University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

After parting from her lover, May lingered
almost unconsciously some time in
the vicinity of the romantic spot which
had witnessed their adieus—now listlessly
stooping to pluck some favorite flower
which peeped from its covert beneath her
devious footsteps, & now pausing to scratch
the initials of the loved one's name on the
back of some solitary tree, while her mind
was sweetly occupied with the pleasant
reminiscences of the past, or indulging in
those dreamy and bright imaginings of the
future which love and hope are forever
uniting to create in the bosoms of the
youthful. And it was nearly sunset before
she was aroused to the necessity of a
speedy return to her home. Now quickening
her steps, however, she soon arrived
at the door, and was timidly entering under

the expectation of receiving some ill-natured
reprimand from Martin or his
wife, as was their wont on her being long
absent from her domestic duties, when
with a feeling approaching thankfulness,
she caught a glance of a third person in
the room, whom she took to be some
neighbor, sitting with his back towards
her, thinking that his presence would protect
her from the anticipated rebuke, till
the occasion should be forgotten. But
this penalty she would have gladly suffered
the next moment in exchange for the
disagreeable surprise she encountered:—
For she had scarcely reached the interior
of the room before the person turned round
and in him she at once recognized the
man whose singular conduct she and Ashley
had lately witnessed with so much surprise
and suspicion. She instantly recoiled
at the unexpected discovery, and
stood a moment mute and abashed before
the painful scrutiny of his gaze.

`Why! what ails the girl!' exclaimed

Mrs. Martin. `A body would think she
was afraid of strangers.'

`Perhaps, wife,' observed Martin with
a malicious smile, `perhaps May's walk
has confused her wits a little—these love-meetings
and love-partings are terrible
things to fluster one—ain't they May?'

`There!' rejoined the former in a tone
of exulting glee, `there! see how the girl
blushes! I guess she thinks the gentleman
may have seen her and her beau in
their loving ramble across the pasture.—
May be, sir,' she continued turning to the
stranger, `may be you witnessed the parting?'

`No, I saw no one after leaving the
woods till I reached the house,' replied
the man with evident uneasiness of manner—`Did
you pass the way I came,
Miss?'

`I have not been in the road, sir,' answered
May, with as much calmness as
she could command in her fresh alarm at
the turn which the conversation now

threatened to take, accompanied as the
question was with a tone and look of suspicion
for which she could readily account.
The inquiry, however, to her
great relief was pursued no further, and,
the conversation being now directed to
other and indifferent subjects, she retreated
from the room to hide her blushes, and
shed tears of vexation at the unfeeling and
wanton manner in which the secrets of
her heart had been exposed to a stranger
—and that stranger, too, the very one of
all others before whom she would have
been most anxious to avoid such an exposure,
coupled as it had been with her
walk which had put her in possession of
an unpleasant secret, as she feared it was,
respecting him. How unlucky! she
thought.—Perhaps even now she had become
the object of his suspicion and dislike.
She had intended, before so unexpectedly
encountering him on her return,
to make known the transaction she had
witnessed. But now should she do so,
and the affair should be satisfactorily explained,
she dreaded the ridicule which
she probably must experience from all
parties for having acted the spy and cavesdropper—and
should it lead to the detection
of some villany, perhaps she would
have to be called into court as a witness
—a consequence which she no less dreaded.
She concluded therefore to keep the
whole transaction carefully locked as a
secret in her own bosom. Having come
to this determination, and having succeeded
by this time in allaying her disturbed
feelings, and in assuming, in a good degree,
a calm demeanor, she rejoined the
company, her repugnance to the stranger
being mingled with some curiosity to learn
more of his character, and see whether he
would mention the circumstance which
had so unfavorably impressed her and her
lover, and if so, in what manner he would
explain it. But in this she was disappointed,
as not the least allusion was then, or
ever afterwards, made by him to the transaction.
May soon perceived, however,
that the stranger had already made rapid
progress with his host and hostess towards
gaining the footing of a familiar acquaintance;
and it was with some surprise that
she learned that he was to become for the
present an inmate in the family. He had
introduced himself, it appeared, by the
name of Gow, stating that he was traveling
with the view of purchasing lands; and
having heard that Harwood settlement
presented good inducements to purchasers,
he had now accordingly paid it a visit
for this purpose. This avowal had led
to a proffer of assistance on the part of
Martin to further the objects of the stranger,
and soon to a compliance with the request
of the latter to take up his abode in
the family while he remained in the place.
Such was the ostensible object of the stranger's
visit. This information May gathered
from her mother in the absence of the
gentlemen, who after supper had taken a
long ramble across the farm in the twilight
of the delicious evening. But the
truth of the account which the man had
thus given of himself she felt much disposed
to discredit, for though the story was
simple and reasonable enough in itself,
she yet was wholly unable to reconcile it
in her mind with what she had witnessed;
and the more she reflected on the subject
the stronger became her suspicions that
there was something wrong in his character,
and something which he was making
an effort to conceal. During the course
of the evening May found frequent opportunities
for examining the personal appearance
of Gow (for by that name we
shall now call him) more closly than she
had before the means of doing. Though
young he was evidently considerably
hackneyed in the ways of the world, and
seemed well versed in the ordinary modes
of flattery and the art of insinuating himself
into the good graces of strangers. His
exterior was good, and his demeanor, with
ordinary observers, might have been prepossessing.
But those who scrutinized
him more closely might easily have detected
a hollowness in his manner, which
showed that the heart was taking but little
part in the wheedling language of the
tongue, and a sort of questionable expression
in the glances of his restless eye,
which like the savage foe in the woods,
seemed to avoid open encounter, and to
be continually skulking away and back,
under the steady gaze of the beholder, as
if guarding hidden motives with a constant
apprehensiveness of their detection.—
Such at least were the impressions of May,
whose scrutiny instead of lessening had
now increased the dislike she had conceived
towards this person. Besides she was not
altogether pleased with his manner toward
herself. It was evident from his remarks
that his inquiries concerning her had been
already very particular; and he seemed
to address her with too much of the air
of an old acquaintance. In short she felt,
she scarce knew why, that he had some
preconcerted object in view some way
connected with herself. And she retired
to rest that night with sensations of displeasure,
and with a disquietude of feeling
that she had never before experienced.

