University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
PREPARATIONS FOR A FORAY.

Yamoyden.

Let us now return to the wild-wood scenery of
our opening chapter. The events recorded in those
which have followed it, were, as the reader will
readily imagine, the tidings which had been brought
to Thayendanagea by the Indian runner. The daring
acts of the Whigs had equally awakened the
indignation and the alarm of the royalist, and the
message from Sir John declared the country to be
in a state of actual revolution, and called upon Brant,
as an adherent to the government, to move at once
with his power to its support. It conveyed, too,
some slight reproach for the coolness with which
he had hitherto held himself aloof from the troubles
which an armed force might have awed into quiet;
and hinted that the best service that the chief could
now render to approve his loyalty, would be to seize
upon some prominent disaffected persons of the
county, and hand them over to the king's magistrates
as hostages for the conduct of their friends

and kindred. The heir of Hawksnest, especially,
was mentioned as a fierce zealot and turbulent young
demagogue, whom it was well to remove from his
present sphere of mischief as soon as possible.

The task thus enjoined upon Brant was a favourite
proceeding with the Tories throughout the war of
the Revolution, and was often but too successful in
its results. In the province of New-York, hundreds
were, from time to time, suddenly and secretly torn
from among their friends, and carried away to captivity
or death. Nor was there any feature of the
civil war, during that painful seven years' struggle,
more appalling than this. The boldness of the act—
for it was frequently practised in the most populous
districts, in an armed neighbourhood, in the very
capital of the province itself—struck dismay into the
families of those who were thus abducted, and the
cruel doubt and mystery which shrouded their fate
was not less frightful; for while some, with shattered
constitutions and spirits broken by confinement,
returned from the prisons of Canada after the
war was over, yet many were never heard of by their
friends from the moment of their disappearance, and
their destiny is enigmatical to this day. Nor was
it only the influential partisan or his active adherent
that was thus subjected to this hideous, because secret,
danger. The hostages, as they were called—
the victims, as they were in reality—were taken,
like those of the secret tribunal in Germany, from
either sex and from any class of society. The
homes of the aged and infirm—of the young and the
lovely, were alike subject to the terrible visitation.
The gay guest, who waved a blithe adieu to the
friends who were but now planning some merry-meeting
for the morrow, was seen to mount his
horse and turn some angle of the road in safety,
but the steed and his rider were never traced afterward.

The hospitable, festive host, who left the
revel for a moment to cool his temples in the evening
air, and whose careless jest, as he passed to the
porch without, still rung in the ears of his impatient
friends, never again touched with his lips the glass
that had been filled for him in his absence. The
waking infant cried vainly for the nursing mother,
who had left it to be watched by another for a moment.
The distracted bridegroom and fierce brother
sought vainly for the maid, whose bridal toilet
seemed just to have been completed, when, by invisible
hands, she was spirited away from her father's
halls.

“We begin our career of arms together with a
painful duty, Captain Brant,” said MacDonald,
after the chief had expressed his determination to
move instantly upon the settlements in the direction
of the Hawksnest. “I think I have heard you
speak of having been upon friendly terms with the
present tenant of this property, who, if I mistake not,
was one of your nearest neighbours upon the river
side.”

“I mean not in any way to harm old Mr. de Roos;
but this mettlesome young Greyslaer must be removed,
or he will only qualify his neck for the halter
by stirring up more treason. I shall attempt to decoy
him from the house, or, failing in that, will
surprise it with so strong a party as to make resistance
hopeless; and we shall merely ruffle the nerves
of his friends a little in seizing the springald,” replied
Brant, coolly.

“Are there no females in the family?” asked the
European, with some anxiety.

“Yes; there are two, a pair of sisters, mated in
love as closely as the kissing blossoms that tuft a
single twig in April; but no more matched in character
than is the oriole, whose lazy nest swings from

the bough beneath him, with the eagle, whose majestic
wing is circling yonder mountain. Yet the
pale girl, whom they call Tyntie, is a fair and gentle
lady, and her kindness has been owned by more
than one woman of my own kindred. But Alida,
that queenly, stag-eyed creature—surely, captain,
you have heard of the beautiful and haughty Alida
de Roos; she for whom my madcap son has conceived
so strange a hatred.”

“Of which of his sons speaks the noble Thayendanagea?”

“Of that dark and dangerous boy whom Bradshawe
has spoiled by encouraging in his wild doings;
of him who nearly compromised his father's honour
and a chieftain's name by consorting with the ruffian
Valtmeyer.”

