""Tis Nick--Sa.s.sy Nick--Wyandotte, Flower of the Woods," for so the Indian often termed Maud.--"Got news--cap"in send him. Meet party and go along. n.o.body here; only Wyandotte. Nick see major, too--say somet"ing to young squaw."
This decided the matter. The gate was unbarred, and Nick in the court in half-a-minute. Great Smash stole a glance without, and beckoned Pliny the elder to join her, in order to see the extraordinary spectacle of Joel and his a.s.sociates toiling in the fields. When they drew in their heads, Maud and her companion were already in the library. The message from Robert Willoughby had induced our heroine to seek this room; for, placing little confidence in the delicacy of the messenger, she recoiled from listening to his words in the presence of others.
But Nick was in no haste to speak. He took the chair to which Maud motioned, and he sate looking at her, in a way that soon excited her alarm.
"Tell me, if your heart has any mercy in it, Wyandotte; has aught happened to Major Willoughby?"
"He well--laugh, talk, feel good. Mind not"ing. He prisoner; don"t touch he scalp."
"Why, then, do you wear so ominous a look--your face is the very harbinger of evil."
"Bad news, if trut" must come. What you" name, young squaw?"
"Surely, surely, you must know that well, Nick! I am Maud--your old friend, Maud."
"Pale-face hab two name--Tuscarora got t"ree. Some time, Nick-- sometime, Sa.s.sy Nick--sometime, Wyandotte."
"You know my name is Maud Willoughby," returned our heroine, colouring to the temples with a certain secret consciousness of her error, but preferring to keep up old appearances.
"Dat call you" fader"s name, Meredit"; no Willoughby."
"Merciful Providence! and has this great secret been known to _you_, too, Nick!"
"He no secret--know all about him. Wyandotte dere. See Major Meredit"
shot. _He_ good chief--nebber flog--nebber strike Injin. Nick know fader, know moder--know squaw, when pappoose."
"And why have you chosen this particular moment to tell me all this?
Has it any relation to your message--to Bob--to Major Willoughby, I mean?" demanded Mauo, nearly gasping for breath.
"No relation, tell you," said Nick, a little angrily. "Why make relation, when no relation at all. Meredit"; no Willoughby. Ask moder; ask major; ask chaplain--all tell trut"! No need to be so feelin"; no you fader, at all."
"What _can_ you--what _do_ you mean, Nick? Why do you look so wild--so fierce--so kind--so sorrowful--so angry? You must have bad news to tell me."
"Why bad to _you_--he no fader--only fader friend. You can"t help it--fader die when you pappoose--why you care, now, for dis?"
Maud now actually gasped for breath. A frightful glimpse of the truth gleamed before her imagination, though it was necessarily veiled in the mist of uncertainty. She became pale as death, and pressed her hand upon her heart, as if to still its beating. Then, by a desperate effort, she became more calm, and obtained the power to speak.
"Oh! is it so, Nick!--_can_ it be so!" she said; "my father has fallen in this dreadful business?"
"Fader kill twenty year ago; tell you _dat_, how often?" answered the Tuscarora, angrily; for, in his anxiety to lessen the shock to Maud, for whom this wayward savage had a strange sentiment of affection, that had grown out of her gentle kindnesses to himself, on a hundred occasions, he fancied if she knew that Captain Willoughby was not actually her father, her grief at his loss would be less. "Why you call _dis_ fader, when _dat_ fader. Nick know fader and moder.--Major no broder."
Notwithstanding the sensations that nearly pressed her to the earth, the tell-tale blood rushed to Maud"s cheeks, again, at this allusion, and she bowed her face to her knees. The action gave her time to rally her faculties; and catching a glimpse of the vast importance to all for her maintaining self-command, she was enabled to raise her face with something like the fort.i.tude the Indian hoped to see.
"Trifle with me no longer, Wyandotte, but let me know the worst at once. Is my father dead?--By father, I mean captain Willoughby?"
"Mean wrong, den--no fader, tell you. Why young quaw so much like Mohawk?"
"Man--is captain Willoughby killed?"
Nick gazed intently into Maud"s face for half a minute, and then he nodded an a.s.sent. Notwithstanding all her resolutions to be steady, our heroine nearly sank under the blow. For ten minutes she spoke not, but sat, her head bowed to her knees, in a confusion of thought that threatened a temporary loss of reason. Happily, a flood of tears relieved her, and she became more calm. Then the necessity of knowing more, in order that she might act intelligently, occurred to her mind, and she questioned Nick in a way to elicit all it suited the savage to reveal.
Maud"s first impulse was to go out to meet the body of the captain, and to ascertain for herself that there was actually no longer any hope.
Nick"s account had been so laconic as to leave much obscurity, and the blow had been so sudden she could hardly credit the truth in its full extent. Still, there remained the dreadful tidings to be communicated to those dear beings, who, while they feared so much, had never antic.i.p.ated a calamity like this. Even Mrs. Willoughby, sensitive as she was, and wrapped up in those she loved so entirely, as she was habitually, had been so long accustomed to see and know of her husband"s exposing himself with impunity, as to begin to feel, if not to think, that he bore a charmed life. All this customary confidence was to be overcome, and the truth was to be said. Tell the fact to her mother, Maud felt that she could not then; scarcely under any circ.u.mstances would she have consented to perform this melancholy office; but, so long as a shadow of doubt remained on the subject of her father"s actual decease, it seemed cruel even to think of it. Her decision was to send for Beulah, and it was done by means of one of the negresses.
