The morning dawned calmly upon that unhallowed
water, which seemed at first to show no traces of
the deed it had witnessed the night before. But
gradually, as the sun rose up higher, a few gory
bubbles appeared to float over one smooth and turbid
spot, which the breeze never crisped into a ripple.
The parricides sat on the bank watching it
all the day; but sluggish, as at first, that sullen blot
upon the fresh blue surface still remained. Another
day passed over their heads, and the thick stain was
yet there. On the third day the floating slime took
a greener hue, as if coloured by the festering mass
beneath; but coarse fibres of darker dye marbled
its surface; and on the fourth day these began to
tremble along the water like weeds growing from
the bottom, or the long tresses of a woman's scalp
floating in a pool when no wind disturbs it. The
fifth morning came, and the conscience-striken
watchers thought that the spreading-scalp—for such
now all agreed it was—had raised itself from the
water, and become rounded at the top, as if there
were a head beneath it. Some thought, too, that
they could discover a pair of hideous eyes glaring
beneath the dripping locks. They looked on the
sixth, and there indeed was a monstrous HEAD floating
upon the surface, as if anchored to the spot,
around which the water—notwithstanding a blast
which swept the lake—was calm and motionless as
ever.

Those bad Indians then wished to fly; but the
doomed parricides had not now the courage to encounter
the warlike bands through which they must

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

make their way in fleeing from their native valley.
They thought, too, that, as nothing about the head,
except the eyes, had motion, it could not harm them,
resting quietly, as it did, upon the bosom of the
waters. And, though it was dreadful to have that
hideous gaze fixed for ever upon their dwellings,
yet they thought that if the Master of Life meant
this as an expiation for their phensied deed, they
would strive to live on beneath those unearthly
glances without shrinking or complaint.

But a strange alteration had taken place in the
floating head on the morning of the seventh day.
A pair of broad wings, ribbed, like those of a bat,
and with claws appended to each tendon, had grown
out during the night; and, buoyed up by these, it
seemed to be now resting on the water. The water
itself appeared, to ripple more briskly near it, as if
joyous that it was about to be relieved of its unnatural
burden; but still for hours the head maintained
its first position, At last the wind began to
rise, and, driving through the trough of the waves,
beneath their expanded membrane, raised the wings
from the surface, and seemed for the first time to
endow them with vitality. They flapped harshly
once or twice upon the billows, and the head rose
slowly and heavily from the lake.

An agony of fear seized upon the gazing parricides,
but the supernatural creation made no movement
to injure them. It only remained balancing
itself over the lake, and casting a shadow from its
wings that wrapped the valley in gloom. But dreadful
was it beneath their withering shade to watch

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

that terrific monster, hovering like a falcon for
the stoop, and know not upon what victim it might
descend. It was then that they who had sown the
gory seed from which it sprung to life, with one impulse
sought to escape its presence by flight. Herding
together like a troop of deer when the panther is
prowling by, they rushed in a body from the scene.
But the flapping of the demon pinions was soon
heard behind them, and the winged head was hence-forth
on their track wheresoever it led.

In vain did they cross one mountain barrier after
another, plunge into the rocky gorge, or thread the
mazy swamp, to escape their fiendish watcher. The
Flying Head would rise on tireless wings over the
loftiest summit, or dart in arrowy flight through the
narrowest passages without furling its pinions:
while their sullen threshing would be heard even in
those vine-webbed thickets where the little ground
bird can scarcely make its way, The very caverns
of the earth were no protection to the parricides
from its presence; for scarcely would they think
they had found a refuge in some sparry cell, when,
poised midway between the ceiling and the floor,
they would behold the Flying Head glaring upon
them. Sleeping or waking, the monster was ever
near; they paused to rest, but the rushing of its
wings, as it swept around their resting-place in
never-ending circles, prevented them from finding
forgetfulness in repose; or if, in spite of those
blighting pinions that ever fanned them, fatigue did
at moments plunge them in uneasy slumbers, the
glances of the Flying Head would pierce their very
eyelids, and steep their dreams in horror.

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

What was the ultimate fate of that band of parricides,
no one has ever known. Some say that the
Master of Life kept them always young, in order
that their capability of suffering might never wear
out; and these insist that the Flying Head is still
pursuing them over the great prairies of the far-west.
Others aver that the glances of the Flying
Head turned each of them gradually into stone; and
these say that their forms, though altered by the
wearing of the rains in the lapse of long years, may
still be recognised in those upright rocks which
stand like human figures along the shores of some
of the neighbouring lakes; though most Indians
have another way of accounting for these figures.
Certain it is, however, that the Flying Head always
comes back to this part of the country about the
times of the equinox; and some say even that you
may always hear the flapping of its wings whenever
such a storm as that we have just weathered is
brewing.

The old hunter had finished his story; but my
companions were still anxious that he should protract
the narrative, and give us the account of the
grotesque forms to which he had alluded as being
found among these hills. These, however, he told
us more properly belonged to another legend, which
he subsequently related, and which I may hereafter
endeavour to recall.

It was a tale of certain STONE GIANTS that were
invulnerable to the weapons of the Iroquois. I remember
well that it struck me at the time as

p154-096 [figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

favouring the wild theory of some writers, that De Soto
ascended the Ohio, and penetrated with his mailed
followers into western New York. Since then,
however, I have thought that the singular tradition
might refer to that memorable invasion of European
Musqueteers and Men-at-arms led on by French
knights and noblemen, which is commemorated in
the following story:

eaf154v1.n5

[5] A hamlet is now growing up on this beautiful mountain slope,
and the scenery in the vicinity is likely to be soon better known, from
the late establishment of a line of post-coaches between Sacondaga
Lake and Saratoga Springs.

The American reader, if at all curious about the
early history of his country, has probably heard of
that famous expedition undertaken by the vicegerent
of Louis XIV., the governor-general of New France,
against the confederated Six-Nations of New York;
an expedition which, though it carried with it all the
pomp and circumstances of European warfare into
their wild wood haunts, was attended with no adequate
results, and had but a momentary effect in
quelling the spirit of the tameless Iroquois.

It was on the 4th of July, 1796, that the commander-in-chief,
the veteran Count de Frontenac,
marshalled the forces at La Chine, with which he
intended to crush for ever the powers of the Aganuschion
confederacy. His regulars were divided into
four battalions, of two hundred men each, commanded
respectively by three veteran leaders, and the
young Chevalier de Grais. He formed also four
battalions of Canadian volunteers, efficiently officered,
and organized as regular troops. The Indian

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

allies were divided into three bands, each of which
was placed under the command of a nobleman of
rank, who had gained distinction in the European
warfare of France. One was composed of the Sault
and St. Louis bands and of friendly Abenaquis;
another consisted of the Hurons of Lorette and the
mountaineers of the north; the third band was
smaller, and composed indiscriminately of warriors
of different tribes, whom a spirit of adventure led to
embark upon the expedition. They were chiefly
Ottawas, Saukies, and Adirondachs, and these the
Baron de Bekancourt charged himself to conduct.
This formidable armament was amply provisioned,
and provided with all the munitions of war. Besides
pikes, harquebusses, and other small arms then
in use, they were furnished with grenades, a mortar
to throw them, and a couple of field-pieces, which,
with the tents and other camp equipage, were transported
in large batteaux built for the purpose. Nor
was the energy of their movements unworthy of this
brilliant preparation. Ascending the St. Lawrence,
and coasting the shores of Lake Ontario, they entered
the Oswego River, cut a military road around the
falls, and, carrying their transports over the portage,
launched them anew, and finally debouched with
their whole flotilla upon the waters of Onondago Lake.

It must have been a gallant sight to behold the
warlike pageant floating beneath the primitive forest
which then crowned the hills around that lovely
water. To see the veterans who had served under
Turenne, Vauban, and the great Condé, marshalled
with pike and cuirass beside the half-naked Huron

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

and Abenaquis; while the young cavaliers, in the
less warlike garb of the court of the magnificent
Louis, moved with plume and mantle amid the
dusky files of wampum-decked Ottawas and Algonquins.
Banners were there which had flown at
Steenkirk and Landen; or rustled above the troop-ers
that Luxemburgh's trumpets had guided to
glory, when Prince Waldeck's battalions were
borne down beneath his furious charge. Nor was
the enemy that this gallant host were seeking unworthy
of those whose swords had been tried in some
of the most celebrated fields of Europe. “The
Romans of America,” as the Six-Nations have been
called by more than one writer, had proved themselves
soldiers, not only by carrying their arms among
the native tribes a thousand miles away, and striking
their enemies alike upon the lakes of Maine, the
mountains and morasses of Carolina, the cane-brakes
of Kentucky,[6] and the prairies of the Missouri; but
they had already bearded one European army beneath
the walls of Quebec, and shut up another for
weeks within the defences of Montreal, with the
same courage that, half a century later, vanquished
the battalions of Dieskau upon the banks of Lake
George.

Our business, however, is not with the main

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

movements of this army, which we have already
mentioned were wholly unimportant in their results.
The aged Chevalier de Frontenac was said to have
other objects in view besides the political motives
for the expedition, which he set forth to his master,
the Grand Monarque.

