THE HAWKS OF HAWK-HOLLOW. CHAPTER I.

What man that sees the ever-whirling wheele
Of Change, the which all mortall things doth away,
But that thereby doth find, and plainly feele,
How Mutability in them doth play
Her cruel sports to many men's decay.
Spenser—Faerie Queene.

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America is especially the land of change. From
the moment of discovery, its history has been a
record of convulsions, such as necessarily attend
a transition from barbarism to civilization; and to
the end of time, it will witness those revolutions in
society, which arise in a community unshackled
by the restraints of prerogative. As no law of
primogeniture can ever entail the distinctions meritoriously
won, or the wealth painfully amassed, by
a single individual, upon a line of descendants, the
mutations in the condition of families will be perpetual.
The Dives of to-day will be the Diogenes
of to-morrow; and the `man of the tub' will often
live to see his children change place with those of
the palace-builder. As it has been, so will it be,—


“Now up, now doun, as boket in a well;”
and the honoured and admired of one generation

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will be forgotten among the moth-lived luminaries
of the next.

That American labours under a melancholy infatuation,
who hopes, in the persons of his progeny,
to preserve the state and consideration he has acquired
for himself. He cannot bequeath, along
with lands and houses, the wisdom and good
fortune which obtained them; nor can he devise
preventives against the natural consequences of
folly and waste. His edifice of pride must crumble
to dust, when both corner-stone and hypogeum
are based upon the contingencies of expectation;
and the funeral-stone and the elm of his family
mausoleum will vanish, in course of time, before
the axe and plough of a new proprietor.

This is the ordinance of Nature, who, if she
scatters her good gifts of talents with a somewhat
despotic capriciousness, is well content that
men should employ them in republican and equal
rivalry.

In a little valley bordering upon the Delaware,
there stood, fifty years since, a fair dwelling, within
an ample domain, which a few years of vicissitude
had seen transferred from its founder to a stranger,
although wealth and a family of seven sons, the
boldest and strongest in the land, might have seemed
to insure its possession to them during at least
two generations. The vale lies upon the right bank
of the river, imbosomed among those swelling hills
that skirt the south-eastern foot of the Alleghanies,
(using that term in the broad, generic sense given
it by geographers,) the principal ridge of which,—
the Ka-katch-la-na-min, or Kittatinny, or as it is
commonly called, the Blue Mountain,—is so near
at hand, that, upon a clear day, the eye can count
the pines bristling over its gray and hazy crags.
It stretches, indeed, like some military rampart of
the Titans, from the right hand to the left, farther

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than the eye can reach, broken only by the gaps
that, for the most part, give passage to rivers; and
but for these, it would be entirely impassable.

The original proprietor of the estate was an
English emigrant of humble degree, and, at first, of
painfully contracted circumstances; but having
fallen heir to a considerable property in his own
land, and events of a very peculiar nature altering
the resolution he had formed to enjoy it within the
limits of the chalk-cliffs of Albin, he sat himself
down in good earnest to improve the windfall at
home. The little farm which he had cultivated
with his own hands, was speedily swelled into an
extensive manor; and deserting the hovel of logs
which had first contented his wants, he built a
dwelling-house of stone, so spacious, and of a
style of structure so irregular and fantastic, that
it had, at a distance, the air rather of a hamlet
than a single villa, and indeed looked not
unlike a nest of dove-cots stuck together on the
hill-side. Without possessing one single feature of
architectural elegance, it had yet a romantic appearance,
derived in part from the scenery around,
from the beauty of the groves and clumps of trees
that environed it, and the vines and trailing flowers
that were made, in summer at least, to conceal
many of its deformities. It was exceedingly sequestered
also; for except the log hovel, into which
Mr. Gilbert (for that was his name) had inducted
a poor widow, befriended out of gratitude for
kindness shown him, when their respective conditions
were not so unequal, there was not another
habitation to be seen from his house, though it
commanded an extensive prospect even beyond the
river. The highway to the neighbouring Water-Gap,
indeed, ran through the estate; the broad
river below often echoed to the cries of boatmen
and raftsmen, floating merrily onward to their

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market; and the village dignified with the title of
County-town, was not above seven or eight miles
distant; so that the valley was not always invested
with a Sabbath-day silence; and, besides, his
protegée, the widow, had, with Mr. Gilbert's consent,
converted her hovel into a house of entertainment,
which sometimes seduced a wayfarer to
sojourn for a period in the valley. Mr. Gilbert
himself did all he could to add life and bustle to
his possessions, by doing honour to such well behaved
villagers, or even strangers, as he could
induce to ruralize with him; for having built and
planted, and torn down and transplanted, until he
knew not well what to do with himself, he hit upon
that expedient for driving away ennui which passes
for hospitality,—namely, converting into guests
all proper, and indeed improper, persons from
whom he could derive amusement, and who could
assist him to kill time. To this shift he was driven,
in great part, by the undomestic character of his
children; who, so soon as they arrived at an age
for handling the rifle, individually and infallibly
ran off into the woods, until, as the passion for
hunting grew with their growth, they might be
said almost to live in them. It was this wild propensity,
acting upon a disposition unusually selfwilled
and inflexible, in the case of his eldest boy,
Oran, that defeated his scheme of spending the
remainder of his days in England. He actually
crossed the sea, with his whole family, and remained
in the neighbourhood of Bristol, his native
town, for the space of a year; but in that time,
Oran, a boy only twelve years old, `heartily
sick,' as he said, `of a land where there were no
woods, and no place where he could get by himself,
' finding remonstrance and entreaty fail to
move his father's heart to his purpose, took the
desperate resolution of returning to America alone;

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which he did, having concealed himself in the
hold of a vessel, until she was out of the Channel.
His sufferings were great, but he endured them
with incredible fortitude; and finally after many
remarkable adventures, he found himself again in
his happy valley, in the charge or protection, if it
could be so called, of the good widow Bell,—for
that was the name of the poor woman befriended
by his father. In a few months, his father followed
him, perhaps instigated by affection, (for Oran,
being the worst, was therefore the most favoured
of his children,) by the murmurs of the others, or
by the discovery he undoubtedly made, that his
wealth would secure him, if not equal comfort, at
least superior consideration, in the New World.

Consideration indeed he obtained, and increase
of wealth; but the wild manners and habits of his
children greatly afflicted him; and having married
a second wife, he was induced, in the hope of
`making a gentleman,' as he called it, of the boy
she bore him, (none of the others having that ambition,)
to commit him to the protection of a sister,
the widow of a Jamaica planter, who had
divided with him the bequest that had made his
fortune, and being childless herself, desired to
adopt him as her heir.

Thus much of the early history of Mr. Gilbert
was recollected with certainty, so late as the year
1782, by the villagers of Hillborough, the countytown
already mentioned, who had so often shared
his hospitality; but long before that time, he had
vanished, with all his family, from the quiet, beautiful,
and well-beloved valley. They were wont
to speak with satisfaction of the good dinners they
had eaten, the rare wines they had drunk, the
merry frolics they had shared, in the Hawk's
Hollow,—for so they perversely insisted upon
calling what Mr. Gilbert, in right of possession,

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chose to designate as Avon-dale, in memory, or in
honour of his own buxom river of Somerset; they
related, too, to youthful listeners, the prophetic sagacity
with which they had predicted violent ends
to the young Hawks of Hawk-Hollow, (so they
called the young Gilberts,) for their disobedience
to father and mother, and their unusual passion for
a life of adventure; and, finally, they shook their
heads with suspicion and regret, when they spoke
of Jessie, Gilbert's only daughter, of her early and
mysterious death, and still more, to them, unaccountable
burial. All that could be gathered in
relation to this unhappy maiden, was dark and
unsatisfactory: her death had seemingly, in some
way, produced the destruction of the family and
the alienation of the estate. It was an event of more
than twenty years back; and from that period, until
the time of his own sudden fight, Mr. Gilbert's
doors were no longer open, and his sons were no
more seen associated with the young men of the
county. The maiden had died suddenly, and been
interred in a private place on the estate.

In connexion with this event, some, more garrulous
than others, were wont to speak of Colonel
Falconer, the present proprietor of Hawk-Hollow,
as having had some agency in the catastrophe;
but what it was, they either knew not, or they
feared to speak. Evil suspicions, however, gathered
about this gentleman's name; and as he was
seldom, if ever, seen in Hawk-Hollow in person,
but had committed the stewardship of the property
to the hands of a distant relative, who resided on
it, the young felt themselves at liberty to fill up
from imagination, the sketch left imperfect by the
old; and accordingly, the Colonel, in time, came
to be considered by those who had never seen
him, as one of the darkest-hearted and most dangerous
of his species. He was very rich; the

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station he occupied in the eyes of his country was
lofty, and might have been esteemed noble; for he
had shed his blood in the great and fearful battle
of rights that was now approaching to a close;
and after being disabled by severe and honourable
wounds, he had changed the sphere of his exertions,
and was now as ardent and devoted a patriot
in the senate as he had been before in the field.
Yet in this distant quarter, these recommendations
to favour were forgotten; it was said, if he had
done good deeds, there were evil ones enough to
bury them as in a mountain, and if he had fought
well for his country, he had struggled still more
devotedly to aggrandize himself. In a word, he
was called a hard, avaricious, rapacious man,
whose chief business was to enrich himself at the
cost of the less patriotic, and who had got the
mastery of more sequestrated estates than an
honest man could have come by. It was a sin of
an unpardonable nature, that he had succeeded in
getting possession of Hawk-Hollow, when there
were so many others in the county who had set
their hearts upon it.

His representative on the estate was a certain
Captain John Loring, who, with all the patriotism
of his connexion, and perhaps a great deal more,
had never been able to turn it to any account. On
the contrary, beginning the world with an ample
patrimony, at the time when Mr. Falconer commenced
as an adventurer, he had descended in
fortune with a rapidity only to be compared with
that of his friend's exaltation. The love of glory
had early driven him from his peaceful farm on
the Brandywine; and after distinguishing himself
as a volunteer in the Indo-Gallic wars of Western
Pennsylvania, it was his hard fate to bring his
career of effective service to a close on what he
was always pleased to call the Fatal Field of

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Braddock. From that bloody encounter he came off
with more honour than profit, and with a body so
mangled and a constitution so shattered, that a
quarter of a century had scarce served to repair
the dilapidation of his animal man. But the Captain
had lost neither his spirit nor his love of glory. At
the first trump of the Revolution, he donned the
panoply of valour; he snatched up the pistols he
had taken from a dead Canadian at the Fatal Field
of Braddock, strapped upon his thigh the sword
he had received for his services in storming certain
Indian forts on the Alleghany river, clapped
into his pocket the commission which the colonial
government had granted him in reward of that
gallant exploit, and reported himself, among a
crowd of younger patriots, as ready to do and die
for his country. The Commissioners looked at his
gray hairs and shattered leg, (the latter of which
had once been as full of musket-bullets as was ever
a cartouche-box,) commended his virtue and enthusiasm,
and divided the honours of command
among those who were better fitted to do the state
service. The Captain retired to his patrimonial
estate, and there contented himself as well as he
could, until the current of conflict, diverted from
one bloody channel into another, came surging at
at last into the pastoral haunts of the Brandywine.
At that time, his home was blessed with two children,
a gallant boy of eighteen, and a merry little
maiden of twelve. But one morning, he heard a
trumpet pealing over the hills and a cannon roaring
hard by, behind the woods. He looked at the
face of his son, and the eye of the boy reflected
back the fire of his father's spirit. Their horses
were saddled in the stalls, and the spurs were
already on young Tom Loring's heels. It was
enough—the Captain carried his son to the grave.—
But, to his own dying day, he rejoiced over the

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young man's fall. On this subject, the Captain
was commonly considered by his neighbours to be
crack-brained.

After this, came other misfortunes; and the Captain
was a ruined man, landless, homeless, and
childless, save that his little Catherine was still left
to share his poverty, and, like a lamp in a cavern,
to exaggerate rather than enlighten the gloom of
his desolation. At this critical juncture, he found
a firm and prudent friend in Colonel Falconer, by
whom he was installed into the privileges, if not
the actual possession of Hawk-Hollow, in the supervision
and improvement of which he seemed
now likely to pass the remainder of his days.
How far the kindly feelings of relationship, or how
far the influence of his daughter's growing beauty,
had contributed to secure him the benevolence of
this friend in need, was a question frequently agitated
by the curious villagers. It was settled
among them, that there was a wedding in the
wind; but whether the young lady was to share
the lot of her distinguished patron, or to be given
to his gay and somewhat wild-brained son, was a
point on which busy bodies were long coming at a
conclusion. The Captain, though frank enough in
his way, was not exactly the individual whom one
would think of troubling with impertinent questions;
and Miss Loring, however hospitable and
courteous, had not yet selected a confidante from
among the blooming nymphs of Hillborough.
She was, however, the theme of as much admiration
as curiosity; and being very beautiful, and of
manners always gentle, and at times irresistibly
engaging, the village poet immortalized her in
rhyme, and the village belles forgave the eulogium.

It remains but to say a word more of the Gilberts,
as a necessary introduction to a record,

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designed to rescue the story of their fate from the
uncertain and unfaithful lips of tradition. After
mingling in all the border wars, both Indian and
civil, that, from the time of Braddock's defeat to
the dispersion of the Connecticut settlers, distracted
the unhappy Susquehanna settlements, they deserted
the cause of their countrymen at the beginning
of the Revolution, and appeared in the guise of
destroying demons, at Wyoming, on that occasion
of massacre, which has given to the spot a celebrity
so mournful. In other words they were traitors
and refugees; and however dreadful the reputation
they obtained as bold and successful depredators,
their fate was such as might have been, and perhaps
was, anticipated by themselves. One after
another, they were cut off, some by the rifle and
tomahawk, one even by the halter, and all who did
perish, by deaths of violence. It was indeed, at
the time we speak of, confidently believed that
Oran, the eldest of all, and the last survivor, had
fallen within the space of a year, at a conflict on
the banks of the Mohawk, along with other refugees
of the neighbouring commonwealth, with
whom he had associated himself. Great were the
rejoicings in consequence with all who dwelt
among the scenes of his earlier exploits; though
some professed to have their doubts on the subject,
and swore, that Oran Gilbert was not to be trusted,
dead or alive, until his scalp was seen nailed on
the county court-house door.

CHAPTER II.

Come here, my good hostess, pray how do you do?
Where is Cicely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue?
And where is the widow that dwelt here?—
Prior.

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The year 1782 was distinguished on the western
continent as the close of the great contest, which
obtained for America the name and privileges of
a free nation. The harbingers of peace came flitting
into the land, with the swallows of spring;
and before the autumn had withered into winter,
so little doubt prevailed of a speedy reconciliation
taking place between Great Britain and the United
States, founded upon a full recognition by the former
of all the claims of the latter, that the Continental
Congress passed a resolve for the reduction
of its army, to take effect on the first day of the
coming year. War was no longer waged upon
any scale of magnitude; such hostilities as continued,
were conducted almost solely by the desperate
and lawless of both parties, and consisted of
predatory incursions, occasionally attempted in
the wilder parts of the country, by some skulking
band of refugees, and of expeditions of vengeance,
planned and executed in a moment of wrath, by
the excited sufferers. At this period, the only portion
of the States, north of the Potomac, in the
hands of the British, was the city of New York,
with its dependencies; and around these narrow
possessions the lines of the Continental army were
drawn, extending from the Highlands of New York
to the plains of Monmouth in New Jersey. Military
posts therefore existed at no great distance

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from the Hawk's Valley; and although the wild
and mountainous country on either bank of the
Delaware offered the strongest retreats to men of
desperate character, it had been very long since
the inhabitants had apprehended any danger from
the presence of enemies. In the earlier part of
the year, at least, they had no cause for alarm;
and accordingly they mingled, without alloy, their
raptures at the prospect of returning peace with
their rejoicings over the death of Oran Gilbert, the
most dreaded and detested of the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow.

One atrocity had indeed been committed, in a
neighbouring state, which, besides exciting the
fiercest indignation, had taught the occupants of
the valley how little their security was owing to
any relenting of spirit, or want of military daring,
on the part of the refugees, whom the general
success of the republican arms had driven in great
numbers into the city of New York. A certain
Captain Joshua, or Jonathan, Huddy, of the New
Jersey state troops, having been captured, after a
gallant resistance, at one of the posts in Monmouth
county of that state, by a party of loyalists from
New York, was for a while immured in prison,
then carried back to his native state, and finally
hanged by his captors, without trial, sentence, or
any authority whatever, except what was derived
from the verbal orders of a body of men calling
themselves the Board of Directors of the Associated
Loyalists. The result of this wanton and
brutal murder, and of the failure of the British
authorities to bring the chief perpetrator to justice,
was an instant order on the part of the American
Commander-in-chief, to retaliate upon a British
prisoner of equal rank; and before the month of
May was over, young Asgill of the British Guards,
whose story is familiar to all readers of American

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history, was conducted to the lines at Morristown,
to await, in painful uncertainty, the fate that now
depended, or seemed to depend, upon the movements
of his countrymen in relation to the true
criminal.

Late in the spring of this year, Hawk-Hollow
received a new addition to its society, in the person
of a stranger, who, one pleasant evening, rode
up to the hovel, which, as was before mentioned,
Dame Alice, or as she was more familiarly called,
Elsie Bell, had, so many years before, converted
into a house of entertainment. But the credit of the
poor woman, now aged, infirm, and almost friendless,
had long since departed; and the tongues of
the ignorant and foolish, in an age when the most
ridiculous superstitions were not wholly confined
to the brains of children, had invested her habitation
with a character which repelled alike the
curious and the weary. Her age, her poverty,
her loneliness, her unsocial character, and perhaps
also her attachment to the memory of a family all
others had learned to detest, had brought her into
bad odour; and some thoughtless or malicious
persons having persuaded themselves that a certain
famous mortality among their cattle could
have been caused by nothing short of witchcraft,
it was soon determined that old Elsie had stronger
claims to the character of a broom-rider than any
other person in the county. It was fortunate for
her that the imputation fell upon her in a land,
which once, in the case of an old woman brought
before a jury under the same charge, had rendered
the wise and humane verdict, that they found
her “guilty, not of being a witch, but of being
suspected.” It never once occurred to any individual
to prosecute, or even persecute, poor
Elsie; nor is it supposed that any sane man ever
seriously believed a charge so cruel and absurd;

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yet the stain rested upon the unfortunate creature,
and was the cause of her losing all the little custom
of her house, and being, at one period, reduced
to great straits.

Her house had a very lonely appearance, especially
dreadful, at nightfall, in the eyes of the passing
urchin. It was in a hollow place on the roadside,
the head of a gully, which, expanding into a
wide, though broken and winding ravine, ran down
to the river, half a mile distant, receiving, before
it had yet reached it, the waters of a foaming
rivulet coming from another quarter. A little enclosure,
or yard, serving as an approach to the
house, was surrounded by oak-trees. Its surface
was broken, and on one side was a rough and
jagged rock, almost a crag, sprinkled with sumach
and other wild plants, that hid one half of
the lowly fabric, while the other peeped insidiously
from under the boughs of an antique, spectral-looking
sycamore, springing from the side of the
ravine, which was, in part, overlooked by the
hovel. A little runnel crossed the road immediately
before the house; and flowing through the
yard, and making its way among the naked roots
of the sycamore, it fell, with a gurgling sound, into
the ravine. The murmurs of this little cascade,
affected variously by drought and rain, and by the
echoes of the hollow, sent many a superstitious
thrill to the heart of the countryman whom any
unlucky accident compelled to pass by the cabin
at midnight.

Of a silent, reserved, and even saturnine temper,
there was perhaps enough in Elsie's cold welcome
to repel visitation, even without the addition of
imputed witchcraft; and long before that heavy
charge had fallen upon her, it was esteemed a
misfortune to be obliged to tarry above an hour at
the Traveller's Rest, as the inn had been called in

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its days of credit. To crown all, about the time
when men and boys were beginning to talk ominously
about the rot and murrain, a rival establishment
was set up, a few miles farther down
the river, which offered the attractions of good
liquors, lounging idlers, and a talkative host, who
made it his business to be always well providod
with news from the market, the army, and Congress.
The last resource of the Traveller's Rest
gave way before such a rival, and never more (at
least for many years) was there seen a guest quaffing
his cider, or smoking his pipe, in the shadow
of Elsie's porch, except occasionally, when some
stranger passed by, who boldly disregarded, or
was entirely unacquainted with the popular superstition
in relation to the hostess.

The privations suffered by the poor old woman,
in consequence of this failure of her ordinary means
of subsistence, were very great,—greater, indeed,
than was suspected; for she uttered no complaint,
and sought no relief. A few acres of ground had
been added to the hovel, given to her by the elder
Gilbert. The title was not, indeed, thought to be
very strong, and as it lay in the very centre of
Colonel Falconer's domains, a true regnum in
regno, it was sometimes wondered he made no
attempt to dispossess her, and thus complete her
ruin. From these worn-out fields, had she been
able to retain any one about her to cultivate them,
she might have gleaned a scanty yet sufficient
subsistence. But neither son nor kinsman of any
degree, had the poor widow left in the wide world;
and when men began to doubt, suspect, and shun
her, she was no longer able to procure the assistance
even of hirelings; and her fields lay fallow
and overgrown with brambles. Her situation grew
hopelessly distressed and desolate; in vain she exposed
her slender stores of gingerbread in the

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window, and her bottles of spruce-beer in the cool
brook, to tempt the wayfarer to turn aside for
such refreshments. If the stranger did feel for a
moment urged to exchange the scorching road, on
a July day, for the shadowy porch, he cast his eye
upon the garden, at the road-side, now the last dependence
of the miserable widow, and beholding
her uninviting and squalid appearance, passed on,
without thinking how much real charity might
have been conferred by the disbursement of a few
pence at that abode of poverty.

Such was the condition of this poor solitary
creature, when Captain Loring was installed into
the manor house; and such it might have continued,
had not his daughter, shocked at the discovery
of her distresses, and interested doubly when
she found in her a tone of mind and manners worthy
of a better fate, came immediately, like an
angel, to her aid, and restored her again to a state
of comfort. Not satisfied with rendering this
assistance, she rested not day or night, until she
had procured a labourer to till the neglected fields,
and had even obtained a little negro wench to
dwell with Elsie as a domestic; and perceiving how
much her sufferings were really owing to the ridiculous
fears and prejudices of the country people,
she made it a point frequently to visit her house in
person, dragging along with her, when she could,
the beaux and belles of the village, in the hope that
others would soon follow the example, and thus
restore the Traveller's Rest to its ancient reputation.
She even prevailed upon her father to
honour the house with his patronage, at least so
far as to visit it, when riding by; and, though
there was nothing in the tempers of the two to
make any intercourse between them very friendly
and agreeable, the Captain had humoured his
daughter so long in that way, that it grew to be

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one of his habits; and he seldom passed by, without
stopping for a moment, to bestow a few civilities
upon the widow. Notwithstanding all these
benevolent exertions of Miss Loring, however, the
Traveller's Rest never recovered its reputation or
custom; and when the traveller spoken of before,
rode up to the porch, and announced his intention
of entering, and even sleeping, under her roof, the
poor widow herself regarded him with a species
of amazement.

“How is it, good mother?” said he, observing
her hesitation: “They told me, in the village, you
could give me both meat and lodging. Do not
fear I shall prove a fault-finder;—a crust of bread
and a cup of milk, or, if need be, of water, will
satisfy me; and as for a bed, why a sack of straw,—
or the floor and my saddle-bags,—will be a
couch for a king. Can you not receive me?”

As he spoke, he took note of her countenance
and appearance. The former was withered and
furrowed, for she was very old; her hairs were
gray and thin, and one of her hands shook with a
paralytic affection. Yet she bore her years
bravely, and when she had shaken off the abstraction
of mind, which had become almost habitual
from her long life of solitude, and lifted her eyes,
he saw that they shone with any thing but the
gleams of dotage. He observed, too, as she rose
from the wheel she had been plying on the porch,
and approached to its verge, that her step was
firm, and even, as it afterwards appeared, agile.
Her dress was of the humblest texture, and none
of the newest, but studiously clean and neat, and
the muslin coif on her head was white as snow.

“If your wants be indeed so humble,” she said,
with a manner that surprised him, and a voice
almost without the quaver of age, “I can receive
you into my poor house, and bid you welcome.

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

But, good young sir, here have I no one to help
you, and to take your horse. My man Dancy, is
in the field, and the girl Margery”—

“Say not a word about them,” said the traveller,
leaping from his horse, “I am my own groom and
lackey of the chamber; and with your consent, I
will find my way to the stable, which I see behind
the rock; and Long-legs here will follow me.”

