University of Virginia Library

2. PART SECOND.
—
LOVE

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35

DIALOGUE I.

Scene. A little glen in the woods near Fort Edward.
A young British Officer appears, attended by a soldier
in the American uniform; the latter with a small
sealed pacquet in his hand.

Off.

Hist!

Sol.

Well, so I did; but—

Off.

Hist, I say!

Sol.

A squirrel it is, Sir; there he sits.

Off.

By keeping this path you avoid the picket on
the hill. It will bring you out where these woods skirt
the vale, and scarcely a hundred rods from the house
itself.

[Calling without.]

Sol.

Captain Andre—Sir.

Off.

It were well that the pacquet should fall into no
other hands. With a little caution there is no danger.
It will be twilight ere you get out of these woods—

Sol.

I beg your pardon, Sir; but here is that young
Indian guide of mine, after all, above there, beckoning me.

Off.

Stay—you will come back to the camp ere midnight?

Sol.

Unless some of these quick-eyed rebels see through
my disguise.

Off.

Do not forget the lodge as you return. A little
hut of logs just in the edge of the woods, but Siganaw
knows it well.

[Exit the Soldier.

(The call in the thicket above is repeated, and another
young officer enters the glen.)

2nd Off.

Hillo, Maitland! These woods yield fairies,
—come this way.

1st Off.

For God's sake, Andre! (motioning silence.)

Are you mad?

Andre.

Well, who are they?

Mait.

Who? Have you forgotten that we are on the
enemy's ground? Soldiers from the fort, no doubt.
They have crossed that opening twice since we stood
here.

Andre.

Well, let them cross twice more. I would run
the risk of a year's captivity, at least, for one such glimpse.
Nay, come, she will be gone.

Mait.

Stay,—not yet. There, again!

Andre.

Such a villainous scratching as I got in that
pass just now. It must have cost the rogues an infinite
deal of pains though. A regular, handsome sword-cut
is nothing to a dozen of these same ragged scratches,
that a man can't swear about. After all, Captain Maitland,
these cunning Yankees understand the game.
They will keep out of our way, slyly enough, until we
are starved, and scratched, and fretted down to their proportions,
meanwhile they league the very trees against us.

Mait.

As to that, we have made some leagues ourselves,
I think, quite as hard to be defended, Sir.

Andre.

It may be so. Should we not be at the river
by this?

Mait.

Sunset was the time appointed. We are as
safe here, till then.

Andre.

'Tis a little temple of beauty you have lighted
on, in truth. These pretty singers overhead, seem to
have no guess at our hostile errand. Methinks their
peaceful warble makes too soft a welcome for such warlike
comers. Hark! [Whistling.]
That's American.
One might win bloodless laurels here. Will you stand
a moment just as you are, Maitland;—'tis the very thing.
There's a little space in my unfinished picture, and with

that a la Kemble mien, you were a fitting mate for this
young Dian here, (taking a pencil sketch from his portfolio,)
—the
beauty-breathing, ay, beauty-breathing, it's no
poetry;—for the lonesome little glen smiled to its darkest
nook with her presence.

Mait.

What are you talking of, Andre? Fairies and
goddesses!—What next?

Andre.

I am glad you grow a little curious at last.
Why I say, and your own eyes may make it good if you
will, that just down in this glen below here, not a hundred
rods hence, there sits, or stands, or did some fifteen
minutes since, some creature of these woods, I suppose
it is; what else could it be? Well, well, I'll call no
names, since they offend you, Sir; but this I'll say, a young
cheek and smiling lip it had, whate'er it was, and
round and snowy arm, and dimpled hand, that lay
ungloved on her sylvan robe, and eyes—I tell you plainly,
they lighted all the glen.

Mait.

Ha? A lady?—there? Are you in earnest?

Andre.

A lady, well you would call her so perchance.
Such ladies used to spring from the fairy nut-shells, in the
old time, when the kings' son lacked a bride; and if this
were Windsor forest that stretches about us here, I might
fancy, perchance, some royal one had wandered out, to
cool the day's glow in her cheek, and nurse her love-dream;
but here, in this untrodden wilderness, unless
your ladies here spring up like flowers, or drop down on

invisible pinions from above, how, in the name of reason,
came she here?

