University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The twilight had subsided and given place to a beautiful night.
The moon had risen above the tree tops, and now threw her level
rays upon the broad face of the massive pile of rocks forming the
Fawn's Tower, and lit up with a silvery splendor, the foliage that
clothed the steep cliff and the almost perpendicular hill in its neighborhood.
On the opposite side of the river, a line of beech and sycamore
trees, that grew almost at the water's edge, threw a dark
shadow upon the bank. Through these, at intervals, the bright
moonlight fell upon the earth, and upon the quiet and deep stream.
The woods were vocal with the whispering noises that give discord
to the nights of summer; yet, was there a stillness in the scene
which invited grave thoughts, and recalled to Butler's mind some
painful emotions that belonged to his present condition.

“How complicated and severe are those trials”—such was the
current of his meditations—“which mingle private grief with public
misfortune: that double current of ill which runs, on one side, to the
overthrow of a nation's happiness, and, on the other, to the prostration
of the individual who labors in the cause! What a struggle
have I to encounter between my duty to my country and my regard
for those tender relations that still more engross my affections, nor
less earnestly appeal to my manhood for defence! Upon the common
quarrel I have already staked my life and fortune, and find
myself wrapt up in its most perilous obligations. That cause has
enough in it to employ and perplex the strongest mind, and to
invoke the full devotion of a head and heart that are exempt from
all other solicitude: yet am I embarrassed with personal cares that
are woven into the very web of my existence; that have planted
themselves beside the fountain of my affections, and which, if they

be rudely torn from me, would leave behind—but a miserable and
hopeless wreck. My own Mildred! to what sad trials have I brought
your affection; and how nobly hast thou met them!

“Man lives in the contentious crowd; he struggles for the palm
that thousands may award, and far-speeding renown may rend the
air with the loud huzza of praise. His is the strife of the theatre
where the world are spectators; and multitudes shall glorify his
success, or lament his fall, or cheer him in the pangs of death. But
woman, gentle, silent, sequestered—thy triumphs are only for the
heart that loves thee—thy deepest griefs have no comforter but the
secret communion of thine own pillow!”

Whilst Butler, who had now returned beneath the cliff of the
Fawn's Tower, was absorbed in this silent musing, his comrade was
no less occupied with his own cares. The sergeant had acquired
much of that forecast, in regard to small comforts, which becomes,
in some degree, an instinct in those whose profession exposes them
to the assaults of wind and weather. Tobacco, in his reckoning,
was one of the most indispensable muniments of war; and he was,
accordingly, seldom without a good stock of this commodity. A
corn cob, at any time, furnished him the means of carving the bowl
of a pipe; whilst, in his pocket, he carried a slender tube of reed
which, being united to the bowl, formed a smoking apparatus, still
familiar to the people of this country, and which, to use the sergeant's
own phrase, “couldn't be touched for sweetness by the best pipe the
very Queen of the Dutch herself ever smoked; and that”—he was
in the habit of adding—“must be, as I take it, about the tenderest
thing for a whiff that the Dutchman knowed how to make.”

A flint and steel—part also of his gear—now served to ignite his
tobacco, and he had been, for some time past, sedately scanning the
length and breadth of his own fancies, which were, doubtless,
rendered the more sublime by the mistiness which a rich volume of
smoke had shed across his vision and infused into the atmosphere
around his brain.

“Twelve shillings and nine pence,” were the first words which
became audible to Butler in the depth of his revery. “That, major,”
said the sergeant, who had been rummaging his pocket, and counting
over a handful of coin, “is exactly the amount I have spent
since this time last night. I paid it to the old lady of the Swan,

at Charlottesville, taking a sixpence for mending your bridle rein.
Since you must make me paymaster for our march, I am obliged to
square accounts every night. My noddle wont hold two days'
reckoning. It gets scrimped and flustered with so many numberings,
that I lose the count clean out.”

“It is of little consequence, Galbraith,” replied Butler, seeking to
avoid his companion's interruption.

“Squaring up, and smoothing off, and bringing out this and that
shilling straight to a penny, don't come natural to me,” continued
Robinson, too intent upon his reckoning to observe the disinclination
of Butler to a parley, “money matters are not in my line. I take
to them as disunderstandingly as Gill Bentley did to the company's
books, when they made him Orderly on the Waccamaw picquet.
For Gill, in the first place, couldn't write, and, in the next place, if
he could'a done that, he never larnt to read, so you may suppose
what a beautiful puzzleification he had of it to keep the guard roster
straight.”

“Sergeant, look if yonder boat is loose; I shall want it presently,”
said Butler, still giving no ear to his comrade's gossip.

“It is tied by an easy knot to the root of the tree,” said Robinson,
as he returned from the examination.

“Thank you,” added Butler with more than usual abstractedness.

“Something, major, seems to press upon your spirits to-night,”
said the sergeant, in the kindest tones of inquiry. “If I could lend
a hand to put any thing, that mought happen to have got crooked,
into its right place again, you kn ow, Major Butler, I wouldn't be
slow to do it, when you say the word.”

“I would trust my life to you, Galbraith, sooner than to any
man living,” replied the other, with an affectionate emphasis:—“But
you mistake me, I am not heavy at heart, though a little anxious,
sergeant, at what has brought me here, comrade,” he added as he
approached the sergeant, upon whose broad shoulder he familiarly
laid his hand, with a smile; “you will keep a fellow soldier's
counsel?”

“As I keep my heart in my body,” interrupted Galbraith.

“I am sure of it; even as you keep your faith to your country,
my true and worthy brother,” added Butler with animation, “and
that is with no less honesty than a good man serves his God.

Then, Galbraith, bear it in mind, I have come here for the sake of a
short meeting with one that I love, as you would have a good soldier
love the lady of his soul. You will hereafter speak of nothing that
may fall within your notice. It concerns me deeply that this
meeting should be secret.”

“Major, I will have neither eyes nor ears, if it consarns you to keep
any thing that mought chance to come to my knowledge, private.”

“It is not for myself, sergeant, I bespeak this caution; I have
nothing to conceal from you; but there is a lady who is much
interested in our circumspection. I have given you a long and
solitary ride on her account, and may hereafter ask other service
from you. You shall not find it more irksome, Galbraith, to stand
by a comrade in love, than you have ever found it in war, and that,
I know, you think not much.”

“The war comes naturally enough to my hand,” replied Galbraith,
“but as for the love part, major, excepting so far as carrying
a message, or, in case of a runaway, keeping off a gang of pestifarious
intermeddlers, or watching, for a night or so, under a tree,
or any thing, indeed, in the riding and running, or watching, or
scrimmaging line—I say, excepting these, my sarvice moughtn't turn
to much account. I can't even play a fiddle at a wedding, and I've
not the best tongue for making headway amongst the women.
Howsomdever, major, you may set me down for a volunteer on the
first forlorn hope you may have occasion for.”

“Mr. Lindsay lives on the hill across the river. There are reasons
why I cannot go to his house; and his daughter, Galbraith, is an
especial friend to us and to our cause.”

“I begin to see into it,” interrupted the sergeant, laughing, “you
have a notion of showing the old gentleman the same trick you
played off upon Lord Howe's provost marshal, when you was lieutenant
at Valley Forge, touching your stealing away his prisoner,
Captain Roberts. That was a night affair, too. Well, the best wife
a man can have, major, is the woman that takes to him through
fire and water. There was Colonel Gardiner, that stole his wife just
in that way, against all opposition of both father and mother, and a
better woman never stitched up a seam, to my knowledge and
belief.”

“I have no thought of such an enterprise, sergeant,” said Butler;
“our purpose, for the present, must be confined to a short visit.
We are houseless adventurers, Galbraith, and have little to offer to
sweetheart or wife that might please a woman's fancy.”

