When the old hunter landed and examined the thongs that were yet fast to the hounds, his countenance sensibly changed, and he shook his head doubtingly.
"Here has been a knife at work," he said; "this skin was never torn, nor is this the mark of a hound"s tooth. No, no--Hector is not in fault, as I feared."
"Has the leather been cut?" cried Edwards.
"No, no--I didn"t say it had been cut, lad; but this is a mark that was never made by a jump or a bite."
"Could that rascally carpenter have dared!"
"Ay! he durst do anything when there is no danger," said Natty; "he is a curious body, and loves to be helping other people on with their consarns. But he had best not harbor so much near the wigwam!"
In the mean time, Mohegan had been examining, with an Indian"s sagacity, the place where the leather thong had been separated. After scrutinizing it closely, he said, in Delaware:
"It was cut with a knife--a sharp blade and a long handle--the man was afraid of the dogs."
"How is this, Mohegan?" exclaimed Edwards; "you saw it not! how can you know these facts?"
"Listen, son," said the warrior. "The knife was sharp, for the cut was smooth; the handle was long, for a man"s arm would not reach from this gash to the cut that did not go through the skin; he was a coward, or he would have cut the thongs around the necks of the hounds."
"On my life," cried Natty, "John is on the scent! It was the carpenter; and he has got on the rock back of the kennel and let the dogs loose by fastening his knife to a stick. It would be an easy matter to do it where a man is so minded."
"And why should he do so?" asked Edwards; "who has done him wrong, that he should trouble two old men like you?"
"It"s a hard matter, lad, to know men"s ways, I find, since the settlers have brought in their new fashions, But is there nothing to be found out in the place? and maybe he is troubled with his longings after other people"s business, as he often is."
"Your suspicions are just. Give me the canoe; I am young and strong, and will get down there yet, perhaps, in time to interrupt his plans. Heaven forbid that we should be at the mercy of such a man!"
His proposal was accepted, the deer being placed in the skiff in order to lighten the canoe, and in less than five minutes the little vessel of bark was gilding over the gla.s.sy lake, and was soon hid by the points of land as it shot close along the sh.o.r.e.
Mohegan followed slowly with the skiff, while Natty called his hounds to him, bade them keep close, and, shouldering his rifle, he ascended the mountain, with an intention of going to the hut by land.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"Ask me not what the maiden feels, Left in that dreadful hour alone: Perchance, her reason stoops, or reel!
Perchance, a courage not her own Braces her mind to desperate tone."
--Scott.
While the chase was occurring on the lake, Miss Temple and her companion pursued their walk on the mountain. Male attendants on such excursions were thought to be altogether unnecessary, for none were even known to offer insult to a female who respected herself. After the embarra.s.sment created by the parting discourse with Edwards had dissipated, the girls maintained a conversation that was as innocent and cheerful as themselves.
The path they took led them but a short distance above the hut of Leather-Stocking, and there was a point in the road which commanded a bird"s-eye view of the sequestered spot.
From a feeling that might have been, natural, and must have been powerful, neither of the friends, in their frequent and confidential dialogues, had ever trusted herself to utter one syllable concerning the equivocal situation in which the young man who was now so intimately a.s.sociated with them had been found. If judge Temple had deemed it prudent to make any inquiries on the subject, he had also thought it proper to keep the answers to him self; though it was so common an occurrence to find the well-educated youth of the Eastern States in every stage of their career to wealth, that the simple circ.u.mstance of his intelligence, connected with his poverty, would not, at that day and in that country, have excited any very powerful curiosity. With his breeding, it might have been different; but the youth himself had so effectually guarded against surprise on this subject, by his cold and even, in some cases, rude deportment, that when his manners seemed to soften by time, the Judge, if he thought about it at all, would have been most likely to imagine that the improvement was the result of his late a.s.sociation. But women are always more alive to such subjects than men; and what the abstraction of the father had overlooked, the observation of the daughter had easily detected. In the thousand little courtesies of polished life she had early discovered that Edwards was not wanting, though his gentleness was so often crossed by marks of what she conceived to be fierce and uncontrollable pa.s.sions. It may, perhaps, be unnecessary to tell the reader that Louisa Grant never reasoned so much after the fashions of the world. The gentle girl, however, had her own thoughts on the subject, and, like others, she drew her own conclusions.
