73. CHAPTER LXXIII.
THE FRIENDS.
On the day after the meeting between the young man
and Bonnybel, two men, well mounted, rode slowly out of
Gloucester street in a western direction.
These men were Tom Alston and St. John.
The purple light of evening lit up the two forms clearly,
and the young lady had accurately described the appearance
of her former lover. Mr. St. John was but the ghost
of himself. Since those bright and happy days when inhaling
the breath of love and living a life full of splendid
and joyful emotions—since those hours at Vanely, which
now seemed to have shone for him, in the long past years of
centuries that had fled, the young man appeared to have
become another being—to have changed the very foundations
of his identity.
His cheek was no longer ruddy and firm; his eyes no
longer filled with mirth, dancing in the joyful light of love
and merriment. Pale, silent, with a tranquil sadness in his
face, he was, truly, but the phantom of himself.
Tom Alston was the same nearly as before, though somewhat
more subdued, and as the two friends rode along, he
gazed at Mr. St. John with an air of the deepest regret and
compassion.
The young man had been speaking of the events which
had taken place since he had parted with his friend. He
had told how the army of General Lewis left Lewisburg;
how they passed rapidly through the wilderness; how they
fell upon the enemy at Point Pleasant, and how that enemy
was defeated and put to rout. In his picturesque narrative,
in his sad but vivid story, characters and events rose vividly
before his auditor, and thus going along quietly in the
bright evening, he related, incident by incident, the history
of his adventures and his misfortunes.
“It was near the end of the battle that I received this
wound,” said the young man, indicating his left shoulder,
“and 't is not yet entirely healed. Colonel Lewis, the
brother of the General, and myself were fighting side by
side, and I think we fell at nearly the same moment. A
nobler-hearted gentleman ne'er lived, and the whole army
wept for him, and carried him to his grave with a sad triumph
which I'll never forget. But to return to myself,
friend. I was fighting as I said, when suddenly I felt what
seemed to be a red-hot iron pierce my breast, and then the
wild battle, with its shouts and yells, its whistling bullets
and dim canopy, all disappeared. I fainted, and when I returned
to my senses, I was lying at the foot of a tree, supported
upon the breast of a companion. They had opened
my bosom, and were probing the wound, and I saw the bullet
when it was extracted. A little white flower I remember
grew at my feet, and I gazed at it, as my head dropped
forward. It seemed to me familiar, and I've since recognized—but
that is nothing. It is very strange! Well, well,
some other time, friend, I will tell you the rest of our campaign—how
the General, at my request, had me borne on a
litter, by his side, to the spot where he halted near the camp
of Dunmore. The General, after a stormy scene, was obliged
to retreat, and changing my former plan of going down Belle
Riviere to Natchez, I returned with him to Botetourt. The
exertion had irritated my wound, and all the winter I was
confined with it, receiving from the General such kindness
as I never shall forget. You see this man is a nobleman of
nature, a great-hearted gentleman, whose name will live on
the page of our Virginia story when the vulgar name of
Dunmore has been forgotten.
“So ends my story,” said the young man, calmly; “you
see, Tom, I have come back to the spot which I left, a poor
wounded soldier, with my heart wounded worse than my
frame. Perhaps 't would be better for me to die here; but
that, I think won't be. I tarry for a moment only on my
way, to exchange a passing grasp of the hand with yourself
and my other friends. In a week I go on my path to the
old world, there to seek oblivion. From that continent I
shall never return. It is not my fault. I thought my life
would be happy, and assuredly it opened with rare promise,
surrounded as I was by the old, loving faces, and especially
by that which—well, well! Let me not open my wound,
which is healing, I think. All is ended there, and I blame
no one. It is over simply, and I go on my way.”
It was thus that the young man ended his story—smiling
tranquilly and gazing upon the sunset.
For a time, Mr. Alston remained silent and sad, with the
accents of his friend still echoing in his ears. Then he raised
his head, uttered a deep sigh, and said,
“Harry, I think I am growing old.”
“How is that?” said St. John; “you are young both in
years and character.”
Mr. Alston shook his head.
“A man lives rather in thought than in years,” he said:
“a trite maxim. I mean, Harry, that between last year and
to-day a great gulf seems to have been thrown for me, and
I add that 't is you who have opened it.”
“I am sorry—I can not help it. Do not let my griefs
trouble you.”
“I must,” said honest Tom Alston, with feeling; “I can
not prevent it. Why will you thus cling to a delirium?
Why ruin yourself for a chimera?”
“A chimera?”
“Yes, Harry, it is even worse! You think that young
girl is faithless to you.”
“Do not use the word faithless,” said St. John, with tranquil
sadness.
“What then shall I say?”
“Say that I am unfortunate; that she is not to blame—
only changeable, like women—even the best of them.”
“No, I say that there is some mystery in this affair which
must be cleared up.”
“Some mystery?”
“Assuredly—oh! most assuredly. What it is I can not
say—but I stake my life upon the fact.”
Mr. St. John gazed at him with sad surprise.
“You're a good friend, Tom,” he said; “you are faithful
to the end, and I thank you. But you convince me not at
all. You told me that you had made every effort to discover
this mystery—that you were constantly repulsed—
that she would tell you nothing, always turning the conversation
or retiring. Nought remains.”
