Kate Aylesford: A Story of the Refugees

“Hear me, for I will speak;
Must I give way?” —Shakespeare.

“By his closed eye unheeded and unfelt,
While sets that sun, and dews of ev’ning melt.” —Byron.

The story-teller is like the weaver of an elaborate pattern in tapestry. To a spectator he seems continually to be dropping threads without necessity, and as often taking up new ones which are uncalled for; but it must be remembered that he has the completed picture before him, and that he knows best what is necessary to do.

Aylesford, whom we last saw parting with Kate, reached the lower part of the river in safety, about noon; and proceeded immediately to procure the assistants, necessary to carry out his plot against Kate. He was not able, indeed, to gain the British camp, and had therefore, to hire a boat’s crew at random. But there were men of idle habits and royalist sympathies to be found, all through the war of independence, in every district of New Jersey, but particularly in those bordering on the sea-coast, where many circumstances contributed to render patriotism at a discount and open the field for venal services to either side. Aylesford, by his course of life, had become cognizant of one of these persons, to whom he now applied. This man was acquainted with others; and so, after only a few hours’ delay, he was enabled to set out to meet Arrison.

But the best laid plans of villains, as Burns says of mice and men, “aft gang agee.” We have seen how Arrison’s scheme to deliver Kate, by collusion, into the hands of Aylesford, had miscarried: and this failure necessarily involved the disappointment of the plans of Aylesford also. The boat of the latter was actually in sight of the refugees, when Arrison turned and fled up the river, though no one of the outlaws, nor even Kate, saw it, all having their attention concentrated on the patriots on shore, and subsequently on the pursuing craft. But Aylesford, seeing his prey ravished from him almost in the moment of seizing it, became nearly beside himself with rage. He had, in fact, arrived at the bend of the river below the settlement, quite half an hour previous, when, observing to his surprise that the inhabitants were keeping watch, he had laid by, under the bank, intending to wait for Arrison. He did this, because the latter would have to pass the armed party on shore but once, whereas if he should keep on his way, the risk would be run in both going and returning. He never doubted, meantime, that Arrison would push on at any cost.

When, therefore, he saw the refugees face about, he lost, as we have said, all control of himself. Starting up, he exclaimed—

“Cast off, board, give way. I’ll double your reward if we catch them.”

The men obeyed, though not without some signs of reluctance, until they had gained a position nearly opposite to the settlement. This was a little later in point of time than when the patriots had put off in pursuit of the refugees. During the whole of this period, Aylesford, who officiated as coxswain, had not ceased to stimulate his men to row faster, alternating promises of reward and urgent appeals, with passionate ejaculations against the poltroonery and treachery of Arrison.

“Pull, pull with a will,” he cried. “We’ll catch them yet, huzza! The double-dyed traitor. Yes!” he added, between his teeth, “he has intended it all along. I see it now, dupe that I am. Curses on my mad folly in trusting him! Why do you stop?”

This last sentence was spoken aloud and angrily, for the men suddenly ceased rowing.

But the reason was apparent as soon as he looked ashore. The sentinel at the settlement had presented his musket, and now followed it up by crying,

“Boat ahoy!”

The men looked at each other and then at Aylesford.

“Never mind him. Pull away,” cried the latter.

The report of the musket was heard, and the ball whistled close past; while at the same time some of the patriots ran to the field-piece. Instantly, as if by one impulse, Aylesford’s crew pulled their boat around and began to urge her down the stream.

At this, Aylesford, his whole countenance distorted with rage, reached forward and laid his hand on the stroke oar.

“How dare you?” he cried, his face white with rage.

The man, who pulled the oar, was far more powerful than his employer, and he wrenched the blade from Aylesford almost immediately, saying sternly,

“None of that, if you don’t want to be pitched overboard. We’re not going to get a skin full of shot in us, or be sent to the devil by grape, just to please you.”

Even through his passion, Aylesford had the sense to see that he could do nothing against the majority by compulsion, but that his only hope was in appealing to the selfish interests of the men.

“I’ll give each of you twenty guineas, twenty guineas in gold,” he said, eagerly, “if you’ll keep on and overtake the boat.”

But, by this time, the field-piece on shore was ready to fire. The match was being whirled around to keep it burning, while a patriot sighted the gun for the last time; and the men saw this with a terror against which even the large bribe could not prevail.

“We’ve come too far already,” said the spokesman. “Steer the boat while we pull, or I’ll blow your brains out. What good would your guineas be to men who wouldn’t live to get them?”

At these words, the four oarsmen gave way lustily, as men only row when the race is for life or death.

“God! there it comes,” suddenly cried the stroke-oarsman, ducking his head involuntarily.

At the moment, a jet of flame shot out from the cannon, followed by a puff of dense, whitish smoke. Instantaneously a hurtling noise was heard through the air, the water was ploughed up astern of the boat, and Aylesford, with a sharp groan, suddenly dropped the tiller, and tumbled headlong forward into the stern sheets.

“He’s hit,” cried the oarsman, and without looking around, he continued, “is anybody else hurt?” For the others had ceased rowing.

No one answered. All the rest had fortunately escaped.

“Then pull like devils,” cried the spokesman, when he saw this. “If they get another chance they’ll sink us. We must put the bend of the river between us and them, before we even stop to see how much he is hurt. Once in the next reach and we’ll be safe.” And, suiting the action to the word, he pulled till his strong blade bent like a whip-stalk.

The remainder of the crew made corresponding exertions, so that in a few minutes the boat shot around the turn, interposing a wooded point between it and the settlement. The men now rested on their oars, when two of them, the spokesman being one, proceeded to examine into the condition of their fallen employer.

He was not dead, as they had begun to believe from his silence and his not even stirring, but badly wounded in the side by a slug, the gun having been apparently loaded with that description of missiles. On being moved, he opened his eyes with a groan, stared vacantly around, and then closed them in a swoon.

“He’s booked for Davy Jones’ locker,” said the spokesman, “unless we can get a doctor for him soon; booked for it whether or no. Lay him down easy, Bill; put his head here—that’s all we can do for him.”

With these words they resumed their oars, and pulling steadily down the river with a long, regular, man-of-war’s stroke, soon left the vicinity of the settlement behind them. The men, thus unexpectedly burdened with a wounded employer, were as yet uncertain where to find a physician soonest in the disturbed state of the region, and were debating it among themselves, when suddenly the noise of firing, as of volleys of musketry, was heard in the distance ahead.

“The King’s men hare attacked the Neck,” cried the man who had been the principal speaker all day. “Hark! there it is again.”

There was no mistaking the sounds of battle, which now grew momentarily stormier, filling the air and booming along the water. As the boat struggled onward against the tide, the noise of the strife continued to stimulate the rowers, who, though comparatively near, yet made such slow headway as to be uncertain, for what seemed an age, which way the victory would incline. At last the curve in the river disclosed to sight the group of tall chestnuts, and immediately afterwards the British flag floating over the works.

