Having delivered himself of this choice morsel of song, the half-witted fellow conceitedly challenged the attention of the group whom he had not hitherto been disposed to see.
"'Spose you reckon I don't see you, riding 'longside of me, and saying nothing, but listening to my song. I'm singing for my own self, and you oughtn't to listen—I didn't ax you, and I'd like to know what you're doing so nigh Chub's house."
"Why, where's your house, Chub?" asked one of the party.
"You ain't looking for it, is you? 'cause you can't think to find it a-looking down. I lives in the tree-top when weather's good like to-night, and when it ain't, I go into the hollow. I've a better house than Guy Rivers—he don't take the tree at all, no how."
"And where is his house, Chub?" was the common inquiry of all the party. The dwarf looked at them for a few moments without speech, then with a whisper and a gesture significant of caution, replied—
"If you're looking for Guy, 'tain't so easy to find him if he don't want to be found, and you must speak softly if you hunt him, whether or no. He's a dark man, that Guy Rivers—mother always said so—and he lives a long way under the ground."
"And can't you show us where, Chub? We will give you money for your service."
"Hain't you got 'tatoes? Chub's hungry—hain't eat nothing to-night. Guy Rivers has plenty to eat, but he cursed Chub's mother."
"Well, show us where he is, and we'll give you plenty to eat. Plenty of potatoes and corn," was the promise of the party.
"And build up Chub's house that the fire burnt? Chub lives in the tree now. Guy Rivers' man burnt Chub's house, 'cause he said Chub was sassy."
"Yes, my boy, we'll build up your house, and give you a plenty to go upon for a year. You shall have potatoes enough for your lifetime, if you will show us how to come upon Guy Rivers to-night. He is a bad fellow, as you say; and we won't let him trouble you any more, if you'll only show us where he is to be found."
"Well—I reckon I can," was the response, uttered in a confidential whisper, and much more readily given than was the wont of the speaker. "Chub and Guy talked together to-night, and Guy wanted Chub to go with him into his house in Wolf's Neck. But Chub don't love the wolf, and he don't love the Wolf's Neck, now that Miss Lucy's gone away from it. It's a mighty dark place, the Wolf's Neck, and Chub's afear'd in the dark places, where the moon and stars won't shine down."
"But you needn't be afraid now, little Chub. You're a good little fellow, and we'll keep with you and follow close, and there shall be no danger to you. We'll fight Guy Rivers for you, so that he can't hurt you any more."
"You'll fight Guy! You! Guy kin fight to kill!"
"Yes, but we'll kill him; only you show us where he is, so that we can catch him and tie him, and he'll never trouble Chub any more."
"What! you'll tie Guy? How I'd like to see anybody tie Guy! You kain't tie Guy. He'd break through the ropes, he would, if he on'y stretched out his arms."
"You'll see! only show us how to find him, and we'll tie him, and we'll build you a new house, and you shall have more potatoes and corn than you can shake a stick at, and we'll give you a great jug of whiskey into the bargain."
"Now will you! And a jug of whiskey too, and build a new house for Chub's mother—and the corn, and the 'tatoes."
"All! you shall have all we promise."
"Come! come! saftly! put your feet down saftly, for Guy's got great white owls that watch for him, and they hoot from the old tree when the horses are coming. Saftly! saftly!"
There is an idiocy that does not lack the vulgar faculty of mere shrewdness—that can calculate selfishly, and plan coolly—in short, can show itself cunning, whenever it has a motive. Find the motive for the insane and the idiotic, always, if you would see them exercise the full extent of their little remaining wits.
Chub Williams had a sagacity of this sort. His selfishness was appealed to, and all his faculties were on the alert. He gave directions for the progress of the party—after his own manner, it is true—but with sufficient promptness and intelligence to satisfy them that they might rely upon him. Having reached a certain lonely spot among the hills, contiguous to the crag, or series of crags, called the Wolf's Neck, Chub made the party all dismount, and hide their horses in a thicket into which they found it no easy matter to penetrate. This done, he led them out again, cautiously moving along under cover, but near the margin of the road. He stept as lightly himself as a squirrel, taking care, before throwing his weight upon his foot, to feel that there was no rotting branch or bough beneath, the breaking of which might occasion noise.
"Saftly! saftly!" he would say in a whisper, turning back to the party, when he found them treading hurriedly and heavily upon the brush. Sometimes, again, he ran ahead of all of them, and for a few moments would be lost to sight; but he usually returned, as quickly and quietly as he went, and would either lead them forward on the same route with confidence, or alter it according to his discoveries. He was literally feeling his way; the instincts and experience of the practised scout finding no sort of obstacle in the deficiency of his reasoning powers.
His processes did not argue any doubts of his course; only a choice of direction—such as would promise more ease and equal security. Some of his changes of movement, he tried to explain, in his own fashion, when he came back to guide them on other paths.
"Saftly back—saftly now, this way. Guy's in his dark house in the rock, but there's a many rooms, and 't mout be, we're a walking jest now, over his head. Then he mout hear, you see, and Guy's got ears like the great owl. He kin hear mighty far in the night, and see too; and you mustn't step into his holes. There's heap of holes in Guy's dark house. Saftly, now—and here away."
Briefly, the rocky avenues were numerous in the Wolf's Neck, and some of them ran near the surface. There were sinks upon the surface also, covered with brush and clay, into which the unthinking wayfarer might stumble, perhaps into the very cavern where the outlaw at that moment housed himself. The group around the idiot did not fail to comprehend the reasons for all his caution. They confided to his skill implicitly; having, of themselves, but small knowledge of the wild precincts into which they desired to penetrate.
Having, at length, brought them to points and places, which afforded them the command of the avenues to the rock, the next object of their guide was to ascertain where the outlaw was at that moment secreted. It was highly important to know where to enter—where to look—and not waste time in fruitless search of places in which a single man might have a dozen blind seekers at his mercy. The cunning of the idiot conceived this necessity himself.
His policy made each of the party hide himself out of sight, though in a position whence each might see.
