AN UNEXPECTED DECLARATION.
I know it--I feel it--he loves me at last!
The heart-hidden anguish is over and past!
Love brightens his dark eyes, and softens his tone;
He loves me! he loves me--his soul is mine own!
Mrs. Osgood.
In among curtains of amber silk, which made the sunlight more sunny
still, came the glow of an October afternoon. The rich atmosphere lay
slumberously over the books and pictures and luxurious furniture of Dr.
Carollyn's library. He was not in; but occupying his easy-chair, drawn
up near the pleasant window, reclined his daughter, motionless, with
half-shut eyes, lost in a soft reverie:
"With her head at ease reclining,
On the cushion's velvet lining,
On the velvet, violet-lining, with the sunlight gloating o'er."
The little volume of blue and gold in which she had been reading had
fallen away from her hand, and lay half-hidden in the fragrant folds of
her dress; some strain of Tennyson's delicious music had thrilled her
heart with memories more than hopes, for the dreamy luster of her eyes
had a light more of tears than smiles. There was a light shadow on the
clear, smooth forehead, a slight compression of the beautiful mouth--as
if a word might startle that breathless dream into a shower of tears.
"Dear as remembered kisses after death."
this was the line at which she had dropped the poem, and sunk away into
the past. The year just gone slipped out of her life and fell into the
sea of oblivion with a sparkle--this house, this home, this father,
these splendors, these pleasures slid away--she was not Annie Carollyn,
rich, lovely, and flattered--but Elizabeth Wright, a sun-burned,
forlorn, and starving girl, sinking down in a pitiless desert, with
only a pair of strong arms to link her to life--only a long, long kiss
of love and despair to hold her flitting soul until relief came. And
where were the arms and where the lips that held her then?
"Dear as remembered kisses after death."
Ah, holy were the memories of that first, last kiss to the maiden--deep
down in the most secret chamber of her soul they lay, so sacredly
reserved, so sadly precious, that not even her quick-eyed father knew
how they were enshrined.
In October Dr. Carollyn had arrived in his native city with his
recovered treasure; and it was now the month of gold again. In that
year he had grown many years younger. He found profound happiness in
the possession of his lost child--peace after years of harrowing misery.
When that great calamity had befallen him in the days of his youth, he
had shut up the house in which the brief scenes of his married life
had been enacted, and had gone away from his practice and his friends,
spending most of his time in restless travel from land to land, coming
back occasionally to haunt the deserted house for a few weeks. As the
tide of fashion moved up town he was advised to sell his mansion; but
he would allow neither occupants, nor other changes than such as were
necessary to preserve it from premature decay. The old housekeeper, who
had been his mother's, and who welcomed his bride to her home, was left
in charge of the furniture as long as she lived. This ancient friend
had passed away, leaving every thing to darkness and silence, before
the return of the Doctor with his child.
Then came a change. The house was no longer upon a fashionable street,
but it was quiet and respectable, and he would have no other. In _this_
house he would begin life again. Sunshine was let into the long-closed
rooms--the moldering curtains and carpets were replaced--an air of
joy and luxury was given to the desolate mansion--only one room was
left untouched and unseen save by the hand and eye of the master. When
arrangements were complete, he took his daughter from the hotel where
they had stopped, and brought her _home_--to be its star and queen.
Uncultivated as she necessarily was from her manner of life, his
affection received very slight shock from his pride; for her beauty
was of that refined and indisputable type to which all people yield
obedience, and the grace of her beautiful nature gave a charm to her
manners which surpassed the polish of finishing schools. She glided
into her new estate as naturally as a swan into the water--she was only
in her element.
Dr. Carollyn did not think of sending her from him to study; masters
waited upon her at the house; pride and duty did not urge her to study
more than her mind craved enlightenment. The interest she took in her
books was a safeguard, had she needed any, against her becoming too
much engrossed by the flatteries and gayeties of society; but her mind
was of that noble order which could be affected by no such trivial
dangers. She enjoyed, as youth and beauty should enjoy, the pleasures
surrounding her; it was pleasant to be so loved and attended upon;
but she was in no manner spoiled by indulgence. A fear of her own
deficiencies gave a slight dash of humility to her otherwise rather
queenly address; she was sweet, and proud, and fair, and quiet, the
wonder and admiration of many. All this time, though not in the least
morbid or melancholy, she carried with her a constant regret--a sorrow
which shaded her too brilliant lot.
Dr. Carollyn guessed something of this; but since the source of this
sorrow was one which could never interfere with himself, and since
it made her so indifferent to the adulations of the young men of
their circle, since it did not seriously interfere with her health
and spirits, but only promised to keep her the more entirely his,
that selfish instinct of jealousy caused him to no longer regret its
existence.
