“Grief is proud, and makes its owner stout.”
“Grief is proud, and makes its owner stout.”
—King John
It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when Mrs. Headley, wrapped in her husband's loose military cloak and forage cap, once more approached the apartment of Ronayne, situated at the inner extremity of the low range of buildings inhabited by herself. This disguise had been assumed, not because she felt ashamed of the errand on which she was bound, but because she did not wish to provoke curiosity or remark, in the event of her encountering, while going or returning, any of the reliefs or patrols, which she knew orders had been given, for the first time that night, to have changed every half hour. In the extreme darkness of the night, the difference of her height could scarcely be distinguished from that of her husband, and it was not likely that any one would address the supposed commanding officer, whom all would assume anxious in regard to the health of his subordinate, and on his way to ascertain the extent of his malady.
The lights were burning dimly in the apartment. There was a window on each side of the door, and the farthest of these she fancied she saw shaded by a human form from without. She stopped suddenly, and kept her eyes riveted on the object, holding in her breath that she might not betray her presence. Presently the shadow was removed from the window, and lost altogether to her sight. A movement of the light now made within was reflected on the figure of Ronayne, who, with a candle in his hand, seemed to be approaching the door. He was still dressed as he had thrown himself on his bed, on entering, in the deerskin hunting-frock he had worn during the day, and his temples were bound with a blue-bordered scarlet bandanna handkerchief—for he had ever loathed the abomination of a nightcap as being symbolical of the gibbet. As he came nearer to the window, the light which he bore reflected distinctly without and upon an Indian standing in the doorway, similarly habited, even to the very turban.
Mrs. Headley felt that she could not be mistaken in the figure, but if any doubt had existed, it would have been dissipated when involuntarily calling out, and in a tone meant to imitate the harsher voice of her husband, the name of Wau-nan-gee, the face was wildly turned in the broad light to penetrate the darkness which half enshrouded her from view, and the features of the boy distinctly revealed. Surprised, but armed with strong resolution, she made a rapid forward movement to seize and detain him, knowing well that Ronayne, at the sound of voices, would come forth at once to her assistance; but the Indian, without uttering a sound, stole rapidly away towards the picketing in the distance, and was seen no more.
As Mrs. Headley now approached the door, it was opened by Ronayne, who apologised to her for not having sooner attended to her knock, but declared it to be so low that he had not distinctly heard it.
“Nay,” she replied, when she had entered and taken a seat, “I did not knock, nor had I intended to knock; I have disturbed another midnight visitor.”
“Another visitor! To whom do you allude, my dear Mrs. Headley? I must have deceived myself, or surely I heard, soon after I had risen from my couch, the name of Wau-nan-gee.”
“You did not deceive yourself,” she returned, gravely; “I saw Wau-nan-gee at the threshold of your door as plainly as I see you, and habited in the same manner. I called to him, but he fled.”
“Impossible!” said the anxious officer; “wherefore should he flee after knocking for admission? What motive could he have in coming? and how could he obtain admission unperceived? I have no doubt that fatigue and excitement and the lateness of the hour have tended to call up this vision. Would that you could make it real.”
“Ronayne,” repeated Mrs. Headley, gravely, “you well know that I am not given much to imagine that which is not. Even to the very handkerchief you have on your head, his dress was identical, was Wau-nan-gee's; and I well recollect the occasion when, at the distribution of the annual presents to the Indians, you appropriated that handkerchief to yourself, because, as you said, Wau-nan-gee had manifested so much good taste in choosing one like it.”
“But, my dear Mrs. Headley,” returned the officer with gravity, while, after closing the shutters, he took a seat at her side, “you must pardon me if the very fact of the resemblance in dress only increases my conviction of the illusion. In all probability, it was my shadow that you saw reflected by the strong light upon the glass upper half of the door.”
“As you please, Ronayne; but, for my own part, I have not the slightest doubt on the subject. You ask how he could get here? Even, as you will remember, you once made an evasion from the fort—well intended, I grant, but still an evasion from the fort—over the picketing of the fort. But the matter would not be of so much consequence at any other time. At present, it is connected with much that I have to reveal; but how so connected, I cannot even fancy myself. Ronayne,” she continued, taking his hand and pressing it in her own, “disabuse yourself of the idea that Wau-nan-gee, whatever he may have been, is now your friend.”
“Wau-nan-gee not my friend?” returned the officer, sadly. “Well, I was prepared in some degree to hear the assertion, Mrs. Headley, our conversation an hour since being well calculated to make me revolve the subject in my mind during your short absence, and I have done so. When you mentioned a moment ago that Wau-nan-gee had been at this door, seeking for admission, I felt confident that you had done him great wrong; but now, I confess, since you so positively assert his presence and sudden evasion, I am led to apprehend, I know not what. Speak; let me hear it all,” he concluded, with bitterness.
“Ronayne, my almost son,” she said, leaning her arm affectionately on his shoulder, “it was with the view that suspicion should be excited in your mind by my language that I stated what I did. I did not wish the truth to burst upon you with annihilating suddenness, and therefore sought to prepare you for the blow I am destined to inflict.”
“And that is—” he said, with stern and furrowed brow, a pallid cheek, and compressed lip.
“Nay, Ronayne, I like not that tone and manner.”
“Proceed, Mrs. Headley, pray proceed; I am ready to hear all. Whence this sorrow so much keener than that I now endure, and how is it connected with Wau-nan-gee!”
“Has it never occurred to you to connect the one with the other?” she observed, in low and uncertain accents.
