University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Anxiety, expectation, and perhaps an unusual
degree of restlessness on the part of her friend,
who soon fell asleep, kept Miss Falconer awake
until a very late hour; and when she opened her
eyes, after a short and uneasy slumber, she found
a streak of sunshine playing on the window curtains.
She started up hastily, yet so softly as not
to discompose the Captain's daughter, with regard
to whom she seemed to have altered all her resolutions.
She arrayed herself with such celerity
and silence as indicated a desire to escape while
Catherine yet slumbered; and indeed it appeared,
that, so far as the sleeping maiden was concerned,
Miss Falconer had changed her feelings, as well
as designs. She eyed Catherine occasionally with
a countenance on which suspicion seemed struggling
with anger; and when she had completed
her toilet, she stole up to the bedside, and surveyed
her with a look of anger, which was the more
extraordinary as Catherine, at that moment, presented
an appearance of the most attractive and,
in fact, seraphic beauty. Her hands were clasped
together under her chin, as if some thought of
rapture were shining through her spirit; a smile
of such delight as can only come from a heart
both guileless and happy, beamed from her visage;
her lips moved, as if breathing the accents of joy,

though no sound came from them; and the tears
that stole from beneath the closed eyelids, were
evidently shed in pleasure, not sorrow. Miss Falconer's
countenance darkened, as she gazed; but
she gazed only for a moment; and soon stealing
from the bedside, she crept out of the chamber.

The rattling of the latch, as the door closed, dispelled
the dream of delight, and Catherine instantly
arose, and prepared to follow her friend, whom
she had in vain called after to return. Miss Falconer
had already left the house, and long before
Catherine reached her, she saw that she had found
her way to the memorable bush of fern. She saw
also, without explanation from her friend, that
some singular accident had defeated, at the very
moment of its accomplishment, the plan so subtly
laid and so zealously pursued. No letter or scrap
of any kind was found in the appointed place; yet
it was evident the bush had been visited by at least
one, perhaps by two persons, in the course of the
night. It was deranged and torn; two flat stones
were found lying at its roots, which Miss Falconer
did not doubt had been designed to protect the
paper from the dews of the night, as well as the
eyes of passers-by; and there were foot-prints in
the grass, some of which were very distinct, haveing
been left since a light rain, that had fallen
during the night.

The chagrin and dismay of Miss Falconer at
this unlooked for termination of her hopes, entirely
drove from her mind the recollection of her
late displeasure, together with its secret cause.
She wondered and lamented, and devised a thousand
suppositions for explaining the phenomenon,
but without satisfying herself. Was it possible the
treachery of her agent could have been discovered
by his comrades, at the very moment of its consummation?
Could such a discovery have been

made by accident, and in the dead of the night?
What now was she to do? how supply the information
of which she had been robbed? how
act upon that already received? how avert the
ridicule of the coadjutors she had drawn into her
schemes? how propitiate her brother?—For sure
he had not ceased laughing at her, from the hour
he was let into the secret, and would make it the
theme of raillery to his dying day.

To the latter questions Miss Loring could frame
no answers; but in regard to the former and more
important, she expressed her doubts whether the
agent had really visited the appointed place at
all. It was not probable he could himself have
found his way to the bush at night, or that another
should have followed him to it. The marks of footsteps
were, in all likelihood, left by some of the
patrons of the jubilee, collecting shrubs and flowers
to adorn the rostrum—her garden had been thrown
open to them for the purpose, and, she doubted
not, they had already despoiled it. What was
more probable than that some of those persons,
returning from the house to the promontory, should
have nosed the sweet-smelling shrub, as they passed
by, and appropriated its leafy honours, along
with those of other plants discovered on the way?
Parker might yet come, and deliver his communication
in person; or perhaps he found it impossible
to escape the vigilance of his wild comrades, now
rendered doubly watchful by the gathering of so
many people in their neighbourhood. It was plain
that Harriet must now give up the prosecution of
the scrutiny into the hands of more fitting agents.
If there were refugees in the land, a single word
could convert the assembled revellers into soldiers,
who would instantly scour the hills in every
direction, and rid their peaceful solitude of such
dangerous intruders; and if the companies and

officers Miss Falconer had spoken of, had taken
position in the woods, a general rising of the people
must result in the capture of perhaps the whole
gang. It was plain, at least, that the wisest plan
to be followed was, to remain in tranquillity, until
her military friends arrived; when it would remain
for them to determine what further steps
were to be taken.