Mait.

On the invisible pinions of thine own lady-loving
fancy; none otherwise, trust me.

Andre.

Come, come,—see for yourself. On my word
I was a little startled though, as my eye first lighted on
her, suddenly, in that lonesome spot. There she sat, so
bright and still, like some creature of the leaves and
waters, such as the old Greeks fabled, that my first
thought was to worship her; my next—of you, but I
could not leave the spot until I had sketched this; I
stood unseen, within a yard of her; for I could see her
soft breath stirring the while. See, the scene itself was
a picture,—the dark glen, the lonesome little lodge, on the
very margin of the fairy lake—here she sat, motionless
as marble; this bunch of roses had dropped from her
listless hand, and you would have thought some tragedy
of ancient sorrow, were passing before her, in the invisible
element, with such a fixed and lofty sadness she
gazed into it. But of course, of course, it is nothing to
your eye; for me, it will serve to bring the whole out at
my leisure. Indeed, the air, I think, I have caught a little
as it is.

Mait.

A little—you may say it. She is there, is she?
—sorrowful; well, what is't to me?

Andre.

What do you say?—There?—Yes, I left her
there at least. Come, come. I'll show you one will

teach you to unlearn this fixed contempt of gentle woman.
Come.

Mait.

Let go, if you please, Sir. She who gave me
my first lesson in that art, is scarcely the one to bid me
now unlearn it, and I want no new teaching as yet,
thank Heaven. Will you come? We have loitered
here long enough, I think.

Andre.

What, under the blue scope—what the devil
ails you, Maitland?

Mait.

Nothing, nothing. This much I'll say to you,
—that lady is my wife.

Andre.

Nonsense!

Mait.

There lacked—three days, I think it was, three
whole days, to the time when the law would have given
her that name; but for all that, was she mine, and is;
Heaven and earth cannot undo it.

Andre.

Are you in earnest? Why, are we not here
in the very heart of a most savage wilderness, where
never foot of man trod before,—unless you call these
wild red creatures men?

Mait.

You talk wildly; that path, followed a few
rods further, would have brought you out within sight of
her mother's door.

Andre.

Ha! you have been in this wilderness then,
ere now?

Mait.

Have you forgotten the fortune I wasted once

on a summer's seat, some few miles up, on the lake above?
These Yankees did me the grace to burn it, just as the
war broke out.

Andre.

Ay, ay, that was here. I had forgotten the
whereabouts. Those blackened ruins we passed last
evening, perchance;—and the lady—my wood-nymph,
what of her?

Mait.

Captain Andre, I beg your pardon, Sir. That
sketch of yours reminded me, by chance perhaps, of one
with whom some painful passages of my life are linked;
and I said, in my haste, what were better left unsaid.
Do me the favor not to remind me that I have done so.

Andre.

So—so! And I am to know nothing more of
this smiling apparition; nay, not so much as to speak
her name? Consider, Maitland, I am your friend it is
true; but, prithee, consider the human in me. Give her
a local habitation, or at least a name.

Mait.

I have told you already that the lady you speak
of resides not far hence. On the border of these woods
you may see her home. I may point it out to you securely,
some few days hence;—to-night, unless you
would find yourself in the midst of the American army,
this must content you.

Andre.

A wild risk for a creature like that! Have
these Americans no safer place to bestow their daughters
than the fastnesses of this wilderness?

Mait.

It would seem so. Yet it is her home. Wild
as it looks here, from the top of that hill, where our men
came out on the picket just now so suddenly, you will
see as fair a picture of cultured life as e'er your eyes
looked on. No English horizon frames a lovelier one.

Andre.

Here? No!

Mait.

