The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish Part 26

The youth dropped the robe of skin that covered the upper part of his body, and making a forward gesture, with the gravity of an Indian, he answered--

"Whittal is a warrior on his path; he has no time for the talk of the women!"

"Now, brother, thou forgettest the manner in which I was wont to feed thy hunger, as the frost pinched thee, in the cold mornings, and at the hour when the kine needed thy care; else thou wouldst not call me woman."

"Hast ever been on the trail of a Pequot? Know'st how to whoop among the men?"

"What is an Indian whoop, to the bleating of thy flocks, or the bellowing of cattle in the bushes? Thou rememberest the sound of the bells, as they tinkled among the second growth of an evening?"

The ancient herdsman turned his head, and seemed to lend his attention, as a dog listens to an approaching footstep. But the gleam of recollection was quickly lost. In the next moment, he yielded to the more positive, and possibly more urgent, demands of his appet.i.te.

"Then hast thou lost the use of ears; else thou wouldst not say that thou forgettest the sound of the bells."

"Didst ever hear a wolf howl?" exclaimed the other. "That's a sound for a hunter! I saw the Great Chief strike the striped panther, when the boldest warrior of the tribe grew white as a craven Pale-face at his leaps!"

"Talk not to me of your ravenous beasts and Great Chiefs, but rather let us think of the days when we were young, and when thou hadst delight in the sports of a Christian childhood. Hast forgotten, Whittal, how our mother used to give us leave to pa.s.s the idle time in games among the snow?"

"Nipset hath a mother in her wigwam, but he asketh no leave to go on the hunt. He is a man the next snow, he will be a warrior."

"Silly boy! This is some treachery of the savage by which he has bound thy weakness with the fetters of his craftiness. Thy mother, Whittal, was a woman of Christian belief, and one of a white race, and a kind and mourning mother was she over thy feeble-mindedness! Dost not remember, unthankful of heart! how she nursed thy sickly hours in boyhood, and how she administered to all thy bodily wants? Who was it that fed thee when a-hungered or who had compa.s.sion on thy waywardness, when others tired of thy idle deeds, or grew impatient of thy weakness?"

The brother looked, for an instant, at the flushed features of the speaker, as if glimmerings of some faintly distinguished scenes crossed the visions of his mind; but the animal still predominated, and he continued to feed his hunger.

"This exceedeth human endurance!" exclaimed the excited Faith. "Look into this eye, weak one, and say if thou knowest her who supplied the place of that mother whom thou refusest to remember--she who hath toiled for thy comfort, and who hath never refused to listen to all thy plaints, and to soften all thy sufferings. Look at this eye, and speak--dost know me?"

"Certain!" returned the other, laughing with a half-intelligent expression of recognition; "'tis a woman of the Pale-faces, and I warrant me, one that will never be satisfied till she hath all the furs of the Americas on her back, and all the venison of the woods in her kitchen. Didst ever hear the tradition, how that wicked race got into the hunting-grounds, and robbed the warriors of the country?"

The disappointment of Faith had made her too impatient to lend a pleased attention to this tale; but, at that moment, a form appeared at her side, and by a quiet and commanding gesture directed her to humor the temper of the wanderer.

It was Ruth, in whose pale cheek and anxious eye, all the intenseness of a mother's longings might be traced, in its most touching aspect. Though so lately helpless and sinking beneath her emotions, the sacred feelings which now sustained her seemed to supply the place of all other aid; and as she glided past the listening circle, even Content himself had not believed it necessary to offer succor, or to interpose with remonstrance.

Her quiet, meaning gesture seemed to say, 'proceed, and show all indulgence to the weakness of the young man.' The rising discontent of Faith, was checked by habitual reverence, and she prepared to obey.

"And what say the silly traditions of which you speak?" she added, ere the current of his dull ideas had time to change its direction.

"'Tis spoken by the old men in the villages, and what is there said is gospel-true. You see all around you, land that is covered with hill and valley, and which once bore wood, without the fear of the axe, and over which game was spread with a bountiful hand. There are runners and hunters in our tribe who have been on a straight path towards the setting sun, until their legs were weary and their eyes could not see the clouds that hang over the salt lake, and yet they say, 'tis everywhere beautiful as yonder green mountain. Tall trees and shady woods rivers and lakes filled with fish, and deer and beaver plentiful as the sands on the sea-sh.o.r.e.

All this land and water the Great Spirit gave to men of red skins; for them he loved, since they spoke truth in their tribes, were true to their friends, hated their enemies, and knew how to take scalps. Now, a thousand snows had come and melted, since this gift was made," continued Whittal, who spoke with the air of one charged with the narration of a grave tradition, though he probably did no more than relate what many repet.i.tions had rendered familiar to his inactive mind, "and yet none but red-skins were seen to hunt the moose, or to go on the war-path. Then the Great Spirit grew angry; he hid his face from his children, because they quarrelled among themselves. Big canoes came out of the rising sun, and brought a hungry and wicked people into the land. At first, the strangers spoke soft and complaining like women. They begged room for a few wigwams, and said if the warriors would give them ground to plant, they would ask their G.o.d to look upon the red-men. But when they grew strong, they forgot their words and made liars of themselves. Oh, they are wicked knaves! A Pale-face is a panther. When a-hungered, you can hear him whining in the bushes like a strayed infant; but when you come within his leap, beware of tooth and claw!"

