University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Talmud.

The next day Edward returned home, but
Harris remained in Philadelphia. They had
now in reality become too much estranged to
be either safe or pleasant companions; and
from this time, all intercourse of a friendly
nature ceased between them. Harris continued
to reside in the city; and began to entertain
serious views in regard to Miss Lewis. He
soon discovered that her heart was, in reality,
Edward's, and he was now tormented with
those pangs of jealousy, with which he had so
maliciously attempted to afflict his rival. When
he made his addresses seriously to Miss Lewis,
she became at once reserved in her conduct
towards him; and, as a lover, she no longer
admitted him to those familiarities in which,
as a relative, she had indulged him. Although
determined to persevere in his suit, for he was
confident that he should, in time, overcome
her aversion, he, for a season, left the city,
and returned to his lodgings at Dilworth.

He had several inducements for taking this
step. During his absence, Harriet's suavity
towards him might return. Meredith was
likely to be long and far separated from her;
for he was informed that his military propensities
had, in despite of the remonstrances
of his mother and uncle, induced him to accept
a captain's commission in the Pennsylvania
line, and that he was preparing to join
the army under Washington. This separation
might be followed by a diminution of her affection
for his rival and her aversion for himself,
which, by waiting for a proper occasion,
he might turn to his advantage. He resolved,
therefore, for the present, to abstain from pressing
his suit, lest, by an ill-timed urgency, he
should irritate her into an irreconcileable aversion
towards him.

But Harris had a still more powerful motive
than this for returning to the Brandywine.
In love, it has been already observed
that he was a libertine. Several years of his
life had been passed in extreme profligacy and
licentiousness. He had been extravagant almost
to bankruptcy, and had wooed pleasure to
satiety. He had escaped to America from creditors
and courtezans, with the remnant of a
large furtune, an enfeebled frame, a languid
mind, and a half-repentant resolution. His residence
on the banks of the Brandywine, afar from
the blandishments of vice and the seductions

of fashion, soon restored his frame to vigour,
his mind to activity, and his tastes and inclinations
to their former voluptuous propensities.
His extravagant habits alone did not return,
for his means were less, and his temptations
fewer. Besides, it is probable that experience
had taught him the folly of that superfluous
waste which produces neither benefit nor pleasure—administers
not to vanity, nor gratifies
desire.

One of the principal distinctions between a
virtuous lover and a voluptuary, is, that the
former concentrates all his affections and desires
upon one object, while the latter divides
them among many. The passion of Harris
was, perhaps, as strong for Harriet Lewis as
for Mary Balantyne. His views respecting
them, however, were different. The one he
desired for his wife; the other he had selected
for his victim. Harriet was an heiress, and
the dissipation of the greater part of his own
fortune, naturally rendered him desirous of repairing
the loss by a measure so eligible as marrying
a rich and beautiful female whom he passionately
loved. She was besides of that rank in
society and that elevation of character, which
rendered his attainment of her in any but an
honourable way out of the question. On marriage
with her, therefore, if he could possibly
effect it, he had set his mind. But his designs

with respect to the humble and artless Mary
Balantyne, were more flagitious—they were
purely sensual. They were conceived in grossness,
they were prosecuted with heartless cunning
and refined deception, and they were accomplished
with an unshrinking depravity—
a remorseless villany worthy only to actuate
the heart of a demon.

The United Colonies had been declared Independent
States. The Great Act of the
Great Congress of 1776, had broken the
chains which held our New World in bondage
to the Old, and the allegiance of the West to
the East was annihilated for ever. Thousands,
therefore, whose scruples had hitherto prevented
them from obeying the impulse of their patriotism,
now felt absolved from all obligations
of political duty to Great Britain, and hastened
to encounter her armies as the enemies and
invaders of their new-born country.

On the other hand, those who were attached
to the interests of Great Britain—and they were
numerous in the land—became more zealous
than ever in her cause, expressing loudly their
indignation against the bold measures of the
times, and frequently banding together in armed
opposition to the efforts of the young nation
so gloriously struggling into existence. The
patriots had, therefore, to contend, not with foreign
enemies only, but with domestic traitors,

whose public hostility was often stimulated by
private malice or personal resentment, to the
commission of acts of devastation and cruelty
more revolting to humanity than any committed
by the foreign foe.

