SOME ACCOUNT OF PHILIP LINDSAY--SENSIBILITY AND RETIREMENT APT TO
ENGENDER A PERNICIOUS PHILOSOPHY.
The thread which I have now to take up and weave into this history
requires that my narrative should go back for some years. It briefly
concerns the earlier fortunes of Philip Lindsay.
His father emigrated from England, and was established in Virginia about
the year 1735, as a secretary to the governor of the province. He was a
gentleman of good name and fortune. Philip was born within a year after
this emigration. As America was then comparatively a wilderness, and
afforded but few facilities for the education of youth, the son of the
secretary was sent at an early age to England, where he remained, with
the exception of an occasional visit to his parents, under the
guardianship of a near relative, until he had completed, not only his
college course, but also his studies in the Temple--an almost
indispensable requirement of that day for young gentlemen of condition.
His studies in the Temple had been productive of one result, which Lord
Coke, if I remember, considers idiosyncratic in the younger votaries of
the law--he had fallen in love with an heiress. The natural consequence
was a tedious year, after his return home, spent at the seat of the
provincial government, and a most energetic and persevering interchange
of letters with the lady, whom my authority allows me to name Gertrude
Marshall. This was followed by another voyage across the Atlantic, and
finally, as might be predicted, by a wedding with all proper observance
and parental sanction. Lindsay then returned, a happier and more
tranquil man, to Virginia, where he fulfilled the duties of more than
one public station of dignity and trust.
In due course of time he fell heir to his father's wealth, which with
the estate of his wife made him one of the most opulent and considerable
gentlemen of the Old Dominion.
He had but two children--Mildred and Henry--with four years difference
between their ages. These were nurtured with all the care and indulgent
bounty natural to parents whose affections are concentrated upon so
small a family circle.
Lindsay's character was grave and thoughtful, and inclined him to avoid
the contests of ambition and collision with the world. A delicate taste,
a nice judgment, and a fondness for inquiry made him a student and an
ardent lover of books. The ply of his mind was towards metaphysics; he
delved into the obsolete subtleties of the old schools of philosophy,
and found amusement, if not instruction, in those frivolous but
ingenious speculations which have overshadowed even the best wisdom of
the schoolmen with the hues of a solemn and absurd pedantry. He dreamed
in the reveries of Plato, and pursued them through the aberrations of
the Coryphaeans. He delighted in the visions of Pythagoras, and in the
intellectual revels of Epicurus. He found attraction in the Gnostic
mysteries, and still more in the phantasmagoria of Judicial Astrology.
His library furnished a curious index to this unhealthy appetite for the
marvellous and the mystical. The writings of Cornelius Agrippa, Raymond
Lully, and Martin Delvio, and others of less celebrity in this circle of
imposture, were found associated with truer philosophies and more
approved and authentic teachers.
These studies, although pursued with an acknowledgment of their false
and dangerous tendency, nevertheless had their influence upon Lindsay's
imagination. There are few men in whom the mastery of reason is so
absolute as to be able totally to subdue the occasional uprising of that
element of superstition which is found more or less vigorous in every
mind. A nervous temperament, which is almost characteristic of minds of
an imaginative cast, is often distressingly liable to this influence, in
spite of the strongest resolves of the will and the most earnest
convictions of the judgment. If those who possess this temperament would
confess, they might certify to many extraordinary anxieties and troubles
of spirit, which it would pain them to have the world believe.
Lindsay's pursuits had impressed his understanding with some sentiment
of respect for that old belief in the supernatural, and had, perhaps,
even warmed up his faith to a secret credulity in these awful agencies
of the spiritual world, or at least to an unsatisfied doubt as to their
existence. Many men of sober brow and renown for wisdom are unwilling to
acknowledge the extent of their own credulity on the same topic.
His relations to the government, his education, pursuits and temper, as
might be expected, had deeply imbued Lindsay with the politics of the
tory party, and taught him to regard with distrust, and even with
abhorrence, the revolutionary principles which were getting in vogue. In
this sentiment he visited with a dislike that did not correspond with
the more usual development of his character, all those who were in any
degree suspected of aiding or abetting the prevailing political heresy
of the times.
