University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

A few miles from the eastern side of Lake Champlain,
and nearly opposite to Crown Point, where
now moulder the ruins of one of the oldest fortresses
in North America, a bald, jagged and desolate
looking peak, known by the ungracious appellation
of Snake Mountain, stands frowning over the surrounding
levels in solitary and repulsive grandeur.
This detached and lofty mountain, being the highest
and indeed the only eminence of any magnitude,
in all that extensive and beautiful tract of country
lying between the lake and Otter Creek for the last
thirty miles of its course, served among the settlers,
before roads were much opened in this part of
the wilderness, as a guide, or land mark, for all
those who had occasion to travel the woodlands in
this vicinity. And Warrington, after safely establishing
his friends in their possessions at the Lower

Falls, and despatching a small band of his forces in
pursuit of the York Surveyor, repaired, with the remainder
of his men, to the western brow of this
mountain, as a rendezvous to which his whole party
were to assemble when the surveyor was secured,
proposing to employ the interim in making observations
preparatory to some contemplated operations
in the neighborhood of the place. He was, as the
reader has already been apprised, the owner, under
a New Hampshire Grant, of a considerable body of
wild land, lying along the shore of the lake, upon a
part of which, he had been informed, some one had
entered under color of a York title. And as the
tract of land in question was situated between this
mountain and the lake, it was now his intention to
ascertain whether the information he had received
was correct, and, if found to be so, to take measures
for ejecting the intruder, whose name even was unknown
to him. With this object in view, our leader,
leaving his men to prepare a shelter for their temporary
quarters, took his rifle, and set off alone through
the woods in the direction in which the improvements
of the supposed intruder were said to be located.
After travelling some miles in this direction,
he arrived at the top of the last offset, in the lakeward
slope of the country, before reaching the
shore, which now appeared a short distance in front,
while an opening of considerable extent became visible
on the left. Approaching the skirt of this opening,
and carefully noticing the natural land marks
around it, he soon became convinced that the whole
clearing, with all the improvements, was embraced
within the boundaries described in his own patent.
Having satisfied himself in this respect, he now turned
his attention more particularly to the improvements
themselves, and felt a degree of surprise on
witnessing their comparative extent and superiority
over the rest of those of this recently settled country.
The house was uncommonly neat and comfortable
in its appearance, and very pleasantly situated
on the green and graduated margin of a beautiful
little brook, that meandered, with many a glittering
cascade, through a smooth meadow, and entered
the woods a few rods below the spot where he
stood. The out-house, barn, garden, and every
thing around, were in good keeping—all going to furnish
unequivocal indication that enterprise, taste and
some degree of wealth, had here been employed.
Much did Warrington wonder who could be the enterprising
occupant, who had accomplished all this
in so short a time, and still more, that it could have
been done without more particular intelligence reaching
him respecting it. But whoever he might be, it
was not probable that he would part with such fair
possessions without a struggle; and as a garrison
was near, the troops of which were understood to
be in the York interest, and stood ready, doubtless,
to protect the intruder, Warrington at once saw that
a considerable force might be necessary to dispossess
him, and even should the attempt be successfully
made, the same force might be required to be permanently
stationed there to defend it. After revolving
this subject in his mind awhile, he concluded to defer
it for further consideration, and perhaps for a
consultation with his companions; and now dismissing
the matter from his mind, he again gave his
attention to the inviting prospect around him. The
day was bright and tranquil; the balmy breath of
spring, wafted over flowering field and budding
forest, was dallying with the whispering pines above,
thus gratifying one sense with delicious odours, and
soothing another with the soft and dying murmurs
of æolian melody. The long tract of the far stretching
waters of the lake, sleeping in the rays of the
descending sun, shone with dazzling brightness,
which, at intervals, was beautifully relieved by the
dark green islands which studded the glittering expanse.
The sloping uplands beyond, which reanimating
nature was just beginning to clothe in the
green vesture of summer, rose up from the long line
of nodding pines that lined the western margin of
the lake, in beautiful perspective, each individual
feature of the landscape becoming more and more
indistinct in the mellowing distance, till the view
was terminated by the last long ridge of climacteric
mountains, whose tall ice-clad peaks, fiercely flashing
in the sun, were marked in bold outlines against
the cloudless blue of the heavens. A solitary flag
was waving over the massy and frowning walls of
the opposite fortress, on which the Mene Tekel had
already been traced by the unseen hand that writes
the destines of nations: for the emblem lion, that
there now proudly floated on the breeze, and glorying
in his strength and prowess, seemed bidding defiance
to the world, was doomed, before many revolving
suns had finished their daily course, to be
plucked down by those, who were alike fearless in
their resistance to oppression, whether coming from
a sister colony or a parent country.

