Ticonderoga. G. P. R. James
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Название: Ticonderoga
Автор: G. P. R. James
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066137335
isbn:
"Not if the sachem's daughter offer to divide the load?" asked his companion.
"Doubt me not," said Walter.
"I do not," said Sir William. "I do not; but I would have you warned. And now farewell. You are very young to meet maidens in the wood. Be careful. Farewell."
He rode on, and the boy tarried by the roadside and meditated.
In about two minutes he took his way up the stream again, still musing, toward the place where he had laid down his rod.
He sprang up the bank, and in amongst the maples; and some ten minutes after, the sun rising higher, poured its light through the stems upon a boy and girl seated at the foot of an old tree; he with his arms around her, and his hand resting on the soft, brown, velvety skin, and she with her head upon his bosom, and her warm lips within the reach of his.
Her skin was brown, I have said, yes, very brown, but still hardly browner than his own. Her eyes were dark and bright, of the true Indian hue, but larger and more open than is at all common in many of the tribes of Iroquois. Her lips, too, were rosy, and as pure of all tinge of brown as those of any child of Europe; and her fingers, also, were stained of Aurora's own hue. But her long, silky black hair would have spoken her race at once had not each tress terminated in a wavy curl. The lines of the form and of the face were all wonderfully lovely, too, and yet were hardly those which characterize so peculiarly the Indian nations. The nose was straighter, the cheek bones less prominent, the head more beautifully set upon the shoulders. The expression, too, as she rested there with her cheek leaning on his breast, was not that of the usual Indian countenance. It was softer, more tender, more impassioned; for though romance and poetry have done all they could to spiritualize the character of Indian love, I fear, from what I have seen and heard and known, it is rarely what it has been portrayed. Her face, however, was full of love and tenderness and emotion; and the picture of the two as they sat there told at once of a tale of love just spoken to a willing ear.
CHAPTER III
The hour of breakfast had arrived when Walter Prevost returned with his river spoil; but the party at the house had not yet sat down to table. The guest who had arrived on the preceding night was standing at the door talking with Edith, while Mr. Prevost himself was within in conference with some of the slaves. Shaded by the little rustic porch, Edith was leaning against the door post in an attitude of exquisite grace, and the stranger, with his arms crossed upon his broad, manly chest, now raising his eyes to her face, now dropping them to the ground, seemed to watch with interest the effect his words produced as it was written on that beautiful countenance.
"I know not," said the stranger, speaking as the young man approached, "I know not how I should endure it myself for any length of time. The mere abstract beauty of nature would, soon pall upon my taste, I fear, without occupation."
"But you would make occupation," answered Edith, earnestly; "you would find it. Occupation for the body is never wanting when you have to improve and cultivate and ornament; and occupation flows in from a thousand gushing sources in God's universe--even were one deprived of books and music."
"Aye, but companionships and social converse, and the interchange of thought with thought," said the stranger; "where could one find those?" and he raised his eyes to her face.
"Have I not my brother and my father?" she asked.
"True, you have," said the other; "but I should have no such resource."
He had seen a slight hesitation in her last reply. He thought that he had touched the point where the yoke of solitude galled the spirit. He was not the one to plant or to nourish discontent in anyone, and he turned at once to her brother, saying: "What, at the stream so early, my young friend? Have you had sport?"
"Not very great," answered Walter. "My fish are few, but they are large. Look here!"
"I call such sport excellent," said the stranger, looking into the basket. "I must have you take me with you some fair morning, for I am a great lover of the angle."
The lad hesitated, and turned somewhat redder in the cheek than he had been the moment before; but his sister saved him from reply, saying, in a musing tone: "I cannot imagine what delight men feel in what they call the sports of the field. To inflict death may be a necessity, but surely should not be an amusement."
"Man is a born hunter, Miss Prevost," replied the stranger, with a smile. "He must chase something. Oh, my dear young lady! few can tell the enjoyment, in the midst of busy, active, troublous life, of one calm day's angling by the side of a fair stream, with quiet beauty all around us, and no adversary but the speckled trout."
"And why should they be your foes?" asked Edith. "Why should you drag them from their cool, clear element to pant and die in the dry upper air?"
"'Cause we want to eat? em," said a voice from the door behind her; "they eats everything. Why shou'dn't we eat them? Darn this world; it is but a place for eating and being eaten. The bivers that I trap eat fish, and many a cunning trick the crafty critters use to catch 'em; the minks eat birds and birds' eggs. Men talk about beasts of prey. Why, everything is a beast of prey, eating the oxen and the sheep, and such like; and sometimes I have thought it hard to kill them, who never do harm to no one, and a great deal of good sometimes. But come, Master Walter, don't ye keep them fish in the sun. Give 'em to black Rosie, the cook, and let us have some on 'em for breakfast afore they're all wilted up."
The man who spoke might have been five feet five or six in height, and was anything but corpulent. Yet he was in chest and shoulders as broad as a bull; and though the lower limbs were more lightly formed than the upper, yet the legs, as well as the arms, displayed strong, rounded muscles, swelling forth at every movement. His hair was as black as jet, without the slightest mixture of gray, though he could not be less than fifty-four or fifty-five years of age; and his face, which was handsome, with features somewhat eagle-like, was browned by exposure to a color nearly resembling that of mahogany. With his shaggy bearskin cap, well worn, and a frock of deerskin, with the hair on, descending to the knees, he looked more like a bison than anything human; and, half expecting to hear him roar, the stranger was surprised to trace tones soft and gentle, though somewhat nasal, to such a rude and rugged form.
While Walter carried his basket of fish to the kitchen, and Mr. Prevost's guest was gazing at the newcomer, in whom Edith seemed to recognize an acquaintance, the master of the house himself approached from behind the latter, saying as he came. "Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Brooks, Major Kielmansegge--Captain Jack Brooks."
"Pooh, pooh, Prevost!" exclaimed the other. "Call me by my right name. I was Captain Brooks long agone. I'm new christened, and called Woodchuck now. That's because I burrow, Major. Them Ingians are wonderful circumdiferous; but they have found that when they try tricks with me, I can burrow under them; and so they call me Woodchuck, 'cause it's a burrowing sort of a beast."
"I do not exactly understand you," said the gentleman who had been called Major Kielmansegge. "What is the exact meaning of circumdiferous?"
"It means just circumventing like," answered the Woodchuck. "First and foremost, there's many of the Ingians--the Algonquin, for a sample--never tell a word of truth. No, no, not they. One of them told me so plainly one day. 'Woodchuck,' says he, 'Ingian seldom tell truth. He know better than that. Truth too good a thing to be used every day; keep that for time of need.' I believe at that precious moment he spoke the truth the first time for forty years."
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