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Meanwhile the lovely and conscientious Martha, wholly unapprised
of what had befallen her lover, retired to her peaceful
pillow, and endeavored to reflect calmly on the new and interesting
subject, which her recent interview with him had opened
to her mind. But finding herself unable to do this, from the
thousand crowding thoughts and sensations, which combined to
swell the half fearful, half delicious tumult of her gentle bosom,
she discretely deferred the task for a cooler moment, and having
piously commended herself to the protection of her Maker, yielded
her senses to those quiet and peaceful sfumbers, that constitute
not the least among the rewards of virtue and innocence.
On awakening the next morning, her thoughts immediately recurred
to the subject that occupied her last waking moments;
and, as she now figured in her mind her lover, far on his way from
the place, rejoicing in his freedom from the oppression he had
at length escaped, she again and again recalled the tender professions
he had made, and ran over the arguments he had advanced
in urging her to leave her present situation and go forth with
him into the world as his companion for weal or for woe. And
the more she thought of the proposed step, at first so startling,
the less fearful did it appear.—The more she weighed his reasons
with these she found herself able to bring up in refutation,
lighter and lighter grew the objections, which had caused her to
hesitate, even in giving him a definite promise of acceeding to
his request when they should again meet; and as her scruples
yielded, and, one after another gave way, the unchecked pleadings
of her own heart came in, and soon decisively turned the
already inclining balance, leaving her mind now free to wander
unhesitatingly over the new and bright field of destiny which
had thus been presented to her view.

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After indulging in her pleasing reveries as long as inclination
prompted, the maiden arose, performed the duties of her simple
toilet, and was on the point of descending from her chamber to
join in performing the domestic concerns of the morning, when
her attention was arrested by an unusual commotion among the
people below, which she soon ascertained, from some words that
reached her ear through the partially opened door, to be caused
by the discovered absence of Seth, for whom search had already
been made, but in vain. The consciousness that within her own
bosom she harbored the secret of the missing one's absence, which
she might not reveal, made her, for the first time in her life, feel
like a guilty one; and, daring not to go down, lest her appearance
should betray the agitation she felt, she paused at the head
of the stairs, and stood some time endeavoring to compose her
feelings and gain a command of her countenance, which should
save her from showing any excitement that might not be natural
to the occasion. But while doing this, the poor girl was little
dreaming of the thousand times more difficult task in reserve for
her—that of controlling her feelings under the heart-crushing blow
which she was destined the next moment to receive. For the appalling
announcement was next heard passing from mouth to mouth
among the Family, that Seth was drowned in the pond, the evidence
of which, in addition to his unaccountable absence, was found in
the circumstance, that his hat had been discovered floating near
the shore, while, at a little distance, one of his shoes had been
espied sunk on the bottom, which had been fished up and identified.

It can be much better imagined than described what were the
feelings of Martha on hearing these mournful tidings. No word,
or sound, however, escaped her lips on the occasion. She turned
deadly pale, indeed, and, for a moment, leaned her head for
support against the door casing; and this was succeeded by a
quick heaving of her bosom, while with clasped hands and closed
eyes, her trembling lips moved rapidly, as if earnestly engaged in
silent devotion. But the next monent, as she opened her eyes,
and with a firm step descended from her room, a spectator
would have detected nothing more in her placid, though pale and
sad countenance, than he might have seen in the faces of the

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rest of the sisterhood, among whom she now immediately mingled.

Most of that day was spent by the Shaker men in dragging the
pond in search of the body, from which operation Elder Higgins
kept studiously aloof; though the nervous restlessness he constantly
exhibited through the day, and the many anxious and enquiring
glances he frequently cast towards those thus engaged,
plainly told the painful interest he felt in what was going on.
The search proved a vain one. This, however, did not lead any
one to doubt, that the young man's fate was any different from
the one first supposed, as the body, it was conjectured, had floated
off and sunk in some of the deepest parts of the pond. But
although all were unanimous in the opinion, that Seth had met
his death by drowning, yet, with regard to the manner in which
the casualty could have happened, there were many and various
minds: some supposing that he must have waded in to secure
something which he saw floating near the shore;—others, that he
had risen in his sleep and gone in, while yet others considered
either of these suppositions to be highly improbable, since some
of the young men now made known the fact, that Seth was an
expert swimmer. These and many other conjectures equally erroneous
were formed respecting the myterious event, till, wearied
with the fruitless discussion, it was given up as a case entirely
hopeless of elucidation, and it was therefore permitted to rest.

Seth had been a peculiar favorite with the Family generally,
and his loss, for many days, cast a deep gloom over the minds of
the little community, who were thus unexpectedly called to
mourn his premature decease. The impression, however, like all
others of the kind, wore gradually away from the minds of
all except the bereaved Martha and the conscience-smitten Elder,
from whose bosoms the memory of the lost one, for reasons peculiar
to each, was not, as may well be supposed, so easily to be
erased.

Although the circumstances, in which Martha was placed, forbade
any manifestation of her peculiar griefs, and wholly precluded
her from communicating them to others, and receiving in

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return those alleviating sympathies which it is the privilege of ordinary
sorrow to receive, yet none the less heavy for that fell this
blow of affliction, and none the less keenly was felt the anguish
which now in secret wrung her guileless and faithful bosom.
Young love was beginning to shed his sweet and happifying influences
over her pure and gentle heart, and his twin angel, Hope,
had just showed his snowy pinion to her unaccustomed vision,
pointing her to a land of earthly felicity, which never before, even
in her brightest dreams, had been pictured to her mind. But
all these grateful feelings had been suddenly chilled and frozen in
the current that was so blissfully wafting her away to the promised
haven of happiness—all these bright visions had vanished,
leaving her future not only blank and cheerless, but dark with
portents of persecution and wo, from which there was little hope
of escaping. These circumstances combined to render the poor
girl's loss no ordinary bereavement; and most persons of her
natural sensibilities would probably have sunk under the weight
of the affliction. But Martha was a Christian; and she meekly
bowed beneath the chastening rod, and turned for consolation to
that life-spring on high, which is never long a sealed fountain to
the true and devoted followers of Him, who once himself knew
earthly sorrows.