Many years previously, when the Six-Nations
had invested the capital of New France and threatened
the extermination of that thriving colony, a
beautiful half-blood girl, whose education had been
commenced under the immediate auspices of the
governor-general, and in whom, indeed, M. de
Frontenac was said to have a parental interest, was
carried off, with other prisoners, by the retiring foe.
Every effort had been made in vain during the occasional
cessation of hostilities between the French
and the Iroquois, to recover this child; and though,
in the years that intervened, some wandering Jesuit
from time to time averred that he had seen the
Christian captive living as the contented wife of a
young Mohawk warrior, yet the old nobleman seems
never to have despaired of reclaiming his “nut-brown
daughter.” Indeed, the chevalier must have
been impelled by some such hope when, at the age
of seventy, and so feeble that he was half the time
carried in a litter, he ventured to encounter the perils
of an American wilderness, and place himself at the
head of the heterogeneous bands which now invaded
the country of the Six-Nations under his conduct.

Among the half-breed spies, border scouts, and
mongrel adventurers that followed in the train of
the invading army, was a renegade Fleming, of the

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

name of Hanyost. This man in early youth had
been made a sergeant-major, when he deserted to
the French ranks in Flanders. He had subsequently
taken up a military grant in Canada, sold it after
emigrating, and then, making his way down to the
Dutch settlements on the Hndson, had become
domiciliated, as it were, among their allies, the Mohawks,
and adopted the life of a hunter. Hanyost,
hearing that his old friends, the French, were making
such a formidable descent, did not now hesitate
to desert his more recent acquaintances; but offered
his services as a guide to Count de Frontenac
the moment he entered the hostile country. It was
not, however, mere cupidity, or the habitual love of
treachery, which actuated the base Fleming in this
instance. Hanyost, in a difficulty with an Indian
trapper, which had been referred for abitrament to
the young Mohawk chief, Kiodago, (a settler of disputes,)
whose cool courage and firmness fully entitled
him to so distinguished a name, conceived himself
aggrieved by the award which had been given
against him. The scorn with which the arbitrator
met his charge of unfairness, stung him to the soul,
and, fearing the arm of the powerful savage, he had
nursed the revenge in secret, whose accomplishment
seemed now at hand.

Kiodago, ignorant of the hostile force which had
entered his country, was off with his band at a fishing
station or summer-camp, among the wild hills
about Konnedieyu;[7] and, when Hanyost informed

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

the commander of the French forces that, by surprising
this party, his long-lost daughter, the wife
of Kiodago, might be once more given to his arms,
a small, but efficient, force was instantly detached
from the main body of the army, to strike the blow.
A dozen musqueteers, with twenty-five pikemen, led
severally by the Baron de Bekancourt and the
Chevalier de Grais, the former having the chief
command of the expedition, were sent upon this
duty, with Hanyost to guide them to the village of
Kiodago. Many hours were consumed upon the
march, as the soldiers were not yet habituated to
the wilderness; but just before dawn on the second
day, the party found themselves in the neighbourhood
of the Indian village.

The place was wrapped in repose, and the two
cavaliers trusted that the surprise would be so complete,
that their commandant's daughter must certainly
be taken. The baron, after a careful examination
of the hilly passes, determined to head the
onslaught, while his companion in arms, with Hanyost
to mark out his prey, should pounce upon the
chieftain's wife. This being arranged, their followers
were warned not to injure the female captives
while cutting their defenders to pieces; and then, a
moment being allowed for each man to take a last
look at the condition of his arms, they were led to
the attack.

The inhabitants of the fated village, secure in their
isolated situation, aloof from the war parties of that
wild district, had neglected all precaution against
surprise, and were buried in sleep when the

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

whizzing of a grenade, that terrible, but now superseded,
engine of destruction, roused them from their slumbers.
The missile, to which a direction had been
given that carried it in a direct line through the
main row of wigwams which formed the little street,
went crashing among their frail frames of basket-work,
and kindled the dry mats stretched over them
into instant flames. And then, as the startled warriors
leaped all naked and unarmed from their blazing
lodges, the French pikemen, waiting only for a
volley from the musqueteers, followed it up with a
charge still more fatal. The wretched savages were
slaughtered like sheep in the shambles. Some,
overwhelmed with dismay, sank unresisting upon
the ground, and, covering up their heads after the
Indian fashion when resigned to death, awaited the
fatal stroke without a murmur; others, seized with
a less benumbing panic, sought safety in flight, and
rushed upon the pikes that lined the forest's paths
around them. Many there were, however, who,
schooled to scenes as dreadful, acquitted themselves
like warriors. Snatching their weapons from the
greedy flames, they sprang with irresistible fury
upon the bristling files of pikemen. Their heavy
war-clubs beat down and splintered the fragile spears
of the Europeans, whose corslets, ruddy with the
reflected fires mid which they fought, glinted back
still brighter sparks from the hatchets of flint which
crashed against them. The fierce veterans pealed
the charging cry of many a well-fought field in other
climes; but wild and high the Indian whoop rose,
shrill above the conflict, until the hovering raven in

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

mid air caught up, and answered, that discordant
shriek.

De Grais in the meantime surveyed the scene
of action with eager intentness, expecting each moment
to see the paler features of the Christian captive
among the dusky females who ever and anon
sprang shrieking from the blazing lodges, and were
instantly hurled backward into the flames by fathers
and brothers, who even thus would save them from
the hands that vainly essayed to grasp their distracted
forms. The Mohawks began now to wage
a more successful resistance; and just when the
fight was raging hottest, and the high-spirited
Frenchman, beginning to despair of his prey, was
about launching into the midst of it, he saw a tall
warrior who had hitherto been forward in the conflict,
disengage himself from the melée, and, wheeling
suddenly upon a soldier, who had likewise
separated from his party, brain him with a tomahawk
before he could make a movement in his defence.

The quick eye of the young chevalier, too, caught
a glance of another figure, in pursuit of whom as
she emerged, with an infant in her arms, from a
lodge on the farther side of the village, the luckless
Frenchman had met his doom. It was the Christian
captive, the wife of Kiodago, beneath whose hand
he had fallen. That chieftain now stood over the
body of his victim, brandishing a war-club which he
had snatched from a dying Indian near. Quick as
thought, De Grais levelled a pistol at his head, when
the track of the flying girl brought her directly in his

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

line of sight, and he withheld his fire. Kiodago in
the meantime had been cut off from the rest of his
people by the soldiers, who closed in upon the space
which his terrible arm had a moment before kept
open. A cry of agony escaped the high-souled
savage, as he saw how thus the last hope was lost.
He made a gesture, as if about to rush again into
the fray, and sacrifice his life with his tribesmen;
and then, perceiving how futile must be the act, he
turned upon his heel, and bounded after his retreating
wife with arms outstretched, to shield her from
the dropping shots of the enemy.

The uprising sun had now lighted up the scene;
but all this passed so instantaneously, that it was
impossible for De Grais to keep his eye on the fugitives
amid the shifting forms that glanced continually
before him; and when, accompanied by Hanyost
and seven others, he had got fairly in pursuit,
Kiodago, who still kept behind his wife, was far in
advance of the chevalier and his party.

Her forest training had made the Christian captive
as fleet of foot as an Indian maiden. She heard,
too, the cheering voice of her loved warrior behind
her, and, pressing her infant in her arms, she urged
her flight over crag and fell, and soon reached the
head of a rocky pass, which it would take some
moments for any but an American forester to scale.
But the indefatigable Frenchmen are urging their
way up the steep; the cry of pursuit grows nearer
as they catch a sight of her husband through the
thickets, and the agonized wife finds her onward
progress prevented by a ledge of rock that impends

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

above her. But now again Kiodago is by her side;
he has lifted his wife to the cliff above, and placed
her infant in her arms; and already, with renewed
activity, the Indian mother is speeding on to a
cavern among the hills, well known as a fastness
of safety.

Kiodago looked a moment after her retreating
figure, and then coolly swung himself to the ledge
which commanded the pass. He might now easily
have escaped his pursuers; but as he stepped back
from the edge of the cliff, and looked down the narrow
ravine, the vengeful spirit of the red man was
too strong within him to allow such an opportunity
of striking a blow to escape. His tomahawk and
war-club had both been lost in the strife, but he still
carried at his back a more efficient weapon in the
hands of so keen a hunter. There were but three
arrows in his quiver, and the Mohawk was determined
to have the life of an enemy for each of them.
His bow was strung quickly, but with as much coolness
as if there were no exigency to require haste.
Yet he had scarcely time to throw himself upon his
breast, a few yards from the brink of the declevity,
before one of his pursuers, more active than the rest,
exposed himself to the unerring archer. He came
leaping from rock to rock, and had nearly reached
the head of the glen, when, pierced through and
through by one of Kiodago's arrows, he toppled from
the crags, and rolled, clutching the leaves in his
death-agony, among the tangled furze below. A
second met a similar fate, and a third victim would
probably have been added, if a shot from the fusil

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

of Hanyost, who sprang forward and caught sight of
the Indian just as the first man fell, had not disabled
the thumb-joint of the bold archer, even as he fixed
his last arrow in the string. Resistance seemed now
at an end, and Kiodago again betook himself to flight.
Yet anxious to divert the pursuit from his wife, the
young chieftain pealed a yell of defiance, as he retreated
in a different direction from that which she
had taken. The whoop was answered by a simultaneous
shout and rush on the part of the whites;
but the Indian had not advanced far before he perceived
that the pursuing party, now reduced to six,
had divided, and that three only followed him. He
had recognised the scout, Hanyost, among his enemies,
and it was now apparent that the wily traitor,
instead of being misled by his ruse, had guided the
other three upon the direct trail to the cavern which
the Christian captive had taken. Quick as thought,
the Mohawk acted upon the impression. Making
a few steps within a thicket, still to mislead his
present pursuers, he bounded across a mountain
torrent, and then, leaving his foot-marks dashed in
the yielding bank, he turned shortly on a rock beyond,
recrossed the stream, and concealed himself
behind a fallen tree, while his pursuers passed within
a few paces of his covert.

