CHAPTER XXXIV.

An hour had passed after the conversation detailed in the last chapter, and Woodchuck had steadily and sturdily refused to pursue any further the subject of his fixed determination, although both Mr. Prevost and Edith, deeply touched, and, to say truth, much agitated, would fain have dwelt upon the topic longer. Edith felt, and Mr. Prevost argued in his own mind, that the poor man was performing a generous and self-devoted act, which no moral obligation forced upon him. They felt, too, that so noble a heart was not one which ought to be sacrificed to the vengeful spirit of the Indians; and the natural feeling of joy and satisfaction which they experienced at the apparent certainty of Walter's deliverance from death seemed to them almost a crime when it was to be purchased at so dear a price.

Woodchuck's obstinacy, however, had conquered; the subject had been changed; and, as they now sat together in the little room, to which he had led the way after speaking the last words cited, they continued, while the shades of evening gathered quickly round them, a broken sort of conversation upon topics connected with that which they had quitted, though avoiding the point which was most painfully prominent in the mind of each. They rambled a good deal indeed, though ever taking a direction which faintly showed, like the waves in the trees marking the course of a forest-path, what the mind was running on beneath the mere words.

Sometimes gazing into the embers of the fire with his feet upon the hearth, Woodchuck would talk, neither unphilosophically nor unlearnedly in the best of all learning, upon a world to come, and life immortal, and compensation beyond the grave; and, in his simplicity, his words would reach almost to the sublime. Then, at other times, they would speak of the Indians, and their habits, and their good and bad qualities; and here many of the poor man's prejudices were seen clinging to him strongly.

"They are like vermin," he would say; "and the devil himself has a share in them. I have heard people talk largely of their generosity, and all that; but I guess I've not seen much of it."

Mr. Prevost was silent, for his feelings had suffered a natural change towards the Indians; but Edith exclaimed warmly--

"We cannot say that of dear Otaitsa, at all events, Woodchuck, for she surely has a heart full of generosity and everything that is noble."

"That's nat'ral, that's nat'ral," answered Woodchuck; "that comes of the blood that is in her. For that matter, Black Eagle has some fine things about him--he's the best of them I ever saw. We used to say, whole Ingian, half devil; but I think in his case it must have been quarter devil, and that's saying a good deal for so fierce a man as he in battle. They say he has scalped more enemies than all his tribe put together; especially in that war down upon the Pennsylvania side some nineteen years ago, when some of our people foolishly took part with the Mohaguns."

Mr. Prevost started, and Woodchuck went on, saying,--"He has good things about him, for he always makes his people spare the women and children, which is what them Ingians seldom think of. A scalp's a scalp to them, whether it has got long hair on it or only a scalp-lock. But, as I was saying, the Blossom has got all that is good in him, and all that was good in her mother, poor thing! and that was a mighty great deal."

"I have often wished," said Mr. Prevost, "that I could hear something of Otaitsa's history. Her mother, I believe, was a white woman, and I have more than once tried, when I found the Black Eagle in a communicative mood, to lead him to speak upon the subject; but the moment it was touched upon, he would wrap his blanket round him, and stalk away."

"Ay, he has never forgotten her," said Woodchuck. "He never took another wife, you know; and well he may remember her, for she was his better angel, and ruled him completely, which was what no one else could. But I can tell you all about it if you like to know; for I heard it all from an old squaw one time, and I saw the lady once too myself, and talked to her."

"I think," said Edith, thoughtfully, "that she must have been a lady; for, when I was in their lodge, I saw in Otaitsa's little chamber a great number of things of European manufacture, and of high taste."

"May not those have been procured for the dear girl by our good friend Gore?" asked Mr. Prevost; "he is a man of much taste himself."

"I think not," answered Edith; "they are evidently old, and seemed to have belonged to one person. Besides, there are a number of drawings, all evidently done by one hand--not what any one would purchase, and apparently the production of an amateur, rather than of an artist."

Mr. Prevost fell into a fit of thought, and leaned his head upon his hand; but Woodchuck said,--

"Oh, they are her mother's; beyond doubt, they are her mother's. She was quite a lady every inch of her; you could hear it in the tone of her voice; you could see it in her walk; her words too were all those of a lady, and her hand was so small and delicate, it could never have seen work. Do you know, Miss Edith, she was wonderful like you--more like you than Otaitsa; but I'll tell you all about it just as I heard it from the old squaw.

