BLACK NICK,

THE HERMIT OF THE HILLS:

OR,

THE EXPIATED CRIME.

A STORY OF BURGOYNE’S SURRENDER.

BY FREDERICK WHITTAKER.

NEW YORK: BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, 98 WILLIAM STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by BEADLE AND ADAMS, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

[Pg 9]

CHAPTER I.

THE WOOD FIEND.

In the midst of the lonely forest, that stretched in an almost unbroken line of solitude from the head-waters of the Hudson to the Mississippi, during the last century, a small party of Indian warriors, in full war-paint, treading one in the other’s footsteps, to the number of five, stole into a little clearing formed by the hand of Nature, and halted by a spring.

The sun was about to set, in an angry glow of crimson, that portended bad weather. The fiery beams shot aslant through the open arches of the forest, and the trunks of the trees stood out, as black as jet, against the red glow of evening.

“He has not been here,” remarked the warrior who seemed to be the leader, as he scanned the earth around the little spring with a practiced eye.

“The pale-faces are all liars,” said a young brave, disdainfully, as he leant upon his bow. “When was a Mohawk known to break his word?”

“The Panther Cub is wrong,” he said, quietly. “There are good and bad pale-faces. I have never known the white chief to fail before. He has been stopped on the way. He will soon come, and show us how to strike the children who have rebelled against the great father who dwells beyond the sea.”

“The Mohawk needs no white teacher,” returned Panther Cub, in the same tone. “I can find a house to strike, and scalps to take, long before the morning dawns, if need be.”

“Has the Black Fox lost his eyes, that Panther Cub thinks he is the only Mohawk that can see in the night?” asked the old chief, sternly. “Let the young warriors be silent, while they have chiefs on the same war-path. We have eaten of[Pg 10] the white father’s bread, and he has ordered us here to await his messenger. Black Fox will stay.”

As he spoke, he leaned his rifle against the tree by which he stood, drew up his blanket around his shoulders, and took his seat in dignified silence.

The other warriors, as if determined by his example, proceeded to make their dispositions for the night. A flint and steel were produced, tinder was found in a dead tree, and a small glowing fire was soon started, around which the Indians clustered, eating their frugal meal of dried venison and parched corn in silence.

These Indians were a small scouting party from the flankers of Burgoyne’s army, who had been dispatched through the woods to the west of Albany, to meet an emissary of the British Government, who was to give them certain instructions.

Slowly the sun disappeared as they clustered round the fire, and the crimson glow died away in the sky, to be replaced by a murky mass of cloud of dark slaty gray, rapidly becoming black. Overhead the stars shone out, but the clouds began to gather and hide them from view, and a low moaning in the tops of the trees warned the hearers of a storm brewing.

Suddenly, as if by common consent, every Indian sprung to his feet, and grasped his weapons, as the sound of snapping sticks, and of horse-hoofs in rapid motion, approached the spot. There was no underbrush in those primeval forests, as yet innocent of the ax of the woodman, and a horseman could be seen in full career, rapidly approaching the little glade.

At a word from the chief, the four warriors resumed their seats by the fire, while the old leader himself stalked forth from the group, and drawing himself up, awaited the coming of the stranger, in an attitude of dignity, grounding the butt of his rifle.

The new-comer proved to be a man of large size, with a stern, determined face, gloomy and lowering in expression. He was dressed like a farmer, and well mounted on a stout horse, carrying holsters on the saddle, from which peeped the butts of large pistols. Otherwise the rider was unarmed, only carrying a horse-whip. He checked his horse, and dismounted[Pg 11] before Black Fox, who addressed him with the grave reminder:

“The Night Hawk is late.”

“I couldn’t be earlier, Fox,” returned the other, in the Mohawk tongue. “I was fired at by Schuyler’s pickets, and chased out of my path by a patrol of the cursed mounted rifles of that fellow, Morgan. Here I am at last. Go back to the General, and let him know that the rebels are rousing everywhere. Schuyler has sent orders to rescue the fort beyond Oriskany at any cost, and they will march in two days from now, a thousand strong, under General Herkimer, to raise the siege. Have you a swift runner here?”

“The Panther Cub has long legs. He shall carry the Night Walker’s words,” said the chief, sententiously.

