The broad, honest face of the father flushed with joy, and then a feeling less selfish came over him. He asked, with a slight tremor in the voice, that was none the less touching for coming from the lips of one so stout of frame and firm of movement--
"And the woman?--in what manner doth Abundance bear up under the blessing?"
"Bravely," returned the leech; "go to thy dwelling, Sergeant Ring, and praise God that there is one to look to its concerns, in thy absence. He who hath received the gift of seven sons, in five years, need never be a poor nor a dependent man, in a country like this. Seven farms, added to that pretty homestead of mountain-land which thou now tillest, will render thee a patriarch in thine age, and sustain the name of Ring, hundreds of years hence, when these colonies shall become peopled and powerful, and, I say it boldly, caring not who may call me one that vaunteth out of reason, equal to some of your lofty and self-extolled kingdoms of Europe--ay, even peradventure to the mighty sovereignty of Portugal, itself! I have enumerated thy future farms at seven, for the allusion of the Ensign to the virtues of men born with natural propensities to the healing art, must be taken as pleasant speech, since it is a mere delusion of old wives' fancy, and it would be particularly unnecessary, here, where every reasonable situation of this nature is already occupied. Go to thy wife, Sergeant, and bid her be of good cheer; for she hath done herself, thee, and thy country, a service, and that without dabbling in pursuits foreign to her comprehension." The sturdy yeoman, on whom this rich gift of Providence had been dispensed, raised his hat, and placing it decently before his face, he offered up a silent thanksgiving for the favor. Then, transferring his captive to the keeping of his superior and kinsman, he was soon seen striding over the fields towards his upland dwelling, with a heavy foot, though with a light heart.
In the mean time, Dudley and his companion bestowed a more particular attention on the silent and nearly motionless object of their curiosity. Though the captive appeared to be of middle age, his eye was unmeaning, his air timid and uncertain, and his form cringing and ungainly. In all these particulars, he was seen to differ from the known peculiarities of a native warrior.
Previously to departing, Reuben Ring had explained, that while traversing the woods, on that duty of watchfulness to which the state of the colony and some recent signs had given rise, this wandering person had been encountered and secured, as seemed necessary to the safety of the settlement. He had neither sought nor avoided his captor; but when questioned concerning his tribe, his motive for traversing those hills, and his future intentions, no satisfactory reply could be extracted. He had scarcely spoken, and the little that he said was uttered in a jargon between the language of his interrogator and the dialect of some barbarous nation. Though there was much in the actual state of the colonies, and in the circumstances in which this wanderer had been found, to justify his detention, little had in truth been discovered, to supply a clue either to any material facts in his history, or to any of his views in being in the immediate vicinity of the valley.
Guided only by this barren information, Dudley and his companion endeavored, as they moved towards the hamlet, to entrap their prisoner into some confession of his object, by putting their questions with a sagacity not unusual to men in remote and difficult situations, where necessity and danger are apt to keep alive all the native energies of the human mind. The answers were little connected and unintelligible, sometimes seeming to exhibit the finest subtlety of savage cunning, and at others to possess the mental helplessness of appearing the most abject fatuity.
Chapter XIX.
"I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are;--
But I have
That honorable grief lodged here, which burns
Worse than tears drown."
Winter's Tale.
If the pen of a compiler, like that we wield, possessed the mechanical power of the stage, it would be easy to shift the scenes of this legend as rapidly and effectively as is required for its right understanding, and for the proper maintenance of its interest. That which cannot be done with the magical aid of machinery, must be attempted by less ambitious, and we fear by far less efficacious means.