But while Martha was thus comforted and sustained, no such
consolation remained for the despicable wretch who had been the
cause of her troubles; and the more he tried to his startled
conscience, the more did its accusing spirit rise up, to disquiet
him, not only for the hand he had in the young man's death, but
for the part he had previously acted towards him in his general
misusage, and more particularly in an affair to which only a slight
allusion has been made. About a month previous to the time of
which we are speaking, a stranger, from the neighborhood of
Seth's early residence, bearing for him a letter, which he expressed
a desire to deliver in person; but the young man being at
work in the woods some distance from home, and the stranger
being anxious to resume his journey, the letter was at length entrusted
to Higgins, on his promise of delivering it to Seth as
soon as he returned. Having repeated his injunctions, the messenger
departed, not however till the inquisitive Elder had fished

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out of him, as cautious as he evidently intended to be, some
clue to the contents of the letter. And no sooner was the strangers
back fairly turned, than Higgins retired to a private apartment
and broke open the letter, which proved to be from a neighbor
of Seth's uncle, whom we have before mentioned, and which
announced the successive deaths, within a few days of each other,
of that uncle and the nephew living with him, by which
event, it was stated, as no will had been made by either, Seth
had become the legal heir to all the estate thus left, consisting
of a good farm and considerable personal property. The writer
closed by advising the young man to leave his present situation,
come home and take possession of his property. After reading
the letter carefully over several times, the perfidious Elder committed
it to the flames, and spent the remainder of the day in
devising and settling his plans, and in drawing up for Seth's signature,
an acquittance to the Family of all the property of which
he had, or might become the inheritor. And the next day, after
having smoothed the way for the attempt, as he supposed, by an
unusual display of affability and parent-like kindness, he cautiously
broached the subject to the young man, tried to induce
him to sign the paper falsely affirming it to be one of their regulations
to require such an act of the young members of their
Society, whether they had any property or not, when they arrived
at legal age, at which Seth, as it happened, had, a few days
before, attained. The latter, however, secretly meditating upon
leaving the Family soon, had no notion of cutting himself off
from any right of property which might some day accrue to him,
though now he certainly had no such expectation; and he therefore
firmly refused to comply with the Elder's request. After
renewing the attempt several times, and resorting to every art
and falsehood which he thought likely to aid him in his purpose,
Higgins was compelled to relinquish his fraudulent design, with
no other result than that of exciting the suspicions of Seth, that
there might have indeed something occurred at his uncle's in his
favor, and of hastening his determinaiion to leave and go and see
for himself.

It was no wonder, then, when all these injuries, closed as the
dark catalogue was by the death of the victim, rose in review

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before the mind of the guilty Elder, that his conscience troubled
him. He had not, it is true, really intended quite to destroy the
young man's life, but he could not disguise from himself that his
acts, malicious and wicked in themselves, had as much produced
the fatal result as if his own hand had dealt the death-blow, and
that, too, under feelings but little less holy than he need to have
possessed to have rendered the deed the foulest in the list of human
crimes. In vain did he try to shut out these disquieting
thoughts from his mind; in vain did he try, by quibbling and
sophistry to still the voice of conscience; and he soon became
the prey of the most horrible fancies. He remembered the accidental
threat made by Seth among the last things he uttered: “I
will haunt you when I am dead,” and the feaful words “I will
haunt you when I am dead. I will haunt you when I am dead,”
rang constantly in his ears; and so strong were his guilty fears,
and so nervous and excitable had he become, that to him the menace
was often literally fulfilled in the dread shapings of his distempered
imagination. By day he appeared abstracted or restlessnow
heedless and lost to every thing around him, and now wildly
starting at the rustling of every leaf; and by night roaring out
in his sleep and disturbing his wondering people by his strange
and almost unearthly outcries.

Such was the punishment of the miserable Elder; but whether
this was not rather the result of his fears than any sincere repentance
tending to make him a better man, we will not attempt
to decide. One thing, however, is certain; it operated greatly
to the relief of the before persecuted Martha; for, from that
eventful night, on which she parted with her lover, she saw, for
several weeks, no indications of any renewal of her trials. Much,
indeed, did she wonder to what cause she owed this happy exemption;
though she believed it, without being able to tell why,
to have some connection with the fate of Seth, concerning which
a horrid suspicion occasionally flitted across her mind. She tried,
however, to banish such suspicions from her thoughts, and
charitably strove to believe, that her persecutor had been brought
to condemn his own conduct towards her, and had, in consequence,
laid aside his designs against her peace. But she at
length began to perceive that her hopes were to be disappointed

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—she again began to perceive that, in the demeanor of the Elder
towards her, which told her that she was still the marked victim
of his unhallowed designs. And from day to day she once more
lived in the constant dread of being again summoned to the scene
of her former trials. Nor was such summons long delayed.
One day, as the Family were retiring from their noon meals, the
Elder approached the terrified girl and notified her to meet him
alone, after worship, the coming evening, in the room which he
had formerly desecrated by his infamous conduct. But the hapless
maiden was not reserved for so wretched a fate as that which
seemed to hang so menacingly over her. An unexpected incident
intervened between her and that dreaded hour, which was
destined to form the most important era in her life, while it
brought defeat and confusion upon her enemy.

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