University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXIII.

My deportment, at an interview so much desired and so
wholly unforseen, was that of a maniac. The petrifying
influence of surprise, yielded to the impetuosities of passion.
I held him in my arms; I wept upon his bosom, I sobbed
with emotion which, had it not found passage at my eyes,
would have burst my heart-strings. Thus I who had escaped
the deaths that had previously assailed me in so many
forms, should have been reserved to solemnize a scene like
this by—dying for joy!

The sterner passions and habitual austerities of my companion,
exempted him from pouring out this testimony of his
feelings. His feelings were indeed more allied to astonishment
and incredulity than mine had been. My person was
not instantly recognised. He shrunk from my embrace, as
if I were an apparition or impostor. He quickly disengaged
himself from my arms, and withdrawing a few paces,
gazed upon me as on one whom he had never before seen.

These repulses were ascribed to the loss of his affection.
I was not mindful of the hideous guise in which I stood before
him, and by which he might justly be misled to imagine
me a ruffian or a lunatic. My tears flowed now on a new
account, and I articulated in a broken and faint voice—My

master! my friend! Have you forgotten! have you ceased
to love me?

The sound of my voice made him start and exclaim—Am
I alive? am I awake? Speak again, I beseech you, and
convince me that I am not dreaming or delirious.

Can you need any proof, I answered, that it is Edgar
Huntly, your pupil, your child that speaks to you?

He now withdrew his eyes from me and fixed them on
the floor. After a pause he resumed, in emphatic accents.
Well, I have lived to this age in unbelief. To credit or trust
in miraculous agency was foreign to my nature, but now I
am no longer sceptical. Call me to any bar, and exact
from me an oath that you have twice been dead and twice
recalled to life; that you move about invisibly, and change
your place by the force, not of muscles, but of thought, and
I will give it.

How came you hither? Did you penetrate the wall?
Did you rise through the floor?

Yet surely 'tis an error. You could not be he whom
twenty witnesses affirmed to have beheld a lifeless and mangled
corpse upon the ground, whom my own eyes saw in
that condition.

In seeking the spot once more to provide you a grave,
you had vanished. Again I met you. You plunged into
a rapid stream, from a height from which it was impossible
to fall and to live; yet, as if to set the limits of nature
at defiance; to sport with human penetration, you rose upon
the surface; you floated; you swam; thirty bullets were
aimed at your head, by marksmen celebrated for the exactness
of their sight. I myself was of the number, and I never
missed what I desired to hit.

My predictions were confirmed by the event. You ceased
to struggle; you sunk to rise no more, and yet after these
accumulated deaths, you light upon this floor; so far distant
from the scene of your catastrophe; over spaces only to be
passed, in so short a time as has since elapsed, by those who
have wings.

My eyes, my ears bear testimony to your existence now,
as they formerly convinced me of your death. What am I
to think; what proofs am I to credit?—There he stopped.

Every accent of this speech added to the confusion of my
thoughts. The allusions that my friend had made were not
unintelligible. I gained a glimpse of the complicated errors
by which we had been mutually deceived. I had fainted
on the area before Deb's hut. I was found by Sarsefield in
this condition, and imagined to be dead.

The man whom I had seen upon the promontory was not
an Indian. He belonged to a numerous band of pursuers,
whom my hostile and precipitate deportment caused to suspect
me for an enemy. They that fired from the steep
were friends. The interposition that screened me from so
many bullets, was indeed miraculous. No wonder that my
voluntary sinking, in order to elude their shots, was mistaken
for death, and that, having accomplished the destruction of
this foe, they resumed their pursuit of others. But how was
Sarsefield apprized that it was I who plunged into the river?
No subsequent event was possible to impart to him the
incredible truth.

A pause of mutual silence ensued. At length, Sarsefield
renewed his expressions of amazement at this interview, and
besought me to explain why I had disappeared by night from
my uncle's house, and by what series of unheard of events
this interview was brought about. Was it indeed Huntly
whom he examined and mourned over at the threshold of
Deb's hut? Whom he had sought in every thicket and cave
in the ample circuit of Norwalk and Chetasco? Whom he
had seen perish in the current of the Delaware?

