"I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith."

  Shakespeare.


The incidents of this tale must be sought in a remote period of the annals
of America. A colony of self-devoted and pious refugees from religious
persecution had landed on the rock of Plymouth, less than half a century
before the time at which the narrative commences; and they, and their
descendants, had already transformed many a broad waste of wilderness into
smiling fields and cheerful villages. The labors of the emigrants had been
chiefly limited to the country on the coast, which, by its proximity to
the waters that rolled between them and Europe, afforded the semblance of
a connexion with the land of their forefathers and the distant abodes of
civilization. But enterprise, and a desire to search for still more
fertile domains, together with the temptation offered by the vast and
unknown regions that lay along their western and northern borders, had
induced many bold adventurers to penetrate more deeply into the forests.
The precise spot, to which we desire to transport the imagination of the
reader, was one of these establishments of what may, not inaptly, be
called the forlorn-hope, in the march of civilization through the country.

So little was then known of the great outlines of the American continent,
that, when the Lords Say and Seal, and Brooke, connected with a few
associates, obtained a grant of the territory which now composes the state
of Connecticut, the King of England affixed his name to a patent, which
constituted them proprietors of a country that should extend from the
shores of the Atlantic to those of the South Sea. Notwithstanding the
apparent hopelessness of ever subduing, or of even occupying a territory
like this, emigrants from the mother colony of Massachusetts were found
ready to commence the Herculean labor, within fifteen years from the day
when they had first put foot upon the well-known rock itself. The fort of
Say-Brooke, the towns of Windsor, Hartford, and New-Haven, soon sprang
into existence, and, from that period to this, the little community, which
then had birth, has been steadily, calmly, and prosperously advancing its
career, a model of order and reason, and the hive from which swarms of
industrious, hardy and enlightened yeomen have since spread themselves
over a surface so vast, as to create an impression that they still aspire
to the possession of the immense regions included in their original grant.

Among the religionists, whom disgust of persecution had early driven into
the voluntary exile of the colonies, was more than an usual proportion of
men of character and education. The reckless and the gay, younger sons,
soldiers unemployed, and students from the inns of court, early sought
advancement and adventure in the more southern provinces, where slaves
offered impunity from labor, and where war, with a bolder and more
stirring policy, oftener gave rise to scenes of excitement, and, of
course, to the exercise of the faculties best suited to their habits and
dispositions. The more grave, and the religiously-disposed, found refuge
in the colonies of New-England. Thither a multitude of private gentlemen
transferred their fortunes and their families, imparting a character of
intelligence and a moral elevation to the country, which it has nobly
sustained to the present hour.

The nature of the civil wars in England had enlisted many men of deep and
sincere piety in the profession of arms. Some of them had retired to the
colonies before the troubles of the mother country reached their crisis,
and others continued to arrive, throughout the whole period of their
existence, until the restoration; when crowds of those who had been
disaffected to the house of Stuart sought the security of these distant
possessions.

A stern, fanatical soldier, of the name of Heathcote, had been among the
first of his class, to throw aside the sword for the implements of
industry peculiar to the advancement of a newly-established country. How
far the influence of a young wife may have affected his decision it is not
germane to our present object to consider, though the records, from which
the matter we are about to relate is gleaned, give reason to suspect that
he thought his domestic harmony would not be less secure in the wilds of
the new world, than among the companions with whom his earlier
associations would naturally have brought him in communion.

Like himself, his consort was born of one of those families, which, taking
their rise in the franklins of the times of the Edwards and Henrys, had
become possessors of hereditary landed estates, that, by their
gradually-increasing value, had elevated them to the station of small
country gentlemen. In most other nations of Europe, they would have been
rated in the class of the _petite noblesse_. But the domestic happiness of
Capt. Heathcote was doomed to receive a fatal blow, from a quarter where
circumstances had given him but little reason to apprehend danger. The
very day he landed in the long-wished-for asylum, his wife made him the
father of a noble boy, a gift that she bestowed at the melancholy price of
her own existence. Twenty years the senior of the woman who had followed
his fortunes to these distant regions, the retired warrior had always
considered it to be perfectly and absolutely within the order of things,
that he himself was to be the first to pay the debt of nature. While the
visions which Captain Heathcote entertained of a future world were
sufficiently vivid and distinct, there is reason to think they were seen
through a tolerably long vista of quiet and comfortable enjoyment in this.
Though the calamity cast an additional aspect of seriousness over a
character that was already more than chastened by the subtleties of
sectarian doctrines, he was not of a nature to be unmanned by any
vicissitude of human fortune. He lived on, useful and unbending in his
habits, a pillar of strength in the way of wisdom and courage to the
immediate neighborhood among whom he resided, but reluctant from temper,
and from a disposition which had been shadowed by withered happiness, to
enact that part in the public affairs of the little state, to which his
comparative wealth and previous habits might well have entitled him to
aspire. He gave his son such an education as his own resources and those
of the infant colony of Massachusetts afforded, and, by a sort of delusive
piety, into whose merits we have no desire to look, he thought he had also
furnished a commendable evidence of his own desperate resignation to the
will of Providence, in causing him to be publicly christened by the name
of Content. His own baptismal appellation was Mark; as indeed had been
that of most of his ancestors, for two or three centuries. When the world
was a little uppermost in his thoughts, as sometimes happens with the most
humbled spirits, he had even been heard to speak of a Sir Mark of his
family, who had ridden a knight in the train of one of the more warlike
kings of his native land.

There is some ground for believing, that the great parent of evil early
looked with a malignant eye on the example of peacefulness, and of
unbending morality, that the colonists of New-England were setting to the
rest of Christendom. At any rate, come from what quarter they might,
schisms and doctrinal contentions arose among the emigrants themselves;
and men, who together had deserted the fire-sides of their forefathers in
quest of religious peace, were ere long seen separating their fortunes, in
order that each might enjoy, unmolested, those peculiar shades of faith,
which all had the presumption, no less than the folly, to believe were
necessary to propitiate the omnipotent and merciful father of the
universe. If our task were one of theology, a wholesome moral on the
vanity, no less than on the absurdity of the race, might be here
introduced to some advantage.

When Mark Heathcote announced to the community, in which he had now
sojourned more than twenty years, that he intended for a second time to
establish his altars in the wilderness, in the hope that he and his
household might worship God as to them seemed most right, the intelligence
was received with a feeling allied to awe. Doctrine and zeal were
momentarily forgotten, in the respect and attachment which had been
unconsciously created by the united influence of the stern severity of his
air, and of the undeniable virtues of his practice. The elders of the
settlement communed with him freely and in charity; but the voice of
conciliation and alliance came too late. He listened to the reasonings of
the ministers, who were assembled from all the adjoining parishes, in
sullen respect: and he joined in the petitions for light and instruction,
that were offered up on the occasion, with the deep reverence with which
he ever drew near to the footstool of the Almighty; but he did both in a
temper into which too much positiveness of spiritual pride had entered, to
open his heart to that sympathy and charity, which, as they are the
characteristics of our mild and forbearing doctrines, should be the study
of those who profess to follow their precepts. All that was seemly, and
all that was usual, were done; but the purpose of the stubborn sectarian
remained unchanged. His final decision is worthy of being recorded.

"My youth was wasted in ungodliness and ignorance," he said, "but in my
manhood have I known the Lord. Near two-score years have I toiled for the
truth, and all that weary time have I past in trimming my lamps, lest,
like the foolish virgins, I should be caught unprepared; and now, when my
loins are girded and my race is nearly run, shall I become a backslider
and falsifier of the word? Much have I endured, as you know, in quitting
the earthly mansion of my fathers, and in encountering the dangers of sea
and land for the faith; and, rather than let go its hold, will I once more
cheerfully devote to the howling wilderness, ease, offspring, and, should
it be the will of Providence, life itself!"

The day of parting was one of unfeigned and general sorrow.
Notwithstanding the austerity of the old man's character, and the nearly
unbending severity of his brow, the milk of human kindness had often been
seen distilling from his stern nature in acts that did not admit of
misinterpretation. There was scarcely a young beginner in the laborious
and ill-requited husbandry of the township he inhabited, a district at no
time considered either profitable or fertile, who could not recall some
secret and kind aid which had flowed from a hand that, to the world,
seemed clenched in cautious and reserved frugality; nor did any of the
faithful of his vicinity cast their fortunes together in wedlock, without
receiving from him evidence of an interest in their worldly happiness,
that was far more substantial than words.

On the morning when the vehicles, groaning with the household goods of
Mark Heathcote, were seen quitting his door, and taking the road which
led to the sea-side, not a human being, of sufficient age, within many
miles of his residence, was absent from the interesting spectacle. The
leave-taking, as usual on all serious occasions, was preceded by a hymn
and prayer, and then the sternly-minded adventurer embraced his neighbors,
with a mien, in which a subdued exterior struggled fearfully and strangely
with emotions that, more than once, threatened to break through even the
formidable barriers of his acquired manner. The inhabitants of every
building on the road were in the open air, to receive and to return the
parting benediction. More than once, they, who guided his teams, were
commanded to halt, and all near, possessing human aspirations and human
responsibility, were collected to offer petitions in favor of him who
departed and of those who remained. The requests for mortal privileges
were somewhat light and hasty, but the askings in behalf of intellectual
and spiritual light were long, fervent, and oft-repeated. In this
characteristic manner did one of the first of the emigrants to the new
world make his second removal into scenes of renewed bodily suffering,
privation and danger.

Neither person nor property was transferred from place to place, in this
country, at the middle of the seventeenth century, with the dispatch and
with the facilities of the present time. The roads were necessarily few
and short, and communication by water was irregular, tardy, and far from
commodius. A wide barrier of forest lying between that portion of
Massachusetts-bay from which Mark Heathcote emigrated, and the spot, near
the Connecticut river, to which it was his intention to proceed, he was
induced to adopt the latter mode of conveyance. But a long delay
intervened between the time when he commenced his short journey to the
coast, and the hour when he was finally enabled to embark. During this
detention he and his household sojourned among the godly-minded of the
narrow peninsula, where there already existed the germ of a flourishing
town, and where the spires of a noble and picturesque city now elevate
themselves above so many thousand roofs.

