CHAPTER VII.

"Wo is the youth whom Fancy gains, Winning from Reason's hands the reins."

The morning of the next day, serene and beautiful as a bride decked in her fresh robes and redolent in her forest perfumery, came smiling over the wilderness hills of the east, to greet our little pioneer family on their deliverance from the perils of yesterday. The war of the elements, that had raged so fearfully round their seemingly devoted domicile, had all pa.s.sed away; and, after sleeping off the fatigue and excitement of the previous day, they rose to look around them, to find themselves safe, and call themselves satisfied. Their buildings had been, after all, but very slightly injured, and their green crops but little damaged; their fences, indeed, were mostly consumed; but these could be replaced from the timber of the burnt slash, with little more labor than would be required to pile up and burn that timber where it lay. But, whatever such additional labor might be, it was more than compensated by the very intensity of the fire which caused it, and which, at the same time, had so utterly consumed all the underbrush, limbs of the trees, and even the smaller trees themselves, that weeks less than with ordinary burns would be required in the clearing.

Elwood, therefore, came in from his morning survey happily disappointed in the supposed extent of his losses; and, joining his wife and son in the house, whom he found busily engaged in cutting up, mealing, and placing in the hissing pan over the fire the broad, red, and rich-looking pieces of trout, the fruit of yesterday's excursion on the lake, he told them, with a gratified air, the result of his observation, which, on a merchant-like calculation of loss and gain from the conflagration, he made out to show even a balance in his favor. Mrs. Elwood rejoiced with her husband on the happy turn of affairs, and wondered why her son did not manifest the same flow of spirits. But the latter, for some reason or other, appeared unusually abstracted during the whole morning; and, when asked to relate the particulars of his perilous adventure with the moose, which he had the evening before but briefly mentioned, he exhibited a hesitation, and a sort of shying of the question, in that part of the adventure relating to the rescued girl, which did not escape the quick eye of the mother. It was evident to her that something was kept back. But what that something was she was wholly unable to conjecture. It was so unusual for her son to show any lack of frankness that the circ.u.mstance disturbed her, and, though she knew not exactly why, sent a boding chill over her heart, which caused her also to become thoughtful and silent. And Mr. Elwood, who possessed none of those mental sympathies which, in some, will often be found unconsciously mingling with the thoughts of others, so far, at least, as to apprise them of the general character and drift of those thoughts, now, in his turn, wondered why his wife, as well as son, should all at once become so unsocial and taciturn.

It will doubtless be generally said that this mental sympathy, or the intuitive perception of the main drift of what is pa.s.sing in the minds of others, has an existence only in the fancy of fictionists. We, however, after years of close observation, have wholly ceased to doubt its reality.

Scores of times have we been affected by thoughts and intentions which we knew must have a source other than in our own mind. Scores of times have we, in this manner, been put on our guard against the selfish designs which others were harboring to our disadvantage, of which no tongue had informed us, and of which, afterwards, we had tangible proof. And, on careful inquiry among persons of thought and sensibility, we have become convinced that the principle holds good to a very considerable extent among others; and that attention to the subject is only wanting to make it a generally received opinion. It was this principle that now affected Mrs. Elwood: not that she had the most distant idea that her son harbored aught of wrong intention toward any of his family, but she felt that his mind was somehow becoming subservient to schemes which existed somewhere in the minds of others, which concerned her or her family. But she _felt_ rather than thought this; and, knowing she could give no reason for her singular impression, prudently kept it to herself.

"Good-morning, good-morning, gentlefolks," rang out the cheery voice of the hunter, who now looked in at the door as the Elwoods were rising from their breakfast. "Things look a little altered round here, this morning. I should hardly have known the place without the king pine, which, in its prime, was a tree of a thousand."

"That tree was an old acquaintance of yours, I suppose," remarked Elwood.

"Yes, of twenty years' standing; and I shall miss and mourn it as an old friend. But it died like a monarch, yielding only under the direct blow of the Almighty."

