You never knew Agnes? She was the prettiest girl in the village, or, for
that matter, within a circuit of twenty miles. At the time I write of,
she was just budding into womanhood, and if ever there was a lovely
being, she was one at eighteen. Her eyes were blue, not of that light
blue which is so unmeaning, but of the deep azure tint of a midnight
sky, when a thousand stars are shining on its bosom, and you feel a
mysterious spell cast upon you as you gaze on high. Just so I felt
whenever Agnes would look into my eyes with those deep blue orbs of
hers, whose every glance thrilled me to the soul. And then her hair. It
was the poet’s color—a rich, sun-shiny gold. How I loved to gaze upon
its massy tresses, as they flowed down a neck unrivalled for shape and
whiteness. In figure she was like a sylph. Her voice excelled in
sweetness any I had ever heard. It was low, and soft, and musical as the
whisper of an angel.
Agnes and I had grown up together. We were not relatives, but we were
both wards of Mr. Stanley, and had been playmates in childhood. Many a
time had we spent whole days in wandering across our guardian’s grounds,
now threading the old wood, now loitering by the little stream, and now
plucking buttercups to hold under each other’s chins. Ah! those were
pleasant hours. And as we grew up, and were separated,—she remaining at
home with her governess, and I going to an eastern college,—I would sit
for hours dreaming of Agnes, and wondering if she ever thought of me. I
know not how it was; but for years I looked upon her as I looked on no
other of her sex, and at the age when youth is most susceptible to
novelty, I remained true to Agnes, as to the star of my destiny.
I returned, after a long absence of six years, to the residence of my
guardian. In all that time I had not seen Agnes. How I longed to
ascertain whether she had changed since we parted, and during the whole
of the last stage of my journey, I lay back in the carriage, wondering
in what manner she would meet. And when the vehicle stopped at the door
of Mr. Stanley’s mansion, and all the remembered scenes of my childhood
crowded around me, I turned from them impatiently, and, with a throbbing
heart, looked among the group awaiting me, to see if I could distinguish
Agnes. That gray-haired, gentlemanly man I knew to be my second father;
but was the surpassingly beautiful girl at his side my old playmate? My
heart beat quick; a sudden tremor seized me; my head was for a moment
dizzy, as I advanced hastily up the steps, and was clasped, the next
instant, in Mr. Stanley’s arms.
“My dear—dear boy, God bless you!” said the kind-hearted old gentleman.
“We see you once more amongst us. But have you forgotten your old
play-fellow?” he continued, turning to the fair creature at his side.
“Six years make a great alteration I know. Agnes don’t you remember
Henry?”
As I turned and fixed my eyes full upon her, I caught Agnes examining me
with eager curiosity. Detected in her scrutiny she blushed to the very
forehead, and dropped her eyes suddenly to the ground. I was equally
abashed. I had approached her intending to address her with my old
familiarity, but this aversion of her look somehow unaccountably
disheartened me. I hesitated whether I should offer her my hand. The
embarrassment was becoming oppressive, when, with a desperate effort, I
extended my hand, and said—
“Miss Agnes—” but for the life of me I could not proceed. It was,
however, sufficient to induce her to look up, and our eyes met. At the
same instant she took my proffered hand. What happened afterward I could
never remember, only I recollect the blood rushed in torrents to my
cheeks, and I fancied that the tiny white hand I held in my own,
trembled a little, a very little, but still trembled. When I woke from
the delirium of indescribable emotions that ensued, I found myself
sitting with my guardian and Agnes in the parlor, but whether I walked
there on my head or my feet I cannot to this day remember.
The month which followed was among the happiest of my life, for it was
spent at the side of Agnes. We walked, rode, chatted, and sang together;
not a morning or an evening found us apart; and insensibly her presence
became to me almost as necessary as the air I breathed. Yet—I know not
how it was—Agnes was a mystery to me. At first, indeed, we were almost
on the same footing as if we had been brother and sister, but after I
had been at my guardian’s about a month, she began to grow reserved,
although at times she would display all her old frankness, united with
even more than her usual gaiety. Often too, when I looked up at her
suddenly, I would find her gazing into my face, and when thus detected,
she would blush and cast her eyes down, and seem so embarrassed that I
scarcely knew what to think, unless it was that Agnes—but no!—how
could she be in love with one almost a stranger?
