[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

There was a blacksmith's shop at the forks of
the road, a few yards in advance of the spot where
Greyslaer, the moment he became aware of the
stranger's approach, had reined up to challenge him
in passing. For, in these times, when almost every
passenger upon the highway was an object of scrutiny,
a horseman who journeyed so hotly by night
naturally awakened suspicion as to his character.

Max, remembering the neighbourhood of the
blacksmith's hovel, thought for a moment that it
might be only some farmer's boy, who, directing
his way thither to have a horseshoe replaced, was
endeavouring by speed to diminish the lateness of
the hour in which he must return homeward when
his errand was finished. But the toils of the blacksmith
seemed already ended for the day, as the
sound of his anvil had ceased, and no light hovered
around his shanty to tell that the bellows was
busy within. The horseman, too, did not check
his speed as he approached the smithy, but came
thundering on as before, evidently about to pass it.
As it chanced, however, the owner of the premises

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

was still there at work around his smouldering fire;
and in the very moment that the stranger passed
the large unglazed window of the hovel, a sudden
puff of his bellows sent the sparks up from the chimney
of the forge, and threw a ruddy strip of light
across the road. The horse of the stranger, startled
at the sudden glare, shied, and flung his rider upon
the spot.

Greyslaer, who clearly beheld the adventure from
where he stood, spurred forward, threw himself
from the saddle, and assisted the blacksmith, who
had rushed to his door, in raising the fallen man
from the ground. The smith, who was none other
than the doughty Wentz, mentioned in the earlier
chapters of this work, uttered a significant cry of
surprise the moment he beheld the features of the
dismounted traveller; and Max, upon scrutinizing
them more narrowly as they together dragged their
helpless load to the light, was at no loss to recognise
the savage apparition of the Haunted Rock in
the bruised, bedraggled, and crestfallen being before
him.

“You may look for the master where you find
the man,” said Hans, shaking his head wisely as he
dipped a handful of dirty water from the trough in
which he generally cooled his irons, and threw it
in the face of the stunned and senseless man.

“His master?” interrogated Greyslaer, a dark
chain of suspicious and vengeful thoughts forming
in his mind with the rapidity of lightning.

“Well, his leader then—his employer, or whatever
name you would give him who has always used
this chap in his doings when he had work on hand.
He, I say, Wat Bradshawe, must be astir when Red
Wolfert rides abroad after this fashion. It were a
mercy, now, to the whole country, captain, to knock
him in the head with this iron.”

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

“What! murder a man that lies helpless before
you? Surely, Hans, your heart is not harder than
the flinty road which has just spared the wretch's
life. Lay those pistols out of his reach, however,
and this knife too; he must not handle it on reviving,”
said Max, as the weapons caught his eye
while loosing Valtmeyer's girdle to enable him to
breathe more freely.

“Thousand devils! where am I?” muttered the
brigand, opening his eyes, and quickly closing them
again, as if the glare from the forge offended his
sight.

“In safe hands enough, Wolfert,” answered the
blacksmith, as Greyslaer silently motioned him to
reply.

“Aha! whose voice is that?” cried the ruffian,
rubbing his bloodshot eyes, but not yet raising his
head, as he rolled them from side to side. “Hans
Blacksmith, was it you that spoke, good Hans?
Thousand devils! where's my mare?”

“Far enough by this time, I guess, from the
round rate in which she scoured down the south
fork. Are you hurt much?”

“Um........ Has Greyslaer, the rebel captain,
passed along here yet to-night?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because we mustn't let him go by, that's all.”

“We! Why, you're drunk, Wolfert. Do you
think I will aid you in stopping passengers on the
People's highway?”

Valtmeyer answered only by raising himself upon
the bench whereon he had been laid; but he moved
so stiffly and slowly that Greyslaer had time to
withdraw a few steps within the deep shadows of
the place.

“Drunk, you say, um......” and the desperado fumbled
around his waist for the arms he generally

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

wore there. “Donder und blixem! who in the
name of h—ll has removed my arms?”

“Your belt must have burst a buckle when you
were thrown,” replied Hans, calmly.

