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diff --git a/7235.txt b/7235.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42b5ff4 --- /dev/null +++ b/7235.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5118 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bride of Fort Edward, by Delia Bacon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bride of Fort Edward + +Author: Delia Bacon + +Posting Date: October 14, 2012 [EBook #7235] +Release Date: January, 2005 +First Posted: March 30, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRIDE OF FORT EDWARD *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +THE BRIDE OF FORT EDWARD. + +FOUNDED ON +AN INCIDENT OF THE REVOLUTION + +BY DELIA BACON + + + + +PREFACE. + +I am extremely anxious to guard against any misconception of the +_design_ of this little work. I therefore take the liberty of apprising +the reader beforehand, that it is _not_ a _Play_. It was not intended +for the stage, and properly is not capable of representation. I have +chosen the form of the DIALOGUE as best suited to my purpose in +presenting anew the passions and events of a day long buried in the +past, but it is the dialogue in scenes arranged simply with reference to +the impressions of the _Reader_, and wholly unadapted to the +requirements of the actual stage. The plan here chosen, involves +throughout the repose, the thought, and sentiment of Actual life, +instead of the hurried action, the crowded plot, the theatrical +elevation which the Stage necessarily demands of the pure Drama. I have +only to ask that I may not be condemned for failing to fulfil the +conditions of a species of writing which I have not attempted. + +The story involved in these Dialogues is essentially connected with a +well-known crisis in our National History; nay, it is itself a portion +of the historic record, and as such, even with many of its most trifling +minutiae, is imbedded in our earliest recollections; but it is rather in +its relation to the _abstract truth_ it embodies,--as exhibiting a law +in the relation of the human mind to its Invisible protector--the +apparent sacrifice of the _individual_ in the grand movements for the +_race_,--it is in this light, rather than as an historical exhibition, +that I venture to claim for it, as here presented, the indulgent +attention of my readers. + + THE AUTHOR. +_New-York, July 7th_, 1839. + + + + + +THE + +BRIDE OF FORT EDWARD, + +A DRAMATIC STORY. + + +SCENE. _Fort Edward and its vicinity, on the Hudson, near Lake George_. + + +PERSONS INTRODUCED. + +_British and American officers and soldiers_. + +_Indians employed in the British service_. + +ELLISTON--_A religious missionary residing in the adjacent woods_. + +GEORGE GREY--_A young American_. + +LADY ACKLAND--_Wife of an English Officer_. + +MARGARET--_Her maid_. + +MRS. GREY--_The widow of a Clergyman residing near Fort Edward_. + +HELEN, _and_ ANNIE,--_Her daughters_. + +JANETTE--_A Canadian servant_. + +_Children, &c_. + +_Time included--from the afternoon of one day to the close of the +following_. + + + + + + PART + + I. THE CRISIS AND ITS VICTIM + + II. LOVE + + III. FATE + + IV. FULFILMENT + + V. FULFILMENT + + VI. RECONCILIATION + + + + + + +THE BRIDE OF FORT EDWARD. + + * * * * * + +PART FIRST. + + * * * * * + +INDUCTION. + +DIALOGUE I. + + +SCENE. _The road-side on the slope of a wooded hill near Fort Edward. + The speakers, two young soldiers,--Students in arms_. + + +_1st Student_. These were the evenings last year, when the bell +From the old college tower, would find us still +Under the shady elms, with sauntering step +And book in hand, or on the dark grass stretched, +Or lounging on the fence, with skyward gaze +Amid the sunset warble. Ah! that world,-- +That world we lived in then--where is it now? +Like earth to the departed dead, methinks. + +_2nd Stud_. Yet oftenest, of that homeward path I think, +Amid the deepening twilight slowly trod, +And I can hear the click of that old gate, +As once again, amid the chirping yard, +I see the summer rooms, open and dark, +And on the shady step the sister stands, +Her merry welcome, in a mock reproach, +Of Love's long childhood breathing. Oh this year, +This year of blood hath made me old, and yet, +Spite of my manhood now, with all my heart, +I could lie down upon this grass and weep +For those old blessed times, the times of peace again. + +_1st Stud_. There will be weeping, Frank, from older eyes, +Or e'er again that blessed time shall come. +Hearts strong and glad now, must be broke ere then: +Wild tragedies, that for the days to come +Shall faery pastime make, must yet ere then +Be acted here; ay, with the genuine clasp +Of anguish, and fierce stabs, not buried in silk robes, +But in hot hearts, and sighs from wrung souls' depths. +And they shall walk in light that we have made, +They of the days to come, and sit in shadow +Of our blood-reared vines, not counting the wild cost. +Thus 'tis: among glad ages many,--one-- +In garlands lies, bleeding and bound. Times past, +And times to come, on ours, as on an altar-- +Have laid down their griefs, and unto us +Is given the burthen of them all. + +_2nd Stud_. And yet, +See now, how pleasantly the sun shines there +Over the yellow fields, to the brown fence +Its hour of golden beauty--giving still. +And but for that faint ringing from the fort, +That comes just now across the vale to us, +And this small band of soldiers planted here, +I could think this was peace, so calmly there, +The afternoon amid the valley sleeps. + +_1st Stud_. Yet in the bosom of this gentle time, +The crisis of an age-long struggle heaves. + +_2nd Stud_. _Age-long?_--Why, this land's history can scarce +Be told in ages, yet. + +_1st Stud_. But this war's can. +In that small isle beyond the sea, Francis, +Ages, ages ago, its light first blazed. +This is the war. Old, foolish, blind prerogative, +In ermines wrapped, and sitting on king's thrones; +Against young reason, in a peasant's robe +His king's brow hiding. For the infant race +Weaves for itself the chains its manhood scorns, +(When time hath made them adamant, alas!--) +The reverence of humanity, that gold +Which makes power's glittering round, ordained of God +But for the lovely majesty of right, +Unto a mad usurper, yielding, all, +Making the low and lawless will of man +Vicegerent of that law and will divine, +Whose image only, reason hath, on earth. +This is the struggle:--_here_, we'll fight it out. +'Twas all too narrow and too courtly _there_; +In sight of that old pageantry of power +We were, in truth, the children of the past, +Scarce knowing our own time: but here, we stand +In nature's palaces, and we are _men_;-- +Here, grandeur hath no younger dome than this; +And now, the strength which brought us o'er the deep, +Hath grown to manhood with its nurture here,-- +Now that they heap on us abuses, that +Had crimsoned the first William's cheek, to name,-- +We're ready now--for our last grapple with blind power. + + [_Exeunt_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE II. + +SCENE. _The same. A group of ragged soldiers in conference_. + + +_1st Soldier_. I am flesh and blood myself, as well as the rest of you, +but there is no use in talking. What the devil would you do?--You may +talk till dooms-day, but what's to hinder us from serving our time +out?--and that's three months yet. Ay, there's the point. Show me that. + +_2nd Sol_. Three months! Ha, thank Heaven mine is up to-morrow; and, +I'll tell you what, boys, before the sun goes down to-morrow night, you +will see one Jack Richards trudging home,--trudging home, Sirs! None of +your bamboozling, your logic, and your figures. A good piece of bread +and butter is the figure for me. But you should hear the Colonel, +though, as the time draws nigh. Lord! you'd think I was the General at +least. Humph, says I. + +_3d Sol_. Ay, ay,--feed you on sugar-candy till they get you to sign, +and then comes the old shoes and moccasins.---- + +_2nd Sol_. And that's true enough, Ned. I've eaten myself, no less than +two very decent pair in the service. I'll have it out of Congress yet +though, I'll be hanged if I don't. None of your figures for me! I say, +boys, I am going home. + +_1st Sol_. Well, go home, and--can't any body else breathe? Why don't +you answer me, John?--What would you have us do?-- + +_4th Sol_. Ask Will Wilson there. + +_1st Sol_. Will?--Where is he? + +_4th Sol_. There he stands, alongside of the picket there, his hands in +his pockets, whistling, and looking as wise as the dragon. Mind you, +there's always something pinching at the bottom of that same whistle, +though its such a don't-care sort of a whistle too. Ask Will, he'll tell +you. + +_3d Sol_. Ay, Will has been to the new quarters to-day. See, he's coming +this way. + +_5th Sol_. And he saw Striker there, fresh from the Jerseys, come up +along with that new General there, yesterday. + +_3d Sol_. General Arnold? + +_5th Sol_. Ay, ay, General Arnold it is. + +_6th Sol_. [_Advancing_.] I say, boys---- + +_4th Sol_. What's the matter, Will? + +_6th Sol_. Do you want to know what they say below? + +_All_. Ay, ay, what's the news? + +_6th Sol_. All up there, Sirs. A gone horse!--and he that turns his coat +first, is the best fellow. + +_4th Sol_. No? + +_6th Sol_. And shall I tell you what else they say? + +_4th Sol_. Ay. + +_6th Sol_. Shall I? + +_All_. Ay, ay. What is it? + +_6th Sol_. That we are a cowardly, sneaking, good-for-nothing pack of +poltroons, here in the north. There's for you! There's what you get for +your pains, Sirs. And for the rest, General Schuyler is to be disgraced, +and old Gates is to be set over us again, and----no matter for the rest. +See here, boys. Any body coming? See here. + +_3d Sol_. What has he got there? + +_2nd Sol_. The Proclamation! The Proclamation! Will you be good enough +to let me see if there is not a picture there somewhere, with an Indian +and a tomahawk? + +_6th Sol_. Now, Sirs, he that wants a new coat, and a pocket full of +money-- + +_3d Sol_. That's me fast enough. + +_2nd Sol_. If he had mentioned a shirt-sleeve now, or a rim to an old +hat-- + +_4th Sol_. Or a bit of a crown, or so. + +_6th Sol_. He that wants a new coat--get off from my toes, you +scoundrel. + +_All_. Let's see. Let's see. Read--read. + +_7th Sol_. (_Spouting_.) "And he that don't want his house burned over +his head, and his wife and children, or his mother and sisters, as the +case may be, butchered or eaten alive before his eyes--" + +_3d Sol_. Heavens and earth! It 'ant so though, Wilson, is it? + +_7th Sol_. "Is required to present himself at the said village of +Skeensborough, on or before the 20th day of August next. +Boo--boo--boo--Who but I. Given under my hand."--If it is not _it_--it +is something very like it, I can tell you, Sirs. I say, boys, the old +rogue wants his neck wrung for insulting honest soldiers in that +fashion; and I say that you--for shame, Will Willson. + +_4th Sol_. Hush!--the Colonel!--Hush! + +_2nd Sol_. And who is that proud-looking fellow, by his side? + +_4th Sol_. Hush! General Arnold. He's a sharp one--roll it up--roll it up. + +_6th Sol_. Get out,--you are rumpling it to death. + + (_Two American officers are seen close at hand, in a bend + of the ascending road; the soldiers enter the woods_.) + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE III. + +SCENE. _The same_. + + +_1st Officer_. I cannot conceal it from you, Sir; there is but one +feeling about it, as far as I can judge, and I had some chances in my +brief journey-- + +_2nd Off_. Were you at head-quarters? + +_1st Off_. Yes,--and every step of this retreating army only makes it +more desperate. I never knew any thing like the mad, unreasonable terror +this army inspires. Burgoyne and his Indians!--"_Burgoyne and the +Indians_"--there is not a girl on the banks of the Connecticut that does +not expect to see them by her father's door ere day-break. Colonel +Leslie, what were those men concealing so carefully as we approached +just now?--Did you mark them? + +_2nd Off_. Yes. If I am not mistaken, it was the paper we were speaking of. + +_1st Off_. Ay, ay,--I thought as much. + +_2nd Off_. General Arnold, I am surprised you should do these honest men +the injustice to suppose that such an impudent, flimsy, bombastic tirade +as that same proclamation of Burgoyne's, should have a feather's weight +with any mother's son of them. + +_Arnold_. A feather's, ay a feather's, just so; but when the scales are +turning, a feather counts too, and that is the predicament just now of +more minds than you think for, Colonel Leslie. A pretty dark horizon +around us just now, Sir,--another regiment goes off to-morrow, I hear. +Hey? + +_Leslie_. Why, no. At least we hope not. We think we shall be able to +keep them yet, unless--that paper might work some mischief with them +perhaps, and it would be rather a fatal affair too, I mean in the way of +example.--These Green Mountain Boys---- + +_Arnold_. Colonel Leslie, Colonel Leslie, this army is melting away like +a snow-wreath. There's no denying it. Your General misses it. The news +of one brave battle would send the good blood to the fingers' ends from +ten thousand chilled hearts; no matter how fearful the odds; the better, +the better,--no matter how large the loss;--for every slain soldier, a +hundred better would stand on the field;---- + +_Leslie_. But then---- + +_Arnold_. By all that's holy, Sir, if I were head here, the red blood +should smoke on this grass ere to-morrow's sunset. I would have battle +here, though none but the birds of the air were left to carry the tale +to the nation. I tell you, Colonel Leslie, a war, whose resources are +only in the popular feeling, as now, and for months to come, this war's +must be; a war, at least, which depends wholly upon the _unselfishness_ +of a people, as this war does, can be kept alive by excitement only. It +was wonderful enough indeed, to behold a whole people, the low and +comfort-loving too, in whose narrow lives that little world which the +sense builds round us, takes such space, forsaking the tangible good of +their merry firesides, for rags and wretchedness,--poverty that the +thought of the citizen beggar cannot reach,--the supperless night on the +frozen field; with the news perchance of a home in ashes, or a murdered +household, and, last of all, on some dismal day, the edge of the sword +or the sharp bullet ending all;--and all in defence of--what?--an +idea--an abstraction,--a thought:--I say this was wonderful enough, even +in the glow of the first excitement. But now that the Jersey winter is +fresh in men's memories, and Lexington and Bunker Hill are forgotten, +and all have found leisure and learning to count the cost; it were +expecting miracles indeed, to believe that this army could hold together +with a policy like this. Every step of this retreat, I say again, treads +out some lingering spark of enthusiasm. Own it yourself. Is not this +army dropping off by hundreds, and desertion too, increasing every hour, +thinning your own ranks and swelling your foes?--and that, too, at a +crisis--Colonel Leslie, retreat a little further, some fifty miles +further; let Burgoyne once set foot in Albany, and the business is +done,--we may roll up our pretty declaration as fast as we please, and +go home in peace. + +_Leslie_. General Arnold, I have heard you to the end, though you have +spoken insultingly of councils in which I have had my share. Will you +look at this little clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak +of will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than this whole +army's loss. There's a line--there's a line, Sir, that will make null +and void, very soon, if not on the instant, all the evil of these golden +promises. There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better blood than +that shed in battle fields must flow to waken it. + +_Arnold_. I hardly understand you, Sir. Is it this threat you point at? + +_Leslie_. Can't you see?--They have let loose these hell-hounds upon us, +and butchery must be sent into our soft and innocent homes;--beings that +we have sheltered from the air of heaven, brows that have grown pale at +the breath of an ungentle word, must meet the red knife of the Indian +now. Oh God, this is war! + +_Arnold_. I understand you, Colonel Leslie. There was a crisis like this +in New Jersey last winter, I know, when our people were flocking to the +royal standard, as they are now, and a few fiendish outrages on the part +of the foe changed the whole current in our favor. It may be so now, but +meanwhile-- + +_Leslie_. Meanwhile, this army is the hope of the nation, and must be +preserved. We are wronged, Sir. Have we not done all that men could do? +What were twenty pitched battles to such an enemy, with a force like +ours, compared with the harm we have done them? Have we not kept them +loitering here among these hills, wasting the strength that was meant to +tell in the quivering fibres of men, on senseless trees and stones, +paralyzing them with famine, wearying them with unexciting, inglorious +toil, until, divided and dispirited, at last we can measure our power +with theirs, and fight, not in vain? Why, even now the division is +planning there, which will bring them to our feet. And what to us, Sir, +were the hazards of one bloody encounter, to the pitiful details of this +unhonored warfare?--We are wronged--we are wronged, Sir. + +_Arnold_. There is some policy in the plan you speak of,--certainly, +there is excellent policy in it if one had the patience to follow it +out; but then you can't make Congress see it, or the people either; and +so, after all, your General is superseded. Well, well, at all events he +must abandon this policy now,--it's the only chance left for him. + +_Leslie_. Why; howso? + +_Arnold_. Or else, don't you see?--just at the point where the glory +appears, this eastern hero steps in, and receives it all; and the +laurels which he has been rearing so long, blow just in time to drop on +the brow of his rival. + +_Leslie_. General Arnold,--excuse me, Sir--you do not understand the man +of whom you speak. There is a substance in the glory he aims at, to +which, all that you call by the name is as the mere shell and outermost +rind. Good Heavens! Do you think that, for the sake of his own +individual fame, the man would risk the fate of this great +enterprize?--What a mere fool's bauble, what an empty shell of honor, +would that be. If I thought he would-- + +_Arnold_. It might be well for you to lower your voice a little, Sir; +the gentleman of whom you are speaking is just at hand. + +[_Other officers are seen emerging from the woods_.] + +_3d Off_. Yes, if this rumor holds, Lieutenant Van Vechten, your post is +likely to become one of more honor than safety. Gentlemen--Ha!--General +Arnold! You are heartily welcome;--I have been seeking you, Sir. If this +news is any thing, the movement that was planned for Wednesday, we must +anticipate somewhat. + +_Leslie_. News from the enemy, General? + +_Gen. Schuyler_. Stay--those scouts must be coming in, Van Vechten. Why, +we can scarce call it news yet, I suppose; but if this countryman's tale +is true, Burgoyne himself, with his main corps, is encamping at this +moment at the Mills, scarce three miles above us. + +_Arnold_. Ay, and good news too. + +_Leslie_. But that cannot be, Sir--Alaska-- + +_Gen. Schuyler_. Alaska has broken faith with us if it is, and the army +have avoided the delay we had planned for them.--That may be.--This man +overheard their scouts in the woods just below us here. + +_Arnold_. And if it is,--do you talk of retreat, General Schuyler? In +your power now it lies, with one hour's work perchance, to make those +lying enemies of yours in Congress eat the dust, to clear for ever your +blackened fame. Why, Heaven itself is interfering to do you right, and +throwing honor in your way as it were! Do you talk of retreat, Sir, now? + +_Gen. Schuyler_. Heaven has other work on hand just now, than righting +the wrongs of such heroes as you and I, Sir. Colonel Arnold--I beg your +pardon, Sir, Congress has done you justice at last I see,--General +Arnold, you are right as to the consequence, yet, for all that, if this +news is true, I must order the retreat. My reputation I'll trust in +God's hands. My honor is in my own keeping. + + [_Exeunt Schuyler, Leslie, and Van Vechten_. + +_Arnold_. There's a smoke from that chimney; are those houses inhabited, +my boy? + +_Boy_. Part of them, Sir. Some of our people went oft to-day. That white +house by the orchard--the old parsonage there? Ay, there are ladies +there Sir, but I heard Colonel Leslie saying this morning 'twas a sin +and a shame for them to stay another hour. + +_Arnold_. Ay, Ay. I fancied the Colonel was not dealing in abstractions +just now. + + [_Exeunt_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE IV. + +SCENE. _A room in the Parsonage,--an old-fashioned summer parlor.---On + the side a door and windows opening into an orchard, in front, + a yard filled with shade trees. The view beyond bounded by a + hill partly wooded. A young girl, in the picturesque costume of + the time, lies sleeping on the antique sofa. Annie sits by a + table, covered with coarse needlework, humming snatches of songs + as she works_. + + +_Annie_, (_singing_.) + + _Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away. + Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away. + And flies weeping away. + The red cloud of war o'er our forest is scowling, + Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away. + Come blow the shrill bugle, the war dogs are howling, + Already they eagerly snuff out their prey-- + The red cloud of war--the red cloud of war_-- + + +Yes, let me see now,--with a little plotting this might make two--two, +at least,--and then-- + + _The red cloud of war o'er our forest is scowling, + Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away, + The infants affrighted cling close to their mothers, + The youths grasp their swords, and for combat prepare; + While beauty weeps fathers, and lovers, and brothers, + Who are gone to defend_-- + + +--Alas! what a golden, delicious afternoon is blowing without there, +wasting for ever; and never a glimpse of it. Delicate work this! Here's +a needle might serve for a genuine stiletto! No matter,--it is the +cause,--it is the cause that makes, as my mother says, each stitch in +this clumsy fabric a grander thing than the flashing of the bravest +lance that brave knight ever won. + +(_Singing_) + _The brooks are talking in the dell, + Tul la lul, tul la lul, + The brooks are talking low, and sweet, + Under the boughs where th' arches meet; + Come to the dell, come to the dell, + Oh come, come_. + + _The birds are singing in the dell, + Wee wee whoo, wee wee whoo; + The birds are singing wild and free, + In every bough of the forest tree, + Come to the dell, come to the dell, + Oh come, come_. + + _And there the idle breezes lie, + Whispering, whispering, + Whispering with the laughing leaves. + And nothing says each idle breeze, + But come, come, come, O lady come, + Come to th' dell_. + +[_Mrs. Grey enters from without_.] + +_Mrs. G_. Do not sing, Annie. + +_Annie_. Crying would better befit the times, I know,--Dear mother, what +is this? + +_Mrs. G_. Hush,--asleep--is she? + +_Annie_. This hour, and quiet as an infant. Need enough there was of it +too. See, what a perfect damask mother! + +_Mrs. G_. Draw the curtain on that sunshine there. This sleep has +flushed her. Ay, a painter might have dropped that golden hair,--yet +this delicate beauty is but the martyr's wreath now, with its fine nerve +and shrinking helplessness. No, Annie; put away your hat, my love,--you +cannot go to the lodge to-night. + +_Annie_. Mother? + +_Mrs. G_. You cannot go to the glen to-night. This is no time for idle +pleasure, God knows. + +_Annie_. Why, you have been weeping in earnest, and your cheek is +pale.