an examination. The lad, upon being interrogated,…

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The very next evening after he had got into this station, he observed Miss gindali enter the garden alone. This was an opportunity not to be missed; on pretence, therefore, of fetching somewhat from the end of the walk she was on, he passed her, and polled off his hat with a look significant of prior acquaintance. Lucy observed him, and feeling a sort of momentary comfort from the recollection, began

some talk with him respecting his former situation, and the changes it had undergone. She asked him many questions about their old neighbours at Sindall-park, and particularly Mrs Wistanly; when she was soon convinced of her misapprehension with regard to a failure of that worthy woman's intellects, Jery (so the gardener was familiarly called) having seen her on his way to Bilswood, and heard her speak of Miss Lucy with the most tender concern. * And what was your last service, Jery ?' said she.—< I wrought for Mr Bolton, Madam.'—' Mr Bolton F—* And I received this paper from him for your ladyship, which I was ordered to deliver into your own hands, and no other body's, an't please your ladyship,' She took the letter with a trembling impatience, and whispering, that she would find an opportunity of seeing him again, hurried up into her chamber to peruse it. She found it to contain what follows:

' I have not words to tell my ever-dearest Lucy, with what distracting anxiety I read the

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letter that is now lying before me. To give her suspicions of my faith, must have been the work of no common treachery: when she knows that I wrote to her three several times without receiving any answer, she will, at the same time, acquit me of inconstancy, and judge of my uneasiness.

4 That discovery which she had lately made, is nothing to her or to me. My Lucy is the child of heaven, and her inheritance every excellence it can bestow.

1 But her present situation—my God! what horrible images has my fancy drawn of it! For Heaven's sake, let not even the most amiable of weakness prevent her escaping from it into the arms of her faithful Bolton. I dispatch a messenger with this instantly. I shall follow him myself, the moment I have made some arrangements, necessary for your present safety and future comfort. I shall be in the neigh*

bourhood of Bilswood, for I am forbidden to enter, Sir Thomas having taken occasion, from my resigning a commission which would have

fixed me ingloriously in a garrison abroad, that I might be of some use to my country at home, to write me a letter in the angriest terms, renouncing me as he expresses it, for ever. I see, I see the villainy of his purpose; 'tis but a few days hence, and I will meet him in the covert of his falsehood, and blast it. Let my Lucy be but just to herself and to

< BofcTOH,*

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She had scarcely read this, when Mrs Boothby (entered the room.

The baronet had, for some days, quitted that plan of intimidation, which had prompted him to discover to Lucy the circumstance of her being a wretched foundling, supported by his charity, for a behaviour more mild and insinuating; and Mrs Boothby who squared her conduct accordingly, had been particularly attentive and obliging.

She now delivered to Miss Sindali a message from a young lady in the neighbourhood, an acquaintance of hers, begging her company along with Mrs Boothby's, to a party of pleasure the day after. * And really, Miss Sindali,' said she, with an air of concern, ' I must enforce the invitation from a regard to your health, as you seem to have been dropping for some days past/ Lucy looked her full in the face, and sighed ; that look she did not chuse to understand, but repeated her question as to their jaunt to-morrow. ' Miss Venhurst will call at nine, and expects to find you ready to attend her.—* What you please,'

replied the other; * if Miss Venhurst is to be of the party, I have no objection. The consent seemed to give much satisfaction to Mrs Boothby, who left her with a gentle tap on the back, and an unusual appearance of kindness in her aspect.

Lucy read her letter again ; she had desired Bolton to think of her no more; but there is in the worthiest hearts, a little hypocrisy attending such requests: she found herself happy in the thought that he had not forgotten her.

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252 THE MAN Of THE WORLD.

When she opened her bureau, to deposit this fresh testimony of his attachment, she observed the corner of a piece of paper, which had been thrust into a fissure occasioned by the shrinking of the wood.

Her curiosity was excited by this circumstance; and unfolding the paper she found it to contain ■

To Miss Sindle.

' Madm. ' I writ this from a sincear regaird to yur welfer. Sir Tho.

Sindle hase a helitch plott against yur vartue, and hase imployde Mrs Buthbie, whu is a wooman of a notoreus karicter in Londun to asist him* They wil putt yu on a jant tomoro on pretens of seeing Mss Venhrst, butt it is fals: for she is not to be thair, and they only wants to inveegle yu for a wicket purpes. therfor bi advyzd by a frinde, and du not go.

