Evenings at Donaldson Manor; Or, The Christmas Guest

by Maria J. McIntosh

"Fear not, my child," said Mr. Sinclair, when their sad vigils were first interrupted by those who urged their flight—"they are enemies, it is true, but they are Englishmen, a peaceful clergyman, a defenceless woman, are safe in their hands—they will not harm us."

"I have no fear, no thought of them, father!" said Mary Sinclair, as she turned weeping to the only object of fear, or hope, or thought, at that moment.

But soon others of Mr. Sinclair's parishioners came to warn him that his confidence had been misplaced, that no character, no age, no sex, had proved a protection from the ruthless fury of their assailants. He would now have persuaded his daughter to accompany her friends to a place of safety, and when persuasions proved vain he would have commanded her, but, lifting her calm eyes to his, she said, "Father have you not taught me that, in all God's universe, the only safe place for us is that to which our duty calls us—and is not my duty here?"

A colder heart would have argued with her, and might, perhaps, have proved to her that her duty was not there—that her father could watch the dying, and that it was her duty to preserve herself for him; but Mr. Sinclair folded her in his arms while his lips moved for an instant in earnest prayer, and then, turning to his waiting friends, he said, "Go, go, my friends—I thank you—but God has called us to this, and he will care for us."

When the work of desolation had been completed in the quarter first attacked, parties of soldiers straggled off from the main body in search of further prey. Fearful was it to meet these men—their faces blackened with smoke, their hands stained with blood, fierce frowns upon their brows, and curses on their lips. The parsonage presented little attraction in its external aspect to men whose object was plunder, and they turned first to larger and more showy buildings. These were soon rifled; the noise of their ribald songs, their blasphemous oaths and drunken revelry penetrating often the chamber of death, yet scarcely awakening an emotion in the presence of the great Destroyer. At length the little gate is flung rudely open, and unsteady but heavy steps ascend from the court-yard to the house. They cross the piazza, they enter the parlor where life's gentlest courtesies and holiest affections have hitherto dwelt, the door of the room beyond is thrown open, and two men stand upon its threshold, sobered for an instant by the scene before them. There, pale, emaciated, the dim eyes closed, and the face wearing that unearthly beauty which seems the token of an adieu too fond, too tender, too sacred for human language, from the parting spirit to its loved ones, the wife and mother, speechless, senseless, yet not quite lifeless, lay propped by pillows. At her side knelt Mr. Sinclair; the pallor of deep, overpowering emotion was on his cheek, yet in his lifted eyes there was an expression of holy faith, and you might almost have fancied that a smile lay upon the lips which were breathing forth the hallowed strains of prayer—"Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the hands of our enemies, that we, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore from all perils, to glorify Thee, who art the only giver of all victory, through the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord—Amen."

Dark, sinful men as they were, fresh from brutal crime, those strains touched a long silent chord in their hearts—a chord linked with the memory of a smiling village in their own distant land—with a mother's love and the innocence of childhood. Faint—faint, alas! were those memories, and Mr. Sinclair's "amen" had scarcely issued from his lips, when the eyes of the leader rested on the beautiful face of Mary Sinclair, as, pressed to the side of her father, she stretched her arms out over her dying mother, and turned her eyes imploringly on their dreaded visitors. The ruffians sprang forward with words whose meaning was happily lost to the failing sense of the terror-stricken girl. Mr. Sinclair started to his feet, and with one arm still clasped around his daughter, stood between her and the worse than murderers before him, prepared to defend her with his life. For the first time he thirsted for blood, and looked around for some weapon of destruction—but his was the abode of peace—no weapon was there. Unarmed, with that loved burden—loved at this moment even to agony, resting upon him—he stood opposed to two fierce men armed to the teeth. A father's strength in such a cause, who shall estimate?—yet, alas! his adversaries were demons, relentless in purpose, and possessed of that superhuman force which passion gives. Weary of killing, or influenced by that superstition which sometimes rules the soul from which religion is wholly banished, they did not avail themselves of their swords. With fierce threats they unclasped his arm from that senseless form, which sank instantly to the floor at his feet, and drew him across the room. They would have forced him into the parlor, but his resistance was desperate, and ere they could accomplish this, the sound of a drum beating the recall was borne faintly to their ears. Leaving his comrade to hold the wildly struggling father, the bolder ruffian turned back toward the still prostrate Mary. At that moment, before she had been polluted by a touch, the door was thrown violently back, and a tall, manly form strode through it. The gilded epaulettes and drooping feather told his rank, before the step of pride and countenance of stern command had conveyed to the mind the conviction that you stood in the presence of one accustomed to be obeyed. The man who grasped Mr. Sinclair loosened his hold and shrank cowering away. He went unnoticed, for the eye of the officer had fallen upon him who was in the act of stooping to lift Mary Sinclair from the floor. With a single spring he was at his side, and catching him by the collar of his coat, he hurled him from him with such force that he fell stunned against the farther wall. Mr. Sinclair was already bending over his daughter. As he raised her on his arm her head fell back, exposing her face, around which her dark hair swept in dense masses. Her features were of chiselled beauty, and had they been indeed of marble they could not have been more bloodless in their hue, while her jetty lashes lay as still upon her cheek as though the hand of death had sealed her eyes for ever. Mr. Sinclair had no such fear. He knew that she had only fainted, and rejoiced that God in his mercy had spared her the worst horrors of the scene; but as Captain Percy's eyes rested on her, a deeper scowl settled on his brow, and in a hoarse whisper he asked:—

"Have they harmed her, sir?"

"Not by a touch, thank God! not by a touch!" exclaimed the father, as he pressed her with passionate joy to his heart—ay, joy, even in the presence of her so long the light of his life now passing for ever from earth. For a few minutes the dying had been forgotten, for what was death—a death of peace—to the long misery into which man's base, brutal passion would have converted the life of that pure and lovely girl? Now, however, she was safe, and still supporting her on his arm, Mr. Sinclair turned to his wife and tenderly moistened her parched lips. What a mockery of all human cares seemed that pale, peaceful brow—peaceful, while he whose lightest sorrow had thrown a shadow on her life was suffering anguish inexpressible, and the child who had lain in her bosom, to the lightest throb of whose heart her own had answered, lay senseless from terror in his arms. It was a scene to touch the hardest heart, and Captain Percy's heart was not hard. He looked around for the men whom he had interrupted in their hellish designs—they were not there.

"Is this their work?" he asked of Mr. Sinclair, pointing to his scarcely breathing wife.

"No—no—this is the gentle hand of our Father," said Mr. Sinclair, as he bent his head and touched with his lips the sunken cheek dearer to him now than it had been in all its girlish roundness. The blood had begun to cast a slight tinge of red into the lips of Mary Sinclair before Captain Percy had left the room in search of the men whom he was unwilling to leave behind him, and when he returned, the tremor of her form and the close clasp with which she clung to her father, proved that her consciousness and her memory were awake. His step had startled her, and as he entered he heard Mr. Sinclair say, "Fear not, my daughter, that is the step of your deliverer, and though he is an English soldier——"