University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

The thread which I have now to take up and weave into this
history requires that my narrative should go back for some years.
It briefly concerns the earlier fortunes of Philip Lindsay.

His father emigrated from England, and was established in
Virginia about the year 1735, as a secretary to the governor of
the province. He was a gentleman of good name and fortune.
Philip was born within a year after this emigration. As America
was then comparatively a wilderness, and afforded but few
facilities for the education of youth, the son of the secretary was
sent at an early age to England, where he remained, with the
exception of an occasional visit to his parents, under the guardianship
of a near relative, until he had completed, not only his college
course, but also his studies in the Temple—an almost indispensable
requirement of that day for young gentlemen of condition.

His studies in the Temple had been productive of one result,
which Lord Coke, if I remember, considers idiosyncratic in the
younger votaries of the law—he had fallen in love with an heiress.
The natural consequence was a tedious year, after his return home,
spent at the seat of the provincial government, and a most
energetic and persevering interchange of letters with the lady,
whom my authority allows me to name Gertrude Marshall. This
was followed by another voyage across the Atlantic, and finally, as
might be predicted, by a wedding with all proper observance and
parental sanction. Lindsay then returned, a happier and more
tranquil man, to Virginia, where he fulfilled the duties of more
than one public station of dignity and trust.

In due course of time he fell heir to his father's wealth, which

with the estate of his wife made him one of the most opulent and
considerable gentlemen of the Old Dominion.

He had but two children—Mildred and Henry — with four
years difference between their ages. These were nurtured with
all the care and indulgent bounty natural to parents whose
affections are concentrated upon so small a family circle.

Lindsay's character was grave and thoughtful, and inclined him
to avoid the contests of ambition and collision with the world. A
delicate taste, a nice judgment, and a fondness for inquiry made
him a student and an ardent lover of books. The ply of his
mind was towards metaphysics; he delved into the obsolete
subtleties of the old schools of philosophy, and found amusement,
if not instruction, in those frivolous but ingenious speculations
which have overshadowed even the best wisdom of the schoolmen
with the hues of a solemn and absurd pedantry. He dreamed in
the reveries of Plato, and pursued them through the aberrations of
the Coryphæans. He delighted in the visions of Pythagoras, and
in the intellectual revels of Epicurus. He found attraction in the
Gnostic mysteries, and still more in the phantasmagoria of Judicial
Astrology. His library furnished a curious index to this unhealthy
appetite for the marvellous and the mystical. The writings of
Cornelius Agrippa, Raymond Lully, and Martin Delvio, and others
of less celebrity in this circle of imposture, were found associated
with truer philosophies and more approved and authentic teachers.

These studies, although pursued with an acknowledgment of
their false and dangerous tendency, nevertheless had their influence
upon Lindsay's imagination. There are few men in whom
the mastery of reason is so absolute as to be able totally to subdue
the occasional uprising of that element of superstition which is found
more or less vigorous in every mind. A nervous temperament,
which is almost characteristic of minds of an imaginative cast, is
often distressingly liable to this influence, in spite of the strongest
resolves of the will and the most earnest convictions of the judgment.
If those who possess this temperament would confess, they
might certify to many extraordinary anxieties and troubles of
spirit, which it would pain them to have the world believe.

Lindsay's pursuits had impressed his understanding with some
sentiment of respect for that old belief in the supernatural, and

had, perhaps, even warmed up his faith to a secret credulity in
these awful agencies of the spiritual world, or at least to an unsatisfied
doubt as to their existence. Many men of sober brow and
renown for wisdom are unwilling to acknowledge the extent of
their own credulity on the same topic.

His relations to the government, his education, pursuits and
temper, as might be expected, had deeply imbued Lindsay with
the politics of the tory party, and taught him to regard with
distrust, and even with abhorrence, the revolutionary principles
which were getting in vogue. In this sentiment he visited with a
dislike that did not correspond with the more usual development
of his character, all those who were in any degree suspected of
aiding or abetting the prevailing political heresy of the times.

