by C.F. Hoffman, author of "A Winter in the Far West."
Originally published in Bentley's Miscellany (Richard Bentley) vol.4 (1838).
"Twin-born they live, twin-born they die; in grief and joy twin-hearted;
Like buds upon one parent bough, twin-doomed, in death not parted."
The superstition embodied in the above distich is very common in those parts of New York and New Jersey which were originally settled by a Dutch population. It had its influence with Dominie Dewitt from the moment that his good woman presented him with the twin-brothers, whose fortunes are the subject of our story. He regarded them from the first as children of fate—as boons that were but lent to their parents to be reclaimed so soon that it was a waste of feeling, if not an impious intermeddling with Providence, to allow parental affection to devolve in its full strength upon them.
They were waifs, he thought, upon the waters of life, which it hardly concerned his heart to claim.
The death of the mother, which soon followed the birth of the twins, confirmed this superstitious feeling, and their forms were henceforth ever associated with images of gloom in the breast of their only surviving parent. Old Dewitt, however, though a selfish and contracted man, was not wanting in the ideas of duty which became his station as a Christian pastor. He imparted all the slender advantages of education which were shared by his other children to the two youngest; and though they had not an equal interest in his affections with the rest, he still left them unvisited by any harshness whatsoever. The indifference of their father was, in fact, all of which the twins had to complain.
The consequence was natural; the boys being left so much to themselves, became all-in-all to each other. Their pursuits were in every respect the same. At school, or in any quarrel or scene of boyish faction, the two Dewitts were always named as one individual; and as they shot up toward manhood, they were equally inseparable. If Ernest went out to drive a deer, Rupert always must accompany him to shoot partridges by the way; and if Rupert borrowed his brother's rifle for the larger game, Ernest in turn would shoulder the smooth-bore of the other, to bring home some birds at the same time. Together, though, they always went.
The "Forest of Deane," which has kept its name and dimensions almost until the moment when I write, was the scene of their early sports. The wild deer at that time still frequented the Highlands of the Hudson; and the rocky passes which led down from this romantic forest to the river, were often scoured by these active youths in pursuit of a hunted buck which would here take the water. Many a time, then, have the cliffs of Dundenberg echoed their woodland shout, when the blood of their quarry dyed the waves which wash its base. Their names as dead shots and keen hunters were well known in the country below, and there are those yet living in the opposite village of Peekskill, who have feasted upon bear's meat, which the twin-huntsmen carried thither from the forest of Deane.
Our story, however, has but little to do with the early career of the Rockland hunters, and I have merely glanced at the years of their life which were passed in that romantic region of a state whose scenic beauties are, perhaps, unmatched in variety by any district of the same size, in order to show how the dispositions of the twins were fused and moulded together in early life. It was on the banks of the Ohio (Oh-ey-o, or Beautiful River, as it is called in the mellifluous dialect of the Senecas,) that the two foresters of Deane first began to play a part in the world's drama. As the larger game became scarce on the Hudson, they had emigrated to this then remote region; and here they became as famous for their boldness and address in tracing the Indian marauder to his lair, as they had been previously noted for their skill in striking a less dangerous quarry.
The courage and enterprise of the two brothers made them great favourites in the community of hunters, of which they were now members. A frontier settler always depends more upon his rifle than on his farm for subsistence, during the infancy of his "improvements;" and this habit of taking so often to the woods, brings him continually into collision with the Indians. It has ever, indeed, been the main source of all our border difficulties. The two Dewitts had their full share of these wild adventures. They were both distinguished for their feats of daring; but upon one occasion, Rupert, in particular, gave such signal proofs of conduct and bravery, that upon the fall of the chief man in the settlement, in a skirmish wherein young Dewitt amply revenged his death, Rupert was unanimously elected captain of the station, and all the cabins within the stockade were placed under his especial guardianship. Ernest witnessed the preferment of his brother with the same emotions of pride as if it had been conferred upon himself; and so much did the twins seem actuated by one soul, that in all measures that were taken by the band of pioneers, they insensibly followed the lead of either brother. The superstition which had given a fated character to their lives at home, followed in a certain degree, even here, and their characters were supposed to be so thoroughly identified, their fortunes so completely bound up in each other, that, feeling no harm could overtake the one which was not shared by the other, their followers had equal confidence in both, and volunteered, with the same alacrity, upon any border expedition, when either of the brothers chanced to lead.
