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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, which the son and the brother had drawn on his guiltless connections. When we consider the perfect freedom subsisting in this rude and simple state of society, where rule 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 excite 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 to the firmest philosopher of antiquity. When he 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 tears,' said he, "there is no 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 hearing, that we do. If in another country the soul liveth, this witness shall live with it; whom it hath here reproached, it shall there disquiet; whom it hath here honoured, it shall there reward. Live, therefore, my son, as your father hath lived; and die as he dieth, 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 such, 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 roused, 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 be 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 you 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 possesses wealth having no need of virtue, among the wealthy it will not be found. The last your father taught you, and amongst us you have practised; the first he had not to leave, nor have we to bestow; but take as many beaverskins as you can carry on your journey, that it may reach that parent whom, you tell us, you 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 shewn a particular attachment to me, and who now attended me on my way. Yonder 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, and in death no evil to the valiant.'

"When he left me, I stood for some minutes, looking back, on one hand, to the wilds I 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, and sordid baseness; while on that seemed to preside honesty, truth, and savage nobleness of soul.

"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 I was very glad to accept, though I found a scarcity of words to thank my countryman for his favour; 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 a loss for ceremonious phraseology, that department of language being 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 bystander 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 inhabitants he had passed the greatest part of his life. At length, however, his discourse centered upon the fur-trade, and naturally glided from

that to an offer of purchasing my beaver-skins. These things, I 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 I had neither language nor inclination for haggling; and having procured as much money by the bargain as, Ĭ imagined, would more than carry me to a seaport, 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 words than I could conveniently spare; and, at last, he made himself entirely master of my story, from the time of my leaving the regiment in which I had served, down to the day on which I delivered my recital. When I mentioned my having sold my beaver-skins for a certain sum, he started aside, and then lifting up his eyes in an ejaculatory manner, expressed his astonishment how a Christian could be guilty of such monstrous dishonesty, which, he said, was no better than one would have expected in a Savage; for that my skins were worth at least three times the money. I smiled at his notions of comparative morality, and bore the intelligence with a calmness that seemed to move his admiration. He thanked God that all were not so ready to take advantage of ignorance or misfortune; and, cordially grasping my hand, begged me to make his house at Williamsburg my own, till such time as I could procure my passage to England."

CHAP. XX.

Conclusion of the Stranger's Story.

"PURSUANT to this friendly invitation, I accompanied him to his house on our arrival in that place. For some days my landlord behaved to me in the most friendly manner, and furnished me, of his own accord, with linen and wearing apparel; several articles of which, though necessaries in the polished society of

those amongst whom I now resided, my ideas of Indian simplicity made me consider superfluous. "During this time I frequently attended him at his store, while he was receiving consignments of goods, and assisted him and his servants in the disposal and assortment of them. At first he received this assistance as a favour; but I could observe, that he soon began to look upon it as a matter of right, and called me to bear a hand, as he termed it, in a manner rather too peremptory for my pride to submit to. At last, when he ventured to tax me with some office of menial servility, I told him I did not consider myself his dependant any farther than gratitude for his favours demanded, and refused to perform it. Upon which he let me know, that he looked upon me as his servant, and that, if I did not immediately obey his command, he would find a way to be revenged of me. This declaration heightened my resentment, and confirmed my refusal. I desired him to give me an account of what money he had expended, in those articles with which he had supplied me, that I might pay him out of the small sum I had in my possession, and, if that was not sufficient, I would rather sell my new habiliments, and return to my rags, than be indebted for a farthing to his generosity. He answered, that he would clear accounts with me by and by. He did so, by making oath before a magistrate, that I was a deserter from his Majesty's service, and, according to my own confession, had associated with the savages, enemies of the province. As I could deny neither of those charges, I was thrown into prison, where I should have been in danger of starving, had not the curiosity of some of the townsfolks induced them to visit me, when they commonly contributed some trifle towards my support; till at length, partly, I suppose, from the abatement of my accuser's anger, and partly from the flagrancy of detaining me in prison without any provision for my maintenance, I was suffered to be enlarged; and a vessel being then ready to sail for England, several of whose hands had deserted her, the master agreed to take me on board for the consideration of my working the voyage. For this indeed I was not in the least qualified as to skill; but my strength and perseverance made up, in some operations, for the want of it.

