An Algonquin Maiden: A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada by G. Mercer Adam and A. Ethelwyn Wetherald
CHAPTER IV.
INDIAN ANNALS AND LEGENDS.
The last flame of sunset had gone out on a horizon of ashy paleness,as the light bark of the Indian girl swept up the beach, and itsoccupant, after making it secure, loitered idly home. Here, undismayedby observation, she was as gracefully at ease as a fawn in its leafycovert, and as quickly startled into flight at the tread of a stranger.
So lightly did her moccasined feet press the underbrush that no soundpreceded her coming, until she reached the blanketed opening of awigwam where sat an aged Algonquin chief, very grave, very dignified,very far from being immaculately clean. The young girl was notintimidated by this picturesque combination of dignity and dirt.Perhaps it was the absence of these qualities in the young cadet thatcaused her sudden flight from him. Seating herself on a bearskin, notfar from her foster-father, she interchanged with him mellow syllablesof greeting. The chief placed a finger upon her moist brow, andinquired the cause of her haste.
"It was the young kinsman of the Wild Rose who followed me. His headis beautiful as the sun, but he moves, alas, yes, he moves moreslowly."
"Then, why this haste?" queried the Indian, who, though he could boastall the keen and subtle instincts of his race, was apparently in somematters as obtuse as a white man.
The girl bowed her face upon her slim brown hands.
"I do not like the glances of his eye," she said. "They are strong anddazzling as sunbeams on the water."
The chief smoked in meditative silence. "You go too often to thedwelling of the Wild Rose, my daughter."
"Ah, yes; but to-night her pink face is dewy wet, I know, and she isalone. The Moon-in-a-black-cloud has gone to the home of her people."
"Then let her seek consolation in the slow moving sun. The pale-facednation are not fit associates for an Algonquin maiden. Mother Earthhas no love for them; they are quick to wash away her lightestfinger-touch upon them. They are pale and lifeless as a rock overwhich the stream washes continually. Their men are afraid of the rain;their women of the sunshine."
"It is even so. The Wild Rose covers her head, and even her hands,when she leaves the house."
At this mournful assent the chief warmed to his task of depreciation.
"They are degraded, these pale faces, they are poor-spirited, mean,contemptible; unable to cope with the wild beasts of the forest, theysettle down in weak resignation to grow vegetables; nothing stirs themfrom their state of ignoble content except the call to battle, andthat is responded to not in defence of the lives of their fathers,their wives and children, but merely to settle some petty quarrelbetween the chiefs of their nations.
"Ah, they are a strange, servile race! They work with their hands."The Indian paused and looked down at the wrinkled yet shapely membersthat lay before him. "They look upon the grand forest as their naturalenemy, burning, cutting, mutilating, until they have made that odiousthing 'a clearing,' when a house is built with the dead bodies of thebeautiful trees that have fallen by their hand."
"But surely they are not wholly bad," pleaded the girl, her kind heartrefusing to accept the belief that even the lowest of humanity couldbe utterly worthless.
The chief was not to be turned from the swift current of his thoughtsby idle interruptions.
"Their religion is dead, buried in a book, and they put it from themas easily as they put the book on the shelf. Our religion is alive,broad as the earth, deep as the sky. They go into a _house_ toworship; _our_ temple is fashioned by the great Spirit, and ourprayers ascend continually like the white smoke from our wigwams. Ah,but they should be pitied not blamed. They are far from the heart ofnature--they have ceased to be her children."
"It is money they worship, and the soul of a man becomes like thatwhich he adores. They mourn bitterly for their dead, because they feelhow great is the distance between them and the land of spirits. I haveheard that there are white men who do not believe that this landexists, but that cannot be true."
There were some depths of degradation that even his far-reachingimagination failed to compass. Wanda listened wearily, though shemanifested no signs of impatience.
"The pale-faced women are sometimes very beautiful," she said.
"Yes; but they are strange, unnatural creatures. In times of angerthey attack their helpless little ones, talking in a harsh voice,pinching, beating, slapping them, doing everything but bite them."
His listener did not shudder. The Indian, no matter how much hisfeelings may be stirred, is unaccustomed to evince emotion.
"With us," continued the old man, "an angry woman frequently pulls herhusband's hair; for is he not her husband to do with what she likes?but to fall upon her own flesh and blood--that is unnatural andhorrible. It is as if she should wilfully injure her own person,bruise it with stones or sear it with hot irons. Perhaps it is becausethe pale-faced tribes suffer so much in childhood that they are weakand cowardly in manhood. They shrink and cry like a wounded panther atthe touch of pain."
