CHAPTER X.

The trout within yon wimplin burn Glides swift, a silver dart, And safe beneath the shady thorn, Defies the angler's art: My life was ance that careless stream, That wanton trout was I. BURNS.

To the surprise of every individual in the mansion, who had been made acquainted with the summons sent by the painter to his late hostess, it was answered in less than an hour by the appearance at the door of Elsie herself. She was followed by the little negro wench, bearing a bundle of linen and other apparel, and in a short time was inducted into the sick chamber, from which she contrived, before many hours, to expel dame Rachel, whom she had found listening very curiously to the sleeping murmurs of the sufferer, as well as all the officious auxiliaries. Indeed, she betrayed some inclination at first to be as free even with the physician, who had been easily prevailed upon to remain all night at the Folly, while his friends returned to the village; but the young man became so extremely ill in the course of the night, that she soon pretermitted her scruples, and was glad to receive the doctor's assistance in quelling the threatened brain-fever.

This remarkable repugnance of the old woman to divide with any one the labours of watching over the stranger's couch, excited no little surprise among the domestics, and seemed to them to attach a degree of mysterious importance to his character, which none had dreamed of attaching before. Long and anxiously, in consequence, did the good Aunt Rachel and her daughter Phoebe, in the dearth of all better occupation, apply their ears to the chamber door, and their eyes to the key-hole, in the hope that some murmur of the sick man, some whisper of his privileged attendants, or perhaps some movement in the room, might give a clew to the enigma, of the existence of which every circumstance now left them still more strongly convinced. Thus, they persuaded themselves that in the delirium, which all night long oppressed the painter's brain, he was betraying divers dreadful secrets, not at all to his interest to be generally known; and they demonstrated also to their entire satisfaction, that Elsie Bell, who had acquired by some witchcraft or other a complete knowledge of the young stranger's history, was imparting it to the physician, coupled with many injunctions on the one hand, and as many promises on the other, of honourable secrecy. Nay, they both affirmed, in after days, that they distinctly heard Dr. Merribody, in reply to some question or appeal of Elsie, say, with a manner highly characteristic of his dignified sense of honour, "The secrets of the sick room are as sacred as those of the confessional; and as for a doctor, Mrs. Bell, why you must know, we are all as mum as blacksnakes. A snake was the ancient symbol of physic, you know; because that's an animal which, if it don't _hold_ its tongue, never makes any great noise with it!" They observed, too, as they surveyed her through the key-hole, that Elsie's countenance was darkened and troubled in an unusual degree; and once, they thought, they saw her shedding tears. However, they heard and saw little except what inflamed their curiosity to an intolerable extent; and, in consequence, they came within an ace of being caught in the act of eavesdropping by the physician himself, who came suddenly out of the room to demand ice to apply to the patient's head. Luckily, however, the degree of trust reposed in him by the widow, as they supposed, had filled him with uncommon importance, so that he made no remark on discovering them so near at hand, except to express his pleasure; "for," said he, "I supposed you were all sound in bed, and that there would be the devil to pay to get any out-of-the-way thing that might be wanted."

"Lord love you, doctor," said Aunt Rachel, "why we're all keeping awake, just a-purpose to be ready and handy; and besides, the young gentleman makes an awful groaning and taking on; and besides, there's my young madam, Miss Katy, who can't sleep a wink, out of concern for the young man; and she told me to ask you, doctor, what you thought of the young man's case, and whether he'll die or no?"

To this the doctor answered, with a look of great wisdom, 'that every thing depended upon circumstances.'

"And besides, doctor," said Phoebe, emboldened by the gracious reply vouchsafed to her mother, "she is mighty curious to know what all these things is, the young gentleman is talking about?"

"Sorry it is not consistent with the honour of the profession to gratify Miss Loring in that particular," replied the physician, with extreme gravity. "Must have ice, Mrs. Jones. Mighty fortunate I was able to remain all night! You must bring me ice, Mrs. Jones; and you must just scratch on the door, to give me warning; and then you must keep all quiet, and let none approach the room, unless summoned by myself. And if you can venture to disturb the Captain, and tell him to turn over on his side, (the _right_ side, mind you,) he won't snore so hard. Very prejudicial, to sleep on the back, I assure you! It sets the liver tumbling over the lungs, and so half smothers one. But let me have the ice, d'ye hear; and keep all things quiet in the house."

