Eventide

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Mrs. Stanhope hardly understood this passionate outburst, but she still
strove to soothe and comfort her afflicted friend.

"Your brow is hot and feverish," said she, rising to depart. "I caution
you to calm yourself and take some rest, or severe sickness will
prostrate you ere long."

"And why should I fear sickness or death," asked Louise, in a hopeless
tone, "when the only calm for me is the calm of the grave, the only rest
its dreamless slumbers?"

Mrs. Stanhope gazed on the suffering face with tearful pity, and turned
away. On opening the hall door, she encountered Col. Malcome, pacing to
and fro on the icy piazza. He started suddenly on beholding her, and
asked if she came from Mrs. Edson. Mrs. Stanhope answered affirmatively.

"And how have you left her?" inquired he, with an expression of strong
anxiety and emotion on his features.

"She seems deeply afflicted," returned Mrs. Stanhope.

"Does she still persist in refusing to see her friends?" asked he.

"She is thus disposed, I regret to say," was Mrs. Stanhope's reply.

"Would you do me the favor to return, and entreat her to grant me a few
moments in her presence?" inquired he, in an earnest tone.

"I will perform your request with pleasure," she said; "but I fear I
shall bring you naught but a gloomy refusal." Thus saying, she reentered
the apartment of Louise.

"I am come with a petition, Mrs. Edson," she remarked, approaching her
side, and laying a hand softly on the bowed head. "Will you grant it
your favor?"

"I must hear it first," said Louise.

"Col. Malcome is walking on the piazza; he wishes to see you."

"Go and tell him, in another and a darker world I'll see him; never
again in this," answered Louise, starting to her feet, her whole frame
trembling with excitement and anger.

Mrs. Stanhope was astonished and alarmed at her appearance, and stood
gazing on her in wondering silence. At length she said, "I cannot take a
message like that to him; he would think it the wild raving of a
lunatic."

"Tell him, then, to go away, and never approach these doors again," said
Louise, suddenly bursting into tears. Mrs. Stanhope lingered in surprise
at her friend's emotion, and strove to soothe it.

"Go," said Louise; "I command you to go, and send him away. I shall die
if I hear another of his footfalls on the piazza."

Alarmed by the dreadful energy of her manner, Mrs. Stanhope hurried
away. The colonel came eagerly to her side, as she stepped forth.

"Does she refuse me?" he asked.

"She does," said Mrs. Stanhope.

"And does she give no encouragement that I may gain admittance at some
future time?"

"None."

"Then carry this to her," said he, placing a small, folded letter in
Mrs. Stanhope's hand, and turning dejectedly away.

Again she entered the mansion. Louise sat with head bowed between her
hands, and did not raise her eyes. Mrs. Stanhope laid the missive on the
table beside her, and silently left the apartment.

Twilight deepened into evening, and still the suffering woman sat there,
in mute, unutterable agony. A servant entering with lights at length
aroused her to consciousness, and her eye fell on the folded letter
lying on the stand. Hastily tearing away the envelope, she dropped on
her knees, and ran over its contents with devouring eagerness, while her
features worked with strong, conflicting emotions, and tears rolled
continually from her beautiful eyes and blistered the written page. "Why
do you drive me from you?" it began. "If, in an unguarded moment, under
the intoxicating influences which your bewitching presence, the quiet
seclusion of the spot, and romantic hush and stillness of the hour threw
around me, all combining to lap my soul in delicious forgetfulness of
everything beyond the momentary bliss of having you at my side, I
suffered words to escape my lips, which should have remained concealed
in my own bosom, you might at least let the deep, overpowering love
which forced their utterance, plead as some extenuation for my
presumption and error. But it seems you have cast me from you
forever--unpitied--unforgiven. O, Louise! I did not think you so
implacable. The sin is mine, and I would come on bended knee to implore
pardon for the suffering and sorrow my rashness has brought to your
innocent heart; but you fly from my approach, and banish me from your
presence. No mercy for one, who, though he may have erred, is surely
atoning for his errors by anguish as deep, as poignant as your own.
Night after night I walk the piazza beneath your windows. I know you
hear my step and feel that I am near. But you will not open the casement
and let me for a moment behold your features and crave your forgiveness.
O, Louise, am I to die without a pitying word or look from you?

