umber; and finding, as
indeed he could not avoid seeing, that the hospitality of his host had
placed the males of the family under the necessity of taking their rest
in the open air on the porch, he insisted upon passing the night in the
same place in their company. In fact, the original habitation of the
back-woodsman seldom boasted more than two rooms in all, and these none
of the largest; and when emigrants arrived at a Station, there was little
attempt made to find shelter for any save their women and children, to
whom the men of the settlement readily gave up their own quarters, to
share those of their male visitors under the blanket-tents which were
spread before the doors. This, to men who had thus passed the nights for
several weeks in succession, was anything but hardship; and when the
weather was warm and dry, they could congratulate themselves on sleeping
in greater comfort than, their sheltered companions. Of this Forrester
was well aware, and he took an early period to communicate his resolution
of rejecting the unmanly luxury of a bed, and sleeping like a soldier,
wrapped in his cloak, with his saddle for a pillow. In this way, the
night proving unexpectedly sultry, he succeeded in enjoying more
delightful and refreshing slumbers than blessed his kinswoman in her
bed of down. The song of the katydid and the cry of the whippoorwill
came more sweetly to his ears from the adjacent woods; and the breeze
that had stirred a thousand leagues of forest in its flight, whispered
over his cheek with a more enchanting music than it made among the
chinks and crannies of the wall by Edith's bed-side. A few idle
dreams,--recollections of home, mingled with the anticipated scenes
of the future, the deep forest, the wild beast, and the lurking
Indian,--amused, without harassing, his sleeping mind; and it was not
until the first gray of dawn that he experienced any interruption. He
started up suddenly, his ears still tingling with the soft tones of an
unknown voice, which had whispered in them, "Cross the river by the Lower
Ford,--there is danger at the Upper." He stared around, but saw nothing
all was silent around him, save the deep breathing of the sleepers at his
side. "Who spoke?" he demanded in a whisper, but received no reply.
"River,--Upper and Lower Ford,--danger?--" he muttered: "now I would have
sworn some one spoke to me; and yet I must have dreamed it. Strange
things, dreams,--thoughts in freedom, loosed from the