A MEETING OF LOVERS----SOME INSIGHT INTO THE FUTURE.
The twilight had subsided and given place to a beautiful night. The moon
had risen above the tree tops, and now threw her level rays upon the
broad face of the massive pile of rocks forming the Fawn's Tower, and
lit up with a silvery splendor, the foliage that clothed the steep cliff
and the almost perpendicular hill in its neighborhood. On the opposite
side of the river, a line of beech and sycamore trees, that grew almost
at the water's edge, threw a dark shadow upon the bank. Through these,
at intervals, the bright moonlight fell upon the earth, and upon the
quiet and deep stream. The woods were vocal with the whispering noises
that give discord to the nights of summer; yet, was there a stillness in
the scene which invited grave thoughts, and recalled to Butler's mind
some painful emotions that belonged to his present condition.
"How complicated and severe are those trials"--such was the current of
his meditations--"which mingle private grief with public misfortune:
that double current of ill which runs, on one side, to the overthrow of
a nation's happiness, and, on the other, to the prostration of the
individual who labors in the cause! What a struggle have I to encounter
between my duty to my country and my regard for those tender relations
that still more engross my affections, nor less earnestly appeal to my
manhood for defence! Upon the common quarrel I have already staked my
life and fortune, and find myself wrapt up in its most perilous
obligations. That cause has enough in it to employ and perplex the
strongest mind, and to invoke the full devotion of a head and heart that
are exempt from all other solicitude: yet am I embarrassed with personal
cares that are woven into the very web of my existence; that have
planted themselves beside the fountain of my affections, and which, if
they be rudely torn from me, would leave behind--but a miserable and
hopeless wreck. My own Mildred! to what sad trials have I brought your
affection; and how nobly hast thou met them!
"Man lives in the contentious crowd; he struggles for the palm that
thousands may award, and far-speeding renown may rend the air with the
loud huzza of praise. His is the strife of the theatre where the world
are spectators; and multitudes shall glorify his success, or lament his
fall, or cheer him in the pangs of death. But woman, gentle, silent,
sequestered--thy triumphs are only for the heart that loves thee--thy
deepest griefs have no comforter but the secret communion of thine own
pillow!"
Whilst Butler, who had now returned beneath the cliff of the Fawn's
Tower, was absorbed in this silent musing, his comrade was no less
occupied with his own cares. The sergeant had acquired much of that
forecast, in regard to small comforts, which becomes, in some degree, an
instinct in those whose profession exposes them to the assaults of wind
and weather. Tobacco, in his reckoning, was one of the most
indispensable muniments of war; and he was, accordingly, seldom without
a good stock of this commodity. A corn cob, at any time, furnished him
the means of carving the bowl of a pipe; whilst, in his pocket, he
carried a slender tube of reed which, being united to the bowl, formed a
smoking apparatus, still familiar to the people of this country, and
which, to use the sergeant's own phrase, "couldn't be touched for
sweetness by the best pipe the very Queen of the Dutch herself ever
smoked; and that"--he was in the habit of adding--"must be, as I take
it, about the tenderest thing for a whiff that the Dutchman knowed how
to make."
A flint and steel--part also of his gear--now served to ignite his
tobacco, and he had been, for some time past, sedately scanning the
length and breadth of his own fancies, which were, doubtless rendered
the more sublime by the mistiness which a rich volume of smoke had shed
across his vision and infused into the atmosphere around his brain.
"Twelve shillings and nine pence," were the first words which became
audible to Butler in the depth of his revery. "That, major," said the
sergeant, who had been rummaging his pocket, and counting over a handful
of coin, "is exactly the amount I have spent since this time last night.
I paid it to the old lady of the Swan at Charlottesville, taking a
sixpence for mending your bridle rein. Since you must make me paymaster
for our march, I am obliged to square accounts every night. My noddle
wont hold two days reckoning. It gets scrimped and flustered with so
many numberings, that I lose the count clean out."
"It is of little consequence, Galbraith," replied Butler, seeking to
avoid his companion's interruption.
"Squaring up, and smoothing off, and bringing out this and that shilling
straight to a penny, don't come natural to me," continued Robinson, too
intent upon his reckoning to observe the disinclination of Butler to a
parley, "money matters are not in my line. I take to them as
disunderstandingly as Gill Bentley did to the company's books, when they
made him Orderly on the Waccamaw picquet. For Gill, in the first place,
couldn't write, and, in the next place, if he could'a done that, he
never larnt to read, so you may suppose what a beautiful puzzleification
he had of it to keep the guard roster straight."
