PRAYERS AND PROMISES.
Ralph Colleton was once more in his dungeon--alone and without hope. For
a moment during the progress of his trial, and at the appearance of
Lucy, he deemed it possible that some providential fortune might work a
change in the aspect of things, favorable to his escape from what, to
his mind, was far worse than any thought of death, in the manner of his
death. But when, after a moment of reflection, he perceived that the
feminine delicacy of the maiden must suffer from any further testimony
from her lips--when he saw that, most probably, in the minds of all who
heard her narration, the circumstance of her appearance in his chamber
and at such an hour of the night, and for any object, would be fatal to
her reputation--when he perceived this consciousness, too, weighing down
even to agony the soul of the still courageous witness--the high sense
of honor which had always prompted him, not less than that chivalrous
consideration of the sex taught in the south among the earliest lessons
of society to its youth--compelled him to interpose, and prevent, if
possible, all further utterance, which, though possibly all-important to
him, would be fatally destructive to her.
He did so at his own self-sacrifice! We have seen how the poor girl was
silenced. The result was, that Ralph Colleton was again in his
dungeon--hope shut out from its walls, and a fearful death and ignominy
written upon them. When the officers attending him had retired--when he
heard the bolt shot, and saw that the eyes of curiosity were
excluded--the firm spirit fled which had supported him. There was a
passing weakness of heart which overcame its energies and resolve, and
he sunk down upon the single chair allotted to his prison. He buried his
face in his hands, and the warm tears gushed freely through his fingers.
While thus weeping, like a very child, he heard the approach of
footsteps without. In a moment he recovered all his manliness and calm.
The traces of his weakness were sedulously brushed from his cheeks, and
the handkerchief employed for the purpose studiously put out of sight.
He was not ashamed of the pang, but he was not willing that other eyes
should behold it. Such was the nature of his pride--the pride of
strength, moral strength, and superiority over those weaknesses, which,
however natural they may be, are nevertheless not often held becoming in
the man.
It was the pedler, Bunce, who made his appearance--choosing, with a
feature of higher characteristic than would usually have been allotted
him, rather to cheer the prison hours of the unfortunate, than to pursue
his own individual advantages; which, at such a time, might not have
been inconsiderable. The worthy pedler was dreadfully disappointed in
the result of his late adventure. He had not given himself any trouble
to inquire into the nature of those proofs which Lucy Munro had assured
him were in her possession; but satisfied as much by his own hope as by
her assurance, that all would be as he wished it, he had been elevated
to a pitch of almost indecorous joy which strongly contrasted with his
present depression. He had little now to say in the way of consolation,
and that little was coupled with so much that was unjust to the maiden,
as to call forth, at length, the rebuke of Colleton.
"Forbear on this subject, my good sir--she did what she could, and what
she might have said would not have served me much. It was well she said
no more. Her willingness--her adventuring so much in my behalf--should
alone be sufficient to protect her from everything like blame. But tell
me, Bunce, what has become of her--where is she gone, and who is now
attending her?"
"Why, they took her back to the old tavern. A great big woman took her
there, and looked after her. I did go and had a sight on her, and there,
to be sure, was Munro's wife, though her I did see, I'll be sworn, in
among the rocks where they shut us up."
"And was Munro there?"
"Where--in the rocks?"
"No--in the tavern?--You say his wife had come back--did he trust
himself there?"
"I rather guess not--seeing as how he'd stand a close chance of
'quaintance with the rope. No, neither him, nor Rivers, nor any of the
regulators--thank the powers--ain't to be seen nowhere. They're all
off--up into the nation, I guess, or off, down in Alabam by this time,
clear enough."
"And who did you see at the rocks, and what men were they that made you
prisoners?"
"Men--if I said men, I was 'nation out, I guess. Did I say men?"
"I understood you so."
"'Twan't men at all. Nothing better than women, and no small women
neither. Didn't see a man in the neighborhood, but Chub, and he ain't no
man neither."
"What is he?"
"Why, for that matter, he's neither one thing nor another--nothing, no
how. A pesky little creature! What they call a hobbe-de-hoy will suit
for his name sooner than any other that I know on. For he ain't a man
and he ain't a boy; but jest a short, half-grown up chunk of a fellow,
with bunchy shoulders, and a big head, with a mouth like an oven, and
long lap ears like saddle flaps."
