[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

I am flesh and blood myself, as well as
the rest of you, but there is no use in talking. What
the devil would you do?—You may talk till dooms-day,
but what's to hinder us from serving our time out?—
and that's three months yet. Ay, there's the point.
Show me that.

Three months! Ha, thank Heaven mine is

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

up to-morrow; and, I'll tell you what, boys, before the
sun goes down to-morrow night, you will see one Jack
Richards trudging home,—trudging home, Sirs! None of
your bamboozling, your logic, and your figures. A good
piece of bread and butter is the figure for me. But you
should hear the Colonel, though, as the time draws
nigh. Lord! you'd think I was the General at least.
Humph, says I.

Ay, ay,—feed you on sugar-candy till they get
you to sign, and then comes the old shoes and moccasins.—

And that's true enough, Ned. I've eaten myself,
no less than two very decent pair in the service. I'll
have it out of Congress yet though, I'll be hanged if I
don't. None of your figures for me! I say, boys, I am
going home.

Well, go home, and—can't any body else
breathe? Why don't you answer me, John?—What
would you have us do?—

Ask Will Wilson there.

Will?—Where is he?

There he stands, alongside of the picket there,
his hands in his pockets, whistling, and looking as wise
as the dragon. Mind you, there's always something
pinching at the bottom of that same whistle, though its
such a don't-care sort of a whistle too. Ask Will, he'll
tell you.

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

Ay, Will has been to the new quarters to-day.
See, he's coming this way.

And he saw Striker there, fresh from the Jerseys,
come up along with that new General there, yesterday.

General Arnold?

Ay, ay, General Arnold it is.

[Advancing.] I say, boys—

What's the matter, Will?

Do you want to know what they say below?

Ay, ay, what's the news?

All up there, Sirs. A gone horse!—and he
that turns his coat first, is the best fellow.

No?

And shall I tell you what else they say?

Ay.

Shall I?

Ay, ay, What is it?

That we are a cowardly, sneaking, good-for-nothing
pack of poltroons, here in the north. There's
for you! There's what you get for your pains, Sirs.
And for the rest, General Schuyler is to be disgraced, and
old Gates is to be set over us again, and—no matter for
the rest. See here, boys. Any body coming? See here.

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

What has he got there?

The Proclamation! The Proclamation!
Will you be good enough to let me see if there is
not a picture there somewhere, with an Indian and a
tomahawk?

Now, Sirs, he that wants a new coat, and a
pocket full of money—

That's me fast enough.

If he had mentioned a shirt-sleeve now, or a
rim to an old hat—

Or a bit of a crown, or so.

He that wants a new coat—get off from my
toes, you scoundrel.

Let's see. Let's see. Read—read.

(Spouting.) “And he that don't want his
house burned over his head, and his wife and children,
or his mother and sisters, as the case may be, butchered
or eaten alive before his eyes—”

Heavens and earth! It'ant so though, Wilson,
is it?

“Is required to present himself at the said village
of Skeensborough, on or before the 20th day of August
next. Boo—boo—boo—Who but I. Given under my
hand.”—If it is not it—it is something very like it, I can
tell you, Sirs. I say, boys, the old rogue wants his neck
wrung for insulting honest soldiers in that fashion; and
I say that you—for shame, Will Willson.

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

Hush!—the Colonel!—Hush!

And who is that proud-looking fellow, by his
side?

Hush! General Arnold. He's a sharp one—
roll it up—roll it up.

Get out,—you are rumpling it to death.

I cannot conceal it from you, Sir; there is
but one feeling about it, as far as I can judge, and I had
some chances in my brief journey—

Were you at head-quarters?

Yes,—and every step of this retreating army
only makes it more desperate. I never knew any thing
like the mad, unreasonable terror this army inspires.
Burgoyne and his Indians!—“Burgoyne and the Indians!”—
there is not a girl on the banks of the Connecticut
that does not expect to see them by her father's
door ere day-break. Colonel Leslie, what were those
men concealing so carefully as we approached just now?—
Did you mark them?

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

Yes. If I am not mistaken, it was the
paper we were speaking of.

Ay, ay,—I thought as much.

General Arnold, I am surprised you should
do these honest men the injustice to suppose that such
an impudent, flimsy, bombastic tirade as that same proclamation
of Burgoyne's, should have a feather's weight
with any mother's son of them.

A feather's, ay a feather's, just so; but when
the scales are turning, a feather counts too, and that is
the predicament just now of more minds than you think
for, Colonel Leslie. A pretty dark horizon around us just
now, Sir,—another regiment goes off to-morrow, I hear.
Hey?

Why, no. At least we hope not. We think
we shall be able to keep them yet, unless—that paper
might work some mischief with them perhaps, and it
would be rather a fatal affair too, I mean in the way of
example.—These Green Mountain Boys—

Colonel Leslie, Colonel Leslie, this army is
melting away like a snow-wreath. There's no denying
it. Your General misses it. The news of one brave
battle would send the good blood to the fingers' ends
from ten thousand chilled hearts; no matter how fearful
the odds; the better, the better,—no matter how large
the loss;—for every slain soldier, a hundred better would
stand on the field;—

But then—

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

By all that's holy, Sir, if I were head here,
the red blood should smoke on this grass ere to-morrow's
sunset. I would have battle here, though none but the
birds of the air were left to carry the tale to the nation.
I tell you, Colonel Leslie, a war, whose resources are
only in the popular feeling, as now, and for months to
come, this war's must be; a war, at least, which depends
wholly upon the unselfishness of a people, as this war
does, can be kept alive by excitement only. It was
wonderful enough indeed, to behold a whole people, the
low and comfort-loving too, in whose narrow lives that
little world which the sense builds round us, takes such
space, forsaking the tangible good of their merry firesides,
for rags and wretchedness,—poverty that the thought of
the citizen beggar cannot reach,—the supperless night
on the frozen field; with the news perchance of a home
in ashes, or a murdered household, and, last of all, on some
dismal day, the edge of the sword or the sharp bullet
ending all;—and all in defence of—what?—an idea—an
abstraction,—a thought:—I say this was wonderful
enough, even in the glow of the first excitement. But
now that the Jersey winter is fresh in men's memories,
and Lexington and Bunker Hill are forgotten, and all
have found leisure and learning to count the cost; it
were expecting miracles indeed, to believe that this army
could hold together with a policy like this. Every step
of this retreat, I say again, treads out some lingering
spark of enthusiasm. Own it yourself. Is not this
army dropping off by hundreds, and desertion too,

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

increasing every hour, thinning your own ranks and
swelling your foes?—and that, too, at a crisis—Colonel
Leslie, retreat a little further, some fifty miles further;
let Burgoyne once set foot in Albany, and the business
is done,—we may roll up our pretty declaration as fast
as we please, and go home in peace.

General Arnold, I have heard you to the
end, though you have spoken insultingly of councils in
which I have had my share. Will you look at this little
clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak of
will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than
this whole army's loss. There's a line—there's a line,
Sir, that will make null and void, very soon, if not on
the instant, all the evil of these golden promises.
There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better blood
than that shed in battle fields must flow to waken it.

I hardly understand you, Sir. Is it this threat
you point at?

Can't you see?—They have let loose these
hell-hounds upon us, and butchery must be sent into our
soft and innocent homes;—beings that we have sheltered
from the air of heaven, brows that have grown pale at
the breath of an ungentle word, must meet the red knife
of the Indian now. Oh God, this is war!