For myself, I would have given the world, if I could only have
penetrated the secrets of her heart, and learned there whether the
affection toward her, which I had felt had stolen almost insensibly
across me, had been returned. Yes! I would have given an emperor’s
ransom to discover what my timidity would not allow me to enquire. It is
an old story, and has been told by hundreds before—this tale of a young
lover—but I cannot refrain from rehearsing it again. I was sadly
perplexed. Not a day passed but what I rose to the height of hope, or
fell to the depth of despair. A smile from Agnes was the sunlight of my
existence, and her reserve plunged me in unfathomable darkness. I could
not penetrate the fickleness of her manner, especially when any of her
young female friends were visiting her. If I spoke to them with any show
of interest, she would either be unnaturally gay or singularly silent,
and when I came to address her, I would be received with chilling
coldness. Yet, at other times, my despair would be relieved by a return
of her old frankness, and a hundred times have I been on the point of
telling her the whole story of my love, but either my fears, or her
returning reserve, prevented my purpose from being executed.
One day, after I had been at my guardian’s for nearly three months,
Agnes and I set out together for a walk through the forest. It was a
beautiful morning, and the birds were carolling gaily from every bough,
while the balmy wind sighed sweetly among the fresh forest leaves,
making together a harmony such as nothing but nature herself, on a
morning so lovely, can produce. Our hearts were in unison with the
scenery around, and Agnes was in one of her old frank moods. We wandered
on accordingly, over stream and through glade and down dell, admiring
the glorious scenery on every hand, and now and then stopping to gather
a wild flower, to listen to the birds, or to rest upon some mossy bank,
until the day had far advanced, and recurring, for the first time to my
watch, I found that we had been several hours on our stroll, and that it
was already high noon. We were not so far, however, from home but what
we might reach it in an hour.
“Had we not better return, Agnes?” said I, “it is growing late.”
“Oh! yes,” she replied, “in a moment. Wait till I have finished this
wreath,” and she continued weaving together the wild flowers she had
gathered for a chaplet for her hair. How nimbly her taper fingers moved,
and how lovely she looked, as seated on the grassy knoll, with her hat
cast off beside her, and her beautiful face flushed with health and
pleasure, she pursued her task.
She was still busy in her fanciful labor, when a cloud suddenly obscured
the sun, and we both looked up in some surprise, for the morning had
been unusually fair, and not a vapor hitherto had dimmed the sky. A
light fleecy film like a fine gauze veil, was floating across the sun’s
disc.
“There is a storm brewing in the hills,” said I.
“Let us return at once,” said Agnes, “for my chaplet is finished at
last, and it would be so dreadful to be caught in a shower.”
We did not linger a moment, for we both knew that it was not unusual for
a thunder shower to come up, in that mountainous region, with a rapidity
almost inconceivable to those who have never lived in so elevated a
position. Hastily seizing her hat, and throwing her chaplet over her
bright brow, she set forth smiling as gaily as ever, to return by the
shortest path to our home.
For nearly a half an hour we pursued our way through the forest, but at
every step we perceived that the storm was coming up more rapidly, until
at length the smiles of Agnes ceased, and we pursued our now hurried way
in silence, save when an exclamation from my fair companion betokened
some new and angrier aspect of the sky.
“Oh! Harry,” she said, at length, “we shall get drenched through—see,
the tempest is at hand, and we have yet more than a mile to go.”
