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An acute observer of human nature has remarked,
that there are seasons when a man differs not less
from himself than he does at other times from all
other men; and certain it is that passion will often,
with the magic of a moment, work a change in the
character which the blind pressure of circumstance
throughout long years—the moulding habits of an
ordinary lifetime, with all their plastic power above
the human heart, could never have wrought in the
same individual who undergoes this sudden transformation.

An hour had passed away with Greyslaer; an
hour of phrensied feeling. And one such hour is
enough, with a man of deep, intense, and concentrated
feelings, for the gust of passion to subside
into the stern calmness of resolve. The soldier
who was sent to summon him to the mess-table reported
that Major Greyslaer's quarters were vacant.
The soldier had passed the major's servant on his
way thither to pack up and put away his things, as

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if his master were likely to be long absent. The
servant himself came the next moment to say, that
his master, being suddenly called away from the
post, would not dine with the mess that day. His
brother officers, though knowing that their popular
comrade had lately received a long-expected furlough,
were still surprised at this abrupt departure;
and one or two of them left their seats and hurried
out to the stables. Greyslaer stood there with a
cloak and valise over his arm, superintending in person
the equipment of his horse for a long journey.
His cheek was pale, his eye looked sunken, and his
aspect altogether was that of one who had for the
first time ventured forth after a long and serious ill-ness;
yet there was no fever about his eyes; they
were rather, indeed, dull, cold, and glassy.

The officers, who simultaneously uttered a cry
of surprise at the strange alteration in the appearance
of their friend since the morning, were—they
hardly knew why—instantly silenced by Greyslaer's
manner as he turned round to answer their salutation.
They had come there, impelled by motives
of friendly curiosity, to ask why he broke away so
suddenly from their society. They now stood as
if they had forgotten their errand; mute lookers-on,
whom some mysterious influence withheld from expressing
their emotions even by a sympathetic glance
with each other. When all was ready, Greyslaer
threw himself into the saddle, murmured something
about his having already taken his leave of the colonel,
and, as the two officers thought they remembered
afterward, left some words of kind farewell
for others of the mess. But the ghastly appearance
of Greyslaer, the icy coldness of the hand he gave
them to shake, and his strangely unnatural and
statue-like appearance as he slowly moved off unattended,
struck a chilling amazement into the hearts

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of his friends, that left them perfectly stupified for
the moment. They had broken away from the table
to take a cordial farewell of one whose generous,
soldierly temperament, not less than his brilliant
social qualities, had made him the pride and
delight of the mess. The marble figure with which
they but now parted wore, indeed, the lineaments of
their friend, but was a perfect stranger to their
hearts. The very voice, they swore, never did belong
to Max Greyslaer. As for the soldiers, many
of whom were recruited from among the superstitious
Scotch and German settlers of the neighbouring
mountains, they fully believed that some evil
spirit of the heathenish Indians had wrought this
sudden and mysterious change in the whole look
and bearing of their favourite officer; and, alas! it
was but too true that the direst of pagan deities had
taken up her abode in the heart of Max Greyslaer.

In the mean time, the horseman, who furnished
so earnest a theme for those whom he had left behind,
slowly but steadily pursued his journey. His
horse, from the regular, mechanical gait he adopted,
seemed to know that a long road was before him.
The patient roadster and his motionless rider were
long seen from the battlements of Fort Stanwix,
though the evening shadows of the adjacent woods
snatched them more than once from view before
they finally glided like an apparition into the silent
forest.

There was no moon, but the stars shone brightly
above him as Greyslaer crossed the fatal field of
Oriskany. His horse snuffing the air, which, in the
warm, moist night of teeming springtime, stole out
from the tainted earth, first reminded him of the
scene of slaughter over which he was riding. He
passed the tree beneath which the remains of De
Roos had been laid. He did not shudder. He gave

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no tear to the recollection of the past; neither did
one thought arise to rebuke the memory of his early
friend for present sorrows. He did not even envy
him the repose of his woodland grave. He only
looked coldly upon the spot as a mere landmark of
Fate, where one breathing being, warm with life
and intelligence, had found his allotted bourne; and
why ponder upon a doom common to all—fixed,
predetermined, and to which he himself, as he believed,
was then moving at such a cold, passionless
pace?

It was long after midnight before Greyslaer halted,
and it was then only for the purpose of refreshing
his horse. The dawn found him again upon his
journey, and, by changing his steed for a fresher one,
he reached the Hawksnest before evening. His
original determination led him direct to Albany,
where Bradshawe was still under durance; but
when he found himself in the neighbourhood of his
homestead, and obliged to halt for a few hours from
the impossibility of getting another relay, he felt
himself irresistibly prompted to make a secret visit
to the premises. He did not intend to have an interview
with Alida, but he must look upon the house
which held her.

