"No voice hath breathed upon mine ear
Thy name since last we met;
No sound disturbed the silence drear,
Where sleep entombed from year to year,
Thy memory, my regret."
In her own elegantly appointed apartment sat Florence Howard, with her
journal open upon the table.
"Beneath the old roof-tree of home once more," she wrote, "to find my
mother's pale face yet paler than when I left her, and a sudden tremor
and nervousness betrayed on the slightest unusual sound, which is
exceeding painful to witness.
"Hannah's penchant for me seems to have decreased somewhat, since father
waited on Col. Malcome and asked his consent to the delay of my proposed
nuptials with Rufus, till some change should occur in mother's health.
Dr. Potipher thinks she will hardly survive the trying weather of the
approaching spring.
"Poor, dear mother! what shall I do without her? But I may not linger
long behind.
"I used to think I was very miserable, when I pined in ignorance of
Edgar's love, and grew jealous of his attentions to gentle Edith
Malcome; but what were those petty griefs, compared with the agony of
having known the sweet possession of his heart, and lost it,--lost it,
too, through my own selfish folly and weakness? Truly, there's naught so
bitter as self-reproach. Heaven only knows what I have suffered since
that dreadful night, when I fled from his angry, reproachful looks, and
locked myself in the solitude of my chamber. And that freezing, distant
recognition on the following morning! O, what a shuddering horror will
ever creep over me with the memory of Franconia Notch! And Mount
Washington,--which was for aye to tower above all other scenes of
grandeur earth's broadest extent could afford,--a thought of it unnerves
my soul with grief. What short-sighted mortals are we!
"I think my father suspects my secret and reproaches himself for giving
me so free access to Edgar's company. I would not wonder if the delay he
has urged to my marriage were influenced as much by this sad knowledge
as my mother's failing health. Col. Malcome gave a reluctant assent, at
which I am surprised. When his sweet daughter is sinking slowly into
the grave, 'tis strange he can think of any earthly interest.
"I have looked mournfully toward the cedar forest to-night, and thought
of the poor lone hermit in his humble hut, and wished, O, how fervently
wished! that I, like him, had a habitation afar from the world's hollow
throngs, where I could sit and brood in solitude over my broken heart!
"Am I not a living, breathing, suffering example of the truth of Byron's
eloquent words?
'The day drags on, though storms keep out the sun,
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.'"
Florence closed her journal, and approached the window.
As she was dropping the curtain to retire, a dark figure moving
stealthily under the leafless branches of the lindens, which stood in
rows on the least public side of the house, arrested her attention. The
remembrance of a similar appearance she had once seen crossed her mind,
and no ill having followed that, she dismissed her fears, and ere long
sank to rest.
When the village clock pealed forth the hour of midnight, the dark
figure she had observed, stood on the terrace below. The hall door swung
noiselessly on its hinges, and Hannah Doliver stepped forth. "Here are
the matches and kindling-wood," said she in a whisper, approaching the
dusky form, and holding a small basket forward.
"Are they all asleep?" asked a hushed voice.
"Yes," answered she.
"See that you give the alarm in season," returned the muffled figure, as
he took the basket from the woman's hand, and passed softly down the
steps of the piazza.
Silently the destroying fires were lighted. But the midnight incendiary
would have proceeded less deliberately with his work of destruction, had
he marked the tall, lank figure in a long, dark overcoat, and
slouching-brimmed hat, which slowly dogged closely his every footstep.
Suddenly a bright flash leaped up from the fragments the wicked man
sought to enkindle, and revealed his garb and features. A mingled
expression of hatred and revenge glared from the sunken eyes of his
follower, who stood in the shadow of a linden near by, as the pale,
handsome features and light, curling locks of the incendiary met his
gaze.
"Villain!" exclaimed he, springing forward, as the man turned with a
hurried step from his work of destruction; "would you burn innocent
people in their beds?"
With one fell blow the man dashed the lank form to the earth, and fled
down the avenue of cedars, which led to the river, never heeding the
startled looks of a thin woman, and tall, graceful youth, against whose
sides he brushed in his guilty flight.
"Who could that flying figure have been?" asked the lad of the woman,
when the man had rushed past.
"I don't know, indeed, Willie," answered she, "unless it was your
friend, the hermit, gone wild. You say he has been more gloomy than
usual for several days."
"O, no!" returned the youth; "it was not the hermit. I distinguished
this man's features very plainly as he passed, and it was no one I ever
saw before. He had no covering on his head, and his hair was light and
curly. His face seemed glowing with rage and anger."
"It must have been some lunatic escaped from the asylum," said the
woman.
"Well, I think you are right, mother," answered the boy. "I hope he has
not harmed the poor hermit, whom I left sitting on a stone among the
cedars, near Major Howard's mansion. He came thus far with me to-night,
as it was so late, and the way long and gloomy."
"Ah! he was very kind," remarked the woman. "I began to fear you were
not coming for me, Willie, and thought I should have to remain at Mr.
Pimble's all night, or go home alone. Is the hermit's nephew still with
him?"
"No, he went away this morning, and the poor old man is very lonely and
sad. He said he wished I could be with him all the time."
"Strange being!" said the woman. "Why does he not leave the forest, and
dwell among his fellow-men?"
"I think it is because he experienced some disappointment in his youth,"
answered the lad, "and has come to distrust all his species."
"It may be so," returned the woman. "I have heard of such instances. He
is very kind to you, my boy, and but for his little bundles of sticks, I
think we must have perished during your long illness through that
piercing cold winter. Strange are the realities of life; stranger than
fiction! When the rich Mr. Pimble drove me from his threshold, the poor
hermit of the forest braved the bleak storms, and laid the charitable
piles on my poverty-stricken threshold."
The mother and son had now reached their humble abode.
"Willie," said she, "I wish you would run down by the river and gather
up the few pieces of linen I washed and spread out there yesterday. The
wind is rising fast, and they will blow away before morning."
The boy hastened to perform her request, and in a few moments came
rushing into the house, and exclaimed:
"Mother! mother! Major Howard's house is all on fire! I am going up
there," and, flinging the pieces he held in his arms on the table, he
flew off toward the burning mansion.
Mrs. Danforth followed him to the door and discovered his words were but
too true. Long tongues of flame darted upward to the sky, and ran
fiercely over the walls and terraces of the mansion. The church bell was
pealing madly to rouse the slumbering people to the rescue; but the fire
gained so rapidly in the sweeping wind, all efforts to quench it could
not prove otherwise than futile. To save the lives of the inmates would
be the utmost which could be done, and even this seemed a perilous
undertaking.
Willie Danforth was rushing up the avenue of cedars, when, just as he
was entering the grounds of the burning mansion, he stumbled over some
large object which obstructed the path. It moved beneath, and, by the
glare of the flames, he discovered the body of his friend, the hermit,
lying at full length upon the frozen ground. The prostrate man opened
his eyes and recognized Willie.
"O, my good boy, I am sadly hurt!" said he, feebly. "Will you help me to
rise and get away from this place?"
Willie, who forgot everything, even the burning mansion before him, in
care and pity for his friend, raised him to his feet, and half
supporting the tall, thin form in his young, strong arms, drew him down
the long avenue and along the river bank to his mother's dwelling.
And that night the insensible form of the Hermit of the Cedars lay
stretched upon the low couch of Dilly Danforth's humble abode.