University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

It had been a hard day's chase, had Seth's, but not,
as the bleeding trophies of his skill attested, not a
fruitless one. A noble stag formed the nucleus of a
pile of smaller game which lay in the court, and
around which, like so many crows, chattering and
gabbling, the delighted negroes, young and old, were
clustered. While one examined the larger victim, to
see at what point the fatal ball had entered, others
handled the hapless wild fowl or the glossy squirrel,
and the merry Josh was fingering exultingly the carcass
of a silver fox to see if its unbroken skin would
afford material for a winter's cap. “'Tis de berry
feller,” he said, putting his finger upon him, and looking
gravely up, while his huge lower lip seemed to
swell with emotion, “de berry feller dat stole my
chickens, kase I see him one mornin' arly, jes peep
o' day, draggin' off a squalkin' old hen. Darefore,”
raising the body of Reynard, and looking to the
patriarchal Jake for approval, “darefore his hide is

mine.” Taking a paralytic and involuntary nod of
uncle Jake's head for assent, he ran off with his prize,
making the yard ring with his laughter, and followed
by a troop of noisy children.

Seth, fatigued with his day's labors, sat resting
within. His mind had reverted, as it did twenty
times a day, to the state of affairs at home, and he
was becoming anxious to know the result of an experiment
which he had but recently remembered he never
had the right to make. He had acted from an impulse
created by generous feelings; yet he had acted
wrong. Fearful of some indefinite harm, he was
pondering deeply on the subject, when an additional
shout and commotion was heard without, so loud that
he was almost prepared to see his slaughtered stag
returned to life, and scampering back to the forests.
Nothing else occurred to him at the moment that
could have caused such a turmoil. He started toward
the door, where he was met by the whole gang, each
eager to be first in announcing that a sloop was
coming up the river, and putting in toward the adjacent
landing. Seth ran out, and perceiving the intelligence
to be true, hastened to the wharf attended by

his sable train. That the vessel was the bearer either
of Livingston or Derick he did not for a moment
doubt, but the uncertainty as to everything else
threw him into a state of nervous excitement most
painful to endure. That his brilliant scheme had all
fallen to the ground by some blunder or inefficiency
of his coadjutor, and that Derick had returned discovered
and disgraced, was his first fearful suspicion.
His next, that Livingston and Gertrude were themselves
on board the vessel, and the white wing of a
passing gull was, for a moment, transformed by his
excited fears into the flaunting feathers of his sister's
bridal bonnet. Great therefore was his delight to
find that Harry had returned alone. The greeting
between the young men was cordial in the extreme,
and there was but little in Livingston's countenance
or deportment to mark the extent of his recent sufferings.
His views and feelings indeed had already undergone
a material change. His grief was turned
into the most bitter indignation. Gertrude's faithlessness,
her desertion of him at the very onset of adversity—her
total absence of sympathy for his sufferings,
and above all, her hardihood in requiring of him an
act of positive injustice as the price of her continued
regard, began all to appear in its true light. Baleful
indeed was that light. It was as if an angel radiant
with beauty, had suddenly assumed the features and
the scowl of a fiend. Livingston no longer loved.
The glowing flame of his affection was extinguished
at once and forever. He grieved indeed, not for the
loss of Gertrude, but because the Gertrude of his
imagination had never existed. He felt that he had
been standing, with closed eyes, on the brink of a
precipice, and that some friendly hand had drawn
him forcibly back from the danger.

Safely as Seth had calculated on Gertrude's character,
he was not prepared to hear that it had been
so soon developed. He had no expectation of news
as good as that. And when he heard it; when he
heard that the engagement was finally and effectually
broken off, beyond all possible reconciliation, he was
for a while as fit a candidate for a lunatic asylum, as
ever entered the walls of Bloomingdale. Hastening
to get away from Harry's presence, that he might
give way to his merriment, he flew to the barn—an old
barn it was, habited by a thousand echoes which

joined in the roystering laugh, and the hearty three
times three of his loud huzzas. He danced, he
shouted, he flung his cap to the roof for the fiftieth
time, which the roof, joining in the sport, finally
caught with splintery fingers, and refused to return,
twinkling gleefully down upon him with a pair of
knot-hole eyes. And when he had exhausted his own
strength, he summoned Josh, famed for his obstreperous
mirth, and exhibiting a piece of money, bade
the negro laugh for him to about that value, and to
mind and do his best. Josh roared at the very idea
of the thing, for his cachinnatory apparatus was set
with a hair trigger, and went off easily. His detonations
were perfectly astounding, while his employer,
panting and grinning, sat cheering him on. When
this little business matter was over, Seth returned
quietly to the house, with a face not materially redder
than a peony.