It was about this time that General Wayne, who had been sent by government to crush the allied forces of the North-western Indians, established his camp upon the Ohio, with the intention of passing the winter in disciplining his raw levies, and in preparing for the winter campaign, which was afterward so brilliantly decided near the Miami of the Lakes. The mail route from Pittsburg to Beaver now passes the field where these troops were marshalled, and the traveller may still see the rude fireplaces of the soldiery blackening the rich pastures through which he rides. He may see too—but I must not anticipate the character of my story, whose truth is indicated by more than one silent memento.
The western militia, large bodies of which had been drafted into Wayne's army, were never remarkable for military subordination, of which, not to mention the Black Hawk war of 1832, the more notable campaigns with the British afforded many an instance. They are a gallant set of men, but they have an invincible propensity, each man to "fight on his own hook;" and not merely that, but when not employed upon immediate active service, it is almost impossible to keep them together. They become disgusted with the monotony of military duties; revolt at their exacting precision; and though full of fight, when fight is to be had, are eager to disperse upon the least intermission of active service, and come and go as individual caprice may lead them. General Wayne's camp, indeed, was for a while a complete caravanserai, where not merely one or two, but whole troops of volunteers, could be seen arriving and departing at any hour. This, to the spirit of an old soldier, who had been bred in the armies of Washington, was unendurable. But as these flitting gentry constituted the sharpshooters, upon whom he chiefly depended, the veteran officer bore with them as long as possible, in the hope that by humouring the volunteers, he might best attach them to the service for which this species of force was all-important.
At length, however, matters reached such a pass, that the army was in danger of complete disorganization, and a new system must necessarily be adopted. "Mad Anthony," as Wayne's men called him, (who, when he really took. a thing in hand, never did it by halves), established martial law in its most rigid form, and proclaimed that every man on his muster-roll, of whatsoever rank, who should pass beyond the lines without a special permit from himself, should be tried as a deserter, and suffer accordingly. The threatened severity seemed only to multiply the desertions; but so keen were the backwoods militiamen in making their escape from what they now considered an outrageous tyranny, that, with all the vigilance of the regular officers, it was impossible to seize any to make a military example of them.
Fresh volunteers, however, occasionally supplied the place of those who thus absented themselves without leave; and one morning in particular, a great sensation was created throughout the camp by the arrival of a new body of levies, which, though numerically small, struck every one as the finest company that had yet been mustered beneath the standard of Wayne. The troop consisted of mounted riflemen, thoroughly armed and equipped after the border fashion, and clad in the belted hunting-frock, which is the most graceful of modern costumes. Both horses and men seemed picked for special service, and their make and movement exhibited that union of strength and agility, which, alike in man and beast, constitutes the perfection of that amphibious force—the dragoon; whose original character, perhaps, is only represented in modern armies by the mounted rangers of our Western prairies.
The commandant of this corps seemed worthy to be the leader of so gallant a band. His martial figure, the horse he rode, and all his personal equipments, were in every respect complete, and suited to each other. The eagle feather in his wolf-skin cap, told of a keen eye and a long shot; the quilled pouch, torn with the wampum belt, which sustained his hatchet and pistols, from the body of some swarthy foeman—spoke of the daring spirit and iron arm; while the panther-skin which formed the housings of his sable roan, betrayed that the rider had vanquished a foe more terrible than the red savage himself. His horse, a cross of the heavy Conestoga, with a mettlesome Virginia racer, bore himself as if proud of so gallant a master; and as the fringed leggin pressed his flank, while the young officer faced the general in passing in salute before him, he executed his passages with all the graceful precision of a charger trained in the ménage.
A murmur of admiration ran along the ranks as this gallant cavalier paced slowly in front of the soldiery, and reined up his champing steed before the line of his tall followers, as they were at length marshalled upon the parade. But the sensation which his air and figure excited was almost equally shared by another individual, who had hitherto ridden beside him in the van, but who now drew up his rough Indian pony apart from the rest, as if claiming no share in the lot of the new comers.
