University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
SHADOWS AND STRAWS UPON THE SURFACE.

The excitement at the Middleton Barony was succeeded
by something of a calm; but not its usual calm.
It had now other tenants than those whose quality and
sex had maintained its peace along with its purity. The
chief of the outlaws, attended closely by his faithful adherent,
Watson Gray, was still its inmate; and there
was yet another stranger, in the person of a nice, dapper
surgeon's assistant, to whom Rawdon had given
the wounded man in charge. This young gentleman
was named Hillhouse. He was clever enough in his
profession. He could take off a leg in the twinkling of
an eye; but he was one of that unfortunate class of
smart young persons who aim at universal cleverness.
There was no object too high for his ambition, and, unhappily,
none too low. He philosophized when philosophy
was on the tapis, and

you would have fancied the British camp was the very
house of God, and the assistant surgeon the very happiest
exponent of his designs. He talked poetry by the
canto, and felicitated himself on the equal taste with
which he enjoyed Butler and Cowley—the antipodes of
English poets. But, perhaps, his happiest achievement
was in the threading of a needle, and to see him in this
performance was productive of a degree of amusement,
if not real pleasure, which could neither be described
easily nor well estimated. His adroitness was truly
wonderful. Armed with the sharpened thread in one
hand, and the needle in the other—his lips working the
while with singular indefatigableness—his left foot firmly
planted in the foreground, his right thrown back, and
poised upon the toe;—and he laughed to scorn the difficulty
which the doubtful eye of the needle seemed to
offer to his own. His genius, though universal, lay eminently
this way. He had the most marvellous nicety
of finger in threading needles that ever was possessed
by mortal. Unhappily, he was not satisfied with a distinction
so notable. He aimed to be something of a
gallant—a roué—a universal conqueror. His complaisance
was prodigious, where the sex was concerned.
Poor young creatures!—how he pitied them! How he
regretted, in the language of Goethe, that though
and there is but one life to execute all the desires even
of universal genius. He would willingly have had himself
cut up in little for their sakes, could the ubiquitous
attributes of his mind, have availed for the several subdivisions
of his body. But, as this could not well be
done, he could only sigh for their privations. Fancy,
with such complaisance, the person of the ugliest
“Greathead” in existence—a man, with a short neck,
head round as a bullet, eyes like goggles, and a nose as
sharp as a penknife; a mouth which could hold a pippin,
and was constantly on the stretch as if desiring
one. Fancy, yet farther, such a person in the house
with a woman like Flora Middleton, smirking indulgently
upon that damsel, and readily confounding the
cool contempt with which she regarded him, as only a
natural expression of that wonder which his presence
must naturally inspire in a country girl, and it will not
be difficult to anticipate some of the scenes which took
place between them whenever it was the fortune of the
gallant to be thrown into company with the maiden.

Mr. Hillhouse was too provident of time in all matters,
to suffer any of his talents to remain unemployed,
when he could arrange it otherwise. Love-making was
regarded as one of these. It was not with him a matter
of passion or of sentiment. He had not a single
sensibility at work. It was simply as an accomplishment,
and as an exercise for his accomplishments, that
he condescended to smile upon the fair, and to confer
those affections which he otherwise affected to solicit.
He himself had no affections—perhaps such a creature
never has. He was deficient in that earnestness of
character without which the sensibilities are forms
rather than substances—the shows of things which only
delude, and never satisfy the desires of the mind. He
had scarcely seen Flora Middleton before he had planned
her conquest. While examining the wounds of Morton,
in connexion with the head surgeon, he was turning
over in his mind, and framing the words of that salutation
which he was to address, on the first occasion, to
that young lady. It was not many hours after Rawdon's
departure, before he commenced his operations.
The breakfast-table was the scene. Mrs. Middleton,
whom the fatigues and alarms of the night had overcome,
was not present; and, looking sad and unhappy,
Flora took her seat at the coffee-board. Mr. Watson
Gray and Mr. Hillhouse appeared at the first summons,
though the latter did not seem conscious that the room
was blessed with any other presence than his own, and
that other with whom he condescended to converse.
Watson Gray, with sufficient good sense, smiled, took
his seat, and said nothing beyond what was required of
good breeding. But the surgeon, with less sense, was
much more ambitious. The events of the night, the
military movements of the dawn, and the beauty of the
morn which succeeded, furnished him with ample topics.
He was in hope that the “spirit-stirring drum and earpiercing
fife,” and so forth, had not vexed too greatly
the slumbers of Miss Middleton;—a wish that the
young lady answered with a grave nod, and an assurance
which her countenance belied, that she never felt

better in her life. The weather, the never-failing topic,
enabled him to dilate copiously from the poets—Milton
being the first at hand—with an almost literal description.

