“Say what is woman's heart?—a thing Where all the deepest feelings spring; And what its love?—a ceaseless stream, A changeless star—an endless dream— A smiling flower, that will not die— A beauty and a mystery!”
While the scenes last described were occurring at Manchester, in the Council of Safety, whose secret and unforeseen action was about to be felt in the remotest corners of the state, an athletic, well-formed, though plainly-dressed young man, whose fortunes, in common with those of hundreds around him, were suddenly and unexpectedly to be affected by the movements of that body, might have been seen, in the evening twilight, moving, with slow and apparently hesitating steps, across a new-mown field, towards a neat and commodious dwelling, situated on the main road leading from the town just named, to the south, and near where it entered the then fast increasing little village of Bennington. Though he wore no regular military uniform, or arms that were visible, yet there was that in his gait, manner, and general appearance, which indicated the recent occupation of a soldier, while the natural cast of his bold, manly features, and the clear, calm, and steady expression of his fine countenance, all combined to show him a man of coolness and courage; and that, consequently, the seeming timidity and indecision of his present movements were attributable to some passing doubts respecting the issue of the business on hand, or other causes of a similar character, rather than any general want of firmness and resolution. After advancing within a stone's throw of the house, he turned into a clump of small trees, which, extending along the outer border of an unenclosed garden to the north of the establishment, had concealed his approach; and here taking a position that commanded a view of the front and rear entrances of the house, he seemed to await some expected event, with manifestations of considerable uneasiness and solicitude. In a few moments, a slight stir, as of company taking leave, was heard in the front part of the house; and very soon a fashionably-dressed personage of a somewhat swaggering deportment, accompanied with many of those supercilious airs with which the colonial loyalists of the times often thought to dignify their carriage among despised republicans, made his appearance in the yard, where, equipped for riding, stood a stout, well-conditioned horse, which he approached and led out some distance into the road, preparatory to mounting. He then paused, and, with a hasty glance around him, covertly drew forth, from a concealed girdle apparently, a pair of good-sized pistols, and carefully examined their flints and priming; after which he replaced them, and, vaulting into his saddle, rode leisurely away along the road leading northward. In the mean time, the person first described retained his position within his leafy concealment, where, unseen himself, he had seen and watched from the first, with keen interest, all the movements of the other, whom, at length, he seemed to recognize, with recollections which caused him to recoil, and his whole countenance to contract and darken with angry and disquieting emotions. He was not allowed much time, however, for indulging his disturbed feelings; for scarcely had the object of his annoyance disappeared, before his attention was attracted by a slight rustling sound somewhere within the garden; when, turning his head, the frown that had gathered on his brow suddenly gave place to a look of joyful animation, as his eager eye caught a glimpse of the light, fluttering drapery of a female, who, with soft, rapid tread, was gliding along the outer edge of the screening shrubbery towards him. The next instant he was at her side, ardently grasping her half-proffered hand, and tenderly gazing into her sweetly-confused countenance.
“How grateful,” he began, after a broken salutation—“how grateful I should be for this obliging attention to the note I sent you, soliciting a meeting which—”
“Which my gallant preserver of old will be pretty sure to misconstrue, I fear me,” interrupted the maiden, with a half-murmured, sportive laugh.
“No, Miss Haviland,” he replied, too intent on a serious demonstration of his feelings to respond in the same spirit—“no, I am not so presuming; nor do I wish to count on the former service, which you so magnify, and which has induced you, perhaps, to grant this interview.”
“In part, I confess,” was the answer to this implied question.
“I suspected—I feared so,” he rejoined, despondingly. “Would to Heaven you could have acted entirely aside from that motive, and then I might have found cause to hope. But now,” he added, with suppressed emotion—“now—But O, how can I harbor the chilling thought of being doomed to love without a return! Say, fairest and best, must this indeed be so?”