It was a sunburnt youth, whose handsome features afforded so exact a counterpart of those of the leader of the band, that were it not for the difference of their equipments, either of the two might at first be taken for the other; and even upon a narrower inspection, the dark locks and more thoughtful countenance of Ernest, would alone have been distinguished from the brown curls and animated features of his sanguine and high-spirited brother. The former, as we have mentioned, had drawn off from the corps the moment it halted and formed for inspection. He now stood leaning upon his rifle, his plain leathern hunting-shirt contrasting not less with the gay-coloured frocks of his companions, than did the shaggy coat of his stunted pony with the sleek hides of their clean-limbed coursers. His look too was widely different from the blithe and buoyant one which lighted their features; and his eye and lip betrayed a mingled expression of sorrow and scorn, as he glanced from the lithe and noble figure of his brother to the buckram regulars, whose platoons were marshalled near.
The new levies were duly mustered, and after the rules and articles of war had been read aloud to them, several camp regulations were promulgated; and among the rest the recent order of the commander-in-chief, whereby a breach of discipline, in going beyond the chain of sentinels, incurred the penalty of desertion.
"No, by heaven!" shouted Ernest, when this was read; "Rupert, Rupert, my brother, you shall never bear such slavery! Away—away, from this roofless prison, and if your life is what they want, let them have it in the woods—in your own way. But bind not ourself to these written laws, that bear chains and death in every letter, Away, Rupert, away from this accursed thraldom!" And leaping into his saddle before half these words were uttered, he seized the bridle rein of his brother, and nearly urged him from the spot while pouring out his passionate appeal.
"By the soul of Washington!" roared old Wayne, "what mad youngster is this? Nay, seize him not," added he good-humouredly, seeing that Rupert did not yield to his brother's violence, and that the other checked himself and withdrew abashed from the parade, as a coarse laugh, excited by his Quixotism, stung his ear. "By the soul of Washington!" cried the general, repeating his favourite oath, "but ye're a fine brace of fellows; and Uncle Sam has so much need of both of you, that he has no idea of letting more than one go." And calling Rupert to his side, he spoke with a kindness to the young officer, that was probably meant to secure a new recruit in his brother, who had, however, disappeared from the scene.
The parade was now dismissed, and so soon as Rupert had taken possession of his quarters, and seen that his men and horses were all properly taken care of, he parted from his comrades to take a farewell of Ernest, who awaited him in a clump of trees upon the bank of the river, at a short distance from the camp. Ernest seemed to have fully recovered his equanimity; but though, youth-like, ashamed of the fit of heroics which had placed his brother in a somewhat ridiculous position a few hours before, he had not altered the views which he had entertained from the first, about Rupert's taking service under General Wayne.
"You will not start homeward to-night?" cried Rupert, at length changing a subject it was useless to discuss.
"Yes, to-night I must be off, and that soon, too, Rupert. Little Needji must pace his thirty miles before midnight. I don't know that I have done wisely in coming so far with you; but, in truth, I wanted to see how our hunters would look among the continentals Mad Anthony has brought with him."
"Wait till we come to the fighting, Ernest, and the old general will soon find out who's who. His regulars may do in civilized war, but a man must live in the woods to know how to fight in them."
"Ay, ay, that's it; a hound may do for a deer that isn't worth a powder-horn stopper upon a panther track, But you must remember," continued his brother, fixing his eyes sadly upon Rupert, "that you will have to fight just in the way that the general tells you—which means, I take it, that real manhood must go for nothing. Why, there's not a drummer in the ranks that will not know his duty better than you; ay, and for aught I see, be able to do it, too, as well."
A flush of pride—perhaps of pain—crossed the countenance of the young officer as his brother thus spoke; and, laying his hand upon his arm, added, with the indignant tone of a caged hunter, "Why, Rupert, you must not dare even, soldier that you now are, to take the bush, and keep your hand in by killing a buck occasionally."
"Believe it not, Ernest: my men will never stand that, for all the Mad Anthonys or mad devils in the universe."
"You must, you must, my brother," answered Ernest, shaking his head, "and now you begin to see why I would not volunteer upon this service. I am quieter than you, and therefore saw further into matters than you did, when you chose to come hither rather than give up the command of your company. But where's the use of looking back upon a cold trail? You are now one of Uncle Sam's men, and Heaven knows when he will let go his grip upon you."
