University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

Was this mortal agony to endure forever?—forever,
too, amid the magnificent solemnity of night, and
solitude? It could not be. Ten thousand bodies might

have been shattered to dust; but the spirit, the immortal
spirit, fed with such aliment, abroad in such scenery,
would have survived it all, and haunted the
spot, forever, in awe and admiration.

Months and months, however, Harold wandered
among the detestable and obscure things of the desert;
his flesh was lacerated—he was sore and bleeding, from
head to foot—his hair was torn and matted, and nightly
he battled with the wolf or the bear, in his desperation,
unarmed, but with the branches of some uptorn
tree, for a morsel of its execrable food. His living was
a continual miracle. The following circumstances
gave, however, a new turn to his mind. He was sitting
upon the extreme point of a jutting cliff, of a cold wintry
morning; it was a favourite place with him. The
sun broke out all at once over his head, and the water
below rippled like fire. He was tempted to plunge
headlong: he half rose for the purpose, when his attention
was diverted from the thought, by the sound of a
rifle, shot among the near hills. The next moment, an
elk broke covert below him, in the mist and shadow, and
clattered over the precipice, at his feet. Shot after shot
rang after her. She falls. A human creature, indistinctly
seen, stands over her. He has felled her with his
club. Was he one of the huntsmen? no, for he drags
her away, as he would a rabbit, to his den. Is this the
spectre that has haunted him so long? Does it come
abroad in day light?'

With a brief return of reason, Harold determined
to pursue it, and was descending for the purpose, when
he saw the dim apparition of several hunters, with
their dogs in advance, as they turned a jutting rock at
a little distance, stop, and while one of their number
pointed at him, enter into earnest conversation. Their
purpose was soon visible. Their object was to make
a prisoner of him. They were Indians, and appeared

to him, probably, by some optical delusion, of gigantick
dimensions. He determined to avoid them; leaped
down two successive crags, and came, suddenly, upon a
young Indian, who instantly levelled his rifle at him.
Harold caught it, struck him to the earth, and pursued
his way. The Indian arose, and hurled his tomahawk
at his head. Harold answered with a bullet, and brought
him from the cliff, headlong, into the water below. At
the sound of the shot, three other huntsmen ran toward
him. There was no escape, but down the precipice,
and down it, he was going, when his course was
arrested for a moment, by seeing the same extraordinary
being, who, he supposed, had visited him twice in
his cabin, emerge from his cave, and go toward them.
The Indians threw down their rifles in dismay—one
prostrated himself, and the others fled. Harold was intimidated—awe-struck;
for a while, he looked upon the
party—they vanished in the rolling vapour, upon which
the sun at that instant, broke, with inconceivable splendour.
Weary of adventure, and once more seriously
determined to live, and atone for the fearful transgressions
of his hand, Harold now turned his steps, resolutely,
toward the tribe of the Logans.

`I will go there. They will welcome me, wretched
and miserable as I am,' said he, `one, at least, will
weep for me, and forgive me: yet, oh, how shall I ever
be able to meet her!—that countenance of love—that
dark, melancholy eye—that look of innocence, and serenity!'

After a toilsome journey of some weeks, he arrived
at the village of the Logan tribe. A flag floated from
the publick wigwam, a signal that they were in council;
it was a red flag too. His heart leaped in his bosom—
they were preparing for battle!

He was recognished afar off—an aged warrior, and
two younger ones approached, with their ferocious,
shaggy dogs, who, snuffing the blood of the stranger,
were only to be restrained from throttling him, by main
force. Their eyes, blood-shot, and fiery, rolled incessantly
upon him, and as often as they felt their necks

loose for a moment, their hair rose upon their fronts,
and they gnashed and snapped their teeth at him. The
manner of the old man was cold and imposing; that of
the younger ones, irritating, and haughty. Harold felt
his blood heating, and turned proudly, and sternly away.
Violent hands were laid upon him. The council broke
up, tumultuously, and a number of young warriors,
their eyes flashing fire, rushed upon him, with uplifted
tomahawks.

Harold folded his arms, and turned upon them, undismayed—undisturbed.
They felt the rebuke, and faltered.
The hands of them had held him, relaxed. He
broke suddenly from their hold—leaped backward,
and drew his sabre.

Twenty tomahawks were raised; twenty arrows
drawn to their head. Yet stood Harold, stern and collected—at
bay—parleying only with his sword. He
waved his arm. Smitten with a sense of their cowardice,
perhaps, or by his great dignity, more awful
for his very youth, their weapons dropped, and their
countenances were uplifted upon him, less in hatred,
than in wonder.

The old men gathered about him--he leant upon his
sabre. Their eyes shone with admiration--such heroick
deportment, in one so young—a boy! so intrepid!
so prompt! so graceful! so eloquent, too!—for, knowing
the effect of eloquence, and feeling the loftiness of his
own nature, the innocence of his own heart, the character
of the Indians for hospitality, and their veneration
for his blood, Harold dealt out the thunder of his
strength to these rude barbarians of the wilderness, till
they, young and old, gathering nearer and nearer in
their devotion, threw down their weapons at his feet,
and formed a rampart of locked arms and hearts about
him, through which his eloquence thrilled and lightened,
like electricity. The old greeted him with a lofty
step, as the patriarch welcomes his boy from the triumph
of far off battle; and the young clave to him,
and clung to him, and shouted in their self-abandonment,
like brothers round a conquering brother.

Harold soon discovered the cause of their convocation.

