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Upon the afternoon of a glowing and sultry day, the solitary
of Shawmut was sauntering beneath the ample shade of the oaks
and chestnuts which decorated his natural park.

A few weeks had passed since the events recorded in the last
chapter, and the fervid summer had already succeeded to the
coy and reluctant spring. It was early June, but, as is not
uncommon in a climate which loves the intense so much as ours,
the heat was already that of mid-summer.

The verdure of the forest as well as of the open glades was of
that tender and peculiarly vivid green, which marks the summer's
infancy; and the many flowering trees and shrubs which,
for a few brief weeks, decorate themselves at this genial season
with their brilliant garlands, seemed to have changed the stern
wilderness scene where the exile dwelt to a gay and painted
garden. The red rose and the wild eglantine festooned themselves
about the sterile cliffs; innumerable dogwood trees, scattered
profusely through the woods, displayed their large, white,
magnificent flowers; the laurel upon the hill-sides blushed with
its rose-colored chalices; the dainty privet, which loves the
abode of man, hung over the rude palisades and tortuous fences
its clustering and snowy panicles; the gaudy iris and the purple
flower de luce made the fountain's edge, the brook-side, and the
damp meadows gay; while from the stern and hideous morass,
which bounded one side of the park, was diffused the delicious
odor of the azalea, that obscure and hidden shrub which makes
an atmosphere of fragrance about the foul and repulsive swamps

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where it abides, like a sweet and virtuous soul sanctifying, by its
own perfume and beauty, the most squalid and cheerless haunts
of humanity. The woods, the hills, the plains were vocal with
the melody of a thousand birds, rejoicing in the return of summer's
genial warmth. The swift and busy swallow darted to
and fro about the roof of the cottage; the clear, cheerful note
of the quail, calling and responding to his mate, sounded incessantly
from the edge of the wood; the plaintive and monotonous
melody of the thrush resounded throughout the innermost depths
of the forest; while in the open glades, swinging and balancing
himself upon the most slender twigs, the merry bobolink executed
in masterly style his brilliant bravuras, and impromptu
variations.

The golden summer day had been spent by the gentle exile
in protracted wanderings through the forests which girded his
lonely home. As the sun was sinking behind the hills, he
emerged from the shadow of the trees where he had so long been
lingering, and, staff in hand, began to ascend the crag which
rose immediately above his dwelling. When he had reached
the summit, he seated himself upon his favorite spot, and looked
out upon the summer sunset. The day had been one of fierce
and unmitigated heat, but towards evening the white and cumulous
clouds had rolled up, pile upon pile, before the gentle
breath of the south-west wind, and now, broken into wild and
fantastic masses, and colored by the departing sun-shine with
purple, gold, emerald, violet, and every other radiant hue, they
stretched in a flood of glory along the western horizon, now building
themselves up like the walls and battlements of towered and
aerial cities, now changing to a shadowy but innumerable army,
crowding cohort after cohort, with glittering spear and shield and
crimson banner, around the descending chariot of the god of day.

Quivering gently above the sunset's glow, just where the clear
blue of the upper sky was mingling with the emerald green

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nearer the horizon, appeared the young moon's silver bow. Far
along the northern edge of the horizon played the lambent summer's
lightning, incessant, gentle, innocent as an infant's smile.
Throughout the massive foliage of the scattered trees, which
reared themselves along the precipitous sides of the hill, sighed
the cool breath of the evening wind. Soothed by the gentle
influences of the scene, and refreshed by the grateful breeze, the
solitary sat gazing long and musingly upon the wilderness scene,
which had already grown dear to his heart.

The purple hues of evening were already settling upon the
landscape, when the hermit heard a footstep ascending the
narrow pathway, and looking downwards, he saw presently the
tall form of Sir Christopher Gardiner advancing towards him.
He felt a slight sensation of impatience at this interruption to
his solitude. The knight and himself were connected by a
slight and single thread. Blaxton claimed to hold the peninsula
of Shawmut by eminent domain, acknowledging for himself,
as he said, no suzerain but the Lord of Hosts. He had, however,
so far recognised the rights of Sir Ferdinando Gorges in
Massachusetts as to allow his own name to be inserted in John
Oldham's lease from the Gorges family, as one who would induct
the lessee into the property on the opposite promontory. He
troubled himself, however, but little with such matters, and
laughed at the notion of sovereignty in the wilderness.