About two years after the birth of Mildred, he had purchased a tract of
land in the then new and frontier country lying upon the Rockfish river.
Many families of note in the low country had possessed themselves of
estates at the foot of the Blue Ridge, in this neighborhood, and were
already making establishments there. Mr. Lindsay, attracted by the
romantic character of the scenery, the freshness of the soil, and the
healthfulness of the climate, following the example of others, had laid
off the grounds of his new estate with great taste, and had soon built,
upon a beautiful site, a neat and comfortable rustic dwelling, with such
accommodation as might render it a convenient and pleasant retreat
during the hot months of the summer.
The occupation which this new establishment afforded his family; the
scope which its improvement gave to their taste; and the charms that
intrinsically belonged to it, by degrees communicated to his household
an absorbing interest in its embellishment. His wife cherished this
enterprise with a peculiar ardor. The plans of improvement were hers;
the garden, the lawns, the groves, the walks--all the little appendages
which an assiduous taste might invent, or a comfort-seeking fancy might
imagine necessary, were taken under her charge; and one beauty quickly
following upon another, from day to day, evinced the dominion which a
refined art may exercise with advantage over nature. It was a quiet,
calm, and happy spot, where many conveniences were congregated together,
and where, for a portion of every succeeding year, this little family
nestled, as it were, in the enjoyment of voluptuous ease. From this
idea, and especially as it was allied with some of the tenderest
associations connected with the infancy of Mildred, it was called by the
fanciful and kindly name of "The Dove Cote."
The education of Mildred and Henry became a delightful household care.
Tutors were supplied, and the parents gave themselves up to the task of
supervision with a fond industry. They now removed earlier to the Dove
Cote with every returning spring, and remained there later in the
autumn. The neighborhood furnished an intelligent and hospitable
society; and the great western wilderness smiled with the contentment of
a refined and polished civilization, which no after day in the history
of this empire has yet surpassed--perhaps, not equalled. It is not to be
wondered at, that a mind so framed as Lindsay's, and a family so
devoted, should find an exquisite enjoyment in such a spot.
Whilst this epoch of happiness was in progression, the political heaven
began to be darkened with clouds. The troubles came on with harsh
portents; war rumbled in the distance, and, at length, broke out in
thunder. Mildred had, in the meantime, grown up to the verge of
womanhood,--a fair, ruddy, light-haired beauty, of exceeding graceful
proportions, and full of the most interesting impulses. Henry trod
closely upon her heels, and was now shooting through the rapid stages of
boyhood. Both had entwined themselves around their parents' affections,
like fibres that conveyed to them their chief nourishment; and the
children were linked to each other even, if that where possible, by a
stronger band.
The war threw Lindsay into a perilous predicament. His estates were
large, and his principles exposed him to the sequestration which was
rigidly enforced against the royalist party. To avoid this blow, or, at
least, to mitigate its severity, he conveyed the estate of the Dove Cote
to Mildred; assigning, as his reason for doing so, that, as it was
purchased with moneys belonging to his wife, he consulted and executed
her wish, in transferring the absolute ownership of it to his daughter.
The rest of his property was converted into money, and invested in funds
in Great Britain. As soon as this arrangement was made, about the second
year of the war, the Dove Cote became the permanent residence of the
family; Lindsay preferring to remain here rather than to retire to
England, hoping to escape the keen notice of the dominant party, and to
find, in this classic and philosophical privacy, an oblivion of the rude
cares that beset the pillow of every man who mingled in the strife of
the day.
He was destined to a grievous disappointment. His wife, to whom he was
romantically attached, was snatched from him by death, just at this
interesting period. This blow, for a time, almost unseated his reason.