--And now I know where that sad appointment led you. Is it over? +That it should be in our humanity to bear, what in our ease we cannot, +_cannot_ think of! + +_Mrs. G_. Harder things for humanity are there than bodily anguish, +sharp though it be. It was not the boy,--the mother's anguish, I wept +for, Annie. + +_Annie_. Poor Endross! And he will go, to his dying day, a crippled +thing. But yesterday I saw him springing by so proudly! And the +mother---- + +_Mrs. G_. "_Words, words_," she answered sternly when I tried to comfort +her; "ay, words are easy. _Wait till you see your own child's blood_. +Wait till you stand by and see his young limbs hewn away, and the groans +come thicker and thicker that you cannot soothe; and then let them prate +to you of the good cause." Bitter words! God knows what is in store for +us;--all day this strange dread has clung to me. + +_Annie_. Dear mother, is not this the superstition you were wont to +chide? + +_Mrs. G_. Ay, ay, we should have been in Albany ere this. In these wild +times, Annie, every chance-blown straw that points at evil, is likely to +prove a faithful index; and if it serve to nerve the heart for it, we +may call it heaven-sent indeed. Annie,--hear me calmly, my child,--the +enemy, so at least goes the rumor, are nearer than we counted on this +morning, and--hush, not a word. + +_Annie_. She is but dreaming. Just so she murmured in her sleep last +night; twice she waked me with the saddest cry, and after that she sat +all night by the window in her dressing-gown, I could not persuade her +to sleep again. Tell me, mother, you say _and_--and what? + +_Mrs. G_. I cannot think it true, 'tis rumored though, that these savage +neighbors of ours have joined the enemy. + +_Annie_. No! no! Has Alaska turned against us? Why, it was but yesterday +I saw him with Leslie in yonder field. 'Tis false; it must be. Surely he +could not harm us. + +_Mrs. G_. And false, I trust it is. At least till it is proved +otherwise, Helen must not hear of it. + +_Annie_. And why? + +_Mrs. Grey_. She needs no caution, and it were useless to add to the +idle fear with which she regards them all, already. Some dark fancy +possesses her to-day; I have marked it myself. + +_Annie_. It is just two years to-morrow, mother, since Helen's wedding +day, or rather, that sad day that should have seen her bridal; and it +cannot be that she has quite forgotten Everard Maitland. Alas, he seemed +so noble! + +_Mrs. G_. Hush! Never name him. Your sister is too high-hearted to waste +a thought on him. Tory! Helen is no love-lorn damsel, child, to pine for +an unworthy love. See the rose on that round cheek,--it might teach that +same haughty loyalist, could he see her now, what kind of hearts 'tis +that we patriots wear, whose strength they think to trample. Where are +you going, Annie? + +_Annie_. Not beyond the orchard-wall. I will only stroll down the path +here, just to breathe this lovely air a little; indeed, there's no fear +of my going further now. + + [_Exit_. + +_Mrs. G_. Did I say right, Helen? It cannot be feigned. Those quick +smiles, with their thousand lovely meanings; those eyes, whose beams +lead straight to the smiling soul. Principle is it? There is no +principle in this, but joy, or else it strikes so deep, that the joy +grows up from it, genuine, not feigned; and yet I have found her weeping +once or twice of late, in unexplained agony. Helen! + +_Helen_. Oh mother! is it you? Thank God. I thought---- + +_Mrs. G_. What did you think? What moves you thus? + +_Helen_. I thought--'tis nothing. This _is_ very strange. + +_Mrs. G_. Why do you look through that window thus? There's no one +there! What is it that's so strange? + +_Helen_. Is it to-morrow that we go? + +_Mrs. G_. To Albany? Why, no; on Thursday. You are bewildered, Helen! +surely you could not have forgotten that. + +_Helen_. I wish it was to-day. I do. + +_Mrs. G_. My child, yesterday, when the question was debated here, and +wishing might have been of some avail, 'tis true you did not say much, +but I thought, and so we all did, that you chose to stay. + +_Helen_. Did you? Mother, does the road to Albany wind over a hill like +that? + +_Mrs. G_. Like what, Helen? + +_Helen_. Like yonder wooded hill, where the soldiers are stationed now? + +_Mrs. G_. Not that I know of? Why? + +_Helen_. Perhaps we may cross that very hill,--no--could we? + +_Mrs. G_. Not unless we should turn refugees, my love; an event of which +there is little danger just now, I think. That road, as indeed you know +yourself, leads out directly to the British camp. + +_Helen_. Yes--yes--it does. I know it does. I will not yield to it. 'Tis +folly, all. + +_Mrs. G_. You talk as though you were dreaming still; my child. Put on +your hat, and go into the garden for a little, the air is fresh and +pleasant now; or take a ramble through the orchard if you will, you +might meet Annie there,--no, yon she comes, and well too. It's quite +time that I were gone again. I wish that we had nothing worse than +dreams on hand. Helen, I must talk with you about these fancies; you +must not thus unnerve yourself for real evil. + + [_Exit_. + +_Helen_. It were impossible,--it could not be!--how could it be?--Oh! +these are wild times. Unseen powers are crossing their meshes here +around us,--and, what am I--Powers?--there's but one Power, and that-- + + ----"He careth for the little bird, + Far in the lone wood's depths, and though dark weapons + And keen eyes are out, it falleth not + But at his will." + + [_Exit_. + + + + + + + +PART SECOND + + * * * * * + +LOVE + + * * * * * + +DIALOGUE I. + +SCENE. _A little glen in the woods near Fort Edward. A young British + Officer appears, attended by a soldier in the American uniform; + the latter with a small sealed pacquet in his hand_. + + +_Off_. Hist! + +_Sol_. Well, so I did; but---- + +_Off_. Hist, I say! + +_Sol_. A squirrel it is, Sir; there he sits. + +_Off_. By keeping this path you avoid the picket on the hill. It will +bring you out where these woods skirt the vale, and scarcely a hundred +rods from the house itself. + +[_Calling without_.] + +_Sol_. Captain Andre--Sir. + +_Off_. It were well that the pacquet should fall into no other hands. +With a little caution there is no danger. It will be twilight ere you +get out of these woods-- + +_Sol_. I beg your pardon, Sir; but here is that young Indian guide of +mine, after all, above there, beckoning me. + +_Off_. Stay--you will come back to the camp ere midnight? + +_Sol_. Unless some of these quick-eyed rebels see through my disguise. + +_Off_. Do not forget the lodge as you return. A little hut of logs just +in the edge of the woods, but Siganaw knows it well. + + [_Exit the Soldier_. + + (_The call in the thicket above is repeated, and another + young officer enters the glen_.) + +_2nd Off_. Hillo, Maitland! These woods yield fairies,--come this way. + +_1st Off_. For God's sake, Andre! (_motioning silence_.) Are you mad? + +_Andre_. Well, who are they? + +_Mait_. _Who_? Have you forgotten that we are on the enemy's ground? +Soldiers from the fort, no doubt. They have crossed that opening twice +since we stood here. + +_Andre_. Well, let them cross twice more. I would run the risk of a +year's captivity, at least, for one such glimpse. Nay, come, she will be +gone. + +_Mait_. Stay,--not yet. There, again! + +_Andre_. Such a villainous scratching as I got in that pass just now. It +must have cost the rogues an infinite deal of pains though. A regular, +handsome sword-cut is nothing to a dozen of these same ragged scratches, +that a man can't swear about. After all, Captain Maitland, these cunning +Yankees understand the game. They will keep out of our way, slyly +enough, until we are starved, and scratched, and fretted down to their +proportions, meanwhile they league the very trees against us. + +_Mait_. As to that, we have made some leagues ourselves, I think, quite +as hard to be defended, Sir. + +_Andre_. It may be so. Should we not be at the river by this? + +_Mait_. Sunset was the time appointed. We are as safe here, till then. + +_Andre_. 'Tis a little temple of beauty you have lighted on, in truth. +These pretty singers overhead, seem to have no guess at our hostile +errand. Methinks their peaceful warble makes too soft a welcome for such +warlike comers. Hark! [_Whistling_.] That's American. One might win +bloodless laurels here. Will you stand a moment just as you are, +Maitland;--'tis the very thing. There's a little space in my unfinished +picture, and with that _a la Kemble_ mien, you were a fitting mate for +this young Dian here, (_taking a pencil sketch from his +portfolio_,)--the beauty-breathing, ay, beauty-breathing, it's no +poetry;--for the lonesome little glen smiled to its darkest nook with +her presence. + +_Mait_. What are you talking of, Andre? Fairies and goddesses!--What next? + +_Andre_. I am glad you grow a little curious at last. Why I say, and +your own eyes may make it good if you will, that just down in this glen +below here, not a hundred rods hence, there sits, or stands, or did some +fifteen minutes since, some creature of these woods, I suppose it is; +what else could it be? Well, well, I'll call no names, since they offend +you, Sir; but this I'll say, a young cheek and smiling lip it had, +whate'er it was, and round and snowy arm, and dimpled hand, that lay +ungloved on her sylvan robe, and eyes--I tell you plainly, they lighted +all the glen. + +_Mait_. Ha? A lady?--there? Are you in earnest? + +_Andre_. A lady, well you would call her so perchance. Such ladies used +to spring from the fairy nut-shells, in the old time, when the kings' +son lacked a bride; and if this were Windsor forest that stretches about +us here, I might fancy, perchance, some royal one had wandered out, to +cool the day's glow in her cheek, and nurse her love-dream; but here, in +this untrodden wilderness, unless your ladies here spring up like +flowers, or drop down on invisible pinions from above, how, in the name +of reason, came she here? + +_Mait_. On the invisible pinions of thine own lady-loving fancy; none +otherwise, trust me. + +_Andre_. Come, come,--see for yourself. On my word I was a little +startled though, as my eye first lighted on her, suddenly, in that +lonesome spot. There she sat, so bright and still, like some creature of +the leaves and waters, such as the old Greeks fabled, that my first +thought was to worship her; my next--of you, but I could not leave the +spot until I had sketched this; I stood unseen, within a yard of her; +for I could see her soft breath stirring the while. See, the scene +itself was a picture,--the dark glen, the lonesome little lodge, on the +very margin of the fairy lake--here she sat, motionless as marble; this +bunch of roses had dropped from her listless hand, and you would have +thought some tragedy of ancient sorrow, were passing before her, in the +invisible element, with such a fixed and lofty sadness she gazed into +it. But of course, of course, it is nothing to _your_ eye; for me, it +will serve to bring the whole out at my leisure. Indeed, the air, I +think, I have caught a little as it is. + +_Mait_. A little--you may say it. She is there, is she?--sorrowful; +well, what is't to me? + +_Andre_. What do you say?--There?--Yes, I left her there at least. Come, +come. I'll show you one will teach you to unlearn this fixed contempt of +gentle woman. Come. + +_Mait_. Let go, if you please, Sir. She who gave me my first lesson in +that art, is scarcely the one to bid me now unlearn it, and I want no +new teaching as yet, thank Heaven. Will you come? We have loitered here +long enough, I think. + +_Andre_. What, under the blue scope--what the devil ails you, Maitland? + +_Mait_. Nothing, nothing. This much I'll say to you,--_that lady is my +wife_. + +_Andre_. Nonsense! + +_Mait_. There lacked--three days, I think it was, three whole days, to +the time when the law would have given her that name; but for all that, +was she mine, and is; Heaven and earth cannot undo it. + +_Andre_. Are you in earnest? Why, are we not here in the very heart of a +most savage wilderness, where never foot of man trod before,--unless you +call these wild red creatures men? + +_Mait_. You talk wildly; that path, followed a few rods further, would +have brought you out within sight of her mother's door. + +_Andre_. Ha! you have been in this wilderness then, ere now? + +_Mait_. Have you forgotten the fortune I wasted once on a summer's seat, +some few miles up, on the lake above? These Yankees did me the grace to +burn it, just as the war broke out. + +_Andre_. Ay, ay, that was _here_. I had forgotten the whereabouts. Those +blackened ruins we passed last evening, perchance;--and the lady--my +wood-nymph, what of her? + +_Mait_. Captain Andre, I beg your pardon, Sir. That sketch of yours +reminded me, by chance perhaps, of one with whom some painful passages +of my life are linked; and I said, in my haste, what were better left +unsaid. Do me the favor not to remind me that I have done so. + +_Andre_. So--so! And I am to know nothing more of this smiling +apparition; nay, not so much as to speak her name? Consider, Maitland, I +am your friend it is true; but, prithee, consider the human in me. Give +her a local habitation, or at least a name. + +_Mait_. I have told you already that the lady you speak of resides not +far hence. On the border of these woods you may see her home. I may +point it out to you securely, some few days hence;--to-night, unless you +would find yourself in the midst of the American army, this must content +you. + +_Andre_. A wild risk for a creature like that! Have these Americans no +safer place to bestow their daughters than the fastnesses of this +wilderness? + +_Mait_. It would seem so. Yet it is her home. Wild as it looks here, +from the top of that hill, where our men came out on the picket just now +so suddenly, you will see as fair a picture of cultured life as e'er +your eyes looked on. No English horizon frames a lovelier one. + +_Andre_. _Here_? No! + +_Mait_. Between that hill and the fort, there stretches a wide and +beautiful plain, covered with orchards and meadows to the wood's edge; +and here and there a gentle swell, crowned with trees, some patch of the +old wilderness. The infant Hudson winds through it, circling in its +deepest bend one little fairy isle, with woods enough for a single +bower, and a beauty that fills and characterizes, to its remotest line, +the varied landscape it centres; and far away in the east, this same +azure mountain-chain we have traced so long, with its changeful light +and shade, finishes the scene. + +_Andre_. You should have been a painter, Maitland. + +_Mait_. The first time I beheld it--one summer evening it was, from the +woods on the hill's brow;--we were a hunting party, I had lost my way, +and ere I knew it there I stood;--its waters lay glittering in the +sunset light, and the window-panes of its quiet dwellings were flashing +like gold,--the old brown houses looked out through the trees like so +many lighted palaces; and even the little hut of logs, nestling on the +wood's edge, borrowed beauty from the hour. I was miles from home; but +the setting sun could not warn me away from such a paradise, for so it +seemed, set in that howling wilderness, and---- + +_Andre_. Prithee, go on. I listen. + +_Mait_. I know not how it was, but as I wandered slowly down the shady +road, for the first time in years of worldliness, the dream that had +haunted my boyhood revived again. Do you know what I mean, Andre?--that +dim yearning for lovelier beings and fairer places, whose ideals lie in +the heaven-fitted mind, but not in the wilderness it wakes in; that +mystery of our nature, that overlooked as it is, and trampled with +unmeaning things so soon, hides, after all, the whole secret of this +life's dark enigma. + +_Andre_. But see,--our time is well-nigh gone,--this is philosophy--I +would have heard a love tale. + +_Mait_. It was then, that near me, suddenly I heard the voice that made +this dull, real world, thenceforth a richer place for me than the +gorgeous dream-land of childhood was of old. + +_Andre_. Ay, ay--go on. + +_Mait_. Andre, did you ever meet an eye, in which the intelligence of +our nature idealized, as it were, the very poetry of human thought +seemed to look forth? + +_Andre_. One such. + +_Mait_.--That reflected your whole being; nay, revealed from its +mysterious depths, new consciousness, that yet seemed like a faint +memory, the traces of some old and pleasant dream? + +_Andre_. Methinks the heavenly revelation itself doth that. + +_Mait_. Such an eye I saw then shining on me. A clump of stately pines +grew on the sloping road-side, and, looking into its dark embrasure, I +beheld a group of merry children around a spring that gurgled out of the +hillside there, and among them, there sat a young girl clad in white, +her hat on the bank beside her, tying a wreath of wild flowers. That was +all--that was all, Andre. + +_Andre_. Well, she was beautiful, I suppose? Nay, if it was the damsel I +met just now I need not ask. + +_Mait_. Beautiful? Ay, they called her so. _Beauty_ I had seen before; +but from that hour the sun shone with another light, and the very dust +and stones of this dull earth were precious to me. _Beautiful?_ Nay, it +was _she_. I knew her in an instant, the spirit of my being; she whose +existence made the lovely whole, of which mine alone had been the +worthless and despised fragment. There are a thousand women on the earth +the artist might call as lovely,--show me another that I can worship. + +_Andre_. Worship! This is Captain Everard Maitland. If I should shut my +eyes now---- + +_Mait_. Well, go on; but I tell you, ne'ertheless, there have been +times, even in this very spot,--we often wandered here when the day was +dying as it is now,--here in her soft, breathing loveliness, she has +stood beside me, when I have,--_worshipped?_--nay, feared her, in her +holy beauty, as we two should an angel who should come through that +glade to us now. + +_Andre_. True it is, something of the Divinity there is in beauty, that, +in its intenser forms, repels with all its winningness, until the +lowliness of love looks through it. Well--you worshipped her. + +_Mait_. Nay, you have told the rest. I would have worshipped; but one +day there came a look from those beautiful eyes, when I met them +suddenly, with a gaze that sought the mystery of their beauty,--a single +look, and in an instant the drooping lash had buried it forever; but I +knew, ere it fell, that the world of her young being was all mine +already. Another life had been forever added unto mine; a whole +creation; yet, like Eden's fairest, it but made another perfect; a new +and purer _self_; and in it grew the heaven, and the fairy-land of my +old dreams, lovelier than ever. You have loved yourself, Andre, else I +should weary you. + +_Andre_. Not a bit the more do I understand you though. You talk most +lover-like; that's very clear, yet I must say I never saw the part worse +played. Why, here's your ladye-love, this self-same idol of whom you +rave, at this moment perchance, breathing within these woods,--years +too--two mortal years it must be, since you have seen her face; and +yet--you stand here yet, with folded arms;--a goodly lover, on my word! + +_Mait_. Softly, Sir! you grace me with a title to which I can lay no +claim. Lover I _was_, may be. I am no lover now, not I--not I; you are +right; I would not walk to that knoll's edge to see the lady, Sir. + +_Andre_. Well, I must wait your leisure, I see. + +_Mait_. And yet, the last time that we stood together here, her arm lay +on mine, my promised wife. A few days more, and by _my_ name, all that +loveliness had gone. There needed only that to make that tie holy in all +eyes, the holiest which the universe held for us; but needed there that, +or any thing to make it such in ours. Why, love lay in her eye, that +evening, like religion, solemn and calm.--We should have smiled then at +the thought of any thing in height or depth, ending, what through each +instant seemed to breathe eternity from its own essence;--we were one, +_one,_--that trite word makes no meaning in your ear.--to me, life's +roses burst from it; music, sunshine, Araby, should image what it means; +what it meant rather, for it is over. + +_Andre_. What was it, Maitland? + +_Mail_. Oh,--well,--she did not love me; that was all. So far my story +has told the seeming only, but ere long the trial came, and then I found +it _was_ seeming, in good sooth. The Rebellion had then long been +maturing, as you know; but just then came the crisis. It was the one +theme everywhere. Of course I took my king's part against these rebels, +and at once I was outraged, wronged beyond all human bearing. Her mad +brother, her's, _her's_ what a world of preciousness, Andre, that little +word once enshrined for me; and still it seems like some broken vase, +fragrant with what it held. + +_Andre_. And ever with that name, a rosy flash Paints, for an instant, +all my world. Nay, 'tis a little love-poem of my own; go on, Maitland. + +_Mait_. This brother I say, quarrelled with me, though I had borne from +him unresentingly, what from another would have seemed insult. We +quarrelled at last, and the house was closed against me, or would have +been had I sought access; for I walked sternly by its pleasant door that +afternoon, though I remember now how the very roses that o'erhung the +porch, the benched and shaded porch, that lovely lingering place, seemed +to beckon me in. It was a breathless summer day, and the vine curled in +the open window,--even now those lowly rooms make a brighter image of +heaven to me than the jewelled walls that of old grew in the pageant of +our sabbath dreams. + +_Andre_. And thus you abandoned your love? A quarrel with her brother? + +_Mait_. I never wronged her with the shadow of a doubt. Directly, that +same day, I wrote to her to fix our meeting elsewhere, that we might +renew our broken plans in some fitter shape for the altered times. She +sent me a few lines of grave refusal, Sir; and the next letter was +returned unopened. + +_Andre_. 'Twas that brother! Pshaw! 'twas that brother, Maitland. I'll +lay my life the lady saw no word of it. + +_Mait_. I might have thought so too, perchance; but that same day,--the +morning had brought the news from Boston,--I met her by chance, by the +spring in the little grove where we first met; and--Good Heavens! she +talked of brothers! Brothers, mother, sisters!--What was their right to +mine? All that the round world holds, or the universe, what could it be +to her?--that is, if she had loved me ever; which, past all doubt, she +never did. + +_Andre_. Maitland! Heavens, how this passion blinds you! And you +expected a gentle, timid girl like that to abandon all she loved. Nay, +to make her home in the very camp, where death and ruin unto all she +loved, was the watchword? + +_Mait_. I beg your pardon, Sir. I looked for no such thing. I offered to +renounce my hopes of honor here for her; a whole life's plans, for her +sake I counted nothing. I offered her a home in England too, the very +real of her girlhood's wish; my blighted fortunes since, or a home in +yonder camp,--never, never. But if I had, ay, if I had,--that is not +_love_, call it what you will, it is not love, to which such barriers +were any thing. + +_Andre_. Oh well, a word's a word. That's as one likes. Only with your +definition, give me leave to say, marvellous little love, Captain +Maitland, marvellous little you will find in this poor world of ours. + +_Mait_. I'll grant ye. + +_Andre_. If there is any thing like it outside of a poet's skull, ne'er +credit me. + +_Mait_. Strange it should take such shape in the creating thought and in +the yearning heart, when all reality hath not its archetype. + +_Andre_. Hist! + +_Mait_. A careful step,--one of our party I fancy. + +_Andre_. 'Tis time we were at the rendezvous. If we have to recross the +river as we came, on the stumps of that old bridge, we had best keep a +little day-light with us, I think. + + [_Exeunt_. + + + + + + +DIALOGUE II. + +SCENE. _A chamber in the Parsonage. Helen leaning from the open window_. + + + (_Annie enters_.) + +_Annie_. Helen Grey, where on earth have you been? _Wood flowers!