"Sergeant, look if yonder boat is loose; I shall want it presently,"
said Butler, still giving no ear to his comrade's gossip.
"It is tied by an easy knot to the root of the tree," said Robinson, as
he returned from the examination.
"Thank you," added Butler with more than usual abstractedness.
"Something, major, seems to press upon your spirits to-night," said the
sergeant, in the kindest tones of inquiry. "If I could lend a hand to
put any thing, that mought happen to have got crooked, into its right
place again, you know, Major Butler, I wouldn't be slow to do it, when
you say the word."
"I would trust my life to you, Galbraith, sooner than to any man
living," replied the other, with an affectionate emphasis:--"But you
mistake me, I am not heavy at heart, though a little anxious, sergeant,
at what has brought me here, comrade," he added as he approached the
sergeant, upon whose broad shoulder he familiarly laid his hand, with a
smile; "you will keep a fellow soldier's counsel?"
"As I keep my heart in my body," interrupted Galbraith.
"I am sure of it; even as you keep your faith to your country my true
and worthy brother," added Butler with animation, "and that is with no
less honesty than a good man serves his God. Then, Galbraith, bear it
in mind, I have come here for the sake of a short meeting with one that
I love, as you would have a good soldier love the lady of his soul. You
will hereafter speak of nothing that may fall within your notice. It
concerns me deeply that this meeting should be secret."
"Major, I will have neither eyes nor ears, if it consarns you to keep
any thing that mought chance to come to my knowledge, private."
"It is not for myself, sergeant, I bespeak this caution; I have nothing
to conceal from you; but there is a lady who is much interested in our
circumspection. I have given you a long and solitary ride on her
account, and may hereafter ask other service from you. You shall not
find it more irksome, Galbraith, to stand by a comrade in love, than you
have ever found it in war, and that, I know, you think not much."
"The war comes naturally enough to my hand," replied Galbraith, "but as
for the love part, major, excepting so far as carrying a message, or, in
case of a runaway, keeping off a gang of pestifarious intermeddlers, or
watching, for a night or so, under a tree, or any thing, indeed, in the
riding and running, or watching, or scrimmaging line--I say, excepting
these, my sarvice moughtn't turn to much account. I can't even play a
fiddle at a wedding, and I've not the best tongue for making headway
amongst the women. Howsomdever, major, you may set me down for a
volunteer on the first forlorn hope you may have occasion for."
"Mr. Lindsay lives on the hill across the river. There are reasons why I
cannot go to his house; and his daughter, Galbraith, is an especial
friend to us and to our cause."
"I begin to see into it," interrupted the sergeant, laughing, "you have
a notion of showing the old gentleman the same trick you played off upon
Lord Howe's provost marshal, when you was lieutenant at Valley Forge,
touching your stealing away his prisoner, Captain Roberts. That was a
night affair, too. Well, the best wife a man can have, major, is the
woman that takes to him through fire and water. There was Colonel
Gardiner, that stole his wife just in that way, against all opposition
of both father and mother, and a better woman never stitched up a seam,
to my knowledge and belief."
"I have no thought of such an enterprise, sergeant," said Butler; "our
purpose, for the present, must be confined to a short visit. We are
houseless adventurers, Galbraith, and have little to offer to sweetheart
or wife that might please a woman's fancy."
"When a woman loves a man, especially a sodger," replied the sergeant,
"she sets as little store by house and home as the best of us. Still, it
is a wise thing to give the creatures the chance of peace, before you
get to tangling them with families. Hark, I hear something like
footsteps on t'other side of the river! Mister Henry must be on his
march."
After an interval, a low whistle issued from the opposite bank, and, in
a moment, Butler was in the skiff, pushing his way through the sparkling
waters.
As the small boat, in which he stood upright, shot from the bright
moonlight into the shade of the opposite side, he could obscurely
discern Mildred Lindsay leaning on her brother's arm, as they both stood
under the thick foliage of a large beech. And scarcely had the bow
struck upon the pebbly margin, before he bounded from it up the bank,
and was, in the next instant, locked in the embrace of one whose
affection he valued above all earthly possessions.
