CHAPTER XVIITHE LAKE BY STARLIGHT
A thousand stars shone upon Seneca Lake; clear stars that smiled goldenly alike on scenes of strife, such as we have left, and pictures of thrifty peace, to which we now turn.
On the shore lay Catharinestown, the Shawnee village, one of the most lovely spots in the world. All the land between the shore and that charming cluster of lodges was richly cultivated; fruit trees stood thick where the hemlocks and oaks had fallen. If a grove or thicket was left here and there, it was the result of Catharine Montour’s fine taste, for her gold had served to turn the wilderness on that lone shore into a paradise, and her own poetic spirit had shed beauty on everything she touched. Thus grape-arbors screened the humbler lodges, and bowers of peach-trees drooped over the unseemly wigwams. What Sir William Johnson had done for his estate in the Mohawk Valley, Catharine Montour, in less time, and with better taste, had accomplished at the head of Seneca Lake.
If she had achieved nothing more than this advance in civilization, the life of that unhappy woman had not been utterly thrown away since she came to the wilderness. With her benevolence, her gold, and those wonderful powers of persuasion, with which no woman was ever more richly endowed, she had softened many a savage heart, and won many a rough acre of forest into smiling culture. The large stone mansion which Queen Esther haughtily denominated her palace was by far the most imposing building in the settlement. Butnearer the brink of the lake, and sheltered by a grove of sugar-maples, was a smaller lodge of hewn logs, on a foundation of stone, with a peaked roof and deep windows, neatly shingled and glazed. The walls were covered on one end by a massive trumpet vine, that crept half over the roof, where its burning flowers lay in great clusters through all the late summer weeks. Wild honeysuckles, sweet-brier, and forest-ivy crept over the front, and a majestic tulip-tree sheltered it with a wealth of great golden blossoms when these were out of flower. Thus, with the rude logs clothed with foliage, the windows brilliant with pure glass, and no uncouth feature visible, Catharine Montour’s residence was far more beautiful than that of her fiercer mother-in-law, and a stranger might well have marvelled to see anything so tasteful in the neighborhood of an Indian settlement.
From this dwelling, Catharine Montour and her daughter looked out upon the lake on that starlit night. Queen Esther and the chief had each gone forth with a detachment of warriors to their separate warpaths. Thus, but a few of the tribe remained at home, and these were under Catharine’s direct control, for the younger brother of Gi-en-gwa-tah had accompanied the chief, and no meaner authority was acknowledged in the tribe.
It was a pleasant scene upon which Catharine gazed. A hundred canoes, each with a burning torch at its prow, lay, as it were, sleeping upon the waters. At her command, the warriors left behind by her mother-in-law and husband had gone out to spear salmon, and she was watching the picturesque effect of the canoes on the water, with a gentle thrill of admiration of which her heart had been incapable a few months before. Tahmeroo was at her feet, resting against her lap, and looking—oh, how wistfully!—far beyond the group of canoes with their flaming lights, that felllike meteors on the waters. Her heart, poor girl, was full of wild longings and those vague fears which always follow want of trust in a beloved object.
They had been silent a long time; one watching the fishers, the other looking far beyond them into the still night.
“Mother!”
Catherine Montour started, and withdrawing her eyes from the lake, looked with a kindly glance into the earnest face lifted to hers.
“Well, my child?”
“Is it possible—oh, tell me, mother—mightn’t he come to-night?”
“My poor child!”
“Why do you call me poor child, mother, and with that voice, too? Is it because you fear that he will not come?”
“Not that, Tahmeroo. I dare say he will be here before long; for your sake, I hope so.”
“And only for my sake, mother; is there no love in your heart for my husband?”
“I love you, child,” said Catharine, with a tender caress.
“And not him! Oh, mother, try and love him a little, if it is only for my sake.”
“Be content; I shall give him all the love he merits, and more for your dear sake.”
“It is a long, long time, since he went away from Wyoming. We have been here one entire week; indeed, it seems like years. Johnson Hall is not so far away that he cannot come back any time now—is it, mother?”
“No, my child; he might have been here to-night. But your father left us soon after he did, and has not yet been heard of.”
“Has he been gone so long? I did not know it,” said Tahmeroo, innocently.
Catharine sighed; had she, too, become of so little account with her child?
“The chief has gone through a part of the country thick with enemies,” she said, probing that young heart with jealous affection.
“But he is wise and brave”, answered Tahmeroo, proudly. “The very glance of our chief’s eyes would send an enemy from his path.”
“But there is war on every side now. It may be a long, long time before he comes back to the lake.” “Oh, no; when Walter comes he will send all our warriors to help the great chief.”
Again Catharine sighed. It was hard to see the very soul of her child carried off by that bad man. Tahmeroo did not heed the sigh, but started up suddenly, catching her breath with a throb of keen delight.
“Look, mother, look away, away off where the shadows are thick. The stars cannot strike there, and yet I see light—one, two, three, a hundred—the black waters are paved with them—oh, mother, he is coming.”
“You forget,” said Catharine, straining her eyes to discover the lights which Tahmeroo saw at once with the quick intelligence of love. “It may only be Queen Esther returning with her detachment of warriors—Heaven forbid that she has found an enemy.”
“No, mother, no. I am sure those torches are lighting him home. Let us meet him. The stars are out, and all the lake is light with our salmon fishers. It is warm and close here—my canoe lies among the rushes—come mother, come, I will carry you across the lake like a bird.”
Catharine arose with a faint smile and followed her daughter to the shore.
