[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

Harold Habingdon was now busily employed in erecting
a temporary wooden building for the occupation
of his family, and had frequent occasion to visit the
capital to obtain supplies of materials. It was during
one of these journeys there that the accidental meeting
recorded in the preceding chapter occurred, and consequently,
Miriam, for the present, escaped a lecture for
her involuntary transgression. Like a dutiful daughter,
she, however, immediately disclosed it to Susan;
for her pure and innocent soul never once harbored
the idea of concealing any act or thought from her
mother. She, therefore, frankly told the whole story,
or at least intended to do so. But, somehow or other,
it was no more like what actually occurred, than the
practice of certain very moral and religious people is
to their professions. She said not a word about looks,
tones, and other accompaniments, which are as essential
to the proper understanding of a subject as the

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

expression of the face is to a likeness in a picture.
Susan was a kind, rather than an indulgent mother;
and though she seldom commanded her daughter,
expected obedience to her wishes. She gently chid
Miriam for not returning home immediately.

“Would you have done so, mother, if you had been
me?” said Miriam, with perfect simplicity.

“Why, I don't know whether I would, child. Come,
let us go spin.”

The period of departure for the capital to join the
garrison and the few planters that survived the massacre
in the expedition projected by the governor against
the hostile savages, had now arrived. Harold had
returned, and having been cured of his scruples by the
scene he had just witnessed, voluntarily consented to
be one of the party; and the old Cavalier and his son
panted for an opportunity of retaliating on the Indians
the murder of their friends and neighbors. It was felt
by all that a decisive struggle was at hand, which
might decide for ages, perhaps for ever, whether this
portion of the earth was to remain a wild, unfruitful
heritage of savage man, or the wilderness come in
time to blossom as the rose, by the magic of labor.

The evening preceding the morning of the departure
of these adventurous spirits on this fatiguing and dangerous
service was passed in grave and solemn converse,
interrupted by long pauses of painful thought
and gloomy anticipation. Many were the cautions of
the good dames to their helpmates to be careful of the
nightly dews, and morning fogs; and most especially

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

were they adjured to keep clear of all trees behind
which the prowling savage might lurk, and launch
his feathery arrows. Good Mistress Tyringham especially
reminded her husband that she had packed up
his nightcap and slippers; whereupon the old Cavalier
kissed her and, though not in merry mood, laughed in
his sleeve while telling her he did not think he should
have much occasion for such rarities.

The hour of parting came, for they were to start
bright and early next morning. It was brief, solemn,
and sad. At the last moment Miriam gave her hand
to Langley; he felt a warm tear fall on his, and heard
a soft tremulous whisper—“Take care of yourself for
all our sakes.” “The tear, thought he, may have been
for her father, but the words were for me;” and he
often dwelt on them as he lay awake in the deep forest
at night, listening to the wolf's long howl, or the shrill
hootings of the solitary owl. The Indian warfare is
no child's play. The American savage is equally crafty
and daring; he moves like a shadow, leaving no track
behind him; instinct and experience have endued him
with a sagacity which often puts to shame the boasted
reason of civilized man, and forces from him an
acknowledgment of his inferiority. In courage he is
a hero, in fortitude a martyr. A union of the virtues
of a North American Indian with those of a civilized
Christian white man would be a great improvement
in the human species. But experience has shown that
the mingling of the blood of the two races rather combines
their vices than their virtues, and produces a

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

being inferior to both. The white man is the great
aristocrat of the creation, and cannot amalgamate with
any other color without being soiled by the contact.

The march of our wayfarers was through a long
unbroken succession of woods and wilds, where no milestone
marked the distance, or fingerpost pointed out
the way. By the aid of Indian guides they were enabled
to follow the trail of the Indian party that had desolated
the colony, until, on the thirteenth day, they tracked
them to the village of the great chief who had led the
massacre. Crouching low in the thick forest that
approached to within a few hundred yards of the village,
they waited in breathless silence till the sun
went down, and the shadows of evening gathered
around. They could see that preparations had been
made for a grand feast in celebration of their victory
over the white man, and as soon as it was dark, hundreds
of wild savages, men, women, and children,
issued forth from their cabins carrying lighted torches,
with which they set fire to a vast pile of pine knots,
which anon lighted into a blaze that shed a red and
angry lustre on the scene. Painted like fiends, and
decorated with fantastic yet picturesque grace, the
warriors danced around the fire, to the music of triumphant
yells, brandishing the tomahawk, and howling
forth their exploits in the victory they were now
celebrating. One warrior sung in a sort of recitative
how he had slaughtered the long-knives, and cast them
still quivering with life into the burning flames; another
boasted of the women he had cut down and

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

scalped, as they shrieked with agony; and a third
acted over again the massacre of innocent babes, their
brains dashed out, and their bodies trampled in the
dust, or cast among the smoking ruins of the home
where they were born. The blood of the white man
boiled in his veins at hearing these bloody stories.
Some of the victims, whose fate was now rehearsed
with such triumphant exultation, had been their
friends; some their near relations; and among the
lookers on were those who mourned the loss of wives
and children. But for the near prospect of a surer
vengeance, it would have been impossible to restrain
them from instant action; for the scene and the recollections
it brought to mind almost made them mad.