“A most lovely morning, Miss Middleton; and here
you may be said to realize the truth of Milton's description
of another region.” Hemming thrice, to relieve
himself from an obstruction in the throat which he did
not feel, he proceeded, in a sort of chant, to give the
beautiful address of Eve to Adam,—beginning,

But nothing could exceed the unction of his look and
gesture, when, approaching the conclusion of the apostrophe,
he betrayed by his look, tone, and action, the
true reason why the selection had been made—

“In truth, sir, your selection is very appropriate.
The description, at this season of the day and year, is
very correct, when applied to our Congaree country.
One would almost fancy that Milton had been thinking
of us. At least, our self-complaisance may well take
the liberty of applying his verses as we please. But,
sir, do tell me how your patient is.”

This was all said with the most indifferent, matter-of-fact
manner in the world. The answer to the inquiry
was lost in the professional knowledge which enveloped
it. A long, painful jargon ensued, on the subject of
wounds in general; then followed an analysis of the
several kinds of wounds—gun-shot, rifle, sabre, pike,

bayonet, bill, bludgeon—wounds in the head and the hip,
the shoulder and the leg, the neck and the abdomen.

“But of all wounds, Miss Middleton, I feel at this moment
more than ever convinced that the most fatal
are those which are inflicted upon the human heart.”

This was followed by a glance of the most inimitable
tenderness, while the hand of the speaker rested upon
the region, the susceptibilities of which were alleged
to be so paramount.

“Your opinion, sir,” said the young lady, with becoming
gravity, “is confirmed by all that I ever heard
on the subject. Indeed, sir, our overseer, who is an excellent
judge in such matters, and who was at one time
the only butcher in Charlestown,—prefers shooting a
steer through the heart always, in preference to the
head. He asserts that while death is certain to follow
the hurt in the one region, it is a very frequent circumstance
that the hardness of the other renders it impenetrable
to the bullet, unless the aim be very good
and the distance be very small. But you, sir, ought to
be the best judge of the correctness of this opinion.”

Watson Gray made considerable effort to suppress
the grin which rose in spite of him to his visage, but
Mr. Hillhouse did not see it, and was not conscious of
the latent meaning in what Flora Middleton had said.
He thought to himself, “This is a very simple girl, certainly—a
mere rustic. I shall have no trouble with
her;” and he proceeded to offer some objections to the
opinion of the overseer, to all of which Flora Middleton
assented with the air of one who is anxious to get rid
of a wearisome person or subject. But the surgeon
was not to be shaken off so easily, and every question
which she found it necessary to propose, however simple
or little calculated to provoke dilation, only had the
effect of bringing about the same results. The same
jargon filled her ears—the same inflated style of compliment
offended her taste; and in answer to the third
or fourth inquiry as to the condition of his patient, he
assured her that “Wounds were either fatal or they
were not. Death might follow the prick of a needle,

while a man has been known to survive even a puncture
of the heart itself;”—here followed another significant
glance at the lady;—“but,” he continued, with
the air of a man who declares the law, “while there is
life there is hope.—Hope, as we are told by our little
poet of Twickenham, `hope springs eternal in the human
breast;' and the last person, Miss Middleton,
whom hope should ever desert, should be the surgeon.
So many have been the marvellous cures which the art
of man has effected, that he should despair of nothing.
Nothing, you know, is impossible with Providence,—
perhaps, I should say, with art; for many have been its
successes, which ignorance has falsely and foolishly attributed
to miraculous interposition. Miracles, Miss
Middleton, are not common things. I am of opinion,
though I would not have you suppose me sceptical or
irreligious, that a great many events are represented as
miraculous which owe their occurrence to natural and
ordinary laws. There was an instance—it came under
my own observation in the island of Jamaica—”

“Pardon me, sir, if you please, but if your patient can
longer spare your presence, mine cannot. I am to understand
you then, as of opinion that Mr. Conway can
only survive by what is ordinarily considered a miracle;
but which, I am to believe, will be then wholly ascribable
to your professional skill?”