They were that moment meditating a war upon
a distant tribe, (one of the Six nations) for the murder
of Logan; and there having been some unaccountable
connexion between the last mysterious mission of Harold,
and the death of Logan, they had begun to think
darkly of Harold. Many light circumstances, too light
even for the observation of Indians at another time,
were now recalled, one after the other—dreams, omens,
predictions, voices, to confirm their suspicion. But
that which weighed especially with them, was the tale
of a hunter, remarkable for his serious, stern, insensibility
to all the terrours of superstition, who related,
with a continual shudder, which gave his narration
tremendous effect on those who knew the constitution
of the man, that he had lately encountered, at twilight,
in the deepest recesses of their hunting ground, near
the haunted tree, the slaughtered Logan, himself! that
he was wrapped in the habiliments of war—angry—
bleeding, and impatient! This had been the subject of
their deliberation, and they had nearly determined, on
the first sight of Harold, to sacrifice him to the terrible
manes of his own father. But Harold's bearing saved
him: and ere another moon, after several exhibitions
of his power and activity, he was chosen for the leader
of this expedition against the tribe, to which the murderers
of his father belonged: a tribe, whose bloody
depredation, had been incessant for years. But their
cup was now full.

They demanded a speech, as they stood, with an awful
solemnity, in a group, on the morning of their departure,
with all the old men, and women, and children,
encompassing them. It was a fierce, cold day, but
every human creature stood erect against the wind and
rain that drove upon them, bare-headed, and almost
naked—the fire that burned within them, glowing at
their eyes.

`Warriors!' he said, `Brethren!—(their tomahawks
were brandished simultaneously, at the sound of his
terrible voice, as if preparing for the onset.) His
tones grew deeper, and less threatening. `Brothers!
let us talk together of Logan! Ye, who have known

him, ye aged men! bear ye testimony to the deeds of
his strength. Who was like him? Who could resist him?
Who may abide the hurricane in its volley? Who may
withstand the winds that uproot the great trees of the
mountain? Let him be the foe of Logan. Thrice, in one
day, hath he given battle. Thrice, in one day, hath he
came back, victorious. Who may bear up against the
strong man? the man of war? Let them that are young,
hear me. Let them follow the course of Logan. He
goes in clouds and whirlwind —in the fire, and in the
smoke. Let them follow him.

`Warriors; Logan was the father of Harold!'

They fell back in astonishment, but they believed
him; for Harold's word was unquestioned, undoubted
evidence, to them that knew him.

They approached! they locked hands!—they uplifted
them to the skies!—the pipe of peace was broken over
their heads, and the ashes given to the wind! The wampum
was torn, and buried, and trampled on, where they
stood! They lifted all their voices, together! They
chanted the tremendous hymn of their tribe, altogether,
at the utmost pitch of the human voice! The ceremony
was concluded. Harold stood over the fire, and the
oldest man among them pronounced his malediction,
word by word, on their foe, as the scalp of their greatest
enemy, blackened, and crisped, in the flame.

`Oh, Logan! oh, my father!' cried Harold, (as the
scalp dropped upon the live embers, and shrivelled, and
curled, in the offensive smoke that issued from it, and
the quick sparkles that it emitted, shot upwards, even
to the elevation of his hands.—The old men shook their
heads, and turned away their countenances, mournfully
from him.) `O, Logan! oh, my father! thou wast terrible
in fight! Be thou with us! Thy son—thy children,
move forward to avenge thee. Be thou with us!'

The hatchets rang. The last arrows, with scarlet
plumage, flew upon the wind, toward the habitation of
their enemy; and the circling trees around, seared by
the whirled tomahawks, gave terrifying evidence to
the kind of combat that was to follow—no quarter?—
none!

They departed. Harold's blood thrilled. This was
what he wanted—this!—it was employment, occupation
to his spirit. Like the Spartan, battle to him was pastime:
its fierce inquietudes, and `stern alarms' musick,
and rapture.

They fell upon their enemy, at midnight. Not one,
not one! man, woman, nor child, was left to tell the
tale—not one! They swept over them like a whirlwind
of fire: and the dust of their skeletons, the cinders of
their tribe, were scattered to the four corners of the
earth. The depth of an American forest, and a sheet of
boundless water, reddened with the long, trailing—
flaky—storm of burning ashes, that went, in a high
wind, from the place of sacrifice.

Sudden cries were heard, as of wild beasts, in the
air—men started at the sound, and looked up, and saw
the heavens on fire! and thick smoke, driving like a
tempest, over them! `The day of judgment! The day
of judgment is come!' they cried. The noise of battle
and murder, went by, in the dreadful darkness—and
then, all above grew unutterably black—not a star was
to be seen—not a sound was to be heard. Men thought
that the skies had passed away, forever!

Harold returned. His march had been extermination.
Like the Lacedemonian, he never gave a second battle
to the same people. But how felt he? was his heart
quiet—his conscience? no!—no.—He loathed himself
more than ever, and flew for many months afterwards,
from shock, to shock; less from an appetite for blood,
than in the hope of drowning the cries of humanity
within him—the curse of innocence, was upon him—
of innocence deflowered, and perishing—He could have
lain down, and rolled in the dust—dug his own grave,
with his own fingers, to find one moment's repose.
But no—the hottest agonies beset him, night and
day—amid the tremendous repose of the region
where he trod, and the conflicting uproar of that, upon
which he speedily emerged—the empire of thunder,
and earthquake.

He forsook the council. He kept aloof from his companions.
He brooded alone, on the ways of providence.

Nothing but disorder was visible to him. A whole
year did he thus wear away, in alternate battle, bloodshed,
and reflection. Nothing but disorder was visible
to him. But his steps were pursued; and one day, as he
was meditating alone, by a dark stream, an aged man
arose before him, as from the earth, and rebuked him.
`Thou art unhappy,' said he. `Is it not the work of
thine own hands? Thou thinkest that good and evil
are unequally distributed. Thou art wrong. I am older
than thou. I find that they are not. Who has not his
sorrow?—insupportable, at first, but light, and easy,
after a time? Look about thee—seest thou one human
being with whom thou wouldst exchange lots?'

`One, father!—yes—thousands!'

`What!—health, name, age, friends, talents—all—
in every particular?'—Harold hesitated.

`Young man, I am old now. For more than three-score
winters, I have asked that same question to the
children of sorrow and suffering; and never yet did I
find one that answered me, yes; no, never! and I have
asked it of the dying man, in his extremity. O, how
equally are good and evil distributed!'

