University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Let us now return to the disconsolate
girl whom we left sinking under the accumulated
load of distress, occasioned by
the supposed desertion of one lover,
in whom she had centered her every
hope of happiness, and whose image
she had enwrapped in her very heart's
core, and the fresh and deeply abetted
persecutions of another, the object of
her rooted dislike and suspicion, whose
presence even was painful and perplexing
to her feelings. After the interview
at which May received the letter so astounding
to her hopes and long cherished
affections, Martin carried into immediate
effect the preliminaries of marriage
recommended and urged by his bold and
determined associate. And the banns
were accordingly published the next
Sunday at the village, and the attendance

of the minister bespoken to celebrate
the nuptials one week from the
Tuesday evening next succeeding the
publishment. May, in the mean time,
the person above all others the most intersted
in this movement, had never
been in the least consulted, but kept in
entire ignorance of its existence; and
never dreaming that any immediate advantage
would be taken of a promise
made on condition of a desertion which,
in her unbounded confidence, she believed
could never happen, and which, as she
now suspected was artfully exacted by
Martin with a knowledge previously received,
from some sourceor other, of Ashley's
defection—or that any thing would
be tortured into a consent which she
subsequently uttered in her grief and agitation
at the intelligence by which that
confidence, as well as all her happiness
was swept away at a blow, and wholly
unsuspecting, indeed of the measures
which had been taken, and which had
made such fearful progress towards disposing
of her to one she so thoroughly
detested, she continued several days drooping
in listless apathy to all that was
passing around her, brooding over her
griefs with feelings of anguish to be imagined
only by those whose sensibilities
have received a similar shock, or looking
forward to the chill and dreary future,
there to find no ray of consolation to
compensate for the settled and heart
blighting woe of the present. And it was
not till two or three days after the event
that she accidentally overheard, in a
conversation between her mother and a
neighbour who had called at the door,
that the intention of marriage between
herself and Gow had been publicly proclaimed
the preceding Sunday, and that
not a week intervened before the fatal
day fixed on for its consummation.—The
poor girl, as well she might be, was petrified
with astonishment, and filled with
mingled emotions of dread and indignation
at the discovery. As great, however,
as was her dismay at the dreaded fate
which she saw preparing for her, as deep
as was her indignation at the effrontery
of Gow, and the baseness of those who
had sanctioned his conduct, she made no
outcry—uttered no word of alarm or reproach—questioned
no one—called no
one to her council, or even hinted that
she was apprised of what was in progress;
for where should she go for succor or
advice? The friend and more than
friend, on whom she had all along relied
to return soon enough to relieve her from
her troubles before any measure of actual
compulsion should be used, had now
cruelly deserted, and left her unsupported
in heart, and friendless and unprotected
in her extremities—the neighbors,
if the delicacy of her feelings would permit
her to apply to them, were indifferent
or against her, or at best would have
no power to relieve her—and her parents
who should be her friendly advisers and
protectors, she well knew, were, instead,
the abettors, if not the prime movers of
all that had been done. She saw at a
glance how she had been entrapped—
how the advantage she had unwittingly
given them had been siezed on as a pretended
excuse for the steps they had taken;
and she could easily foresee that
this would furnish them with the same
plea, as false, hypocritical and base, as
their consciences must tell them it was,
for forcing her on till she was irretrievably
bound in by their toils. And although
she knew not half the extent of
their baseness and treachery, she yet
knew enough to fill her with dread for
the result of their machinations, and
cause her nearly to despair of being able
to extricate herself from the snares by
which they had beset her. And yet she,
at times, looked on the fate that now
seemed rapidly approaching, dreaded as
it had been, and still was, to her sober
reflection, with an indifference and apathy
of feeling, which one week before
would have astonished even himself.—
There was a strange wayward feeling
that occasionally came mingling in the
purturbed tumult of her mind, and, seemed
half to court the very fate she would
avoid. Why should she care now, it
said, what become of her?—life was now
forever a blank to her, and no happiness
was to be saved by avoiding her doom.
And offended pride then resentfully threw
in her plea, `He might have saved all this
—he has cruelly deserted me in the hour
of need, and that desertion, besides withering