“Valtmeyer? surely, this is not the lady whom
Valtmeyer wronged so deeply, when Bradshawe
saved his neck from the gallows?”

“The same.”

“I have heard the story,” said the Scotchman,
musingly; “I have heard the dreadful tale. But,
after being outraged so cruelly, I should have looked
rather for her resemblance in the fragile, fading girl
of whom you first spoke, than in the blooming creature
you describe as her sister.”

“Miss de Roos was scarcely more than a child
when the affair happened. Years have passed since
then. Time will do much with sorrow, pride, perhaps,
more. But, if you had ever marked the bright
and glassy glare of Alida's eyes, you would have
thought of those whom we Indians believe have become
the tabernacles of another spirit than that
which first possessed the body; and such a spirit, 'tis
said, no mortal grief can overshadow.”

“A beautiful superstition to assuage the horrors
of lunacy, but too fanciful for truth. I have heard,

indeed, of men with souls so haughty that they
would never entertain a grief, if its memory were
linked with shame to themselves or lineage, especially
if the consciousness of unmerited obloquy or
the keen hope of ultimate revenge buoyed up their
sanguine nature. But with a woman of blighted
honour—”

“You may hold there, MacDonald. That proud
girl could never be made to believe that aught of
reproach has assailed her name; though her slim
sister, they say, faints at the sound of Valtmeyer's
name, and has pined away from the moment the
ruthless villain crossed Alida's path.”

“Good God! was there no brother, no kinsman
to look after this horrible business?”

“Not one save the old father, who lived so retired
that the story never reached his ears; for Alida
was off on a visit to some friends in a distant
settlement when the abduction took place. Her
brother, young Derrick, then but a child, was with
Greyslaer, his father's ward, at school at Albany.
And he has turned out such a fiery fellow since he
came to man's estate, that no one now would dare
to hint the matter to him.”

“And had the family not one friend to lift an
arm in such a quarrel? and yet indeed it were a
delicate business to meddle with,” said MacDonald,
doubtingly.

“They had two,” answered Brant, with some
hesitation; “two friends to whom the country people
looked for dragging the offender to justice.
One of them, Walter Bradshawe, who was said to
be wooing the young lady at the time. But he
never moved in the matter, save secretly, to use
his influence in Valtmeyer's favour.”

“The base mongrel! And what said men of such
a recreant?”

“His conduct was known but to few, and those

said it sprung from a mean spirit of vengeance for
having been rejected by the lady. But this may
have been mere calumny, for parties were running
high at the time; Bradshawe was never popular,
and being a candidate for public office, his character
was roughly handled.”

“You have said the De Roos family had two
friends they might have looked to. Had the other
one, then, no influence with the magistracy of the
country?”

“He had,” said Brant, again hesitating, with
some emotion, before he made his reply; “he was
connected with them both by alliance, by political
position, and by official station; and were not the
honour of his blood involved in the inquiry, no feeling
of paternal tenderness would have prevented
him from cutting off his misbegotten offspring with
his own hand. And yet the Spirit above us knows
I love that wayward boy.” The chieftain seemed
now deeply agitated for a moment, and then turning
suddenly, so as to fix his eagle glance full upon
the eye of his companion, he added, in a stern and
almost fierce tone, “I have answered your inquiries,
sir, from no mere prating spirit that feeds an
idle curiosity. You have formed a sudden intimacy
with Au-neh-yesh; I would warn you, as a gallant
soldier of the king and a friend of the Mohawk,
against the son of my own bosom. But
though the unnatural boy has twice attempted his
father's life, yet one whisper that attaches infamy
to the blood of Thayendanagea will bring veng—”

“Spare the threat, noble Sachem; your secret is
ever safe with me. I cannot be too grateful for the
confidence you have this day reposed in me; yet
I cannot think there is anything of malignancy,
much less of meanness, in the character of Isaac
Brant, or Au-neh-yesh, as you prefer calling him.
God forbid that I should attempt to palliate his unnatural

conduct towards his father. But phrensied
as are the passions of youth, yet—”

“Enough!” said the chief, in a tone so emphatic
as at once to cut short the discussion; and then
striding forward impatiently, as if to get beyond
the reach of a reply from his companion, he added,
in a low and tremulous, but still distinct voice:
“The friend of Thayendanagea will bury this subject
for ever in his own bosom.”