* Yur secrt welwishar,

il.s:

Amazement and horror filled the mind of Lucy as she read this; but, when the first perturbation of her soul was over, she bethought herself of endeavouring to find out her friend in the author of this epistle, whose compassion seemed so much interested in her behalf. She remembered that one of the servants who was sometimes employed to ride out with her, was called Robert, which agreed with the first in

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tial of the subscription of the note she had received. At 8upper, therefore, though she wore a look of as much indifference as possible, she marked, with a secret attention, the appearance of this man's countenance. Her belief of his being the person who had

communicated this friendly intelligence, was increased from her observation ; and she determined to watch an opportunity of questioning him with regard to iu

CHAP. XVI.

MISS SINDALL HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT—A RESOLUTION SHE TAKES IN CONSEQUENCE OF IT.

«

After a night of wakeful anxiety, she was called in the morning by Mrs Boothby, who told her, that breakfast waited, as it was near the hour they proposed setting out on their jaunt. « Miss Venhurst,'

continued she, ' has sent to let you know, that she is prevented from calling here as she promised, but that she will meet us on the road/ • I am sorry/

answered Lucy, with a counterfeited coolness, ' that 1 should be forced to disappoint her in my turn; but I rested so ill last night, and my head aches so violently, that I cannot possibly attend her.J * Not go f exclaimed Mrs

Boothby; * why, my dear, you will disjoint the whole party; besides, I have not time to aQ* Vol*?!.' Y

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25* THE MAN OF THB WORLD,

qyaifnt the Venhurst family, and it will look so odd/—* It would look odder/ said Lucy, ' if I should go abroad when I am really so very much indisposed.'—1 Nay, if you are realty so much indisposed/

answered the other, ' 1 will send our apology late as it is.'—(But you shall not stay at home to attend me/ interrupted Lucy. ' Indeed but I shall,' replied Mrs Boothby; * it was on your account only that I

proposed going. Keep your chamber, and I will send you up some tea immediately.'—And she left the room for that purpose.

Her attention, indeed, was but too vigilant for the scheme which Lucy had formed of examining Robert about that note she had found in her bureau; but accident at last furnished her with the opportunity she sought. Mrs Boothby having left her, in order to preside at dinner, sent this very servant, with a plate of something to her patient above stairs. He would have delivered it to one of the maids at the door; but Lucy, hearing his voice, desired that he might come in, on pretence of talking to him about a young horse she had employed him to ride for her, and sending the maid on some errand, put the paper into his hand, and asked him, if he was the person to whom she was .indebted for a piece of information so momentous ' The fellow blushed, and stammered, and seemed afraid to confess his kindness. ' For God's sake/ said Lucy, ' do noj trifle with my misery; there is no time to lose in evasions; what do you knew of Sir Thomas's

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THE MAN Off THE WORLD, '255

designs against me ?'—* Why for certain, madam/ said he, ' servants should not blab their masters' secrets; but your ladyship is so sweet a lady that I could not bear to see you so deceived. Sir Thomas's valet-de-chamb is a chum of mine, and he told me, after having made me promise to keep it a profound secret, that his master designed to entice you on a party with Mrs Boothby ; that they were to stop at a solitary farm house of his, and there Sir Thomas' ——'

Forbear the shocking recital,' cried Lucy. —* To be sure it is shocking/ said Robert, * and so I said to Jem, when he told me; but he answered (your ladyship will forgive me for repeating his words) that it mattered not much ; for she is nothing better, said he, than a beggarly foundling, whom my master and i picked up, one stormy night, on the road, near his hunting-place there at Hozleden ; and, having taken a liking to the child, he brought her home to Mrs Selwyn, pretending, that she was the daughter of a gentleman of his

own name, a friend of his who died abroad; and his aunt, believing the story, brought her up for all the worlfl like a lady, and left her forsooth a legacy at her death ; but if all were as it should be, «he would be following some draggle-tailed gipsey, instead of flan ting in her fineries here.' —' Would that I were begging my bread, so I were but out of this frightful house/—' I wish you were/ said Robert simply,

* for I fear there are more plots hatching against you than you are aware of: is not Mrs Boothby's Sukey Y-2