"At the time I talk of," continued he, "that's a good many years ago--eighteen or nineteen may be--Black Eagle was the handsomest young man that had ever been seen in the tribes, they say, and the fiercest warrior too. He was always ready to take part in any war; and whenever fighting was going on, he was there. Well, the Delawares had not been quite brought under at that time by the Five Nations; and he went down with his warriors, and the Mohawks, to fight against the Mohaguns--they were Delawares too, you know; some were on the Monongahela river, just at the corner of Pennsylvania and Virginny. Our people had given some help to the Mohaguns, and they were at that time just laying the foundations of a fort, which the French got hold of afterwards, and called Fort Du Quesne.

"Well, there was an old general officer, who thought he would go up and see how the works were going on; and, as things were quiet enough just then--though it was but a calm before a storm--he took his daughter with him, and journeyed away pleasantly enough through the woods, I dare say, though it must have been slow work; for, as he intended to stay all the summer, the old man took a world of baggage with him; but, the third or fourth night after leaving the civilized parts, they lodged in an Ingian village; when, all in a minute, just as they were going to bed, down comes Black Eagle upon them, with his warriors. There was a dreadful fight in the village; nothing but screams, and war-whoops, and rifle-shots; and the Mohaguns, poor devils! were almost put out that night, for they were taken unawares, and they do say, not a man escaped alive out of the wigwam.

"At the first fire, out runs the old general from the hut, and at the same minute a rifle ball, perhaps from a friend, perhaps from an enemy, no one can tell, goes right through his heart. Black Eagle was collecting scalps all this time; but when he turned round, or came back, or however it might be, there he found this poor young lady, the officer's daughter, crying over her father. Well, he wouldn't suffer them to hurt her; but he took her away to the Oneida country with him, and gathered up all her goods and chattels, and her father's, and carried them off too, but all for her; for it seems that he fell in love with her at first sight. What, they say, made her first like him, was, that he wouldn't let his savages scalp the old man, telling them that the English were allies, and declaring that the ball that killed him had not come from an Oneida rifle.

"However that may be, the poor girl had no choice but to marry Black Eagle, though his mother said that, being a great chief's daughter, she made him promise never to have another wife; and, if ever a Christian priest came there, to be married to her according to her own fashion."

While he spoke, Mr. Prevost remained apparently buried in deep and very gloomy thought. But he had heard every word; and his mind had more than once wandered wide away, as was its wont, to collateral things, not only in the present, but in the past. It was a strange habit of his--a sort of discrepancy in his character--thus to suffer his thoughts to be turned aside by any accidental circumstance even in matters of deep interest; for, in times of action--when it was necessary to decide and do--no intellect was ever more prompt and decisive than his own, going straight forward to its object with great and startling rapidity. Where there was nothing to be done, however, where it was all a matter of mere thought, this rambling mood almost always prevailed: but still, like a stream flowing through a level country, and turning aside at every little obstacle, though pursuing its onward course towards the sea and reaching it at length, his mind, sooner or later, got back into the course from which it had deviated. When Woodchuck stopped, he raised his head and gazed at him for a moment in the face, with a look of earnest and melancholy inquiry.

"Did you ever hear her name?" he asked. "Can you tell me her father's name?"

"No," replied Woodchuck. "I had the history almost all from the old squaw, and if she had tried to give me an English name she would have manufactured something such as never found its way into an English mouth. All she told me was that the father was a great chief among the English, by which I made out that she meant a general."

"Probably it was her father's portrait that I saw at the Indian castle," said Edith. "There was hanging up in Otaitsa's room a picture that struck me more than any of the others, except, indeed, the portrait of a lady. It was that of a man in a military dress of antique cut. His hand was stretched out with his drawn sword in it, and he was looking round with a commanding air, as if telling his soldiers to follow. I marked it particularly at first, because the sun was shining on it, and because the frame was covered with the most beautiful Indian beadwork I ever saw. That of the lady too was similarly ornamented; but there was another which interested me much--a small pencil drawing of a young man's head, so like Walter, that, at first, I almost fancied dear Otaitsa had been trying to take his portrait from memory."