A few moments afterward the two partisans
reached the clearing upon the Sacondaga, where
the principal warriors of Brant had taken up a strong
position in an elbow of the river, fortifying their
camp with mounds and palisades after the military
custom of the Six Nations.

The day was now long past the meridian, and
the chieftain lost no time in making his preparations
for a movement upon the settlements of the
“German Flats” on the morrow. After a brief
harangue to his followers, he drew out a select
band of warriors, his son Au-neh-yesh being one
of the number, for the proposed expedition; and
straightway commenced the fantastic pageant incident
to the setting out of a war-party at the commencement
of an Indian compaign; while MacDonald,
surveying the spectacle with a curious eye, was
not a little surprised to witness the almost childish
zeal with which Thayendanagea took his full
part in the savage mummery. A strange and bombastic
metamorphosis seemed to have come over
the reasoning companion with whom he had hitherto
been acquainted; so changed, indeed, did the
whole man seem within one brief hour, that the
wondering Scot could scarcely recognise in him
the person with whom he had lately walked conversing.

“This Mohawk,” said MacDonald, mentally,

“with all his talents and attainments, can never be
given as an instance of the capacity of his race for
civilization. The man seems to have two natures;
or, rather, the artificial character, produced by education,
is as distinct from his Indian nature as if it
belonged to another person. And if they do ever
mingle, it is only as I have sometimes seen the
blood of a European veining, without suffusing, the
cheek of a half-breed.”

This opinion of the shrewd Scotchman seems to
have been subsequently borne out by the singular
incongruities which characterized the career of the
remarkable person of whom it was pronounced; and
the historian of the times still hesitates in what
light to regard him who is described by many of
his contemporaries “as a mere cruel, coarse-minded
savage,” at the very time when the chief enjoyed
the friendship of some of the most chivalric
hearts, and could boast an intimate correspondence
with some of the most polished minds of Europe.

The sun had got low in the heavens by the time
the warriors were all arrayed for battle, and the important
task of putting on the war-paint concluded.
His level beams shot through the tree-tops on the
opposite shore, and glancing luridly upon the broad
stream that flowed in front of the Iroquois camp,
lighted up a grotesque array of forms and faces,
mirrored in every variety of attitude in the tranquil
river.

“Good!” said an Indian, who had just completed
his barbaric toilet, and still lingered, surveying the
result, with childish gratification, in the tide that
rolled at his feet, “very good; Squinandosh is a
great man. The Sacondaga is a happy stream, to
reflect a face so terrible as his. Go, river, and
bear his image in thy current while men tremble
along thy shores as they see it float by. Go, river,

and tell the great lake into which thou pourest,
that thou hast seen Squinandosh.”

“Who is greater than Kan-au-gou?” cried another,
rising with solemn gravity from the position
in which he had crouched, “the bravest of the men
who surpass all others. He paints not, he, to
make his features terrible, but to hide the countenance,
from which, if seen, his enemies would fly
so fast his bullets would never overtake them.”

“Behold, Au-neh-yesh! look well upon the tall
one,” said a third warrior, with the same Homeric
diffidence of self-praise. “It is the blood of
fifty white warriors that sprinkles his forehead. I
hear their widows and children howling after their
scalps, which shall dry in the smoke of his lodge;
but what hand shall ever reach up to the scalp of
him who walks with his head among the clouds?”

One youth, more sentimentally given, seemed to
regret only that there were no fair ones present to
yield their admiration to the gallant figure that he
made in his own eyes. Rejoicing in the possession
of a bit of broken looking-glass, this animated personage
paused ever and anon to elaborate his toilet
with some additional grace, as he strutted about
like a bantom cock, exclaiming: “Where are the
maids of the Mohawk, who love to look upon such
a man as `Le-petit-soldat?' Where is Tze-gwinda,
the fawn-eyed girl of the Unadilla, and she whose
feet move like a tripping brook, when the hawks-bells
tinkle around her slender ankles in the dance,
the laughing Ivalette? Where Waneka, of the
willowy form, and `Cherie,' whose eyes outsparkled
those of Ononthio's daughters at Montreal?
Where is she whose footfalls leave no print behind
them on the greensward or snowdrift; she who
steals upon men's hearts they know not whence or
how, where is `The Spreading Dew?' Let each of

them come, look upon `Le-petit-soldat,' and sigh to
be the squaw of such a warrior.”