Between that hill and the fort, there stretches a
wide and beautiful plain, covered with orchards and meadows
to the wood's edge; and here and there a gentle
swell, crowned with trees, some patch of the old wilderness.
The infant Hudson winds through it, circling in
its deepest bend one little fairy isle, with woods enough
for a single bower, and a beauty that fills and characterizes,
to its remotest line, the varied landscape it centres;
and far away in the east, this same azure mountain-chain
we have traced so long, with its changeful light and
shade, finishes the scene.

Andre.

You should have been a painter, Maitland.

Mait.

The first time I beheld it—one summer evening
it was, from the woods on the hill's brow;—we were a
hunting party, I had lost my way, and ere I knew it
there I stood;—its waters lay glittering in the sunset
light, and the window-panes of its quiet dwellings were
flashing like gold,—the old brown houses looked out
through the trees like so many lighted palaces; and even
the little hut of logs, nestling on the wood's edge, borrowed
beauty from the hour. I was miles from home;

but the setting sun could not warn me away from such
a paradise, for so it seemed, set in that howling wilderness,
and—

Andre.

Prithee, go on. I listen.

Mait.

I know not how it was, but as I wandered slowly
down the shady road, for the first time in years of
worldliness, the dream that had haunted my boyhood revived
again. Do you know what I mean, Andre?—that
dim yearning for lovelier beings and fairer places, whose
ideals lie in the heaven-fitted mind, but not in the wilderness
it wakes in; that mystery of our nature, that
overlooked as it is, and trampled with unmeaning things
so soon, hides, after all, the whole secret of this life's dark
enigma.

Andre.

But see,—our time is well-nigh gone,—this is
philosophy—I would have heard a love tale.

Mait.

It was then, that near me, suddenly I heard the
voice that made this dull, real world, thenceforth a richer
place for me than the gorgeous dream-land of childhood
was of old.

Andre.

Ay, ay—go on.

Mait.

Andre, did you ever meet an eye, in which the
intelligence of our nature idealized, as it were, the very
poetry of human thought seemed to look forth?

Andre.

One such.

Mait.

—That reflected your whole being; nay, revealed

from its mysterious depths, new consciousness, that
yet seemed like a faint memory, the traces of some old
and pleasant dream?

Andre.

Methinks the heavenly revelation itself doth that.

Mait.

Such an eye I saw then shining on me. A
clump of stately pines grew on the sloping road-side, and,
looking into its dark embrasure, I beheld a group of merry
children around a spring that gurgled out of the hill-side
there, and among them, there sat a young girl clad
in white, her hat on the bank beside her, tying a wreath
of wild flowers. That was all—that was all, Andre.

Andre.

Well, she was beautiful, I suppose? Nay, if it
was the damsel I met just now I need not ask.

Mait.

Beautiful? Ay, they called her so. Beauty
I had seen before; but from that hour the sun shone with
another light, and the very dust and stones of this dull
earth were precious to me. Beautiful? Nay, it was
she. I knew her in an instant, the spirit of my being;
she whose existence made the lovely whole, of which
mine alone had been the worthless and despised fragment.
There are a thousand women on the earth the
artist might call as lovely,—show me another that I can
worship.

Andre.

Worship! This is Captain Everard Maitland.
If I should shut my eyes now—

Mait.

Well, go on; but I tell you, ne'ertheless, there

have been times, even in this very spot,—we often wandered
here when the day was dying as it is now,—here
in her soft, breathing loveliness, she has stood beside me,
when I have,—worshipped?—nay, feared her, in her
holy beauty, as we two should an angel who should
come through that glade to us now.

Andre.

True it is, something of the Divinity there is
in beauty, that, in its intenser forms, repels with all its
winningness, until the lowliness of love looks through it.
Well—you worshipped her.

Mait.

Nay, you have told the rest. I would have worshipped;
but one day there came a look from those beautiful
eyes, when I met them suddenly, with a gaze that
sought the mystery of their beauty,—a single look, and
in an instant the drooping lash had buried it forever;
but I knew, ere it fell, that the world of her young being
was all mine already. Another life had been forever
added unto mine; a whole creation; yet, like Eden's
fairest, it but made another perfect; a new and purer
self; and in it grew the heaven, and the fairy-land of
my old dreams, lovelier than ever. You have loved
yourself, Andre, else I should weary you.