He was as good as his word, and stabled his
steed without farther preliminary; and thus, by
showing himself ready to adapt his manners to his
circumstances, he won the good will of Elsie immediately.
Indeed, as if to convince her of his
sincerity, he told her at once his name, and his
objects in coming to her house. His name, he
said, was Hunter,—Herman Hunter,—his country
South Carolina; he was a painter,—or so professed
himself; and his only motive for intruding upon
the solitude of Hawk-Hollow, was to improve
himself in his art, by devoting some weeks to
study, among the neighbouring cliffs and mountains.
It had been his intention, he avowed, to
take up his quarters some miles farther on, in the
heart of the neighbouring gorge; `but he liked the
neatness and privacy of the Traveller's Rest so
well, he thought he could do nothing better than
remain where he was; at least, he would remain a
few days,—perhaps, he might stay two or three
weeks,—he did not know, but he thought Hawk-Hollow
exceedingly pretty.'

There were two circumstances which recommended
him to the poor widow's regard, even
more strongly than his affable and conformable
behaviour. In the first place, it appeared that his
name Herman, had been borne by some deceased
son or relative, and its familiar sound brought a
mournful pleasure to her ears,—in the second, his
appearance was highly prepossessing. He could

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

not have been above four or five and twenty years
old; his figure, though somewhat beneath the middle
size, was good, and his limbs well knit and
active; his face was decidedly handsome, with a
very dark complexion,—his eyes black and sparkling,
and his mouth, which disclosed at every laugh,
a set of the finest teeth in the world, expressive
of good-humour and a mirthful spirit. As for the
ornaments of his outward man, they consisted of
under-clothes of some white summer-stuff, a frock
of blue cloth, a grass hat, short boots and gloves;
and to show that he was somewhat of a coxcomb
withal, he wore a laced scarlet vest, an embroidered
neckcloth, and a huge gold ring on his finger,
glistering with a sapphire, or some cerulean substitute.
He had a good roan horse, too, and saddlebags
of enviable capacity; besides which, he
made his first appearance with a carbine slung to
his back, and a leathern portfolio under his arm;
so that he looked like one who visited the retreat,
with a resolution to make the most of its advantages.

Having taken a second look around the hovel,
he saw no reason to abate his satisfaction. Though
poverty was apparent on the naked walls and uncarpeted
floors, yet every thing was clean and
well ordered. The hands of the widow had eked
out the lack of more costly decorations, by sticking
in the fire-place and windows, and over the
mantel and table-tops, green laurel boughs and
sprigs of flowers, such as abounded on the neighbouring
hills, or were cultivated in her little garden,
and such as were pleasant enough at this
season. Besides, a grape-vine had been encouraged
to trail over one corner of the porch, and
the other supported festoons of nasturtions and
morning-glories. His evening meal, though simple
and humble enough, he was pleased to

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

commend; and if his bed was hard, and the sheets
somewhat coarser than were wont to encircle his
limbs, a happy temperament and a heart at ease
made them endurable, and even pleasant. If he
found Dancy, the farmer, when he returned from
the fields, to be taciturn and even stupid, still he
liked his honest face; and the little negro wench,
Margery, ugly, awkward, and a thousand times
more stupid than Dancy himself, he soon discovered,
would prove a source of unfailing amusement.

Being of this happy mood, and persuading himself
that his quarters were exactly to his desire,
he prepared, the day after his arrival, to approve
his zeal and skill, by sketching some one or other
of the pretty prospects presented from the Traveller's
Rest. He rose with the dawn and trudged
down the ravine, until he reached the river;
wherein, after looking about him with much satisfaction,
at the hills sleeping in morning mist, he
plunged, and amused himself with a bather's enthusiasm,
now swimming luxuriously in the limpid
and serene flood of the Delaware, and now
trying his strength against the ruder current, that
came dashing from the rivulet. This bore the
patronymical title of Hawk-Hollow Run. And
here we may as well observe, that upon a promontory
at its mouth, he discovered the origin of
that name, which, notwithstanding the efforts of
Mr. Gilbert to christen it anew, his neighbours had
so obstinately continued to give the valley. Upon
a tall and conspicuous oak-tree, dead, barkless,
and well nigh branchless, a pair of antique fishing-hawks
screamed over their eyry; and here they
had preserved it from immemorial ages. The
dead tree and the nest of sticks being conspicuous
objects, even from a distance on the river, the
earlier navigators had soon learned to designate

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

the whole valley after the majestic birds that seemed
its monarchs.

After this, he set himself to work with paper
and pencil, but with no good effect, not being in
the mood, or because he discovered there were
divers obstacles in his way. First, the sun did not
shine from the right place, and secondly, it shone
in the wrong one; then there was no way of getting
a rock converted into a chair, at the precise
place where he wanted it, though there were so
many thousands where he did not; and, in fine,
he found himself, when all was ready, waxing
eager for breakfast.

After breakfast, he had as many difficulties to
encounter; and in short, after making divers essays,
he beheld the afternoon sun sink low towards
the west, without having accomplished any thing
worthy of being deposited in the port-folio. “But
never mind,” said he, with a philosophical disregard
of his indolence and fickleness, “we shall
have the fit more strongly upon us on the morrow.”

He sat down in the porch and cast his eyes towards
the manor house, which was commonly
known by the title, so little flattering to the founder's
memory, of Gilbert's Folly. At this distance,
and from this spot, it had an impressive and even
charming appearance. It lay upon the slope of a
hill, perhaps a mile or more from the Traveller's
Rest; and, as it faced very nearly towards the
east, he had remarked it, in the morning, when
illuminated by the first beams of the day-spring,
shining, with a sort of aristocratic pomp and pride,
at its lowly neighbour, from the midst of green
woods and airy hills. At the present moment,
the front being entirely in shade, it had a somewhat
sullen and melancholy look, resulting in
part from the sombre hue of the stone of which

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

it was built; and though slanting rays of sunshine,
here and there striking on the sides of
chimneys, gables, and other elevations, gave it a
picturesque relief, it still preserved an air of soberness
and gloom. It seemed to lie in the heart of a
mighty paddock, once, however, termed a park,
that was circumscribed by a line of pollards,
sweeping over the hill-side, and here and there
broken by groves of unchecked growth. In one
or two places on the grounds, were rows of Italian
poplars, stretching along in military rank and file,
and adding that peculiar palisaded beauty to the
landscape, which is seen to the greatest advantage
in a hilly country. Here, too, was another exotic
stranger, the weeping-willow, drooping in the
moist hollow, and shaking its boughs in the pool.
The principal trees, however, were the natives of
the valley, most of them perhaps left standing in
their original places, when the grounds were laid
out in the forest. The picture is complete, when
it is added that the slopes of the hills were carpeted
with the rich embellishments of agriculture:
the wheat-fields and maize-plantations, waving
like lakes of verdure, in the breeze, were certainly
not the least of the charms of Hawk-Hollow, except
perhaps, at that moment, to the anti-utilitarian
painter.

He regarded the prospect for a long time in
silence, and then muttered his thoughts aloud, half
to himself, and half to his ancient hostess, who had
drawn her wheel up to her favourite seat on the
porch, and added its drowsy murmur to the sound
of the oak-boughs, rustling together in the breeze:

“This, then,” he exclaimed, “is the little elysium,
from which wrong, and the revenge of
wrong, drove a once happy and honoured family,
to wander exiles and outlaws in the land? And not
one permitted even to lay his bones in the loam of

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

his birth-place! and no friend left to avenge or
lament! `Quis sit laturus in aras thura?' ”

The wheel of Alice revolved with increased
velocity, but she betrayed no inclination to yield
to the prattling infirmity of age; though she,
doubtless, of all persons in the country, was best
informed on the subject now uppermost in the
mind of the painter. He was in the mood, however,
for extracting such information as he could;
and after a moment's silence, he resumed, with a
direct question,

“That is Avondale Hall, is it not, good mother?”

“It is Gilbert's Folly,” replied the hostess, drily.
“We know no other name.—There are some call
it Falconer's Trump-card—but that is nothing.”

“Perhaps not,” said the young man: “but who
can tell better than yourself? Good mother Elsie—
you must forgive me for being so familiar; but, in
truth, I love the name—it was the name of my
nurse, the first I learned to utter:—I have a great
curiosity about these poor Gilberts; and, I was told,
no one could inform me about them so well as
yourself.”

“And why should you ask about them?” demanded
the hostess, who, as Herman had long
since observed, conversed in language that would
scarce have been anticipated from her appearance.
“They can have done you no harm, and certainly
they never did you good. You cannot fear them,
for they are dead; and you yourself said, they left
none to lament them.”

“But they left many to curse,” said Herman;
“and it is this that makes me curious to know the
truth about them. I have not heard any men pronounce
the name, without accompanying it with
maledictions; which were just so many proofs that
they were unsafe informants.”

“It is better then that they should be forgotten,”

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

muttered Elsie: “If they did wrong, bitterly have
they been punished; if they provoked men to
curses, the curses have been heavy on their heads,
and are now even heaped upon their graves. Yet
you speak of them not like others—how comes it
that you pronounce their name without a curse?”

“Simply because, never having received any
hurt at their hands, and having nothing of the
hound about me, I feel no impulse to join in the
cry of the pack, until I know what beast they are
baying. I saw, in the village, an old man begging;
I was told, his house had been burned down,
and his wife and children in it, by `the accursed
Gilberts;' I saw also, a miserable idiot, or madman,
I know not which, dancing along the road-side, and
inviting me to a wedding: I asked about him, and
was informed he dwelt of yore in the Wyoming
Valley, and was set upon by the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow,
in the hour of his marriage, and he alone
saved of all the bridal party—I saw”—

“It is enough—God has judged them,” said the
old woman, with a voice both solemn and reproachful.
“All these things have they done, and
many more as dreadful and cruel. These are the
fruits of civil war; for men are then changed to
beasts. I knew a man of Wyoming, who was
killed by his own brother—shot through the head,
while he knelt down, begging for quarter of his
mother's son! God has judged these acts, for they
who did them are gone; and God will yet judge
the men that drove them into their madness.”

“They had cause, then, for what they did?”
asked Herman, with interest. “It was not in cold
blood, and upon deliberate choice, that they sided
with the tories against their countrymen?”

“Perhaps it was, perhaps it was not,” said Mrs.
Bell, mournfully. “A plough-furrow on the hillside
may grow at last into the bed of a torrent;

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

and what is but a cause for light anger, may, in
time, work the brain into a frenzy. But ask me
not of these things now: it was in a season like
this, twenty-four years since—but it is foolish to
remember me of it,—perhaps sinful. Some time,
perhaps, I may speak of these unhappy people to
you; but I cannot now. Trust, at least, that if
the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow, as you called them,
did much wrong, they also endured it,—and that,
too, when they had not provoked it.”

Finding that his curiosity could obtain no farther
gratification at the present moment, Herman
Hunter again cast his eyes upon the mansion, and
being greatly charmed by an effect made by the
striking of the sunshine on certain parts, while
others lay in the broadest and deepest shadow, he
was seized with a fit of artist-like enthusiasm, and
arranging his drawing materials upon a little table,
which he drew into the porch for the purpose,
he was straightway immersed in the business of
sketching. While he was dotting down chimneys
and windows with great haste and satisfaction, he
was struck with a new and unexpected effect in
the picture. A scarlet mantle, beside which glittered
another of snowy white, suddenly blazed out
like a star from a clump of shadowy trees in the
paddock, and he became aware that two females
on horseback were issuing from the park, and
riding down the road. But losing sight of them
again, as they ambled into a hollow, and being now
really engrossed in his employment, he thought no
more of them, until they suddenly re-appeared
from behind a thicket no great distance off, galloping
forward with an impetuosity and violence that
would have done honour to veteran dragoons.

Somewhat astonished at such an unexpected
display of spirit, he dropped his pencil, and for an
instant supposed that their ponies were running

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

away with these damsels errant. They were not
attired for the saddle, and seemed rather to have
sprung upon their palfreys from some sudden
whim and spirit of frolic than with a purpose of
leaving the park, in which he had first caught
sight of them. They were arrayed merely in
simple walking-dresses of white, over which one
had flung a light scarlet shawl; and instead of
caps or round hats, they had low and broad-brimmed
hats of thin felt, without veils, much better
fitted for rambling in, over sunny meads, than
for displaying to the winds on horseback.

His suspicion that their ponies had taken the
matter into their own hands,—or rather the bits
into their own teeth, was of short duration; and
as they advanced with increased rapidity, he saw
plainly, by the mirthful rivalry displayed in all
their actions and gestures, that they were positively
running a race, the scarlet mantle being the
winner,—or, so far, at least, as a full length would
go, in full prospect of winning.

Not a little diverted at the spectacle, and the
merry cries with which they encouraged their
steeds, he rose from the table, to take a better
view of the fair jockeys, as they should brush by;
when, to his great surprise, no sooner had they
reached the little oak-yard that conducted to the
Traveller's Rest, than they made a rapid wheel,
and came dashing up to the porch in a style worthy
of a race-course.

It happened, either because he was in part concealed
by the veil of nasturtions that grew near to
where he had placed his table, or because they
were too much engaged in their frolic to raise
their eyes, that the young painter was seen by
neither of the ladies, until they were within six
yards of the porch; when the headmost, suddenly
observing him, drew up in such confusion that she

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

had well nigh jerked her pony over on his back.
He perceived at once, that his appearance at the
Traveller's Rest was wholly unexpected, and was
any thing but welcome to the adventurous pair.
Indeed, it was manifest that the consciousness of
having been detected by a stranger engaged in
such jockey-like amusement, had greatly disconcerted
them both.

All this the young man observed in a moment,
and could scarce suppress the smile that gathered
over his visage, even when he saw that the confusion
of the foremost damsel had discomposed her
palfrey. However, as he looked into her face,
florid at once with exercise and shame, he beheld
a pair of such radiant black eyes, flashing with
mingled mirth and vexation, and withal a countenance
of such haughty and decidedly aristocratic
character, as instantly put him upon his best behaviour.
He took off his hat, like a well-bred gentleman,
and advancing from the porch, would have
taken her pony by the rein, had she not instantly
recovered herself, and turned the animal aside,
with an empress-like “I thank you, sir!” He
thought the refusal of assistance, so respectfully
offered, was somewhat ungrateful, and even rude;
but she looked so beautiful, he could do nothing
less than testify his admiration by another bow.

Meanwhile the second maiden, whose confusion
seemed, at first, even greater than her companion's,
and who blushed at the sight of him with
even painful embarrassment, recovering herself
more quickly, (for her filly was not so restiff as
the other,) rode up to the porch, and saluting the
ancient widow, who had risen to receive her, exclaimed,
though with a flurried voice,

“You must pardon us, good Elsie—we came to
visit you—but we knew not you had guests with
you.” Then turning to Herman, just as her friend had

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

rejected his proffered assistance, she said, with the
sweetest voice in the world, as if to make amends
for the rudeness, “We are much obliged to you,
sir—but the horses are very gentle.” She then
turned again to Dame Bell, and, as if resolved to
explain away as much of the cause of visitation as
possible, said,

“We are looking for my father, Elsie; and we
thought, that, instead of waiting for him in the
park, we would ride by your house, and ask you
how you did. We will not intrude upon you
longer.—Good by, my dear Mrs. Bell.”

With these hurried expressions, and having inclined
her head courteously to the painter, she
rode out of the yard, followed by her companion;
when having hesitated a moment, as if uncertain
whether to continue upon the road or not, they
suddenly came to a decision, and rode back towards
the paddock, though at a much more moderate
pace than before.

So great was the admiration with which Herman
Hunter regarded the beauty of the red shawl,
that he had scarce bestowed two glances upon her
friend. He had noticed indeed, that a profusion of
gold-shadowed locks and eyes of extreme gentleness
and sweetness, gave a very agreeable expression
to a countenance at least two years younger than
the other's; but as there was none of the spirit of
fire breaking out at a glance from those loop-holes
of the soul, to make an instant impression on his
imagination, as had been the case with the other,
he lost the opportunity of satisfying himself by
another look, how well her charms might endure a
comparison with those of her companion. His
admiration was doubly unfortunate; since, little as
it deserved such a return, it laid the foundation for
a spirit of hostility, little short of absolute hatred,

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

in the bosom of the lady, as will be seen in the
sequel of this tradition.

As the gay but disconcerted pair rode away together,
he could scarce content himself until they
got beyond earshot, before he exclaimed, with the
most emphatic delight,

“I vow to heaven, my dear mother Elsie, she is
the most beautiful creature I ever laid my eyes
on!”

Alice responded with a faint sigh and a yet
fainter smile; but her countenance immediately
darkened, while she muttered,

“I pity her, poor child. The storm is coming
upon her that she dreams not of; the curse will
swallow up all that are, and shall be, of his house;
and she in whom there is no wrong, and who was
born no child of an unjust father, will share the
penalty with his children. Yes, yes,” she added,
straining her eyes, after the maidens, “I shall see
her bright eyes dimmed with tears, and then
closed,—her yellow locks parted over a forehead
of stone and death,—and perhaps help to lay her
in the earth out of men's sight, as I have helped
with one who was as young and as fair!”

“I vow, mother Elsie,” said the young man, surprised
at the prophetic sadness and emphasis of
her speech, but still more at the mention of “yellow
locks,” while his own thoughts were musing
upon ringlets of raven. “I vow, you have mistaken
me altogether. I meant the other lady, the
black-eyed, angelic creature, who tossed her head
at me with such disdain,—and, hang it, incivility,
too; for it cannot be denied, she was uncivil.”

“I thought you were speaking of the Captain's
daughter,” said the widow, coldly.

“I know no more about the Captain's daughter
than my grandmother,” said the youth, irreverently;
“nor do I care half so much. But tell me

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

Elsie,—who is that black-eyed creature? I never
beheld any body to compare with her!”

“She is the daughter of Colonel Richard Falconer,”
said the hostess, resuming her labours at
the wheel, yet apparently disposed to reply to any
farther interrogatories the young man might propose.
But the painter seemed satisfied with what
he had heard. He exclaimed at once, with a look
of strong disgust,

“Why then may the fiends seize the fancy, and
my fool's head along with it! Hark'e, good dame
Bell, did you ever hear of the old heathen Lamia?
the Lemures, as they were sometimes called?”

“I have heard of some such beasts of Peru,”
said the complaisant hostess; “and I believe they
are a kind of camels.”

“Oh, that's the llama, the pretty little llama,”
said the young man, with the good-humour that
became an instructer. “The Lamiæ were monsters
and sorceresses of Africa, with the face and
bust of women, and the body of a serpent,—a sort
of land mermaids. (By the by, do you know, I
saw a mermaid once? Some time, I will tell you
all about her; but, just now, all I can say is, that
she was monstrous ugly.) These Lamiæ often
bewitched men, who looked them in the face: if
you looked there first, you were so blinded, you
could not perceive their true deformity, until assisted
by the counter-spell of some benevolent magician.
Now, Elsie, this is my thought: I hold
Miss Falconer to be a Lamia; and the sound of
her father's name was the spell that opened my
eyes to her true ugliness. Pho!” continued the
youth, observing the incredulity and wonder of his
auditor; “the image is a bad one after all, for it
conveys an improper impression. I should say,
that I am like the Lamia's lover, not Miss Falconer
like the Lamia. To tell you the truth, I have

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

heard so many ill things said of the father, that I
feel myself heartily inclined to hate the daughter.
A vixen, I warrant me!”

The old woman regarded him earnestly, and
then replied,

“Little cause have I to love Colonel Falconer,
or to speak well of him and his; yet why should a
stranger like you, assume the post of the judge,
and visit the father's faults upon the head of his
offspring? But you do not speak seriously. I
know no evil of Miss Falconer, and I have heard
none. This is the first time I have ever seen her so
near to my threshold: and I know not what strange
fancy could have brought her hither. As for Miss
Catherine, the Captain's daughter, she often comes
to inquire about me. Poor child! she fears not
the `old witch,' for she has done no harm to me
nor to any other mortal; she does not hate `wicked
old Elsie,' for hatred dwells not in her nature;
but she looks with respect and pity upon the miseries
of age and penury. And many a good deed
she has done me, when others passed me by with
scorn and hate. Would that I might go down to
the grave in her place! were it but in memory of
her goodness. But when the bolt is aimed at the
little willow, even the withered old oak cannot
arrest it.”

With such expressions as these the old woman,
if she did not re-inspire Herman Hunter with admiration
for Miss Falconer, succeeded at least in
awakening some interest for the younger lady;
which was greatly increased, when he came to
suspect, from some expressions Elsie let fall, that
the miseries she seemed so confidently to predict
as being in store for the maiden, were predicated
upon the knowledge of a contemplated union between
her and the brother of her friend. It was
plain, from what Elsie said, that this was to be a

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

marriage of convenience, in which Catherine's
affections were to be sacrificed, or disregarded.
It is true, that Elsie did not directly affirm this to
be the case; but the inference from her expressions
was consequential and inevitable; and Herman
only wondered that the young lady, whom
he now pictured to himself as dying of a broken
heart, should have looked so rosy and happy.

In the meanwhile, the maidens rode on, returning
towards the park, until they reached the grove
in the hollow, where they were sheltered from view.
Here they paused, and the Captain's daughter gave
at once the flattest contradiction to all Elsie's piteous
allusions to the state of her feelings, by looking
archly into her companion's face, and then bursting
into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

“Well, what now, dear Hal?” she cried, while
tears of genuine merriment swam in her eyes and
rolled on her cheeks; “what do you think of your
race now? Shall we try it over again?”

“Upon my word, Miss Loring”—

“Kate! call me Kate, or never look to see me
laugh more,” exclaimed the Captain's daughter.
“Now pray, cousin Hal, do you not think we have
exhibited our horsemanship somewhat too advantageously
to-day? Fy, Harriet, I will never forgive
you! To think we should go galloping in
this manner, almost into the arms of a young fellow
with a scarlet waistcoat! It is too ridiculous!”

“So much for dragging me along after you, to
the old witch's!” said Miss Falconer, pettishly.

“After me?” cried the other, with increased
mirth; “why, you were leading—you had beaten
me by full a length and a half, as the jockeys call
it:—so much for not starting fair! And as for
dragging you there, Harriet, pray do me justice;
you know it was your own wicked suggestion altogether
that carried you thither, and my frailty that

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

made me follow. It is all a punishment on you,
for breaking the commandment, and running after
the forbidden fruit. Oh, curiosity! curiosity! when
shall we poor women shuffle the little tempter from
our bosoms? But pray, cousin, what made you
treat the young man so rudely? Sure, he was
very handsome and well-behaved; and sure, young
gentlemen, handsome and well-behaved, are not
so plentiful in Hawk-Hollow! I think we will get
pa to invite him to dinner.”

“Well, Catherine,” said the other, “you are
merry to-day; but it happens so seldom, and I am
so glad of it, that I pardon you, although your
mirth is all at my expense.”

“You are angry with me, Harriet?” said the
Captain's daughter, riding up to her friend, and
stretching forth her hand. Her frolicsome spirits
vanished in a moment, and the change on her
countenance and in her whole manner, from extreme
gayety to impetuous emotion, was inexpressibly
striking and touching.

“Angry? by no means,” said Miss Falconer, as
Catherine flung her arm round her neck and kissed
her. “Poor wayward Kate! I would you could
laugh at me for ever. Why do you cry, mouse?
You are certainly the most extraordinary mad
creature in the world!”

“Yes, I am,” said Miss Loring, smiling through
her tears; “I can't abide being talked stiffly to.
But what shall we do? Shall we ride up to the park?
Shall we sit down here, and play long-straws for
sweethearts? Shall we take heart of grace, and
ride on in search of papa? Or shall we play termagant
again, whip, cut and spur, whoop and
halloo, and call Monsieur Red-Jacket to stand up
for umpire? Any thing, dear Hal, to kill time,
and find you amusement.”

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

“Was Monsieur Red-Jacket so handsome, after
all?” demanded Miss Falconer.

“I don't know,” said Catherine: “He kept his
eyes so fixed upon your own face, I could not
half see him. But, really, he seemed to admire
you very much—I suppose, because you were first
in! I don't see how you could have the heart to
treat him so uncivilly, when his admiration was so
manifest, and his bearing so respectful?”

“Was it, indeed?” said the other, shaking her
head, as if regretfully. “Young, handsome, well
bred, and an admirer—and yet, I know, I shall
never abide the sight of him. What! see me riding
in full race, with whoop and halloo, and all that, as
you say, like a grazier's daughter!—poh, it is intolerable:
it can never be forgiven!”