The downcast look and the quick-heaving bosom were the only reply; and the impassioned lover, gathering courage even from these uncertain indications, proceeded:—
“Years, eventful years, have passed away, my dear Miss Haviland, since your face, like some unexpected vision, first greeted my sight, and its image, at the same moment, as a thing not to be resisted, sunk deep into my heart. And there, from that hour to this, it has constantly remained—remained in spite of all my attempts to exclude it; for I struggled hard to banish it, as I had so much reason to do. You were the daughter of wealth and prosperity—I the son of poverty and misfortune; and, what was more revolting to my pride, you were found with my political opponents—my oppressors—nay, in the closest connection, apparently, with my bitterest foe. But with all the aid which these thoughts and associations were calculated to lend me, I struggled in vain. And when I was driven, poor, sorrowing, and desperate, from my home, by the wrongs and insults of this same man, of whose position towards you I was not left in doubt, I carried that image with me. It would not be eradicated; it would not even fade; but became more deeply impressed, and grew more and more vivid with time and change. In the stirring scenes of military life into which I then entered,—in the hour of battle, the exhausting march, the horrors of a prisonship, the perilous escape, and the lone wanderings through the wilderness, till I again reached the soil of freedom,—in all these, the impress remained unweakened, constantly presenting itself to my thoughts by day, and shaping my dreams by night. And it was this, when, on my return, I came into this quarter, where I had learned our scattered troops were rallying, and where I found myself near you—it was this that brought me to your father's dwelling—it was this, which, in spite of the coldness of my reception by all but yourself, urged me to the repeated visit, in which I was driven with insults from your house.”
“Not by me, Mr. Woodburn,” interposed the fair listener, in kindly and earnest tones—“not by me, nor by my consent or sanctioning. And it was mainly to show you this that I was induced to grant your request for this, on my part, I fear, imprudent meeting. No! O, no, sir, I have never forgotten—I can never forget—to whom I am indebted for my life; and gratitude as well as respect for his general character, will ever forbid aught but kind and courteous treatment at my hands. And I hope you will make some allowance for my father, who feels so strongly that the people, whose cause you espouse, are criminally wrong.”
“I do make an allowance,” responded Woodburn—“great allowance for his imbittered state of mind towards the defenders of the American cause; but does that fully account for the course he pursues towards me?”
“To be frank with you, sir, it does not,” she replied, after some hesitation. “There are those often with my father, who are not backward in fanning his prejudices, and perhaps in instigating the undeserved treatment you have received. I may be unwise in saying this; but justice to all, it appears to me, requires that you should be apprised of it. You will not surely make use of this to embroil us?”
“Certainly not; but what you communicate is hardly news to me. I well understand that the principal one of those to whom you allude is no other than the person who just rode away from your house.”
“You saw him, then? I am thankful you did not come in collision with him; for he is a man you must avoid. Yes, that was indeed Colonel Peters.”
“Colonel Peters! Colonel, did you call him? Has he, then, actually joined the British forces, and received a commission for such a post in their army?”
“Yes; but I had supposed this was known, else I might have hesitated to disclose it, lest his frequent visits here might implicate my father, who, I hope, may be induced to remain neutral in this unhappy contest.”
“Fear not, fair friend. No advantage shall be taken of this, through my means, to the injury of your father. But, tell me, does that officious adviser of your father still urge a suit, and plead an engagement, of which, I have inferred, you would not be sorry to be relieved?”
“He does,” answered the maiden, sadly—“he does urge a suit, and insist on an engagement, of which he knows I wish to be relieved.”
“Why should he do this?”
“Perhaps he counts on the effect of events to reconcile me—events which he seems to expect will shortly happen—the complete triumph of his cause, the disgrace, banishment, or death of its cpposers, and his own elevation thereby to stations which, he thinks no woman will refuse to share with him. He counts much also, probably, on the aiding influence of my father, who feels warmly interested in his success, and believes with the other that he, who is so loyal, while so many of his standing are otherwise, cannot fail of reaping a brilliant harvest of rewards, which, with the connection they propose, will reflect lustre on our family.”
“Then it does not occur to them,” said Woodburn, with a smile at this specimen of that loyal air-castle building in which the tories of the revolution seemed to have so extravagantly indulged—“it does not occur to them that it is even possible these splendid schemes may fail, in the failure of their cause in this country, which has thus, in anticipation, been parcelled out into dukedoms and lordships, to reward its sanguine adherents?”
“One would think not, from their conversation on the subject,” replied the other.
“And what thinks she, whom they would have so much interested in this great issue?” asked Woodburn, encouraged to the question by the manner and tone of her last remark. “Has it never occurred to her mind that their cause, as strong as they deem it, is destined to fail; that even this vaunting army, which hangs so menacingly on our borders, may be swept away by the vengeance of a wronged, an insulted, and now aroused people; and that this despised people have right and Heaven on their side; and by the blessings of that Heaven, while they do battle in the consciousness of that right, will yet triumph, and become an independent nation, to which even her present haughty foe will do reverence?”