While Warrington, who was an enthusiastic admirer
of nature, with whom he particularly loved to
commune in the solitudes of the forest where her
empire was undisturbed by the works of art, was
giving his soul to the magnificent prospect before
him, he was recalled from his reverie by the light

plashing of oars in the waters below. And turning
his eyes in the direction of the sound, he indistinctly
discerned through the trees a small skiff approaching
the shore of the lake, rowed by a single
person, who, on reaching his landing, drew up his
boat, and, after taking out of it a gun, ascended
the bank. As he emerged from the thick underwood
that skirted the shore into the more open forest,
and advanced into the higher grounds, Warrington
soon discovered, from his uniform, that he
was a soldier, or some subaltern, from the fort, who
had come over, he concluded, in search of the partridge,
or other light game, with which the woods
here very plentifully abounded. The man still continued
leisurly to advance into the forest till he had
reached the runlet before mentioned; when something
on his right, in the direction of the clearing,
seemed suddenly to attract his notice. And, after
pausing awhile in apparent doubt and indecision, he
began somewhat cautiously, and with an air of hesitation,
to move forward towards the object which
had arrested his attention, and which he still appeared
to keep anxiously in view. Our leader, who
in the meanwhile kept his stand unobserved, supposing
the other had sprung some game at which
he was endeavoring to obtain a favorable shot, continued,
with a sort of listless curiosity, to watch his
motions, till he had passed out of sight behind an
intervening copswood of low firs, that thickly extended
along the slope, some half dozen rods from
the clearing. In a few moments, and as the former
yet stood patiently listening for the report of the
expected shot, the voice of a female, coming from
the quarter to which his attention was directed, and
uttering a slight cry, as of mingled surprise and
alarm, reached his ear. The voice of the man was
next heard in the earnest, though flurried tones of
seeming entreaty, which appeared to be followed by
a hasty movement towards the object addressed,—
and in a moment more a piercing shriek rose wildly
from the spot. Grasping his rifle, and plunging
into the thicket, Warrington bounded down the hill
with the speed of a wild deer towards the scene;
and in another instant the parties were revealed to
his sight—a young lady of the most interesting exterior,
with her hair loosened and falling in disorder
over her neck and shoulders, and her flushed
countenance eloquent with indignation and alarm,
as with half averted face she struggled to free herself
from the fellow, who, by a grasp of one hand
on her garment, was endeavoring to detain her in
her attempted flight. One glance at the victim of
this rude assault sufficed to tell the unexpecting and
astonished Warrington that the fair original of that
picture, which had been so long engraven on his
heart, was before him, requiring his instant aid and
protection.

`Back! ruffian, back!' exclaimed he, as with levelled
piece he rushed upon the soldier, who stood
mute and confounded before so unlooked for an apparition;
`back! I say—unhand the lady, or you
die on the spot!'

Quailing beneath the stern and withering glances
of the other, the abashed aggressor immediately relinquished
his hold on the girl, and muttering a denial
of any intentional wrong and a few curses at
the interference of Warrington, shrunk away and
disappeared in the woods.

`I am much indebted to you, sir,' said the still
agitated maiden, scarce audibly, her eyes timidly

bent on the ground, as her protector now gently advanced
to her side.

`Miss Hendee'—said Warrington, hesitatingly,
after an awkward silence of a moment; `do I not
behold my former acquaintance, Miss Alma Hendee?'

`Mr. Howard!' exclaimed the girl, as with deep
surprise she now for the first time lifted her eyes to
scan the features of her before unrecognized deliverer.