Elias Meredith and Adam Balantyne were,
as has been already stated, both favourable to
the British cause. But they were men of peace;
and exerted all their influence to restrain the
excesses of the tory bands that infested their
neighbourhood. Elias in particular deplored
the desolations and the cruelties that were daily
taking place. His heart of late had greatly
sided with his country, although his sentiments
still continued in opposition to the measures
she had adopted.

“Alas!” said he to Balantyne one day, that
he visited him, after an atrocious midnight attack
by the tories upon a whig family—“our
neighbour John Barton's family has suffered
much. One of his sons has been slain, and
one of his daughters so cruelly treated that she
is not expected to live, while a great portion of
his substance has been carried off or wantonly
destroyed. The young man, Charles Harris,
with whom thee is very intimate, and for
whom I myself long entertained an esteem, is
accused of having been active in this matter,
in conjunction with James Fitzpatrick, who is
already outlawed by the new rulers. Could

thy advice not prevail on thy friend to leave
off practices which are unworthy of a Christian,
and no way beneficial, but rather injurious
to the cause of the king, his master?”

“I deprecate as much as you can, the adoption
of such sanguinary efforts to intimidate
the country into submission; for that is the
excuse assigned for these outrages,” answered
Balantyne. “The loyalty of Mr. Harris carries
him, I fear, too far from the path of Christian
humanity. He is over-zealous in a good cause.
I have remonstrated with him already, although
to but little purpose. I will commune with
him again on the subject, and shall endeavour
to convince him of the impolicy as well as inhumanity
of such doings.”

“Friend Balantyne,” observed Elias, “let
me be plain with thee in the matter of this
young man. I have heard that he seeketh the
love of thy daughter who is an extremely
young damsel, and may too easily be duped
out of her affections, by a man skilled in flattery
and artifice. If her influence over him should
enable thee to restrain his excesses, it would
be using it for a good purpose. But it behoveth
thee to watch over thy daughter's safety, lest
she be taken unaware, and become entangled
in the snares of the deceitful and the wicked.”

“I know your friendly motives for this advice,”
replied Balantyne. “The affection of

Mr. Harris for my daughter has not been concealed
from me, and he has declared his intentions
to be honourable. The extreme youth
of my daughter and the unsettled state of the
times, render me unwilling that, at the present
period, she should enter the marriage state;
and Harris has agreed not to press the affair so
far, until a more favourable juncture.”

“In this he evinces discretion,” said Elias.
“But his recent conduct makes me doubt the
soundness of his principles, as well as the
goodness of his heart. Might he not win thy
daughter's affections, and then with the instability
of many young men who affect gallantries,
throw them wantonly away, and leave
her to sorrow and a broken heart. For her
sake and thy own, I wish thee to look well to
this matter.”

Balantyne was struck with the earnestness
of his friend. He pressed his hand gratefully.
“What you have said,” he replied, “has
strongly affected me. My child has, I believe,
already placed her affections on this young
man. I pray Heaven that he may be faithful.
But should he not, I will endeavour to fortify her
against the disappointment. In the mean time,
prudence requires that she should afford him
less of her society than usual, and in this matter
I shall take care that she be circumspect.”

The anxious father, accordingly, gave his

parental caution to his daughter. She heard
him with considerable emotion. To doubt the
fidelity of Charles Harris to her, after all his
ardent vows and passionate protestations of love,
was a feeling which, at the first impulse, she
could not endure. “It would be,” she said,
“a profanation of the sacred principle of truth,
for Charles is all honour and integrity—his
promises are solemn obligations which bind
his soul, and which it is impossible for him to
break!”

Oh! dear deluding power of confiding love!
How sweet are the seasons when thou presidest
over the soul, and keepest aloof, by thy enchantments,
all intruding views of a sorrowful
future!

But, alas! such happiness is always transitory.
There can never again be a Paradise on
earth, else the endearing union of enamoured
hearts would, some time or other, lend a sweetness
to the cup of life that should never be
mingled with any taint of fear, suspicion, jealousy,
or regret. But an oracle has said that

and all experience has confirmed the melancholy
assertion. Mary Balantyne could not,
at this time, be persuaded of it; but, alas, even
she, in the midst of all her blooming hopes,
was doomed to feel that love's

Incredulous, however, as Mary was in relation
to the possibility of Charles withdrawing
his affections from her, her father succeeded
in exacting from her a promise that she
would see him less frequently, and yield him
less encouragement, than heretofore. But
Balantyne's solicitude on the subject was
too great to be content with this promise, although
he doubted not that she would fulfil it.
He determined himself to desire Harris to
discontinue his addresses, until circumstances
should render the prospect of their union more
certain.