_ + +_Helen_. Come and look at this sunset. + +_Annie_. Surely you have not, you cannot have been in those woods, +Helen: and yet, where else could this periwinkle grow, and these wild +roses?--Delicious! + +_Helen_. Hear that flute. It comes from among those trees by the river side. + +_Annie_. It is the shower that has freshened every thing, and made the +birds so musical. You should stand in the door below, as I did just now, +to see the fort and the moistened woods stands out from that black sky, +with all this brightness blazing on them. + +_Helen_. 'Tis lovely--all. + +_Annie_. There goes the last golden rim over the blackening woods; +already even a shade of tender mourning steals over all things, the very +children's voices under this tree,--how soft they grow. + +_Helen_. Will the day come when we shall see him sink, for the last +time, behind those hills? + +_Annie_. Nay, Helen, why do you mar this lovely hour with a thought like +that? + +_Helen_. And in another life, shall we see light, when his, for us, +shines no more?--What sound is that? + +_Annie_. That faint cry from the woods? + +_Helen_. No,--more distant,--far off as the horizon, like some mighty +murmur, faintly borne, it came. + +_Annie_. I wish that we had gone to-day. I do not like this waiting +until Thursday;--just one of that elder brother's foolish whims it was. +I cannot think how your consent was won to it. Did you meet any one in +your walk just now? + +_Helen_. No--Yes, yes, I did. The little people where I went, I met by +hundreds, Annie. Through the dark aisles, and the high arches, all +decked in blue, and gold, and crimson, they sung me a most merry +welcome. And such as these--see--You cannot think how like +long-forgotten friends they looked, smiling up from their dark homes, +upon me. + +_Annie_. You have had chance enough to forget them, indeed,--it is two +years, Helen, since you have been in those woods before. What could have +tempted you there to-day? + +_Helen_. Was there _danger_ then?--was there danger indeed?--I was by +the wood-side ere I knew it, and then,--it was but one last look I +thought to take--nay, what is it, Annie? George met me as I was coming +home, and I remember something in his eye startled me at first; but if +there was danger, I should have known of it before. + +_Annie_. How could we dream of your going there this evening, when we +knew you had never set your foot in those woods since the day Everard +Maitland left Fort Edward? + +_Helen_. Annie! + +_Annie_. For me, I would as soon have looked to see Maitland himself +coming from those woods, as you. + +_Helen_. Annie! Annie Grey! You must not, my sister--do not speak that +name to me, never again, _never_. + +_Annie_. Why, Helen, I am sorry to have grieved you thus; but I +thought--Look! look! There go those officers again,--there, in the lane +between the orchards, Scarcely half an hour ago they went by to the fort +in just such haste. There is something going on there, I am sure. + + (_Helen rises from the window, and walks the room_.) + +_Annie_. In truth there was a rumor this afternoon,--you are so timid +and fanciful, our mother chose you should not hear it while it was rumor +only; but 'tis said that a party of the enemy have been seen in those +woods to-day, and, among them, the Indians we have counted so friendly. +Do you hear me, Helen? + +_Helen_. That he should _live_ still! Yes, it is all real still! That +heaven of my thought, that grows so like a pageant to me, is still +_real_ somewhere. Those eyes--they are darkly shining now; this very +moment that passes _me_, drinks their beauty;--that voice,--that +tone,--that very tone--on some careless ear, even now it wastes its +luxury of blessing. Continents of hail and darkness, the polar seas--all +earth's distance, could never have parted me from him; but now I live in +the same world with him, and the everlasting walls blacken between us. +Those looks may shine on the dull earth and senseless stones, but not on +me; on uncaring eyes, but not on mine; though for one moment of their +lavished wealth, I could cheaply give a life without them; never again, +never, never, never shall their love come to me. + +_Annie_. Who would have thought she could cherish in secret a grief like +this? Dear sister, we all believed you had forgotten that sad affair +long ago,--we thought that you were happy now. + +_Helen_. Happy?--I am, you were right; but I have been to-day down to +the very glen where we took that last lovely walk together, and all the +beautiful past came back to me like life.--I _am_ happy; you must count +me so still. + +_Annie_. With what I have just now heard, how can I? + +_Helen_. It is this war that has parted us; and so, this is but my part +in these noble and suffering times, and that great thought reaches +overall my anguish. But for this war I might have been--hath this world +such flowers, and do they call it a wilderness?--I might have been, even +now, you know it, Annie, his wife, his wife, _his_. But our hearts are +cunningly made, many-stringed; and often much good music is left in them +when we count them broken. That which makes the bitterness of this lot, +the inconceivable, unutterable bitterness of it, even that I can bear +now, calmly, and count it God's kindness too. + +_Annie_. I do not understand you, sister. + +_Helen_. What if this young royalist, Annie, when he quarrelled with my +brother, and took arms against my country, what if he had kept faith to +_me?_ + +_Annie_. Well. + +_Helen. Well?_ Oh no, it would not have been well. Why, my home would +have been with that pursuing army now, my fate bound up with that hollow +cause,--these very hands might have fastened the sword of oppression; +nay, the sword whose edge was turned against you, against you all, and +against the cause, that with tears, night and morning, you were praying +for, and with your heart's best blood stood ready to seal every hour. +No, it is best as it is; or if my wish grows deeper still, if in my +heart I envy, with murmuring thought, the blessed brides, on whose +wedding dawns the laughing sun of peace, then with a wish I cast away +the glory of these suffering times.--It is best as it is. I am content. + +_Annie_. I wish I could understand you, Helen. You say, "if he had kept +faith to you;"--carried you off, you mean! Do you mean, sister Helen, +that of your own will you would ever have gone with him, with Everard +Maitland,--that traitor? + +_Helen. Gone with him_? Would I not? Would I not? Dear child, we talk of +what, as yet, you know nothing of. Gone with _him_? Some things are +holy, Annie, only until the holier come. + +_Annie_. (_looking toward the door_.) Stay, stay. What is it, George? + + (_George Grey comes in_.) + +_George_. I was seeking our mother. What should it be, but ill news? +This tide is against us, and if it be not well-nigh full, we may e'en +fold our arms for the rest. There, read that. (_Throwing her a letter_.) + +Every face you see looks as if a thunder-cloud were passing it. I heard +one man say, just now, as I came in, that the war would be over in a +fortnight's time. There'll be some blood spilt ere then, I reckon +though. + +_Helen_. What paper is that that reddens her cheek so suddenly? + +_Annie_. The McGregor's!--think of it, Helen,--gone over to the British +side, and St. John of the Glens, and--who brought you this letter, +George? 'Tis false! I do not believe it, not a word of it. Why, here are +twenty names, people that we know, the most honorable, too,--forsaking +us now, at such a crisis! + +_George_. Self-defence, self-defence, sister; their lands and their +houses must be saved from devastation. What sort of barracks think you, +would that fine country-seat of McGregor's make?--and St. John's--_he_ +is a farmer you know, and his fields are covered with beautiful grain, +that a week will ripen, and so, he is for turning his sword into a +sickle;--besides, there are worse things than pillage threatened here. +Look, (_unfolding a hand-bill_.) Just at this time comes this villainous +proclamation from Skeensborough, scattered about among our soldiers +nobody knows how, half of them on the eve of desertion before, and the +other half--what ails you, Helen? + +_Helen_. There he stands! + +_Annie_. Is she crazed? Why do you clasp your hands so wildly? for +Heaven's sake, Helen!--her cheek is white as death.--Helen! + +_Helen_. Is he gone, Annie? + +_Annie_. As I live, I do not know what you are talking of. Nay, look; +there is no one here, none that you need fear, most certainly. + +_Helen_. I saw him, his eye was on me; there he stood, looking through +that window, smiling and beckoning me. + +_George_. Saw him? Who, in Heaven's name? This is fancy-work. + +_Helen_. I saw him as I see you now. He stood on that roof,--an +Indian,--I saw the crimson bars on his face, and the blanket, and the +long wild hair on his shoulders; and--and, I saw the gleaming knife in +his girdle,--Oh God! I did. + +_George_. Ay, ay, 'twas that scoundrel that dogged us in our way home, +I'll lay my life it was. + +_Helen_. In our way home? An _Indian_, I said. + +_George_. Well, well, and I say an Indian, a rascal Indian, was watching +and following us all the way home just now. + +_Helen_. George! + +_George_. Then you did not see him after all. In truth, I did not mean +you should, for we could not have hurried more, but all the time we sat +in that shanty, while it rained, about as far off as that chair from me, +stood this same fellow among the bushes, watching us, or rather you. And +you saw him here t He might have crept along by that orchard wall. What +are you laughing at, Annie?--I will go and see what sort of a guard we +have. + +_Annie_. If you knew as much of Helen's Indians as I do, you would +hardly be in such a hurry, George, I mean about this one that was here +just now, for there are Indians in yonder forest I suppose; but since we +were so high, I never walked in the woods with her once, but that we +encountered one, or heard his steps among the bushes at least; and if it +chanced to be as late as this, there would be half a dozen of them way +laying us in the road,--but sometimes they turned out squirrels, and +sometimes logs of wood, and sometimes mere air, air of about this color. +We want a little light, that is all. There is no weapon like that for +these fancy-people. I can slay a dozen of them with a candle's beams. + + (_George goes out_.) + +_Helen_. Do not laugh at me to-night, Annie. + +_Annie_. But what should the Indians want of you, pry'thee; tell me +that, Helen? + +_Helen_. God knows. Wait till the sun sets to-morrow, and I will laugh +with you if you are merry then. + +_Annie_. Why to-morrow?--because it is our last day +here? Tuesday--Wednesday--yes; the next day we +shall be on the road to Albany. + + [_Exit_. + +_Helen_. I am awake now. Watched me in the glen?--followed me home? +Those woods are full of them.--But what has turned their wild eyes on +me? + +It is but one day longer;--we have counted many, in peril and fear, and +_this_, is the last;--even now how softly the fearful time wastes. _One +day!_--Oh God, thou only knowest what its shining walls encircle. (_She +leans on the window, musing silently_.) Two years ago I stood here, and +prayed to die.-On that same tree my eye rested then. With what visions +of hope I played under it once, building bowers for fairies I verily +thought would come, and dreaming, with yearning heart, of glorious and +beautiful things this world _hath not_. But, that wretched day, through +blinding tears, I saw the sunlight on its glossy leaves, and I said, +'let me see that light no more.' Surely the bitterness is deep when that +which hath colored all our unfolded being, is a weariness. For what more +hath life for me I thought, its lesson is learned and its power is +spent,--it can please, and it can trouble me no more; and why should I +stay here in vain and wearily? + +It was sad enough, indeed, to see the laughing spring returning again, +when the everlasting winter had set in within, to link with each change +of the varied year, sweet with a life's memories, such mournfulness; +laying by, one by one, all hope's blessed spells, withered and broken +forever,--the moonlight, the songs of birds, the blossom showers of +April, the green and gold of autumn's sunset,--it was sad, but it was +not in vain.--Not in vain, Oh God, didst thou deny that weeping prayer. + + (_A merry voice is heard without, and a child's face peeps + through the window that overlooks the orchard_.) + +_Child_. Look! look! sister Helen! see what I have found on the roof of +the piazza here,--all covered with wampum and scarlet, and here are +feathers too--two feathers in it, blue and yellow--eagle's feathers they +are, I guess. + +_Helen_ (_approaching the window_.) Let me see, Willy. What, did you +find it here? + +_Willy._ Just under the window here. Frank and I were swinging on the +gate; and--there is something hard in it, Helen,--feel. + +_Helen_. Yes, it is very curious; but-- + +_Willy_. There comes Netty with the candle; now we can see to untie this +knot. + +_Helen_. Willy, dear Willy, you must give it to me, you must indeed, +and--I will paint you a bird to-morrow. + +_Willy_. A blue-bird, will you? A real one? + +_Helen_. Yes, yes;--run down little climber; see how dark it grows, and +Frank is waiting, see. + +_Willy_. Well. But mind you, it must be a blue bird then. A real one. +With the red on his breast, and all. + + [_Exit_. + + (_She walks to the table, unfastening the envelope_.) + +_Helen_. What sent that thrill of forgotten life through me then?--that +wild, delicious thrill? This is strange, indeed. A sealed pacquet +within! and here-- + + (_She glances at the superscription, and the pacquet + drops from her hand_.) + +No--no. I have seen that hand-writing in my dreams before, but it +dissolved always. What's joy better than grief, if it pierce thus? Can +never a one of all the soul's deep melodies on this poor instrument be +played out, then--trembling and jarring thus, even at the breath of its +most lovely passion.--And yet, it is some cruel thing, I know. + + (_The pacquet opened, discovers Helen's miniature, a book, + a ring, and other tokens_.) + +Cruel indeed! That little rose!--He might have spared me this. A dull +reader I were, in truth, if this needed comment,--but I knew it before. +He might have spared me this. + + (_She leans over the recovered relics with a burst + of passionate weeping_.) + +Yet, who knows--(_lifting her head with a sudden smile_,) some trace, +some little curl of his pencil I may find among these leaves yet, to +tell me, as of old,-- + + (_A letter drops from the book, she tears it eagerly open_.) + +(_Reading_.) These cold words I understand, but--_letters!_--He wrote me +none! Was there ever a word between us, from the hour when he left me, +his fancied bride, to that last meeting, when, at a word, and ere I knew +what I had said, he turned on me that cold and careless eye, and left +me, haughtily and forever? And now--(_reading_)--misapprehension, has it +been! Is the sun on high again?--in this black and starless night--the +noonday sun? He loves me still.--Oh! this joy weighs like grief. + +Shall I see him again? Joy! joy! Beautiful sunshine joy! Who knows the +soul's rich depths till joy hath lighted them?--from the dim and +sorrowful haunts of memory will he come again into the living present! +Shall I see those eyes, looking on me? Shall I hear my name in that lost +music sound once more?--His?--Am I his again? New mantled with that +shining love, like some glorious and beautiful stranger I seem to +myself, _Helen_--the bright and joy-wreathed thing his voice makes that +name mean--My life will be all full of that blest music. I shall be +Helen, evermore his--his. + +No,--it would make liars of old sages,--and all books would read wrong. +A life of such wild blessedness? It would be fearful like living in some +magic land, where the honest laws of nature were not. A life?--a moment +were enough. Ages of common life would shine in it. (_Reading again_.) +"Elliston's hut?"--"If I choose that the return should be mutual,--and +the memorials of a despised regard can at best be but an indifferent +possession;--a pacquet reinclosed directly in this same envelope, and +left at the hut of the missionary, cannot fail to reach him safely." + +"Safely."--Might he not come there safely then? And might I not go +thither safely too, in to-morrow's light? O God, let not Passion lead me +now. The centre beaming truth, not passion's narrow ray, must light me +here!--But am I not his? + +Once more, one horizon circles, for a day, our long-parted destinies; +another, and another wave of these wild times will drift them asunder +again, forever; and I count myself his wife. His wife?--nay, his bride, +his two years' bride, to-night, his wife, to-morrow. He must meet me +there, (_writing_) at noon, I will say.--I did not think that little hut +of logs should have been my marriage-hall;--he must meet me there, and +to-morrow is my bridal day. + + + + + + + + +PART THIRD. + + * * * * * + +FATE. + + * * * * * + +DIALOGUE I. + +SCENE. _The hill--Night--Large fires burning--Sentinels dimly seen in + the back-ground. A young Indian steals carefully from the + thicket. He examines the ground and the newly-felled trees._ + + +_Indian_. One, two, three. And this is ringed. The dogs have spoiled the +council-house. + + (_Soldiers rush forward_.) + +_1st Sol_. So, Mr. Red-skin! would not you like a scalp or two now, to +string on your leggings? Maybe we can help you to one or so. Hold fast. +Take care of that arm, I know him of old. + + (_The Indian, with a violent struggle, disengages himself, + and darts into the thicket_.) + +No? well,--dead or alive, we must have you on our side again. +(_Firing_.) + +_2nd Sol_. _He's_ fixed, Sir. + +_1st Sol_. Hark. Hark,--off again! Let me go. What do you hold me for, +you scoundrel? + +_2nd Sol_. Don't make a fool of yourself, Will Wilson. There will be a +dozen of them yelling around you there. Besides, he is half way to the +swamp by this. Look here; what's this, in the grass here? + +_1st Sol_. There was something in his hand, but he clenched it through +it all,--this is a letter. Bring it to the fire. + +_2nd Sol_. (_reading_.) "_This by the Indian, as in case I am taken, he +may reach the camp in safety. Not over three thousand men in all, I +should think,--very little ammunition, soldiers mostly discouraged.--In +Albany, they are tearing the lead off the windows of the houses, and +taking the weights from the shops for ball. Talk of retreating on +Thursday to the new encampment, five miles below. More when I get to +you_." + +_More!_ Humph! A pretty string of lies he has got here already. This +must go to the General, Dick. + + [_Exeunt_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE II. + +SCENE. _Chamber in the Parsonage. Moonlight. Annie sitting by the window, + the door open into an adjoining room_. + + +_Annie_. (_Calling_.) Come, come,--why do you sit there scribbling so +late, Helen? Come, and enjoy this beautiful night with me. Ay, what a +world of invisible life amid the dew and darkness utters its glad +voices; even the little insect we never saw by day, makes us feel for +once the great brotherhood of being. This day week we shall be in +Albany,--no more such scenes as this then. + + (_Helen approaches the window, and puts her arm gently + around her sister_.) + +_Helen_. No more!--It was a sad word you were saying, Annie. + +_Annie_. How you startled me. Your hands are cold,--cold as icicles, and +trembling too. What ails you, Helen? + +_Helen_. 'Tis nothing.--How often you and I have stood together thus, +looking down on that old bridge.--Summer and winter.--Do you remember +the cold snowy moonlights of old, when the sound of the distant bell had +hope in it? We shall stand together thus, no more. + +_Annie_. Do not speak so sadly, Helen. I cannot think they will destroy +our home in mere wantonness. Was there not some one coming up the path +just now? Hark! there is news with that tone. + + [_Exit_. + +_Helen_. A little more, an hour perchance, and he will read my letter. +Why do I tremble thus? Is it because I have done wrong, that these dark +misgivings haunt me? No,--it is not remorse--'tis very like--yet remorse +it is not. Danger, there is none. I shall but walk to the wood-side as +to-day, that little path to the hut is quickly trod, and he will be +waiting there. I shall be safe then, safe as I care to be.--Why do I +stand here reasoning thus? Safe? And if I were not, what is it to me +now? The dark plan is laid. The fearful acting now is all that's left +for me. + +This must go to the lodge to-night, and ere my mother returns;--to tell +them now, would be to make my scheme impossible. + + (_She begins, with a reluctant air, to fold the dresses, + which are lying loosely by her_.) + +Oh God! whence do these dark and horrible thoughts grow?--Nay, feeling +not born of thought. That wedding robe looks like a shroud to me! I +cannot. Shadows from things unseen are upon me. The future is a night of +tempest, where I hear nothing but the breaking boughs, and the whirl and +crash of the mourning blast. Oh God! there is no refuge for the fearful, +but in thee.--To thee--no. If there is power in prayer of mine, hath it +not already doomed that wicked cause, my fate is linked with now. I +cannot pray.--Can I not?--How the pure strength comes welling up from +its infinite depths. + +Hear me--not with lip service, I beseech thee now, but with the +earnestness that stays the rushing heart's blood in its way.--Hear me. +Let the high cause of right and freedom, whose sad banner, now, on +yonder hill, floats in this summer air; whose music on this soft +night-breeze is borne--let it prevail--though _I_, with all this +sensitive, warm, shrinking life; with all this new-found wealth of love +and hope, lie on its iron way. + +I am safe now.--This life that I feel now, steel cannot reach. + + (_Annie enters_.) + +_Annie_. Dear Helen, dress yourself. It is all true! We must go +to-night, we must indeed. They are dismantling the fort now.--Come to +the door, and you can hear them if you will; and here is word from +Henry, we must be ready before morning--the British are within sight. Do +you hear me, Helen? Do not stand looking at me in that strange way. + +_Helen_. To-night! + +_Annie_. I was frightened myself at first, sadly; but there is no +danger, not the least. We shall be in Albany to-morrow, Henry says. +Come, Helen, there is no one to see to any thing but ourselves. They are +running about like mad creatures there below, and the children, are +crying, and such a time you never saw. + +_Helen_. To-night! That those beautiful lips should speak it! Take it +back. It cannot be. It must not be. + +_Annie_. Why do you look so reproachfully at me? Helen, you astonish and +frighten me! + +_Helen_. Yes--yes--I see it all. And why could I not have known this one +hour sooner?--Even now it may not be too late. Annie-- + +_Annie_. Thank Heaven,--there is my mother's voice at last. + +_Helen_. Annie, stay. Do not mark what I have said in the bewilderment +of this sudden fear. Is George below?--Who brought this news? + +_Annie_. One of the men from the fort.--George has not been home since +you sent him to Elliston's. She is calling me. Make haste and come down, +Helen. + + [_Exit_. + +_Helen_. They will leave me alone. They will leave me here alone. And +why could I not have known this one hour sooner?--I could have bid him +come to-night--If the invisible powers are plotting against me, it is +well. Could I have thought of this?--and yet, how like something I had +known before, it all comes upon me.--Can I stay here alone?--Could +I?--No never, never! He must come for me to-night. Perchance that +pacquet still lies at yonder hut, and it is not yet too late to recal my +letter;--if it is--if it is, I must find some other messenger. Thank +God!--there is one way. Elliston can send to that camp to-night. He +can--even now,--He can--he will.-- + + [_Exit_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE III. + +SCENE. _The porch. Helen waiting the return of her messenger from the hut_. + + +_Helen_. How quiet and soft it all lies in this solemn light. Is it +illusion?