Aylesford had now recovered from his swoon, and was sensible of what was going on, though as yet he had not spoken.

“We’d better land him there,” said the spokesman. “There’s always plenty of doctors with his Majesty’s troops. Besides, they’ll make us come to, any how.”

“Yes! land me at once,” said Aylesford, feebly. “I’ll see that you’re protected.”

Accordingly the man directed the boat to the landing, where they disembarked just as the evening was closing in.

“Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
When death’s approach is seen so terrible.” —Shakespeare.

“Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies.” —Milton.

“To die, I own
Is a dread passage.” —Thomson

It was several hours later in the evening. In a small room, in one of the dwellings which the conflagration at the Neck had spared, Aylesford lay extended on a bed, his life ebbing fast away.

On landing, he had desired to see some of the principal officers, to whom he had disclosed the name of his family, which he found not unknown; and having besought that the men who had accompanied him should not be considered prisoners, desired next the services of a surgeon as soon as one could be spared. Fallen, as he was, in many particulars, his sense of honor made him thus provide for the safety of his companions before looking after his wound.

The surgeon attended immediately, accompanied by the leader of the expedition, for the latter, aware of the vast estates of the Aylesfords, in the colonies, as well as of their noble connexions in England, and hearing that the male representative of the name had been brought in wounded, naturally concluded that the hurt was received while he was hastening to join the royal standard. On discovering the precarious condition of his guest, this officer directed that the utmost attention should be paid to him, and left with reluctance to attend to the urgent calls of his command.

The surgeon was not long in discovering that the wound of his patient was mortal; that human skill could even do but little to prolong life; and that all which was left for him was to alleviate the sufferings of the dying man. Aylesford read his doom in the countenance of the physician. He had, however, suspected it from the first. As we have seen, on former occasions, he was not deficient in courage, and he asked in a voice quite calm if his suspicions were not correct.

“Don’t be afraid to speak out, Doctor,” he said, resolutely, though in a feeble voice. “It’s false kindness to conceal the truth, when a man’s within an hour of death.”

“You have been bred a gentleman,” answered the practitioner, replying in a spirit more common then, when caste was thought to make one man superior to another, than now, “and can therefore summon courage to face anything, I suppose. I am sorry I cannot hold out hope. If you have any arrangements to make, it would be wise to lose no time. Can I be of service to you otherwise than professionally?”

Aylesford turned uneasily in his bed, and did not reply for a moment. At last he spoke.

“No, thank you, Doctor. I have no affairs to settle, such as you mean.”

He seemed, however, as if there was something on his mind, so that the surgeon, lingering as he arranged his instruments, was induced to speak again.

“Perhaps you would like to see a parson,” he said. “Fortunately we have a chaplain with us.”

“It is not that,” answered Aylesford. “But you may send him, nevertheless.” He spoke, all this while, with difficulty. Then, as the surgeon went out, he murmured to himself, turning uneasily again, “Oh! Kate, Kate, what have I brought on you!”

We have failed to convey a true idea of Aylesford, if the reader considers him a remorseless villain. He was, indeed, deeply stained with vices, but they were mostly those, which, while violating the moral code quite as much as more brutal ones, yet do not degrade the entire nature. He was a spendthrift, a gambler, licentious, passionate and haughty. He was even capable of treachery, as we have seen, under the double temptation of interest and love. But this last crime had been the first of its kind he had ever been engaged in; his conscience was not yet seared to such atrocities; and now, when he found death approaching, the idea that Kate was in the hands of Arrison, and that she had been brought there by his own act, woke a thousand serpent-stings of remorse at his heart.

He lay there, but could not rest. He tossed from side to side, in spite of the entreaties of his attendant, a surgeon’s assistant, who declared that he was shortening his life. Deep groans continually broke from him, not because of pain, but in consequence, as the attendant saw, of mental anguish. The youth hoped that when the clergyman came, his patient would obtain peace of mind; but neither the presence of the chaplain, nor the prayers he read, nor the soothing words he addressed to the invalid, had any effect in composing Aylesford.

It was at this point of time that the present chapter opens. The clergyman had risen from his knees, and was sitting at the head of the bed; the surgeon’s assistant stood looking down on the invalid with folded arms; and three or four other persons, who had crowded into the room in the confusion, gazed with serious, awe-struck faces, now on the dying man, and now on his medical and spiritual advisers. A single tallow candle, placed on a little old-fashioned stand, on which were also several phials, threw a dim and yellow light on the disturbed countenance among the pillows and on the dark dress of the chaplain, leaving the remainder of the room in deep shadow, out of which the anxious, earnest faces of the spectators looked forth like the dark heads in old and time-stained pictures.

For sometime there was silence in the apartment. The invalid, at a pause in the clergyman’s exhortations, had suddenly turned his back on the speaker, with a deep groan that seemed wrung from his inmost heart; and now appeared to be dozing. The priest knew not what to do. He was a sincerely good man, far different from many among chaplains of that day, but his services, he saw, had produced no impression, and he was not sure that they were not positively rejected. Still he was willing to remain, in hopes that a better frame of mind might arise in the patient; but for this he thought it best to wait in silence.

“Will he wake again?” said he, at last, rising and whispering to the assistant. “This looks like the stupor of death.”

Perhaps it was the rustling of the silk canonicals which roused the invalid, perhaps his doze had come to an end of itself; but at this Aylesford turned quickly around, and half raising himself on his arm, fixed his eyes on the priest. A wild gleam shot from his haggard eyes.

“You can do me no good,” he said, in a hollow voice, “but, but,” he struggled for words, “stay by me to the last. I thank you.”

“I know, my son,” mildly answered the clergyman, “that I can do you no good; but there is one who can; and to Him I exhort you to turn your eyes.”

But the sick man, shaking his head, interrupted the minister of heaven.

“It is too late, too late,” he said, “even if your religion is true.” The venerable man lifted his hands in horror, and raised his eyes in a mute petition above. “But enough of this,” continued Aylesford. “I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, sir; you mean well, and I thank you: but that is a subject on which we shall never agree, and my time is too precious to waste.”

Aylesford was, like most fashionable profligates of that day, an atheist at heart. It was an age, when the French Encyclopaediasts had exhausted every resource of sophistry and satire to shake the belief in a divine revelation; when young men thought it smart to laugh at the Bible, as a collection of old legends only fit for women; and when Voltaire, Helvetius, D’Alembert, and other mere analytical thinkers were ignorantly ranked, by men of little learning and less wisdom, above the great synthetical minds who have, throughout the generations, held fast to Christianity, not only as a revelation historically established on irrefragible grounds of proof, but as a religion whose divinity is proved, apart from this, by its wonderful adaptation to all the wants of the human soul, to its sorrows as well as to its joys, and especially to its longings after immortality. So firmly established was Aylesford’s atheism, that it left him with few or no doubts, even in this dread hour. Perhaps—for who can tell?—men may commit the unpardonable sin, so awfully denounced in Scripture, by obdurate unbelief: and it is certain that this thought flashed across the mind of the clergyman, who put up a mental petition that it might not be so in this instance.