“Good even, most contemplative hermit of the desert.”
said the knight, as he reached the summit, “truly the path to
this eyrie of yours is something of the steepest. You should
have the wings as well as the gentleness of the dove, to inhabit
this mountain top.”

“Good even to you, Sir Knight,” answered Blaxton, “I am,
as you say, but as a partridge hunted in the mountains, but I
care not. I have escaped the snare of the spoiler, and I love to

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ascend to these contemplative heights, and look down upon
the world below me.”

“Aye, Master Hermit; but methinks thou shouldst have
the wings of eagles, as I but now remarked. My frame is somewhat
of the hardiest, and my lungs of the soundest, but truly
this precipice is something of —”

“I carry the patriarch's ladder with me always,” interrupted
Blaxton, “and climb from earth to heaven as I list.”

“Truly a convenient piece of furniture,” answered the
knight, humoring the humorist, “and one that would be invaluable
in more professions than one. By St. John, half a dozen
such scaling ladders in a siege, would make short work of the
strongest citadel built by mortal hands. I find you as discursive
and contemplative as ever. I guessed, when I tracked you to
this aerial summit, that I should find you still farther removed in
spirit from the dull earth which we have the misfortune to
inhabit. Know you, perchance, to pass to other and more
trivial matters, that the saints of Plymouth are mightily enraged
at the mad pranks lately enacted in the bay by my merry gossip,
Thomas Morton, and that there be serious intentions of forthwith
ejecting him from his present abode by force of arms?”

“Truly,” answered the solitary, whose hermit life had so
much increased his natural absence of mind that he rarely
heard more of any companion's observations than sufficed to
direct his musings a little from their previous track, without
by any means bringing him into perfect communication with the
other's mind. “Truly I have but little sympathy with your
saints, whether of New Plymouth or of other regions. It
seemeth strange to me that a brotherhood of martyrs, who have
fled to the wilderness for conscience sake, should so clumsily
have left their consciences behind them, that the apostles of
liberty in things spiritual, should have been so careful to bring
with them from the land of slavery, the old bolts and shackles

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which have so long been festering upon their own limbs. A martyr
it seemeth is but a bigot after all, and our fugitive martyrs have
been somewhat too careful to bring a brand from the funeral
pyres of their murdered brethren at home, to light new faggots
for their own victims in this barren wilderness. If poor humanity
be so helpless and crippled, what matter whether it hobble
to heaven on crutches supplied to its infirmity by an anointed
prelate or a self-elected saint? Is it not strange, Sir Knight,
that none of your learned and your bold reformers have possessed
wit enough to solve the mighty riddle of their age? Verily, it
seemeth to me, that this eternal warfare of religion, which hath
so long brooded with its gloomy wings over the whole of Christendom,
that this fierce and oppressive sphinx, which hath so
long appalled the souls of men with its fearful presence, doth
but propound a riddle, by whose solution it would be annihilated.”

“And have you discovered,” replied the knight, “in the
course of your lonely contemplation, the mystery of the
sphinx?”

“I have read the riddle,” answered the solitary, “and the
answer is Toleration. This mighty reformation, of which we
hear so much in many lands, and which hath hitherto proved in
England but a mockery, is naught, so long as one fetter remains
upon liberty of conscience. What matter that the scarlet mantle
of Babylon should be rent into tatters to show the corruption
which those gorgeous robes conceal? What matter that priests
should be proved to be mumming mountebanks and mercenary
quacks, so long as still some other fantastic delusion is to succeed,
so long as the whole contest is but a petty struggle between
rival impostors? 'Tis by pondering on matters such as these,
that I have a little estranged myself from my kind, perhaps, for
I feel something within my bosom which rebels at tyranny in
whatever form it may disguise itself. I have built my solitary

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altar here upon this fair mountain-top, where I can commune,
eye to eye, with the Creator of the universe. Truly he reveals
himself to me, not through the awful thunderings amid which
he appeared to the fierce prophet upon Sinai's mount, but
rather seemeth he to speak to my heart with the gentle whispering
of a loving father. Sometimes it seemeth to me here, in this
fresh and unpolluted solitude, as if the vanished days of the old
and sinless world, when the Lord walked in the garden with the
patriarchs, might be renewed, and that his loving counsels might
be intelligible to every human ear.”

