Roger Malvin's Burial
ONE OF THE few
incidents of Indian warfare, naturally susceptible of
the moonlight
of romance, was that expedition, undertaken, for the
defence of the
frontiers, in the year 1725, which resulted in the
well-remembered
"Lovell's Fight." Imagination, by casting certain
circumstances
judiciously into the shade, may see much to admire in the
heroism of a
little band, who gave battle to twice their number in the heart
of the enemy's
country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was
in accordance
with civilized ideas of valor, and chivalry itself might not
blush to record
the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so
fatal to those
who fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the
country; for
it broke the strength of a tribe, and conduced to the peace
which subsisted
during several ensuing years. History and tradition are
unusually minute
in their memorials of this affair; and the captain of a
scouting party
of frontier-men has acquired as actual a military renown, as
many a victorious
leader of thousands. Some of the incidents contained in
the following
pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the substitution of
fictitious names,
by such as have heard, from old men's lips, the fate of the
few combatants
who were in a condition to retreat, after "Lovell's Fight."
The early sunbeams
hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath which
two weary and
wounded men had stretched their limbs the night before.
Their bed of
withered oak-leaves was strewn upon the small level space,
at the foot
of a rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle swells,
by which the
face of the country is there diversified. The mass of granite,
rearing its
smooth, flat surface, fifteen or twenty feet above their heads,
was not unlike
a gigantic grave-stone, upon which the veins seemed to
form an inscription
in forgotten characters. On a tract of several acres
around this
rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees had supplied the place
of the pines,
which were the usual growth of the land; and a young and
vigorous sapling
stood close beside the travellers.
The severe wound
of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep;
for, so soon
as the first ray of sunshine rested on the top of the highest
tree, he reared
himself painfully from his recumbent posture, and sat erect.
The deep lines
of his countenance, and the scattered grey of his hair,
marked him as
past the middle age; but his muscular frame would, but for
the effects
of his wound, have been as capable of sustaining fatigue, as in
the early vigor
of life. Languor and exhaustion now sat upon his haggard
features, and
the despairing glance which he sent forward through the
depths of the
forest, proved his own conviction that his pilgrimage was at
an end. He next
turned his eyes to the companion, who reclined by his
side. The youth,
for he had scarcely attained the years of manhood, lay,
with his head
upon his arm, in the embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a
thrill of pain
from his wounds seemed each moment on the point of
breaking. His
right hand grasped a musket, and, to judge from the violent
action of his
features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision of the
conflict, of
which he was one of the few survivors. A shout,--deep and
loud to his
dreaming fancy,--found its way in an imperfect murmur to his
lips, and, starting
even at the slight sound of his own voice, he suddenly
awoke. The first
act of reviving recollection, was to make anxious
inquiries respecting
the condition of his wounded fellow traveller. The
latter shook
his head.
"Reuben, my boy,"
said he, "this rock, beneath which we sit, will serve for
an old hunter's
grave-stone. There is many and many a long mile of
howling wilderness
before us yet; nor would it avail me anything, if the
smoke of my
own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of
land. The Indian
bullet was deadlier than I thought."
"You are weary
with our three days' travel," replied the youth, "and a little
longer rest
will recruit you. Sit you here, while I search the woods for the
herbs and roots,
that must be our sustenance; and having eaten, you shall
lean on me,
and we will turn our faces homeward. I doubt not, that, with
my help, you
can attain to some one of the frontier garrisons."
"There is not
two days' life in me, Reuben," said the other, calmly, "and I
will no longer
burthen you with my useless body, when you can scarcely
support your
own. Your wounds are deep, and your strength is failing
fast; yet, if
you hasten onward alone, you may be preserved. For me there
is no hope;
and I will await death here."
"If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you," said Reuben, resolutely.
"No, my son,
no," rejoined his companion. "Let the wish of a dying man
have weight
with you; give me one grasp of your hand, and get you hence.
Think you that
my last moments will be eased by the thought, that I leave
you to die a
more lingering death? I have loved you like a father, Reuben,
and, at a time
like this, I should have something of a father's authority. I
charge you to
be gone, that I may die in peace."
"And because
you have been a father to me, should I therefore leave you
to perish, and
to lie unburied in the wilderness?" exclaimed the youth.
"No; if your
end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you, and receive
your parting
words. I will dig a grave here by the rock, in which, if my
weakness overcome
me, we will rest together; or, if Heaven gives me
strength, I
will seek my way home."