“It has,” replied the maiden, warmly and with emphasis—“it has, Mr. Woodburn; and—why should I attempt to conceal it?—and I have wished—for I could not help it, though against the feelings, and, perhaps, the best interests of a generally kind parent—I have long secretly wished, and even prayed, for your success; because I could not stifle the conviction of the truth of what you assert respecting the wrongs of the American people, and the justice of their cause.”
“Sabrey Haviland,” exclaimed the surprised and delighted lover, “as long as I have respected and loved you, I have never till this moment, known you—never half appreciated the worth of your character!”
“What you may appreciate highly, sir, others may as highly condemn,” she meekly responded. “I have said more to you than I have ever expressed to human being; and I may be wrong—wrong in saying it to you—wrong in saying it or believing it at all.”
“Wrong? O, no, no, noble girl!” he rejoined, with increasing animation; “no, you are not wrong; you are right—right in your convictions, right in the wish, the prayer, and the declaration. Men will honor your honest independence, exercised against so much to bias and prejudice, so much to tempt and dazzle you; and Heaven will approve and bless you. But with such sentiments,” he added, in tenderly expostulating accents—“with such sentiments, dear lady, will you doom me to plead my heart's cause in vain? Will you still adhere to a lover active in the work of oppression which you condemn, and reject his rival, equally active in the cause you approve and pray for?”
“I see my error, Mr. Woodburn,” she replied, with an air of self-reproach and of slightly-offended pride, which, however, gave way to kindly tones, as she proceeded; “I have unintentionally helped you to an argument, while I am constrained to decide that no argument, so long as I stand in my present position, must prevail with me. Do not, then, O, do not press me with questions like these. You know not the extent of my perplexities, and I may not explain. Besides, are these the times to engage in such affairs, when the next hour may lead to an eternal separation, or place our respective destinies as wide as the poles asunder?”
“But will you not allow me even to hope for the future?” still persisted the lover.
“Why should I bid you tantalize yourself with hopes so likely to prove futile, when nobler thoughts should engross you? Look, Mr. Woodburn,” she said, pointing, with charming enthusiasm, towards the distant summits of Manchester, then beginning to be dimly visible in the rays of the rising moon, “cast your eyes northward! Beneath yon blue mountains is gathered the council of your people. There also rolls the recruiting drum of your brave Warner, who needs men like you; or if, as you intimated, you are waiting to engage in a different corps, which your council is expected to raise, would not your attendance there be more worthily bestowed, than in adding to the perplexities of one already so thickly surrounded with difficulties, and one who, to your suit, cannot say yea, while she would be pained to say nay?”
“Cruel girl, but noble in your cruelty!” exclaimed Woodburn, with mingled disappointment and admiration. “I will forbear to press my suit for the present, but not forever. I will heed the lesson of patriotism you have given me, but only to remember my fair prompter with deeper devotion.”
“Hark!” said the other, starting; “I hear my father's chiding voice in the house inquiring for me. I must go. Adieu, Mr. Woodburn. With this tendered hand of friendship and gratitude, adieu.”
“If it must be so, my precious, my beautiful one, farewell to you, also.”
Lips uttered no more, but the mute pause that followed, while eye met eye, and hand lingered in hand, was not meaningless. The fond lover was not permitted, however, to prolong the entrancing moment, which, as the slightly-returned pressure of the small white hand, closely imprisoned in his own, told him, had not been reluctantly vouchsafed him; for, quickly arousing herself, the maiden broke from his clinging grasp, and tripped silenty away, leaving him gazing after her retreating form, and listening to the soft and decreasing sounds of her light footsteps upon the grass, till the jar of the closing door, to which she had directed her devious course, made him feel that he was alone, and that the charm of the place was gone.
With a sigh, he turned from the spot, and soon gained the highway; when, taking the direction in which his rival and foe had departed, he walked musingly onward, heedless alike of the cool and balmly air of the evening, or the quietly reposing beauties which the light of a full moon, now beginning to peer over the eastern hills, was gradually unfolding around him, and intent only on the dreamy images with which love and his new-fledged hope seemed conspiring for a while to amuse his willing mind. At length, however, a quickened pace, a firmer tread, and a prouder bearing, showed that a different and less peaceful train of thought was springing up within.