“Why, he saw me, too,” said Miss Loring;
“and I am sure, I forgive him! And it is no such
great matter, after all.”

“No great matter, to be sure; but small ones
govern the world. No one can forgive being made
ridiculous, especially a woman of spirit. Come,
we will gallop back to the park, and leave the
Captain to find his own way.”

With these words, they returned to the paddock.

In the confession of a weak and capricious prepossession,
which was perhaps more than half
serious, Miss Falconer showed an almost prophetic
sense of what would be the future temper of her
mind towards the unlucky Herman. Neither the
manifest folly nor injustice of the sentiment, even
when gratitude should have expelled it from her
bosom for ever, could prevent it ripening into
jealousy and final dislike; and unfortunately circumstances
of an accidental nature soon arose to
give a double impulse to these unamiable feelings.

CHAPTER III.

A man of blood, being brought up in the wars
And cruel executions.
Beaumont and Fletcher.

—A very foolish, fond old man,
Four-score and upwards; and, to deal plainly,
I fear, he is not in his proper mind.
King Lear.

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

The painter, still keeping his eyes upon the pair,
pondered over that propensity of our nature, which
urges even the coldest and demurest of mortals
into acts of extravagance, when removed a moment
from artificial restraints. The whole system
of social federation is a state of enthrallment and
captivity, although undoubtedly a wholesome one;
and he who publicly rejects its fetters, though he
may personally enjoy his independence, violates
that compact which separates the refined from
the primitive and uncivilized states of existence,
and encourages others to rush back upon the savage
freedom of the latter. The preservation of a
certain share of dignity is incumbent upon men,
not merely as a means of holding caste, but of preventing
a downslide in manners and mind. The
hero may properly play at bo-peep with his children,
though not at the head of his army; and, by
the same rule, a fair lady may shoot and drive,
play the fiddle, and race horses, to her heart's content,
so long as the amusement is confined to the
proper circle. For our own part, we think there
is no more delightful spectacle in the world than

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

is afforded by a troop of grown-up hoydens, released
from the heavy trammels of etiquette, and
yielding, in all the confidence of privacy, to the
wild extravagancies of freedom; though a public
display of the kind would, undoubtedly, be any
thing but agreeable. Such were the sentiments of
the painter; and however much the young ladies
may have been mortified at an introduction made
in a way so boisterous and masculine, it is questionable
whether any other could have caused
them to produce a stronger, or even more favourable,
impression on his imagination. Being of a
joyous temperament himself, he rejoiced at the
manifestation of similar spirit in others; and only
regretted that the parentage of the most admired
(for his prejudice against the name of Falconer
had been strongly avowed,) should have so
soon driven away the visions of amusement and
delight, that, at the glance of her brilliant eyes,
came rushing through his brain.

He had scarce lost sight of them in the park,
before the road again echoed with the sound of
hoofs; and looking round, he beheld three young
men, very genteely dressed, ride by, and make
their way to the park gate. As they passed the
cottage, they turned their faces towards it, saluting
the widow by name, and acknowledging the
presence of the stranger by courteous nods. He
perceived, however, that they were somewhat surprised,
and not a little diverted, by his appearance
at such a place; for they exchanged smiles, and
by and by, when they had got a little beyond the
brook, they were heard laughing together.

“Well done, ye vagabonds,” muttered the good-humoured
youth to himself: “never trust me, if I
do not make you more in love with my lodgings
than your own empty skulls, before we are many

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

days older. There is some life in Hawk-Hollow,
after all.”

He had just succeeded in recalling his attention
to his unfinished sketch, when it was distracted for
the third time by the sudden appearance of a carriage,
somewhat old-fashioned and grim, that rolled
up to the inn at an unusual speed, and was in
the act of passing it, when an old gentleman, whose
head was thrust from the window, caught sight of
Herman, and immediately diverted it from its
course, by roaring out to the coachman, a venerable
negro,—

“Holla, you Dick! right about wheel,—turn,—
halt!” and the coach, guided with ready skill,
stopped at the porch-step, almost before the last
word had been pronounced.

Open flew the door, for it was evident the old
gentleman was too impatient to await the tardy
assistance of his servant, and out flew the steps,
unfolding at a kick of his foot, which immediately
followed them. As he thrust himself thus hurriedly
from the vehicle, Herman observed, that besides
his aged appearance, he had another claim to such
duties as a young man could render, in a second
foot, which, instead of displaying any of the
strength and agility of the former, was battered
out of shape by some ancient injury, and was pendent
to a leg unquestionably infirm and halt. Seeing
this, the young painter instantly stepped forward,
and assisted him to descend; a courtesy
that was acknowledged by a hearty gripe of the
hand, and the exclamation,

“Surrender, you dog, or I'll blow your brains
out!”—And to complete the astonishment of the
young man, he perceived, at the same moment, a
great horse-pistol, which the old gentleman had
whipped out of the vehicle, presented within three
inches of his ear.

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

Astounded at such an unexpected mode of salutation,
the painter could do little more than express
his alarm and confusion, by echoing the word,
“Surrender?” when Elsie interfered in his behalf,
crying out, “For Heaven's sake, Captain Loring!
what are you doing? Do the young gentleman
no harm!”

“Gentleman!” cried the Captain, somewhat
staggered himself. “Adzooks! do you say so?—
a gentleman? What! and no cut-throat Gilbert,
hah? By the lord, I thought I had him! Why,
you vagabond young fellow, give an account of
yourself.—Who are you? what are you? and how
did you come here? You are a gentleman, hah?
and you have not killed Colonel Falconer, hah?
and you profess yourself to be an honest man, hah!
Why, what will the world come to!”

As he spoke, in these abrupt and startling
phrases, Herman had leisure, notwithstanding his
surprise, to observe that he was a comely, eccentric-looking
old man, with a bottle-shaped nose,
gray eyes, and huge beetle-brows, his whole countenance
puckered into wrinkles, that seemed to
begin at the tip of his nose, or on his upper lip, as
a common centre, and radiate thence to all parts
of his visage, though they appeared in the greatest
luxuriance on the chin and forehead. His hair was
clubbed, queued, and powdered; and, although he
was evidently battered by time and hard service,
and limped withal very uncouthly on his wounded
leg, a three-cornered hat, and a half-and-half old
military dress, gave him a somewhat heroic appearance.
His coat was blue, his breeches buff;
and he had a boot on one leg, and a shoe on the
other,—or,—to speak more strictly, on the foot
thereof, that being incapable of the more manly
decoration. But at the present moment, it was
scarce possible to obtain a just idea of his

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

appearance or character, had Herman been cool enough
for the attempt. The violence of his attack upon
one in the act of rendering him a humane courtesy,
indicated that he was somewhat beside himself;
and it was equally plain, from the medley of expressions
on his visage, agitated at once by suspicion,
anxiety, indignation, fury, triumph, and
doubt, that he was in a condition to be replied to
rather with softness than anger. In truth, there
was something so ridiculous in his appearance, as
well as in the circumstance of his own unexpected
arrest, that Herman was no sooner relieved of the
fear of death, by the dropping of the pistol, which
the gallant soldier removed at the remonstrance
of Elsie, than he burst into a laugh, and would
have indulged it freely, had not the Captain cut
him short by exclaiming,

“Hark ye, ye grinning cub! is it a thing to
laugh at, when a man's murdered, and you arrested
on suspicion?”

“Murdered, Captain!” cried the widow, whom
some of his previous ejaculations seemed to have
turned into stone:—“Murdered, Captain, did you
say?” she exclaimed, seizing the soldier by the
arm, and wholly disregarding the presence of the
painter,—“Richard Falconer murdered at last?
and by a Gilbert, when all that bore the name are
in the grave? Impossible!”

“Murdered, I tell you, and given over by the
doctors,” roared the Captain, “and by one of the
cursed Hawk-Hollow Gilberts, if there's any believing
words out of his own mouth: I have it by
express. And hark ye, you old beldam, if you
have given shelter to the villain, never trust me if
I don't burn you at a stake. Adzooks! was there
ever such a thing dreamed of?—Hark ye, sir, I
arrest you on suspicion.”

“What, sir! on suspicion of murder!” cried

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

Hunter, who had by this time recovered his gravity,
and now spoke with as much dignity as boldness:
“If you have any authority to apprehend me, I
am your prisoner, and will accompany you to the
nearest magistrate.—This is the most extraordinary
circumstance in the world; and let me tell
you, sir,”—but he was interrupted by the widow;
who, still grasping the Captain's arm, although he
strove to cast her off, exclaimed,

“Do no rash folly with the young man. Look
at him—does he look like a Gilbert? You are mad
to think it, Captain Loring!”

Then, as if satisfied that such argument was
sufficient to acquit her lodger of all suspicion, she
again renewed her questions; and Herman, giving
ear to the Captain, gathered from his broken and
impetuous expressions, that assassination had been
committed, or rather attempted, (for it did not
appear that the victim was dead,) upon the body
of Colonel Falconer, who had been so lately the
subject of his thoughts and conversation,—that the
outrage had been perpetrated at, or near, the metropolis
of the State,—that suspicion had fallen
upon a man long esteemed defunct,—and that Captain
Loring, in the fervour of his indignation and
zeal to bring the assassin to justice, being never
very notorious for the wisdom of his actions, had
resolved to seize upon all suspicious persons,—
that is to say, all strangers,—he might light on,
without much question of his right to do so, until
he had caught the true offender, who, he doubted
not, being a refugee and a Gilbert, would be found
lurking about the Hawk's Hollow. It seemed, that
the suddenness of the intelligence had overpowered
the veteran's brain, and left him as incapable
of distinguishing the appearances of innocence
from those of guilt, as of understanding the illegal
character of his proceedings; yet, being a man of

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

impulses, excitable both in head and heart, his suspicions
were as easily diverted as inflamed; and,
accordingly, after having come within an ace of
shooting a pistol through the painter's head, his
next act was to seize upon him in the most affectionate
manner in the world, crying out by way of
apology,

“Harkee, younker,—adzooks, no ill blood betwixt
us? When my blood's up, I'm an old fool,
d'ye see. Didn't mean to insult you; and as for
shooting, that's neither here nor there. But when
we're after a deserter, spy, refugee, murderer, or
such dogs, why quick's the word, and `Fall in,
friend,' the order of the day. Must catch the villain,
and take account of all skulking fellows without
the counter-sign. Here's bloody murder in the
wind. The old woman says you are a gentleman:
so, gentleman, as you were! Adzooks, you look
no more like a Gilbert than a mud-terrapin; but
all honest men answer to their names—what's
yours?”

“Hunter,—Herman Hunter,” replied the young
man; “and, if need be, I can easily convince you
that I am no object of suspicion.”

“Don't doubt it; you've an excellent phys'nomy,—
very much like my poor son Tom's,” cried the
soldier, now as much struck with the open and
agreeable countenance of the stranger, as he had
been before blinded by his own impetuosity. “I
like you! You're a soldier, hah? Where do you
come from?”

“From South Carolina,” said Hunter, exchanging
the serious mood in which he first submitted
to examination, for one more characteristic of his
humorous temper. He began to understand and
even relish the oddities of the inquisitor; and as
the Captain's questions were now put in a tone
indicative of good will and admiration, and it was

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

evident his turbulent feelings were giving way
rapidly before others of a new character, he seemed
disposed not only to endure but to encourage
the ordeal.

“From South Carolina?” cried the Captain.
“Too many tories there by half! But then you
have some men there; yes, sir, some men, whom
I call men! Sumpter, sir, and Marion, sir,—why
I call such fellows men, sir! I like this swampfighting,
too; I was brought up to it,—took my
first lesson among red Delawares, and ended with
Mingoes and Shawnees. A good tussle at Eutaw,
too, sir, it was, by the lord!” exclaimed Captain
Loring, warming into such a blaze of military
ardour at the recollection, that he quite forgot the
object of his delay, and the assassination of his
kinsman into the bargain;—“a good tussle, (without
saying any thing of my friend Morgan's rub-a-dub-dub
at the Cowpens,)—a good tussle! And
such glorious weather, too, when a man could
fight and keep cool! Now I remember, that, at
the fatal field of Braddock, ninth July, '55, it was
the hottest work, what with the weather, what
with the savages, what with the stupid cockney
red-coats, that man ever saw,—an oven above,
and a furnace all round; it was all blood and
sweat, sir!—the wounded were boiled in their
own gore. It was a day, sir, to make a man a
man, sir,—it taught me to smell gun-powder! It
was there, sir, I first looked in the face of George
Washington,—a poor colonial buck-skin colonel
then, but now, adzooks, the greatest man the world
ever saw! Harkee, sir, have you served? have you
smelt powder? have you heard a trumpet? have
you ever fought a battle?”

“Certainly, sir,” replied the young man, with
humour; “I have inflicted bloody-noses, and received
them. I was quite a Hector at school;

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

and, so long as you stop short of killing, I am a
Hector yet. But I never could find any appetite
in me for bullets and broad-swords; and as for a
bayonet, I think it the most inhuman weapon in
the world. Noble Captain, I am a non-combatant,
a man of peace.”

“Hah!” cried the Captain, indignantly; “and
how comes that? An able-bodied man, with your
bleeding country calling on you, and no fight in
you? Sir, let me tell you, sir, such a pair of legs
should have been devoted to the service of your
country, sir! Look you, sir, my son Tom Loring
was only eighteen years old, when he fought his
battle on the Brandywine; and a whole year before,
he was ripe for a rub, as he often told me.
How comes it, sir, you have grown out of your
teens, and never faced an enemy? Zounds, sir, I
was beginning to have a good opinion of you!”

“There is no accounting for it, Captain, except”—

“Hark ye, Mr. What-d'ye-call-it,” said the soldier,
the good feelings with which he was beginning
to regard the youth, giving place at once to
contempt and indignation, “there is every thing in
having the right sort of blood for these things, and
you have no blood at all. I despise you, sir, and,
adzooks, I believe you are some suspicious person
after all, and very contemptible, for all of your red
jacket.—Holloa, Dick, there! help me into the
carriage.”

And thus venting his disgust, and preparing to
put the seal to his displeasure by instant departure,
the young man was on the point of losing a friend
so suddenly won, when, fortunately for him, the
Captain's eye fell upon the little table with the
drawing materials, which he had not before observed,
and walking up to it, he began, without a
moment's hesitation, to examine the unfinished

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

sketch. The effect was instantaneous; the spectacle
of his own dwelling, transferred, with not a
little skill, to paper, though only in light lead
marks, and so accurately that he instantly detected
(as appeared to him wonderful enough) the
windows of his own sleeping apartment, threw
him into such transports, that he seemed on the
point of dancing for joy, as he would perhaps
have done, had it not been for the infirmity of his
extremity.

“Lord bless us!” said he, “here's the Folly! the
identical old Folly, with the grape-vine, the stables,
the negro-houses, the locust grove, the three
tulip-trees, the pot in the chimney, and the old
martin-house on a pole! And here's my two negroes,
Dick and Sam, at the gate, driving the cows
out of the park”—

“No, Captain,” said Herman, with a painter's
dignity; “those are the two young ladies; and I
flatter myself, when I have done a little more to
them”—

“My girls?” cried the Captain, in a rapture;
“why, so they are! And you did this? and you're
a painter, hah?”

“A sort of one, as you see, Captain,” replied
the youth, with an air.

“A painter!” cried the Captain, grasping his
hand, with delight. “Can you paint a soldier,
hah?”

“Ay,” replied the youth, “if he'll hold still long
enough.”

“And cannon, and horses, and smoke, and trees,
and a dreadful splutter of blood and dead men,
hah? Then, by the lord, you shall paint me the
Fatal Field of Braddock, with the red-coats and
the continentals, the savages and the Frenchmen,—
and Braddock, lugged off on men's shoulders,—
and George Washington rallying the colony-boys

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

for another charge on the red-skins! What a
picture that will make!—I'll tell you what, Mr.
Harkem What-d'-ye-call-it, you shall come to my
house, drink and be merry, and then you shall
paint me that picture. You shall paint me the battle
of Brandywine, too, with my poor Tom Loring
bleeding to death, like a hero, as he was: and hark
ye, you may bring me in, too, holding him on my
knee,—for I did it,—and telling him to die like a
man,—for an old fool, as I was, to think he could
die like any thing else! And stick in my girl, too,
if you can, weeping and wringing her hands, when
I carried Tom Loring home that day. And remember
the bugles and trumpets, blasting up for the
charge of cavalry; you should have heard them
sweeping by, just as Tom was dying.—It was the
finest sound in nature!” continued the Captain,
vehemently, and as he spoke, dashing a tear from
his eye; “the finest music ever heard; as Tom
acknowledged himself: `Father!' said he, as he
bled in my arms, `it is not hard to die to such
music, for I hear our own trumpets among the
others!' And so died Tom Loring; he went to
heaven amid thunder and trumpets; and if I had
seven sons more, I should wish nothing better for
them, than that they might go to heaven the same
way,—I would, by the lord! For why? there's no
way that's better!”

There was something in this eccentric burst of
ardour, which, however ludicrous it seemed, touched
some of the finer feelings of the painter, and
checked the laugh which he could scarce repress,
when the Captain began his energetic instructions.
Not being disposed to accept a commission so
capriciously proffered, or to undertake a composition,
in which, it was evident, if he hoped to please
his employer, he must mingle together as many
different scenes and actions as would furnish

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

subjects for a whole gallery, and desiring to temper
his refusal to the peculiarities of his patron, he
was puzzling himself in what way to express it,
when his good-fortune sent him aid in the person
of another stranger, who, as the capricious stars
would have it, designed, like himself, to make trial
of the accommodations of the Traveller's Rest.

CHAPTER IV. 1st Friar.

No doubt, brother, but this proceedeth of the Spirit?

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

As the Captain concluded his eccentric oration,
rather from want of breath than because he lacked
the will to continue it, a sonorous voice, very
manly and agreeable, save that it had a strong
nasal twang, was heard pronouncing hard by,
with solemn emphasis, the words from the Apocalypse,—

“ `And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and
his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed
with him. And power was given unto them
over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the
sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with
the beasts of the earth.' ”

Startled at an interruption so unexpected, both
looked round at the first sound of the voice, and
even Elsie Bell woke from the trance into which
the Captain's news had plunged her, to gaze as
eagerly as the others after the cause. As they
directed their eyes towards the entrance of the
little oak-shaded yard, they saw, turning into it
from the road, and slowly riding towards them,
an apparition that might almost have been supposed
by a profane imagination to imbody the
conception of the grisly terror. It was a tall man
in black raiment, riding an old gray horse, very
meager and raw-boned, which moved with a step

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

so slow and drowsy, as to oppose no obstruction
to the meditations of the rider, who held a book in
his hand, from which he read the words that followed
so ominously after the burst of the Captain.
He seemed so inwrapt in his study as to be unconscious
of the presence of strangers, having
apparently yielded up the guidance of his course
to the animal he bestrode; and as he drew nigh to
the porch, still pronouncing the words, the first
one of which had attracted their attention, all had
an opportunity of gazing on him at leisure. He
was a tall man, as has been said, being somewhat
gaunt and thin in the lower part of his body, though
his shoulders were broad and square. His joints
were large and bony, and his hands and feet were
any thing in the world but fairy-like. His neck
was long and scraggy, his face of a cadaverous
hue and lantern-jawed, and long locks of straight
black hair, a little grizzled, fell from beneath an
old cocked-hat, the brim of which was inclined to
go slouching along with them, towards his shoulders.
His coat was of black velvet, worn and
soiled, and indeed extremely shabby, and so long,
that, as he rode, the wide skirts almost concealed
his saddle-bags and flapped about his heels; the
collar was straight and short, and its place was supplied
by a red bandanna handkerchief, which was
twisted round his throat in a thong like a cable.

He continued to read aloud, until his horse suddenly
paused before the porch; then lifting up his
eyes, and closing the book, he bestowed a gracious
stare upon the party, that had well nigh converted
the painter's admiration into merriment, it was so
extravagantly grave and sanctimonious. It dispelled
also some of the reverence with which the
soldier was beginning to regard him; and recurring
suddenly to the objects which had brought
him to the Traveller's Rest, Captain Loring

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

hobbled up to the saintly apparition, advanced his
hand to seize upon the bridle rein, and was just
saluting him with a “Harkee, Mister, whoever
you are,—being a stranger, you must give an account
of yourself,”—when the worthy personage,
rolling his eyes once more over the party, and
then directing them to heaven, opened his mouth,
and again lifted up his voice.

“Fellow sinners!” said he, with as much zeal as
emphasis, seeming to consider that he had found
a congregation in great need of his exhortations,
“you have heard the words of the book: `And I
looked, and behold, a pale horse; and his name
that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with
him.' Death comes on the pale horse, and hell follows
at his heels! Listen to what I have to say,
and let your souls that are a-hungering, open their
mouths and be satisfied. He that has ears to
hear”—

“Is an ass!” cried Captain Loring, interrupting
him without ceremony. “Come, you fanatical
fool, none of your babble and sermonizing here of
a week-day; but answer my questions.”

“Will you rail upon the Lord's anointed? will
you do violence to my holy vocation?” cried the
preacher, hotly. “Get thee behind me, Satan! If
thou wilt not profit by the unction of truth, shut
thy mouth and get thee away, that others may not
backslide after thee. Anathema upon thee! anathema
baranathema! If thou stoppest the flood of
the sweet waters that are ready to fall upon the
thirsty-spirited, I say to thee, Anathema! Lo and
behold! I am sent upon a mission, and the spirit
waxes strong within me, so that I will wrestle with
thee and prevail. Am not I he that is sent to scatter
the good seed by the way-side? and art thou
not a bush of thorns, that chokes up the grain ere
it reaches the soil, or the rock that has no soil to

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

receive it? I will preach the devil out of thee, I
warrant thee, thou most antique sinner; for what
says the word”—

“Harkee, friend methodist, or whatever you
are,” said Captain Loring, not a whit abashed by
the violent zeal with which the fanatic prolonged
this remonstrance, “it is not in my way to insult
the cloth, all chaplains being non-combatants.
But, hark ye, sir, adzooks, I don't believe you are
a preacher at all, but a rogue in another man's
feathers; and if you don't satisfy my mind, I will
arrest you on suspicion of being a rascal, I will by
the lord! and that's as true as any Scripture.
And do you, you Harper What-d'ye-call-it,” (turning
to the painter,) “hand me my pistol, and hold
him by the leg; and you, Dick! club your whip,
and stand by to knock him off his horse; and you,
Elsie, come forward for a witness; for I believe
the dog's a Gilbert. Surrender, you villain, and
give an account of yourself!”

Great was the confusion of the exhorting stranger,
at finding he had lighted upon a zealot, of fire
so much superior to his own, and a congregation
so little disposed to bow down to his ministry; and
great was the inclination of Herman Hunter to enjoy
a rencounter betwixt two such antagonists, and
even to add to its absurdities, by taking part with
the Captain against a man who, whatever was his
apparent sanctity, he was persuaded, was nothing
more than a low and vulgar hypocrite. However,
perceiving that the latter worthy, besides
being greatly alarmed, was clubbing his bible as if
weighing the propriety of employing all its arguments
and exhortations together, in one fell swoop
against the head of his irreligious captor, his
humanity and love of peace drove the young man
betwixt the eccentric pair, as a moderator and
umpire.

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

“Stop, Captain,” said he; “this mode of questioning
is against the law; and you, reverend
stranger, hearken to me. Being a man of religion
and peace, and doubtless good sense and good
manners, you can do nothing more than answer a
civil question; which will save you the trouble of a
ride, or drive, according to circumstances, to the
nearest magistrate.”

“Magistrate!” cried the preacher, blankly,
“what have the servants of truth to do with a
magistrate?”

“Yes, magistrate,” blustered the soldier; “and
then, adzooks, perhaps to the hangman afterwards.”

“In a word, sir,” said Herman, “there has been
a murder attempted; though where, when, and
how, I do not pretend to know; and this being a
land where suspicion is somewhat capricious and
even whimsical, you will see the necessity of
doing as I myself have done but a moment before
you;—that is, of declaring your name and business
to this gentleman.”

