“But the emigrants, my friends? they are yet nigh at hand—­”

“Truly,” said Nathan, “thee is mistaken.  The news of the Injuns, that brought friend Thomas the younger into the woods, did greatly dismay them, as the young men reported; and, truly, they did resolve to delay their journey no longer, but start again before the break of day, that they might the sooner reach the Falls, and be in safety with their wives and little ones.  There is no help for thee.  Thee and me is alone in the wilderness, and there is no friend with us.  Leave wringing thee hands, for it can do thee no good.”

“I am indeed friendless, and there is no hope,” said Roland, with the accents of despair; “while we seek assistance, and seek it vainly, Edith is lost,—­lost for ever!  Would that we had perished together!  Hapless Edith! wretched Edith!—­Was ever wretch so miserable as I?”

With such expressions, the young man gave a loose to his feelings, and Nathan surveyed, first with surprise and then with a kind of gloomy indignation, but never, as it seemed, with anything like sympathy, the extravagance of his grief.

“Thee is but a madman!” he exclaimed at last, and with a tone of severity that arrested Roland’s attention:  “does thee curse thee fate, and the Providence that is above thee, because the maid of thee heart is carried into captivity unharmed?  Is thee wretched, because thee eyes did not see the Injun axe struck into her brain?  Friend, thee does not know what such a sight is; but I do—­yes, I have looked upon such a thing, and I will tell thee what it is; for it is good thee should know.  Look, friend,” he continued, grasping Roland by the arm, as if to command his attention, and surveying him with a look both wild and mournful, “thee sees a man before thee who was once as young and as happy as thee,—­yea, friend, happier, for I had many around me to love me,—­the children of my body, the wife of my bosom, the mother that gave me birth.  Thee did talk of such things to me in the wood,—­thee did mention them one and all,—­wife, parent, and child!  Such things had I; and men spoke well of me—­But thee sees what I am!  There is none of them remaining,—­none only but me; and thee sees me what I am!  Ten years ago I was another man,—­a poor man, friend, but one that was happy.  I dwelt upon the frontiers of Bedford—­thee may not know the place; it is among the mountains of Pennsylvania, and far away. There was the house that I did build me; and in it there was all that I held dear, ’my gray old mother,’—­(that’s the way thee did call her, when thee spoke of her in the wood!)—­’the wife of my bosom,’ and ’the child of my heart,’—­the children, friend,—­for there was five of them, sons and daughters together,—­little innocent babes that had done no wrong; and, truly, I loved them well.  Well, friend, the Injuns came around us:  for being bold, because of my faith that made me a man of peace and the friend of all men,