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

by Daniel P. Thompson

"We did. You here should certainly be entitled to a liberal share. Will you not go up there?"

"Yes; I was thinking about it before you came in. I will go; but, as I wish to go a short distance into the woods, partly in another direction, I will now walk on and come round to the spot; and, if I don't meet you there, you may just tell your father how surprised I have been to find myself again in the same neighborhood with himself."

"Umph!" half audibly exclaimed the hitherto mute wife, with a look that seemed to say, "What a bouncer he is telling now!" and she was evidently about to say something, comporting with the significant exclamation, but a glance from her husband, as he passed out of the door, quelled her into silence.

On the departure of Gurley, his wife rose and left the room; when Claud, unexpectedly finding himself alone with his fair companion, instead of entering into the easy conversation with her which the dictates of common gallantry would seem to require, soon began to manifest signs of constraint and embarrassment, which did not escape the eye of the young lady, and which caused her no little surprise and perplexity. She knew nothing of what had been passing in his mind, nor once dreamed of the circumstance which had first impressed her image there. She had, indeed, known nothing of the Elwoods, except what she had heard her father say of them as a family, with whose head he had in some way been formerly connected in business. Had she been asked, she would doubtless have recalled the fact that her father had, the year before, employed an artist to paint a miniature likeness of her, which he subsequently pretended to have sent to a relative of his residing in Quebec, and she never entertained the least suspicion that it was not thus properly disposed of. She had never seen Claud till yesterday, when he so opportunely appeared for her rescue; and, even then, she had no idea who it was to whom she had thus become indebted. She, however, had been much prepossessed with his appearance and manly bearing, and felt a lively sense of gratitude for the voluntary service; and when, by the introduction of her father, she became apprised of the character of her deliverer, she felt doubly gratified that he had turned out to be one who, she believed, would not take any mean advantage of the obligation. For these reasons, she could not understand why he should appear so reserved, unless it was that she had failed to interest him; and, finally concluding that this must be the case, she did that which, with her maidenly pride and high spirit, she would otherwise have scorned to do, she exerted herself to the utmost to interest and please him; and, when he rose to return to his companions, she followed him into the yard, and smilingly said:

"You are fond of gunning excursions, are you not, Mr. Elwood?"

"Yes, O yes, quite so," replied Claud, with awkward hesitation.

"And would not an occasional excursion in this direction be as pleasant as any other?" she asked, with playful significance.

But, instead of replying in the same spirit, the bewildered young man turned, and sent a gaze into the depths of her lustrous dark eyes, so serious and intense that it brought a blush to her cheek; when, stammering out his intention of often taking her house in his way in future, he hurriedly bade her good-by, and departed, leaving her more perplexed than ever.

As for Claud, it would be difficult to describe his sensations on leaving the house, or make any thing definite out of the operations of his mind. Both heart and brain were working tumultuously, but not in unison. The train which his imagination had been laying was on the point of being kindled into, a blaze by the reality. He knew it; he felt it; but he knew also that it was the part of wisdom to smother the flame while it yet might be controlled. The unexpected and startling discovery which he had just made, that the girl who had so wrought upon his fancy, both when seen in the picture and met in the original, was the daughter of Gaut Gurley, raised difficulties and dangers in the path he found himself entering, which his judgment told him could only be avoided by his immediate desistance. For he was well aware how deeply rooted was his mother's aversion to this man, and how fatal had been his influence over his father, who had but a few months before escaped from his toils, and then only, perhaps, because there was no more to be gained by keeping him in them any longer. A connection with the daughter, therefore, however opposite in character from her father, would not only greatly mar his mother's happiness, but in all probability lead to a renewal of the intimacy between his father and Gurley; an event which he himself felt was to be deprecated. But the Demon of Sophistry, who first taught self-deceiving man how to make "the wish father to the thought," here interposing, whispered to the incipient lover that his father had reformed, and why not then Gaut Gurley? This reasoning, however, could not be made to satisfy his judgment; and again commenced the struggle between head and heart, one pulling one way and the other in another way,—too often an unequal struggle, too often like one of those contests between man and wife, where reason succumbs and will comes off triumphant.

Such were the fluctuating thoughts and purposes which occupied the agitated bosom of Claud Elwood, in his solitary walk to the place where the boats had been left, and where the subject was now driven from his mind, for a while, by the appearance of his companions and the merry jokes of the hunter. They had cut up the moose meat, which they had found in good condition, and brought all they deemed worth saving down to the landing. And, being now ready to embark, they apportioned the meat among the different canoes, and rowed with the now favoring current rapidly down the river together till they reached its mouth, when they separated, and bore their allotted portions of the moose to their respective homes.