“Ha! is it that?” he exclaimed, vehemently starting and hurriedly pacing the apartment. “It is then even as your words had led me to infer. Still, I would not approach the subject myself. I waited for something more direct from your lips. You have uttered it, and I am now prepared to hear all. But, Mrs. Headley, mark me, be well assured of all you say; let not mere appearances be the groundwork of your suspicions, or you destroy two generous hearts for ever; but,” he resumed more calmly, yet with a look of fierce determination, as he once more seated himself at her side, “although the love I bear Maria is deeper far than man ever bore for woman, assure me that it is not returned, that this soft—eyed boy, with Indian guile, has stolen the love in which I lived, and then I tear her from my heart for ever. Think me no mere puling fawnster, craving a love that is not freely given. As the passion that I feel is fire, hot as the Virginian sun that nurtured me, so will it become ice the moment it ceases to be fed by that which first enkindled it. Yes,” he continued, bitterly, “I could tear my heart out if in its weakness it could pine for one, however once endeared, who had ceased to respond to all its devotedness and worship. I might think of her, but only to sustain my wounded spirit. Contempt and scorn for her fickleness, not love—base and grovelling love—should ever be associated with her image, when undesiredly it arose to my repelling memory. But oh, God!” he exclaimed, bowing his head upon hand, and yielding to his deep emotion, “is it possible that this can be! Can it be that I should ever speak and think of Maria thus! Oh, whence this too great affliction! why this separation of soul from soul! this rending asunder of the mystic bond that once united us! But stop!” and he raised his head, the hot and inflaming tears still gathering in his eyes, “she cannot surely thus have acted, and yet—and yet—oh! Mrs. Headley, if you knew the desolation of my heart, you would pity me. It is crushed, crushed!”
During this painful ebullition of contradictory feeling, in which pride and love combated fiercely for the ascendency, Mrs. Headley had been deeply affected; but feeling the necessity for going through the task she had imposed upon herself, she strove as much as possible to appear calm and collected, even severe. His last appeal brought tears from her own eyes.
“Indeed, indeed, Ronayne,” she exclaimed, pressing his hand fervently between her palms, “I do pity you, I do sympathize with you, even as a mother, in the desolation of your heavily-stricken heart. I had dreaded this emotion, and only my strong regard for yourself gave me strength to undertake the infliction of the counter wound, which I knew alone could preserve you from utter misery and despair; and yet, if you would cherish the illusion, if you would not that the stern reality should sear up each avenue to hope, to each sweeter recollection of the past, I will, if you desire it, abstain.”
“Nay, not so, Mrs. Headley,” replied the unhappy officer; “you are very cruel, but I know you mean it well; proceed—let me be told all. The stronger your recital, the more confirmatory of the utter destruction of my dreams of happiness, and the better for myself. I have already said that scorn and contempt alone can dwell in my heart, if that which I surmise you are about to relate be but found to be true. I am ready for the torture—begin!” and, as if with a dogged determination to hear, and suffer while he heard, he leaned his elbow on the back of his chair, and covered his eyes with his hand.
The recital need not be repeated here. All that had occurred on the preceding day, and that which is already known to the reader, Mrs. Headley now communicated, adding that she had been undecided in her opinion on the subject, until the answer to the question put to Von Voltenberg convinced her that the whole thing had been planned, and that she had willingly thrown herself into the power of Wau-nan-gee. The few guns, she concluded, were evidently a signal of which she availed herself by instantly galloping off, while Ronayne was yet at some distance from her, and unhorsed.
Prepared as the unhappy officer had been for intelligence involving this mysterious change of affection in his wife, he was utterly dismayed when Mrs. Headley recounted what she had witnessed in the summer-house, to which she had voluntarily gone, and from which she probably never would have returned had not accident disclosed the secret of the trap—door.
“This is, indeed, a terrible blow!” he said, solemnly, removing his hand and exhibiting a pale cheek and lip, and a stern and knitted brow; “but now I know the worst, I better can bear the infliction. Strange, I almost hate myself for it; but I feel my heart relieved. I know I am no longer cared for there, and wherefore seek to force an erring woman to my will? And yet, when I think of it, of the monstrous love that weds rich intellect and gorgeous beauty to the mere blushing bud of scarce conscious boyhood, I feel as one utterly bewildered. Still, again, since that love be hers, since she may not control the passion that urges her to her fate, so unselfish am I in my feeling, even amid all the weight of my disappointment, that rather would I have her free and happy in the love she has exchanged, than know her pining in endless captivity, separated from and consumed with vain desire for a reunion with myself—her love for me unquenched and unquenchable.”
“Ah! what a husband has she not lost! Generous, noble Ronayne, that is what I had expected. You bear this bravely; I knew you would, or never should I have dared to enter upon the matter. But your generosity must go further; it must never be known that Maria has gone off willingly—no doubt must be entertained of her continued love for you. She must still be respected, even as she is pitied and deplored; the belief that she has been made captive and carried off must not be shaken.”
