“Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! my life is my foe’s debt.”
“AH! LINCOLN! LINCOLN!” cried the weeping bride, gently extricating herself from the long embrace of Lionel, “at what a moment did you desert me!”
“And how have I been punished, love! a night of phrenzy, and a morrow of regrets! How early have I been made to feel the strength of those ties which unite us;—unless, indeed, my own folly may have already severed them for ever!”
“Truant! I know you! and shall hereafter weave a web, with woman’s art, to keep you in my toils! If you love me, Lionel, as I would fain believe, let all the past be forgotten. I ask—I wish, no explanation. You have been deceived, and that repentant eye assures me of your returning reason. Let us now speak only of yourself. Why do I find you thus guarded, more like a criminal than an officer of the crown?”
“They have, indeed, bestowed especial watchfulness on my safety!”
“How came you in their power! and why do they abuse their advantage?”
“’Tis easily explained. Presuming on the tempestuousness of the night—what a bridal was ours, Cecil!”
“’Twas terrible!” she answered, shuddering; then with a bright and instant smile, as if sedulous to chase every appearance of distrust or care from her countenance, she continued—“but I have no longer faith in omens, Lincoln! or, if one has been given, is not the awful fulfilment already come? I know not how you value the benedictions of a parting soul, Lionel, but to me there is holy consolation in knowing that my dying parent left her blessing on our sudden union!”
Disregarding the hand, which, with gentle earnestness, she had laid upon his shoulder, he walked gloomily away, into a distant corner of the apartment.
“Cecil, I do love you, as you would fain believe,” he said, “and I listen readily to your wish to bury the past in oblivion. But I leave my tale unfinished!—You know the night was such that none would choose, uselessly, to brave its fury—I attempted to profit by the storm, and availing myself of a flag, which is regularly granted to the simpleton, Job Pray, I left the town. Impatient—do I say impatient! borne along rather by a tempest of passions that mocked the feebler elements, we ventured too much—Cecil, I was not alone!”
“I know it—I know it,” she said, hurriedly, though speaking barely above her breath—“you ventured too much?”—
“And encountered a piquet that would not mistake a royal officer for an impoverished, though privileged idiot. In our anxiety we overlooked—believe me, dearest Cecil, that if you knew all—the scene I had witnessed—the motives which urged—they, at least, would justify this strange and seeming desertion.”
“Did I doubt it, would I forget my condition, my recent loss, and my sex, to follow in the footsteps of one unworthy of my solicitude!” returned the bride, colouring as much with innate modesty, as with the power of her emotions. “Think not I come, with girlish weakness, to reproach you with any fancied wrongs! I am your wife, Major Lincoln; and as such would I serve you, at a moment when I know all the tenderness of the tie will most be needed. At the altar, and in the presence of my God, have I acknowledged the sacred duty; and shall I hesitate to discharge it because the eyes of man are on me!”
“I shall go mad!—I shall go mad!” cried Lionel, in ungovernable mental anguish, as he paced the floor, in violent disorder.—“There are moments when I think that the curse, which destroyed the father, has already lighted on the son!”
“Lionel!” said the soft, soothing voice of his companion, at his elbow, “is this to render me more happy!—the welcome you bestow on the confiding girl who has committed her happiness to your keeping! I see you relent, and will be more just to us both; more dutiful to your God! Now let us speak of your confinement. Surely, you are not suspected of any criminal designs in this rash visit to the camp of the Americans! ’Twere easy to convince their leaders that you are innocent of so base a purpose!”
“’Tis difficult to evade the vigilance of those who struggle for liberty!” returned the low, calm voice of Ralph, who stood before them, unexpectedly. “Major Lincoln has too long listened to the councils of tyrants and slaves, and forgotten the land of his birth. If he would be safe, let him retract the error, while yet he may, with honour.”
“Honour!” repeated Lionel, with unconcealed disdain—again pacing the room with swift and uneasy steps, without deigning any other notice of the unwelcome intruder. Cecil bowed her head, and sinking in a chair, concealed her face in her small muff, as if to exclude some horrid and fearful sight from her view.
