 | XXIII.
THE NIGHT ENCOUNTER. Lucy Arlyn |  |
23. XXIII.
THE NIGHT ENCOUNTER.
HAVING parted from Christina, Guy sat that
evening on a roadside wall, and watched the
ebbing sea of sunset fire, till of the crimson foam
Venus was born, interpreting anew the old myth, — a soft-eyed
infant star, with the crescent moon for a cradle.
Shadow and dewy coolness filled all the valley, and hung
upon the purple mountain-slopes. It seemed as if the pensiveness
of Deity had fallen upon the earth and upon man. Guy
bared his head to the oncoming night; while the moon descended
behind the western peaks like a horn of white flame,
and the young star followed, and clouds began to rise like
vast clotted masses of darkness stretching over the world.
Long he sat abstracted, powerful emotions agitating him
as he reviewed the experience of the afternoon. It had been
to him, in many respects, a sacred experience. Surprises and
wonders had marked the few hours he had spent with Christina.
The discovery of the child's corpse was an astonishing
and awful manifestation of spiritual power. The washing of
symbols of humility, of consecration, and of celestial love, pure
from earthly fire. Even the finding of the watch he regarded
as by no means the result of accident, but of design superior
to accident, — a simple lesson teaching much: how the minutest
circumstances of life are often, if not always, shaped by
mysterious agencies; nay, how even the action of the elements,
and of the brute creatures of the earth, may be controlled for
our benefit by those magnetic threads of Providence which run
through nature and the hearts of men, string good and evil
together like many-colored beads, and bind in exact orbits the
wildest comets of chance.
The soul of the young man, swelling and throbbing with
these thoughts, put to itself the stern question: “Why not,
since these things are so, surrender myself entirely to these
influences, and accept the holy mission to which I am called?”
He shuddered with awe, and yet with secret joy, as he remembered
how unequivocally it had been promised by invisible
intelligences, through inspired lips, that he should become a
savior of men.
Just then, by no volition of his own as it seemed, but by
an impulse imparted to him from on high, he turned his face
upwards, and beheld a strange appearance in the heavens.
A broad space of the sky was clear of clouds; in the midst
of which burned the golden nails of the great Cross, as it
were on the bosom of God.
Up to this moment he had been utterly unconscious of
the shrill song of the field-cricket, the gathering and
breaking of the clouds, had been alike unnoticed. This long
and intense abstraction of his thoughts from all outward objects
enhanced the effect of what he considered a portentous
spectacle. Often as he had gazed on the sacred symbol which
glitters in the constellation of the Swan, it had never before
impressed him as it did now. The canopy of the sky seemed
rent asunder to reveal it. He was seated — could it be by
chance? — in an attitude to view it in its natural upright position.
No other important group of stars was anywhere visible;
but there, like a stupendous picture in a frame of cloud,
hung the sublime emblem of Christ's suffering and death, and
of our faith and salvation.
No marvel, that, to one who was inclined to see mystical
meanings in every thing, the apparition should have seemed
to possess a significance of the most solemn character. But
how interpret it? Did it prefigure to him his own heaven-ordained
mission to mankind? With rapture and with worship
he gazed, hoping, trembling, pleading for divine guidance,
till his eyes grew dim, and suddenly the clouds closed again,
and the cross was hidden.
Guy then got down from the wall, and set out to walk
homewards. Home was to him where Lucy was. Often,
during the afternoon, he had thought of her with unaccountable
uneasiness of mind. His trouble increased as he proceeded
on his way. He was presently to meet her; and what account
those things which appeared to him so momentous and
so pure? Ought he to tell her all? Ought he to tell her
any thing? Had she been sitting alone in her chamber all
the afternoon? and could she listen with equanimity to the
story of his adventures with Christina?
He was walking near the brookside, through the woods,
his way dimly lighted by the heavens, now cloudless, but
obscured by tree-tops, through which dripped the starlight
here and there in golden rain, like that drizzled into Danaë's
lap through her prison roof. The brook sang its ever-pensive
song in its lonesome wanderings. The glow-worm (rarely
seen) slowly opened its little lantern under the bushy bank.
No other light or sound diverted his meditations, until a vehicle
came rattling towards him, and a strong ray of light penetrated
the dark woods. Two men appeared to be rapidly
looking for something by the roadside. As they approached,
Guy recognized one of his father's horses and his father's
carryall; Aaron driving, and Squire Elphaz Pelt bearing
aloft a lantern.
They stopped, and inquired if he had seen a horse running
with a buggy and a young woman, or whether he had observed
the wrecks of any such objects in the road.
Guy said he had heard one or two vehicles pass when he
had been sitting on a wall; but he could give no description
of them.
“It's queer!” said Elphaz. “My horse passed this way;
helped noticing him.”
“How did he get away?” asked Guy.
“That rascally young Biddikin left your father in the
street after dark, where I came within an inch of driving
straight over him. I suppose that put the old scratch into the
beast. He acted skittish after it; and, as I was getting the
old gentleman home, he pulled the wall down I had hitched
him to, and ran with Sophy.”
“Now I recollect,” said Guy, “there must have been
more than one person in the wagon that passed me; for I
heard voices. Your horse may have dashed into the woods
below here, if he came this way at all. Give me the lantern,
and let me see if I can find any fresh tracks.”
Elphaz dismounted from the carryall, and they looked together
along the road.
