THE BODY IN THE WOODS.
About ten miles from the residence of Daniel Hart, one of the largest
tributary streams of the Mississippi made a sudden sweep inward, like a
bent bow, embracing a rich tract of alluvial or bottom land in its
curve, and forcing its outer banks back into the shelter of a range of
hills, more broken and picturesque than is usually found in scenery
composed almost equally of wood and prairie land.
Just within the curve of this bow, or directly on “The Bend,” as the
inhabitants called the plain which swept out from the embrace of the
river, stood the county-seat. The entire district was but sparsely
inhabited, and, as yet, the county town consisted only of a few
log-cabins, half-buried in luxurious corn-fields, two or three young
orchards filled with trees, that had only decked themselves in the
blossoms of a single spring, and one great frame dwelling, with verandas
running across the front, and two chimneys of new bricks standing on the
expanse of glistening shingles, like members of a volunteer militia
company in flowing regimentals, whose pride it was to keep guard over
the humble log-cabins and stick-chimneys which lay below.
A blacksmith’s shop, so open in front that you could see the glowing
iron even in winter as it poured a torrent of sparks from the huge
hammer which ground it to the anvil, stood opposite the tavern; and
this, with the noise of carpenters still at work in the interior of the
building, lent a sort of bustle and business aspect to “The Bend,” which
those who visited it found rather cheerful and exciting after the dim
solitude of their forest-homes.
A flour-mill, too, clattered cheerfully night and day in a hollow close
by the river, and there was scarcely a day in the week when a group of
men might not have been observed loitering around Judge Church’s tavern.
It was Saturday, about five days after the visit of Michael Hurst to the
Hart clearing, and the strangers gathered around the blacksmith’s shop
and tavern toward sunset were more than usually numerous. Three or four
farmers had come from a remote part of the county with wagon-loads of
grain, which could scarcely be converted into flour before the next day.
Others had brought their horses to be shod, and, meeting with cheerful
company at the tavern, were in no haste to return home.
The evening came on warm and sultry, but the blacksmith was hard at
work; the sound of his anvil rang over the village, and the glare of his
forge reddened around him as the beautiful sunset fell through a bank of
hazy clouds on the landscape without. A horse of light bay color, finely
limbed, and with the look of a high-blooded racer, was tied with a stout
bridle to an iron ring at the door-post, but though the hot sparks
sometimes flashed close by his eyes, they only kindled up a little, as
if some of the fire had shot beneath the lids; and though his nostrils
dilated, he neither pulled at the halter nor seemed restive, for once
when he had run back a little, a voice from the opposite tavern checked
the fretful impulse, and left him standing with his eye to the flame,
but with a slack halter and shrinking limbs. To the poor animal there
was something in that voice more terrible than the shower of hot sparks
that rained over him.
The voice came from a young man seated in the lower veranda of the
tavern. His chair was tilted back, and his right foot rested upon his
left knee, and though the fringe of his hunting-frock swept over a
portion of the boot, its small size and unusually neat workmanship could
not be entirely concealed. The man wore a fine otter-skin cap, which,
being drawn over his face, left the upper part in shadow, but waves of
thick hair curled up among the rich fur about his temples, and his
somewhat prominent chin, upon which the light lay strong, was so
delicately moulded that in repose his features seemed almost effeminate.
This man sat with half-closed eyes, smoking. Now and then, as he bent
slightly forward to knock the ashes from his cigar against the sole of
his boot, he glanced his eye through the bar-room window, which was open
a little to his right, and seemed to listen. At such times the shadow
which fell over his eyes was thrown on the temple, and the whole
character of his face changed. It was a restless, wicked eye, which
lighted up every feature with evil fire. This must have been a natural
expression, for there was nothing calculated to excite or annoy him in
the bar-room. Two or three persons only were gathered about the bar,
joking each other, while the judge himself was busy crushing lumps of
sugar in one of the small tumblers of greenish glass, which gave a dingy
hue to the brandy he had just poured out for one of his customers.
Michael Hurst, for it was he, had just drawn back to his old position,
when two men on horseback came round a corner, and, as if rejoiced by
the sight of company, urged their horses to a trot, and drawing up in a
cheerful, dashing style, dismounted before the tavern.
Hurst started, and dashed down his foot with a violence that drew the
chair forward till the front feet rang against the floor. The light
struck full upon his face; it had all at once become white as a corpse,
and his eyes glistened like those of a roused serpent.