The son did not leave the colony of his birth and the haunts of his youth,
with the same unwavering obedience to the call of duty, as the father.
There was a fair, a youthful, and a gentle being in the
recently-established town of Boston, of an age, station, opinions,
fortunes, and, what was of still greater importance, of sympathies suited
to his own. Her form had long mingled with those holy images, which his
stern instruction taught him to keep most familiarly before the mirror of
his thoughts. It is not surprising, then, that the youth hailed the delay
as propitious to his wishes, or that he turned it to the account, which
the promptings of a pure affection so naturally suggested. He was united
to the gentle Ruth Harding only the week before the father sailed on his
second pilgrimage.

It is not our intention to dwell on the incidents of the voyage. Though
the genius of an extraordinary man had discovered the world which was now
beginning to fill with civilized men, navigation at that day was not
brilliant in accomplishments. A passage among the shoals of Nantucket must
have been one of actual danger, no less than of terror; and the ascent of
the Connecticut itself was an exploit worthy of being mentioned. In due
time the adventurers landed at the English fort of Hartford, where they
tarried for a season, in order to obtain rest and spiritual comfort. But
the peculiarity of doctrine, on which Mark Heathcote laid so much stress,
was one that rendered it advisable for him to retire still further from
the haunts of men. Accompanied by a few followers, he proceeded on an
exploring expedition, and the end of the summer found him once more
established on an estate that he had acquired by the usual simple forms
practised in the colonies, and at the trifling cost for which extensive
districts were then set apart as the property of individuals.

The love of the things of this life, while it certainly existed, was far
from being predominant in the affections of the Puritan. He was frugal
from habit and principle, more than from an undue longing after worldly
wealth. He contented himself, therefore, with acquiring an estate that
should be valuable, rather from its quality and beauty, than from its
extent. Many such places offered themselves, between the settlements of
Weathersfield and Hartford, and that imaginary line which separated the
possessions of the colony he had quitted, from those of the one he joined.
He made his location, as it is termed in the language of the country, near
the northern boundary of the latter. This spot, by the aid of an
expenditure that might have been considered lavish for the country and the
age, if some lingering of taste, which even the self-denying and subdued
habits of his later life had not entirely extinguished, and of great
natural beauty in the distribution of land, water and wood, the emigrant
contrived to convert into an abode, that was not more desirable for its
retirement from the temptations of the world, than for its rural
loveliness.

After this memorable act of conscientious self-devotion, years passed away
in quiet, amid a species of negative prosperity. Rumors from the old world
reached the ears of the tenants of this secluded settlement, months after
the events to which they referred were elsewhere forgotten, and tumults
and wars in the sister colonies came to their knowledge only at distant
and tardy intervals. In the mean time, the limits of the colonial
establishments were gradually extending themselves, and valleys were
beginning to be cleared nearer and nearer to their own. Old age had now
begun to make some visible impression on the iron frame of the Captain,
and the fresh color of youth and health, with which his son had entered
the forest, was giving way to the brown covering produced by exposure and
toil. We say of toil, for, independently of the habits and opinions of the
country, which strongly reprobated idleness, even in those most gifted by
fortune, the daily difficulties of their situation, the chase, and the
long and intricate passages that the veteran himself was compelled to
adventure in the surrounding forest, partook largely of the nature of the
term we have used. Ruth continued blooming and youthful, though maternal
anxiety was soon added to her other causes of care. Still, for a long
season, nought occurred to excite extraordinary regrets for the step they
had taken, or to create particular uneasiness in behalf of the future. The
borderers, for such by their frontier position they had in truth become,
heard the strange and awful tidings of the dethronement of one king, of
the interregnum, as a reign of more than usual vigor and prosperity is
called, and of the restoration of the son of him who is strangely enough
termed a martyr. To all these eventful and unwonted chances in the
fortunes of kings, Mark Heathcote listened with deep and reverential
submission to the will of him, in whose eyes crowns and sceptres are
merely the more costly baubles of the world. Like most of his
contemporaries, who had sought shelter in the western continent, his
political opinions, if not absolutely republican, had a leaning to liberty
that was strongly in opposition to the doctrine of the divine rights of
the monarch, while he had been too far removed from the stirring passions
which had gradually excited those nearer to the throne, to lose their
respect for its sanctity, and to sully its brightness with blood. When the
transient and straggling visiters that, at long intervals, visited his
settlement, spoke of the Protector, who for so many years ruled England
with an iron hand, the eyes of the old man would gleam with sudden and
singular interest; and once, when commenting after evening prayer on the
vanity and the vicissitudes of this life, he acknowledged that the
extraordinary individual, who was, in substance if not in name, seated on
the throne of the Plantagenets, had been the boon companion and ungodly
associate of many of his youthful hours. Then would follow a long,
wholesome, extemporaneous homily on the idleness of setting the affections
on the things of life, and a half-suppressed, but still intelligible
commendation of the wiser course which had led him to raise his own
tabernacle in the wilderness, instead of weakening the chances of eternal
glory by striving too much for the possession of the treacherous vanities
of the world.

But even the gentle and ordinarily little observant Ruth might trace the
kindling of the eye, the knitting of the brow, and the flushings of his
pale and furrowed cheek, as the murderous conflicts of the civil wars
became the themes of the ancient soldier's discourse. There were moments
when religious submission, and we had almost said religious precepts, were
partially forgotten, as he explained to his attentive son and listening
grandchild, the nature of the onset, or the quality and dignity of the
retreat. At such times, his still nervous hand would even wield the blade,
in order to instruct the latter in its uses, and many a long winter
evening was passed in thus indirectly teaching an art, that was so much at
variance with the mandates of his divine master. The chastened soldier,
however, never forgot to close his instruction with a petition
extraordinary, in the customary prayer, that no descendant of his should
ever take life from a being unprepared to die, except in justifiable
defence of his faith, his person, or his lawful rights. It must be
admitted, that a liberal construction of the reserved privileges would
leave sufficient matter, to exercise the subtlety of one subject to any
extraordinary propensity to arms.

Few opportunities were however offered, in their remote situation and
with their peaceful habits, for the practice of a theory that had been
taught in so many lessons. Indian alarms, as they were termed, were not
unfrequent, but, as yet, they had never produced more than terror in the
bosoms of the gentle Ruth and her young offspring. It is true, they had
heard of travellers massacred, and of families separated by captivity,
but, either by a happy fortune, or by more than ordinary prudence in the
settlers who were established along that immediate frontier, the knife
and the tomahawk had as yet been sparingly used in the colony of
Connecticut. A threatening and dangerous struggle with the Dutch, in the
adjoining province of New-Netherlands, had been averted by the foresight
and moderation of the rulers of the new plantations; and though a
warlike and powerful native chief kept the neighboring colonies of
Massachusetts and Rhode-Island in a state of constant watchfulness, from
the cause just mentioned the apprehension of danger was greatly weakened
in the breasts of those so remote as the individuals who composed the
family of our emigrant.

In this quiet manner did years glide by, the surrounding wilderness
slowly retreating from the habitations of the Heathcotes, until they
found themselves in the possession of as many of the comforts of life as
their utter seclusion from the rest of the world could give them reason
to expect.

With this preliminary explanation, we shall refer the reader to the
succeeding narrative for a more minute, and we hope for a more interesting
account of the incidents of a legend that may prove too homely for the
tastes of those, whose imaginations seek the excitement of scenes more
stirring, or of a condition of life less natural.




Chapter II.



  Sir, I do know you;
  And dare, upon the warrant of my art,
  Commend a dear thing to you.

  King Lear.


At the precise time when the action of our piece commences, a fine and
fruitful season was drawing to a close. The harvests of the hay and of the
smaller corns had long been over, and the younger Heathcote with his
laborers had passed a day in depriving the luxuriant maize of its tops, in
order to secure the nutritious blades for fodder, and to admit the sun and
air to harden a grain, that is almost considered the staple production of
the region he inhabited. The veteran Mark had ridden among the workmen,
during their light toil, as well to enjoy a sight which promised abundance
to his flocks and herds, as to throw in, on occasion, some wholesome
spiritual precept, in which doctrinal subtlety was far more prominent than
the rules of practice. The hirelings of his son, for he had long since
yielded the management of the estate to Content, were, without an
exception, young men born in the country and long use and much training
had accustomed them to a blending of religious exercises with most of the
employments of life. They listened, therefore, with respect, nor did an
impious smile, or an impatient glance, escape the lightest-minded of their
number, during his exhortations, though the homilies of the old man were
neither very brief, nor particularly original. But devotion to the one
great cause of their existence, austere habits, and unrelaxed industry in
keeping alive a flame of zeal that had been kindled in the other
hemisphere, to burn longest and brightest in this, had interwoven the
practice mentioned with most of the opinions and pleasures of these
metaphysical, though simple minded people. The toil went on none the less
cheerily for the extraordinary accompaniment, and Content himself, by a
certain glimmering of superstition, which appears to be the concomitant of
excessive religious zeal, was fain to think that the sun shone more
brightly on their labors, and that the earth gave forth more of its
fruits, while these holy sentiments were flowing from the lips of a father
whom he piously loved and deeply reverenced.

But when the sun, usually at that season, in the climate of Connecticut, a
bright unshrouded orb, fell towards the tree-tops which bounded the
western horizon, the old man began to grow weary with his own well-doing.
He therefore finished his discourse with a wholesome admonition to the
youths to complete their tasks before they quitted the field; and, turning
the head of his horse, he rode slowly, and with a musing air, towards the
dwellings. It is probable that for some time the thoughts of Mark were
occupied with the intellectual matter he had just been handling with so
much power; but when his little nag stopped of itself on a small eminence,
which the crooked cow-path he was following crossed, his mind yielded to
the impression of more worldly and more sensible objects. As the scene,
that drew his contemplations from so many abstract theories to the
realities of life, was peculiar to the country, and is more or less
connected with the subject of our tale, we shall endeavor briefly to
describe it.