“When a woman loves a man, especially a sodger,” replied the
sergeant, “she sets as little store by house and home as the best of
us. Still, it is a wise thing to give the creatures the chance of
peace, before you get to tangling them with families. Hark, I hear
something like footsteps on t'other side of the river! Mister Henry
must be on his march.”

After an interval, a low whistle issued from the opposite bank, and,
in a moment, Butler was in the skiff, pushing his way through the
sparkling waters.

As the small boat, in which he stood upright, shot from the
bright moonlight into the shade of the opposite side, he could
obscurely discern Mildred Lindsay leaning on her brother's arm, as
they both stood under the thick foliage of a large beech. And
scarcely had the bow struck upon the pebbly margin, before he
bounded from it up the bank, and was, in the next instant, locked
in the embrace of one whose affection he valued above all earthly
possessions.

When that short interval had passed away, in which neither Mildred
nor Arthur could utter speech; during which the lady leant
her head upon her lover's bosom, in that fond familiarity which
plighted faith is allowed to justify in the most modest maiden, sobbing
the while in the intensity of her emotions, she then at last, as
she slowly regained her self-possession, said, in a soft and melancholy
voice, in which there was nevertheless a tone of playfulness:

“I am a foolish girl, Arthur. I can boast like a blustering
coward, when there is nothing to fear; and yet I weep, like a true
woman, at the first trial of my courage.”

“Ah, my dear Mildred, you are a brave girl,” replied Butler, as
he held both of her hands and looked fondly into her face, “and a
true and a tried girl. You have come kindly to me, and ever, like a
blessed and gentle spirit of good, are prompt to attend me through
every mischance. It is a long and weary time, love, since last we
met.”

“It is very, very long, Arthur.”

“And we are still as far off, Mildred, from our wishes as at first
we were.”

“Even so,” said Mildred sorrowfully. “A year of pain drags
heavily by, and brings no hope. Oh, Arthur, what have I suffered
in the thought that your life is so beset with dangers! I muse upon
them with a childish fear, that was not so before our last meeting.
They rise to disturb my daily fancies, and night finds them inhabiting
my pillow. I was so thankful, that you escaped that dreary
siege of Charleston!”

“Many a poor and gallant fellow soldier there bit his lip with a
chafed and peevish temper,” said Butler; “but the day will come,
Mildred, when we may yet carry a prouder head to the field of our
country's honor.”

“And your share,” interrupted Mildred, “will ever be to march
in the front rank. In spite of all your perils past, your hard service,
which has known no holiday, your fatigues, that I have sometimes
feared would break down your health, and in spite too, of the
claims, Arthur, that your poor Mildred has upon you, you are even
now again bound upon some bold adventure, that must separate us,
ah, perhaps, for ever! Our fate has malice in it. Ever beginning
some fresh exploit!”

“You would not have your soldier bear himself otherwise than as
a true knight, who would win and wear his lady-love by good set
blows when there was need for them?”

“If I were the genius that conjured up this war, I would give
my own true knight a breathing space. He should pipe and dance
between whiles,” replied Mildred sportively.

“He that puts his sickle into this field amongst the reapers,” said
Butler, with a thoughtful earnestness, “should not look back from
his work.”

“No, no, though my heart break while I say it—for, in truth, I
am very melancholy, notwithstanding I force a beggar's smile upon
my cheek; no, I would not have you stay or stand, Arthur, until
you have seen this wretched quarrel at an end. I praised your first
resolve—loved you for it—applauded and cheered you; I will not
selfishly now, for the sake of my weak, womanish apprehension, say
one word to withhold your arm.”

“And you are still,” said Butler, “that same resolute enthusiast

that I found in the young and eloquent beauty who captivated my
worthless heart, when the war first drew the wild spirits of the
country together under our free banner?”

