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