A small tributary of the Connecticut divided the view into two nearly
equal parts. The fertile flats that extended on each of its banks for more
than a mile, had been early stripped of their burthen of forest, and they
now lay in placid meadows, or in fields from which the grain of the season
had lately disappeared, and over which the plow had already left the marks
of recent tillage. The whole of the plain, which ascended gently from the
rivulet towards the forest, was subdivided in inclosures, by numberless
fences, constructed in the rude but substantial manner of the country.
Rails, in which lightness and economy of wood had been but little
consulted, lying in zigzag lines, like the approaches which the besieger
makes in his cautious advance to the hostile fortress, were piled on each
other, until barriers seven or eight feet in height, were interposed to
the inroads of vicious cattle. In one spot, a large square vacancy had
been cut into the forest, and, though numberless stumps of trees darkened
its surface, as indeed they did many of the fields on the flats
themselves, bright, green grain was sprouting forth, luxuriantly, from the
rich and virgin soil. High against the side of an adjacent hill, that
might aspire to be called a low rocky mountain, a similar invasion had
been made on the dominion of the trees; but caprice or convenience had
induced an abandonment of the clearing, after it had ill requited the toil
of felling the timber by a single crop. In this spot, straggling, girdled,
and consequently dead trees, piles of logs, and black and charred stubs,
were seen deforming the beauty of a field, that would, otherwise, have
been striking from its deep setting in the woods. Much of the surface of
this opening, too, was now concealed by bushes of what is termed the
second growth; though, here and there, places appeared, in which the
luxuriant white clover, natural to the country, had followed the close
grazing of the flocks. The eyes of Mark were bent, inquiringly, on this
clearing, which, by an air line, might have been half a mile from the
place where his horse had stopped, for the sounds of a dozen differently
toned cow-bells were brought, on the still air of the evening, to his
ears; from among its bushes.

The evidences of civilization were the least equivocal, however, on and
around a natural elevation in the land, which arose so suddenly on the
very bank of the stream, as to give to it the appearance of a work of art.
Whether these mounds once existed everywhere on the face of the earth, and
have disappeared before long tillage and labor, we shall not presume to
conjecture; but we have reason to think that they occur much more
frequently in certain parts of our own country, than in any other
familiarly known to ordinary travellers; unless perhaps it may be in some
of the valleys of Switzerland. The practised veteran had chosen the summit
of this flattened cone, for the establishment of that species of military
defence, which the situation of the country, and the character of the
enemy he had to guard against, rendered advisable, as well as customary.

The dwelling was of wood, and constructed of the ordinary frame-work,
with its thin covering of boards. It was long, low, and irregular;
bearing marks of having been reared at different periods, as the wants of
an increasing family had required additional accommodation. It stood near
the verge of the natural declivity, and on that side of the hill where
its base was washed by the rivulet, a rude piazza stretching along the
whole of its front and overhanging the stream. Several large, irregular,
and clumsy chimneys, rose out of different parts of the roofs, another
proof that comfort, rather than taste, had been consulted in the
disposition of the buildings. There were also two or three detached
offices on the summit of the hill, placed near the dwelling, and at
points most convenient for their several uses. A stranger might have
remarked that they were so disposed as to form, far as they went, the
different sides of a hollow square. Notwithstanding the great length of
the principal building, and the disposition of the more minute and
detached parts, this desirable formation would not, however, have been
obtained, were it not that two rows of rude constructions in logs, from
which the bark had not even been stripped, served to eke out the parts
that were deficient. These primeval edifices were used to contain various
domestic articles, no less than provisions; and they also furnished
numerous lodging-rooms for the laborers and the inferior dependants of
the farm: By the aid of a few strong and high gates of hewn timber, those
parts of the buildings which had not been made to unite in the original
construction, were sufficiently connected to oppose so many barriers
against admission into the inner court.

But the building which was most conspicuous by its position, no less than
by the singularity of its construction, stood on a low, artificial mound,
in the centre of the quadrangle. It was high, hexagonal in shape, and
crowned with a roof that came to a point, and from whose peak rose a
towering flagstaff. The foundation was of stone; but, at the height of a
man above the earth, the sides were made of massive, squared logs, firmly
united by an ingenious combination of their ends, as well as by
perpendicular supporters pinned closely into their sides. In this
citadel, or block-house, as from its materials it was technically called,
there were two different tiers of long, narrow loop-holes, but no regular
windows. The rays of the setting sun, however, glittered on one or two
small openings in the roof, in which glass had been set, furnishing
evidence that the summit of the building was sometimes used for other
purposes than those of defence.

About half-way up the sides of the eminence, on which the dwelling stood,
was an unbroken line of high palisadoes, made of the bodies of young
trees, firmly knit together by braces and horizontal pieces of timber, and
evidently kept in a state of jealous and complete repair. The air of the
whole of this frontier fortress was neat and comfortable, and, considering
that the use of artillery was unknown to those forests, not unmilitary.

At no great distance from the base of the hill, stood the barns and the
stables. They were surrounded by a vast range of rude but warm sheds,
beneath which sheep and horned cattle were usually sheltered from the
storms of the rigorous winters of the climate. The surfaces of the
meadows, immediately around the out-buildings, were of a smoother and
richer sward, than those in the distance, and the fences were on a far
more artificial, and perhaps durable, though scarcely on a more
serviceable plan. A large orchard of some ten or fifteen years' growth,
too, added greatly to the air of improvement, which put this smiling
valley in such strong and pleasing contrast to the endless and
nearly-untenanted woods by which it was environed.

Of the interminable forest, it is not necessary to speak. With the
solitary exception on the mountain-side, and of here and there a wind-row,
along which the trees had been uprooted, by the furious blasts that
sometimes sweep off acres of our trees in a minute, the eye could find no
other object to study in the vast setting of this quiet rural picture, but
the seemingly endless maze of wilderness. The broken surface of the land,
however, limited the view to an horizon of no great extent, though the art
of man could scarcely devise colors so vivid, or so gay, as those which
were afforded by the brilliant hues of the foliage. The keen, biting
frosts, known at the close of a New-England autumn, had already touched
the broad and fringed leaves of the maples, and the sudden and secret
process had been wrought upon all the other varieties of the forest,
producing that magical effect, which can be nowhere seen, except in
regions in which nature is so bountiful and luxuriant in summer, and so
sudden and so stern in the change of the seasons.

Over this picture of prosperity and peace, the eye of old Mark Heathcote
wandered with a keen degree of worldly prudence. The melancholy sounds of
the various toned bells, ringing hollow and plaintively among the arches
of the woods, gave him reason to believe that the herds of the family were
returning, voluntarily, from their unlimited forest pasturage. His
grandson, a fine spirited boy of some fourteen years, was approaching
through the fields. The youngster drove before him a small flock, which
domestic necessity compelled the family to keep at great occasional loss,
and at a heavy expense of time and trouble; both of which could alone
protect them from the ravages of the beasts of prey. A species of
half-witted serving-lad, whom charity had induced the old man to harbor
among his dependants was seen issuing from the woods, nearly in a line
with the neglected clearing on the mountain-side. The latter advanced,
shouting and urging before him a drove of colts, as shaggy, as wayward,
and nearly as untamed as himself.

"How now, weak one," said the Puritan, with a severe eye, as the two lads
approached him, with their several charges, from different directions, and
nearly at the same instant; "how now, sirrah! dost worry the cattle in
this gait, when the eyes of the prudent are turned from thee? Do as thou
wouldst be done by, is a just and healthful admonition, that the learned,
and the simple, the weak and the strong of mind, should alike recall to
their thoughts and their practice. I do not know that an over-driven colt
will be at all more apt to make a gentle and useful beast in its prime,
than one treated with kindness and care."

"I believe the evil one has got into all the kine, no less than into the
foals," sullenly returned the lad; "I've called to them in anger, and I've
spoken to them as if they had been my natural kin, and yet neither fair
word nor foul tongue will bring them to hearken to advice. There is
something frightful in the woods this very sun-down, master; or colts that
I have driven the summer through, would not be apt to give this unfair
treatment to one they ought to know to be their friend."

"Thy sheep are counted, Mark?" resumed the grandfather, turning towards
his descendant with a less austere, but always an authoritative brow; 'thy
mother hath need of every fleece, to provide covering for thee and others
like thee; thou knowest, child, that the creatures are few, and our
winters weary and cold."

"My mother's loom shall never be idle from carelessness of mine," returned
the confident boy; "but counting and wishing cannot make seven-and-thirty
fleeces, where there are only six-and-thirty backs to carry them. I have
been an hour among the briars and bushes of the hill logging, looking for
the lost wether, and yet neither lock, hoof, hide, nor horn, is there to
say what hath befallen the animal."

"Thou hast lost a sheep!--this carelessness will cause thy mother
to grieve."

"Grandfather, I have been no idler. Since the last hunt, the flock hath
been allowed to browse the woods; for no man, in all that week, saw wolf,
panther, or bear, though the country was up, from the great river to the
outer settlements of the colony. The biggest four-footed animal, that lost
its hide in the muster, was a thin-ribbed deer, and the stoutest battle
given, was between wild Whittal Ring, here, and a wood-chuck that kept him
at arm's-length, for the better part of an afternoon."

"Thy tale may be true, but it neither finds that which is lost, nor
completeth the number of thy mother's flock. Hast thou ridden carefully
throughout the clearing? It is not long, since I saw the animals grazing
in that quarter. What hast thou twisting in thy fingers, in that wasteful
and unthankful manner, Whittal?"