A ray of sunshine creeping aslant the slumberous atmosphere, fixed
itself in the purple braids of the young girl's hair like a _golden
arrow_. But she knew not how the cunning hand of the sun was bewitching
her--she wist not how beautiful was the lustrous repose of her face,
and the silken gleam of her garments--her soul was far away. The faint
tinkle of a bell sounded through the quiet house, the outer door was
opened and closed; she did not hear any thing; she did not even stir
when the noiseless door of the library swung back and the quiet footman
entered with a card.
"Shall I tell him you are at home, Miss Carollyn?"
She started and glanced up, taking the card which he handed her with a
little surprise at his doubting air. His knowledge of the proprieties
did not extend to a recognition of the name upon the pasteboard--it
might be that of the Embassador of Spain--he did not know--the
gentleman who gave it looked passable, certainly. Mechanically, for she
had not shaken off the spell which the poem had wrought on her, she
read:
"Golden Arrow."
Confused by the unknown name, the footman had failed to close the door
into the apartment which he entered, and the audacious stranger, in
the hall, had obeyed an irresistible impulse to approach the end of
the hall, and look after the fate of his card. He had a full view of
the maiden dreaming in the "violet-lined" chair; had noted the rich
clearness of her rounded cheek, the glossy smoothness of her hair, the
tremulous, sorrowful depression of the dark eyelashes and red lips; had
absorbed with an eager glance the grace of her drapery, the elegance of
her surroundings--and now, he watched her, startled from her reverie,
listlessly look at the card, turn red and pale, and throw a wild,
bewildered look toward the entrance where he stood.
"Let him come in," she said, rising to her feet.
The footman bowed, and retiring, sent the visitor in. As he came
forward, she stood, slightly leaning forward, pale as death, doubt,
fear and startled surprise in face and attitude, and a look of
bewilderment over all.
A moment the two stood looking full into each other's eyes; then the
stranger smiled, and she cried:
"Nat!"
A mutual impulse, such as thrills from breast to breast of man and
woman like an electric shock, moved them both. He held out his arms
appealingly, but not sooner than she sprung forward to be clasped in
them. They were alive, face to face, heart to heart--that was enough.
For a few moments this blissful truth was all they cared to realize.
Presently they stood apart, wondering at their own impulses, their
own joy. If Elizabeth--we _must_ call her Elizabeth to the end of the
chapter--had been beautiful before, she was radiant now. Her clear,
dark complexion and expressive features were made for just such light
and color as filled them now. Her lover gazed upon her in rapture, and
her own timid glance sought to repay his admiration in kind.
This was indeed Nat Wolfe, the hunter of the plain, towering in
frame, erect in carriage, dashing and chivalrous in manner--this his
frank smile and kindling eye; but the roughness of his wild life
was smoothed away. The gleaming rifle, frightful knife and hunter's
frock were exchanged for a civilized dress, at which the scrupulous
footman at the door could not have carped. Only one peculiarity of his
adventurous life was retained--he wore that long, bright hair of his
as loosely as ever. It streamed about his neck in a fashion unknown
to Broadway; but it accorded so well with his unusual hight and manly
bearing that it gave him the dignity of the famous men of old.
Suddenly Elizabeth said, with a return of the doubting air:
"Are you really alive, Nat?"
"I hope so," he answered, laughing, but very earnest, "since I am so
blessed. If you do not believe it, sit here, will you, by my side, and
let me tell you just how it is that I have come, a sound spirit in a
sound body, to inquire after the welfare of the little girl whom I
found once on the great prairie."
They sat side by side upon the sofa, hand clasped in hand.
"On that awful night in which I wakened in the heart of the forest to
find myself surrounded by a sea of fire, my first impulse was to alarm
my companion. I groped about in the suffocating smoke; but I am since
convinced, by comparing notes with Joe, that, confused and blinded as
I was, I worked in the wrong direction. I was probably the one who was
first awake, as he says he is certain he reached the spot where I ought
to have been before making efforts for his own escape. Failing in all
attempts to join him, and at times half insensible from the oppressive
smoke, I made a desperate effort to preserve strength and reason for
an escape from the frightful ocean of flame which roared and surged
around, above, everywhere, except down in the hell of heat and vapor
through which I crawled. The same idea which came to Buckskin Joe,
of attempting to reach the gorge, occurred to me; but I was now so
bewildered by the search for him, that I no longer was certain in which
direction it lay.