“Name, gentlemen! business, gentlemen!—Certainly,
gentlemen,—certainly, fellow christians and
sinners!” cried the preacher, recovering his equanimity,
which had somewhat deserted him, and becoming
ten times more nasal and sanctified than
before. “I am a poor servant of the word, an
expounder of the book, Nehemiah by name,—
which is to say, Nehemiah Poke,—an humble
labourer in the vineyard of sin—that is to say,
of righteousness—and a warner and crier-out on
the way-side, by the side of the great road that
leadeth to the place of despair, and of wailing, and
of gnashing of teeth. You put your scorns upon
me, men of the world, and sons of a stiff-necked
generation; you spit in my face, you strike me
over the mouth, and you take me by the beard,

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

crying, `Get up, you bald-head.' But he will
reckon with you, who goeth about like a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour. Open therefore
your ears, and repent you, lest he who comes
on the pale horse, with hell after him, shall fall
upon you in your pride, and twist your necks, as
you twist off a quid of tobacco from the roll. I
come to the house of the good widow, for such, say
the men of the world, is the widow Bell. I design
to eat and refresh me with sleep; and then crossing
over the river that lies in my path, wend my
way to the scorners of truth, that are thick among
the men of blood in the army; for among them,
Death on the pale horse is ever ramping and
roaring. But I see, that wickedness is here, even
here, in this `desert idle,' as it is written: I will
therefore tarry awhile, and expound to you the
words of comfort, and that before I eat and sleep,
lest you fall and perish before the morning. Rest
a moment then, irreverent and headstrong old
man, and I will wrestle with the devil that is in
thee. For I forgive thee, and will arouse thee with
an exhortation, strong and fiery, `fierce as ten furies,
terrible as night,' according to the expression.
Listen, therefore, to the words of my text: `And
I looked, and behold.'—And behold! the sinner
rolleth away in his pride, rejecting the word! But
he of the pale horse runneth after, even in the dust
of his chariot wheels, shaking destruction from his
shoulders, even as `dew-drops from the lion's
mane,' as it is written. Young man, give me thy
hand, that I may descend; and widow, peace be to
thy house, and comfort in the midst of thy poverty.
He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, as
the word has it, and marks even when a sparrow
falls to the ground, will not turn from thine humble
tenement, when its door is open to the weary

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

pilgrim, and its porch resounds with the cry of
prayer and thanksgiving.”

“Mr. Nehemiah Poke,” said Herman, who
gave his hand, as required, to the pilgrim, and
assisted him to descend, “you perceive, that your
exhortations have driven away one-third of the
congregation.”—Captain Loring had been fully
satisfied with the explanations of Mr. Poke, or
alarmed at the prospect of a sermon; and while
the preacher was kindling into fervour, had suddenly
slipped into the carriage, and in a moment
rumbled furiously away.—“You perceive that
your sanctity has driven away one auditor, and
confounded another,—Mrs. Bell here being in a
maze. Now know, likewise, that I, the remaining
third, have no need of your edifying discourses,
and request you to put an end to them.”

This was said with a good-natured smile, and a
knowing nod, which somewhat disconcerted the
preacher. However, after staring at the youth
awhile, he lifted up his eyes, hands, and voice
together, saying,

“Are you a scorner of the word, then, in your
early and tender youth? and will you shut your
ears and harden your heart against the grace that
is offered, even by my unworthy lips!”

“Even against all that can come from your unworthy
lips, as you very properly term them,”
said the painter, with the most significant countenance
in the world; “and to make you easy on
that score, do me the favour to believe that I have
studied Milton, Shakspeare, Sterne, and the Bible,
so much more closely than yourself, that I never
jumble them together, nor fail to perceive when
another man does so. Do you understand me?”

“Truly not,” said the preacher, with a somewhat
humorous stare; “but out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings we are sometimes wisely

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

admonished. I perceive, that I have fallen among
thieves—that is to say, among sinners; and that
they are none the better, but much the worse, for
any comfortable wisdom that is offered them.
Therefore, I will hold my peace, lest the devil
should be aggravated in your bosom; hoping that
a better hour may be shown me, in which to warn
you of the wickedness of your ways, and so pluck
you as a brand out of the burning. Good woman,”
he continued, turning to Elsie, and speaking much
better sense than before, “know, that by reason
of thy poverty and widowhood, I have brought me
lucre of silver and paper—that is to say, dollars
both hard and soft—to reward thee for thy hospitality;
and that I come, not like a thief and a man
of war, to prey upon thy substance, and leave thee
nothing in return; but as a guest, in the worldly
sense, who will pay scot and lot, as the word is,
without grumbling.”

“Such as I have, you shall share,” said Elsie,
coldly, “whether you have gold or not, provided
you will take the young gentleman's advice, and
exhort no longer in my house.”

“Woman,” said Nehemiah, “let me not think
that a devil has seized upon you, as well as the
others. Shall wisdom cry aloud, not in the streets
but at your house-door, and you regard it no more
than the scoffers? I tell you, and I charge you
to hear”—

“Softly, Mr. Poke,” said Herman. “Remember
your promise to hold your peace. That scrap
from Sir John, though it smacks of a better origin,
is of as clear an one as the others. Read your
Bible, man, for a day or two more, and learn your
trade better.”

“Young man,” said the preacher, again somewhat
abashed, but with a stern voice, “you talk
like one of the ignorant”—

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

“Groundlings!” said the other, laying a ludicrous
stress upon the word. “ `Thy face is
valanced since I saw thee last!'—Does that come
out of Habakkuk? If you will preach, why here
fate sends you another auditor, in the form of another
patron to the Traveller's Rest! As for myself,
I am tired not only of your homilies, but your
company; and I pray you, for our own two sakes,
that you cross the river before supper. The
sooner the better, I assure you; for though at
present the `rack' may `stand still,' `the bold
wind' be


`Speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death; anon the dreadful thunder
Will rend the region,'
and scatter Jackdaws, along with the owls and
pigeons. Fare you well, `Sir Topas, the Curate!'—
`I am one of those gentle ones that will use the
devil himself with courtesy'—I leave you to the
pedler there, who may be of a better temper for
conversation. `Bones dies, Sir Topas!' ”

And with these words, and laughing heartily, as
at some jest perfectly well understood by Nehemiah,
he left the porch, only looking once behind
him, as the preacher stood regarding him with uplifted
hands, and bursting into a second peal as he
looked. He raised his eyes, nodding courteously
to the new comer, whom he had justly characterized
as a pedler—for so he seemed, having a pack
strapped to his back, though riding a strong black
horse. “Good luck for poor Elsie to-day!” he
muttered to himself, as if even diverted by so slight
a circumstance as the unusual windfall of patronage.
“I thought I could not be mistaken in the
rogue's lantern-jaws and huge hands; and I doubt
me, his religion is a mere cloak, put on for a purpose;
though I have heard of such conversions
before. However, honest or not, a fool or a

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

scoundrel, a saint or a hypocrite, it is certain he can do
me no mischief; and I'll see he does none to Elsie.
As for others, they must take their chances.”

Thus reflecting, and amusing himself with his
cogitations, he made his way, though apparently
without design or object, along the road, until he
had passed the park-gate of Gilbert's Folly, and
reached the rivulet described before, as emptying
into the river at the mouth of the ravine, on which
the Traveller's Rest was built. Although shallow
and of a smooth bottom, where it crossed the road,
there were rocks lying in its bed both above and
below; and he could hear a murmuring noise
among the trees that overshadowed it above, as if
it made a cascade at no great distance in that direction.
He had no doubt that, by leaving the
road, he was trespassing upon the manor; but
having no fear of intruding upon the haunts of any
of its habitants, and being moved by a painter's
curiosity, he did not hesitate to clamber over the
rude stone wall, and dive at once into the shadowy
grove bordering the stream.

CHAPTER V.

To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
Il Penseroso.

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

Meanwhile, the fair jockeys, after being repulsed
from the highway, had betaken themselves
to the park, where they galloped about for awhile,
expecting the Captain. As they looked back ever
and anon upon the road, they caught sight of the
three young men, whom Hunter had seen pass the
Traveller's Rest but a short time after the ladies
themselves.

“Was ever any thing more provoking!” cried
Miss Falconer. “Those three rural coxcombs,
the doctor and the two lawyers! Will no one
have the humanity to break a leg, or his neighbour's
bones, so as to afford them some employment,
and us a little peace and quiet? Must we
be ever afflicted with their admiration and homage?
It is more than a misfortune to be a fine
woman in the country, where merit, as the old villanous
poet says of female attraction in general,


`In its narrow circle gathers,
Nothing but chaff, and straw, and feathers.'
But we will escape them, if it be only for an hour.
Down, Kate! down, ere they have seen you!

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

Whip your filly, and I warrant me, she will find
her way to the stable. We will hide in the woods,
as I think we have done before from the same
fellows.”

Laughing heartily at a device that spoke so little
in favour of the attractive qualities of the village
beaux, the Captain's daughter leaped lightly from
her palfrey, as Miss Falconer had done before
her; and both flourishing their whips at the same
time, the liberated animals fled towards the buildings,
whilst their riders lost not a moment in
burying themselves from sight, by plunging into
a grove, from which they continued to ramble,
until they had reached a little brook, as wild and
merry as themselves, that gushed over a remote
corner of the park, and then hid its gleaming
waters in a hollow, overgrown with forest-trees.

Into this dell they made their way, following the
brook, until it fell into a larger streamlet, which was
indeed no other than Hawk-Hollow Run, so often
mentioned before. Its banks were strown with huge
masses of rock, gray and mossy, through which the
waters, swollen by late rains, rushed with impetuous
speed, and sometimes with great noise and fury,
while its murmurs were rendered yet more impressively
sonorous by the hollow reverberations of the
forest. Proceeding farther, the woods, which now
invested the hills on either bank, and the rocks,
assumed a sterner character of wildness and grandeur.
Hemlocks, and other gloomy trees, with
here a rugged maple, or ghostly beech, and there
a gibbous oak, springing from interstices of the
rocks, seemed, with their knotted and contorted
roots, to bind the fragments together; while their
thick and arched boughs flung over these ruins of
nature a chilly and everlasting gloom. Aloft, on
the hill, the grape-vine swung its massy locks from
the oak, and, in the lower depths of the ravine, for

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

such it was, the swamp-honeysuckle shook its fragrant
clusters, and green dodders rose on the
stump of the decaying birch. When their path
had conducted the fair wanderers beyond the immediate
vicinity of the falls and rapids, these exchanged
their murmurs for other sounds not less
agreeable. The chattering of jays, the lonely-sounding
whistle of the wood-robin, the cry of a
startled dove, and now and then the sudden whir
of a pheasant, starting from his lair under a fallen
trunk, and bustling noisily out of sight,—the small
uproar of young rabbits, bouncing out of a brier
or a bush of ferns, and galloping away up the hill,—
the dropping of half-eaten nuts from the paw of
the retreating squirrel, and a dozen other such
noises as invade the solitude of the forest, here
added a double loneliness and charm to a scene
long since a favourite with the maidens.

“Now are we safe,” cried Miss Falconer, with
exultation; “for no one having seen us take this
course, our admirers, were they even spirited
enough to pursue, would think of twenty more
reasonable places to seek us in than this. But let
us make assurance doubly sure. Don't tell me
you are tired—what business has a country-wench
to be tired? We will go down to the sycamore,
and then rest us awhile, till the sun peeps red in
the hollow. I will bring you to your confession;
for, having failed in my precious designs upon the
old witch there, (may Monsieur Red-jacket sleep
harder to-night than he ever did before, for a Marplot!)
and my curiosity being so much the more
inflammable, I am resolved to learn what I can, and
that without ceremony. So come along, Kate,—


`Kate of my consolation,
`Kate of Kate-hall, my super-dainty Kate,'
as the bear of Verona said of your amiable

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

name-sake; all that you have now to do, is to be, like
her, `Kate conformable.' ”

Thus whiling away the fatigue of climbing over
rocks and creeping through thickets, with a gay
rattle of discourse, the black-eyed maiden dragged
her companion along, until they reached a place
where the stream was contracted by the projection,
on the one bank, of a huge mass of slaty
rock, and, on the other, by the protrusion of the
roots of a gigantic plane-tree,—the sycamore,
or buttonwood, of vulgar speech. Above them,
and beyond the crag, the channel of the rivulet
widened into a pool; and there was a plot of
green turf betwixt the water and the hill, on the
farther bank, whereon fairies, if such had ever
made their way to the World of Twilight, might
have loved to gambol under the light of the moon.
A hill shut up the glen at its upper extremity; and
it was hemmed in, on the left, by the rocky and
wooded declivity, over which the maidens had
already passed. Over this, and just behind a black
rounded shoulder that it thrust into the glen, a
broad ray from the evening sun shot across the
stream, and fell, in a rich yellow flood, over the
vacant plot. There was something almost Arcadian
in this little solitude; and if, instead of two
well-bred maidens perched upon the roots of the
sycamore, on seats chosen with a due regard to
the claims of their dresses, there had been a batch
of country girls romping in the water, a passing
Actæon might have dreamed of the piny Gargaphy,
its running well,—fons tenui perlucidus unda—
and the bright creatures of the mythic day, that
once animated the waters of that solitary grot.
But the fairy and the wood-nymph are alike unknown
in America. Poetic illusion has not yet
consecrated her glens and fountains; her forests
nod in uninvaded gloom, her rivers roll in

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

unsanctified silence, and even her ridgy mountains lift up
their blue tops in unphantomed solitude. Association
sleeps, or it reverts only to the vague mysteries
of speculation. Perhaps


“A restless Indian queen,
Pale Marian with the braided hair,”
may wander at night by some highly-favoured
spring; perhaps some tall and tawny hunter,


“In vestments for the chase array'd,”
may yet hunt the hart over certain distinguished
ridges, or urge his barken canoe over some cypressfringed
pool; but all other places are left to the
fancies of the utilitarian. A Greek would have
invented a god, to dwell under the watery arch of
Niagara; an American is satisfied with a paper-mill,
clapped just above it.

The fair ladies of Hawk-Hollow were no more
troubled with the absence of poetic association in
their lovely retreat, than any of their countrymen
would have been; as was plainly shown by the
first words pronounced by Miss Falconer, after
taking possession of a sort of arm-chair among the
sycamore roots.

“This is a place, my mannikin,” said she, bending
her head majestically towards her kinswoman,
whose seat was not so elevated,—“this is a place
where one may think comfortably of murdering,
whooping, scalping, and such sort of matters; and
its solemnity will therefore give a degree of point
to the story. Come, begin; I am all ears—that
is, metaphorically speaking; though a viler metaphor,
to come from men of rational imagination,
could not have been invented. I tell you, Kate,
I am dying with curiosity about these terrible
Hawks; and as I know, you know something I

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

am determined you shall resuscitate me, in lack
of a better physician, with such information as you
have. No excuses—I know them all by heart, you
have repeated them over so often. I declare upon
my jockey-like word, that here I sit, as fixed as
the very roots around me, and as immoveable;
and here I will sit, until you surrender your scruples,
and open your mouth, though I should remain
until washed away by the next fresh. I am positive;
my will is as inflexible as the laws of the
Medes and Persians.”

“You have mistaken me, Harriet,” said the
other, bending her eyes upon the stream; “I know
nothing of the matter.—That I have heard many
idle whispers, hints, and innuendoes, is true; but
there is neither wisdom nor propriety in repeating
them, particularly to you.—But is not this the most
charming place in the world? Do you know, I
have determined upon the spot I am to be buried
in? It is further up the river, where three lime-trees
grow together; behind them is a rock, covered
with laurels, wild roses, and columbines;
and there is such an array of azaleas below, with
blood-roots, and wind-flowers, and dogwood, as has
half-turned my brain. Can you tell me, Hal, why
I should be ever thinking of a grave, when I
stumble upon such pretty places? It is always the
first thought.”

As Catherine spoke, she turned her eyes with
much simplicity and earnestness of expression,
upon her companion's face; and though it was
evident, she had introduced the subject, for the
purpose of diverting the conversation from the
channel in which Miss Falconer desired to have it
flow, it was equally plain, that it had already taken
hold upon her imagination, and now occupied her
mind alone. As she looked up, with such a
thought at her bosom, it imparted a character of

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

melancholy to her countenance, which, although
not her natural and original expression, circumstances
had made, of late, much more common
than any other. Her face was the sweetest oval
in the world, her features very regular and pretty,
the hue of her complexion less brilliant than might
have been expected in one with such light locks,
but of a pleasant healthy tone, and her eyes, without
being bright or striking, were so singularly
earnest of expression, with a certain vague anxiety,
or imploringness, mingled up with every look,
as to seldom fail of interesting the feelings of the
beholder in her favour. Besides, her brow, from
which the hair was parted in the simplest and
easiest manner, was particularly smooth and beautiful;
and whatever might have been the depth of
her melancholy, this noble feature lost nothing of
its serenity. Indeed, when sadness dwelt upon
her spirit, it seldom produced a change in any
part of the countenance except the eyes; and it
was in these alone, at the present moment, that
emotion was betrayed by the change from the
merry brightness which the events of the afternoon
had thrown into them, to that appealing, anxious
expression, already described. It must be added
to this description that her voice was, if possible,
even more strikingly expressive than her eyes. It
was with her as with the Faerie Queene; always,


“When she spake,
Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed;
And 'twixt the perles and rubins softly brake
A silver sound:”
every exertion was characterized by some appropriate
and harmonious change; her joyous spirits
broke out with such sweet and jocund sounds as
come from tinkling bells; and when sadness was
at her heart, her accents were such murmurs of

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

subdued and contagious melancholy as the wood-pigeon
breathes from the depths of the forest.

“Do I know why?” said Miss Falconer, looking
down upon her with a mischievous air, and humming
instantly,


“ `The poor soul sat sying by a sycamore-tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow.'
But pr'ythee, be comforted; this is the way with
all young ladies who have hair-brained sweet-hearts.
But I assure you, he we wot of is the
best, truest, and most amiable creature in the
world; and if he be a little wild, why all men are
so, you know.”

At these allusions, which were evidently unexpected,
Miss Loring blushed, then turned very
pale; and finally, while Harriet drew breath, as
if to continue the subject, she said, recurring
abruptly to the original topic of discourse, and in
a hurried manner,

“If you insist I should tell you what I have
heard, I must obey. The story is singular and
melancholy,—melancholy under every aspect, but
doubly so, if that be true which I know you are
most anxious to learn. But, Harriet, I cannot tell
you all. What concerns the Gilberts alone I am
ready to relate; but that which involves the connexion
between,—that is to say—Harriet!” cried
the young lady, after pausing with embarrassment,
“it does not become a daughter to listen to aspersions
cast upon the good name of a parent!”

“It does not,” said Miss Falconer, gravely,
“when they are breathed by the lips of an enemy.
But fear not, I will not eat you. I do not ask you
to repeat slanders, but to inform me what slanders
are repeated by others. You might have added,

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

it did not become me to pry into my father's secrets;
but as his child, his daughter—I would to
heaven I could say his son!—it is fitting I should
at least know from what to defend him. I tell you,
Kate, I have this thing much at heart. Fear not to
shock me by your relations; for, not being disposed
to believe them, I shall not be grieved, except at
discovering how extensive may be the malignity
of our foes. I shall rest more sweetly on my pillow
to-night, if I go not to sleep on suspicion.
Begin, therefore, Kate, and scruple not to speak
boldly.”

CHAPTER VI.

For us, we do approve the Roman maxim,
To save one citizen is a greater prize,
Than to have killed, in war, ten enemies.
Massinger—The Guardian.

Blow, blow, thou winterr wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.—
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh,
As benefits forgot.
As You Like It.

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

“You know then, I presume,” said Catherine,
beginning her narrative, ominously, with a sigh,—
“you know, I suppose, all about old Mr. Gilbert,
and his”—

“My dear creature,” said Miss Falconer, “I
know no more of Mr. Gilbert than the Grand
Turk; and all that I can boast of knowledge in
relation to his cut-throat children, is that they
were the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow; but whether
they were real kites, with claws and feathers, or
only the philosopher's two-legged birds, human
chanticleers, I could never yet determine. My
father is not always so communicative as might
be expected in a dutiful parent; and, once or
twice, when I have been curious to come at some
of his early exploits on the frontiers, (for they say
he was a great Indian-fighter,) he has not hesitated
to assume a severe countenance, and scold
me in the most paternal manner imaginable. Nay,
my dear, he once assured me that, as it became a

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

woman rather to garnish the outside of her head
than the interior, I would do well never to trouble
myself by searching after information that could
not make me a whit more handsome. I bowed
my head at the reproof, and ran straightway to
my brother. But Harry, poor fellow, knew no
more about these matters than he cared,—that is,
nothing. Ah! he is a jewel of a man, and will
make the best husband in the world, having nothing
of the meddler about him. I have often
thought, if pa were to commit a murder, or even
break his neck, Harry would not trouble himself
with either wonder or lamentation; and this, not
from any want of affection, but simply because he
would consider the thing his father's affair, not
his. A good easy temper is an excellent thing in
men,—as excellent indeed as the `voice soft, gentle,
and low,' in woman. So, now, you perceive
the necessity of beginning just where your story
begins. Take up the father,—the grandfather, if
you choose,—of this savage brood; give me their
genealogy, if they have any, and if it be german
to the matter; draw all sorts of parallels, make all
kinds of reflections, and, in fine, do and say any
thing you may think proper,—only conceal nothing.
My curiosity is as capacious of appetite
as the Moor's revenge, (so much for ruralizing,
when one must kill time with Shakspeare!) and
demands that its gratification should be as complete.”

Thus adjured and instructed, Miss Loring began
the narration of Gilbert's story, and the description
of his family, as they have been already recorded;
into both which, however, she entered in greater
detail than it was thought necessary to attempt.

The first part of the history, which was without
melancholy, and related chiefly to the dilemmas
into which the founder of Hawk-Hollow Hall was

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

thrown by the sudden accession of wealth, and his
vain struggles to refine the character of his children,
long since determined by early habits upon
rude and adventurous lives, Miss Loring, naturally
a merry and waggish maiden, with strong talents
for mimicry, delivered in a manner that soon
became humorous, and, at last, highly diverting;
so that the hollow forest began to peal with the
approving merriment of her companion. Her benevolence
to the poor widow had so opened Elsie's
heart, that she had cast aside most of the reserve
with which she was accustomed to speak of the
Gilberts; and, in consequence, Catherine was provided
with an ample store of anecdotes, illustrative
of their characters and habits, with which she
now amused her friend. She related with what
surprise the good Elsie, one autumn evening, (while
Mr. Gilbert was yet in England with his whole
family,) beheld the adventurous Oran, in ragged
attire, and with a bundle at his back, come trudging
up to the Traveller's Rest, looking as bold and
resolute, to use her own whimsical illustrations, as
a soldier marching up to the mouth of an empty
cannon, or a militia-man returning from a campaign
without battles; and she even mimicked,
with voice, gesture, and looks, the appearance
and bearing of the two friends, in the dialogue that
followed as soon as the truant was recognized by
the widow.

“ `Heaven bless us!' said Elsie, with uplifted
hands, `is that you, Oran Gilbert?' ”—Thus her
story went on: “ `What a foolish question!' muttered
the hero of two lustres and a half, who had
never affected much of the dulcet submissiveness
of a child to any one, either in word or action;
`what a foolish question for you, goody Elsie!
Here I am in Pennsylvany, and hungry, I reckon!'
and with that, without waiting for invitation, he

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

plumped himself down at the table, already set out
for the widow's evening meal, and straightway
fell to work with a zeal and industry that showed
he had not mistaken the condition of his appetite.
The widow regarded him with undiminished astonishment,
crying out, for she feared lest some
dreadful accident, by shipwreck or otherwise, had
destroyed the rest, `But your father and brothers,
Oran,—where are they?' `In Bristol,' mumbled
the boy, scowling at her over a bone, but still
making the most of it,—`in Bristol,—that is, the
big English Bristol, and not our Pennsylvany town,
down the river.' `In Bristol,' echoed Elsie Bell;
`and what are you doing here without them?'
`Why, eating my supper, don't you see?' replied
the juvenal. `And how did you get here?' demanded
Elsie. `I came in a big ship to Philadelphy,
' replied the boy, scarce intermitting his agreeable
employment for a moment, `and then, to be
sure, I footed it.' `You have run away from your
father, Oran?' said Elsie. `Yes, I have,' said the
boy, grumly; `let me eat my supper, and I'll tell
you all about it.'

“The widow held her peace for awhile, until the
lad had satisfied his ravenous appetite; and then,
assuming a friendly and coaxing air, for well she
knew nothing else would have any effect on that
singular young reprobate, she drew from him a
confession of his whole adventure, and the causes
that led to it.”

