Chapter 5

Our friends, wrapped in their cloaks and shawls to defend them from the chill night air, clustered around Jemmy Chapman, who stood at the helm guiding the boat through the difficult and shifting channels, amid the 'thousand isles'--now in silence gazing on them, as they were lit up with the rosy hues of twilight, and then with the mild but insufficient lustre of the half orbed moon. These verdant islands are of every size and form. Some lying in clusters like the 'solitary set in families:' and some like beautiful vestals in single loveliness. Some stretching for miles in length, and some so small, and without a tree or shrub, that they look like lawns destined for fairy sporting grounds; while others are encircled by such an impenetrable growth of trees, that one might fancy that within this sylvan barrier wood-nymphs held their courts and revels; in short, might fancy any thing; for there are no traces of human footsteps to break the spell of imagination, save where the fisherman's hut, placed on the brink of the element by which he lives, is disclosed with its dark relief of unbroken woods by the bright glare of the pine torch, which is his beacon light, and which serves to show the gleaming path-way of his little canoe. Jemmy recounted to the children the sad mishaps and disastrous chances that had befallen unskilful or unfortunate navigators in these dangerous passes, and the kind captain repeatedly fired his signal gun, which seemed to wake the spirits of these deep solitudes, to send back the greeting in echo and re-echo, till their voices died away on the most distant shores.

"Don't they hollow well?" said Jemmy, after the last report, turning briskly around to dame Barton who sat near him.

"Well, I did not hear them," said she, mournfully.

"Not hear them--why, they spoke as plain as preaching--are you deaf, good woman?"

"Deaf! oh, no--but my thoughts were far from here."

Mrs. Sackville thought there was something in Mrs. Barton's devotedness to her husband, not common in her class of life. She had been deterred from putting any questions to her, by the habitual silence and diffidence of the poor woman. But now they had become so much more acquainted, that she ventured to say to her, "Come, Mrs. Barton, suppose you favor us while we sit here, with a little history of your life. My children are so much interested in you, that they want to know all they can about you."

"Oh, you are very good ma'am to say so; but what is there in the history of the like of me to tell? not that I have any objection to make known my story--thank God, that's kept me in his fear--but then what happens to poor plain bodies like me, is not made much count of in the world."

"But, remember, my good friend," said Mrs. Sackville, "the happiness of all his creatures, rich and poor, is of equal account in the sight of our heavenly Father, and as I wish my children continually to bear in mind that it is this great Being, whom they are commanded by their Saviour to imitate, I trust that the happiness of their fellow-beings, whether high or low, will be of equal importance in their view."

Thus encouraged by the kindness of the mother, and the eager looks of the children, who stationed themselves close to her, Mrs. Barton began her simple and brief story.

"I never knew my parents," she said. "I was, as I have been told, given by a gipsey woman to a magistrate of the town of Lichfield, in England, when I was three years old. The woman was sick, and died shortly after. She declared herself ignorant of my parentage. She believed I had been stolen in London, by some of her tribe, about a year before; and said that I had been committed to her charge for some months, I had a necklace, with a gold clasp with initials, which I had been permitted to retain; and the worthy magistrate, in the hope that this might lead to a discovery, advertised me, with a description of the necklace; but no one appearing to claim me, he finally placed me in the Lichfield alms-house.

"When I was seven years old, don't laugh at me, Miss Julia, I was called a beauty. My skin was as smooth as yours; and my hair hung in curls about my neck and face. At this time a whimsical gentleman, who had a fancy to bring up a wife to his own liking, came to the alms-house: he was pleased with my appearance, and selected me. He taught me himself, and procured teachers for me, and from morning till night I was poring over hard tasks: this lasted for three years, and perhaps Mr. Leslie, for that was the gentleman's name, might have remained constant to his purpose, but then I took the small-pox; and after lying at the gates of death for weeks, I recovered, but with my face blotched and seamed as you see it. For many months my eye-sight and hearing were gone, and when I could see, my eyes had this cast in them, which looks as if I were born cross-eyed.

"No one could blame Mr. Leslie for giving me up. I am sure I never did. He placed me with a poor widow, and paid my lodging with her till I was one and twenty, and gave me a draft on him for a hundred pounds, which was to be paid when I came of age. With Mrs. Gordon I was happier than I had ever been in my life. My book tasks I never had liked, but I sewed or spun with Mrs. Gordon, from morning till night, without ever being weary or discontented. She taught me her own ways, and she was noted through the whole town, for her industry and neatness. She was a good christian too, and she brought me up to fear God and to love his service. She had one child--an only son, two years younger than myself. He was sometimes wild and wilful, for his mother, though she was resolute with every thing else, could never deny him. He was sometimes as I said, wild and wilful--but when he was himself, he was the pleasantest lad in the village, and the best. Mrs. Gordon was as a mother to me; and you know it was natural I should love her son Richard; and I thought I but loved him as a sister should, till one Sunday I saw him come up the little path-way that led to our cottage, with a blue ribband bow in his hand, which he kissed again and again, and then thrust it into his bosom. I knew it was a love token from Sally Wilton the miller's daughter, for I had seen it that day in her hat, and I felt a pang at my heart, that told me it was not as a brother I loved Richard.

"I have skipped over many years, for I would not weary you. I was now one and twenty, and my draft on Mr. Leslie was due. Mrs. Gordon began to talk to me of marrying Richard. I only answered her with silence and tears; but one woman can read another's heart, and she knew what was in mine; and she, poor woman, thought to make all right by taking it into her own hands.

"It so happened one night, that I was in an adjoining room when she supposed I was absent from the cottage, and she put many questions to Richard about me, but she could get no satisfaction from him. She then told him (oh, at the moment I thought I could never forgive her for it) she was sure I loved him. She said much in my favor, ma'am, that I cannot repeat, and tried with it all to put a veil over my poor ugly face, and then concluded with saying, for she was a thrifty woman, and never lost sight of the main chance, that I should not come empty handed. At this his spirit rose--he said, he would not be bought by all the gold in the king's coffers. My heart rose to my lips, but I held my breath, for his mother grew very angry, and said something from Solomon's proverbs, about my being the virtuous woman whose price was far above rubies. Then Richard burst into tears, and said he knew that, and he would go round the world to serve me, but he could not marry me. He confessed that he had already plighted his truth to Sally Wilton; and he declared that he never would marry any body but Sally Wilton. His mother lost all patience--she said he would make a beggar of himself for life--that the Wiltons were an idle race, and that none of the name had ever come to any good.

"A great deal more she said, but it seemed to me the more she talked, the firmer Richard was in his own mind.

"You may be sure ma'am I did not close my eyes that night; my love had been blasted, and my pride cast down. It was long before I could think of any one but myself, or compose my mind to any good thoughts; but when I began to see things in a right light, it seemed to me a pity we should all be miserable together; and I began to contrive some way to make Richard happy. He had just served his time with a shoemaker, but he had no capital to enable him to set up for himself. I knew Sally Wilton was a gay thoughtless thing; but so were most girls, and I believed that when she was married, she would do her duty; to me it seemed, that duty would be all pleasure with such a husband as Richard. I had some struggles with my own heart, but before the morning light dawned, I had made up my mind what to do. When I met Richard and his mother in the morning, I was far the happiest of the three. She was angry, he was sullen and downcast; but I had that feeling which I need not describe to you ma'am, who have so often the power and the will to make others happy. Immediately after our morning meal, I went and presented my draft to Mr. Leslie's agent, and received my hundred pounds. Half the sum I returned to him to invest for me, the other half I placed in the hands of the shoemaker, with whom Richard had served his time, and with whom he was a great favorite, and I requested him to lay it out in tools and stock for Richard. The purchase was made--a little shop hired, and every thing in readiness; and then I told Richard in the presence of his mother what I had done. At first he said he never could accept so much from me; but I told him, (and I smothered my feelings, and smiled when I said it,) that in spite of his mother's fancies, it was as a sister I loved him, and as a sister and older than himself too, I had a right to provide for him. He was far more grateful and happy than I expected. His mother gave her consent to his marriage, though grudgingly, for she was a set woman, and she had no faith in Sally Wilton. They were married. Richard was industrious, and we hoped would be prosperous, but as it proved Mrs. Barton's distrust of Sally was too well founded. She was idle and extravagant, and such a wife soon ruins a poor man. In five years Richard was reduced to such straits, that in a fit of desperation he enlisted. From the sorrowful day he came to take leave of us, for his regiment was soon after sent to the East-Indies, his mother never had a well day or a happy hour. After he went away, his wife led a vicious life; and four years after she came to our door to beg a crust of bread--a poor, wasted, sick, half-famished creature. We took her in. To be sure she had been a sad sinner, but she was Richard's wife, and besides it is always better to pity than condemn, and it is not for the like of us ma'am you know, who have no hope but because God's compassions fail not, to turn our backs upon a fellow-creature in sin and misery.

"For a whole year she laid in a distressing sickness. Mrs. Barton had become so old and feeble, that she could do nothing but pray for us, and I had as you may suppose a toilsome life of it; but I was as I trusted, doing my duty, and that makes a light heart, and according to my experience ma'am, no one can be very wretched that has enough to do, and that tries to do their duty faithfully, be that duty ever so humble. We never suffered. Sally had some help from the charitable; and when we had no other resource, I drew on my fifty pounds.