“The same foolish, conceited, heady, prattling traunt, Arthur, that
first took a silly liking to your pompous strut, and made a hero to
her imagination out of a boasting ensign—the same in all my follies,
and in all my faults—only altered in one quality.”

“And pray, what is that one quality?”

“I will not tell you,” said Mildred carelessly. “'Twould make
you vainer than you are.”

“It is not well to hide a kind thought from me, Mildred.”

“Indeed it is not, Arthur. And so, I will muster courage to
speak it,” said the confiding girl with vivacity, after a short pause
during which she hung fondly upon her lover's arm; and then
suddenly changing her mood, she proceeded in a tone of deep and
serious enthusiasm, “it is, that since that short, eventful and most
solemn meeting, I have loved you, Arthur, with feelings that I did
not know until then were mine. My busy fancy has followed you
in all your wanderings—painted with stronger hues than nature
gives to any real scene the difficulties and disasters that might cross
your path—noted the seasons with a nervous acuteness of remark,
from very faint-heartedness at the thought that they might blight
your health or bring you some discomfort. I have pored over the
accounts of battles, the march of armies, the tales of prisoners
relating the secrets of their prisons; studied the plans of generals
and statesmen, as the newspapers or common rumor brought them
to my knowledge, with an interest that has made those around me
say I was sadly changed. It was all because I had grown cowardly
and feared even my own shadow. Oh, Arthur, I am not indeed
what I was.”

The solemnity, force and feeling with which Mildred gave utterance
to these words, strangely contrasted with the light and gay
tone in which she had commenced; but her thoughts had now
fallen into a current that bore her forward into one of those bursts
of excited emotion, which were characteristic of her temper, and
which threw a peculiar energy and eloquence into her manner.
Butler, struck by the rising warmth of her enunciation, and
swayed in part by the painful reflections to which her topic

gave rise, replied, in a state of feeling scarcely less solemn than
her own—

“Ah, Mildred,” and as he spoke, he parted her hair upon her
pale forehead and kissed it, “dearest girl, the unknown time to
come has no cup of suffering for me that I would not hold a cheap
purchase for one moment like this. Even a year of painful absence
past, and a still more solicitous one to come, may be gallantly and
cheerfully borne when blessed with the fleeting interval of this night.
To hear your faith, which though I never dwelt upon it but with a
confidence that I have held it most profane to doubt, still, to hear
it avowed from your own lips, now again and again, repeating what
you have often breathed before, and in letter after letter, written
down, it falls upon my heart, Mildred, like some good gift from
heaven, specially sent to revive and quicken my resolution in all the
toils and labors that yet await me. There must be good in store
for such a heart as thine; and, trusting to this faith, I will look to
the future with a buoyant temper.”

“The future,” said Mildred, as she lifted her eyes to the pale
moon that now sheeted with its light her whole figure, as she and
her lover strayed beyond the shade of the beech, “I almost shudder
when I hear that word. We live but in the present; that, Arthur,
is, at least, our own, poor as we are in almost all beside. That
future is a perplexed and tangled riddle—a dreadful uncertainty, in
the contemplation of which I grow superstitious. Such ill omens
are about us! My father's inexorable will, so headstrong, so
unconscious of the pain it gives me; his rooted, yes, his fatal
aversion to you; my thraldom here, where, like a poor bird checked
by a cord, I chafe myself by fluttering on the verge of my prison
bounds; and then, the awful perils that continually impend over
your head—all these are more than weak imaginings; they are the
realities of my daily life, and give me, what I am almost ashamed
to confess, a sad and boding spirit.”

“Nay, nay, dearest Mildred! Away with all these unreasonable
reckonings!” replied Butler, with a manner that too plainly betrayed
the counterfeit of mirth. “Seclusion has dealt unworthily
with you. It has almost turned thee into a downright sentimental
woman. I will have none of this stepping to the verge of melancholy.
You were accustomed to cheer me with sunny and warm

counsel; and you must not forget it was yourself who taught me to
strike aside the waves of fortune with a glad temper. The fates
can have no spite against one so good as thou art! Time may bear
us along like a rough trotting horse; and our journey may have its
dark night, its quagmires, and its jack-o'lanterns, but there will come
a ruddy morning at last—a smoother road, and an easier gait;
and thou, my girl, shalt again instruct me how to win a triumph
over the ills of life.”