`Father! Is this satisfactory? It is not to me. We
learn to bear our own evils; our constitution, physical,
and intellectual, learns to accommodate itself to whatever
ailment we may be visited with. This we know
in our own case, but we do not so plainly know how
our neighbour is able to bear this.'

`My son! thou hast answered thine own question.
Is not this satisfactory? why choose we our neighbour's
blessings? because we know not what drawback he may
have upon them? Why avoid we his curses? because
we know not what secret comfort he may have to counteract
their malignity. Hence our discontent? hence
our covetousness!'

`But father, is not evil abundantly more active and
efficient, than good? what is there worth living for?'

`Young man, this is shocking impiety. Is God good?
Is he wise? You shudder. He is wise. He is powerful.
He has the wisdom to plan, and the power to execute,
what he wills.'

`O, yes, his power and his wisdom, are obvious.'

And so is his goodness! Did he delight to torment
us, could he not quicken all our senses, till our very
breathing, and seeing, and hearing, were agony?'

`He does, father, at times.'

`And why does he? Are not these symptoms of discase?—warnings?—prohibitions?—`But
why are they
necessary?—If God be so good, why afflict us with pain,
at all? why not make us perfectly happy, at once?'

`Because he does nothing, at once. It is not the
way of his providence—he acts by the simplest means:
our religion!—'

`Our religion!—who art thou?'

`A Christian, I hope.'

A Christian! a Nazarine!—leave me.'

`Never!—hear me. I command thee to hear me.'

Harold held his breath, in amazement. What was
this that dared to pursue him to his hiding-place?—that
commanded him, with the look, and emphasis of authority?—His
dazzling eyes reminded him of some that
he had seen before. He obeyed—awe-struck, and silent.

`Boy! hear me! Thou hast dared to question the
way of God. He has commissioned me to pronounce
thy condemnation. Let me proceed. He could change
all hearts, at once: he could have peopled all this earth,
at once; he could cover the face of it with trees at once,
without the preliminary growth, blossom, and budding.
But these things are contrary to his way. He is uniform—and
therefore, does he not make his creatures
perfectly happy, at once?'

`But what is thy notions of perfect happiness?
speak!'

`I know not,' said Harold. `I am appalled. I know
not with whom I am sitting.'

`Is it that of the missionary? He told thee that in
heaven, thou shouldst have every hope of thy heart,
gratified. Is this perfect happiness? no; it is the very
definition of perfect misery. What is perfect misery?
It is that situation where you have nothing to hope for.'

`Why is there any pain permitted here?—That sympathy,
patience, fortitude, tenderness, constancy, manhood,
affection, and every virtue of the human heart
may be made to appear. Were there no pain, there

would be no suffering, no consolation, no sympathy, no
patience, no resignation, no virtue.'

`Why is any pain permitted?'

`Yes, tell me,' cried Harold, `why am I pained by
fire? why are my temples sore with the emotions of my
heart?'

`Because, if thou couldst not feel pain, thou couldst
not feel pleasure; and without feeling, thou wouldst be
consumed, piece-meal, by fire, and frost, and wounds,
before thy maturity. A timely pain warns thee of excess.'

`Dost thou doubt the goodness of thy Father, yet?
were he not good, and kind, would he not, for he has
the power and the wisdom to do it, would he not make
the sun to scorch thee, like fire; the rain to fall upon
thee, like hot lead; It would be done, were he to quicken
thee all over with the same sensibility which shivers
in thy nerves.'

`Hear me!—It is my turn, now. I will speak!—Be
thou, man, or devil,' said Harold. `Didst thou ever
see a human being that was willing to live his life over
again—exactly as he had lived it?'

`No—never!'

`Is not that a conclusive proof, then, that evil is the
greater in human allotment?' Having said this, he buried
his face in his hands.'

`No—For we all hope to meet better luck hereafter,
than we have met, heretofore. Few of us are willing
to exchange all hope for any certainty. No man will
give up all chance of greater happiness, for a much smaller
sum of positive happiness. All men are gamblers.
They love adventure; intrigues keep them alive.'

Harold was troubled at the long silence that followed.
He lifted his head; the old man had gone. But his
lesson was never forgotten. Time and again did it recur
to him, with a bright and convincing energy, in
his subsequent temptations. Nay, it led him—it was
one of the first steps, to feel and to know that God is
good, and that, to be good, is to be happy.

Every hour, every moment, was now developing
some new power, or enlarging some old one, in the

mind of Harold. That indefinite longing, which had
hitherto haunted him like the perfume of some unknown
flower—that he had dreamt of, and rifled
somewhere, in some brief delirium; that constant and
uneasy sensation—that yearning, for what, he knew not,
had now began to assume a healthier and more definite
character. It became ambition—virtuous ambition.

The towering and eagle-fledged spirit of Dominion
sat over him, in the far sky, and encouraged him.
But the laurel was in her hand—not the quenched thunderbolt,
smoking in blood.

He fell upon his face, and worshipped. He covered
his mouth with his hands, and wept; not like the Macedonian,
that there were no more worlds to spoil—not
like the Persian, with the imbecility of desire, when
the waves foamed in thunder over his chains; but he
wept, with the ungovernable anguish of an heroick nature—shut
out from its element—banished from the
bright sphere of its destiny—proscribed and prohibited
to unfurl its pinions in the sun—imprisoned, fettered,
chained by circumstances, and forbidden to expand, to
dilate, and to go forth, conquering, and to conquer.

The unappeasable appetite for distinction, which characterised
Harold in his childhood, in his youth—that
distempered longing—had now hardened and consolidated,
into a sort of religious sentiment, pervading his
whole heart and soul, with vitality. Loftier, and worthier
designs took possession of him. Brutal force, the
reputation of the warriour, he no longed courted, or coveted;
nay, he derided both; but he burnt, phrenzied,
with an unquenchable ardour for intellectual distinction.
But how to obtain it?—how? `all things are possible,'
thought Harold, to him that perseveres—to him
that hath faith in himself! Is it not so? who are the
great men of this earth? who have they always been?
Men that have made themselves: men that have arisen
from humiliation, as from the bed of death—with a
new aspect!—men that have so risen, and shaken off
all the attributes of mortality, and put forth their power
with a godlike and uninterrupted energy. Who are
the rich? not they that were born so. Who are the sceptred
ones? They, whose fathers were not born so. Is it

not given to man, then, to fashion his own destiny. `It
is—it is!' thought Harold. `It is! and henceforth, be
mine, of my own fashioning!'

