University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Lucy Munro re-entered the dwelling at a moment
most inopportune. It was not less her
obvious policy than desire—prompted as well by
the necessity of escaping the notice and consequent
suspicions of those whom she had defrauded of
their prey, as by a due sense of that delicate propriety
which belonged to her sex, and which her
education, as the reader will have conjectured, had
taught her properly to estimate—that made her now
seek to avoid scrutiny or observation at the moment
of her return. Though the niece, and now under
the sole direction and authority of Munro, she was
the child of one as little like that personage in spirit
and pursuit as may well be imagined. It is not
necessary that we should more particularly dwell
upon this difference. It happened with the two
brothers, as many of us have discovered in other
cases, that their mental and moral make, though
seemingly under the same tutorship, was widely
dissimilar. The elder Munro, at an early period
in life, broke through all restraints—defied all responsibilities—scorned
all human consequences,

took no pride or pleasure in any of its domestic
associations, and was only known as a vicious profligate,
with whom nothing might be done in the way
of restraint or reformation. When grown to manhood,
he suddenly left his parental home, and went,
for a time, no one could say whither. When heard
of, it appeared from all accounts that his licentiousness
of habit had not deserted him,—still, however,
it had not, as had been anticipated, led to any fearful
or very pernicious results. Years passed on,
the parents died, and the brothers grew more than
ever separate; when, in different and remote communities,
they each took wives to themselves. The
younger, Edgar Munro, the father of Lucy, grew
prosperous in business—for a season at least—and,
until borne down by a rush of unfavourable and
conflicting circumstances, he spared neither pains
nor expense in the culture of the young mind of
that daughter whose fortunes are now somewhat
before us. Nothing which might tend in the
slightest to her personal improvement had been
withheld; and the due feminine grace and accomplishment
which followed these cares, fitted the
maiden for the most refined intellectual converse,
and for every gentle association. She was familiar
with books; had acquired a large taste for letters;
and a vein of romantic enthusiasm, not uncommon
to the southern temperament, and which she possessed
in a considerable degree, was not a little
sharpened and exaggerated by the works which
fell into her hands. It was, possibly, the influence
of such an education which impelled her to the
risk which she had taken for the safety of Ralph
Colleton. Tenderly loved and gently nurtured by
her parents, it was at that period in her life in
which their presence and guardianship were most
seriously needed, that she became an orphan; and
her future charge necessarily devolved upon an
uncle, between whom and her father, since their
early manhood, but little commerce or association
of any kind had taken place. The one looked upon
the other as too licentious, if not criminally so, in
his habits and pursuits—he did not know their extent,
or dream of their character, or he had never
doubted for an instant; while he, in turn, so estimated,
did not fail to consider and to style his more
sedate brother an inveterate and tedious proser; a
dull sermonizer on feelings which he knew nothing
about, and could never understand—one who
prosed on to the end of the chapter, without charm
or change, worrying all about him with exhortations
to which they yielded no regard. The parties
were fairly quits, and there was no love lost
between them. They saw each other but seldom,
and when the surviving brother took up his abode
in the new purchase, as the Indian acquisitions of
modern times have been usually styled, he was
lost sight of, for a time, entirely, by his more staid
and worthy kinsman. Still, Edgar Munro did not
look upon his brother as utterly bad. A wild indifference
to social forms, and those staid customs
which in the estimation of society become virtues,
was, in his idea, the most serious error of
which Walter had been guilty—in this thought he
persisted to the last, and did not so much feel the
privations to which his death must subject his child,
in the belief and hope that his brother would not
only be able but willing to supply the loss. In one
respect he was not mistaken. The afflictions
which threw the niece of Walter a dependant
