The suggestion was followed. In a few minutes, those who had been so fortunate as to obtain beds, had retired to the loft above; while the remainder stretched themselves indiscriminately on the floor, and were soon buried in profound repose.
By this time the tempest had increased again, so that the signal guns could not be distinguished. But Major Gordon, who had never heard similar sounds before, was long haunted in his sleep by the report of cannon booming solemnly across the night.
CHAPTER VI.
MAJOR GORDON
The morning comes, but brings no sun.
The sky with clouds is overrun. —T. Buchanan Read.
A piteous fearful sight,
A noble vessel laboring with the storm. —Maturin.
It is time that we should say something of the young officer, who, as the reader has suspected, is destined to play no inconsiderable part in our story.
Major Gordon had been left an orphan at an early age, with but a small competence, most of which had been exhausted on his education, so that, on his attaining his majority, his whole property consisted of little more than sufficient to purchase a library and support himself for a couple of years. By assiduity in his profession, however, which was that of the law, assisted by a natural gift of eloquence, he rapidly rose to ease and distinction; and was fast taking rank, indeed, among the eminent advocates of whom Philadelphia boasted then, as now, when the war of Independence broke out. Like most other generous and heroic spirits, he threw himself with ardor into the patriotic cause. Abandoning his practice and the tempting offers it held out, he joined the troops raised by the colony of Pennsylvania, in which he speedily attained the rank of Major. Subsequently he had been attached to the staff of General Wayne, and afterwards had been employed on several delicate missions, where judgment and discretion were required as well as courage. It was one of these latter tasks which had brought him to the coast now. A cargo of powder was expected to be landed in the river, and as it was much wanted at camp, he had been despatched to receive and forward it to head-quarters.
There were as yet no signs of daybreak, when Major Gordon, who had slept but indifferently, awoke and looked at his watch. By the dim light of the solitary candle, he saw that morning would dawn by the time they could get their craft ready; and accordingly, picking his way between the rows of beds, he descended into the lower apartment, and proceeded to arouse Mullen. The latter individual was awoke with some difficulty.
“Morning, is it, Major?” he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Why the night’s as black as a wolf’s mouth yet. Look at the window and see for yourself.”
“But it will be daylight before we are ready. I’d trust my watch sooner than my eyes, especially on a morning like this.”
“Well, I’m your man,” said Mullen, who, being now thoroughly awake, sprang up with alacrity and proceeded to arouse his comrades, one by one; carefully avoiding, however, disturbing the other sleepers, who all slumbered heavily after their debauch.
In a short while the little band came forth and took their way, by the light of a lantern, to the spot where Mullen’s craft was moored.
“What a storm it has been,” said Major Gordon. “I heard the rain beating, the wind roaring, and the waters dashing, all through the night. Sometimes I also fancied I distinguished signal-guns; but that, I began to fear, was only a dream, since there’s no sign of them now.”
“It’s sartain none have been fired since we came out,” answered Mullen, “for we’d have been sure to hear ‘em. The wind has lulled, but the gale’s not over. There’ll maybe not much more rain fall; but I shouldn’t be surprised to hear it blow great guns the better part of the day.”
“I suppose the schooner would not be apt to come in, on such a morning,” said Major Gordon, alluding to the vessel whose arrival he was expecting.
“No, she’d keep an offing, while she has it. Her skipper is a good sailor, and he’ll turn up, right and tight, though not till the gale’s over.”
“Unless he’s been captured,” said the Major. “He should have been here two days ago, and his delay makes me think, sometimes, that he has been taken by the British.”
“Give yourself no consarn on that p’int, Major,” retorted Mullen. “The schooner’s a clipper of a craft; none of your scows, made by the cord and cut off in lengths to suit customers; but a ra’al beauty, sharp as a nor’wester on a winter mornin’, and that can go into the wind’s eye like a duck. The skipper, too, knows every inlet on the coast, and all the shallows, so that if a cruiser was to follow him, he’d lead the fellow aground in no time, and then giving him a shot, to make fun of him like, set everything drawing on the opposite tack, and leave him to get off as he could.”
By this time they had reached their craft, which was a half-decked boat, with a single mast, of a description still frequent in those waters. There was some delay in getting her ready for a start, and still more in tracking her out of the small creek where she lay; but at last the adventurers succeeded in gaining open water just as the gloom of night was giving way to the dim, stormy day. The high wind compelled the crew to close-reef their mainsail, and even with this mere shred of canvass, the boat staggered along like a drunken man, laboring heavily in the rough, cross sea.
“Heaven grant we may be in time,” said Major Gordon. “But this long silence of the alarm guns, and this fierce wind, are ominous of disaster.”
“It’s four chances to one that we’re goin’ on a fool’s errand,” answered Mullen. “First, the ship’s probably gone down before this; and second, if she hasn’t, her people are most likely drowned; for, if neither of these had happened, we would have heard her guns off and on through the night. Third, if she’s struck, it’s probably on the outer bar, a mile from shore, where nobody can get at her. Fourth, if even she’s in the very breakers, she’ll probably go to pieces before we can do anything to help ‘em.”
“Surely,” said Major Gordon, “if she’s in the breakers, we can save her people in some way.”
“There’s small chance of that,” was the answer. “You don’t know this coast like I do, Major, or you’d hardly have insisted on coming out. No boat could live a moment in the surf that must now be beating on the shore. I’ve seen many a poor fellow hang in the shrouds, in my time, for a matter of twenty-four hours or so; and that, too, with a dozen or more looking at him all the while—yet he’s been forced to drop into the sea at last, because no one could get to him. It was only last January, that one of King George’s transports struck and bilged in a snow-storm, on the beach right ahead of us; and not a soul was saved. The coast was strewed, for miles, with dead bodies, some of officers in uniforms, and others of common soldiers; and there were women, too, among ‘em. I wasn’t on the beach myself, but from all accounts it was dreadful to see. Once, howsomever, I knew three men to cling to the cross-trees of a sloop, which had sunk in some twelve feet water, and there they held fast, like dying men will, for two days and a night. I could hear their cries all the while, for the wind blew strong on shore; but they got weaker and faint-like, ‘specially towards the first night; and on the second morning there was only one could be heard.”
He paused, moved by the mere recollection, and then proceeded.
