CHAPTER VIII.

Run! run! run! Quickly for a surgeon! Call watch, constable! raise the hue and cry! What's to be done? Why the devil don't you stir, John? This way, that way, every body fly! DON GIOVANNI.

Thus ended the sketch of a story, imperfect, perhaps tedious and unsatisfactory, but still a necessary preliminary to the series of events that completes the tradition. A mere womanly curiosity was perhaps at the bottom of the nobler feeling with which Miss Falconer sought to excuse to herself the impropriety of urging the relation. From the first to the last, it was meted out to her reluctantly; and nothing but the command she had long since obtained over a character less firm and decided than her own, could have persuaded the Captain's daughter to breathe a syllable of it into ears, which, she could not but feel, ought not to be opened to it. Miss Falconer had, moreover, overrated her powers of scepticism; she had provoked the story, as men commonly provoke an argument,--that is, with a resolution not to be convinced; but like the logician, in many instances, when the discussion is over, her incredulity was sorely, though secretly, shaken, and nothing but her pride and strength of character checked the humiliating avowal. Some circumstances a delicate consideration for the feelings of her friend, and an unconquerable repugnance to speak more on the subject than could not be avoided, had prevented the Captain's daughter from relating. These would have thrown a still darker stain upon the character of Colonel Falconer. There was enough, however, said, to force one disagreeable conviction upon Harriet's mind; and this was, that, if her parent were even as guiltless of ingratitude and wrong as her fondest wishes would have him, calumny had, at least in one secluded corner of the world, sealed him with the opprobrium of a villain. It was a sore addition also to her discomfort, that her penetrating mind discovered how deeply her kinswoman was affected by the hateful history: if she doubted, she did not doubt strongly. Vexed, humbled, displeased with herself and with Catherine, she rose from the rocky shelf, on which both had seated themselves when Catherine resumed the story, and prepared to leave the scene, equally mournful and unpleasant, when an incident occurred, which at once gave a new turn to her feelings.

The Captain's daughter had observed the look of dissatisfaction, and anticipated the movement, by rising herself, to lead the way to the bridge. As she started up hastily, her hat, which she had loosened from her forehead, to enjoy the evening breeze, now puffing among the flowers, fell from her head, and her beautiful countenance and golden ringlets were fully exposed. She raised her hands, naturally enough, to catch the falling hat, and thus assumed an attitude, of which she was herself unconscious, but which, to one spectator at least, had a character apparently menacing and forbidding. This spectator was no less a person than the young painter, who had rambled up the stream, and was now making his way across the sycamore, to obtain a view of the cascade, entirely ignorant of the presence of such visiters; for while they maintained their seats, their persons were concealed behind the low wall, and their voices drowned by the murmur of the water-fall.

A sudden exclamation, loud enough to be heard over this lulling din, drew Catherine's attention to the bridge; and there, to her extreme surprise, she beheld the young stranger struggling among the branches, as if he had lost his footing, while all the time, his eyes, instead of being employed in the more needful duty of looking to himself, were fixed upon her with an air of the most unaccountable wonder and alarm. The next instant, she beheld him, to her own infinite horror, fall from the tree, just as Harriet, starting up after her friend, had also caught sight of the strange spectacle. Both beheld the unlucky youth drop through the boughs, and both at once anticipated the most dreadful termination to such a misadventure; for a pitch over the cascade among the savage rocks below, could scarcely be less than fatal. The very instant she saw that the young man had lost his footing, Catherine uttered a loud scream, and then, driven onwards by an irresistible impulse, darted towards the river, to render him what aid she could. As for Miss Falconer, the shock had deprived her of her self-possession, and her tongue clove to her mouth with terror. She neither screamed nor rushed forwards to give aid, until her lethargy was dispelled by a distant voice, that suddenly echoed the scream of Catherine:

"Hark ye, Kate, you jade! hark ye, Kate, my dear Kate! my beloved Kate! what's the matter? I'm coming! I'll murder the villain! I'm coming, Kate!"

There was no mistaking the tones of Captain Loring, even altered as they were by anxiety and vociferation; and Miss Falconer recognising them, screamed out, "Quick, uncle, quick! for heaven's sake, quick!" and ran to the side of her friend.