The two travellers had been busy tying their horses to the posts of the
veranda, and before they were at leisure to notice any thing Hurst had
fallen back to his old position.
“Does not that look like Hurst?” said one of the men, as they came up
the wooden steps together.
Daniel Hart cast a quick glance toward the seemingly half-sleeping man,
knotted his huge fingers tightly together, and moved a step forward, but
Mr. Bentley caught his arm.
“Remember your promise to Gillian!” he said, in a low voice, but his own
limbs trembled with rage as he restrained the vengeance of the stronger
man. “Remember, we have both promised,” he added, drawing Hart toward
the door, “but for that I have the best right.”
“I have never broken my word!” muttered Daniel Hart, moving reluctantly
on. “I never will, but it’s tough work to keep my hands off him.”
And with these words Daniel Hart and his brother-in-law entered the
public house, but the cheerfulness with which they had dismounted at the
door was entirely dispersed; not even the hearty welcome which they
received from the persons at the bar had power to restore them to
moderate composure.
“Why, who on earth is this, Daniel Hart?” said the Judge laying down the
sugar-stick and holding out his right hand, with which he shook his
neighbor’s vigorously, while he passed the tumbler of brandy to a
customer with the other.
“It seems an age since we’ve seen you at The Bend—and you too, Mr.
Bentley. I was just calculating that your money would be so much clear
gain in my hands, and had half dunned myself for the interest, when I
get word that you are coming down to scrape it up, interest and all, for
the land-office.”
Bentley was about to reply, but the words died on his lips. In turning
his eyes he had seen the white face of Michael Hurst peering in at the
window; the face disappeared instantaneously, but Bentley felt as if
those glittering eyes were still fixed upon his burning forehead. It was
rage rather than terror that arose in his heart at the sight of those
eyes, but to a less brave man there would have been something startling
in their sharp and fiendish glare. The evidences of emotion visible in
Bentley’s face were mistaken for embarrassment by the good-natured
Judge.
“Well, well,” he said, “if you want the money, that’s enough; put up
with me to-night, and I’ll try to make it out in the morning.”
“Not here—I will not sleep under the same roof with that man,” said
Daniel Hart, drawing Bentley aside, and speaking with great earnestness.
“I would rather go myself,” said Bentley, also in a low voice, “but it
looks like a storm. If a hurricane comes up, we could never get through
the woods alive.”
“No matter, alive or dead, I _will not_ stay at The Bend to-night,”
replied Hart, with suppressed energy, but his words reached the persons
around the bar, and they looked at each other, a little surprised at his
obstinacy, and the stern, wilful tone in which his determination was
expressed. It seemed to them as if harsh feeling existed between the two
men.
“Very well, I’m ready to start the moment our horses have been fed,”
replied Bentley, moving toward the bar. “I suppose an hour or two won’t
make much difference with the Judge?”
“None at all,” replied the Judge, pointing to an old-fashioned chest of
drawers in the corner; “the money is all ready in the old desk there. Go
in and take a bite of supper while the horses are feeding. Come along,
all of you.”
The whole group put itself in motion and followed the Judge out into a
back kitchen, where supper was laid in no very delicate style, but in
rough and hospitable profusion.
Michael Hurst had been standing with his back to the railing of the
veranda, his arms folded tightly over his chest, and watching with
cat-like eagerness every thing that passed in the bar-room. The moment
Judge Church went out, followed by the company, he glided softly down
the steps, and across to the blacksmith’s shop. The smith was busy at
his bellows, and the roar of the air escaping into the bed of glowing
coals forced Hurst to draw close to the forge before he could make
himself heard. When he felt the red light of the fire upon his face, he
turned it away instinctively, or the honest smith might have been
startled by its pallor and the fiendish expression lurking over it. A
hostler coming round from the barn, with a measure of oats in his hand,
saw him standing there enveloped, as it might seem, in a crimson mantle
by the flames, and wondered what traveller had entered the town without
his knowledge; for though Hurst had been for more than a fortnight
boarding in the tavern, and was well known to the man, his face was so
changed with the working of evil passions that it seemed like that of a
stranger.
“Have you fastened the shoe?” said Hurst, hoarsely, touching the
blackened arm of the smith with his finger, for he had spoken twice, yet
could not hear the sound of his own voice. “Have you fastened the shoe?”
“No,” said the blacksmith, leaning upon the pole of his bellows, and
wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the coarse sleeve that
was rolled above his elbow.
