MILDRED PUT TO A SEVERE TRIAL:--HER FIRMNESS.
"My mind troubles me," said Lindsay: "Mildred, hear me--and mark what I
say. Our fortunes are coming to a period of deep interest: it is
therefore no time to deal in evasive speeches, or to dally with coy and
girlish feelings. I wish, my daughter, to be understood."
"Father, have I offended you?" inquired Mildred, struck with the painful
and almost repulsive earnestness of Lindsay's manner.
"Arthur Butler has been at the Dove Cote," he said, sternly, "and you
have concealed it from me. That was not like my child."
"Father!" exclaimed Mildred, bursting into tears.
"Nay--these tears shall not move me from my resolution. As a parent I
had a right, Mildred, to expect obedience from you; but you saw him in
the very despite of my commands: here, on the confines of the Dove Cote,
you saw him."
"I did--I did."
"And you were silent, and kept your secret from your father's bosom."
"You forbade me to speak of him," replied Mildred, in a low and sobbing
voice, "and banished me from your presence when I but brought his name
upon my lips."
"He is a villain, daughter; a base wretch that would murder my peace,
and steal my treasure from my heart."
Mildred covered her eyes with her hands, and trembled in silent agony.
"I have received letters," continued Lindsay, "that disclose to me a
vile plot against my life. This same Butler--this furious and fanatic
rebel--has been lurking in the neighborhood of my house, to watch my
family motions, to pry into the character of my guests, to possess
himself of my sacred confidences, to note the incoming and the out-going
of my most attached friends, and thereupon to build an accusation of
treason before this unholy and most accursed power that has usurped
dominion in the land. I am to be denounced to these malignant masters,
and to suffer such penalties as their passions may adjudge. And all this
through the agency of a man who is cherished and applauded by my own
daughter!"
"My dear father, who has thus abused your mind, and led your thoughts
into a current so foreign from that calm judgment with which you have
been accustomed to look upon the things of life?"
"Can you deny, Mildred, that this Butler followed Tyrrel to the Dove
Cote; lay concealed here, close at hand; sought by discourse through
some of his coadjutors with Tyrrel's servant, to learn the object of
Tyrrel's visit; and offered gross outrage to the man when he failed to
persuade him to betray his master? Can you deny this? Can you deny that
he fled precipitately from his hiding-place when he could no longer
conceal his purpose?--and, knowing these things, can you doubt he is a
villain?"
"He is no villain, father," said Mildred, indignantly. "These are the
wretched forgeries of that unworthy man who has won your confidence--a
man who is no less an enemy to your happiness than he is a selfish
contriver against mine. The story is not true: it is one of Tyrrel's
basest falsehoods."
"And Butler was not here; you would persuade me so, Mildred?"
"He was in the neighborhood for a single night; he journeyed southwards
in the course of his duty," answered Mildred, mildly.
"And had no confederates with him?"
"He was attended by a guide--only one--and hurried onwards without
delay."
"And you met him on that single night--by accident, I suppose?"
"Do you doubt my truth, father?"
"Mildred, Mildred! you will break my heart. Why was he here at all--why
did you meet him?"
"He came, father--" said Mildred, struggling to speak through a sudden
burst of tears.
"Silence! I will hear no apology!" exclaimed Lindsay. Then relenting in
an instant, he took his daughter's hand, as he said: "My child, thou art
innocent in thy nature, and knowest not the evil imaginings of this
world. He wickedly lied, if he told you that he came casually hither, or
that his stay was circumscribed to one short night. I have proofs, full
and satisfactory, that, for several days, he lay concealed in this
vicinity; and, moreover, that his scheme was frustrated only by an
unexpected discovery, made through the indiscretion of a drunken bully,
who came linked with him in his foul embassy. It was a shameless lie,
invented to impose upon your credulity, if he gave you room to believe
otherwise."
"Arthur Butler scorns a falsehood, father, with the deepest scorn that
belongs to a noble mind, and would resent the charge with the spirit of
a valiant and virtuous man. If Mr. Tyrrel has such accusations to make,
it would be fitter they should be made face to face with the man he
would slander, than in my father's ear. But it is the nature of the
serpent to sting in the grass, not openly to encounter his victim."
"The first duty of a trusty friend is to give warning of the approach of
an enemy--and that has Tyrrel done. For this act of service does he
deserve your rebuke? Could you expect aught else of an honorable
gentleman? Shame on you, daughter!"
"Father, I know the tale to be wickedly, atrociously false. Arthur
Butler is not your enemy. Sooner would he lay down his life than even
indulge a thought of harm to you. His coming hither was not unknown to
me--his delay, but one brief night; business of great moment called him
hastily towards the army of the south."
