WASHALO0. with their arms entwined like serpents around each other. To either might then, indeed, the encouraging exclamation of the poet have been offered: "Now, gallant knight, now hold thy own, No maiden's arms are round thee thrown." 417 seemed then to separate the lovers, both anticipated the joyous meeting with exulting hearts. Alas! how futile are the most highly wrought schemes of mortals, when adverse fortune frowns. How soon are the halcyon dreams of felicity rendered visionary, and succeeded by the heart-felt pangs of real and burning affliction! George arrived in safety at the appointed place; but Isabel, intercepted in her flight by straggling sa Each one exerted his utmost skill and strength to throw his adversary-at one time by mere force, at another by surprise; at length Washa-vages of a different tribe, when danger was least loo, summoning up all his native energy of body, dreamed of, was doomed to experience another in an unguarded moment, threw himself forward and a more protracted trial of wretched captiviwith so desperate an effort, that the muscles of ty. With painful anxiety he waited at the grot the back of Philip gave way; he fell to the to for her arrival; every moment seemed an ground and received upon himself his brawny antagonist. During this violent struggle, both had been so closely engaged that neither was able to make use of his scalping-knife until this moment, when Washaloo, having fairly secured his opponent upon the ground, seized Philip's own blade, and brandished it victoriously through the air. The image of death now stared Philip in the face; but he was too much of a hero to quake at its presence. Finding resistance vain, he bared his bosom and cried aloud, "Strike;" but instead of the blood of the famous Rhode Island sachen streaming in vengeance upon the thirsty blade, the naked weapon dropped its point in peace. The brave honor the brave," was the reply; " and not when unarmed and powerless, can Washaloo sheath Philip's own scalping-knife, that has drunk the blood of thousands, thousands, into the breast of an heroic confederate chief. Live! but learn from your defeat, that there are principles of honor and justice to direct men in their intercourse among one another! With you my connexion is now eternally absolved!" Thus was the life of Philip preserved, soon, however, to be sent to the gloomy regions of the dead by the hand of a Mohegan. This open rupture between the chiefs, plainly indicated to the love-sick prisoners that the long meditated scheme of escaping, must be put into immediate execution, inasmuch as orders had already issued forth that every warrior be ready to take up the line of march at the dawn of the succeeding day. As no time was to be lost, it was at once agreed that shortly after midnight they would meet under the venerable oak at the mouth of the grotto, and then, as there could be no difficulty in obtaining a horse from a neighboring enclosure, the rising sun would find them far beyond the reach of their pursuers. The descending god of light now marked the silent approach of the grey twilight, and soon the shady veil of night overspread the hemisphere; whilst the earth seemed to gasp after the circumambient moisture. "Tired nature's sweet restorer" ere long sealed each mortal eye in the balmy blessings of the night, save the two captives, whose agitated souls refused the gifts of soft repose. The dead hour of midnight arrived, when George, with noiseless pace, stole forth from among surrounding savages, locked in the silent embrace of Morpheus; and the beauteous Isabel, with trembling steps, forsook her faithful protectress, whose anxious care, foreseeing her every wish, had always ministered to her wants with maternal kindness. As but a short distance hour; in dreadful suspense he leaned forward and endeavored to catch the sound of her footsteps, borne upon the scarcely stirring breeze of the dark and dismal depth of night. At one time, half frantic with soul-felt anguish, he forebodes the most gloomy disasters; but the rustling of a few leaves again inspires his heart with the hope of her immediate presence, too soon, alas ! to realize its fallacy. Again his mind relapses into its former mood; but anon, unwilling to give credence to such idle fears, he persuades himself into the belief that, wearied by the tedious vigil, her heavy eyelids had yielded to the gentle influence of sleep. In this manner did the heavy hours glide away, until the night was so far spent that prudence no longer warranted the hazard of the enterprize. He now ventured to approach the wigwam where he fondly supposed the dear object of his solicitude rested in quiet repose; and in confirmation of which, the melancholy silence of the grave reigned on every side. Ah! cruel delusion! Already the east began to indicate the dawn of approaching day, and to gild the courts of heaven with sacred light, when George, to avoid suspicion, sought his own tent with unwilling pace, resolved patiently to await an explanation of this mystery. No sooner were the golden doors of morning again unlocked by the rosy