Elizabeth turned her head, when they reached the point where they were to descend the mountain, and thought that the slow fires that were glimmering under his enormous kettles, his little brush shelter, covered with pieces of hemlock bark, his gigantic size, as he wielded his ladle with a steady and knowing air, aided by the back-ground of stately trees, with their spouts and troughs, formed, altogether, no unreal picture of human life in its first stages of civilization.
Perhaps whatever the scene possessed of a romantic character was not injured by the powerful tones of Kirby’s voice ringing through the woods as he again awoke his strains to another tune, which was but little more scientific than the former.
All that she understood of the words were:
“And when the proud forest is falling, To my oxen cheerfully calling, From morn until night I am bawling, Whoa, back there, and haw and gee; Till our labor is mutually ended, By my strength and cattle befriended, And against the mosquitoes defended By the bark of the walnut-trees.
Away! then, you lads who would buy land; Choose the oak that grows on the high land, or the silvery pine on the dry land, it matters but little to me.”
CHAPTER XXI.
“Speed! Malise, speed! such cause of haste
Thine active sinews never braced.”
—Scott.
The roads of Otsego, if we except the principal high ways, were, at the early day of our tale, but little better than wood-paths.
The high trees that were growing on the very verge of the wheel-tracks excluded the sun’s rays, unless at meridian; and the slowness of the evaporation, united with the rich mould of vegetable decomposition that covered the whole country to the depth of several inches, occasioned but an indifferent foundation for the footing of travellers.
Added to these were the inequalities of a natural surface, and the constant recurrence of enormous and slippery roots that were laid bare by the removal of the light soil, together with stumps of trees, to make a passage not only difficult but dangerous.
Yet the riders among these numerous obstructions, which were such as would terrify an unpracticed eye, gave no demonstrations of uneasiness as their horses toiled through the sloughs or trotted with uncertain paces along the dark route.
In many places the marks on the trees were the only indications of a road, with perhaps an occasional remnant of a pine that, by being cut close to the earth, so as to leave nothing visible but its base of roots, spreading for twenty feet in every direction, was apparently placed there as a beacon to warn the traveller that it was the centre of a highway.
Into one of these roads the active sheriff led the way, first striking out of the foot-path, by which they had descended from the sugar-bush, across a little bridge, formed of round logs laid loosely on sleepers of pine, in which large openings of a formidable width were frequent.
The nag of Richard, when it reached one of these gaps, laid its nose along the logs and stepped across the difficult passage with the sagacity of a man; but the blooded filly which Miss Temple rode disdained so humble a movement.
She made a step or two with an unusual caution, and then, on reaching the broadest opening, obedient to the curt and whip of her fearless mistress, she bounded across the dangerous pass with the activity of a squirrel.
“Gently, gently, my child,” said Marmaduke, who was following in the manner of Richard; “this is not a country for equestrian feats.
Much prudence is requisite to journey through our rough paths with safety.
Thou mayst practise thy skill in horsemanship on the plains of New Jersey with safety; but in the hills of Otsego they may be suspended for a time.”
“I may as well then relinquish my saddle at once, dear sir,” returned his daughter; “for if it is to be laid aside until this wild country be improved, old age will overtake me, and put an end to what you term my equestrian feats.”
“Say not so, my child,” returned her father; “but if thou venturest again as in crossing this bridge, old age will never overtake thee, but I shall be left to mourn thee, cut off in thy pride, my Elizabeth.
If thou hadst seen this district of country, as I did, when it lay in the sleep of nature, and bad witnessed its rapid changes as it awoke to supply the wants of man, thou wouldst curb thy impatience for a little time, though thou shouldst not check thy steed.”
“I recollect hearing you speak of your first visit to these woods, but the impression is faint, and blended with the confused images of childhood.
Wild and unsettled as it may yet seem, it must have been a thousand times more dreary then.
Will you repeat, dear sir, what you then thought of your enterprise, and what you felt?”
During this speech of Elizabeth, which was uttered with the fervor of affection, young Edwards rode more closely to the side of the Judge, and bent his dark eyes on his countenance with an expression that seemed to read his thoughts.
“Thou wast then young, my child, but must remember when I left thee and thy mother, to take my first survey of these uninhabited mountains,” said Marmaduke.
“But thou dost not feel all the secret motives that can urge a man to endure privations in order to accumulate wealth.
In my case they have not been trifling, and God has been pleased to smile on my efforts.
If I have encountered pain, famine, and disease in accomplishing the settlement of this rough territory, I have not the misery of failure to add to the grievances.”
“Famine!” echoed Elizabeth;
“I thought this was the land of abundance! Had you famine to contend with?”
“Even so, my child,” said her father.
“Those who look around them now, and see the loads of produce that issue out of every wild path in these mountains during the season of travelling, will hardly credit that no more than five years have elapsed since the tenants of these woods were compelled to eat the scanty fruits of the forest to sustain life, and, with their unpracticed skill, to hunt the beasts as food for their starving families.”
“Ay!” cried Richard, who happened to overhear the last of this speech between the notes of the wood-chopper’s song, which he was endeavoring to breathe aloud; “that was the starving-time, Cousin Bess.
I grew as lank as a weasel that fall, and my face was as pale as one of your fever-and-ague visages.
Monsieur Le Quoi, there, fell away like a pumpkin in drying; nor do I think you have got fairly over it yet, monsieur.
Benjamin, I thought, bore it with a worse grace than any of the family; for he swore it was harder to endure than a short allowance in the calm latitudes.
Benjamin is a sad fellow to swear if you starve him ever so little.
I had half a mind to quit you then, ‘Duke, and to go into Pennsylvania to fatten; but, damn it, thinks I, we are sisters’ children, and I will live or die with him, after all.” More than thirty years since a very near and dear relative of the writer, an elder sister and a second mother, was killed by a fall from a horse in a ride among the very mountains mentioned in this tale. Few of her sex and years were more extensively known or more universally beloved than the admirable woman who thus fell a victim to the chances of the wilderness.
“I do not forget thy kindness,” said Marmaduke, “nor that we are of one blood.”
“But, my dear father,” cried the wondering Elizabeth, “was there actual suffering?
Where were the beautiful and fertile vales of the Mohawk? Could they not furnish food for your wants?”
“It was a season of scarcity; the necessities of life commanded a high price in Europe, and were greedily sought after by the speculators.
The emigrants from the East to the West invariably passed along the valley of the Mohawk, and swept away the means of subsistence like a swarm of locusts, Nor were the people on the Flats in a much better condition.
They were in want themselves, but they spared the little excess of provisions that nature did not absolutely require, with the justice of the German character. There was no grinding of the poor.
The word speculator was then unknown to them.
I have seen many a stout man, bending under the load of the bag of meal which he was carrying from the mills of the Mohawk, through the rugged passes of these mountains, to feed his half-famished children, with a heart so light, as he approached his hut, that the thirty miles he had passed seemed nothing.
Remember, my child, it was in our very infancy; we had neither mills, nor grain, nor roads, nor often clearings; we had nothing of increase but the mouths that were to be fed: for even at that inauspicious moment the restless spirit of emigration was not idle; nay, the general scarcity which extended to the East tended to increase the number of adventurers.”