Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog: A Tale of Border Life

by Daniel P. Thompson

CHAPTER XVII.

"Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourn of Heaven,
Then leave the naked brain; be still the leaven
That, spreading in this dull and clodded earth,
Gives it a touch ethereal, a new birth." KEATS.

It is not to be supposed that a lawsuit, or prosecution, in so new and remote a settlement, especially one that involved so many interests, and whose result must have so many and complicated bearings, as the one described in the last chapter, would be suffered to pass away like any ordinary occurrence and be forgotten. With the settlers, besides the novelty of having a court held among them, for any cause, it was an extraordinary occurrence that there should be any grounds for a prosecution or lawsuit of this character,—extraordinary that any one should be found base enough to violate the common faith and honesty which the trappers and hunters had, up to that time, so implicitly reposed in, and observed with each other,—and doubly extraordinary that the perpetrator could not be detected and brought to punishment. To them, such a flagitious betrayal of trust was a new and startling event. They felt it deeply concerned them all; and the sensation it produced was accordingly as profound as it was general, in all that region of the country.

But, if such was the effect of the unfortunate occurrence in question, on the community at large, how much more deeply would the effect be naturally felt by the parties immediately concerned? By the loss of their stock of furs, three families, at least, were deprived of the means on which they had relied for supplying them, with a large part of the necessaries of life, through the ensuing winter; while, besides this, many a wife and child were doomed to sad disappointment, in being thus deprived of the fondly-anticipated purchases of articles of dress, books, and various other little comforts, which had been promised them on the division and sale of the peltries. Nor were these the only interests and feelings affected by the event and its concomitants. Friendships were broken, and even more tender relations were disturbed, if, indeed, their further existence were not to be terminated. By the open, and as was supposed irreconcilable, quarrel between Mark Elwood and the terribly vindictive Gaut Gurley, their children, Claud and Avis, who were understood to be under mutual engagement of marriage, were placed in a position at once painful and embarrassing in the extreme. And Claud, especially, although he had carefully abstained from all accusations of Gaut, had taken no part in getting up the prosecution, and purposely absented himself from the trial, yet felt very keenly the perplexing dilemma into which he would be thrown, by continuing the connecting link between two such deadly foes as he now found his father, whom he could not desert, and Gaut Gurley, whom he felt conscious he could not defend. And for this reason he had, from time to time, deferred the visit to Avis, which he had designed, and which she would naturally expect on his return from the expedition. But still he could not see how a quarrel between the fathers discharged him from his obligations to her; and he grew more and more doubtful and uneasy in the position he found himself occupying. He was soon, however, to be relieved. One day, a short time after the trial, while he was anxiously revolving the subject in mind, a boy, who had come as a special messenger from the Magalloway settlement (for the purpose, as it appeared), brought him the following letter:

"DEAR CLAUD,—You do not know, you cannot know, what the effort costs me to write this. You do not know, you cannot know, what I have felt, what I have suffered since I became fully apprised of the painful circumstances under which your late expedition was brought to a close; and especially since I became apprised of the lamentable scenes that occurred in the court, growing out of that unfortunate—O how unfortunate, expedition! Before that court was held, and during the doubtful days which intervened between it and your escape from the terrible perils that attended your return, the hope that all would, all must turn out right, in some measure relieved my harrowing fears and anxieties; though even then the latter was to the former as days of cloud to minutes of sunshine. But, when I heard what occurred at the trial,—the bitter crimination and recrimination, the open rupture, the menaces exchanged, and the angry parting,—and, more alarming than all, when I saw my father return in that fearful mood, from which he still refuses to be diverted, the last gleam of hope faded, and all became cloud, all gloom,—dark, impenetrable, and forbidding. My nights, when sleep at length comes to close my weeping eyes, are passed in troubled dreams; my days in more troubled thoughts, which I would fain believe were dreams also. O, why need this be? I have done nothing,—you have done nothing; and I have no doubt of your faith and honor for performing all I shall ever require at your hands. But, Claud, I love you, and all

'Know love is woman's happiness;'

and all know, likewise, that the ties of love are but gossamer threads, which a word may rupture, a breath shake, and even the power of unpleasant associations destroy. Still, is there not one hope,—the hope that this thread, hitherto so blissfully uniting our hearts, subtle and attenuated as it is, may yet be preserved unbroken, if we suffer no opinion, no word, no syllable to escape our lips, respecting the unfortunate affair that is embroiling our parents; if we wholly deny ourselves the pleasure of that social intercourse which, to me, at least, has thus far made this wilderness an Eden of delight? But can it be thus preserved, if we keep up that intercourse, as in the sunshine of our love,—those pleasant, fleeting, rosy months, when I was so happy, O so very happy, in the feelings of the present and the prospects of the future? No, no, it is not possible, it is not possible for you to come here, and encounter my father in such a mood, and then return and receive the upbraidings of your own, that you are joining or upholding the house of his foes. It is not possible for you to do this, and your heart receive no jar, and mine no fears or suspicions of its continued fealty. I dare not risk it. Then do not, dearest Claud, O do not come here, at least for the present. Perhaps my dark forebodings, that our connection is not to be blessed for our future happiness, may be groundless. Perhaps the storm that now so darkly hangs over us may pass harmlessly away. Perhaps this painful and perplexing misunderstanding—as I trust in Heaven's mercy it only is—may yet be placed in a light which will admit of a full reconciliation between our respective families. But, till then, let our relations to each other stand, if you feel disposed to let them, precisely as we left them at our last mournfully happy parting; for, till then, though it break my heart, I could never, never consent to a renewal of our intercourse. Have I said enough, and not too much? I could not, under the almost insupportable weight of grief, fear, and anxiety, that is distracting my brain, and crushing my poor heart,—I could not say less, I dare not say more. O Claud, Claud, why has this dreadful cloud come over us? O, pray that it may be speedily removed, and once more let in, on our pained and perplexed hearts, the sunshine of their former happiness. Dearest Claud, good-by; don't come, but don't forget.

