The Lord's Prayer succeeded; and then they separated to their rest.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Before daylight in the morning, Sir William Johnson was on foot, and in the stable. Some three or four negro-slaves--for there were slaves then on all parts of the American continent--lay sleeping soundly in a small sort of barrack hard by; and, as soon as one of them could be roused, Sir William's horse was saddled, and he rode away, without pausing to eat, or to say farewell. He bent his course direct towards the Mohawk, flowing at some twenty miles' distance from the cottage of Mr. Prevost.
Before Sir William had been five minutes in the saddle, he was in the midst of the deep woods which surrounded the little well-cultivated spot where the English wanderer had settled. It was a wild and rather gloomy scene into which he plunged; for, though something like a regular road had been cut, along which carts as well as horses could travel, yet that road was narrow, and the branches nearly met overhead.
In some places the underwood, nourished by a moist and marshy soil, was too thick and tangled to be penetrated either by foot or eye. In others, where the path ascended to higher grounds, or passed amongst the hard dry rocks, the aspect of the forest changed. Pine after pine, with now and then an oak, a chestnut, or a locust-tree, covered the face of the country, with hardly a shrub upon the ground below, which was carpeted with the brown slippery needles of the resinous trees; and between the huge trunks poured the grey, mysterious light of the early dawn, while a thin, whitish vapour hung amongst the boughs overhead.
About a mile from the house, a bright and beautiful stream crossed the road, flowing on towards the greater river; but bridge there was none, and, in the middle of the stream, Sir William suffered his horse to stop, and bend its head to drink. He gazed to the westward, but all there was dark and gloomy under the thick overhanging branches. He turned his eyes to the eastward, where the ground was more open, and the stream could be seen flowing on for nearly half a mile, with little cascades, and dancing rapids, and calm lapses of bright, glistening water, tinted with a rosy hue, where the morning sky gleamed down upon it through some break in the forest canopy.
While thus gazing, his eye rested on a figure standing in the midst of the stream, with rod in hand, and the back turned towards him. He thought he saw another figure also amongst the trees upon the bank; but it was shadowy there, and the form seemed shadowy too.
After gazing for a minute or so, he raised his voice, and exclaimed--
"Walter!--Walter Prevost!"
The lad heard him, and, laying his rod upon the bank, hastened along over the green turf to join him; at the same moment the figure amongst the trees--if really figure it was--disappeared from the sight.