Hurst uttered an imprecation.
“I haven’t fastened that shoe,” continued the smith, quite unmoved by
the fierce words that had reached his ear, and resuming his hold on the
bellows with one hand, while he raked the hot coals over a half-formed
circle of iron glowing in the forge; “but I have put on a new one that
fits like a lady’s slipper. That horse of yours has got a neat hoof,
rather too delicate for common workmen; I had to make undersized nails
for fear of breaking it.”
“Is he shod? Have you done with him?” exclaimed Hurst, sharply.
“Half an hour ago!” Taking up a huge pair of pincers with which he
dragged forth a mass of iron from its bed of fire, and seizing his
hammer, the smith gave it one swing with his right arm, and it came
crashing down upon the anvil with a force that sent a storm of
fire-sparks over the young man, as he passed and untied his horse from
the iron-ring at the door.
Hurst led his horse across the street, and flung the bridle toward the
man who was removing the bits from the tired animal from which Hart had
just dismounted, while Mr. Bentley’s horse was quietly munching the oats
which had been set before him.
“Here, take care of the creature, will you?” he said, testily. “You need
not stay to rub him down—he is half-starved.”
The hostler caught the bridle with a dexterous movement of one arm, and
quietly drawing the head-stall back to the neck of Hart’s horse, pushed
the measure of oats toward him with his foot, and then moved away.
“Halloa, blockhead! where are you going?” cried Hurst, with an oath. “I
don’t want him taken to the barn; turn him into the white-clover lot,
and see you put up the bars.”
The man wheeled round sulkily, and grumbled below his breath. After
crossing the road, he took down a set of bars, slipped off the bridle,
and gave the spirited animal a light blow with it. This sent the horse
bounding into a field, which was hedged in from the highway by a heavy
rail-fence, and swept back from the tavern, some ten or twelve acres of
short but fragrant sward, where it was lost in a forest of heavy timber.
The tavern itself stood in one corner of this field, and a cross-road
bounded the opposite end, which ran up from the forest and intersected
the turnpike some thirty rods below the house.
Hurst stepped within the hall, but stood watching the man till he put up
the bars and flung the bridle down in a corner of the veranda; then he
turned away and went into the supper-room.
He took his seat at the lower end of the table, so noiselessly that his
entrance was unobserved, till Judge Church happened to look that way,
and uttered an exclamation at his paleness. The rest of the company
fastened their eyes, as with one accord, upon his face, the moment this
exclamation escaped the host. A spot of living fire flashed into either
cheek, and he clutched his knife and fork hard, as if angered by this
general observation.
“I have the toothache—have been racked to death with it all day,” he
said, in a clear and low voice, strongly at variance with the expression
of his face.
“I will not sit at the same table with him,” muttered Daniel Hart,
grasping Bentley by the arm. “Come, let us go!”
They both arose; but, as if overcome with pain, Hurst left his seat and
went out. Obeying the impulse given by his companion, Hart sat down
again, and no one observed that they had intended to leave the table.
When they went into the bar-room, after supper, Hurst was walking up and
down the room. He seemed to be agitated, or in great pain, but there was
only one small candle in the bar, and he kept in the shadow.
Meantime, the Judge was busy counting out the money which Mr. Bentley
had come to take up. It was much of it in pieces of gold, with several
bank notes of small amount. After it had been counted over two or three
times, the Judge emptied it into an old shot-bag—where it had been
previously stored—tied it up with a piece of twine, and handed it to
Bentley, taking his promissory note from that gentleman as he delivered
the money.
“Come, now, we have nothing to keep as here!” exclaimed Hart, drawing a
deep breath, for the presence of Hurst seemed to oppress him. “Where are
the horses?”
“They ought to be in the stable,” said the Judge, turning a key in the
sloping lid which closed a desk in his chest of drawers; “there is a
storm coming up, or I am no judge of signs.”
Hart had only heard the first part of this speech; he was eager to leave
the room, and hurrying out to the horses, forced the bits into their
mouths, though scarcely half the oats had been consumed.
“Come, come, brother Bentley, come—we _shall_ have to ride fast, or the
storm may break on us in the woods!” he called out from the veranda.
Mr. Bentley went out, followed by all the persons in the room, except
Hurst. He stood motionless, near the window, listening to every word
that passed, till the two men mounted and rode away. Then he stepped
hastily to the bar, seized a decanter, and pouring out a tumbler half
full of clear brandy, drank it off.