"Then you consider the lightning more especially the instrument of Heaven than the wind, fire, and other elements, do you?"

"To be sure I do. Wind, we know what it is; fire we know; water we also know; because we can see them, touch them, measure them. But who can see a piece of lightning when not in motion? who can find the least fragment of it after it has struck? It rends a tree, makes a smooth hole through a board, and ploughs up the ground. But go to the tree, and there is nothing there; look under the board, it is the same; and dig along the furrow it has ploughed to where it stopped, and it is not there, as it would be if it was any material thing, like a bullet, an axe, knife, or other instrument that produces such effects, in all other instances. No, 'tis not matter; it is the power of G.o.d; and your philosophers, who pretend to explain it, don't know what they are talking about. But enough of that. I came here to rally you out to go up the river with the rest of us, for the moose. You will both go, won't you?"

"Claud will, doubtless," replied Mr. Elwood. "Indeed, I have half a mind to go myself."

"Perhaps Claud, having had a fatiguing excursion yesterday, will stay at home, and let his father go, to-day," suggested Mrs. Elwood.

"It was not at all fatiguing, mother," responded Claud.

"The wind blows up the river to-day, ma'am," said the hunter, with a knowing look.

Little more was said; but the result was that Claud and the hunter now soon went off together on the proposed excursion. On reaching the mouth of the Magalloway, they found four others waiting for them, with their canoes, when the whole party commenced their little voyage up the river. After leisurely rowing against the here slow and gentle current of the stream for an hour or two, they reached their destination, and hauled up at a point most convenient for gaining the spot where the slaughtered moose had been left the evening before. Led on by the hunter, all now started for the place just named, except Claud, who, under pretence of taking a short gunning bout in the woods, and of soon coming round to join his companions, proceeded, as soon as the latter were out of sight, with slow and hesitating steps, up the river, for the opening and supposed residence of the fair unknown who had so long been the object of his wondering fancies, and who had, notwithstanding the exciting scenes he had witnessed at home, been the especial subject of his dreams after he retired to rest the night before. But what a strange, wayward, timid, doubting, and inconsistent thing is the tender pa.s.sion in its incipient stages, especially when that pa.s.sion has princ.i.p.ally been wrought up by the imagination! He soon came to the clearing of which he was in quest, and obtained a clear view of the, to him, charmed cottage. But, instead of entering the opening directly, he went nearly round it, frequently pausing and advancing nearly to the edge of the woods; but as often retreating, being unable quite to make up his mind to show himself at all to the inmates of the cottage. Once he gave it up entirely, and started off for his companions. But, after he had proceeded a dozen rods, he came again to a stand, hesitated a while, and, as if ashamed of his irresolution, wheeled rapidly about, proceeded, with a quick, firm step, to the border of the woods, struck directly for the house, and, with a.s.sumed unconcern, marched up to the door,--where he was met, not by the young lady he expected first to see, but by her father. But who was that father? To his utter surprise, it was _his_ father's old tempter and ruiner, the dark and inscrutable Gaut Gurley!

With a manner, for him, unusually gracious, Gurley extended his hand to Claud; ushered him into the house; formally introduced him to his wife, an ordinary, abject-looking woman; and then to his daughter, the fair, dark-eyed, tall, shapely, and every way magnificent Avis Gurley, the girl who had so long, but unwittingly, been the object of the young man's dreamy fancies.

"I have but very lately discovered," remarked Gurley, who seemed to feel himself called on to lead off in the conversation, after the usual commonplace remarks had been exchanged, "I have but lately discovered that I had, by a singular coincidence, again cast my lot in the same settlement with your family. Having made up my mind, a few months ago, to try a new country, and coming across the owner of this place, who was on a journey in New Hampshire, and who offered to sell and move off at once, I came on with him, struck a bargain, returned for my family, and brought them here about a fortnight ago. But, having been absent most of the time since, I didn't mistrust who my neighbors were."