“The struggle at her heart must indeed have been great before she fell,” remarked Ronayne, musingly, and with an air of profound sadness; “for although her appearance in the rude vault beneath the floor of the summer-house would appear to indicate compulsion, her after conduct justifies not the belief. The imploring earnestness with which she entreated you, Mrs. Headley, not to make known what you had seen to me; her abstaining from all censure of Wau-nan-gee at the moment, and her subsequent interest in him, too forcible to be concealed; her strange and unaccountable manner during our ride, as if to banish some gnawing reproach at her heart; her galloping off when freed for the moment from my presence, and at the evident signal given to announce that everything was prepared for her reception; the appearance of her trunks in the farm-house, evidently, I am now convinced, taken there within a day or two; the pretended desire of the Indians, friends of Wau-nan-gee, to make me a prisoner, and thus induce in me the belief that such was her fate. Oh! yes,” he continued, rising and pacing the room rapidly, “I can see through the whole plot. His party were Pottowatomies, painted as warriors of a distant tribe, that suspicion might be averted from themselves. Their object was not to make either Von Voltenberg or myself prisoners, but merely to give such evidence of hostility as to cause us to believe they were enemies. Oh, what sin, what artifice for a woman once so ingenious, a boy so young! But now I am assured of all this, I am better—I am better. Some sudden inspiration has flashed the truth upon me, that I might, find that relief which a knowledge of her unfaithfulness alone can render me.”
“It must have been even so,” rejoined Mrs. Headley; “for, certainly, the fact of yourself and Von Voltenberg being allowed to escape by hostile Indians, who could so easily have shot you down, or taken you prisoners, had they been really so inclined, appears to me to be incredible.”
“And yet, if it was planned,” pursued Ronayne thoughtfully, “what opportunity of communication had they to arrange their measures? Wau-nan-gee has, we know, long been absent for weeks, or certainly not once within the fort.”
“Ronayne,” said Mrs. Headley, significantly, “I speak to you of these things freely as to one so much younger than myself. Have I not just said that I saw Wau-nan-gee most distinctly at your door as I entered—nobody but ourselves know that he has got in, much less in what manner.”
“I understand you, my dear Mrs. Headley; you would infer that he has stolen in at some obscure part of the fort, and under cover of the darkness; but even if so, am I not always at home?”
“Never on guard, Ronayne; or am I mistaken,” she added with a faint smile, “in supposing that the officer on duty passes the night with his men?”
“By heaven it is so,” returned the Virginian vehemently, and striking his brow with his open palm, “this intimacy is of long standing. Though pretending absence, Wau-nan-gee has been ever present. My guard nights have been selected for those interviews. The poison of his young love has been infused into the willing woman's ear and heart, and now that I recollect it, often on my return home have I seen her, pale, dejected, and full of thought—he has entreated her to fly with him—to suffer him to be the sole, the undivided sharer of her love—she has hesitated, struggled, and finally consented. By the same means by which his entrance has been effected, the trunks of Hardscrabble have been removed, and all was prepared for her evasion yesterday, had she not been baffled in her object by your sudden appearance. Oh, I see it all!”
“Ronayne, Ronayne!” resumed Mrs. Headley, after the strong excitement of her feeling had been in some measure calmed, “how rapidly you arrive at conclusions. Much of what you say is probable—for your sake, I would it were all so, but let us be guided in our judgment by circumstances and facts alone. If it had at first been arranged that the plan adopted with such success to-day, why the visit to, and detention in, the vault of the summer-house where every preparation had been made for a long concealment?”
“That,” replied Ronayne, “is a mystery which time alone can unravel. I confess that it involves a contradiction susceptible of explanation only by themselves. This, in all human probability we shall never know; but then, again, forgive me, Mrs. Headley, for thus detaining you with any selfish interests, but your voice, your counsel, your very knowledge of the facts—all breathe peace to my wounded spirit; but, I ask again, why the scream she gave—why the emotion, the grief, she evinced when, on opening the trap-door, you saw her reclining exhausted on that rude couch? I would reason the matter so as to convince myselfthoroughlythat her flight has been her own wilful act, for then I shall the less regret, even though I should not be able to banish her image wholly from my mind. You have said that you saw Wau-nan-gee leave the summer-house with an excitement in his eye and manner you had never witnessed before, and that this corresponded with the state in which you found Maria a few moments later. Now, is it probable that if she had purposed anything wrong she would have asked you to accompany her, or that she should have asked you to wait for her, while visiting a spot whence she knew she never would return? Oh, no! this could never be. Her mode of evasion, if such had been intended, would have been very different; she would have chosen a moment when you were in some distant part of the garden, and saw her not, to steal into the summer-house. All clue, then, would have been lost, and the appearance of the Indians lurking about the cottage would naturally have impressed you with the belief that she had been carried off by them. How were they dressed?”
“Even as you have described the party that pursued, or affected to pursue you yesterday,” exclaimed Mrs. Headley, “in the war paint of the Winnebagoes. I know it well, for their chiefs have often been in council here.”
“Just so,” pursued Ronayne. “Is it not then reasonable to suppose—mark, I do not weakly seek to justify the wrong which but too certainly exists, but I would dissect each circumstance until the truth be known—is it not, I repeat, reasonable to suppose that, even if Maria wanted an evidence of her abduction, she would have gone towards the cottage rather than the summer-house. It would have been easy enough then for the Indians who, I have no doubt, were the same party I encountered at Hardscrabble, to have carried her off before any assistance could arrive from the fort. On the contrary, she was certain of discovery in the summer-house into which she had been seen to enter, and every part of which she would have known would have been most strictly searched. Wherefore, too, the object in keeping her confined, as it were, in a dungeon, when the free air was open to her, and the boundless wilderness offered health and freedom?”
