USA > Tennessee > Old times in West Tennessee : reminiscences, semi-historic, of pioneer life and the early emigrant settlers in the Big Hatchie country > Part 14
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""'In what have I put upon you more than is human to bear?' she said, her voice still softening.
""" Why, in requiring that I shall not seek to know you, or find you out, now that I have seen you; that ' we have met and spoken, that I know these woods contain one so beautiful and lovely, the thing you ask is impossible.'
"'Then you will destroy all the pleasures I have in life. I can come to these enchanting waters no more. I will never see and commune with my little lake companions any more,' said she, a soft, 10
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sorrowing gloom suffusing her sweet face as she pronounced the last words.
"'I then asked her to answer me a few more ques- tions; whether she had parents, or whether she was alone in the wild forest.
"' Mother I have not; I know nothing of a mother. I have an-old father who is good to me; I love and honor him above all things except my Bible.I have promised him, and he exacts the promise to be renewed every year, that I will decline the acquaint- ance of all persons; that the time will come, and soon enough, when I will know of the world and a new life, but not until after his death.'
"' Have you ever met with any one in these woods before ?' I inquired.
"'Never; you are the first and only man I ever saw, save my old father. From him I have learned much. I have read much of the world. I read from my Bible that the world is full of sin, and man is desperately wicked.' All the while she had not taken her eyes from me. She seemed charmed by the first specimen of young flesh in human form. With softened tone of expression she seemed willing to prolong the interview.
"' I said to her that the wild-woods was my home, my companions were my dogs and my gun, young and full of warm impulses; that in her limited knowledge of the world, as derived from books, she knew but little of the human heart. That she, like myself, had a heart full of generous, loving im- pulses; that from the Bible she had read that man and woman were made for each other, and to make
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one another happy, and that it was not good to be "alone in the world.'
"' Yes, the Bible reads that way. We read of the first man and the first woman in the garden. We read that they were happy until a knowledge of the world brought sin.'
"'Imploringly I asked that I might talk with her when she came again to hold converse with her lake companions. I promised that I would then abide whatever her decision might be. Before she had spoken, I read in her melting blue eyes her answer. She replied, 'I promise.' With the word ringing in my ears, she shoved her little bark out in the deep water and shot across the lake. I stood gazing upon her receding form until it was lost to view in the thick foliage overhanging the margin of the lake on the opposite shore.
""'The next day I was at the lake long before the hour of her coming. I lingered around the en- chanting spot of our meeting the previous day. Prompt in coming, I kept out of her view until she should have gotten through with her pleasing, self- imposed duties. I could but observe that when approaching the lilies, she raised those large blue eyes and took in a survey on land. I was greatly encouraged to hope. After she had gotten through with the scaly tribe (she seemed more hurried than on the evening before), she rose to her feet, when I discov- ered myself to her. She came upon shore, extending her hand. We strolled down the lake shore in the silent wood. We talked of a new life, and whis- pered love to each other. Upon the silent shores
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of the 'Lake of the Lilies' we plighted our love, with a 'promise' that I should visit her old father at his secluded dwelling-place the next day.
"'At the appointed hour the next day we met on the opposite shore of the lake. A short walk through the dark forest brought us to a deep ravine winding up in the hills, through which flowed a bright little rippling brook. Reaching the head of it the banks became bluff, deeply shaded over by the thick foliage of the giant forest overhead. From under the bluff gushed a bold spring. The old trapper hermit was seated before the door of his mud hut. As we approached he rose to his feet with the dignity and true politeness of an old time gentleman, his long silvery locks falling down over his broad shoulders, with snow white beard cover- ing his well-formed chest. He extended his hand to me, saying:
"'The White Lily, my daughter, the light of my life, has told me all. It is only that which I most feared, and possibly had a right to expect. Her young life knows nothing of sorrow or disappoint- ment; mastering all the studies and knowledge I was able to teach or capable of imparting, yet she is ignorant of the world and a stranger to sin.
