But then came the wholesome after-thought which had so often checked these genial impulses. She turned the boat slowly back upon its course and let it float with the current, watching the rise of land on which he stood, with sad, wistful glances, that no one saw, save the God who knows how pure they were, and how much the resolution to go on had cost her.
As the boat drifted downward, she saw the person turn as if speaking to some one, and directly a female form stood by his side. They drew close together, and seemed to be conversing eagerly. His look was no longer towards the boat; he had doubtless forgotten its existence.
Mabel held her breath, the color left her lips and she grasped the oars with each hand, till the blood was strained back from her fingers, leaving them white as marble.
"Oh, not that! not that! I can endure anything but that! God help me! O my God, help me! if this is added to the rest, I cannot live."
Drops of perspiration sprang to her temples as she spoke. Unconsciously she expended the first strength of her anguish on the oars, and the boat shot like a mad thing into the rapids which swept round a projection of rocks, and like some tormented spirit, she was borne away from the sight that had wounded her.
There was danger now. The rush of the current, tortured by hidden rocks, sent the little craft onward, as if it had been a dead leaf cast into the eddy. Mabel liked the danger and the tumult. The rising wind blew in her face. The waters sparkled and dashed around her. The frail oars bent and quivered in her hands. It was something tobrave and fight against; but for this scope of action the new anguish that had swept through the soul of that woman must have smothered her.
On the little boat went, dancing and leaping down the current, recoiling with a quiver from the hidden rocks which it touched more than once, but springing vigorously back to its flight, like a bird upon the wing.
"Oh, if this be so, let me die now. Why will it not strike? How came they to make the boat so light and yet so strong? It is true! It is true! I feel it in every throb of my pulse. After this, the life that I thought so dreary, will be a lost paradise, to which, plead as I may, there is no going back. I will know, God help me, but I must know if this is a wild suspicion, or a miserable, miserable reality!"
These words bespoke the concentration of some resolves. She grasped her oars more firmly, and with a sharp glance around, put her boat upon its course. It shot through hidden rocks; it cut across the eddies recklessly as before, but all the time a single course was pursued. At last the little craft entered the mouth of a mountain stream that came sparkling down a pretty hemlock hollow in the hills. The hollow was dusky with coming night, but the tree-tops were still brightened by a red tinge from the sunset, and there was light enough to find a footpath which wound upward along the margin of the brook.
Mabelleft her boat and followed the path till she reached a natural terrace in the hills, narrow and green,upon which a small, one-story house was snugly bestowed. The terrace was uncultivated, save a small garden patch close to the house, where the soil was torn and uneven from the uprooting of vegetables from the rudely-shaped beds. Sweetbrier and wild honey-suckles gave a picturesque grace to the building, at variance with the untidy state of the grounds, and there was something in the whole place more suggestive of refinement than is usual to dwellings where the inmates work hard for their daily bread.
Mabel Harrington had never been in this place before. As she approached it, the cry of a whippowil came up from the hollow, as if warning her away. Everything was still within the house. There was no light; the rustle of leaves with the flow of waters from the ravine, joined their mournful whispers with the wail of the night bird.
Mabel was imaginative as a girl, and this solitude depressed her; still she moved steadily towards the house, and knocked at the door.
A woman opened it, whose person was seen but indistinctly, as she stood within the small entry, holding the door with one hand; but Mabel saw that she was dark and dressed as she had seen that class of persons in the south.
"I wish to see Miss Agnes Barker for a moment: is she in?" said Mrs. Harrington with her usual dignified repose of manner, for however much interested, Mabel was not one to invite curiosity by any display of excitement, and it must have been a close observer who could have detected the faint quiver of her voice as she expressed this common-place wish.
"She don't liv hear in dis shantee."
"I know. She lives at General Harrington's, up the river," replied Mabel, "but it is some weeks since she has been there, and I expected to find her with you."
"Missus, pears like you don't know as Miss Agnes is young lady, from top to toe, ebery inch ob her. Is you the Missus?"
"I am Mrs. Harrington," said Mabel, quietly.
"Oh!" exclaimed the woman, prolonging the monosyllable almost into a sneer, "jes come in. I'se mighty sorry de candle all burnt out an done gone."
Mabel entered the house, and sat down in the dim light.
"Is Missus 'lone mong dese hills?" said the woman, retreating to the darkest corner of the room.
"Yes, I am alone!" answered Mabel.
"All 'lone in de dark wid nothin but that whippoorwill to keep company; skeery, ain't it, Missus?"
If the woman had hoped to terrify Mabel Harrington by these words, she was mistaken. A vague feeling of loneliness was upon her, but she had no cowardly timidity to contend with.
"Don't pear skeery no how," said the woman.
"I am seldom afraid of anything," answered Mabel with a wan smile. "I came to inquire for Miss Barker, if she is not here, tell me where she can be found?"
"Done gone out to de hills, pears like she could not stay away from em."
"Was she your mistress in the south?" inquired Mabel, troubled by the woman's voice.
"Pears so, Missus."
"Some one has managed to give her a fine education—I have seldom known a young person so thoroughly accomplished," continued Mabel with apparent calm, but keenly attentive to every word that fell from the woman's lips. "General Harrington informed me that she came highly recommended, but her attainments surprised us all."
"Oh yes, young missus knows heap 'bout dem books an pianers. Done born lady, no poor white trash, gorry mighty knows dat."
"Her duties are more particularly with Miss Lina, Gen. Harrington's adopted daughter, who makes no complaint against her—for myself, our intercourse is very limited, butshe pleases the General. We have expected her at the house for several days, and thought it strange that she did not return."
"Ben gone ebery day dis week, sartin sure, long walk, but her's ready for it. Nebber gets home fore dark—walk, walk, walk, in de woods wid Marsa James."
Mabel arose. A sickening sensation crept over her, and she went to the open door for air.
