and me is alone in the
wilderness, and there is no friend with us. Leave wringing thee hands,
for it can do thee no good."

"I am indeed friendless, and there is no hope," said Roland, with the
accents of despair; "while we seek assistance, and seek it vainly, Edith
is lost,--lost for ever! Would that we had perished together! Hapless
Edith! wretched Edith!--Was ever wretch so miserable as I?"

With such expressions, the young man gave a loose to his feelings, and
Nathan surveyed, first with surprise and then with a kind of gloomy
indignation, but never, as it seemed, with anything like sympathy, the
extravagance of his grief.

"Thee is but a madman!" he exclaimed at last, and with a tone of severity
that arrested Roland's attention: "does thee curse thee fate, and the
Providence that is above thee, because the maid of thee heart is carried
into captivity unharmed? Is thee wretched, because thee eyes did not see
the Injun axe struck into her brain? Friend, thee does not know what such
a sight is; but _I_ do--yes, I have looked upon such a thing, and I will
tell thee what it is; for it is good thee should know. Look, friend," he
continued, grasping Roland by the arm, as if to command his attention,
and surveying him with a look both wild and mournful, "thee sees a man
before thee who was once as young and as happy as thee,--yea, friend,
happier, for I had many around me to love me,--the children of my body,
the wife of my bosom, the mother that gave me birth. Thee did talk of
such things to me in the wood,--thee did mention them one and all,--wife,
parent, and child! Such things had I; and men spoke well of me--But thee
sees what I am! There is none of them remaining,--none only but _me_;
and thee sees me what I am! Ten years ago I was another man,--a poor
man, friend, but one that was happy. I dwelt upon the frontiers of
Bedford--thee may not know the place; it is among the mountains of
Pennsylvania, and far away. _There_ was the house that I did build me;
and in it there was all that I held dear, 'my gray old mother,'--(that's
the way thee did call her, when thee spoke of her in the wood!)--'the
wife of my bosom,' and 'the child of my heart,'--the _children_,
friend,--for there was five of them, sons and daughters together,--little
innocent babes that had done no wrong; and, truly, I loved them well.
Well, friend, the Injuns came around us: for being bold, because of my
faith that made me a man of peace and the frien