University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
THE SLEIGH.

The captain of the raftsmen having
brought his narrative up to the point which
explained how he come to be a dweller upon
the banks of the Susquehannah, now drew
nearer Griffitt, for hitherto he had been pacing
up and down the cabin as he talked, and
said,

`The use which I wish to make of my
story, young master Griffitt, with reference
to your aid, you shall now know. I have
been somewhat longer in relating my history
than I intended, but once commenced,
and seeing that you were pleased to be interested,
I was led into details. In a word
I have wished that you might perfectly understand
the post in all particulars, in order
that you may proceed in what you are to undertake
with understanding and without embarrassment;
for you will see that I have
fixed upon you to further my views in reference
to the earldom.'

`To the earldom!' repeated Ringold with
surprise. `I thought—at least I supposed
that you had given it all up; but I rejoice to
find that you have not!'

`I had given it up and for some years I
have not let it enter my thoughts that I was
rightly heir to one of the noblest titles that
grace the British peerage. I had lost my
mother and then my wife, and then last of
all my dearly beloved child, and as for these
alone I would have regained my honors, so
when they perished all my desire for them
died also. But circumstances within the
last fortnight that have revived all the past
and re-awakened my desire to make a final
effort to assert and possess myself of my
rights. I am advancing in life and have had
too much experience of the folly and vanity
of all things in this life to care for it merely
that I may take rank among men. But I
wish to defeat the claims of the unjust, remote
relatives who pronounced my papers
forgeries, and for the sake, though late, of
establishing for the honor of her memory my
mother's innocence.'

`And have you any hope of this?' asked
Griffitt with animation, his firm face glowing
with joyful surprise.

`Yes,' answered Red Beard in an impressive
manner. `Yes, I have. You shall hear
all!' and he sat himself down upon the chest
by the side of the young artist and said in a
low and almost stern tone,

`Two weeks ago yesterday, I was standing
upon the bank not far from this cabin
overlooking the men who were chaining together
two trees in order to drag them to the
river side, when I heard in the distance the
faint music of sleigh-bells. I looked in the
direction and saw advancing at a fast trot on
the river from the south a swan-shaped sleigh

drawn by a pair of fleet greys. As the equipage
swiftly approached the camp across the
polished ice I could see, amid the gaily fringed
lynx and buffalo robes, that it contained
two men in fur caps. As they came near
the camp I advanced to receive them, supposing
to be some of the land proprietors, as
Mr. Bixby had written me that possibly I
might see them during the winter. The one
who drove stepped out as he drew up by the
path leading to my cabin and said, somewhat
authoritively,

“`Is Captain Burnside, or Red Beard as he
is called, about the camp?”'

“`I am the person,” I replied in a quiet
tone, and asked them both to alight and share
the poor hospitality of my camp. A servant
who rode behind took charge of their horses
and they followed me into the cabin and seated
themselves by the fire, which I had heaped
with wood for the day was sharp.

`As they unrobed themselves of their outer
garments I closely observed them to see if I
had ever known them. One of them was a
man of about forty years of age, short, but
well built, with a keen eye, an active look,
and altogether the appearance of a bustling
speculator. It was he who had driven the
sleigh. His companion was a man who was
not under sixty, and might have been six or
seven years older, though he was well kept
and hale, with florid cheeks and a full, bright
eye, though his head was as white as the
snow that whitened the branches of the trees
about us. He was tall and erect with the air
and appearance of a polished gentleman,
whose associations had been with the best
society. The expression of his face was
grave and unquiet, and betrayed a spirit ill
at ease with the bosom in which it dwelt.—
His companion, however, seemed all superfices,
without a thought beyond dollars and
land, of which, he at once commenced talking,
asking me numerous questions relating
to recent purchases made in the vicinity, and
then coming to the more particular inquiry
of the location and character of the tract on
which the gang No. 3 have been chopping,
twenty miles above this!'

`Is it for sale by the company?' asked
Griffitt.

`I did not know so until this speculator,
for such he proved to be, told me so.
I gave him all the information he desired for
which he seemed to be very thankful to me,
became more civil and condescended to invite
me to ride with him up to the tract.—
But this I declined doing, having my own duties
to bind me here. While he talked, the
tall stranger with the white head sat silently
watching him and listening; but once or
twice I perceived that he started when I
spoke, while at length I perceived his eyes
rivetted on me with an earnest, examining
look, which led me to suspect that he had
seen me, perhaps in England or otherwheres;
and I was confirmed in this belief when the
speculator said, after he had put all the questions
to me he wished, that his companion
was an English gentleman who had some idea
of purchasing the domain of forest lands I
had been describing.'

`A noble domain,' said Griffitt. `It must
embrace at least six square leagues.'

`It is ten miles square, and one of the
richest portions of the valley,' answered Red
Beard. `At length having taken dinner with
me and thanked me for my courtesy they
took leave, but not without desiring me to
send one of my men with them as a guide. I
let them have Derick who, knew the place
better than any other man; and they got into
their sleigh and were about starting off,
when as I bade them good day, I caught the
eye of the tall man, bent upon me with a singular
expression of painful inquiry and alarm
as if I had in some way awakend both fear
and wonder in his bosom.

“`That old foreign looking man has seen you
before,” said Whitlock, as they dashed away,
leaving us standing together. “Did you see
how he looked at you?”

“`Yes,” was my reply, as I slowly walked
away, wondering where he had met me, for I,

on my part, have no recollection of ever having
seen his features.'

`You have been so great a wanderer that
doubtless he has met you, and surprised to
see a familiar face in the wilderness, he
stared at you, trying to locate you in the
memory of the past.'