“And we will be happy, Arthur, because all around us will be
so,” added Mildred, catching the current of Butler's thoughts, with
that ready versatility which eminently showed the earnestness and
devotion of her feelings—“Ah, may heaven grant this boon, and
bring these dreams to life! I think, Arthur, I should be happier
now, if I could but be near you in your wanderings. Gladly would
I follow you through all the dangers of the war.”

“That were indeed, love, a trial past your faculty to endure.
No, no, Mildred, she who would be a soldier's wife, should learn
the soldier's philosophy—to look with a resigned submission on the
present events, and trust to heaven for the future. Your share in
this struggle is to commune with your own heart in solitude, and
teach it patience. Right nobly have you thus far borne that
grievous burden! The sacrifice that you have made—its ever
present and unmitigated weight, silently and sleeplessly inflicting
its slow pains upon your free and generous spirit; that, Mildred, is
the chief and most galling of my cares.”

“This weary war, this weary war,” breathed Mildred, in a pensive
under key, “when will it be done!”

“The longest troubles have their end,” replied Butler, “and men,
at last, spent with the vexations of their own mischief, fly, by a
selfish instinct, into the bosom of peace. God will prosper our
enterprise, and bring our battered ship into a fortunate haven.”

“How little like it seems it now!” returned Mildred. “The
general sorrow, alone, might well weigh down the stoutest heart.
That cause which you have made mine, Arthur, to which you have
bestowed your life, and which, for your sake,” she added proudly,
“should have this feeble arm of mine, could it avail, is it not even
now trembling on the verge of ruin? Have not your letters, one
after another, told me of the sad train in which misfortunes have

thickened upon the whole people? of defeat, both north and south,
and, at this very time, of disgraceful mutiny of whole regiments
under the very eye of Washington—that Washington who loves his
country and her soldiers as a husband loves his bride, and a father
his children. Have not those, to whom we all looked for champions,
turned into mere laggards in the war for freedom? Oh,
Arthur, do you not remember that these are the thoughts, the very
words, which were penned by your own hand, for my especial
meditation? How can I but fear that the good end is still far off?
How can I but feel some weight upon my heart?”

“You have grown overwise, Mildred, in these ruminations. I am
to blame for this, that in my peevish humor, vexed with the crosses
of the day, I should have written on such topics to one so sensitive
as yourself.”

“Still it is true, Arthur, all report confirms it.”

“These things do not become your entertainment, Mildred. Leave
the public care to us. There are bold hearts, love, and strong arms
yet to spare for this quarrel. We have not yet so exhausted our
mines of strength, but that much rough ore still lies unturned to the
sun, and many an uncouth lump of metal remains to be fashioned
for serviceable use. History tells of many a rebound from despondency,
so sudden and unreckoned, that the wisest men could see in it
no other spring than the decree of God. He will fight the battle of
the weak, and set the right upon a sure foundation.”

“The country rings,” said Mildred, again taking the more cheerful
hue of her lover's hopes, and following out, with an affectionate
sympathy, his tone of thought, “with anticipation of victory from
Gates's southern march.”

“That may turn out to be a broken reed,” interrupted Butler,
as if thinking aloud, and struck by Mildred's reference to a subject
that had already engrossed his thoughts; “they may be deceived.
Washington would have put a different man upon that service. I
would have a leader in such a war, wary, watchful, humble—diffident
as well as brave. I fear Gates is not so.”

“Then, I trust, Arthur,” exclaimed Mildred, with anxious alacrity,
“that your present expedition does not connect you with his fortunes!”