When that short interval had passed away, in which neither Mildred nor
Arthur could utter speech; during which the lady leant her head upon her
lover's bosom, in that fond familiarity which plighted faith is allowed
to justify in the most modest maiden, sobbing the while in the intensity
of her emotions, she then at last, as she slowly regained her
self-possession, said, in a soft and melancholy voice, in which there
was nevertheless a tone of playfulness:
"I am a foolish girl, Arthur. I can boast like a blustering coward, when
there is nothing to fear; and yet I weep, like a true woman, at the
first trial of my courage."
"Ah, my dear Mildred, you are a brave girl," replied Butler, as he held
both of her hands and looked fondly into her face, "and a true and a
tried girl. You have come kindly to me, and ever, like a blessed and
gentle spirit of good, are prompt to attend me through every mischance.
It is a long and weary time, love, since last we met."
"It is very, very long, Arthur."
"And we are still as far off, Mildred, from our wishes as at first we
were."
"Even so," said Mildred sorrowfully. "A year of pain drags heavily by,
and brings no hope. Oh, Arthur, what have I suffered in the thought that
your life is so beset with dangers! I muse upon them with a childish
fear, that was not so before our last meeting. They rise to disturb my
daily fancies, and night finds them inhabiting my pillow. I was so
thankful, that you escaped that dreary siege of Charleston!"
"Many a poor and gallant fellow soldier there bit his lip with a chafed
and peevish temper," said Butler; "but the day will come, Mildred, when
we may yet carry a prouder head to the field of our country's honor."
"And your share," interrupted Mildred, "will ever be to march in the
front rank. In spite of all your perils past, your hard service, which
has known no holiday, your fatigues, that I have sometimes feared would
break down your health, and in spite too, of the claims, Arthur, that
your poor Mildred has upon you, you are even now again bound upon some
bold adventure, that must separate us, ah, perhaps, for ever! Our fate
has malice in it. Ever beginning some fresh exploit!"
"You would not have your soldier bear himself otherwise than as a true
knight, who would win and wear his lady-love by good set blows when
there was need for them?"
"If I were the genius that conjured up this war, I would give my own
true knight a breathing space. He should pipe and dance between whiles,"
replied Mildred sportively.
"He that puts his sickle into this field amongst the reapers," said
Butler, with a thoughtful earnestness, "should not look back from his
work."
"No, no, though my heart break while I say it--for, in truth, I am very
melancholy, notwithstanding I force a beggar's smile upon my cheek; no,
I would not have you stay or stand, Arthur, until you have seen this
wretched quarrel at an end. I praised your first resolve--loved you for
it--applauded and cheered you; I will not selfishly now, for the sake of
my weak, womanish apprehension, say one word to withhold your arm."
"And you are still," said Butler, "that same resolute enthusiast that I
found in the young and eloquent beauty who captivated my worthless
heart, when the war first drew the wild spirits of the country together
under our free banner?"
"The same foolish, conceited, heady, prattling truant, Arthur, that
first took a silly liking to your pompous strut, and made a hero to her
imagination out of a boasting ensign--the same in all my follies, and in
all my faults--only altered in one quality."
"And pray, what is that one quality?"
"I will not tell you," said Mildred carelessly. "'Twould make you vainer
than you are."
"It is not well to hide a kind thought from me, Mildred."
"Indeed it is not, Arthur. And so, I will muster courage to speak it,"
said the confiding girl with vivacity, after a short pause during which
she hung fondly upon her lover's arm; and then suddenly changing her
mood, she proceeded in a tone of deep and serious enthusiasm, "it is,
that since that short, eventful and most solemn meeting, I have loved
you, Arthur, with feelings that I did not know until then were mine. My
busy fancy has followed you in all your wanderings--painted with
stronger hues than nature gives to any real scene the difficulties and
disasters that might cross your path--noted the seasons with a nervous
acuteness of remark, from very faint-heartedness at the thought that
they might blight your health or bring you some discomfort. I have pored
over the accounts of battles, the march of armies, the tales of
prisoners relating the secrets of their prisons; studied the plans of
generals and statesmen, as the newspapers or common rumor brought them
to my knowledge, with an interest that has made those around me say I
was sadly changed. It was all because I had grown cowardly and feared
even my own shadow. Oh, Arthur, I am not indeed what I was."
