University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
THE SOLDIER'S RETURN.

Holmes.

It was a summer's evening, when Max Greyslaer,
returning, after a long absence, to his native valley,
left his tired horse at the adjacent hamlet, and hurried
off on foot to present himself at the Hawksnest.
The sun of a fiercer climate, not less than the unhealthy
swamps of the South, had stolen the freshness
from his cheek; and the arduous campaign in
which he had lately signalized himself, had left
more than one impress of its perils upon his manly
front. But the heart of the young soldier was not
less buoyant within him because conscious that the
comeliness of youth had passed away from his scarred
and sallow features. He had learned, before
reaching its neighbourhood, that the beloved inmate
of the homestead was well; and, breathing
again the health-laden airs of his native north, he
felt an elasticity of feeling and motion such as he
had not known in many a long month before. The
stern realities of life which he had beheld, not less
than the active duties in which he had shared, had
long since changed Max Greyslaer from a dreaming
student into a practical-minded, energetic man; but
his whole moral temperament must have been altered

completely, if the scene which now lay around,
and the circumstances under which he beheld it,
had not called back some of the thoughtful musings
of earlier days.

The atmosphere, while slowly fading into the
gray of evening, was still rich in that golden hue
which dyes our harvest landscape. The twilight
shadows lay broad and still upon the river which
glided tranquilly between its overhanging thickets;
but, while those on the farther side were purpled
with the light of evening, the warm hues of lingering
sunset still played upon the canopy of wild vines
which imbowered those that were nearer, touching
here and there the top of a tall elm with a still ruddier
glow, and bathing the stubble-field on some distant
hill in a flood of yellow light. But, lovely and
peaceful as seemed the scene, there was something
of sadness in the deep silence which hung over it.
The whistle of the ploughboy, the shout of the
herdsman, the voices of home-returning boors loitering
by the roadside to chat for a moment together
when their harvest-day's work was over—
none of these rustic sounds were there. The near
approach of invasion had summoned the defenders
of the soil away from their native fields, and the region
around was almost denuded of its male inhabitants;
infirm age or tender youth alone remaining
around the hearths they were too feeble to protect.
The deep bay of a house-dog was the first thing
that reminded Greyslaer that some sentinels at least
were not wanting to watch over their masterless
homesteads.

The young officer, fresh from the animated turmoil
of a camp-life, had ridden all day along highways
bustling with the march of yeomanry corps,
crowding into the main route from a hundred farm-roads
and by-paths, all hastening toward the border,

and the air of desertion in the present scene could
not but strike him by the contrast. It was with a
heart less light and a step less free than they were an
hour before that he now wended his way among the
shrubbery in approaching the door of the Hawksnest.
The sound of music came from an open
window in the wing which was nearest to him, and
his heart thrilled in recognition of the voice of the
singer as he paused to listen to a mournful air
which was singularly in unison with his feelings at
the moment. The words, which were Greyslaer's
own, had, indeed, no allusion to his own story, but
they had been thrown off in one of those melancholy
moods when the imprisoned spirit of sadness will
borrow any guise from fancy to steal out from the
heart; and coming from the lips they did, they were
now not less apposite to the passing tone of his
mind than in the moment they were written.

The song had ceased, but Greyslaer, before it finished,
had approached near enough to hear the sigh

with which it ended; for how much of the past did
not that single sigh repay him, even if his long account
of affection had not been already balanced by
the true heart that breathed it! In another moment
Alida is folded to his bosom.

“My own Alida was hard to win, but most truly
does she wear. Do I not know who was in your
thoughts, beloved, in the moment that my rustling
footsteps made you rush to the verandah to greet
me?”

“I heard not your footsteps, I felt your presence,
dearest Max; yet was I strangely sad in the instant
before you came.”

“And I, too, Alida, was sad, I scarce know why,
save from that mysterious sympathy of soul with
soul you have almost taught me to believe in. But
now—”

“Now I know there should be no place for gloom;
yet why, Max, should melancholy thoughts in the
heart of either herald a moment of so much joy to
both?”

