Gaut Gurley, or, The trappers of Umbagog a tale of border life |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 7. |
| 8. |
| 9. |
| 10. |
| 11. |
| 12. |
| 13. |
| 14. |
| 15. |
| 16. |
| 17. |
| 18. |
| 19. |
| 20. |
| 21. | CHAPTER XXI. |
 | CHAPTER XXI. Gaut Gurley, or, The trappers of Umbagog |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
Mingled their accents; and, amidst the rush
Of many thoughts, the listening poet cried,
O! thou art mighty, thou art wonderful,
Mysterious Nature! Not in thy free range
Of woods and wilds alone, thou blendest thus
The dirge note and the song of festival;
But in one heart, one changeful human heart, —
Ay, and within one hour of that strange world, —
Thou call'st their music forth, with all its tones
To startle and to pierce! — the dying Swan's,
And the glad Sky-lark's, — Triumph and Despair!”
Our tale is running rapidly to a close; and we must no
more loiter to gather flowers by the wayside, but depict the
events which now come thickly crowding together, to make up
the mingled catastrophe.
When the sheriff and his scores of exulting assistants reached
the village with their prisoner, — the desperate villain, whom
they had, with so much difficulty and danger, dislodged and
seized in his rocky den in the mountains, — the latter requested
a postponement of his examination till the afternoon of the
next day, that he might have time to send for, and obtain, his
lawyer. This request was the more readily granted, as the
party sent up the lakes with Moose-killer, for more evidence,
had not yet returned, and as their expected discoveries, or at
least their presence with those already made, might and would
be required to fasten the crime, in law, on the undoubted
criminal. The court, therefore, was adjourned to an indefinite
hour the next afternoon; and the crowd, except the court, its
officers, and those from a distance, dispersed to assemble, the
of one who had now become, in the minds of all, the monster
outlaw of the settlement. The prisoner was then taken to an
adjoining old and empty log-house, a straw-bed laid on the
floor for him, and a strong guard placed over him, both within
and around the house without; so that, being constantly under
the eyes of vigilant, well-armed men, there should be no possibility
of his escape, either by his own exertions, or by the
aid of secret accomplices. And these precautions being faithfully
observed, the night wore away without alarm, or any
kind of disturbance. The fore part of the succeeding day also
passed, though people soon began to pour into the village from
all quarters, with singular quietness, — all seeming to be oppressed
with that deep feeling of hushed expectation which
may often be seen to predispose men to a sort of restless
silence, on the known eve of an exciting event. And, through
the whole of it, no incident or circumstance transpired affecting
the great interest of the occasion, till about noon; when the
news spread that the anxiously-awaited party from the upper
lakes were approaching. As they came up to the tavern, the
now excited crowd quickly closed around them, and eagerly
listened to their report. Of Claud Elwood, whom they had
unknowingly passed and repassed, on their way up and down
the lakes, while he was lying helpless in the secluded retreat
to which his fair and devoted preserver had conveyed him,
they had heard nothing, seen nothing, and discovered no clues
by which his locality or fate could be traced or conjectured.
But they had visited, and carefully examined, the place pointed
out by Moose-killer as the one where Mark Elwood was supposed
to have been slain; and, although they had failed to find
the body on the land, or in the lake, with the best means they
could command for dragging it, and although time had measurably
effaced the traces by which the sagacious Indian had
judged of the suspected deed, yet every appearance went to
confirm the strict accuracy of his previous account. And, in
tree, in the range of the path, and a short distance to the south
of the spot, a rifle bullet, which had evidently been, before
striking the tree, smeared with a bloody substance, and also
slightly flattened, as it might naturally have been, in striking a
bone, on its way through a man's body. This seemed to
establish, as a fact, the commission of a murder; but on whom
committed was still left a debatable question. The movers
of the prosecution had hoped, through this mission up the lakes,
to obtain evidence which would conclusively establish the guilt
of the prisoner. But, to effect this, and thus insure his conviction,
something more conclusive was still obviously wanting.
And it was then that the indefatigable hunter made, as the
reader has already been apprised, his last rapid but fruitless
journey to the chief's residence, in the hope that his mysteriously
absent daughter might have returned with discoveries
that would complete the chain of evidence. He having come
back, however, without accomplishing any part of his object,
and the prisoner's counsel having arrived, and, after a consultation
with his client, become strangely clamorous to proceed at
once to the examination, they finally concluded to go into the
hearing with the presumptive evidence in possession, and,
backing it with the showing of Gaut's previously suspicious
character, for which they were now well prepared, call themselves
willing to abide the result. All this being now settled,
the court was declared open, and the counsel for the prosecution
was requested to proceed with the case.
After the attorney for the prosecution had read the papers
on which it was founded, and made a statement of what was expected
to be proved in its support, the witnesses in that behalf
were called and sworn. The first testimony introduced was
that of Codman and others, to show the deep malice and implied
threats of revenge which the prisoner had so clearly exhibited
towards the supposed murdered man, in the prosecution of
which the latter was a principal mover, the winter before. But
that followed, and found to consist, instead of definite
words, almost wholly of menacing looks and other silent
demonstrations of rage, which are ever extremely difficult to
bring out in words with their original effect, amounted to so
little that the prisoner's counsel attempted to turn it into ridicule
with considerable show of success. Testimony in relation to
the canoe of the Elwoods, recently found washed up among
the rapids, which was next introduced, was found, when tested
in the same way, in despite of the opinions of the practical
boatmen who were the witnesses, to be almost equally inconclusive
of the prisoner's guilt; so much so, indeed, that his
counsel seemed greatly inclined to appropriate it, as showing
the probable manner in which the Elwoods, if they were not
still both alive, had come to their end.
