THE MANIAC AND THE CHILD.
Meantime the mother and Catharine had exhausted themselves in searching
for the child. Mutual anxiety had drawn them together, as months of
common acquaintance could not have done. When they returned to the house
after midnight, in order to send the servants out to continue the
search, they found the old people up, and in a state of painful
excitement. Elsie, who had left them as they supposed, to go to her
room, had mysteriously disappeared.
Here was a new source of alarm. Never before had Elsie been known to
leave the house after dark. What could have led her forth? And where had
she fled to?
Again they all sallied out, the old people and the two young women,
followed by the servants; but all in vain. At daylight they returned
home, weary and sorrowful, filled with dread that something fatal had
happened to these helpless creatures, so loved and so strangely lost.
At daylight a new thought stole upon Catharine. The library! Elsie might
have concealed herself there, or might even be crouching near the door
in the passage. She started up, ran along the passage, and flung open
the library-door.
There was Elsie, in the gray light of the morning, with one arm over the
child, watching the pictures with her black, wakeful eyes, and with that
triumphant smile still upon her lips. The red drapery, the beautiful
head of the boy resting upon the cushions, and Elsie with those bright
eyes and the iron-gray hair sweeping around her, formed a group that was
more than picturesque.
Catharine uttered a joyful cry, that brought the stranger and the two
old people into the passage. The venerable parents ceased to weep as
they approached the room, but a pallor came upon their faces, and they
drew close together, as persons oppressed with a cold atmosphere strive
to impart warmth each to the other.
Elsie half arose, supporting herself with one hand pressed against the
floor.
“See, father—see, mother, I have got him. The night-angel let him loose
upon the moonbeams, then came to my room, whispering that he was alone
searching for his mother and fleeing from one who was not his mother,
but who had stolen the name and kept it, while we, who had his blood in
our veins, were pining.
“I listened to the night-angel, for he is grand and true, though since I
came here he has almost forsaken me. I listened to the night-angel, when
he told me that a child of my blood was uttering cries for help in the
open fields; that the forest-birds were scaring him with their hooting
cries; and the woman who is _not_ his mother was searching for him.
“The window was open, the grass underneath soft and silvered with
moonshine. I flung out the folds of my shawl and stepped forth upon the
air, sinking downward, but holding out the red wings of my drapery as
the angels do when they descend from heaven—but they would not hold me
up, and I fell upon the grass, which bathed my face and hands with its
silver dew. Still I heard the cry of my child afar off, and mocked by a
miserable whippoorwill, that taunted his agonies of fear with long,
mournful wails, that pained me to the soul. I have heard that whining
bird before; he loves to mock at me and mine. Years ago he began it,
years from now he will keep it up.
“My poor baby was there alone on the hillside, shrieking for me to come;
I knew that the woman who is not his mother was after him heart and
soul, as I was, the woman that is not his mother, who stands there!”
Here Elsie half started from the floor, and pointed her finger at the
poor young widow, who began to tremble and turned white beneath the
gleam of those wild black eyes.
“Go home!” continued Elsie, with a look of sudden affright; “he is mine,
God gave him to me first, and when he was lost the night-angel brought
him back to me. You are not his mother! It is my blood that reddens his
cheek, my breath that heaves his bosom, my soul that looks through his
eyes. Go home, the boy is mine,—mine, I tell you, mine!”
Elsie almost shrieked these words out, in her eagerness to drive the
pale young widow away; and she bent over the child fiercely as an eagle
broods over its young.
The widow drew timidly forward, with her eyes, full of crushed tears,
bent upon the child.
“Go home!” commanded Elsie, in wrath. “Go home! You are _not_ his
mother!”
“But I love him. He is mine. He never knew any mother but me,” pleaded
the young woman, while the tears started in large drops from her eyes,
and her hands clasped themselves as if eager to implore silence and
mercy from the maniac.
“No,” answered Elsie, and her black eyes kindled with fiery light to
their depths; “no, he is mine. When the blood reaches his heart, mine
beats quicker; when it stops, I shall perish; he is my soul, lost years
and years ago, which the night-angel has brought back. Go away, go
away!”
The poor young woman looked around for some one to aid or comfort her.
Catharine came forward.
“Yes,” she said, gently, “the night-angel knows that Elsie is the
child’s mother; but he is so young and must be cared for. This is his
nurse, who has taken charge of him for you. It is she who told the
night-angel when he was ready to come back.”
“Oh! are you sure?” questioned Elsie. “She does not claim to be his
mother?”
“No, only his mamma. You don’t mind what he calls her, if it is not
mother.”
“You are sure, quite sure?”
“Quite sure. Wake him and see if he calls her anything but mamma.”
Elsie smiled. “Wake him, oh, yes, I know how!” She bent her pale lips
down to the rosy mouth of the child, leaving a timid kiss upon it.
“It makes my heart beat,” she said, drawing a deep breath, and glancing
furtively up at the portraits. “They are jealous. Yes, they know what it
is to be jealous now.”