“His voice, too, as the day went on, got weaker, till about an hour before sunset, and when at last the surf was beginning to go down, he dropped quietly into the sea. The others had died hours before. So I doubt if we can do any good, even if we find a wreck. It’s a bad thing, too, Major, to see poor creatures in mortal agony, yet not be able to help ‘em. You’ll wish you’d never come. But as you say go, go we do.”
“Thank you,” answered Major Gordon, with a husky voice, deeply moved by the sad narratives of the speaker, and almost convinced that he was only conducting them to the threshold of another drama of the same character. “But I could never again rest in my bed, if I didn’t make an effort, at least, to see if there’s a wreck, and try what can be done. I should be always hearing the boom of the alarm gun in my dreams.”
The rain had now ceased, but a drizzling mist had set in, through whose folds the dreary landscape looked more desolate than ever. The slate-colored clouds, flying just overhead, drifted rapidly in from the sea, and sweeping past, like the wings of gigantic birds seen in the dusk of night, disappeared in the vague haze inland. As the boat beat across the bay, the water flew crackling over her forecastle, often even wetting Major Gordon and Mullen in the stern; while the parted waves, bubbling and hissing by, whirled off behind in creamy eddies.
After awhile the southern edge of the open water was attained, when the craft entered a labyrinth of comparatively narrow channels, winding between salt-marshes. The black, saline mud of these marshes emitted a pungent smell, as the waves washed along the banks; while the long grass, which thickly covered their surface, whistled or rattled in the gale. Occasionally, a gull was seen, screaming aloft, in spite of the storm, now swept swiftly down the wind, and now slowly battling his way up against the tempest.
“There it is,” suddenly cried one of the crew, and, as he spoke, he pointed across the beach, along whose inner side the boat was now coasting.
They were opposite where, at its narrowest part, sea. and bay approached within a few hundred yards of each other; and, following the direction of the man’s finger, Major Gordon saw a large ship, lying some distance from the shore, with her masts gone and apparently deserted.
She lay, careened towards the south, at a right angle to the coast, so that nearly every wave swept her for the entire length of her decks. At first, as we have said, she seemed deserted. But, looking more closely, Major Gordon discovered, under the lee of her weather side, and sheltered by the high stern, two female figures, attended by a solitary companion of the other sex.
“Luff, luff,” he cried to Mullen, who was steering. “She’ll lay close alongside the bank, won’t she? Let go everything with a run.”
In a moment the craft rasped against the steep mud bank, and in another Major Gordon had leaped ashore, and was moving towards the surf, leaving the others to follow more at leisure.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ABORTIVE ATTEMPT
Shout to them in the pauses of the storm,
And tell them there is hope.
* * * It is too late;
No help of human hand can reach them there;
One hour will hush their cries. —Maturin.
All sat mute,
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts. —Milton.
At this sight, the three persons on the wreck, who, when first seen, had seemed as inanimate as stone, started up, and while the females clasped their hands, their companion began to wave a handkerchief as a signal.
In a lull of the gale, Major Gordon shouted to them, making an impromptu speaking-trumpet of his hands. Only a faint sound, however, came back, proving that the strangers had replied; its purport was undistinguishable.
“They can’t hear a word you say,” remarked Mullen, coming up. “But they saw you were speaking to them, by your actions. If we can’t hear them,” he pertinently added, “with the wind towards us, how can they hear us?”
“Hark!” answered Major Gordon, “I thought I made out a word or two then. Didn’t he say that all on board were lost except themselves?”
“Likely enough. But see, he’s got a speaking-trumpet.”
As he spoke, Captain Powell raised that instrument to his mouth, and shouted, in broken intervals, that all on board had been lost except three; that they had no boats, nor anybody to man them if they had; and that the ladies could never reach shore alive, if they jumped overboard, even lashed to a spar. He concluded by saying—
“Haven’t you a whale-boat?”
Again Major Gordon attempted to make himself audible. But though he shouted again and again, and with a Stentor’s voice, it was evident that his accents were not heard on the wreck. Two or three of the others made a similar essay, but with no better success.
“We can’t hear a word,” shouted Captain Powell. “The ship won’t hold together much longer. Get a whale-boat, for the love of God, or we are lost.”
“Alas!” said Major Gordon, turning to Mullen, “there’s no such thing within ten miles—is there?” “No,” interrupted Mullen, shaking his head.
“But something must be done. I think a strong man might swim out to the wreck with a rope.” “Swim out with a rope!”
“Yes!”
“What good would that do?”
“If,” replied the Major, “we had a line out to the ship, it might be used to draw a cable from her ashore; and if there was a cable hauled taut, I’m sure I could rig a sort of sliding hammock, by which to land the ladies: for the hammock could be made to travel to and fro by lines attached to either end.”
Mullen regarded the speaker in mute admiration for a full minute before he spoke.
“I always said,” he replied, at last, “that it was everything to be a scollard. Now I might have puzzled over this matter for a week, yet never have thought of such a way as that. It would do, sartainly, if we only had the line out.”
“If I had a mortar here, and tools, I could fix it so as to throw a line over the wreck at once.”
“A musket wouldn’t do,” said Mullen, musingly; “even one with so big a bore as a ‘Queen Anne.’ I’ve a capital one in the boat.”
“It couldn’t throw a line strong enough. The strain of the cable, when the latter came to be dragged through the water, would snap it immediately.”
“More’s the pity,” answered Mullen, as if reluctantly abandoning a scheme, which he would have liked to have seen tried for its novelty, at least, “for I see we’ll have to give the thing up.”
“Give it up!” cried the Major.
“Yes!”
“Can’t a man swim off, as I proposed?”
Mullen shook his head.
“I’m not so sure,” stoutly said Major Gordon.
“It would be tempting death.”
The men had been eagerly listening to this conversation. The scheme of Major Gordon, to judge by the expression of their faces, had filled them with not less admiration than it had Mullen. The Major now turned to each countenance in succession, to see if any listener thought more favorably than Mullen of the feasibility of swimming off with a line. But the scrutiny was in vain.
“Think of the women,” he said, addressing the group, and hoping yet to move some one. “Have you no wives or daughters? Have none of you mothers? There is one lady there whose gray hairs ought to remind you of a mother. Would you stand idly here if your own was in such extremity? Have none of you sisters? That young, delicate-looking creature there should appeal to your hearts.”
As he spoke, he pointed vehemently to the wreck; but no one moved. Suddenly, he began to disencumber himself of his superfluous clothing.