As the solitary paused, Sir Christopher, who, as may easily be
imagined, had taken but small interest in the discursive and
moralizing soliloquy of the hermit, but who knew by experience
of how little advantage it was to attempt to arrest the course of
his vagaries, replied: —

“Most virtuous hermit, your words are indeed the words of
wisdom, and I have a profound satisfaction in finding how much
we sympathize in our views of human nature. But unhappily,
O most contemplative of mortals, I have not been endowed
with that generalizing and philosophical spirit, which enables
you to draw such sublime results from your meditations. This
poor machine of mine, look you, hath been constructed for
action, and I feel it already corroding in its present quiet. Furthermore,
if, as you say, the human race be so fond of persecution
and tyranny, why what proves it more than that they were
born to be persecuted and tyrannized, and that the only method
to save them from each other is to govern them altogether? If
men love ceremonies, pageants, and formulas so dearly, what
proves it after all, but that man is not a metaphysical abstraction,
but an unlucky biped, who reasons only through his senses, and
who must be governed through his senses. And now, taking
leave of metaphysics, I would either bid you farewell upon your
mountain-top, or accompany your footsteps to the vale beneath.”

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Blaxton, as may be supposed, had hardly profited much by
the disquisition which the knight had given him in exchange for
his own, but, observing by his guest's motions, that he was about
descending the hill, he mechanically arose from his seat, and
accompanied him along the south-western declivity, towards the
western cove.

“The door of my poor hermitage is ever open,” said the
solitary, as they reached the vicinity of his abode, “and I
could be well pleased, Sir Knight, to offer you its poor hospitality.”

“I am bounden to you, Master Hermit,” answered Sir Christopher,
“but I must even make the most of the gentle breeze
which I see yonder is just curling the surface of the water. I
have a considerable voyage before me to night, and I sought you
upon my way, trusting to communicate to you one or two important
matters. I pray you to honor me with your attention a
few brief moments.”

“Willingly, willingly,” answered the hermit, who had not
heard a word of his companion's remarks, “and I am truly
pleased to find you as prone as myself to philosophical speculation.
A petty world, Sir Christopher, a petty world and a
petty people. A stale cheese at best, be its maggots ever so
busy. The night is like enchantment, the wilderness under this
young summer moon shines like a silver garden. I must saddle
the archbishop, by your leave, and even take a canter.”

With this the whimsical hermit very gravely walked off
towards his homestead, leaving the knight standing near the
beach, quite alone and very much disconcerted.

“Was ever such a brain-sick, moping, moon-struck owl!”
said Gardiner to himself. “The creature has even flown away
from me, after all, in the very breath with which he assured me
of his undivided attention. However, the evening is yet
young, I will at least await for a little while his re-appearance.”

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So saying, Sir Christopher threw himself upon the turf under
a spreading tree, and solaced himself for a few moments by
contemplating with extreme attention the play of the gentle
moonlight upon the waters. As the knight, however, was not
blessed with the habit of imperturbable and reposing rumination
which marked the character of his late companion, and
as he had not sought the promontory of Shawmut that night to
gaze at the moon, he naturally, after a little time, became very
impatient again.

Just, however, as he was upon the point of taking his departure,
he heard a hurried trampling upon the north-western
extremity of the beach. He turned and saw the hermit,
mounted upon a very handsome mouse-colored bull, which he
had brought with him from England, and tamed for his own
riding,[6] careering in a rapid gallop, along the sandy margin of
the cove. His loose robes and long grey hair were streaming
wildly in the summer wind, and as he flitted through the moonlit
scene, he looked more like a fantastic creature of the imagination
than an actual inhabitant of earth.

Gardiner had seen many things and many people in his day.
He had, moreover, become very familiar with the eccentric
and flightly character of the recluse; but he fairly rubbed his
eyes, as this wild creature flitted rapidly to and fro upon the
yellow sands, passing and repassing before his eyes with extraordinary
velocity, the bull lashing his sides with his tail, and
evidently enjoying the sport as much as his master, to whose
every impulse he seemed astonishingly obedient. It really
seemed to the knight that he must either be the victim of some
optical delusion, or that the singular metamorphosis of the gentle,
dreaming hermit, into this mad Minotaur, rushing up and
down the beach in the moonlight, argued the possession of some

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preternatural power on the part of his companion. He looked
calmly on, however, and awaited with patience the termination
of the hermit's gallop, as he had one or two matters which he
wished to confide to him, before he took his departure. After
rider and animal seemed temporarily exhausted by their race,
they suddenly halted, close to the knight, who still lay stretched
beneath a tree which grew very near the beach.

