The Bride of Fort Edward | Page 6

dropped that golden hair,--yet this delicate beauty is but the martyr's wreath now, with its fine nerve and shrinking helplessness. No, Annie; put away your hat, my love,--you cannot go to the lodge to-night.
Annie. Mother?
_Mrs. G_. You cannot go to the glen to-night. This is no time for idle pleasure, God knows.
Annie. Why, you have been weeping in earnest, and your cheek is pale.--And now I know where that sad appointment led you. Is it over? That it should be in our humanity to bear, what in our ease we cannot, cannot think of!
_Mrs. G_. Harder things for humanity are there than bodily anguish, sharp though it be. It was not the boy,--the mother's anguish, I wept for, Annie.
Annie. Poor Endross! And he will go, to his dying day, a crippled thing. But yesterday I saw him springing by so proudly! And the mother----
_Mrs. G_. "_Words, words_," she answered sternly when I tried to comfort her; "ay, words are easy. _Wait till you see your own child's blood_. Wait till you stand by and see his young limbs hewn away, and the groans come thicker and thicker that you cannot soothe; and then let them prate to you of the good cause." Bitter words! God knows what is in store for us;--all day this strange dread has clung to me.
Annie. Dear mother, is not this the superstition you were wont to chide?
_Mrs. G_. Ay, ay, we should have been in Albany ere this. In these wild times, Annie, every chance-blown straw that points at evil, is likely to prove a faithful index; and if it serve to nerve the heart for it, we may call it heaven-sent indeed. Annie,--hear me calmly, my child,--the enemy, so at least goes the rumor, are nearer than we counted on this morning, and--hush, not a word.
Annie. She is but dreaming. Just so she murmured in her sleep last night; twice she waked me with the saddest cry, and after that she sat all night by the window in her dressing-gown, I could not persuade her to sleep again. Tell me, mother, you say _and_--and what?
_Mrs. G_. I cannot think it true, 'tis rumored though, that these savage neighbors of ours have joined the enemy.
Annie. No! no! Has Alaska turned against us? Why, it was but yesterday I saw him with Leslie in yonder field. 'Tis false; it must be. Surely he could not harm us.
_Mrs. G_. And false, I trust it is. At least till it is proved otherwise, Helen must not hear of it.
Annie. And why?
_Mrs. Grey_. She needs no caution, and it were useless to add to the idle fear with which she regards them all, already. Some dark fancy possesses her to-day; I have marked it myself.
Annie. It is just two years to-morrow, mother, since Helen's wedding day, or rather, that sad day that should have seen her bridal; and it cannot be that she has quite forgotten Everard Maitland. Alas, he seemed so noble!
_Mrs. G_. Hush! Never name him. Your sister is too high-hearted to waste a thought on him. Tory! Helen is no love-lorn damsel, child, to pine for an unworthy love. See the rose on that round cheek,--it might teach that same haughty loyalist, could he see her now, what kind of hearts 'tis that we patriots wear, whose strength they think to trample. Where are you going, Annie?
Annie. Not beyond the orchard-wall. I will only stroll down the path here, just to breathe this lovely air a little; indeed, there's no fear of my going further now.
[Exit.
_Mrs. G_. Did I say right, Helen? It cannot be feigned. Those quick smiles, with their thousand lovely meanings; those eyes, whose beams lead straight to the smiling soul. Principle is it? There is no principle in this, but joy, or else it strikes so deep, that the joy grows up from it, genuine, not feigned; and yet I have found her weeping once or twice of late, in unexplained agony. Helen!
Helen. Oh mother! is it you? Thank God. I thought----
_Mrs. G_. What did you think? What moves you thus?
Helen. I thought--'tis nothing. This is very strange.
_Mrs. G_. Why do you look through that window thus? There's no one there! What is it that's so strange?
Helen. Is it to-morrow that we go?
_Mrs. G_. To Albany? Why, no; on Thursday. You are bewildered, Helen! surely you could not have forgotten that.
Helen. I wish it was to-day. I do.
_Mrs. G_. My child, yesterday, when the question was debated here, and wishing might have been of some avail, 'tis true you did not say much, but I thought, and so we all did, that you chose to stay.
Helen. Did you? Mother, does the road to Albany wind over a hill like that?
_Mrs. G_. Like what, Helen?
Helen. Like yonder wooded hill, where the soldiers are