Andre.

Not a bit the more do I understand you
though. You talk most lover-like; that's very clear, yet I
must say I never saw the part worse played. Why,
here's your ladye-love, this self-same idol of whom you
rave, at this moment perchance, breathing within these

woods,—years too—two mortal years it must be, since
you have seen her face; and yet—you stand here yet,
with folded arms;—a goodly lover, on my word!

Mait.

Softly, Sir! you grace me with a title to which
I can lay no claim. Lover I was, may be. I am no
lover now, not I—not I; you are right; I would not walk
to that knoll's edge to see the lady, Sir.

Andre.

Well, I must wait your leisure, I see.

Mait.

And yet, the last time that we stood together
here, her arm lay on mine, my promised wife. A few
days more, and by my name, all that loveliness had gone.
There needed only that to make that tie holy in all
eyes, the holiest which the universe held for us; but
needed there that, or any thing to make it such in ours.
Why, love lay in her eye, that evening, like religion,
solemn and calm.—We should have smiled then at
the thought of any thing in height or depth, ending, what
through each instant seemed to breathe eternity from
its own essence;—we were one, one,—that trite word
makes no meaning in your ear,—to me, life's roses burst
from it; music, sunshine, Araby, should image what it
means; what it meant rather, for it is over.

Andre.

What was it, Maitland?

Mait.

Oh,—well,—she did not love me; that was all.
So far my story has told the seeming only, but ere long
the trial came, and then I found it was seeming, in good
sooth. The Rebellion had then long been maturing, as

you know; but just then came the crisis. It was the
one theme everywhere. Of course I took my king's
part against these rebels, and at once I was outraged,
wronged beyond all human bearing. Her mad brother,
her's, her's what a world of preciousness, Andre, that little
word once enshrined for me; and still it seems like
some broken vase, fragrant with what it held.

Andre.

Nay, 'tis a little love-poem of my own; go on, Maitland.

Mait.

This brother I say, quarrelled with me, though
I had borne from him unresentingly, what from another
would have seemed insult. We quarrelled at last, and
the house was closed against me, or would have been
had I sought access; for I walked sternly by its pleasant
door that afternoon, though I remember now how the
very roses that o'erhung the porch, the benched and
shaded porch, that lovely lingering place, seemed to
beckon me in. It was a breathless summer day, and the
vine curled in the open window,—even now those lowly
rooms make a brighter image of heaven to me than the
jewelled walls that of old grew in the pageant of our
sabbath dreams.

Andre.

And thus you abandoned your love? A quarrel
with her brother?

Mait.

I never wronged her with the shadow of a
doubt. Directly, that same day, I wrote to her to fix

our meeting elsewhere, that we might renew our broken
plans in some fitter shape for the altered times.
She sent me a few lines of grave refusal, Sir; and the
next letter was returned unopened.

Andre.

'Twas that brother! Pshaw! 'twas that brother,
Maitland. I'll lay my life the lady saw no word
of it.

Mait.

I might have thought so too, perchance; but that
same day,—the morning had brought the news from Boston,—I
met her by chance, by the spring in the little grove
where we first met; and—Good Heavens! she talked of
brothers! Brothers, mother, sisters!—What was their
right to mine? All that the round world holds, or the
universe, what could it be to her?—that is, if she had
loved me ever; which, past all doubt, she never did.

Andre.

Maitland! Heavens, how this passion blinds
you! And you expected a gentle, timid girl like that to
abandon all she loved. Nay, to make her home in the
very camp, where death and ruin unto all she loved, was
the watchword?

Mait.

I beg your pardon, Sir. I looked for no such
thing. I offered to renounce my hopes of honor here for
her; a whole life's plans, for her sake I counted nothing.
I offered her a home in England too, the very real of her
girlhood's wish; my blighted fortunes since, or a home
in yonder camp,—never, never. But if I had, ay, if I

had,—that is not love, call it what you will, it is not love,
to which such barriers were any thing.