He approached the domain, and all was silent.
It was too early yet, perhaps, for lights to show
through the casement; but, if there had been any
there, Greyslaer could not have seen them, for every
shutter seemed closed. There was no smoke from
the chimneys, around which the swallows clustered,
as huddling there to an unmolested roost. Max had
never seen the home of his fathers look so desolate.
With quickening pace he advanced to the hall door
and tried the latch; but in vain, for the bolts had
been drawn within. He knocked, and the sound
came hollowly to his ears, as we always fancy it

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does from an untenanted mansion. He walked to
the end of the verandah, and, glancing rapidly round
among the outhouses, which stood off at one wing
of the main building, observed some poultry at
roost among a cluster of pear and locust trees which
nearly encircled the kitchen. Their presence suggested
him to apply to the only spot where these
feathered dependants could now look for their food.
He approached the kitchen—a small, Dutch-built
building of brick—and rapped against the window
before trying the door. A gray-headed negress,
protruding her head through a narrow window in
one of the gables, at length greeted his ears with
the sound of a human voice.

“Who's dere?” she cried, in a quick tone of
alarm.

“It is I—Master Max, Dinah.”

“Lorrah massy, be't you for sartain, or only your
spook?”

“No spook, my good Dinah, but my living self.
Come down and let me in.”

“Me mighty glad to see you, massy,” said the
negress, lighting a candle, after she had unbolted
the door to Greyslaer; “for Dinah go to bed when
they leib her all alone, so that she not see the spook.
But, Lorrah, Mass Max, how berry old he look.
He pale, too, as spook,” added the slave, shading
the candle partly with her hand as she peered into
her young master's features.

“But where are all my people? Where is
Miss—”

“De boys—all de boys, massy, has gone to de
village to hold corn-dance for seedtime. De housekeeper,
you know, lib at de oberseer's down in the
lane eber since she shut up the great house after
Miss Alida went away.”

“And where has Miss Alida gone?” said

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Greyslaer, with unnatural calmness, as he caught hold of
the back of a chair to steady himself; for, of a
truth, he for a moment feared that Alida, stung to
madness by the cruel nature of her sorrows, might
have hurried upon some tragic fate, he scarcely
knew what.

The answer of the old servant took an instant
load from his bosom. Miss Alida, she said, had
taken the little boy with her and gone to Albany
near a month since. “She grew thin and looked
mighty sorrowful before she went, and it made our
hearts bleed to see her, Mass Max,” said the faithful
black; “and, though we were all cast down like
when we saw her pack up her things to go away,
yet we thought it might be better for young missus
to go where there were more white folks to cheer
her up.”

Greyslaer made no answer, but, asking for the
key of the house, lighted a stable-lantern, and telling
Dinah that he should not want her attendance,
entered the deserted house. He gained the parlour,
which had beheld the last ill-omened parting of the
lovers, so sad yet so sweet withal. The room looked
much the same as when last he left it, save that
there were no fresh-gathered flowers upon the mantelpiece,
and some few slight articles belonging to
Alida had been removed. He placed the lantern
upon a table and opened its door; for the flickering
light, dancing upon one or two portraits with which
the walls were hung, gave them a sort of fitful life
that was annoying. He wished to realize fully that
he was alone. He looked around to see if there
were no memento or trace of the last hours which
Alida had passed in the same chamber. A little
shawl, thrown carelessly across the arm of a sofa,
met his eye. He took it up, looked at it, and knew
it to be Alida's. It had probably been flung there

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and forgotten in the hasty moment of departure.
Greyslaer had never been what, in modern parlance,
is called “a lady's man;” and though he could sometimes
tell one article of dress from another, he was
wholly unskilled in the effeminate knowledge and
toilet-like arts which distinguish that enviable class
of our sex. It was curious, therefore, to see him
stand and fold this scarf with the utmost nicety and
neatness. He handled it, indeed, like something
precious; and, from the delicacy with which he
pressed it to his lips before placing it in his bosom,
he seemed to imagine the senseless fabric imbued
with life; but all his motions now were like those of
one who moves in a dream.

At last he took up the lantern to retire from the
apartment, so desolate in itself, yet peopled with so
many haunting memories. A letter, which had been
unobserved when he placed it there, lay beneath it.
Max read the superscription. It was adressed to
himself, and in the handwriting of Alida. He
broke the seal, and read as follows:

“You will probably, before reading this, have surmised
the cause why I have withdrawn from beneath
a roof which has never sheltered dishonour.
Oh! my friend—if so the wretched Alida may still
call you—you cannot dream of what I have suffered
while delaying the execution of a step which I
believe to be due alike to you and to myself; but
the state of my health would not sooner admit of
putting my determination in execution, and I knew
there would be full time for me to retire before you
could come back to assume the government of your
household. That determination is never to see
you more. Yes, Greyslaer, we are parted, and for
ever........The meshes of villany which have been
woven around me it is impossible to disentangle.