The momentary silence was broken by the sound of footsteps and of voices in the passage, and at the next instant the door of the room opening, Meriton was seen on its threshold. His appearance roused Cecil, who springing on her feet, beckoned him away, with a sort of phrenzied earnestness, exclaiming—
“Not here! not here!—for the love of heaven, not here!”
The valet hesitated, but catching a glimpse of his master, his attachment got the ascendency of his respect—
“God be praised for this blessed sight, Master Lionel!” he cried—“’tis the happiest hour I have seen since I lost the look at the shores of old England! If ’twas only at Ravenscliffe, or in Soho, I should be the most contented fool in the three kingdoms! Ah, Master Lionel, let us get out of this province, into a country where there is no rebels; or any thing worse than King, Lords, and Commons!”
“Enough now; for this time, worthy Meriton, enough!” interrupted Cecil, breathing with difficulty, in her eagerness to be heard.—“Go—return to the inn—the colleges—any where—do but go!”
“Don’t send a loyal subject, Ma’am, again among the rebels, I desire to entreat of you. Such awful blasphemies, sir, as I heard while I was there! They spoke of his sacred majesty just as freely, sir, as if he had been a gentleman, like yourself. Joyful was the news of my release!”
“And had it been a guard-room on the opposite shore,” said Ralph, “the liberties they used with your earthly monarch, would have been as freely taken with the King of kings!”
“You shall remain then,” said Cecil, probably mistaking the look of disdain which Meriton bestowed on his aged fellow-voyager, for one of a very different meaning—“but not here. You have other apartments, Major Lincoln; let my attendants be received there—you surely would not admit the menials to our interview!”
“Why this sudden terror, love! Here, if not happy, you at least are safe. Go, Meriton, into the adjoining room; if wanted, there is admission through this door of communication.”
The valet murmured some half-uttered sentences, of which only the emphatic word “genteel” was audible, while the direction of his discontented eye, sufficiently betrayed that Ralph was the subject of his meditations. The old man followed his footsteps, and the door of the passage soon closed on both, leaving Cecil standing, like a beautiful statue, in an attitude of thought. When the noise of her attendants, as they quietly entered the adjoining room, was heard, she breathed again, with a tremulous sigh, that seemed to raise a weight of apprehension from her heart.
“Fear not for me, Cecil, and least of all for yourself,” said Lionel, drawing her to his bosom with fond solicitude—“my headlong rashness, or, rather, that fatal bane to the happiness of my house, the distempered feeling which you must have often seen and deplored, has indeed led me into a seeming danger. But I have a reason for my conduct, which avowed, shall lull the suspicions of even our enemies to sleep!”
“I have no suspicions—no knowledge of any imperfections—no regrets, Lionel; nothing but the most ardent wishes for your peace of mind; and—if I might explain!—yes, now is a time—Lionel, kind, but truant Lionel”—
Her words were interrupted by Ralph, who appeared again in the room, with that noiseless step, which, in conjunction with his great age and attenuated frame, sometimes gave to his movements and aspect the character of a being superior to the attributes of humanity. On his arm he bore an over-coat and a hat, both of which Cecil recognized, at a glance, as the property of the unknown man who had attended her person throughout all the vicissitudes of that eventful night.
“See!” said Ralph, exhibiting his spoils with a ghastly, but meaning smile, “see in how many forms Liberty appears to aid her votaries! Here is the guise in which she will now be courted! Wear them, young man, and be free!”
“Believe him not—listen not,” whispered Cecil, while she shrunk from his approach in undisguised terror—“nay, do listen, but act with caution!”
“Dost thou delay to receive the blessed boon of freedom, when offered?” demanded Ralph; “wouldst thou remain, and brave the angry justice of the American chief, and make thy wife, of a day, a widow for an age!”
“In what manner am I to profit by this dress?” said Lionel—“to submit to the degradation of a disguise, success should be certain.”
“Turn thy haughty eyes, young man, on the picture of innocence and terror, at thy side. For the sake of her whose fate is wrapped in thine, if not for your own, consult thy safety, and fly—another minute may be too late.”