Andre.

Oh well, a word's a word. That's as one
likes. Only with your definition, give me leave to say,
marvellous little love, Captain Maitland, marvellous little
you will find in this poor world of ours.

Mait.

I'll grant ye.

Andre.

If there is any thing like it outside of a poet's
skull, ne'er credit me.

Mait.

Strange it should take such shape in the creating
thought and in the yearning heart, when all reality
hath not its archetype.

Andre.

Hist!

Mait.

A careful step,—one of our party I fancy.

Andre.

'Tis time we were at the rendezvous. If we
have to recross the river as we came, on the stumps of
that old bridge, we had best keep a little day-light with
us, I think.

[Exeunt.

DIALOGUE II.

Scene. A chamber in the Parsonage. Helen leaning
from the open window.

Annie enters.

Annie.

Helen Grey, where on earth have you been?
Wood flowers!

Helen.

Come and look at this sunset.

Annie.

Surely you have not, you cannot have been in
those woods, Helen: and yet, where else could this periwinkle
grow, and these wild roses?—Delicious!

Helen.

Hear that flute. It comes from among those
trees by the river side.

Annie.

It is the shower that has freshened every
thing, and made the birds so musical. You should
stand in the door below, as I did just now, to see the fort
and the moistened woods stands out from that black sky,
with all this brightness blazing on them.

Helen.

'Tis lovely—all.

Annie.

There goes the last golden rim over the blackening
woods; already even a shade of tender mourning
steals over all things, the very children's voices under this
tree,—how soft they grow.

Helen.

Will the day come when we shall see him
sink, for the last time, behind those hills?

Annie.

Nay, Helen, why do you mar this lovely hour
with a thought like that?

Helen.

And in another life, shall we see light, when
his, for us, shines no more?—What sound is that?

Annie.

That faint cry from the woods?

Helen.

No,—more distant,—far off as the horizon, like
some mighty murmur, faintly borne, it came.

Annie.

I wish that we had gone to-day. I do not
like this waiting until Thursday;—just one of that elder
brother's foolish whims it was. I cannot think how your
consent was won to it. Did you meet any one in your
walk just now?

Helen.

No—Yes, yes, I did. The little people where
I went, I met by hundreds, Annie. Through the dark
aisles, and the high arches, all decked in blue, and gold,
and crimson, they sung me a most merry welcome.
And such as these—see—You cannot think how like
long-forgotten friends they looked, smiling up from their
dark homes, upon me.

Annie.

You have had chance enough to forget them
indeed,—it is two years, Helen, since you have been in
those woods before. What could have tempted you there
to-day?

Helen.

Was there danger then?—was there danger

indeed?—I was by the wood-side ere I knew it, and
then,—it was but one last look I thought to take—nay,
what is it, Annie? George met me as I was coming
home, and I remember something in his eye startled me
at first; but if there was danger, I should have known of
it before.

Annie.

How could we dream of your going there
this evening, when we knew you had never set your
foot in those woods since the day Everard Maitland left
Fort Edward?

Helen.

Annie!

Annie.

For me, I would as soon have looked to see
Maitland himself coming from those woods, as you.

Helen.

Annie! Annie Grey! You must not, my sister—do
not speak that name to me, never again, never.

Annie.

Why, Helen, I am sorry to have grieved you
thus; but I thought—Look! look! There go those officers
again,—there, in the lane between the orchards.
Scarcely half an hour ago they went by to the fort in
just such haste. There is something going on there, I
am sure.

(Helen rises from the window, and walks the room.

Annie.

In truth there was a rumor this afternoon,—
you are so timid and fanciful, our mother chose you
should not hear it while it was rumor only; but 'tis said
that a party of the enemy have been seen in those woods

to-day, and, among them, the Indians we have counted
so friendly. Do you hear me, Helen?

Helen.