About two years after the birth of Mildred, he had purchased a
tract of land in the then new and frontier country lying upon the
Rockfish river. Many families of note in the low country had
possessed themselves of estates at the foot of the Blue Ridge, in
this neighborhood, and were already making establishments there.
Mr. Lindsay, attracted by the romantic character of the scenery,
the freshness of the soil, and the healthfulness of the climate,
following the example of others, had laid off the grounds of his
new estate with great taste, and had soon built, upon a beautiful
site, a neat and comfortable rustic dwelling, with such accommodation
as might render it a convenient and pleasant retreat during
the hot months of the summer.

The occupation which this new establishment afforded his
family; the scope which its improvement gave to their taste; and
the charms that intrinsically belonged to it, by degrees communicated
to his household an absorbing interest in its embellishment.
His wife cherished this enterprise with a peculiar ardor.
The plans of improvement were hers; the garden, the lawns, the
groves, the walks—all the little appendages which an assiduous
taste might invent, or a comfort-seeking fancy might imagine
necessary, were taken under her charge; and one beauty quickly following
upon another, from day to day, evinced the dominion which a
refined art may exercise with advantage over nature. It was a quiet,
calm, and happy spot, where many conveniences were congregated
together, and where, for a portion of every succeeding year, this little

family nestled, as it were, in the enjoyment of voluptuous ease.
From this idea, and especially as it was allied with some of the
tenderest associations connected with the infancy of Mildred, it was
called by the fanciful and kindly name of “The Dove Cote.”

The education of Mildred and Henry became a delightful household
care. Tutors were supplied, and the parents gave themselves
up to the task of supervision with a fond industry. They now
removed earlier to the Dove Cote with every returning spring, and
remained there later in the autumn. The neighborhood furnished
an intelligent and hospitable society; and the great western wilderness
smiled with the contentment of a refined and polished civilization,
which no after day in the history of this empire has yet surpassed—perhaps,
not equalled. It is not to be wondered at, that a
mind so framed as Lindsay's, and a family so devoted, should find an
exquisite enjoyment in such a spot.

Whilst this epoch of happiness was in progression, the political
heaven began to be darkened with clouds. The troubles came on
with harsh portents; war rumbled in the distance, and, at length,
broke out in thunder. Mildred had, in the meantime, grown up to
the verge of womanhood,—a fair, ruddy, light-haired beauty, of exceeding
graceful proportions, and full of the most interesting impulses.
Henry trod closely upon her heels, and was now shooting through
the rapid stages of boyhood. Both had entwined themselves around
their parents' affections, like fibres that conveyed to them their chief
nourishment; and the children were linked to each other even, if
that were possible, by a stronger band.

The war threw Lindsay into a perilous predicament. His estates
were large, and his principles exposed him to the sequestration which
was rigidly enforced against the royalist party. To avoid this blow,
or, at least, to mitigate its severity, he conveyed the estate of the
Dove Cote to Mildred; assigning, as his reason for doing so, that,
as it was purchased with moneys belonging to his wife, he consulted
and executed her wish, in transferring the absolute ownership of it
to his daughter. The rest of his property was converted into money,
and invested in funds in Great Britain. As soon as this arrangement
was made, about the second year of the war, the Dove Cote became
the permanent residence of the family; Lindsay preferring to remain
here rather than to retire to England, hoping to escape the keen

notice of the dominant party, and to find, in this classic and philosophical
privacy, an oblivion of the rude cares that beset the pillow
of every man who mingled in the strife of the day.

He was destined to a grievous disappointment. His wife, to whom
he was romantically attached, was snatched from him by death, just
at this interesting period. This blow, for a time, almost unseated
his reason. The natural calm of such a mind as Lindsay's is not
apt to show paroxysms in grief. Its sorrow was too still and deep
for show. The flight of years, however, brought healing on their
wings; and Mildred and Henry gradually relumed their father's
countenance with flashes of cheerful thought, that daily grew broader
and more abiding; till, at last, sense and duty completed their triumph,
and once more gave Lindsay to his family, unburdened of his
grief, or, if not unburdened, conversing with it only in the secret
hours of self-communion.