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My woman's name is blasted beyond all hope of
retrieval, and yours shall never be involved in its
disgrace. I ask you not to believe me innocent.
I have no plea, no proof to offer. I submit to the
chastening hand of Providence. I make no appeal
to the love whose tried and generous offices might
mitigate this dreadful visitation. I would have you
think of me and my miserable concerns no more.
God bless you, Max! God bless and keep you;
keep you from the devices of a proud and arrogant
spirit, which Heaven, in its wisdom, hath so severely
scourged in me; keep you from that bitterest of
all reflections, the awful conviction that your rebellious
heart has fully merited the severest judgments
of its Maker. God bless and keep you, dearest,
dearest Max.

The features of Greyslaer betrayed no emotion
as he read this letter the first, the second, and even
the third time, for thrice did he peruse it before he
became fully master of its contents; and even then,
from the vacant gaze which he fixed upon its characters,
it would seem as if his mind were by no
means earnestly occupied with what it contained.
He laid it down upon the table, paced to and fro
leisurely through the chamber, paused, took up
some trivial article from the mantelpiece, examined
it, and replaced it as carefully as if his thoughts
were intent only upon the trifles of the moment.
He returned to the table, took up the letter, and
slightly shivering as he came to the close of it, turned
his eyes upward, while the paper, which he held
at arm's length, trembled in his hands as if he were
suddenly seized with an ague-fit. “God of heaven!”
he cried, “I cannot, I dare not pray; yet thou
only—” he paused, and shuddered still more

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frightfully, as his lips seemed almost unwittingly about
to syllable the prayerful thoughts which, rising from
a heart tenanted as his was by a murderer's vow,
would be a mockery, an insult to Heaven. Tears—
the first resource of woman, the last relief of man—
burst that moment from his eyes, and alleviated
a struggle so powerful as to threaten instant madness
to its half-convulsed subject. The sufferer
buried his face in his hands, and, throwing himself
on the sofa, wept long and passionately. Let no
man sneer at his weakness, unless he has once loved
as did Greyslaer; unless that love has been blasted
as his was; unless he has felt himself the victim of
an iron destiny, when the heart, softened by years
of unchanging tenderness, was least fitted to bear
up under the doom to which he must yield! Greyslaer
knew the singular firmness, the inflexible determination
of Alida's character. He believed, as
she did, that it was now impossible to wipe away
the reproach that attached to her name. She had
declared her resolution. He felt that he would see
her no more.

And was there, then, it may be asked, no doubt
in the mind of Max, no shadowy but still poignant
doubt, no latent and subtile suspicion of the truth
of his mistress? No momentary weighing of testimony
as to what might be the real circumstances
of Alida's story?

Not one! ever—for a moment—not one disloyal
thought to the majesty of her virtue; not one blaspheming
doubt to the holiness of her truth; no,
never—never, for the breath of an instant, had an unhallowed
suspicion of Alida's maiden purity crossed
the mind of her lover! Greyslaer himself was all
truth and nobleness! How could so mean and miserable
a thought have found entrance into a soul
like his, regarding one as high-strung as itself, and

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with which it had once mingled in full and rich
accord? Besides, the love of a feeling and meditative
mind; the love that, born in youth, survives
through the perilous trials of early manhood, with
all the warm yet holy flush of its dawn tincturing
its fondness, and all the soberer and fuller light of
its noontide testing without impairing its esteem—
such a love becomes as much a part of a man's nature,
mingles as intimately with his being, as the
very life-blood that channels through his veins; and
to doubt the purity of her who inspires it were as
deathful as to admit a poison into the vital fluids of
his system. Such love may languish in hopelessness,
may wither in despair, may die at last—like
the winter-starved bird of Indian fable, who melted
into a song, which, they say, is still sometimes heard
in his accustomed haunts—but it never can admit
one moment's doubt of the worthiness of its object.

The gush of passionate emotion to which the unhappy
Max had abandoned himself, had at last its
end. And as these were the first tears which he
had shed in years—for his phrensied ravings in the
hour when he first received the cruel blow to his
happiness had had no such relief—they were followed
by a calmness of mind far more natural than
that which he had recently known. Even the old
negress, who had sat up watching for him, pipe in
mouth, by the kitchen-fire, where she had raked a
few embers together, could not but observe the difference
in his appearance while commenting upon
the fixed air of sadness which her young master
still wore. Greyslaer, who, even at such a time,
was not forgetful of the humble dependants upon
his bounty, handed the old woman a few shillings
to replenish her store of tobacco, the only luxury
left to her age and infirmity; and, leaving a trifle or
two for the other servants, took a kind leave of old

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Dinah, and returned to the inn where he had left his
horse. The gray of the morning found him once
more upon the road; and before sunset the spires
of Schenectady, the last village he was to pass
through before reaching Albany, rose to his view.
But we must now leave him to look after other personages
of our story.

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