I understand you, Colonel Leslie. There
was a crisis like this in New Jersey last winter, I know,
when our people were flocking to the royal standard, as

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

they are now, and a few fiendish outrages on the part of
the foe changed the whole current in our favor. It may
be so now, but meanwhile—

Meanwhile, this army is the hope of the
nation, and must be preserved. We are wronged, Sir.
Have we not done all that men could do? What were
twenty pitched battles to such an enemy, with a force
like ours, compared with the harm we have done them?
Have we not kept them loitering here among these hills,
wasting the strength that was meant to tell in the quivering
fibres of men, on senseless trees and stones,
paralyzing them with famine, wearying them with unexciting,
inglorious toil, until, divided and dispirited, at
last we can measure our power with theirs, and fight,
not in vain? Why, even now the division is planning
there, which will bring them to our feet. And what to
us, Sir, were the hazards of one bloody encounter, to
the pitiful details of this unhonored warfare?—We are
wronged—we are wronged, Sir.

There is some policy in the plan you speak
of,—certainly, there is excellent policy in it if one had
the patience to follow it out; but then you can't make
Congress see it, or the people either; and so, after all,
your General is superseded. Well, well, at all events he
must abandon this policy now,—it's the only chance left
for him.

Why; howso?

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

Or else, don't you see?—just at the point
where the glory appears, this eastern hero steps in,
and receives it all; and the laurels which he has been
rearing so long, blow just in time to drop on the brow of
his rival.

General Arnold,—excuse me, Sir—you do
not understand the man of whom you speak. There
is a substance in the glory he aims at, to which,
all that you call by the name is as the mere shell
and outermost rind. Good Heavens! Do you think
that, for the sake of his own individual fame, the
man would risk the fate of this great enterprize?—What
a mere fool's bauble, what an empty shell of honor,
would that be. If I thought he would—

It might be well for you to lower your voice
a little, Sir; the gentleman of whom you are speaking is
just at hand.

Yes, if this rumor holds, Lieutenant Van
Vechten, your post is likely to become one of more honor
than safety. Gentlemen—Ha!—General Arnold! You
are heartily welcome;—I have been seeking you, Sir.
If this news is any thing, the movement that was planned
for Wednesday, we must anticipate somewhat.

News from the enemy, General?

Stay—those scouts must be coming

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

in, Van Vechten. Why, we can scarce call it news yet, I
suppose; but if this countryman's tale is true, Burgoyne
himself, with his main corps, is encamping at this moment
at the Mills, scarce three miles above us.

Ay, and good news too.

But that cannot be, Sir—Alaska—

Alaska has broken faith with us if it is,
and the army have avoided the delay we had planned
for them.—That may be.—This man overheard their
scouts in the woods just below us here.

And if it is,—do you talk of retreat, General
Schuyler? In your power now it lies, with one hour's
work perchance, to make those lying enemies of yours
in Congress eat the dust, to clear for ever your blackened
fame. Why, Heaven itself is interfering to do you right,
and throwing honor in your way as it were! Do you talk
of retreat, Sir, now?

Heaven has other work on hand just
now, than righting thewrongs of such heroes as you and I,
Sir. Colonel Arnold—I beg your pardon, Sir, Congress
has done you justice at last I see,—General Arnold, you
are right as to the consequence, yet, for all that, if this
news is true, I must order the retreat. My reputation
I'll trust in God's hands. My honor is in my own keeping.

There's a smoke from that chimney; are
those houses inhabited, my boy?

Part of them, Sir. Some of our people went off
to-day. That white house by the orchard—the old parsonage
there? Ay, there are ladies there Sir, but I heard
Colonel Leslie saying this morning 'twas a sin and a
shame for them to stay another hour.

Ay, Ay. I fancied the Colonel was not dealing
in abstractions just now.

(singing.)

Yes, let me see now,—with a little plotting this might
make two—two, at least,—and then—

—Alas! what a golden, delicious afternoon is blowing
without there, wasting for ever; and never a glimpse of
it. Delicate work this! Here's a needle might serve for
a genuine stiletto! No matter,—it is the cause,—it is
the cause that makes, as my mother says, each stitch in
this clumsy fabric a grander thing than the flashing of
the bravest lance that brave knight ever won.

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

Do not sing, Annie.

Crying would better befit the times, I know,—
Dear mother, what is this?

Hush,—asleep—is she?

This hour, and quiet as an infant. Need
enough there was of it too. See, what a perfect damask
mother!

Draw the curtain on that sunshine there.
This sleep has flushed her. Ay, a painter might have
dropped that golden hair,—yet this delicate beauty is but
the martyr's wreath now, with its fine nerve and

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

shrinking helplessness. No, Annie; put away your hat,
my love,—you cannot go to the lodge to-night.

Mother?

You cannot go to the glen to-night. This is
no time for idle pleasure, God knows.

Why, you have been weeping in earnest, and
your cheek is pale.—And now I know where that sad
appointment led you. Is it over? That it should be in
our humanity to bear, what in our ease we cannot, cannot
think of!

Harder things for humanity are there than
bodily anguish, sharp though it be. It was not the boy,—
the mother's anguish, I wept for, Annie.

Poor Endross! And he will go, to his dying
day, a crippled thing. But yesterday I saw him springing
by so proudly! And the mother—

“Words, words,” she answered sternly
when I tried to comfort her; “ay, words are easy.
Wait till you see your own child's blood. Wait till you
stand by and see his young limbs hewn away, and the
groans come thicker and thicker that you cannot soothe;
and then let them prate to you of the good cause.”
Bitter words! God knows what is in store for us;—all
day this strange dread has clung to me.

Dear mother, is not this the superstition you
were wont to chide?

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

Ay, ay, we should have been in Albany ere
this. In these wild times, Annie, every chance-blown
straw that points at evil, is likely to prove a faithful index;
and if it serve to nerve the heart for it, we may call
it heaven-sent indeed. Annie,—hear me calmly, my
child,—the enemy, so at least goes the rumor, are nearer
than we counted on this morning, and—hush, not a word.

She is but dreaming. Just so she murmured
in her sleep last night; twice she waked me with the
saddest cry, and after that she sat all night by the window
in her dressing-gown, I could not persuade her to
sleep again. Tell me, mother, you say and—and what?

I cannot think it true, 'tis rumored though,
that these savage neighbors of ours have joined the
enemy.

No! no! Has Alaska turned against us?
Why, it was but yesterday I saw him with Leslie in
yonder field. 'Tis false; it must be. Surely he could
not harm us.

And false, I trust it is. At least till it is
proved otherwise, Helen must not hear of it.

And why?

She needs no caution, and it were useless
to add to the idle fear with which she regards them all,
already. Some dark fancy possesses her to-day; I have
marked it myself.

It is just two years to-morrow, mother, sinc

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

Helen's wedding day, or rather, that sad day that should
have seen her bridal; and it cannot be that she has quite
forgotten Everard Maitland. Alas, he seemed so noble!

Hush! Never name him. Your sister is
too high-hearted to waste a thought on him. Tory!
Helen is no love-lorn damsel, child, to pine for an unworthy
love. See the rose on that round cheek,—it
might teach that same haughty loyalist, could he see her
now, what kind of hearts 'tis that we patriots wear,
whose strength they think to trample. Where are you
going, Annie?

Not beyond the orchard-wall. I will only
stroll down the path here, just to breathe this lovely air
a little; indeed, there's no fear of my going further now.

Did I say right, Helen? It cannot be feigned.
Those quick smiles, with their thousand lovely
meanings; those eyes, whose beams lead straight to the
smiling soul. Principle is it? There is no principle in
this, but joy, or else it strikes so deep, that the joy grows
up from it, genuine, not feigned; and yet I have found
her weeping once or twice of late, in unexplained agony.
Helen!

Oh mother! is it you? Thank God. I
thought—

What did you think? What moves you
thus?