“It appeared, that, besides an extraordinary
attachment to his native home among the wild
woods, Oran had another cause to be discontented
with his residence in England; and this he discovered
in the public school, to which he was sent
with his brother next in age, called Hyland.
`He sent me,' said Oran, expatiating upon the
barbarity of his father, `to a school, to learn

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

grammar, and Latin, and reading and writing, and
all that sort of thing!'—For you must know,” said
Catherine, speaking to her friend, “that the want
of a teacher, or perhaps hard poverty, had prevented
Gilbert sending his children to any school,
before he fell heir to his fortune; which was the
reason perhaps, that they got such wild notions
and propensities among them as could never after
be eradicated. `Yes,' the urchin went on, `he
sent me to school, and Hy, too; for he has been a
sort of crazy man ever since he came to his money.
Well, the boys at school called me an Indian
papoose, and I thumped 'em; and the man that
was master he thumped me, and Hy also; for Hy
came to help me. So, when school was out, I took
Hyland along; and we went to a corner, and got
a great heap of stones; and when the master came
out, we pelted him!' `You did?' cried Elsie, in
alarm: `I hit him one polt on the shin,' said Oran,
warming with the recollection,—`I hit him one
polt—it was what I call a sogdolloger,—that made
him dance like a ducked cat; and just as he stooped
down to scratch it, we blazed away again, me
and Hy; and if you ever heard two hailstones
rattle on a well-bucket, you may tell how his head
sounded, I reckon!'

“ `But your father, Oran?' said Elsie,--`you
have not told me what made you leave your
father?' `Father chose to take the master's part,'
said Oran, sulkily; `he said as how I must learn to
be a gentleman, now I was in England, and never
behave like a young savage no more, because I
was never more to come home, meaning to Pennsylvany;
and so I must go back to the master, and
be thumped again; for nobody could be a gentleman,
without having it thumped into him. Well, Goody,
you see, I couldn't stand that; I was not going to a
school to be called papoose, and trounced too; and

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

I was mighty sick of England, which is just like a
big garden,—you can't turn out of the road, without
treading on somebody's strawberry-patch, and
having 'em holla after you with dogs, and men, and
such things; and I got into a great pickle once,
for killing a thumping big rabbit that I saw in a
stubble. They called it a hare; I killed it with a
stone; they made father pay money about it.
Well, I made up my mind to come home, without
making any more words about it. So I went
down to the river among the docks, and there I
saw a ship that was going to said to Philadelphy
next day. I told Hy about it, and he agreed we
should go over. I went to the captain, and I said,
`Captain, I want to go to Philadelphy,' but he
called me hard names, and swore at me—there
was no getting any thing out of him. I looked
about, and saw them putting boxes, and barrels
and baskets, and all sorts of things, into the big
hole below. I went ashore, and laid out the shilling
father gave me to go back to school, in gingerbread.
But Hy's heart failed him: I never
thought he would come to much, he's too much of
a coward; he began to cry, and said he would go
home to father. I gave him a thumping for being
such a fool; but that only made him cry harder.
So I gave him half my gingerbread, and told him
to go, letting him know, if he told on me, I would
give him another banging. Then I clomb into the
ship again, and slipped into the hole among the
boxes. But before I went down, I looked back to
Hy, and there he was on the wharf, eating his gingerbread
and crying. I shook my fist at him, as
much as to say, `If you tell, mind you!' and then
I went below, and after awhile they fastened me
up.'

“ `It was as dark down there as the dickens,'
said Oran, in reply to the piteous ejaculations of

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

the widow; `but there was plenty of rats—I tell
you what, they scared me! They stole my gingerbread,
and whenever I got to nodding, they
seized me by the nose and fingers, and I thought I
should have been nibbled up, like an ear of corn.
But I knew I must stand 'em as long as I could; or
it would be all up with me.—Well, after awhile
they came to a place, I don't know where it was;
but there was a great clatter on the deck, and
swearing and trampling, and they opened the trapdoors,
as I saw by the great flash of light. Then
there was a heap of voices, and father's among
them, and Hyland's too. The great villain Hy,
was telling on me, for all I gave him half the
gingerbread! When I catch him, I'll pay him up,
I will, Goody, if I wait ten years!'—And here the
young scape-gallows, as he revolved the treachery
of his fellow truant, clenched his fist, and looked as
fierce and savage as a young bantam in his first
fit of valour.

“ `Then,' continued this hopeful junior to the
astonished widow, `there was father, saying his
son Oran was hid in the ship, and he would have
him out, or bring the captain to the gallows for
kidnapping him, meaning me; and there was Hy,
the villain, telling him how I was to hide among
the boxes; and there was the captain and the other
folks, swearing that father was crazy, and ought
to stay at home; though to make him easy, they
had opened the traps, or the hatches, as they call
them, and he might see for himself. Then father
came down, and bawled out after me, and so did
Hy; and Hy said, if I would come out, father
would not send me to the grammar school, to be
thumped no more; but he said nothing about
father sending me back to Pennsylvany! no, not
so much as a word! I was not to be caught by
any such talking; so I laid snug and as mum as a

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

rabbit. Then father took on as though I was dead,
squeezed to pieces among the boxes, because I
would not answer him—as if I was such a fool!
Then he wanted the captain to take out the boxes,
and the captain would not; then he went after
constables; and when he was gone, they clapped
down the hatches, and sailed away with all their
might, and I never heard any thing more of father.'

“ `Poor fellow!' said Elsie, her sympathy for
the anticipated sufferings of her young protegé
driving from her mind all disapprobation of the
hard-hearted perverseness that caused them, `did
they keep you long in that dismal, dreadful place?'
`You may say so,' replied the boy; `they kept
me down there till I was more tired of it than ever
I had been of the grammar-school. I don't know
how long it was, but I was mighty tired of it.
Dickens, goody, but I was dry! I was in such a
hurry to get down, that I forgot I should want
water as well as gingerbread: I eat up all my
gingerbread, but I was as dry as ever. Goody,
you don't know what it is to be dry! I was always
thinking and dreaming of springs, and wells, and
pumps, and the big Delaware there, and even the
ditches and gutters. But I held out as well as I
could, till I thought we were clear of that hateful
old England; and then I hollaed to 'em to let me
out; but they did not hear me at all. There was a
power of big baskets, that were rolled all about
me; for you must know, a ship never holds still a
minute at a time, but is always pitching and tumbling,
now up and now down, like a cart in a cornfield;
so the baskets rolled all over me; I thought
they would have squeezed the life out of me, and
I could not get out from among them. So there I
pulled and hollaed, till I was tired of it, or fell
asleep; but no good came of it. I tell you what,

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

goody, I would have taken a thumping for a drink
of water! but there was no coming at it. I bawled
out, `Water! water!' and `Fire! fire!' but it was
no good; nobody heard me; and it set me to crying,
to think what a hard time I had of it. Well,
I reckon!—I was scraping about among the baskets,
and some gave way, they were so rotten. I
scraped among the willow twigs, and got my hand
among the straw, without so much as thinking
what I was about, when, all of a sudden, I found I
had hold of a glass bottle. `Oho!' said I; it was a
great long-necked thing, with wax over the cork.
I did not mind that; I knocked the neck off against
the basket, and, good dickens! such a fizzing and
spluttering as it made! It foamed all over my face,
and some fell on my lips, and it tasted good, like
cider—you may be sure I drained it.' `It was
wine!' cried Elsie. `I reckon,' said the juvenal;
`and I reckon it made my head sing, too!' he exclaimed,
smacking his lips over the grateful recollection;
`such stuff as that I never tasted before.
It made me feel good,—all comical, and merry,
and ticklish-like,—I don't know how, but all as if
I was rolling up hill and down hill,—huzzy-buzzy,
sleek, and grand! Then I seemed as if I was
dreaming, but such merry dreams, and talking,
and roaring, and laughing; and then some of them
opened the traps, and dragged me out; and then I
had a tussle with some of them, for I felt big
enough to fight them all; and then somehow I fell
fast asleep.'

“ `When I came to, the captain said I was
drunk, and he beat me: it was worse than the
grammar-man. First, he thumped me for stealing
into the ship, then for putting him to a bother, and
then for drinking his cider, or champagne, as he
called it.' `He beat you, the villain!' cried Elsie;
`and you the son of Thomas Gilbert!' `He did,'

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

said the boy, with edifying coolness; `he treated
me like a dog, and he thumped me every day. I
suppose the grammar-man could not have been
harder on me than the captain of that big ship—
they called her the Prince of Whales, for, you
must know, a whale is a very big fish; but I could
never get a peep at one. Goody! I never was so
mauled in my life! If I crawled about the quarter-deck,
as they call it, (because that's a place
where the ship-boy's never get any quarter,) why
the captain cuffed me off; and it was pretty much
the same with the mates, for they cuffed too, and
every now and then, some one or other beat me
with a rope's end, because I would not go up the
ropes, or do any thing else to make myself useful.
I never did believe a Christian man's son
could be treated so! but that's the way they treat
boys on board a ship, only that the regular ship-boys
were not handled so hard. They all beat
me, captain, sailors, and all; the cook boxed my
ears when I went to the caboose;—and if I hid
on the forecastle, as they call it, the sailors run
me up a rope and plumped me into the sea; and
even the ship-boys tried their hands at me, but I
reckon they got as much as they gave. They all
beat me but Jackey Jones, an old fellow that had
but one eye; and if it had not been for him, I believe
they would have killed, or starved, or drowned
me among them. One night he was washed
overboard: and after that I was beat worse than
ever. It was a great storm, goody; I reckon you
don't know what a storm is, ashore, even when the
trees are snapping; I tell you what, the sea was
boiling up, just like a big pot, and the ship danced
about just like an apple-dumpling; all the difference
was, the water was not hot. They were all big
cowards, for all they had been so big with me;
and down they went on their knees, crying and

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

praying, like methodist preachers. The captain
was white all over the mouth, the chief mate got
drunk, and Big George, a sailor that used to be
hard on me, came to ask my pardon for treating
me so badly. I told him, we should have a reckoning
about that some other time; and that night
he was washed overboard, along with Jackey
Jones, and we saw them no more. I tell you what,
goody! it was the happiest time I had aboard that
ship; for I supposed it would sink, and drown 'em
all; which was a great satisfaction for me to think
on. However, it cleared up again next day; and
if we had not soon reached Philadelphy, I don't
know what would have become of me; for they
were all worse than ever, especially the captain.'
`And that wretch,' cried Elsie; `did no one punish
him for his cruel and barbarous oppression of a
poor, friendless boy?' `You shall hear,' replied the
urchin, with a grin that might have adorned the
visage of an Indian coming out of battle, with a
sack full of scalps; `he was for fastening me up
when we came to the wharf at Philadelphy, to see
his merchant, and learn what was to be done with
me. But I sneaked away, when he was gone, and
hid among some barrels, till he came back. Then
I watched him come out of the ship again, and ran
to a corner, where there was a bundle of green
hoop-poles, at a cooper's shop. Well, goody, I
took one of the hoop-poles; and when he passed
by, down it went, and down went the captain, too,
like a butchered ox, with a great yell like a school-boy,
that brought the people up. However, I gave
him two more, for as long as I had time; and then
I had to scurry for it.' `Good heavens!' cried
Elsie, `perhaps you killed him!' `Well, if I didn't,
I'm sure it was all the fault of the people that ran
up so fast, so that I had not time. As for the rest
of them, if I ever catch any of them up here among

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

the hills, you may reckon what will come of it.'
And as he spoke, he raised his eyes to an old musket,
hanging on the wall, and nodded his head
significantly.”

“This,” said the merry narrator, “is the very
story I had from Elsie's lips, only that she spoiled
it in telling; and I leave you to judge whether
there was ever a more exquisite young savage in
the whole world, than that same Oran Gilbert.”

“Never, truly,” said Miss Falconer, upon whom
perhaps the unusual, yet natural, vivacity of her
friend, had produced a still more pleasant impression
than the story itself. “This Oran must have
been the Paladin, the Orlando, the very Tom
Thumb, of Hawk-Hollow;


`Though small his body,
Yet was his soul like any mountain big;'
and verily, if the other Hawks, callow or full
fledged, were of the same colour and quality, you
have begun the most diverting story in all your
budget. Pr'ythee go on; there is a magic in the
whole affair; for, while you speak it, it makes the
teller herself again. Methinks you are now the
same merry Kate I knew a year ago,—the bright
Kate, no longer `kerchieft in a cloud,' as Milton
says,—the gay Kate, the madcap Kate, the Brandywine
Kate”—

“Not a word about Brandywine, if you will
have me play the fool longer,” said Miss Loring,
hurriedly. “And after all, there is nothing more
to tell—that is, nothing more funny; and, after all,
too, there was nothing funny in the sufferings of
that poor, headstrong, vindictive boy; absurdity
enough, I grant you, there was; but it was my
wicked and hard heart that made me travesty

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

an anecdote that poor Elsie considered serious
enough.”

She then went on to speak of the return of the
boy's father, the building of the manor-house, the
second marriage of Mr. Gilbert, and the exploits
of his children. The peculiar temper of Oran soon
determined the course of his life While yet a
boy of sixteen, he had extended his rambles over
the mountains into the Wyoming valley, then occupied
by two clans of Shawnee and Delaware
Indians, who were often at feud together. “Among
these barbarians,” said the lady, “the young white
Indian, for such he must be esteemed, fought his
first battle, and took his first scalp. It was in the
Grasshopper War”—

“The what?” cried Miss Falconer.

“Why, Hal, the Grasshopper War I call it,”
said Catherine, “out of tenderness to our sex; but
all others call it the Squaw War. It was waged
between those rival tribes I spoke of. The women
of the two clans met together in a strawberry
field, where they gathered fruit in company, very
pacifically I doubt not, except a little scolding at
one another. The children employed themselves,
in the meanwhile, chasing grasshoppers; when,
unfortunately, two boys belonging to different
tribes pounced together upon a magnificent insect,
that was perhaps the emperor of the field, and
contended for the possession of the prize. Up
ran the mother of the Delaware, and boxed the
young Shawnee's ears; the Shawnee parent ran
to avenge her child; and others immediately taking
part, in a few moments the whole field was in an
uproar: such scratching, scolding, and pulling of
caps, were perhaps never heard of before. Out
ran the men from their villages to help their wives,
and to it they went pell-mell; and the war, thus
begun, did not end until hundreds had been slain

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

on both sides, and the Shawnees entirely driven
from the valley. The less we say of this war, the
better; for I heard it instanced as one small proof
out of a thousand better, that men never fall by the
ears, without the women being at the bottom of
the contention. The Delawares, with whom Oran
fought, made much of him, gave him a name
which signifies the Boy Warrior, and formally
adopted him into their tribe. As his brothers grew
up around him, he enticed them one by one into
the woods, and made them as wild as himself;
and by and by, when those dreadful Indian wars,
that followed after the defeat of General Braddock,
extended over the whole western country, and even
east of the Susquehanna, he acquired a singular
reputation as a bold and successful scalp-hunter.
I don't know what else to call him; he was not a
soldier, for he never could be prevailed upon to
go out with any body of soldiers, under the command
of regular governmental officers. He went
with his brothers, and seldom allowed even a
neighbour to join his little party, though this was
an object with all who knew him; for none of the
Gilberts having ever been seriously wounded in
any of their mad enterprises, the people had a superstitious
belief that good luck and safety went
with them.

“In the meanwhile, Mr. Gilbert had taken a second
wife; and being wealthy, he was able to
choose one of gentler manners and character than
her predecessor, who, they say, was a fierce, masculine
woman, though devotedly attached to her
children. It is said, he married her in the hope
that her kindness and gentleness might wean his
boys from their barbarous career; but the expedient
only served to confirm them in their habits.
They conceived a violent dislike to their stepmother;
and the only bond of union between them—

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

I should say, perhaps, the only moderator and
protector of the poor woman, was the girl, Jessie,
whom they all adored, rough as they were, and
who—while she lived, at least—caused them to
treat the unfortunate lady with some show of respect.
I may say, since you are in the poetical
mood, and have already quoted one of Milton's
clouds to me, that Jessie was, betwixt the timidity
of the step-mother and the rudeness of her brothers,



`A shelter, and a kind of shading, cool,
Interposition, as a summer's cloud;'—
(I found that out myself!)—and, according to
Elsie, she was one of the sweetest and warmest-hearted
creatures in the world. They had a rich
relation, an aunt, in the West Indies, who desired
to adopt the maiden; but Mr. Gilbert refused to
part with her. In her place he sent his youngest
boy, an infant,—the child, and only one, of his
second wife; I think Elsie told me, she died in
giving it birth; but I am not certain as to that.
This part of the story I never could understand
perfectly; for whenever the poor widow speaks of
it, she becomes dreadfully agitated. But certainly,
it was most unhappy for all, that he did not send
the girl.”

“And why,—why unhappy, Catherine?” demanded
Miss Falconer, losing somewhat of her
serene self-possession, as she heard her friend's
voice falter over the words.

“According to Elsie,” muttered Miss Loring,
with downeast eyes, “the misfortunes which crushed
and ruined the whole family, might have been
thus averted.—But, Harriet,” she continued, “let
us speak of these things to-morrow. What follows
is dark, gloomy, dreadful; and I cannot
speak it without giving you offence.”

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

“I pledge you pardon and immunity beforehand,”
said Miss Falconer. “The ice is broken,
and now I must dare the flood, though it be of gall
and poison. Dreadful, indeed? What can be
more dreadful than the state of a daughter, blindfold
at the side of a parent whom all men are
shooting at with the arrows of malice, which she
hears hissing around her, yet knows not how to arrest?
Speak then, Catherine, for you have placed
me on a rack: nothing can be more painful than
suspicion.”

“Promise not to be offended with me then, dear
Harriet,” said Miss Loring, taking her hand, and
looking deprecatingly into her face; “and do not
think”—here her voice quivered a little, and
her eyes again fell to the ground,—“do not
think, because I tell you these things as I have
heard them, that I necessarily believe them—or,
at least, all of them.”

“Certainly, my love,” said the other, with a
slight tinge of asperity. “As you will, one day,
have a duty, like myself, imposed upon you, to repel
all calumnies against my father, the sooner you
become incredulous, the better.”

Catherine smiled faintly, then blushed, and, as
had happened before, at a similar allusion, the glow
of embarrassment was again followed by paleness.

“I presume,” she said, after a moment's pause,
“that the Colonel has often spoken to you of the
dreadful peril at the Moravian settlements, from
which he was rescued by Oran Gilbert and his two
brothers?”

“Never,” replied Harriet, in a sort of dismay.
“My father rescued from peril! and by the Hawks
of Hawk-Hollow? Why, here is a drama opening
upon us indeed! But it is not true, Kate!”

“This, Harriet,” replied the other, “is a circumstance
well known in the neighbourhood; and
I wonder you have never heard it before.”

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

“On all subjects connected with the family of
the Gilberts,” said Miss Falconer, “my father is
reserved and silent—at least to me; and, Catherine,
I confess with shame, this very circumstance
has often filled my mind with the most painful misgivings.
I know nothing about the Moravian settlements,
either. You must therefore tell your
story to ignorance itself. I know that my father
was, in his youth, an officer in the colonial war
establishment, and that he did duty somewhere on
the frontiers, and came off with scars; but that is
all. Speak, therefore, without reserve.”

“The country west of yonder blue cliffs, (how
sweetly they peep through the hollow of that hill,
and over the yellow tree-tops!) has always been
the theatre of the most bloody contentions,” said
Catherine. “That same Wyoming, of which I
have said so much, has never been entirely at
peace since that redoubtable war of the grasshopper
set its inhabitants by the ears. It was settled
by certain Yankees from Connecticut, who claimed,
and claim yet, to erect a jurisdiction independent
of Pennsylvania, and to this day the partisans
of the two powers are quarrelling rancorously
with one another, often shedding blood. When
the inhabitants are driven away by enemies, they
are obliged to cross a great swamp, to reach the
Delaware. This has been crossed so often, and
so many miserable wounded, and starving, and
fainting wretches, have fallen down in the retreat
and perished among its bogs, that it is yet called
the Shades of Death. The wars that produced
such suffering have commonly been waged in another
county; but they have sometimes reached
our own—(Our own! You see, I am making myself
at home here!) The fall and winter of the
year when Braddock was defeated in the extreme
south-western frontier, were marked by many

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

bloody incursions of the Indians, even in this
county; and you may judge how terrible was their
ferocity, when you hear that their enmity fell as
heavily upon their friends as their foes. The poor
Moravians, who, with a holy and unworldly zeal,
had devoted their lives to the purpose of instructing
and reclaiming them from barbarism, were
among the first of their victims. The outer settlement
of these poor missionaries was beyond the
mountain, on one of the springs of the Lechaw, or
Lehigh, as we now call it. It was beset, late in
November, by the savages, and destroyed, together
with many of the brothers. The next settlement
was that called Gnadenhutten, where was much
valuable property, and great stores of grain; and
when the Moravians fled even from this in affright,
the colonial government thought it of so much importance,
that they directed it to be immediately
garrisoned by a company of rangers. This was
done; a fort was constructed in the neighbourhood,
across the river, which was made the headquarters
of the company; while a detachment occupied
the Moravian village. This detachment
was commanded by your father, then holding the
rank of lieutenant. And now, Harriet, I must tell
you, that your father had enemies in these wild
lands, even at that early day. I will not repeat
what I have heard said, as the causes of enmity;
for I doubt not they are mere scandals. I mention
them only because some, I am told, yet declare
that the barbarous attempt on his life was made
by disguised white men, and not by Indians.

“Although from the time of the massacre of the
over-hill Moravians, in November, until the end of
the year, Indians were ever prowling in the woods,
and occasionally carrying the tomahawk and
flames to some lonely settlement, yet it was supposed
that the presence of the soldiers at

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

Gnadenhutten and the fort, would prevent their making
any serious attempts this side the mountain. This
induced a false and fatal security; and when the
Indians did appear, the detachment and village of
Gnadenhutten were completely surprised. It was
upon New-year's day, and all the white men were
amusing themselves on the frozen river, without
arms, and of course they fell an easy prey to the
savage assailants. Many were butchered, the village
was fired, your father captured in the vain
attempt to escape, and carried off to the woods.

“During all this scene of terror,” continued the
Captain's daughter, “there were no scalp-hunters
among the white men so busy, bold, and famous,
as the three Gilberts. Elsie Bell says, that Oran
was then only nineteen, and the youngest two
years short of that; but, it seems, men grow old
fast in the woods, when Indians are nigh—(it is
well the women don't.) They were upon an excursion,
fighting for themselves, at the very time of
this calamity; and it was their fate to encounter
the party that bore your father away a captive.
It seems that the savages, after completing the
destruction of the village, retreated in small bands
to distract and avoid pursuit, for there were many
companies of armed men in the county, ready to
march at a moment's warning. Some took charge
of the prisoners, and others were to strike at small
and retired settlements. Your father, who had
been severely, but not desperately wounded, was
left in charge of one little division, six in number,
and was carried off by a path so remote from those
followed by others, that, I suppose, it was this circumstance
which caused evil-minded persons to
affirm he was captured by private enemies and
white men. Their course was at least very singular,
for it carried them rather to the north-east,
along the foot of the mountain, than to the north

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

and west. They dragged their prisoner on till
after midnight, which has been mentioned as an
unusual circumstance, at least with Indians; and,
at dawn, they tied him to a tree, and piled around
him dead boughs and pine-knots, intending, as he
now saw, to torture him alive.”

The narrator here paused, and looked upon her
friend, who, after a slight shudder, very composedly
said,

“Poor pa! he must have been horribly frightened!
I should like to know how he looked, the
moment he made the discovery!”

Catherine heard her with unconcealed amazement,
but appreciated her philosophy, when she
added, with an affected laugh,

“Why, my dear Kate, as, after all, he was not
tortured, it would be but folly to fall into hysterics.
I never grieve over misfortunes that were never
happening. But come; how got he out of this
doleful dilemma? You said something about the
three Hawks—Ah! you spoiled the dramatic point
of the story, by enabling me to forestall a discovery.
And so the three Hawks discovered the six
buzzards, and fell upon them, and took their lambkin
from them? They are no true fishing-hawks,
after all; for it is the part of these ravagers, not
so much to rob, as to be robbed. They should
have been called Eagles, for it is these birds that
take such little liberties with the feathered Isaac
Waltons, as I have once or twice seen with my
own eyes. But these were heroical kites, I must
acknowledge.”

“They were, certainly,” said Miss Loring,
not well pleased with the levity of her kinswoman;
“and, methinks, you should do them the justice
to consider that it was no child's play for three
men—three boys we may call them, to assail six
stout Indians, vanquish them, and rescue a poor

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

doomed prisoner out of their hands. If you will not
do justice to their courage, acknowledge at least,
the dreadful cost at which they exercised their
humanity. Hyland Gilbert, the second son, the
best beloved of all, as Elsie assured me, was shot
dead, while he was cutting your father loose from
the tree.”—

“Good heavens!” cried Miss Falconer, with an
emotion, that seemed, however, to be rather horror
than grief, “was this so indeed? Did one of them
fall?”