A broken hillock now only divided the chief from
the point to which he had directed his wife by
another route, and to which the remaining party,
consisting of De Grais, Hanyost, and a French
musqueteer, were hotly urging their way. The
hunted warrior ground his teeth with rage when he

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

heard the voice of the treacherous Fleming in the
glen below him; and, springing from crag to crag,
he circled the rocky knoll, and planted his foot by
the roots of a blasted oak that shot its limbs above
the cavern just as his wife had reached the spot,
and, pressing her babe to her bosom, sank exhausted
among the flowers that waved in the moist breath
of the cave. It chanced that at that very instant
De Grais and his followers had paused beneath the
opposite side of the knoll, from whose broken surface
the foot of the flying Indian had disengaged a
stone, which, crackling among the branches, found
its way through a slight ravine into the glen below.
The two Frenchmen stood in doubt for a moment.
The musqueteer, pointing in the direction whence the
stone had rolled, turned to receive the order of his
officer. The chevalier, who had made one step in
advance of a broad rock between them, leaned upon
it, pistol in hand, half turning toward his follower;
while the scout, who stood farthest out from the
steep bank, bending forward to discover the mouth
of the cave, must have caught a glimpse of the sinking
female just as the shadowy form of her husband
was displayed above her. God help thee now, bold
archer! thy quiver is empty; thy game of life is
nearly up; the sleuth-hound is upon thee; and thy
scalp-lock, whose plumes now flutter in the breeze,
will soon be twined in the fingers of the vengeful
renegade! Thy wife—But hold! the noble
savage has still one arrow left!

Disabled as he thought himself, the Mohawk had
not dropped his bow in his flight. His last arrow

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

was still griped in his bleeding fingers; and, though
his stiffened thumb forbore the use of it to the best
advantage, the hand of Kiodago had not yet lost its
power.[8] The crisis which it takes so long to describe,
had been realized by him in an instant. He
saw how the Frenchmen, inexperienced in woodcraft,
were at fault; he saw, too, that the keen eye
of Hanyost had caught sight of the object of their
pursuit, and that farther flight was hopeless; while
the scene of his burning village in the distance inflamed
him with hate and fury toward the instrument
of his misfortunes. Bracing one knee upon the flinty
rock, while the muscles of the other swelled as if
the whole energies of his body were collected in that
single effort, Kiodago aims at the treacherous scout,
and the twanging bow-string dismisses his last arrow
upon its errand. The hand of The Spirit could
alone have guided that shaft. It misses its mark!
But Waneyo smiles upon the brave warrior, and
the arrow, while it rattles harmless against the
cuirass of the French officer, glances toward the
victim for whom it was intended, and quivers in the
heart of Hanyost! The dying wretch grasped the
sword-chain of the chevalier, whose corslet clanged
among the rocks as the two went rolling down the
glen together; and De Grais was not unwilling to
abandon the pursuit, when the musqueteer, coming
to his assistance, had disengaged him, bruised
and bloody, from the embrace of the stiffening
corpse!

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

The rest is soon told. The bewildered Europeans
rejoined their comrades, who were soon after
on their march from the scene they had desolated;
while Kiodago descended from his eyrie to collect
the fugitive survivers of his band, and, after burying
the slain, to wreak a terrible vengeance upon their
murderers; the most of whom were cut off by him
before they joined the main body of the French army.
The Count de Frontenac, returning to Canada, died
soon afterward, and the existence of his half-blood
daughter was forgotten. And though among the
score of old families in the state of New York who
have Indian blood in their veins, many trace their
descent from the offspring of the noble Kiodago and
his Christian wife, yet the hand of genius, as displayed
in the admirable picture of Chapman, has
alone rescued from oblivion the thrilling scene of the
Mohawk's Last Arrow!

The storm of the last night had not subsided on
the morrow, and Major Peabody proclaimed, authoritatively,
that it was folly to leave our comfortable
quarters in such weather. The major presented a
singular appearance as I first viewed him engaged
in taking an observation, when I awakened in the
morning. Being in his stocking-feet, he had avoided
the disagreeableness of stepping upon the wet
ground without the shantee to study the elements,
by raising his tall body erect upon the place where
he had slept, and thrusting his head through the
bark roof much after the fashion of a man in the

p154-110 [figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

pillory. Hearing his voice on the outside of the
wigwam, I had stepped through the doorway without
observing his lean and Quixotic figure within:
and when this lantern-jawed countenance, reposing,
as it were, upon the roof, first met my eyes, I rubbed
them in doubt whether the Flying Head of which I
had heard the night before was not yet bewildering
my senses.

Our party generally was disposed to abide by the
counsels of Major Jake, and remain within doors,
amusing themselves by putting their various hunting
accoutrements in order for the morrow. One or two,
however, went off to catch some lake-trout for our
dinner; and as the Indians philosophically got rid
of a rainy day by sleeping like hounds before the
fire, the major had but a small audience, when, after
calling in vain for another Iroquois legend to amuse
us, my friend and I prevailed upon him to relate
the principal adventures of his own life, which he
did in nearly the following words:

eaf154v1.n6

[6] The Dark and Bloody Ground” of Kentucky, though generally
supposed to be so called from the slaughter of its white pioneers,
dates its name from a much earlier period; when the Iroquois,
lured thither by the abundant game, would descend the Ohio
in their canoes, and battle with the hostile tribes of the Lower
Mississippi.

For earthly goods he cared not more, because
He went to work to carve his proper share
From out the common stock, as coolly as
You would a morsel from a pippin pare.
A shrewd, but wild and wayward chap he was;
Cautious, but danger ready still to dare
(If by it he could rise or win) on field or flood;
A pedler even of his heart's best blood!

“You mustn't think, because you're hear'n me

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

called major by all the folks round the country, that
I'm much stuck up by the title, for it's only a militia
one, which, you know, is not of much account to a
man who has once been a breveted captain in the regular
service. This, however, is neither here nor there;
for, though I have worn Uncle Sam's livery for some
years, and smelt gunpowder upon more than one
occasion—ay, and killed my man too, in a duel—yet
natur never meant me for an officer. I never took
to the thing in the best of times, and I never now
can account for my luck in getting an epaulet on my
shoulder, and being thought the fire-eater, which
some of my old comrades will describe to you when
you ask them about Jake Peabody. But this again
is neither here nor there; let me begin with the commencement
of my story, which, when it tires you,
you will please to interrupt just as you please.

“I was born in Albany, in Old York state, in a
small house, which is, perhaps, still standing at the
north end, down by Fox Creek. My father was a
Connecticut horse-doctor, or, as he more politely
styled himself in latter years, a veterinary surgeon.
My mother was born of Yankee parents, in Rensselaer
County; but she was the widow of an old Dutchman
up in the colonie when my father took her to
wife, and stepped into mynheer's property along
the creek.

“Being the youngest son, I came into the world
after my father had got his head pretty well above
water, and had, therefore, greater advantages of
edication than the rest of my family. The old gentleman,
who took particular delight in being

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

addressed as Doctor Peabody, hoped that the son who bore
his name might some day turn out a real M.D.;
and, as the first step toward such a consummation,
I was taken from the academy when a boy of eleven,
and placed in a druggist's shop.

“The person to whom I was apprenticed kept
his office upon the water-side, near the skirts of the
town, where, what with keel-boatmen from the Mohawk,
Schenectady teamsters, Sacondaga raftsmen,
and an occasional North River skipper for customers,
he contrived to drive a pretty brisk trade in certain
medicines, and initiate his pupil in a branch of
practice which had a wonderful tendency to give
me an insight into what, in larger cities, is called
`life.' You will not wonder, therefore, that, in exchange
for the vegetable and mineral nostrums,
which it was my duty to vend to our customers, I
readily imbibed a moral poison, hardly less pernicious;
nor that I was sent a packing by my bos before
I was fifteen, because he had discovered that I
was too old to continue longer the playmate of his
daughter Nautie, and he knew not how otherwise
to break off an intercourse which had ripened into
too great familiarity.

“I was in no want of friends, however. My father,
indeed, was dead; and, my mother having taken
unto herself a third helpmate, my brothers troubled
themselves but little about such a scapegrace as they
considered me. But among raftsmen and skippers
I was favourably known; and one of the latter readily
took me on board of a coasting schooner, until something
better should offer.