All arranged as he desired, the urchin armed himself with a rock, not quite as large as his own head, but making a most respectable approach to it. This, with the aid of coat and kerchief he secured upon his back, between his shoulders; and thus laden, he yet, with the agility of the opossum, her young ones in her pouch, climbed up a tree which stood a little above that inner chamber which Guy Rivers had appropriated for himself, and where, on more occasions than one, our idiot had peeped in upon him. Perched in his tree securely, and shrouded from sight among its boughs, the urchin disengaged the rock from his shoulders, took it in both his hands, and carefully selecting its route, he pitched it, with all his might, out from the tree, and in such a direction, that, after it had fairly struck the earth, it continued a rolling course down the declivity of the rocks, making a heavy clatter all the way it went.
The ruse answered its purpose. The keen senses of the outlaw caught the sound. His vigilance, now doubly keen, awakened to its watch. We have seen, in previous pages, the effect that the rolling stone had upon the musing and vexed spirit of Guy Rivers, after the departure of Dillon. He came forth, as we have seen, to look about for the cause of alarm; and, as if satisfied that the disturbance was purely accidental, had retired once more to the recesses of his den.
Here, throwing himself upon his couch, he seemed disposed to sleep. Sleep, indeed! He himself denied that he ever slept. His followers were all agreed that when he did sleep, it was only with half his faculties shut up. One eye, they contended, was always open!
Chub Williams, and one of the hunters had seen the figure of the outlaw as he emerged from the cavern. The former instantly identified him. The other was too remote to distinguish anything but a slight human outline, which he could only determine to be such, as he beheld its movements. He was too far to assault, the light was too imperfect to suffer him to shoot with any reasonable certainty of success, and the half of the reward sought by his pursuers, depended upon the outlaw being taken alive!
But, there was no disappointment among the hunters. Allowing the outlaw sufficient time to return to his retreats, Chub Williams slipped down his tree—the rest of the party slowly emerged from their several places of watch, and drew together for consultation.
In this matter, the idiot could give them little help. He could, and did, describe, in some particulars, such of the interior as he had been enabled to see on former occasions, but beyond this he could do nothing; and he was resolute not to hazard himself entering the dominion of a personage, so fearful as Guy Rivers, in such companionship as would surely compel the wolf to turn at bay. Alone, his confidence in his own stealth and secresy, would encourage him to penetrate; but, now!—he only grinned at the suggestion of the hunters saying shrewdly: "No! thank you! I'll stay out here and keep Chub's company."
Accordingly, he remained without, closely gathered up into a lump, behind a tree, while the more determined Georgians penetrated with cautious pace into the dark avenue, known in the earlier days of the settlement as a retreat for the wolves when they infested that portion of the country, and hence distinguished by the appellation of the Wolf's Neck.
For some time they groped onward in great uncertainty as to their course; but a crevice in the wall, at one point, gave them a glimmer of the moonlight, which, falling obliquely upon the sides of the cavern, enabled them to discern the mouth of another gorge diverging from that in which they were. They entered, and followed this new route, until their farther progress was arrested by a solid wall which seemed to close them in, hollowly caved from all quarters, except the one narrow point from which they had entered it.
Here, then, they were at a stand; but, according to Chub's directions, there must be a mode of ingress to still another chamber from this; and they prepared to seek it in the only possible way; namely, by feeling along the wall for the opening which their eye had failed to detect. They had to do this on hands and knees, so low was the rock along the edges of the cavern.
The search was finally successful. One of the party found the wall to give beneath his hands. There was an aperture, a mere passage-way for wolf or bear, lying low in the wall, and only closed by a heavy curtain of woollen.
This was an important discovery. The opening led directly into the chamber of the outlaw. How easily it could be defended, the hunters perceived at a glance. The inmate of the cavern, if wakeful and courageous, standing above the gorge with a single hatchet, could brain every assailant on the first appearance of his head. How serious, then, the necessity of being able to know that the occupant of the chamber slept—that occupant being Guy Rivers. The pursuers well knew what they might expect at his hands, driven to his last fastness, with the spear of the hunter at his throat. Did he sleep, then—the man who never slept, according to the notion of his followers, or with one eye always open!
He did sleep, and never more soundly than now, when safety required that he should be most on the alert. But there is a limit to the endurance of the most iron natures, and the outlaw had overpassed his bounds of strength. He was exhausted by trying and prolonged excitements, and completely broken down by physical efforts which would have destroyed most other men outright. His subdued demeanor—his melancholy—were all due to this condition of absolute exhaustion. He slept, not a refreshing sleep, but one in which the excited spirit kept up its exercises, so as totally to neutralize what nature designed as compensation in his slumbers. His sleep was the drowse of incapacity, not the wholesome respite of elastic faculties. It was actual physical imbecility, rather than sleep; and, while the mere animal man, lay incapable, like a log, the diseased imagination was at work, conjuring up its spectres as wildly and as changingly, as the wizard of the magic-lanthorn evokes his monsters against the wall.
His limbs writhed while he slept. His tongue was busy in audible speech. He had no secrets, in that mysterious hour, from night, and silence, and his dreary rocks. His dreams told him of no other auditors.
The hunter, who had found and raised the curtain that separated his chamber from the gloomy gorges of the crag, paused, and motioned his comrades back, while he listened. At first there was nothing but a deep and painful breathing. The outlaw breathed with effort, and the sigh became a groan, and he writhed upon the bed of moss which formed his usual couch in the cavern. Had the spectator been able to see, the lamp suspended from a ring in the roof of the cavern, though burning very dimly, would have shown him the big-beaded drops of sweat that now started from the brows of the sleeper. But he could hear; and now a word, a name, falls from the outlaw's lips—it is followed by murmured imprecations. The feverish frame, tortured by the restless and guilt-goading spirit, writhed as he delivered the curses in broken accents. These, finally, grew into perfect sentences.
"Dying like a dog, in her sight! Ay, she shall see it! I will hiss in her ears as she gazes—'It is my work! this is my revenge!' Ha! ha! where her pride then?—her high birth and station?—wealth, family? Dust, shame, agony, and death!"
Such were the murmured accents of the sleeping man, when they were distinguishable by the hunter, who, crouching, beneath the curtain, listened to his sleeping speech. But all was not exultation. The change from the voice of triumph to that of woe was instantaneous; and the curse and the cry, as of one in mortal agony, pain or terror, followed the exulting speech.
