Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog: A Tale of Border Life

"So those two voices met; so Joy and Death Mingled their accents; and, amidst the rush Of many thoughts, the listening poet cried, O! thou art mighty, thou art wonderful, Myster...

"And now their hatchets, with resounding stroke, Hew'd down the boscage that around them rose, And the dry pine of brittle branches broke, To yield them fuel for the night's rep...

Deep in the wilderness of woods and waters encircling the mouth of a small inlet, at the extreme northwestern end of the picturesque Maguntic, there lay encamped, at the point o...

About the middle of the afternoon, on the day next succeeding the eventful one which was marked by the occurrences narrated in the last chapter, a cavalcade of about a dozen men...

"As the night set in, came hail and snow, And the air grew sharp and chill, And the warning roar of a terrible blow Was heard on the distant hill; And the norther,--see, on the...

"Away! nor let me loiter in my song, For we have many a mountain path to tread, And many a varied shore to sail along,-- By truth and sadness, not by fiction, led."

When Claud Elwood reached home, on the eventful visit to the Magalloway which resulted in the exchange of vows between him and Avis Gurley, as intimated at the close of the last...

The week succeeding the logging bee was an extremely busy one with the Elwoods, who still had a heavy task to perform on their new field, before it could be considered properly...

"To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely, b...

"Then came the woodman with his sturdy-team Of broad-horned oxen, to complete the toil Which axe and fire had left him, to redeem, For culture's hand, the cold and root-bound so...

It was the second week in May; and spring, delightful spring, sweet herald of happiness to all the living creatures that have undergone the almost literal imprisonment of one of...

"Be still the unimaginable lodge For solitary thinkings; such as dodge Conception to the very bourn of Heaven, Then leave the naked brain; be still the leaven That, spreading in...

The next scene in the slowly unfolding panorama of our story opens at the house of Gaut Gurley, on the banks of the Magalloway. Gaut reached home, on the evening of the logging...

So wrote the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by the drift of the context, that he intended the remark as having a moral as well as a physical application; since, as he...

After the breaking up of the party, as described in the former chapter, Arthur Elwood, on joining the family circle, and not meeting his host and brother there, as he naturally...

For the better understanding of some of the allusions of the preceding chapter, and of others that may yet appear in different parts of our tale, as well, indeed, as for a bette...

The morning of the next day, serene and beautiful as a bride decked in her fresh robes and redolent in her forest perfumery, came smiling over the wilderness hills of the east,...

"I strive in vain to set the evil forth. The words that should sufficiently accurse And execrate the thing, hath need Come glowing from the lips of eldest hell. Among the saddes...

In the early part of an appointed day, about a fortnight after the return of the imperilled and unfortunate trappers to their homes, as described in the preceding chapter, an un...

The low chirping of the wood-birds, the tiny barkings of the out-starting squirrels, the hurrying footsteps of the night-prowling animals, on their way to their coverts, on the...

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture in the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes,-- I love not man the less, but nature more."

Claud Elwood and his Forest Musings.--Dangerous Assault, and slaying of a Moose.--Rescue of Gaut's Daughter from the enraged animal.--Strange Developments.--Incipient Love Scene...

Retrospect of the life of the Country Merchant, in making Money, to become a "Solid Man of Boston."--Humble Beginnings.--Tempted into Smuggling from Canada in Embargo times, and...

The moral and intellectual Influences of Forest Life.--Scenery of Umbagog.--Description of Elwood's new Home in the Woods.--The Burning of his first _Slash_.--His House catches...

Gambling (an allegory) invented by the Fiends, and is proclaimed the Premium Vice by Lucifer.--A Gambling Scene between Gaut Gurley and the merchant, Mark Elwood.--The Failure o...

The Voyage to Oquossah, the farthest large Lake.--The stationing of the Trappers at different points on the Lake.--The appointment of Gaut as Keeper of the Central Camp, on the...

The Downward Path of the Habitual Gambler.--His Family sharing in the Degradation, and becoming the suffering Victims of his Vices.--The Sudden Resolve to be a Man again, and re...

Mrs. Elwood's Bodings, on account of the connection of her Husband and Son with Gaut and his Daughter.--Her Interview with Fluella.--Claud's Interview with Fluella and her Fathe...

Jaunt of Claud and Phillips over the Rapids to the next Great Lake, for Deer-hunting and Trout-catching.--Rescue of Fluella, the Indian Chief's Daughter, from Drowning in the Ra...

The Logging Bee.--The introduction of a New Character in Comical Codman, the Trapper.--The Woodmen's Banquet.--The forming of the Trapping and Hunting Company, to start on an Ex...

The Trappers overtaken by a terrible Snow-storm.--Their Suffering before reaching Central Camp.--The discovery that this Camp had been Burnt, and Robbed of their whole Stock of...

Gaut's Efforts to get the old Company off into the Forest, on a Spring Expedition.--All refuse but Elwood and Son, who conclude to go.--Love Entanglements, and the boding Fears...

Town and Country contrasted, in relation to Vice and Crime.--A Display Party to avoid Bankruptcy.--Gaut Gurley, and other leading Characters, introduced as Actors in this scene...

Opening of Spring in the Settlement.--The Trappers fail to Return.--Gaut comes without them.--The Alarm and Suspicions of the Settlers that he has Murdered, the Elwoods.--The Ci...