THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA LIBRARY THE WILMER COLLECTION OF CIML WAR NOVELS PRESENTED BY RICHARD H. WILMER, JR. / ^ RANDOLPH HONOR BY THE AUTHOR OF INGEMISCO NEW YORK RICHARDSON AND COMPANY 14 BOND-STREET 1868 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, By EICHARDSOX AXU COMPANY, In the Clerk's OflBce of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Little, Eexxie & Co., Stereottpers. OOE^TEN^TS, CHAPTER I. RANDOLPH HONOR 5 CHAPTER II. ERE DAWN 18 CHAPTER III. PORT Mchenry 26 CHAPTER IV. THE ESCAPE 33 CHAPTER V. CAPTURE OF THE ST. NICHOLAS 46 CHAPTER VI. UNDERGROUND RAILWAY 54 CHAPTER VII. BY FLAG OF TRUCE 68 CHAPTER VIII. IN CHARLESTON 79 CHAPTER IX. SOUR GRAPES 91 CHAPTER X. IN ARKANSAS 103 CHAPTER XI. " SLEEPY HOLLOW " 113 CHAPTER XII. A BALL IN THE BACKWOODS 130 CHAPTER XIII. EVENING AT "BEAUREGARD" 153 603199 4 COXTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. CONCERNING BATTER-CAKES 176 CHAPTER XY. WILLOW LAKE 183 CHAPTER X\^I. SWAMP-ANGELS' REST 190 CHAPTER XVII. LAND-HOl 232 CHAPTER XVIII. PRAIRIE-COMBE 2a CHAPTER XIX. THE CA^-E 252 CHAPTER XX. A LEAP r^ THE DARK 261 CHAPTER XXI. AN AUTO DA FE 271 CHAPTER XXII. THE HL^CHBACK 310 CHAPTER XXIII. RANDOLPH HONOR 320 CHAPTER XXIV. IN PRISON 331 CHAPTER XXV. AT WATCH 335 CHAPTER XXVI. ON THE ]SL\RCH 347 CHAPTER XXVII. EBB-TIDE .355 CHAPTER XXVIII. BIDING THE SURRENDER .366 |[f^y8fe4L^i^«^d^^ wmmm^^m!^m^mmmmm |li^^w^?NH*^^^?^^^%^^^ffl KANDOLPH HONOR. CHAPTER I. ' There's nothing new in life, and nothing old — The tale that we might tell hath oft been told." Mrs. Jamssok. ADETTE!" She stood leaninsj from the win- 1 fSI^ ^^^ which opened on the portico, and fronted the nt;^Miia i broad lawn. With clear vistas between its grand old forest-trees, that lawn, sloped down to undulating ter- races around the bluff, at the beaehen foot of which the moonlit Chesapeake rippled with a low murmur. There from the right swept the I^atuxent to lose itself in the bay. A bowery garden, divided from the lawn by a high square- cut yew-hedge, steeply overhung the river's marge. And as the young girl's glance ranged thence to the Chesapeake, glinting through the oaks to south and east, this promon- tory bore the semblance of an island, lone and far from those faint blue shores across the sparkling waters. At the sound of the voice she started, and her glance reverted to the dense shade on the upper terrace. There glimmered to and fro a red spark, suggestive of cigars and " reveries of a bachelor." She threw open the window to the floor, and flitted in pursuit of that beacon, her white dress waving through the shadows. 6 RANDOLPH HONOR. " You called me, Mr. Randolph ?" she said, when both paused beneath the trees. "Aye, my faiiy-fire" — drawing, as he spoke, her hand within his arm — " I saw you yonder, solitary as Mariana in her moated Grange, while I had need of you here. Was that tyrannical ?" "Xot more tyrannical than grim guardians from time immemorial. But, guardian mine, where have you been this evening ? So charming a party ! That delightful last galop — you know it, do you not ?" And she liummed the air, gliding for an instant into the step of the dance, while she yet retained his arai. " And how many hearts have the little dancing feet of my will-O'-the-wisp — my Fadette — enticed into the Slough of Despond to-night?" he asked, staying where the moon- beams lay silver-clear upon the stile which crossed the old yew-hedge, and looking down upon her somewhat sadly. " Oh, everj^ Christian of them all, of course. But you have not told me why you absented yourself? You never • saw any thing so perfectly lovely as Xannie Lowe. And Acratha — But I forsret, we of s^^veet sixteen are rather too juvenile to be honored by your sageship's admiration. Miss Goldsborough inquired most kindly for you, sir;" and she glanced up at him mischievously. The grave face was yet graver than its wont, the mouth, usually so calm, contracted once as if in pain, and the dark eyes were fixed moodily upon the sward. Unaccustomed to have word or smile of hers unanswered thus, the girl perceived his abstraction, and said gently, putting off her mocking mood : ^ "Something troubles you, Mr. Randolph. "Wliat is it?" ^ "Much, Fadette — and chiefly you." She met his earnest look with one of bewildered incre- R dulity. But seeing that he spoke in all truth, she hurriedly ^; BANDOLPH HONOR. *j removed her hand, the deep rose-color rusning to her brow, and stood with head averted, but in expectant attitude. After a moment he began : " I could not see you with the gay throng to-night, little one, because to-night we must part." " Part ! We !" she exclaimed. " Surely, dear guardian, I can have done nothing seriously to displease you? Is it because I am too light, too giddy, that you will send me away ? Ah, let me stay, and I will try — I will try — " She clung to his arm again, as if she would make his manly strength her own support. He replied to her appealing gaze most tenderly. "My child," he said, "through all your sweet short life, since first you brightened my gray home with your sunny childish smiles and mischiefs, has ever fault of yours been a fault to me ? It is not that I send you away. I myself go hence with to-morrow's dawn." " But where, Mr. Randolph ? Only to Baltimore, is it not ? You will not be absent long ?" " There was an evening that we stood beneath these very trees when these young leaves were in bud, and my Fa- dette's eyes brightened and her cheek flushed, while, rais- ing her hand defiantly, she cried, ' Shame upon the tramplers- out of our forefathers' " foot-prints on the sands of time !" Honor to those who tread once again and deeper in those foot-prints, until they stand upon the underlying rock.' Does she think I then proclaimed duties for others, from which I myself shrink back ? or would let the true Ran- dolph honor go, to hold fast its emblem, these old walls and acres? Heretofore business arrangements have com- pelled me to delay in Maryland, but I am now free to follow my first impulse, to join our army in Virginia. Will you not bid me God-speed, and choose me your champion ?" His tone was light, but he bent down to read her vary- 8 RANDOLPH HONOR. ing face, anxiously. She bowed her head to conceal the starting tears, saying, with a tremor in her voice — " I know that you are right. I am proud that you go. But oh, what shall I do, what shall I do when you are gone ?" " It was not alone to speak of myself that I summoned you," he said, after a moment ; " I must plan for you, too, my ward. You know that when, twelve years ago, you, a wee girl, were intrusted to my guardianship by my closest friend, your father, it was his injunction that on your sev- enteenth birthday you should choose between my home and that of your mother's brother. Xow, therefore, draws near the day of your choice, and — " " My dear guardian," she interrupted, " can you doubt what that must be ? Could I ever be so happy beneath another roof as yours ? Could I ever love another home as I love Randolph Honor ?" " Child, you are rash. You may not determine in igno- rance of that which you refuse. You say you will miss me here. Why then not pay this visit now, which one day or other must be paid? Remember, your uncle has claims upon you stronger than — than I dare hope to have — and it is your duty to acknowledge them, I have to-day," he added, extending to her an open letter, "received this, wherein your uncle urges, in the warmest terms, your com- ing to him in your mothers old Charleston home. Yes, keep it to read. You will see, there is a special invitation for your rough canine pet. How have you deluded Mr. Rutledge into the belief that Leo actually did save your life?" " Ah, my faith is not to be shaken, though Lionel does insist that had I not been too terrified to stand upright, the water would scarcely have reached my shoulder. By the way, I accepted to-day one invitation for the dear old Leo — RANDOLPH HONOR. 9 he is gone to Mrs. Goldsborough, who is in perfect terror of robbers and what not, since her son went down to Dixie. But we won't hear of any more visits." " Your uncle has the right, my child. Though circum- stances have separated you much hitherto, yet I am con- vinced you will be happy under his protection. I now regret that we went again to Europe last year, otherwise you might have had months instead of weeks in his house, in which to form your decision, and — " " For my decision — it would have been the very same. And I am sure I shall never regret my Fall in the Alps, my Winter in Munich," she interrupted, impatiently. " I won't go, Mr. Randolph." " Fadette !" She was silent— abashed. Presently she raised her head, and said resolutely : " Well, if you think I ought, I will. But only for the ^ar — only until you return to Randolph Honor. You will promise me that ?" " Then," he replied evasively, " my will-o'-the-wisp will have been flitting so long through Carolina marshes that she cannot be recaptured, nor will she remember old Mary- land beaten paths." " Sir, I repel the base insinuation," she cried, drawing herself up in playful indignation ; " and I renounce forever your sobriquet of ' Fadette,' since it must needs be a type of inconstancy. But come, your promise. No subterfuges, if you please." " No, Fadette ; your uncle's house is now your proper home," She stood perfectly bewildered. Then she said slowly : "I cannot understand you, Mr. Randolph. I do not fhink you mean that you are weary of me. I think you love me yet. Do you not ?" 10 BAXDOLPE HOXOR. She paused for his reply. " Yes, Fadette, I do," he said, very quietly. "Then why in the world — Ah, I have it, you naughty guardian ! You are to be married, and Mistress Randolph, nee — let me see — Dorsey — or — Goldsborough — may not — " She stopped, her idle words checked by the rebuke of her companion's grave calm eyes. After a moment he spoke : "You shall know from me why you may* no longer call Randolph Honor your home. Others would tell it you if I did not. It is because" — his voice had a harsh ring in it — " although I am more than twice your own age, and althougli to you I am only the guardian old enough to be your father, yet the world deems me still too young to be the proper protecjor of a young girl." She blushed crimson. " I — I will go," she hastened to reply. " But when, and how ?" "I will write to-morrow from Baltimore, where I can make the necessary arrangements. It is unsafe for you to remain here with Aunt Randolph for sole defender, when ni these troublous times we know not how soon Maryland may become the battle-ground. Moreover, unruly little Fadette sees only too well that her will is law and right to Aunt Randolph, and it is impossible to foretell into Avhat mischief she might drag the staid old maiden. And I can- not have my ward so beyond my ken, as must be were she here Avithout the Confederate lines." Xo answer to his smile in Fadette's downcast face, but upon the long black lashes there glittered a tear. He replaced her arm within liis, and drew her on beside the great yew-hedge, where the gravelled patli was bor- dered here and there by tall dense clumps of roses, archi\ig bloomy branches high across the way, and over tlie heads RANDOLPH UOI^OR. H of the two, who, both within the medium height of either sex, paced on. " This is the last time," he said, at length breaking the silence — " the last time, it may be, that we shall walk thus together upon this yew terrace, where we have had so many walks and talks in days gone by. Have you no word of comfort for me, when in one short half-hour we must part ? Are you angry with me, my darling ?" " I am not "angry," she replied constrainedly : " I have had no time to think. Oh, you are very cruel to me, Mr. Randolph," she cried impetuously, dropping his arm; and throwing herself upon a lower step of the stile, she burst into a storm of indignant tears. He stood at her side, deep pity and tenderness in his man- ner. Once he bent down, while his brow flushed, and his lips moved as though he would have spoken. But he refrained. When her passionate weeping was at an end, he said : " You know, my Fadette, that if I am cruel to you it is but for your own sake, and I am far more cruel to myself. You are yet scarcely more than a child, life lies before you in which to be beloved, and you will* not fail to win friends in your new home as in your old. Mine I have already won or lost, and my chief treasure I part with, because it is not well for her to be mine. Will she then blame me, that I give her into better keeping ? Trust me, I would not sufler my darling to go did I not know she would be safer and happier." She had calmed herself while he was speaking, and now gave him her hand, striving to smile. " I will try to do contentedly all that you wish," she whispered ; " it is only that. I am so grieved to leave Ran- dolph Honor and Aunt Randolph, and — and you." Again the rebellious tears started, but she checked them resolutely, and added ; 12 R^LS'DOLPH IIOXOR. "Xow tell me of yourself. Does Aunt Randolpli know you are going so soon ? Why did you not tell me before ?" "Because I did not purpose leaving until next week. Aunt Randolph knows. I summoned her from the drawing- room while you were dancing ; and the cause of a departure thus sudden, thus secret, is a note I this evening received from a friend in Baltimore, informing me upon undoubted authority that orders have been issued for my arrest. Were there the most remote probability of charges being made public, and trial permitted, I would remain here and bide the result ; but as affairs are now, I might serve my country to better purpose than mouldering in some cell of the modern Bastille. Therefore, with the morrow's dawn I shall have eluded the clutches of King Abraham's myr- midons." Fadette started. " Hark I" she whispered. "Did you not hear — a rustling in the bushes — a sound? I am sure it was like a sui> pressed chuckle." "I have frightened you into imagining spies, ambus- cades, and how many horrors besides ! Xay, I am not quite so important a personage, although I might be worth a lettre de cachet.'''' "Ah, Mr. Randolph, do not jest," she made answer tremblingly. " But come, let us find out whether any one be near. Pray do !" So great was her alarm, that to soothe it, Mr. Randolph, bidding her remain where she was, walked toward the clus- tering bushes whence she declared the sound had pro- ceeded. Had she followed, her aj^prehensive glance might have discovered that which his careless one failed to do — a crouched shadow, other than those of roses and yew-hedge, blending with theirs upon the grass. " Four-and-t went y tailors marched to catch a snail," ho RANDOLPH HONOR. 13 said, presently throwing himself beside her on the stile. " How that saucy brother of mine would laugh at us for a pair of cowards ! Would not recruit me into his company, would he ?" " Oh, how soon you are to see Lionel ! And you will join his company, won't you ?" was her eager rejoinder. " What ! submit my thirty-eight years of experience to the boy whom I have brought up ? No, no, Fadette — an older captain for me. But I shall undoubtedly see him, and, indeed, enter the same regiment, under Jackson." " Boy, indeed ! he is twenty-one ! But I see — I had for- gotten his captaincy. You must tell him, Avith my love, how I watch for his name in the papers, as for his home- coming. By the way, do you not think he may return to Maryland on recruiting service? He has before, you know." "Possibly. But there is greater probability of your hearing from, or even seeing him, when you are once within the Confederacy. Fadette, will you watch for me as you watch for him ?" He lowered his voice. "I will watch for you, Mr. Randolph" — she was too honest to repeat " as for him ;" " but I should not fear for you if I heard nothing, for I know you would always be right. While Lionel—" Those summits of unapproachable superiority, above the mists of doubts, and fears, and anxieties, which hover over lower regions — how cold they are ! Mr. Randolph looked chilled in their atmosphere. " What of Lionel ?" he asked, filling up her pause. " He would be wrong, would he ?" " How can you say so !" she exclaimed, vexed ; " how could I mean that ? But Lionel — well, he is so gay and thoughtless — he is so much younger. And I cannot think of my playmate wise and strong as you, Mr. Randolph." U . BAXDOLPII nOXOR. Neitlicr did Mr. Randolph find wisdom's paths the paths of pleasantness, apparently. But he made no remark, merely assuring her that the message should be duly delivered. " xVnd now," he said, moving into the moonlight to con- sult his watch, " we have overtaken ' the wee small hours ayont the twaP,' and your fairy kindred will be stirring anon. So let us within." They retraced their steps, and ascended the brow of the gently rising ground where was built Randolph Honor. Both turned to take farewell of the scene which they were leaving. . Facing the expanse of waters, and the shadowy terraces and undulating slopes, with low, hilly ranges closing in the far horizon in its rear, stood Randolph Honor, that ivied mansion of the orood old times. Its walls of c^rav stone irregularly hewn, and cemented with broad, jagged lines of white mortar; its spacious front, and rambling, unex- pected gables ; its clusters of peaked chimneys, and eccen- tric round, or square, or pointed windows, glittering through the large-branched trees in the moonbeams, added a picturesque feature to the scene. Hospitality the promi- nent characteristic, there was no resisting the broad invita- tion of portico and entrance, where roses, woodbine, and clematis held a mortgage upon column and wall. The night-breeze came laden with mingled fragrance, as guar- dian and ward drew near. " I am looking my last on Randolph Honor ; for oh, Mr. Randolph, it will be Randolph Honor no longer when you are gone. I am not sure, after all, that I could bear to stay," Fadette said, sorrowfully. They stood within the hall, at the foot of the great oak stairs, and Mr. Randolph had lighted Fadette's candle by the swinging lamp overhead. He silently held out his hand. She put hers into it. BANDOLPU HONOR. • 15 "One word," he said. "Promise me that if but the shadow of sorrow ever darken your life, you will remember you are dearer to me than all the world besides. Promise me that you will tell me of it, and that you will rely upon me. If all be not well with you in your new home, remem- ber that though I may not now be with you, I may and will care for you. In that case, your shelter shall be with Aunt Randolph, whose love has been long tried." She assured him, brokenly, that she would ever look to him— that none could take his place ; and then she turned and slowly ascended the stairs. But when she had reached her chamber, and set down her candle upon the dressing- table, so helpless a feeling of loneliness came over her, such a longing to see him yet once again, that, yielding to the impulse, she recrossed the corridor and descended the stairs with a flying step. In the hall where she had left him he still remained, his arm upon the balustrade, his eyes shaded w^ith his hand. She stayed upon the step above him, and called his name, softly. He lifted his head. Yet after one rapid glance, he re- sumed his former posture. But although his face was thus partly shielded from her, Fadette grew pale before the set- tled anguish of that one glance, and for an instant thought that he suffered intense physical pain, his mouth was so fixed, so rigid in its expression of endurance. " I am so loth to part," she murmured, " that I am come again to say good-bye." , He could turn from her no more when her tones thus quivered, and a trembling, beseeching touch was laid" upon his arm. And ere long she had perched herself upon the balustrade, partly supported by a hand upon her guardian's shoulder, exchanging from time to time words of hope, which faltered into half-uttered fears— bright promises of the future, changing into dull regrets. 16 RANDOLPH UOXOR. At length she rose, saying — " But you will be so weary, you cannot have even your two or three hours of rest, if I do not run away now. You go at half-past four ? I shall come down and pour out your coffee." " No, Fadette, I would not part with you a second time. Aunt Randolph will attend to my comfort. And now again, good-bye. God be with you, my own, my own !" It was almost in a groan that he ended, and he gazed earnestly in her face, as she flung back with a toss of the head that heavy braid of purple-black hair escaped from the comb, low upon her cheek. He marked the rich car- mine glow ; the pure transj^arent brunette tints ; the full red lips, half parted in a sigh ; the dewy, deep-brown eyes ; the thoughtful line upon the low, broad brow. This last arrested his attention. "Time must not change my Fadette until we meet again ;" he said, " and that it may not, she must banish that naughty, cross wrinkle from her brow. Sadness has no place there, my darling." She tried to smile, and to retort, but voice failed her. She could only murmur, when, with another hand-clasp, he would have put her away — " When we last parted for long, it was not thus. Am I less dear to you now ?" He understood, and bending down, kissed her forehead lightly. Then with another tearful attempt at a smile, she fled up the stairs, without ventuiing one downward look. She drew a low seat into the bay-window of her cham- ber, overlooking the Chesapeake. She leaned her arms upon the deep sill, and rested her chin in her hands. Her gaze fell where the bay lay broad and silvery in the moon- light ; where the red and green lights of a steamer passed swiftly on, yet seemed to loiter in the distance; where RANDOLPH HONOR. 17 waves tossed fitfully in the wake of ruder gusts, as drifting clouds obscured the moon. All this she seemed to see, but saw not, looking yearn- ingly toward the past, blankly toward the future. Per- chance anon some bright vision there — for she was yet a girl, and what girl fears the future ? — flitted before her tear- dazzled eyes. For once a smile just hovered on her lij)s, though this was quickly followed by a burst of weeping. Tired out at last, and lulled by the surging of the waves, she became calm. Gradually the shadows of those long- curved lashes wavered on her cheek — her head drooped upon her arms, now crossed on the window-sill — and just as she was summoning resolution to rise and undress, she slept. The moonbeams rested upon the serene brow and the tapering folded hands, and her breathing was light and untroubled as the breeze which stirred the raven tresses veiling her dimpled shoulders. CHAPTEPw n. EKE DAWN. ' Clouds in the evening sky more densely gather." — Salis. j|HE awoke with that sudden start, that impulse of alarm, wherewith danger sometimes warns in sleep. She opened her eyes upon dense darkness, and was at tirst so bewildered that she knew not where she was. The chill night-wind, however, roused her, and, shivering, she rose to close the window. The night had changed while she slept. Hurrying clouds, made visible only by occasional lurid flashes, swept over the moon, and mutterings of the white and angry bay responded to the sullen echoes of the thunder. Fadette had always declared herself " devoted" to thun- der-storms, and she leaned from the window watching the on-coming of this. Presently, in one of those lulls which precede the wilder thunder-crash, she became conscious of a near presence, and, listening intently, distinguished a footfall crunching upon the gravelled walk beneath. Bend- ing forward, her very breathing suppressed, she distinctly heard the low tones of a voice, and a transient gleam of lightning parting the blackness, threw into relief, against the white columns of the portico, the figure of a man. She drew back, and clenched her hands together to assure herself by corporeal evidence that she was not still asleep, for in her dreams but now had Lionel Randolph's home- RANDOLPH HONOR. 19 coming thus appeared. Possessed with the thought of him, she returned to her place and called softly — " Lionel, is that you ?" There was a brief silence, during which she thought she discerned the sound of hastily retreating steps. Terrified now, she was about to arouse the house and give the alarm of she knew not what, when there came the low answer to her question — " Yes, it is Lionel Randolph. Come down and let me in, will you — quick !" " But — but — are you sure it is you, Lionel ?" She hesi- tated, peering down anxiously into the dark. " Is no one with you ?" This time the reply was prompt. " Yes, yes, one of my company. Quick, or we may be discovered !" " Oh, I am so glad, so glad !" she cried ; and catching up a light shawl, throwing it over her evening dress, she passed out into the corridor, delaying not even to strike a light. As she groped her way along to the stairs, she stayed an instant at the door of her guardian's chamber. "Lionel is come, Mr. Randolph," she called, rapping Once or twice. She did not wait to hear Ins questions, but added : " I was up, and am going to let him in ;" and he heard her light foot upen the stairs. As she felt for the great bolt of the hall-door a mysterious awe crept over her, and her fingers trembled so that she was forced to pause. For one moment she was tempted to return for a light ; then she remembered she had been bid- den to hasten. "Lionel! Lionel!" she called in an aflfrighted whisper, putting her mouth to the keyhole. The silence was unbroken, save by the surging of tern- 20 RANDOLPH HONOR. pestiious wind and waves, and the clashing of the boughs against the portico. She shivered as though the storm had power to shake her too. Her first impulse of distrust rushed back upon her. With it came the memory of a self- murdered Randolph of a generation years before the Revo- lution, who still, the servants had oftentimes borne witness, was wont on such a night as this to j^ace beneath the case- ment of his false love, who had spurned him for the heir, his brother. But, coward as she was, she was more afraid of Lionel's unmerciful raillery upon the display of her cowardice, than of all the terrors conjured up by night. So she mustered all her courage, drew the refractory bolt, and the door creaked heavily upon its hinges. Instantly there was a rush of trampling feet in the dark- ness. Fadette shrank back, cowering, against the wall. Amid muttered oaths, and demands for light, and sup- pressed objurgations, consigning "that fool of a woman" to Hades at mildest, her heart beat so violently that she was fain to clasp her hands over it, terrified lest its throb- bings, which to her were so fearfully audible, might betray her. Xow she had almost shrieked aloud, as some one brushed by her, crouched in her corner. Suddenly it flashed upon her mind, before absorbed in vague awe of the supernat- ural — of the midnight powers of the air, of hobgoblins, or of storied robber-hordes — that these must be men sent to effect that arrest of which Mr. Randolph had spoken. Thought for him on the instant overcame appreheugion for herself. Collecting her wandering ideas, she remem- bered that the library, the door of which was close at hand, opened also into another hall, whence a staircase led up into the corridor above. For one second she shuddered at the idea of threading through that throng ; but the next, her re&.olution was RANDOLPH HONOR. 21 taken. And moving warily, albeit blindly, she eluded collision, gained the library, and fled on until she stood with palpitating heart at the far end of the hall above, be- fore her guardian's door. He was just coming out, candle in hand. " What is it ?" he asked hastily, observing her changing color, and hearing the commotion below. " Come away — away," she gasped. " They are seeking you — I know they are. It is not Lionel. The hall is filled with armed men ; I heard the clash of their bayonets. Quick, quick, Mr. Randolph — they are all in the front hall — you can surely escape by the back." A shade of deeper gravity darkened his brow. But he replied, calmly: " Xo. They cannot have omitted to surround the house. Better remain where I am than attempt an unsuccessful escape." " Quick, then — let me conceal you in Aunt Randolph's dressing-room." " And be caught like a rat in a trap ? ^NTo, thank you, little lady, I will brave it out. And if the worst come to the worst, a few weeks of hermit life will do me no great harm." He was silent upon the true motive for surrendering himself — the dread of leaving two defenceless women ex- posed to the insolence of a baffled soldiery. He re-entered his dressing-room, followed by Fadette. He took from the table a pair of pistols, examining and loading one, Avhile she held the other toward him in read- iness. " Xay, my little one," he said, as, relieving her of the weapon, he looked up and smiled into her blanched face, where the large dark eyes Avere grown larger and darker than ever, dilated with the wild gaze of a startled fawn. 22 BAXDOLPH IIOXOR. " Fear not, I am not going to carry the war into Africa, but merely to bully the rascals into a few stipulations of my own. Remain where you are while I go to meet them ; and the very moment we leave the house, do you flit down and secure the door. Nay, do not weep, my darling," he soothed, as she clung to him. " I — I have brought all this upon you," she sobbed. ' " Hush, hush," he replied, kissing her brow, and putting her away gently ; " and if you love me, remain here until these men are gone. Aunt Randolph sliall come to you. There is no danger; no, none for me, trust me." She covered her f^ice, sinking upon her knees, her brow pressed against the cold marble of the table, in an agony of weeping. He cast one yearning, lingering glance upon her, ere, placing one pistol in his belt and taking the other in his hand, he left the room, closing the door. Meantime, matches had been produced and the hall-lamp relighted. The gleam of bayonets wavered to and fro below, and several soldiers were beginning to mount the stairs. Mr. Randolph came forward to the landing and confronted them. '' Why are you here ? TThat do you want ?" he demanded of the foremost. The man, a lank, slouching specimen of the genuine " Down-Easter," stole one glance at the pistols, and another at the muscular though lightly-built frame and resolute eye of his interrogator. , He shuflled uneasily, and turned, as if appealing to those in his rear. " We want Lloyd Randolph the traitor, that's Avhat we want," growled a gruif voice from behind. The right hand tightened upon the pistol, and was in- stinctively half raised; but the creaking movement of a door, which stood ajar far up the corridor, admonished of a watcher. The grasp relaxed. BANDOLPH HONOR. 23 " I am Lloyd. Randolph," lie replied, folding his arms and awaiting further explanation. Whereupon, from the background where he had heretofore, with commendable discretion, remained, advanced a fiercely moustached man- ikin, duly striped, brass-buttoned, and epauletted, his ofii- cership most unmistakably proven by the long sword clanking at his heels. " Den you be my prisoner, sare," he announced, with a flourish of his chapeau, falling into position, his right foot stoutly planted on an upper step, his right hand laid mar- tially upon the hilt of the very obvious sword. " So be it, upon one condition," responded Mr. Randolph : *' That to avoid disturbance in the house, you withdraw your men to the lawn. Then, and not until then, I sur- render." " Bon — ver' good," the officer rejoined, smiling sarcasti- cally ; " dat is enough well — give you fine chance for to save yourself" " How, sir ! when I have given my w^ord ?" thundered Mr. Randolph, in a towering passion. And, forgetful of prudence, he seized the poor little emissary by the collar, shaking him until, half-throttled, he stammered — " Pardon, pardon ; I have but jested, sare." Mr. Randolph let go his hold. But thr unfortunate lieu- tenant, too suddenly released, after on.3 violent efibrt to maintain his tottering dignity, reeled Vackward, and went rolling over and over in a series of not the most graceful somersaults, the soldiers upon either hand clearing the road for his " masterly retreat," until he reached the end of the flight, decidedly hors du comhat. While he rose to his feet, crimson with anger and ges- ticulating furiously, an unrestrained shout of laughter rang through the house from the yet undisciplined recruits, Avho held their diminutive foreign commander in no great re- 24 BAMDOLPR ROyOB. spect. And that half-closed door creaked again sympathet- ically. Meantime, the keen eyes of Mr. Randolph had espied through the parting crowd the familiar face of a mechanic from the neighboring village, who had long borne him a grudge for some slight offence, and whose abolition pro- clivities had been more than once suspected by the planters of the vicinity. " Ha," he exclaimed, " there is the spy and informer ! Here, any of you fellows who may have manliness to de- spise a sneak, throw me up yonder scoundrel." But not ambitious of becoming "the cynosure of neighboring eyes," the detected man had already disappeared. Aroused by the unseasonable mii-th. Aunt Randolph her- self had emerged from her chamber, and now advanced along the corridor, her hands uplifted in amazement. The tall spectral form, arrayed in a hastily-donned trailing white vn-apper, was a fitting adjunct to the scene. It might have been a troubled spii'it disturbed in midnight hour of wan- dering, by intrusive mortal presence and obtrusive mortal levity. As on this figure passed, the terrified yet amused watcher, ensconced behind the door, thought rather irrev- erently — " Thy two eyes like stars start from tlieir spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks do part, And each particular hair doth stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine." Mr. Randolph, turning and beholding the new-comer, hastened to say to her : " Do not be alarmed — an earlier summons than I antici- pated, that is all. I must go with these men, but T\nll com- mimicate with you as soon as possible. Do not be down- hearted, my dear aunt." But the dear aunt was so down-hearted, that, dropping RANDOLPH HONOR 25 aghast upon an opportune sofa, she began piteously to lament and bewail the manifold sins and wickednesses of the Yankee nation. And the little Fadette was so down hearted, that when, after a few words of comfort and of hope, the prisoner was following the guard down stairs, she could not resist gliding out from her retreat, and slipping her hand in his, again murmur farewell through deep- drawn sobs. " What's that o-irl boohooinsj about ?" asked one soldier, staring upward, of another. " Oh, she's crying because we're going away," the man returned, with a leer directed to Fadette. Mr. Randolph did not hear this dialogue, but Fadette did, and brushed away her tears, and mastered her agita- tion. His last glance rested upon the fairy figure kneeling beside and tenderly soothing the old lady. She looked up gave him one tremulous smile, and he was gone. 2 CHAPTER III. FORT M HENKY. 'Where the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway, Many things are made clear which else lie hidden in darkness." EVAXGELIXE. lADETTE leaned forward from the carriage as it wheeled rapidly on out Fort Avenue, leaving Baltimore behind, and speeding over the narrow level neck of land toward its termination in the grassy parapets of Fort McHenry. Broad upon either hand lay the smooth blue waters, widening outward to the bay. Beyond, far Fort Carroll, on its little island, fronted the semicircling hills of the city, where monuments and spires rose with wooded eminences behind. To the right of the road the sides of the promontory sloped, here and there in gardens, to the water's edge; and to the left, cottages and frequent flocks of geese whitened the green common. To Fadette's memory recurred the morning, not a year ago, when last she had sped here in a light open carriage, not, as now, with only Miss Randolph, frightened and ner- vous, by her side, but with a merry party, herself the mer- riest there. Presently further progress Avas stayed by the sentinel at the tall black barred gates which swung across the road from the stone walls shutting out on either liand that end of the promontory where stood the fort. And while a soldier was despatched to headquarters to request passes for the visitors, she gazed wistfully up to the hospital piazza just within, once the scene of more than one gay flirtation RANDOLPH HONOR 27 during the scarcelj^-watchcd i)rogress of grand drill or review. . Those fiery Zouaves, in flaming uniform, failed to recall to her from out the past one impulse of pride and pleasure, or even of interest in the evolutions of the light-artillery drill, the spirited horses, the dashing riding. The bugle- calls no longer echoed of tournay and of field of gold ; but of field of blood and passing souls, of shrieks, and wails of death. The harmless guns mouthed forth no longer re- verberations of the glory of the olden time ; but threaten- ings of destruction for all she held dearest and most sacred. What wonder, then, that she sank back upon the cushions, to avoid recognizing the courtesy of an ofiicer, who, in riding by, touched his cap ;— while Miss Bandolph, in trembling awe of military power, and regarding the closed gates before her much as a fluttering hen may be supposed to regard the entrance to the fox's hole, pressed her arm in remonstrance, bestowing the while several comj^ensatory nods upon the rebuffed warrior. Ingress granted at length, the gates swung open, and the carriage rolled on up the broad road dividing the drill- grounds, which stretched away with a gentle declivity to the sea-wall on either hand. And the driver drew up before a heavy wooden gate, a late addition to the de- fences of the fort's entrance. Fadette glanced around. To her left, were those white cottages sprinkled over the green slopes with their inter- secting gravel-paths, the sward broken here and there by triangular stacks of bomb-shells, dotting it with black. The gray surrounding sea-wall bounded placid waves gleaming in the sunshine. The shores rose beyond, across the Avaves", hill above hill. All was here as of old, the peaceful pageant- ry of war. The white tents of the Zouave camp well-nigh hid themselves, to the southwest of the fort, anion o- the 28 RAXDOLPH IIOXOR. green Trater-batterics which faced toward the bay. Here to the right, the high yellow rounded walls of Fort McHen- ry, sui-mounted by broad grassy parapets, rose up from the verdant dry-moat ench'cling, which in bright patches shone yellow as those walls with buttercups and dandelions. Overleaning it, blossomed the old apple-tree, as in sum- mers gone. But when Fadette had passed through the new entrance, unfamiliar were bristling abattis, spiked port- cullis depending from the sally-port, and a formidable array of newly-mounted guns. " My dear, my dear, where are you going ? AVhat do you intend to do ?" whispered Miss Kandolph in a tremor, eyeing askance the orderly who preceded them. "To follow that man straight to Mr. Kandolph," Fa- dette replied, with an encouraging nod. For to the timid old lady the young girl's affection took a matronly, patron- izing form, inasmuch as she feared neither man nor day- light. It was only by darkness and " the immortals" that she was overawed. " Oh," she exclaimed, checkmg herself suddenly, " that portmanteau — my dear aunt, did you forget it ? AVill you," she added, addressing the orderly, "return to the carriage for it ? My pass gives permission to admit it, provided it be searched." Xot through forgetfiilness had she left that portmanteau. Xor did she now repeat her order without reckoning the moment when two officers, passing into the fort, sliould be near enough to hear her words and to observe her indifter- ent air. Why, indeed, should she be other than indifferent as to the an*ival or non-arrival of a portmanteau ? Her heart sank within her as she paused upon the thresh- old of the prison-cell. She remembered how once in other times on entering the sally-port she had glanced, througli the open door within, into this darksome place. Then she BANDOLPH HOJS^OU. 29 had shuddered at its aspect, and now, shuddering yet more, she recalled the reply to her question, spoken by an officer then walking beside her: "We make no use of this cell, save when the fellow is unmanageably and vociferously drunk: it is inhabited for a few hours only, otherwise the occupant would hasten to exchange it for another vault, perhaps somewhat damper." Not much, however, thought Fadette, surveying the dis- mal walls, where moisture oozed, and gathered, and trickled slowly down. Twelve men were within the narrow precincts. One, haggard and unshorn, sat gloomily apart upon an iron bed- stead at the further end, his elbows on his knees, his rough bearded chin in his hands, never moving, in dogged despair and sullen indifference, as the visitors entered. Another, at the sound of the clanking door, had started forward, then with an air of bitter disappointment turned away. An aged gray-haired gentleman was conversing with a chaplain captured in the discharge of his duties on the battle-field. Two Confederate soldiers were recounting to a select audience beside the door their experiences of camp and field; while a third, close by, whistled care down the wind to a most lugubrious tune. Mr. Randolph himself paced restlessly up and down. He held out his hand in welcome to his guests, evincing no surprise at their advent. " I have been looking for you each day since you were advised of my residence," he said cheerily; "and just now was longing to hold old Time by the forelock, lest he should give the signal to close the gates w^hile yet tarried the wheels of your chariot. Early, is it ? But here daylight and night are not widely different, and when my watch and I were captured, we were not conveyed to the same 30 RANDOLPH HONOR. stronghold. Well, what thinks my kmd aunt of her first appearance in prison ?" Miss Randolph could not respond in the tone of the pris- oner. She surveyed the miserable apartment and its in- mates in profound dismay, and stared aghast at the damp, stained walls, while the corners of her mouth fell into a yet more depressed and anxious curve. " Nay," he said, " you came to see me, not the cell, and you must not waste one regard upon it. Remember-^ ' Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage, Hearts—' " What hearts are those, Fadette, that take • ' This for their hermitage ?' " " Cold, stony hearts, I should think," she responded, faintly returning his smile. She had seated herself upon a bench beside the door, while one of the gentlemen had risen and placed his chair for Miss Randolj)!!. Mr. Randolph leaned upon the back, conversing in a lowered tone — not so lowered, however, but that Fadette once or twice distinguished her own name, coupled with " passport" — " few weeks' delay" — " Charles- ton." She shook her head with a low laugh of superior knowl- edge, saying to herself, " When you are free to plan, my guardian. I go after, or go not at all." She sent restless glances through the open doorway, before which the senti- nel passed and repassed. Once she started up with a gesture of impatience, but resumed her seat as the orderly appeared, and with him the forgotten portmanteau. While Miss Randolph, in anxiety for the neat hJanchiS' sage, rose to superintend its examination, Mr. Randolph took possession of the place beside his ward. Her hand, BANDOLPH HONOR. 