"I sit by my Edith's bed-side through long, weary midnight hours, and
she wakes from her fitful slumbers and asks for you. 'Why does she never
come to see me now? There's no arm raises me so lightly, no hand bathes
my brow so gently, as hers. Will you not bring her, father?'

"O, what agony these words inflict! I have to feel my own rashness and
folly have deprived my sick child of a tender nurse. Louise, do you not
remember one dear, bright morning, long ago, when I was sitting at the
piano in that pleasant parlor I'm forbidden to enter now, and you stood
beside me in all your bewildering grace and beauty, that I sought from
you a promise which was given? Still, still would I conjure you, as
Steerforth said to David, _think of me at my best_. You will need to do
it soon; for your contempt and scorn are hurrying me on to deeds of
crime and wickedness. O, will you drive me to the wretch's doom, or win
me to a life of happiness and virtue? It is yours to decide."

Such were the contents of the letter which remained clenched in the
grasp of the agitated woman through the long hours of that woe-fraught
night. When the first gray tints of dawn were visible, she started and
hid it away in her bosom. Grasping a pen she traced a few lines with
trembling hand, and placed them in an envelope directed to Mrs.
Stanhope. Then unclosing her wardrobe, she selected a few articles of
clothing, made them into a small bundle, and wrapping a heavy shawl
round her slender form, and concealing her features in a large black
bonnet with a long, thick veil, she opened softly the hall door, and
stole forth into the cold, biting air, walking hurriedly over the frosty
paths till she had gained the lonesome country road beyond the village.

As Mrs. Stanhope was sitting down to breakfast, a knock called her to
the door, where she beheld Mrs. Edson's servant, who presented her with
a letter, and said her mistress had gone away very suddenly, and she
would like to know if she had left any word as to when she would return.

Mrs. Stanhope broke the seal, and read with surprise and astonishment
depicted on her features. The girl stood waiting to learn its contents.

"I think," said Mrs. Stanhope, suddenly recollecting herself, "that your
mistress will be absent some time. She informs me she has gone on a
visit to the aunt with whom she resided previous to her marriage."

"Where does her aunt live?" asked the girl.

"I do not know," returned Mrs. Stanhope, "but I think at a considerable
distance from this place."

The girl retired, and Mrs. Stanhope reentered the breakfast room.

"Who was in the porch?" inquired Miss Pinkerton, as her sister assumed
her place by the coffee urn.

"Mrs. Edson's servant," returned she, arranging the cups with an absent
air.

"What did she want?" asked Miss Martha, opening her muffin and dropping
a piece of golden butter on its smoking surface.

"She brought me a note from her mistress," said Mrs. Stanhope, "who has
departed suddenly on a visit to her aunt, and wishes me to superintend
the care of her mansion for a time."

"I guess she is coming out of her dumps," said Martha. "I always said
there was no danger of her dying of grief for the loss of a husband.
She'll come home one of these days a gay widow, and set her cap for Col.
Malcome. I always thought she had a liking for him."

Mrs. Stanhope made no reply to this unfeeling speech. After breakfast
the colonel chanced in to take the long-forgotten package away, when he
learned of Louise's sudden departure, and went home in a state of
increased anguish and despair.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"To the old forest home
I hie me again;
But I bring not the gladness
My spirit knew when
I roamed in my childhood
Its wide-spreading bounds;
For sorrows have pierced me,
My soul wears the wounds."

The Hermit of the Cedars sat in his antique room alone, by a peat-wood
fire. He appeared wrapt in moody thought and contemplation, though ever
and anon, as the wintry blast gave a wilder sweep over the swaying roof
above him, he turned and glanced uneasily toward the door, as though he
wished and waited the appearance of some form over its threshold. But
the hours passed on, and no one came to cheer his loneliness. So,
heaping the ashes over the glowing embers, he betook himself to his
lowly couch, but his head had hardly touched the pillow when a quick
step crackling along the icy path struck his ear. Ere he could reach the
door it was pushed open, and a voice called out hastily, "Uncle Ralph!"

"Edgar, my boy!" exclaimed the hermit, groping in the darkness to clasp
him in his arms. "Are you returned at last?"

"Yes, dear uncle," answered the young man; "I reached the village by the
evening stage, and hurried with all speed to my old forest home."