“I, at least,” he said, “will not see them perish without an effort to save them. A strong man, I am sure, might swim out, by taking advantage of the breakers. He can’t run any great risk, either; for, if he fails, he can be drawn ashore again by the rope. Run, some one, to the boat, and bring the halyards. I will tie one end about my waist; the other can be held fast here; if we splice it, we can make it long enough.” By this time he had thrown off his coat and waistcoat, and was proceeding to disencumber himself of his boots, when suddenly one of the men spoke up. It was Newell, the one whom Mullen had asked to volunteer. He was a youth about nineteen, powerfully built, and deep-chested like a bull, who had been watching his leader and listening to his words, with a face whose agitated working showed the tumult in his heart. His honest nature could now endure it no longer.
“Stop that,” he cried, stepping forward, and laying his hand on Major Gordon’s arm. “You’re not agoing. I say, you’re not agoing, sir,” he added, determinedly, “for I’m going myself.” And he began doggedly to strip at the words. “I’m the best swimmer here, and therefore the properest man to undertake the job. I can do it, when you’d drown.”
“But—” began Major Gordon.
“Look here, Major,” interposed the youth, fiercely. “Don’t you think other men’s got feelings as well as you? Don’t you ‘spose I can pity ‘em,” and he jerked his finger over his shoulder in the direction of the wreck, “as much as some others? I only waited till I saw you were in real earnest; for it’s more than an even chance the man drowns that tries it, and that’s enough to make any one hold back a bit; but since you’re fixed to go, I’ll go instead.”
“I have a right to throw away my own life, but not to ask you to throw away yours,” said Major Gordon, putting his hand on the youth, as if to stop his further disrobing. “No, I shall go.”
The youth looked fiercely on the speaker, as if he would have liked to knock him down, provided their relations in life had been more equal; but he contented himself with shaking off the Major’s hand, and continuing, with rude directness—
“My life’s my own, and yours is your country’s. If I drown, there’s no one to cry over it, not even my poor old mother; for she died last winter, God pity her, after the refugees robbed her.” And he brushed a tear hastily from his eye.
“Let him go, Major,” said Mullen, “for he will go, now that he’s said it; and he’s the most fitting, too, by odds. Charley Newell can, after all, swim like a duck, and knows these breakers from a child; I doubt if the porpoises can tumble about as safely in them as he can. I had forgotten him, or I wouldn’t have said it was so mad a thing to try to swim off. He’ll do it, if man can do it. Here come the ropes from the boat. At the worst we won’t let him drown. We can haul him in, hand over hand, at the first sign of his giving out.”
The youth had, by this time, stripped himself of every article of clothing not absolutely necessary, and now stood before the group the model of a modern Hercules. Major Gordon, as he looked at the brawny arms, and the volume of muscle knotted on the ample chest, could not but acknowledge that his opponent, even without his greater skill in the surf, would be able to contend twice as long in the waters as himself, from sheer superiority of muscle. He, therefore, ceased to object to the substitution. What would have been duty, if no other person had volunteered, became foolhardiness when a more suitable one offered.
“Go, then,” he said, fervently clasping the youth’s hand, “and God be with you. I shall not forget your heroism.”
“I’ll do it, if it’s in the sinoos of a man,” said he, returning the grasp, till the Major’s fingers crunched as if in a vice. And measuring the distance between the beach and the wreck with his eye, he continued— “Many’s the time I’ve swum ten times as far for fun, and though never in quite such a surf, yet often in one a’most as bad.”
By this time his comrades were engaged in fixing one end of the rope around his waist. He felt of it, to see that it held firm, and hitching himself up, he said, with an attempt at jocularity not unusual at such times with men of his class—
“It’s rather a long tail for a man to go to sea with, and beat’s a Chinaman’s dead hollow; but I guess a fellow can manage it. So here goes.”
As he spoke, he ran gayly down into the undertow. For an instant, his comrades looked upon him in silence, but when he turned, on the very edge of the surf, to wave a last farewell, they broke simultaneously into a cheer.
The youth did not wait till the huzza subsided, but, watching his opportunity, plunged into a wave that was just then about to break, and while the tons of water, overwhelming him, rushed roaring and churning up the sands, vanished from sight.
For what seemed an age, the spectators watched and waited, in vain, for his reappearance.
“He is gone already,” said Major Gordon, drawing a deep breath, after this interval. “No, there he is. He comes up buoyant as a cork. See how he takes that second roller!”
It would have excited even the most phlegmatic had they witnessed the gallant manner in which the youth battled his way against that terrible sea. For, during a time, he actually seemed to be about effecting his purpose. It is true that, when forced by temporary exhaustion to ride the incoming billows, he was often swept almost ashore again: but by a few skillful plunges he would regain the ground which he had lost, and even more. Now an intervening billow, towering far towards the sky, would hide him completely from the gaze of his anxious comrades; and often his disappearance would be so prolonged, that the spectators would tremble again for his safety. Now, just when all gave him up for lost, he would shoot into sight once more, rising on the side of another approaching billow, and shaking, as he rose, the water from his hair, like a Newfoundland emerging after a dive. One moment his form would be seen, standing out in bold relief against the polished side of a wave, and the next it would be half concealed amid a whirlwind of foam that rushed over the crest of the breaker.
At one time nearly half the distance between the shore and wreck had been conquered. The worst was apparently over.
“He’ll do it,” cried Mullen, excitedly. “What a brave fellow he is! I never could have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“Ah!” suddenly interrupted Major Gordon, as a tremendous billow was seen approaching the swimmer, and forgetting that his warning could not be heard, and would have been useless if it could, he shouted— “Look out, look out!”
For one instant it came on, heaping its mass of waters up continually higher, towering and towering until the spectators fairly ran cold with horror. Then, curling majestically over, away up against the sky, it poured downwards like some huge cataract in one vast mountain of foam, a pistol shot out beyond where the waves usually broke. The swimmer had seen it coming, and had plunged through it with steadfast courage, but apparently in vain; for the shattered waters rolled past him, yet he remained still invisible. Another gigantic wave was seen rising close in the wake of its predecessor, yet he did not emerge. The minutes appeared hours. Then the second wave broke and came on, racing after the other, covering the sea with its whitened fragments.
“It’s the rope that’s dragging him down,” cried Mullen.
“He could have done it alone, but the weight of the line, and the strain on it shorewards, are too much for him. He’ll drown, if we don’t pull him in, and that at once.”
“Hold,” cried Major Gordon, authoritatively, as several sprang to aid Mullen with the rope. “There he comes again. Don’t you see him? He’s alive and safe. But he’s lost way terribly,” he added, “in those two surges.”