"In he cities,
and whenever men dwell," replied the other, "they bury their
dead in the
earth; they hide them from the sight of the living; but here,
where no step
may pass, perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore should I
not rest beneath
the open sky, covered only by the oak-leaves, when the
autumn winds
shall strew them? And for a monument, here is this grey
rock, on which
my dying hand shall carve the name of Roger Malvin; and
the traveller
in days to come will know, that here sleeps a hunter and a
warrior. Tarry
not, then, for a folly like this, but hasten away, if not for
your own sake,
for hers who will else be desolate."
Malvin spoke
the last few words in a faultering voice, and their effect
upon his companion
was strongly visible. They reminded him that there
were other,
and less questionable duties, than that of sharing the fate of a
man whom his
death could not benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that no
selfish feeling
strove to enter Reuben's heart, though the consciousness
made him more
earnestly resist his companion's entreaties.
"How terrible,
to wait the slow approach of death, in this solitude!"
exclaimed he.
"A brave man does not shrink in the battle, and, when
friends stand
round the bed, even women may die composedly; but
here--"
"I shall not
shrink, even here, Reuben Bourne," interrupted Malvin. "I am
a man of no
weak heart; and, if I were, there is a surer support than that
of earthly friends.
You are young, and life is dear to you. Your last
moments will
need comfort far more than mine; and when you have laid
me in the earth,
and are alone, and night is settling on the forest, you will
feel all the
bitterness of the death that may now be escaped. But I will
urge no selfish
motive to your generous nature. Leave me for my sake;
that, having
said a prayer for your safety, I may have space to settle my
account, undisturbed
by worldly sorrows."
"And your daughter!
How shall I dare to meet her eye?" exclaimed
Reuben. "She
will ask the fate of her father, whose life I vowed to defend
with my own.
Must I tell her, that he travelled three days' march with me
from the field
of battle, and that then I left him to perish in the wilderness?
Were it not
better to lie down and die by your side, than to return safe,
and say this
to Dorcas?"
"Tell my daughter,"
said Roger Malvin, "that, though yourself sore
wounded, and
weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps many a
mile, and left
me only at my earnest entreaty, because I would not have
your blood upon
my soul. Tell her, that through pain and danger you were
faithful, and
that, if your life-blood could have saved me, it would have
flowed to its
last drop. And tell her, that you will be something dearer than
a father, and
that my blessing is with you both, and that my dying eyes can
see a long and
pleasant path, in which you will journey together."
As Malvin spoke,
he almost raised himself from the ground, and the
energy of his
concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely forest
with a vision
of happiness. But when he sank exhausted upon his bed of
oak-leaves,
the light, which had kindled in Reuben's eye, was quenched.
He felt as if
it were both sin and folly to think of happiness at such a
moment. His
companion watched his changing countenance, and sought,
with generous
art, to wile him to his own good.
"Perhaps I deceive
myself in regard to the time I have to live," he
resumed. "It
may be, that, with speedy assistance, I might recover of my
wound. The foremost
fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of our
fatal battle
to the frontiers, and parties will be out to succour those in like
condition with
ourselves. Should you meet one of these, and guide them
hither, who
can tell but that I may sit by my own fireside again?"
A mournful smile
strayed across the features of the dying man, as he
insinuated that
unfounded hope; which, however, was not without its
effect on Reuben.
No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate
condition of
Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion, at
such a moment.
But his wishes seized upon the thought, that Malvin's life
might be preserved,
and his sanguine nature heightened, almost to
certainty, the
remote possibility of procuring human aid.
"Surely there
is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far
distant," he
said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, unwounded, in the
beginning of
the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every true
man on the frontier
would shoulder his musket, at the news; and though
no party may
range so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps
encounter them
in one day's march. Counsel me faithfully," he added,
turning to Malvin,
in distrust of his own motives. "Were your situation
mine, would
you desert me while life remained?"
"It is now twenty
years," replied Roger Malvin, sighing, however, as he
secretly acknowledged
the wide dissimilarity between the two cases,--"it
is now twenty
years, since I escaped, with one dear friend, from Indian
captivity, near
Montreal. We journeyed many days through the woods, till
at length, overcome
with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down, and
besought me
to leave him; for he knew, that, if I remained, we both must
perish. And,
with but little hope of obtaining succour, I heaped a pillow of
dry leaves beneath
his head, and hastened on."
"And did you
return in time to save him?" asked Reuben, hanging on
Malvin's words,
as if they were to be prophetic of his own success.
"I did," answered
the other. "I came upon the camp of a hunting party,
before sunset
of the same day. I guided them to the spot where my
comrade was
expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man, upon
his own farm,
far within the frontiers, while I lie wounded here, in the
depths of the
wilderness."
This example,
powerful in effecting Reuben's decision, was aided,
unconsciously
to himself, by the hidden strength of many another motive.
Roger Malvin
perceived that the victory was nearly won.