“I have thought of all that, Ronayne,” replied Mrs. Headley, “and I cannot but suppose that this retreat was a temporary one. In all probability, when Wau-nan-gee issued from the summer-house, he was in the act of proceeding to make his preparations for finishing the work just begun, but seeing that I had not yet left the grounds, waited to know what my movements would be before he took any farther step. My stationing the boat's crew before the gate, where they could command the whole of the view between the cottage and the summer-house, acted as a check upon them, and little dreaming, I presume, that I had discovered the trap-door, they had intended, on my departure across the river, to avail themselves of my absence, and bear her off into the forest. As for the deep grief which I witnessed on entering the summer-house, that may easily be accounted for. A woman of refinement, education, and generous susceptibility, however unhappily carried away she may be by a resistless, and, in her view, fated passion, does not without a pang tear herself from old associations to enter upon new, especially where they are of an inferior character. She may mourn her weakness even at the moment she most yields to it. One dominant thought may fill her soul—one master sentiment influence all her actions, and govern the pulsations of her heart, but that does not exclude the workings of other and nobler emotions of the mind. Even when she feels herself most tyrannized over by the passion, the infatuation, the destiny against which she finds it vain to struggle, sorrow for her altered position will intrude itself, and then is her heart strengthened and her mind consoled only by the reflection that the sacrifice was indispensable to the attainment of that, without which, in the strong excitement of her imagination, she deems life valueless. Charity should induce us to believe that it is, what I have already termed it, a disease, for on no other principle can we account for that aberration of the passions, the intellect and the judgment which can lead such a woman to forget that mind chiefly gives value to love, and to sacrifice all that is esteemed most honorable in the sex by man, to the fascination of mere animal beauty. Ah! Ronayne, this must have been the case in the present instance. You see, I probe you deeply—but enough!”
“Dear Mrs. Headley,” returned the Virginian, pressing her hands warmly in his own, “I am satisfied that, humiliating as it is to admit the correctness of your impression, there is but too much reason to think that it is even as you say. When I recur to the past of yesterday and to-day, I cannot doubt it; and yet I confess there is much buried in obscurity which I would fain have explained. Were it made clear, manifest as the handwriting on the wall, that Maria had abandoned me for Wau-nan-gee, I should be at ease. It is the uncertainty only that now racks my mind. Could Iknow, not merelybelieveher false, a weight would be taken from my heart. Oh! Mrs. Headley, why did you not suffer Wau-nan-gee to enter—why drive from me the only means of explanation at which I can ever arrive—and, yet, what could have been his object in thus venturing here after having despoiled my home of its treasure? If guilty, would he have dared to approach me? and that he might not do so with evil intent, is evident from the fact of his having knocked for admission. Oh! Mrs. Headley, I know not what to think—my mind is chaos—I am a very changeling in my mood: not from want of energy to act when once assured, but from the very doubts that agitate my mind, made wavering by the absence of all certain proof.”
While the soul of the unfortunate young officer was thus a prey to every shade of doubt, and manifesting the very weakness that his lips denied, Mrs. Headley regarded him with, deep concern. She could well divine all that was passing in his heart, and the chord of her sympathy was keenly touched. For some moments she did not speak, but appeared to be lost in her own painful reflections. At length, when Ronayne, who during these remarks had been rapidly pacing the room, threw himself into a chair, burying his face in his hands, evidently ill at ease, she drew forth her packet, the seal of which was broken, and handed it to him, saying with sadness—
“My dear Ronayne, I had hoped that I should not have been under the necessity of making known to you the contents of this note, but I see it cannot be withheld. It was placed in my hands, just after I had parted with Mrs. Elmsley, by Serjeant Nixon, who stated that Maria had left it with him for me, as she rode out this morning, telling him it was of the utmost importance that he should deliver it.”
“I saw her in conversation with him,” said Ronayne, as he took the note and approached the light to read it, “and on asking what detained her, she said, hastily, that she was merely sending you a message—not a document of the importance which you seem to attach to this. I felt at the time that she was not dealing seriously with me; but as it seemed a matter of little consequence I did not pay much attention to it; but, let me read!”
The following were the contents of the note, which Ronayne eagerly perused, with what profound emotion it need scarcely be necessary to describe:
“My dear Mrs. Headley: When you receive this, you will have seen me, perhaps, for the last time; but I am sure that you will believe that, in tearing myself from the scene where so many happy, though not altogether unchequered days have been passed, no one occupies a deeper place in my regret than yourself, whom I have ever regarded as a second mother. The dreadful reasons which exist for it, however, prevent me, as a wife, from acting otherwise. I know you will condemn me—tax me with ingratitude and selfishness. I am prepared for reproach; but, alas! no other course remains for me to pursue. If I have yielded to the persuasions of the gentle, the affectionate, the devoted Wau-nan-gee, it is not so much on my own account as in consideration of the hope held out to me of a long future of happiness with the object of my heart's worship. For him I can, and do make every sacrifice, even to the incurring of your displeasure, and the condemnation of all who know me. But let me entreat you to remember, that if he is seemingly guilty, I alone am truly so, and chargeable for the deep offence that will of course be attributed to him. Remember that I have planned the whole; and should it be decreed by fate that we never meet again, I pray God in his infinite goodness to preserve those whom I now abandon, and spare them the distraction that weighs upon this severely-tried heart.
“I promised you a candid explanation of everything relating to what you saw yesterday. This you will find fully detailed in the accompanying document, written after you had left me, and before the return of Ronayne last night from fishing.”
“Document! what document?” asked the Virginian, interrupting himself, and in a voice husky from emotion; “there is nothing here, Mrs. Headley, but the letter itself.”
“Nothing but that and the piece of embroidery which Maria had worked for me were contained in the packet,” was the reply. “In her hurry she must have forgotten to inclose it.”