A slight flush passed over the face of the other,
on hearing himself addressed by that name, and he
opened his lips as if to correct his fair friend, but a
second thought seemed to repress the expression of
the first, and, quickly recovering from his hesitation,
he observed, `I little thought to have met you here,
Miss Hendee. I could almost forgive the wretch
who caused you this fright, since he has been the
means of my meeting again with one whom I have
never ceased to remember with pleasure. But you
have companions near, surely?'

`No nearer than the house, from which I wandered
down the run just now, and, tempted by
these flowrets peeping up along the banks, extended
my ramble, perhaps imprudently, thus far into the
woods.'

`And is this fair situation, then, your home—the
residence of your father?'

`Certainly, it is,' replied Miss Hendee, resuming
her natural cheerfulness; `why, surely, Mr. Howard,
you did not suppose I had turned wood-nymph
to wander in the forests, and house in the caves—
did you?'

`I hardly knew what to think, for it never occurred

to me that the father of Alma Hendee could
be in possession of this beautiful opening.'

`And why not, my dear sir? Why, we have
been here these three years. And if we have not
made the wilderness blossom like the rose, we have
at least got so far as to make the rose blossom in the
wilderness—come, you shall attend me home, and
see what a pretty flower garden I have in progress.'

`To the opening, at least,' responded Warrington,
obeying the motions of his fair companion.

`And now, sir,' resumed the latter gaily, as they
proceeded on their way, `having answered your-questions,
let me be the catechist awhile, will you?
And in the first place, from what cloud so opportunely
dropped my gallant deliverer, just at the particular
moment he was wanted?'

`I, too, am an inhabitant of the Green Mountain
settlement, though not of this vicinity,' answered
the other: `and you see,' he continued, smilingly pointting
to his rifle, `that my old propensities still hang about
me; and for the present you must take this as an
explanation of my wandering into this section of the
country. I had just arrived at the border of the
woods up yonder, and was viewing your delightful
situation, when your cries brought me to your side.'

`I am half ashamed of the noise I made,' rejoined
the lady, `and I presume it was unnecessary.
He has occasionally been at our house; and how
far he considered himself warranted on such an acquaintance
to obtrude himself as he did, I know
not. But being started by the fellow's unexpected
appearance, and uncertain, from his hesitating and
equivocal manner, what might be the nature of
the proposals, which he said he wished to make, and
which at last he seemed determined I should stop to
hear, I became much alarmed, I will confess; though

I should feel excessively mortified to have any stir
made about it. I hope you will not mention the affair
to my father when we get home?'

`Certainly not, if it is your wish—that is, I would
not, if I were to see him,' replied Warrington, pausing,
as they now came into the open field.

`But surely, sir, you will go to the house? My
father will be very much pleased to renew his acquaintance
with his Doctor Hunter, as he would always
persist in calling you.'

`Your kind invitation, believe me, Miss Hendee,
is most gratefully received; but I think it would
hardly be advisable for me at this time to accept it.'

`And why not?—so near, and not visit us? I
know my father will be delighted to see you, and
have you spend several days with us—particularly
so, I imagine, at the present time, when he is not
without apprehensions of an attack from the Green
Mountain Boys, as they call them. Why, did you
know that a band of these men have, for several
days past, been ravaging the settlement along Otter
Creek, headed by that terrible fellow, Captain Warrington?'

`I heard,' replied the other, confused and stammering
at this unexpected question, and the commentary
on his own character which he perceived it
involved in the mind of his fair companion, `I
heard—that is, I was aware that the person you
mention had come into this part of the country.
But your father need be under no apprehensions on
that account;' he continued, regaining his composure,
`for I think I can very safely answer for Warrington,
that neither he, nor any of his followers,
shall ever disturb the father of Alma Hendee.'

`You can! can you? But why couple my name

so very oddly with that of this fearful man?—I do
not fully comprehend—I know there are two parties
in this settlement, and I suppose he and his company
pretend to be acting for the New Hampshire party.
Perhaps you belong to this party, and know
him, and can influence him in our behalf? Oh! if
you would!—But come, do go to the house with me,
and assure my father of this.'

`Not now—another time—perhaps to-morrow, I
may visit you—that is if'—and Warrington paused
and hesitated, as if doubtful whether to proceed,
while, with a waiting and wondering expression, the
girl stood earnestly looking him in the face. `Miss
Hendee,' he at length resumed, somewhat pensively,
`you left the place, which afforded me the pleasure
of your acquaintance, unexpectedly,—quite so to me.
On my return, a day or two after our last interview,
to my great disappointment, I found you were gone
—whither, I was never able to discover.'