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

I thought—'tis nothing. This is very strange.

Why do you look through that window thus?
There's no one there! What is it that's so strange?

Is it to-morrow that we go?

To Albany? Why, no; on Thursday. You
are bewildered, Helen! surely you could not have forgotten
that.

I wish it was to-day. I do.

My child, yesterday, when the question was
debated here, and wishing might have been of some
avail, 'tis true you did not say much, but I thought, and
so we all did, that you chose to stay.

Did you? Mother, does the road to Albany
wind over a hill like that?

Like what, Helen?

Like yonder wooded hill, where the soldiers
are stationed now?

Not that I know of? Why?

Perhaps we may cross that very hill,—no—
could we?

Not unless we should turn refugees, my
love; an event of which there is little danger just now, I
think. That road, as indeed you know yourself, leads
out directly to the British camp.

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

Yes—yes—it does. I know it does. I will
not yield to it. 'Tis folly, all.

You talk as though you were dreaming still,
my child. Put on your hat, and go into the garden for
a little, the air is fresh and pleasant now; or take a ramble
through the orchard if you will, you might meet Annie
there,—no, yon she comes, and well too. It's quite
time that I were gone again. I wish that we had nothing
worse than dreams on hand. Helen, I must talk with
you about these fancies; you must not thus unnerve
yourself for real evil.

It were impossible,—it could not be!—how
could it be?—Oh! these are wild times. Unseen powers
are crossing their meshes here around us,—and, what
am I?—Powers?—there's but one Power, and that——
“He careth for the little bird,
Far in the lone wood's depths, and though dark weapons
And keen eyes are out, it falleth not
But at his will.

Hist!

Well, so I did; but—

Hist, I say!

A squirrel it is, Sir; there he sits.

By keeping this path you avoid the picket on
the hill. It will bring you out where these woods skirt
the vale, and scarcely a hundred rods from the house
itself.

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

Captain Andre—Sir.

It were well that the pacquet should fall into no
other hands. With a little caution there is no danger.
It will be twilight ere you get out of these woods—

I beg your pardon, Sir; but here is that young
Indian guide of mine, after all, above there, beckoning me.

Stay—you will come back to the camp ere midnight?

Unless some of these quick-eyed rebels see through
my disguise.

Do not forget the lodge as you return. A little
hut of logs just in the edge of the woods, but Siganaw
knows it well.

Hillo, Maitland! These woods yield fairies,—
come this way.

For God's sake, Andre! (motioning silence.)
Are you mad?

Well, who are they?

Who? Have you forgotten that we are on the
enemy's ground? Soldiers from the fort, no doubt.
They have crossed that opening twice since we stood
here.

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

Well, let them cross twice more. I would run
the risk of a year's captivity, at least, for one such glimpse.
Nay, come, she will be gone.

Stay,—not yet. There, again!

Such a villainous scratching as I got in that
pass just now. It must have cost the rogues an infinite
deal of pains though. A regular, handsome sword-cut
is nothing to a dozen of these same ragged scratches,
that a man can't swear about. After all, Captain Maitland,
these cunning Yankees understand the game.
They will keep out of our way, slyly enough, until we
are starved, and scratched, and fretted down to their proportions,
meanwhile they league the very trees against us.

As to that, we have made some leagues ourselves,
I think, quite as hard to be defended, Sir.

It may be so. Should we not be at the river
by this?

Sunset was the time appointed. We are as
safe here, till then.

'Tis a little temple of beauty you have lighted
on, in truth. These pretty singers overhead, seem to
have no guess at our hostile errand. Methinks their
peaceful warble makes too soft a welcome for such warlike
comers. Hark! [Whistling.] That's American.
One might win bloodless laurels here. Will you stand
a moment just as you are, Maitland;—'tis the very thing.
There's a little space in my unfinished picture, and with

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

that a la Kemble mien, you were a fitting mate for this
young Dian here, (taking a pencil sketch from his portfolio,)—
the beauty-breathing, ay, beauty-breathing, it's no
poetry;—for the lonesome little glen smiled to its darkest
nook with her presence.

What are you talking of, Andre? Fairies and
goddesses!—What next?

I am glad you grow a little curious at last.
Why I say, and your own eyes may make it good if you
will, that just down in this glen below here, not a hundred
rods hence, there sits, or stands, or did some fifteen
minutes since, some creature of these woods, I suppose
it is; what else could it be? Well, well, I'll call no
names, since they offend you, Sir; but this I'll say, a young
cheek and smiling lip it had, whate'er it was, and
round and snowy arm, and dimpled hand, that lay
ungloved on her sylvan robe, and eyes—I tell you plainly,
they lighted all the glen.

Ha? A lady?—there? Are you in earnest?

A lady, well you would call her so perchance.
Such ladies used to spring from the fairy nut-shells, in the
old time, when the kings' son lacked a bride; and if this
were Windsor forest that stretches about us here, I might
fancy, perchance, some royal one had wandered out, to
cool the day's glow in her cheek, and nurse her love-dream;
but here, in this untrodden wilderness, unless
your ladies here spring up like flowers, or drop down on

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

invisible pinions from above, how, in the name of reason,
came she here?

On the invisible pinions of thine own lady-loving
fancy; none otherwise, trust me.

Come, come,—see for yourself. On my word
I was a little startled though, as my eye first lighted on
her, suddenly, in that lonesome spot. There she sat, so
bright and still, like some creature of the leaves and
waters, such as the old Greeks fabled, that my first
thought was to worship her; my next—of you, but I
could not leave the spot until I had sketched this; I
stood unseen, within a yard of her; for I could see her
soft breath stirring the while. See, the scene itself was
a picture,—the dark glen, the lonesome little lodge, on the
very margin of the fairy lake—here she sat, motionless
as marble; this bunch of roses had dropped from her
listless hand, and you would have thought some tragedy
of ancient sorrow, were passing before her, in the invisible
element, with such a fixed and lofty sadness she
gazed into it. But of course, of course, it is nothing to
your eye; for me, it will serve to bring the whole out at
my leisure. Indeed, the air, I think, I have caught a little
as it is.

A little—you may say it. She is there, is she?—
sorrowful; well, what is't to me?

What do you say?—There?—Yes, I left her
there at least. Come, come. I'll show you one will

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

teach you to unlearn this fixed contempt of gentle woman.
Come.

Let go, if you please, Sir. She who gave me
my first lesson in that art, is scarcely the one to bid me
now unlearn it, and I want no new teaching as yet,
thank Heaven. Will you come? We have loitered
here long enough, I think.

What, under the blue scope—what the devil
ails you, Maitland?

Nothing, nothing. This much I'll say to you,—
that lady is my wife.

Nonsense!

There lacked—three days, I think it was, three
whole days, to the time when the law would have given
her that name; but for all that, was she mine, and is;
Heaven and earth cannot undo it.

Are you in earnest? Why, are we not here
in the very heart of a most savage wilderness, where
never foot of man trod before,—unless you call these
wild red creatures men?

You talk wildly; that path, followed a few
rods further, would have brought you out within sight of
her mother's door.

Ha! you have been in this wilderness then,
ere now?

Have you forgotten the fortune I wasted once

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

on a summer's seat, some few miles up, on the lake above?
These Yankees did me the grace to burn it, just as the
war broke out.

Ay, ay, that was here. I had forgotten the
whereabouts. Those blackened ruins we passed last
evening, perchance;—and the lady—my wood-nymph,
what of her?

Captain Andre, I beg your pardon, Sir. That
sketch of yours reminded me, by chance perhaps, of one
with whom some painful passages of my life are linked;
and I said, in my haste, what were better left unsaid.
Do me the favor not to remind me that I have done so.