"'For fifteen years she has been the light and life of an old man, who lives a trespasser upon many years beyond the period allotted to man upon earth. It is not surprising that her ardent young nature, loving as it is, should have accepted the heart and hand of young flesh, one like yourself, who seem the gentleman, though a hunter. I am only a
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trapper ; I have faith that you are a true man, and will make her a good husband. My age forbids that I should oppose her wishes; I fear to risk doing her an injustice; I have been to her a good guardian and father.'
"'Taking her hand and putting it in mine, he bade us to kneel before him. Laying a hand upon each of our heads he said :
""'Receive the blessing of the old trapper Nichol. Two months and four days from to-day will be my ninety-fourth birthday. On that day, which will be muy last, I will take the White Lily, the light and life of my last day, to the settlement at Madrid; be there, and she becomes your wife. Until then, upon the pain of your losing her, come not to this place again.'
"'So long ! two months and four days; permit me to come for her,' says I.
"'No! you are the only person who has visited this place or seen me in these woods, or the White Lily since I first saw yon spring, now more than fifty- ! seven years ago, save him whose remains lie 'neath / that moss-covered grave at the end of this cabin and the young woman who shall be your prize for keep- ing away. Let it be so.'
""' With his last words, 'shall be your prize for keeping away,' I turned to join her at the spring, and the old trapper disappeared in his dark hut. Our last hour upon the green velvet moss by the side of the rippling brook was as a love dream-a delirium of blissful delight.
""'Two months and four days-sixty-four days to
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wait! . Had it been a sentence to the scaffold, time: would have been craved; but-well, I have to wait. The two months came round; but the four days and! four long nights-each day seemed a month, and the last of the four I thought would never pass. It. seemed as though the sun would never reach noon- tide; that, as in the days of Joshua, it had been: bidden to stand still.
"'The two months and four days had passed. I. stood upon the bluff at the place appointed for me to receive the object of love-the sole absorbing object of my heart's affection. With lengthened vision my eyes kept watch to get the first glimpse of the old trapper, with the 'light of his life,' as they should hove in sight below. Hour after hour I stood, and not an object came in sight upon the broad: waters of the great river. With straining eyes I- stood alone upon the bank looking down the reach, until with heavy heart I turned my face from the waters, when the eye could no longer penetrate through the darkness of the night. On the bank I walked-walked all night, with ear sharpened to" catch the sound of the oars' stroke. None came, and broad daylight found me with eyes still open peering down the river. In the agony of my soul I stepped into the first boat and pushed off to meet them. Down I rowed, on I pulled; never did skiff glide over water faster. Glancing at every _turn" back over my shoulder to get a sight of their com- ing, I relaxed not a stroke of the oar until night came upon me.
"'Reaching the point of landing the nearest to
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the old trapper's hut as the morning sun rose over the high point of the first Chickasaw Bluff, I bounded away for the' 'Lake of the Lilies.' I casily found my way to the old trapper's hut. Casting from me the gloomy spell which had bound me for the past twenty-four hours, doubting not that ought else than the whim and caprice of an old man who felt that he was parting with the light and life of his last days detained her, I moved up the sparkling branch with new life.
"' Reaching the hut, the door was closed. Signs of life had departed in every direction the eye turned. There was no smoke curling up from the broad throat of the cabin-gloom and desolation seized hold of my senses. With dread awe, I stood at the door of the hut, with hand raised to rap, when my eyes fell upon a newly-made grave by the side of the ancient moss-covered one. Overwhelmed with a presentiment of woe, I leaned heavily against the door, when it swung open, upon its heavy grating hinges, exposing to view the lifeless form of the old Trapper. . Dead, dead, dead! Half alive I lay upon the door step. A voice from 'neath the fresh clod ringing through my ears, dead, dead, dead! Staggering, I arose, and strode to the spring, the still voice following-tingling in my ears, penetra- ting to the soul, dead, dead, dead! More dead than alive, I fell upon the green moss, where last we had talked and dreamed in a wild delirium of bliss and happiness. 'Twas here she had grown up, and enjoyed the early fruits of her young life-here, under the shades of the overhanging foliage, now
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drooping in silent sorrow, shedding their virgin tears upon her newly-made grave. Up yonder hill- side, she frisked and frolicked, with the young morning, blythe and gay as a young May lamb. Oh! life, even in spring time, thou art but 'a poor pensioner upon the bounties of an hour.' For hours I lay as in a dream, living life over again. It all seemed wrapped up in a few days of the near past; fortune I had none; the light and promise of the future had gone; vacancy, broad sterile vacancy, loomed up before me. It had taken the place of all that was lovely. I had aught now to live for .; Near me the gurgling waters arose from beneath the high bluff, playing with the bright sunbeam as they rippled past in their silvery, winding course down the gorge. I arose, and bathed my feverish temples in the cool refreshing waters, and went to the cabin, to put away the old Trapper, in remem- brance of her, and because she loved and honored him. He lay as though he had died under a Christian hand; every limb in its proper place, his head resting upon a roll of rare furs, his hands clasped across his broad chest, in one a small slip of paper, upon which was written: 'Bury my body by the side of the newly-made grave, where sleeps the light of my life-April 4, -. ' Signed Nichol. The light of his life had gone before him. He died on his ninety-fourth birthday-the day of his appointment.