“I neither follow his colors nor partake of his counsels,” replied

Butler. “Still my motions may not be exempt from the influence
of his failure or success. The enemy, you are aware, has possessed
himself of every post of value in South Carolina and Georgia. I go
commissioned to advise with discreet and prudent men upon the
means to shake off this odious domination. So far only, and
remotely, too, I am a fellow-laborer with Gates. There are gallant
spirits now afoot, Mildred, to strip these masters of their power. My
office is to aid their enterprise.”

“If you needs must go, Arthur, I have no word to say. You will
leave behind you an aching heart, that morning, noon, and night,
wearies heaven with its prayers for your safety. Alas, I have no
other aid to give! How soon—how soon,” she said, with a voice
that faltered with the question, “does your duty compel you to
leave me?”

“To-morrow's sunrise, love, must find me forth upon my way.”

“To-morrow, Arthur? so quickly to part!”

“I dare not linger; not even for the rich blessing of thy presence.”

“And the utmost length of your journey?”

“Indeed, I know not. At present my farthest aim is Ninety-six
and Augusta. It much depends upon the pleasure of our proud and
wilful masters.”

Mildred stood for some moments looking upon the ground in profound
silence. Her bosom heaved with a sad emotion.

“It is a dangerous duty,” said she, at last. “I cannot speak my
apprehension at the thought of your risks amongst the fierce and
treacherous men that overrun the country to which you travel.”

“These perils are exaggerated by distance,” returned Butler. “A
thousand expedients of protection and defence occur when present,
which the absent cannot fancy. It is a light service, Mildred, and
may more securely be performed with a gay heart than with a sad
one. I pray you, do not suffer that active imagination of yours to
invest the every day adventures of your poor soldier with a romantic
interest of which they are not worthy. I neither slay giants, nor
disenchant ladies, nor yoke captive griffins together. No, no, I shall
outrun some over-fed clown, and outwit some simple boobies; and,
perhaps, soil my boots in a great slough, and then hasten back, love,
to boast of my marvels to the credulous ear of my own sweet girl,
who, I warrant, will think me a most preposterous hero.”

“How can you laugh, Arthur? And yet I would not have you
catch my foolish sadness, either.”

“I have with me, besides, Mildred, a friend good at need; one
Galbraith Robinson, a practised and valiant soldier, who sits on
yonder bank. He is to be the companion of my journey; he is
shrewd, vigilant and cautious, an inhabitant, moreover, of the district
to which I am bound; his wisdom can do much for my success.
Then I travel, too, in peaceful guise. My business is more concerned
with negotiation than with battle.”

“It is a waylaid path, Arthur,” said Mildred, in the same faint
voice with which she had spoken before.

“Never take it so heavily, my love!” exclaimed Butler, familiarly
seizing her hand, whose trembling now betrayed her agitation,—“it
is the mere sport of the war to be upon a running service, where a
light stratagem or so will baffle a set of dull-pated clodpoles! I
scarcely deem it a venture, to dodge through a forest, where every
man flies from his neighbor out of mutual distrust. These fellows
have brought themselves upon such bad terms with their own consciences,
that they start like thieves at the waving of a bulrush.”

“They would be the more cruel,” replied Mildred, “if some ill
luck should throw you into their power. If that should happen,”
she added, and for a while she hesitated to speak, as a tear fell upon
Butler's hand—“If that should happen, I cannot bear the thought.”

“They dare offer me no wrong, Mildred. The chances of battle
are sufficiently various to compel even the victors to pursue the policy
of humanity to prisoners. The conqueror of to-day may himself
be a captive to-morrow, and a bloody reprisal would await his barbarity.
Again, let me remind you, these are not fit topics for your
meditation.”

“They are topics for my heart, Arthur, and will not be driven
from it. If your lot should put you in the power of the enemy, the
name of Mildred Lindsay, and the relation you bear her, whispered
in their ears, may, perhaps, unlock their charity. My father has
many friends in those ranks, and it may be that I am not unknown
to some of them: oh, remember that!”