It was true then—that suspicion was all true! Agnes Barker had been in the neighborhood of her old home for a week, without the knowledge of its mistress. That very day the girl had met James Harrington in the hills. Her own eyes had seen them standing side by side in the sunset.
"'Pears like de Missus am sick," said the woman, coming toward her as she stood cold and shuddering under this conviction.
"No," answered Mabel, gathering up her strength, but pressing both hands upon her heart beneath the crimson folds of her shawl. "If Miss Barker comes to the house again she will have the goodness to see that I am informed. Miss Lina is anxious to renew her studies."
"Yes Missus."
"Give my message faithfully," answered Mabel. "I must speak with her before the duties of her situation are resumed. Good night."
"Good night to you," muttered the woman, as Mabel walked away. "I understand you, never doubt that. Agnes is beautiful, and keen enough for a dozen such as you. I thought it would work!"
Mrs. Harrington made the best of her way down the footpath which she had threaded, though the hollow was filled with gloom, and the whippowil called mournfully after her as she went.
Her boat lay where she had left it in the mouth of thecreek. As she stepped into it a cry broke from her lips, and turning, she looked wildly up the hollow. A woman sprang over the boat as she stooped for the oars, and with a single leap cleared the bank, landing with a bound in the footpath above her.
One sharp glance she cast behind, then darted away as if eager to bury herself in the hemlock gloom.
The leap had been so sudden and the whole progress so rapid, that Mabel scarcely saw the woman, but she remembered after, that her dress was dusky red, and that a velvet cloak swept from her shoulders downward to the ground, half torn from her person in its abrupt movements. As she stood lost in amazement at this singular apparition, Mabel fancied that she heard the dip of oars, and could detect the dim outline of a boat making up the river.
She sat down mute, and troubled, looking after what seemed at best a floating shadow; the night had darkened rapidly, and instead of the new moon which should have silvered the sky, came billows of black, angry clouds, in which the thunder began to roll and mutter hoarse threats of a storm. Frightened by the brooding tempest, Mabel pushed her boat out from the shore, and began to row vigorously homeward; but she had scarcely got into deep water when the clouds became black as midnight; the winds rose furiously, lashing the waters and raging fiercely through the tree tops, while burst after burst of thunder broke over the hills. She could only see her course clearly when flashes of lightning shot at intervals through the trees, and broke in gleams of scattered fire among the waves, now dashing and leaping angrily around her.
Mabel was excited out of her anxieties by this turmoil. There was something in the force and suddenness of the storm that aroused all her courage. The vexed trees were bent and torn by the winds. The river was lashed into a sea of foam, over which her frail boat leaped and quiveredlike a living thing; but she sat steady in the midst, pale and firm, taking advantage of each gleam of lightning to fix her course, and facing the storm with a steady bravery which had no fear of death.
Still the tempest rose and lashed itself into fury from the rocky coast to the depths of the stream, and the little boat went plunging through it, keeping the brave woman safe. The oars were useless as rushes in her hands. The waves leaped upward as the wind lashed them, and at times rushed entirely over her. It was a fearful sight, that noble woman, all alone with the storm! so close to death and yet so resolute! Blacker and nearer grew the clouds torn by whirlwinds, and shooting out lurid gleams of lightning, that flashed and curled along the water like fiery serpents chasing each other into their boiling depths. So great was the tumult that another sound, which came like a smothered howl through the storm, seemed but a part of it. Thus Mabel was unconscious of this new danger, till a glare of lightning swept everything else aside, and bearing directly toward her, she saw a huge steamer ploughing through the tempest, on her downward course.
Scarce had she time to recoil with horror from the danger, when it was wrapped in darkness again, and she could only guess of its approach by the cabin windows that glared upon her nearer and nearer, like great fiery eyes half blinded by the storm. Mabel nerved herself, and with a desperate effort bent her strength upon the oars. But the heave of the waters tore one from her grasp, and the other remained useless. Human strength was of no avail now. She was given up to the tempest, and could only cling to the reeling boat mute with horror, still with a thought of those she loved vital at her heart. Another sheet of lightning, blue and livid, rolled down the hills, and in it, standing upon a spur of rocks, she saw James Harrington, either in life or in spirit, looking forth upon theriver. His figure took the deadly hue of the light. His garments shook to the storm. The pale flame quivered around him a moment, and he was engulphed in darkness again.
Mabel flung up her hands with a cry that cut through the storm like an arrow.
"Save me! save me! oh, my God! my God!"
Her pale hands quivered in the lightning. The shrieks that rang from her white lips were smothered in the fierce wind. The tortured boat seemed flinging her out to utter despair.
A roar that was not of the elements, now broke through all the tumult. There came a rush—an upheaving of the waters, which flung her high into the darkness—a blow that made her little bark quake in all its timbers—a plunge—a black rush of waters. She was hurled beneath the wheels of the steamer—engulphed in utter darkness. It was her last struggle with the storm.
WhileBen Benson was landing Ralph Harrington and Lina, he lost sight of the boat which had so effectually aroused his interest, and when he was ready to put out again, it was lost in the inequalities of the shore.
Ben put out into the river, bearing towards the opposite bank at first, but meeting with no signs of his object, he returned again, consuming time, and thus giving considerable start to Mrs. Harrington's little craft.
As Ben neared the land again, he saw a gleam of crimson garments through the evergreens that fringed the rockyshore, and remembering the shawl which Mabel had on, was overjoyed to know that she had landed, and was comparatively safe from the storm, which grew more and more assured in its signs.
With his anxieties thus appeased, Ben rowed his boat more securely to the nearest point that promised a safe landing, resolved to court the recognition of his mistress, and when she was weary of her ramble, convey her safely home again.
When he reached the desired point, Ben could see that the crimson garments were moving through the undergrowth with a pace more rapid than any mere rambler would have chosen; but what surprised him was the course pursued down the river. His mistress, if frightened by the clouds, would doubtless have turned homeward.