By this time, — as the court of inquiry was not opened till
nearly sunset, and as the examinations, cross-examinations, and
preliminary speeches of the opposing counsel, on disputed points
of evidence, had been drawn out to seemingly almost interminable
lengths, — by this time, it was nearly midnight; and the
prosecuting party now proposed an adjournment till morning.
But this was strenously opposed by Gaut's lawyer, who, affecting
to believe that the whole affair was a malicious prosecution
growing out of the suit last winter, and got up by certain men
who had banded together to revenge their defeat on that occasion,
and ruin his client, boldly demanded that the prisoner
should be discharged, or his conspiring enemies be compelled
to proceed at once with “their sham prosecution,” as he put
on the face to call it.
This stand, which was obviously instigated by the prisoner
himself, who narrowly watched the proceedings, and, from time
to time, was seen whispering in the ear of his counsel, produced
the desired effect: the motion was overruled, and the counsel
for the prosecution told to go on with his evidence.
Moose-killer was then called on to the witnesses' stand;
and whispered something in the ear of his counsel,
who thereupon rose and went into a labored argument against
the admissibility of the evidence of an Indian, who was a pagan,
and knew nothing about the God whose invocation constituted
the sacred effect of the oath he had taken. But, on the questioning
of the court, Moose-killer declared his full belief in the
white Christian's God and Bible, and this objection was overruled,
and the witnesss requested to proceed with his story.
The demure Indian, unmoved by the burning and vengeful
eye of Gaut, which was kept constantly riveted upon him, then
succinctly but clearly related all the facts, of which the reader
has been apprised in the preceeding pages, in relation to the
atrocious deed under investigation. And at the conclusion of
his story he produced the bullet found imbedded in the tree,
called attention to its smeared and flattened appearance, and
then asked for the prisoner's rifle, to see whether it would
fit in the bore. The rifle in question was then brought into
court, the bullet applied to the muzzle, and pronounced an exact
fit! A shout of exultation burst from the crowd, and in a tone
so significant of the public feeling, and of their unanimous
opinion on this point, that for a moment both the prisoner and
his counsel were completely disconcerted. But, soon rallying,
the latter started to his feet, and, having summoned back to
its place his usual quantum of brass, demanded “the privilege
of just looking at that rifle they were all making such a fuss
about.” It was accordingly handed to him; when, after noticing
the size of the bore, which was a common one, and then
glancing at some other rifles held in the hands of different
spectators, he confidently requested that the first half-dozen
rifles to be found among the crowd should be brought on to
the stand. Five of the designated number were soon gathered
and brought forward; and it was found, in the comparison,
that three of them were of the same bore as that of Gaut,
and that the ball in question would fit one as well as another.
“There! what has become of your bullet evidence now?”
sneeringly exclaimed the exulting attorney. “Wondrous conclusive,
a'n't it? But, as weak as the whole story is, I will
make it still weaker. It is my turn with you now, my foxy
red friend,” he added, settling back in his seat to commence his
cross-examination.
His vaunted cross-examination, however, resulted in giving
him no advantage. The Indian could not be made, in the
whole hour the brow-beating inquisitor devoted to him, either
to cross himself or vary a single statement of his direct testimony,
and he was petulantly ordered to leave the stand.
“Not done talk yet,” said Moose-killer, lingering, and
glancing inquiringly to the court and the counsel for the prosecution.
“More story me tell yet.”
Gaut's lawyer looked up doubtfully to the witness; but, thinking
he must have told all he could to implicate the prisoner,
and that any thing now added might show discrepancies, of
which some advantage could be taken, remained silent, and,
for once, interposed no objection to letting the Indian take his
own course; when the latter, on receiving an encouraging intimation
to speak from the other attorney, proceeded, in his peculiarly
broken but graphic manner, to make in substance the
following extraordinary revelation:
About ten years ago (he said), there came, from what part nobody
knew, a strange, questionable personage, into the neighborhood
of a few families of St. François Indians, encamping for the
hunting season around the head-water lakes of the Long River,
as he termed the Connecticut, and went to trapping for sable and
beaver. But he soon fell into difficulties with the Indians, who
believed he robbed their traps; and with one family in particular
he had a fierce and bitter altercation. This family had a
small child, that began to ramble from the wigwam out into
the woods, and that, one night, failed to come home. They
suspected who had got it, and next day followed the trail to
the man's camp; when they soon found where the child had
the monster, becoming alarmed, had fled, and never afterwards
could be found.”
With this, Moose-killer, who had evidently put his story in
this shape to avoid interruption, suddenly paused, and then, with
one hand raised imploringly towards the court and the other
stretched out menacingly towards the prisoner, wildly exclaimed:
“O, that was my child! and this was the man who murdered
it!”