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to sleep to-night in the room with your ladyship ?' ■ < I consented on Mrs Boothby's im? portunity, that she should/—* Why then,'

continued he, * I saw Jem carry a cast gown of Mrs Boothby's, she had formerly given to Sukey, but which she asked back from the girl, on pretence of taking a pattern from it, into his master's dressing room ; and when I asked him what he was doing with it there, he winked thus, and said, it was for somebody to masquerade in tonight/ ' Gracious God!' cried Lucy, * whither shall I turn me ?—

Robert, if ever thou wouldst find grace with Heaven, pity a wretch that knows not where to look for protection 1*—She had throwfl herself on her kneed before him.—* What can I do for your ladyship

?' said he, raising her from the ground. 1 Take me from this dreadful place/ she exclaimed, holding by the sleeve of his coat, as if she feared his leaving her. * Alas !* answered Robert, ' I cannot take you from it/—She stood for some moments wrapt in thought, the fellow lookingly piteously in her face. ' It will do,' she cried, breaking from him, and running intq her dressing closet. ' Look here, Robert, look here; could I not get from this window on the garden-wall, and so leap down into the outer court ?'—' But supposing your ladyship might, what would you do then ?'—* Could not you procure me a horse ?—Stay—there is one of the chaise-horses at grass in the paddock— do you know the road to Mrs Wistanly's ?'— ' Mrs Wistanly's f—' For Heaven's sake refuse

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THE MAW OF THE WORLD. 257

not my request; you cannot be so cruel as to refuse it'—* I would do much to serve your ladyship; but if they should discover us/— • Talk not of ifs, my dear Robert;—but soft— I will manage it thus7-.n0, that can't be either —the servants are in bed by eleven.'—' Before it, an't please your ladyship.*—* If you could contrive to have that horse saddled at the gate so soon as all is quiet within, I can get out and meet you.'—* I don't know what to say to it.' —Somebody from below cried, Robert.—Lucy was down on her knees again—' Stay, I conjure you, and answer me/—* For Go4's sake, rise/ said he, * and do not debase yourself to a poor servant, as I am/—' Never will I rise, till you promise to meet me at eleven/—' I will, I will, (and the tears gushed into his eyes), \ whatever be the consequence/ Sukey appeared at the door, calling, Robert, again;—he ran down stairs, Lucy followed him some steps insensibly, with her hands folded together in the attitude of supplication.

In the interval between this and the time of putting her scheme in execution, she suffered all that fear and suspence could inflict. She wished to see again the intended companion of her escape ; but the consciousness of her purpose stopped her tongue when she would have uttered some pretence for talking with him. At times her resolution was staggered by the thoughts of the perils attending her flight; but Jier imagination presently suggested the'danger Y3

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258 THE MA& OF THE WO ELD.

of her stay, and the dread of the greater evil became a fortitude against the less.

The hour of eleven at last arrived. Mrs Boothby, whose attendance was afterwards to be supplied by that of her maid, had just bid her good-night, on her pretending an unusual drowsiness, and promised to send up Sukey in a very little after. Lucy went into her dressingcloset, and, fastening the door, got up on a chair at the

window, which she had taken care to leave open some time before, and stepped out on the wall of the garden, which was broad enough a-top to admit of her walking along it* When she got as far as the gate, she saw, by the light of the moon, Robert standing at the place of appointment: he caught her in his arms when she leaped down. '

Why do you tremble so?' said she, her own lips quivering as she spoke.—* Is the horse ready 7—« Here,' answered Robert, stammering, * but'—' Get on,' said Lucy, 'and let us away, for Heaven's sake !'—He seemed scarce able to mount the horse ; she sprung from the ground on the pad behind him. ' Does your ladyship think,9 said Robert faintly, as they left the gate, * of the danger you run ?'—* There is no danger but within those hated walls.'—* 'Twill be a dreadful night;' for it began to rain, and the thunder rolled at a distance.—• Fear not,' said she, ' we cannot miss our way.'—' But if they should overtake us' * They shall not, they shall not overtake us f—Robert answered y Google

THE MAN 07 THE WORJJ). 259

with a dfeep sigh !—Bat they were now at some distance from the house, and striking out of the highway into a lane, from the end of which a short road lay over a common to the village in which Mrs Wistanly lived, they put on a very quick pace, and in a short time Lucy imagined herself pretty sate from pursuit.

CHAP. XVII.

BOLTON SETS OUT FOR BILSWOOD.—A RECITAL OF SOME

ACCIDENT* IN HIS JOURNEY.

