He starts—there's a rustle among the leaves:
Another-the click of his gun is heard —
A footstep-is it the step of Cleaves,
With Indian blood on his English sword?
Steals Harmon 12 down from the sands of York,
With hand of iron and foot of cork?
Has Scamman, versed in Indian wile,
For vengeance left his vine hung isle ? 13
Hark! at that whistle, soft and low,
How lights the eye of Mogg Megone!
A smile gleams o'er his dusky brow—
"Boon welcome, Johnny Bonython !"
Out steps, with cautious foot and slow,
And quick, keen glances to and fro,
The hunted outlaw, Bonython ! 14
A low, lean swarthy man is he,
With blanket-garb and buskin'd knee,
And nought of English fashion on;
For he hates the race from whence he sprung,
And he couches his words in the Indian tongue.
"Hush-let the Sachem's voice be weak;
The water-rat shall hear him speak-
The owl shall whoop in the white man's ear,
That Mogg Megone, with his scalps, is here!"
He pauses-dark, over cheek and brow,
A flush, as of shame, is stealing now:
"Sachem!" he says, "let me have the land,
Which stretches away upon either hand,
As far about as my feet can stray
In the half of a gentle summer's day,
From the leaping brook 15 to the Saco riverAnd the fair-haired girl, thou hast sought of me, Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam, and be The wife of Mogg Megone forever.”
There's a sudden light in the Indian's glance,
A moment's trace of powerful feeling-
Of love or triumph, or both perchance,
Over his proud, calm features stealing.
"The words of my father are very good;
He shall have the land, and water, and wood;
And he who harms the Sagamore John,
Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone;
But the fawn of the Yengees shall sleep on my breast,
And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my
"But father!"—and the Indian's hand
Falls gently on the white man's arm
And with a smile as shrewdly bland
As the deep voice is slow and calm-
"Where is my father's singing-bird-
The sunny eye, and sunset hair?
I know I have my father's word,
And that his word is good and fair;
But, will my father tell me where
Megone shall go and look for his bride ?—
For he sees her not by her father's side."
The dark, stern eye of Bonython
Flashes over the features of Mogg Megone, In one of those glances which search within; But the stolid calm of the Indian alone
Remains where the trace of emotion has been. "Does the Sachem doubt? Let him with me, And the eyes of the Sachem his bride shall see.” Cautious and slow, with pauses oft,
And watchful eyes and whispers soft,
The twain are stealing through the wood,
Leaving the downward-rushing flood,
Whose deep and solemn roar behind,
Grows fainter on the evening wind
Hark is that the angry howl
Of the wolf, the hills among?—
Or the hooting of the owl,
On his leafy cradle swung ?—
Quickly glancing, to and fro,
Listening to each sound they go
Round the columns of the pine,
Indistinct, in shadow, seeming
Like some old and pillared shrine;
With the soft and white moonshine,
Round the foliage-tracery shed
Of each column's branching head,
For its lamps of worship gleaming!
And the sounds awakened there,
In the pine leaves fine and small,
Soft and sweetly musical,
By the fingers of the air,
For the anthem's dying fall
Lingering round some temple's wall!—
Niche and cornice round and round
Wailing like the ghost of sound!
Is not Nature's worship thus
Ceaseless ever, going on?
Hath it not a voice for us
In the thunder, or the tone
Of the leaf-harp faint and small,
Speaking to the unsealed ear
Words of blended love and fear
Of the mighty Soul of all?
Nought had the twain of thoughts like these
As they wound along through the crowded trees,
Where never had rung the axeman's stroke
On the gnarled trunk of the rough-barked oak ;
Climbing the dead tree's mossy log,
Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine,
Turning aside the wild grape vine,
And lightly crossing the quaking bog
Whose surface shakes at the leap of the frog,
And out of whose pools the ghostly fog
Creeps into the chill moonshine!
Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard
The preaching of the Holy Word:
Sanchekantacket's isle of sand
Was once his father's hunting land,
Where zealous Hiacoomes 16 stood-
The wild apostle of the wood,
Shook from his soul the fear of harm,
And trampled on the Powwaw's charm;
Until the wizard's curses hung
Suspended on his palsying tongue,
And the fierce warrior, grim and tall,
Trembled before the forest Paul!
A cottage hidden in the wood
Red through its seams a light is glowing, On rock and bough and tree-trunk rude, A narrow lustre throwing.
"Who's there?" a clear, firm voice demands: "Hold, Ruth-'tis I, the Sagamore!" Quick, at the summons, hasty hands
Unclose the bolted door;
And on the outlaw's daughter shine
The flashes of the kindled pine.
'Tall and erect the maiden stands,
Like some young priestess of the wood, The freeborn child of Solitude,
And bearing still the wild and rude,
Yet noble trace of Nature's hands.
Her dark brown cheek has caught its stain
More from the sunshine than the rain;
Yet, where her long fair hair is parting,
A pure white brow into light is starting;
And, where the folds of her blanket sever,
Are a neck and bosom as white as ever
The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping river.
But, in the convulsive quiver and grip
Of the muscles around her bloodless lip,
There is something painful and sad to see;
And her eye has a glance more sternly wild
Than even that of a forest child
In its fearless and untamed freedom should be.
Yet, seldom in hall or court are seen
So queenly a form and so noble a mien,
As freely and smiling she welcomes them thereHer outlawed sire and Mogg Megone:
Pray, father, how does thy hunting fare?
And, Sachem, say-does Scamman wear,
In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his own?
Hurried and light is the maiden's tone;
But a fearful meaning lurks within
Her glance, as it questions the eye of Megone—
An awful meaning of guilt and sin !—
The Indian hath opened his blanket, and there
Hangs a human scalp by its long damp hair!
With hand upraised, with quick-drawn breath,
She meets that ghastly sign of death.
In one long, glassy, spectral stare
The enlarging eye is fastened there,
As if that mesh of pale brown hair
Had power to change at sight alone,
Even as the fearful locks which wound
Medusa's fatal forehead round,
The gazer into stone.
With such a look Herodias read
The features of the bleeding head,
So looked the mad Moor on his dead,
Or the young Cenci as she stood,
O'er-dabbled with a father's blood!
Look !-feeling melts that frozen glance,
It moves that marble countenance,
As if at once within her strove
Pity with shame, and hate with love.
The Past recalls its joy and pain,
Old memories rise before her brain-
The lips which love's embraces met,
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