This remarkable repugnance of the old woman to divide with any one the labours of watching over the stranger's couch, excited no little surprise among the domestics, and seemed to them to attach a degree of mysterious importance to his character, which none had dreamed of attaching before. Long and anxiously, in consequence, did the good Aunt Rachel and her daughter Phoebe, in the dearth of all better occupation, apply their ears to the chamber door, and their eyes to the key-hole, in the hope that some murmur of the sick man, some whisper of his privileged attendants, or perhaps some movement in the room, might give a clew to the enigma, of the existence of which every circumstance now left them still more strongly convinced. Thus, they persuaded themselves that in the delirium, which all night long oppressed the painter's brain, he was betraying divers dreadful secrets, not at all to his interest to be generally known; and they demonstrated also to their entire satisfaction, that Elsie Bell, who had acquired by some witchcraft or other a complete knowledge of the young stranger's history, was imparting it to the physician, coupled with many injunctions on the one hand, and as many promises on the other, of honourable secrecy. Nay, they both affirmed, in after days, that they distinctly heard Dr. Merribody, in reply to some question or appeal of Elsie, say, with a manner highly characteristic of his dignified sense of honour, "The secrets of the sick room are as sacred as those of the confessional; and as for a doctor, Mrs. Bell, why you must know, we are all as mum as blacksnakes. A snake was the ancient symbol of physic, you know; because that's an animal which, if it don't hold its tongue, never makes any great noise with it!" They observed, too, as they surveyed her through the key-hole, that Elsie's countenance was darkened and troubled in an unusual degree; and once, they thought, they saw her shedding tears. However, they heard and saw little except what inflamed their curiosity to an intolerable extent; and, in consequence, they came within an ace of being caught in the act of eavesdropping by the physician himself, who came suddenly out of the room to demand ice to apply to the patient's head. Luckily, however, the degree of trust reposed in him by the widow, as they supposed, had filled him with uncommon importance, so that he made no remark on discovering them so near at hand, except to express his pleasure; "for," said he, "I supposed you were all sound in bed, and that there would be the devil to pay to get any out-of-the-way thing that might be wanted."
"Lord love you, doctor," said Aunt Rachel, "why we're all keeping awake, just a-purpose to be ready and handy; and besides, the young gentleman makes an awful groaning and taking on; and besides, there's my young madam, Miss Katy, who can't sleep a wink, out of concern for the young man; and she told me to ask you, doctor, what you thought of the young man's case, and whether he'll die or no?"
To this the doctor answered, with a look of great wisdom, 'that every thing depended upon circumstances.'
"And besides, doctor," said Phoebe, emboldened by the gracious reply vouchsafed to her mother, "she is mighty curious to know what all these things is, the young gentleman is talking about?"
"Sorry it is not consistent with the honour of the profession to gratify Miss Loring in that particular," replied the physician, with extreme gravity. "Must have ice, Mrs. Jones. Mighty fortunate I was able to remain all night! You must bring me ice, Mrs. Jones; and you must just scratch on the door, to give me warning; and then you must keep all quiet, and let none approach the room, unless summoned by myself. And if you can venture to disturb the Captain, and tell him to turn over on his side, (the right side, mind you,) he won't snore so hard. Very prejudicial, to sleep on the back, I assure you! It sets the liver tumbling over the lungs, and so half smothers one. But let me have the ice, d'ye hear; and keep all things quiet in the house."
Notwithstanding the skill, and (what was perhaps a less questionable virtue,) the zeal of Dr. Merribody, and the faithful vigilance of poor Elsie, the patient continued to grow worse, and was indeed, towards morning, in an alarming situation, and so remained during the greater part of the two following days, not a little to the surprise of the physician, who phlebotomized him with extreme liberality, expecting on each occasion to give the coup-de-grâce to the disease. The truth is, the doctor, from having witnessed its efficacy at first, had grown enamoured of the remedy, and now applied it, we will not say without judgment, but entirely without mercy; and had not Elsie at last rebelled against his blood-thirsty humour, and resolutely resisted all further encouragement of it, there is no saying where the matter might have ended, unless in the grave. However, as the patient possessed a youthful and vigorous constitution, capable of withstanding disease and his tyrant together, he was at no time in absolute peril of death; and being left a little to himself, he began at last to mend, and in the course of the fourth day was, to the infinite satisfaction of Captain Loring and his fair daughter, pronounced entirely out of danger. His convalescence was rapid, and would perhaps have been still more so, had it not been for the pains his hospitable host took to expedite it; for Captain Loring beset his bed-side from the first appearance of a favourable symptom, mingling many joyous congratulations with a thousand exhortations and instructions in relation to 'that grand picture of the battle of Brandywine, and Tom Loring dying!'
