Finding that we had mustered in good force to cut the apples, Gram got out her basket of socks to darn and presently summoned Theodora to assist her. The Old Squire sat at the other side of the table and began to read his _Maine Farmer_, which had come that night from the post office; but he stopped reading often to hear what Addison had to tell of our trip. Ellen and I trimmed and halved the apples, as Addison pared them; "Aunt Olive" cored and Wealthy strung the cored halves.
At length, when Gramp seemed to have looked his paper pretty nearly through, Theodora said that we had a particular favor to ask of him that evening.
"Ah!" said the old gentleman, looking over the top of his glasses. "What can Theodora want?"
"But I want you to promise to grant it before I tell what it is,"
replied Theodora.
The Old Squire laughed. "That's asking quite a good deal," he remarked.
"But I hope I am not running much risk."
"Well, then, grandfather," said Theodora, "we all want you to tell us the story of the panther that you and Mr. Edwards shot up in the great woods when you were boys. Thomas and Catherine have been telling us about it; and we want to hear the story."
"Yes, sir," said Addison. "Please tell us about that."
The old gentleman hedged a little. "Oh, that is not much of a story,"
said he.
"Come, Squire, I've heard tell o' that 'ere catamount that you and Zeke Edwards killed; but I never could get the particulars," said Aunt Olive.
"Jest give us the particulars."
Gramp tried to put us off. "I'm no great hand at stories," he said. "You must get Hewey Glinds to tell you bear and catamount stories."
"But you promised me, Gramp," Theodora reminded him.
At length, after some further excuses, the Old Squire was induced to make a beginning, and having begun, told us the following story which I give in words as nearly like his own as I can now remember.
"It was in the year 1812. I was little more than a boy at that time, and the country was quite new here. We had a clearing of about fifty acres and had not yet built our present buildings; and our only neighbors, nearer than the settlement in the lower part of the township, where the village now stands, were the Edwardses. Old Jeremy Edwards came here at about the same time that my father came.
"Eighteen-twelve was the time of our second war with England. Soldiers for it did not volunteer then; troops had to be raised by draft. Father and neighbor Edwards were both drafted. I well remember the night they were summoned. Mother and Mrs. Edwards cried all night. But there was no help for it. There were no such things as substitutes then. They had to go the next morning, and leave us to take care of ourselves the best we could.
"Little Ezekiel Edwards--Thomas's and Kate's grandfather--was just about my age; and the men being away, everything depended on us. Those were hard times; we had a great deal to do. We used to change works, as we called it, so as to be together as much as we could; for it was rather lonesome, planting and hoeing off in the stumpy, sprouted clearings.
That was a long, anxious summer! We heard from father only once. He was somewhere near Lake Champlain.
"We were getting things fixed up to pass the winter as well as we could, when one night, about the first of November, Ezekiel came running over to ask if we had seen anything of old Brindle, their cow. It had been a bright, Indian-summer day, and they had turned her out to feed; but she had not come up as usual, and was nowhere in sight. It was dusk already, but I took our gun and, starting out together, we searched both clearings. Brindle was not in the cleared land.
"'We shall have to give her up to-night, Zeke,' said I; 'but I will go with you in the morning. She's lost or hedged up somewhere among windfalls.' We heard 'lucivees' snarling, and as we went back along, saw a bear digging ground-nuts beside a great rock. These were common enough sounds and sights in those days; still, we did not care to go off into the forest after dark.
"Several inches of snow came during the night and the next morning was cloudy and lowering. Zeke came over early. Brindle had not come in. He brought his gun and had taken Skip, their dog; and we now started off for a thorough search in the woods. Everything looked very odd that morning, on account of the freshly fallen snow. The snow had lodged upon all the trees, especially the evergreens, bending down the branches; and every stump and bush was wreathed in white.
"As the cows used frequently to follow up the valley--where the road now is--to the northward, we entered it and kept on to where it opens out upon Clear Pond, at the foot of the crags which you probably noticed as you passed. There is just a footpath between the crags and the pond, which is very deep on that side. About the pond and the crag the trees were mostly spruce. This morning they looked like multitudes of white tents, lined with black. And this appearance, with the ground all white, and the not yet frozen water looking black as ink, made everything appear so strange, that although we had several times been there before, we now scarcely knew the place.
"As yet we had seen no traces of Brindle. But just as we came out on the pond, at the foot of the crag, we heard a fox bark, quite near at first, then at a distance. Skip sprang ahead among the snowy spruces, but came back in a few moments, and, looking up in our faces, whined, then ran on again.
"'He's found something!' exclaimed Zeke.
"We hurried forward on his track, and a few rods further, saw him standing still, whining; and there, under a thin covering of snow, near the water, lay old Brindle, torn and mangled, and partially eaten.
