The Indian could now comprehend the conduct of the woman. It was natural she should be grateful to the savior of her child's life, and ready to show the feeling by the little means in her power. Could he have looked into her heart, he would have seen that there was more than mere gratitude there. Holden's conduct, so different from that of other white men; the disinterested nature of his character showing itself in acts of kindness to all; his seclusion; his gravity, which seldom admitted of a smile; his imposing appearance, and his mysterious communings with some unseen power—for she had often seen him as he stood to watch for the rising sun, and heard his wild bursts of devotion—had made a deep impression on the squaw, and invested him with the attributes of a superior being; a feeling which was participated in by many of the Indians.
But if Ohquamehud could have seen all this, it would have served only to aggravate the suspicions he begun to entertain about the Long Beard, as he and the woman called Holden. As an Indian, he was suspicious of even the kindness of the white man, lest some evil design might lurk beneath. What wonder, when we consider the relation of one to the other? How much of our history is that of the wolf, who charged the lamb, who drank below him, with muddying the stream?
Ohquamehud, a Pequot by birth, was a stranger who, but a few days before, had come from a Western tribe, into which he had been adopted, either to visit the graves of his fathers, or for some of those thousand causes of relationship, or friendship, or policy, which will induce the North American Indian to journey hundreds of miles, and saw the Recluse, for the first time, that morning. If the gratitude of the squaw was explained, which, he doubted not, was undeserved, the Long Beard's knowledge of the Indian tongue was not. How it was that he should be thus familiar with and speak it with a grace and fluency beyond the power of the few scattered members of the tribe in the neighborhood, the most of whom had almost lost all remembrance of it, was to him an interesting mystery. He mused in silence over his thoughts, occasionally stopping the paddle and passing his hand over his brow, as if to recall some circumstance or idea that constantly eluded his grasp. In this manner they proceeded until, on turning a high point of land, the little village of Hillsdale appeared in sight.
Those who see now that handsome town, for the first time, can have but little idea of its appearance then. But, though the large brick stores that line its wharves, and the costly mansions of modern times, clustering one above the other on the hill-sides, and its fine churches of granite and Portland stone, were not to be seen, yet, it was even then a place that could not fail to attract attention.
The situation is one of exceeding beauty. Two bright streams—the Wootúppocut, whose name indicates its character, its meaning being "clear water," and the Yaupáae, or "margin of a river," which, why it should be so called it is not as easy to explain, unite their waters to form the noble Severn. It is a pity that the good taste which preserved the original names of the two first, had not also retained the title of the last—the Sakimau, or Sachem, or chief, by which it was known to the Indians. It is possible the first settlers in the country thought, that allowing two rivers to retain their aboriginal appellations was a sufficient tribute to good taste, while they made the change of name of the third an offering to affection, many of them having drawn their first breath on the pleasant banks of the English river Severn. It was on the tongue of land, or promontory, formed by the confluence of the two rivers that composed the Severn, that the principal part of the town was situated.
On the promontory facing the south, and rising boldly from the water, the white-painted village ascended half-way up its sides, its two principal streets sweeping away, in curving lines, round the base, upward to a piece of level land, into which the north side of the hill gently declined. At the most northern part of this level, the two streets united, at a distance of a mile from the wharves, into one which thence winded a devious course two or three miles further along the Yaupáae. Above the highest roofs and steeples, towered the green summit of the hill, whose thick-growing evergreens presented, at all seasons, a coronal of verdure. One who stood on the top could see come rushing in from the east, through a narrow throat, and between banks that rose in height as they approached the town, the swift Wootúppocut, soon to lose both its hurry and its name in the deeper and more tranquil Severn, of which it is the principal tributary, while on the west he beheld, gliding like a silver snake through green meadows, the gentle Yaupáae, lingering, as if it loved the fields through which it wandered, until suddenly quickening its pace, with a roar as of angry vexation, it precipitated itself in eddies of boiling foam, whose mist rose high into the air, down a deep gorge, between overhanging rocks, through which it had forced a passage. Thence the stream, subsiding into sudden tranquillity, expanded into a cove dotted with two or three little islands, and flowing round the base of the hill which declined gradually towards the west, united itself with the Wootúppocut. Far beneath his feet he saw the roofs of the houses, and steeples of churches, and masts of sloops, employed in the coasting business, and of brigs engaged in the West India trade, and noticed a communication, partly bridge and partly causey, thrown over the mouth of the Yaupáae and uniting the opposite banks; for, on the western side, along the margin and up the hill, houses were thickly scattered.
The canoe soon glided alongside of one of the wharves, and the Indians disappeared in the streets.
CHAPTER II.
With us there was a Doctor of Physic:
In all this world ne was there none him like,
To speak of physic and of surgery.
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