University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

Meanwhile, the fair jockeys, after being repulsed
from the highway, had betaken themselves
to the park, where they galloped about for awhile,
expecting the Captain. As they looked back ever
and anon upon the road, they caught sight of the
three young men, whom Hunter had seen pass the
Traveller's Rest but a short time after the ladies
themselves.

“Was ever any thing more provoking!” cried
Miss Falconer. “Those three rural coxcombs,
the doctor and the two lawyers! Will no one
have the humanity to break a leg, or his neighbour's
bones, so as to afford them some employment,
and us a little peace and quiet? Must we
be ever afflicted with their admiration and homage?
It is more than a misfortune to be a fine
woman in the country, where merit, as the old villanous
poet says of female attraction in general,

But we will escape them, if it be only for an hour.
Down, Kate! down, ere they have seen you!
Whip your filly, and I warrant me, she will find
her way to the stable. We will hide in the woods,
as I think we have done before from the same
fellows.”

Laughing heartily at a device that spoke so little
in favour of the attractive qualities of the village
beaux, the Captain's daughter leaped lightly from
her palfrey, as Miss Falconer had done before
her; and both flourishing their whips at the same
time, the liberated animals fled towards the buildings,
whilst their riders lost not a moment in
burying themselves from sight, by plunging into
a grove, from which they continued to ramble,
until they had reached a little brook, as wild and
merry as themselves, that gushed over a remote
corner of the park, and then hid its gleaming
waters in a hollow, overgrown with forest-trees.

Into this dell they made their way, following the
brook, until it fell into a larger streamlet, which was
indeed no other than Hawk-Hollow Run, so often
mentioned before. Its banks were strown with huge
masses of rock, gray and mossy, through which the
waters, swollen by late rains, rushed with impetuous
speed, and sometimes with great noise and fury,
while its murmurs were rendered yet more impressively
sonorous by the hollow reverberations of the
forest. Proceeding farther, the woods, which now
invested the hills on either bank, and the rocks,
assumed a sterner character of wildness and grandeur.
Hemlocks, and other gloomy trees, with
here a rugged maple, or ghostly beech, and there
a gibbous oak, springing from interstices of the
rocks, seemed, with their knotted and contorted
roots, to bind the fragments together; while their
thick and arched boughs flung over these ruins of
nature a chilly and everlasting gloom. Aloft, on
the hill, the grape-vine swung its massy locks from
the oak, and, in the lower depths of the ravine, for

such it was, the swamp-honeysuckle shook its fragrant
clusters, and green dodders rose on the
stump of the decaying birch. When their path
had conducted the fair wanderers beyond the immediate
vicinity of the falls and rapids, these exchanged
their murmurs for other sounds not less
agreeable. The chattering of jays, the lonely-sounding
whistle of the wood-robin, the cry of a
startled dove, and now and then the sudden whir
of a pheasant, starting from his lair under a fallen
trunk, and bustling noisily out of sight,—the small
uproar of young rabbits, bouncing out of a brier
or a bush of ferns, and galloping away up the hill,
—the dropping of half-eaten nuts from the paw of
the retreating squirrel, and a dozen other such
noises as invade the solitude of the forest, here
added a double loneliness and charm to a scene
long since a favourite with the maidens.

“Now are we safe,” cried Miss Falconer, with
exultation; “for no one having seen us take this
course, our admirers, were they even spirited
enough to pursue, would think of twenty more
reasonable places to seek us in than this. But let
us make assurance doubly sure. Don't tell me
you are tired—what business has a country-wench
to be tired? We will go down to the sycamore,
and then rest us awhile, till the sun peeps red in
the hollow. I will bring you to your confession;
for, having failed in my precious designs upon the
old witch there, (may Monsieur Red-jacket sleep
harder to-night than he ever did before, for a Marplot!)
and my curiosity being so much the more
inflammable, I am resolved to learn what I can, and
that without ceremony. So come along, Kate,—

as the bear of Verona said of your amiable name-sake;
all that you have now to do, is to be, like
her, `Kate conformable.' ”

Thus whiling away the fatigue of climbing over
rocks and creeping through thickets, with a gay
rattle of discourse, the black-eyed maiden dragged
her companion along, until they reached a place
where the stream was contracted by the projection,
on the one bank, of a huge mass of slaty
rock, and, on the other, by the protrusion of the
roots of a gigantic plane-tree,—the sycamore,
or buttonwood, of vulgar speech. Above them,
and beyond the crag, the channel of the rivulet
widened into a pool; and there was a plot of
green turf betwixt the water and the hill, on the
farther bank, whereon fairies, if such had ever
made their way to the World of Twilight, might
have loved to gambol under the light of the moon.
A hill shut up the glen at its upper extremity; and
it was hemmed in, on the left, by the rocky and
wooded declivity, over which the maidens had
already passed. Over this, and just behind a black
rounded shoulder that it thrust into the glen, a
broad ray from the evening sun shot across the
stream, and fell, in a rich yellow flood, over the
vacant plot. There was something almost Arcadian
in this little solitude; and if, instead of two
well-bred maidens perched upon the roots of the
sycamore, on seats chosen with a due regard to
the claims of their dresses, there had been a batch
of country girls romping in the water, a passing
Actæon might have dreamed of the piny Gargaphy,
its running well,—fons tenui perlucidus unda
—and the bright creatures of the mythic day, that
once animated the waters of that solitary grot.
But the fairy and the wood-nymph are alike unknown
in America. Poetic illusion has not yet
consecrated her glens and fountains; her forests
nod in uninvaded gloom, her rivers roll in unsanctified

silence, and even her ridgy mountains lift up
their blue tops in unphantomed solitude. Association
sleeps, or it reverts only to the vague mysteries
of speculation. Perhaps
may wander at night by some highly-favoured
spring; perhaps some tall and tawny hunter,
may yet hunt the hart over certain distinguished
ridges, or urge his barken canoe over some cypressfringed
pool; but all other places are left to the
fancies of the utilitarian. A Greek would have
invented a god, to dwell under the watery arch of
Niagara; an American is satisfied with a paper-mill,
clapped just above it.