That he should live still! Yes, it is all real
still! That heaven of my thought, that grows so like a
pageant to me, is still real somewhere. Those eyes—
they are darkly shining now; this very moment that
passes me, drinks their beauty;—that voice,—that tone,—
that very tone—on some careless ear, even now it wastes
its luxury of blessing. Continents of hail and darkness,
the polar seas—all earth's distance, could never have
parted me from him; but now I live in the same world
with him, and the everlasting walls blacken between
us. Those looks may shine on the dull earth and senseless
stones, but not on me; on uncaring eyes, but not on
mine; though for one moment of their lavished wealth,
I could cheaply give a life without them; never again,
never, never, never shall their love come to me.

Annie.

Who would have thought she could cherish in
secret a grief like this? Dear sister, we all believed
you had forgotten that sad affair long ago,—we thought
that you were happy now.

Helen.

Happy?—I am, you were right; but I have been
to-day down to the very glen where we took that last
lovely walk together, and all the beautiful past came
back to me like life.—I am happy; you must count me
so still.

Annie.

With what I have just now heard, how can I?

Helen.

It is this war that has parted us; and so, this

is but my part in these noble and suffering times, and
that great thought reaches over all my anguish. But for
this war I might have been—hath this world such flowers,
and do they call it a wilderness?—I might have been,
even now, you know it, Annie, his wife, his wife, his.
But our hearts are cunningly made, many-stringed; and
often much good music is left in them when we count
them broken. That which makes the bitterness of this
ot, the inconceivable, unutterable bitterness of it, even
that I can bear now, calmly, and count it God's kindness
too.

Annie.

I do not understand you, sister.

Helen.

What if this young royalist, Annie, when he
quarrelled with my brother, and took arms against my
country, what if he had kept faith to me?

Annie.

Well.

Helen.

Well? Oh no, it would not have been well.
Why, my home would have been with that pursuing
army now, my fate bound up with that hollow cause,—
these very hands might have fastened the sword of oppression;
nay, the sword whose edge was turned against
you, against you all, and against the cause, that with
tears, night and morning, you were praying for, and with
your heart's best blood stood ready to seal every hour.
No, it is best as it is; or if my wish grows deeper still, if
in my heart I envy, with murmuring thought, the blessed
brides, on whose wedding dawns the laughing sun of

peace, then with a wish I cast away the glory of these
suffering times.—It is best as it is. I am content.

Annie.

I wish I could understand you, Helen. You
say, “if he had kept faith to you;”—carried you off, you
mean! Do you mean, sister Helen, that of your own
will you would ever have gone with him, with Everard
Maitland,—that traitor?

Helen.

Gone with him? Would I not? Would I
not? Dear child, we talk of what, as yet, you know nothing
of. Gone with him? Some things are holy, Annie,
only until the holier come.

Annie.

(looking toward the door.)
Stay, stay. What
is it, George?

(George Grey comes in.)

George.

I was seeking our mother. What should it
be, but ill news? This tide is against us, and if it be
not well-night full, we may e'en fold our arms for the rest.
There, read that. (Throwing her a letter.)

Every face you see looks as if a thunder-cloud were
passing it. I heard one man say, just now, as I came in,
that the war would be over in a fortnight's time.
There'll be some blood spilt ere then, I reckon though.

Helen.

What paper is that that reddens her cheek so
suddenly?

Annie.

The McGregor's!—think of it, Helen,—gone
over to the British side, and St. John of the Glens, and
—who brought you this letter, George? 'Tis false! I

do not believe it, not a word of it. Why, here are twenty
names, people that we know, the most honorable, too,
—forsaking us now, at such a crisis!

George.

Self-defence, self-defence, sister; their lands
and their houses must be saved from devastation. What
sort of barracks think you, would that fine country-seat of
McGregor's make?—and St. John's—he is a farmer you
know, and his fields are covered with beautiful grain,
that a week will ripen, and so, he is for turning his sword
into a sickle;—besides, there are worse things than pillage
threatened here. Look, (unfolding a hand-bill.)
Just at this time comes this villainous proclamation
from Skeensborough, scattered about among our soldiers
nobody knows how, half of them on the eve of desertion
before, and the other half—what ails you, Helen?

