Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
ST. ELMO
BY
AUGUSTA J. EVANS
Author of "Beulah," "Macaria," "At the Mercy of Tiberius" "Infelice"
Etc., Etc.
"Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his
servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best he
can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he can
hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge
into purity, all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth;
from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in
her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace."--JOHN
RUSKIN.
TO
J. C. DERBY,
IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF KIND AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP, THESE
PAGES ARE
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
"Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his
servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best he
can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he can
hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge
into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth;
from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in
her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace."--JOHN
RUSKIN.
ST. ELMO.
CHAPTER I.
"He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting mountains were
scattered, the perpetual hills did bow."
These words of the prophet upon Shigionoth were sung by a sweet, happy,
childish voice, and to a strange, wild, anomalous tune--solemn as the
Hebrew chant of Deborah, and fully as triumphant.
A slender girl of twelve years' growth steadied a pail of water on her
head, with both dimpled arms thrown up, in ancient classic Caryatides
attitude; and, pausing a moment beside the spring, stood fronting the
great golden dawn--watching for the first level ray of the coming sun,
and chanting the prayer of Habakkuk. Behind her in silent grandeur
towered the huge outline of Lookout Mountain, shrouded at summit in
gray mist; while centre and base showed dense masses of foliage, dim
and purplish in the distance--a stern cowled monk of the Cumberland
brotherhood. Low hills clustered on either side, but immediately in
front stretched a wooded plain, and across this the child looked at the
flushed sky, rapidly brightening into fiery and blinding radiance.
Until her wild song waked echoes among the far-off rocks, the holy hush
of early morning had rested like a benediction upon the scene, as
though nature laid her broad finger over her great lips, and waited in
reverent silence the advent of the sun. Morning among the mountains
possessed witchery and glories which filled the heart of the girl with
adoration, and called from her lips rude but exultant anthems of
praise. The young face, lifted toward the cloudless east, might have
served as a model for a pictured Syriac priestess--one of Baalbec's
vestals, ministering in the olden time in that wondrous and grand
temple at Heliopolis.
The large black eyes held a singular fascination in their mild,
sparkling depths, now full of tender, loving light and childish
gladness; and the flexible red lips curled in lines of orthodox Greek
perfection, showing remarkable versatility of expression; while the
broad, full, polished forehead with its prominent, swelling brows,
could not fail to recall, to even casual observers, the calm, powerful
face of Lorenzo de' Medicis, which, if once looked on, fastens itself
upon heart and brain, to be forgotten no more. Her hair, black,
straight, waveless as an Indian's, hung around her shoulders, and
glistened as the water from the dripping bucket trickled through the
wreath of purple morning-glories and scarlet cypress, which she had
twined about her head, ere lifting the cedar pail to its resting-place.
She wore a short-sleeved dress of yellow striped homespun, which fell
nearly to her ankles, and her little bare feet gleamed pearly white on
the green grass and rank dewy creepers that clustered along the margin
of the bubbling spring. Her complexion was unusually transparent, and
early exercise and mountain air had rouged her cheeks till they matched
the brilliant hue of her scarlet crown. A few steps in advance of her
stood a large, fierce yellow dog, with black, scowling face, and ears
cut close to his head; a savage, repulsive creature, who looked as if
he rejoiced in an opportunity of making good his name, "Grip." In the
solemn beauty of that summer morning the girl seemed to have forgotten
the mission upon which she came; but as she loitered, the sun flashed
up, kindling diamond fringes on every dew-beaded chestnut leaf and
oak-bough, and silvering the misty mantle which enveloped Lookout. A
moment longer that pure-hearted Tennessee child stood watching the
gorgeous spectacle, drinking draughts of joy, which mingled no drop of
sin or selfishness in its crystal waves; for she had grown up alone
with nature--utterly ignorant of the roar and strife, the burning hate
and cunning intrigue of the great world of men and women, where, "like
an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggles to get its head
above the other." To her, earth seemed very lovely; life stretched
before her like the sun's path in that clear sky, and, as free from
care or foreboding as the fair June day, she walked on, preceded by her
dog--and the chant burst once more from her lips:
"He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting mountains were
scattered, the perpetual hills--"
The sudden, almost simultaneous report of two pistol-shots rang out
sharply on the cool, calm air, and startled the child so violently that
she sprang forward and dropped the bucket. The sound of voices reached
her from the thick wood bordering the path, and, without reflection,
she followed the dog, who bounded off toward the point whence it
issued. Upon the verge of the forest she paused, and, looking down a
dewy green glade where the rising sun darted the earliest arrowy rays,
beheld a spectacle which burned itself indelibly upon her memory. A
group of five gentlemen stood beneath the dripping chestnut and
sweet-gum arches; one leaned against the trunk of a tree, two were
conversing eagerly in undertones, and two faced each other fifteen
paces apart, with pistols in their hands. Ere she could comprehend the
scene, the brief conference ended, the seconds resumed their places to
witness another fire, and like the peal of a trumpet echoed the words:
"Fire! One!--two!--three!"
