while deep in the adjacent wilderness the woodcock, hammering on some dry and blasted trees, filled the woods with reverberant echoes. The Sound was only ruffled by the lingering breezes, as they idly wandered over its surface. Long Island, now in possession of the British troops, was thinly enveloped in smoky vapour; scattered along its shores lay the numerous small craft and larger ships of the hostile fleet. A few skiffs were passing and repassing the Sound, and several American gun-boats lay off a point which jutted out from the main land, far to the eastward. Numberless summer insects mingled their discordant strains amidst the weedy herbage. A heavy black cloud was rising in the north west, which seemed to portend a shower, as the sonorous, distant thunder was at long intervals distinctly heard.
Melissa walked around the yard, contemplating the varying beauties of the scene: the images of departed joys—the days when Alonzo had participated with her in admiring the splendours of rural prospects, raised in her bosom the sigh of deep regret. She entered the garden and traversed the alleys, now overgrown with weeds and tufted knot-grass. The flower beds were choaked with the low running bramble and tangling five-finger; tall, rank rushes, mullens and daisies, had usurped the empire of the kitchen garden. The viny arbour was broken, and principally gone to decay; yet the “lonely wild rose” blushed mournfully amidst the ruins. As she passed from the garden she involuntarily stopped at the cemetery: she paused in serious reflection:—“Here, said she, in this house of gloom rest, in undisturbed silence, my honourable ancestors, once the active tenants of yonder mansion. Then, throughout these now solitary demesnes, the busy occurrences of life glided in cheerful circles. Then, these now moss-clad alleys, and this wild weedy garden, were the resort of the fashionable and the gay. Then, evening music floated over the fields, while yonder halls and apartments shone in brilliant illumination. Now all is sad, solitary and dreary, the haunt of spirits and spectres of nameless terror. All that now remains of the head that formed, and the hand that executed, and the bosom that relished this once happy scenery, is now, alas, only a heap of dust.”
She seated herself on a little hillock, under a weeping willow, which stood near the cemetery, and watched the rising shower, which slowly ascended in gloomy pomp, half hidden behind the western groves, shrouding the low sun in black vapour, while coming thunders more nearly and more awfully rolled. The shrieking night hawk[*] [*] Supposed to be the male whippoorwill; well known in the New-England states, and answering to the above peculiarity. soared high into the air, mingling with the lurid van of the approaching storm, which widening, more rapidly advanced, until “the heavens were arrayed in blackness.”
The lightning more broader and brighter flashes, hurling down its forky streaming bolts
far in the wilderness, its flaming path followed by the vollying artillery of the skies. Now bending its long, crinkling spires over the vallies, now glimmering along the summit of the hills. Convolving clouds poured smoky volumes through the expansion; a deep, hollow, distant roar, announced the approach of “summoned winds.” The whole forest bowed in awful grandeur, as from its dark bosom rushed the impetuous hurricane, twisting off, or tearing up by the roots, the stoutest trees, whirling the heaviest branches through the air with irresistible fury. It dashed upon the sea, tossed it into irregular mountains, or mingled its white foamy spray with the gloom of the turbid skies. Slant-wise, the large heavy drops of rain began to descend. Melissa hastened to the mansion; as she reached the door a very brilliant flash of lightning, accompanied by a tremendous explosion, alarmed her. A thunder bolt had entered a large elm tree within the enclosure, and with a horrible crash, had shivered it from top to bottom. She unlocked the door and hurried to her chamber. Deep night now filled the atmosphere; the rain poured in torrents, the wind rocked the building, and bellowed in the adjacent groves: the sea raged and roared, fierce lightnings rent the heavens, alternately involving the world in the sheeted flame of its many coloured fires; thunders rolled awfully around the firmament, or burst with horrid din, bounding and reverberating among the surrounding woods, hills and vallies. It seemed nothing less than the crash of worlds sounding through the universe.
Melissa walked her room, listening to the wild commotion of the elements. She feared that if the storm continued, she should be compelled to pass another night in the lone mansion: if so, she resolved not to go to bed. She now suddenly recollected that in her haste to regain her chamber, she had forgotten to lock the outer door. The shock she had received when the lightning demolished the elm tree, was the cause of this neglect. She took the candle, ran hastily down, and fastened the door. As she was returning, she heard footsteps, and imperfectly saw the glance of something coming out of an adjoining room into the hall. Supposing some ghastly object was approaching, she averted her eyes and flew to the stairs. As she was ascending them, a voice behind her exclaimed, “Gracious heaven! Melissa!” The voice agitated her frame with a confused, sympathetic sensation. She turned, fixed her eyes upon the person who had spoken; unconnected ideas floated a moment in her imagination: “Eternal powers! she cried, it is Alonzo.”
Alonzo and Melissa were equally surprised at so unexpected a meeting. They could scarcely credit their own senses.—How he had discovered her solitude—what led him to that lonely place—how he had got over the wall—were queries which first arose in her mind. He likewise could not conceive by what miracle he should find her in a remote, desolate building, which he had supposed to be uninhabited. With rapture he took her trembling hand; tears of joy choaked their utterance. “You are wet, Alonzo, said Melissa at length; we will go up to my chamber; I have a fire there, where you can dry your clothes.”—“Your chamber; replied Alonzo; who then inhabits this house?” “No one except myself, Alonzo, she answered; I am here alone, Alonzo.” “Alone! he exclaimed—here alone, Melissa! Good God! tell me how—why—by what means are you here alone?” “Let us go up to my chamber, she replied, and I will tell you all.”
He followed her up to her apartment and seated himself by the fire. “You want refreshment,” said Melissa—which was indeed the case, as he had been long without any, and was wet, hungry and weary.
She immediately set about preparing tea and soon had it ready, and a comfortable repast was spread for his entertainment.—And now, reader, if thou art a child of nature, if thy bosom is susceptible of refined sensibility, contemplate for a moment, Melissa and Alonzo seated at the same table, a table prepared by her own hand, in a lonely mansion, separated from society, and no one present to interrupt them. After innumerable difficulties, troubles and perplexities; after vexing embarrassments, and a cruel separation, they were once more together, and for some time every other consideration was lost. The violence of the storm had not abated. The lightning still blazed, the thunder bellowed, the wind roared, the sea raged, the rain poured, mingled with heavy hail: Alonzo and Melissa heard a little of it. She told him all that had happened to her since they parted, except the strange noises and awful sights which had terrified her during her confinement in that solitary building: this she considered unnecessary and untimely, in her present situation.