So—so! And I am to know nothing more of
this smiling apparition; nay, not so much as to speak
her name? Consider, Maitland, I am your friend it is
true; but, prithee, consider the human in me. Give her
a local habitation, or at least a name.

I have told you already that the lady you speak
of resides not far hence. On the border of these woods
you may see her home. I may point it out to you securely,
some few days hence;—to-night, unless you
would find yourself in the midst of the American army,
this must content you.

A wild risk for a creature like that! Have
these Americans no safer place to bestow their daughters
than the fastnesses of this wilderness?

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

It would seem so. Yet it is her home. Wild
as it looks here, from the top of that hill, where our men
came out on the picket just now so suddenly, you will
see as fair a picture of cultured life as e'er your eyes
looked on. No English horizon frames a lovelier one.

Here? No!

Between that hill and the fort, there stretches a
wide and beautiful plain, covered with orchards and meadows
to the wood's edge; and here and there a gentle
swell, crowned with trees, some patch of the old wilderness.
The infant Hudson winds through it, circling in
its deepest bend one little fairy isle, with woods enough
for a single bower, and a beauty that fills and characterizes,
to its remotest line, the varied landscape it centres;
and far away in the east, this same azure mountain-chain
we have traced so long, with its changeful light and
shade, finishes the scene.

You should have been a painter, Maitland.

The first time I beheld it—one summer evening
it was, from the woods on the hill's brow;—we were a
hunting party, I had lost my way, and ere I knew it
there I stood;—its waters lay glittering in the sunset
light, and the window-panes of its quiet dwellings were
flashing like gold,—the old brown houses looked out
through the trees like so many lighted palaces; and even
the little hut of logs, nestling on the wood's edge, borrowed
beauty from the hour. I was miles from home;

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

but the setting sun could not warn me away from such
a paradise, for so it seemed, set in that howling wilderness,
and—

Prithee, go on. I listen.

I know not how it was, but as I wandered slowly
down the shady road, for the first time in years of
worldliness, the dream that had haunted my boyhood revived
again. Do you know what I mean, Andre?—that
dim yearning for lovelier beings and fairer places, whose
ideals lie in the heaven-fitted mind, but not in the wilderness
it wakes in; that mystery of our nature, that
overlooked as it is, and trampled with unmeaning things
so soon, hides, after all, the whole secret of this life's dark
enigma.

But see,—our time is well-nigh gone,—this is
philosophy—I would have heard a love tale.

It was then, that near me, suddenly I heard the
voice that made this dull, real world, thenceforth a richer
place for me than the gorgeous dream-land of childhood
was of old.

Ay, ay—go on.

Andre, did you ever meet an eye, in which the
intelligence of our nature idealized, as it were, the very
poetry of human thought seemed to look forth?

One such.

—That reflected your whole being; nay,

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

revealed from its mysterious depths, new consciousness, that
yet seemed like a faint memory, the traces of some old
and pleasant dream?

Methinks the heavenly revelation itself doth that.

Such an eye I saw then shining on me. A
clump of stately pines grew on the sloping road-side, and,
looking into its dark embrasure, I beheld a group of merry
children around a spring that gurgled out of the hill-side
there, and among them, there sat a young girl clad
in white, her hat on the bank beside her, tying a wreath
of wild flowers. That was all—that was all, Andre.

Well, she was beautiful, I suppose? Nay, if it
was the damsel I met just now I need not ask.

Beautiful? Ay, they called her so. Beauty
I had seen before; but from that hour the sun shone with
another light, and the very dust and stones of this dull
earth were precious to me. Beautiful? Nay, it was
she. I knew her in an instant, the spirit of my being;
she whose existence made the lovely whole, of which
mine alone had been the worthless and despised fragment.
There are a thousand women on the earth the
artist might call as lovely,—show me another that I can
worship.

Worship! This is Captain Everard Maitland.
If I should shut my eyes now—

Well, go on; but I tell you, ne'ertheless, there

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

have been times, even in this very spot,—we often wandered
here when the day was dying as it is now,—here
in her soft, breathing loveliness, she has stood beside me,
when I have,—worshipped?—nay, feared her, in her
holy beauty, as we two should an angel who should
come through that glade to us now.

True it is, something of the Divinity there is
in beauty, that, in its intenser forms, repels with all its
winningness, until the lowliness of love looks through it.
Well—you worshipped her.

Nay, you have told the rest. I would have worshipped;
but one day there came a look from those beautiful
eyes, when I met them suddenly, with a gaze that
sought the mystery of their beauty,—a single look, and
in an instant the drooping lash had buried it forever;
but I knew, ere it fell, that the world of her young being
was all mine already. Another life had been forever
added unto mine; a whole creation; yet, like Eden's
fairest, it but made another perfect; a new and purer
self; and in it grew the heaven, and the fairy-land of
my old dreams, lovelier than ever. You have loved
yourself, Andre, else I should weary you.

Not a bit the more do I understand you
though. You talk most lover-like; that's very clear, yet I
must say I never saw the part worse played. Why,
here's your ladye-love, this self-same idol of whom you
rave, at this moment perchance, breathing within these

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

woods,—years too—two mortal years it must be, since
you have seen her face; and yet—you stand here yet,
with folded arms;—a goodly lover, on my word!

Softly, Sir! you grace me with a title to which
I can lay no claim. Lover I was, may be. I am no
lover now, not I—not I; you are right; I would not walk
to that knoll's edge to see the lady, Sir.

Well, I must wait your leisure, I see.

And yet, the last time that we stood together
here, her arm lay on mine, my promised wife. A few
days more, and by my name, all that loveliness had gone.
There needed only that to make that tie holy in all
eyes, the holiest which the universe held for us; but
needed there that, or any thing to make it such in ours.
Why, love lay in her eye, that evening, like religion,
solemn and calm.—We should have smiled then at
the thought of any thing in height or depth, ending, what
through each instant seemed to breathe eternity from
its own essence;—we were one, one,—that trite word
makes no meaning in your ear,—to me, life's roses burst
from it; music, sunshine, Araby, should image what it
means; what it meant rather, for it is over.

What was it, Maitland?

Oh,—well,—she did not love me; that was all.
So far my story has told the seeming only, but ere long
the trial came, and then I found it was seeming, in good
sooth. The Rebellion had then long been maturing, as

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

you know; but just then came the crisis. It was the
one theme everywhere. Of course I took my king's
part against these rebels, and at once I was outraged,
wronged beyond all human bearing. Her mad brother,
her's, her's what a world of preciousness, Andre, that little
word once enshrined for me; and still it seems like
some broken vase, fragrant with what it held.

Nay, 'tis a little love-poem of my own; go on, Maitland.

This brother I say, quarrelled with me, though
I had borne from him unresentingly, what from another
would have seemed insult. We quarrelled at last, and
the house was closed against me, or would have been
had I sought access; for I walked sternly by its pleasant
door that afternoon, though I remember now how the
very roses that o'erhung the porch, the benched and
shaded porch, that lovely lingering place, seemed to
beckon me in. It was a breathless summer day, and the
vine curled in the open window,—even now those lowly
rooms make a brighter image of heaven to me than the
jewelled walls that of old grew in the pageant of our
sabbath dreams.

And thus you abandoned yourlove? A quarrel
with her brother?

I never wronged her with the shadow of a
doubt. Directly, that same day, I wrote to her to fix

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

our meeting elsewhere, that we might renew our broken
plans in some fitter shape for the altered times.
She sent me a few lines of grave refusal, Sir; and the
next letter was returned unopened.

'Twas that brother! Pshaw! 'twas that brother,
Maitland. I'll lay my life the lady saw no word
of it.

