Hilsbury was a most powerful proud man, as he
actially ketch'd him a ploughing with—his shoes on!”

I conclude, therefore, this discourse by asking you, dear
brethren, what would have happened if the Rt. Rev. Bishop
Hilsbury had in preaching sported a white handkerchief
and black silk gloves? or, horrible dictu (i.e. tell it not

in Gath) had he worn ruffles? Be assured we had some
rough and hard Christians out there who would have
deemed him an emissary of Satan, and one that deserved
burning on a log-heap!

Permit me next to introduce the clerk of the court—
Bishop Shrub. Of this gentleman we shall merely say, that
if a profound and an extensive acquaintance with all the important
and various subjects of ecclesiastical learning, together
with uncommon research in most other kinds; if the
command of elegant style in writing, and the power of rich
and copious elocution in preaching; if a pious and a conscientious
mind, an ardent zeal in the service of his Master,
and incessant labours for the good of men; if the most engaging
and winning manners in conversation; if all these
and similar excellences, possess charms, then would the
reader have rejoiced to know Bishop Shrub, and would have
classed and cherished him among the most highly estimated
friends.

As Mr. Merry will speak for himself in this chapter, the
reader may say what he thinks of this person after reading
his Buckeye Sermon, delivered at Forster's Mills.

Among the dogmata of the New Purchase Council, it
was ordained that Brothers Shrub and Merry should perform
a missionary tour of some weeks between 41° and
42° N. latitude, and in a region destitute of any spiritual instruction;
a region indeed almost destitute, it proved, of
inhabitants too, the thin “sprinkle” having, in all probability
sought a place free from all trammels, political as well
as ecclesiastical. The brethren took neither purse nor scrip,
and expected no present reward farther than the pleasure
of doing good; and yet they laboured as if in expectation
of being at the end of the tour, thrown into a modern[25]
bishop's see—not of glass, but of silver and gold and other

clinking evils. Having myself long desired to visit the
country now laid out as missionary ground, I begged permission
to join the party; which request being cheerfully
granted, away we started as—missionaries—hem! See
then, reader, “how we apples swim!”

During the excursion, three discourses were delivered
daily, the ministers alternately preaching, and the times being
usually 10 o'clock, A.M., 2 o'clock, P.M., and 5 o'clock
in the evening. In proceeding up the river (the Big Gravelly)
appointments were left for our return, and also sent
on before us, by any chance person found going towards the
polar circle. Nor ever did any one show reluctance to
bear the message; although on overtaking once a woodsman,
and begging him to name some place where we could
preach next day, at 10 o'clock, he replied:—

“Well, most sartinly, I'll give out preachin for any feller-critturs
whatsever—and Forster's saw-mill is jist about the
best place in all these parts—but I sorter allow 'taint no
use no how much, as folks in them diggins isn't powerful
gospel greedy.” And then, excusing himself from hearing
Bishop Shrub that same evening, he rode suddenly down
an abrupt bank of the river, and plunged into water, barely
admitting his large horse to go over without swimming,
yet he faithfully made the appointment for his “feller-critturs”
at the mill, although of our neighbour himself we
never saw more.

Our churches of course, were usually cabins, our pulpits
chairs; but the church at Forster's saw-mill deserves special
commemoration from the odd oddity of the place, the
audience, and the sermon of Brother Merry.

The church was literally in the mill; nor was this a
frame building painted red, with flocks of pigeons careering
round, or perched on its dormer windows, or strutting and
billing and cooing and pouting along the horizontal spout;
while, on a neighbouring elevation stood a commodious

stone house, the owner's and mason's names handsomely
done on a smooth stone near the summit of its gable; and
smiling meadows stretched away along the dancing waters
—concomitants rendering a mill so enchanting in old countries!
no: no:—here was a naked, unplanked, saw-mill!
a roof of boards twisted, warped and restless, on the top of
a few posts; the prominent objects being the great wheel,
the saw itself, and the log in the very act of transition into
plank and scantling!

No human dwelling was in sight, and it was afterwards
found that the owner and his men lived three miles from
the mill; that they went home but once or twice in the
week, eating during the day, when hungry, of cold corn and
pork, and sleeping during the night in the snuggest corner
of the mill-shed, and drinking both day and night when
thirsty or otherwise, freely of water and—whiskey. For
prospect around was an ugly, half-cleared clearing, with
piles of huge logs, not to be burned, however, but sawed.
The dam was invisible. A large square trough conducted
a portion of the Big Gravelly river to its scene of paltry labour;
and there the water, after leaping angrily from the
end of its wooden channel, and indignantly whirling a great
lubberly, ill-made, clattering wheel, as in derision of its architect,
hurried impatient along a vile looking ditch, half
choked with weeds and grass, to remingle with the sparkling,
free stream below!