31 clasping a simple bouquet, rested upon the back of the bench. He lifted hand and flowers together. " For me, are they not ; — to whisper of my little one in her garden at Randolph Honor ; to speak a comforting lansruasre of their own throuQ-hout the weary hours ?" She raised her eyes, fixing them steadily upon his, as she said : " Do you understand the language of flowers ? These have indeed comforting words, strangely comforting words of their own. Read them carefully, carefully ; and — " She stopped, observing that the soldier, having concluded his examination of the portmanteau, seemed to be listening. But the look she bent upon the blossoms now in her guar- dian's keeping was significant as speech could be, and he resolved that the bouquet's message should be studied flower by flower. Not sorrowful, as at the last parting, was her smile, when she turned upon the threshold of the dreary prison, waving her little hand once again ere the grating door shut out that vision of hope, of comfort, and of love. As she descended the slope, drawing the trembling Miss Randolph's arm within her own, a heavier step resounded through the sally-port. The commanding officer overtook her, and walked on by her side. He was an acquaintance of years' standing, and she put a constraint upon the cold- ness creeping over her, more especially as Miss Randolph would not understand a hint, but slackened her pace. She told him she was about to venture a request. The cell, she said, was extremely damp and over-crowded : the Ran- dolphs had so many of them been consumptive — Nay, he must not smile at her words, because this captive scion was of stalwart bearing. Would the colonel — could it be unreasonable to ask it ? — permit Mr. Randolph to occupy one of the guard-rooms during the night ? She had heard 32 RANDOLPH HONOR. it had one prisouer already there in solitary confinement, and she would esteem it so great a favor ! She prayed pardon if she thus invaded the province of the commanding officer of Fort McHenry, but really could not think of beating a retreat until he had capitulated. There being no serious obstacle in the way, the gallantry of an old army-officer induced him to consent to the young lady's arrangement, and, grateful beyond what he could imagine, Fadette went back over old times with no very bad grace, as he accompanied her to the carriage. On passing the abattis, she mockingly inquired its use. The officer replied that alarms of purposed popular uprisings in Baltimore were so frequent, that additional defences were deemed necessary. Guns were turned upon the city, and the abattis designed .especially for a protection against bel- ligerent crinoline. Fadette glanced at the bristling protection, and then down upon her own crinoline significantly. "Allow me to remhid you," she said, laughingly, "that in the days of our grandmothers there was a Bastille, where stone walls and bristling spears proved but insufficient bar- riers against fish-women bold. However, it may be that crinoline was not d la mode in La Halle." They reached the carriage, and as the colonel assisted Fadette to her seat beside Miss Randolph, from the parade- ground rose the loved air of "Dixie" proudly on the breeze. " My test of a rebel lady," remarked the colonel, watch- ing the color deepening in Fadette's cheek. CHAPTEK lY. THE ESCAPE. "A woman's will dies hard, in the hall or on the sward." Mrs. Browning. OOD-MORNING, absent one. What, did you in- tend to cut me ? Why so pensive ? Surely you cannot have heard the news — a prisoner escaped from the fort? Mr. Wayne told me he met the jailer— I beg his pardon, the — wliat do they call him ? — commanding officer — -just now, riding post-haste to headquarters here, and evidently quite ' on the rampage.' " The speaker, a young lady, gay and bright, laid a de- taining clasp on Fadette's arm, who was walking slowly up the street, her eyes fixed upon the pavement, and had nearly passed without recognizing her friend. " What — who — the name, Carrie ?" she asked hurriedly, startled out of her abstraction. " That I have not yet been able to learn. Mr. Wayne promised to ascertain it, and let me know. What if it should be Mr. Randolph ?" Fadette was radiant with smiles, and she turned back with her companion, whispering — ■ " Can you keep a secret, Carrie ? that it is Mr. Randolph." Carrie stopped short, seizing both Fadette's hands. " Oh, you dear, delightful schemer ! How glad I am !" she cried; "for I know you are the schemer. But take care you do not make these confessions too publicly, lest Then I can tell you 34 RAXDOLPU HOXOR. you chance to fill your guardian's place. These very walls have ears. I am dying to hear all, but I positively won't ask a question here. May I come round to tea this evening ? Thank you, I will not ftiil. But hush ! don't you see that Fed. watching you so closely from across the street ? Cap- tivated, evidently. Ah ! here we are at Broadbent's. Have you looked over her lovely summer mantles ? I am going to indulge. Won't you come in and give nie the benefit of your opinion ? Xo ? Well, then, au revoir.''^ With light step and lighter heart Fadette pursued her way up Charles-street, bestowing joyous greeting upon friends whom from time to time she met. On this sunshiny morning right gay was Baltimore with handsome equipages and crowds of leisurely-strolling pe- destrians. As its streets, so are its people. No architect here legislates the householder of ton into tall edifices of red brick and mortar, narrow as the prejudices of the builder. No leader of fashion here dictates for dress rigid rules in style and coloring, regardless of the style or color- ing of the wearer. But besides the orthodox brick, a brown, a white, a gray, or other neutral tint, dares venture in to form a contrast in architecture refreshing to the eye. And in the attire of the women is a rich simplicity, a delicate blending of delicate hues, indicative of true refinement. Many a round fair throat gleams from light folds of the snowy embroidered kerchief; many a slight and graceful figure is faintly defined beneath the drooping lace or cash- mere shawl, the art of wearing which few women better understand. And as Fadette daintily raised her dress in the steep ascent beside Washington's monument, hers was but one of the many Cinderella feet there peeping forth. Just then the breeze, which was blowing freshly, whirled her sunshade from the loose clasp of her hand, and after toying a moment with it, flung it some distance down RANDOLPH HONOR. 35 the slope. The sunlight was dazzling, the sunshade a pretty one, and Fadette remembered Miss Randolph's horror of carelessness ; so looking after it with an impatient gesture, she began the pursuit. Hardly, however, had she done so, when she observed a man cross over from the Monument sidewalk, lift the sun- shade, and advance toward her. One view convinced her of his identity with the Federal officer to whom her attention had been directed by her friend, and whom she had since noticed keeping her constant- ly in sight. Annoyed that an utter stranger, and, moreover, one " of that ilk," should thus persistently force himself Upon her observation, she turned abruptly and hurried on. " Pardon me, madam, but this is yours." He had overtaken hen His manner was respectful ; but there was in it a command and a power which Fadette, had she not been so thoroughly vexed, must have perceived: a command which, at all events, arrested her involuntarily, and compelled her eyes to his. She stopped, and looked at him. There was that in the appearance of the man which at once struck her quick perception with a sense of inc©n- gruity. His uniform, fitted for medium height, on the wearer's tall and powerfully-built frame suggested the very opposite extreme of the two French cities the riddle ren- ders famous. Dark hair and moustaches were certainly in strange accord with the Saxon coloring of the face, and the deep-blue eyes regarding her with scarcely concealed amusement. And yet, with the first instant, the first im-" pression passed away. There was somewhat in the proudly careless bearing, in the firm curves of the mouth, in the fearless greeting of the eyes, which precluded suspicion, and withal compelled respect. Fadette was forced to re- vert to the uniform to arm herself again. 36 PuiXDOLPH HOXOR. She had unwittingly bowed in acknowledgment as he ex- tended to her the parasol. But anon an impulse seized her, and she flung it into the street, and moved on, without a glance either upon him or upon the delighted passers-by. To her surprise, he walked on by her side. And when she raised her eyes indignantly, she read in his, instead of resentment, admiration and gratification. " Do not j^rejudge me impertinent," he said, very low, " if I inquire your name." She fixed upon him a haughty stare. But he, nothing abashed, went on: " I am the bearer of a message which I am morally cer- tain is yours; yet the misdelivery of which it were not well to risk." She hesitated. Visions of " durance vile" arose before her, and she felt little faith in the message. But he waited there so respectfully, so deferentially, yet withal so determined to have liis will, that she waxed im- patient, and defiantly gave her name. " To you, then, I bring a message from" — his voice sank yet lower — "Mr. Randolph. Do not regard me so sus- piciously — I am not what I seem." That was a puzzled anxious gaze she raised to him. Her thought was of Mr. Randolph himself; but no disguise could thus transform him. At all events, this was a friend, and he had tidings — it might be, tidings of the escape. A glad smile brightened her eyes and just hovered on her lips. While this was passing through her mind, he, observing that their colloquy was attracting attention, said, hastily — " Appoint me time and place of meeting. I cannot ex- plain here." A meeting would scarcely be safe at the friend's house at which she was staying. She had no time for deliberation. RANDOLPU HONOR. 37 " Here, at eight this evening," she resj^onded, with cliar- aotei-istically rash promptness. All this had passed in a moment's space. Meanwhile, a gentleman who had witnessed Fadette's contemptuous treatment of the officer, and his unabashed perseverance,. came up. " Shall I rid you of this intruder ?" he asked. " If you please," she answered in her confusion, scarcely cognizant of her words. " Take yourself off quietly, Sir," he said sternly, " or you shall learn to your cost how a Yankee dares insult a Southern woman." At the beginning of this speech the " Yankee's" eyes flashed fire ; but apparently the conclusion was rather di- verting, for he smiled as he turned on his heel and sauntered away. Contemptuous glances followed, and " So much for Yankee courage" was muttered by not a few. Fadette is pacing the floor of her boudoir in Madison- street. It is dusk, and as she stays a moment at the open window, watching the forthcoming of the stars, she remem- bers with a sigh of relief that there is no moon to-night. She listens. From the street below arise, faint and fainter, echoes of footsteps homeward-bound in the twilight. Through the house all is silence. She opens her door, leaning over the balustrade, listening with head bent for- ward. Yes, it really is eight o'clock, for old John, that un- varying timepiece, is crossing the hall to the drawing- room, with his silver waiter, tea, and cake. Now is her time. She has excused herself to her friend Carrie and to her hostess, on the plea of violent headache — to which, indeed, her throbbing temples painfully testify, as she presses her palm upon them. There is the closing of a door below, and then a footfall on the stairs. She has only time 38 RANDOLPH UOXOR. to retreat, and to throw herself with a guilty feeling upon the sofa, before a servant taps at the door, and obeys her " Come in," to inquire whether she may bring a cup of tea. Xo, Fadette wants nothing — oWy perfect quiet. Thank her Miss Mary, and say good-night to her, and to Miss Randolph. She can see no one to-night. And please send up her old Mammy immediately. Fadette recommenced her aimless wandering about the room, drawing back the lace curtains, restlessly arranging and rearranging the trinkets upon the dressing-table, and at last, with a hasty movement, overturning the whole flowery fabric of a bouquet that morning sent her. She was down on her knees before the wardrobe, drag- ging forth cloaks and mantles and shawls, with which the floor was strewn, when the door opened to admit her " old Mammy" — a short, dumpy, cheer}' mulatto, in bright linsey and gay head-handkerchief "Absolutely not one fit to wear," muttered Fadette, tossing a cashmere wrathfully from the now empty drawei*. " Why, honey, whatever you a doing to your pretty shawl? Is the misery in your head so bad?" ejaculated the new-comer, standing aghast with uplifted hands, and evidently referring all this disorder to cerebral confusion. "There, there now, come and lie down then like a good child, while I go make you some yerb tea that'll bring you round in three shakes of a sheep's tail." Fadette rose up, smiling faintly — " Xo, Mammy, your yerb tea won't help me just now. It is not only my head. But this you can do for me — go get your every-day shawl and your big worsted, the new one, and come back just as fast as ever you can. Don't tell any one I sent you." " But, honey, there's blankets a plenty for this warm nisrht, and — " BANDOLPII HONOR. 30 " I'll hear about the blankets when you come back, Mum- my. ISTow go." On her reappearance, Fadette took the "big worsted" from her arm, and folded it over her own head in such a manner that it enveloped her almost to the feet. She stood before the Psyche-glass, surveying herself, w^ell-pleased. Then she turned to her servant : " Mammy," she said gayly, " would you swear it wasn't you, if you met it in the dark ?" " Why, honey, you ain't never gwine out that a way !" " Precisely. You put on the other shawl. Quick !" She hesitated. Suddenly a thought struck her. She asked anxiously: " You ain't never after meeting that ugly man as comes a courting you with floAvers and sich foolishness? You ain't gwine for to offerize yourself to run away from Mars' Lloyd, and him in jail ?" Fadette laughed. " No indeed. Mammy, I am not going to do all that. I am only going a square or two, as far as the Monument, to meet a gentleman who has news of your Mars' Lloyd.. But we must not let any one know, lest the Yankees hear it. I am only trusting you. You will go now, won't you ?" When Fadette had lowered her light, and locked her door upon the outside, the two cautiously descended the Flairs and passed out at the hall-door ; — an irregular pro- ceeding on the part of servants, the latter, at which the lady mistress would have been properly horrified. But Fadette was in no mood to concern herself with aught but the shortest mode of egress. She had little more than a square to traverse, and that was accomplished with so swift a step, that her attendant had much ado to keep pace. It was quite dark as she paused beneath a lamp-post, 40 ■ EAXDOLPH HOSOR. and, covertly consulting her watch, saw that it was a full quarter past eight. Along the opposite sidewalk wavered a slender stream of passengers, and now and then went by a carriage or two. But here, upon the Monument side, was no one save Fa- dette and her servant. Hardly, however, had she withdrawn into the friendly shadow the Monument extended, when a man crossed the street, and standing where she had stood, drew forth his watch. The gaslight streamed full upon his Federal uniform. . . Glancing around as if in search of some one, he was pass- ing Fadette. She feared to trust to the cursory view she had caught of his face, to identify her mysterious follower of the morn- ing. She resolved to test him before disclosing herself. " Sir," she said, advancing with unassumed timidity, "have you seen any thing of a parasol dropped near here?" He stopped, and looked at her earnestly. "It is you, then," he said, bowing low. "But whom have you there — one you can trust ?" "Oh, yes. But — Mammy," she added, "remain here. I am not going out of sight, only to yonder tree, while this gentlemen speaks to me." Beneath the shade they paused, confronting one another. Fadette raised her eyes inquiringly. " You will not, I trust, deem me impertinent in request- ing this interview," he said, " when I explain the danger in which r stand. I escaped last evening from Fort McHenry, and—" " With Mr. Randolph ?" she interrupted. He glanced at her in surprise. " Mr. Randolph is still there. But what is the matter ?" RANDOLPH HONOR 41 he asked anxiously, as she leaned against the tree, covering her face with her hands. " Nothing — nothing — go on," she said impatieutly. " Go on. Tell me of him." " Mr. Randolph and I have been for several days fellow- prisoners," he resumed, when she had again signed to him to do so. " We were soon friends, and I confided to him that I am the bearer of secret and important information to the Confederate army in Virginia. Detention of a few weeks would render my information unavailing, and I spoke of my great anxiety. He immediately offered a way of escape, if I were adventurous eiiough to hazard it. Most gratefully did I accept the ofier, and am here." " And that way ?" was the eager questioning of eyes and lips. " Next day he gave into my possession the uniform I now w^ear — procured, doubtless, by bribery of the guard. He would, very prudently, enter into no explanation upon the subject." A violent start, and the hands clenched over her face. A quick passing shiver shook her; but he saw nothing, drawing forth a pocket-book, and intent on searching among the letters in it in the uncertain light. " Go on, go on ; tell me of the escape — your escape he planned — I will have all, all," she cried, impeiiously, in the silence. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, but obeyed. " "Last evening, just after retreat, before the prisoners were locked in for the night, I donned this livery, and when the sentinel's back was turned, made my ejcit from the prison-door, and strolled leisurely up the ramp to the parapet. Once there, I had but to select a solitary part of the wall and my lightning-rod, and there I was, making the circuit of the camp pitched upon the south side of the 42 RANDOLPH HOXOR. fort, as unmistakable a defender of the Union as any there. Ere long the hue-and-cry after the escaped prisoner was raised, and the supernumerary volunteer took to the water, standing for hours chin-deep, diving do\^Ti when boats out in search occasionally approached. However, after various adventures by flood and field, I reached Baltimore. This morning I introduced myself to a group of comrade blue- coats in front of Barnum's, and learned the sequel so far as the fort was concerned. But a short while elapsed before an officer passed by our guard-room, and perceiving from light streaming through that the door was ajar, ordered the sentinel to close it. The fellow opened first, and seeing but one prisoner within, stood there asking questions, to which Mr. Randolph replied in such a manner as to detain him as long as possible. Thus some moments were gained before the officer peremptorily demanded the subject under discussion. And by those moments I was saved. Words can never measure my debt of gratitude to Mr. Ran- dolph." He ended. Fadette's face was still concealed. She mur- mured, brokenly — " God forgive you ; I cannot. You have taken away the escape I planned for him." " Great Heaven — for him ! — is that possible ?" he stam- mered. " It is true," she replied, coldly. "At least do me the justice to believe," he said, afler a short silence, "that through ignorance I have done this. I, fool that I was, imagined him wanting in the hardihood needful to such an attempt. I go this instant to deliver myself up to the authorities. Perhaps they may then be generous enough to release him." " Stay," she cried, as he turned away ; " for Heaven's sake do nothing so rash. I was unjust. A proper plea for RANDOLPH HONOR. 43 his release, truly, that he assisted the escape of anothei prisoner ! Remember your despatches, your duty, youi and his country. Mr. Randolph is right, and I was wrong. I, who best know him, know he would not easily forgive me, should words of mine occasion your return. I will not leave you without your promise to continue to Virginia. Do not look as if you felt any gratitude to me. With all my heart, aye, with all my soul, I would you were in any dungeon, and he stood free where now you stand. But being here, you are not your own — you hold a place, how- ever insignificant, in the gap. When were you to leave Baltimore ?" And did she mean to march him on in FalstaiF's ranks ? " ' Tut, tut, good enough to toss ; food for powder, food for powder ; they'll fill a pit as well as better,' " he muttered between his teeth. But the smile at her imperiousness was stayed upon hig lip by the restless anguish of her eyes. He simply replied : "To-night." "Promise, then. N'ay, you must, you must. He will else be so grieved with me !" In her impatience she wrung her hands. And the promise was given. For he felt he was not now free to follow the dictates of generosity ; and that her ar- gument, however unflattering in terms, was nevertheless a true one. "And is this all?" she asked, again adjusting the shawl which in her excitement had fallen from her * shoul- ders. He glanced admiringly down upon the fairy who thus assumed all Queen Mab's sovereign mien. He lost, for a moment, the sensation of his own almost remorseful pain, in the view of those dark, bright eyes, flashing upon him involuntarily ; of the red lips, which scarcely quivered out 44 RAynOLPH HOyOR. of their curve of angry scorn ; of the wondrously tiny dimpled hand, winch now drew closer those uglier than ever woollen folds. " I was bidden," he said, " to give you the minutiie of the escape, which Avei-e of his planning, I being a stranger to the vicinity ; and to place in your own hands this letter. Hearing you accosted by name, this moming, in the street, I followed, thinking in this way to arrange an interview with greater security to both. I beg your pardon for the annoyance I occasioned." Coldly but gracefully she said farewell, and would have parted thus. But he detained her, saying : " Permit me to give my name, that hereafter when we meet, you may know me no impostor. I am — " "Xo, no," she interrupted, "that meeting is far from probable : but if it should ever be, why embitter it by this remembrance ? Pardon me — I know it is unjust." He bowed low, leaving her without another word ; and recrossing the street, he was soon lost to Fadette's sight, although he guarded her at a distance until she reached the house. " A letter from Mars' Lloyd, Mammy," she said, display- ing the treasured paper to her faithful servant as they hastened homeward. "I have not read it yet, but he is well. That gentleman was in prison with him, and your master assisted him to escape." " He oughtn't to a'sisted nobody. He ought to a come himself," Mammy exclaimed, resentfully. " Xo. It was good and great in him. I love him for it. Xow remember, this is a secret all between our two selves,'* she reminded, as they slipped in at the alley-gate and round to the now deserted kitchen department, whence Fadette gained her chamber unobserved. The door secured, she drew a low chair beneath the light, BANDOLPII HONOR. 45 and impatiently dashing away the long pent-up tears, un- folded lier guardian's missive. She started, on perceiving that it was in her own hand- writing. She examined it closely. Yes, there were flower- stains upon the paper, and it bore marks of having been crumpled up in a bouquet. Thus ran the note : " I have told you to study the language of flowers. These say : ' In the bottom of the portmanteau, beneath the third brass nail on the left as you open, is a secret spring. Press this firmly: the bottom is false, and you will find beneath, a Yankee uniform. It is a friend in need, by which I pray you will escape. Perhaps I should send the uniform of a Confederate soldier instead. Stanch Balti- more has not made a renegade of me — I only desist for im- portant reasons. Don't be disappointed, time will rectify that. I will remain in Baltimore, with Aunt Randolph, until I hear. I look for you daily.' " As she scrutinized it, at a loss for her guardian's mean- in'txg. RIGHTLY shone the October evening sitfi over broad-leaved undulating tobacco-fields, and aslant throusfh shadowinsc trees and tall heds^erows, when along an mifrequented by-road passed a light spring- wagon. Its occupants, besides a trio of struggling chick- ens, a hamper of eggs, and basket heaped with luscious white October peaches, were a stout, ruddy, brown-visaged young countryman, and apparently Joan, his small wife, sunburnt and smiling, within immense beruffled sun-bonnet. On trotted the strong-built bay, faster and faster, at the reminder of whip and rein, while the two sat together on the broad seat in front, and chatted in low tones. "To Nanjeriioy? how far did you say?" was Madam Joan's question. " Oh, not more than four or five miles now. You are not tired ?" " Have you forgot my ancient powers of endurance ?" ' " When we used to rove aU Calvert through on black- berry raids, and march home at sunset, you with your ■ RANDOLPH nONOR. 55 apron, I with my roundabout, deeply dyed in the blood of the slain — standing repentant but happy in the library doorway ; while our Mentor would look up from his easy- chair, and lay aside his book, and shake his head with scarcely successful gravity, we solemnly vowing to do so * never no more' — until next Saturday." The smile vanished from her lip, and she fixed her eyes gravely on him, as she asked : "What, think you, would he say to this escapade of mine ? Oh, I am so sorry I started ! I've a great mind to stop at Nanjemoy, and get Mrs. Leigh to send me home again." He looked at her quickly. He leaned forward and gave the horse a sudden lash, which made him bound oiF. Then checking him with a jerk, he turned again, flushed, to his- companion. " What, after all your persuasions to my aunt — all your arguments to convince her that you were right, and then to return, thereby convicting yourself of headstrong folly ! And your trunks already at Nanjemoy !" " More headstrong to go on than to go back, if there be folly in the question." " What nonsense !" he cried, angrily. " As if my brother could object, when it was at his instance that you have applied again and again for a pass to go where you may be to-morrow, without waiting for that which, ten chances to one, may not be granted. What is it, after all, but a friend to visit, a river to cross ? — and lo ! we are in Dixie." " But the Potomac is no brook over which you can carry me safely, as when we were children. And its Virginia shores are not South Carolina." " True, O most learned Geographess. And therefore the pleasanter jaunt we shall have, even unto the shores of South Carolina." 56 BAXDOLPH HOXOR. ' She smiled duljiously, objecting — *' But the Yankees ?" *' Not the sign of one in our zodiac. Besides, who would think of interfering with two staid country-folk such as we — bona fide clod-hopper and shepherdess?" " Shade of AVatteau forbid ! But it is astonishing how a little brown wash metamorphoses you." " I do not find the change in you so amaz — " " Hold your peace, Impertinence, or I assume rustic man- ners to match my rustic garb, and bestow upon your ears a reminder that ' neat-handed Phyllis' is not light-handed as the Lady Dulciuea." The straggling hedgerows lengthen, and the dusky har- vesters, in bordering fields, begin to cease from their labors. Only that wood at yonder bend in the road hides Xanje- moy, and the white walls are asserting themselves through every wavering shadow. And there is a silvery glimpse of the Potomac. The bay is going over the ground in gallant style, when suddenly — "Haltr^ And at the challenge, from the covert of low-sweeping trees and thicket shielding from vicAV that abrupt angle, half a dozen soldiers of a picket-camp started up from their full-length card-playing on the sward. Bumpkin has considerable difficulty in reining in his steed, accomplishes it at last with unsteady hand, and reels slightly toward his comj^anion, to whom he contrives to whisper : " Xever fear — they'll release us in a few minutes. Fme flow of spirits — returning from family dinner at grand- ma's — Widow Hawkins's, you know. Going ten miles the other side of Xanjemoy — my wife." And with ludicrous attempts at distinct utterance, he RANDOLPH HONOR. 57 replied to the questions of the guard, according to tlie synopsis contained in his aside, adding : " Yes, Grandma Hawkins's is the best cider in the Union — and maybe I've a leetle, just a leetle drop too much aboard" — sinking his voice and flourishing the whip about his head. " But I tell you what it is — I'm going to get on a big drunk to-morrow. Bully whiskey at Nanje- moy, boys — treat all round — take oath, hey? — Union for- ever ! ' Hang Johnny Reb on a sour apple-tree' — Hooray ! Only" — and he caught the corporal by the confidential button — " only don't tell the old woman, boys — don't tell the old woman. She's a stunner, she is, when a'nfortinate fellow's shot in the neck." And he indicated the old woman by a gesture of the thumb over his shoulder. At first as pale as sun-browned tints of complexion would 13ermit, she now scrutinized, though with apparent careless- ness, the countenances of these blockaders on the " Under- ground" passage, who had gathered round the wagon. There was assuredly no great cause for alarm in their idle curiosity breaking the tedium of a long October afternoon. Such an interruption, demanding just so much exertion as the stretching of lazy limbs, was provocative rather of good- humor. So she composedly smoothed down her white ^pron over the shining black silk, with somewhat of a coquettish air, asking : " May we go on now, please sir ? Me and Thomas 's been rather late upon the start, and we left the house at home all alone." " Sorry, Marm, but you'll hev to wait till the oflicer of the guard comes round. Them's our orders. Calc'late the house wunt git lonesome." " How long must we wait ?" she inquired, with a shade of anxiety in her tone. 58 BAyDOLPH HOXOR. "Duiino. 'Bout long enouoh for ns to help you with them beautiful peaches, that'll all spile by keeping. Was you bringing 'em for us ? A big lot, 'most as fine as they grow down East. Xigh onto two months sence we seen one, or any kind o' garden sass. Here, boys, jest smell of 'em." And he distributed the fiiiit with lavish hand among his comrades, who declared themselves nation tii'ed of hard- tack. The owners the while reconciled themselves to their fate. The cider began to take more and more visible effect' uj^on Grandma Hawkins's grandson, who waxed garrulous under its influence. And disregarding the scornful withdrawal and the uplifted chin of his indignant spouse, he confided to a select audience that the aforesaid interesting old rela- tive had, besides very fine cider, not a little store of " tin," which one day would fall to the share of his old woman, thus quite a " spec." And in confidentially low tones, and slightly differing terms, he insinuated that rather the " beaux yeux de sq cassette''' than her own, had made Bene- dick a married man. Between every sentence he would fumble in his pockets, and extracting with difiiculty there- form what he called A, Xo. 1, tobacco, sometimes made pressing offers of it to the soldiers, engrossed by the peaches — ^but invariably transferred it to his own mouth without awaiting their acceptance. Though occasionally the expression of his face might seem to imply that A, Xo. 1, was not entirely to his taste. Twilight was falling before the anxiously expected oflicer made his appearance. Then, after questioning the two staid country-people, examining the man's pockets, and finding nothing unusual within, he decided to let them pass. And now the moonlight, which had shown full upon the broad river, began to creep in uncertain trembling rays through rustling embrowning autumn foliage. The way- BANDOLPII HONOR. 59 fhrers dashed tliroiigh the gates of a country-seat, and up the straight over-arched avenue leading onward to the por- tico of a heavy-built square mansion of age-darkened moss-grown brick, in the midst of the dense oak-grove. The servant, answering a thundering rap of the knocker, eyed askance the man stamping his heavy boots upon the edge of the "marble steps, and the siwi-bonneted woman still keeping her seat in the wagon. But long-accustomed exercise of hospitality, which an old family servant deems as much his own as his master's, induced the negro politely to invite even these non-" quality folks" to enter. " Have a care, these are not exactly clod-hopper man- ners," the woman whispered, as her companion returned to the wagon and assisted her therefrom. " No, indeed, I won't take your arm ; but you may give it instead to this basket of eggs. Mercy ! the chickens are gone ! Grandma Hawkins's fattest! Come," and she mounted the steps and followed the servant into the hall, whence he went to inform Mrs. Leigh of the arrival. The piano suddenly stopped in the adjacent drawing- room, the door was thrown open, and a young lady stood on the threshold. She advanced, hastily, crying : " Ah, here you are at last ! I've been looking — " There she stopped. Her eyes became accustomed to the glare of the well-lighted hall, and she descried a sun-bon- neted, white-aproned figure balanced on the edge of a chair, with a large basket on her knee. A man stood in the centre of the floor, his hands in his pockets, ajjparently engrossed in the examination of the chandelier. He wheeled round at the sound of a voice, and, removing his 'hat, ex- plained, in gruff tones, that he and his wife there had been stopped by a set of Yankee pickets on the way home through Nanjemoy. They could not go back all the way they came, as a good piece of the road lay through the 60 RANDOLPU IIOXOR. woods, and the moon wa'n't an hour high. Might they make free to ask lodging here ? " Certainly," the young lady had replied, when a second thought struck her, and she added, hesitatingly, " Wait, I'll ask." The white-aproned figure set down her basket, rose with great deliberation, 'and then making a sudden dart upon the young lady, seized and kissed her, holding her in her arms. She, too terrified to find voice for a scream, strug- gled violently the while. . " Why, Carrie, are you blind, are you deaf, that you do not know us ?" And her companion advanced, extending his hand, as he said: " Can Miss Carrie have forgotten her old friend Lionel Randolph ? Let me, then, introduce her most obedient, Thomas Brown by name." " Xever, never," exclaimed the now laughing Carrie, " will I trust my sight again. I was on the eve of sending Thomas Brown about his business, for the greater security of 3Ir. Lionel Randolph. A sorry welcome would you two have received for sailing into a friendly port under false- colors." " But those false colors are rendered necessary by the presence of the enemy near port. We were in reality stopped by a picket. Therefore, if Miss Carrie object not, Bhe will entertain this evening Thomas Brown and — " " Sister. I decline the honor of your hand," Fadette in- terrupted, gayly. Carrie put up her eyeglass, and affected to examine them critically, walking round them for that purpose. " Quite a respectable-looking couple," was the conclusion to which she arrived. " I think yon may be invited into the drawing-room, and allowed to take tea with us. Will RANDOLPH HONOR. 61 you leave your busket there, Miss Brown ? The servant shall put it safely away for you. Just lay your bonnet and shawl upon the tablej if you please." "Ah, this is really charming," cried Carrie, as after tea a cheerful quartette readjourned to the drawing-room, secure from all intrusion, even of faithful, but, perhaps, indiscreet servants, who had betaken themselves to their several cabins. " Is it not like a reunion in the good old times, mamma ?" " Save two absent ones, my child," replied the placid old lady from her armchair, wheeled close before the hearth, where a wood-fire blazed cheerily away. Lionel Randolph's bright brown eyes clouded, and for a moment he lost the pleasing consciousness of that heavy, suddenly-acquired black moustache, which covered his own faint suggestion of the same. " No reunion of the good old times. Miss Carrie," he re- sponded sadly, " while your brother and mine are missing — one in a Northern dungeon, one in a distant camp. But we will not compare with the past. Have you no curiosity with regard to Thomas Brown's adventures?" he asked, with wonted gayety. " Au contraire, I am dying to hear them. From Alpha to Omega, please." He did not please, however, it appeared, but inquired, instead: " Did you ever eat your own words. Mademoiselle ?" " Never, Monsieur ; but could not have the slightest objection — always make them palatable and sweet — like these, for instance." And lifting a, box of bonbons from the centre-table, at which she sat with her embroidery, industriously idling, she offered them with a profound obeisance. 62 UAXDOLPn noxoR. " Can you recommend them as an antidote to very naughty words ? I observe you are always supplied. I ask in all seriousness, because I this evening swallowed a quire of just such words. If 'rebellion' be sin, then is it well no man is judged by that which entereth into him." " What do you mean ?" asked the mystified Carrie. Fadette stared, but in a moment laughed merrily. " That explains," she cried, " why you began chewing tobacco so indefatigably, while the picket detained us the other side of Xanjemoy. I supposed it en rlgle for Thomas Brown, and was revolving in my own mind whether Mis- tress Brown was leaving any similar duty unperformed." " Alas, no ! All the fortifications around Washington are eaten — nothing left for ' the cankered tooth of Time' — and their garrisons perished in the debris. I can now imagine how Mother Earth feels after the repast conse- quent upon a battle." " But you surely have not lost the results of your fort- night's dangerous sojourn in Washington ?" inquired Mrs. Leigh, grave and anxious amid the laughter and the rail- lery which followed. " Xo, madam ; only rough notes I was so careless as to leave in my pockets, dreaming not of foes about peaceful old Xanjemoy. The papers of importance could not read- ily be found." Through all the merry conversation of that evening, two voices had been rinsrinor ceaseless chancres in Fadette's ears, and she now stole apart, throwing open the window and passing out upon the portico, to listen to and to decide between them. She stood there against the balustrade, looking upward through brown clashing boughs to the starlit skies. The ripple of the mighty river, glancing and darkling through vistas in the grove, and distant only by that grove, and the white winding road, seen at inter- RANDOLPH nONOR 03 vals beyond, flowed in, sootliinoly^ witli the cuiTent of lier thouglits, until tumultuous Avilfulness died away in the tranquillit}'', and left her free to hear the whisper of con- science, reminding that her guardian had bade her home to Randoljjh Honor, not on this hare-brained expedition with young Lionel. " The moon is down," she called, rousing herself. " Lio- nel, ought- you to delay ?" He went out to her. *' Are you ready, dearest, and not afraid ?" " Not afraid; but — I am not going." She spoke with quiet determination, although tears glistened on the lifted lashes. He looked long into her fiice, w^hich met that look steadfastly, though sorrowfully. And then he turned sharply from her, and began striding up and dowm the portico in silence. She kept her place, humming in careless fashion a lively air, and tapping the time w^ith her fingers upon the balus- trade, while in the eftbrt to keep back fast-welling drops, her eyes fixed themselves, strainingly, on one small star aloft, across which that high bough sw^ept with tedious regularity. Yet the notes quavered when he again passed her by abruptly ; and presently she follow^ed, and touched his arm. " Don't be angry with me," she pleaded. " It is because I feel I ought not. You cannot tell how it grieves me to give it up. I have been thinking and thinking ever since I first spoke of it this evening, though I w^ould not let you say another word. And now I know Mr. Randolph W' ould never consent to this." " Is ' Mr. Randolph' always to be first ?" he demanded, sullenly, shaking off her light clasp. " There, now, you are behaving like a siily boy, and an unjust one. I put myself under the care of no such mad- 64 RAXBOLPU EOXOB. cap Hotspur. Of course Mr. Ranclolph is to be first in all matters of right and wrong. As to affection — " She walked away from him quite to the further end of the piazza. The trees gloomed densely there, so that he could not see her face when he had followed. But he heard something very like a stifled sob. It did not soften him. It gave him the sense of power- - a new sense, where she was concerned. And the touch he laid upon her shoulder was of command, rather than en- treaty. " Unsay your words, Fadette, or say them again with a deeper meaning. Do you scorn me ? do you rebuff me ? Will you never put yourself under my care. Hotspur though I be? Fadette, this broth er-and-sister farce must end. You are no sister of mine. I love you as a man should love his bride, and I want a bride's answer. Speak I" She moved so that the light which glinted through the curtains from the oj^en window fell full upon her face. Through her April tears broke sun-bright flashing smiles, and she raised her finger chidingly. " Stay, you are not commanding your company, that you should issue orders in that style. I shall not answer one question you have put. But you may say — ' Fadette, I — care . for you — something more than a brother — will you like me just a very little ?' " Downcast and embarrassed, he stood before her. He felt himself utterly powerless beneath those bright eyes. The fairy-queen tyranny which had bent him from boyhood to its sway, was not all melted away in those tear-drops. His gaze was lowered, as he said : " Long and truly have I loved you — you, and none other. Is all in vain ?" She laid her hand in his, extended towards her. "I — I think — I am sure,'' she said softly, "that I love RANDOLPH HONOR. G5 you better than any one in the world — yes, even than Mr. Randolph," she added, as if in answer to some question- ing thought. "And — don't you know I used to be your little wife, dear Lionel ?" At that instant the curtains were drawn baqk, and Car- rie's gay voice cried — " Oyez, oyez ! Mr. Thomas Brown please come forward with his wife ! Mamma says you positively must go. Is she not hospitable !" Fadette had disengaged herself from her lover's arm at the first word, and hurriedly obeyed the summons. "You will surely go now? You cannot part my Fa- dette — my own Fadette — from me so soon ?" Lionel whis- . pered imploringly. She made no answer. " I have decided not to ofo," she said on re-entering: the drawing-room. " Am I not right, Mrs. Leigh ?" " What !" exclaimed Carrie, after a long, wondering stare — " You give up \ Terra firma is no more ! But I perceive mamma is going to side with you. And, indeed, Mr. Randolph himself looks well satisfied ! Are you quite sure you did not consider her rather a bore ?" she asked of him in a playfully confidential tone. "She has satisfied me," he replied, glancing slightly toward Fadette, whose color rose. He was leaning against the mantel, before the sofa, where Fadette and Carrie had sunk down side by side. He was twirling his coarse country straw-hat slowly and lingeringly in his hands. At length he .broke the silence : " Young ladies, are you occupying these last moments in reflection upon what a hazardous journey is mine? Do you realize that amidst those imminent perils by flood, highway, by-way, and field, there is the dread possibility, not to say probability, that I may lose — " G6 RAXDOLPH UOXOR He paused. Fadette's color fled, and her lips parted almost with a gasp. Mrs. Leigh, from her armchair, shook her head with unconscious foreboding. Carrie drew down the corners of her mouth, in a vain endeavor to hide a lurking smile. " The dread possibility," he reiterated solemnly, " that I may lose — two small valuables I would not willingly dedi- cate to the adorning of some future victorious enemy. How shall I therefore rescue them?" While he was speaking, he had brought forth his watch, and detached from the chain its one charm, an exquisitely enamelled acorn. Springing open, it disclosed a tiny golden- .winged imprisoned dryad, balancing herself on one foot upon a large diamond embedded there. And drawing off a seal-ring which Tom Brown's rough worsted gloves had concealed from view of the picket-guard, he held both in his outstretched palm. " Will not each of you, young ladies, save one of these from its impending fate, by taking care of it until I come again, to redeem it with the sjDoils of' the Egyp- tians ?" He watched Fadette uneasily, as Carrie's eyes fixed ad- miringly upon the priceless bauble. " I "u-ill wear your ugly ring," Fadette said, with well- assumed carelessness. But her glance fell before his of ardent gratitude, and lifted itself no more, while blushing deeply she slipped on the ring, guarding it with her dia- mond cluster. Mrs. Leigh now spoke, earnestly : "Lideed, Lionel, you should not delay. The servants are already at the boat — John and Madison, perfectly trust- worthy, you know. 3Iy dear boy, it is not safe to linger." He shook hands cordially with her and with her pretty daughter, who partially succeeded in an attempt to look lachrymose, and then he turned to Fadette. RANDOLPH HONOR. 