University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

The breakfast was soon despatched,
and our travellers, after receiving many
wise cautions from Mrs. Lenox, and
earnest injunctions from James, mounted
into an old-fashioned chaise, and commenced
their journey.

We hope our romantic readers will not
regret that our heroine could not be accommodated
with a more poetical or
dignified vehicle. They ought rather to
rejoice that she did not fall upon these
evil times, when, beyond a doubt, she
would have been compelled to perform
the journey in a one-horse waggon—a

`kill-devil'—or, to give it its original and
appropriate designation—a dear-born;
so called from the illustrious author of
the invention; a vehicle that commends
itself so strongly to the social temper of
the Yankees, that it has in the interior of
New-England nearly superseded the use
of every other carriage drawn by one
horse.

Our travellers had proceeded a few
miles, when Deborah thought she might
give Ellen the pacquet with which she
had been entrusted, without violating the
letter of Mr. Redwood's direction. Her
surprise surpassed Ellen's when she beheld
its contents. She begged her to
read the letter aloud.—Ellen read it with
a trembling voice. “The Lord bless his
dear heart!” exclaimed Deborah.

“Oh Ellen, I wish he had you for his
child, instead of that —; never mind,
I'll overlook her for the sake of her
father—count the money, girl, count it,
—you can't,” she added, looking at Ellen,

whose eyes were overflowing, “give
it to me: my sight is rather dull too,”
and she dashed off the tears that clouded
her vision, “five hundred is it! you are
rich, you are an heiress, Ellen.”

“I am, indeed,” replied Ellen, “rich
in kind friends, but this money, Miss
Deborah, must be returned.”

“Returned!” echoed Debby; “why,
you would not be such a born fool, girl?
a thirsty man might as well pour back a
draught he had taken from a fountain.
No, no, Ellen, when the rich give, let
the poor receive and be thankful; that is
always encouragement to them to go on.
Returned, indeed! it would be a slighting
o' Providence to return it, Ellen—
quite out of all reason and nature. Just
like one of Mrs. Harrison's superstitious
high-flown notions.”

It was impossible for Ellen to communicate
all the motives that led her to
decline a pecuniary favour from Miss
Redwood's father; but she suggested

reasons which she thought would appeal
to her companion's characteristic independence.
The veteran maiden opposed
them all—she had advanced into the cold
climate of worldly prudence, but Ellen
was at that age when sentiment controls
interest. In vain Debby continued her
remonstrances. Ellen, heedless of them
all, wrote with a pencil an affecting expression
of her gratitude on the envelope
of the pacquet, and reversing it, she directed
it to Mr. Redwood, intending to
procure at the next village a trusty person
to re-convey it to Eton.

The travellers had just reached a small
brook which intercepted the road: there
was a bridge over it, and a road by the
side of the bridge, by which passengers
descended to the brook for the purpose
of watering their horses. Deborah thought
it was time to perform that kind office for
her steed; she alighted to arrange the
bridle, and desiring Ellen to drive through
the stream, said she would herself walk

up the hill on the other side. The passage
to the brook was shaded and hidden
by thick clumps of willow trees. As
Ellen reined her horse into the narrow
way, she encountered Westall, who had
gone out on horse-back for a morning
ride.

“Miss Bruce, is it possible?” he exclaimed,
with a tone and expression of
delight that changed instantly on noticing
her riding dress, and other indications of
travelling. “Where,” he continued, “are
you going; what can be the reason of
your sudden departure?”

Ellen communicated as briefly as possible
the object of her journey, and the
place of her destination. In the meantime
the poor beast, quite at a loss to
account for the restraint put upon his
movements, and not a whit inclined to
play Tantalus in full view of the pure
tempting rivulet, threw up his head,
pawed the dust, and showed all the signs
of impatience common on such occasions.

Ellen, usually sufficiently accomplished
in the art of driving, now, from some
cause or other, seemed as maladroit as
most women: she pulled the wrong rein,
and was, or Westall thought she was, in
imminent danger of an overturn. He
dismounted from his horse, and springing
into the chaise beside her, took upon
himself the conduct of affairs. He then,
with laudable discretion, permitted the
animal to drink, and drove him to the
opposite bank, before the conversation
was renewed. As he paused there, Ellen
said, with the best voice she could command,
“I thank you for your assistance;
I must proceed now—Deborah waits for
me.”

