University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXII.

The road was intricate and long. It seemed designed
to pervade the forest in every possible direction. I frequently
noticed cut wood, piled in heaps upon either side,
and rejoiced in these tokens that the residence of man was
near. At length I reached a second fence, which proved to
be the boundary of a road still more frequented. I pursued
this, and presently beheld, before me, the river and its opposite
barriers.

This object afforded me some knowledge of my situation.
There was a ford over which travellers used to pass, and in
which the road that I was now pursuing terminated. The
stream was rapid and tumultuous, but in this place it did not

rise higher than the shoulders. On the opposite side was a
highway, passable by horses and men, though not by carriages,
and which led into the midst of Solebury. Should
I not rush into the stream, and still aim at reaching my
uncle's house before morning? Why should I delay?

Thirty hours of incessant watchfulness and toil, of enormous
efforts and perils, preceded and accompanied by abstinence
and wounds, were enough to annihilate the strength
and courage of ordinary men. In the course of them, I
had frequently believed myself to have reached the verge
beyond which my force would not carry me, but experience
as frequently demonstrated my error. Though many miles
were yet to be traversed, though my clothes were once more
to be drenched and loaded with moisture, though every hour
seemed to add somewhat to the keenness of the blast; yet
how should I know, but by trial, whether my stock of energy
was not sufficient for this last exploit?

My resolution to proceed was nearly formed, when the
figure of a man moving slowly across the road, at some distance
before me, was observed. Hard by this ford lived a
man by name Bisset, of whom I had slight knowledge. He
tended his two hundred acres with a plodding and moneydoating
spirit, while his son overlooked a grist-mill, on the
river. He was a creature of gain, coarse and harmless.
The man whom I saw before me might be he, or some one
belonging to his family. Being armed for defence, I less
scrupled a meeting with any thing in the shape of man. I
therefore called. The figure stopped and answered me,
without surliness or anger. The voice was unlike that of
Bisset, but this person's information I believed would be of
some service.

Coming up to him, he proved to be a clown, belonging to
Bisset's habitation. His panic and surprise on seeing me
made him aghast. In my present garb I should not have
easily been recognised by my nearest kinsman, and much
less easily by one who had seldom met me.

It may be easily conceived that my thoughts, when
allowed to wander from the objects before me, were tormented
with forebodings and inquietudes on account of the
ills which I had so much reason to believe had befallen my

family. I had no doubt that some evil had happened, but
the full extent of it was still uncertain. I desired and
dreaded to discover the truth, and was unable to interrogate
this person in a direct manner. I could deal only in circuities
and hints. I shuddered while I waited for an answer to
my inquiries.

Had not Indians, I asked, been lately seen in this neighborhood?
Were they not suspected of hostile designs?
Had they not already committed some mischief? Some
passenger, perhaps, had been attacked; or fire had been set
to some house? On which side of the river had their steps
been observed, or any devastation been committed? Above
the ford or below it? At what distance from the river?

When his attention could be withdrawn from my person
and bestowed upon my questions, he answered that some
alarm had indeed been spread about Indians, and that parties
from Solebury and Chetasko were out in pursuit of
them, that many persons had been killed by them, and that
one house in Solebury had been rifled and burnt on the night
before the last.

These tidings were a dreadful confirmation of my fears.
There scarcely remained a doubt; but still my expiring
hope prompted me to inquire to whom did the house belong?

He answered that he had not heard the name of the
owner. He was a stranger to the people on the other side
of the river.

Were any of the inhabitants murdered?

Yes. All that were at home except a girl whom they
carried off. Some said that the girl had been retaken?

What was the name? Was it Huntly?

Huntly? yes. No. He did not know. He had forgotten.

I fixed my eyes upon the ground. An interval of
gloomy meditation succeeded. All was lost, all for whose
sake I desired to live, had perished by the hands of these
assassins. That dear home, the scene of my sportive childhood,
of my studies, labors and recreations, was ravaged
by fire and the sword; was reduced to a frightful ruin.

Not only all that embellished and endeared existence
was destroyed, but the means of subsistence itself. Thou
knowest that my sisters and I were dependants on the

bounty of our uncle. His death would make way for the
succession of his son, a man fraught with envy and malignity;
who always testified a mortal hatred to us, merely
because we enjoyed the protection of his father. The
ground which furnished me with bread was now become the
property of one, who, if he could have done it with security,
would gladly have mingled poison with my food.

All that my imagination or my heart regarded as of value
had likewise perished. Whatever my chamber, my closets,
my cabinets contained, my furniture, my books, the records
of my own skill, the monuments of their existence whom I
loved, my very clothing, were involved in indiscriminate
and irretrievable destruction. Why should I survive this
calamity?