His hopes of ease and retirement were disappointed in another
way. The sequesterment of the Dove Cote was not sufficient to
shut out the noise nor the intrigues of the war. His reputation, as
a man of education, of wealth, of good sense, and especially as a
man of aristocratic pretensions, irresistibly drew him into the agitated
vortex of politics. His house was open to the visits of the
tory leaders, no less than to those of the other side; and, although
this intercourse could not be openly maintained without risk, yet
pretexts were not wanting, occasionally, to bring the officers and
gentlemen in the British interest to the Dove Cote. They came
stealthily and in disguise, and they did not fail to involve him in
the insidious schemes and base plottings by which a wary foe generally
endeavors to smoothe the way of invasion. The temporary importance
which these connections conferred, and the assiduous appeal
which it was the policy of the enemy to make to his loyalty, wrought
upon the vanity of the scholar, and brought him, by degrees, from
the mere toleration of an intercourse that he at first sincerely sought
to avoid, into a participation of the plans of those who courted his
fellowship. Still, however, this was grudgingly given—as much
from the inaptitude of his character, as from a secret consciousness,
at bottom, that it was contrary to the purpose that had induced
him to seek the shelter of the woods. Unless, therefore, the spur
was frequently applied to the side of his reluctant resolution, his zeal

was apt to weary in its pace, or, to change my figure for one equally
appropriate, to melt away in the sunny indolence of his temper.

I have said that, during the tenderer years of the children, and
up to the period of the loss of their mother, they had received the
most unremitting attention from their parents. The bereavement of
his wife, the deep gloom that followed this event, and the now
engrossing character of the war, had in some degree relaxed Lindsay's
vigilance over their nurture, although it had in no wise abated
his affection for them; on the contrary, perhaps this was more concentrated
than ever. Mildred had grown up to the blossom-time of
life, in the possession of every personal attraction. From the fanciful
ideas of education adopted by her father, or rather from the
sedulous care with which he experimented upon her capacity, and
devoted himself to the task of directing and waiting upon the expansion
of her intellect, she had made acquirements much beyond
her years, and altogether of a character unusual to her sex. An
ardent and persevering temper had imparted a singular enthusiasm
to her pursuits; and her air, though not devoid of playfulness, might
be said to be habitually abstracted and self-communing.

As the war advanced, her temper and situation both enlisted her
as a partisan in the questions which it brought into discussion; and,
whilst her father's opinions were abhorrent to this struggle for independence,
she, on the other hand, unknown to him, was casting her
thoughts, feelings, affections, and hopes upon the broad waters of
rebellion; and, if not expecting them to return to her, after many
days, with increase of good, certainly believing that she was mingling
them with those of patriots who were predestined to the
brightest meed of glory.

A father is not apt to reason with a daughter; the passions and
prejudices of a parent are generally received as principles by the
child; and most fathers, counting upon this instinct, deem it enough
to make known the bent merely of their own opinions, without caring
to argue them. This mistake will serve to explain the wide difference
which is sometimes seen between the most tenderly attached
parent and child, in those deeper sentiments that do not belong to
the every-day concerns of life. Whilst, therefore, Mr. Lindsay took
no heed how the seed of doctrine fructified and grew in the soil
where he desired to plant it, it in truth fell upon ungenial ground,

and either was blown away by the wind, or perished for want of
appropriate nourishment.

As the crisis became more momentous, and the discussion of
national rights more rife, Mildred's predilections ran stronger on the
republican side; and, at the opening of my story, she was a sincere
and enthusiastic friend of American independence,—a character
(however it may be misdoubted by my female readers of the
present day, nursed as they are in a lady-like apathy to all concerns
of government, and little aware, in the lazy lap of peace, how vividly
their own quick sensibilities may be enlisted by the strife of men)
neither rare nor inefficient amongst the matrons and maidens of the
year seventy-six, some of whom—now more than fifty years gone
by—are embalmed in the richest spices and holiest ointment of our
country's memory.

