“Why, dearest aunt,” said Frances, playfully, in reply to one of her frequent reprimands, “would you have me repress the pleasure that I feel at Henry’s deliverance, when you yourself have so often declared it to be impossible that such men as ruled in our country could sacrifice an innocent man?”
“Nay, I did believe it impossible, my child, and yet think so; but still there is a discretion to be shown in joy as well as in sorrow.”
Frances recollected the declaration of Isabella, and turned an eye filled with tears of gratitude on her excellent aunt, as she replied,—
“True; but there are feelings that will not yield to reason. Ah! here are those monsters, who have come to witness the death of a fellow creature, moving around yon field, as if life was, to them, nothing but a military show.”
“It is but little more to the hireling soldier,” said Henry, endeavoring to forget his uneasiness.
“You gaze, my love, as if you thought a military show of some importance,” said Miss Peyton, observing her niece to be looking from the window with a fixed and abstracted attention. But Frances answered not.
From the window where she stood, the pass that they had traveled through the Highlands was easily to be seen; and the mountain which held on its summit the mysterious hut was directly before her. Its side was rugged and barren; huge and apparently impassable barriers of rocks presenting themselves through the stunted oaks, which, stripped of their foliage, were scattered over its surface. The base of the hill was not half a mile from the house, and the object which attracted the notice of Frances was the figure of a man emerging from behind a rock of remarkable formation, and as suddenly disappearing. The maneuver was several times repeated, as if it were the intention of the fugitive (for such by his air he seemed to be) to reconnoiter the proceedings of the soldiery, and assure himself of the position of things on the plain. Notwithstanding the distance, Frances instantly imbibed the opinion that it was Birch. Perhaps this impression was partly owing to the air and figure of the man, but in a great measure to the idea that presented itself on formerly beholding the object at the summit of the mountain. That they were the same figure she was confident, although this wanted the appearance which, in the other, she had taken for the pack of the peddler. Harvey had so connected himself with the mysterious deportment of Harper, within her imagination, that under circumstances of less agitation than those in which she had labored since her arrival, she would have kept her suspicions to herself. Frances, therefore, sat ruminating on this second appearance in silence, and endeavoring to trace what possible connection this extraordinary man could have with the fortunes of her own family. He had certainly saved Sarah in some degree, from the blow that had partially alighted on her, and in no instance had he proved himself to be hostile to their interests.
After gazing for a long time at the point where she had last seen the figure, in the vain expectation of its reappearance, she turned to her friends in the apartment. Miss Peyton was sitting by Sarah, who gave some slight additional signs of observing what passed, but who still continued insensible either to joy or grief.
“I suppose, by this time, my love, that you are well acquainted with the maneuvers of a regiment,” said Miss Peyton. “It is no bad quality in a soldier’s wife, at all events.”
“I am not a wife yet,” said Frances, coloring to the eyes; “and we have little reason to wish for another wedding in our family.”