“I reckon, Miss Middleton,” said Watson Gray,
rising from the table as he spoke, “that Mr. Conway
stands a good chance of getting over it. He's got some
ugly cuts, but he hasn't much fever, and I don't think
any of the wounds touch the vital parts. I've seen a
good many worse hurts in my time, and though I'm no
doctor, yet I think he'll get over it by good nursing and
watching.”

Mr. Hillhouse was greatly confounded by this interposition.
His eyebrows were elevated as Watson Gray
went on, and he permitted himself to exhibit just sufficient
interest in the interruption as to wheel his chair
half round, and take a cool contemptuous look at the
speaker. The latter did not wait for reply or refutation;

and the simple directness of what he said, was
sufficiently conclusive to Flora, who rose also, and—
the gentlemen having finished breakfast—prepared to
leave the room. But Mr. Hillhouse was not willing to
suffer this movement. He had still more knowledge to
display.

“Do not be deceived by this person, Miss Middleton,
—a very cool person, certainly, not wanting in presumption—a
strange person—I should judge him to be the
overseer of whom you have spoken?”

“No, sir; I only know him as one of the friends of
Mr. Conway.”

“Ah,—a friend of Mr. Conway—a very strange selection.
There is nothing about which gentlemen
should be so careful, as in the choice of friends. A
friend is a man—”

“Excuse me, sir,—but may I beg your attention, at
your earliest leisure, in the chamber of the young
woman. Her delirium seems to be increasing.”

“It will give me pleasure to obey your requisitions,
Miss Middleton; but let me warn you against forming
your judgment, upon the subject of Mr. Conway's condition,
from the report of this person—this overseer of
yours. I doubt not that he's an excellent butcher, Miss
Middleton, but, surely, it is obvious to you that the art
of taking life and that of saving it, are very different
arts. Now, I suspect, that he could tell very nearly as
well as myself what degree of force it would be necessary
to use in felling a bullock, but the question how to
bring the same bullock to life again—”

“Is surely one that is better answered by yourself,
and I should consult you, sir, were it ever necessary, in
preference to every body else.”

The surgeon bowed at the compliment, and with undiminished
earnestness, and more directness than usual,
returned to his subject, if subject he may be said to
have, who amalgamated all subjects so happily together.

“Mr. Conway, ma'am, is not so bad as he might be,
and is a great deal worse, I'm disposed to think, than
he wishes himself to be. His wounds are not deadly,

though he may die of them; yet, though life itself be but a
jest, I must consider them serious. This overseer of
yours is right in some things; though, I suspect, he
only reports my own remarks to Lord Rawdon, made
this morning, ere his lordship took his departure. I told
his lordship that I considered the case doubtful, as all
maladies must be considered; for you know that there
is no certainty in life, but death. He has fever, and
that is unfavourable; but, as he has little fever, that is
favourable. In short, if he does not suffer a great
change for the worse, I trust that he will get better.
Nay, I may admit that I have hopes of it, though no certainties.
The surgeon who speaks of certainties, in
such matters, is—pardon me, Miss Middleton—little
better than a fool.”

“I thank you, sir; you have really enlightened me on
many subjects. I am very much obliged to you. You
must have seen a great deal of the world, sir.”

“The world! Miss Middleton, I have sounded it every
where. I have basked on the banks of the Niger; I
have meditated at the foot of the Pyramids; have taken
my chibouque with a Pacha, and eaten sandwiches
with the Queen of Hungary. I have travelled far, toiled
much; spent five years in India, as many in the West
Indies, two in South America; and yet, you see me
here in South Carolina, still nothing more than second
surgeon to a little army of less than five thousand men,
commanded by a general, who—but no matter! Lord
Rawdon is a good soldier, Miss Middleton, but, burn
me! a very poor judge of good associates.”

