Huts are planted irregularly at some distance from the road, in fields overgrown with rank grass. Half-naked Indians, yelling and hallooing, were riding to and fro without saddles or bridles; on horses that looked as wild as themselves. Some were stretched along the road-side, in a state of brutal intoxication; others were lying under the shadows of the noblest patriarchs of their woods, showing their patent right to indolence as lords of the creation, while their women and girls were sitting around them, busily making baskets and brooms. On the green were groupes of men shooting arrows at a mark, playing at jack-straws, football, and the various games of skill and chance by which the savage drives away ennui—that demon that persecutes most fiercely at the extremes of the human condition.
“One might almost fancy here,” said Mr. Sackville, “that the march of time had been stayed, and the land spell-bound, by some mighty magician. The log-huts of these poor Indians are as rude structures as the bark wigwams of their forefathers, and these rich lands are a complete waste, except where we see here and there a little patch of corn or potatoes. The savages certainly evince their faith in the traditionary saying that ‘the Great Spirit gave a plough to the white man, and a bow and arrow to the Indian.’”
“And there,” said Mrs. Sackville, pointing to some women who were hoeing, “there is an illustration of another of their proverbs—‘men were made for war and hunting, and squaws and hedge-hogs to scratch the ground.’”
Edward interrupted the conversation, to beg his father to stop in the village long enough to allow him time to look into the interior of some of the huts. While Mr. Sackville hesitated whether to incur the delay necessary to afford this gratification to his son, the driver announced that his off-leader had lost his shoe, and asked leave to stop at a blacksmith's to have it replaced.
This request was readily granted; and while Mrs. Sackville entered into some conversation with the blacksmith, who was a white man, Edward bounded over a fence and across a field, towards a hut which was scarcely perceptible except by a smoke that rose from it, and curled through the branches of a lofty oak which stood before it.
As he drew near the hut, he heard a low voice, broken by sobs; he paused for a moment, and then cautiously and softly advanced, till he came so near as to hear distinctly what was said, and to see enough, through a small aperture where the clay had fallen away from the logs, to prevent his proceeding farther, and to excite his curiosity to its highest pitch. An old Indian woman was sitting on the hearth-stone, her arms folded, and her blanket wrapped close around her. It appeared that she had seated herself there for the purpose of watching an Indian cake that was baking on a shovel before the fire; but her attention had been so abstracted, that the cake was burnt to a cinder. Her face and person were withered by age; but her eye, as if lit up by an undying spark, retained a wild brightness, and was steadfastly fixed on two young persons who stood before her, apparently too much occupied with their own emotion to notice her observation of them. The one was a young girl, dressed in a riding habit and Leghorn travelling bonnet. Edward was not very well situated for accurate observation; but though he was at the first glance deceived by the brilliancy of the girl's colour, heightened as it was by the excitement of the moment, his unpracticed eye soon detected unequivocal marks of the Indian race, accompanied and softened by traits of fairer blood. A young Indian stood beside her, who, as Edward fancied, had a certain air of dignity and heroism, that characterised a warrior chief;—still there was something in his attitude and motions, that bespoke the habits of civilized life. His dress, too, was a singular mixture of the European and Indian costumes. He wore a jacket with long sleeves made of deer skin, and closely fitted to his arms and breast. He had a mantle of blue broad cloth, lined with crimson, made long and full, hanging over one shoulder, and confined at the waist by a wampum belt. On a table beside him was lying a cap, like the military undress cap of a British officer, with a plume of black feathers tinged with crimson, and attached to the cap by a silver arrow.
The conversation between him and the girl was in French, and made up of ejaculations and vehement protestations, from which Edward could not at first gather any thing intelligible to him. The girl wept excessively; the Indian's passion seemed too powerful for such an expression.
“You promise,” he said, “Felice; but our old men say the winds are not more changing than a woman's mind.”
“Others may change; I cannot, Nahatton; you know I would not leave you if I could help it.”
“Could help it! can your father's right control nature's law? Oh, Felice!” he added, smiting his breast, “that which I feel for you is like the fires from the sun—the hurricane from the south—the tide of the ocean;—I cannot resist it.”