upon his bounty, and a charge upon his attention,
revived, in some measure, his almost smothered,
and in part forgotten regards of kindred; and
with a tolerably good grace he came forward to
the duty, and took the orphan to the asylum, such
as it was, to which his brother's deathbed prayer
had recommended her. At first, there was something
to her young mind savouring of the romance
to which she had rather given herself up, in the notion
of a woodland cottage, and rural sports, and
wild vines gadding fantastically around secluded
bowers; but the reality—the sad reality of such
a home and its associations—pressed too soon and
heavily upon her to permit her much longer to
entertain or encourage the dream of that glad
fancy in which she originally set out. The sphere
of her transfer, it was soon evident, was neither
grateful to the heart nor suited to the mind whose
education had been such as hers; and the spirit of
the young maiden, at all times given rather to a
quiet aspect of melancholy than to any very animated
impulses, put on, in its new abiding place, a
garb of increased severity, which at certain moments
indicated more of deep and settled misanthropy
than any mere constitutionality of habit.
Munro was not at all times rude of speech and
manner; and, when he pleased, knew well how so
to direct himself as to soothe such a disposition.
He saw, and in a little while well understood, the
temper of his niece; and with a consideration
under all circumstances rather creditable, he would
most usually defer, with a ready accommodation
of his own, to her peculiarities. He was
pleased and proud of her accomplishments; and
from being thus proud, so far as such an emotion
could consistently comport with a life and a licentiousness
such as his, he had learned, in reality,
to love the object who could thus awaken a sentiment
so much beyond those inculcated by all
his other habits. To her, he exhibited none of
the harsh manner which marked his intercourse
with all other persons; and, in his heart, sincerely
regretted, and sought to avoid the necessity, which,
as we have elsewhere seen, had made him pledge
her hand to Rivers—a disposition of it which he
knew was no less galling and painful to her than it
was irksome yet unavoidable to himself. Unhappily,
however, for these sentiments, he was
too much under the control and at the mercy of
his colleague to resist or refuse his application for
her person; and though for a long time baffling,
under vain pretences, the pursuit of that ferocious
ruffian, he felt that the time was at hand, unless
some providential interference willed it otherwise,
when the sacrifice would be insisted on and must
be made; or, probably, her safety, as well as his
own, might necessarily be compromised. He
knew too well the character of Rivers, and was
too much in his power to risk much in opposition
to his will and desires: and, as we have already
heard him declare, from having been at one time, and
in some respects, the tutor, he had now become, from
the operation of circumstances, the mere creature
and instrument of that unprincipled wretch. Whatever
may have been the crimes of Munro beyond
those already developed—known to, and in the
possession of Rivers—and whatever the nature of
those ties, as well of league as of mutual risk,
which bound the parties together in such close
affinity, it is not necessary that we should state,
nor, indeed, might it be altogether within our compass
or capacity to do so. Their connexion had,
we doubt not, many ramifications; and was
strengthened, there is little question, by a thousand
mutual necessities, resulting from their joint and
frequently repeated violations of the laws of the
land. They were both members of an irregular
club, known by its constituents in Georgia as the
most atrocious criminal that ever offended society
or defied its punishments; and the almost masonic
mysteries and bond which distinguished the members
provided them with a pledge of security,
which gave an added impetus to their already
reckless vindictiveness against man and humanity.
In a country, the population of which, few and far
between, is spread over a wide, wild, and little
cultivated territory, the chances of punishment for
crime, rarely realized, scarcely occasioned a thought
among offenders; and invited, by the impunity
which marked their atrocities, their reiterated commission.
We have digressed, however, somewhat
from our narrative, but thus much was necessary
to the proper understanding of the portions immediately
before us, and to the consideration of which
we now return.

