University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

Once more and for the last time change
we the scene of our eventful story to
the place where we commenced it, at
the dwelling of the heartless, despicable,
but now detected and self abased Martin.
Need we attempt to describe the
disappointment of the excited and enraged
lover, as, bursting into the house at
the head of his companions just as the
tempest struck it, he made the discovery
which the inmates had made but a moment
before, that his affianced was missing?
The utter discomfiture of Martin
and his congenial helpmate at the unlooked
for interruption of their plans,
and detection at the very eve of communicating
their business? The consternation
of Gow at being seized and
securely ironed on the spot? The bitter
upbraidings heaped by Ashley on the

heads of the guilty and shrinking pair
for their treachery towards him, and their
oppressive cruelty and wickedness towards
the unprotected child of their
adoption? The feverish impatience with
which he paced the floor till the storm
should abate that he might fly to the
neighbors, to some of whom it was supposed
the poor girl had fled for refuge?
The hot haste with which he mounted
his horse the first moment the fury of
the tempest would permit, and rode from
house to house in the eager search? The
blank dismay and agony of heart that
overwhelmed him on finding that no one
had seen her, and that she was sheltered
by no house in the settlement?—the
prompt rallying of the startled inhabitants
the dancing of lights in every direction
as they anxiously continued the
search in house and barn, field and forest
through the gloomy hours of that
dreadful night? The consternation of
the distracted lover on coming to the
frightful ruins of the avalanche, and the
maddening thought she might be buried
beneath them—his hasty return and procurement
of a boat to pass round the
insurmountable mass that blocked up
the road—the extasy of joy that thrilled
his bosom at the discovery of the lost
one, and the exulting throb of heart-gushing
happiness with which he and his
companion bore back the living prize,
together with the dying wretch who had
caused her misfortunes, to the nearest
house for resuscitation and refreshment
before proceeding homeward? Need we
attempt to detail all this? What reader
of imagination so dull that he cannot
better fill up for himself a picture so difficult
for pen to delineate?

It was daylight, and a beautiful and
balmy morning. The scene from Martin's
presented in every direction a gloomy
picture of the desolating ravages of
the tempest. Fields of grass and grain
lay prostrate with the earth. Fences on

every side had been swept away by the
unexampled rise of the mountain rivulets,
and their scattered materials lay
strewn at random over the blackened
herbage of every vale. Each solitary
tree of the open grounds, left for shade
or ornament, had been hurled to the
earth in the fury of the blast. And many
a veteran hemlock and princely pine
of the surrounding forests, whose giant
forms had withstood the power of the
elements for centuries, and whose towering
tops had served from time immemorial
as the familiar guides of the woods-men
starting for their homes, had been
rent by the lightning or overthrown by
the winds, and were no longer to be
seen; while far in the blue distance at
the north a broad whitish belt marked
the fearful track of the avalanche down
the mountain.

Within the walls of the house was assembled
a group of persons as variant
and dissimilar in character and feelings,

as the singular causes that brought them
together. On a low bench in one corner
of the room, sullen and silent, sat
Gow, heavily ironed and closely guarded
by one of the stout, athletic assistants of
the sheriff. In another place sat Martin
and his wife with their eyes cast dejectedly
on the floor, listening meekly
and with deep abasement of demeanor
to the remarks of the clergyman, who,
having remained through the night, was
now mildly setting before them not only
the wrong of the deception which had
been practised upon him in hiding the
circumstances of the projected marriage,
in the advancement of which he had been
so unwitting enlisted, but the great heinousness
of using such arts to compel a
poor unfriended orphan under their protection
to violate the vows to her lover
which they themselves had sanctioned,
and wed a man so abhorrent to her feelings
that she had braved and but too
probably met death in trying to avoid the
fate. Leaning pensively against the window,
stood the handsome stranger, who
yesterday joined Ashley on the road, and
who, though no one yet knew his business
or even name, had through the whole
night taken a deep and active interest in
the search for the lost favorite of the valley,
now listening to the words of the
minister addressed to the humble dupes
of the man in irons before them, and
now casting wistful and uneasy glances
through the window towards the north,
in which direction he, as well as all the
rest of the present company supposed the
search was still going on.

