University of Virginia Library

75. CHAPTER LXXV.
THE DAUGHTER OF THE STARS.

WITH the death of him who has illustrated our
poor pages more than all his co-mates, the chronicle
might fitly terminate.

Falconbridge once dead, his figure removed, his
eyes no longer dwelling upon the prairie, the mountain, and
the river,—both the scene and the actors appear dreary and
sad: the life of the drama has departed.

But we linger for a brief space before bidding the reader
farewell. The vortex which drew into its bloody depths so
many forms, did not spare, in its final effect, another being.

The bodies of the whites and savages, who had been slain,
were buried; and the hunters, at the head of whom rode
the Earl and. Captain Wagner, returned toward Greenway
Court.

Scarcely a word was uttered by the two leaders upon the
march. They scarcely turned their heads, for, in a litter of
boughs behind them, were borne the dead bodies of Bertha
Argal, and Falconbridge.

Then a procession of hunters, bearing a litter upon their
shoulders, ascended the mountain, and the young man and
the girl were laid at the foot of the great pine which he had
looked at that day,—beneath whose shadow he had wished
to be buried. The cavalcade returned to the lowland again
—silent and sorrowful; all were thinking of the youth and
maiden who were sleeping their last sleep.

One murmur, alone, was mingled with the hoof-strokes of
the horses. The leader of the troop, with white, cold lips,
whispered strangely:

“It is well!”

Then, many days afterward, the silence of the mountain
fastness was broken by the noise of a horseman ascending
the winding road to the dwelling, which we have visited
more than once.

This horseman is George. He is going to see Cannie,
and his face is very pale:—for the child is lying dangerously
ill.

The exposure upon the march with the Indians had aggravated,
terribly, her tendency to disease of the lungs; and
soon after her return, she had been seized with an acute attack.
A physician had been hastily sent for from the settlement
east of the Blue Ridge; but after an examination of
the condition of the sufferer, he had shaken his head, and
turned away hopelessly.

The disease had invaded the vital organs, and the death
of the child was only a question of time.

She lingered until the cold, sad winter had passed away,
till the violets of spring were blooming in the grass, till
the birds were carolling in the mild blue sky, which drooped
like a canopy above the headlands and rivers, and the
prairie glittering with a million flowers.

Then the life of the little sufferer waned rapidly.

George was ever beside her—controlling the sobs which
tried to force their way from his lips—and smiling upon
her hopefully and sweetly.

She knew how much he had loved her now—she knew
that this love had increased until it came to be a portion of
his life. She would often take his hand, and with smiles of
deep tenderness, and swimming eyes, thank the boy for his
kindness and goodness, through all the days since he had
met her, and saved her life.

And George would laugh and chide her for her sorrowful
air—for her talk about dying, and seeing her “last violets”
—then his feelings would overcome him, and throwing himself
down on his knees at her bedside, he would bury his

face in the counterpane and sob: or press his quivering lip
to the little white hand, and cry like a child, until he was
exhausted.

Beside her, day and night, the old gray-haired man
watched her every movement—the color in her cheeks—the
quick, short breaths—the brows knit at times with sudden
and acute pain. His life seemed absorbed in his child; and
as her strength became weaker and weaker, his very heart's
blood seemed to ebb away with her own.

Thus the winter waned away, and the spring came gladly
—but it brought no life to Cannie.

She had clearly drawn near to that mysterious world
which lies beyond the stars, and yet only a step from every
human being. Lying serenely on the little white couch beside
the window, she resembled rather a pure white flower
than a mortal maiden—a snow drop, delicate and fragile,
and transient—which the first breath of wind would blow
away.

She would lie thus for hours with the old man's hand in
her own, gazing out on the wild landscape of mountain and
gorge, with a dreamy smile—very happy it seemed, in some
thought, which came to her; wholly willing to submit to the
fate which now awaited her at any instant.

At last the invisible hand was stretched out. It was a
beautiful evening of May. The sinking sun threw a flush of
crimson light on the opposite mountain—on the lofty pines
—and far down on the gliding waters of the Shenandoah,
the “Daughter of the Stars,” which murmured and died
away, as the soft breeze of evening came and went, bearing
up from the prairie the delicate odor of flowers.

“The time has come, dear, for me to leave you,” she said
faintly; “don't grieve for me, grandpapa—I shall be happy,
and I will meet you in heaven.”

He pressed his lips with sudden agony to her thin white
hand—but the low soft voice again begged him not to grieve
for her.

As she spoke, she saw George come at a swift gallop up
the mountain, and her cheek flushed gladly. He was soon
beside her.

“I thought I never should see you any more,” she murmured,
smiling; “I am going away from you, George.”

The young man sobbed and fell almost powerless upon
his knees at the bedside.

“Oh do not! do not speak thus!” he said; “you will live!
you will live to be my own! oh, you must not die!”

“God has called me,” she answered; “I cannot stay. Remember
me, grandpapa, and George, when I am gone—remember
little Cannie, who loved you so!—who—will meet
you where—suffering never comes!”

She never spoke again. Bending over her couch, they
caught her last sigh.

The old man clasped his hands, and slowly raising his
eyes to heaven, murmured with a low, terrible groan:

“God take the spirit of my child, and may I follow her!”

George buried his face in the counterpane, and pressing
his lips wildly to the pale cold hand, only moaned.

When he rose and looked at her with streaming eyes, she
was smiling upon him, even in death.

Thus she passed away, like a flower, a leaf, a dream of
the spring,—and they laid her as she had desired them—by
the side of Falconbridge. The story of her life became
known to the inhabitants of the region, and it was said that
a young gentleman from the low country had nearly died of
grief. Then a song began to float about, set to plaintive
music—the production it may be of some native bard, of
some youth, who was touched by the pathetic story, and
who, personating George, sang his grief and despair. He
sang it in these simple and unpolished lines, which, handed
down traditionally, tell of the sweetness and tenderness of
the maiden—the sorrow of her lover:

Such were the homely lines, to which were attached this
chorus, full of pathos;

The melody was sad and plaintive—like the whisper of
the wind in the mountain pines—the sigh of the autumn
breeze in the broomstraw at twilight;—like the gentle and
murmurous lapse of the waves, as they glide away beneath
drooping boughs, or under the bending flowers of the
meadows.

By the side of her cousin, whom she had loved so dearly,
near the grave of Falconbridge, the pure and noble, the
child thus serenely slumbered. In the vast wild solitude,
on the brow of the great precipice, beneath the outstretched
arms of the mighty pine, which bent in the wind, or swayed
under the feet of the eagle, these children of nature slept in
peace.

A few words will terminate our chronicle.