"And this son?" demanded Miss Falconer; "did you not say that he was dead?"
"Of him," said Catherine, "Elsie knows nothing; but if we can receive a belief that prevails in the village on the subject, it would seem as if the vials of wrath had been poured to the uttermost on the poor devoted family. They say, that the young man, just raised to wealth and distinction by the death of his munificent kinswoman, was one of the many victims to that dreadful tornado which ravaged the island of Jamaica two years ago. But I never heard how this intelligence was obtained."
"And the other sons? the rest of this brood of traitors!" demanded Miss Falconer, who strove to merge the unpleasant feelings that had possession of her bosom, in patriotic detestation of the unfortunate family.
"They met the fate they must have anticipated," said the Captain's daughter. "They perished, one by one, in different bloody conflicts; one fell at Wyoming, another at Tioga Point, where the combined forces of savages and refugees were routed by General Sullivan; Oran himself, with a fourth brother, was killed at the battle of Johnstown, near the Mohawk river, where another refugee leader, Walter Butler, not less blood-thirsty and famous, met a similar fate. Their death was terrible; they cried for quarter, being wounded and helpless; but the victors bade them 'Remember Wyoming, and Cherry-Valley,' two prominent objects of their cruelty, and killed them without mercy. Another, I have heard, was somewhere hanged as a spy; and these, with Hyland, killed as I mentioned before, and the youngest, deceased, if indeed he be deceased, in Jamaica, made up the whole seven sons, all of whom therefore died violent deaths. The eighth child,—the poor daughter,—undoubtedly sleeps under this rock; and there are none left to mourn her. The destruction of the family was dreadful and complete."
CHAPTER VIII.
| Run! run! run! Quickly for a surgeon! Call watch, constable! raise the hue and cry! What's to be done? Why the devil don't you stir, John? This way, that way, every body fly! DON GIOVANNI. |
Thus ended the sketch of a story, imperfect, perhaps tedious and unsatisfactory, but still a necessary preliminary to the series of events that completes the tradition. A mere womanly curiosity was perhaps at the bottom of the nobler feeling with which Miss Falconer sought to excuse to herself the impropriety of urging the relation. From the first to the last, it was meted out to her reluctantly; and nothing but the command she had long since obtained over a character less firm and decided than her own, could have persuaded the Captain's daughter to breathe a syllable of it into ears, which, she could not but feel, ought not to be opened to it. Miss Falconer had, moreover, overrated her powers of scepticism; she had provoked the story, as men commonly provoke an argument,—that is, with a resolution not to be convinced; but like the logician, in many instances, when the discussion is over, her incredulity was sorely, though secretly, shaken, and nothing but her pride and strength of character checked the humiliating avowal. Some circumstances a delicate consideration for the feelings of her friend, and an unconquerable repugnance to speak more on the subject than could not be avoided, had prevented the Captain's daughter from relating. These would have thrown a still darker stain upon the character of Colonel Falconer. There was enough, however, said, to force one disagreeable conviction upon Harriet's mind; and this was, that, if her parent were even as guiltless of ingratitude and wrong as her fondest wishes would have him, calumny had, at least in one secluded corner of the world, sealed him with the opprobrium of a villain. It was a sore addition also to her discomfort, that her penetrating mind discovered how deeply her kinswoman was affected by the hateful history: if she doubted, she did not doubt strongly. Vexed, humbled, displeased with herself and with Catherine, she rose from the rocky shelf, on which both had seated themselves when Catherine resumed the story, and prepared to leave the scene, equally mournful and unpleasant, when an incident occurred, which at once gave a new turn to her feelings.
The Captain's daughter had observed the look of dissatisfaction, and anticipated the movement, by rising herself, to lead the way to the bridge. As she started up hastily, her hat, which she had loosened from her forehead, to enjoy the evening breeze, now puffing among the flowers, fell from her head, and her beautiful countenance and golden ringlets were fully exposed. She raised her hands, naturally enough, to catch the falling hat, and thus assumed an attitude, of which she was herself unconscious, but which, to one spectator at least, had a character apparently menacing and forbidding. This spectator was no less a person than the young painter, who had rambled up the stream, and was now making his way across the sycamore, to obtain a view of the cascade, entirely ignorant of the presence of such visiters; for while they maintained their seats, their persons were concealed behind the low wall, and their voices drowned by the murmur of the water-fall.
A sudden exclamation, loud enough to be heard over this lulling din, drew Catherine's attention to the bridge; and there, to her extreme surprise, she beheld the young stranger struggling among the branches, as if he had lost his footing, while all the time, his eyes, instead of being employed in the more needful duty of looking to himself, were fixed upon her with an air of the most unaccountable wonder and alarm. The next instant, she beheld him, to her own infinite horror, fall from the tree, just as Harriet, starting up after her friend, had also caught sight of the strange spectacle. Both beheld the unlucky youth drop through the boughs, and both at once anticipated the most dreadful termination to such a misadventure; for a pitch over the cascade among the savage rocks below, could scarcely be less than fatal. The very instant she saw that the young man had lost his footing, Catherine uttered a loud scream, and then, driven onwards by an irresistible impulse, darted towards the river, to render him what aid she could. As for Miss Falconer, the shock had deprived her of her self-possession, and her tongue clove to her mouth with terror. She neither screamed nor rushed forwards to give aid, until her lethargy was dispelled by a distant voice, that suddenly echoed the scream of Catherine: