“There, there, that will do; good-bye, all of you,” said Catherine, feverishly.
Henny burst into loud wailing. Catherine paused and laid her hand upon her shoulder, silencing her while she said—
“My poor girl, do not fear. I have committed myself to the Lord! I am in His hands. I trust in Him, else I should not dare do this which seems to you so much like madness. I trust in Him, and no evil can befall me.”
“But oh! mist’ess, mist’ess! If you should arter al’ perish!”
“If I perish, I perish!—it will be no evil if the Lord permits it!”
“I doesn’t b’lieve de Lord am gwine fur to ’mit it! I feels safe ’bout young mist’ess, I does! I b’lieves how ef Admirable Cockburn or any of his jail-birds was to come fur to sturve Mist’ess, trustin’ in Hebben as she does, how a thunderbolt would strike him down sooner, an’ she as puts her trus’ in de Lord, should come to any harm.”
“Yes, or a yethquake, if ne’ssary!” exclaimed the more ardent Henny. “I ain’t ’feard for you no longer, mist’ess dear! Hebben is wid you!”
Catherine waved her hand in adieu, gave reins to her pony which bounded beneath her, and seemed to fly over the lawn. She was fevered, excited—“mad inspired,” say either. Night was closing darkly around her, but its sedative shadows had no power to soothe her excited nerves—the dews were falling, but they had no efficacy to cool her fevered veins; a long journey lay before her, but its length could not discourage her; dangers were thickly strown about her path, but they could not appall her; her only desire, her only anxiety, was to reach her destination in season, if possible, to rescue this boy from death, because he was dear to Clifton—dearer than she herself, his wife, was, she now thought; and now her life itself seemed of little worth, since the hope that was life’s earthly end, was laid low. Her only remaining hope was to save this life—her only remaining fear, to fail in doing so.
Her path, for many miles, lay through the deep, interminable wilderness of forest, that, rising and falling with the low mountain ranges, extended over more than half the county. Her path was so narrow, and the branches of the trees often so low and interlaced, that a single start of her horse, or a single moment’s hesitation to bow her head, might have dashed her brains out against the intersecting branches of the trees. And in the deep darkness of the night, and in the despairing absence of her perceptive faculties, this danger beset her every instant. But she rode on, like a monomaniac, strangely heedless, and, like a somnambulist, strangely preserved. As night deepened, and lowered, and thickened around her in the awful depths of the wilderness, the distant howl of the hungry wolf, the nearer cry of the fierce wild cat, and once the more fearful whistle-signal of some outlawed desperado fell upon her ear. But even these appalling sounds struck no terror to a heart, stunned by despair into insensibility to danger. And she rode on through these terrific perils, strangely unconscious, and strangely protected.
At length, as she descended the last steep, and drew near to the outskirts of the wilderness, the lights of the small village of L—— gleamed through the interstices of the woods—appearing and disappearing, jack-o’-lanternlike, until she emerged from the forest and came full upon the hamlet. It was so late at night, that all the houses were shut and dark, and the only lights were those she had seen in the forest,—the lights of the stage and post-office. She passed like a meteor through the gloomy street, eliciting only a “What the deuce was that?” from a loiterer in the stage-office, who had seen her flight, and emerged again upon an open plain, over which her road lay for many miles. Another village gleamed up from the plains—was reached, passed, and left far behind with the same lightning-like speed.