“We were talking of the Reformation,” said the recluse,
speaking in the same calm and gentle voice which was habitual
with him; “but I need not remind you that we have ever been
in England even far behind the Continent of Europe. The
Reformation, the world over, has been unsuccessful, because,
when men are once up to the knees in blood, their virtue is apt
to be soaked out of them; but after all, something was accomplished—
something more was attempted. Indeed, Luther and
Calvin were two trumpets, whose peals even now reëcho to the
world's end, — two rams'-horns, whose spirit-stirring blasts were
potent enow to batter down the outworks of the popish Jericho;
but they are cracked and broken now, and fit only for
children's playthings. I tell you it now needs an archangel's
trump not to awaken men from their lethargy, for they are awake,
but to startle them from their wilful and hopeless madness.

“For my own part,” said Gardiner in reply, without manifesting
any astonishment at the hermit's proceedings, “I care not
whether the pontifex maximus be Pope Harry, who burns a
schoolmaster for beating him in an argument about transubstantiation,
and gives a convent's revenue to a woman who makes a
pudding to please him — Pope Elizabeth, the holy virgin, who,
unlike her father, does not marry, and therefore rarely murders
her paramours — Pope Jamie, who finds it so much pleasanter to
be pope than ruling presbyter, or Pope Charlie, who will not be
comfortable, till he has unpoped himself and feels upon his neck
again the foot of his real and Roman holiness. I care not one

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jot indeed, whether I have Harry or Charlie, Julius or Gregory,
Tudors, Stewarts, or Borgias, to direct my worship, and to
smooth my path to heaven. I have other —”

“Excuse me, Sir Knight,” interrupted the hermit, “but I
even paused to give a little breathing time to Bishop Laud, here,”
continued he, patting the neck of the animal which he bestrode,
and to whom he had given the name of the arch-enemy of the
Puritans. “Poor fellow, he puffs enow to shame his godfather.
There is a prelate, Sir Christopher, will mount the devil's
back and ride him off his legs. Satan himself will be spavined
before his career is over. Then go thy ways, bishop,” he concluded,
suddenly dismounting, and suffering the animal to wander
and graze at will through the park; “I will have more
mercy upon thee than thou wouldst have upon the Puritans, or
the devil himself. And now, Sir Knight, I think you had somewhat
to impart to me.”

“Simply this,” said Gardiner, whose accurate perception always
informed him exactly when a word or two would reach his
companion's mind, and who never showed, by his manner, that
he found any deviation from the strictest common-place in the
hermit's erratic demeanor — “simply this, and I crave your pardon
for not having communicated the matter before. Thomas
Morton hath incurred the enmity of the Plymouth brethren by
many mad pranks by him committed, more especially by an uproarious
frolic for eight and forty hours' long at May-tide. Thomas
Morton will be attacked by an army of saints. He will be
expelled from his residence, and sent prisoner to England. All
this will happen within thirty days, and yet the reckless rioter
will not believe it. These papers, however, which I have withdrawn
from his keeping, I wish to intrust to your hands.”
With this the knight took a sealed packet from his bosom
and placed it in the hands of the hermit, who was listening
with attention. “Mixed with them are several important papers

[figure description] Page 205.[end figure description]

of my own, which I do not consider so safe in my own temporary
domicile as they will be with you, the more so, as this untoward
event which is so soon to take place, hath induced me to
make some alteration in my plans, and will, perhaps, cause my
absence from these places for a season. The papers relate, mostly,
to the affairs of Sir Ferdinando. You will, however, perceive
that the departure of Morton, which I foresee and have accordingly
provided against, although he is resolute in his own disbelief
thereof, may be yet turned to good. I do not regret the
opportunity of being able to communicate through a trusty
ambassador, with Sir Ferdinando, except of the necessary procrastination
which it it causes.”

“Sir Knight,” answered the hermit, “I take these papers,
which you no doubt think of extreme importance, and which to
me seem as valuable as the last year's leaves. I shall keep them
carefully, and in the same receptacle you wot of. I know
nothing, or but little, of Sir Ferdinando, I know nothing of your
purposes nor projects. I care as little for your schemes as for
the schemes of the saints. I have consented, when almost the
only dweller in the Massachusetts, to be appointed by the knight
to put John Oldham into the possession of his lease; but truly
if he has no reliance on any stronger arm than mine, he is
likely to remain out of possession for many a long year. Truly
there is a certain hard-handed Indian fighter at the opposite
promontory, who I think would be more serviceable to Master
Oldham than myself. However, the knight is doubtless the best
judge of his own matters, and therefore even let my name stand.
Have you other commands for me?”

