Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Mary leaped upon a rock and protected the missionary from the Indians.

MARY DERWENT
A Tale of Wyoming and Mohawk Valleys in 1778

BY

ANN S. STEPHENS

PUBLISHED BY

FOWLER, DICK & WALKER

THE BOSTON STORE BOOK SHOP

WILKES-BARRE, PA.

THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS

BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK

CONTENTS

A Map Showing the location of the early settlements in the Wyoming and Mohawk River Valleys, which were the Scene of this drama of early pioneer life.—Mary Derwent.

WYOMING

On Susquehanna’s side, fair Wyoming!

Although the wild flower on the ruined wall,

And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring

Of what thy gentle people did befall,

Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all,

That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.

Sweet land! May I thy lost delights recall,

And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore,

Whose Beauty was the love of Pennsylvania’s Shore.

Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies,

The happy shepherd swains had nought to do,

But feed their flocks on green declivities

Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,

From morn till Evening’s sweeter pastime grew,

With Timbrel, when beneath the Forest Brown,

Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew,

And aye those sunny mountains half-way down,

Would echo flagelet from some romantic town.

Then, where of Indian Hills the daybreak takes,

His leave, how might you the flamingo see

Disporting like a meteor on the lakes—

And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree:

And every sound of life was full of glee,

From merry Mock-bird’s song, or hum of men;

While heark’ning, fearing nought their revelry,

The wild deer arched his neck from glades and then,

Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again.

Thomas Campbell.

FOREWORD

In issuing a new edition of Mrs. Ann S. Stephens’ historic novel, Mary Derwent, Dial Rock Chapter, Daughters American Revolution of West Pittston, in the upper end of Wyoming Valley, deems it well to state, for a new generation of readers, the circumstances that led to its being written. In the early 50’s of the last century, this brilliant and versatile author, then editor of Peterson’s Magazine, Philadelphia, spent several successive summers in West Pittston, at the beautiful and hospitable home of Mr. Samuel Benedict, whose young son, Frank Lee Benedict, was then winning his first recognition as an author, and had already become associated with the magazine under her editorship. During those summers, Mrs. Stephens became deeply interested in the history and traditions of Wyoming, studied every original source of its history within reach; listened to the story of the events of 1778 and the years preceding the tragedy of that memorable year, from the lips of men and women whose parents had escaped with their lives at that terrible time. A lover of scenery, a close observer alike of its broader aspects and its minute details, and happily gifted with remarkable clearness of vision “that,” as one biographer writes, “enabled her to be very realistic in the transcription of natural scenery”—this, added to her qualifications for writing the one standard historic novel that has ever appeared based upon Wyoming’s history, theme, incidents, characters and setting of the story were ready when the call came for “A Story of American Life in the Olden Times,” by one of the periodicals of the day, which offered a $400 prize for the one judged the best. “Mary Derwent” was the winner of that prize. Its first edition carries this Dedication:

To My Dear Friend,

Mrs. Samuel Benedict, of Wyoming Valley, in which the principal historic events of my story transpired, this book is affectionately dedicated.

Anna S. Stephens.

New York, June 1, 1858.

The book has gone through various editions; its latest issue being in the uniform edition of her works, in 23 volumes, published in 1886, the year of the author’s death. It was also republished serially in the Pittston Gazette in 1878, at the time of the Centennial “In Memoriam” gatherings around the Wyoming Monument. But it has been for some years out of print and its historic value, its accurate transcription of Wyoming’s beautiful scenery and its vivid delineations, both of character and events, has led to this new edition in behalf of Dial Rock Chapter, Daughters of American Revolution.

Susan E. Dickinson.

Scranton, Pa., March 10, 1908.

MARY DERWENT

A Tale of the Wyoming Valley in 1778

CHAPTER I
THE VALLEY OF WYOMING

Monockonok Island lies in the stream of the Susquehanna, where the Valley of Wyoming presents its greenest fields and most level banks to the sunshine. It is a quiet little spot, lying dreamily in the river, which breaks and sparkles around it with a silvery tumult. The Indians have gathered up the music of these waters in a name that will live forever—Monockonok—rapid or broken waters. You scarcely notice the island amid the luxuriant scenery of Wyoming, it seems so insignificant in its prettiness. Hedges of black alder, hazel branches, and sedgy rushes stand in thickets, or droop in garlands along its shores.

A few miles below Monockonok, between a curve of the river and a picturesque sweep of the mountains, lies the town of Wilkesbarre, a gem among villages set in a haven of loveliness.

Two or three miles higher up may be seen the town of Pittston, with its mines, its forges, its mills, and its modern dwelling-houses, crowding close up to the heart of the valley, in which the Lackawanna and the Susquehanna unite among exhaustless coal beds and the eternal beat of human industry.

For twenty miles below the Lackawanna gap, the valley, though under partial cultivation for nearly a quarter of a century, seemed scarcely more than an unbroken forest. The beautiful river in its bosom was almost hidden beneath the huge black walnuts, the elms and sycamores that crowded to its banks.

But with all this beautiful wildness, the strife of disputed civilization had already been felt in the valley. Indian forages were frequent, and the Connecticut settlers had been twice driven from their humble dwellings by the Pennsylvanians, who were restive at the introduction of pioneers from the neighboring States into this fertile region.

The blackened ruins of a dwelling here and there left evidence of this unnatural contest, while stockades and block-houses of recent erection, scattered along the valley, gave picturesque proofs of continued anxiety and peril.

From twenty to thirty houses occupied the spot where Wilkesbarre now stands, while log-cabins were grouped near the forts, each with its clearing, its young fruit-orchard, and its patch of wheat or corn.

A single log-cabin, sheltered by a huge old elm with a slope of grass descending to the water in front, and a garden in the rear, enriched with variously tinted vegetables, and made cheerful by a few hollyhocks, marigolds, and sunflowers, stood like a mammoth bird’s nest on Monockonok Island.

Two immense black walnuts, with their mastlike trunks naked thirty feet high, stood back from the house. The shore was broken up with clumps of sycamores, oaks, maples, and groups of drooping willows, while an undergrowth of dogwood, mountain-ash and tamarisk trees chained into huge garlands by frost grape-vines and wild clematis, were seen in picturesque leafiness along the banks.

This log-cabin had been built years before, by a young man who came with his mother and his two little orphan girls to seek a home, and hide the deep grief occasioned by the loss of his wife in the wilderness. Derwent took up his residence in Wyoming with the New England settlers on their second return to the valley, when it was almost as much inhabited by the Indians as the whites.

Derwent struggled manfully in his new enterprise, but it was with a broken spirit and by stern moral force alone. His health, always delicate, sunk beneath the labor of establishing a new home, and though he worked on, month by month, it was as a Pilgrim toils toward a shrine, patiently and with endurance rather than hope.

Two little girls formed the sunshine of this humble family, and the fairy island was made brighter by their pleasant voices and graceful ways, as it was by the wild birds that haunted it with music. In the great indulgence of the invalid father, and the active love of that dear old grandmother, they had early lost all sense of orphanage, and were happy as the wild birds, free as the striped squirrels that peeped at them from the branches of the black walnut trees where they loved to play.

Very different were these two children from infancy up. Jane, the youngest, was a bright, happy little creature, full of fun, eager for a frolic, and heedless of everything else; endowed with commonplace goodness and a pleasant temper, she was simply a bright, lovable child. But Mary, who seemed younger by half than her robust sister, was so fragile, so delicate, that you dreaded to see the very winds of heaven blow upon her, even when they left the spring blossoms unhurt. Her large wistful eyes were full of earnestness. She was so fair, so fragile, swaying as she walked, like a flower too heavy for its stem, and with that look of unutterable sweetness forever about the little mouth.

With Derwent Little Mary was an object of singular tenderness, while the force and life of his warmer affections went to the younger child. He was their only teacher, and during the years that he lived it was a pleasant recreation to give them such instruction as his own rather superior attainments afforded.