“He’s alive, sir,” replied Mullen, “but his strength’s gone. You can see that by the way he swims. He’ll never do it now, sir. The seas are coming in, too, as if they knew what he’s after, and were not going to lose their prey out yonder. What monsters! Every one of ‘em rollers, and chasing each other as if they were wild Indians. The very beach shakes as they break. He swims bravely, but it’s no use. I can see he blows hard. Ha! he goes under; his arms fly up over his head. Pull now, my lads,” he shouted quickly, “pull away, or your comrade will be dead before you get him in.”
Mullen had not exaggerated the peril. It was apparent that the prisoner had struggled long after every rational prospect of success was gone; and that he had succumbed at last only by overtasked nature giving way all at once. Major Gordon, who had watched the struggle for the last five minutes, as if his own life depended on the issue, cheered the men by his example, and taking his station in the very midst of the breakers, stood there, hauling in on the line, and watching for the first indication of the exhausted swimmer.
It required but little more time than we have taken to describe all this, when the apparently lifeless form of Newell made its appearance. Major Gordon grasped it eagerly, but being prostrated at that moment by a breaker, would have been drowned himself, if the two had not been dragged ashore together by those on the beach. He recovered his feet even then with difficulty, and quite breathless; but the swimmer was seemingly dead.
“Turn him over on his face,” cried Mullen, quickly. “Lift up his feet. Now rub him with sand. Every moment is precious.”
But these, as well as the other restorative measures usually adopted on such occasions, utterly failed. The spirit seemed to have fled forever from the bruised and beaten body.
“It can’t be,” said Major Gordon, kneeling in an agony by the prostrate form. “But for me, too, he had not died. Charley! Charley! look up!”
Whether the mortal anguish with which these words were spoken had power to stop the spirit when about to wing its flight, or whether nature was already resuscitating, the eyes opened faintly, at this crisis, with a shudder, closed, opened again, and then steadily regarded the kneeling officer, while a faint smile stole over his face.
“He’s coming to,” said Mullen, in a voice tremulous with joyful emotion. “You know us, Charley, don’t you? There’s no fear, Major; he’ll do well enough now.”
In five minutes, indeed, he was able to sit up on the sand, though still too weak to speak, except a word or two at a time.
“He’s worth a dozen dead men,” said Mullen, gayly, at this, the spirits of the party recovering with a rebound.
“It most fotched you that time,” said a negro, who was among the volunteers, as he paused from rubbing. “I thought you a gone coon, Charley, when I saw you rolled over and over, like a kitten that’s got a dab from its mammy’s paw. But you dodged the devil; them that’s born to be hanged can’t be drowned. Ha! ha!” and as the recovered mariner made a weak, playful attempt to strike him, the dapper little fellow fell over in the sand, in convulsions of laughter at what he thought his wit.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RESCUE
I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs —Shakespeare.
With head upraised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart. —Scott.
During the period that Newell had been in such imminent peril, the persons on the wreck had been wholly forgotten. Major Gordon was the first to remember the sufferers. Looking up, he saw that the companion of the ladies had left their side, and was slowly working his way out on the bowsprit, which impended far over the boiling surge. At the same moment, Mullen also raised his eyes.
“Does he mean to leave the wimmen?” he said, indignantly.
“I think not,” answered Major Gordon. “He could scarcely be such a craven.”
“And yet,” musingly returned Mullen, “it’s only throwing away another life if he stays. He can’t save the wimmen; yet,” he added, dubiously, “perhaps he might save himself.”
Major Gordon, however, could not thus excuse the desertion. He made no reply, therefore, to Mullen.
“The ship seems to be breaking up,” remarked Mullen, “which, I take it, is the reason of that fellow’s hurry. The wind, since the vessel came ashore, has hauled towards sou’east, and the waves, as you see, instead of striking her plump aft, rush quartering over her sides. They begin to reach the place where the wimmen have sheltered themselves, and will wash it, every other surge, before long. No timber can stand such tremendous racking, and you’ll see the craft split in two directly. But what can’t be cured,” he added, with homely philosophy, “must be endured. I feared this, when you wanted to come, for I don’t like to see such sights; but we can’t do ‘em any good; and they’re not the first, you know, that have died in this way. If your plan could have been carried out, we might have got ‘em off safely; and it’s a pity, for it was a good notion, that of yourn.”
To much of this, however, Major Gordon had not even listened. He had been intently watching the proceedings of Captain Powell.
“Ha!” cried the Major, now, “I thought the man could not be such a villain. He’ll try to swim ashore with a rope. He has taken the hint from us.”
As Major Gordon said, Captain Powell, divining the plan of those on shore, had resolved to attempt reaching shore with a line, when he saw Newell’s failure. Accordingly he had crept forward to the bow of the ship, where hastily fastening a light rope to a cable, and arranging both so that they would run out freely, he dropped himself into the sea, from the end of the bowsprit, just as the Major spoke his last words. “Well, he’s a ten-spot anyhow,” said Mullen, taking a figure from his favorite game of cards. “See, he comes to the surface. He strikes out bravely. As you say, Major, he’ll maybe do it, for he has the current to help him. But if he fails, there’ll not be a bit of hope left for those behind. Look how they watch him. The young one has actually clambered up the starboard bulwark, and is looking over to see him, and the old one’s praying.”
Kate, as the speaker said, was leaning over the side of the ship, at no little peril to herself, in order to watch the progress of Captain Powell. She it was who had first unriddled what seemed to the captain the unaccountable movements of those on shore, her fertile intellect having suggested the possibility of the proposed mode of rescue, and mentioned it to her companions. It may be supposed that she watched with intense interest the gallant effort of the young swimmer to reach them. When that attempt failed, she had resigned herself to death, until Captain Powell declared his intention of making an endeavor to carry a line ashore himself.
“It’s our only chance. Without people on land to help afterwards, it would be of no use; and it’s an even chance whether it succeeds now. All that I have in my favor is the current, and that may prove treacherous. You are both lashed fast, and can’t be well washed overboard. But, in any event, this suspense won’t last much longer; for the ship must soon go to pieces. God grant that I may not be too late, even if I reach the shore.”
“She’s a brave girl, whoever she is,” the Major answered to Mullen. “Most of her sex, at such times, I’m told, lose all presence of mind, and I don’t wonder at it. But she seems as courageous as Joan of Arc.”
