The Bride Of Fort Edward: Founded On An Incident Of The Revolution Part 8

_2nd Sol_. (_reading_.) "_This by the Indian, as in case I am taken, he may reach the camp in safety. Not over three thousand men in all, I should think,--very little ammunition, soldiers mostly discouraged.--In Albany, they are tearing the lead off the windows of the houses, and taking the weights from the shops for ball. Talk of retreating on Thursday to the new encampment, five miles below. More when I get to you_."

_More!_ Humph! A pretty string of lies he has got here already. This must go to the General, d.i.c.k.

[_Exeunt_.

DIALOGUE II.

SCENE. _Chamber in the Parsonage. Moonlight. Annie sitting by the window, the door open into an adjoining room_.

_Annie_. (_Calling_.) Come, come,--why do you sit there scribbling so late, Helen? Come, and enjoy this beautiful night with me. Ay, what a world of invisible life amid the dew and darkness utters its glad voices; even the little insect we never saw by day, makes us feel for once the great brotherhood of being. This day week we shall be in Albany,--no more such scenes as this then.

(_Helen approaches the window, and puts her arm gently around her sister_.)

_Helen_. No more!--It was a sad word you were saying, Annie.

_Annie_. How you startled me. Your hands are cold,--cold as icicles, and trembling too. What ails you, Helen?

_Helen_. 'Tis nothing.--How often you and I have stood together thus, looking down on that old bridge.--Summer and winter.--Do you remember the cold snowy moonlights of old, when the sound of the distant bell had hope in it? We shall stand together thus, no more.

_Annie_. Do not speak so sadly, Helen. I cannot think they will destroy our home in mere wantonness. Was there not some one coming up the path just now? Hark! there is news with that tone.

[_Exit_.

_Helen_. A little more, an hour perchance, and he will read my letter.

Why do I tremble thus? Is it because I have done wrong, that these dark misgivings haunt me? No,--it is not remorse--'tis very like--yet remorse it is not. Danger, there is none. I shall but walk to the wood-side as to-day, that little path to the hut is quickly trod, and he will be waiting there. I shall be safe then, safe as I care to be.--Why do I stand here reasoning thus? Safe? And if I were not, what is it to me now? The dark plan is laid. The fearful acting now is all that's left for me.

This must go to the lodge to-night, and ere my mother returns;--to tell them now, would be to make my scheme impossible.

(_She begins, with a reluctant air, to fold the dresses, which are lying loosely by her_.)

Oh G.o.d! whence do these dark and horrible thoughts grow?--Nay, feeling not born of thought. That wedding robe looks like a shroud to me! I cannot. Shadows from things unseen are upon me. The future is a night of tempest, where I hear nothing but the breaking boughs, and the whirl and crash of the mourning blast. Oh G.o.d! there is no refuge for the fearful, but in thee.--To thee--no. If there is power in prayer of mine, hath it not already doomed that wicked cause, my fate is linked with now. I cannot pray.--Can I not?--How the pure strength comes welling up from its infinite depths.

Hear me--not with lip service, I beseech thee now, but with the earnestness that stays the rus.h.i.+ng heart's blood in its way.--Hear me.

Let the high cause of right and freedom, whose sad banner, now, on yonder hill, floats in this summer air; whose music on this soft night-breeze is borne--let it prevail--though _I_, with all this sensitive, warm, shrinking life; with all this new-found wealth of love and hope, lie on its iron way.

I am safe now.--This life that I feel now, steel cannot reach.

(_Annie enters_.)

_Annie_. Dear Helen, dress yourself. It is all true! We must go to-night, we must indeed. They are dismantling the fort now.--Come to the door, and you can hear them if you will; and here is word from Henry, we must be ready before morning--the British are within sight. Do you hear me, Helen? Do not stand looking at me in that strange way.

_Helen_. To-night!

_Annie_. I was frightened myself at first, sadly; but there is no danger, not the least. We shall be in Albany to-morrow, Henry says.

Come, Helen, there is no one to see to any thing but ourselves. They are running about like mad creatures there below, and the children, are crying, and such a time you never saw.

_Helen_. To-night! That those beautiful lips should speak it! Take it back. It cannot be. It must not be.

_Annie_. Why do you look so reproachfully at me? Helen, you astonish and frighten me!

_Helen_. Yes--yes--I see it all. And why could I not have known this one hour sooner?--Even now it may not be too late. Annie--

_Annie_. Thank Heaven,--there is my mother's voice at last.

_Helen_. Annie, stay. Do not mark what I have said in the bewilderment of this sudden fear. Is George below?--Who brought this news?

_Annie_. One of the men from the fort.--George has not been home since you sent him to Elliston's. She is calling me. Make haste and come down, Helen.

[_Exit_.

_Helen_. They will leave me alone. They will leave me here alone. And why could I not have known this one hour sooner?--I could have bid him come to-night--If the invisible powers are plotting against me, it is well. Could I have thought of this?--and yet, how like something I had known before, it all comes upon me.--Can I stay here alone?--Could I?--No never, never! He must come for me to-night. Perchance that pacquet still lies at yonder hut, and it is not yet too late to recal my letter;--if it is--if it is, I must find some other messenger. Thank G.o.d!--there is one way. Elliston can send to that camp to-night. He can--even now,--He can--he will.--

[_Exit_.

DIALOGUE III.

SCENE. _The porch. Helen waiting the return of her messenger from the hut_.

_Helen_. How quiet and soft it all lies in this solemn light. Is it illusion?--can it be?--that old, familiar look, that from these woods and hills, and from this moon-lit meadow, seems to smile on me now with such a holy promise of protection and love?--The merry trill in this apple-tree is the very sound that, waking from my infant sleep in the hush of the summer midnight, of old lulled, nay, wakened my first inward thought. Oh that my heart's youngest religion could come again, the feeling with which a little child looks up to these mighty stars, as the spangles on his home-roof, while he stands smiling beneath the awful shelter of the skies, as under a father's dome. But these years show us the evil that mocks that trust.

'Tis he,--What a mere thread of time separates me from my fate, and yet the darkness of ages could not hide it more surely. Already he has reached the lane. Another minute will show me all. Will the pacquet be in his hand, or will it not? I will be calm--it shall be like a picture to me.

Ah! there is an immeasurable power about us, a foreign and strange thing, that answers not to the soul, that seems to know or to heed nothing of the living suffering, rejoicing being of the spirit. Why should I struggle with it any longer? From my weeping childhood to this hour, it hath set its iron bars about me; no--softly yielding, hath it not sometimes, the long, undreamed-of vistas opened, bright as heaven,--and now, maybe--how slow he moves--even now perchance.--This is wrong. The Infinite is One. The Goodness Infinite, whose everlasting smile lighteth the inner soul, and the Power Infinite, whose alien touch without, in darkness comes, they are of One, and the good know it.

_The Messenger_. (_Coming up the path_.)

Bless you, Miss! The pacquet had been gone this hour!

_Helen_. Gone! Well.--And Elliston--what said he?

_Mess_. I brought this note of yours back, Miss Helen. Father Elliston was gone. Here has been an Indian killed on Sandy Hill this evening, Alaska's own son as it turns out, and such a hubbub as they are making about it you never heard. I met a couple of squaws myself, yelling like mad creatures, and the woods are all alive with them. The priest has gone down to their village to pacify them if it may be,--so I brought the note back, Miss Helen, for there was no one there but a little rascal of an Indian, and I would not trust the worth of a feather with one of them. Was I right?