The Georgian, now apprehensive that the outlaw would awaken, crept forward, and, still upon his hands and knees, was now fairly within the vaulted chamber. He was closely followed by one of his companions. Hitherto, they had proceeded with great caution, and with a stealth and silence that were almost perfect. But the third of the party to enter—who was Brooks, the jailer—more eager, or more unfortunate, less prudent certainly—not sufficiently stooping, as the other two had done, or rising too soon—contrived to strike with his head the pole which bore the curtain, and which, morticed in the sides of the cavern, ran completely across the awkward entrance. A ringing noise was the consequence, while Brooks himself was precipitated back into the passage, with a smart cut over his brows.
The noise was not great, but quite sufficient to dissipate the slumbers of the outlaw, whose sleep was never sound. With that decision and fierce courage which marked his character, he sprang to his feet in an instant, grasped the dirk which he always carried in his bosom, and leaped forward, like a tiger, in the direction of the narrow entrance. Familiar with all the sinuosities of his den, as well in daylight as in darkness, the chances might have favored him even with two powerful enemies within it. Certainly, had there been but one, he could have dealt with him, and kept out others. But the very precipitation of the jailer, while it occasioned the alarm, had the effect, in one particular, of neutralizing its evil consequences. The two who had already penetrated the apartment, had net yet risen from their knees—in the dim light of the lamp, they remained unseen—they were crouching, indeed, directly under the lamp, the rays of which lighted dimly the extremes, rather than the centre of the cell. They lay in the way of the outlaw, as he sprang, and, as he dashed forward from his couch toward the passage-way, his feet were caught by the Georgian who had first entered, and so great was the impetus of his first awakening effort, that he was precipitated with a severe fall over the second of the party; and, half stunned, yet still striking furiously, the dirk of Rivers found a bloodless sheath in the earthen floor of the cell. In a moment, the two were upon him, and by the mere weight of their bodies alone, they kept him down.
"Surrender, Guy! we're too much for you, old fellow!"
There was a short struggle. Meanwhile, Brooks, the jailer, joined the party.
"We're three on you, and there's more without."
The outlaw was fixed to the ground, beneath their united weight, as firmly as if the mountain itself was on him. As soon as he became conscious of the inutility of further struggle—and he could now move neither hand nor foot—he ceased all further effort; like a wise man economizing his strength for future occasions. Without difficulty the captors bound him fast, then dragged him through the narrow entrance, the long rocky gorges which they had traversed, until they all emerged into the serene light of heaven, at the entrance of the cavern.
Here the idiot boy encountered them, now coming forward boldly, and staring in the face of the captive with a confidence which he had never known before. He felt that his fangs were drawn; and his survey of the person his mother had taught him so to dread, was as curious as that which he would have taken of some foreign monster. As he continued this survey, Rivers, with a singular degree of calmness for such a time, and such circumstances, addressed him thus:—
"So, Chub, this is your work;—you have brought enemies to my home, boy! Why have you done this? What have I done to you, but good? I gave bread to your mother and yourself!"
"Psho! Chub is to have his own bread, his own corn, and 'taters, too, and a whole jug of whiskey."
"Ah! you have sold yourself for these, then, to my enemies. You are a bad fellow, Chub—a worse fellow than I thought you. As an idiot, I fancied you might be honest and grateful."
"You're bad yourself, Mr. Guy. You cursed Chub, and you cursed Chub's mother; and your man burnt down Chub's house, and you wanted to shoot Chub on the tree."
"But I didn't shoot, Chub; and I kept the men from shooting you when you ran away from the cave."
"You can't shoot now," answered the idiot, with an exulting chuckle; "and they'll keep you in the ropes, Mr. Guy; they've got you on your back, Mr. Guy; and I'm going to laugh at you all the way as you go. Ho! ho! ho! See if I don't laugh, till I scares away all your white owls from the roost."
The outlaw looked steadily in the face of the wretched urchin, with a curious interest, as he half murmured to himself:—
"And that I should fall a victim to such a thing as this! The only creature, perhaps, whom I spared or pitied—so wretched, yet so ungrateful. But there is an instinct in it. It is surely in consequence of a law of nature. He hates in proportion as he fears. Yet he has had nothing but protection from me, and kindness. Nothing! I spared him, when—but—" as if suddenly recollecting himself, and speaking aloud and with recovered dignity:—
"I am your prisoner, gentlemen. Do with me as you please."
"Hurrah!" cried the urchin, as he beheld the troopers lifting and securing the outlaw upon the horse, while one of the party leaped up behind him—one of his hands managing the bridle, and the other grasping firmly the rope which secured the captive; "hurrah! Guy's in the rope! Guy's in the rope!"
Thus cried the urchin, following close behind the party, upon his mountain-tacky. That cry, from such a quarter, more sensibly than anything besides, mocked the outlaw with the fullest sense of his present impotence. With a bitter feeling of humiliation, his head dropped upon his breast, and he seemed to lose all regard to his progress. Daylight found him safely locked up in the jail of Chestatee, the occupant of the very cell from which Colleton had escaped.
But no such prospect of escape was before him. He could command none of the sympathies that had worked for his rival. He had no friends left. Munro was slain, Dillon gone, and even the miserable idiot had turned his fangs upon the hand that fed him. Warned, too, by the easy escape of Colleton, Brooks attended no more whiskey-parties, nor took his brother-in-law Tongs again into his friendly counsels. More—he doubly ironed his prisoner, whose wiles and resources he had more reason to fear than those which his former captive could command. To cut off more fully every hope which the outlaw might entertain of escape from his bonds and durance, a detachment of the Georgia guard, marching into the village that very day, was put in requisition, by the orders of the judge, for the better security of the prisoner, and of public order.
CHAPTER XLI.
QUIET PASSAGES AND NEW RELATIONS.