It is, however, due to truth to say, that Mildred's eager attachment
to this cause was not altogether the free motion of patriotism. How
often does some little under-current of passion, some slight and amiable
prepossession, modest and unobserved, rise to the surface of our
feelings, and there give its direction to the stream upon which floats
all our philosophy! What is destiny but these under-currents that
come whencesoever they list, unheeded at first, and irresistible ever
afterwards!

My reader must be told that, before the war broke out, this enthusiastic
girl had flitted across the path of Arthur Butler, then a youth
of rare faculty and promise, who combined with a gentle and modest
demeanor an earnest devotion to his country, sustained by a chivalrous
tone of honor that had in it all the fanciful disinterestedness of
boyhood. It will not, therefore, appear wonderful that, amongst the
golden opinions the young man was storing up in all quarters, some
fragments of this grace should have made a lodgment in the heart
of Mildred Lindsay.

Butler was a native of one of the lower districts of South Carolina,
and was already the possessor, by inheritance, of what was then
called a handsome fortune. He first met Mildred, under the safe-conduct
of her parents, at Annapolis in Maryland, at that time the
seat of opulence and fashion. There the wise and the gay, the beautiful
and the rarely-gifted united in a splendid little constellation, in
which wealth threw its sun-beam glitter over the wings of love, and

learning and eloquence were warmed by the smiles of fair women:
there gallant men gave the fascinations of wit to a festive circle
unsurpassed in the new world, or the old, for its proportion of the
graces that embellish, and the endowments that enrich life. In this
circle there was no budding beauty of softer charm than the young
Mildred, nor was there amongst the gay and bright cavaliers that
thronged the “little academy” of Eden, (the governor of the province,)
a youth of more favorable omen than Arthur Butler.

The war was at the very threshold, and angry men thought of
turning the ploughshare into the sword. Amongst these was Butler;
an unsparing denouncer of the policy of Britain, and an unhesitating
volunteer in the ranks of her opposers. It was at this eventful
time that he met Mildred. I need hardly add that under these
inauspicious circumstances they began to love. Every interview
afterwards (and they frequently saw each other at Williamsburg
and Richmond) only developed more completely the tale of love that
nature was telling in the heart of each.

Butler received from Congress an ensign's commission in the continental
army, and was employed for a few months in the recruiting
service at Charlottesville. This position favored his views and enabled
him to visit at the Dove Cote. His intercourse with Mildred,
up to this period, had been allowed by Lindsay to pass without
comment: it was regarded but as the customary and common-place
civility of polite society. Mildred's parents had no sympathy in her
lover's sentiments, and consequently no especial admiration of his
character, and they had not yet doubted their daughter's loyalty to
be made of less stern materials than their own. Her mother was the
first to perceive that the modest maiden awaited the coming of the
young soldier with a more anxious forethought than betokened
an unoccupied heart. How painfully did this perception break upon
her! It opened upon her view a foresight of that unhappy sequence
of events that attends the secret struggle between parental authority
and filial inclination, when the absorbing interests of true love are
concerned: a struggle that so frequently darkens the fate of the
noblest natures, and whose history supplies the charm of so many a
melancholy and thrilling page. Mrs. Lindsay had an invincible
objection to the contemplated alliance, and immediately awakened
the attention of her husband to the subject. From this moment

Butler's reception at the Dove Cote was cold and formal; and Mr.
Lindsay did not delay to express to his daughter a marked aversion
to her intimacy with a man so uncongenial to his own taste. I need
not dwell upon the succession of incidents that followed: are they
not written in every book that tells of young hearts loving in despite
of authority? Let it suffice to say that Butler, “many a time and
oft,” hied stealthily and with a lover's haste to the Dove Cote, where,
“under the shade of melancholy boughs,” or sometimes of good Mistress
Dimock's roof, he found means to meet and exchange vows of
constancy with the lady of his love.

