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Ballantrae seemed
never to observe me; but at last, as I was about parching a little
corn, he looked up.
"Have you ever a brother?" said be.
"By the blessing of Heaven," said I, "not less than five."
"I have the one," said he, with a strange voice; and then
presently, "He shall pay me for all this," he added. And when I
asked him what was his brother's part in our distress, "What!" he
cried, "he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts my wife;
and I am here alone with a damned Irishman in this tooth-chattering
desert! Oh, I have been a common gull!" he cried.
The explosion was in all ways so foreign to my friend's nature that
I was daunted out of all my just susceptibility. Sure, an
offensive expression, however vivacious, appears a wonderfully
small affair in circumstances so extreme! But here there is a
strange thing to be noted. He had only once before referred to the
lady with whom he was contracted. That was when we came in view of
the town of New York, when he had told me, if all had their rights,
he was now in sight of his own property, for Miss Graeme enjoyed a
large estate in the province. And this was certainly a natural
occasion; but now here she was named a second time; and what is
surely fit to be observed, in this very month, which was November,
'47, and I BELIEVE UPON THAT VERY DAY AS WE SAT AMONG THESE
BARBAROUS MOUNTAINS, his brother and Miss Graeme were married. I
am the least superstitious of men; but the hand of Providence is
here displayed too openly not to be remarked. (5)
The next day, and the next, were passed in similar labours;
Ballantrae often deciding on our course by the spinning of a coin;
and once, when I expostulated on this childishness, he had an odd
remark that I have never forgotten. "I know no better way," said
he, "to express my scorn of human reason." I think it was the
third day that we found the body of a Christian, scalped and most
abominably mangled, and lying in a pudder of his blood; the birds
of the desert screaming over him, as thick as flies. I cannot
describe how dreadfully this sight affected us; but it robbed me of
all strength and all hope for this world. The same day, and only a
little after, we were scrambling over a part of the forest that had
been burned, when Ballantrae, who was a little ahead, ducked
suddenly behind a fallen trunk. I joined him in this shelter,
whence we could look abroad without being seen ourselves; and in
the bottom of the next vale, beheld a large war party of the
savages going by across our line. There might be the value of a
weak battalion present; all naked to the waist, blacked with grease
and soot, and painted with white lead and vermilion, according to
their beastly habits. They went one behind another like a string
of geese, and at a quickish trot; so that they took but a little
while to rattle by, and disappear again among the woods. Yet I
suppose we endured a greater agony of hesitation and suspense in
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