The Lost Hunter Part 40

"So they should be, and so they are, but the facts, which I will not repeat, because it offends you, remain. Think you, it can be very pleasant, for a young man, to have precisely--precisely such a connection?"

"I should despise Thomas Pownal, if he felt anything but pride in his father. I am the daughter of a republican, and care little for the distinctions which the tailor makes. The n.o.blest hearts are not always those which beat under the finest broadcloth."

"The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that."

"Well, Anne," said her brother, "I never expected to take a lesson, in democracy, from you, nor fancied you were a politician before; but, it seems to me you have become lately very sharp-sighted, to detect Holden's merits. What is it that has so improved your vision?"

"You are trying to tease me, now, but I will not be angry. You know, as well as I do, that from the first I took a liking to Mr. Holden. So far from being frightened at him, when I was a child, nothing pleased me better that when he took Faith and me into his arms, and told us stories out of the Bible. I do believe I had then a presentiment he was something different from what he seemed."

"But you have shown an extraordinary interest in him lately. Even now, your voice trembles, and your color is raised beyond the requirements of the occasion."

"How is it possible to avoid being excited, when my brother speaks disparagingly of one who has every t.i.tle to compa.s.sion and respect?

Is it not enough to soften your heart, to think of the wretchedness he suffered so many years, and which shattered his fine understanding?

And now, that his--Oh, William!" she cried, bursting into tears, "I did not think you were so hard-hearted."

"My dear Anne! my dear sister!" exclaimed her brother, putting his arm around her and drawing her towards him, "forgive me. I never meant to hurt your feelings, though I am sorry they are so much interested."

"I will not affect to misunderstand you, brother," she said, recovering herself; "but you are mistaken, if you suppose that Mr.

Pownal has ever--has ever--spoken to me in a manner different from the way in which he is in the habit of conversing with other ladies."

"Heaven be praised for that," said her brother. "But I ought to have known you never would permit it."

"You ought to have known that, had he done so, I should not have kept it a secret. My father and mother, and you, would have been made acquainted with it."

"And, now, dear Annie, since things are as they are, I hope you will not give Pownal any encouragement. Whatever may be your present feelings, he cannot disguise the fact, that he loves dearly to visit here."

"Encouragement!" cried Anne, her natural vivacity flas.h.i.+ng up at the imputation. "What do you take me for, William Bernard, that you venture to use such a word? Am I one of those old maids whom some wicked wag has described as crying out in despair, 'Who will have me?'

or a cherry, at which any bird can pick?"

"There spoke the spirit of my sister. I hear, now, Anne Bernard. You will not forget the position of our family in society, and that upon you and myself are centered the hopes of our parents."

"I trust I shall never forget my love and duty, or have any secrets from them. They have a right to be acquainted with every emotion of my heart, nor am I ashamed they should be seen."

"The accomplishments of Pownal ent.i.tle him to move in the first society, I cannot deny that," continued young Bernard, "but, in my judgment, something more is necessary in order to warrant his boldness in aspiring to connect himself with one of the first families in the country."

"You will continue to harp on that string, William, but my opinion differs from yours. In our country there should be no distinctions but such as are created by goodness and intelligence."

"It all sounds very well in theory, but the application of the rule is impossible. The dreamers of Utopian schemes may amuse themselves with such hallucinations, but practical people can only smile at them."

"Cla.s.s me among the dreamers. Nor will I believe that whatever is true and just is impracticable. Does redder blood flow in the veins of the child cradled under a silken canopy, than in those of one rocked in a kneading-trough?"

"You have profited to some purpose by the French lessons of our father," said Bernard, bitterly. "Principles like these may yet produce as much confusion in our family on a small scale, as they did in France on a mighty theatre."

"You are losing yourself in the clouds, dear brother. But there can be no danger in following the guidance of one so wise and experienced as our father, nor does it become you to speak slightingly of any opinion he may adopt."

"I did not mean to do so. I should be the last one to do so, though I cannot always agree with him. But you take an unfair advantage of the little excitement I feel, to put me in the wrong. Do you think I can look on without being painfully interested, when I see my only sister about to throw herself away upon this obscure stranger, for you cannot conceal it from me that you love him?"