"Now go, my son,
and Heaven prosper you!" he said. "Turn not back
with our friends,
when you meet them, lest your wounds and weariness
overcome you;
but send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to
search for me.
And believe me, Reuben, my heart will be lighter with
every step you
take towards home." Yet there was perhaps a change,
both in his
countenance and voice, as he spoke thus; for, after all, it was a
ghastly fate,
to be left expiring in the wilderness.
Reuben Bourne,
but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length
raised himself
from the ground, and prepared himself for his departure.
And first, though
contrary to Malvin's wishes, he collected a stock of
roots and herbs,
which had been their only food during the last two days.
This useless
supply he placed within reach of the dying man, for whom,
also, he swept
together a fresh bed of dry oak-leaves. Then, climbing to
the summit of
the rock, which on one side was rough and broken, he bent
the oak-sapling
downward, and bound his handkerchief to the topmost
branch. This
precaution was not unnecessary, to direct any who might
come in search
of Malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad,
smooth front,
was concealed, at a little distance, by the dense
undergrowth
of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage of a
wound upon Reuben's
arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed, by
the blood that
stained it, that he would return, either to save his
companion's
life, or to lay his body in the grave. He then descended, and
stood, with
downcast eyes, to receive Roger Malvin's parting words.
The experience
of the latter suggested much and minute advice, respecting
the youth's
journey through the trackless forest. Upon this subject he
spoke with calm
earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to the battle
or the chase,
while he himself remained secure at home; and not as if the
human countenance,
that was about to leave him, were the last he would
ever behold.
But his firmness was shaken, before he concluded.
"Carry my blessing
to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for her
and you. Bid
her have no hard thoughts because you left me
here"--Reuben's
heart smote him--"for that your life would not have
weighed with
you, if its sacrifice could have done me good. She will marry
you, after she
has mourned a little while for her father; and Heaven grant
you long and
happy days! and may your children's children stand round
your death-bed!
And, Reuben," added he, as the weakness of mortality
made its way
at last, "return, when your wounds are healed and your
weariness refreshed,
return to this wild rock, and lay my bones in the
grave, and say
a prayer over them."
An almost superstitious
regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the
Indians, whose
war was with the dead, as well as the living, was paid by
the frontier
inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many
instances of
the sacrifice of life, in the attempt to bury those who had
fallen by the
"sword of the wilderness." Reuben, therefore, felt the full
importance of
the promise, which he most solemnly made, to return, and
perform Roger
Malvin's obsequies. It was remarkable, that the latter,
speaking his
whole heart in his parting words, no longer endeavored to
persuade the
youth, that even the speediest succour might avail to the
preservation
of his life. Reuben was internally convinced, that he should
see Malvin's
living face no more. His generous nature would fain have
delayed him,
at whatever risk, till the dying scene were past; but the
desire of existence,
and the hope of happiness had strengthened in his
heart, and he
was unable to resist them.
"It is enough,"
said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben's promise.
"Go, and God
speed you!"
The youth pressed
his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. His
slow and faultering
steps, however, had borne him but a little way, before
Malvin's voice
recalled him.
"Reuben, Reuben,"
said he, faintly; and Reuben returned and knelt down
by the dying
man.
"Raise me, and
let me lean against the rock," was his last request. "My
face will be
turned towards home, and I shall see you a moment longer, as
you pass among
the trees."
Reuben, having
made the desired alteration in his companion's posture,
again began
his solitary pilgrimage. He walked more hastily at first, than
was consistent
with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, which
sometimes torments
men in their most justifiable acts, caused him to seek
concealment
from Malvin's eyes. But, after he had trodden far upon the
rustling forest-leaves,
he crept back, impelled by a wild and painful
curiosity, and,
sheltered by the earthy roots of an uptorn tree, gazed
earnestly at
the desolate man. The morning sun was unclouded, and the
trees and shrubs
imbibed the sweet air of the month of May; yet there
seemed a gloom
on Nature's face, as if she sympathized with mortal pain
and sorrow.
Roger Malvin's hands were uplifted in a fervent prayer, some
of the words
of which stole through the stillness of the woods, and
entered Reuben's
heart, torturing it with an unutterable pang. They were
the broken accents
of a petition for his own happiness and that of Dorcas;
and, as the
youth listened, conscience, or something in its similitude,
pleaded strongly
with him to return, and lie down again by the rock. He
felt how hard
was the doom of the kind and generous being whom he had
deserted in
his extremity. Death would come, like the slow approach of a
corpse, stealing
gradually towards him through the forest, and showing its
ghastly and
motionless features from behind a nearer, and yet a nearer
tree. But such
must have been Reuben's own fate, had he tarried another
sunset; and
who shall impute blame to him, if he shrank from so useless a
sacrifice? As
he gave a parting look, a breeze waved the little banner
upon the sapling-oak,
and reminded Reuben of his vow.