But did not he say that one had escaped? The only
females in the family were my sisters. One of these had
been reserved for a fate worse than death; to gratify the
innate and insatiable cruelty of savages, by suffering all the
torments their invention can suggest, or to linger out years
of dreary bondage and unintermitted hardship in the bosom
of the wilderness. To restore her to liberty; to cherish
this last survivor of my unfortunate race, was a sufficient
motive to life and to activity.

But soft! Had not rumor whispered that the captive was
retaken? Oh! who was her angel of deliverance? Where
did she now abide? Weeping over the untimely fall of her
protector and her friend. Lamenting and upbraiding the
absence of her brother? Why should I not haste to find
her? To mingle my tears with hers, to assure her of my
safety and expiate the involuntary crime of my desertion,
by devoting all futurity to the task of her consolation and
improvement?

The path was open and direct. My new motives would
have trampled upon every impediment and made me reckless
of all dangers and all toils. I broke from my reverie,
and without taking leave or expressing gratitude to my informant,
I ran with frantic expedition towards the river,
and plunging into it, gained the opposite side in a moment.

I was sufficiently acquainted with the road. Some twelve
or fifteen miles remained to be traversed. I did not fear
that my strength would fail in the performance of my journey.

It was not my uncle's habitation to which I directed
my steps. Inglefield was my friend. If my sister had existence,
or was snatched from captivity, it was here that an
asylum had been afforded to her, and here was I to seek
the knowledge of my destiny. For this reason, having
reached a spot where the road divided into two branches,
one of which led to Inglefield's and the other to Huntly's,
I struck into the former.

Scarcely had I passed the angle when I noticed a building,
on the right hand, at some distance from the road. In
the present state of my thoughts, it would not have attracted
my attention, had not a light gleamed from an upper window,
and told me that all within were not at rest.

I was acquainted with the owner of this mansion. He
merited esteem and confidence, and could not fail to be
acquainted with recent events. From him I should obtain
all the information that I needed, and I should be delivered
from some part of the agonies of my suspense. I should
reach his door in a few minutes, and the window-light was a
proof that my entrance at this hour would not disturb the
family, some of whom were stirring.

Through a gate, I entered an avenue of tall oaks, that
led to the house. I could not but reflect on the effect
which my appearance would produce upon the family. The
sleek locks, neat apparel, pacific guise, sobriety and gentleness
of aspect by which I was customarily distinguished,
would in vain be sought in the apparition which would now
present itself before them. My legs, neck, and bosom were
bare, and their native hue were exchanged for the livid
marks of bruises and scarifications. A horrid scar upon
my cheek, and my uncombed locks; hollow eyes, made
ghastly by abstinence and cold, and the ruthless passions of
which my mind had been the theatre, added to the musket
which I carried in my hand, would prepossess them with
the notion of a maniac or ruffian.

Some inconveniences might hence arise, which, however,
could not be avoided. I must trust to the speed with which
my voice and my words should disclose my true character,
and rectify their mistake.

I now reached the principal door of the house. It was
open, and I unceremoniously entered. In the midst of the

room stood a German stove, well heated. To thaw my
half frozen limbs was my first care. Meanwhile, I gazed
around me, and marked the appearances of things.

Two lighted candles stood upon the table. Beside them
were cider-bottles and pipes of tobacco. The furniture
and room was in that state which denoted it to have been
lately filled with drinkers and smokers, yet neither voice,
nor visage, nor motion were any where observable. I listened
but neither above nor below, within or without, could
any tokens of a human being be perceived.

This vacancy and silence must have been lately preceded
by noise, and concourse, and bustle. The contrast was mysterious
and ambiguous. No adequate cause of so quick and
absolute a transition occurred to me. Having gained some
warmth and lingered some ten or twenty minutes in this uncertainty,
I determined to explore the other apartments of
the building. I knew not what might betide in my absence,
or what I might encounter in my search to justify precaution,
and, therefore, kept the gun in my hand. I snatched a candle
from the table and proceeded into two other apartments
on the first floor and the kitchen. Neither was inhabited,
though chairs and tables were arranged in their usual order,
and no traces of violence or hurry were apparent.

Having gained the foot of the staircase, I knocked, but
my knocking was wholly disregarded. A light had appeared
in an upper chamber. It was not, indeed, in one of
those apartments which the family permanently occupied,
but in that which, according to rural custom, was reserved
for guests; but it indubitably betokened the presence of
some being by whom my doubts might be solved. These
doubts were too tormenting to allow of scruples and delay.
—I mounted the stairs.