Instead of noticing his questions, my soul was harrowed
with anxiety respecting the fate of my uncle and sisters.
Sarsefield could communicate the tidings which would decide
on my future lot, and set my portion in happiness or
misery. Yet I had not breath to speak my inquiries. Hope
tottered, and I felt as if a single word would be sufficient
for its utter subversion. At length I articulated the name
of my uncle.

The single word sufficiently imparted my fears, and these
fears needed no verbal confirmation. At that dear name,
my companion's features were overspread by sorrow.—Your
uncle, said he, is dead.

Dead? Merciful Heaven! And my sisters too! Both?

Your sisters are alive and well.

Nay, resumed I, in faltering accents, jest not with my
feelings. Be not cruel in your pity. Tell me the truth.

I have said the truth. They are well, at Mr. Inglefield's.

My wishes were eager to assent to the truth of these
tidings. The better part of me was then safe; but how
did they escape the fate that overtook my uncle? How
did they evade the destroying hatchet and the midnight conflagration?
These doubts were imparted in a tumultuous
and obscure manner to my friend. He no sooner fully
comprehended them, than he looked at me, with some inquietude
and surprise.

Huntly, said he, are you mad—what has filled you
with these hideous prepossessions? Much havoc has indeed
been committed in Chetasco and the wilderness; and a log
hut has been burnt by design or by accident in Solebury,
but that is all. Your house has not been assailed by either
fire-brand or tomahawk. Every thing is safe and in its ancient
order. The master indeed is gone, but the old man
fell a victim to his own temerity and hardihood. It is thirty
years since he retired with three wounds, from the field of
Braddock; but time, in no degree, abated his adventurous
and military spirit. On the first alarm, he summoned his
neighbors, and led them in pursuit of the invaders. Alas!
he was the first to attack them, and the only one who fell
in the contest.

These words were uttered in a manner that left me no
room to doubt of their truth. My uncle had already been lamented,
and the discovery of the nature of his death, so
contrary to my forebodings, and of the safety of my girls,
made the state of my mind partake more of exultation and
joy, than of grief or regret.

But how was I deceived? Had not my fusil been found
in the hands of an enemy? Whence could he have plundered
it but from my own chamber? It hung against the wall
of a closet; from which no stranger could have taken it except
by violence. My perplexities and doubts were not at
an end, but those which constituted my chief torment were
removed. I listened to my friend's entreaties to tell him the
cause of my elopement, and the incidents that terminated in
the present interview.

I began with relating my return to consciousness in the

bottom of the pit; my efforts to free myself from this abhorred
prison; the acts of horror to which I was impelled
by famine, and their excruciating consequences; my gaining
the outlet of the cavern, the desperate expedient by
which I removed the impediment to my escape, and the
deliverance of the captive girl; the contest I maintained
before Deb's hut; my subsequent wanderings; the banquet
which hospitality afforded me; my journey to the river
bank; my meditations on the means of reaching the road;
my motives for hazarding my life, by plunging into the
stream; and my subsequent perils and fears till I reached the
threshold of this habitation.

Thus, continued I, I have complied with your request.
I have told all that I, myself, know. What were the incidents
between my sinking to rest at my uncle's, and my
awaking in the chambers of the hill; by what means and
by whose contrivance, preternatural or human, this transition
was effected, I am unable to explain; I cannot even
guess.

What has eluded my sagacity may not be beyond the
reach of another. Your own reflections on my tale, or
some facts that have fallen under your notice, may enable
you to furnish a solution. But, meanwhile, how am I to
account for your appearance on this spot? This meeting
was unexpected and abrupt to you, but it has not been less
so to me. Of all mankind, Sarsefield was the farthest
from my thoughts, when I saw these tokens of a traveller
and a stranger.

You were imperfectly acquainted with my wanderings.
You saw me on the ground before Deb's hut. You saw me
plunge into the river. You endeavored to destroy me
while swimming; and you knew, before my narrative
was heard, that Huntly was the object of your enmity.
What was the motive of your search in the desert, and
how were you apprized of my condition? These things
are not less wonderful than any of those which I have
already related.