The hermit lighted a candle and raked open the coals. A bright fire soon
burned on the hearth, and by its ruddy blaze the fond uncle marked the
changes two years had wrought in the appearance of his nephew. He was
taller, and a manly confidence of tone and manner had succeeded the
reserve and timidity which characterized his boyhood. The luxuriant
masses of soft brown hair were brushed away from the clear, pale brow,
and the deep blue eyes glowed in the conscious light of genius and
intellectual fervor. The hermit gazed with ardent admiration on the
commanding elegance and beauty of the form before him.

"Education and travel have made a wonderful improvement in your
appearance, my boy," he remarked at length, his voice trembling with
emotion as he spoke. "Still I don't know but I liked you better as the
curly-headed boy in morocco cap and little blue frock-coat, that used to
come bounding over the forest path, with his satchel in hand; or set
here of long winter evenings, reading some treasured volume at my side;
or perched within the window nook gazing silently upward at the
glistening stars;--for the dreamy boy I could keep near me, but the
lofty, ambitious man I cannot hope to prison here in a solitary
wilderness,--nor should I indulge in a wish so selfish," he added. "Tell
me, Edgar, of your travels, your enjoyments and occupations, since you
departed from this lowly roof."

The young man gave a brief rehearsal of the principal events of the past
two years. He hesitated somewhat when he came to his meeting and renewal
of acquaintance with Florence Howard, recollecting his uncle's former
aversion to their intercourse. He might have passed over it in silence,
but his delicate sense of honor would not allow him to deceive in the
smallest point the heart that loved him so devotedly. The listening man
bent earnest, scrutinizing glances on the speaker's face as he proceeded
with his tale, and when it was finished, bowed his gray head on his thin
hands, as was his wont when engaged in deep thought, and remained
silent.

At length a tremendous blast swept through the forest, blew open the
door, and scattered the coals from the deep fire-place over the floor of
the apartment. The moody man started from his reverie. Edgar secured the
door, and, taking a broom composed of small sprigs of hemlock and cedar,
brushed the scattered embers into a pile.

"Do you not wish to retire?" asked the hermit, as the young man resumed
his seat in the corner.

"As you wish, uncle," returned he; "I do not feel much fatigued."

"Ay, but I think you are so," said the kind-hearted man, regarding
attentively his nephew's features. "My joy at beholding you has rendered
me forgetful of your physical comforts. Let me get you some refreshment,
and then you shall lie down and rest your weary limbs."

The hermit took a small brown earthen jug from a rude shelf over the
fire-place, and, pouring a portion of its contents into a bright-faced
pewter basin, placed it on a heap of glowing coals. Then going to a
cupboard he brought forth a large wooden bowl, filled with a coarse,
white substance. When the contents of the basin were warm he placed it
on the table, and setting a chair, said, "Come, my boy, and partake of
this simple food. 'Tis all I have to offer you; not like the dainty
repasts at which you are accustomed to sit in the abodes of wealth and
fashion."

Edgar approached and took the proffered seat.

"Ay," said he; "you have served me a dish more grateful to my palate
than the most delicately-prepared dainties would prove. This rich, sweet
milk is delicious, and who boils your hominy so nicely, uncle?" he
continued, conveying several slices of the substance in the wooden bowl
to his basin.

"Dilly Danforth, the poor village washerwoman, cooks it, and her boy,
Willie, brings it to me," answered the hermit.

"Ay, the lad you mentioned in one of your letters," said Edgar. "Why
does he not remain with you altogether? You seemed happy in his
companionship, and I hoped he might become to you a second Edgar."

A strange expression passed over the face of the recluse as his nephew,
with much earnest truthfulness of manner, gave utterance to these words.

"I did like to have the boy with me," he remarked; "but his mother was
lonely without him."

Edgar rose from his simple repast.

"Now you had better retire," said his uncle, tenderly; "though I fear
you will rest but ill on my hard couch."

"My slumbers will be sweet as though I reposed on eider down," returned
he, "if you will but assure me that my coming or words have not marred
your quiet and composure."

"My boy," said the hermit, gazing on him anxiously, "what do you mean?
How should the arrival of one I have so longed to behold give aught but
joy to my lonely soul?"

"I may have spoken words that grieved you," said the young man,
sorrowfully; "but I could not bear to conceal the truth from you, dear
uncle;" and his voice trembled as he spoke.

"Edgar," returned the hermit, with emotion, "I am grateful for your
confidence, and though I could have wished your heart's affections
bestowed on some other woman, I will no longer oppose your inclinations.
Marry Florence Howard if you choose."