The girl who had not dwelt upon it except in her thoughts wasnevertheless filled with a gently uplifting sense of race superiority.Her admiration of Rose was tinged with pity. Poor garden flower,confined for life to the dull walks and prim parterres of a fixedenclosure, when she might roam the wild paths of the forest; condemnedto sleep in a close room, on stifling feathers, and bathe in anelongated tub, when she might feel the elasticity of hemlock boughsbeneath her, inhale the perfumed breath of myriad trees, and plunge atsunrise into the gleaming waters of the lake. It was indeed a pitiablelife.
They entered the wigwam, and seated themselves on the rush mats thatlay upon the ground. About them were carelessly disposed some dressedskins of the beaver and otter, a brace of wild duck, fishing tackle,and the accoutrements of the chase, a rifle, powder-horn and shotpouch. The chief himself, in his buckskin garment, tightened by awampum belt, his deer-skin moccasins, scarlet cloth leggings andblanket, was not the least picturesque object of the interior. Usuallyreticent, he found great difficulty to-night in withdrawing his mindfrom the subject that had taken such violent possession of it.
"The influence of the white race is spreading," he said. "Like thepoison vines of the forest it touches all who come near it with fataleffect. The tribe of the Hurons is infected with it, and they arebecoming mere tillers of the soil--miserable earth-worms! Men weremade to be free as the bounding deer or the flowing stream, but theyhave paled and weakened, they have become wretched grovellers on theground."
Wanda's large eyes held a smouldering fire of repressed indignation.Her mother had been a Huron.
The story of that dark time, far back in the annals of Canada, whenthe Huron hunting-grounds in this region were laid waste by thedestroyer, had been told her so often that her childish imaginationhad been filled with horror, and a passionate sense of outragedjustice and impossible revenge stirred within her at the bare mentionof her mother's martyred tribe. She did not vent her feelings inbitter or retaliatory speech--that is the weakness of fairer-facedwomen--but through her brain rushed like a swift stream a vividrecollection of the tragic tale as it fell from the lips of her Huronmother upon her young horror-stricken heart.
Less than two hundred years before, the poetry of Indian life amongthe peaceful shades of this virgin wilderness was turned into a taletoo ghastly for human imagination, too terrible for human endurance.At that time the Huron settlements on the borders of Lakes Simcoe andCouchiching, and between Nottawasaga and Matchedash bays, numberedfrom twenty to thirty thousand souls. The picturesque country, thicklydotted with Indian towns, was for many years the scene of Champlain'szealous efforts to erect in these western wilds the standard of theCross. While he won, among the Hurons, converts to his faith and acolony to his country, they found in him a leader in a fateful attackupon their ancient and most obdurate enemies, the Iroquois. The resultof the expedition was failure and discomfiture, but years afterwards,when Champlain was dead, and the "great-souled and giant-statured Jeande Brebeuf" became known as the apostle of the tribe, this fora
Not far from the present site of Barrie was the frontier town of St.Joseph, where the Jesuit Fathers, in view of the perils surroundingthem, had concentrated their forces in a central stronghold, with afurther inland defence at Ste. Marie, near the site of the presenttown of Penetanguishene. Here, at St. Joseph, after years of incessantlabour, of discomforts and discouragements without parallel in theannals of our country, the ardent souls whose enthusiasm for faith andduty had become the dominant principle of their life, were swept awayin the red tide of blood that was opened by the Iroquois. One stillfair morning in the summer of 1648, while most of the warriors wereabsent at the chase, and a company of devout worshippers werecelebrating Mass in the Mission Chapel, their brutish enemiesdescended upon their peaceful domains, and by means of every tortureconceivable to the savage imagination practically exterminated thetribe. Before the century had half-ended the mission post of St.Ignace was similarly invaded by the Iroquois, who, after they weariedof the pastime of hacking the flesh off their prisoners with tomahawksand hatchets, and scorching them with red-hot irons, bound them atlast to the stake and mercifully allowed the swift-mounting flames toend their sufferings. Whole families were bound in their houses beforethe town was set on fire, and their wild cries mingled with the wilderlaughter of their inhuman captors. The few who escaped were so woundedand mutilated that before they could reach a place of safety numbersof them died frozen in the woods.
