University of Virginia Library

XXIV.
LOVER'S LEAP.

We passed through the extensive grounds, descended
a grassy slope, and my companion led the
way into a dense forest of pines, which he threaded
by a path which seemed well known to him.

Passing beneath the lofty dome of foliage, from
the summit of which the sinking sun was slowly
lifting up the golden crown, we continued to follow
the path; the wood opened; nearly opposite was the
shaggy “Blue Ball;” fifty yards further we suddenly
emerged upon a precipice, at the far base of
which rolled the waves of the Shenandoah, and from
whose summit the eye swept a lovely landscape of
lofty mountain and winding river, bathed in the
golden light of sunset.

“Lover's Leap” was a rude mass of rock, which
we approached by a narrow path half covered with
a carpet of pine tassels. On the very brink of the
precipice grew a solitary pine, by clasping which
you could lean far over the dizzy verge and see the
Shenandoah hundreds of feet beneath you. All
around rose the fir-clad slopes; beyond the river

smiling fields stretched away to the base of the Blue
Ridge, whose forests were of every colour of the
rainbow.

Landon took his seat upon a mass of rock near
the solitary pine, and passed his hand over his forehead.

The gesture was gloomy; but the Partisan's lip
wore the cool, impassive expression which was habitual
with him.

“Do you know what I think sometimes, colonel?”
he said.

“What?”

“That life is a farce, — existence a bore at best.”

“Then I know you are not happy.”

“You are wrong there.”

“I am truly glad to hear it.”

“Have I not something to put me in high good
humour?”

“Ah! you mean —”

“Exactly! It is charming to be understood,
colonel. Yes, I have the little affair with Ratcliffe;
and, as I have been longing for it lately, I ought to
feel the tranquil satisfaction of a man who has attained,
or is about to attain, the object of his wishes.”

Landon uttered a low laugh. It was not a pleasant
sound.

“Why not?” he continued. “Am I not fortunate?
Men are charmed when they have the woman

they love beside them, — when they can say, `I love
you,' and hear her reply, `I will marry you.' Why
should I not be gratified, then, when I have my dear
enemy beside me? — can say to him, `I hate you,' and
hear him reply, `I will fight you?' Tastes vary in
this world, colonel. Some men, no doubt, would
prefer the interview with their lady-love; I prefer
that with my enemy. Others thrill at, `I will marry
you!' I am charmed with, `I will fight you!”'

I looked curiously at this man.

“I can understand, — or think I will, — when
you tell me your story.”

“Well, you shall have it, friend. I am not a confiding
personage generally, but something moves me
to-night.”

And, leaning back against the great rock, Landon
thus continued: —

“I was born at `Bizarre,' — the old house which
you have visited to-night, — and grew to the age of
eighteen without ever leaving home. My father
died in my childhood, leaving one other son and two
daughters, all younger than myself.

“Well, at eighteen I spent a year at the Virginia
Military Institute, preparing for West Point, whither
my father had expressed a wish that I should go.
He fancied that I had betrayed an early aptitude for
the army, and, on his death-bed, had shaped out my
future. My mother, who doted on her children,

was bitterly opposed to this step; but I urged my
father's wishes; set out joyfully for Lexington;
and duly became a cadet.

“Here commenced my acquaintance with the person
with whom I am going to fight to-morrow morning,
— Ratcliffe. He was from East Tennessee, about
the same age as myself, and we soon became intimate,
— for what reason I have never been able to
understand. These things happen. The court which
Ratcliffe paid to me, perhaps, explained the fact.
He had taken up, I discovered afterwards, the impression
that I was extremely rich, — the heir of an
`old family' of high position, — and, as he was a
person of humble birth, and aspiring, he looked to
me, it seems, to aid his career.

“Well, his attentions won me. For the rest, I was
open and confiding then. We became intimate; he
informed me that he had secured an appointment
and was going to West Point; and, as I had also
been appointed, we arranged to go northward together.

“When I was about to return home, Ratcliffe
said, carelessly, that he was half resolved to go and
spend the interval with me, instead of returning to
Tennessee. I responded by a cordial invitation; he
accepted at once; and in a few days we were at
`Bizarre,' — two youths, full of life and health,
`home for the holidays.'

“This brief recital will show you, colonel, how
Ratcliffe — a stranger to this region and to our people
here — became mixed up with my life. I can
look back now and see what I could not then; that
he had used a hundred acts to become intimate with
me, and secure this invitation. Cunning, ambitious,
obscure, he aimed to rise from his low sphere by
social `connections,' and his first step had succeeded;
he had become an inmate of `Bizarre,' the associate
of my mother and my sisters.

“They did not like him. My mother was a person
of great simplicity and sweetness, but of very
high breeding; and I soon saw that something in
Ratcliffe displeased her. As to the girls, nothing
could induce them to smile upon him. I resented
this, as you may imagine; took my friend everywhere;
made him acquainted with the most agreeable
young ladies of the region, and, among others, with
Miss Adair, whom you met at the Old Chapel that
night.

“From her childhood, Miss Adair had been — to
use the English phrase — my `sweetheart.' My
father and Judge Adair had been intimate friends;
our mothers old schoolmates, and very much devoted
to each other. Thus to fall in love with Miss Ellen
Adair seemed the simplest and easiest thing in the
world to the boy, St. Leger Landon, who burned to
cement the affection of father for father, mother for

mother, by marrying the young lady, and thus perfecting
the union of the two families.

“When I went to Lexington I was already engaged
to the young lady; on my return, I saw, at
our first meeting, that her feelings had undergone
no change; and before I left `Chapeldale,' her
father's residence, — you have been there, — our engagement
was renewed, and rendered more binding
than before. In other words, Miss Adair had
solemnly plighted me her troth, — promised that she
would marry me, — and I returned to `Bizarre' so
perfectly happy that I thought fate itself was powerless
to overcloud a sky as radiant as my future.”

A bitter smile came to Landon's lips.

“Such is youth,” he went on. “It believes everything,
and takes no account of that terrible `element
of failure,' which mingles with every human undertaking.
If any one had told me then that this
beautiful girl, with the truthful eyes and the smiling
lips, would break my heart (excuse that cant,
colonel, it is expressive); that she would shipwreck
me for a fancy, a chimera, without listening to my
defence, I would have laughed, and considered the
joke excellent!”

Landon's countenance, as he uttered these words,
was inexpressibly cynical and bitter. For a man to
smile as the young Partisan smiled, it was necessary
to have passed through much and great suffering.

That suffering he had evidently endured; it was
caused by a woman, and I listened with profound interest
and attention to the deep voice which told me
everything.

Landon paused for an instant; a grim contraction
of the brows followed; a shadow seemed to pass
across his forehead; but he continued his narrative
in a voice which indicated no emotion of any description
whatever.