"I crept along on my hands and knees, feeling the heat each moment
more intolerable. I struggled for breath, until I finally sunk, and
lay helpless, my eyes upturned to that strange, fearful, yet gorgeous
vision of leaping and flickering fire in the tree-tops, surging in
the wind, against a black, starless sky. I yielded to the dangerous
enchantment of the light; a deadly languor and drowsiness crept over
me--at that perilous moment _you_ seemed to call me, dear Elizabeth,
and gave me superhuman energy. I struggled against death--against fate;
I would not yield--I would not die! Once more I crawled along; thank
God, a breath of air, cool, sweet, delicious, struck my face; the next
instant the bed of grass and pine-tassels beneath me gave way, and I
fell into darkness and insensibility.
"How long I remained unconscious I could never tell. When I recovered
a memory of my situation, I felt about me in the darkness, and was
convinced that I had dropped through the opening of a cave on to the
earth and rocks within. It might be that I was immured in some cavern
from which there was no outlet--that I had escaped death by fire to
find here a more lingering but not less certain destruction. No matter;
to have escaped from that terrible torment above me was enough for the
present. After I had fully recovered my presence of mind, I recollected
that I had a match-box in my pocket, well supplied; I lighted one of
the frail tapers, and by its brief flare had an instant view of a wide
and wonderful cave, stretching away into unfathomed darkness, and
glittering here and there with fanciful stalactites. It was a weird
place in which to be entombed.
"Groping at my feet I scraped together the dry leaves and sticks I had
brought down in my fall, and lighted them; before they burned entirely
out, I had gathered by the light they gave, quite an armful of fuel,
which, from time to time, had apparently fallen through from the
fissure above. With these I built a fire, in the hope that its flame
would enable me to detect some opening, by which I might trace a path
out of this perilous place. The flames arose brightly, throwing crimson
gleams athwart the gloom, revealing marvelous crystals flashing from
columns which seemed built of ice and marble, and shining against what
looked like cascades fixed in the very act of pouring from the hights
above.
"Anxious as I was, and bent only on finding an outlet, I could not
withhold a curious and admiring gaze from the splendid shapes half
revealed in the flickering light. The roof was fringed with glittering
crystals; but, though I saw the openings of many chambers, caverns
within caverns, stretching into darkness where I dared not venture, I
saw no gleam of the day which I knew must be shining over the blessed
world outside.
"When all the fuel I could gather was nearly exhausted, I made a
splendid discovery. I found a good pine-knot, which would burn for
an hour or two, and might light me either further into the hopeless
intricacies of a living tomb, or out into safety. I lighted this
welcome torch and immediately started upon an exploring expedition,
such as I had never before undertaken. I could only trust to fate at
the best. Out of all the passages inviting me there were many chances
that I should take the wrong one, when probably only one was right.
Eagerly I pushed forward along what appeared to be the main hall of
this majestic cave. For at least a half mile my path was clear; then I
heard the sound of running water, and presently came to a stream which
I thought completely blocked the narrowing way between lofty rocks; but
I ventured upon a rough and slippery path, and by much climbing, passed
the worst of it, and came out again to a wide, subterraneous chamber.
"Here I was astonished to observe traces of human labor and handicraft.
I came upon various tools, which seemed intended for mining purposes,
and were made of hardened copper. As they were not like those in use
by our own miners, I was forced to the conclusion that I had stumbled
upon some of the relics of the ancient people of this continent. I
looked about curiously, and by the glare of my torch fell upon a heap
of ore, piled up on a dry rock in the corner of the chamber--a heap
of glittering ore, washed from the soil and gravel, and ready for
the crucible. I examined it--it was gold! gold in crumbly dust, in
irregular lumps, in broken quartz, enough of it gathered and heaped in
that long-neglected pile to make me, dear Elizabeth, a much richer man
than I had ever aspired to be.
"For a few moments my breath came hard; I was excited, as men are
at the sight of countless wealth. But my torch began to flicker and
wane. Gold was not bread, nor water, nor sunlight--it was not life--I
was fighting for life. I pressed on; but in less than half an hour my
pine-knot was consumed.
"Exhausted, I sat down a few moments to rest, and to nibble the dry
biscuit which chanced to be in my pocket. This little refreshment gave
me new energy. I groped along, following the stream--I had a strong
hope that that noisy babbler would lead me out of this cavern sometime,
provided I did not drown myself or break my neck before that happy time
should arrive.
"I was not wrong in my conjecture. After suffering mental and bodily
torture which I will not distress you by speaking of, suffice it that
I emerged, the second day of my entombment, into the light of the sun
once more.