“A little while longer, O Lord, forbear,” he prayed. “Spare the barren fig-tree yet a space.”

“It’s another thing I want to speak about,” said Aylesford, after a pause for breath. “I had resolved to die without revealing it; but I feel as if it must out. If there’s a hell at all,” he suddenly added, while he glared, almost like a wild beast, at the clergyman, while he struck his breast with his clenched hand, “it’s here now, here at my heart, where it’s been gnawing, gnawing—”

“My son, oh! my son,” cried the white-haired clergyman, deeply impressed, and with tears in his eyes, making a last effort to benefit the dying man, “there’s a worm that never dies, that gnaws forever.”

“Away with your idle tales,” fiercely interrupted Aylesford, flinging himself away from the chaplain. But immediately he turned again. “I can’t waste time, sir,” he resumed, “and maybe by speaking, I may avert foul wrong. But no! no! that is impossible,” he almost shrieked, as he spoke these words, gazing hopelessly from the assistant to the minister, like one drowning out at sea may be supposed to turn his frantic eyes towards the unattainable shore.

“She is past rescue.”

“She?” said the clergyman. “My son,” he added solemnly, “if, as your words imply, there is a wrong to be remedied, speak out without delay. Next to repentance comes reparation, and it may be,” he added, as if speaking to himself, “that God, in His infinite mercy, will consider one to include both.”

Aylesford looked eagerly into the chaplain’s face, and, without further parley, proceeded to narrate, though in broken sentences and with rapidly failing words, his scheme to carry off his cousin, its failure, and the great probability there was that she was now in the power of a licentious, brutal, and reckless outlaw.

The narrative, indeed, was not consecutive. Whether the mind of the dying man began to wander, or whether remorse made his thoughts incoherent, he was not able to give an entirely connected story; but from his bitter denunciations of Arrison, his curses on his own folly for being duped, and his apostrophes to Kate, his hearers had no difficulty in arriving at a tolerably correct idea of our heroine’s peril.

“Alas!” said the clergyman, when Aylesford had concluded, “this is a wrong done which is beyond remedy, I fear.”

But Aylesford, at this, sprang up in bed.

“I tell you it is not beyond remedy,” he cried, shaking his damp hair like an angry lion rousing in his lair; and while his eyes gleamed with the fires of partial delirium, he continued, almost with a howl, “I’ll go myself to her rescue. Don’t you hear her reproaching me? Unhand me, I say.” And he struggled to get out of bed.

“We will send word to the enemy’s camp through a flag, that they may do all that can be done,” said the clergyman soothingly, as he and the assistant held down the frenzied man. “There, my son, lie back on your pillow again. There is no one calling you, that you need glare into that dark corner. God help you!”

Gradually the delusion passed from the mind of the invalid. His eye assumed its natural expression. He looked inquiringly around, like one awaking from a dream, and with an attempt at a wan smile, suffered himself to be placed in bed again.

“Thank you,” he said feebly, as the clergyman stooped and gently wiped the big drops from his hair. “I’ve been talking wildly, I fear. The fever’s in my head. But did not some one,” and he glanced around, “say that they’d send pursuers out after her?”

“I said I would send word to the enemy’s camp,” answered the chaplain; and looking around the room, he singled out an individual who had been a spectator hitherto. “You have heard what has been said,” he continued. “Will you undertake to see that this is done?”

The person addressed nodded his head, and departed immediately, Aylesford watching his retreating figure eagerly till it disappeared through the doorway, when he closed his eyes with a deep sigh, and remained motionless and silent so long afterwards that the clergyman began to think life had departed with that profound expiration.

He, therefore, whispered to the assistant.

“Does he still breathe?”

“Yes!” was the reply, after the speaker had leaned over the invalid for a moment. “He dozes again. That burst of emotion exhausted him terribly, however, and it may be that he’ll never come to again.”

The clergyman made no answer, but clasping his hands, appeared engaged in silent prayer.

In about ten minutes the dying man stirred again. His eyes were still closed, but he murmured incoherently. At first his words were low and disconnected, but gradually he spoke louder; and finally the listeners distinguished parts of sentences. But whether he was referring to the tragedy he had just detailed, or to some other, or whether what he said was purely the effect of delirium, the hearers could not ascertain.

“The pitiless villain,” were his words. “No mercy, no mercy. Oh! that I had run him through when he proposed it. I broke her heart. Mary! Mary! blessed saint,” he exclaimed piteously, “don’t look at me so reproachfully.”

“He thinks she is already dead,” whispered the clergyman to the assistant.

“Or perhaps there is still another,” was the low reply.

Tossing from side to side on the bed, working his fingers on the counterpane, every lineament of his face betraying the terrible mental agonies he was undergoing, Aylesford lay, a picture of remorse which had come too late. As his broken ejaculations went on it became evident that another person, as the surgeon had hinted, now mingled in his thoughts with Miss Aylesford.

“Forgive me, Mary, forgive me,” he cried, clasping his hands, “I have indeed deserted our child; but if I had known—if I had—”

Here his words sunk into indistinct babblings, all that could be distinguished being the single phrase, “they call her his niece, you know.”

He lay still for nearly a minute. Suddenly he sprang up again, glaring wildly at the opposite part of the bed.

“Take him away,” he shrieked, in a voice that made the hair of his hearers stand on end with horror, and was heard far away out across the silence of the night; “his fingers almost touch me.”

He clung to the clergyman, as a child, when woke from a dream in which it has seen horrible shapes, clings to its mother; his eyeballs starting from their sockets, his features convulsed with agony, and the perspiration exuding, like huge rain drops, over his clammy forehead.

It was a scene, which those who were present, could never shake off. The terrified countenance of the dying man, the despairing clutch with which he held on to the chaplain, and the fixed, stony gaze of horror which he fastened, as if on some object right across the bed, and almost within reach; the whole rendered, for an instant, visible with more than ordinary distinctness, as a burning deck of one of the ships that was consuming, fell in, shooting a quick, intense glare into the room.

“Oh! my God,” he cried, “they come; there is a hell.”

The piercing tone, almost amounting to a shriek; the awful look; the gesture of horrible fear with which he shrank closer yet to the clergyman; these no pen can adequately paint.

But in a moment, a convulsion passed over him; a deep breath was heard, which was nearly stertorous; and he fell back into the chaplain’s arms, stone dead.

This night methinks is but the daylight sick,
It looks a little paler; ‘tis a day,
Such as the day is when the sun is hid. —Shakespeare.

The whole air whitens with a boundless tide,
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world. —Thomson.