67 " As my little sister, and as Tom Brown's wife, I claim no more than my dues," he said, and he bent down and kissed her suddenly. He paused on the threshold, waved his hat, and was gone. CHAPTER VII. BY FLAG OF .TRUCE. " To us, us also, open straight; The outer air is chilly—" Mrs. BROw>rrs-G. ADETTE stands apart on the deck of the Louisi- ana, in the early Xovemher twilight. She holds, a^lil clasped tightly in her hand, a slip of paper, the talisman which is to work 'the great change in her life — the pass by which, to-morrow, she will enter tlie magic bounds of the Confederacy. She watches the stars come out one by one, like the lights in the fading squares of Baltimore. Those squares are clearly defined in glowdng lines that sweep down from the amphitheatre of hills, encircling waters where red and golden rays are streaming broadly from vessels riding" there at anchor. For the first time a sense of that great change comes over her in all its force, and she starts forward, straining her sight to gain every feature of the fast- receding landscape, as for the last glimi^se of a familiar countenance. She forgets the iron grasp upon " the seven hills of yore;" she sees not the intrenchments of Federal Hill, nor the tents whitening that green promontory of Fort McHenry, nor hears those bugles from the fort sounding retreat. Tears blind her watching eyes, and in her ears yet linger parting words and sighs. Still before her seems the carriage upon yonder distant wharf, in which Miss Randolph had sunk back, her veil RANDOLPH HONOR. 69 drawn down. From its window, Carrie's pretty lace, a very April day of smiles and tears, had thrust itself, A^^hile her handkerchief waved the last farewell. But a Federal officer saunters near, and thought re- ceives a new impulse. The fetters that day by day clank heavily in the streets of Baltimore, — and the spirit that will not yet be fettered, shall it one day hug those chains ? She calls to mind how, that very evening, driving down Charles-street in the wake of a military procession, she had caught through assembled crowds cheers, " not loud, but deep," for Davis, for Beauregard, for Dixie. Even the slave was carried away in the popular current ; for, as a drunken Zouave staggered past the carriage stopped in the press, and in maudlin tones declared he had lost him- self, Fadette heard a spruce young negro mockingly ad- vise him to "find himself pretty quick, or the secesh would." Up the street she glances with memory's eye at the shop- windows, which, despite Dix's prohibition of the rebel- lious colors red, white, and red, yet venture to insinuate their proclivities in the arrangement of candies, ribbons, etc. And further on, where alley-gates appear in dingier localities, " Fort Lafayette," inscribed in huge black letters upon the darkest and the dingiest walls, proclaims " rebel- lion" rampant even here. She thinks of one true heart far away in the real and drearier Lafayette — of the unwearied fingers working, of the unwearied souls praying, for the Southern soldier, for the Southern cause. And she dreams — is it a dream some coming dawn will verify? — these may not have sufiered, wrought, and prayed in vain. In the early dawn she is again there. Randolph Honor has been watched for, and passed in the night ; and the darkened, lonely mansion on the wooded promontory 70 BASDOLPH IIOXOR. loomed so desolate in the pale light of the moon, that truly it seemed " Randolph Honor no longer." Xow, stars are paling above, and beneath, low clouds merge into the faint blue shores. The gray, white-crested bay — the gray, white- crested sky — alike are flushing and glowing moment by moment in the rays of the half-revealed sun, that seems another moon rising in crimson pomp to the throne y.onder pale orb abandons. The freshening breeze blows chill from the ocean. But Fadette heeds not the frosty air. Her heart is beating warm with hope. To-day in the land of promise ! Five o'clock and breakfast. She thinks, as she escapes from the heated saloon, and welcomes the refreshing wind, that nature, in the shape of the adverse currents and chop- ping waves of the horse-shoe, and art, in the person or per- sons who ordain breakfast a fixed fact at that particular hour, are deliberate economists at the expense of travellers' appetites. She stands upon deck, watching for every well-known phase of the changmg scene, as Old Point Comfort stretches sandily before her. There are the woodlands whence the Point narrows whitely southward, with blue waters upon either hand. Aye, those sand-hills stretching forth in peaks and ridges from the woods above the Point, wear the old familiar aspect. Only, surely they must have dwindled in height and breadth since those last childish holidays which sped so rapidly among them ! She knows where the persimmons hide behind the cedars at the foot of that great one, and on which sunny slope the fox-grapes ripen best. Yonder in their midst, shielded by that tan- gled copse, lies the soldiers' graveyard, by which she has scamj^ered tremblingly at sunset, dared by her playmates. Beyond is " the dreadful hollow behind the little wood," the barren desolation of which her childish imasrination RAXDOLPII IIOJSORr 71 had invested with a tragic weird of its own. Toward it she bends eageHy, wIk'ii the steamer passes on, as though she miglit tlius catch a glimpse of waA'ed sands and wave- rounded stones and shells scattered there, the dingier shades of which she had been fain, awestruck, to believe gory stains. She stretches her hands lovingly toward tlie beach, for she knows what wealth of gold and silver and rainbow-hued shells lie there, the treasure-trove of summer days long past. That black-ringed target is the same, or like the same, at which she has so often watched the firing from the water-battery. And here is the red water-battery itself, guarding the northeast of the fort, facing one side of the broad moat — in familiar parlance, ditch — suiTounding in its sweep of a mile the massive octagonal granite walls and grassy parapets of Fortress Monroe, whose casemate embrasures overlook its waters. Dark-slated roofs of build- ings within the ramparts make themselves manifest above, and over the beach the lantern of the w^hite lighthouse blazes in the sunlight. Opposite, the Rip-Raps , rises in mid-sea, a tottering fortress on an unseen pile of rocks, through which waves plash and gurgle wdth the peculiar ripple of its name. Workmen are even at this early hour gathered on the unfinished ramparts of this capture from the sea, and the clashing of their peaceful weapons is echoed clearly here, where the steamer rests now at the wharf at Old Point. . No one is permitted to land. The thirty women, half . as many children, and a solitary man bound for Dixie, strive to while away the time, to sleep, to read, to walk, to talk aw\ay anxiety, as the weary hours lag until the general commanding shall open his eyes and his mouth, and per- haps accord j^ermission to be gone. Fadette soon wearied of watching those ragged " intel- ligent contraband's" transformed into beasts of burden, 72 * RANDOLPH EOS OR. chained to lieavily-laden sleds upon the wharf. She was saddened by the Avar-change here apj^arent in bustle, throng- ing blue-coats, and din of workmen. Xewly-erected build- insrs crowded into insio-nificance the few which in the olden time had sufficed for ordnance-stores, upon the gentle slopes stretching away from this beachy southward point to the green bank of the moat. It was yet more sorrowful to linger about that cottage hard by the moat. There the multiflora trailed neglected, and Anthered from the porch it once had veiled, even to the sloping roof, with mists of pink and white. And its embowered garden, wont to crown in childhood's days the May Queen, now lay strag- gling, brown, and overgrown with weeds. It was, there- fore, rather a relief when the order came to search the lug- gage, and the manner of execution gave emj^loyment in repacking. That over, she returned to the saloon, for the wind had changed, and the rainy fog it brought rendered the deck no longer a pleasant retreat. She skimmed listlessly over the pages of a novel, but it or she was unpardonably stupid. She tried to talk, but conversation flagged into speculations upon the general's probable decision. She tried to sleep, but those same speculations argued still between dreams and waking thoughts. She longed to silence that whining child; and, finally, to put an end to that odious little whitey-brown deputy provost (she believed he was) loung- ing against the window opposite, and talking to good- natured, silly Mrs. Lennox, Fadette's chaperon, with so excessively impertinent an air. Presently that lady crossed to Fadette, and proffered a request in an undertone. Fadette looked rather annoyed, but took out her porte-monnaie and di'ew from it a slip of paper. " There it is, Mrs. Lennox," she said, " but I would not, RANDOLPH HONOB. 73 if I were you, show it to that man. He may be a spy for auglit we know, and at all events is very presuming." " Oh, my dear, that is his ignorance. I only wish to prove to him that Baltimore is not Union, as he says Gen- eral Dix's policy has made it. Many thanks." And Mrs. Lennox resumed her sofa, giving the paper into the possession of her controversialist. As he unfolded it, and read on, a heavy frown settled on his face. For it was a burlesque, printed in red and blue letters, of General Dix's proclamation against the red, white, and red — threatenings of war to the knife on all rose- bushes, unless the wind blew them — Avarnings that those Baltimoreans must die whose hair is red, and whose eyes not azure— and other rhymed witticisms, very insignificant in themselves, but so running in with the tide of popular feeling, that these secretly printed etfusions were eagerly sought after. He finished the perusal of the last line; and then he refolded the sheet, and deliberately tore it into fragments, disregarding Mrs. Lennox's exclamation of shocked sur- prise. Fadette's eyes flashed, and she lost sight of all pruden- tial considerations. She surveyed the man steadily from head to foot, remarking in a distinct tone, while he rather shrunk than walked away from the many scornful glances levelled on him — " This is the first time my attention has been especially drawn to that prominent deputy-provost characteristic — petty meanness. I shall know the genus again." An hour after, a rumor filled the saloon that two among Its inmates were to have their persons searched. Fadette withdrew from the excited groups which con- gregated here and there, all talking at once in awestruck whispers — every one emphatic in declaring the order could 4 U RAyDOLPH HOyOR not concern herself, yet feeling meantime a secret inquie- tude. Though she paced up and down the long apartment so tranquilly, Fadette was by no means calm. She clenched her fingers together in striving to maintain some degree of composure, forcing herself to lace what was before her. For if Mrs. Lennox's folly and her own impnidence had pointed suspicion to her, how was she to escape ? Refuse examination, and thus be reftised her passport, she could not, since Randolj^h Honor was now closed, and Miss Ran- dolph absent. And yet, although she had been wary, a rigid examination might develop certain secrets which, beyond a doubt, would winter her with some rebel sister- hood in prison. After a time she came to a resolution. And now com- posed, though the flush of excitement burned on her cheek, she paused in her walk at a window. Here, all this while, a lady with whom Fadette had formed quite a friendship during the journey had stood apart, pale as death, with gaze fixed "sacantly on the dismal expanse of leaden skies and waves. " I believe," said Fadette, " that I am one of the sus- pected. That paper of mine — what do you think '?" "I fear," she said, with quivering breath, "they may have discovered I was lately sent back from Harper's Fer- ry, for attempting to smuggle through a small quantity of medicine — I do assure you, only for my family. I will not be searched again — they were no women there that did it — they will have to drag me from here. I have nothings nothing concealed, but I cannot go throngh another such scene." " As for me," replied Fadette, nodding significantly, " I shall go, but I shall know how to protect myself There are women here, but neither woman nor man shall search RANDOLPH HONOR. 75 me. However, I shall go with them, and give you the benefit of my experienee. Don't look so terrified. I think that is tlie summons now." It was, and as Fadette expected. Mrs. Lennox, on hear- ing Fadette's name called, was distressed and alarmed be- yond measure, and would have gone below with her, but Fadette declined, though very kindly, saying that she was not in the least afraid. Indeed, save that her voice rang quicker and more decided, and her color heightened, she Avas the Fadette of an hour ago. She followed a soldier down stairs to the cabin door, which he opened and closed again, shutting her in. She leisurely began to unbuckle her belt, while listening to his reascending step and examining her examiner, — a good- humored looking importation, coarse and rough indeed, but, as Fadette judged, rather manageable. So, delaying until a heavy tread overhead informed her that the soldier was quite out of the way, she addressed herself to the woman, who attempted to assist in the intricate question of hooks and eyes. " That is great waste of time," she said, lightly. " You wdll be obliged to help me to dress again. Whereas, if you'll only let me alone, and say you found nothing, I'll find twenty dollars in my purse for j^ou." But she soon saw that bribery was ineifectual here. Na- tive honesty, or fear of detection, prevailed over the offered reward. One way remained. She slipped her hand in her pocket, and click! went something there. A quick grasp upon the w^oman's shoul- der, a pistol suddenly lifted to her head, brought her down, powerless and speechless with terror, upon her knees. "Don't dare to open your lips," commanded Fadette, resolutely drawing up her slight figure, and trying to look as if she thought herself very formidable — " Don't attempt 76 BAyDOLPII BOX OR. to scream, or you arc a dead woman. "See, your life is at the mercy of one moyement of this finger. What, you will promise any thing now ?" She had much ado to "preserves that fitting fierce sternness of demeanor, in yiew of the trembling creature who shrank and cowered at her feet, yet who could haye crushed her almost at a grasp, were it not for natiye cowardice and wholesome awe of that small silyer-mounted weapon, which indeed gaye the odds into Fadette's firm hand. " Xow remember, if you inform on me, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth — night and day you are not safe — you shall neyer escape me. There, get uj) — some one \s> coming. If it is the guard, you are to say you found noth- ing. And be sure you are polite to the next lady who comes. Here, don't stand there in the light. You are as white as if the pistol had indeed gone ofi", and you were your own ghost. This way," and she drew her, perfectly passiye with fear, aside where the red curtains reflected some color on her ashen cheek. Then pressing the prom- ised gold in her hand, she withdrew slightly, and was en- gaged with the fiistening of her buckle, when the door opened, and the soldier thrust in his head. " Got through ? Found any thing ?" he asked. Fadette significantly put her hand in her pocket, with a turn of the head toward the woman, who hastened to reply in the negatiye, in a pretty steady tone. The hand emerged with a kerchief, the soft folds of which were in requisition to conceal a smile. As Fadette passed her friend in the saloon aboye, she whispered, nodding triumphantly — "Go down, you won't haye the least trouble. I wish you -could haye seen my farce below-stairs. Indeed, I en- acted the heroine to perfection." RANDOLPH HONOR. 77 Three o'clock came before the Dixie-bound were trans- ferred from the Xouisiana to a rickety old white-flagged ferry-boat, at last under way for Norfolk, or as near Nor- folk as Confederate regulations i^ermitted a Federal vessel to approach. Most joyfully the travellers bestowed themselves on boxes and logs in the ancient craft. To the overlooking of the several Federal officers who accompany the Flag of Truce, all are eagerly watching for the first glimpse of the loved stars and bars. This was at Sewall's Point. But alas, and alas ! distance distinguished them wofully little from the stars and stripes. On, while level-wooded shores draw nearer, and the boat is fairly in James River — on, until a heavy gun booms from a battery on shore, the signal for the boat to stop. Crany Island with its fort lies round that bend. Thence shortly skims over the waters a barge, and all start forward for their first view of a Confederate soldier. Ah, these are not ragged, not barefooted. And many a heart beats gladly at sight of that ununiformed but stoutly-clad crew. And oh the cordial greetings to the strangers, who, be- cause they are "our soldiers," are old friends already — the joyous smiles and merry laughter, and assurances that the fast-pouring " Dixie rain will do us no harm !" For, ladies not being expected, this is the only available boat, the steamers being at Norfolk, and the fog too dense for sig- nals. The soldiers endeavor, with overcoats and shawls, to form a shelter for ladies and children, and a happier cargo could never be found. With light hearts, and appetites to create a famine in the camp, were all tales true of rebeldom starvation. They arrive at Crany Island, and soon forget hunger, wet, and weariness in the kind hospitality of General Smith's head- quarters. 78 RANDOLPH HOXOE. Fadette has quite a budget of closely-writtQji papers to deliver into the general's hands. Then," after a hurried tour around the new fort, she once more crosses the fami- liar gangway of the Selden, and takes with her, on her way to Norfolk, grateful remembrances of her first experience of "the Chivalry" under arms. When that night she stands at a window of the Atlantic Hotel, before she draws her curtains, that murky sky is the brightest she has seen for months. And she wonders, with a half-smile and a bhish, whether somebody in Dixie may not be looking up at the heavens from his camp, and think- ing now of her. CHAPTER VIII. IN CIIARLKSTOX. "Hear what Highland Nora said : The Earlie's son I would not wed. Should all th(; race of nature die. And none be left but he and 1— For all the gold, for all the gear. For all the lauds both far and near. That ever valor lost or won, I would not wed the Earlie's son." Scott. ilTARLIGHT and lamplight were glimmering along the streets of Charleston, when a carriage from the Railway Depot drove through them until it passed the battery, and drew up before a massive iron gateway. Fadette leaned eagerly forward, as the drowsy old gen- tleman, her travelling companion, bestirred himself, ener- getically fumbling about the fastening of tlie door, whik^ tiie driver dismounted, and rang the gate-bell with a pull which brought the old negro porter, bowing, to the presence. Yes, this was Mr. Rutledge's. And Fadette, accepting her friend's arm, followed the servant through a broad courtyard or rather garden, where roses clambering up tall trees gave summer odors to the November air. Her escort took his leave at the white-columned gallery of the house, the gable end of which was on the street. She was met in the hall by an elderly negro woman, seemingly the factotum of the establishment, judging by her consequential though respectful demeanor, and quick 80 - RANDOLPH EOXOR. orders with regard to Fadette's trunks, to two youthful sons of Ham. " JMistis's been looking for you this long time, Miss," she said, "and the blue-room's been kep' from all the company a purpose for you. Miss Amy put her wedding off two weeks, account of you coming, till young marster's leave done out. Mistis say for me to bring you right up to your room. Miss." " My cousin Amy married ! This evening !" thought Fadette, becoming conscious of a brilliant blaze of light in the halls, and intense though quiet excitement in the man- ner of those domestics whom she met in the transit to " the blue-room." " I'll go tell Mistis you are here, Miss, and send Irene up," the servant said, bustling about, drawing the curtains, and wheeling an armchair before the fire Mistis had had kindled on account of the damp. Fadette threw off her hat and cloak, and dropping wea- rily into the chair, took a survey of this her special domain in her new home. It was very appropriately named " the blue-room." A faint suggestion of that color warmed the neutral-tinted walls, the lace curtains were festooned with hangings of blue, and blue velvet were chairs and sofa, harmonizing with oak-wood and light flower-strewn carpet. Flowers in the vases on the mantel, the two or three valua- ble engravings, and the small carved book-shelves, with their few selected volumes, told of a thoughtful welcome to the stranger. ^^ Aquila non mangia moscJie^^ said Fadette, and rose and went to the book-shelves, to discover by the character of the food, the character of those who had placed it there. She cast, in passing, a congratulatory glance upon the bright face in the mirror, that it was not of those brunettes transfigured by the juxtaposition of blue into jaunettes. RANDOLPH UONOR. ' 81 In volume after volume of standard w^orks, modern and more ancient, her name Avas inscribed in tlie same straight- forward, firm, decidedly sliarp, feminine writing. She looked awed. Here were no " mosche," certainly, and she seemed to feel the eagle swQop upon her luckless self, when she should flit aside, as she knew she should, from tlie straigrht sunward flicrht. But at least her aunt, if these were indeed her selection, must have one warm corner in her heart, else she would hardly have chosen " The New- comes," or "Aurora Leigh." But the latter was a waif. Fadette deciphered in the careless, rather illegible, but manly and free characters on the title-page, the name " Ruthvcn Erie," and beneath, an explanatory " His mark,^" in a fair girlish hand. She was already reading quite a romance in the united writings, wherein Cousin Amy was heroine and bride, and Ruthven Erie was bridegroom — when the door opened. The volume dropped from Fadette's hold as she went forward to meet the fair and stately woman who entered. The reserved though most kindly manner, the clear scru- tiny in the handsome steel-blue eyes bent upon her, embar- rassed her, and she could only stammer half-incoherent replies to hospitable questions, and the- information that her uncle had gone to meet her at the depot — strange that he had missed her ! Evidently that warm corner of the heart was not the vestibule open to any passer-by, but the sanctum sanctorum — the ris^ht to enter which mio;ht not be lightly won. " You must be tired, my dear," Mrs. Rutledge soon said, leading Fadette to "her seat before the fire, and standing a moment with her hand resting upon her niece's shoulder. " I trust, not too tired to take the part my Amy has as- signed you this evening. Your telegram yesterday found her in despair at your non-arrival, you being first bride- 4* 82 BANDOLPH HONOR. maid, and she and my nei:)hew, who is to serve with you, persistently refusing any substitute. She would have de- layed her wedding yet longer, so set was she upon your presence ; but our bridegroom's furlough expires to-morrow, and he leaves almost immediately after the ceremony. But, of course. Amy wrote you all." "How? when?" inquired Fadette, bewildered. " Did you not receive our letters directed to Richmond, to the care of Mrs. Lennox ?" " Ah, but I did not go on to Richmond. I came direct from Xorfolk with a friend 'of Mrs. Lennox. I had heard nothing of a wedding. I am so sorry ! I have so looked forward to being with Amy I" Her eyes filled with tears of disappointment. Mrs. Rut- ledge was gratified, and smiled, as she said : " Look for- ward still then, my child. Amy is not to leave us. Her husband is a private in the field, and of course she cannot be with him. You are not too weary to dress? Amy has everything in readiness for you — rose-color and white lace. Stand up and let me look at you. Why, child, you arc indeed almost as tiny as Amy ! Irene, your maid, v\nll still have time to make any slight alterations. I shall send her \nXh. your tea, notwithstanding your refusal. After- ward, dress as quickly as you can. Amy shall come to you before the guests assemble." Her maid was just tying the lace sash, and Fadette her- self arranging before the mirror a single white caraelia in the dark braids waving back from her brow, when there came a manly step without, a tap at the door, and a cordial voice calling her name. Her color deepened, and her lips cpiivered in a smile, as the next instant her uncle stood be- fore her, put aside her trembling hand, and folded her in his arms. " So ! flowers and laces quite forgot ?" he said, after a RANDOLPH HONOR 83 moment, holding her off from the broad shelter of his breast, and looking down upon her witli kindly hazel eyes, wliieh had a twinkle in them. " But, fair my niece, why did you not note in the catalogue you from time to time sent me of your improvements at school and abroad, the beauty into wliic'li has ripened the wild-eyed, sunburnt little romp ? Is this she who, one winter at Randolph Honor, hid behind the hedge, and pelted her reverend uncle with snowballs, until he was fain to cry quarter ? What ! you laugh ! and do not repent, wicked one ?" " No, I do not," she declared, stoutly, shaking her head in defiance of the gray hairs that fell in crisp waves upon the genial brow, where, it might seem, yet lingered, here and tliere, a flake of that snow-shower. "I have not for- gotten how you threatened to marry me to a brownie of the moors away down South, while Lionel should be sent to Lethe for consoling. JSTow there lives in our neighbor- hood an old, old aunt, Lethe by name, witch and fortune- teller by profession, of whom I stood and stand in deadly awe, past whose cabin on the edge of the wood I would still scamper ; and to her keeping I thought you were to consign Lionel. Besides, I knew only princesses in fairy tales could, by right, be disposed of by tyrant uncles. So I was resolved to vanquish you, and vanquish you I did." " Scorning to be princess, of course you will not be Queen of Hearts. You care nothing for such baubles. You are looking forward to a winter course of reading with your sage uncle, eh ?" " Not one bit of it," she promptly replied to his arch glance. " And what has become of Master Lionel ? Randolph still a prisoner ?" " Still. I wrote to Lionel from Norfolk," she went on, 84 RAXDOLPU HOXOR. mth color very slightly heightened. " He is in tlie Virginia army, and — " The door, slightly ajar, was j^ushed wider, and a low, musical voice asked — < " May I come in ?" That might have seemed a vision which, npon Fadette's summons, glided into and across the room, had it not now proven itself by a most unvisionary embrace. TThite gos- samer robes ; '' Golden ti'esses wreathed in one, As the braided streamlets run ;" deep violet eyes, loving, truthful, timid ; a childlike brow, and childlike fi-eshness in the blue-veined fairness and soft rose-tints ; a mouth for smiles and loving words, quivering now and then at the remembrance of words presently to be si^oken. And now the mother stays a moment in the doorway, commends Fadette's promptitude in dressing, tells both girls they " will do A'ery well," and must come directly down, and while the daughter nestles in the fathers out- stretched arms, for the last time all his own, takes Fadette under her wing, bearing her off to be introduced to bride- maids and attendant cavaliers. Mrs. Rutledge led the way to the library ; but no one was witliin. And when Amy soon sent for her mother, Fadette was left alone. That comfortable posture, half reclining within a bow- window, where festooned lace softened the light from the chandelier, was pleasant after weariness of travel and sleep- less nights preceding. Fadette drooped her head upon her hand, and from reverie passed into a light dreamful doze. In it, the past now outstripped, now jostled, now went hand in hand with the future. A thousrht of Lionel and RANDOLPH HONOR So of that troth-plighting, mingled with a vision of this wed- ding, where she was conscious of being Fadette, yet Amy the bride, and Lionel strangely blended with the bride- groom, Ruthven Erie. Perhaps this closing scene was suggested by a dreamily overheard conversation ; for at that moment she was roused by low tones, and between sleeping and waking half opened her eyes. They were too misty with slumber to take more than a vague view of the rose-colored 'bridemaid, who, from her seat near the hearth, was looking up so prettily to the gentleman before her. But her words were clear : " Yes, dear little Amy is undoubtedly perfectly happy. Do you know, I cannot but wonder at it, betrothed as she was, from earliest girlhood, to her cousin. And certainly Mr. Erie is a man to whom one could well submit to be betrothed, even Avithout the exercise of one's own free-will. You smile. No, I do not see that Mr. Weir, bridegroom though he is chosen, and friend as he is of mine, is Mr. Erie's equal in any one respect. Yes, indeed, I do hon- estly own to quite sharing in the universal furor about that gallant cavalier. What do you say — that x4my did not share in it ? She behaved angelically, as indeed she does in all things, but I cannot think her breaking of the en- gagement was entirely optional — was not rather brought on in a degree through his coolness on his return from Arkansas. Do you not remember a rumor of a flirtation there ? Under the rose, my beau ideal is perhaps slightly given to flirting." Whether " on this hint he spake," Fadette did not give heed. She was engrossed in the overthrow of the romance she had been building up. In her edifice, the theory of first love was the very corner-stone of the foundation, the removal of which must cause the fall of the entire fabric. And great was the fall thereof. So great, that she could 86 RAXnOLPH ROXOR. hardly believe sweet Amy now escaped unbruised from the ruins, and standing on the threshold of a second mansion of happiness, whicli, since that founded upon a rock had tottered, could hardly remain firm among the shifting sands. While with brow bowed on her palm she pondered, troubled, on the cloud she thought to discern hovering above her cousin, and traced to it the varying shadow she had seen flitting over that fair face, the door opened, and there entered bridemaids and bridemen, gathering now in a merry group around the fire. Fadette did not move. Her retreat was partly veiled from them, and to present herself alone among strangers was alarming. But ten minutes were not elapsed, when the curtains were parted wider. • It was one of those strangers, to whom she glanced up hurriedly — a tall, strong-built man, perhaps not hand- some, yet whose fair waving hair and beard were well set oflT by the gray and gold uniform, whose noble head and square broad forehead conveyed at once the knowledge of power, and whose deep-blue eyes met Fadette's with a puz- zling expression, while he extended his hand, accosting her by name. " My aunt, Mrs. Rutledge, sent me here," he said, " to seek my truant bridemaid. Will you let me plead an almost cousinship, in apology for thus unceremoniously introducing Ruthven Erie ?" That name, coming as it did while she was yet regret- fully regarding the demolition of her romance and pour- ing out thoughts of pity on her cousin, who must have been, if she were not now, made so unhappy, roused in the hasty impulsive girl a prejudice against its owner. And not very graciously, seeing that he still stood before her abat- ing nothing of his demand, she yielded him the tips of cold RANDOLni HONOR 87 reluctant fingers. And when he lifted the tiny glove she dropped, and held it outstretched upon the palm of his own well-shapen hand, on^ instant before returning it to her, she forgot to render thanks, declai'ing in her own mind that she was going to hate him — that she knew — slie did not care, though he was her aunt's nephew. The introduction thus had led to scarcely monosyllabic acquaintance, when the bridal tableau at length formed in the drawing-room. The tearless, tranquil, solemn ceremony was over. The aged white-stoled clergyman had in God's name joined those together whom none might put asunder. The tear- less, trembling bride had lost her pallor in a blush, as her friends came forward. And the handsome young soldier- husband's flush of triumph had waxed prouder yet, while he drew within his arm that little clinging hand which was* his own. Fadette's hand rested within Mr. Erie's arm, while she passed through the drawing-rooms, detained now by Mr. Rutledge, until a host's duties summoned him away, and again by Mrs. Rutledge's introductions — but ever reclaimed by her attendant brideman, as by prior right. Fadette more than suspected, after detecting, a lurking smile of amusement following upon some involuntary retort of her own, that he had perceived her sudden aversion, and was bent on overcoming it. So, laughing v\'ithin herself, she tacitly acquiesced in his engrossing attentions, flashed back merry repartee, mocked at his serious words, aflected dul- ness for his bo7iS-mots, and altogether was as mischievous, fascinating a fairy, as ever hovered in and out among the roses on a cloudless starlit night. Pacing to and fro on the gallery among those roses, in reply to a well-turned, though flowery compliment, she rallied him upon the fairy gift so lavishly to confer Jieurettes, 88 RAXDOLPII HOXOR. and reminded him, while she paused to gather a blossom, how long the tliorns outlasted it. He looked down upon her smile as she stood fastening the flower in her dress. Evidently the walls of that for- tress of prejudice, so hastily erected and armed against him, were not to fall down at sound of the trumpet of her praises seven times blown upon. "I accept the challenge," he said to himself — "Let roses wither and thorns be yours, my little one, until you shall e'en set me upon the topmost jDinnacle of enmity, quite apart from and above my fellows." So he rejoined carelessly — "Therefore the wary among rose-fanciers do not carry their hearts in their hands, lest they be torn quite in pieces by vidette thorns. Look you, that rosebud in your bosom Jias stabbed and wounded no one. The red ones are bright in the blood of the slain. 'Lender which king, Lancaster or York, are you ?' " He bent forv>'ard for a glimpse of her averted face, where York had quickly unfurled warlike ensign. " I would I were a great sharp thorn I You are exces- sively imjDer — " She stopped, dismayed. " yious to small ones ?" he supplied, in j^erfect good- humor. She checked herself, biting her lips while the color surged to her brow. She half withdrew her hand from his arm. But a vision of her lone self recrossing the broad hall, to seek her aunt in those thronged drawing-rooms, and, too, a sense of shame-faced childishness in her anger, made her refrain from the display of it. So, after a moment, she suggested following some of the promenaders as they passed within. "I have no manner of doubt," he said, as he turned. RANDOLPH IIOXOR. 89 promptly obedient, "dozens of rose-fanciers have this hour been heaping anathemas upon devoted me, in that I liave borne triumphantly off the freshest acquisition to our city conservatories." And ostentatiously lifting his hand, the proportions and the whiteness of which Fadette, in spite of herself, could not but admire, he stroked his moustache with an exquisite air, and an ineffable smile at invisible rivals. " Xot too early, I perceive," he remarked, on entering the drawing-room. " Weir there is speaking to our aunt as if about to take leave. He goes at once to his regiment in Virginia. My poor little Amy ! But the honey-moon and its pleasing lunacy will endure the longer." In the last sentence, he banished the touch of feeling in the mention of his cousin's name, and with it the relenting of his listener. She asked, somewhat anxiously — "And you?" "I? oh, you shall see me frequently." Fadette heard with an equivocal lifting of the brows. " Quite live here when off duty. Stationed at Moultrie— not to be dispensed with in 'the defences of the harbor. Though, for that mat- ter, neither am I here. There should have been a family arrangement at one time between little Amy and— but— a — " he ended with an affectation of embarrassed con- sciousness. Fadette's eyes flashed upon him, and she dropped his anil as quickly as possible, on reaching the bay window, where gathered almost a family group. The few guests there conversed somewhat apart, thus leaving space for the last words of the departing bridegroom. " O my cousin shallow-hearted ! O my Amy— mine no more !" ejaculated, in mock agony, Mr. Erie, at the same time interposing his broad shoulders between the " shallow- hearted" and curious or careless observers. 90 RANDOLPH UOXOR Thoy were dispersing now. Mr. Weir had shaken hands, and so had those comrades who were to yetiirn with liim to the army. He paused, the last, upon the gallery, and sighed heavily. But a tiny white figure glided like a moonbeam through the shadows — a small hand was laid timidly in his — one instant, she was clasped to his breast — the next, they wei"e parted. CHAPTER IX. SOUR GRAPES. Little head, leant on'the pane, Little finger drawing down it The long trailing drops upon it— And the " Rain, rain, come to-morrow," Said for charm against the rain.' " Mils. Browning. S these lines were pronounced behind her, Fadette started from her tvrilight occupation thus de- scribed, and confronted the speaker, Ruthven Erie. Confronted — for during her month's residence here in Charleston, she had learned to be up in arms at the very sound of his voice. Yet though that voice alone in all her bright young life had thwarted or contradicted her — though the word-warfare was wont to be repeated at every fre- quently recurring visit — though in many a skirmish her "black flag" had gone down, and she now shrugged her shoulders and suppressed a " Provoking !" before replyinsj to him — still, in spite of herself, the rain dripped, dripped, in less dismal monotony from the eaves. "So you actually dare thus jeopardize your Attic salt?" she said, slowly yielding her hand in greeting, as he waited determinedly for her to do. " Left every particle behind me in garrison," he replied, leaning beside her against the window-frame, with a deep breath of comfort. " And ventured across the raging bil- lows — how they did rage! — all for the sake of a fair 92 RANDOLPH IIOXOR ' maiden, who should therefore be a little complaisant. A dull day." " Xot at all. Music and letter-writing in the morning, with any amount of gossiping and soldiers' work, and a book this evening, left nothing to be desired." " Indeed ! Amy says she and some one — my aunt, doubt- less — were wishing for one Rutliven Erie to read aloud ' Testimony of—' " Fadette blushed and laughed. "Well, and if I did," she interrupted, "that is because Hugh Miller is easiest of comprehension A\4th a peripatetic geological dictionary. But this book, Mr. Erie, brought you even more vividly before me this evening." He bent down over the volume she extended, reading in the waning light — " ' Vanity Fair !' "What, is it gentle William who em- bodies me ? Ivight glad am I there was never masculine Becky Sharpe." " Xo, no. But you are an embodied chapter. Will you deny it ? Who then stands aloof in Vanity Fair, watch- ing and amiably sneering at feeble vacillating gropers in the dark,, or at the few who, able to discern the golden sun, covetously stare themselves blinder than the blindest whom they lead ?" " How can I watch, who am stumbling in Vanity Fair ^vith all the crowd ?" " If you are, your eyes are open, and you can therefore laugh at the ridiculous capers cut by your friends, as you are laughing now at my moralizing mood. Xo, it is vain to put up your hand, hoping to conceal that smile. My eyes, too, happen to be open just at this moment ; and see how my charm against the rain has dispelled it !" She unclosed the long French window, and he followed her out upon the gallery. RANDOLPH TIOXOR 93 Indeed, " such a charm was right Canidiaii." For now across the dripping lawn a setting sunbeam stole, and snowy clouds, just tipped with flame and gold, drifted across the skyey dome. So clear, so deeply blue, that dome uplifted itself higher than ever above the waving canopies, which, floating in mid-air, seemed rather to be- long to earth. The low-branched trees which trailed almost to the ground, and so shut out all save a shifting glimpse of the tall iron railing and the street beyond, still tossed off; gust by gust, their freighted streams. The violets and hyacinths scattered broadcast over the sward beneath the live-oaks, and the fringe of valley-lilies under the glossy Cherokee hedge, sent up their sweetest dewy odors on the moist breeze, which here where Fadette stood, shook out with each shower of rain-drops fresh perfumes from clam- bering rose-clusters. " There," she said, caressing Leo, who had bounded to her side from his couchant posture on the gallery steps — " there is one golden streak in the twilight. A clear mor- row at last, I prophesy." " A more-than-ever-stormy morrow," he prophesied, teas- ingly. " Be advised by me, and philosophically welcome this weather as inuring to the dreariness of the backwoods. There, amid not only water down-dropping, but water sur- rounding, paroquets alone will take up from the moss-grown dim old forest the conversational treble, and frogs, from beneath your very gallery steps, the bass. When you are once quietly settled on my place in Arkansas — " "But," Fadette cried impatiently, "because the Yan- kees at Port Royal have taken possession of my uncle's plantation, and because he has been obliged to remove his negroes to your horrible Arkansas swamp, it does not neces- sarily follow that he will remove us there. I am sure, when he sees for himself how unbearably desolate — But you shall 94 RAXDOLPU HOXOR not make me quarrel this day of days. Xo, not although you do raise your broMS with such exasperating doubt. For, Mr. Erie, this day has been set apart, from all its fel- lows, by the arrival of a letter from my guardian." She glanced up to him, as if for some response to her gladness. But his eyes fell suddenly from hers, and he walked on by her side in silence. After a moment he spoke. "I, too, have had my letter to-day. TThat, you are curi- ous ? Aye, from your other guardian — and ' tliereby hangs a tale.' Where its scene is to be laid, in Arkansas or Charleston, I alone can unfold. My letter against yours — a fair exchange. Xo" — as she lifted her head defiantly — "■ quite in Aain to think of asking Amy or my aunt, as I have yet shown my letter to neither." " Ah, Mr. Erie, do tell me ! Do say we are not to go!" " Your letter, your letter, or I disclose absolutely noth- ing. What did your guardian write of?" Her blushes came fast and hotly. " Of what should he write, in the regulation-page of note paper, open for inspection '?" Her stammering speech betrayed her. He looked with an intensity of earnestness down upon her downcast face. As he looked, he paled somewhat. " Come, come, his topic. Mine is fully worth it." " Well then," she said, lifting her head with an assump- tion of carelessness. " Behold one of the topics." She extended, with the words, the hand on which was Lionel's ring, guarded by the diamond. She tapped the glittering gem, and held it out so that the waning light flashed on it. In truth, her guardian's letter had chiefly borne, in am- biguous phi-ase, upon the bond of which Lionel's ring was RANDOLPH HONOR. 