Thus in primitive happiness the little family lived till Mary passed gently out of her childhood. There was little visiting among the pioneers, and a stranger seldom made way to Monockonok. An Indian sometimes touched the island with his canoe in his progress down the river; but this was always a happy event to the children, who received the savages with childish admiration, as if they had been orioles or golden robins. At the sight of a canoe, Jane would run gleefully to the river, waving kisses to the savage with her hand, and flaunting out her apron as a signal to win him shoreward. It was a singular fact, but the Indians seldom obeyed these signals unless Mary was by her side. A single gleam of her golden hair—a glimpse of her bent form—would prove more effectual than all her sister’s pretty wiles.

Why did these savages come so readily at her look? What was the meaning of the strange homage with which they approached her? Why did they never touch her dress, or smooth her hair, or give her any of those wild marks of liking which Jane received so cheerfully? Why did they lay eagles’ plumes and the skins of flame-colored birds at her feet, with so much humility? Mary could never comprehend this, but it filled her with vague awe, while the savages went away thoughtfully, like men filled with a spirit of worship.

One other person sometimes visited the island, who had a powerful influence over these children. This man was an Indian missionary, who, following the path of Zinzendorf, had made his home in the wilderness, about the time that Derwent entered the valley. He was evidently a man of birth and education, for even the wild habits of the woods had been insufficient to disguise the natural refinement of mind and manners which made the humility of his character so touchingly beautiful.

This man came often to the island. Sometimes he remained all night in the cabin. Sometimes he lingered days with the family, teaching the little girls those higher branches which their father could not control, and planting a thousand holy thoughts in the young minds, that lifted themselves to his knowledge, as the flower opens its cup for the night dew.

Under these beautiful and almost holy influences the children lived in their island home, each taking from the elements around her such nutriment as her nature craved, till Derwent, who had been ill since their first remembrance, sunk slowly to his deathbed.

The last attack came suddenly, while the missionary was absent among the Shawnees, far down the valley; but scarcely had the little family felt the need of his presence, when he appeared quietly and kindly. All one night he remained with the sick man; their conversation could be heard in broken fragments in the next room, where the old mother sat weeping over her grandchildren, holding Jane fondly in her lap, while Mary sat upon the floor, so chilled with grief that she did not feel the tender sorrow lavished upon her sister, as neglect of herself. Like a pure white lily broken at the stem, she sat wistfully gazing in the distance, wondering what death was, vaguely and in dreamy desolation. They were called at last, and with a dying effort Jane was drawn to her father’s bed, the last breath, the last blessing fell upon her. Mary had no time; the father’s life was exhausted in that one benediction.

The missionary led her forth into the open air. He said but little, and his voice fell dreamily on the senses of the child; but its first low cadence filled her soul with infinite resignation. From that time Mary could never realize that her father had died, leaving no blessing for her. It seemed as if the missionary had inhaled the life from his departing soul, and turned it all to love. The child recognized a double presence in this holy man. Not even her grandmother was permitted to kiss the forehead which his lips had touched. Her brow became sacred from that time, and she would shrink back with a cry of absolute pain if any one attempted to disturb the kiss which was to her the place of a lost blessing.

The missionary had many duties to perform, and his intercourse with the island was sometimes interrupted for months; but the little heart that clung to him could live upon a remembrance of his teachings, even when his presence was withheld. It was a wonderful influence, that which his strong, pure soul had obtained over the child. While these feelings were taking root in the nature of one sister, the other was working out her own life, and the grandmother took up the duties imposed by her bereavement with great resolution.

CHAPTER II
THE CRUEL ENLIGHTENMENT

Grandmother Derwent had contrived to purchase implements for spinning and weaving the coarse cloth, which constituted the principal clothing of the settlers. The inhabitants gave her plenty of work, and produce from her farm supplied her household with grain and vegetables.

Even the little girls, who under many circumstances would have been a burden, were in reality an assistance to her.

Jane was a bright and beautiful child, with dark silky hair, pleasant eyes, and lips like the damp petals of a red rose. She was, withal, a tidy, active little maiden, and, as Mrs. Derwent was wont to say, “saved grandma a great many steps” by running to the spring for water, winding quills, and doing what Miss Sedgwick calls the “odds and ends of housework.”

Jane led a pleasant life on the island. She was a frank, mirthful creature, and it suited her to paddle her canoe on the bosom of the river, or even to urge it down the current, when “grandma” wanted a piece of cloth carried to the village, or was anxious to procure tea and other delicacies for her household.

When Mrs. Derwent’s quill-box was full, and “the work all done up,” Jane might be found clambering among the wild rocks, which frowned along the eastern shore, looking over the face of some bold precipice at her image reflected in the stream below; or, perchance, perched in the foliage of a grape-vine, with her rosy face peering out from the leaves, and her laugh ringing merrily from cliff to cliff, while her little hands showered down the purple clusters to her sister below.

Such was Jane Derwent, at the age of fourteen; but poor little Mary Derwent! nature grew more and more cruel to her. While each year endowed her sister with new beauty and unclouded cheerfulness, she, poor delicate thing, was kept instinctively from the notice of her fellow-creatures. The inmates of that little cabin could not bear that strange eyes should gaze on her deformity—for it was this deformity which had ever made the child an object of such tender interest.

From her infancy the little girl had presented a strange mixture of the hideous and the beautiful. Her oval face, with its marvellous symmetry of features, might have been the original from which Dubufe drew the chaste and heavenly features of Eve, in his picture of the “Temptation.” The same sweetness and purity was there, but the expression was chastened and melancholy. Her soft blue eyes were always sad, and almost always moist; the lashes drooped over them, an expression of languid misery. A smile seldom brightened her mouth—the same mournful expression of hopelessness sat forever on that calm, white forehead; the faint color would often die away from her cheek, but it seldom deepened there.

Mary was fifteen before any person supposed her conscious of her horrible malformation, or was aware of the deep sensitiveness of her nature. The event which brought both to life occurred a few years after the death of her father. Both the children had been sent to school, and her first trial came on the clearing, before the little log schoolhouse of the village. Mary was chosen into the centre of the merry ring by Edward Clark, a bright-eyed, handsome boy, with manners bold and frank almost to carelessness.

The kind-hearted boy drew her gently into the ring, and joined the circle, without the laugh and joyous bound which usually accompanied his movements. There was an instinctive feeling of delicacy and tenderness towards the little girl which forbade all boisterous merriment when she was by his side. It was her turn to select a partner; she extended her hand timidly towards a boy somewhat older than herself—the son of a rich landholder in the valley; but young Wintermoot drew back with an insulting laugh, and refused to stand up with the hunchback.

Instantly the ring was broken up. Edward Clark leaped forward, and with a blow, rendered powerful by honest indignation, smote the insulter to the ground. For one moment Mary looked around bewildered, as if she did not comprehend the nature of the taunt; then the blood rushed up to her face, her soft blue eyes blazed with a sudden flash of fire, the little hand was clenched, and her distorted form dilated with passion. Instantly the blood flowed back upon her heart, her white lips closed over her clenched teeth, and she fell forward with her face upon the ground, as one stricken by unseen lightning.

The group gathered around her, awe-stricken and afraid. They could not comprehend this fearful burst of passion in a creature habitually so gentle and sweet-tempered. It seemed as if the insolent boy had crushed her to death with a sneer.

Her brave defender knelt and raised her head to his bosom, tears of generous indignation still lingered on his burning cheek, and his form shook with scarcely abated excitement.

At length Mary Derwent arose with the calmness of a hushed storm upon her face, and turning to her inevitable solitude walked silently away.

There was something terrible in the look of anguish with which she left her companions, taking, as it were, a silent and eternal farewell of all the joys that belong to childhood. The coarse taunt of the boy had been a cruel revelation, tearing away all the tender shields and loving delusions with which home-affection had so long sheltered her. She did not know what meaning lay in the word hunchback, but felt, with a sting of unutterable shame, that it was applied to her because she was unlike other girls. That she must never be loved as they were—never hope to be one of them again.

The school-children looked on this intense passion with silent awe. Even Jane dared not utter the sympathy that filled her eyes with tears, or follow after her sister.

