SUSPENSE IN DANGER, IN TWO SENSES--HORACE TOWNSEND WITH A
NEW THOUGHT--THE USE OF A SWING-ROPE--AN INVITATION TO
CAPTAIN HECTOR COLES--A FEARFUL PIECE OF AMATEUR
GYMNASTICS--GOING DOWN INTO THE SCHUTE--SUCCESS OR
FAILURE?--THE EVENT, AND MARGARET HAYLEY'S MADNESS--TWO
UNFORTUNATE DECLARATIONS.
We have said that the whole body of the pic-nickers rushed up to the edge
of the plateau, and that all, or nearly all, caught glimpses of the
situation. Then came that cry, that shutting of the eyes and springing
back, until only three or four, of whom Horace Townsend was one and Captain
Hector Coles was _not_ another, remained on the verge. Margaret Hayley,
among those who had gazed down and drawn back, remained a few feet from the
edge, and the Captain was either so careful of her safety or so anxious to
furnish himself with an excuse for remaining no nearer, that he caught her
by the dress and retained his grip as if she had been some bundle of
quartermaster's goods that he was fearful of having slip through his
fingers! Frightened inquiries and equally frightened replies, mingled with
moans and sobs and wringings of female hands, went round the circle thus
scattered over the lower part of the plateau; and for a moment those noises
made the still-ascending cries for help almost inaudible.
Horace Townsend stood at the very edge, and except perhaps sharing in the
first cry, he had not uttered one word. He no doubt understood,
intuitively, like the rest, that the poor man must have been attempting the
mad descent, when the undergrowth by which he held fast gave way in his
hands, or some stone caved out beneath him, sending him headlong downward
for a plunge of two thousand feet, from which he had only been temporarily
stopped by striking and gripping the root of the tree as he fell. Beyond
this, and with reference to any possibility of saving the perilled man, he
was probably quite as much in the dark as any of the others. He stood half
bent, his dusky cheek pale and his face strangely contorted, his hands
clasped low as if wringing themselves surreptitiously, and the eyes beneath
his bent brow looking into the gulf as if he was trying to peer downward
into the eternal mystery which that man was so soon to fathom.
Suddenly his face lighted. "Hush! I must speak to that man!" he said, in a
low but intense voice, and the behest was obeyed so quickly that almost
total silence fell upon the top of the plateau.
"Hallo, below there!" he cried, as the call of agony ceased for an instant.
"Help! help! oh help! came back from below.
"Do you understand what I say?" again he called.
"Yes!--help! help!" came feebly back.
"Get that rope from the foot of the swing there, quick, some of you!" he
cried, and his voice seemed for the time to clear from its hoarseness and
ring like a trumpet. "Quick!--cut it away at the bottom and bring it all
here!"
Half a dozen of the young men and one or two of the ladies, delighted to
aid in any hope of saving the perilled man (for the most thoughtless of us
are naturally, after all, kind and averse to death and suffering), sprung
for the rope. Two of them reached the foot of the swing ahead of the
others, the pocket-knife of one was out in an instant, and in another
moment they came up dragging nearly or quite an hundred feet of strong inch
rope.
"We have a rope here that will hold you: can you catch it and hold on or
tie it around your body?" the lawyer called down again.
"No!"--the pained and weakening voice came back, and then they all knew
what had reduced that athletic and iron-gripped man to such a state that he
could make no effort to swing himself up again. He spoke brokenly and
feebly, but Horace Townsend and some of the others caught the words: "I
can't catch the rope--I put my right shoulder out of joint as I fell--I
can't hold on much longer--I shall faint with this pain--oh, can't some of
you help me?"
Then passed over the countenance of Horace Townsend one of those sweeping
expressions which make humanity something more or less than human. It may
have been the god stirring--it may have been the demon. No one saw it--not
even Margaret Hayley; for when he turned nothing more was to be seen than
that the brow was very dark, and that the lips were set grimly. The powers
looking downward from heaven on the falling of leaves and the nesting of
young birds may have remarked the whole expression and set it down at its
true worth, and that will eventually be found quite sufficient. Before he
turned he shouted, much louder and more authoritatively than he had spoken
before, to the man hanging between life and death below:
"Hold on, like a man! We _will_ do something to help you!"
Then he spoke to the two young men, one of whom yet held the end of the
rope:
"Tie a big loop in that rope, quick--ten or a dozen feet from the end."
