reaking boughs, and cries of nightly birds,
Returning seeming answer!"

Joanna Baihie, "Rayner: A Tragedy," II.L3-4, 6-g.

Fear, as much as calculation, had induced Hetty to cease paddling, when
she found that her pursuers did not know in which direction to proceed.
She remained stationary until the Ark had pulled in near the encampment,
as has been related in the preceding chapter, when she resumed the
paddle and with cautious strokes made the best of her way towards the
western shore. In order to avoid her pursuers, however, who, she rightly
suspected, would soon be rowing along that shore themselves, the head
of the canoe was pointed so far north as to bring her to land on a point
that thrust itself into the lake, at the distance of near a league from
the outlet. Nor was this altogether the result of a desire to escape,
for, feeble minded as she was, Hetty Hutter had a good deal of that
instinctive caution which so often keeps those whom God has thus visited
from harm. She was perfectly aware of the importance of keeping the
canoes from falling into the hands of the Iroquois, and long familiarity
with the lake had suggested one of the simplest expedients, by which
this great object could be rendered compatible with her own purpose.

The point in question was the first projection that offered on that side
of the lake, where a canoe, if set adrift with a southerly air would
float clear of the land, and where it would be no great violation of
probabilities to suppose it might even hit the castle; the latter lying
above it, almost in a direct line with the wind. Such then was Hetty's
intention, and she landed on the extremity of the gravelly point,
beneath an overhanging oak, with the express intention of shoving the
canoe off from the shore, in order that it might drift up towards her
father's insulated abode. She knew, too, from the logs that occasionally
floated about the lake, that did it miss the castle and its appendages
the wind would be likely to change before the canoe could reach the
northern extremity of the lake, and that Deerslayer might have an
opportunity of regaining it in the morning, when no doubt he would be
earnestly sweeping the surface of the water, and the whole of its wooded
shores, with glass. In all this, too, Hetty was less governed by any
chain of reasoning than by her habits, the latter often supplying the
place of mind, in human beings, as they perform the same for animals of
the i