“White brave,” he said, “two moons ago I led my daughter to your wigwam, and, in the face of our tribe, she became your wife. It was well. But Catharine Montour is not content; she mourns that her child was given away, and she not there to rejoice. She says that your people have other laws, and that a wife given by the Shawnees is not a wife with our white fathers. Catharine is wise, and speaks well. The white brave shall make Tahmeroo his wife before his white brother here, who takes his law from the Great Spirit himself. Warriors, draw near and listen, while the young white brave makes his vow.”
The chief placed Tahmeroo’s hand in Butler’s, and grasped them both in his own, while he waved one arm on high, thus commanding the warriors to draw near.
There was a stir among the savages; rank glided into rank, circle closed upon circle, till a triple ring of torches encircled the young pair, and a sea of waving plumes, wild faces, and sharp, glittering eyes, surged back into the forest. All this concourse of men stood motionless, obedient to the lifted hand of their chief.
Catharine Montour came forth from the lodge, pale and rigid, as if she were going to execution; after her walked the missionary, with a movement so still that it seemed a shadow gliding over the grass. He took his place before the young couple, opened his prayer-book, and commenced the ceremony. There was a slight delay, for Butler was unprovided with a ring. Catharine drew one from her finger, and gave it to the missionary. He touched her hand in receiving this ring. It was cold as ice.
It was a wonderful sound in the heart of that dense forest, the voice of a devout Christian giving that solemn marriage benediction, girded round by savages who had scarcely ever heard of the true God in their lives. But a strange sight it was when the haughty chief, the proud English lady, the minister, and that newly married couple sank gently to their knees, and all that tribe of savages fell to the earth also, with their swarthy foreheads in the dust, while the voice of that good man rose clear and loud, piercing the heavens with its solemn eloquence. Even the savages looked at each other with awe, and trod stealthily as they broke up in bands, and moved back toward the woods.
It was, indeed, a holy hour; for, though blood, flame, and rapine marked the course of that tribe for years after that august ceremony, the Indians sometimes grew less relentless when a cry for mercy reminded them of the marriage of their chief’s daughter. When all was over, the missionary departed noiselessly as he came. The chief was disappointed when he looked round and saw that he was gone. He had munificently prepared a present of furs and wampum, which he desired to present, after the fashion of the whites. Catharine Montour saw nothing; she was still prostrate on the earth.
Butler went away soon after the missionary, scarcely deigning to make an excuse for his absence or name the time of his return. Tahmeroo gazed after him till great tears gathered in her eyes. Then a sudden thought—a quick pain; and, while her father gave orders to his warriors, and her mother bowed herself in the dust, she darted into the woods. Still dressed in those singular wedding garments, she forced her path through the forest along the mountain stream, and down the steep ramparts of Falling Spring, till she came out upon the river. Fragments of golden satin and rich lace were torn from her dress, and left clinging to brushwood and thorns in her passage, but she took no heed; the Indian blood in her veins was all on fire with jealousy. As she reached the foot of Falling Spring, a canoe shot out from the ravine through which its waters plunged to the river. She saw the waves glitter in its track, sprang downward, unmoored her own little craft, and flew along the windings of the Susquehanna like a sparrow hawk.
CHAPTER XII
THE CHERRY-TREE SPRING
Mary Derwent returned home with a mournful determination to seek the confidence of her sister—to inform her frankly of the knowledge she had obtained, and, if possible, to save her from, the consequences of her unprincipled encouragement of Walter Butler, when her faith was pledged to another.
She found Edward Clark and her sister seated by the only glazed window of the cabin, conversing cordially as usual. But, as the evening wore on, she observed that Jane grew petulant and restless. Two or three times she went to the door, looked out hurriedly, and returned without any obvious reason. She would not sit down by Clark again, but when he addressed her, answered him impatiently, as if his society had all at once become irksome.