twenty or thirty forms rising alternately from the
cover of the tall, coarse grass, in front of the lodges,
and then sinking again from the sight, as it were
to burrow in the earth. By the sudden and hasty
glimpses that he caught of these figures, they seemed
more like dark, glancing specters, or some other unearthly
beings, than creatures fashioned with the ordinary
and vulgar materials of flesh and blood. A gaunt,
naked form was seen, for a single instant, tossing
its arms wildly in the air, and then the spot it had
filled was vacant; the figure appearing suddenly in
some other and distant place, or being succeeded by
another, possessing the same mysterious character.
David, observing that his companion lingered, pursued
the direction of his gaze, and in some measure recalled
the recollection of Heyward, by speaking.
“There is much fruitful soil uncultivated here,”
he said; “and, I may add, without the sinful
leaven of self-commendation, that, since my short
sojourn in these heathenish abodes, much good seed
has been scattered by the wayside.”
“The tribes are fonder of the chase than of
the arts of men of labor,” returned the unconscious
Duncan, still gazing at the objects of his wonder.
“It is rather joy than labor to the spirit,
to lift up the voice in praise; but sadly do these
boys abuse their gifts. Rarely have I found any
of their age, on whom nature has so freely bestowed
the elements of psalmody; and surely, surely, there
are none who neglect them more. Three nights
have I now tarried here, and three several times have
I assembled the urchins to join in sacred song; and
as often have they responded to my efforts with whoopings
and howlings that have chilled my soul!”
“Of whom speak you?”
“Of those children of the devil, who waste the
precious moments in yonder idle antics. Ah! the
wholesome restraint of discipline is but little known
among this self-abandoned people. In a country
of birches, a rod is never seen, and it ought not
to appear a marvel in my eyes, that the choicest blessings
of Providence are wasted in such cries as these.”
David closed his ears against the juvenile pack, whose
yell just then rang shrilly through the forest; and
Duncan, suffering his lip to curl, as in mockery of
his own superstition, said firmly:
“We will proceed.”
Without removing the safeguards form his ears, the
master of song complied, and together they pursued
their way toward what David was sometimes wont to
call the “tents of the Philistines.”
“But though the
beast of game
The privilege of chase
may claim;
Though space and law
the stag we lend
Ere hound we slip, or
bow we bend;
Whoever recked, where,
how, or when
The prowling fox was
trapped or slain?”
—Lady of
the Lake.
