The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

Dizzy and fascinated, I crept across the tent on my hands and knees, dragging the loose hay after me, and moaning softly with each strain upon my shrinking muscles, till I crept into the deep verdure. How softly the cool dew-drops rained over me as I lay down at length in the soft meadow grass. My face, my arms, and my little, burning feet were bathed as with new life. I lay still, and laughed with a glee that frightened up a lark from her nest close by. The young ones began to flutter, and piped forth their tiny music as if to comfort the lone child that had stolen to their home, still more helpless than themselves.

I swept my hand across the grass, gathering up the dew, which I drank greedily. Then I rolled over and over, bathing my feet and my garments till my face came on a level with the young larks. They uttered a cry, and opened their little golden throats as if for food. This brought the mother-bird back again, who circled over and over us, uttering her discontent in wild gushes of song. The flutter of her plumage between my eyes and the sun—the softened notes as she grew comforted by my stillness—the flutter that seemed half smothered in thistle-down still going on in the nest—the balmy air, the bath of dew—some, perhaps all of these things slaked the fire in my veins, and I fell asleep.

Did I dream? Had I wandered off again into delirium, or was the thing real? To this day I cannot tell; but as I lay in that meadow which bounded the wayside, a long funeral procession crept by me, fringing the meadow with blackness, and gliding away sadly, dreamily, toward a village church, whose spire cut between me and the sky.

Time went by like thistle-down upon the wind. The sky was purple above me. Thousands and thousands of great stars twinkled dreamily through the deep stillness. The dew lay upon me like a shower. I turned softly, and as I moved, the lark stirred above her young. My sleep had been so like death that the bird feared me no longer.

If I had a connected thought it was this—the lark had come back to her young; with her soft bosom she kept them from the damp and cold night air. I was young: it was night: the dew fell like rain: I had no strength to move. Where was my mother?

I could not answer the question; my brain was too feeble, and ached beneath the confused images that crowded upon it. The funeral train, ridges of snow, heaped-up stones, flashes of crimson, as if a red mantle were floating over me, disjointed fragments like these were all the answer that came back to my heart, as it drearily asked where am I? where is my mother?

Probably another day went by; I do not know, for a heavenly sleep settled on me. But at last—it must have been sometime near noon—I saw the lark settle down by her nest with some crumbs of bread in her bill. I watched the young ones as they greedily devoured it, and a craving desire for nourishment stole over me. I envied the little ragged birdlings, and wondered how they could be so greedy and so selfish.

The mother flew away again, and I watched her with longing eyes. She might take compassion on my hunger. Surely those greedy young ones had eaten enough. She would think of me now that they were satisfied. How eagerly I watched for some dark speck in the sky, some noise that should tell me of her return! She came at last, shooting through the atmosphere like an arrow. After whirling playfully over, and again above our heads, she settled down by her nest, and I saw that her bill was distended by a fine blackberry. The largest and sauciest young one, who always crowded his brethren down into the nest when food appeared, rose upward with a hungry flutter and held his open bill quivering just beneath the delicious berry.

My heart swelled. I uttered an eager cry, and flung out my hand. The lark, startled in affright, dropped the fruit, and it fell into my palm. What did I care for the angry cry of the old bird, or the commotion among her nestlings? The fruit was melting away—oh, how deliciously!—between my parched lips! When that was gone, I lifted my hands imploringly to the angry bird, and asked for more. She was all the friend I had, and it seemed as if she must understand my terrible want. She went away and returned; but oh, how my poor heart ached when she lighted, and with her eye turned saucily on me, dropped a grain or two of wheat for her young!

Tears crowded to my eyes. Who would aid me—so hungry, so miserable, such a little creature, more helpless than the birds of heaven, and they so pitiless? I turned my face away; the young larks had become detestable to me. I was tempted to hurt them, to dash my hand down into the nest and exterminate the whole brood; but the very thought exhausted me, and I began to weep again with faint sighs that would have been sobs of anguish but for my prostration.