The torrent, leaping along like a mill-race for the little distance that intervened betwixt the treacherous bridge and the fall, had immediately swept the young man from his feet; and as Catherine bounded to the verge, flinging out, with as much daring as presence of mind, the scarf of Harriet, which she had instinctively snatched up, in hope that he might seize it, she saw him swept by her like a feather in a whirlwind, and instantly hurried over the falls. The spectacle was really terrific; and as Miss Falconer caught sight of the dreary figure--the outstretched arm and the despairing countenance, revealed for one moment, as some rocky obstruction on the very brink of the cascade lifted the body half from the flood, and then instantly plunged it out of view--she lost what little courage remained, and was no longer capable of yielding the slightest assistance. If such was her overpowering terror, it might have been supposed that the Captain's daughter, who, whatever the vivacity and quickness of her mind, possessed little of the boldness of spirit that characterized her friend, would have been reduced to a state of imbecility still more benumbing and helpless. But this youthful girl concealed within the cells of a heart all of feeble flesh, a principle of feeling that could upon occasions, though she knew it not herself, nerve the throbbing organ into steel; and, at such times, if her brain was confounded, impulse governed her actions with an influence more useful, because more instant of operation.

Dreadful, therefore, as was the spectacle of the youth dashed down the abyss under her eyes, and almost in reach of her arm, she did not pause, like Harriet, to scream after the Captain, who was undoubtedly drawing nigh, and at an unusual pace; but leaving this to be done by her companion, she ran down the rocks that led to the base of the fall, and the next moment Harriet beheld her rush boldly into the water. The instant she reached the basin at the foot of the cascade, which was broken by rocks, black and slippery from the eternal spray, she caught sight of the body--for such it seemed--rolling in the flood where it boiled over a ridgy mole in a sheet of foam. It was scarce two paces from the bank, and though the torrent gushed over the rock with great impetuosity, it was shallow, at least in the nearer portion; and, unless too rash and daring, there was little danger she could be herself swept over the ledge among the deep and dangerous eddies below. She stepped therefore upon the rock as far as she durst, and stretching out her hand, succeeded in grasping the insensible figure, as it was whirling over at a deeper place and in a fiercer current. All her strength, however, availed nothing further than to arrest the body where it was; and she must have speedily released her hold, or been swept with it herself from the ledge, when a new auxiliary, attracted by the same cries that had alarmed Captain Loring, came unexpectedly to her assistance, crackling through the bushes, and bounding over the rocks on the opposite side of the pool, which was a wilderness of rock and swamp. No sooner had this personage beheld her situation, than he ran a little lower down, where the stream was again contracted, sprang across from rock to rock, and immediately darted to her side. With one hand he dragged--or, to speak more strictly, he flung her, (for his actions were none of the gentlest,)--out of the water; and with the other, he lifted the unlucky painter from the torrent, and bore him to the bank, saying, as he laid him at the maiden's feet, in a voice none of the mildest in the world,

"Why, here's fine sport for a May-day, and a rough end to a fool's frolic! How many more of you must I fish up?"

By this time the gallant Captain Loring, urged by anxiety for his daughter, (not knowing that the danger concerned another,) into a speed that he had not attempted for twenty-five years, made his appearance at the top of the fall, and seeing her stand shivering with fright over what she esteemed a dead body,--for the painter showed not a single sign of life,--with a stranger of questionable appearance at her side, he burst into a roar of passion, crying, "Hark ye, you vagabond villain! if you touch my girl"--when his rage was put to flight by Miss Falconer suddenly finding tongue, and exclaiming, "He has saved the poor youth's life;--that is, Kate saved him, and this man helped her. I never was more frightened in my life! Let us go down, uncle--I fear the young man is hurt."

Meanwhile, Catherine, whose courage and presence of mind had almost deserted her, so soon as she beheld the young man safe ashore, being roused by the rough accents of the stranger, and the death-like appearance of the youth, exclaimed, in tones of entreaty, for the man had turned away, as if to depart,

"Do not go.--Alas! you came too late! Help us yet a little, or the poor youth will die where he is. Pray, hold up his head--indeed, he is very much hurt!"

"Hurt! To be sure he is," cried the stranger, with infinite coolness, bordering upon a sort of savage contempt, or at least disregard, of the miserable spectacle, "knocked as clean on the head as if a refugee had been at him. So, d'ye hear, my young madam, there's no great need of troubling yourself more about him; and here come enough of your good folk to groan over him. As for me, I have no time for moaning. If you want help, just scream over again; and, I reckon, you'll have the whole road at your elbow."