“You must have left your maternal ties at a very
early period, to have travelled so far, and seen so much.”

“Apron strings” softened into “maternal ties,” did
not offend the surgeon's sensibilities.

“A mere boy, Miss Middleton; but it is surprising
how rapidly a person acquires knowledge, who starts
early in pursuit of it. Besides, travelling itself is a delight—a
great delight—it would do you good to travel.
Perhaps, were you to go abroad only for a single year,

you would feel less surprised at the extent of my acquisitions.”

“Indeed, sir, do you really think so?”

“I do, 'pon my honour, I do. Your place here is a
very fine one. You have, I understand, some ten thousand
acres in this estate—the Old Barony it's called
—slaves in sufficient number to cultivate it, and really
every thing remarkably attractive and pleasant. I can
very well understand how it is that you should not care
to leave it even for a season; but if you only knew
what a joy travelling is—to go here and go there—see
this thing and that—be asked to this fête and that
palace; and know that the whole gay world is looking
for your presence and depending on your smile; if you
once knew this, Miss Middleton, you'd give up your
acres and your slaves, your barony and all its oaks;
think them all flat, stale, and unprofitable—you'd—”

“Oh, sir, excuse me. You are too eloquent. If I
remain longer, I shall be persuaded to go; and I must
go in order to remain. Good morning, sir. I trust that
you will devote your earliest leisure to the poor young
woman.”

The surgeon bent and bowed almost to the ground,
while his hand was pressed to his lips with the air of
exquisite refinement which distinguished that period.
The dandy is clearly human. All ages have possessed
the creature under one guise or another. The Roman,
the Greek, the Egyptian, the Hebrew, all the Asiatics,
the English and the French, have all borne testimony
to their existence; and, perhaps, there is no dandy half
so ultra in his styles as the Cherokee or the Chickasaw.
Nature and art both declare his existence and recognise
his pretensions. In this point of view, common sense
can urge no objections to him. He clearly has an
allotted place in life, and like the wriggling worm that
puts on a purple jacket and golden wings, though we
may wonder at the seeming waste of so much wealth,
we cannot deny its distribution, and must suppose that
the insect has its uses however unapparent. The exquisite
may stand in the same relation to the human

species as the jay or the peacock among the birds.
These teach the vanity of their costume while displaying
it: as the man of sense learns to avoid the folly,
even in degree, which is yet the glory of the fool.

“Charming creature!” exclaimed the dandy, yawning
and throwing himself backward on the cushions
of the huge sofa, which stood temptingly contiguous
—“Charming creature! She deserves some pains-taking.
Her person is not fine but her lands are;—her
beauties are few, but her slaves are many. She is
rather simple, perhaps—but, gad, my soul!—he is hard
indeed to satisfy whom these fine grounds, excellent
mansion, good lands, charming groves, and balmy
atmosphere would not reconcile to any sacrifices. We
must make it, some day or other, all of us; and thou,
Augustus Hillhouse, be thou not too nice! Already
hast thou suffered many a choice fleshly dainty to slip
through thy fingers because of thy fastidious stomach.
Beware! Thou art wasting time which is precious.
Age will come upon thee! Age! ah!”—with a shiver
—“it will need fine mansion, and noble park, and
goodly income, to reconcile that to thy philosophy.
`In the days of thy youth,' saith the proverb. I will
take counsel of it in season. The damsel's worth
some pains-taking, and the sacrifice is not without its
reward. But such a gown and stomacher as she
wears! I must amend all that. There is also an
absence of finish in the manner, which too decidedly
betrays the rustic. Her voice, too, hath a twang—a
certain peasant-like sharpness which grates harshly
upon the ear. But these things may be amended!—
Yes, they may be amended. I must amend them, certainly,
before I can commit myself among my friends;
for what would Lady Bell, who is a belle no longer,
say to such a bodice, such a stomacher, and above all
to a carriage which shows a degree of vigour so utterly
foreign to good breeding. I must teach her languor,
and that will be the worst task of all, for it will require
exertion. She must learn to lounge with grace, to sigh
with a faint-like softness, to open her eyes as if she