Max, who had often playfully philosophized with
her upon the tinge of superstition with which the
highly imaginative mind of Alida was imbued, now
attempted to smile away her apprehensive forebodings.
But as she knew, in anticipation, that he
was on his way to the seat of war, and could only
have snatched this brief interview in passing to the
post of peril, the task of cheering her spirits was a
difficult one.

“Not,” said she, rising and pacing the room,
while her tall figure and noble air seemed to gather
a still more queenly expression from the feelings
which agitated her, “not that I would have the idle
fears of a weak woman dwell one moment among
your cares—for your mind, Max, must be free even

of the thought of me when you go where men are
matched in war or counsel against each other—but
something whispers that this meeting, that this parting
is—is what your own words, which I sung but
now, may in spirit be prophetic of.”

“Nay, nay, Alida,” said Max, smiling, “that foolish
song has already more than answered its purpose
in serving to while away a lonely moment of
yours, and I protest against my rhymes being perverted
to such dismal uses. You may change your
true knight into a faithful troubadour or humble minstrel
of your household, if you will; but I protest
against your making him play the musty part of old
`Thomas the Rhymer,' merely because he has once
or twice offended by stringing verses together.”

“Why will you always jest so when I feel gravest?”
said Alida, half reproachfully, as she placed
her hand in that which gently drew her back to the
seat which she had left by Greyslaer's side.

“It is gravity of mood, and not of thought, dearest,
that I would fain banter away; for surely my
Alida would not call these vain and idle fancies
thoughts? Why should I deal daintily with things
so troublous of her peace? Out upon them all, I
say. The future has no cloud for us, save that
which will continue to hover over thousands till
peace return to the land; why should we study to
appropriate more than our proper share of the general
gloom? As for this Barry St. Leger,” said
Max, with increasing animation, “St. Leger is a
clever fellow to have pushed his brigand crew thus
far into the country; but gallant Gansevoort still
holds him stoutly at bay, and if Hermiker and his
militia fail to bring him to a successful account, we
have fiery Arnold and his Continentals already on
the march to beat up his quarters and drive the Tories
back to Canada.”

As the young soldier spoke, Alida caught a momentary
confidence not less from the tone of his
voice than from the look of his eye. The proud
affection with which she now gazed upon the manly
mien of her lover seemed more akin to her natural
character than did the anxiety of feeling which
again resumed its influence in her bosom; an anxiety
which continually, throughout the evening, sent
a shade of sadness to her features, and which Greyslaer,
remembering in long months afterward, had
but too much reason to think proceeded from one of
those unaccountable presentiments of approaching
evil which all have at some time known.

Since the memorable night when Greyslaer's
providential discovery of the real position in which
Alida stood toward Bradshawe had won from her
the first avowal of her regard, this painful subject
had been rarely alluded to by either; nor, closely as
it mingled with the story of their loves, will it seem
strange that a matter so delicate should be avoided
by both in an interview like the present.

The joy of their first meeting had banished it alike
from the hearts of either; and Alida, as the painful
moment of parting grew nigh, could not bring herself
to add to present sorrows by recalling those
which seemed all but passed away entirely, though
their memory still existed as a latent cause of disquiet
to herself. As for Max, his spirits seemed to
have imbibed so much vigour and elasticity from
the stirring life he had lately led, that it was almost
impossible for Alida not to catch a share of the confidence
which animated him. But though the state
of the times and the duties which called Greyslaer
to the field, and which might still for a long period
defer their union, seemed, as they conversed together,
the only difficulties that obstructed their mutual
path to happiness, there was in the heart of Alida

a vague apprehension of impediments yet undreamed
of and far less easy to be surmounted.

The moments of their brief converse were sweet,
deliciously sweet to either; but the banquet of feeling
was to Alida like the maiden's feast of the Iroquois
legend. Her bosom was the haunted lodge,
where ever and anon a dim phantom flitted around
the board, and withered, with his shadow, the fruits
and flowers which graced it.