"'Near him, on a rude table, lay a roll of manp- script. On the outer side was written: 'For the affianced of the 'White Lily.' Here, then, is the
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mistery. Oh! manhood, why hast thou forsaken me? I was once called when in the chase, 'Victor, the lion-hearted.' I am no longer the ' lion-hearted.' The soft illurements of woman's love has won the victory-the grave has become the victor, and left its sting-the barbed arrow corroding in my bleed- ing soul. But the mistery. We will read it after putting the old man away.
FROM NICHOLS' MANUSCRIPT.
" On the fourth day of April, should I be living, I will have lived to see my ninety-fourth birthday, and for more than fifty-seven years I have lived a trapper hermit, in this hut.
"On my twenty-sixth birthday I married with a lovely English woman, the daughter of a British officer, stationed on Lake Erie. She was fair and rosey, gentle in disposition, and free from guile. My love for her knew no bounds. We had been mar- ried four years, when I carried her and our only child, a daughter, our darling little Marie, to stay with her father at Fort Pitt, until my return from a fur-hunting expedition on the upper lakes. I had expected to be gone but one winter. Fortune did not favor us, however, and we were absent two years. During that time the war-whoop was raised on the lakes-the Pontiac war broke out, of which we had heard nothing, until on our way back, at Green Bay. I had a presentiment, foreboding evil to my wife and child, and neither ate or slept until I reached the fort. Too truly had been my fears and misgivings. Both wife and child were butchered and scalped by the ruthless savage.
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"I remembered nothing more from the day of my arrival in the fort until some four months after, when I found myself under the treatment of the kind physician of the fort. When I was sufficiently recovered to be permitted to leave the fort, I met with a warm friend and companion. We had messed together and slept under the same blanket during our two winters on the upper lakes. He knew of my deep affliction and sympathized with me, advis- ing that I leave the scenes of the lake and go south to Louisiana. I agreed-would have agreed to have gone with him anywhere, as for myself I cared not which way it was. We soon were ready with .. a. good boat and requisite outfit for the trip. Reach- ; ing the Mississippi we soon passed the mouth of, the Ohio. It was in the month of August, the weather very hot, and the water bad to drink. My friend took sick and was getting worse every day. Reaching the first high bluff after many days drift- ing, we stopped to find good water, and a cool, shady place, intending to remain until cool weather before proceeding on down the river. After many hours' search I found this spring of delightful water in this cool, shady nook in the woods. Return- ing to the boat, my friend being just able to walk out to it, I went to work and packed out our traps and things. He drank heartily of the cool water that evening and felt greatly refreshed. In the morning he felt much better. Before noon, how- ever, he was taken with a chill and died in it. I buried him where he died, and built this hut by the side of his grave, resolved never to leave it while
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life lasted. Here I have lived, and alone during the first forty odd years, occasionally taking a trip up the river to dispose of my furs and lay in needed supplies. I trapped it up the Obion, indeed up all the water courses, and through the bottom for thirty miles up the river. At home in the woods, I only returned to my hut when my wallet became ex- hausted.