Presently a distant hum as of the mingled
voices of many persons approaching
with rapid steps down the road reached
the ears of the company. It came
nearer and nearer; and all, except Gow
and his guard, now hastily rose and
went out into the yard. A band of all ages
and sexes, scattered confusedly along
he road, according to their different powers

and disposition for speed, were flying
towards the house, headed by shrewd
David many rods in advance, exultingly
shouting with all his might, `May is found!
May is found! They are coming! they
are coming!' And the little fellow now
reaching the anxiously expectant group
at the door, and pointing to two approaching
wagons in the distance, fell down in
utter exhaustion, and gave vent to his
overflowing emotions in a burst of tears.

`Thank God!' exclaimed the stranger,
the first to find utterance in the general
emotion that seemed to spread sympathetically
from the boy to every person
present.

`Amen—and to Him be the praise!'
responded the minister in the deep and
reverential tones of his office.

The foremost wagon travelled much
faster than the other, and being considerably
forward of it, had by this time approached
to within a short distance of
the assembled company, now composed

of nearly all the inhabitants of the settlement,
awaiting its arrival in breathless
silence. And now it turned into the yard.
It contained Ashley and the recovered
fair one. She looked worn, and much
paler than usual, otherwise calm, though
thoughtful. Her lover lifted her from the
carriage, and advancing with her at his
side, would have spoken, but his lips began
to quiver, and waving his hand mutely
presented her to the company. The
females rushed round, and by turns convulsively
clasped her in their arms, or buried
their faces in her bosom, with no
other utterance than that which their violent
sobbing as they held her in the
mute embrace, or turned away to hide
their streaming tears, afforded. The
men stood by and looked on with less
boisterous manifestations of emotion,
though the big tears were seen starting
in many an eye, and coursing down many
a manly cheek as they silently gazed
on the moving scene before them. While
this scene was acting, the other wagon
driven by Mundle, and containing the
wounded man stretched on a bed in the
bottom of the vehicle, the latter person
having been brought here by his own
earnest request, now slowly passed into
the yard.

`Bring out a few pillows, or something
to make a bolster,' said the sheriff, in the
tones of one accustomed to command,
`this poor wretch is very evidently near
his last breath, and has something to say
before he leaves the world forever.—
Here! help to lift him out, bed and all.
And bring out likewise the prisoner,
Gow, that they may be confronted together.'

These orders being promptly attended
to, the wounded man was carefully lifted
from the wagon and placed in an easy
position in the open air. He first pressed
his hand to his forehead, and then
opening his eyes and looking slowly
round on the countenances of those standing

immediately about him, said faintly,

`I heard them say there was a stranhere,
who had enquired for May Martin,
and seemed to take an interest in her
fate. Is he now present?'

The gentleman thus enquired for, who
had hitherto stood back a silent though
attentive spectator of all that had passed,
now stepped forward.

`It is so,' said the former after letting
his languid eye rest a moment on the
face of the stranger, `it is even as I suspected—Mr
Harwood—Frank Harwood.'

`You call my name, sir,' replied the
stranger, closely scanning the pale and
livid features of the man lying before
him, `Yon call me rightly, but I do not
now recollect where, or when, I may
have met with you.'

`Do you not remember your father's
former agent for this settlement, and the
adviser and assistant of your youthful
errors?'

`Colvin!' exclaimed the stranger in

surprise, `Colvin!—can this be Richard
Colvin?'

At the mention of that name all the
oldest settlers stepped up and bending
over the man, looked intently in his face.

`It is,' they presently exclaimed, `it is
Colvin, but oh how changed!'

`You say truly,' rejoined the older
man after a pause in which he seemed to
be collecting his failing energies to speak
further. `You say truly of the wretched
object before you—changed indeed,
but less changed in person than in guilt.
Franklin Harwood, in May Martin, the
girl before you, behold your own daughter!'

`My father!' uttered May in surprise.

`Her father!' exclaimed many voices
at once.

`Her father! Frank Harwood only
son of the old proprietor, her father!'—
almost shrieked both Martin and his
wife at the same instant.

`Can this gentleman be my father?'

again timidly asked May, looking enquiringly
to Ashley.

`It is the gentlemen of whom I spoke,
as we came along, May,' replied the latter.
`I thought—I half suspected something
like this. And why not of so near
a tie? See!' he continued with animation
waving his hand to the spectators
and pointing from the features of the father
to those of the daughter. `See!
did ever mirror that mellows while it truly
reflects the landscape—did ever mirror
throw back the softened picture more
faithfully?'

`It is even so,' said Harwood, now
stepping up and taking the hand of the unresisting
and pleased girl. `It is even so
—it can be no other than the too long
neglected child of a much injured though
lawfully wedded mother, who I trust, at
this auspicious moment is looking down
from her place in heaven to forgive and
bless, in the pleased witnessing of this
late union of father and daughter. And

if she,' he continued with an affectionate
smile, `if she of heaven can do this,
what says my fair child of earth?'