The natural calm of such a mind as Lindsay's is not apt to show
paroxysms in grief. Its sorrow was too still and deep for show. The
flight of years, however, brought healing on their wings; and Mildred
and Henry gradually relumed their father's countenance with flashes of
cheerful thought, that daily grew broader and more abiding; till, at
last, sense and duty completed their triumph, and once more gave Lindsay
to his family, unburdened of his grief, or, if not unburdened,
conversing with it only in the secret hours of self-communion.
His hopes of ease and retirement were disappointed in another way. The
sequesterment of the Dove Cote was not sufficient to shut out the noise
nor the intrigues of the war. His reputation, as a man of education, of
wealth, of good sense, and especially as a man of aristocratic
pretensions, irresistibly drew him into the agitated vortex of politics.
His house was open to the visits of the tory leaders, no less than to
those of the other side; and, although this intercourse could not be
openly maintained without risk, yet pretexts were not wanting,
occasionally, to bring the officers and gentlemen in the British
interest to the Dove Cote. They came stealthily and in disguise, and
they did not fail to involve him in the insidious schemes and base
plottings by which a wary foe generally endeavors to smoothe the way of
invasion. The temporary importance which these connections conferred,
and the assiduous appeal which it was the policy of the enemy to make to
his loyalty, wrought upon the vanity of the scholar, and brought him, by
degrees, from the mere toleration of an intercourse that he at first
sincerely sought to avoid, into a participation of the plans of those
who courted his fellowship. Still, however, this was grudgingly
given--as much from the inaptitude of his character, as from a secret
consciousness, at bottom, that it was contrary to the purpose that had
induced him to seek the shelter of the woods. Unless, therefore, the
spur was frequently applied to the side of his reluctant resolution, his
zeal was apt to weary in its pace, or, to change my figure for one
equally appropriate, to melt away in the sunny indolence of his temper.
I have said that, during the tenderer years of the children, and up to
the period of the loss of their mother, they had received the most
unremitting attention from their parents. The bereavement of his wife,
the deep gloom that followed this event, and the now engrossing
character of the war, had in some degree relaxed Lindsay's vigilance
over their nurture, although it had in no wise abated his affection for
them; on the contrary, perhaps this was more concentrated than ever.
Mildred had grown up to the blossom-time of life, in the possession of
every personal attraction. From the fanciful ideas of education adopted
by her father, or rather from the sedulous care with which he
experimented upon her capacity, and devoted himself to the task of
directing and waiting upon the expansion of her intellect, she had made
acquirements much beyond her years, and altogether of a character
unusual to her sex. An ardent and persevering temper had imparted a
singular enthusiasm to her pursuits; and her air, though not devoid of
playfulness, might be said to be habitually abstracted and
self-communing.
As the war advanced, her temper and situation both enlisted her as a
partisan in the questions which it brought into discussion; and, whilst
her father's opinions were abhorrent to this struggle for independence,
she, on the other hand, unknown to him, was casting her thoughts,
feelings, affections, and hopes upon the broad waters of rebellion; and,
if not expecting them to return to her, after many days, with increase
of good, certainly believing that she was mingling them with those of
patriots who were predestined to the brightest meed of glory.
A father is not apt to reason with a daughter; the passions and
prejudices of a parent are generally received as principles by the
child; and most fathers, counting upon this instinct, deem it enough to
make known the bent merely of their own opinions, without caring to
argue them. This mistake will serve to explain the wide difference which
is sometimes seen between the most tenderly attached parent and child,
in those deeper sentiments that do not belong to the every-day concerns
of life. Whilst, therefore, Mr. Lindsay took no heed how the seed of
doctrine fructified and grew in the soil where he desired to plant it,
it in truth fell upon ungenial ground, and either was blown away by the
wind, or perished for want of appropriate nourishment.
As the crisis became more momentous, and the discussion of national
rights more rife, Mildred's predilections ran stronger on the republican
side; and, at the opening of my story, she was a sincere and
enthusiastic friend of American independence,--a character (however it
may be misdoubted by my female readers of the present day, nursed as
they are in a lady-like apathy to all concerns of government, and little
aware, in the lazy lap of peace, how vividly their own quick
sensibilities may be enlisted by the strife of men) neither rare nor
inefficient amongst the matrons and maidens of the year seventy-six,
some of whom--now more than fifty years gone by--are embalmed in the
richest spices and holiest ointment of our country's memory.