This intimation was received by Harris with
much chagrin. His passion for Mary was in
truth one of the strongest that had ever excited
his feelings. But it was a passion of the
senses, not of the affections. It had comparatively
little regard for the welfare of its object.
Its own gratification was the great end
at which it aimed; and for this it longed with
an importunate and burning desire.

Harris, notwithstanding his utter regardlessness
of moral obligations, and his general indifference
respecting the consequences of his
actions to others, had yet so much consideration

for the innocence and happiness of this
sweet girl, as often caused him to pause in the
contemplation of his designs against her purity.
But these hesitations in the pursuit of
crime were with him, though frequent, but feeble.
Like meteors in a midnight storm, they
gleamed amidst the dark tumult, but were unable
to check its course.

Balantyne's interference produced some restraint
on the intercourse of the lovers. Mary,
as she had promised, for several weeks avoided
the places where they had been accustomed
to meet; and Harris respected the mandate of
her father, so far as not to be guilty of any
observable intrusion on her society. They
sometimes met, but it was in the presence of
others, and apparently by accident; and the timidity
of Mary on such occasions, always drove
her from the scene as soon as propriety would
permit.

This forbearance on the part of Harris, though
partly owing to the compunctious visitings just
mentioned, were chiefly occasioned by the troubled
state of the country, which gave him constant
occupation in arranging and directing the
marauding enterprises of some bands of tories
which he was commissioned by Sir William
Howe to organize in the neighbourhood of the
Brandywine. But the militia of the country
soon became so well trained to the duty of

hunting down these marauders, that wherever
they appeared, they were attacked and dispersed,
and pursued with retaliating fury, until
they were too much weakened or intimidated
to continue their nefarious practices.

The services of Harris to the royal cause being
no longer available in this mode of warfare,
about the latter end of October, Sir William
Howe appointed him to the command of
a troop of cavalry attached to the main army,
which he was required to join without delay.
On receiving Sir William's orders, he felt
much regret at being obliged to leave the vicinity
of Mary Balantyne's residence, and he
determined not to depart, until he should obtain
an interview with her, and, if possible, accomplish
the great object of his unhallowed
desires. An interview was easily obtained; for
the affectionate Mary, when informed of his
intended departure, became feverishly anxious
once more to be with him, that she might gaze
upon his beloved countenance, and receive from
his impassioned lips, the farewell assurance of
his lasting love.

The meeting took place in a secluded spot,
about a quarter of a mile from Balantyne's residence.
It was on the bank of a streamlet
that gurgled briskly beneath the intermingling
branches of the weeping willow. All around
the spot the trees and undergrowth grew so tall
and close as to form an umbrageous canopy

which screened it from the glaring beams of
day, and also rendered it inaccessible to the
approach of any intruder, save by one narrow
and winding path made by the cattle in passing
to the rivulet for drink. A short distance
from where this path crossed the stream, Harris
had formed, upon a dry and grassy portion
of the bank, a small arbour among the willows;
and here it was that he had first openly revealed
his passion for Mary, and had frequently
withdrawn with her from the world, in order
to repeat the tale of his love. Mary, all guiltless
and innocent as she was, saw no harm, and
could dream of no danger in these sweet and
happy interviews with the man she loved; and
Harris, as yet, had never ventured either by
word or deed, to alarm her delicacy. With a
confiding but palpitating heart, therefore, she
stole from her father's side on this fatal evening;
and as unsuspicious of guile as a lamb going
to the slaughter, she hastened to the arms
of her betrayer.

Harris having reached the arbour some time
before her, his mind became occupied in contemplating
the deed he was about to commit;
and wicked and callous-hearted as he was,
when he reflected on its direful consequences
to the beautiful and innocent being who was to
be its victim, and who loved him so tenderly,
it is no wonder that he felt frequent compunctions,

and wavered in his guilty purpose. Oh!
that some kind accident had prevented the victim
from coming to the sacrifice, the very fiend
who longed for the unhallowed oblation, would
have had cause to rejoice in his disappointment.