I might have thought so too, perchance; but that
same day,—the morning had brought the news from Boston,—
I met her by chance, by the spring in the little grove
where we first met; and—Good Heavens! she talked of
brothers! Brothers, mother, sisters!—What was their
right to mine? All that the round world holds, or the
universe, what could it be to her?—that is, if she had
loved me ever; which, past all doubt, she never did.

Maitland! Heavens, how this passion blinds
you! And you expected a gentle, timid girl like that to
abandon all she loved. Nay, to make her home in the
very camp, where death and ruin unto all she loved, was
the watchword?

I beg your pardon, Sir. I looked for no such
thing. I offered to renounce my hopes of honor here for
her; a whole life's plans, for her sake I counted nothing.
I offered her a home in England too, the very real of her
girlhood's wish; my blighted fortunes since, or a home
in yonder camp,—never, never. But if I had, ay, if I

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

had,—that is not love, call it what you will, it is not love,
to which such barriers were any thing.

Oh well, a word's a word. That's as one
likes. Only with your definition, give me leave to say,
marvellous little love, Captain Maitland, marvellous little
you will find in this poor world of ours.

I'll grant ye.

If there is any thing like it outside of a poet's
skull, ne'er credit me.

Strange it should take such shape in the creating
thought and in the yearning heart, when all reality
hath not its archetype.

Hist!

A careful step,—one of our party I fancy.

'Tis time we were at the rendezvous. If we
have to recross the river as we came, on the stumps of
that old bridge, we had best keep a little day-light with
us, I think.

Helen Grey, where on earth have you been?
Wood flowers!

Come and look at this sunset.

Surely you have not, you cannot have been in
those woods, Helen: and yet, where else could this periwinkle
grow, and these wild roses?—Delicious!

Hear that flute. It comes from among those
trees by the river side.

It is the shower that has freshened every
thing, and made the birds so musical. You should
stand in the door below, as I did just now, to see the fort
and the moistened woods stands out from that black sky,
with all this brightness blazing on them.

'Tis lovely—all.

There goes the last golden rim over the blackening
woods; already even a shade of tender mourning
steals over all things, the very children's voices under this
tree,—how soft they grow.

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

Will the day come when we shall see him
sink, for the last time, behind those hills?

Nay, Helen, why do you mar this lovely hour
with a thought like that?

And in another life, shall we see light, when
his, for us, shines no more?—What sound is that?

That faint cry from the woods?

No,—more distant,—far off as the horizon, like
some mighty murmur, faintly borne, it came.

I wish that we had gone to-day. I do not
like this waiting until Thursday;—just one of that elder
brother's foolish whims it was. I cannot think how your
consent was won to it. Did you meet any one in your
walk just now?

No—Yes, yes, I did. The little people where
I went, I met by hundreds, Annie. Through the dark
aisles, and the high arches, all decked in blue, and gold,
and crimson, they sung me a most merry welcome.
And such as these—see—You cannot think how like
long-forgotten friends they looked, smiling up from their
dark homes, upon me.

You have had chance enough to forget them
indeed,—it is two years, Helen, since you have been in
those woods before. What could have tempted you there
to-day?

Was there danger then?—was there danger

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

indeed?—I was by the wood-side ere I knew it, and
then,—it was but one last look I thought to take—nay,
what is it, Annie? George met me as I was coming
home, and I remember something in his eye startled me
at first; but if there was danger, I should have known of
it before.

How could we dream of your going there
this evening, when we knew you had never set your
foot in those woods since the day Everard Maitland left
Fort Edward?

Annie!

For me, I would as soon have looked to see
Maitland himself coming from those woods, as you.

Annie! Annie Grey! You must not, my sister—
do not speak that name to me, never again, never.

Why, Helen, I am sorry to have grieved you
thus; but I thought—Look! look! There go those officers
again,—there, in the lane between the orchards.
Scarcely half an hour ago they went by to the fort in
just such haste. There is something going on there, I
am sure.

In truth there was a rumor this afternoon,—
you are so timid and fanciful, our mother chose you
should not hear it while it was rumor only; but 'tis said
that a party of the enemy have been seen in those woods

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

to-day, and, among them, the Indians we have counted
so friendly. Do you hear me, Helen?

That he should live still! Yes, it is all real
still! That heaven of my thought, that grows so like a
pageant to me, is still real somewhere. Those eyes—
they are darkly shining now; this very moment that
passes me, drinks their beauty;—that voice,—that tone,—
that very tone—on some careless ear, even now it wastes
its luxury of blessing. Continents of hail and darkness,
the polar seas—all earth's distance, could never have
parted me from him; but now I live in the same world
with him, and the everlasting walls blacken between
us. Those looks may shine on the dull earth and senseless
stones, but not on me; on uncaring eyes, but not on
mine; though for one moment of their lavished wealth,
I could cheaply give a life without them; never again,
never, never, never shall their love come to me.

Who would have thought she could cherish in
secret a grief like this? Dear sister, we all believed
you had forgotten that sad affair long ago,—we thought
that you were happy now.

Happy?—I am, you were right; but I have been
to-day down to the very glen where we took that last
lovely walk together, and all the beautiful past came
back to me like life.—I am happy; you must count me
so still.

With what I have just now heard, how can I?

It is this war that has parted us; and so, this

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

is but my part in these noble and suffering times, and
that great thought reaches over all my anguish. But for
this war I might have been—hath this world such flowers,
and do they call it a wilderness?—I might have been,
even now, you know it, Annie, his wife, his wife, his.
But our hearts are cunningly made, many-stringed; and
often much good music is left in them when we count
them broken. That which makes the bitterness of this
ot, the inconceivable, unutterable bitterness of it, even
that I can bear now, calmly, and count it God's kindness
too.

I do not understand you, sister.

What if this young royalist, Annie, when he
quarrelled with my brother, and took arms against my
country, what if he had kept faith to me?

Well.

Well? Oh no, it would not have been well.
Why, my home would have been with that pursuing
army now, my fate bound up with that hollow cause,—
these very hands might have fastened the sword of oppression;
nay, the sword whose edge was turned against
you, against you all, and against the cause, that with
tears, night and morning, you were praying for, and with
your heart's best blood stood ready to seal every hour.
No, it is best as it is; or if my wish grows deeper still, if
in my heart I envy, with murmuring thought, the blessed
brides, on whose wedding dawns the laughing sun of

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

peace, then with a wish I cast away the glory of these
suffering times.—It is best as it is. I am content.

I wish I could understand you, Helen. You
say, “if he had kept faith to you;”—carried you off, you
mean! Do you mean, sister Helen, that of your own
will you would ever have gone with him, with Everard
Maitland,—that traitor?

Gone with him? Would I not? Would I
not? Dear child, we talk of what, as yet, you know nothing
of. Gone with him? Some things are holy, Annie,
only until the holier come.

(looking toward the door.) Stay, stay. What
is it, George?

I was seeking our mother. What should it
be, but ill news? This tide is against us, and if it be
not well-night full, we may e'en fold our arms for the rest.
There, read that. (Throwing her a letter.)

Every face you see looks as if a thunder-clond were
passing it. I heard one man say, just now, as I came in,
that the war would be over in a fortnight's time.
There'll be some blood spilt ere then, I reckon though.

What paper is that that reddens her cheek so
suddenly?

The McGregor's!—think of it, Helen,—gone
over to the British side, and St. John of the Glens, and—
who brought you this letter, George? 'Tis false! I

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

do not believe it, not a word of it. Why, here are twenty
names, people that we know, the most honorable, too,—
forsaking us now, at such a crisis!