So with terror and shame at the cruel discovery at her heart, Mary went away. The blood throbbed in her temples and rushed hotly through all her veins. An acute sense of wrong seized upon her, and thirsting to be alone she fled to the woods like a hunted animal, recoiling alike from her playfellows and her home.

Through the thick undergrowth and over wild rocks the poor creature tore her way, struggling and panting amid the thorny brushwood, as if life and death depended upon her progress.

A striped squirrel ran along the boughs of a chestnut-tree and peered down upon her from among the long green leaves and tassel-like blossoms. A flush came to her beautiful forehead, and with a cry that seemed in itself a pang, she tore up a stone to fling at it. The squirrel started away, uttering a broken noise that fell upon her sore heart like a taunt. Why did the little creature follow her? Why did it bend those sharp, black eyes upon her, with its head turned so mockingly upon one side? Was she never to be alone? Was the cruel animal still gibing at her through the chestnut-leaves?

The squirrel darted from bough to bough, and at last ran down the trunk of the chestnut. Mary followed it with eager glances till her eyes fell upon the root of the tree. The stone dropped from her hand, the angry color fled from her face, and stretching out her arms with a cry that perished on her lips she waited for the missionary to descend.

He came rather quickly, and the gentle serenity of his countenance was disturbed, but still a look of unutterable goodness rested upon it. When he reached Mary her eyes were flooded with tears, and she trembled from head to foot. His sympathy she could endure. His very look had opened the purest fountains of her heart again. She was not altogether alone.

“Crying, Mary, crying?” he said, in a tone of inquiry, rather than of reproach. “Who has taught you to weep?”

“Oh! father, father, what can I do? Where can I hide myself?” cried the poor girl, lifting her clasped hands piteously upward.

The missionary saw it all. For a moment the color left his lips, and his eyes were full of trouble to their azure depths. He sat down by her side, and drew her gently towards him.

“And this has driven you so far from home?” he said, smoothing her hair with one hand, which trembled among the golden tresses, for never had his sympathies been drawn more powerfully forth. “Who has done this cruel thing, Mary?”

She did not answer, but he felt a shudder pass over her frame as she made a vain effort to speak.

“Was it your playfellows at school?”

“I shall never have playfellows again,” broke from the trembling lips which seemed torn apart by the desolating words; “never again, for where does another girl like me live in the world? God has made no playfellow for me!”

The missionary allowed her to weep. He knew that a world of bitterness would be carried from her bosom with those tears.

“But God has made us for something better than playfellows to each other,” he said at last, taking her little hand in his.

She looked at him wistfully, and answered with unutterable sadness, “But I cannot be even that; I am alone!”

“No,” answered the missionary, “not alone—not alone, though you never heard another human voice—even here in the deep woods you would find something to love and help, too—never think yourself alone, Mary, while any creature that God has made is near.”

“But who will love me? Who will help me?” cried the girl, with a burst of anguish.

“Who will love you, Mary! Do not I love you? Does not your grandmother and sister love you?”

“But now—now that they know about this—that I am a hunchback, it will be all over.”

“But they have known it, Mary, ever since you were a little child. Well, well! we must not talk about it, but think how much every one at home has loved you.”

“And they knew it all—they saw it while I was blind, and loved me still,” murmured the girl, while great tears of gratitude rolled down her cheeks, “and they will love me always just the same—you promise me this?”

“Always the same, Mary!”

“Yes, yes—I see they have loved me always, more than if I were ever so beautiful—they were sorry for me; I understand!” There was a sting of bitterness in her voice. The love which came from compassion wounded her.

“But our Saviour loves his creatures most for this very reason. Their imperfections and feebleness appeal like an unuttered prayer to him. It is a beautiful love, Mary, that which strength gives to dependence, for it approaches nearest to that heavenly benevolence which the true soul always thirsts for.”

Mary lifted her eyes to his face as he spoke. The unshed tears trembled like diamonds within them. She became very thoughtful, and drooped slowly downward, coloring faintly beneath his eyes, as maidens sometimes blush at their own innocent thoughts when nothing but the eye of God is upon them.

“But there is another love, my father; I have seen it at the school and in the cabins, I have watched it as I have the mountain flowers, and thought that God meant this love for me, like the rest; but when I go among other girls, no one will ever think that I am one of them—no one but Edward Clark, and he only feels pity-love for me; to all the rest I am a hunchback.”

A look of great trouble came upon the face of the missionary. For some moments he did not answer, and the poor girl drooped by his side. The blush faded from the snow of her forehead, and she trembled all over with vague shame of the words she had spoken. His silence seemed like a reproach to her.

“My child!”—oh! with what holy sweetness the words fell from his lips—“my child, it is true; this love must never be yours.”

“Never!” echoed the pale lips of the child. “Never!”

“This dream of love, give it up, Mary, while it is but a dream,” added the missionary, in a firmer voice. “To many more than yourself it is a hope never, never realized. Do not struggle for it—do not pine for it—God help you! child—God help us all!”

The anguish in his voice thrilled her to the soul. She bent her forehead meekly to his knee, murmuring:

“I will try to be patient—but, oh! do not look at me so mournfully.”

He laid his hands softly under her forehead, and, lifting her face to his gazed mournfully upon it, as if his soul were looking far away through her eyes into the dim past.

“Father, believe me, I will try.”

His hands dropped downward at the sound of her voice, and his lips began to move, as if unuttered words were passing through them. Mary knew that he was praying, and her face drooped reverently downward. When or how this silence broke into words she never knew, but over her soul went the burning eloquence of his voice, carried heavenward by prayer—by the wind, and the rush of the mountain stream. The very breath lay still upon her lips as she listened, and she felt more like a winged angel close to the gate of heaven than the poor deformed girl, whose soul had, a few hours before, been so full of bitterness.

CHAPTER III
THE FOREST WALK

When the missionary arose from his knees—for to that position he had unconsciously fallen—Mary stood beside him, quiet and smiling.

“Come, my child,” he said, taking Mary by the hand, and leading her up from the ravine. “It is almost night, and you have wandered far from the island; see, the woods are already dusky. The birds and squirrels are settling down in the leaves; you would have been afraid to go home in the dark.”

“I might have been lost, but not afraid,” answered Mary, in a sad voice; “after this, darkness will be my best friend.”

“But the forest is full of Indians, Mary, and now, since the English have excited them against us, no white person is safe after dark; I will go home with you; but, after this, promise me never to come alone to the woods again.”

“The Indians will not harm me,” answered Mary, with a mournful smile; “they pity me, I think, and love me a little, too. I am not afraid of them; their tomahawks are not so sharp as Jason Wintermoot’s words were this morning.”

As she spoke there was a rustling among the bushes at their right, and through the purple gloom of the woods they saw a group of Indians crouching behind a rock, and glaring at them through the undergrowth. One had his rifle lifted with a dusky hand, creeping towards the rock; the others were poised for a spring. Mary saw them, and leaped upon a rock close by, protecting the missionary from the aim taken at his life.

“Not him—not him!” she cried, flinging up both arms in wild appeal; “shoot me! You don’t know how I long to die.”

The Indians looked at each other in dismay. The threatening rifle fell with a clang upon the rock, and instead of an assault the savages crept out from their ambush, lighting up the dusky ravine with their gorgeous war-dresses, and gathered around the young girl, like a flock of tropical birds surrendering themselves to the charms of a serpent.

Mary met them fearlessly; a wild, spiritual beauty lighted up her face. The Indians lost their ferocity, and looked on her with grave tenderness; one of them reached forth his hand, she laid hers in the swarthy palm, where it rested like a snowdrop on the brown earth; he looked down upon it, and smiled; her courage charmed him.

“The white bird is brave, the Great Spirit folds his wing over her which is pure like the snow,” he said, addressing his companions in their own language.

Mary knew a little of the Shawnee tongue, and looking up at the savage said, very gently:

“Why harm my father? The Great Spirit covers him, also, with a wing which is broad and white, like the clouds. Look in his face. Is he afraid?”

The Indians drew back, and looked fiercely at the missionary, gathering up their rifles with menacing gestures.

