Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia

by William Gilmore Simms

"In the off shed-room below. What of her?"

"Of her—oh nothing!" and Rivers paused musingly in the utterance of this reply, which fell syllable by syllable from his lips. The landlord proceeded:—

"Pass on, Rivers; pass on: or have you determined better about this matter? Shall the youngster live? Indeed, I see not that his evidence, even if he gives it, which I very much doubt, can do us much harm, seeing that a few days more will put us out of the reach of judge and jury alike."

"You would have made a prime counsellor and subtle disputant, Munro, worthy of the Philadelphia lawyers," returned the other, in a sneer. "You think only of one part of this subject, and have no passions, no emotions: you can talk all day long on matters of feeling, without showing any. Did I not say but now, that while that boy slept I could not?"

"Are you sure that when he ceases to sleep the case will be any better?"

The answer to this inquiry was unheard, as the pair passed on to the tenantless chamber. Watching their progress, and under the guidance of the young maiden, who seemed endued with a courage and conduct worthy of more experience and a stronger sex, the youth emerged from his place of precarious and uncomfortable concealment, and descended to the lower floor. A few moments sufficed to throw the saddle upon his steed, without arousing the sable groom; and having brought him under the shadow of a tree at some little distance from the house, he found no further obstruction in the way of his safe and sudden flight. He had fastened the door of his chamber on leaving it, with much more caution than upon retiring for the night; and having withdrawn the key, which he now hurled into the woods, he felt assured that, unless the assassins had other than the common modes of entry, he should gain a little time from the delay they would experience from this interruption; and this interval, returning to the doorway, he employed in acknowledgments which were well due to the young and trembling woman who stood beside him.

"Take this little token, sweet Lucy," said he, throwing about her neck the chain and casket which he had unbound from his own—"take this little token of Ralph Colleton's gratitude for this night's good service. I shall redeem it, if I live, at a more pleasant season, but you must keep it for me now. I will not soon forget the devotedness with which, on this occasion, you have perilled so much for a stranger. Should we never again meet, I pray you to remember me in your prayers, and I shall always remember you in mine."

He little knew, while he thus spoke in a manner so humbly of himself, of the deep interest which his uniform gentleness of manner and respectful deference, so different from what she had been accustomed to encounter, had inspired in her bosom; and so small at this period was his vanity, that he did not trust himself for a moment to regard the conjecture—which ever and anon thrust itself upon him—that the fearless devotion of the maiden in his behalf and for his safety, had in reality a far more selfish origin than the mere general humanity of her sex and spirit. We will not say that she would not have done the same by any other member of the human family in like circumstances; but it is not uncharitable to believe that she would have been less anxiously interested, less warm in her interest, and less pained in the event of an unfortunate result.

Clasping the gorgeous chain about her neck, his arm again gently encircled her waist, her head drooped upon her bosom—she did not speak—she appeared scarcely to feel. For a moment, life and all its pulses seemed resolutely at a stand; and with some apprehensions, the youth drew her to his bosom, and spoke with words full of tenderness. She made no answer to his immediate speech; but her hands, as if unconsciously, struck the spring which locked the casket that hung upon the chain, and the miniature lay open before her, the dim light of the moon shining down upon it. She reclosed it suddenly, and undoing it from the chain, placed it with a trembling hand in his own; and with an effort of calm and quiet playfulness, reminded him of the unintended gift. He received it, but only to place it again in her hand, reuniting it to the chain.

"Keep it," said he, "Miss Munro—keep it until I return to reclaim it. It will be as safe in your hands—much safer, indeed, than in mine. She whose features it describes will not chide, that, at a moment of peril, I place it in the care of one as gentle as herself."