`No: he never saw me before,' answered
Robert Burnside, with marked emphasis.—
`You will perhaps smile at what I am about
to relate, and pity my superstition; but I
have had reason more than once in my life
to put faith in dreams. The very night on
which my home was burned and my child
perished, I dreamed that I saw her being
carried off, as it seemed to me, by some persons
on horseback, and shrieking to me for
help and rescue. I was awoke by her shrieks.

`This was extraordinary, though the dream
was not exactly like the reality.'

`Well, the inquiring looks of the stranger
in the sleigh so haunted me, while I tried
to recollect the place where we might have
met, that I lay in bed that night restlessly,
thinking about him. I fell asleep at length,
and in a dream I saw my mother, once more
relating to me the incidents which had transpired
in the palace so fatally involving her
honor; and when she came to that part
where the nobleman stealing into her chamber,
laid his head upon her pillow, my imagination
created a form or face for him, (for
we cannot think of any thing sleeping or waking,
unless we give it some kind of shape
and air,) and the form and face represented
to me in my dream, was the form and face of
the tall white-haired Englishman, who had
been in my lodge.'

`It is very strange. Yet this man being
old and the false nobleman young—'

`Age had only matured not changed the
features and expression of the eye of the
youthful noble, whose face appeared in my
dream. It was the same man—hoary with
forty or more winters. I recognized the
likeness in my dream, at a glance, and was
so moved by it that I sprang from my bed,
crying, aloud—“It is he! I have found him
at last!”'

`It will surpass all that I have ever heard,
should he prove to be the same!' said Griffitt.

`I have not a doubt. I cannot be deceived.
I have at this moment,' and he held up
the palms of both hands, `the two faces, the
old and the young, both as plain before me
as my two hands and can compare them, one
with the other, as two miniatures, tracing in
each the lineaments in the other. Master
Ringold,' he added, warmly, `the eloquence
of an angel could not convince me that I
have not seen and talked with, in this very
man, the base noble, to whom so many near
and dear to me owe their ruin. God, sir,
hath given him into my hand.'

Griffitt regarded him for a moment with
awe, as he beheld the almost sublime expression
of his countenance, sublime in the majesty
of angry justice. There was a brief
silence, during which Griffitt regarded him
with emotions of the most lively interest.
Suddenly, Red Beard turned towards him
and said, calmly yet impressively:

`You may believe me a very fool, Master
Ringold, to give heed to a dream. But
dreams like that I have related to thee, are
not sent to a man to mock him. As true as
I stand here, I have discovered the destroyer
of my name and honor.'

`I believe with you!' cried Griffitt.

`Do you?' exclaimed Red Beard grasping
him by the hand. `Then am I strong again.
I know I shall have your co-operation.'

`You shall have it? Where is the man?'

`They returned down the river road, the
day before yesterday, but I knew it not till
too late; for the day after my dream I followed
up the stream after them; but I could
not find them; as when they had visited the
tract, they continued on as far as Wilker-bome,
and so on to another tract beyond, and
foiled me. But I knew they would return
this way, and waited for them; but they pas
sed down in the night.'

`Who saw them?'

`No one; nor even heard their bells; but
I saw the marks of the steel-shod runners
upon the snow, and the foot prints of their
horses.'

`This was night before last?'

`Yes, while I was at the upper camp, lying
in wait for them. As soon as I found they
had gone down again, I hastened hither, only
delaying long enough to give such orders
to my men as were necessary; for though I
shall track this man's path like a blood-hound,
master Griffitt, I shall not forget the duty
I owe to those whose confidence has placed
me in charge of their work here. Your arrival
here to-night has been most opportune,
both as enabling me to pay off the men for
their winter's chopping before rafting their
timber. It will render a change in the overseership
less objectionable just now.'

`Then do you mean to resign at once?'

`At once; I am going to leave early in the
morning as soon as I have paid the men, and
place Derick in charge, in pursuit of this nobleman.
On my way, I shall call on Bixby
the agent, and bid him send some other one
in my place. I have now but one motive,
one object, one idea. But I shall need some
one to aid me, if subtlety or concealment
should be necessary in order to effect my
views. From what Derick told me, for you
will remember I sent him with them as a
guide, they have gone down to Baltimore,
or near there; forhe overheard the speculators
talk about their returning to that place. But
Bixby will be able to tell me where they are.
But lest if this nobleman seeing me so soon
after him, should suspect and avoid me, I
want your aid.'

`I offer you all the assistance in my power,'
answered Griffitt.

`I know that you may be trusted. I will
see that you suffer not from the time you bestow
upon my affairs, for I have gold.'

`I will take no gold, sir; what I do, I do
for your sake and that of the innocent Lady
Alice. What will be your first step?'

`To meet this man face to face. But then
I must do it cautiously. If I am too hasty,
he may deny his being the Earl of * *
* *. If he sees me he may be put on his
guard at once; for do you know that I believe
it was the blended resemblance of my
father and mother in my features, and in my
voice, which caused him to regard me with
such perplexity and earnestness mixed with,
undefined alarm. He saw in me, features
that irresistibly recalled his guilt, without
knowing wherefore, and so he trembled as
he met my eye.'

`I begin to have the firmest faith in his
identity. You have accounted for his conduct.
There is no doubt that he is the man
who has been the evil destiny of your house.
Let me know what step first to take, and I
will at once put myself upon the path.'

`By nine in the morning, I shall be ready
to take a boat and descend the river with you
as my companion. As we progress on our
way, we will bring our plan to a head. Now
you had better retire and get some sleep; I
will also try to obtain rest, for my mind is
easier and freer since I have unfolded all its
burden to you,'