-As I flatter myself that my readers feel some interest in the fate of Miss Sindall, I would not leave that part of my narration which regarded her, till I had brought it to the period of her escape. Having

accompanied her thus far, I return to give some account of Mr Bolton.

According to the promise he had made to Lucy, he set out for Bilswood, two days after the date of that letter she received from him by the hands of his gardener. That faithful fellow had orders to return, after delivering it, and on procuring what intelligence he could of the family, to wait his master, at a little inn, abqut five miles distant from Sir Thomas Sindall's. The fit st part of his business the reader has seen him accomplish; as to the rest, he was only able to learn something, confusedly, of

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260 THE MAN 09 THE WOK&D.

the baronet's attachment to Miss Lucy. He expected to have seen that young lady again on the day following that of their nrst interview

; but her attention had been so much occupied by the discoveries related in the two last chapters, and contriving the means of avoiding the danger with which she was threatened, that her promise to the bearer of Mr Bolton's letter had escaped her memory. He set out therefore, for the place of appointment on the evening of that day, and reached it but a very short time before his master arrived.

Bolton, having learned what particulars Jery could inform him o?9

desired him to return in the morning to his work in Sir Thomas's gar*

den, and remain there till he should receive farther orders; then, leaving his horses and ser* vants for fear of discovery, he set out on foot, in the garb of a peasant, which Jery had found means to procure him.

As he had passed several years of his life at Bilswood, he trusted implicitly to his own knowledge of the way; but soon after his leaving the inn, the moon was totally darkened and it rained with such violence, accompanied with incessant peals of thunder, that, in the

confusion of the scene, he missed his path, and had wandered a great way over the adjacent common before he discovered his mistake. When he endeavoured to regain the road, he found himself entangled in a very thick brake of furze, which happened to lie on that side whence he had turned ; and, after several fruitless efforts to make his way

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?&E MAN OF THE WORLD. 261

through it, he he was obliged to desist from the attempt, and tread back the steps he had made, till he returned to the open part of the heath* * Here he stood, uncertain what course to take; when he observed at a distance the twinkling of a light, which immediately determined him. On advancing somewhat nearer, he found a little winding track that seemed to point towards the place ; and, after following it some time, he could discern an object which he took for the house to which it led

The lightning, which now flashed around him, discovered on each hand the earth raised into mounds that seemed graves of the dead, and here and there a bone lay mouldering on the walk he trod. A few paces farther, through a narrow Gothic door, gleamed a light, which faintly illuminated a length of vault within. To this Bolton approached, not without some degree of fear; when he perceived at the farther end, a person in a military uniform, sitting by a fire he had made of some withered brushwood piled up against the wall. As Harry approached him, the echo of the place doubled the hollow sound of his feet.—* Who is there T cried the stranger, turning at the noise, and half unsheathing a hanger which he wore at his Bide. * A frier/By replied Harry, bowing, * who takes the liberty of begging a seat by your fire.' * Your manner,' said the other, ' belies your garb ; but whoever you are, you are welcome to what shelter this roof can afford, and what warmth my fire tan give. We are, for the y Google

262 TOE MAK OF THE WORLD.

time, joint lords of the mansioit, for my title is no other than the inclemency of the night. It is such a one as makes even this gloomy shelter enviable; aud that broken piece of mattock, and this flint, are precious, because they lighted some bits of dry straw, to kindle the flame that warms us. By the moss grown altar, and the frequent figures of the cross, I suppose these are the remains of some chapel devoted to ancient veneration Sit down on this stone, if you please, Sir, and our offerings shall be a thankful heart over some humble fare which my knapsack contains/ As he spoke, he pulled out a loaf of coarse bread, a piece of cheese, and a bottle of ale. Bolton expressed his thanks for the invitation, and partook of the repast* * I fear, Sir/ said his companion, ' you will be •poorly supped; but I have known what it is to want even a crust of bread.—You look at me with surprise; but, though I am poor, I am honest/—* Pardon me,'

answered Harry, CI entertain no suspicion ; there is something that speaks for you in this bosom, and answers for your worth. It may be in my power to prevent, for the future, those hardships which, I fear, you have formerly indured/ The soldier held forth the bit of bread which he was putting to his mouth. ' He, to whom this fare is lux* ury, can scarcely be dependant; yet my gratitude to you, Sir, is equally due ;—if I have felt

misfortune, I have deserved it/ He sighed, and Harry answered him with a sigh—' I see a sort of question in your face, Sir; and I know

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THE MAN OF 7HB WORLD. 263

not why it is, there are some faces I cannot4 easily resist. If nay story outlasts the storm, it will take from the irksomeness of its duration.'