A new and strange confidence arose within him. He
was all alone, by a mighty waterfall. The everlasting
thunder of the deep, was about him. The firmament
trembled—and the earth shook, as it were, with a presence—whose
presence?

Harold felt, and the sublime consciousness of immortality
opened upon, in the darkness of this holy
place, with all its dignity, and terrour, and obligation
—he felt that his was that presence! and that all that
he heard, and saw, was in homage to it. And why? had
not God, God himself, the great and good God, fashioned
him, in his own image, and given him dominion
over all things, animate, and inanimate?'

`I will be good!' said Harold. The words burst,
like an earthquake, from his heart. He was overcome
by the genius of the place. His soul brake her silence,
and spoke aloud. He continued.

`I will bow myself down to thee. I will yield myself
to the strong impulse that agitates me. Henceforth,
all that is high in my nature shall be cherished,
and sublimated: all that is base, shall be returned to the
earth. I yield myself up to thee. I was born, yea, I feel
it, feel it in every vein, and artery, from the crown
of my head, to the sole of my foot, that I was born for
intellectual supremacy.'

Wearied with the exhausting energy of his meditation,
Harold sat, or rather leaned, against a lofty, broken,
and greenly decorated rock. Its castellated appearance,
the battlements at the summit, over which, the
waters rushed in one sheet of light, thundering all
the way, gave a sudden and fierce elevation to his
thought. He clapped his hands, and shouted in the
rapture of his heart. The rock trembled. The tears
gushed from his eyes. He could have stood upon its
summit, and wrestled with a giant!

It was too much—he yielded. Reaction came back
upon him. He staggered, and sunk, at the foot of the
rock. How like the course of Ambition!

New and calmer visions opened upon him—A more

temperate nature, like that of the young bridegroom, not
the gladiator. He awoke from his trance, with the feeling
of consummated enjoyment—delicious, and wild, but
holy, mysterious, and subduing. He slept—but in his
sleep, he dreamed a dream, as he lay, deafened by the
tumult, and drenched by the spray of the cataract. He
heard a loud voice. He stood upon the smooth ocean.
The voice came upward. All beneath his way was
transparent, and flashing with ten thousand coloured,
and changeable irradiations. The treasures of the whole
world lay under his feet; gems, and gold, and shipwrecked
thrones, were there. But, distinctly visible as
they were, almost within his reach, such was the beautiful
and perfect clearness of the water, he could not
approach them! The ocean was like a solid diamond,
with precious things bedded in its centre.

He strove to plunge. In vain—he was beaten back,
and stunned with the violence of the shock. `What!'
he cried, in his agony—`are they all, all diadems and
sceptres!—yet all inaccessible to me! will no price buy
them?—not my body—my immortal soul! They are near,
very near to me, and yet, oh, at what an immeasurable
distance! O, that this chrystal were unlocked! that
I might break asunder the glittering adamant that encrusts
them, and, at once, at the peril of body and soul,
rifle and spoil the boundless dominions below me!'

The loud voice was uttered again. And lo! the
chrystal was shattered! Harold trod, as he had desired,
among the glittering fragments of armour, and thrones,
and jewels, and diadems, and light. What were they all?
DUST AND ASHES!—the very dust—the very dust of
which the vilest things are compounded! A flaming jewel
lay before him. He touched it. It crumbled, and
grew dark. Another!—it dissolved while he held it,
like the ice that departs in a vapour!

`It is a dream! all, all a dream,' thought Harold,
even in his sleep: and he struggled to awake.

A sudden change followed. He was among a multitude.
All eyes were upon him. All hands were extended
toward him. He was suddenly filled with inspiration
and musick. He spoke—his language was mighty
—it flowed, and flowed forever, without effort or diminution.

The multitude were agitated, like his own
limbs. He felt himself rising from the earth! His voice
became more and more sounding. He rose, and the
multitude arose with him. The blue sky opened, and
he entered, arm and arm, with them that he had loved
upon the earth—The spirit of Elvira passed him! She
was dead—She touched his heart with her rotten finers!
He screamed! and awoke. The echo of his scream
came back to him from the skies, with such horrible
clearness—so loud—so appalling, that the very hair
of his head stood up with affright.

He fled. It was long before he had the spirit to recall
the transactions of his dream. When he did, it
was with high encouragement. It appeared to him, a
type of the intellectual dominion, which he was one day
to hold over his fellow men.

`Let me go, and be great! But where shall I go,'
cried he, mournfully, `who will take the young Indian
by the hand, and bless him, and encourage him, and
love him?—love him! oh, who will ever love him again?
him! the destroyer! A wild cry broke from his shivering,
pale lips. The thought was distraction. `I will go,
I will go,' he cried, the impetuosity of his nature
breaking out into quick, inarticulate sounds—`I will
fly, fly to the uttermost ends of the earth. Woman as
she is, great as she is, injured as she is, I will make myself
worthy of her. She shall forgive me, bless me, love
me. Love me!' he shuddered. Her love! oh, no! it was
not for him. And yet, there was that blue eye, wrapped
in its shiny, wet lashes—that trembling, red lip—the
deep, distant musick of her voice—the reluctant yielding
of her hand, and the tremulous clinging of her very
drapery to him, as he stole upon her slumbers, and felt
the loud pulsation of her heart!—all these were in his
ears, and his eyes yet, just as, upon her pillow,

And now—what devil raised her spirit to rebuke
him, for his unholy revenge!—now, the image of Loena
awoke in his heart. He trembled like a guilty

thing. He dared not touch her extended hand. He
had no voice. His heart felt sick.