95 the sign-manual, and of which Lionel had found means to inform him. But Ruthven Erie was not deceived by the diamond- glitter. Bending down closely toward it, he had deciphered the tiny L. R. engraven on the signet, in a scroll beneath the cameo design. He did not start, for it was almost what he had expected. But it was some seconds before he spoke. "A strange subject for a Flag of Truce prison-letter. Am I to infer that it is of the gem's intrinsic value ? Let me examine it, w^hile I recount my tidings." " It is an heir-loom," she said, carelessly, putting it into his hand. " Magnificent, is it not ? There needs many a caution to take care of it. The other ? Oh, that my guar- dian and I selected together in Florence. An ugly thhig, but curious." She yielded it too; the flush of shame for her equivoca- tion only very slightly heightened. " Lloyd Randolph ?" he said, half absently, half inquir- ingly. He missed the instantaneous expression of relief which flitted over Fadette's face. How stupid in her ! — certainly he would think it her guardian's ring. And certainly she would keep up the delusion. She presently forgot signet and diamond ii^ his news. Yes, Mr. Rutledge had really written, and Mr. Erie must endeavor to obtain a month's leave, arid escort the family out to Arkansas, whither master and servants had preceded. She was still pacing up and down, half-tearful and half- indignant, deaf to any word of comfort which Ruthven Erie might utter, when a step sounded behind her on the gravelled pathway. Leo had leaped from her side with a sharp bark of joy. She turned— she sprang forward, and both her hands were caught in the clasp of Li jnel's. 96 RANDOLPH HOXOR. Yet though that clasp was close, when she looked up joyously his glance did not meet hers. In her excitement, she did not at once wonder at this, but followed his eyes to Ruthven Erie, who now stood alone. The rings flashed instantly upon her mind. What must Lionel think ? But she gave no outward sign ; only introduced the two gen- tlemen, saw them shake hands — cordially on Ruthven Erie's part, somewhat coolly on that of Lionel. And she kept up the conversation gayly enough, not forgetting to address Lionel invariably as Tom, — by which allusion to Tom Brown's adventures, however, she failed to provoke a smile. And when subjects of special interest to the two home friends more frequently recurred, and Ruthven Erie at last re-entered the house, she called after him to tell Mrs. Rutledge and Amy that Captain Randolj^h had arrived. Then, as if unconscious of delinquency, she linked her arm in a matter-of-course way in Lionel's, and the two paced ujD and down together. She observed his clouded face. " If you have no word for me this evening, Lionel," she said quietly, after a turn or two, " I may as well leave you to your meditations." She knew too well that they were all of her, and that his arm would draw hers closer. Xor had she the sliofhtest intention of going. But though he drew it closer, the cloud deepened, and he said, angrily — " Go then. That damned Erie is waiting for you, doubt- less." *' Lionel I do you speak thus to me ?" "Fadette, how can you torture me thus? You abuse your power. You know it is absolute — that I cannot, if I would, free myself^that I dare not lift and cast aside these lightly-lying, velvet-soft fingers resting so carelessly, so RANDOLPH HONOR. 97 pulsclcssly, against my lieart. You know, were you to tell me now that you had but a little, a very little love for me, I would entreat — Fadette, give me that little ! Leave me not utterly destitute !" He entreated now. And her hand tapped his arm gently, as it might have done that of an importunate child. "]My dear Lionel, don't be absurd. Have I not given you all my heart can hold ? You must be the judge, but you seemed to think it enough to be worth the having. As for this idea about Ruthven Erie, let me tell you we both hate very cordially, notwithstanding that occasionally we find each other amusing. You are in more danger from the scowling man in the moon up there, so far as our pro- pinquity is concerned. And don't be so v^ry self-distrust- ful. Did you never hear of the lover whom his mistress told deprecatingly, that she was not worthy of him ? He answered that she ought to know best, of course." An hour or two after, when Fadette was for a few mo- ments alone in the drawing-room, there came approaching footsteps on the gallery without. Lionel had left her for an hour after dinner. Despatched on army business to Charleston, he had only this evening to give her. But it was not to meet him, that she now advanced. She knew the step well, and when she found Mr. Erie alone lounging without, in the leisurely enjoyment of his cigar, it was as she expected. She must have her ring back before Lionel should come again. Ruthven Erie rose as she advanced, and offered his chair. "Confess," he said, while she hesitated, yet finally took, possession, and he seated himself on the low balustrade — " you advanced to meet black eyes and moustaches." "Blue eyes are sometimes astoundingly clear-sighted, Mr. Erie." 08 RANDOLPH HONOR. " Thank you. And now another question. Do five f-et eight and incipient moustaches invariably comprise 'an abridgment of all that is pleasant in man ?' " " Xot unfrequently. You who are so apt at quotations," she continued, with an arch side-glance, " doubtless remem- ber, ' often the cockloft is empty in those whom nature hath builded many stories high.'" " Have mercy, my Lady Disdain, else you reduce me to biing up my entire reserve corps of words, and " ' Put my whole wit in a jest, Resolved to live a fool the rest • Ofmy dull life.'" " What ! you Sir Sapient, do you not know that ' words are wise men's counters — they do but reckon by them ; but they are the money of fools ?' " " They can then buy me no substitute for the shafts of my fair — yet how unfair enemy !" " Pocket them, most valiant knight, like him of old, who *" Although be had much wit, "Was very shy of using it.' " " A truce, a truce. And in token thereof — " he began. " And in token thereof," she interposed — " my ring. Sir, if you please." " The precious heir-loom ?" He placed it in her hand, but she still kept it extended. He appeared not to notice it, until she said, with unas- sumed timidity, and a blush which, though involuntary, was exceedingly d 2?ro2:>os : " My — my — guardian's ring, Mr. Erie." She colored deeper and deeper beneath his steady gaze. After a moment, he held out his hand also. " In token of a truce, I will restore it," he replied. Then, RANDOLPH HONOB, 99 as he placed it upon her finger, added, " Yet a truce is mere child's play. Let us now and hereby swear a peace. Tru- ly, I have not been a 'man of war from my youth up,' and you would not crush a conquered foe who thus surrenders at discretion *?" " Vastly pretty — ' that was laid on with a trowel :' " the girl laughed. He dropped her hand, rejoining, half-amused, half-vexed: " Hang quotations — why cannot you be original ? Hang me, too, if I ever use another." "Really, Mr. Erie," Fadette exclaimed after a pause, during which he had resumed his seat and his cigar, and she had been pulling idly at the yet dripping, trailing roses, now and then sending a shower down upon her, " I am more and more convinced that you are one of nature's grand mistakes, obviously intended for a smoky chimney. And to fulfil your destiny, there needs but a scolding wife. What a pretty proverb the couple would enact !" He flung the end of his cigar over his shoulder, lazily folding his arms, and leaning upon the gallery-column, as he replied : " Exactly my own opinion. But there is one difficulty in the way. Of scolding wives there is no dearth. But the young ladies, pretty dears, have not even the word scold in their vocabularies. That is a lesson not to be learned before they outgrow bread-and-butter, and the milk-and-water of human kindness." " Oh, the first thunder-cloud turns that sour. By the way, where got you your acidity? Are you very sure there are no sour grapes in the question ?" "I am very sure there are." " Ah, do tell me all about them," and she bent eagerly forward in her chair — " I'm the best confidant in the world — won't tell a soul beyond — " 100 EASDOLPH HOXOR. "Listen." He lowered his voice and fixed his eyes upon her as he went on : "The grapes in question positively won't be plucked. They grow aloft, quite out of reach, and have hedged them- selves about with the fiercest thorns imaginable. They are not going to ripen and fall down at anybody's feet, even should market-day come and go. They will have the win- ner climb for them ; and as for throwing him down a tendril to aid in the ascent — not they ! And some one — for aught I know, some one I must not strive to outstrip — may be climbing higher up on the other side of the tree." " Handsome grapes ?" " Very." "White or dark?" " Decidedly on the brunette order." " Large or small ?" " Quite a slender bunch." "Young?" " Certainly not green. By the by," he added, changing air and attitude, and banishing with a mocking smile the melancholy brooding in the keen eyes and around the sar- castic mouth — "by the by, is it altogether out of rule respectfully to inquire your age ? I'll give you the year of her birth, if you will give me the year of yours." " But were you in earnest just now ?" she asked, waiving his question and coloring slightly, half ashamed of her seventeen years, "Perfectly so." " And when did you see the dark ladye ?" " Let me see — about the spring or early summer." "I cannot imagine whom you mean. You won't tell me ? Then let me ask — forgive if I am impertinent, but BANDOLPH HONOR. 101 you do look so very resigned — wliy you did not then at- tempt the seizure of the spoils ?" "Merely because I am not a fool." "That word was., once upon a time, synonymous with jester. I wish you would look as you did a moment ago." " Why ?" he asked. " Oh, because you so reminded me of — I don't know whom — but something in the eyes when they were trou- bled. You are quite changed now." " Do you forget faces ?" he asked, shading his from the light which now streamed from the drawing-room window. " I forget every thing." " Every thing ?" " Every thing in the world save ancient prejudices, Mr. Erie," she replied, gayly. " The most narrow-minded — " He spoke almost angrily, and she interrupted him in no milder tone. " Until I choose my Mentor, Sir — " "Still at your wonted warfare, Miss Belligerent?" a voice asked at her side. She turned as Amy tapped her shoulder. The nlomentary vexation passed, and she re- sponded with a smile : "Aye. The chivalry hath laid siege to Sumter, but the bulletin is still ' nobody hurt.' " " Excepting the besieger," interposed Mr. Erie, ruefully. "But what can the chivalry do when the belligerent is also belle-regent ?" " A reward for the worst pun on record," laughed Amy. " Come, mocking-bird, a song !" Ruthven Erie stood beside Fadette at the piano, turning the leaves of her music, while his glance wandered from 102 RANDOLPH IIOXOR. her bright face to. the rather dissatisfied one of Captain Randolph, who across tlie room kept up a desultory con- versation with Amy. Fadette selected a song, and open- ing it, nodded to Lionel, saying — " Your old favorite now, Tom." Ruthven Erie bent down and asked, abruptly : " Is he the brother of—" "My guardian? Yes," she made answer, looking up wonderingly at his sudden j^ause and obvious confusion. CHAPTER X. IN ARKANSAS. •Griev"'st thou that hearts should change? Lo, where life reigueth, Or the free sight dqth range, What long remaineth ? Spring with her flowers doth die — Fast fades the gilded sky— And the full moon on high Ceaselessly waneth." Anon. iSTD this is Arkansas !" cries Fadette. On this sultry Christmas eve, in her light muslin dress, she is standing at the unclosed window of a pretty cottage parlor. It opens upon a gallery where velvet-leaved woodbine clambers up the columns against which the wild peach flings ever-green glossy boughs. The cotton-wood hard by is rustling its large gray with- ered leaves, the few that winter has left, with a stormy sound ; and those locusts there without the arbored gate, and the catalpa which grows within it, sway to and fro, slender, pale, and naked. But the magnolias, the spread- ing willow-oaks there to the left, and the w41d peach scat- tered in vivid verdure here, there, and everywhere over the lawn, have scarce felt the frosty touch. Tlie straight walk leads to the gate between hedges of daily roses now in full bloom for Christmas honors. A breath of violets is wafted on the heavy air, from under the crab-apple tree far to Fadette's left, whence stretches the level lawn to loi RANDOLPU noxon. low-rolling pastures, rounded by the gleam of waters. On the other hand, where ends the lawn, neat rows of quarter- cottages rise in the grove. Here, where the trees cluster densely on the edge of the lawn, and the light fence curves outward to the road, nestles a pagoda-like lodge for guests' additional accommodation. Beyond the low gate and the line of locusts to the road, the grassy banks slope steeply to the water. There, great oaks uplift denuded branches in delicate tracery against the sky, where long-lingering sunset flushes change, and ciuiver, and deepen, merging at last into clouds that drift on stormily. Beneath the bank gleams the chute, sheltered by the low brown field-shores of an island. Past the island's near wooded point, the water swells into a broad expanse of lake, its distant outer rim level-bound, in the semicircular sweep of twelve or fif- teen miles, by that low purple-gray line of woodland, the white-streaked road, and sere fields with alternating light and shade of rude worm-fences. Tlie chute as yet lies tranquil, only now and then stu'ring, awakened by a lower gust of wind. But the lake already rises in green waves, foam-crested against the coming storm. "This is Arkansas." Ruthven Erie tossed aside the paper he had scarcely been reading in the twilight, and came to her side. " See the innocent white-dove cloud swallowed up by that great black cormorant," he said. " We shall have a grand Christmas celebration of thunder-storm ere long. Our poor little Janet will be quite unhappy about her friend, Kriss Kringle. She assured ' Cousin Ru' this morning that she did not believe a word about his riding through the air on his deer, because her fawn could not fly at all. Therefore, she was determined to watch the boats all day, to see him cross the lake." " A thunder-storm I Oh, Mr. Erie I" RANDOLPH HONOR. 105 " Afraid of them ? and sliivering. Come away from tlie window — that fire is only briglit, not warm. So — I resign the armchair in your favor, and will listen quite humbly at your feet Avhile you shall explain the dangers of tliose dread thunderbolts, the mere mention of which has dashed the color from your face. That is, if you have not taken the vow of silence, as might appear from your mysterious conduct of the last hour." " No, I won't dispossess you of your throne," she replied, wheeling away the easy-chair and drawing a low seat be- fore the cheerful hearth. " As for sitting at any one's feet, I cannot imagine you in that predicament." " Six feet two before your two tiny ones. Would you consider them worth the raising up ?" he asked, throwing himself into the rejected chair, and puffing aw^ay at the cigar w^hich he had lighted with her gracious permission. " Stoop to conquer. Sir, I never would." " But if you fly at the sun, mocking-bird," he said lightly, " the chances are your eyes are dazzled, and you beat your poor little wings against some narrow garret window, glit- tering in the reflection." " I am content to wait the svm's good pleasure in seeking my lowly nest. If he come, good. If he come not, why, good too. I'll not pine." " Not you. You'll flit at the call of some glitterless plucked biped — you'll flutter about and build your nest and twitter away, forgetting song and aspirations." She bent her head in mocking acquiescence, and sat on in silence. The flickering firelight threw her delicate profile into relief against the white marble. Waving hair rolled back from the temples, where blue veins traced themselves beneath the transparent brunette hue. Eyes veiled by long curved lashes were fixed dreamily upon the fire, and around the small mouth hovered an unconscious smile. 106 BAXDOLPII IIOXOB. He was leaning back, and his right hand, holding tho neglected cigar, hung lightly over the arm of his chair. Despite its slenderness, its whiteness, and rose-tinted palm, there was that about the hand instinct with the poAver of the man. Idle and careless now, upon occasion it could grip, and that firmly. A fitting servant of the cool keen eyes reading Fadette's fiice so searchinglv. " And a i^ropos of thunderbolts," he reminded, as a low distant roll broke upon the stillness, and Fadette started. " Mr. Erie, you are laughing at me," she said, her eyes filling and her lip trembling. " Laughing ? Xot I. A tear ?" and he leaned forward, gently intercej^ting the hand which would have brushed stealthily away the unbidden tell-tale. "Xay, why will you distrust me ?" She glanced up at him timidly. Then with a sudden im- pulse she laid her other hand upon that which he still held in his firm grasp. Her gaze was downcast, and she did not see, as she with- drew her hands and folded them contentedly upon her knee, how his brow flushed, and he drew a hard breath to keep back some words that were clamoring for utterance. " I know you will not laugh at me now," she said simply; " I know you will be sorry for me when I tell you what scenes every thunder-storm brings before my mind." And she began the story of that night at Randolph Honor — of the arrest, the captivity, the escape which she had planned for another. Her voice grew cold there, and she spoke sneeringly of the selfish blindness of the stranger — bitterly of his escape — scoflingly of his ofier to return and deliver himself up to the enemy. At first he had given her words of sympathy from time to time. Xow, when she ended, he said slowly : " It were better for him had he never been born." RANDOLPH nONOR. 107 She lifted her head. "There it is again, tliat puzzling likeness," she cried eagerly. "Mr. Erie, who can it he you so much resemble? That expression haunts me. And what troubles you ? A song for your thoughts, if you care for one." " I do, indeed," he replied in his wonted manner ; " but I cannot let my valuable thoughts go for a mere song." " Oh, very well, I've named my price ;" and she resumed her old posture, first flashing an arch glance upon him. " Are you not going to sing for me ?" he inquired, after a moment spent in relighting his cigar. She made no answer ; and when she spoke again it was on an irrelevant subject. " I do think, Mr. Erie, that Miss Yaughan, who called upon us this morning, is the most beautiful woman I ever saw." "Decidedly so." " Such magnificent dark eyes. Every feature so faultless. Not faultily faultless either, for her face has depths, or per- haps I should say heights, of expression I never saw in any face before. And an exquisite figure — I'd give the world to be as tall. An Italian princess." " Indian, rather. She claims the blood of Pocahontas." " Really ?" "Really. Did you not hear me address her by that heroine's name, Matoaca ?" " You have known her long, then ?" '^We are friends of years' standing, — ever since I bought this place, seven years ago." " Has she been grown up all that time ?" she asked. " All that time ; which has developed her from a girl of eighteen into a perfect woman. "And how long since you last saw her?" she inquired next, inly blushing again for her seventeen years. "Since the early summer," he replied, 108 RANDOLPH HONOB. She cast a hiimecl glance upon liim as he reached forth his hand, filliping the ashes from his cigar. And when he turned to her again, she pushed back her chair ^ith an im- patient movement, and went away to the piano, murmuring something about that fire being enough to burn one up. And iiKleed she was flushed to the temples. " Mr. Erie," she began, after a short silence, filled up by- rapid marches and energetic waltzes, " do all those people live together ?" "All what people. Miss Sphynx?" "Oh, that odious little Grahame concern: you know w^hom I mean," she returned impatiently. "Miss Grahame, courteous one? She, her cousin Mr. Grahame, his niece Miss Yaughan — no relative of hers, however — and his daughter-in-law, whom you have not yet seen, and whose husband is in Virginia, all reside in the famous ' Sleepy Hollow,' as Miss Matoaca has it. Proceed in your cross-examination : I will e'en unfold all the gossip of the country as it was of old." He came and leaned Avith folded arms on the piano. She kept up a restless accompaniment to her words as she asked : " Is ' Sleepy Hollow' — it must be a very stupid place — far ofi"?" " Twenty miles — quite a visitable Arkansas distance. A constant visitor there, I never found ' Sleepy Hollow' weari- some with Matoaca Vaughan. To her ennobling influence," he went on warmly, " I owe more than words can measure. Evil shrinks abashed from her presence. For her mind, it is of the highest order — deep, yet brilliant." ".So icily cold, those brilliant people!" she interrupted with a shiver. . " Upon the surface only," he returned, surprised at the unaccountable dislike she had conceived for his friend. RANDOLPH HONOR. 109 She hcnt over a music-book, seeking a song which he re- quested. This Matoaca Vaughan, then, was she whom he must climb to win. To his words now those of an evening in Charleston came with " confirmation strong as proof from Holy Writ." This was the lofty fruit wliich would fall at nobody's feet, seen last summer — brunette— certainly not green. Hitherto she had in her own mind called his avowal " the fable of the grapes," and noAV she felt aggrieved, as though he had deceived her. But what were his grapes to her, at all eventST— " Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ?" So she pressed open the leaves of the book upon the piano. "Our singing-bird is aweary," he said gently, as she faltered on a note, and pushed back her stool. " Then let her fly, Ruthven," answered Amy, who at that moment had thrown open the library door unobserved. " Have you forgot, sweet coz, the event of the Christmas holidays — the double wedding and grand ball for which you w^ere making such elaborate preparations yesterday ? AVould you believe it, Ruthven, she has decked out Penelope and Janet (the dusky) in w^hite muslin and blue flowers, to say nothing of Irene's resplendency. Irene is one of the brides, you know. Is not that flying in the face of the catechism with all the pomps and vanities ? But come, the wedding- party is assembling, and Mr. Smith has arrived. After the marriage we will go down for a moment to the quarter, and look on at the dance. We have had a delegation with in- vitations, and my little sister is perfectly wild. You know we were not on our plantation last Christmas, and her memory goes no further back." The library was quite brilliant as the trio entered. Large lamps threw a softening radiance upon the octagonal walls, ] 10 nAXDOLPR Hoxon. with their grotesqiit4y-carven wahmt book-shelves, and upon the crimson hangings of the bow-window opening to the lawn. Kutlivens and Erles love-locked ; cavaliers in time-dimmed armor; fayre shej^lierdess in blue satin and silver-broidered tunic ; a judge in gown and full-bottomed wig; venerable clergyman in band and cassock; Revolu- tionary officer with brilliant uniform and shining sword ; these looked down upon this other assemblage. Mr. Smith, the Baptist minister (the plantation negroes were generally Baptists) stood in the centre of the apartment, and before him the affianced four, with their quartette of bridemaids in a line on the left hand, and groomsmen on the right, all arrayed in white. The low bodies and short sleeves of the girls, and the brides' white veils and small head-dress, like white-wreathed caps, set off strangely enough the "ebon imao-e." In the doorways and lower end of the room thronged bright dresses of every style and description, from silks and muslins to gay-patterned calicoes. The men frequently sported cast-off dress-coats of their master's, heightened by dazzling vests. Dark faces, large and small, seemed somewhat sombre in their gravity, as all expression- less staring faces must when unlighted by color. But now they were all gleaming teeth and smiles, as, the short cere- mony over, the newly-married pairs bridled up to the win- dow where stood the "white folks," and dropped their courtesies, and shook hands with Marster and Mistis, Mars' Ruthven and our young ladies — retiring in great glee after Marster' s little jest. " Who all dem strange folks. Miss Amy ?" one of the brides, a strapping field-hand, stayed to whisper in passing her young mistress. " Where, Yiolet ? Don't you know Mars' Ruthven, your mistress' nephew, and Miss ?" "Oh, ya'p'm, I knows all our own folks; but dem fine B.iyDOLPII IIOXOB. Ill ladies an' -ommon wl.at's a sittin' «p yo.ulev, .tariu' tro' dem --at ^v^naows round de wall«? I curchcyod to 'cn.al ^Ly Wst, Miss Amy, but doy done tuk no sort o' -tiee but r,t keep a lookin' at me all de same. Shamed to speak to ;!s niggers, I reckon ; dey don't set no store on us, dressed up so line deyselves." Down in the quarter, not a hundred yards' ^-alk beneatli the oaks on the lake bank, there might seem a tmy village Doors set wide open, according to universal negro usage, threw a blaze of ruddy light across ^\&'!'''y '^'^J^^^ closed in by double cabins with neat galleries. In that fether cabin, neatly swept and garnished, -s sp. J a loner table, where stood, waiting the good pleasu,e of he dancers the viands Mrs. Rutledge had given out from her i<:::i;m with no sparing hand-hams, -M tm-Ueys, pies^ and cakes and candies, with abundance of coffee. And m tL cabin whence came forth the ruddiest ^aze, when e issued a medley of fiddle, triangle, bones, and 1>anjo ^* the measured stamp of the fiddler, and the clapping of by standers keeping time, there were the -«^<1 "S^"-'! gathered together. Grandfathers and grannies with fiosty povs" or gorgeous plaid turbans, staring little o.ies, and yo^candolSwhoiiad "got religion," and therefore for- :orn music and dancing, pressed against Uie .^ in le « or loun..ed in windows or doorways. But the uneon vlrted ^erionslv and steadily set themselves to dancing eh other dowl, with earnest eyes watching the swift lig leaps and springs and turns of their own clumsi y-made fie keepincJ perfect time to the fiddle, the clapping and tl cSer'l occasional snatches of song WonderfiU the circumference to which that dandy bridegroom with the wU ecrloves, and the rose in his button-hole has by week If striiig-pla ting trained his brush-heap of a head, until 1 1 2 RAXDOLPH HOXOE. the shininor black face, the whites of his eyes, and the glit- tering wliite teeth are quite eclipsed by its splendor. And the puffs and frizzles upholding the red-rose crown of his opponent, with the wide-spread hantlkerchief pinned dangling to her side, are no less admirable works of art, precursors of this age of waterfall and crimpings d. la con- trahande. AYho boasts the greatest amount of finery is the belle. But on this occasion Fadette's and Amy's mu- nificence, and the equalizing distribution from the annual Christmas-box, of ball-dresses, wreaths, beads, white ker- chiefs, and glowing vests and cravats, left little room for envy. " Christmas-gift, ^Nlarster" — " Christmas-gift, Mistis " — " Mars' Ruthven" — and the young ladies separately — had been whispered by young and old through half-opened chamber-doors all the early morning, and gifts thus forfeited had been faithfully paid, every trifle being received with childlike rejoicing. Xow the dance gave place to games, still with musical accom^^animent. The best dancers were deep in the wind- ings of " Peep, squirrel, peep," and the wild chorus of " Up jamboree, hui," lingered in Fadette's ear as an echo of ancient salvagery, when she went out again on Mr. Erie's ann. CHAPTER XI. "sleepy hollow. " All smiles come in such a wise, Where tears shall fall, or have of old,— Like northern lights that fill the heart Of heaven, in sign of cold." Mrs, Browning. MORNING in January. But so genial its awak ing smile, that Spring, wont to linger yet another month, is beguiled into the belief that Winter has a^sfndoned the throne to her; and so she steals across the border to occupy it, while, as her soft breath sighs joyfully over tree, and bush, and flower, they " Audibly do bud— and bud." The red oaks yet fling bare boughs in wondrous gray tracery against the misty blue or snow-drift heights of heaven. Yet the breeze wafts fragrance from violets scat- tered over the lawn, and mingles the fainter odors of the rose-hedge, in the pink depths of which a twittering bird is building where a morrow's frost may yet tear down his leafy shelter. Red birds and blue flit from tree to tree, while from yonder gnarled trunk a woodpecker, in garb of white and black, and crimson crest, keeps sonorous rhythm with his hollow far-sounding tap-tap. The lake is one silver ripple, save where a white-cap flashes up one instant, and a dark cloud of water-fowl drifts past the island's point, here and there plashing with wings 114 RAXBOLPH UOXOR. Wiiite-lined as spray — tranquilly learned on the war, so far as concerns scarcity of ammunition. In the rolling pasture beside the lawn red cattle are standing knee-deep in the clear waters of the slough, blue in the reflection of warm skies. There the wide-spreading willow-oaks from time to time drop from their greenly yet slenderly foliaged boughs a tiny leaf, with a rustle which is heard through the stillness. A few sheep are browsing through the sere deep Bermuda grass, where a dandelion, a white field-daisy, golden tufts of wild chamomile, crop up in fairy rings of verdure. Through the bared oaks and yellow-bunched berries of leafless China-trees, blue threads are curling upward from the quarter-cabins, and melting away into that misty lustre which, like Indian summer, wraps the forest in purple haze. Across the lake, and across a level clearing on its further shores, that haze causes the wooded banks and ridgy water-willows beyond the Missis- sippi to loom up indistinct and shadowy, like distant hill- ranges. Through the silence surges an almost leafless Cottonwood upon the lawn, with a murmur as of distant seas. Before the gate waited an open carriage. Fadette and Amy were already seated in it, and 3Ir. Rutledge stood near, giving orders to a servant, and now casting an impa- tient glance toward the gate. Thence presently sauntered Ruthven Erie, leisurely drawing on his riding-gloves. " Well, of all provoking men" — the girls began in a breath. "-'Where is the woman?' Behold her," he rejoined, turning and nodding as Mrs. Rutledge appeared on the gallery, calling after him, as a last word, " Xow, Ruthven, do remember what I have said, and drive carefully." " Consider me lectured and repentant, young ladies," he went on, advancing to the carriage. " But what is this ? RANDOLrn HONOR. \ ] 5 'Twill never do. I cannot possibly drive these fiery steeds all by my lone self." " Uncle Rutledge, Mr. Erie, offers you the appointment of whip," called out Fadette. IMr. Erie sprang up to his place ; then, as Mr. Rutledge drew near, held out his hand to Fadette. " Amy can do as she likes. I am far too comfortable to move," Fadette said, after pretending not to observe the invitation, until it was emphasized by a rather imperative " Come." " Amy won't do. Come," and he still held but his hand. She took the seat beside him, saying, with some vex- ation : " I do assure you, if it Avere not for detaining Uncle Rut- ledge, I should not." " Sex to the life," he returned gayly. " Probably you have learned from that Latin book — w^hat was it ? — gram- mar ? — reader ? — you so dexterously hid from me the other day — the origin of this animal's name." For, while speak- ing, he was occupied in controlling with a strong hand one of the carriage mules obstinately bent upon trotting off in the wrong direction. " There," he continued, as the animal at length yielded, and sped wath a will doAvn the road, " you see also why, the quadruped being so much the more tractable, he is lessened from the comparative to the posi- tive degree." *' Well for the muUer that she has the advantage," Fa- dette laughed. " Not at all. A mere question of time. A firm hand, a keen eye, and — " "The blind god out of the question," she interposed quickly. " Blindness out of the question, assuredly. Would you be loved for what you are not, or for what you are ?" 116 RANDOLPH UOXOR. She looked down, and the color wavered in her cheek, as she replied : " I — I would be loved. For what I am, if that be possi- ble. But no one ever loved me, Mr. Erie, who clearly saw my faults." " You keep them so under control," he said, ironically. " You know I did not mean that. But to ray guardian^ they are pretty child-ways. Aunt Randolph looks up to me as to a miracle of wisdom and strength ; Li — Tom — thinks me an angel." " And your later friends ?" " My uncle,*' she answered, sinking her voice yet lower, *' sees not me but his pet sister, my mother, whom they say I strongly resemble in appearance. Amy gives me all the characteristics her own gentle heart supplies. Aunt Rut- ledge sees my faults, and I don't think loves me very much, although she is very kind." " You have omitted one." " You — understand me thoroughly, Mr. Erie." She spoke in a stifled tone, and averted her head, ab- sorbed in the evolutions of the woim-fence which formed a running accompaniment to the swift motion of the carriage. A strange smile hovered around his mouth, as he bent forward, arranging the reins. " So you think — " he began. But to no listener. Fadette had turned quite away, and was chatting gayly with Mr. Rutledge and Amy upon the subject of Sleepy Hollow, whither they were bound. They skirt the lake, with its level cultivated island, fringed at the point by a grove of oaks, beneath which, cattle range among the green and brown and yellow-tinted bushes dipping in the water. Bordering the road lie fields where the shrivelled cotton-plant yet flings out here and there a remnant of its snowy bolls, and where negroes are RANDOLPH IIOyOR. 117 busy with stick and hoe, beating down tlie stalks and gath- ering them in heaps for the burning. At noontide tliey lounge beneath the trees at dinner, which those sturdy urchins, gaping round, have brought from the family kitchen of the quarter. Here are four or five mothers re- turning from a visit to their children, left daily in the quar- ter in charge of the nurse. And as the carriage passes, the servants form two dusky lines of greeting and staring, with pulling of hats and head-handkerchiefs, and bobbing of courtesies to all white passers-by, exclusive of "poor white trash," whom they hold in sovereign contempt. Behind, across a half-cleared field of decaying stumps, blackened trunks, and gaunt, white-girdled, well-nigh branchless trees, where a dozen woodpeckers are tapping, sweeps the even line of woodland, blue-gray and purple- brown, with here a shining glimpse of green, and there a blaze of yellow or of red — white line of deadened timber, or black-burnt pillar. The sunlight falls but dimly through the interlacing boughs, although only at invervals there is verdant foliage. Massive vines coil their serpent-length aloft. Heavy Spanish moss, trailing down, a yard in length, or festooned from tree to tree, its silver-gray dark- ening in denseness, heightens the weird aspect of gigantic cypresses. These rise from the black earth like so many sapling stems, close-welded together, and sloping inward to a pale shaft, which rears itself straight up with branches leafed by tufts of fringy brown. "Oh, now I begin to believe in Arkansas," exclaimed Fadette, turning again to Mr. Erie. "This is charming. Only look at that tree !" and she quoted softly, as if to her- self— " ' — The forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twi- light, 118 RAXDOLPH IIOXOR. Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, Avith beards that rest on then- bosoms.' " But I see no pines. Do they not grow here ?" " Unknown to the Mississippi swamp, so called. Cypresses here take the place of pines, scattered among Cottonwood, hackbeny, pecan, oak, gum, and a few other forest varieties. Those are cypresses," he added, pointing with his whip. "Dismal enough, in all conscience. But what are those nondescript things standing up so thickly among them? Neither stumps nor posts, although they resemble the latter. There is one almost as tall as the mules." "Those are cypress-knees, jutting up from the roots; and there is a cypress-well, that low stump sloping outward on the ground. See the black water gleaming far within. They are almost fathomless, and sometimes large enough to engulf unwary horse and rider. Look at those yines." " How beautiful ! They make the trunks of the leafless trees one living mass of green ; and the mistletoe, almost lilce foliage on that oak. If it were not for those, and the fi-equent showers of scarlet berries, the woods would be sombre indeed, so curtained in by their funereal moss. But, Mr. Erie, what is the meaning of that dark line running all along the trunks of the trees, five or six feet from the ground ?" "High-water mark. "When I travelled this road last spring, I floated in a dug-out right over the top of this car- riage. ' What is a dug-out ?' Why, if you had but a vein of Miss Vaughan's Indian blood, you would know intui- tively. A hollow log, paddled like a canoe, with a pro- clivity for oversetting on the least provocation. But here is your prototype, reasserting himself. Are you not whip ?" Fadette laughed, and, submissive to the not altogether moral suasion of their two drivers, the mules mended their RANDOLPH HONOR. 119 pace, proceeding so rapidly, unmindful of stumps, mud- holes, and corduroy patches, that Amy more than once cried out, reminding the cousins both that it was still need- ful to " have Charon crossing the Styx." Upon a mound, in a clearing where the sun basked warmly down, was served the picnic dinner, — Amy and Fadette being in blissful ignorance, imtil the provision-basket waxed low, that their convenient salle-d-tnanger was an old Indian burial-ground. Kow out of the woods, and along the river-bank. There the broad levee, its grassy covering foded to a yellow brown, ^ses like a wall, yielding narrowed glimpses of the Father of Waters, and his steep wooded or sand-barred banks. Anon into the woods again. And as twilight closed in, the carriage emerged beside the willow-fringed lake and hom-e- euclosures of " Sleepy Hollow." The tall slender green cane which skirts the road through the woods, stops yonder at the boundary of the broad cot- ton-field. There blaze fires in rows, lighting up duLky figures in white cottonade, who feed them with the cotton- stalks, and ward off the flames from the high worm tence upon the road. Here and there a deadened tree, a column of fire, glows, and sparkles, and falls, tossing off branch by branch, or leaving constellations of red stars upon the mid- night blackness of its charred and ruined trunk. And now the field-hands wend leisurely home to the quarter, dimly seen upon the lake, in that clump of oaks in the bend be- yond the house. Contented and careless, they pass on, whistling or chorusing as they go, chatting gayly on foot or in that wagon which lumbers by, returning from the corn- crib. Sleepy Hollow indeed it is, despite the sounds of life and wakefulness. Behind the home-grounds stretch vast rich fields, but beyond, at every point, close in the forest soli- 120 RANDOLPH HOyOR. tildes. Willo^vs and oaks dip on this side into the little oval lake. And oitt into the middle of the water, on the opposite shallow shore, straggle and push, waist-deep, whole closely-standing lines of cypress and willow, veiling the woods beyond with dense draperies of moss. Midway upon the cleared shore of the lake nestles the homestead. Oaks, pecans, and china-trees shut in the broad circular sweep of lawn, its shrubberies and flowers scattered as if by Nature's hand; and in the stillness, hither comes the distant hooting of an owl, or the heavy flight of a white or blue winged crane, disturbed from its perch in the trees alonor the lake. White walls now gleam between forest-trees overshadow- ing. And, the carriage-sweep made, Fadette has time, while Mr. Rutledge and Amy alight, to take a general sur- vey of the house. It is of frame, high red-brick chimneys running up on the outside, of one story, with broad front and galleries extending round. Front door there is none, the " hall" being a wide-roofed open space, connecting two otherwise separate buildings. Sofa, table, and rocking- chairs here testify to its being a place of social assembling, although this evening the wind blows too freshly, and lights through the crimson-curtained parlor-windows cheerfully second the cordial reception extended to the guests at the carriage by Mr. Grahame, and on the gallery by his niece. Those crimson curtains swept down, over w^indows open- ing to the gallery, upon a handsome carpet gay with bou- quets of roses. The walls were merely white-painted wooden panels, yet a fine portrait in oils or a valuable engraving relieved their bareness, and from the high wooden roof, where a beam crossed, depended a massive bronze chandelier. The huge fireplace, in which a light-wood fire blazed and RANDOLPH HOXOB. 