With the infatuated Mark Elwood, however, the case seemed to be almost wholly reversed. He again listened,—was again lost. He, restless, uneasy, and evidently apprehensive of something he did not disclose, from continuing under the terrible displeasure which Gaut had so significantly manifested towards him,—he had appeared, from the first, to hail with pleasure the indications of the relenting mood of the other, and seemed but too glad to be again noticed with favor. He could see no reason to distrust the man’s sincerity, he said, when others raised the question; and he was much inclined to adopt his version of the robbery and burning of their camp. When, therefore, the proposal of a new expedition was made, under the circumstances we have named, the blinded Elwood seemed fully prepared to accept it; and he would have openly and without reserve done so, but for the restraining presence of his companions, who, he felt conscious, would disapprove and deprecate his conduct. Gaut had noticed all this, and was not long in bringing about a private interview with his dupe and victim, which resulted, as might be supposed, in settling the matter in just the way he intended.
From that time, the conduct of Mark Elwood became wholly inexplicable to all his friends and acquaintances in the settlement. He commenced with defending Gaut Gurley, thus giving the lie to all he had said, and ended with declaring an intention of accompanying him in another trapping expedition to the upper lakes, to be entered upon on a given day in April, then near at hand. And, in spite of all the advice and warnings of his late associates in the former disastrous campaign; the remonstrances of his son, who shared in the apprehensions of the others; and the agonizing tears and entreaties of his wife, he strangely persisted in his purpose, and, like the fated one of the Scriptures, steadily “set his face” towards his contemplated destination.
“The man is hurried!” said Phillips to Codman, as they left Elwood’s on a second and last visit, made with the sole object of dissuading him from a step which they shrank from themselves,—that of going into the distant forest with such a desperate fellow as they now deeply suspected Gaut Gurley to be,—“the man is evidently hurried. When I saw that look Gaut gave Elwood in court, I knew he was marked for destruction, more especially than the rest of us, who are doubtless both placed on the same list. And Elwood would see it himself, if he was right-minded. Yes, he is hurried, and can’t help it. He will go, and God grant my fears may not be realized.”
And he did go, but not alone. As soon as Claud became fully satisfied that his father’s purpose was not to be shaken, he began earnestly to debate in mind the question whether he himself should not, as a filial duty, become a participant in the expedition, with the view of making his presence instrumental in averting the apprehended danger. And, although he perceived that his mother’s distress, all troubled and doubtful as she was in deciding between her conflicting duties of affection, would be enhanced by the step; and, although his mind had been still more staggered by a brief confidential note from Avis Gurley, advising him, if not too late, to find means to break up the project of the expedition entirely, yet he finally made up his mind in the affirmative. And, accordingly, on the morning of the appointed day, both father and son, after a leave-taking with the despondent wife and mother, more ominously sad and mournful than had ever before marked their family trials, set forth again for the wild wastes of the lakes, with their now doubly questionable companion.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“But there was weeping far away;
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim.”
Bryant’s Murdered Traveller.
It was the second week in May; and spring, delightful spring, sweet herald of happiness to all the living creatures that have undergone the almost literal imprisonment of one of the long and dreary winters of our hyperborean clime, was beginning to sprinkle the green glories of approaching summer over the reänimated wilderness. In the physical world, all seemed light and laughing around:
——“the green soil with joyous living things
Swarm’d, the wide air was full of joyous wings.”
The sun, no longer feebly struggling through the dark, obstructed medium of a northern winter’s atmosphere, was throwing abroad his clear, unstinted floods of living light, bathing with soft radiance the diversified face of the basking forest, and gleaming far and brightly over the soothed waters of the sleeping lake. The mild and genial zephyrs were discoursing the low, sweet, melancholy music of their æolian harps, among the gently-wavering tops of the whispering pines. The choral throng of feathered songsters were filling every grove, glade, or glen, of field and forest, with the glad strains of their merry melodies. And all nature seemed crying aloud, in the fullness of her happiness,