Many circumstances
contributed to retard the wounded traveller, in his
way to the frontiers.
On the second day, the clouds, gathering densely
over the sky,
precluded the possibility of regulating his course by the
position of
the sun; and he knew not but that every effort of his almost
exhausted strength,
was removing him farther from the home he sought.
His scanty sustenance
was supplied by the berries, and other spontaneous
products of
the forest. Herds of deer, it is true, sometimes bounded past
him, and partridges
frequently whirred up before his footsteps; but his
ammunition had
been expended in the fight, and he had no means of
slaying them.
His wounds, irritated by the constant exertion in which lay
the only hope
of life, wore away his strength, and at intervals confused his
reason. But,
even in the wanderings of intellect, Reuben's young heart
clung strongly
to existence, and it was only through absolute incapacity of
motion, that
he at last sank down beneath a tree, compelled there to await
death. In this
situation he was discovered by a party, who, upon the first
intelligence
of the fight, had been despatched to the relief of the survivors.
They conveyed
him to the nearest settlement, which chanced to be that of
his own residence.
Dorcas, in the
simplicity of the olden time, watched by the bed-side of her
wounded lover,
and administered all those comforts, that are in the sole
gift of woman's
heart and hand. During several days, Reuben's
recollection
strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through
which he had
passed, and he was incapable of returning definite answers
to the inquiries,
with which many were eager to harass him. No authentic
particulars
of the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, wives,
and children
tell, whether their loved ones were detained by captivity, or
by the stronger
chain of death. Dorcas nourished her apprehensions in
silence, till
one afternoon, when Reuben awoke from an unquiet sleep,
and seemed to
recognize her more perfectly than at any previous time.
She saw that
his intellect had become composed, and she could no longer
restrain her
filial anxiety.
"My father, Reuben?"
she began; but the change in her lover's
countenance
made her pause.
The youth shrank,
as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed vividly
into his wan
and hollow cheeks. His first impulse was to cover his face;
but, apparently
with a desperate effort, he half raised himself, and spoke
vehemently,
defending himself against an imaginary accusation.
"Your father
was sore wounded in the battle, Dorcas, and he bade me not
burthen myself
with him, but only to lead him to the lake-side, that he
might quench
his thirst and die. But I would not desert the old man in his
extremity, and,
though bleeding myself, I supported him; I gave him half
my strength,
and led him away with me. For three days we journeyed on
together, and
your father was sustained beyond my hopes; but, awaking
at sunrise on
the fourth day, I found him faint and exhausted,--he was
unable to proceed,--his
life had ebbed away fast,--and--"
"He died!" exclaimed Dorcas, faintly.
Reuben felt it
impossible to acknowledge, that his selfish love of life had
hurried him
away, before her father's fate was decided. He spoke not; he
only bowed his
head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank back and
hid his face
in the pillow. Dorcas wept, when her fears were thus
confirmed; but
the shock, as it had been long anticipated, was on that
account the
less violent.
"You dug a grave
for my poor father, in the wilderness, Reuben?" was the
question by
which her filial piety manifested itself.
"My hands were
weak, but I did what I could," replied the youth in a
smothered tone.
"There stands a noble tomb-stone above his head, and I
would to Heaven
I slept as soundly as he!"
Dorcas, perceiving
the wildness of his latter words, inquired no further at
the time; but
her heart found ease in the thought, that Roger Malvin had
not lacked such
funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. The tale of
Reuben's courage
and fidelity lost nothing, when she communicated it to
her friends;
and the poor youth, tottering from his sick chamber to breathe
the sunny air,
experienced from every tongue the miserable and humiliating
torture of unmerited
praise. All acknowledged that he might worthily
demand the hand
of the fair maiden, to whose father he had been "faithful
unto death";
and, as my tale is not of love, it shall suffice to say, that, in the
space of a few
months, Reuben became the husband of Dorcas Malvin.
During the marriage
ceremony, the bride was covered with blushes, but
the bridegroom's
face was pale.