"I witnessed many of the wonderful freaks of nature in those awful days of earthquakes and shakes. During the worst of it I had gone up the Obion, roaming through the bottom in search of beaver sign. My attention was arrested by a rumb- ling noise. At first I thought it the approach of a storm or big wind. Soon the sound seemed to be everywhere, and from the bowels of the earth it became fearful. I tried to gather in my thoughts and fix in my mind what to look for. When the ground upon which I stood began to tremble, heave and shake with terrific violence, the vibrations be- coming quicker and more terrible, until it became impossible to stand upon my feet without holding on to the small trees around me. Iknew not which way to turn or whither to go for safety. The giant forest around and over me swayed and groaned, clashing and crashing their great laps, keeping time with the undulating movement of the earth in which they were rooted. Soon the earth began to quake, and crack around and beneath where I was stand- ing. In the wildest confusion it began to break and open before me, then to sink, sink, sink, carrying down with it a great park of trees, until the tops of
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the tallest among them dropped out of sight. In awe and wonderment I stood reeling as one drunk with wine, and witnessed the birth of Reelfoot Lake.
" My boat! I had left it in a nook, near the Obion. Fearing to lose it, I made for it in quick haste. The waters had ebbed from it, leaving it high and dry. Soon, however, the flow returned, with the violence of a mountain torrent. Lashing it to a small tree, I succeeded in keeping it from being 'swamped The waters becoming sufficiently quiet, I rowed down the mouth, passing out with the flow of the waters, which had filled the whole bottom many feet. In passing up the gorge, to my hut, I found that my spring branch had gone dry. On reaching the spring, the first thing noticeable was a fearful rent in the bluff, reaching down below the spring- bed, and not a drop of water in it. 'Confusion worse confounded' seemed spread out all over the. land. Openings appeared as by magic from the high hills to the great Father of Waters, many newly" formed lakes had been created in close proximity to my heretofore seemingly safe and quiet dwelling- place. The loss of my spring! I had begun to thirst, and water was not to be had nearer than the newly-made lakes. I had begun to think of the' necessity of finding a new place of abode, when the earth began to tremble and quake again, the air soon becoming suffused with a sulphuerous smell. I sat in my cabin and waited the terrible pending results, when I noticed the hurried flow of black muddy water leaping down the spring branch,
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sweeping and bending the herbage and small under- growth in its angry surging course. Having lost all personal fear midst the terrible freaks of the earth and water around me, I arose, and walked to the spring, to witness the changes going on. The deep split in the bluff had closed up as though under the power of a great battering-ram. Black muddy water was gushing up through the spring and all around it, emitting a most disagreeable odor. Soon the flow of water began to decrease and get clear ; before night-fall my spring had resumed its ancient regime.
" The next morning I had gone to the river to look after my boat; while standing upon the bank, I noticed a boat drifting in the current. Rowing out to it, I was amazed beyond fitting language to ex- press, to find lying in the bottom of the drifting skiff a lovely child, her sweeet little face turned up to the heavens. At first I could not tell whether she was living or dead. Her long' brown lashes were fringed over her closed eyes ; her bright golden curls had fallen back, exposing to the sharp rays of the sun the most angelic-like face I had ever beheld. I stood looking upon her lovely features as in a dream, when an angelic smile came to her sweet countenance, followed by a soft and gentle breathing. She was not dead-only sleeping.
"Gently I fastened the drifting craft to mine and pulled for the shore. My boat coming up to the bank abruptly, jarring the boat she was in, startled her. In a moment I was in the boat with her, taking a seat to steady it as she arose to her
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little feet, rubbing her eyes, seemingly not yet fully awake. Opening her large clear blue eyes, she dis- covered me. Springing into my arms, she cried out:
""'Oh! papa, papa; where is mamma?'
"Burying her sweet little face in my bosom for. several moments, I pressed her little head to, my heart, stroking her soft hair, while scalding tearg came trickling down over my old brown, furrowed cheeks. Her angelic face had struck a cord in my heart, calling up before me my murdered wife and child. I held in my bosom the image of my long lost little Marie, and pressed her little face to my aching heart.
"She raised her little head, looking me full in the face, and fixing her clear blue eyes on mine, she spoke, saying:
""'I thought you was papa. I don't know you. What makes you cry ?'