121 crackled merrily away, filled nearly one end of the apart- ment, and it was before it that Fadette, rising from tho grand piano, seated herself just within the group round tho centre-table. For a moment she observed them uninterruptedly. Or rather, she observed Matoaca Yaughan, for further than that glorious beauty she could not at once range. Miss Yaughan was deep in conversation with Mr. Rutledge, who listened with that spontaneous, chivalrous deference which marked his birth and breeding. And well indeed might Miss Yaughan command deference. Fadette thought, as she looked at her, stately and regally radiant, "The shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair," — and wondered if it were possible for one to behold, nor do her homage. Not for Ruthven Erie, evidently. That was a most admiring glance Fadette intercepted, as he moved restlessly in the midst of a somew^hat one-sided colloquy, in which Miss Grahame still detained him. Fair Amy cooed away like a white dove to Mr. Grahame. Ilis questions had opened the flood-gates of Carolina mem- ories, and they flowed softly through her speech, she the while almost oblivious of time and place and auditor. Fa- dette caught her far-away gaze, as the tiny hands dropped clasped upon her knee. And she divined that the pink flush flitting over the up-turned face, rose because at the mention of some well-known haunt came back a moment when she had stood there with the lover-lmsband of an hour. Amy's interlocutor saw less, with those sharp gray eyes. He was more interested in the number of redoubts on Mor- ris Island than in any one engineer who had helped to build them. He hurried from the one regiment volunteer- ing thence to Yirginia, to the more important question of the number remaining for the defence of the city. 122 RANDOLPH HOXOR. Fadette, as she watched and compared Amy to tlie white dove, thought that were Circe's court held on the shores of Willow Lake, Amy's companion need undergo but slight change, perched before her as he was, " the lean and slip- pered pantaloon" d^^dndling not overmuch, and the hooked nose scarce changing into a beak, while the wiry little bowed figure in gray might require no vast stretch of magic to become a quick, ruffled, intelligent gray parrot. A preternaturally intelligent parrot, without doubt. But still a parrot in his short, shai-p enunciations of ancient teachings — sapient certainly, but never Aarying from the wonted groove. And still a parrot in his pretty-poll proud survey of himself when they are spoken — in his ruffled im- patience and reiterations, if for a moment unattended. Fadette glanced across where sat Miss Grahame, ttte- d-tcte with Mr. Erie. The mark of species was strong there, truly. Circe could have made nothing but a parrot of her. A dwindled type — dwindled nose — diluted eyes — diluted chatter, which adverted to little beyond the pretty-poll. And was poll pretty ? Perhaps. But the plumage was so beruffled Avith her strut mental, moral, and corporeal, that beyond " fuss and feather," vision could hardly go. And Ruthven Erie ? Were the disguise of humanity cast aside, how would his true nature stand revealed ? The calm, clear eagle-eye — yet no power of imagination could convert into talons that ^firm shapely hand, which thrusts back noAv the Avave of fair hair that will always droop upon his brow when his head is bent in thought. And of what is he thinking? Xot of !Miss Grahame's words, surely. But Circe drops her wand. Fadette cannot im- agine him in any enchantress's power, charm she ncA^er so wisely. Gradually the conversation became general, wandering from the slender war-news of the day to matters of planta- RANDOLPH HONOR. 123 tioii interest — cotton and its sovereignty — the accustomed dependence of the Mississippi Valley for supplies upon the Northwest — the filial love, as Mr. Rutledge defined it, of the sons of Ham for salt pork — levees — " By the way, speaking of levees," said Ruthven Erie, abruptly breaking off his tete-d-ttte^ " how wags the world with old-man Goodfellow ? Levees recall my last conver- sation with him, when he was down wdth a vengeance upon * levee counteractors' — a good though unwitting rendering of contractors." " I am glad you reminded me," said Miss Yaughan ; then addressing herself to Mr. Rutledge, added — "Mr. Good- fellow, old-man Goodfellow, as he calls himself, is our coun- ty character, Sir. We have an invitation for to-morrow evening at his jDlantation on the bayou, and if you- are curious respecting backwoods festivities, I can promise a hearty welcome. Though very plain, he is greatly respect- ed, and we have always kept up a friendly sort of neigh- borhood intercourse." " Oh, do let us go," cried Fadette, springing up, and lay- ing an eager hand on her uncle's shoulder. " My old friend. Miss Charley — old enemy, I should have said — still unmarried?" Ruthven Erie asked, when Miss Yaughan's plan had been cordially assented to. " Can you doubt it ? Or imagine her condescending to marry any man upon earth ?" returned Miss Yaughan. "Hardly. You must know her, Amy — Miss Charles Anne Goodfellow. Then would extremes meet, you deli- cate model of womanhood. A manly creature, manner, voice, height, mind. Yery handsome withal. A man in all things, save her supreme contempt for our sex." " You forget her housekeeping attainments," suggested Miss Yaughan. " Is she eclucated ?" Amy inquired. 124 RANDOLPH HONOR. "In a Kentucky conve;i//o;?, her father says. I wonder the nuns admitted her." . " Is she a lady ?" Fadette asked ; then bUished, aware that the question was not .over-polite. " She is Charley Goodfellow, sui generis^'' 3Iiss Yaughan answered, kindly coming to her relief; " and so exceptional is the genus, that I believe you will not once think of seek- ing mannerism refinement. The father is an extremely plain man, who began life with one negro and a wood-yard on the river. The mother died long since, and the daugh- ter grew up as the forest-trees grow, until two or three years ago she chose to go away to a convent for train- ing. She is a good, though eccentric, mother to her young brother, and fairly idolizes, after her own fashion, her elder, in honor of whose return on leave she gives the evening." " And does the elder brother — " began Amy. " We shall see what we shall see," oracularly interposed Mr. Erie ; " only don't, my dear Amy, begin too desperate a flirtation, lest I find it a duty to despatch myself v>-ith all possible speed to AYeir." Miss Grahame giggled appreciatingly, perking up her sharp little nose in a manner that quite upset Fadette's gravity, and arranging the folds of her dress, displaying thereby a pretty slippered foot, which evidently belonged to no reserve-corps. " Ohj Mr. Erie," she said, making a sudden swoop upon him, " you must not leave us now without one of your long visits. After seeing you weekly, as we used, you cannot imagine how ve'y sadly we have missed you. Y'hat, you have missed us, too, you were going to say ? Ah, but that is so different! Though I am sure we are all unselfish enough to give you up to our country. By the way, I am vc'y much pleased, Mr. Erie, to hear you have lately named BANDOLPn HO WOE, 125 your plantation after one of our greatest men — Gen. Beau- regard. That does credit to your patriotism ; indeed it does. Are you fond of the country, Mr. Kutledge ? You should not have chosen the winter for your trial of it, but you will like it very much in the spring, I assure you." " The country ? Charming enough in pastorals, no doubt. But give me a fine landscape in my library, where a lake is beautiful without the inconvenience of crossing, and clouds roll grandly up, unattended by damp and rheum. The fiice of Xature, forsooth ! Young ladies, your mirrors countenance my preference. And what can the voice of the wind, or the murmur of the waters, say half so agreea- bly as tlie tones of auld acquaintance, or the cheery chat around the ingleside ? As to feathered songsters, not one warbles to compare with my caged mocking-bird here. Depend upon it. Dame Nature created the country but as an instrument for the creation of the city. Am I not right. Miss Yaughan ?" Before Miss Yaughan, slowly raising her eyes from her work, had replied. Miss Grahame hastened with a simper of consciousness to sanction her guest's opinion, that the feminine " human face divine" is certainly the chef (Vceuvre ; in which sentiment the Scotch poet, liobert Burns, agrees with her. And the city of course is the place to see peo- ple. So much easier to get up a dance there — and for her part, she was perfectly in love with dancing. Hereditary, that love — her great-grandfather was a Frenchman. Amy's knitting-ball here opportunely dropped from her lap and rolled toward Fadette, who crossed the room to restore it, whispering, as she leaned over her cousin's chair — " Sau-ce qui pent / He has my prayers, I can no more. Now that she is setting her forbears on their dancing-feet again, imagination refuses to suggest when she may for- 126 BANDOLPH IIOXOR bear. I'll e'en go over to the sofa there, to Mrs. Grahame. She is just the sweetest little woman I" Fadette sat apart when gentle Mrs. Grahame rose from her side at the fretful entreaty of her little girl, who had been leaning on her lap, rubbing her sleepy half-shut eyes, and now waxed importunate upon mamma to take her to Mammy, while the baby Matoaca ceased her merry cooing to the stranger. Fadette watched, until the door closed after the neat slight figure with the smooth brown hair, the sweet smile, and soft white hands so tenderly guiding the uncertain steps of the children. Then her attention reyerted to the circle round the centre-table. Amy sat beneath the chandelier, ayailing herself of eyery ray of light as she went the slow round of that still intri- cate, but most customary parlor-work, the soldier's sock. 31iss Yaughan plied swift yet careless needles, while her dark eyes were at liberty, now to kindle with interest when she raised them attentiyely to Mr. Eutledge, now to droop upon the carpet, when 3Ir. Erie spoke to her earnestly and low. Amy was replying to Miss Grahame, and no ear less acute than Fadette's could have caught his words — " my letter yesterday — why did you not answer — cruel — " The color flashed into Miss Vaughau's pale face, as T\'itli downcast lashes she listened. Fadette flushed too, but she lifted a book of engravings from the table near, and reso- lutely fixed her attention upon the village group before her : so fixed, that a moment after, Mr. Erie's voice at her side surprised her into a start. He claimed half her sofa, and her first impulse was to relinquish the whole. She furtively glanced across at Miss Vaughan's mournfully resolute bowed face, and then up at his — not glad, not utteiiy wretched, expressing weariness RANDOLPH HONOR. 12'7 rather than emotion. And she drew away her dress, silently granting: his claim. Weariness was predominant, as he threw himself back, saying — " Ah, Sleepy Hollow the Lesser. Be my guardian fairy, will you, for five minutes — five centuries." Almost he closed his eyes — so nearly, that Fadette could unobserved observe him. More changes passed over her countenance than over his, where restlessness presently gave place to a quiet content. It puzzled her more and more. Was it repose after vic- tory ? Miss Yaughan's set mouth said nay to that. Was it submission to defeat ? He to submit ? Suddenly he turned, smiling as she hurriedly bent over her engravings. " That is not the book you were reading," he said, mis- chiev^ously. "How should you know what I was doing? You were asleep." " Xot exactly. I know by your face that you were read- ing mine." " Light reading, very," she rejoined, carelessly. " On the contrary. Now interpret to me." "If you will fall asleep again, and let me finish," she laughed, in confusion. " Not I. You have too fully roused me," and he leaned forward, dropping all nonchalance of manner. "You are too prejudiced to be observant," he added. " I know." " You deliberately select the glasses through which to read a volume — rose-color for a favorite, and so on." " But, Mr. Erie," she said, deprecatingly, " not many read as you do. Does she to whom you have been talking ?" " Miss Grahame ? Are you blind indeed ? How can she 128 BANDOLPU HOXOR read, who begins and ends with great IP There is no 7i in her alphabet." Fadette smiled. " Did you notice," she said, " how she pronounces * ve'y ?* That word is the test-oath with me. But I spoke of Miss Vaughan." His brow darkened, and he returned severely : " Miss Yaughan — who the deuce — I beg your pardon — ever gave it her — looks through a darkened glass that would discern spots on the very disk of the sun. The spots are there, it is true, but it would be more becoming in her to look at the rays." Fadette's lip curled. "Aha, Sir Sun, the rays have failed to sweeten the grapes," she thought. " Do you give reading-lessons ?" she asked. " Xo unknown tongues for you, Miss Chicora. ChiiTup away the lays you have learned^ of old, lest new ones bear a harsher ring. Your book-knowledge of men is safe as theoretical swimming. But one must plunge into the stream to know its strength and depth. And if one finds also its shallows, and the possibility of stemming the cur- rent — still, mocking-birds, if by chance they gain the shore, gain it with plumage Avet and ruffled. And, panting and wave-tossed, they have no voice to sing their song." " Yet you use that book-knowledge of men. You read a great deal." "But am no great reader. Distinction without differ- ence, you think? Xot so. Men are studies, books are light reading. The former I prefer, but accept the latter in defiiult of them. Holmes says some people may be used as intellectual tea-pots. Unfortunately, too many, like your Miss Grahame, contain quantities of mysteriously weak infusion, stale with long standing, and are so brimful nAXDOLPH HONOR. i29 that they spout it forth in the most unprovoked manner, will you nill you — leakily copious." " Well, thank Fortune, I am no tea-pot," she laughed. *' I do, most sincerely," he said gayly, " for burning hot, icily cold, bitter-sweet you would be, all in one moment, in the bursting of a bubble." "And now that you have been spouting so bountifully, I'll go dribble a few drops as my own. Don't inform on me," she ended, rising. J Bu ir ! if? y t t 1^ ^ r—r ^^m I ^^JJ:1 J1 -J.^^^J ' ■' " >^ " "* -^ — ^ "^ " " CHAPTER XII. A BALL IX THE BACKAVOODS. "I have grown weary of these windows — sights Come thick enough and clear enough with thought.'' Casa Guidi Windows. ALF-PAST five— the ball to open in two hours— and we to make ten Arkansas miles and a bayou I Young ladies, you will be forced to dance with me all night in self-defence, for you will be too late for any other partner." So said Ruthven Erie, impatiently slashing at the rose- bushes with his whip, as he waited on the gallery, while the girls exchanged last words with Mr. and 3Irs. Grahame, who were not going. " Have mercy upon my poor flowers, for here we are," Miss Yaughan rejoined, descending the steps. "You will allow me to drive you," he rather aflirmed than requested, staying her when she would have passed by to the large carnage. She answered hurriedty, in a lowered tone — " I have asked Mr. Rut ledge to go with me. If you wish to say any thing further, you can find opportunity this evening. It is in vain, I tell you before." Without reply, he assisted her into the carriage, and went bxick to seek Fadette. There she was, very near, half hidden behind those tall rose-trees, pulling away at the roses, her face in as deep a glow as any blossom she RANDOLPH HONOR. 131 had tossed into her half-raised dress. In her haste, slie had forgotten thorns, and one just then gave her a sharp reminder. She hchl the injured hand in her other, while tears, she scarcely knew foi* what, glittered on her droop- ing lashes, and the full red lips were rounded in a half fretful pout. He watched her an instant unseen. What a child she is still! he thought. And then he asked, gently, whether she would not drive with him — whether she had hurt her- self — and might he assist her. She started and averted her head, dashing the drops from her eyes as from her blossoms, before she faced him brightly, twining a rose-tendril in her hair, and saying that she believed it would be gayer in the carriage with all the rest, as Monsieur wore his philosopher frown this evening. Nothing at all was the matter— or — yes, she had a thorn in her hand — which she would keep, for she rather liked the tribe, she ended with a smile. He looked at .her fixedly, and she seemed to feel it, for her color deepened yet more. In a moment, he had turned on his heel and left her. She caught his mut- tered "Fool, to seek. for aught but coldness or caprice in woman !" The tear-drops.were not all gone. She brushed another contemptuously away ere she went to claim her place in the carriage. " If there are grapes beyond his reach, he fain would stoop for others, that the higher may see there are those to be had for the plucking," she thought, watching him where he stood a moment irresolute beside the buggy. " Thorne," he cried, suddenly, " come over here and drive one of the ladies. I want your horse. You profit by the exchange, old fellow." In this view of the case, Mr, Thorne, a late acquisition 132 BANDOLPH IIOXOR to the party in the person of a young soklier, fully coin- cided, and suiTcndcred the handsome bay, that, as Kuthyen Erie vaulted into the saddle, was off in an instant, impa- tient as his rider. Fadette could not help looking after him admiringly, as he galloped by. For, erer since, and mayhap ages before, "the young Lochinvar rode out of the west," ideal gallants " so faithful in love and so dauntless in war," have ridden into the lists on fiery steeds, with ringing spur and flashing steel. Sydney Smith suggests the introduction of military dolls into the nursery, to harden the heart feminine. But with soldiers alone, in these days at least, it will not toy, and the battle-worn gray, duly brass-buttoned, or with few pretensions to regulation uniformity, boasts truer glitter imder Southern sun than any golden fleece of the herd that would tamely submit to the shearing. Nioht had closed in before the ten miles were passed, and the bayou gained. "Waveless and almost currentless, this was soon crossed in the large flat ieto which the two carriages were driven. But a few strokes of the oars by the ne2i;roes in waiting, impelled it from the one l)ank where trees and bushes dipping low in the water shut out the forest solitudes, to the other, where, through a few great oaks in the clearing, shone forth festive lights. The moon, too, threw light upon the sti-aight pathway in the srass, to a log-cabin, in form resembling the Sleepy Hollow homestead, save- that here the walls were of rough- hewn logs, the interstices filled in with mud — an unfailing cement, to judge by the state of the roads. These had recalled to Fadette, as the carriage plunged through them, traditions of Arkansas, in which the driver of the third stratum of mules and wagon is heard suftbcatedly to ob- ject to a fourth passing over unseeing. Ruthven Erie walked up with Fadette to the house, in RANDOLPH HONOR 13.3 order to post her to some indispensable extent, as he de- clared, in backwoods etiquette. "Do you know the received formula for dancing invita- tions ? Hear then, and mark ! Some dashing soldier — not a few are spending their Christmas furlough in the vicinity, besides your most obedient — will come up to inquire, ' Want to dance ?' You are familiar with the style in which to reply, so far as down-look and up-look, and smile, but you must also say, * Don't care if I do.' Upon which, you will be requested to git up and shake yourself This may be accomplished thus : three bobs to a courtesy — now^ remem- ber — double-shuffle, and pigeon-wing on light fantastic. You can jump rope ? Then you will do as far as dancing is concerned." " I'll watch and imitate your performances." " Xo. I am €71 philosophe to-night, as you said. Poor Thorne was in despair at having none but very extensive cavalry boots, so he stepped into mine, while I enter the cavalry, great flaps, bell-spurs, and all, as you may both see and hear." " Is it possible he has as small — " " It is very possible he has as small. And now tell me — ■ canst, as ' to the manner born,' discuss spinning, warp, and filling, recipe for persimmon beer, when the water will be up, the last barbecue, and Tom, Dick, or Harry in Mr. Price's or Ben McCuUough's foot-company ? And last, but by no means^ least, the pre-eminence of Scotch snufi* over this, that, and the other ? Xo ? Then you won't be heavy on conversation," he pronounced gravely, shaking his head. Fadette laughed. " What in the world has snuff to do- with these latter days ?'-' she asked. " And voiis co7inaissez- vous on all these topics ?" " Both queries I leave you to answer, as here we are on the field of your conquests to be." 134 BAXDOLPn HOXOR. For hark I the combined liarmony of fiddle, triangle, and banjo, with occasional warwhoop accompaniment from the dusky, grinning banjo-player, perched in a corner above the heads of liis musical brethren. The guests entered a long, lofty, bare apartment, where partitions, reaching only half-way to the roof, and the roof itself unceiled, and crossed by heavy time-darkened beams, would seem to present a glimpse of primitive .times in this primeval forest. About fifty persons, young and old, were there. Two double sets had already formed, and to their movements Fadette directed her attention, anxious concerning the three bobs and a courtesy-feat. There was much more action than in circles polite, yet not unfrequently accom- panying grace. Elephantine gambols certainly, those exe- cuted by Colin the heavy, or that greenfinch girl scarce lighter. But it is truly astonishing to behold the young soldier in cavalry boots mount in air and descend to earth swift as eyes can follow or fiddle play, with never a jar upon his puncheon heavier than the fall of thistle-down. And the figures following upon each other without a moment's pause or the hum of conversation, were many of them new to Fadette, and struck her fancy. While some among the dancers were simply and Avell dressed, others might have stepped from gaudy fashion- plates, four or five years behind the times. In garments masculine, Confederate gray prevailed — black swallow-tail and unpretending jeans being confined to the elderly part of the community. The girls were pretty, for those few among them who had the bayou complexion, muddy as its waters in time of ovei-flow, had veiled it beneath that powder which has done to death many a brave at a ball. Soft white hands and easy manners, generally companions, RANDOLPH HONOR I35 were not rare, for Southern Avomcn of whatever gmcle have little manual labor to perform. Those who did not dance were grouped around on benches, or the usual split-bottomed chair — rocking-chairs being seats of honor. Here a couj^le of serious small planters, oblivious of festivities, were absorbed in the dis- cussion of war-news, as contained in their last paper, a week old. There an elderly dame in neat black silk sat vigorously swaying to and fro, quite as interested in the dance as the little white-headed girl upon her knee, who, with chubby finger in mouth, stared intent upon the wild " sasshe" of that gaudy greenfinch sister. Numbers of the middle-aged women had drawn from their pockets small bottles or boxes, furnished with correspondingly small brushy sticks, which they rubbed in their mouths, first dip- ping up the yellow-brown powder in the bottles. This was snufl-dipping — not at all confined to the elders save at a party, when young girls hesitate to display their passion. But among the wall-flowers was one apart in the corner the entire evening, who drew no such distinctions, but plied her stick until one ceased to wonder at the snufly tint of hair and skin, or that no one asked her to dance, any more than they would a jar of the best Scotch. She meantime w^as quite content, fixedly regarding the dance, as if dan- cing, after dipping, were the one serious business of life — from time to time hitchnig herself up on her chair, bracing mind and body to the comprehension of figures. Without the back windows w^aved a cluster of black faces, shining eyes, and white teeth displayed from ear to ear. The house and quarter negroes congregated to see the dancing of the " white folks," among whom " our Miss Charley" rose pre-eminent. " So you uns had to pull up stakes in Car'lina, and make 1 3 6 nAXD OLPII HOXOB. tracks for our country," was the greetinsr of the gray-haired ruddy host, fixing Mr. Rutledge with his quick, light-ljhie eye, after making the party heartily welcome to the " aver- sions" of the evening. "I reckon you find all mighty different here. Not cleared and settled up like the old States. Never been thar myself — raised in Mississippi — ^but heerd it was a hard country, two rocks to one dirt, like our hills out yonder." Mr. Rutledge explained 'VN'ith becoming gravity that the two-rocks-to-one-dirt quality was confined to his hills also. On his coast plantation was raised the finest Sea Island cotton. " I wonder !" was the old man's exclamation, — inquiring next whether it was because the Yankees had " evaded" the place, that Mr. Rutledge removed his people. " Aston- ishing how them Yankees always are the hardest kind of masters, though now they make out like the almighty dol- lar wa'n't shucks to the almighty nigger. High time white folks was a gitting out from among them. Union and Old Flag indeed ! Can't come that shenanigan over me ! Uniou been played out for a coon's age, and as to the old flag, since them 'publicans taken it into their dirty hands, its something I ain't got no use for. Xew tricks are a heap better than the devil's threadbare coat, if it did once be- long to respectable people. We'll go it alone if we do git euchred ; but I reckon we'll slam them at this game, and go laps into the next war they've a mind to try on. Them 'publicans '11 be streaking it out of the little end of the horn yet, sure. Don't the Scriptures prophesy it ? And no fear of Arkansas going up the spout, when Mr. Piice's got a whole company of infootry up thar in Missourah." Fadette, her hand still in Mr. Erie's arm, stood talking to a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered lass, with a tAvinkle of quiet humor in her well-opened blue eyes, and a large RANDOLPH HONOR. I37 firm mouth, that, when she smiled, liberally displayed very white large teeth. Her voice was rich and deep — manly, though low. And there was a suggestion of manliness also in the easy, quiet manner with which she received her guests, and in the grasp of the firm white hand, which, after for an instant covering Fadette's, met Ruthven Erie's with such frank friendliness of greeting. Very graceful, after its determined way, was the wave of the chestnut hair back from the broad square forehead, and far from inelegant the flow of the close-fitting, fine black-and-white homespun. Fadette forgot to ask herself, as she listened, "Is she a lady?" For she was, indeed, "Charley Goodfellow, sui generis.'''' " Yes," she was saying in reply to Mr. Erie, " it just came to the issue I prophesied you last Aprif, v>'hen you left for the war. I waited on my brother for two weeks after that ; then, in utter desperation, determined he should crawfish no longer. I shouldered my shot-gun, and so marched out, where he sat on the gallery, reckoning up the votes he might expect for the captaincy of the ''new company. And in spite of a muttered hint to paddle my own canoe, we had then and there a thorough explana- tion,— he or I must and should go to Virginia, and tliat at once. N'ot that he wished to play out of the fight— he is afraid of nothing in this round world," she went on with a proud lifting of the head—" but he waited to go in as an officer. As if there needed stars on a man's collar to show him the enemy, or gold-lace bars to fight behind ! But thus, in a fright for me, he put out in time for Manassas." "But you did not really mean it?" half-questioned Fa- dette, surveying her in bewilderment. " I did that," she returned ; " I won't have the last one of the family out here in the woods, so many bumps on a log. My father is too old, Johnny too young. So long as 138 P.ANDOLPH HOXOB. my elder brother does his duty there, mine is here. Per- haps it may be, at all events, with my father and Johnny to look after," she ended, almost with a sigh. " But what could you do in the army ?" " 3Ir. Erie there can tell you if his gun has brought down more deer than mine — if he rides a wilder horse or leaps a wider ditch. I am not afraid to chirp, I assure you, even if there is no down here," and she stroked her chin in manly fashion, — a gesture which Fadette afterward found she often used unconsciously. " True enough. Miss Charley," assented Mr. Erie. " But why, since you thought of joining the army, did you not do so under your gallant captain, whom I left striving so unceasingly to enlist you ?" She opehed her mouth rather wide for the low laugh, rubbing her hands together gleefully. " Routed completely — worse than Bull Run Races," she replied. " The poor fellow abandoned his siege-guns and fled, not daring to beg quarter. This was the way of it. My father and Sol took it into their heads he would be a good match for me — well-looking, river place, thirty hands, a step above our position in society — all that sort of thing. Even Johnny, poor boy, was given to muttering of old maids. So here was the gentleman forevermore, tinkering about my spinning-wheel, following me to the dairy, and would doubtless have penetrated into the mysteries of but- ter and curd, if I had only said the word. At first I tried possuming — was blind, deaf, dead, to every advance. But that was not in my line, and I determined to get the dead- wood on hiiiL 'Twas hard — I like the creature, if only he had not pestered me out of my life. But however hard, it had to be done. So one morning I ordered him out hunting. And a rare chase it was, I warrant vou. All throucrh the woods on my red Lightning — loping along like mad, plung- RANDOLPH HONOR. 1,09 ^ ing into tlio tliickest of the canebrake, firing at random dangerously near my sportman's head, he tlie while the perfect impersonation of the frog in the fable, 'fun to you' — shouting and hallooing — how I wished I dared swear too — swimming the bayou which was running strongly from the overflow — and bringing him np in the evening floundering in the slough behind the quarter. That was my last view. He went to Virginia the next day. Tliat taught what I had been assuring him for months — that we were no show- ing for a match, and that there were nicer and prettier girls would yoke with him much better. I paid for the lesson myself with a severe chill, but thought the affair cheaply settled, as my father and brother just came to the conclu- sion that I would never pull in double harness, and that I had no more use for a husband than the Mississippi has for a sail-boat. If ever I see him again, and he is married — for he's certain now to fall in love with some soft little creature who, for worlds, would not mount any horse but his own hobby, and who only knows the report of a pistol in his battle-stories — I'll e'en go up to him, explain why I did it all, and beg his pardon." " But he is one of the best of fellows," remonstrated Mr. Erie, much amused. " Had you taken him in hand, you might have made what you chose of him." " Why should I attempt the task ? As to making any- thing of him, churning through all eternity won't make butter come in an empty churn." At that moment advanced the host, arm in arm with an individual who claims attention, were it only for his uniform, gotten up regardless of blockade, in lavish expenditure of buttons and gold lace, and for the conscious pride with which he regarded both it and himself A tall, broad-shouldered, loose-jointed figure, on which the Confederate coat looked much as if it had dropped, 140 nAXDOLPn UOXOR. reversing Elijah's mantle, from a lesser -to a greater. A broad, heavy-featured countenance, over which forty rugged "winters had begun to cast their shadows in stray lines as rugged. A large, good-natured, vacillating mouth, .-Ind fine teeth. Eyes of a peculiar dark wood-color, with per- chance a slight reflection of the foliage tints — yet more peculiar in their power of darting forward with his head and shoulders, whenever speech became emphatic. A most empresse manner, a low confidential tone, now and then hurried and jerky. A perfect mane of dark hair, from time to time shaken back with a sj^irited toss of the head, sur- ♦ mounted all. And this all. Lieutenant Solomon Good- fellow — in familiar parlance, Sol — him the proud old man l^resented to Fadette, and by him was her hand impressively requested for the dance. "A compromise between a war-horse and a sand-crab," Fadette whispered to Ruthven Erie, while her partner went his way to order a change of tune. " Did you ever behold such eyes ? They jump at one so, they would absolutely terrify, were it not for their very inoffensive expression." " Come, young people, stir yourselves round like a six- mule team in a mud-hole," exhorted the old man, patting his tall daughter on the shoulder, as she moved away. " She is handsomer every time I see her," said Mr. Erie, observing the father's eyes follow with evident delight. " And just as bright as they make 'em," responded he, nibbing his hands excitedly. " But she'll never meet up with her match in a man, I'm afeard. Why, Sir, there was young Stevens — him that was setting up to her when you went away — kei*flummoxed as bad as any man you ever seen. But he ! — he wa'n't nowhar. She give him the go- by, kicked him plumb into the middle of last year, she did, and they say the poor boy ain't been oft' his head since." Fadette had much ado to keep her amusement within RAA^DOLPIl JlOXOIi. j^j boumls of the smile polite, while she returned her partner's protound salaan,, and endeavored to keep paee ,vith his pas de charge. If he made those dashes npon the enemy she no longer marvelled at the account he had been ^ivin'^ of hnnselt single-handed, routing half a dozen in the battle •where his bars were won. "That is very fine," he said, having passed not in<.lo- nously through the hazards of "circle three," and falUn<. back on his fii^t position, unfurling a huge handkerchief, obvious y intended for a flag of truce-" splendid exercise J splendid-for us young people. Think so?" was his con- tdential query, bending low for her reply She smiled, as she assented-" ' Us, young people !' he is oWer than my guardian !" And there came the memory o, a far prison, and her face saddened. _ Her partner observed it, and hastened to remove the imagined cause. "Don't-don't be low-spirited. It would not be wise- would it now ?-to give up enjoying this evening because there might not be another for the next three months' ^ ever mind, it may not be long before others of our boys will be back, and then somebody will give an evening, for tlfT ^T ^''^•^'"'^ '" "'• ^ ^°P« '^ ^^t"™ myself next tall. That is, if my country can spare my services for a tew weeks." Fadette gravely trusted they would he spared by her being at peace, and he could then retire under the shade of his laurels, which might also afford shelter to his friends She was forced to raise her handkerchief to her lips as he be^an •' '''''' """'' """^ ^''''"'''' ""'"'^'"^ excitedly,' ' " Yes, that is just what I want. Miss-somebody to share them with. I am a domestic man-a very domestic man- though It might not seem so from my never haviii- mar- 142 BAXDOLPII IIOXOR. ried. Time enougfh yet, of course, you say. But I'll tell you — though friends — a great many — have told me I was vain — (I don't know why, unless they judged from my manner, being a man of the world) — yet I never have seen any young lady I thought actually cared very much about me — I have not, really. There are only two things I am particular in looking for. Beauty is a very pretty, nice thing to have — and so are negroes — but heart and mind ! — • heart and mind I" he reiterated, laying his hand upon the first, and tapping the forehead where cultivation of the latter was supposed to have set its furrows. His eyes the while darted impressively forward, reminding Fadette of the childish days when, playing on the beach, she would tap a captured sand-crab on the back to make him put forth those wondrous organs. In a pause of the dance, Fadette stole a glance where she had left Ruthven Erie. He had disappeared. There was Amy mingling with the dancers, where Mr. Rutledge too had his place with a young and pretty woman, who had consigned her three-year-old to a friend beside her. Miss Arabella Grahame courtesied, coquetted, ambled, and bridled, quite dazzling the tall, blushing soldier-boy, her partner — occasionally, en Mademoiselle Oracle^ confounded him. But where was Matoaca Yaughan ? The quadrille, as all things must at last, came to an end, and Fadette had seated herself near a window. For, Jan- uary though it was, the evening was one of spring's fore- runners, and the blazing logs T^-ithin-doors rendered the mild air without a luxury. By dint of persevering mono- syllables, she had driven her ardent attendant to distant admiration — of himself. And now she sat quite alone, be- ginning to think the ball a weariness. She heard footsteps on the gallery outside her window ; and the light streaming upon two passing figures, showed RANDOLPH HONOR I43 her K lit h veil Erie, and Matoaca Vaughan on his arm. His face was toward his companion, averted from Fadette, but of hers she caught one glimpse. There was inefiable mourii- fulness in the droop of the beautiful head, but the mouth was fixed detenninedly. Fadette half-rose to go away. But she could no longer move unseen. He had paused there, speaking in a low, though vehemently reproachful tone— " 3Iatoaca Vaughan, have you then no fault, that you are so merciless toward the man you love ?" She was silent. Fadette, where she sat, could no longer see reply in her face. He continued more gently — " You know the whole truth now. What is past, is past Then let it go." " What is past, is past. The far and near. I let all go." That was all. The clear, decided tones were lost as the twain moved on. The gayer, if less musical, tones of the fiddle were the next she heard. And then the eager ones of young Thorne asking her to dance. ^That drive began his conquest, that dance achieved it. :N'ever before had Fadette appeared so bright, so gay, so altogether charming. The dark-blue silk set off the car- mine glow of her cheek and the sparkle of her eyes. Every motion of the lithe figure was grace itself And with what witchery the tiny foot, cased in its slight black boot, danced its way right into all hearts, and left its impress there— but most of all in that of her ci-devant driver ! Even the snuff- maiden, whom Fadette called, in answer to her partner's suggestion, " not a Lone Star, but a whole constellation— the Dipper"— slipped her bottle into her pocket, engrossed in watching, and even relaxed into a smile, moved "by the mspiration of Fadette's ringing laughter. Matoaca, all serene, was deep in converse with Mr. Rut- U4 RANDOLPU HOyOR. ledge. Riithven Erie lounged in the doorway, alone, in no enviable frame of mind, to judge from the moody glances following Fadette, as she glided through the quadrille, now turning her head for 3, last word with her partner, now listening to his, with a smile, or that pretty lifting of the brows which was Fadette's alone. It was the first time her will-o'-the-wisp character had flashed out so clearly. Lingering home-sickness, the re- straint of unfamiliar faces, absence of excitement, had ob- scured the fairy-fire, and forced it to plod along in the path marked out for it, instead of flitting aside, and sparkling, and alluring after its own wayward wont. But music, however homely, made her heart keep time, and a certain naughty resolve, as she observed Ruthven Erie's uncon- cealed disappointment on finding her engaged in the dance, added yet another excitement. So he stood there, sarcastically compassionating the de- luded Thorne, congratulating himself upon superior wis- dom, calling her in his heart an arrant little flirt. Was he just ? Are there not women who can no more help being "wo to men" than can the whirlpool avoid drawing on the adventurous billow? And those cruel Venus' s Fly-Traps are not midaphagi in malice prepense, but devour their hovering prey by law of nature. Yet, weary perhaps of the role of door-keeper, he joined the buzzing circle round her at the conclusion of the set, and requested the honor of her hand for the next. " Mine is the first claim, Mr. Erie," Lieutenant Sol has- tened to interpose. Mr. Erie, looking quite over him, repeated his request, as if he had not heard a word. Ere Fadette could reply, the brilliant Sol— (" Phoebus ! what a name I") — reminded that he had the first claim, having asked her just as Mr. Erie came up. RANDOLPH HONOR. I45 " And I had not answered. Neither of you gentlemen have a claim — (Sol certainly not the shadow" — she added, to herself). " And I'll dance with whomsoever I will," she ended, laughingly. The whomsoever represented Mr. Erie, until she dis- tinguished a slight smile of certainty curling his lip. She accepted Mr. Goodfellow's arm, and they took their places at the head of the set. Ruthven Erie, with a lazy shrug, turned away. And seeing Amy disengaged, he said, in passing, " Keep your- self for me, Amy ;" then moved on to a short distance, and leaning against the wall, proceeded to disencumber himself of the melodious Texan spurs. Tlte fiddler still tuning up, there was silence through the room. Many eyes had been fixed upon the two candidates for the honor of Fadette's hand, and the young men, Mr. Thorne in especial, had been greatly surprised at Mr. Erie's quiet acquiescence. Therefore, when he drew aside, and portentously raised and examined his boot, that not un- usual receptacle for pistols, the general conclusion arrived at was, that something was " up." A frightened twitter among the women, and then a hur- ried shuffling, and barricades hastily constructed of chairs, benches, etc., proved that the anticipated something was nothing less than a cavalry charge. The gallant lieutenant, following the direction of every- body's stare, and suddenly arresting himself on the field of Manassas, in a headlong dash he was describing to Fa- dette, was ware of the demonstrations opposite, first ob- served by all save the sleepy complacent fiddler twanging away with half-shut eyes. Imagining himself, perhaps, still upon the field of honor, he flung himself forward into the centre of the room. First, by an elevation of the coat-tails, he revealed a pistol hol- 7 146 RAyDOLPII UOXOR. stcr, from which lie drew the weapon, flourishing it, and phmting liim self firmly in a defensive attitude, as one defy- ing the armies of Israel this day. " Come on, and I will give your flesh," etc. All this had passed in an instant. And how much longer Euthven Erie, who in one quick glance had taken in the position of affairs, and who now bit his lip to conceal his amusement, while searching in the capacious boot-top for the pistol every bystander was looking for — how^ much longer he might have chosen to keep np the farce, cannot be knowTi. For, at this moment, the maiden in green broke away from all detaining friendly hands, and, heed- less of terrified warnings and expostulations, scaled, at a flying leap, all the barricades in the far comer, and with dishevelled locks and flaming cheeks rushed forward and threw herself into the breach. " You shan't touch him — you shan't," she shrieked, shril- ly. " If you want to come at him, you'll have to tramp over my dead bo-o-ones !" And she precipitated herself, howling, upon Ruthven Erie, who, all unprepared for so overwhelming a force, had considerable difficulty in preserving his equilibrium. The rafters rang again with his shout of uncontrollable mirth, as he endeavored to shake her ofl", while a dozen of the brave of the sex, emulating her zeal, or beginning to sus- pect a joke, pressed round. Fadette and Amy, in blissful ignorance of pistols ever being carried in boots, stared, unable to comprehend the scene. Mr. Goodfellow stood aloof, coolly demanding fair play, and checking those who would have interfered. Mr. Rutledge, who knew Ruthven Erie, and young Thorne, who knew the boots and their innocence of pistols, were perfectly convulsed with laughter. At this juncture, and while the ten-ified damsel's screams RANDOLPH HONOR. 