my heart to its core, has thrown
me into the snares of a villain. How the
thought, when he hears of my fate, will
sharpen the strings of conscience that
must goad him for his conduct. But
what will he care, she said, her better
feelings again predominating, what will
he care now for the wreched, wretched
girl? and her tears streamed afresh at the
sickening answer her mind despairingly
responded. `Destroy thyself,' whispered
the tempter. Starting at the obtruding
thought, she fell upon her knees, and
poured out her heart to her God, besought
him to banish these dreadful feelings
from her bosom, and implored his
divine assistance in snatching her from
the threatening peril, and restoring her
to tranquility. She arose, meek and
calmed from the devotion, and took her
bible, there to find some balm for her
bruised spirit. She opened upon a paper
on which she recollected some time
before to have penned a sentiment and
left it unfinished while hesitating in the
choice of a word. Her attention immediately
became rivited to the writing.
The words were repeated below on the
same paper, and in her own hand apparently
with the lacking word supplied.
—When could I have done this? she asked
herself in surprise.—And that word
too, which I could not recall—that is
here—it cannot be, and yet it is my own
hand. She cast her eye still further
down, where she had written her name,
May Martin. This also she remembered
to have done once; but here it was
repeated a dozen times, and last of all
was written May Gow. I never coupled
those two names together! she exclaimed,
starting up, while a flash of light
broke in on her mind that made her clap
her hands for joy. The bible had, till
within a day or two, lain in the window
in a room where Gow had often been
alone—pen and ink were always there—
he must have done it, and for the purpose
of learning to counterfeit her hand,
—and how well he has succeeded! But
if he could do this, why not have also
written the letter she had received purporting
to be from Ashley—he did, he
did! As this rapid process ran through
her mind to the conclusion, she flew to
the pretended letter from Ashley—compared
all the little particularities of the
hand to the writing just discovered and
doubted no longer. It is, it is so! He
did write me—Martin gave the villain
the letter, and he kept it, and by it counterfeited
the hand in the letter they gave
me! Oh! a mountain is off my heart!
Ashley, my dear Ashley, is still faithful!
Oh, how could I ever have doubted him!
—But I will now live—now save myself
for him—in spite of them all I will do it,
and hesitate no longer about exposing
this wretch, and bringing him to punishment.
Such were the exclamations of
May as she paced the room in a delirium
of joy. It was her first thought to write
immediately to her lover, and she had
siezed a sheet for the purpose, but a
second thought suggested that the real
letter might, after all, have contained
something similar to what she had received,
or at last something, which, if
she had it, would materially vary what
she was about to write, and that she
had better defer her purpose till she
thought over the possibilities of obtaining
it. She reasoned that the letter was still
in existence, as Gow would keep it,
thinking he might have occasion to counterfeit
the hand again in the prosecution
of his designs—that he probably would
not carry it about his person, for fear of
loosing or accidentally exposing it, and
that it was doubtless now in his cabin in
the woods and most likely left unconcealed,
as she had gathered from various
intimations that he stayed there alone,
and that no one ever presumed to approach
his retreat. And having already
pretty well ascertained that the employment
of Gow and his associates in the
woods was that of digging money or precious
ores, which she supposed he had
persuaded them to believe could be found
there, and knowing that he must necessarily
be absent from his cabin whenever
they were engaged in digging, which, from
Martin's going and return, she had learned
was the first part of the night, she, not
thinking of any one whom she could employ
for the purpose, conceived the bold
project of going herself into the mountain
by night, after the family had retired,
and attempting to get possession of
the letter. But how should she ascertain
where this cabin or shantee was situated?
In her younger years, she had
often and with delight, rambled through
the woods with her mates in search of
nuts, or medicinal roots and herbs for
the yearly supply of the family. She
knew well the whole tract of forest back
to the mountains, and even a portion of
them she had occasionally ascended;
but how was this to enable her to find in
the night a place, which was not known
even to the associates of the man, who,
from no creditable motives, she suspected,
had thus carefully concealed his retreat?
She knew not; but her discovery
had given a new impulse to her life,
rousing every thought and energy of her
soul into action, and so far from yielding
to the obstacle, her mind became busied
in expedients to overcome it.