A thrill of horror ran through the crowd as the witness came
to the conclusion of his revolting story. And so completely
were all taken by surprise by the startling, and as most of them
believed truthful, revelation, and so great was the sensation
produced by the appalling atrocities it disclosed, that the proceedings
of the court were for some moments brought to a dead
stand. But soon the shrill, harsh voice of Gaut's lawyer was
heard rising above the buzz of the excited crowd, and bursting in
a storm of denunciation and abuse on the witness, and all those
who had a hand in bringing him forward, to thrust in, against
all rule, such a story, — which, if true, had no more to do
with the prosecution now in progress than the first chapter of
the Alcoran. But it was not true. It was a monstrous fabrication.
It represented as a fact what never occurred in all
Christendom. It was stamped with falsehood on the face of it;
and not only spoke for itself as such, but was a virtual self-impeachment
of the witness, whose whole testimony the court
should now throw to the winds. And so, for the next half-hour,
he went on, ranting and raving, till the court, interposing, assured
him that the witness' last story would not be treated as
testimony in the case; when he became pacified, and took his
seat.
The counsel on the other side, who, during his opponent's explosive
display of rhetorical gas and brimstone, had been holding
an earnest consultation with Phillips (now also at hand with
then calmly rose, and said he had a statement to make, which
he stood ready to substantiate, and to which he respectfully
asked the attention of the court, as a matter that should be taken
into the account in considering the prisoner's guilt in the present
case, it being one of the many offences that appeared to
have marked his career of almost unvarying crime and iniquity.
He was well aware of the general rule of evidence, which excludes
matters not directly connected with the point at issue; but
there were cases in which that rule often had, and necessarily
ever must be, materially varied, — as in the crim. con. cases reported
in the books, where previous like acts were admitted,
to show the probability of the commission of the one charged,
and also in cases like the present, resting, as he admitted it
thus far did, on presumptive evidence. In this view, notwithstanding
all that had been said or intimated, he believed the
concluding testimony of the last witness proper to be considered
in balancing the presumptions of the prisoner's guilt or innocence.
And especially relevant did he deem the statement,
and the introduction of the evidence he had at hand to substantiate
it, which he had now risen to offer. But, even were it
otherwise, it would soon be seen that the step he was about to
take would be particularly suitable to be taken while the court
and the officers of justice were together, and the prisoner under
their control. With these preliminary remarks, he would now
proceed with the statement he had proposed.
“This man,” continued the attorney (whom we will now report
in the first person), “the man who stands here charged, and,
in the minds of nine out of ten of all present, I fearlessly affirm,
justly charged, with a murder, to the deliberate atrocity
of which scarce a parallel can be found in the world's black
catalogue of crime, — this man, I say, is a felon-refugee from
British justice.
“Many years ago, — as some here present may know, as a
matter of history, — a secret and somewhat extended conspiracy
discovered and crushed at Quebec, which was its principal seat,
and which, according to the plan of the conspirators, was to be
the first object of assault and seizure. This was to be effected
by the contemporaneous rising of a strong force within the city,
headed by a bold adventurer, a bankrupt merchant from Rhode
Island, and of an army of raftsmen, collected from the rivers,
without, led on by a reckless and daring, half-Scotch, half-Indian
Canadian, who had acquired great influence over that
restless and ruffian class of men. The former had been in the
province in the year before, and, from witnessing the popular
disaffection then rampant from the enforcement of an odious
act of their Parliament to compel the building of roads, had,
with the instigation of such desperate fellows as the latter, his
Canadian accomplice, conceived this plot, and had now come
on, with a small band of recruits, to carry it into execution;
when, as all was nearly ripe for the outbreak, the whole plot
was discovered. The poor Yankee leader was seized, tried
for high treason, condemned to death, and strung up by the
neck from the walls of Quebec.[1] But the more wary and fortunate
Canadian leader, though tenfold more guilty, escaped
into the wilderness, this side of the British line; lingered a year
or two in this region, trapping and robbing the Indians; then
took to smuggling; engaged in the service of the man whose
murder we are now investigating, followed him to the city,
nearly ruined him there, and then dogged him to this settlement
to complete his destruction.”
“Who do you mean?” thundered Gaut Gurley.
“Ask your own conscience,” replied the attorney, fearlessly
confronting the prisoner.
“'Tis false as hell!” rejoined Gaut, with a countenance convulsed
with rage.
“No, you mistake, — it is as true as hell,” promptly retorted
as you. Mr. Phillips,” he added, turning to the hunter, who
stood a little in the background, with his rifle poised on his left
arm, with an air of carelessness, but, as a close inspection would
have shown, so grasped by his right hand, held down out of
sight, as to enable him to bring it to an instant aim, — “Mr.
Phillips, were you in the habit of going to Quebec, fall and
spring, to dispose of your peltries, about the time of this plotted
insurrection?”
“I was.”
“Did you ever have the Canada leader I have spoken of
pointed out to you, previous to the outbreak?”
“Often, on going down the Chaudiere river, often; why, I
knew him by sight as well as the devil knows his hogs!”
“Did you afterwards see and identify him in this region?”
“I did.”
