About the present time, however, there arose a rumour, no one knew how or why, which created a new sensation among the credulous and foreboding. It was whispered that a band of tories was secretly forming among the hills; but where, or for what purpose, no one pretended to say. It was a vague and mysterious apprehension, that spread from person to person, by virtue, perhaps, of its enigmatic character; for no inquiry could detect a better reason for its prevalence. As it carried its contagion further and further, men began again to talk of the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow; the refugees, in imagination, rose again from their tombs, and the scalp-hunter stole anew through the forests. The rumour had reached the Traveller's Rest; but it made little impression on the spirit of the painter.
He laid aside his drawing in haste, so soon as he heard that clatter of hoofs in the oaken yard, which, he thought, betokened the coming of his friends; and having secured it beyond the reach of any prying eye, he descended to meet them.
CHAPTER XIII.
| "Unto you," quod I, "with all my whole assent, I will tell trouthe, and you will not bewraye Unto none other my matter and entent." "Nay, nay," quod he, "you shall not see that daye: Your whole affiaunce and trust well ye may Into me put; for I shall not vary, But kepe your councill as a secretary." HAWES—Pastime of Plesure. |
Instead of the bard or the physician, Hunter discovered that the clatter which had interrupted his secret labours, was caused by the arrival of a personage entirely unknown, and, as he soon began to believe, unworthy his notice. He was a stout but ill-looking man, with a soldier's coat and hat, both worn and shabby, and Herman inferred at once, that he was some private from a disbanded regiment, returning to the life of industry and obscurity he had left for the wars. As he reached the porch, Herman saw that Dancy, the farmer, who happened to be about the house, was showing the new guest the way to the stable; and, however unprepossessing his appearance, he soon perceived that he had already struck up a friendship with Dancy, who talked and laughed, as they jogged together round the crag, as if with an old acquaintance. This set the painter's heart at rest; and he soon afterwards discovered that the man, being as humble in his desires as prospects, had visited the Traveller's Rest less in search of entertainment than employment, and had agreed with the widow, or rather with Dancy, who assumed the privilege of striking the bargain, to remain and assist the hireling in the labours of the approaching harvest, in consideration of receiving free quarters and forage during that period.
In the conversation of such a man it is not to be supposed the painter could have looked for any source of interest; and, accordingly, he merely gave him a glance as he strode away with Dancy, leading a sorry gelding in his hand, and then took a seat on the porch by Elsie, whose wheel, as usual, was droning out its monotonous hum near the door. Though hand and foot plied their accustomed task with accuracy and effect, it was evident that the poor widow's thoughts were not with her employment; on the contrary, she was engaged in profound and sorrowful contemplation; and, indeed, for a sennight past, Herman had observed that her fits of abstraction were unusually deep and frequent.
He sat down at her side, and addressed some few questions to her in relation to the stranger, but received such vague and irrelevant answers as convinced him her meditations were too engrossing to be easily broken. He proceeded therefore without delay to seek some other means of amusing his mind; and casting his eyes towards the distant hall, he was, in a few moments, plunged in reflections as absorbing, or even more so than her own. Indeed, his interrogatories, though they did not immediately rouse the old woman from her lethargy, served the purpose of interrupting and distracting her thoughts a little; so that she, by and by, woke up, and recovered herself so far as to look round her, and perceive she was not alone on the porch. She surveyed the young man very earnestly, until, at last, tears gathered in her eyes, and her wheel stood still. The sudden ceasing of the sound at once broke the spell that enchained the painter's spirit; and looking up to Elsie, he displayed a countenance on which the turn of some darker thought had imprinted a character of sternness, and even fierceness.
Elsie rose up, and stepping towards him, laid her palsied hand upon his shoulder, saying, in tones both solemn and impressively appealing,
"Drive these thoughts from your bosom, and now depart. Why should you rest longer in this place? Your limb is sound, your strength is restored; and now begone, ere the calls of others, and the anger of your own heart, shall drive you into acts of blood, which, if you die not among them, you will live only to repent."