"As this was before the end of the war, the ship in which I sailed happened to be taken by a French privateer, who carried her into Brest. This, to me, who had already anticipated my arrival at home, to comfort the declining age of a parent, was the most mortifying accident of any I had hitherto met with; but the captain, and some passengers who were aboard of us, seemed to make light of their misfortune. The ship was insured, so that in property the owners could suffer little; as for ourselves, said

they, the French are the politest enemies in the world, and, till we are exchanged, will treat us with that civil demeanour, so peculiar to their nation. We are not (addressing themselves to me) among Savages, as you were.-How it fared with them, I know not; I and other inferior members of the crew were thrust into a dungeon, dark, damp, and loathsome; where, from the number confined in it, and the want of proper circulation, the air became putrid to the most horrible degree; and the allowance for our provision was not equal to twopence a day. To hard living I could well enough submit, who had been frequently accustomed, among the Cherokees, to subsist, three or four days, on a stalk of Indian corn, moistened in the first brook I lighted on; but the want of air and exercise I could not so easily endure. I lost the use of my limbs, and lay motionless on my back, in a corner of the hole we were confined in, covered with vermin, and supported, in that wretched state, only by the infrequent humanity of some sailor, who crammed my mouth with a bit of his brown bread softened in stinking water. The natural vigour of my constitution, however, bore up against this complicated misery, till, upon the conclusion of the peace, we regained our freedom. But when I was set at liberty, I had not strength to enjoy it; and after my companions were gone,' was obliged to crawl several weeks about the streets of Brest, where the charity of some well-disposed Frenchmen bestowed now and then a trifle upon the pauvre sauvage, as I was called, till I recovered the exercise of my limbs, and was able to work my passage in a Dutch merchant ship bound for England. The mate of this vessel happened to be a Scotchman, who hearing me speak the language of Britain, and having inquired into the particulars of my story, humanely attached himself to my service, and made my situation much more comfortable than any I had for some time experienced. We sailed from Brest with a fair wind, but had not been long at sea till it shifted, and blew pretty fresh at east, so that we were kept for several days beating up the Channel; at the end of which it increased to so violent a degree, that it was impossible for us to hold a course, and the ship was suffered to scud before the storm. At the close of the second day, the wind suddenly chopped about into a westerly point, though without any abatement of its violence; and very soon after day-break of the third, we were driving on the south-west coast of England, right to the leeward. The consternation of the crew became now so great, that if any expedient had remained to save us, it would have scarce allowed them to put it in practice. The mate, who seemed to be the ablest sailor on board, exhorted them at least to endeavour running the ship into a bay, which opened a

little on our starboard quarter, where the shore was flat and sandy; comforting them with the reflection, that they should be cast on friendly ground, and not among Savages. His advice and encouragement had the desired effect; and notwithstanding the perils with which I saw myself surrounded, I looked with a gleam of satisfaction on the coast of my native land, which for so many years I had not seen. Unfortunately a ridge of rocks ran almost across the basin into which, with infinite labour, we were directing our course; and the ship struck upon them, about the distance of half a league from the shore. All was now uproar and confusion. The long-boat was launched by some of the crew, who, with the captain, got immediately into her, and brandishing their long knives, threatened with instant death any one who should attempt to follow them, as she was already loaded beyond her burden. Indeed there remained at this time in the ship only two sailors, the mate and myself; the first were washed overboard while they hung on the ship's side attempting to leap into the boat, and we saw them no more; nor had their hard-hearted companions a better fate; they had scarcely rowed a cable's length from the ship, when the boat overset, and every one on board her perished. There now remained only my friend the mate and I, who, consulting a moment together, agreed to keep by the ship till she should split, and endeavour to save ourselves on some broken plank which the storm might drive on shore. We had just time to come to this resolution, when, by the violence of a wave that broke over the ship, her main-mast went by the board, and we were swept off the deck at the same instant. My companion could not swim; but I had been taught that art by my Indian friends to the greatest degree of expertness. I was therefore more uneasy about the honest Scotchman's fate than my own; and quitting the mast, of which I had caught hold on its fall, swam to the place where he first rose to the surface, and catching him by the hair, held his head tolerably above water, till he was able so far to recollect himself as to cling by a part of the shrouds of our floating main-mast, to which I bore him. In our passage to the shore on this slender float, he was several times obliged to quit his hold, from his strength being exhausted; but I was always so fortunate as to be able to replace him in his former situation, till at last we were thrown upon the beach near to the bottom of that bay at the mouth of which our ship had struck. I was not so much spent by my fatigue, but that I was able to draw the mate safe out of the water, and advancing to a crowd of people, whom I saw assembled near us, began to entreat their assistance for him in very pathetic terms; when, to my utter astonishment, one of them struck

at me with a bludgeon, while another making up to my fellow-sufferer, would have beat out his brains with a stone, if I had not run up nimbly behind him, and dashed it from his uplifted hand. This man happened to be armed with a hanger, which he instantly drew, and made a furious stroke at my head. I parried his blow with my arm, and, at the same time, seizing his wrist, gave it so sudden a wrench, that the weapon dropped to the ground. I instantly possessed myself of it, and stood astride my companion with the aspect of an angry lioness guarding her young from the hunter. The appearance of strength and fierceness which my figure exhibited, kept my enemies a little at bay, when fortunately we saw advancing a body of soldiers, headed by an officer, whom a gentleman of humanity in the neighbourhood had prevailed on to march to the place for the preservation of any of the crew whom the storm might spare, or any part of the cargo that might chance to be thrown ashore. At sight of this detachment the crowd dispersed, and left me master of the field. The officer very humanely took charge of my companion and me, brought us to his quarters in the neighbourhood, and accommodated me with these very clothes which I now have on. From him I learned, that those Englishmen, who (as our mate, by way of comfort observed) were not savages, had the idea transmitted them from their fathers, that all wrecks became their property by the immediate hand of God; and as, in their apprehension, that denomination belonged only to ships from which there landed no living thing, their hostile endeavours against the Scotchman's life and mine, proceeded from a desire of bringing our vessel into that supposed condition.

"After having weathered so many disasters, I am at last arrived near the place of my nativity. Fain would I hope, that a parent and a sister, whose tender remembrance, mingled with that of happier days, now rushes on my soul, are yet alive to pardon the wanderings of my youth, and receive me after those hardships to which its ungoverned passions have subjected me. Like the prodigal son, I bring no worldly wealth along with me; but I return with a mind conscious of its former errors, and seeking that peace which they destroyed. To have used prosperity well, is the first favourite lot of Heaven; the next is his, whom adversity has not smitten in vain."

CHAP. XXI.

Bolton and his Companion meet with an uncommon Adventure.

WHEN the stranger had finished his narration, Bolton expressed, in very strong terms,

his compassion for the hardships he had suffered. "I do not wish," said he, " to be the prophet of evil; but if it should happen, that your expectations of the comfort your native country is to afford you be disappointed, it will give me the truest pleasure to shelter a head on which so many vicissitudes have beat, under that roof of which Providence has made me master."He was interrupted by the trampling of horses at a distance; his fears, wakeful at this time, were immediately roused; the stranger observed his confusion. "You seem uneasy, sir," said he; "but they are not the retreats of houseless poverty like this, that violence and rapine are wont to attack.". You mistake," answered Harry, who was now standing at the door of the chapel," the ground of my alarm; at present I have a particular reason for my fears, which is nearer to me than my own personal safety." He listened ;-the noise grew fainter; but he marked, by the light of the moon, which now shone out again, the direction whence it seemed to proceed, which was over an open part of the common. They are gone this way," he cried, with an eagerness of look, grasping one of the knotty branches which the soldier's fire had spared." If there is danger in your way," said his companion, "you shall not meet it alone." They sallied forth together.

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self!" Sindal started at the well-known voice, and pulling out a pistol, fired it within a few feet of the other's face; he missed, and Bolton pushed forward to close with him; when one of the servants, quitting Miss Sindall, threw himself between him and his master, and made a blow at his head with the butt-end of a hunting-whip; this Harry catched on his stick, and in return levelled the fellow with the ground. His master now fired another pistol, which would have probably taken more effect than the former, had not Bolton's new acquaintance struck up the muzzle just as it went off, the ball going through a window at Harry's back. The Baronet had his sword now drawn in the other hand, and, changing the object of his attack, he made a furious pass at the soldier, who parried it with his hanger. At the second lounge, Sir Thomas's violence threw him on the point of his adversary's weapon, which entered his body a little below the breast. He staggered a few paces backwards, and clapping one hand on the place, leaned with the other on a table that stood behind him, and cried out, that he was a dead man. "My God!" exclaimed the stranger," are not you Sir Thomas Sindall?"-" Sir Thomas Sindall!" cried a woman, who now entered halfdressed, with the mistress of the house." It is, it is Sir Thomas Sindall," said the landlady; "for God's sake, do his honour no hurt.”—“ Í hope," continued the other, with a look of earnest wildness," you have not been a-bed with that young lady!"-She waited not a reply-" for, as sure as there is a God in heaven, she is your own daughter!"-Her hearers stood aghast as she spoke.-Sindall stared wildly for a moment, then, giving a deep groan, fell senseless at the feet of the soldier, who had sprung forward to support him. What assistance the amazement of those about him could allow, he received, and, in a short time, began to recover; but as he revived, his wound bled with more violence than before. A servant was instantly dispatched for a surgeon; in the mean time, the soldier procured some lint, and gave it a temporary dressing. He was now raised from the ground, and supported in an elbow chair; he bent his eyes fixedly on the woman: Speak," said he, "while I have life to hear thee.' On the faces of her audience sat astonishment, suspense, and expectation; and a chilly silence prevailed, while she delivered the following recital.

They had not proceeded above a quarter of a mile, when they perceived, at a distance, the twinkling of lights in motion: their pace was quickened at the sight; but in a few minutes those were extinguished, the moon was darkened by another cloud, and the wind began to howl again. They advanced, however, on the line in which they imagined the lights to have appeared, when, in one of the pauses of the storm, they heard shrieks, in a female voice, that seemed to issue from some place but a little way off. They rushed forward in the direction of the sound, till they were stopped by a pretty high wall. Having made shift to scramble over this, they found themselves in the garden belonging to a low-built house, from one of the windows of which they saw the glimmer of a candle through the openings of the shutters; but the voice had ceased, and all was silent within. Bolton knocked at the door, but received no answer; when, suddenly, the screaming was repeated with more violence than before. He and his companion now threw themselves with so much force against the door, as to burst it open. They rushed into the room whence the noise proceeded; when the first object that presented itself to Bolton was Miss Sindall on her knees, her clothes torn, and her A prosecution of the Discovery mentioned in the hair dishevelled, with two servants holding her arms, imploring mercy of Sir Thomas, who was calling out in a furious tone, " Damn your pity, rascals; carry her to bed by force."" Turn, villain," cried Harry, "turn and defend your

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CHAP. XXII.

last Chapter.

"I HAVE been a wicked woman; may God and this lady forgive me! but heaven is my witness, that I was thus far on my way to con

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