The frustration of her sanguine hopes threw a
shadow over Miss Falconer's spirits, and plunged
her besides into a fit of peevishness, which she,
before long, indulged to an extent that both surprised
and pained her friend. Thus, her father
making his appearance the moment they returned
to the house, and, so soon as he had expressed his
joy at seeing her, declaring she should see `his
excellent young dog, Hunter, the painter, the
greatest genius and most capital fine scoundrel in
the whole world,' she let fall certain expressions
of scorn that might have stirred the Captain's
choler, had his mind not been wholly occupied
with `the grand picture,' which it was now in his
power to exhibit. The painter had laboured with
much zeal, and, three or four days before, had
brought his sketch to the mansion, to receive the
father's and daughter's criticism on what had been
done, as well as to introduce the Captain's figure;
and he was easily prevailed upon to accept his
patron's invitation, and continue his labours, until
the sketch should be completed, on the spot.

Notwithstanding her dissatisfaction of mind,
Miss Falconer could not deny, that, so far as he
had gone, the artist had exhibited no little skill in
the design and execution of his piece. It represented
the young hero lying across the knees of
his father, while Catherine knelt at his side, her
hands clasped between those of her dying brother.
A bead horse, a young oak-tree, shivered by a

cannon-ball, a broken gun-carriage, and two or
three other characteristic objects, made up, with
this group, the fore-ground of the picture; while
the back-ground, to which little had been yet done,
was sketched over with hills and trees, and a confused
medley of contention—broken columns of
men, flying horses, and wreaths of smoke. With
the three portraits Miss Falconer was very much
struck; she had the vehement testimony of Captain
Loring, and the melancholy assent of his
daughter, in regard to the likeness of the expiring
youth; and she could see with her own eyes, how
well the painter had succeeded with both the others;
though, as Captain Loring averred, `he did not
like so much red on his nose;' “and as for the tears
that the young fellow has put into my eyes,” he
exclaimed, blubbering as he spoke, “why that's
all nonsense, for I never shed a tear in my life—
adzooks, I didn't!”

As there was a violation of the unity of place
in the introduction of Catherine upon the battleground,
so also there was an evident anachronism,
which the painter had been guilty of, in depicting
her, not as a little girl, as she was at the period
of her brother's death, but a woman, such as she
now appeared. The fault, such as it was, was
easily pardoned, since it perhaps allowed a wider
scope for expression; and on this visage, it was
obvious, the artist had exhausted his skill. Independent
of its beauty, it had such an air of deep
grief as almost conveyed the history of the after
life and feelings of the subject—secret sorrow, and
a sense of lone, unfriended destitution, never to be
banished a moment from her bosom.

While the three were engaged surveying the
sketch, the painter himself entered the apartment.
Piercing, almost fierce and menacing, was the look
with which Miss Falconer regarded him; and her

recognition of his salutation was haughty in the
extreme. She observed, too, with high displeasure,
with what frank and almost eager haste
Catherine extended him her hand, and how her
voice trembled in the uttered welcome, as if it
were bestowed upon one endeared by long years
of friendship; and she turned upon Catherine a
look that almost frightened her from her propriety,
when the latter, leading Hunter up, to present
him with a more ceremonious form than her father
had thought fit to use, said, as if to bespeak her
good will at once,

“This, Miss Falconer, is my good and valued
friend and confidant,” (she strove to pronounce the
word archly,) “Mr. Hunter.”

“It is very well,” said Harriet, turning coldly
away, and fixing her eye upon the picture. “I am
admiring his work, and striving to understand it.”

“I do not pretend to be very perspicuous,” said
the painter, disregarding the mortifying reception
and the perhaps equally ungrateful sarcasm.
“Mystery is said to be an ingredient in the sublime;
and as that is my aim, of course, (it belongs
to the aspirations of all youthful candidates for
immortality,) I always contrive to be as full of
mystery as possible.”

To this speech, which was uttered with an air
of pleasantry, Miss Falconer only replied by a second
penetrating stare; and then fixed her eye
again upon the sketch. The painter, determined
not to find offence where it was palpably meant,
resumed his discourse, saying,

“I am afraid that my foolish music, last night,
may have disturbed Miss Falconer. I forgot she
had a right to be fatigued after her journey, until
the plash of a rain-drop in my eye, as I lifted it
romantically to heaven, brought me to my senses,

and, ludicrously enough, in the very middle of one
of Mr. Jingleum's best pieces.”

