University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

With Ralph, the unhappy woodman, thus even
denied to hope, returned, more miserable than before,
to the village of Chestatee. The crowd there
had been largely diminished. The more obnoxious
among the offenders, those who, having taken the
most prominent parts, apprehended recognition—
had taken themselves as much out of sight as possible.
Even Munro and Rivers, with all their
hardihood, were no longer to be seen, and those
still lingering in the village were such as under no
circumstances might well provoke suspicion of
`subtle deed and counter enterprise.' They were
the fat men, the beef of society—loving long
speeches and goodly cheer. The two friends, for
so we may call them, were left almost in the exclusive
possession of the public, and without observation
discussed their several plans of departure.
Forrester had determined to commence his journey
that very night; while Ralph, with what might
seem headstrong rashness, chose the ensuing day
for a like purpose. But the youth was not without
his reasons for this determination. He knew perfectly
well that he was in peril, but felt also that
this peril would be met with much more difficulty
by night than by day. Deeming himself secure,

comparatively speaking, while actually in the village,
he felt that it would be safer to remain there
another night, than by setting off at midday, encounter
the unavoidable risk of either pursuing
his course through the night in that dangerous
neighbourhood, where every step which he took
might be watched, or be compelled to stop at some
more insulated position, in which there must be
far less safety. He concluded, therefore, to set off
at early dawn on the ensuing morning, and calculated,
with the advantage of daylight all the way,
through brisk riding, to put himself by evening beyond
the reach of his enemies. That he was not
altogether permitted to pursue this course, was
certainly not through any neglect of preparatory
arrangement.

The public table at the inn on that day was
thinly attended; and the repast was partaken by
all parties in comparative silence. A few words
were addressed by Colleton to Lucy Munro, but
they were answered, not coldly, but sparingly, and
her replies were entirely wanting in their usual
spirit. Still, her looks signified for him the deepest
interest, and a significant motion of the finger,
which might have been held to convey a warning,
was all that he noted of that earnest manner which
had pleased him in her habit heretofore. The day
was got through with difficulty by all parties; and
as evening approached, Forrester, having effected
all his arrangements without provoking observation,
in the quiet and privacy of the youth's chamber,
bade him farewell, cautioning him at the same
time against all voluntary risk, and reminding
him of the necessity, while in that neighbourhood,
of keeping up a good look-out. Their courses lay
not so far asunder but that they might, for a time,
have proceeded together, and with more mutual

advantage; but the suggestions and solicitations
of Forrester on this subject were alike disregarded
by Ralph, with what reason we may not positively
say, but it is possible that it arose from a prudential
reference to the fact that the association of one
flying from justice was not exactly such as the
innocent should desire. And this was reason
enough. They separated, and the youth proceeded
to the preparations for his own contemplated departure.
His pistols were prepared and in readiness,
with his dirk, on the small table by the side
of his bed; his portmanteau lay alike contiguous;
and before seeking his couch, which he did at an
early hour, he himself had seen that his good steed
had been well provided with corn and fodder.
The sable groom too, whose attentions to the noble
animal from the first, stimulated by an occasional
bit of silver, had been unremitted, was now further
rewarded, and promised faithfully to be in readiness
at any hour in his equipment. Thus, all
things arranged, Ralph returned to his chamber,
and without removing his dress, wrapping his cloak
around him, he threw himself upon his couch, and
addressed himself to those slumbers which were
destined to be of no very long continuance.

Forrester, in the meanwhile, had proceeded
with all the impatience of a lover to the designated
place of tryst, under the giant sycamore, the sheltering
limbs and leaves of which, on sundry previous
occasions, had ministered to a like purpose. The
place was not remote, or at least would not be
so considered in country estimation, from the
dwelling of the maiden, and was to be reached
from the latter spot by a circuitous passage through
a thick wood, which covered the distance between
entirely. The spot chosen for the meeting was
well known to all parties, and we shall not pretend,