They proceeded to do so, with not unskilful hands, and in that instant the
lawyer approached Captain Hector Coles, where he stood, only a few feet
off, still holding the dress of Margaret Hayley. He did not appear to see
_her_ at all, but she saw _him_, and there was that upon his face which
frightened her so that she literally gasped.
"Captain Coles!" he said, "do you know what you said of me the other night
and again the other day? There is a rope, and there is yet a chance to save
that man. Go down, if you are as brave as you boast, and save him. Do you
hear me?--go!"
"I? Humph!" That was all the reply that the Captain, half-stupefied, could
make to what he believed to be the words of a madman.
"No, I thought not!" sneered the voice through the hard lips. With the
words coat and vest were thrown off, and the tall, slight, athletic form
was developed with no concealment but the shirt and the closely-girt
trowsers. The shoes followed, and as they did so Margaret Hayley well
remembered where and when she had before seen that disrobing. She had grown
white as the collar and cuffs of her gray chambray; and she was so
paralyzed with wonder, fear, anxiety, and conflicting thought, that she
could not speak, and was on the point of falling. Yet all this time Horace
Townsend seemed to pay her no more attention or observation than he might
have done had she been a wooden post or a stone monument erected at the
same point of the plateau!
Not sixty seconds had elapsed after the throwing off of his outer garments,
when the lawyer, without another word to any one, seized the rope, looked
over the edge to see that the Rambler was still hanging to his thorn,
lowered down the line until the loop was nearly opposite to him, then
carried up the other end and with the volunteered assistance of one of the
young men firmly secured it with two or three turns and as many knots,
around the trunk of a stout sapling.
All saw the movement, now, and all began to understand it; but oh, with
what redoubled agitation was the truth realized! He was going down that
frail rope, and into what peril! The rope fastened, he stepped forward to
the verge, while a murmur ran round the frightened group, even coming from
the lips of those who had never spoken to him: "Oh, don't!" Margaret Hayley
was no longer stone: she cast one glance at the face of Captain Hector
Coles, saw that the expression on it was every thing rather than fear or
anxiety, then jerked away her dress from his hand and darted forward.
"No--do not go!" she said, grasping the lawyer by the arm on the very
verge.
"I must!" Then for the first time he appeared to see her.
"No! If I bid you stay for _my_ sake, will you do it?"
"For your sake, Margaret Hayley, I would go all the quicker. Stand back,
for God's sake!--you may fall!"
She said no other word. Captain Hector Coles sprang forward and grasped her
arm to draw her back. She jerked it away, almost angrily, and never stirred
so far from the edge as to prevent her looking down the schute. Half a
dozen of the others, all gentlemen, had taken the same risk of crowding to
the edge, their very breath held; but none of them would any more have
thought, just then, of offering to aid _her_, than of tendering the same
support to one of the rooted saplings on the cliff. It was a fearful
moment, but not the weakest heart on that plateau beat within the bosom of
the white-handed Philadelphia girl!
Horace Townsend threw himself down on his face as he reached the edge,
grasped the rope and crawled over backwards in that way, descending it
hand-over-hand. Those too far back from the edge to see, heard him call out
to the man below as he disappeared from sight: "Hold fast like a man! I am
coming!" Then they saw no more, and for the moment heard no more.
Those who stood on the verge, and Margaret Hayley among them--saw the
adventurous lawyer descend the rope with slow and steady care but evident
labor, until he reached the loop opposite and nearly under the suspended
man. Then they saw him weave his right arm into the loop until the strands
of rope seemed to go around it three or four times, throw down his feet to
the rock so as to raise his shoulders away from it, and commence gathering
in the loose rope below with his left. Directly he seemed to have the end
in his hand, and they saw him stretch the left arm as if to throw it around
the body of the perilled man. At that moment they saw, with a horror that
words can make no attempt at describing, that the hand of the Rambler which
had held the end of the root gave way and the body swung to a
perpendicular, head downward, only suspended by the hook formed of the leg.
All, except one--that _one_--closed their eyes, confident that the leg too
must give way and the poor climber plunge headlong, perhaps bearing down
the would-be rescuer with him. But no!--still the body remained in that
position for a moment, and in that moment they saw that the rope passed
around it and the hand of the lawyer made an attempt, the success of which
could not be seen, to tie the rope into a knot about the waist. But even at
that instant the tension of the stiffened leg gave way and they saw the
body plunge downwards, head first; _where_, was too sickening a horror to
conjecture.