He remembered her. There she was! there, before
him, in the shadow of that cavern; her full orbs rivetted
upon his, just as when they parted last, with that passionate
tenderness—dark eyes doating upon diamonds,
every beam and spark reflected deeply within them—
treasured and emitted only in love! yes! there they
were, with his own dark and fiery image burning in
their very centre—just where his spirit first encountered
hers!—at home—in her own melancholy and beautiful
eyes!

`I must, I will see her!' cried Harold, unable to
endure the chiding of her apparition. She was now
journeying with a tribe towards the remote Spanish
possessions, and he knew not but that he might have
to pursue her even to Mexico. But he resolved to begin
that very hour. It was midnight, the very depth
of a starry midnight, when he departed. He stood
upon the hills. The home of his childhood was now
abandoned forever. The stars, from their blue thrones,
looked pleasantly down upon him. The whole earth,
with its covering of dewy leaves, sparkled back the
effulgence of Heaven, and he trod, like a celestial, for
awhile, in a luminous atmosphere, between heaven and
earth!—all was so noiseless! so holy! so miraculous! A
far shadowing skirt of darkness went round about the
horizon. Over that he was to pass. A tumultuous piling
of the deepest blue cloud, like a range of battlements,
with stars gleaming, like watch lights through
their loop-holes, were on yonder side of the great sky.
Through them he is to penetrate. Here he begins his
pilgrimage—here! a little lower than the angels—in
the windy musick of a midnight water, flowing on,
flowing on, through all eternity, to its solitary place,
the deep ocean—by a smooth and beautiful stream—by
the side of this, is he to begin his wandering.

He turns toward the home of his childhood. He
invokes the Great Spirit of the place. He descends to
the nearest running water. He kneels, scoops up a
handful, and throws it over his head; an awful rite that,

on a departure like this, was not to be omitted. He listens
for the expected answer. He hears, or fancies that
he hears, a shrill cry in the firmament. His blood runs
cold. He gazes all over the heavens. Not a cloud—
not a shadow—not the shadow of a shade is to be seen.
He leaps backward! Something has passed him—he is
chilled to the heart—and see! the top of yonder blasted
pine bends for a moment, as with the weight of something
that alights from heaven. And yet, nothing is to
be seen—nothing!—was it in homage to some passing
creature of the elements? or did it stoop with the
weight of some descending shadow? Whatever might
be the cause, Harold's heart felt cold and heavy, and
he could not stir from the spot. How was he to interpret
such omens? were they accidental? were they common?—at
all times—and only heard and seen now, because
his senses, under his intense expectation, have
became more tremblingly vigilant?

He recovers, and pursues his way, oppressed, in spite
of himself, with lonely and melancholy apprehensions—
the saddest sadness of a young heart, going, for the
first time, into its solitary exile; seeing, in anticipation,
all its future life shadowed and stained by vicissitude
and misfortune, and wondering if any eyes will weep
at his departure, or brighten at his return.

Are these feelings to be wondered at? Who does not
dread to be forgotten! What is all the business of life,
even of the most insignificant, but a struggle to be remembered.
Who that parts with another, even when
that other may be indifferent to him, can patiently endure
the thought of being utterly forgotten? who can
endure it? But then, when we love, and are beloved,
how dreadfully disheartening is the belief, the knowledge,
for it is knowledge, that no matter how madly
we are loved, doated on—that we, in our turn, shall be
forgotten, forever, and forever! and that the places
which now know us shall know us no more. I speak
not of death, though death, itself, with all its foolish
terrour and pomp, is but the being forgotten—but absence,
absence, alone! A short interruption to endearment
changes the heart of the faithfulest and tenderest—yea,
even the heart of woman. And he who has

been loved to delirium—to death—in his desolation;
who has been clung to by his beloved one, as though
life, and heaven, and blood and pulse, were all within
his touch and presence—even he—he! will soon be
forgotten, or remembered only, with a sudden and brief
contraction of the heart, as we remember those whom
we have loved, and wronged—and find no justification
for no longer loving. Oh, God! what is the love of woman!
Harold, himself, yea, Harold, the young and impetuous
boy—his heart a fountain of high hopes, even
he, he had learned that the desolation of woman, the
youngest and loveliest, the most impassioned of women,
was soon to be comforted! He had left her, and
they knelt together. He had embraced her again and
again—kissed her forehead, and her eyes—pressed the
very blood from her lips, in the agony of his delight and
terrour! blessed her! wept upon her bosom! bathed her
cheeks, her lips, and her very hands with his tears!—felt
her tremble with the pulsation of unutterable love, from
head to foot, as he held her in his arms—heard her
quick, humid, and fainting respiration, while her inarticulate
murmuring betrayed her nature, in her pure,
but passionate embrace. O, the luxury of such communion!
the dear, delicious melancholy of such parting
remembrances!

And yet—Harold had been forgotten! So he believed.

Tell me, ye, who have known what it is to press for
the first time, the half-yielding and trembling lip of
your dear one; ye, who have felt the gentle, reluctant,
heaving of her beautiful bosom, as its undulations gradually
gave way to your engrossing embrace—the faint,
involuntary pressure of her hand—know ye of aught
worth living for, afterward? Recall it—dwell on it—
that thrilling affinity, the moment when it was first acknowledged!
that monopoly of the heart, when it expanded,
and enfolded all that was precious on earth.
And yet—yet!—there is a moment, one moment, more
unspeakably dear and tender—more unutterably holy
to the remembrance;—it is that moment when you tear
away your pulse from her pulse, your heart from her
heart, after they have grown together—when your presence

breaks away from her locked arms, like the parting
of soul and body, in a mortal sweat and terrour—
when, for one moment, all reserve is forgotten!—all!—
ye know that ye may never meet again, and ye lie heart
to heart, for the first, and the last time!—against each
others bosoms:—and then—then—oh, the widowhood
that follows!—when you turn, in your dreaming, your
heart gushing out with warmth and tenderness, to pour
consolation anew into the bosom of her you love—
you turn, in your sleep—outreach your desolate arms
to embrace her, once more, and awake!—awake, with
your lifeless hands upon the untenanted pillow! And
then—the coldness—the intolerable, the bleak, unutterable
loneliness that follows! Death! death is happiness
to it—winter hath no chilliness like it.