"This evil-minded race, then, robbed the red warriors of their land?"

"Certain! They spoke like sick women, till they grew strong, and then they out-devilled the Pequots themselves in wickedness; feeding the warriors with their burning milk, and slaying with blazing inventions, that they made out of the yellow meal."

"And the Pequods! was their great warrior dead, before the coming of the men from over sea?"

"You are a woman that has never heard a tradition, or you would know better! A Pequot is a weak and crawling cub."

"And thou--thou art then a Narragansett?"

"Don't I look like a man?"

"I had mistaken thee for one of our nearer neighbors, the Mohegan Pequods."

"The Mohicans are basket-makers for the Yengeese; but the Narragansett goes leaping through the woods, like a wolf on the trail of the deer!"

"All this is quite in reason, and now thou pointest to its justice, I cannot fail but see it. But we have curiosity to know more of the great tribe. Hast ever heard of one of thy people, Whittal, known as Miantonimoh--'tis a chief of some renown."

The witless youth had continued to eat, at intervals; but, on hearing this question, he seemed suddenly to forget his appet.i.te. For a moment he looked down, and then he answered slowly and not without solemnity--

"A man cannot live for ever."

"What!" said Faith, motioning to her deeply-interested auditors to restrain their impatience--"has he quitted his people? And thou lived with him, Whittal, ere he came to his end?"

"He never looked on Nipset, nor Nipset on him."

"I know nought of this Nipset; tell me of the great Miantonimoh."

"Dost need to hear twice? The Sachem is gone to the far land, and Nipset will be a warrior when the next snow comes!"

Disappointment threw a cloud on every countenance, and the beam of hope, which had been kindling in the eye of Ruth, changed to the former painful expression of deep inward suffering. But Faith still managed to repress all speech among those who listened, continuing the examination, after a short delay that her vexation rendered unavoidable.

"I had thought that Miantonimoh was still a warrior in his tribe," she said. "In what battle did he fall?"

"Mohican Uncas did that wicked deed. The Pale-men gave him great riches to murder the Sachem."

"Thou speakest of the father; but there was another Miantonimoh; he who in boyhood dwelt among the people of white blood."

Whittal listened attentively; and after seeming to rally his thoughts, he shook his head, saying before he again began to eat--

"There never was but one of the name, and there never will be another. Two eagles do not build their nests in the same tree."

"Thou sayest truly," continued Faith; well knowing that to dispute the information of her brother, was in effect to close his mouth. "Now tell me of Conanchet, the present Narragansett Sachem--he who hath leagued with Metacom, and hath of late been driven from his fastness near the sea--doth he yet live?"

The expression of the brother's countenance underwent another change. In place of the childish importance with which he had hitherto replied to the questions of his sister, a look of overreaching cunning gathered about his dull eye. The organ glanced slowly and cautiously around him, as if its owner expected to detect some visible sign of those covert intentions he so evidently distrusted. Instead of answering, the wanderer continued his meal, though less like one who had need of sustenance, than one resolved to make no communications which might prove dangerous. This change was not un.o.bserved by Faith, or by any of those who so intently watched the means by which she had been endeavoring to thread the confused ideas of one so dull, and yet who at need seemed so practised in savage artifice. She prudently altered her manner of interrogating, by endeavoring to lead his thoughts to other matters.

"I warrant me," continued the sister, "that thou now beginnest to call to mind the times when thou led'st the cattle among the bushes, and how thou wert wont to call on Faith to give thee food, when a-weary with threading the woods in quest of the kine. Hast ever been a.s.sailed by the Narragansetts thyself, Whittal, when dwelling in the house of a Pale-face?"

The brother ceased eating. Again he appeared to muse as intently as was possible, for one of his circ.u.mscribed intellects. But shaking his head in the negative, he silently resumed the grateful office of mastication.

"What! hast come to be a warrior, and never known a scalp taken, or seen a fire lighted in the roof of a wigwam?"

Whittal laid down the food, and turned to his sister. His face was teeming with a wild and fierce meaning, and he indulged in a low but triumphant laugh. When this exhibition of satisfaction was over, he consented to reply.

"Certain," he said. "We went on a path, in the night, against the lying Yengeese, and no burning of the woods ever scorched the 'arth as we blackened their fields! All their proud housen were turned into piles of coals."

"And where and when did you this act of brave vengeance?"

"They called the place after the bird of night as if an Indian name could save them from an Indian ma.s.sacre!"

"Ha! 'Tis of the Wish-Ton-Wish thou speakest But thou wast a sufferer, and not an actor, brother in that heartless burning."