at this time of day, to limit the knowledge of
its sweet fitness for the purposes of love, to them
alone. They had tasted of its sweets a thousand
times, and could well understand and appreciate
that air of romantic and fairy-like seclusion which
so much distinguished it, and which served admirably
in concert with the uses to which it was now
appropriated. The tree grew within and surmounted
a little hollow, formed by the even and
combined natural descents, to that common centre,
of four hills, beautifully grouped, which surrounded
and completely fenced it in. Their descents were
smooth and even, without a single abruptness, to
the bottom, in the centre of which rose the sycamore,
which, from its own situation, conferred the
name of Sycamore Hollow to the sweet spot upon
which it stood. A spring, trickling from beneath
its roots, shaded and surmounted by its folding
branches from the thirsty heats of the summer sun,
kept up a low and continuous prattle with the pebbles
over which it made its way, that consorted
sweetly with the secluded harmonies that overmantled,
as with a mighty wing, the sheltered place.
Scenes like these are abundant enough in the southern
country; and by their quiet, unobtrusive, and
softer beauties, would seem, and not inefficiently
or feebly, to supply in most respects the wants of
those bolder characteristics, in which nature in
those regions is confessedly deficient. Whatever
may be the want of southern scenery in stupendousness
or sublimity, it is, we are inclined to believe,
more than made up in those thousand quiet
and wooing charms of location, which seem designed
expressly for the hamlet and the cottage—
the evening dance—the midday repose and rural
banquet—and all those numberless practices of a
small and well-intentioned society, which win
the affections into limpid and ever-living currents,
touched for ever, here and there, by the sunshine,
and sheltered in their repose by overhanging leaves
and flowers, for ever fertile and for ever fresh.
They may not occasion a feeling of solemn awe,
but they enkindle one of admiring affection; and
where the mountain and the bald rock would be
productive only of strength and sternness, their
softer featurings of brawling brook, bending and
variegated shrubbery, wild flower, gadding vine,
and undulating hillock, mould the contemplative
spirit into gentleness and love. The scenery of the
south seldom impresses at first, but it grows upon
acquaintance; and in a little while, where once all
things looked monotonous and unattractive, we
learn to discover sweet influences that ravish us
from ourselves at every step we take, into worlds
and wilds, where all is fairy-like, wooing, and
unchangingly sweet.

The night, though yet without a moon, was beautifully
clear and cloudless. The stars had come
out with all their brightness—a soft zephyr played
drowsily and fitfully among the tops of the shrubbery,
that lay, as it were, asleep on the circling hilltops
around; while the odours of complicated
charm from a thousand floral knots, which had
caught blooms from the rainbows, and dyed themselves
in their stolen splendours, thickly studding
the wild and matted grass which sustained them,
brought along with them even a stronger influence
than the rest of the scene, and might have taught
a ready lesson of love to much sterner spirits
than the two, now so unhappy, who were there to
take their parting and last embrace.

The swift motion of a galloping steed was heard,
and Forrester was at the place and hour of appointment.
In mournful mood, he threw himself at

the foot of one of the hills, upon one of the tufted
roots of the huge tree which sheltered the little
hollow, and resigned himself to a somewhat bitter
survey of his own condition, and of the privations
and probable straits into which his own rash
thoughtlessness had so unhappily involved him.
His horse, docile and well trained, stood unfastened
in the thicket, cropping the young and tender
herbage at some little distance; but so habituated
to rule that no other security than his own will
was considered by his master necessary for his
continued presence. The lover waited not long.
Descending with slow but even steps, the hill,
through a narrow pathway on one side of the
wood, well known and frequently trodden by both,
he beheld the approach of the maiden, and hurried
forward to receive her. The terms upon which
they had so long stood forbade constraint, and put
at defiance all those formalities which under other
circumstances might have grown out of the meeting.
She advanced without pause or hesitancy,
and the hand of her lover grasped that which she
extended, his arm passed about her, his lip was
fastened to her own, without let or hinderance, and,
in that one sweet embrace, in that one moment of
blissful forgetfulness, all other of life's circumstances
had ceased to afflict. But they were not
happy even at that moment of delight and illusion.
The gentler spirit of the maiden's sex was uppermost,
and the sad story of his crime, which at
their last meeting had been told her, lay with heavy
and foreboding influence at her heart. She was a
gentle creature, and though dwelling in a wilderness,
such is the prevailing influence upon female
character, of the kind of education acquirable in
the southern,—or, we may add, and thus perhaps
furnish the reason for any peculiarity in this
respect—the slave-holding states, she partook in a
large degree of that excessive delicacy, as well of
spirit as of person, which, while a marked characteristic
of that entire region, is apt to become of
itself a disease, exhibiting itself too frequently in a
nervousness and timidity that unfits its owner for
the ruder necessities of life, and enables it to abide
only under its more serene and summer aspects.
The tale of blood, and its awful consequences, was
perpetually recurring to her imagination. Her
fancy described and dwelt upon its details, her
thoughts wove it into a thousand startling tissues,
until, though believing his crime unpremeditated,
she almost shrank from the embrace of her lover,
because of the blood so recently upon his hands.
Placing her beside him upon the seat he had occupied
before her coming, he tenderly rebuked her
gloomy look and manner, while an inward and
painful consciousness of its cause gave to his voice
a hesitating tremor, and his eye, heretofore unquailing
at any glance, no longer bold, now shrank
downcast before the tearful emphasis of hers.