"Marry her!" exclaimed Edgar, suddenly breaking in upon his uncle's
discourse. "She is engaged to another."

"What is his name?" asked the hermit.

"Rufus Malcome," returned the young man.

"What! a brother to the girl I saw with you on the river bank?" inquired
the recluse, with a sudden excitement of manner.

"Yes," said Edgar; "the brother of Edith Malcome."

"O, the mysterious workings of fate!" exclaimed the hermit, falling
again into a ruminating silence, which Edgar did not deem it wise to
disturb.

So they laid down on the lowly couch, and the young man, fatigued with
his journeyings, drew the coverings over his head to exclude the shrill
shriekings of the sweeping blasts, and soon rested quietly in the sweet
forgetfulness of sleep.

Sleep! angel ministrant to the grief-stricken soul. How many that walk
this verdant earth would fain lie locked in her slumberous arms forever!

CHAPTER XL.

"No voice hath breathed upon mine ear
Thy name since last we met;
No sound disturbed the silence drear,
Where sleep entombed from year to year,
Thy memory, my regret."

In her own elegantly appointed apartment sat Florence Howard, with her
journal open upon the table.

"Beneath the old roof-tree of home once more," she wrote, "to find my
mother's pale face yet paler than when I left her, and a sudden tremor
and nervousness betrayed on the slightest unusual sound, which is
exceeding painful to witness.

"Hannah's penchant for me seems to have decreased somewhat, since father
waited on Col. Malcome and asked his consent to the delay of my proposed
nuptials with Rufus, till some change should occur in mother's health.
Dr. Potipher thinks she will hardly survive the trying weather of the
approaching spring.

"Poor, dear mother! what shall I do without her? But I may not linger
long behind.

"I used to think I was very miserable, when I pined in ignorance of
Edgar's love, and grew jealous of his attentions to gentle Edith
Malcome; but what were those petty griefs, compared with the agony of
having known the sweet possession of his heart, and lost it,--lost it,
too, through my own selfish folly and weakness? Truly, there's naught so
bitter as self-reproach. Heaven only knows what I have suffered since
that dreadful night, when I fled from his angry, reproachful looks, and
locked myself in the solitude of my chamber. And that freezing, distant
recognition on the following morning! O, what a shuddering horror will
ever creep over me with the memory of Franconia Notch! And Mount
Washington,--which was for aye to tower above all other scenes of
grandeur earth's broadest extent could afford,--a thought of it unnerves
my soul with grief. What short-sighted mortals are we!

"I think my father suspects my secret and reproaches himself for giving
me so free access to Edgar's company. I would not wonder if the delay he
has urged to my marriage were influenced as much by this sad knowledge
as my mother's failing health. Col. Malcome gave a reluctant assent, at
which I am surprised. When his sweet daughter is sinking slowly into
the grave, 'tis strange he can think of any earthly interest.

"I have looked mournfully toward the cedar forest to-night, and thought
of the poor lone hermit in his humble hut, and wished, O, how fervently
wished! that I, like him, had a habitation afar from the world's hollow
throngs, where I could sit and brood in solitude over my broken heart!

"Am I not a living, breathing, suffering example of the truth of Byron's
eloquent words?

'The day drags on, though storms keep out the sun,
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.'"

Florence closed her journal, and approached the window.

As she was dropping the curtain to retire, a dark figure moving
stealthily under the leafless branches of the lindens, which stood in
rows on the least public side of the house, arrested her attention. The
remembrance of a similar appearance she had once seen crossed her mind,
and no ill having followed that, she dismissed her fears, and ere long
sank to rest.

When the village clock pealed forth the hour of midnight, the dark
figure she had observed, stood on the terrace below. The hall door swung
noiselessly on its hinges, and Hannah Doliver stepped forth. "Here are
the matches and kindling-wood," said she in a whisper, approaching the
dusky form, and holding a small basket forward.

"Are they all asleep?" asked a hushed voice.

"Yes," answered she.

"See that you give the alarm in season," returned the muffled figure, as
he took the basket from the woman's hand, and passed softly down the
steps of the piazza.

