CHAPTER VI. DISSIMULATION.
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A few moments later, and Esther sat within her own cottage
walls. Every living creature had deserted it, for Walter Ludlow
with his servants, alarmed at the protracted absence of Esther,
were anxiously wandering through the forest in search of her.
Esther was left alone with the knight, who, having found himself
accidentally at nightfall in the neighborhood, had learned
the alarming tidings of Esther's absence from her brother, and
had volunteered to assist them in the search. He was just returning
from an unsuccessful expedition in a different direction
from that taken by the others, when he suddenly encountered
her a few moments after the stranger had left her.
Esther felt a sensation of despair as she found herself thus
suddenly in the presence of one who had always excited a vague
and unaccountable fear in her bosom, and against whom she
had been at that moment so mysteriously warned. Overpowered
by fatigue, and by the keen emotions which, for the last hour,
had been agitating her, she sank almost fainting upon a seat.
The knight gazed with a long, bold, impassioned glance at
that form of majestic beauty, thus reclining before him, so helpless
and so lonely. A wild fire danced in his eye. A cloud of
stormy passion seemed sweeping across his brow. His features
quivered, his frame shook with emotion. Suddenly he aroused
himself, and with a strong effort seemed to control the struggling
devil in his soul.
“Fool, fool,” he muttered, “wouldst thou dash into fragments
thus the work of years? Has time brought no coolness
to thy blood?”
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Checking himself thus, he busily, but respectfully, employed
himself in assisting Esther. He bathed her face with water; he
chafed her hands; he employed all fitting expedients with the
quiet but active tenderness of a woman. When she was partially
recovered from her prostration, he administered to her a few
drops of a potent restorative from a flask which he bore about
him.
After the expiration of a few minutes, she was herself again.
She looked around in bewilderment, and started visibly, as she
became aware of the presence of Gardiner, who, seated respectfully
at a distance, was gazing intently upon her face.
“Be not alarmed, Esther Ludlow,” said he gently, “although
your brother is absent, he cannot fail to return very soon. In
the mean time, be assured that you are in the company of an
earnest and sincere friend.”
“Where is my brother?” said Esther, faintly.
“Alarmed at your disappearance, he is searching the forest,
attended by his servants. It was my fortunate lot to find you, as
I was returning alone from an unsuccessful search.”
“Would that Walter were here,” exclaimed Esther.
“He cannot tarry long,” answered Sir Christopher; “but if
it be your pleasure, I will go forth and seek him. I may thus
convey to him a little earlier the news of your fortunate appearance.”
“Ah, do so, do so,” said Esther, with a shuddering, imploring
accent, as if she were striving to exorcise a fiend from her
presence.
“I go,” said Gardiner, “although it grieves me to leave you
thus unprotected; it grieves me more,” he added with a sigh,
“that my presence seemeth so odious in your eyes.”
“Nay, nay,” said Esther, alarmed, lest her manner should
have betrayed too much aversion, “but surely it is fitting that
the anxiety of Walter Ludlow should be shortened as much as
lieth in our power.”
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“Enough, Esther,” said Gardiner, in the same melancholy
and respectful tone, “you shall be obeyed. Think not, however,
that I should have been so base as to have taken advantage
of this unguarded moment to urge a hopeless suit. You
know,” he continued, seeming fiercely to control a rising feeling,
“that these lips have never dared to speak of emotions which
are older, deeper, fiercer, than dwell in many bosoms. Is it not
strange that such a one as I have been, should be a changeling
now? Is it not strange that a wonderful and holy vision should
have risen upon and illuminated my soul in this wilderness?
Aye, I have heard a voice crying out to me from the very depths
of the desert. I looked, and behold, it was to me as if the gates
of Paradise were opening upon mine eyes, as if I saw the celestial
battlements thronged with the cherubim and seraphim, and
heard the immortal strains of harp and sackbut, even from
before the footstool of God! I bowed to the dust, as the
celestial vision swept over me.”
“And why speakest thou to me of these things,” interrupted
Esther, “and least of all, at this place and season?”
“Because the floodgates of my heart have been for once
broken open, and the long-imprisoned feelings rush forth beyond
control,” answered Gardiner, with rising impetuosity. “I tell
you, Esther Ludlow, that it is to thee, and to thee alone, that I
owe this glorious vision. I care not what may be the issue of
my mortal passion, nor to how hopeless a life of agony your fiat
may condemn my heart. I shall always bless thee upon my
knees, that thou, under God, art the cause of the new life that
has been infused into my being. If, as I humbly dare to hope,
the Holy Ghost hath descended like a dove upon the raging
waters of my sinful heart, and at last found a resting-place there,
thou, only thou, art the cause. Is this not reason enough that I
should devote a life to your service, if so poor a boon could in
aught advantage you? I speak not of earthly hope, but surely,
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surely thou wilt not reject the devotion of a heart which owes
its salvation to your blessed example.”