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

“Our first voyage from Albany was to a port in
Long Island Sound, whither the skipper was bound
with a cargo of shingles. Here I met with a Connecticut
medicine pedler, who was about starting to
Georgia with a large supply of a patent carminative,
of which he attempted to force some sales among
our crew. This fellow conceived a fancy for me
from the moment I exposed his quackery, and was
very solicitous to employ so cute a lad, as he called
me, in the manufacture of an article which I seemed
to understand so well. But I declined his overtures,
from having higher things in view. The truth is,
upon our first landing at the place I had seen a
newspaper in the bar-room of an inn, which set my
ambition all on fire. It was an advertisement, which
ran as follows:

“ `To young gentlemen wishing to travel—

“ `A middle-aged gentleman, engaged in an
agreeable and lucrative business, which leads him
to take extensive tours over various parts of the
Union, is desirous of a young and intelligent companion,
whose duties would be merely nominal, and
who, in forming a most improving connexion, would
have an opportunity of visiting the most interesting
cities and towns of the United States, without incurring
a particle of expense. Applicants for the
situation will address Viator, at this office; and
none but young gentleman of the first respectability
need apply.'

“You may think me presumptuous in preferring
a claim to such a place; but, nevertheless, I immediately
answered the advertisement by asking an

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

interview with Viator at such time and place as he
should choose to designate. I confess I thought that
I was attempting a pretty high flight, and, therefore,
kept my hopes and schemes to myself. Indeed, it
required all the ingenuity of the pedler, who thought
I must have some prospect in view, from so peremptorily
declining his offer—it required all his skill,
I say, to worm my real purpose out of me. I did,
however, communicate it to him, and you may judge
of my surprise when, upon my telling him that I
hourly expected an answer to my note, he produced
it from his pocket, and, quietly announcing himself
as the `middle-aged gentleman' with whom I had
been treating anonymously, added, that there was
now no difficulty in at once arranging matters. The
first castle in the air I had ever built was thus demolished
in a moment. But I suppressed the mortification
of my feelings; and, having now made up
my mind to see the world in some way or other, I
closed at once with the overtures of the pedler. The
connexion, it is true, did not elevate me in the world,
but it might open the means of rising.

“I passed two or three years in travelling with
this man through the south-western states: he was
frugal, kind, and considerate, and of the most scrupulous
honesty in every respect, save where the disposal
of his patent medicine was concerned; and I
verily believe that he would have sold a bottle of
this to his best friend, though the use of it might
destroy the purchaser in an hour afterward. With
regard to me, he exhibited ever the care of a father,
until his stock in trade becoming one day exhausted

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

while at a thriving village in East Tennesee, I became
exceedingly ill shortly afterward, and had good
reason to believe that my worthy master had induced
the sickness by experiments upon me with
some simples, from which he hoped to prepare a
new compound that might enable him to supply his
customers. I kept the suspicion to myself, however;
and, after seeing some fifty persons in the
neighbourhood hurried off by what in that country
is called the milk-sickness—whose worst symptoms,
by the by, were always aggravated by the vegetable
remedies which my associate exhibited—we decamped
one night, and took our way along the
mountain-ridge which enters Virginia not far north
of this point. But here I and my master were
doomed to part company, in a way that makes us
unlikely to meet again in the United States.

“A disbanded regulator of the Georgia guard,
with a Lynch-ing corn-cracker from that state, accompanied
by a couple of enterprising counterfeiters
lately thrown out of employ in Kentucky, had
scented the contents of my master's saddle-bags,
and dogged our steps to the wild mountain-passes
about the Cumberland Gap. Here, in a woody
ravine, to which we had withdrawn to take our
noonday meal, apart from the dust of the highway
and the heat of the sun, these worthies joined our
society in a way which, to say the least of it, was
exceedingly abrupt. The first intimation of their
presence was a couple of shots, which killed the
pedler's fine Kentucky horse, and wounded my Indian
tackey. The latter was a tough and spirited

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

little animal, for which I had exchanged a broken-down
nag while passing through the Creek nation.
He was not wounded so badly, however, but that he
bore me quickly out of danger when I leaped upon
his back as the robbers rushed from the bushes upon
the unarmed pedler.

“I have often since believed that my patron might
have escaped the dreadful fate which overtook him
a few moments afterward, if he had kept a quiet
tongue between his teeth; but his Connecticut notions
of justice impelled him to mutter something
about the law of highway robbery when he saw the
plump saddle-bags which his legs had so often caressed,
in the possession of the freebooters. There
was then but a brief parley, the words of which I
could not make out, though I still hovered near,
having secured my pony in a thicket: its purport,
though, was soon apparent. They seized the pedler,
and, reckless of his cries, dragged him up a
rocky hill, thick-set with bushes, to the mouth of
one of those lime-stone caverns with which this part
of the country abounds. Here they paused for a
moment, but not to listen to the passionate pleadings
for liberty, which were redoubled by the victim;
who, however, seemed to anticipate nothing more
than confinement in so dreary a place.

“ `Strike a light, Jim,' cried one, who appeared
to be the leader.

“ `You don't want no light,' said the other; `it's
not far from the mouth, and Angus, who has been
in a dozen times, can take your hand and guide
you.'

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

“At the word, a carroty-headed fellow stepped
forward, and, taking the hand of the leader, moved
in advance as his pioneer, while the two assisted
him in dragging the pedler within the cave. The
mouth was thick-grown with tall weeds, and much
obscured with fallen boughs and brush of one kind
or another, which had from time to time accumulated
over it. Supple and active, I did not hesitate to
worm my way through this screen, and penetrate
into the dark region beyond, which once gained, I
knew I must be safe. The struggles and outcry of
the pedler prevented the robbers from observing
any rustling I might make in moving through the
thicket beside them, and I gained the cover of the
cavern before their forms had wholly darkened the
entrance. The pedler did not struggle much as
they pushed and dragged him through the passage;
indeed, he seemed rather to catch at their garments,
lest they should suddenly retrace their steps and
close up the entrance; and he besought them, in
the most piteous terms, not to imprison him in the
vault without a chance of escape.

“ `I shall starve—I shall certainly starve in this
cavern! For God's sake, if you would murder me
by inches, gentlemen, let me be tied to a tree, and
die in the light of day!'

“He spoke; but his pleadings did not for an instant
defer a fate more appalling than any he yet
anticipated: a fate which Providence alone prevented
me from sharing, as the nearness of the ruffians
now was all that hindered me from penetrating farther
into the cavern, when my instant doom would

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

have been that which was intended only for my poor
patron. But, fearful of my footfalls being heard, I
remained still; placing my body in a cleft of the
rock, while the whole party groped their way along
the wall, so near to me that, while by a miracle
they failed to touch me, it seemed as if the beatings
of my heart must have been audible. They paused
within two yards in advance of where I stood.

“ `Are we near it, Angus?” cried the captain.

“ `Hand me a stone, and I'll try; or do you chuck
one before me from where you stand.'

“The stone was thrown. It seemed long in coming
to the earth, but at last, after one or two rebounds,
which sounded hollowly against the sides of a deep
pit, it reached its destination, and the last faint echo
seemed to rise from beneath the very spot were we
were standing.

“ `By G—d!' cried the ruffian pioneer, `I am
on the brink of the precipice myself; one step more,
and I should have pulled you all to h—l along with
me! Stand exactly where you are, Captain; and
you and Humphrey take the Yankee nigger by his
shoulders. Jim, do you move this way—step carefully
though, G—d d—mn you, and seize the other
leg.'

“ `Ah, I take the idea.'

“ `Are you all ready?' said the captain, when the
victim was secured in the manner indicated, and
swung like a pendulum between the four; `have
you got a fair hold, Jim?'

“Yes—but we'd better yet have a light; my
place here in front is cursed pokerish.'

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

“The suggestion awakened the hope of a moment's
respite in the pedler's bosom.

“ `Yes, a light—a light in the name of Jesus the
merciful, gentlemen! let me look on my death!
let me see your faces! Ye are changed into fiends,
are ye, since we came into this horrible place!
I cannot—I will not—I—' Here his struggles
became so violent that I lost the rest that he said.
A burst of merriment, that rung like the laughter
of demons through the vault, told that this last
effort for liberty was fruitless; and, overcome with
exhaustion, he lay, panting, upon the floor of the
cavern.

“ `Now for a game of Alligator, Jim.'

“ `As quick as you please, Captain; he'll launch
easily, now, if you'll give the word at once.'

“ `Lift,' said the captain.

“ `All up,' was the answer.

“ `Now, then, together, boys.'

“ `One to make ready.'

“ `Two to show.'

“ `Three to make ready.'

“ `And four to g—o!'

“A hideous yell of more than mortal agony
drowned the last word. To give force to the heave,
they had swung the pedler's body so far back the
fourth time, that the hair of his head actually grazed
my body. The cry of his parting soul seemed to
spring at first from my own bosom; it swelled to
its highest pitch in the moment that he was launched
over the brink of the abyss; and it died away in
a hissing moan a thousand feet below me. A dull

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

reverberation from the falling body followed, and
then all was still.

“ `Well, Yankee, you'll tell no tales,' said the
ruffian called Humphrey, who had not before spoken,
and who seemed more of a novice at such business
than the others. The party then left the cavern in
silence, as if the affair, once despatched, was not
worth an afterthought. I stood for some time transfixed
with horror. The whole scene had passed
amid total darkness, the dropping vault of the cavern
near the entrance not allowing the light of day to
penetrate thus far into these now accursed chambers;
and I felt like one who had intruded upon some
doings of the damned, deep within the bowels of the
earth. At last, moved by better feelings, reckless
whether or not any of the gang might hear me, if
still loitering about the place, I shouted to my ill-fated
friend, as the idea flashed across me that life
might possibly yet linger in his mutilated form. I
screamed to him at the top of my voice, and a dismal
howl seemed to answer from the gulf; I shrieked
again, but heard only, as before, the same fearful echo
to my own voice. The place had been turned into
a grave, and that gives no reply. A superstitious
terror seized upon me; I felt as if something were
dragging me backward to that horrid chasm, and,
groping anxiously till I met a ray of light from the
entrance of the cavern, I rushed from it in an agony
of fear, the bitterest I have ever known.

