The Last of the Foresters | Page 9

to play an old air of the border, accompanying
the tune with a low chant, in the Indian fashion.

The old woman looked at him for some moments with great affection, a
sad smile lighting up her aged features; then saying in a low tone, as if
to herself, "good Verty!" went into the house.
Verty played for some time longer. Tired at last of his violin, he laid it
down, and with his eyes fixed upon the sand at his feet, began to dream.
As he mused, his large twilight eyes slowly drooped their long lashes,
which rested finally on the ruddy cheek.
For some moments, Verty amused himself tracing figures on the sand
near Longears' nose, causing that intelligent animal to growl in his
sleep, and fight imaginary foes with his paws.
From the window, the old Indian woman watched the young man with
great affection, her lips moving, and her eyes, at times, raised toward
the sky.
Verty reclined more and more in his wicker seat; the scenes and images
of the day were mingled together in his mind, and became a dim wrack
of cloud; his tangled hair shaded his face from the sun; and, overcome
by weariness, the boy sank back, smiling even in his sleep. As he did so,
the long-stemmed Indian pipe fell from his hand across Longears' nose,
half covering the letters he had traced with it on the sand.
Those letters were, in rude tracing:
REDBUD.
And to these Verty had added, with melancholy and listless smiles, the
further letters:
GOING TO--
Unfortunately he was compelled to leave the remainder of the sentence
unwritten.

CHAPTER V.

WINCHESTER.
Having followed the Indian boy from Apple Orchard to his lodge in the
wilderness, and shown how he passed many of his hours in the hills, it
is proper now that we should mount--in a figurative and metaphorical
sense--behind Mr. Rushton, and see whither that gentleman also bends
his steps. We shall thus arrive at the real theatre of our brief history--we
mean at the old town of Winchester,
Every body knows, or ought to know, all about Winchester. It is not a
borough of yesterday, where the hum of commerce and the echo of the
pioneer's axe mingle together, as in many of our great western cities of
the Arabian Nights:--Winchester has recollections about it, and holds to
the past--to its Indian combats, and strange experiences of clashing
arms, and border revelries, and various scenes of wild frontier life,
which live for us now only in the chronicles;--to its memories of
Colonel Washington, the noble young soldier, who afterwards became,
as we all have heard, so distinguished upon a larger field;--to Thomas
Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, who came there often when the deer
and the wolves of his vast possessions would permit him--and to Daniel
Morgan, who emptied many fair cups on Loudoun-street, and one day
passed, with trumpets sounding, going to Québec; again on his way to
debate questions of importance with Tarleton, at the Cowpens--lastly,
to crush the Tory rising on Lost River, about the time when "it pleased
heaven so to order things, that the large army of Cornwallis should be
entrapped and captured at Yorktown, in Virginia," as the chronicles
inform us. All these men of the past has Winchester looked upon, and
many more--on strange, wild pictures, and on many histories. For you
walk on history there and drink the chronicle:--Washington's old fort is
crumbling, but still visible;--Morgan, the strong soldier, sleeps there,
after all his storms;--and grim, eccentric Fairfax lies where he fell, on
hearing of the Yorktown ending.
When we enter the town with Mr. Rushton, these men are elsewhere, it
is true; but none the less present. They are there forever.
The lawyer's office was on Loudoun-street, and cantering briskly along
the rough highway past the fort, he soon reached the rack before his

door, and dismounted. The rack was crooked and quailed--the house
was old and dingy--the very knocker on the door frowned grimly at the
wayfarer who paused before it. One would have said that Mr. Rushton's
manners, house, and general surrounding, would have repelled the
community, and made him a thousand enemies, so grim were they. Not
at all. No lawyer in the town was nearly so popular--none had as much
business of importance entrusted to them. It had happened in his case
as in a thousand others, which every one's experience must have
furnished. His neighbors had discovered that his rude and surly
manners concealed a powerful intellect and an excellent heart--and
even this rudeness had grown interesting from the cynical dry humor
not unfrequently mingled with it.
A huge table, littered with old dingy volumes, and with dusty rolls of
papers tied with red tape--a tall desk, with a faded and