CHAP. XVIII.

THE STRANGER RELATES THE HISTORY OF HIS LIFE.

' It is bow upwards of twenty years since I left, my native country.

You are too young. Sir, to have gained much knowledge of mankind;.

let me warn you, from sad experience, to beware of those passions which at your age I was unable to resist, and which, in the commerce of the world, will find abundant occasion to overcome incautious and inexperienced youth. Start not when I tell you, that you see before you one whom the laws of his country had doomed to expiate his crimes by death, though, from the mercy of his prince, that judgment was mitigated into a term of transportation, some time ago elapsed.

This punishment I incurred from the commission of a robbery, to which some particular circumstances, joined to the poverty consequent on dissipation and extravagance, had tempted me.

4 The master to whom my service was adjudged in the West Indies, happened to die soon after my arrival there. I got my freedom, therefore, though it was but to change it

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£64* THE MAN OF THE .WORLD.

for a service as severe as my former: I was enlisted in a regiment then stationed in the island, and being considered as a felon, unworthy of any mild treatment, was constantly exposed to every hardship which the strictest duty, or the most continual exposure to the dangers of the climate, could inflict. Had I revealed my story, and taken advantage of that distinction which my birth and education would have made be-» tween the other convicts and me, it is probable I might have prevented most of the evils both of my former and present situation ; but I set out, from the first, with a fixed determination of suffering every part of my punishment, which the law allots to the meanest and most unfriended. All the severities, therefore, which were now imposed upon me, I bore without repining

; and, from an excellent natural constitution, was not only able to overcome them, but they served to render me still more patient of fatigue, and less susceptible of impression from the vicissitudes of

the weather ; and from a sullen disregard of life,, with which the remembrance of better days inspired me, my soul became as fearless as my body robust. These qualities made me be taken notice of by some of the officers in the regiment, and afterwards, when it was ordered to America, and went on some Indian expeditions, were still more serviceable and more attractive of observation. By these means I began to obliterate the dis^ grace which my situation at enlisting had fixed upon me; and, if still regarded as a ruffian, (

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THE MAN OF THE WOBLBt 2$&

was at least acknowledged to be a useful one. Not long after, on occasion of a piece of service I performed for an officer on an advanced guard, that was attacked by a party of hostile Indians, I was promoted to a halberd. The stigma, however, of my transportation was not yet entirely forgotten, and by some it was the better remembered, because of my present advancement. One of those, with whom I had never been on good terms, was particularly offended at being commanded, as he termed it, by a jail-bird; and one day, when I was on guard, had drawn on the back of my coat, the picture of a gallows, on which was hung a figure in caricature, with the initials of my name written over it. This was an affront too gross to be tamely put up with; having sought out the man, who did not deny the charge, I challenged him to give me satisfaction by lighting me. But this, from the opinion conceived of roy strength and ferocity, he did not chuse to accept; on which I gave hint so severe a drubbing, that he was unable to mount guard in his turn, and the surgeon reported that his life was in danger. For this offence I was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to receive five hundred lashes as a punishment. When their sen* tence was communicated to me, I petitioned that it might .be changed into death; but my request was refused. That very day, therefore, I received one hundred lashes, (for the sentence was to be executed at different

periods), and next morning was to suffer as many more. The Vol. II. *

Z

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THE MAN OF THB WORL0.

remainder, however, I resolved, if possible, to escape by an act of suicide* This I was only prevented from putting in execution by the want of opportunity; as I had been stripped of every the smallest weapon <*f offence, and was bound with ropes to one of the posts of my bed. I contrived, nevertheless, about midnight, to reach the fire-place with my feet, and having drawn out thence a live ember, disposed it immediately under the most combustible part of the bed.

It had very soon the effect I desired; the room was set on fire, and I regained my liberty, by the ropes, with which I was tied, being burnt.