“The land pirates had disappeared, without molesting
my tackey, who soon carried me to a safer
region farther east. Abingdon, in Washington

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

County, Virginia, was the first place where I ventured to
stop and seek employment. The valley used to be
a beautiful green basin among the hills in those days;
and here the principal hotel being in want of a bar-keeper,
I was glad to fill a station, among people
who knew nothing about me, which, at the same
time that it was comfortable in itself, gave me an
opportunity of mixing, after a fashion, with all the
young bucks and politicians. There were, too, at
that time, many of your real old-fashioned Virginny
gentlemen in Abingdon; good fellows, who wouldn't
disdain to hold a chat with a white man while mixing
a julep, though he did stand behind a bar. Well,
during all the two years I was there, I never let out
where I came from, nor where I was going to.
Jacobs was the name I bore, and under this name I
used to mingle with all sorts of people during court-week,
and pick up something about books and
manners, which has served my turn ever since. For
you may depend, that a man can never play gentleman
well, unless he has served some sort of apprenticeship
to it; and that, I take it, is the reason why
in our northern cities, where fortunes are made so
quick, you so often see servants better bred than
their masters. Well, after I had laid up a little
money, and learned how your quality folk conduct
themselves toward each other, I left Abingdon, and
made my way to Charleston, on the Kenhawa,
where I fitted myself out with some new clothes,
and took my passage in a salt-boat to Cincinnati.
Here I provided myself with a pair of saddle-bags,
and a stock of medicines to fill them, crossed over

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

into Kentucky, and bought a good horse at George-town,
and then, returning to Ohio, took up my line
of march for the interior.

“Now, it chanced that about this time the breaking
out of the war had brought some levies of
western volunteers and drafted militia, on their way
to the frontier, to the village of Urbanna, where I
had put up, announcing myself as Dr. Peabody.
Well, most of the officers were real harem-scarem
fellows; they seemed to be marching in loose detachments,
loitering from day to day for the baggage
to come up, and drinking confusion every night to
those in authority, who had as yet not even made
any medical provision for so large a body of men.
Indeed, disease had already broken out among them,
from robbing the orchards as they came along; and
during a halt of three days I made myself so useful
and agreeable, in prescribing for the sick and frolicking
with the well, that by the time the general and
his staff came up with the fourth regiment of infantry,
who joined us at this point, every officer had signed
a paper, which I soon set afloat, recommending me
as an army surgeon. And, in fact, soon after I
received a demi-official appointment as assistant-surgeon
of the drafted forces. I was already mounted,
and my blue coat was soon converted into a
uniform, by clapping a collar of black velvet on it,
and sticking a button on either side. I appropriated
the sword of a dead drummer as my fee for easing
him off handsomely during an attack of cholera
morbus, which compelled him to beat his last tattoo:
and now Surgeon Peabody, who was already a

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

favourite with the officers, could ruffle it with the
best of them. My tavern experience had given me
a knowledge of the kitchen, which made my services
highly valued by some of the old cocks in catering
for the mess; and I had a sort of knowledge of life,
which took mightily with the younkers.

“The presence of so large a body of regulars
infused something like discipline into our ranks, and
our men reached the Miami of the lakes in such
good condition, that I began to have quite an opinion
of my medical skill; when my talents as a surgeon
were put to their first proof in a way that took the
conceit out of me a little.

“I was one day holding a pleasant talk with a
militia colonel, who rode at the head of his division,
when I was suddenly called to the rear, to look after
a man that had been accidentally shot through the
arm by a fellow-volunteer, who, to exhibit at once
his soldiery discipline and skill as a marksman, had
discharged his rifle across the face of the platoon in
which he was marching, at a squirrel that was skipping
along a log by the road-side. The wounded
man was sitting upon the log when I reached the
spot, and all so covered with blood, that I could
hardly find the place of his hurt. Not knowing
exactly how to treat a gunshot wound, I still thought
common sense dictated that the first thing to be done
was to plug up the hole which the bullet had made,
and I therefore tried very hard to fill it with a
pledget of tow; but all my squeezing and pushing
only made the blood flow the faster; the tow was
forced out as fast as I stuck it in, and at last I saw

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

that nothing could be done until I had got this effusion
of blood under. I had more than once assisted
my old masters at ordinary bleedings, and had sometimes
helped to tie the bandages afterward: and
these, I remembered, always stopped the flow of
blood from the veins, by being tied below the venesection;
and God forgive me! but I never dreamed
of there being such a thing as an artery, much less
did I know anything of the circulation of the blood
when I clapped a tourniquet below the wound, upon
that poor fellow's arm. He bled like an ox; and,
seeing that I could do nothing to stop it, I told his
friends, who had left the ranks to gather round him,
that he was mortally wounded, and beyond the reach
of surgery. I helped to place him upon a smooth
stump, that he might go off with some comfort, and
felt mightily relieved at the kind manner in which
he welcomed his fate; especially when I used to
think afterward of the tomahawking upon the River
Raisin, which he thus escaped. The last thing I
heard him say, before I left him to his friends, and
resumed my place in the line, was addressed to the
man that shot him, in these terms: `Well, Evert,
don't be cast down now, because you've done for
me; I'll allow it was a nation bad shot at the squirrel,
and that's enough to make you feel ugly; but
as for your hitting me, why, that was all along of my
bad luck; only tell the old man that I died game.
Kiss Nan for me, and take good care of my mare;
poor creetur, she'll break her legs between some of
these cursed logs, afore the campaign's ove—r.'
The last word was uttered with a sort of hiccough,

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

and the backwoodsman fainted, never to revive again,
as they told me afterward.

“My next case was rather more fortunate, being
taken off my hands before I could enter fairly upon
its treatment. I had been left in the rear with some
sick men, who, as soon as convalescent, joined a
company of Ohio volunteers, who, under the command
of Captain Brush, had arrived at the River
Raisin with- supplies for the army. Major Van
Horn, you may remember, was sent with a detachment
from Detroit to escort Brush's company to
head-quarters, but was used up by Tecumseh, near
Brownstown, before he could join us. A larger force
was, therefore, sent to perform this duty; and when
I learned from a scout that Colonel Miller, with three
hundred regulars of the gallant 4th, the old Tippecanoe
regiment, was marching toward us, I volunteered
to push through the woods and warn him that
Major Muir of the Britishers was waiting for him
at Magagua, with a large force of Indians and regulars.
Making a circuit through the woods, I reached
Muir's position just as Captain Snelling, who commanded
the American advance, had entered the
ambuscade, and the Indians broke their cover. The
red-skins had a cool chap to deal with in Snelling.
The painted devils came yelling upon him as if they
had their fingers already twisted in the scalps of his
men. But—Lord, it's pleasant to see regulars fight—
why, Snelling did not even think it worth while
to fall back on the main body. His little corps there
kept its ground until Miller came up, and made the
British regulars, who had moved to the support of

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

the Indians, give way before his solid charge; i'faith,
it was Greek meeting Greek. There are no troops
better with the bayonet than the British, but Miller
is just the fellow to lead men of blood as good as
theirs. The battle, though, was not yet over. Tecumseh
drew off his Indians to the woods on each
side of our people, and fought from tree to tree, and
bush to bush, as if he meant to make each inch of
ground his last halting-place. The British regulars
rallied with desperate rivalry of their Indian allies;
and then came a sight I have never seen but that
once, though they tell me the same thing happened
at Bridgewater—bayonet crossed bayonet, and the
opposing columns met and waved to and fro for a
moment in one reeling line of bristling steel; while
near them the painted Indians, who yelled like demons
as they rushed from the forest to aid in turning
the fortunes of the day, were fighting hand to hand
with the grim backwoodsmen. It was strange, when
the crisis of the instant was over, to see the order
that came out of such confusion, when the British,
though borne down by the furious charge of Baker,
Sarabie, and Peters, kept closing up their ranks, and
retreated to their boats as coolly as if upon field-parade.
The stars and stripes never had a braver
sword to guard them than that wielded by Ensign
Whistler on that day; but old England's banner
waved hardly less proudly even in defeat.

“Ah! it's a pretty sight to see real soldiers cut
each other's throats in a business-like way; and I
was peskily worried when they called me off as I
sat upon the breastwork from which the reserve of

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

the enemy had been driven, to look after the poor
devils whose business had been only half done for
them. The first wounded man they brought me
had been bored through the thigh by a British bayonet.
It was but a boy, and I did not wonder that
he howled like a wild Indian when I applied the
probe to his hurt as he lay upon the rampart. Not
knowing what next to do, I told a couple of fellows
to move him, when, just as one had raised his head,
a ball took him right through the throat, and freed
me at the same time from patient and assistant.
The man that was helping him threw a kind o'
back somerset from the breastwork. He seemed to
think at first that nothing but the shock of the fall
disabled him so suddenly. He floundered about
so curiously in trying to regain his feet, striking out
the while for all the world like an awkward swimmer,
or a chicken that beats his wings when the cook
wrings his head off, that I could not forbear from
laughing; though I tell you it made me feel all over
when, with a wriggle of his neck, he suddenly came
to a stand-still, with eyes broad open, and so sot in
death upon my own face, that they appeared to look
me through and through. I have often heard soldiers
laugh in battle when a gunshot wound makes
a comrade cut these antics in dying; and you know
we do become kind o' heathens about such matters;
but, seeing that I was not then a soldier, I never
could forgive myself for laughing at that poor fellow's
expiring agonies.

