Wyandotte | Page 9

I will set you to
guess what good news I have for you and Beulah."
"You and mother don't mean to go to that bad Beave Manor this
summer, as some call the ugly pond?" answered the child, quick as
lightning.
"That is kind of you, my darling; more kind than prudent; but you are
not right."
"Try Beulah, now," interrupted the mother, who, while she too doted on
her youngest child, had an increasing respect for the greater solidity
and better judgment of her sister: "let us hear Beulah's guess."
"It is something about my brother, I know by mother's eyes," answered
the eldest girl, looking inquiringly into Mrs. Willoughby's face.
"Oh! yes," cried Maud, beginning to jump about the room, until she
ended her saltations in her father's arms--"Bob has got his
commission!--I know it all well enough, now--I would not thank you to
tell me--I know it all now--dear Bob, how he will laugh! and how

happy I am!"
"Is it so, mother?" asked Beulah, anxiously, and without even a smile.
"Maud is right; Bob is an ensign--or, will be one, in a day or two. You
do not seem pleased, my child?"
"I wish Robert were not a soldier, mother. Now he will be always away,
and we shall never see him; then he may be obliged to fight, and who
knows how unhappy it may make _him_?"
Beulah thought more of her brother than she did of herself; and, sooth
to say, her mother had many of the child's misgivings. With Maud it
was altogether different: she saw only the bright side of the picture;
Bob gay and brilliant, his face covered with smiles, his appearance
admired himself, and of course his sisters, happy. Captain Willoughby
sympathized altogether with his pet. Accustomed to arms, he rejoiced
that a career in which he had partially failed--this he did not conceal
from himself or his wife--that this same career had opened, as he
trusted, with better auspices on his only son. He covered Maud with
kisses, and then rushed from the house, finding his heart too full to run
the risk of being unmanned in the presence of females.
A week later, availing themselves of one of the last falls of snow of the
season, captain Willoughby and his wife left Albany for the Knoll. The
leave-taking was tender, and to the parents bitter; though after all, it
was known that little more than a hundred miles would separate them
from their beloved daughters. Fifty of these miles, however, were
absolutely wilderness; and to achieve them, quite a hundred of tangled
forest, or of difficult navigation, were to be passed. The
communications would be at considerable intervals, and difficult. Still
they might be held, and the anxious mother left many injunctions with
Mrs. Waring, the head of the school, in relation to the health of her
daughters, and the manner in which she was to be sent for, in the event
of any serious illness.
Mrs. Willoughby had often overcome, as she fancied, the difficulties of
a wilderness, in the company of her husband. It is the fashion highly to

extol Napoleon's passage of the Alps, simply in reference to its physical
obstacles. There never was a brigade moved twenty-four hours into the
American wilds, that had not greater embarrassments of this nature to
overcome, unless in those cases in which favourable river navigation
has offered its facilities. Still, time and necessity had made a sort of
military ways to all the more important frontier points occupied by the
British garrisons, and the experience of Mrs. Willoughby had not
hitherto been of the severe character of that she was now compelled to
undergo.
The first fifty miles were passed over in a sleigh, in a few hours, and
with little or no personal fatigue. This brought the travellers to a Dutch
inn on the Mohawk, where the captain had often made his halts, and
whither he had from time to time, sent his advanced parties in the
course of the winter and spring. Here a jumper was found prepared to
receive Mrs. Willoughby; and the horse being led by the captain
himself, a passage through the forest was effected as far as the head of
the Otsego. The distance being about twelve miles, it required two days
for its performance. As the settlements extended south from the
Mohawk a few miles, the first night was passed in a log cabin, on the
extreme verge of civilization, if civilization it could be called, and the
remaining eight miles were got over in the course of the succeeding day.
This was more than would probably have been achieved in the virgin
forest, and under the circumstances, had not so many of the captain's
people passed over the same ground, going and