“You knew, then, that I—Oh, certainly! the
carriage rattled by Elsie's door. I am sensible of
the compliment, sir, and return you my thanks.”

These expressions Miss Falconer uttered with
much vivacity, and began the question which she
ceased so abruptly, in a voice of eagerness. Indeed,
she felt that she had been almost thrown off
her guard; and she therefore, without any purpose,
except to divert the attention of those present
to another subject, and certainly with no definite
object in view, said, laying her finger at the same
time on the sketch,

“I do not well understand this tree, sir. What
kind do you call it?”

“Oh,” said Hunter, with a smile, “that is a
plam.”

“A palm!” cried Miss Falconer, eyeing him
with surprise; “and pray, sir, how came a palm
on the hills of the Brandywine?”

The question threw the painter into confusion,
which was increased by the keen and searching
glauces of the critic, over whom this third violation
of propriety seemed to produce as strong an
effect as the detection of it did on the unlucky
artist.

“A palm! good heavens,” he stammered, with
a laugh; “and I did not myself discover the incongruity
before? Ah, Miss Falconer, you are the
very princess of censors; and I am glad you saw
the fault, before it might have been too late to remedy
it. But `use doth breed a habit in man,'
as the great poet says; and painters are only flesh
and blood, after all. This comes of taking my first
lessons in painting, among the lagoons of Carolina.
I must look close: I warrant me, I have stuck a
live-oak into the picture also.”

“Really, sir,” said Miss Falconer, whom the
opportunity of playing the critic seemed to have
put into a better humour, “I must beg pardon for
my ignorance. I thought that in Carolina we had
no palms, except cabbage-trees; and this has a
marvellous soaring, long-leaved, cocoa-nut appearance,
judging from the prints I have seen of that
tree, for of the tree itself I am quite ignorant.”

“You are right, madam,” said the painter;
“the cocoa-nut is, in every way, a much finer
palm than the cabbage-tree; and for that reason,
I have always been accustomed to take a painter's
license with the latter, to make it as graceful and
stately as possible. Painting, you know, is a sort
of palpable poetry; and one must not be tied down
too closely to nature.”

“The cocoa-nut has an immensely long leaf,
has it not?” demanded Miss Falconer.

“Full fifteen feet,” said the painter, warming
into enthusiasm; “and each one so much shaped
like a great waving feather, that you might deem
it a plume plucked from the wing of Lucifer, or
some other colossus of demons. One can never
forget its majestic appearance, who has once looked
upon the tree.”

“You have been, then, in the Islands?”

“Certainly, madam, yes;—that is to say, in my
early youth, when the tree made a great impression
on my mind. You may judge, therefore, how
natural it is that I should amend our inferior palms
by adding somewhat of the beauty of those that
belong to the tropics.”

“Oh, very natural,” said Harriet; “but it is
quite droll you should put one upon the Brandywine.”

And with this indifferent remark she closed a
conversation that seemed, even to the unsuspicious
Catherine, to be somewhat embarrassing to the

painter, though she was glad to find how quickly
it dispelled her friend's peevish humour.

They were soon summoned to the breakfast
table, to partake a hasty repast, previous to visiting
the scene of celebration, towards which several
merry-makers were seen directing their way, even
at this early hour. Miss Falconer appeared surprised
that the young man did not instantly take
his leave; but she soon discovered he was there
for the purpose of attending her kinswoman to the
promontory, that duty having been expressly delegated
to him by the Captain, who had accepted
the honourable and highly responsible command
of the six-pounder, and the three or four vagabonds
who were to serve it, and had therefore duties
of his own to look after. He soon deserted
the table, saying he left his young painter `to look
after her and his Kate; his rogues were coming
after the powder, and he knew they would shoot
off some of their legs or arms, adzooks, unless he
accompanied them back to the hill.'

In the meanwhile, Miss Falconer, discharging
her hauteur and petulance altogether, talked freely
with the Captain's guest, and appeared much interested
in his conversation, and many obvious good
qualities. But it was observable, that as her ease
and frankness increased, those of Hunter proportionately
fell, until he became visibly reserved, and
almost silent. This mood, however, did not last
long; and by the time the little party was on its
way to the scene of festivity, he was as gay and
spirited as ever.