We have already reported the return of Lucy Munro to the village-inn of Chestatee. Here, to her own and the surprise of all other parties, her aunt was quietly reinstated in her old authority—a more perfect one now—as housekeeper of that ample mansion. The reasons which determined her liege upon her restoration to the household have been already reported to the reader. His prescience as to his own approaching fate was perhaps not the least urgent among them. He fortunately left her in possession, and we know how the law estimates this advantage. Of her trials and sorrows, when she was made aware of her widowhood, we will say nothing. Sensitive natures will easily conjecture their extent and intensity. It is enough for the relief of such natures, if we say that the widow Munro was not wholly inconsolable. As a good economist, a sensible woman, with an eye properly regardful of the future, we are bound to suppose that she needed no lessons from Hamlet's mother to make the cold baked funeral-meats answer a double purpose.
But what of her niece? We are required to be something more full and explicit in speaking to her case. The indisposition of Lucy was not materially diminished by the circumstances following the successful effort to persuade the landlord to the rescue of Ralph Colleton. The feverish excitements natural to that event, and even the fruit of its fortunate issue, in the death of Munro, for whom she really had a grateful regard, were not greatly lessened, though certainly something relieved, by the capture of Rivers, and his identification with the outlawed Creighton. She was now secure from him: she had nothing further to apprehend from the prosecution of his fearful suit; and the death of her uncle, even if the situation of Rivers had left him free to urge it further, would, of itself, have relieved her from the only difficulty in the way of a resolute denial.
So far, then, she was at peace. But a silent sorrow had made its way into her bosom, gnawing there with the noiselessness and certainty of the imperceptible worm, generated by the sunlight, in the richness of the fresh leaf, and wound up within its folds. She had no word of sorrow in her speech—she had no tear of sorrow in her eye—but there was a vacant sadness in the vague and wan expression of her face, that needed neither tears nor words for its perfect development. She was the victim of a passion which—as hers was a warm and impatient spirit—was doubly dangerous; and the greater pang of that passion came with the consciousness, which now she could no longer doubt, that it was entirely unrequited. She had beheld the return of Ralph Colleton; she had heard from other lips than his of his release, and of the atoning particulars of her uncle's death, in which he furnished all that was necessary in the way of testimony to the youth's enlargement and security; and though she rejoiced, fervently and deeply, at the knowledge that so much had been done for him, and so much by herself, she yet found no relief from the deep sadness of soul which necessarily came with her hopelessness. Busy tongues dwelt upon the loveliness of the Carolina maiden who had sought him in his prison—of her commanding stature, her elegance of form, her dignity of manner and expression, coupled with the warmth of a devoted love and a passionate admiration of the youth who had also so undesiringly made the conquest of her own heart. She heard all this in silence, but not without thought. She thought of nothing besides. The forms and images of the two happy lovers were before her eyes at all moments; and her active fancy pictured their mutual loves in colors so rich and warm, that, in utter despondency at last, she would throw herself listlessly upon her couch, with sometimes an unholy hope that she might never again rise from it.
But she was not forgotten. The youth she had so much served, and so truly saved, was neither thoughtless nor ungrateful. Having just satisfied those most near and dear to him of his safety, and of the impunity which, after a few brief forms of law, the dying confession of the landlord would give him and having taken, in the warm embrace of a true love, the form of the no-longer-withheld Edith to his arms, he felt that his next duty was to her for whom his sense of gratitude soon discovered that every form of acknowledgment must necessarily prove weak.
At an early hour, therefore—these several duties having been done—Ralph made his appearance at the village-inn, and the summons of the youth soon brought Lucy from her chamber.
She came freely and without hesitation, though her heart was tremulous with doubt and sorrow. She had nothing now to learn of her utter hopelessness, and her strength was gathered from her despair. Ralph was shocked at the surprising ravages which a few days of indisposition had made upon that fine and delicate richness of complexion and expression which had marked her countenance before. He had no notion that she was unhappy beyond the cure of time. On the contrary, with a modesty almost akin to dullness—having had no idea of his own influence over the maiden—he was disposed to regard the recent events—the death of Munro and the capture of Rivers—as they relieved her from a persecution which had been cruelly distressing, rather calculated to produce a degree of relief, to which she had not for a long time been accustomed; and which, though mingled up with events that prevented it from being considered matter for rejoicing, was yet not a matter for one in her situation very greatly to deplore.
Her appearance, however, only made him more assiduously gentle and affectionate in the duties he had undertaken to perform. He approached her with the freedom of one warranted by circumstances in recognising in her person a relation next to the sweetest and the dearest in life. With the familiar regard of a brother, he took her hand, and, placing her beside him on the rude sofa of the humble parlor, he proceeded to those little inquiries after her health, and of those about her, which usually form the opening topics of all conversation. He proceeded then to remind her of that trying night, when, in defiance of female fears, and laudably regardless of those staid checks and restraints by which her sex would conceal or defend its weaknesses, she had dared to save his life.
His manner, generally warm and eager, dilated something beyond its wont; and if ever gratitude had yet its expression from human lips and in human language, it was poured forth at that moment from his into the ears of Lucy Munro.
And she felt its truth; she relied upon the uttered words of the speaker; and her eyes grew bright with a momentary kindling, her check flushed under his glance, while her heart, losing something of the chillness which had so recently oppressed it, felt lighter and less desolate in that abode of sadness and sweetness, the bosom in which it dwelt.
Yet, after all, when thought came again under the old aspect—when she remembered his situation and her own, she felt the shadow once more come over her with an icy influence. It was not gratitude which her heart craved from that of Ralph Colleton. The praise and the approval and the thanks of others might have given her pleasure, but these were not enough from him; and she sighed that he from whom alone love would be precious, had nothing less frigid than gratitude to offer. But even that was much, and she felt it deeply. His approbation was not a little to a spirit whose reference to him was perpetual; and when—her hand in his—he recounted the adventures of that night—when he dwelt upon her courage—upon her noble disregard of opinions which might have chilled in many of her sex the fine natural currents of that godlike humanity which conventional forms, it is well to think, can not always fetter or abridge—when he expatiated upon all these things with all the fervor of his temperament—she with a due modesty, shrinking from the recital of her own performances—she felt every moment additional pleasure in his speech of praise. When, at length, relating the particulars of the escape and death of Munro, he proceeded, with all the tender caution of a brother, softening the sorrow into sadness, and plucking from grief as much of the sting as would else have caused the wound to rankle, she felt that though another might sway his heart and its richer affections, she was not altogether destitute of its consideration and its care.