"Moments passed before I could give utterance to a word. Recovering myself, however, and without answering her inquiring looks as to who I was, I asked her to tell me her name.
"' Mary,' she said.
"'Ah! yes; Marie-Mary what?'
""'Just Mary.'
""' What is your papa's name?'
""'Charley.'
"' Charley what?'
"'Only just Charley. Mamma calls him only; Charley.'
"' Well; what's mamma's name?'
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""'Katy-Katy darling, papa calls her sometimes.'
"' Where is your papa ?'
"Don't know where papa is.'
"'How did you get in this boat?'
""' You see, when everything was shaking so, and the houses was falling, papa picked me up and run down to the river and put me into the boat; then he went back to bring mamma. Mamma was coming down the hill. When papa and mamma got down the hill the boat was way out in the river. As papa jumped into the water to catch the boat the big water come and run all over the bank and all over mamma. The boat rocked and shaked so bad I fell down in it, and didn't see papa and mamma any more.'
"Fully comprehending the dread catastrophe which had made an orphan of the dear little crea- ture, I remained silent for several moments, when she asked me if she would see papa and mamma any more. I expressed to her my fears that she would not. Without undertaking to explain to her little mind the cause of the dreadful calamity which had happened to her papa and mamma, I told her that I would be a good papa to her, and that I would love and take care of her. The dear little creature evinced a clearness of mind unusual in one so young. She may have been as much as four years old. She had cried until the fountain of her tears had dried up. She soon became perfectly reconciled to her situation, and by degrees ceased to speak of papa and mamma. From all I could gather from her, I became satisfied that New Madrid was the scene
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of her misfortunes; the result of the great" earth- quake.
"I took little Mary to my hut. She soon learned to love me. As she grew up I sought to amuse and interest her little mind in every way possible. The wild-woods, with its beautiful flowers, and many changing scenes, afforded a wide field for the pleas ures of her childhood. I taught her to read and write. She acquired all the knowledge I was capa- ble of imparting. She was most fond of her little Bible, which she had read through and through more than a half dozen times. She learned to mark the Sabbath days, and to keep them more' holy than other days. Her sanctuary was .in the deep shades of the glen, and her pew the green sward, guarded by the halo of her own pure thoughts. Joyous and happy in her own Eden, she knew nothing of guile, and not a stran of one of her golden ringlets had been touched with evil. She lived in the pure atmosphere of her own soul, tempered by the teachings of the Virgin Mary; born to love, her loving nature went in search of something to love. On the lake she was most fond to dwell; communing with and caressing her little finny companions, she taught them a language of her own. Oh! she was so happy. The light and life of my old days, it was the resume of my younger and happy days.
"From the day that the handsome young hunter appeared to her upon the lake, from the hour when they parted under the shadows of the bluff by the spring, she seemed to live and breathe a different
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atmosphere; all that she had once loved and cher- ished became oblivious. She went no more to com- mune with and earess her little lake companions. She seemed awakened to a new and foreign life- love's imagination had possessed her very soul. "T'was like our first mother, when the scales fell from her eyes and she beheld the first man Adam. The first evil had touched her and entered her pure soul, and made it flesh fleshy. The angel of the Lord came in the night time before she had changed her paradise on earth and rescued her pure, sinless soul and transported it to the paradise in heaven, by the side of the Virgin Mary. The White Lily was dead! dead! dead! the morning of the day she was to have joined her Adam on earth. As she lay upon her humble little couch the morning which to her was to be the brightest on sinful earth, when the first ray came over the bluff, reflecting its light upon her sweet face, her bright blue eyes had lost their glory-the angelic smile yet lingering upon her bright countenance pointed as an index-finger to a more glorious realin on high, to which her soul had taken its flight. 'Twere better so, or 'twere better far, that her little lake companions were alone left to moan her absence from the bright waters of the ' Lake of the Lilies.'
"Of myself I write, that I was born in France, on the fourth day of April, 1737. I was christened, in the holy Catholic faith, Pierre Saint Martin Nichol. My father was of honorable birth; becoming bank- rupt by investing largely in John Law's Mississippi bubble, I was taken from school when in my seven-
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