There was now
in the breast of Reuben Bourne an incommunicable
thought; something
which he was to conceal most heedfully from her
whom he most
loved and trusted. He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the
moral cowardice
that had restrained his words, when he was about to
disclose the
truth to Dorcas; but pride, the fear of losing her affection, the
dread of universal
scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. He felt,
that, for leaving
Roger Malvin, he deserved no censure. His presence, the
gratuitous sacrifice
of his own life, would have added only another, and a
needless agony
to the last moments of the dying man. But concealment
had imparted
to a justifiable act, much of the secret effect of guilt; and
Reuben, while
reason told him that he had done right, experienced, in no
small degree,
the mental horrors, which punish the perpetrator of
undiscovered
crime. By a certain association of ideas, he at times almost
imagined himself
a murderer. For years, also, a thought would
occasionally
recur, which, though he perceived all its folly and
extravagance,
he had not power to banish from his mind; it was a haunting
and torturing
fancy, that his father-in-law was yet sitting at the foot of the
rock, on the
withered forest-leaves, alive, and awaiting his pledged
assistance.
These mental deceptions, however, came and went, nor did he
ever mistake
them for realities; but in the calmest and clearest moods of
his mind, he
was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that
an unburied
corpse was calling to him, out of the wilderness. Yet, such
was the consequence
of his prevarication, that he could not obey the call.
It was now too
late to require the assistance of Roger Malvin's friends, in
performing his
long-deferred sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which
none were more
susceptible than the people of the outward settlements,
forbade Reuben
to go alone. Neither did he know where, in the pathless
and illimitable
forest, to seek that smooth and lettered rock, at the base of
which the body
lay; his remembrance of every portion of his travel thence
was indistinct,
and the latter part had left no impression upon his mind.
There was, however,
a continual impulse, a voice audible only to himself,
commanding him
to go forth and redeem his vow; and he had a strange
impression,
that, were he to make the trial, he would be led straight to
Malvin's bones.
But, year after year, that summons, unheard but felt, was
disobeyed. His
one secret thought, became like a chain, binding down his
spirit, and,
like a serpent, gnawing into his heart; and he was transformed
into a sad and
downcast, yet irritable man.
In the course
of a few years after their marriage, changes began to be
visible in the
external prosperity of Reuben and Dorcas. The only riches of
the former had
been his stout heart and strong arm; but the latter, her
father's sole
heiress, had made her husband master of a farm, under older
cultivation,
larger, and better stocked than most of the frontier
establishments.
Reuben Bourne, however, was a neglectful husbandman;
and while the
lands of the other settlers became annually more fruitful, his
deteriorated
in the same proportion. The discouragements to agriculture
were greatly
lessened by the cessation of Indian war, during which men
held the plough
in one hand, and the musket in the other; and were
fortunate if
the products of their dangerous labor were not destroyed,
either in the
field or in the barn, by the savage enemy. But Reuben did not
profit by the
altered condition of the country; nor can it be denied, that his
intervals of
industrious attention to his affairs were but scantily rewarded
with success.
The irritability, by which he had recently become
distinguished,
was another cause of his declining prosperity, as it
occasioned frequent
quarrels, in his unavoidable intercourse with the
neighboring
settlers. The results of these were innumerable law-suits; for
the people of
New England, in the earliest stages and wildest
circumstances
of the country, adopted, whenever attainable, the legal
mode of deciding
their differences. To be brief, the world did not go well
with Reuben
Bourne, and, though not till many years after his marriage, he
was finally
a ruined man, with but one remaining expedient against the evil
fate that had
pursued him. He was to throw sunlight into some deep
recess of the
forest, and seek subsistence from the virgin bosom of the
wilderness.
The only child
of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age
of fifteen years,
beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious
manhood. He
was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel in,
the wild accomplishments
of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his aim true,
his apprehension
quick, his heart glad and high; and all, who anticipated
the return of
Indian war, spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future leader in the
land. The boy
was loved by his father, with a deep and silent strength, as
if whatever
was good and happy in his own nature had been transferred
to his child,
carrying his affections with it. Even Dorcas, though loving and
beloved, was
far less dear to him; for Reuben's secret thoughts and
insulated emotions
had gradually made him a selfish man; and he could no
longer love
deeply, except where he saw, or imagined, some reflection or
likeness of
his own mind. In Cyrus he recognized what he had himself
been in other
days; and at intervals he seemed to partake of the boy's
spirit, and
to be revived with a fresh and happy life. Reuben was
accompanied
by his son in the expedition, for the purpose of selecting a
tract of land,
and felling and burning the timber, which necessarily
preceded the
removal of the household gods. Two months of autumn
were thus occupied;
after which Reuben Bourne and his young hunter
returned, to
spend their last winter in the settlements.
It was early
in the month of May, that the little family snapped asunder
whatever tendrils
of affection had clung to inanimate objects, and bade
farewell to
the few, who, in the blight of fortune, called themselves their
friends. The
sadness of the parting moment had, to each of the pilgrims, its
peculiar alleviations.
Reuben, a moody man, and misanthropic because
unhappy, strode
onward, with his usual stern brow and downcast eye,
feeling few
regrets, and disdaining to acknowledge any. Dorcas, while she
wept abundantly
over the broken ties by which her simple and
affectionate
nature had bound itself to everything, felt that the inhabitants
of her inmost
heart moved on with her, and that all else would be supplied
wherever she
might go. And the boy dashed one tear-drop from his eye,
and thought
of the adventurous pleasures of the untrodden forest. Oh!
who, in the
enthusiasm of a day-dream, has not wished that he were a
wanderer in
a world of summer wilderness, with one fair and gentle being
hanging lightly
on his arm? In youth, his free and exulting step would know
no barrier but
the rolling ocean or the snow-topt mountains; calmer
manhood would
choose a home, where Nature had strewn a double
wealth, in the
vale of some transparent stream; and when hoary age, after
long, long years
of that pure life, stole on and found him there, it would
find him the
father of a race, the patriarch of a people, the founder of a
mighty nation
yet to be. When death, like the sweet sleep which we
welcome after
a day of happiness, came over him, his far descendants
would mourn
over the venerated dust. Enveloped by tradition in
mysterious attributes,
the men of future generations would call him
godlike; and
remote posterity would see him standing, dimly glorious, far
up the valley
of a hundred centuries!
The tangled and
gloomy forest, through which the personages of my tale
were wandering,
differed widely from the dreamer's Land of Fantasie; yet
there was something
in their way of life that Nature asserted as her own;
and the gnawing
cares, which went with them from the world, were all
that now obstructed
their happiness. One stout and shaggy steed, the
bearer of all
their wealth, did not shrink from the added weight of Dorcas;
although her
hardy breeding sustained her, during the latter part of each
day's journey,
by her husband's side. Reuben and his son, their muskets
on their shoulders,
and their axes slung behind them, kept an unwearied
pace, each watching
with a hunter's eye for the game that supplied their
food. When hunger
bade, they halted and prepared their meal on the
bank of some
unpolluted forest-brook, which, as they knelt down with
thirsty lips
to drink, murmured a sweet unwillingness, like a maiden, at
love's first
kiss. They slept beneath a hut of branches, and awoke at peep
of light, refreshed
for the toils of another day. Dorcas and the boy went
on joyously,
and even Reuben's spirit shone at intervals with an outward
gladness; but
inwardly there was a cold, cold sorrow, which he compared
to the snow-drifts,
lying deep in the glens and hollows of the rivulets, while
the leaves were
brightly green above.
Cyrus Bourne
was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods, to
observe, that
his father did not adhere to the course they had pursued, in
their expedition
of the preceding autumn. They were now keeping farther
to the north,
striking out more directly from the settlements, and into a
region, of which
savage beasts and savage men were as yet the sole
possessors.
The boy sometimes hinted his opinions upon the subject, and
Reuben listened
attentively, and once or twice altered the direction of their
march in accordance
with his son's counsel. But having so done, he
seemed ill at
ease. His quick and wandering glances were sent forward,
apparently in
search of enemies lurking behind the tree-trunks; and seeing
nothing there,
he would cast his eyes backward, as if in fear of some
pursuer. Cyrus,
perceiving that his father gradually resumed the old
direction, forbore
to interfere; nor, though something began to weigh upon
his heart, did
his adventurous nature permit him to regret the increased
length and the
mystery of their way.
On the afternoon
of the fifth day, they halted and made their simple
encampment,
nearly an hour before sunset. The face of the country, for
the last few
miles, had been diversified by swells of land, resembling huge
waves of a petrified
sea; and in one of the corresponding hollows, a wild
and romantic
spot, had the family reared their hut, and kindled their fire.
There is something
chilling, and yet heart-warming, in the thought of these
three, united
by strong bands of love, and insulated from all that breathe
beside. The
dark and gloomy pines looked down upon them, and, as the
wind swept through
their tops, a pitying sound was heard in the forest; or
did those old
trees groan, in fear that men were come to lay the axe to
their roots
at last? Reuben and his son, while Dorcas made ready their
meal, proposed
to wander out in search of game, of which that day's
march had afforded
no supply. The boy, promising not to quit the vicinity
of the encampment,
bounded off with a step as light and elastic as that of
the deer he
hoped to slay; while his father, feeling a transient happiness as
he gazed after
him, was about to pursue an opposite direction. Dorcas, in
the meanwhile,
had seated herself near their fire of fallen branches, upon
the moss-grown
and mouldering trunk of a tree, uprooted years before.
Her employment,
diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now
beginning to
simmer over the blaze, was the perusal of the current year's
Massachusetts
Almanac, which, with the exception of an old black-letter
Bible, comprised
all the literary wealth of the family. None pay a greater
regard to arbitrary
divisions of time, than those who are excluded from
society; and
Dorcas mentioned, as if the information were of importance,
that it was
now the twelfth of May. Her husband started.