From Captain Loring he also learned some of the particulars of those bustling events, which had taken place during the evening of his insensibility. He was much struck with the strange transformation of the sanctimonious Nehemiah Poke into no less a personage than the refugee and assassin, Oran Gilbert, and was very curious to hear the particulars of his escape. They were told in a moment: the pursuers, headed by Lieutenant Brooks, (young Falconer having proceeded on his journey with his sister, and the Captain, much the worse for his gallop, having been forced to return to the Hall,) had followed across the river, and continued the search until nightfall rendered it useless to prolong it. They had, at one time, been close upon the fugitive's heels, having lighted upon a pedler, (not, however, Mr. John Green, the Indian trader, who was safely lodged at the time in the wounded man's chamber,) to whom the pretended preacher had sold his old gray horse, or exchanged it for a better; and from this man they obtained instructions, which put them in good hopes for awhile of coming up with him. Night, however, fell upon them, and the Lieutenant returned to the right bank of the river, to rejoin his friend and Miss Falconer, committing the whole charge of the pursuit to his volunteers, from whom the fugitive escaped, having baffled them completely. As for Mr. Green himself, he left the little inn betimes on the morning after the accident, and was seen no more.
In regard to the outrage upon Colonel Falconer, Herman was informed that it had been committed in a mode especially daring and audacious. He was entertaining certain gay and distinguished guests at his villa on the Schuylkill, and had stepped for a moment, in search of certain papers, to a little pavilion, which he had caused to be fitted up as a study, not sixty paces from the house, where he was presently found weltering in his blood by the guests, whom his sudden shrieks had drawn to the place. The assassin had already vanished, having added robbery, as Captain Loring averred, to murder. The sufferer had, however, recognised his well-known visage, and in the course of the following day some traces of him were discovered. It was found, at least, that a man answering the description had stolen a horse from a neighbouring farmer; and upon this horse, or one very like him, Mr. Nehemiah Poke, the parson, had been seen wending his way up the Delaware; and as no one knew or had ever before heard of this reverend gentleman, it was at once supposed that the assassin had assumed the character as a disguise. Before this second discovery had been made, a courier, whom the Captain stumbled upon in the village, was despatched to Hawk-Hollow, to recall Miss Falconer to the city. His intelligence therefore, though it caused the Captain to arrest the true offender, was not sufficient to legalize the capture, especially when this was opposed so strongly by the zealous exhortations of Nehemiah, and the discreet remonstrances of the painter. When Captain Loring remembered the agency of Hunter in robbing him of his prey, he burst into a towering passion, and reproached and railed at him with as little ceremony as he would have done with his own son, or near kinsman. It was in vain that Herman pointed out the improbability of a wild hunter of the hills, like Oran Gilbert, being able to assume the character of a ranting preacher, and preserve it so well, and endeavoured to convince him, that, if Nehemiah were really not the assassin, he must be some other and some secret enemy. The Captain swore that Colonel Falconer had no other enemy in the world, and therefore, of course, Nehemiah, the parson, must be the identical Oran of the Hollow. This opinion he maintained with such fury, that the painter, if indeed he had no stronger reason for holding his tongue, did not choose to meet it with an argument derived from his own previous acquaintance with Nehemiah. He suffered the Captain to have his own way, and believe what he liked; and, in consequence, the Captain soon dropped the subject altogether, to take up another that now occupied his brain, almost to the exclusion of every other. This was the picture of the battle of Brandywine, and Tom Loring dying, the consideration of which, and of the painter's ability to execute it to his liking, was the main cause of the extraordinary affection he conceived for the youth.
Another piece of information, which the young man obtained from the Captain, was an account of the agency of Miss Loring in his deliverance from the brook, and perhaps from death. He had turned upon her a despairing eye, at the moment when, as he was pitching over the fall, she had cast out the end of the shawl to him; but of this circumstance he had retained not the slightest recollection, and indeed, it is more than probable that his faculties were at that moment in a state of torpor. Not content with this deed of daring humanity (for if he had clutched upon the mantle, the chances were that she would have been jerked into the torrent after him,) she had plunged among the boiling eddies below, and thus preserved him from a second and perhaps greater peril, and all the time with imminent risk to herself. His emotions upon making this discovery, mingled surprise and admiration with the gentler sentiment of gratitude.
"Is it possible," he cried, "that a young lady should have such spirit, such presence of mind, such courage?"