Catherine had herself performed the office of humanity she had so vainly asked of the stranger; she stooped down, and beckoning to her father and Harriet, who were descending the rocks, to hasten their steps, she raised up the painter's head, and endeavoured, with a faltering hand, to loosen the neckcloth from his throat. Struck by expressions so rude and unfeeling, she looked up for a moment, and for the first time took hasty note of the person and lineaments of her preserver. He was a man of middle age,--perhaps forty or more, with a long shirt or frock of coarse linen thrown over his other garments, and a broad-brimmed, round-crowned, slouching hat, like the favourite _sombrero_ of the Spanish islands, which was, however, painted of a fiery red, and varnished, so as to resist the rain. His stature was not considerable, nor was his appearance very muscular, yet he had given proof of no mean strength in the ease with which he dragged the painter and herself from the water. His countenance, without being coarse or ugly, had yet a repulsive character, derived in part from several scars, the marks of violent blows from sabres or other weapons, one of which seemed to have destroyed his right eye, for it was bound round with a handkerchief; but perhaps the forbidden air was rather given by the savage fire that glimmered in the other, and the perpetual frown that contracted his brows. His hair was grizzled, and fell in a long lock over either dark and bony cheek. His mouth was particularly stern, grim, menacing, and even malevolent of character,--or so the Captain's daughter thought. All these things Catherine observed in a moment; yet, however unfavourably impressed by them, she could not refrain from again imploring his assistance, saying, with the most earnest accents,

"If you be a Christian man, do not leave us. We are none here but two feeble women, and an infirm old man; and before we can procure assistance, the young gentleman may perish. We will thank you,--we will reward"----

"Good heavens!" cried Miss Falconer, who had now reached the foot of the rocks, and beheld the pale and bleeding visage that Catherine so falteringly supported, "he is dying!"

"Dying! Who's dying?" echoed the Captain, limping up to the group; "Adzooks; what! my painter? my handsome young dog, that was to paint me my son Tom Loring? my Harman What-d'ye-call-it from Elsie Bell's? Hark ye, Mr. Red-hat, or whatever your name is, I intended to arrest you on suspicion----Adzooks, I believe the young dog's dead! He looks amazingly like my son Tom. Hark ye, Mr. Harmer What-d'ye-call-it, how do you feel? Why, adzooks, he's clean gone!--Hark ye, Mister Red-head, fetch him up the rocks----We'll carry him to the Folly."

While the Captain thus poured forth his mingled wonder and lamentation, a surprising change came over the visage of the stranger. He no sooner understood from the mention of the lodging-place and profession of the young man, that he did not belong to the party before him, and had therefore no greater claim upon their humanity than on his, than he at once dropped his rude and disregardful air, saying, as he released the others from the care of supporting the wounded unfortunate,

"I am neither stock nor stone; but I thought you had idlers enough to bury your own dead. And so the younker is a stranger to you? a bird of old Elsie's, and none of your own roost? And this young lady was trying to save his life? I beg your pardon, if I have been rough with you, young madam."--He pronounced these words with a tone mild, and almost regretful; then turning to the Captain, he resumed, "Well, Captain Loring, for I believe that's your name,--what shall we do with this broken-headed fool? You see, here's an arm broke, and a gash on the head that might do credit to a tomahawk! How shall we get him to Elsie Bell's? I can carry him, sure enough--but 'tis a long mile off.----And then for a doctor? Here's a shoulder slipped, Captain. The fool! that must tumble down this dog-hole water-fall! Captain, you have servants and horses--you must send for a doctor.--Poor boy, how he groans!"

"Hark ye, Mr. Red-head," said Captain Loring, "we will carry him to the Folly, and cure him like a Christian. Just get him up these rocks here, and I'll give a lift myself; and hark ye, Mr. Read-head"----

"But the doctor, Captain? the doctor?" cried the stranger.

"He is at the house!" cried Catherine, eagerly. "We saw him ride there ourselves!"

"Adzooks! to be sure he is! so Sam told me! What a fool I was to forget it!" exclaimed the Captain. "Come along, up the rocks, double-quick step--march!"

The eyes of the stranger sparkled at the announcement of surgical assistance being so unexpectedly close at hand; for he seemed to have conceived as sudden a liking to the luckless painter as had the Captain himself. He raised him tenderly, and with singular ease, from the ground, and without a moment's delay, clambered up the rocky path that led to the platform. Then striding rapidly to the treacherous bridge, though encumbered by a burthen at once so inconvenient and piteous, he crossed it with a better fate than had distinguished the attempt of the painter, and, almost before the others had reached the deserted grave, was making his way over the shaded path at a pace that soon promised to carry him out of sight.

"Haste, father, dear father!" cried Catherine, to whom the terrible scene of peril and suffering she had witnessed and almost shared, had given a new energy, and, indeed, a new nature; "haste, or the man will miss the path, and the young gentleman die. Or stay--I will climb the hill here, and run to the house for assistance, and Harriet will walk faster, and point out the way."

