“And if you so loved this somebody of yours, why did you not write her?”
“You forget a soldier’s life is uncertain; I knew not the hour when I might fall. I said to myself a thousand times, if my life is spared I will seek her I love and plead my cause. When the bugle sounded the call to prepare for action I never failed to breathe an ardent prayer that Heaven’s blessing might rest upon you. I have been spared, the supreme hour in my life has come, and I await your answer.”
Maggie stood still. Her eyes fell to the ground and her fingers unconsciously plucked to pieces the flowers they held.
“Will you not speak?” pleaded Morton.
In a low voice she replied, “I cannot marry.”
“Why?”
“I will never leave my father.”
“I do not ask you should. I value his honest worth, and he shall be my father too, for I never saw my own, he died when I was a child. Say you will make me the happiest man on the Chateaugay and we will never part.”
“I say it is time to go and get dinner ready. Father, poor man, will be starving. Mr Morton, did you ever hoe potatoes for a forenoon?”
“Nonsense; speak the word and end my anxiety.”
“Oh, I’m not anxious. If you had hoed for half a day you would know what hunger was.”
“My hunger today is of another sort.”
“Ah, well, boys ought to learn to restrain their appetites.”
“Play with me no more. Let me know my fate. Give me my answer.”
“Won’t it be time enough when the minister asks?”
* * * * *
It was not much of a dinner that Maggie cooked, for she boiled the potatoes without salt and fried the pork to a crisp. It did not much matter, however, for of the three the father was the only one who had an appetite, and he did not complain. When done, he left to resume his task, and the young couple were alone. At supper he was told all, when he quietly rose, gripped Morton by the hand and said nothing. Next day the two sonsarrived, and, on learning the news, by way of congratulation, slapped Maggie on the back until she declared it was sore. There were long discussions over Morton’s plans. He told them he had obtained promotion after Lundy’s Lane, and as captain his commission was worth a good deal; he would sell it, and then, as a retired officer, he would be entitled to a grant of land in Upper Canada. He proposed they should all leave and go with him. To this father and sons were much inclined, for the fact that the place they occupied was subject to seigniorial rent they did not like. It was arranged Morton should go to Quebec and sell his commission and by the time he returned they would be ready to join him.
Four days after he had left, Maggie received a letter from him, enclosing one from Mrs Scott. He said he found that Colonel Scott had arrived in Montreal, and, after winding up some ordnance business there, meant to sail for England with the Fall fleet. Mrs Scott sent a pressing invitation to Maggie to come and stay with her until Morton returned from Quebec. Maggie went, expecting to stay ten days or so, but her visit lengthened out to the end of August. They were happy weeks, spent in enjoyable society and in the delightful task of the preparation that is the prelude to a happy marriage. Morton at last got back, and had not merely the money obtained for his commission, but a patent for a large tract of land on the shoreof Lake Ontario, obtained by him in a personal interview with Sir George Prevost, the gallant Gordon Drummond, his old commander, accompanying him and pressing his claim to generous recognition. Leaving Maggie in Montreal, he went again to the Chateaugay to tell all was ready. While there, he took a run up to Four Corners, his business being to visit the poor widow whose only son had been slain in the skirmish that led to his imprisonment. He found her and not only made sure she would be cared for but instituted steps to secure a pension, for congress was considering the question of relief to those who had suffered by the war. During his stay at Four Corners, he lived with Mr Douglass, and repaid with earnest gratitude the advances he had made him while living in misery in the stable, which sad abode he looked into with a swelling heart. On the morning after his return, they were ready to embark in the three canoes that were in waiting to convey them and their belongings, when the old man was missed. Morton, guessing where he was, went to seek him, and found him kneeling by the grave of his wife. Reverently approaching, he whispered the boatmen were anxious to start, assisted him to rise, and, leaning heavily on his arm, led him to the canoe where he was to sit. One last look at the shanty his hands had built and the fields they had cleared, and a bend in the river shut them out from his sight forever. Resuming his wonted contented cheerfulness, he adaptedhimself to the change, and rose still higher in Morton’s esteem. When they reached the Basin, the wind was favorable for the bateau that was waiting to leave on her trip to Lachine, and there they arrived late in the evening. The following morning Morton left for Montreal with Mr Forsyth, the sons remaining to stow away the outfit in the bateau, which done, they also journeyed to the same place. That evening there was a quiet little party at Colonel Scott’s quarters, and next morning a larger assemblage, for every officer off duty in the town was present, to see the army chaplain unite the happy pair. When all was over and Maggie had gone to prepare for the journey, Morton received congratulations that he knew were sincere. “Why,” said Major Fitzjames, “she is fit to be a Duchess.”
“She is fit for a more difficult position,” interjected Colonel Scott, “she has a mother-wit that stands her well alike in the circles of polished society and in the hour of danger and hardship.”
“Who is this that is such a paragon?” asked Mrs Scott, who had just come in.
“Mrs Morton.”
“Oh, say she is a true woman, and you say all. Mr Morton you have got a treasure.”
“I know it,” he replied, “and I will try to be worthy of her. She will be the benediction of the life I owe her.”
The day was fine and, for a wonder, the roadwas good, so that a large party, many of them on horseback, escorted the newly married pair to Lachine. As they drove past King’s Posts Morton recalled his first visit to it, the spy, and all the painful complications that had ensued, and now so happily ended. As they stood on the narrow deck of the bateau, and the wind, filling the huge sail, bore them away, a cheer rose, led by Colonel Scott. It was answered from the receding boat, and Maggie waved her handkerchief.
The journey was tedious and toilsome, but when they sailed into the bay on which Morton’s land was situated, saw its quality and fine situation, they felt they had been rewarded for coming so far. That Maggie proved an admirable help-mate need hardly be told, but what was remarkable is, that Morton became a successful farmer. Willing to put his hand to whatever there was to do, under his father-in-law’s tuition, he quickly became proficient, and when there was work to be done he did not say to his helpers “Go” but “Come,” and set them an example of cheerful and persevering exertion. Having land and enough to spare, he induced a good class of immigrants to buy from him, so that, before twenty years, his settlement was known as one of the most prosperous on Lake Ontario. Influential and public-spirited, Morton, as his circumstances grew easy and did not exact the same close attention to his personal affairs, took a leading part in laying the commercial andpolitical foundations of Upper Canada, and Maggie was widely known in its best society. That they were a happy couple everybody knew, and their descendants are among the most prominent subjects of the Dominion.
During the revolutionary war a number of Acadians left the New England States for Canada, preferring monarchic to republican rule. The British authorities provided for these twice-exiled refugees with liberality, giving them free grants of lands and the necessary tools and implements, also supplying them from the nearest military posts with provisions for three years, by which time they would be self-sustaining. Some half dozen families asked for and received lots in the county of Huntingdon and settled together on the shore of the St Lawrence. Accustomed to boating and lumbering in their old Acadian homes, they found profitable exercise in both pursuits in their new, and after making small clearances left their cultivation to the women, while they floated rafts to Montreal or manned the bateaux which carried on the traffic between that place and Upper Canada. The shanty of one of these Acadians, that of JosephCaza, occupied a point that ran into the great river near the mouth of the LaGuerre.
It was a sunny afternoon towards the end of September and the lake-like expanse of the river, an unruffled sheet of glassy blue, was set in a frame of forest already showing the rich dyes of autumn. It was a scene of intense solitude, for, save the clearance of the hardy settler, no indication of human life met the gaze. There was the lonely stretch of water and the all-embracing forest, and that was all. Playing around the shanty were two sisters, whose gleeful shouts evoked solemn echoes from the depths of the forest, for they were engaged in a game of hide-and-seek amid the rows of tall corn, fast ripening in the sunshine. They were alone, for their father and brothers were away boating and their mother had gone to the beaver-meadow where the cows pastured. Breathless with their play the children sat down to rest, the head of the younger falling naturally into the lap of the older.
“Archange, I know something you don’t.”
“What is it?”
“What we are to have for supper. Mother whispered it to me when she went to milk. Guess?”
“Oh, tell me; I won’t guess.”
“Wheat flour pancakes. I wish she would come; I’m hungry.”
“Let us go and meet her.”
The children skipped along the footpath that led through the forest from the clearance to thepasture and had gone a considerable distance before their mother came in sight, bearing a pail.
“Come to meet your mother, my doves! Ah, I have been long. The calves have broken the fence and I looked for them but did not find them. Archange, you will have to go or they may be lost. Marie, my love, you will come home with me.”
“No, mother, do let me go with sister.”
“No, you will get tired; take my hand. Remember the pancakes.”
“I won’t be tired; I want to go with Archange.”
“Ah, well; the calves may not have strayed far; you may go. But haste, Archange, and find them, for the sun will soon set.”
The children danced onwards and the mother listened with a smile to their shouts and chatter until the sounds were lost in the distance. On entering the house she stirred up the fire and set about preparing supper.
The sun set, leaving a trail of golden glory on the water, and she was still alone. The day’s work was done and the simple meal was ready. The mother walked to the end of the clearance and gazed and listened; neither sight nor sound rewarded her. She shouted their names at the highest pitch of her voice. There was no response, save that a heron, scared from its roost, flapped its great wings above her head and sailed over the darkening waters for a quieter place of refuge.
“It is impossible anything can have befallenthem,” she said to herself; “the calves could not have gone far and the path is plain. No, they must be safe, and I am foolish to be the least anxious. Holy mother, shield them from evil!”
Returning to the house, she threw a fresh log on the fire, and placing the food where it would keep warm she closed the door, casting one disconsolate look across the dark water at the western sky, from which the faintest glow had departed. Taking the path that led to the pasture, she hastened with hurried step to seek her children. She gained the pasture. The cows were quietly grazing; there was no other sign of life. Her heart sank within her. She shouted, and her cries pierced the dew-laden air. There was no response. She sank upon her knees and her prayer, oft repeated, was, “Mother of pity, have compassion on a mother’s sorrow and give me back my little ones!”
The thought suddenly seized her that the children had failed to find the calves and, in returning, had not taken the path, but sought the house by a nigh cut through the woods. She sprang to her feet and hastened back. Alas! the door had not been opened, and everything was as she left it.
“My God!” she cried in the bitterness of her disappointment, “I fear me the wolf garou has met and devoured my children. What shall I do? Marie, my pretty one, wilt thou not again nestle in thy mother’s bosom nor press thy cheek to mine? Holy Virgin, thou who hadst a babe of thine own,look on me with compassion and give back to me my innocent lambs.”
Again she sought the pasture, and even ventured, at her peril, to thread in the darkness the woods that surrounded it, shouting, in a voice shrill with agony, the names of the missing ones, but no answering sound came. Heedless of her garments wet with dew, of her weariness, her need of food and sleep, she spent the night wandering back and forth between house and pasture, hoping to find them at either place, and always disappointed. The stars melted away one by one, the twitter of the birds was heard, the tree-tops reddened, and the sun again looked down upon her. She resumed the search with renewed hope, for now she could see. With the native confidence of one born in the bush she traversed the leafy aisles, but her search was in vain. There was only a strip of bush to be examined, for a great swamp bounded it on one side as the St Lawrence did on the other, and into the swamp she deemed it impossible the children could have gone. She was more convinced than before that a wild beast had killed them and dragged their bodies to its lair in the swamp. Stunned by this awful conjecture, to which all the circumstances pointed, her strength left her, and in deep anguish of spirit she tottered homewards. On coming in sight of the shanty she marked with surprise smoke rising from the chimney. Her heart gave a great leap. “Theyhave returned!” she said joyfully. She hastened to the door. A glance brought back her sorrow. She saw only her husband and her eldest son.
“What ails thee? Your face is white as Christmas snow. We came from Coteau this morning and found nobody here. What is wrong?”
“Joseph,” she replied in a hollow voice, “the wolf garou hath devoured our children.”
“Never! Thou art mad. There is no wolf garou.”
“I leave it all with the good God: I wish there was no wolf garou.” Then she told him of the disappearance of the children and of her vain search. Husband and son listened attentively.
“Pooh!” exclaimed Caza, “they are not lost forever to us. Get us breakfast and Jean and I will track them and have them back to thee before long. You do not know how to find and follow a trail.”
An hour later, shouldering their rifles, they set forth. The day passed painfully for the poor mother, and it was long after sunset when they returned. They had found no trace of the wanderers. They had met the calves, which, from the mud that covered them, had evidently been in the swamp and floundered there long before they got back to solid land at a point distant from the pasture. The father’s idea was that the children had been stolen by Indians. Next day the search was resumed, the neighbors joining in it. At nightfall all returned baffled, perplexed and disheartened; Cazamore confident than before that the Indians were to blame. After a night’s rest, he set off early for St Regis, where he got no information. Leaving there, he scoured the forest along Trout River and the Chateaugay, finding a few hunting-camps, whose dusky inmates denied all knowledge of the missing girls. He pursued his toilsome way to Caughnawaga and came back by the river St Louis without discovering anything to throw light on the fate of his children. The grief of the mother who had been buoying herself with the expectation that he would bring back the truants, is not to be described; and she declared it would be a satisfaction to her to be assured of their death rather than longer endure the burden of suspense. Again the father left to scour the wilderness that lies between the St Lawrence and the foot-hills of the Adirondacks, hoping to find in some wigwam buried in forest-depths the objects of his eager quest. On reaching Lake Champlain he became convinced that the captors were beyond his reach, and, footsore and broken-hearted, he sought his home, to make the doleful report that he had not found the slightest trace.