We must now return to Kate, whom we left a prisoner with the outlaws, and momentarily in dread that she would be compelled to sacrifice life in order to avert dishonor.

The debauch of the refugees at last came to an end. Not being a witness of the scene, Kate could judge as to the manner of its termination, only from the laugh of derision with which it was said successively that another “was under the table.” Gradually the voices of the speakers became so thick as to be undistinguishable; the revelers apparently grew fewer and fewer, and finally a heavy fall was heard, as of the last boon companion, followed by silence.

For a long while Kate listened, dreading lest she should hear some one stir, for she dared not hope that sleep had overpowered the whole gang. But five minutes passed without any one moving, then ten, and then finally a half an hour. When this latter period had elapsed she began to breathe freely again. The thought of escape flashed upon her. She reasoned that if she could pass the sleepers undetected, and gain the forest, she might find some place of refuge, perhaps, before the outlaws would awake. Ignorant as she was of the exact locality of the hut, she yet had a general idea of the direction in which the Forks lay, and she determined to make the attempt to reach that post.

But she resolved not to essay escape as yet. The night without was pitch dark, so that it would have been impossible to find her way through the woods; and as she knew the moon would rise in about an hour, she determined to wait for that event; and accordingly threw herself on the bed to watch for the propitious time.

Fatigued by physical exhaustion as well as by mental excitement, however, she unwittingly fell asleep, and when at last she opened her eyes, the moon was shining full in at the window, having attained a considerable elevation above the horizon. For a moment she did not recollect where she was. She started up, at first, with a look of bewilderment, which changed to one of affright, however, and then of despair, as the past came up again to her memory.

“What precious hours I have lost,” she mentally exclaimed. “Perhaps now it is too late. Oh! how could I sleep!” And she wrung her hands.

But directly she recovered the energy natural to her. In truth, her slumbers had vastly recruited her strength and spirits; and of this she began soon to be sensible. She sprang to her feel, saying to herself with decision,

“But why do I waste precious moments? There may yet be hope—they seem to sleep as soundly as ever—at the most I can but fail.”

As she pronounced these words, she began, though with hands trembling with eagerness, to move the bedstead from the door sufficiently to allow egress. With what intense anxiety she listened, during this proceeding, lest the fabric should, by creaking, awaken the refugees! Even if one should be aroused it would be fatal to her; and the slightest noise might produce this result. She was almost breathless with suspense, until the bedstead had been removed enough to allow her to pass. But when this was effected, her heart was fluttering so wildly, that she had to pause an instant, pressing her hand on it to still its throbbings, for while it palpitated to such a degree she was too weak to proceed.

She now ventured to lift the latch, which at first resisted her efforts, and which, when at last it yielded, gave forth a sudden, sharp click, that, for a moment, made her fear it had awakened one or more of the outlaws. She waited, therefore, to assure herself that no one was stirring, before she ventured to draw the door towards her. In the unnaturally excited state of her nerves, the almost imperceptible sound of the hinges smote on her ear with alarming distinctness, so that she felt confident that now at least some one of the outlaws must awake. In fact a burly ruffian, in whom, to her horror, she recognized Arrison, and who lay directly across the doorway, not a foot from her, actually stirred, muttering incoherently, as if about to arouse from sleep; and at this sight Kate, brave as she was, felt all her courage and strength desert her, and was compelled to lean against the wall, in order to support herself from falling.

The ruffian, however, proved to have been only dreaming. After mumbling a few broken sentences, and tossing his arm over his head, as if to relieve it by a change of posture, he sunk into slumber again. Never was sound sweeter to Kate’s ears than the loud, almost stertorous breathing of the inebriated sleeper. Reassured of this, the violent beating of her heart ceased, and she recovered strength to renew her attempt at escape.

The door of the outer apartment was fortunately open, and the moonlight, streaming in, lit up a scene, such as the Flemish masters loved to paint. Down the centre of the apartment ran a table, covered with overturned drinking glasses, and empty bottles, amid which a huge black jug, with a cornstalk cork, stood, like a grim, giant warrior, of old, in the centre of a troop of modern pigmies. A few square bits of wood, in each of which a hole had been bored to insert a candle, were scattered about the table; but the candles had long since guttered down, the melted tallow flowing over and adhering to the board. On one side of the table had been a row of split-bottomed chairs, but these were now either pushed back against the wall, or had been kicked over; while on the other side was a rude bench, made of the first plank that is cut from a log, the convex part, to which the bark still adhered, being downward. A broken clay pipe, black with smoke, lay on one end of this bench, and by it slept its owner, a brawny, unshaven savage. Two of his companions were stretched on the floor, on either side; another was directly under the table; a fourth filled a shadowy corner, looking an unsightly, mis-shapen mass in the obscurity; while a fifth, still sitting in his chair, slept with his head leaning on his hands crossed before him on the table. Across this central figure the moonlight poured in a flood of intense brilliancy, and shot onwards to where Arrison lay at the feet of Kate, leaving the rest of the room in comparative darkness, as in a painting by Rembrandt.

Kate saw that it would require the utmost caution to pass the sleepers without awakening them, for the room was so narrow, and they lay in such positions, that it was almost impossible to reach the door without treading upon more than one of them. Arrison himself lay close to the door of her room, as if his last thought, before he succumbed to the effects of his copious libations, had been to place himself there on purpose to keep guard. She could not advance a single step, indeed, without passing over his body; and if, in making the attempt, even her skirt should brush him, all would be over. Perhaps, she reflected, he would be aroused even by her shadow crossing him; she herself could easily be woke in that way. These suggestions of an active brain would have paralyzed many a female in Kate’s situation; but they only had the effect of quickening her pulses, and increasing her caution.

Holding her breath, and gathering up her skirts firmly, she stepped rapidly across Arrison’s body, and not pausing to look behind, advanced stealthily but swiftly towards the door, keeping as much as possible in the shadow. She was but a few seconds in crossing the apartment, but it seemed to her almost an age. Every instant she expected to hear Arrison spring to his feet, or to see one of the ruffians in front rise to intercept her. At every footstep she trembled with nervous apprehension. As she approached the door, she was compelled to almost brush one of the outlaws extended on the floor: he stirred at that crisis; and she thought that she was discovered. Instantaneously she stopped and shrank into the shadow. The man was only turning in his sleep, however, and the next moment was snoring as heavily as before. Inexpressibly relieved, Kate drew her garments close to her figure, and gliding lightly past him, gained the door in safety.

It was a magnificent night without; and what a contrast to the scene within! Not a cloud was in the sky, not even a speck of fleecy vapor; only the blue, starless heavens were seen above, and in their eastern depths the silver moon. A vague, awe-struck feeling came over Kate as she looked up, and saw the solemn pine-trees standing, dark and weird, against the silent sky, and above them the calm, cold planet, looking down on her as pitilessly as it had gazed on the suffering Job on the plains of Mesopotamia, ages before. Not a breath of air stirred even the topmost tassel of the tallest fir; not a sound broke the deep stillness: it seemed, indeed, as if to breathe was to break some potent spell and bring down ruin on her head.

The little clearing was everywhere as light as day, except where the shadows of the rude fences checkered the ground, or where the gloom, cast by the forest, fell like an ominous pall across the eastern edge. Before our heroine was the little, tumble-down barn, which we have once before described. One side of this, including the roof, was flooded with the moonlight, while the other was black and vague, the deep shadows effectually concealing its outline. Right opposite the glorious planet, and therefore dazzlingly lit up by her radiance, a road opened into the forest, which soon, however closed about it, sombre and awful, as some unfathomable cave swallows up the ray of sunlight that streams through a chink in the roof. It reminded Kate of a pathway into some land of enchantment, at first beautiful to the eye, and light almost as day, but soon darkening into the gloom of death, amid bogs, and torrents, and labyrinths without end. A shudder came over her as she gazed, as if a shadow of impending evil fell across her; but shaking off the feeling as childish, she advanced into the open space, and directed her steps to the road.

But scarcely had she emerged fairly into the moonlight, when a low, deep growl startled her, proceeding apparently from the barn. Looking eagerly in that direction, her heart sank, for she saw the ferocious bloodhound, which she had observed on her arrival, slowly rising to his feet from out of the shadow. His huge form, as he stalked into the light, seemed, to the excited nerves of our heroine, to be of even more colossal stature than it was in reality; and with a stifled groan, clasping her hands, she stood transfixed in speechless horror.

A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky. —Wordsworth.

Suddenly a figure glided forth into the moonlight, which, for one moment, Kate almost fancied was a spirit. It was clothed in white, and bore the semblance of a young girl, not more than ten years old; but so sylph-like were its movements, so noiseless its tread, and so pure and innocent was the expression of the face, that it could not, Kate thought, be there, yet be earthly. This transient illusion, however, was instantly dissipated, by a childish voice calling out to the dog, in low tones, as if fearful of awaking the sleepers.

The bloodhound apparently recognized the accents as those of one who had shown him acts of kindness, for he ceased growling immediately, and going up to the young girl, lifted his head as if to be caressed. The child patted the ferocious animal, whispering soothingly to him, on which he crouched down at her feet, like the lion before Una.

Our heroine fully expected that the alarm given by the dog would have aroused the sleepers; and she even fancied, for an instant, that she heard the refugees stirring. She turned, therefore, eagerly to fly, but at the first step the young girl advanced, laying her hand on Kate’s arm and shaking her head in the negative.

Kate glanced affrightedly over her shoulder, sure that she would behold Arrison; but her excited fancy had run ahead of the reality. She drew a deep sigh of relief, and turning to the young girl, said, breathlessly.

“You will not stop me—you will save me from these dreadful men, by letting me go before they awake.”

The child shook her head again.

“I dare not,” she said, but in a low, sweet voice.

“And why not? Oh! surely they would not harm you.”

“He would kill me,” replied the child, glancing in terror towards the house.

“Who?”

“Uncle.”

“And who is uncle?”

“Don’t you know?”

“What! Arrison?”

“Yes.”

Kate looked at the child earnestly. There seemed to her something strangely familiar, in the large, eloquent eyes of the young creature before her. The whole countenance, indeed, reminded her of some one she had known, but she could not recall whom, though she endeavored, again and again, to remember. The likeness, after all, however, was a confused one, with gleams of that which was familiar mingled with others which were foreign; and these latter it was which appeared to Kate to give such an air of innocence and even holiness to the face. After a moment’s scrutiny, she recalled her perilous condition, and as every instant was precious, endeavored again to persuade the child to allow her departure.

“You must be mistaken,” she said, “your uncle surely would not hurt you.”

“You don’t know him,” answered the child, “Oh! I am sure he would kill me if I let you go,” she continued, clasping her little hands.

“But I must go,” replied Kate, with an endeavor to overawe the child. “You cannot help it.”

The child laid her hand significantly on the bloodhound, which had risen from his reclining posture and now stood at her side, watching alternately her countenance and that of Kate. This gesture he seemed to interpret as it was intended, for he bristled up and uttered a low growl.

Kate shudderingly looked over her shoulder in the direction of the house.

“Don’t—don’t,” she cried, in an eager whisper, imploringly glancing down into the child’s face, and laying her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

The child looked up, with her sad, earnest eyes, at the same time patting the bloodhound, who became quiet at once.

“Oh! if I could let you go,” she said, and her little face was eloquent in every feature with sincerity. “I haven’t slept a wink all night, thinking of you. That was before I saw you,” she added, naively, “before I knew you were beautiful, or looked so good.”

“Does nobody live here but you?” Kate said, wondering to find the child in such a place. “I mean nobody but you and Arrison.”

“He hasn’t lived here always,” she replied. “He did once, and then went away, and only came back a week ago.”

“But you didn’t live here alone?”

“No, Granny Jones lived with me. But she’s cross too. Oh!” she suddenly added, with passionate earnestness, “if mother hadn’t died.”

Kate was silent. The child was then an orphan. She said kindly, after a moment.

“You remember your mother?”

“Oh! yes. She was so beautiful,” and the tears glistened in the child’s eyes. “Not beautiful like you, not proud looking and grand, but so sweet and pretty. She never scolded me in all her life, never, never.” And the child burst into low, half-stifled sobs, which, in her effort to suppress them, shook her little frame.

Kate was again silent; tears sympathetically dimmed her eyes. The child saw it, and hushing her sobs, said,

“But Granny Jones was sent away, when uncle came back.”

“And when he’s away, you’re alone?” The child nodded.

“All alone, except with Lion,” she said, glancing at the bloodhound. “He’s such a good fellow,” she added, her eyes brightening. “We play together, when we’ve time! Don’t we, Lion?” and she caressed him.

Kate sighed to think of this lovely child, brought up by an outlaw, yet retaining so much of heaven’s purity, living here in the forest with no companion but this ferocious dog. She longed to question the little outcast respecting her mother, about whom there seemed some strange mystery. But she refrained out of respect to the girl, who evidently suffered at allusions to her parent’s name.

“Why won’t you go with me?” said Kate, winningly. “Help me to get away from this place, and I’ll take you home with me, where you shall have everything you like, and be my little sister.”

The child looked up at her, with eyes dilated to their utmost size in wonder, evidently unable to credit what she heard.

“I am rich,” said Kate; “you never need work any more. Look in my face and you’ll see I speak truth.”

The child gave a long, earnest gaze, and answered. “I believe what you say. I know you are good.”

“Then come,” said Kate. But the child drew back.

“No,” she said, “it wouldn’t be right. Mother told me to stay with uncle till I grew to be a woman; that he was a hard man, but my only friend, and I promised I would do it.”