147 yet mingled in the merriment, entered Miss Charley, who iiad the while been absent, " on hospitable thoughts intent." With one or two imperative questions to the girls, she elicited a dozen contradictory answers in a breath, from all of which she judged nobody knew any thing. " There, there, that will do," she.said. Then, with a quick movement, was beside the howling maiden, ha.d grasped her by the shoulder, and with one swing left her standing in the middle of the room, where she presently tottered into \\GY 2)rotege's brandished arms. "You — you — Thing!" Charley said, contemptuously — "cannot you see you are egging them on? Mr. Erie, what is this all about ? I can learn the truth from you." He held aloft an immense spur which he had now un- strapped. "Just about this. Miss Charley. There is apparently some mysterious objection to my relieving myself of my spurs to dance. I do assure you, young ladies, it has as . yet slain no one at all. But if ever another hundred-and- lifty pounder be levelled at me, I won't answer for the con- sequences." And he brandished the spur threateningly. Charley's hearty laugh set an example all followed. The gallant lieutenant magnanimously shook hands with the knight of the spur. Peace and gayety once more reigned, and the dance proceeded^ until, with a word from his daughter — " Supper's next in the procram, ladies and gentlemen," announced Mr. Goodfellow. " Pro-cram, indeed !" thought Fadette, taking her seat at a long table, between the numberless dishes of which scarcely could a glimpse of the snowy cloth be seen. A haunch of venison ; a shoat in shining broAvn coat ; huge wild-turkeys; wild-goose; teal-ducks; partridges; black- birds ; great white or yellow sweet-potatoes, of which two 118 RAyDOLPH HOXOR. filled a dish ; cakes, pies, and pyramids of sugar-candy ; biscuit and light-bread, with golden piles of butter ; pre- serves, and cream in bright glass pitchers; and sparkling jellies of the wild Muscadine grape, flanked by decanters of Muscadine wine, home-made, — were all ranged there, not without a certain rude tastefulness, and decorated, where that tastefulness. admitted, with violets and roses white and red. "Xow, gentlemen," Mr. Goodfellow said, crossing his arms upon the table, and nodding to a servant — " now, gentlemen, I'll show you what's what. Here's some fine old wine our kind friend Mr. Grahame sent to make merry with. Bor — Bor — well, it do look like ducks," he added, peering sidelong at the bottle held close to his eyes; "and •I reckon we'll be barking up the nght tree if Ave drink it W'ith our duck." Upon the host's declaring it would be a sin to take such wine just as if it were persimmon beer, and they were ashamed to say any thing about it, various toasts accom- panied ; Mr. Rutledge's — " The West, where the wise men followed the Lone Star" — occasioning three times three, and the very original j^roposal from a shrill youth, to " take half-a-dozen cheers and sit down." TThen, at the close of the last dance, dawning light and chill breeze heralded the coming sunrise, Fadette, wrapped in a warm shawl, paced the gallery with Ruthven Erie. All the will-o'-the-wisp sparkle was faded from her eyes, she looked weary, and scarcely tried to suppress a yawn. She watched those dull red streaks, wavering between the low murky line of cloudland above, foreboding no bright day, and the low murky line of woodland below, to which white mists rolling up gave the semblance of clouds. There swept over her the memory of such a sunrise once RANDOLPH HONOR. 149 seen from the deck of the Louisiana, nearing Old Point. Strange, lier heart had been lighter then, she sighed un- consciously. "What is it?" asked Ruthven Erie, who watched her face. "Nothing— but — Oh, I am so homesick, Mr. Erie !" she cried, compressing her lip in the effort to control her tears, and that painful swelling in the throat. And when he drew the cold little trembling hand within his arm, holding it there with a firm and tender grasp, she turned away her head, and shivered like an aspen-leaf. But the next instant she put a strong constraint upon herself; for Miss Goodfellow had approached, walking be- side Mr. Thorne, having declined his arm. " Let me deliver up your escort," she said to Fadette ; " I have piloted him through all perils to the haven where he would be." And she turned to answer Mr. Erie. "Good-morning, Mr. Thorne," Fadette cried gayly. " But are you sure you are awake ? I would not vouch for you." " ' Eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-star,' " he quoted in an aside, with significant shrug toward Charley. " Fie ! is she not a friend of yours ?" • " Far from it. A friend of my brother's. I am a com- parative stranger in the county." " Yes," said Charley, facing round with an amused smile, which at once set Fadette to wondering whether she could possibly have overheard the low-toned colloquy. "Mr.- Thorne is a shove-out from Missouri. So renowned a jay- hawker throughout the length and breadth of her prairies—" "Miss Charley! Miss Charley!" interposed Mr. Erie, who perceived the color rising angrily in his friend's bronzed cheek; "will you then never learn the distinction between partisan-leader and jayhawker? And is it needful further 150 BAXDOLPH IIOyOR. to inform you that it has passed into a byword in many a Missouri camp, ' Where his Honor pricks, Let that aye be your bound.' " Young Thorne stole a gratified though embarrassed glance at Fadette. She surveyed him with awakened in- terest. "Oh, Mr. Thorne, have you actually been a partisan- leader?" He bowed. " And not one adventure given me ? Do you know, hav- ing brought you to confession, I have a great mind to make you do penance by now and here beginning at the very be- ginning, instead of going in search of the carriage, which — Ah, there it comes, behind my uncle's ! Quite a throng in front, however, so you have space to tell me whether you like such adventurous warfare better than that accord- ing to rule ?" "Aye, that I do," he cried enthusiastically. "Since early boyhood I have passed many a vaca — many a sum- mer — hunting in Kansas and the Indian nation, and the roving life has become a second nature." " Endless retrospect !" cried Charley with uplifted hands to Mr. Erie. " Since early boyhood ! And he twenty !" Ruthven frowned warningly upon the scoffer of eighteen. And while Harry Thorne, somewhat disconcerted by this running commentary, continued to tell Fadette how he trusted again to go up to Missouri when the leaves should come out, and scare up the whole country at the head of the bushwhackers whom he would recruit there, Kuthven said : "You are unjust. Miss Charley. That is really a most gallant young fellow. And last spring he was beginning greatly to admire you, when you took this tone T\4th him." RANDOLPH HONOR. 151 A smile just curled Miss Charley's red lips. It came with the remembrance of an episode in last spring's his- tory, of an eloquent letter penned at the close of Harry Thome's month's visit in the county, and of its answer, in due form : "Mr. Thorne, I remain, Charley Goodfellow." She said carelessly : "What matter? He will do himself full justice. Has he belittled Jack the Giant-killer, or not ? Bushwhacking against regular service, indeed ! These independents, look- ing down on their own footprints on the sand, don't see the way carved on the rocks above. And whatever has been said or sung of 'footprints in the sand,' every one knows that the first wave washes them away. So it is as well to aid in hewing the rocky highway, though it keeps no dint of passing feet. You are laughing ? You think I — " But the carriage interrupted. Young Thorne claimed Fadette, nor relented for all Mr. Erie's asseverations that the bay was more than he could manage — that he shuddered before the perils of the home- ward ride. " The consequences of being in such hot haste to step into a friend's boots. Retributive justice, I see it sticking out a foot," cried Harry Thorne, waving his cap tri- umphantly as he assisted Fadette into the buggy. CHAPTER XIII EYEXIXG AT " Conversation between friends is just like walking thro' a mountainons kintra — at every glen-month the wun" blaws frae a diflferent airt — noo heather-bank, noo a gruesome quagmire." EtTKICK SHEPfiERD. lOUSIX, cousin, they done come !" cried the little Janet, dancing on tiptoe, into Fadette's dressing- room, as that damsel stood surveying herself in the Psyche-glass, adjusting her dark braids for the last time, while her admiring maid held aloft the candelabrum, with an occasional glance at her own dusky reflection. " Who done come, sweet thing?" asked Fadette, turning, and tossing the child in her arms. " Oh, whole hea^) of people. Calling across the lake now, and big flat gone over after them vdih Cousin Ru'. Come down, coz, and see. ever so many flowers mamma done put in the library. And a mighty heap of light, too !" "All right, Irene?" Fadette asked, as her maid, with connoisseur air, smoothed down the silken folds of her dress. Then she left the room, clasping the tiny outstretched hand, and followed down-stairs by Janet's small playmate and protegee, who afterward hung about the hall, peeping in at the doors, all expectancy to share in her mistress's play and *' pretties." " How perfectly beautiful !" exclaimed Fadette on enter- ing the library, looking first at Amy and then at the flowers which she was arranging upon the table, herself a fairer BANDOLPII HOXOR. 153 blossom, in her white rosebud jirettiness and pale violet dress. Mr. Rutledge laid aside his paper, and came forward to assist his daughter in placing the vase upon the mantel. "Do you belong up there, too?" he asked, pretending to lift her next. She laughed, and glided behind Fadette. " Here is our ornament," she said, putting her arm round her cousin's waist. "Come then, Chicora, here is your opportunity to be looked up to." " No, I thank you, Sir ; no lonely heights for me. I might chance to follow Hans Andersen's china shepherdess, who flung herself down — " ".To the level of the handsome w^ooden soldier w^ho fell in love witli her," mischievously interrupted Amy. "Wooden — head and all?" she inquired innocently. Her uncle drew her to him, and said, with an intermingling of seriousness — " Head, heart, and all, you assume, and so use him for target practice, eh ?" She put up her hands deprecatingly, crying — ^''Mafoi! 'Cupid hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll. warrant him heart-whole.' " " And I will warrant, since we wax classic, that * H' had got a hurt O' th' inside, of a deadlier sort' " " Uncle Rutledge ! What, in half a dozen inter- views ?" " Of whom are you speaking, little one ?" " Why, of Mr. Thorne, of course. Whom else ?" He glanced at her, then quietly took a cigar from the mantel, and proceeded to light it, saying that he would go 154 RAXDOLPH IIOXOR. * down to the lake bank and see what our young delinquent had done with the flat and its freight. Fadette, as he went out, caught Amy by the waist, and whirled with her round the room, humming the air to which she kept time. " Oh, what would I not give" — throwing herself giddily into an easy-chair — " for a bona fide old-time ball ! Can Uncle Wash play waltzes ? How many people are coming to-night ? A dozen or two ? Do you know, I think it is the most charming way in the world of visiting. I only hope they will stay several days — we might have dancing enough then. Do you think Wash knows any thing but those everlasting quadrilles and reels, Amy ?" " I dare say. But," she added, timidly, " if I were you, I M'ould not waltz." " Xot waltz ! Are you daft ? Why not ?" " Only, people object — " " Who are ' people ?' " Fadette asked, leaning forward anxiously. "Does your mother — Uncle Rutledge? Be- cause, if he — " " Xo, no. Only people in general — Ruthven, for in- stance," Amy interposed, hesitating and blushing, " Is that all ?" Fadette sank back, relieved. " Why, my dear child, you do not for a moment imagine I shall ask his i^ermission ? Because you, good soul that you are, glide along in his leading-strings, am I to forget to walk ? Be- sides, methinks both you and I waltzed last night in this very room with the identical Ruthven." " But that is so diiferent !" remonstrated Amy. " Be- sides, he does not himself think any thing of waltzing, only of the way in which some people regard it." Fadette shrugged her shoulders. " There is the lion in the fairy-tale. Amy. If you gang your ain gate, nor swerve because of its threatening RANDOLPH HONOR. 155 aspect, you will be very apt to find it a growl-less shadow." "Ah, consiii mine," cried Amy, "wait only mitil some one has a claim on your dancing ! Then we shall see inde- pendence !" " And did you not dance when you were engaged ?" Fa- dette asked, quickly. " That was so short a time — the war had already com- menced, and there was no question of that." " But — but — " Fadette said, desperately, the guilty color surging to her brow — " when — before — " She broke ofi", ashamed of her intention. Amy's blushes were as vivid. " We will not speak of that, please," she answered, gen- tly. " Though not a year has passed, it is but a dream — yet a somewhat painful one. We had both ' lightly turned to thoughts of love,' and both had to learn the wide gulf between fancy and feeling. That he first saw it, was hardly a fault." " But — " began Fadette, flushed and indignant. Amy stopped her with a kiss. " Hush," she said, meeting the abashed eyes with hers of calm, clear, truthful blue— "No blows aimed at my kin- dred, you Don Quixote. Vanity suffered from a scratch, that is all. He really behaved well, save and except the crime of falling in love out here. And w^ho would not ab- solve him, having seen Miss Vaughan ?" Fadette, still coloring hotly, hastened to resume with forced gayety : " Well, reve7ions d notre mouton — we won't demoralize him — I, for one, will waltz with him no more." " Oh ! and this his last evening !" began Amy, distressed. " There ! there is the click of the front gate. Your pret- tiest smile, ma bien-ai}7iee, for here are our guests." 156 RANDOLPH HOXOB. "Amy," said Mrs. Rutledge, entering at this moment, " go into your father's study, my child, and weigh out fif- teen grains of quinine for Candace. Her hus'band is there waiting for it." " Is she much sick. Mamma ?" asked Amy, rising. " Xot very. Xo fever when I was in the quarter, an hour ago. Make the quinine into j^ills, Amy. Servants are so bad about taking it !" " Let me go. Aunt Janet. Indeed, I prefer making pills to receiving people," cried Fadette, vanishing as- voices and footsteps sounded upon the front gallery. " So ! caught peeping !" said a voice behind Fadette, when, half an hour later, she stood without upon the gal- lery, reconnoitring through the window the scene in the parlor, which she yet hesitated to enter alone. She started. " Why, where did you come from ?" she asked, on seeing Mr. Erie. " From no more mysterious retreat than yon dark corner of the gallery, toward which you did not think fit to glance. May I ask what your ladyship is doing here ?" " Oh, I am so glad to see you, Mr. Erie ! You must go with me into the parlor. I have been dreading it alone. I scarcely know any one there." " Is the bashful, then, your role to-night ?" "A most uncomfortable one. Don't you think some in- ventive genius should benevolently devote himself to a patent for launching people into drawing-rooms ? I can float on wave or calm of conversation with other small craft, but as to getting there !" " I'll launch you, then. For what harbor will you have me steer?" "Tell me first who are here. My ideas of Arkansas RANDOLPn nONOB. 157 society are completely upset. I had taken one backwoods bull as the criterion, but the backwoods, it seems, end here." " Of course. Stay, there is a group you know— Miss Vaughan and Charley Goodfellow, and * Bella, horrida Bella !'" " Is not Mr. Thorne come ?" "Look again— next Amy's sofa. Shall we bear down upon them ?" " That would be an idea ! Let us go to Miss Charley Goodfellow," she said. She moved forward, and he gave her his arm. They reached the hall-door— and passed it. He drew her on silently. " Well !" she exclaimed, after a short pause of astonish- ment. "What is the nse?" he asked, coolly continuing the walk. " Who will miss us in ten minutes ? Xo, do not loiter by the windows." " Then are you furnished with a topic so engrossing that it shall render me oblivious of them ?" " Xot while you glance thus toward them, and let the music creep in between my words. I am in dire fear lest, if my topic interest not, you flit away." Her eyes fell on the gleaming lake, and the island lying darkly silent, the trees at the point throwing quivering shadows half across. " How strangely far thoughts journey with a word !" she said. " I seemed to stand again, as I stood a year ago last fall, upon the shores of a Swiss lake, an island thus on its bosom. Only, there through the oaks the moon streamed on a rudely painted wall which pictured a memory of Tell, and a gray ruin gloomed from the island, down on sweet Lake Lowerz. Thus, when my guardian spoke as you but now, I cried : A legend, then— a legend !" 158 BAXDOLFH HOXOR. " And you think Arkansas can furnish none ?" " I do indeed, since the first settlers here are still middle- aged. Tales, like wines, improve with age." "Then mine shall be antediluvian. Will you let me wander to a distance for its beginning, assured that I will bring you safely here at last ? Listen, then — we'll put Swiss tradition to the blush. " You knoAV how, scores of centuries ago, over this world pale faces call the new, the Great Spirit brooded with outstretched golden wings, above his nest in the Red Quar- py of the north. On a sudden, through the deep tranquil- lity, in the glory which his wings shed on the earth, his eagle glance descried the slippery folds of a mighty serpent coiling toward the nest. The Great Spirit swooped down- ward, and his talons wrenched away a fragment of the red pipe-stone, and hurled it at the treacherous reptile. In the crash, some pebbles fell away from the mass, and struck the serpent's writhing tail, and rattled, as he would have slunk away. From that moment he and his numerous pro- geny have never glided toward their prey without that warning rattle. But the mass of stone descended to the cliff below, and in the fall, was shapen to the semblance of the red-man. The Great Spirit beheld, and grieving that he should stand there solitary, cast down another frag- ment — thus man and woman stood together on the rock. A glittering feather with that movement floated from his wings, and woman and the sun were given to the earth together. But the sun sank behind the distance, and the Great Spirit winged his way so high within his nest of clouds, that only through the meshes flashed those gleam- ing plumes, in sparkles we call stars. And while the world lay in midnight, the wily serpent crept again along the cliff, and with revengeful fangs giiawed and gnawed the feet of the two beings fastened there, and prostrated them RANDOLPH HONOR 159 sifle by side. But in the moment that the smi arose and touclied them with his vivifying rays, they rose up too, and wandered hand in hand together. " They reached the river's marge, and there, within the glow upon the water, tossed a light canoe of birchen bark. Within'it lay, as fair as any Indian Mandan maid, one with gold hair streaming over her slight form, and blue eyes fixed upon them, beckoning them on. Thus, for centuries, this Spirit of the red-men's fortune led the tribes to and fro along their great rivers, from time to time appearing to them. But when contention rose upon the sacred ground of the Red Quarry, where the Great Spirit had smoked the .pipe of peace above the hunter-tribes, she paled and paled away, and beckoned to her favored Mandans, guiding them from the Ohio's shores, on and up the turbulent Missouri. Then they never saw her more. She had heard afar the white man's tread upon the hallowed spot the red-man first profaned with blood, and as he trampled on that stone from which the Great Spirit had created the red-man, and which was therefore flesh of the Indian's flesh, thus trodden under foot, she could foresee the fate of all those warrior-tribes in years to come. So the light canoe turned back away, and floated down the- stream again. Groups of hunters on the blufts caught now and then the flash of her bright hair, the gleam offier blue eyes, and would have followed, as of old. But evermore she waved them back again, seeing with prophetic vision how the pale-face race would press them westward, from their ancient mounds and hunting-grounds. " She reached the rushing current of the Mississippi. Down she floated still, and here — aye, in this very lake — was seen of mortal man for the last time. " A wondrous while she had been drifting down, some- times so slowly, that to know that she had moved at all, one must have watched for years on years. But now at 160 RANDOLPH HONOR. leimth, one moonlit niorlit like this, the strange bark entered this cove, then but a bend in the great river. For the nar- row fields which now divide the waters from the waters, were then but gradually gaining ground. "This lake was one vast gleaming crescent, when the boat glided slowly along that island's further shor^. She lay within it, motionless. The eyes which had guided like the pilot-stars so long, were waning faint and dim, as if their watch was over. The hand so long stretched out to point the way, was lying listless at her side. The golden hair was fading like the Indian's day. Yet still its radiance outshone the moon, and as she passed the bank, flung a glory on the ripples. " Beneath the oaks cresting yonder point of the island, lounged at rest a group of men. Sombreros shaded here a bronzed French or Spanish countenance, and there a florid Saxon. The singular haphazard air of the men's dress, which yet was often rich, and sometimes splendid, had much of incongruity with these wild solitudes. Against that thorn-tree, glossy in the moonbeams, flashed a stand of car- bines. And here Avas moored a richly-laden flatboat. AVho its crew, or where, might not be known, but blood-stains darkled oh the planks, and less than a seer, with knowledge of these waters, would have cried: A part of Macon's ban- ditti — who lay in wait for venturous craft bouiM to the Gulf " Meantime, the enchanted bark skimmed on. But that golden gleam had touched the dreamful lids of one who lay beneath the trees. Up he sprang, and with a shout awoke the echoes. For far more beautiful than any dream, she passed. " He leaned out toward her, but she never turned to look on him. And then while all his comrades started up to watch, he struck out boldly into the waves in her wake. RANDOLPH IIONOB. 161 " There — midway from the point — where that weird bough up-chitches like a skeleton arm, he gained on the canoe — was stretching forth to grasp — " The fading eyes turned then. From out their depths swept one last fire of vengeance on the usurpers of the red- man's lands. It scathed him where he rose. A shriek appalled the night. And down he sank, down, down — the waters whelmed him fast — and of the ruthless bandit there remained but 'that wild arm outstretched to clutch the empty waves forevermore — that arm shrivelled and en- chanted to the semblance of a blasted branch. On glided the canoe, close by the shores of this fair chute, while the' robbers stood there, horror-struck." " Horror-struck ! I should think so ! You have made me as much afraid of the moonbeams as of the dark," she cried, with a playfully afiected shiver. He laughed, and stopped before the window. " Eeconnoitre, then," he rejoined, "and we will go in." "Mr. Erie, what a lovely tableau !" Fadette cried, as her glance wandered round the room. His followed, to where, in the bow-wdndow oj^posite, sat a very pretty girl blushingly listening to the low speech of a very young soldier. " You do not know her ?" he asked. " It is- Miss Eva Leigh, twentieth cousin to her fiance^ in whom you have doubtless recognized the younger brother of your Mr. Thorne. Both brothers, beardless knights as they are, have fairly won their spurs under our glorious Price. This one was almost brought up in the family of his cousin, who is also his guardian. You see a rare instance of boy and girl attachment standing the test of separation. * Rather a short test as yet, however." While Fadette stood embarrassed, as if these last words were spoken in direct reference to herself, the curtain 162 RANDOLPH HOXOR shaflowing her ftice was drawn aside, and Miss Goodfellow tnrned in merry indignation upon I^utliven Erie. " Tliere, there," she cried ; " why sliould you take it for granted every pumpkin's empty, because there's never a seed in your head to rattle ? AVhen you do slip up on one that is really mellowing in the sun, must you throw your shadow over, and wonder what is gone with the sun- shine ?" Euthven laughed. "You a believer in that sunshine. Miss Charley?" he said. " It is rather a new wi'inkle in me," she returned, care- lessly throwing her arm over the back of her chair. " And how came you ensconced here in this pussy-wants- a-corner fashion ?" he inquired. Charley held up to view a newspaper, then let it fall again at her side. " Ours miscarried this week," she said. " Ah, Mr. Erie, that affair of Dranesville ! Should it not warn us that a tallow-candle has been driven through heart of oak by put- ting abundance of powder behind ? AVe need all our bark to the fore, to keep off the bite of even beetles." Euthven Erie threw down upon the window-seat the cards he ha'd taken from it, idly shuffling them. " It is a game," he said, in which clubs are trumps. Ours are skilfully played, and if we hold not too few — " " You do not fear, surely !" " For ultimate freedom, never. But the hand in which I figure as deuce of clubs, may possibly be j^layed out before the game is ours." " Mr. Erie, have you thought so from the first ?" cried Fadette. '' From the first. You are surprised ? You would not RANDOLPH HONOR. 1 G3 have me stand still, well-preserved as ^Madame Lot, through lookiiio' behind for flames which mio-ht follow?" " No, no — eyes to the front !" cried Charley, while her own, which had been roving from grou}) to group, returned to jiim with a sparkle of humor. " Only see — a desperate flirtation, is it not ? Miss Arabella is in the midst of a de- tailed account of the battle of Oak Hill, to Harry Thorne, who "was in it." Fadette caught Mr. Thome's quizzical appeal. "Why does no one," she said, "make her see the ab- surdity of those disquisitions ?" Charley smiled, throwing herself back, and folding her arms in manly fashion. " No one has ever yet made spectacles for those born blind," she rejoined. "Miss Arabella," said Mr. Erie, "attends the auction- rooms of everybody's mind, brings away for new some worn-out idea — a stool minus a leg, perhaps — and having thus crammed her OAvn narrow parlor, urges the invitation of'the spider to the fly. And, in good sooth, you ne'er come out again." " Then don't let her trap yon. Miss Goodfellow, for w^e are coming in to you this moment," besought fFadette, and moved from the window. " Cards ? Certainly I can find them," said Mrs. Rutledsfe, w^hen her husband, wdth another whist-table in demand, came to her as she stood for a moment in the doorw^av : "but stay, Hugh — look there, did you ever see anything like that?" Mr. Rutledge followed her gesture to the bow-wdndow, where near Miss Arabella sat Fadette, in converse with Mr. Thorne. Ruthven Erie, in passing, had stopped and rested 164 RAXDOLPH nOXOR his arm on the back of Fadctte's sofa, and she turned from the one to the other with arch smile and merr^^ words, ap- parently not without their sting of sarcasm, for Erie's color rose slightly even as he laughed. " As arrant a little flirt as ever made a plaything of a heart," Mr. Rutledge said, looking on with an almost smile of satisfaction. "Since you judge so," she rejoined rather sharply, "what do you think she purposes to do with those two ? Fling them aside for a later toy ?" Mr. Rutledge wheeled round, whistling low. " What, nepotism in a nineteenth century materfamilias ! Rely upon it, my Janet, our fairy is very far from giving a thought to ends, or ways either. She smiles because she is gay, not because she has white teeth and a dimple. She jibes because her gayety will out, not because it will out in laughter-moving words. At all events, you need not fear for Erie. He sees what he is about, and will never sufier himself to be hoodwinked. She has not the faintest suspicion of his feelmg — if indeed it have existence out of your imagination, which oftentimes I doubt. Watch him now, he has piqued her into reverting to young Thorne, and himself saunt>ers off with the most j^erfect nonchalance to Miss Yaughan." " He is no fool, that is one consolation," she returned, mollified. " And she no fool-catcher. I read a lecture in your eyes : deliver it, and you open hers to her game. She were no girl if she laid no snare, then." "Truth does people good, Hugh." " Sometimes. But it would not be at the bottom of the well if intended for every-day consumption. Xot so jjalat- able as the upper current brimming over for passers-by. Causes wry faces, unless very much adulterated." RANDOLPH HONOR. 165 She smiled. " You once said you married me for it " "Aye— " * Keek into the draw-well, Janet, Janet, And ye'll see your bonn}^ sell, ^^y jo, Janet.' " " Ding, dong ! Ding, dong ! Won't this one plantation belle entirely fill Beauregard's requisition for bell-metal? To a dead certainty it would silence the enemy's batteries. If they did not cave in, they are made of stern stuff indeed. In pity, let us have a change of tune. Will you not sing?" This was Mr. Thome's aside to Fadette, during a hiatus in Miss Grahame's conversation. Fadette slightly shook her head, drawing down the cor- ners of her mouth until they became expressive of the most despairing despair. But as, at that moment, Mr. Rutledge pityingly drew near, inviting the belle to a hand at euchre, Fadette rose at Mr. Thome's renewed request, and took her place at the piano. " Choose for me, Mr. Thorne," she said. " That is diificult. I have one pre-eminent favorite as to air, but the words are barbarous." " And that is — ?" she questioned. "The Virginia Rosebud." She paused a little. "Ah," she said, with slightly heightened color, "I see our tastes are similar. The words are as you say. But a friend wrote others for me, which, not remarkable in them- selves,*render the air available. If they are lugubrious, you deserve that for having so nearly forced me into mal d propos laughter. But there should be a national hymn to this. Is it not glorious in its full-toned variety ?" And she began : November winds through darksome pines are sweeping, That stand up sternly o'er the mountains bleak— 166 RA2sD0LPH UOyOR. November clouds in sullen gusts are weeping — The dying year wails out her lone death-shriek : The stars no longer watch above are keeping, But watch-fires flicker in yon glen below : 'Neath Heaven's tent our weaiy boys are sleeping, While some keep vigil in the drifting snow. Glad thoughts, sad thoughts, they come and fle© away Around those fires, ere dawns the battle-day. Far voices of loved ones are whispering near ; Soft eyes, soft ej-es are smiling, through the night — through the chilly midnight drear. Dreams — dreams — dreams — on the blast ; Hopes — hopes — hopes — flitting ftist. All brightly Glorj-'s visions throng. And Freedom's shout resoundeth strong Above the deepening tempest-shocks. In lingering echoes of the rocks : To arms I — To anns ! — To arms for Libert^^ ! All hushed in camp — except, as time is wealing, Is given the challenge low, or countersign : Anon, where redly are the fires flaring. The guard, relieved, is marching in a line. The snow-drifts whitely in the glen are lying — Yon lurid pine-tree flames athwart the sky : To-morrow, ere the twilight faint is dying, Shall silent coi-ses there so ghastly lie. Red flames, red gore, shall flood that valley white. Around those fires, ere falls the battle-night. Low moans of the wounded shall wail on the ah* — Quick gasps, quick gasps and deathly — broken words — broken words of death-taught prayer. • Death — death — death — on the blast ; Souls — souls — souls — flitting fast. Yet Freedom, though in tears she stands, Still stretches forth unfettered hands, And clear alarum sounds on high, For freemen, on to do or die ! — To arms ! — To arms I — To arms for Liberty ! RANDOLPH HONOR 167 "Where did your eousin learn that song, Amy?" was asked, as the clear, mellow tones died away. " The tune is an old negro melody, the ' Virginia Rose- bud.' The words are her own." " Her own ? — seriously. Amy ?" " Seriously. Is it possible that you, with your keen sight and your horror of the has hleu^ should never once have caught a glimpse of it, beneath the modishly long robe? I shall tell her." " Xo, you will not. Is this all she has perpetrated ?" " Fie, Ruthven ! What would you give for a peep into her portfolio ? Xay, you would have to steal it, or enforce it as I did. A novel — " " Entitled, The Lonely Heart, or The Sorrows of a Young Governess," Mr. Erie teasingly suggested. "Nonsense. There are bemoanings, certainly, but the young governess is replaced by a Scottish waif in Switzer- land. You know they are not untrodden ways to her, those that wind beside the mountain lakes. The hero — " " Aye, the hero — what is his style ?" Erie was thinking of Heine's assertion; "When they write, they have always one eye on the paper 'and another on a man ; and this is true of all authoresses, except the Countess Hahn Hahn, who has only one eye." Therefore, as Fadette indubitably possessed two, and those of the brightest. Amy's answer was disconcerting : "His style? Well — like the generality — perhaps her guardian — nearly his age, I should suppose. But stay, where are you going ? Remember, all this is a secret in- violable. I had no right to tell even you." Moodily he was standing apart in the doorway, half an hour later, when Fadette, whom he had scarcely ceased to watch, passed by. And as no vestige of the has hleu was 168 RANDOLPH UOXOR. to be descried, he asked her to walk with him upon the gallery. She took his arm as they fell in behind the few already promenading there. For a moment neither spoke, until he broke the silence with a remark upon the beauty of the night. The stars, so large and full, so steadily luminous in the clear Southern atmosj^here, threw a dozen gleaming bridges lialf across the lake. One, far out-shining all the others, so spanned the waters with redly golden beams, that her thoughts wandered across it to waves she had seen glint- ing thus before — to other oaks which fringed their distant shore — to red-gold lights from vessels passing there. Thence transit was rapid to her guardian. '" Do they see the stars in prison, Mr. Erie ?" she asked. He smiled, replying — "Rather an indefinite question. Sometimes, if 'they' seek them through the bars. I could." . " You ? Were you ever in prison ?" His assent came slowly and hesitatingly. " When ? Where ?" was the eager inquiry. " ' Since yestreen, captive to thy conquering eyes,' " he promptly quoted. She drooped the " conquering eyes," vexed. " Pshaw ! how provoking you are ! I never can tell what you mean." "Devoutly thankful," was the mental rejoinder. And he added, aloud — "Xor I what you mean. Do you wish to establish a courier line of meteors between yourself and some pris- oner ?" She did not reply, only saying, after a pause — " Look at that tiny star-spark. Could you be content with such insignificance among so many greater ?" RANDOLPH HONOR. 109 " Such is my fate, however." She turned, for there was unwonted earnestness in his tone. " I do not think so, Mr. Erie. There is nothing little about you," she answered, warmly. " Granted, for myself," he mocked ; " but my sphere ?" " Why should you not rise as high as any there ?" And she raised her hand toward the glittering heavens. " To have one day inscribed above me, * As he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.' " " Ah, Mr. Erie, the rocket only seems to rise to the stars. The stars shine on forever, though clouds or distance hide them." " But, fair my Astrologer, are not your ideas of grandeur somewhat vague ? What is ambition ? How may one rise in your horizon ?" " I know my thoughts are crude," she returned, blush- ing; "therefore I give my faith in another's words." And she repeated, hesitatingly : " ' Whoso in life's task hath taken Gloiy for a worthy goal, Hath for a light dream forsaken True magnificence of soul. Think it then nor shame nor pity That no crowds applaud thy name : Strive on--saye the leaguered city, Though another reap the fame. So thy people reap the harvest, LittleTecks who cast the seed: Guerdon high as tliou deservest Dwells in thine own holy deed.' " • " You are right," he said, earnestly ; *' a man may not now make pause to listen for applause or for censure. If the 8 IVO RAXDOLPJI HOXOR cries and groans from the beleaguered city — if the watch- word " ingemisco" wailed in midnight from her walls — if the cloud which shrouds her, rent by flames that scale the very heavens for redress — fill not his hearing, shut not out all other goal than her salvation — then is his ambition the poor rocket flaring up the skies, which, fallen, the press shall trample back into the dust. ' Strive on — save the leaguered city.' But remember, when the city shall be free, and Ruthven Erie's mark hacked by an unknown sword upon her broken chains — remember to-night, and think not strange if one come to you for yet another inter- pretation of the guerdon," he added, sinking his voice very low. " Or" — and at the word, voice and manner changed to careless badinage — " should I folloAV in the wake of the reapers, gleaning here an ear and there a grain of the har- vest I have neither reaped nor sown, is there no hope that those bright eyes may overlook some earth-stain gathered where those gleanings have by the reapers been cast aside and trodden under foot ? The gleaners in this world are more in number than the reapers, and their rejoicings noisier over the spoils." " Xow I see," she returned, good-humoredly, " you have been laughing all this while. However, to my comfort be it remembered, I have not advanced one original idea ; and if laugh you must, it shall be at the philosophy of an authority able to endure it. But a truce to ambition. Beauty instead. Did you ever see any one so heavenly beautiful as Miss Yaughan to-night ?" " Heavenly — yes. A very bird of paradise. But some — of the earth, earthy — ^might prefer the little earth-loving partridge to this " ' Creature /«/• too bright and good For human nature's daily food.' " RANDOLPH HONOR. 171 " That is because," Fadette returned, " the one soars far beyond reach, while the other flatters the vanity of man by forever calling on ' Bob White, Bob White !' " " What boots it to spend life in laying traps for that which never stoops low enough to be snared ?" " Mr. Erie, you do not say that sincerely. The motto of your sex is, ' She is a woman, therefore may be won.' And besiegers are vigilant in detecting weakness in the walls of defence." " Nay ; but," he responded, " weakness is woman's forte, within which she is safe." " A better pun than safeguard," she made answer. " In life, as in our game of chess last evening, when one can no longer queen it, half the game is lost." " And do you reck nothing of the knight ?" he asked. " All, all, so long as he defends his queen." " May I ask a very impertinent question ?" " Provided you do not stipulate for an answer." " The queen has two knights, of course. I claim to be one. Has she chosen the other?" The words were light, but the tone thrilled her as she listened. She looked up quickly — to cast her eyes down as rapidly, before the searching of his. But at that instant Matoaca's low musical melancholy laugh was borne from the further end of the gallery. Fadette's face changed, and something of scorn curled her lip, as she replied : " You must ask her. I cannot tell." " I ask her now. Have you chosen the other ?" " Oh, I ? Of course." " And his name ? Is it Thorne ? Sandford ? Randolph ? Has your guardian — " She laughed merrily. " Do you expect me to tell you that ?" she interrupted. " It is but fair. How am I to cope in deeds of valor 1 7 2 BAXI) OLPR HOXOR. with an unknown rival? At least, tell me it is not your guardian I" Were it not simply impossible, in view of Matoaca and that fragment of conversation overheard on the night of the ball, Fadette would have pronounced his tone even painfully anxious in that last sentence. As it was, she waxed wroth against his trifling. She said carelessly — " One day, perhaps, I may reveal, on oath of secrecy." " One day won't do," he returned, in her own manner. " Remember, your knight goes forth to-morrow." "The very thing," she cried; "I'll write a farewell letter of instructions for the campaign." He looked at her, but there was not the slightest expres- sion of mocking in the iiplifted eyes, nor around the mouth, so unusually tranquil. " A letter of instructions," he returned, an air of indif- ference covering his chagrin ; " on that couleur de rose paper you keep — for sentimental purposes — still in your desk, notwithstanding my remonstrances ?" "But see, Mr. Erie, while I have been making this rash promise, we are quite deserted out here. Is it very late ? Every one seems to be saying good-night." A moment more, and she was waiting on the stairs for Charley, who lingered on the lower step s^^eaking to Ruth- ven Erie. And as she waited, Harry Thorne left the group at the door, and a'dvanced toward her. She saw, and cast an impatient glance down upon Charley and Ruthven. Xo sign there responsive to her haste. He leaned with folded arms upon the balustrade, and listened smilingly to Charley ; and Fadette, in desperation, deter- mined to throw herself into the conversation, for Harry Thorne now stood beneath the balustrade her hand was tapping restlessly. A pause of irresolution would have plunged her into a tete-d-tote with him. She caught a fur- RANDOLPH HONOR. 