“The regular surgeon, who accompanied Miller's
detachment, took the worst cases off my hands

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

that day, and my next opportunities of practice were
in the fever-hospital of Detroit, where I had not
been many days before the vacillating movements
of Hull upon the opposite side of the river began
to dispirit the whole army, which, as is always the
case, soon swelled the sick list, and I was superseded
in my duty by an older and more capable
surgeon. My patients were spread out upon the
floor in their blankets when this officer came to relieve
me of their charge, and examine me as to the
course of treatment I had pursued. `Well, to business,
to business, Doctor,' said he, turning up his
nose and filling it with a huge pinch of snuff, as he
first scented the apartment upon entering it; `you
get along with these poor fellows, eh—eh? Not
lose many of them I hope, eh, Doctor, eh?'

“`Why, sir, when the river is at as low a stage
as it is now, with no wind from the lower lakes to
prevent the water from running out and exposing the
decomposing matter upon the banks, they tell me
that this country-fever is incurable. My Creole assistant
the other day told me that a man who had
just died, introduced him to a New Orleans acquaintance
in going off; and since then we have
had ten other cases of black vomit.'

“`Eh—indeed—hum—hah—we—eh—we must
be mum about all that sort o' thing—bad, very bad—
plenty of calomel in the medicine chest though, I
suppose?'

“`Yes, sir, some; also some salts. In exhibiting
my remedies, I administer both medicines in
equal quantities, in order that one shall not become

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

exhausted before the other. This I call the saline
side of the room, and the row of patients opposite
are all under the influence of calomel.'

“`Ah—eh—indeed—strange mode of treatment,
but military, eh? Doctor, you draw your men up
in regular lines for their last march. Good! ha!
ha! ha! hum! But from which platoon do you
count off the most convalescent?'

“`The average of cures is about the same, sir,
upon either side; is it not, Alphonse?' said I, turning
to my Creole assistant, who at that moment approached
us.

“`Oui, Monsieur—certainement—we buries
about de same from both rows every day.'

“But confound those hospital days; it always
makes me gloomy to talk them over. I had been
making interest for a commission long before I was
relieved from my disagreeable duty in this place;
a friendly representation of one or two little things
which I had done in the way of knocking down an
Indian or so while mingling as an amateur in the
affair of Magagua, procured me an ensign's commission,
which I received just in time to include me
among the regulars as a prisoner of war in Hull's
capitulation; but, as the militia were allowed to return
to their homes after the fall of Detroit, I thought
it better to pocket my unseasonable honours, and
march off as plain Dr. Peabody. The circumstance
afterward gave rise to a dispute as to the actual date
of commission, and my consequent place in the line
of my promotion; but the only officer whose rank
thus jostled with mine was fool enough to force a

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

hostile meeting upon me two years afterward, when,
you know, a proper regard to the situation of my
name upon the army list compelled me to shoot
him.

“Poor Raffles, we were at one time more intimate
than any two men in the mess. We both of
us played the flute, and were in the habit of practising
duets together; and, though our fight was all
arranged six weeks before it took place, yet we kept
up our music as usual till the last. The thing happened
pretty much in this way: You see, one night,
out of sheer kindness, I had volunteered to carry a
challenge for a poor devil, whom his brother officers
had put in Coventry because he was seen taking a
scalp, like a wild Indian, upon the field of battle.
He came and told me of having been grievously insulted,
without ever letting on that my friend Raffles
was the man who had put upon him; and, knowing
that no officer in the regiment would stand by the
forlorn creetur, I, out of sheer kindness, offered to
carry his message. The paper was written right
off hand; several other officers were standing by at
the time, and, though it made me feel a little ridiculous
when I saw my principal coolly put the name
of my most intimate friend upon the back of the
note, you know it was too late to withdraw from my
pledge.

“Poor Harry, how he stared when I gave him the
note.

“`Why, Jake,' he cried, `d—mn it, what's the
meaning of this? you don't mean to stand in that
fellow's shoes, do you?'

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

“`In his shoes? why, God's weather! Harry,
you will meet the man, won't you?'

“`My dear Jake, can you expect me to put myself
upon a level with a scoundrel who has actually
scalped a British officer? What the devil possessed
you to thrust yourself into such a business as
this?'

“`That is neither here nor there, Mr. Raffles;
the person of whom you speak stands in the relation
of my friend at present, and I cannot hear you talk
in that style about him.'

“`Mr. Raffles! your friend? Well, sir, you
know best how to play your own game, and for my
part I shall use the privilege which the laws of honour
allow in these matters. I will meet the representative
of your friend, sir. I will—but stay—
d—mn it, Jake, let the thing lie over till to-morrow
morning, and I'll try and make up my mind to meet
your principal.'

“It is for your pleasure to determine that matter,
Raffles. My friend, you know, is no shot, and I—'

“`And you are the best in the regiment. I see
the inference that may be drawn. I thank you for
the hint. Mr. Peabody, I will send a friend to you
in the morning. I wish you a good-night, sir.'

“Now blister my blundering tongue, I never
meant my friend to give such a turn to this last suggestion;
I merely intended to hint that he might
meet my scalping friend, and tap him gently in the
shoulder without exposing himself to any inconvenience,
and so the affair might pass up to the satisfaction
of all parties; but Raffles, when his honour

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

was concerned, was just one of those fiery fellows
that will go off upon a half-cock in the hands of the
friends who try to guide him.

“Well, the morning came, but the affair was still
in abeyance. My principal had been ordered off,
with a detachment for supplies, in the course of the
night. He was not expected to return for a month,
and all the officers agreed that Raffles ought not
to make public any decision in regard to his choice
of an antagonist until Scalpy, as he was generally
called, should return among us. In the meantime,
when the first sensation of this affair had blown over,
our winter quarters were as dull as ever, and, for
want of something else to amuse us, Raffles and I
resumed our flute practising. Occasionally, too,
when the weather would permit, we took our fowling-pieces
and went out together after wild ducks.
I don't think, however, that we were exactly the
same to each other as formerly; neither of us would,
of course, show any concern as to what might happen,
before the other officers; but we had mighty
little to say to each other when alone. We became,
somehow, cooler and cooler, until it was no longer
`Jake' and `Harry,' but `Mr. Raffles' and `Mr.
Peabody.' Still, however, we kept up our fluting
until the source of all this mischief came back to
camp. And sorry enough were both of us, I guess,
to see him. He had been on a long tramp, through
woods alive with out-lying Indians, and the chances
were ten to one that some of Tecumseh's people
would have made dogs' meat of him. But your bad
penny, somehow, always comes back to hand. The

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

fellow did return safe and sound, and we had to
make the best of it. He had been living all the
while hand and glove with the vilest of his rangers,
and returned more coarse and vulgar than ever.
Raffles could not bring himself to acknowledge
such a chap as his equal; and I, though I wished
the varmint to the devil, was obliged to fight his
battles for him. We met—poor Harry and I. His
pistol snapped, and I threw away my first fire; but
I did it so unskilfully, that he saw I meant to let
him off, and became furious for another exchange
of shots. The truth is, the man was mad. The
doom of bad luck had gone out against him, and his
eyes were sot upon hurrying to his fate. I shot my
friend through the heart, sir, and rose one on the
army list.”

The major here gave a dry cough, while a slight
trembling of his eyelids betrayed that he was not
the wholly emotionless being that he would paint
himself.

“It was soon after this that General Winchester
had orders to break up his cantonment near the
mouth of the Au Glaize, and push forward to the
Rapids, which we reached through the deep snows
of mid-winter, with about one thousand effective men.
Here we received those expresses from the inhabitants
of Frenchtown urging us to march upon the
enemy near that point. The appeal fired the souls
of our officers, who burned for action. The gallant
Colonel Allen, who took a conspicuous part in Winchester's
military council, advocated an immediate
movement. A corps, composed of regulars and

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

Kentucky volunteers, was organized, and the command
given to Colonel Lewis. We reached the River
Raisin, which was covered by thick and strong ice.
The British and Indians were posted among the
straggling houses along the banks. They were
apprized of our approach, and we displayed and
marched forward under the fire of musketry and
howitzers. The battalions of Graves and Maddison,
preceded by Ballard's light infantry, charged across
the river, and dislodged the enemy from the houses
and pickets. The Indians fought like fiends incarnate,
and Reynolds twice rallied his Englishmen to
the charge; but Allen, with the Kentucky brigade,
dashed amid a shower of bullets upon his left, and
the fortune of the day was soon ours.