“Jane Arc,” said Mullen, innocently. “I don’t know her. Some soldier girl in the army, Major, like Captain Molly, at Monmouth battle?”
Major Gordon did not reply; in fact he did not hear the remark, for his faculties were absorbed in watching the crisis of Captain Powell’s fate. Now the swimmer would be hurried on, a hundred feet or more, by a single wave. Now he would be caught by a counter current and drifted obliquely out to sea again. Here a roller would submerge him. There he would succeed in riding an enormous wave, which the spectators had feared would carry him under. For awhile he appeared neither to gain nor to lose. At last, a fortunate billow, exactly such another as had frustrated Newell going in an opposite direction, caught the swimmer, and hurried him towards the beach, like a stone sent from a sling.
Instantaneously everybody rushed to the edge of the breaker.
“Join hands! form a line!” cried Mullen; “we must catch him as he comes in, or the undertow may carry him off again. And even if it don’t,” he added, “the breakers will pummel the life out of him directly.” Mullen himself took the advanced post, thrusting Major Gordon behind, saying, “I’m more used to it!” and the rest placed themselves as accident permitted. A few moments of eager expectation followed. Then the form of the now senseless mariner was seen rushing towards them, on the crest of a breaker; the waters descended; the two leaders of the line seized the body; and then all went under together, most of them being struck flat on the strand.
It was only for a second, however. Still holding fast to each other, they struggled to their feet, and when the wave receded, stood there triumphantly, Mullen and the Major having the Captain in their arms, and the rest of the party already seizing the line which communicated with the ship.
Captain Powell, though temporarily stunned, revived almost as soon as they bore him out of the water. But his accents were broken and faint. He trembled also like a child. He had wound up his entire energies to his late terrible struggle, and the revulsion left him, nervously as well as muscularly, as helpless as an infant.
“Haul on the line!” he said, feebly. “I made it fast to a stout cable. Thank God! Thank God!”
Never did men pull on a rope more lustily than his hearers. Mullen himself timed them, with a “Yo, heave o’, merrily, lads, merrily,” so that in a little while, the cable had reached half way to the shore. All at once, however, it refused to advance. In vain they pulled; not an inch would it give; and at last Mullen ordered them to desist lest they should break the rope.
Ever since Captain Powell had been brought so successfully to land, the spirits of the party had risen to the highest pitch, for they regarded the deliverance of the ladies as now certain. But at this check their feelings underwent a change. Whatever it was that stopped the cable, all hope of succoring those on the wreck must be abandoned, unless a way could be found to remove the impediment.
“The line won’t hold out long, either,” said Mullen; “for the force of the waves, with the dead weight of the cable attached to it, will snap it in two.”
“It must have caught on the ship,” added Major Gordon. Then suddenly, he continued in excited tones, “That brave girl sees it. She leaves her companion. She is coming forward, clinging to the starboard bulwarks. Heavens! the wave will reach her. No, it dashes to her feet, and then recedes, as if awed by her high courage. She has gained the bow. She stoops to examine the cable. She waves her hand to us. Pull away. It yields. It comes. Merrily in with it, lads.”
The excitement of this scene had not been confined to Major Gordon. The spectators followed every movement of Kate, with an absorption of feeling it would be impossible to describe; and when finally the cable began to move again, they burst simultaneously into a huzza. Even the two swimmers, exhausted as they were, and still unable to stand, had raised themselves on their elbows to watch the progress of Kate, and now joined feebly in the shouts at her success.
The cable was hauled in without further obstruction. Once secured, and made taut, the men proceeded, under the directions of Major Gordon, to rig the traveling hammock. Two of the mainsail hoops were first taken from the mast of the boat, however, and passed over the cable. The hammock was then soon rigged. A long line was attached to one end of this hammock, in order to be used for the ship, while a similar one was fastened to the other end.
Two of the most agile of the party were now selected to go off to the vessel. This they effected by traversing the cable, which they did with an agility that only sailors possess. It would have made any other description of person giddy to have crossed that awful abyss on a support so slender and vibratory.
We will not detain the reader by a tiresome recital of the rest of that eventful history. For, after the impromptu apparatus had been once securely rigged, the deliverance of Kate and her aunt was merely an affair of time.
Kate insisted on being left till the last. There was some difficulty in getting her still terrified aunt to the bow of the ship, and more in placing her safely in the hammock; but as her assistants had the precaution to lash her tightly in, so that she should not, in a moment of frenzied panic, leap from her frail couch, she reached the land without further hindrance. Kate followed. With unmoved nerve she stepped into the frail car, disposed herself so as to preserve its equilibrium, and holding firmly to it, was borne ashore with a rapidity that seemed almost like flying.
The two watermen now lost no time in abandoning the vessel. It was wise that they made such haste, for, in less than half an hour, and before the party had been able to prepare their boat for making sail again, the stout old craft, succumbing at last to the angry surges, parted in the middle, and rapidly broke into fragments.
CHAPTER IX.
SWEETWATER
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer’s lingering blooms delay’d,
Dear, lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, where every sport could please. —Goldsmith.
Near one of the affluents of the river, off whose mouth occurred the transactions recorded in the preceding chapters, stands the village, or rather hamlet, of Sweetwater. It is one of those quiet, solitary spots, nestled by lake and wood, which makes visitors from cities so passionately in love with the country. Situated about half way between the Delaware and the Atlantic, and surrounded for miles on miles by an almost unbroken forest, it is effectually shut out from the roar and tumult of the great world. The very atmosphere breathes of peace and happiness. The stars seem to shine there more gently than anywhere else. A dreamy languor pervades the place, as if amid the drowsy hum of bees and the low gurgle of cool waters, life would pass like one long, delicious, summer afternoon.
The few dwellings which Sweetwater boasts—and more would destroy the magical quiet of the place—are ranged around one end of the pond, which forms the chief beauty of the location. An open space, something like a village green, lies between them and the water, only here, instead of being covered with sward, it is of the whitest and purest sand; and no one, who has not visited it, can imagine the fine effect of this snowy bit of landscape, relieved on one side by the translucent lake, and on the other by the dark pine woods.