were about to shut them, and, when she speaks, to let
her words slide out through the tips of her lips as if she
were striving all she could, short of positive effort, to
keep them in! Ah, charming Bell, sweet Lady Charlotte,
and thou, dearest of all the dears, fair Moncrieff,
could this barony-girl grow wise in those things in
which ye are so excellent, and how much lovelier were
she than all of ye! Ye are landless, sweet ladies—
and therefore ye are loveless. These acres weigh
heavy against your charms. Augustus Hillhouse, be
not foolish in thy fastidiousness. Take the fruits which
the gods bestow upon thee, and quarrel not with the
bounty because of the too much red upon the apple.
It is a good fruit, and the red may be reconciled, in due
season, to a becoming delicacy.”

The dandy soliloquized at greater length, but neither
his euphronism nor his philosophy finds much favour in
our sight. We are not of that class of writers who
delight in such detail, and we shall not accordingly—
and this omission may surprise the fashionable reader
—furnish the usual inventory of Mr. Hillhouse's dress
and wardrobe. Enough that it was ample even for his
purposes, and enabled him to provide a change, and
a different colour, for every day in the month. He had
his purple and his violet, his green and his ombre, the
one was for the day of his valour, the other, for his
sentiment, the third for his love-sadness, and the fourth
for his feeling of universal melancholy. We shall only
say, that his violet was worn at his first interview with
Flora Middleton.

While his head ran upon his marriage, a measure
which he had now certainly resolved upon, it was also
occupied with certain incidental and equally important
topics, such as the dress which should be worn on such
occasion; for the day of his marriage was the only day
he had never before provided for; and the subsequent
disposition of the goods and chattels which he was to
take possession of with his wife. Stretched at length
upon the cushions, with one leg thrown over an arm of
the sofa and the other resting upon the floor, his head

raised upon the pillows, which had been drawn from
both extremities for this purpose;—his eyes half shut
in dreamy languor, and his lips gently moving as he
whispered over the several heads of topics which engaged
his reflection; he was suddenly aroused by hearing
the fall of a light footstep behind him. At first he
fancied that it might be one of the servants, but a negro
is usually a heavy-heeled personage, who makes his
importance felt upon the floor, if nowhere else; and
when, in the next moment, Mr. Augustus Hillhouse
remembered this peculiarity in his nature, he fancied
that the intruder could be no other than the fair rustic
whose acres he was then disposing of with the most
mercantile facility. Nothing could be more natural
than that she should very soon find her way back to
the spot where it was possible to find him. Under this
impression, he started to his feet with an air of well-practised
confusion; and having been at some pains to
throw into his countenance an excess of sweetness and
sensibility, he turned his eyes, as he fancied, upon the
fair intruder, to meet—not the lady of his love, nor one
of the gentler sex at all—but a man, and such a man!
Never was creature so wofully confounded as our young
gallant. The person who encountered his glance, though
but for an instant only, was the very picture of terror
—gaunt terror—lean misery, dark and cold ferocity.
Clothed in the meanest homespun of the country, and
that in tatters, the tall, skeleton form of a man, stood in
the doorway, evidently receding from the apartment.
In his eyes there was the expression of a vacant anger
—something of disappointment and dislike—a look of
surprise and dissatisfaction. In his hand, at the moment
of his disappearance, Mr. Hillhouse fancied that
he saw the sudden shine of steel. But he was so completely
confounded by the apparition that he was for a
few moments utterly incapable of speech; and when he
did speak, the spectre disappeared.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” was the
shivering inquiry which he made. A savage grin was

the only answer of the stranger, and the next instant
the surgeon stood alone.

“The devil—sure!” he exclaimed; but recovering
his courage, he darted after his strange visiter. He
rushed into the passage-way—out into the porch—ran
down the steps, looked out into the court—but in vain.
He could see nobody. Even the sentinels, whom he
knew to have been placed at the portals, front and rear,
were withdrawn; and no object more suspicious than a
lame negro met his eye in the whole range of vision
that lay within it. He re-entered the house, more than
ever satisfied that he had been favoured with a visit
from a personage whose intimacy implies brimstone
and other combustibles; and a sudden resolution to
resume his duties, and see at once into the condition of
his patients, whom he began to think he had too long
neglected, was the result of his supernatural visitation.