During my tale the features of Sarsefield betokened the
deepest attention. His eye strayed not a moment from
my face. All my perils and forebodings, were fresh in my
remembrance, they had scarcely gone by; their skirts, so

to speak, were still visible. No wonder that my eloquence
was vivid and pathetic, that I portrayed the past as if it
were the present scene; and that not my tongue only, but
every muscle and limb, spoke.

When I had finished my relation, Sarsefield sunk into
thoughtfulness. From this, after a time, he recovered and
said; your tale, Huntly, is true; yet did I not see you before
me, were I not acquainted with the artlessness and rectitude
of your character, and, above all, had not my own
experience, during the last three days, confirmed every incident,
I should question its truth. You have amply gratified
my curiosity, and deserve that your own should be gratified
as fully. Listen to me.

Much has happened since we parted, which shall not be
now mentioned. I promised to inform you of my welfare
by letter, and did not fail to write, but whether my letters
were received, or any were written by you in return, or if
written were ever transmitted, I cannot tell; none were ever
received.

Some days since, I arrived, in company with a lady who
is my wife, in America. You have never been forgotten by
me. I knew your situation to be little in agreement with
your wishes, and one of the benefits which fortune has lately
conferred upon me, is the power of snatching you from
a life of labor and obscurity; whose goods, scanty as they
are, were transient and precarious; and affording you the
suitable leisure and means of intellectual gratification and
improvement.

Your silence made me entertain some doubts concerning
your welfare, and even your existence. To solve these
doubts, I hastened to Solebury; some delays upon the road,
hindered me from accomplishing my journey by daylight.
It was night before I entered the Norwalk path, but my ancient
rambles with you made me familiar with it, and I was
not afraid of being obstructed or bewildered.

Just as I gained the southern outlet, I spied a passenger
on foot, coming towards me with a quick pace. The incident
was of no moment, and yet the time of night, the seeming
expedition of the walker, recollection of the mazes and
obstacles which he was going to encounter, and a vague

conjecture that, perhaps, he was unacquainted with the difficulties
that awaited him, made me eye him with attention
as he passed.

He came near, and I thought I recognised a friend in this
traveller. The form, the gesture, the stature bore a powerful
resemblance to those of Edgar Huntly. This resemblance
was so strong, that I stopped, and after he had gone
by, called him by your name. That no notice was taken
of my call proved that the person was mistaken, but even
though it were another, that he should not even hesitate or
turn at a summons which he could not but perceive to be
addressed, though erroneously, to him, was the source of
some surprise. I did not repeat my call, but proceeded on
my way.

All had retired to repose in your uncle's dwelling. I did
not scruple to rouse them, and was received with affectionate
and joyous greetings. That you allowed your uncle to
rise before you, was a new topic of reflection. To my inquiries
concerning you, answers were made that accorded
with my wishes. I was told that you were in good health
and were then in bed. That you had not heard and risen at
my knocking, was mentioned with surprise, but your uncle
accounted for your indolence by saying that during the last
week you had fatigued yourself by rambling night and day,
in search of some maniac, or visionary who was supposed to
have retreated into Norwalk.

I insisted upon awakening you myself. I anticipated the
effect of this sudden and unlooked for meeting, with some
emotions of pride as well as of pleasure. To find, in opening
your eyes, your old preceptor standing by your bedside
and gazing in your face, would place you, I conceived, in an
affecting situation.

Your chamber door was open, but your bed was empty.
Your uncle and sisters were made acquainted with this circumstance.
Their surprise gave way to conjectures that
your restless and romantic spirit, had tempted you from your
repose, that you had rambled abroad on some phantastic
errand, and would probably return before the dawn. I
willingly acquiesced in this opinion, and my feelings being
too thoroughly aroused to allow me to sleep, I took possession
of your chamber, and patiently awaited your return.