The leaders urged, over and over again, that it
would be best to wait till the feast was over, and the
tired savages sleeping away their debauch; but when
at length they saw the scalps of their kindred, friends,
wives, children, brothers and fathers, brought forth,
and suspended from poles, round which the savages
danced in triumph, they could no longer be restrained.
Both Langley and Harold, in whispered tones of deep
determination, declared, that however bitter and bloody
the aggression, they could not bring themselves to
await the hour proposed, when the disarmed Indians,
become insensible from drunkenness, would be unworthy
victims, incapable of resistance or atonement. It
was true, they would at all events be taken by surprize,
but they were armed, and so far capable of
defending themselves, that it would not be rank

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

cowardice to attack them. The old Cavalier seconded
these remonstrances, and an immediate attack was
determined on. The plan of operations had been previously
settled, and the long-knives, who were not sufficiently
numerous to surround the village, emerging
from the forest with silent celerity, were upon the
savage revellers ere they were aware of their coming.

The Indians, though taken by surprise, did not fly,
with the exception of the women and children.
Elated by their late success, and by the boastings and
revellings of the night, they met their foes without
flinching. Man to man, teeth to teeth, they met, and
tugged and struggled for life. No quarter was asked
or given, for the long-knife well knew the tortures
inflicted by the savages on their prisoners, and the
savages felt that they were now about to atone for
their recent massacre. Death or victory was the only
alternative, and death or victory the only thought.
Each one fought for himself, and every man was a
unit. None heard, none heeded the word of command,
if any such was given, for now men had no ears to
hear, or eyes to see, aught but the groans of the dying,
or the bodies of their foes. The fires went out, and
still they fought by the light of the stars, that seemed
to shine brighter than ever on the bloody scene, unconscious
and uncaring. Many gallant deeds were done
that night, and many a gallant spirit, red and white,
never saw the morning. But we will not enter into
particulars. There is enough of bloodshed in the pages
of authentic history, one would think, to satiate the

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

keenest appetite, and we shall only say, that when the
sun rose that day, and smiled on the open space in
front of the village, he saw nothing but smoking ashes,
and earth smoking with blood. The women and
children had fled into the woods, at the first surprise;
but the red armed warriors, had died to a man on the
ground where they stood, and the village had been set
on fire. So ended for this time the war between the
white man and the red, a war “never ending, still
beginning, fighting still, and still destroying.” The
surprise had given the long-knives such a decided
advantage, that their loss was comparatively small.
Of the trio, in which the reader is doubtless most
interested, Langley escaped with a contusion received
by a blow from an Indian club; Harold with a few
hard knocks, and the old Cavalier came off scot free,
bringing home his night-cap and slippers in triumph.

During this brief campaign, Miriam and her mother
said their prayers and plied the needle or the spinning
wheel, while Mistress Tyringham seemed to forget her
anxieties for those abroad in kindly cares for those at
home. There were indeed hours and hours, especially
in the dead silence of night, when dismal fears would
beset them, and the whoop of the owl, or the chaunt
of the whippoorwill, came full charged with all those
omens ascribed to them by superstition, from long past
times. But the cheerful light of morning seldom failed
to assuage these gloomy forebodings, and those blessed
every day duties which must be attended to, in joy or
sorrow, sunshine or rain, forbade that constant, wilful

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

indulgence of care or sorrow, which is one among the
many penalties we pay for what is called the good fortune
of being in a situation that places us above the
necessity of exertion. Busy men, especially politicians,
and philanthropists by profession, with whom meddling
is a disease, are a mischievous race, and a great portion
of their time is spent in doing mischief. But little
busy bee, woman, is always gathering honey, when
employed within doors. Every stitch of the needle,
and every turn of the spinning wheel, administers to
the comfort of somebody; and every step she takes
is on some errand of domestic benevolence, tending
towards a happy household, provided always that she
avoids scolding, and the chimney does not smoke.