“For heaven's sake!” he replied, “let
her wait—I cannot, I will not part with
you, till I have laid open my heart to
you.”

“It is unnecessary—I already have
heard from Mr. Redwood what you would
say,” replied Ellen, confused, and shrinking

from the communication, which her
conversation with Mr. Redwood the preceding
evening led her to anticipate.

“From Mr. Redwood?” exclaimed
Westall, “impossible! has he then read
my soul!”

“Not he, but his daughter,” answered
Ellen.

“His daughter!” reiterated Westall,
and was proceeding to entreat Ellen
to explain herself, when they were
both startled by a hoarse and impatient
call from Deborah, who was evidently
drawing near to them with rapid
strides.

“Ellen!” she screamed, “Ellen Bruce,
you'll founder the horse; drive out of the
brook, girl, if he has not drank it dry
already.”

The lovers were too much confounded
to make any reply, and Deborah, apprehending
some fatal disaster to Ellen,
doubled her speed, and darting into the
path that led to the watering place,

quickly arrived in full view of the objects
of her search and alarm. There is, to
the best natured, something irresistibly
provoking in the apparent tranquillity of
those who have produced within them
all the tumult of anxiety. Deborah, at
a single glance, ascertained the safety of
Ellen, and of the horse, and approaching
the latter, she patted him, saying, “I
think you have the most sense of the
three; if you had not been dumb, poor
beast, you would not have let me run the
breath out of my body without answering
me a word.”

Charles Westall, though his mind was
on other thoughts intent, could not but
smile at the indirect reproach of Debby,
which their truly lover-like forgetfulness
of her and of every thing else so justly
merited. “Forgive me, Miss Deborah,”
he said, springing from the chaise,
“your horse was restive, and I assumed
your seat to aid Miss Bruce, who was
quite unequal to managing him.”

“You are a great manager, truly,”
replied Deborah, half smiling and half
vexed: “the beast seems as quiet now
as you could wish him. Is it your will
and pleasure, Miss Ellen, to proceed?”

“Certainly,” replied Ellen.

“Well, come, Mr. Westall,” continued
Deborah, whose heat of body and mind
had already subsided, “we won't part in
anger—young folks must be young folks.
Farewell, and a long and a happy life to
you.”

“Stay one moment, Miss Deborah, I
have a favour to beg—I have something
to say to Miss Bruce. Miss Bruce,” he
added, turning to Ellen, “I entreat you
to grant me a few moments—it may be
the last favour I shall ever ask of you—
Miss Deborah will drive slowly up the
hill—the path is shaded from the morning
sun—you will not find the walk unpleasant”—

“You forget, young man,” interposed
Debby, “which way the sun shines this

morning; when I came down the road,
it was hot enough to boil all the blood
in my veins”—

“Ellen,” continued Westall, unheeding
in his eagerness Deborah's cross-cut,
“do not, do not deny me this favour.”

“Why, Ellen,” said Debby, “what
ails you girl why should you deny it?”

This was too direct a question to be
answered in any way but by compliance.
Some gleams of light had flashed athwart
Ellen's mind, that rendered her less reluctant
than she had been at the onset,
to listen to a communication from Westall.
She suffered him to hand her out
of the chaise; and Deborah, assuming
the reins, and setting off the horse `en
connoisseur,' said, she had the advantage
now, for if they forgot her, she could ride
instead of walking back.

The moments were too few and precious
to be wasted in circumlocution.
Westall, after saying he was sure there
was some misunderstanding — Caroline

Redwood was the last person in the world
to whom he should confide any sentiment
that interested him, proceeded to make
a frank declaration of the unqualified
affection which Ellen had inspired. When
he paused Ellen made no reply; and he
proceeded, while he urged his suit, to
say, with the consistency usual on such
occasions, that he knew he had no right
to expect a return, that her abrupt departure
alone could, and that must, justify
his obtruding on her his feelings and
his hopes, after so brief an acquaintance.