“Good. Let him run to General St. Leger, and warn him that his rear will be attacked,” said the spy. “For the rest, back to Burgoyne. Tell the General his foes are gathering. He must spring like the wild-cat, or he will be trapped like the beaver. Tell him I will bring him more news by way of the lakes, and that—”

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! I gather them in! I gather them in!”

The interruption was sudden and startling. A loud, harsh voice, with an accent of indescribably triumphant mockery, shouted these words from the midst of the intense darkness, which had crept over the scene during the short conference, since sunset. At the same moment, out of the opening of a hollow tree that stood near the fire, a bright, crimson glare of flame proceeded, in the midst of which appeared an unearthly figure of gigantic hight, but lean and attenuated as a skeleton.

The appearance of this figure was singularly fearful, for it was clothed in some tight black dress with steely gleams, that covered it from head to foot, a pair of short, upright horns projecting from the close skull-cap, and only leaving exposed a face of deathly pallor, with great, burning black eyes, and a mustache that pointed upwards in true diabolical fashion.

There was but a moment to examine this figure, as it stood in the cavity, outlined against the red glow. In one hand it brandished a single javelin, in the other a bundle of similar[Pg 12] darts. A second later the red glow disappeared, and the figure with it, leaving the usually stolid Indians and their companion struck aghast with astonishment and awe.

Then, ere a word could be spoken, the same demoniac laugh rung out, and the gigantic apparition, with a bound, was in the midst of their little fire, which it scattered in all directions with a single kick.

Through the thick darkness that ensued, the white man heard the noise of a confused struggle, that seemed to endure for about half a minute. Firm and determined as was the spy, he recoiled in ungovernable terror to the side of his horse, and snatched from the holsters his pistols, one of which he fired in the direction of the sounds of battle.

By the flash of the pistol he distinguished the terrible figure, in an attitude of mad glee, brandishing its darts over the prostrate bodies of three Indians, the fourth striving to rise, and transfixed with a dart, while the fifth was fleeing for his life toward the spy. Instinctively the white man climbed on his horse in the darkness, as a wild peal of laughter greeted his shot.

He had seen the demon leaping toward him!

“Ha! ha! ha!!! Black Nick has them fast!” yelled the harsh voice, and again, as if by magic, a red glow flashed over the place.

In the midst of this glare, the spy beheld the black demon clutch the fleeing Indian with his long arms, and go leaping back toward the hollow tree, with the writhing form of the savage close clasped. Then there was a blinding white glare, a cloud of smoke, and a loud report, in the midst of which the demon leaped into the hollow, and vanished from sight sinking visibly into a pit of darkness.

With a muttered groan of terror, the now completely unnerved spy wheeled round his frightened horse and fled, as fast as the animal could carry him, while the forest resumed the gloom and silence of night.

[Pg 13]

CHAPTER II.

THE AID-DE-CAMP’S DISCOVERY.

There are few sights in the world as beautiful as an American mountain side, clothed with forest to the summit, when early frosts have begun to touch the leaves, and wake them into color.

In the midst of the wild mountains of Vermont, in those days almost deserted by human beings, a young man on horseback was pursuing his way at a smart trot along a narrow road that wound round the lower ridges, in a way that showed the ingenuity of the rustic engineers in economizing labor.

To all appearance there was not a creature in sight, save the wild animals and the lonely traveler, who pursued the path as if he knew it well. Once, when he stopped to water his horse at a stream, he startled a herd of deer who were coming to drink, and caused them to scurry away through the bushes in alarm.

The young traveler looked around him as the deer vanished in the thicket, with great admiration. He was in the midst of a small valley, hemmed in by rounded mountains, and through the midst of which ran a brown, brawling stream, in which the spotted trout played by hundreds. The mountains were clothed to the very summit with woods, and although it was not yet the end of August, light frosts had already been there, in the long nights on the mountain sides. Here and there amid the green blazed out the scarlet of a distant tree, half of whose foliage had been touched as with a fiery pencil, while the verdure of the rest looked fresher by contrast. Now and then the golden hue of a maple shed a glory of color over its vicinity, but there was, as yet, only enough of this to set off the somber green of the pines and the lighter foliage of the oak and birch.

