Miss Land's Midnight Journey
On the east bank of the Delaware river, near the Falls of Cochecton, during the Revolution and for some time there after, there stood a log house, a fair representative of the rude cabins of the frontier. This was the residence of Bryant Kane, whose family consisted of a wife and several children. Kane was thought to entertain sentiments favorable to the King, for which he incurred the ill-will and suspicion of his neighbors; the feeling became so strong against him that he was forced to leave the neighborhood, information having reached him that Captain Tyler, who was killed subsequently at the battle of Minisink, had issued orders for his arrest.
Before leaving home Kane engaged a man named Flowers to stay with his family and manage the farm; and, confident that no harm could befall them and that the feuds and vindictiveness of partisan warfare would not be visited upon innocent women and children, he did not take his family with him, [and?] Bryant Kane was never suffered to look upon their faces again.
On the opposite bank of the river resided Robert Land, also a Tory, and, like Kane, a refugee from his home. It was known that Indians and scouts were in the neighborhood, and their presence was a source of uneasiness. One day in the month of April the wife of Robert Land, and her son, a lad of nineteen years, fearing a visit from the Indians, drove their cattle to a place of concealment in the mountains. Here they remained all night to guard them, leaving three other brothers and two sisters at home.
Robert Land, also a Tory, and, like Kane, a refugee from his home. It was known that Indians and scouts were in the neighborhood, and their presence was a source of uneasiness. One day in the month of April the wife of Robert Land, and her son, a lad of nineteen years, fearing a visit from the Indians, drove their cattle to a place of concealment in the mountains. Here they remained all night to guard them, leaving three other brothers and two sisters at home. When the family had retired, and all were asleep, one of the daughters was disturbed by some one in her room. She awoke to find an Indian standing by her bed, drawing a spear point gently across the sole of her foot. The fellow spoke kindly to her in his broken Indian accent, and told her to get up and rim to the neighbors and let them know the Indians had come. He had found means to enter her sleeping apartment without alarming the other members of the family, and had chosen this novel method of awakening her. Whether her nocturnal visitor really intended to befriend the settlers by putting them on their guard is not known; but without further explanation he left the house as mysteriously as he came.
Miss Land arose, dressed herself, and silently left the house. Singularly enough she did not alarm her brothers and sisters, who were still wrapped in slumber. She drew her shawl closer about her head, for the night was chilly, and hurried down to the river side. Her way led down the bank through a ravine, over which a clump of hemlocks cast a deep gloom. Her fancy half pictured a wild beast or Indian warrior crouching under the shadow. She then sought for the dug-out, and, having found it, boldly pushed for the opposite shore. The wind sighed dismally through the evergreens; an owl, in a dry tree that hung over the river, was sounding its boding cry; the night was dark and the waters swollen. Miss Land thought she never before undertook so lonely a journey.
She pointed the canoe's head to the river path that led up to Kane's house; she knew the spot by a large hemlock that stood at the brink and leaned over the river. She was soon winding up the zigzag path; she had so often passed over it that she knew its every crook and irregularity.
As she came into the clearing all was silent, save the low moaning of the wind among the pines, and the cry of the owl down by the river bank. The girdled trees, denuded of their limbs and blackened by fire, stood around like grim and ghostly sentinels. Approaching the house. No sign of life was visible. She thought of the probability that Indians might be lurking at that moment in the shadows of the charred stumps, ready at the signal to startle the night air with the war-whoop, and slaughter the sleeping inmates.
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