University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CONCLUSION.

Several years had passed away, since the occurrence
of the events recorded in the preceding pages. Captain
Fennimore and the fair Virginia had been married, and
were residing near to Colonel Hendrickson. William
Colburn was united to the Colonel's only daughter, and
was settled in the neighborhood; and as no evidence to
the contrary is before us, we are authorized in believing
that both these couples were enjoying the most uninterrupted
matrimonial felicity.

The best friends, however, must sometimes part; and
Captain Fennimore found it necessary to leave his
pleasant home, and his agreeable wife, to attend to the
affairs of their joint estate in Virginia. The farm formerly
occupied by Major Heyward, was rented out; but
the tenant had erected a house on a part of the land
distant from the spot where the former mansion had
stood. Captain Fennimore, feeling a desire to revisit the
place where his uncle had resided and his wife had

grown up from infancy to maturity, rode over, one day,
to the ruins of the old house. The lane was still kept
open, but was grown up with weeds and briers. The
lawn around the house preserved something of its former
verdure and beauty; but the garden was overrun with
bushes, whose wild and tangled limbs were strangely
mingled with the remains of a variety of rare and ornamental
shrubs. Indigenous thorns, and domestic fruits,
grew side by side, and wild flowers mingled their blossoms
with those of exotic plants. There is nothing so
melancholy as such a scene, where luxury and art are
beheld in ruin, and their remains revive the recollection
of departed pleasures. There has always seemed to me
to be something peculiarly desolate in the appearance of
a deserted garden, where the spot, once adorned with
taste, and cultivated with assiduous care, has been suffered
to run into wilderness. Nowhere are the efforts of
nature and art so harmoniously blended, as in the garden;
nowhere does embellishment seem so appropriate,
or labor so productive. There is something quiet, and
innocent, and peaceful, about the beauties of a garden,
that interests the heart, at the same time that the senses
reap enjoyment.

While Captain Fennimore was strolling pensively
about, he discovered a horseman riding up the avenue
towards the same place. On reaching the large gate
which opened into the lawn, the person halted, and
remained sitting on his horse. Fennimore, supposing that
it might be some one who had business with himself,
walked slowly towards the gate; but before he reached
it, and while concealed from the stranger by a cluster of

bushes, he was surprised to hear the voice of the latter,
as if in conversation with another person.

“She is not at home, eh?” said the voice; “well, tell
her I called, boy, d'ye hear?—tell her Mr. George Lee
called.”

Fennimore, curious to know to whom Mr. Lee was
speaking, advanced a few steps, so as to see, without
being exposed himself; and was surprised to find, that
no person was within sight but themselves. Mr. Lee was
mounted on a fine horse, and completely armed, with a
sword, a pair of large pistols, and a rifle. He wore his
father's revolutionary uniform coat, buff waistcoat, and
cocked hat, and, thus accoutred, formed an imposing figure.
His countenance wore the flush of habitual intemperance,
together with the mingled wildness and stupidity
of partial derangement After sitting silent for a few
minutes, he drew his sword, and exclaimed,

“Gentlemen, I pronounce Virginia Pendleton to be
the most beautiful woman ever raised in the Old Dominion,
and I am ready to make good my words. You
understand me, gentlemen! There she sits at her window—she
has made a vow that she will never marry,
and I stand here, prepared to cut any gentleman's throat
who shall dare to pay her his addresses. Gentlemen,
shall we hunt to-morrow? Pass that bottle, if you please,
Mr. Jones—no heeltaps. My compliments to Miss Pendleton,
boy, d'ye hear? and tell her, I called to inquire
after her health.”

Then drawing himself up, he saluted with his sword,
and sheathed it, took off his hat, bowed towards the
spot where the house had been, and kissed his hand;

after which, he wheeled his horse about, and rode with
a slow and stately pace down the avenue.

Poor George! he had fallen a victim to the evil example
of an intemperate father, and the intrigues of an
ambitious mother. With a heart tenderly alive to the
best charities of human nature, and a disposition easily
moulded to the purposes of those with whom he associated,
he might readily have been trained to respectability
and usefulness, and although he could never have become
a brilliant man, he might have been what is far more
important, an amiable and worthy citizen. But his weak
intellect, assailed by the seductions of pleasure on the one
hand, and by dazzling schemes of ambition on the other,
became unsettled, and at last totally destroyed. His
vigorous constitution enabled him long to outlive the
wreck of his mind, and he continued for many years
to visit the ruins of Major Heyward's mansion, dressed
in the fantastic habiliments which we have described.
He remembered nothing which occurred after
his ill-starred journey to the frontier; and the
events of his early life were mixed up in his memory
in the most singular confusion. He continued to be
the devoted lover of Virginia Pendleton, and nothing
ever ruffled his temper except the mention of her marriage,
which he always denied with indignation, as an
insult to her and himself; while the recollections of his
early love were mingled with visions of bacchanalian
orgies, and with hideous dreams of bloody encounters
with the savages. Many years afterwards, when his
cheeks were furrowed, and his hair gray with premature
old age, he might still be seen, mounted on his sleek

hunter, clad in his ancient uniform, with his hair
powdered, and his long queue neatly tied, riding with
stately grace, every day, along the old avenue, paying
his imaginary morning visit to the idol of his heart. He
was followed by an old negro valet, as gray and nearly
as stately as himself, who humored all the fancies of his
master, until it was supposed that the faithful black
began to be tinctured with the madness which he had
affectionately humored, and spoke of Miss Virginia Pendleton
with the most unaffected gravity, long after that
lady was the mother of a numerous and thriving colony
of young Kentuckians.

Mrs. Lee mourned over the disappointment of all her
hopes, in the bitterness of unavailing repentance. When
our errors affect only ourselves, the pang of remorse
may be borne with patience; but when they have extended
to those we love, and our own conviction comes
too late to restore peace to the bosoms we have ruined,
the cup of wretchedness is fatally poisoned for the
remainder of a miserable life. She never smiled, and
was never seen to weep; and bore the sufferings which
only a woman's love can know, with a dignified resignation,
of which woman's fortitude alone is capable.