“Is your tooth no easier?” said the good-hearted Judge, returning to the
room just as the young man was taking his hand from the tumbler.
“No, it keeps getting worse; I will go to bed and sleep it off—that is,
if I can,” he replied, turning his face from the light, and pouring out
a spoonful of brandy, which he held in his mouth as he went up-stairs.
“That’s a strange sort of a fellow,” said one of the guests, who had
been a boatman on the Mississippi. “How long has he been in these
parts?”
“Only a few weeks,” replied the Judge, to whom the question was
addressed.
“What does he follow for a living?” persisted the guest.
“He’s got some business with the land office, I believe,” said the
Judge, “and wanders off with the hunters sometimes when they take to the
woods.”
“Just so,” said the guest.
Hurst was not mentioned again that night; but as if some association had
been aroused, unconsciously, in the mind of the boatman, he began to
talk about his wild life on the great river, and late in the evening was
describing the fearful scenes which attended the hanging of the
Vicksburg gamblers.
It was a terrible subject, and told at a fearful hour; for the hurricane
had burst upon them—strong, loud, and terrible. It came blowing up from
the forest, and swept by, in its wrath, till the great half-empty house
rocked like a cradle. The chimneys toppled over, and crashed upon the
roof overhead. The verandas were torn away like a handful of rushes, and
yet that little group men sat awe-stricken and fascinated, listening to
the rough eloquence of the boatman, as he described the storm of human
passions which he had witnessed, amid the terrible, but still less awful
storm of the elements that raged around them.
Hurst went to his room and set down the light, reaching it far away with
his hand, that it should not shine upon his face. He felt as if his
thoughts were branded in crimson-writing on his forehead, and that some
eye might read his purpose there. His conscience whispered falsely. That
forehead was white as marble, but shrunk and knitted together with dark
passions. Foolish man! Why did he thrust away that candle so fiercely?
The Almighty required no human light—no letters of blood upon the
brow—to read that which was passing in his heart.
He took a bowie-knife from his bosom, and felt the point—tried it
against the seat of a chair till it seemed as if the well-tempered steel
must have broken off in the wood. Then he drew a portmanteau from under
the bed, and took out a hunting-frock, darker than the one he usually
wore, and without the yellow fringe. Having put this on, and supplied
its place in the portmanteau with that which he had flung off, he drew
the otter-skin cap over his forehead, and blowing out the light, crept
from the room. He had nearly reached the stairs, when a thought seemed
to strike him; for he stole back, and, after searching in the dark,
found the leather string suspended from the wooden latch in the door of
his room. He tied a knot in the end, which he tightened with his teeth,
and drew it back so far into the gimlet hole which perforated the door,
that any one anxious to enter would have supposed the thong drawn
through by some person within. He listened a moment by the door, and
then glided, with quick and noiseless steps, down the stairs.
There was no light in the hall; but the ceilings were yet unplastered,
and a network of faint rays fell through a thousand crevices of the new
lath, which was the only partition between him and the bar-room. The
bar-room door was partly open, and directly before it sat a group of
travellers, listening to the exploits of the boatman. This man checked
his speech an instant, and looked up as Hurst darted by, but the
movement was quick as the flight of an arrow, and, satisfied that it was
but a shadow made by the flaring candle, the man went on, warming in his
description as the storm rose.
Once out of the house, Hurst crept in a stooping posture around the
veranda, thrust his arm through the railing, and softly drawing forth
the bridle that had been cast there, followed the windings of the fence
till he came to the cross-road. He turned the corner with a bound, and,
drawing one sharp breath, ran swiftly down towards the wood. Here he
turned again, followed the line of brush fence that separated the forest
from the clover-fields, and, keeping himself in the wood, looked around
for his horse. The animal was grazing near the centre of the field. A
low, sweet whistle made him pause just as a tuft of fragrant and dewy
clover was folded in his lip——again that whistle came from the wood,
still faintly, but a little sharper than before. Without staying to crop
the handful of blossoms which were even then filling his mouth with
fragrance, the animal gave a start, flung up his head, and sprang away.
With a single bound he cleared the fence, and stood by the side of his
master.
Hurst took a heavy silk handkerchief from his pocket, tied two of the
corners together with a piece of cord, and slipped it over the horse’s
head, where he arranged it with the cord knotted across the chest, and
the square of crimson silk spread out upon the animal’s back like a
saddlecloth.