Valtmeyer fixed a penetrating gaze upon his
countenance; but the immobility of the blacksmith's
features taught him nothing. He raised himself to
his feet with a slight groan, paused, and passed his
hands down his sides, as if to feel whether or not
his ribs were broken; and then, without saying a
word, moved toward the single tallow candle which,
stuck into a gourd, stood on the anvil near by.

“I can't spare my only candle; if it's your arms
you want to look for,” said Hans, stepping forward,
“the night air will flare it all away. Nobody will
touch your belt where it lies atween now and to-morrow
morning.”

The outlaw, glowering upon him, muttered something
inaudible in reply; and, without heeding the
behest of Hans, seized upon the candle. The first
movement he made in lifting it threw the light full
upon Greyslaer. Valtmeyer, in his surprise, let the
gourd fall from his hands, and the taper it held was
instantly extinguished in the black dust beneath his
feet. There was now barely light enough from the
forge to distinguish the outlines of his person where
he stood, and, by plunging instantly into the surrounding
darkness, he might at once have escaped.
But, uttering the cry of “Treachery” in the moment
he let the candle fall, he snatched from the furnace
a red-hot iron—a crowbar, as it seemed from its
size—and, swinging it double-handed about his
head, made for the door.

The entrance to the hovel lay in deep shadow,
but his glowing weapon betrayed his position as he
dashed from one side to the other to find the means
of exit. Hans struck at him repeatedly with a cold

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

iron which he had caught up at the first onset; but
Valtmeyer, at one moment whirling his terrible
truncheon like a flail about his ears, and launching
it forward like a harpoon the next, not only warded
off the attack, but in one of his thrusts fairly bore
Hans to the ground; while the leathern apron of
the blacksmith, shrivelling up at the contact, alone
prevented the red-hot iron from passing through his
body.

As Hans stumbled over a billet of wood in falling,
Valtmeyer might yet have followed up his advantage;
but Greyslaer, who, with drawn sword, had
planted himself in the doorway to prevent his escape
in the first instance, now rushed forward and
dealt a blow which would have smitten any common
man to the earth, and even the brawny Valtmeyer
went down on one knee beneath it. A single
thrust with the rapier's point would here have
terminated his career; but Max, seeing him drop
the crowbar as if his right arm had been paralyzed
from his shoulder, was thrown off his guard by
Valtmeyer's apparently defenceless condition, and
in another instant the active ruffian was beyond the
reach of his sword.

There was a long, low, open window, such as are
usual in a blacksmith's shanty, near where Valtmeyer
fell, and the sill of which he had grasped
with his left hand in falling. Through this he flung
himself, unharmed by the pistol-shot with which
Greyslaer almost simultaneously accompanied his
sudden movement.

Max leaped instantly after him in pursuit; but,
as the fugitive became invisible in the surrounding
darkness, he turned to secure his horse, of which
the outlaw might otherwise make prize. Hans appeared
the next moment with a light. They traced
Valtmeyer by the blood from his sword-cut for a

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

few yards only. The dust of the road was spotted
with it, but the dew lay heavy upon the grass which
bordered it, and there were thickets opposite, into
which he must instantly have plunged after crossing
the highway.

Valtmeyer's belt for holding his arms, to which
his bullet-pouch was still attached, was the first
thing that caught Greyslaer's eye as he re-entered
the cabin. The weapons he handed over to Hans,
who seemed better contented with the issue of the
night's adventure as he scrutinized his share of the
spoils with a workman-like eye. But the seams of
the girdle enclosed matters far more interesting to
Max than the ammunition with which the pouch
was stored. There were letters from some of the
leading Tories in Albany, who, as is now well
known, maintained throughout the war a secret correspondence,
which the sagacious Schuyler, in order
to avail himself of the intelligence from Canada
thus procured, wisely permitted to go forward so
long as he could successfully counterplot with these
subtle traitors. These papers were, of course, to
be forwarded at once to the Committee of Safety at
Albany. But there were also letters relating to
private matters which awakened a deeper personal
interest in Greyslaer, and whose contents he did not
feel called upon himself to communicate, save to the
parties immediately interested. One of them was
from the famous Joe Bettys to Bradshawe himself;
and the heart of Greyslaer thrilled within him as
he read the following passage:

“Wolfert will do all that is necessary among our
friends in the Valley. The business on hand in this
district will not allow us both to leave it. The best
rallying-point is somewhere among the Scotch
clearings north of the Mohawk. The Cave of Waneonda,
you may depend upon it, will never do;