There was in the neighborhood a boy
of about fifteen years of age, known by
the appellation of shrewd David, the prefix
of which was gained him by his uncommon
sagacity and keenness of observation
of all that was passing around
him. Being the son of a poor widow by
the name of Butler, who supporting herself
by her loom and needle, and having
no business for the boy except to take
care of her cow and procure her wood,
had left him mostly to shift for himself,
and, although bred in ignorance, yet for
doing an errand, riding for the doctor in
cases of great emergency, or going as an
express on affairs requiring secrecy and
prudence, he had acquired a character
for great despatch, skill and fidelity; and
as for finding a sheep or kine strayed and
lost in the woods, or the more daring
feats of seeking out the retreat of a mischievous
bear or wolf, none were equal
to shrewd David; for naturally intrepid,
nimble and active as the squirrel which

he delighted to follow to the tops of the
highest trees, and crafty in expedients as
the doubling fox, which, with the keenness
of the grey-hound's sight and almost
the fleetness, he often drove to the long
eluded burrough; there was scarcely a
rood of mountain or moorland in the settlement
with which he was not familiar.
Among others he had several times been
employed by Ashley as an assistant in
his surveys in the woods, and May had
often heard her lover speak in the highest
terms of the capacity and honesty of
the hardy little woodsman.

As our heroine sat by her window facing
the garden at the back of the house,
her mind absorbed in devising means for
accomplishing the object on which we
left her pondering, her eye caught the
form of the boy just described, sitting on
a rock and fishing for trout in a brook
which ran by the house just without the
enclosure of the garden, and the thought
instantly occurred to her that he would

be a useful and trusty assistant in effecting
the object she had in view. Full of
this idea she immediately repaired to the
fence opposite, and within a few feet of
where the boy was sitting.

`Come trout,' he was saying to himself,
as he sat so deeply engrossed in his
tantalizing employment as not to have
heeded the noiseless approach of his visitor,
`Come, come, trouty, I gives you a
fair invite to be at my breakfast tomorrow
morning; and I knows you are aching
to snap at that worm, as bad as I am
to have you; so out from under the rock
with you in a jiffin. Well, now, blast
your scary picture, I guesses I can wait
as long as you can, any how.'

`What luck to day, David?' at length
asked May, hesitating to interrupt him in
his soliloquy.

`Why!' exclaimed the boy, rapidly
throwing the glances of his keen gray
eyes about him till they settled on his
fair interrogator. `Why, Miss May! dog

my cat, but you half scares me! What
luck? O, not much—the flies are getting
so thick that the fishes begin to think
they can get their dinners at a cheaper
rate than I offers them.'

`But you like the employment, don't
you, David?'

`O yes, when they aint so dainty about
their victuals—but rather dull music
now—I loves better to be scrambling over
the mountains with Mr Ashley. When
will he come back?—but they say he aint
a comin back ever.'

`I am sure—I expect—that is, I hope
he will return, David,' replied May, blushing
and hesitating at being brought so
very abruptly to the very subject she had
at heart.

`Why, mother says he sent a letter
about marrying another girl; and they
all say you are going to marry that Mister
Gow, that folks think is such a wonderful
man, and was published last Sunday.'

`I have just heard that I was published.'

`Just heard!—now that's a good one,
Miss May.'

`David!'

`What?'

`Could I trust you with a secret?'

`What secret?'

`Why, if I wished to engage your assistance
in some affair that I had reasons
for keeping secret, would you try to oblige
me, and keep it to yourself?'

`I mought, and then I mought not
again,' replied the boy, with a droll,
shrewd, half serious and half joking expression.
`I jumps at the chance a
month agone; but the fact is, Miss May,
when I hears you are going to have that
Mister Gow, I don't like you so well as
I wants to.'

`Well, David, I don't blame you for
it; but if that is all you dislike in me, we
can be friends again at once; for I can
assure you I will never marry Gow, if
there is any way to prevent it.'

`Good now!' exclaimed he, jumping
up with animation and throwing down
his fish pole hard upon the rock,—`there!
see that pesky trout whipping off!' he
continued, in an under tone, pointing into
the brook.

`But why, David, should you care about
my marrying Gow?'