“He did,” replied Catherine, “and his poor
brothers, buried him where he fell. According to
Elsie's superstitious belief, they were punished by
the genius of their fate, for exercising their humanity
on an undeserving object. You know she, at
least, holds on to her angry prejudices. She said,
that from that moment, which was the first unlucky
one to them, the Gilberts never more prospered
in their undertakings; every thing that came
after was mischance and disaster; death followed
death, sorrow succeeded sorrow, and now not one
remains alive of the whole family, unless it may be
the youngest son, who was sent to the Islands in
his infancy, and of whom Elsie knows nothing
whatever, although they have a report in the village
that he also is dead.”

“I am much obliged to Elsie,” said Miss Falconer,
sullenly; “after eating my father's bread,
she might have the grace to abate her malevolence
a little.”

“Alas, Harriet,” said Miss Loring, “do not call
it malevolence; but the prejudice, the absurd and
unjust prejudice of weak, dreamy old age, if you
will. And you know, that she is ignorant from
whom I derived the power to relieve her wants.
I did but hint once that your father would befriend
her, when she exclaimed, not in the heat of

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

frenzy, but with a cold, iron-like determination,
that she would gnaw the flints on the way-side for
food, rather than receive a morsel of bread from
the hands of Colonel Falconer. Indeed, your
father himself directed me to conceal his agency
in the benefaction.”

“Peace to the silly old woman!” said Harriet,
“and let us speak of her no more. Resume your
story: I see, by your looks, that the worst is yet to
come. But fear not: I am not so much shocked
as I was, since the thing comes from that bitter
old bundle of—oh, prejudice, my dear. Well, the
two survivors saved my father's life—what
then?”

“Then,” said Catherine, “they bore him on a
litter of boughs to their father's house; for, before
they fled, the murderers had assailed him with
their axes, and left him almost dying. The journey
was very laborious; for to avoid the war-parties,
now swarming through the country, they
were obliged to steal along by circuitous paths,--
and it was several days before they could procure
assistance. They got him safe, however, to their
father's house, and then played the good Samaritan
with him. If you would like, I will show you
the room where he lay, while recovering,—it is
the chamber over the armoury, as you call it,—
that is, my father's study, where he takes his afternoon's
nap. Elsie told me there was a pane of
glass on which he had cut his name with a diamond
ring; but the sashes were changed, before
she told me this, and I know not what has become
of them. But, if you like, we will inquire about
them.—He did not recover entirely before the
autumn, and then he left the valley. I am told
that there is an oak-tree on the lawn, at which he
used to shoot pistols.”—

“Catherine!” said Miss Falconer, with a piercing

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

look, “you flutter about the subject, like a bird
over the jaws of a serpent, unable to retreat and
yet afraid to descend. Is there any thing so horrible
to come?”

“There is indeed!” said Catherine, trembling;
“but it is not true, cousin,—you must not believe
it is true! It is about Jessie—they say she was
very good and handsome—a kind nurse, simple-hearted,
of an affectionate disposition, and”—

“Hold! hold!” cried Miss Falconer, vehemently,
starting to her feet, with a pale face, and lips
ashy and trembling, “this would be to make out
my father a fiend! Saints of heaven! this is too
much! Come,—let us proceed.”

And thus muttering out her oppressive emotion,
she darted down the stream, followed hastily by
her friend.

Tall trees still overarched the rivulet; but its bank
became smoother as they advanced. A few rods
below, the channel was again contracted, but not
by impending crags. A huge sycamore, ancient
and thunder-scarred, but still flourishing, had been
tumbled over the stream by some forgotten tempest;
but so tightly were its roots twisted in the
rocky soil of the one bank, and so tenacious was
the hold of its gnarled and elbowed boughs upon
the sward of the other, that it maintained its place
despite the floods, which, it was evident, often
washed over it, and thus afforded a bridge, rustic
enough, but secure, though by no means easy of
passage.

Upon this Harriet, still perturbed and driven
onward by painful emotion, was about to place her
foot, when she was restrained by the trembling
grasp of her companion.

“What means the child?” she exclaimed, with a
feverish accent: “there are no savages here.”

“But,” said Catherine, with a faint voice, “it

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

was over there, by the rock, they dug the poor
girl's grave!”

Miss Falconer recoiled for a moment, and then
saying, with a firm voice, “It matters not—let us
visit it,” she sprang upon the bridge, followed by
Catherine, and made her way across. About
thirty paces below, the stream darted over a rock,
making a cascade ten or twelve feet high; and it
was the roar of this fall, borne downwards by the
breeze, which had attracted the painter's curiosity,
as he paused for a moment on the road side. It
possessed no very striking beauty, nor was the
body of water that leaped over the rock of any
extraordinary magnitude; yet it had a violent and
even impressive look, and the waters hurrying impetuously
towards it from above, shot under the
sycamore with an appearance of fury that might
have tried the nerves of any over-timid person,
crossing by so precarious a bridge.

CHAPTER VII.

Dull grave—thou spoil'st the dance of youthful blood,
Strik'st out the dimple from the cheek of mirth,
And every smirking feature from the face,
Branding our laughter with the name of madness.
Where are the jesters now?—
—Ah! sullen now,
And dumb as the green turf that covers them.
Blair—The Grave.

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

The spot which the maidens now reached, after
crossing the rivulet, was wild and gloomy, yet exceedingly
romantic. A little ascent led them up to
a sort of platform, or shelf, of earth, the highest
portion of the table-land, from which the torrent
leaped downwards, making its way, in a series of
foaming rapids, to the parent river. It therefore
overlooked the sweeping hillocks and rustling
forests below, and commanded a prospect of the
river and the southern portion of the valley, both
extensive and beautiful; and, indeed, a more
charming nook could not have been imagined for
one, who, though preferring personally to be surrounded
by solitude, yet loved to send back his
spirit to the world, and survey it from that distance
which lends it the sweetest enchantment. On the
summit of the platform lay two huge masses of
rock, that approached each other in one place so
nigh as scarce to permit a passage between them;
towards the rivulet, however, the intervening space
was wider, and covered with a grassy turf; and a
sort of wall, composed of smaller fragments, ran
from the one crag to the other, yet so rudely, that
it was difficult to say whether the irregular barrier

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

had been piled up by the hands of nature or man.
Besides a majestic growth of trees behind and
around the rocks, there was one tall beech flourishing
within the enclosure; and from its roots there
gushed a cool fountain, that went dripping and
leaking through green mosses, until it yielded its
meager tribute to the streamlet. Both the crags
were overgrown with lichens and ferns; and under
the larger one, which, in the afternoon, cast
its shadow over the whole nook, there flourished
a luxuriant array of arums, mandrakes, violets,
and other plants that delight in cool and moist
situations. On the face, and at the foot, of the
castern rock, where the sunshine lingered longer,
were dusky columbines, rock-daisies, and other
plants, now in bloom, and, in the summer, their
places would have been supplied by the aster and
the golden-rod; and at the foot of the rock, among
a heap of brambles, that seemed to have almost
choked it, there grew a rose-bush, the only remarkable
thing present, being obviously of an exotic
species. It bore a single flower, visible among
the green leaves and white blossoms of the black-berry,
and it immediately attracted the notice of
the maidens.

“Elsie told me,” whispered Catherine, with a
voice of fear, “that the poor old father planted a
rose-bush on the grave,—it is strange it should
live so long.—She said there was a grave-stone
too—ah! there it is!—Let us go away.”

As Harriet, bolder than her friend, or affecting
to be so, reached forward, to remove the brier
from the more lovely plant, in hopes that the rude
and thorny veil might conceal other flowers, it
yielded to her grasp, and revealed a hollow or
sunken place in the ground, at one extremity of
which was a rude stone, entirely shapeless and
undressed, yet so placed as to mark undeniably

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

the couch of some human clod of the valley. No
name, letter, or device of any kind,—no inscription
to record the virtues of the dead, no legend
to perpetuate the grief of the living,—appeared on
the rude monument; and, indeed, however expressive
the shape and appearance of the hollow place
to those already aware that a grave had been dug
in this unsanctified nook, it is scarce probable that
a stranger, stumbling upon it by chance, could
have believed that in that coarse and dishonoured
fragment, his foot pressed upon a funeral stone. It
was a singular grave—it was a singular cemetery;
and the maidens regarded the brambled pit
and the solitary flower with awe, the one because
her spirit was especially susceptible of impressions
from melancholy objects, and the other because
the legend of her companion had invested the
place with an interest personal, it might be said,
to herself.

How little reflection is expended upon,—yet how
much is called for, by the grave,—by the lowliest
hillock that is piled over the icy bosom, by the
grassiest hollow that has sunk with the mouldering
bones of a fellow creature! And in this narrow
haven rots the bark that has ploughed the
surges of the great vital ocean! in this little den,
that the thistle can overshadow in a day's growth,
and the molewarp undermine in an hour of labour,
is crushed the spirit that could enthrall a world,
and dare even a contest with destiny! How little
it speaks for the value of the existence, which man
endures so many evils to prolong; how much it
reduces the significance of both the pomp and
wretchedness of being, reducing all its vicissitudes
into the indistinguishable identity which infinite
distance gives to the stars,—a point without parallax,
a speck, an atom! Such is life,—the gasp of a
child that inspires the air of existence but once,—

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

a single breath breathed from eternity. But the
destiny that comes behind us,—oblivion! It is not
enough that we moralize upon the equality of the
sepulchre; that the rich man, whose soul is in the
ostentation of a marble palace, and his heart in the
splendour of the feast, should consider how small
a pit must content him, or that the proud, who
boast their `pre-eminence above the beasts,' should
know that the shaggy carcass and the lawn-shrouded
corse must fatten the earth together.
We should teach our vanity the lesson of humiliation
that is afforded by the grave; neglecting the
mighty mausoleums of those marvellous spirits
which fame has rendered immortal, we should
turn to the nameless tombs of the million, and in
their deserted obscurity, discover the feeble hold
which we ourselves must have upon earth and the
memory of men. Friendship forgets what the
devouring earth has claimed; and even enmity
ceases at last to remember the resting place of a
foe. Love ourselves as we may, devote our affections
to others as we can, yet must our memory
perish with us in the grave; and all the immortality
we leave to be cherished among friends, is
expressed in the distich of a poet, whom the anticipation
of enduring renown could not blind to
the transitoriness of real remembrance:

But there were other thoughts necessarily associated,
and other feelings excited by this lonely
sepulchre; and while Miss Falconer preserved a
moody and painful silence upon its brink, Catherine
bent over it, scarce conscious that she bedewed

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

the rose-bush with a tear, or that her own shadow
had descended, as it were, into the pit, with an
ominous readiness.

It was a delightful evening; the air was full of
balmy freshness, the landscape resplendently verdant,
and the sky cloudless, save in the west,
where the sun was sinking among curtains of gold
and pillars of flame; and the solitude and quiet of
the whole scene, broken by no sounds, except the
ceaseless turmoil of the water-fall, and the plaintive
scream of the fishing-eagles, which had deserted
their gray perch, to bathe in the pure floods of
sunset, that beautified the upper air,—the solitude,
quiet, and beauty of every thing around and nigh,
were additional arguments for silence.

But silence, long continued, was not consonant
to the restless and impatient temper of Miss Falconer;
and notwithstanding the indignant incredulity
with which she had interrupted her friend's
narrative, the same curiosity which compelled the
commencement of it, still thirsted for the conclusion.
The presence of the dead, however, in so
wild, so forlorn, so unblest a spot, where, as it
would seem, the shame of proud but humbled
hearts had dug the neglected grave, worked powerfully
on her feelings; and it was with a hesitating
and quivering, though an abrupt voice, that she
demanded, after gazing for a long time on the
grave,

“Did others,—did any beside this bitter-tongued
woman, accuse my father of this thing?”

“I know not,” replied Catherine, with accents
still more unsteady; “all that I have gathered
was from Elsie; and when she speaks of these
things, as I mentioned before, she becomes fearfully
agitated, so that I have sometimes thought
her wits quite unsettled. She never pretended to
tell me the whole story; nor indeed would I have

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

been disposed to ask or listen, knowing it would be
improper to do so. All these things have come in
broken hints and exclamations. What others in
the neighbourhood may say or think, I know not,
never encouraging any to speak to me on the subject.
The step-mother soon followed the daughter,—
Elsie says, heart-broken; you may see her
tomb in the village church-yard. The old father,
too, became another man, gloomy, solitary, and
indifferent to his friends, so that the neighbours
ceased to visit him. His sons no longer hunted
with the young men of the country, but went, as
in their war-expeditions, alone; and when others
thrust themselves into their company, they quarrelled
with them, so that they began to be universally
feared and detested. To crown all, as soon
as the Revolution burst out, they went over to the
enemy; and being distributed among the wild and
murderous bands of savages forming on the northwestern
frontiers, they soon obtained a dreadful
notoriety for their deeds of daring and cruelty.
Of course, this remarkable defection of the sons
caused the unlucky father to be suspected and
watched. He was accused, at last, of aiding and
abetting them in their treasonable practices; and
soon, either from timidity or a consciousness of
guilt, he fled, seeking refuge within the royal lines.
This was sufficient for his ruin; for after the usual
legal preliminaries, he was formally outlawed, as
his sons had been before, and his property confiscated.
He died soon afterward, either at New
York, or in Jamaica, where he had gone to seek
his youngest son—the lad he had sent away as a
substitute for the daughter.”

“And this son?” demanded Miss Falconer; “did
you not say that he was dead?”

“Of him,” said Catherine, “Elsie knows nothing;
but if we can receive a belief that prevails

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

in the village on the subject, it would seem as if
the vials of wrath had been poured to the uttermost
on the poor devoted family. They say, that
the young man, just raised to wealth and distinction
by the death of his munificent kinswoman,
was one of the many victims to that dreadful tornado
which ravaged the island of Jamaica two
years ago. But I never heard how this intelligence
was obtained.”

“And the other sons? the rest of this brood of
traitors!” demanded Miss Falconer, who strove to
merge the unpleasant feelings that had possession
of her bosom, in patriotic detestation of the unfortunate
family.

“They met the fate they must have anticipated,”
said the Captain's daughter. “They perished, one
by one, in different bloody conflicts; one fell at
Wyoming, another at Tioga Point, where the combined
forces of savages and refugees were routed
by General Sullivan; Oran himself, with a fourth
brother, was killed at the battle of Johnstown,
near the Mohawk river, where another refugee
leader, Walter Butler, not less blood-thirsty and
famous, met a similar fate. Their death was terrible;
they cried for quarter, being wounded and
helpless; but the victors bade them `Remember
Wyoming, and Cherry-Valley,' two prominent objects
of their cruelty, and killed them without
mercy. Another, I have heard, was somewhere
hanged as a spy; and these, with Hyland, killed
as I mentioned before, and the youngest, deceased,
if indeed he be deceased, in Jamaica, made up the
whole seven sons, all of whom therefore died violent
deaths. The eighth child,—the poor daughter,—
undoubtedly sleeps under this rock; and
there are none left to mourn her. The destruction
of the family was dreadful and complete.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Run! run! run!
Quickly for a surgeon!
Call watch, constable! raise the hue and cry!
What's to be done?
Why the devil don't you stir, John?
This way, that way, every body fly!

Don Giovanni.

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

Thus ended the sketch of a story, imperfect,
perhaps tedious and unsatisfactory, but still a necessary
preliminary to the series of events that
completes the tradition. A mere womanly curiosity
was perhaps at the bottom of the nobler feeling
with which Miss Falconer sought to excuse
to herself the impropriety of urging the relation.
From the first to the last, it was meted out to her
reluctantly; and nothing but the command she
had long since obtained over a character less firm
and decided than her own, could have persuaded
the Captain's daughter to breathe a syllable of it
into ears, which, she could not but feel, ought not
to be opened to it. Miss Falconer had, moreover,
overrated her powers of scepticism; she had provoked
the story, as men commonly provoke an
argument,—that is, with a resolution not to be
convinced; but like the logician, in many instances,
when the discussion is over, her incredulity
was sorely, though secretly, shaken, and
nothing but her pride and strength of character
checked the humiliating avowal. Some circumstances
a delicate consideration for the feelings of
her friend, and an unconquerable repugnance to

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

speak more on the subject than could not be
avoided, had prevented the Captain's daughter
from relating. These would have thrown a still
darker stain upon the character of Colonel Falconer.
There was enough, however, said, to force
one disagreeable conviction upon Harriet's mind;
and this was, that, if her parent were even as
guiltless of ingratitude and wrong as her fondest
wishes would have him, calumny had, at least in
one secluded corner of the world, sealed him with
the opprobrium of a villain. It was a sore addition
also to her discomfort, that her penetrating
mind discovered how deeply her kinswoman was
affected by the hateful history: if she doubted,
she did not doubt strongly. Vexed, humbled, displeased
with herself and with Catherine, she rose
from the rocky shelf, on which both had seated
themselves when Catherine resumed the story, and
prepared to leave the scene, equally mournful and
unpleasant, when an incident occurred, which at
once gave a new turn to her feelings.

The Captain's daughter had observed the look
of dissatisfaction, and anticipated the movement,
by rising herself, to lead the way to the bridge.
As she started up hastily, her hat, which she had
loosened from her forehead, to enjoy the evening
breeze, now puffing among the flowers, fell from
her head, and her beautiful countenance and golden
ringlets were fully exposed. She raised her hands,
naturally enough, to catch the falling hat, and thus
assumed an attitude, of which she was herself unconscious,
but which, to one spectator at least, had
a character apparently menacing and forbidding.
This spectator was no less a person than the young
painter, who had rambled up the stream, and was
now making his way across the sycamore, to obtain
a view of the cascade, entirely ignorant of the
presence of such visiters; for while they

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

maintained their seats, their persons were concealed
behind the low wall, and their voices drowned by
the murmur of the water-fall.

A sudden exclamation, loud enough to be heard
over this lulling din, drew Catherine's attention to
the bridge; and there, to her extreme surprise, she
beheld the young stranger struggling among the
branches, as if he had lost his footing, while all the
time, his eyes, instead of being employed in the
more needful duty of looking to himself, were fixed
upon her with an air of the most unaccountable
wonder and alarm. The next instant, she beheld
him, to her own infinite horror, fall from the tree,
just as Harriet, starting up after her friend, had
also caught sight of the strange spectacle. Both
beheld the unlucky youth drop through the boughs,
and both at once anticipated the most dreadful termination
to such a misadventure; for a pitch over
the cascade among the savage rocks below, could
scarcely be less than fatal. The very instant she
saw that the young man had lost his footing,
Catherine uttered a loud scream, and then, driven
onwards by an irresistible impulse, darted towards
the river, to render him what aid she could. As
for Miss Falconer, the shock had deprived her of
her self-possession, and her tongue clove to her
mouth with terror. She neither screamed nor
rushed forwards to give aid, until her lethargy was
dispelled by a distant voice, that suddenly echoed
the scream of Catherine:

“Hark ye, Kate, you jade! hark ye, Kate, my
dear Kate! my beloved Kate! what's the matter?
I'm coming! I'll murder the villain! I'm coming,
Kate!”

There was no mistaking the tones of Captain
Loring, even altered as they were by anxiety and
vociferation; and Miss Falconer recognising
them, screamed out, “Quick, uncle, quick! for

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

heaven's sake, quick!” and ran to the side of her
friend.

The torrent, leaping along like a mill-race for
the little distance that intervened betwixt the
treacherous bridge and the fall, had immediately
swept the young man from his feet; and as
Catherine bounded to the verge, flinging out, with
as much daring as presence of mind, the scarf of
Harriet, which she had instinctively snatched up,
in hope that he might seize it, she saw him swept
by her like a feather in a whirlwind, and instantly
hurried over the falls. The spectacle was really
terrific; and as Miss Falconer caught sight of the
dreary figure—the outstretched arm and the despairing
countenance, revealed for one moment, as
some rocky obstruction on the very brink of the
cascade lifted the body half from the flood, and
then instantly plunged it out of view—she lost what
little courage remained, and was no longer capable
of yielding the slightest assistance. If such was
her overpowering terror, it might have been supposed
that the Captain's daughter, who, whatever
the vivacity and quickness of her mind, possessed
little of the boldness of spirit that characterized
her friend, would have been reduced to a state of
imbecility still more benumbing and helpless. But
this youthful girl concealed within the cells of a
heart all of feeble flesh, a principle of feeling that
could upon occasions, though she knew it not herself,
nerve the throbbing organ into steel; and, at
such times, if her brain was confounded, impulse
governed her actions with an influence more useful,
because more instant of operation.

Dreadful, therefore, as was the spectacle of the
youth dashed down the abyss under her eyes, and
almost in reach of her arm, she did not pause, like
Harriet, to scream after the Captain, who was undoubtedly
drawing nigh, and at an unusual pace;

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

but leaving this to be done by her companion, she
ran down the rocks that led to the base of the fall,
and the next moment Harriet beheld her rush boldly
into the water. The instant she reached the basin at
the foot of the cascade, which was broken by rocks,
black and slippery from the eternal spray, she
caught sight of the body—for such it seemed—rolling
in the flood where it boiled over a ridgy mole in
a sheet of foam. It was scarce two paces from the
bank, and though the torrent gushed over the rock
with great impetuosity, it was shallow, at least in
the nearer portion; and, unless too rash and daring,
there was little danger she could be herself swept
over the ledge among the deep and dangerous
eddies below. She stepped therefore upon the
rock as far as she durst, and stretching out her
hand, succeeded in grasping the insensible figure,
as it was whirling over at a deeper place and in a
fiercer current. All her strength, however, availed
nothing further than to arrest the body where
it was; and she must have speedily released her
hold, or been swept with it herself from the ledge,
when a new auxiliary, attracted by the same cries
that had alarmed Captain Loring, came unexpectedly
to her assistance, crackling through the
bushes, and bounding over the rocks on the opposite
side of the pool, which was a wilderness of
rock and swamp. No sooner had this personage
beheld her situation, than he ran a little lower
down, where the stream was again contracted,
sprang across from rock to rock, and immediately
darted to her side. With one hand he dragged—
or, to speak more strictly, he flung her, (for his
actions were none of the gentlest,)—out of the
water; and with the other, he lifted the unlucky
painter from the torrent, and bore him to the bank,
saying, as he laid him at the maiden's feet, in a
voice none of the mildest in the world,

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

“Why, here's fine sport for a May-day, and a
rough end to a fool's frolic! How many more of
you must I fish up?”

By this time the gallant Captain Loring, urged
by anxiety for his daughter, (not knowing that the
danger concerned another,) into a speed that he
had not attempted for twenty-five years, made his
appearance at the top of the fall, and seeing her
stand shivering with fright over what she esteemed
a dead body,—for the painter showed not a
single sign of life,—with a stranger of questionable
appearance at her side, he burst into a roar of
passion, crying, “Hark ye, you vagabond villain!
if you touch my girl”—when his rage was put to
flight by Miss Falconer suddenly finding tongue,
and exclaiming, “He has saved the poor youth's
life;—that is, Kate saved him, and this man helped
her. I never was more frightened in my life! Let
us go down, uncle—I fear the young man is hurt.”

Meanwhile, Catherine, whose courage and presence
of mind had almost deserted her, so soon as
she beheld the young man safe ashore, being roused
by the rough accents of the stranger, and the
death-like appearance of the youth, exclaimed, in
tones of entreaty, for the man had turned away,
as if to depart,

“Do not go.—Alas! you came too late! Help
us yet a little, or the poor youth will die where he
is. Pray, hold up his head—indeed, he is very
much hurt!”

“Hurt! To be sure he is,” cried the stranger,
with infinite coolness, bordering upon a sort of
savage contempt, or at least disregard, of the
miserable spectacle, “knocked as clean on the
head as if a refugee had been at him. So, d'ye
hear, my young madam, there's no great need of
troubling yourself more about him; and here come
enough of your good folk to groan over him. As

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

for me, I have no time for moaning. If you want
help, just scream over again; and, I reckon, you'll
have the whole road at your elbow.”