"What would make a winter blanket, if there was enough of it! wool! and
wool, too, that came from the thigh of old Straight-Horns; else have I
forgotten a leg, that gives the longest and coarsest hair at the
shearing."

"That truly seemeth a lock from the animal that is wanting," exclaimed the
other boy. "There is no other creature in the flock, with fleece so coarse
and shaggy. Where found you the handful, Whittal Ring?"

"Growing on the branch of a thorn. Queer fruit this, masters, to be seen
where young plums ought to ripen!"

"Go, go," interrupted the old man; "thou idlest, and mispendest the time
in vain talk. Go, fold thy flock, Mark; and do thou, weak-one, house thy
charge with less uproar than is wont. We should remember that the voice is
given to man, firstly, that he may improve the blessing in thanksgivings
and petitions; secondly, to communicate such gifts as may be imparted to
himself, and which it is his bounden duty to attempt to impart to others;
and then, thirdly, to declare his natural wants and inclinations."

With this admonition, which probably proceeded from a secret consciousness
in the Puritan that he had permitted a momentary cloud of selfishness to
obscure the brightness of his faith, the party separated. The grandson and
the hireling took their several ways to the folds, while old Mark himself
slowly continued his course towards the dwellings. It was near enough to
the hours of darkness, to render the preparations we have mentioned
prudent; still, no urgency called for particular haste, in the return of
the veteran to the shelter and protection of his own comfortable and
secure abode. He therefore loitered along the path, occasionally stopping
to look into the prospects of the young crops, that were beginning to
spring up in readiness for the coming year, and at times bending his gaze
around the whole of his limited horizon, like one who had the habit of
exceeding and unremitted care.

One of these numerous pauses promised to be much longer than usual.
Instead of keeping his understanding eye on the grain, the look of the old
man appeared fastened, as by a charm, on some distant and obscure object.
Doubt and uncertainty, for many minutes, seemed to mingle in his gaze. But
all hesitation had apparently disappeared, as his lips severed, and he
spoke, perhaps unconsciously to himself, aloud.

"It is no deception," were the low words, "but a living and an accountable
creature of the Lord's. Many a day has passed since such a sight hath been
witnessed in this vale; but my eye greatly deceives me, or yonder cometh
one ready to ask for hospitality, and, peradventure, for Christian and
brotherly communion."

The sight of the aged emigrant had not deceived him. One, who appeared
a wayworn and weary traveller, had indeed ridden out of the forest, at a
point where a path, that was easier to be traced by the blazed trees
that lay along its route, than by any marks on the earth itself, issued
into the cleared land. The progress of the stranger had, at first, been
so wary and slow, as to bear the manner of exceeding and mysterious
caution. The blind road, along which he must have ridden not only far
but hard, or night had certainly overtaken him in the woods, led to one
of the distant settlements that lay near to the fertile banks of the
Connecticut. Few ever followed its windings, but they who had especial
affairs, or extraordinary communion, in the way of religious
friendships, with the proprietors of the Wish-Ton-Wish, as, in
commemoration of the first bird that had been seen by the emigrants, the
valley of the Heathcotes was called.

Once fairly in view, any doubt or apprehension, that the stranger might at
first have entertained, disappeared. He rode boldly and steadily forward,
until he drew a rein that his impoverished and weary beast gladly obeyed,
within a few feet of the proprietor of the valley, whose gaze had never
ceased to watch his movements, from the instant when the other first came
within view. Before speaking, the stranger, a man whose head was getting
gray, apparently as much with hardship as with time, and one whose great
weight would have proved a grievous burthen, in a long ride, to even a
better-conditioned beast than the ill-favored provincial hack he had
ridden, dismounted, and threw the bridle loose upon the drooping neck of
the animal. The latter, without a moment's delay, and with a greediness
that denoted long abstinence, profited by its liberty, to crop the herbage
where it stood.

"I cannot be mistaken, when I suppose that I have at length reached the
valley of the Wish-Ton Wish," the visiter said, touching a soiled and
slouched beaver that more than half concealed his features. The question
was put in an English that bespoke a descent from those who dwell in the
midland counties of the mother country, rather than in that intonation
which is still to be traced, equally in the western portions of England
and in the eastern states of the Union. Notwithstanding the purity of his
accent, there was enough in the form of his speech to denote a severe
compliance with the fashion of the religionists of the times. He used that
measured and methodical tone, which was, singularly enough, believed to
distinguish an entire absence of affectation in language.

"Thou hast reached the dwelling of him thou seekest; one who is a
submissive sojourner in the wilderness of the world, and an humble
servitor in the outer temple."

"This then is Mark Heathcote!" repeated the stranger in tones of interest,
regarding the other with a look of long, and, possibly, of suspicious
investigation.

"Such is the name I bear. A fitting confidence in him who knows so well
how to change the wilds into the haunts of men, and much suffering, have
made me the master of what thou seest. Whether thou comest to tarry a
night, a week, a month, or even for a still longer season, as a brother in
care, and I doubt not one who striveth for the right, I bid thee welcome."

The stranger thanked his host, by a slow inclination of the head; but the
gaze, which began to partake a little of the look of recognition, was
still too earnest and engrossing to admit of verbal reply. On the other
hand, though the old man had scanned the broad and rusty beaver, the
coarse and well-worn doublet, the heavy boots and, in short, the whole
attire of his visiter, in which he saw no vain conformity to idle
fashions to condemn, it was evident that personal recollection had not the
smallest influence in quickening his hospitality.

"Thou hast arrived happily," continued the Puritan: "had night
overtaken thee in the forest, unless much practised in the shifts of
our young woodsmen, hunger, frost, and a supperless bed of brush, would
have given thee motive to think more of the body than is either
profitable or seemly."

The stranger might possibly have known the embarrassment of these several
hardships; for the quick and unconscious glance he threw over his soiled
dress, should have betrayed some familiarity already, with the privations
to which his host alluded. As neither of them, however, seemed disposed to
waste further time on matters of such light moment, the traveller put an
arm through the bridle of his horse, and, in obedience to an invitation
from the owner of the dwelling, they took their way towards the fortified
edifice on the natural mound.

The task of furnishing litter and provender to the jaded beast was
performed by Whittal Ring under the inspection, and, at times, under the
instructions, of its owner and his host, both of whom appeared to take a
kind and commendable interest in the comfort of a faithful hack, that had
evidently suffered long and much in the service of its master. When this
duty was discharged, the old man and his unknown guest entered the house
together; the frank and unpretending hospitality of a country like that
they were in, rendering suspicion or hesitation qualities that were
unknown to the reception of a man of white blood; more especially if he
spoke the language of the island, which was then first sending out its
swarms, to subdue and possess so large a portion of a continent that
nearly divides the earth in moieties.




Chapter III.



  "This is most strange: your father's in some passion
  That works him strongly."

  Tempest.


A few hours made a great change in the occupations of the different
members of our simple and secluded family. The kine had yielded their
nightly tribute; the oxen had been released from the yoke, and were now
secure beneath their sheds; the sheep were in their folds, safe from the
assaults of the prowling wolf; and care had been taken to see that every
thing possessing life was gathered within the particular defences that
were provided for its security and comfort. But while all this caution was
used in behalf of living things, the utmost indifference prevailed on the
subject of that species of movable property, which, elsewhere, would have
been guarded with, at least, an equal jealousy. The homely fabrics of the
looms of Ruth lay on their bleaching-ground, to drink in the night-dew;
and plows, harrows, carts, saddles, and other similar articles, were left
in situations so exposed, as to prove that the hand of man had occupations
so numerous and so urgent, as to render it inconvenient to bestow labor
where it was not considered absolutely necessary.

Content himself was the last to quit the fields and the out-buildings.
When he reached the postern in the palisadoes, he stopped to call to those
above him, in order to learn if any yet lingered without the wooden
barriers. The answer being in the negative, he entered, and drawing-to the
small but heavy gate, he secured it with bar, bolt, and lock, carefully
and jealously, with his own hand. As this was no more than a nightly and
necessary precaution, the affairs of the family received no interruption.
The meal of the hour was soon ended; and conversation, with those light
toils which are peculiar to the long evenings of the fall and winter in
families on the frontier, succeeded as fitting employments to close the
business of a laborious and well-spent day.

Notwithstanding the entire simplicity which marked the opinions and usages
of the colonists at that period, and the great equality of condition which
even to this hour distinguishes the particular community of which we
write, choice and inclination drew some natural distinctions in the
ordinary intercourse of the inmates of the Heathcote family. A fire so
bright and cheerful blazed on an enormous hearth in a sort of upper
kitchen, as to render candles or torches unnecessary. Around it were
seated six or seven hardy and athletic young men, some drawing coarse
tools carefully through the curvatures of ox-bows, others scraping down
the helves of axes, or perhaps fashioning sticks of birch into homely but
convenient brooms. A demure, side-looking young woman kept her great wheel
in motion; while one or two others were passing from room to room, with
the notable and stirring industry of handmaidens, busied in the more
familiar cares of the household. A door communicated with an inner and
superior apartment. Here was a smaller but an equally cheerful fire, a
floor which had recently been swept, while that without had been freshly
sprinkled with river sand; candles of tallow, on a table of cherry-wood
from the neighboring forest; walls that were wainscoted in the black oak
of the country, and a few other articles, of a fashion so antique, and of
ornaments so ingenious and rich, as to announce that they had been
transported from beyond sea. Above the mantel were suspended the armorial
bearings of the Heathcotes and the Hardings, elaborately emblazoned in
tent-stitch.

The principal personages of the family were seated around the latter
hearth, while a straggler from the other room, of more than usual
curiosity, had placed himself among them, marking the distinction in
ranks, or rather in situation, merely by the extraordinary care which he
took that none of the scrapings should litter the spotless oaken floor.