In the mean time there was one little circumstance,
which, calling up a degree of thoughtfulness,
if not of pain, in the mind of Greyslaer, would alone
have impaired the full luxury of the present hour.
Some household concerns had called Alida for a few
minutes from the room in which they were sitting,
and Max, to amuse himself in her absence, turned
over a portfolio of her drawings which chanced to
be lying upon a table near. The sketches were
chiefly landscape views of the neighbouring scenery
of the Mohawk, which is so rich in subjects for the
pencil; but there were several studies of the head
of a child interspersed among the rest, which, after
the recurrence of the same features sketched again
and again with more or less freedom and lightness,
finally arrested the earnest gaze of Max as he viewed
them at last in a finished drawing, which was
evidently intended for a portrait. He felt certain
that he had seen the face of that young boy before,
yet when or where it was impossible for him to remember.
There was an Indian cast in the physiognomy,
which for a moment made him conceive that
it must have been during his captivity among the
Mohawks that he had seen the child. Yet, though
a close observer of faces, he could recall no such
head among the bright-eyed urchins he had often
seen at play around his wigwam.

“I am puzzling myself, Alida,” said he, as Miss

De Roos returned to the room, “to remember where
it is that I have seen the original of this portrait;
for certain it is, the style of the features, if not the
whole head, is perfectly familiar to me;” and Max,
shading the picture partly with his hand, looked up
for a moment as Alida approached him while speaking.
“Good heavens!” he added, in a tone of surprise,
“how much it resembles yourself as the light
now falls on your countenance.”

“Do you think so?” cried Alida; “that is certainly
very odd, for I have always thought that poor
little Guise bore a wonderful resemblance to my
brother Derrick, notwithstanding his straight black
Indian locks are so different from Dirk's bright
curls. Your remark confirms the truth of the likeness
I discovered between them; for Derrick and
I, you know, were always thought to resemble each
other.”

“And who, if I may ask,” rejoined Greyslaer,
gravely, “is this `poor little Guise,' who is so familiar
a subject of interest to you?”

“Oh! I should have told you before of our little
protegé, but my thoughts have been so hurried tonight,”
replied Alida, blushing. “You must know,
then, that Derrick takes a vast interest in this forlorn
little captive, who is neither more nor less than
a grandson of Joseph Brant, that was left behind in
an Indian foray when Derrick's band had driven
back or dispersed his natural protectors.”

“What, a child like that accompany an expedition
of warriors across the border! a child of Isaac
Brant, too; for he, I believe, is the only married son
of the chief! Who gave you this account, Alida?”

“Dear Max, you look grave as well as incredulous.
I tell you only what Derrick imparted to
me when he brought that friendless boy hither,
and begged me to assume the charge of him for a

short season. I conjured my brother to return him
to his people, but he would not hear of it. He only
answered that, as the boy was an orphan whose
mother had perished in the fray in which her child
was taken, and whose father was off fighting on another
part of the frontier, it was a mercy to keep
him here. I saw Derrick for scarcely an hour at
the time he made the request. He came galloping
across the lawn with the child on the pommel of
his saddle before him; scarcely entered the house,
except to exchange a joke or two with the old servants
who crowded around him; took Guise with
him to the stable to look at the horses, and then
hurried off to join his troop, which, he said, had
made a brief halt while passing through the country
toward Lake George.”

“And has he given you no farther particulars
since?”

“Not a word. He has written once or twice,
inquiring how I liked his dusky pet, as he calls him;
but he says not a word of his ultimate intentions in
regard to him. It was only the other day that, in
marching through from the Upper Hudson toward
Fort Stanwix, he paid me a visit; but he stopped
only to breakfast, and came as suddenly and disappeared
almost as quickly as before; and though he
caressed and fondled the child while here, yet, when
I attempted to hold some sober talk with him about
his charge, he only ran on in his old rattling manner,
and said there was time enough to think of this
when the St. Leger business was over.”

“Can I see the child?” said Greyslaer, with difficulty
suppressing an exclamation of impatience at
the levity of his friend.

“He sleeps now, dear Max. He has been ill
to-day, and when I left the room it was only to see

whether or not the restlessness of my little patient
had subsided into slumber.”

“Does this picture bear a close resemblance to
his features?” rejoined Max, taking up the drawing
once more from the table.