Catherine had herself performed the office of
humanity she had so vainly asked of the stranger;
she stooped down, and beckoning to her father
and Harriet, who were descending the rocks, to
hasten their steps, she raised up the painter's head,
and endeavoured, with a faltering hand, to lossen
the neckcloth from his throat. Struck by expressions
so rude and unfeeling, she looked up for a
moment, and for the first time took hasty note of
the person and lineaments of her preserver. He
was a man of middle age,—perhaps forty or more,
with a long shirt or frock of coarse linen thrown
over his other garments, and a broad-brimmed,
round-crowned, slouching hat, like the favourite
sombrero of the Spanish islands, which was, however,
painted of a fiery red, and varnished, so as
to resist the rain. His stature was not considerable,
nor was his appearance very muscular, yet
he had given proof of no mean strength in the case
with which he dragged the painter and herself
from the water. His countenance, without being
coarse or ugly, had yet a repulsive character, derived
in part from several scars, the marks of violent
blows from sabres or other weapons, one of
which seemed to have destroyed his right eye, for
it was bound round with a handkerchief; but perhaps
the forbidden air was rather given by the
savage fire that glimmered in the other, and the
perpetual frown that contracted his brows. His
hair was grizzled, and fell in a long lock over
either dark and bony cheek. His mouth was particularly
stern, grim, menacing, and even malevolent
of character,—or so the Captain's daughter
thought. All these things Catherine observed in
a moment; yet, however unfavourably impressed

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

by them, she could not refrain from again imploring
his assistance, saying, with the most earnest
accents,

“If you be a Christian man, do not leave us.
We are none here but two feeble women, and an
infirm old man; and before we can procure assistance,
the young gentleman may perish. We will
thank you,—we will reward”—

“Good heavens!” cried Miss Falconer, who had
now reached the foot of the rocks, and beheld the
pale and bleeding visage that Catherine so falteringly
supported, “he is dying!”

“Dying! Who's dying?” echoed the Captain,
limping up to the group; “Adzooks; what! my
painter? my handsome young dog, that was to
paint me my son Tom Loring? my Harman What-d'ye-call-it
from Elsie Bell's? Hark ye, Mr. Red-hat,
or whatever your name is, I intended to arrest
you on suspicion—Adzooks, I believe the young
dog's dead! He looks amazingly like my son Tom.
Hark ye, Mr. Harmer What-d'ye-call-it, how do
you feel? Why, adzooks, he's clean gone!—Hark
ye, Mister Red-head, fetch him up the rocks—
We'll carry him to the Folly.”

While the Captain thus poured forth his mingled
wonder and lamentation, a surprising change came
over the visage of the stranger. He no sooner
understood from the mention of the lodging-place
and profession of the young man, that he did not
belong to the party before him, and had therefore
no greater claim upon their humanity than on his,
than he at once dropped his rude and disregardful
air, saying, as he released the others from the care
of supporting the wounded unfortunate,

“I am neither stock nor stone; but I thought
you had idlers enough to bury your own dead.
And so the younker is a stranger to you? a bird
of old Elsie's, and none of your own roost? And

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

this young lady was trying to save his life? I beg
your pardon, if I have been rough with you, young
madam.”—He pronounced these words with a
tone mild, and almost regretful; then turning to
the Captain, he resumed, “Well, Captain Loring,
for I believe that's your name,—what shall we
do with this broken-headed fool? You see, here's
an arm broke, and a gash on the head that might
do credit to a tomahawk! How shall we get him
to Elsie Bell's? I can carry him, sure enough—but
'tis a long mile off.—And then for a doctor?
Here's a shoulder slipped, Captain. The fool! that
must tumble down this dog-hole water-fall! Captain,
you have servants and horses—you must send
for a doctor.—Poor boy, how he groans!”

“Hark ye, Mr. Red-head,” said Captain Loring,
“we will carry him to the Folly, and cure him
like a Christian. Just get him up these rocks here,
and I'll give a lift myself; and hark ye, Mr. Readhear”—

“But the doctor, Captain? the doctor?” cried
the stranger.

“He is at the house!” cried Catherine, eagerly.
“We saw him ride there ourselves!”

“Adzooks! to be sure he is! so Sam told me!
What a fool I was to forget it!” exclaimed the
Captain. “Come along, up the rocks, double-quick
step—march!”

The eyes of the stranger sparkled at the announcement
of surgical assistance being so unexpectedly
close at hand; for he seemed to have
conceived as sudden a liking to the luckless painter
as had the Captain himself. He raised him tenderly,
and with singular ease, from the ground, and without
a moment's delay, clambered up the rocky
path that led to the platform. Then striding rapidly
to the treacherous bridge, though encumbered by
a burthen at once so inconvenient and piteous, he

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

crossed it with a better fate than had distinguished
the attempt of the painter, and, almost before the
others had reached the deserted grave, was
making his way over the shaded path at a pace
that soon promised to carry him out of sight.

“Haste, father, dear father!” cried Catherine,
to whom the terrible scene of peril and suffering
she had witnessed and almost shared, had given
a new energy, and, indeed, a new nature; “haste,
or the man will miss the path, and the young gentleman
die. Or stay—I will climb the hill here,
and run to the house for assistance, and Harriet
will walk faster, and point out the way.”

“The path is broad, the wild fellow pursues it,”
cried Miss Falconer, giving the veteran the impulse
of her own activity. “What could have
brought the young man to the brook? What could
have brought this wild barbarian? Nay, uncle,
what could have brought yourself?”

“Sam told me,” muttered Captain Loring; and
of a thousand broken and confused expressions
that now fell from his lips, all that the maidens
could understand, as they hurried him along, was
that he had met one of his labourers at the parkgate,
who had seen them take refuge in the wood,
and was then engaged catching their ponies,
which were running wildly about,—that he had
instantly left his carriage, and was seeking them
along the stream, when he heard the shriek of his
daughter. Something else of much more importance,
he seemed labouring to give utterance to;
and this being nothing less than the fearful intelligence
in relation to Colonel Falconer, which he
knew not how to impart, his mind became so confounded
betwixt fear of its effect upon the lady,
indignation at the outrage, and the thousand other
emotions which were distracting his breast, that
the more he essayed to speak, the more

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

mysterious became his expressions; so that the whole
group had reached the door of the mansion, before
a single suspicion of his object had entered the
mind of either Miss Falconer or her friend. He
mingled the oft-repeated name of her father with
that of the dreaded Gilberts, and this again with
Tom Loring's, and the painter's; now he burst
into a frenzy of apprehension lest Catherine, whose
garments were dripping with wet, and, in one or
two places, spotted with blood from the wounds of
Herman, should have suffered as many hurts as the
youth himself, and now he fell into lamentations
over the loss of `that grand picture of Tom Loring
dying!' which, it seemed not altogether improbable,
death might prevent the poor painter ever
attempting.

But if the Captain brought confusion with him
to the mansion, it was evident, at the first glance
Miss Falconer had of it, that the deranging fiend
had been there before him, and still kept possession.
The sun was then setting—a multitude of
persons, old and young, sallow and sable, were
bustling about in the shadows of the porch, some
running to and fro with burthens in their hands,
others shouting and screaming, or staring about
them in speechless wonder; the carriage stood at
the door, the ancient charioteer sitting whip in
hand, as if expecting orders to start at a moment's
warning, while a smart mulatto in livery was engaged
strapping a portmanteau behind it. Horses,
saddled and bridled, were hitched to trees, or held
by servants; dogs were barking; pigeons flying
about; and in a word, it seemed as if the inhabitants
of the Folly, male and female, human and
animals, were one and all preparing, in some ecstasy
of confusion, to desert its troubled walls.

“In the name of heaven, uncle! what means all
this?” cried Miss Falconer, recognising in the

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

livery-servant a personal attendant of her own father,
and in the portmanteau which he was fastening
to the carriage, one of the repositories of her
own womanly vanities.

Before the Captain could answer a word, the
confusion was doubly confounded by the clatter of
hoofs, and in an instant two horsemen in military
apparel, came thundering up the avenue, as if the
lives of a community depended upon their speed.

“My brother Henry, as I live!” cried the lady,
starting forward. “Captain, what is the matter?
Brother! heavens, brother! what can all this
mean?”

At this, one half of the human elements of the
chaos lifted up their voices, and groaned aloud,
“Oh, the Gilberts! the bloody Gilberts!”

“Sister!” cried the foremost of the young soldiers,
flinging himself from his steed, catching
Miss Falconer in his arms, and speaking with a
manner strangely compounded of horror and merriment,—
“they have been at dad again! but don't
fall into a fit—there's no murder this time! no,
egad, only a few scratches. Don't be alarmed.—
Ah, Miss Loring! my dear Miss Catherine!—you
look dreadful pale—don't be frightened—beg pardon
for coming in such a condition. Heard of it,
Harry?—(my friend, Brooks,—Lieutenant Brooks,
of the troop)—knew they'd send for you,—bent
out of course—deflected, made a detour, as we
say,—to fetch you. Not a moment to lose—must
be in town by sunrise, if horse-flesh can carry
us.—How d'ye do, Captain? All ready for marching?”

“Yes, all ready,” said the Captain, recovering
his tongue. “Don't be afraid, Harriet, my dear—
Kate, bid your cousin good-bye. No great harm
done,—only a little flesh wound that you can stitch
up with your needle—by the lord, that's all! Must

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

send you away—father sent a message after you—
must have you to nurse him. Be a good girl,
don't cry; 't an't all bad wounds do damage; saw
many tomahawk-slashes at the fatal field of Braddock,
and some got well. Tell the Colonel I'll be
down to see him, and hope to fetch the assassin
along.”

“The assassin, Captain?” cried the young officer,
as he leaped upon his horse, his sister having
been already, almost without any exercise of her
own will, thrust into the carriage, and the door
secured. “Quick, Phil, you scoundrel, will you
never have done strapping?—The assassin, Captain!
oh yes, the assassin!—Remember the description—
tall man, lantern-jawed, white horse,
with a dappled near fore-leg, a black coat, and
preaches!”

“Hah!” cried Captain Loring, with a shout of
triumph, “saw the rascal, and meant to arrest him,
but couldn't stand his sermons! I couldn't, by the
lord!—Your horse, Phil! your horse! doctor, I'll
take yours!—Whoop, Harry, you dog! down to
the old witch's, and we'll nab him yet!”

While the Captain gave utterance to these expressions,
he seized upon the nearest horse, and
mounted him—a feat, that nothing but the frenzy
of his enthusiasm could have urged him to attempt;
for his infirmity had almost altogether incapacitated
him from riding, save at the gentlest pace.
But the recollection of the zealous Nehemiah, the
assassin of his friend, now sheltered under a roof
that he fancied, in the ardour of the moment, he
could almost touch with his hand—and that holy
impostor a villain so notorious and redoubted as
the chief Hawk of the Hollow!—the fiery conception
scattered his years and infirmities to the winds,
and in an instant he was astride the beast of mettle,
galloping over the park at full speed, followed by

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

the two soldiers, as soon as they comprehended
the meaning of his words—by the coach, which
the venerable Richard set in motion upon an impulse
of his own—and by some half a dozen of the
male loungers, some on foot, some on horse, and
all fired with the prospect of capturing a foe so
famous and so deeply abhorred.

The pale gibbering ghosts, that start in affright
at the magical alarum of the early chanticleer,
could not have vanished from their doleful divan
with a more impetuous haste, than did full two-thirds
of those human beings from the mansion,
who had given such life to it a moment before.
In an instant, as it seemed, the hall was left to solitude;
and the rough stranger, who still sustained the
mangled frame of the painter, and had stood staring
in astonishment at a scene so unexpected and confounding,
had some reason to fear he was left to
relieve the sufferings of his charge as he could,
and to relieve them alone. A dark frown gathered
over his visage, as he beheld the crowd rush away
almost without bestowing a look upon his piteous
burthen, or upon him; and he was about to mutter
his indignation aloud, when it was pacified by
a husky voice exclaiming in his ear,

“Hum, hah! bless my soul! what, drowned, eh?
is the gentleman drowned? a case of suspended
animation?—Hillo, Jingleum, stop! Come back,
Pepperel! 'Pon my soul, 'tis the identical redjacket
we saw at the Rest! Why, what the devil's
all this?—Beg pardon, Miss Loring!—Bless my
soul, I hope you ain't hurt? Blood about your
sleeve, and look very pale and nervous! A little
wine, with”—

“Think not of me, doctor,” replied Catherine.

“Attend to the young gentleman. This dreadful
surprise and the hurry of my father—it will explain
all, and excuse all. Aunt Rachel will show

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

you a chamber: command every thing—every
thing shall be done that you order. Hasten, doctor,
pray hasten, and relieve the young gentleman's
sufferings. Gentlemen, pray give your assistance
to this good man, and heaven—yes, heaven will
crown your exertions with success!”

With these hurried expressions, and still more
earnest gestures, the young lady gave an impulse
to the group now gathered about the wounded
man, and he was immediately carried into the
house and out of her sight.

“Oh, Miss Katy,—beg pardon—that's to say,
Miss Catherine,” cried a buxom, blubbering damsel,
whose quavering treble had borne a distinguished
part in the late din of voices, and who had
no sooner laid eyes on the young lady, which she
did as soon as the tumult was over, than she ran
bustling hysterically to her side,—“never saw you
in such a pucker! hope we shan't all be murdered.
Such dreadful contractions were never heard of—
great big hole in your sleeve—the Gilberts all
come to life again, and will murder us as sure as
we live!”

“Be quiet, Phœbe—come with me to my chamber—
I don't think he will die!”

“Hope not, Miss Katy,—that's Miss Catherine;
but they shot him right through the head with a
blunderbush, and slashed him to pieces with a baggonet.
Oh, the cruel murders! And Philip, the
yellow boy, says—Lor' 'a' mercy! Miss Katy,
what's the matter?”

“I am sick, Phœbe, very sick—it will be over
directly. Don't call your mother—don't disturb
any one; let them stay with the young gentleman.”

With great difficulty, assisted by the girl, whose
station in the house, without being altogether so
exalted as that of an humble companion, was yet,

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

at least in her own estimation, far removed from
that of a menial—the young lady made her way
to her apartment; when the impulse that had supported
her energies through a scene of distress for
so long a time, passed away, and was succeeded
by prostration both of mind and body—by shuddering
chills and assaults of partial insensibility,
that terminated in fits of weeping, and these again
in deep dejection of spirits, such as of late years
had been a more prevailing characteristic than
any other.

CHAPTER IX.

Whither shall I go now? O Lucian!—to thy ridiculous purgatory,—
to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey
tagging points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons, Hannibal
selling blacking, Augustus crying garlic, Charlemagne
selling lists by the dozen, and King Pepin crying apples in a
cart drawn with one horse?—

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

Conducted by the old woman, an heir-loom dependant
in the Captain's family, whom Miss Loring
had designated by the familiar and somewhat endearing
title of Aunt Rachel, the grim-faced stranger
bore the young painter to a chamber, where
he was laid upon a couch, breathing forth occasional
groans, but still insensible. His bearer, having
thus finished what might have been considered
his peculiar charge, lifted up his eyes, and looked
around him, not however with any intention of
departing. On the contrary, his rude indifference
seemed gradually to have melted away, and been
succeeded by an anxious wish to render further
services to the youth, or at least to be assured they
should be rendered by others as capable as himself.
He fixed his eyes upon the physician, as if
to determine the amount of his professional ability
by such outward manifestations of wisdom as
might be traced in his visage and person; and the
result was so little to his satisfaction that he

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

resolved to remain in the apartment, to give the
physician the benefit of his own counsels.

The man of science, who bore the undignified
name of Merribody, was a youth of twenty-five
or six, though the gravity of his countenance was
worthy a practitioner of fifty. His frame was
short, and roundest in the middle, and his limbs
and neck of conformable brevity and dumpiness.
His face corresponded with his body, being round
as a melon, with features all highly insignificant,
except his nose, which had a short and delicate
pug that gave it some importance. His complexion
had been originally fair, and his locks flaxen; but
a few years' exposure to sun and sleet had communicated
a certain foxy swarthiness to both, so
that his eyes, which were of a light gray, were
now entirely visible. His eye-brows had maintained
their original creamy hue; and being the
only part of the countenance possessing any great
mobility, their motions up and down, and to and
fro, were always distinguishable; and indeed they
flitted about under the shadow of his hat, like two
snowy moths entangled in a cobweb. Though no
figure in the world could have been worse adapted
to purposes of dignity, Dr. Merribody had
thought proper to assume an important air, which
he always preserved, except when irritated out of
his decorum; a circumstance that not unfrequently
happened, owing to a temper naturally testy and
inflammable. His countenance he kept in a perpetual
frown; and he cultivated an attitude he
thought expressive of professional dignity, in
which his feet were planted as far from one another
as the length of his legs permitted, his head
thrown back, or rather his chin turned up, for his
neck was too short to allow much liberty to the
temple of the soul, and his hands thrust into his
breeches pockets; in which attitude he presented

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

a miniature representation of the Rhodian Colossus.
He had even bestowed much cultivation upon
his voice, which being of a childish treble, and
therefore highly incompatible with all pretensions
to gravity, he forced it into artificial profundity,
and spoke with a husky, catarrhal tone, a sort of
falsetto bass, exceedingly pompous, and indeed
sometimes majestic. However, the same testy
temper which so often robbed him of his dignity
of carriage, as frequently threw his voice into its
hautboy alto; and on those occasions, he did not
appear to advantage. At the present moment, the
doctor certainly might be said to be in his glory;
for the sight of a patient threw him into the best
humour in the world;—and by the presence of his
two friends, without counting the stranger and
Aunt Rachel, he was assured of witnesses to his
skill in a case, which he declared, while trudging
up stairs, to be `exceedingly critical and interesting.
' Notwithstanding this favourable condition
of things, however, the man of the red hat conceived
but a mean opinion of Dr. Merribody's
professional skill; and having eyed him a second
time, without finding any reason to alter his
opinion, he demanded, in no very respectful
terms,

“Well now, doctor, here's the man lying half
dead and groaning,—what's to be done with
him?”

“What's to be done?” echoed the doctor, turning
up the cuffs of his coat, throwing out his legs,
and looking important and complaisant together;
“Why, sir, we are to—but, hark'e, sir, who are
you? Don't know you—thought you was Dan
Potts, the raftsman, but see you a'n't. Who are
you? and what are you doing here? Can't suffer a
crowd in the room; it smothers the air. Must beg

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

you to decamp, sir. Have plenty assistance,
sir,”—

“Be content, doctor,” said the man, drily, but
not roughly. “My name is Green, John Green,
the trader; every body knows Green, the York
trader, as they call me. I fished up the young
gentleman;—that is, I helped the lady; and I must
see him through his troubles.”

“Never heard of you, Mr. Green,” said the
doctor; “but you may stay. You have something
the matter with your eye! Now I don't boast; but
I believe I am good at the eyes—I will look at it
directly.”

“I don't doubt it, doctor,” said Mr. Green;
“but suppose, instead of talking of my eyes, you
make the best use of your own. Here's the young
man in great suffering.”

“Oh, ay,” said doctor Merribody. “The first
thing to be done is to strip the patient, and see
what's the matter with him. Method is the soul
of business. Hurrah, Jingleum; come, off with
his coat,—strip it off.”

“Rip it off, you mean,” said the trader, touching
the fractured arm significantly, and indeed
somewhat angrily. “Of all fools I ever heard of,
those are the greatest who break their arms, when
necks are so much less valuable. Here's his right
arm smashed like a sassafras-bough; and, I reckon,
slipped at the shoulder, too!”

“Ay! the deuce! you don't say so! a luxation!”
cried the physician. “Set the old woman to work
with her scissors. Aunt Rachel, my good woman,
rip up this sleeve; and rip it as gingerly as if
every stitch was the nerve of a man's elbow. A
comminuted fracture, I can tell by the feel!—
Here, Pepperel, pour some warm water into the
basin, chill it a thought from the ewer, and soak
this rag in it. A very genteel-looking dog, I

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

protest!—Jingleum, lay out my pocket-case, tear an
old shirt into bandages two and a half inches wide,
and roll 'em up; and you, Mr. York,—that is, Mr.
Green, hand me the crooked scissors there, till I
shave some of the hair from the wound. A devil
of a job, if it turns out a trephine case! We must
send off to town for Dr. Muller and his case of
round saws—I don't object to consult with Dr.
Muller; and if it comes to trephining, why the
sooner we are ready for it the better. Method is
the soul of business!”

“The cut on the head is but a scratch,” said the
trader: “I v'e looked at it myself. Goody, rip up
the shirt-sleeve here, or let me do it—there's
blacker work to look at.”

“Method is the soul of business,” cried the doctor,
whose spirits were beginning to rise to a rapture,
as business thickened on his hand, and who
now raised himself a tip-toe among his temporary
assistants, like a generalissimo surveying the man
œuvres of his subordinates on a field of battle,
which is perhaps to determine the destinies of a
nation; “there's nothing like method!” he ejaculated.
“Aunt Rachel, scrape me a little lint—
there are more scratches to be filled.—Hah! what!
what the devil's the matter?” he cried, as the trader,
groaning with sympathy at the sight, tore
away the damp shirt from the shoulder, and displayed
it deformed and shapeless from luxation.
“Bless my soul, what! a dislocation, really, under
the pectoralis major, anteriorly luxed! Oh, here's
the devil to pay! Method is the soul of business:
but what method is there in having at once an
arm broke, a shoulder disjointed, a head cracked,
and to be half drowned into the bargain? Murdering
work, sir! murdering work, sir! murdering work! Where the
deuce can I clap my pulley? and where the deuce,
now I think of it, am I to get one?”

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

“A pulley!” exclaimed the trader, with scorn
and indignation; “a pulley to drag a man's arm
off! Why, where's your fingers? Come, doctor,
now's the time.”

“Method is the soul of business!” exclaimed the
physician, waxing wroth. “Are you a doctor, a
surgeon, a gentleman of the profession, Mr. Whatd'-ye-call-'em,
that you take it upon you to instruct
me what to do? I tell you, sir, a physician
is not to be prescribed his duty, sir; and I allow
no man to interfere with me in my practice, sir!”

The strength of this declaration was increased
by its being delivered in the doctor's natural voice,
high and shrill; but it produced little effect on the
obdurate trader.

“Come, doctor,” said he, “I know all about
these matters of broken and disjointed bones, from
the toe up to the top-knot, having had a hand in
making many of them, as a man who has been an
Indian trader, in war-times, may well say. So
take the benefit of my advice; for I intend to give
it.”

“Then, sir,” said Dr. Merribody, with becoming
indignation, “you may take the matter into
your own hands; I wash mine clear of it. I'm not
to be ruled by any ignoramus Indian trader, who,
I believe, is no better than an Indian himself, and
blind of an eye into the bargain; if you are to dictate,
you Mr. What-d'-ye-call-'em, I'll have nothing
to do with the case,—if I do I'll be hanged.
No, sir! work away yourself, and kill the patient
as soon as you like: he is at death's door already.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Green, with a bitter
sneer; “if he had been in any danger, I should
have taken the matter up myself. Come, doctor,”
he added, more civilly; “don't be in a passion,
and don't play the fool. I tell you, if it will be any
satisfaction to you to know, that I, John Green,

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

simple as I stand here, have seen more wounds
and broken bones than you, and a dozen other
such younkers, will ever have the mending of;
and, for the matter of that, I have seen more mended
than ever you will see hurt, ay, and helped in
the mending, too,—as any man must, who has
traded among Indians. So, come; look to your
duty; the young gentleman will pay you for your
services; and, as he seems to be forlorn-like, with
no better friend at hand, I shall stand by him, to
see he gets the worth of his money.”

The amazement with which the insulted leech
listened to these contumelious expressions, was
prodigious, and would have been expressed otherwise
than by a simple, common-place “whew!”
had it not been for the dark scowl that clouded the
trader's visage, at the first sign of explosion. It
was a look of more than ordinary resentment or
menace; and, indeed, expressed equal malignance
with the grin of a wild-cat, preparing for the
spring. The terror it struck to the bosom of the
doctor, was communicated to his friends, who betrayed
at first some inclination to enter into the
controversy, but ended the heroic impulse in sundry
grumbling murmurs.

“A devilish strange fellow as ever I saw!”
growled the doctor in the ear of one. “A case of
monomania, sir; he is mad, sir: yes! I see mania
in his eye; he has been hurt on the head, you can
tell by the knocks there, the scars on his phys'nomy;
and his eye shows the infirmity. So we
must humour him, sirs, we must humour him.—
'Tis the method; and method is the soul of business.”

Thus apologizing for the surrender of his wrath
and dignity, the surgeon betook himself again to
his patient.

“Hum! hah!” he cried, laying his fingers on

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

Herman's wrist,—“pulse irregular, intermittent.—
The struggle between life and death—very low,
sir, very low!—Aunt Rachel, make me half a
dozen mustard-plasters, roast me a dozen bricks,
and get me a coal of fire, to try if there's any feeling
in him. One dare not bleed with such a pulse
as this.”

