Love's labor won

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

This was the last letter that Mrs. Helmstedt received for many months; but she sent on and ordered the principal Northern papers, that she might be kept advised of the progress of the campaign.

Alas! little but continuous disaster signalized this opening of the war; repeated rebuffs, varied by small successes, and climaxing in the defeat of Hull, and the loss of Detroit, with all Michigan territory. These calamities, while they shocked, aroused the temperate blood of all those laggards at home, who, until now, had looked on philosophically, while others went forth to fight.

Colonel Houston applied for orders, and old Colonel Compton sat in his leathern armchair, and swore at the gouty limb that unfitted him for service. At length the news of the disastrous defeat of Van Rennselaer, on the fourth of October, followed by his resignation of the command reached them. And when General Smythe, of Virginia, was appointed to fill his post, Colonel Houston received orders to join the latter, and proceed with him to the Northern frontier.

Ralph Houston was most anxious to enter upon the service; but at the earnest entreaty of his father, reluctantly consented to remain, for awhile, at the Bluff, for the protection of the family left behind.

Mrs. Houston accompanied her husband as far as Buffalo, where she remained to be in easy reach of him.

At the Bluff were left old Colonel and Mrs. Compton (“a comfortable couple,” who were always, and especially now, in their quiet old age, company enough for each other), and Ralph Houston as a caretaker.

At the lonely isle were left Mrs. Helmstedt and her daughter. And very desolate would the lady have been, only for the presence of her “dove.” Very monotonously passed the winter days on the sea-girt isle. No visitors came, and the mail, bringing newspapers and an occasional letter from Captain Helmstedt, Mrs. Houston, or Franky, arrived only once a week; and not always then. But for the frequent society of Ralph Houston, who was almost an inmate of the family, the dreary life would have been almost insupportable to the mother and child. While they sat at needlework in Mrs. Helmstedt’s private room, he read to them through all the forenoon; or, if the sun was warm and the air balmy, as often happens in our Southern winters, he invited them out to walk over the isle; or when, in addition to warm sun and balmy air, there was still water, he prepared the little Pearl Shell, the gift of Franky to Margaret, and took the maiden across to the Bluff to visit the old people there. But as no persuasion would ever induce Mrs. Helmstedt to join them in these water trips, they were at last relinquished, or at least very seldom indulged in.

“Dear Margaret, I think your mother has a natural antipathy to water, has she not?” asked Ralph Houston, one day, of the girl.

“No, it is to leaving the isle; if my dear mamma was a Catholic, I should think she had taken a vow never to leave Helmstedt’s Isle. As it is, I am at a loss to know why she ever remains here, Mr. Houston.”

“I never remember to have seen her off the isle, since she came here. There must be a cause for her seclusion greater than any that appears,” thought Ralph Houston, as he handed Margaret into the little skiff, and threw his glance up to the house, where from the balcony of her chamber window Mrs. Helmstedt watched their departure from the shore. For this was upon one of those very rare occasions when they took a little water trip, leaving the lady alone on the isle. As he glanced up, Ralph thought Mrs. Helmstedt’s thin face more sunken, and her eyes more brilliant, than he had ever noticed them before; and for the first time the thought that death, speedy death, was awaiting that once glorious woman, smote him to the heart. They were not out long; even Mr. Houston now no longer pleaded with Margaret to remain out upon the water to see the wintry sunset; but followed her first hint to return. The winter evenings at the isle were pleasant with Ralph Houston for a guest. He read to the mother and daughter, while they sewed or sketched; and sometimes the three formed a little concert among themselves, Mrs. Helmstedt playing on the harp, Margaret on the piano, and Ralph Houston on the flute; and sometimes, that is to say, once a week, or seldomer, the mail came in, bringing its keen excitement; it always reached the isle on the evening of Saturday, when Ralph Houston was sure to remain to hear the latest news of the absent. Always there were newspapers, bringing fresh and startling news from the Canadian frontier, the Indian settlements, or from the ocean, where our infant navy, like young Hercules in his cradle, was strangling the serpents of wrong and oppression, and winning more glorious laurels than were lost upon the land. Sometimes, there came intelligence of a disastrous loss on the Northern frontier—sometimes, of a glorious victory at sea; but whether were the news of triumph or defeat, it ever roused Ralph Houston’s blood almost beyond the power of his control. He chafed and fretted like Marmion in Tantallon Hold.