173 tive crlinipse of liis uplifted flushed and eager face. An- other instant, and words which he had spoken while she sat at the piano — words which she had aft'ected to misunder- stand—would have been repeated here. She gazed, all-en- grossed, down upon the two controversialists, and, " going it blind," as Charley might have said, she cried — " Quite right. Miss Goodfellow. And what does Mr. Erie say to that ?" Charley turned, astonished and somewhat annoyed, for she had thought her words inaudible except to Mr. Erie, and those words were of Fadette. But she smiled good- humoredly, perceiving ' that Fadette, although evidently embarrassed, was not displeased. But Ruthven Erie, initiated by his observation of her at the piano, comprehended at once. And when Charley re- ferred Fadette to him for an answer to her question, he said, regarding her with an amused expression — " AYhat does Mr. Erie say ? That you have stumbled in breathless haste into an impenetrably dark cul-de-sac. How do you propose to emerge ?" Blushes and dimples deepened with her low reply : " Can you not give me a clue out ?" " A-ha, INIiss Charley," he said gayly, " eaves-droppers never hear unmingled praises, do they ? Yet since no storm of indignation whelms us, our compliments must have atoned. What think you, Thorne ? Miss Charley affirms that a certain young lady, although a bright ' inquire with- in' maybe read in her eyes, yet keeps her heart fast barred with ' no admittance !' " Harry Thome's color heightened. He glanced up at Fadette eagerly, and said, in a tone for her alone : " ' The door was shut : I looked between Its iron bars — 1V4 BAXDOLPH HO NOB. "'I, peering through, said: Give me then But one small twig from shrub or tree, And bid my home remember me Until I come to it again,' " By no movement did she betray that she had heard him. She said carelessly, still turned to Mr. Erie, as if in answer to him: " And not only barred, Mr, Erie, but it is written that — " ' The spint was silent, but he took Mortar and stone to build a wall : He left no loop-hole great or small, Through which my sti'aining — ' " or, more properly, through which my passing eyes might look." "Yet," said Charley merrily, "when the soldiers are marching by, they think the last bar should be withdrawn, every spirit at the gate, and joining in the chorus" — and she hummed : " ' If you belong to Gideon's band, If you belong to Gideon's band. Here's my heart, and here's my hand, If you belong to Gideon's band. Fighting for your home.'" Harry Thome did not hear. He was speaking to Fadette. " Is that my answer ?" he asked sadly. But she could not have understood. She was all atten- tion to Mr. Erie. He began again, importunately — " Don't leave me so ! You know I start at daylight for the army. Give me a reply, if only yes or no !" And still there came no sign. " Good-night, gentlemen," now said Charley ; " and if RANDOLPH HONOR. I75 you cannot altogether forget bars, dream of those golden ones which are able to force open many gates." " Yes or no ?" said Harry, desperately, as Fadette shook hands and turned to go. " Yes and no !" cried Charley. " Upon earth ! you don't mean to doubt the weight of bars of promotion ?" " Yes or no ?" groaned Thorne again, w4th one last eflbrt. But Fadette had gained the landing. *' Yes an'd no ! Yes and no !" cried Charley in supreme disdain. " The stupid fellow ! Is that his yea-and-nay good-bye, when he is going off to-morrow ? I've no pa- tience ! Yet they say he is brave ; but that, I reckon, is because ' he never did know his head from a broken tin- pan.' Shucks !" she exclaimed, after a pause, " perhaps, after all, he \vas saying, 'Yes, Zknow.' " " Aye," Fadette made answer, ruefully ; " I am sure he does know now." CHAPTER XIV. COXCEEXIXG BATTER-CAKES. " Sic itur ad astra.'' pES. As you were saying, my dear young lady," stout old Mr. Derby next morning at the breakfast-table remarked to Fadette, between whom and the fried ovsters he had been dividing his attentions with scrupulous exactitude — " as you were saying, ' Chicora' — I believe it is ' Beauregard' now — is in du-e need of a mistress. All very well for a young fellow of twenty-one or two to go roving about the country, here, there, and everywhere ; but when a man is verging on to thirty or so, he needs a home and a young wife — ^the younger the better — the younger the better." And the old gentleman — closing meanwhile with the oyster, on which, elevated upon his fork, he had at every sentence bestowed regards wistful enough to melt any heart but an oyster's — turned for illustration toward his own young wife. Inauspicious moment ! she, at the opposite side of the table, was tossing her sunny curls, and shower- ing her sunniest smiles upon Ruthven Erie. Fadette was conscious of having said something quite different in substance from the apparent quotation. But she was also conscious that Mr. Erie had suddenly ceased his conversation with his neighbor, and could scarcely be so absorbed as to have heard nothing of Mr. Derby's v^'ords. She therefore blushed crimson as she ventured furtively to lift her eyes to note the impression produced upon him. He had obviously not heard, was not besto^-iug his at- HAND OLPU HONOR. 1 7 7 tention on her indeed, hut on the juvenile assistant-u aiter, who, with a plate of smoking batter-cakes, stood at his side, unmoved by a tlirice reiterated, " No, Tom ; no batter- cakes." " Confound you, are you deaf?" his master said at length, half angrily, and for the first time turned full upon him. It was at this instant that Fadette sent the inquiring look across the table. " Her', her', Mars' Ruthven." The boy, nothing discom- fited, again advanced his waiter. And not this time in vain, for there peeped from beneath it a folded corner of pink paper. The boy's careful hands would desert neither end of his weio^htier charo^e, and the batter-cakes had hid- den the note. As Ruthven Erie took careless possession, his glance en- countered Fadette's. She Avas still blushing from Mr. Derby's words, and her color deepened yet more when she met that glance. Casual at first, it changed to a gaze of inquiry and surprise, seeking the interpretation of her evi- dent confusion. At once, as her eyes fell upon the note, a new idea seemed to flash upon him. And with a slight com- pression of the lip, which might have been a smile, h.e quietly transferred the couleur cle rose billet to — AYell, in these prosaic days even love-letters are deposited in pockets. Fadette retired hastily behind her cofiee-cup — to laugh — to smother that laughter by mouthfuls of the scalding liquid which eflectually brought tears to her lashes and blushes still to her cheeks — and to conjecture. That Ruth- ven Erie assumed the dainty missive to be her own prom- ised letter of instructions, moved thereto by her embarrass- ment, was clear. And equally clear that she was innocent of it. But by whom and wherefore sent, were points less lucid far. Could Amy — could Uncle Rutledge — any one — have overheard last night's conversation, and made it the 8* irS BANDOLPII TIOXOR. subject of a practical joke ? And Tom's mysterious man- ner — had he been instructed in that ? Resolved on discovering the hidden enemy, she marked searchingly the fiices round the table. One swift survey convinced her that no one save herself had witnessed the note-presentation scene. Mr. Rutledge had pushed aside his cup, and resting his arm on the table, was engaged in a lively skirmish with Charley Goodfellow. Amy listened with a faint, absent smile, to the discourse of her neighbor. And of the serenely dignified matron presiding so grace- fully over the coffee-urn, one could, of course, entertain no suspicion. When all rose from the table, Fadette lingered. And as Tom and she were now for a moment left sole denizens of the breakfast parlor, she summoned him from the buffet^ to which he was removing the silver. " Tom," she asked, " who gave you that note ?" "Ma'am — note — " he repeated, unmeaningly, twisting the corner of his apron in perplexity, and staring with wide- open round blank eyes. " Come, come, Tom — a whole shining gold dollar if you'll remember," Fadette said, with an impatient tap of her foot. "Whether or not the promised dollar imparted a ray of its own brightness to the young African's head, he suddenly seemed to brighten, saying — " Oh, ya'p'm — I knows. Xote I fotch Mars' Ruthven, I 'spects. Uncle Jake guv it me. Waitin' in Mammy house for answer." " And who is Uncle Jake ?" " One o' Judge Brown's black people. He Mistis done heerd Mars' Ruthven gwine acrost de river, an' sont de note, so Uncle Jake he say, 'bout her old man what over dar in de armv. Y' ain't gwine to forgit de dollar, is you now ?" RANDOLPH HONOR 179 he added, pulling his forelock with a most insinuating dis- play of the ivories. " No, indeed, Tom, not I. It shall be forthcoming this very day. Now, if only he have not opened the note ! Spirit of Fun forefend !" And she hastened from the room. That merry curl of the lip had to be smoothed out into becoming gravity, ere, lingering at the door of the library, she could trust herself to open and enter. There he stood, leaning upon the mantel, listening with politely repressed imjmtience to little Mrs. Derby's lively sallies of nonsense, as she smiled up from her low ottomaii, coquettishly shaking those curls at him. If " beauty draws us with a single hair," how many an unfortunate must have been entangled by those bright meshes ! And how many more is she bent upon entangling ? Who can number the hairs of a head ? " Mr. Erie." The fingers restlessly yet noiselessly tapping the marble of the mantel, stayed ; the right hand dropped slowly from its careless closing above that pocketed note, as he turned to meet the voice. What a demure rose-bud mouth that was, speaking his name so softly. The upturned glance was simplicity itself, and the fairy hands were folded together so tranquill}-. Yet how had they learned that unwonted quiescence ? He, looking down, knew that it boded ill. " Mr. Erie, the boy is waiting for an answer," the demure mouth said again. "What boy? what answer?" he asked, completely mys- tified. "Mrs. Brown's servant. You received her note this morning, did you not?" And Fadette could not repress the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. His met them fully and searchingly. Then he delib- 1 so RAyDOLPU HOXOR. erately drew forth the rose-colored note, unfolded, and read it. " I thank you," he said, quietly regarding her ; " I will write my answer." He was gone. And, after all, the Spirit of Fun seemed to have kept aloof from the matter altogether. Fadette sank down disconcerted in the deep-cushioned seat of the bow-window. Was he angry ? and going away in an hour ! Perhaps he would not even say good-bye ! Well, what difference ? And she raised her head defiantly. Going away in an hour. It had passed as she sat there still, the rounded chin resting in the soft palm — the hot blood burning cheek and brow. She sat there still, taj)- ping with restless foot the crushed roses, down upon which swept those curtains veiling her. Still, thinking distinctly of nothing, with the consciousness of a fast beat- ing heart and a choking sensation in the throat, and a vague wondering whether, after all, he would not seek her ; whether — no, she would never advance one inch. A quick, firm step re-entering the library, and a voice she knew, exchanging kindly fiirewells. A silence follow- ing. And then — Xo, he was not gone. The curtains were thrust aside, and he stood between them. She rose, as she yielded her hand to his firm grasp. Her down-dropt lashes quivered, and there was a deep flush on her cheek. But the curtains threw a crimson glow there, and Ruthven Erie had learned to distrust blushes. "Mrs. Brown's note," he said, extending toward her a folded paper, " seemed to require yet another answer. Shall I request you to take charge of this?". She raised her eyes in timid inquiry, then as suddenly dropped them. And this time — yes, she certainly did blush. RANDOLPH HONOR. ]81 His color, too, heightened, as he looked down upon her thus, and his grasp of the fluttering hands tightened. But he dropped them and suppressed a heavy sigh, as he left her abruptly. He paused long on the gallery. Fadette could hear his lowered tones in earnest speech with some soft woman- voice, too low for recognition. His arm thrown across Captain Sandford's shoulder, he walked leisurely to the gate, where old Washington waited, proudly stroking, as he restrained, the restive mettled chestnut. There, it being a Saturday holiday, quite a knot of servants Avere assembled to say good-bye. Fadette watched the courtesying and bowing, redoubled when he shook hands — not empty-handed, it might seem. As he sprang into the saddle, he removed his hat, waving it toward the house. How noble and gallant ! she thought, while he galloped by, lowering his proud head beneath the rose-vine trailing from the barren oak beside the gate. Swiftly brushed by, petals white as snow-flakes showered on the gray uniform and the black sombrero with its waving plume. And with another bound, that plume had waved its last amoncj the clusterino^ bouo-hs of "Beau- regard." Fadette waited in the window, pressing her burning brow against the cool pane. And while she watched, Ma- toaca, also watching, with face averted from her, passed slowly by on the gallery. Unceremoniously, Fadette escaped to her room with the note she felt to be hers. She bent long over the paper which she drew from the unsealed envelope, before she crumpled it up and tossed it into her desk. Then she rose and walked the floor with an air half of anger, half of mor- tification, yet laughing in spite of herself, as she exclaimed : " So ! He did not care after all ! Xot quite so safe to 182 RAyDOLPU UOXOR. play with edge-tools with him, as with Lionel or Harry Thorne, whom a smile disarms. The joke is rather against me, I fancy." The crumpled paper was a pen-and-ink caricature of that scene at the breakfast-table. Fadette's shoulders were toward the beholder, so that a full view might be taken of Ruthven Erie himself opposite. A preternaturally di- minutiA'e young Cuffee, grinning significantly, nudged him with a salver of exaggerated batter-cakes and wondrously small note, upon which one of Ruthven's hands had closed with eager clutch. The other hand, uplifted, pointed toward a yawning gap in the ceiling, on which his eyes were fixed with a well-portrayed stare of delight, while his smiling mouth framed the words, " Sic itur ad astral CHAPTER XV. WILLOW LAKE. "A horror lived abont the tarn, and clave Like its own mists—" Elaine. HE sun is already sinking behind the dense level of woodland which belts the horizon upon either hand, as Fadette and her ancient sable equerry- ride on beside the cypresses skirting Willow Lake. The Avaters lie sombre in their moss-darkened shadoAV, but the heavens brighten moment by moment, richer in crimson and gold an hour later than at sunset-tide. And the east floats tloud-canopies as gorgeous as ever the chosen west prepares for the reception of the day-god. The rushing wings and the twittering of homeward-bound birds, die away in distance. From hidden banks of boggy bayous begins the long-reverberating chant of the " swamp angels ;" while from every budding tree and shrub rise insect cho- ruses more or less sonorous. The breeze rustles faintly over deserted stubble-fields plentiful in crops of bushy cockle-burrs. Through silvery plumes of sedge, uprise the rosy glowing boughs of red-bud; and below, wild chamomile and daisies, and purple and white-fringed clus- ters, float on the billowy sea of russet-brown and yellowed weeds and grasses, just beginning here and there to shine a brighter green in the light of spring. Here the ever- green canes raise their light shafts high among the trees, from loftiest boughs of which wild grape-vines fling down 184 RAXBOLPII HONOR. tendrils, and the trumpet-flower waves in scarlet glory. Stealing subtly through the misty gathering forest-damps, ascends the faint odorous breath of forest solitudes. Afar from the pasture resound the tinklings of bells, the lowing of kine at the milking, the echoing call of the stock-minder. Yet despite these home-sounds there pervades a stillness through the gloaming, but intensified by such reminiscences of busy day. It irks Fadette, who would defy sadness. But her jaded horse, the best of whose days are far spent, refuses to take the hint of whip and bridle, and plods on for the remaining half-mile. Then the shades deepen, the waters darken. Silence sinks into stiller slumber within the charmed circle of Sleepy Hollow. The aspen-leafed cotton-wood shivers and tosses as in troubled dreams, and flings faint moonlit smiles upon its double, sleeping on the grass. The oaks gloom against the cottage-walls, but lights shine cheerily forth when Fadette rides up to the gallery. Late into the night sat the two girls in Mataoca's cham- ber. Fadette lounged half buried in the soft cushions of a " lesser Sleepy Hollow," while she loosed the glossy purple-black braids of her hair, removing "Confederate times" hair-pins, home-manufactured from Beauregard's bristling thorn-trees, and gayly ornamented with sealing- wax heads. The two girls were now friends of a year's standing. Much of that space had lapsed in profound quiet, its only events an occasional letter, usually months old, from Ruth- ven Erie or Mr. Weir, and a paper of as ancient date, given by some wounded soldier travelling from beyond the Mis- sissippi toward his home, and considered a full recompense for hospitality extended. The all-powerful b/Oiid of a com- BANDOLPII IIONOE. 185 mon cause pulled down all Ijarriers of social distinctions, and every veteran was an eagerly-welcomed guest. With the last six months had come a change. Even be- fore the fall of Yicksburg, these long-quiet shores had been harassed by frequent raids. But the w^orst was not yet. These once so wealthy lands w^el^-e to be made a wilderness by passing troops, and by the marine fleet, whose god was [Mercury, and who, like true thermometers, ascended and descended with the state of the temperature — made some- times hot by Confederate batteries. Lat?er, peaceful man- sions were shelled in retaliation of Confederate guns, a mile or more above ; flags of truce ignored, for the purpose of wrapping a village in flames; hospital-flags used in steaming past Confederate batteries ; from " unarmed trans- ports" soldiers amused themselves by firing on old men, and even women, standing on their own thresholds. The foe could not quite, how^ever, claim the land for his own. Vain was Admiral Porter's manifesto, left by the gunboats at divers landings, threatening that — " Persons taken in the act of firing on unarmed vessels from the land, will be treated as highwaymen and assassins, and no quarter will be shown them. " Persons strongly suspected of firing on unarmed vessels, will not receive the usual treatment of prisoners of war, but will be kept in close confinement. If this savage and barbarous Confederate custom cannot be put a stop to, we will try what virtue there is in hanging." Vain — for Confederates still dashed in to the river — bra- vadoed gunboats to strike the blanket target they them- selves held up on the levee — made raids on the captured islands and cut-ofl*s, carrying war into Africa there with such a vengeance, that three or four of their number were known to bring to grief the hundred American citizens of African descent located as armed and belligerent wood- 186 RAKDOLPU HONOR. choppers — and defied those American citizens' white l^rothers-in-arms, riding before them, sometimes five to fil'ty, forcing the fifty to halt, " change base," and make detours^ at the good pleasure of the five. A great change had in the last weeks befallen Beaure- gard. Mr. Rutledge occu|5ied a prison-cell in St. Louis. In the hope of procuring a few mules, sole rescuers from imminent famine, he had crossed the Mississippi^ and was returning, when, as he neared the shore, a transport steamed down upon his skiif. The soldiers on board hailed, but in one instant, before Mr. Rutledge could stay his oarsman, who was stone-deaf, a volley of musketry intervened, and the old man fell back, dead. Mr. Rutledge was removed, a prisoner, after his captors had rifled the body. Harry Thorne, who, just as all was over, had ridden out upon the bank, on a wild-goose chase after " Uncle Sam's web-feet," borrowed a citizen's coat, and went daringly on board, as if drawn by curiosity. He found the clerk a Missouri townsman and secret " copperhead," and dej)ositing his all of money for the prisoner's use, received a promise of in- telligence concerning his fate. " Put out the light, Matoaca," Fadette suggested ; " see, even your nonpareil mould-candle but neutralizes the moon." Matoaca obeyed, seating herself at the window beside her friend. " I confess I am delighted Miss Arabella is away," Fa- dette began, after a long silence ; " I would have you all to myself for my last visit to Sleepy Hollow. Yes" — as Matoaca raised her head hastily — " Aunt Janet is strongly urged to remove, with all able-bodied servants, to Little Rock. Mr. Leigh, and other neighbors, who have proven themselves such in the full sense of the word, oifer to watch over the few negroes who might remain behind, and with RANDOLPH HONOR. 187 whom would be mules sufficient to raise their own crops. That last raid thinned our ploughs to starvation. Of course there will be little or no corn to buy, while so many planta- tions are deserted, and none worked as of old. The ser- vants Avill be provided for — hired out, as Mr. Erie's already are, at the salt-works. And as our gold and silver mine at Beauregard has never yet been dug up, we can provide for ourselves when once beyond reach of raids. Aunt Janet is so apathetic, that she is quite likely to assent to any ar- rangement friends may make for her. So different," she added, sighing, " from her old self, that it is difficult to recognize in her the motive power which was wont to guide all Beauregard, and, through her loving influence, my uncle. True, she leaves no duty unaccomplished ; superintends loom, and spinning-wheel, and dairy, and has even taken upon her to visit the field twice daily, as Ave have no over- seer; and if we should remain, it is a question of corn-crop or starvation. But she goes through all as by mechanism. Since through Mr. Thorne we have been confirmed in our fear that my uncle is in that St. Louis prison for no short stay, day by day she has grown more like death in life. I am frightened when I look into her still set face, and I think any change may be for the better — nothing can be worse. Then, too, Harry Thorne urges the move, and Aunt Janet will be guided implicitly by him. It is beautiful to see his devotion, and to him alone she almost softens. She gave him a faint smile yesterday, which Avould have gone to your very heart." " Yesterday ? Is he in the county again ?" " But just arrived, on a week's leave. What if we should go out under his escort ? Oh, Matoaca, vrhy have I learned you and loved you in this year?" Matoaca only turned away her head. Pier lips formed no words. But in the pallid moonbeams, those firm-set 188 nA:>DOLPii iioxon. curves were all eloquent. As Fadette observed, a year vanished away, and again she was was seated, witlidrawn from the gay confusion of the dance, in a window opening out upon a gallery where two were passing by in earnest conversation. She saw again that mournful pallor, the drooping of the proud dark eyes, the mouth fixed in reso- lute sorrowful endurance. And she heard in those steady tones — "What is past, is past. The far and near. I let all go." She rose up abruptly and moved away, staying before the mirror where the moonlight broadened in a silver flood, and combing out the dishevelled masses of wavy hair which fell, a dark veil, over her gleaming dimpled shoulders. She hummed, as she lost her small hands in the heavy tresses, in a reckless defiance of thought, that was her own. When suddenly Matoaca drevr back from the window, out of which her gaze had wandered absently. " Quick, come here," she said, with a hurried gesture ; "look, child, over there toward the woods. Xo — no, not that way — here, across that field along the lake. Do you see—" ' Shadowed by budding forest-trees, the road shines white throuo-h the lawn's broad freshenino- verdure, where at in- tervals, darker than the other checkered shadows, the solid gloom of a group of cedars sweeps to the ground. The water-willows fringing the lake-shore stand apart in front, to give place to the moonlit gleam of waters asleep among the broad-leaved quivering water-lilies, where mists shift and hover and drift across like vague fair dreams. Below, through that gray oak-grove in the bend, a red liglit glim- mers from the solitary quarter-cabin remaining after the last raid. Above the homestead, sere, level, unfenced, un- cultivated fields stretch broadlv from the lake to the level RANDOLPH HONOR. 189 wooded horizon. And between those fields and. the watei*s winds the road on to the dark forest, where — " O Matoaca, can that be the gleam of bayonets ?" Matoaca stood uj}. "I — do not think they can be our soldiers," she said, slowly. " Go you, quietly, and awake Mrs. Grahame, while I call my uncle." Swiftly but calmly she left the room, as Fadette sprang forward and opened Mrs. Grahame's door. In a moment, the household was assembled. They paused, debating in the open hall, where the moonlight streamed with weird flickering shadows of the cottonwood soughing through every lingering dry gray leaf against the front gallery. Tranquil and clear and deeply blue were the night-heavens, where stars in the southern atmos- phere shone down with a full calm glory, soft and steady as the moonlight. Here on the sofa, beside the dining- room door, lay Matoaca's book, ojDcn Avhere she had that morning thrown it down. Opposite, above the door of the parlor, hung Mr. Grahame's shot-gun; and on the table near by, Matoaca's work-basket, with the bundle of bleached palmetto-strips and the half-finished hat, told of her deft industrious fingers. Two hours ago all had been thus peaceful ; and now — They looked into each others' white still faces^ and their hearts stood still within them. Fearfully present was every scene — and those scenes were not few — of which they had heard of midnight terrors. As the fold hopes from the wolf, so hoped they from those midnight marauders, whose steady tramp among the dry rustling grasses, upon the fallen wintry leaves, their straining hearing brought each instant near and nearer, until the startled senses almost felt the rude grasp on the shoulder, the heavy, hard, relent- less, murderous breath, the paralyzed hopelessness where- 190 RAyDOLPH HOXOR, Avith in evil dreams Fate chains us fast. Fadette shook off that deadening despair, clenching her slight hands in the effort at self-control, until the blazing diamonds, now so valueless, bruised deep the tender flesh. But Mrs. Gra- hame still drooped, gazing vacantly upon her clinging chil- dren, who, thus roused from slumber, were hushed and awestruck in the moonlight and the quiet, and hi the pres- ence of those awed faces. It was but an instant they awaited thus. Yn: Grahame had grasped his gun, and now, in his quick, excitable manner, stepped forward in front of the group; but Matoaca, calm as death, laid a light touch on his arm. " That must be at the last extremity, dear uncle. ' He that rinneth awaie,' you know. You said this morning YOU had not half a dozen loads." " My pistol — " began Fadette. " And even if we had arms enough and to spare, they could smoke us out of this old house in ten minutes. Xo ; we must take refuge in the woods. Quick !" She spoke to Mrs. Grahame, who still stood white and motionless, but looked up with a piteous gaze in those loving hazel eyes, when Matoaca lifted one of the plump twins into her own strong arms. " Xay, dear," Matoaca said, soothingly, " I will but keep our darling for you. You cannot care for three. Go with her," she added to Fadette, around whose shoulders now clung another little one ; " lead her, she does not hear what I say. Fly ! But be cautious until you are across the lawn ; avoid the moonlight. Make for the t\ il- low thicket by the lake. Go." "And you?" "My uncle and I follow. Too many must not be together. Besides, we must make some semblance of securing the house, to gain time. Quick !" RANDOLPH HONOR. 191 Fadette pressed the child to her, and passed her arm round Mrs. Grahame. " Come," she whispered ; " your children follow me." Blindly, led by that one word grasping her mother- instinct, the poor, dazed woman obeyed the guiding arm. One instant, and, keeping within the shadow of the trees, they had gained a dense clump of cedars, the branches of which swept the ground, impenetrably dark. In this tem- porary security they crouched, for voices and the tread of armed men now drew nearer. The infant slept, hushed upon the mother's breast. The little girl clung to the mother's hand, too awed to question or complain, though night-dews fell damp upon her one light garment. Fadette wrapped her own shawl over the shivering shoulders. So cold — and yet how colder far the grave ! How frail the barrier, those cedar boughs ! — bar- ring back what fate ? What fate ? She shuddered and clenched her hands together, for a sharp report, and a wild shriek from the house, rang out on the heavy midnight air in answer to her question. Matoaca ? — The old man ? — She parted the branches where she knelt. And as she knelt, before she dared to lift her eyes, she gasped out in choked utterance, lower than the moaning through those branches, one word in which is all prayer, one wild cry on the God of Hosts. She looked. Xo one near. Yonder, far across the lawn, before the house, a knot of men gathered round some object on the grass. Now, with the glitter of the moonlight on his bayonet, one stooj^, examining it. Another kicks it brutally aside with a shouted curse. And all move on to the house, where the crashing of doors soon tells their errand, and the detention that comes too late — too late. 192 RASDOLPH HOXOR. Although the moonbeams rest upon it, she cannot discern its form. The trees cast wavering shadows there, and dis- tance confuses the outline. She can bear this no longer. The shrubbery is thick and overgrown. The moon passes under a cloud ; it is black and broad, as she glances up to see. Xow is her time. She stoops, and lays a touch on Mrs. Grahame's shoulder. As the ghastly face is raised to hers, she whispers hurriedly, *' Stay here, dear, until I return. Do not move ; do not let Lily move. Fear not, you are safe here, quite safe. In one moment I will be back. Xo, no, Lily," and she gently looses the child's hold of her dress. " Bu'die -^-ill give you a mighty lump of white sugar — yes, two of them, one for each hand — if you only stay here by mamma's side, quite still, like a wee mouse." She marvelled how she could speak thus calmly, while every pulse so throbbed. Swift as the wind, and as unseen, she fled from bush to bush, from tree to tree. There it lay at her feet. She dared not look at first, but bowed her head against the huge gnarled trunk behind which she stood concealed. Then she leaned forward tremblingly. Ghastly white as the moonbeam on his brow — rigid as the outline of that craunt Cottonwood beside him on the orrass — still as the dead leaves beneath him — lay Mr. Grahame. And on those leaves there trickled and fell, drop by drop, a pool of blood. TVas this death ? The wide-open light gray eyes, once so keen and restless, stared dully up into the cloudless midnight skies, and only seemed to flicker from that stare when the scant gray foliage of the tree above stirred and shifted and rattled harshly. The fixed white lips moved no more with their wonted quick decisiveness. The wrinkled hands had lost llAyDOLPII HONOn. 193 that hurried nervousness of hold, and stiffened, clutching tight across the moveless breast the useless shot-gun, flashing in the moonlight. The strange rigidity appalled Fadette. She shook in every limb. And moaning, Is this death ? the terror of it grasped her very heart-strings. But she dared not leave him thus. She must know "whether all help were helpless now. She was moving for- ward shrinkingly ; when a loud shout and the rush of feet drove her back, crouching, into her concealment. She peered forth. It was toward the cedar covert that the trampling tread was bent. And thence, thence flitted a white-robed form, pressing an infant to her bosom, grasp- ing a child's hand in hers. Had she been discovered in that hiding-place? Or had she, urged by restless dread and a sense of insecurity, ventured forth to seek another, yet more distant ? Fadette never knew. On, through the shadows, in and out among those fring- ing water-willows, like mists which floated there, on fled the white-robed figure and the child. Fast and faster, darkness closing in behind, pursued the black fiends. And there a white oflicer, his drawn sword flashing in the light, shouted and urged them on. More, Fadette could not see, although she forgot pru- dence, and stood up, pushing aside the foliage. Once her fingers clenched upon her pistol, and she started forward. But even in the impulse, she felt with a crushing helpless- less hoAv vain must any aid of hers now be. And still she heard, listening there with sinking heart, that onward flight. A low far-sounding plunge — the plash and gurgle of waters — a volley of musketry — the shrill cry of a child — a louder, wilder wail — And all was still. 9 104 nAyDOLPii noyoB. lu the gray dawn of the moiTOw, among the broad-leaved odorous monaca-lilies, there floated np and down, at the will of the chilly wind and the restless ever-moaning waves, the listless form of a child, white and soft, and swaying to and fro with the wind-swept mists which hov- ered there. The listless form of a child, limp and flexile as the lily-stems round which the golden tresses tangled, washed out of curl in the cold waters, and flung back from a cruel wound, a deeply-cutting blow in the temple, whence the tide of life had ebbed. Xot until gray-shrouding evening shades had fallen was the mother found — the infant folded to her bosom as- if in slumber, until in Paradise it shall awaken thus. Heaven alone saw — Heaven alone recorded — the horror of that night. At first Fadette had sunk down, overpowered. Then, as deepening silence told that all was over, fear gave strength once more. She knew they must return this way — she knew the insecurity of her concealment — and she re- solved to fly. One moment she stayed, bending over the old man, to lay a hurried touch upon his heart. It seemed to her that it had ceased to beat. But as she removed her hand, a blood-stain crimsoned the palm. Had it freshly trickled from that bullet-wound in his side, or was it that with which his life had flowed out ? She had no time to ascertain, no time for anything save to bind up the wound hastily with her handkerchief And then she fled. He must needs have been swift who would have overtaken her ; but she fled unseen. Crouching in shadow, flying in light, on she sped, until in the dense canebrake, far up the road down which that band had come, she sank down, breathless. In the stillness, in the darkness, only broken into by a, RANDOLPH HONOR. 195 flickering shimmer through the cane and tlie moss-palled boughs above, the full reality pressed yet more heavily upon her. Never before had Death drawn near to her, and in more than his own terrors had he come that night. She shrank back from the swaying of the canes against her dress — from the dropping of the withered leaves, one by one, upon her clenching hands — from the flutter of the night air in the long loose-floating hair. Every gust of wind through the troubled cottonwoods came freighted with that childish scream, that heart-wrung wail. And though she clasped her fingers tightly on her burning eyes, she could not shut out the flying white-robed woman — the shape stretched out all rigid on the dead wet autumn leaves. A thousand insects still hummed on, as if life were one unbroken harmony. A katydid in the cypress above waxed argumentative with one in yonder hollow oak. Afar was taken up the burden, now deeper, and now shriller, of the frogs. And the mocking-bird, whose nest was in the great magnolia on the lawn, was pouring forth his softest melody. A mockery, indeed ! Now and then a louder echo roused the forest — the crash and fall of deadened and decaying timber — the spring of a startled deer. Yet to Fadette each leaf-fall was por- tentous. At last a nearer sound. The cane rustled and clashed at a hurried approach. Quick-drawn breathing became audible — so near, that she could almost feel it stir her hair, as she crouched there, her head upon her knees. She dared not look up. All her strength was gone at last. She could not have moved, even had there been hope in flight. The rustling ceased abruptly. A stifled " Thank God !" was all that Fadette heard. It was Matoaca who flung herself upon the earth beside her — in Matoaca's arms that 196 EASDOLPII IIOXOR. she sank, as cane, and trees, and moonbeams whirled madly before her. When she revived from that death-like swoon, Matoaca Tvas bending over her. She raised herself on her arm, and gazed around bewildered. Then sinking back, and closing her eyes again, she moaned — "It is all true, then — no dream !" The silence which ensued was broken by a deep-drawn breath. " The child moans in her sleep," spoke Matoaca's hoarse voice. '' Is she motherless, that you are here alone ?" " Yes." " And Lily ?" " She too." Another long, deep silence. Then Fadette ventured — " How did you come here ? Where — " Matoaca misunderstood, and filled her pause with en- forced calmness. " Where is my uncle ? Murdered. The brave old man.! They had discovered our hiding-jDlace. One seized me by the arm. I wrenched away, and fled with the child, leav- ing my shawl only in his grasj). The old man had hurled him back, and now standing unshaken in their midst, kept his hand uj^on his gun, and spoke to them. I could not hear his words, but I saw the angry flash of their bayo- nets. I heard the quick report of a pistol, and he fell heavily to the earth. I saw no more. They had lost trace of me. How I came here, I know not. I know noth- ing after." " It was then you who shrieked when they fired ?" " I do not remember." No word more was spoken. The two sat holding by each other in the dark. RANDOLPH HONOR TOY "Hark! they are going away," Fadette whispered pres- ^^And they heard the trampling of the horses' hoofs, pass- ins: near — so near ! , ,r i The chiki stirred in Matoaca's arms. "Mamma! mam- ma!" it murmured, nestling its plump hand on her neck. And Matoaca, glancing down by the wavenng light ot the moonbeams, saw that it put up its full red lip to cry. One scream, and it would all be over with them ! "Yes yes darling," she whispered, tossing the child up. "Ah there's Birdie! see Birdie! Birdie sing May-blossom prett'y son-, so she shall." Then catching the dimpled naked feet,^she set herself diligently to " shoe the horse and shoe the mare," until there was danger lest the child should laugh aloud in its glee. But the trampling died away in distance, fehe touciicd Fadette's arm. " Come," she said. " Where ? O Matoaca, I dare not !" " You must. I cannot leave you, and I must know if he is past all hope indeed." CHAPTER XVI. SWAMP-AXGELS' KEST. Are vows alone at chancel-rail Made sacred, as they're fair? Shall one heart flower in the ray That leaveth one to waste away? ***** Ah, Bweet, the scale wouldst balance free ?- Love's wing beats in too heavily— I OW quietly .was twilight falling ! The illimitable forest stretched out far and wide, hazy with up- risinof mist and down-trailing moss. Aisle after aisle of forest arches opened up. For that unbroken floor- ing of water threw out each slender shaft or massive column clear and far against the sleeping silver. Down into that silver swept the silver-gray moss, and the soft tint sub- dued all — the lofty ashen trees, whereon February, going out as a lion, had these two weeks stayed the budding foliage — the weird, out-clutching, heavy dark-brown vines — the fine green tendrils showering verdure on those giant trunks. Soft as yonder slanting sunset ray, the lingering scarlet berries glowed through moss-festoons upon that bush. And wand-like boughs of red-bud bending low over the boundless waters, found themselves reflected lar in yonder archway with a lengthened ray. Thus, where the sun sank in full blaze of golden glory behind those aisles on aisles, flushed the sun-glow broadening in the west, and RANDOLPH HONOR. 199 st(?:iling tlicncc with the fainting breeze across tlie iij)))los. Low-nuinnuring, these greeted its coming, and wliile tlie brandies stirred and rustled in the stiUness, that flood of ruddy gold crept half-way up the trunks. Crept half-way up the trunks, and half-way up an alien object in these flooded forest solitudes. In the broadest aisle of all — where, when roads were, there might have been a road — stood, midway immersed, a huge high-swung old-fashioned family coach, without driver, without horses, without sign of ownership or occupancy. Until now, from the lowered window a young girl gazed anxiously foi"ward, where were closing in the shades of evening. The shadows lengthened on that weary waste of waters. The darkness drew near and nearer, until it seemed to press upon her. Xo human sound in all the stillness. Only that spectral rustling, and the mournful lapping of the ripple through the trailing boughs. IS'o moving creature. Yet that was surely — no, nothing but a distant stump, across which the breeze, breathing its last through the tangled moss upon that shrub, had for an instant flung a wavering light. But hark! a heavy splashing through the w^ater far behind. All silent still in front, whither she has been looking eagerly. But from the rear, that rushing sound echoed ao-ain and asjain, ever louder and more loud from wooded wall to dome. A breathless terror seized upon the girl. She strove to cry aloud, but, as when we cry in dreams, her voice had lost its power, and died away in gasps. She glanced out upon the water's dangerous depth, and sank back, cower- ing, into her corner, covering her face, crouching there, awaiting fate. Xearer and nearer it came — with a tread as of horses' hoofs. " Hallo ! What the deuce can this mean ?" From behind, there came another answering halloo, and 200 EAXDOLPII ITOXOU. the rushing noise repeated. But Fadelte — trembling, cow- ardly Fadette — had started up, reaching forth from the window two little eager hands. She scarcely needed the wanino^ licrht to define the broad-shouldered figure that should accompany those tones. "Mr. Erie! O Mr. Erie!" In an instant he had reined in his horse, and was at her side, grasping her extended hands. " What is it ? TThat has happened, that you are here alone ?" he asked anxiously, observing how they trembled in his own, and as he observed it, tightening his hold upon them protectingly. What a lovely light quivered over the blushing face, as it leaned out toward him ! How the tears glimmered in the dark, deep, upraised eyes, and glad smiles flitted and came again around the rosy parting mouth ! How trust- ingly she glanced up to meet that passionate gaze of his — how maidenly she dropped the veiling lashes now ! Yet in an instant more she had withdrawn from his clasp, had summoned back the old, mocking smile, and was gayly replying to his question : " Xothing in the world has happened, but that you have deprived me of an anticipated display of heroism. I looked to meet nothing less than a jayhawker, a Yankee, a pan- ther, or the ancient ghost of some bandit wanderer of Ma- §on's band, returning to the old hunting-grounds. You have come upon us in an exodus, Mr. Erie. We are on our way to Little Rock, were bogged down so that old Wash had to cut the mules loose from the carriage, and our es- cort, Mr. Thorne, having discovered, further on, the top of Mount Ararat, has conveyed thither one by one, upon his own steed, in the double-pillion fashion, minus the pillion, Aunt Janet. Amy, Matoaca — You have heard of the Sleepy Hollow—" ' BANDOLPH HONOB. 