Mabel left her boat and followed the
path till she reached a natural terrace in the hills,
narrow and green, upon which a small, one-story house
was snugly bestowed. The terrace was uncultivated,
save a small garden patch close to the house, where
the soil was torn and uneven from the uprooting of
vegetables from the rudely-shaped beds. Sweetbrier
and wild honey-suckles gave a picturesque grace to
the building, at variance with the untidy state of
the grounds, and there was something in the whole
place more suggestive of refinement than is usual to
dwellings where the inmates work hard for their daily
bread.
Mabel Harrington had never been in
this place before. As she approached it, the
cry of a whippowil came up from the hollow, as if warning
her away. Everything was still within the house.
There was no light; the rustle of leaves with the
flow of waters from the ravine, joined their mournful
whispers with the wail of the night bird.
Mabel was imaginative as a girl, and
this solitude depressed her; still she moved steadily
towards the house, and knocked at the door.
A woman opened it, whose person was
seen but indistinctly, as she stood within the small
entry, holding the door with one hand; but Mabel saw
that she was dark and dressed as she had seen that
class of persons in the south.
“I wish to see Miss Agnes Barker
for a moment: is she in?” said Mrs. Harrington
with her usual dignified repose of manner, for however
much interested, Mabel was not one to invite curiosity
by any display of excitement, and it must have been
a close observer who could have detected the faint
quiver of her voice as she expressed this common-place
wish.
“She don’t liv hear in dis shantee.”
“I know. She lives at General
Harrington’s, up the river,” replied Mabel,
“but it is some weeks since she has been there,
and I expected to find her with you.”
“Missus, pears like you don’t
know as Miss Agnes is young lady, from top to toe,
ebery inch ob her. Is you the Missus?”
“I am Mrs. Harrington,” said Mabel, quietly.
“Oh!” exclaimed the woman,
prolonging the monosyllable almost into a sneer, “jes
come in. I’se mighty sorry de candle all
burnt out an done gone.”
Mabel entered the house, and sat down in the dim light.
“Is Missus ’lone mong
dese hills?” said the woman, retreating to the
darkest corner of the room.
“Yes, I am alone!” answered Mabel.
“All ’lone in de dark
wid nothin but that whippoorwill to keep company;
skeery, ain’t it, Missus?”
If the woman had hoped to terrify
Mabel Harrington by these words, she was mistaken.
A vague feeling of loneliness was upon her, but she
had no cowardly timidity to contend with.
“Don’t pear skeery no how,” said
the woman.
“I am seldom afraid of anything,”
answered Mabel with a wan smile. “I came
to inquire for Miss Barker, if she is not here, tell
me where she can be found?”
“Done gone out to de hills,
pears like she could not stay away from em.”
“Was she your mistress in the
south?” inquired Mabel, troubled by the woman’s
voice.
“Pears so, Missus.”
“Some one has managed to give
her a fine education I have seldom known
a young person so thoroughly accomplished,” continued
Mabel with apparent calm, but keenly attentive to
every word that fell from the woman’s lips.
“General Harrington informed me that she came
highly recommended, but her attainments surprised
us all.”
“Oh yes, young missus knows
heap ’bout dem books an pianers. Done
born lady, no poor white trash, gorry mighty knows
dat.”
“Her duties are more particularly
with Miss Lina, Gen. Harrington’s adopted daughter,
who makes no complaint against her for myself,
our intercourse is very limited, but she pleases the
General. We have expected her at the house for
several days, and thought it strange that she did
not return.”
“Ben gone ebery day dis
week, sartin sure, long walk, but her’s ready
for it. Nebber gets home fore dark walk,
walk, walk, in de woods wid Marsa James.”
Mabel arose. A sickening sensation
crept over her, and she went to the open door for
air.
It was true then that suspicion
was all true! Agnes Barker had been in the neighborhood
of her old home for a week, without the knowledge of
its mistress. That very day the girl had met James
Harrington in the hills. Her own eyes had seen
them standing side by side in the sunset.
“’Pears like de Missus
am sick,” said the woman, coming toward her as
she stood cold and shuddering under this conviction.
“No,” answered Mabel,
gathering up her strength, but pressing both hands
upon her heart beneath the crimson folds of her shawl.
“If Miss Barker comes to the house again she
will have the goodness to see that I am informed.
Miss Lina is anxious to renew her studies.”
“Yes Missus.”
“Give my message faithfully,”
answered Mabel. “I must speak with her
before the duties of her situation are resumed.