“No saddle, no blanket to-night, old boy,” he muttered, hoarsely, while
the horse bent his head for the bit. He put on the bridle, drawing the
throat-latch so fiercely that the tormented creature shook his head and
ran back. Hurst clenched his hand, opened it again as suddenly and
patted the restive creature on the arching neck.
“So—so,” he muttered, loosening the strap, which cut cruelly against the
poor animal’s throat. “No noise—no prancing here. So—so, be quiet, boy,
take care of the brush, and you shall be coaxed like a girl, for
once—so—so.”
With these words, uttered scarcely above his breath, though the
mustering storm would have drowned his loudest tones, Hurst sprang upon
his horse, and, guiding him cautiously through a corner of the wood,
came out into the cross-road, about half a mile from the town.
“Now for it!” burst from his lips in a whisper, which seemed like a
shout suppressed with difficulty. “Now for it!”
There had been a moon that evening, but the coming storm overwhelmed and
shrouded it from sight. Still, a pearly glow now and then shot along the
small and gloomy clouds that came surging up from the north, and spread
themselves over the sky like a lead-colored pavement, torn and agitated
by unseen hands. But soon even the pearly gleam disappeared. It had
lingered among the clouds, the last smile on the face of heaven; now it
was swept away, and left nothing but blackness and gloom behind. The air
seemed pressing down to the earth, thick, stagnant and sultry. A dismal
sound came up from the forest, as if the elements were chained among
those giant trees, moaning at their captivity and wrathful with each
other. Still, amid darkness and gloom, that horseman sped on. The road
was narrow, and full of ruts. Stumps, in some places, stood half
crumbling away in the very wagon-track; but, with a loosened rein and
knees pressed hard to his fleet animal, that doomed man plunged onward
to his fate. The thunder, which had been all the time muttering on high,
now pealed and crashed above him—the lightning came down in sheets of
lurid fire, shedding a bluish tinge over the corpse-like hue of his
face. Still his horse plunged on amid sheets of flame or black darkness,
never checking his speed for an instant.
All at once that desperate rider drew the curb with a sharp pull, which
brought the horse’s foaming mouth down upon his chest. He staggered,
fell back upon his haunches, and recovered himself with a snort of pain.
All the time, the rider was bending forward till his face almost touched
the arched neck of his beast, his knees were pressed convulsively to the
drooping sides of the stumbling animal, and he strove again to catch the
sound of hoofs which had for an instant reached him through the storm.
“On, on!” The words came hissing through his shut teeth, but scarcely
had the gallant horse made a bound forward when the curb was fiercely
drawn again.
“It is somewhere close by. Oh, if the lightning would but strike again!”
It did strike, with a crash that made the brave horse leap in the air,
though he had never shrunk from the lightning before. Not three rods
before them a dry tree was shivered in ten thousand pieces, and every
splinter shot forth a stream of fire. For one moment the horseman
recoiled, the next he recognized the spot.
“Thank God, there it is!” he exclaimed aloud, and with this blasphemous
thanksgiving on his parted lips, he struck the horse and dashed into a
cart-path, revealed by the stricken tree. On, without swerving from the
path an instant, he passed directly under the burning tree, and was
engulfed in the dark woods beyond.
Daniel Hart and his companion had ridden hard, in hopes of making their
way through the woods before the storm came on, but there was full six
miles of forest, cut only by the narrow and broken road, through which
night travellers passed with some danger even in the best weather. But
they had scarcely cleared a third of their way when the rain began to
fall in great heavy drops, and the storm mustered around them with
terrible force. The heavy farm-horses which they rode stumbled in the
deep ruts, and became almost unmanageable as the thunder came crashing
peal after peal overhead, and the woods around seemed a-fire with
lightning. Still the riders urged them forward, for the peril seemed
equal if they returned or pursued their way home.
“Great heavens! did you see that?” exclaimed Bentley, reining in his
horse with a firm hand, and pointing in the direction whence they had
come.
“I thought it had struck somewhere,” replied Hart, checking his horse
for a moment and looking back. “Ha! it is the old tree at the
cross-roads. How the flames shoot up! it was dry as tinder. Thank
Heaven, while it burns we shall have light enough to keep our horses
from breaking their knees in the confounded mud-holes.”
“Hear that!” exclaimed Bentley, and his face changed in the red light.