The solemnity, force and feeling with which Mildred gave utterance to
these words, strangely contrasted with the light and gay tone in which
she had commenced; but her thoughts had now fallen into a current that
bore her forward into one of those bursts of excited emotion, which were
characteristic of her temper, and which threw a peculiar energy and
eloquence into her manner. Butler, struck by the rising warmth of her
enunciation, and swayed in part by the painful reflections to which her
topic gave rise, replied, in a state of feeling scarcely less solemn
than her own--
"Ah, Mildred," and as he spoke, he parted her hair upon her pale
forehead and kissed it, "dearest girl, the unknown time to come has no
cup of suffering for me that I would not hold a cheap purchase for one
moment like this. Even a year of painful absence past, and a still more
solicitous one to come, may be gallantly and cheerfully borne when
blessed with the fleeting interval of this night. To hear your faith,
which though I never dwelt upon it but with a confidence that I have
held it most profane to doubt, still, to hear it avowed from your own
lips, now again and again, repeating what you have often breathed
before, and in letter after letter, written down, it falls upon my
heart, Mildred, like some good gift from heaven, specially sent to
revive and quicken my resolution in all the toils and labors that yet
await me. There must be good in store for such a heart as thine; and,
trusting to this faith, I will look to the future with a buoyant
temper."
"The future," said Mildred, as she lifted her eyes to the pale moon that
now sheeted with its light her whole figure, as she and her lover
strayed beyond the shade of the beech, "I almost shudder when I hear
that word. We live but in the present; that, Arthur, is, at least, our
own, poor as we are in almost all beside. That future is a perplexed and
tangled riddle--a dreadful uncertainty, in the contemplation of which I
grow superstitious. Such ill omens are about us! My father's inexorable
will, so headstrong, so unconscious of the pain it gives me; his rooted,
yes, his fatal aversion to you; my thraldom here, where, like a poor
bird checked by a cord, I chafe myself by fluttering on the verge of my
prison bounds; and then, the awful perils that continually impend over
your head--all these are more than weak imaginings; they are the
realities of my daily life, and give me, what I am almost ashamed to
confess, a sad and boding spirit."
"Nay, nay, dearest Mildred! Away with all these unreasonable
reckonings!" replied Butler, with a manner that too plainly betrayed the
counterfeit of mirth. "Seclusion has dealt unworthily with you. It has
almost turned thee into a downright sentimental woman. I will have none
of this stepping to the verge of melancholy. You were accustomed to
cheer me with sunny and warm counsel; and you must not forget it was
yourself who taught me to strike aside the waves of fortune with a glad
temper. The fates can have no spite against one so good as thou art!
Time may bear us along like a rough trotting horse; and our journey may
have its dark night, its quagmires, and its jack-o'lanterns, but there
will come a ruddy morning at last--a smoother road, and an easier gait;
and thou, my girl, shalt again instruct me how to win a triumph over the
ills of life."
"And we will be happy, Arthur, because all around us will be so," added
Mildred, catching the current of Butler's thoughts, with that ready
versatility which eminently showed the earnestness and devotion of her
feelings--"Ah, may heaven grant this boon, and bring these dreams to
life! I think, Arthur, I should be happier now, if I could but be near
you in your wanderings. Gladly would I follow you through all the
dangers of the war."
"That were indeed, love, a trial past your faculty to endure. No, no,
Mildred, she who would be a soldier's wife, should learn the soldier's
philosophy--to look with a resigned submission on the present events,
and trust to heaven for the future. Your share in this struggle is to
commune with your own heart in solitude, and teach it patience. Right
nobly have you thus far borne that grievous burden! The sacrifice that
you have made--its ever present and unmitigated weight, silently and
sleeplessly inflicting its slow pains upon your free and generous
spirit; that, Mildred, is the chief and most galling of my cares."
"This weary war, this weary war," breathed Mildred, in a pensive under
key, "when will it be done!"
"The longest troubles have their end," replied Butler, "and men, at
last, spent with the vexations of their own mischief, fly, by a selfish
instinct, into the bosom of peace. God will prosper our enterprise, and
bring our battered ship into a fortunate haven."
"How little like it seems it now!" returned Mildred. "The general
sorrow, alone, might well weigh down the stoutest heart. That cause
which you have made mine, Arthur, to which you have bestowed your life,
and which, for your sake," she added proudly, "should have this feeble
arm of mine, could it avail, is it not even now trembling on the verge
of ruin? Have not your letters, one after another told me of the sad
train in which misfortunes have thickened upon the whole people? of
defeat, both north and south, and, at this very time, of disgraceful
mutiny of whole regiments under the very eye of Washington--that
Washington who loves his country and her soldiers as a husband loves his
bride, and a father his children. Have not those, to whom we all looked
for champions, turned into mere laggards in the war for freedom? Oh,
Arthur, do you not remember that these are the thoughts, the very words,
which were penned by your own hand, for my especial meditation? How can
I but fear that the good end is still far off? How can I but feel some
weight upon my heart?"