"And now, Lucy—my sweet sister—for my sister you are now—you will accede to your uncle's prayer and mine—you will permit me to be your brother, and to provide for you as such. In this wild region it fits not that you should longer abide. This wilderness is uncongenial—it is foreign to a nature like yours. You have been too long its tenant—mingling with creatures not made for your association, none of whom are capable of appreciating your worth. You must come with us, and live with my uncle—with my cousin Edith—"
"Edith!"—and she looked inquiringly, while a slight flush of the cheek and kindling of the eye in him followed the utterance of the single word by her, and accompanied his reply.
"Yes, Edith—Edith Colleton, Lucy, is the name of my cousin, and the relationship will soon be something closer between us. You will love her, and she, I know, will love you as a sister, and as the preserver of one so very humble as myself. It was a night of danger when you first heard her name, and saw her features; and when you and she will converse over that night and its events, I feel satisfied that it will bring you both only the closer to one another."
"We will not talk of it farther, Mr. Colleton—I would not willingly hear of it again. It is enough that you are now free from all such danger—enough that all things promise well for the future. Let not any thought of past evil, or of risk successfully encountered, obscure the prospect—let no thought of me produce an emotion, hostile, even for a moment, to your peace."
"And why should you think, my sweet girl, and with an air of such profound sorrow, that such a thought must be productive of such an emotion. Why should the circumstances so happily terminating, though perilous at first, necessarily bring sorrow with remembrance. Surely you are now but exhibiting the sometimes coy perversity which is ascribed to your sex. You are now, in a moment of calm, but assuming those winning playfulnesses of a sex, conscious of charm and power, which, in a time of danger, your more masculine thought had rejected as unbecoming. You forget, Lucy, that I have you in charge—that you are now my sister—that my promise to your departed uncle, not less than my own desire to that effect, makes me your guardian for the future—and that I am now come, hopeful of success, to take you with me to my own country, and to bring you acquainted with her—(I must keep no secret from you, who are my sister)—who has my heart—who—but you are sick, Lucy. What means this emotion?"
"Nothing, nothing, Mr. Colleton. A momentary weakness from my late indisposition—it will soon be over. Indeed, I am already well. Go on, sir—go on!"
"Lucy, why these titles? Why such formality? Speak to me as if I were the new friend, at least, if you will not behold in me an old one. I have received too much good service from you to permit of this constraint. Call me Ralph—or Colleton—or—or—nay, look not so coldly—why not call me your brother?"
"Brother—brother be it then, Ralph Colleton—brother—brother. God knows, I need a brother now!" and the ice of her manner was thawed quickly by his appeal, in which her accurate sense, sufficiently unclouded usually by her feelings, though themselves at all times strong, discovered only the honest earnestness of truth.
"Ah, now, you look—and now you are indeed my sister. Hear me, then, Lucy, and listen to all my plans. You have not seen Edith—my Edith now—you must be her sister too. She is now, or will be soon, something nearer to me than a sister—she is something dearer already. We shall immediately return to Carolina, and you will go along with us."
"It may not be, Ralph—I have determined otherwise. I will be your sister—as truly so as sister possibly could be—but I can not go with you. I have made other arrangements."
The youth looked up in astonishment. The manner of the maiden was very resolute, and he knew not what to understand. She proceeded, as she saw his amazement:—
"It may not be as you propose, Mr.—Ralph—my brother—circumstances have decreed another arrangement—another, and perhaps a less grateful destiny for me."
"But why, Lucy, if a less pleasant, or at least a doubtful arrangement, why yield to it—why reject my solicitation? What is the plan to which, I am sad to see, you so unhesitatingly give the preference?"
"Not unhesitatingly—not unhesitatingly, I assure you. I have thought upon it deeply and long, and the decision is that of my cooler thought and calmer judgment. It may be in a thousand respects a less grateful arrangement than that which you offer me; but, at least, it will want one circumstance which would couple itself with your plan, and which would alone prompt me to deny myself all its other advantages."
"And what is that one circumstance, dear Lucy, which affrights you so much? Let me know. What peculiarity of mine—what thoughtless impropriety—what association, which I may remove, thus prevents your acceptance of my offer, and that of Edith? Speak—spare me not in what you shall say—but let your thoughts have their due language, just as if you were—as indeed you are—my sister."
"Ask me not, Ralph. I may not utter it. It must not be whispered to myself, though I perpetually hear it. It is no impropriety—no peculiarity—no wrong thought or deed of yours, that occasions it. The evil is in me; and hence you can do nothing which can possibly change my determination."
"Strange, strange girl! What mystery is this? Where is now that feeling of confidence, which led you to comply with my prayer, and consider me as your brother? Why keep this matter from me—why withhold any particular, the knowledge of which might be productive of a remedy for all the difficulty."
"Never—never. The knowledge of it would be destructive of all beside. It would be fatal—seek not, therefore, to know it—it would profit you nothing, and me it would crush for ever to the earth. Hear me, Ralph—my brother!—hear me. Hitherto you have known me—I am proud to think—as a strong-minded woman, heedless of all things in her desire for the good—for the right. In a moment of peril to you or to another, I would be the same woman. But the strength which supports through the trial, subsides when it is over. The ship that battles with the storms and the seas, with something like a kindred buoyancy, goes down with the calm that follows their violence. It is so with me. I could do much—much more than woman generally—in the day of trial, but I am the weakest of my sex when it is over. Would you have the secret of these weaknesses in your possession, when you must know that the very consciousness, that it is beyond my own control, must be fatal to that pride of sex which, perhaps, only sustains me now? Ask me not further, Ralph, on this subject. I can tell you nothing; I will tell you nothing; and to press me farther must only be to estrange me the more. It is sufficient that I call you brother—that I pledge myself to love you as a sister—as sister never loved brother before. This is as much as I can do, Ralph Colleton—is it not enough?"
The youth tried numberless arguments and entreaties, but in vain to shake her purpose; and the sorrowful expression of his voice and manner, not less than of his language, sufficiently assured her of the deep mortification which he felt upon her denial. She soothed his spirit with a gentleness peculiarly her own, and, as if she had satisfied herself that she had done enough for the delicacy of her scruples in one leading consideration, she took care that her whole manner should be that of the most confiding and sisterly regard. She even endeavored to be cheerful, seeing that her companion, with her unlooked-for denial, had lost all his elasticity; but without doing much to efface from his countenance the traces of dissatisfaction.