--can it be?--that old, familiar look, that from these woods +and hills, and from this moon-lit meadow, seems to smile on me now with +such a holy promise of protection and love?--The merry trill in this +apple-tree is the very sound that, waking from my infant sleep in the +hush of the summer midnight, of old lulled, nay, wakened my first inward +thought. Oh that my heart's youngest religion could come again, the +feeling with which a little child looks up to these mighty stars, as the +spangles on his home-roof, while he stands smiling beneath the awful +shelter of the skies, as under a father's dome. But these years show us +the evil that mocks that trust. + +'Tis he,--What a mere thread of time separates me from my fate, and yet +the darkness of ages could not hide it more surely. Already he has +reached the lane. Another minute will show me all. Will the pacquet be +in his hand, or will it not? I will be calm--it shall be like a picture +to me. + +Ah! there is an immeasurable power about us, a foreign and strange +thing, that answers not to the soul, that seems to know or to heed +nothing of the living suffering, rejoicing being of the spirit. Why +should I struggle with it any longer? From my weeping childhood to this +hour, it hath set its iron bars about me; no--softly yielding, hath it +not sometimes, the long, undreamed-of vistas opened, bright as +heaven,--and now, maybe--how slow he moves--even now perchance.--This is +wrong. The Infinite is One. The Goodness Infinite, whose everlasting +smile lighteth the inner soul, and the Power Infinite, whose alien touch +without, in darkness comes, they are of One, and the good know it. + +_The Messenger_. (_Coming up the path_.) + +Bless you, Miss! The pacquet had been gone this hour! + +_Helen_. Gone! Well.--And Elliston--what said he? + +_Mess_. I brought this note of yours back, Miss Helen. Father Elliston +was gone. Here has been an Indian killed on Sandy Hill this evening, +Alaska's own son as it turns out, and such a hubbub as they are making +about it you never heard. I met a couple of squaws myself, yelling like +mad creatures, and the woods are all alive with them. The priest has +gone down to their village to pacify them if it may be,--so I brought +the note back, Miss Helen, for there was no one there but a little +rascal of an Indian, and I would not trust the worth of a feather with +one of them. Was I right? + +_Helen_. Yes. Give it to me. How far is it to the British camp? + +_Mess_. Why, they are just above here at Brandon's Mills they say, that +is, the main body. It can't be over three miles, or so. + +_Helen. Three_ miles! only three miles of this lovely moonlight road +between us.--William McReady, go to that camp for me to-night. + +_Mess_. To the British camp? + +_Helen_. Ay. + +_Mess_. To the British camp! Lord bless you, Miss. I should be shot--I +should be shot as true as you are a living woman. I should be shot for a +deserter, or, what's worse, I should be hanged for a spy. + +_Helen_. What shall I do! + +_Mess_. And besides, there's Madame Grey will be wanting me by this +time. See how the candles dance about the rooms there. + +_Helen_. Yes, you are right. We must go in and help them. Come. + + (_They enter the house_.) + + + + + + +DIALOGUE IV. + +SCENE. _The British camp. Moonlight. A lady in a rich travelling dress, + standing in the door of a log-hut_. + + +_Lady Ackland_. (_Talking to her maid within_.) What is the matter, +Margaret? What do you go stealing about the walls so like a mad woman +for, with that shoe in your hand? + +_Maid_. (_Within_.) There, Sir!--your song is done!--there's one less, I +am certain of that. _Coming to the door_.) If ever I get home alive, my +lady--Ha!--(_striking the door with her slipper_.) If ever--you are +there, are you? I believe I have broken my ear in two. The matter? Will +your ladyship look here? + +_Lady A_. Well. + +_Maid_. And if ever I get back to London, I'll say well too. If ever I +get back to London alive, my lady,--I'll see---- + +_Lady A_. What will you see, Margaret? Nothing lovelier than this, I am +sure. Are you not ashamed to stand muttering there? Come here, and look +at this beautiful night. + +_Maid_. La, Lady Harriet! + +_Lady A_. Listen! How still the camp is now! You can hear the rush of +those falls we passed, distinctly. How pretty the tents look there, in +that deep shade. These tuneful frogs and katy-dids must be our +nightingales to-night. Indeed, as I stand now, I could almost fancy that +fine wood there was my father's park; nay, methinks I see the top of the +old gray turrets peeping out among the shadows there. Look, Margaret, do +you see? + +_Maid_. La! I can see woods enough, my lady, if that is what you +mean,--nothing else, and I have seen enough of them already to last me +one life through. Yes, here's a pretty tear I have got amongst +them!--Two guineas and a half it cost me in London,--I pray I may never +set my eyes on a wood again, + +_Lady A_. This was some happy home once, I know. See that rose-bush, and +this little bed of flowers.--Here was a pretty yard--there went the +fence,--and there, where that waggon stands, by that broken pear-tree, +swung the gate. And pleasant meetings there have been at this door, no +doubt, and sorrowful partings too,--and hearts within have leaped at the +sound of that gate, and merry tales have been told by that desolate +hearth. In this little lonely unthought-of place, the mysterious world +of the human soul has unfolded,--the drama of life been played, as +grandly in the eyes of angels as in the proud halls where my life +dawned. And there are hearts that cling to this desolate spot as mine +does to that far-off home. We have driven them away in sorrow and fear. +This is war! + +_Maid_. I wonder who is fluting under that tree there, so late. They are +serenading that Dutch woman, as I live. + +_Lady A_. The Baroness, are you talking of, Margaret? + +_Maid_. A baroness! Good sooth!--she looks like it, in that yellow silk, +and those odious beads, fussing about. If your ladyship will believe me, +I saw her sitting in her tent to-night, ay, in the door, feeding that +wretched child with her own hands. We can't be thankful enough they did +not put her in here with us, I'll own. + +_Lady A_. Hush, hush, for shame! We might well have spared that empty +room. Come, we'll go in--It's very late. Strange that Sir George should +not be here ere this. + +_Maid_. Look, my lady! Here's some one at the gate. + + (_An officer enters the little court, with a hasty step_.) + +_Officer_. Good evening to your ladyship.--Is Captain Maitland +here?--Sir George told me that he left him here. + +_Lady A_. Ay, but he has been gone this hour. Stay, it is Andre's flute +you hear below there, and some one has joined him just now--yes, it is +he. + +_Off_. Under that tree;--thank you, my lady. + +_Lady A_. Stay, Colonel Hill,--I beg your pardon, but you spoke so +hastily.--This young Maitland is a friend of ours, I trust there is +nothing that concerns him painfully.-- + +_Off_. Oh nothing, nothing, except that he is ordered off to Fort Ann +to-night. There are none of us that know these wild routes as well as he. + + [_Exit_. + +_Lady A_. Good Heavens! What noise is that? + +_Maid_. Lord 'a mercy! The battle is coming? + +_Lady A_. Hush! (_To a sentinel who goes whistling by_.) Sirrah, what +noise is that? + +_Sentinel_. It's these Indians, my lady; they have found the son of some +chief of theirs murdered in these woods, and they are bringing him to +the camp now. That's the mourning they make. + +_Lady A_. The Lord protect us! + + (_They enter the house_.) + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE V. + +SCENE. _The interior of a tent. Maitland, in travelling equipments, + pacing the floor_. + + +_Maitland_. William! Ho there! + +_Servant_. (_Looking in_.) Your honor? + +_Mait_. Is not that horse ready yet? + +_Ser't_. Presently, your honor. + + [_Exit_. + +_Mait_. So the fellow has been here, it seems, and returned again to +Fort Edward without seeing me. Of course, my lady deigns no answer.--An +answer! Well, I thought I expected none. Ten minutes ago I should have +sworn I expected none. Why, by this time that letter of mine has gone +the rounds of the garrison, no doubt. William! + + (_The servant enters_.) + +Bring that horse round, you rascal,--must I be under your orders too, +forsooth? + +_Ser't_. Certainly, your honor,--but if he could but just,--I am +a-going, Sir,--but if he could but just take a mouthful or two more. +There's never a baiting-place till-- + +_Mait_. Do you hear? + + (_The Servant retreats hastily_.) + +_Mait_. The curse of having lived in these wilds cleaves to me in all +things. Here are Andre and Mortimer, and a hundred more, and none but I +for this midnight service. + +_Ser't_. (_Re-entering_.) The horse is waiting, Sir,--but here's two of +these painted creturs hanging about the door, waiting to see you. +(_Handing him a packet_.) + +There's no use in swearing at them, Sir, they don't understand it. + +_Mait_. (_Breaking the seals hastily, he discovers the miniature_.) Back +again! Well, we'll try drowning next,--nay, this is as I sent it! That +rascal dropped it in the woods perhaps! Softly,--what have we here! + + (_He discovers, and reads the letter_.) + +Who brought this? + +_Ser't_. The Indian that was here yesterday. + +_Mait_. Alaska! Here's blood on the envelope, on the letter too, and +here--This packet has been soaked in blood. (_Re-reading the letter_.) + +"To-morrow"--"twelve o'clock" to-morrow--Look if the light be burning in +the Lady Ackland's window,--she was up as I passed. "Twelve +o'clock"--There are more horses on this route than these cunning +settlers choose to reckon. Why, there are ten hours yet--I shall be back +ere then. Helen--do I dream?--This is love!--How I have wronged +her.--This _is_ love! + +_Ser't_. (_At the door_.) The horse is waiting, Sir,--and this Indian +here wont stir till he sees you. + +_Mait_. Alaska--I must think of it,--_risk?_--I would pledge my life on +his truth. He has seen her too,--I remember now, he saw her--with me at +the lake. Let him come in.--No, stop, I will speak with him as I go. + + [_Exeunt_. + + + + + + +DIALOGUE VI. + +SCENE. _Lady Ackland's door_. + + +_Lady Ackland_. Married!--His wife?--Well, I think I'll not try to sleep +again. There goes Orion with his starry girdle.--Married--is he? + +_Maid_. Was not that Captain Maitland that was talking here just now, +Lady Harriet? + +_Lady A_. Go to bed, Margaret,--go to bed,--but look you though. +To-morrow with the dawn that furnishing gear we left in the tent must be +unpacked, and this empty room--whose wife, think you, is my guest +tomorrow, Margaret? + +_Maid_. Bless me! If I were to guess till daylight, my lady---- + +_Lady A_. This young Maitland, you think so handsome, Margaret---- + +_Maid_. I?--la, it was not I, my lady, I am sure. + +_Lady A_.--He will bring us his wife home here tomorrow, a young and +beautiful wife. + +_Maid_. Wife?---- + +_Lady A_. Poor child,--we must give her a gentle welcome. Do you +remember those flowers we saw in the glen as we passed?--I will send for +them in the morning, and we will fill the vacant hearth with these +blossoming boughs.---- + +_Maid_. But, here--in these woods, a wife!--where on earth will he bring +her from, my lady? + +_Lady A_. Ay, we shall see, to-morrow we shall see,--go dream the rest. + + [_Exit the maid_. + +_Lady A_. Who would have thought it?--so cold and proud he seemed, so +scornful of our sex.--And yet I knew something there lay beneath it +all.--Even in that wild, gay mood, when the light of mirth filled and +o'er-flowed those splendid eyes,--deeper still, I saw always the calm +sorrow-beam shining within. + +That picture he showed me--how pretty it was!--The face haunts me with +its look of beseeching loveliness.--Was there anything so sorrowful +about it though?--Nay, the look was a smile, and yet a strange +mourn-fulness clings to my thought of it now. Well, if the painter hath +not dissembled in it--the _painter_?--no. The spirit of those eyes was +of no painter's making. From the _Eidos_ of the Heavenly Mind sprung +that. + +I shall see her to-morrow.--Nay, I must meet her in the outskirts of the +camp,--so went my promise,--if Maitland be not here ere then. + + [_Exit_. + + + + + + +THOUGHTS. + +SCENE. _The Hill. The Student's Night-watch_. + + + How beautiful the night, through all these hours + Of nothingness, with ceaseless music wakes + Among the hills, trying the melodies + Of myriad chords on the lone, darkened air, + With lavish power, self-gladdened, caring nought + That there is none to hear. How beautiful! + That men should live upon a world like this, + Uncovered all, left open every night + To the broad universe, with vision free + To roam the long bright galleries of creation, + Yet, to their strange destiny ne'er wake. + Yon mighty hunter in his silver vest, + That o'er those azure fields walks nightly now, + In his bright girdle wears the self-same gems + That on the watchers of old Babylon + Shone once, and to the soldier on her walls + Marked the swift hour, as they do now to me. + Prose is the dream, and poetry the truth. + That which we call reality, is but + Reality's worn surface, that one thought + Into the bright and boundless all might pierce, + There's not a fragment of this weary real + That hath not in its lines a story hid + Stranger than aught wild chivalry could tell. + There's not a scene of this dim, daily life, + But, in the splendor of one truthful thought + As from creation's palette freshly wet, + Might make young romance's loveliest picture dim, + And e'en the wonder-land of ancient song,---- + Old Fable's fairest dream, a nursery rhyme. + How calm the night moves on, and yet + In the dark morrow, that behind those hills + Lies sleeping now, who knows what waits?--'Tis well. + He that made this life, I'll trust with another. + To be,--there was the risk. We might have waked + Amid a wrathful scene, but this,--with all + Its lovely ordinances of calm days, + The golden morns, the rosy evenings, + Its sweet sabbath hours and holy homes,---- + If the same hidden hand from whence these sprung, + That dark gate opens, what need we fear there?---- + Here's wrath, but none that hath not its sure pathway + Upward leading,--there are tears, but 'tis + A school-time weariness; and many a breeze + And lovely warble from our native hills, + Through the dim casement comes, over the worn + And tear-wet page, unto the listening ear + Of our home sighing--to the _listening_ ear. + Ah, what know we of life?--of that strange life + That this, in many a folded rudiment, + With nature's low, unlying voice, doth point to. + Is it not very like what the poor grub + Knows of the butterfly's gay being?---- + With its colors strange, fragrance, and song, + And robes of floating gold with gorgeous dyes, + And loveliest motion o'er wide, blooming worlds. + That dark dream had ne'er imaged!---- + Ay, sing on, + Sing on, thou bright one, with the news of life, + The everlasting, winging o'er our vale. + Oh warble on, thy high, strange song. + What sayest thou?--a land o'er these dark cliffs, + A land all glory, where the day ne'er setteth---- + Where bright creatures, mid the deathless shades, + Go singing, shouting evermore? And yet + 'Twere vain. That wild tale hath no meaning here, + Thou warbler from afar. Like music + Of a foreign tongue, on our dull sense, + The rich thought wastes.--We have been nursed in tears, + Thro' all we've known of life, we have known grief, + And is there none in life's deep essence mixed? + Is sorrow but the young soul's garment then?---- + A baby mantle, doffed forever here, + Within these lowly walls. + And we were born + Amid a glad creation!---then why hear we ne'er + The silver shout, filling the unmeasured heaven?---- + Why catch we e'er the rich plume's rustle soft, + Or sweep of passing lyre! Our tearful home + Hung 'mid a gay, rejoicing universe, + And ne'er a glimpse adown its golden paths?---- + Oh are there eyes, soft eyes upon us, + In the dark and in the day, shining unseen, + And everlasting smiles, brightening unfelt + On all our tears: News sweet and strange ye bring. + Hither we came from our Creator's hands, + Bright earnest ones, looking for joy, and lo, + A stranger met us at the gate of life, + A stranger dark, and wrapped us in her robe, + And bore us on through a dim vale.--Ah, not + The world we looked for,--for an image in. + Our souls was born, of a high home, that yet + We have not seen. And were our childhood's yearnings, + Its strange hopes, no dreams then,--dim revealings + Of a land that yet we travel to?---- + But thou, oh foster-mother, mournful nurse, + So long upon thy sable vest we're leaned, + Thou art grown dear to us, and when at last + At yonder blue and burning gate + Thou yieldest up thy trust, and joy at last + In her own wild embrace enfolds us once, e'en + From the jewelled bosom of that dazzling one, + From the young roses of that smiling face, + Shall we not turn to thee, for one last glimpse + Of that wan cheek, and solemn eye of love, + And watch thy stately step, far down + This dim world's fading paths? Take us, kind sorrow! + We will lean our young head meekly on thee; + Good and holy is thy ministry, + Oh handmaid of the Halls thou ne'er mayst tread. + And let the darkness gather round that world, + Not for the vision of thy glittering walls + We ask, nor glimpse of brilliant troops that roam + Thine ancient streets, thou sunless city,-- + Wrap thy strange pavillions still in clouds, + Let the shades slumber round thy many homes, + By faith, and not by sight, through lowly paths + Of goodness, sorrow-led, to thee we come. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +PART FOURTH. + + * * * * * + +FULFILMENT. + + * * * * * + +DIALOGUE I. + +SCENE. _The ground before the fort. Baggage wagons. Cannon dismounted. + Confused sounds within. A soldier is seen leaning on his rifle_. + + + (_Another soldier enters_.) + +_2nd Sol_. It's morning! Look in the east there. What are we waiting +for? + +_1st Sol_. Eh! The devil knows best, I reckon, Sir. + +_2nd Sol_. Hillo, John! What's the matter there? Here's day-break upon +us! What are we waiting for? + + (_Another soldier enters_.) + +_3d Sol_. To build a bridge--that is all. + +_2nd Sol_. A bridge? + +_3d Sol_. We shall be off by to-morrow night, no doubt of it,--if we +don't chance to get cooked and eaten before that time,--some little risk +of that. + +_2nd Sol_. But what's the matter below there, I say? The bridge? what +ails it? + +_3d Sol_. Just as that last wagon was going over, down comes the bridge, +Sirs, or a good piece of it at least.--What else could it do?--timbers +half sawn away! + +_2nd Sol_. Some of that young jackanape's work! _Aid-de-camp!_ I'd _aid_ +him. He must be ordering and fidgetting, and fuming.--Could not wait +till we were over. + +_1st Sol_. All of a piece, boys! + +_3d Sol_. Humph. I wish it had been,--the bridge, I mean. + +_1st Sol_. But, I say, don't you see how every thing, little and great, +goes one way, and that, against us? Chance has no currents like this! +It's a bad side that Providence frowns on. I think when Heaven deserts a +cause, it's time for us poor mortals to begin to think about it. + +_3d Sol_. Now, if you are going to do so mean a thing as that, don't +talk about Heaven--prythee don't. + + [_They pass on_. + + (_Two other soldiers enter_.) + +_4th Sol_. (_singing_.) + + _Yankee doodle is the tune + Americans delight in, + 'Twill do to whistle, sing, or play, + And just the thing for fighting. + Yankee doodle, boys, huzza_---- + +(_Breaking off abruptly_.) I do not like the looks of it, Will. + +_5th Sol_. Of what? + +_4th Sol_. Of the morning that begins to glimmer in the east there. + +_5th Sol_. No? Why, I was thinking just now I never saw a handsomer +summer's dawning. That first faint light on the woods and meadows, there +is nothing I like better. See, it has reached the river now. + +_4th Sol_. But the mornings we saw two years ago looked on us with +another sort of eye than this,--it is not the glimmer of the long, +pleasant harvest day that we see there. + +_5th Sol_. We have looked on mornings that promised better, I'll own. I +would rather be letting down the bars in the old meadow just now, or +hawing with my team down the brake; with the children by my side to pick +the ripe blackberries for our morning meal, than standing here in these +rags with a gun on my shoulder. Let well alone.--We could not though. + +_4th Sol_. (_Handing him a glass_.) See, they are beginning to form +again. It looks for all the world like a funeral train. + +_5th Sol_. What was the Stamp Act to us, or all the acts beyond the sea +that ever were acted, so long as they left us our golden fields, our +Sabbath days, the quiet of the summer evening door, and the merry winter +hearth. _The Stamp Act?_ It would have been cheaper for us to have +written our bills on gold-leaf, and for tea, to have drunk melted +jewels, like the queen I read of once; cheaper and better, a thousand +times, than the bloody cost we are paying now. + +_4th Sol_. It was not the money, Will,--it was not the money, you know. +The wrong it was. We could not be trampled on in that way,--it was not +in us--we could not. + +_5th Sol_. Ay, ay. A fine thing to get mad about was that when we sat in +the door of a moonlight evening and the day's toils were done. It was +easy talking then. _Trampled on!_ I will tell you when I was nearest +being trampled on, Andros,--when I lay on the ground below there last +winter,--on the frozen ground, with the blood running out of my side +like a river, and a great high-heeled German walking over my shoulder as +if I had been a hickory log. I can tell you, Sir, that other was a +moon-shiny sort of a trampling to that. I shall bear to be trampled on +in figures the better for it, as long as I live. Between ourselves +now---- + +_4th Sol_. There's no one here. + +_5th Sol_. There are voices around that corner, though. Come this way. + + [_They pass on_. + + (_Another group of Soldiers_.) + +_1st Sol_. Then if nothing else happens, we are off now. Hillo, Martin! +Here we go again--skulking away. Hey? What do you say now? Hey, Mr. +Martin, what do you say now? + +_2nd Sol_. (_Advancing_.) What I said before. + +_1st Sol_. But where is all this to end, Sir? Tell us that--tell us +that. + +_3d Sol_. Yes, yes,--tell us that. If you don't see Burgoyne safe in +Albany by Friday night, never trust me, Sirs. + +_1st Sol_. A bad business we've made of it. + +_4th Sol_. Suppose he gets to Albany;--do you think that would finish +the war? + +_3d Sol_. Well, indeed, I thought that was settled on all hands, Sir. I +believe the General himself makes no secret of that. + +_4th Sol_. And what becomes of us all then? We shall go back to the old +times again, I suppose;--weren't so very bad though, Sam, were they? + +_1st Sol_. We have seen worse, I'll own. + +_3d Sol_. And what becomes of our young nation here, with its congress +and its army, and all these presidents, and generals, and colonels, and +aide-de-camps?