"The twelfth
of May! I should remember it well," muttered he, while many
thoughts occasioned
a momentary confusion in his mind. "Where am I?
Whither am I
wandering? Where did I leave him?"
Dorcas, too well
accustomed to her husband's wayward moods to note
any peculiarity
of demeanor, now laid aside the Almanac, and addressed
him in that
mournful tone, which the tender-hearted appropriate to griefs
long cold and
dead.
"It was near
this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my poor
father left
this world for a better. He had a kind arm to hold his head, and
a kind voice
to cheer him, Reuben, in his last moments; and the thought of
the faithful
care you took of him, has comforted me, many a time since.
Oh! death would
have been awful to a solitary man, in a wild place like
this!"
"Pray Heaven,
Dorcas," said Reuben, in a broken voice, "pray Heaven,
that neither
of us three die solitary, and lie unburied, in this howling
wilderness!"
And he hastened away, leaving her to watch the fire, beneath
the gloomy pines.
Reuben Bourne's
rapid pace gradually slackened, as the pang,
unintentionally
inflicted by the words of Dorcas, became less acute. Many
strange reflections,
however, thronged upon him; and, straying onward,
rather like
a sleep-walker than a hunter, it was attributable to no care of
his own, that
his devious course kept him in the vicinity of the
encampment.
His steps were imperceptibly led almost in a circle, nor did
he observe that
he was on the verge of a tract of land heavily timbered,
but not with
pine-trees. The place of the latter was here supplied by oaks,
and other of
the harder woods; and around their roots clustered a dense
and bushy undergrowth,
leaving, however, barren spaces between the
trees, thick-strewn
with withered leaves. Whenever the rustling of the
branches, or
the creaking of the trunks made a sound, as if the forest
were waking
from slumber, Reuben instinctively raised the musket that
rested on his
arm, and cast a quick, sharp glance on every side; but,
convinced by
a partial observation that no animal was near, he would
again give himself
up to his thoughts. He was musing on the strange
influence, that
had led him away from his premeditated course, and so far
into the depths
of the wilderness. Unable to penetrate to the secret place
of his soul,
where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural
voice had called
him onward, and that a supernatural power had
obstructed his
retreat. He trusted that it was Heaven's intent to afford him
an opportunity
of expiating his sin; he hoped that he might find the bones,
so long unburied;
and that, having laid the earth over them, peace would
throw its sunlight
into the sepulchre of his heart. From these thoughts he
was aroused
by a rustling in the forest, at some distance from the spot to
which he had
wandered. Perceiving the motion of some object behind a
thick veil of
undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter, and the
aim of a practiced
marksman. A low moan, which told his success, and
by which even
animals can express their dying agony, was unheeded by
Reuben Bourne.
What were the recollections now breaking upon him?
The thicket,
into which Reuben had fired, was near the summit of a swell
of land, and
was clustered around the base of a rock, which, in the shape
and smoothness
of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic
grave-stone.
As if reflected in a mirror, its likeness was in Reuben's
memory. He even
recognized the veins which seemed to form an
inscription
in forgotten characters; everything remained the same, except
that a thick
covert of bushes shrouded the lower part of the rock, and
would have hidden
Roger Malvin, had he still been sitting there. Yet, in
the next moment,
Reuben's eye was caught by another change, that time
had effected,
since he last stood, where he was now standing again,
behind the earthy
roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling, to which he had
bound the blood-stained
symbol of his vow, had increased and
strengthened
into an oak, far indeed from its maturity, but with no mean
spread of shadowy
branches. There was one singularity, observable in
this tree, which
made Reuben tremble. The middle and lower branches
were in luxuriant
life, and an excess of vegetation had fringed the trunk,
almost to the
ground; but a blight had apparently stricken the upper part
of the oak,
and the very topmost bough was withered, sapless, and utterly
dead. Reuben
remembered how the little banner had fluttered on the
topmost bough,
when it was green and lovely, eighteen years before.
Whose guilt
had blasted it?
Dorcas, after
the departure of the two hunters, continued her preparations
for their evening
repast. Her sylvan table was the moss-covered trunk of a
large fallen
tree, on the broadest part of which she had spread a
snow-white cloth,
and arranged what were left of the bright pewter
vessels, that
had been her pride in the settlements. It had a strange
aspect--that
one little spot of homely comfort, in the desolate heart of
Nature. The
sunshine yet lingered upon the higher branches of the trees
that grew on
rising ground; but the shades of evening had deepened into
the hollow,
where the encampment was made; and the fire-light began to
redden as it
gleamed up the tall trunks of the pines, or hovered on the
dense and obscure
mass of foliage, that circled round the spot. The heart
of Dorcas was
not sad; for she felt that it was better to journey in the
wilderness,
with two whom she loved, than to be a lonely woman in a
crowd that cared
not for her. As she busied herself in arranging seats of
mouldering wood,
covered with leaves, for Reuben and her son, her voice
danced through
the gloomy forest, in the measure of a song that she had
learned in youth.
