Knew never shade of turning.”
More than fifteen months have elapsed since the close of the last chapter—months, replete with the destiny of nations as of individuals. First, the prospects of peace through the mediation of the Emperor of Russia, or by any other means, seemed indefinitely postponed. The desired return of the long-absent soldiers to their homes, was a distant and doubtful hope. The war continued to be prosecuted on both sides with unremitting animosity.
Cockburn was on the Chesapeake. Now I know not whether history has softened, or tradition exaggerated the fierceness, rapacity, and cruelty of this licensed pirate and his crew. History tells of quiet farmsteads razed to the ground and peaceful villages burned to ashes. Tradition speaks of individual instances of monstrous atrocity, that resulted in the madness or death of the innocent victim. But whatever may stand recorded in history, or be believed in distant regions, concerning the conduct of the British fleet in the Chesapeake—here on the scene of action, here along the shores and among the isles of the Bay, the memory of Rear Admiral Cockburn and his crew, is, justly or unjustly, loaded with almost preternatural abhorrence.
The villages of Havre de Grace, Frenchtown, Fredericktown, Georgetown and Hampton, and other unguarded hamlets, whose natural protectors were absent at the distant theatres of the war, were successively assaulted, sacked and burned, while their helpless inhabitants, consisting of old men, women and children, were put to the sword, hunted away or carried off. The massacre on Craney Island, with all its concomitant horrors of debauchery, madness and violence, had carried consternation into every heart. Marauding parties were frequently landed to lay waste defenceless farmsteads, whose masters were absent on the Northern frontier.
Still, as yet, nothing had occurred to alarm, for themselves, our friends in the neighborhood of Helmstedt’s Island. The sail of the enemy had been more than once seen in the distance, but not even a single foraging party had landed to lay them under tribute. Thus it was considered quite safe by the neighbors to vary the monotony of their lives by forming a picnic party for Helmstedt’s Island. The company consisted of the Houstons, the Wellworths, the Hartleys, and others. The time appointed for the festival was the first of August. The day proved cool for the season, and consequently pleasant for the occasion. The Wellworths came down to the bluff to join the Houstons, with whom, at sunrise, they set out for the island, where they were met by the Hartleys and other friends, and regaled by a sumptuous seaside breakfast, previously prepared to order by the island housekeeper, Aunt Hapzibah. After that repast, the company separated into groups, according to their “attractions.” Of the elder portion, some formed quiet whist parties in the drawing-room, and others sat down for a cozy gossip on the vine-shaded piazza. Of the younger party, some entered boats and went crabbing, while others formed quadrilles and danced to the sound of the tambourine, the fiddle, and the banjo, wielded with enthusiasm by the hands and arms of three ecstatic sable musicians. Margaret Helmstedt and her chosen friends, Grace Wellworth and Clare Hartley, separated themselves from the company, and with their arms affectionately intertwined around each other’s waists, wandered down to the beach with the purpose of making the whole circuit of her beloved island. Margaret has changed and matured in these fifteen months. She has become very beautiful, very much like what her mother had been, but with a profounder and more mournful style, “a beauty that makes sad the eye.” Time, experience and sorrow have prematurely done their work upon her. She, but sixteen years of age, looks much older. She is dressed quite plainly, in a gown of black gauze striped with black satin, a fine lace inside handkerchief and cuffs, white kid gloves and black morocco gaiters. Her jet-black hair is parted over her broad brow, and rippling in a myriad of shining wavelets that would, if permitted, fall in a cloud of ringlets around her sweet, pale face, and throw into deeper shade the shadowy, mournful eyes. The white chip hat, plainly trimmed with white ribbons, hangs idly from her arm. Within the last year Margaret’s position has not improved. It is true that the subject of the letters and the unknown correspondent or lover has been suffered to die out. Not even country gossips can, without new materials, keep a vague scandal alive year after year. And no such stimuli had been afforded them. Margaret, whether she had ceased to write, or had taken a more effectual manner of concealing her correspondence, seemed neither to receive nor send any more mysterious letters. But she had not regained, nor even sought to regain, the confidence, esteem, and affection of her family. An atmosphere of distrust, coldness, and reserve, surrounded, chilled, and depressed her spirit, yet could not destroy the deep enthusiasm of some hidden devotion that inspired her soul, and gave to her beautiful, pale face, the air of rapt religious enthusiasm seen on the pictured brows of saints and angels. Even now, upon this festive occasion, as she walks between her friends, the same deep, serious, earnest fervor glows under the surface of her eloquent countenance. They were imparting to her, as girls will, their girlish mysteries, and inviting her to a similar confidence. But Margaret was pre-occupied and abstracted, and though her replies were always affectionate, they were not always to the point.
At last the brown-eyed and gentle little Grace ventured to say:
“I tell you what, Margaret, it is said that there are two sorts of people in this world—those who love, and those who permit themselves to be loved. If so, then you belong to the latter class.”
“Why do you think so, dear Grace?”
“Why?—here my arm has been around your waist, and it might better have been around the stem of an oak sapling! that at least would have nodded over me a little; but you, you walk on erect, silent, thoughtful, and when I speak to you of the flowers along our path, you speak of the clouds over our heads, or make an equally applicable response to my observation, which shows how much attention you pay to what I say.”
“I beg your pardon, dear Grace.”