Good night.”
“Good night to you,” muttered
the woman, as Mabel walked away. “I understand
you, never doubt that. Agnes is beautiful, and
keen enough for a dozen such as you. I thought
it would work!”
Mrs. Harrington made the best of her
way down the footpath which she had threaded, though
the hollow was filled with gloom, and the whippowil
called mournfully after her as she went.
Her boat lay where she had left it
in the mouth of the creek. As she stepped into
it a cry broke from her lips, and turning, she looked
wildly up the hollow. A woman sprang over the
boat as she stooped for the oars, and with a single
leap cleared the bank, landing with a bound in the
footpath above her.
One sharp glance she cast behind,
then darted away as if eager to bury herself in the
hemlock gloom.
The leap had been so sudden and the
whole progress so rapid, that Mabel scarcely saw the
woman, but she remembered after, that her dress was
dusky red, and that a velvet cloak swept from her shoulders
downward to the ground, half torn from her person
in its abrupt movements. As she stood lost in
amazement at this singular apparition, Mabel fancied
that she heard the dip of oars, and could detect the
dim outline of a boat making up the river.
She sat down mute, and troubled, looking
after what seemed at best a floating shadow; the night
had darkened rapidly, and instead of the new moon
which should have silvered the sky, came billows of
black, angry clouds, in which the thunder began to
roll and mutter hoarse threats of a storm. Frightened
by the brooding tempest, Mabel pushed her boat out
from the shore, and began to row vigorously homeward;
but she had scarcely got into deep water when the
clouds became black as midnight; the winds rose furiously,
lashing the waters and raging fiercely through the
tree tops, while burst after burst of thunder broke
over the hills. She could only see her course
clearly when flashes of lightning shot at intervals
through the trees, and broke in gleams of scattered
fire among the waves, now dashing and leaping angrily
around her.
Mabel was excited out of her anxieties
by this turmoil. There was something in the force
and suddenness of the storm that aroused all her courage.
The vexed trees were bent and torn by the winds.
The river was lashed into a sea of foam, over which
her frail boat leaped and quivered like a living thing;
but she sat steady in the midst, pale and firm, taking
advantage of each gleam of lightning to fix her course,
and facing the storm with a steady bravery which had
no fear of death.
Still the tempest rose and lashed
itself into fury from the rocky coast to the depths
of the stream, and the little boat went plunging through
it, keeping the brave woman safe. The oars were
useless as rushes in her hands. The waves leaped
upward as the wind lashed them, and at times rushed
entirely over her. It was a fearful sight, that
noble woman, all alone with the storm! so close to
death and yet so resolute! Blacker and nearer
grew the clouds torn by whirlwinds, and shooting out
lurid gleams of lightning, that flashed and curled
along the water like fiery serpents chasing each other
into their boiling depths. So great was the tumult
that another sound, which came like a smothered howl
through the storm, seemed but a part of it. Thus
Mabel was unconscious of this new danger, till a glare
of lightning swept everything else aside, and bearing
directly toward her, she saw a huge steamer ploughing
through the tempest, on her downward course.
Scarce had she time to recoil with
horror from the danger, when it was wrapped in darkness
again, and she could only guess of its approach by
the cabin windows that glared upon her nearer and nearer,
like great fiery eyes half blinded by the storm.
Mabel nerved herself, and with a desperate effort
bent her strength upon the oars. But the heave
of the waters tore one from her grasp, and the other
remained useless. Human strength was of no avail
now. She was given up to the tempest, and could
only cling to the reeling boat mute with horror, still
with a thought of those she loved vital at her heart.
Another sheet of lightning, blue and livid, rolled
down the hills, and in it, standing upon a spur of
rocks, she saw James Harrington, either in life or
in spirit, looking forth upon the river. His
figure took the deadly hue of the light. His
garments shook to the storm. The pale flame quivered
around him a moment, and he was engulphed in darkness
again.
Mabel flung up her hands with a cry
that cut through the storm like an arrow.
“Save me! save me! oh, my God! my God!”
Her pale hands quivered in the lightning.
The shrieks that rang from her white lips were smothered
in the fierce wind. The tortured boat seemed
flinging her out to utter despair.
A roar that was not of the elements,
now broke through all the tumult. There came
a rush an upheaving of the waters, which
flung her high into the darkness a blow
that made her little bark quake in all its timbers a
plunge a black rush of waters. She
was hurled beneath the wheels of the steamer engulphed
in utter darkness. It was her last struggle with
the storm.