“Why not go yourself?”
“I would not!” said St. John haughtily; then with a
sorrowful smile, “I ought not to,” he added. “You tell
me yourself, Tom, that the family at Vanely no longer
think of me; well, were I to go thither, I should cause
them to think of me with bitterness—perhaps to insult me.
No, no! 'tis better as it is. I shall bid them farewell in
a letter, when no word shall indicate my sense of their
seeming injustice, and then I shall go away, never to
return.”
“And break her heart!”
St. John shook his head.
“The time for such a thing is past,” he said, “she no
longer thinks of me. Some one has long since filled my
place in her affections. Do you think I blame her? Alas!
I do not. I am simply miserable. I blame no one. I am
much changed. I say that human nautre is weak—that
the strongest heart is feeble—that God has made women
fallible like men. I think she loved me once—with her
whole heart I then thought, and for ever. Well, she was
a woman, and at best they are but women. My prayers
and blessing will always follow her; but we meet no more
on this earth, Tom.”
And Mr. St. John made a movement with his hand which
indicated a desire on his part that the subject should be
abandoned.
Tom Alston sighed and yielded. That honest heart was
pained by the despair of his friend; and in the conflict
with the settled sadness of Mr. St. John, he gave way and
said nothing more.
Mr. St. John had not spoken of the visit to Mammy
Liza's cabin; for that encounter had produced a more
powerful effect upon his feelings than he cared to own.
The sight of her pale white face, her haunting eyes, her
thin form—this sad vision had left him strangely affected,
and he had ridden slowly back to Williamsburg, musing
gloomily. They had met but for a moment, yet in that
instant all the past had seemed to rush upon him again,
with its smiles and hppiness, its joy and beauty. As he
gave her the letter which had saved his life, as he looked
at the flower which she held in her and, as he took in at
a glance all the details of that countenance, toward which
his heart still turned, as the Chaldean turns to his star, his
resolution had almost melted—his strength had nearly
given way as he bowed to her, it had required all his self-control
not to seize her thin hand and press it to his trembling
lips, and moisten it with his tears.
He had not done so, he had only bowed and came away;
and now he was more sad than before, almost yielding to
his emotion, and uttering a groan as he finally bade adieu
to all his hopes and his love.
They went on silently thus in the sunset, and soon came
in front of a cottage embowered in foliage and flowers. It
was Roseland.
Blossom played as of old upon the grassplat; and, as she
recognized her friend, the child's face filled with blushes of
happiness, and she ran toward him.
“Let us dismount a moment, Tom,” said St. John, “I
must not neglect my friends.”
As he spoke, the young man affixed the bridle of his
horse to the fence, and accompanied by Tom Alston, slowly
entered the grounds of the cottage.
Blossom had for visitor, her friend and admirer, Paul
Effingham, Esquire—and this young gentleman now abandoned
an immense pile of flowers which he was weaving
into a garland, intended to encircle Miss Blossom's shoulders
and waist, to come and welcome his friends.
He shook hands with Mr. St. John and Mr. Alston with
great good feeling, and with an impressive air asked them
how they were.
As for Blossom, she held Mr. St. John's other hand
tightly, looking sadly into his thin pale face, and seemed to
prefer that gentleman's society to her admirer's.
St. John looked at the child with a smile which was not
so sad. Blossom had increased considerably in stature, and
was now almost as tall as Mr. Paul Effingham. She might
now have stood on the base of Lord Botetourt's statue,
and clasped that good nobleman's waist instead of his
knee, and omitted entirely the ceremony of kneeling on
the shoulder of her devoted cavalier.
“And how have you been this long, long time, my child?”
said St. John, caressing kindly the soft hair. “I see that
the blossom is as bright as ever on your cheek. You are
happy and well, are you not, my dear?”
“Yes, sir,” said the child, “I am very well indeed, but—
but—I am not happy, I think—”
“Pray why?”
Blossom was silent a moment, gazing sadly on the thin
face of her friend.
“I am grieved because you look pale and unhappy,” she
murmured; “something grieves you; won't you tell me
what it is?”
St. John smiled sadly and shook his head.
“Am I changed?” he said.
“Oh yes, sir! when you were here before you looked
stronger and brighter.”
“That was because the sun was rising for me, Blossom,
Since then my day has passed. It is setting now.”
And St. John gazed calmly on the great orb sinking in the
forest.
“I understand you,” said the child, in a low voice, “you
are not happy. But you know the sun will rise again to-morrow.”
The young man looked at the child, as she spoke, with
an air of such hopeless sadness, that the tears rushed to her
eyes. He saw them, and was pained at her pain.
“There, there, my dear,” he said, “do n't cry, for you distress
me. See, I smile, and, who knows? when I come
again I may be laughing. Paul has finished your garland.
See, he hands it out to you.”
And taking the wreath of flowers, he put it around her
shoulders. Then he pressed the child's hand and bade her
good bye, with a request that she would tell her father of
his visit.
The friends returned to Williamsburg, and parted with a
close grasp of the hand, and an appointment to meet again
on the morrow.
“The sun may rise again,” murmured St. John, as he
sought his lodgings, “and the flowers may blossom again,
but my sunshine and flowers are all gone. So be it! A few
heavy years, some more pain and heart-burning—then I'll
sleep.”