“You have come,Kate—come, according to your
promise, yet you wear not the old looks. Your
eye is vacant and stern—your heart, it beats sadly
and hurriedly beneath my hand, as if there were
gloomy and vexatious thoughts within.”

“And should I not be sad, Mark, and should
you not be sad? Gloom and sorrow befit our
situations alike; though for you I feel more than
for myself. I think not so much of our parting, as
of your misfortune in having partaken of this
crime. There is to me but little occasion for grief
in the temporary separation which I am sure will
precede our final and inseparable union. But this
dreadful deed, Mark—it is this that makes me sad.
The knowledge that you, whom I thought too

gentle wantonly to crush the crawling insect,should
have become without need the slayer of men—of innocent
men, too, makes my heart bleed within, and
my eyes fill; and when I think of it, as indeed I now
think of little else, and feel that its remorse and all
its consequences must haunt you for many years
of gloomy self-rebuke, I almost think, with my
father, that it would be better we should now separate,
to see each other no more. I think I could
see you depart, knowing that it was final and for
ever, with gladness and without a tear, were this
sin not upon your head.”

“Your words are cruel, Kate; but you cannot
speak to my spirit in language more severe than
it speaks momentarily to itself. I never knew any
thing of punishment before; and the first lesson is
a bitter one. Your words touch me but little now,
as the tree, when the axe has once girdled it, has
no feeling for any further stroke. Forbear then,
dear Kate, as you love yourself. Brood not upon
a subject that brings pain with it to your own spirit,
and has almost ceased, except in its consequences,
to operate upon mine. Let us now speak of those
things which concern you nearly, and me not a
little—of the only thing, which, beside this deed of
death, troubles my thought at this moment. Let
us speak of our future hope—if hope there may be
for me, after the stern sentence which your lips
uttered in part even now.”

“It was for you—for your safety, believe me,
Mark, that I spoke; my own heart was wrung
with the language of my lips—the language of my
cooler thought. I spoke only for your safety and
not for myself. Could—I again repeat—could this
deed be undone—could you be free from the reproach
and the punishment, I would be content,
though the strings of my heart cracked with its own

doom, to forego all claim upon you—to give you
—to give up my own hope of happiness for ever.”

Her words were passionate, and at their close
her head sank upon his shoulder, while her tears
gushed forth without restraint, and in defiance of
all her efforts. The heart of the woodman was
deeply and painfully affected, and the words refused
to leave his lips, while a kindred anguish
shook his manly frame, and rendered it almost a
difficulty with him to sustain the slight fabric of
hers. With a stern effort, however, he recovered
himself, and reseating her upon the bank from
which, in the agitation of the moment, they had
both arisen, he endeavoured to sooth her spirit, by
unfolding his plan of future life.

“My present aim is the nation—I shall cross the
Chestatee river to-morrow, and shall push at once
for the forest of Etowee, and beyond the Etowee
river. I know the place well, and have been through
it once before. There I shall linger until I hear
all the particulars of this affair in its progress, and
determine upon my route accordingly. If the stir
is great, as I reckon it will be, I shall push into
Tennessee, and perhaps go for the Mississippi.
Could I hope that your father would consent to remove,
I should at once do this and make a settlement,
where, secure from interruption and all together,
we might live happily and honourably for
the future.”

“And why not do so now—why stop at all
among the Cherokees? Why not go at once into
Mississippi, and begin the world, as you propose in
the end to do?”

“What! and leave you for ever—now Kate, you
are indeed cruel. I had not thought to have listened
to such a recommendation from one who
loved me as you profess.”

