The Prairie (27 page)

The trapper, though he was not deceived as to the state of Dr. Battius'
mind, was, however, greatly in error as to the exciting cause. While
imitating the movements of his companions, and toiling his way upward
with the utmost caution, and not without great inward tribulation, the
eye of the naturalist had caught a glimpse of an unknown plant, a few
yards above his head, and in a situation more than commonly exposed to
the missiles which the girls were unceasingly hurling in the direction
of the assailants. Forgetting, in an instant, every thing but the glory
of being the first to give this jewel to the catalogues of science, he
sprang upward at the prize with the avidity with which the sparrow darts
upon the butterfly. The rocks, which instantly came thundering down,
announced that he was seen; and for a moment, while his form was
concealed in the cloud of dust and fragments which followed the furious
descent, the trapper gave him up for lost; but the next instant he was
seen safely seated in a cavity formed by some of the projecting stones
which had yielded to the shock, holding triumphantly in his hand the
captured stem, which he was already devouring with delighted, and
certainly not unskilful, eyes. Paul profited by the opportunity. Turning
his course, with the quickness of thought, he sprang to the post which
Obed thus securely occupied, and unceremoniously making a footstool
of his shoulder, as the latter stooped over his treasure, he bounded
through the breach left by the fallen rock, and gained the level. He
was followed by Middleton, who joined him in seizing and disarming the
girls. In this manner a bloodless and complete victory was obtained
over that citadel which Ishmael had vainly flattered himself might prove
impregnable.

So smile the heavens upon this holy act,
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!
—Shakespeare.

It is proper that the course of the narrative should be stayed, while
we revert to those causes, which have brought in their train of
consequences, the singular contest just related. The interruption must
necessarily be as brief as we hope it may prove satisfactory to that
class of readers, who require that no gap should be left by those who
assume the office of historians, for their own fertile imaginations to
fill.

Among the troops sent by the government of the United States, to take
possession of its newly acquired territory in the west, was a detachment
led by a young soldier who has become so busy an actor in the scenes of
our legend. The mild and indolent descendants of the ancient colonists
received their new compatriots without distrust, well knowing that
the transfer raised them from the condition of subjects, to the more
enviable distinction of citizens in a government of laws. The new rulers
exercised their functions with discretion, and wielded their delegated
authority without offence. In such a novel intermixture, however, of
men born and nurtured in freedom, and the compliant minions of absolute
power, the catholic and the protestant, the active and the indolent,
some little time was necessary to blend the discrepant elements of
society. In attaining so desirable an end, woman was made to perform her
accustomed and grateful office. The barriers of prejudice and religion
were broken through by the irresistible power of the master-passion,
and family unions, ere long, began to cement the political tie which had
made a forced conjunction, between people so opposite in their habits,
their educations, and their opinions.

Middleton was among the first, of the new possessors of the soil, who
became captive to the charms of a Louisianian lady. In the immediate
vicinity of the post he had been directed to occupy, dwelt the chief
of one of those ancient colonial families, which had been content to
slumber for ages amid the ease, indolence, and wealth of the Spanish
provinces. He was an officer of the crown, and had been induced to
remove from the Floridas, among the French of the adjoining province, by
a rich succession of which he had become the inheritor. The name of
Don Augustin de Certavallos was scarcely known beyond the limits of
the little town in which he resided, though he found a secret pleasure
himself in pointing it out, in large scrolls of musty documents, to an
only child, as enrolled among the former heroes and grandees of Old and
of New Spain. This fact, so important to himself and of so little
moment to any body else, was the principal reason, that while his more
vivacious Gallic neighbours were not slow to open a frank communion
with their visiters, he chose to keep aloof, seemingly content with the
society of his daughter, who was a girl just emerging from the condition
of childhood into that of a woman.

The curiosity of the youthful Inez, however, was not so inactive. She
had not heard the martial music of the garrison, melting on the evening
air, nor seen the strange banner, which fluttered over the heights that
rose at no great distance from her father's extensive grounds, without
experiencing some of those secret impulses which are thought to
distinguish the sex. Natural timidity, and that retiring and perhaps
peculiar lassitude, which forms the very groundwork of female
fascination, in the tropical provinces of Spain, held her in their
seemingly indissoluble bonds; and it is more than probable, that had not
an accident occurred, in which Middleton was of some personal service
to her father, so long a time would have elapsed before they met, that
another direction might have been given to the wishes of one, who was
just of an age to be alive to all the power of youth and beauty.

Providence—or if that imposing word is too just to be classical,
fate—had otherwise decreed. The haughty and reserved Don Augustin was
by far too observant of the forms of that station, on which he so much
valued himself, to forget the duties of a gentleman. Gratitude, for the
kindness of Middleton, induced him to open his doors to the officers of
the garrison, and to admit of a guarded but polite intercourse. Reserve
gradually gave way before the propriety and candour of their spirited
young leader, and it was not long ere the affluent planter rejoiced
as much as his daughter, whenever the well known signal, at the gate,
announced one of these agreeable visits from the commander of the post.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the impression which the charms of Inez
produced on the soldier, or to delay the tale in order to write a
wire-drawn account of the progressive influence that elegance of
deportment, manly beauty, and undivided assiduity and intelligence were
likely to produce on the sensitive mind of a romantic, warm-hearted, and
secluded girl of sixteen. It is sufficient for our purpose to say that
they loved, that the youth was not backward to declare his feelings,
that he prevailed with some facility over the scruples of the maiden,
and with no little difficulty over the objections of her father,
and that before the province of Louisiana had been six months in the
possession of the States, the officer of the latter was the affianced
husband of the richest heiress on the banks of the Mississippi.