At that moment, the desire of life was rekindled by the possibility of escaping; the flames bursting out fiercely at one side of the bouse where I lay, the attention of the soldiers whom the fire had awaked, was principally turned to that quarter, and I had an opportunity of stealing off unperceived at the opposite $ide. We were then in a sort of wooden huts, which had been built for our accommodation on the outside of one of our frontier forts; so that, when 1 had run two or three hundred yards, I found myself in the shelter of a wood, pretty secure from pursuit; but, as there it was impossible for me long to subsist, and I had no chance of escaping detection if I ventured to approach the habitations of any of my countrymen, I had formed the resolution of endeavouring to join the Indians, whose scouting parties I bad frequently seen at a small distance from our out-posts. I held, therefore, in a direction wJiich

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THE MAK OF TM WORLD. 267

I judged the most probable for falling in with them, and in a very little after day-break discovered a party, seated after the manner of their country, in a ring, with the ashes of their newly-extinguished fire in

the middle. I advanced slowly to the place, which I had almost reached before I was perceived. When they discovered me, they leaped up on their feet, and seizing their arms, screamed out the war-hoop, to- alarm the different small parties who had passed the night in resting-places near them. One of them, presenting his piece, took aim at me ; but I fell on my knees, showed them my defenceless state, and held out my hands, as if imploring their mercy and protection. Upon this, one of the oldest among them made a sign to the rest, and advancing towards me, asked me, in broken French, mixed with his own language, of which too I understood something, what was my intention, and whence I came ? I answered as distinctly as I could to these interrogatories ; and showing the sores on my back, which I gave him to understand had been indicted at the fort, made protestations, both by imperfect language and significant gestures, of my friendship to his countrymen, and hatred to my own. After holding a moment's conversation with the rest, he took my hand, and, leading me a little forward, placed me in the midst of the party. Some of them examined me attentively, and upon some farther discourse together, brought the baggage, with which two prisoners, lately made from some adverse tribe, had been loaded, Z2

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THE MAJTO* THE WORLD.

and laid it upon me. This burden, which to any man would have been oppressively heavy, you may believe, was much more intolerable to me, whose flesh was yet raw from the lashes I had received; but as I knew that fortitude was an indispensable virtue with the Indians, I bore it without wincing, and we proceeded on the route which the party I had joined were destined to pursue. During the course of our first day's march, they often looked stedfastly in my face, to discover if I showed any signs of uneasiness. When they saw that I did not, they lightened my load by degrees, and at last, the senior chief, who had first taken notice of me, freed me from it altogether, and, at the same time, chewing some herbs he found in the wood, applied them

to my sores, which in a few days were almost entirely healed. I was then entrusted with a tomahawk, and shortly after with a gun, to the dextrous use of both which weapons I was frequently exercised by the young men of our party, during the remainder of our expedition. It lasted some months, in which time I had also become tolerably acquainted with their language. At the end of this excursion, in which^ they warred on some other Indian nations, they returned to their own country, and were received with all the barbarous demonstrations of joy peculiar to that people. In a day or two after their ar-. rival, their prisoners were brought forth into a large plain, where the kindred of those who had been slain by the nations to which the cap

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THE MAN OF THE WORL*. 269

tives belonged, assembled to see tbem. Each singled out his expiatory prisoner, and having taken him home to his hut, such as chose that kind of satisfaction, adopted them in place of the relations they had lost; with the rest they returned to their former place of meeting, and began to celebrate the festival of their revenge. You can hardly conceive a species of inventive cruelty, which they did not inflict on the wretches whom fortune had thus put into their power; during the course of which, not a groan escaped from the sufferers; but while the use of their voices remained, they sung in their rude, yet forcible manner, the glory of their former victories, and the pleasure they had received from the death of their foes; concluding always with the hopes of revenge from the surviving warriors of their nation. Nor was it only for the pleasure of the reflection that they caroled thus the triumphs of the past; for I could observe, that, when at any time the rage of their tormentors seemed to subside, they poured forth those boastful strains in order to rekindle their fury, that intenseness of pain might not be wanting in the trial of their fortitude.

I perceived the old man, whom I have before mentioned, keep his eye fixed upon me during this inhuman solemnity ; and frequently, when an extreme degree of torture was borne with that calmness

which I have described, he would point, with an expressive look, to him on whom it was inflicted, as if he had desired me to take particular notice of his Z3

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270 THE MAN OF THB WORLD.

resolution. I did not then fully comprehend the meaning of this; but I afterwards under* stood it to have been a preparatory hint of what I myself was to endure; for the next morning, after the last surviving prisoner had expired, I was seized by three or four Indians, who stripped me of what little clothes I had then left, tied me in a horizontal. posture between the branches of two large, trees they had fixed in the ground, and, after the whole tribe had danced round me to the music of a barbarous howl, they began to re-act upon me nearly the same scene they had been engaged in the day before.