“Heavens and earth! it is upon us—what shall we do?” cried Hart,
wheeling his horse suddenly, and the light from the burning tree
revealed his face also white with terror as he rode back a few paces,
and drew up again, agitated and irresolute.
“We may as well go forward; there is nothing to choose. It will be upon
us long before we can clear the wood either way,” shouted Bentley,
looking back.
“Lord preserve us! it will be an awful gust, and the girls alone!”
Hart spoke loud and joined Bentley as he uttered these words, but the
noise of the elements would have overwhelmed a band of trumpets, and no
one heard him. Terrified into almost supernatural exertion, the two
horses plunged on, stumbling, leaping, and sometimes staggering through
the storm like drunken creatures. The riders spoke to each other again
and again, shouted even, but the rushing wind swept away their voices,
and but for the quick flashes of lightning which every instant revealed
their pallid faces each to the other, they could not have kept together.
Still the terrific storm was not upon them in its full might. The
thunder boomed and crashed overhead, the giant trees were laced together
through and through with fiery lightning, the wind was strong and high;
but far down in the forest came a still more terrible sound. The
whirlwind was coming up from the dark north, heaving onward with a
fierce, rushing roar, and crashing down the majestic forest in its
path—on and on it came, like a mighty ocean heaving loose from its
foundations. Now it was upon them! The two horses stood still, quaking
with terror, their riders cast themselves forward upon the shivering
beasts, clung to their dripping necks, and they too were motionless.
On it came, gathering new strength and terror. The hoarse winds, the
thunder, and the noise of giant trees uprooted like reeds and dashed to
the earth, mingled together and deafened the very heavens.
The air was black with clouds of mangled foliage—great limbs of trees,
masses of loose leaves, vines twisted asunder and saplings torn up by
the roots, went rushing by. The wind now scattered them abroad—now drove
them together in masses. The lightning shot its fiery tongues through
and through them, and the rain mingled with it all, not with the soft
lulling sweetness of water-drops that descend gently from the clouds,
but blent with all the turbulent elements that made the night horrible.
Still the horses crouched their limbs together and buried their hoofs
deep in the earth, and the riders clung to them awe-stricken and
breathless—all at once the ground began to heave under them. The earth
was torn up all around—a great oak, whose roots were tangled under the
soil far across the road, fell crashing close behind them. The maddened
horses leaped forward—the outer branches of the fallen tree almost
brushed the riders from their seats, and the huge trunk fell across the
road just where they had been an instant before. The horse which Daniel
Hart rode cleared the tree first, and was plunging on in the darkness,
when a sharp cry reached his ear, even through the storm. Hart grasped
the bridle with both his strong hands, and, putting forth all his
strength, wheeled his horse round, for Bentley was still behind. A flash
of lightning revealed the horse without a rider; Bentley was upon the
ground—a black mass, that might be a heavy limb of the fallen tree, or a
human being stooping over it, was betrayed for an instant, and all was
dark again.
“Bentley, are you hurt?—answer me, answer if you are not killed,”
shouted the farmer, hoarse with terror.
He listened—no sound—nothing but the fierce storm.
“Speak! do speak! I dare not ride on, the horse might tread you to death
in the dark. Are you calling out?—the storm is so loud I might not hear
if you did—try, try, the least shout will tell me where you are!”
Another flash of lightning revealed Bentley’s horse, and, with a shout
of joy, Hart saw the figure of a man rise from the earth and spring upon
his back. The next instant all was darkness again; but Hart felt the
horse of his companion pressing close to his, and the two animals urged
their way, breast to breast, through the abating storm.
“Were you hurt?” shouted Hart, anxiously, feeling in the dark for his
companion’s hand, which hung motionless and dripping wet by his side.
“No, no, a limb swept me from the saddle, that is all!”
“Thank God it was no worse!” exclaimed Hart, in a voice which bespoke
the hearty gratitude which he felt, and, wringing the damp hand which he
had seized, the good man uttered another fervent “thank God!”
That instant a glare of lightning passed over them. Hart saw the face of
his companion, and his warm fingers tightened on the hand they had
unlocked.
“How white—how strange you look!” he said, powerfully agitated.
“Brother, own it, you are hurt. I hardly know you with that face!”
The hand which Daniel held was wrung harshly from his grasp, and the
reply which reached him, like all that had gone before, was broken and
half-drowned by the storm.
“No, no, it is only the lightning. My horse is lamed, though. You must
break the way for us.”