But the victim came. It was one of those
serene and balmy evenings whose softness is so
peculiar to a Pennsylvanian Indian summer, and
when, in the words of a Pennsylvanian poet,

In such delicious evenings the very elements
seem to conspire with the softening influence
of love, to render the heart yielding, and to
diffuse through the touched frame the warm
thrillings of mysterious desire. Harris soon
perceived the approach of the beauteous object
of his wishes. She advanced lightly and
timidly, with a fluttering heart, like a fascinated
bird which rushes into the power of the
wily serpent that allures it to destruction.
* * * He enfolded her to his heart—he
poured vows of everlasting fidelity into her
ear, and on this eve of a long separation, she
could not refuse to interchange them. An impetuous,
burning, long-continued kiss, in which
an interchange of souls seemed also to have
taken place, sealed the compact.

“We are now one!” he exclaimed. “We

are now united in the sight of Heaven and of
angels; and neither religion, virtue, nor nature
require the cold and cumbersome formalities
of men to confirm our solemn nuptials, or render
holy our most rapturous and impassioned
caresses.”

His sophistical eloquence flowed like intoxicating
poison into her ears. She replied not. A
spell—a delirium had come upon her. He pressed
her to his bosom. Instinctive modesty was once
more awakened. She attempted to repel him
But she was overcome—she was undone. The
sun went down upon their guilty loves, and
gathering darkness enveloped a scence which
had become accursed by the ruin of innocence.

Alas! how changed now were the feelings
of Mary Balantyne? With what horror did
her thoughts revolve upon what she had become?
The spell that had enwrapt her senses
was over. The intoxication of impassioned
love was gone. The faculty of reason had returned
to her mind, and she saw that she had
fallen from a high and happy state of purity
and a good conscience, into crime, pollution,
degradation, and unabating self-condemnation.
Absorbed in these appalling reflections, and
viewing her situation with astonishment and
horror, she remained silent for many minutes
after the completion of her ruin, as if she was
afraid to hear the sound of her own voice,
now become the voice of a sinner.

Harris beheld the agony of her mind. He
saw the desolation he had produced—the irretrievable
ruin he had brought upon one of the
loveliest of the daughters of men. Hard-hearted
as he was, he could not but pity her, and
he almost regretted the triumph he had gained.
He attempted to comfort her; but she seemed not
to hear him, for she answered not. At length
utterance came to her, and she exclaimed—

“Oh! God! have I lived for this! I am a
wretch—a guilty wretch!—Oh! my father—
my father!—Oh! Charles, what have you
brought me to! Oh! pity me, and lead me
to the presence of my father, and let our nuptials
be instantly solemnized, or I shall go
mad!”

She caught his arm to led him onward. He
saw the frenzy of her soul, and felt the stirrings
of pity, so that he resisted her not. He
supported her homewards, till they came near
to her father's house. He then stopped suddenly.
His heart had recovered all its selfish
feelings and habitual callousness.

“Mary,” said he, “we must part here.”

“Never!” she cried; “Oh, never shall we
part, until in the presence of men, you acknowledge
me to be your wife, and prevent my
heart from breaking.”

“Mary,” he said, “you know not the insurmountable
obstacles that are, at present, in

the way of such an acknowledgment. Insist
not on it.—It cannot be.”

“What!” she exclaimed bitterly; “and will
you leave me deserted amidst the ruin you
have brought upon me!—Oh! Charles—dear
Charles, you will not.” She threw herself on
her knees before her despoiler; she caught him
by the arm, and looked imploringly upon his
face. “Oh! I entreat thee,” she said, “by the
love I have lavished upon thee, and by all thy
hopes of mercy from Heaven, to do me justice,
and save me from distraction! If thou hatest
me, I will not ask thee to live with me. Only
do me justice! and thou mayest forsake me the
moment after, if thou canst be so cruel.”

“Upon my soul,” he replied, “I pity thee
from my heart, and I will deceive thee no
longer. Marry thee I never can. I have another,
a higher and more eligible object in view.
Thou hast deserved better treatment from me,
I confess. But I was impelled to what I have
done, by the irresistible fascinations of thy
beauty. I exonerate thee from blame; yet as
I know thou art polluted, neither honour, interest,
nor feeling will permit me to join my
fate with thine.”

