“You’ll remember the canister of powder, children.
Them beavers must be had, and I and the pups be getting old; we want the best of ammunition.”
“Come, Natty,” said Edwards, impatiently.
“Coming, lad, coming.
God bless you, young ones, both of ye, for ye mean well and kindly to the old man.”
The ladies paused until they had lost sight of the retreating figures, when they immediately entered the mansion-house.
While this scene was passing in the walk, Kirby had overtaken the cart, which was his own, and had been driven by Edwards, without asking the owner, from the place where the patient oxen usually stood at evening, waiting the pleasure of their master.
“Woa—come hither, Golden,” he cried; “why, how come you off the end of the bridge, where I left you, dummies?”
“Heave ahead,” muttered Benjamin, giving a random blow with his lash, that alighted on the shoulder of the other.
“Who the devil be you?” cried Billy, turning round in surprise, but unable to distinguish, in the dark, the hard visage that was just peering over the cart-rails.
“Who be I? why, I’m helmsman aboard of this here craft d’ye see, and a straight wake I’m making of it.
Ay, ay! I’ve got the bridge right ahead, and the bilboes dead aft: I calls that good steerage, boy.
Heave ahead.”
“Lay your lash in the right spot, Mr. Benny Pump,” said the wood-chopper, “or I’ll put you in the palm of my hand and box your ears.
Where be you going with my team?”
“Team!”
“Ay, my cart and oxen.”
“Why, you must know, Master Kirby, that the Leather-Stocking and I—that’s Benny Pump—you knows Ben?—well, Benny and I—no, me and Benny; dam’me if I know how ‘tis; but some of us are bound after a cargo of beaver-skins, d’ye see, so we’ve pressed the cart to ship them ‘ome in.
I say, Master Kirby, what a lubberly oar you pull—you handle an oar, boy, pretty much as a cow would a musket, or a lady would a marling-spike.”
Billy had discovered the state of the steward’s mind, and he walked for some time alongside of the cart, musing with himself, when he took the goad from Benjamin (who fell back on the hay and was soon asleep) and drove his cattle down the street, over the bridge, and up the mountain, toward a clearing in which he was to work the next day, without any other interruption than a few hasty questions from parties of the constables.
Elizabeth stood for an hour at the window of her room, and saw the torches of the pursuers gliding along the side of the mountain, and heard their shouts and alarms; but, at the end of that time, the last party returned, wearied and disappointed, and the village became as still as when she issued from the gate on her mission to the jail.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
“And I could weep”—
th’ Oneida chief
His descant wildly thus begun—
“But that I may not stain with grief
The death-song of my father’s son.”
—Gertrude of Wyoming.
It was yet early on the following morning, when Elizabeth and Louisa met by appointment, and proceeded to the store of Monsieur Le Quoi, in order to redeem the pledge the former had given to the Leather-Stocking.
The people were again assembling for the business of the day, but the hour was too soon for a crowd, and the ladies found the place in possession of its polite owner, Billy Kirby, one female customer, and the boy who did the duty of helper or clerk.
Monsieur Le Quoi was perusing a packet of letters with manifest delight, while the wood-chopper, with one hand thrust in his bosom, and the other in the folds of his jacket, holding an axe under his right arm, stood sympathizing in the Frenchman’s pleasure with good-natured interest.
The freedom of manners that prevailed in the new settlements commonly levelled all difference in rank, and with it, frequently, all considerations of education and intelligence.
At the time the ladies entered the store, they were unseen by the owner, who was saying to Kirby:
“Ah! ha! Monsieur Beel, dis lettair mak me de most happi of mans.
Ah! ma chere France! I vill see you again.”
“I rejoice, monsieur, at anything that contributes to your happiness,” said Elizabeth, “but hope we are not going to lose you entirely.”
The complaisant shopkeeper changed the language to French and recounted rapidly to Elizabeth his hopes of being permitted to return to his own country.
Habit had, however, so far altered the manners of this pliable person age, that he continued to serve the wood-chopper, who was in quest of some tobacco, while he related to his more gentle visitor the happy change that had taken place in the dispositions of his own countrymen.
The amount of it all was, that Mr. Le Quoi, who had fled from his own country more through terror than because he was offensive to the ruling powers in France, had succeeded at length in getting an assurance that his return to the West Indies would be unnoticed; and the Frenchman, who had sunk into the character of a country shopkeeper with so much grace, was about to emerge again from his obscurity into his proper level in society.
We need not repeat the civil things that passed between the parties on this occasion, nor recount the endless repetitions of sorrow that the delighted Frenchman expressed at being compelled to quit the society of Miss Temple.
Elizabeth took an opportunity, during this expenditure of polite expressions, to purchase the powder privately of the boy, who bore the generic appellation of Jonathan.
Be fore they parted, however, Mr. Le Quoi, who seemed to think that he had not said enough, solicited the honor of a private interview with the heiress, with a gravity in his air that announced the importance of the subject.
After conceding the favor, and appointing a more favorable time for the meeting, Elizabeth succeeded in getting out of the store, into which the countrymen now began to enter, as usual, where they met with the same attention and bien seance as formerly.
Elizabeth and Louisa pursued their walk as far as the bridge in profound silence; but when they reached that place the latter stopped, and appeared anxious to utter something that her diffidence suppressed.
“Are you ill, Louisa?” exclaimed Miss Temple; “had we not better return, and seek another opportunity to meet the old man?”
“Not ill, but terrified. Oh! I never, never can go on that hill again with you only.
I am not equal to it, in deed I am not.”
This was an unexpected declaration to Elizabeth, who, although she experienced no idle apprehension of a danger that no longer existed, felt most sensitively all the delicacy of maiden modesty.
She stood for some time, deeply reflecting within herself; but, sensible it was a time for action instead of reflection, she struggled to shake off her hesitation, and replied, firmly:
“Well, then it must be done by me alone.