I looked up. The storm was indeed at our doors. Yet it was as
magnificent a spectacle as I had ever beheld. The heavens were as black
as pitch, save now and then when for a moment they were obscured by a
lurid canopy of dust, swept upward from the highway, giving earth and
sky the appearance as of the day of doom. Now the wind wailed out in the
forest, and now whirled wildly past us. The trees groaned and bent in
the gale, their branches streaming out like banners on the air. Anon,
all was still. How deep and awful and seemingly endless was that boding
repose. Agnes shrank closer to my side, her face paler than ashes, and
her slight form trembling with ill-concealed agitation. Not a house was
in sight. I saw that our only shelter was the forest, and I retreated,
therefore, beneath a huge overshadowing oak, whose gnarled and aged
branches might have defied a thousand years. As I did so a few rain
drops pattered heavily to the earth—then came another silence—and then
with a rushing-sound through the forest, as if an army was at hand, the
tempest was upon us.
Never had I beheld such a storm. It seemed as if earth and heaven had
met in battle, and that each was striving amid the ruins of a world for
the mastery. The first rush of the descending rain was like a deluge,
bending the mightiest trees like reeds beneath it, and filling the
hollows of the forest road with a flood of water. Suddenly a vivid flash
of lightning shot across the heaven, and then at a short interval
followed a clap of thunder. Agnes clung closely to my arm, her face wild
with affright. With a few hurried words I strove to sooth her, pressing
her still closer, and with strange delight, to my bosom. As I did so she
burst into tears. Her conduct—I cannot explain why—filled me with a
joy I had long despaired of, and in the impulse of the moment, I said,
“Dear Agnes! fear not. I am beside you, and will die with you.”
She looked up, all tearful as she was, into my eyes, and strove to
speak, but her emotion was too great, and, with a glance I shall never
forget, buried her face against my shoulder. I pressed her closer to my
heart. I felt a wild ecstacy tingling through every vein, such as I had
never experienced. I could not resist my feelings longer.
“Agnes! dear, dear Agnes,” I said, bending over her, “_I love you._ Oh!
will you be mine if we escape?”
She made me no answer, but sobbed aloud. I pressed her hand. The
pressure was gently returned. I wanted nothing more to assure me of her
affection. I was in a dream of wildering delight at the conviction.
For a moment I had forgotten the tempest in my ecstacy. But suddenly I
was aroused from my rapture by a succession of loud and reiterated
peals, bursting nearer and nearer overhead, and I looked up now in real
alarm, wishing that we had kept the forest road, exposed as we would
have been to the rain, rather than subject ourselves to the dangers of
our present position. I determined even yet to fly from our peril, and
taking Agnes by the waist, urged her trembling steps onward. We had but
escaped from beneath the oak when a blinding flash of lightning
zig-zagged from one horizon to the other, and instantaneously a peal of
thunder, which rings in my ears even yet, burst right over us, and went
crackling and echoing down the sky, as if a thousand chariots were
driving furiously over its adamantine pavement. But this I scarcely
noticed at the time, though it filled my memory afterward, for the flash
of lightning seeming to dart from every quarter of the heaven, and unite
right over us, shot directly downward, and in the next instant the oak
under which we had been standing, riven in twain, stood a scarred and
blackened wreck, against the frowning sky. I felt my senses reeling: I
thought all was over.
When I recovered my senses I found myself standing, with Agnes in my
arms, while the thunder was still rolling down the firmament. My first
thought was of the dear girl beside me, for I thought her form was
unusually heavy. She was apparently perfectly lifeless. Oh! the agony of
that moment! Could she have been struck by the lightning? Wild with fear
I exclaimed,
“Agnes! look up—dear one, you are not hurt?”
At length she moved. She had only fainted, and the rain revived her, so
that in a few minutes I had the inexpressible delight of feeling her
clasp my hand in return for my ardent emotion. But it was long before
she was able to return home, and when we did so we arrived thoroughly
drenched through. But every thing was forgotten in gratitude for our
escape, and joy at knowing that we were beloved.
And Agnes is now my wife, and I hear her footstep, still to me like
music, approaching. I must close my sketch or the dear one will burn it,
for she has no notion, she says, of figuring in a magazine.
April, 1841.
* * * * *