“Hoofs and wheels have been this way not long since,”
said Guy; “but a running horse would throw up more dirt
than any of these prints show.”
“That's so: they don't look like the tracks we saw back
here a piece,” replied Elphaz.
“The corks cut up the gravel right smart at first,” observed
Aaron; “but it has looked to me all along as if the
critter was slackening his pace.”
“Hark! — what's that?” said Guy.
The light of the lantern flashed into the woods, and fell
upon an extraordinary object near the brook.
“It moves!” whispered Elphaz.
“It is a woman!” said Guy.
She had at first appeared lying on the ground; but now,
as if alarmed by the noise and light, she rose, and attempted
to run.
“It's Sophy!” ejaculated Elphaz. “Sophv!” he called,
springing after her.
The hollow woods rang with the wild cry; but the fugitive
heeded it only to quicken her pace. Suddenly she fell.
“She has been flung from the buggy, and her brain has
been injured,” suggested Guy, hastening to the lawyer's
side.
They reached the spot where she was. She sat on the
ground, leaning against a log which had probably occasioned
her fall. She made no further attempt to escape. Guy laid
hold of her gently, bending over her, and asking if she was
hurt; little guessing how she had been hurt, or by whom.
She made no answer, but appeared to be arranging her
hair; when Pelt anxiously advanced the lantern to her face.
Even before the glare of light fell upon that pallid, despairing
countenance, a chill of astonishment and terror had shot
to Guy's soul.
“Good laws!” exclaimed Elphaz: “it ain't Sophy!” —
stooping, the lantern dangling from his hand. “Lucy Arlyn!”
“What does this mean? how came you here?” hurriedly
demanded Guy.
“I am not hurt. I ran, — I don't know why,” said
Lucy with a bewildered air. “Have you been looking for
me long?”
“We have not been looking for you. How came you
here? What ails you, Lucy?”
“Nothing, — nothing at all. Who were you looking
for?”
“Your cousin Sophy. She has been run away with,” answered
Guy, trembling with undefined apprehension.
“Come along,” said Aaron to Elphaz. “They understand
each other, and don't want any of our help.”
The wagon went its way, the lantern disappeared, and
Guy and Lucy were left alone in the darkness of the woods.
The unhappy girl, dragging herself homeward from her
visit to the cascades, had sunk down in a trance of misery
and physical exhaustion near the spot where she was discovered.
But she was now sufficiently aroused to perceive all
the embarrassment of her situation. She had resolved in
her soul, that, if ever Guy saw her again, he should not
know from her lips what she had that afternoon witnessed;
and how to account to him for her present condition she could
not contrive. In vain she assumed an air of cheerfulness,
and took his arm, assuring him that she was well, and able
to walk. He questioned her at first tenderly, but at length
impatiently. Her answers were incoherent and constrained.
“How long have you been here?”
“I don't know. I was tired, and sat down. I think I
must have fallen asleep.”
“Why did you attempt to get away from me?”
“I — did not — know you — at first,” faltered Lucy;
which was perhaps true.
“Still you thought we were looking for you.”
“I knew by what I heard that you were looking for some
one. I was ashamed of having made trouble, and I thought
I might get home without being seen.”
Her replies were becoming more natural and satisfactory
than at first. Still the strangeness of her manner betrayed
too plainly that she had suffered some unusual stroke, on the
subject of which she was persistently silent.
“Very well!” he said bitterly. “Treat me as a stranger;
conceal from me your motives; leave your conduct a
mystery. No doubt I have deserved it.”
“What a woman suffers, what a woman in my condition
must suffer, any moment when she pauses to think, will
always be a mystery to any one but a woman,” answered
Lucy.
The words fell like fiery coals on his heart.
“I have done every thing for you I could, — all you would
let me do. What more can I do?”
“Be kind to me!” murmured Lucy in faint accents, full
of helpless pain and entreaty.
“Am I not kind? But your strange conduct tortures me
beyond endurance. This lying out in the woods at night is
like the act of an insane person; and, when I require to
know the cause of your being here, you equivocate, and hint
frankly. Are you jealous again?”
“I shall not be jealous any more. I have been cured of
jealousy forever!”
“Before Heaven, I swear I have not been untrue to you!”
Guy continued impetuously. “If you would only believe
me! — if you would only trust me! But you won't.
Nothing I can say or do will convince you of the truth. I
can endure any thing but this concealment and despondency,
these sighs and tears which drive me mad.”
“I will not trouble you with them any more,” said Lucy.
“There is nothing,” — he seemed too much absorbed in
his own feelings to heed how his cruel words crushed her, —
“nothing I would not sacrifice for your happiness. But
all in vain. I cannot make you happy!”
She made no answer, and he said no more. They walked
to Jehiel's house in silence. Perhaps Guy was not the least
miserable of the two. His sufferings were fiery and keen,
while hers had settled into a dull ache, — a cold, curdling
sorrow. At the door he relented; love and pity softening a
heart which could be as tender at one moment as it was flinty
at another. But her reserve repelled him: and she went up
alone to her wretched room, unutterably desolate; while he
parted from her as he had never done before, gnashing his
teeth, — a spectacle to the calm stars, and to the angels that
look down with sad commiseration at the perverse ways of
men.
| XXIII.
THE NIGHT ENCOUNTER. Lucy Arlyn | |