`We intended you no disrespect, however. Mr.
Howard, in leaving thus unceremoniously,' replied
the girl, exchanging the free and cordial, for a more
guarded and distant manner, as if she instinctively
anticipated what was to follow. `My father, who,
as you was aware, had then become able to resume
his journey, gained some information from a traveller,
who called in your absence, which led him to
determine on leaving the place the next morning. I
certainly should have been happy at that time to see
you again and apprise you of our departure.'

`At that time,' rejoined the other, catching the
emphasis, and slowly, and with a tone of disappointment,
repeating the expression, `at that time,'—and
have Miss Hendee's feelings, then, changed since I
last saw her?'

`I then esteemed you, Mr. Howard, much—very
much, indeed,' she evasively replied, looking down,
while her fingers were busy in tearing a little flower
that she had plucked by the way: `I thought highly
of you—very; and I still know not why I should
not regard you with the same respect.'

`Respect, my dear Miss Hendee, is a term that
falls coldly on the ears of those who are looking, or
at least hoping, for a warmer expression. You were
sensible, were you not, that, at the time to which
we have been alluding, I was cherishing for you a
tenderer sentiment?'

`I had no right to understand so,' tremulously replied
the lovely listener, the quick heavings of whose
bosom plainly told the tumult that had been awakened
within; `you certainly made no professions
that would warrant me in such a belief.'

`Miss Hendee,' resumed the other after a pause,
`you were, if I rightly understood your character, as
I presume you are now, a frank and ingenuous girl.
May I then not hope, that, in kindness to me, you
will give a frank answer to a question which I would
ask you?'

`If a proper one.'

`If then a profession, which I intended to have
made you, had opportunity been allowed, were to
be made now, are there more obstacles now, than
then, to prevent it being favorably received?'

She made no reply, and Werrington, stealing a
glance at her averted face, perceived that her eyes
were suffused with tears.

`There is indeed, then, one between us,' at length
said the other sadly.

`There is,' was the reply in a tone of regret,
which should have satisfied even the monopolizing

heart of a lover. But love with men, oftener than
otherwise wholly blind to policy, is rarely content
to rest satisfied with those indirect expressions and
delicate intimations, which are a surer proof of its
existence in the female heart than the most open
declarations, and, absurdly craving more, is not unfrequently
compelled to put up with less. It was
thus with our lover as he rejoined—

`May I not have the happiness to hear those lips
declare that my affection has been in some measure
reciprocated?'

Still there was no reply.

`Am I to understand,' resumed Warrington,
`that Miss Hendee has pledged her hand irrevocably?
And can it be that she has pledged herself
too for a union into which her heart can never enter?'

`What have I said, Mr. Howard,' replied the
girl, looking up with the air of offended pride, `to
warrant such questions? With some, perhaps, I
might not be slow to resent your intimation. And
as it is,' she continued with great dignity, `you will
hold me excused, I trust, for declining to commune
further on a subject, which should now be as uninteresting
to you, as it is embarrassing, and even
painful to me.'

`Surely, surely! dearest lady, you cannot believe
that I would intentionally offend?' said the disconcerted
lover. `We will, however, dismiss this subject
for the present, if so unpleasant.'

`For the present, and forever!'

`If it must be so—and yet'—

`No more, no more—I know not even that I have
done right in listening to what you have already
said, or remaining here so long. You will now receive

my adieu, and excuse my immediate return.'

`One moment yet—you will not deny me another
interview?'

`At my father's house, and in my father's presence,
most certainly not.'

`Even on these hard conditions, I will, then, soon
seek it—cruel one, adieu.'

`Adieu!' responded the beauteous girl, as, triping
lightly away, she looked back with a smile so
eloquently sweet, that it erased in an instant the
effect of every frown she had given, and every negative
she had uttered, from the mind of her repulsed,
but not despairing lover.

The progress we have now made in our story
makes it necessary to recur to some incidents of an
earlier date, connected with several of our leading
personages, and having a bearing on the events yet
to follow:—

Some three or four years previous to the events
just related, and when the settlers were first meditating
an open resistance to the authorities of New
York, it became an object with the former to ascertain
how far the government of that province was
there sustained in its attempted aggression on the
Grants, by the feelings and opinions of the people
at large—whether, indeed, there did not exist
among that people, especially those living near the
disputed territory, a considerable degree of sympathy
for the settlers in their unrighteous persecutions:
For in the event of such a sympathy, the latter believed
that the meditated resistance might be ventured
upon with safety, or with safety, at least, when compared
with a case where the feelings of the people
were enlisted on the side of the government. It
was therefore determined that an emissary should be

sent into the part of New York lying contiguous to
the Grants, who, travelling in disguise, or with disguised
objects, should endeavor to ascertain the true
sentiments and feelings of the people on this subject;
and Warrington was the person selected for
this delicate, though important enterprise. Accordingly
setting out alone with his rifle, and travelling
on foot under the assumed name of Howard, and
in the character of a hunter and herbalist, he travelled
all that section of the country into which he had
been particularly sent, calling at almost every house
in his course and mingling with all companies and
classes in pursuing the objects of his secret mission.
And it was while on this excursion, that he accidentally
formed the interesting acquaintance, of which
the reader has already been apprised. Happening
on one of the main roads leading from the east to
Albany, he was overtaken by a gentleman and lady
in a carriage, travelling towards the last mentioned
place. They had passed by him but a few rods,
however, before the horse suddenly took fright and
overturned the carriage, by which the man was seriously
hurt, though the lady fortunately escaped
with little injury. Springing forward to their aid,
Warrington, after securing the horse with no little
difficulty and danger, turned his attention to the
travellers, who proved to be a father and daughter.
of the name of Hendee. Assisting the wounded
man into his vehicle, and placing his daughter by
his side to support him, he attended them, leading the
horse, to the nearest habitation, which was a poor
inn not far from the place of the accident. And having
formerly been placed in circumstances in which
he had gained considerable practical knowledge of
medicine, he, in the absence of a regular physician
in that thinly settled country, undertook the cure of
the invalid himself, closely attending him till he became
convalescent, and repeating his visits, at short
intervals, during the two or three weeks that elapsed
before the patient was able to resume his journey.
And it was during these vists, in which he
had evidently found great favor in the eyes of both
father and daughter, by the kindness and delicacy
of his attentions, that he had contracted an intimacy
with latter, which soon passed the ordinary boundaries
of friendship, and ripened into that blissful
state of the affections, which constitutes, perhaps, the
most purely happy period in the course of love—when
the feelings of parties are tacitly understood and appreciated
by each other, before an open avowal occurs
to throw with its business like aspect, the first shade
of earth over this paradise of the heart. It was at
this interesting stage of the intimacy that Warrington
returned one day, after a longer absence than
usual, and found, to his great disappointment and
regret, that Hendee and his daughter had departed
the day before, without leaving any note or message,
as he then could learn, explanatory of their unannounced,
and, to him unexpected departure. Believing
from this, that he might have been perhaps
deceived in regard to the nature and extent of the
interest, which he had flattered himself he had created
in the bosom of Miss Hendee, and feeling a little
piqued at this appearance of neglect on the part
of both father and daughter, he soon ceased his unavailing
enquiries concerning the family. And he
had never heard any thing further respecting them,
or received the slightest information of the place of
their subsequent residence, except the vague and uncertain
information which he gathered in his adventure
at the subteraneous abode before described,
from that time to the present hour, when, to his utter
surprise, he found them located on his own land.
And now having no suspicion that they were conscious
of intruding on the rights of another, and last
of all, his own, in taking up this place under a York
patent, and still cherishing all his former sentiments
for the daughter, whose heart he believed he still retained
notwithstanding the claims of another to her
hand, he resolved to relinquish his right to the land,
and even keep his ownership, if possible, a secret
from the family, while he should prosecute his suit
with the girl, at least till he had unravelled the mystery
that now seemed to hang over her, and become
better satisfied of the hopelessness of his case.

Revolving this subject in his mind, he returned to
his encampment, and announced to his wondering
companions, that he should have no occasion to employ
them in the affair which, as they were apprised,
he had been to investigate.