`Because I hates him. You see I
likes to know what's going on, and goes
one day to the mountain and finds where
they digs a nights for money. Well,
while I looks about there, guessing it all
out, down comes that mister with a switch
in one hand behind him, and afore I
thinks anything's to pay, gives me two
or three tough ones right over my head,
and says, now keep off you little himp or
I cuts you into mince meat. But David
Butler is not made of wood—he remembers
and thinks. So I watches every
thing, and soon makes up my mind that
he's a black one, trying to tom fool the
folks and get away their money—for I

finds they've been round borrowing money,
and what for is it? they don't want
it to make their potatoes grow, I guesses.
And what for is it too, that he wants to
be alone there in the mountains, where
nobody must see his place?'

`True, true, David, shrewd they rightly
call you—I too have suspected nearly
all this, and still know something besides
of the fellow. And now will you keep
my secret and engage for me?—it is this
same villain that I want you to assist me
in defeating. Will you promise?'

`Yes, Miss May, I promises now, and
what I says I does.'

`Well, David, I have discovered, as I
think, that the letter you heard of was
made up by Gow to deceive me and make
me listen to his offers.'

`Zounds! I'd fix him. And Mr Ashley
didn't write any letter?'

`Yes, I am satisfied he did, for Gow
could have had no other means of counterfeiting
Mr Ashley's hand. Mr Martin

took the letter from the office and gave
it to Gow, who, I feel very sure, has still
got it, and keeps it laid away in his place
in the mountain. Do you know, David,
where this is?'

`I guesses pretty close at it. I thinks
it is the old cave that Mr. Ashley and I
once finds in coming over the mountain.
I sees, almost every night just after dark,
a little glim of light away up there, just
peeping through the trees.'

`Is there such a place?—that is doubtless
it then. Now, David, can you go
and get me the letter?'

`What! in the day time?—he's always
there, and won't let me have it.'

`No, in the night, when he is away
with the diggers.'

`Maybe the old man's there—they do
say, Miss May, he's the old one himself,
helping them dig money with the black
art. I'd go for you and take a bear out
of a trap, if 'twas as dark as a nigger's
pocket, for I always knows how to fight

such like—but the old one!—I fears to
go alone cause of he.'

`But if I would go with you?' said May
smiling at his superstitious fears, but
thinking it would be useless to combat
them.

`You! you, Miss May!'

`Yes, David, I will go, and this very
night, as soon as mother's asleep—they
have not been digging for several nights
past, but I overheard Mr Martin say they
were going to begin again to night; and
Gow of course will be absent from his
cave. Will you come, go with me, and
guide me to the place?'

`I goes,' said the little fellow, plucking
up—`the old one never comes near if
you be there, Miss May, and I fears nothing
else.'

`Well, then, meet me at this spot to-night
as soon as you see the light put out
in mother's room; and though it is out
of my power to pay you now, David, I
will some day or other see you handsomely
rewarded.'

`I works for pay sometimes, cause
mother's poor—but I likes Mr Ashley,
and I likes you, now—and I goes just as
well for likes as money.'

So saying, and gathering himself up
proudly, the little fellow took his fishing
implements and hastily moved off, as if
his excited feelings were hurrying him
away to prepare for the expedition.

`Don't forget to be here to night in
season,' said May, calling after him.

`I never forgets any thing,' replied the
boy, increasing his pace.

Our heroine now returned to her domestic
avocations in a state of the highest
excitement, created by her newly
raised hopes and the thoughts of her projected
adventure, and impatiently awaited
the time set for undertaking it. It was
her first object to obtain her letter; but
although her great anxiety for its possession
had prompted to this bold, and, to a
female situated as she was, somewhat
hazardous enterprize, she yet had other

inducements to visit the cavern. She
highly suspected Gow of deep and complicated
villainy, and thought it not improbable
that something might there be
discovered which would enable her to
unmask him; for if any of his deeds had
rendered him obnoxious to punishment,
she, in view of justice and public good,
as well as her own wrongs and her own
safety, was fully determined to expose
him by every means in her power, believing
this was now not only due from
her, but the surest and perhaps the only
way she could escape from the dreaded
fate which seemed so menacingly impending
over her unprotected head.