The rude melody, the production of a bard who won no
name, was descriptive
of a winter evening in a frontier-cottage, when,
secured from
savage inroad by the high-piled snow-drifts, the family
rejoiced by
their own fireside. The whole song possessed that nameless
charm, peculiar
to unborrowed thought; but four continually-recurring
lines shone
out from the rest, like the blaze of the hearth whose joys they
celebrated.
Into them, working magic with a few simple words, the poet
had instilled
the very essence of domestic love and household happiness,
and they were
poetry and picture joined in one. As Dorcas sang, the walls
of her forsaken
home seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw the
gloomy pines,
nor heard the wind, which still, as she began each verse,
sent a heavy
breath through the branches, and died away in a hollow
moan, from the
burthen of the song. She was aroused by the report of a
gun, in the
vicinity of the encampment; and either the sudden sound, or her
loneliness by
the glowing fire, caused her to tremble violently. The next
moment, she
laughed in the pride of a mother's heart.
"My beautiful
young hunter! my boy has slain a deer!" she exclaimed,
recollecting
that, in the direction whence the shot proceeded, Cyrus had
gone to the
chase.
She waited a
reasonable time, to hear her son's light step bounding over
the rustling
leaves, to tell of his success. But he did not immediately
appear, and
she sent her cheerful voice among the trees, in search of him.
"Cyrus! Cyrus!"
His coming was
still delayed, and she determined, as the report had
apparently been
very near, to seek for him in person. Her assistance, also,
might be necessary
in bringing home the venison, which she flattered
herself he had
obtained. She therefore set forward, directing her steps by
the long-past
sound, and singing as she went, in order that the boy might
be aware of
her approach, and run to meet her. From behind the trunk of
every tree,
and from every hiding place in the thick foliage of the
undergrowth,
she hoped to discover the countenance of her son, laughing
with the sportive
mischief that is born of affection. The sun was now
beneath the
horizon, and the light that came down among the trees was
sufficiently
dim to create many illusions in her expecting fancy. Several
times she seemed
indistinctly to see his face gazing out from among the
leaves; and
once she imagined that he stood beckoning to her, at the base
of a craggy
rock. Keeping her eyes on this object, however, it proved to
be no more than
the trunk of an oak, fringed to the very ground with little
branches, one
of which, thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by the
breeze. Making
her way round the foot of the rock, she suddenly found
herself close
to her husband, who had approached in another direction.
Leaning upon
the butt of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the
withered leaves,
he was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of
some object
at his feet.
"How is this,
Reuben? Have you slain the deer, and fallen asleep over
him?" exclaimed
Dorcas, laughing cheerfully, on her first slight observation
of his posture
and appearance.
He stirred not,
neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a cold,
shuddering fear,
indefinite in its source and object, began to creep into her
blood. She now
perceived that her husband's face was ghastly pale, and
his features
were rigid, as if incapable of assuming any other expression
than the strong
despair which had hardened upon them. He gave not the
slightest evidence
that he was aware of her approach.
"For the love
of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me!" cried Dorcas, and the
strange sound
of her own voice affrighted her even more than the dead
silence.
Her husband started,
stared into her face; drew her to the front of the
rock, and pointed
with his finger.
Oh! there lay
the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen
forest-leaves!
his cheek rested upon his arm, his curled locks were
thrown back
from his brow, his limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sudden
weariness overcome
the youthful hunter? Would his mother's voice arouse
him? She knew
that it was death.
"This broad rock
is the grave-stone of your near kindred, Dorcas," said
her husband.
"Your tears will fall at once over your father and your son."
She heard him
not. With one wild shriek, that seemed to force its way
from the sufferer's
inmost soul, she sank insensible by the side of her dead
boy. At that
moment, the withered topmost bough of the oak loosened
itself, in the
stilly air, and fell in soft, light fragments upon the rock, upon
the leaves,
upon Reuben, upon his wife and child, and upon Roger
Malvin's bones.
Then Reuben's heart was stricken, and the tears gushed
out like water
from a rock. The vow that the wounded youth had made,
the blighted
man had come to redeem. His sin was expiated, the curse
was gone from
him; and, in the hour, when he had shed blood dearer to
him than his
own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven from the
lips of Reuben
Bourne.