University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

The spot which the maidens now reached, after
crossing the rivulet, was wild and gloomy, yet exceedingly
romantic. A little ascent led them up to
a sort of platform, or shelf, of earth, the highest
portion of the table-land, from which the torrent
leaped downwards, making its way, in a series of
foaming rapids, to the parent river. It therefore
overlooked the sweeping hillocks and rustling
forests below, and commanded a prospect of the
river and the southern portion of the valley, both
extensive and beautiful; and, indeed, a more
charming nook could not have been imagined for
one, who, though preferring personally to be surrounded
by solitude, yet loved to send back his
spirit to the world, and survey it from that distance
which lends it the sweetest enchantment. On the
summit of the platform lay two huge masses of
rock, that approached each other in one place so
nigh as scarce to permit a passage between them;
towards the rivulet, however, the intervening space
was wider, and covered with a grassy turf; and a
sort of wall, composed of smaller fragments, ran
from the one crag to the other, yet so rudely, that
it was difficult to say whether the irregular barrier

had been piled up by the hands of nature or man.
Besides a majestic growth of trees behind and
around the rocks, there was one tall beech flourishing
within the enclosure; and from its roots there
gushed a cool fountain, that went dripping and
leaking through green mosses, until it yielded its
meager tribute to the streamlet. Both the crags
were overgrown with lichens and ferns; and under
the larger one, which, in the afternoon, cast
its shadow over the whole nook, there flourished
a luxuriant array of arums, mandrakes, violets,
and other plants that delight in cool and moist
situations. On the face, and at the foot, of the
castern rock, where the sunshine lingered longer,
were dusky columbines, rock-daisies, and other
plants, now in bloom, and, in the summer, their
places would have been supplied by the aster and
the golden-rod; and at the foot of the rock, among
a heap of brambles, that seemed to have almost
choked it, there grew a rose-bush, the only remarkable
thing present, being obviously of an exotic
species. It bore a single flower, visible among
the green leaves and white blossoms of the black-berry,
and it immediately attracted the notice of
the maidens.

“Elsie told me,” whispered Catherine, with a
voice of fear, “that the poor old father planted a
rose-bush on the grave,—it is strange it should
live so long.—She said there was a grave-stone
too—ah! there it is!—Let us go away.”

As Harriet, bolder than her friend, or affecting
to be so, reached forward, to remove the brier
from the more lovely plant, in hopes that the rude
and thorny veil might conceal other flowers, it
yielded to her grasp, and revealed a hollow or
sunken place in the ground, at one extremity of
which was a rude stone, entirely shapeless and
undressed, yet so placed as to mark undeniably

the couch of some human clod of the valley. No
name, letter, or device of any kind,—no inscription
to record the virtues of the dead, no legend
to perpetuate the grief of the living,—appeared on
the rude monument; and, indeed, however expressive
the shape and appearance of the hollow place
to those already aware that a grave had been dug
in this unsanctified nook, it is scarce probable that
a stranger, stumbling upon it by chance, could
have believed that in that coarse and dishonoured
fragment, his foot pressed upon a funeral stone. It
was a singular grave—it was a singular cemetery;
and the maidens regarded the brambled pit
and the solitary flower with awe, the one because
her spirit was especially susceptible of impressions
from melancholy objects, and the other because
the legend of her companion had invested the
place with an interest personal, it might be said,
to herself.

How little reflection is expended upon,—yet how
much is called for, by the grave,—by the lowliest
hillock that is piled over the icy bosom, by the
grassiest hollow that has sunk with the mouldering
bones of a fellow creature! And in this narrow
haven rots the bark that has ploughed the
surges of the great vital ocean! in this little den,
that the thistle can overshadow in a day's growth,
and the molewarp undermine in an hour of labour,
is crushed the spirit that could enthrall a world,
and dare even a contest with destiny! How little
it speaks for the value of the existence, which man
endures so many evils to prolong; how much it
reduces the significance of both the pomp and
wretchedness of being, reducing all its vicissitudes
into the indistinguishable identity which infinite
distance gives to the stars,—a point without parallax,
a speck, an atom! Such is life,—the gasp of a
child that inspires the air of existence but once,—

a single breath breathed from eternity. But the
destiny that comes behind us,—oblivion! It is not
enough that we moralize upon the equality of the
sepulchre; that the rich man, whose soul is in the
ostentation of a marble palace, and his heart in the
splendour of the feast, should consider how small
a pit must content him, or that the proud, who
boast their `pre-eminence above the beasts,' should
know that the shaggy carcass and the lawn-shrouded
corse must fatten the earth together.
We should teach our vanity the lesson of humiliation
that is afforded by the grave; neglecting the
mighty mausoleums of those marvellous spirits
which fame has rendered immortal, we should
turn to the nameless tombs of the million, and in
their deserted obscurity, discover the feeble hold
which we ourselves must have upon earth and the
memory of men. Friendship forgets what the
devouring earth has claimed; and even enmity
ceases at last to remember the resting place of a
foe. Love ourselves as we may, devote our affections
to others as we can, yet must our memory
perish with us in the grave; and all the immortality
we leave to be cherished among friends, is
expressed in the distich of a poet, whom the anticipation
of enduring renown could not blind to
the transitoriness of real remembrance:

But there were other thoughts necessarily associated,
and other feelings excited by this lonely
sepulchre; and while Miss Falconer preserved a
moody and painful silence upon its brink, Catherine
bent over it, scarce conscious that she bedewed

the rose-bush with a tear, or that her own shadow
had descended, as it were, into the pit, with an
ominous readiness.

