THE CHASE.
“Listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerily rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill
Through the high wood echoing shrill.”
MILTON.
The forest rang with the cry of the hounds and the shout of the
huntsmen. And now the sounds would die away and now peal out upon the
air as the chase still kept up the winding course of the river towards
its head. One foremost in the chase drew rein upon the brink of an awful
chasm, a deep rocky gorge full of pointed crags, among which the torrent
roared and whirled in an agony of haste to escape from the torture. It
was Hagar, who, with wild heart, fierce eye, and crimsoned cheek, drew
up upon the brink. Behind her thundered the steed of one, whom hearing,
she looked behind, reined back her hunter on his haunches, and giving
him a cheer and shout, cleared the chasm at a bound. It was an awful
leap. The hoofs of the horse just grazed the edges of the rocks as he
planted them firmly and struggled up the bank.
The other rider, who was no other than our friend, Gusty May, paused
breathless on the rocky ledge and gazed at her. Her steed was dancing on
the opposite bluff, her form was exultant, her eye flashing. Raising her
riding cap above her head, she waved it in the air, and, with a joyous
shout of defiance, shot down the ravine and disappeared.
“Devil fetch that girl!—God bless her!—she’ll break my heart or her own
neck, or both, yet!—I know she will! Now what the deuce is to be done?
My horse can never take that leap—never!—the attempt would be certain
death to both. But then if I shirk it, she will say—I know she will—the
little limb of Old Scratch!—that I was afraid.” Gusty was in a perfect
puzzle. “If there were an _equal_ chance now of life and death one might
venture, but as it is—pshaw!” And so muttering, he turned his horse’s
head, and rode up the course of the stream to where the chasm was
narrow, and over which a rude bridge had been constructed.
Hagar was the first in at the death—down in the dark ravine. Other
hunters approached rapidly from other points, and last, upon account of
his delay at the gorge, up rode Gusty May, just in time to see the
hunters separate, and to attend Hagar to Heath Hall.
Seeing the intense mortification depicted in his countenance, she turned
her wild eyes on him kindly, and said,
“You must get a better hunter, Gusty; I could not have spurred that
steed to the leap.”
They rode on up the dark ravine until it emerged into the sunlight, then
they ambled over the heath towards the Hall; many clumps of trees
diversified the rolling surface of the heath, and as they emerged from
these, Gusty suddenly laid his hand upon Hagar’s bridle and, growing
very red in the face, dropped it again, sighing like a sough of wind in
the main-sail. Surprised, Hagar looked at him, which look did not
recompose his nerves at all. He stopped his horse. Hagar shot on before.
He set spurs to his horse and bounded after her. With a sudden freak the
wild girl gave rein to her horse and fled over the heath. Piqued, Gusty
drew up and ambled along at dignified leisure. After racing to the end
of her course, Hagar whirled about and came galloping back. Gusty
awaited her, and then they paced on together in silence, until at length
Gusty spoke out with the air of a youth who had made up his mind _to_
speak, let the consequences be what they might.
“Yes, I _will_ speak, Hagar! You _must_ hear; though you cut so many
shines, it is very difficult to get the chance to say a word. Hem!
Hagar!”
“Well, Master Gusty! I’m all attention.”
“Well, then, I like you!”
“Why, so I always flattered myself.”
“Well, but I’m not joking—I _do_—I _do indeed_. I be whipped if I
don’t!”
“Really!”
“Yes—and—”
“Well!”
“I like you more and more!”
“’Pon honor, now?”
“Yes, I do, Hagar. Oh! don’t look at me, you wicked witch! I like you
so—so much! God Almighty _knows_ I do! better than I like my ship!”
“Come!” said Hagar, seriously, almost sadly, “tell me what is there you
like about me? liking is not to be lightly thrown away, if it be well
based—come!”
“Well, there is a—a—an attraction—a something in your face that
fascinates—that—that _draws_, that _pulls_, that _nails_, that _rivets_,
as it were!”
The girl turned her sparkling face up to the sun, to hide the smile that
was breaking through it, while she said,
“Come, say that over again! Let’s hear it again, Gusty!”
“Pshaw! Hagar, be serious—I love you—by my soul’s honor I do,
Hagar!—truly, deeply, fervently! Look at me, Hagar; let me see your
face. You are silent—you turn it quite away!” and he suddenly wheeled
around and confronted her. “You are laughing, hard, hard girl!
Kite’s-heart, you are laughing!”