"You speak like a girl, Mildred. I have, against this tale, the avowal
of a loyal and brave soldier. Aye, and let me tell you--favorably as you
may deem of this false and traitorous rebel--his wily arts have been
foiled, and quick vengeance is now upon his path--his doom is fixed."
"For heaven's sake, father, dear father, tell me what this means. Have
you heard of Arthur?" cried Mildred, in the most impassioned accents of
distress, at the same time throwing her head upon Lindsay's breast. "Oh,
God! have you heard aught of harm to him?"
"Girl! foolish, mad, self-willed girl!" exclaimed Lindsay, disengaging
himself from his daughter, and rising from his seat and angrily striding
a few paces upon the terrace. "Dare you show this contumacy to me! No, I
did not mean that--have you the heart, Mildred, to indulge these
passionate fervors for the man I hate more than I can hate any other
living thing! He, a wretch, upon whose head I invoke nightly curses! A
loathsome, abhorred image to my mind! Hear me, Mildred, and hear me,
though your heart break while I utter it--May the felon's death whelm
him and his name in eternal disgrace!--may his present captivity be
beset with all the horrors of friendlessness, unpitied--"
"His captivity, father! And has he then fallen into the hands of the
enemy? Quick! tell me all!--I shall die--my life is wrapped up in his!"
ejaculated Mildred, in agony, as she sprang towards her father and
seized his arm, and then sank at his feet.
"For God's sake, my child!" said Lindsay, becoming alarmed at the
violence of the paroxysm he had excited, and now lifting his daughter
from the ground. "Mildred!--speak, girl! This emotion will drive me mad.
Oh, fate, fate!--how unerringly dost thou fulfil the sad predictions of
my spirit! How darkly does the curse hang upon my household! Mildred,
dear daughter, pardon my rash speech. I would not harm thee, child--no,
not for worlds!"
"Father, you have cruelly tortured my soul," said Mildred, reviving from
the half lifeless state into which she had fallen, and which for some
moments had denied her speech. "Tell me all; on my knees, father, I
implore you."
"It was a hasty word, daughter," replied Lindsay, ill concealing the
perturbation of his feelings; "I meant not what I said."
"Nay, dear father," said Mildred, "I am prepared to hear the worst; you
spoke of Arthur's captivity."
"It was only a rumor," replied Lindsay, struck with apprehension at his
daughter's earnestness, and now seeking to allay the feeling his hint
had aroused in her mind; "it may be exaggerated by Tyrrel, whose letter,
hastily written, mentions the fact, that Butler had been made a prisoner
by some bands of Tories, amongst whom he had rashly ventured. The
clemency of his king may yet win him back to his allegiance. A salutary
confinement, at least, will deprive him of the power of mischief. His
lands will be confiscated--and the close of the war, now fast
approaching, will find him a houseless adventurer, baffled in his
treason, and unpitied by all good men. This should persuade you,
Mildred, to renounce your unnatural attachment, and to think no more of
one whose cause heaven has never sanctioned, and whose condition in life
should forbid all pretension to your regard--one, above all, repulsive
even to loathing to the thoughts of your father."
"I loved him, father, in his happiest and brightest day," said Mildred,
firmly; "I cannot desert him in his adversity. Oh, speak to me no more!
Let me go to my chamber; I am ill and cannot bear this torrent of your
displeasure."
"I will not detain you, Mildred. In sorrow and suffering, but still with
a father's affection as warmly shining on you as when, in earliest
infancy, I fondled thee upon my knee, I part with thee now. One kiss,
girl. There, let that make peace between us. For your sake and my own, I
pledge my word never to distress you with this subject again. Destiny
must have its way, and I must bide the inevitable doom."
With a heavy heart and an exhausted frame, Mildred slowly and tearfully
withdrew.
Lindsay remained some time fixed upon the spot where his daughter had
left him. He was like a man stupefied and astounded by a blow. His
conference had ended in a manner that he had not prepared himself to
expect. The imputed treachery of Butler, derived from Tyrrel's letters,
had not struck alarm into the heart of Mildred, as he had supposed it
could not fail to do. The wicked fabrication had only recoiled upon the
inventor; and Mildred, with the resolute, confident, and unfaltering
attachment of her nature, clung with a nobler devotion to her lover. To
Lindsay, in whose mind no distrust of the honesty of Tyrrel could find
shelter; whose prejudices and peculiar temperament came in aid of the
gross and disgraceful imputation which the letters inferred, the
constancy and generous fervor of his daughter towards the cause of
Butler seemed to be a mad and fatal infatuation.