Thus passed the first year of the war. The death of Mrs. Lindsay, to
which I have before adverted, now occurred. The year of mourning
was doubly afflictive to Mildred. Her father's grief hung as heavily
upon her as her own, and to this was added a total separation from
Butler. He had joined his regiment and was sharing the perils of
the northern campaigns, and subsequently of those which ended in
the subjugation of Carolina and Georgia. During all this period he
was enabled to keep up an uncertain and irregular correspondence
with Mildred, and he had once met her in secret, for a few hours
only, at Mistress Dimock's, during the autumn immediately preceding
the date of the opening of my story.

Mrs. Lindsay, upon her death-bed, had spoken to her husband in
the most emphatic terms of admonition against Mildred's possible
alliance with Butler, and conjured him to prevent it by whatever
means might be in his power. Besides this, she made a will directing
the distribution of a large jointure estate in England between her
two children, coupling, with the bequest, a condition of forfeiture, if
Mildred married without her father's approbation.

I have now to relate an incident in the life of Philip Lindsay,
which throws a sombre coloring over most of the future fortunes of
Mildred and Arthur, as they are hereafter to be developed in my
story.

The lapse of years, Lindsay supposed, would wear out the first
favorable impressions made by Arthur Butler upon his daughter.
Years had now passed: he knew nothing of the secret correspondence
between the parties, and he had hoped that all was forgotten.
He could not help, however, perceiving that Mildred had grown
reserved, and that her deportment seemed to be controlled by some

secret care that sat upon her heart. She was anxious, solicitous,
and more inclined, than became her youth, to be alone. Her household
affections took a softer tone, like one in grief. These things did
not escape her father's eye.

It was on a night in June, a little more than a year before the
visit of Butler and Robinson which I have narrated in a former
chapter, that the father and daughter had a free communion
together, in which it was his purpose to penetrate into the causes of
her disturbed spirit. The conference was managed with an affectionate
and skilful address on the part of the father, and “sadly
borne” by Mildred. It is sufficient to say that it revealed to him a
truth of which he was previously but little aware, namely, that neither
the family afflictions nor the flight of two years had rooted out
the fond predilection of Mildred for Arthur Butler. When this
interview ended Mildred retired weeping to her chamber, and Lindsay
sat in his study absorbed in meditation. The object in life
nearest to his heart was the happiness of his daughter; and for the
accomplishment of this what sacrifice would he not make? He
minutely recalled to memory all the passages of her past life. What
error of education had he committed, that she thus, at womanhood,
was found wandering along a path to which he had never led her,
which, indeed, he had ever taught her to avoid? What accident of
fortune had brought her into this, as he must consider it, unhappy
relation? “How careful have I been,” he said, “to shut out all the
inducements that might give a complexion to her tastes and principles
different from my own! How sedulously have I waited upon
her footsteps from infancy onward, to shield her from the influences
that might mislead her pliant mind! And yet in this, the most
determinate act of her life, that which is to give the hue to the whole
of her coming fortune, the only truly momentous event in her history—how
strangely has it befallen!”

In such a strain did his thoughts pursue this harassing subject.
The window of his study was open, and he sat near it, looking out
upon the night. The scene around him was of a nature to awaken
his imagination and lead his musings towards the preternatural and
invisible world. It was past midnight, and the bright moon was
just sinking down the western slope of the heavens, journeying
through the fantastic and gorgeous clouds, that, as they successively