Conversing thus, the brothers had walked some distance. The moon was shining brightly above them, and a silver coil of light trailing along the rippling Ohio, seemed to lure them onward with the river's course. At length, however, the more considerate Ernest deemed it prudent that they should part, and catching the pony, which had followed them like a dog, he mounted and prepared to move off. But Rupert would not yet leave his brother and retrace his steps to the camp. It might be long before they should meet again—they who had never before parted—who had been always inseparable, alike in counsel and in action, and who were now about for the first time to be severed, when stout hearts and strong hands might best be mutually serviceable.
"I don't think I will leave you just yet, Ernest. I may as well walk with you as far as the branch; and we are hardly without shot of the soldier who is standing sentry yonder. What a mark the fellow's cap would be from that clump of pawpaws!"
"Yes," said Ernest, lifting his rifle from his lap as the musket gleamed in the moonlight. "I am almost tempted to pick that shining smooth-bore out of his fingers, just to show how ridiculous it is to carry such shooting-irons as that into the woods. But come; the time has gone by for such jokes; if you will go farther with me, let us push on." They reached the "branch," or brook, and crossed it; and still they continued increasing the distance between themselves and the camp.
"Well, I suppose we must now really bid good-b'ye," exclaimed Rupert at last, seizing the hand of his brother. "But here, Ernest, I wish you would carry home my Indian belt, and these other fixings; they will remind you of old times if I'm kept away long, and the suttler will give me something to wear more in camp fashion." As he spoke thus, he tied the wampum sash around the waist of his brother, and while throwing the Indian pouch over his shoulder, their arms met in the fold of brotherhood, and the twins parted with that silent embrace. Rupert, rapidly retracing his steps toward the camp, soon reached the brook, and a half-hour's walk might yet have enabled him to regain his quarters in safety; but the finger of Fate was upon him, and he, who had already been led away from duty by the strong lure of affection, was still further induced to violate it by an instinct not less impulsive in the bosom of a borderer.
Pausing to drink at the rivulet, Rupert, in stooping over the bank, thought that he discovered a fresh moccasin-print, and bending down the branches which embowered the spot, so as to bring the rays of the moon full upon it, a more thorough examination fully satisfied him that an Indian had lately passed that way. A regular soldier, upon thus discovering traces of a spy in the neighbourhood of the camp, would at once have reported it to the officer of the day, and allowed his superior to take measures accordingly. But such an idea never occurred to the backwood ranger. He had discovered an Indian trail, and there were but two things, in his opinion, to be done; first to find out its direction, and then to follow it to the death. A sleuth-hound upon the scent of blood could not be impelled by a more irresistible instinct than that which urged the fiery Rupert on that fatal chase.
It boots not to tell the various chances of his hunt; how here he missed the trail upon rocky ground, where the moccasin had left no print; how there he was obliged to feel for it in some tangled copse, where no betraying moonbeam fell; and how, at last, when the stars grew dim, and the grey dawn had warmed into ruddy day, he for the first time rested his wearied limbs upon the banks of a stream, where the trail disappeared entirely.
Let us now-follow the fortunes of the doomed Ernest, who, like the hero of classic story, bore about his person the fatal gifts that were to work his destruction. Not a half hour elapsed from the time that he had parted from his brother, before he found himself the prisoner of a sergeant's guard, which had been despatched to "take or slay the deserter, Rupert Dewitt."
Apprehending no ill, Ernest allowed himself to be seized; the equipments he had just received from Rupert, not less than the similitude of likeness to his twin-brother, in the opinion of the party that captured him, fully established his identity; and the horror which he felt at discovering how Rupert had forfeited his life, was almost counterbalanced by a thrill of joy, as it suggested itself to the high-souled Ernest that he might so far keep up the counterfeit as to become a sacrifice in place of the brother on whom he doated. The comrades of Rupert, who might have detected the imposition, chanced to be off on fatigue parties in different directions; and this, together with the summary mode of proceeding that was adopted upon his reaching camp, favoured his design.