The flash and ringing report mingled with the command and one of the
principals threw up his arm and fell. When with horror in her
wide-strained eyes and pallor on her lips, the child staggered to the
spot, and looked on the prostrate form, he was dead. The hazel eyes
stared blankly at the sky, and the hue of life and exuberant health
still glowed on the full cheek; but the ball had entered the heart, and
the warm blood, bubbling from his breast, dripped on the glistening
grass. The surgeon who knelt beside him took the pistol from his
clenched fingers, and gently pressed the lids over his glazing eyes.
Not a word was uttered, but while the seconds sadly regarded the
stiffening form, the surviving principal coolly drew out a cigar,
lighted and placed it between his lips. The child's eyes had wandered
to the latter from the pool of blood, and now in a shuddering cry she
broke the silence:
"Murderer!"
The party looked around instantly, and for the first time perceived her
standing there in their midst, with loathing and horror in the gaze she
fixed on the perpetrator of the awful deed. In great surprise he drew
back a step or two, and asked gruffly:
"Who are you? What business have you here?"
"Oh! how dared you murder him? Do you think God will forgive you on the
gallows?"
He was a man probably twenty-seven years of age--singularly fair,
handsome, and hardened in iniquity, but he cowered before the blanched
and accusing face of the appalled child; and ere a reply could be
framed, his friend came close to him.
"Clinton, you had better be off; you have barely time to catch the
Knoxville train, which leaves Chattanooga in half an hour. I would
advise you to make a long stay in New York, for there will be trouble
when Dent's brother hears of this morning's work."
"Aye! Take my word for that, and put the Atlantic between you and Dick
Dent," added the surgeon, smiling grimly, as if the anticipation of
retributive justice afforded him pleasure.
"I will simply put this between us," replied the homicide, fitting his
pistol to the palm of his hand; and as he did so, a heavy antique
diamond ring flashed on his little finger.
"Come, Clinton, delay may cause you more trouble than we bargained
for," urged his second.
Without even glancing toward the body of his antagonist, Clinton
scowled at the child, and, turning away, was soon out of sight.
"Oh, sir! will you let him get away? will you let him go unpunished?"
"He cannot be punished," answered the surgeon, looking at her with
mingled curiosity and admiration.
"I thought men were hung for murder."
"Yes--but this is not murder."
"Not murder? He shot him dead! What is it?"
"He killed him in a duel, which is considered quite right and
altogether proper."
"A duel?"
She had never heard the word before, and pondered an instant.
"To take a man's life is murder. Is there no law to punish 'a duel'?"
"None strong enough to prohibit the practice. It is regarded as the
only method of honorable satisfaction open to gentlemen."
"Honorable satisfaction?" she repeated--weighing the new phraseology as
cautiously and fearfully as she would have handled the bloody garments
of the victim.
"What is your name?" asked the surgeon.
"Edna Earl."
"Do you live near this place?"
"Yes, sir, very near."
"Is your father at home?"
"I have no father, but grandpa has not gone to the shop yet."