He understood their language well, and spoke to them with that calm self-possession which gives dignity to courage.

“My children,” he said, “what wrong have I done that you should wish to kill me?”

The leading savage set down his gun with a clang upon the rock.

“You have sat by the white man’s council-fire down yonder. The Great Father over the big water is our friend, but you hate the Indian, and will help them drive us through the wind gap into strange hunting grounds.”

“I am not your enemy. See, I carry no tomahawk or musket; my bosom is open to your knives. The Great Spirit has sent me here, and He will keep me free from harm.”

Unconsciously the missionary looked at the deformed girl as he spoke. The Indians followed his glance, and changed their defiant gestures.

“He speaks well. Mineto has sent his beautiful medicine spirit to guard him from our rifles. The medicine father of the Shawnees is dead, his lodge is empty. The white bird shall be our prophet. You shall be her brother, live in the great Medicine Lodge, and dream our dreams for us when we take the warpath. Do we speak well?”

The missionary pondered a moment before he spoke. He read more in these words than one not acquainted with Indian customs might have understood.

“Yes,” he said at last, “I will come to your Medicine Lodge, and tell you all the dreams which the Great Spirit sends to me. She, too, will love the Indians, and dream holy dreams for them, but not here, not in the Medicine Lodge. She must stay in Monockonok among the broken waters. The Great Spirit has built her lodge there, under the tall trees, where the Indians can seek her in their canoes. Go back to your council-fire, my children, before its smoke goes out. I will light the calumet, and smoke with you. Now the Great Spirit tells me to go with this child back to Monockonok. Farewell.”

He took Mary Derwent by the hand, turned his back on the menacing rifles without fear, and walked away unmolested.

Mary had wandered miles away from home; nothing but the superior knowledge of her guardian could have found her way back through all that dense and unequal forest. It was now almost nightfall; but a full moon had risen, and by its light this man, accustomed to the woods, guided their way back towards the river. But after the wildest of her excitement had worn away, Mary began to feel the toil of her long walk. She did not complain, however, and the missionary was unconscious of this overtax of strength till she sank down on a broken fragment of rock utterly exhausted. He stopped in great distress, and bent over her. She smiled, and attempted to speak, but the pale lids drooped over her eyes, and the strength ebbing completely from her limbs left them pale and limp. She lay before him entirely senseless, with the moonbeams falling over her like a winding-sheet.

Nothing but the angels of Heaven could see or understand the look of unutterable thankfulness which came to his noble features as the missionary stooped and took the young girl in his arms. A smile luminous as the moonlight that played upon it stole over his whole face, and the words that broke from his lips were sweet and tender, such as the Madonna might have whispered to her holy child.

He took no pains to bring her back to life, but when she did come to, soothed her with hushes, and laid her head tenderly upon his shoulder till she fell asleep, smiling like himself.

As he came in sight of Monockonok a swell of regretful tenderness swept all his strength away more surely than fatigue could have done. He sat down upon a fallen tree on the bank just opposite the island and looked down into the sweet face with a gaze of heavenly affection. His head drooped slowly down, he folded her closer, and pressed his lips upon the closed eyes, the forehead, the lips, and cheeks of the sleeping child with a passion of tenderness that shook his whole frame.

“Oh, my God, my God! forgive me if this is sinful! my soul aches under this excess of love; the very fountains of my life are breaking up! Father of heaven, I am thine, all thine, but she is here on my breast, and I am but human.”

Deep sobs broke away from his heart, almost lifting her from his bosom; tears rained down his face, and dropped thick and fast amid the waves of her hair.

His sobs aroused Mary from her slumber. She was not quite awake, but stirred softly and folded her arms about his neck. How the strong man trembled under the clasp of those arms! how he struggled and wrested against the weakness that had almost overpowered him, and not in vain! A canoe was moored under a clump of alders, just below him. It belonged to the island, and in that Mary must be borne to her home. He was obliged to row the canoe, and of course must awake her. Once more he pressed his lips upon her face, once more he strained her to his heart, and then with loving violence aroused her.

“Mary—come, little one, wake up, wake up! See how late it is! Grandmother will be frightened.”

“Let me alone—oh! please let me alone!” murmured the weary child.

“No, Mary, arouse yourself; you and I have slept and dreamed too long. There, there! look around. See how the moonlight ripples upon the river! Look at the island; there is a light burning in the cabin. They are anxious no doubt at your long stay. Come, child, let us be strong: surely you can walk to the river’s brink.”

Yes, Mary could walk again; that sweet sleep had given back her strength. She sat down in the canoe, tranquilized and happier than she had ever hoped to be again. The bitterness of the morning had entirely passed away. They floated on down the river a few minutes. Then the missionary bent to his oars, and the canoe shot across the silvery rapids, and drew up in a little cove below the house.

The missionary stepped on shore. Mary followed him.

“Are you happier now? Are you content to live as God wills it?” he said, extending his hand, while his eyes beamed upon her.

“Yes, father, I am content.”

“To live even without earthly love?”

Mary shrunk within herself—it takes more than a few words, a struggle, or a single prayer to uproot a desire for human love from a woman’s heart.

He did not reason with her, or upbraid her then, but only said:

“God will find a way—have no fear, all human beings have some road to happiness if they will but let the Heavenly Father point it out. Good-night Mary.”

“Good-night,” responded the young girl, while her eyes filled with grateful tears; “good-night, my father!”

He turned around, laid his hands on her head, and blessed her, then stepped into the canoe and disappeared along the path of silver cast downward by the moon. The young girl smiled amid her tears. How dark it was when he found her at noontide; how bright when he went away!

Mary Derwent entered that log-cabin a changed being. She scarcely understood herself, or anything that had filled her life up to that day. Her own nature was inexplicable. One great shock had thrust her forward, as it were, to a maturity of suffering; her smile became mournful and sad in its expression, as if the poor creature had become weary of life and of all living things. She never again joined in the childish sports of her companions.

CHAPTER IV
THE ISLAND COVE

The two sisters stood together under the willow trees that overhung the little cove from which Mary had landed with the missionary three years before. Both had grown into girlhood since then, and both had improved in loveliness; Jane in the bloom and symmetry of her person—Mary in that exquisite loveliness of countenance which touches the soul like music in a sound, or tints in a picture. Jane Derwent was just seventeen years old that day.

“And so you will go, Mary, dear—though this is my birthday? I have a great mind to cut the canoe loose and set it adrift.”

“And then how will your company get to the island?” said Mary Derwent, raising her eyes to the blooming face of her sister, while a quiet smile stole out from their blue depths.

“I don’t care for company! I don’t care for anything—you are so contrary—so hateful. You never stay at home when the young folks are coming—it’s too bad!” And Jane flung herself on the grass which surrounded the little cove where a bark canoe lay rocking in the water, and indulged her petulance by tearing up the strawberry-vines which her sister had planted there.

“Don’t spoil my strawberry-bed,” said Mary, bending over the wayward girl and kissing her forehead. “Come, be good-natured and let me go; I will bring you some honeysuckle-apples, and a whole canoe full of wood-lilies. Do say yes; I can’t bear to see you discontented to-day!”

“I would not care about it so much—though it is hard that you will never go to frolics, nor enjoy yourself like other folks—but Edward Clark made me promise to keep you at home to-day.”

A color, like the delicate tinting of a shell, stole into Mary’s cheek as it lay caressingly against the rich damask of her sister’s.

“If no one but Edward were coming I should be glad to stay,” she replied, in a soft voice; “but you have invited a great many, haven’t you? Who will be here from the village?”

Jane began to enumerate the young men who had been invited to her birthday party; they held precedence in her heart, and consequently in her speech; for, to own the truth, Jane Derwent was a perfect specimen of the rustic coquette; a beauty, and a spoiled one; but a warm-hearted, kind girl notwithstanding.

“There are the Ward boys, and John Smith, Walter Butler from the fort, and Jason Wintermoot——”

Jane stopped, for she felt a shiver run over the form around which her arms were flung as she pronounced the last name and saw the cheek of her sister blanch to the whiteness of snow.