As these words were uttered, the speaker fell back and rode behind Hart
till a light gleamed from a little window in the distance, like a star
braving the storm to guide the wanderers home.
“There, there the girls are up and waiting for us,” cried the glad
father; and urging their horses on, the travellers dismounted at the
cabin-door.
“The horses have had a tough time of it,” said Hart, shaking the water
from his garments; “they must be fed first.”
“I will take care of them—go in, go in,” exclaimed his companion,
holding forth the bag of money; “put this away—I will come back in a
minute.”
Daniel took the money in one hand and pulled the latch-string with the
other; his companion turned abruptly when the light fell on him through
the door, and led the horses away without answering Hart, who shouted
after him to hurry back, for the girls were waiting with supper on the
table.
Sure enough, supper was on the table: a cake of rich corn-bread warm
from the fire, a young chicken nicely broiled, and a saucer of golden
butter just from the churn, stood temptingly ready on the snow-white
table-cloth. There was pretty Martha—her cheeks all rosy with the
heat—pouring a stream of sparkling hot water from the clumsy kettle into
a little britannia tea-pot, bright as silver, which had been standing on
the hearth at least two hours, with the lid temptingly thrown back, and
ready at any moment to receive the water, that kept singing away in the
kettle. Gillian was sitting by Matty, rather anxious, for the storm had
terrified her; and crouching in a corner were black Dinah and Liz, each
with an apron flung over her face, frightened half to death by the
thunder-bursts that had shaken the cabin to its foundations.
“So you _have_ come—I thought it was you,” exclaimed Martha, closing the
lid of the tea-pot, and going up to her father, her sweet face sparkling
with gratified joy. She flung her arms around the old man’s neck and
kissed his wet cheek.
“Have you been much frightened, darling?” said the old man, tenderly
taking her hand in his.
“Oh, yes, very much, till I heard you coming. We were so afraid that you
would get hurt in the woods. I have been crying here half the evening,
yet it seemed as if all would turn out well, and so it has: here you
are, but Uncle Bentley, he did not let you come back alone?”
“Oh, no—he is turning out the horses; but a tree was struck close by us,
and he got a fall—nothing to speak of, though,” added the kind man,
observing that the cheek of his niece turned pale.
“You are sure no one is hurt?” said Gillian, coming up and winding her
fingers around the huge hand, which clasped them kindly.
“Yes, yes, but what is the matter—what ails your hand? You are not
afraid of a little water, are you?”
Gillian turned to the light and looked earnestly at the fingers her
uncle, had been clasping; they were crimson with blood.
“Father, father, you are hurt, and will not tell me,” Martha exclaimed,
pointing to Gillian’s hand. “Oh, father, how could you deny it? See,
your sleeve is spotted—your hand is wet with it; tell me, tell me, where
are you hurt?”
“Hurt!” exclaimed Hart, going close to the light, where he examined the
sleeve of his linen coat and his crimson hand in a state of painful
bewilderment; “hurt! no, I am not hurt; but where did this come from?”
His ruddy cheek became a shade paler, as he shook the drops from his
fingers—for there was water as well as blood upon his hand—and an
expression of doubt and anxiety stole over his face.
“It must be your father’s, Gillian,” he muttered at length, stealing a
glance through the door, as if anxious for the appearance of his friend.
“His arm may be cut; ah, I remember, that made him fling off my hand so
savagely; well, it may not be much after all!”
Gillian stood watching her uncle, as he muttered these words in a voice
so subdued that it scarcely reached her ear.
“Uncle,” she said at length, laying her hand on his arm, “tell me, tell
me all! where is my father?”
“Out there with the horses, I tell you,” replied Hart, shaking off the
strange feelings produced by the blood upon his hand, and speaking out
with his usual frankness. “There, put away the money in my chest—I had
forgotten it.”
Setting the bag of money on a corner of the table, Hart began to examine
his garments over again, muttering to himself with seeming wonder at the
state they were in.
Martha took up the bag with a shudder, for the canvas had a red stain
upon it; she placed it in the chest pointed out by her father, and gave
him the key with a forced smile, which looked ghastly on lips so pallid
as hers had become.
“Come now, bustle about and get some dry clothes ready against your
uncle comes in; he is dripping wet, I can tell you,” said Hart, with
renewed cheerfulness; “but first bring me a basin of water to wash my
hands. Where on earth can this have come from?” he muttered, while
laving his hands in the basin, and once more his face took an anxious
expression.
Martha had already prepared dry garments both for her father and uncle.