After each of a certain select number had stuck his knife into my body, though they carefully avoided any mortal wound, they rubbed it over, bleeding as it was, with gunpowder, the salts of which gave me the most exquisite pain. Nor did the ingenuity of these practised tormentors stop here; they afterwards laid quantities of dry gunpowder on different parts of my body, and set fire to them, by which I was burnt in some places to the bone—But I see you shudder at the horrid recital; suffice it then to say, that these, and some other such experiments of wanton qruelty, I bore with that patience, with which nothing but a life of hardship, and a certain obduracy of spirit, proceeding from a contempt of existence, could have endowed me.

' After this trial was over, I was loosed from my bonds, and set in the midst of a circle, who s|ioute<J the cry of victory, and my aged friend y Google

THE MAN OF THS WORLD* 271

brought me a bowl of water, mixed with some spirits, to drink. He took me then home to his hut, and laid applications of. different simples to my mangled body. When I was so well recovered as to be able to walk abroad, he called together certain elders of his tribe, and acknowledging me for his son, gave me a name, and fastened round my neck a belt of wampum* f It is thus/ said he, ' that the valiant are tried, and thus are they rewarded; for how shouldst thou be as one of us, if thy soul were as the soul of little men; he only is worthy to lift the hatchet with the Cherokees, to whom shame is more intolerable than the stab of the knife, or the burning of the fire/

CHAP. XIX.

A CONTINUATION OF THE STRANGER'S STORY.

In this society I lived till about a year and a half ago; and it may seem extraordinary to declare, yet it is certainly true, that during the life of the old man who had adopted me, even had there been no legal restraint on my return to my native country, scarce any inducement could have tempted me to leave the nation to which he belonged, except perhaps the desire of revisiting a parent, and a sister, whom I had left in England, sunk beneath that ignominy y Google

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which the son and the brother had drawn <ra his guiltless connections. When we consider the perfect freedom subsisting in this rude and simple state of society, where wile is only acknowledged for the purpose of immediate utility to those who obey, and ceases whenever that purpose of subordination is accomplished; where greatness cannot use oppression, nor wealth exqite envy; where the desires are native to the heart, and the languor of satiety is unknown; where, if there is no refined sensation of delight, there is also no ideal source of calamity; we shall the less wonder at the inhabitants feeling no regret for the want of those delicate pleasures of which a more polished people is possessed.

Certain it is, that I am far from being a single instance, of one who had even attained maturity in Europe, and yet found his mind so accommodated, by the habit of a few years, to Indian manners, as to leave that country with regret. The death of my parent by adoption loosened, indeed, my attachment to it; that event happened a short time before my departure from America.

' The composure with which the old man met his dissolution, would have done honour ito the firmest philosopher of antiquity. When fie found himself near his end, he called me to him, to deliver some final instructions respecting my carriage to his countrymen; he observed, at the close of his discourse, that I retained so much of the European, as to shed some tears while he delivered it. * In those y Google

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tears/ said he^ ' there is ho wisdom, for there is no use; I have heard, that, in your country, men prepare for death, by thinking on it while they live; this also is folly, because it loses the good, by anticipating the evil: we'do otherwise, my son, as our fathers have better instructed us, and take from the evil by reflecting on the good. I have lived a thousand moons, without captivity, and without disgrace; in my youth I did not fly in battle, and in age, the tribes listened while I spake. ' If I live in another land after death, I shall remember these things with pleasure; if the present is our only life, to have done thus is to have.used it well. You have sometimes told me of your countrymen's account of a land of souls^ but you were a young man when you came among us, and the cunning among them may have deceived you; for the children of the French king call themselves after the same God that the English do; yet their discourses concerning him cannot be true, because they are opposite one to another. Each says, that God shall burn the others with fire; which could not happen if both were his children. . Besides, neither of them act as the sons of Truth, but as the sons of Deceit; they say their God heareth all things, yet do they break the promises which they have called upon him to hear; but we know that the spirit within us

listeneth, and what we have said in its hea ing, that we do. If in another country the soul liveth, this • witness shall live with it; whom it hath her*

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reproached, it shall there disquiet; whom It tiaih here honoured, it shall there reward. Live, therefore, my son. as your father hath lived; and die, as he tdieth, fearless of death.*

* With such sentiments, the old man resigned his breath, and I blushed for the life of Christians, while I heard them.