“As I do, Mark—I say nothing which I do not
feel. It does not follow that you will be any nigher
your object, if my father continues firm in his refusal,
though nigher to me, by lingering about in
the nation. On the contrary, will he not, hearing
of you in the neighbourhood, be more close in his
restraints upon me. Will not your chance of exposure,
too, be so much the greater, as to make it
incumbent upon him to pursue his determination
with rigour; while, on the other hand, if you remove
yourself out of all reach of Georgia, in the
Mississippi, and there begin a settlement, I am sure
that he will look upon the affair with different notions.”

“It cannot be, Kate—it cannot be. You know
I have had but a single motive for living so long
among this people and in these parts. I disliked
both, and only lingered with a single hope, that I
might be blessed with your presence always, and
in the event of my sufficient success that I might
win you altogether for myself. I have not done
much for this object, and this unhappy affair forbids
me for the present to do more. Is not this enough,
Katharine, and must I bury myself from you
a thousand miles in the forest, ignorant of what
may be going on, and without any hope, such as I
have lived for before. Is the labour I have undergone—the
life I have led, to have no fruits? Will
you too be the first to recommend forgetfulness;
to overthrow my chance of happiness. No—it
must not be. Hear me, Katharine Walton—hear
me, and say I have not worked altogether in vain.
I have acquired some little by my toils, and can
acquire more. There is one thing now, one blessing
which you may afford, and the possession of
which will enable me to go with a light heart and
a strong hand into any forests, winning comforts

for both of us—happiness, if the world have it—and
nothing to make us afraid.”

He spoke with deep energy, and for a moment
she looked inquiringly into his face. The expression
was satisfactory, and she replied without hesitation.

“I understand you, Mark Forrester—I understand
you, but it must not be. I must regard and
live for affections beside my own? would you have
me fly for ever from those who have been all to me
—from those to whom I am all—from my father—
from my dear, my old mother! Fie, Mark.”

“And are you not all to me, Katharine,—the sole,
the singular—the one thing for which I would live,
and wanting which I care not to live? Ay, Katharine,
fly with me from all,—and yet not for ever.
They will follow you, and our end will then be answered.
Unless you do this, they would linger on
in this place without an object, even if permitted,
which is very doubtful, to hold their ground—enjoying
life as a vegetable, and dead before life itself
is extinct.”

“Spare your speech, Mark—on this point you
urge me in vain,” was the firm response of the
maiden. “Though I feel for you as I feel for none
other, I also feel that I have other ties and other
obligations, all inconsistent with the step which you
would have me take. I will not have you speak
of it further—on this particular I am immovable.”

A shade of mortification clouded the face of
Forrester as she uttered these words, and, for a
moment he was silent. Resuming, at length, with
something of regulation in his manner, he continued
the conversation.

“Well, Kate, since you will have it so, I forbear;
though, what course is left for you and what
hope for me, if your father continues in his present

humour, I am at a loss to see. There is one thing,
however—there is one pledge that I would exact
from you before we part.”

He took her hand tenderly as he spoke, and his
eyes glistening with tearful expectation, were fixed
upon her own; but she did not immediately reply.
She seemed rather to await the naming of the
pledge of which he spoke. There was a struggle
going on between her mind and her affections, and
though, in the end, the latter seemed to obtain the
mastery, the sense of propriety, the moral guardianship
of her own spirit battled sternly and fearlessly
against their suggestions. She would make
no promise which might, by any possibility, bind her
to any engagement inconsistent with other and primary
obligations.

“I know not, Mark, what may be the pledge
which you would have from me, to which I could
consent with propriety. When I hear your desires,
plainly expressed to my understanding, I shall better
know how to reply. You heard the language
of my father—I must obey his wishes as far as I
know them. Though sometimes rough, and always
irregular in his habits, to me he has been at all
times tender and kind—he has never treated me
roughly, and I would not now disobey his commands.
Still, in this matter, my heart inclines too
much in your favour not to make me less scrupulous
on the subject than I should otherwise desire
to be. Besides, I have so long held myself yours,
and with his sanction yours only, that I can the
more easily listen to your entreaties. If, then, you
truly love me, you will, I am sure, ask nothing that
I should not grant. Speak—what is the pledge?”