fingers of Aurora, and had the stars of heaven, influenced alike with fear and envy at the diffusing beams of Phœbus, retired to conceal their fading fires in the bosom of the ocean, than the noisy tumult of raising the camp, resounded in every quarter; when George, his bosom heaving with the painful vicissitudes of hope and fear, approached with hasty strides the wigwam commonly occupied by Isabel and her uncivilized guardianess, where he found the latter in great distress, occasioned by the absence of the important charge intrusted to her care. The feelings of Templeton can be better imagined than described, when he learned that she had disappeared during the night. A diligent search was immediately instituted; runners were sent out in various directions, but it was all in vain: no tidings of her having been seen or heard of, arrived by those that returned. Among the bustling warriors, every countenance gleamed with the rays of delight; the buoyant hearts of all were elated with unbounded joy at the not far distant prospect of again beholding their long deserted homes, and all the fascinating scenes connected with that sacred name; but in the midst of this joyous jubilee the adopted son of Washaloo stood alone, seared, as it were, by the lightnings of heaven. The bright hopes, which the day before were the cherished inmates of his breast, were now as a visionary dream; they had vanished like the glittering meteor that shoots athwart the firmanent of night; the ideal images of felicity, upon which his lips had loved to dwell, and his extasied soul had delighted to linger in enraptured meditation, were now as burning coals to his bereaved and desolate heart. But, just on the eve of setting out upon their march homewards, one of the runners returned, bringing intelligence that a female captive had been seen the preceding night, in possession of a party of Indians, supposed to be from the Hudson River. This information afforded George a gleam of consolation and of hope, as their own route lay through that section of the country; but its effects were not unlike that of the vivid lightning, which flashes with a transient coruscation through the dismal darkness of a tempestuous night, serving only to render the benighted traveller more sensible of his gloomy condition. stranger to his dejected eyes; mindless of food and drink, he wasted away with life-consuming sighs and sorrows-a sad spectacle of human woe. At length new prospects opened upon his view, affording a gleam of hope to his disconsolate and melancholy spirits; but it too was not unlike the forms traced upon the sand of the beach, by the finger of gay and thoughtless infancy-erased by the next breeze, or the succeeding tide-the eye discerns naught save the ever-changeful surface of the barren, chaotic strand. Learning that a treaty was to be negotiated between various Indian tribes and an Englishman, named Penn, who had formed a settlement several miles above the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, he imagined that this convention would offer a favorable opportunity for ascertaining something in relation to the fate of Isabel; even the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that her gentle and loving spirit had winged its flight to that undiscovered country whence no traveller returns, would have been Already are the deserted fortifications beyond far more preferable than his present state of the reach of the naked eye; onward they march day after day, no incident occurring to interrupt the monotonous regularity of their motion. However, the best directed efforts of Washaloo to obtain information relative to Isabel, proved utterly abortive; but onward still the valiant band progresses with measured pace, until finally the romantic Delaware, rolling along in silent dignity and majestic grandeur, bursts upon the eager gaze of the delighted sons of the forest. And soon a scene of heart-felt interest was displayed on the surface of its waters: with hasty sweeps the pliant oar urges forward through the liquid expanse a multitude of scattered canoes, laden with old men, women, and children, in whose countenances were strangely blended the sensations of pleasure and of pain; that, because the mind already feasts upon the exquisite delights flowing from an interview with one who may constitute the charm of existence itself; and this, because some anxious fears, peradventure too well grounded, may forebode his absence in the returned ranks, having, long since, on the field of battle, glutted the cravings of a dog or vulture's voraciousness. Although George was received into the family of Washaloo with all imaginable marks of kindness, yet, to him, it was far from affording him the least gratification; Isabel was the all-engrossing object that wholly absorbed his every thought, and it dit was naught but her restoration that could restore his perturbated mind to its proper equilibrium. Her image every where pursued and unceasingly haunted him, as it were, an incubus preying upon the vitals of his constitution, and chaining the current of his heart's blood. dreadful