So saying, the bear, with the look of one preparing himself for deep thought, and all unconscious of what he was doing, seated himself upon his haunches. Whereat, Manitou-Echo suddenly quitted his seat, when, with a swift, sleek slide down his charger's back, plump to the ground came Sprigg, still in a sitting posture, his straddled legs as nicely adjusted to the bear's broad rump as spur to heel.

"Bless a body," cried the bear, glancing 'round at our hero, where he sat with his face all crumpled up for a cry; not that he was hurt in the least, but that Manitou-Echo and Will-o'-the-Wisp were laughing at him, as he could see (for he could not hear them) by the fantastic capers of their moccasins and by the lantern bobbing up and down. "Bless a body!

But it had quite slipped my mind that the cub was on my back. There, now! Don't rub so hard, and save your brine for your sins."

"He-he-he!" laughed Manitou-Echo, now aloud.

"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Will-o'-the-Wisp.

"Ho-ho-ho!" Elfin laughter resounding now from every side. The boy looked quickly about him. To his astonishment, he found the floor of the cave, as far as the light of the bobbing lantern allowed him to see, alive, so to speak, with red moccasins, all dancing about on tip-toe, or kicking gleefully into the air.

"Hush, children, hush!" cried Meg of the Hills, in a voice of gentle remonstrance. "Do you not see how it hurts the poor boy to be laughed at? Hush, I charge you!"

The elfin laughter ceased at once. But straight, the void thus left was filled by a long, calf-like howl from our hero, who, now that he had found there some one capable of understanding what a human boy could suffer, must need give vent to his wounded feelings--laugh who would.

His lamentation had not reached the modulating point, when, from the hollow depths around, there came, first, a big buzz, then a hoa.r.s.e hum, and then a mumbling, rumbling, grumbling sort of a noise, which striking his ear as no empty echo, caused him to cut short his longest howl in the middle, to listen and glance about him.

"It's only a trick," drily observed the bear. "Our old house is in the habit of playing our guests, when they sing or laugh too loud."

"Or, rather a fashion," gently observed the bearess, "our old house has of reminding us when it is time we were putting our weary guests to bed.

Here, Will-o'-the-Wisp and Manitou-Echo, show our young guest to bed, and be so courteous as to allow him the choice side, and charge the cubs not to crowd him or hug him, as he is an only child, and not accustomed to our litterish way of sleeping."

So, with Manitou-Echo on one side and Will-o'-the-Wisp on the other, the young guest was shown, in quite a stately style, to bed. The bed he found to be as nice and snug as the cleanest of leaves and gra.s.s and the most velvety of moss could make it, and was already occupied by three or four young bears; while close beside it, ranged in a row, were three or four pairs of red moccasins. At first this circ.u.mstance struck the boy as somewhat curious, but on perceiving that Will-o'-the-Wisp and Manitou-Echo had kicked off their moccasins, and set them in the same row with the others, and now, in the likeness of two young bears, were lying side by side in bed, the mystery was made as clear to him as the light of Will's lamp, which still hung in the air where he had left it.

As Sprigg stood hesitating whether to turn in or not, Meg came up behind him, and with a gentle push of the nose against his back, said: "There's your bed, and there are your bedfellows. So in with you, my stout one, and make yourself comfortable." As he still hesitated, the bearess brought him a soft dab of her paw on his back with a somewhat stronger push, which left him no alternative but to turn in as he was bidden and make the best of it. Then, humming a low, lullaby sort of a tune, Meg went 'round the bed, softly pushing up and smoothing down the gra.s.s and moss, all in a motherly way, which was so like dear mam that it brought the tears to the lost boy's eyes--the softest, the sweetest tears he had ever shed. He would fain have kept them back, but in spite of all he could do they would come stealing out and trickling down. But Meg was glad to see them, hailing them as precious indications that, hard as he seemed, there was still enough of human affection in his nature to encourage the hope that he might be easily won over to the side of love and truth.

With the blossom-like odors and the water-like murmurs still in the air around him, the little castaway was dropping off to sleep, when that voice, so like his mother's, which he had heard on the hill at twilight, came again to his ear, repeating the same words: "You have but too much need of rest! Then, sleep, poor child, sleep!"

CHAPTER XIV.

The Manitou Voices.