"Throw myself away! Obscure stranger! You are unkind William. Love him! it will be time enough to grant my love when it is asked for. It does not become me, perhaps, to say it, but Mr. Pownal is not here to answer for himself, and for that reason I will defend him. There lives not the woman who might not be proud of the love of so n.o.ble and pure a heart. But you are not in a humor to hear reason," she added, rising, "and I will leave you until your returning good sense shall have driven away suspicions equally unfounded and unjust."

"Stay, Anne, stop, sister," cried Bernard, as with a heightened color she hastened out of the room. "She is too much offended," he said to himself, "to heed me, and I must wait for a more favorable opportunity to renew the conversation. I have seen this fancy gradually coming on, and, fool that I was, was afraid to speak for fear of making things worse. I thought it might be only a pa.s.sing whim, like those which flutter twenty times through girls' silly heads before they are married, and was unwilling to treat it as of any consequence. But does Anne mean to deceive me? It is not at all like her. She never did so before. No, she has courage enough for anything, and is incapable of deception. But these foolish feelings strangely affect young women and--young men, too. She must, herself, be deceived. She cannot be acquainted with the state of her own heart. Yet it may not have gone so far that it cannot be stopped. I had other plans for her, nor will I give them up. Father! mother! Pooh! nothing can be done with them.

He would not see her lip quiver or a tear stand in her eye, if it could be prevented at the expense of half his fortune, and mother always thinks both perfection. No, if anything is to be done it must be with Anne herself, or Pownal, perhaps. Yet I would not make the little minx unhappy. But to be the brother-in-law of the son of an insane basket-maker! It is too ridiculous."

No two persons could be more unlike in temperament, and in many respects in the organization of their minds, than William Bernard and his sister. She, the creature of impulse, arriving at her conclusions by a process like intuition: he, calm, thoughtful, deliberately weighing and revising every argument before he made up his mind: she, dest.i.tute of all worldly prudence and trusting to the inspirations of an ingenuous and bold nature: he, worldly wise, cautious, and calculating the end from the beginning. Yet were his aspirations n.o.ble and untainted with a sordid or mean motive. He would not for a world have sacrificed the happiness of his sister, but he thought it not unbecoming to promote his personal views by her means, provided it could be done without injury to herself. He was a politician, and young as he was his scheming brain already formed plans of family and personal aggrandizement, extending far into the future. Anne was mixed up with these in his mind, and he hoped, by the marriage connection she might form, to increase a family influence in furtherance of his plans. These seemed likely to be defeated by Anne's partiality for Pownal, and the young man felt the disappointment as keenly as his cool philosophical nature would permit. But let it not be thought that William Bernard brought worldly prudence into all his plans. His love of Faith Armstrong had no connection with any such feelings, and she would have been equally the object of his admiration and choice, had she been a portionless maiden instead of the heiress of the wealthy Mr. Armstrong. We will not say that her prospect of succeeding to a large fortune was disagreeable to her lover, but though when he thought of her it would sometimes occur to his mind, yet was it no consideration that corrupted the purity of his affection.

Anne, when she left her brother, hastened to her chamber and subjected her heart to a scrutiny it had never experienced. She was startled upon an examination her brother's language had suggested, to find the interest Pownal had awakened in her bosom. She had been pleased to be in his company, and to receive from him those little attentions which young men are in the habit of rendering to those of the same age of the other s.e.x: a party never seemed complete from which he was absent: there was no one whose hand she more willingly accepted for the dance, or whose praise was more welcome when she rose from the piano: but though the emotions she felt in his presence were so agreeable, she had not suspected them to be those of love. Her brother had abruptly awakened her to the reality. In the simplicity of her innocence, and with somewhat of a maiden shame, she blamed herself for allowing any young man to become to her an object of so much interest, and shrunk from the idea of having at some time unwittingly betrayed herself. She determined, whatever pain it might cost, to reveal to her mother all her feelings, and to be guided by her advice.

True hearted, guileless girl! instinctively she felt that the path of duty leads to peace and happiness.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Oh, how this tyrant, doubt, torments my breast!

My thoughts, like birds, who're frighten'd from their nest, Around the place where all was hush'd before, Flutter, and hardly nestle any more.