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

and that for more reasons than one. Your revival
of that c—d D. R. affair must have made it more
or less notorious. How the devil did that wench
slip through your fingers? Valtmeyer has explained
the matter to me a dozen times, but I cannot
understand it. Zounds! I would like to make an
honest woman of that mettlesome huzzy myself.
But your claim must ever prevent her becoming
Mistress Joe Bettys. By-the-way, Wat, did she
ever suspect who played the parson's part in the
beginning of that wild business? The jade must
some day know how much she is beholden to me;
but the secret, I need hardly tell you, is safe until
the endorsement of a genuine black-coat shall make
all things secure. Had you been the man I took
you for, the girl would have gone on her knees to
ask for it before you ever let her escape from Waneonda.
But to return,” &c.

Greyslaer could read no farther. The characters
swam before his eyes; his senses became dizzied;
and, were it not for the support of the workbench
against which he leaned, he must have fallen to the
ground. It was but for an instant, however, that
he was thus unmanned, and it were impossible to
say what feeling predominated in the conflicting
emotions which for that first moment overwhelmed
him; though a wild joy, an eager and confident
hope prompted his next movement, as, calling in
an agitated voice for his horse, he waited not for
Hans to pass out of the door, but, brushing almost
rudely past him, threw himself into the saddle, and
galloped off in the direction of the Hawksnest.

The astounded smith stood listening for a few
moments to his horse's footfalls as they rapidly died
away in the distance, shook his head, and touched
his forehead significantly, as if he feared that all
were not right with his young friend; then slowly

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

withdrawing into his shop, he shot the bolt behind
him, extinguished the fires, and, taking up the outlaw's
belt, which he paused to examine again for a
moment, passed through a side wicket into a log
cabin which adjoined the shed, and constituted his
humble dwelling.

Greyslaer, before reaching the Hawksnest, was
challenged by the party of his friends whom he met
returning from their evening visit, and whose approach,
though the young officers rode gayly along,
talking and laughing with each other, he did not
notice till he was in the midst of them. A few
hurried words, suggesting on their part that he must
have forgotten something of importance, and implying
upon his that he would overtake them before
they reached the garrison, was all that passed between
them as he brushed impatiently by.

The family had all retired when he reached the
homestead; but a light still burned in Alida's apartments.
He threw his rein over the paling, and,
after trying the outer door in vain, stepped back
from the verandah, and looked to the only window
through which the light appeared. The curtain
was drawn, but a shadow, which ever and anon fell
across it, showed that the inmate of the chamber
had not yet sought her repose. It was with Alida
alone that he must secure an interview; and Max,
in the agitation of his spirits, did not hesitate at the
first means which presented themselves. There
was on that side of the house a porch, with a balcony
over it, having a single window cut down to
the floor. This window opened into Alida's dressing-room,
which communicated with her bedchamber.
Greyslaer clambered to the top of the balcony,
and tapped against the panes of glass in the
moment that the light was extinguished.

“Fear not,” he said, “it is I, Max Greyslaer. I

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

come with tidings of such import to you that I could
not sleep before possessing you of them.”

Alida, hastily throwing a loose wrapper around
her person, opened the casement. “Heavens!
Captain Greyslaer,” she exclaimed, “what urgent
peril can have—my brother Derrick, it is not of
him—”

“No, no, no peril—nothing of Derrick—undo the
door below—it is of you—it is your concerns alone
which have brought me here at this untimely hour.”

“Is the matter, then, so pressing? Can we not
wait till morning?” said Alida, in strange agitation.

“I cannot trust it till the morrow. It cannot
sleep, I must not move from near you, till you hear
it.”

“Speak it out at once, then, Max, for my poor
nerves will not bear this suspense,” said Alida, with
increasing tremour of voice.

“I cannot speak it all; I must have light to reveal
it by. See here this written paper, Alida.”

“And what does it say?” she replied, with forced
calmness. “Tell me, Max Greyslaer; if it be
good or evil, I had rather receive it from your lips
than from any other source.”