"And what are your plans, Lucy? Let me know them, at least. Let mo see how far they are likely to be grateful to your character, and to make you happy."
"Happy! happy!" and she uttered but the two words, with a brief interval between them, while her voice trembled, and the gathering suffusion in her large and thickly-fringed blue eyes attested, more than anything besides, the prevailing weakness of which she had spoken.
"Ay, happy, Lucy! That is the word. You must not be permitted to choose a lot in life, in which the chances are not in favor of your happiness."
"I look not for that now, Ralph," was her reply, and with such hopeless despondency visible in her face as she spoke, that, with a deeper interest, taking her hand, he again urged the request she had already so recently denied.
"And why not, my sweet sister? Why should you not anticipate happiness as well as the rest of us? Who has a better right to happiness than the young, the gentle, the beautiful, the good?—and you are all of these, Lucy! You have the charms—the richer and more lasting charms—which, in the reflective mind, must always awaken admiration! You have animation, talent, various and active—sentiment, the growth of truth, propriety, and a lofty aim—no flippancy, no weak vanity—and a gentle beauty, that woos while it warms."
Her face became very grave, as she drew back from him.
"Nay, my sweet Lucy! why do you repulse me? I speak nothing but the truth."
"You mock me!—I pray you, mock me not. I have suffered much, Mr. Colleton—very much, in the few last years of my life, from the sneer, and the scorn, and the control of others! But I have been taught to hope for different treatment, and a far gentler estimate. It is ill in you to take up the speech of smaller spirits, and when the sufferer is one so weak, so poor, so very wretched as I am now! I had not looked for such scorn from you!"
Ralph was confounded. Was this caprice? He had never seen any proof of the presence of such an infirmity in her. And yet, how could he account for those strange words—that manner so full of offended pride? What had he been saying? How had she misconceived him? He took her hand earnestly in his own. She would have withdrawn it; but no!—he held it fast, and looked pleadingly into her face, as he replied:—
"Surely, Lucy, you do me wrong! How could you think that I would design to give you pain? Do you really estimate me by so low a standard, that my voice, when it speaks in praise and homage, is held to be the voice of vulgar flattery, and designing falsehood?"
"Oh, no, Ralph! not that—anything but that!"
"That I should sneer at you, Lucy—feel or utter scorn—you, to whom I owe so much! Have I then been usually so flippant of speech—a trifler—when we have spoken together before?—the self-assured fopling, with fancied superiority, seeking to impose upon the vain spirit and the simple confidence? Surely, I have never given you cause to think of me so meanly!"
"No! no! forgive me! I know not what I have said! I meant nothing so unkind—so unjust!"
"Lucy, your esteem is one of my most precious desires. To secure it, I would do much—strive earnestly—make many sacrifices of self. Certainly, for this object, I should be always truthful."
"You are, Ralph! I believe you."
"When I praised you, I did not mean merely to praise. I sought rather to awaken you to a just appreciation of your own claims upon a higher order of society than that which you can possibly find in this frontier region. I have spoken only the simple truth of your charms and accomplishments. I have felt them, Lucy, and paint them only as they are. Your beauties of mind and person—"
"Oh, do not, I implore you!"
"Yes, I must, Lucy! though of these beauties I should not have spoken—should not now speak—were it not that I feel sure that your superior understanding would enable you to listen calmly to a voice, speaking from my heart to yours, and speaking nothing but a truth which it honestly believes! And it is your own despondency, and humility of soul, that prompts me thus to speak in your praise. There is no good reason, Lucy, why you should not be happy—why fond hearts should not be rejoiced to win your sympathies—why fond eyes should not look gladly and gratefully for the smiles of yours! You carry treasures into society, Lucy, which society will everywhere value as beyond price!"
"Ah! why will you, sir—why, Ralph?—"
"You must not sacrifice yourself, Lucy. You must not defraud society of its rights. In a more refined circle, whose chances of happiness will be more likely to command than yours? You must go with me and Edith—go to Carolina. There you will find the proper homage. You will see the generous and the noble;—they will seek you—honorable gentlemen, proud of your favor, happy in your smiles—glad to offer you homes and hearts, such as shall be not unworthy of your own."
The girl heard him, but with no strengthening of self-confidence. The thought which occurred to her, which spoke of her claims, was that he had not found them so coercive. But, of course, she did not breathe the sentiment. She only sighed, and shook her head mournfully; replying, after a brief pause:—
"I must not hear you, Ralph. I thank you, I thank Miss Colleton, for the kindness of this invitation, but I dare not accept it. I can not go with you to Carolina. My lot is here with my aunt, or where she goes. I must not desert her. She is now even more destitute than myself."
"Impossible! Why, Lucy, your aunt tells me that she means to continue in this establishment. How can you reconcile it to yourself to remain here, with the peril of encountering the associations, such as we have already known them, which seem naturally to belong to such a border region."
"You forget, Ralph, that it was here I met with you," was the sudden reply, with a faint smile upon her lips.
"Yes; and I was driven here—by a fate, against my will—that we should meet, Lucy. But though we are both here, now, the region is unseemly to both, and neither need remain an hour longer than it is agreeable. Why should you remain out of your sphere, and exposed to every sort of humiliating peril."
"You forget—my aunt."
"Ay, but what security is there that she will not give you another uncle?"
"Oh, fie, Ralph!"
"Ay, she is too feeble of will, too weak, to be independent. She will marry again, Lucy, and is not the woman to choose wisely. Besides, she is not your natural aunt. She is so by marriage only. The tie between you is one which gives her no proper claim upon you."
"She has been kind to me, Ralph."
"Yet she would have seen you sacrificed to this outlaw!"
Lucy shuddered. He continued:—
"Her kindness, lacking strength and courage, would leave you still to be sacrificed, whenever a will, stronger than her own, should choose to assert a power over you. She can do nothing for you—not even for your security. You must not remain here, Lucy."