“You have little need to teach me to think or speak of Mildred
Lindsay,” said Butler, eagerly. “I cannot forget that name. But
I may well doubt its charm upon the savage bulldogs who are now

baiting our citizens in Carolina; those ruthless partizans who are
poisoning the fountains of contentment at every fire-side. It is not
a name to conjure evil spirits with.”

“Major Butler,” said Henry, who during this long interval had
been strolling backward and forward, like a sentinel, at some distance
from his sister and her lover, and who, with the military punctilio
of a soldier on duty, forbore even to listen to what he could not
have helped overhearing, if it had not been for humming a tune—
“Major, I don't like to make or meddle with things that don't belong
to me—but you and Mildred have been talking long enough to
settle the course of a whole campaign. And as my father thinks he
can't be too careful of Mildred, and doesn't like her walking about
after night-fall, I shouldn't be surprised if a messenger were
despatched for us—only I think that man Tyrrel is hatching some
plot with him to-night, and may keep him longer in talk than
usual.”

“Who is Tyrrel?” inquired Butler.

“One that I wish had been in his grave before he had ever seen
my father,” answered Mildred with a bitter vehemence. “He is a
wicked emissary of the royal party sent here to entrap my dear father
into their toils. Such as it has ever been his fate to be cursed with
from the beginning of the war; but this Tyrrel, the most hateful of
them all.”

“Alas, alas, your poor father! Mildred, what deep sorrow do I
feel that he and I should be so estranged. I could love him, counsel
with him, honor him, with a devotion that should outrun your
fondest wish. His generous nature has been played upon, cheated,
abused; and I, in whom fortune and inclination should have raised
him a friend, have been made the victim of his perverted passion.”

“True, true,” exclaimed Mildred, bursting into tears, and resting
her head against her lover's breast, “I can find courage to bear all
but this—I am most unhappy;” and for some moments she sobbed
audibly.

“The thought has sometimes crossed me,” said Butler, “that I
would go to your father and tell him all. It offends my self-respect
to be obliged to practise concealment towards one who should have
a right to know all that concerns a daughter so dear to him. Even
now, if I may persuade you to it, I will go hand in hand with you,

and, with humble reverence, place myself before him and divulge all
that has passed between us.”

“No, no, Arthur, no,” ejaculated Mildred with the most earnest
determination. “It will not come to good. You do not understand
my father's feelings. The very sight of you would rouse him into
frenzy; there is no name which might fall upon his ear with
deeper offence than yours. Not yet, Arthur, the time has not yet
come.”

“I have been patient,” said Butler, “patient, Mildred, for your
sake.”

“To try him now,” continued Mildred, whose feelings still ran,
with a heady impetuosity, upon this newly-awakened and engrossing
topic; “now, in the very depth of his bitterest aversion to what he
terms an impious rebellion, and whilst his heart is yet moved with
an almost preternatural hate against all who uphold the cause, and
to you, especially, above whose head there hovers, in his belief,
some horrid impending curse that shall bring desolation upon him
and all who claim an interest in his blood—no, no, it must not be!”

“Another year of pent-up vexation, self-reproach and anxious
concealment must then glide by, and perhaps another,” said Butler.
“Well, I must be content to bear it, though, in the mean time, my
heart bleeds for you, Mildred; it is a painful trial.”

“For good or for evil our vow is now registered in heaven,”
replied Mildred, “and we must abide the end.”

“I would not have it other than it is, dearest girl, except this
stern resolve of your father—not for the world's wealth,” said
Butler warmly. “But you spoke of this Tyrrel—what manner of
man is he? How might I know him?”

“To know him would answer no good end, Arthur. His soul is
absorbed in stratagem, and my dear father is its prey. I too am
grievously tormented by him; but it is no matter, I need not vex
your ear with the tale of his annoyance.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Butler with a sudden expression of resentment.