In this manner the pedler informed Ralph of all those previous
particulars with which he had not till then been made acquainted. This
having been done, and the dialogue having fairly reached its
termination--and the youth exhibiting some strong symptoms of
weariness--Bunce took his departure for the present, not, however,
without again proffering his services. These Ralph did not scruple to
accept--giving him, at the same time, sundry little commissions, and
among them a message of thanks and respectful consideration to Miss
Munro.
She, in the meanwhile, had, upon fainting in the court-room, been borne
off in a state of utter insensibility, to the former residence of Munro,
to which place, as the pedler has already informed us, the wife of the
landlord had that very morning returned, resuming, precisely as before,
all the previous order of her domestic arrangements. The reason for this
return may be readily assigned. The escape of the pedler and of Lucy
from their place of temporary confinement had completely upset all the
prior arrangements of the outlaws. They now conceived it no longer safe
as a retreat; and failing as they did to overtake the fugitives, it was
determined that, in the disguises which had been originally suggested
for their adoption, they should now venture into the village, as many of
them as were willing, to obtain that degree of information which would
enable them to judge what further plans to adopt.
As Rivers had conjectured, Chub Williams, so far from taking for the
village, had plunged deeper into the woods, flying to former and well
known haunts, and regarding the face of man as that of a natural enemy.
The pedler had seen none but women, or those so disguised as such as to
seem none other than what they claimed to be--while Lucy had been
permitted to see none but her uncle and aunt, and one or two persons she
had never met before.
Under these circumstances, Rivers individually felt no apprehensions
that his wild refuge would be searched; but Munro, something older, less
sanguine, and somewhat more timid than his colleague, determined no
longer to risk it; and having, as we have seen, effectually checked the
utterance of that evidence which, in the unconscious excitation of his
niece, must have involved him more deeply in the meshes of the law,
besides indicating his immediate and near neighborhood, he made his way,
unobserved, from the village, having first provided for her safety, and
as he had determined to keep out of the way himself, having brought his
family back to their old place of abode.
He had determined on this course from a variety of considerations.
Nothing, he well knew, could affect his family. He had always studiously
kept them from any participation in his offences. The laws had no terror
for them; and, untroubled by any process against him, they could still
remain and peaceably possess his property, of which he well knew, in the
existing state of society in the South, no legal outlawry of himself
would ever avail to deprive them. This could not have been his hope in
their common flight. Such a measure, too, would only have impeded his
progress, in the event of his pursuit, and have burdened him with
encumbrances which would perpetually involve him in difficulty. He
calculated differently his chances. His hope was to be able, when the
first excitements had overblown, to return to the village, and at least
quietly to effect such a disposition of his property, which was not
inconsiderable, as to avoid the heavy and almost entire loss which would
necessarily follow any other determination.
In all this, however, it may be remarked that the reasonings of Rivers,
rather than his own, determined his conduct. That more adventurous
ruffian had, from his superior boldness and greater capacities in
general, acquired a singular and large influence over his companion: he
governed him, too, as much by his desire of gain as by any distinct
superiority which he himself possessed; he stimulated his avarice with
the promised results of their future enterprises in the same region
after the passing events were over; and thus held him still in that
fearful bondage of subordinate villany whose inevitable tendency is to
make the agent the creature, and finally the victim. The gripe which, in
a moral sense, and with a slight reference to character, Rivers had upon
the landlord, was as tenacious as that of death--but with this
difference, that it was death prolonged through a fearful, and, though
not a protracted, yet much too long a life.
The determination of Munro was made accordingly; and, following hard
upon the flight of Lucy from the rocks, we find the landlady quietly
reinstated in her old home as if nothing had happened. Munro did not,
however, return to the place of refuge; he had no such confidence in
circumstances as Rivers; his fears had grown active in due proportion
with his increase of years; and, with the increased familiarity with
crime, had grown up in his mind a corresponding doubt of all persons,
and an active suspicion which trusted nothing. His abode in all this
time was uncertain: he now slept at one deserted lodge, and now at
another; now in the disguise of one and now of another character; now on
horseback, now on foot--but in no two situations taking the same feature
or disguise. In the night-time he sometimes adventured, though with
great caution, to the village, and made inquiries. On all hands, he
heard of nothing but the preparations making against the clan of which
he was certainly one of the prominent heads. The state was roused into
activity, and a proclamation of the governor, offering a high reward for
the discovery and detention of any persons having a hand in the murder
of the guard, was on one occasion put into his own hands. All these
things made caution necessary, and, though venturing still very
considerably at times, he was yet seldom entirely off his guard.