“In the accompanying document (resumed the Virginian, reading) you will find the nature of my connexion with Wau-nan-gee fully explained. You will, of course, make such use of all that is necessary to your purpose as you may deem advisable; but, as I make that part of the communication which refers to Wau-nan-gee strictly confidential, I conjure you never, in the slightest way, to allude to him as being connected either with my evasion or with the revelation I have made to you in the inclosure. Adieu, my dear Mrs. Headley. God grant we may meet again!
“Your own Maria.”
During the perusal of this note, Mrs. Headley had watched the countenance of Ronayne with much anxiety. She saw there evidence of strong and varied feelings which he made an effort to subdue, and so far succeeded that, when he had finished he returned the note to her with a calm she had not expected.
“There is no need of further confirmation now, Mrs. Headley,” he said, with a bitter half-smile. “You have, indeed, probed but to heal. All my weakness is past. To-morrow I shall be myself again, and attend the council. Pardon me that I have been the cause of detaining you so late, and believe me when I say that deeply do I thank you for the interest you have taken in me.”
“God bless you, Ronayne! Alas, you are not alone in, your trials—much of moment awaits us all. Good night!”
And, assuming her disguise, she speedily regained her home.
“Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day that cries—Retire, when Warwick bids him stay.”
“Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day that cries—Retire, when Warwick bids him stay.”
—Henry IV.
On the western bank of the south side of the Chicago River, and opposite to Fort Dearborn, stood the only building which, with the exception of the cottage of Mr. Heywood on the opposite shore, and already alluded to, could at all come under the classification of a dwelling-house. The owner of this mansion, as it was generally called, which rose near the junction of the river with Lake Michigan, was a gentleman who had been long a resident and trader in the neighborhood, and between whom and the Pottowatomie Indians in particular, a good understanding had always existed. Several voyageurs, consisting of French Canadians and half-breeds, constituted his establishment, and in the course of his speculations, chiefly in furs, with the several tribes, he had amassed considerable wealth. He was, in fact, the only person of any standing or education outside the wall of the fort itself, and of course the only civilian, besides Mr. Heywood—whom, however, they far less frequently saw—the officers of the garrison could associate with. His house was the abode of hospitality, and as, in his trading capacity, he had opportunities of procuring many even of the luxuries of life from Detroit and Buffalo, which were not within the reach of the inmates of the fort, much of the monotony which would have attached to a society purely military, however gifted or sufficient to their mutual happiness, was thus avoided. His library was ample, and there was scarcely an author of celebrity (the world was not overrun with them in those days), either historian, essayist, or novelist, whose works were not to be found on the shelves of his massive black walnut bookcase, made by the hands of his own people from the most gigantic trees of that genus that could be found in Illinois. He had, moreover, for the amusement of the officers of the little garrison, prepared a billiard room, where many a rainy hour was passed, when the sports of the chase and of the prairie were shut out to them, and for those who asked not for either of these amusements, there was a tastefully, but not ostentatiously, furnished drawing-room, with one of the best pianos made in those days, which he had had imported at a great expense from the capital of the western world, and at which his amiable and only daughter generally presided.
Margaret McKenzie had been born at Chicago, but having lost her mother at an early age, her father, profiting by one of his periodical visits to New York, had taken her with him for the purpose of receiving such an education as would enable her not only to grace a drawing-room, and make her a companion to a man of sense and refinement, but to fit her for those more domestic duties which the uncertain character of so secluded a life might occasionally render necessary, and where luxury and education alone were insufficient to a trading husband's views of happiness. After five years' absence, she had returned to Chicago, a girl of strong mind, warm affection, without the slightest affectation, and altogether so adapted in manner and education—for she eminently combined the useful with the ornamental—that her father was delighted with her, not less for the proficiency she had made in all that gives value to society, but because of the utter absence of all appearance of regret in abandoning the gay and enlivening scenes of the fascinating capital, in which she had spent so many years, for the still, dull monotony of the primeval forest in which her childhood had been passed.
But here she was not doomed to “waste her sweetness on the desert air.” There were only two officers in the garrison, besides Captain Headley, when Miss McKenzie returned to her native wilds—Doctor Von Voltenberg and Lieut. Elmsley. The third who made up the number of those attached to the company had a few days previously been shot and scalped by a party of Indians near Hardscrabble, while on his return to the fort from shooting the hen, or English grouse, of the prairie. His place was supplied by Ensign Ronayne, who had joined the garrison a few days after. Lieutenant Elmsley, captivated by the accomplishments and amiability of the fascinating Margaret, had offered her his heart and hand, and obtained her unreluctant promise speedily to share his barrack room, some twenty feet by twelve in dimensions. Meanwhile, in order to prove to him how well she was fitted to be a soldier's wife, not an article of food was ever placed before her father's almost constant visitors that did not in some measure pass under her supervision. Poor would have been the preparation of the grosser viands had not her directing voice presided; and, as for the tarts, and puddings, and custards,et hoc genus omne, no one who tasted could doubt that no hands but her own had operated in the fabrication; and the currant, the cranberry, the strawberry jelly, the peach, the plum, and the cherry preserve, and the currant and gooseberry wine! What, in the name of all that is delicate in gastronomy, could be more delicious or exhibit greater perfection of taste! So thought Von Voltenberg. He was in raptures. Such a wife, he thought, was all he wanted to his comfort; he could have dispensed, if necessary, with the more intellectual portions of the worth of Margaret McKenzie, but his imagination could not picture to itself perfection superior to that of an interesting and beautiful woman, manipulating among fruit, and sugar, and dough, until she had produced results far sweeter and much more prized by him than all the ornamental accomplishments in the world. It was even whispered that the Doctor, deeply sensible of the treasure he should obtain in the possession of so generally useful a wife, had absolutely proposed for her, but that she, without offending him, had rejected the honor. Whether it was so or not, no one knew positively, for Margaret McKenzie was not a woman to triumph in the humiliation of another, not because she considered it in any way a humiliation to a man that he did not so accord in sentiment with her as to render an union for life with him desirable, but because she knew it would, however absurdly, draw upon him the ill-natured comments of his companions. Be that as it may, whether or not he did offer and was rejected, it made no difference in his relations with the family. He ate her dinner, luxuriated over her preserves, and sipped her wine as plentifully as when first she had offered them to him; and they always were the best friends in the world.