All would have gone on smoothly—for the anxious
cares and sad solicitude of the faithful wives and
pious daughters were too deep to ruffle the surface—
had it not been for Master Gregory Moth, who being a
man of notorious valor was left at home for the protection
of the ladies. There had grown up between this
worthy and dame Mildred, the faithful handmaid of
Susan, a desperate sectarian feud, arising from a
difference in politics and religion, similar to that of
their masters—and according to the old saying, “like
master like man,” they kept up a perpetual warfare.
Gregory, being an Oxford man, considered a bishop as
essential to the Protestant Church as a pope is to the
Catholic, and would as soon have turned Turk as give
up the hierarchy. Mildred, on the other hand, never
called the bishops anything but “wolves in sheep's

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

clothing,” and verily believed the mitre a device of
Satan himself. As to the principles of the two sects,
or the points of doctrine in which they differed, they
knew little or nothing and cared less.

Mildred was in the abstract an excellent woman;
practically she had some faults, and many weaknesses.
The great enemy of woman, who figured in the garden
of Eden, had persuaded her, that though not young,
she was still rather handsome, and she had lived so
long in the hope of finding a helpmate, that hope had
almost become a certainty. The vision had become
so familiar that it seemed actual reality. She was,
moreover, violently given to psalm singing, both in
season and out of season, though it must be confessed
her voice did not quite equal the music of the spheres,
as celebrated by the rascally Pagan bards. The fact
is, it was decidedly bad, inasmuch as it united the two
great requisites of shrillness and dissonance, besides
being occasionally as keen as hard cider. It was,
moreover, a most ungovernable and rebellious voice,
always out of the traces; sometimes too high, at
others too low, and continually breaking short off, from
a treble to a bass, without the slightest preliminary
gradation, like unto a desperately-ridden hack, who
suddenly varies his pace from a canter to a trot, from
a trot to a villanous wriggle, and finally ends in a
full stop. In addition to all this, poor Goody Mildred
sung through the nose, and made ugly wry faces just
like a prima donna.

Gregory Moth, who boasted of being not only an

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

Oxford scholar, but a Cavalier, had a special antipathy
to long psalms, most especially the one hundred and
nineteenth, a great favorite of Mildred. If, as the
most witty of all wits, the reverend author of Hudibras,
affirms, in the mischievous spirit of satire, the
Puritans were pious out of pure spite to the Cavaliers,
it may be affirmed with equal truth, that the Cavaliers
were licentious and profane in pure spite to the Puritans.
There was a curious contest—on one side
which should be the best, on the other which should
be the worst. However this may be, the feud which
deluged a nation with blood, and cost a monarch his
head, had somehow or other descended into Mistress
Tyringham's kitchen, and greatly disturbed its accustomed
serenity. These two bulwarks of the faith
scarcely ever met without a sparring, and, if the truth
must be told, Master Gregory often provoked a contest,
from which he always came off triumphant by preserving
his temper. His usual way of rousing the
lion was by singing a stave of some profane song, and
calling her Goody Mildred, a name she abhorred.

A day or two after the departure of the expedition
against the savages, Mildred was sitting in deep contemplation
of the enormities of the wolves in sheep's
clothing, and at the same time humming a stave,
which from long habit she could repeat without thinking.
At this moment Gregory approached her with
fell designs, singing a verse of an old song, to which
she had a special aversion, and which ran thus—

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

“Goody Mildred, I wish you would take a lesson
from me in singing, for you know I was one of the
chaunters at Saint Frydeswide's church, at Oxford. I
never heard an owl hoot with a worse grace. Listen
to me, I'll teach you the true cadenza:” and he roared
out—

“What dog is that, howling?” exclaimed Mildred.
“Get out, you cur;” and she stamped her foot significantly.

“Goody Mildred, of a truth, thou hast little taste
and no voice. Why, I have silenced a whole flock of
wolves with that very song. If you don't like it, I'll
sing you another—Fa, sol, la,—hem—my voice is a
little hoarse.”

“Hoarse!” said the other; “it's always hoarse. It
sounds for all the world like the songs they sing in
Tophet. I wish you'd go and frighten the wolves
again.”

“Well, but Goody Mildred—excellent, exemplary
Mildred—don't be so Crop-earish; and don't turn up

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

your devout, impatient nose at me, as if I was a
bishop. I've a great secret to tell you.”

“Well, what is it? do tell me.” Mildred was apt
to be a little curious.

“Why, marry, I declare I am almost afraid to tell
you, for I might as well expect a drum to keep a
secret. But, really now, as it were, peradventure, and
howbeit, if I am not greatly mistaken in the symptoms,
I am either grievously in love, or at least have
an awful presentiment that I shall soon meet with one
of those fatal accidents called matrimony, and that
without benefit of clergy.”

