The lost hunter: A tale of early times

by John Turvill Adams

It was on the village wharf that the coadjutors met. Basset, as he contemplated the martial bearing of the General and the burly form of Gladding, felt comforted. The clouds that all day long had lowered above his mental horizon parted, and patches of blue sky began to appear. It was a cause of special gratulation to him, which he realized more sensibly in the darkness than by day, that assistance so important as Gladding's had been secured, and that without additional expense. He was confident now of an easy victory. The associates jumped into the boat, the painter was cast off, the constable, as principal, took the steersman's seat, and Tom and Primus disposed themselves to row.

The night was neither clear nor dark, or rather was both by fits and starts. Light fleecy clouds were constantly passing over the heavens, now gathering densely together and completely hiding the stars, and now breaking up and revealing between the rifts then shining points. A low wind softly moaned through the leafless trees on the banks of the Severn, sadly chiming in with the murmur of the tide, which rose quite up to the Falls of the Yaupáae. In the indistinct light, just enough to stimulate and keep in active play the imagination, softening away all those harshnesses which the garish brilliancy of day discloses, and inviting the mind to supply with its own creations what is vague and deficient, the village presented an appearance more attractive, if possible, than by day. Along the margin of the river, and up the hill-sides, the lights scattered in every direction, and rising irregularly one above another, contended successfully with the struggling stars to light the way of the adventurers; while a low sound, the faint indication of life, hardly distinguishable from other noises, rose from the village, for it was yet early in the night, and imparted a sense of security by the consciousness of human propinquity. But gradually, under the skillful strokes of the oars, the sounds became fainter and fainter, and one light after another disappeared till, at a turn in the stream, the bold promontory of Okommakemisit hid the town from view.

A feeling of loneliness now, in spite of the presence of his two friends, began to creep over the constable. So long as the lights had been visible, he felt a strength derived from the vicinity of the habitations of his fellow-beings, as if, were anything untoward to happen, assistance was close at hand and ready to be proffered, but now he might die a thousand deaths, and none be the wiser for his wretched end. As these and other thoughts equally dismal chased each other through his mind, the silence became more and more oppressive (for it was only now and then, hitherto, a word had been uttered), and it was with an emotion of thankfulness and relief he heard it broken by the voice of Gladding.

"I say, Primus," he said, "do you know where you are?"

"I guess I does," answered the black, speaking from between his shut teeth, which the necessity of retaining the stump of a pipe he was smoking compelled him to keep tight together, "I is on de river 'joying a row wid two white genlmn."

"Any fool knows that," said Tom, "though for the matter of the enjoyment, there might be two words about that. Some jugs has two handles."

"Well, if dat doesn't please you, I all in a shiver wid de cold. My wood toe is almost freeze."

"That's a plaguy curus thing," said Tom. "You know Jim Hardy. Well I hearn him say he can feel the fingers in his hand that was ground off in the mill, just an much as in tother. I expect your experience is pretty much the same."

"Dat's a fact," said Primus. "I can feel de foot and de toes just as much as ebber, only de leg is a sort o' kind o' shorter. Now, Missa Gladding, you is a man ob gumption, can you splain dat?"

"Sartin," said Tom, who didn't wish to appear ignorant to the presence of the negro; "there's no great difficulty about that, though I rather think it takes more larning than you've got to onderstand the thing. You see," he added, recollecting as well as he could some Latin words he had heard used by the doctor, "the narves of the rigdum flagdum in circumnavigating through the humorous rusticus, deflastigated by the horrentibus oribus sort o' twist the aures arrectos into asinos, and that you see, to a man of larning makes the whole thing as clear as one of elder Sillyway's sarmons."