60. CHAPTER LX.
THE LODGE IN THE HILLS.
Sitting by the crackling twigs which drove away the cool
airs of the autumn night with their inspiring warmth, the young
man, whose early fortunes we have thus far endeavored to narrate,
leaned his head upon his hand, and mused and dreamed.
Overhead the shadows played upon the rafters; around him,
the firelight lit up the wild and uncouth interior, with its sleeping
hounds, and guns, and fishing-rods, and chests; on the opposite
side of the fireplace, the old Indian woman was indulging, like
Verty, in a reverie.
From time to time, Longears or Wolf would stir in their sleep,
and growl, engaged in dreaming of some forest adventure which
concerned itself with deer or other game; or the far cry of the
whip-poor-will would echo through the forest; or the laughter
of the owl suddenly come floating on, borne on the chill autumn
wind.
This, with the crackle of the twigs, was all which disturbed
the silence of the solitary lodge.
The silence lasted for half an hour, at the end of which time
Verty changed his position, and sighed. Then looking at the
old woman with great affection, the young man said:
“I was thinking who I was; and I wanted to ask you, ma
mere—tell me.”
The old woman looked startled at this address, but concealing
her emotion with the marvellous skill of her people, replied in
her guttural accent—
“My son wants to know something?”
“Yes, ma mere, that is it. I want to know if I really am
your son.”
The old woman turned her eyes from Verty.
“The fawn knows the deer, and the bear's cub knows his
fellows,” continued Verty, gazing into the fire; “but they laugh
at me. I don't know my tribe.”
“Our tribe is the Delaware,” said the old Indian woman evasively—“they
came from the great woods like a river.”
“Like a river? Yes, they know their source. But where
did I spring from, ma mere?”
“Where was my son born?”
“Yes, tell me everything,” said Verty; “tell me if I am your
son. Do not tell me that you love me as a son, or that I love
you as my mother. I know that—but am I a Delaware?”
“Why does my son ask?”
“Because a bird of the air whispered to me—`You are not a
Delaware, nor a Tuscarora, nor a Dacotah; you are a pale face.'
Did the bird lie?”
The old woman did not answer.
“Ma mere,” said Verty, tenderly taking the old woman's hand
and sitting at her feet, “the Great Spirit has made me honest
and open—I cannot conceal anything. I cannot pry and search.
I might find out this from some other person—who knows? But
I will not try. Come! speak with a straight tongue. Am I the
son of a brave; am I a Delaware; or am I what my face makes
me out—a Long-knife?”
“Ough! ough! ough!” groaned the old woman; “he wants to
go away from the nest where he was warmed, and nursed, and
brought up. The Great Spirit has put evil into his heart—it is
cold.”
“No, no,” said Verty, earnestly—“my heart is red, not white;
every drop of my life-blood is yours,
ma mere; you have loved
me, cherished me: when my muscles were soft and hot with
fever, you laid my head upon your bosom, and rocked me to
sleep as softly as the topmost bough of the oak rocks the oriole;
you loved me always. My heart shall run out of my breast and
soak the ground, before it turns white; yet, I love you, and you
love me. But,
ma mere, I have grown well nigh to manhood;
the bird's song is changed, and the dove has flown to me—the
dove yonder at Apple Orchard—”
“Ough!” groaned the old woman, rocking to and fro; “she
is black! She has made you bad!”
“No, no! she is white—she is good. She told me about the
Great Spirit, and makes me pure.”
“Ough! ough!”
“She is as pure as the bow in the cloud,” continued Verty;
“and I did not mean that the dove was the bird who whispered,
that I was no Delaware. No—my own heart says, `know—
find out.' ”
“And why should the heart say `know?' ” said the old woman,
still rocking about, and looking at Verty with anxious affection.
“Why should my son seek to find?”
“Because the winds are changed and sing new songs; the
leaves whisper, as I pass, with a new voice; and even the clouds
are not what they were to me when I ran after the shadows
floating along the hills, and across the hollows. I have changed,
ma mere, and the streams talk no more with the same tongue. I
hear the flags and water-lilies muttering as I pass, and the world
opens on me with a new, strange light. They talked to me
once; now they laugh at me as I pass. Hear the trees, yonder!