“Oh, Master Gregory! not without benefit of
clergy; that would be monstrous wicked. But you
are at your nonsense again. I know you are not
serious.”

“Serious and solemn as a toad sitting under his
umbrella, which is metaphorically called his stool.
Am not I a Cavalier, and you know they never tell
fibs like unto the Crop-ears.”

“I don't know any such thing, old Moth,” so she
always called him when out of humor.

“Well, don't be angry, it spoils your looks entirely,
and that is a great pity, seeing you can't well afford
it. So you won't hear my secret?”

“Well, out with it. I'm sure I don't hinder you.”

“As I was saying—no, now I recollect, I have not
yet said it—I am grievously tempted, whether in the
flesh or in the spirit, I know not—whether instigated

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

by the wicked Serpent or not, to commit the awful,
unpardonable, irrevocable sin of matrimony.”

“Now, you don't say so, Master Gregory. You
mean, then, to reform and marry.”

“No, I mean to marry and reform—that is the true
order of succession. To reform before marrying is
putting the cart before the horse; for, inasmuch as
that all men undergo a radical change after marriage,
if they were to wax good beforehand, ten to one they
would revolt afterwards and become little better than
the wicked. But, to return to my text:—I have
deeply pondered the subject for the last thirty years,
and if I could meet with a real bona-fide woman—
I mean a white woman, who has brought her pigs to
the same market,—'Slife, Mistress Mildred, I think
I would purchase one of the plantations over yonder,
that have no owners—for I have saved a little, skimmed
the cream—eh! Mistress Mildred—you understand?”
and Master Gregory slapped his pocket, where
he always carried a few pennies to make a jingling.

“Are you really serious?” asked Mildred, edging her
chair close to him.

“Quite serious, by all—but I won't swear. You
wouldn't like a swearing husband, would you?”

“Husband? Good la! Master Gregory, I never
think of such a thing. But I would exhort him at all
hours, by day and by night, sleeping or waking, eating
or drinking, to give up the practice; and if he
refused—”

“You'd convert him with a broomstick—hey?

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

Mistress Mildred. But to proceed—I have had serious,
nay, insurmountable difficulties in finding a suitable
person; for, you know, women are as scarce here as
swallows in winter. I have—forgive my presumption,
most exalted of women—I have all but determined to
cast myself and fortune at your feet,” and down he
plumped on his knees.

“La! Master Gregory, now you are making game
of me, I can see it in your eyes.”

“Distrust thy spectacles, divine spinster. Mine eyes
lie most impudently, if they convey any such diabolical
insinuations. In good faith, were it not for one
thing—”

“What is that?” cried Mildred, impatiently.

“Why, verily it is this—I will be candid with you,
for I scorn to deceive your unsuspecting innocence.
The fact is, you damsels of a certain age are too apt
to boast of your conquests; you go about like a hen,
cackling as if you had performed a great feat, and
wanted all the world to know it. Now, I am a modest
man, possessed of all the delicacy of my sex, and don't
like to be published in this manner. If it were not for
this serious objection, I do verily believe, I should be
tempted to offer Mistress Habingdon a few pounds of
tobacco, for the rich reversion of your remaining years,
seeing that in all probability you would break my
heart by dying a martyr, to prevent me from hanging
myself in despair.”

Towards the close of this aboriginal declaration,
Goody Mildred had gradually pushed her chair farther

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

and farther from Gregory, who sat with immovable
gravity waiting an answer, which came like a hailstorm.

“Marry come up!” cried she, in a rage. “You
talk of marrying—you talk of buying a plantation,
that can't muster as much as the hundredth part of a
fathom of wampum. You miserable bag of bones—
you smoked herring, that has hung up so long in the
chimney that rats won't touch it. You dried toadstool.
You—you—you—I boast of such a conquest—
I cackle like an old hen! You an Oxford scholar,
that never studied anything but how to make a ninny
of yourself. You a Cavalier—you pretend to have
kept company with gentlemen in London, that never
entered a decent house but to steal cheese-parings,
and never drank anything but two-penny ale, which
you never paid for, at the sign of the fool laughing at
a feather! But I can't live in the same house any
longer, and I'll go tell my mistress so, this blessed
minute.”

“Go say thy prayers, good Mildred, and aggravate
thine apathy,” said Gregory, and Mildred departed in
a rage.