uncertaintyj; for then, indeed, he would have cherished the fond hope that, ere long, his own spirit might roam with her's through the boundless regions of ethereal essence-those sacred domains of peace, which are neither invaded by war, thirsting for blood, nor by envy which, like a viper, wounds with envenomed tooth, the bosom that fostered this emblem of ingratitudewhere the chilling frosts of winter and the burning heat of the dog-star are never felt-where fountains of living water and trees of life have a ceaseless existence-where the hunger of the soul is satiated with ambrosial food, the inexhaustible source of such pleasure and joy as a mother feels at the return of an only son, whom she believed to be dead; and where there is no death to cloud the meridian blaze of eternal light and life; but, absorbed in celestial radiance, the soul swims in sacred and supreme delight. The period assigned for the concluding of the treaty arrived, and Washaloo, accompanied by his adopted son, attended in person, to whom the duty of officiating as chief arbiter on the side of the natives, was awarded by universal consent, in consideration of his well known character of steady justice and unwavering integrity. The conditions of the compact were soon amicably settled, with entire satisfaction to both parties; and the signature of Washaloo, once fixed upon the parchment, was a sufficient guarantee for the faithful performance of its stipulations. These national affairs being transacted, the personal concern of Templeton now claimed some notice. A diligent inquiry was instituted among the chiefs of the different tribes, as well as among the English settlers, but the result proved worse than vain; for the delightsome vista of a last hope, the only solace that yet sustained his drooping spirits, was now obscured by the heavy clouds of disappointment. The cup of woe had been drained to its very dregs, and these too now fell to his afflictive lot; inexorable fate demanded a further sacrifice, and bitter indeed was the draught. He made no attempt to desert the family of Washaloo; for his assistance, which was freely granted to the utmost of his power, held out the only plausible hope of regaining the lost object of his affections. Month after month passed heavily along; but the most steady exertions were unable to elicit the least knowledge in regard to the lost girl, until, finally despairing of ever again beholding the idol of his soul, he was nigh falling a victim to the influence of his depressing passions; the gifts of soft repose became a land seek his way to Boston; but when he re George was now undetermined whether to return with Washaloo, or to endeavor to escape flected that were he to fail in his attempt, the, its blood-stained sides, that the hand of death had punishment of an ignominious death would be been at work. Urged by motives of humanity, the consequence; and should he secrete himself he swam into the river with the laudable inten among the colonists, and not be delivered up when demanded, open hostility would be the inevitable result; moreover, that he had now lost all relish for the enjoyments of social life, and that existence itself, on its present terms, was scarcely any longer desirable, his own inclinations led him to seek that solitude which the home of Washaloo afforded to his perturbed mind. Accordingly he returned to the roof of his Indian parent, more dispirited than ever; a picture of sad despair, he now wandered about among the children of nature, an isolated being -aye, the veriest misanthrope in christendom. * * * * * * Although Penn's Colony, considered as a whole, consisted of men no less remarkable for their purity of manners and honorable deportment, than for their steady observance of the principles of justice and integrity, yet, as in every other society, there were some that utterly disregarded even the common laws of morality. The depredations of this latter class upon their red neighbors, were nigh several times involving the whole settlement in a bloody contest with the natives; but the conciliating spirit of the illustrious Penn, always prevailed over the not unreasonable wrath of the natives, burning with the desire of fierce revenge; and thus, by satisfying the demands of justice, he not unfrequently brightened the chains of friendship, when the lowering clouds of the horizon threatened momentarily to burst upon the heads of the colonists, with all the fury of the howling tempest.In one of these rencontres, the Indians retaliated with such spirit that the whites were obliged to seek safety by flight, to the no small hazard of their own lives; but the English, entertaining an exalted opinion of their own superiority, were unwilling to brook this outrage upon their dignity, and hence they determined to punish them for exercising the unwarrantable arrogance of asserting their own rights and liberties. With this object in view, they resolved to put to death the first natives they should meet, regardless either of age or sex, foolishly imagining thus to intimidate the proud spirit which knows no restraint. Proceeding