Meeting, then, was to be held on a few loose planks,
constituting the floor, laid ad capsisum! The pulpit was
to be the near end of the log, arrested for a time in its transformation
to lumber; while at the far end was to be the
congregation—at least the sinners, who might sit, or lean,
or recline, or stand, as suited convenience. The congregation
was big of its size, consisting of the saw-miller, Mr.
Forster, and Mr. Forster's two men—and also, three hunters,
who accidentally hunting in the neighbourhood, had

chanced to stop just now at the mill—in all six sinners;
more, however, than are allowed in a Puseyite cathedral,
where conversions are unfashionable!

As we rode up, a few minutes before ten o'clock, the
saw was gnashing away its teeth at the far end of the log,
nor did it cease till we had entered the shed; and then, the
owner unwillingly stopped the performance, seeming by his
manner to say—“Come, let's have your preaching powerful
quick, the saw wants to be cutting agin.” This was
far from encouraging, yet Mr. Merry, whose turn was to
preach, began his preparations, observing in a conciliatory
way, that he would not hinder his friends very long, but
that we felt it would not be right to pass any settlement
where the neighbours were kind enough to give us an opportunity
of preaching. The preacher's manner so far
won on our sullen congregation, that Mr. Forster and two
others took seats in a row on their end of the log; while
two leaned themselves against the saw-frame, and one
against an adjoining post: Brother Shrub and Mister Carlton
sat among the saints at the pulpit-end of the log, like
good folks and penitents in churches with altars.

In this combination of adverse circumstances, great as
was our confidence in Mr. Merry, who was as used to this
sort of matters as are eels to skinning, we feared for his
success to-day. Yet he began seemingly unembarrassed,
holding a small testament, in which was concealed a piece
of paper, size of a thumb, and pencilled with some half a
dozen words constituting the parson's notes! And notes in
the New Purchase and the adjacent parts are always concealed
by preachers who use them; for the use of such
argues to most hearers there is a want of heart religion;
beside that no place is found in our pulpits to spread out
written discourses. To have used in Forster's mill-meeting
to day, any other than the thumb-paper just named,
would have been considerably worse than ridiculous—it

would have deserved a scratch or so from Mr. Forster's
saw-teeth; or what is next to it, a scourging from Lord
Bishop Baltimore.

Brother Merry quickly perceived that even the plainest
and almost child-like topics with suitable language and illustrations
failed to preserve his spectators' attention. One
man began to look at the ditch where now the water was
trickling along with a subdued voice; another, to cut a
clapboard with his scalping knife; and Mr. Forster looked
wistfully at his saw, evidently more desirous to hear its
music than both our preachers' voices together. Something
desperate must then be attempted to arrest attention, or
hope of doing good at present abandoned. For while true
that men cannot hear without a preacher, it does not follow
that they will always hear with one: and hence Mr. Merry,
after some vain attempts to convert spectators into auditors,
suddenly stopped as if done preaching, and as if talking,
commenced thus:—

“My friends and neighbours don't you all shoot the
rifle in this settlement?” That shot was central: it even
startled the Rev. Shrub and myself. The man using up
the clap-board looked like an excited dog—his very ears
seeming on full cock; and Mr. Forster was so interested
that he answered in the affirmative by a nod. “So I
thought. No hardy woodsman is ignorant of that weapon—
the noble death-dealing rifle. Ay! with that and the bold
hearts and steady hands and sharp eyes of backwoodsmen,
what need we fear any human enemies.” (Approving
smiles from all accompanied with nods and winks)—“And
no doubt you all go to shooting matches?”—(Assent by a
unanimous nod and wink)—“Yes! yes! it would be
strange if you never went. Now, my dear friends, I have
no doubt some of you are first-rate marksmen, and can drive
the centre off-hand a hundred honest yards.” (Here one
man on the congregational end of the log stood right up, and