At the northern end of the hamlet stands an old mill, whose waste-gate is raised for most of the year, so that, look over the little bridge when you will, the water will be seen gliding darkly underneath, as it shoots roaring and flashing to meet the stream below. Full many a time, when we were a boy, have we leaned over the wooden rail which formed the parapet, and watched by the hour the white foam go whirling off down the creek, leaving a thousand glistening eddies under the gravelly banks. Beautiful Sweetwater! shall we ever again in this world experience the sweet calm which used to descend, dove-like, upon our spirit, as we sat musing by thee, listening to the pine-woods sigh in the evening breeze, while the moon walked up the heavens, or the stars twinkled in thy mirrored depths?
After passing the hamlet and bridge, the road winds in front of a picturesque white mansion, situated in the rear of a garden built out into the pond. From the back of the edifice a flight of steps leads down into the water, where, when we knew the place, a light pinnace always lay, like a Venitian gondola. Embowered in green trees, and surrounded on three sides by the lake, that white mansion seems, with but little stretch of the imagination, like a swan nestling among green rushes.
A few hundred rods further on, the road gains the head of the lake. Looking back from this point, the scene is one of rare loveliness. Before you stretches the pond, still, glassy, quiet, dream-like. Half way down its eastern side the mansion rises amid its shrubbery, as if on a fairy island about to float off into the lake. On the other side the tall pines cast their sombre shadows into the water. In the distance whole fields of white water-lilies cover the surface of the pond. Still further off, and at the very extremity of the vista in that direction, two or three blasted trees raise their tall, bleached skeletons, like grim sentinels guarding the pathless swamp in their rear, where, if tradition errs not, more than one wayfarer has lost his path and perished.
Close by the head of the pond, in the centre of a grove of oaks thinned out from the original forest, is a white church edifice. Here, every Sunday, assemble the few inhabitants of Sweetwater, as well as those of a neighboring village, where, in the days of which we write, a foundry existed, at which cannon balls were cast for the patriot army. Beside the church is a grave-yard, surrounded by a rude fence, and shaded by oak trees. The birds build their nests undisturbed here, and the grass and wild flowers bloom and fade in peace.
A few paces in the rear of the church runs a deep but narrow stream. This creek, flowing from a cedar-swamp near at hand, pours its rich, chocolate-colored waters between tortuous wooded banks; now slumbering in the deep shadows of some gigantic tree, whose half-bared roots stretch forth, talon-like, as if to grasp the ebbing tide; and now whirling around an abrupt corner, its polished surface glistening like burnished gold as it shoots into the sunshine. Here the long branch of some bush sways to and fro in the tide, and there the old trees arch greenly overhead. A delicious coolness hangs ever about that stream. On the hottest of summer days one may sit on the old gnarled root, at the end of the path leading down to the water, and listening to the purling of the quiet current, almost fancy himself far off among the gardens and fountains of Damascus.
In the summer parlor of the mansion at Sweetwater, about a fortnight after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, sat Kate and her aunt. The windows were up, admitting the cool breeze from the water, and presenting an uninterrupted view of the pond in the direction of the little church, whose white walls, gleaming out from behind the trees, afforded a pleasant repose for the eye in the distance. Mrs. Warren sat, so far as dress could make her, in all the dignity and state of a dowager. Not a ruffle could be seen in her stomacher. Every hair in her powdered toupee was in its exact place, as firm and stiff as the clipped box trees in the garden. Her robe was spread majestically around her; and her hands lay crossed in her lap, on top of an open book, as if she had just ceased reading. Truth compels us to add that the good lady was drowsy, a condition not a little assisted by the hum of insects without, and by the almost inaudible plash of the water, as the faint breeze gently dashed it against the garden wall. Yet, even in this crisis, Mrs. Warren was not unmindful of what might be expected from her. Bravely did she struggle against the weakness of the flesh, waking up continually and looking fiercely around, as if to show that she was not sleepy in the least. But soon the lulling sounds would prove too much for her; her eyes would close languidly; her mouth would gradually open; and perhaps a sacrilegious snore would be heard, to Kate’s infinite amusement. Then, all at once, her head would pitch forward, when, waking up with a start, she would renew her defiant glance, but only to subside again into a doze immediately.
All this while Kate sat sewing, by a little table, on which stood a bouquet of fresh flowers, the choicest the season could afford. She wore a pretty morning dress of white cambric, which, fitting close to the bust, as was the mode, yet opening in front, revealed a stomacher of illusion, and then swept off in full and ample folds below the waist, parting on each side before the elaborately worked petticoat. In the changes of fashion, an approximation has been made to the same style in our own day. Kate also wore a short sleeve, reaching to the elbow, with a fall of deep lace around it. One little foot peeped out from beneath her skirt, just revealing the silk stocking and the daintily-made high-heeled shoe. Her rich masses of hair fell curling over her shoulders in a style still to be seen in some of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ pictures: for, with natural taste, she generally eschewed powder. Her brilliant complexion contrasting with this simple white dress, made her look like a fresh white rose-bud—one of those which has a blush in the heart, while all the rest is of snowy whiteness. The very room seemed to be more fragrant for her being there.
It is needless to say that she never looked lovelier. But this was not entirely owing to her attire, but was partly the consequence of her employment, which always throws such an atmosphere of home around a highbred woman. He is a hopeless bachelor, indeed, who can watch a graceful girl, engaged on some pretty piece of needle-work, without thinking how beautiful she would look as his wife, plying that small gold thimble with those delicate fingers, by the same fireside with him, on a cold, wintry night, chatting gayly as she nimbly worked, and continually looking up at him with the sweet, dear smile of confidence and love. Ah! miserable man, whoever you are, whose life is spent in hotels; who know nothing of the quiet overflowing bliss of domestic happiness; and whose only knowledge of women is obtained from belles at balls, or flirts at watering places;—we wish you could have seen Kate then. In our time, alas! the needle is almost obsolete, so that you have small chance of being conquered. Young ladies would scream now-a-days, if caught sewing, whose grandmothers won scores of hearts by this bewitching feminine art. The world is thought to be improving in every respect, but we are old-fashioned enough to think that the grandmothers understood our sex the best, and that they slew thousands with their pretty household graces, while their fair descendants, with all their Italian music, slay but tens.