Rivers kept close in the cover of his den. That den had numberless
ramifications, however, known only to himself; and his calm indifference
was the result of a conviction that it would require two hundred men,
properly instructed, and all at the same moment, to trace him through
its many sinuosities. He too, sometimes, carefully disguised, penetrated
into the village, but never much in the sight of those who were not
bound to him by a common danger. To Lucy he did not appear on such
occasions, though he did to the old lady, and even at the family
fireside.
Lucy, indeed, had eyes for few objects, and thoughts but for one. She
sat as one stupified with danger, yet sufficiently conscious of it as to
be conscious of nothing besides. She was bewildered with the throng of
horrible circumstances which had been so crowded on her mind and memory
in so brief a space of time. At one moment she blamed her own weakness
in suffering the trial of Ralph to progress to a consummation which she
shuddered to reflect upon. Had she a right to withhold her
testimony--testimony so important to the life and the honor of one
person, because others might suffer in consequence--those others the
real criminals, and he the innocent victim? and loving him as she did,
and hating or fearing his enemies? Had she performed her duty in
suffering his case to go to judgment? and such a judgment--so horrible a
doom! Should she now suffer it to go to its dreadful execution, when a
word from her would stay the hand of the officer, and save the life of
the condemned? But would such be its effect? What credence would be
given now to one who, in the hall of justice, had sunk down like a
criminal herself--withholding the truth, and contradicting every word of
her utterance? To whom, then, could she apply? who would hear her plea,
even though she boldly narrated all the truth, in behalf of the
prisoner? She maddened as she thought on all these difficulties; her
blood grew fevered, a thick haze overspread her senses, and she raved at
last in the most wild delirium.
Some days went by in her unconsciousness, and when she at length grew
calm--when the fever of her mind had somewhat subsided--she opened her
eyes and found, to her great surprise, her uncle sitting beside her
couch. It was midnight; and this was the hour he had usually chosen when
making his visits to his family. In these stolen moments, his attendance
was chiefly given to that hapless orphan, whose present sufferings he
well knew were in great part attributable to himself.
The thought smote him, for, in reference to her, all feeling had not yet
departed from his soul. There was still a lurking sensibility--a
lingering weakness of humanity--one of those pledges which nature gives
of her old affiliation, and which she never entirely takes away from the
human heart. There are still some strings, feeble and wanting in energy
though they be, which bind even the most reckless outcast in some little
particular to humanity; and, however time, and the world's variety of
circumstance, may have worn them and impaired their firm hold, they
still sometimes, at unlooked-for hours, regrapple the long-rebellious
subject, and make themselves felt and understood as in the first moments
of their creation.
Such now was their resumed sway with Munro. While his niece--the young,
the beautiful, the virtuous--so endowed by nature--so improved by
education--so full of those fine graces, beyond the reach of any
art--lay before him insensible--her fine mind spent in incoherent
ravings--her gentle form racked with convulsive shudderings--the still,
small, monitorial voice, unheard so long, spoke out to him in terrible
rebukings. He felt in those moments how deeply he had been a criminal;
how much, not of his own, he had appropriated to himself and sacrificed;
and how sacred a trust he had abused, in the person of the delicate
creature before him, by a determination the most cruel and perhaps
unnecessary.
Days had elapsed in her delirium; and such were his newly-awakened
feelings, that each night brought him, though at considerable risk, an
attendant by her bed. His hand administered--his eyes watched over; and,
in the new duties of the parent, he acquired a new feeling of duty and
domestic love, the pleasures of which he had never felt before. But she
grew conscious at last, and her restoration relieved his mind of one
apprehension which had sorely troubled it. Her condition, during her
illness, was freely described to her. But she thought not of
herself--she had no thought for any other than the one for whom thoughts
and prayers promised now to avail but little.
"Uncle--" she spoke at last--"you are here, and I rejoice to see you. I
have much to say, much to beg at your hands: oh, let me not beg in vain!
Let me not find you stubborn to that which may not make me happy--I say
not that, for happy I never look to be again--but make me as much so as
human power can make me. When--" and she spoke hurriedly, while a strong
and aguish shiver went through her whole frame--"when is it said that he
must die?"
