University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

Peter Trimble, who had grown tired of his chopping upon
the hill, left it, on the pretence of quenching his thirst at
a spring, a short distance from the location of his labors.
Arriving there, he heard the voices of the brother and sister,
and, secreting himself, watched them, and listened to
catch such words as might reach his quick ear. This occupation
proving unsatisfactory, his love of mischief took
another form, and, drawing upon his faculty of imitation,
he produced the bark that became so wonderfully productive
in the results which have already been recounted.

Peter only paused to see the dying deer come rushing in
from the Bay Path, the swift plunge of the horseman who
followed him, and his meeting with Mary, when he left his
hiding-place, and, reaching the path by a circuit that hid
him from observation, he ran as fast as his slender legs
could carry him for the village. Before reaching the first
cabin, he had examined to see if there were any signs of life
around it, and, catching sight of a head with an old woman's
cap on it, he beckoned furiously with his hand; and the
wearer, full of greedy curiosity, came out to meet him.

“What is the matter now?” exclaimed the old woman,
with her palms deprecatingly spread towards the boy.

“Oh! there's the greatest row up on the hill you ever see,”
replied Peter.

“What is it?”

“Oh! it's the darndest row 't ever happened in this old
plantation.”

“Why! you scare me, Peter. Do tell me about it!”

“Well, you see—you know Tom, don't you—Mary Pynchon's
deer? Oh! you've no idea anything about it. I
can't stop—I've got to go to Old Pynchon's, and rout 'im
out. It's the greatest kind of a row.”

“Now you must tell me, Peter; I shall die—I know I
shall, if you don't,” exclaimed the old woman, with one
hand on her hip and the other on her heart.

“Well! Tom's doubled up—shot dead. Mary's fainted
away, and I guess she's wounded; and John's crazy as a
loon. Indians all over the hill—oh! I can't stay no longer
—don't stop me—my! what a row!”

This programme was repeated, with suitable variations
during each performance, at the cabins intermediate between
this and the house of Mr. Pynchon. In approaching the
latter house, he met Mr. Pynchon, and began his talk in his
usual style.

“Now stop, Peter,” said Mr. Pynchon. “If I find that
you tell me one lie, I will have you whipped.”

The real facts in the case had already been buried in such
a crowd of lies that Peter was obliged to stop, and carefully
recall the scene, before he could safely venture to describe
it. Mr. Pynchon gathered from his statement that the deer
had been shot, and that a stranger was with his daughter,
who, at the departure of the messenger, was grasping her
hand in a very ferocious manner. He had already become
alarmed at her long absence, and had set out with his gun
to meet her, when he encountered Peter. Keeping on his
course, he was joined by half a dozen planters who had
heard Peter's story.

As for Peter, his mission was not yet complete. He had
no disposition to return with the men to the scene of the
terrific “row” which he had so graphically described, but
he wanted some dinner, and proposed to employ what
little capital he had left in procuring it. Seeing Mrs.
Pynchon at the door, whither she had been called by

seeing the little company of men in the distance, he approached
her.

“Do you know where those men are going, Peter?”
inquired the old lady, with a trusting look of inquisitiveness.

“They're going after John and Mary,” replied the boy,
and then added, “Oh my! How I have run!”

“What is the matter with John and Mary? Where are
they?”

“They've got into a terrible row,” said Peter, pathetically.
“Oh, how faint I feel! I wish I was at home, so's't
I could have something to eat.” And he threw himself
upon the ground as heavily and lifelessly as if universal
paralysis had seized him.

“Poor boy!” said the old lady, “you shall have something,
right there on the grass, and then you must tell me
all about it.”

This was just as Peter had calculated, and when the
loaded plate was placed by his side, and his food and his
batch of lies were all before him, he was very much in his
element, and was really in the occupation of some of the
happiest moments of his life. On being pressed for his
disclosures, he disposed of a huge mouthful, and commenced.

“You see I was up in the woods choppin'. By'me-bye I
heerd something a howling, and a screeching, and thinks,
says I, what's that? (Interruption of several seconds for
mastication.) Thinks, says I, is that a bear, or a catamount?
Well! I hearked as much as five minutes, I s'h'd think,
when all at once I heerd a tremenduous running, and I
struck for the noise so's to see what the row was. I was a
little scat, you know, for I couldn't tell exactly what was
coming; and I fell down three or four times and that
hendered me, but when I got most out to the Bay Path,
what do you think I see!”

Upon the statement of this inquiry, the imaginative boy
turned his impassive face up to meet an expression upon
that of Mrs. Pynchon, of unmingled pain and apprehension.

“Oh! pray don't mention it!” exclaimed the old lady,
holding up both hands, and waiting for the announcement,
under the impression that she had urged the boy to proceed.