Soon after the first rumor of Von Voltenberg's offer—and if the secret was betrayed, it must have been by himself, during one of his moments of devotion to his favorite whiskey punch—it was generally known throughout the fort and neighborhood that Lieutenant Elmsley was to espouse Miss McKenzie, and that the ceremony was only delayed until the arrival of his the officer so recently killed and scalped, as has been stated, was now almost daily expected. At length he came, and soon afterwards Captain Headley, duly commissioned to perform the service, in the absence of a clergyman, married them, Ronayne assisting as groomsman, and Mrs. Ronayne—then Maria Heywood—as bridesmaid. This was two years previous to the marriage of the Virginian himself, and the occasion on which he first met her whom he subsequently so fervently adored.
It was no privation to Mrs. Elmsley to forsake the almost luxurious ease of her father's house for the more sober accommodation of her husband's barrack-rooms. True, these were comfortably furnished, but still they had that primness which belongs ever to the quarters of a soldier; but from the moment of casting her destiny, she had determined in every sense to be a soldier's wife, and to inure herself from the first to the plainness incident to the condition. All she had transferred to the fort was her music and her books; and if at any moment caprice or inclination led her to desire a change, it was but to get up a little party, such as their limited social circle would permit, and transfer the amusements of the day to her father's more inviting mansion, where the servants had from herself learned all the art of management. Lively in disposition in the extreme, Mrs. Elmsley loved to promote the comfort of others; and as her husband possessed an equally happy temperament, they contributed not a little to enliven the circle of which, in point of gaiety, they might be said to be the centre.
The owner of the establishment himself—Mr. McKenzie—was fond of good living, and having arrived at an age when continued prosperity permitted a relaxation from the toils of the earlier and cooler portions of the day, loved to indulge after dinner in a large arm-chair, placed in a veranda that overlooked the fort and country around, and where the light air from the lake, waving through the branches of the thin trees, swept with refreshing coolness along the broad corridor. He generally smoked the fragrant herbs of the Indians, mixed with tobacco, and sipped the delicious clarets with which his cellar was stocked, and which he kept, not for sale or barter, but for the exclusive use of himself and friends.
Immediately after Winnebeg had left Captain Headley, he made his way to the mansion of Mr. McKenzie, whom he found, as usual, sitting in his veranda, enjoying his pipe and wine after dinner. The greeting was that of old friends long separated. They had known each other from their youth; and, while the Indian entertained the highest respect for the character and opinions of Mr. McKenzie, the latter in turn reposed the most unbounded confidence in the sincerity and integrity of the chief.
“Well, Winnebeg, my old friend, where do you come from? Where have you been all this time? I thought you had deserted us altogether. But I recollect now; Captain Headley sent you with despatches to Detroit. What news do you bring back? But first try a glass of claret. Harry!”—calling out to a son of one of his voyageurs, who acted in his household in the capacity of his private servant—“bring another chair and a wine-glass.”
“Yes, come from Detroit, Missa Kenzie,” replied the Indian gravely, as he seated himself, took his tomahawk from his side, filled it, and began to smoke; “bring him bad news for you—for all.”
“How is this, Winnebeg?” exclaimed his listener, putting down the glass which he had raised to his lips. “What bad news do you mean?”
“Leave him all dis,” he observed, as he swept his hand towards the fort and the outhouses and buildings containing Mr. McKenzie's property—the profits of a long life passed in a region to which he had become attached from very habit.
“Leave what! my property? I do not understand you, Winnebeg; speak out! What are you driving at, man? What necessity is there for all this?”
“English fight him Yankee now—big war begun. By by English come, take him Chicago!”
“The war begun!” said Mr. McKenzie, rising in astonishment from his seat; “do you mean to say, Winnebeg, that the English and Americans are actually at war? that they have been fighting at Detroit? How do you know it?”
“How him know it?” returned the chief; “look here, Winnebeg fight him English,” and baring his thigh, just below the left hip, he showed the scar of a superficial flesh wound still encrusted with blood.
“Where did you get that, Winnebeg, and how long since?”
“Two week,” he replied, holding up as many fingers, “near Canard Bridge, close, to Malden, Canada—General Hull angry—say Winnebeg no business fight—carry him despatches.”
“General Hull! How long has General Hull been there? Where, then, is Colonel Miller, of the fourth regiment, who commanded the other day?”
“Colonel Miller Detroit too; but Hull big officer—great chief—come with plenty sogers—send Winnebeg with despatch to Gubbenor here.”
“Indeed! This is important; I must hasten to see Captain Headley, and learn from him the contents. Alas! my good friend Winnebeg, this news may, and I fear will, be the cause of my utter ruin. Of course, you have no idea of what the despatch contains?”
“Yes, Missa Kenzie, Winnebeg know. Winnebeg wish to speak to you about despatch—say go directly to Fort Wayne.”