He knew perfectly of whom she spoke, but felt reluctant to indulge her
mind in a reference to the subject which had already exercised so large
an influence over it. But he knew little of the distempered heart, and
fell into an error by no means uncommon with society. She soon convinced
him of this, when his prolonged silence left it doubtful whether he
contemplated an answer.
"Why are you silent? do you fear to speak? Have no fears now. We have no
time for fear. We must be active--ready--bold. Feel my hand: it trembles
no longer. I am no longer a weak-hearted woman."
He again doubted her sanity, and spoke to her soothingly, seeking to
divert her mind to indifferent subjects; but she smiled on the endeavor,
which she readily understood, and putting aside her aunt, who began to
prattle in a like strain, and with a like object, she again addressed
her uncle.
"Doubt me not, uncle: I rave no longer. I am now calm--calm as it is
possible for me to be, having such a sorrow as mine struggling at my
heart. Why should I hide it from you? It will not be hidden. I love
him--love him as woman never loved man before--with a soul and spirit
all unreservedly his, and with no thought in which he is not always the
principal. I know that he loves another; I know that the passion which I
feel I must feel and cherish alone; that it must burn itself away,
though it burn away its dwelling-place. I am resigned to such a fate;
but I am not prepared for more. I can not bear that he too should
die--and such a death! He must not die--he must not die, my uncle;
though we save him--ay, save him--for another."
"Shame on you, my daughter!--how can you confess so much? Think on your
sex--you are a woman--think on your youth!" Such was the somewhat
strongly-worded rebuke of the old lady.
"I have thought on all--on everything. I feel all that you have said,
and the thought and the feeling have been my madness. I must speak, or I
shall again go mad. I am not the tame and cold creature that the world
calls woman. I have been differently made. I can love in the world's
despite. I can feel through the world's freeze. I can dare all, when my
soul is in it, though the world sneer in scorn and contempt. But what I
have said, is said to _you_. I would not--no, not for worlds, that he
should know I said it--not for worlds!" and her cheeks were tinged
slightly, while her head rested for a single instant upon the pillow.
"But all this is nothing!" she started up, and again addressed herself
to the landlord. "Speak, uncle! tell me, is there yet time--yet time to
save him I When is it they say he must die?"
"On Friday next, at noon."
"And this--?"
"Is Monday."
"He must not die--no, not die, then, my uncle! _You_ must save him--you
_must_ save him! You have been the cause of his doom: you must preserve
him from its execution. You owe it him as a debt--you owe it me--you owe
it to yourself. Believe not, my uncle, that there is no other day than
this--no other world--no other penalties than belong to this. You read
no bible, but you have a thought which must tell you that there are
worlds--there is a life yet to come. I know you can not doubt--you must
not doubt--you must believe. Have a fear of its punishments, have a hope
of its rewards, and listen to my prayer. You must save Ralph Colleton;
ask me not how--talk not of difficulties. You must save him--you
must--you must!"
"Why, you forget, Lucy, my dear child--you forget that I too am in
danger. This is midnight: it is only at this hour that I can steal into
the village; and how, and in what manner, shall I be able to do as you
require?"
"Oh, man!--man!--forgive me, dear uncle, I would not vex you! But if
there were gold in that dungeon--broad bars of gold, or shining silver,
or a prize that would make you rich, would you ask me the how and the
where? Would that clumsy block, and those slight bars, and that dull
jailer, be an obstacle that would keep you back? Would you need a poor
girl like me to tell you that the blocks might be pierced--that the bars
might be broken--that the jailer might be won to the mercy which would
save? You have strength--you have skill--you have the capacity, the
power--there is but one thing wanting to my prayer--the will, the
disposition!"
"You do me wrong, Lucy--great wrong, believe me. I feel for this young
man, and the thought has been no less painful to me than to you, that my
agency has contributed in great measure to his danger. But what if I
were to have the will, as you say--what if I went forward to the jailer
and offered a bribe--would not the bribe which the state has offered for
my arrest be a greater attraction than any in my gift? To scale the
walls and break the bars, or in any forcible manner to effect the
purpose, I must have confederates, and in whom could I venture to
confide? The few to whom I could intrust such a design are like myself,
afraid to adventure or be seen, and such a design would be defeated by
Rivers himself, who so much hates the youth, and is bent on his
destruction."