--wont it look like a great baby-house when the hubbub is +over, and the colonies settle quietly down again? + +_2nd Sol_. Faith, you take it very coolly. Before that can happen, do +you know what must happen to you? + +_1st Sol_. Nothing worse than this, I reckon. + +_2nd Sol_. (_makes a gesture to denote hanging_.) + +_4th Sol_. What would they hang us though? Do you think they would +really hang us, John? + +_2nd Sol_. Wait and see. + +_1st Sol_. Nonsense! nonsense! A few of the ringleaders, Schuyler, and +Hancock, and Washington, and a few such, they will hang of course,--but +for the rest,--we shall have to take the oath anew, and swallow a few +duties with our sugar and tea, and---- + +_2nd Sol_. You talk as if the matter were all settled already. + +_1st Sol_. There is no more doubt of it, than that you and I stand here +this moment. Why, they are flocking to Skeensborough from all quarters +now, and this poor fragment,--this miserable skeleton of an army, which +is the only earthly obstacle between Burgoyne and Albany, why, even this +is crumbling to pieces as fast as one can reckon. Two hundred less than +we were yesterday at this hour, and to-morrow--how many are off +to-morrow? Ay, and what are we doing the while? Bowing and retreating, +cap in hand, from post to post, from Crown Point to Ticonderoga, from +Ticonderoga to Fort Edward, from Fort Edward onward; just showing them +down, as it were, into the heart of the land. Let them get to +Albany--Ah, let them once get to Albany, they'll need no more of our +help then, they'll take care of themselves then and us too. + +_2nd Sol_. They'll never get to Albany. + +_1st Sol_. Hey? + +_2nd Sol_. They'll never get to Albany. + +_1st Sol_. What's to hinder them? + +_2nd Sol_. We,--yes we,--and such as we, craven-hearted as we are. +They'll never get to Albany until we take them there captives. + +_3d Sol_. Then they'll wait till next week, I reckon. + +_1st Sol_. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! How many prisoners shall we have a-piece, +John? How many regiments, I mean? They'll open the windows when we get +there, won't they? I hope the sun will shine that day. How grandly we +shall march down the old hill there, with our train behind us. I shall +have to borrow a coat of one of them though, they might be ashamed of +their captor else. + +_3d Sol_. When is this great battle to be, John? This don't look much +like it. + +_4th Sol_. I think myself, if the General would only give us a chance to +fight---- + +_2nd Sol_. A chance to throw your life away,--he will never give you. A +chance to fight, you will have ere long,--doubt it not. Our General +might clear his blackened fame, by opposing this force to that,--this +day he might;--he will not do it. The time has not yet come. But he will +spare no pains to strengthen the army, and prepare it for victory, and +the glory he will leave to his rival. Recruits will be pouring in ere +long. General Burgoyne's proclamation has weakened us,--General Schuyler +will issue one himself to-day. + +_1st Sol_. Will he? will he? What will he proclaim?--As to the recruits +he gets, I'll eat them all, skin and bone. What will he proclaim? You +see what Burgoyne offers us. On the one hand, money and clothing, and +protection for ourselves and our families; and on the other, the cord, +and the tomahawk, and the scalping-knife. Now, what will General +Schuyler set down over against these two columns?--What will he offer +us?--To lend us a gun, maybe,--leave to follow him from one post to +another, barefooted and starving, and for our pains to be cursed and +reviled for cowards from one end of the land to the other. And what will +he threaten? Ha, we were cowards indeed, if we feared what he could +threaten. What thing in human nature will he speak to?--say. + +_2nd Sol_. I will tell you. To that spirit in human nature which resists +the wrong, the fiendish wrong threatened there. Ay, in the basest nature +that power sleeps, and out of the bosom of Omnipotence there is nothing +stronger. It has wakened here once, and this war is its fruit. It +slumbers now. Let Burgoyne look to it that he rouse it not himself for +us. Let him look to it. For every outrage of those fiendish legions, +thank God.--It lays a finger on the spring of our only strength. _What_ +will he offer us? I will tell you.--A chance to live, or to +die,--_men_,--ay, to leave a sample of manhood on the earth, that shall +wring tears from the selfish of unborn ages, as they feel for once the +depths of the slumbering and godlike nature within them. And +Burgoyne,--oh! a coat and a pair of shoes, he offers, and--how many +pounds?--Are you men? + +_4th Sol_. What do you say, Sam?--Talks like a minister, don't he? + +_1st Sol_. Come, come,--there's the drum, boys. You don't bamboozle me +again! I've heard all that before. + +_3d Sol_. Nor me.--I don't intend to have my wife and children +tomahawked,--don't think I can stand that, refugee or not. + +_2nd Sol_. Here they come. + + (_Other Soldiers enter_.) + +_5th Sol_. All's ready, all's ready. + +_6th Sol_. (_singing_.) + +"_Come blow the shrill bugle, the war dogs are howling_,"-- + + [_Exeunt_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE II. + +SCENE. _Before the door of the Parsonage. Trunks, boxes, and various + articles of furniture, scattered about the yard. Two men coming + down the path_. + + + (_George Grey enters_.) + +_George_. Those trunks in the forward team. Make haste. We've no time to +lose. This box in the wagon where the children are.--Carefully--carefully, +though. + + (_A Soldier enters_.) + +_Sol_. Hurra, hurra, the house there! Are you ready? Ten minutes more. + +_George_. Get out. What do you stand yelling there for? We know all +about it. + +_Sol_. But your brother, the Captain, says, I must hurry you, or you'll +be left behind. + +_George_. Tell my brother, the Captain, I'll see to that. We want no +more hurrying. We have had enough of that already, and much good it has +done us too. Stop, stop,--not that. We must leave those for the Indians +to take their tea in. + +_Workman_. But the lady said---- + +_George_. Never mind the lady. Well, Annie, are you ready? Don't stand +there crying; there's no use. We may come back here again yet, you know. +Many a pleasant sunrise we may see from these windows yet. Heaven defend +us, here is this aunt of ours.--What on earth are they bringing now? + + (_A Lady in the door with a couple of portraits, followed + by others bringing baskets and boxes, etc_.) + +_Lady_. That will do, set them down; now, the Colonel and his lady, on +the back room wall, just over against the beaufet. Stop a moment. I'll +go with you myself. + +_Betty_. (In, the door.) Lord 'a mercy! Here it is broad day-light. What +are we waiting for? I am all ready. Why don't we go? + +_George_. I tell you, Aunt Rachael, the thing is impossible. This +trumpery can't go, and there's the end of it. St. George and the +Dragon---- + +_Miss Rachael_. Never mind this young malapert--do as I bid you. + +_Betty_. Lord 'a mercy, we shall all be murdered and scalped, every soul +of us. Bless you--there it is in the garret now!--just hold this +umberell a minute, Mr. George,--think of those murderous Indians wearing +my straw bonnet. Lord bless you! What are you doing? a heaving my +umberell over the fence, in that fashion! + +_George_. These women will drive me mad I believe. Let that box alone, +you rascal. Lay a finger on that trumpery there I say, and you'll find +whose orders you are under; as for the Colonel and his lady, they'll get +a little drink out of the first puddle we come to, I reckon. + + [_Goes out_. + +_Miss R_. (_Coming from the house_.) That will do. That is all,--in the +green wagon, John---- + +_Ser't_. But the children---- + +_Miss R_. Don't stand there, prating to me at a time like this. Make +haste, make haste! + +How perfectly calm I am! I would never have believed it;--just tie this +string for me, child, my hands twitch so strangely,--they say the +British are just down in the lane here, with five thousand Indians, +Annie. + +_Annie_. It is no such thing. Aunt Rachael. The British are quietly +encamped on the other side of the river; three miles off at least. + +_Miss R_. I thought as much. A pretty hour for us to be turned out of +house and home to be sure. Not a wink have I slept this blessed night. +Hark! What o'clock is that? George, George! where is that boy? Just run +and tell your mother, Annie, just tell her, my dear, will you, that we +shall all be murdered. Maybe she will make haste a little. Well, are +they in? + +_Ser't_. The pictures? They are in,--yes'm. But Miss Kitty's a crying, +and says as how she won't go, and there's the other one too; because, +Ma'am, their toes--you see there's the trunk in front gives 'em a leetle +slope inward, and then that chest under the seat--If you would just step +down and see yourself, Ma'am. + +_Miss R_. I desire to be patient. + + [_They go out_. + + (_Annie sits on the bench of the little Porch, weeping. + Mrs. Gray enters from within_.) + +_Annie_. Shall I never walk down that shady path again? Shall I enter +those dear rooms no more? There are voices there they cannot hear. From +the life of buried years, ten thousand scenes, all vacancy toother eyes, +enrich those walls for us; the furniture that money cannot buy, that +only the joy and grief of years can purchase. They will spoil our +pleasant home,--will they not, mother? + +_Mrs. G_. Pleasant, ay, pleasant indeed, has it been to us. God's will +be done. Do not weep, Annie. We have counted the cost;--many a safe and +happy home there will be in the days to come, whose light shall spring +from this forgotten sorrow. God's will be done. + +_Annie_. Mother, they are all ready now; is Helen in her room still? + +_Mrs. G_. Go call her, Annie. Hours ago it was I sent her there. I +thought she might get some little sleep ere the summons came. Call her, +my child. How deadly pale she was! + + [_Annie goes in_. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE III. + +SCENE. _A Chamber partly darkened, the morning air steals faintly + through the half-open shutters. Helen before the mirror, + leaning upon the toilette, her face buried in her hands, + her long hair unbound, and flowing on her shoulders_. + + + (_Annie enters_.) + +_Annie_. Helen! Why, Helen, are you asleep there? Come, we are going +now. After keeping us on tiptoe for hours, the summons has come at last. +Indeed, there is hardly time for you to dress. Shall I help you? + +_Helen_. (_Rising slowly_.) God help me. Bid my mother come here, Annie. + +_Annie_. What ails you, Helen?--there is no time,--you do not understand +me,--there is not one moment to be lost. Let me wind up this hair for you. + +_Helen_. Let go!--Oh God---- + +_Annie_. Helen Grey! + +_Helen_. It was a dream,--it was but a foolish dream. It must not be +thought of now,--it will never do. Bid my mother come here, I am ready +now. + +_Annie_. Ready, Helen!--ready?--in that dressing-gown, and your +hair--see here,--are you ready, Helen? + +_Helen_. Yes,--bid her come. + +_Annie_. Heaven only knows what you mean with this wild talk of yours, +but if you are not mad indeed, I intreat you, sister, waste no more of +this precious time. + +_Helen_. No, no,--we must not indeed. It was wrong, but I could +not--go,--make haste, bid her come. + +_Annie_. She is crazed, certainly! + + [_Goes out_. + + (_Helen stands with her arms folded, and her eye fixed on the door_.) + + (_Mrs. Grey enters_.) + +_Mrs. G_. My child! Helen, Helen! Why do you stand there thus? + +_Helen_. Mother---- + +_Mrs. G_. Nay, do not stay to speak. There--throw this mantle around +you. Where is your hat?--not here!--Bridal gear! + + (_George enters_.) + +_George_. On my word! Well, well, stand there a little longer, to dress +those pretty curls of yours, and--humph--there's a style in vogue in +yonder camp for rebels just now; we'll all stand a chance to try, I +think. + +_Helen_. George!--George Grey!--Be still,--be still.--We must not think +of that. It was a dream. + +_George_. Is my sister mad? + +_Helen_. Mother-- + +_Mrs. G_. Speak, my child. + +_Helen_. Mother--my blessed mother,--(_aside_.) 'Tis but a brief +word,--it will be over soon. + +_Mrs. G_. Speak, Helen. + +_Helen_. I cannot go with you, mother. + +_Mrs. G_. Helen? + +_George_. Not go with us? + +_Mrs. G_. Helen, do you know what you are saying? + +_George_. You are in jest, Helen; or else you are mad,--before another +sunset the British army will be encamping here. + +_Helen_. Hear me, mother. A message from the British camp came to me +last night,-- + +_Mrs. G_. The British camp?--Ha!--ha! Everard Maitland! God forgive him. + +_Helen_. Do not speak thus. It was but a few cold and careless lines he +sent me,--my purpose is my own. + +_Mrs. G_. And--what, and he does not know?--Helen Grey, this passes +patience. + +_Helen_. He does, Here is the answer that has just now come; for I have +promised to meet him to-day at the hut of the missionary in yonder +woods.--I can hardly spell these hasty words; but this I know, he will +surely come for me,--though he bids me wait until I hear his signal,--so +I cannot go with you, mother. + +_Mrs. G_. Where will you go, Helen? + +_Helen_. Everard is in yonder camp;--where should the wife's home be? + +_Mrs. G_. The wife's? + +_Helen_. These two years I have been his bride;--his wedded wife I shall +be to-day. Yonder dawns my bridal day. + +_George_. What does she say? What does Helen say? I do not understand +one word of it. + +_Mrs. G_. She says she will go to the British camp. Desertions thicken +upon us. Hark!--they are calling us. + +_George_. To the British camp? + +_Mrs. G_. Go down, George, go down. Your sister talks wildly and +foolishly, what you should not have heard, what she will be sorry for +anon; go down, and tell them they must wait for us a little,--we will be +there presently. + +_George_. Hark! (_going to the door_.)--another message. Do you +hear?--Helen may be ready yet, if she will. + +_Mrs. G_. Blessed delay! Go down, George; say nothing of this. There is +time yet. Tell them we will be there presently. + + (_George goes out_.) + +_Mrs. G_. Did you think I should leave you here to accomplish this +frantic scheme?--Did you dream of it, and you call me mother?--but what +do you know of that name's meaning? Do not turn away from me thus, my +child; do not stand with that fixed eye as though some phantom divinity +were there. I shall not leave you here, Helen, never. + +Come, come; sit down with me in this pleasant window, there is time +yet,--let us look at this moonlight scheme of yours a little. Would you +stay here in this deserted citadel, alone? My child, our army are +already on their march. In an hour more you would be the only living +thing in all this solitude. Would you stay here alone, to meet your +lover too?--Bethink yourself, Helen. + +_Helen_. This Canadian girl will stay with me, and---- + +_Mrs. G_. A girl!--Helen, yesterday an army's strength, the armies of +the nation, the love of mother, and brothers, and sisters, all seemed +nothing for protection to your timid and foreboding thought; and now, +when the enemy are all around us,--do you talk of a single girl? Why, +the spirit of some strange destiny is struggling with your nature, and +speaks within you, but we will not yield to it. + +_Helen_. You have spoken truly, mother. There is one tie in these hearts +of ours, whose strength makes destiny, and where that leads, there lie +those iron ways that are of old from everlasting. This is Heaven's +decree, not mine. + +_Mrs. G_. Do not charge the madness of this frantic scheme on Heaven, my +child. + +_Helen. Everard!_--no, no, I cannot show to another the lightning flash, +that with that name reveals my destiny,--yet the falling stone might as +soon--question of its way. Renounce him?--you know not what you ask! all +there is of life within me laughs at the wild impossibility. + +Mother, hear me. There is no danger in my staying here,--none real. The +guard still keep their station on yonder hill, and the fort itself will +not be wholly abandoned to-day. Everard will come for me at noon.--It is +impossible that the enemy should be here ere then; nay, the news of this +unlooked-for movement will scarce have reached their camp.--_Real_ +danger there is none, and--Do not urge me. I know what you would say; +the bitter cost I have counted all, already, all--_all_. That Maitland +is in yonder camp, that--is it not a strange blessedness which can +sweeten anguish such as this?--that he loves me still, that he will come +here to-day to make me his forever,--this is all that I can say, my +mother. + +_Mrs. G_. Will you go over to the British side, Helen? Will you go over +to the side of wrong and oppression? Would you link yourself with our +cruel and pursuing enemy? Oh no, no no,--that could not be--never, Amid +the world of fearful thoughts that name brings, how could we place your +image? Oh God, I did not count on this. I knew that this war was to +bring us toil, and want, and fear, and haply bloody death; and I could +have borne it unmurmuringly; but--God forgive me,--that the child I +nursed in these arms should forsake me, and join with our deadly foes +against us--I did not count on this. + +_Helen_. Yes--that's the look,--the very look--all night I saw it;--it +does not move me now, as it did then. It is shadows of these things that +are so fearful, for with the real comes the unreckoned power of +suffering. Mother, this dark coil hath Heaven wound, not we. The tie +which makes his path the way of God to me, was linked ere this war +was,--and war cannot undo it now. It is a bitter fate, I know,--a bitter +and a fearful one. + +_Mrs. G_. Ay, ay,--thank God! You had forgotten, Helen, that in that +army's pay, nay, all around us even now are hordes and legions. + +_Helen_. I know it,--I know it all. I do indeed. + +_Mrs. G_. Helen, will you place yourself defenceless amidst that savage +race, whose very name from your childhood upwards, has filled you with +such strange fear? Yesterday I chid you for those fancies,--I was +wrong,--they were warnings, heaven-sent, to save you from this doom. +What was that dream you talked of then? + +_Helen_. Dreams are nothing. Will you unsay a life's lessons now when +most I need them? + +_Mrs. G_. Yesterday, all day, a shadow as of coming evil lay upon me, +but now I remember the forgotten vision whence it fell. Yesternight I +had a dream, Helen, such as yours might be; for in my broken and fevered +slumbers, wherever I turned, one vision awaited me. There was a savage +arm, and over it fell a shower of golden hair, and ever and anon, in the +shadowy light of my dream, a knife glittered and waved before me. We +were safe, but over one,--some young and innocent and tender one it +was--there hung a hopeless and inexorable fate. Once methought it seemed +the young English girl that was wedded here last winter, and once she +turned her eye upon me--Ha!--I had forgotten that glance of +agony--surely, Helen, it was _yours_. + +_Mrs. G_. Helen! my child--(_Aside_.) There it is, that same curdling +glance,--'twas but a dream, Helen. Why do you stand there so white and +motionless--why do you look on me with that fixed and darkening +eye?--'twas but a dream! + +_Helen_. And where were you?--tell me truly. Was it not by a gurgling +fountain among the pine trees there? and was it not noon-day in your +dream, a hot, bright, sultry noon, and a few clouds swelling in the +western sky, and nothing but the trilling locusts astir? + +_Mrs. G_. How wildly you talk; how should I remember any thing like +this? + +_Helen_. I will not yield to it; tempt me not. 'Tis folly all, I know it +is. Danger there is none. Long ere yonder hill is abandoned, Everard +will be here; and who knows that I am left here alone, and who would +come here to seek me out but he? Oh no, I cannot break this solemn faith +for a dream. What would he give to know I held my promise and his love +lighter than a dream? I must _stay_ here, mother. + +_Mrs. G_. No, my child. Hear me. If this must be indeed, if all my holy +right in you is nothing, if you will indeed go over to our cruel enemy, +and rejoice in our sorrows and triumph in our overthrow---- + +_Helen_. Hear her---- + +_Mrs. G_. Be it so, Helen,--be it so; but for all that, do not stay here +to-day. Bear but a little longer with our wearisome tenderness, and wait +for some safer chance of forsaking us. Come. + +_Helen_. If I could--Ah, if I could---- + +_Mrs. G_. You can--you will. Here, let me help you, we shall be ready +yet. No one knows of this wild scheme but your brother and myself, no +one else shall ever know it. Come. + +_Helen_. If I could. 'Tis true, I did not know when I sent him this +promise you would leave me alone ere the hour should come. Perhaps--no, +it would never do. When he comes and finds that, after all, I have +deserted him, once with a word I angered him, and for years it was the +last between us;--and what safer chance will there be in these fearful +times of meeting him? No, no. If we do not meet now, we are parted for +ever;--if I do not keep my promise now, I shall see him no more. + +_Mrs. G_. See him no more then. What is he to us--this stranger, this +haughty, all-requiring one? Think of the blessed days ere he had crossed +our threshold. You have counted all, Helen? The anguish that will bring +tears into your proud brother's eyes, your sister's comfortless +sorrow?--did you think of her lonely and saddened youth? You counted the +wild suffering of this bitter moment,--did you think of the weary years, +the long sleepless nights of grief, the days of tears; did you count the +anguish of a mother's broken heart, Helen? God only can count that. + +You did not--there come the blessed tears at last. Here's my own gentle +daughter, once again. Come, Helen, see, they are waiting for us. There +stands the old chaise under the locust tree. You and I will ride +together. Come, 'tis but a few steps down that shady path, and we are +safe--a few steps and quickly trod. Hark! the respite is past even now. +Do you stand there marble still? Helen, if you stay here, we shall see +you no more. This lover of yours hates us all. He will take you to +England when the war is over if you outlive its bloody hazards, and we +are parted for ever. I shall see you no more, Helen, my child; my child, +I shall see you no more. (_She sinks upon the chair, and weeps aloud_.) + +_Helen_. Has it come to this? Will you break my heart? If it were +continents and oceans that you bade me cross, but those few steps--Ah, +they would sever me from him for ever, and I cannot, I cannot, I +can _not_ take them,--there is no motion so impossible. Yes, they are +calling us. Do not stay. + + (_Annie enters_.) + +_Annie_. Mother, will you tell me what this means? + +_Mrs. G_. Yes, come in. We will waste no more time about it. She will +stay here to meet her lover, she will forsake us for a traitor. We have +nursed an enemy among us. The babe I cherished in this bosom, whose +sleeping face I watched with a young mother's love, hath become my +enemy. Oh my God--is it from thee? + +_Annie_. Helen! my sister! Helen! + +_Mrs. G_. Ay, look at her. Would you think that the spirit which heaves +in that light frame, and glances in those soft eyes, held such cruel +power? Yesterday I would have counted it a breath in the way of my +lightest purpose, and now--come away, Annie--it is vain, you cannot move +her. + + (_George enters_.) + +_George_. Mother, if Helen will not go now, we must leave her to her +fate or share it with her. Every wagon is on the road but ours. A little +more, and we shall be too late for the protection of the army. Shall I +stay with her? + +_Mrs. G_. No, never. That were a sure and idle waste of life. Helen, +perhaps, may be safe with them. Oh. yes, the refugees are safe, else +desertion would grow out of fashion soon. + +_Annie_. Refugees! Refugee! Helen! + +_Mrs. G_. It sounds strange for one of us I know. You will grow used to +it soon. Helen belongs to the British side, she will go over to them +to-day, but she must go alone, for none of us would be safe in British +hands, at least I trust so--this morning's experience might make me +doubtful, but I trust we are all true here yet beside. + +_Annie_. Have I heard aright, Helen?--or is this all some fearful dream? +You and I, who have lived together all the years of our lives, to be +parted this moment, and for ever,--no, no! + + (_A young American Officer enters hastily_.) + +_Capt. Grey_. Softly, softly! What is this? Are you in this conspiracy +to disgrace me, mother? Oh, very well; if you have all decided to stay +here, I'll take my leave. + +_Annie_. Oh, Henry, stay. You can persuade her it may be. + +_Capt. G. Persuade_! What's all this! A goodly time for rhetoric +forsooth! Who's this that's risking all our lives, waiting to be +persuaded now? + +_Mrs. G_. That Tory, Henry! We should have thought of this. Ah, if we +had gone yesterday,--that haughty Maitland,--she will stay here to meet +him! She will marry him, my son. + +_Capt. G_. Maitland!