“Thanks, gentle Master Blaxton,” answered the knight,
“but I have deposited my papers with you, to do which was the
principal purport of my visit. I warn you, however, that you
will probably ere long receive a summons to join in the pious
crusade against the anti-Christ of Merry-Mount. You will be

[figure description] Page 206.[end figure description]

called to trail a pike in the holy warfare, or your purse will bleed
for it.”

With this the knight courteously bade the hermit farewell,
and, stepping briskly towards the beach, was soon lost from
view; while Blaxton, hardly heeding his departure, remained,
contemplatively gazing on the sylvan scene before him, now softly
lighted by the young summer's moon.

It will be perceived how very little sympathy, either of opinion
or character, existed between the knight and the hermit, and
how slight and accidental was the band which united them.
Blaxton's mind was so honestly and unaffectedly removed above,
or at least without, the ordinary sphere of human cares and
wishes, and his character, like his life, had through long seclusion
and a systematic indulgence of its eccentric humors, become
so lonely, that he regarded with comparative indifference the
various indications of the projected colonization of the New
England wilderness. The high priest of nature, seated in
simple but sublime loneliness by the side of his forest fountain,
passing his gently monotonous days in exalted communion with
his Creator, was likely to look forward rather with a sensation of
impatience than of gratification, to the arrival of men who, however
earnest and enthusiastic, belonged, as the reader may have
already gathered from his conversation, to a sect with whom he
felt little sympathy. He, however, felt that in the boundless wilderness
there was room enough for nations, and he therefore
could not conceive that a few scattered pioneers could in any
way incommode each other. For himself, he did not dream that
there was a possibility of his own solitude being disturbed, but
believed that his rights of property in a wilderness spot which
possessed no value but that which was derived from his hands,
would undoubtedly be held sacred.

As for Sir Christopher Gardiner, his position was growing intolerably
irksome. After having been kept in the dark for a

[figure description] Page 207.[end figure description]

long time as to the state of the projects and counter-projects for
colonizing New England, he had at length, as we have seen, obtained
information from his coadjutors at home. The information
had, however, proved in the highest degree unsatisfactory.
The dilatoriness and lukewarmness of his friends was becoming
intolerable. The fiery man of action saw himself condemned to
another and a protracted season of languor and inactivity. Instead
of his recruits in men, money and munitions, and an
approval of his purpose to seize upon and occupy at once all the
prominent posts in the country, he received counsels of caution,
procrastination, dissimulation. He more than suspected that
this growing timidity and hesitation at home was indicative of
an inclination to abandon altogether an enterprise which perhaps
was beginning to lose its charms. Still, however, with the
tenacity of purpose which belonged to his constitution, he kept
fast hold upon his own projects, determined not to abandon them
so long as one powerful confederate remained to him, and as
long as a solitary hope remained of a successful issue.

He was now certain that Sir Ferdinando's project was for the
present foiled, or at least postponed. He had received direct
information that a company of Puritans had received a grant of
land from the company in England, a part of it including a portion
of the very territory once conveyed to the Gorges family,
and that a body of emigrants, under highly respectable and influential
leaders, were immediately to set sail for New England.
He was, however, assured that the effort to obtain the grant of a
charter from the crown to this company, without which the
enterprise must necessarily fail, would be unsuccessful. The
attention of government was directed to the seditious, democratic
and dangerous character of the sect who were thus, as was insinuated,
contemplating the establishment of an independent republic
upon these distant territories; and strong opposition was
made, both directly and indirectly, by powerful persons, to

[figure description] Page 208.[end figure description]

prevent the accomplishment of their designs. Sir Christopher was
particularly enjoined to observe accurately and unceasingly the
conduct, conversation and character of the new comers and to
keep his associates in England constantly and minutely informed
as to all their proceedings, with a view to sustain the charges of
their opponents, that the new settlers were not only schismatics
but rebels, and that they were thoroughly and bitterly hostile, as
well to the monarch's authority in the nation, as to his supremacy
in the church. Had there not been some peculiar and
private objects to be attained in the wilderness, and had there
not been at the moment some peculiarly cogent objections to his
visiting England, it is highly probable that the knight would
have abandoned the country upon the instant, with a view of
expostulating emphatically and personally with his hesitating confederates,
and of infusing something of his own vigor and audacity
into their minds. As it was, he saw himself condemned to play
the spy for a still longer period. Dissimulation and intrigue
were not distasteful to him; on the contrary, they formed the
very sphere in which his peculiar genius most delighted to exercise
itself; but intrigue in the forests, dissimulation in a desert,
had but little charms for so accomplished a schemer. He had,
however, under the circumstances, nothing for it but to bide his
time, and though he chafed at the inactivity which was imposed
upon him, he submitted for the present with as good a grace
as could have been expected.