And now she flashed the full light of her eyes in his face, as she said,
“I don’t know how it is that I always laugh when other people would cry.
I believe I am a lineal descendant of the laughing philosopher. Now,
Gusty, my childhood’s friend, I am laughing at your phantasy. You do
_not_ love me; it is a mere illusion of the imagination. Your heart is
cheating itself with the semblance of love, in default of the
substance.”
“How do you know that, Hagar?”
“By my own heart. Love, _love_ is always mutual! and in my heart lives
no love for you beyond the sisterly affection I must ever feel; but
that, Gusty, is deeper and stronger than often sisters feel for
brothers. But when you talk to me of other love, you shock and repulse
me; and that, Gusty, teaches me that _you_ do not really love me, but
are only self-deceived by ‘the strong necessity of loving,’ that ‘strong
necessity of loving’ that leads so many impatient hearts to ruin.
Listen, Gusty. Marriages are made in heaven, but most marriages are
seldom consummated. God, who doeth all things well, places on earth the
mutual instincts of attraction in such souls as are intended for each
other. In the whirl and jostle of this world, it is often that these
souls never meet, but it is oftener that the impatience of the heart to
_love_ and to _be_ loved, leads it into the delusion that it _does_ love
and _is_ loved. Wait, Gusty; do not add to the confusion by marrying
when you only fancy you love. Wait, and your chance of meeting your own
will be greater!”
“But, my heart, my heart!” said Gusty.
“Oh, your heart, your heart! _Still_ the wailing of the spoiled child if
you can, but do not let it have the serpent it cries for—illusory love!”
“You, who know so much about love, whom do you love, Hagar?”
The color deepened to crimson on the girl’s dark cheek, and touching her
horse, she rode forward. He followed, and again overtaking her, said,
“Hagar, you have talked a great deal of nonsense. You say that love is
always mutual?”
“Yes.”
“And that a one-sided love is an illusion?”
“Yes.”
“How comes it, then, that this one-sided love, this illusion, is
sometimes so strong as to drive its victim to madness or suicide?”
“In the first place, Gusty, all that _appears_ to be one-sided love, is
_not so_. Love is often returned where it is not acknowledged—often
proffered where it is not felt; there is so much false semblance in the
world; and then again, Gusty, the fact of the one-sided love _being_ an
illusion is the great cause of its eventuating in insanity. Moral
illusions, mental illusions, are only other names for insanity.”
They rode on towards the Hall in silence; then suddenly out spoke Gusty
with energy, and said
“Hagar, this is all phantasy of _yours_, not of mine. I love you—I wish
to pass my life with you—now do not tell me that my case is hopeless.
Hagar! do not—I will be so patient, although mother used to say that I
was Gusty by name and Gusty by nature. Come, Hagar, let me hope, and I
will be so—”
She wheeled her horse suddenly around, and, confronting him, said, very
earnestly,
“Gusty, you must never think of me as a wife, for I can never love you
as a wife.”
“Oh, Hagar, if you would only try to like me a little—”
“_Try!_” exclaimed the wild girl, and her laugh rang out upon the air,
awaking the echoes, “_Try!_—there, I said you knew nothing about
love—_Try!_”
“Then _you_ know something of it, you have given your heart to another.
Come, Hagar, if you want to put me out of my misery by one stunning
blow, say that! say that!”
But Hagar sprang from his side, and trotted quickly into the yard of the
Hall, kissing her hand to him as she went. He looked after her, doubting
whether to follow her in or not. Finally, he slowly turned aside, and
slowly paced his horse off to his mother’s cottage.
* * * * *
Grove Cottage was lighted up, and the lights glimmered through the
intervening trees, as he rode up the grape walk, towards the door.
Dismounting, and giving his horse in charge of a boy, he passed through
the parlor into his own room immediately, scarcely noticing by a bow the
rector or his mother, who were seated there. But the eyes of his mother
saw his disturbance. She arose and followed him into the room. Gusty was
sitting down on the foot of his bed, holding his temples together
between his two hands.
“What is the matter, Augustus, my dear? does your head ache?”
Gusty did not reply.
“_What_ is the matter, Gusty?” again she inquired, stooping down near
him till the ends of her ringlets (for she still wore her hair in
ringlets) brushed his cheek.
“A _coup-de-soleil, belle-mère, un coup-de-soleil_.”
“Gracious goodness! my dear, I never heard of such a thing at this
season of the year! You must have your feet bathed, and ice on your
head,” and she was hurrying off to get the requisites.