A drum-head court-martial was instantly called to decide upon the fate of a prisoner, to whose guilt there seemed to be, alas! too many witnesses. The road he had taken, the distance from camp, the time of night he had chosen to wander so far from the lines,—nay, the fact of his leaving his blood-horse at the stable, as if fearing detection through him, and stealing off upon an Indian pony—all seemed to make out a flagrant case of desertion. But why dwell upon these painful details of an affair which was so amply canvassed in all its bearings, throughout the western country, long afterwards? Let the reader be content with the bare historical fact, that the ill-starred militiaman was condemned to be shot to death as a deserter, under the circumstances as I have stated them. It seemed a terrible proceeding when these attending circumstances were afterwards reviewed; but though at the time General Wayne was much censured for signing that young man's death-warrant, yet both military men and civilians, who knew the condition of his army, have agreed that it was this one example alone which prevented that army from falling to pieces.
The heart of Ernest was so thoroughly made up to meet the fate which was intended for his brother, that his pulses did not change in a single throb when he was told that he had but an hour to prepare himself for death. "The sooner that it be over, the better for Rupert," exclaimed he, mentally. And then, man as he was, his eyes filled with tears when he thought of the anguish which that darling brother would suffer on learning the fate which had overtaken him.
"Oh God!" he cried aloud, clasping his hands above his head as he paced the narrow guard-room in which he was now immured, "God of Heaven! that they would place us together with our rifles in the forest, and send this whole army to hunt us down." The features of the wild bushfighter lighted up with a grim smile as he thought of keeping a battalion at bay in the green wood, and crippling it with his single arm. The proud thought seemed to bear with it a new train of views. "If Rupert knew," said he, pausing in his walk,—"if he but dreamed how matters were going, he would soon collect a score of rifles to strike with, and take me from beneath their very bayonets. But this is madness—"
"Ay! that it is, my fine fellow," answered the sentinel who guarded his door, and who now, hearing the last words uttered while the steps of those who were to have the final charge of the prisoner were heard upon the stair, thought it incumbent upon him to remind the youth where he was. Ernest compressed his lip, and drawing himself to his full height, as he wheeled and faced his escort, motioned to them to lead on. He was at once conducted to the esplanade in front of the camp, upon the river's bluff.
The morning was gusty and drizzling, as if Nature shuddered in tears at the sacrifice of one who, from his infancy, had worshipped her so faithfully. The young hunter scarcely cast a glance at the military array as he stepped forward to take the fatal position from which he was never to move more. Pride alone seemed to prompt the haughty mien and averted but unblenching eye, that were, in fact, governed by a nobler impulse—the fear of a personal recognition by some of the soldiery before his substitution as a victim to martial law was completed; but of the many in his brother's band who had so often echoed his own shout upon the joyous hunt, or caught up his charging cheer in the Indian onslaught, there was now not one to look upon the dying youth. Considerations of feeling, or the fear, perhaps, of exciting a mutinous spirit among those hot-headed levies, had induced the general to keep the comrades of the twin-brothers at a distance from the fatal scene. As already stated, they had originally been detained upon some fatigue duty, which took them to a distance from the camp, and measures had been since adopted to prolong their absence until the catastrophe was over. Once, and once only, did Ernest trust himself to run his eye along the formal files of stranger faces; and then—while the scenes of his early days by the bright river of the north flashed athwart his memory—he felt a momentary sinking of the heart to think there was no home-loved friend who could witness the manner of his death; and yet, when he remembered that one such witness might, by identifying him, prevent his sacrifice and endanger the life of Rupert, he was content that it should be thus.
A platoon of regulars was now drawn up in front of him, and waited but the word of their officer—when suddenly a murmur ran along the column, which was displayed upon the ground in order to give solemnity to the scene. It was mistaken for a symptom of mutiny, and precipitated the fatal moment.
"Fire!" cried the officer; and, even as he spoke, a haggard figure, in a torn hunting-shirt—with ghastly look, and tangled hair that floated on the breeze—leaped before the line of deadly muzzles! He uttered one piercing shriek—whether of joy or agony it were impossible to tell—and then fell staggering with one arm across the bosom of Ernest, who breathed out his life while springing forward to meet the embrace of his brother! They were buried in one grave, and the voyager upon the Ohio, whose boat may near the north-western shore, where the traces of Wayne's encampment are yet visible, still sees the shadowy buck-eye, beneath which repose THE TWIN-DOOMED FORESTRRS OF DEANE!