"And you probably perceived, sir," said Avis, turning to Claud, with a smile, "you probably perceived, in your yesterday's adventure up here in the woods, that I have been in as bad a predicament as my father."

"How is that, Avis?" asked Gurley.

"Why, father," responded the other, "Mr. Elwood will readily suppose that I should not have been straying into the wood for flowers and berries, had I known we had any such neighbors as the one from whose pursuit he so kindly rescued me last evening."

"I was as much surprised at the ferocity of the animal as you were, I presume," said Claud, in reply. "And I was far more indebted to the hunter, Phillips, for my _own_ rescue, than _you_ were to _me_ for _yours_. I merely turned the furious brute aside. It was he who, coming up in the nick of time, brought him dead to the earth."

"I supposed there were two of you," remarked Gurley. "I was half a mile up the river, yet I heard the firing plain enough; and, returning soon after, and hearing my daughter's story, I went to the place; but, by that time, you had dressed the animal and were gone. By the voices I heard in the woods, a short time ago, I concluded you came up, with others, for the beef."

"We did. You here should certainly be ent.i.tled to a liberal share. Will you not go up there?"

"Yes; I was thinking about it before you came in. I will go; but, as I wish to go a short distance into the woods, partly in another direction, I will now walk on and come round to the spot; and, if I don't meet you there, you may just tell your father how surprised I have been to find myself again in the same neighborhood with himself."

"Umph!" half audibly exclaimed the hitherto mute wife, with a look that seemed to say, "What a bouncer he is telling now!" and she was evidently about to say something, comporting with the significant exclamation, but a glance from her husband, as he pa.s.sed out of the door, quelled her into silence.

On the departure of Gurley, his wife rose and left the room; when Claud, unexpectedly finding himself alone with his fair companion, instead of entering into the easy conversation with her which the dictates of common gallantry would seem to require, soon began to manifest signs of constraint and embarra.s.sment, which did not escape the eye of the young lady, and which caused her no little surprise and perplexity. She knew nothing of what had been pa.s.sing in his mind, nor once dreamed of the circ.u.mstance which had first impressed her image there. She had, indeed, known nothing of the Elwoods, except what she had heard her father say of them as a family, with whose head he had in some way been formerly connected in business. Had she been asked, she would doubtless have recalled the fact that her father had, the year before, employed an artist to paint a miniature likeness of her, which he subsequently pretended to have sent to a relative of his residing in Quebec, and she never entertained the least suspicion that it was not thus properly disposed of. She had never seen Claud till yesterday, when he so opportunely appeared for her rescue; and, even then, she had no idea who it was to whom she had thus become indebted.

She, however, had been much prepossessed with his appearance and manly bearing, and felt a lively sense of grat.i.tude for the voluntary service; and when, by the introduction of her father, she became apprised of the character of her deliverer, she felt doubly gratified that he had turned out to be one who, she believed, would not take any mean advantage of the obligation. For these reasons, she could not understand why he should appear so reserved, unless it was that she had failed to interest him; and, finally concluding that this must be the case, she did that which, with her maidenly pride and high spirit, she would otherwise have scorned to do, she exerted herself to the utmost to interest and please him; and, when he rose to return to his companions, she followed him into the yard, and smilingly said:

"You are fond of gunning excursions, are you not, Mr. Elwood?"

"Yes, O yes, quite so," replied Claud, with awkward hesitation.

"And would not an occasional excursion in _this_ direction be as pleasant as any other?" she asked, with playful significance.

But, instead of replying in the same spirit, the bewildered young man turned, and sent a gaze into the depths of her l.u.s.trous dark eyes, so serious and intense that it brought a blush to her cheek; when, stammering out his intention of often taking her house in his way in future, he hurriedly bade her good-by, and departed, leaving her more perplexed than ever.

As for Claud, it would be difficult to describe his sensations on leaving the house, or make any thing definite out of the operations of his mind.