“Oh! hesitate not a moment longer, Lincoln,” cried Cecil, with a change of purpose as sudden as the impulse was powerful—“fly, leave me; my sex and station will be”—
“Never,” said Lionel, casting the garment from him, in cool disdain.—“Once, when Death was busy, did I abandon thee; but, ere I do it again, his blow must fall on me!”
“I will follow—I will rejoin you.”
“You shall not part,” said Ralph, once more raising the rejected coat, and lending his aid to envelop the form of Lionel, who stood passive under the united efforts of his bride and her aged assistant—“Remain here,” the latter added, when their brief task was ended, “and await the summons to freedom. And thou, sweet flower of innocence and love, follow, and share in the honour of liberating him who has enslaved thee!”
Cecil blushed with virgin shame, at the strength of his expressions, but bowed her head in acquiescence to his will. Proceeding to the door, he beckoned her to approach, indicating, by an expressive gesture to Lionel, that he was to remain stationary. When Cecil had complied, and they were in the narrow passage of the building, Ralph, instead of betraying any apprehension of the sentinel who paced its length, fearlessly approached, and addressed him with the confidence of a known friend—
“See!” he said, removing the calash from before the pale features of his companion, “how terror for the fate of her husband has caused the good child to weep! She quits him now, friend, with one of her attendants, while the other tarries to administer to his master’s wants. Look at her; is’t not a sweet, though mourning partner, to smooth the path of a soldier’s life!”
The man seemed awkwardly sensible of the unusual charms that Ralph so unceremoniously exhibited to his view, and while he stood in admiring embarrassment, ashamed to gaze, and yet unwilling to retire, Cecil traced the light footsteps of the old man, entering the room occupied by Meriton and the stranger. She was still in the act of veiling her features from the eyes of the sentinel, when Ralph re-appeared, attended by a figure muffled in the well-known over-coat. Notwithstanding the flopped hat, and studied concealment of his gait, the keen eyes of the wife penetrated the disguise of her husband, and recollecting, at the same instant, the door of communication between the two apartments, the whole artifice was at once revealed. With trembling eagerness she glided past the sentinel, and pressed to the side of Lionel, with a dependence that might have betrayed the deception to one more accustomed to the forms of life, than was the honest countryman who had, so recently, thrown aside the flail to carry a musket.
Ralph allowed the sentinel no time to deliberate, but waving his hand in token of adieu, he led the way into the street, with his accustomed activity. Here they found themselves in the presence of the other soldier, who moved along the alloted ground in front of the building, rendering the watchfulness by which they were environed, doubly embarrassing. Following the example of their aged conductor, Lionel and his trembling companion walked with apparent indifference towards this man, who, as it proved, was better deserving of his trust than his fellow, within doors. Dropping his musket across their path, in a manner which announced an intention to inquire into their movements, before he suffered them to proceed, he roughly demanded—
“How’s this, old gentleman! you come out of the prisoners’ rooms by squads! one, two, three; our English gallant might be among you, and there would still be two left! Come, come, old father, render some account of yourself, and of your command. For, to be plain with you, there are those who think you are no better than a spy of Howe’s, notwithstanding you are left to run up and down the camp, as you please. In plain Yankee dialect, and that’s intelligible English, you have been caught in bad company of late, and there has been hard talk about shutting you up, as well as your comrade!”
“Hear ye that!” said Ralph, calmly smiling, and addressing himself to his companions, instead of the man whose interrogatories he was expected to answer—“think you the hirelings of the crown are thus alert! Would not the slaves be sleeping the moment the eyes of their tyrants are turned on their own lawless pleasures! Thus it is with Liberty! The sacred spirit hallows its meanest votaries, and elevates the private to the virtues of the proudest captain!”
“Come, come,” returned the flattered sentinel, throwing his musket back to his shoulder again, “I believe a man gains nothing by battling you with words! I should have spent a year or two inside yonder colleges to dive at all your meaning. Though I can guess you are more than half-right in one thing; for if a poor fellow who loves his country, and the good cause, finds it so hard to keep his eyes open on post, what must it be to a half-starved devil on six-pence a-day! Go along, go along, old father; there is one less of you than went in, and if there was any thing wrong, the man in the house should know it!”
