“No, you must not do that, Rose. The woods are damp, and the evening air chill. And, now I think of it, this cabin will be too cool for you, with this draught through the open windows. Let’s see if we cannot do something with them. If you had anything to tack up against them, Rosalie?”
She went to a box and took out two sheets, each of which, doubled, was tacked against a window, and because the breeze still lifted them, a few tacks were driven in the sides and bottoms of these temporary blinds, to keep them down. Having finished that job, Mark pulled down and buttoned his wristbands, put on his coat, kissed Rosalie, bade her keep up her heart, for that he should be back at ten, or a little after, and departed. She stood at the door, watching him, until he disappeared within the intervening trees, and then she turned and entered the darkening house.
Did Mark Sutherland—did Rosalie—dream of all that should happen before they should meet again? Did either imagine the grim horror of the next few hours? It was a night that one of them never, in after life, forgot—whose fearful memory haunted thoughts by day, and visions by night, when the dreamer would start from sleep, and, with convulsive shivers and cold perspiration, gaze around in terror that could not be reassured.
CHAPTER XXII.
A NIGHT OF FEAR.
Rosalie entered the house, and shut the door behind her. It was very dark, for twilight had departed, and the moon had not yet arisen. Although the door and windows were closed, the room was still sufficiently cool, and Rosalie might have remained pleasantly seated in her sole rocking-chair, and wrapped in reverie, through all the lonely hours until her husband should return, but for one trifling circumstance; trifling in itself, yet fraught with the most appalling danger, and the most ghastly consequences. The fresh carnal smell of that quarter of newly-killed beef that lay across the top of the barrel, only lightly covered over with the table-cloth, began to fill the closed room, and soon became intolerable to Rosalie’s fine senses.
For the sake of fresh, pure air, she went and opened the door, and sat down upon the door step. There she sat, gazing into the dark mysterious depths of the forest, or up to the deep blue, starlit sky, listening to the chirp of the field-cricket, the grass-hopper, and the katydid, those merry little night warblers, who begin their concerts when the birds have finished theirs—and remembering all her past life, enjoying her present, and dreaming and hoping of the future. She thought of her palace home, where, circled with affection, she had still wandered with a strange unrest, and wasted with a vague longing; she thought of her present home, as poor, as humble, as rude, as it well could be, yet yielding a fulness of content—of measureless content—that filled her heart to overflowing with gratitude and love to God for the joy and peace that abounded. And she thought of their future; it might bring toil, privation, penury, disappointment, and death, but it could not deprive her of the jewel of her soul, LOVE. That word—that idea—was still the centre of her soul’s circle, around which thought and feeling still revolved. She sank into a dim, delicious reverie, and, wrapped in blissful dreams, the world around her disappeared. The cheerful chirp of the crickets and the katydids was no longer heard—the deep blue, starlit sky no longer watched—the dark, mysterious forest, with its ever untrodden depths, no longer seen. She was like a slumberer “smiling as in delightful visions, on the brink of a dread chasm.” There was a far-off, light, multitudinous tramp, like the patter of distant rain-drops. She knew it not, she heard it not. “Senseless as the dead was she, to all around, beneath, above.” Senseless as the dead—aye, senseless as the dead—to the near approach of a dreadful death! Oh, surely this was not her unguarded hour! She would not be left to perish in her youth and beauty—to perish while wrapped in her visions of love and devotion. Oh, surely her guardian angel must have been at his post. He was! For, as she sat there in the door, her thin white dress distinct in the darkness, her fair pale face bowed on her hand, and her beautiful light hair damp with dew—a shudder thrilled her frame. She arose, and, shivering with a damp chillness, retired into the house; but before she shut the door, she turned her eyes once more from earth to sky, and—
“It is a most beautiful night,” she said; “a lovely night, ‘not made for sleep.’”
A singular low noise caught her ear, and ceased.
“That sounds like a sudden fall of rain stopped,” she said, and paused to listen. Not hearing the noise again, she closed the door; and without in the least degree intending to do it, quite mechanically she did the wisest thing that could have been done. She barred the door, and then she seated herself once more in the rocking-chair. The room was intensely dark. The faint light that stole in at the sheeted window only seemed a thinner blackness. She sat gently rocking to and fro, and gradually relapsing into reverie.
It was soon rudely broken through. Still like the sudden heavy fall of rain-drops on forest leaves, multitudinous footsteps thronged pattering around the cabin—pawing at its walls! Startled, astonished, yet not alarmed, Rosalie listened. Then a low ground swell of a growl arose, murmuring on the air, and thrilling every nerve with awe. It was low, deep, and threatening, as the thrilling bass string of the harpsichord when rudely swept by some idler’s hand. Rosalie stood up; and, resting her hand upon the rocking-chair, listened more intently. The sound ceased—all was still as death. She crept cautiously to the window, and, pulling aside slightly the edge of the sheet-blind, where it was tacked to the side of the frame, she looked out. The night was deeply dark, though the sky was still studded with stars—the ground was also lighted with stars—twin stars, scattered all about. At first sight she took these for lightning-bugs; but, as she gazed, she knew them to be the phosphoric, excited eyes of couchant wild beasts. And, at the same instant that she made this appalling discovery, the whole pack burst, in full cry, upon the cabin, tearing at the walls, and howling furiously with hunger, rage, and frantic desire. Rosalie tottered back to her chair, and sank into it. The whole horrible truth, in all its detail of cause, effect, and consequence, burst with overwhelming force upon her senses. It was a pack of hungry wolves!—the same pack that the Indian hunters had pursued into the neighbourhood of Shelton—the same pack that had been the terror of the settlement since their discovery near it. They had been drawn to the cabin by the scent of blood from the newly-killed beef, and there was no light in the house to fright them off. Sick—oh, sick, and nearly swooning with deadly terror—Rosalie still charged her soul “to hold her body strengthened” for the crisis.