While such thoughts and undefined apprehensions
were agitating the guileless
bosom of May, the disagreeable object of
her reflections was occupied in another
apartment, to which he also had retired
for the night, in writing a letter to an absent
associate. For the benefit of the reader
we take an author's privilege of looking
over his shoulder.

`Well, Col. here I am, snug at Martin's,
where I am to remain, at present, gentleman
land-looker, as I call myself, till I put
other business in train. I arrived this afternoon—sooner
by some days than I expected,
having come not slow most of the
way, I assure you. The honest fact is,
I bought a horse at the end of the first
day's journey. `Bought!' you will say.—

Yes of an old white cow I run afoul of in
the stable.—`What a mad cap!' you will
again exclaim, `thus to endanger the success
of our honest speculation.'—But the
fact was Col. I was getting on too slow for
my disposition, and—and I could not help
it. But the animal fell down and died
just as I was coming into the settlement;
and I rolled him off a ledge into the brook,
where he wont enjoy much more society,
I am thinking, but the fishes and foxes till
he is pretty well distributed. So no danger
from that little frolic. Now for the
girl—she is here, and no common affair
neither I assure you! Well formed,
handsome and knowing—indeed I fear
me she knows rather too much—at least,
that soul-reading sort of look of hers I
plainly see will require a pretty thick
mask. Besides Martin tells me she is engaged
to a young farmer, lately settled
here, but who luckily started a journey
for two months, just before I arrived.—
So you see I have got to push matters
rather briskly; and it will be a hard case
if she don't find herself Mrs Gow before
the fellow returns. Lord! if she but
knew her own secret, or mine, I might as
well try to catch a lark in the sky by
whistling.

As to the other part of our projected
scheme, I am sure it will work well.—
Martin, whom, in my rapid way of doing
things, I have sounded in all shapes, informs
me that it is generally believed here
that precious metals lie hid in these mountains;
and I have already hinted my natural
faculties in seeing in the magic-stone[1]
(the wonders of which I find are still believed
in, among them,) and in working
the divining rods. Both of these marvelous
implements I shall very naturally find
in a day or two, probably; when I shall
open the golden prospect to Martin's greedy

eyes, and if it takes, as we may safely
swear it will, I shall commence operations
immediately. So, old boy, you may come
on with your traps as soon as you receive
this, for I shall want you at all events
—I will look out the old cave you described
in the mountains, and have all things
in readiness by the time you arrive.

Yours in rascality, truly,
Gow.