“But your mother did not know that I would make you my sister. If she had known that you could go away to a fine house, have plenty of clothes, have books to read, and have a sister to love you, don’t you think she would have been willing?”

The child looked puzzled. She fixed her large eyes, in doubt and inquiry, on Kate, as if she could interrogate our heroine’s very soul.

“Maybe she would,” she answered frankly, at last. “She was always afraid of uncle, and often cried after he’d been to see us. But I promised her I’d stay with him. Is it right to break promises? Wouldn’t that be to tell a lie?”

Kate felt her eyes shrink before the gaze of the innocent child. She was no adept in casuistry, and if she had been, the inquiry of the little girl, thus put, would have silenced her. Even the strong instinct to escape could not induce her to mislead one so young and pure.

“God help me!” was her answer, wringing her hands. “I must then stay here. Oh! if I were dead.”

The child looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then said, pulling her by her sleeve,

“Don’t, don’t. They won’t hurt you—will they? Uncle told me he was going to marry you, and that I must give up my room to you, and go and sleep in the barn, for tonight, anyhow. If you don’t like uncle, you needn’t marry him, need you? I thought people only married when they liked each other.”

“You cannot understand it all, my child,” answered Kate, placing her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “But listen! I don’t want to marry your uncle. I never will marry him. They brought me here by force, or I’d never have come. If you don’t let me go, I’ll not live till night; and you’ll see me dead here, before your eyes.”

The child started back with a sudden shriek, which she stifled as hastily, looking in terror towards the house; and then, taking Kate’s hand, she drew her away within the shadow of the barn. Here, pausing, she said,

“You don’t mean it. They’ll not kill you?”

“As sure as there is a good God above us,” answered Kate, solemnly, “if you don’t let me go, I’ll not be alive to-morrow. There is no help for it. While, if you do let me go,” she continued, eager to take advantage of the favorable chance, “nobody will know you helped me. In fact, you won’t help me; you’ll only keep Lion quiet; and if they were to know you helped me, they couldn’t harm you, innocent child that you are. If your mother was alive, she’d wish you to let me go. You know I wouldn’t tell a lie, darling, or I’d have tried still to get you to go with me, in spite of your promise to your mother. Every minute is precious. It will soon be daybreak. Only keep Lion quiet, leave me to myself, and go back to your bed in the barn.”

“You shall go,” suddenly said the child. “I’ll go inside, and take Lion with me.”

“God bless you!” cried Kate, seizing her in her arms and kissing her again and again. “If I escape, and you ever want a friend, you’ll always have one, if you ask for Miss Aylesford, of Sweetwater.”

“Good-bye,” said the child, timidly returning the kisses. “Take the road in front, and keep straight ahead. Only,” she added, “when you come to the big cedar, past the log bridge, a mile off, you must turn to the right.”

“I will, I will,” breathlessly said Kate, but, in her hurry and excitement, paying less heed to the direction than she ought. “Again God bless you!”

With tears in her eyes she gave the child a last embrace, and first glancing towards the house to see that no one was in motion, ran swiftly across the open space, entered the road, nor slackened her speed until not only the turn concealed her from sight, but a considerable distance intervened between her and the clearing. Then, almost out of breath, she subsided into a quick walk, occasionally stopping to hear if the steps or shouts of pursuers were following in the distance.

As for the child, she remained in the shadow, caressing the dog to keep him quiet, and watching the retreating figure of our heroine, until Kate had wholly disappeared. Then, suddenly bursting into tears, she turned, and entered the dilapidated barn, leading the bloodhound, whom, the instant they were alone together on the hay, she clasped to her arms, in a mute eloquence that said he was now again the only friend she had in the world.

Whence is that knocking!
How is it with me, when every noise appals me. —Shakespeare.

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread.
* * * * * *
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread. —Coleridge.

The precious moments which Kate had lost, first by falling asleep, and afterwards through the watchfulness of the hound, stimulated her now to the utmost speed of which she was capable. Running until she was forced to pause for breath, then pausing an instant to listen, now walking at her utmost pace, then running again as soon as she had recovered herself, she reached the bridge of which the child had spoken, in a period of time incredibly short, and only to be accounted for by the terror with which the fear of death or dishonor winged her feet.

At this point she was compelled to come to a full stop, and remain for awhile in perplexed thought, uncertain which way to go. In vain she tried to remember which road the child had told her to take. As she stood there, hesitating, her fears received fresh stimulants. Every noise was magnified into the sound of pursuers. Even the soft sighing of the wind in the distance seemed to her excited fancy the remote baying of the hound; while the sudden dropping of a pine-cone near her made her start, with a half uttered scream, as if her foes were already upon her. To have seen her then, as she stood glancing fearfully across her shoulder, her hand pressed to her palpitating heart, her lips parted in terror, and her cheek lividly pale, one would have compared her only to some beautiful, milk-white doe, suddenly startled by the hunter’s cry, and feeling in imagination the fangs of the enormous stag-hounds already at her throat.

To no purpose either was her scrutiny as to the condition of the two roads, in order to ascertain which of them presented the appearance of being most frequently travelled. It had plainly been many days, if not weeks, since a vehicle had passed over either. At last Kate selected the road to the right as the one which seemed to be the principal one. Yet, at this point, it flashed across her that, perhaps, the most travelled path was really the one she should avoid; for it probably led into the great highway, connecting Philadelphia with the sea-shore. She was but little acquainted with the country on this side of Sweetwater, forests extending almost unbrokenly across from one river to the other; but what little she knew satisfied her that this great highway might be traversed for hours without reaching succor. Within twenty years of the present time, the writer has passed over a space of twelve miles at a time, without seeing more than one house; and at the period of our story, the village at the end of that desolate stage was not even projected. Kate, indeed, might have walked all day along that highway, without meeting enough persons to protect her from the refugees. It was, therefore, almost certain recapture for her to take the path communicating with that road.

She paused, therefore, again. But the more she thought the more perplexed she became. Time, meanwhile, was passing; precious moments, big with destiny. She could not rely on the outlaws remaining ignorant of her flight a moment after daybreak; and already the night was waning fast. Drawing forth her watch, of which she had not been despoiled, most strangely as she thought, she discovered that the dawn was only an hour distant. What was an hour’s start, however, to one like her, wearied by the excessive fatigue of the preceding day, unused to travelling far on foot, and deprived of sleep for the last twenty-four hours, except for the slight interval at the hut. How could she expect to gain the Forks, even if she struck the right road, in less than two hours?

“If I hesitate longer,” she cried, in despair, “they will overtake me, long before I can reach any place of safety I am acquainted with. I must decide in some way. This right hand road, I fear, leads into the King’s highway: I will take the one on the left: God help me if I am wrong!”