* I was now become an independent member of the community; and my behaviour had been s,uch, that I succeeded to the condition of my father, with the respect of a people amongst whom honour is attainable only by merit. But his death had dissolved that tie which gratitude, and indeed affection for the old man, had on my heart; and the scene of his death naturally awakened in -me the remembrance of a father in England* whose age might now be helpless, and call for the aid of a long-lost son to solace and support it. This idea, once routed, became every day more powerful, and at last I resolved to communicate it to the tribe, and tell them my purpose of returning home.

' They heard me without surprise or emotion ; as indeed it is their great characteristic not to fee ^easily awakened to either. * You return,' said one of the elders, «to a people who sell affection to their brethren for money; take, therefore, with y<ou some of the commodities {which their traders value. Strength, agility, and fortitude, are sufficient to us; but with them they are of little use; and he who pos. sesses wealth, having no need of virtue, among the wealthy it will npt be found. The last

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your father taught yon, and amongst us you have practised; the first he had not to leave* nor have we to bestow; but take as many bea*

Ter-skira as you can carry on your journey, that it may reach that parent whom, you tell' mh yů go to*cherish/

' I returned thanks to' the old man for his counsel, and to the whole tribe for their kindness ; and having, according to his advice, taken a few of the furs they offered me, I resumed the tattered remains of the European? dress which* I had on when I escaped from the' fort, and took the nearest road to one of our back-settlements, which I reached Without any accident, by the assistance of an Indian, who*

had long shown a particular attachment to me, and who now attended me on my way ' Yon* der smoke/ said my conductor, * rises from the dwellings of your countrymen* You now return to a world which I have heard you describe as full of calamity; but the soul you possess is the soul of a man; remember that to fortitude there is no sting in adversity, ^nd in death no evil to the valiant/ *

' When he left me, I stood for someminutesr looking back, on one hand to the wilds 1 had passed, and on the other to the scenes of cultivation which European industry had formed; and it may surprise you to hear, that though there wanted not some rekindling attachment to a people amongst whom my first breath had been drawn, and my youth spent, yet my imagination drew, on this side, fraud, hypocrisy,

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and sordid baseness; while on that seemed to preside honesty, truth, and savage nobleness of soul.

4 When I appeared at the door of one of the houses in the settlement that was nearest me, I was immediately accosted by its master, who, judging from the bundle of furs which I carried, that I had been

trading among the Indians, asked me, with much kindness, to take up my lodging with him. Of this offer 1 was veryglad to accept, though I found a scarcity of words to thank my countryman for his favours; as, from want of use, my remembrance of the English language had been so much effaced, as not only to repress fluency, but even to prevent an ordinary command of expression; and I was more especially at jsl loss for ceremonious phraseology, that department of language be* ing unknown in the country whence I was just returned. My landlord was not a little astonished, when I could at last make shift to inform him of my having passed so many years among the Indians. He asked a thousand questions about customs which never existed, and told me of a multitude of things, of which all the time I had lived in that country, I had never dreamed the possibility. Indeed, from the superiority of his expression, joined to that fund of supposed knowledge which it served to communicate, a by-stander would have been led to imagine, that he was describing, to some ignorant guest, a country with whose manners he had been long conversant, and among whose inha*

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bitants he had passed the greatest part of his life. At length, however, his discourse centered npon the fur-trade, and naturally glided from that to an offer of purchasing my beaverskins. These things, 1 was informed by my courteous entertainer, had fallen so much in their price of late, that the traders could hardly defray their journey in procuring them; that himself had lost by some late bargains in that way: but that to oblige a stranger, the singularity of whose adventures had interested him in his behalf, he would give me the highest price at which he had heard of their being sold for a long time past. This I accepted without hesitation, as 1 had neither language nor inclination for haggling; and having procured as much money by the bargain as, I imagined, would more than carry me to a sea-port, I proceeded on my journey, accompanied by an inhabitant of Williamsburg, who was returned from an annual visit to a

settlement on the back-frontiers, which he had purchased in partnership with another, who constantly resided upon it. He seemed to be naturally of an inquisitive disposition; and having learned from my former landlord, that I had lived several years with the Indians, tormented me, all the while our journey lasted, with interrogatories concerning their country and manners. But as he was less opinionative of his own knowledge in the matter than my last English acquaintance, I was the more easily prevailed on to satisfy his curiosity, though at the expence of a greater number of Vol, II. A a .

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