"A feeling of awe crept over us at the sight.
"'Dead!' whispered Zeke.
"'Something's killed her!' I whispered back.
"There were fresh fox tracks all around, and the carcass had been recently gnawed in several places. Some transient little fox had been improving the chance to steal a breakfast. But what savage beast had throttled resolute old Brindle?
"With strange sensations we gazed around. Not a breath of air stirred the snow-laden boughs; and the wild, gray face of the precipice, towering above us, seemed to grow awesome in the stillness.
"Looking more closely, we now discerned, partially obscured by the more recent snowflakes, some broad footprints, as large as old Brindle's hoofs, leading off along the narrow path between the crag and the pond.
After examining our priming, we followed slowly on these tracks, Skip keeping close to us, and glancing up earnestly in our faces.
"Very soon, however, the tracks stopped. Beyond a certain point there were no footprints. Skip whined, almost getting under our feet in his efforts to keep near us. Suddenly then a piercing scream broke the stillness, and on a jutting rock, fully twenty feet above us, and in the very attitude of springing, we saw a large gray creature, its claws protruding on the ledge, its ears laid back and its long tail switching to and fro! It screamed again, then leaped down. Zeke and I started to run back along the path, but both stumbled on the snowy rocks. Next moment we heard a yell from Skip, then a loud growl. The panther had seized him; and then we saw it go bounding back up the rocks, grappling and gathering up the dog in its mouth, at every leap. Climbing still higher, it gained a projecting ledge, along which it ran to a great cleft, or fissure, seventy or eighty feet above the path. There it disappeared.
"Its onslaught had been so sudden, that for some moments we stood bewildered. Then, remembering our danger, we turned to run again, but had taken only a few steps when another scream rooted us to the path!
The panther had come out in sight and was running to the place where it had climbed up.
"Frightened as we were, we knew that it was of little use to run and both pulled up. As long as we stood still, the animal crouched, watching us; but the moment we stirred, it would rise and poise itself as if to spring. We were afraid if we ran that the animal would bound down and chase us.
"How long we stood there, I don't know, but it seemed very long. We grew desperate. 'Let's fire,' Zeke whispered; and we raised our old flint-locks. They were well charged with buckshot, if they would only go off. The panther growled, seeing the movement, and started up; but we pulled the triggers. Both guns were discharged. We then sprang away down the path, but glancing back, beheld the panther struggling and clinging to one of the lower ledges to which it had jumped, or fallen, from the rocks above.
"'We hit him!' exclaimed Zeke. 'Hold up,'--and we both turned.
"For a long time the beast clung there, writhing and falling back.
Screech after screech echoed from the mountain side across the pond. We could see blood trickling down the rock.
"The animal grew weaker, at length, and by and by fell down to another rock, where, after fainter struggles and cries, it finally lay still. We loaded and fired again, and the fur flew up, but there was no further movement. Skip and Brindle were avenged, as much as they could be; but it was a long time before the Edwards family ceased to lament their loss.
"We went to the place twice afterwards during the winter. A mass of gray fur was still lying on the rock, thirty or forty feet above the path.
And for years after, we could see some of the panther's bones there."
To us young folks who had so recently been camping in the "great woods"
and had passed along the foot of this very crag where the panther had been shot, the Old Squire's story was intensely interesting. We could vividly imagine the scene and the fears of the two pioneer boys, on that snowy November forenoon, more than fifty years ago.
When I went up to bed that night, I found Halse soundly asleep. He did not wake and I did not disturb him; but he was astir and dressing, when I waked next morning, and before we went down, he began to laugh and to ridicule us, on account of the fright we were in at the cabin when those stones were tumbling on the roof. "And I broke up your camping trip, anyway," he added, exultantly. "You were the scaredest lot of chickens I ever saw! Shut yourselves up in your shanty and fastened the door with props!"
I did not much blame him for wanting to crow a bit, after all that had happened.
On the whole it was fortunate that we came home when we did. The storm continued; all next day it poured and drove furiously; but apple-cutting went on blithely indoors. What was rare for him, Addison had a bad cold with a very sore throat; and we all retired early that night, not having as yet caught up all arrears of broken sleep from the camping trip.
But it was not to be a night of rest; and I for one was destined to have an exciting experience before morning. Shortly after midnight there came an obstreperous knocking and thumping at the outer door, so loud that it waked us in our beds up-stairs. It was repeated twice; and then I heard the Old Squire below call out, "Who's there?"
"It's me," replied a troubled voice.
"Well, but who's 'me?'"
"Bobbie Sylvester. And please, sir, my folks want you to send one of the boys after the doctor, quick!"
There was a sudden exclamation of wrath and indignation from Addison in his room, with a chain of comments, which it is not necessary to remember.