No one saw any more--not even Margaret Hayley. With one wild cry she
sprang back from the verge and tottered half fainting but still erect, into
the arms of some of the other ladies who had been watching the whole scene
through _her_.
Perfect silence--the silence of untold terror and dread. Their own eyes had
seen the Rambler plunge headlong towards the realization of that fearful
last wish: what hope was there that the other, entangled with him, had not
accompanied him? It must be said that for the moment no one dared look over
the edge again, and that no one dared, during the same time, to test, by
feeling the rope, whether any weight still remained at the end of it! The
cast-off coat, vest, hat and shoes of the lawyer assumed the look of
dead-men's clothes unseasonably exhibited; and each even looked upon the
other with horror because a spectator of the same catastrophe. What must
have been the feelings of Margaret Hayley, if, as we have had reason to
believe, her first love had faltered in favor of a new ideal? What those of
Captain Hector Coles when he believed that a disgusting and audacious
rivalry had been removed at least _two thousand feet_?
All this found relief when it had lasted about ten ages--in other figures,
about two minutes and thirty seconds! The rope was seen to tremble at the
edge, and two or three of the men gathered strength to dart forward. A head
came up above the level, and a faint voice said:
"Give me a hand, here!"
A hand was given, and in one instant more the lawyer was dragged up upon
the plateau and staggered to his feet. He was bathed in sweat, trembled
fearfully, and his clothes were torn in many places. Personally he had
received no injury, except that some hard object (perhaps one of the snags
of the root) had struck him near the left temple and ploughed its way in
such a manner that the wound would probably leave a scar there during life,
more than half way across the forehead and up into the roots of the hair.
Even this was shallow and the few drops of blood flowing from it wore
already dried, so that probably the receiver had never been aware of the
blow or its effect. Most of those things were seen afterwards--they were
certainly not seen with this particularity at the time, for not one of the
persons on the plateau, from Captain Hector Coles to the least interested
of the company, saw any thing else than the proud face of Margaret Hayley
radiant with humility, and her tall form cowering down as if to make itself
humbler and less noticeable, as she dropped on her knees before the
lawyer--yes, dropped on her knees!--took one of the quivering hands in both
her own dainty white ones, covered it with kisses that some others would
have been glad to purchase for hand or lip by mortgaging a soul, and
literally sobbed out:
"God bless and reward you!--you noblest and strangest man in the world!"
It was a singular position for a proud and beautiful woman--was it
not?--especially towards a man whose words had never given her any right to
make so complete a surrender of her womanly reticence and dignity? Captain
Hector Coles thought so, for he could restrain himself no longer but
stepped to her, laid his hand upon her arm and spoke in her ear:
"For shame, Margaret Hayley!"
Perhaps no one else heard the words: she heard them, for she was on her
feet in an instant, and the one word which she returned, in the very ear of
the Captain and certainly unheard by any other, made him start back and
redden like one of the traditional furies. He said no more, but stood
sullen as silent. Whether Horace Townsend had not heard the flattering
language addressed to him, or whether he had not yet recovered himself
sufficiently from his late exertion to attempt reply, he made none, but
seemed confused and unnerved. He did not recover until some one near him
said:
"Poor fellow!--you lost him after all!"
"Lost him? no!" said the lawyer, arousing himself. "I forgot! He is
insensible but not fatally injured. Pray pull up the rope, gently, for I
believe that I am too weak to render you any assistance."
"What!" cried two or three voices in a breath, and more than as many hands
seized the rope. It was drawn tight--there _was_ something yet remaining
below. As the knowledge spread among the company and they began to pull on
the rope, such an involuntary cheer burst from nearly all their throats,
male and female, as might have roused a man moderately insensible. But they
produced no effect on the dead weight at the end of the line; and it was
only after more than five minutes of severe but careful pulling, with every
breath waiting in hushed expectation lest some sharp angle of the rock
might at last cut off or weaken the rope, that a dark mass came up to the
edge and the insensible form of the Rambler was landed upon the plateau by
the hands that grasped it.
He might have been dead, for all that could be judged, though there was
really no reason to believe that he should have expired from any cause
except fright. But he presented a most pitiful spectacle--his clothes
fearfully torn by abrasion against the rocks in drawing up, the right arm
hanging loosely from the shoulder, the eyes closed and teeth set as in a
fatal spasm, and the iron-gray hair and straggling beard matted with blood
yet flowing from a severe wound in the head that he had received either in
falling against the rock from the root or in the perilous passage upward.