"The path is broad, the wild fellow pursues it," cried Miss Falconer, giving the veteran the impulse of her own activity. "What could have brought the young man to the brook? What could have brought this wild barbarian? Nay, uncle, what could have brought yourself?"

"Sam told me," muttered Captain Loring; and of a thousand broken and confused expressions that now fell from his lips, all that the maidens could understand, as they hurried him along, was that he had met one of his labourers at the park-gate, who had seen them take refuge in the wood, and was then engaged catching their ponies, which were running wildly about,--that he had instantly left his carriage, and was seeking them along the stream, when he heard the shriek of his daughter. Something else of much more importance, he seemed labouring to give utterance to; and this being nothing less than the fearful intelligence in relation to Colonel Falconer, which he knew not how to impart, his mind became so confounded betwixt fear of its effect upon the lady, indignation at the outrage, and the thousand other emotions which were distracting his breast, that the more he essayed to speak, the more mysterious became his expressions; so that the whole group had reached the door of the mansion, before a single suspicion of his object had entered the mind of either Miss Falconer or her friend. He mingled the oft-repeated name of her father with that of the dreaded Gilberts, and this again with Tom Loring's, and the painter's; now he burst into a frenzy of apprehension lest Catherine, whose garments were dripping with wet, and, in one or two places, spotted with blood from the wounds of Herman, should have suffered as many hurts as the youth himself, and now he fell into lamentations over the loss of 'that grand picture of Tom Loring dying!' which, it seemed not altogether improbable, death might prevent the poor painter ever attempting.

But if the Captain brought confusion with him to the mansion, it was evident, at the first glance Miss Falconer had of it, that the deranging fiend had been there before him, and still kept possession. The sun was then setting--a multitude of persons, old and young, sallow and sable, were bustling about in the shadows of the porch, some running to and fro with burthens in their hands, others shouting and screaming, or staring about them in speechless wonder; the carriage stood at the door, the ancient charioteer sitting whip in hand, as if expecting orders to start at a moment's warning, while a smart mulatto in livery was engaged strapping a portmanteau behind it. Horses, saddled and bridled, were hitched to trees, or held by servants; dogs were barking; pigeons flying about; and in a word, it seemed as if the inhabitants of the Folly, male and female, human and animal, were one and all preparing, in some ecstasy of confusion, to desert its troubled walls.

"In the name of heaven, uncle! what means all this?" cried Miss Falconer, recognising in the livery-servant a personal attendant of her own father, and in the portmanteau which he was fastening to the carriage, one of the repositories of her own womanly vanities.

Before the Captain could answer a word, the confusion was doubly confounded by the clatter of hoofs, and in an instant two horsemen in military apparel, came thundering up the avenue, as if the lives of a community depended upon their speed.

"My brother Henry, as I live!" cried the lady, starting forward. "Captain, what _is_ the matter? Brother! heavens, brother! what can all this mean?"

At this, one half of the human elements of the chaos lifted up their voices, and groaned aloud, "Oh, the Gilberts! the bloody Gilberts!"

"Sister!" cried the foremost of the young soldiers, flinging himself from his steed, catching Miss Falconer in his arms, and speaking with a manner strangely compounded of horror and merriment,--"they have been at dad again! but don't fall into a fit--there's no murder this time! no, egad, only a few scratches. Don't be alarmed.--Ah, Miss Loring! my dear Miss Catherine!--you look dreadful pale--don't be frightened--beg pardon for coming in such a condition. Heard of it, Harry?--(my friend, Brooks,--Lieutenant Brooks, of the troop)--knew they'd send for you,--bent out of course--deflected, made a _detour_, as we say,--to fetch you. Not a moment to lose--must be in town by sunrise, if horse-flesh can carry us.--How d'ye do, Captain? All ready for marching?"

"Yes, all ready," said the Captain, recovering his tongue. "Don't be afraid, Harriet, my dear--Kate, bid your cousin good-bye. No great harm done,--only a little flesh wound that you can stitch up with your needle--by the lord, that's all! Must send you away--father sent a message after you--must have you to nurse him. Be a good girl, don't cry; 't an't all bad wounds do damage; saw many tomahawk-slashes at the fatal field of Braddock, and some got well. Tell the Colonel I'll be down to see him, and hope to fetch the assassin along."