Self-defence, self-defence, sister; their lands
and their houses must be saved from devastation. What
sort of barracks think you, would that fine country-seat of
McGregor's make?—and St. John's—he is a farmer you
know, and his fields are covered with beautiful grain,
that a week will ripen, and so, he is for turning his sword
into a sickle;—besides, there are worse things than pillage
threatened here. Look, (unfolding a hand-bill.)
Just at this time comes this villainous proclamation
from Skeensborough, scattered about among our soldiers
nobody knows how, half of them on the eve of desertion
before, and the other half—what ails you, Helen?

There he stands!

Is she crazed? Why do you clasp your hands
so wildly? for Heaven's sake, Helen!—her cheek is
white as death.—Helen!

Is he gone, Annie?

As I live, I do not know what you are talking
of. Nay, look; there is no one here, none that you
need fear, most certainly.

I saw him, his eye was on me; there he
stood, looking through that window, smiling and beckoning
me.

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

Saw him? Who, in Heaven's name? This
is fancy-work.

I saw him as I see you now. He stood on
that roof,—an Indian,—I saw the crimson bars on his
face, and the blanket, and the long wild hair on his
shoulders; and—and, I saw the gleaming knife in his
girdle,—Oh God! I did.

Ay, ay, 'twas that scoundrel that dogged us
in our way home, I'll lay my life it was.

In our way home? An Indian, I said.

Well, well, and I say an Indian, a rascal Indian,
was watching and following us all the way home
just now.

George!

Then you did not see him after all. In truth,
I did not mean you should, for we could not have hurried
more, but all the time we sat in that shanty, while it
rained, about as far off as that chair from me, stood this
same fellow among the bushes, watching us, or rather
you. And you saw him here? He might have crept
along by that orchard wall. What are you laughing at,
Annie?—I will go and see what sort of a guard we
have.

If you knew as much of Helen's Indians as I
do, you would hardly be in such a hurry, George, I mean
about this one that was here just now, for there are Indians
in yonder forest I suppose; but since we were so

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

high, I never walked in the woods with her once, but
that we encountered one, or heard his steps among the
bushes at least; and if it chanced to be as late as this,
there would be half a dozen of them way-laying us in
the road,—but sometimes they turned out squirrels,
and sometimes logs of wood, and sometimes mere air,
air of about this color. We want a little light, that is all.
There is no weapon like that for these fancy-people. I
can slay a dozen of them with a candle's beams.

Do not laugh at me to-night, Annie.

But what should the Indians want of you,
pry'thee; tell me that, Helen?

God knows. Wait till the sun sets to-morrow,
and I will laugh with you if you are merry then.

Why to-morrow?—because it is our last day
here? Tuesday—Wednesday—yes; the next day we
shall be on the road to Albany.

I am awake now. Watched me in the glen?—
followed me home? Those woods are full of them.—
But what has turned their wild eyes on me?

It is but one day longer;—we have counted many, in
peril and fear, and this, is the last;—even now how softly
the fearful time wastes. One day!—Oh God, thou
only knowest what its shining walls encircle. (She leans
on the window, musing silently.) Two years ago I
stood here, and prayed to die.—On that same tree my

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

eye rested then. With what visions of hope I played
under it once, building bowers for fairies I verily thought
would come, and dreaming, with yearning heart, of glorious
and beautiful things this world hath not. But,
that wretched day, through blinding tears, I saw the sunlight
on its glossy leaves, and I said, `let me see that
light no more.' Surely the bitterness is deep when that
which hath colored all our unfolded being, is a weariness.
For what more hath life for me I thought, its lesson is
learned and its power is spent,—it can please, and it can
trouble me no more; and why should I stay here in vain
and wearily?

It was sad enough, indeed, to see the laughing spring
returning again, when the everlasting winter had set in
within, to link with each change of the varied year,
sweet with a life's memories, such mournfulness; laying
by, one by one, all hope's blessed spells, withered and
broken forever,—the moonlight, the songs of birds, the
blossom showers of April, the green and gold of autumn's
sunset,—it was sad, but it was not in vain.—Not in vain,
Oh God, didst thou deny that weeping prayer.

Look! look! sister Helen! see what I have
found on the roof of the piazza here,—all covered with
wampum and scarlet, and here are feathers too—two

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

feathers in it, blue and yellow—eagle's feathers they are,
I guess.

(approaching the window.) Let me see, Willy.
What, did you find it here?

Just under the window here. Frank and I
were swinging on the gate; and—there is something
hard in it, Helen,—feel.

Yes, it is very curious; but—

There comes Netty with the candle; now we
can see to untie this knot.

Willy, dear Willy, you must give it to me, you
must indeed, and—I will paint you a bird to-morrow.

A blue-bird, will you? A real one?

Yes, yes;—run down little climber; see how
dark it grows, and Frank is waiting, see.

Well. But mind you, it must be a blue bird
then. A real one. With the red on his breast, and all.

What sent that thrill of forgotten life through
me then?—that wild, delicious thrill? This is strange,
indeed. A sealed pacquet within! and here—

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

No—no. I have seen that hand-writing in my dreams
before, but it dissolved always. What's joy better than
grief, if it pierce thus? Can never a one of all the soul's
deep melodies on this poor instrument be played out, then—
trembling and jarring thus, even at the breath of its
most lovely passion.—And yet, it is some cruel thing, I
know.

Cruel indeed! That little rose!—He might have spared
me this. A dull reader I were, in truth, if this needed
comment,—but I knew it before. He might have spared
me this.

Yet, who knows—(lifting her head with a sudden
smile,) some trace, some little curl of his pencil I may
find among these leaves yet, to tell me, as of old,—

(Reading.) These cold words I understand, but—letters!
—He wrote me none! Was there ever a word between
us, from the hour when he left me, his fancied bride, to
that last meeting, when, at a word, and ere I knew what
I had said, he turned on me that cold and careless eye,
and left me, haughtily and forever? And now—(reading)

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

—misapprehension, has it been! Is the sun on
high again?—in this black and starless night—the noonday
sun? He loves me still.—Oh! this joy weighs like
grief.

Shall I see him again? Joy! joy! Beautiful sunshine
joy! Who knows the soul's rich depths till joy
hath lighted them?--from the dim and sorrowful haunts
of memory will he come again into the living present?
Shall I see those eyes, looking on me? Shall I hear my
name in that lost music sound once more?—His?—Am
I his again? New mantled with that shining love, like
some glorious and beautiful stranger I seem to myself,
Helen—the bright and joy-wreathed thing his voice
makes that name mean—My life will be all full of that
blest music. I shall be Helen, evermore his—his.

No,—it would make liars of old sages,—and all books
would read wrong. A life of such wild blessedness? It
would be fearful like living in some magic land, where
the honest laws of nature were not. A life?—a moment
were enough. Ages of common life would shine in it.
(Reading again.) “Elliston's hut?”—“If I choose that
the return should be mutual,—and the memorials of a despised
regard can at best be but an indifferent possession;—
a pacquet reinclosed directly in this same envelope,
and left at the hut of the missionary, cannot fail to reach
him safely.”

“Safely.”—Might he not come there safely then?
And might I not go thither safely too, in to-morrow's
light?

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

O God, let not Passion lead me now. The centre
beaming truth, not passion's narrow ray, must light me
here!—But am I not his?

Once more, one horizon circles, for a day, our longparted
destinies; another, and another wave of these
wild times will drift them asunder again, forever; and
I count myself his wife. His wife?—nay, his bride, his
two years' bride, to-night, his wife, to-morrow. He must
meet me there, (Writing) at noon, I will say.—I did not
think that little hut of logs should have been my marriage-hall;—
he must meet me there, and to-morrow is
my bridal day

One, two, three. And this is ringed. The
dogs have spoiled the council-house.