There was no indication of breath, but he was alive, for the pulse had not
stopped its slow movement, and there was at least a chance that he could be
recovered.
But even then, and while two or three were hurrying to the table for water
to use in bringing back the flitting life and some of the cloths to use as
a stretcher in bearing the body to one of the wagons,--even then the
general attention was for the moment withdrawn. For just as the poor
Rambler was fairly landed and the company gathering around him, while
Margaret Hayley was yet standing close to Horace Townsend, with her eyes
still reading that face which seemed to be a perpetual puzzle to her,--the
brown cheek grew suddenly of a ghastly white, the whole frame trembled as
if from the coming of a spasm, and the lawyer fell heavily forward, without
a sign of sensation, just as he had done in the previous instance after
rash exposure and severe exertion, at the Pool. Now, as then, reaction
seemed to come with terrible force, unnerving the system and literally
overmastering life.
As was to be expected under such circumstances, the excitement among the
pic-nickers redoubled when they had two insensible people instead of one,
and one of the two the hero of so strange an adventure as that which has
just been recorded, to look after and bring back to life. Exclamations: "He
is dying!" "He is dead!" "He has fainted from over-exertion!" "How
dreadful!" and half a dozen others ran round the circle. But Margaret
Hayley did not hear or did not heed them. She was again upon her knees, for
a very different purpose from that which had thus bowed her the moment
before--lifting the head of matted hair upon her lap, chafing the stiffened
hands, and uttering words that seemed to have no regard to the delicacy of
her position or the hearing of the by-standers. Such words of unmistakable
anxiety and fondness the insensible man might have been willing to peril
another life to hear; and they were uttered, let it be remembered, when
she, however the others may have been alarmed, had no idea that he was
dying or in danger, and more as if she wished to pour out a great truth of
her nature and be relieved of its weight, than with any other apparent
thought in view. Oh, that ideal! Oh, love of woman, a moment checked in its
first course, to break away again from all bounds and more than redouble
its early madness! Oh, overweening pride of Margaret Hayley, that once had
been her most marked characteristic, now cast away like a thing to be
loathed and reprobated! Oh, prophet words, spoken by the sorrowing girl but
a few hours after the bereavement of her life, now seeming to be so
strangely fulfilled! Second love, and an abandonment that even the first
had scarcely known, before two months of summer had made the grass green
on the grave of the first! To what was all this tending?
Captain Hector Coles saw, and writhed. His face was dark enough with
passion to indicate that had no troublesome people and no restraining law
stood in his path, he would have rolled that insensible form over the edge
of the plateau, with no rope to impede its progress, and watched with
heart-felt delight the bumping of the body from crag to crag until it was
crushed out of all semblance of humanity at the bottom! But he said not one
word, nor did he again attempt to interfere in the movements of Margaret.
Only a moment or two, and then the eyes of the lawyer opened. He saw the
face that was looking down into his own; and though many a man would have
pretended weakness and insensibility a little longer, to keep such a
position, he made an instant movement to rise and struggled to his feet
with but slight assistance. Then the young girl fell back into the group of
other ladies, her duty and her paroxysm of feeling both apparently over,
and scarcely aware how much or how little the subject of her interest knew
of her words or her actions. Nor was it sure whether the lawyer saw, as he
staggered up from the ground, the expression which rested on the face of
Captain Coles. Time had its task of solving both these important problems.
But a few minutes after Horace Townsend's recovery had elapsed, when the
body of the Rambler, showing yet, after every application, but faint signs
of life, was carefully conveyed on an impromptu stretcher to one of the
wagons--the fragments of the dinner, untasted except as some few of those
who would have banqueted in a death-room had snatched little bits in the
midst of the excitement, gathered up and huddled together in the
baggage-wagon--the whole party more or less comfortably disposed in the
conveyances, and all hurrying back to the Crawford with what speed they
might. We say "hurrying", advisedly. It might have been natural enough that
they should hurry down, to afford more effectual relief to the wounded and
tortured man; but let not humanity "lay the flattering unction to its soul"
that they lacked another and a more compelling motive! Such a story as that
which could be woven of the events of that day, had probably never been
told as of a late actual occurrence, inside the walls of that hostelrie,
within the memory of man; and nearly every one, male and female, was a
little more anxious to indulge in the relation as soon as possible, and to
his or her own particular set of intimates, than even to succor life or
alleviate suffering! Wonder not that newspapers are popular in the latter
half of the nineteenth century: man himself is but a newspaper incarnated;
and a few friends are not ill-sacrificed, much less perilled without
advantage, when the catastrophe affords us plenty of the cheap heroism of
the looker-on and narrator!
* * * * *
The providences are equally strange that give opportunity for the great
blunders and absorbing agonies of life, with those that afford space to its
triumphant successes and its crowning pleasures. Rooms are empty or ears
are deaf, sometimes, that we maybe made deliriously happy; but they may
have an equally assured mission to make us wretched beyond hope. Three days
before, a parlor unoccupied except by themselves had afforded Horace
Townsend and Margaret Hayley an opportunity of saying words that seemed to
make, each a new being to the other, and that awakened hopes as wild and
maddening as the dreams of opium could have originated. One laggard
servant-girl with her dusting-brush, or one dawdling visitor lingering in
the way, might have prevented all this and kept them on the distant footing
they had before occupied. One person more, strolling down the glen below
the Crawford at eleven o'clock on the morning following the events on the
top of Mount Willard, might have prevented--what? Nothing, perhaps! Are not
all these things ordered for us? And must not the event, debarred in one
channel, have found inevitable way in another? The fatalists, who believe
in a Deity of infinitesimal and innumerable providences, say "Yes!" and
argue that the ripping away of a boot-sole or the scorching of the cook's
short-cake come within the category. The people of unswayed free-will, who
worship a Deity not over-particular as to the every-day habits of his
creatures, say "No!" and see nothing providential in any event less
important than the breaking out of a pestilence or the downfall of a
nation. At which point it may be necessary to discover what connection all
this has with the fortunes of two of the people most prominent in this
narration.
At about the hour named, that morning, Horace Townsend strolled alone down
the glen, towards the Willey House. Great excitements are always followed
by corresponding reaction; and the visitors at the Crawford, after the
departure of a few gone up the great mountain, had not made a single
collective arrangement to occupy the day. Each was thrown upon personal
resources; and the resource of the lawyer was setting out upon a long and
lonely morning walk, his legs being the chief actors therein, while his
mind, to judge by the bent head and the slow step, was taking its own
peculiar and much longer journey.
Suddenly he lifted his head and came to a full stop. He was _not_ alone,
after all! Half a mile below the house, beside the road and under the edge
of a thick clump of woods, lay the trunk of a huge tree, some of the higher
branches yet remaining unshorn, though trimmed by the axe. On the point of
one of these branches, very easily ascended by the stairway of knots below,
some eight or ten feet from the ground, rested a neat foot, while the owner
of the figure above it, dressed in a light robe which floated around her
with almost the softness of a cloud, had thrown off her jockey-hat (the
object first attracting the notice of the lawyer) on the ground below, and
was stretching up at full length to pluck a cluster of the great creamy
blossoms of the wild northern magnolia, starring the green leaves around
it, which had beckoned her from the path.
Does the reader remember where it was that the first glimpse was caught of
Margaret Hayley--standing on the piazza of the house at West Philadelphia,
with one arm of Elsie Brand around her waist, but both her own hands
employed in the attempt to force open a blush rose that had as yet but half
blown from the bud? Roses then--the wild magnolia now: would the dainty
white hand that had been so tenderly cruel to the flower-spirit two months
before, only gather the blossom to pluck away its shreds one by one and
scatter them listlessly on the ground as she walked? Or had those two
months taught her something of the meaning of that word "suffering,"
unknown before, and ripened and softened the proud nature that possibly
needed such training?
The lawyer stood irresolute for a moment, doubtful whether the lady would
be pleased by his having discovered her in that somewhat girlish situation.
Then he remembered some duty or feeling which seemed of more consequence
than a mere momentary embarrassment, and came close to the log upon which
she was standing, before she was aware of his presence.
"Shall I help you down, Miss Hayley?"
The words were simple, and they did not seem to demand that trembling of
tone which really accompanied them. Neither did there appear to be any
occasion for the flush of red blood which ran all over cheek and brow of
Margaret Hayley in the moment of her first surprise. But the flush was gone
before she had cast that inevitable look downward, which womanhood can
never forget when caught playing the Amazon however slightly,--stepped
lightly down the stairway of knots to the trunk and held out her hand to
accept the offer.
"See what a beautiful cluster of my favorites!" she said.