Notwithstanding the skill, and (what was perhaps a less questionable virtue,) the zeal of Dr. Merribody, and the faithful vigilance of poor Elsie, the patient continued to grow worse, and was indeed, towards morning, in an alarming situation, and so remained during the greater part of the two following days, not a little to the surprise of the physician, who phlebotomized him with extreme liberality, expecting on each occasion to give the _coup-de-grâce_ to the disease. The truth is, the doctor, from having witnessed its efficacy at first, had grown enamoured of the remedy, and now applied it, we will not say without judgment, but entirely without mercy; and had not Elsie at last rebelled against his blood-thirsty humour, and resolutely resisted all further encouragement of it, there is no saying where the matter might have ended, unless in the grave. However, as the patient possessed a youthful and vigorous constitution, capable of withstanding disease and his tyrant together, he was at no time in absolute peril of death; and being left a little to himself, he began at last to mend, and in the course of the fourth day was, to the infinite satisfaction of Captain Loring and his fair daughter, pronounced entirely out of danger. His convalescence was rapid, and would perhaps have been still more so, had it not been for the pains his hospitable host took to expedite it; for Captain Loring beset his bed-side from the first appearance of a favourable symptom, mingling many joyous congratulations with a thousand exhortations and instructions in relation to 'that grand picture of the battle of Brandywine, and Tom Loring dying!'

From Captain Loring he also learned some of the particulars of those bustling events, which had taken place during the evening of his insensibility. He was much struck with the strange transformation of the sanctimonious Nehemiah Poke into no less a personage than the refugee and assassin, Oran Gilbert, and was very curious to hear the particulars of his escape. They were told in a moment: the pursuers, headed by Lieutenant Brooks, (young Falconer having proceeded on his journey with his sister, and the Captain, much the worse for his gallop, having been forced to return to the Hall,) had followed across the river, and continued the search until nightfall rendered it useless to prolong it. They had, at one time, been close upon the fugitive's heels, having lighted upon a pedler, (not, however, Mr. John Green, the Indian trader, who was safely lodged at the time in the wounded man's chamber,) to whom the pretended preacher had sold his old gray horse, or exchanged it for a better; and from this man they obtained instructions, which put them in good hopes for awhile of coming up with him. Night, however, fell upon them, and the Lieutenant returned to the right bank of the river, to rejoin his friend and Miss Falconer, committing the whole charge of the pursuit to his volunteers, from whom the fugitive escaped, having baffled them completely. As for Mr. Green himself, he left the little inn betimes on the morning after the accident, and was seen no more.

In regard to the outrage upon Colonel Falconer, Herman was informed that it had been committed in a mode especially daring and audacious. He was entertaining certain gay and distinguished guests at his villa on the Schuylkill, and had stepped for a moment, in search of certain papers, to a little pavilion, which he had caused to be fitted up as a study, not sixty paces from the house, where he was presently found weltering in his blood by the guests, whom his sudden shrieks had drawn to the place. The assassin had already vanished, having added robbery, as Captain Loring averred, to murder. The sufferer had, however, recognised his well-known visage, and in the course of the following day some traces of him were discovered. It was found, at least, that a man answering the description had stolen a horse from a neighbouring farmer; and upon this horse, or one very like him, Mr. Nehemiah Poke, the parson, had been seen wending his way up the Delaware; and as no one knew or had ever before heard of this reverend gentleman, it was at once supposed that the assassin had assumed the character as a disguise. Before this second discovery had been made, a courier, whom the Captain stumbled upon in the village, was despatched to Hawk-Hollow, to recall Miss Falconer to the city. His intelligence therefore, though it caused the Captain to arrest the true offender, was not sufficient to legalize the capture, especially when this was opposed so strongly by the zealous exhortations of Nehemiah, and the discreet remonstrances of the painter. When Captain Loring remembered the agency of Hunter in robbing him of his prey, he burst into a towering passion, and reproached and railed at him with as little ceremony as he would have done with his own son, or near kinsman. It was in vain that Herman pointed out the improbability of a wild hunter of the hills, like Oran Gilbert, being able to assume the character of a ranting preacher, and preserve it so well, and endeavoured to convince him, that, if Nehemiah were really not the assassin, he must be some other and some secret enemy. The Captain swore that Colonel Falconer had no other enemy in the world, and therefore, of course, Nehemiah, the parson, must be the identical Oran of the Hollow. This opinion he maintained with such fury, that the painter, if indeed he had no stronger reason for holding his tongue, did not choose to meet it with an argument derived from his own previous acquaintance with Nehemiah. He suffered the Captain to have his own way, and believe what he liked; and, in consequence, the Captain soon dropped the subject altogether, to take up another that now occupied his brain, almost to the exclusion of every other. This was the picture of the battle of Brandywine, and Tom Loring dying, the consideration of which, and of the painter's ability to execute it to his liking, was the main cause of the extraordinary affection he conceived for the youth.