Don't you hear them? They are saying, `The Delaware paleface!
look at him! look at him!' ”
And crouching, with dreamy eyes, Verty for a moment listened
to the strange sob of the pines, swaying in the chill winds of the
autumn night.
“I am not what I was!” he continued; the world is open
now, and I must be a part of it. The bear and deer speak to
me with tongues I do not understand. Ma mere! ma mere! I
must know whether I am a Delaware or pale face!—whether
one or the other, I am still yours—yours always! Speak!
speak with a straight tongue to your child!”
“Ough! ough! ough!” groaned the old woman, looking at
him wistfully, and plainly struggling with herself—hesitating between
two courses.
“Speak!” said Verty, with a glow in his eye, which made
him resemble a young leopard of the wild—“speak, ma mere!—
I am no longer a child! I go into a new land now, and how
shall it be? As a red face, or a long knife—which am I?
Speak, ma mere—say if I am a Delaware, whose place is the
woods, or a white, whose life must take him from the deer
forever!”
The struggle was ended; Verty could not have uttered words
more fatal to his discovering anything. He raised an insuperable
barrier to any revelations—if, indeed, there existed any
mystery—by his alternative. Was he a Delaware, and thus
doomed to live in the forest with his old Indian mother—or was
he a white, in which case, he would leave her? Pride, cunning,
above all, deep and pure affection, sealed the old woman's lips, if
she had thought of opening them. She looked for sometime at
Verty, then, taking his head between her hands, she said, with
eyes full of tears:
“You are my own dear son—my young, beautiful hawk of
the woods—who said you were not a true Delaware!”
And the old woman bent down, and with a look of profound
affection, pressed her lips to Verty's forehead.
The young man's face assumed an expression of mingled
gloom and doubt, and he sighed. Then he was an Indian—a
Delaware—the son of the Indian woman—he was not a paleface.
All the talk about it was thrown away; he was born in
the woods—would live and die in the woods!
For a moment the image of Redbud rose before him, and he
sighed. He knew not why, but he wished that he was not an
Indian—he wished that his blood had been that of the whites.
His sad face drooped; then his eyes ware raised, and he saw
the old woman weeping.
The sight removed from Verty's mind all personal considerations,
and he leaned his head upon her knee, and pressed her
hand to his lips.
“Did the child make his mother weep,” he said; “did his
idle words bring rain to her eyes, and make her heart heavy?
But he is her child still, and all the world is nothing to him.”
Verty rose, and taking the old, withered hand, placed it respectfully
on his breast.
“Never again, ma mere,” he said, “will the wind talk to me,
or the birds whisper. I will not listen. Have I made your
eyes dark? Let it pass away—I am your son—I love you—
more than all the whole wide world.”
And Verty sat down, and gazed tenderly at the old woman,
whose face had assumed an expression of extraordinary delight.
“Listen,” said Verty, taking down his old violin, with a smile,
“I will play one of the old tunes, which blow like a wind from
my childhood—happy childhood.”
And the young man gazed for a moment, silent and motionless,
into the fire. Then he raised his old, battered instrument, and
began to play one of the wild madrigals of the border.
The music aroused Longears, who sat up, so to speak, upon
his forepaws, and with his head bent upon one side, gazed with
dignified and solemn interest at his master.
The young man smiled, and continued playing; and as the
rude border music floated from the instrument, the Verty of old
days came back, and he was once again the forest hunter.
The old woman gazed at him with thoughtful affection, and
returned his smile. He went on playing, and the long hours
of the autumn night went by like birds into the cloudland of the
past.
When the forest boy ceased playing, it was nearly midnight,
and the brands were flickering and dying.
Waked by the silence, Longears, who had gone to sleep again,
rose up, and came and licked his master's hand, and whined.
Verty caressed his head, and laying down his violin, looked at
the old Indian woman with affectionate smiles, and murmured:
“We are happy still, ma mere!”