Those good old times have gone forever. It is the cant of the present day to abuse them as stiff and formal. But when again shall we behold such highbred courtesy among men, such a sense of personal dignity, or such chivalrous deference to the fair? Our gentlemen—where are they? And the change is almost as much the fault of women as it is of her companion sex. In that day, ladies were known by their domestic virtues, quite as much as by their erect carriage, their swan-like movements, their robes of rich brocade, or their stomachers of lace. But now, while we have silly girls, or heartless coquettes, or artful establishment-hunters, or rampant woman’s rights agitators, we have few ladies like our grandmothers, highbred both in parlor and in kitchen. Men have lost reverence for women, because woman ceases to be true to herself. Lovers no longer count themselves in heaven if they are allowed to kiss the tips of their charmer’s fingers, or sue on bended knees, like Sir Charles Grandison, for the sweet affirmative; but thinking themselves very condescending to have the dear creatures at all, solicit them in a nonchalant manner, as much as to say, “It’s a bore anyhow, and I’d quite as lief you’d decline.” Young America has more sentiment for a fast trotter than for a fine woman. We have seen enthusiasm in bargaining for a “two-forty,” but never heard of it in asking a lady for her heart. “Oh!” cried Mrs. Warren, waking up with a little scream at the noise made by her book slipping to the floor, “I haven’t been asleep—have I?” And she got up and rubbed her eyes.
“About half an hour, this last time,” said Kate, laughing.
“This last time!” indignantly exclaimed her aunt. “I wasn’t asleep at all, but merely forgot myself for a moment, and only this once.”
Kate pulled out her watch.
“It’s just an hour and a half since we came in, and you’ve been nodding for more than an hour of that time. But hark! Didn’t the knocker sound?” And, as she spoke, a charming blush suffused her cheek and even neck.
“Yes; it’s some visitor. Who can it be? Dear me, it must be Major Gordon, for he hasn’t been here yet, though we’ve been expecting him every day; and there’s no one else to call. It’s considerate of him, I must say,” continued Mrs. Warren, sitting down, smoothing her dress, and otherwise putting herself into company trim, “to have deferred his visit till we had time to get up something of a wardrobe. What would our cousin, Lord Danville, have said, if he had known in what dishabille we’ve had to dine. Such shocking creatures as we’ve been till within a day never did exist, I suppose.”
“I don’t think Major Gordon judges people by their dress merely,” said Kate, softly, with another blush.
“Tut, child, what do you know about it? You’ve scarcely exchanged a dozen words with him. He’s a gentleman, however, and can make allowances; what a pity he’s a rebel.”
“Hush, aunt,” said Kate, raising her finger, her heart beating so that her boddice visibly throbbed, for the firm tread, which she fancied she recognized, was heard approaching the parlor.
Almost at the same instant the door flew open, and a servant announced Major Gordon.
CHAPTER X.
ARAB
Oh! spirits gay and kindly heart,
Precious the blessings ye impart. —Joanna Baillie.
There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord:
for she is never sad, but when she sleeps;
and not over sad then; for I have heard my daughter say
she hath often dreamed of unhappiness, and waked herself
with laughing. —Shakespeare.
It would be difficult to explain the cause of Kate’s flutter of spirits at this visit. Certainly, she could not have analyzed her own feelings, even if she had tried. Her agitation both surprised and annoyed her. Never before had she been thus affected on any similar occasion, and she mentally pronounced it a bit of weakness unworthy of her.
It is true that Major Gordon had occupied no inconsiderable portion of her thoughts during the last fortnight. Nor is this surprising. His almost exclusive agency in the rescue of herself and aunt could not be concealed from her, in spite of the modesty on his part which would have represented it as a deed equally shared by many others. Indeed, the deportment of Major Gordon in reference to the affair, heightened the estimate which Kate had been predisposed to form of him. Though the words he had exchanged with our heroine had been few, she still seemed to hear the mellow tones of his rich, manly voice. Not that Kate was what is called a romantic girl. She was very far from supposing that, because a handsome young officer had been instrumental in saving her life, she must fall in love with him, irrespective of other and higher claims to her notice. Imaginative as she was, she had too much strong sense to be so weak. She had often detected herself speculating at the causes which kept Major Gordon from visiting them, as he had been formally solicited to do by her aunt, and by herself more reservedly, though not less earnestly; but she had not felt it as a personal slight, like an ordinary heroine of romance would have been expected to do, under similar circumstances.
The emotion of Kate, from whatever cause it sprung, was but temporary. Before the door was fairly opened, much less before she was called on to return Major Gordon’s bow, she had schooled her face and manner into that highbred ease, which, in combination with the natural force of her character, made her so bewitching as a woman.
Major Gordon, attired carefully in the full uniform of his rank, had a striking personal appearance. He looked every inch a gentleman, even as gentlemen were in those, their palmy days. Bowing gracefully, with a calm, self-collected air, first to Mrs. Warren and then to Kate, he took the seat offered to him by the servant, and glided gracefully into conversation.
“We have been expecting you before, Major,” said Mrs. Warren. “Especially since we heard you were stationed at the Forks, which is so nigh to Sweetwater.”
“I have been delayed by important public business,” was the answer. “The powder, for which I was on the lookout, having arrived, I had personally to see to its safety and subsequent transmission to head-quarters. I made daily inquiries after your health and that of Miss Aylesford, however,” he continued, “and had the pleasure of hearing that you were slowly but surely recovering from your fatigues.”
“We have been told,” said Mrs. Warren, still taking the lead in the conversation, “that you have been appointed to the command at the Forks, which has been created a military post.”
“It is so. There is so much valuable merchandize there, that it has been thought best to station a few soldiers at the place. Allow me, ladies,” he politely continued, “to tender you their protection, though I trust no occasion may arise for claiming it.”
“And you really will assist,” said Kate, archly, “such horrible tories as ourselves.”
“Not such inveterate ones, I hope,” answered Major Gordon, in the same gay spirit, “as you would have me suppose. Had that been so, you would not have remained at Sweetwater, but have gone to New York; for General Washington is always ready to give ladies a pass, especially frightened ones.”
“Oh! I could never think of deserting Sweetwater, my beautiful Sweetwater, which I have not seen for so many years.”
As she spoke, she involuntarily glanced out of the window, in the direction of the church. The Major followed her eyes.
“I do not wonder at your love for it,” he said, with undisguised admiration. “It is certainly the most charming spot in all West Jersey. You live here,” he added, “like a queen; for England, in all her breadth, has not a park as boundless as those vast woods: I am told the tract embraces a hundred thousand acres.”
“All which,” continued Kate, in the same gay tone, “makes me seriously think of turning whig; for if your General Washington wins at last, some greedy patriot might have my estate confiscated. Aunt is to remain a tory, red-hot for King George, tea and stamp-duties, so that, if you rebels—that’s the word for her, you know—get the ascendency, she can keep the property for me in her name. I believe it was in some such fashion—wasn’t it?— that the rebels in Mother England used to keep the lands in a family. Isn’t his grace of Hamilton only a younger branch of the exiled peer!”