caught her beam, stood like promontories jutting upon a waveless
ocean, their rich profiles tipped with burnished silver. The long
black shadows of the trees slept in enchanted stillness upon the
earth: the night-wind breathed through the foliage, and brought
the distant gush of the river fitfully upon his ear. There was a
witching harmony and music in the landscape that sorted with the
solitary hour, and conjured up thoughts of the world of shadows.
Lindsay's mind began to run upon the themes of his favorite studies:
the array of familiar spirits rose upon his mental vision; the
many recorded instances of what was devoutly believed the interference
of the dead in the concerns of the living, came fresh, at this
moment, to his memory, and made him shudder at his lonesomeness.
Struggling with this conception, it struck him with an awe that he
was unable to master: “some invisible counsellor,” he muttered,
“some mysterious intelligence, now holds my daughter in thrall, and
flings his spell upon her existence. The powers that mingle unseen
in the affairs of mortals, that guide to good or lead astray, have
wafted this helpless bark into the current that sweeps onward,
unstayed by man. I cannot contend with destiny. She is thy
child, Gertrude,” he exclaimed, apostrophizing the spirit of his
departed wife. “She is thine, and thou wilt hover near her and protect
her from those who contrive against her peace: thou wilt avert
the ill and shield thy daughter!”

Excited almost to phrensy, terrified and exhausted in physical
energy, Lindsay threw his head upon his hand and rested it against
the window-sill. A moment elapsed of almost inspired madness, and
when he raised his head and looked outward upon the lawn, he
beheld the pale image of the being he had invoked, gliding through
the shrubbery at the farthest verge of the level ground. The ghastly
visage was bent upon him, the hand steadily pointed towards him,
and as the figure slowly passed away the last reverted gaze was
directed to him. “Great God!” he ejaculated, “that form—that
form!” and fell senseless into his chair.

During the night, Mildred was awakened by a low moan, which
led her to visit her father's chamber. He was not there. In great
alarm she betook herself to his study, where she found him extended
upon a sofa, so enfeebled and bewildered by this recent incident
that he was scarcely conscious of her presence.

A few weeks restored Lindsay to his usual health, but it was
long before he regained the equanimity of his mind. He had seen
enough to confirm his faith in the speculations of that pernicious
philosophy which is wrapt up in the studies of which I have before
given the outline; and he was, henceforth, oftentimes melancholy,
moody, and reserved in spite of all the resolves of duty, and in defiance
of a temper naturally placid and kind.

Let us pass from this unpleasant incident to a theme of more
cheerful import: the loves of Mildred and Arthur. I have said
these two had secret meetings. They were not entirely without
a witness. There was a confidant in all their intercourse: no other
than Henry Lindsay, who united to the reckless jollity of youth an
almost worshipping love of his sister. His thoughts and actions
were ever akin to hers. Henry was therefore a safe depository
of the precious secret; and as he could not but think Arthur
Butler a good and gallant comrade, he determined that his father
was altogether on the wrong side in respect to the love affair, and, by
a natural sequence, wrong also in his politics.

Henry had several additional reasons for this last opinion. The
whole countryside was kindled into a martial flame, and there was
nothing to be heard but drums and trumpets. There were rifle-corps
raising, and they were all dressed in hunting-shirts, and bugles were
blowing, and horses were neighing: how could a gallant of sixteen
resist it? Besides, Stephen Foster, the woodman, right under the
brow of the Dove Cote, was a lieutenant of mounted riflemen, and
had, for some time past, been training Henry in the mystery of his
weapon, and had given him divers lessons on the horn to sound the
signals, and had enticed him furtively to ride in a platoon on parade,
whereof he had dubbed Henry corporal or deputy corporal. All
this worked well for Arthur and Mildred.

Mr. Lindsay was not ignorant of Henry's popularity in the neighborhood,
nor how much he was petted by the volunteer soldiery.
He did not object to this, as it served to quiet suspicion of his own
dislike to the cause, and diverted the observation of the adherents of
what he called the rebel government, from his own motions; whilst,
at the same time, he deemed it no other than a gewgaw that played
upon the boyish fancy of Henry without reaching his principles.

Mildred, on the contrary, did not so regard it. She had inspired

Henry with her own sentiments, and now carefully trained him up
to feel warmly the interests of the war, and to prepare himself by
discipline for the hard life of a soldier. She early awakened in
him a wish to render service in the field, and a resolution to accomplish
it as soon as the occasion might arrive. Amongst other things,
too, she taught him to love Arthur Butler and keep his counsel.