So, Mr. Red-skin! would not you like a scalp
or two now, to string on your leggings? Maybe we can
help you to one or so. Hold fast. Take care of that
arm, I know him of old.

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

He's fixed, Sir.

Hark. Hark,—off again! Let me go.
What do you hold me for, you scoundrel?

Don't make a fool of yourself, Will Wilson.
There will be a dozen of them yelling around you there.
Besides, he is half way to the swamp by this. Look
here; what's this, in the grass here?

There was something in his hand, but he
clenched it through it all,—this is a letter. Bring it to
the fire.

(reading.) “This by the Indian, as in case
I am taken, he may reach the camp in safety. Not
over three thousand men in all, I should think,—very
little ammunition, soldiers mostly discouraged.—In
Albany, they are tearing the lead off the windows of the
houses, and taking the weights from the shops for ball.
Talk of retreating on Thursday to the new encampment,
five miles below. More when I get to you.”

More! Humph! A pretty string of lies he has got
here already. This must go to the General, Dick.

(Calling.) Come, come,—why do you sit
there scribbling so late, Helen? Come, and enjoy this
beautiful night with me. Ay, what a world of invisible
life amid the dew and darkness utters its glad voices;
even the little insect we never saw by day, makes us feel
for once the great brotherhood of being. This day week
we shall be in Albany,—no more such scenes as this
then.

No more!—It was a sad word you were saying,
Annie.

How you startled me. Your hands are cold,—
cold as icicles, and trembling too. What ails you,
Helen?

'Tis nothing.—How often you and I have
stood together thus, looking down on that old bridge.—
Summer and winter.—Do you remember the cold snowy
moonlights of old, when the sound of the distant bell
had hope in it? We shall stand together thus, no more.

Do not speak so sadly, Helen. I cannot think

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

they will destroy our home in mere wantonness. Was
there not some one coming up the path just now?
Hark! there is news with that tone.

A little more, an hour perchance, and he will
read my letter. Why do I tremble thus? Is it because
I have done wrong, that these dark misgivings haunt
me? No,—it is not remorse—'tis very like—yet remorse
it is not. Danger, there is none. I shall but walk to the
wood-side as to-day, that little path to the hut is quickly
trod, and he will be waiting there. I shall be safe then,
safe as I care to be.—Why do I stand here reasoning
thus? Safe? And if I were not, what is it to me now?
The dark plan is laid. The fearful acting now is all
that's left for me.

This must go to the lodge to-night, and ere my mother
returns;—to tell them now, would be to make my scheme
impossible.

Oh God! whence do these dark and horrible thoughts
grow?—Nay, feeling not born of thought. That wedding
robe looks like a shroud to me! I cannot. Shadows
from things unseen are upon me. The future is a
night of tempest, where I hear nothing but the breaking
boughs, and the whirl and crash of the mourning blast.
Oh God! there is no refuge for the fearful, but in thee.—
To thee—no. If there is power in prayer of mine, hath
it not already doomed that wicked cause, my fate is

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linked with now. I cannot pray.—Can I not?—How the
pure strength comes welling up from its infinite depths.

Hear me—not with lip service, I beseech thee now,
but with the earnestness that stays the rushing heart's
blood in its way.—Hear me. Let the high cause of
right and freedom, whose sad banner, now, on yonder
hill, floats in this summer air; whose music on this soft
night-breeze is borne—let it prevail—though I, with all
this sensitive, warm, shrinking life; with all this newfound
wealth of love and hope, lie on its iron way.

I am safe now.—This life that I feel now, steel cannot
reach.

Dear Helen, dress yourself. It is all true!
We must go to-night, we must indeed. They are dismantling
the fort now.—Come to the door, and you can
hear them if you will; and here is word from Henry, we
must be ready before morning—the British are within
sight. Do you hear me, Helen? Do not stand looking
at me in that strange way.

To-night!

I was frightened myself at first, sadly; but
there is no danger, not the least. We shall be in Albany
to-morrow, Henry says. Come, Helen, there is no one
to see to any thing but ourselves. They are running
about like mad creatures there below, and the children
are crying, and such a time you never saw.

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To-night! That those beautiful lips should
speak it! Take it back. It cannot be. It must not be.

Why do you look so reproachfully at me?
Helen, you astonish and frighten me!

Yes—yes—I see it all. And why could I not
have known this one hour sooner?—Even now it may
not be too late. Annie—

Thank Heaven,—there is my mother's voice
at last.

Annie, stay. Do not mark what I have I
said in the bewilderment of this sudden fear. Is George
below?—Who brought this news?

One of the men from the fort.—George has
not been home since you sent him to Elliston's. She is
calling me. Make haste and come down, Helen.

They will leave me alone. They will leave
me here alone. And why could I not have known this
one hour sooner?—I could have bid him come to-night—
If the invisible powers are plotting against me, it is well.
Could I have thought of this?—and yet, how like something
I had known before, it all comes upon me.—Can I
stay here alone?—Could I?—No never, never! He
must come for me to-night. Perchance that pacquet
still lies at yonder hut, and it is not yet too late to recal
my letter;—if it is—if it is, I must find some other messenger.
Thank God!—there is one way. Elliston can

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send to that camp to-night. He can—ever now,—He
can—he will.—

How quiet and soft it all lies in this solemn
light. Is it illusion?—can it be?—that old, familiar look,
that from these woods and hills, and from this moon-lit
meadow, seems to smile on me now with such a holy
promise of protection and love?—The merry trill in this
apple-tree is the very sound that, waking from my infant
sleep in the hush of the summer midnight, of old lulled,
nay, wakened my first inward thought. Oh that my heart's
youngest religion could come again, the feeling with
which a little child looks up to these mighty stars, as the
spangles on his home-roof, while he stands smiling beneath
the awful shelter of the skies, as under a father's
dome. But these years show us the evil that mocks that
trust.

'Tis he,—What a mere thread of time separates me
from my fate, and yet the darkness of ages could not hide
it more surely. Already he has reached the lane.

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Another minute will show me all. Will the pacquet be in
his hand, or will it not? I will be calm—it shall be like
a picture to me.

Ah! there is an immeasurable power about us, a foreign
and strange thing, that answers not to the soul, that
seems to know or to heed nothing of the living suffering,
rejoicing being of the spirit. Why should I struggle
with it any longer? From my weeping childhood to this
hour, it hath set its iron bars about me; no—softly yielding,
hath it not sometimes, the long, undreamed-of vistas
opened, bright as heaven,—and now, maybe—how
slow he moves—even now perchance.—This is wrong.
The Infinite is One. The Goodness Infinite, whose
everlasting smile lighteth the inner soul, and the Power
Infinite, whose alien touch without, in darkness comes,
they are of One, and the good know it.

Bless you, Miss! The pacquet had been gone this
hour!

Gone! Well.—And Elliston—what said he?

I brought this note of yours back, Miss Helen.
Father Elliston was gone. Here has been an Indian
killed on Sandy Hill this evening, Alaska's own son as
it turns out, and such a hubbub as they are making about
it you never heard. I met a couple of squaws myself,
yelling like mad creatures, and the woods are all alive
with them. The priest has gone down to their village

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to pacify them if it may be,—so I brought the note back,
Miss Helen, for there was no one there but a little rascal
of an Indian, and I would not trust the worth of a feather
with one of them. Was I right?

Yes. Give it to me. How far is it to the British
camp?

Why, they are just above here at Brandon's
Mills they say, that is, the main body. It can't be over
three miles, or so.

Three miles! only three miles of this lovely
moonlight road between us.—William McReady, go to
that camp for me to-night.

To the British camp?

Ay.