Ever since his first interview with Mildred on the subject of her
attachment, his mind had been morbidly engrossed with the reflections to
which it had given rise. There was such a steadiness of purpose apparent
in her behavior, such an unchangeable resolve avowed, as seemed to him,
in the circumstances of her condition, to defy and stand apart from the
ordinary and natural impulses by which human conduct is regulated. He
grew daily more abstracted and moody in his contemplations; and as study
and thought gave a still graver complexion to his feelings, his mind
fled back upon his presentiments; and that intense, scholar-like
superstition, which I have heretofore described as one of the tendencies
of his nature, began more actively to conjure up its phantasmagoria
before his mental vision. A predominating trait of this superstition was
an increasing conviction that, in Mildred's connexion with Arthur
Butler, there was associated some signal doom to himself, that was to
affect the fortunes of his race. It was a vague, misty, obscure
consciousness of impending fate, the loss of reason or the loss of life
that was to ensue upon that alliance if it should ever take place.
It was such a presentiment that now, in the solitary path of Lindsay's
life, began to be magnified into a ripening certainty of ill. The needle
of his mind trembled upon its pivot, and began to decline towards a
fearful point; that point was--frenzy. His studies favored this
apprehension--they led him into the world of visions. The circumstances
of his position favored it. He was perplexed by the intrigues of
politicians, against whom he had no defence in temper nor worldly skill:
he was deluded by false views of events: he was embarrassed and
dissatisfied with himself: above all, he was wrought upon, bewildered,
and glamoured (to use a most expressive Scotch phrase) by the
remembrance of a sickly dream.
Thus hunted and badgered by circumstances, he fled with avidity to the
disclosures made in Tyrrel's letters, to try, as a last effort, their
effect upon Mildred, hoping that the tale there told might divert her
from a purpose which now fed all his melancholy.
The reader has just seen how the experiment had failed.
Lindsay retired to his study, and, through the remainder of the day,
sought refuge from his meditations in the converse of his books. These
mute companions, for once, failed to bring him their customary balm. His
feelings had been turned, by the events of the morning, into a current
that bore them impetuously along towards a dark and troubled ocean of
thought; and when the shades of evening had fallen around him, he was
seen pacing the terrace with a slow and measured step.
"It is plain, she passionately loves Butler," he said, "in despite of
all the visible influences around her. Her education, habits,
affections, duty--all set in an opposing tide against this passion, and
yet does it master them all. That I should be bound to mine enemy by a
chain, whose strongest link is forged by my own daughter.
She--Mildred!--No, no--that link was not forged by her: it hath not its
shape from human workmanship. Oh, that like those inspired enthusiasts
who, in times of old,--yea, and in a later day--have been able to open
the Book of Destiny, and to read the passages of man's future life, I
might get one glimpse of that forbidden page!--To what a charitable use
might I apply the knowledge. Wise men have studied the journeyings of
the stars, and have--as they deemed--discovered the secret spell by
which yon shining orbs sway and compel the animal existences of this
earth; even as the moon governs the flow of the ocean, or the fever of
the human brain. Who shall say what is the invisible tissue--what the
innumerable cords--that tie this planet and all its material natures to
the millions of worlds with which it is affined? What is that mysterious
thing which men call attraction, that steadies these spheres in their
tangled pathways through the great void?--that urges their swift and
fearful career into the track of their voyage, without the deviation of
the breadth of a single hair--rolling on the same from eternity to
eternity? How awfully does the thought annihilate our feeble and
presumptuous philosophy! Is it, then, to excite the scorn of the wise,
if we assert that some kindred power may shape out and direct the
wanderings of man?--that an unseen hand may lay the threads by which
this tottering creature is to travel through the labyrinth of this
world; aye, and after it is done, to point out to him his course along
the dark and chill valley, which the dead walk through companionless and
silent? Have not men heard strange whispers in the breeze--the voice of
warning? Have they not felt the fanning of the wing that bore the secret
messenger through the air? Have they not seen some floating fold of the
robe as it passed by? O God!--have they not seen the dead arise? What
are these but the communings, the points of contact, between the earthy
and spiritual worlds--the essences or intelligences that sometimes flit
across the confine of our gross sphere, and speak to the children of
clay? And wherefore do they speak, but that the initiated may regard the
sign, and walk in safety? Or, perchance, some mischief-hatching
fiend,--for such, too, are permitted to be busy to mar the good that God
has made--may speak in malice to allure us from our better purpose. Aye,
as aptly this, as the other. Miserable child of doubt, how art thou
beset! Let the vain pedant prate of his philosophy, let the soldier
boast his valor, the learned scholar his scepticism, and the worldling
laugh his scorn, yet do they each and all yield homage to this belief.
