University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Where was the fair and gentle daughter of
the Heer, while what we have detailed in the
last chapter was passing? That innocent and
tender-hearted maiden, checked by the innate
sense of propriety, which is the truest safeguard
of virtue, and restrained by the timidity of new-born
affection, remained at home in a state of the
most painful anxiety. She despatched the old sybil
Bombie to bring her information, and then stood
at her window, watching with increasing agitation,
the progress of the devouring element.
She could distinguish, by the glaring light, the
stranger youth, sometimes standing at the
window, as if imploring his rescue, and every
time he disappeared, a hope arose in her bosom,
that the door had been opened for his escape.
But he returned again, and again, while at every

new disappointment, her agitation increased;
until at length, when she heared the crash of the
falling staircase, and saw a shower of burning
cinders rise into the air, the blood rushed to her
heart, and her senses became for a while
suspended.

With the first moment of returning animation,
the fair Christina beheld the black sybil standing
over her, muttering one of her incomprehensible
spells, in a low and sepulchral voice. “Is he safe,”
asked the maiden, fearfully.

“The wolf is again abroad, and let the innocent
lamb beware,” replied the Frizzled Head.

“What in the name of Heaven meanest thou,
by thy parable of the wolf and the lamb! Be
silent, or tell all thou knowest, I beseech thee,”
said the startled girl.

“The slave cannot witness against the master,
nor the colour I bear, testify against thine. I
have seen what I have seen—I know what I
know. Sleep out the rest of this night in the sleep
of innocence, for no one knows but it may be
the last.”

So saying, the mysterious monitor bade her
young mistress good night, and retired, leaving
poor Christina to muse with painful curiosity on
her dark and inscrutable oracles.

In the mean time, the Heer Piper had been

apprised of the situation of the Long Finne,
who, as we have before stated, was taken up
insensible, after his fall from the window of the
prison. Though a testy, impatient little man,
the Heer was, at the bottom, neither ill-natured
nor malignant. He could not reflect on the imminent
danger to which his suspicions had exposed
the stranger youth, without a painful feeling of
remorse, or contemplate his present forlorn and
desolate condition, without compassion. Yielding
to his feelings, he directed that the Long
Finne should be brought to his palace, where
he was placed on a bed, and every means in
their power used for his recovery. It was for
some time doubtful whether the soul and the
body had not parted forever; but at length
the youth opened his eyes with a long-drawn
sigh, then shut them again for a few moments,
during which, nature seemed to struggle between
life and death. At length, however, the
desperate contest was over; the colour gradually
came back into his cheeks, and he seemed to
recognise the Heer, who had watched his revival
with no little solicitude.

The recovery of the Long Finne, who was
sorely bruised with his fall, was slow and
gradual, but it was at last completed, and he

became a man again. Unwilling any longer
to trespass on the hospitality of the Heer, the
young man one day took an opportunity to
express his deep and indelible sense of the
obligations he owed to the Heer and his family,
his inability to repay them for the present,
his hope that providence would one day put it
in his power, and finally, his resolution to depart
on the morrow. The Long Finne had now
been an inmate of the palace, somewhat more
than a month, and during all that time experienced
unvarying kindness. It is one of
the most noble and delightful characteristics
of our nature, that whatever may be our first
motive for bestowing kindness on a fellow creature,
we cannot continue long to do so, without
in time coming to love the object of our benevolence.
Mankind, indeed, are prone to become
ungrateful for favours received, and to feel uneasy
at the sight of a benefactor; but the bestower
of benefits is never without his reward
in the complacency of his feelings, and the
approbation of his own heart. There is, too, a
social feeling in human nature, which is nurtured
by domestic intercourse, and which gradually
dissipates hasty and unfounded prejudices,
since it is hardly possible to live in the same
house with a person whose manners are tolerably
conciliating, without feeling something of that
species of neighbourly good will, which, after
all, is the strongest cement of society.

It was so with the Heer Piper, who felt no
little complacency of spirit, when he looked
back upon the various claims his late kindness
had given him and his, on the gratitude of the
youth. When, therefore, he heard the proposition
for to-morrow's departure, it was with
something like a feeling of dissatisfaction.

“Why, hang it, Long Finne,” he exclaimed,
“I hope there is no ill-blood between us about
the affair of Mark Newby's halfpence—eh!”

“I were ungrateful if I remembered that,”
said the youth. “Thou hast buried it for ever
under the recollection of a thousand kindnesses.
I remember nothing, but that I owe my life,
worthless as it is, to you.”