“The troops ordered to Fort Wayne, and all we possess left wholly unprotected. This is indeed a calamity,” said the trader, raising his hand to his now thoughtful brow.
“You no take him goods on pack-horses to Fort Wayne?” remarked the Indian inquiringly.
“Impossible, Winnebeg! I might take a few packages of peltries, but the great bulk must be left behind; yet it seems to me folly to go to Fort Wayne. We shall be cut off before we get there.”
“Just so,” returned Winnebeg. “See him Gubbenor, Missa McKenzie; tell him not go. Stay here—fort strong—plenty powder—plenty guns—you tell him so.”
“Most assuredly I will; and if he adopts the most prudent course, he will remain. With your strong force without and ours within, we may have a fair chance with any force that may be brought against us, whereas heaven only knows what may not be the result if we attempt so long a march through the wilderness, alive with Indians in the interest of the British. Good by, Winnebeg; you will excuse me, I am sure, for there must be no time lost in consulting with Captain Headley. Make yourself at home, and call out to Harry for anything you may want. That claret will not hurt you after your long journey; it is pleasant to the taste, and not very strong.”
“Tankee, Massa Kenzie; Winnebeg go to Pottowatomie camp—not been dere yet. Gubbenor say no tell him Ingins war begun till hold council to-morrow. Winnebeg sure him know it free, four days.”
“Why, do you think that, Winnebeg, since there has been no intelligence of the kind since your arrival?”
“See him plenty Pottowatomie here in Detroit while Winnebeg wait for despatches.”
“Indeed; but they may not have returned.”
“Don't know—maybe no, maybe yes.”
“Well, to-morrow the matter will be no secret, Winnebeg; and some decision will no doubt be added. In the meantime, you will be able to learn whether anything is known in the encampment of this unwelcome news, and, if so, what your people think of it.”
“Kenzie,” said the chief, taking and warmly grasping the trader's hand, “all Pottowatomies tink like Winnebeg—no go to Fort Wayne.”
When Mr. McKenzie entered the fort, it was with a clouded brow and an oppressed heart. At the gate he met his son-in-law, Lieutenant Elmsley, who, while burning with impatience to be near and console his unfortunate friend, was without the power to leave his post, and in his vexation and annoyance, kept pacing rapidly up and down in front of the guard-house.
“What is the matter, Elmsley—what disturbs you so unusually?”
“Can you ask, sir,” said the officer, “or have you not heard the dreadful news?”
“Yes, I have heard it, but did not suppose it had as yet been generally known.”
“The whole garrison knows it. It could not be concealed. The poor fellow rushed like a madman to announce it. He fell fainting to the ground, and was carried to his room, where, even at this moment, Mrs. Headley and Margaret are attending him.”
“Attending whom?” demanded Mr. McKenzie with an air of astonishment, “and to what are you alluding?”
“Why, Ronayne, of course; to whom do you allude if not to him? Have you not heard that, while riding out with his wife and Von Voltenberg this afternoon, they were intercepted by a party of hostile Indians, and poor Maria taken prisoner.”
“God bless my soul, is it possible? This is terrible, indeed. Are we then already surrounded by hostile Indians, and is the war already brought to our door?”
“War! what war?” asked the subaltern, “and what has this fearful piece of treachery to do with open war—war with whom?”
“And have you not heard that England and the United States are openly engaged in hostilities—has Winnebeg not revealed this?”
“Not a word,” replied Lieutenant Elmsley, astonished, in his turn, at the information.
“At another moment, and on an indifferent occasion, this mutual misunderstanding might afford room for pleasantry,” continued Mr. McKenzie with a grave smile; “but it is not so. Winnebeg, I see, has been true to his trust; and although cognizant of the nature of the despatches, revealed the information to no one but myself, whom he regarded as having not only a right to possess it at the earliest moment, but as being the most proper person to advise with the commanding officer, at the earliest moment, on the measures to be adopted. I am here for that purpose; think you I shall find him alone, for I wouldn't enter upon the subject before Mrs. Headley.”
“I have just said that Mrs. Headley and Margaret are in attendance on the unfortunate Ronayne,” replied Elmsley. “You will, therefore, be sure to find him alone, and no doubt busied in the formation of plans of operations consequent on this intelligence.”
“Recollect, not a word of this until it is officially revealed. I shall not even let Captain Headley know that I am aware of the facts, but simply state that, having heard he was in receipt of despatches, I had come to know if there was any news of importance. But, of one thing I would warn you, Elmsley; there will be a council of war to-morrow, and I could wish that your view of the subject may lead you to prefer defending the fort to the last extremity in preference to a long and uncertain retreat to Fort Wayne, which I know is suggested in the despatch.”
“I shall have no difficulty in arriving at that decision,” returned the officer of the guard, “for common sense only is necessary to show the advantages of one course over the other. In the meantime, I shall evince no knowledge of what you have conveyed to me, until the hour of council. Did no other consideration weigh with me, I would oppose a movement which cuts us off from all hope of restoring the dear lost wife of Ronayne to her distracted husband.”
“Good bye, God bless you,” answered the trader, as he moved towards the quarters of Captain Headley.
“Then,” mused Elmsley, when alone, “are the forebodings of that fusty old number of the National Intelligencer which I have thumbed for hours over and over again for the last three months at length finally realized—and war was come at last; well be it so! My chief anxiety is for Margaret. Would that she and all the rest of the weak women in this fortress were safe within the fortifications of Detroit; but all evil seems to be coming upon us at once.”
“Ah! Mr. McKenzie, I am very glad to see you,” said Captain Headley, rising as the trader entered the room set apart for his library and the transaction of military official business. “Take a seat. You could not have paid me a more opportune visit.”
