Kate Aylesford: A Story of the Refugees

by Charles J. Peterson

The angry lover felt that he could not return to the Forks as yet, where prying eyes might read his mortification, so he turned into a cross-road, which led into the heart of the wilderness, and, giving the rein to Selim, galloped till the panting beast was covered once more with foam. In this rapid motion the turbulence of his soul gradually found a partial vent. The first blind impulse of outraged love passed away, and he began to scrutinize the facts with comparative calmness.

He went over, mentally, the whole of the last fortnight. He recalled every word, gesture and look of Kate. Something almost like a groan burst from him, as he admitted to himself, after this review, that she had never given him cause to indulge the wild hopes he had entertained that morning. She had invariably been affable. But a woman in love, he had heard, was shy and timorous. She had boldly controverted his opinions, when they differed from her own. But if she had secretly loved him, she would have implicitly adopted them. Major Gordon reasoned in this way, not from experience, for he had never before been in love, and had enjoyed comparatively little female society, but from what he had read of the passion, in its effect on the sex, in the romances of the day: Clarissa Harlowe, Amelia, Tom Jones, and Sir Charles Grandison. It is no demerit, we hope, even in these days, for an honest man to be practically ignorant about such matters, when there is no way in which he can be informed, except by trifling with the happiness of trusting innocence.

Nor was this all. Kate’s social position, her large fortune, and the hereditary loyalty of her family, now rose before him, the barriers they really were to a union with a rebel officer, who had no income but that derived from his sword. Instead of repeating the charge of coquetry against Kate, he owned to himself that she had been frank throughout; for a new light was thrown upon him, in reference to their conversations respecting rank and descent. She had evidently intended, he saw, to put him upon his guard. “Into what a bit of folly has not my vanity led me,” he cried.

The day was drawing to its close before he returned to the Forks. As he emerged from the denser forest, he discovered that the obscuration in the sky, which he had noticed for some time, and which he had thought was smoke from the conflagration, was in reality a thunder-storm coming up. He quickened his pace at this, and reached his quarters just in time to escape a drenching.

For half the night he walked his chamber, his mood of mind alternating, as that of lovers will under similar circumstances. Now the first angry impulse against Kate would return. Now he would exonerate her from all intentional coquetry. Now he would recall her glance in the forest, when both considered death inevitable, and decide that there was some mystery, which, if understood, would explain satisfactorily her subsequent conduct.

In this mood he retired to bed. The rain still continued. It had been falling in torrents the whole evening, the huge drops rattling on the roof like shot. The water splashed like a small cataract, as it ran off from the eaves. The great buttonwoods about the house creaked in the gale; and the river, which ran close by, surged along with a wild, mournful sound, at times rising to a sullen roar, as if threatening a freshet. Amid such noises our hero fell asleep.

When he woke, the storm had ceased, the sun was shining brightly, and the birds sang as merrily as on a morning in spring. It was Sunday. The usual busy hum of the Forks was hushed, and everything breathed a Sabbath silence, made more eloquent by contrast with the tumult and rage of the preceding night. Not a leaf stirred; a thousand diamonds sparkled in the grass; the air was full of balm; and all was still, save the sound of a hymn that rose from a neighboring cottage, whose family was at morning worship. The sweet influences of the hour, combined with his late sleep, made Major Gordon heartily ashamed of his angry mood of yesterday. “What if Mr. Aylesford is preferred to me,” he said. “Is that a reason why I should seek his blood? It is nobler to forgive than to resent.”

In this mood he prepared to attend church. It was the first Sunday that services had been held since his arrival at the Forks; for, at that time, Sweetwater had no regular minister, but was compelled to rely on chance itinerants. The Methodist connexion, always a missionary church, but never more so than at that period, was then just beginning the great work, which has made it since such a bulwark of morality and religion in this republic. A new preacher, who had never visited the district, was to conduct the services.

The Major reached the edifice early. But the excitement of a strange minister and of the conflagration of yesterday had already collected an unusual crowd, at least for the period; for half the male population was absent in consequence of the war. Having tied his horse, as the rest had done, to the bough of a tree, our hero joined the principal group. He heard, as he had expected, that the storm had extinguished the fire, which otherwise, it was declared, might have swept the whole region, “down to Waldo itself,” as one of the men said.

While they were talking, Uncle Lawrence came up. It gratified Major Gordon to see the respect, almost reverence, in which the veteran was held. The conversation still continued to turn on the fire.