The moment was inopportune, as we have already
remarked, at which Lucy Munro endeavoured
to effect her return to her own apartment.
She was compelled, for the attainment of this object,
to cross directly over the great hall, from the
room adjoining and back of which the little shed-room
projected in which she lodged. This hall
was immediately entered upon from the passage
way, leading into the court in front, and but a few
steps were necessary for its attainment. The hall
had but a single outlet besides that through which
she now entered, and this led at once into the
adjoining apartment, through which only could
she make her way to her own. Unhappily, this
passage also contained the stairway flight which
led into the upper story of the building; and, in
her haste to accomplish her return, she had penetrated
too far to effect her retreat, when a sudden
change of direction in the light which Rivers
carried, sufficed to develop the form of that person,
at the foot of the stairs, followed by Munro, just

returning from the attempt which she had rendered
fruitless, and now approaching directly towards
her. Conscious of the awkwardness of her situation,
and with a degree of apprehension which
now for the first time seemed to paralyze altogether
her faculties, she endeavoured, but with some uncertainty
and hesitation of manner, to gain the
shelter of the wall which stretched dimly beside
her; a hope not entirely vain, had she pursued it
decisively, since the lamp which Rivers carried
gave forth but a feeble ray, barely adequate to the
task of guiding the footsteps of those who employed
it. But the glance of the outlaw, rendered, it
would seem, more malignantly penetrating from
his recent disappointment, detected the movement;
and though, from the imperfectness of the light,
uncertain of the object, with a ready activity, the
result of a conviction that the long sought-for victim
was now before him, he sprung forward, flinging
aside the lamp as he did so, and grasping with
one hand and with rigid gripe the almost fainting
girl, the other brandishing a bared knife, was uplifted
to strike, when her shrieks arrested the blow.
Disappointed in not finding the object he sought,
the fury of the outlaw was rather heightened than
diminished when he discovered that his arm only
encircled a young and terrified female; and his
teeth were gnashed in token of the bitter wrath
in his bosom, and angry curses came from his lips
in the undisguised vexation of his spirit. In the
meantime, Munro advanced, and the lamp having
been dashed out in the onset of Rivers, they were
still ignorant of the character of their prisoner,
until having somewhat recovered from her first
alarm, and struggling at her deliverance from the
painful gripe which secured her arm, she exclaimed:—

“Unhand me, sir—unhand me, on the instant.
What mean you by this violence?”

“Ha! it is you then, fair mistress, that have done
this work. It is you that have intermeddled in
matters so far beyond your accustomed province,
interfering in the concerns of men, prying into their
plans, and arresting their execution. By my soul,
I had not thought you so ready or so apt; but how
do you reconcile it to your notions of propriety to
be abroad at an hour which is something late for a
coy damsel? Munro—you must look to these rare
doings, or they will work you some difficulty in
time to come.”

Munro advanced and addressed her with some
sternness—“Why are you abroad, Lucy, and at
this hour? why this seeming disquietude, and what
has alarmed you? why have you left your chamber?”

The uncle did not obtain, nor indeed did he
appear to expect any answer to his inquiries; they
seemed merely to have been put for form sake. In
the mean while, Rivers still held possession of her
arm, and she continued fruitlessly struggling for
some moments in his grasp, referring at length to
the speaker for that interference which he now
appeared slow to manifest.

“Oh, sir—will you suffer me to be treated thus
—will you not make this man undo his hold, and
let me retire to my chamber?”

“You should have been there long before this,
Lucy,” was the reply, in a grave, stern accent.
“You must not complain if, found thus, at midnight,
in a part of the building remote from your
chamber, you should be liable to suspicions of
meddling with things which should not concern
you.”

“Come, mistress—pray answer to this. Where

have you been to-night—what doing—why abroad.
Have you been eaves-dropping—telling tales—
hatching plots?”

The natural ferocity of Rivers's manner was
rather heightened by the tone which he assumed.
The maiden, struggling still for the release for
which her spirit would not suffer her to implore—
exclaimed:—

“Insolent! By what right ask you these or any
questions of me? Unhand me, coward—unhand
me. You are strong and brave only where the
feeble are your opponents.”

But he maintained his grasp with even more
rigidity than before; and she turned towards the
spot at which stood her uncle, but he had left the
apartment for a light.

“Your speech is bold, fair mistress, and ill suits
my temper. You must be more chary of your
language, or you will provoke me beyond my own
strength of restraint. You are my property—
my slave, if I so please it, and all your appeals to
your uncle will be of no effect. Hark you—you
have done that to-night for which I am almost
tempted to put this dagger into your heart, woman
as you are. You have come between me and my
victim—between me and my enemy. I had summed
up all my wrongs, intending their settlement to-night.
You have thwarted all my hopes—you
have defrauded me of all my anticipations. What
is it prevents me from putting you to death on the
spot? Nothing—I have no fears, no loves to withhold
and keep me back. I live but for revenge,
and that which stays and would prevent me from
its enjoyment must also become its victim.” At
this moment Munro returned with a lamp. The
affrighted girl again appealed to him, but he heeded
her not. He soon left the passage, and the outlaw

proceeded:—“You love this youth—nay,
shrink not back; let not your head droop in
shame; he is worthy of your love, and for this
among other things I hate him. He is worthy of
the love of others, and for this too I hate him.
Fool that you are, he cares not for you; spite of all
your aid to-night, he will not remember you to-morrow—he
has no thought of you—his hope is
built upon—he is wedded to another.

“Hear me, then—your life is in my hands, and
at my mercy. There are none present who could
interfere and arrest the blow. My dagger is even
now upon your bosom—do you not feel it? At a
word—a single suggestion of my thought—it performs
its office, and for this night's defeat I am half
revenged. You may arrest my arm—you may
procure your release—even more—you may escape
from the bondage of that union with me for
which your uncle stands pledged, if you please.”