"Will you show me the way to the house?"
"Do you wish to carry him there?" she asked, glancing at the corpse,
and shuddering violently.
"Yes, I want some assistance from your grandfather."
"I will show you the way, sir."
The surgeon spoke hurriedly to the two remaining gentlemen, and
followed his guide. Slowly she retraced her steps, refilled her bucket
at the spring, and walked on before the stranger. But the glory of the
morning had passed away; a bloody mantle hung between the splendor of
summer sunshine and the chilled heart of the awe-struck girl. The
forehead of the radiant, holy June day had been suddenly red-branded
like Cain, to be henceforth an occasion of hideous reminiscences; and
with a blanched face and trembling limbs the child followed a narrow,
beaten path, which soon terminated at the gate of a rude, unwhitewashed
paling. A low, comfortless looking three-roomed house stood within, and
on the steps sat an elderly man, smoking a pipe, and busily engaged in
mending a bridle. The creaking of the gate attracted his attention, and
he looked up wonderingly at the advancing stranger.
"Oh, grandpa! there is a murdered man lying in the grass, under the
chestnut trees, down by the spring."
"Why! how do you know he was murdered?"
"Good morning, sir. Your granddaughter happened to witness a very
unfortunate and distressing affair. A duel was fought at sunrise, in
the edge of the woods yonder, and the challenged party, Mr. Dent, of
Georgia, was killed. I came to ask permission to bring the body here,
until arrangements can be made for its interment; and also to beg your
assistance in obtaining a coffin."
Edna passed on to the kitchen, and as she deposited the bucket on the
table, a tall, muscular, red-haired woman, who was stooping over the
fire, raised her flushed face, and exclaimed angrily:
"What upon earth have you been doing? I have been halfway to the spring
to call you, and hadn't a drop of water in the kitchen to make coffee!
A pretty time of day Aaron Hunt will get his breakfast! What do you
mean by such idleness?"
She advanced with threatening mien and gesture, but stopped suddenly.
"Edna, what ails you? Have you got an ague? You are as white as that
pan of flour. Are you scared or sick?"
"There was a man killed this morning, and the body will be brought here
directly. If you want to hear about it, you had better go out on the
porch. One of the gentlemen is talking to grandpa."
Stunned by what she had seen, and indisposed to narrate the horrid
details, the girl went to her own room, and seating herself in the
window, tried to collect her thoughts. She was tempted to believe the
whole affair a hideous dream, which would pass away with vigorous
rubbing of her eyes; but the crushed purple and scarlet flowers she
took from her forehead, her dripping hair and damp feet assured her of
the vivid reality of the vision. Every fibre of her frame had received
a terrible shock, and when noisy, bustling Mrs. Hunt ran from room to
room, ejaculating her astonishment, and calling on the child to assist
in putting the house in order, the latter obeyed silently,
mechanically, as if in a state of somnambulism.
Mr. Dent's body was brought up on a rude litter of boards, and
temporarily placed on Edna's bed, and toward evening when a coffin
arrived from Chattanooga, the remains were removed, and the coffin
rested on two chairs in the middle of the same room. The surgeon
insisted upon an immediate interment near the scene of combat; but the
gentleman who had officiated as second for the deceased expressed his
determination to carry the unfortunate man's body back to his home and
family, and the earliest train on the following day was appointed as
the time for their departure. Late in the afternoon Edna cautiously
opened the door of the room which she had hitherto avoided, and with
her apron full of lilies, while poppies and sprigs of rosemary,
approached the coffin, and looked at the rigid sleeper. Judging from
his appearance, not more than thirty years had gone over his handsome
head; his placid features were unusually regular, and a soft, silky
brown beard fell upon his pulseless breast. Fearful lest she should
touch the icy form, the girl timidly strewed her flowers in the coffin,
and tears gathered and dropped with the blossoms, as she noticed a
plain gold ring on the little finger, and wondered if he were
married--if his death would leave wailing orphans in his home, and a
broken-hearted widow at the desolate hearthstone. Absorbed in her
melancholy task, she heard neither the sound of strange voices in the
passage, nor the faint creak of the door as it swung back on its rusty
hinges; but a shrill scream, a wild, despairing shriek terrified her,
and her heart seemed to stand still as she bounded away from the side
of the coffin. The light of the setting sun streamed through the
window, and over the white, convulsed face of a feeble but beautiful
woman, who was supported on the threshold by a venerable, gray-haired
man, down whose furrowed cheeks tears coursed rapidly. Struggling to
free herself from his restraining grasp, the stranger tottered into the
middle of the room.