At each chamber door I knocked, but I knocked in vain.
I tried to open, but found them to be locked. I at length
reached the entrance of that in which a light had been discovered.
Here, it was certain, that some one would be found;
but here, as well as elsewhere, my knocking was unnoticed.

To enter this chamber was audacious, but no other expedient
was afforded me to determine whether the house had
any inhabitants. I therefore entered, though with caution
and reluctance. No one was within, but there were sufficient

traces of some person who had lately been here. On
the table stood a travelling escrutoire, open, with pens and
inkstand. A chair was placed before it, and a candle on
the right hand. This apparatus was rarely seen in this
country. Some traveller it seemed occupied this room,
though the rest of the mansion was deserted. The prilgrim,
as these appearances testified, was of no vulgar order, and
belonged not to the class of periodical and every-day guests.

It now occurred to me that the occupant of this apartment
could not be far off, and that some danger and embarrassment
could not fail to accrue from being found, thus
accoutred and garbed, in a place sacred to the study and
repose of another. It was proper, therefore, to withdraw,
and either to resume my journey, or wait for the stranger's
return, whom perhaps some temporary engagement had
called away, in the lower and public room. The former
now appeared to be the best expedient, as the return of this
unknown person was uncertain, as well as his power to communicate
the information which I wanted.

Had paper, as well as the implements of writing, lain
upon the desk, perhaps my lawless curiosity would not have
scrupled to have pryed into it. On the first glance nothing
of that kind appeared, but now, as I turned towards the
door, somewhat, lying beside the desk, on the side opposite
the candle, caught my attention. The impulse was instantaneous
and mechanical, that made me leap to the spot,
and lay my hand upon it. Till I felt it between my fingers,
till I brought it near my eyes and read frequently the inscriptions
that appeared upon it, I was doubtful whether my
senses had deceived me.

Few, perhaps, among mankind, have undergone vicissitudes
of peril and wonder equal to mine. The miracles of
poetry, the transitions of enchantment, are beggarly and
mean compared with those which I had experienced. Passage
into new forms, overleaping the bars of time and space,
reversal of the laws of inanimate and intelligent existence
had been mine to perform and to witness.

No event had been more fertile of sorrow and perplexity
than the loss of thy brother's letters. They went by means
invisible, and disappeared at a moment when foresight would
have least predicted their disappearance. They now placed

themselves before me, in a manner equally abrupt, in a place
and by means, no less contrary to expectation. The papers
which I now seized were those letters. The parchment
cover, the string that tied, and the wax that sealed them,
appeared not to have been opened or violated.

The power that removed them from my cabinet, and
dropped them in this house, a house which I rarely visited,
which I had not entered during the last year, with whose
inhabitants I maintained no cordial intercourse, and to whom
my occupations and amusements, my joys and my sorrows,
were unknown, was no object even of conjecture. But
they were not possessed by any of the family. Some stranger
was here, by whom they had been stolen, or into whose
possession, they had, by some incomprehensible chance,
fallen.

That stranger was near. He had left this apartment for
a moment. He would speedily return. To go hence,
might possibly occasion me to miss him. Here then I would
wait, till he should grant me an interview. The papers
were mine, and were recovered. I would never part with
them. But to know by whose force or by whose stratagems
I had been bereaved of them thus long, was now the supreme
passion of my soul, I seated myself near a table and
anxiously awaited for an interview, on which I was irresistibly
persuaded to believe that much of my happiness depended.

Meanwhile, I could not but connect this incident with the
destruction of my family. The loss of these papers had
excited transports of grief, and yet, to have lost them thus,
was perhaps the sole expedient, by which their final preservation
could be rendered possible. Had they remained in
my cabinet, they could not have escaped the destiny which
overtook the house and its furniture. Savages are not
accustomed to leave their exterminating work unfinished.
The house which they have plundered, they are careful to
level with the ground. This not only their revenge, but their
caution prescribes. Fire may originate by accident as well
as by design, and the traces of pillage and murder are
totally obliterated by the flames.

These thoughts were interrupted by the shutting of a
door below, and by footsteps ascending the stairs. My

heart throbbed at the sound. My seat became uneasy and
I started on my feet. I even advanced half way to the entrance
of the room. My eyes were intensely fixed upon
the door. My impatience would have made me guess at
the person of this visitant by measuring his shadow, if his
shadow were first seen; but this was precluded by the
position of the light. It was only when the figure entered,
and the whole person was seen, that my curiosity was gratified.
He who stood before me was the parent and fosterer
of my mind, the companion and instructer of my youth,
from whom I had been parted for years; from whom I believed
myself to be forever separated;—Sarsefield himself!