"Frankly, then, Ralph, I do not mean to do so long; nor does my aunt mean it. She is feeble, as you say; and, knowing it, I shall succeed in persuading her to sell out here, and we shall then remove to a more civilized region, to a better society, where, indeed, if you knew it, you would find nothing to regret, and see no reason to apprehend either for my securities or tastes. We shall seek refuge among my kindred—among the relatives of my mother—and I shall there be as perfectly at home, and quite as happy, as I can be any where."
"And where is it that you go, Lucy?"
"Forgive me, Ralph, but I must not tell you."
"Not tell me!"
"Better that I should not—better, far better! The duties for which the high Providence brought us together have been, I think, fairly accomplished. I have done my part, and you, Mr. Colleton—Ralph, I mean—you have done yours. There is nothing more that we may not do apart. Here, then, let our conference end. It is enough that you have complied with the dying wish of my uncle—that I have not, is not your fault."
"Not my fault, Lucy, but truly my misfortune. But I give not up my hope so easily. I still trust that you will think better of your determination, and conclude to go with us. We have a sweet home, and should not be altogether so happy in it, with the thought of your absence for ever in our minds."
"What!—not happy, and she with you!"
"Happy!—yes!—but far happier with both of you. You, my sister, and—"
"Say no more—"
"No more now, but I shall try other lips, perhaps more persuasive than mine. Edith shall come—"
His words were suddenly arrested by the energetic speech and action of his companion. She put her hand on his wrist—grasped it—and exclaimed—
"Let her not come! Bring her not here, Ralph Colleton! I have no wish to see her—will not see her, I tell you—would not have her see me for the world!"
Ralph was confounded, and recoiled from the fierce, spasmodic energy of the speaker, so very much at variance with the subdued tone of her previous conversation. He little knew what an effort was required hitherto, on her part, to maintain that tone, and to speak coolly and quietly of those fortunes, every thought of which brought only disappointment and agony to her bosom.
She dropped his hand as she concluded, and with eyes still fixed upon him, she half turned round, as if about to leave the room. But the crisis of her emotions was reached. She sickened with the effort. Her limbs grew too weak to sustain her; a sudden faintness overspread all her faculties—her eyes closed—she gasped hysterically, and tottering forward, she sank unconscious into the arms of Ralph, which were barely stretched out in time to save her from falling to the floor. He bore her to the sofa, and laid her down silently upon it.
He was struck suddenly with the truth to which he had hitherto shown himself so blind. He would have been the blindest and most obtuse of mortals, did he now fail to see. That last speech, that last look, and the fearful paroxysm which followed it, had revealed the poor girl's secret. Its discovery overwhelmed him, at once with the consciousness of his previous and prolonged dullness—which was surely mortifying—as with the more painful consciousness of the evil which he had unwittingly occasioned. But the present situation of the gentle victim called for immediate attention; and, hastily darting out to another apartment, he summoned Mrs. Munro to the succor of her niece.
"What is the matter, Mr. Colleton?"
"She faints," answered the other hoarsely, as he hurried the widow into the chamber.
"Bless my soul, what can be the matter!"
The wondering of the hostess was not permitted to consume her time and make her neglectful; Colleton did not suffer this. He hurried her with the restoratives, and saw them applied, and waiting only till he could be sure of the recovery of the patient, he hurried away, without giving the aunt any opportunity to examine him in respect to the cause of Lucy's illness.
Greatly excited, and painfully so, Ralph hastened at once to the lodgings of Edith. She was luckily alone. She cried out, as he entered—
"Well, Ralph, she will come with us?"
"No!"
"No!—and why not, Ralph! I must go and see her."
"She will not see you, Edith."
"Not see me!"
"No! She positively declines to see you."
"Why, Ralph, that is very strange. What can it mean?"
"Mean, Edith, it means that I am very unfortunate. I have been a blind fool if nothing worse."
"Why, what can you mean, Ralph. What is this new mystery? This is, surely, a place of more marvels than—"
"Hear me, Edith, my love, and tell me what you think. I am bewildered, mortified, confounded."
He proceeded, as well as he could, to relate what had occurred; to give, not only the words, but to describe the manner of Lucy—so much of it had been expressed in this way—and he concluded, with a warm suffusion of his cheeks, to mention the self-flattering conclusion to which he had come:—
"Now, Edith, you who know me so well, tell me, can you think it possible that I have done, or said anything which has been calculated to make her suppose that I loved her—that I sought her. In short, do you think me capable of playing the scoundrel. I feel that I have been blind—something of a fool, Edith—but, on my soul, I can not recall a moment in which I have said or shown anything to this poor girl which was unbecoming in the gentleman."
The maiden looked at him curiously. At first there was something like an arch smile playing upon her lips and in her light lively eyes. But when she noted how real was his anxiety—how deeply and keenly he felt his own doubt—she felt that the little jest which occurred to her fancy, would be unseemly and unreasonable. So, she answered promptly, but quietly—
"Pshaw, Ralph, how can you afflict yourself with, any such notions? I have no doubt of the perfect propriety of your conduct; and I will venture to say that Miss Munro entertains no reproaches."
"Yet, feeling so grateful to her, Edith—and when I first came here, lonely, wounded and suffering every way—feeling so much the want of sympathy—I may have shown to her—almost the only being with whom I could sympathize—I may have shown to her a greater degree of interest, than—"
"My dear Ralph, you are certainly one of the most modest young men of the present generation; that is, if you do not deceive yourself now, in your conjectures touching the state of Miss Munro's affections. After all, it may be a sudden illness from exhaustion, excitement, terror—which you have undertaken to account for by supposing her desperately in love."
"Heaven grant it be so," answered Ralph.
"Well, whether so or not, do not distress yourself. I will answer for it, you are not to blame. And here, let me whisper a little secret in your ears. However forbidden by all the wise, solemn, staid regulations of good society, there are young women—very few I grant you—who will, without the slightest call for it, or provocation, suffer their little hearts to go out of their own keeping—who will—I am ashamed to confess it—positively suffer themselves to love even where the case is hopeless—where no encouragement is given to them—where they can have no rights at all, and where they can only sigh, and mourn, and envy the better fortunes of other people. I have no doubt that Miss Munro is one of these very unsophisticated persons; and that you have been all the while, and only the innocent cause of all her troubles. I acquit you of lèse majesté, Ralph, so put off your doleful faces."