201 She stopped short, paling to the very lips with the recol- lection of that fearful night. It did not dwell upon her memory daily, for persistently she fled from it. But at a careless word, a sudden sound, the very least alarm, it came in all its overwhelming horror. And the removal from Beauregard, once deplored, she had afterward urged and longed for. "I have heard," Ruthven Erie said, gravely. "Miss Yaughan, then, remains with my aunt ?" " And the child — all that is left to her to love," sighed Fadette. " Xo, there is one, whom if she would — " He paused. For now approached the splashing through the perturbed waters, and he turned to present — "Mr. Weir." " Mr. Weir !" Fadette re-echoed the name with a glad cry of surprise. Flushed with pleasure for Amy's sake, she started up. But tears rushed to her eyes, when, instead of the stal- wart young soldier she had one evening seen, a worn ema- ciated figure met her view. And to her cordial greetings he slowly extended the left hand. The right sleeve was looped empty across his breast. An expression of pain passed across the haggard coun- tenance observing her. And she hastened to pour forth incoherent exclamations of Amy's joy — with lashes down- cast, lest he should read her pity. Ruthven Erie came to her assistance. " Hark !" he said, " there is a movement ahead — Thorne coming this way probably. Just ride on, Weir — Amy will not forgive us even these moments — and turn him back with you. If you still persist in desiring to be in- cognito at first, give yourself another name. You can remain in the background as you please. Say that I am 9* 202 BANDOLPE HOIs^OR. in charge of this carriage. Shall it not be so ?" he added, to Fadette. She assented, and Mr. Weir rode slowly on. " Poor fellow ! he dreads Amy's first glance," Mr. Erie said sadly, looking after nntil he had disappeared among the distant shadows. " But you have not told me how you happen to be left here alone. Thorne does not deserve to be trusted — " " Stay," she interrupted his half-angry speech ; " don't pronounce judgment in such headlong haste. It was not Mr. Thorne, but a combination of courage and cowardice on my own part. Amy and I were the last occupants of this Koah's Ark, and when Mr. Thorne returned for us, I in- sisted upon Amy's going with him, volunteering to follow on a mule which Uncle Washington should lead. But after Amy was fairly off, so great waxed my terror of my long- eared friend's knowing way of twitching up his ears and switching his shaven tail, that I sent Washington on to re- call Mr. Thorne, when he should have deposited Amy in safety. Mr. Thorne must have heard your halloo, for Uncle Wash is a slow mover, and would hardly have reached him. But may I, on my part, inquire into your mysterious ap- pearance ?" " Amy's letter actually reaching me in a week after Mr. Rutledge's capture — your unprotected state upon the river — my desire to remove you into safer vicinage — the se- quence is easy to an application for transfer. Xorman Weir, incapacitated- for service in the field, will obtain a clerkship at Little Rock, and I join the Missouri cavalry, Thome's regiment. We arrived at Beauregard this morn- ing, learned your movements, and pushed on with all speed, doubting nothing of overtaking a carriage, on our gallant chargers." " Oh, such a journey, Mr. Erie ! The bayous we liave rxANDOLPII IIOXOR. 203 swum, tlie bogs we liave stalled in, the ocean we have stemmed — making five long miles from dawning's first light ! To twiliglit's last shade, I must add, if you do not speedily perform your duty as knight-errant of forlorn damsels." lie lifted her to her place behind him, and curbing strongly his impatient horse, on they plunged and floundered through flood and mire, she now and then crying out, and involun- tarily catching his arm as water deepened, or mud afforded footing yet more treacherous. " And now," said Ruthven Erie, over his shoulder, when at last they went on more evenly, " have you nothing to ask concerning one Ruthven Erie, since Amy says all, save one fragment, of his last six months' letters to ' Beauregard' miscarried ? Did you never feel curiosity, not to say the shadow of interest, for his fate ?" The word " letters" brought associations which militated against his earnestness. " Aye," she said, smiling slightly, " both curiosity and interest were rampant, until not very long ago Matoaca re- ceived an epistle which apparently contained no food for either, but from the advent of which we concluded you yet * The glorious hand "Who battle for their native land.' " " I wTote," he began, but ended abruptly there. "I know you did," Fadette replied mischievously ; " and really my curiosity was in so starving a condition, that had the recipient been other than Matoaca, with her grand ideas of honor, and her rigid justice, I should have committed petty larceny, and stolen a perusal — just as I was strongly tempted with that billet you intrusted to me for Mrs. Brown. By the way, she sent me a most singular note in 204r RAXDOLrn Hoxon. return, evidently thinking either you or I quizzing her. TThat could you have written ?" He looked at her fixedly, but she met him with a glance so innocently unconcerned, that he, uncertain whether to doubt or to believe, merely returned carelessly — " Mrs. Brown or I must be strangely obtuse. And while on this subject, I have in my saddle-bags a letter from your friend, Captain Randolph, whom I met of late in Rich- mond." Splashing and j^lunging at this moment, floundered the horse through treacherous bog, and through water saddle- skirts deep. But though her horsewomanship was tested severely, Fadctte this time made no movement to cling for safety to Ruthven's arm. Only when the danger was past, and the horse once more stepped cautiously on, she asked, in a tone which she vainly strove to render perfectly mat- ter-of-course : " ^Aliat did he say ? I have heard nothing for months." " What did he say ? Much of letters written, letters un- answered. Less of valorous deeds in battle, than report says for him. Most of a little sister-playmate. Something of his brother's possible release from Lafayette." " Oh, Mr. Erie ! Do you think he will really be re- leased?" Another plunge of the horse, and a hand laid softly on his arm. He turned abruptly, and looked at her. He thought : "Can it be possible? Is it not the guardian, then, but the playmate ?" He replied : " Your friend had strong hopes. He said there was no testimony against his brother, and that friends were en- deavoring to procure his freedom. Said that he would not take the oath, and that the underground railway might RANDOLPH HONOR. 205 probably brino- him among us sooner or later. But all this may require time." " I am so glad ! so glad !" For one instant he did not speak. Then he responded in a deep low voice : " You can never thank God for it so truly as I." "You?" She could only stare in amazement. There was no an- swer to inquiring eyes in the broad shoulders presented to their view. She strove to steal a glance at the reverently- bowed face, but at the risk of her equilibrium could gain no more than that extreme wave of the flowing fair mous- tache. Coming to the determination never again to ride behind Ruthven Erie, of all people, she reiterated : " You ? I really do not see — " "The camp-flre light? Yonder to the left, through those tall canes. See the white smoke curling w^ against the moss-grown trees, and the broad far-reddening glow across the water. And hark ! Thome's halloo to guide us." As the canebrake opened in a narrow straight green avenue, 'appeared a ridge, or, in truth, a tiny oval island, large enough, and only large enough, to meet all desires as a camping-ground. Dim between surrounding cane, upon which already were feeding the unharnessed mules, gleamed water upon every side. White-tented wagons were ranged in a line at the remote " Land's End," and on either hand burned the large camp-fli'es of the negroes, who, in groups of men, women, and children, basked in the glow at supper. Snatches of wild choruses echoed sonorously with the ring of the wood-choppers' axes, as the young trees tottered and fell beneath their strokes. Thence, with a carpeting of mosses, ferns, and dwarf cane scantily covering the rich black earth, an open space stretched away to the near 203 EAXDOLPII IIOXOR point of the island. There rose a noble forest group, the slender polished leaves of the water-oak flashing out among light budding haekberry and gum, and the red-oak's heavy moss-draped boughs, in the flickering flames of a miglity camp-fire. Those flames flickered also redly on the two long white-covered wagons drawn up just beyond as sleeping-apartments. But brightest of all they glowe'd where, around the blazing logs, upon a brilliant flooring of scarlet and blue saddle-blankets, was gathered the party in cpiest of which Fadette and Ruthven Erie rode on. " A name for our desert island ! " cried Fadette, when, later in the evening, the travellers were all assembled round the camp-fire. " Xot name it ? What exploring expedition ever had a better right ? It is no island, you say ? Then all the more probably no one has discovered it before us. For certainly there never was a flood like this since the Great Deluge, when these wilds were uninhabited." " That is no cela va sa?is dire,'''' Matoaca smiled. " The Indians contend they were the first of creation, on this continent too, and have their own tradition of the Deluge. Yes, these wilds were wrapped in utter darkness days on days, and at the last a far white light was seen aloft, still rolling on, until it broke, a huge wave which engulfed the world." " Ah, then, we must have an Indian name," said Amy. "What prettier than Chicora?" Harry Thorne de- nianded, with an admiring glance toward the owner of that sobriquet. " Xothing prettier, indeed," she returned, laughingly ; "but many things more appropriate. Xot a mocking-bird to be heard this evening, Avhereas all these gutturals from brake and bayou might assuredly suggest Swamp Angel." BANDOLPU IIOKOR. 207 '• S^vamp Angels' Rest ? So be it," pronounced Ivuthven, tlirowing himself beside her ; " for here ends our croaking over perils in the way." " And do you know the legend of the Swamp Angels ? Unquestionably, just here it had its origin." " xVnd do you know, Matoaca," cried Fadette, " what every one incurs who only names the name of legend in my presence ? " Her friend smiled. " A dire penalty, no doubt. But perhaps the Arabian proverb might apply — " Curses, like young chickens, still come home to roost.' " Fadette returned a reckless shake of the head. And while Harry Thorne seconded her, Amy started, for in stentorian tones a bullfrog close at hand demanded, she declared, a recital so nearly touching himself and family. " Only, no ' bullfrog dressed in soldier's clothes,' " stip- ulated Mr. Erie. " ISTo, no — an Indian tradition. In virtue of the drop of red-man's blood in my own veins, you must have perfect faith that I render it aright. " Once upon a time — so long ago, indeed, as a time, times, and the be2:inninQ^ of times — the remnant of an ancient warlike tribe had journeyed far to this primeval wood. Hither they were fled from their ancestral hunting-grounds — the boundless prairies which the white man now claims for himself as Texas, the soil of which his foot at that day never trod. But other enemies had swept them forth, and driven them here to the dense forest, where the earth no longer trembled at the thunderous trampling of the buftalo, and but the deer invited to the chase. A race more numerous had raised the warwhoop against them, and the bones of many warriors lay bleaching in the sun on those unshadowed meadows, where the jDrairie wolves had left 20S RAXDOLPII IJOXOB. them bare. And, too, the Sj^irit of the Fire had surged down in a sulphurous cloud upon their village, with his bow of flame bent over it, and there struck down or wrapped in his embrace full many a fugitive, so that of all their braves and mighty men but one remained. The fragment of the tribe was spiritless and cowardly — a very race of 'old women.' " But Tah-we-que-nah, the young chief and mighty medi- cine-man, still led them on. His fearless heart was touched with compassion for the trembling and degenerate crea- tures of the warrior band his fathers had led forth to battle. For he trusted that their conduct was the spell of some magician among their enemies, which in due course of time his own great power would dispel. " And so, although his own soul burned for nobler game for his unerring arrows than the timid deer, and fringe upon his leggings worthier of a brave than that of buck- skin — still, he lingered here from summer until spring-tide, with the shadow of his tribe. " On none of those young men whose brows yet bore the traces of the war-paint, and who yet at evening sang the deeds of former braves, while in the wigwam idly lay the tomahawk and scalping-knife — on none of those did all the maiden's eyes turn as on the gallant chief. But among all whose long dark hair was loosened from its braid, and whose deer-skin tunic was wrought and decked with beads to catch his observation, it was only on the lovely TTee-ne- on-ka that he looked. And every glance so pleased the Bending TTiiloAV, that she was to be his bride upon the morrow. " The sun went down as brightly as it did this evening — not on a boundless waste of waters, but a vast rich o-rassy level^ spread beneath the budding foliage and the evergreen cane. And there, just where you sit," she added, turning RANDOLPH IlOXOn. 209 to Fadettc, " stood Tah-we-quc-nah and his Wee-no-on-ka — save that that willow against which you, Mr. Erie, are lean- ing, was not there. Her head bowed down upon his arm, which drew her close, they murraured love's vows, until it seemed the very trees might learn the oft-repeated whisper. " So they parted. " On the morn that was to be the wedding-day, the sun which rose at last from boding banks of cloud, was greeted with a wailing shriek. By what strange freak, or magic of a still pursuing foe, the mighty Mississippi had over- flowed its shores and swept across the intervening miles, all in one night, remains a mystery — but so it was. AYater, water, creeping in on every side — water gurgling through the trailing moss, and lapping through the cane, and moan- ing with a sullen threatening about the cypress knees and gnarled old vines which writhed and coiled like w^aterr snakes. Still, water flaring with a vast relentless eye, which peered around each knotted trunk, and glittered through each green-leafed shadow. " A frantic panic seized the miserable tribe, who, inland- bred, were ignorant that it was the habit of the great Fa- ther of Waters to pay this annual visit to his children, the bayous and the sloughs. " Calm among the cowards who were madly running to and fro, stood Tah-we-que-nah. He came forth from his wig- wam, his medicine-bag across his shoulder, and he called on the young men, who, overavred by his commanding tones, a moment ceased their cries and lamentations. " ' Why do you fear, my children ? The Great Spirit can- not hear you when terror drags your voices down to earth. Rejoice, and look upon the flood — it is a sign he still re- members you. See how it closes round you here, and soon will leave no resting-place. My young men and warriors, the Great Spirit does not will tliat you should lurk here in 210 EAXDOLPII IIOSOU. these solitudes, wliere rust your tomahawks. He would liave you on, to wash them bright again in your foes' blood ! Listen, my young men, and let your heart grow strong. Last night this Great Medicine sent your chief a dream. lie and you were journeying westward — west- ward — where the mighty buftalo is waiting for your arrows on your liithers' hunting-grounds. On, Avarriors — the Great Spirit Ts-ills it !' " But not one moved at his command. Only "Wee-ne-on- ka drev\' a footstep nearer, bending in her weeping, till her long black hair swept down upon the ground. " ' Vree-ne-on-ka, you at least will come,' he said, and stretched his hand out toward her. " ' T^"ee-ne-on-ka, rest with me,' a young man whispered who had vainly sought her for his bride, ' and we will climb yon tallest oak, and wait together far above the waters, till they ebb away. And surely that is w^iser far than roving westward, where the Evil Spirit lies in wait for us.' " " So TTee-ne-on-ka turned in fear from Tah-we-cpie-nah. " Tah-we-que-nah's midnight eyes flashed like the light- ning. Yet once more he spoke : " ' Will no one of my brothers follow me ?' " Half the tribe, in idiocy of dread, had set themselves to burrowing in the ridge, already dank with seapiage, in the frenzied fancy to conceal themselves from the approaches of the foe. Swayed by his voice, they took a step now toward him, but the glitter of the water drove them back. And thus they hesitated, silent, moving to or fro with every word from him, or every gurgle of the ripples. " But a din of voices answered — from the canebrake, where some sought to hide from the subtle enemy, and from the trees, which others climbed in haste. " 'But the waves are surely gleaming westward I They BANDOLPII IIOXOE. 2 1 1 will soon go- round, go round, go round !' groaned deeply forth one chorus. " ' We cannot follow. If we move, we must step in, step in, step in !' in a higher, sharper key of great disgust, a second made rej^ly. " ' Xo, no, we'll not descend. Down there it must already be knee deep ! knee deep ! knee deep !' shrilled forth a third from their position in the trees. " Tah-we-que-nah cast a slow and scornful glance on all, and then he flung the mystic pouch down heavily at Wee-ne-on-ka's foot. " He turned, A^ouchsafi ng not one backward glance, and throwing himself upon his jet-black steed, he dashed into the flood, his front set firmly westward. " The splash of those departing hoofs smote on the hearers' hearts. AYee-ne-on-ka shivered, and leaned forward hesi- tatingly, her arms outstretched. The burrowers advanced one uncertain step — ^instantly, however, amended by two backward. The timid croakers one and all opened their mouths wide, to shout the chief a final warning, " But that instant, through the branches, came the last glimpse of the night-black horse, and of the young brave's nodding crest of scarlet eagle plumes, which flamed across the waves. With that last glimpse Wee-ne-on-ka shivered again, and the first ripple laved her feet. " She would have sprung back in her terror, but she had lost all power of motion. She stood rooted to the spot. She felt strange throbbings through her every limb, and swayed and quailed at every gust of wind. The lovely Wee-ne-on-ka was indeed become a bending willow, always leaning towards the west, and sighing mournfully with every breath. She turned one parting human glance in supplication to the lately fixvored lover. He no longer held her hand. A bright green tree-frog leaped up in the 212 RAyDOLPII IIOXOR boughs, and all the croaking mouths were gaping, all the woods rang out with chiming choruses. Hark ! you may hear them even now — the deep, gruff bass, ' Go round I go round ! go round !' — the jeeringly ironical ' Step in ! step in ! step in !' — the shrill ' Knee deep ! knee deep ! knee deep !' of the tree-frogs. " The tribe has spread to the four quarters of the globe, waxed mighty in its ignominy. Its burrowing crawfish band has wandered far, and taught to many a man its gait. Many centuries later, however, some of this band, journey- ing laboriously toward the Choctaw nation, were captured, and the medicine-men restored them to the human form. But when they told the story of the frogs, the great magicians shook their heads. Those croaking noisy cow- ards should no more be named among the red-men. But stay, Mr. Erie, don't lean too heavily on Wee-ne-on-ka." Ruthven shifted his position. " She bears too great a weight of wickedness and cen- turies, eh? And Tah-we-que-nah, what became of him?" " After the manner of red men and wliite, went his ways and found another Bending Willow, who bent only to his sway." " So "Wee-ne-on-ka was the unchanged one after all ?" And he looked up into the rustling boughs and repeated : " • Beneath youi* boughs, at fall of dew, By lover's lips is softly told The tale that all the ages through Has kept the world from growing old. "'And still, though April's buds unfold, And summer sets the earth a-leaf, And autumn pranks your robes with gold, You sway and sigh in graceful grief " All listened to the whisper of the branches through the stillness. RANDOLPH HONOR. 2 13 "Mamma," cried little Janet to the pale, unheeding mother, on whose lap she leaned, and who, after the momen- tary excitement of her nephew's greeting, had relapsed into her usual self-wrapped state—" Mamma, I've known for a coon's age that the frogs keep saying that. But do you know what the owl says too? Now if I tell you, please ma'am, mamma, don't look that a way, so far, far off." And the child began her story eagerly. " Mamma, there was once an old no-account uncle — he named Tom— going through the woods one dark, dark night, so dark that he was mightily afraid, and slipped along as easy ! AVhen suddenly, right through the cane- brake close beside him, came a rustling, and somebody called out : " ' Who, who, who boy, you ?' "'Mars' Billy's Tom, Sir, going to wife-house,' and he kept on fast as he could clip it, for he had no pass, and wasn't after any good. " But he hadn't taken two steps, before he heard — " ' Who, who, who boy, you ?' " ' Mars' Billy's Tom, Sir, going to wife-house.' " ' Who, who, who boy, you ?' " ' Mars' Billy's Tom, Sir, going to wife-house— don't I keep a telling you ?' he called back, as cross and as crabbed as old Daddy Rabbit, what had an apple, and a possum come to grab it. " But crash, crash, crash, went the canes just then. And the way old Uncle Tom just took up his heels, and ran like snow ! " Janet transferred all compliments upon the story to Mammy, who now came to claim her. And Matoaca presently lifted her brow from the golden curls of hei namesake, hushed to sleep in her arms. She was impatient 'JU RAXDOLPII IIOXOR of silence — to people "vrhich, dread memories too often thronged. " One and all lost in meditation," she said ; " one and all gazing intent npon the flames. I have heard you speak of pictures there, Chicora. Xow, to break this dull monotony creeping on us all, let each one trace the subject of his thoughts there in some stirring scene." " You first, Miss Yaughan ?" "My legend has been duly given, Mr. Thorne. Mr. Erie, won't you begin ? The subject of your thoughts ? A war sketch ?" If it were, he had sought strange inspiration. For, although from his posture, half reclining, supported on his arm, at Fadette's feet, he too fronted the camp-fire, yet the eyes, shaded by his hand, rested not there, but unmovedly, thus screened, upon Fadette's dreamful face. At Matoaca's appeal, however, he slightly shifted his position, and bend- ing his regards on the heart of the flames, responded immediately. " Behold," he said, ^-ith a gesture pointing where the fanciful imagery of light and shade flickered over those massy glowing logs, " there they march, the Yandals, sixteen thousand strong. See the flash of their bayonets down yonder hill ! Hear the tramp of their horse, charging Forrest's five hundred ! See how we fall back there, reluctantly and slow, contending ever step by step. Xow descends that ashen shadow on the field, and shuts in the red glare of battle. And the evening and the morning are the first day. Light again — the morrow, and the foe advances. Yonder, where the grand old forest winds in view of Tunnel Hill, there wind our grander Forrest and his followers. Within that cloud of dust sweeps on the enemy's advancing column, resting for a space upon the brow of the hill, then drifting slowly down. The blue- RAXDOLPU IIOXOR. 215 coat is cautiously ensconced in every ambush, behind each knoll and tree and building. A shot is tired, and the foe replies, while a dozen of his skirmishers rush across the railway which — behold it — traces itself darkly there. But even as these cross, higher up, unaware of the approach of danger, two who ' wear the gray* are coming down the road. Shall these be lost ? Forrest sees, and calling to his side a handful of his escort, with a cheer he leads the little squad to the charge upon the enemy between. On they dash, spurring their steeds into a headlong gallop. Every man behind, heedless of his own peril, is watching, all-absorbed. A sudden pause. The fearless six are en- veloped in smoke-wreaths — clouds from their own rifles. For the Yankees are falling back — the two Confederates Sijved. From the hillside the foe fires upon the band, who, their purpose accomplished, turn to retreat — three of the seven, Forrest of the trio, wounded." Fadette had listened with flushing cheek and eyes riv- eted upon the speaker. But now she commented, with an air of mocking indiflerence : " You say ' fearless six,' and Hhree of the seven wounded.' I once saw a play where Greek met Greek in tug of war, and the routed army, numbering in the outset twelve, marched back thirteen. Account for the discrepancy, Sir, if you please." "No discrepancy, fair Incredulity. May there not be six fearless ones in seven ?" " Ah," she said, leaning forward as light suddenly broke in upon her. " You were there yourself, then." Ruthven Erie was the first to perceive the unwitting innuendo, and led the general laughter, in which Fadette confusedly joined. "And the end? Is it really true? And were you wounded ?" she asked, presently. 21o RAXDOLPH HOyOIi. "My dear Miss Chicora, do you not know it is quite use- less to question the 'reliable gentleman from over the river T However, the enemy fell back in the direction of Chattanooga, Forrest harassing them on the march. For your last, and, it is to be inferred, least important question, there is still perhaps a slight answer here." And he touched his left arm. A heavy sigh escaped the pale lips of the stranger, who had this while stood silently leaning against a tree at Amy's side. The shadows of the mossy branches, and the hat pressed over his brows, shaded his countenance from her view, but she glanced up with a quick impulse of sympathy at the dangling sleeve, and tears glittered in the sweet, blue eyes. Then hurriedly she called on Fadette for her story. Fadette's excuse upon excuse proved unavailing. To her pleading that not even one poor fable would recur upon her summons, Matoaca declared that the question was not of fables, but of pictures and of reveries, which she at least could not disclaim, so absently as she had gazed into the fire. " But," Fadette added, when, her thoughts thus drawn 'through the clefts of confession,' she had acknowledged them, " my reverie was the memory of a long-ago actual dream, and besides being wild as dreams are, is unsuited to the occasion in subject and in length. "What, you will still take no denial ? Then on yourselves fall the weight of the nightmare, if so it prove. If any can doze through it—" ^'- Requiescat in pace ^'' supplied Ruthven Erie — "Xow dream your dream." "There" — she began, seeking again her pictures in the fiery centre which had first suggested them — "there the cataract whirls and thunders with the avalanche's roar, down from that giddy height, down through that deep- worn haxdolpii noxoR 217 channel in the rock wliich walls in pcrpondicnlarly the mountain river, glooming and darkling far below. A narrow archway spans the chasm to the gray old castle frowning above. In its solitary conrtyard, leant against the casement of the banquet-hall, a young girl in the peasant garb of Switzerland is standing in the dark. I see her in my dream — yet not as a mere gazer. Myself seemed en- tered into her. " Around, the night fiills murkily. The casement rattles wildly in, while the storm drives against it. With low, deep, distant mutterings, the blast is shriving the dying day, in Avhose last smile the ivy on the tower dashes off fast-oatherino' tears, cling^inoj vrith frenzied clutch to sill r^ o TOO and buttress. Without the castle-gate crouches the howl- ing hound, and yonder from the northward ledge bodes the owl at solemn intervals. The ramparts shake upon their rocky base, as the lightnings over the far mountains hunt down dreary shades. On yonder steeple-towered clift' the dread Lamraergeier, whose vast Aving flaps broken in the storm, cowers down and stares into the darkness. Down the steep, below the castle, flees the shivering torrent, while here against the battlements, and there in the shut-in glen which they command, the shuddering pines bow down their heads to shun abhorrent sights aloft. Upon their posts the sentinels shrink against the wall, and loose the slackening spear to mutter Aves, as Pilate shrieks upon his mountain, while the stern wind pauses, listening, and all foul things brush against the very face of heaven on their sin-black wings. " Yet within the castle all is revelry. The hoary minne- singer tunes his harp to rhymes of love and chivalry. In the embrasured casement, a thought withdrawn from the goodly company, that fair proud lady sits enthroned on tlie carven chair of oak. While, most like a knight-errant, 10 218 BAKDOLPH HOXOR returned for the conqueror's crowning at her ovm white hands, the noble Lord of Arnheim leans above her chair. She smiles up into his darkly handsome face as reverently he touches her hand to his lips — smiles through tears while she listens to his words, for they are all of parting on the morrow. In tournament these three days past he won the hand he holds, yet the proud Count of Geierstein would yet further prove such claim to his only daughter, the fair young Countess Amalia. A year and a day from the coming dawn is Herman of Arnheim to absent himself, and in that interim to win fame worthy of his noble name and of his noble bride. " She smiles up into his eyes, and they soften with tender homage as he reads her soul's fair page, where only his name in golden characters is written. So innocent a page he is not wont to turn, if rumor speaks truth. For even from his native Suabia it whispers that the house of Arn- heim claims a strange wild lineage, deeply learned in forbidden knowledge. Inasmuch as though they were knight-like brave, and though the chase, the tilt, the battle, found them ever to the fore, yet weird tales were told of their Suabian castle — wondrous lights were seen there, mysterious Paynim guests had free access and seats above the salt at the Baron's table, while foot-sore monks in full odor of sanctity were bidden to rest them at the castle gate, and the cup of wine was sent without to them. " She smiles on still, though the minstrel has tuned his harp to a new accord, and sings now of absence and forget- fulness. Xor does the knight give ear to other than the silent s^jeech of her lovely eyes. Xeither the music-wail within, nor the storm-wail without, nor yet that smothered moan close beneath the casement in which he leans. Xo one heeds that. The ladv mav care for the little bower- RANDOLPH HONOR. 210 maiden as for the petted spaniel that cringes at iier foot. But when the dainty trinket is bestowed, the glitter- ing- collar donned, she knows not, dreams not, of a need beyond. Love — yes, she loves the spaniel and tlie bower- maiden — she strokes the shining brown coat of the one, the glossy raven tresses of the other — would have one fawn upon her slender foot, the other caress her snowy hand when it so pleases her to put it forth. And have they need of more? Then let the maiden mate her with the gallant young Landsknecht on whom my Lord of Geierstein, in honor of faitliful services in tent and held, has bestowed that Senner-hut and pasture down the mountain-side. Those faithful services merit yet another boon, and thus the noble Count and his fair daughter themselves, some weeks since, urged on the fit betrothal. Love — that will come fast enough. Surely she will not dare, the lowly bower-maiden, to lift her head — not dare to meet with level-fronting glance the Lord of Arnheim's eyes ! IS'ot dare, although the day he came a stranger to these savage cliffs she had rescued him and his night-blac]^ steed Apollyon from imminent peril. For which service, she liaa been duly recompensed in the bestowal of a dazzling jewelled necklace. And had she but worn that gaud dis- played this morning when she crossed his path in tlie courtyard, he would have remembered her, and given her a kind good-morrow. But, hid beneath the bodice, how sharply the wrought links bruised her heaving bosom as she presses her clenched hands there ! Is it that she loves to look upon the bravery of the gentles, that she lingers thus without, never once removins half a mile, when the range made a bend around, encircling, and stretching thence northward along the prairie. It was an isolated spot. Despite the danger of intercourse with rebels, Kuthven Erie felt at liberty to loiter here beside Fadette. For the grassy road at the foot of the crags led only to that white villadike cottage nest- ling fronting the prairie's A'erge, where those huge old blossoming locilsts and lindens threw light shadows on the lawn's green level and flowery shrubbery. Full barns and windmill to the left, and pink and white orchard to the rear, with cultivated fields that sloped richly upward to the mountains closing in behind, betokened peace and plenty. "I think I am leaving you in a haven of quiet," Kuth- ven Erie said, as he j^aused, to make Leo guardian for the last quarter of a mile. He could discern through the vines that clambered there, two dark figures pacing to and fro upon the piazza, and the white dresses of little Janet and Lily flitting at play in and out among the roses on the lawn, while the old Mammy, the only one of the servants who had accom^Danied the Beauregard wanderers, watched over them. But as he paused, the taller of the two figures upon the piazza had disappeared. Presently a man emerged from the trees, advancing rai>- idly. Ruthven Erie bent an earnest scrutinizing gaze upon him. For the appearance of one who did not wear the gray was no good omen. But he stood his gTound, for were it friend or foe, he was already seen. Fadette was stroking in leave-taking the beautiful war-horse, rubbing his head against her shoulder, and she saw nothing, until a near step caused her to look behind her toward the house. RANDOLPH HONOR 241 Ruthven Eric, as the new-comer approached, had started, and withdraAvn somewhat, his hat pressed down over his brows. But Fadette did not observe, only with a glad cry of astonishment sprang forward. " My guardian ! My dear guardian !" Ruthven Erie, watching, saw that every trace of melan- choly was fled. The eyes were bright with joy which they alone could utter, the sweet lips were wreathed in smiles, and the flush of pleasure rose in her cheek. Both the little clinging hands were in his, and her smile was softest when for one instant his arm drew her close. But when the eyes which searched the guardian's face, as fearing change, brimmed over with sudden tears, noting the ravages confinement, want, and anxiety had made, and the gray lines threading here and there the dark hair — when with a quick impulse of loving sympathy the girl bowed her warm cheek upon the wasted hand — then Ruth- ven Erie turned aside with a muttered self-scornful " Fool !" And the crimson flower which a while ago she had dropped, and he unseen had lifted from the grass, now fell, crushed, from his hold, and he set his heel upon it. After a moment, Mr. Randolph looked toward Fadette's companion. Fadette, it was evident, had completely for- gotten his presence. "Pardon me. Sir, for thus interrupting your walk," he began. But Mr. Erie advanced, extending his hand. "Perhaps," he said, removing his hat, "Mr. Randolph may still remember Ruthven Erie, as Ruthven Erie may never forget Mr. Randolph's more than generosity." Fadette stared in amazement while the two gentlemen met, cordially as old friends. But she had hardly time for wonder, before Mr. Erie addressed himself to her : " ' God forgive you — I cannot. You have taken away 248 RANDOLPH HOXOR. the escape I planned for him,' " he said, quoting her own words, very low, but with a quiet composure which might seem to brave them to the full. She stood speechless, less astonished at the revelation than at her own blindness. A thousand memories rushed upon her. But not one of that anger she had more than once expressed, and of that bitter prejudice she had thought never to be forgotten. She remembered hoAV often her light words must have seemed like taunts, and with what indulgence he had borne them. She heard, as though not hearing, the conversation of the gentlemen, and it scarcely caught her attention, when her guardian said, at last, that he would gladly join the southward march upon the morrow, though, the Confederacy reached, he purposed crossing the Mississippi and thence to Virginia, to enter his brother's regiment. Then Mr. Erie, with the promise of a return in a few hours, took his leave. He was passing Fadette with a bow. But she put out her hand hurriedly. " Good-bye, Mr] Erie." It was all the lips uttered. But the eyes, lifted beseech- ingly to his, spoke more. In truth, the kind stranger of the St. Nicholas was more present to her mind, than one who had intervened between her guardian and freedom. He waited until she, her hands clasped over her guar- dian's arm, was moving toward the cottage. Then he stooped, and raised that mangled flower from the trampled sod, flung himself upon his horse, and in an instant more was galloping at wild speed across the prairie. They did not enter the low gate, but paced up and down without, where the boughs of the tall seringas and the roses trailed beyond the wire-fence in an archway, above a narrow path, scarcely worn in the grass. Fadette walked RANDOLPH HONOR. 2 t9 on in an indistinct dream, and was hardly conscious of a thought. But at every turn her ghmce still followed the waving of Kuthven Erie's dark plume, until it suddenly struck off to that gap in the mountain-range. Her com- panion had been drinking in the beauty, the deep peace and comfort of the scene. And he now spoke almost as Ruthven Erie had spoken. " Well, my little girl, I leave you in a haven of tran- quillity." She started, recalled by the sound of his voice. "But, my dear guardian, you are not really going? And so soon ? Are you quite sure you are strong enough ?" she said, wistfully regarding him, and struck pale by the view of his wan and haggard countenance. " Quite sure. I am not ill at all, only somewhat worn with captivity,'' he replied lightly to her anxious glance. " I must go with your Missouri friends, because the under- ground railway, in my experience, is no very practicable route. Years ago," he resumed after a pause, " beside the branching hedge, w^here the bay beneath rolled shoreward, like this prairie, and the lull of evening was on all — the last time your arm rested thus in mine, Fadette — you had eager messages for Lionel. And what shall they be now r'"^ Hot blushes surged so fast that they took away the power of utterance. She looked up hurriedly. He Avas smiling down upon her. But in her agitation she could not mark the profound melancholy of that smile, and it only seemed to mock the anguish he could not, and must not, under- stand. She burst into a passion of tears, and hid her foce afirainst her irnardian's shoulder, as in the troubles of her childhood she had been wont to do. But no strong arm drew her protectingly closer now ; no deep voice soothed her, while she cried with bitter sobs — 250 RANDOLPn HOXOR. " Oh, if I might but see Lionel — but see him once again ! It is so long, so long to wait I" . It was the conviction of the moment, that since she could thus have changed, Lionel might hardly be the same — tliat in some way, some ha^ipy way, Lionel himself would break those shackles so entering into her soul, and set her free, and set himself free gladly too. But it was so long, so long to wait, she moaned again. In more than the weakness of his long imprisonment, Mr. Randolph's right hand grasped the fence against which he stood. A hea^-y cloud gloomed on his brow ; but it was forced away before Fadette regained her calmness with a struggle. And with deep, tiiie tenderness, he dwelt upon the younger brother — with that unshaken Randolph honor, stablished on the rock of a heart unmoved by all the shocks of that fortune wliich had swept away the outward tyj^e — the old ancestral Randolph Honor. Fadette's lieart seemed to flint and die, and lie all heavy and cold beneath her hand ; and her downcast face grew paler in the twilight, when the guardian, to whom she still as of old looked up as to unwavering though indulgent rectitude, spoke of Lionel's fate in her keeping, and of the earnest faith she owed him — faith easier in the rendering, he continued, because from childhood she had known him well, and — " Loved him I" Fadette almost gasped, in an accent that did not sound bitter, only because it was so hardly audible. She walked on, benumbed with the aching sense of those chains she knew now that she could never dare to cast aside. That night, when Ruthven Erie had bad^ farewell to his aunt and to Matoaca in the cottage library, Fadette parted from him there with a light touch of the hand, and turned away to cling to Mr. Randolph and sob her grief out on RANDOLPH HONOR. 251 his shoiikler. While Kuthvcn passed out abruptly to the lawn, leaning in silence on his horse's neck, his hand clenched on the spot where hers had so lately rested. Weeks after, on a far Virginia camping-ground, the elder brother calmly recounted to the younger the story of Fadette's tears. And Lionel passionately echoed Fadette's words : " It is so long, so long to wait !" CHAPTER XIX. THE CAYE. " Ch'io se nel cor vi cerco, altri nol vede, E sol mi vanto di nascosa fiamma, E sol mi glorio di secreta fede."' Tasso. ^HOA, Dobbin, whoa !" The voice rang out clear and silvery through the forest solitudes, and the slow tramp of old Dobbin stayed, and the grating sound of the rude wood- sledge, over the stones and through the fallen leaves, ceased. The evening sunbeams slanted across the prairie, bound- less to west and north, to the heights closing in here the southeastern horizon, and towering up, wooded range on range. The prairie, with this fringe of wood and moun- tain, waved golden-billowed in the sunshine, and number- less grazing herds blurred its bright surface. The cool calm of a September evening was in tlie air, and brooded yet deeper here beneath the Avoodland shades. There stood old Dobbin, nothing loth to stand, while the speaker laid one gauntleted hand upon his leanest of lean necks, which not all the grass in those rich prairies could fatten into the semblance of youth. A strange driver for the raw-boned animal, that young girl who now paused, flushed with the ascent of the steep mountain-path, and drawing ofl" one glove, pushed back with a tiny dimpled hand the dark hair from her temples. The broad straw-hat hung by its ribbons loosely round her throat, and, coarse RANDOLPH IIONOB. 253 thouc-h its home-maae plaits, looked pieturesque and co- q uetrish, adorned with that wreath of brdUant prau-,e- W<1^LL Her dress, of the plainest of dark-blue pnnts, fitted exquisitely the gracefnlly rounded figure, and was looped from contact with damp leaves and mosses over the whitest of white skirts, revealing a dainty foot. «Hei