“I cannot say that; yet I have tried so often, for
my amusement, to take them, that I ought at least
to have partially succeeded in my last effort. The
wild, winning little creature is so incessantly in motion,
though, that a far more skilful hand than mine
might be foiled in the undertaking. But, Max, if
you really feel such a curiosity about my charge, I
must show him to you; wait but an instant till I
return.”

Alida, taking one of the lights from the table as
she glided out of the room, reappeared with it, a
moment afterward, in her hand. “Tread lightly
now,” she said, “while following me, for he still
sleeps most sweetly, and I would not have him disturbed
for the world.”

Greyslaer, who seemed to be actuated by some
more serious motive than mere curiosity for holding
this inquisition over the sleeping urchin, followed
her steps without speaking. Alida, entering
the dressing-room—into which, as the reader may
remember, the eyes of her lover had once before
penetrated—made a quick step or two in advance,
and closed the door leading into the chamber beyond;
then turning round, she pointed to a little cotbedstead,
which seemed to have been temporarily
placed there for greater convenience in attending
upon her patient.

Max took the candle from her hand, and, shading
the eyes of the infant sleeper with his broad-leaved
beaver, bent over, as if in close scrutiny of its placid
features; while Alida, touched by the sympathizing
interest which her lover displayed in her

charge, and dreaming not of the cause which
prompted that interest, gazed on with a countenance
beaming with sensibility. At first the deep sleep
in which the child was plunged left nothing but the
lovely air of infantile repose in its expression; but—
whether from being stirred inwardly by dreams, or
disturbed by the light which penetrated its fringed
lids from without, or touched, perhaps, by the drooping
plume with which the soldier shaded its brow—
it soon began to move, to gripe the coverlet in its
tiny fingers, and, turning over petulantly even in its
slumbers, to work its features into something more
of meaning.

It was a child of the most tender years; but,
though scarcely four summers could have passed
over its innocent head, the lineaments of another,
less pure than it, were strongly charactered in its
face. Something there was of Alida there, but far
more of her wild and almost lawless brother. There
seemed, indeed, what might be called a strong family
resemblance to them both; but while the darker
hue of Alida's hair might have aided in first recalling
her image to him who gazed upon the sable
locks of the Indian child, yet her noble brow was
wanting beneath them; and the mouth, which earliest
shows the natural temper, and which most nearly
expresses the habitual passions at maturity—the
mouth was wholly that of her wayward and reckless
brother. The features were so decidedly European,
that the tawny skin and the eyes, which were
closed from Greyslaer's view, were all he thought
that could proclaim an Indian origin for this true
scion of the Mohawk chieftain's line, as Derrick had
represented him to his sister.

“It is the mysterious instinct of blood, then, as
well as the natural promptings of her sex's kindness,
which has elicited Alida's sympathy for this

wild offshoot of her house. But she should have a
more considerate protector than this giddy brother,
who, even in assuming the most sacred responsibility,
must needs risk mixing up a sister's name with
his own wild doings.”

“You do not tell me what you think of my protegé,”
said Alida, as Greyslaer, musing thus, was
silent for a moment or two after they returned to
the sitting-room. “I declare your indifference quite
piques me. You have no idea of the interest poor
forlorn little Guise excited when I took him with me
to Albany on my last visit to our family friends
there.”

Max had it upon his tongue to ask her in reply
if she thought that the child bore any resemblance
to Isaac Brant, its reputed father, whom Alida must
have seen in former years; but, at once remembering
how closely that individual was connected with
Bradshawe's misdeeds, he stifled the question, and,
passing by her last observation as lightly as possible,
changed the subject altogether. The whole
matter, however, left somehow a disagreeable impression
with him, and he was provoked at the importance
it assumed in his thoughts, when, after the
thrilling emotions of a lover's parting had passed
away, it recurred again and again to his mind during
his long walk back to the inn where he was to
pass the night.

The dawn of the next morning found Greyslaer
again upon the road toward Fort Dayton, where a
pleasurable meeting with more than one old comrade
awaited him, and where a military duty devolved
upon him which, slight in character as it at
first appeared, was destined, in its fulfilment, to
have a most serious bearing upon his own happiness
and that of Alida.