“Heaven bless you for those words. My tidings
are far from evil, yet I scarce know how to break
them to you. There was a bird—do you remember
it, Alida, one day in years gone by?—a bird that
we watched together as it sat crouched upon the
lowest bough of yonder chestnut, while a hawk
long hovered mid the topmost branches; it seemed
withering in the shadow of those ill-omened wings.
A chance shot from Derrick at a distance frighted
the falcon from his perch of vantage; but the besieged
songster also fell to the ground at sound of
the report which drove his enemy from his stooping-place,
and seemed like to perish, when you

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

caught up the little trembler and cherished him in
your bosom.”

“Oh! Max, what mean these wild words, spoken
at such a time?” said Alida; for this fanciful
allusion seemed so unsuited to the earnest purposes
of the moment, and was so unlike the wonted manly
directness of Greyslaer's mind, that, coupled
with his agitated manner and the other strange circumstances
of the interview, Alida was shocked for
the moment with the apprehension that his brain
might be disordered.

“Nay, but they are not unmeaning, if you will
but interpret them, Alida! Have you not sat thus
beneath the withering wing of sorrow? Have you
not been ruthlessly hawked at, and made the prey
of villany the most hideous? And has not chance,
or God's own Providence call it rather, brought the
hour of relief which is come even now?”

“Is he dead, then?” whispered Alida, clasping
her hands, as a light seemed to break in upon her
from Greyslaer's words.

“Dead? ay!—no, not that; but he is to you as
if he never lived. They deceived you, Alida; the
supposed ties which so manacled your soul had
never yet an existence; it was a false marriage, a
fiendlike and most damnable contrivance to destroy
you. Look not so doubtful and bewildered. I
have the written evidence of what I say! Alida,
dearest Alida, speak—speak and tell me that you
doubt not. It is I, Max Greyslaer, who always
loved, and never yet deceived you; it is I—”

But Alida was mute and motionless. Her tottering
knees had failed to support her, though she
clung to the dressing-table near which she stood for
support. Greyslaer quickly passed through the
window, and, catching her fainting form from the
floor, bore her out to the balcony. Supporting her

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

there on one knee, he anxiously chafed her pulses,
while the refreshing breeze of night, playing through
the long tresses which drooped over her shoulders,
aided in reviving his lovely burden.

The moon, which was in its last quarter, at this
moment cast above the trees the golden light she
loves to shed in waning. The mellow beam caught
the opening eyes of Alida, and a tear—the first
Max had ever seen her shed—trembled upon their
lids as she turned from that soft harbinger of happier
days to the soulful face of her lover. The impulse
is resistless which makes Greyslaer, in that
moment, snatch her to his bosom. “Yes, dearest
Max, I will be yours:” are not those the words she
murmurs in reply to his caress?

She paused; and in that pause there was an Elysian
moment for them both. But in another instant
Alida extricates herself from his embrace; and
though she suffers him still to retain her hand, her
voice is yet somehow painfully constrained and altered
as she speaks what follows.

“Ah! Greyslaer, I fear me this flood of happiness
has come in too quickly to last for either of
us. That paper may be—nay, look not thus hurt—
I doubt not that it contains sufficient to produce
entire conviction in your mind as well as mine; for,
had it not been for the deep reliance I place upon
your judgment, Max—a judgment so far beyond
your years—I should never have betrayed the feelings
you have beheld this night. But, whatever be
the fate of the regard I bear you, Greyslaer, you
have won it, and it is yours. No, never would I
recall this hour.” Max mutely pressed her hand to
his lips, and she went on. “But it is a strange and
dark story of which we have now the threads in our
hands, and I shudder with the fear that, deeming
too quickly we have unravelled it all, there may be

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

others interwoven with it not so easy to disentangle.
My name must be cleared, not only to your
satisfaction, Greyslaer, but to that of all who have
ever heard its sound, before I will change it for
yours; and in these troubled times it is long before
I can hope for such a result.”

“Your name, Alida! None have ever, none dare
ever, connect that with dishonour. Your name!
Why, this terrible secret has been so kept from the
world, that I never dreamed of mystery attending
you till you yourself revealed that there was one.”