Another piece of information, which the young man obtained from the Captain, was an account of the agency of Miss Loring in his deliverance from the brook, and perhaps from death. He had turned upon her a despairing eye, at the moment when, as he was pitching over the fall, she had cast out the end of the shawl to him; but of this circumstance he had retained not the slightest recollection, and indeed, it is more than probable that his faculties were at that moment in a state of torpor. Not content with this deed of daring humanity (for if he had clutched upon the mantle, the chances were that she would have been jerked into the torrent after him,) she had plunged among the boiling eddies below, and thus preserved him from a second and perhaps greater peril, and all the time with imminent risk to herself. His emotions upon making this discovery, mingled surprise and admiration with the gentler sentiment of gratitude.

"Is it possible," he cried, "that a young lady should have such spirit, such presence of mind, such courage?"

"Adzooks!" said the Captain, setting the matter to rest at once, "isn't she _my_ daughter? By the lord, sir, when my son Tom was but a boy of ten years, he could trounce all the boys of the Brandywine of his own age, and two years older."

"So heroic!" ejaculated the painter; "instead of committing me to my destiny, with a pathetic scream, to run at once to my assistance, like an angel, rather than a woman!"

"Adzooks," cried Captain Loring, "it was no such thing, when I carried Tom Loring home; for then she fell to weeping and bewailing; and hark ye, Herman, my boy, that's the way you must paint her."

"So noble! so benevolent! so humane!" continued Hunter. "Noble impulses are only produced in noble spirits.--And I really, then, owe my escape, perhaps my life, to the humanity of this young lady, to whom I was but a stranger!--Captain, it was the noblest act in the world!"

"Adzooks," cried the Captain, "do you think so? Why then, by the lord, we'll paint that too! And, now I think of it, 'twill make a most excellent picture! Why, yes,--what a fool I was, not to think of it before! 'Twas very brave of her, and it shall be painted: You shall stick yourself at the bottom of the brook, and my Kate Loring fishing you out, with Harriet and me on the top of the rock; and as for that rusty fellow, the pedler, why you may leave him out."

"I am very curious about that man," said Hunter; "but 'tis no matter."

Then he fell to musing, and in spite of the noisy rapture with which the Captain danced about his bed, filled with the new conception of immortalizing paint,--of a picture which was to perpetuate the heroism of his daughter as effectually as the other was to record the glorious death of his son,--the painter indulged his meditations for a considerable time. The result was, first, a perfect conviction that the sooner he made a due acknowledgment of his gratitude the better; and, secondly, that he felt himself strong and well enough to undertake a duty so pleasing, without further delay. In this opinion Captain Loring coincided with great satisfaction; and neither the physician nor his nurse being at hand to restrain him, (for so soon as he recovered his wits, and began to amend, they deserted his bed-side, returning only at stated periods,) he got up and dressed himself as well as he could, the Captain having in the meanwhile, descended, to apprize his daughter of the meditated visit. It was indeed lucky that the Captain did so; for after the young man had risen, and caught a view of himself in a mirror, his resolution melted away like wax in the fire.

"Heavens!" said he, "how villanous I look! Such lobster eyes, and such lantern-like jaws! That confounded doctor has bled me like a Turk: I wonder he did not make a Turk of me in earnest, and leave me with a poll as naked as a peeled yam. Truly I am now the _Caballero de la Triste Figura_, Don Quixotte in good earnest, as far as looks go; and truly I had better get me to bed again, and wait a month or two, before showing myself to any handsome young lady."

His objections, however, to descend were overruled by the Captain, and having been announced at his own instance, and the young lady having expressed great satisfaction at the happy change in his condition, as indicated by a renovation of strength so unexpected, he was even forced to do as he proposed, and suffer himself to be conducted into her presence.

Miss Loring was evidently surprised and shocked by the change in his appearance, which was still odiously visible, notwithstanding the great pains he had been at to arrange his battered person to advantage. The hair, massed over his forehead, to hide an envious patch, added but little ornament to his bloodless visage; nor did the splint on his right arm, the riband-ties of his sleeve which could not wholly conceal it, and the black silk sling that supported the arm on his breast, impart any peculiar elegance to a person of ghostly tenuity. However, the surprise of the young lady, though confirmatory of his own assurances in relation to his unprepossessing looks, served the good purpose of drawing what blood was left in his body into his cheeks, and thus, for an instant, removed one item of deformity.

The little confusion into which he was thrown by this inauspicious reception, was luckily driven to flight by the boisterous and triumphant introduction immediately commenced by Captain Loring.

"Look ye, Catherine, my girl," he cried; "here's my young Herman Hunter, the painter, that you fished so finely out of the water; and, adzooks, he says, he'll paint the action for you, as well as your brother Tom on the Brandywine, and General George Washington on the fatal field of Braddock! You see how quick we are curing him--begin to have quite an opinion of that fellow, Merribody!--As soon as we get his arm out of the stocks here, he's to begin. Don't intend to let him go back to Elsie's; but Elsie's a good nurse,--will say that for her. Have somebody to talk to, now! Will have cousin Harriet back as soon as possible. So be civil to my young Herman What-d'ye-call-it.--Think he looks very much like my poor Tom!"