"I found myself in one of the wildest gorges of the Rocky Mountains.
How I supped that night on a prickly pear--how I killed a wild animal
the next day with my hunting knife, and lived on its flesh during
the rest of my adventures--how I took care to mark the devious and
intricate path, by which, after nearly a week of travel, I found myself
upon familiar ground again--how I finally worked my way to Pike's
Peak--of all this I will some day give you the particulars.
"I will only say now how stricken I felt when I heard of the departure
of my little girl, only two days previously, and that I was too proud
to follow when her father had kept me at such distance. I will only
say, sweetest, how my heart burned when good Mrs. Wright told me of the
blow it had been to you when you thought me lost. I believed that you
loved me, and I blessed you in my inmost soul. I resolved to go some
time and ask you if it were not so. But not just then. I would go in
such guise that your haughty father should not discard me--at least
with good reason.
"I returned upon my tiresome journey back to that wonderful cavern,
but this time I went well armed, provisioned and escorted, with a few
chosen men to share the dangers and the spoils. I led my little band
to the exact locality, and, by following the subterraneous stream as I
had done at my exit, I made my way to those old chambers where unknown
miners of an extinct race had toiled centuries ago, laying up riches to
help me in my little plot for happiness.
"We brought away the accumulated gold which by some purpose or accident
had been left concealed in the cavern; I had the lion's share, but
there was enough for all. Your good uncle, Mr. Wright, was one of the
fortunate ones.
"I left Pike's Peak several months ago. I met Buckskin Joe on the
plains. He wished me good-luck, told me to 'fear for the best,' and
sent you, as a token of his everlasting friendship, this golden arrow,
which he had manufactured from a lump of the precious metal which he
took from that ravine. May I put it in your hair, dear Lizzie?
"I have been a long time at my father's home in this State--a home
which I deserted years ago, driven forth into the wilds of the West
by a silly and heartless girl that I have seen, this summer, fat,
frowsy, and commonplace, boxing her children's ears. My dear mother
was dead. But my father was alive and still preaching to a loving and
devoted congregation. You wouldn't have guessed I was a minister's son,
would you, little one? And a minister's son is almost as respectable
as a doctor's daughter--particularly when he is worth half a million.
Besides, I have shorn my shaggy coat. I'm not quite such a bear as I
used to be. Do you think I am?"
She smiled as he bent his handsome face to look into her eyes; then her
head drooped, until her face was hidden in his arm.
"I should have loved you as much, had you been just the same," she
said. "But why did you stay away so long?--so near, and never to let me
know?"
"Was it wrong, Lizzie? Perhaps it was, but I wanted to give you a
chance to make a different choice if your taste inclined. When you
knew me, you did not know the world. I would not take advantage of
your ignorance. I came to this house with fear and trembling, but your
sweet eyes told me the truth the moment I looked in them. Those eyes
of yours! Well, my little girl, I don't know as they are any more
beautiful than they were the first time they looked at me from under
that faded sun-bonnet. They took Golden Arrow captive at the first
glance."
Her head lay upon his breast.
"Those were strange days," she murmured.
And a sweet silence fell upon both. Up in the horizon of memory crept
the herds of bison, whistled the midnight hurricane, rode the shy bands
of stealthy savages, crept the long day of solitude and starvation, in
which their love first spoke from mute eyes and clinging lips.
Dr. Carollyn admitted himself to the house with his night-key and
stepped lightly into the library, with a kiss on his mouth ready for
his daughter. He paused, as the _tableau vivant_ of the happy lovers
met his gaze; the smile suddenly died out and an awful frown gathered
in its stead.
"Annie!"
She started at the cold, crisp word; for an instant she shrunk, then
springing up, still clinging to her lover's hand, she said, softly, but
with a firmness borrowed from her father's blood:
"This is Nat Wolfe, dear father. He has come back to life and me. You
must take both or neither of us!"
"_Must!_"--humph! it had come to that, had it? That was too bitter a
pill for Dr. Carollyn to swallow, albeit it was a favorite prescription
of his.
A moment his dark eyes blazed at the young couple standing before him,
neither of whose faces flashed less resolute than his own; then turning
abruptly upon his heel, without the courtesy of a word to the unwelcome
visitor, he retreated to his chamber, and Elizabeth saw no more of him
that evening.
Plainly the evil spirit had not been so finally driven out of him as he
had hoped. That night he wrestled with it again, in the solitude of his
room, knowing well that while he struggled, the child, dearer to him
than his own life, must be wetting her pillow with tears which himself
alone was causing to flow.