“Yes, in the class with which we have most
mingled, my story is but little known; but there
must be many of the country people of a different
grade, though worthy of respect as those who sometimes
pretend to engross it all, who cannot but have
heard of it; and I would not have the simplest rustic
cherish a memory that can do irreverence to the
wife of Greyslaer. Let us wait, dearest Max; wait
till time—till chance, which has already done so
much for me, shall determine still farther. Till
then, affianced to you in soul Alida will still remain;
and, whate'er betide, she will never be another's.”

Greyslaer, who knew too well the character of
Alida to remonstrate against her purpose when settled,
determined at least to defer whatever he had
to urge against her resolution until a more propitious
season. Besides, with a lover's thoughtful consideration,
he feared that the night air might blow too
chilly upon the loosely-arrayed person of Alida to
render it safe to protract the interview. They parted—
not with the fond and caressing adieux of newer
and happier lovers, but when the hand which
Greyslaer was loath to release trembled in his pressure
as he bade farewell, he stooped to print a single
kiss upon the pale cheek which was not withdrawn
from him.

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

And now, good steed, thou bearest a different
man upon thy back from him who has thrice already
guided thee over the same road to-night. The
stern and disappointed man that, with firm hand and
even rein, bent his twilight course hither: the
moody and abstracted lover that loitered homeward
at a fitful pace: the wild-riding horseman, who spurred
ahead, as if each moment were of importance
to solve the riddle he had already read—were not
each and all of these a different being from the
buoyant cavalier who now, with ringing bridle, gallops
gayly over hill and dale, leaning forward now
to pat thy glossy neck and speak cheering words
of encouragement, and now rising in the stirrup as
if his happy spirit vaulted upward at each gallant
bound beneath him? Surely there is a music in
the good horse's motions which times itself ever to
our mood, whate'er the changes be.

Alas! many were the changes of mood that Greyslaer
was yet doomed to know ere the story of his
strange love was ended. But of the delay that sickens
hope, the doubts that wither it; of the chilling
thoughts, the shadowy fears of the future, he dreamed
not, cared not now, more than he did for the
clouds which crept over the skies and obscured the
path before him. His mind was filled with but one
idea, which excluded all others. He knew—what
once to know or once to believe, in that first hour
of belief or knowledge, makes all the world a Paradise
around—He knew that he was BELOVED.

Shall we pause to paint the next interview between
Max and Alida—when the happy lover won
from her lips the final words of her full betrothal to
him? Shall we describe those which followed,
when Max, with arguments she did not wish to answer,
convinced her that there was now no real bar
to their wedded happiness, and she yielded up all

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

thought of seeking redress for her wrongs, save
through him who was shortly to become the rightful
guardian of her honour; to the friend who had
already become dearer to her than her life? Shall
we tell how the softening influence of love gradually
melted the Amazonian spirit of her earlier day, until
the romantic dream of retribution, which had so
sternly strung the soul of the once haughty Alida,
became lost at last in the loving woman's tender
fears lest Bradshawe, now so far removed from the
vengeance of her lover, should yet cross his path?
Shall we dwell upon the transports of feeling which
agitated the soul of Max, now burning with impatience
to exact such retribution, and now absorbed
in a wild confusion of delight as the day approached
which would make Alida his for ever?

Or shall we rather describe his chafing vexation
and her mute forebodings when the call of
military honour, abruptly summoning him away to
distant and dangerous duty, deferred that blessed
expectation of their union to a period which the
fearful chances of civil war only could determine?

Shall we follow the patriot soldier in his bright
career of achievement, as, courted and caressed by
the glowing eyes and chivalrous spirits of the South,
he measures his sword with the boldest of his country's
invaders, or mingles with few superiors in
council among the noblest of his country's defenders?
Shall we survey him in that broader field of
action, where the indulgence of personal animosity
and schemes of vengeance against a mere adventurer
like Bradshawe are forgotten and swallowed
up in the more general and nobler interests that
press upon him; but where the image of Alida is
still as dear to his mind as when last he waved a
reluctant adieu to his native valley?

But no, young Max, it is not for us to track the

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

meteor windings of thy soldierly career amid those
thrilling scenes which Lee, Sumter, Pickens, Marion,
and Tarlton their gallant foe, have since immortalized
in guerilla story, and made the heritage
of other names than thine. The record of thy exploits
is fully chronicled, mayhap, in one true heart
only, and that grows daily sadder as it counts the
hours of thy absence and dreams of the friend who
is far away.

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