Chapter 32 - Page 2

dost not see, here,
in the face of her who looketh like a form of stone, traces of a
countenance that is familiar?"

"Thou hast allusion to the consort of Captain Content Heathcote?"

"Truly, to her only. Thou art not, reverend sir, of sufficient residence
at the Wish-Ton-Wish, to remember that lady in her youthfulness. But to
me, the hour when the Captain led his followers into the wilderness,
seemeth but as a morning of the past season. I was then active in limb,
and something idle in reflection and discourse; it was in that journey,
that the woman who is now the mother of my children and I first made
acquaintance. I have seen many comely females in my time, but never did I
look on one so pleasant to the eye, as was the consort of the Captain
until the night of the burning. Thou hast often heard the loss she then
met, and, from that hour, her beauty hath been that of the October leaf
rather than its loveliness in the season of fertility. Now look on the
face of this mourner, and say if there be not here such an image as the
water reflects from the overhanging bush. In verity, I could believe it
was the sorrowing eye and bereaved look of the mother herself!"

"Grief hath struck its blow heavily on this unoffending victim," uttered
Meek, with great and subdued softness in his manner. "The voice of
petition must be raised in her behalf, or----"

"Hist!--there are some in the forest; I hear the rustling of leaves!"

"The voice of him, who made the earth, whispereth in the winds; his breath
is the movement of nature!"

"Here are living men!--But, happily, the meeting is friendly, and there
will be no further occasion for strife. The heart of a father is sure as
ready eye and swift foot."

Dudley suffered his musket to fall at his side, and both he and his
companion stood in attitudes of decent composure, to await the arrival of
those who approached. The party that drew near, arrived on the side of the
tree opposite to that on which the death of Conanchet had occurred. The
enormous trunk and swelling roots of the pine concealed the group at its
feet, but the persons of Meek and the Ensign were soon observed. The
instant they were discovered, he who led the new-comers bent his footsteps
in that direction.

"If, as thou hast supposed, the Narragansett hath again led her thou hast
so long mourned into the forest," said Submission, who acted as guide to
those who followed, "here are we, at no great distance from the place of
his resort. It was near yon rock that he gave the meeting with the
bloody-minded Philip, and the place where I received the boon of an
useless and much-afflicted life from his