"You have grown overwise, Mildred, in these ruminations. I am to blame
for this, that in my peevish humor, vexed with the crosses of the day, I
should have written on such topics to one so sensitive as yourself."
"Still it is true, Arthur, all report confirms it."
"These things do not become your entertainment, Mildred. Leave the
public care to us. There are bold hearts, love, and strong arms yet to
spare for this quarrel. We have not yet so exhausted our mines of
strength, but that much rough ore still lies unturned to the sun, and
many an uncouth lump of metal remains to be fashioned for serviceable
use. History tells of many a rebound from despondency, so sudden and
unreckoned, that the wisest men could see in it no other spring than the
decree of God. He will fight the battle of the weak, and set the right
upon a sure foundation."
"The country rings," said Mildred, again taking the more cheerful hue of
her lover's hopes, and following out, with an affectionate sympathy, his
tone of thought, "with anticipation of victory from Gates's southern
march."
"That may turn out to be a broken reed," interrupted Butler, as if
thinking aloud, and struck by Mildred's reference to a subject that had
already engrossed his thoughts; "they may be deceived, Washington would
have put a different man upon that service. I would have a leader in
such a war, wary, watchful, humble--diffident as well as brave. I fear
Gates is not so."
"Then, I trust, Arthur," exclaimed Mildred, with anxious alacrity, "that
your present expedition does not connect you with his fortunes!"
"I neither follow his colors nor partake of his counsels," replied
Butler. "Still my motions may not be exempt from the influence of his
failure or success. The enemy, you are aware, has possessed himself of
every post of value in South Carolina and Georgia. I go commissioned to
advise with discreet and prudent men upon the means to shake off this
odious domination. So far only, and remotely, too, I am a fellow-laborer
with Gates. There are gallant spirits now afoot, Mildred, to strip these
masters of their power. My office is to aid their enterprise."
"If you needs must go, Arthur, I have no word to say. You will leave
behind you an aching heart, that morning, noon, and night, wearies
heaven with its prayers for your safety. Alas, I have no other aid to
give! How soon--how soon," she said, with a voice that faltered with the
question, "does your duty compel you to leave me?"
"To-morrow's sunrise, love, must find me forth upon my way."
"To-morrow, Arthur? so quickly to part!"
"I dare not linger; not even for the rich blessing of thy presence."
"And the utmost length of your journey?"
"Indeed, I know not. At present my farthest aim is Ninety-six and
Augusta. It much depends upon the pleasure of our proud and wilful
masters."
Mildred stood for some moments looking upon the ground in profound
silence. Her bosom heaved with a sad emotion.
"It is a dangerous duty," said she, at last. "I cannot speak my
apprehension at the thought of your risks amongst the fierce and
treacherous men that overrun the country to which you travel."
"These perils are exaggerated by distance," returned Butler. "A thousand
expedients of protection and defence occur when present, which the
absent cannot fancy. It is a light service, Mildred, and may more
securely be performed with a gay heart than with a sad one. I pray you,
do not suffer that active imagination of yours to invest the every day
adventures of your poor soldier with a romantic interest of which they
are not worthy. I neither slay giants, nor disenchant ladies, nor yoke
captive griffins together. No, no, I shall outrun some over-fed clown,
and outwit some simple boobies; and, perhaps, soil my boots in a great
slough, and then hasten back, love, to boast of my marvels to the
credulous ear of my own sweet girl, who, I warrant, will think me a most
preposterous hero."
"How can you laugh, Arthur? And yet I would not have you catch my
foolish sadness, either."
"I have with me, besides, Mildred, a friend good at need; one Galbraith
Robinson, a practised and valiant soldier, who sits on yonder bank. He
is to be the companion of my journey; he is shrewd, vigilant and
cautious, an inhabitant, moreover, of the district to which I am bound;
his wisdom can do much for my success. Then I travel, too, in peaceful
guise. My business is more concerned with negotiation than with battle."
"It is a waylaid path, Arthur," said Mildred, in the same faint voice
with which she had spoken before.