“Is not, then, all I have stated true; and is not the prisoner,
here, the man?”
“All as true as the Gospel of St. Mark; and that is the
man, the very man; under the oath of God, I swear it!”
During this brief but terribly pointed dialogue, Gaut Gurley,
—whose handcuffs, on his complaint that they galled his wrists,
had been removed after he came into court, — sat watching
Phillips with that same singularly sinister expression which we
have, on one or two previous occasions, tried to describe him as
exhibiting. It was a certain indescribable, whitish, lurid light,
flashing and quivering over his countenance, that made the beholder
involuntarily recoil. And, as the last words were uttered,
his hand was seen covertly stealing up under the lapel of his
coat; but it was instantly arrested and dropped, at the sharp
click of the cocking of the hunter's rifle, which was also seen
stealing up to his shoulder.
“Nonsense!” half audibly said the sheriff, to something
which, during the bustle and sensation following these manifestations,
the hunter had been whispering in his ear; “nonsense!
kind about him.”
“I am not so sure about that,” responded the hunter, edging
along through the crowd, with his eye still on the prisoner, and
soon disappearing out of the door.
This little judicial interlude in the remarks of the attorney
being over, he resumed:
“My statement having been thus corroborated, and, as I am
most happy to find, without any of the expected interruptions,
it now only remains for me to say, that this indefatigable Mr.
Phillips, becoming perfectly convinced that the prisoner was a
man of whom it was a patriotic duty to rid the settlement, has,
within the last two months, made a journey into Canada; obtained
a written official request from the governor-general,
addressed to the governor of New Hampshire, for the delivery
of Gaut Gurley, at the time when, on notice, the proper officers
would be in waiting to receive him; that our governor has
responded by issuing his warrant; which,” he continued, drawing
out a document, “I now, in this presence, deliver to the
sheriff, to be served, but only served, in case we fail — as I do
not at all anticipate — to secure the commitment and final conviction
of the prisoner, on the flagitious offence now under investigation,
and loudly demanding expiation under our own
violated laws, in preference to delivering him up for the punishment
of other and less crying felonies.”
The prisoner and his counsel, on this new and unexpected
development, held an earnest whispered consultation. The
latter had supposed, till almost the last moment, that his opponent
was intending only to bring in another piece of what he
deemed wholly irrelevant testimony, in the shape of another
gone-by transaction; and he was preparing another storm of
wrath for the judicial outrage. But, when he found that the
statement was a preliminary to a different and more alarming
movement, and especially when he saw placed in the sheriff's
hands a warrant for delivering up his client to the British, to be
feared, from what he had just heard, there would be no escape,
he was sadly nonplussed, and knew not which way to turn
himself. And it was not until Gaut, who, though thus suddenly
brought into a dilemma which he was little expecting, was yet
at no loss to decide on his course, — that of making every possible
effort to escape the more immediate pending danger, and
then of trusting to chance for eluding the more remote one just
brought to view, — it was not till Gaut, with assurances of the
last being but a miserable, trumped-up affair, had pushed and
goaded him up to action, that the dumbfounded attorney recovered
his old confidence. He then straightened back in his
seat, and, with the air of one who has meekly borne some imposition,
or breach of privilege, till it can be borne no longer,
turned gruffly to his opponent, and said:
“Well, sir, having dragged every thing into this case except
what legitimately belongs to it, I want to know if you are
through, now? We, on our side, have no need of introducing
testimony to meet any thing you have yet been able to show.
Why, you have not even established the first essential fact to be
settled in prosecutions for homicide. You have arraigned my
client for killing a man, and yet have shown nobody killed!
No, we shall introduce no witnesses till the body of the alleged
murdered man is produced; for, till then, no court on earth —
But I am not making a speech, and will not anticipate. All I
intended was, to ask, as I do again, are you through with your
evidence now?”
The attorney for the prosecution then admitted — rather prematurely,
as it was soon seen — that he thought of nothing more
which he wished to introduce.
“Go on with your opening speech, then,” resumed the
former.
“No,” said the other, “I waive my privilege of the opening
and close, and will only claim the closing speech.”
“O, very well, sir,” said Gaut's lawyer, throwing a surprised
not involved in this unexpected waiver of the usually claimed
privilege. “Very well; don't blame you; shouldn't think you
could find honest materials even for one speech.”
The hard-faced attorney, who was reputed one of the best of
what are sometimes termed devil's lawyers, in all that part of the
country, then consequentially gathered up his minutes of the
testimony, glanced over them, and, clearing his throat, commenced
his great final speech, which was to annihilate his
opponent, and quash the whole proceedings of the prosecution.
But he had scarcely spoken ten words, before a tremendous
shout, rising somewhere in the direction of the bridge, — to which
their attention had been before called, when a part of it had
been swept away during the first hours of the night, — broke and
reverberated into the room, bringing him to an instant stand.
Feeling that something extraordinary had occurred, the startled
court, parties and spectators, alike paused, and eagerly listened
for something further to explain the sudden outbreak. But,
for several minutes, all was still, or hushed down to the low hum
of mingling voices, and not a distinct, intelligible sound reached
their expectant senses. Soon, however, the noise of trampling
feet and the rush of crowds was heard, and perceived to be
rapidly approaching the door of the court-room. And the
next moment the clear, loud voice of the now evidently excited
hunter was heard exultantly ringing out the announcement:
“A witness, a new witness! A witness that saw the very
deed!”