So long as we feel that there are others to be sustained by our fort.i.tude, even the feeblest possess a firmness to which they might otherwise be strangers. Maud, contrary to what her delicate but active frame and sweetness of disposition might seem to indicate, was a young woman capable of the boldest exertions, short of taking human life. Her frontier training had raised her above most of the ordinary weaknesses of her s.e.x; and, so far as determination went, few men were capable of higher resolution, when circ.u.mstances called for its display. Her plan was now made up to go forth and meet the body, and nothing short of a command from her mother could have stopped her. In this frame of mind was our heroine, when Beulah made her appearance.
"Maud!" exclaimed the youthful matron, "what has happened!--why are you so pale!--why send for me? Does Nick bring us any tidings from the mill?"
"The worst possible, Beulah. My father--my dear, dear father is hurt.
They have borne him as far as the edge of the woods, where they have halted, in order not to take us by surprise. I am going to meet the--to meet the men, and to bring father in. You must prepare mother for the sad, sad tidings--yes, Beulah, for the worst, as everything depends on the wisdom and goodness of G.o.d!"
"Oh! Maud, this is dreadful!" exclaimed the sister, sinking into a chair--"What will become of mother--of little Evert--of us all!"
"The providence of the Ruler of heaven and earth will care for us. Kiss me, dear sister--how cold you are--rouse yourself, Beulah, for mother"s sake. Think how much more _she_ must feel than we possibly can, and then be resolute."
"Yes, Maud--very true--no woman can feel like a wife--unless it be a mother--"
Here Beulah"s words were stopped by her fainting.
"You see, Smash," said Maud, pointing to her sister with a strange resolution, "she must have air, and a little water--and she has salts about her, I know. Come, Nick; we have no more time to waste--you must be my guide."
The Tuscarora had been a silent observer of this scene, and if it did not awaken remorse in his bosom, it roused feelings that had never before been its inmates. The sight of two such beings suffering under a blow that his own hand had struck, was novel to him, and he knew not which to encourage most, a sentiment allied to regret, or a fierce resentment, that any should dare thus to reproach, though it were only by yielding to the grief natural to their situation. But Maud had obtained a command over him, that he knew not how to resist, and he followed her from the room, keeping his eyes riveted the while on the pallid face of Beulah. The last was recalled from her insensibility, however, in the course of a few minutes, through the practised attentions of the negresses.
Maud waited for nothing. Motioning impatiently for the Tuscarora to lead the way, she glided after him with a rapidity that equalled his own loping movement. She made no difficulties in pa.s.sing the stockade, though Nick kept his eyes on the labourers, and felt a.s.sured their _exeunt_ was not noticed. Once by the path that led along the rivulet, Maud refused all precautions, but pa.s.sed swiftly over it, partially concealed by its bushes. Her dress was dark, and left little liability to exposure. As for Nick, his forest attire, like the hunting shirt of the whites, was expressly regulated by the wish to go to and fro unseen.
In less than three minutes after the Indian and Maud had pa.s.sed the gate, they were drawing near to the melancholy group that had halted in the forest. Our heroine was recognised as she approached, and when she came rushing up to the spot, all made way, allowing her to fall upon her knees by the side of the lifeless body, bathing the placid face of the dead with her tears, and covering it with kisses.
"Is there no hope--oh! Joyce," she cried, "_can_ it be possible that my father is actually dead?"
"I fear, Miss Maud, that his honour has made his last march. He has received orders to go hence, and, like a gallant soldier as he was, he has obeyed, without a murmur;" answered the serjeant, endeavouring to appear firm and soldier-like, himself. "We have lost a n.o.ble and humane commander, and you a most excellent and tender father."
"No fader,"--growled Nick, at the serjeant"s elbow, twitching his sleeve, at the same time, to attract attention. "Serjeant know _her_ fader. He by; I by, when Iroquois shoot him."
"I do not understand you, Tuscarora, nor do I think you altogether understand _us_; the less you say, therefore, the better for all parties. It is our duty, Miss Maud, to say "G.o.d"s will be done," and the soldier who dies in the discharge of his duty is never to be pitied. I sincerely wish that the Rev. Mr. Woods was here; he would tell you all this in a manner that would admit of no dispute; as for myself, I am a plain man, Miss Maud, and my tongue cannot utter one- half that my heart feels at this instant."
"Ah! Joyce, what a friend--what a parent has it pleased G.o.d to call to himself!"
"Yes, Miss Maud, that may be said with great justice--if his honour has left us in obedience to general orders, it is to meet promotion in a service that will never weary, and never end."
"So kind; so true; so gentle; so just; so affectionate!" said Maud, wringing her hands.
"And so brave, young lady. His honour, captain Willoughby, wasn"t one of them that is always talking, and writing, and boasting about fighting; but when anything was to be _done_, the Colonel always knew whom to send on the duty. The army couldn"t have lost a braver gentleman, had he remained in it."
"Oh! my father--my father,"--cried Maud, in bitterness of sorrow, throwing herself on the body and embracing it, as had been her wont in childhood--"would that I could have died for you!"
"Why you let go on so," grumbled Nick, again. "_No_ her fader--you know _dat_, serjeant."
Joyce was not in a state to answer. His own feelings had been kept in subjection only by military pride, but they now had become so nearly uncontrollable, that he found himself obliged to step a little aside in order to conceal his weakness. As it was, large tears trickled down his rugged face, like water flowing from the fissures of the riven oak Jamie Allen"s const.i.tutional prudence, however, now became active, admonishing the party of the necessity of their getting within the protection of the Hut.