“Come back, _petite maman_, the _coup-de-soleil_ flashed from Hagar
Churchill’s eyes of fire, and struck my heart; bring ice for my heart,
dear mother, or rather _no_, she administered enough of that,” said he,
in a lachrymose tone. Emily Buncombe had stopped, turned round and stood
still to hear him. When he ceased, she set the candle down on his
dressing-table, and sitting down by his side, she said,
“Indeed, I really was afraid of this—so you have lost your affections to
Hagar?”
“Couldn’t help it, mother dear.”
“Gusty! you know I love you.” Gusty looked up inquiringly. “I am the
best friend you have in the world, am I not?”
“My dear mother.”
“And I would not call upon you to make a sacrifice for _my_ sake, or for
anything except duty, and your own happiness?”
“Mother!”
“Well, Gusty, I beg that you will give up all idea of Hagar.”
“Alas! mother, she has told me as much herself.”
“I am very glad of that.”
“Yes, mother, _that_ was the sun stroke.”
“You must not think of her any more, Gusty.”
“What is the use of telling me _that_, mother, when she has rejected
me?”
“Oh!” said the mother, with maternal pique, “as to her _rejecting_ you,
Gusty, _that_ was a girlish air—nine girls out of ten reject their
lovers at first to try them—_you_ must resign her.”
But Gusty heard nothing but the first part of the speech—jumping up, he
caught his mother around the neck and gave her a boisterous kiss, caught
her up in his arms, ran around the room with her, set her down,
exclaiming,
“Jupiter Tonnerre! mother, you have given me so much life, strength,
force—what shall I do with it till to-morrow when I can carry it to
Heath Hall and lay it at Hagar’s feet, say, mother! have you got a cord
of wood to cut, a forest to fell—a—a—Lord! mother, if I could get hold
of this earth I feel strong enough to hurl it through space!”
Now he was walking up and down with glowing cheeks and dancing eye,
swinging his arms and bringing his hands together with a clap, and
turning off impatiently where the walls of the short room arrested him,
just as you have seen a wild beast chafe in his cell. And Emily walked
up and down uneasily behind him. At last he threw himself heavily in a
chair. Emily came to him.
“So, mother, girls mean ‘yes’ when they say ‘no,’ you can vouch for that
by your own experience, hey, mother?”
Emily had seen her mistake in having suggested this, and it added to her
uneasiness.
“Gusty,” she said, “whatever Hagar might have meant by her ‘no,’ that
‘no’ has fully exonerated you, if your rather emphatic attentions had
raised hopes in her bosom. You must give up all attentions to her for
many reasons.”
“And how coolly you say that! Great God! how coolly you say that! As if
you had spoken of the mere bagatelle of giving up my _life_, of the mere
trifle of losing my _soul_. _Hagar!_ Stop, mother, let me hold my head
tightly—there! so! now perhaps it won’t divide through the top—now,
mother, tell me why must I give up Hagar?”
“First and least, you are not rich, and Hagar is poor. Miss Churchill is
the sole heiress of Heath Hall and the contiguous estate; that sounds
very grandly, but just consider that Heath Hall is a ruin that daily
threatens to topple down upon and entomb alive its proprietor, and that
the Heath itself is now an irreclaimable desert.”
“Dearest mother, that is not like you—Hagar’s poverty! I wish—I wish she
was nameless as well as penniless, and I wish I was commander-in-chief
of the American army, so that I might have everything to give her, and
she everything to receive from me.”
“But it is not so, you see, Gusty; for though she may have plenty of
need, you have nothing to bestow, you also are poor!”
“Poor! _me_ poor! Mother, where am I poor at?” exclaimed Gusty, starting
up and stretching himself—“_me poor!_ with all this strength to
struggle, and the world to struggle against! Oh! for God’s sake, stand
out of my way everybody! give me room! swing! sweep! lest I hurt some
one unintentionally! I feel like Strong-back in the fairy tale, and I
wish some one would commission me to take an island up out of the
Atlantic and carry it across the American continent to the Pacific; or,
mother, would you like an iceberg for a butter-cooler, or mother, say
the word and I’ll bring you the North pole for a churning stick. And
then, mother, I have so much faith. Hurrah! Hallelujah! haven’t I faith!
God bless you, mother, I have ‘the faith to move mountains,’ for look
you, mother, when I say to the mountain, ‘Be thou removed and be thou
cast into the midst of the sea,’ I lay right hold of the mountain bodily
and hurl it into the water myself, to put life into faith, for ‘faith
without work is dead,’ and ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”
Emily looked at him gravely and said,
“That is from Hagar, that wild perverted spirit will ruin you! Oh you
irreverend boy, what would your sainted father say if he could see you
and hear you.”