"AVIS."

Claud felt greatly relieved, in some respects, by this unexpected missive; in others, the contents caused him uneasiness and self-condemnation. It relieved him from the sense of obligation he had entertained, to make the dreaded visit to the house of Gaut Gurley,—who, with every desire to arrive at a different conclusion, he could no longer believe guiltless of the basest of frauds, and the basest of means to conceal it. It relieved him, indeed, on this point; but, as we have said, made him sad and thoughtful on others. The great grief and distress under which the fair writer was so evidently laboring, and the deep-rooted love for him which was revealed in almost every line, but which her pride, in the bright hours of their courtship, had never permitted her to disclose, keenly touched his feelings, and rose in condemnation of the comparative indifference, which, in spite of all his efforts to correct its waywardness, he felt conscious had been gradually stealing over his heart, since his admiration, to say the least, had been raised by a rival vision of loveliness. In the newly-awakened feeling of the moment, however, he bitterly upbraided himself for his tergiversations in suffering his thoughts to vacillate between the Star of the Magalloway, who had his plighted faith, and Flower of the Lakes, who had no claims to his special consideration. But still, when his thoughts wandered over the scenes of the past summer, which now, since trial and hardship had brought his mind back within the dominion of reason and judgment, seemed much more like dreams than realities,—when he thought of the manner in which he became acquainted with Avis Gurley; how he persisted in gaining her affections, and kindling into an over-mastering flame his own fancy-lit love; and finally, how, against the known wishes of his family, and the dictates of his own sober judgment, he had urged her into an engagement of marriage, which he could now see had, as his mother predicted, in all probability led to a renewal of the intimacy between his father and Gaut Gurley, and that last intimacy to the present disaster, and a new quarrel, whose consequences might yet well be looked for with uneasiness and apprehension,—when he thought of all this, he deeply condemned his own indiscretion, and could not help wishing himself clear from an engagement, which, like every thing connected with the schemes of that dark and dreaded man, who was now an object of suspicion through the whole settlement, seemed destined to lead only to trouble and disaster. Such was the maze of perplexity by which the young man, now too late for an honorable retreat, found himself on every side thickly environed. Yet, for all this, and in despite of all these perplexities and misgivings, he resolved he would not cease to play the man, but honorably fulfil all his obligations in such manner as should be required of him.

So much for the love and its hapless entanglements, which had been so deeply but so unsatisfactorily occupying, for the last few weeks, the thoughts of Claud Elwood, who then little suspected that there was another heart, besides that of the pure, proud, and impassioned Avis Gurley, whose every pulse, in the great unseen system of intermingling sympathies, beat in trembling vibration to his own,—a heart that had been won uncourted and unknown,—a heart that had secretly nursed, in the favoring solitudes of these wild lakes, and brooded over, a passion more deep and intense than words could well be found to describe. There was such a heart; and that heart was now wildly beating, in the agonizing uncertainties of a hoped reciprocation, in the bosom of that peerless child of the forest, the beautiful Fluella; and all the more intense were its workings, because confined to its own deep recesses, where the hidden flame was laboring constantly for an outlet to its pride-walled prison, but as constantly shrinking in terror from the disclosure. She had once, however, through the violence of emotions which she could not control, accidentally betrayed the state of her feelings; but it was to one in whose discretion and friendship she was soon made to repose undoubting confidence, and with whom, therefore, she at length became reconciled to let her secret remain. The person, who had thus become the depositary of that secret was, as the reader may remember, Mrs. Elwood. The consciousness that this lady knew all, coupled as it was with the thought of the relation in which the latter stood to the object of her secret idolatry, had irresistibly drawn to her the yearning heart of the guileless maiden. She had longed for another interview, but dare not seek it; longed for some excuse for opening a communication with her, but could not find one. At length, however, fortune opened the desired avenue; and, after much hesitation and trembling, she summoned up the courage to avail herself of the offered opportunity. Phillips, in his determination to ferret out the outrage which had been committed on him and his companions, and of the author of which he still entertained no doubt, had, immediately after the trial, commenced a series of rapid journeys to all the nearest villages or trading towns in Maine and New Hampshire, to ascertain if any lot of furs, answering to those caught by his company, had been sold in those places. And one of these journeys, for that and other purposes, he had extended to the seaboard. On his return home, he immediately repaired to his neighbor Elwood's, and, unperceived, slipped into the hands of Mrs. Elwood a letter, which the wondering matron soon took to a private room, curiously opened, and, with a deep, undefined interest and varying emotions, commenced reading. It ran thus: