University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

The name of the stranger was Mary Oakley. Her parents
had gone out adventurers to the West Indies, where, at the
opening of flattering prospects, they both died victims to the
fever of the climate, which seldom spares a northern constitution.
Mary, then in her infancy, had been sent home to her
grandparents, who nursed this only relic of their unfortunate
children with doting fondness. They were in humble life;
and they denied themselves every comfort, that they might
gratify every wish, reasonable and unreasonable, of their darling
child. She, affectionate and ardent in her nature, grew
up impetuous and volatile. Instead of `rocking the cradle of
reposing age,' she made the lives of her old parents resemble
a fitful April day, sunshine and cloud succeeding each other
in rapid alternation. She loved the old people tenderly—
passionately, when she had just received a favour from them;
but, like other spoiled children, she never testified that love
by deferring her will to theirs, or suffering their wisdom to
govern her childish inclinations. She grew up

Most unhappily for her, there was a college in the town
where she lived, and she very early became the favourite belle
of the young collegians, whose attentions she received with
delight, in spite of the remonstrances and entreaties of her
guardians, who were well aware that a young and beautiful
creature could not, with propriety or safety, receive the civilities
of her superiors in station, attracted by her personal
charms.

David Wilson, more artful, more unprincipled than any
of his companions, addressed her with the most extravagant
flattery, and lavished on her costly favours. Giddy and credulous,
poor Mary was a victim to his libertinism. He soothed
her with hopes and promises, till, in consequence of the fear
of detection in another transaction, where detection would have
been dangerous, he left — and returned to his mother's,
without giving Mary the slightest intimation of his departure.

She took the desperate resolution of following him. She
felt certain she should not survive her confinement, and hoped
to secure the protection of Wilson for her infant. Her tenderness,
we believe, more than her pride, induced her to conceal
her miseries from her only true friends. She thought
any thing would be easier for them to bear than a knowledge
of her misconduct; and for the few days she remained under
their roof, and while she was preparing a disguise for her
perilous journey, she affected slight sickness and derangement.
They were alarmed and anxious, and insisted on making a
bed for her in their room: this somewhat embarrassed her
proceedings; but, on the night of her escape, she told them,
with a determined manner, that she could only sleep in her
own bed, and alone in her own room. They did not resist

her; they never had. Mary kissed them when she bade them
good-night with unusual tenderness. They went sorrowing
to their beds. She wrote a few incoherent lines, addressed
to them, praying for their forgiveness; expressing her gratitude
and her love; and telling them, that life before her
seemed a long and a dark road, and she did not wish to go
any farther in it, and begging them not to search for her, for
in one hour the waves would roll over her. She placed the
scroll on the table, crept out of her window, and left for ever
the protecting roof of her kind old parents.

When they awoke to a knowledge of their loss, they were
overwhelmed with grief. Their neighbours flocked about them,
to offer their assistance and consolation; and though some of
the most penetrating among them suspected the cause of the
poor girl's desperation, more forbearing and kind than persons
usually are in such circumstances, they spared the old
people the light of their conjectures.

Poor Mary persevered in her fatiguing and miserable
journey, which was rendered much longer by her fearfully
shunning the public road. She obtained a kind shelter at
the farmers' houses at night, where she always contrived to
satisfy their curiosity by some plausible account of herself.
At the end of a week she arrived, wearied and exhausted, in
the neighbourhood of Wilson. She watched for him in the
evening, near his mother's house, and succeeded in obtaining
an interview with him. He was enraged that she had followed
him, and said that it was impossible for him to do any
thing for her. She told him she asked nothing for herself;
but she entreated him not to add to his guilt the crime of
suffering their unhappy offspring to die with neglect. Utterly
selfish and hard-hearted, the wretch turned from her without
one word of kindness: and then recollecting that if she was

discovered, he should be involved in farther troubles, he returned,
and gave her a direction, which she believed would
enable her to find John's cottage on the mountain. If she
gets there, thought he as he left her, whether she lives or
dies, she will be far out of the way for the present—and the
future must take care of itself.

Mary with a faint heart followed his direction, and the
next day she was discovered by old John in the situation we
have mentioned. Perhaps there are some who cannot believe
that any being should be so utterly depraved as David Wilson.
But let them remember, that he began with a nature
more inclined to evil than to good, that his mother's mismanagement
had increased every thing that was bad in him,
and extinguished every thing that was good—that the continual
contradictions of his mother's professions and life, had
led him to an entire disbelief of the truths of religion, as well
as a contempt of its restraints.

After the old man had finished Mary's story, or rather so
much of it as he had been able to gather from her confessions,
Jane asked him “Why she had been sent for?”

“Why miss,” he replied, “after the poor thing had come
to herself, all her trouble seemed to be about her baby, and
I did not know what to advise her; my woman and I might
have done for it for the present, but our sun is almost set,
and we could do but for a little while. I proposed to her to
go for Wilson, and I am sure the sight of her might have
softened a heart of flint; but she shivered at the bare mention
of it: she said, `No, no; I cannot see that cruel face
upon my deathbed.' And then I thought of you, and I told
her if there was any body could bring him to a sense of right
it was you, and that at any rate you might think of some
comfort for her; for I told her every body in the village

knew you for the wisest and discreetest, and gentlest. At
first she relucted; and then the sight of her baby seemed to
persuade her, and she bade me go, but she gave me a strict
charge that no one should come with you; for she said she
wished her memory buried with her in the grave. When I
left her to go to you, I hoped you might speak some words of
comfort to her that would be better than medicine for her,
and heal the body as well as the mind; but when I came
back, there was a dreadful change—the poor little one had
gone into a fit, and she would take it from my wife into her
arms, and there it died more than an hour ago—and she sits
up in the bed holding it yet—and she has not spoken a word,
nor turned her eyes from it—her cheeks look as if there was
a living fire consuming her. Oh, Miss Jane, it is awful to
look upon such a fallen star! Now you are prepared—come
in—may be the sight of you will rouse her.”

Jane followed John into his little habitation. The old
couple had kindly resigned their only bed to the sufferer.
She was sitting as John had described her, fixed as a statue.
Her beautiful black glossy curls, which had been so often admired
and envied, were snarled, and clustered in rich masses
over her temples and neck. A tear that had started from
the fountain of feeling, now sealed for ever, hung on the dark
rich eye-lash that fringed her downcast eye. Jane wondered
that any thing so wretched could look so lovely. Crazy Bet
was kneeling at the foot of the bed, and apparently absorbed
in prayer, for her eyes were closed, and her lips moved,
though they emitted no sound. The old woman sat in the
corner of the fire-place, smoking a broken pipe, to soothe the
unusual agitation she felt.

Jane advanced towards the bed. “Speak to her,” said
John. Jane stooped, and laid her hand gently on Mary's.

She raised her eyes for the first time, and turned them on
Jane with a look of earnest inquiry, and then shaking her
head, she said in a low mournful voice—“No, no; we cannot
be parted; you mean to take her to heaven, and you say I
am guilty, and must not go. They told me you were coming
—you need not hide your wings—I know you—there is none
but an angel would look upon me with pity.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Jane, “can nothing be done for her?
at least let us take away this dead child, it is growing cold
in her arms.” She attempted to take the child, and Mary
relaxed her hold; but as she did so, she uttered a faint
scream, the paleness of death overspread her face, and she fell
back on the pillow.

“Ah, she is gone!” exclaimed John.

Crazy Bet sprang on her feet, and raised her hand—
“Hush!” said she, “I heard a voice saying, `Her sins are
forgiven'—`she is one come out of great tribulation.”'

There were a few moments of as perfect stillness as if they
had all been made dumb and motionless by the stroke of death.
Jane was the first to break silence—“Did she,” she inquired
of the old man, “express any penitence—any hope?”

John shook his head. “Them things did not seem to lay
on her mind; and I did not think it worth while to disturb
her about them. Ah, miss, the great thing is how we live,
not how we die.”

Jane felt the anxiety, so natural, to obtain some religious
expression, that should indicate preparation in the mind of
the departed.

“Surely,” said she, “it is never too late to repent—to beg
forgiveness.”

“No, miss,” replied John, who seemed to have religious
notions of his own—“especially when there has been such a

short account as this poor child had; but the work must be
all between the creature and the Creator; and for my part, I
don't place much dependence on what people say on a death-bed.
I have lived a long life, Miss Jane, and many a one
have I seen, and heard too, when sickness and distress were
heavy upon them, and death staring them in the face, and
they could not sin any more—they would seem to repent, and
talk as beautiful as any saint; but if the Lord took his
hand from them, and they got well again, they went right
back into the old track. No, Miss Jane, it is the life—it is
the life, we must look to. This child,” he added, going to
the bed, and laying his brown and shrivelled hand upon her
fair young brow, now `chill and changeless;' “this child was
but sixteen, she told me so. The Lord only knows what
temptations she has had. He it is, Miss Jane, that has put
that in our hearts that makes us feel sorry for her now; and
can you think that He is less pitiful than we are? I think
she will be beaten with few stripes; but,” he continued solemnly,
covering his face with his hands,—“we are poor ignorant
creatures; it is all a mystery after this world; we
know nothing about it.”

“Yes,” said Jane, “we do know, John, that all will be
right.”

“True,” he replied; “and it is that should make us lay
our fingers on our mouths and be still.”

Jane had been so much absorbed in the mournful scene,
that the necessity of her return before the breaking of day
had not occurred to her mind, and would not, perhaps, if
John had not, after a few moments' pause, reminded her of it,
by saying, “I am sorry, Miss Jane, you have had such a walk
for nothing; but,” added he, “to the wise nothing is vain,
and you are of so teachable a make, that you may have learned

some good lessons here; you may learn, at least, that there
is nothing to be much grieved for in this world but guilt;
and some people go through a long life without learning that.
You had better return now; I will go round the hill with
you, and show you the path this crazy creature should have
led you. She is in one of her still fits now: there is nothing
calms her down like seeing death: she will not move from
here till after the burying.”