The leaves fluttered from the trees, the snow came in flurries from the north, the nights grew longer and colder, and, at last, winter set in. When the wind came howling across the icy plain into which the St Lawrence had been transformed, and the trees around their shanty groaned and wailed,the simple couple drew closer to the blazing logs and thought sadly of their loved ones, pinched with cold and hunger, in the far-away wigwams of their heartless captors.
“They will grow up heathens,” murmured the mother.
“Nay, they were baptized,” suggested the father, “and that saves their souls. I hope they are dead rather than living to be abused by the savages.”
“Say not that, my husband; they can never forget us, and will watch a chance to come back. Archange will sit on thy knee again, and I will once more clasp my Marie to my bosom.”
When bedtime came they knelt side by side, and in their devotions the wanderers were not forgotten.
Time rolled on, and Caza and his wife became old people. Each year added some frailty, until, at a good old age, the eyes of the mother were closed without having seen what she longed for—the return of her children. The husband tarried a while longer, and when he was laid to rest the sad and strange trial of their lives grew fainter and fainter in the memories of those who succeeded them, until it became a tradition known to few—as a mystery that had never been solved.
Archange, holding Marie by the hand, on reaching the pasture, followed the fence to find wherethe calves had broken out, and then traced their footprints, which led to the edge of the swamp. Here she hesitated. “Marie, you stay here until I come back.”
“No, no; I will go with you; I can jump the wet places, you know.”
“Yes, and get tired before you go far. Wait; I’ll not be long in turning the calves back.”
Marie, however, would not part from her sister, and followed her steps as she picked her way over the swamp; now walking a fallen tree and anon leaping from one mossy tussock to another. The calves were soon sighted, but the silly creatures, after the manner of their kind, half in play and half in fright, waited until the children drew near, when they tossed up their heels and ran. In vain Archange tried to head them. Cumbered by Marie, who cried when she attempted to leave her, she could not go fast enough, and when it became so dark that it was difficult to see the sportive animals, she awakened to the fact that she must desist.
“Marie, we will go home and leave the calves until morning.”
“But if we don’t get them they will have no supper.”
“Neither will you; let us haste home or we will not see to get out of the swamp.”
“There is no hurry; I am tired,” and with these words Marie sat down on a log, and, pouting at her sister’s remonstrances, waited until the deepeninggloom alarmed Archange, who, grasping the little hand, began, as she supposed, to retrace the way they had come. Marie was tired, and it now being dark, she slipped repeatedly into the water, until, exhausted and fretful, she flung herself on the broad trunk of a fallen hemlock and burst into tears. Archange was now dreadfully alarmed at their situation, yet it was some time before she was able to persuade her sister to resume their journey. They moved on with difficulty, and, after a while, the sight of solid green bush rising before them gladdened their strained eyes. “We have passed the swamp!” joyfully exclaimed Archange. They reached the ridge and scrambled up its side. The heart of the elder sister sank within her for she failed to recognize, in the starlight, a single familiar landmark. Could it be that, in the darkness, she had pursued the reverse way, and, instead of going towards home, had wandered farther away and crossed an arm of the swamp?
“Are we near home, Archange? I’m hungry.”
“My darling, I fear we will have to stay here until daylight. We’ve lost our way.”
“No, no; mother is waiting for us and supper is ready; let us go.”
“I wish I knew where to go, but I don’t. We are lost, Marie.”
“Will we have no supper?”
“Not tonight, but a nice breakfast in the morning.”
“And sleep here?”
“Yes, I will clasp you and keep you warm.”
“I want my own bed, Archange,” and the child broke down and softly wept.
Finding a dry hemlock knoll, Archange plucked some cedar brush, and lying down upon it, folded Marie in her arms, who, wearied and faint, fell asleep. It was broad daylight when they awoke, chilled and hungry. Comforting her sister as best she could, Archange descended to the swamp, confident that they would soon be home. She had not gone far, until she was bewildered. The treacherous morass retained no mark of their footprints of the night before, and she knew not whither to go. Long and painfully they struggled without meeting an indication of home, and the fear grew in Archange’s breast that they were going farther and farther away from it. Noon had passed when they struck another long, narrow, stony ridge, which rose in the swamp like an island. Gladly they made for it, and seeking an open space, where the sunshine streamed through the interlacing foliage, enjoyed the heat, as it dried their wet garments and soothed their wearied limbs.
“If we only had something to eat,” said Marie, wistfully.
“Oh, we will get plenty of nuts here. See, yonder is a butternut tree,” and running; to it Archange returned with a lapful, which she broke with a stone as Marie ate them. They satisfied her craving, and laying her head on the sunny bank shefell asleep from fatigue. As soon as her breathing showed that she was sleeping soundly her sister stole from her side to explore the ridge and try to discover some trace of the way home. She found everything strange, and the conviction settled upon her mind that they were lost and that their sole hope of escape was in the searching-party, which she knew must be out, finding them. Little did she know that the morass their light steps had crossed would not bear the weight of a man, and that they were hopelessly lost and doomed to perish in the wilderness. Had she been alone she would have broken down; the care of her sister sustained her. For her she would bear up. On returning, she found her still asleep, and as she bent over her tear-stained face and lightly kissed it, she murmured, “I will take care of Marie and be her little mother.”
The thought of home and mother nigh overcame her. Repressing the rising lump in her throat, she busied herself against her sister’s waking. She increased her store of butternuts, adding beechnuts and acorns as well and broke them and arranged the kernels on basswood leaves, as on plates. She drew several big branches together and covered them with boughs which she tore from the surrounding cedars, and when the bower was complete she strewed its floor with dried ferns. She had finished and was sitting beside Marie when the little eyes opened and were greeted with a smile.
“Oh, I have been waiting ever so long for you, Marie. We are going to have a party. I have built a bower and laid out such a nice supper. We will play at keeping house.”
The child laughed gleefully on seeing the arrangements, and the forest rang with their mirth as the hours sped on. When evening approached Marie grew wistful; she wanted her mother; she wanted to go home, and Archange soothed her with patient care.
“Look at the bower, Marie! See what a nice bed; won’t you lie down on it? And what stories you will have to tell mother of our happy time here!”
The child, charmed by the novelty, crept in, and laying down her curly head fell asleep to the crooning of her sister. The stars as they hung over the tree-tops gazed downwards in pity on the little girls clasped in each others’ arms in the sleep of innocence, and the soft south wind sighed as it swept by, sorrowing that it could not save them. A murmuring was heard in the pine-tops.
“Must they perish?” asked the guardian angel.
“They must; no help can reach them,” answered Nature with a sigh. “Unwittingly they have strayed from the fold into the wilderness, these poor, helpless lambs, and must suffer. Only to man is given the power to help in such extremity.”
“Can you do nothing?” pleaded the angel.
“Yes; I shall lighten their last hours, give thema speedy death, and prevent the tooth of ravenous beast or crawling worm touching their pure bodies. Think me not cruel. I cannot perform the acts allotted to mankind, but am not, therefore, as some deem me, cruel and stolid; my spirit is tender, and what is in my power I’ll do.”