This sudden and exciting announcement of an occurrence
which had been hoped for, in some shape, on one side, and
feared on the other, but, at this late hour of the night, little expected
by either, at once threw all within the crowded court-room
into bustle and commotion. Both parties to the prosecution
were consequently taken by surprise; and both, though
neither of them were yet apprised of the character of the witness,
were aroused and agitated by the significant announcement.
obdurate prisoner, who had, thus far in the examination,
scarcely once wholly lost his usual look of bold assurance, but
who now was seen casting rapid, uneasy, and evidently troubled
glances towards the door; doubtless expecting, each moment,
to see the fear which had haunted him from the first — that
Claud Elwood would turn up alive, and appear in court against
him — realized in the person of the new witness. His lawyer
also, appeared to be seized with similar apprehensions; and,
the next moment, he was heard loudly demanding the attention
of the court. He objected, he pointedly objected, he protested,
in advance, against the admission of further testimony. He had
borne every thing during the hearing, but could not bear this.
The pleas were closed, and the case concluded against the introduction
of new evidence; and that, too, by the express notice
and agreement of the counsel for the prosecution. And
now to open it would be in glaring violation of all rule, all
law, and all precedent. In short, it would be an outrage too
gross to be tolerated anywhere but in a land of despotism.
And, if the court would not at once decide to exclude the threatened
testimony, he must be heard at length on the subject.
But the court declining so to decide, and intimating that they
were willing to hear an argument on the point, of any reasonable
length, he spread himself for the wordy onset. The sheriff,
— who, in the mean time, had started for the door to make an
opening in the crowd for the expected entrance, — seeing that a
long speech was in prospect, now went out, conducted the proffered
witness, in waiting near by, to another room in the house
to remain there till called; and then returned, and, in a low
tone, made some communication to the court.
The pertinacious lawyer then went on with his heated protest,
as it might be called far more properly than an argument,
to the length of nearly an hour. The calm, manly, and cogent
reply of his opponent occupied far less time, but obtained far
more favor with the sitting magistrates; who, after a short consultation
proposed evidence, and thereupon ordered the sheriff to conduct
the witness at once into court.
A breathless silence now ensued in the court-room, and every
eye was involuntarily turned towards the door. In a few minutes
the sheriff, closely followed by two females, made his appearance,
and cleared his way up to the stand that had been
occupied by the witnesses. No names had been announced,
and both the ladies were veiled, so that their faces could not be
seen in the dusky apartment, lighted only by two dim candles,
made dimmer, seemingly, by the morning twilight, then beginning
to steal through the windows, and to produce that dismal and
almost sickening hue peculiar to the equal mingling of the natural
light of day with the artificial light of lamp or taper. And it was
not consequently known, except to one or two individuals, who
they were; but enough was seen, in the enlarged form and
sober tread of the one, and in the rounded, trim figure and
elastic step of the other, to show the former to be a middle-aged
matron, and the latter a youthful maiden. Each was
garbed in rich black silk, to which were added, in the one case,
some of the usual emblems of mourning, and in the other, a
few simple, tastily contrasted, light trimmings.
“What are these ladies' names? or rather, first, I will ask,
which of them is the witness?” said the leading magistrate.
“I am, I suppose,” said the maiden, in tones as soft and
tremulous as the lightly-touched chord of some musical instrument,
as she threw back her veil, and disclosed a beauty of
features and sweetness of countenance that at once raised a
buzz of admiration through the room.
“Your name, young lady?”
“Fluella, sir; and this lady at my side is Mrs. Mark Elwood,
who comes only as my friend.”
“You understand the usages of courts, I conclude; and, if
so, will now receive the oath, and go on to tell what you know
prisoner here is arraigned.”
At once raising her hand, she was sworn, and proceeded directly
to state that part of the transaction she had witnessed on
the lake, which the hunter, in the conversation she found means
to have with him while waiting to be taken into court, had
advised her was all that would be important as evidence in the
case.
Gaut Gurley, the alarmed prisoner, who at first had appeared
greatly relieved on finding that the announced witness was not
the reänimated young Elwood, as he had feared, now seemed
utterly at fault to conjecture what either of these women could
know of his crime. But the moment the maiden, whom he had
seen the previous year, and regarded with jealous dislike, as
the possible rival of his daughter, revealed herself to his view,
his looks grew dark and suspicious; and when she commenced
by mentioning, as she did at the outset, that she was on a
boat excursion along the western shore of the Maguntic, on the
well-remembered day when he consummated his long cherished
atrocity, he seemed to comprehend the drift of what was coming,
and his eyes fastened on her with the livid glare of a tiger;
while those demoniac flashes, before noted as the usual percursor
of hellish intent with him, began to burn up and play over his
contracting countenance.