Jane looked for the last time on the beautiful form before
her, and with the ingenuous and keen feeling of youth,
wept aloud.

“It is indeed a sore sight,” said John; “it makes my old
eyes run over as they have not for many a year. The Lord
have mercy on her destroyer! Oh, miss! it is sad to see
this beautiful flower cut down in its prime; but who would
change her condition for his? He may go rioting on, but
there is that gnawing at his heart's core that will not be quieted.”

Jane told the kind old man that she was now ready to go, and
they left the hut together. He led her by a narrow foot-path
around the base of the mountain, till they came to a part of
the way familiar to Jane. She then parted from her conductor,
after inquiring of him if he could inter the bodies secretly?
He replied, that he could without much difficulty; and
he certainly should, for he had given his promise to the young
creature, who seemed to dread nothing so much as a discovery
which might lead to her old parents knowing her real
fate.

Anxious to reach home in time to avoid the necessity of
any disclosures, Jane hastened forward, and arrived at her
aunt's before the east gave the slightest token of the approach
of day. She entered the house carefully, and turned into

the parlour to look for some refreshment in an adjoining pantry.
A long walk, and a good deal of emotion, we believe,
in real life, are very apt to make people, even the most refined,
hungry and thirsty.

Jane had entered the parlour, and closed the door after her,
before she perceived that she was not the only person in it;
but she started with alarm, which certainly was not confined
to herself, when she saw standing at Mrs. Wilson's desk,
which was placed at one corner of the room, her son David,
with his mother's pocket-book in his hand, from which he
was in the act of subtracting a precious roll of bank bills
that had been deposited there the day before. Jane paused
for a moment, and but for a moment, for as the truth flashed
on her, she sprang forward, and seizing his arm, exclaimed,
“For Heaven's sake, David, put back that money! Do not
load yourself with any more sins.”

He shook her off, and hastily stuffing the money in his
pocket, said that he must have it; that his mother would not
give him enough to save him from destruction; that he
had told her ruin was hanging over his head; that she
had driven him to help himself; and, “as to sin,” he added
fiercely, “I am in too deep already to be frightened by that
thought.”

It occurred to Jane that he might have been driven to
this mode of supplying himself, in order to relieve the extreme
need of Mary Oakley; and she told him, in a hurried
manner, the events of the night. For a moment he felt the
sting of conscience, and, perhaps, a touch of human feeling;
for he staggered back into a chair, and covering his face with
his hands, muttered, “Dead! Mary dead! Good God! Hell
has no place bad enough for me;” and then rousing himself,
he said, with a deep tone, “Jane Elton, I am a ruined, desperate

man. You thought too well of me, when you imagined
it was for that poor girl I was doing this deed. No, no! her
cries did not trouble me; but there are those whose clamours
must be hushed by money—curse on them!”

“But,” said Jane, “is there no other way, David? I will
entreat your mother for you.”

“Yes! yes, and she will heed you as much as a wolf does
the bleating of a lamb. I tell you, I am desperate, Jane,
and care not for the consequences. But,” he added, “I will
run no risk of discovery,” and as he spoke, he drew a pistol
from beneath his surtout, and putting the muzzle to his
breast, said to Jane, “give me your solemn promise, that you
will never betray me, or I will put myself beyond the reach
of human punishment.”

“Oh!” said Jane, “I will promise any thing. Do not
destroy your soul and body both.”

“Do you promise, then?”

“I do, most solemnly.”

“Then,” said he, hastily replacing the pistol, and locking
the desk with the false key he had obtained; “then all is as
well as it can be. My mother will suspect, but she will not
dare to tell whom; and your promise, Jane, maks me secure.”

Jane saw he was so determined, that any further interposition
would be useless; and she hurried away to her own
apartment, where she threw herself upon her bed, sorrowing
for the crimes and miseries of others. Quite exhausted with
the fatigues of the night, she soon fell asleep.

She was too much distressed and terrified, to reflect upon
the consequences that might result from the exacted promise.
She had, doubtless, been unnecessarily alarmed by David's
threat of self-slaughter; for, confused and desperate as he

was, he would hardly have proceeded to such an outrage;
and, besides, we have reason to believe the pistol was neither
primed nor loaded, but that he had provided himself with it
for emergencies which might occur in the desperate career in
which he had engaged. He had been concerned with two
ingenious villains in changing the denomination of bank bills.
His accomplices had been detected and imprisoned, and they
were now exacting money from him by threatening to disclose
his agency in the transaction.

Always careless of involving himself in guilt, and goaded
on by the fear of the state-prison, he resolved, without hesitation,
on this robbery, which would not only give him the
means of present relief, but would supply him with a store
for future demands, which he had every reason to expect from
the character of his comrades.