University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

Thaunus.

Though Harris had left the ball-room secretly,
he had not left it altogether unnoticed.
There was one man whose observation he
did not escape; it was the herald who addressed
the mysterious lady on her entrance.
Unperceived, he followed the steps of Harris,
until the latter reached the place of the tournament,
where the officers' servants were stationed
with their horses. His servant, however,
was not to be found. On inquiring for him,
the herald who had purposely thrown himself
in his way, informed him, that he was then in
one of the recesses adjoining the banquetting
saloon, so overcome with intoxication as to be
unable to attend to his duty. “But,” added
the herald, “as I am now disengaged from my
office, if you will accept of my service, I will
attend you.”

Harris accepted the offer. His horses were
found in their proper place ready saddled. The
knight and his attendant were soon mounted.

They proceeded by the eastern gate, through
the triumphal arch of General Howe, along
the sylvan arcade formerly mentioned, towards
the Delaware. When about a furlong
from the arch, their progress was suddenly interrupted
by two men who sprung from amidst
the bushes of the arcade, and seizing upon
Harris, with the aid of the herald,—who had
volunteered his attendance, after making his
servant drunk, for the purpose of bringing him
into this snare—in a moment gagged and pinioned
him. They then hastened, the two assailants
being also on horseback, towards the
Schuylkill, which they passed a short distance
below Gray's Ferry, in a flat boat which lay
there ready to receive them.

After half an hour's brisk travelling, being
then beyond all danger from pursuit, they removed
the gag from their prisoner, but still
kept him pinioned. The dawn soon began to
appear, and Harris became convinced of what
he had, even while it was dark, strongly suspected,
that one of his captors was the man
whom of all the human race he had most injured—the
unhappy Balantyne. He shrunk
conscience-struck and abashed from the first
glance by which he recognized the grief-worn
and now haggard features of the much-suffering
victim of his ungrateful villany. The two
others he knew not. It, indeed, occurred to

him that they were both disguised, their appearance
indicating a much more advanced
age, especially in the case of the herald, than
was consistent with the activity and vigour
they had manifested since his capture.

They were evidently not afraid of meeting
with any enemy, for they passed on, with great
confidence, in the broad light of day, scarcely
seeming to prefer by-paths on their route. At
length, on arriving at a tavern where they
found a small party of Chester county militia
on parade, who loudly cheered when they beheld
the lately dreaded plunderer and devastator,
Captain Harris, in custody, they halted
for breakfast.

Balantyne here left them. “I will not,”
said he, “sit at the table and eat bread with
the author of my daughter's ruin and of the
dreadful anguish I have so long endured. I
will go before you to the place of atonement.
Guard him well, my friends, and let him be
brought there by twilight this evening.”

The herald now threw off his disguise, and
appearing in the uniform of the militia volunteers
of the district, was instantly known to the
terror-struck prisoner, as William Barton, on
whose father's family he had exercised such
cruelty. The name of his other captor and
guardsman was also no longer concealed. It
was Francis Holmes. The plot which they

had laid to obtain possession of the person of
Harris, having thus succeeded to their utmost
wishes, they proceeded without delay to the
performance of the remaining part of their designs
against him. It soon indeed became necessary
for them to depart with their prisoner,
as several of the militia who had suffered much
from his spoliations, began to clamour loudly
for the infliction of a summary revenge. The
address and management, however, of his active
captors, extricated him from this danger;
and they set out with him to the place of his
destination, where they arrived at the time appointed
by Balantyne.

The weather was fine; and the serene heavens
and the verdant earth combined to exhibit
one of the loveliest May evenings that
ever adorned nature, as they approached the
place. The scenery around was familiar to
Harris, for he had often wandered amidst its
beauties, in the company of Mary Balantyne;
and he sighed deeply, when he reflected on
the difference of his situation then from what
it now was—and that difference, torturing conscience
told him was the result of his own misdeeds.

At length, the travellers approached, by an
obscure and indirect path through a thick
wood, a small stone building, which Harris

knew to be the place of worship of a congregation
of Presbyterians in the neighbourhood of
Dilworth. In this sacred edifice, Balantyne himself,
in virtue of his former ordination to the ministry,
frequently in the absence of the regular
incumbent, professionally officiated. Into this
church Harris was now ushered. At first he perceived
no one present, but his conductors. Solitude,
silence and solemnity filled the holy place,
and breathed an impressive, and to the wretched
sinner who now entered it, a heart-chilling
sensation of preternatural awe. On approaching
the pulpit, however, Mr. Balantyne, who
had been kneeling at his devotion when they
entered, arose to view, and stood in the midst
of it.

“Ah! art thou come, at length,” said he,
addressing himself to Harris. “I have long
waited impatiently for this hour. It is now,
hard-hearted and wicked man, that thou must
atone for the grievous injury thou hast done
my only child—the terrible calamity thou hast
brought upon both her and me. Thou must
now apply the only remedy in thy power
to heal the cruel wounds thou hast inflicted.
Thou must WED MY DAUGHTER!”

Harris started with astonishment at the
strange injunction, and looking up to reply,
he was struck silent with terror at beholding

Mary Balantyne herself standing beside her
father.

“What sayest thou?” resumed Balantyne.
“Wilt thou be joined in wedlock to this ruined
one, thy own victim, and restore to her and
to me at least part of that peace which can never
altogether return?”