The vagaries of Thomas Morton, morever, had given him a
good deal of uneasiness. He had constantly warned him how
inexpedient it was to excite the jealousy of the other religious
settlers, already established in New England, and how necessary
it was to the final success of their schemes that the character of
himself and his associates should, for the present at least, appear
to be discreet and orderly. But reasoning was apt to be thrown
away upon the reckless potentate of Merry-Mount, and Gardiner

[figure description] Page 209.[end figure description]

already began to fear whether he was not likely to derive more
injury than benefit from his alliance. Still as the good-humored
roysterer possessed many qualities that were highly valuable to
him, and as he had been privy, in a considerable measure, to his
various schemes, it was the knight's desire to manage him and
preserve his alliance. Unfortunately the late May-day festivities
at Merry-Mount had excited the wrath and indignation of the Puritans
of New Plymouth, among whom Gardiner had carefully established
himself during the whole period of Morton's riot. This
he had done, both to enable the settlers to contrast the solemnity
of his own character with the licentiousness of the master of misrule,
and to enable him to observe at once the effects produced
upon their minds by the whole proceedings.

For a moment we return to the solitary of Shawmut. The
day had been one of fierce and unclouded sunshine, the evening
had been cool and serene, but the night which was now approaching
seemed to be of another character. The moon had sunk
in the west, overwhelmed at her departure by the hosts of dark
and shadowy clouds, which seemed to have gathered from every
quarter to hurl her from her throne. The north wind blew its
trumpet-blast through the shivering woods. The scud flew
thick and fast across the upper sky. There was a wild hurtling
and trampling in the air, as if from a conflict of invisible
and aerial hosts. Suddenly a flaming meteor, larger and more
lustrous than a planet, shot completely across the sky, springing
up from the north, culminating almost to the zenith, and disappearing
in the sea with a crash like thunder. Then the thickly
congregated mass of clouds suddenly rolled away, like a scroll
that shrivels in the flame, and the hermit saw in the western sky,
hanging just above the horizon, the gigantic image of a flaming
sword. As he was gazing with a sensation of awe at this
strange phenomenon, which displayed itself just after his eyes had
been dazzled and his ears stunned by the sudden appearance and

[figure description] Page 210.[end figure description]

violent explosion of the meteor, it vanished, while a little above
the quarter where it had disappeared he distinctly saw the images
of four ships, slowly ploughing their way across the blue and unclouded
expanse of ether, with snowy sail and flying pennon,
each, after a few moments, successively disappearing in a mysterious
and ghost-like manner, below the western horizon. The
solitary stood gazing at this strange succession of weird and unwonted
appearances with a singular trouble in his mind. He stood
watching long after the last aerial ship had sunk below the horizon,
anxiously awaiting the appearance of some new and still
more bewildering phenomenon.

No farther sign appeared however. The clouds gathered again
over the face of heaven, the night grew gloomy and starless,
the wind, now veering towards the east and freshening to a gale,
spread its wings, damp and heavy with ocean mist, across the
murky landscape. The hermit, who felt chilled and depressed
by the sudden atmospheric change, as well as perplexed by the
wild and boding appearances which he had witnessed in the sky,
looked fearfully around, lest perhaps the former preternatural but
beautiful face, which had not long before appeared to him, might
even now be gazing through the dense foliage of the oak tree
near which he was standing. He almost dreaded, as he cast his
glances slowly around him, to find those dark and mournful eyes
looking upon him with the same warning and prophetic expression
which they lately wore. But the strange apparition did not return
to him that night, although his imagination, strongly excited
by the unusual phenomena of nature which had just displayed
themselves to him, might easily, it would seem, have bodied forth,
out of the melancholy and dreamy fancies which were thronging
about his mind, some visible shape of mystery and terror, such as
had once before perplexed and haunted him.

With slow and thoughtful step he paced along the verge of
the cove, and then entered his lowly cottage.

eaf285v1.n6[6] Historical fact.

p285-228

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