Green listened with visible impatience to the
physician; and then, with as little consideration as
before, exclaimed,

“What needs all these knick-knackeries? Clap
this shoulder into place, and then think of them.”

“My friend,” said the doctor, his indignation
supplying the place of courage, “I don't like to
offend the feelings of any man; but you talk like
an ass. Method is the soul of business; and there
is no method in reducing a luxation for a man hovering
upon the brink of the grave, unless you may
consider the act a method of helping him into it.
No, sir; the violence of the operation would do his
business as expeditiously as a thump over the head
with a tomahawk, which I think, as you are an
Indian trader and fighter, you know something
about. Yes, sir; I'll allow you to be a complete
master of the science of tomahawking, skinning,
and scalping; but when you come to talk of bones
and dislocations, then, sir, I say, in the words of
the Latin poet, Ne sudor ultra crepidam—I don't
know whether it is sudor or sutor; but it means,
`Mind your own business.' ”

“I speak of nothing but what I know,” replied
Green, impatiently; “and I say, now is the time to
fix the bone with the least trouble. Feel the lad's
muscles; they are as loose and limber as a girl's
in a swoon; wait till he opens his eyes, and you
will find them as tough as ash-boughs. So go to
work, doctor; for if you don't, I will—I have
clapped a bone in place before now. So, doctor,

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

you or John Green, the York trader; and much
good may it do you, when I tell the folks up the
river how I out-doctored you!”

The argument was conclusive, and luckily it
was given more in the spirit of persuasion than
command; Dr. Merribody condescended to adopt
the advice of the rude philosopher. As he had
intimated, the muscles of the sufferer were in a
condition so relaxed, that it required but little effort
to restore the bone to its place.

“There! it is done!” cried the surgeon, triumphantly;
“but it hurt him like the mischief! He
groaned as if I had been cutting his throat. Now
for the mustard-plasters”—

“Now, if you please,” said the trader, “for your
lancet; and leave such things for the old women.”

The doctor was again offended; but the interference
of his adviser had effected one desirable
object, and he now thought him worthy of remonstrance:

“This, my friend,” said he, striking his attitude,
sinking his voice to its most majestic depth, and
stretching forth his hand, to give emphasis to the
oration,—“this is a case of concussion of the brain,—
that is, while considered without reference to
other minor injuries, such as the wound, the fracture,
and the luxation. In concussion, sir, I would
have you to understand, sir, the practitioner has
to contend, or rather to provide beforehand, sir,
against two insidious and dangerous consequences,
videlicet depression and inflammation. Ehem, sir!
do you understand that? If you don't, sir, you are
no better than a—I won't say numskull, sir,—but
something of that sort. Bleeding may undoubtedly
prevent the latter, but it may as certainly aggravate
the former,—it may sink the patient into the
grave,—it may send him to the devil,—it may”—

“Open his eyes, and so rob the doctor of a

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patient,” said the trader, gruffly. “Do you see how
the blood begins to flush over his face? do you
hear how hard he draws his breath? Bleed him,
and he opens his eyes; warm him with bricks, and
plasters, and such stuff, and he will have a brain-fever.
Come, doctor, I'll take the blame. If it
should hurt him, why a vein is easier stopped than
a fool's mouth.”

“Probatum est,” muttered the physician; “for
nothing but a gag could do that for one that shall
be nameless.—The fellow has some gumption,
though,” he muttered to himself. “Well, I'll bleed
him—but I should like to put Dan Potts, the raftsman,
on him, or some such two-fisted fellow, and
have him drubbed for his insolence! yes, I should
like it!”

And grinning with the agreeableness of the
fancy, the doctor phlebotomized the patient.

The wisdom of the trader's suggestion was again
shown in the event. The blood, at first merely
oozing in drops from the vein, at last gathered
strength and volume, and the poor painter opened
his eyes, and rolled them wildly from person to
person. The trader surveyed him for a moment
with a much gentler visage than he had hitherto
displayed; then turning to the doctor, he said,
softly, as if to avoid disturbing the patient,

“Now you can bind up the broken bone at leisure.
Only keep him quiet, and the hurt is nothing.
I did not mean to offend you, doctor—I
have a rough way with me. Treat the young man
well, and he will soon recover.”

With these words, he took up his hat, left the
apartment, and was soon heard stepping from the
porch down to the avenue through the lawn.

“An impudent, ignoramus, unconscionable, rascal,
with no manners, and half mad!” growled the
doctor, giving his indignation full swing.

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

“A wasp-mouthed, sharp-tongued, malicious savage!”
exclaimed his friends; and even the matron,
who had all the time bustled about, seemingly regardless
of all conversation that was not specially
directed towards herself, concluded the chorus, by
muttering,

“And a man that never goes to meeting, I warrant
me!”

“Let's have candles here, Aunt Rachel!” cried
the doctor, indulging his importance, in all the joy
of liberation from restraint. “It is as dark as—
oh! here they come, eh? Hark! there's horses'
feet in the park! They're coming back from the
Rest.—Bless my soul! I forgot all about the murder
and the assassin! Hope they don't bring him
here, slashed all to pieces by the soldiers; work
enough on hand for one surgeon.—Only a simple
fracture, after all! Hold the splints here, Jingleum.
Don't be distressed, sir; won't hurt you more than
I can possibly help.”

With these words, the surgeon proceeded to tie
up the fractured limb, the painter having recovered
so far as to be able to wince and groan to the
heart's content of the practitioner. Before the
operation was concluded, Captain Loring came
puffing and blowing into the room, and being instantly
assailed by the doctor's friends with anxious
questions concerning the result of the late assault
upon the Traveller's Rest, answered in his usual
hurried and broken manner,—

“Bird flown, adzooks—beat retreat in time,—
struck colours, crossed the river; young Brooks
and a posse after him; will have him before morning,—
we will, by the lord! But, adzooks, here's
my young painter that's to paint me that picture.
Hark ye, Harman What-d'-ye-call-it, my boy,” he
exclaimed, taking a seat on the bed-side, and speaking
with rough hospitality; “glad to see your eyes

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

open. Mean to treat you as well as if you were
my son Tom. How do you feel now, hark ye, my
lad? What the plague sent you tumbling down the
rocks, hah? A mighty stupid trick, that, adzooks!
How d'e do?”

The young man's wits were not yet clear
enough to comprehend the question, or to digest
a reply. He merely turned his eyes, with a wild
and ghastly stare, upon the interrogator, and then
rolled them vacantly from one individual of the
company to another. He sighed heavily, and
mumbled a little, as the doctor proceeded to secure
the splints, but made no resistance.

“I don't like that stare,” cried the Captain;
“he looks as wild out of the eyes as a squeezed
frog; and that's no good sign. I remember me,
Tom Loring stared the same way, when the doctor
was fishing for the bullet among his ribs. He'll
never live to paint me that picture! He'll die, doctor,
won't he?”

“Can't venture to say, Captain,” replied Merribody;
“a very critical situation, sir, a very critical
situation. But I never despair, sir; for while
there's life there's hope. My preceptor, the late
celebrated Dr. Bones, of Bucks county, used to tell
his patients, `he never despaired till he heard the
joiners screwing up the coffin.' A very good rule,
that, sir! We'll hope, sir, we'll hope. Pulse very
full and vigorous—will take a little more blood,
and remain a few hours to watch him.”

“Stay all night,” said the Captain; “won't let
you go, sir.”

“As to staying all night, Captain,” said the
physician, with an air, “I can't say. Must look
to my patients in the village—but will stay to
tea with great pleasure. Jingleum, hold the
basin!”

The practitioner removed the bandage from the

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vein he had before opened, and (the Captain, in
the meanwhile, hobbling out to inquire into the
condition of Catherine,) had soon the pleasure of
seeing his patient recover his wits so far as to be
able to answer questions, though he displayed a
much greater inclination to ask them.

His first demand was, “What's the matter?
what ails my head, and my arm? and who are
you all here about me?—Oh! ay!” he continued,
“I remember—that confounded brook! I vow to
Heaven, I thought I saw a ghost, though 'twas
broad daylight! Heavens! how my shoulder aches,
and my arm, how it twinges! Are you a doctor?
Where's Elsie?”

“Well, now, I warrant me, doctor,” whispered
Aunt Rachel, “he begins to wander.”

“My dear sir,” said the physician, “I must beg
you to hold your tongue. Take this cooling
draught, and go to sleep; and, for your comfort,
know that you are now in much better quarters
than you could have had at old witch Elsie's.
You are now in Captain Loring's house.”

“In Captain Loring's! What, Avondale? Gilbert's
Folly,” cried the painter, starting up.

“Be quiet, sir,” cried Merribody. “Lie down,
and keep yourself quiet; or I won't insure your
life two hours.”

“Nonsense, sir,” cried the patient, petulantly.
“I will dress, and get me to the Rest forthwith;
and I warn you to take your hand from my shoulder;
for, besides that, you hurt me insufferably, I
don't choose to be treated like a prisoner of war,
nor to be quartered on strangers.”

“I warn you,” cried the physician.—“There!
was there ever such a dolt?—Hartshorn, Jingleum!”

The painter's resolution was greater than his
ability. His struggle to arise upset the little

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

strength he had remaining, and he fell back almost
immediately in a swoon. When recovered again
from this, he seemed sufficiently sensible of his impotent
and helpless condition; but was still reluctant
to remain where he was. He conjured the
doctor to have him carried in a coach, an arm-chair,
a cart,—in any thing,—but certainly to have
him carried to the widow's hovel. Then, discovering
the physician to be inflexible, he lowered his
tone, consented to remain in the Captain's house,
but implored so earnestly that he should send immediately
for old Elsie to nurse him, that the doctor's
heart was moved, and he condescended to
argue the matter:

“Sir,” said he, “I never saw a man with such
ridiculous notions. Mrs. Rachel Jones here is the
best nurse in the world. Old Elsie Bell is a witch
and an ignoramus, and knows no more about
nursing than she does about Greek; and she would
poison you with some quack weed or another. I
never trust these old women, that ramble about
among the woods. And then, sir, what makes you
think she will come to you? Why, sir, it is notorious,
she never comes nigh the Folly; they say
she swore an oath, when the Hawks were driven
out, never to cross the threshold again, until they
returned to it. Sir, a lady in this house has as
much as admitted, that the old hag refused to come
to it point-blank, a dozen times over. She won't
come.”

“Try her,” murmured the patient, eagerly.
“Say, I conjure her to come to me; tell her I am
sick, dying, and will trust nobody's nursing but
her's. And, hark'e, doctor, where's my waistcoat?
There's a key there—it opens my saddle-bags—
that's it! Send it to her; bid her fetch me some
linen, and such things as she thinks I may want.
My life upon it, the good old soul will come. Send

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

it, doctor, and I'll take all your vile stuff without
grumbling,—yes, all you have the conscience to
give me. It is an awful thing to take physic!”

Having prevailed thus upon the physician to
send his message and summons to the Rest, though
no one perhaps save himself, expected to see it
followed by the widow in person, he swallowed,
with divers wry faces, the draught repeatedly
offered to him before, groaned heavily once or
twice, and then turning his face towards the wall,
endeavoured to compose himself to sleep, while
the physician and all his attendants, save the matron,
Mrs. Jones, stole from the chamber.

CHAPTER X.

The trout within yon wimplin burn
Glides swift, a silver dart,
And safe beneath the shady thorn,
Defies the angler's art:
My life was ance that careless stream,
That wanton trout was I.
Burns.

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

To the surprise of every individual in the mansion,
who had been made acquainted with the
summons sent by the painter to his late hostess, it
was answered in less than an hour by the appearance
at the door of Elsie herself. She was followed
by the little negro wench, bearing a bundle
of linen and other apparel, and in a short time was
inducted into the sick chamber, from which she
contrived, before many hours, to expel dame Rachel,
whom she had found listening very curiously
to the sleeping murmurs of the sufferer, as well as
all the officious auxiliaries. Indeed, she betrayed
some inclination at first to be as free even with
the physician, who had been easily prevailed upon
to remain all night at the Folly, while his friends
returned to the village; but the young man became
so extremely ill in the course of the night, that she
soon pretermitted her scruples, and was glad to
receive the doctor's assistance in quelling the
threatened brain-fever.

This remarkable repugnance of the old woman
to divide with any one the labours of watching
over the stranger's couch, excited no little surprise
among the domestics, and seemed to them to

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

attach a degree of mysterious importance to his
character, which none had dreamed of attaching
before. Long and anxiously, in consequence, did
the good Aunt Rachel and her daughter Phœbe, in
the dearth of all better occupation, apply their ears
to the chamber door, and their eyes to the key-hole,
in the hope that some murmur of the sick
man, some whisper of his privileged attendants, or
perhaps some movement in the room, might give
a clew to the enigma, of the existence of which
every circumstance now left them still more
strongly convinced. Thus, they persuaded themselves
that in the delirium, which all night long
oppressed the painter's brain, he was betraying
divers dreadful secrets, not at all to his interest to
be generally known; and they demonstrated also
to their entire satisfaction, that Elsie Bell, who had
acquired by some withcraft or other a complete
knowledge of the young stranger's history, was
imparting it to the physician, coupled with many
injunctions on the one hand, and as many promises
on the other, of honourable secrecy. Nay,
they both affirmed, in after days, that they distinctly
heard Dr. Merribody, in reply to some
question or appeal of Elsie, say, with a manner
highly characteristic of his dignified sense of honour,
“The secrets of the sick room are as sacred
as those of the confessional; and as for a doctor,
Mrs. Bell, why you must know, we are all as mum
as blacksnakes. A snake was the ancient symbol
of physic, you know; because that's an animal
which, if it don't hold its tongue, never makes any
great noise with it!” They observed, too, as they
surveyed her through the key-hole, that Elsie's
countenance was darkened and troubled in an unusual
degree; and once, they thought, they saw
her shedding tears. However, they heard and
saw little except what inflamed their curiosity to

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

an intolerable extent; and, in consequence, they
came within an ace of being caught in the act of
eavesdropping by the physician himself, who came
suddenly out of the room to demand ice to apply
to the patient's head. Luckily, however, the degree
of trust reposed in him by the widow, as they
supposed, had filled him with uncommon importance,
so that he made no remark on discovering
them so near at hand, except to express his pleasure;
“for,” said he, “I supposed you were all
sound in bed, and that there would be the devil to
pay to get any out-of-the-way thing that might be
wanted.”

“Lord love you, doctor,” said Aunt Rachel,
“why we're all keeping awake, just a-purpose to
be ready and handy; and besides, the young gentleman
makes an awful groaning and taking on;
and besides, there's my young madam, Miss Katy,
who can't sleep a wink, out of concern for the
young man; and she told me to ask you, doctor,
what you thought of the young man's case, and
whether he'll die or no?”

To this the doctor answered, with a look of
great wisdom, `that every thing depended upon
circumstances.'

“And besides, doctor,” said Phœbe, emboldened
by the gracious reply vouchsafed to her mother,
“she is mighty curious to know what all these
things is, the young gentleman is talking about?”

“Sorry it is not consistent with the honour of
the profession to gratify Miss Loring in that particular,”
replied the physician, with extreme gravity.
“Must have ice, Mrs. Jones. Mighty fortunate
I was able to remain all night! You must
bring me ice, Mrs. Jones; and you must just scratch
on the door, to give me warning; and then you
must keep all quiet, and let none approach the
room, unless summoned by myself. And if you can

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

venture to disturb the Captain, and tell him to turn
over on his side, (the right side, mind you,) he won't
snore so hard. Very prejudicial, to sleep on the
back, I assure you! It sets the liver tumbling over
the lungs, and so half smothers one. But let me
have the ice, d'ye hear; and keep all things quiet
in the house.”

Notwithstanding the skill, and (what was perhaps
a less questionable virtue,) the zeal of Dr.
Merribody, and the faithful vigilance of poor Elsie,
the patient continued to grow worse, and was indeed,
towards morning, in an alarming situation,
and so remained during the greater part of the
two following days, not a little to the surprise of
the physician, who phlebotomized him with extreme
liberality, expecting on each occasion to
give the coup-de-grâce to the disease. The truth
is, the doctor, from having witnessed its efficacy
at first, had grown enamoured of the remedy, and
now applied it, we will not say without judgment,
but entirely without mercy; and had not Elsie at
last rebelled against his blood-thirsty humour, and
resolutely resisted all further encouragement of it,
there is no saying where the matter might have
ended, unless in the grave. However, as the patient
possessed a youthful and vigorous constitution,
capable of withstanding disease and his tyrant together,
he was at no time in absolute peril of death;
and being left a little to himself, he began at last to
mend, and in the course of the fourth day was, to
the infinite satisfaction of Captain Loring and his
fair daughter, pronounced entirely out of danger.
His convalescence was rapid, and would perhaps
have been still more so, had it not been for the
pains his hospitable host took to expedite it; for
Captain Loring beset his bed-side from the first
appearance of a favourable symptom, mingling
many joyous congratulations with a thousand

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

exhortations and instructions in relation to `that
grand picture of the battle of Brandywine, and
Tom Loring dying!'

From Captain Loring he also learned some of
the particulars of those bustling events, which had
taken place during the evening of his insensibility.
He was much struck with the strange transformation
of the sanctimonious Nehemiah Poke into no
less a personage than the refugee and assassin,
Oran Gilbert, and was very curious to hear the
particulars of his escape. They were told in a
moment: the pursuers, headed by Lieutenant
Brooks, (young Falconer having proceeded on his
journey with his sister, and the Captain, much the
worse for his gallop, having been forced to return
to the Hall,) had followed across the river, and
continued the search until nightfall rendered it
useless to prolong it. They had, at one time, been
close upon the fugitive's heels, having lighted upon
a pedler, (not, however, Mr. John Green, the Indian
trader, who was safely lodged at the time in the
wounded man's chamber,) to whom the pretended
preacher had sold his old gray horse, or exchanged
it for a better; and from this man they obtained
instructions, which put them in good hopes for
awhile of coming up with him. Night, however,
fell upon them, and the Lieutenant returned to the
right bank of the river, to rejoin his friend and
Miss Falconer, committing the whole charge of
the pursuit to his volunteers, from whom the fugitive
escaped, having baffled them completely. As
for Mr. Green himself, he left the little inn betimes
on the morning after the accident, and was seen
no more.

In regard to the outrage upon Colonel Falconer,
Herman was informed that it had been committed
in a mode especially daring and audacious. He
was entertaining certain gay and distinguished

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

guests at his villa on the Schuylkill, and had stepped
for a moment, in search of certain papers, to a
little pavilion, which he had caused to be fitted up
as a study, not sixty paces from the house, where
he was presently found weltering in his blood by
the guests, whom his sudden shrieks had drawn to
the place. The assassin had already vanished,
having added robbery, as Captain Loring averred,
to murder. The sufferer had, however, recognised
his well-known visage, and in the course of the following
day some traces of him were discovered.
It was found, at least, that a man answering the
description had stolen a horse from a neighbouring
farmer; and upon this horse, or one very like
him, Mr. Nehemiah Poke, the parson, had been
seen wending his way up the Delaware; and as no
one knew or had ever before heard of this reverend
gentleman, it was at once supposed that the
assassin had assumed the character as a disguise.
Before this second discovery had been made, a
courier, whom the Captain stumbled upon in the
village, was despatched to Hawk-Hollow, to recall
Miss Falconer to the city. His intelligence
therefore, though it caused the Captain to arrest
the true offender, was not sufficient to legalize the
capture, especially when this was opposed so
strongly by the zealous exhortations of Nehemiah,
and the discreet remonstrances of the painter.
When Captain Loring remembered the agency of
Hunter in robbing him of his prey, he burst into a
towering passion, and reproached and railed at
him with as little ceremony as he would have done
with his own son, or near kinsman. It was in vain
that Herman pointed out the improbability of a
wild hunter of the hills, like Oran Gilbert, being
able to assume the character of a ranting preacher,
and preserve it so well, and endeavoured to
convince him, that, if Nehemiah were really not

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

the assassin, he must be some other and some
secret enemy. The Captain swore that Colonel
Falconer had no other enemy in the world, and
therefore, of course, Nehemiah, the parson, must
be the identical Oran of the Hollow. This opinion
he maintained with such fury, that the painter, if
indeed he had no stronger reason for holding his
tongue, did not choose to meet it with an argument
derived from his own previous acquaintance with
Nehemiah. He suffered the Captain to have his
own way, and believe what he liked; and, in consequence,
the Captain soon dropped the subject
altogether, to take up another that now occupied
his brain, almost to the exclusion of every other.
This was the `picture of the battle of Brandywine,
and Tom Loring dying,' the consideration of
which, and of the painter's ability to execute it to
his liking, was the main cause of the extraordinary
affection he conceived for the youth.

Another piece of information, which the young
man obtained from the Captain, was an account
of the agency of Miss Loring in his deliverance
from the brook, and perhaps from death. He had
turned upon her a despairing eye, at the moment
when, as he was pitching over the fall, she had cast
out the end of the shawl to him; but of this circumstance
he had retained not the slightest recollection,
and indeed, it is more than probable that
his faculties were at that moment in a state of torpor.
Not content with this deed of daring humanity
(for if he had clutched upon the mantle, the
chances were that she would have been jerked
into the torrent after him,) she had plunged among
the boiling eddies below, and thus preserved him
from a second and perhaps greater peril, and all
the time with imminent risk to herself. His emotions
upon making this discovery, mingled surprize
and admiration with the gentler sentiment
of gratitude.

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“Is it possible,” he cried, “that a young lady
should have such spirit, such presence of mind,
such courage?”

“Adzooks!” said the Captain, setting the matter
to rest at once, “is n't she my daughter? By the
lord, sir, when my son Tom was but a boy of ten
years, he could trounce all the boys of the Brandywine
of his own age, and two years older.”

“So heroic!” ejaculated the painter; “instead of
committing me to my destiny, with a pathetic
scream, to run at once to my assistance, like an
angel, rather than a woman!”

“Adzooks,” cried Captain Loring, “it was no
such thing, when I carried Tom Loring home; for
then she fell to weeping and bewailing; and hark
ye, Herman, my boy, that's the way you must
paint her.”

“So noble! so benevolent! so humane!” continued
Hunter. “Noble impulses are only produced
in noble spirits.—And I really, then, owe my
escape, perhaps my life, to the humanity of this
young lady, to whom I was but a stranger!—
Captain, it was the noblest act in the world!”

“Adzooks,” cried the Captain, “do you think
so? Why then, by the lord, we'll paint that too!
And, now I think of it, 'twill make a most excellent
picture! Why, yes,—what a fool I was, not
to think of it before! 'Twas very brave of her,
and it shall be painted: You shall stick yourself at
the bottom of the brook, and my Kate Loring fishing
you out, with Harriet and me on the top of the
rock; and as for that rusty fellow, the pedler, why
you may leave him out.”

“I am very curious about that man,” said Hunter;
“but 'tis no matter.”

Then he fell to musing, and in spite of the noisy
rapture with which the Captain danced about his
bed, filled with the new conception of

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immortalizing paint, —of a picture which was to perpetuate
the heroism of his daughter as effectually as the
other was to record the glorious death of his son,—
the painter indulged his meditations for a considerable
time. The result was, first, a perfect
conviction that the sooner he made a due acknowledgment
of his gratitude the better; and, secondly,
that he felt himself strong and well enough to
undertake a duty so pleasing, without further delay.
In this opinion Captain Loring coincided
with great satisfaction; and neither the physician
nor his nurse being at hand to restrain him, (for so
soon as he recovered his wits, and began to
amend, they deserted his bed-side, returning only
at stated periods,) he got up and dressed himself
as well as he could, the Captain having in the
meanwhile, descended, to apprize his daughter of
the meditated visit. It was indeed lucky that the
Captain did so; for after the young man had risen,
and caught a view of himself in a mirror, his
resolution melted away like wax in the fire.

“Heavens!” said he, “how villanous I look!
Such lobster eyes, and such lantern-like jaws!
That confounded doctor has bled me like a Turk:
I wonder he did not make a Turl of me in earnest,
and leave me with a poll as naked as a peeled
yam. Truly I am now the Caballero de la
Triste Figura, Don Quixotte in good earnest, as
far as looks go; and truly I had better get me to
bed again, and wait a month or two, before showing
myself to any handsome young lady.”

His objections, however, to descend were overruled
by the Captain, and having been announced
at his own instance, and the young lady having
expressed great satisfaction at the happy change
in his condition, as indicated by a renovation of
strength so unexpected, he was even forced to do
as he proposed, and suffer himself to be conducted
into her presence.

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