Hart went into his own little bedroom and came out dry and comfortable.
Still Mr. Bentley did not appear. Martha seated herself at the table,
broke the corn-bread, and poured out a cup of tea. Her father took the
cup, set it down untasted, and, leaning his elbows on the table, waited
for his companion to come in. At last he started up and went to the
door; a horse was standing near, with a saddle on and his bridle
dragging along the wet grass. It was his own horse. The old man started
out into the rain, caught the horse and led him toward the stable, where
he expected to find Bentley. All was still in the log-stable—the door
was open, but no living thing stirred within. Hart shouted aloud, again
and again; he went into the house for a lantern, and searched everywhere
for his friend; Gillian and Martha followed him in silence, the tears
rolling down their pale faces, oppressed with anxiety such as had never
filled their hearts before. It was all in vain; no voice answered the
anxious shout of Daniel Hart. Once he heard something like the quick
tramp of a horse down in the woods; the sound lasted but an instant, and
he, followed by the young girls, went into the house, filled with
trouble and consternation.
The whirlwind went by; the rain ceased, and the wind died moaning among
the torn foliage; the moon came out in the firmament once more, smiling,
like the eye of an unconscious infant, over the wild scene below. It
looked calmly upon the earth, torn and ragged, and harrowed up as it had
been with the storm—on the shattered trees—the herbage broken and
soiled, and heaped together in ridges on the places it had beautified
when the sun went down. Like a Christian soul, eager to fling a mantle
of charity over the ruin which sin had made, that peaceful moon wove a
vail of misty silver amid the devastation which, but for it, would have
been dreary indeed.
But there was one object lying in the cart-road deep in the forest,
which the pure moonbeams but rendered more horrible. It was a human
form, flung like a slaughtered animal across the trunk of the oak which
Hart had seen uprooted but an hour before. The lax limbs were entangled
in a bough which was broken, bent and crushed by their weight; the face
was turned upward, white, cold and ghastly, among a mass of leaves,
matted together by the dark stream which trickled heavily down from the
body upon them.
There were none of those pleasant sounds of dropping water which would
have followed a common storm in the forest, for the winds had swept the
rain away as it fell, and a hush like that of death was all around. But
that small current of blood, welling slowly down over the drenched
garments, which hung around the body, through the crushed leaves to the
earth, drop by drop, fell upon the sweet air with sluggish and horrid
monotony. Still the moonbeams smiled upon the scene as they had smiled
upon the blossoming turf the night before.
The smothered hoof-fall of a horse, smiting his way through the mud,
gave another sluggish sound to the still night. It grew slower and more
laborious as the jaded horse drew near, and stopped altogether some
paces from the uprooted oak. A man, whose thin face looked sharp and
haggard in the moonbeams, dismounted and struck a fierce, unsteady blow,
with a stick he gathered up from the wayside, which sent the poor animal
tearing down the road. The branches of that fallen oak crashed under him
as he rushed through it. The body slid downward a little, and the horse
plunged, with clinking stirrups and loose bridle, deep into the forest.
When this sound had entirely died away, the horseman crept toward the
oak softly, as if afraid of arousing the body to life. He looked neither
to the right nor left, but moved on, with his face toward the body,
though his glittering eyes were fixed on the dark trees beyond, not on
the gloomy object itself.
The man stooped down as he drew near the tree, crouched lower and lower
till his knees sunk in the ground, and groped about in the mud and
herbage, as if in search of something. His hand touched the blade of a
knife, half-buried in the earth; he grasped it by the point, sprung to
his feet with a sharp breath, and holding it before him, clenched
eagerly with both hands, laughed a horrible choking laugh as the blade
shook in the moonlight.
“You will bear no evidence against me now, old friend,” he said, in a
voice that fell upon the air so strange and hoarse that he started and
looked over his shoulder, as if another man had spoken his thoughts. All
was still, but the murderer had been frightened by his own voice, and
slunk away with his face still turned back toward the body, though he
had never once looked upon it.
Another horse was tied in a hollow, scarcely twenty paces down from the
road. Through all the hurricane, and with the lightning firing his eyes,
he stood without wincing; but now that he saw his master coming heavily
toward him, he began to paw the mud with his hoof, and gave a faint
neigh. The man parted his lips, and tried to check this manifestation of
joy, but his words died in his husky throat, and mounting with
difficulty, he rode away, faint and wavering to and fro on his seat.