“Well, ma'am! as I was saying (a large mouthful and
a protracted mastication)—when I got most out of the Bay
Path, I see a woman and a boy, a sitting on a log. Well,
pretty soon I heerd a gun go off. Didn't you hear it down
here? I sh'd think you might. O! 'twas a tremenduous
loud gun; it liked to spit my head; and then pretty quick
I heerd something a r'r'running—r'r'running—r'r'running—
l'l'lipitalip—l'l'lipitalip—l'l'lipitalip—l'lipitalip—lickitabang
—ripitasmash—thunder-and-guns—up the path, and right
towards the woman and the boy a sitting on the log. Well,
the critter was Tom. He was shot deader'n a flounder; and
he squashed right down on t' the ground.”

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed the old woman, “you didn't
skin him, did you?”

“Well, no, ma'am, I didn't git time,” replied Peter, with
a slight chuckle, which he endeavored to suppress by filling
his mouth anew. “I didn't git time, for the deer hadn't
more'n fell, when a man come riding in after him, on a big
horse all of a lather, and says he, `cahoot, cahoy! hullabaloo!
who the devil's here!' Oh! 'twas awful! You never
heerd a feller swear so in your life. When he got to where
the woman was, he dropped his bridle, and jumped off'm
his horse, as if he'd been catched in a twitch-up, and run
right up to her, and grabbed hold of her hands, and squeezed
'em, and looked as savage as a meat-axe, till she began to
cry, and take on, and—”

“Well, do tell me, Peter,” said the old lady, whose
patience had well nigh broken down, “where Mary and
John were all this time.”

“Mary and John?” inquired Peter, putting the last
morsel into his mouth, and wiping his lips with his shirtsleeve.
“Mary and John! ye-e-e-s! where were they!
sure enough!”

And then it occurred to him that the indefinite manner
in which he had spoken of those individuals as “a woman
and a boy,” in order to heighten the interest of his narrative,
had blinded the direct old lady who had been his listener;
and he saw that his failure, any further than the achievement
of his dinner, was complete.

At length, rising from the ground, and brushing his greasy
jacket, he remarked in a very quiet tone, “I guess it's all
right with Mary and John.” Then turning his eye over
his shoulder, and catching the first view of the returning
villagers, he said, “You'll have folks to dinner to-day, so I
guess I'll leave.”

Suiting the action to the word, he started off at a brisk
run, and was soon, through the aid of a kind of magic
that Mrs. Pynchon did not understand, but in which
he was materially assisted by a convenient stump, out of
sight.

“Well! I should think that boy was crazy, if he didn't
eat so,” said Mrs. Pynchon, picking up her plate, and walking
into the house.

When Mr. Pynchon, with his companions, had arrived at
the scene of the morning's adventures, and found there,
radiant with health, and strong with the richest pulses of
manhood, Elizur Holyoke, “the sonne of Mrs. Hollioke of
Linn, Mr. Pinchon's ancient friend,” and one whom he had
long hoped to call his own son, he embraced him with a
warmth that startled the spectators, broke down John's
jealousy in a moment, and brought tears of the sweetest
pleasure to the eyes of Mary.

“My boy,” said Mr. Pynchon, giving him the tenth shake
of the hand, “so you must announce yourself to the lonely

settlers of Agawam by slaughtering their cossets, eh? Well,
well! Your mother shall hear of this, sir.”

“Something must die,” returned Holyoke, with his merry
voice and sparkling smile, “to give room for the new life
which I feel in being here—here by the side of your daughter.”

Mr. Pynchon looked at Mary, expecting to see her face
blossoming with blushes, but there she stood, self-possessed,
calm, and happy, like a queen newly crowned. To her, the
past was gone. The fear, the bashfulness, and the blush,
that had walked hand in hand with every thought of Holyoke,
were among the things forgotten, and never more to
be. In the few rapturous minutes she had spent with her
lover, although other hearts than his were beating near her,
and other eyes gazing upon her, she had taken counsel of
assurance. Her heart had moved to a higher plane of emotion,
and her spirit was transferred to a sphere of purer light
and stronger faith. As in a dissolving view, a scene of
spring, bright with the dews of rosy morning, and wonderfully
silent with its laughing waters, melts with strange
identities into broad trees, sunny rocks, calmly basking
landscapes, and heaven-reflecting lakes—so, in the light of
assured love, and from canvas painted over with new hopes,
new emotions, and new spiritual revelations, looked Mary
Pynchon still, but it was Mary Pynchon transfigured. The
angel of life had slipped the golden clasp of his book, and
turned for her another leaf. She hardly knew it—nay, she
but dimly mistrusted it. There was nothing unnatural in
the new phase of her feelings—nothing that seemed unwonted
in her new experience. In fact, she had never felt
more unembarrassed or content. Her heart had found its
home—its satisfaction—and, as she stood there, in the presence
of her father and her lover, there went up from the
depths of that heart an unuttered, “Oh! God! I thank
Thee for this hour!”