The remembrance of this dark tale never failed to stir the young girlto a sort of slow self-contained fury, but the blood of thepeace-loving Hurons was in her veins, and could not long be dominatedby the vengeful propensities of her haughty Algonquin father.Invariably with the mixture of blood comes the warring of diverseemotions, the dissatisfaction with the present life, the secretyearning for something better, the impulse towards something worse.She sighed furtively, and half-impatiently went outside to tend theevening camp-fire. The blazing branches illuminated the starlesssummer night, and cast a superb glow over the beautiful half-clothedfigure crouching not far from them. Beyond, the dark blue bay ebbedand flowed languidly.
Some days elapsed before Wanda again made her appearance in theneighbourhood of the Commodore's mansion. This was caused partly byshyness, partly by fear of meeting the bold-eyed youth, whose interestin her had been so painfully apparent. At length Rose, who had notedwith wonder and a little anxiety this unusual absence, suggested toher brother that they call upon one of her Indian friends. To thisEdward demurred, on the ground that the work in which he happened tobe engaged at the time could not possibly wait. But when he learnedthat the beautiful Wanda was the friend alluded to he agreed to gowith her at once, saying that the work he was doing could wait as wellas not. Such was the manner in which brotherly affection was manifestedsixty years ago.
It was a still, almost breathless evening in June. From the meadows,thickly starred with dew, rose the thin high chorus of the crickets,while above, the commingling of gray cloud and crimson sunset hadsubsided into dusk and golden twilight, which were giving place to thewhite radiance of the moon slowly climbing the warm heights of heaven.It was so quiet that the sound of waves and insects seemed like thesoftest whispers of nature. Rose and Edward had rowed down the bay forHelene, who usually accompanied them on their impromptu excursions bylake and wood. Seen in the pale brilliance of sky and water herloveliness had an almost unearthly quality, perfectly akin to thenight, but giving her a strange effect of soft remoteness from herfriends. The light from a brazier, fitted into a stanchion in the prowof the boat, in which some pieces of birch-bark were kindled, broughtthe deep dark shadow of the woods into sharp relief, and gave a morevivid brilliance to the immediate surroundings; but along the dimly-litpath in the forest all the magical influences of the night held sway.Beneath the tangled underbrush they caught glimpses of the rich andfantastic vegetation with which the earth was clothed, while abovethem, intermingled with the shadows cast by the vaulted boughs, playedthe vivid brightness of the moon. Some of the trees were deeplygirdled--a slow method of killing them. These lingering deaths affectedthe trio with melancholy. A wounded inmate of the grove, standing inmute and pathetic resignation to its fate, loses first the feeling ofthe sap that, blood-like, circulates through every limb, then all itsleafy honours fade, and its death is slow and inevitable as the deathof a forsaken woman who carries a deep hurt at the heart.
Near where a group of lofty elms lifted their beautiful heads up tothe moonlight they found the old chief busily engaged in mending hisseine. He greeted them with entire self-possession, rising and givinghis hand to each, after which he resumed his occupation in tranquilcontent, as though the duties of hospitality were now over. The youngladies, however, without waiting for any further exhibition ofcourtesy, seated themselves on a mossy log, and bestowed upon theirhost and his employment the flattering attention, which, if it failedto make an impression upon him, would certainly prove him more--orless--than mortal man. Edward, meantime, finding a convenient bough afew feet above his head, amused himself in swinging by his hands, witha view to muscular development. The contrast between the sad dignityof the aged Indian, the lone survivor of a despised race, and thelight-heartedness of the fair boy, upon whom all the hopes of hisfamily centred, struck both girls forcibly. After a few sympatheticinquiries regarding the health of the chief, Rose asked after thewhereabouts of Wanda.
"She is not here," he replied. "She flies from our home as a birdflies from its cage, returning only when she is weary, or when theshades of night are upon the land."
"Do you know where she is?" inquired Edward, dropping to his feet, andseating himself on a log facing the others.
"Somewhere in the forest," replied the Indian, indicating the directionby a broad sweep of the hand, which might include a thousand acres.
This was sufficiently indefinite. "It appears to be characteristic ofthis young lady that she is either a vanished joy, or just on thepoint of becoming one. Have you any idea how far away she is?" heasked.
"Something more than twice the flight of an arrow," tranquillyanswered the Indian--"yes, much more. It used to be that she wentshort distances, but she now goes a papoose's journey of half asun--sometimes further." He viewed his impatient guest a moment withgravity, and added, "yes, much further."