"Would you remember the old man's face, my child, if you saw it again?" asked Mr. Prevost, gazing earnestly at his daughter.

"I think so," answered Edith, a little confused by her father's eagerness. "I am quite sure I should."

"Wait then a moment," said Mr. Prevost, "and call for lights, my child."

As he spoke, he rose and quitted the room; but he was several minutes gone, and lights were burning in the chamber when he returned. He was burdened with several pictures of small size, which he spread out upon the table, while Edith and Woodchuck both rose to gaze at them.

"There, there!" cried Edith, putting her finger upon one, "there is the head of the old officer, though the attitude is different, and there is the lady too; but I do not see the portrait of the young man."

"Edith," said her father, laying his hand affectionately upon hers, and shaking his head, sadly, "he is no longer young, but he stands beside you, my child. That is the picture of my father, that of my mother. Otaitsa must be your cousin. Poor Jessie! we have always thought her dead, although her body was not found with that of her father. Better had she been dead, probably."

"No, no, Prevost," said Woodchuck, "not a bit of it. Black Eagle made her as kind a husband as ever was seen. You might have looked all Europe and America through, and not found so good a one. Then think of all she did, too, in the place where she was. God sent her there to make better people than she found. From the time she went, to the time she died, poor thing! there was no more war and bloodshed, or very little of it. Then she got a Christian minister amongst them--at least, he never would have been suffered to set his foot there if she had not been Black Eagle's wife. It is a hard thing to tell what is really good, and what is really evil, in this world. For my part, I think, if everything is not exactly good, which few of us would like to say it is, yet good comes out of it like a flower growing out of a dunghill; and there's no telling what good to the end of time this lady's going there may produce. Bad enough it was for her, I dare say, at first, but she got reconciled to it; so you mustn't say, it would have been better if she had died."

"It is strange, indeed," said Mr. Prevost, "what turns human fate will take! That she--brought up in the midst of luxury, educated with the utmost refinement, sought and admired by all who knew her--should reject two of the most distinguished men in Europe, to go to this wild land, and marry an Indian savage! Men talk of Fate and Destiny; and there are certainly strange turns of fortune so beyond all human calculation and regulation, that one would almost believe that the doctrine of the Fatalists is true."

"Do you not think, my dear father," said Edith, waking up from a profound reverie, "that this strange discovery might be turned to some great advantage? that Walter, perhaps, might be saved without the necessity of our poor friend here sacrificing his own life to deliver him?"

"That's like a kind, dear girl," interposed Woodchuck; "but I can tell you it's no use."

"Still," urged Edith, "Otaitsa ought to know; for Black Eagle certainly would never slay the nephew of a wife so dear to him."

"It's no use," repeated Woodchuck, almost impatiently. "Don't you know, Miss Edith, that Walter and the Blossom are in love with each other? and that's worth all the blood relationship in the world--

'Sometimes it doesn't last as long, But, while it does, 'tis twice as strong.'

Then as to Black Eagle, he'd kill his own son, if the customs of his people required it. I guess it would only make him tomahawk poor Walter the sooner, just to show that he would not let any human feeling stand in the way of their devilish practices. No, no; much better keep it quiet. It might do harm, for aught we can tell; it can and will do no good. Let that thing rest, my dear child. It is settled and decreed. I am ready now, and I shall never be so ready again. Let me take one more look at my mountains, and my lakes, and my rivers, and my woods, and I have done with this life. Then, God in His mercy receive me into another! Amen.--Hark! there is some one coming up at a good gallop. That noble young lord, I dare say."

It was as Woodchuck supposed; and, the moment after, Lord H---- entered the room with a beaming look of joy and satisfaction in his countenance. He held a packet of considerable size in his hand, and advanced at once to Mr. Prevost, saying--

"My dear sir, I am rejoiced to present you with this letter, not alone because it will give you some satisfaction, but because it removes the stain of ingratitude from the government of the country. His Majesty's present ministers are sensible that you have not received justice; that your long services to the country in various ways--all that you have done, in short, to benefit and ameliorate your race, and to advocate all that is good and noble--have been treated with long neglect, which amounts to an offence; and they now offer you, as some atonement, a position which may lead to wealth and distinction, which, I trust, is but the step to more."