“Don’t you suppose he _does_ see and hear me, mother? _I_ do.”
“I hope he watches over you. I hope his spirit will stand between you
and that wild dark girl.”
“That Hagar of the lightning! That electric Hagar whose touch might
kindle a statue to life! Talk of a galvanic battery! Why, mother,
everything that passes from her hands to mine is galvanized! That
magnetic Hagar! why, mother, everything of hers is magnetized so that it
sticks to my fingers, and I am obliged to carry it off—her glove, her
tiny shoe, the eagle feather she wore in her riding cap. I shall be
taken up for petty larceny yet. Hagar the magnet! Hagar the North star,
who draws me involuntarily, inevitably after her!”
“She did not draw you across Devil’s Gorge this afternoon,” said Emily,
maliciously. Gusty wilted down all of a sudden.
“Mother, who told you _that_?”
“Why everybody, it is all over the neighborhood, how in _our_ woods the
witch didn’t pursue Tam O’Shanter, but Tam O’Shanter the witch, and how
she carried all his courage with her when she swept across the gorge.
Come, Mr. Gusty, you have been talking very grandly, sublimely, about
strength, and force, and impetuosity, and irresistibility, but I have
heard very loud thunder before now that did very little damage!”
“So! but you never heard very loud thunder that did not do a great deal
of _good_! Ha! I have you there, _maman_! but never mind, mother, next
time I ride a hunt with Hagar I’ll follow her through fire and blood,
now mind if I don’t. I’ll purchase a hunter, then see!”
“Then see you’ll break your neck; but I have a worse fear for you than
that, Gusty, a far worse fear for you than that. This Hagar, she is the
talk of the whole neighborhood; her eccentricity, her improprieties,
expose her to severe animadversions.”
“Her originality you mean; her independence; her free, strong, glorious
spirit! Oh! Hagar is a chamois! you cannot expect her to trot demurely
to the music of her own grunting, from trough to straw, like any pig!
Hagar is an eagle! you must not look to find her waddling lazily and
feeding fatly with barnyard ducks and geese.”
“A pretty way to speak of your neighbors, Mr. May.”
“Well, then, let them let Hagar alone! Mother!” said Gusty, drawing in
his breath _hard_ between his teeth, “the anger heats and swells in my
heart like kindling fire in a bombshell, till it tears and splits and
flashes, until I feel the fire and see the lightning, and some of these
days it will explode and blow myself and some others up! when I hear
these domestic animals sitting in sage judgment on my wild deer of the
mountains! these barn-door poultry cackling their comments on my falcon
sailing towards the sun! Pish! pshaw! tush! tut!” exclaimed Gusty,
jumping up in a heat, and walking the floor.
“Pretty way to talk of your neighbors again, I say, Mr. May!”
“Well, then, let them let Hagar ALONE!” thundered Gusty, bringing his
hand down on the table like a hammer on the anvil. “Beg your pardon,
mother, I did not mean that _to_ you, but _of_ them; and if that old
gander Gardiner Green don’t make his goose and gosling stop cackling
about Hagar, he’ll get his neck twisted for him!”
Now Emily laughed—
“Poor Gardiner Green, it would be a sin and a shame to persecute him for
what he has no hand in and can’t help. Don’t you know how he fears his
wife?”
“Does—does he? very well, I’ll meet fear with fear; he shall fear
something else worse than his wife!”
“Now, very seriously, Augustus, you will afflict me very much, if you
commit any folly for the sake of Hagar Churchill.”
“But I love Hagar Churchill—love her! sympathize with her.”
“She has no pity for herself, why should others pity her?”
“_Pity! pity!_ did I say _pity_, mother? pity Hagar Churchill! _pity_
that proud, free, glad spirit!”
“Yes, _pity her_! that ‘proud, free, glad spirit’ is clothed with
woman’s deep affections, prisoned in _woman’s_ fragile form, environed
by woman’s circumstances, and chafes against them all—would break
through them all! will break through them all! and then, high as that
proud spirit soars, though her wings should glance in the atmosphere
around the sun’s disk, she will be beaten back and down—_down!_ Glad as
that high heart throbs, it will yet beat sobs that throw out tears for
blood! Wide as that wild spirit wanders, it will yet cower, moaning upon
the waste hearth of home.”