"Speak not of _him_--_say to him nothing_--you must do it _yourself_ if
you do it all. You can effect much if you seriously determine. You can
design, and execute all, and find ready and able assistance, if you once
willingly set about it. I am not able to advise, nor will you need my
counsel. Assure me that you will make the effort--that you will put your
whole heart in it--and I have no fears--I feel confident of his escape."
"You think too highly of my ability in this respect. There was a time,
Lucy, when such a design had not been so desperate, but now--"
"Oh, not so desperate now, uncle, uncle--I could not live--not a
moment--were he to perish in that dreadful manner. Have I no claim upon
your mercy--will you not do for me what you would do for money--what you
have done at the bidding of that dreadful wretch, Rivers? Nay, look not
away, I know it all--I know that you had the dagger of Colleton--that
you put it into the hands of the wretch who struck the man--that you saw
him strike--that you strove not to stop his hand. Fear you not I shall
reveal it? Fear you not?--but I will not--I can not! Yet this should be
enough to make you strive in this service. Heard you not, too, when lie
spoke and stopped my evidence, knowing that my word would have saved
him--rather than see me brought to the dreadful trial of telling what I
knew of that night--that awful night--when you both sought his life? Oh,
I could love him for this--for this one thing--were there nothing else
besides worthy of my love!"
The incident to which she referred had not been unregarded by the
individual she addressed, and while she spoke, his looks assumed a
meditative expression, and he replied as in soliloquy, and in broken
sentences:--
"Could I pass to the jail unperceived--gain admittance--then--but who
would grapple with the jailer--how manage that?--let me see--but
no--no--that is impossible!"
"What is impossible?--nothing is impossible in this work, if you will
but try. Do not hesitate, dear uncle--it will look easier if you will
reflect upon it. You will see many ways of bringing it about. You can
get aid if you want it. There's the pedler, who is quite willing, and
Chub--Chub will do much, if you can only find him out."
The landlord smiled as she named these two accessaries "Bunce--why, what
could the fellow do?--he's not the man for such service; now Chub might
be of value, if he'd only follow orders: but that he won't do. I don't
see how we're to work it, Lucy--it looks more difficult the more I think
on it."
"Oh, if it's only difficult--if it's not impossible--it will be done. Do
not shrink back, uncle; do not scruple. The youth has done you no
wrong--you have done him much. You have brought him where he is, he
would have been safe otherwise You must save him. Save him, uncle--and
hear me as I promise. You may then do with me as you please. From that
moment I am your slave, and then, if it must be so--if you will then
require it, I am willing then to become _his_ slave too--him whom you
have served so faithfully and so unhappily for so long a season."
"Of whom speak you?"
"Guy Rivers! yes--I shall then obey you, though the funeral come with
the bridal."
"Lucy!"
"It is true. I hope not to survive it. It will be a worse destiny to me
than even the felon death to the youth whom I would save. Do with me as
you please then, but let him not perish. Rescue him from the doom you
have brought upon him--and oh, my uncle, in that other world--if there
we meet--the one good deed shall atone, in the thought of my poor
father, for the other most dreadful sacrifice to which his daughter now
resigns herself."
The stern man was touched. He trembled, and his lips quivered
convulsively as he took her hand into his own. Recovering himself, in a
firm tone, as solemn as that which she had preserved throughout the
dialogue, he replied--
"Hear me, Lucy, and believe what I assure you. I _will_ try to save this
youth. I will do what I can, my poor child, to redeem the trust of your
father. I have been no father to you heretofore, not much of one, at
least, but it is not too late, and I will atone. I will do my best for
Colleton--the thing is full of difficulty and danger, but I will try to
save him. All this, however, must be unknown--not a word to anybody; and
Rivers must not see you happy, or he will suspect. Better not be
seen--still keep to your chamber, and rest assured that all will be
done, in my power, for the rescue of the youth."
"Oh, now you are, indeed, my father--yet--uncle, shall I see you at the
time when it is to be done? Tell me at what moment you seek his
deliverance, that I may be upon my knees. Yet say not to him that I have
done anything or said anything which has led to your endeavors. He will
not think so well of me if you do; and, though he may not love, I would
have him think always of me as if--as if I were a woman."
She was overcome with exertion, and in the very revival of her hope, her
strength was exhausted; but she had sunk into a sweet sleep ere her
uncle left the apartment.