“Speak—say—how!” was the eager exclamation
of the maiden when this last suggestion met
her ears.

“Put me on the scent—say on what route have
you sent this boy, that I may realize the revenge I
so often dream of.”

“Never, never, as I hope to live. I would rather
you should strike me dead on the spot.”

“Why, so I will,” he exclaimed, furiously, and
his arm rose and the weapon descended, but he
arrested the stroke as it approached her.

“No—not yet. There will be time enough for
this, and you will perhaps be more ready and
resigned when I have got rid of this youth in whom
you are so much interested. I need not disguise
my purpose to you—you must have known it,
when conspiring for its defeat; and now, Lucy, be
assured, I shall not slumber in pursuit of him. I

may be delayed, my revenge may be protracted,
but I shall close with him at last. Withholding the
clue which you may unfold cannot serve him very
greatly; and having it in your hands, you may
serve yourself and me. Take my offer—put me
on his route, so that he shall not escape me, and be
free henceforward from pursuit, or, as you phrase
it, from persecution of mine.”

“You offer highly, very highly, Guy Rivers, and
I should be tempted to any thing save this. But I
have not taken this step to undo it. I shall give
you no clue, no assistance which may lead to
crime and to the murder of the innocent. Release
my hand, sir, and suffer me to retire.”

“You have the means of safety and release in
your own hands—a single condition complied with,
and, so far as I am concerned, they are yours.
Where is he gone—where secreted? What is the
route which you have advised him to take. Speak,
and to the point, Lucy Munro, for I may not longer
be trifled with.”

“He is safe, and by this time, I hope, beyond
your reach. I tell you thus much, because I feel
that it cannot yield you more satisfaction than it
yields to me.”

“It is in vain, woman, that you would trifle with
and delay me: he cannot escape me in the end.
All these woods are familiar to me, in night as in
day, as the apartment in which we stand; and
towards this boy I entertain a feeling which will
endue me with an activity and energy as unshrinking
in the pursuit as the appetite for revenge is
keen which gives them birth and impulse. I hate
him with a sleepless, an unforgiving hate, that cannot
be quieted. He has dishonoured me in the presence
of these men—he has been the instrument through
which I bear this badge, this brand-stamp on my

cheek—he has come between my passion and its
object—nay, droop not—I have no reference now
to you, though you, too, have been won by his insidious
attractions, while he gives you no thought
in return—he has done more than this, occasioned
more than this, and wonder not that I had it in my
heart at one moment to-night to put my dagger
into your bosom, since through you it had been
defrauded of its object. But why tremble—do you
not tell me he is safe?”

“I do—and for this reason I tremble. I tremble
with joy, not fear. I rejoice that through my poor
help he is safe. I did it all. I sought him—hear
me, Guy Rivers, for in his safety I feel strong to
speak—I sought him even in his chamber, and felt
no shame—I led the way—I guided him through all
the avenues of the house—when you ascended the
stairs we stood over it in the closet which stands
at its head. We beheld your progress—saw, and
counted every step you took; heard every word
you uttered; and, more than once, when your
fiend soul spoke through your lips, in horrible
threatenings, my hand arrested the weapon with
which the youth whom you now seek would have
sent you to your long account, with all your sins
upon your head. I saved you from his blow; not
because you deserved to live, but because, at that
moment, you were too little prepared to die.”

It would be difficult to imagine—certainly impossible
to describe, the rage of Rivers, as, with an
excited spirit, the young girl, still trembling, as she
expressed it, from joy, not fear, avowed all the particulars
of Colleton's escape. She proceeded with
much of the fervour and manner of one roused
into all the inspiration of a holy defiance of danger:

“Wonder not, therefore, that I tremble—my soul
is full of joy at his escape. I heed not the sneer

and the sarcasm which is upon your lips and in
your eyes. I went boldly and confidently even
into the chamber of the youth—I aroused him
from his slumbers—I defied, at that moment of
peril, what were far worse to me than your suspicions—I
defied such as might have been his. I
was conscious of no sin—no improper thought—
and I called upon God to protect and to sanction
me in what I had undertaken. He has done so,
and I bless him for the sanction.”