“I had forgotten,” she said, timidly, after a moment; “I am sorry I asked him. You are not angry with me, Mary, are you?”

“Angry? No! I never am angry with you, Jane. I don’t want to refuse you anything on your birthday—but I will not meet these people. You cannot guess—you can have no idea of my sufferings when any one looks upon me except those I love very, very dearly.”

“That is just what they say,” replied Jane, while a flush of generous feeling spread over her forehead.

“What, who says?” inquired Mary, for her heart trembled with a dread that some allusion was threatened to her person.

After her question there was a moment’s silence. They had both arisen, and the deformed girl stood before her sister with a tremulous lip and a wavering, anxious eye.

Jane was quick-witted, and, with many faults, very kind of heart. When she saw the distress visible in her unfortunate sister’s face she formed her reply with more of tact and kind feeling than with strict regard to truth.

“Why, it is nothing,” she said; “the girls always loved you, and petted you so much when we were little children in school together that they don’t like it when you go away without seeing them. They think that you are grown proud since you have taken to reading and talking fine language. You don’t have to work like the rest of us, and they feel slighted, and think you put on airs.”

Tears stole into the eyes of the deformed girl, and a sudden light, the sunshine of an affectionate heart, broke over her face as she said:

“It is not that, my sister. I have loved them very much all these years that I have not seen them; but since that day—— Sister, you are very good; and, oh! how beautiful; but you cannot dream how a poor creature like myself feels when happy people are enjoying life together. Without sympathy, without companions, hunchbacked and crooked. Tell me, Jane, am I not hideous to look upon?”

This was the first time in her life that Mary had permitted a consciousness of her malformation to escape her in words. The question was put in a voice of mingled agony and bitterness, wrung from the very depths of her heart. She fell upon the grass as she spoke, and with her face to the ground lay grovelling at her sister’s feet, like some wounded animal; for now that the loveliness of her face was concealed her form seemed scarcely human.

All that was generous in the nature of Jane Derwent swelled in her heart as she bent over her sister. The sudden tears fell like rain, glistening in drops upon the warm damask of her cheeks and filling her voice with affectionate sobs as she strove to lift her from the ground; but Mary shrunk away with a shudder, and kneeling down Jane raised her head with gentle violence to her bosom.

“Hideous! Oh! Mary, how can you talk so? Don’t shake and tremble in this manner. You are not frightful nor homely; only think how beautiful your hair is. Edward Clark says he never saw anything so bright and silky as your curls—he said so; indeed he did, Mary; and the other day when he was reading about Eve, in the little book you love so well, he told grandmother that he fancied Eve must have had a face just like yours.”

“Did Edward say this?” murmured the poor deformed one as Jane half-lifted, half-persuaded her from the ground, and with one arm flung over her neck was pressing the face she had been praising to her own troubled bosom.

Poor Mary, though naturally tall, was so distorted that when she stood upright her head scarcely reached a level with the graceful bust of her sister, and Jane stooped low to plant reassuring kisses upon her forehead.

“Did he say it, Mary? Yes, he certainly did; and so did I say it. Look here.” And eagerly gathering the folds of a large shawl over the shoulders of the deformed, she gently drew her to the brink of the basin, where the canoes still lay moored. “Look there!” she exclaimed, as they bent together over the edge of the green sward; “can you wish for anything handsomer than that face? Dear, good Mary, look.”

An elm-tree waved its branches over them, and the sunshine came shimmering through the leaves with a wavy light. The river was tranquil as a summer sky, and the sisters were still gazing on the lovely faces speaking to theirs from its clear depths, when a canoe swept suddenly round the grassy promontory which formed one side of the cove.

With a dash of the oar the fairy skiff shot, like an arrow, into the basin, and its occupant, a young man of perhaps two-and-twenty, leaped upon the green sward. The sisters started from their embrace. A glad smile dimpled the round cheek of the younger as she stepped forward to meet the newcomer. But Mary drew her shawl more closely over her person, and shrunk timidly back, with a quickened pulse, a soft welcome beaming from her eyes, and her face deluged with a flood of soft, rosy color, which she strove to conceal with the tresses that fell about her like a golden mist.

“I have just come in time to keep you at home for once,” said the youth, approaching the timid girl, after having gaily shaken hands with her sister. “I am sure we shall persuade you——”

He was interrupted by a call from Jane, who had run off to the other side of the cove; no doubt with the hope of being speedily followed by her visitor.

“Come here, Edward, do, and break me some of this sweet-brier; it scratches my fingers so.”

Clark dropped Mary’s hand and went to obey this capricious summons.

“Don’t try to persuade Mary to stay,” said Jane, as she took a quantity of the sweet-brier from the hands of her companion. “She is as restless when we have company as the mocking-bird you gave us; and which we never could tame, besides,” she added, with a little hesitation, “Wintermoot will be here, and she don’t like him.”

“It were strange if she did,” replied the youth; and a frown passed over his fine forehead; “but, tell me, Jane, how it happened that you invited Col. Butler when you know that I dislike him almost as much as she does Wintermoot.”

Jane looked confused and, like most people when they intend to persist in a wrong, began to get into a passion.

“I am sure I thought I had the right to ask any one I pleased,” she said, petulantly and gathering her forehead into a frown.

“Yes, but one might expect that it would scarcely please you to encourage a man who has so often insulted your house with unwelcome visits; and Wintermoot—my blood boils when I think of the wretch! Poor Mary! I had hoped to see her enjoy herself to-day; but now she must wander off alone as usual. I have a great mind to go with her.”

And turning swiftly away from the angry beauty, Clark went to Mary, spoke a few words, and they stepped into his canoe together. But he had scarcely pushed it from the shore when Jane ran forward and leaped in after them.

“If you go, so will I!” she said angrily, seating herself in the bottom of the canoe.

Mary was amazed and perplexed. She looked into the stern, displeased face of the young man, and then at the sullen brow of her sister.

“What does this mean?” she inquired, gently; “what is the matter, Jane?”

Jane began to sob, but gave no answer, and they rowed across the river in silence. The canoe landed at the foot of a broken precipice that hung over the river like a ruined battlement. Clark assisted Mary to the shore, and was about to accompany her up the footpath, which wound over the precipice, but Jane, who had angrily refused his help to leave the boat, began to fear that she had carried her resentment too far, and timidly called him back.

A few angry words from the young man—expostulation and tears from the maiden, all of which a bend in the path prevented Mary observing; and then Clark went up the hill—told the solitary girl not to wander far—to be careful and not sit on the damp ground—and that he would come for her by sundown; the young folks would have left the island by that time. They were all going down to Wilkesbarre, to have a dance in the schoolhouse. He and Jane were going, but they would wait and take her home first.

Edward was almost out of breath as he said all this, and he appeared anxious to go back to the canoe. But Mary had not expected him to join her lonely wanderings, and his solicitude about her safety, so considerate and kind, went to her heart like a breath of summer air. She turned up the mountain-path, lonely and companionless; but very happy. Her eyes were full of pleasant tears, and her heart was like a flower unfolding to the sunshine. There is pleasure in complying with the slightest request from those we love; and Mary confined her ramble to the precipice and the shore, merely because Edward Clark had asked her not to wander far. She saw him land on the island with her sister while half-sitting, half-reclining on a crag of the broken rock, at whose foot she had landed. She saw the boat sent again and again to the opposite shore, returning each time laden with her former companions.

She was aroused by the rustling of branches over her head, followed by a bounding step, as of a deer in flight; then a young girl sprang out upon a point of rock which shot over the platform on which she lay, and bending over the edge gazed eagerly down upon the river.

Mary held her breath and remained motionless, for her poetical fancy was aroused by the singular and picturesque attitude of the figure. There was a wildness and grace in it which she had never witnessed before. At the first glance she supposed the stranger to be a wandering Indian girl belonging to some of the tribes that roamed the neighboring forests. But her complexion, though darker than the darkest brunette of our own race, was still too light for any of the savage nations yet seen in the wilderness. It was of a clear, rich, brown, and the blood glowed through the round cheeks like the blush on a ripe peach.