“So this evil genius of mine, it seems,” he muttered, “who forever appears in my path to snatch from me every prize I set my heart on, is secretly an officer in the British service, commissioned, probably, to head a regiment of tories, whom he is now by his false statements and delusive promises, attempting to gather from the weak and wavering of our overawed people. This must be instantly made known. Heavens! what effrontery!—to be playing the spy under the garb of pretended neutrality, and seducing away the deluded men under our very noses, to lead them back to fall with fire and sword on their kindred and neighbors! And I am to be the particular object of his vengeance, I presume, from the significant hint she gave me to avoid him. Avoid him! He shall be spared much trouble to find me if that is what he wants. He is now the country's foe, and lawful game with me. I would that I could meet him tonight—yes, this night; and if I thought I could overtake him—stay, why can't this be done?—only three miles start, probably, and on a moderate trot; while my horse is a fleet one, and—and—we will try it.”
By this time he had reached a log house, and barn of the same materials, which formed a small opening on the left side of the road, and which was the residence of a recently-married and here settled friend, in whose care he had left his horse before proceeding, as on the lady's account he did, through the adjoining wood and Haviland's broad fields beyond, to the clandestine interview with her that we have described. And now turning in towards this rude establishment, he hastily proceeded, without calling at the house, directly to the barn, that was partially enclosed by one of those close-laid, high, pole fences which the settlers usually constructed round their barns to protect their flocks against the depredations of wild beasts. Within this strong enclosure, the owner's cattle, consisting of a pair of oxen, cow, and two or three young creatures of the same species, were now quietly chewing their cuds, with those occasional wheezing grunts, which with them seem so indicative of animal enjoyment; while in one corner stood the horse of which Woodburn was in quest—a little model of a creature, of a lively, attent appearance, as now particularly manifested by a low, earnest, recognizing whinny, and by instantly starting off, in a sort of half trot towards the bars of the enclosure, as her master came up on the other side.
“Yes, yes, Lightfoot, you shall go now, and as fast as you desire, this time,” responded the latter, throwing himself over the bars, and patting the animal on the neck, as he passed on to the barn for his saddle and bridle.
To equip his willing steed, examine the trusty pistols, which, like his foe, he carried about his person, let down, pass through, and replace the bars, occupied him but a moment, and he was about springing into his saddle, when he was hailed from the house.
“Halloo, there, Woodburn, is that you?” exclaimed a cheerly voice, as a stout-built, crank, honest-looking young man, without hat or coat, came out of the door, and with a free and careless air made his way towards the other; “but what is your hurry? Nothing unpleasant has befallen you in your affair over yonder that makes you feel like being off in this sly and hasty manner, has there?”
“No, Risdon, not quite so bad as that yet,” replied Woodburn, taking all in good part.
“How much better, then? Come, Harry, I have taken stones enough out of your path, and thrown them into that of your rival there, to earn a candid answer to such a question.”
“True, sir; but you ask more than I am permitted to know myself. I can neither get accepted nor rejected. She, however has given me fresh reason to admire her. She is no common girl, friend Risdon.”
“There is not a finer or fairer in all the Green Mountains; but what is that fresh reason you name?”
“The discovery that at heart she is warmly with us in the good cause.”
“That is, you hope, and therefore believe so, eh?”
“I have a much better reason than that, sir, for my assertion. She has, within this hour, told me so herself.”
“Ah! Well, then, it is indeed so; for Sabrey Haviland never uttered aught but perfect truth and sincerity in all her life. Why, God bless her for her spunk and independence, living and visiting, as she mostly has, from a child, in that circle of high-toned and bitter tories. And it argues well for your suit, too, Woodburn, which till now I have considered rather an unpromising one; for it tells me that she will struggle hard to get free from the fetters which Peters and her father have fastened on her, and by which, counting on her high sense of the sacredness of all promises and contracts, they suppose have secured her beyond the least fear of escape.”
“Do you allude to any thing other than the mere consent which she formerly gave to Peters's proposals of marriage, and which, I had supposed, constituted the only engagement existing between them?”