--and stay here! + +_Helen_. Dear Henry, let us part in kindness. Do not look on me with +that angry eye. It was I that played with you in the woods and meadows, +it was I that roamed with you in those autumn twilights,--you loved me +then, and we are parting for ever it may be.. + +_Capt. G_. (_To the children at the door_.) Get you down, young ones, +get you down. Pray, mother, lead the way, will you?--break up this ring. +Come, Helen, you and I will talk of this as we go on, only in passing +give me leave to say, of all the mad pranks of your novel ladies, this +caps the chief. You have outdone them, Helen; I'll give you credit for +it, you have outdone them all. + +Why you'll be chronicled,--there's nothing on record like it, that ever +I heard of; I am well-read in romances too. We'll have a new love-ballad +made and set to tune, under the head of "Love and Murder," it will come +though, if you don't make haste a little. Come, come. + +_Helen_. Henry! + +_Capt. G_. Are you in earnest, Helen? Did you suppose that we were mad +enough to leave you here? You'll not go with us? But you will, by +Heaven! + +_Helen_. Henry! Mother!--Nay, Henry, this is vain. I shall stay here, I +shall--I shall stay here,--so help me Heaven. + +_Capt. G_. Helen Grey! Is that young lioness there my sometime +sister?--my delicate sister?--with her foot planted like iron, and the +strength of twenty men nerving her arm? + +_Helen_. Let go.--I shall stay here. + +_Capt. G_. Well, have your way, young lady, have your way; but--Mother, +if you choose to leave that mad girl here, you can,--but as for this +same Everard Maitland, look you, my lady, if I don't stab him to his +heart's core, never trust me. + + (_He goes out--Mrs. Grey follows him to the door_.) + +_Mrs. G_. Stay, Henry,--stay. What shall we do? + +_Capt. G_. Do!--Indeed, a straight waistcoat is the only remedy I know +of, Madam, for such freaks as these. If you say so, she shall go with us +yet. + +_Mrs. G_. Hear me. This is no time for passion now Hear me, Henry. This +Maitland, _Tory_ as he is, is her betrothed husband, and she has chosen +her fate with him; we cannot keep her with us; nay, with what we have +now seen, it would be vain to think of it, to wish it even. She must go +to him,--it but remains to see that she meets him safely. Noon is the +hour appointed for his coming. Could we not stay till then? + +_Capt. G_. Impossible. Noon?--well.--Oh, if its all fixed upon;--if you +have settled it between yourselves that Helen is to abandon us and our +protection, for Everard Maitland's and the British, the sooner done, the +better. She's quite right,--she's like to find no safer chance for it +than this. Noon,--there is a picket left on yonder hill till after that +time, certainly, and a hundred men or so in the fort. I might give Van +Vechten a hint of it--nay, I can return myself this afternoon, and if +she is not gone then, I will take it upon me she is not left a second +time. Of course Maitland would be likely to care for her safety. At all +events there's nothing else for us to do, at least there's but one +alternative, and that I have named to you. + + [_They go out together_. + +_Helen_. (_She has stood silently watching them_.) He has gone, without +one parting look--he has gone! So break the myriad-tied loves, it hath +taken a life to weave. This is a weary world. + + (_She turns to her sister, who leans weeping on the window-seat_.) + +Come, Annie, you and I will part in kindness, will we not? No cruel +words shall there be here. Pleasant hath your love been unto me, my +precious sister. Farewell, Annie. + +_Annie_. Shall I never hear your voice again, that hath been the music +of my whole life? Is your face henceforth to be to me only a remembered +thing? Helen, you must not stay here. The Indians,--it was no idle fear, +the half of their bloody outrages you have not heard; they will murder +you, yes, _you_. The innocence and loveliness that is holy to us, is +nothing in their eyes, they would as soon sever that beautiful hair from +your brow---- + +_Helen_. Hush, hush. There is no danger, Annie. The dark things of +destiny are God's; the heart, the heart only, is ours. + + (_Mrs. Grey re-enters_.) + +_Mrs. G_. (_to Annie_.) Come, come, my child. This is foolish now. All +is ready. Janette will stay with you, Helen. + + (_Laughing voices are heard without, and the children's faces + are seen peeping in the door_.) + +_Willy_. Dear mother, are you not ready yet? We have been in the wagon +and out a hundred times. Oh, Helen, make haste. The sun is above the +trees, and the grass on the roadside is all full of diamonds. The last +soldiers are winding down the hollow now. Is not Helen going, Mother? + +_Mrs. G_. Your sister Helen is going from us forever. Come in and kiss +her once, and then make haste--you must not all be lost. + + (_They enter_.) + +_Willy_. Ah, why don't you go with us, sister?--Such a beautiful ride we +shall have. You never heard such a bird-singing in all your life. + +_Frank_. We shall go by the Chesnut Hollow, George says we shall. Smell +of these roses, Helen. Must she stay here? Hark, Willy, there's the +drum. Good-bye, How sorry I am you will not go with us. + +_Willy_. So am I. What makes you stand so still and look at us so? Why +don't you kiss me? Good-bye, Helen. + +_Helen_. (_Embracing them silently_.) + +_Annie_. Will you leave her here alone, mother? Will you? + +_Mrs. G_. No. There is a guard left on yonder hill, and the fort is not +yet abandoned wholly. Besides, the army encamp at the creek, and Henry +himself will return this afternoon. She will be gone ere then, though. + +_Helen_. Those merry steps and voices, those little, soft clinging hands +and rosy lips, have vanished forever. For all my love I shall be to them +but as the faint trace of some faded dream. This is a weary world. + +Come, George, farewell. How I have loved to look on that young brow. Be +what my dreams have made you. Fare you well. + +_George_. Farewell, Helen. + + [_He goes out hastily_. + +_Helen_. Will he forget me? + +_Mrs. G_. And farewell, Helen. Fare ye well. + +_Helen_. Will she leave me thus? + +_Mrs. G_. Do not go to the hut--do not leave this door until you are +sure of the signal you spoke of, Helen. + +_Helen_. She will not look at me,--Mother! + +_Mrs. G_. Farewell, Helen; may the hour never come when you need the +love you have cast from you now so freely. + +_Helen_. Will you leave me thus? Is not our life together ending here? +In that great and solemn Hereafter our ways may meet again; but by the +light of sun, or moon, or candle, or underneath these Heavens, no more. +Oh! lovely, lovely have you been unto me, a spirit of holiness and +beauty, building all my way.--Part we thus? + +_Mrs. G_. Farewell, Helen. + +_Helen_. Part we thus? + +_Mrs. G_. Fare ye well, Helen Grey, my own sweet and precious child, my +own lovely, lovely daughter, fare ye well, and the Lord be with you. The +Lord keep you, for I can keep you now no more. The Lord watch over you, +my helpless one, mine, mine, mine, all mine, though I leave you thus; my +world of untold wealth, unto another. Nay, do not sorrow, my blessed +child,--you will be happy yet. Fear nothing,--if this must be, I say, +fear nothing. You think that you are doing right in forsaking us +thus;--it may be that you are. If in the strength of a pure conscience +you stay here to-day,--be not afraid. When you lay here of old, a +lisping babe, I told you of One whose love was better than a mother's. +Now farewell, and trust in Him. Farewell, mine eye shall see thee yet +again. Farewell. + +_Helen_. No, no; leave me not. + +_Mrs. G_. Unclasp these hands, I cannot stay. + +_Helen_. Never--never. + +_Mrs. G_. Untwine this wild embrace, or, even now,--even now---- + +_Helen_. Farewell, mother. Annie Grey, farewell. + + [_They go_. + +_Helen_. This is a weary world. Take me home. To the land where there is +no crying or bitterness, take me home. + + (_The noise of retreating steps is heard, and the sound + of the outer door closing heavily_.) + +_Helen_. They are gone,--not to church,--not for the summer's ride. I +shall see them no more.--In heaven it may be; but by the twilight +hearth, or merry table, at morn, or noon, or evening, in mirth or +earthly tenderness, no more. + +Hark! There it is!--that voice,--I hear it now, I do. A dark eternity +had rolled between us, and I hear it yet again. They are going now. +Those rolling wheels, oh that that sound would last. There is no music +half so sweet. Fainter--fainter--it is gone--no--that was but the +hollow.--Hark---- + +Now they are gone, indeed. So breaks the sense's last link between me +and that world. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +PART FIFTH. + + * * * * * + +FULFILLMENT + + * * * * * + +DIALOGUE I. + +SCENE. _The hill. A young Soldier enters_. + + +How gloriously, with what a lonely majesty the morning wastes in that +silent valley there; with its moving shadows, and breeze and sunshine, +and its thousand delicious sounds mocking those desolate homes---- + + (_He stops suddenly, and looks earnestly into the thicket_.) + +This is strange, indeed. This feeling that I cannot analyze, still grows +upon me. _Presentiment?_ Some dark, swift-flying thought, leaves its +trace, and the cause-seeking mind, in the range of its own vision +finding none, looks to the shadowy future for it. + + [_He passes on_. + + (_Two Indian Chiefs, in their war-dress, emerge from the thicket, + talking in suppressed tones_.) + +_1st Chief_. Hoogh! Hoogh! Alaska fights to revenge his son,--we spill +our blood to revenge his son, and he thinks to win gifts besides. Hugh! +A brave chief he is! + +_2nd Chief_. Your talk is not good, Manida. They are our enemies,--we +shall conquer them, we shall see their chestnut locks waving aloft, we +shall dance and shout all night around them, and the eyes of the maidens +shall meet ours in the merry ring, sparkling with joy, as we shout +"Victory! victory! our enemies are slain,--our foot is on their necks, +we have slain our enemies!" What more, Manida? Is it not enough? + +_1st Chief_. No. I went last night with Alaska to the camp above, to the +tent of the young sachem of the lake, and he promised him presents, rich +and many, for an errand that a boy might do. I asked Alaska to send me +for him, and he would not. + +_2nd Chief_. The young white sachem was Alaska's friend, many moons ago, +when Alaska was wounded and sick.--He must revenge young Siganaw, but he +must keep his faith to his white friend, too. + +_1st Chief_. Ah, but I know where the horse is hidden and the paper. +When the tomahawks flash here, and the war-cry is loudest, we will steal +away. Come, and I will share the prize with you. + +_2nd Chief_. No, I will tell my brother chief that Manida is a +treacherous friend. + +_1st Chief_. You cannot. It is too late. Hist! Quick, lower--lower-- + + [_They crouch among the trees_. + + (_Another Soldier emerges from the wood-path, singing_.) + + "_Then march to the roll of the drum, + It summons the brave to the plain, + Where heroes contend for the home + Which perchance they may ne'er see again_." + + +(_Pausing abruptly_.) Well, we are finely manned here! + + (_1st Soldier re-enters_.) + +_2nd Sol_. How many men do you think we have in all, upon this hill, +Edward? + +_1st Sol_. Hist!--more than you count on, perhaps. + +_2nd Sol_. Why? What is the matter? Why do you look among those bushes +so earnestly? + +_1st Student_. It is singular, indeed. I can hardly tell you what it is, +but twice before in my round, precisely in this same spot, the same +impression has flashed upon me, though the sense that gives it, if sense +it is, will not bide an instant's questioning. There! Hist! Did nothing +move there then? + +_2nd Sol_. I see nothing. This comes of star-gazing, when you should +have slept. Though as to that, I have nothing to complain of, certainly. +I had to thank your taste that way, last night, for an hour of the most +delicious slumber. It was like that we used to snatch of old, between +the first stroke of the prayer-bell and its dying peal. + +_1st Sol_. I am glad you could sleep. For myself, such a world of +troubled thoughts haunted me, I found more repose in waking. + +_2nd Sol_. Then I wish you could have shared my dream with me, as indeed +you seemed to, for you were with me through it all. A blessed dream it +was, and yet-- + +_1st Sol_. Well, let me share it with you now. + +_2nd Sol_. I cannot tell you how it was, that in honor and good +conscience we had effected it, but somehow, methought our part in this +sickening warfare was accomplished, and we were home again. Oh the joy +of it! oh the joy of it! Even amid my dream, methought we questioned its +reality, so unearthly in its perfectness, it seemed. We stood upon the +college-green, and the sun was going down with a strange, darkling +splendor; and from afar, ever and anon came the thunder roll of battle; +but we had nought to do with it; our part was done; our time was out; we +were to fight no more. And there we stood, watching the students' games; +and there too was poor _Hale_, merry and full of life as e'er he was, +for never a thought of his cruel fate crossed my dream. Suddenly we saw +two ladies, arm in arm, come swiftly down the shady street, most +strangely beautiful and strangely clad, with long white robes, and +garlands in their hair, and such a clear and silvery laugh, and +something fearful in their loveliness withal; and one of them, as she +came smiling toward us--do you remember that bright, fair-haired girl we +met in yonder lane one noon?--Just such a smile as hers wore the lady +in my dream. Then, into the old chapel we were crowding all; that +long-deferred commencement had come on at last; we stood upon a stage, +and a strange light filled all the house, and suddenly the ceiling +swelled unto the skiey dome, and nations filled the galleries; and I +woke, to find myself upon a soldier's couch, and the reveille beating. + +_1st Sol_. Well, if it cheered you, 'twas a good dream most certainly, +though, yet--the dream-books might not tell you so. Will you take this +glass a moment? + +_2nd Sol_. What is it? + +_1st Sol_. That white house by the orchard, in the door--do you see +nothing? + +_2nd Sol_. Yes, a figure, certainly;--yes, now it moves. I had thought +those houses were deserted,--it is time they were I think, for all the +protection we can give them. How long shall we maintain this post, think +you, with such a handful? + +_1st Sol_. Till the preparations below are complete, I trust so at +least, for we have watchers in these woods, no doubt, who would speedily +report our absence. + +_2nd Sol_. Well, if we all see yonder sun go down, 'tis more than I +count on. + +_1st Sol_. A chance if we do--a chance if we do. Will the hour come when +this infant nation shall forget her bloody baptism?--the holy name of +truth and freedom, that with our hearts' blood we seal upon her in these +days of fear? + +_2nd Sol_. Ay, that hour may come. + +_1st Sol_. Then, with tears, and _blood_ if need be, shall she learn it +anew; and not in vain shall the bones of the martyrs moulder in her +peopled vales. For human nature, in her loftiest mood, was this +beautiful land of old built, and for ages hid. Here--her cradle-dreams +behind her flung; here, on the height of ages past, her solemn eye down +their long vistas turned, in a new and nobler life she shall arise here. +Ah, who knows but that the book of History may show us at last on its +long-marred page--_Man_ himself,--no longer the partial and deformed +developments of his nature, which each successive age hath left as if in +mockery of its ideal,--but, man himself, the creature of thought,--the +high, calm, majestic being, that of old stood unshrinking beneath his +Maker's gaze. Even, as first he woke amid the gardens of the East, in +this far western clime at last he shall smile again,--a perfect thing. + +_2nd Sol_. In your earnestness, you do not mark these strange sounds, +Edward. Listen. (_He grasps his sword_.) + + (_A Soldier rushes down the path_.) + +_3d Sol_. We are surrounded! Fly. The Indians are upon us. Fly. + + [_Rushes on_. + + (_Another Soldier bursts from the woods_.) + +_4th Sol_. God! They are butchering them above there, do not stand here! + + [_Rushes down the hill_. + +_2nd Sol_. Resistance is vain. Hear those shrieks! There is death in +them. Resistance is vain. + +_1st Sol_. Flight is vain. Look yonder! Francis,--the dark hour hath +come! + +_2nd Sol_. Is it so? Mother and sister I shall see no more. + + (_A number of Indians, disfigured with paint and blood, and + brandishing their knives, come rushing down the road, uttering short, + fierce yells. Others from below, bringing back the fugitives_.) + +_1st Sol_. We shall die together. God of Truth and Freedom, unto thee +our youthful spirits trust we. + + (_The Indians surround them. Fighting to the last, they fall_.) + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE II. + +SCENE. _The deserted house--the chamber--Helen by the table--her head + bowed and motionless. She rises slowly from her drooping posture_. + + +_Helen_. It is my bridal day. I had forgotten that. (_Looking from the +window_.) Is this real? Am I here alone? My mother gone? The army gone? +brothers and sisters gone, and those woods full of armed Indians? I am +awake. This is not the light of dreams,--'tis the sun that's shining +there. Not the fresh arid tender morning sun, that looked in on that +parting. Hours he has climbed since then, to turn those shadows +thus,--hours that to me were nothing.--Alone?--deserted--defenceless? Of +my own will too? There was a _law_ in that will, though, was there not? +(_Turning suddenly from the window_.) Shall I see him again? The living +real of my thousand dreams, in the light of life, will he stand here +to-day?--to-day? No, no. Is this swift flow of being leading on to +_that_? Oh day of anguish, if in thine awful bosom, still, that dazzling +instant sleeps, I can forgive the rest. + + (_She stands by the toilette, and begins to gather once more + the long hair from her shoulders. Suddenly a low voice at the + door breaks the stillness. The Canadian servant looks in_.) + +_Jan_. I ask your pardon--Shall I come in, Ma'amselle? + +_Helen_. Ay, ay, come in. How strangely any voice sounds amid this +loneliness. I am glad you are here. + +_Jan_. (_Entering_.) Beautiful! Santa Maria! How beautiful! May I look +at these things, Ma'amselle? (_Stopping by the couch strewn with bridal +gear_.) Real Brussels! And the plume in this bonnet, was there ever such +a lovely droop? + +_Helen_. Come, fasten this clasp for me, Netty. I thought to have had +another bridesmaid once, but--that is past--Yes, I am a bride to-day, +and I must not wait here unadorned. (_Aside_.) He shall have no hint +from me this day of "_altered fortunes_." As though these weary years +had been but last night's dream, and my wedding-day had come as it was +fixed, so will I meet him.--Yet I thought to have worn my shroud sooner +than this robe. + +_Jan_. This silk would stand alone, Ma'amselle,--and what a lovely white +it is! Just such a bodice as this I saw my Lady Mary wear, two years ago +this summer, in Quebec; only, this is a thought deeper. But, Santa +Maria! how it becomes a shape like yours! + +_Helen_. What a world of buried feeling lives again as I feel the clasp +of this robe once more! Will he say these years have changed me? + +_Jan_. (_Aside_) I do not like that altered mien. How the beauty flashes +from her? Is it silk and lace that can change one so? Here are bracelets +too, Ma'amselle; will you wear them? + +_Helen_. Yes. Go, look from the window, Janette, down the lane to the +woods. I am well-high ready now. He will come,--yes, he will come. + + (_Janette retreats to the window,--her eye still following the lady_.) + +_Jan_. I have seen brides before, but never so gay a one as this. It is +strange and fearful to see her stand here alone, in this lonesome house, +all in glistening white, smiling, and the light flashing from her eyes +thus. She looks too much like some radiant creature from another world, +to be long for this. + +_Helen_. He will come, why should he not? Netty, fix your eye on that +opening in the woods, and if you see but a shadow crossing it, tell me +quickly. + +_Jan_. I can see nothing--nothing at all. Marie sanctissima!--how quiet +it is! The shadows are straight here now, Miss Helen. + +_Helen_. Noon--the very hour has come! Another minute it may be.--Noon, +you said, Netty? + + (_Joining Janette at the window_.) + +_Jan_. Yes, quite--you can see; and hark, there's the clock. Oh, isn't +it lonesome though? See how like the Sunday those houses look, with the +doors all closed and the yards and gardens still as midnight. If we +could but hear a human voice!--whose, I would not care. + +_Helen_. How like any other noon-day it comes! The faint breeze plays in +those graceful boughs as it did yesterday; that little, yellow butterfly +glides on its noiseless way above the grass, as then it did;--just so, +the shadows sleep on the grassy road-side there;--yes, Netty, yes, +_'tis_ very lonely.--Hear those merry birds! + +_Jan_. But I would rather hear that signal, Miss Helen, a thousand +times, than the best music that ever was played. + +_Helen_. I shall see him again. That wild hope is wild no longer. To +doubt were wilder now. Ay, Fate must cross my way with a bold hand, to +snatch that good from me now. And yet,--alas, in the shadowy future it +lieth still, and a dark and treacherous realm is that! The joys that +blossom on its threshold are not ours--It may be, even now, darkness and +silence everlasting lie between us. + +_Jan_. Hark--Hark! + +_Helen_. What is it? + +_Jan_. Hark!--There!--Do you hear nothing? + +_Helen_. Distant voices? + +_Jan_. Yes-- + +_Helen_. I do-- + +_Jan_. Once before,--'twas when I stood in the door below, I heard +something like this; but the breeze just then brought the sound of the +fall nearer, and drowned it. There it is!--Nearer. The other window, +Miss Helen. + +_Helen_. From that hill it comes, does it not? + +_Jan_. Yes--yes, I should think it did. Oh yes. There is a guard left +there--I had forgotten that. Mon Dieu! How white your lips are! Are you +afraid, Ma'amselle? + + (_Helen stands gazing silently from the window_.) + +_Jan_. There is no danger. It must have been those soldiers that we +heard,--or the cry of some wild animal roaming through yonder woods--it +might have been,--how many strange sounds we hear from them. At another +time we should never have thought of it. I think we should have heard +that signal though, ere this,--I do, indeed. + +_Helen_. What is it to die? Nor wood nor meadow, nor winding stream, nor +the blue sky, do _they_ see; nor the voice of bird or insect do they +hear; nor breeze, nor sunshine, nor fragrance visits them. Will there be +nothing left that makes this being then? The high, Godlike purpose--the +life whose breath it is,--can _that_ die?--the meek trust in Goodness +Infinite,--can _that_ perish? No.--This is that building of the soul +which nothing can dissolve, that house eternal, that eternity's wide +tempests cannot move. No--no--I am not afraid. No--Netty, I am not +afraid. + +_Jan_. Will you come here, Miss Helen? + +_Helen_. Well. + +_Jan_. Look among those trees by the road-side--those pine trees, on the +side of the hill, where my finger points.-- + +_Helen_. Well--what is it? + +_Jan_. Do you see--what a blinding sunshine this is--do you see +something moving there?--wait a moment--they are hid among the trees +now--you will see them again presently--There!--there they come, a troop +of them, see. + +_Helen_. Yes--_Indians_--are they not? + +_Jan_. Ay--it must have been their yelling that we heard.--We need not +be alarmed.--They are from the camp--they have come to that spring for +water. The wonder is, your soldiers should have let them pass.--You will +see them turning back directly now. + +_Helen_. (_Turning from the window_.) Shelter us--all power is thine. + +_Jan_. Holy Virgin!