“Good God, mother, what makes you talk so? If I thought that, I would
scale the eyrie of the eagle, and carry off Hagar to some sweet South
sea summer isle, where she should reign another Queen Eve over another
Eden.”
“Are we to have any supper to-night, Emily?” sang out Mr. Buncombe from
the parlor.
“Yes! I’m coming—think no more of this Hagar.”
“But, mother,” interrupted Gusty, “_why_ do you have such dreadful
forebodings for Hagar?”
“I judge her fate by herself, her future by her past and present, and I
say that, unless Providence interposes to save her as by fire, Hagar’s
fierce, strong spirit will break her own heart and destroy her own soul!
Come to supper.”
“Destroy her own soul—come to supper—that’s a pretty brace of subjects
to tie together, is it not now?” said Gusty.
It must not be supposed that Emily had any unfriendly feelings towards
Hagar. She did not love Hagar less, but Gusty more. And acting like a
sober, prudent mother, she did not choose to permit Gusty to marry a
girl who was fully as much censured as admired in the neighborhood.
After supper she talked with him again, talked earnestly and for a long
time, until Gusty rising, said,—
“Seriously, mother, you ask too much—too much of me; you, with your
cool, temperate nature, cannot sympathize with my ardent heart. Alas!
how should you?—you, who at eighteen could marry a man of sixty (no
disrespect, mother—I venerate my sainted father’s memory—I talk reason,
but not disrespect)—you, I say, who could at eighteen wed a man of
sixty, and be happy with him—you who at twenty-five, in your young
widowhood, could keep a young lover waiting ten years, until your son
grew up—you with your cheerful, serene temperament, how can you conceive
my sufferings if severed from Hagar? My love for Hagar, if die it must,
will die hard—dreadful will be its death throes; but you, mother, how
can your quiet heart conceive of this—sympathize with this?”
“A still heart is not always a _cold_ heart, Gusty, or even a _quiet_
heart. I have tamed my heart to the will of Providence—I have learned in
His school, and thrown down in impatience no task that He has set
me—rebelled against no discipline He has ordained for me; and my life
has gone smoothly, pleasantly, happily. I have gained some calm wisdom;
I am thirty-six years old, yet my face is as smooth, my eye as clear, my
hair as black and moist as in girlhood. I have minded God for my father,
and He has very gently led me up the steeps of life. Believe me, Gusty,
it is our rebellion against Him that makes all our troubles. God’s will
is paramount, absolute, its end is our good, and He will keep us in our
path if it be by ‘a hedge of thorns;’ seek to escape God’s providence
and in your struggle you break and bruise yourself, and lose your
strength. If, in the words of Scripture, you ‘kick against the pricks,’
you will be wounded. It rests with us, Gusty, to go God’s way willingly
and pleasantly, or to go in it rebelliously and painfully, for go God’s
way we must. The further we stray from it the longer and more fearful
will be the forced journey back to it and the more we wrestle against
God’s laws and will, the more fatigued and bruised we will be, of course
without the glory and the anguish of coming off victors. Now, Gusty,
_my_ faith in God was only lip-acknowledged, before a slight
circumstance made it heartfelt. It was this:—You were an infant of six
weeks old. You had a tumor rising under your ear. It grew very large and
painful. When I had to dress it it put you in an agony, and you would
struggle violently and look up into my face with an imploring,
reproachful expression, as though you would inquire _why I_ tortured
you—_I_ whom you depended upon and whom you loved, and who loved you—why
_I_, your mother, tortured you. That was your expression—I read it
plainly in your countenance, Gusty, and I wept at your silent reproach.
Your father was standing by me, and he said, ‘Emily, what is it?’ I
replied, ‘I weep—I weep because this child cannot understand that I
_must_ do this—that I _pain_ him to _cure_ him.’ But while I spoke,
Gusty, darted down this truth into my heart-strings from Heaven. And so
God, the pitiful father, wounds to heal His children, and would make
them understand, but that they are querulous and still cry ‘why, why
suffering? since God has power and love?’ Alas! we cannot understand,
the dulness is ours, or we _must_ not understand, for the probation is
ours, for some reason that will one day be revealed. It may be not from
the deficiency of God’s power or will to reveal, but from a deficiency
of our ability now to receive the revelation of the secret of suffering;
and we wait or rebel—struggle against or reproach Providence for
suffering, even as the tortured, writhing, and screaming child silently
reproached its loving and grieving mother for her tender dressing of its
tumor. God doeth all things well; that truth has calmed my heart, made
my life serene and happy.”