Until this period of the evening, the duties of hospitality and the
observances of religion had prevented familiar discourse. But the offices
of the housewife were now ended for the night, the handmaidens had all
retired to their wheels, and, as the bustle of a busy and more stirring
domestic industry ceased, the cold and self-restrained silence which had
hitherto only been broken by distant and brief observations of courtesy,
or by some wholesome allusion to the lost and probationary condition of
man, seemed to invite an intercourse of a more general character.

"You entered my clearing by the southern path," commenced Mark Heathcote,
addressing himself to his guest with sufficient courtesy, "and needs must
bring tidings from the towns on the river side. Has aught been done by our
councillors, at home, in the matter that pertaineth so closely to the
well-being of this colony?"

"You would have me say whether he that now sitteth on the throne of
England, hath listened to the petitions of his people in this province,
and hath granted them protection against the abuses which might so readily
flow out of his own ill-advised will or out of the violence and injustice
of his successors?

"We will render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and speak
reverently of men having authority. I would fain know whether the agent
sent by our people hath gained the ears of those who counsel the prince,
and obtained that which he sought?"

"He hath done more," returned the stranger, with singular asperity; "he
hath even gained the ear of the Lord's Anointed."

"Then is Charles of better mind, and of stronger justice, than report
hath spoken. We were told that light manners and unprofitable companions
had led him to think more of the vanities of the world, and less of the
wants of those over whom he hath been called by Providence to rule, than
is meet for one that sitteth on a high place. I rejoice that the
arguments of the man we sent have prevailed over more evil promptings,
and that peace and freedom of conscience are likely to be the fruits of
the undertaking. In what manner hath he seen fit to order the future
government of this people?"

"Much as it hath ever stood; by their own ordinances. Winthrop hath
returned, and is the bearer of a Royal Charter, which granteth all the
rights long claimed and practised. None now dwell under the Crown of
Britain with fewer offensive demands on their consciences, or with lighter
calls on their political duties, than the men of Connecticut."

"It is fitting that thanks should be rendered therefor, where thanks are
most due," said the Puritan, folding his hands on his bosom, and sitting
for a moment with closed eyes, like one who communed with an unseen being.
"Is it known by what manner of argument the Lord moved the heart of the
Prince to hearken to our wants; or was it an open and manifest token of
his power?"

"I think it must needs have been the latter," rejoined the visiter, with a
manner that grew still more caustic and emphatic. "The bauble, that was
the visible agent, could not have weighed greatly with one so proudly
seated before the eyes of men."

Until this point in the discourse, Content and Ruth, with their
offspring, and the two or three other individuals who composed the
audience, had listened with the demure gravity which characterized the
manners of the country. The language, united with the ill-concealed
sarcasm conveyed by the countenance, no less than the emphasis, of the
speaker, caused them now to raise their eyes, as by a common impulse. The
word "bauble" was audibly and curiously repeated. But the look of cold
irony had already passed from the features of the stranger, and it had
given place to a stern and fixed austerity, that imparted a character of
grimness to his hard and sun-burnt visage. Still he betrayed no
disposition to shrink from the subject, but, after regarding, his auditors
with a glance in which pride and suspicion were strongly blended, he
resumed the discourse.

"It is known," he added, "that the grandfather of him the good people of
these settlements have commissioned to bear their wants over sea, lived in
the favor of the man who last sat upon the throne of England; and a rumor
goeth forth, that the Stuart, in a moment of princely condescension, once
decked the finger of his subject, with a ring wrought in a curious
fashion. It was a token of the love which a monarch may bear a man."

"Such gifts are beacons of friendship, but may not be used as gay and
sinful ornaments," observed Mark, while the other paused like one who
wished none of the bitterness of his allusions to be lost.

"It matters not whether the bauble lay in the coffers of the Winthrops,
or has long been glittering before the eyes of the faithful, in the
Bay, since it hath finally proved to be a jewel of price," continued
the stranger. "It is said, in secret, that this ring hath returned to
the finger of a Stuart, and it is openly proclaimed that Connecticut
hath a Charter!"

Content and his wife regarded each other in melancholy amazement. Such an
evidence of wanton levity and of unworthiness of motive, in one who was
intrusted with the gift of earthly government, pained their simple and
upright minds; while old Mark, of still more decided and exaggerated
ideas of spiritual perfection, distinctly groaned aloud The stranger took
a sensible pleasure in this testimony of their abhorrence of so gross and
so unworthy a venality, though he saw no occasion to heighten its effect
by further speech. When his host stood erect, and, in a voice that was
accustomed to obedience, he called on his family to join, in behalf of
the reckless ruler of the land of their fathers, in a petition to him who
alone could soften the hearts of Princes, he also arose from his seat.
But even in this act of devotion, the stranger bore the air of one who
wished to do pleasure to his entertainers, rather than to obtain that
which was asked.

The prayer, though short, was pointed, fervent, and sufficiently personal.
The wheels in the outer room ceased their hum, and a general movement
denoted that all there had arisen to join in the office; while one or two
of their number, impelled by deeper piety or stronger interest, drew near
to the open door between the rooms, in order to listen. With this singular
but characteristic interruption, that particular branch of the discourse,
which had given rise to it, altogether ceased.

"And have we reason to dread a rising of the savages on the borders?"
asked Content, when he found that the moved spirit of his father was not
yet sufficiently calmed, to return to the examination of temporal things;
"one who brought wares from the towns below, a few months since, recited
reasons to fear a movement among the red men."

The subject had not sufficient interest to open the ears of the
stranger. He was deaf, or he chose to affect deafness, to the
interrogatory. Laying his two large and weather-worn, though still
muscular hands, on a visage that was much darkened by exposure, he
appeared to shut out the objects of the world, while he communed deeply,
and, as would seem by a slight tremor, that shook even his powerful
frame, terribly, with his own thoughts.

"We have many to whom our hearts strongly cling, to heighten the smallest
symptom of alarm from that quarter," added the tender and anxious mother,
her eye glancing at the uplifted countenances of two little girls, who,
busied with their light needle-work, sate on stools at her feet. "But I
rejoice to see, that one who hath journeyed from parts where the minds of
the savages must be better understood, hath not feared to do it unarmed."

The traveller slowly uncovered his features, and the glance that his eye
shot over the face of the last speaker, was not without a gentle and
interested expression. Instantly recovering his composure, he arose, and,
turning to the double leathern sack, which had been borne on the crupper
of his nag, and which now lay at no great distance from his seat, he drew
a pair of horseman's pistols from two well-contrived pockets in its sides,
and laid them deliberately on the table.

"Though little disposed to seek an encounter with any bearing the image of
man," he said, "I have not neglected the usual precautions of those who
enter the wilderness. Here are weapons that, in steady hands, might easily
take life, or, at need preserve it."

The young Mark drew near with boyish curiosity, and while one finger
ventured to touch a lock, as he stole a conscious glance of wrong-doing
towards his mother, he said, with as much of contempt in his air, as the
schooling of his manners would allow--

"An Indian arrow would make a surer aim, than a bore as short as this!
When the trainer from the Hartford town, struck the wild-cat on the hill
clearing, he sent the bullet from a five-foot, barrel; besides, this
short-sighted gun would be a dull weapon in a hug against the keen-edged
knife, that the wicked Wampanoag is known to carry."--

"Boy, thy years are few, and thy boldness of speech marvellous," sternly
interrupted his parent in the second degree.

The stranger manifested no displeasure at the confident language of
the lad. Encouraging him with a look, which plainly proclaimed that
martial qualities in no degree lessened the stripling in his favor, he
observed that--

"The youth who is not afraid to think of the fight, or to reason on its
chances, will lead to a manhood of spirit and independence. A hundred
thousand striplings like this, might have spared Winthrop his jewel, and
the Stuart the shame of yielding to so vain and so trivial a bribe. But
thou mayst also see, child, that had we come to the death-hug, the wicked
Wampanoag might have found a blade as keen as his own."

The stranger, while speaking, loosened a few strings of his doublet, and
thrust a hand into his bosom. The action enabled more than one eye to
catch a momentary glimpse of a weapon of the same description, but of a
size much smaller than those he had already so freely exhibited. As he
immediately withdrew the member, and again closed the garment with studied
care, no one presumed to advert to the circumstance, but all turned their
attention to the long sharp hunting-knife that he deposited by the side of
the pistols, as he concluded. Mark ventured to open its blade, but he
turned away with sudden consciousness, when he found that a few fibres of
coarse, shaggy wool, that were drawn from the loosened joint, adhered to
his fingers.

"Straight-Horns has been against a bush sharper than the thorn!"
exclaimed Whittal Ring, who had been at hand, and who watched with
childish admiration the smallest proceedings of the different
individuals. "A steel for the back of the blade, a few dried leaves and
broken sticks, with such a carver, would soon make roast and broiled of
the old bell-wether himself. I know that the hair of all my colts is
sorrel, and I counted five at sun-down, which is just as many as went
loping through the underbrush when I loosened them from the hopples in
the morning; but six-and-thirty backs can never carry seven-and-thirty
growing fleeces of unsheared wool. Master knows that, for he is a scholar
and can count a hundred!"

The allusion to the fate of the lost sheep was so plain, as to admit of no
misinterpretation of the meaning of the witless speaker. Animals of that
class were of the last importance to the comfort of the settlers, and
there was not probably one within hearing of Whittal Ring, that was at all
ignorant of the import of his words. Indeed, the loud chuckle and the open
and deriding manner with which the lad himself held above his head the
hairy fibres that he had snatched from young Mark, allowed of no
concealment, had it been desirable.

"This feeble-gifted youth would hint, that thy knife hath proved its edge
on a wether that is missing from our flock, since the animals went on
their mountain range, in the morning," said the host, calmly; though even
he bent his eye to the floor, as he waited for an answer to a remark,
direct as the one his sense of justice, and his indomitable love of right,
had prompted.

The stranger demanded, in a voice that lost none of its depth or firmness,
"Is hunger a crime, that they who dwell so far from the haunts of
selfishness, visit it with their anger?"