As he concluded, the sentinel continued his walk, humming a verse of Yankee-doodle, in excellent favour with himself and all mankind, with the sweeping exception of his country’s enemies. To say that this was not the first instance of well-meaning integrity being cajoled by the jargon of liberty, might be an assertion too hazardous; but that it has not been the last, we conscientiously believe, though no immediate example may present itself to quote in support of so heretical credulity.
Ralph appeared, however, perfectly innocent of intending to utter more than the spirit of the times justified; for, when left to his own pleasure, he pursued his way, muttering rapidly to himself, and with an earnestness that attested his sincerity. When they had turned a corner, at a little distance from any pressing danger, he relaxed in his movements, and suffering his eager companions to approach, he stole to the side of Lionel, and clenching his hand fiercely, he whispered in a voice half choked by inward exultation—
“I have him now! he is no longer dangerous! Ay—ay—I have him closely watched by the vigilance of three incorruptible patriots!”
“Of whom speak you,” demanded Lionel—“what is his offence, and where is your captive?”
“A dog! a man in form, but a tiger in heart! Ay! but I have him!” the old man continued, with a hollow laugh, that seemed to heave up from his inmost soul—“a dog; a veritable dog! I have him, and God grant that he may drink of the cup of slavery to its dregs!”
“Old man,” said Lionel, firmly, “that I have followed you thus far on no unworthy errand, you best may testify—I have forgotten the oath which, at the altar, I had sworn to cherish this sweet and spotless being at my side, at your instigation, aided by the maddening circumstances of a moment; but the delusion has passed away! Here we part for ever, unless your solemn and often-repeated promises are, on the instant, redeemed.”
The high exultation which had, so lately, rendered the emaciated countenance of Ralph hideously ghastly, disappeared like a passing shadow, and he listened to the words of Lionel with calm and settled attention. But when he would have answered, he was interrupted by Cecil, who uttered, in a voice nearly suppressed by her fears—
“Oh! delay not a moment! Let us proceed; any where, or any-how! even now the pursuers may be on our track. I am strong, dearest Lionel, and will follow to the ends of the earth, so you but lead!”
“Lionel Lincoln, I have not deceived thee!” said the old man, solemnly. “Providence has already led us on our way, and a few minutes will bring us to our goal—suffer, then, that gentle trembler to return into the village, and follow!”
“Not an inch!” returned Lionel, pressing Cecil still closer to his side—“here we part, or your promises are fulfilled.”
“Nay, go with him—go,” again whispered the being who clung to him in trembling dependence. “This very controversy may prove your ruin—did I not say I would accompany you, Lincoln?”
“Lead on, then,” said her husband, motioning Ralph to proceed—“once again will I confide in you; but use the trust with discretion, for my guardian spirit is at hand, and remember, thou no longer leadest a lunatic!”
The moon fell upon the wan features of the old man, and exhibited their contented smile, as he silently turned away, and resumed his progress with his wonted, rapid, and noiseless tread. Their route still lay towards the skirts of the village. While the buildings of the University were yet in the near view, and the loud laugh of the idlers about the inn, with the frequent challenges of the sentinels, were still distinctly audible, their conductor bent his way beneath the walls of a church, that rose in solemn solitude in the deceptive light of the evening. Pointing upward at its somewhat unusual, because regular architecture, Ralph muttered as he passed—
“Here, at least, God possesses his own, without insult!”
Lionel and Cecil slightly glanced their eyes at the silent walls, and followed into a small enclosure, through a gap in its humble and dilapidated fence. Here the former again paused.
“I will go no further,” he said, unconsciously strengthening the declaration by placing his foot firmly on a mound of frozen earth, in an attitude of resistance—“’tis time to cease thinking of ’self, and to listen to the weakness of her whom I support!”
“Think not of me, dearest Lincoln”—
Cecil was interrupted by the voice of the old man, who raising his hat, and baring his gray locks to the mild rays of the planet, answered, with tremulous emotion—
“Thy task is already ended! Thou hast reached the spot where moulder the bones of one who long supported thee. Unthinking boy, that sacrilegious foot treads on thy mother’s grave!”