along the Delaware, a canoe was perceived at a considerable distance, slowly approaching-aye, a canoe, in which glided along the smooth waters, in imaginary security, all that is held most dear in the paternal bosom-a wife, and the sacred pledges of their mutual affections. The hellish souls of the whites now burned for the slaughter; each one, with his rifle, took unerring aim, and the next moment the shrieks of five innocent victims weltering in their gore, echoed along the banks of the Delaware. As each ball had played its mortal part, their sufferings were but momentary, and soon the silence of the grave held dominion over the tragical event. It was the family of Washaloo! The setting sun was now darting his last rays obliquely across the variegated landscape bordering on the Delaware, when Washaloo, returning from a hunting excursion, observed a canoe silently floating along the current of the stream. His practised eye soon discovered from tion of bringing the canoe to the shore, and conferring upon its tenants the rites of burial; but what mind can conceive the intensity of anguish that penetrated his soul, when he recognized in the ghastly and distorted countenances of the ensanguined victims, those whom he had left that morning under his own roof, the abode of hospitality, in the full enjoyment of health and prosperity! The boasted wealth of language wears but the garb of penury, when employed in the description of a scene like this;-the most highly wrought representation of soul-felt horror and dark despair, portrays but in faint colors the stern reality. But, in the midst of this lamentable scene, his wonted firmness of mind did not, for a moment, forsake him; the remains of the dead demanded the performance of a last office, which he resolved forthwith to have accomplished.With his mournful cargo he immediately proceeded homewards, where the direful spectacle did not fail to excite in the breasts of his warriors the fiercest passions of revenge, the sudden ebullition of which, even the sternness of Washaloo could scarcely restrain; nor did George Templeton, who had, in the interim, been absent on one of his solitary rambles, survey the scene with unaffected looks;-the presence of actual misery, roused his morbid imagination from indulging in its all-absorbing thoughts, and his abstracted mind for once again took cognizance of the sober realities of life. The heroic valor and restless spirit of the warriors, ere long, again and again impelled them to urge their chief to conduct them to battle, to avenge the blood of murdered innocence; but the unfortunate sachem as often curbed the boisterous vehemence of their passions. "The great Penn, in his intercourse with us," replied he, "has always evinced the most strict principles of equity, and in no instance has he for a moment hesitated to deliver into the hands of justice, those that have heretofore violated the conditions of our treaty. How inconsistent with uprightness were it then on our part, before acquainting him with the facts and demanding justice, to cut down the tree of peace with the battle-axe, and stain the green grass, that grows under its branches, with the blood of our white brethren! It is true, that the nature of the injury is such that it cannot be repaired; but were I to yield the sanction of official authority to your importunities, we, in fact, would be the aggressors-we would violate the principles of good faith, that lofty virtue upon whose stability depends not only the happiness of individuals, but the peace, prosperity, and glory of nations." He said: instantly the raging tumult ceased, and, obedient to wisdom and admonition, the warlike band obeyed with obsequious demeanor. Thus spake the virtuous man and the consummate soldier, as long as reason and volition held dominion over his actions; but, ere long, the violent clashing of the most powerful passions of the human heart, dethroned reason itself, when the instinctive feelings of revenge, no longer controlled by moral laws, irresistibly impelled him into the most precipitate rashness which the wildest delirium is capable of perpetrating. His | her, when circumstances bid most fair to realize noble mind had suffered a wreck upon the arid deserts of despair, where no redeeming oasis kindly offers refreshment to the exhausted spirits of the disheartened wanderer. A curse as dark, deep, and deadly, as the malediction of a fiend, against the entire race of whites, now rested on his feverish lips. Unobserved by his unsuspecting Indian friends, he issued forth in the dead hour of midnight, and directed his hasty strides towards the settlement of the whites, firmly resolved to immolate on the altar of avengement, every European whose ill fortune it might be to fall into his power; but the generous heart of his adopted son, who perceived his mental aberra. tion, with filial solicitude bestowed upon him a watchful eye; quite ignorant of the bloody object that Washaloo now so fondly cherished, he followed his footsteps with unfatigued pace, through the dark and illimitable forest-over hill, over dale, through