But these suspicious indications had escaped the notice of
all, — even of the watchful hunter, whose looks, with those of
the rest, were for the moment hanging, with intense interest,
on the speaking lips of the fair witness. And she proceeded
uninterrupted, till, having described the position in the thicket
on shore, in which she was standing, as Mark Elwood, followed
by Gaut Gurley, both of whom she recognized, came along,
she, nerving herself for the task, raised her voice and said:
“I distinctly saw Mr. Elwood fall, convulsed in death, —
heard the fatal shot, and instantly traced it to Gaut, before he
who now —”
When, as she was uttering the last words, and turning to
the prisoner, she stopped short, recoiled, and uttered a loud
shriek of terror. And, the next instant, the deafening report
of a pistol burst from the corner where the prisoner was sitting,
filling the room with smoke, and bringing every man to his
feet, in the amazement and alarm that seized all at the sudden
outbreak.
There was a dead pause for a moment; and then was heard
the sudden rush of men, the sharp, brief struggle, and the
heavy fall of the grappled prisoner, as he was borne over-powered
to the floor.
“Thank God!” exclaimed the hunter, the first to reach the
bewildered maiden, and ascertain what had befell from this
fiendish attempt to take her life simply because she was instrumental
in bringing a wretch to justice, — “thank God, she is
unhurt! The bullet has only cut the dress on her side, and
passed into the wall beyond.”
“Order in court!” sternly cried the head magistrate. “It
is enough! Mr. Phillips, conduct these ladies to some more
suitable apartment. We wish for no more proof. The prisoner's
guilt is already piled mountain-high. We commit him
to your hands, Mr. Sheriff. Within one hour, let him be on
his way to Lancaster jail, there to await his final trial and
doom, for one of the foulest murders that ever blasted the
character of human kind!”
We will not attempt to describe, in detail, the lively and
bustling scene, which, for the next hour or two, now ensued in
and around the tavern, that had lately been the unaccustomed
theatre of so many new and startling developments. The running
to and fro of the excited and jubilant throng of men,
women, and children, who, in their anxiety to witness and
know the result of the trial, had passed the whole night in the
place, — the partaking of the hastily snatched breakfast, in the
by others, from provisions brought along with them from home,
— the hurried harnessing of horses and running out of wagons,
preparatory to the departure of those here with the usual
vehicles of travel, — the resounding blows and lumbering sounds
of the score of lusty men who had volunteered to replace and
repair the bridge from the old materials luckily thrown on
the bank a short distance down the stream, so as to permit the
departing teams, going in that direction, to pass safely over, —
and, lastly, the bringing out, the placing on his bed of straw in
the bottom of a wagon, and the moving off of the caged lion,
with his cavalcade of guards before and behind, — the fiercely
exultant hurrahing of the execrating crowd, as he disappeared
up the road to the west, together with the crowning, extra loud
and triumphant kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho! of Comical Codman, who had
mounted a tall stump for the purpose, and made the preliminary
declaration that, if he was ever to have another crow, it should
be now, on seeing the Devil's unaccountable and first cousin, to
say the least, in relationship, so handsomely cornered, and, at
last so securely put in limbo, — these, all these combined to
form a scene as stirring to the view, as it was replete with
moral picturesque to the mind. But we must content ourself
with this meagre outline; another and a different, quickly succeeding
scene in the shifting panorama, now demands our
attention.
Among the crowd who had arranged themselves in rows, to
witness the departure of the court officials and the prisoner,
were the two now inseparable friends, Mrs. Elwood and Fluella;
who, on turning from the spectacle, had strolled, arm-in-arm, to
a green, shaded grass-plot at the farther end of the tavern
building, and were now, with pensive but interested looks,
bending over the garden fence, and inspecting a small parterre
of budding flowers, which female taste had, even in a place so
lately redeemed from the forest as this, found means to introduce.
They were lingering here, while others were departing,
of their very near approach. But even then, as they
stood listlessly gazing over upon the mute objects of their
interest, those friends were coming across the bridge, in the
singularly contrasted forms of an aged man, walking without
any staff, and with a firm elastic tread, and quite a youngerly
one, walking with a cane, and with careful steps and a restrained
gait, betokening some lingering soreness of body or
limb. On reaching the nearest part of the tavern-yard, the
young man gazed eagerly round among the still numerous
crowd, when, his eye falling on those of whom he seemed to
be in search, he turned to his companion and said:
“There they are, Chief. I will go forward and take them
by surprise.”
The next moment he was standing closely behind the unconscious
objects of his attention; when, with a smiling lip
but silent tongue, he gently laid a hand on a shoulder of each.
“Claud!” burst from the lips of the surprised and reddening
maiden, the first to turn to the welcome intruder.
“Claud! Claud!” exclaimed the agitated matron, as she
also turned, in grateful surprise, to greet, for the first time since
his return, her heart's idol. “My son! my son!” she continued,
with gathering emotion, “are you indeed restored alive
to my arms, and, but for you, my now doubly desolate home?
Thank Heaven! O thank Heaven! for the happy, happy
restoration!”
“That is right, dear mother!” at length responded the visibly
touched young man, gently disengaging himself from the long
maternal embrace; “that is all right. But,” he added, turning
to the maiden, whose sympathetic tears were coursing down
her fair cheeks, “if you would thank any earthly being for
the preservation of my life, it should be this good and lovely
girl at your side.”
