Майн Рид
The Wild Huntress: Love in the Wilderness
To detail the incidents of our homeward journey, were a pleasant task for the pen; but the record would scarcely interest the reader. The colossal squatter, silent but cheerful, drove the waggon, and busied himself about the management of his mules. The young backwoodsman and I were thus left free to interchange with our respective “sweethearts” those phrases of delirious endearment – those glances of exquisite sweetness, that only pass between eyes illumined by the light of a mutual love. Proverbially sweet is the month after marriage; but the honeymoon, with all its joys, could not have exceeded in bliss those ante-nuptial hours spent by us in recrossing the prairies. Clear as the sky over our heads was the horoscope of our hearts; all doubt and suspicion had passed away; not a shadow lingered upon the horizon of our future, to dim the perfect happiness we enjoyed. In our case, the delight of anticipation could not be enhanced by actual possession: since we had possession already.
We arrived safely in Swampville. In the post-office of that interesting village a letter awaited me, of which “jet black was de seal.” Under ordinary circumstances, this should have cast a gloom upon my joy; but candour forces me to confess that a perusal of the contents of that epistle produced upon me an effect altogether the reverse. The letter announced the demise of an octogenarian female relative – whom I had never seen – but who, for a full decade of years, beyond the period allotted to the life of man – or women either – had obstinately persisted in standing betwixt me and a small reversion – so long, indeed, that I had ceased to regard it as an “expectation.” It was of no great amount; but, arriving just then in the very “nick o’ time,” was doubly welcome; and under its magical influence, a large quantity of superfluous timber soon disappeared from the banks of Mud Creek.
Ah! the squatter’s clearing, with its zigzag fence, its girdled trees, and white dead-woods! It is no longer recognisable. The log-hut is replaced by a pretentious frame-dwelling with portico and verandahs – almost a mansion. The little maize patch, scarcely an acre in extent, is now a splendid plantation, of many fields – in which wave the golden tassels of the Indian corn, the broad leaves of another indigenous vegetable – the aromatic “Indian weed,” and the gossamer-like florets of the precious cotton-plant. Even the squatter himself you would scarcely recognise, in the respectable old gentleman, who, mounted upon his cob, with a long rifle over his shoulder, rides around, looking after the affairs of the plantation, and picking off the squirrels, who threaten the young corn with their destructive depredations. It is not the only plantation upon Mud Creek. A little further up the stream, another is met with – almost equally extended, and cultivated in like manner. Need I say who is the owner of this last? Who should it be, but the young backwoodsman – now transformed into a prosperous planter? The two estates are contiguous, and no jealous fence separates the one from the other. Both extend to that flowery glade, of somewhat sad notoriety whose bordering woods are still undefiled by the axe.
Not there, but in another spot, alike flowery and pleasant, the eye of the soaring eagle, looking from aloft, may see united together a joyous group – the owners of the two plantations – with their young wives, Marian and Lilian. The sisters are still in the fall bloom of their incomparable beauty. In neither is the maiden yet subdued into the matron – though each beholds her own type reflected in more than one bright face smiling by her side; while more than one little voice lisps sweetly in her ear that word of fond endearment – the first that falls from human lips. Ah! beloved Lilian! thine is not a beauty born to blush but for an hour. In my eyes, it can never fade; but, like the blossom of the citron, seems only the fairer, by the side of its own fruit! I leave it to other lips to symbol the praises of thy sister —
The Wild Huntress.