"Don't speak so carelessly of the matter, Edith. We owe this dear girl a heavy debt—I do, at least."
"And we shall try and pay it, Ralph. But you must leave this matter to me. I will go and see Lucy."
"But she refuses to see you."
"I will not be refused. I will see her, and she shall see me, and I trust we shall succeed in taking her home with us. It may be, Ralph, that she will feel shy in thinking of you as a brother, but I will do my best to make her adopt me as a sister."
"My own, my generous Edith—it was ever thus—you are always the noble and the true. Go, then—you are right—you must go alone. Relieve me from this sorrow if you can. I need not say to you, persuade her, if in your power; for much I doubt whether her prospects are altogether so good as she has represented them to me. So fine a creature must not be sacrificed."
Edith lost no time in proceeding to the dwelling and into the chamber of Lucy Munro. She regarded none of the objections of the old lady, the aunt of her she sought, who would have denied her entrance. Edith's was a spirit of the firmest mould—tenacious of its purpose, and influenced by no consideration which would have jostled with the intended good. She approached the sufferer, who lay half-conscious only on her couch. Lucy could not be mistaken as to the person of her visiter. The noble features, full of generous beauty and a warm spirit, breathing affection for all human things, and doubly expanded with benevolent sweetness when gazing down upon one needing and deserving of so much—all told her that the beloved and the betrothed of Ralph Colleton was before her. She looked but once; then, sighing deeply, turned her head upon the pillow, so as to shut out a presence so dangerously beautiful.
But Edith was a woman whose thoughts—having deeply examined the minute structure of her own heart—could now readily understand that of another which so nearly resembled it. She perceived the true course for adoption; and, bending gently over the despairing girl, she possessed herself of one of her hands, while her lips, with the most playful sweetness of manner, were fastened upon those of the sufferer. The speech of such an action was instantaneous in its effect.
"Oh, why are you here—why did you come?" was the murmured inquiry of the drooping maiden.
"To know you—to love you—to win you to love me, Lucy. I would be worthy of your love, dear girl, if only to be grateful. I know how worthy you are of all of mine. I have heard all."
"No! no! not all—not all, or you never would be here."
"It is for that very reason that I am here. I have discovered more than Ralph Colleton could report, and love you all the better, Lucy, as you can feel with me how worthy he is of the love of both."
A deep sigh escaped the lips of the lovely sufferer, and her face was again averted from the glance of her visiter. The latter passed her arm under her neck, and, sitting on the bedside, drew Lucy's head to her bosom.
"Yes, Lucy, the woman has keener instincts than the man, and feels even where he fails to see. Do not wonder, therefore, that Edith Colleton knows more than her lover ever dreamed of. And now I come to entreat you to love me for his sake. You shall be my sister, Lucy, and in time you may come to love me for my own sake. My pleasant labor, Lucy, shall be to win your love—to force you to love me, whether you will or no. We can not alter things; can not change the courses of the stars; can not force nature to our purposes in the stubborn heart or the wilful fancy: and the wise method is to accommodate ourselves to the inevitable, and see if we can not extract an odor from the breeze no matter whence it blows. Now, I am an only child, Lucy. I have neither brother nor sister, and want a friend, and need a companion, one whom I can love—"
"You will have—have—your husband."
"Yes, Lucy, and as a husband! But I am not content. I must have you, also, Lucy."
"Oh, no, no! I can not—can not!"
"You must! I can not and will not go without you. Hear me. You have mortified poor Ralph very much. He swore to your uncle, in his dying moments—an awful moment—that you should be his sister—that you should enjoy his protection. His own desires—mine—my father's—all concur to make us resolute that Ralph shall keep his oath! And he must! and you must consent to an arrangement upon which we have set our hearts."
"To live with him—to see him daily!" murmured the suffering girl.
"Ay, Lucy," answered the other boldly; "and to love him, and honor him, and sympathize with him in his needs, as a true, devoted woman and sister, so long as he shall prove worthy in your eyes and mine. I know that I am asking of you, Lucy, what I would ask of no ordinary woman. If I held you to be an ordinary woman, to whom we simply owe a debt of gratitude, I should never dream to offer such an argument. But it is because you do love him, that I wish you to abide with us; your love hallowed by its own fires, and purifying itself, as it will, by the exercise of your mind upon it."
The cheeks of Lucy flushed suddenly, but she said nothing. Edith stooped to her, and kissed her fondly; Then she spoke again, so tenderly, so gently, with such judicious pleading—appealing equally to the exquisite instincts of the loving woman and the thoughtful mind—that the suffering girl was touched.
But she struggled long. She was unwilling to be won. She was vexed that she was so weak: she was so weary of all struggle, and she needed sympathy and love so much!
How many various influences had Edith to combat! how many were there working in her favor! What a conflict was it all in the poor heart of the sorrowful and loving Lucy!
Edith was a skilful physician for the heart—skilful beyond her years.
Love was the great want of Lucy.
Edith soon persuaded her that she knew how to supply it. She was so solicitous, so watchful, so tender, so—
Suddenly the eyes of Lucy gushed with a volume of tears, and she buried her face in Edith's bosom; and she wept—how passionately!—the sobbings of an infant succeeding to the more wild emotions of the soul, and placing her, like a docile and exhausted child, at the entire control of her companion, even as if she had been a mother.
"Do with me as you will, Edith, my sister."
There was really no argument, there were no reasons given, which could persuade any mind, having first resolved on the one purpose, to abandon it for the other. How many reasons had Lucy for being firm in the first resolution she had made!
But the ends of wisdom do not depend upon the reasons which enforce conviction. Nay, conviction itself, where the heart is concerned, is rarely to be moved by any efforts, however noble, of the simply reasoning faculty.
Shall we call them arts—the processes by which Edith Colleton had persuaded Lucy Munro to her purposes? No! it was the sweet nature, the gentle virtues, the loving tenderness, the warm sympathies, the delicate tact—these, superior to art and reason, were made evident to the suffering girl, in the long interview in which they were together; and her soul melted under their influence, and the stubborn will was subdued, and again she murmured lovingly—
"Do with me as you will, my sister."