Ellen was all simplicity and truth, and
in other circumstances she would not,
she could not have withheld from Westall
the confession that would have been to
him—heaven to hear. She had not a
particle of coquetry, and she would not
have delayed the confession for a moment
for the pleasure of feeling her
power. Various feelings struggled for
mastery in her bosom; first, and perhaps
ruling every other, was the delightful

consciousness of possessing Westall's
affections; then came the thought of the
mystery that hung over her parentage—
it had never before inflicted such an exquisite
pang as at this moment; and last
and most painful, was the remembrance
of Mrs. Westall's unkind suspicions, and
of the malicious interpretation Caroline
Redwood had given to her actions.
While she hesitated in what terms to reply,
Westall said, “there is then, Ellen,
no feeling in your heart that pleads for
my rashness?”

“It is indeed rashness, after so brief
an acquaintance, to commit your happiness”—

“Oh, Ellen,” interrupted Westall, “I
meant rather presumption that rashness.”

“Whatever it is, let us both forget
it,” replied Ellen, in a tone of affected
calmness that would have indicated
repressed emotion to a cooler observer
than Westall; “it is time that we should

part, and we must part as we met—
strangers.”

“Have you not, then, Ellen, a spark
of kindness for me, which years of the
most devoted affection and service might
kindle? Is there not the slightest foundation
on which I might rest a hope for
the future?”

Ellen, in a broken voice, alluded to the
possibility that her name was a dishonoured
one; “a possibility,” she said,
“which ought to set an impassable barrier
to her affections.”

Westall protested and entreated. “If,”
he said, “the worst she could apprehend
should prove true, it should be the business,
the happiness of his life to make
her forget it.”

Ellen felt that her scruples were yielding
to the impetuous feeling of her lover.
Who can resist the pleadings of tenderness
when they coincide with the secret,
the strongest, though the resisted inclinations
of the heart? She was silent for

some time, and when she did speak, her
voice was faltering, and her opposition
such as a lover might hope to overcome.
Westall's hopes were re-animated, and he
pressed his suit more eagerly than ever.
“At least,” he said, “Ellen, delay this
journey one day; do not now make an
irrevocable decision; return to Eton;
let my mother join her entreaties to
mine.”

The thought of Westall's mother re-invigorated
Ellen's dying resolution.
“Urge me no farther, Mr. Westall,”
said she, “I have not been so happy as
to obtain your mother's esteem, and were
every other obstacle removed, I never
would obtrude myself on her undesired;
no—nor unsolicited.”

“My mother, Ellen?”—But the assurance
of his mother's favour, which he
was about instinctively to pronounce,
was checked by the consciousness of the
real state of the case.—“My mother,

Ellen,” he continued, in a subdued tone,
“has been dazzled by gilded dreams long
indulged—but she is kind, affectionate—
and will, I am certain, be easily reconciled
to any step on which she knows my
happiness depends.”

“It would not,” replied Ellen, “be
very consolatory to me if she should become
reconciled to an inevitable evil.
I have already listened too long,” she
added, and casting her eye towards
Deborah, who had halted under the
broad shadow of an elm tree on the summit
of the hill, she hurried forward.

“Can you,” said Westall, “when you
see how you afflict me, thus hasten from
me without a regret?”

Ellen could not trust her voice to
answer; but when she had reached the
chaise, she turned and gave him her
hand: her eloquent face (not governed
by the law she had imposed on her
tongue) expressed any thing but insensibility.

“God reward you,” she said,
“for your generous purpose—we must
now part.”

“And to meet again,” replied Westall,
while he fervently kissed the hand she
had extended to him, “as surely as
there is truth in heaven.”

Ellen sunk back into her seat, and hid
her face with her handkerchief, while
honest Debby, heartily sympathising in
the evident affliction of the lovers, said
in a whining voice, that contrasted ludicrously
enough with her customary
harsh tone, “Good bye to you, Mr.
Westall—good bye to you, Sir—it is
hard parting; but keep a good heart—
we shall all three meet again in the
Lord's own time.” After having uttered
this consolatory expression of her trust
in Providence, she gave the whip to her
steed, and set off with a speed that promised
to make up for lost time. After
driving a few yards she stopped again,
and calling to Westall, who was still

standing as if rivetted to the spot on
which they had left him, she threw out
Mr. Redwood's packet, saying, “These,
with all care and speed, to Squire Redwood;”
then kindly nodding, she drove
on.