"What is it, George, what is it?" asked Edith, eagerly.

"It is, I am told," replied Lord H----, "in a letter which accompanied the packet, a commission as commissary-general of the army here, and an offer of the rank of baronet."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Edith; and then, seeing a look of surprise at her earnestness come upon her noble lover's face, a bright smile played round her lips for a moment, and she added--"I say, thank God, George--not that I am glad my father should have such things, for I hope he will decline them both; but because the very offer will heal an old wound, by showing him that zealous exertions and the exercise of high and noble qualities are not always to be treated with neglect, forgetfulness, and contempt. He will be glad of it, I am sure, whatever his decision may be."

"Now I understand you, my own love," answered Lord H----. "With regard to the baronetcy, he shall do as he will; but I must press him earnestly to accept the office tendered to him. To decline it might show some resentment. By accepting it, he incurs no peril, and he serves his country; for, from his knowledge of the people here, of the physical features of the land and its resources, and of the habits and feelings of all classes, I believe no man could be found, with one or two exceptions, so well fitted for the task as himself. Ah, my good friend, Captain Brooks, how do you do? I have much wished to see you lately, and to hear of your plans."

"I am as well as may be, my lord," replied Woodchuck, wringing in his heavy grasp the hand which Lord H---- extended to him. "As for my plans, they are the same as ever--you did not doubt me, I am sure."

"I did not," returned Lord H----, gravely; and, looking down, he fell into a fit of thought. At length, looking up, he added, "And yet, my good friend, I am glad you have had time for reflection; for since we last met I have somewhat reproached myself for, at least, tacit encouragement of an act in the approval of which so many personal motives mingle that one may well doubt oneself. Forgive me, Edith--forgive me, Mr. Prevost,--if I ask our friend here if he has well considered and weighed in his mind, calmly and reasonably, without bias--nay, without enthusiasm--whether there be any moral obligation on him to perform an act which I suppose he has told you he contemplates."

"There is no forgiveness needed, my lord," replied Mr. Prevost. "I would have put the same question to him, if he would have let me. Nay, more; I would have told him--whatever I might suffer by the result--that, in my judgment, there was no moral obligation. Because he did a justifiable act, these Indians commit one that is unjustifiable upon an innocent man. That can be no reason why he should sacrifice his life to save the other. God forbid that, even for the love of my own child, I should deal in such a matter unjustly. I am no Roman, father--I pretend not to be such. If my own death will satisfy them, let them take the old tree withered at the root, and spare the sapling full of strength and promise. But let me not doom--let me not advise--a noble and honest man to sacrifice himself from a too generous impulse."

"I don't know much of moral obligations," replied Woodchuck, gravely; "but I guess I have thought over the thing as much as e'er a one of you. I have made up my mind just upon one principle, and there let it rest, in God's name. I say to myself: 'Woodchuck, it's not right, is it, that any one should suffer for what you ha' done?' 'No, it's not.' 'Well, is there any use talking of whether they've a right to make him suffer for your act or not? They'll do it.' 'No; there's no use o' talking; because they'll do it. It's only shuffling off the consequences of what you did upon another man's shoulders. You never did that, Woodchuck; don't do it now. Man might say, "It's all fair;" God might pardon it; but your own heart would never forgive it.'"

Edith sprang forward, and took both his hands, with the tears rolling over her cheeks.

"God will prevent it," she said, earnestly. "I have faith in Him. He will deliver us in our utmost need. He provided the Patriarch with an offering, and spared his son. He will find us a means of escape if we but trust in Him."

"Miss Edith," replied Woodchuck solemnly, "He may, or He may not, according to His good pleasure; but of this I am certain, that, though Christ died for our transgressions, we have no right to see any one else suffer for our doings. I have read my Bible a great deal up there on the hill-side lately--more than I ever did before, since I was a little boy--and I'm quite certain of what I'm about. It has been a comfort and a strength to me. It's all so clear--so very clear. Other books one may not understand--one can't misunderstand _that_--unless one tries very hard. And now, pray let us have an end o't here. My mind is quite made up. There is no use in saying a word more."

All the rest were silent, and Edith left the room, with: the large tears falling down her face.