“But never was a victory attended with such disastrous
consequences. Infatuated with our success,
we determined to maintain our position, though no
provision had been made by our commander-in-chief
to strengthen us in a proper manner. We had not
a single piece of artillery; and, though General Winchester
himself joined us with two hundred and fifty
men, yet the most ordinary precautions to keep our
troops together were neglected; nor did he even
place a picket guard upon the only road by which
our position could be conveniently approached. Our
force consisted altogether of only seven hundred and
fifty men, and many of those lay encamped in open
field, when, on the morning of the fatal twenty-second,
Proctor came down upon us with a combined force
of fifteen hundred British and Indians, and six pieces
of artillery. The body of men belonging to the

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

encampment were instantly overpowered, and my
company and another, which sallied out to their
rescue, were at once cut off; I only, with a couple
of privates, making good my retreat within the line
of our picketing defences. The artillery in the
meantime opened upon this slight breastwork of
pickets, while the British forty-first charged under
cover of the fire; no soldiers could come on more
coolly and steadily, but the British bayonet was no
match then for the Kentucky rifle. They made
three successive assaults, but at each time were
driven back with heavy loss. The terrible slaughter
in his ranks now made Proctor pause. The
general, and half of our little force, were already in
his hands; and, though he had the means of crushing
the rest of us, it could only be done with immense
loss to himself. He sent a flag proposing a surrender,
but we rejected his terms.

“Our volunteers consisted chiefly of gentlemen—
young lawyers, physicians, Kentucky planters, and
other people of condition, each of whom, though
serving as a private, had an individual character, as
well as his country's honour, to sustain; and all of
us were well armed, and elated with the repulse we
had already given the enemy. We had yet thirty-five
officers and four hundred and fifty men, after
fighting six hours against artillery and five hundred
British troops, backed by a thousand savages.

“Proctor sent another flag, with better terms; but
his message hinted something about the fate we were
likely to meet at the hands of his red allies in case
he was compelled to carry the place by assault;

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

while the Indians yelled, during the brief conference,
like wolves ravening for their prey. This, however,
instead of scaring us into compliance, only served to
riley our men. It was, in fact, only a roundabout
way of bullying, to say the best of it. We again
rejected his terms, and resolved to make a die of it.

“But Proctor was too many for us; it was in his
power to use us up, and he was determined to do it,
only after his own fashion. He now sent a third
flag, with a communication from our general, that he,
General Winchester, had surrendered us as prisoners
of war, under an explicit engagement that we were
to be protected in our persons and private property,
and have our side-arms returned to us. And now
came the first dissensions among our little force.
Some were wearied out with the toil of the day, and
ready at once to adopt the terms of capitulation;
others were more full of fight than ever, and eager
to go ahead; some argued that it was mutinous not
to come into the terms which our commanding officer
had made for us; and others, again, insisted that,
being a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, he had
no right to make terms for us. But Winchester,
though wanting in conduct as a general, was as benevolent
as he was brave, and had still the love and
confidence of most of us: his advice, rather than his
order, prevailed, and we surrendered. Never did
men do a weaker thing than surrender themselves,
with arms in their hands, to such an enemy as Proctor,
with the hope that a fellow whom Tecumseh
afterward rowed up Salt River, as well as for his want
of faith as his inefficiency in using injuns, could pro

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

tect them against a horde of infuriated savages.[9] I
don't know whether or not the man quailed before the
ferocious demands of his allies; but, notwithstanding
the humane remonstrance of his own officers,
he did not leave a guard of British soldiers for his
prisoners, as he had pledged himself. The Indians

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

were set on drinking blood, and he marched off with
his regulars, leaving them to revel in it. Contrary
to express stipulations, the swords were taken from
the sides of our officers, and then, unarmed, and
stripped almost naked, our prisoners were left to be
driven by the Indians in the rear of the English
forces upon their retrograde march to Malden. Few,
however, ever reached that British garrison. Many
were slaughtered upon the spot. Some were carried
off to be roasted at the stake by the bands of
savages that from time to time dropped off from the
main body, and stole home to make merry with their
captives at a feast of blood. But the most gallant
and distinguished of our officers perished upon the
spot. I saw Colonel Allen, with four kinsmen of
the same name, the youngest a boy of seventeen,
butchered within a hundred yards of the Raisin.
Simpson, the member of congress, with Majors
Madison and Ballard, and Captains Bledsoe, Hickman,
Mason, Woolfolk, Kelly, M`Cracken, Williams,
and Hamilton, with many a private who had the best
blood of Kentucky in his veins, all perished in that
field of slaughter. Young Hart, the kinsman of
Harry Clay, who claimed the protection of an old
college chum that he met in the British ranks, was
dragged, wounded, from his horse, and tomahawked
and scalped like the rest. It made my flesh crawl
to hear the shrieks of those dying men as they howled
curses upon the unheeding Proctor, mingled with
bitter imprecations upon their own folly in trusting
to the mercy of such a foe. But this was not the
worst scene which that day presented.

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

“There were about sixty of our people who, being
wounded or ill, had sought shelter from the cold
in the house of a Canadian on the banks of the
Raisin. Some had crawled thither amid the confusion
of the fight; others had been conveyed there by
friends immediately after the surrender; and a few,
like myself, had sought the place to look after a
wounded comrade. The rear guard of the British
regulars had scarce taken up their line of march
before this house was beset by the savages, and fired
in a dozen places. I was kneeling on the floor in
an upper story beside a poor fellow, who, fevered
with his wounds, was swallowing eagerly a handful
of snow which I had just reached to him from the
window-sill, when I heard the Indians whooping
beneath the window, and smelt the smoke coming
up the passage-way. Almost at the same moment
there was a simultaneous cry among the wounded in
the room below us, followed by a rush toward the
door, and yells and groans of agony, as the savages,
rushing into the entry, brained those who attempted
to escape, with their tomahawks. A heavy burst of
smoke, which seemed to come up from the cellar,
succeeded; and, looking out, I saw the Indians
springing by dozens from the window below me.
But while these thus hastened to escape from being
stifled, as many more were pouring into the house
to snatch their scalps from the inmates before the
fire could consume them. The fire had as yet only
burst into flame in the cellar, and the wet clap-boards
on the outside of the house smoked like a pile of
green timber with live coals beneath it. The

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

Indians as yet had not come up to where we were; and
when we heard the live flames roaring below, some
prayed for the fate of their friends who had but now
perished with the tomahawk; others, though half
stifled with smoke, seemed only to dread the Indians,
who yelled like wild devils as they glanced in and
out from the building. But now came a grand crash,
which seemed to tell that their fate, whatever it
might be, was at hand. The floor in the room below
gave way, and the sharp yells of sudden agony
which mingled with the moans of the dying prisoners,
told that some of the savages must have gone
down with it. I could hear some of them, too, exhorting
each other as they clung to the steep stair-case
above them, and tried to mount to the place of
momentary safety where we were. But two succeeded;
and the shaven crowns and begrimed faces
of these emerged through the well of the stair-case
along with a burst of flame, which seemed, as it were,
to hoist them into our room like demons lifted upon
their native element. God's weather! had you seen
those horrible faces glowering upon you from out
the fire, you would have cowered in a corner as I
did.

“The devils! instead of making at once for the
window, and escaping from the house, as I thought
they would, they began at once to pay about them
with their scalping-knives. They never stopped to
tomahawk men who were too feeble to resist, but
peeled their heads as readily as you would strip the
skin from a ripe peach. Accident, or the eddying
smoke-wreaths, which came thicker and thicker into

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

the apartment, prevented their seeing me until one
of them had engaged in a death-grapple with a stout
sergeant, who, being only wounded in his knee-pan,
could make good fight with the fellow who threw
himself upon his body to take his scalp.

“The first sound of resistance put new life into
my limbs, and I braced myself for a tussle with the
other savage in the same moment that a puff of
wind, wrapping the combatants from view, revealed
me to the Indian who was springing to the assistance
of his comrade. He turned upon me so abruptly
that he stumbled over a dead body by my
side, and I flung myself upon him, and plucked his
scalping-knife from the floor, as it stood quivering
where his hand had drove it in falling. He was a
stout and heavy savage; and, though not slow myself
at wrestling, he turned me under him at the first
grapple, and planted his fingers at my throat with a
grip like an armorer's vice. The knife was still in
my hand, but it was bent nearly double; and if I
had lifted my arm, he would have wrenched it from
me to a certainty. I pretended, therefore, to be
quite spent, while straightening the knife by pressing
the blade beneath my wrist against the floor.
The next moment I made another struggle—the
Indian raised himself a little to get a better hold,
and then, as he came down with his full weight upon
my body, I slipped aside so adroitly that the knife,
which I had raised on the butt-end, entered his bosom
clean up to the haft, and the warm blood, spouting
over my face, made it as red as his own.

“All this, as you may conceive, passed in less

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

time than I take in telling it. Yet even in that space
of time the fire had gained upon us fearfully, and
put an end to the fight of the sergeant and his Indian
in the same moment that I despatched mine.
The rafters on the opposite side of the room gave
way; and the white and red man, with hands
clutched in each other's hair, were plunged amid
the roaring flames below.

“Now, the sight of those flames was just what
saved my life after all. I seized my Indian's blanket,
to shield me from the fire until I could reach
the window, and sprang, with it wrapped around me,
among the crowd of devils who were howling for
blood below. I fell into a deep snow-bank, which
covered my boots and trousers, as did the blanket
my body. My hair was burnt off, and my face, red
with blood and begrimmed with smoke, made me
look so much like a real Indian, that, having plenty
to do on their own account, the others let one of
their comrades, as they thought me, lie there like an
old log. The roof fell in soon afterward; the flames
shot high into the air, and the smoke and embers
rolled far and wide, as the sides of the house came
crashing down in the midst of the flames. The
savages gave an exulting yell, as if contented that
they had done their worst, and then trooped, like a
pack of ravening wolves, after the detachment of
prisoners which followed in Proctor's rear. Few of
them, as we know, ever reached Malden; and for
a fact, I thought at the time, when I crawled half-frozen
from that snow-bank, that my chance was
probably the luckiest in all the army that was captivated
on the River Raisin.