The fair ladies of Hawk-Hollow were no more
troubled with the absence of poetic association in
their lovely retreat, than any of their countrymen
would have been; as was plainly shown by the
first words pronounced by Miss Falconer, after
taking possession of a sort of arm-chair among the
sycamore roots.

“This is a place, my mannikin,” said she, bending
her head majestically towards her kinswoman,
whose seat was not so elevated,—“this is a place
where one may think comfortably of murdering,
whooping, scalping, and such sort of matters; and
its solemnity will therefore give a degree of point
to the story. Come, begin; I am all ears—that
is, metaphorically speaking; though a viler metaphor,
to come from men of rational imagination,
could not have been invented. I tell you, Kate,
I am dying with curiosity about these terrible
Hawks; and as I know, you know something I

am determined you shall resuscitate me, in lack
of a better physician, with such information as you
have. No excuses—I know them all by heart, you
have repeated them over so often. I declare upon
my jockey-like word, that here I sit, as fixed as
the very roots around me, and as immoveable;
and here I will sit, until you surrender your scruples,
and open your mouth, though I should remain
until washed away by the next fresh. I am positive;
my will is as inflexible as the laws of the
Medes and Persians.”

“You have mistaken me, Harriet,” said the
other, bending her eyes upon the stream; “I know
nothing of the matter.—That I have heard many
idle whispers, hints, and innuendoes, is true; but
there is neither wisdom nor propriety in repeating
them, particularly to you.—But is not this the most
charming place in the world? Do you know, I
have determined upon the spot I am to be buried
in? It is further up the river, where three lime-trees
grow together; behind them is a rock, covered
with laurels, wild roses, and columbines;
and there is such an array of azaleas below, with
blood-roots, and wind-flowers, and dogwood, as has
half-turned my brain. Can you tell me, Hal, why
I should be ever thinking of a grave, when I
stumble upon such pretty places? It is always the
first thought.”

As Catherine spoke, she turned her eyes with
much simplicity and earnestness of expression,
upon her companion's face; and though it was
evident, she had introduced the subject, for the
purpose of diverting the conversation from the
channel in which Miss Falconer desired to have it
flow, it was equally plain, that it had already taken
hold upon her imagination, and now occupied her
mind alone. As she looked up, with such a
thought at her bosom, it imparted a character of

melancholy to her countenance, which, although
not her natural and original expression, circumstances
had made, of late, much more common
than any other. Her face was the sweetest oval
in the world, her features very regular and pretty,
the hue of her complexion less brilliant than might
have been expected in one with such light locks,
but of a pleasant healthy tone, and her eyes, without
being bright or striking, were so singularly
earnest of expression, with a certain vague anxiety,
or imploringness, mingled up with every look,
as to seldom fail of interesting the feelings of the
beholder in her favour. Besides, her brow, from
which the hair was parted in the simplest and
easiest manner, was particularly smooth and beautiful;
and whatever might have been the depth of
her melancholy, this noble feature lost nothing of
its serenity. Indeed, when sadness dwelt upon
her spirit, it seldom produced a change in any
part of the countenance except the eyes; and it
was in these alone, at the present moment, that
emotion was betrayed by the change from the
merry brightness which the events of the afternoon
had thrown into them, to that appealing, anxious
expression, already described. It must be added
to this description that her voice was, if possible,
even more strikingly expressive than her eyes. It
was with her as with the Faerie Queene; always,
every exertion was characterized by some appropriate
and harmonious change; her joyous spirits
broke out with such sweet and jocund sounds as
come from tinkling bells; and when sadness was
at her heart, her accents were such murmurs of
subdued and contagious melancholy as the wood-pigeon
breathes from the depths of the forest.

“Do I know why?” said Miss Falconer, looking
down upon her with a mischievous air, and humming
instantly,

But pr'ythee, be comforted; this is the way with
all young ladies who have hair-brained sweet-hearts.
But I assure you, he we wot of is the
best, truest, and most amiable creature in the
world; and if he be a little wild, why all men are
so, you know.”

At these allusions, which were evidently unexpected,
Miss Loring blushed, then turned very
pale; and finally, while Harriet drew breath, as
if to continue the subject, she said, recurring
abruptly to the original topic of discourse, and in
a hurried manner,

“If you insist I should tell you what I have
heard, I must obey. The story is singular and
melancholy,—melancholy under every aspect, but
doubly so, if that be true which I know you are
most anxious to learn. But, Harriet, I cannot tell
you all. What concerns the Gilberts alone I am
ready to relate; but that which involves the connexion
between,—that is to say—Harriet!” cried
the young lady, after pausing with embarrassment,
“it does not become a daughter to listen to aspersions
cast upon the good name of a parent!”

“It does not,” said Miss Falconer, gravely,
“when they are breathed by the lips of an enemy.
But fear not, I will not eat you. I do not ask you
to repeat slanders, but to inform me what slanders
are repeated by others. You might have added,

it did not become me to pry into my father's secrets;
but as his child, his daughter—I would to
heaven I could say his son!—it is fitting I should
at least know from what to defend him. I tell you,
Kate, I have this thing much at heart. Fear not to
shock me by your relations; for, not being disposed
to believe them, I shall not be grieved, except at
discovering how extensive may be the malignity
of our foes. I shall rest more sweetly on my pillow
to-night, if I go not to sleep on suspicion.
Begin, therefore, Kate, and scruple not to speak
boldly.”