"Never take it so heavily, my love!" exclaimed Butler, familiarly
seizing her hand, whose trembling now betrayed her agitation,--"it is
the mere sport of the war to be upon a running service, where a light
stratagem or so will baffle a set of dull-pated clodpoles! I scarcely
deem it a venture, to dodge through a forest, where every man flies from
his neighbor out of mutual distrust. These fellows have brought
themselves upon such bad terms with their own consciences, that they
start like thieves at the waving of a bulrush."
"They would be the more cruel," replied Mildred, "if some ill luck
should throw you into their power. If that should happen," she added,
and for a while she hesitated to speak, as a tear fell upon Butler's
hand--"If that should happen, I cannot bear the thought."
"They dare offer me no wrong, Mildred. The chances of battle are
sufficiently various to compel even the victors to pursue the policy of
humanity to prisoners. The conqueror of to-day may himself be a captive
to-morrow, and a bloody reprisal would await his barbarity. Again, let
me remind you, these are not fit topics for your meditation."
"They are topics for my heart, Arthur, and will not be driven from it.
If your lot should put you in the power of the enemy, the name of
Mildred Lindsay, and the relation you bear her, whispered in their ears,
may, perhaps, unlock their charity. My father has many friends in those
ranks, and it may be that I am not unknown to some of them: oh, remember
that!"
"You have little need to teach me to think or speak of Mildred Lindsay,"
said Butler, eagerly. "I cannot forget that name. But I may well doubt
its charm upon the savage bulldogs who are now baiting our citizens in
Carolina; those ruthless partizans who are poisoning the fountains of
contentment at every fire-side. It is not a name to conjure evil spirits
with."
"Major Butler," said Henry, who during this long interval had been
strolling backward and forward, like a sentinel, at some distance from
his sister and her lover, and who, with the military punctilio of a
soldier on duty, forbore even to listen to what he could not have helped
overhearing, if it had not been for humming a tune--"Major, I don't like
to make or meddle with things that don't belong to me--but you and
Mildred have been talking long enough to settle the course of a whole
campaign. And as my father thinks he can't be too careful of Mildred,
and doesn't like her walking about after night-fall, I shouldn't be
surprised if a messenger were despatched for us--only I think that man
Tyrrel is hatching some plot with him to-night, and may keep him longer
in talk than usual."
"Who is Tyrrel?" inquired Butler.
"One that I wish had been in his grave before he had ever seen my
father," answered Mildred with a bitter vehemence. "He is a wicked
emissary of the royal party sent here to entrap my dear father into
their toils. Such as it has ever been his fate to be cursed with from
the beginning of the war; but this Tyrrel, the most hateful of them
all."
"Alas, alas, your poor father! Mildred, what deep sorrow do I feel that
he and I should be so estranged. I could love him, counsel with him,
honor him, with a devotion that should outrun your fondest wish. His
generous nature has been played upon, cheated, abused; and I, in whom
fortune and inclination should have raised him a friend, have been made
the victim of his perverted passion."
"True, true," exclaimed Mildred, bursting into tears, and resting her
head against her lover's breast, "I can find courage to bear all but
this--I am most unhappy;" and for some moments she sobbed audibly.
"The thought has sometimes crossed me," said Butler, "that I would go to
your father and tell him all. It offends my self-respect to be obliged
to practise concealment towards one who should have a right to know all
that concerns a daughter so dear to him. Even now, if I may persuade you
to it, I will go hand in hand with you, and, with humble reverence,
place myself before him and divulge all that has passed between us."
"No, no, Arthur, no," ejaculated Mildred with the most earnest
determination. "It will not come to good. You do not understand my
father's feelings. The very sight of you would rouse him into frenzy;
there is no name which might fall upon his ear with deeper offence than
yours. Not yet, Arthur, the time has not yet come."
"I have been patient," said Butler, "patient, Mildred, for your sake."
"To try him now," continued Mildred, whose feelings still ran, with a
heady impetuosity, upon this newly-awakened and engrossing topic; "now,
in the very depth of his bitterest aversion to what he terms an impious
rebellion, and whilst his heart is yet moved with an almost
preternatural hate against all who uphold the cause, and to you,
especially, above whose head there hovers, in his belief, some horrid
impending curse that shall bring desolation upon him and all who claim
an interest in his blood--no, no, it must not be!"
"Another year of pent-up vexation, self-reproach and anxious concealment
must then glide by, and perhaps another," said Butler. "Well, I must be
content to bear it, though, in the mean time, my heart bleeds for you,
Mildred; it is a painful trial."