“Yes, a far stronger case, which I have learned by way of my wife, since I last conversed with you on the subject.”
“Ah! What is it?” eagerly demanded the lover.
“Why as I gathered it, the case was this,” answered the other. “The old man, as well as Peters, you know, must always do things, if possible, after the English custom; and both thinking more of property than women, they got up a regularly-written marriage contract, or settlement, by which one bound himself to give the other his daughter, with such and such a dowry, and the other to marry the daughter, and settle such and such sums on her and her heirs, all to be void in case the marriage fell through by fault of the girl. But to provide against this, they made another part to the instrument for her to sign, in which they made her solemnly promise and covenant to marry Peters, and none else; otherwise she was to forfeit her birthright in her father's estate. This they somehow or other at last induced her to sign and seal thus binding herself hand and foot forever, with but one single advantage, which, it seems, she had the wit to get added to the contract before she would sign it; and that was, that the time of fulfilling the contract, or day of the marriage, was to be left to her.”
“What a detestable conspiracy for a father to enter into against the rightful liberty and happiness of a daughter!” exclaimed Woodburn, after a pause, during which surprise and indignation kept him silent. “That, then, explains the hints she has several times thrown out to me respecting some peculiar trials and difficulties to which she was subjected. But was she of age when she signed that paper?”
“No; but she probably, in her great scrupulousness, would long hesitate to break the engagement on account of that, or the fraudulent means they doubtless used to draw her into the shameful affair. Nevertheless, I would persevere. Her right to stave off the fellow, with her known wish to get rid of him, may yet procure her an honorable release; or she may be brought to take a different view about the binding nature of a promise obtained under such circumstances; or, as a last resort, that paper may be got out of his possession by some scheme or other. So I think you will worst him in the long run, in spite of his present advantages of the father's help, his own wealth, and——”
“And his recent promotion,” interrupted Woodburn, “which is to be the stepping-stone to the dukedom of Vermont, the reward for betraying his country, and the glittering bait, which, in anticipation, is already held out to this besieged, but bravely resisting, girl!”
“What do you mean, Woodburn?” bluntly said the other, in surprise.
“I mean,” replied the former, “that Peters has lately received a colonel's commission in the British service, and is even now secretly but actively engaged, I suspect, in trying to seduce the people with British gold, and raise troops among us to co-operate with Burgoyne.”
“You astonish me. Why, the hypocritical rascal has been giving out word about here, that, as he had friends and interests on both sides, he had concluded to remain neutral! Are you sure you have been correctly informed?”
“Quite sure. But while you may conjecture the source of my information, remember that it is to work no injury to the family of my informer.”
“Ay, I understand, now—'tis true, then; and you are correct, too, in your suspicions about his present movements. That will account for the existence of the hard dollars that have so strangely made their appearance about here within a few days. But will he be suffered to prosecute his plans here among us? What better is he than a spy?”
“Nothing.”
“He must be nabbed, then; and we will let him find his duke's coronet in a crow's nest, on the limb of some old hemlock, to which we will soon have him dangling in the air, unless our authorities wish to give him a more respectable gallows. What say you to that, Harry?”
“That you are not the first to think of it—that is, so far as to have him captured. He rode away from Haviland's in this direction, and at a moderate pace, just as I, unperceived by him, reached there, about an hour ago, on his way, doubtless, to one of the tory haunts in Manchester. My mare has a fleet foot, Risdon; so you now understand why I was in a hurry to be off, don't you?”
“I do; but Heavens! Woodburn, you are not going to give chase alone?”
“Yes; no horse but mine probably could overtake him before he reaches his associates; besides, since it was hinted to me that he would seek my life I am willing to give him a chance to take it, where neither he nor I shall have help or witness.”
“Are you armed?”
“With dirk and pistols, as he only is.”
“A rather hazardous push, Harry. But go, and God prosper you to take him, and with him that mischievous document. And one thing more: if you live to reach Manchester, tell that Council of Safety, that if they don't do something soon, we, the people, will set up for ourselves in war-making. I, for one, don't believe I can keep my hands off my rifle three days longer.”
“Ay, ay,” said Woodburn, springing into his saddle. “And now, Lightfoot, here is a loose rein for you. Go!” he added, striking with his heels the body, and with his hands the mane of the impatient animal, that, at these shot off like an arrow up the road.
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