OTWAY.

Our story now reverts to the Indians, of whom we have for so long made little or no mention. It is in vain for us to attempt to control the course of our tale, and to compel it, as it were, to be content with the artificial banks of a ca.n.a.l, stealing insensibly on, with uniform smoothness, to its terminus. Whatever we may do, it will a.s.sert its liberty, and wander in its own way, foaming down rocks and rugged precipices, like a mountain stream, at one moment, at the next, stagnating into a pool, and afterwards gliding off in erratic windings, roaming like Ceres, searching through the world for her lost Proserpine. Not ours to subject the succession of events to our will, but to narrate them with such poor skill as nature and a defective education concede, trusting that a homely sincerity, if it cannot wholly supply the place of art, may palliate its want.

Peena, the partridge, or Esther, as she was more commonly called by the whites, heard, with an exquisite delight, that the little boy; whom she had left on the steps of the house, in New York, and now discovered to be Pownal, was the son of Holden. Nothing could have happened more calculated to deepen the reverence she had long felt for the Solitary, and to convince her--though no such argument was necessary--that he was a "great medicine," or one peculiarly the favorite, and under the guardians.h.i.+p, of Superior Powers. She herself seemed controlled by the Manito that watched over Holden, and compelled, even unknown to herself, to guard his interests. For was it not she who had preserved the child? Was it not she who had placed him in a situation to become a great and rich man?--for such, to her simplicity, Pownal seemed to be--was it not she who had brought father and son together, and revealed each to the other? As these reflections and the like pa.s.sed through her mind, a shudder of superst.i.tion thrilled her frame, and she turned her attention to the consideration of how she might best fulfill the designs of the Manito. For it will be remembered, that, although nominally a Christian, she had not wholly cast off the wild notions of her tribe, if it be, indeed, possible for an adult Indian to do so. The maxim of Horace:

"Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu,"

is of universal application, nor has it ever greater force than when reference is had to ideas, connected with the terrors of an unseen world, and where the mind that entertains them is dest.i.tute of the advantages of education.

Esther, it may readily then be supposed, did not delay after their arrival, to go to see both Holden and his son. She could not behold again, and recognize the child she had preserved, in the young man who stood before her, without strong feeling, nor could Pownal look unmoved upon the gentle and timid woman, to whom he was so much indebted. Esther knew again the string of coral beads she had left upon the boy's neck, and ascribed it to the whispers of the Great Spirit, that she had allowed them to remain. She did not return from her visit to Pownal empty handed. In fact, she was loaded with as many presents, of such articles as suited her condition and half-civilized taste, as she and the boy, Quadaquina, who commonly accompanied her, could carry. It was the mode which naturally suggested itself to Pownal, as alike most pleasing to Peena, and most calculated to impress her mind with a sense of his estimate of her services, especially as there was connected with the gifts a promise, that during his life her wants and wishes should all be supplied. Peena now felt herself the happiest and richest of her tribe, and her heart glowed with devotion towards those who had been the means of investing her with wealth, and the consequence attached to it.

"Hugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ohquamehud, in amazement, as the squaw and her son threw down upon the floor of the cabin the rich red and blue cloths, and hats, and shoes, and other articles which Pownal had pressed upon them. The exclamation escaped involuntarily, but, with a natural politeness, the Indian asked no questions, but waited till it should please the squaw to furnish an explanation.

The sweet-tempered Peena saw his desire, and turning to the boy, she said, in their native language, in which the three always conversed together:

"Speak, Quadaquina, that the eyes of thy father's brother may be opened."

The boy, in obedience to the command of his mother, and without looking at the Indian, tersely replied:

"They are the gifts of my white brother with the open hand, the son of the Longbeard."

Ohquamehud appeared offended, and he asked, in a sharp tone:

"Is Quadaquina ashamed, when he speaks to a warrior, to look him in the eyes, and did he learn his manners from the pale faces?"

The boy turned round, and gazed full at the other, and his eyes glistened, yet it was in a low, soft tone he replied:

"Quadaquina is a child, and knows not the customs of warriors, and children turn away their eyes from what they do not wish to see."

Ohquamehud's face darkened as he said: