The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

The compliment in respect of the salmon had pleased both the miller and his wife, even though it had made Nell blush; and then a bantering word or two was said to Hal Holmes and his fine taste for salmon, and forthwith Mr. Wesley was giving an animated account of how he had seen the Indians in Georgia spearing for salmon on one of the rivers. This power of bringing a wide scene before one's eyes in a moment by the use of an illuminating word or two was something quite new to the miller and his friends; but it was the special gift of his latest guest. With thin uplifted forefinger—it had the aspect as well as the power of a wizard's wand—he seemed to draw the whole picture in the air before the eyes of all at the table—the roar of the rapids whose name with its Indian inflections was in itself a romance—the steathily moving red men with their tomahawks and arrows and long spears—the enormous backwoods—one of them alone half the size of England and Wales—the strange notes of the bird—whip-poor-will, the settlers called it—moonlight over all—moonlight that was like a thin white sheet let down from heaven to cover the earth; and where this silver wonder showed the white billows of foam churned up by the swirl of the mad river, there was the gleam of torches—from a distance they looked like the fierce red eyes of the wild beasts of the backwood; but coming close one could see deep down at the foot of the rapids the flash of a blood-red scimitar—the quick reflection in the passionate surface of the water of the red flare that waved among the rocks. Then there was a sudden splash and a flash—another scimitar—this time of silver scattering diamonds through the moonlight—another flash like a thin beam of light—the fish was transfixed in mid-air by the Indian spear!

They saw it all. The scene was brought before their eyes. They sat breathless around the supper table. And yet the man who had this magic of voice and eye had never once raised that voice of his—had never once made a gesture except by the uplifting of his finger.

“Fishing—that is fishing!” said Hal Holmes. “I should like——”

The finger was upraised in front of him.

“You must not so much as think of it, my friend! It would be called poaching on our rivers here,” said Mr. Wesley with a smile.

“Then I should like to live in the land where the fish of the rivers, the deer of the forests, the birds of the air are free, as it was intended they should be—free to all men who had skill and craft—I have heard of the trappers,” said Hal. “It seems no sort of life for a wholesome man to live—pulling the string of a bellows, hammering iron into shoes, for plough-horses!—no life whatsoever.” Wesley smiled.

“Ah, if you but knew aught of the terror of the backwoods,” said he. “If you but knew of it—one vast terror—monstrous—incredible. A terror by day and by night. I was used to stand on one of the hills hard by our little settlement, and look out upon the woods whose skirts I could see in the far distance, and think of their immensity and their mystery. Hundreds of miles you might travel through those trackless forests until the hundreds grew into thousands—at last you would come upon-the prairie—hundred and hundreds of miles of savage country—a mighty ocean rolling on to the foot of the Rocky Mountains! Between the backwoods-and the mountains roll the Mississippi River—the Ohio, the Potomac. Would you know what the Mississippi is like? Take the Thames and the Severn and the Wye and the Tyne and the Humber—let them roll their combined volume down the one river bed; the result would be no more than an insignificant tributary of the Mother of Waters—the meaning of the name Mississippi.”

There was more breathlessness. When Hal Holmes broke the silence everyone was startled—everyone stared at him.

“Grand! grand!” he said in a whisper. “And your eyes beheld that wonder of waters, sir?”

Mr. Wesley held up both his hands.