With eager haste, Tahmeroo unmoored her little craft, and rowing round a sedgy point, took her mother in. The salmon fishers lay in a little fleet a few rodsoff, reddening the waves with their torches. At another time Catharine would have paused to rock awhile on the waters, and watch the Indians at their picturesque work, as she had done a hundred times before; but Tahmeroo was full of loving impetuosity; she cut through the crimson waters—saw spear after spear plunged into their depths, and the beautiful fish flash upward and descend into the canoes without notice. How could such scenes interest her when the distant shores were lighted by his presence? Away she sped, turning neither to the right nor left, but on and on, cleaving the silver waters like an arrow, and wondering why the distance seemed so much greater than it ever was before.
At last a fleet of canoes came rounding a point—cast a ruddy light over the forest trees that fringed it in passing, and floated out on the broad bosom of the lake. In the foremost canoe sat a young man with his hat off, and the night winds softly lifting his hair.
“It is he! oh, mother, it is he!” said Tahmeroo. All at once her strength forsook her—the oars hung idly in her hands, and her face fell forward upon her bosom. She remembered how coldly Butler had parted from her, and became shy as a fawn. Like a bird checked upon the wing, her canoe paused an instant on the waves, then turned upon its track, and fled away from the very man its mistress had sought in such breathless haste.
But she had been recognized. A shout followed her retreat; two canoes shot from the rest, and pursued her like a brace of arrows.
“Tahmeroo! Tahmeroo!”
It was his voice—he was glad to see her; never had so much cordial joy greeted her before. She dropped the oars, crept to her mother’s bosom, and burst into a passion of tears—oh, such happy, happy tears! Thatmoment was worth a lifetime to her. A canoe darted up. The Indian girl felt herself lifted from the arms of her mother and pressed to her husband’s bosom.
As Catharine relinquished her child, a hand clutched the other side of her canoe, and turning quickly she saw Gi-en-gwa-tah stooping toward her, while the cold grey face of Queen Esther peered up on her from behind. Catharine was chilled through by that face, and cowered down in the boat, afraid almost for the first time in her life—and why? The Indian chief was grave and kind as ever; as for the old queen, she was smiling.
Butler and Sir John Johnson went to Catharine’s lodge, while Esther marched up to the settlement at the head of her warriors.
In the interior of her house Catharine had gathered so many beautiful objects which appertained to her civilized life, that it appeared more like the boudoir of some European palace than a lodge in the backwoods of America; books, pictures, and even some small specimens of statuary stood around; draperies of rich silk flowed over the windows; and while his tribe maintained most of their savage customs, no prince ever dined on more costly plate and china than did the Shawnee chief when he made Catharine’s lodge his home.
With her face all aglow with happiness, Tahmeroo hurried back and forth in the room where her mother sat with her guests, preparing the evening meal with her own hands, for Catharine seldom allowed any personal service that was not rendered by her daughter; it was the one thing in which her affection had ever been exacting.
Tahmeroo loved the gentle task which affection imposed on her. With lips smiling and red as the strawberries heaped in the crystal vase she carried, the young girl brought in the luscious fruits and cream, glancing timidly from under her black lashes to see if Butler was regarding her. He looked on, well pleased.How could he help it? Bad as he was, the wild grace of that young creature would make itself felt even in his hard heart. And Tahmeroo was happy. She did not dream, poor child, that a new power had been added to her attractions since Butler had learned that she was heiress to a title and the vast wealth he could never hope to touch, except through her. Three weeks before, the selfish man would have laughed at the idea of a wild, bright girl like that breaking her heart from his indifference; now her life was very precious to him, and there was no degree of affectionate regard which he would not have feigned, rather than see her cheek grow a shade paler.
Catharine saw this, and her heart rose against the man whom she was forced to acknowledge as her son; but Tahmeroo was satisfied. Of the inheritance that might sometime be hers, she knew nothing, and cared less; her husband’s love was all the treasure she coveted on earth.
Butler saw Catharine’s eyes following him, and struck with a malicious desire to retaliate on her, broke out, just as they were all seated at the table, with a rude allusion to the English commissioner who had visited Johnson Hall on the evening before its master was driven away.
“Oh, dear lady, I forgot to tell you,” he said; “Sir John had the honor of entertaining an old friend of yours the day before he left the Hall; a person who knew you well in England, he said; and who professes that it was to purchase his life you married the chief here.”
“Captain Butler,” exclaimed Sir John, with sharp indignation; “by what right do you repeat conversation heard at my table?”
“Hallo, have I been blundering, and told tales in the wrong presence? I am sure Murray spoke of the whole thing openly enough.”
A low cry broke from Catharine; but one, for she seemed frozen into stone by that name. Every feature was hushed and cold; her very hands looked hard and chiselled, like marble.
The chief glanced at her, a slow fire rose and burned in his eyes. His savage heart was stung with memories to which those few cruel words had given a bitter interpretation. No king upon his throne was ever prouder than that stern chief.
“Surely, that stately old potentate was not a former lover,” said Butler, glorying in her anguish; and urged on, both by malice and self-interest, to wound that proud spirit in every possible way; but his coarseness overshot its mark—Catharine arose, bent her head in calm courtesy, and saying, in a low, sad voice:
“I cannot forget that you are my daughter’s husband,” moved quietly out of the room.
The chief arose also and left the house. He wandered in the woods all night, while she lay fainting and still as marble on her chamber floor; but the bolt was shot, and no one ever knew how terrible was the anguish of that night.
The next day Catharine and the chief recognized each other as ever. But alas! in their souls they never met again.
For weeks and months after this, Butler made his home in the Shawnee camp, till at last the war raged too hotly, and he went once more to his murderous work.