"The assassin, Captain?" cried the young officer, as he leaped upon his horse, his sister having been already, almost without any exercise of her own will, thrust into the carriage, and the door secured. "Quick, Phil, you scoundrel, will you never have done strapping?--The assassin, Captain! oh yes, the assassin!--Remember the description--tall man, lantern-jawed, white horse, with a dappled near fore-leg, a black coat, and preaches!"

"Hah!" cried Captain Loring, with a shout of triumph, "saw the rascal, and meant to arrest him, but couldn't stand his sermons! I couldn't, by the lord!--Your horse, Phil! your horse! doctor, I'll take yours!--Whoop, Harry, you dog! down to the old witch's, and we'll nab him yet!"

While the Captain gave utterance to these expressions, he seized upon the nearest horse, and mounted him--a feat, that nothing but the frenzy of his enthusiasm could have urged him to attempt; for his infirmity had almost altogether incapacitated him from riding, save at the gentlest pace. But the recollection of the zealous Nehemiah, the assassin of his friend, now sheltered under a roof that he fancied, in the ardour of the moment, he could almost touch with his hand--and that holy impostor a villain so notorious and redoubted as the chief Hawk of the Hollow!--the fiery conception scattered his years and infirmities to the winds, and in an instant he was astride the beast of mettle, galloping over the park at full speed, followed by the two soldiers, as soon as they comprehended the meaning of his words--by the coach, which the venerable Richard set in motion upon an impulse of his own--and by some half a dozen of the male loungers, some on foot, some on horse, and all fired with the prospect of capturing a foe so famous and so deeply abhorred.

The pale gibbering ghosts, that start in affright at the magical alarum of the early chanticleer, could not have vanished from their doleful divan with a more impetuous haste, than did full two-thirds of those human beings from the mansion, who had given such life to it a moment before. In an instant, as it seemed, the hall was left to solitude; and the rough stranger, who still sustained the mangled frame of the painter, and had stood staring in astonishment at a scene so unexpected and confounding, had some reason to fear he was left to relieve the sufferings of his charge as he could, and to relieve them alone. A dark frown gathered over his visage, as he beheld the crowd rush away almost without bestowing a look upon his piteous burthen, or upon him; and he was about to mutter his indignation aloud, when it was pacified by a husky voice exclaiming in his ear,

"Hum, hah! bless my soul! what, drowned, eh? is the gentleman drowned? a case of suspended animation?--Hillo, Jingleum, stop! Come back, Pepperel! 'Pon my soul, 'tis the identical red-jacket we saw at the Rest! Why, what the devil's all this?--Beg pardon, Miss Loring!--Bless my soul, I hope you ain't hurt? Blood about your sleeve, and look very pale and nervous! A little wine, with"----

"Think not of me, doctor," replied Catherine. "Attend to the young gentleman. This dreadful surprise and the hurry of my father--it will explain all, and excuse all. Aunt Rachel will show you a chamber: command every thing--every thing shall be done that you order. Hasten, doctor, pray hasten, and relieve the young gentleman's sufferings. Gentlemen, pray give your assistance to this good man, and heaven--yes, heaven will crown your exertions with success!"

With these hurried expressions, and still more earnest gestures, the young lady gave an impulse to the group now gathered about the wounded man, and he was immediately carried into the house and out of her sight.

"Oh, Miss Katy,--beg pardon--that's to say, Miss Catherine," cried a buxom, blubbering damsel, whose quavering treble had borne a distinguished part in the late din of voices, and who had no sooner laid eyes on the young lady, which she did as soon as the tumult was over, than she ran bustling hysterically to her side,--"never saw you in such a pucker! hope we shan't all be murdered. Such dreadful contractions were never heard of--great big hole in your sleeve--the Gilberts all come to life again, and will murder us as sure as we live!"

"Be quiet, Phoebe--come with me to my chamber--I don't think he will die!"

"Hope not, Miss Katy,--that's Miss Catherine; but they shot him right through the head with a blunderbush, and slashed him to pieces with a baggonet. Oh, the cruel murderers! And Philip, the yellow boy, says----Lor' 'a' mercy! Miss Katy, what's the matter?"

"I am sick, Phoebe, very sick--it will be over directly. Don't call your mother--don't disturb any one; let them stay with the young gentleman."

With great difficulty, assisted by the girl, whose station in the house, without being altogether so exalted as that of an humble companion, was yet, at least in her own estimation, far removed from that of a menial--the young lady made her way to her apartment; when the impulse that had supported her energies through a scene of distress for so long a time, passed away, and was succeeded by prostration both of mind and body--by shuddering chills and assaults of partial insensibility, that terminated in fits of weeping, and these again in deep dejection of spirits, such as of late years had been a more prevailing characteristic than any other.