Harris now, with a great effort, assumed
courage to reply. “Is this scene,” said he,
“real, or are the figures I behold the creations
of my disordered imagination? Are ye what
ye seem to be, mortal men of this world, and
am I your prisoner? Or are ye but fancy-formed
images, or beings from the dead, and I
merely the sport of an unhappy delirium?
Answer me—tell me whether I am on earth
in the presence of earthly beings, and not at
this very moment, enwrapt in the frenzy of
an awful vision? Speak, satisfy my doubts,
and I will answer you.”

“All that thou beholdest is real,” replied Balantyne.
“All present are heirs to mortality,
and have yet to pass through the dark valley
of death.”

“Has not thy daughter been long dead?
asked Harris: “Or have I been imposed on by
false information?”

“I have had my revenge on thee,” said Balantyne.
“I have made thee suffer, till the
moisture of mental agony has burst from thy

pores. That I may have atonement as well as
revenge, I will now undeceive thee. My
daughter, in her anguish, had taken a large
dose of a deadly liquid. By my skill and care,
the mortality it would have occasioned, was
prevented. It caused stupor, which the by-standers
mistook for death. I knew the ruin
she had undergone—the disgrace she had suffered.
But the world knew it not. I therefore
determined to conceal it; and at the same
time, formed the plan of tormenting thee, till
thy conscience should be made sensible of thy
guilt. A fictitious funeral was for that purpose
exhibited; and by the aid of those bold
men now standing by your side, the other
parts of my design have been accomplished.
My daughter's shame is unknown to the
world. The issue of your crime had no living
birth. Your victim herself is dead to the
world, and her mind, like my own, I fear,
is for ever dead to tranquillity. Such is our
story; and such have been the bitter fruits of
thy guilt. The customs of the country of my
birth, make marriage, though not a full and
perfect, yet a reputable and conciliating reparation,
for guilt like thine and shame like
hers. That reparation for our miseries, I now
demand of thee. By the laws of our church and
of this land, I am empowered to administer
the marriage rites. Wilt thou now yield to
the ceremony?”

With the assurance that it was no spirit from
an unknown world, whose visitations he had
endured, the courage of Harris returned, and
it was a quality in which, in regard to dangers
arising from mere human hostility, he was far
from being deficient. He was desirous to
evade this proposal of marriage, conceiving
that if he should become extricated from his
present difficulty, the incumbrance with which
his compliance would entangle him, might, at
some future day, form a great impediment to
his views and progress in life.

The unhappy Mary perceived his hesitation,
and almost intuitively, she divined its motives.
She hurried from her place in the pulpit.
She stood beside her desolator, and with
a wild energy, she exclaimed:

“Father! we will not be baffled thus by a
wretch, wicked and remorseless. It is for thee
I feel—not for myself. In the sight of Heaven
and of angels, he has already acknowledged
our union, and he then said, what I firmly believe
to be true, that it requires not the cold and
cumbersome formalities of men to confirm
our solemn nuptials in the estimation of superior
beings. But to diminish, even in part,
the disgrace which weighs so heavily upon
thee, my father, with these cold and cumbersome

formalities he shall now comply, or by
the Eternal! who is worshipped in this holy
place, he moves not hence with life!”

So saying, her form dilated, her eyes gleamed,
her face flushed, and the preternatural force
of an indomitable determination swelled and
invigorated her whole frame, as to the astonishment
and terror of all present, she drew
from her bosom a dagger, which she held to
the breast of her destroyer.

“Father!” she said, “proceed—impose upon
us the obligations which, according to legal
form, shall make us husband and wife;
and, if he answers not properly thereto, this
steel shall find his heart!”

Struck with her earnestness, her father proceeded
with the ceremony, and overawed by
her energy, her destroyer answered according
to form, and the nuptial rites were completed.

“It is achieved!” she cried. “Father, your
disgrace is wiped away. Now let me die! for
I cannot bear to live the wife of a wretch like
this. But shall he live to triumph in his escape
from me? No! angels, witness that he
shall not!” Like lightning her dagger pierced
his heart, and the blood which it drew thence
was, the next moment, mingled with the blood
of her own.

The rapidity with which these fatal and unexpected
blows were given, rendered their prevention
by the by-standers altogether impossible. Her

horror-struck father gave a heart rending groan
and fell in a swoon upon the bleeding body of his
child. Francis and Barton were also for some
minutes struck motionless with terror. On recovering
their presence of mind, they hastened
to remove the father to his own dwelling,
which was at no great distance; and as the
shades of night were fast approaching, this
they were able to effect without occasioning
any alarm in the neighbourhood. At the
midnight hour, they privately buried the
corpse of the lovely, unfortunate Mary, in the
grave where, in the opinion of the world, she
had already mingled with her parent earth.

Francis at first proposed to bury Harris in
some corner of the same grave-yard that contained
Mary Balantyne; but her lover, Barton,
thought that it would be a profanation of the
sacred ground. Francis also considered that
there would be less risk of the grave being
discovered, and suspicion thereby excited towards
the awful catastrophe which had taken
place, if the corpse should be elsewhere deposited.
With careful privacy, therefore, it was
conveyed to an obscure dingle overgrown with
tall and dusky pines, and there interred where
no memorial shall ever direct a mourner to

drop a tear over the dark grave of the betrayer
of female innocence, and the victim of female
energy executing justice in the midst of
madness.