“I know it,” said the mother, after a thoughtful pause, “I
daughter.”
There was an embarrassing pause. But the embarrassment
was not perceived and felt by these two young persons alone.
Another, unknown to them, had silently witnessed the whole
interview from an open, loosely-curtained window of the chamber
above; and perceived, and felt, and appreciated, all that
had transpired, in word and look, no less keenly than the
young couple, whose beating hearts, only, were measuring the
moments of their silent perplexity. That other was Gaut
Gurley's lovely and luckless but strong-hearted daughter.
Having instinctively read her father's guilt, she had come to
his trial with a sinking heart; shut herself up alone in this
small chamber; so arranged the screening curtains that she
could sit by the open window unseen, and kept her post through
that long night of her silent woe, hearing all that was said by
the crowd below, and, through their comments, becoming apprised
of all that was going on in the court-room, in the order
it transpired. She had known of Fluella's arrival, — her perilous
passage over the river, — of the report she then made to the
hunter of her discoveries, — of her bringing back the wounded
Claud in safety, — of the dastardly attempt of the prisoner to
take that heroic girl's life, — of his sentence, and, finally, of his
departure for prison, amidst the execrations of a justly indignant
people. She had known all this, and felt it, to the inmost
core of her rent heart, with the twofold anguish of a broken-hearted
lover and a fate-smitten daughter. She had wrestled
terribly with her own heart, and she had conquered. She
had determined her destiny; and now, on witnessing the last
part of the tender scene enacting under her window, she suddenly
formed the high resolve of crowning her self-immolation
by a public sacrifice.
Accordingly she hastily rose from her seat, and, without
thought or care of toilet, descended rapidly to the yard, and,
with hurrying step and looks indicative of settled purpose,
scene, of which she had thus been made the involuntary witness.
“No ceremony!” she said, in tones of unnatural calmness,
with a forbidding gesture to Claud, who, while Fluella was
instinctively shrinking to the side of the more unmoved but
still evidently disturbed Mrs. Elwood, had advanced a step for
a respectful greeting. “No ceremony — it is needless; and
no fears, fair girl, and anxious mother — they are without
cause. I come not to mar, but to make, happiness. Claud Elwood,
my heart once opened and turned to you, as the sunflower
to its god; and our paths of love met, and, for a while, ran on
pleasantly together as one. But, even then, something whispered
me they would soon again diverge, and lead off to separate
destinies. The boded divergence, as I feared, began with
the fatal family feud of last winter, and has now resulted, as I
still more feared, in plunging us, respectively, in degradation and
sorrow, and also in placing our destinies as wide as the poles
asunder. Claud, Claud Elwood, — can you love this beautiful
girl at your side? You speak not. I know that you can.
I relinquish, then, whatever I may have possessed of your
heart, to her, if she wills. And why should she not? Why
reject one whose life she would peril her own to save? She
will not. Be you two, then, one; and may all the earthly happiness
I once dreamed of, with none of the bitter alloy it has
been my lot to experience, be henceforth yours. You will
know me no more. With to-morrow's sun, I travel to a distant
cloister, where the world, with its tantalizing loves and dazzling
ambitions, will be nothing more to me forever. Farewell,
Claud! farewell, gentle, heroic maiden! farewell, afflicted,
happy mother! If the prayers of Avis Gurley have virtue,
their first incense shall rise for the healing of all the heart-wounds
one of her family has inflicted.”
As the fair speaker ceased, and turned away from this doubtless
unspeakably painful performance of what she deemed her
last worldly duty, as well as an acceptable opening act in the
an audible murmur of applause ran through the throng,
who, in spite of their wish not to appear intrusive, had paused
at a little distance, to listen to and witness the unexpected and
singular scene. Among the voices which had been thus more
distinctly raised was that of a stranger, who, having arrived a
few minutes before, given his horse to the waiter, shook hands
with the hunter and the chief, to whom he appeared well known,
had joined the crowd to see what was going on, and who had
been particularly emphatic in the open expression of his admiration.
The remembered tones of his voice, though attracting
no attention from others, instantly reached the quick ears of
one of the more silent actors of the little scene we have been
describing. She threw a quick, eager glance around her;
and, having soon singled out from the now scattering crowd,
the person of whom her sparkling eye seemed in search, she
flew forward towards him, with the joyful cry:
“My father! my white father! I am glad, O, so glad you
have come!” and she eagerly grasped his outstretched hand,
shook it, kissed him, and, being now relieved from the embarrassment
she had keenly felt in the position in which she had just
been so unexpectedly placed, appeared to be all joy and animation.
“Come, come, Fluella, don't shake my arm off, nor bother
me now with questions,” laughingly said the gentleman, thus
affectionately beset, as he pulled the joyous girl along towards
the spot where the wondering Mrs. Elwood and her son were
standing. “You must not quite monopolize me; here are others
who may wish to see me.”
“Arthur!” exclaimed Mrs. Elwood, with a look of astonishment,
after once or twice parting her lips to speak, and then
pausing, as if in doubt, as the other was coming up with his
face too much averted to be fairly seen by her; “it is — it is —
Arthur Elwood!”
