Supported by this redoubtable auxiliary, the
superstitious but still courageous borderer followed his companion,
whistling a low air that equally denoted his indifference to danger of an
ordinary nature, and his sensibility to impressions of a less earthly
character.
They who dwell in the older districts of America, where art and labor
have united for generations to clear the earth of its inequalities, and to
remove the vestiges of a state of nature, can form but little idea of the
thousand objects that may exist in a clearing, to startle the imagination
of one who has admitted alarm, when seen in the doubtful light of even a
cloudless moon. Still less can they who have never quitted the old world,
and who, having only seen, can only imagine fields smooth as the surface
of tranquil water, picture the effect produced by those lingering
remnants, which may be likened to so many mouldering monuments of the
fallen forest scattered at such an hour over a broad surface of open land.
Accustomed as they were to the sight, Content and his partner, excited by
their fears, fancied each dark and distant stump a savage; and they passed
no angle in the high and heavy fences without throwing a jealous glance to
see that some enemy did not lie stretched within its shadows.
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