Helen.

There he stands!

Annie.

Is she crazed? Why do you clasp your hands
so wildly? for Heaven's sake, Helen!—her cheek is
white as death.—Helen!

Helen.

Is he gone, Annie?

Annie.

As I live, I do not know what you are talking
of. Nay, look; there is no one here, none that you
need fear, most certainly.

Helen.

I saw him, his eye was on me; there he
stood, looking through that window, smiling and beckoning
me.

George.

Saw him? Who, in Heaven's name? This
is fancy-work.

Helen.

I saw him as I see you now. He stood on
that roof,—an Indian,—I saw the crimson bars on his
face, and the blanket, and the long wild hair on his
shoulders; and—and, I saw the gleaming knife in his
girdle,—Oh God! I did.

George.

Ay, ay, 'twas that scoundrel that dogged us
in our way home, I'll lay my life it was.

Helen.

In our way home? An Indian, I said.

George.

Well, well, and I say an Indian, a rascal Indian,
was watching and following us all the way home
just now.

Helen.

George!

George.

Then you did not see him after all. In truth,
I did not mean you should, for we could not have hurried
more, but all the time we sat in that shanty, while it
rained, about as far off as that chair from me, stood this
same fellow among the bushes, watching us, or rather
you. And you saw him here? He might have crept
along by that orchard wall. What are you laughing at,
Annie?—I will go and see what sort of a guard we
have.

Annie.

If you knew as much of Helen's Indians as I
do, you would hardly be in such a hurry, George, I mean
about this one that was here just now, for there are Indians
in yonder forest I suppose; but since we were so

high, I never walked in the woods with her once, but
that we encountered one, or heard his steps among the
bushes at least; and if it chanced to be as late as this,
there would be half a dozen of them way-laying us in
the road,—but sometimes they turned out squirrels,
and sometimes logs of wood, and sometimes mere air,
air of about this color. We want a little light, that is all.
There is no weapon like that for these fancy-people. I
can slay a dozen of them with a candle's beams.

(George goes out.)

Helen.

Do not laugh at me to-night, Annie.

Annie.

But what should the Indians want of you,
pry'thee; tell me that, Helen?

Helen.

God knows. Wait till the sun sets to-morrow,
and I will laugh with you if you are merry then.

Annie.

Why to-morrow?—because it is our last day
here? Tuesday—Wednesday—yes; the next day we
shall be on the road to Albany.

[Exit.

Helen.

I am awake now. Watched me in the glen?
—followed me home? Those woods are full of them.—
But what has turned their wild eyes on me?

It is but one day longer;—we have counted many, in
peril and fear, and this, is the last;—even now how softly
the fearful time wastes. One day!—Oh God, thou
only knowest what its shining walls encircle. (She leans
on the window, musing silently.)
Two years ago I
stood here, and prayed to die.—On that same tree my

eye rested then. With what visions of hope I played
under it once, building bowers for fairies I verily thought
would come, and dreaming, with yearning heart, of glorious
and beautiful things this world hath not. But,
that wretched day, through blinding tears, I saw the sunlight
on its glossy leaves, and I said, `let me see that
light no more.' Surely the bitterness is deep when that
which hath colored all our unfolded being, is a weariness.
For what more hath life for me I thought, its lesson is
learned and its power is spent,—it can please, and it can
trouble me no more; and why should I stay here in vain
and wearily?

It was sad enough, indeed, to see the laughing spring
returning again, when the everlasting winter had set in
within, to link with each change of the varied year,
sweet with a life's memories, such mournfulness; laying
by, one by one, all hope's blessed spells, withered and
broken forever,—the moonlight, the songs of birds, the
blossom showers of April, the green and gold of autumn's
sunset,—it was sad, but it was not in vain.—Not in vain,
Oh God, didst thou deny that weeping prayer.

(A merry voice is heard without, and a child's face
peeps through the window that overlooks the orchard.)

Child.