The traveler was a young man, and handsome withal. His dress was, perhaps, the most picturesque in the annals of military history, for the youth was evidently a soldier, and an[Pg 14] officer at that. The towering fur cap, narrowing as it rose, and ornamented with gold cord and white plumes, the furred and braided jacket, hanging from his shoulder, the still more gorgeous dolman that fitted his slight form to a nicety, blazing with gold embroidery, all over the sky-blue ground of the breast, the light buck-skin breeches, with braided pocket-covers, and the scarlet morocco boots, rising mid-leg and tasseled with gold were unfailing indications to the eye practiced in military costume, that the wearer was an officer of some German corps of hussars, then at the zenith of their reputation under the great Frederick of Prussia. The young hussar was magnificently mounted on a dapple-gray horse of wonderful bone and sinew, though quite low in flesh from campaigning, and his housings were as splendid as his dress and arms. The latter,

saber, pistols, and light carbine, were all silver inlaid, and of exquisite finish.

To a hidden observer, the sight of this gay cavalier, alone in the wilds of Vermont, would have suggested great wonder. How came he there, and what was he doing? In those early days of the Revolutionary struggle, rags and bare feet were the rule, brilliant uniforms the few exceptions. There was no corps of hussars in the Continental service, and the Hessians, on the English side, wore green, not pale blue. Besides, the uniform of the hussar officer was distinctively Prussian, the black eagle being worked on his horse’s housings.

Whatever he was, he seemed to be quite at home in the woods, for his blue eye was calm and fearless, and the long fair mustache that drooped over his chin covered as resolute a mouth as ever closed firmly over shut teeth.

Having allowed his beast to drink, the young cavalier urged him through the water to the other side, and trotted briskly up the lonely road between the arches of the wood, till he had stopped opposite the ridge, and beheld before him another valley and more hills.

The ridge on which he stood happened to command an extensive view; reining up, he scanned it with a practiced eye.

“By heavens!” he exclaimed to himself, in a low tone, after a long and searching look; “there is some one living on the haunted hill, where even the Indians would not dare to go. I must investigate that.”

[Pg 15]

So saying, he shook his rein, and galloped down the hillside, in the direction of a mountain, the largest of any in sight, from the side of which a thin column of smoke curled up in the air.

Nothing very strange in that it may be said; but the young officer knew better.

He was passing through a country in which there was no settlements in the path he was riding, till he came to Derry field. The mountain before him was well-known by the name of “Haunted Hill” to the whites, and had the reputation of being haunted by a demon, who frightened away all the Indians who ventured near it. This was well known to the young cavalier who, being free from superstition, had chosen that way to escape any danger from the outlying Indians of Burgoyne’s army, then lying between Ticonderoga and Albany, slowly advancing. The young officer himself was on the staff of General Schuyler, who was then retreating before his formidable foe, and who had sent the aid-de-camp on a secret mission on which he was now proceeding.

The sight of smoke on the side of the Haunted Hill excited the curiosity of the young officer. Smoke meant settled habitation. No Indian could be there, he felt certain, on account of their superstitious fears of the mountain demon. If any one else were there, might he not prove to be in some way connected with the mystery of the demon? Full of curiosity, and for the moment forgetting his mission the young aid-de-camp crossed the valley, and commenced to toil up the sides of Haunted Hill.

He was not aware, keen as was his glance, that one still keener was watching him. Hardly had he gained the foot of the mountain, than an Indian warrior looked out of the cover he had quitted, and giving a rapid signal to some one behind, plunged down the hillside, skirting the road and keeping the cover, followed at a loping trot by at least a dozen more, in full war-paint.

The course of the savages was after the cavalier, and so rapidly did they run, that they reached the foot of the hill before he had got half-way up the side of Haunted Hill.

It is true that the hussar had slackened his pace, and was now toiling up the steep ascent, holding by the mane of his[Pg 16] steed. The Indians, on the other hand, pressed along at the same rapid, tireless lope, and quickly came in sight of the aid-de-camp, whose steps they seemed to be dogging with true savage pertinacity.

Once having him safe in sight, the warriors slackened their pace, and contented themselves with following, step by step, gliding from tree to tree, and keeping themselves carefully hidden.

Meanwhile, the young officer pursued his way up the hill in the direction that promised to bring him close to the mysterious smoke which had excited his curiosity.