Deborah exercised on this occasion
that discretion resulting from good sense
and good feeling, which in all its modifications
still preserves the convenient designation
of tact: she left Ellen to the
operation of her feelings, without molesting
her with a remark or inquiry. Ellen
resigned herself for a little while to emotions
the more violent for having been
repressed. The same fountain had to
her sent forth sweet and bitter waters.
If the uncertainty of her fate, and the
anguish of parting with Westall were
evils nearly intolerable, there was a
heart-cheering consciousness of the treasure
she had acquired in his affections—
there was the sweetest consolation in the
thought that there was one who felt with

her and for her; and the recollection of
Westall's last words was like the bright
gleam along the western horizon, that,
smiling in triumph at the dark overhanging
clouds, speaks a sure promise of a
fair coming day.

As for Westall, after the few first
moments of absolute despair, he began
to think the case not quite desperate;
and though Ellen had not spoken a word
of encouragement on which he might
suspend a hope, neither had she said or
intimated that there existed in her feelings
any obstacle to his wishes; there
were certain tones and expressions which
are the universal language of tenderness,
that he had noticed, and which he now
laid up in his memory and cherished
there, as the faithful fix their eyes on
the twilight of prophecy.

In the course of the morning, Charles
Westall joined the circle at Mr. Lenox's,
whither his mother had already gone.
He perceived that the tone of the ladies'

spirits was raised, (as was indeed too
plain) by Ellen's departure.

Westall delivered to Mr. Redwood the
packet with which he had been entrusted.
Mr. Redwood received it with evident
surprise, and said, “You have then seen
Miss Bruce this morning?” All eyes
were now fixed on Westall, who, colouring
deeply, replied, “that he had met
her accidentally during his morning
ride.”

“Miss Bruce is quite a character,”
said Caroline; “every thing connected
with her is involved in an interesting
veil of mystery;—par example—your
son, Mrs. Westall, cannot speak of meeting
her even accidentally, without the
most portentous blushes; and there is,
my dear father—the very soul of frankness—thrusting
into his pocket a bundle
of private communications received from
this same fair one. Upon my word it is
a pity she had not flourished at a court,
—she would have made a pretty intri

guante, instead of resembling the man
your favourite Moliere describes, papa,
when he says,

Mr. Redwood darted an angry look
on his daughter, and changing his purpose,
he tore off the envelope, and threw
the bank-notes on the table, saying, at
the same time, “behold the solution of
the mystery that provokes your wit, Caroline.
I offered Ellen Bruce a little of
that which gives us all our boasted superiority
to her, and she declined receiving
it”—

“With the advice and consent of
counsel, no doubt,” answered Caroline,
glancing her eye at Charles Westall.

“Wrath is cruel, and anger is out-rageous,
but who is able to stand before
envy?”—rose to Westall's lips; he had

the grace, however, to suppress it, and
to say in a calm tone, “Miss Bruce is
her own best counsellor.”

“Doubtless,” replied Caroline, “Miss
Bruce is wondrous wise; but she is not
the first divinity who has admitted mortals
to her deliberations.—What say you,
Mrs. Westall? Does not your son look
guilty of aiding and abetting this most
dignified refusal of my father's extraordinary
patronage?”

“If I look guilty of aught,” said
Westall, “but the involuntary fault of
listening to an implication against Miss
Bruce, my face does me great injustice.”

“Really, Caroline, my love,” said
Mrs. Westall, in the hope of averting
observation from her son, and perceiving
the necessity of turning Miss Redwood
from her pursuit, “your raillery is quite
too much for Charles this morning: I
must interpose my maternal shield. What
say you to a truce and a ride?”

“A truce, certainly; for I am too

generous to fight with one hors du combat,
and a ride with all my heart,” answered
Caroline, “provided Mr. Westall
is not fatigued by his accidental morning
escort—excursion, I mean.”

Mr. Westall, with more gravity than
gallantry, and in spite of his mother's
entreating looks, said “that he must resign
the privilege vouchsafed to him, to
fulfil an engagement in the village”—
and on this pretext he left the party to
pursue their design, while he gave the
rein to his own meditations.