Look! look! sister Helen! see what I have
found on the roof of the piazza here,—all covered with
wampum and scarlet, and here are feathers too—two

feathers in it, blue and yellow—eagle's feathers they are,
I guess.

Helen

(approaching the window.)
Let me see, Willy.
What, did you find it here?

Willy.

Just under the window here. Frank and I
were swinging on the gate; and—there is something
hard in it, Helen,—feel.

Helen.

Yes, it is very curious; but—

Willy.

There comes Netty with the candle; now we
can see to untie this knot.

Helen.

Willy, dear Willy, you must give it to me, you
must indeed, and—I will paint you a bird to-morrow.

Willy.

A blue-bird, will you? A real one?

Helen.

Yes, yes;—run down little climber; see how
dark it grows, and Frank is waiting, see.

Willy.

Well. But mind you, it must be a blue bird
then. A real one. With the red on his breast, and all.

[Exit.

(She walks to the table, unfastening the envelope.)

Helen.

What sent that thrill of forgotten life through
me then?—that wild, delicious thrill? This is strange,
indeed. A sealed pacquet within! and here—

(She glances at the superscription, and the pacquet
drops from her hand.)

No—no. I have seen that hand-writing in my dreams
before, but it dissolved always. What's joy better than
grief, if it pierce thus? Can never a one of all the soul's
deep melodies on this poor instrument be played out, then
—trembling and jarring thus, even at the breath of its
most lovely passion.—And yet, it is some cruel thing, I
know.

(The pacquet opened, discovers Helen's miniature, a
book, a ring, and other tokens.)

Cruel indeed! That little rose!—He might have spared
me this. A dull reader I were, in truth, if this needed
comment,—but I knew it before. He might have spared
me this.

(She leans over the recovered relics with a burst of
passionate weeping.)

Yet, who knows—(lifting her head with a sudden
smile,)
some trace, some little curl of his pencil I may
find among these leaves yet, to tell me, as of old,—

(A letter drops from the book, she tears it eagerly
open.)

(Reading.)
These cold words I understand, but—letters!
—He wrote me none! Was there ever a word between
us, from the hour when he left me, his fancied bride, to
that last meeting, when, at a word, and ere I knew what
I had said, he turned on me that cold and careless eye,
and left me, haughtily and forever? And now— (reading)

—misapprehension, has it been! Is the sun on
high again?—in this black and starless night—the noonday
sun? He loves me still.—Oh! this joy weighs like
grief.

Shall I see him again? Joy! joy! Beautiful sunshine
joy! Who knows the soul's rich depths till joy
hath lighted them?--from the dim and sorrowful haunts
of memory will he come again into the living present?
Shall I see those eyes, looking on me? Shall I hear my
name in that lost music sound once more?—His?—Am
I his again? New mantled with that shining love, like
some glorious and beautiful stranger I seem to myself,
Helen—the bright and joy-wreathed thing his voice
makes that name mean—My life will be all full of that
blest music. I shall be Helen, evermore his—his.

No,—it would make liars of old sages,—and all books
would read wrong. A life of such wild blessedness? It
would be fearful like living in some magic land, where
the honest laws of nature were not. A life?—a moment
were enough. Ages of common life would shine in it.
(Reading again.)
“Elliston's hut?”—“If I choose that
the return should be mutual,—and the memorials of a despised
regard can at best be but an indifferent possession;
—a pacquet reinclosed directly in this same envelope,
and left at the hut of the missionary, cannot fail to reach
him safely.”

“Safely.”—Might he not come there safely then?
And might I not go thither safely too, in to-morrow's
light?

O God, let not Passion lead me now. The centre
beaming truth, not passion's narrow ray, must light me
here!—But am I not his?

Once more, one horizon circles, for a day, our longparted
destinies; another, and another wave of these
wild times will drift them asunder again, forever; and
I count myself his wife. His wife?—nay, his bride, his
two years' bride, to-night, his wife, to-morrow. He must
meet me there, (Writing)
at noon, I will say.—I did not
think that little hut of logs should have been my marriage-hall;—he
must meet me there, and to-morrow is
my bridal day