The morning returned, but Huntly made not his appearance.
Your uncle became somewhat uneasy at this unseasonable
absence. Much speculation and inquiry, as to the
possible reasons of your flight was made. In my survey of
your chamber, I noted that only part of your clothing remained
beside your bed. Coat, hat, stockings and shoes
lay upon the spot where they had probably been thrown
when you had disrobed yourself, but the pantaloons, which
according to Mr. Huntly's report, completed your dress,
were no where to be found. That you should go forth on
so cold a night so slenderly apparelled, was almost incredible.
Your reason or your senses had deserted you, before so rash
an action could be meditated.

I now remembered the person I had met in Norwalk.
His resemblance to your figure, his garb, which wanted hat,
coat, stockings and shoes, and your absence from your bed
at that hour, were remarkable coincidences; but why did
you disregard my call? Your name, uttered by a voice that
could not be unknown, was surely sufficient to arrest your
steps.

Each hour added to the impatience of your friends; to
their recollections and conjectures, I listened with a view to
extract from them some solution of this mystery. At length,
a story was alluded to, of some one who, on the preceding
night, had been heard walking in the long room; to this was
added, the tale of your anxieties and wonders occasioned
by the loss of certain manuscripts.

While ruminating upon these incidents, and endeavoring
to extract from this intelligence a clue, explanatory of your
present situation, a single word, casually dropped by your
uncle, instantly illuminated my darkness and dispelled my
doubts.—After all, said the old man, ten to one, but Edgar
himself was the man whom we heard walking, but the lad
was asleep, and knew not what he was about.

Surely said I, this inference is just. His manuscripts
could not be removed by any hands but his own, since the
rest of mankind were unacquainted not only with the place
of their concealment, but with their existence. None but
a man, insane or asleep, would wander forth so slightly
dressed, and none but a sleeper would have diregarded my
calls. This conclusion was generally adopted, but it gave

birth in my mind, to infinite inquietudes. You had roved
into Norwalk, a scene of inequalities, of prominences and
pits, among which, thus destitute of the guidance of your
senses, you could scarcely fail to be destroyed, or at least,
irretrievably bewildered. I painted to myself the dangers
to which you were subjected. Your careless feet would
bear you into some whirlpool or to the edge of some precipice,
some internal revolution or outward shock would
recall you to consciousness at some perilous moment.
Surprise and fear would disable you from taking seasonable
or suitable precautions, and your destruction be made sure.

The lapse of every new hour, without bringing tidings of
your state, enhanced these fears. At length, the propriety
of searching for you occurred; Mr. Huntly and I determined
to set out upon this pursuit, as well as to commission
others. A plan was laid by which every accessible part of
Norwalk, the wilderness beyond the flats of Solebury, and
the valley of Chetasco, should be traversed and explored.

Scarcely had we equipped ourselves for this expedition,
when a messenger arrived, who brought the disastrous news
of Indians being seen within these precincts, and on the
last night a farmer was shot in his fields, a dwelling in Chetasco
was burnt to the ground, and its inhabitants murdered
or made captives. Rumor and inquiry had been busy, and
a plausible conjecture had been formed, as to the course
and number of the enemies. They were said to be divided
into bands, and to amount in the whole to thirty or forty
warriors. This messenger had come to warn us of danger
which might impend, and to summon us to join in the pursuit
and extirpation of these detestable foes.

Your uncle, whose alacrity and vigor age had not abated,
eagerly engaged in this scheme. I was not averse to contribute
my efforts to an end like this. The road which we
had previously designed to take, in search of my fugitive
pupil, was the same by which we must trace or intercept
the retreat of the savages. Thus two purposes, equally
momentous, would be answered by the same means.

Mr. Huntly armed himself with your fusil; Inglefield
supplied me with a gun; during our absence the dwelling
was closed and locked, and your sisters placed under the
protection of Inglefield, whose age and pacific sentiments

unfitted him for arduous and sanguinary enterprises. A
troop of rustics was collected, half of whom remained to
traverse Solebury, and the other, whom Mr. Huntly and I
accompanied, hastened to Chetasco.