There comes a time of honest self-confession, of secret meditation to
all, and then the boding spirit rises to his proper mastery: then does
instinct smother argument: then do the darkness of the midnight hour,
the howling wind, the rush of the torrent, the lonesomeness of the
forest and the field, shake the strong nerves; and the feeble, pigmy
man, trembles at his own imaginings."
In such a strain did Lindsay nurse his doubting superstition; and by
these degrees was it that his mind soothed itself down into a calmer
tone of resignation. In proportion as this fanciful and distempered
philosophy inclined his reflection towards the belief of preternatural
influences, it suggested excuses for Mildred's seeming contumacy, and
inculcated a more indulgent sentiment of forbearance in his future
intercourse with her.
Towards the confirmation of this temper an ordinary incident, which, at
any other time, would have passed without comment, now contributed. A
storm had arisen: the day, towards its close, had grown sultry, and had
engendered one of those sudden gusts which belong to the summer in this
region. It came, without premonition, in a violent tornado, that rushed
through the air with the roar of a great cataract. Lindsay had scarcely
time to retreat to the cover of the porch, before the heavy-charged
cloud poured forth its fury in floods of rain. The incessant lightnings
glittered on the descending drops, and illuminated the distant landscape
with more than the brilliancy of day. The most remote peaks of the
mountain were sheeted with the glare; and the torrents that leaped down
the nearer hill-sides sparkled with a dazzling radiance. Peal after
peal of abrupt and crashing thunder roared through the heavens, and
echoed with terrific reverberations along the valleys. Lindsay gazed
upon this scene, from his secure cover, with mute interest, inwardly
aroused and delighted with the grand and sublime conflict of the
elements, in a spot of such wild and compatible magnificence: the solemn
and awful emotions excited by these phenomena were exaggerated by the
peculiar mood of his mind, and now absorbed all his attention. After a
brief interval, the rain ceased to fall as suddenly as it had begun; the
thunder was silent, and only a few distant flashes of wide-spread light
broke fitfully above the horizon. The stars soon again shone forth
through a transparent and placid heaven, and the moon sailed in beauty
along a cloudless sea. The frog chirped again from the trees, and the
far-off owl hooted in the wood, resuming his melancholy song, that had
been so briefly intermitted. The foaming river below, swollen by the
recent rain, flung upwards a more lively gush from its rocky bed: the
cock was heard to crow, as if a new day had burst upon his harem; and
the house-dogs barked in sport as they gambolled over the wet grass.
Lindsay looked forth and spoke.
"How beautiful is the change! But a moment since, and the angry elements
were convulsed with the shock of war; and now, how calm! My ancient oaks
have weathered the gale, and not a branch has been torn from their hoary
limbs: not the most delicate of Mildred's flowers; not the tenderest
shrub has been scathed by the threatening fires of heaven! The Dove Cote
and its inmates have seen the storm sweep by without a vestige of harm.
Kind heaven, grant that this may be a portent of our fortune; and that,
when this tempest of human passion has been spent, the Dove Cote and its
inhabitants may come forth as tranquil, as safe, as happy, as
now--more--yes, more happy than now! Our ways are in thy hands; and I
would teach myself to submit to thy providence with patient hope. So,
let it be! I am resigned."
As Lindsay still occupied his position in the porch, Stephen Foster
appeared before him dripping with the rain of the late storm.
"A letter, sir," said Stephen. "I have just rode from the post-office,
and was almost oversot in the gust: it catched me upon the road; and it
was as much as I could do to cross the river. It is a mighty fretful
piece of water after one of these here dashes."
Lindsay took the packet.
"Get your supper, good Stephen," he said. "Order lights for me in the
library! Thank you--thank you!"
When Lindsay opened the letter, he found it to contain tidings of the
victory at Camden, written by Tyrrel. After he had perused the contents,
it was with a triumphant smile that he exclaimed, "And it is come so
soon! Thank God, the omen has proved true! a calmer and a brighter hour
at last opens upon us."
He left the study to communicate the news to his children, and spent the
next hour with Mildred and Henry in the parlor. His feelings had risen
to a happier key; and it was with some approach to cheerfulness, but
little answered in the looks or feelings of his children, that he
retired to his chamber at a late hour, where sleep soon came, with its
sweet oblivion, to repair his exhausted spirits, and to restore him to
the quiet of an easy mind.