She sank upon her knees as she spoke, and her
lips murmured and parted as if in prayer, while
the tears—tears of gladness—streamed warmly
and abundantly from her eyes. The rage of the outlaw
grew momently darker and less governable.
The white foam collected about his mouth—while
his hands, though still retaining their gripe upon
hers, trembled almost as much as her own. He
spoke in broken and bitter words. “And may
God curse you for it. You have dared much, Lucy
Munro, this hour. You have bearded a worse fury
than the tiger thirsting after blood. What madness
prompts you to this folly? You have heard me
avow my utter, uncontrollable hatred of this man—
my determination, if possible, to destroy him, and
yet you interpose. You dare to save him in my
defiance. You teach him our designs, and labour
to thwart them yourself. Hear me, girl—you
know me well—you know I never threaten without
execution. I can understand how it is that a spirit,
feeling at this moment as does your own, should
defy death. But bethink you—is there nothing in
your thought which is worse than death—from the
terrors of which, the pure mind, however fortified
by heroic resolution, must still shrink and tremble?
Beware, then, how you chafe me. Say where the
youth has gone, and in this way retrieve, if you can,

the error which taught you to connive at his
escape.”

“I know not what you mean, and have no fears
of any thing you can do. On this point I feel
secure, and bid you defiance. To think now, that,
having chiefly effected the escape of the youth, I
would place him again within your power, argues
a degree of stupidity in me that is wantonly insulting.
I tell you he has fled—by this time—beyond
your reach. I say no more. It is enough that he
is in safety: before a word of mine puts him in
danger, I'll perish by your hands or any hands.”

“Then shall you perish, fool!” cried the ruffian,
and his hand, hurried by the ferocious impulse of
his rage, was again uplifted, when, in her struggles
at freedom, a new object met his sight in the chain
and portrait which Ralph had flung about her neck,
and which, now falling from her bosom, arrested
his attention, and seemed to awaken some recognition
in his mind. His hold relaxed upon her arm,
and with eager haste he seized the portrait, tearing
it away with a single wrench from the rich chain
to which it was appended, and which now in broken
fragments was strewn upon the floor. Lucy
sprang towards him convulsively, and vainly endeavoured
at its recovery. Rivers broke the
spring, and his eyes gazed with serpent-like fixedness
upon the exquisitely beautiful features which
it developed. His whole appearance underwent a
change. The sternness had departed from his
face, which now put on an air of abstraction and
wandering not usually a habit with it. He gazed
long and fixedly upon the portrait, unheeding the
efforts of the girl to obtain it, and muttering at
frequent intervals detached sentences, having little
dependence upon one another:—

“Ay—it is she,” he exclaimed—“true to the

life—bright, beautiful, young, innocent—and I—
But let me not think!”

Then turning to the maid—

“Fond fool—see you the object of adoration with
him whom you so unprofitably adore. He loves her,
girl—her—she, whom I—but why should I tell it
you—is it not enough that we have both loved and
loved in vain; and, in my revenge, you too shall
acquire yours.”

“I have nothing to revenge, Guy Rivers—
nothing for you, above all others, to revenge. Give
me the miniature; I have it in trust, and it must not
go out of my possession.”

She clung to him as she spoke, fruitlessly endeavouring
at the recovery of that which he studiously
kept from her reach. He parried her efforts
for a while with something of forbearance; but ere
long his original temper returned, and he exclaimed,
with all the air of the demon—

“Why will you tempt me, and why longer
should I trifle? You cannot have the picture—it
belongs, or should belong, as well as its original, to
me. My concern is now with the robber from whom
you obtained it. Will you not say upon what
route he went? Will you not guide me—and, remember
well—there are some terrors greater to
your mind than any threat of death. Declare, for
the last time—what road he took.”

The maiden was still, and showed no sign of
reply. Her eye wandered—her spirit was in
prayer. She was alone with a ruffian, irresponsible
and reckless, and she had many fears.

“Will you not speak?” he cried—“then you
must hear. Disclose the fact, Lucy—say, what is
the road, or what the course you have directed for
this youth's escape, or—” and stooping down he
finished the sentence in the ears of the stunned and

suffering girl. She started at the threat, for such
it was, with undisguised horror.

“Monster as you are—foul and ferocious you
do but threaten, Guy Rivers—you would not dare
such a thing!”

The creeping terror of her voice, as she spoke,
fully contradicted the confidence which her words
expressed.

“Ay, but by hell, and I dare even more!” was
the instant response of the ruffian.

“Then heaven be merciful to thee and me,”
was all that she said, when she sank senselessly at
his feet, just as his arms, with audacious grasp,
were encircling her waist.