A sweet smile broke through the starting
tears of the daughter in reply.

`Let me proceed,' said the wounded
penitent, `I know—I feel that I have
but a few more moments left me, and I
would improve them in undoing as far
as I can, the mischief I have done—I
now grieve to say, deliberately done.—
You, men and owners as you have thought
yourselves, of this settlement, you more
than others, in my dark career of crime,
have I injured. Under pretended ownership
of this valley, I gave you false
and worthless titles to the lands which
you now occupy and which, till within a
few months belonged to this gentleman's
father, who, having become apprised of
his son's former clandestine marriage and
a living offspring somewhere in Vermont,
bequeathed them all before his death, as
I accidentally learned, to this abused and

persecuted girl. Would to heaven I had
remained ignorant of the fact, for it led
to my second offence against you. Not
content with having once defrauded you
out of the price of your farms, and proved
treacherous to my patron to whom
I represented these lands to be so worthless,
that he on this account, and owing
to family troubles and growing infirmities,
never afterwards enquired about
them or employed others to look them
up—not content with this double fraud, I
had laid a second plan to rob you of all
these farms at a blow, or make you pay
for them again, by getting them into the
possession of my associate, and young
pupil in crime, yon prisoner, by means
of cheating the unconscious owner into
a marriage with him, before the will
should become known here, or she apprised
of her true parentage and standing,
and thus inflict another irreparable
injury on the worthy family of my early
patron. Nor was even this enough for
me—I must filch a large sum of money
from a number of you, in making you
pay my associate and equal sharer in all
the booty gained or to be gained by our
wicked plots, for his pretended skill in
helping you to discover a fancied treasure,
for the effecting of which I scrupled
not to expose you to the law by burying
for your finding, a few counterfeit dollars
of my own make And now having
confessed all, the only atonement I can
offer for my aggravated injuries is in declaring
the innocence of the deluded
men in possessing the false coin, and in
restoring the good money taken from
them; my share of which you will find
in my pocket—the rest about the person
of the prisoner, who I hope will speedily
forget the lessons of wickedness I have
taught him, and learn wisdom from my
melancholy fate. And as to your land I
can only recommend you to the mercy
of their now rightful owner, or Mr. Harwood,
her natural guardian, or,' he continued
glancing at Ashley, `or him, who,
I suppose, is soon to be her legal protector.'

`It is but right,' said Ashley, stammering
and confused at the evident allusion
of the last speaker, and endeavoring to
withdraw his arm from his fair partner,
`it is but right—but honorable, that, in
this strangely altered aspect of affairs,
I should relinquish to Miss Harwood, as
we must now call her, all claims she may
have given me as May Martin.'

`But supposing,' replied May, still
clinging to the arm of her lover with a
countenance radient with smiles and
blushes, `but supposing Miss Harwood
should not choose to release Mr. Ashley
from his engagements to May Martin?'

`At least, May,' rejoined her lover with
a starting tear and grateful smile; `at
least May, we have a new consent to ask
and obtain now.'

`And it will not long be withheld,'
said Harwood with a gratified look.—

`Your manly conduct now, Mr. Ashley,
has confirmed the highly favorable prepossessions
I have conceived of your
character, and even without this, I know
not that I should ever have attempted to
sunder those whom God has so evidently
put together.'

While this tender scene was enacting,
most of the settlers, astonished and dismayed
at the unexpected intelligence they
had just heard, which had swept away
their farms at a blow, had withdrawn
from the spot in silence, and were standing
in the background, with blank and
disconcerted countenances, leaving the
happy little group of father, daughter,
lover, parson, sheriff and little David,
about the only persons whose interest
were not unfavorably affected by the development,
by themselves indulging in
the joyous emotions to which the occasion
gave rise, and the three last named
especially, giving vent to their feelings in
pious ejaculations, hearty congratulations,

and half suppressed exclamations of unbounded
delight, according to their respective
characters. Their attention was
now arrested, however, by a faint groan
from the old man. They turned—he
had just breathed his last. The falling
of some body, followed by the loud
shriek of a female within the house, now
suddenly struck on their startled ears.—
All rushed to the open door. Martin
lay weltering in his blood on the floor,
with his throat cut from ear to ear, and
writhing in the agonies of a death, which,
in a paroxism of remorse, shame and desperation,
his own hand had inflicted.