“Then,” she cried wildly, and with an
energy which astonished him, “perdition is
thine, for Heaven will assuredly avenge me!”

“Ha!” he exclaimed, “dost thou threaten

me? The wind of summer might as well
try to shake the immoveable fastness of the
everlasting hills, as thou to frighten me into a
marraige with thee. Our interview to-night
began in love; it now terminates in hatred;
and our intercourse ends for ever!”

So saying he rudely separated himself from
her and departed.

“Not for ever!” she cried hysterically,—
“no—no—we shall yet again meet!” She hurried
to her father's house. As she approached she
saw his revered figure through one of the windows.
She shrieked, and ran deliriously to the
steps that led to the door, where she fainted and
fell. Her father having discovered her absence,
but ignorant of where she had gone,
was anxiously awaiting her return. He heard
her shriek, he knew her voice; in alarm he
hastened to the door. He raised her in his
arms; he carried her in. Assistance was soon
procured. Proper means for restoring her
were resorted to. She recovered; but it was
to a life of distraction and misery. Not happiness
only, but hope itself, the last earthly
comfort which lingers in the troubled mind,
had forsaken her; and despondency took possession
of her soul.

Still she had a tie on earth. There still remained
to her, amidst her desolation, one individual
in whose happiness she felt interested;

and for whose sake, hopeless as she was, she
resisted the suggestions of despair. That individual
was her father, whose life seemed
bound up in hers. Before her recovery, great
was his perplexity to know the cause of her
distress; and as soon as she could converse, he
anxiously questioned her on the subject. An
instinctive reluctance to make known her degradation,
prevented her from revealing it, even
before her mind became sufficiently calm for
reflection. When she could reflect, however,
upon the course she ought to pursue, the affliction
into which a knowledge of the truth would
plunge her father, and a persuasion that no advantage
could result from its communication,
determined her to withhold it. She knew that
to no species of disgrace would her father be
so sensitive as to that which she had suffered.
To inform him of it, would totally destroy the
comfort of his remaining days; perhaps, even
bring him with sorrow to a premature grave.

But how account for the distress into which
she had fallen, and the grief under which she
continued to labour, and which it was beyond
her power to conceal? Her father's solicitude
rendered him pressing in his inquiries. Total
silence would be considered perversity, and
might give rise to suspicions as dreadful as
the truth. Ought she to deceive her father?
Ought she to invent a fiction, and relate an untruth?

It was an alternative to which no selfish
consideration could induce her to stoop.
But on this occasion prudential suggestions and
filial affection came in aid of the feelings of
self. Yet positive falsehood she was determined
to avoid. She told part of the trying tale.
She confessed that she had held an interview
with Harris—that she had stepped beyond the
limits of delicacy and pressed him to the solemnization
of their nuptials before his departure—that
he had insulted and abused her, and
left her abruptly with a declaration that he
loved her no longer, and would hold no more
intercourse with her—that the rudeness of his
manner had thrown her into the state in which
her father had found her, and that the shock
she had sustained in the disappointment of her
fondest hopes and the disseverment of her
dearest affections, continued to prey upon her
spirits, and produced the despondency under
which she now laboured.

In this season of affliction, the good Elias
did not desert his friend. His consoling attentions
were given with the kindness of a brother,
and his counsels with the wisdom of a
sage.

“Thy daughter,” said he, “has had a fortunate
escape from an inseparable connexion with
a villain. The discovery of his depravity may
for awhile occasion her bitter feelings; but time

and pious reflections are remedies which seldom
fail to cure such sorrows as hers. Cheer
her, therefore, and strengthen her mind by
the precepts of that religion of which thee
was once a public teacher, and fear not, but thee
will yet see her contented and happy.”

Alas! little did Elias or Balantyne imagine
that the sorrows of the unfortunate Mary
sprung from a source productive of deeper and
more permanent distress than could ever arise
from the failure of even love's sweet hopes.
Little did either of them suppose that the
sharp gnawings of conscious degradation—of
shame and remorse for the loss of innocence
and purity which nothing could restore—were
the venomed furies that corroded her heart,
and from the tortures of which all the stores
of earthly consolation could afford her no relief.