Her hair was long, profusely braided, and of a deep black; not the dull, lustreless color common to the Indians; but with a bloom upon it like that shed by the sunlight on the wing of a flying raven. She appeared to be neither Indian nor white, but of a mixed race. The spirited and wild grace of the savage was blended with a delicacy of feature and nameless elegance more peculiar to the whites. In her dress, also, might be traced the same union of barbarism and refinement—a string of bright scarlet berries encircling her head, and interwoven with the long braids of her hair, glanced in the sunlight as she moved her head, like a chain of dim rubies.

A robe of gorgeous chintz, where crimson and deep brown were the predominating colors, was confined at the waist by a narrow belt of wampum, and terminated a little below the knee in a double row of heavy fringe, leaving the flexible and slender ankles free and uncovered. Her robe fell open at the shoulders; but the swelling outline of her neck, thus exposed, was unbroken, except by a necklace of cherry-colored cornelian, from which a small heart of the same blood-red stone fell to her bosom. The round and tapering beauty of her arms was fully revealed and unencumbered by a single ornament. Her moccasins were of dressed deer-skin, fringed and wrought with tiny beads, interwoven with a vine of silk buds and leaves done in such needlework as was, in those days, only taught to the most refined and highly educated class of whites. Mary had never seen anything so exquisitely beautiful in its workmanship as that embroidery, or so brightly picturesque as the whole appearance of the stranger.

For more than a minute the wild girl retained the position assumed by her last bounding step. There was something statue-like in the tension of those rounded and slender limbs as she stood on the shelf of rock, bending eagerly over the edge, with her weight thrown on one foot and the other strained back, as if preparing for a spring. All the grace, but not the chilliness, of marble lived in those boldly poised limbs, so full of warm, healthy life. There was spirit and fire in their very repose, for after an eager glance up and down the river she settled back, and with her arms folded remained for a moment in an attitude of dejection and disappointment.

A merry laugh which came ringing over the waters from the island drew her attention to the group of revellers glancing in and out of the shrubbery which surrounded Mother Derwent’s dwelling. Flinging back her hair with a gesture of fiery impatience, she sprang upward and dragged down the branch of a young tree, which she grasped for support while throwing herself still more boldly over the very edge of the cliff.

Mary almost screamed with affright. But there was something grand in the daring of the girl, which aroused her admiration even more than her fear. She knew that the breaking of that slender branch would precipitate her down a sheer descent into the river. But she felt as if the very sound of a human voice would startle her into eternity.

Motionless with dread, she fixed her eyes, like a fascinated bird, on the strange being thus hovering over death, so fearless and so beautiful. All at once those bright, dark eyes kindled, one arm was flung eagerly outward—her red lips parted and a gush of music, like the song of a mocking-bird, but louder and richer, burst from them.

Mary started forward in amazement. Before she could lift her eyes to the cliff again, a low, shrill whistle came sharply up from the direction of the island. She caught one glance of those kindling cheeks and flashing eyes as the strange, wild girl leaped back from the cliff—a gleam of sunlight on her long hair as she darted into a thicket of wild cherry trees—and there was no sign of her remaining, save a rushing sound of the young trees, as the bent limb swayed back to its fellows. Again the notes, as of a wild, eager bird, arose from a hollow bank on the side of the mountain; and, after a moment, that shrill whistle was repeated from the water, and Mary distinctly heard the dipping of an oar.

She crept to the edge of the rock which had formed her concealment and looked down upon the river. A canoe rowed by a single oarsman was making its way swiftly to the island. She could not distinguish the face of the occupant; but there was a band of red paint around the edge of the canoe, and she remembered that Edward Clark’s alone was so ornamented. It was the same that had brought her from the island. Did the signal come from him—from Edward Clark? What had he in common with the wild, strange girl who had broken upon her solitude? A thrill of pain, such as she had never dreamed of before, shot through her heart as she asked these questions. She would have watched the landing of the canoe, but all strength suddenly left her, and she sunk upon a fragment of stone, almost powerless and in extreme suffering.

In a little more than an hour she saw the same solitary rower crossing the river, but with more deliberate motion. She watched him while he moored the canoe in the little cove, and caught another glimpse of him as he turned a corner of her dwelling and mingled with the group of young persons who were drinking tea on the green sward in front.

It was a weary hour to the deformed girl before the party broke up and were transported to the opposite shore, where farm-wagons stood ready to convey them to Wilkesbarre. The sun was almost down, and the island quiet again when she saw two persons coming from the house to the cove. She arose, and folding her shawl about her prepared to descend to the shore.

Mary had walked half-way down the ledge when she stopped abruptly in the path; for sitting on the moss beneath one of these pines was the strange girl who had so excited her wonder. Mary’s slow step had not disturbed her, and unconscious of a witness she was unbraiding the string of berries from her hair and supplying their place with a rope of twisted coral. The strings of scarlet ribbon with which she knotted it on her temple were bright, and had evidently never been tied before.

Mary’s heart beat painfully and she hurried forward, as if some fierce animal had sprung up in her path. An uncontrollable repulsion to that wild and beautiful girl, which she neither understood nor tried to account for, seized her. When she reached the shore the canoe with Edward Clark and her sister seated in it was making leisurely towards the mouth of the ravine, and she sat down on the shadowy side of an oak, to await their coming. Their approach was so noiseless that she did not know they had reached the shore till the voice of Edward Clark apprised her of it. He was speaking earnestly to her sister, and there was both agitation and deep tenderness in his voice—a breaking forth of the heart’s best feelings, which she had never witnessed in him before.

“No, Jane,” he said, in a resolute voice, shaken with a sorrowful tremor; “you must now choose between that man and me; there can be nothing of rivalry between us; I heartily despise him! I am not jealous—I could not be a creature so unworthy; but it grieves me to feel that you can place him for a moment on a level with yourself. If you persist in this degrading coquetry you are unworthy of the love which I have given you. Forgive me, Jane, if I speak harshly; don’t cry—it grieves me to wound your feelings, but——”

He was interrupted by a sound as of some one falling heavily to the ground. He leaped from the canoe, and there, behind the great oak, lay Mary Derwent helpless and insensible.

“She has wandered too far, and exhausted herself,” said the agitated young man as he bore her to the canoe. “Sit down, Jane, and take her head in your lap—your grandmother will know what to do for her.”

Jane reached forth her arms and received the insensible head on her bosom. She turned her face petulantly away from that of her lover, and repulsed him with sullen discontent when, in his attempts to restore Mary, his hand happened to touch hers.

“Set her down,” she said, pushing him indignantly away. “Attend to your oars; we neither want your help or your ill-natured grumblings. I tell you, Ned Clark, you are just the Grossest creature I ever saw. Take that for your pains!”

Clark did not answer this insolent speech, but gravely took up the oars and pushed off.

They were half-way across the river when Mary began to recover animation. Edward laid down his oar, and taking her hand in his was about to speak, but she drew it away with a faint shudder, and burying her face in her sister’s bosom remained still and silent as before.

CHAPTER V
THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPEST

Tahmeroo, the Indian girl, was sitting under the pine as Mary Derwent had left her. With the coral but half twisted in her hair, she had paused in her graceful task, and sinking gently back to the bank of moss which formed her seat reclined on one elbow, with her long tresses unbraided and floating in wavy masses over her person. She was yielding to the repose of a soft and dreamy reverie—new and very sweet to her wild, young heart—when the sound of voices and the dash of an oar aroused her. She started to her feet and listened. The fire flashed back to those large dark eyes but late so pleasant and soft in their expression, and a rich crimson rushed to her cheek. The voices ceased for a moment; then were renewed, and the rapid beat of the paddle became still more audible.

Tahmeroo sprang forward and ran up to a point of the hill which commanded a view of the river. The little canoe, with its band of red paint, was making from the shore, and in it sat Jane Derwent, with the head of the deformed girl resting in her lap. The back of the oarsman was towards the shore; his head was bent, and the eyes, the beautiful eyes of Jane Derwent were fixed on him with an expression which Tahmeroo’s heart, unlearned as it was, taught her to understand. A storm of surprise, anger and fear rushed through the heart of the young Indian. The oarsman turned his head, and the face was revealed. Then a smile, vivid and bright as a burst of sunshine after a tempest, broke over her features.