Silently the destroying fires were lighted. But the midnight incendiary
would have proceeded less deliberately with his work of destruction, had
he marked the tall, lank figure in a long, dark overcoat, and
slouching-brimmed hat, which slowly dogged closely his every footstep.
Suddenly a bright flash leaped up from the fragments the wicked man
sought to enkindle, and revealed his garb and features. A mingled
expression of hatred and revenge glared from the sunken eyes of his
follower, who stood in the shadow of a linden near by, as the pale,
handsome features and light, curling locks of the incendiary met his
gaze.

"Villain!" exclaimed he, springing forward, as the man turned with a
hurried step from his work of destruction; "would you burn innocent
people in their beds?"

With one fell blow the man dashed the lank form to the earth, and fled
down the avenue of cedars, which led to the river, never heeding the
startled looks of a thin woman, and tall, graceful youth, against whose
sides he brushed in his guilty flight.

"Who could that flying figure have been?" asked the lad of the woman,
when the man had rushed past.

"I don't know, indeed, Willie," answered she, "unless it was your
friend, the hermit, gone wild. You say he has been more gloomy than
usual for several days."

"O, no!" returned the youth; "it was not the hermit. I distinguished
this man's features very plainly as he passed, and it was no one I ever
saw before. He had no covering on his head, and his hair was light and
curly. His face seemed glowing with rage and anger."

"It must have been some lunatic escaped from the asylum," said the
woman.

"Well, I think you are right, mother," answered the boy. "I hope he has
not harmed the poor hermit, whom I left sitting on a stone among the
cedars, near Major Howard's mansion. He came thus far with me to-night,
as it was so late, and the way long and gloomy."

"Ah! he was very kind," remarked the woman. "I began to fear you were
not coming for me, Willie, and thought I should have to remain at Mr.
Pimble's all night, or go home alone. Is the hermit's nephew still with
him?"

"No, he went away this morning, and the poor old man is very lonely and
sad. He said he wished I could be with him all the time."

"Strange being!" said the woman. "Why does he not leave the forest, and
dwell among his fellow-men?"

"I think it is because he experienced some disappointment in his youth,"
answered the lad, "and has come to distrust all his species."

"It may be so," returned the woman. "I have heard of such instances. He
is very kind to you, my boy, and but for his little bundles of sticks, I
think we must have perished during your long illness through that
piercing cold winter. Strange are the realities of life; stranger than
fiction! When the rich Mr. Pimble drove me from his threshold, the poor
hermit of the forest braved the bleak storms, and laid the charitable
piles on my poverty-stricken threshold."

The mother and son had now reached their humble abode.

"Willie," said she, "I wish you would run down by the river and gather
up the few pieces of linen I washed and spread out there yesterday. The
wind is rising fast, and they will blow away before morning."

The boy hastened to perform her request, and in a few moments came
rushing into the house, and exclaimed:

"Mother! mother! Major Howard's house is all on fire! I am going up
there," and, flinging the pieces he held in his arms on the table, he
flew off toward the burning mansion.

Mrs. Danforth followed him to the door and discovered his words were but
too true. Long tongues of flame darted upward to the sky, and ran
fiercely over the walls and terraces of the mansion. The church bell was
pealing madly to rouse the slumbering people to the rescue; but the fire
gained so rapidly in the sweeping wind, all efforts to quench it could
not prove otherwise than futile. To save the lives of the inmates would
be the utmost which could be done, and even this seemed a perilous
undertaking.

Willie Danforth was rushing up the avenue of cedars, when, just as he
was entering the grounds of the burning mansion, he stumbled over some
large object which obstructed the path. It moved beneath, and, by the
glare of the flames, he discovered the body of his friend, the hermit,
lying at full length upon the frozen ground. The prostrate man opened
his eyes and recognized Willie.

"O, my good boy, I am sadly hurt!" said he, feebly. "Will you help me to
rise and get away from this place?"

Willie, who forgot everything, even the burning mansion before him, in
care and pity for his friend, raised him to his feet, and half
supporting the tall, thin form in his young, strong arms, drew him down
the long avenue and along the river bank to his mother's dwelling.

And that night the insensible form of the Hermit of the Cedars lay
stretched upon the low couch of Dilly Danforth's humble abode.

CHAPTER XLI.

"There are so many signs of wickedness
Around me, that my soul is pressed with fear.
O, that the power divine would kindly aid
Me in my need, and save me from the wiles
And artful plottings of this wicked man!
For though he speaks so soft, and smiles so fair,
I've seen at times a strange look in his eye
Which doth convince me that his soul is black within."

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