Both heart and brain were working tumultuously, but not in unison. The train which his imagination had been laying was on the point of being kindled into, a blaze by the reality. He knew it; he felt it; but he knew also that it was the part of wisdom to smother the flame while it yet might be controlled. The unexpected and startling discovery which he had just made, that the girl who had so wrought upon his fancy, both when seen in the picture and met in the original, was the daughter of Gaut Gurley, raised difficulties and dangers in the path he found himself entering, which his judgment told him could only be avoided by his immediate desistance. For he was well aware how deeply rooted was his mother's aversion to this man, and how fatal had been his influence over his father, who had but a few months before escaped from his toils, and then only, perhaps, because there was no more to be gained by keeping him in them any longer. A connection with the daughter, therefore, however opposite in character from her father, would not only greatly mar his mother's happiness, but in all probability lead to a renewal of the intimacy between his father and Gurley; an event which he himself felt was to be deprecated.

But the Demon of Sophistry, who first taught self-deceiving man how to make "the wish father to the thought," here interposing, whispered to the incipient lover that his father had reformed, and why not then Gaut Gurley?

This reasoning, however, could not be made to satisfy his judgment; and again commenced the struggle between head and heart, one pulling one way and the other in another way,--too often an unequal struggle, too often like one of those contests between man and wife, where reason succ.u.mbs and will comes off triumphant.

Such were the fluctuating thoughts and purposes which occupied the agitated bosom of Claud Elwood, in his solitary walk to the place where the boats had been left, and where the subject was now driven from his mind, for a while, by the appearance of his companions and the merry jokes of the hunter. They had cut up the moose meat, which they had found in good condition, and brought all they deemed worth saving down to the landing.

And, being now ready to embark, they apportioned the meat among the different canoes, and rowed with the now favoring current rapidly down the river together till they reached its mouth, when they separated, and bore their allotted portions of the moose to their respective homes.

For the two succeeding days and nights the hapless Claud was the prey of conflicting emotions,--the more oppressive because he carefully kept them pent up in his own bosom. He dared not make the least allusion before his parents to the lady whom they knew he had rescued, or his visit to her home, for he could not do so without revealing the fact that the dreaded Gaut Gurley, with his family, had found his way into the vicinity; while, if he did disclose this fact, he felt that he could not hold up his head before them till he had conquered his feelings towards the daughter. And sometimes he thought he had conquered them, and resolved that he would never see her again. But, brooding over his feelings in the solitudes of the woods, he only cherished and fanned the flame he was thinking to extinguish; and he again relapsed,--again paused,--again "resolved, re-resolved, and _did_ the same;" for, on the third day, under the excuse of taking another excursion on the lake, he was drawn, as surely as the vibrating needle to the pole, to the beautiful load-star of the Magalloway.

Suspecting the state of young Elwood's feelings towards her, and fearing that she might have been too forward in her advances at their last interview, Avis Gurley, this time, received him with a dignity and maidenly reserve, which, when contrasted with her former sociability and cordiality of manner, seemed to him like studied coolness. This soon led him, in turn, to sue for favor. And so earnestly did he pursue his object, that, before he was aware of what he was saying, he had revealed the secret of his heart. She received his remarks in respectful silence, but gave no indication by which he could judge whether the inadvertent disclosure was pleasing or otherwise, except what might be gathered from her increased cordiality on other subjects, to which she now adroitly turned the conversation. This was just enough to encourage him, and at the same time leave him in that degree of doubt and suspense which generally operate as the greatest incentive to persevere in the pursuit of an object. It proved so in his case; and, to this natural incentive to persevere, was now added another, that of respect for her character,--a respect which every hour's conversation with her enhanced, and which he might accord to her with entire justice. Gaut Gurley, like many other bad men, was proud of having a good daughter. He early perceived that she inherited all that was comely and good in him, physically and morally, without any of his defects or faults of character. And, desirous so to rear her as to make the most of her natural endowments, and so, at the same time, that her character should not be marred by his example, he had been at considerable expense with her education, and had even deported himself with much circ.u.mspection in her presence. This, as will be readily inferred of one of his designing character, he did from a mixed motive: partly from parental pride and affection, and partly to make her, through some advantageous marriage, subservient to his own personal interests.