Tahmeroo breathed deeply and turned away. It seemed as if an arrow had been withdrawn from her heart by the sight of that face. She hurried down the hill towards a clump of black alders that overhung the river’s brink and unmoored a light canoe hitherto concealed beneath the dark foliage. Placing herself in the bottom, she gave two or three vigorous strokes with the paddle, and shot like a bird up the stream.

As Tahmeroo proceeded up the river the scenery, till then half-pastoral, half-sublime, became more savage and gloomy in its aspect. Huge rocks shot up against the sky in picturesque grandeur; the foliage which clothed them grew dusky in the waning light and fell back to the ravines in dark, heavy shadows. A gloom hung about the towering precipices, and the thick masses of vegetation, like funeral drapery, swathing the pillars and wild arches of a monastic ruin. It was the darkness of a gathering tempest. There was something sublime and almost awful in the gradual and silent mustering of the elements.

Tahmeroo rested for a moment as she entered the rocky jaws of the mountain, and as her frail bark rocked to the current of wind which swept down the gorge she looked around with a feeling of hushed terror. A mountain, cleft in twain to the foundation, towered to the sky on either hand—bold, bleak and sombre. Through the rent, down hundreds of feet from the summit, crept the deep river stealthily and slow, like a huge serpent winding himself around the bulwark of a stronghold. The darkness of the forests was so dense, and the clouds so heavy, that there was nothing to distinguish the outline of the murky waters from the majestic ramparts through which they glided. All was wild, solemn and gloomy.

As the Indian girl looked upward the clouds swept back for a moment and the last rays of sunset fell with a glaring light on the bold summit of the mountain, rendering by contrast the depths of the chasm more dreary in its intense shadow.

The threatened storm had seemingly passed over, and a few stars trembled in the depths of the sky when she moored her canoe in a little inlet, washed up into the mouth of a narrow ravine which opened on the river’s brink.

Tahmeroo tore away the dry brambles and brushwood which clothed the entrance of the defile, and made her way through a scarcely defined footpath up the hillside. Through this ravine rushed a mountain torrent, known to the Indians as the Falling Spring, which filled the whole forest with its silvery tumult.

Tahmeroo kept close to the banks of this torrent, helping herself forward by the brushwood and trailing vines that grew thickly on its margin. Nothing less surefooted than an antelope could have forced a passage through the broken rocks and steep precipices which guarded the passage of this stream up to its source in Campbell’s Ledge. A little way from the river it came, with a single leap, through a chasm in the rocks, and lost itself in a storm of white spray among the mossy boulders which choked up the ravine.

The storm had mustered again so blackly that Tahmeroo could scarcely see her course, but lost herself among the rocks and young pines below the fall. Still she climbed upward, leaping from rock to rock, till the sheer precipices that walled in the cataract on either side obstructed her passage, and she stood poised half-way up, uncertain which way to turn or how to move.

A flash of lightning revealed her position, kindled up the young trees to a lurid green; gave the slippery brown precipices to view, and shot in and out of the foaming torrent as it leaped by like flashes of fire, tearing a snowdrift into flakes again and scattering it to the wind.

The lightning revealed her peril and her path. She sprang back from the precipice, from which the next leap would have precipitated her downward with the cataract into the depths of the ravine, and tore her way into the bosom of the hills, keeping Campbell’s Ledge on the right.

A less vigorous form would have fainted beneath the toil of that mountain-pass; but the young Indian scarcely thought of fatigue; for a dull, moaning sound came up from the depths of the forest, like the hollow beat of a far-off ocean; the pent-up thunder muttered and rumbled among the black clouds, floating like funeral banners above her, every other instant pierced and torn with arrowy lightning. These signs of the storm gathering so fearfully about the mountains terrified and bewildered the Indian girl. Though a wild rover of the forest, she had been gently nurtured, and for the first time in her life was alone among the hills after nightfall.

At length she stood on a high ledge of rocks, panting and in despair; she had lost the path that led to the Indian encampment, and found herself on the sweep of a mighty precipice, far above the valley. After one wild, hopeless look upon the sky, she sunk to the ground and, burying her face in her hands, muttered, in a trembling and husky voice:

“Tahmeroo has been wicked. She has acted a lie. The Great Spirit is very angry. Why should she strive to shut out his voice? Tahmeroo can die.”

While she spoke there was a hush in the elements and the sound of many hoarse, guttural voices arose from the foot of the ledge. The terrified Indian lifted her head, and a wild, doubtful joy gleamed over her face as the lightning revealed it, with the damp, unbraided hair floating back from the pallid temples, the lips parted, and the eyes charged with terror, doubt and eager joy. She listened intently for a moment, then sunk cautiously to the ground as one who fears to break a pleasant delusion, and crept to the edge of the rock.

FALLING SPRING

A dozen watch-fires flashed up in a semicircle, flinging a broad light over the whole enclosure and gleaming redly on the waving vines, the weeping birches, and the budding hemlocks that intermingled along its broken ramparts. A hundred swarthy forms, half-naked and hideously painted, were moving about, and others lay crouching in the grass, apparently terrified by the tempest gathering so blackly above them.

The untrodden grass and fresh herbage told that this hollow had recently been made a place of encampment; yet, in the enclosure was one lodge, small and but rudely constructed—a sylvan hut, more picturesque than any cabin to be found in the settlements. How recently it had been constructed might be guessed by the green branches yet fresh on the half-hewn logs. A score of savage hands had been at work upon it the whole day, for the Chief of the Shawnees never rested in the open air with the lower members of his tribe when his fierce mother, his haughty wife, or beautiful daughter was of his hunting party.

Tahmeroo had wandered upward from the path which led to the encampment. She had madly clambered to the highest chain of rocks which surrounded the enclosure, when she should have made her way around its base to the opening which gave egress to the forest. She arose from the edge of the rock, where she had been lying, high above the encampment, and was about to descend to the path she had missed, when a sound like the roar and tramp of a great army came surging up from the forest. The tall trees swayed earthward, flinging their branches and green leaves to the whirlwind as it swept by. Heavy limbs were twisted off, and mighty trunks, splintered midway, mingled the sharp crash of their fall with the hoarse roar of the tempest. The thunder boomed among the rocks, peal after peal, and the quick lightning darted through the heaving trees like fiery serpents wrangling with the torn foliage.

The very mountain seemed to tremble beneath the maiden’s feet. She threw herself upon the ledge, and with her face buried in its moss lay motionless, but quaking at heart, as the whirlwind rushed over her.

A still more fearful burst of the elements struck upon the heights, lifted a stout oak from its anchorage and hurled it to the earth. The splintered trunk fell with a crash, and the topmost boughs bent down the young saplings with a rushing sweep and fell like the wings of a great bird of prey, above the prostrate Indian. She sprang upward with a cry, and seizing the stem of a vine swung herself madly over the precipice. Fortunately the descent was rugged, and many a jutting angle afforded a foothold to the daring girl as she let herself fearlessly down—now clinging among the leaves of the vine—now grasping the sharp point of a rock, and dropping from one cleft to another. Twice she forced herself back, as if she would have sunk into the very rock, and dragged the heavy vines over her, when a fresh thunder-burst rolled by, or a flash of lightning blazed among the leaves; but when they had passed she again swung herself downward, and finally dropped unharmed upon the grass back of her father’s lodge.

The enclosure was now perfectly dark; for the rain had extinguished the watch-fires and the lightning but occasionally revealed a group of dark forms cowering together, awed by the violence of the tempest, and rendered abject by superstitious dread.