"The foot of Christian man never approached the gates of Wish-Ton-Wish to
be turned away in uncharitableness, but that which is freely given should
not be taken in licentiousness. From off the hill where my flock is wont
to graze, it is easy, through many an opening of the forest, to see these
roofs; and it would have been better that the body should languish, than
that a grievous sin should be placed on that immortal spirit which is
already too deeply laden, unless thou art far more happy than others of
the fallen race of Adam."

"Mark Heathcote," said the accused, and ever with an unwavering tone,
"look further at those weapons, which, if a guilty man, I have weakly
placed within thy power. Thou wilt find more there to wonder at, than a
few straggling hairs, that the spinner would cast from her as too coarse
for service."

"It is long since I found pleasure in handling the weapons of strife; may
it be longer to the time when they shall be needed in this abode of peace.
These are instruments of death, resembling those used in my youth, by
cavaliers that rode in the levies of the first Charles, and of his
pusillanimous father. There were worldly pride and great vanity, with much
and damning ungodliness, in the wars that I have seen, my children; and
yet the carnal man found pleasure in the stirrings of those graceless
days! Come hither, younker; thou hast often sought to know the manner in
which the horsemen are wont to lead into the combat, when the
broad-mouthed artillery and pattering leaden hail have cleared a passage
for the struggle of horse to horse, and man to man. Much of the
justification of these combats must depend on the inward spirit, and on
the temper of him that striketh at the life of fellow-sinner; but
righteous Joshua, it is known, contended with the heathen throughout a
supernatural day: and therefore always humbly confiding that our cause is
just, I will open to thy young mind the uses of a weapon that hath never
before been seen in these forests."

"I have hefted many a heavier piece than this," said young Mark, frowning,
equally with the exertion and with the instigations of his aspiring
spirit, as he held out the ponderous weapon in a single hand; "we have
guns that might tame a wolf with greater certainty than any barrel of a
bore less than my own height. Tell, me grand'ther; at what distance do the
mounted warriors, you so often name, take their sight?"

But the power of speech appeared suddenly to have deserted the aged
veteran. He had interrupted his own discourse, and now, instead of
answering the interrogatory of the boy, his eye wandered slowly and with a
look of painful doubt from the weapon, that he still held before him, to
the countenance of the stranger. The latter continued erect, like one
courting a strict and meaning examination of his person. This dumb-show
could not fail to attract the observation of Content. Rising from his
seat, with that quiet but authoritative manner which is still seen in the
domestic government of the people of the region where he dwelt, he
beckoned to all present to quit the apartment. Ruth and her daughters, the
hirelings, the ill-gifted Whittal, and even the reluctant Mark, preceded
him to the door, which he closed with respectful care; and then the whole
of the wondering party mingled with those of the outer room, leaving the
one they had quitted to the sole possession of the aged chief of the
settlement, and to his still unknown and mysterious guest.

Many anxious, and to those who were excluded seemingly interminable
minutes passed, and, the secret interview appeared to draw no nearer its
close. That deep reverence, which the years, paternity, and character of
the grandfather had inspired, prevented all from approaching the quarter
of the apartment nearest to the room they had left; but a silence, still
as the grave, did all that silence could do, to enlighten their minds in a
matter of so much general interest. The deep, smothered sentences of the
speakers were often heard, each dwelling with steadiness and propriety on
his particular theme, but no sound that conveyed meaning to the minds of
those without passed the envious walls. At length, the voice of old Mark
became more than usually audible; and then Content arose, with a gesture
to those around him to imitate his example. The young men threw aside the
subjects of their light employments, the maidens left the wheels which had
not been turned for many minutes, and the whole party disposed themselves
in the decent and simple attitude of prayer. For the third time that
evening was the voice of the Puritan heard, pouring out his spirit in a
communion with that being on whom it was his practice to repose all his
worldly cares. But, though long accustomed to all the peculiar forms of
utterance by which their father ordinarily expressed his pious emotions,
neither Content nor his attentive partner was enabled to decide on the
nature of the feeling that was now uppermost. At times, it appeared to be
the language of thanksgiving, and at others k assumed more of the
imploring sounds of deprecation and petition; in short, it was so varied,
and, though tranquil, so equivocal, if such a term may be applied to so
serious a subject, as completely to baffle every conjecture.

Long and weary minutes passed after the voice had entirely ceased, and yet
no summons was given to the expecting family, nor did any sound proceed
from the inner room, which the respectful son was emboldened to construe
into an evidence that he might presume to enter. At length, apprehension
began to mingle with conjectures, and then the husband and wife communed
apart, in whispers. The misgivings and doubt of the former soon manifested
themselves in still more apparent forms. He arose, and was seen pacing the
wide apartment, gradually approaching nearer to the partition which
separated the two rooms, evidently prepared to retire beyond the limits of
hearing, the moment he should detect any proofs that his uneasiness was
without a sufficient cause. Still no sound proceeded from the inner room.
The breathless silence which had so shortly before reigned where he was,
appeared to be suddenly transferred to the spot in which he was vainly
endeavoring to detect the smallest proof of human existence. Again he
returned to Ruth, and again they consulted, in low voices, as to the step
that filial duty seemed to require at their hands.

"We were not bidden to withdraw," said his gentle companion; "why not
rejoin our parent, now that time has been given to understand the subject
which so evidently disturbed his mind?"

Content, at length, yielded to this opinion. With that cautious
discretion which distinguishes his people, he motioned to the family to
follow, in order that no unnecessary exclusion should give rise to
conjectures, or excite suspicions, for which, after all, the
circumstances might prove no justification. Notwithstanding the subdued
manners of the age and country, curiosity, and perhaps a better feeling,
had become so intense, as to cause all present to obey this silent
mandate, by moving as swiftly towards the open door as a never-yielding
decency of demeanor would permit.

Old Mark Heathcote occupied the chair in which he had been left, with
that calm and unbending gravity of eye and features which were then
thought indispensable to a fitting sobriety of spirit. But the
stranger had disappeared. There were two or three outlets by which the
room, and even the house, might be quitted, without the knowledge of
those who had so long waited for admission; and the first impression
led the family to expect the re-appearance of the absent man through one
of these exterior passages. Content, however, read in the expression of
his father's eye, that the moment of confidence, if it were ever to
arrive, had not yet come; and, so admirable and perfect was the
domestic discipline of this family, that the questions which the son
did not see fit to propound, no one of inferior condition, or lesser
age, might presume to agitate. With the person of the stranger, every
evidence of his recent visit had also vanished.

Mark missed the weapon that had excited his admiration; Whittal looked in
vain for the hunting-knife, which had betrayed the fate of the wether;
Mrs. Heathcote saw, by a hasty glance of the eye, that the leathern sacks,
which she had borne in mind ought to be transferred to the sleeping
apartment of their guest, were gone; and a mild and playful image of
herself, who bore her name no less than most of those features which had
rendered her own youth more than usually attractive, sought, without
success, a massive silver spur, of curious and antique workmanship, which
she had been permitted to handle until the moment when the family had been
commanded to withdraw.

The night had now worn later than the hour at which it was usual for
people of habits so simple to be out of their beds. The grandfather
lighted a taper, and, after bestowing the usual blessing on those around
him, with an air as calm as if nothing had occurred, he prepared to retire
into his own room. And yet, matter of interest seemed to linger on his
mind. Even on the threshold of the door, he turned, and, for an instant,
all expected some explanation of a circumstance which began to wear no
little of the aspect of an exciting and painful mystery. But their hopes
were raised only to be disappointed.

"My thoughts have not kept the passage of the time," he said. "In what
hour of the night are we, my son?"

He was told that it was already past the usual moment of sleep.

"No matter; that which Providence hath bestowed for our comfort and
support, should not be lightly and unthankfully disregarded. Take thou the
beast I am wont to ride, thyself, Content, and follow the path which
leadeth to the mountain clearing; bring away that which shall meet thine
eye, near the first turning of the route toward the river towns. We have
got into the last quarter of the year, and in order that our industry may
not flag, and that all may be stirring with the sun, let the remainder of
the household seek their rest."

Content saw, by the manner of his father, that no departure from the
strict letter of these instructions was admissible. He closed the door
after his retiring form, and then, by a quiet gesture of authority,
indicated to his dependants that they were expected to withdraw. The
maidens of Ruth led the children to their chambers, and in a few more
minutes, none remained in the outer apartment, already so often named, but
the obedient son, with his anxious and affectionate consort.

"I will be thy companion, husband," Ruth half-whisperingly commenced, so
soon as the little domestic preparations for leaving the fires and
securing the doors were ended. "I like not that thou shouldst go into the
forest alone, at so late an hour of the night."

"One will be with me, there, who never deserteth those who rely on his
protection. Besides, my Ruth, what is there to apprehend in a wilderness
like this? The beasts have been lately hunted from the hills, and,
excepting those who dwell under our own roof, there is not one within a
long day's ride."

"We know not! Where is the stranger that came within our doors as the sun
was setting?"

"As thou sayest, we know not. My father is not minded to open his lips on
the subject of this traveller, and surely we are not now to learn the
lessons of obedience and self-denial."

"It would, notwithstanding, be a great easing to the spirit to hear at
least the name of him who hath eaten of our bread, and joined in our
family worship, though he were immediately to pass away for ever from
before the sight."

"That may he have done, already!" returned the less curious and more
self-restrained husband. "My father will not that we inquire."

"And yet there can be little sin in knowing the condition of one whose
fortunes and movements can excite neither our envy nor our strife. I would
that we had tarried for a closer mingling in the prayers; it was not
seemly to desert a guest who, it would appear, had need of an especial
up-offering in his behalf."

"Our spirits joined in the asking, though our ears were shut to the matter
of his wants. But it will be needful that I should be afoot with the young
men, in the morning, and a mile of measurement would not reach to the
turning, in the path to the river towns. Go with me to the postern, and
look to the fastenings; I will not keep thee long on thy watch."