Ben stood up in his boat and waved his tarpaulin with energy.
"Hallo—Madam—Mrs. Harrington, I say, there's thunder and war ahead, I tell you. Don't go too far. Don't go out of sight. The water's a-getting roughish now, and the woods won't be safe after the clouds burst!"
Ben sent these words through an impromptu speaking trumpet made with one hand curved around his mouth. He was well pleased with the effect, for the red garments began to flutter, and he saw that the wearer was moving rapidly down the hill towards the point where he lay.
"That's what I call obeying signals at once!" said the honest fellow, seating himself in the stern of his boat. "But she knows as Ben Benson wouldn't take the liberty of hurrying her if he hadn't a good reason for what he's a-doin'—not he!"
And with this complacent reflection, Ben withdrew the tobacco from his mouth, and sent it far into the water, remembering Mrs. Harrington's objections to the weed, and ready to send his life after that, if it could afford her a moment's gratification.
"Ben," said he, looking after the tobacco as it was tossed from one wave to another, and shaking his fist after it in virtuous indignation, "that's a habit as you ought to be ashamed on, Ben Benson, a habit as no dog wouldn't take from you on any account, yet you've just kept it up chawing and chawing from morning till night, till she'll catch you at it some day, and then you'll have done for yourself, and no mistake. I should like to see her a-settin' in your boat arter that. Tobackee 'll be the ruin of you yit, Ben. Grog's nothing to it."
A light step upon the moss silenced the boatman, but he kept his position, resolved to be very severe with himself for his manifold sins, this of tobacco being uppermost.
"Mr. Benson, you are kind, I am so much obliged!"
Ben started. The voice was a pleasant one, but his rough heart sunk low with disappointment—the tones were not those of Mrs. Harrington.
"I could not possibly have reached home on foot," said the same sweet voice, and a young lady sprang lightly into the boat. "I hope the river will prove safe!"
"I was waiting for Mrs. Harrington, marm, and mistook you for her—that's all," said Ben, without lifting his eyes to the singular girl that stood close to him.
"Mrs. Harrington has gone down the river long ago—she passed that point of land with the last sunbeam," said the young girl, seating herself comfortably among the cushions.
"Are you sartin of that ere?" questioned Ben, taking up his oars hurriedly. "Just give me her bearing, and I'll show you what rowing is."
"You can't possibly have a better pilot than I am," answered the lady, laughing till a row of closely set but uneven teeth were visible in the waning light. "In searching for Mrs. Harrington, you will naturally take me homeward; when she is found, I will allow myself to be set ashore."
"The shore's no fit place for a young gal arter dark," said Ben gruffly, but pushing his boat out into the stream. "For my part, I can't make out what brings you up into the hills so often. Why don't you come home for good and all? Miss Lina don't want any more vacation, I reckon."
"Oh, my health isn't quite established yet, Mr. Benson," said the girl, looking at the boatman with a sidelong glance of her black, almond-shaped eyes, a glance that Ben was internally comparing to that of the rattlesnake, when he shrank off into a hollow of the rocks.
"I shouldn't think it very wholesome to be out so much at night!" said Ben.
"Oh, I live on fresh air, and love it best when moist with dew!" answered the girl.
"If it ain't moist with something stronger than dew afore long, I lose my guess!" muttered Ben, looking upward. "If this night don't see a reg'lar tornado, I'll give up—beat."
For a short time Ben plied his oars, casting anxious glances down the shore, hoping to find Mrs. Harrington and her boat safe in some inlet or cove, waiting for them.
"In course," said Ben, muttering as usual to himself. "In course, she'd know, as I was sure to come. What on the Lord's arth is Ben Benson good for, but to follow arter and tend on her? The king of all the Sandwich Islands couldn't have a higher business than that, let alone a poor feller of a boatman, as has circumwented his sea voyages down to a pair of oars and a passenger that's not over agreeable."
"Whom are you talking to, Mr. Benson?" inquired the young lady, wasting a smile on the moody boatman, though the threatening sky made her somewhat anxious about her own safety.
"To an individual as calls hisself Ben Benson. He's a feller as bears with my faults better than anybody else, asI knows on, and one as is rather particular about being intruded on, when he's holding a private conversation with hisself. That's the individual, Miss Agnes, as I was a holding a council with."
"And you would a little rather have no interruption—is that it?" said the lady. "Well, well, I can be silent, you shall see that!"
"Doubtful!" muttered Ben, using his oars with fresh vigor.
The girl he called Agnes, folded her cloak about her and settled down among the cushions, casting wistful glances at the sky. "Look," she said at last, pointing upward, "those small lead-colored clouds, how darkly they drift together! Did you ever see a flock of pigeons flying over the western woods, Mr. Benson?"
"Knew she wouldn't do it," muttered Ben, with his eyes bent on the clouds.
"See, see!" cried the girl. "The sky is black—I have seen the same thing!"
"But them was nothing but innocent birds a flying after something to eat," said Ben. "These ere clouds, Miss Agnes, has got a good many unroofed housen', and shipwrecks, and trees broken in two, and torn up by the roots, in 'em, to say nothing of this ere boat as may be upsot any minute."
The girl turned pale; her black eyes shone with sudden fear.
"Do you think there is really any danger, Mr. Benson?"
"Danger? Of course there's danger! What did I follow arter that little boat for, if there wasn't no danger?"
"Perhaps—perhaps," said Agnes tremulously, "it would be safer on shore. The walk will not be much now. What do you say to running ashore?"
"There'll be a howling among the rocks afore you getround the first point, that 'ud take your breath; besides, when the winds begin to rush there'll be a crashing down of trees, and broken limbs will be flying thick enough. No, no—unsartain as the river is, you'd better keep still. I don't want your death on my conscience, any how."