A twinkling light broke through the crevices of the lodge; but Tahmeroo lingered in the rain, for now that the fierceness of the storm was over she began to have a new fear—the dread of her mother’s stern presence. Cautiously, and with timid footsteps, she advanced to the entrance and lifted the huge bear-skin that covered it. She breathed freely; for there was no one present save her father, the great Chief of the Shawnees. He was sitting on the ground, with his arms folded on his knees, and his swarthy forehead buried in his robe of skins. The heart of the Indian King was sorely troubled, for he knew that the wing of the Great Spirit was unfolded in its wrath above his people.

Tahmeroo crept to the extremity of the lodge and sat down in silence upon the ground. She saw that preparations had been made for her comfort. A pile of fresh berries and a cake of cornbread lay on a stool nearby, and a couch of boughs woven rudely together stood in the corner heaped with the richest furs and overspread with a covering of martin-skins lined and bordered with fine scarlet cloth. A chain of gorgeous beadwork linked the deep scallops on the border, and heavy tassels fell upon the grass from the four corners. The savage magnificence of that couch was well worthy the daughter of a great chief.

Another couch, but of less costly furs, and without ornament, stood at the opposite extremity. Tahmeroo threw one timid look towards it, then bent her head, satisfied that it was untenanted, and that her mother was indeed absent. As if suddenly recollecting herself, she half-started from the ground and disentangled the string of coral from her damp hair. With her eyes fixed apprehensively on the chief, she thrust it under the fur pillows of her couch, and stole back to her former position.

Tahmeroo had scarcely seated herself when the bear-skin was flung back from the entrance of the lodge and Catharine, the wife of the Shawnee chief, presented herself in the opening. The light from a heap of pine knots fell on the woman’s face as she entered; but it failed to reveal the maiden where she sat in the shadowy side of the lodge.

The chief lifted his head and uttered a few words in the Indian tongue, but received no answer; while his wife gave one quick look around the lodge, then sallied back, clasped her hands tightly and groaned aloud.

Tahmeroo scarcely breathed, for never had she seen her mother so agitated. It was, indeed, a strange sight—those small, finely cut features usually so stern and cold, working with emotion—the pallid cheek, the high forehead, swollen and knitted at the brows—the trembling mouth—the eyes heavy with anguish. This was a sight which Tahmeroo had never witnessed before. And this was the stern, haughty woman—the white Indian—who ruled the Shawnee braves with despotic rigor—whose revenge was deadly, and whose hate was a terror. This was Catharine Montour!

When Tahmeroo heard her name mingled with the lamentations of her mother, she started forward, exclaiming, with tremulous and broken earnestness: “Mother, oh! mother, I am here!”

A burst of fierce thanksgiving broke from the lips of Catharine. She caught her daughter to her heart and kissed her wildly again and again.

“Thank God, oh! thank my God! I am not quite alone!” she exclaimed; and tears started in the eyes that had not known them for twenty summers.

Without a word of question as to her strange absence, Catharine drew her child to the couch, and seeing the bread and the berries yet untasted she forced her to eat while she wrung the moisture from her hair and took away the damp robe. She smoothed the cushions of crimson cloth that served as pillows, and drawing the coverlet of martin-skins over the form of her child sat beside her till she dropped to a gentle slumber. Then she heaped fresh knots on the burning pine and changed her own saturated raiment.

The sombre chief threw himself upon the unoccupied heap of furs, and Catharine was left alone with her thoughts. Long and sad were the vigils of that stern watcher; yet they had a good influence on her heart. There was tenderness and regret—nay, almost repentance—in her bosom as she gazed on the slumbers of her child—the only being on earth whom she dared to love. More than once she pressed her lips fondly to the forehead of the sleeper, as if to assure herself of her dear presence after the frightful dangers of the storm. She remained till after midnight, pondering upon past events with the clinging tenacity of one who seldom allowed herself to dwell on aught that could soften a shade of her haughty character; at length she was about to throw herself by the side of her daughter, more from the workings of unquiet thoughts than from a desire for rest. But the attempt disturbed the slumbering girl. She turned restlessly on her couch, and oppressed by its warmth pushed away the covering.

Catharine observed that the cheek which lay against the scarlet cloth was flushed and heated. She attempted to draw the pillow away, when her fingers became entangled in the string of coral concealed beneath it. Had a serpent coiled around her hand it could not have produced a more startling effect. She shook it off, and drew hastily back, as if something loathsome had clung to her. Then she snatched up the ornament, went to the pile of smouldering embers, stirred them to a flame and examined it minutely by the light. Her face settled to its habitual expression of iron resolution as she arose from her stooping posture. Her lips were firmly closed, and her forehead became calm and cold; yet there was more of doubt and sorrow than of anger in her forced composure.

She returned to the couch and placed herself beside it, with the coral still clenched in her hand. Her face continued passionless, but her eyes grew dim as she gazed on the sleeper; thoughts of her own youth lay heavily upon her heart.

Tahmeroo again turned restlessly on her pillow, her flushed cheeks dimpled with a smile, and she murmured softly in her sleep. Catharine laid her hand on the round arm, flung out upon the martin-skins, and bent her ear close to the red and smiling lips, thus betraying with their gentle whisperings the thoughts that haunted the bosom of the sleeper.

Tahmeroo dreamed aloud. A name was whispered in her soft, broken English, coupled with words of endearment and gentle chiding. The name was spoken imperfectly, and Catharine bent her ear still lower, as if in doubt that she had heard aright. Again that name was pronounced, and now there was no doubt; the enunciation was low, but perfectly distinct. The mother started upright; her face was ashy pale, and she looked strangely corpse-like in the dusky light. She snatched a knife from its sheath in her girdle, and bent a fierce glance on the sleeper. A moment the blade quivered above the heart of her only child, then the wretched woman flung it from her with a gesture of self-abhorrence, and sinking to the ground buried her face in both hands. After one fierce shudder she remained motionless as a statue.

It was more than an hour before that stern face was lifted again; shade after shade of deep and harrowing agony had swept over it while buried in the folded arms, and now it was very pale, but with a gentler expression upon it. She laid a hand on the rounded shoulder, from which the covering had been flung, passed the other quickly over her eyes and awoke the sleeper.

“Tahmeroo,” she said, but her voice was low and husky, and it died away in her throat.

The maiden started to her elbow and looked wildly about. When she saw her mother with the string of red coral in her hand she sunk back and buried her face in the pillow.

“Tahmeroo, look up!” said the mother, in a soft, low voice, from which all traces of emotion had flown. “Has Tahmeroo dreams which she does not tell her mother? The white man’s gift is under her pillow—whence came it?”

A blush spread over the face, neck and bosom of the young girl, and she shrunk from the steady gaze of her mother. She was sensible of no wrong, save that of concealment; yet her confusion was painful as guilt. Catharine had compassion on her embarrassment, and turned away her eyes.

“Tahmeroo,” she said, in a voice still more gentle and winning, “tell me all—am I not your mother? Do I not love you?”

The young Indian girl rose and looked timidly towards the couch of the Shawnee Chief.

“Does my father sleep?” and her eyes again fell beneath the powerful glance which she felt to be fixed upon her.

“Yes, he sleeps; speak in English, and have no fear.”

Catharine went to the heap of blazing pine and flung ashes on it; then returned to her daughter, folded her to her bosom, and for half an hour the low voice of Tahmeroo alone broke the stillness of the lodge.

Scarcely had Catharine interrupted the confession of her child with a word of question. She must have been powerless from emotion, for more than once her breath came quick and gaspingly; and the heavy throbbing of her heart was almost audible at every pause in that broken narrative. Yet her voice was strangely cold and calm when she spoke.

“And you saw him again this day?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Did he tell you to keep these meetings from my knowledge?”

“He said the Great Spirit would visit me with his thunder if I but whispered it to the wind.”

“The name—tell me the name once more; but low, I would not hear it aloud. Whisper it in my ear—yet the hiss of a serpent were sweeter,” she muttered.

Tahmeroo raised her lips to her mother’s ear and whispered, as she was commanded. She felt a slight shudder creep over the frame against which she leaned, and all was still again.

“You first saw this—this man when we were at the encampment on the banks of Seneca Lake three moons since, and I was absent on a mission to Sir William Johnson: did I hear aright in this?” questioned the mother, after a few minutes of silence.