To the British camp! Lord bless you, Miss.
I should be shot—I should be shot as true as you are a
living woman. I should be shot for a deserter, or, what's
worse, I should be hanged for a spy.

What shall I do!

And besides, there's Madame Grey will be
wanting me by this time. See how the candles dance
about the rooms there.

Yes, you are right. We must go in and help
them. Come,

(Talking to her maid within.) What is the matter, Margaret? What do you go stealing
about the walls so like a mad woman for, with that
shoe in your hand?

(Within.) There, Sir!—your song is done!—
there's one less, I am certain of that. (Coming to the
door.) If ever I get home alive, my lady—Ha!—(striking
the door with her slipper.) If ever—you are there,
are you? I believe I have broken my ear in two. The
matter? Will your ladyship look here?

Well.

And if ever I get back to London, I'll say well
too. If ever I get back to London alive, my lady,—I'll
see—

What will you see, Margaret? Nothing
lovelier than this, I am sure. Are you not ashamed to
stand muttering there? Come here, and look at this
beautiful night.

La, Lady Harriet!

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Listen! How still the camp is now! You
can hear the rush of those falls we passed, distinctly.
How pretty the tents look there, in that deep shade.
These tuneful frogs and katy-dids must be our nightingales
to-night. Indeed, as I stand now, I could almost
fancy that fine wood there was my father's park; nay, methinks
I see the top of the old gray turrets peeping out
among the shadows there. Look, Margaret, do you see?

La! I can see woods enough, my lady, if that
is what you mean,—nothing else, and I have seen
enough of them already to last me one life through. Yes,
here's a pretty tear I have got amongst them!—Two
guineas and a half it cost me in London,—I pray I may
never set my eyes on a wood again.

This was some happy home once, I know.
See that rose-bush, and this little bed of flowers.—Here
was a pretty yard—there went the fence,—and there,
where that waggon stands, by that broken pear-tree,
swung the gate. And pleasant meetings there have
been at this door, no doubt, and sorrowful partings too,—
and hearts within have leaped at the sound of that
gate, and merry tales have been told by that desolate
hearth. In this little lonely unthought-of place, the mysterious
world of the human soul has unfolded,—the drams
of life been played, as grandly in the eyes of angels as
in the proud halls where my life dawned. And there are
hearts that cling to this desolate spot as mine does to

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that far-off home. We have driven them away in sorrow
and fear. This is war!

I wonder who is fluting under that tree there,
so late. They are serenading that Dutch woman, as I
live.

The Baroness, are you talking of, Margaret?

A baroness! Good sooth!—she looks like it,
in that yellow silk, and those odious beads, fussing about.
If your ladyship will believe me, I saw her sitting in
her tent to-night, ay, in the door, feeding that wretched
child with her own hands. We can't be thankful
enough they did not put her in here with us, I'll own.

Hush, hush, for shame! We might well
have spared that empty room. Come, we'll go in—It's
very late. Strange that Sir George should not be here
ere this.

Look, my lady! Here's some one at the gate.

Good evening to your ladyship.—Is Captain
Maitland here?—Sir George told me that he left him
here.

Ay, but he has been gone this hour. Stay,
it is Andre's flute you hear below there, and some one
has joined him just now—yes, it is he.

Under that tree;—thank you, my lady.

Stay, Colonel Hill,—I beg your pardon, but

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you spoke so hastily.—This young Maitland is a friend
of ours, I trust there is nothing that concerns him painfully.—

Oh nothing, nothing, except that he is ordered
off to Fort Ann to-night. There are none of us that
know these wild routes as well as he.

Good Heavens! What noise is that?

Lord 'a mercy! The battle is coming?

Hush! (To a sentinel who goes whistling
by.) Sirrah, what noise is that?

It's these Indians, my lady; they have found
the son of some chief of theirs murdered in these woods,
and they are bringing him to the camp now. That's the
mourning they make.

The Lord protect us!

William! Ho there!

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(Looking in.) Your honor?

Is not that horse ready yet?

Presently, your honor.

So the fellow has been here, it seems, and returned
again to Fort Edward without seeing me. Of
course, my lady deigns no answer.—An answer! Well,
I thought I expected none. Ten minutes ago I should
have sworn I expected none. Why, by this time that
letter of mine has gone the rounds of the garrison, no
doubt. William!

Bring that horse round, you rascal,—must I be under
your orders too, forsooth?

Certainly, your honor,—but if he could but just,—
I am a-going, Sir,—but if he could but just take a
mouthful or two more. There's never a baiting-place
till—

Do you hear?

The curse of having lived in these wilds cleaves
to me in all things. Here are Andre and Mortimer, and
a hundred more, and none but I for this midnight service.

(Re-entering.) The horse is waiting, Sir,—but
here's two of these painted creturs hanging about the

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door, waiting to see you. (Handing him a packet.)
There's no use in swearing at them, Sir, they don't understand
it.

(Breaking the seals hastily, he discovers the
miniature.) Back again! Well, we'll try drowning
next,—nay, this is as I sent it! That rascal dropped it
in the woods perhaps! Softly,—what have we here?

Who brought this?

The Indian that was here yesterday.

Alaska! Here's blood on the envelope, on the
letter too, and here—This packet has been soaked in
blood. (Re-reading the letter.)

“To-morrow”—“twelve o'clock” to-morrow—Look
if the light be burning in the Lady Ackland's window,—
she was up as I passed. “Twelve o'clock”—There are
more horses on this route than these cunning settlers
choose to reckon. Why, there are ten hours yet—
I shall be back ere then. Helen—do I dream?—This is
love!—How I have wronged her.—This is love!

(At the door.) The horse is waiting, Sir,—and
this Indian here wont stir till he sees you.

Alaska—I must think of it,—risk?—I would
pledge my life on his truth. He has seen her too,—I remember
now, he saw her with me at the lake. Let him
come in.—No, stop, I will speak with him as I go.

Married!—His wife?—Well, I think
I'll not try to sleep again. There goes Orion with
his starry girdle.—Married—is he?

Was not that Captain Maitland that was talking
here just now, Lady Harriet?

Go to bed, Margaret,—go to bed,—but look
you though. To-morrow with the dawn that furnishing
gear we left in the tent must be unpacked, and this
empty room—whose wife, think you, is my guest tomorrow,
Margaret?

Bless me! If I were to guess till daylight, my
lady—

This young Maitland, you think so handsome,
Margaret—

I?—la, it was not I, my lady, I am sure.

—He will bring us his wife home here tomorrow,
a young and beautiful wife.

Wife?—

Poor child,—we must give her a gentle welcome.
Do you remember those flowers we saw in the
glen as we passed?—I will send for them in the

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morning, and we will fill the vacant hearth with these blossoming
boughs.—

But, here—in these woods, a wife!—where on
earth will he bring her from, my lady?

Ay, we shall see, to-morrow we shall see,—
go dream the rest.

Who would have thought it?—so cold and
proud he seemed, so scornful of our sex.—And yet I
knew something there lay beneath it all.—Even in that
wild, gay mood, when the light of mirth filled and o'erflowed
those splendid eyes,—deeper still, I saw always
the calm sorrow-beam shining within.

That picture he showed me—how pretty it was!—
The face haunts me with its look of beseeching loveliness.—
Was there anything so sorrowful about it though?—
Nay, the look was a smile, and yet a strange mournfulness
clings to my thought of it now. Well, if the painter
hath not dissembled in it—the painter?—no. The
spirit of those eyes was of no painter's making. From
the Eidos of the Heavenly Mind sprung that.

I shall see her to-morrow.—Nay, I must meet her in
the outskirts of the camp,—so went my promise,—if
Maitland be not here ere then.