Accordingly she turned in that direction, and having rested herself partially by the pause, ran forward again until she was quite out of breath. For half an hour, she continued alternately running, walking, and running again, occasionally pausing to listen: and in that time, as she calculated, had traversed between two and three miles. The forest still continued as wild as ever; but this did not alarm her; for she was aware that the wilderness extended to the very doors, as it were, of the settlement at the Forks. She therefore pushed forward, her excitement enabling her to disregard fatigue, and to forget that she had eaten little for a day. For another half an hour, consequently, she hurried on, and as the distance between her and the outlaws was increased, her hopes gradually rose.

Day was now beginning to break. The moon continued to shine as lustrously as ever; indeed, being now nearly at the zenith, her light seemed even more effulgent than when Kate left the hut; but there was a cold, gray hue over the eastern sky which heralded the morning. Gradually the white light of day stole over the orient heavens, when that of the moon assumed a partially sickly cast. The birds too now began to twitter in the underbrush and smaller growth around.

At this point Kate reached an opening in the woods, where the trees had been cut off a year or two ago. On the eastern side of this was a tract of pine land, where a fire had passed, leaving the tall firs standing stripped of their foliage, like a forest of black, charred masts against the heavens. Through this, in the distance, was seen a reddened sky, a proof that the sun, though still below the horizon, was close upon it. The route of Kate lying in the direction of this burnt district, it was not long before she saw the upper edge of his disc emerge, shooting long lines of light towards her, that came glancing between the black trunks of the pines, or bathed the greener space more directly in front with showers of golden radiance. The whole forest around was now alive with twittering birds. Meantime the moon, as if suddenly struck pale by an enchanter’s hand, seemed all at once to have lost its late glorious effulgence, and was now seen, a faint, waning orb, apparently powerless in the zenith. To the right and left, however, in the recesses of the woods, where the sunshine had not yet penetrated, the moonlight still lay, cold and beautiful, though even there less lustrous than it had been.

In a few minutes it grew dim also even in these secluded aisles, fading perceptibly to the eye as in a dissolving view. The sun had now risen completely above the horizon. The exhalations of the night still partially obscured him, however, so that he loomed large and inflamed on the vision. But directly he surmounted the region of these vapors; and at once the whole landscape was flooded with dazzling light. The black, charred pines; the verdant tract of low brush oak; and the arcades that ran before the eye into the forest on every side, glowed with the excess of effulgence: the leaves, that rustled slightly in the wind, flashed in the bright rays: and the moon became a pale, uncertain circle, the affrighted shadow of herself.

For another hour Kate pursued her way, without stopping longer than a few moments at a time, and then only to listen if she was pursued. At the end of that period she began to think that she ought to be in the neighborhood of the Forks. She pressed on, however, till the sun was nearly two hours high, yet without reaching her destination. She now became alarmed. At the pace at which she had been advancing, she ought, she knew, to have arrived at the Forks before this; besides, the road was becoming a mere wood-path; while the forest around was changing its character and assuming that of an impenetrable swamp. She now bethought her to compare the position of the sun with what it would be if she was advancing in the right direction. To her dismay she found that luminary over her left shoulder and behind, instead of in front, and on the right, as it should have been. At this discovery she came to a halt, overcome with the sudden faintness of despair.

During her progress, she had frequently passed other roads, opening into the one she was traversing, but as they were either evidently paths used only by the wood-cutters, or led off at right angles, she had carefully avoided them. Studiously had she kept to what appeared to be the most direct and beaten way, nor until this moment had she thought of testing it by the heavens. Thus she had unconsciously turned her face in the wrong direction, by following its tortuous course.

A moment’s reflection, however, suggested to her that the deviation of the road might be only temporary, though the fact that she had not reached the Forks, as she ought, told against this supposition. Drowning people, it is said, catch at straws, however, and nerving herself with this hope, she started afresh. But after walking for a considerable period longer, and carefully noting the position of the sun all the while, she became convinced that she was receding from the point of her destination, instead of advancing towards it.

When this discovery forced itself on her, nature at last gave way. Overtasked though she had been, hope and energy had kept her up; but now both succumbed together; and her strength departed with them. Sinking tremblingly and powerless on the huge root of a mossy tree, she covered her face with her hands, and burst into sobs like a child.

But, when she had wept for a while, a reaction took place. She started suddenly to her feet.

“Why do I give way thus?” she cried. “Is not anything better than falling again into the hands of those ruffians? Better to drop down and die from sheer exhaustion, than to sit here trembling, like a hunted hare, till I am seized.”

As she spoke, she resumed her flight, running till she panted, and then walking rapidly on with desperate, but alas! purposeless energy. For the further she advanced, the more remote became the Forks, as she saw by the position of the sun; yet she dared not turn back, as that would be to run into the jaws of her hunters. The first cross-path that she met, and which led in the right direction, she entered, however. But after following this for awhile, it also went astray, and now she was in greater perplexity and dismay than ever.

In fact she was evidently advancing into one of those almost pathless swamps, which abounded in that region, and which had engulphed many a lost traveller as effectually as the sea swallows up a foundered crew. The soil beneath her was no longer solid, though sandy; but was a soft, black vegetable mould, in which she often sank to the ankles. The path, for it was now scarcely a road, was almost overgrown with bushes; and occasionally it was really difficult to tell where it was, the wheel-tracks, if they had ever existed, having long ago been obliterated.

Yet she struggled on. Despair gave her now the energy which hope had formerly supplied; and though almost exhausted with physical weakness, her brave soul still upheld her flagging frame, and still urged her forward. Thus she staggered on, all that morning, dragging her heavy limbs along, and continually rallying herself to a swifter pace, when she mistook the wind among the trees for the hurrying tread of pursuers, or the distant bay of a hound.

The sun was now high in the heavens. Kate had been on her feet since two hours before the dawn. She could no longer advance at a faster pace than a walk, and that a slow and painful one. She saw also that she was moving almost in a circle, the sun being now before her, now on her right, now behind her, and now to the left. But, though hopelessly lost in the swamp, though sometimes almost miring in the oozy soil, she did not, for one moment, entertain the thought of turning back.

“Oh! no, no,” she said wildly, “certain death, death in any shape, is better than falling again into those merciless hands.”

Even the idea of lingering for days, in a state of starvation, was less terrible to her than being retaken. She had heard of persons, lost in swamps, who had perished miserably for the want of food, and whose bleached skeletons, found long years after, had been the only clue their friends ever had to their fate; and she had formerly shuddered at such tales. But she did not shudder now. She felt that, if she could purchase immunity from the outlaws in no other way, she would gladly accept even this horrible alternative.

“God,” she said, “tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. He will give me strength to face such a death.”

Noon was now at hand. The path had long since dwindled into a mere blind track, formed rather by the natural space between the trees than by the footsteps of man or beast. Frequently tall bushes, interlaced into an impenetrable net-work, guarded the sides like a hedge; and again the path swelled into natural openings, half an acre or so in extent. Lofty trees, whose sombre verdure threw an almost funereal gloom around, towered high into the sky, with here and there a blasted pine, shooting, arrowy-like, high over all, and adding to the desolate aspect of the landscape.