with a look and manner equivalent to “I'm jist the very
feller what can do that.”—Ay! I see it in your looks.
I'm fond of shooting a little myself; 'tis very exciting—and
when I indulge in shooting, I have to keep a powerful guard
over my heart and temper. For don't we feel ourselves,
neighbours, a right smart chance better than persons that
can't shoot at all? Perhaps we feel a sort of glad when a
neighbour makes worse shots than ourselves—perhaps we
even secretly hope the man firing against us may miss, or
that something may happen to spoil his chance? And then,
when we make good shots, don't we walk about sometimes
and brag a little—even while we hate to hear any body
else bragging? Come, my honest friends, don't we all on
such occasions do some things, and say some things, and
wish some things, that when we get home, and are alone,
and begin to think over the day, make us feel sorry about
our conduct at the shooting? Come, we are all friends and
neighbours here, to-day—aint it so?” (Several nods in
assent—but no smiles as at first—with fixed attention, and
a go-on-Mr. Preacher-look, at the far end of the log)—“Yes,
yes, my dear friends, it is so—that is honest and noble in
us to confess: now there is a rule in this Book—you all
know what it is—a rule saying, that we ought to do to
others, what we, in the same circumstances, would wish
them to do to us. And surely, that is a most glorious and
excellent rule! Well, don't we often forget this rule at a
shooting match? and in more ways than one! And again,
every sensible man well knows how mean pride is, and
we all despise the proud—and yet, aint we guilty ourselves
of something like pride at a shooting match?

“Well, it seems, then, by our own allowing, we may be
secretly guilty of some bad and mean things, even when
we are not openly wicked and guilty, say of swearing—
(shot at a venture)—or maybe drunkenness—(one of the
sinners stole a look at the whiskey jug)—or any other bad

practice; and we see, a man in his heart may be very
proud like, and hate his neighbour, even if we do wear
homespun, and live in a cabin. (The brethren were
neatly, but very plain clad). Ah! dear friends, our hearts,
mine as well as yours, are much worse than we usually
think—and a shooting match is a place to make us find out
some of our sins and wickedness. You all know, how as
we are going through a clearing, we sometimes see a heap
of ashes at an old log heap—and at first it all seems cold
and dead, but when we stir it about with a piece of brush,
or the end of a ram-rod, up flash sparks, and smoke, too,
comes out. Well, 'tis exactly so with our natural hearts.
They conceal a great deal of wickedness, but when they
are stirred up by any thing like a shooting-match, or when
we get angry, or are determined to have money or a quarter
section of land at all hazards—ah! my dear friends,
how many wicked thoughts we have! how many wicked
words we say! how many wicked things we do!” (Winks
and nods had ceased—there was something in the benevolence,
and earnestness, and tenderness of our preacher's
voice and manner, that kept attention rivetted; and it was
plain enough, conscience was busy at, I believe, both ends
of the log.) “Well! now, my friends and neighbours, do
our own hearts condemn us and make us ashamed? Look
up to yon blue sky above us—that is God's sun shining
there! Hark! the leaves are moving in the trees—it is
God's breath that stirs them! and that God is here! Ay!
that God is now looking down into our very hearts! He
sees what we now think, and he knows all we have concealed
there! That glorious law we spoke of in this book,
that we have so often broken, is his law! Friends!—would
we be willing to die at this very instant? And yet die we
all must at some instant; and if we repent not and seek
forgiveness through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—
you, dear neighbours, I myself, and every one of us
must perish and—for ever!”[26]

I shall not repeat any more of of Mr. Merry's discourse.
His point was gained. Attention was fixed; salutary convictions
were implanted in the auditors minds; and they
evidently increased in depth and intensity as the preacher
proceeded. Nay, when he in a strain of peculiar and wild
and impassioned eloquence, dwelled on the only way of escape
from divine wrath through the blessed Son of God,
our poor foresters gazed on his face with tears in their
eyes, and remained till the conclusion of the services,
without even the smallest symptom of impatience.

When meeting was out, the woodsmen cordially shook
hands with us all, and especially with Mr. M.; and expressed
a unanimous wish to have, if possible, another meeting
at the Saw Mill. Bishop Shrub was so tenderly affected
that as we rode away and had got beyond hearing at the
Mill, he exclaimed:—“Amen to that shooting, Brother Merry!
we shall never in this life see again these poor men—
but the effect of this day's preaching must be lasting as
their lives: surely we shall meet them in Heaven!”

Little specially interesting occurred after this, till our return
was commenced. And then early one bright morning
we turned aside to visit a deserted Indian town. A few
wigwams in ruins were the only habitations left for the
living: but in a sequestered loneliness on the margin of
the river, we found by the swelling mounds and other
marks of sepulture that we walked amid the habitations of
the dead! I have ever been deeply moved by the sorrows
and the injuries of the Indian—ever since childhood—but
now so unexpectedly among their graves—the sacred graves

around which Indians linger till the last! which they
so mourn after when exiled far away in their wanderings!
—when we looked on the pure white waters where the bark
canoe had glided so noiseless; and heard the wind so
sweet and yet so sad, like moaning spirits, over the tall
grass and through the trees—a feeling so mournful, so
desolate came over the soul, that I walked hastily away to
a still more lonely spot, and there sat down and cried as if
my heart were breaking for its own dead!