"Beautiful indeed!" The lawyer was looking intently at the blossoms or at
the hand which held them--no matter which. The lady seemed to have some
impression of the latter, for she flushed again a little and drew back both
hands and flowers.
"And you are walking already again this morning?" she said, after a moment
of silence which her companion did not seem disposed to break.
"Yes," absently.
"Already quite recovered from yesterday?" Margaret Hayley was treading upon
dangerous ground: did she know it?
They had walked on together down the road, as if by mutual consent. The
lawyer was silent again for a time, looking away, and when he again turned
his eyes towards her there was an earnestness in their glance and a sad
seriousness in the whole face which denoted that he had thought much and
resolved not a little in that moment.
"Recovered from yesterday? From the slight fatigue--yes! From some other
effects of the day?--no!"
"I am sorry to hear you say so." The words dropped slowly and very
deliberately from her lips, and her head had a wavy nod as she spoke.
"You are sure of the grounds of your sorrow?"
"I fear so--yes!"
"Then I, too, have cause to fear!"
Silence again for a moment, and they walked on, very slowly. Then Horace
Townsend spoke again.
"You are going away to the Glen House, to-morrow or the next day, are you
not?"
"I believe Captain Coles and my mother have so arranged," was the reply.
"And I am going southward to Winnipiseogee to-morrow."
"_You?_" The exclamation was abrupt and surprised, as if she had not before
thought of a separation of routes. Horace Townsend heard the word and
recognized the tone; and what the spark is to the magazine was that sudden
monosyllable to the half-controlled heart of the man.
"Margaret Hayley, we separate then to-morrow," he said. "This may be and no
doubt will be the last time that we shall speak together without listeners.
I have something to say that must be spoken. Will you hear me?"
She caught him suddenly by the arm, with a motion like that of one warning
or checking another on the brink of a precipice--like that she had used the
day before under such very different circumstances,--and said:
"Oh, do not!--do not!"
"What?"
"Do not say words that must separate us instead of bringing us nearer to
each other!"
"And would _that_ grieve you?"
"On my soul--yes!"
Another spark to the magazine. It exploded. Horace Townsend had caught
Margaret Hayley's hand and his eye literally flashed fire into hers, while
his brown cheek mantled with the blood that could no longer be restrained.
"I _must_ speak, Margaret Hayley, and you must listen. _I love you!_ There
is not a thought in my mind, not a hope in my soul, that is not yours. Does
_that_ separate us?"
She did not draw away her hand, and yet it returned no answering pressure
to his. Her head was bent down so that he could not see her face, and her
words were very few and very sad:
"I am sorry--very sorry! Yes!"
"Stop!" He laid his hand upon her forehead, gently pushing back her head
until he virtually compelled her eyes to come up to the level of his own.
"Margaret Hayley, too little may be said as well as too much. I am going to
say what perhaps no other man in the world _dare_ say. I love you, but that
is not all. I cite your woman's heart and your immortal soul this moment
before the sight of that God whose eye is looking down upon us in this
sunshine, and I say that _you_ love _me_! You may never forgive me the
word, but you must tell me the truth! Do you deny it?"
"No!" The word was louder and clearer than any that she had spoken--louder
and clearer than any that had been spoken during the interview. And yet it
was not a lover's response.
"You admit this, and yet you say that my opening my heart to you separates
us instead of drawing us together. Three days ago you told me that--that
man"--he did not mention the name of Captain Hector Coles, nor did there
seem to be any occasion--"was not and never could be your betrothed
husband. What tie binds you? What am I to fear? What am I to think?"
"Think that what I say is true, Horace Townsend--that I love you, and yet
that I do not love you--that your company is dearer to me, to-day, than
that of any person on earth--that I respect you in every regard and hold
you as one of the bravest and noblest of men--and yet that every word of
love you utter makes it more evident that we must not meet again, and so
separates us forever!"
"What _is_ this riddle?" He asked the question in a tone of great anxiety,
and he did not take away his eyes from the proud orbs that no longer sunk
before them as he made the inquiry. How impossible to believe that the man
who had but the moment before cited the heart and soul of Margaret Hayley
before the very eye of God as a searcher of their entire truth and candor,
could himself be guilty of deception at the same instant! And yet was he
not? Was the riddle really so obscure to him as he pretended? Was the very
name under which he wooed and sought to win, his own? Strange
questions--stranger far than that he asked; and yet questions that must be
asked and answered!