It is, however, due to truth to say, that Mildred's eager attachment to
this cause was not altogether the free motion of patriotism. How often
does some little under-current of passion, some slight and amiable
prepossession, modest and unobserved, rise to the surface of our
feelings, and there give its direction to the stream upon which floats
all our philosophy! What is destiny but these under-currents that come
whencesoever they list, unheeded at first, and irresistible ever
afterwards!
My reader must be told that, before the war broke out, this enthusiastic
girl had flitted across the path of Arthur Butler, then a youth of rare
faculty and promise, who combined with a gentle and modest demeanor an
earnest devotion to his country, sustained by a chivalrous tone of honor
that had in it all the fanciful disinterestedness of boyhood. It will
not, therefore, appear wonderful that, amongst the golden opinions the
young man was storing up in all quarters, some fragments of this grace
should have made a lodgment in the heart of Mildred Lindsay.
Butler was a native of one of the lower districts of South Carolina, and
was already the possessor, by inheritance, of what was then called a
handsome fortune. He first met Mildred, under the safe-conduct of her
parents, at Annapolis in Maryland, at that time the seat of opulence and
fashion. There the wise and the gay, the beautiful and the rarely-gifted
united in a splendid little constellation, in which wealth threw its
sun-beam glitter over the wings of love, and learning and eloquence
were warmed by the smiles of fair women: there gallant men gave the
fascinations of wit to a festive circle unsurpassed in the new world, or
the old, for its proportion of the graces that embellish, and the
endowments that enrich life. In this circle there was no budding beauty
of softer charm than the young Mildred, nor was there amongst the gay
and bright cavaliers that thronged the "little academy" of Eden, (the
governor of the province,) a youth of more favorable omen than Arthur
Butler.
The war was at the very threshold, and angry men thought of turning the
ploughshare into the sword. Amongst these was Butler; an unsparing
denouncer of the policy of Britain, and an unhesitating volunteer in the
ranks of her opposers. It was at this eventful time that he met Mildred.
I need hardly add that under these inauspicious circumstances they began
to love. Every interview afterwards (and they frequently saw each other
at Williamsburg and Richmond) only developed more completely the tale of
love that nature was telling in the heart of each.
Butler received from Congress an ensign's commission in the continental
army, and was employed for a few months in the recruiting service at
Charlottesville. This position favored his views and enabled him to
visit at the Dove Cote. His intercourse with Mildred, up to this period,
had been allowed by Lindsay to pass without comment: it was regarded but
as the customary and common-place civility of polite society. Mildred's
parents had no sympathy in her lover's sentiments, and consequently no
especial admiration of his character, and they had not yet doubted their
daughter's loyalty to be made of less stern materials than their own.
Her mother was the first to perceive that the modest maiden awaited the
coming of the young soldier with a more anxious forethought than
betokened an unoccupied heart. How painfully did this perception break
upon her! It opened upon her view a foresight of that unhappy sequence
of events that attends the secret struggle between parental authority
and filial inclination, when the absorbing interests of true love are
concerned: a struggle that so frequently darkens the fate of the noblest
natures, and whose history supplies the charm of so many a melancholy
and thrilling page. Mrs. Lindsay had an invincible objection to the
contemplated alliance, and immediately awakened the attention of her
husband to the subject. From this moment Butler's reception at the Dove
Cote was cold and formal, and Mr. Lindsay did not delay to express to
his daughter a marked aversion to her intimacy with a man so uncongenial
to his own taste. I need not dwell upon the succession of incidents that
followed: are they not written in every book that tells of young hearts
loving in despite of authority? Let it suffice to say that Butler, "many
a time and oft," hied stealthily and with a lover's haste to the Dove
Cote, where, "under the shade of melancholy boughs," or sometimes of
good Mistress Dimock's roof, he found means to meet and exchange vows of
constancy with the lady of his love.