So had Harold parted. So had he dreamed; and often,
in his boyhood, had he awoke with the cold sweat
standing upon his lips, and his forehead reeking with
fever. Thus had he parted from Loena. It was like
the dividing asunder of one heart. A little season, and
lo! there was an immeasurable separation between
them. The longing, quivering palpitation of each riven
and sore part, for reunion, had ceased. And soon,
another, a warrior, stern and inexorable, even the unconquerable
Logan, himself!—He had supplanted the
boy, Harold. Yes, he! he whom Harold had heard her
execrate, with a bitterness and sincerity, that made his
blood curdle, had trodden upon the steps of Harold,
in the heart of his dear, dark-eyed girl, and obliterated
them forever! What faith could he have in woman,
afterward? Did he love? Go look at his forehead.
Study his dim and sunken eye—watch the throbbing
of his pale, hollow temples—his pallid cheek—his wasted
form, transparent with thought—then tell me if
ever man loved woman, as Harold loved Loena. What
gave him that unquiet look? that fierce spirit? that preternatural
activity? that fearful, that appalling regardlessness
of danger? Know ye the operation of love? such
love, on a temperament like his? It is purification. It is
death. It is an untiring, destroying impulse. It is a
drug, so potent, that it exhilarates to madness. It is a
drunkenness of the heart, so enervating, so wasting,

as to leave him, upon whom it hath wrought, in the torpor
and inebriety of death. His life issues at his pores,
with the tinge of blood, under the pressure of the atmosphere,
while the enchantment is upon him. Who that
loves in his boyhood, loves not—if he survive—in his
prime? But loves he always her that he loved first?
Whence the mysterious transfer of his affection? whence
the power with which man invests his last idol with all
the properties, of all others, that had ever haunted him
before? It is from love. Know ye the secret? The man
is often another being than the boy. But the heart, having
once learned to love, will love on—or famish and
wither. Love is its only aliment; that once tasted,
it rejects all other. Opportunity, peril, adventure, and
toil, and calamity, may fit and prepare man for a more
durable passion. But retirement, melancholy, youth
and innocence are enough to warm the natural offspring
of young hearts, into life, and beauty. The bird
will soar, spring it whence it may—but the prouder the
heart, the higher the elevation, whence it takes its departure,
the higher will be its flight, till its plumes are
quenched only in the heaven of heavens; till falcon-like,
it cleave the furthest cloud of the furthest sky. The
heart of man changes. Hence follows the sundering
of loved ones. She whom he sought for a companion in
his boyhood, becomes less and less his companion, as
he soars higher and higher: and lo, as he touches the
confines of his natural dominion, he looks about, and
she has departed. Her wings and spirit have failed.
He is alone—alone, in the blue depth of heaven. Then
he seeks one of loftier bearing, stronger pinions, one
that can hold everlasting companionship with his flight,
and everlasting equality with him.

So stood it with Harold. Behold him now upon the
hills. The morning sun pours his unchannelled light
over the highest barriers of earth. Over them, it rolls
down like a flood, upon the agitated and boundless vapour
below. The cloud beneath his feet heaves like illuminated
drapery—like an ocean of changeable silk.
The tree tops, here and there, break through, and
gleam in the red sunshine, above the ocean of shadow,

like evergreens with golden branches, and fire-tipped
leaves: brilliant, sun-coloured, branching coral, afloat
upon water, growing through the smooth surface—look!
a wilderness of flowery gold, washed up by the ocean,
is before thee! and see! the bare rocks put up their
waving, sharp points, like so many beacon-flames, into
the sky. Further and further, rolls up the curtain of the
air. The water brightens. Glimpses of the earth,
like a floating ærial greenness, are, here and there,
caught through the thin vapour. So, and with similar
gradations, cleared away the thought of young Harold.
The early breeze came sounding in his ear, and his
heart awoke like a new strung harp, when first visited
by the loud wind, from the high places. His veins
swelled. He saw the bright sun dancing away below
him, in the deepest part of the blue water; and he was,
in the very levity of his spirit, ready to descend, and
strip, and plunge, and riot as deeply, in the beautiful
element. A great bird passed him, with a continual
shriek; perhaps the very bird that had appalled him in
the night time, by her cry. Now, he stood on tip-toe,
and lifted up his hands in astonishment, as she sailed
by, utterly regardless of the being, to whom God had
given dominion over her. Where was that dominion?
what mockery! She derided him. Away she swept!
away! like a ship of air, laden with majesty, and shining
in the prodigal light of the sun, like something
chosen and familiar with his hottest magnificence—his
most secret abiding places. On she went, on! directly
in her course, as toward some outlet of heaven. She
departed. Harold saw her, like a shining motion, to the
last moment. He knew that she had gone, and yet, for
a whole hour afterward, whenever he turned his eyes
suddenly upward, there was that bird!—there!—constantly
before him—constantly ascending; swaying her
mighty pinions all the while, and bearing away for her
anchorage among the stars, while he—he! was rooted
to the spot! What changeable creatures we are! Harold
grew discontented, melancholy, with the thought. He,
who had begun, with a feeling of rapturous enjoyment,
to thank his God, that he could travel with this majestick
creature, almost within her own haunted dominion,
far above the evolving clouds, now saddened with
the thought that there had not been given to him;
wings with which to accompany her. He started from
his revery. The trees nodded as he passed, but it was
light, now, and he scarcely observed them. They were
the dwarfish vegetation of another world, and he was
pleased with the motion of their tops—the same motion,
that, the last night, in darkness, had chilled him with
horrour!

Such is human nature! all things in heaven and earth
are stained and dimmed with our prevailing humour;
with a light heart, man showers the light, as from a reservoir,
upon all the world: with a cloudy one he rolls,
continually out, as from an unfathomable abyss, his
shadow, and spectres, till all without is gloomy and
repulsive, as the sepulcre of his own heart.