"But can you swim if we should capsize?" questioned Agnes, growing pale and cold.
"Swim, can Ben Benson swim?" cried the boatman with a hoarse laugh. "Well, I should think that he can swim a trifle."
The girl fixed her black eyes upon him. They were large and bright with terror.
"Fast, pull fast," she said, "let me help you—is there anything in which I can help you? How slow the boat goes—pull, pull!"
"We are agin the wind, and it's getting strongish," answered Ben.
"What can we do?" cried out the girl clasping her hands. "Hear how it howls—how the trees begin to moan! Is not the storm at its height now?"
"You'll see by and by," said Ben, bowing his moist forehead down to the sleeve of his jacket, and wiping away the perspiration that was now falling from it like rain.
"Oh, what will become of us?" shrieked the girl.
"What has become ofher?" echoed Ben, casting sharp despairing glances toward the shore, which was now darkened, and in a turmoil.
"There is my home—there, there, on the side hill. A light is just struck in the window. Set me on shore—oh, Mr. Benson, do set me on shore!"
"Not till I findher," answered Ben, resolutely, "you would get in, so make the best of it."
The girl grew white as death.
"Let me ashore, or it will be my death—I am sick with terror," she pleaded.
Ben did not appear to listen. He was looking wildly down the stream, right and left, with despair in his glances.
"Where is she? What can have become of her?" he cried out at last, sinking forward on his oars, and allowing the boat to struggle for herself against the wind.
"At home, no doubt," answered the girl, struck with a selfish thought, in which there was hope of safety.
"How! What?" exclaimed Ben fiercely, "at home!"
"No doubt she left her boat in some cove and went home along the shore," persisted the girl. "She would be sure to put in somewhere!"
Ben's face lighted up, and his eyes glowed with hope.
"It may be—of course it is. She went back long ago, no doubt on it," he exclaimed, joyfully. "Why Ben Benson, what a precious old fool you was not to think of that. Miss Agnes, I'll set you ashore now anywhere you'll pint out, if the boat lives through it."
"Now, now!" cried the girl, breathless with terror, "strike for land anywhere—I know the shore. Only put me on dry land again—it's all I ask."
Benaltered his course with a great effort, and forced a passage to the broken shore. He was too busy in preserving his boat from being dashed upon the rocks, to remark with what eager selfishness the girl left him, only uttering a quick ejaculation, and darting away without thanks. By the time he could look around she had plunged into a neighboring ravine, and he saw no more of her.
Though the current was running high, Ben had the whole force of the wind to urge him on, and his steady seamanship made the progress up stream less dangerous than the descent had been. But the toil was great and every muscle of his brawny arms rose to its full strain as he bent all his strength upon the oars. But with his greatest anxieties at rest, Ben cared little for this. With no life but his own at stake, the tempest was nothing to the brave man.
But it grew terrible. The boat was more than once hurled out of water. The waves dashed over him; the wind carried off his hat and beat fiercely against his head, sweeping the long hair over his face. Again and again the current wheeled his boat around, drifting it back with a force he could not resist, sometimes close to the shore, sometimes out in the torrent of waters. It was impossible now to see his course, except by the lightning. The entire darkness baffled him more than the storm.
Once when the boat was seized upon and hurled backward, Ben saw innumerable lights sweeping by in the fog between him and the shore, and he uttered a shout of wild thanksgiving that the steamer had not run him down. As the water heaved him to and fro, a glare of lightning revealed this monster boat, moving downward, and—oh, horror of horrors! Mabel Harrington, just as the vortex engulphed her. Two white arms were flung upward. Her hair streamed in the lightning. The deathly white face was turned shoreward.
The might of twenty men was in his arms then. He flung back the rushing waves with his oars, and from a will fiercer than his strength, forced his boat toward her. In a minute the darkness of death was around him. Blasts of wind and great gushes of rain swept over him. He shouted aloud. He beat the waters madly with his oars. He called upon God for one more flash of lightning.
It came. He saw a distant steamer, an up-turned boatand something darker than the foam heaving upon the waters.
"Hold on! Hold on!—I'm coming—I'm coming—it's Ben—it's Ben. Oh God, give me light!"
He was answered. A crash of thunder—a trail of fire—and an old cedar tree on the shore flamed up with the light he had prayed for.
It flamed up and Ben saw a man plunge from the rocks into the boiling waters. He bent to the oar, his boat rushed through the waves, and as he came one way, that white face moved steadily from the shore. The waters were buffeted fiercely around it. Some mighty power seemed to sweep back the storm from where it moved.
It disappeared, rose and sunk again. Ben pushed his boat to the spot where he had seen Mabel disappear. His bow dashed against the little boat already broken in twain, and its fragments broke upon the water. He looked wildly about. The face was gone. The dark heap which he had taken for Mabel, had disappeared. Ben's strong arms began to tremble; tears of anguish met the beating rain, as it broke over his face. Despair seized upon him. He dashed his oars into the bottom of the boat and stood up, ready for a plunge. He would never go back and say that his mistress had been suffered to drown before his face. His clasped hands were uplifted—the boat reeled under him—he was poised for the mad plunge!
No, his hands fell. A hoarse shout broke from him.
"Here, here I am! here—away!"
He seized the oars again, looking wildly around, for the voice that had hailed him by name, up from the deep, as it seemed. It came again, and close by the boat that grand head appeared struggling for life.
Ben struck out his oars.
"Do not move—do not strike, or you may kill her yet!"
"Is she there? Can you hold on?" cried Ben, trembling in every limb of his stout frame.
A hand seized one side of the boat. Close to the manly head he had seen, was the marble face of Mabel Harrington, half veiled by tresses of wet hair. Ben fell upon his knees, and plunging his arms into the waves, drew her into the boat.
"For the shore—for your life!" shouted James Harrington, refusing to be helped, but clinging to the boat. "No, no—strike out; I will hold on—pull—pull!"
Ben took off his coat, and rolling it in a bundle, placed it under Mabel Harrington's head. It was all he could do. The boat was a third full of water, and he had nothing else.
"Get in—get in—or she will be drowned over again!" he pleaded, seizing James Harrington by the shoulders, and dragging him over the side. "Get down, keep her head out of water, and it'll take a worse storm than this to drive me back."
Harrington fell rather than sat down, and took Mabel in his arms, close to a heart so chilled that it had almost ceased beating. But as her cold face fell upon his bosom, a glow of life came back to it, with a pang of unsupportable feeling. It was not joy—it was not sorrow—but the warmth in his veins seemed like a sweet poison, which would end in death.
He put the numb and senseless form aside with a great effort, resting the head upon Ben's coat. Twice he attempted to speak, but his trembling lips uttered nothing but broken moans.
"Take her," he said to Ben, "take her and I will pull the oars."
"You haven't life enough in you, sir," pleaded Ben, shrinking from the proposal.
"I am strong again," said Harrington, placing himself on the seat and taking the oars. "See!"
The boat plunged heavily shoreward. Ben held his mistress with a sort of terror at the sacrilege. His brawny arms trembled around her. He turned his face to the storm, rather than allow his eyes to rest upon her. But James Harrington had no compassion; he still kept to the oars.
At last they shot into a point of the shore, formed by two or three jutting rocks. Harrington dropped the oars, and the two men lifted Mabel Harrington from the boat, and bore her to a slope of the hill. No shelter was in sight. The sudden storm was abating, but rain still dropped in showers from the trees.
"Where can we convey her? What shall we do?" said Harrington, looking around in dismay. "She will perish before we can obtain warmth, if she is not already gone."
Ben had flung down his coat. They laid her upon it. James Harrington knelt upon the turf, and lifted her head to his knee. The face was pale as death; purple shadows lay about the mouth, and under the eyes; her flesh was cold as marble.
Again the deathly cold came creeping to Harrington's heart. He shuddered from head to foot, "She is dead—she is dead!" broke from his chilled lips.
"Oh, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Harrington, what can we do? What can we do?" groaned Ben, clasping his huge hands, and crying like a child over the poor lady. "She isn't dead—don't! That word is enough to kill a poor miserable feller, as wanted to die for her and couldn't."
His only answer was a low moan from James Harrington.
"Is there no house, no living soul near to give us help?" said James Harrington, lifting his white face to that of Ben Benson, while his voice shook, and his arms trembled around the cold form they half supported, half embraced. "If there is a spark of life left it will go out in this cold—if she is dead—"
"Don't! oh, Mister James, don't!" cried Ben wringing his hands with fresh violence, "them's cruel words to stun a poor fellow's heart with—she ain't dead, God don't take his angels up to glory in that 'ere way!"
James laid Mabel reverently from his arms, and stood up casting anxious glances through the storm.
"There is a light, yonder upon the hill-side,—you can just see it through the drifting clouds—go, Ben, climb for your life and bring us help!"
Ben stooped down, clapped a hand on each knee and took an observation.
"There is a light, that's sartin," he said joyfully, settling himself in his wet clothes and making a start for the hill; but directly he turned back again.
"If she's so near gone as you speak on, Mister James, it wouldn't be of no use for me to go up there for help—she'd be chilled through and through, till there was no bringing her back, long afore I could half-way climb the hill!"
"I fear it, I fear it!" said Harrington, looking mournfully down on the white face at his feet, "God help her!"
"See," said Ben stretching forth his hand towards the burning cedar, "God Almighty has gin us light and fire close by—the grass is crisped and dried up all around that tree. What if we carry the madam there? I'll go up the hill with a heart in it arter that!"
Ben stooped as if about to take the cold form of his mistress in his arms, but as his hands touched her garments some inward restraint fell upon him, and he drew back, looking wistfully from Harrington to the prostrate woman he dared not raise from the earth even in her extremity.
As he stooped a strange light had flashed into James Harrington's eyes, and he made a motion as if to push the poor boatman aside.
Ben did not see this, as we have said, his retreat was a voluntary impulse. He saw James Harrington take up theform he dared not touch, with a feeling of deep humiliation, submitting to the abrupt and stern manner which accompanied the action, as a well deserved rebuke for his boldness.
A small ravine separated the point of land occupied by the little party from the burning cedar, and towards this Harrington bore his silent burden. His cheeks grew deadly pale from a feeling deeper than fear or cold, and his eyes flashed back the gleams of light that reached him from the burning tree with a wild splendor that no mortal man had ever seen in them before.
He held Mabel closer and closer to his heart, which rose and heaved beneath its burden; his breath came in broken volumes from his chest, and an insane belief seized upon him, that though dead he could arouse her from that icy sleep, by forcing the breath of his own abundant existence through her lips.
Fired by this wild thought he bowed his head nearer and nearer to the pallid face upon his shoulder. But the voice of Ben Benson brought him back to sanity again.
"Be careful, sir! The hollow is full of ruts and broken stones! She is too heavy—You stagger and reel like a craft that has lost her helm! Steady, sir—steady, or she'll be hurt!"
James Harrington stopped suddenly, as if a war trumpet had checked his progress. His face changed in the burning light. His arms relaxed around the form they had clasped so firmly a moment before.
"Take her!" he said, with an imploring look. "Take her! I am very weak. You see how I falter—Take her, Benson. She is not heavy, it is only I that have lost all strength!"
Ben reached forth his brawny arms, as we sometimes see a great school-boy receive a baby sister, and folded them reverently around the form which Harrington relinquished with a sigh of unutterable humiliation.
Ben moved forward with a quick firm tread, following Harrington, who went before trampling down the undergrowth, and putting aside the drooping branches from his path.