Although we have presumed the reader to be acquainted with the manner in
which such results are commonly attained, it is not to be supposed that
the triumph of Middleton, either over the prejudices of the father or
over those of the daughter, was achieved without difficulty. Religion
formed a stubborn and nearly irremovable obstacle with both. The devoted
man patiently submitted to a formidable essay, father Ignatius was
deputed to make in order to convert him to the true faith. The effort
on the part of the worthy priest was systematic, vigorous, and long
sustained. A dozen times (it was at those moments when glimpses of the
light, sylphlike form of Inez flitted like some fairy being past the
scene of their conferences) the good father fancied he was on the eve of
a glorious triumph over infidelity; but all his hopes were frustrated
by some unlooked-for opposition, on the part of the subject of his pious
labours. So long as the assault on his faith was distant and feeble,
Middleton, who was no great proficient in polemics, submitted to its
effects with the patience and humility of a martyr; but the moment the
good father, who felt such concern in his future happiness, was tempted
to improve his vantage ground by calling in the aid of some of the
peculiar subtilties of his own creed, the young man was too good a
soldier not to make head against the hot attack. He came to the contest,
it is true, with no weapons more formidable than common sense, and some
little knowledge of the habits of his country as contrasted with that
of his adversary; but with these homebred implements he never failed
to repulse the father with something of the power with which a nervous
cudgel player would deal with a skilful master of the rapier, setting at
nought his passados by the direct and unanswerable arguments of a broken
head and a shivered weapon.

Before the controversy was terminated, an inroad of Protestants had come
to aid the soldier. The reckless freedom of such among them, as thought
only of this life, and the consistent and tempered piety of others,
caused the honest priest to look about him in concern. The influence of
example on one hand, and the contamination of too free an intercourse on
the other, began to manifest themselves, even in that portion of his own
flock, which he had supposed to be too thoroughly folded in spiritual
government ever to stray. It was time to turn his thoughts from the
offensive, and to prepare his followers to resist the lawless deluge
of opinion, which threatened to break down the barriers of their faith.
Like a wise commander, who finds he has occupied too much ground for the
amount of his force, he began to curtail his outworks. The relics were
concealed from profane eyes; his people were admonished not to speak of
miracles before a race that not only denied their existence, but who
had even the desperate hardihood to challenge their proofs; and even
the Bible itself was prohibited, with terrible denunciations, for the
triumphant reason that it was liable to be misinterpreted.

In the mean time, it became necessary to report to Don Augustin,
the effects his arguments and prayers had produced on the heretical
disposition of the young soldier. No man is prone to confess his
weakness, at the very moment when circumstances demand the utmost
efforts of his strength. By a species of pious fraud, for which no doubt
the worthy priest found his absolution in the purity of his motives, he
declared that, while no positive change was actually wrought in the
mind of Middleton, there was every reason to hope the entering wedge of
argument had been driven to its head, and that in consequence an opening
was left, through which, it might rationally be hoped, the blessed seeds
of a religious fructification would find their way, especially if the
subject was left uninterruptedly to enjoy the advantage of catholic
communion.

Don Augustin himself was now seized with the desire of proselyting. Even
the soft and amiable Inez thought it would be a glorious consummation
of her wishes, to be a humble instrument of bringing her lover into
the bosom of the true church. The offers of Middleton were promptly
accepted, and, while the father looked forward impatiently to the day
assigned for the nuptials, as to the pledge of his own success, the
daughter thought of it with feelings in which the holy emotions of
her faith were blended with the softer sensations of her years and
situation.

The sun rose, the morning of her nuptials, on a day so bright and
cloudless, that Inez hailed it as a harbinger of future happiness.
Father Ignatius performed the offices of the church, in a little chapel
attached to the estate of Don Augustin; and long ere the sun had begun
to fall, Middleton pressed the blushing and timid young Creole to his
bosom, his acknowledged and unalienable wife. It had pleased the parties
to pass the day of the wedding in retirement, dedicating it solely
to the best and purest affections, aloof from the noisy and heartless
rejoicings of a compelled festivity.

Middleton was returning through the grounds of Don Augustin, from a
visit of duty to his encampment, at that hour in which the light of
the sun begins to melt into the shadows of evening, when a glimpse of
a robe, similar to that in which Inez had accompanied him to the altar,
caught his eye through the foliage of a retired arbour. He approached
the spot, with a delicacy that was rather increased than diminished by
the claim she had perhaps given him to intrude on her private moments;
but the sounds of her soft voice, which was offering up prayers,
in which he heard himself named by the dearest of all appellations,
overcame his scruples, and induced him to take a position where he might
listen without the fear of detection. It was certainly grateful to the
feelings of a husband to be able in this manner to lay bare the spotless
soul of his wife, and to find that his own image lay enshrined amid its
purest and holiest aspirations. His self-esteem was too much flattered
not to induce him to overlook the immediate object of the petitioner.
While she prayed that she might become the humble instrument of bringing
him into the flock of the faithful, she petitioned for forgiveness, on
her own behalf, if presumption or indifference to the counsel of the
church had caused her to set too high a value on her influence, and led
her into the dangerous error of hazarding her own soul by espousing a
heretic. There was so much of fervent piety, mingled with so strong a
burst of natural feeling, so much of the woman blended with the angel,
in her prayers, that Middleton could have forgiven her, had she termed
him a Pagan, for the sweetness and interest with which she petitioned in
his favour.

The young man waited until his bride arose from her knees, and then he
joined her, as if entirely ignorant of what had occurred.