The first object of his care was the person of the outlaw—not
because of his superior claims, or worse condition,
but simply because he felt his nerves too much
agitated to encounter the young lady in whose presence
it was necessary to practise that nice and deliberate
precision of tone and manner, language and address,
which form the first great essentials of successful
euphuisme in all ages. Regarding Watson Gray as a
mere circumstance in a large collection of dependencies
—a sort of hanging peg, or resting port, a mounting
block, or a shoetie, in the grand relationships of society
—he had no scruple at exhibiting his real emotions in
his presence; and he poured forth to the cooler and
more rational scout the intelligence of which he was
possessed. Gray regarded the surgeon as a fool, but
had no reason to suppose that he was a liar. He saw
no reason to doubt that he had seen somebody, and
concluded that his alarm had somewhat magnified the
terrors of what he saw. But his description of the costume
worn by the visiter was so precise and particular,
that he well knew that neither the fears nor the follies
of the other could have caused his invention of it; and
with graver looks than he himself was aware of, he

descended instantly to the lower story. There, he
found the sentinels, each at his post, and they swore
they had been so from the beginning. This one circumstance
led the scout to think more lightly of the
surgeon's story; but there was still something in the
description which had been given him that he could not
dismiss from his consideration. He searched the immediate
neighbourhood of the premises, but without discovering
any thing to awaken his suspicions. He saw
nothing; but a keen watchful eye followed his progress,
every step which he made, along the avenue. The
father of Mary Clarkson had survived the conflict of
the preceding night. It was his spectre which had so
fearfully alarmed the contemplative surgeon. He had
good reason for his alarm. His sudden movement
alone, which enabled the vindictive old man to discern
the petite and popinjay person of the surgeon, saved
him from the sharp edge of the uplifted knife. The
couteau de chasse of the woodman—an instrument not
unlike the modern bowie-knife—had, at one moment,
nearly finished the daydreams of Mr. Hillhouse and his
life together. Finding nothing on his search like the
object described, Watson Gray was disposed to think
that the surgeon had seen one of the soldiers on duty,
who had probably found his way into the mansion with
the view of employing his eyes or his fingers—for the
moral sense of the invading army, officers and soldiers
—does not seem to have been very high;—but this idea
was combated by the fact that Hillhouse had been for
many years, himself, a member of the British army,
and knew, as well as any body, the costume of its
several commands. The nervous excitement of the
surgeon, which was not overcome when Gray returned
to the chamber, was another argument against this
notion. But a new light broke in upon Watson Gray
when he remembered the ancient superstition along the
Congaree.

“You've seen the ghost of the Cassique,” he said,
with a conclusive shake of the head—“old Middleton
walks, they say. I've heard it a hundred times. He

used to wear homespun and a hunting-shirt—though I
never heard it was ragged—and the big knife and rifle
was never out of his hands. The Congaree Indians
used to call him King Big Knife, and, sure enough, he
made it work among their red skins whenever they
came about his quarters and didn't carry themselves
rightly. He was a most famous hunter, and between
the bears and the savages, the knife and rifle had very
little rest with him. I reckon it's him you've seen,
though it's something strange for a ghost to walk in
broad day-time.”

The surgeon was not entirely satisfied with this
explanation; not because it seemed very unreasonable,
but simply because it clashed with his habitual
philosophy.

“Ah, my good friend,” he exclaimed, patronizingly—
“I see you labour under some very vulgar errors. The
belief in ghosts is entirely done away with. Ghosts,
like continental money, had their value only so long as
the people had credulity. The moment you doubt, the
ghosts disappear, and the money is rejected. They
found credit only among a simple people and in the
early stages of society. As Philosophy—divine not
crabbed as dull fools suppose—as Philosophy began to
shed her beams upon the world”—&c. &c. &c.

Watson Gray had already ceased to listen, and we
may as well follow his example. Talking still, however,
while working about the wounds of his patient,
the surgeon at length awakened another voice, and the
faint, but coherent words of the outlaw, summoned the
scout to his bedside.

“Where am I?—what does all this mean, Gray?”