A whole week had passed, since his journeying. But
still he pursued his route, maturing in the brisk mountain
air, all his plans of future discipline, and glory. He
was startled by a shot, and twenty or thirty quick reverberations
over his head, as if a platoon had fired a feu
de joie. The next moment, he saw a wild animal spring
down from the point of a projecting rock, with that
peculiarity of desperation, the ferocious and expiring energy
of rage, which characterises the wounded, and
often the mortally wounded, wild beast, of the cat family.
A furious dog followed—bloody and torn, but
yelling upon his prey. Another shot followed—a shriek!
`Almighty God!' cried Harold, and he leaped down
the near channel, and disappeared. Shot after shot, rang
from the precipice, above, and rattled among the trees,
and the thin smoke twined beautifully over his head.
He caught a sight of the animal, with the shaggy dog
at her heels, scrambling up the precipice. She toils—
yells—and with a desperate spring, seats herself, at
last, upon a rock, beyond the reach of the dog; her eyes
dilated, snapping, and red as blood—her back bristling
—and her hot blood rattling upon the rock. She throws
herself suddenly upon her back! The next moment,
another dog is seen breaking headlong down the precipice.

He springs at her throat. She strikes him but
once, with her claw, and he rolls over the rock—embowelled!—a
mass of blood and intestines, upon his
companion, beneath. Harold stands, with wonder and
affright, and gazes upon the terrible creature. He raises
his rifle, reluctantly; levels, snaps—the animal
hears him—it misses fire! She rears upon her hind
legs, and gnashes her teeth. Aware of the consequences,
Harold throws aside his rifle, and leaps down
the precipice. The desperate creature follows—the
branches crackle as she falls through them, from her
blinding elevation. She reaches the earth. She shivers
with rage, and prepares to throw herself upon Harold,
who is lying almost insensible, at a few paces distance.
He shuts his eyes. Another shot!—and a dog jumps at
her throat. It is all over with the brave creature; and
her heart appears to burst, just as a young Indian girl
breaks through the tangled, and flowery underwood,
and—

`Gracious heaven!' cried the delirious Harold. The
Indian girl shrieked—ran to him, plucked away his
hands from his face, and threw herself upon him—
sobbing, and chafing his forehead.

He awoke. `O! what art thou! whence, whence, thou
blessed girl?' he cried. He caught her hands—he plucked
her down upon his bosom, in an agony of suffocation:
he pressed her again and again, to his troubled
and whirling heart. The hunters gathered round in
dismay, at the perilous escape of the stranger, and wondering
at the passionate forgetfulness of a chaste Indian
maid. She arose from his bosom, arose upon her feet,
with an air of princely authority. At this instant, the
expiring animal, recovered for a moment, and with, a giddy,
reeling motion, threw herself toward Harold. Her
paw only reached him, but his ribs were laid bare. It
remained there. It was severed from her body, and a
long knife was driven again and again through her
heart, by the hunters. The blood of Harold, and the
beast mingled and frothed together, and smoked, as
in mortal strife, yet. The Indian girl sank, with her
eyes swimming, and her mouth trembling, by his side.

The huntsmen stood around. Harold was recognised,
and men who had never wept before, wept now, at the
spectacle of blood, and youth and beauty before them.
Here were two young Indians, fashioned in the choicest
mould of beauty, filled with fire and passion—lovers,
long, long, asunder—loving to desperation—dying insensibly
upon each others' bosoms—at the moment of
meeting, in the deep solitude, the awful wilderness.

They were deceived. Neither was dying. Harold
recovered first. He was deluged with blood, the blood
of her that he had loved—had loved! yea, loved
yet, to distraction. He clung to her, and kissed her,
and wept upon her, and staunched her deep wound,
with his own mouth; while the Indians, whose presence
of mind never deserted them, ran seeking some well-known
and powerful herb. It was found, and applied,
as a potent, and infallible styptick. A litter of green
and flowery underwood, interlaced with vine tendons,
was soon woven, and the lovers were borne side by
side in each other's arms, with a mournful and uninterrupted
silence, to the hunting encampment. A fire
was made, and some food, such as the Indian is never
without, of parched corn, and sun-dried venison, was
prepared, and they were induced, notwithstanding their
exhausted state, to partake.

Loena lay upon Harold's arm. An old Indian stood
contemplating them. His regard for Loena, was the
devout, awful veneration of a great heart swayed by superstition.
She was the last of the Logans, directly descended
from the Mingo chief, and was believed to be the
legitimate inheritor of his terrible powers. This veneration,
Loena herself, had learned to consider as her right;
and she would have been more amazed, had one of the
tribe denied her the homage that men pay, not merely
to rank and loveliness, and high birth, but to preternatural
attributes, than if he had fallen down upon his
face, and worshipped her. Her deportment and tread
were queen-like, prompt, and resolute. Her movement
was lofty, and determined, like one that knew and felt
that she was born to command.

`Loena!' said Harold, in a faint whisper, as if to assure

himself that it was she, whose warm breath he
felt upon his heart, as her face was hidden in his bosom,
and her hurried palpitations told him that she was
not sleeping, however she might pretend to be—`Loena,
love!'

The answer was a slight, doubtful, tremulous movement
of her soft hand. His mouth sought hers;
their lips touched, and thrilled—and once more, once
more, they breathed their souls into each other, while
the tears streamed from their eyes, and the blood of
their hearts mingled.

`Dear, dear Harold!—Dear Loena!' was all that either
could articulate for minutes.

They became more composed. Harold felt something
warm trickling down his side. It was her blood.
Harold recollected the wound, the occasion, and his
heart shivered in its socket. Another thought; it lightened
through his very heart. His brain withered.
There was a choaking taste of dust and ashes, and bitterness
in his mouth.

`My God! my God!' he cried, clinging to her—`I
cannot lose thee, now! O, no, I cannot, cannot! and
yet, O, Loena!'