It was the hour when good boys, with cheerful hearts and innocent thoughts, are wont to rise to the cheerful duties and innocent pleasures of the day, that Sprigg was awakened from a sweet dream of home by a voice close beside him, which came to him like his mother's gentle morning call. He opened his eyes, but could see nothing, save a dense, red mist, bright and luminous, yet as impenetrable to sight as the blackest darkness. But when, on reaching out his hand, he had felt the moss and gra.s.s of the bed he lay on, and the hairy coats of the bears he lay with, then knew he but too well that his sweet thoughts of home--his mother's gentle morning call, his father's jolly laugh, and Pow-wow's loud, heroic bark--were all an empty dream. And yet, hardly more a.s.sured was he that what his senses were insisting on telling him were not things just as empty and unsubstantial.

What the voice was saying when it woke him, the boy could not recall, but it left a feeling in his heart as if pitying tenderness had been the burden of the words it had spoken. Tones were still lingering in his ear, and with effect so soothing that he should probably have fallen asleep again; but in answer to it he heard another voice, so abrupt and stern that he started up wide awake, and, in an instant, was all attention. What pa.s.sed between the invisible speakers, whom we shall distinguish as the "Stern Voice" and the "Soft Voice," ran, word for word, as follows:

Stern Voice. "He must run the Manitou race."

Soft Voice. "Is that terrible ordeal his only chance?"

Stern Voice. "It is. Though so young, his heart is already so proud and deceitful and hard that we must all but break it, to bring it to the good for which it is destined, and of which it is capable."

Soft Voice. "But he can hardly as yet have strayed so far from good as to need so severe an experience for bringing him back. There were tears on his face last night when he fell asleep--soft, sweet tears--and there are fresh ones upon it now. May not these plead for him?"

Stern Voice. "True, there is something of human affection in these tears. But apart from this, they are shed, not in contrition for the sinfulness of his course, but in grief for the pitiful plight to which it has brought him. Being the tears of self-pity, and not of repentance, they are not the kind to divert us from our fixed purpose--that purpose, our highest duty."

Soft Voice. "But, then, he is so young yet!"

Stern Voice. "But, then, he is so bad already!"

Soft Voice. "But, bethink you, how much it lacks of being wholly his own fault? Indeed, he is scarcely at all responsible for being what he is, and it seems hard that he should be made to suffer for the folly of others."

Stern Voice. "That is very true; and just there is represented to us a mystery, not ours to fathom! We are the Manitous of the Great Spirit, and what he bids be done, he bids uncounseled, and would have done unquestioned. They, who reared this boy to be the false young self we find him, should and shall be made to suffer, also; and even more than he, though the fond love and the indulgent kindness with which they have spoiled him, and thereby wronged him, be never so tender and unselfish.

Having so erred, they must be made to feel the consequences of their error, to be made sensible of its sinfulness; and thus, through suffering, brought to a knowledge of the duty they owe their maker, their offspring and themselves. So, then, what we propose doing, or, rather, what we are charged to execute, shall redound to their good no less than his."

Soft Voice. "But may we not postpone the trial for a season, till he be stronger to endure it?"

Stern Voice. "Then shall he have but the more to endure and the less to be hoped for. Thus, 'by and by,' might be too late, when 'now' is none too soon; and the hope of to-day becomes, by postponement, the despair of to-morrow. Last night we marked him well, and perceived that our running commentary upon the evil of his way, with the gentle rebukes couched in them, had little or no other effect upon him than to make him feel at home and easy in his strange position. And yet he could set up the pitiful howl at being ridiculed, as were it the worst, grievous injury that a human boy could be made to suffer. Yes, his heart is so proud and deceitful and hard that we must all but break it, to bring it to its better nature."

Soft Voice. "Oh, Nick of the Woods; but you are stern! So stern!"

Stern Voice. "But, Meg of the Hills, you are merciful! So merciful! Your mercifulness and my sternness temper each other, and the result being justice, makes the mission we are pointed to fulfill a labor both of use and love. You plead for postponement. This indulgence, without some sign of repentance on his part, we can not show the culprit. Yet, to satisfy you, I will give him one more chance of exhibiting his repentance, should there be any in his heart. I will tempt him once more with the red moccasins. Should he manifest no disposition to renew his acquaintance with them, then but too gladly will I defer his day of reckoning, according to your desire. Or, even should he show the least sign of diminished affection for them, diminished and just in that proportion shall be the severity of his punishment. On the other hand, should it appear that, in spite of the wholesome lesson his yesterday's experience should have taught him, he would still take pride and pleasure in the red vanities, to the exclusion of better thoughts and things, then there is nothing left for it but to put him through at once; no alternative but the Manitou race."