swamps and thickets. * * * * * * It was early on a pleasant morning of the latter part of June, that a lovely young female, with pensive looks and downcast eyes, was strolling along the banks of the Delaware, indulging the vain hope of quenching, for a short time, the incessant fires that rankled at her heart, in the roscid pleasures flowing from contemplating the delightful prospect of nature, and inhaling the salutary breeze of the morning. The glorious luminary of day, arrayed in unrivalled splendor, was just mounting the orient vault of heaven, renovating the delighted earth with fresh animation, and clothing all nature with new beauty; soft and gentle were the odoriferous zephyrs that whispered through the verdant forest, but still more sweet were the dulcet notes of the songsters of the grove, chaunting their matin hymn of praise-strains more melodious than the Eolian harp-more charming than the lyre of Orpheus, or the tuneful voices of the sacred Nineaye, strains to which even Apollo might have listened with admiration and delight. The surrounding scenery was magnificently grand and romantic: on the one side the majestic Delaware rolled along its tributary waters towards the ocean, with silent dignity and imposing grandeur; on the other side, the golden harvest, ready for the reaper's sickle, waved upon the luxuriant fields, to reward the labor of the agriculturalist, like that which Ceres maturates on the plains of Enna. All the objects of nature seemed to vie with one another in producing the most delightful and picturesque landscape; but in the midst of this profusion of nature's beauties and blandishments, the youthful maiden, but lately ransomed from captivity through the munificence of the benevolent Penn, found no asstiaging balm to sooth the bitter asperities of the rugged path of life. A monument of woe, she wandered solitarily along the green and flowery banks, whilst her active thoughts were roaming among far distant objects-the lovely scenes of her childhood-the endearments associated with the sacred name of a long lost home-the anticipated embrace of a disconsolate mother, mourning her daughter as the speedy consummation of their fondest hopes. Such were the all-engrossing subjects that afternately absorbed her whole attention, and fixed her mind in a steadfast reverie. On a sudden, her ears are saluted by a shrill and frantic war-whoop-a terrific yell, expressive of that horrid satisfaction which the prospect of revenge afforded to the burning passions that revelled in the breast of the American native; her eyes beheld a blood-stained object, in whose countenance where blended the looks of demoniacal phrenzy and horrid desperation.With a gigantean grasp he seized her swooning body and cast it to the ground. Although his own spirits were now succumbing under the fatal drain of the vital current issuing from a wound, caused by his own furious hand, yet he eagerly endeavored to gratify his predominant passion of revenge, by inflicting a mortal blow with his tomahawk; but as the weapon gleamed on high, vertigo seized his exanguious brain, and the keen edge, directed by his quivering eye, was buried in the soil, remote from its intended aim. The exhausted system of the wounded Indian, however, soon reacted, when reason resumed her native throne, and all the fire and wonted energy of the warrior again shone forth in the expressive eye of WASHALOO; but instantly the visage of despair overclouded his brow, and an horrific chill penetrated the depth of his soul, the recollection of his mighty woes flashed as with electric quickness across his mind. With feelings ngs of harrowing remorse, he now felt conscious of having ing acted inconsistently with the whole tenor of his life; and, in the bitterness_of his soul, he exclaimed, "Why has an evil spirit, in the gloomy hour of tribulation, tempted me to violate, with a sacrilegious hand, the sacred laws of nature? Was it not sufficient to fill up the spacious measure of my woes, that I was plunged to the utmost depths of dark despair and unutterable wretchedness? Oh! ye cruel powers, that sport with the destinies of mankind! could it not suffice that the lamp of life should be extinguished in the damp and dismal shades of an ignominious death; but must needs dishonor the fair escutcheon of my fame with the indelible stigma of having infringed that faith, which has always been arrayed in a garment pure and unsullied as the new-fallen snow-which has always been as clear as the crystal current from the rock, and sincere as the smile of infant innocence, when it rests on the bosom that bore it, in peaceful slumbers." Whilst he yet spoke, the adopted son arrived with fatigate pace, panting from the effects of his violent exertions in pursuing the footsteps of his foster-father, whom he had, all the way, traced by means of a small dog, the only companion of his solitude. The eyes of young Templeton instantly met those of the unwounded, though much terrified, girl, whose senses were just awakened from a state of insensibility; and no sooner were their glances interchanged, than a mutual recognition ensued. It was Isabel Stewart! The imagination of the sympathetic rea numbered among the victims of Indian barbarity der is left to conceive the intense surprise and -and last, though not least, the holy vows of her unbounded ecstacy that followed this joyful disbetrothed, from whom a cruel destiny had torn | covery. Involuntarily they rushed to each oth GENERAL MERCER-THE DEAD MOTHER. 