"And you trust her all alone?"
"She is an Algonquin maiden. She fears nothing."
"And why is an Algonquin superior to a Huron, for instance?" The youngman, leaning idly back, and caressing the Indian dog of the chief,pursued his questions without any definite purpose, but merely to drawout his reserved-looking host.
"Why is the fleet deer that spurns the soil better than the dull oxthat tills it? Or why is the eagle better than the hen that picks upcorn in your doorway? But there was a time when in all the land noIndian could be found who was tame and stupid--what you callcivilized."
"Tell us a legend of that time, will you not?" pleaded Rose, who hadbeen watching in silence for a fitting opportunity to make herfavourite request.
"Ah, please do," said Edward, and the three settled themselvescomfortably to listen.
"It was a great many moons ago," began the chief, "long before thetime of my grandfather. All the Indian races were then as one people,living in peace, and speaking one tongue. Not one of them worked withhis hands. The deer, the beaver, the otter, the antelope, and the bearflourished and fattened for all, and were caught with scarcely anyskill or effort. The men were never wearied in the chase, nor thewomen with pounding corn. None of the white races had as yet come uponthe earth to molest and insult the guardian spirits of hill and streamand stately wood, and the red men, then as now, were in the habit ofpropitiating these deities by offerings of maize, bright colouredflowers, or belts of wampum laid upon the mountains, or dropped intocaves or streams. Yes, every one lived without fear of his neighbour,and the red ochre with which our tribes paint their faces in war wasused only to decorate the pipe of peace.
"One day it happened that a few chosen ones of all these tribes weremet together upon a plain, about the distance of four bow-shots across.Very green and shining it looked to the eye, for it was in theFlower-moon, and the great star of day was bright in the heaven. Byits clear light they saw, far in the distance, two strange, enormousthings moving towards them. But whether these things were writhingwreaths of thunder clouds descended to earth, or gigantic treesdenuded of their foliage and suddenly gifted with the power of motion,or whether they were wild beasts of a size never seen before, theycould not tell. But presently they found them to be immense creaturesin the form of rattlesnakes, poisoning the air with their vileeffluvia, and destroying every green tree and living thing in theirpath. Every delicate plant and creeping thing was poisoned by theirbreath, and the larger animals were devoured in the flap of a bird'swing. With them came terrific lightnings that rent the trees and cleftthe solid rock, and thunders which caused the earth to reel like a manwho had drank many times of fire-water. Nearer and nearer theyapproached, and now the chosen residents of this fair plain werefilled with alarm for their lives, and at once began to buildfortifications against the terrible intruders. The snakes, whoappeared to prefer the flesh of man to that of the other animals,crawled up close to the defence of their enemies, and flung their longhorrible bodies against it, but in vain. It was useless to attack themwith bows and arrows, on account of the scales which enveloped themlike an armour. Those who ventured without the walls were instantlyswallowed, while those within, who had fasted many suns, were growingweak from want of food.
"Now there was among them a chief, called the Big Bear, who was verybrave and cunning. He had been a hunter of the deer and wolf eversince he had been pronounced a man. No danger was so great that hecould not find a trail out of it. So when he began to speak all thepeople who remained gathered round him.
"'Brothers and chiefs,' he said, 'I perceive that one of our enemiesis a woman, because she is less sluggish in her movements than theother, and her eyes are bright and deceitful. Besides she cares not toeat all the time, but she will sometimes go to view herself in theriver, or when she thinks no one is looking will slyly turn her headto see the graceful movements of her tail. Brothers, my plan is this:Let me contrive to win the heart of this vain squaw-snake, and thenwith her aid I shall be able to destroy her husband; afterwards we maycompass the destruction of the faithless wife. If I perish it is in agood cause, I am a willing martyr.'
"This good man proceeded that very night to carry out his noblepurpose. The sky was full of shining lights as he mounted thefortification, and bent toward her, murmuring: 'Ah, beautiful creature,thy form is graceful as a winding stream, and thine eyes are two starsreflected in it. That stupid man-snake, lying in heavy sleep, how canhe appreciate you? He is withered and worthless as a last year's leaf.As for me I flee to you from the dull women of my tribe, who are likeso many dead trees, that stand even after life has left them. You arealive and beautiful in every movement, like the long curving wave thatbreaks upon the beach.'
"Oh, there is no doubt that Big Bear knew all about the best way tomake love, for very soon the squaw-snake began to show greatdiscontent with her husband, to scold him in a high voice, and to wishthat he were dead; whereas she greeted Big Bear with much affection,warming her glittering head in his breast, and embracing him severaltimes by coiling round and round him. But she was careful to turn herhead away, so as not to poison him by her breath. As for Big Bear,though he was glad to win her love, he wished her not to love him toowell as she had a wonderful dexterity in snapping off the heads ofthose whom she admired. Her consent to the death of her husband waseasily gained, and she bade him dip the points of two arrows in thepoison of her sting. This he did and after retiring within thefortification he levelled one arrow at the head of the husband, whilehe deposited the other in that of the wicked wife. The horrid monstersrolled over in agony, and rent the air with their death-shrieks, whileall the people gathering about Big Bear, called him their brother,because by his wonderful knowledge of the arts of flirtation he haddelivered them from great peril. But the most grievous result of thedanger through which they had passed was this, that the poison ejectedby the snakes in their death-agonies affected all the tribes of theearth to such an extent that each began to use a different languagewhich could not be comprehended by the others. Since that time a youngman of one race very seldom weds with the daughter of another, becauseshe does not understand the lies he tells."
"Is it necessary for him to tell her what is not true, in order tomarry her?" asked Edward.
"It is customary," replied the chief, gravely returning to his task,without the suspicion of a smile.
"Oh, strange peculiarity of the red men," softly exclaimed Helene. Shebegged for another legend, but the Indian had relapsed into his normalstate of imperious dignity; so, after thanking him for the extravaganza,to which they had listened with admirable self-possession, theyreturned to the beach, the dog plunging joyfully into the green depthsof the forest before them. The great woods were warm, odorous,breathless. Rose pushed back the damp blonde locks from her brow. "Iwish you could have seen Wanda," she said. "The girl is quite a beauty.Half wild, of course, but with a sort of barbaric splendour about herthat dazzles and bewilders one. You will understand when you see her,why the Indians speak the word 'pale-face' with a contemptuousinflection."
"I suppose," mused Edward, "that paleness to them means weakness, lackof blood, vitality, courage, and all that most becomes a man. Yet as amatter of taste I prefer white to copper colour." His blue eyes werebent upon the lily-like face of Helene.
"Wait till you see her," was his sister's laughing response.
"And that will be many moons hence, to use the language of ourstory-teller, if she continues as elusive as the wind. I have hadglimpses of her, or rather of the flutter of her vanishing raiment.A being with a wonderfully perfect face, clothed in heterogeneous andmany-coloured garments, and educated on the amazing fictions withwhich her foster-father's memory seems to be stored, would be worthwaiting to see."
But he had not long to wait. As he stood on the beach in the absenceof his companions, who were carefully retracing their steps to thewigwam in search of a glove, presumably dropped by the way, he caughtsight of the Indian girl, her back turned towards him, lazily rockingherself in his boat. For a moment he thrilled with the excitement of ahunter in the presence of that desirable object, "a splendid shot."Then he crept stealthily forward, sprang into the boat, and before thestartled girl could recover from her amazement, he was rowing her farout on the moonlit bay. "There!" he cried, exultantly, bending anardent yet laughing gaze upon her, "now you may run away as fast asyou like."
The girl neither spoke nor moved. A great fire of resentment wasburning in her heart, and its flames mounted to her cheeks. "My soul!"he murmured, "how beautiful you are!" She faced him fully and fairly,with the magnificent disdain of an empress in exile. In some way shegave him the impression that this brilliant little escapade was rathera poor joke after all. "Do me the favour of moving a muscle," hepleaded mockingly, and his request was lavishly granted. Before hecould guess her intention she was in the water, knocking an oar fromhis hand in her rapid exit, and swimming at an incredible rate ofspeed for the nearest point of land, from which she sped like a huntedthing to the woods.
Left alone in this unceremonious fashion the young man paddledruefully after his missing oar, and then struck out boldly after theescaped captive, with the intention of apologizing for what now seemedto him rather a cowardly performance; but the footsteps of the flyingmaiden left no trace upon the beach. His discomfited gaze rested on noliving thing save the approaching figures of his sister and her friend,whose humane inquiries and frequent jests concerning the half wild,wholly dripping, vision that had crossed their path, contributed in noway to the young man's enjoyment of their homeward row.