Soft Voice. "Well, well! So be it! But I greatly fear the test shall prove too severe for the virtue of the poor, vain boy. He has a lively fancy, and the moccasins are very beautiful; their glitter and gleam would dazzle--have dazzled older eyes than his! Yes, so be it! And, after all, why deplore it? For----

"When the Manitou race is run, Which shall be ere set of sun, All is ended, all well done, And Wahcondah smiling!"

Then, after a momentary pause, the two voices joined and sang, or chanted in cadences weirdly, musically, the following song:

"Manitou Lords of birds and beast, Hark, to the voice that comes from the East!

Great Wahcondah calling you forth, Some to South and some to North, Some to meet the rising sun, Some to the setting moon to run, Each to creature he hath in charge; Govern their way, their lives enlarge; Make them less than beastly rude, Teach them more than instinct rude, Lead them on to Manitou-Land, Where Wahcondah's powerful hand Waits to give them Manitou-being, Manitou-hearing, Manitou-seeing.

Him to know, and knowing, adore, Manitou all forever more.

Up and forth to meet the day, Over the hills and far away; Many a race must be begun, Some be finished ere set of sun, All in Manitou fashion run, All in Manitou mercy done, Great Wahcondah wills it!"

CHAPTER XV.

The Manitou Eye.

The song had hardly begun when Sprigg could hear a huge stir in the cave, as if the call had awakened a mult.i.tude of living things from the slumber of the night. The hubbub was neither boisterous nor loud, yet it seemed to come, not only from near at hand, but from far and wide. It was an infinite mingling of confused, indistinct sounds, like the inarticulate murmurs rising from innumerable voices--talking, singing and shouting, intermixed with laughter and with the cries of beasts and birds.

On hearing the commotion around him, the boy had risen to his feet, and now, with strained eyes, was vainly striving to pierce the red mist in which he was enveloped. Before the song was ended, the mult.i.tude, from whom the hubbub rose, were evidently in rapid motion, and all in the same direction, sweeping past him so that he felt as if he were standing upon a rock, in the midst of a wide and swiftly flowing river, on whose waters rested an impenetrable fog. Closely intermingled with the voice-like sounds were now to be distinguished a variety of other noises, resembling the sharp, light clattering of cloven hoofs, the m.u.f.fled pattering of hairy paws, or the wind-like whirring of fluttering wings.

As the song closed, Sprigg felt something placed in his hand, which, becoming visible the moment it came in contact with him, proved to be a coronal of bright green plumes, such as we have seen described in the interview between Jervis Whitney and Nick of the Woods. It was then remarked that his headpiece possessed the magic property of rendering the person who wore it--fairy or human--invisible to mortal eyes. Nor was this all; It had also the power of making the sights and sounds of Fairyland as clearly perceptible to the senses of the mortal who should chance to get it as to the fairies themselves, whether the wee folks were willing or not, he should pry into their mysteries.

This fantastic ornament, the only object visible to him in the red mist--his own hand that held it up to his admiring gaze not excepted--Sprigg thought even more beautiful and desirable than ever were the red moccasins. He was wishing it was his, and debating within himself whether he should venture to put it upon his head, when a voice, which he recognized to be the same he had heard at home and in the woods and on the hill, and now knew to be that of Manitou-Echo, said:

"Am I not a beautiful thing for the head, Sprigg? Yes, beautiful! You can't deny it; n.o.body can! Put me on your head! What's to hinder? Put me on, and you shall see what we do with wild dreams and wild dreamers, here in Manitou-land."

In a twinkling the vain boy had doffed the c.o.o.nskin cap and donned the feathers. The magic coronal was hardly adjusted to his head, when suddenly the luminous red mist condensed itself high aloft into a globe of living light, leaving all surrounding objects clearly revealed to sight, as were the crystalline sheen of a June day resting upon them.