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

“The wolves had succeeded their Indian brothers,
and were already busy upon the dead when I crept
from my hiding-place. The night was raw and
gusty, and the snappish growl of the creeturs, as they
quarrelled over the food, when there was enough
for all of them, the varmints! sounded on the fitful
blast like the wrangling of Christian men. There
was no need of making a circuit to avoid them; for,
though by the light of the snow we could see each
other as plain as day, they did not even stop to look
at me as I crossed the clearings to get to the woods
in the rear of Frenchtown. This I didn't do though,
without meeting with a sort o' interruption which
was queer, to say the least of it. There was a little
knoll near the banks of the Raisin, which I rather
chose to go round than to cross over the top, thinking
that it was not best to bring my body clean
against the sky as a mark for any loitering drunken
Indian that might still by possibility be out-lying near
the scene of his hellish orgies. Well, as I wound
round the hillock and got within a hundred yards of
the forest, which was close upon it, what should I
meet upon the other side but a great buck bear, who
had just dragged a body around the opposite side of
the knoll, and was under full sail for the woods in
the very direction that I was steering for them.
The brute might have been a few paces in advance
of me when I stumbled upon him, and he seemed
considerably taken aback, though he had no idea of
dropping his prize. A half-starved, half-frozen man
has not much active courage to spare; but if he has
gone through scenes such as I witnessed that day,

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

he feels pretty indifferent as to what next may turn
up on his hands. It seemed to warm my natur, too,
within me, to have something upon which I could
pour the vengeful feelings that I felt just then ag'inst
all creation; and, though armed with nothing but my
dead Indian's scalping-knife, I made a spring toward
the bear and planted my foot upon the body he was
dragging. The creetur let go the other end, and sat
right up on his hinderparts, looking first at me and
then at the dead body, but never offering to harm
me. The moon at that moment broke through a
cloud, and, for the first time, I saw that it was only
an Indian that my opposite neighbour was carrying
off for his supper; and I thought there was such a
sort of gravity about his appeal in looking from me
to the Indian, and from the Indian to me, as if the
dumb brute know'd that I had only made a mistake,
and didn't mean to molest him wantonly, that I took
off my foot, stepped backward a pace or two, and let
him pass on. But bears have their hour of fate as
well as men; for this one had not gone twenty steps
farther when I heard the crack of a rifle, and he
tumbled over in the snow, scratching his head with
his fore-paws in a way that showed a bullet must
have gone through it. In a moment afterward,
leaving time only to reload, a white hunter stepped
from the edge of the forest, and, levelling his rifle
upon me, beckoned with his forefinger for me to
come into him, addressing me at the same time in
the half French, half Indian lingo at that time prevailing
in this district—`Venez ici needji.'

“`Throw up your shooting-iron, and don't call me

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

needji, old gumbo, unless you mean friend, and not
Indian, by it. I'm a half-starved white man, and
should like a bit of your bear that you knocked
over so handsomely.'

“`Nesheshin—chemocomon! ah! c'est bon,
Monsieur, c'est un Americain,' he rejoined, advancing
from the edge of the wood and giving me his
hand. I saw at once that it was an old gumbo
hunter, and, knowing what a guileless set they are,
I felt instantly at ease, for one of his class was the
only man who could now help me out of those infernal
woods, and guide me to the nearest United States
post.

“I helped him to drag the wounded bear within
the forest so soon as he had despatched him with his
tomahawk. A few moments sufficed to flay him,
and then, after cutting some tender bits from the
carcass, we retired deeper into the woods to sup
upon bruin, who, half an hour before, might have
made a supper of me. The wood we were in was
only a narrow belt dividing the Frenchtown settlement
from a large wet prairie, which we were
obliged to circuit for some miles before taking up a
direct route for the Rapids, whither I prevailed upon
the Frenchman to guide me. In summer-time the
tall reeds of this prairie would have afforded ample
shelter in traversing it, if, indeed, it be possible; but
it was now only a frozen, snowy waste, where the
figure of a man might have been descried for miles;
and I felt considerably relieved when we had safely
navigated along the borders, and got in the deep forest
to the south. I needn't tell of all I suffered in

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

struggling through the heavy snows until I reached
Carrying River, to which Harrison, after hearing of
the disaster of Frenchtown, had retreated, for the
purpose of forming a junction with the troops in the
rear. I arrived here in such a condition that I was
placed at once upon the sick list.

“After that I was pretty much useless to myself
and to all others till after the war; when, at the
reduction of the army, I was dropped like many a
more deserving fellow, who, like myself, lacked the
education to do his country credit upon her peace
establishment. Uncle Sam gave me some broad
lands in the far-west, however; but, though one of his
territorial governors promised to commission me in
a corps of rangers in case I settled upon them, I
somehow could never go them flat western prairies.
I longed for the woods and mountains of Old York
State. I swapped my bounty lands for one thing
and another that I could turn into ready money, until
I was able to buy me a farm down among the
hills of Montgomery County, from which I can
easily take a run up among these mountains whenever
it jumps with my humour; and that's all I've
got to tell you about Old Major Jake Peabody.
He's not so old though neither, except from his experience
in studying human natur.”

Though sometimes losing the phraseology of the
worthy major in repeating the history he gave of his
adventures, the conclusion, being precisely in his
own words, will give the reader some idea of the

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

conceit that was blended with a character at once
shrewd and simple, and often recklessly, if not gamesomely,
bold amid much habitual and inborn selfishness.
There were many such men who raised
themselves from the ranks in our quickly-created
army of 1812-13; and being, like the major, suddenly
dropped from the list on its reduction, or gradually
weeded out from the service by a more accomplished
and high-minded race of officers, fell into penury
and intemperance, and finished their lives so deplorably
that the gallantry of their early career has been
too often forgotten in the debasement that sullied
its close.

The broils and battles which enhanced the major's
narrative, led naturally to the relation of many an
anecdote illustrative of our fierce border warfare,
which I now think would be invaluable to a professional
story-teller; though at that time I would
have shuddered at any mercenary use of the wild
themes which seeming to me so rich in poetry, and
wearing a sort of virgin grace about them, from the
very fact that they had never been sung; a grace I
was then willing to believe far more winning to me
than the prodigal associations which cluster around
the classic scenes and time-honoured traditions of
the old world. There was one incident particularly
reminding me so strongly of some passages in the
Lady of the Lake, that I used to think, with a kind
of fevered impatience, that the vigorous pen of Scott
should be for ever wanting to do it justice. And
albeit but a college rhymer myself, I ventured
at last to attempt picturing it in a boyish imitation

p154-148 [figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

of his glorious verse, which subsequently found its
way into print many years since, in the form in which
it is copied here from a daily newspaper.[10]

eaf154v1.n9

[9] When General Proctor began to prepare for retreating from
Malden, Tecumseh, having learned his intention, demanded an interview,
and, in the name of all the Indians, remonstrated in these
terms:

“Summer before last, when I came forward with my red brethren,
and took up the hatchet for my British father, you told us to bring
our women and children to this place, and we did so; you also
promised to take care of them—they should want for nothing, while
the men would go and fight the Americans. You also told your red
children that you would take good care of your own garrison here,
which made our hearts glad.

“Father, listen! Our fleet has gone out—we know they have
fought—we have heard the great guns—but we know nothing of
what has happened to our father with one arm.**Our ships have
gone one way, and we are much astonished to see our father tying
up everything and preparing to run away the other, without letting
his red children know what his intentions are. You always told us
to remain here, and take care of our lands; it made our hearts glad
to hear that was your wish. Our great father, the king, is the head,
and you represent him. You always told us you would never draw
your foot off British ground. But now, father, we see you are
drawing back, and we are sorry to see our father doing so without
seeing the enemy. We must compare our father's conduct to a fat
dog, that carries its tail upon its back, but, when affrighted, it drops
it between his legs and runs off.

“Father! You have got the arms and ammunition which our
great father sent for his red children. If you have an idea of going
away, give them to us, and you may go and welcome for us. Our
lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to
defend our lands; and, if it be his will, we wish to leave our bones
upon them.”—Thatcher's Indian Biography.

The mountain-tops are bright above,
The lake is bright beneath—
And the mist is seen, the rocks between,
In a silver shroud to wreathe.
Merrily on the maple spray
The red-breast trills his roundelay,
And the oriole blithely flits among
The boughs where her pendent nest is hung;
The squirrel his morning revel keeps
In the chestnut's leafy screen,
And the fawn from the thicket gayly leaps
To gambol upon the green.
Now on the broad lake's waters blue
Dances many a light canoe;
And banded there, in wampum sheen,
Many a crested chief is seen:
Now as the foamy fringe they break,
Which the waves, where they kiss the margin, make,
The shallops shoot on the snowy strand,
And the plumèd warriors leap to land.
They bear their pirogues of birchen bark
Far in the shadowy forest glade,
And plunge them deep in covert dark
Of the closely woven hazle shade;

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