421 er's arms, and in silence flowed the unrestrained | rough; under all these distressing circumstances Gen. attempt tears of glowing transport, suppressing the power of giving utterance to the rapturous delights that pervaded their ravished souls; however, to a description were but to expose the poverty of language, even though my pen were dipped in the empyreal fire of a Milton's sublimity-of a Virgil's tenderness, and a Homer's simplicity. In the visage of Washaloo, the impress of death's signet was plainly visible; although he was conscious of the silent approach of the stern tyrant, yet he still retained his self-possession and equanimity of mind. A smile of satisfaction seemed to play over his moribund countenance, as he cast a long and a last look upon Isabel and George, whom he now saw restored to that happiness which they had so long desired; but the noble spirit of the illustrious chief, whose thread of life had been destined, that hour, to be divided by the fates, was now compelled to yield to the iron grasp of the frozen hand of death; a dying languor diffused itself through all the members of his body; a thick mist overspread his eyes; a cold sweat covered his body; and a hollow unearthly groan issued from his breast. He sank down convulsively into the arms of those whom he had always regarded with the tender affections of a father, and, the next moment, eternal darkness veiled his eyes. Due obsequies being paid to the chieftain's reliques, and his lonely grave bedewed with the tears of the lovers, it yet remains for me to mention, as will be readily conjectured, that shortly after this occurrence, our children of misfortune were restored to their parents and friends, and subsequently united in the bonds of matrimony; and a more lovely pair surely never breathed the holy vows of marriage, before the hymenial altar. In the bliss of the present they forgot the dangers and privations of the past. Time winged along his ceaseless course almost unobserved, his pinions glittering with the pearls of hope, and his brow clothed in sunshine. And thus did the tide of ill-fortune ebb at last, whilst ISABEL STEWARTand GEORGE TEMPLETON were borne upon its retiring waters to the blissful regions of an Eden of happiness. We published, not long since, an interesting biographical sketch of General Mercer, a revolutionary officer, who fell fighting for our independence. The editor of the American System, published at Princeton, near which Mercer fought and died, adds to the biography these remarks:-- This short historic sketch is well written, and we fully believe, true to the very letter, a part of which we have more than once listened to the recital of with thrilling interest, while it fell from the lips of her who nursed and watched over the dying hero, during his excruciating sufferings for nine days after the battle. When it is recollected that those wretched, half-starved, half-clothed, frost bitten troops, had been fighting the regular British army under Lord Cornwallis, at Trenton, the day before-that they had been march. ing all night, with scarcely any supper; the ground, which was muddy and almost impassable the day previous, but from the sudden change of the weather to excessive cold, had become frozen very hard and Mercer, with his small detachment of two or three hundred, who were nearly half a mile in advance of the main body of Americans, rushed gallantly forward to seize a favourable position to hold the enemy in check until Washington should come up; but for want of bayonets, and being attacked by nearly double his number of fiesh British troops, his men were obliged to fall back a short distance-although not until they had given a close and well-directed fire, which brought down the British captain and several of his men. The British, after returning the fire, rushed on with the bayonet; at this critical moment General Mercer's horse was shot, and before he could extricate himself he was surrounded by the enemy, who refused him quarter. Thus died this gallant officer, in the prime of life, regretted by all who knew him. Written for the Casket. THE DEAD MOTHER. "Come hither, child, and kneel! Although the sun arrayed in robes of light, The breeze is playing with her locks of jet, Mother ope your closed eyes! To Him, whose dwelling is the vaulted skies, Cannot those pale lips speak? My once loved voice is unregarded now, There is strange beauty in that sunken cheek, Her sleepingdreams are sweet; The calm expression of that shrouded eye So placid is her rest! One fold she stirs not, of the snowy sheet Dear sister, hither come! Print one fond kiss upon that pallid face If thou art, sister, sorrowful and dumb, Her hand is icy cold! |