"For good or for evil our vow is now registered in heaven," replied
Mildred, "and we must abide the end."
"I would not have it other than it is, dearest girl, except this stern
resolve of your father--not for the world's wealth," said Butler warmly.
"But you spoke of this Tyrrel--what manner of man is he? How might I
know him?"
"To know him would answer no good end, Arthur. His soul is absorbed in
stratagem, and my dear father is its prey. I too am grievously tormented
by him; but it is no matter, I need not vex your ear with the tale of
his annoyance."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Butler with a sudden expression of resentment.
"All that concerns my father, concerns me," said Mildred. "It is my evil
destiny, Arthur, to be compelled to endure the associations of men,
whose principles, habits, purposes, are all at war with my own. Alas,
such are now my father's constant companions. This man Tyrrel, whose
very name is a cheat put on, I doubt not, to conceal him from
observation--goes farther than the rest in the boldness of his practice.
I have some misgiving that he is better acquainted with the interest you
take in me, than we might suspect possible to a stranger. I fear him.
And then, Arthur, it is my peculiar misery that he has lately set up a
disgusting pretension to my regard. Oh! I could give him, if my sex had
strength to strike, the dagger, sooner than squander upon him one kind
word. Yet am I obliged by circumstance to observe a strained courtesy
towards him, which, frugal as it is, makes me an unwilling hypocrite to
my own heart."
"Tyrrel," ejaculated Butler, "Tyrrel! I have heard no such name abroad!"
then, muttering a deep curse, as he bit his lip with passion, he added,
"Oh, that I could face this man, or penetrate his foul purpose! How is
it likely I might meet him?"
"You shall have no temptation to a quarrel," said Mildred; "your quick
resentment would but give activity to his venom. For the sake of my
peace, Arthur, and of your own, inquire no further. Time may disclose
more than rash pursuit."
"Leave that to sister Mildred and myself, major," said Henry, who
listened with great interest to this conversation, "I have my eye upon
him--let that satisfy you; and when sister Mildred puts up the game,
depend upon it, I will bring him down."
"Thanks, thanks, dear Henry! I can trust you for a ready friend, and
will even follow your good advice. A more favorable season for this
concern may soon arrive; meantime, I will bear this hint in mind."
Again Henry made an appeal to the lovers to bring their conference to an
end. It was a sorrowful moment, the events of which were brief, earnest
and impassioned, and such as a dull scribbler, like myself, might easily
mar in the telling; yet they were such as zealous and eager natures, who
have loved with an intense and absorbing love, and who have parted in
times of awful danger and uncertainty, may perchance be able to picture
to themselves, when they recall the most impressive incident of their
lives to memory. I will only say, that, in that dark shade where the
beech tree spread his canopy of leaves over the cool bank, and marked
his shadow's profile on the green sward--that grassy sward, on which
"the constant moon" lit up the dewy lamps, hung by the spider on blade
and leaf; and in that silent time, when the distant water-fall came
far-sounding on the ear, when sleepless insects chirped in the thicket,
and dogs, at some remote homestead, howled bugle-like to the moon; and
in that chill hour, when Mildred drew her kerchief close around her
dew-besprinkled shoulders, whilst Arthur, fondly and affectionately,
half enveloped her in the folds of a military cloak, as he whispered
words of tender parting in her ear, and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek;
and when, moreover, Henry's teeth chattered like a frozen warder's, then
it was, and there, that this enthusiastic girl again pledged her
unalterable devotion to the man of her waking thoughts and nightly
dreams, come weal, come woe, whatever might betide; and the soldier paid
back the pledge with new ardor and endearment, in the strong language
that came unstudied from the heart, meaning all that he said, and rife
with a feeling beyond the reach of words. And, after "mony a locked and
fond embrace," full tearfully, and lingeringly, and, in phrase oft
repeated, the two bade "farewell," and invoked God's blessing each upon
the other, and then, not without looking back, and breathing a fresh
prayer of blessings, they separated on their dreary way, Mildred
retiring, as she had come, on the arm of her brother, and Butler,
springing hurriedly into the skiff and directing its swift passage to
the middle of the stream, where, after a pause to enable him to discern
the last footsteps of his mistress, as her form glided into the obscure
distance, he sighed a low "God bless her," then resumed his oar, and
sturdily drove his boat against the "opponent bank."