“Yes, you are right, sister Alice,” responded the hard-vis-aged
same odd stick of an old bachelor that he always was. But
who is this?” he added, with an inclination of the head towards
Claud. “Your son, I suppose?”
The formal introduction to each other of the (till then)
personally unacquainted uncle and nephew; the full developing
to the astonished mother and son of the fact, already inferred
from what they had just witnessed, that this, their eccentric
kinsman, was no other than the foster-father of Fluella,
— that he was the owner of large tracts of the most valuable
wild lands around these lakes, the oversight of which,
together with the unexpected tutelary care of the Elwood
family since their removal to the settlement, he had intrusted
to the prudent and faithful Phillips, — and, finally, the melancholy
mingling of sorrows for the untimely death of the fated
brother, husband, and father of these deeply-sympathizing corelatives,
now, like chasing lights and shadows from alternating
sunshine and cloud on a landscape, followed in rapid succession,
in unfolding to the mournfully happy circle their mutual positions
and bonds of common interest.
“Evil has its antidotes,” remarked Arthur Elwood, as the
conversation on these subjects began to flag and give room for
other thoughts growing out of the association; “evil has its
antidotes, and sorrow its alleviating joys. And especially shall
we realize this, if the suggestions of that self-sacrificing girl,
who has just addressed you so feelingly, be now followed.
What say you, Claud?”
“They will be,” promptly responded the young man, at once
comprehending all which the significant question involved;
“they will be, on my part, uncle Arthur, joyfully, — proudly.”
“And you, Fluella?” persisted the saucy querist, turning to
the blushing girl.
“He has not asked me yet,” she quickly replied, with a look
in which maiden pride, archness, and unuttered happiness, were
me” —
“Command? command! Now, that is a good one, Fluella,”
returned the laughing foster-father. “Well, well, a woman
will be a woman still, any way you can fix it. All right, however,
I presume. But, chief,” he added, turning to the natural
father, who stood with the hunter a little in the background,
“what has been going on here cannot have escaped your keen
observation; and you ought to have a voice in this matter.
“What do you say?”
“The chief,” replied the other, with his usual dignity, “the
chief has had one staff, one light of his lodge; he will now
have two. Wenongonet is content.”
“It is settled, then,” rejoined the former, whose usually passionless
countenance was now beaming with pleasure; “all
right, all round. Now, sister Alice, let us all adjourn to your
house, where you and Fluella, from some of those splendid
lake trout which I and Mr. Phillips, who, as well as the chief,
must be of the party, will first go out and catch for you, — you
and Fluella, I say, must cook us up a nice family dinner, over
which we will discuss matters at large, and have a good time
generally.”
In a few minutes more the happy group were on their way
to the Elwood cottage.
The principal interest of our story is at an end; and with it,
also, the story itself should speedily terminate. A few words
more, however, seem necessary, to anticipate the inquiries which
will very naturally arise in the mind of the reader, respecting
what might be expected soon to follow the eclaircissement of
the few last pages; and, accordingly, as far as can be done
without marring the unity of time, we will proceed, briefly, to
answer the inquiries thus arising.
The body of the fated Mark Elwood, perforated through the
breast by the bullet of his cold-blooded murderer, having broken
from the sinking weights attached to it, and risen to the
home, and buried on his farm.
Not far from the same time the faithful hunter received,
from the hands of a gentleman passing through the settlement,
a deed of gift of three hundred acres of valuable timber-land,
adjoining his own little patch of a lot, all duly drawn, signed,
and executed by Arthur Elwood; who, after a pleasant sojourn
of a week at the Elwood cottage, apprising its inmates of what
he had in store for them, in the line of property, had departed
for his home, a happier man than he had been, since, for secret
griefs, he had dissolved partnership with his brother Mark, and
left the little interior village where the pair first made their
humble beginning in life.
Codman, the trapper, continued to trap it still, and, as all the
settlers within a circuit of many miles around them were often
unmistakably made aware, to crow as usual on all extra occasions.
Tomah, the college-learned Indian, immediately left, with the
escort of the prisoner, and, kept away by the force of some associations
connected with the settlement as disagreeable to him
as they were conjecturable to others, was never again seen in
the settlement; against which, on leaving, he seemed to have
kicked off the dust of his feet behind him.
Carvil, the cultivated amateur hunter, had also immediately
departed, with the court party, on his way to his pleasant home
in the Green Mountains; not wholly to relinquish, however, his
yearly sojourns in the forests, to regain health impaired for the
want of a more full supply of his coveted, life-giving oxygen.
And, lastly, Gaut Gurley, whose infernal scheming and revolting
atrocities have been so inseparably interwoven with the
main incidents of our story, broke jail, on the night preceding
the day set for his final trial, by digging through the thick stone
wall of his prison, with implements evidently furnished from
without, leaving bloody traces of his difficult egress through
the hardly sufficient hole he had effected for the purpose; and,
not, to the sad disappointment of the thousands intending to be
in at the hanging, anywhere to be found or heard of in the
country. And the mystery of his retreat, and the still unexplained
mystery of his strange and ruinous influence over the
man whom he at last so flagitiously murdered, were not cleared
up until years afterwards.
| CHAPTER XXI. Gaut Gurley, or, The trappers of Umbagog | |