“The Little Opossum is a great painter,” added
yet another of these heroic worthies; “none but a
medicine can find out his secret for mixing colours.
Owaneyo has not yet breathed in the nostrils of the
man that is meant to kill him. This island has but
one such warrior. Who but `The Little Opossum'
can kill `The Little Opossum?”'

As the night closed in they lighted their torches,
formed of the pitchy knots of the yellow pine; and
their barbaric boasting grew still more extravagant
as they tossed them wildly in the war-dance. But
here the demoniac forms, the distorted features, and
ferocious gesticulations, as they moved in savage
measure to the deep roll of the Indian drum, gave
at least a fiendish dignity to the scene in the eyes of
the European. It seemed as if the yawning earth
had released a troop of demons from below to practise
for a while their mad antics in the upper air;
and the Briton shuddered as he thought of such a
hellish crew being let loose to work their will upon
his rebellious countrymen.

There was a heavy rain during the night, and
many of these gallantly-apparelled warriors, who
slept in their war-dresses, looked sadly bedraggled,
after an hour's march through the dripping forest
the next morning; but their appearance was still
sufficiently formidable to awaken the admiration of
the martial Scotchman; and their military order,
their silence, and precision of movement, in obedience
to each command of their leader, when they
were once fairly started upon the war-path, struck
him as characterizing a race who were soldiers, both
by nature and education.

But among no martial people of whom history
preserves a record were there severer disciplinari

ans than among those semi-civilized tribes which
are known by the generic name of the Iroquois; a
stern and stoical people, whose peculiar institutions
and Spartan-like character—for their discipline extended
to all the relations of life—have been so ignorantly
confounded with the loose customs of the
more mercurial races, the mere barbaric tribes that
are still scattered over the northern and western
parts of this continent. Many, indeed, have denied
the superiority of the Six Nations over other
aboriginal races, and questioned the degree of civilization
which they had reached, because it was not
progressive; because the era of the Revolution
found them with the same social habits that are ascribed
to them by the earliest writers who make
mention of the Iroquois. But if that anomalous and
remarkable feature of the respect paid to women[2]
among them were wanting to confute this position,
how, it might be asked, how can that nation be
progressive in civilization which makes war the end
of all its efforts for improvement, instead of keeping
prepared for it merely as the means of preserving
the blessings of peace? which encourages agriculture,
and builds granaries, only for the supply of
armies, and explores the navigable waters of a vast
continent, not for the purposes of trade, but to secure
the transportation of those munitions which may enable
its forces to keep the field through a succession
of campaigns? Yet such was the policy which enabled
the Six Nations to carry their conquering
arms through every region that is now comprehended
in this wide-spread Union; and which made
them formidable, not only to the wild tribes far
west of the Mississippi, but to the Frenchman of
the St. Lawrence, the Englishman of the Chesapeake,
and the Spaniard of Mexico.

The Scottish soldier listened with thrilling interest
to the wild and warlike tales of distant forays,
as Thayendanagea beguiled the march by dwelling
upon the former glories of his people. Their religion
and laws were frequently the subject of his inquiries;
and, strange and uncouth as many of their
observances appeared to him, he had travelled too
widely over the earth to judge peculiar usages by
the narrow standard of his own national customs.
The partisans talked next of the civil war, whose
outbreak, so long threatening, seemed now at hand;
and the sagacious and comprehensive views of the
chieftain were not thrown away upon his experienced
companion, though more than once a strange
discord was struck in the bosom of the latter by the
ferocious sentiments that gleamed through the polished
language of his Indian comrade.

MacDonald, though a soldier of fortune, had never
been engaged in quite so disagreeable a business
before. For, though upon the same side with a majority
of his Catholic countrymen, yet there were
great numbers of Cameronian Scotch acting with
the Whigs; and, Jacobite as he was, he felt that
there was a difference between battling with an opposite
faction at Culloden and cutting the throats of
countrymen who, like himself, had come to find a
peaceful home in a strange land. This not unnatural
feeling of compunction was brought out more
strongly by a fierce reply which Brant made to
some observation of his about the relations of friendship
in which the chieftain had recently stood towards
those with whom he must now come in immediate
collision.

“And what,” said the Mohawk, “what are private
ties in times like these, when those of nations

are so rudely severed? Do you expect an Indian
to play the woman, when you white men have forgotten
all the claims of blood and kindred in this
strange quarrel with each other? If the wolf devour
his own whelps, why should the panther spare them,
merely because they are tenants of the same forest
with himself?”

But the night has again closed in around us, and
the prowling Indian has reached the fold he would
plunder.