“Too much of this, too much of this,” cried Esther, rising
from her seat, with a troubled and almost irritated demeanor, “let
me implore you to delay no longer in seeking out my brother.
This language, be it sincere or otherwise, sounds harshly in my
ears, neither is this a fitting time nor place for such a theme.”
Without uttering a word, and with eyes bent modestly and
meekly upon the ground, the knight glided towards the door.
He had scarcely opened it, when there was a noise without, the
trampling of many feet, the blazing of many torches, and then
Walter Ludlow, informed of Esther's safety by a glance of Sir
Christopher, rushed into the room, and folded his sister to his
heart.
Great was the joy among the inmates of Ludlow's household,
and fervent the thanks offered by them to Gardiner, who was
supposed to have been a second time her deliverer from death.
After a short time passed by the brother and sister in congratulations,
Esther narrated her adventure briefly and succinctly.
She dwelt as lightly as possible upon the singular and mysterious
personage to whom her deliverance was owing; but she was
startled, as she alluded to the youth, to observe the dark
and extraordinary expression of Sir Christopher's face. He
uttered not a syllable, but his dark eye seemed to plunge like a
poniard into her heart. The expression, although fierce, was
momentary. It had passed away sooner than the wonder which
it excited in Esther's bosom. Still, she felt an instinctive reluctance
at dwelling upon the details of her adventure in Gardiner's
presence, and she accordingly related scarcely a syllable of the
extraordinary conversation which had passed between her and
the unknown.
As the evening wore away, the conversation had rolled upon
other matters. Sir Christopher, who was to be the guest of
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Walter Ludlow that night, made some inquiries touching the
expedition of Endicott, who was to have set sail many weeks
before, and was hourly expected in New England.
“I can conceive,” said he, “no nobler lot than his. To
found an empire upon a great idea, to plant a seed silently in the
soil of this wilderness, certain that, under the shade which will
spring from that slender cause, whole nations will repose, is not
an obscure, although it may be a painful and a self-denying lot.”
“Only a petty soul,” replied Esther, who was pleased in spite
of herself, at hearing language from Gardiner's lips with which
she could feel an honest sympathy, “only a petty soul would
deem that destiny obscure by which a few humble individuals
are singled out to lay the corner-stone of an empire such as the
world hath not yet seen. None but petty souls would count the
privations, the labors, or the tears, in the midst of which so high
a destiny is accomplished.”
“Aye,” said Gardiner, “to be not the Cadmus, nor the
Romulus, nor the pirate chieftain, planting wild dynasties with
the bloody hand, but rather the prophet and the lawgiver of an
infant state — to be the Moses, the Joshua, of brave enthusiasts,
who have turned their backs on home and happiness, only that
their faces may still be turned toward God; this is ambition
worthy of a lofty soul!”
“Aye,” said Esther, “so seemeth it to me. England groans
under the worst of tyrannies, the dreary tyranny of the mitre.
Less dreary, less dead than such a land, is this howling wilderness.
Whether such is to be forever the condition of our country,
or whether at some distant day the star of hope is to arise,
who shall be bold enough to prophesy? For myself, I regret
not my lot.”
“Nor I,” said Gardiner, enthusiastically, “for if a happier
day is ever to dawn in England, it must be, methinks, after long
and fearful convulsions. The promised land of religious
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freedom may be reached at last, but a red sea of human blood rolls
between our suffering people and that distant shore. Better, far
better, the air of the wilderness, better the wild altars, crowned
with the virgin flowers of a purer world.”
The hours rolled on. Esther was struck with the coincidence
of sentiment and opinion between herself and Gardiner, and
pleased, not only with the ready response which his eye and
tongue seemed to render to her own language, but with the
sympathetic anticipation by which he gave exact and eloquent
utterance to her own thoughts even as she formed them. She
seemed to lose something of her abhorrence of his person and
character.
“If Maudsley had but thought and spoken like this stranger,”
thought she to herself, after the party had separated for the
night, and she was alone with her own thoughts—“had Henry
Maudsley thus comprehended the depth of my nature, and thus
sympathized with rather than scoffed at the aspirings of my
soul. Alas! he knows not how the heart which he hath outraged,
might perhaps, with the blessing of God, have led his
own to better and holier purposes. Alas! Heaven smiles not
upon us now!”
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Motley, John Lothrop, 1814-1877 [1849], Merry-mount: a romance of the Massachusetts colony, volume 2 (James Munroe and Company, Boston & Cambridge) [word count] [eaf285v2].