"It would have been a great comfort to us to have seen Sally take hold of religion, when every thing else failed; but the poor soul was racked with pains and coughing, and could only think of her suffering body, and she was perfectly deaf too, and could hear nothing that the clergyman said to her, though Mrs. Barton thought it right he should talk to her. Oh ma'am, I think there is not a more mournful sight on the earth than to see a young creature thus cut off by her sins.

"Richard returned to us two days before she died, but she did not know him, and could not hear his forgiveness, though he spoke it over and over again."

Mrs. Barton paused for a few moments, quite overcome by the recollection of that sad period, and then resumed her story.

"And now came brighter days. Richard had endured many hardships, and past through many temptations, but he had not lost his integrity. He had come home in attendance on an officer who had obtained a furlough. Not many months passed over before Richard expressed a wish to marry me, though my little fortune was gone, and ten years had not as you may suppose improved my beauty. Our mother said, our wedding-day was the happiest of her life. She did not long survive it. Before my husband rejoined his regiment she had gone to her rest. From that time till Richard was taken prisoner by the Americans, we have never been separated, and he has proved faithful and kind to me, and being, as he is, all the world to me who have never known other kindred but my little ones, it cannot seem strange to you, ma'am, that the world is a lonely place without him; and that I should be willing to take the help of your blessed children to get on my way to him."

"Oh no indeed, my good friend," said Mrs. Sackville, "I am delighted that my children have found one so worthy of their assistance; you may rest assured that we shall not part from you till we arrive at Quebec. Come now Edward and Julia to your berths--and dream of the 'thousand isles,' or Mrs. Barton, or what you will." The children obeyed their mother, and doubtless had such sweet visions as hover about the pillow of youth, and health, and innocence.

Jemmy Chapman had not been an uninterested listener to this simple tale of patient virtue; and though Mrs. Barton had spoken so low that he had lost some parts of her narrative, he heard enough to touch his kind heart. As she rose from the bench near him, "Stop, stop, good woman," said he, and he jerked some tears from off his cheeks; "it is not much that such as I can pity you, but a drop is something in a gill-glass, and (turning his pockets inside out, and collecting a half handful of small change,) I should not be my mother's son if I did not feel for a woman in distress, and so will you just take this which may help to raise a little breeze for you when you are becalmed. Nay, don't haul off, but take it, and remember the poor sailors in a stormy night. It is good luck to us to have a friend a-shore to speak a good word for us when we have no time to speak for ourselves."

Jemmy's hearty kindness was irresistible, and Mrs. Barton received his gift, scarcely able to command her voice to utter her thanks.

* * * * *

The next morning found the steam-boat at the wharf at Ogdensburg. Edward undertook to settle with the captain for the passage of his protegées; but the captain would receive nothing, and persisted in declaring that he was amply compensated by Mrs. Barton's industry. The travellers parted from him and from our friend Jemmy with expressions of the esteem which their virtues even on this short acquaintance had not failed to produce; and then they proceeded to make arrangements for their passage down the St. Lawrence by chartering and provisioning a Durham boat.

While this was getting in readiness, Mrs. Sackville, whose curiosity, like that of a more celebrated traveller, 'extended to all the works of art, all the appearances of nature, and all the monuments of past events,' walked with her children to view a rare curiosity on our continent--an _American_ antiquity. On a point of land at the junction of the Oswegatchie with the St. Lawrence, there is a broken stone wall, the remains of a French fortification. While they stood surveying with pleased attention this monument of the olden time, they were joined by a gentleman who appeared like them to have been attracted to the spot by curiosity. He took off his hat, bowed to Mrs. Sackville, and asked if he might take the liberty to inquire of her whether she resided at Ogdensburg.

When she replied in the negative, he begged her pardon, and said he had been extremely anxious to authenticate a traditionary story he had picked up in his journey through Canada, some of the events of which had been located at this place. He had hoped to find some record of it in Charlevoix's History, but he had searched in vain. Mrs. Sackville became in her turn the inquirer. She said she delighted in those traditionary tales, which, with the aid of a little fancy, reconstructed ruins, and enclosed within their walls living beings with affections and interests like our own; and she should hold herself very much obliged to the gentleman if he would enrich her with some interesting associations with this place. The stranger seemed highly gratified to have found so ready a sympathy in his feelings, and he related the following particulars.

"A commandant of this fort (which was built by the French to protect their traders against the savages,) married a young Iroquois who was before or after the marriage converted to the Catholic faith. She was the daughter of a chieftain of her tribe, and great efforts were made by her people to induce her to return to them. Her brother lurked in this neighbourhood, and procured interviews with her, and attempted to win her back by all the motives of national pride and family affection; but all in vain. The young Garanga, or, to call her by her baptismal name, Marguerite, was bound by a threefold cord--her love to her husband, to her son, and to her religion. Mecumeh, finding persuasion ineffectual, had recourse to stratagem. The commandant was in the habit of going down the river often on fishing excursions, and when he returned, he would fire his signal gun, and Marguerite and her boy would hasten to the shore to greet him.