"O Harry! My husband! my husband!" She threw up her wasted arms, and
fell forward senseless on the corpse.
They bore her into the adjoining apartment, where the surgeon
administered the usual restoratives, and though finally the pulses
stirred and throbbed feebly, no symptom of returning consciousness
greeted the anxious friends who bent over her. Hour after hour passed,
during which she lay as motionless as her husband's body, and at length
the physician sighed, and pressing his fingers to his eyes, said
sorrowfully to the grief-stricken old man beside her: "It is paralysis,
Mr. Dent, and there is no hope. She may linger twelve or twenty-four
hours, but her sorrows are ended; she and Harry will soon be reunited.
Knowing her constitution, I feared as much. You should not have
suffered her to come; you might have known that the shock would kill
her. For this reason I wished his body buried here."
"I could not restrain her. Some meddling gossip told her that my poor
boy had gone to fight a duel, and she rose from her bed and started to
the railroad depot. I pleaded, I reasoned with her that she could not
bear the journey, but I might as well have talked to the winds, I never
knew her obstinate before, but she seemed to have a presentiment of the
truth. God pity her two sweet babes!"
The old man bowed his head upon her pillow, and sobbed aloud.
Throughout the night Edna crouched beside the bed, watching the wan but
lovely face of the young widow, and tenderly chafing the numb, fair
hands which lay so motionless on the coverlet. Children are always
sanguine, because of their ignorance of the stern, inexorable realities
of the untried future, and Edna could not believe that death would
snatch from the world one so beautiful and so necessary to her
prattling, fatherless infants. But morning showed no encouraging
symptoms, the stupor was unbroken, and at noon the wife's spirit passed
gently to the everlasting reunion.
Before sunrise on the ensuing day, a sad group clustered once more
under the dripping chestnuts, and where a pool of blood had dyed the
sod, a wide grave yawned. The coffins were lowered, the bodies of Henry
and Helen Dent rested side by side, and, as the mound rose slowly above
them, the solemn silence was broken by the faltering voice of the
surgeon, who read the burial service.
"Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is
full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth
as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. Yet, O Lord God
most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the pains of eternal death!"
The melancholy rite ended, the party dispersed, the strangers took
their departure for their distant homes, and quiet reigned once more in
the small, dark cottage. But days and weeks brought to Edna no oblivion
of the tragic events which constituted the first great epoch of her
monotonous life. A nervous restlessness took possession of her, she
refused to occupy her old room, and insisted upon sleeping on a pallet
at the foot of her grandfather's bed. She forsook her whilom haunts
about the spring and forest, and started up in terror at every sudden
sound; while from each opening between the chestnut trees the hazel
eyes of the dead man, and the wan, thin face of the golden-haired wife,
looked out beseechingly at her. Frequently, in the warm light of day,
ere shadows stalked to and fro in the thick woods, she would steal,
with an apronful of wild flowers, to the solitary grave, scatter her
treasures in the rank grass that waved above it, and hurry away with
hushed breath and quivering limbs. Summer waned, autumn passed, and
winter came, but the girl recovered in no degree from the shock which
had cut short her chant of praise on that bloody June day. In her
morning visit to the spring, she had stumbled upon a monster which
custom had adopted and petted--which the passions and sin fulness of
men had adroitly draped and fondled, and called Honorable Satisfaction;
but her pure, unperverted, Ithuriel nature pierced the conventional
mask, recognized the loathsome lineaments of crime, and recoiled in
horror and amazement, wondering at the wickedness of her race and the
forbearance of outraged Jehovah. Innocent childhood had for the first
time stood face to face with Sin and Death, and could not forget the
vision.