“All that concerns my father, concerns me,” said Mildred. “It
is my evil destiny, Arthur, to be compelled to endure the associations
of men, whose principles, habits, purposes, are all at war with
my own. Alas, such are now my father's constant companions!

This man Tyrrel, whose very name is a cheat put on, I doubt not,
to conceal him from observation—goes farther than the rest in the
boldness of his practice. I have some misgiving that he is better
acquainted with the interest you take in me, than we might suspect
possible to a stranger. I fear him. And then, Arthur, it is my
peculiar misery that he has lately set up a disgusting pretension to
my regard. Oh! I could give him, if my sex had strength to
strike, the dagger, sooner than squander upon him one kind word.
Yet am I obliged by circumstance to observe a strained courtesy
towards him, which, frugal as it is, makes me an unwilling hypocrite
to my own heart.”

“Tyrrel,” ejaculated Butler, “Tyrrel! I have heard no such name
abroad!” then, muttering a deep curse, as he bit his lip with
passion, he added, “Oh, that I could face this man, or penetrate his
foul purpose! How is it likely I might meet him?”

“You shall have no temptation to a quarrel,” said Mildred;
“your quick resentment would but give activity to his venom.
For the sake of my peace, Arthur, and of your own, inquire no
further. Time may disclose more than rash pursuit.”

“Leave that to sister Mildred and myself, major,” said Henry,
who listened with great interest to this conversation, “I have my
eye upon him—let that satisfy you; and when sister Mildred puts
up the game, depend upon it, I will bring him down.”

“Thanks, thanks, dear Henry! I can trust you for a ready friend,
and will even follow your good advice. A more favorable season
for this concern may soon arrive; meantime, I will bear this hint in
mind.”

Again Henry made an appeal to the lovers to bring their conference
to an end. It was a sorrowful moment, the events of which
were brief, earnest and impassioned, and such as a dull scribbler,
like myself, might easily mar in the telling; yet they were such as
zealous and eager natures, who have loved with an intense and
absorbing love, and who have parted in times of awful danger and
uncertainty, may perchance be able to picture to themselves, when
they recall the most impressive incident of their lives to memory. I
will only say, that, in that dark shade where the beech tree spread
his canopy of leaves over the cool bank, and marked his shadow's
profile on the green sward—that grassy sward, on which “the

constant moon” lit up the dewy lamps, hung by the spider on
blade and leaf; and in that silent time, when the distant water-fall
came far-sounding on the ear, when sleepless insects chirped in the
thicket, and dogs, at some remote homestead, howled bugle-like to
the moon; and in that chill hour, when Mildred drew her kerchief
close around her dew-besprinkled shoulders, whilst Arthur, fondly
and affectionately, half enveloped her in the folds of a military cloak,
as he whispered words of tender parting in her ear, and imprinted a
kiss upon her cheek; and when, moreover, Henry's teeth chattered
like a frozen warder's, then it was, and there, that this enthusiastic
girl again pledged her unalterable devotion to the man of her
waking thoughts and nightly dreams, come weal, come woe, whatever
might betide; and the soldier paid back the pledge with new
ardor and endearment, in the strong language that came unstudied
from the heart, meaning all that he said, and rife with a feeling
beyond the reach of words. And, after “mony a locked and fond
embrace,” full tearfully, and lingeringly, and, in phrase oft repeated,
the two bade “farewell,” and invoked God's blessing each upon the
other, and then, not without looking back, and breathing a fresh
prayer of blessings, they separated on their dreary way, Mildred
retiring, as she had come, on the arm of her brother, and Butler,
springing hurriedly into the skiff and directing its swift passage to
the middle of the stream, where, after a pause to enable him to
discern the last footsteps of his mistress, as her form glided into the
obscure distance, he sighed a low “God bless her,” then resumed
his oar, and sturdily drove his boat against the “opponent bank.”