“Well, well,” replied the Heer, “I will tell
thee what. Thou sayest thou art friendless,
and without money, and where wilt thou find
either one or the other, in this wilderness?”

“Alas! I know not,” replied the youth;
“but it is better to go forth in search of new
friends, than to tire our old ones.”

“Der teuful hole dich,” cried the fiery and

puissant Heer; “who told thee thy old friends
were tired of thee? are my household negligent,
or do I treat thee with any more ceremony than
a kitten? 'Slife Master Long Finne, but that
the jail is unluckily burnt down, I'd clap thee
up again, for such a false suspicion, I would—
der teufel hole dich.”

“But I have not been used to live on charity,”
rejoined the youth.

“Charity!” furiously exclaimed the Heer.
“Charity! verflucht und verdamt! why, 'sdeath,
am not I Governor of this territory, and can't I
take a man into my palace out of my own free
will and pleasure, without being accused of
charity, and having the matter thrown into my
teeth, der teufel! Harkye, Long Finne, either
stay in my house till I can provide for thee, or
by the immortal glory of the great Gustavus,
I'll clap thee up between four stone walls, if I
build another jail on purpose.”

“Thou shalt not need,” replied the Long
Finne, smiling; “I will not run away from you.
Perhaps I may make myself useful, at least in
time of danger. I was once a soldier, and if
the savages should ever attempt the fort, I
may repay some of my obligations.”

“Very well,” quoth the Heer; “away with

thee; and harkye, if I hear any thing more about
that d—d charity, I'll set that mortal speechifier,
the Snow Ball, at thee, for I perceive thou art
more afraid of her confounded smoked tongue
than of der teufel.” As the Heer said this, he
looked round rather apprehensively, as if to see
whether the Snow Ball was not within hearing,
knowing full well that if he affronted her, she
would spoil his pepper-pot for him at supper.

The Long Finne bowed, and left the high
presence of the representative of majesty, and
from thence went to a place where he was
pretty certain of meeting the charming Christina,
who had ministered to his sick bed, like a
guardian sylph—Pshaw! like a gentle, compassionate,
sweet-souled woman! who is worth
all the sylphs that ever sung or flitted in the
vacuum of a poet's brain.

“Art thou going away to-morrow?” asked
Christina, with her blue eye cast to the earth.

“No,” replied the youth with a smile; “thy
father threatens me with building a new prison if I
talk of departing. I will stay, and at least
lose my liberty more pleasantly.”

That evening, the Long Finne and the gentle
Christina walked on the white sand beach,
that skirted the wide expansive river, over

whose placid bosom, the south wind gently
sailed, and the moonbeams sprinkled a million
of little bright reflections, that danced on the
waves, as they broke in gentle murmurs on the
pebbly shore. Night, and silence, those tonguetied
witnesses of the lover's innocent endearments,
the seducer's accursed arts, the murderer's
noiseless step, the drunkard's reel, and the
houseless wretch's wanderings—night, and
silence, created that solitude, in which happy,
youthful lovers, see nothing but themselves,
and forget that they exist not alone in this
world. The almost noiseless monotony of the
waves, appearing, breaking, vanishing one after
another, like the evanescent generations of man;
the splash of the sturgeon, at long intervals,
jumping up, and falling back again into the
waters; these, other soothing sounds,
enticed them to wander far down the
shore, out of sight and out of hearing of the
village.

All at once they were startled at the voice of
the solitary, ill-boding Whipperwill, which
whistled its shrill cry, as if it were close to their
ears, although entirely invisible. “Whip-poor-will—Whip-poor-will,”
cried the bird of superstitious
fears; and that moment a voice was

heard from the bank above them, exclaiming—
not, “O, yes! O, yes!” or “Hear ye! Hear ye!”
but singing the following wild, mysterious strain:

The voice and the figure were those of the
Frizzled Head, who possessed the musical talent,
so remarkable a characteristic of her African
race; and who, as she was seen by the moon-light,
standing half bent, leaning on her stick,
at the top of the bank, looked like an old witch,
if not something worse. As she finished this
long ditty, she cried out, in a sepulchral tone,
“Miss Christina, you're wanted at home; the
supper is ready, and the pepper-pot is getting
cold. The wolf is abroad, let the lamb beware.
I have seen what I have seen—I know what I
know.”

So saying, she mounted her stick, which we
are rather afraid was not a broomstick, and
capered off like an ostrich, half running, half
flying. The young couple returned to the
palace, and Christina remarked that the Long
Finne uttered not a word during the rest of the
walk.