"On one occasion he had been gone longer than usual. Marguerite was filled with apprehensions natural enough at a time when imminent dangers and hairbreadth escapes were of every day occurrence. She had sat in the tower and watched for the returning canoe till the last beam of day had faded from the waters;--the deepening shadows of twilight played tricks with her imagination. Once she was startled by the water-fowl, which, as it skimmed along the surface of the water, imaged to her fancy the light canoe impelled by her husband's vigorous arm--again she heard the leap of the heavy muskalongi, and the splashing waters sounded to her fancy like the first dash of the oar. That passed away, and disappointment and tears followed. Her boy was beside her; the young Louis, who, though scarcely twelve years old, already had his imagination filled with daring deeds. Born and bred in a fort, he was an adept in the use of the bow and the musket; courage seemed to be his instinct, and danger his element, and battles and wounds were 'household words' with him. He laughed at his mother's fears; but, in spite of his boyish ridicule, they strengthened, till apprehension seemed reality. Suddenly the sound of the signal gun broke on the stillness of the night. Both mother and son sprang on their feet with a cry of joy, and were pressing hand in hand towards the outer gate, when a sentinel stopped them to remind Marguerite it was her husband's order that no one should venture without the walls after sunset. She, however, insisted on passing, and telling the soldier that she would answer to the commandant for his breach of orders--she passed the outer barrier. Young Louis held up his bow and arrow before the sentinel, saying gaily, "I am my mother's body-guard you know." Tradition has preserved these trifling circumstances, as the events that followed rendered them memorable.

"The distance," continued the stranger, "from the fort to the place where the commandant moored his canoe was trifling, and quickly passed. Marguerite and Louis flew along the narrow foot path, reached the shore, and were in the arms of ---- Mecumeh and his fierce companions. Entreaties and resistance were alike vain. Resistance was made, with a manly spirit, by young Louis, who drew a knife from the girdle of one of the indians, and attempted to plunge it into the bosom of Mecumeh, who was roughly binding his wampum belt over Marguerite's mouth, to deaden the sound of her screams. The uncle wrested the knife from him, and smiled proudly on him as if he recognised in the brave boy, a scion from his own stock.

"The indians had two canoes; Marguerite was conveyed to one, Louis to the other--and both canoes were rowed into the Oswegatchie, and up the stream as fast as it was possible to impel them against the current of the river.

"Not a word nor cry escaped the boy: he seemed intent on some purpose, and when the canoe approached near the shore, he took off a military cap he wore, and threw it so skilfully that it lodged, where he meant it should, on the branch of a tree which projected over the water. There was a long white feather in the cap. The indians had observed the boy's movement--they held up their oars for a moment, and seemed to consult whether they should return and remove the cap; but after a moment, they again dashed their oars in the water and proceeded forward. They continued rowing for a few miles, and then landed; hid their canoes behind some trees on the river's bank, and plunged into the woods with their prisoners. It seems to have been their intention to have returned to their canoes in the morning, and they had not proceeded far from the shore, when they kindled a fire and prepared some food, and offered a share of it to Marguerite and Louis. Poor Marguerite, as you may suppose, had no mind to eat; but Louis, saith tradition, ate as heartily as if he had been safe within the walls of the fort. After the supper, the indians stretched themselves before the fire, but not till they had taken the precaution to bind Marguerite to a tree, and to compel Louis to lie down in the arms of his uncle Mecumeh. Neither of the prisoners, as you may imagine, closed their eyes. Louis kept his fixed on his mother. She sat upright beside an oak tree; the cord was fastened around her waist, and bound around the tree, which had been blasted by lighting; the moon poured its beams through the naked branches upon her face convulsed with the agony of despair and fear. With one hand she held a crucifix to her lips, the other was on her rosary. The sight of his mother in such a situation, stirred up daring thoughts in the bosom of the heroic boy--but he laid powerless in his uncle's naked brawny arms. He tried to disengage himself, but at the slightest movement, Mecumeh, though still sleeping, seemed conscious, and strained him closer to him. At last the strong sleep, that in the depth of the night steeps the senses in utter forgetfulness, overpowered him--his arms relaxed their hold, and dropped beside him and left Louis free.

"He rose cautiously, looked for one instant on the indians, and assured himself they all slept profoundly. He then possessed himself of Mecumeh's knife, which lay at his feet, and severed the cord that bound his mother to the tree. Neither of them spoke a word--but with the least possible sound they resumed the way by which they had come from the shore. Louis in the confidence, and Marguerite with the faint hope of reaching it before they were overtaken.

"You may imagine how often the poor mother, timid as a fawn, was startled by the evening breeze stirring the leaves, but the boy bounded forward as if there were neither fear nor danger in the world.