These sparrings happened almost daily, and invariably
ended in an appeal to her mistress, on the part
of Mildred. This placed Susan in an awkward position,
somewhat similar to an exiled monarch, who has
taken refuge with one of his more fortunate neighbors,
and, if he is wise, never meddles with his domestic
concerns, lest he should wear out his welcome, and

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

receive a hint to mind his own business. The world
without, it is said, cannot bear two suns, neither can
the domestic world within doors bear a divided empire.
In that sphere the system of government should be
absolute, and the administration an unit. No division
of power is admissible; and the lordly garment
which has been from time immemorial the emblem of
man's supremacy, should always be hung up at the
outside of the door to indicate a temporary abdication.
The discreet Mistress Habingdon was well aware of
the extreme delicacy of any interference with the affairs
of the domestic empire, and especially with the
conduct of those household menials who exercise the
important functions of ladies of honor, gentlemen ushers,
lords of the bedchamber, and grooms of the stole,
in the courts of puissant monarchs.

Thus, though these frequent complaints of Mildred
were not only disagreeable but painful, still Susan
wisely declined any interference, awaiting with
patience the completion of the temporary building
preparing for their reception, until a better was
finished. By persevering in this prudent course of
non-intervention, it actually happened that the two
ladies, though placed in this dangerous juxta-position,
preserved the most amicable relations, and finally parted
the best friends in the world.

Other than these summer squalls, there was nothing
to disturb the even tenor of their daily routine, except
continued fears and anxieties, which were much
oftener felt than expressed. Nearly four weeks had

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

elapsed, without any tidings of their absent friends,
save certain vague rumors coming from no one knew
where, which only increased their apprehensions.
Buried in the boundless, pathless wilderness, these
hardy adventurers were lost to the world, and had no
means of giving or receiving information. Both parties
remained entirely ignorant of the fate of each other.
But the two matrons had been accustomed to these
trials, which, without hardening their hearts, had given
them firmness to endure either actual or anticipated
evils. Poor little Miriam suffered most, for she had
not been so well schooled in the rough discipline of the
world, and besides anxiety for her father, had now
begun to cherish in secret, and unknown to herself,
another feeling, which sometimes overmasters filial
love.

Notwithstanding the simplicity and self-denial which
formed the basis of her character, she resembled her
father in the depth of his enthusiasm, and the firmness
of his resolution. She was capable—nay, she was
formed for cherishing the most profound and lasting
impressions; and in the misty softness that seemed to
constitute the leading feature of her mind, as it certainly
formed its most touching attraction, there was
sleeping, as it were, a steady, calm resolution, which,
when once formed, and sanctioned by a conviction of
right, was capable of resisting temptation, danger,
violence and death. Her virtues had grown up and
been nourished in the solitude of youth, and like the
giants of the primeval forest, acquired a strength and

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

maturity never to be equalled by any after growth.
Had she been wicked, she would have been a monster;
had time and circumstance concurred, she might
have become a saint or a martyr, like those illustrious
virgins whose pure blood cemented the grand edifice
of the Christian Church. But in her present situation
she seemed far removed from such a destiny. Save
piety and filial love, no other strong feeling had ever
agitated her bosom, until she had frequent opportunities
of meeting Langley Tyringham, who stood before
her all alone, a tall, stately tree in some sandy desert,
without a companion, and without a rival. There was
no one near to compare with him, and the great solitude
around seemed, in her gentle fancy, animated by
him alone. She was not actually in love, or did not
know if she was. She had lately thought a great deal
of Langley, especially since his wound and his absence
on such a perilous adventure, for he accompanied
her father, and they were so closely associated in peril
that it was quite impossible to dwell on one without
recalling the other. But he had never spoke a word
of love to her, though sometimes her heart would
whisper sweetly in her ear, that once or twice at least
the tongueless eloquence of his eyes had flashed a
language more easily learned than our mother tongue,
and far more expressive than that of the flowers by
which the Persian youth conveys his secret love.

The time did indeed pass wearily, sometimes sadly,
with the lonely girl, and every day she found it more
difficult to fix her mind on the objects before her. It

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

wandered away into the region of ideal fancies and
visionary anticipations, half shaped, and peering like
objects in a mist, half real, half a dream. Even her
devotions were often intruded on by worldly thoughts,
and anticipations that flitted past and led her away
into the wilderness; or, what was far more winsome
and alluring, into a region of dim visionary delights
such as are never realized in this world. She often
wandered along the river, careless of its smiling
banks or tuneful murmurs; and still oftener sat idle
at her wheel, until roused by catching the eyes of her
mother contemplating her with deep solicitude.

Ah! Miriam, thou hast a secret in that innocent
bosom, and remember what the poet sings:

p316-301

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