Content and his wife now quitted the dwelling, by the only door that was
left unbarred. Lighted by a moon that was full, though clouded they passed
a gateway between two of the outer buildings, and descended to the
palisadoes. The bars and bolts of the little postern were removed, and in
a few minutes, the former, mounted on the back of his father's own horse,
was galloping briskly along the path which led into the part of the forest
he was directed to seek.

While the husband was thus proceeding, in obedience to orders that he
never hesitated to obey his faithful wife withdrew within the shelter of
the wooden defences. More in compliance with a precaution that was become
habitual, than from any present causes of suspicion, she drew a single
bolt and remained at the postern, anxiously awaiting the result of a
movement that was as unaccountable as it was extraordinary.




Chapter IV.



  "I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
  In this strange stare?"

  Tempest.


As a girl, Ruth Harding had been one of the mildest and gentlest of the
human race. Though new impulses had been given to her naturally kind
affections by the attachments of a wife and mother, her disposition
suffered no change by marriage. Obedient, disinterested, and devoted to
those she loved, as her parents had known her, so, by the experience of
many years, had she proved to Content. In the midst of the utmost
equanimity of temper and of deportment, her watchful solicitude in behalf
of the few who formed the limited circle of her existence, never
slumbered. It dwelt unpretendingly but active in her gentle bosom, like a
great and moving principle of life. Though circumstances had placed her
on a remote and exposed frontier, where time had not been given for the
several customary divisions of employments, she was unchanged in habits,
in feelings, and in character. The affluence of her husband had elevated
her above the necessity of burthensome toil; and, while she had
encountered the dangers of the wilderness, and neglected none of the
duties of her active station, she had escaped most of those injurious
consequences which are a little apt to impair the peculiar loveliness of
woman. Notwithstanding the exposure of a border life, she remained
feminine, attractive, and singularly youthful.

The reader will readily imagine the state of mind, with which such a being
watched the distant form of a husband, engaged in a duty like that we have
described. Notwithstanding the influence of long habit, the forest was
rarely approached, after night-fall, by the boldest woodsman, without some
secret consciousness that he encountered a positive danger. It was the
hour when its roaming and hungry tenants were known to be most in motion;
and the rustling of a leaf, or the snapping of a dried twig beneath the
light tread of the smallest animal, was apt to conjure images of the
voracious and fire-eyed panther, or perhaps of a lurking biped, which,
though more artful, was known to be scarcely less savage. It is true, that
hundreds experienced the uneasiness of such sensations, who were never
fated to undergo the realities of the fearful pictures. Still, facts were
not wanting to supply sufficient motive for a grave and reasonable
apprehension.

Histories of combats with beasts of prey, and of massacres by roving and
lawless Indians, were the moving legends of the border. Thrones might be
subverted, and kingdoms lost and won, in distant Europe, and less should
be said of the events, by those who dwelt in these woods, than of one
scene of peculiar and striking forest incident, that called for the
exercise of the stout courage and the keen intelligence of a settler. Such
a tale passed from mouth to mouth, with the eagerness of powerful personal
interest, and many were already transmitted from parent to child, in the
form of tradition, until, as in more artificial communities, graver
improbabilities creep into the doubtful pages of history, exaggeration
became too closely blended with truth, ever again to be separated.

Under the influence of these feelings, and perhaps prompted by his
never-failing discretion, Content had thrown a well-tried piece over his
shoulder; and when he rose the ascent on which his father had met the
stranger, Ruth caught a glimpse of his form, bending on the neck of his
horse, and gliding through the misty light of the hour, resembling one of
those fancied images of wayward and hard-riding sprites, of which the
tales of the eastern continent are so fond of speaking.

Then followed anxious moments, during which neither sight nor hearing
could in the least aid the conjectures of the attentive wife. She listened
without breathing, and once or twice she thought the blows of hoofs,
falling on the earth harder and quicker than common, might be
distinguished; but it was only as Content mounted the sudden ascent of the
hill-side, that he was again seen, for a brief instant, while dashing
swiftly into the cover of the woods.

Though Ruth had been familiar with the cares of the frontier, perhaps she
had never known a moment more intensely painful than that, when the form
of her husband became blended with the dark trunks of the trees. The time
was to her impatience longer than usual, and under the excitement of a
feverish inquietude, that had no definite object, she removed the single
bolt that held the postern closed, and passed entirely without the
stockade To her oppressed senses, the palisadoes appeared to place limits
to her vision. Still, weary minute passed after minute, without bringing
relief. During these anxious moments, she became more than usually
conscious of the insulated situation in which he and all who were dearest
to her heart were placed. The feelings of a wife prevailed. Quitting the
side of the acclivity, she began to walk slowly along the path her husband
had taken, until apprehension insensibly urged her into a quicker
movement. She had paused only when she stood nearly in the centre of the
clearing, on the eminence where her father had halted that evening to
contemplate the growing improvement of his estate.

Here her steps were suddenly arrested, for she thought a form was issuing
from the forest, at that interesting spot which her eyes had never ceased
to watch. It proved to be no more than the passing shadow of a cloud
denser than common, which threw the body of its darkness on the trees, and
a portion of its outline on the ground near the margin of the wood. Just
at this instant, the recollection that she had incautiously left the
postern open flashed upon her mind, and, with feelings divided between
husband and children, she commenced her return, in order to repair a
neglect, to which habit, no less than prudence, imparted a high degree of
culpability. The eyes of the mother, for the feelings of that sacred
character were now powerfully uppermost, were fastened on the ground, as
she eagerly picked her way along the uneven surface; and, so engrossed was
her mind by the omission of duty with which she was severely reproaching
herself, that they drank in objects without conveying distinct or
intelligible images to her brain.

Notwithstanding the one engrossing thought of the moment, something met
her eye that caused even the vacant organ to recoil, and every fibre in
her frame to tremble with terror. There was a moment in which delirium
nearly heightened terror to madness. Reflection came only when Ruth had
reached the distance of many feet from the spot where this startling
object had half-unconsciously crossed her vision. Then for a single and a
fearful instant she paused, like one who debated on the course she ought
to follow. Maternal love prevailed, and the deer of her own woods scarcely
bounds with greater agility, than the mother of the sleeping and
defenceless family now fled towards the dwellings. Panting and breathless
she gained the postern, which was closed, with hands that performed their
office more by instinct than in obedience to thought, and doubly and
trebly barred.

For the, first time in some minutes, Ruth now breathed distinctly and
without pain. She strove to rally her thoughts, in order to deliberate on
the course that prudence and her duty to Content, who was still exposed to
the danger she had herself escaped, prescribed. Her first impulse was to
give the established signal that was to recall the laborers from the
field, or to awake the sleepers, in the event of an alarm; but better
reflection told her that such a step might prove fatal to him who balanced
in her affections against the rest of the world The struggle in her mind
only ended, as she clearly and unequivocally caught a view of her husband,
issuing from the forest, at the very point where he had entered. The
return path unfortunately led directly past the spot where such sudden
terror had seized her mind. She would have given worlds to have known how
to apprize him of a danger with which her own imagination was full,
without communicating the warning to other and terrible ears. The night
was still, and though the distance was considerable, it was not so great
as to render the chances of success desperate. Scarcely knowing what she
did, and yet preserving, by a sort of instinctive prudence, the caution
which constant exposure weaves into all our habits, the trembling woman
made the effort.

"Husband! husband!" she cried, commencing plaintively, but her voice
rising with the energy of excitement. "Husband, ride swiftly; our little
Ruth lyeth in the agony. For her life and thine, ride at thy horse's
speed. Seek not the stables, but come with all haste to the postern; it
shall be open to thee."

This was certainly a fearful summons for a father's ear, and there is
little doubt that, had the feeble powers of Ruth succeeded in conveying
the words as far as she had wished, they would have produced the desired
effect. But in vain did she call; her weak tones, though raised on the
notes of the keenest apprehension, could not force their way across so
wide a space. And yet, had she reason to think they were not entirely
lost, for once her husband paused and seemed to listen, and once he
quickened the pace of his horse; though neither of these proofs of
intelligence was followed by any further signs of his having understood
the alarm.

Content was now upon the hillock itself. If Ruth breathed at all during
its passage, it was more imperceptibly than the gentlest respiration of
the sleeping infant. But when she saw him trotting with unconscious
security along the path on the side next the dwellings, her impatience
broke through all restraint, and throwing open the postern, she renewed
her cries, in a voice that was no longer useless. The clattering of the
unshodden hoof was again rapid, and in another minute her husband galloped
unharmed to her side.

"Enter!" said the nearly dizzy wife, seizing the bridle and leading the
horse within the palisadoes. "Enter, husband, for the love of all that is
thine; enter, and be thankful."

"What meaneth this terror, Ruth?" demanded Content, in as much
displeasure, perhaps, as he could manifest to one so gentle, for a
weakness betrayed in his own behalf; "is thy confidence in him whose eye
never closeth, and who equally watcheth the life of man and that of the
falling sparrow, lost?"

Ruth was deaf. With hurried hands she drew the fastenings, let fall the
bars, and turned a key which forced a triple-bolted lock to perform its
office. Not till then did she feel either safe herself, or at liberty to
render thanks for the safety of him, over whose danger she had so lately
watched, in agony.

"Why this care? Hast forgotten that the horse will suffer hunger, at this
distance from the rack and manger?"

"Better that he starve, than hair of thine should come to harm."

"Nay, nay, Ruth; dost not remember that the beast is the favorite of my
father, who will ill brook his passing a night within the palisadoes?"

"Husband, you err; there is one in the fields!"

"Is there place, where one is not?"

"But I have seen creature of mortal birth, and creature too that hath no
claim on thee, or thine, and who trespasseth on our peace, no less than on
our natural rights, to be where he lurketh."