Thecedar tree stood on a slope of the bank, and had cast its fiery rain over the herbage and brushwood for yards around, leaving them crisped and dry.
Harrington gathered up a quantity of the seared grass, and heaped a dry couch upon which Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all the combustible matter within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there was a spark of life yet vital in her bosom.
Harrington knelt beside Mabel. He chafed her hands between his own, and wrung the water from her long hair. But it all seemed in vain. No color came to those blue fingers. The purple tinge still lay like the shadow of violets under the closed eyes,—no motion of the chest—no stir of the limbs. At last drops of water came oozing through the white lips, and a scarcely perceptible shiver ran through the limbs.
"It is life!" said Harrington, lifting his radiant face to the boatman.
"Are you sartin it ain't the wind a stirring her gown?" asked Ben, trembling between anxiety and delight.
"No, no—her chest heaves,—she struggles. It is life, precious, holy life; God has given her back to us, Ben!"
"I don't know—I ain't quite sartin yet, if she'd only open her eyes, or lift her hand!" exclaimed the poor fellow.
Here a faint groan broke from the object of his solicitude, and she began to struggle upon the ground.
"Go," said Harrington, "search out the light we saw—she will need rest and shelter more than anything now."
"I will, in course I will—only let me be sartin she's coming to."
The good fellow knelt down by Mabel as he spoke, and lifting her hand in his, laid it to his rough cheek.
"It's alive—it moves like a drenched bird put back in its nest—I'll go now, Mister James, but d'ye see I felt like thanking the great Admiral up aloft there, and didn't want no mistake about it."
"Yes, we may well thank God; she lives," said Harrington, looking down upon Mabel with tears in his eyes.
"Then Idothank God, soul and body, I thanks him," answered Ben, throwing his clasped hands aloft, "and if I was commander of the stoutest man-of-war as ever floated, I'd thank him all the same."
With these words Ben disappeared in the undergrowth and proceeded in search of help.
Admonished by the throes and struggles which proclaimed a painful return of life, Harrington lifted Mabel to a sitting posture and supported her there. His heart was wrung by every spasm of anguish that swept over her; yet at each one, he sent up a brief thanksgiving, for it was a proof of returning consciousness. Still she looked very deathly, and the sighs that broke through her pale lips seemed like an echo of some struggling pang within.
"Mabel," said Harrington, catching his breath as the name escaped his lips, "Mabel, do you understand?—are you better, Mabel?"
The name once spoken it seemed as if he could not repeat it often enough, it fell so like music upon his soul.
She struggled faintly—a thrill ran through her frame, and both lips and eyelids began to quiver.
"Who calls me?" she said, in a whisper. "Who calls and where am I?"
Her eyes were open now, and the refulgence falling around her from the burning cedar, seemed like the glory of heaven. In that light she saw only James Harrington bending over her. A smile bright and pure, as if she had been in truth an angel, stole over her face.
"Yes," she whispered with a sigh of ineffable happiness, "he may call me Mabel here."
He could not distinguish her words, but knew from the light upon her face, that she was very happy. His own features grew luminous.
"Mabel, have you ceased to suffer?" he said.
Her eyes were closed in gentle weariness now, but the smile came fresh upon her features, and she murmured dreamily:
"There is no suffering here—nothing but heaven and our two selves."
Oh, James Harrington, be careful now! You have heard those soft words—you have drank in the glory of that smile. In all your life what temptation has equalled this?
For one delirious moment the strong man gave himself up to the joy of those words: for one moment his hands were uplifted in thanksgiving—then they were clasped and fell heavily to the earth, and a flood of bitter, bitter self-reproach flowed silently from his heart. Mabel moved like a child that had been lulled to rest by the music of a dear voice. She thirsted for the sound again.
"Did not some one call me Mabel?" she asked.
Harrington was firm now, and he answered calmly:
"Yes, Mrs. Harrington, it was I."
"Mrs. Harrington," muttered Mabel in a troubled tone, "how came that name here? It is of earth, earthy."
"We are all of earth," answered James, strong in self command. "You have been ill, Mrs. Harrington, drenched through, and almost drowned—but, thank God, your life is saved."
"My life is saved, and am I yet of earth? Then what is this light so heavenly, and yet so false!"
"The storm which overwhelmed your boat struck this light. It is from a tree smitten with fire."
"And you?" questioned Mabel, but very mournfully. "You are General Harrington's guest, and I am his wife?"
"Even so, dear lady!"
Mabel turned her head and tears stole softly from beneath her closed lashes. How could she reconcile herself to life again? To be thus torn back from a sweet delusion, was more painful than all the pangs she had suffered.
They were silent now. For one moment they had met, soul to soul, but the old barriers were fast springing up between them, barriers that made the hearts of both heavy as death, yet neither would have lifted a hand to tear them away.
Mabel at last quietly wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up. She still shivered and her face was pale, but she smiled yet, only the smile was so touchingly sad.
"I must have been quite gone,—why did you bring me back?" she said.
"Why did we bring you back," repeated Harrington with a sudden outburst of passion, "why did we bring you back!" He checked himself and went on more calmly. "It is the duty of every one to save life, Mrs. Harrington, and to receive it gratefully when, by God's mercy, it is saved."
"I know, I know," she answered, attempting to gather up the tresses of her hair, "I shall be grateful for this gift of life to-morrow; but now—indeed I am, very thankful that you saved me."
"It was Ben more than myself—but for him you would have been lost," answered Harrington, rejecting her sweet gratitude with stoicism. "He followed you in his boat through all the storm, and was nearly lost with you!"
"Poor Ben!" she said, "faithful always, I had not thought of him, though he saved my life."
Harrington had claimed all her gratitude for Ben with resolute self-restraint; but when she acknowledged it so kindly, he could not help feeling somewhat wronged. But against such impulses he had armed himself, and directly cast them aside.
"How strange everything looks," she said, "are those stars breaking through between the clouds? They seem very pale and sad, after the light that dazzled me when I first awoke: then there is a mournful sound coming through the trees—the waters, I suppose. After all, this earth does seem very dark and sorrowful, to which you have brought me back."
"You are ill yet—you suffer, perhaps?"
"No, I am only sad!"
And so was he. Her mournful voice—the reluctance with which she took back the burden of life, pained him, yet he could offer no adequate consolation. Commonplaces are a mockery with persons who know that there are thoughts in the depths of the soul, which must not be spoken, though they color every other thought. Silence or subterfuge is the only refuge for those who dare not speak frankly.
Thus without a word, for they were too honest for pretence, the two remained together listening to the low sob of the winds and to the rain that dripped from the leaves, long after it had ceased to fall from the clouds. This hush of the storm was oppressive more to Harrington than the lady. She was languid and dreamy lying upon her couch of dry leaves, very feeble and weeping quietly without a sob, like ahelpless child who has no language but tears and laughter. In this entire prostration of the nervous system, she forgot—if she had ever been conscious of the words that filled him with a tumult of painful feelings.
He moved a little from the place where Mabel lay, and burying his face in both hands, remained perfectly still, lifting a solemn petition heavenward from his silent heart, not that she might live—not even of thanksgiving—but a subdued cry for strength rose up with the might of his whole being, a cry so ardent and sincere, that its very intensity kept him still.
Whilethis was going on in that struggling heart a black shadow had crept close to the man, and Agnes Barker stood between him and Mabel, leaving her in the firelight, but shutting it out from him.
He did not feel the darkness, and the girl stood by him more than a minute before he looked up.
Mabel moved with a faint expression of pain, as if she felt the shadow of some evil thing falling athwart the light; but she did not unclose her eyes, and Agnes, who had been for some time within earshot, spoke before her presence was recognized.
"Is there anything I can do?" she said in her usual low tones.
James lifted his head, bowed almost to the dust in the humility of his prayer, and saw this strange girl standing before him, her red garments glowing in the firelight, her arms folded on her bosom, and her eyes glittering beneaththeir long lashes, like half-buried diamonds. She seemed so like an embodiment of the evil passions he had prayed against, that he sat mute and pale, gazing upon her.
"You look deathly. You are hurt," she said, stooping toward him with a gesture at once subtle and fascinating. "I saw her boat engulphed—I saw you plunge into the stream—the storm was raging through the woods, but I came through it all."
Still Harrington remained silent, gazing fixedly upon her, so astonished by her presence that he did not heed her words.
"The lady is not dead," continued the girl, looking over her shoulders, while her garment grew dusky, and lurid in the waning light. "I heard her speaking, but a few moments ago."
James Harrington arose to his feet with grave dignity.
"You have come in good time, Miss Barker," he said. "If your cloak is dry throw it around her; even in this warmth she shivers."
Agnes looked back as she drew off her short cloak, and held the garment irresolutely in her hand.
"But you are wet and cold, too, wrap the cloak around yourself. What life can be more precious!"
She said this in a low voice, and moved towards him. He put the garment aside, and passing Agnes, stooped over Mrs. Harrington, addressing her in a grave, gentle voice.
"Are you stronger, now, dear lady?"
"I think so!" answered Mabel, moving uneasily, "but some one else is here—I heard speaking!"
"It was me," answered Agnes, spreading her cloak softly over Mabel; "I saw your peril, dear Mrs. Harrington, and came to offer help. My old nurse lives upon the hill—if you can walk so far, she will be glad to shelter you."
Mabel attempted to sit up. The presence of AgnesBarker excited her with new strength. She pushed aside the cloak with a feeling of repulsion, and looked pleadingly on Harrington.
"You will not take me up there!" she said. "It is a dreary, dreary place!"
"But it is the only shelter at hand," urged Harrington.
"I know; but that woman—don't place me, helpless as I am, with that strange woman!"
"You will find a capital nurse there; I left her preparing a warm bed!" whispered Agnes, stooping toward Harrington, till her breath floated across his face; "the walk is a little toilsome, but short; between us, I think she could manage it."
Mabel heard the whisper, and sinking back on her bed of leaves, pleaded against the measure.
"I cannot go up there," she said with some resolution, "I could not rest with that woman near."
"Of whom does she speak?" inquired Harrington.
"It is impossible for me to guess; the fright has unsettled her mind, I fear," answered Agnes.
"No, I am sane enough," murmured Mrs. Harrington, "but I have been warned. No human voice ever spoke more plainly than that lone night bird, as I went up the hollow—he knew that it was unholy ground I trod upon!"
"But you are not strong enough to reach home," persisted the girl Agnes, "the river is yet rough—the wind unsettled."
"She is well enough to go just where she's a mind to, I reckon," said Ben Benson, crashing through the undergrowth, "and I'm here to help her do it."
"Thank you," said Mabel, gently, "I wish to go home!"
Ben turned towards Harrington, and, without regard to the presence of Agnes, spoke his mind.
"I don't like the cut of things up yonder, somehow. The woman looks like a female Judas Iscariot. She's eagerbut not kind. The madam is better off here with the old tree to warm her."
Agnes kept her eyes steadily on Ben as he spoke; when he had finished, she laughed.
"You are complimentary to my mammy!" she said, "I will tell her your opinion. But have your own way. We have offered hospitality to the lady in good faith—if she prefers other shelter, I dare say we shall find the means of reconciling ourselves to her wishes and to your very flattering opinion, Mr. Boatman."
Ben threw back his right foot and made the young lady a nautical bow, accompanied with an overwhelming flourish of the hand.
"Delighted to hear as you and the old woman is agreeable. Now if you'd just as lieves, we'll try and get madam down to the boat; I've just bailed it out. The river may be a trifle roughish yet, but there's no danger."
Ben directed this portion of his speech to Mr. James Harrington, who stood by in silence, without appearing to regard the conversation.
He now stepped forward, and stooping over Mabel, inquired if she was willing, and felt strong enough to attempt a return home by water.
"Yes," answered Mabel, sitting up and striving to arrange her dress, "I am stronger now—take me home by all means. General Harrington will be terrified by my absence, and Lina—dear, dear Lina, how grateful she will be to have her mother back again!"
"And your son!" said Harrington gently.
"Oh, if I did not mention him, he is always here!" answered Mabel, pressing a hand to her heart, and looking upward with a face beaming with vivid tenderness; "I never knew how much of love was in my soul before."
How unconscious the noble woman was of her dreamy wanderings of speech—how pure and trustful was the lookwhich she fixed upon Harrington's face as she said this. A holy thankfulness pervaded her whole being; from the black deep she seemed to have gathered a world of beautiful strength.
"Come," she said, struggling to her feet and smiling in gentle derision of her weakness, as she felt her head begin to reel, "I am not afraid to try the boat again, if some one will help me."
Harrington did not move, and after a perplexed look from one to the other, Ben stooped his shoulder that she might lean upon it.
When they reached the boat, Mabel was almost exhausted, but she found strength to think of Agnes, who had silently followed them.
"Will you not get in?" she said, faintly, "I should be glad to have you with me."
"No," answered the girl, in the sweetest of all accents, "nurse would be terrified to death. I will return home."
"Not alone," said James Harrington, "that must not be."
"Oh, Mr. Harrington, I am used to being alone. It is the fate of a poor girl like me!"
There was something plaintive in her voice, and she drooped meekly forward, as if imploring pardon for having said so much.
Harrington remained a moment thoughtful; at last he addressed Ben.
"Proceed up the river," he said, "slowly it must be, for the stream is against you. I will see that Miss Barker reaches home safely, and overtake you."
Ben looked up in astonishment. "Why, Mister James, she's allers alone in these ere woods. No blackbird knows the bush better, what's the use?"
Mabel said nothing, but her eyes turned upon Harrington with a wistful and surprised look.
"No matter, she must not go through the woods alone," answered Harrington. "Keep snug to the shore, and be ready to answer my hail; I will overtake you in a few minutes."
Harrington moved away as he uttered these words, following Agnes into the woods.
Mabel looked after them with sadness in her eyes; then, bowing her face softly upon her folded arms, she remained motionless, save that her lips moved, and broken whispers which the angels of Heaven gathered and laid before the throne of God, stole through them. They had advanced some distance up the shore, when Harrington hailed the boat; Ben did not pretend to hear him, but Mabel, lifting her face, now full of gentleness, said, with a smile—
"Stop, Ben, he is calling for you!"
"Let him call and be——" Ben caught the profane word in his teeth, and swallowing it with a great struggle, commenced again—
"Let him call till he's tired, why didn't he stay with that old Judas and the young witch. To think of going off with sich like, and madame just a dying—halloo away, Ben Benson 'll sink afore he hears you!"
Ben muttered this between his teeth, and worked away at the oars, doggedly resolved to continue his fit of deafness, and give his master a midnight walk through the dripping and rough woods, but Mabel addressed him again with a quiet firmness which he could not find the heart to resist.
"Put on shore, Ben, and take your master in."
"I begin to thing he's took us all in a little too often!" muttered Ben; but he turned reluctantly for the shore, and Harrington, without speaking, took his place in the boat.
The moon had broken through the drift-clouds left by the storm, before the little party reached the cove below General Harrington's dwelling. The front of the house was entirely dark, but lights wandered to and fro alongthe hollow, and anxious voices were heard calling to each other along the bank.
"They're out searching for us!" said Ben, dropping his oars and making an impromptu speaking-trumpet of his hand. Directly his voice rang along the shore.
"Ben Benson, and passengers from down stream. All well!"
A shout answered from the shore, and directly eager voices and rapid footsteps rushed toward the little cove; first came Ralph, wild with joy, leaping downward like a panther.
"Is she safe! is she here!" he cried, pausing with dread upon the bank.
"Ralph, Ralph!"
He knew the voice. He sprang into the boat, and fell upon his knees before his mother.
"Thank God, oh mother, mother!"
He could say no more. Unspeakable joy choked his utterance. He kissed her hands, her face, and her wet robes.
"Mother, mother, tell me what has happened! You are cold—you tremble—all your clothes are wet—your bonnet is off—that dear pale face, oh mother, you have been in danger, and I not there!"
His love gave her strength. She took his head between her trembling hands, and kissed him again and again on the forehead.
"Oh, yes, my Ralph, I have been very near death—but with all this to live for, God would not let me die."
"No, no, he could not make us so wretched. Oh, mother, what would home be without you? It is only an hour or two since we missed you; but those hours were full of desolation. Tell me—tell me how it was!"
"They did it—they will tell you—I was in the depths of the river, but they drew me out."
"They, my brother James, and that blessed old rogue, Ben Benson, did they save you, mother, while I—I, your only son—was dreaming at home? Oh, James, must I thank you for my mother, with all the rest!"
"Thank God, Ralph, for He has saved your mother!"
His voice was impressive and solemn. It seemed like a rebuke to the ardent gratitude of the young man.
"I do thank God, brother James," he answered reverently, uncovering his head. "But, to be grateful to God's creatures is, so far, giving thanks to Him! How often have you told me this?"
"You are right," answered James gently, "but see, your mother needs assistance!"
Mabel had risen, and was making ready to step from the boat. Ralph turned, flung one arm around her.
"Lean on me, dear mother. Lay your head on my shoulder; don't mind the weight; I can carry you, if needful!"
Mabel submitted herself to the affectionate guidance of her son, with a sigh of pleasure, and proceeded towards the house.