In this state of affairs between Claud and Avis, closed this, their second interview. Another, and another, and yet another, succeeded at brief intervals. And so rapid is the course of love, when springing up in solitudes like these, where nothing occurs to divert the gathering current, but every thing conspires to increase it,--where to our young devotees all around them seemed to reflect their own feelings,--where the aeolian music of the whispering pines that embowered their solitary walks seemed but to give voice to the melody that filled their own hearts,--where to them the birds all sang of love,--where love smiled upon them in the pensive beams of the moon, glistened in the stars, and was stamped on all the expanse of blue sky above, and on all the forms of beauty on the green earth beneath,--so rapid, we repeat, is the course of love, thus born, and thus fostered, that a fortnight had scarcely elapsed before they had both yielded up heart and soul to the dominion of the well-named blind G.o.d, and uttered their mutual vows of love and constancy.

This was the sunshine of their love; but the storms were already gathering in the distance.

CHAPTER VIII.

"The sigh that lifts her breastie comes.

Like sad winds frae the sea, Wi' sic a dreary sough, as wad Bring tears into yer e'e."

When Claud Elwood reached home, on the eventful visit to the Magalloway which resulted in the exchange of vows between him and Avis Gurley, as intimated at the close of the last chapter, he at once suspected, from the sad and troubled looks of his mother and the disturbed manner of his father, that the secret of his late visits abroad, as well as of the unexpected advent of the family visited, had, in some way, become known to them in his absence. A feeling of mingled delicacy and self-condemnation, however, prevented him from making any inquiries; and, with a commonplace remark, which was received in silence, he took a seat, and, with much inward trembling, awaited the expected _denouement_. But it did not come so soon nor in so harsh terms as he expected. There are occasions when we feel so deeply that we are reluctant to begin the task of unburdening our minds; and, when we do speak out, it is oftener in sorrow than in anger. It was so in the present instance. Mr. Elwood had that day been abroad among the settlers, and, for the first time, learned not only that Gaut Gurley had moved with his family into the settlement, but that Claud was courting his daughter, and a match already settled on between them. On his return home, Elwood felt almost as much reluctance in making known his discoveries to his wife as Claud had before him; for he well knew how deeply they would disquiet her. But, soon concluding there would be no wisdom in attempting concealment, he told her what he had heard. As he had antic.i.p.ated, the news fell like a sudden thunderclap on her heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting her son's late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and it struck her mute with dismay, for it at once brought a cloud over the future, which to her eye was dark with portents.

Elwood himself was also obviously considerably disquieted by the news, showing no little uneasiness and excitement,--an excitement, perhaps, resembling that which is said to be manifested by a bird in the presence of the devouring reptile. He doubtless would gladly have been relieved from any further connection with Gaut. He doubtless would gladly have avoided even the slightest renewal of their former acquaintance. But, for reasons which he had never disclosed, he felt confident he should not long be suffered to enjoy any such exemption. And feeling, for the same reasons, how weak he should be in the hands of that man, he was troubled, far more troubled than he would have been willing to own, at the discoveries of the day, even if that part of it relating to the intimacy of his son and Gaut's daughter should prove, as he believed, a mere conjecture.

It was at this juncture, and before a word of comment had been offered either by Mrs. Elwood or her husband on the news he had related, that Claud arrived and entered the room.

"Well, G.o.d's will be done!" sadly uttered Mrs. Elwood, at length breaking the embarra.s.sing silence, but without raising her eyes from her work, which lay neglected in her lap.

"What does mother mean?" doubtfully asked Claud, turning to his father.

"I have been telling her some unexpected news, which greatly disturbs her mind,--more than is necessary, perhaps," replied the other, with poorly a.s.sumed indifference.

"What news?" rejoined the son, having made up his mind that, if his own secret was involved, as he supposed, the long dreaded _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_ might as well come now as ever.