“It shall come with no risk, Kate, believe me,
none. Heaven forbid that I should bring a solitary
grief to your bosom; yet it may adventure in

some respects both mind and person, if you be not
wary. Knowing your father, as you know him too,
I would have from you a pledge—a promise, here,
solemnly uttered in the eye of heaven, and in the
holy stillness of this place, which has witnessed
other of our vows no less sacred and solemn, that,
should he sanction the prayer of another who seeks
your love, and command your obedience, that you
will not obey—that you will not go quietly a victim
to the altar—that you will not pledge to another
the same vow which has been long since pledged
to me.”

He paused a moment for a reply, but she spoke
not—and with something like impetuosity he proceeded:—

“You make no reply, Katharine? You hear my
entreaty—my prayer. It involves no impropriety
—it stands in the way of no other duty, since, I
trust, the relationship between us is to the full as
binding and dear as that of any other which may
call for your regard. All that I ask is, that you
will not dispose of yourself to another, your heart
not going with your hand, whatever may be the
authority which may require it; at least, not until
you are fully assured that it is beyond my power
to claim you, or I become unworthy to press the
claim.”

“It is strange, Mark, that you should speak in a
manner of which there is so little need. The pledge
long since uttered as solemnly as you now require,
under these very boughs, should satisfy you on
this particular.”

“So it should, Kate,—and so it would, perhaps,
could I now reason on any subject. But my doubts
are not now of your love, but of your firmness in
resisting a control at variance with your duty to
yourself. Your words reassure me, however, and

now, though with no glad heart, I shall pass over
the border, and hope for the better days which are
to make us happy.”

“Not so fast, Master Forrester,” exclaimed the
voice of old Walton, emerging from the cover of
the sycamore, to the shelter of which he had advanced
unobserved, and had been the unsuspected
auditor of the dialogue from first to last. The couple,
with an awkward consciousness, started up at
the speech, taken by surprise, and neither uttering
a word in reply to this sudden address.

“You must first answer, young man, to the
charge of advising my daughter to disobedience,
as I have heard you for the last half hour; and to
elopement, which she had the good sense to refuse.
I thought, Master Forrester, that you were better
bred than to be guilty of such offences.”

“I know them not as such, Mr. Walton. I had
your own sanction to my engagement with Katharine,
and do not see that after that you had any
right to break it off.”

“You do not—eh! Well, perhaps you are right,
and I have thought better of the matter myself;
and between us, Kate has behaved so well and
spoken so prettily to you, and obeyed my orders,
as she should have done, that I'm thinking to look
more kindly on the whole affair.”

“Are you, dear father—I am so delighted!”

“Hush, minx—the business is mine and none of
yours. Hark you, Mark. You must fly—there's
no two ways about that; and, between us, there
will be a devil of a stir in this matter. I have it
from good authority, that the governor will riddle
the whole nation but he'll have every man, woman,
and child concerned in this difficulty; so that'll be
no place for you. You must go right on to the
Massassippi, and enter lands enough for us all.

Enter them in Kate's name, and they'll be secure.
As soon as you've fixed that business, write on,
say where you are, and we'll be down upon you,
bag and baggage, in no time and less.”

“Oh, dear father—this is so good of you.”

“Pshaw, get away, minx; I don't like kisses
jest after supper; it takes the taste all out of my
mouth of what I've been eating.”

Forrester was loud in his acknowledgments,
and sought by eulogistic professions to do away the
effect of all that stuff, on the reverse of the picture,
which he might have uttered in the previous conversation;
but the old man cut him short with his
wonted querulousness—

“Oh, done with your blarney, boy. `It's all my
eye and Betty Martin!' Won't you go in and take
supper. There's something left, I reckon.”

But Forrester had now no idea of eating, and
declined accordingly, alleging his determination to
set off immediately upon his route; a determination
which the old man highly approved of.

“You are right, Mark—move's the word, and
the sooner you go about it the better. Here's my
hand on your bargain, and good-by—I reckon
you'll have something more to say to Kate; and,
I suppose you don't want me to help you in saying
it—so I leave you. She's used to the way—and
if she's at all afraid, you can easily see her
home.”