Edna Earl had lost both her parents before she was old enough to
remember either. Her mother was the only daughter of Aaron Hunt, the
village blacksmith, and her father, who was an intelligent, promising
young carpenter, accidentally fell from the roof of the house which he
was shingling, and died from the injuries sustained. Thus Mr. Hunt, who
had been a widower for nearly ten years, found himself burdened with
the care of an infant only six months old. His daughter had never left
him, and after her death the loneliness of the house oppressed him
painfully, and for the sake of his grandchild he resolved to marry
again. The middle-aged widow whom he selected was a kind-hearted and
generous woman, but indolent, ignorant, and exceedingly high-tempered;
and while she really loved the little orphan committed to her care, she
contrived to alienate her affection, and to tighten the bonds of union
between her husband and the child. Possessing a remarkably amiable and
equable disposition, Edna rarely vexed Mrs. Hunt, who gradually left
her more and more to the indulgence of her own views and caprices, and
contented herself with exacting a certain amount of daily work, after
the accomplishment of which she allowed her to amuse herself as
childish whims dictated. There chanced to be no children of her own age
in the neighborhood, consequently she grew up without companionship,
save that furnished by her grandfather, who was dotingly fond of her,
and would have utterly spoiled her, had not her temperament fortunately
been one not easily injured by unrestrained liberty of action. Before
she was able to walk, he would take her to the forge, and keep her for
hours on a sheepskin in one corner, whence she watched, with infantile
delight, the blast of the furnace, and the shower of sparks that fell
from the anvil, and where she often slept, lulled by the monotonous
chorus of trip and sledge. As she grew older, the mystery of bellows
and slack-tub engaged her attention, and at one end of the shop, on a
pile of shavings, she collected a mass of curiously shaped bits of iron
and steel, and blocks of wood, from which a miniature shop threatened
to rise in rivalry; and finally, when strong enough to grasp the
handles of the bellows, her greatest pleasure consisted in rendering
the feeble assistance which her grandfather was always so proud to
accept at her hands. Although ignorant and uncultivated, Mr. Hunt was a
man of warm, tender feelings, and rare nobility of soul. He regretted
the absence of early advantages which poverty had denied him; and in
teaching Edna to read and to write, and to cipher, he never failed to
impress upon her the vast superiority which a thorough education
confers. Whether his exhortations first kindled her ambition, or
whether her aspiration for knowledge was spontaneous and irrepressible,
he knew not; but she manifested very early a fondness for study and
thirst for learning which he gratified to the fullest extent of his
limited ability. The blacksmith's library consisted of the family
Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, a copy of Irving's Sermons on Parables, Guy
Mannering, a few tracts, and two books which had belonged to an
itinerant minister who preached occasionally in the neighborhood, and
who, having died rather suddenly at Mr. Hunt's house, left the volumes
in his saddle-bags, which were never claimed by his family, residing in
a distant State. Those books were Plutarch's Lives and a worn school
copy of Anthon's Classical Dictionary; and to Edna they proved a
literary Ophir of inestimable value and exhaustless interest. Plutarch
especially was a Pisgah of letters, whence the vast domain of learning,
the Canaan of human wisdom, stretched alluringly before her; and as
often as she climbed this height, and viewed the wondrous scene beyond,
it seemed, indeed,
...... "an arch where through
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when we move."
In after years she sometimes questioned if this mount of observation
was also that of temptation, to which ambition had led her spirit, and
there bargained for and bought her future. Love of nature, love of
books, an earnest piety and deep religious enthusiasm were the
characteristics of a noble young soul, left to stray through the
devious, checkered paths of life without other guidance than that which
she received from communion with Greek sages and Hebrew prophets. An
utter stranger to fashionable conventionality and latitudinarian
ethics, it was no marvel that the child stared and shivered when she
saw the laws of God vetoed, and was blandly introduced to murder as
Honorable Satisfaction.