“I had understood that Winnebeg had just returned with despatches from Detroit,” remarked the trader, “and am come to learn the news.”
“Bad enough,” answered Capt. Headley, gravely, as he handed to him the despatch from General Hull. “Read that!”
Mr. McKenzie attentively perused the document. It was evidently of a nature not to please him, for as he read he knit his brow, bit his lip, and uttered more than one ejaculatory “pish!”
“And what do you intend to do, Captain Headley?” he demanded, as he twisted the paper in his fingers impatiently.
“Stay, my dear sir,” said the commanding officer, anxiously, “do not thus disfigure or slight the general's official—I must preserve it as the only voucher for the course I shall in all probability pursue.”
“What is that course?” asked Mr. McKenzie; “surely, Captain Headley, you will not strictly follow the letter of these instructions? You are not compelled to do so. It is left optional with yourself; and there cannot be a question as to the great disadvantage attending a retreat.”
“Pardon me,” said the commanding—officer, with something of the hauteur of one sensible of his own personal responsibility; “I consider every paragraph in this official as a direct order. The only sentence that would appear to leave a certain option with myself is where reference is made to thepracticabilityof retreat. Now, I can see nothing impracticable in it. We have nothing to apprehend, with a body of five hundred brave Pottowatomies for our escort, while, if we continue here we must expect a strong British force speedily upon us.”
“Let me give you a word of counsel before this question is publicly discussed,” returned the trader seriously; “I know the Indians well, and how easily they are influenced by circumstances. Friendly as these Pottowatomies now seem to be, the influence of the majority of the tribes who have joined the British forces may soon change them from friends into foes.”
“My life on their fidelity,” returned Captain Headley, with unusual energy. “While Winnebeg continues with them, I feel that I should dishonor by doubting him.”
“Do not mistake me,” returned the trader. “Your faith in the honesty of Winnebeg, Capt. Headley, is not greater than my own—nay, not so great, perhaps, for I have known and always regarded him from his boyhood; but all the Pottowatomies are not Winnebegs, neither are the warriors so completely under the control of their chiefs as to permit their counsels alone to influence their actions.”
“You do not mean to say that you have reason to doubt any of these people, Mr. McKenzie?” remarked the captain, seriously and inquiringly.
“Not at all; but I wish to show how much more imprudent it would be to trust to them than to ourselves; reinforcements may arrive in time if they are sent for immediately, and should they not, it will be time enough to think of evacuating when our Indian spies bring us notice of the preparations of the British to attack us.”
“And should they arrive before our retreat is begun, then must, we be driven into an unequal contest, for the order of the secretary at war expressly declares that no post shall be surrendered without a battle. It is evident that the fort cannot be maintained against a regular force; therefore, the garrison, or they who survive the assault, must be made prisoners in any case; whereas, by retiring now, we not only prevent the advance of the enemy, to the manifest ruin of yourself and other settlers in the neighborhood, but carry succor to Fort Wayne. This is the resolution I have taken. After first consulting with my officers on public parade in the morning, when our position shall be fully made known to all, I shall meet the Indians in council. The necessary directions have been conveyed to Winnebeg.”
“I can only regret, sir,” returned Mr. McKenzie, with great gravity of speech and deportment, “that your determination should have been formed before consulting with your officers. In a case of this kind, involving the interests of all, it becomes, I should conceive, not a mere courtesy but a duty, that the opinions and advice of all competent to judge should be taken.”
“You need not be alarmed, Mr. McKenzie; I perfectly know how to act on this occasion. The opinions of my officers shall be taken, even as I have taken yours. If you have anything further to offer, therefore, I shall be happy to hear it.”
“Captain Headley,” returned the trader, rising with dignity, and taking up his hat, “I have nothing further of advice to offer to one so confident in his own judgment; but bear in mind what I now tell you, that if you follow the letter of these instructions rather than the spirit, you will have cause to repent it. I make not this remark from mere considerations of my own personal interests, which, of course, will be greatly affected by this abandonment of the post, but because I sincerely believe that a defence will entail less disaster than a march through the vast wilderness we shall have to traverse, hampered as we shall be with women, less able to bear up against fatigue, privation, and disaster. As the Indian orators say, 'I have spoken!' and now, sir, I have the honor of wishing you a very good day.”
“Well, what says he—what does he intend?” asked Lieutenant Elmsley, who was lingering near the gate, waiting for the return of his father-in-law.
“He is an obstinate, conceited ramrod,” returned the latter, peevishly; “but you will know all to-morrow, for he really intends to do you the honor to consult you in the morning.”
“But what is his decision? You have not said.”
“To give up everything to the Indians, and retreat forthwith.”
“Can it be possible?” exclaimed the officer, perfectly indignant at the communication.
“Even so. Alas, for the poor women, and the ladies particularly! what a march for them; but I go, meanwhile, to 'set my house in order.' Well, Elmsley, all I had garnered up through a quarter of a century of incessant toil, as a heritage for you and yours, will, I fear, be utterly lost.”
“God bless you,” said the officer, grasping his hand, “think not of that. There are far weightier considerations at stake than those of a merely pecuniary nature. The lesson Margaret has taught herself—to be contented to live on a soldier's pay—will not have altogether been thrown away upon her. The loss of her fortune is the least calamity to be dreaded.”
“Nobly said, Elmsley. Well are you worthy of her!” He warmly shook the hand that still lingered in his own, and then turned the angle of the gateway leading down to his own dwelling.