With a few more words the old man took his
departure, leaving the young people as happy now
as he had before found them sad and sorrowful.
They did not doubt that the reason of this change
was as he alleged it, and gave themselves no
thought as to causes, satisfied as they were with
effects. But old Walton had not proceeded without
his host—he had been advised of the contemplated

turn-out of all the squatters from the gold
region; and having no better tenure than any of
his neighbours, he very prudently made a merit of
necessity, and took his measures as we have seen.
The lovers were satisfied, and their interview now
wore, though at parting, a more sunshiny and genial
complexion. But why prolong a scene which admits
of so little variety, as that which describes the
sweets and the strifes and the sorrows of mortal
love? We take it, there is no reader of novels so
little conversant with matters of this nature, as
not to know how they begin and how they end;
and contenting ourselves with separating the parties
—an act hard-hearted enough, in all conscience—
we shall not with idle and questionable sympathy
dwell upon the sorrows of their separation. We
may utter a remark, however, which the particular
instance before us occasions, in relation to the singular
influence of true love upon the mental and
moral character of the man. There is no influence
in the world's circumstance so truly purifying,
elevating, and refining, as love. It instils high and
generous sentiments—it ennobles human endeavour—it
sanctifies defeat and denial—it polishes
manners—it gives to morals a tincture of devotion,
and, as with the spell of magic, such as Milton describes
in Comus, it dissipates with a glance the
wild rout of low desires and insane follies, which
so much blur and blot up the otherwise fair face
of human society. It permits of no meanness in
its train—it expels vulgarity, and with a high
stretch towards perfected humanity, it unearths the
grovelling nature, and gives it aspirations of soul
and sunshine. Its effect upon Forrester had been
of this description. It had been his only tutor,
and had taught him nobly in numberless respects.
In every association with the maiden of his affections,
his tone, his language, his temper, and his
thoughts seemed to have undergone improvement
and purification. He seemed quite another man
whenever he came into her presence, and whenever
the thought of her was in his heart. Indeed, such
was the effect of this passion upon both of them;
though this may have been partially the result of other
circumstances arising from their particular situation.
For a long time they had known few enjoyments that
were not intimately connected with the image of one
or the other of them; and thus, from having no other
objects of contemplation or concern, they refined
upon one another. As the minute survey in the
forest of the single leaf, which, for years may not
have attracted the eye, unfolds the fine veins, the
fanciful outline, the clear, green, and transparent
texture, and the delicate shadowings of innumerable
hues won from the skies and the sunshine; so,
day by day, surveying the single object, they had
become familiar with attractions in one another,
which the passing world would never have supposed
either of them to possess. In such a region,
where there are few competitors for human
love and regard, the heart clings with hungering
tenacity to the few stray affections that spring up,
here and there, like flowers dropped in the desert
by some kindly, careless hand, making a bloom
and a blessing for the untrodden wilderness.
Nor do they blossom there in vain, since, as the
sage has told us, there is no breeze that wafts not
life, no sun that brings not smiles, no water that
bears not refreshment, no flower that has not
charms and a solace, for some heart that could not
well hope to be happy without them.

They separated on the verge of the copse to
which he had attended her, their hands having all
the way been passionately linked, and a seal having

been set upon their mutual vows by the long, loving
embrace which concluded their interview. The
cottage was in sight, and from the umbrageous
shade which surrounded him, he beheld her enter
its precincts in safety; then, returning to their place
of tryst, he led forth his steed, and with a single bound,
was once more in his saddle and once more a wanderer.
The cheerlessness of such a fate as that before
him, even under the changed aspect of his affairs,
to those unaccustomed to the rather too migratory
habits of our southern and western people, would
seem somewhat severe; but the only hardship in
his present fortune, to the mind of Forrester, was
the privation and protraction of his love arrangements.
The wild woodland adventure common to
the habits of the people of this class, had a stimulating
effect upon his spirit at all other times; and, even
now—though perfectly legitimate for a lover to
move slowly from his mistress—the moon just rising
above the trees, and his horse in full gallop through
their winding intricacies, a warm and bracing
energy came to his aid, and his heart grew cheery
under its inspiriting influences. He was full of the
future, rich in anticipation, and happy in the contemplation
of a thousand projects. With a free
rein he plunged forward into the recesses of the
forest, dreaming of a cottage in the Mississippi, a
heart at ease, and Katharine Walton, with all
her beauties, for ever at hand to keep it so.