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

by Daniel P. Thompson

"It was not at all fatiguing, mother," responded Claud.

"The wind blows up the river to-day, ma'am," said the hunter, with a knowing look.

Little more was said; but the result was that Claud and the hunter now soon went off together on the proposed excursion. On reaching the mouth of the Magalloway, they found four others waiting for them, with their canoes, when the whole party commenced their little voyage up the river. After leisurely rowing against the here slow and gentle current of the stream for an hour or two, they reached their destination, and hauled up at a point most convenient for gaining the spot where the slaughtered moose had been left the evening before. Led on by the hunter, all now started for the place just named, except Claud, who, under pretence of taking a short gunning bout in the woods, and of soon coming round to join his companions, proceeded, as soon as the latter were out of sight, with slow and hesitating steps, up the river, for the opening and supposed residence of the fair unknown who had so long been the object of his wondering fancies, and who had, notwithstanding the exciting scenes he had witnessed at home, been the especial subject of his dreams after he retired to rest the night before. But what a strange, wayward, timid, doubting, and inconsistent thing is the tender passion in its incipient stages, especially when that passion has principally been wrought up by the imagination! He soon came to the clearing of which he was in quest, and obtained a clear view of the, to him, charmed cottage. But, instead of entering the opening directly, he went nearly round it, frequently pausing and advancing nearly to the edge of the woods; but as often retreating, being unable quite to make up his mind to show himself at all to the inmates of the cottage. Once he gave it up entirely, and started off for his companions. But, after he had proceeded a dozen rods, he came again to a stand, hesitated a while, and, as if ashamed of his irresolution, wheeled rapidly about, proceeded, with a quick, firm step, to the border of the woods, struck directly for the house, and, with assumed unconcern, marched up to the door,—where he was met, not by the young lady he expected first to see, but by her father. But who was that father? To his utter surprise, it was his father's old tempter and ruiner, the dark and inscrutable Gaut Gurley!

With a manner, for him, unusually gracious, Gurley extended his hand to Claud; ushered him into the house; formally introduced him to his wife, an ordinary, abject-looking woman; and then to his daughter, the fair, dark-eyed, tall, shapely, and every way magnificent Avis Gurley, the girl who had so long, but unwittingly, been the object of the young man's dreamy fancies.

"I have but very lately discovered," remarked Gurley, who seemed to feel himself called on to lead off in the conversation, after the usual commonplace remarks had been exchanged, "I have but lately discovered that I had, by a singular coincidence, again cast my lot in the same settlement with your family. Having made up my mind, a few months ago, to try a new country, and coming across the owner of this place, who was on a journey in New Hampshire, and who offered to sell and move off at once, I came on with him, struck a bargain, returned for my family, and brought them here about a fortnight ago. But, having been absent most of the time since, I didn't mistrust who my neighbors were."

"And you probably perceived, sir," said Avis, turning to Claud, with a smile, "you probably perceived, in your yesterday's adventure up here in the woods, that I have been in as bad a predicament as my father."

"How is that, Avis?" asked Gurley.

"Why, father," responded the other, "Mr. Elwood will readily suppose that I should not have been straying into the wood for flowers and berries, had I known we had any such neighbors as the one from whose pursuit he so kindly rescued me last evening."

"I was as much surprised at the ferocity of the animal as you were, I presume," said Claud, in reply. "And I was far more indebted to the hunter, Phillips, for my own rescue, than you were to me for yours. I merely turned the furious brute aside. It was he who, coming up in the nick of time, brought him dead to the earth."

"I supposed there were two of you," remarked Gurley. "I was half a mile up the river, yet I heard the firing plain enough; and, returning soon after, and hearing my daughter's story, I went to the place; but, by that time, you had dressed the animal and were gone. By the voices I heard in the woods, a short time ago, I concluded you came up, with others, for the beef."