Sad of countenance the angel turned and glided to the side of the sleeping children. Stooping over them he whispered in their ears, and they smiled in their sleep and dreamt of home, of dancing on their father’s knee, of being tossed to the rafters by their brothers, and they felt the touch of their mother’s hand and heard the sound of her voice, and they were very happy.
* * * * *
When they awoke the song of a belated greybird, perched overhead, greeted them, and they lay and listened and watched the movements of a brilliantly colored woodpecker, as it circled the trunk of a spruce. Looking into the face of her sister, Archange saw that it was pale and pinched and that her smile was wan and feeble.
“Will father be here today?”
“I hope so, Marie; are you tired of me?”
“Oh, no; I do love you so, but I do want mother and—and—a drink of warm milk and a piece of bread.”
“Well, perhaps you will get them soon, and we will be happy until they come.”
They rose and Archange busied herself in settingforth breakfast, but both, though very hungry, now loathed the sight of nuts. Wandering, hand in hand, to find something more acceptable, they found in a raspberry thicket a bush with a scant crop of second-growth berries. Making a little basket of the bark of the white birch they nearly filled it, and returning to their bower, sat down to enjoy them, fashioning out of reeds make-believe spoons and asking each other if they would have cream and sugar. The play went on and faint laughter was heard. When the last berry was gone, the gnawing hunger re-awoke and the feverish heat of tongue and palate, which the acid juice had allayed, returned. Marie would not be comforted. She wanted to go home; she wanted her mother; she wanted food, and burying her face in her sister’s lap sobbed as if her heart would break and she would not be comforted. Archange felt as if she must give way to despair, but she repressed the feeling and bore up bravely. The trials and responsibilities of the past thirty-six hours had aged her, and, child as she was in years, she acted like a woman towards her sister, whom she alternately soothed and tried to divert. While leaning over her, in affected sportive mood, something soft brushed past her face and crept between them. It was a grey squirrel. Marie opened her weeping eyes, looked wonderingly for a moment, and then, with delighted gesture, grasped the little creature, and beaming with joy, pressed it to her lips.
“It is Mignon; my own clear little Mignon! What caused you to run away from me, you naughty boy?”
It was a tame squirrel, Marie’s pet, which, a week before, had scampered off to the woods. There was no doubt as to his identity, for beside its evident recognition of Marie, it retained the collar of colored yarn she had braided and tied round his neck. Hunger, home and mother were forgotten in the delight of recovering her pet, for whom she busied herself in getting breakfast, and he was soon sitting before her gravely disposing of the nuts she handed him, one by one.
“Cannot Mignon guide us home?” she suddenly asked.
“Oh, yes; Mignon knows the way; but we would have to follow him over the trees. I am afraid you could not jump from branch to branch; I know I could not.”
“Oh, I will tie a string to him and make him walk before us,” and with pretty prattle she entered into a conversation with the squirrel, telling him how they were lost and he was to guide them home, for she wanted to take dinner with mother. Mignon gravely listened and nodded his head as if he understood it all. Then he ran up a tree or two by way of exercise, frisked with another squirrel, peeped at Marie from all sorts of unexpected places, and ended his capers by jumping on to her shoulder when she was not expecting him, and pretended he was going to nibble her chin. Marie was delighted;Mignon had diverted her mind from her sufferings and Archange assisted by suggesting they should make a little house for him. Of sticks and reeds they framed it and plucking from the swamp lapfuls of ripe cat-tails they lined it with them, making a nest soft as velvet. This done, they had to fill a larder for him, and had a great hunting for all manner of nuts, and in this part of their work Mignon took great interest and pretended to assist, tho’, despite all warnings from Marie, he persisted in clasping in his forepaws the biggest butternuts and running away to bury them in out-of-the-way places. When she became tired with her exertions, Marie took a nap and Mignon curled himself up on her breast and snoozed with one eye open.
Weak in strength and sick from hunger, Archange, no longer requiring to keep up appearances, flung herself down near by and wept bitterly. Why did not father come? Were they to die there alone and from want of food? Should she not try again to find the way home? She stood up, as if to consider which way to try, when her head grew dizzy and she sank down and knew no more until she was aroused by Marie climbing over her and kissing her. She knew by the sun that it was late in the day, and rising, the sisters walked slowly and unsteadily seeking berries. They found a few only and they again tried to eat nuts. They could not. Tracing the edge of the swamp they looked for blueberries, but their season was past. Suddenlya low bush, dotted with red berries, caught their sight. They found the berries small and of so peculiar a taste that, had they not been ravenous for food, they could not have eaten them. They picked the bush bare and went to their bower, where they ate them. A feeling of satisfaction followed, and Marie grew quiet and contented.
“Sing to me, Archange: do?” and the little maid laid her down to rest and listen. Her sister sang one after another the chansons her parents had brought with them from Acadia. She ceased and marked the satisfied expression that had overspread Marie’s countenance. Her eyes were closed and her hands folded. “Sing the Cedars’ song?” she whispered, in the voice of one about to sleep. By that name was meant a hymn Archange had heard at Christmas tide, when for the first time to her knowledge she had been in a church, having accompanied her father to the small village of the Cedars. She knew not the words of the hymn, but had carried away the tune. High and clear rose in the air and floated far away across the desolate swamp the song in which so many generations of believers have expressed their love for the Holy Babe—the ancient Latin hymn, Adeste Fidelis. She sang the strain over and over again until a strange torpor crept upon her, and her voice grew fainter until it ceased and her head sank beside that of Marie’s.
All nature was hushed. The remains of trees, long since burned, now gaunt and white, stood in the swamp as sentinels to guard the sleeping babes, and the giant pines, beneath whose cover they rested, seemed to lift up their hands to Heaven in silent pleading. Slowly yet surely the berries of the dread ground-hemlock did their work; stealthily as juice of mandrake or of poppy. The leaden hours of the long September night passed and inky clouds blotted out the stars, and when the sun rose he shot out a shaft of purplish light, which revealed the faces of the sisters, calm and cold in death, with Mignon whisking his head against the whitened cheek of his sweet mistress.
There was a roll of distant thunder; nearer and nearer it came; it grew darker and the air was hot and stifling. The forest groaned, and then there was an appalling crash and a blaze of lightning clad the scene in dazzling sheen. There was the red glow of fire; the bolt had struck a dead pine and instantly the surrounding trees, covered with withered leaves, that caught like tinder, were in a blaze. The storm shrieked, the thunder made the earth tremble, the rain fell in torrents, but higher and higher mounted the flames. It was the funeral pyre of Archange and Marie, and when it died out not a vestige of them was to be found.
Late in the fall of 1817 seven families of immigrants settled on the banks of the St Lawrence in Dundee, close to the St Anicet line and nearly opposite the village of Lancaster. With one exception, they had come from the Isle of Skye, and they named their settlement after their Scottish birthplace, which was not altogether inappropriate, for the strip of territory they had taken possession of was so surrounded on the land side by swamps as to be, in a sense, an island. Apart from two or three of their number who knew a little English, they spoke Gaelic and Gaelic only. They brought naught beyond strong arms and great endurance of privation, for their training as crofters and fishermen was of little use in their new surroundings. An untrodden wilderness of forest hemmed in their shanties, which were placed on the bank of the St Lawrence, and on the other side of the great river, which hereexpands into a lake two miles in width, were their nearest neighbors, who had shown them the greatest kindness. Highlanders like themselves, the people on the Glengarry side of the river had taken a lively interest in the newcomers, had made bees to give them a fresh start in life; crossed over the river to show them how to fell trees, build shanties, and make potash, and when spring came had, with true Highland generosity, lent them seed and assisted in brushing it in or planting it amid the stumps of their clearings. In the black mould of the virgin soil the potatoes grew with an abundance that surprised the Skyemen, though their astonishment was greater at the luxuriance of the Indian corn, which they saw for the first time, and at the excellence of the wheat. When the latter was threshed the next step was to get it ground. Their nearest mill was at Williamstown, in the county of Glengarry, and to reach it involved a fatiguing journey. It was a bright morning in the first week of October, 1818, that one of the settlers placed a bag of wheat in a canoe to take to this mill. It was his first grist—the first in his life of wheat—and he looked at the bag, as he deposited it carefully in the bottom of the canoe, with satisfaction not unmingled with honest pride, which was shared in by his wife and children, who came to the water’s edge to see him off. Assisted by his son, a handsome young fellow,the paddles were dipped, and the boat was soon skimming lake St Francis, for so the expansion of the St Lawrence between Cornwall and Coteau is named. When half-way across they paused to rest, and as they viewed the noble sheet of water, embedded in a setting of bush whose bright colors glowed in the shimmering sunshine of a true Canadian fall day, they thought they had never seen anything more beautiful. “And the best of it is, Allan, that the water is fresh and not salt, and,” fixing his gaze on his shanty, which he could discern beneath the trees, “the land is our own, and there will be no rent to pay at Martinmas.”
When they got to the mill they found there were other customers before them, and having to wait their turn, it was nearly dark when their canoe passed out of the river Raisin into lake St Francis on their homeward journey. The sun had set behind a cloud, and the lake, though calm, had an oily appearance—both signs of a coming change. They had gone far enough to lose sight of the shore they had left, when a slight swell of the waters was noticed, and immediately afterwards the hollow sound of approaching wind. Both practised boatmen of the Old World, they knew what these signs meant. “Had we our old boat, Allan,” said the father, “I would not care for the squall that’s coming, but this cockle-shell will not stand a rough sea. It may soon blow over. Yonder I think I see the light your mother hasset in the window to guide us. We will hurry before the waves get big.” Urged by their strong arms, the canoe flew over the lake, but swifter came the storm, and before many minutes a violent gust of wind, accompanied by pelting rain, burst upon them. Like all shallow sheets of fresh water, the lake was quickly beaten into a fury, and before long waves large enough not merely to toss the boat but to drench its occupants were coursing over it. The danger of swamping was imminent when the father’s skill averted it. Directing his son to stretch himself full length in the bottom of the canoe, using the bag of flour as a pillow, it steadied under the living ballast. Then, taking his place at one end, the father brought the other bow-on the wind and skilfully kept it, by vigorous use of the paddle, in a line with the waves, so that the canoe breasted and slipped over them, hardly shipping a drop of water. The fury of the squall soon passed, and was succeeded by a gale which blew steadily from the west. With that fine respect for parents which characterizes Highlanders, Allan had offered no suggestion, obediently doing what his father ordered. When he heard him say to himself “My God, we are lost!” he exclaimed: “No, father, the storm will blow by, and we will then make our way home this night yet.”
“Yes, the storm will blow over, but where will we be then? You forget, my poor boy, that thelake ends in rapids, and we are hurrying towards them as fast as wind and wave can drive us. Your mother and your sisters and brothers will have sore hearts tomorrow.”
Allan had not thought of the rapids. On their way from Montreal he had seen them, watched their foaming surges, and knew their canoe could not live a moment among them. The thought of death was bitter to him, and as the hours passed and they went drifting downwards, amid the storm and darkness, towards the jaws of the dreaded danger, his heart was filled with anguish, not alone for his mother, his brothers and sisters, but for her with whom he had secretly plighted troth.
“Allan, I will shout to you when I see the rapids. Jump and try to make the shore, for it may be near; do not trouble with me, or we both may be lost. Be a good lad to your mother, and tell her and your brothers and sisters my last thoughts were of them.”
Mrs McDonald had tidied up the one and only room of the shanty, and was expecting momentarily the arrival of her husband and son, when she was terror-struck by the unlooked for sound of the squall among the trees. Hurrying from the house, she stood on the beach, on which thewaves were beginning to break, but the darkness and rain prevented her seeing many yards. In her agony of apprehension she shouted, in the hope that the missing ones were near: from the stormy waters came no reply. Bidding her children, who had followed her, to go and alarm the neighbors, very soon every soul in the settlement was by her side, talking rapidly in Gaelic and excitedly suggesting what ought to be done. They were all agreed that if the canoe was on the lake when the storm burst she was lost, and their sole hope was she had not left the other shore. The only other canoe they had was no larger than the one that was gone, and to launch it in order to search the lake, would be to add to the calamity. All that could be done was to build a bonfire on the most prominent point, to guide the missing canoe if within sight, and hope for the best. Laying his hand on Mrs McDonald’s arm, as she stood wistfully gazing on the now foaming waters of the lake, the oldest man of the settlement said, “Come with us out of the cold and wet; we can do no good here.” Gathered in the shanty, the fire was replenished until it roared in the ample chimney, and the neighbors talked hopefully to the family and despondently among themselves. When the hope that the storm was only a passing squall was dissipated by its settling into a gale, under the influence of which the waves lashed the sandy beach with a roar so appalling that it stifledthe groanings of the forest, the men agreed among themselves that McDonald and his son were at the bottom of the lake, and their hearts grew sore for those whom they believed to be widowed and orphaned by the calamity. Fighting with her fears, Mrs McDonald tried to persuade herself all would come right, and assumed a complacency she was far from feeling. “Often,” she remarked, “has my husband been out worse nights than this in Scotland, and surely he who could fight the Atlantic is not going to be drowned in a bit freshwater loch in Canada. To be sure there was a winding-sheet in the candle last night, but that did not signify, seeing that it was made from the fat of a wild deer, and not from that of a Christian sheep. Not one of my family, and it goes far back, Mrs McGillis, ever died without the wraith of Ian Ban, our forbear, who was laird of Glenish, being seen, and it is not to be said he failed to warn me when my husband and oldest son were near their end. I am not afraid of them. They will be here tomorrow—Donald, like a good man, go and see that the fire is blazing on the point—and we must keep our composure. What is that?”
Close to the dwelling rose a prolonged howl, beginning at a low pitch and rising to a piercing climax, the sound of which blanched every face. Those nearest the door opened it; none ventured out. Every ear was strained. In a few minutesthe howl was repeated. “Pooh!” said a young man, “it is only a wolf.”
The incident broke the tension of suspense, and one after another began telling stories of their old life in Skye, having more or less bearing on the situation of those they waited for. Thus the hours wore away, and it was noted with satisfaction that at the turn of the night the gale broke and speedily died away. The waves still ran too high for the canoe to be launched to attempt to gain the other side of the lake and make enquiries, but they were falling fast. When it was agreed it would be safe to go, the settlers again gathered on the beach, which was reddened by the beacon fire that still blazed. There was unexpected delay; a paddle was found to be broken, and another had to be made, and ere all was ready a faint whitening of the eastern sky told of the coming day. It was now a beautiful night, calm and still, the glassy swells of the lake reflecting the sparkle of the stars. Many a searching glance was cast across the broad lake for the missing boat, and dreadful apprehensions filled each bosom as to the secret its dark waters kept. The canoe was about to start, the two men going with her had dipped their paddles, and the group on the beach clustered closer to see her off, when, faint and from afar, came over the surface of the lake a plaintive murmur. Not a word was uttered, but every ear was strained to catch thesound. It came again fitfully. Neighbor looked with agony into the blanched face of neighbor. The one idea possessed them, that it was the dirge of the spirits of their departed friends as they were journeying to the place of souls. The mother impulsively sprang forward until the water laved her feet and cried, “My Allan, my first-born, is it you that is calling? Oh speak to me and tell where in the cold deep I will find you.”
There was a shriek behind her which froze every heart. A young woman, the winsome daughter of one of the settlers, had fallen senseless on the sand.
The patriarch of the settlement who, at the first sound, had knelt and placed his ear close to the lake, soon rose in stern reproof. “Is it thus you welcome God’s mercy? Your son, Mrs McDonald, and your lover, Flora, for so you have just revealed to us he is, is alive and well. It is his voice singing the boat-song of the Isle of Mist, and I hear the plash of oars.” And so it was, for now clear and strong came from the lake the words of the song, and soon keen eyes could see the approaching canoe. There was a shout of joy, and tears streamed from every cheek. A few minutes more and the lost were among them.
When they had re-entered the shanty and the cup of rejoicing had gone round, Mr McDonald told his story. As time passed, and the canoe drifted farther down the lake, he had given upall hope and expected every moment to feel it caught in the strong current that leads to the rapids, and to hear their dreadful sound. “I was praying for you in my heart,” he said, “when I heard the sound of breaking water. Allan, I shouted, here they are at last; make ready to jump and swim for your life. No sooner said than my paddle struck bottom and I saw trees before me. Quick, Allan, jump and we will drag the canoe ashore. We both sprang out at the same time, and catching hold of the canoe ran her through the breakers and high on to the bank. We were wet and so cold, but, oh, we were thankful that we were saved. After a while we got up and moved round to see if a house was near, when we found that we were on one of the small islands that lie at the head of the rapids. A few rods one way or the other and we would have swept past it and been lost. It was God’s own hand that had steered our canoe. Well, we waited patiently till the gale went down, and as soon as we dared we launched out again and paddled homeward. And a long pull we had, but it warmed us.”
The bag of flour was opened. The water had caked the outside layer, leaving the interior quite dry. The flour was examined with interest, being the first from wheat grown in the settlement.
“Well,” exclaimed the patriarch, “it is time we were in our beds, though it be now good daylight,and we will go to sleep with thankful hearts that our good neighbor is with us and not at the bottom of the lake. And you, Mrs McDonald, we wish well to, for you have this morning found not only the son that was lost, but a daughter you knew not of, and a good girl she is too. There is plenty of land here for all, and we will build them a house and hold our New Year in it, and, please God, we will not again risk life in these French cobbles of canoes, but build a big boat.”
And so it came to pass. The New Year beheld Flora and Allan made one with a merry-making that became a tradition in the settlement, their Glengarry friends driving over the icy bosom of the lake to it in a drove, and bringing two pipers to supply the music, and when spring came a boat, large enough to carry half a dozen bags of flour, built after the best Isle of Skye design, was launched in the creek beside the shanty of William McPhee, and served the settlement many a long year.
“Abner, I want you to go a message for me after breakfast.”
“Yes, mother. Is it to Four Corners?”
“No; you are to go to the Blands, with a basket for old Mrs Whiting.”
“Why, that’s in Canada, and they’re our enemies.”
“Our governments are at war, but we old neighbors are not.”
“But the Indian guard may catch me.”
“If they do, they’ll not harm a boy like you.”
“Yes, they would, mother. They’d scalp anything that’s Yankee, and I hate them and every Britisher. I don’t see why you want to do a good turn to those who’ve been trying these two years to cut our throats and burn our houses.”
“Abner!” exclaimed Mrs Smith reproachfully.
“I want to hit them every time, mother, and if I have got to go, you’ll let me take father’s rifle.”
“No, Abner; you’ll go as you are, and if the Indian guard fall in with you, their captain will let you go when you tell your errand. If congresswant to fight king George, that’s not to say we are to hate and hurt those we have lived beside so long and who’ve done us many a kindness.”
This conversation took place in the log shanty of a first settler in northern New York in the fall of 1813. War was then in progress, and a few days before General Hampton had returned from his attempt to reach Montreal, and with his withdrawal to winter quarters the settlers along the frontier supposed hostilities were ended for the season. When war had been declared the settlers on the American side of the lines were in terror of being visited by the Indians, whom the British government had enrolled to watch the frontier, but as time proved their apprehensions groundless, they were little affected by the contest that was being waged, beyond having their intercourse with the settlers on the Canadian side restricted, and that intercourse had been close and frequent, for the difference in allegiance had not affected their friendship. In the bush distance goes for little, and though five miles apart, the Blands were Mrs Smith’s nearest neighbors to the north, and their relation had been of the warmest kind. Unable, owing to the presence of Hampton’s camp at Four Corners, to do their trading there, Mrs Smith knew that the Blands must be without groceries and even flour, and, at this, the first opportunity, she was eager to send them some little comforts to vary their coarse fare, especiallyfor Mrs Whiting, the grandmother of the household, who was often bedridden from rheumatism.
The basket was ready for Abner by the time he had finished breakfast. His imagination had been fired by seeing the soldiers at fort Hickory and at Four Corners, and to carry the basket in the usual way was out of the question. Securing thin withe-ropes, made from the bark of the moosewood, he slung the basket on his shoulders like a knapsack, and catching up a cedar pole he grasped it as if it were a musket, and shouting to himself the order, “Eyes front; right foot forward; quick march!” off he set, fancying himself one of Colonel Purdy’s crack brigade. Mrs Smith as, from the door, she watched her boy depart on his errand, while she smiled at his wayward fancy, could not help feeling a thrill of pride in his lithe, active figure, giving promise of a handsome man. That he was shrewd and quick-witted, as well as tall and strong, for his years, she well knew.
The weather had been extremely wet for the season; the ground was soaked and the leaves had long ago been washed from all the trees except the beech. During the night the rain had ceased, and the morning, dull and hazy, gave promise of a dry day. Once out of his father’s clearance, Abner’s way lay through the bush. There was a foot-track that led to the Blands, but now it was so hidden by the litter of leaves that it was indiscernible. That did not signify. Born in thewoods, they were so familiar that Abner could find his way in any direction he chose, with as much ease as the dwellers in cities traverse their intricacies of streets and lanes. As he threaded his way among the trees, the chatter of the chipmunk, the whirr of the partridge, and the tapping of a belated woodpecker were the only sounds that fell on his ear, and no sight more unusual than an occasional grey-squirrel or troop of deer. When he had crossed the line that divides Chateaugay from Hinchinbrook, and was fairly on Canadian territory, he became more circumspect, and his fancy changed. He was no longer the right-hand man of a file of soldiers, but a scout, sent into the enemy’s country to get information. Keeping under every cover that offered, looking furtively around before venturing to cross any open that came in his way, treading on the hardest ground he could find, and doubling on his track where the soil treacherously retained his footprints, he found playing at Abner the spy much more exciting than that of Abner the soldier. Suddenly a crackling sound arrested his footsteps. It was, he knew, no noise made by any denizen of the forest, and he turned towards whence it came. Soon he caught the faint odor of smoke, and then he knew there was a fire near—probably the camp-fire of the British guard. Prudence whispered to him to turn away and pass on; curiosity, to go and have a peep at the camp.He was only a boy of fourteen, and curiosity carried the day. Slowly he stole towards the point whence the crackling sound of blazing branches came, and so noiselessly that even the squirrels failed to start at his approach until he passed their perch. Now he could see the smoke, and next the glare of the embers. He thought he saw the figure of a man, but as, when he looked again, the shape was gone, he thought he had been mistaken. He paused to listen. There was no sound save the drumming of a partridge behind him. Redoubling his caution, he crawled towards the spot whence the smoke rose, and when he slowly lifted his head from behind a thicket, he was startled to find himself looking into a camp of the dreaded Indian guard, of whom he had so often heard but never seen. There they were, 21 in number, lying prostrate in sleep in a circle around the fire and the pale autumn sunshine streaming down upon them. Uncouth looking men they were, with daubs of paint on their faces that made them hideous. Beside each one lay his musket, and some even, in their sleep, grasped their hatchets, prepared, if surprised, for immediate combat. Their captain Abner recognized from his being white and wearing the sword and crimson sash of a British officer. With eager eye Abner scanned the unexpected scene, and when the first feeling of fear died away, he grew bold and thought of what he might have accomplishedhad his mother allowed him to take his father’s rifle with him. The exploits of Robert Rogers and Ethan Allen floated before his mind’s eye and he planned how, had he been armed, he might have shot the captain through the heart and have disappeared before any of the sleeping group knew what had happened. Satisfied with the sight, he moved to withdraw and resume his journey. At the first attempt to turn around, his arms were seized with a grasp of iron, and, looking up, he saw he was in the hands of an Indian, whose painted visage glared with ferocity. Appalled for a moment, Abner stood still, then he made a wrench to get away. It was in vain. Drawing the boy’s arms together, the Indian grasped them by the wrists with his left hand, and when the right hand was thus released he thrust it into the folds of his belt of wampum. Abner’s eyes followed the movement, and when the hand was withdrawn grasping a short, thick knife, which he recognized as the scalping-knife he had heard so much of, a paroxysm of terror smote him, and he gave a piercing shriek. With a diabolical grin, as if he enjoyed the boy’s terror, the Indian passed the knife before Abner’s eyes and tried its edge on his soft chubby cheek, then flourished it before plunging into his scalp. As he made the motion, a billet of wood came hurtling past, and striking the Indian on the head, he fell, dragging Abner down with him. He waslifted up by the captain, whom Abner had seen asleep a minute before, and as he passed his hand over him to make sure he was unhurt, he poured forth a torrent of angry words, in his own language, at the Indian, who gave no sign that the knockdown blow he had received had hurt him. As the captain led Abner into the circle of Indians, who had been awakened by his shriek, he told him he had been scolding his assailant for attempting to scalp him, and said in apology that he was a heathen Indian of the far west, a Blackfoot who had strayed to the Ottawa, and joined a band of the Iroquois. “I do not allow my men to be cruel; my orders be to watch the frontier to prevent invasion by your soldier, and not to hurt anybody.” Then he asked Abner who he was and why he had come nigh their camp, and was answered frankly.
“Ah, my leetle man,” said the captain, who spoke with a French accent, “if you tell me true you get away; but I’m afraid you carry letter,—despatch—eh!” Taking the basket from his back, the captain lifted out its contents, among which were half-a-dozen apples, then a luxury in the new settlement, where the few fruit trees planted had not begun to bear. An Indian snatched up one and took a bite, laughingly saying, “Yankee apple better nor Yankee bullet.” The other contents were of as innocent a description: a few little luxuries that might tempt an invalid, asmall bag of flour, and a bottle of liniment. The captain, satisfied there was no letter in the basket, carefully replaced its contents, and then examined Abner’s clothing, making him even take off his shoes. While thus engaged an Indian slouched up beside the captain and, throwing down his musket, began to speak to him, and Abner listened to the guttural sounds with awe.
“Dis man,” said the captain, “tell me he see you leave clearance and follow you. He say, when you come to Canada side you act as ’fraid, hide behind bush, and walk ve-ray fooney. Why you no want to be seen?”
Abner blushed at this description of his enacting the role of Indian scout and perceived how his conduct could be misconstrued. He remembered, also, his mother’s repeated injunction that truth is better under any circumstances, and, with a shamed smile on his face, he told what he was doing. The captain grinned as he listened and patting Abner on the back said: “I know; boy once myself and now fadder of four; you play one leetle game of Indian spy, not tinking real Indian watch you. You one good, honest-faced boy. Pity you Yankee.”
The Indian who had tracked him, smiled as the captain spoke, showing he understood English, and, like all his race, enjoyed banter. “You smell smoke, eh?” he said, “hold up nose and go on. Then you hear partridge drum (here he imitatedthe sound) me partridge and signal to Joe; Joe steal up behind, catch arms, pull out knife, you—squeal,” and here, as if overcome by the ludicrousness of the scene, the Indian grinned from ear to ear without emitting a single sound of laughter, and poked Abner in the side.
“You make big mistake tink you come to Indian camp without we know,” remarked the captain, “when we sleep, sentinel all round like fox.” Changing the subject, the captain tried to get from Abner what he knew of the movements and whereabouts of the American army, particularly of the number still in camp at Four Corners, which Abner admitted he had visited the day before. It was without avail. The boy realized the information he would give might be used against his countrymen, and he answered evasively. “Ah, well,” exclaimed the captain, “it no matter; we’ve our spies in your camp so well as in de bush.”
The Indians were now busily preparing breakfast, and Abner watched them with curious eyes as they placed potatoes and pieces of pork to cook upon the hot embers, while a copper-kettle with tea was slung on a crooked stick. Their duties required them to be on the patrol along the frontier during the night, which accounted for their sleeping so late.
“Vell,” said the captain, “what you tink of dese Indian? Yankee able to catch ’em? Eh? Youtell, when you get home, what great fellow Indians be. Now you may go, and give Mrs Bland de compliment of Captain de Versailles and say he will do her de honor of taking supper with her.”
Thus permitted to resume his journey, Abner struck into the bush, and in half an hour had reached the house of the Blands. He was hailed with an uproarious welcome from every member of the large household, for there was the delight not only of resuming long-suspended friendly intercourse, but the proof in his appearance that the warfare waged between the two governments had not lessened the goodwill of their neighbors. Unpacking the basket, it was found to contain a little of everything they had been so long deprived from being shut out from the American stores. On the cork being drawn from the bottle of liniment, granny declared that the very smell had done her rheumatics good. As the contents of the basket lay spread on the table, a sudden thought seemed to strike Mrs Bland, which she communicated in a whisper to her husband. There was a quiet consultation, and then she addressed Abner.
“We have something strange to tell you, and mum’s the word. Night before last, when we were asleep, a knock came to the door and then it was pushed open. Father rose, stirred the fire, and got a light, when we saw it was an Americansoldier. He was drenched to the skin, for it was pouring rain, and, oh, what a pale, thin ghost he looked! He crept up to the fire and sank in a heap beside it, muttering, ‘Thank God.’ I saw he was perishing, and got some hot drink for him, and after a while he told his story. He had been with Hampton’s army in the battle, where he had received a flesh wound in the side, and when Purdy’s brigade fell back he was unable to keep up with them, got separated from his company, and, in the dark, lost his way. Next morning he tried to find the trail of the army, but failed, and then, guided by the sun, struck south, knowing he would in time reach the States. Too weak to carry them, he threw away his musket and ammunition, and crawled, rather than walked. When the last biscuit in his haversack was eaten, he had to trust to beech and butter nuts, though he was not hungry, for his wound fevered him. Often he lay down, thinking he would never rise again, but he was young and strong, and when he revived a little he pushed on, until, to his great joy, he struck our clearing. He thought he was in the States, and when we told him our house was on the Canada side he was dreadful afraid we would give him up, and he would be sent to Montreal as a prisoner. We soon eased him on that score; our big trouble was to hide him from the Indian guard until we could get him sent across the lines.”
“Yes, mother,” interrupted one of her sons, “they came to our house the next day, and are close by yet.” Abner shivered.
“Well,” resumed Mrs Bland, “I made the poor Yank take off his wet clothes and lie down in our warm bed. I dressed his wound for the first time, and it was raw and nasty, I can tell you, and then he fell asleep like a baby, poor fellow. I cleaned and set his clothes to dry, and as I sat mending them next morning father and I consulted. To keep him in the house was to give him up to the Indians, and he was too weak to travel farther. Where to hide him until he was able to leave bothered us, when, all of a sudden, father thought of the big platform that stands near the spring in the bush, two acres back, which the Indians raised last year for still hunting. It was late in the day when he awoke, and he found himself weak as water but the fever had left him. We told him what we intended, and, after he had eaten something, father and the boys carried him to the platform, rolled him in a blanket and covered him with elm bark and cedar brush. We have taken him victuals after dark, and last night, seeing it was wet, we fetched him over and gave him a night’s rest in bed. He eats little, for his stomach is turned against our common food, and he’ll be glad of what your mother has sent. Now, Ab, can’t you think of some plan to get this poor fellow across the lines?”
He could not think of any, for the woods were full of Indians, but he would like to visit the wounded soldier. Preparing as tasty a repast as she could out of the victuals sent by Mrs Smith, Abner and Mrs Bland started for his place of concealment. As is their custom, the Indians had raised the platform in a thicket, which commanded a runway, and was therefore well concealed, and, what was of equal consequence at that season, sheltered from the wind. On coming beneath it, Mrs Bland spoke, when there was a movement above, and a face, so ashy pale and wasted that Abner felt a creeping feeling pass over him, peered from beyond the edge. “Here’s a boy from Yankeetown and a dinner cooked from the provisions he has brought.”
“He’s welcome,” faintly whispered the soldier. “I wish I could go back with him.”
Taking the basket in one hand, Abner climbed up to the platform with the agility of a squirrel, and helped the soldier to raise himself and arrange the food. When he saw the wheaten bread, he said it put him in mind of home, and he fell to and made the best meal he had partaken of since the fatal day on the Chateaugay. His strength returned with the grateful food and he asked Abner many questions, what Hampton had done after the battle, where he was now, were many killed, did the British follow him up, and were there many Indians in the woods. When heheard of Abner’s encountering the Indians that morning, he shuddered, and Abner could not help thinking of what his fate would be did one of them ferret out his retreat, a reflection that increased his desire to save him. Leaving the soldier in a cheerful and hopeful mood, he slipped back to the Blands, puzzling his head to devise some plan of rescuing his countryman.
After dinner, which consisted of corn boiled in milk, and potatoes with fried venison, the Bland boys proposed to go partridge shooting, and Abner agreed, as he was in no hurry to return home. So off they went. In beating the woods, a coon was started, and it supplied the idea Abner had been seeking for. Before they returned home he had worked it out and determined to submit it to Mrs Bland. On approaching the door they heard peals of laughter, when one of the boys remarked, “The captain has come; he’s a jolly one with the girls,” and on entering, they found that personage entertaining the family in his liveliest style. Abner bit his lip and saw he must bide his time. Supper is an early meal in the backwoods, and after enjoying it to the full, and diverting and flattering each of the household, Captain Versailles, with many apologies for duty requiring him to leave such delightful company, left to return to his Indians. No sooner had he gone, than Abner asked abruptly, “These moonlight nights don’t you go coon-hunting?”
“Don’t we, Ab,” answered one of the boys, “think you’d say so if you saw the skins nailed on the barn-door.”
“Well, then, I’ve a plan to get the soldier away with me,” which he proceeded to lay before them. Briefly it was, that the boys should go with their guns a mile or so east and close to the boundary-line, when they would begin firing and shouting. The Indians, thinking it was an attack from Fort Hickory, would hurry to meet the invaders, leaving the western part of the frontier unguarded, and let Abner slip across with the soldier.
“It’s feasible,” said Mr Bland, “the trouble is the poor fellow isn’t able to walk a rod, let alone five miles.”