Mrs. Warren, who could never understand a jest, had vainly tried to interrupt Kate, as the latter thus rattled on. Now, raising her hands, she cried—
“Niece, niece, how you talk. Major Gordon,” she continued, turning in real distress to the American officer, “you mustn’t mind what the silly child says. I know you are too much of a gentleman to take advantage of such wild talk. We are two inoffensive ladies, who wish to have no part in the unhappy controversy which is now distracting this land, except to render what assistance we can to those who suffer, and to disburse our hospitalities to all who may visit the neighborhood.”
Major Gordon could not but acknowledge this last pointed reference to himself with a profound bow, but it was with difficulty he refrained from a smile, especially when, glancing at Kate, he saw the suppressed mirth which laughed in her eyes.
“Well, aunt,” demurely said the niece, “Major Gordon will be so good, I hope, as to consider what I said to be unsaid—”
“Certainly,” gravely replied the Major.
“Nevertheless, I may say,” continued Kate, in the same tone, “that he won’t misinterpret me, when I add that I, at least, am not a bit afraid. Our family has been so long in this part of the country, and has labored so sincerely for the good of the people,” she added, more seriously, “that no one but an outlaw, and a villain of the worst kind at that, would harm us.”
“You must not be too sure, Miss Aylesford,” answered their guest. “These refugees, or pine robbers, as we call them in Monmouth county, are becoming very daring over the whole extent of territory, from this and even further east and north, to Maurice river and the Delaware. It was principally to guard the stores at the Forks from their attacks, that my little detachment has been stationed there.”
“So I tell this willful girl,” interposed Mrs. Warren. “I say to her continually, say I, that it isn’t safe for her to ride out alone, as she used to do, and wishes to do now.”
“You are fond of riding?” said the Major, his eye lighting up as he turned to Kate; for he thought a woman never looked more beautiful than in the saddle.
“Passionately,” answered Kate. Then, coloring at her enthusiasm, she continued— “That is, I like it, when I have a good horse.”
“An article in which, I presume, you must be deficient at present, not having expected, as I understand, to reside here, but in New York.”
“I always designed living here, if it was practicable,” replied Kate. “And as for a horse, I am not so unprovided as might be thought; for the stables were kept up, in some degree at least, notwithstanding our absence; and I find a six-year old here, which I am sure I could ride.”
“Has he been broken?”
“By the stable-boys.”
“Is he wild?”
“Only gay.”
“Has he blood?”
“As Mr. Herman says, ‘where’s the horse without it?’” answered Kate, laughingly. “But, to reply in the language of the turf, he is a lineal descendant of Flying Childers.”
“Ah! I scarcely imagined there was such a one in America,” said the Major, with increased interest.
“My father was very choice in his stock, and imported several highbred racers himself. There are excellent stables in Virginia also, and he purchased a good deal there. Mr. Herman says that Arab could be ridden easier by a lady than by a gentleman; I suppose it’s because, like all well-born cavaliers, he is chivalrous to the weaker sex.”
“Pray,” said the Major, smiling, and turning to Mrs. Warren, “who is the Mr. Herman that your niece has mentioned thus twice in the space of five minutes? I suppose,” he continued, glancing at Kate, “I dare not ask herself.”
“Mr. Herman?” replied the aunt, slowly. “O! that’s the old farmer who was such a friend of my late brother. An excellent man, Major Gordon, though not blessed with many of this world’s goods.”
“He’s a dear love of a man,” said Kate, with a pretty pout, for somehow, she would have liked to have mystified her guest, “If I ever marry, it will be him—”
“Niece!” As she spoke, Mrs. Warren uplifted her hands in horror. “Why, Mr. Herman is married, and has children as old as yourself.”
“But I expect him to become a widower,” wickedly continued Kate. Then, with a serious air, she resumed, addressing Major Gordon. “I must really introduce you to Mr. Herman. He’s the best man we have in the county, and quite a philosopher in his way. He’s of the old Swedish stock, which, as you know, is famous for sterling honesty, straight-forward common sense, and a just estimate of life. When I wish to hear wisdom, I go over to his little clearing. But, if you are fond of horses, as most officers are, would you look at Arab, and give me your opinion?”
“Do, Major,” anxiously said Mrs. Warren, “and tell her that the horse will kill her, if she attempts to ride him.” “I should like to see Arab very much,” answered Major Gordon.
“James,” said Kate, summoning a servant, “have Arab brought out in front of the house. We will accompany you as far as the porch, Major,” she said, addressing her guest, and bowing for him to lead the way.
Arab deserved the enthusiasm which Kate evidently felt for him. He was a dark chestnut horse, about fifteen hands high, with a head, neck and shoulder that were perfection. He came dancing up to the gate, with elevated crest and arched neck, the very beau-ideal of high breeding. As he turned his head toward the porch, on hearing voices, the expression of his large, dark eye, showed that he recognized Kate, who had already, by feeding him from her hand, established an intimacy with him.
She could not resist the mute appeal, but impulsively running toward him, patted him on the neck and face, while he turned his head, as gently as a child, to lay it caressingly in her small palm.
“Mr. Herman is right,” said the Major, turning to Mrs. Warren. “Miss Aylesford could ride Arab when nobody else could.”
“Do you really think so? You take a load from my mind by saying it. But, indeed, the dear child is so rash.”
“Your niece appears to have excellent judgment; and courage is not rashness.”
Then observing that Kate was looking his way, as she held one arm affectionately around her horse’s neck, he moved towards the gate, saying.
“I think Miss Aylesford would like me to try Arab.”
“Will you canter him for a few minutes?” Kate whispered. “Aunt is really too timorous. Perhaps she’d have more confidence if she could see how gently Arab will go, when ridden properly.”
A saddle was placed on Arab’s back, when the Major, vaulting into the seat, cantered as far as the church and back, Arab going to the admiration alike of Kate and of her aunt, his fine action pleasing the one, and the readiness with which he obeyed his rider gratifying the other.
“He moves beautifully,” said the Major. “If I may presume, Miss Aylesford, will you ride with me to-morrow? I can assure you, Mrs. Warren,” he said, turning to her aunt, “there is no danger.”
Kate assented with secret pleasure, and directly after wards Major Gordon took his leave.