With such characteristic expressions, the ancient soldier dispelled the young man's embarrassment; and Herman now turning his eyes upon the maiden with a disposition to be pleased, he found, in her countenance, so much to admire of beauty both physical and spiritual, that his approbation added a double emphasis to his expressions. Indeed he spoke of her act of heroism, and his own gratitude, with a warmth and energy of feeling that, to her own surprise, nearly startled the tears into her eyes, while they filled the Captain with a new sense of his daughter's merits.

"Adzooks!" he cried, in a rapture, "he tells the truth, and he speaks like an honest fellow! 'Twas the noblest deed in all the world, and 't shall be painted."

Anxious perhaps to escape the praises of her father, which, as he had a whimsical docility of temper, might be obtained at any moment,--rather than to avoid those of the guest, which struck her as being unusually agreeable, Miss Loring hastened to protest against all panegyrics, by referring to the more efficient aid rendered by the trader; and then, with an attempt at pleasantry, to lead the conversation still further from herself, she required to know 'to what mysterious cause of alarm on Mr. Hunter's part she owed the happy opportunity she had enjoyed of playing the heroine?'

"You will be astonished, Miss Loring," he replied: "but you were positively the cause yourself."

"I?" said she. "Ah! I understand," she continued, with a smile of infinite mirth--"you were thinking of the assault made by the two dragoons upon poor Elsie's habitation, which we were so near taking by storm; and you looked for nothing less than a repetition of the charge, while you were at a disadvantage on the narrow bridge!"

"By no means," said Herman, sharing somewhat of her animation, and smiling--"I really took you for a spectre; and being of a superstitious turn"----

"A spectre!" cried Captain Loring; "does my Catherine look like a ghost?"

And "A spectre!" re-echoed Miss Loring, though with a more serious emphasis.

"I had heard," said the young man, "that there was a grave beyond the falls"----

"Adzooks!" exclaimed Captain Loring, "I never heard of it.--Who's buried there? One of the Hawks, hah? By the lord, I'll root him up--have no such villain's bones lying about the place"----

"Father," said Catherine, "it is a woman's grave."--Which answer instantly checked the veteran's rising indignation, and some little disgust with which Hunter heard him threaten the lowly sepulchre with violation.

"In truth," resumed the painter, "my mind was affected by the solemn scenery that conducted me to the burial-place; and when I had reached the bridge, and, lifting up my eyes, beheld a figure rising, as it seemed out of the earth, and to all appearance commanding me, by menacing gestures (for such, Miss Loring, was your appearance,) to retire, you may judge how much my imagination was excited. I assure you, such was the hallucination of my mind, that I beheld, even in _your_ countenance, the pallid hues of death, with tears, too, dropping from your eyes, and such an expression of mingled sorrow and displeasure, as I thought could exist only on the visage of a disembodied spirit. In the sudden alarm produced by such an impression, I forgot entirely where I was, and so stepped off the narrow bridge into that malicious torrent, and thereby, as I may also add, fell under the obligation of owing you a life--an obligation, which, I assure you, is of so agreeable a nature, that"----

"If you say so," cried Catherine, perceiving that her father was preparing for another burst, and interrupting the speaker with a smile, "I shall undoubtedly expect you to give occasion for some second display of my heroism, by leaping into the brook again, as soon as you have recovered your strength. You have indeed lowered my own vain estimate of the obligation conferred, by showing how much I was the cause of your misfortune; and I now perceive, that I shall not have entirely atoned for my fault, until you are wholly restored to health. Allow me therefore to work out my pardon, by assuming the character of a mentor and governess.--You are yet unfit for the toils of a courtier, and the exertions of the visit have already exhausted your strength. I must command you back to your chamber, to rest and recruit your spirits; and to-morrow, if Dr. Merribody consents to such unusual grace, I will perhaps permit you to enjoy another half-hour of liberty.--You must obey me, Mr. Hunter; my father is a soldier; and, in his house, you are under martial law."

The painter would willingly have disputed the orders of the 'Lieutenant-commandant,' (for such Captain Loring, transported with her military spirit, immediately pronounced his daughter to be,) but Miss Loring spoke as if she had assumed the command in earnest; and Hunter admired how so much firmness could be expressed with so much pleasantry, and how both these qualities could be mingled in the same spirit with the maidenly gentleness becoming her youthful age. But, indeed, the young lady had found it convenient to put on both the former appearances, to terminate an interview irksome to herself, and perhaps prejudicial to the convalescent; for no sooner had he taken his leave, and her father with him, than she immediately walked into the garden, the supervision of which was the chief delight, and indeed passion, of her existence, and, sitting down under an arbour of honey-suckle and trumpet-flowers, indulged herself in a long fit of weeping.