Thus passed the first year of the war. The death of Mrs. Lindsay, to
which I have before adverted, now occurred. The year of mourning was
doubly afflictive to Mildred. Her father's grief hung as heavily upon
her as her own, and to this was added a total separation from Butler. He
had joined his regiment and was sharing the perils of the northern
campaigns, and subsequently of those which ended in the subjugation of
Carolina and Georgia. During all this period he was enabled to keep up
an uncertain and irregular correspondence with Mildred, and he had once
met her in secret, for a few hours only, at Mistress Dimock's, during
the autumn immediately preceding the date of the opening of my story.
Mrs. Lindsay, upon her death-bed, had spoken to her husband in the most
emphatic terms of admonition against Mildred's possible alliance with
Butler, and conjured him to prevent it by whatever means might be in his
power. Besides this, she made a will directing the distribution of a
large jointure estate in England between her two children, coupling,
with the bequest, a condition of forfeiture, if Mildred married without
her father's approbation.
I have now to relate an incident in the life of Philip Lindsay, which
throws a sombre coloring over most of the future fortunes of Mildred and
Arthur, as they are hereafter to be developed in my story.
The lapse of years, Lindsay supposed, would wear out the first favorable
impressions made by Arthur Butler upon his daughter. Years had now
passed: he knew nothing of the secret correspondence between the
parties, and he had hoped that all was forgotten. He could not help,
however, perceiving that Mildred had grown reserved, and that her
deportment seemed to be controlled by some secret care that sat upon
her heart. She was anxious, solicitous, and more inclined, than became
her youth, to be alone. Her household affections took a softer tone,
like one in grief. These things did not escape her father's eye.
It was on a night in June, a little more than a year before the visit of
Butler and Robinson which I have narrated in a former chapter, that the
father and daughter had a free communion together, in which it was his
purpose to penetrate into the causes of her disturbed spirit. The
conference was managed with an affectionate and skilful address on the
part of the father, and "sadly borne" by Mildred. It is sufficient to
say that it revealed to him a truth of which he was previously but
little aware, namely, that neither the family afflictions nor the flight
of two years had rooted out the fond predilection of Mildred for Arthur
Butler. When this interview ended Mildred retired weeping to her
chamber, and Lindsay sat in his study absorbed in meditation. The object
in life nearest to his heart was the happiness of his daughter; and for
the accomplishment of this what sacrifice would he not make? He minutely
recalled to memory all the passages of her past life. What error of
education had he committed, that she thus, at womanhood, was found
wandering along a path to which he had never led her, which, indeed, he
had ever taught her to avoid? What accident of fortune had brought her
into this, as he must consider it, unhappy relation? "How careful have I
been," he said, "to shut out all the inducements that might give a
complexion to her tastes and principles different from my own! How
sedulously have I waited upon her footsteps from infancy onward, to
shield her from the influences that might mislead her pliant mind! And
yet in this, the most determinate act of her life, that which is to give
the hue to the whole of her coming fortune, the only truly momentous
event in her history--how strangely has it befallen!"
In such a strain did his thoughts pursue this harassing subject. The
window of his study was open, and he sat near it, looking out upon the
night. The scene around him was of a nature to awaken his imagination
and lead his musings towards the preternatural and invisible world. It
was past midnight, and the bright moon was just sinking down the western
slope of the heavens, journeying through the fantastic and gorgeous
clouds, that, as they successively caught her beam, stood like
promontories jutting upon a waveless ocean, their rich profiles tipped
with burnished silver. The long black shadows of the trees slept in
enchanted stillness upon the earth: the night-wind breathed through the
foliage, and brought the distant gush of the river fitfully upon his
ear. There was a witching harmony and music in the landscape that sorted
with the solitary hour, and conjured up thoughts of the world of
shadows. Lindsay's mind began to run upon the themes of his favorite
studies: the array of familiar spirits rose upon his mental vision; the
many recorded instances of what was devoutly believed the interference
of the dead in the concerns of the living, came fresh, at this moment,
to his memory, and made him shudder at his lonesomeness. Struggling with
this conception, it struck him with an awe that he was unable to master:
"some invisible counsellor," he muttered, "some mysterious intelligence,
now holds my daughter in thrall, and flings his spell upon her
existence. The powers that mingle unseen in the affairs of mortals, that
guide to good or lead astray, have wafted this helpless bark into the
current that sweeps onward, unstayed by man. I cannot contend with
destiny. She is thy child, Gertrude," he exclaimed, apostrophizing the
spirit of his departed wife. "She is thine, and thou wilt hover near her
and protect her from those who contrive against her peace: thou wilt
avert the ill and shield thy daughter!"