"Go to; thou art not used to be so late from thy pillow, my poor Ruth;
sleep hath come over thee, whilst standing on thy watch. Some cloud hath
left its shadow on the fields, or, truly, it may be that the hunt did not
drive the beasts as far from the clearing as we had thought. Come; since
thou wilt cling to my side, lay hand on the bridle of the horse, while I
ease him of his burthen."

As Content coolly proceeded to the task he had mentioned, the thoughts of
his wife were momentarily diverted from their other sources of uneasiness,
by the object which lay on the crupper of the nag and which, until now,
had entirely escaped her observation.

"Here is, indeed, the animal this day missing from our flock!" she
exclaimed, as the carcass of a sheep fell heavily on the ground.

"Ay; and killed with exceeding judgment, if not aptly dressed to our
hands. Mutton will not be wanting for the husking-feast, and the stalled
creature whose days were counted may live another season."

"And where didst find the slaughtered beast?"

"On the limb of a growing hickory. Eben Dudley, with all his sleight in
butchering, and in setting forth the excellence of his meats, could not
have left an animal hanging from the branch of a sapling, with greater
knowledge of his craft. Thou seest, but a single meal is missing from the
carcass, and that thy fleece is unharmed."

"This is not the work of a Pequod!" exclaimed Ruth, surprised at her own
discovery; "the red men do their mischief with less care."

"Nor has the tooth of wolf opened the veins of poor Straight-Horns. Here
has been judgment in the slaughtering, as well as prudence in
consumption of the food. The hand that cut so lightly, had intention of
a second visit."

"And our father bid thee seek the creature where it was found! Husband, I
fear some heavy judgment for the sins of the parents, is likely to befall
the children."

"The babes are quietly in their slumbers, and, thus far, little wrong hath
been done us. I'll cast the halter from the stalled animal ere I sleep,
and Straight-Horns shall content us for the husking. We may have mutton
less savory, for this evil chance, but the number of thy flock will be
unaltered."

"And where is he, who hath mingled in our prayers, and hath eaten of our
bread; he who counselled so long in secret with our father, and who hath
now vanished from among us, like a vision?"

"That indeed is a question not readily to be answered," returned Content,
who had hitherto maintained a cheerful air, in order to appease what he
was fain to believe a causeless terror in the bosom of his partner, but
who was induced by this question to drop his head like one that sought
reasons within the repository of his own thoughts. "It mattereth not,
Ruth Heathcote; the ordering of the affair is in the hands of a man of
many years and great experience; should his aged wisdom fail, do we not
know that one even wiser than he, hath us in his keeping? I will return
the beast to his rack, and when we shall have jointly asked favor of eyes
that never sleep, we will go in confidence to our rest."

"Husband, thou quittest not the palisadoes again this night," said Ruth,
arresting the hand that had already drawn a bolt, ere she spoke. "I have a
warning of evil."

"I would the stranger had found some other shelter in which to pass his
short resting season. That he hath made free with my flock, and that he
hath administered to his hunger at some cost, when a single asking would
have made him welcome to the best that the owner of the Wish-Tori-Wish can
command, are truths that may not be denied. Still is he mortal man, as a
goodly appetite hath proven, even should our belief in Providence so far
waver as to harbor doubts of its unwillingness to suffer beings of
injustice to wander in our forms and substance. I tell thee, Ruth, that
the nag will be needed for to-morrow's service, and that our father will
give but ill thanks should we leave it to make a bed on this cold
hill-side. Go to thy rest and to thy prayers, trembler; I will close the
postern with all care. Fear not; the stranger is of human wants, and his
agency to do evil must needs be limited by human power."

"I fear none of white blood, nor of Christian parentage: the murderous
heathen is in our fields."

"Thou dreamest, Ruth!"

"'Tis not a dream. I have seen the glowing eye-balls of a savage. Sleep
was little like to come over me, when set upon a watch like this. I
thought me that the errand was of unknown character, and that our father
was exceedingly aged, and that perchance his senses might be duped, and
how an obedient son ought not to be exposed.--Thou knowest, Heathcote,
that I could not look upon the danger of my children's father with
indifference, and I followed to the nut-tree hillock."

"To the nut-tree! It was not prudent in thee--but the postern?"

"It was open; for were the key turned, who was there to admit us quickly,
had haste been needed?" returned Ruth, momentarily averting her face to
conceal the flush excited by conscious delinquency. "Though I failed in
caution, 'twas for thy safety, Heathcote: But on that hillock, and in the
hollow left by a fallen tree, lies concealed a heathen!"

"I passed the nut-wood in going to the shambles of our strange butcher,
and I drew the rein to give breath to the nag near it, as we returned with
the burthen. It cannot be; some creature of the forest hath alarmed thee."

"Ay! creature, formed, fashioned gifted like ourselves, in all but color
of the skin and blessing of the faith."

"This is strange delusion! If there were enemy at hand, would men subtle
as those you fear, suffer the master of the dwelling, and truly I may say
it without vain-glory, one as likely as another to struggle stoutly for
his own, to escape, when an ill-timed visit to the woods had delivered him
unresisting into their hands? Go, go, good Ruth; thou mayst have seen a
blackened log--perchance the frosts have left a fire-fly untouched, or it
may be that some prowling bear has scented out the sweets of thy
lately-gathered hives."

Ruth again laid her hand firmly on the arm of her husband, who had
withdrawn another bolt, and, looking him steadily in the face, she
answered by saying solemnly, and with touching pathos--

"Think'st thou, husband, that a mother's eye could be deceived?"

It might have been that the allusion to the tender beings whose fate
depended on his care, or that the deeply serious, though mild and gentle
manner of his consort, produced some fresher impression on the mind of
Content. Instead of undoing the fastenings of the postern as he had
intended, he deliberately drew its bolts again and paused to think.

"If it produce no other benefit than to quiet thy fears, good Ruth," he
said, after a moment of reflection, "a little caution will be well repaid.
Stay you, then, here, where the hillock may be watched, while I go wake a
couple of the people. With stout Eben Dudley and experienced Reuben Ring
to back me, my father's horse may surely be stabled."

Ruth contentedly assumed a task that she was quite equal to perform with
intelligence and zeal. "Hie thee to the laborers' chambers, for I see a
light still burning in the room of those you seek," was the answer she
gave to a proposal that at least quieted the intenseness of her fears for
him in whose behalf they had so lately been excited nearly to agony.

"It shall be quickly done; nay, stand not thus openly between the beams,
wife. Thou mayst place thyself, here, at the doublings of the wood,
beneath the loop, where harm would scarcely reach thee, though shot from
artillery were to crush the timber."

With this admonition to be wary of a danger that he had so recently
affected to despise, Content departed on his errand. The two laborers he
had mentioned by name, were youths of mould and strength, and they were
well inured to toil, no less than to the particular privations and dangers
of a border life. Like most men of their years and condition, they were
practised too in the wiles of Indian cunning; and though the Province of
Connecticut, compared to other settlements, had suffered but little in
this species of murderous warfare, they both had martial feats and
perilous experiences of their own to recount, during the light labors of
the long winter evenings.

Content crossed the court with a quick step; for, notwithstanding his
steady unbelief, the image of his gentle wife posted on her outer watch
hurried his movements. The rap he gave at the door, on reaching the
apartment of those he sought, was loud as it was sudden.

"Who calls?" demanded a deep-toned and firm voice from within, at the
first blow of the knuckles on the plank.

"Quit thy beds quickly, and come forth with the arms appointed for a
sally."

"That is soon done," answered a stout woodsman, throwing open the door and
standing before Content in the garments he had worn throughout the day.
"We were just dreaming that the night was not to pass without a summons to
the loops."

"Hast seen aught?"

"Our eyes were not shut, more than those of others; we saw him enter that
no man hath seen depart."

"Come, fellow; Whittal Ring would scarce give wiser speech than this
cunning reply of thine. My wife is at the postern, and it is fit we go to
relieve her watch. Thou wilt not forget the horns of powder, since it
would not tell to our credit, were there service for the pieces, and we
lacking in wherewithal to give them a second discharge."

The hirelings obeyed, and, as little time was necessary to arm those who
never slept without weapons and ammunition within reach of their hands,
Content was speedily followed by his dependants. Ruth was found at her
post, but when urged by her husband to declare what had passed in his
absence, she was compelled to admit that, though the moon had come forth
brighter and clearer from behind the clouds, she had seen nothing to add
to her alarm.

"We will then lead the beast to his stall, and close our duty by setting
a single watcher for the rest of the night," said the husband. "Reuben
shall keep the postern, while Eben and I will have a care for my
father's nag, not forgetting the carcass for the husking-feast. Dost
hear, deaf Dudley?--cast the mutton upon the crupper of the beast, and
follow to the stables."

"Here has been no common workman at my office," said the blunt Eben, who,
though an ordinary farm-laborer, according to an usage still very
generally prevalent in the country, was also skilful in the craft of the
butcher. "I have brought many a wether to his end, but this is the first
sheep, within all my experience, that hath kept the fleece while a
portion of the body has been in the pot! Lie there, poor Straight-Horns,
if quiet thou canst be after such strange butchery. Reuben, I paid thee,
as the sun rose, a Spanish piece in silver, for the trifle of debt that
lay between us, in behalf of the good turn thou didst the shoes, which
were none the better for the last hunt in the hills. Hast ever that
pistareen about thee?"

This question, which was put in a lowered tone, and only to the ear of the
party concerned, was answered in the affirmative.

"Give it me, lad; in the morning, thou shalt be paid, with usurer's
interest."

Another summons from Content, who had now led the nag loaded with the
carcass of the sheep without the postern, cut short the secret conference.
Eben Dudley, having received the coin, hastened to follow. But the
distance to the out-buildings was sufficient to enable him to effect his
mysterious purpose without discovery. Whilst Content endeavored to calm
the apprehensions of his wife, who still p