But I, in none of these,
Find place or refuge. —Milton.

What miracle
Can work me into hope! —Lee.

Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
With one brave bound the copse he cleared. —Scott.

Suddenly the distant cry of a hound seemed borne upon the air. Often before, during the morning, as we have said, Kate had fancied she heard such a noise; and as often had she been happily disappointed. But this time there was no mistaking it. No sighing of the wind among the pines, no murmur of distant water, could produce that peculiar cry, which was plainly the hoarse, deep bay of a bloodhound heated with the chase.

Kate gazed in terror around, vainly seeking a hiding-place. If the earth had opened, at that moment, and swallowed her up, she would have welcomed it as a relief. The worst that she had feared, that recapture which was more horrible than death, was now about to befall her. Help there was none. The nearest human creature, possessed of the sympathies of our common nature, was probably miles away; and as for pleading for mercy at the hands of the outlaws, she knew she might as well petition to the winds.

Meantime the bay of the hound sounded louder and louder, fiercer and fiercer, nearer and nearer. Occasionally he would appear to lose the scent for a moment or two, for the deep cry would die away through the wilderness; and Kate, at such times, would listen breathlessly, fluctuating between hope and despair. But the hoarse bay broke forth invariably again, at intervals greater or less; and always with a startling ferocity that sent the blood back in torrents to her heart. After thus recovering the scent, the cry of the hound would be heard almost incessantly, till the forest resounded with a hundred echoes, and the very heavens seemed to give back the sound. Though the pursuers now drew near, and then receded a space, as if following a somewhat circuitous path, the terrible bay of the hound plainly approached closer, with the lapse of every quarter of an hour.

There was but one hope now left for our heroine, which was that death would put an end to her miseries, before she could be dragged back to the outlaw’s hut. Her efforts to escape had so completely exhausted her, that her heroic spirit would have been unable to force the weary limbs onward much further, even though the refugees had failed to track her. She felt satisfied that she could not retrace her steps to the cabin, and that she would perish on the way if the attempt was made to compel her.

But, hopeless as was her condition, Kate still remained true to herself. The fate which she could not avert, she resolved should be met with dignity at least. She abandoned, therefore, all further thought of flight, determining to face her inevitable destiny where she then stood. Like a Roman virgin, stout-hearted to the last, as became the daughter of illustrious heroes, she drew her garments decorously and proudly about her, and stood up to face the foe.

It was not only on herself that she relied, however, in this most terrible of all extremities. The reader is already familiar with the fact that Kate was sincere and earnest in her piety; and now, when she considered death as imminent, she looked up to the Almighty for support in that dreadful hour. She had been educated in the liturgy of the Established Church, as her fathers had been since the days of the saintly Latimer, and though she worshiped with other sects as fervently as with her own, when the ministry of her church was impossible, her thoughts naturally turned, in this extremity, to the solemn words of that litany which she had learned first at her mother’s knee.

As she stood, therefore, facing the foe, and bravely supporting her weak frame by leaning against a tree, her eyes were raised to heaven, and her lips moved in earnest supplications. We have seen somewhere a picture of a Christian virgin, bound to an oak by Pagan enemies, and about to suffer martyrdom by being transfixed with arrows as a target. So Kate looked now. Her hands were clasped downwards before her; and her uplifted countenance glowed with a fervent enthusiasm that proved the mortal part above the fear of death. Thus she stood, while the bay of the ferocious hound drew nearer, and shouts, mingling with the hoarse cry, showed that her pitiless hunters were now close at hand; yet not an eyelid quivered, not a muscle about her mouth twitched, not a shade of color rose into her composed, though pallid face.

“Remember not, Lord, our offences,” she prayed, “nor the offences of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance of our sins; spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood.”

Again the hoarse cries of the bloodhound, nearer at hand than ever, woke the echoes of the wilderness, mingled with the exulting shouts of the outlaws; for the pursuers knew, from the rapidity and power of the dog’s cries, that they were now almost up with their prey.

“By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation, by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting and Temptation.”

Again the ferocious bay of the bloodhound rose to the sky, and reverberated through the forests.

“By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.”

Still a third time the cry of the excited hound rung across the silence.

“In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment.”

Still rose, as if in answer, that deep, hoarse bay of the bloodhound, which seemed almost to deny the justice of heaven.

But now the victim began to pray for others, and for her enemies even, as the litany of the Church teaches.

“That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men.”

The bay of the hound replied almost beside her.

“That it may please thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors and slanderers, and to turn their hearts.”

A burst from the bloodhound, at her very side, was the answer; and immediately the terrible animal broke from the undergrowth.

His reddish coat seemed more inflamed in color than ever; his open mouth, with its blood-colored tongue, was white with foam; and his eyes blazed with such fury, that they seemed to emit phosphoric light. He paused an instant, erecting his tall form, his hairs bristling with rage, for he did not immediately perceive his prey. His glance soon rested on her, however, when, with a yell that rung far and near through the forest, and startled the beasts of the chase from the noon-day coverts they had sought, he sprang at the throat of our heroine.

But, at that very instant, just as the hound was half way towards his victim, darting through the air with distended jaws and eager fangs, a quick, sharp report was heard, a whizzing sound smote on Kate’s unnaturally excited ear, and the dog, as if struck suddenly by a bolt from heaven, rolled over on the ground, nearly at the feet of his intended prey, his head shattered to pieces by a double load of buckshot.

For a moment, our heroine knew not whether to hail this as a welcome relief, or only as a respite to a more miserable doom. Her first thought was that Arrison, finding that the hound had outrun him, had fired to save her from the fangs of the excited animal. This impression was fortified, by seeing the refugee himself dash upon the scene, almost before the single convulsive movement of the dog was over, after he had fallen.

But this belief was removed by the very first words of the outlaw. Without even looking at Kate, he rushed up to the hound, and first gazing hurriedly on his mutilated form, glanced angrily around the little open space where these scenes were being enacted. Discovering nobody, however, he seemed for a moment perplexed; but instantly suspecting it was some one who had outstripped him, he cried, with every feature working with passion,

“Who fired that shot? Who dared kill my dog?” And he concluded with a blasphemous oath.

An answer came sooner than he expected, for while he still scowled around, the bushes parted directly in front of him, and Uncle Lawrence appeared, his finger on the trigger of his gun, and the piece held ready for instant service.

“I fired it, you villain,” coolly replied the veteran, placing himself before Kate, but without looking at her, while all the time he watched the outlaw as warily as one would eye a panther about to spring.

“Keep still—don’t touch me,” he whispered to our heroine immediately, in a tone so low as to be heard only by Kate. “Help is near, if we can gain time. I’ll die with you, my child, if I can’t save you.”

As he spoke, he still kept his eyes on Arrison, his finger on the trigger, his piece ready for instant use.