Meantime the ship was being unloaded. Trunks and packages, marked by the stranger's name, somewhat ostentatiously it would seem, were conveyed from its cabin to the farm-house. With this luggage came half a dozen great boxes, clamped with iron and securely fastened, which astonished Jason Brown by their heaviness.
These boxes, according to his promise given the dark-browed stranger, whom he had guided to his own house, Jason Brown stowed away in his barn, covering them carefully with hay; for there was a mystery in their weight which made him anxious, and he concealed them conscientiously, marvelling what they contained and who their owner could be.
At last the strange lady grew restive in the close confinement of that little room. She arose on the third morning and prepared to dress herself. She was seized with a desire to go out into the new world, to learn what it had of good or evil in store for her. Still she dreaded to look forth and see that great monster ocean which had hurled her to and fro upon the fearful heave of its waves that terrible night. She had been here received on that shore with a tempest that had almost swallowed her up in its angry whirlpools. No wonder that she was filled with vague dread, and hesitated to look out of the window, which, curtained with morning-glory vines, framed in a splendid view of the ocean.
For a time she stood trembling on the floor, half from weakness, half from an uncontrollable dread of leaving the quiet pillow on which supreme fatigue had made her slumber sweet. She glanced at the open sash, through which the sunshine of a lovely summer morning trembled. She saw the purple bells of the morning-glory vines swaying to and fro in the soft wind that came sighing up from the water, while drops of dew fell in glittering rain from the heart-shaped leaves. Alone and beyond all this came the gushing song of birds, as it were hailing her with sweet welcomes.
Every thing out of doors seemed so bright that Barbara Stafford grew strong and almost cheerful. She was now eager to go forth and breathe the fresh air.
Out of the baggage brought from the vessel she drew forth a dark brocaded silk, adorned at the neck and sleeves with delicate lace. In this she proceeded to dress herself, quite unconscious that its richness was out of keeping with either the scene or her present habitation. It was the costume of a highly bred gentlewoman of her own country, and from mere habit she put it on.
The exertion brought a beautiful color to her cheeks. She leaned from the window and looked out fearlessly on the great ocean which had so lately threatened her life. It lay before her now like a vast field of azure, turning the sunshine into opals. Spite of herself she turned from its treacherous loveliness with a shudder.
Blessed or cursed—I know not which to call it—with that exquisite delicacy of sense which makes the most brilliant mind at times almost a slave of the material, she detected among all the perfumes of neighboring woods the faint fragrance of a sweetbriar that had tangled itself with the morning-glories, and blossomed with them. She recognized the perfume. Her quick mind seized upon this as an omen.
Strangely arrayed, it must be confessed, for that simple old homestead, Barbara Stafford went through the kitchen, which was, for the moment, empty, and wandered around an angle of the house where the morning sunshine lay warmly upon an old stone bench half buried in the grass.
Here she sat down, for the exertion of dressing had wearied her. The air was sweet and balmy, just brightened with a breeze from the distant sea, and a pretty little opening of cultivated fields, separated from her by a rail fence, lay dreamily at her left.