Livingston bore his changed fortunes with reasonable
fortitude. But he was no stoic. He looked
abroad upon the immense estate of which he was but
yesterday the proprietor, commanding a personal influence
unsurpassed in private life in the whole province,

and he remembered that he was now a beggar,
dependent on his own exertions, or on the stinted
generosity of his cousin, for the very means of existence.
He had already seen in Gertrude's conduct a
specimen of the changed treatment which he might
expect from the world under his calamity. Reflection
therefore served to magnify his grief and his
fears. By degrees he confided to Seth all the particulars
of his quarrel with Gertrude, and was astonished
to find that his friend manifested no kind of surprise
at the recital. It was no small budget of
charges and specifications that the young Van Corlear,
acting on this hint, opened against his haughty
sister, and Harry was really relieved to learn that her
recent conduct, characteristic of herself, was not necessarily
a type of all human nature. Misanthropy
had begun to overshadow with her ebon wings his
tortured mind, but the cheering voice of his companion
recalled him to hope. A ready listener, too, did
Seth now find whenever he felt disposed to chant the
praises of Jessie, for Harry had himself begun to
remember her many excellencies, her exceeding
beauty and gentleness, her frankness, modesty and
truth. He remembered, too, how often he had
thought, yet banished the idea as treason to Gertrude,
that an earlier acquaintance with Jessie might possibly
have made her the object of his choice. “Would
she,” he said suddenly to himself, “have deserted me
thus? Would she have been the very first to forsake
me, setting an example for the hollow-hearted world
to follow?” His whole heart, sending its warm life-tide
forth with renewed force, answered, “No!”

It was a bright November morning, and Livingston
was sitting in his study arranging the few papers
which would be needed in rendering an account of his
brief stewardship, when Seth, suddenly entering the
room, invited his friend to accompany him to the observatory,
a modern addition to the house, which, although
looking very much out of place, and very ill
at ease, commanded an extensive and magnificent
view. The broad and noble Hudson, forest-lined, lay
spread out before them, with calm unbroken surface,
and in the distance, the lofty Kaatskill mountains
were seen mingling their summits with the sky. But
not on these objects, long familiar to their view, did
the attention of the young men rest.

“Do you see,” said Seth, pointing to a house “set
upon a hill,” nearly ten miles southward, “do you see
that distant building?”

“Yes,” replied Harry; “there lives one of the tenants
of Bleecker Van Ness.”

“And do you see,” rejoined Seth, “this other dwelling
with windows glistening in the sun?” pointing to
one about the same distance northward.

“Yes,” was the reply; “there lives another of the
tenants of Bleecker Van Ness.”

“And do you see yonder lofty oak?” continued
the querist, pointing to a conspicuous tree, leafless and
bare, several miles eastward.

“I do,” replied Harry; “it is on the eastern line of
Bleecker's estate.”

“And all the intermediate land—?”

“Is Bleecker's—why do you torture me with these
questions?”

“Harry Livingston!” exclaimed Seth, grasping his
companion's hand, and looking earnestly in his face,
“Harry Livingston! there is no Bleecker Van Ness!
You are the owner of these broad lands! You are the
patroon of Kenterhook! Hate me, punish me as you

choose; I am the author of the delusion which has
so long held you spell-bound.”

There was truth in every line of Seth's honest face,
—truth in every sparkle of his eye; Harry could not
doubt it. Alternately flushed and pale with emotion,
aye, with deep unutterable joy, he spoke with difficulty
in reply:

“Who then is the pretended heir?”

“His name is indeed Van Ness, and he is a son of
that cousin Bartholomew, who—”

“Enough! I see it all now; and what, Seth, has
been the object of this strange drama?”

“What has been its effect?” retorted Seth triumphantly.

“True, true,” exclaimed Harry, emphatically;
“you have given me a brief, bitter experience, but
you have saved me from a life-long sorrow.”

It was with a proud step that Livingston once more
walked abroad upon his ancestral soil; his foot fell
firmly on the ground, and he gazed with delight on
the beautiful landscape around him. “It is mine!” he
said, musing deeply, and feeling that strong sense of
gratitude to Providence, without which all happiness

wants its highest relish; for his was no selfish joy, no
petty pride of purse, no contemptible love of property
for its own sake.

But Seth was far from feeling an equal delight.
His object was but half accomplished, and over the
remaining part he felt that he had no control. Livingston
grew taciturn and thoughtful, as the few succeeding
weeks rolled by, but did not seem unhappy.
Of a confiding and generous nature, his disappointment
had been at first painful to endure, but reflection
had summoned both Pride and Anger to his relief,
auxiliaries which had waged war with Grief, and left
upon the battle-ground of his heart no vestiges of affection.
Whatever might thenceforth be his destiny,
Gertrude must forever remain to him a stranger, and
that bright page of Memory, which had been filled
with thoughts of her, was to be a perpetual blank.

It was about ten days prior to Christmas that a
changed deportment in the young patroon gave token
of some new and sudden resolution. There might be
doubts about it, his eye and manner seemed to say, but
it should be done. His countenance assumed that
calmness and serenity which follows the decision of

mental conflict, his voice became cheerful, and after
the lapse of a few days he threw Seth into another
paroxysm of ecstacies, by proposing that they should
return at once to New York, to spend the holidays.

“I consider my old invitation,” he said, “sufficient
warrant for the visit, and you will, of course, be welcome.”

“Never fear for the welcome,” replied Seth; “hip—
hip—hurrah!”