Some minutes before Mr. Pynchon concluded his interview,
the villagers and the two companions of Holyoke had
started on their way down the hill. Holyoke insisted that
Mr. Pynchon should mount his horse, which proposition
John had no sooner heard than he started off upon a run,
to overtake those who had gone before. Mr. Pynchon
vaulted to the saddle, and then playfully said, “I
hardly know whether to drive you in or leave you to follow.”

“I never allow myself to be driven,” said Holyoke. “But
have no fears that I shall fail to follow, for by the shadows
it is noon, and by my appetite long after.”

“Very well, I leave you,” said Mr. Pynchon, and starting
off at a brisk pace, he was soon out of sight. The lovers,
hand in hand, followed. It was mid-day, and the tender,
half-diaphanous chestnut-leaves, and the maple boughs still
rosy with their birth-blush, and the pine-buds, whose crystalline
needles waited new dippings in the dew and dryings
in the day, spread all their fans and fingers in vain to keep
the warm rays from the brows of those who walked beneath
them.

“Mary,” said Holyoke at length, after a minute's silence,
“I think you are very beautiful.”

“I have no doubt of it,” replied Mary quietly.

“How shall I understand that?” inquired Holyoke, with
a half mischievous smile. “Do you intend to endorse my
judgment or my sincerity?”

“Both, in a measure. I neither doubt your sincerity nor
despise your judgment. I ought to seem very beautiful to
you—the most beautiful of anything in the world.”

“Why, Mary?”

“Because you love me.”

“How do you know I love you?”

“I have not inquired of myself how I know,” replied
Mary, “but I know, nevertheless. I believe that a woman

need never be left in doubt in regard to the real sentiments
of her professed lover.”

“Well!” exclaimed Holyoke, laughing, “I see that I
have nothing to say, and, in fact, that I have not the slightest
opportunity of making myself interesting, by making
you jealous.”

“It would be impossible, Elizur, for you to make me
jealous.”

Holyoke was amused, but not altogether pleased. He
loved Mary with his whole heart, and his great anxiety
for months had been to assure himself that she loved
him; but this unquestioning faith assumed the shape and
some of the attributes of dominion. There was a conscious
possession of power on the part of Mary that touched a
weak point of vanity in his manhood, and made him feel
uneasy.

“But, Mary,” said he, at length, “do you know that
you have taken a very precious task out of my hands? I
have come all the way from the Bay to tell you that I love
you—rather to tell you how much I love you—and to tell
you the same story a great many times; but you shut my
mouth by coolly telling me that my errand is unnecessary.”

This was intended to be uttered in a playful tone, but
the quick heart of the girl recognised a shadow, as if an
evil angel had crossed the path of the sunbeams that were
falling upon her brow.

She stopped, lifted one hand to the shoulder of her lover,
and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh! how little, how little
do you know me!” she exclaimed, with a fervently affectionate
utterance. “How poorly have you learned a woman's
heart! I should take no pleasure in having you tell
me that you love me, if I were not sure of the fact. But
now I would have you tell me of it every day and every
hour of my life. I would drink in the assurance in words;
I would inhale it with the fragrance of flowers; I would

read it on their petals; I would have the dear words, `I
love you,' come to me, from you, through every form of
utterance, and every ingenuity of expression. They can
never tire and never satisfy. It is because I know that I
am loved that I would hear you say so, and not because I
hear you say so that I know I am loved.”

Holyoke looked down into her earnest eyes, and drank
in her earnest utterances, with an affectionate admiration
that rendered his plea for pardon entirely needless. The
kiss that he impressed upon her forehead he justified by a
course of reasoning based upon the declarations that had
just fallen from the girl's lips, and it was doubtless satisfactory
to her.

When the happy pair arrived at Mr. Pynchon's house,
they found Mrs. Pynchon in the possession of much clearer
ideas of the nature of the morning's business than those
which Peter Trimble had imparted to her. Holyoke received
a most cordial greeting at her hands, and, in return,
he answered all her questions in regard to her old friends
of the Bay, and told her every particle of news that he
thought would interest her.

After taking their seats at the dinner-table, Mrs. Pynchon
led off the conversation by expressing her regrets
that she had nothing better to set before her visitors,
and wondered why somebody did not think to bring along
some steaks from Tom, seeing he was bled so nicely.

“Do you suppose we would eat Tom, mother?” exclaimed
Mary in perfect astonishment, laying down her
knife.

“Why—wasn't he very fat, Mary?” inquired the old
lady, with a puzzled expression of countenance.

“Why, mother, just think of eating the dear creature
that we have fed and petted all winter!” said Mary. “I
should as soon think of eating John.”

This aspect of the case had not appeared to the good old

lady, but she was a little piqued by Mary's vehemence, and
so, bent on maintaining her point, she said, “Well, my dear,
what is the difference between a deer and a chicken? I've
known you feed and pet chickens till they were fat, and then
eat them rationally with the rest of us.”

The laugh that followed was at Mary's expense, and the
old lady urged her point no further, upon learning from Mr.
Pynchon that he had sent a man to give the slaughtered
pet a decent burial.