When we rejoined one another tears were in the eyes
of all! None spoke—the white man's voice seemed dese
cration! We were true mourners over those graves.
Poor Indians! at that solemn moment it was in our hearts
to live, and wander and die with you in the forest home—
to spend life in teaching you the way of salvation! Blessed!
blessed! be ye, noble band of missionaries, who do all
this!—ye shall not loose your reward!

To-day the evening service was in the neighbourhood of
Mr. Redwhite, for many years a trader among the Indians.
He being present insisted on our passing the night at his
house. We consented. For forty years he had lived
among the aborigines, and was master of five or six Indian
languages; having adopted also many of their opinions on
political and religious points, and believing with the natives
themselves and not a few civilized folks, that the Indians
have had abundant provocations for most of their misdeeds.
Hence, Mr. Redwhite and Mr. Carlton soon became “powerful
thick”—i. e. very intimate friends.

The most interesting thing in Mr. Redwhite's establishment,
was his Christian or white wife. She, in infancy,
had escaped the tomahawk at the massacre of Wyoming,
and afterwards had been adopted as a child of the Indian
tribe. Our friend's heathen or red wife was a full-blooded
savagess—(the belle and the savage;)—and had deserted
her husband to live with her exiled people: and so Red

white, poor fellow! was a widower with one wife—viz.
this Miss Wyoming! Much of this lady's life had passed
among the Canadian French: and she was, therefore, mistress
of the Indian, the French, and the English; and also
of the most elegant cookery, either as regards substantial
dishes or nicnacry. And of this you may judge, when we
set on supper. But first be it said our host was rich, not
only for that country but for this: and though he lived in a
cabin, or rather a dozen cabins, he owned tracts of very
valuable land presented to him by his red lady's tribe—
territory enough in fact to form a darling little state of his
own, nearly as small as Rhode Island or Delaware. Beside,
he owned more real silver—silver done into plate, and some
elaborately and tastefully graved and chased, than could be
found even in a pet bank, when dear old Uncle Sam[27] sent
some of his cronies to look for it.

Well, now the eatables and drinkables. We had tea,
black and green, and coffee—all first chop and superbly
made, regaling with fragrance, and their delicacy aided by
the just admixture of appropriate sugars, together with richest
cream:—the additamenta being handed on a silver
waiter and in silver bowls and cups. The decoctions and
infusions themselves were poured from silver spouts curving
gracefully from massy silver pots and urns. Wheat
bread of choice flour and raised with yeast, formed, some
into loaves and some into rolls, was present, to be spread
with delicious butter rising in unctuous pyramids, fretted
from base to apex into a kind of butyrial shell work:—this
resting on silver and to be cut with silver. Corn, too,
figured in pone and pudding, and vapoured away in little
clouds of steam; while at judicious intervals were handed
silver plates of rich and warm flannel or blanket cakes,

with so soft and melting an expression as to win our most
tender regards. There stood a plate of planed venison,
there one of dried beef; while at becoming distances were
large china dishes partly hid under steaks of ham and venison
done on gridirons, and sending forth most fragrant
odours:—so that the very hounds, and mastiffs and wolf-dogs
of the colony were enticed to the door of our supper
cabin by the witchery of the floating essence!

But time would fail to tell of the bunns—and jumbles—
and sponge cake—and fruit ditto—and pound also—and
silver baskets—and all these on cloth as white as—snow!

Reader! was ever such contrast as between the untutored
world around and the array, and splendour, and richness
of our sumptuous banquet? And all this in an Indian
country! and prepared by almost the sole survivor from a
massacre that extinguished a whole Christian village!
How like a dream this!

And thou wast saved at Wyoming! Do I look on thee?
—upon whose innocent face of infancy years ago gushed
the warm blood of the mother falling with her babe locked
to her bosom! Didst thou really hear the fiendish yells of
that night?—when the flames of a father's house revealed
the forms of infuriate ones dancing in triumph among the
mangled corses of their victims! Who washed the congealed
gore from thy cheek? And what barbarian nurse
gave strange nourishment from a breast so responsive to
the bloody call of the warwhoop that made thee motherless?
—and now so tenderly melting at the hunger cries of the orphan!
And she tied thee to a barken cradle and bore thee
far, far away to her dark forest haunts!—and there swinging
thee to the bending branches bade the wild winds rock
thee!—and she became thy mother and there was thy
home! Oh! what different destiny thine in the sweet
village of thy birth—but for that night!

And yet, reader, this hostess was now so wholly Indian
and Canadian that when she talked of Wyoming it was
without emotion!—while I was repressing tears! Alas!
she had not one faint desire to see the land of her ancestors!
Could this be Campbell's Gertrude?