It was a delightful evening; the air was full of
balmy freshness, the landscape resplendently verdant,
and the sky cloudless, save in the west,
where the sun was sinking among curtains of gold
and pillars of flame; and the solitude and quiet of
the whole scene, broken by no sounds, except the
ceaseless turmoil of the water-fall, and the plaintive
scream of the fishing-eagles, which had deserted
their gray perch, to bathe in the pure floods of
sunset, that beautified the upper air,—the solitude,
quiet, and beauty of every thing around and nigh,
were additional arguments for silence.

But silence, long continued, was not consonant
to the restless and impatient temper of Miss Falconer;
and notwithstanding the indignant incredulity
with which she had interrupted her friend's
narrative, the same curiosity which compelled the
commencement of it, still thirsted for the conclusion.
The presence of the dead, however, in so
wild, so forlorn, so unblest a spot, where, as it
would seem, the shame of proud but humbled
hearts had dug the neglected grave, worked powerfully
on her feelings; and it was with a hesitating
and quivering, though an abrupt voice, that she
demanded, after gazing for a long time on the
grave,

“Did others,—did any beside this bitter-tongued
woman, accuse my father of this thing?”

“I know not,” replied Catherine, with accents
still more unsteady; “all that I have gathered
was from Elsie; and when she speaks of these
things, as I mentioned before, she becomes fearfully
agitated, so that I have sometimes thought
her wits quite unsettled. She never pretended to
tell me the whole story; nor indeed would I have

been disposed to ask or listen, knowing it would be
improper to do so. All these things have come in
broken hints and exclamations. What others in
the neighbourhood may say or think, I know not,
never encouraging any to speak to me on the subject.
The step-mother soon followed the daughter,—
Elsie says, heart-broken; you may see her
tomb in the village church-yard. The old father,
too, became another man, gloomy, solitary, and
indifferent to his friends, so that the neighbours
ceased to visit him. His sons no longer hunted
with the young men of the country, but went, as
in their war-expeditions, alone; and when others
thrust themselves into their company, they quarrelled
with them, so that they began to be universally
feared and detested. To crown all, as soon
as the Revolution burst out, they went over to the
enemy; and being distributed among the wild and
murderous bands of savages forming on the northwestern
frontiers, they soon obtained a dreadful
notoriety for their deeds of daring and cruelty.
Of course, this remarkable defection of the sons
caused the unlucky father to be suspected and
watched. He was accused, at last, of aiding and
abetting them in their treasonable practices; and
soon, either from timidity or a consciousness of
guilt, he fled, seeking refuge within the royal lines.
This was sufficient for his ruin; for after the usual
legal preliminaries, he was formally outlawed, as
his sons had been before, and his property confiscated.
He died soon afterward, either at New
York, or in Jamaica, where he had gone to seek
his youngest son—the lad he had sent away as a
substitute for the daughter.”

“And this son?” demanded Miss Falconer; “did
you not say that he was dead?”

“Of him,” said Catherine, “Elsie knows nothing;
but if we can receive a belief that prevails

in the village on the subject, it would seem as if
the vials of wrath had been poured to the uttermost
on the poor devoted family. They say, that
the young man, just raised to wealth and distinction
by the death of his munificent kinswoman,
was one of the many victims to that dreadful tornado
which ravaged the island of Jamaica two
years ago. But I never heard how this intelligence
was obtained.”

“And the other sons? the rest of this brood of
traitors!” demanded Miss Falconer, who strove to
merge the unpleasant feelings that had possession
of her bosom, in patriotic detestation of the unfortunate
family.

“They met the fate they must have anticipated,”
said the Captain's daughter. “They perished, one
by one, in different bloody conflicts; one fell at
Wyoming, another at Tioga Point, where the combined
forces of savages and refugees were routed
by General Sullivan; Oran himself, with a fourth
brother, was killed at the battle of Johnstown,
near the Mohawk river, where another refugee
leader, Walter Butler, not less blood-thirsty and
famous, met a similar fate. Their death was terrible;
they cried for quarter, being wounded and
helpless; but the victors bade them `Remember
Wyoming, and Cherry-Valley,' two prominent objects
of their cruelty, and killed them without
mercy. Another, I have heard, was somewhere
hanged as a spy; and these, with Hyland, killed
as I mentioned before, and the youngest, deceased,
if indeed he be deceased, in Jamaica, made up the
whole seven sons, all of whom therefore died violent
deaths. The eighth child,—the poor daughter,—
undoubtedly sleeps under this rock; and
there are none left to mourn her. The destruction
of the family was dreadful and complete.”