In half an hour’s climbing he had reached the summit of the lower ridge of Haunted Hill, and beheld before him a little basin, scooped by the hand of nature in the side of the hill, about a hundred yards across, bare of wood, in the center of which stood a low stone hut, thatched with fir branches, from the summit of which curled the blue smoke that he had first noticed.

The little basin was bounded on one side by a precipice of rock about fifty feet in hight, crowned with trees, and surmounted by the steep ascent of the upper mountain. At the right it ended abruptly in a second precipice, which fell away into the valley, while the tops of lofty trees below just showed themselves over the edge. The forest bounded the other side, and a little spring trickled over the edge of the lower precipice with a tinkling sound.

But what riveted the attention of the youth, was a group that he discovered in the midst of the little valley standing in front of the cabin door.

Several tame deer were crowding eagerly around a young girl, in a quaint, picturesque dress, in strange proximity to a huge black bear and three tall bloodhounds of the largest breed.

The officer reined in his horse in amazement as he looked, and ejaculated aloud:

“Heavens! It is Diana herself.”

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER III.

THE ROCK NYMPH.

The sight of the horseman in that lonely place excited a strange commotion. Hardly had the young officer uttered his involuntary exclamation, when the three hounds set up a loud baying, and came leaping toward him, the black bear waddled after them, while the timid fawns bounded away into the forest in great alarm.

The girl herself, who seemed to be the mistress of this menagerie, turned toward the stranger with the port of the goddess to whom he had compared her. In truth, she resembled nothing so much as a living statue of Diana, for she wore the same short tunic and buskins, and carried the bow and quiver of the patroness of hunting. Her figure and face, with the simple antique knot in which her hair was arranged, confirmed the likeness; and when she hastily fitted an arrow to the bow she carried, it seemed to the young soldier as if he had indeed insulted the privacy of some supernatural being.

Most men in his position would have either turned to flee or made some motion of defense. Not so the hussar.

He remained sitting on his horse, in spite of the menacing appearance of the bloodhounds, without moving a muscle; and the dogs, as soon as they closed in, justified his course, by ceasing to bay, while they ran inquisitively round, snuffing at the horse’s legs, now and then uttering a low growl, but offering no actual violence. The black bear likewise became peaceable, halting at a little distance and sitting up on its haunches, surveying the intruder with a comical air of wisdom.

The girl who had been disturbed, observing the passive attitude of the hussar, hesitated a moment, and finally advanced toward him, with the same haughty and insulted aspect however.

As she came closer, and her eyes ran over the face and[Pg 18] equipments of the intruder, the severity of her glance insensibly relaxed. It was not in female nature to look cross at such a dashing young cavalier. He on his part, surveyed her with increasing admiration, as he beheld her purely Grecian face with its frame of golden hair, lighted by great solemn blue eyes.

The girl was the first to speak, in a tone of displeasure.

“Do you know where you are, sir?” she asked. “What made you venture where all men shun to go?”

“Fairest Diana,” began the hussar, half wondering if he were not dreaming.

The girl interrupted him with an expression of surprise.

“How? You know my name?”

“How could I mistake it?” said the hussar, with great adroitness. “The beauty of Diana is famous the world over, and I am the humblest of her worshipers.”

The girl looked at him in amazement. She could not see that the accomplished man of the world was but taking advantage of a lucky accident, to feel his way into her confidence, by a mingling of truth and falsehood in his manner.

“Then who are you that knows me so well?” she asked, artlessly. “I never thought human creature would come nigh our cottage, and you say it is famous.”

“For my name,” said the hussar, smiling, “you may call me Captain Schuyler, if you will. If you would like a shorter name and a pleasanter one, call me Adrian.”

“Adrian is a pretty name,” said the girl, smiling with the frank, fearless innocence that distinguished her every action. “Adrian and Diana are both beautiful.”

“Diana is beautiful,” said the hussar, meaningly; “how beautiful no one knows but me.”

Diana looked up at him inquiringly. Then something seemed to inform her of his meaning, for she flushed hotly and drew herself up with sudden haughtiness, asking:

“What brought you here? Do you not know that it is death to intrude on this mountain? Even the wild Indian shuns it.”