Excited almost to phrensy, terrified and exhausted in physical energy,
Lindsay threw his head upon his hand and rested it against the
window-sill. A moment elapsed of almost inspired madness, and when he
raised his head and looked outward upon the lawn, he beheld the pale
image of the being he had invoked, gliding through the shrubbery at the
farthest verge of the level ground. The ghastly visage was bent upon
him, the hand steadily pointed towards him, and as the figure slowly
passed away the last reverted gaze was directed to him. "Great God!" he
ejaculated, "that form--that form!" and fell senseless into his chair.
During the night, Mildred was awakened by a low moan, which led her to
visit her father's chamber. He was not there. In great alarm she betook
herself to his study, where she found him extended upon a sofa, so
enfeebled and bewildered by this recent incident that he was scarcely
conscious of her presence.
A few weeks restored Lindsay to his usual health, but it was long before
he regained the equanimity of his mind. He had seen enough to confirm
his faith in the speculations of that pernicious philosophy which is
wrapt up in the studies of which I have before given the outline; and he
was, henceforth, oftentimes melancholy, moody, and reserved in spite of
all the resolves of duty, and in defiance of a temper naturally placid
and kind.
Let us pass from this unpleasant incident to a theme of more cheerful
import: the loves of Mildred and Arthur. I have said these two had
secret meetings. They were not entirely without a witness. There was a
confidant in all their intercourse: no other than Henry Lindsay, who
united to the reckless jollity of youth an almost worshipping love of
his sister. His thoughts and actions were ever akin to hers. Henry was
therefore a safe depository of the precious secret; and as he could not
but think Arthur Butler a good and gallant comrade, he determined that
his father was altogether on the wrong side in respect to the love
affair, and, by a natural sequence, wrong also in his politics.
Henry had several additional reasons for this last opinion. The whole
country-side was kindled into a martial flame, and there was nothing to
be heard but drums and trumpets. There were rifle-corps raising, and
they were all dressed in hunting-shirts, and bugles were blowing, and
horses were neighing: how could a gallant of sixteen resist it? Besides,
Stephen Foster, the woodman, right under the brow of the Dove Cote, was
a lieutenant of mounted riflemen, and had, for some time past, been
training Henry in the mystery of his weapon, and had given him divers
lessons on the horn to sound the signals, and had enticed him furtively
to ride in a platoon on parade, whereof he had dubbed Henry corporal or
deputy corporal. All this worked well for Arthur and Mildred.
Mr. Lindsay was not ignorant of Henry's popularity in the neighborhood,
nor how much he was petted by the volunteer soldiery. He did not object
to this, as it served to quiet suspicion of his own dislike to the
cause, and diverted the observation of the adherents of what he called
the rebel government, from his own motions; whilst, at the same time, he
deemed it no other than a gewgaw that played upon the boyish fancy of
Henry without reaching his principles.
Mildred, on the contrary, did not so regard it. She had inspired Henry
with her own sentiments, and now carefully trained him up to feel warmly
the interests of the war, and to prepare himself by discipline for the
hard life of a soldier. She early awakened in him a wish to render
service in the field, and a resolution to accomplish it as soon as the
occasion might arrive. Amongst other things, too, she taught him to love
Arthur Butler and keep his counsel.