"Listen, Horace Townsend!" she said after one instant of silence. "You call
this a riddle, and you force me to read it to you. I wish you had not done
so, but I have no choice. I would have kept you as a friend--a dear friend,
but you would not accept the place."
"Never--not for one moment!" he broke in, as if through set lips. Her hand
was on his arm, and they were again walking listlessly on. She proceeded
without any reference to his interruption.
"I have too many words to say--words that pain me beyond measure; but you
have forced me to them, and I must finish, even if you think me mad before
I have done. I do not know but I _am_ mad--every thing about me sometimes
seems to be so unreal and mocking."
Horace Townsend turned at that moment and looked her sidelong in the face,
then withdrew his glance again as if satisfied, and she went on:
"I told you that Captain Hector Coles would never be nearer to me than he
is, and he will not. I hate that man, and he knows it. But I _love
another_!"
She paused, as if she expected some outburst at this declaration; but no
outburst came. All the effect it produced was a quick shudder through the
arm that sustained her hand.
"I love another--do you hear me? I who say that I love _you_, say that I
love another! For more than a year, before the last two months, I was a
betrothed bride, and never woman loved more truly than I the man who filled
my whole ideal of manly beauty, grace and goodness. One day, two months
ago, I found that man a _coward_. He dared not fight for his native
land--not even for his native State when it was invaded. We
parted--forever, as I thought; forever, as he thinks, no doubt. I have
heard that he has gone to another land: no matter, he has left _me_, with
my own will. Then I came to the mountains, for change of scene and for
distraction. I met you. I was attracted to you from the first--I have grown
more attracted day by day, until I shudder to think that I love you! Do you
know _why_?
"Because _my_ affection for _you_ has given birth to some feeble likeness
of itself!" was the response.
"No! The confession may wound your vanity, but the truth must be told.
Every throb of my heart towards you, Horace Townsend, has been caused by
some dim resemblance of your face to the man I once loved, and something in
your voice that came to me like a faint echo. It is not _you_ whom I have
been seeing and hearing, but the man who was handsomer than you, your
superior in so many respects, and yet your inferior in that one which
makes me worship you almost as a god--your sublime, dauntless courage when
all others quail. Do you understand me now, and know why your words should
never have been spoken?"
"I _think_ that I understand you!" was the response, but a bitter smile,
unseen by the lady, wreathed the moustached lip as he spoke. "And that
other--he will come back, some day, and all except the old love will be
forgotten, and you will marry him, of course."
"Horace Townsend, you do not quite understand me, yet!" she said. "I am no
child, to be trifled with, but a woman. I loved him, better than my own
soul, but I cannot continue to love when I cease to respect. I shall never
marry, while I live, unless I marry the man to whom my heart was first
given. I thought that perhaps I might find a new ideal, some day, when we
first parted; but I know better now. You have taught me how nearly the
vacant place can be supplied, and yet how empty all is when the one bond is
wanting."
"And I say, again, that some day he will come back, and you will marry
him."
"Never--if he comes as he was!" was the reply. "If Heaven would work a
miracle and give him the one thing that he lacks--bravery and
patriotism,--even if he struck but one blow, to prove that he was no coward
to fly before the enemies of his country,--I would go barefoot round the
world to find him, and be his servant, his slave, if he would not forgive
the past and make me his wife!"
With the last words she had broken down almost entirely, and as she ceased
she burst into a very passion of tears and sobs. Where was the overweening
pride of Margaret Hayley? Gone, all gone; and yet she clung to that one
touchstone--her husband, when the country called and he was subjected to
the trial, must prove that he dared be patriot and soldier, or her lips
should never speak that sacred name!
"I have indeed spoken too far, and it is better that we should not meet
again," he said, in a voice quite as low and almost as broken as her own.
"I understand you, now: forgive me if I have caused you pain in making the
discovery; and good-bye!"
He wrung the young girl's hand almost painfully and was turning away.
"You are going now? Shall I not see you again?" she asked.
"No matter--I do not know--I cannot tell. I may see you at the house before
I leave. If not, and we never meet again, God bless you, Margaret Hayley,
the only woman I have ever loved!"
He stooped suddenly and kissed her hand, then turned, drew his hat over his
brow and walked rapidly up the road towards the Crawford. Margaret,
oppressed by some strange feeling, could not speak. She could only look
back and catch a last glimpse of him as he turned a bend in the road; then
sink her face in her hands and sob aloud as if she had buried a second love
not less dear than the first.