"I would give all my other secrets, Louisa," exclaimed Miss Temple, laughing, and shaking back her dark locks, with a look of childish simplicity that her intelligent face seldom expressed, "to be mistress of all that those rude logs have heard and witnessed."
They were both looking at the secluded hut at the instant, and Miss Grant raised her mild eyes as she answered:
"I am sure they would tell nothing to the disadvantage of Mr. Edwards."
"Perhaps not; but they might, at least, tell who he is."
"Why, dear Miss Temple, we know all that already. I have heard it all very rationally explained by your cousin--"
"The executive chief! he can explain anything. His ingenuity will one day discover the philosopher"s stone. But what did he say?"
"Say!" echoed Louisa, with a look of surprise; "why, everything that seemed to me to be satisfactory, and I now believed it to be true. He said that Natty b.u.mppo had lived most of his life in the woods and among the Indians, by which means he had formed an acquaintance with old John, the Delaware chief."
"Indeed! that was quite a matter-of-fact tale for Cousin d.i.c.kon. What came next?"
"I believe he accounted for their close intimacy by some story about the Leather-Stocking saving the life of John in a battle."
"Nothing more likely," said Elizabeth, a little impatiently; "but what is all this to the purpose?"
"Nay, Elizabeth, you must bear with my ignorance, and I will repeat all that I remember to have overheard for the dialogue was between my father and the sheriff, so lately as the last time they met, He then added that the kings of England used to keep gentlemen as agents among the different tribes of Indians, and sometimes officers in the army, who frequently pa.s.sed half their lives on the edge of the wilderness."
"Told with wonderful historical accuracy! And did he end there?"
"Oh! no--then he said that these agents seldom married; and--and--they must have been wicked men, Elizabeth! but I a.s.sure you he said so."
"Never mind," said Miss Temple, blushing and smiling, though so slightly that both were unheeded by her companion; "skip all that."
"Well, then, he said that they often took great pride in the education of their children, whom they frequently sent to England, and even to the colleges; and this is the way that he accounts for the liberal manner in which Mr. Edwards has been taught; for he acknowledges that he knows almost as much as your father--or mine--or even himself."
"Quite a climax in learning". And so he made Mohegan the granduncle or grandfather of Oliver Edwards."
"You have heard him yourself, then?" said Louisa.
"Often; but not on this subject. Mr. Richard Jones, you know, dear, has a theory for everything; but has he one which will explain the reason why that hut is the only habitation within fifty miles of us whose door is not open to every person who may choose to lift its latch?"
"I have never heard him say anything on this subject," returned the clergyman"s daughter; "but I suppose that, as they are poor, they very naturally are anxious to keep the little that they honestly own. It is sometimes dangerous to be rich, Miss Temple; but you cannot know how hard it is to be very, very poor."
"Nor you, I trust, Louisa; at least I should hope that, in this land of abundance, no minister of the church could be left in absolute suffering."
"There cannot be actual misery," returned the other, in a low and humble tone, "where there is a dependence on our Maker; but there may be such suffering as will cause the heart to ache."
"But not you--not you," said the impetuous Elizabeth--"not you, dear girl, you have never known the misery that is connected with poverty."
"Ah! Miss Temple, you little understand the troubles of this life, I believe. My father has spent many years as a missionary in the new countries, where his people were poor, and frequently we have been without bread; unable to buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not disgrace his sacred calling. But how often have I seen him leave his home, where the sick and the hungry felt, when he left them, that they had lost their only earthly friend, to ride on a duty which could not be neglected for domes tic evils! Oh! how hard it must be to preach consolation to others when your own heart is bursting with anguish!"
"But it is all over now! your father"s income must now be equal to his wants--it must be--it shall be--"
"It is," replied Louisa, dropping her head on her bosom to conceal the tears which flowed in spite of her gentle Christianity--"for there are none left to be supplied but me."
The turn the conversation had taken drove from the minds of the young maidens all other thoughts but those of holy charity; and Elizabeth folded her friend in her arms, when the latter gave vent to her momentary grief in audible sobs. When this burst of emotion had subsided, Louisa raised her mild countenance, and they continued their walk in silence.