A soft kiss upon his eye-lids reassured him. He
arose upon his elbow, and tenderly urged the inquiry
with his hand, while she gradually yielded to it. He
felt for the wound, with trembling, and terrour. His
joy, his rapture, may be imagined, when he found her
bosom unscarred, untorn—that the wound in her neck
was slight, and that in her side, whence the blood had
fallen upon him, like rain, was rather deep, than dangerous,
and was completely staunched. The profusion of
clotted gore had terrified him beyond expression, but
now he was tranquil, happy, in a measure. New
thoughts came to him. She leaned upon his bosom: his
right arm was under her neck, and her two hands were
locked in his, and held to his heart. She felt his, slowly
relax. One of hers fell. Where now was his anxious
fondness? Why did he not seek it, and replace it with
the accustomed kiss? Woman, to the core of her heart!
Loena coldly withdrew the other, and finding no opposition

to the movement, while she knew from his breathing
that Harold was not asleep, she raised her head,
with a feeling of resentment and surprise, which she
could not, and would not suppress, from his shoulder,
and lay, silent, breathless, and far from him.

A long silence followed. Harold's breath rattled in
his throat. The couch trembled. Was he choking?
Poor Loena, in the sudden terrour of the thought, was
on the point of returuing to his bosom, more warmly
than ever, when Harold put out his hands, and articulated,
with a convulsive, and gasping indistinctness,
`Logan!'

Had a flash of lightning struck, and burnt, and blinded
her, at her prayers, she could not have been more
amazed. To be repulsed, and so rudely, at such a moment!
O, it was as if her brain had contracted with a
sudden spasm. She felt—how it would be difficult to
tell—it was, as if one half of her own heart were dead,
struck with the palsy. She stared wildly at him, and
clasped her forehead, and Harold gazed at her, without
speech or motion.

`Logan!' she uttered, at last, with a tremulous tone,
hiding her face, while the tears gushed through her
fingers.

The voice, the action that accompanied it, was death,
nay, worse, ten thousand times worse, than any death,
to Harold. It was a confirmation of all his fears—all!
She loved Logan, and who was Logan? His own father!

He arose. `Farewell!' said he, just laying his hand
coldly upon her arm, `farewell!' No answer was returned.
A low, suppressed, breathing, and somewhat—
could it be?—like sobbing, seemed to be near him. His
heart was touched, but his temper grew more decisive,
and firm, and severe.

`Farewell!' he cried—`Loena, farewell, forever! we
never meet again.'

No answer, no emotion. Was he disappointed? Aye,
he was. But why leave her, if she cared so little for
him? It would be no punishment to her. Why be so
shaken, himself, if she retained such amazing self-command?
His spirit awoke in anger, and rebuked him.

Her stillness continued. Was it natural? He feared
not. Should he inquire? His pride might have prevented
him, much as he loved her, (for at such a moment
pride is equal to love, exactly and love is neutralized
by the commixture) had he not heard a trickling upon
the dry leaves, which covered the cabin floor. Horrour!
Harold leaped to her side, and caught her in his arms.
She was insensible. She had fainted with the loss of
blood. The bandage—she had loosened it silently, and secretly,
and, perhaps, it was already too late! O! how he
cursed himself, and shrieked, and cursed himself again.
A word, one single unkind word had fallen from his
lips, and his beloved had answered not, moved not, but
silently prepared herself to bleed to death! How full of
womanhood!—the pure divinity of woman!—uncomplaining,
patient, meek, silent and dying!

His cries soon brought assistance, and the expiring Loena
was removed to a couch of skins. That which she
had left was drenched and dropping with her dear blood.
And poor Harold stood, like a condemned spirit, some
erring creature, under the ban of the most High,
awaiting his final judgment. He dwelt upon her mild,
full, melancholy eyes, half-shut in the languor of death,
but gleaming yet, like dark jewelry through net work;
her most beautiful hair, saturate with blood—as would
a murderer dwell upon his innocent victim, in the first
waking of his tranced spirit, when every passion but
that of pity, was extinct, and the horrour of his comsummate
guilt was ascending, slowly, like cold adders,
to his brain.

She opened her dying eyes. She fixed them sadly,
but haughtily upon Harold. He could not endure it.
Such a look from Loena was his death-warrant. He
almost leaped upward, and denounced himself as her
murderer, before God Her countenance changed not.
He fell upon his knees—he caught her hands, and watered
them with his tears. All in vain. She was inexorable.
She had been doubted: she saw that—it was for
the first time, and the last: and doubted too, at such a
moment!—what woman could forgive it—innocent, or
guilty?—none!

She waved him off. He arose, sternly, but refused
to go. She waved her hand again, impatiently; and her
Indian attendants plucked him away by main force.
Not one look, not one motion, from her, to prevent the
indignity. Could it be? Had he not loved her? kissed
her, and she, him—held her to his heart time, and
again? Had she not answered, pulse for pulse, to his
longing and delight? Where now, was her tenderness?
Were all these things forgotten so soon? These, that
should have survived the mortal agony, the dissolution
of death—these, that should have burnt forever, a ray
of pure divinity, amid the festering corruption of the
whole body and soul!

`O, woman! woman!' cried Harold. The sweat stood
upon his forehead, in the strife of pride, and tenderness,
and humiliation—and he! what right had he to
doubt? Where was his constancy? where were his purity
and faith? He would have given the whole world, for
never, never had he so passionately desired it before;
Such is man—he would have given the whole world
just to feel her once more, the proud creature, clinging
to him, and trembling from head to foot, that he might,
if he could, cast her off, forever, and triumph in his turn.
Never had he been so humbled, so indignant. He resisted
no longer. `Brothers,' he said, to the Indians
that held him, `release me.' His tone was of authority.
It was not to be disobeyed. He stood erect, and then,
carelessly strode out into the open air. He went as
some majestick creature, moving, and sustained only, by
volition, without physical action, irresistible and silent;
and well that he did go thus, for he so rose in his turn,
in the heart of the dying girl, that, for a single moment
she raised her hands in admiration. Harold saw the
shadow thereof upon the wall, and his heart leaped
within him.