--they are coming this way. Those creatures are +coming down that hill, as I live. Yes, there they come. + +This strip of wood hides them now. What keeps them there so long? Ay, +ay,--I see now--I am sorry I should have alarmed you so, Ma'amselle, for +nothing too--They have struck into those woods again, no doubt; they are +going back to their camp by the lower route. + +_Helen_. No. + +_Jan_. It must be so. There is no doubt of it. Indeed, we might be sure +they would never dare come here.--They cannot know yet that your army +are gone. Besides, we should have heard from them ere this. They could +never have kept their horrid tongues to themselves so long, I +know.--Well, if it were to save me, I cannot screw myself into this +shape any longer. (_Rising from the window_.) + +_Helen_. Listen. + +_Jan_. 'Tis nothing but the sound of the river. You can make nothing +else of it, Ma'amselle,--unless it is these locusts that you hear. I +wish they would cease their everlasting din a moment. + +How that breeze has died away! Every leaf is still now! There's not a +cloud or a speck in all the sky. + +_Helen_. Look in the west--have you looked there? + +_Jan_. Yes, there are a few little clouds beginning to gather there +indeed. We shall have a shower yet ere night. + + (_The war-whoop is heard, loud and near_.) + +_Jan_. Mon Dieu! Here they are! It is all over with us! We shall be +murdered! + + (_She clasps her hands, and shrieks wildly_.) + +_Helen_. Hush! hush! Put down that window, and come away. We must be +calm now. + +_Jan_. It is all over with us,--what use is there? Do you hear that +trampling?--in the street!--they are coming! + +_Helen_. Janette--Hear me. Will you throw away your life and mine? For +shame! Be calm. These Indians cannot know that we are here. They will +see these houses _all_ deserted. Why should they stop to search _this?_ +Hush! hush! they are passing now. + +_Jan_. They have stopped!--the trampling has stopped!--I hear the +gate,--they have come into the yard. + + (_A long wild yell is heard under the window. They stand, + looking silently at each other. Again it trembles through + the room, louder than before_.) + +_Helen_. I am sorry you stayed here with me. Perhaps--Hark! What was +that? What was that? Was it not _Maitland_ they said then? It was--it +is--Don't grasp me so. + +_Jan_. Nay--what would you do? + +_Helen_. I must speak with them. Let go my arm! Do you not hear? 'Tis +Maitland they are talking of. How strangely that blessed name sounds in +those tones! + +_Jan_. You must not--we have tempted Heaven already--this is madness. + +_Helen_. Let go, Janette. It is not you they seek. You can conceal +yourself. You shall be safe. + +_Jan_. She is wild! Nay, I was mad myself, or I should never have stayed +here. It were better to have lived always with them, than to be murdered +thus. + + (_Helen opens the window, and stands for a moment, looking + silently down into the court. She turns away, shuddering_.) + +_Helen_. Can I meet those eyes again? + + (_Again the name of Maitland mingles with the wild + and unintelligible sounds that rise from without_.) + +_Helen_. Can I? (_She turns to the window_.) What can it mean? His own +beautiful steed! How fiercely he prances beneath that unskilful rein. +Where's your master, Selma, that he leaves me to be murdered here? A +letter! He bids me unfasten the door, Janette. + +_Jan_. And will you? + +_Helen_. They are treacherous I know. This will do.--(_Taking a basket +from the toilette_.) Give me that cord. (_She lets down the basket from +the window, and draws it up, with a letter in it_.) + +_Helen_. (_Looking at the superscription_.) 'Tis his! I thought so. Is +it ink and paper that I want now? (_Breaking it open_.) Ah, there's no +forgery in this, 'Tis his! 'tis his! + +_Jan_. How can she stand to look at that little lock of hair +now?--smiling as if she had found a bag of diamonds. But there's bad +news there. How the color fades out, and the light in her eye dies away. +What can it be? + +_Helen_. (_Throwing the letter down, and walking the floor hastily_.) +This is too much! I cannot, I cannot, _I cannot go with them_! How could +he ask it of me? _This is_ cruel. + +He knew, perfectly well, how I have always feared them--I cannot go with +them. + + (_She takes up the letter_.) + +(_Reading_.) "Possible"--"If it were possible"--he does not read that +word as I did when I kept this promise--_Possible_? He does not know the +meaning that love gives that word--"If I had known an hour sooner," +--Ay, ay, an hour sooner!--"Trust me, dear Helen, they will not harm +you." _Trust me_, trust me. Won't I? + +_Jan_. She is beckoning them, as I live! + +_Helen_. Bring me that hat and mantle, Netty. I must go with these +savages. + +_Jan_. _Go_ with them! + +_Helen_. There is no help for it. + +_Jan_. With these wild creatures,--with these painted devils?--No--Like +nothing human they look, I am sure. Ah see, see them in their feathers +and blankets, and that long wild hair. See the knives and the tomahawks +in their girdles! Holy Mary! Here's one within the court! + +_Helen_. Yes, there he stands--there's life in it now.--There they +stand--the chesnut boughs wave over them--this is the filling up of +life. They _are_ waiting for me. 'Tis no dream. + +_Jan_. Dare you go with them? They will murder you. + +_Helen_. If they were but human, I could move them--and yet it is the +human in them that is so dreadful. To die were sad enough--to die by +violence, by the power of the innocent elements, were dreadful, or to be +torn of beasts; to meet the wild, fierce eye, with its fixed and deadly +purpose, more dreadful; but ah, to see the human soul, from the +murderers eye glaring on you, to encounter the human will in its +wickedness, amid that wild struggle--Oh God! spare me. + +_Jan_. If you fear them so, surely you will not go with them. + +_Helen_. This letter says they are kind and innocent. One I _should_ +believe tells me there is no cause for fear. In his haste he could not +find no other way to send for me.--The army will be here soon,--I _must_ +go with them. + +_Jan_. But Captain Grey will come back here again this afternoon. +Stay,--stay, and we will go with him. + +_Helen_. You can--yes, you will be safe. For myself, I will abide my +choice. Surely I need not dread to go where my betrothed husband trusts +me so fearlessly. I count my life worth little more than the price at +which he values it. Clasp this mantle, Netty.--And is it thus I go forth +from these blessed walls at last?--Through all those safe and quiet +hours of peace and trust, did this dark end to them lie waiting +here?--Are they calling me? + +_Jan_. Yes. + +_Helen_. Well,--I am ready. (_Lingering in the door_.) I shall sit by +that window no more. Never again shall I turn those blinds to catch the +breeze or the sunshine. Yes--(_returning_), let me look down on that +orchard once again. Never more--never more. + + (_She walks to the door, again pausing on the threshold_.) + +_Helen_. (_solemnly_.) Oh God, here, from childhood to this hour, +morning and evening I have called on thee--forget me not. Farewell, +Netty, you will see my mother--you will see them all--that is +past.--Tell her I had seen the Indians, and was not afraid. + + [_She goes out_. + +_Jan_. It won't take much to make an angel of her, there's that in it. + + (_Looking cautiously through the shutters_.) + +There she comes! How every eye in that wild group flashes on her! And +yet with what a calm and stately bearing she meets them. Holy Mary! she +suffers that savage creature to lift her to her horse, as though he were +her brother, and the long knife by his side too, glancing in the +sunshine! The horse, one would think, he knew the touch of that white +hand on his neck. How gently he rears his beautiful head. There they go. +Adieu! Was there ever so sad a smile? + +Another glimpse I shall have of them yet beyond those trees.--Yes, there +they go--there they go. I can see that lovely plume waving among the +trees still.--Was there ever so wild a bridal train? + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE III. + +SCENE. _British Camp. The interior of a Tent richly furnished. An + Officer seated at a table covered with papers and maps. + A Servant in waiting_. + + +_The Officer_. (_Sipping his wine, and carefully examining a plan of the +adjacent country_.) About here, we must be--let me see.--I heard the +drum from their fort this morning, distinctly. Turn that curtain; we +might get a faint breeze there now. + +_Ser't_. But the sun will be coming that side, Sir. It's past two +o'clock. + +_Off_. Past two--a good position--very. Well, well,--we'll take our +breakfast in Albany on Friday morning, and if our soldiers fast a day or +two ere then, why they'll relish it the better;--once in the rich +country beyond--Ay, it will take more troops than this General will have +at his bidding by that time, to drain the Hudson's borders for us. + + (_A Servant enters with a note_.) + +_Off_. (_Reading_.) "_The Baroness Reidesel's compliments--do her the +honor---Voisin has succeeded_."--Ay, ay,--Voisin has succeeded,--I'll +warrant that. That caterer of hers must be in league with the powers of +the air, I am certain. General Burgoyne will be but too happy, my +Lady--(_writing the answer_.) + + [_The Servant goes out_. + +_Off_. Past two! The cannon should be in sight ere this. This to Sir +George Ackland. + + [_Exit the Attendant_. + +_Off_. Tuesday--Wednesday.--If the batteaux should get here to-morrow. +One hundred teams---- + + (_Another Officer enters the tent_.) + +_1st Off_. How goes it abroad, Colonel St. Leger? + +_2nd Off_. Indeed, Sir, the camp is as quiet as midnight. It's a +breathless heat. But there are a few dark heads swelling in the west. We +may have a shower yet ere night. + +_Bur_. Good news that. But here is better, (_giving the other an open +letter_.) + +_St. Leger_. Ay, ay, that reads well, Sir. + +_Bur_. And here is another as good. Yes Sir, yes Sir,--they are flocking +in from all quarters--the insurgents are laying down their arms by +hundreds. It must be a miserable fragment that Schuyler has with him by +this. + +_St. L_. General Burgoyne, is not it a singular circumstance, that the +enemy should allow us to take possession of a point like that without +opposition,--so trifling a detachment, too? Why, that hill commands the +fort,--certainly it does. + +_Bur_. Well--well. They are pretty much reduced, I fancy, Sir. We shall +hardly hear much more from them. Let me see,--this is the hill. + +_St. L_. A pity we could not provoke them into an engagement, though! +They depend so entirely upon the popular feeling for supplies and +troops, and the whole machinery of their warfare, that it is rather +hazardous reckoning upon them, after all. If we could draw them into an +engagement _now_, the result would be certain. + +_Bur_. Yes, yes; we must contrive to do that ere long. Rather +troublesome travelling companions they make, that's certain. Like those +insects that swarm about us here,--no great honor in fighting them, but +a good deal of discomfort in letting them alone. We must sweep them out +of our way, I think, or at all events give them a brush, that will quiet +them a little. + +_St. L_. Or they might prove, after all, like the gadfly in the fable. I +do not think this outbreak will be any disadvantage in the end, General. + +_Bur_. Not a whit--not a whit--they have needed this. It will do them +good, Sir. + +_St. L_. The fact is, these colonies were founded in the spirit of +insubordination, and all the circumstances of their position have +hitherto tended to develope only these disorganizing elements. + +_Bur_. It will do them good, Sir. Depend upon it, they'll remember this +lesson. Pretty well sickened of war are they all. They'll count the cost +ere they try it again. + +_St. L_. We can hardly expect the news from General Reidesel before +sunset, I suppose. + +_Bur_. If my messenger returns by to-morrow's sunrise, it is better +fortune than I look for. + + (_Col. St. Leger goes out_.) + + (_Burgoyne resumes his plan_.) + +_A Ser't_. (_At the door_.) Capt. Maitland, Sir. + +_Bur_. Capt. Maitland! + +_Ser't_. From Fort Ann, Sir. + + (_Maitland enters_.) + +_Bur_. Captain Maitland! Good heavens, I thought you were at +Skeensborough by this,--what has happened? or am I to congratulate +myself that the necessity of your embassy is obviated. You met them, +perhaps?-- + +_Maitland_. There's but little cause of congratulation, Sir, as these +dispatches will prove to you. I returned only because my embassy was +accomplished. + +_Bur_. Do you mean to say, Captain Maitland, that you have seen the +waters of Lake Champlain, since you left here this morning? + +_Mait_. I do, Sir. + +_Bur_. On my word, these roads must have improved since we travelled +them some two days agone. I am sorry for your horses, Sir. You saw +General Reidesel? + +_Mait_. I left him only at nine o'clock this morning. + + (_Burgoyne examines the dispatches_.) + +_Bur_. "Twelve oxen to one batteaux!"--"and but fifty teams!" This news +was scarcely worth so much haste, I think,--but fifty teams?--Captain +Maitland, had those draught horses from Canada not arrived yet? + +_Mait_. They were just landing this morning as I left, but only +one-fourth of the number contracted for. + +_Bur_. Humph! I would like to know what time, at this rate----sit down, +Captain Maitland, sit down--we are like to spend the summer here, for +aught I see, after all. (_A long pause, in which Burgoyne resumes his +reading_.) + +_Mait_. General Burgoyne, I am entrusted with a message from General +Reidsel to the Baroness. If this is all---- + +_Bur_. What were you saying?--The Baroness--ay, ay--that's all well +enough,--but Captain Maitland is aware, no doubt, there are more +important subjects on the tapis just now than a lady's behests. + +_Mait_. Sir?---- + +_Bur_. (_Pushing the papers impatiently from him_.) This will never do. +St. George! We'll give these rebels other work ere many days, than +driving away cattle and breaking down bridges for our convenience. +Meanwhile we must open some new source of supplies, or we may starve to +death among these hills yet. Captain Maitland, I have a proposal to make +to you. You are impatient, Sir. + +_Mait_. General Burgoyne!---- + +_Bur_. Nay, nay,--there's no haste about it. It were cruel to detain you +now, after the toil of this wild journey. You'll find your quarters +changed, Captain Maitland. We sent a small detachment across the river +just now. Some of our copper-colored allies had got into a fray with the +enemy there. + +_Mait_. Ha! (_returning_.) + +_Bur_. Nothing of consequence, as it turns out. We hoped it would have +ended in something. A few of the enemy, who were stationed as a guard on +a hill not far from Fort Edward, were surprised by a party of Indians, +and killed, to a man, I believe. Afterwards, the victors got into a +deadly fray among themselves as usual. A quarrel between a couple of +these chiefs, at some famous watering place of theirs, and in the midst +of it, a party from the fort drove them from the ground;--this is +Alaska's own story at least. + +_Mait_. _Alaska's!_ + +_Bur_. Alaska?--Alaska?--yes, I think it was,--one of these new allies +we have picked up here. + +_Mait_. (_In a whisper_.) Good God! + +_Bur_. By the time our detachment arrived there, however, the ground was +cleared, and they took quiet possession. Are you ill, Captain Maitland? + +_Mait_. A little,--it is nothing. I am to cross the river. + +_Bur_, Yes. You will take these papers to Captain Andre. You have +over-fatigued yourself. You should have taken more time for this wild +journey. + + (_Maitland goes out_.) + +_Bur_. I do not like the idea of division, but it cannot be helped now. +This gallant young soldier were a fitting leader for such an enterprize. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE IV. + +SCENE. _The ground before Maitland's Tent_. + + + (_Maitland and the Indian Chief, Manida, enter_.) + +_Mait_. This is well. (_He writes on a slip of paper, and gives it to +the Indian_.) Take that, they will give you the reward you ask for it. +Let me see your face no more, that is all. + +_Manida_. Ha, _Monsieur_? + +_Mait_. Let me see your face no more, I say. Do you understand me? + +_Manida_. (_Smiling_.) Oui. + + (_Maitland turns from him. The Indian goes off in the + opposite direction. He stops a moment, and steals a look + at Maitland,--throws his head back with a long silent laugh, + and then goes on toward the woods_.) + +_Mait_. (_Musing_.) I like this. _This_ is womanly! Nay, perhaps there +is no caprice about it. I may have misinterpreted that letter in my +haste last night. Very likely. Well,--better this, than that Helen Grey +should come to evil through fault of mine,--better this, than the +anguish of the horrible misgivings that haunted me amid my journey. + +And so pass these faery visions! Nay, not thus. It will take longer than +this to unlink this one day's hope from its thousand fastnesses. I +thought, ere this, to have met the spirit of those beaming eyes, to have +taken to my heart for ever this soft, pure being of another life. And +yet, even as I rode through those lonely hills this morning, with every +picture my hope painted, there came a strange misgiving;--like some +scene of laughing noonday loveliness, darkening in the shadow of a +summer's cloud. + +Strange that Alaska should abandon my trust! I cannot understand it. +Why, I should never have trusted her with this rascal Indian. There was +something in his eye, hateful beyond all thought,--and once or twice I +caught a strange expression in it, like malignant triumph it seemed. It +may be--no, he must have seen her--that glove he showed me was hers, I +know. Good God!--what if----I think my old experience should have taught +me there was little danger of her risking much in my behalf. Well--even +this is better, than that Helen Grey should have come to evil through +fault of mine. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +PART SIXTH + + * * * * * + +RECONCILIATION. + + * * * * * + +DIALOGUE I. + +SCENE. _The slope of the Hill near Fort Edward. The road-side, shaded + with stately pines and hemlocks_. + + + (_Two British Officers, coming slowly down the road_.) + +_1st Off_. Yes, here has been wild work upon this hill to-day. They were +slaughtered to a man. + +_2nd Off_. I saw a sight above there, just now, that sickened me of +warfare. + +_1st Off_. And what was that, pry'thee? + +_2nd Off_. Oh nothing,--'twas nothing but a dead soldier; a common sight +enough, indeed; but this was a mere youth;--he was lying in a little +hollow on the roadside, and as I crossed in haste, I had well-nigh set +my foot on his brow. Such a brow it was, so young, so noble, and the +dark chesnut curls clustering about it. I think I never saw a more +classic set of features, or a look of loftier courage than that which +death seemed to have found and marbled in them. Hark--that's a +water-fall we hear. + +_1st Off_. I saw him, there was another though, lying not far thence, +the sight of whom moved me more. He was younger yet, or seemed so, and +of a softer mould; and, torn and bloody as they were, I fancied I could +see in his garb and appointments, and in every line of his features, the +traces of some mother's tenderness. + +_2nd Off_. Listen, Andre! This is beautiful! There's some cascade not +far hence, worth searching for. + +_Andre_. Yes, just in among those trees you'll find a perfect +drawing-room, carpeted, canopied, and dark as twilight; its verdant +seats broidered with violets and forget-me-nots; and all untenanted it +seems, nay, deserted rather, for the music wastes on the lonely air, as +if the fairy that kept state there, in gossip mood had stolen down some +neighboring aisle, and would be home anon. I would have bartered all the +glory of this campaign for leave to stretch myself on its mossy bank, +for a soft hour or so. + +_Mor_. Ay, with Chaucer or the "Faery Queen." If one could people these +lovely shades with the fresh creations of the olden time, knight and +lady, and dark enchantress and Paynim fierce, instead of Yankee rebels-- + +_Andre_. 'Twere well your faery-work were of no lasting mould, or these +same Yankee rebels would scarce thank you for your pains,--they hold +that race in little reverence. Alas,-- + + No grot divine, or wood-nymph haunted glen, + Or stream, or fount, shall these young shades e'er know. + No beautiful divinity, stealing afar + Through darkling nooks, to poet's eye thence gleam; + With mocking mystery the dim ways wind, + They reach not to the blessed fairy-land + That once all lovely in heaven's stolen light, + To yearning thoughts, in the deep green-wood grew. + Ah! had they come to light when nature + Was a wonder-loving, story-telling child!-- + The misty morn of ages had gone by, + The dreamy childhood of the race was past, + And in its tame and reasoning manhood, + In the daylight broad, and noon-day of all time, + _This_ world hath sprung. The poetry of _truth_, + None other, shall her shining lakes, and woods, + And ocean-streams, and hoary mountains wear. + Perchance that other day of poesy, + Unsung of prophets, that upon the lands + Shall dawn yet, thence shall spring. The self-same mind + That on the night of ages once, for us + Those deathless clusters flung, the self-same mind, + With all its ancient elements of might, + Among us now its ancient glory hides; + But, from its smothered power, and buried wealth, + A golden future sparkles, decked from deeper founts, + A new and lovelier firmament, + A thousand realms of song undreamed of now, + That shall make Romance a forgotten world, + And the young heaven of Antiquity, + With all its starry groups, a gathered scroll. + + +_Mor_. Ay, Andre, you were born a poet, and have mistaken your art. +Prythee excuse me, who am but a poor soldier, for marring so fine a +rhapsody with any thing so sublunary; but, methinks, for an enemy's +quarters, yonder fort shows as peaceable a front of stone and mortar as +one could ask for. What can it mean that they are so quiet there? + +_Andre_. That spy did not return a second time. + +_Mor_. The rogues have made sure of him ere this, I fancy. They may have +given us the slip,--who knows? + +_Andre_. I would like to venture a stroll through that shady street if I +thought so. A dim impression that I have somewhere seen this view +before, haunts me unaccountably. + +_Mor_. How I hate that sober, afternoon air, that hangs like an +invisible presence over it all. You can see it in the sunshine on those +white walls, you can hear it in the hum of the bee from the bending +thistle here. + +_Andre_. Of the mind it is. This were lovely as the morning light, but +for the shade it gathers thence, from the thought of decline and the +vanishing day. 'Tis a pretty spot. + +_Mor_. Yes, but the quiet goings-on of life are all hushed there now. + +_Andre_. Ay, this is the hour, when the home-bound children swing the +gate with a merry spring, and the mother sits at her work by the open +window, with her quiet eye, and the daughter, with the beauty of an +untamed soul in her's, looks forth on the woods and meadows, and thinks +of her walk at even-tide. I thought it was something like a memory that +haunted me thus,--'tis the spot that Maitland talked of yesterday. + +_Mor_. Captain Maitland? I saw him just now at the works above. + +_Andre_. Here? On this hill? + +_Mor_. Yes,--something struck me in his mien,--and there he stands with +Colonel Hill, above, on the other side.--Mark him now. Your friend is +handsome, Andre; he is handsome, I'll own,--but I never liked that smile +of his, and I think I like it less than ever now. + +_Andre_. Why, that's the genuine Apollo-curl,--a line's breadth deeper +were too much, I'll own. + + (_Maitland and another Officer enter_.) + +_Off_. That is all,--that is all, I believe, Captain Maitland. Yonder +pretty dwelling among the trees seems an old acquaintance of yours. It +has had the ill manners to rob me of your eye ever since we stood here, +and I have had little token that the other senses were not in its +company. Andre, has your friend never a ladye-love in these wilds, you +could tell us of? + +_Mor_. He is sworn to secresy. Did you mark that glance? + +_Mait_. Love! I hold it a pretty theme for the ballad-makers, Colonel +Hill; but for myself, I have scarce time for rhyming just now. Captain +Andre, here are papers for you. + + [_He walks away, descending the road_. + +_Col. Hill_. So! So! What ails the boy? + + (_Looking after him for a moment, and then ascending the hill_.) + +_Andre_. (_Reading_.) Humph! Here's prose enough! Will you walk up the +hill with me, Mortimer? I must cross the river again. + +_Mait_. First let me seek this horse of mine,--the rogue must have +strayed down this path, I think. + + (_He enters the wood_.) + + (_Andre walks to and fro with an impatient air, then pauses_.) + +_Andre_. Well, I can wait no longer for this loiterer. + + [_Exit_. + + (_Mortimer re-enters, calling from the woods_.) + +_Mor_. Andre! Maitland! Colonel Hill! Good Heavens! Where the devil are +they all? Maitland! + + (_Maitland appears, slowly ascending the road_.) + +_Mor_. For the love of Heaven,--come here. + +_Mail_. Nay.--but what is it? + +_Mor_. For God's sake, come, + + * * * * * + + + + + + +DIALOGUE II. + +SCENE. _A little glen, darkly shaded with pines. A fountain issuing from + one side, and falling with a curious murmur into the basin below_. + + + (_Mortimer and Maitland enter_.) + +_Mor_. This is the place!--Well, if hallucinations like this can visit +mortal eyes, I'll ne'er trust mine again. 'Tis the spot, I'm sure of +it,--the place, too, that Andre was raving about just now.--The fairies' +drawing-room,--palace rather,--look at these graceful shafts, +Maitland,--and fairies' work, it must have been in good earnest. + +_Mait_. If it's to admire this clump of pine trees you have brought me +hither, allow me to say you might have spared yourself that trouble. I +have seen the place already, as often as I care to. + +_Mor_. Come this way a little,--yes, it was just above there that I +stood,--it must have been. + +_Mait_. If you would give me some little inkling of what you are talking +about, Lieutenant Mortimer, I should be more likely to help you, if it's +help you need. + +_Mor_. I do not ask you to believe me, but,--as I was springing on my +horse just now above there, the gurgling of this spring caught my ear, +and looking down suddenly--upon my word, Captain Maitland, I am ashamed +to describe what cannot but seem to you such an improbable piece of +fancy-work; and yet, true it seemed, as that I see you now. I was +looking down, as I said, when suddenly, among those low evergreens, the +brilliant hue of a silken mantle caught my eye, and then a woman's brow +gleamed up upon me. Yes, there in that dark cradle, calmly sleeping, all +flashing with gold and jewels, like some bright vision of olden time, +methought there lay--a lady,--a girl, young and lovely as a dream;--the +white plume in her bonnet soiled and broken, and the long bright hair +streaming heavily on her mantle,--and yet with all its loveliness, such +a face of utter sorrow saw I never. I _saw_ her, I saw her, as I see you +now,--the proud young form with such a depth of grace, in its strange +repose, and--where are you going?--what are you doing, Maitland? + +_Mait_. Helen Grey!-- + +_Mor_. You are right. I did not mark that break--yes--there she lies. +Said I right, Maitland? + +_Mait_. Helen Grey!-- + +_Mor_. Maitland! Heavens!--what a world of anguish that tone +reveals!--Why do you stand gazing on that lovely sleeper thus? + +_Mait_. Bring water. There's a cup at yonder spring. Here has been +treachery! Devils and fiends have been working here against me. We must +unclasp this mantle. The treasure of the earth lies here.--Now doth mine +arm enfold it once, at last. 'Tis sweet, Helen, mine own _true_ love; +'tis sweet, even thus. + +_Mor_. This letter,--see--from those loosened folds it just now dropped. +This might throw some light, perchance-- + +_Mait_. Let it be. There's light enough. I want no more. Water,--more +water,--do you see? + +_Mor_. Maitland,--this is vain. Mark this dark spot upon her girdle-- + +_Mait_. Hush, hush,--there, cover it thus--'tis nothing, Loosen this +bonnet--so--'twas a firm hand that tied that knot; so--she can breathe +now. + +_Mor_. How like life, those soft curls burst from their loosened +pressure! But mark you--there is no other motion, I am sorry to distress +you,--but--Maitland--this lady is dead. + +_Mait. Dead_! Lying hell-hound! _Dead_! Say that again. + +_Mor_. God help you! + +_Mait. Dead_! Helen Grey, open these eyes. Here's one that, never having +seen them, talks of death. Oh God! is it thus we meet at last? At last +these arms are round her, and she knows it not. I look upon her, but her +eye answers me not. Dead!--for me? Murdered!--mine own hand hath done +it. + +_Mor_. Why do you start thus? + +_Mait_. Hush!--hush! There!--again--that slow heavy throb--again! again! + +_Mor_. Good God! she breathes! This is life indeed. + +_Mait_. (_Solemnly_.) Ay, thank God. This moment's sweetness is enough. + +_Mor_. How like one in troubled sleep she murmurs! Mark those tones of +sweet and wild entreaty. Listen! + +_Mait_. I have heard it again!--from the buried years of love and hope +that music came. She is here. 'Tis _she_. This is no marble mockery. She +is here! Her head is on my bosom. Death cannot rob me of this sweetness +now. + + (_Talking without_.) + +_A Lady_. This way--I hear their voices. Down this pathway--here they are. + + (_Lady Ackland and Andre enter the Glen_.) + +_Lady A_. I knew it could not be. They told us she was murdered, +Maitland. (_Starting back_.) Ah--ah--God help thee, Maitland! + +_Mait_. Listen, listen. She was speaking but now. There--again! + +_Lady A_. And this is she! Can the wilderness blossom thus? And did God +unfold such loveliness--for a waste so cruel? + +_Helen_. (_In a low murmur_.) We are almost there. If we could but pass +this glen. Oh God! will they stop here? Go on,--go on. Was not that a +white tent I saw? Go on. They will not. 'Tis nothing,--do not weep. + +_Mait_. Look at me, Helen.--Open these eyes. One more look--one more. + +_Andre_. She hears your bidding. + +_Mait_. Oh God! Do you see those eyes--those dim, bewildered eyes?--it +is quenched--quenched. Let her lean on you. + +_Lady A_. Gently--gently, she does not see us yet. + +_Helen_. Oh Mother, I am ill and weary. Here's this dream again! Blue +sky? and pine-tree boughs? Am I here indeed? Yes, I remember now,--we +stood upon that cliff--I am dying. Is there no one here? Whose tears are +these? + +_Lady A_. Dear child, sweet one, nay, lean on me. + +_Helen_. My mother, oh my mother, come to me. Come, Annie, come, come! +Strangers all! + +_Mor_. Her eye is on him. Hush! + +_Andre_. See in an instant how the light comes flashing up from those +dim depths again. _That_ is the eye that I saw yesterday. + +_Lady A_. That slowly settling smile,--deeper and deeper--saw you ever +any thing so gay, so passing lovely? + +_Helen_. Is it--is it--Everard Maitland--is it _thee_? The living real +of my thousand dreams, in the light of life doth he stand there now? +Doth he? _'Tis he!_ + +_Mait_. Helen! + +_Helen_. 'Tis he! That tone's spell builds around me its all-sheltering +music-walls, and death is nothing. Oh God, when at thy dark will dimly +revealed, I trembled yesterday, I did not think in this most rosy bower +to meet its fearfulness. + +_Mait_. Helen,--dost thou love me _yet_? + +_Helen_. Doubter, am I dying here? + +_Mait_. 'Tis her own most rich and blessed smile, even as of old in +mirth it shone upon me. Your murderer, you count me then? + +_Helen_. Come hither,--let me lean on _you_. Star of the wilderness!--of +this life that is fading now, the sun!--_doth_ mine eye see thee, then, +at last? Oh! this is sweet! On its own holy home my head rests now. +Everard, in this dark world _Love leans on Faith_. How else, even in +God's love and loveliness, could I trust now for that strange future on +whose bloody threshold I am lying here; yes, and in spite of prayers and +trust, and struggling hopes. And yet--how beautiful it is--that love +invisible, invisible no more. Like glorious sunshine it is streaming +round me,--lighting all. The infinite of that thy smile hath imaged, as +real,--it beams on me now. Have faith, in _him_ I mean; for--if we meet +again--we'll need it then no more; and--how dim it grows--nay, let me +lean on you,--and--through _this_ life's darkening glass I shall see you +no more. Nay, hold me!--quick!--where art thou?--Everard!--He is +gone--gone! + +_Lady A_. Dead!-- + +_Mor_. She is dead! + +_Andre_. This was Love. + +_Lady A_. See how her eyes are fixed on _you_. The light and love of the +vanished soul looks through them still. Cruelly hath it been sent +thence; and no other gleam of its changeful beauty will e'er dawn in +them. Sadly, oh lovely stranger, I close for ever now these dark-fringed +lids upon their love and beauty. Yes--_this_ was love! + +_Andre_. And so there was a need-be in its doom. I'll ne'er believe +_that_ genuine, that is blessed. The fate of this life would not suffer +it. Ah! if it would, if Heaven should leave a gem like that outside her +walls, we should none of us go thither. + +_Mait_. Dead? How beautiful! Yes--let her lie there--under that lovely +canopy. Dead!--it's a curious word--How comes it that we all stand here? +Ha, Andre?--is it you? + +_Andre_. I heard the tale as I crossed just now, from an Indian, who was +one in the ambuscade this noon--and in the woods on the other side, I +found this lady, with her attendants, abiding the promise she made you +last night, to welcome this lovely stranger with her savage guides. + +_Mait_. Hush, hush. Let it pass. See,--a bride! + +_Mor_. (_Aside_.) Did he trust her with these murderers? + +_Mait_. Ay--say yes. + +_Andre_. Indeed, Maitland, you wrong yourself. It was the treachery of +this savage Manida that crossed your plans, working the mission of some +Higher power,--as for Alaska, you might as soon have doubted me. + +The Chief he sent for her was one he had known years--but, +unfortunately, he was one in the ambuscade this morning--nay, the leader +of it; for the murdered Indian was his son; and meanwhile amid the fight +the treacherous Manida, who accompanied him to Maitland's tent last +night, and heard the promised reward, found means to steal from its +concealment the letter, with which he easily won this trusting lady to +accompany him. + +_Mor_. Ah!--there it lies. + +_Andre_. It was here in this glen that Alaska, discovering the +treachery, lay in wait for them with a band of chosen warriors, and on +that cliff above they fought. + +_Lady A_. (_Aside_.) And she stood there, amid those yelling demons +alone! Methinks the angels should have come from their unseen dwellings +at her prayer. Can our humanity's darkest extremity wring no love from +the invisible?-- + +_Andre_. Alaska had regained his charge; but the malignant eye, and the +deadly arrow of the vanquished Indian followed her. She fell, even in +the place where you found her; for at that same instant a party from the +fort drove them hence, victor and vanquished. Alaska fled; but the +murderer, with a tale cunning enough to deceive the lover, boldly +demanded and obtained the prize. + +_Mor_. Mark his changed mien. I would rather see tears for a grief like +this, than that calm smile with which he gazes on her now. + + (_Burgoyne and St. Leger are seen talking in the road + above,--they enter the glen_.) + +_Bur_. At a crisis like this we might better have lost a thousand men in +battle! Ah! ah!--a sight for our enemies, Lady Ackland! Where is this +Indian? + +_St. L_. We have sent out for him. No one has seen him as yet. + +_Bur_. Let him be found. Look to it. We will give them an example for +once. I say, at a crisis like this we might better have lost a thousand +men in battle, for it will turn thousands against us, and rouse the +slumbering spirit of resistance here, at the very crisis when, had it +slumbered on a little longer, all was ours. + +_St. L_. But this was a quarrel among the Indians, and no fault of ours. + +_Bur_. No matter. You will see what Schuyler will make of it. His wordy +proclamation will have its living sequel now. A young and innocent girl, +seeking the protection of our camp, is inhumanly murdered by Indians in +our pay. A single tale like this is enough to undo at a blow all that we +have accomplished here. With ten thousand wild aggravations, it will be +told in every cottage of these borders before to-morrow's sunset. + + (_Another Officer enters hastily_.) + +_Off_. Here is Arnold, with a thousand men, on the brow of the next +hill. One of the rebel guard escaped, and the news of the massacre here +has reached their camp below. + +_Bur_. Said I right? + + (_The three Officers go out together_.) + +_Andre_. This story is spreading fast, there will be throngs here +presently. Maitland,--nay, do not let me startle you thus, but-- + +_Mait_. Is it you? What was it we were saying yesterday?--we should have +noted it. This were a picture worth your pencilling now. Those silken +vestments,--that long, golden hair,--this youthful shape,--there's that +same haughty grace about it, that the smile of these thought-lit eyes +would disown with every glance. Then that letter,--and the Lady Ackland +here,--Weeping?--This is most strange. I know you all,--but,--as I live +I can't remember how this chanced. How comes it that we all stand here? +Pearls?--and white silk?--a bridal?--Ha ha ha! (_Laughing wildly_.) + +_Lady A_. Take me away. This is too terrible! lean stay here no longer. +Take me away, Andre. + + [_Exeunt Andre and Lady A_. + + (_An Officer enters_.) + +_The Officer_. We are ordered to withdraw our detachment, Captain +Maitland. The rebels are just below, some two thousand strong, and in no +mood to be encountered. + +_Mor_. He does not hear you. We must leave that murdered lady here, and +'tis vain to think of parting them. Come. + + [_Exeunt Mortimer and Officer_. + +_Mait_. They are gone at last. They are all gone. I am alone with my +dead bride. I must needs smile--I could not weep when those haughty and +prying eyes were upon me, but now--I am alone with my dead +bride.--Helen, they are all gone,--we are alone. How still she +lies,--smiling too,--on that same bank. She will speak, surely she will. +How lightly those soft lashes lie, as if a word would lift +them.--Helen!--I will be calm and patient as a child. This lovely smile +is deepening, it will melt to words again.--Hark! that spring,--that +same curious murmur! We have checked our sweetest words to hear it, we +have stood here listening to it, till we fancied, in its talk-like +tones, wild histories, beautiful and sad, the secrets of the woods.--Oh +God!--and have such memories no power here now? In mine ear alone doth +the spring murmur now. Death! what is't?--Awake! awake,--by the love +that is _stronger_ than death,--awake!-- + +I thought that scene would shift. It had a heavy, dream-like mistiness. +_This_ is reality again. _These_ are the pine trees that I dreamed of. +See! how beautiful! With the sharp outline and the vivid hue such as our +childhood's unworn sense yields, they are waving now. Look, Andre, there +she sits, the young and radiant stranger,--there, in the golden sunset +she is sitting still, braiding those flowers,--see, how the rich life +flashes in her eye, and yet, just now I dreamed that she was dead, +and--and--Oh my God! + + (_A voice without_.) + +Let go, who stays me?--where's my sister? + + (_Captain Grey enters_.) + +_Grey_. Ha! Murderer! art satisfied? + +_Mait_. Ay. + +_Grey_. What, do you mock me, Sir? + +_Mait_. Let her be. She is mine!--all mine! my love, my bride,--my +_bride_?--_Murderer_?--Stay!--Don't glare at me! I know you, Sir. I can +hurl off these mountain shadows yet.--They'll send some stronger devil +ere they wrench this hold from me! I know you well. What make you here? + +_Grey_. Madness!--there's little wonder!--It's the only good that Heaven +has left for him! My lovely playfellow,--my sister, is it so indeed? +Alas! all gently lies this hand in mine. There is no angry strength here +now. Helen!--Ah! would to God our last words had not been in bitterness. + +_Mait_. He weeps. I never thought to see tears there. List!--she should +not lie there thus. Strange it should move you so!--Think it a picture +now. 'Tis but a well-wrought painting after all, if one but thinks so. +See,--'tis but a sleeping girl, with the red summer light upon her +cheek, and the slight breeze stirring her golden hair. Mark you that +shoulder's grace?--They come. + + (_Leslie, Elliston, and others enter_.) + +_Leslie_. Oh God, was there none other? My lovely cousin, and--were +_you_ the victim? In your bridal glory chosen,--nay, with your heart's +holiest law lured to the bloody altar! Yet this day's history, and +something in that calm, high mien, tells me, as freely you had moved +unto it, though God had spoken by a higher voice, and with a martyr's +garland beckoned you. + +_Elliston_. Our cause is linked unto that ancient one, the cause of Love +and Truth; in which Heaven moves with unrelenting hand, not sparing its +own loveliest ones, but unto bloody death freely delivering them. + + (_Grey and Leslie converse apart_.) + +_Leslie_. Yes--we will bury her here. 'Tis a fitting spot; and unto +distant days, this lonely grave, with its ever-verdant canopy, shall be +even as Love's Shrine. Thither, in the calm and smiling summers of those +bloodless times shall many a fair young pilgrim come, to wonder at such +love; and living eyes shall weep, and living hearts shall heave over its +cruel fate, when unto her the long-told tale, and all the anguish of +this far-off day, shall be even as the dim passage of some troubled +dream. A martyr's garland she hath won indeed; true Love's young Martyr +there she lies. + +_Elliston_. Yet was that love but the wreathed and glittering weapon of +a higher doom. In that holy cause, whose martyrs strew a thousand +fields, truth's, freedom's, God's, darkly, by _Power Invisible_ hath +this young life been offered here. + +A thousand graves like this, over all this lovely land, in lanes and +fields, on the lonely hill-side, by the laughing stream, and in the +depths of many a silent wood, to distant days shall speak--of +blood-sealed destinies; with voices that no tyrant's power can smother, +they shall speak.-- + +_Leslie_. The light of that chamber window, through the soft summer +evening will shine here; no mournful memory of all the lovely past will +it waken. The autumn blaze will flicker within those distant walls, and +gather its pleasant circle again; but _she_ will lie calmly here. For +ever at her feet the river of her childhood shall murmur on, and many a +lovely spring-time, like the spring-times of her childhood, shall come +and go, but no yearning hope shall it waken here; the winter shall sing +through the desolate boughs, and rear its fairy temples around her, but +nought shall break her dreamless rest.-- + +_Mait_. Graves! Is it graves they are talking of? Will they bury this +gay young bride! 'Tis but the name; there's nothing sad in it. In the +lovely summer twilight shall her burial be, and thus; in all her bridal +array, with the glory of the crimson sunset shining through the +trees;--see what a fearful glow is kindling on her cheek, and that faint +breeze--or, is it life that stirs these curls? Stay!--whose young brow +is this?--Ha!--_whose_ smile is this? Who is this they would hurry away +into the darkness of death? The grave! Could you fold the rosy and +all-speading beauty of heaven in the narrow grave? Helen, is it +thee?--my heaven, my long-lost heaven; and, even now, but for mine own +deed--Oh God! was there no hand but mine?--but for me--They shall not +utter it,--there, thus. There's but _one_ cry that could unfold this +grief, but that would circle the round universe and fill eternity. A sad +sight this! Is't known who killed this lady, Sir? + +_Leslie_. Of all the wrecks of beautiful humanity that strew these +paths, we have found none so sad as this! + +_Elliston_. Mark you those groups of soldiers loitering on the road-side +there? + +_An Officer_. Curiosity. The regiment that was dismissed to-day. They'll +be here anon. + +_Leslie_. Ay, let them come. + +_Off_. Look,--who comes up that winding pathway through the trees, with +such a swift and stately movement? A woman! See how the rude soldiers +turn aside with awe. Ah, she comes hither. + + (_A voice without_.) + +Where is she?--stand aside!--What have you here in this dark +ring?--Henry--nay, let me come. + + (_Mrs. Grey enters the glen_.) + +_Grey_. For God's sake, Madam, let me lead you hence. This is no place +for you. Look at this group of men, officers, soldiers-- + +_Mrs. G_. Would you cheat me _thus_? Is it no place for _me_? What kind +of place is't then for her, whose--Oh God!--think you I do not see that +slippered foot, nor know whose it is,--and whose plumed bonnet is it +that lies crushed there at their feet?--unhand me, Henry. + +_Leslie_. Nay, let her come,--'tis best. + + (_She passes swiftly through the parting group_.) + +_Mrs. G_. My daughter!--_Blood_? My stricken child smile you? No pity +was there then? Speak to me, speak! Your mother's tears are on your +brow, and heed you not? Nay, tell me all, my smitten one. This day's +dark history will you never pour into my ear, that hath treasured so +often your lightest grief? Alone through that wild anguish have you +passed, and smile you now? I bade her trust in God. Did _God_ see this? + + (_Arnold, and a group of Soldiers, enter the glen_.) + +_Arnold_. Look there. Ay, ay, look there. You were right, Leslie;--this +_is_ better than a battle-field. They'll find that this day's work will +cost them dear. + +_Mrs. G_. Did _God_, who loves as mothers love their babes, see this I +Had I been there, with my love, in the heavens, could _I_ have given up +this innocent and tender child a prey to the wild Indians? No!--and +legions of pitying angels waiting but my word. No,--no. + +_Elliston_. Had you been there,--from that far centre whence God's eye +sees all, you had beheld what lies in darkness here. Forth from this +fearful hour you might have seen Peace, like a river, flowing o'er the +years to come; and smiles, ten thousand, thousand smiles, down the long +ages brightening, sown in this day's tears. Had you been there with +God's _all_-pitying eye, the pitying legions had waited your word in +vain, for once, unto a sterner doom, for the world's sake he gave his +Son. + +_Mrs. G_. Words! Look there. That mother warned me yesterday. "_Words, +words! My own child's blood_,"--I _see_ it now. + + (_A group of Soldiers enter_.) + +_A. Soldier_. (_Whispering_.) Who would have thought to see tears on +_his_ face; look you, Jack Richards. + +_Another Sol_. 'Twas his sister, hush!-- + +_Arnold_. Ay, ay, come hither. Look you there! Lay down your arms. Seek +the royal mercy;--here it is. Your wives, your sisters, and your +innocent children;--let them seek the royal shelter;--it is a safe one. +See. + +_3d Sol_. It was just so in Jersey last winter;--made no difference +which side you were. + +_Arnold_. Ask no reasons.--'Twas in sport may be. 'Tis but one, in many +such. Shameless tyranny we have borne long, and now, for resistance, to +red butchery we are given over. The sport of lawless soldiers, and +savages more cruel than the fiends in hell, are we, and the gentle +beings of our homes;--but, 'tis the Royal power. Lay down your arms. + +_Soldiers_. (_Shouting_.) _No_. + +_Arnold_. Nay, nay,--in its caprice some will be safe,--it may not light +on you. See, here's the proclamation. (_Throwing it among them_.) Pardon +for rebles. + +_Soldiers_. No--no. (_Shouting_.) Away with pardon!--(_Tearing the +proclamation_.) To the death! Freedom for ever! + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bride of Fort Edward, by Delia Bacon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRIDE OF FORT EDWARD *** + +***** This file should be named 7235.txt or 7235.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/3/7235/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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