But the surgeon interfered, and for five minutes expatiated
on the great danger to a patient situated as he
was, in using his own, or hearing the voice of any but
his professional attendant.

“Nothing, my good sir, can be more injurious to the
nervous system, particularly where there is any tendency
upward—any mounting of the blood to the
brain! I have known numberless instances, where the

results have been fatal, of the most trifling conversation.
Once in India, a colonel of cavalry, as brave a fellow as
ever lived—Monkton—a noble fellow—dressed like a
prince—won every woman he looked at, and was
happy in never being made to marry any—he suffered
from a gunshot wound got in a desperate charge which
he made at the head of his regiment, upon the native
troops. The rajah himself fell—and my poor friend
Monkton—”

“Pshaw!” feebly exclaimed the outlaw—but with an
emphasis and manner sufficiently marked to be offensive.

“Pshaw! pshaw! sir—I do not understand—”

The wounded man interrupted him—

“Pray do: only be silent, while I hear what my
friend says. Come hither, Gray.”

“I warn you, sir—I wash my hands of the responsibility!”
exclaimed the now indignant surgeon.

“Gray, can't you turn that fool fellow from the
room,” said Morton in a tone which was only inaudible
to Hillhouse from the feebleness of the speaker.
But no such steps were necessary. The indignant
surgeon availed himself of the moment to obey the
requisition of Miss Middleton, and visit his other patient:
and the outlaw and his subordinate were left
undisturbed to a long, and, to them, not an uninteresting
conference. This conference had relation to many
events and interests which do not affect the progress
of this narrative, and do not accordingly demand our
attention; but we may add, that no portion of the intelligence
which Watson Gray brought his commander
was of half the interest, in his mind, as those events
which we have previously related, in the occurrences
at Briar Park, after the moment of Edward Morton's
insensibility.

“That I live at all is almost miraculous,” was the
remark of the outlaw; “for I had goaded him”—meaning
his brother—“almost to desperation, and when my
hand failed me I looked for death.”

“But why do this?” was the earnest inquiry of

Gray—“why, when so much was at stake? I thought
you had made it your chief care, and believed it your
correct policy, particularly as concerns Miss Flora, to
keep him in the dark. Why tell him all—why goad
him with this knowledge?”

“So it was my policy, and so I had resolved; but
the devil and my own passions drove me to do it; and
some other feelings which I could not well account for.
Hate, hate, hate!—was at the bottom of all, and I suppose
I needed blood-letting.”

“You have had it—enough of it.”

“Ay, but I live in spite of it, Watson Gray, and I feel
that I shall still live. I shall not die this bout—not while
I am here—here in the same house with her, and while
all things below are, as you tell me, ripe and favourable.
This alone is enough to cure wounds thrice as numerous
and thrice as deep as mine. I am here with her,
and let me but use these limbs once more, and the
victory and the prize are mine. I will wear them,
Watson Gray, with a savage joy which shall find
triumph in a thousand feelings which confer any thing
but joy. She shall know and he shall know what it is
to have felt with feelings such as mine.”

The outlaw sank backward with exhaustion, and
Watson Gray found it necessary to enforce the suggestions
of the surgeon, and to impose upon the speaker
that restraint which his weakness showed to be more
than ever necessary. This was a difficult task; the
outlaw being impatient to hear particulars, and dilate
upon hopes and passions, which filled all the secret
avenues of his soul with joy! It was only by warning
him of the danger of defeating every thing by tasking
his powers prematurely, that he was subdued to silence;
but his lips still worked with his desire to speak, and
while he lay with shut eyes upon his couch, almost
fainting with exhaustion, his heart heaved with the
exulting images which fancy had already arrayed before
his mind, in preparing his contemplated triumph.
That triumph included the possession of Flora Middleton,
and his escape with her, and other treasures, only

less valuable in his own estimation, and of far greater
value in that of his confederate. Already he was
dreaming of groves in the West Indian Islands;—of a
safe retreat from the snares of enemies; and of the
possession of those charms which had equally warmed
his mind and his passions. Dreaming, he slept; and
Watson Gray availed himself of his repose to snatch
a brief hour of oblivion from the same auspicious influence.