When she returned to the house, half an hour after, Horace Townsend was
already gone--flying away towards Littleton with four horses. Captain
Hector Coles was in a better humor, being already advised of the fact, than
he had exhibited at any time during the previous week. Mrs. Burton Hayley,
when his going away was mentioned, made some appropriate remarks on the
rashness of any person exposing himself as the young man had done the day
before, unless he was fully prepared for death and judgment, and remarked
that she was rather glad that so wild a person was not going over to the
Glen with them. In both these opinions Captain Coles fully coincided.
Margaret spoke of the departure as a very matter-of-course affair indeed,
and did not even see the glance by which the gallant Captain intended to
convey his full recollection of the scene on the top of Mount Willard.
Next day that trio, with a dozen of others, went on to the Glen House for
the carriage-ascent of Mount Washington.
And with that announcement and a single scene following, concludes the
somewhat long connection held by the White Mountains, their scenery and
summer incidents, with the fortunes of the various personages figuring
prominently in this life-history.
* * * * *
That scene was a very brief one and took place three days after the
departure from the Crawford, when Margaret Hayley, her mother and Captain
Hector Coles, had made the ascent of Washington from the Glen House by
carriage and stood beside the High Altar that has before been mentioned.
When Mrs. Burton Hayley was signalizing her arrival at the top by repeating
certain passages from the big book on the carved stand, which she seemed to
have an idea fitted that elevated point in her summer wanderings, and which
probably might have done so if she had quoted them with any thing
approaching to correctness. When Margaret Hayley, breathing the same air
that Horace Townsend had breathed a few days before, and aware that she was
doing so, joined to the rapt emotions of the place and the hour, something
of the sad glory of human love and grief, stretching out her mental hands
to God whose awful majesty stood before her and around her in the great
peak lifting itself to heaven, and praying that out of darkness might some
day come light, as once it had done on that other and more awful peak of
Sinai. When Captain Hector Coles, above all such considerations and with a
keen eye to his personal "main chances", fancied that another declaration
beside the High Altar on Washington would not only be a "good thing to do"
but a proceeding much more likely to meet with a favorable response than if
ventured on ground of less altitude.
Then and there, accordingly, Captain Hector Coles, with Mrs. Burton Hayley
very near and the granite rocks still nearer, possessed himself suddenly of
Margaret Hayley's white hand, drew her close to him, and murmured:
"Oh, how long I have waited for this hour, Margaret! I love you. I have
not before said the same thing in words, for a long time, but I believe
that you must have seen and known how the old affection has still lived and
strengthened. There have been bitter words between us, occasionally, but
they have not affected the true feeling lying beneath, and--"
"Stop, Hector Coles!" said Margaret, before he had concluded. "You say that
there have been bitter words between us occasionally. Now let me warn you
that no bitter word I have ever said in your hearing, has been any thing
more than a baby's whisper to what I _will_ say if you ever dare to allude
to this subject again!"
"But, Margaret--"
"No, not another word! Mother, come here!"
Mrs. Burton Hayley obeyed.
"Mother, is it with your wish or approbation that Captain Coles has just
made me another offer of his heart?"
"Certainly it is," the Captain commenced to answer.
"Stop! it was not to you I put the question, but to my mother!"
"Well, my daughter--I certainly did--that is--I--"
"There, you hear!" said Captain Hector Coles, triumphantly, and confident
that the knowledge of such a maternal indorsement must work in his favor.
"You did, did you?" and the right hand of Margaret went suddenly inside the
thick shawl that wrapped her from the winds of the peak--and unseen by the
Captain a locket--that fatal locket--glittered before the mother's eyes.
"Will you promise, and keep that promise, that Captain Hector Coles shall
not say one more word to me of love or marriage, while we remain together?
If not, as God sees me you know the consequences!"
Mrs. Burton Hayley's face was very white at that moment, but the next she
said: "Oh yes, I promise!" and then with a groan, grasping the surprised
Captain by the arm: "Captain, if you do not wish to see me drop dead, leave
that wild, mad girl to herself! She is crazy, but _I_ cannot help it!"
Captain Hector Coles looked from one to the other, in added surprise, but
found no explanation; then he muttered something that was not a second
love-declaration; and the next moment Margaret Hayley stood alone, isolated
as the peak that bore her, and with a heart almost as cold in the dull
leaden weight that seemed to lie within her bosom, as the storm-beaten
rocks of which that peak was composed.
Thereafter Captain Hector Coles never spoke to her of love again!