Charles J. Peterson

“ Instead of being a hundred miles at sea, as Captain Powell had supposed, they were close upon the coast; and these superhuman exertions, which she saw master and crew making, were designed to get an offing for the vessel.
Suddenly a loud report was heard, like the discharge of a cannon in the air, and looking up, Kate saw what seemed a white cloud flying down to leeward.
“God have mercy on us,” she heard a voice cry, its sharp tone of agony rising over all the roar of wind and waters, “the main-topsail is gone. Look out, she strikes!” ”

“ The veteran remained standing, with his hat off, and his thin gray hairs stirring in the autumn breeze, until the coach had disappeared; when he turned to seek his dwelling, feeling as if he had parted with one of his own flesh and blood; and that night, when he led the family devotions, he prayed as fervently for Kate as for any member of his own household.
The Aylesford mansion, in Philadelphia, was an imposing, aristocratic looking edifice, standing back from the street, amid venerable trees, and surrounded by a spacious garden. ”

“ At this point Kate reached an opening in the woods, where the trees had been cut off a year or two ago. On the eastern side of this was a tract of pine land, where a fire had passed, leaving the tall firs standing stripped of their foliage, like a forest of black, charred masts against the heavens. Through this, in the distance, was seen a reddened sky, a proof that the sun, though still below the horizon, was close upon it. ”

“ Herman signed to his companion to occupy the bench at his side.
Our hero could not avoid, after a while, glancing in the direction of Kate. She sat, with eyes downcast, and her hands folded meekly before her, looking, in her spotless white, like some virgin saint. The deep love for her, which already filled the heart of Major Gordon, welled up warmer and more gushing than ever at this sight. For true manhood reverences woman all the more for those religious instincts which, implanted in her by her Maker, can never be obliterated without defacing her fair image. ”

“ Their helmsman could be seen stimulating them by pointing to Kate; and continually one or more of them glanced over his shoulder to see how the chase went on. The water flashed and glittered in the fading sunlight, as it fell showered from the blades of their oars; while the cataract of foam that rolled under the bows of their craft, proved with what velocity they were driving her along.
“Give way, stronger and longer,” shouted Arrison, looking over his shoulders for the thirtieth time during the last half hour, “they gain again on us. Give way, or we are lost.” ”

“ They galloped forward in silence, for some time, Kate leading the way. A swampy bit of ground being crossed, they reached the head of a pond, around which Kate made a short circuit, when she drew in her rein.
“We are safe now,” she said; “this is the pond of Waldo furnace, and is between us and the fire, so we can take our time.”
She was scarcely audible, and Major Gordon, looking into her face, saw that it was pale as death. High-spirited as Kate was, the reaction had been too great for her, and she seemed, for a space, as if she would actually fall from her saddle. ”

“ The child nodded.
“All alone, except with Lion,” she said, glancing at the bloodhound. “He’s such a good fellow,” she added, her eyes brightening. “We play together, when we’ve time! Don’t we, Lion?” and she caressed him.
Kate sighed to think of this lovely child, brought up by an outlaw, yet retaining so much of heaven’s purity, living here in the forest with no companion but this ferocious dog. ”

“ No sighing of the wind among the pines, no murmur of distant water, could produce that peculiar cry, which was plainly the hoarse, deep bay of a bloodhound heated with the chase.
Kate gazed in terror around, vainly seeking a hiding-place. If the earth had opened, at that moment, and swallowed her up, she would have welcomed it as a relief. The worst that she had feared, that recapture which was more horrible than death, was now about to befall her. Help there was none. The nearest human creature, possessed of the sympathies of our common nature, was probably miles away ”

“ All this while Kate sat sewing, by a little table, on which stood a bouquet of fresh flowers, the choicest the season could afford. She wore a pretty morning dress of white cambric, which, fitting close to the bust, as was the mode, yet opening in front, revealed a stomacher of illusion, and then swept off in full and ample folds below the waist, parting on each side before the elaborately worked petticoat. In the changes of fashion, an approximation has been made to the same style in our own day. Kate also wore a short sleeve, reaching to the elbow, with a fall of deep lace around it. ”

“ Our hero, who had called daily to inquire after her progress, was almost transported beyond himself, when, one morning, on being shown as usual into the parlor, he saw Kate sitting there instead of her formal aunt. The young heiress rose immediately, and frankly advanced, extending her hand.
“This is, indeed, a surprise,” cried Major Gordon, taking the delicate little palm between his two hands. “I had not hoped so much, after what Mrs. Warren said yesterday.”
“My good aunt,” replied Kate, with a smile and a blush, “always takes the worst view of things, you know.” ”

“ As the boat beat across the bay, the water flew crackling over her forecastle, often even wetting Major Gordon and Mullen in the stern; while the parted waves, bubbling and hissing by, whirled off behind in creamy eddies.
After awhile the southern edge of the open water was attained, when the craft entered a labyrinth of comparatively narrow channels, winding between salt-marshes. The black, saline mud of these marshes emitted a pungent smell, as the waves washed along the banks; while the long grass, which thickly covered their surface, whistled or rattled in the gale. ”

“ An almost undistinguishable hum pervaded the atmosphere, from the thousands that buzzed on busy wing about. Occasionally a low sound, as if the cedars audibly sighed, rose up when some faint breeze stirred through their ancient boughs. The scene was the more lovely and absorbing, for its contrast to the conflagration they had just witnessed.
Suddenly a horse’s hoofs were heard striking the bridge. Kate and her companion looked up, the former with perceptible embarrassment; a circumstance which induced Major Gordon to examine the new comer narrowly. ”

“ Thus she staggered on, all that morning, dragging her heavy limbs along, and continually rallying herself to a swifter pace, when she mistook the wind among the trees for the hurrying tread of pursuers, or the distant bay of a hound.
The sun was now high in the heavens. Kate had been on her feet since two hours before the dawn. She could no longer advance at a faster pace than a walk, and that a slow and painful one. ”

“ To do him justice, Aylesford loved her with all the passion of his illy regulated nature, and when he heard this reply, and saw Kate’s emotion, what was good in him awoke responsive to it. He fell upon his knee, by a sudden impulse, and seizing her hand, said—
“Then why won’t you believe still more, dear Kate? Why won’t you believe that I am the most sincere and devoted lover ever woman had? That I have been taught, from my youth up, to look upon you as my future wife? ”

“ The tremendous shock with which the ship struck, had snapped off the masts as if they had been pipe-stems, and Kate’s next thought, after having temporarily provided for the safety of her aunt, was what was to be done with the wreck of spars and rigging, which, beating against the vessel’s sides, threatened to crush them like egg-shells. Suddenly, through the gloom, she saw a figure, armed with an axe, creep along by the larboard bulwarks, until it had attained a favorable position, when it began cutting away with rapid strokes at the hamper. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of being able to assist their leader, the outlaws found their own hands full; for the patriots dashed upon them at once, like hunters that have run down a wolf, which has long been the terror of the district.
All this Uncle Lawrence took in with one rapid glance, and seeing that the ruffian’s time had come, he leveled his gun at Arrison’s heart and pulled the trigger, just as the wretch was darting past to lay his sacrilegious hands on Kate. ”

“ It was impossible for Kate, in such close vicinity to the revellers, not to hear much that was said. Her attention was soon arrested by her own name being mentioned in connexion with that of her cousin: and listening with awakened curiosity, she gradually made out that she had been betrayed into the hands of her captors by Aylesford himself. She had not dreamed that such baseness and perfidy could exist in the world. With ashen lips she asked herself, “if this was the conduct of her own relative, who was a gentleman by birth and education, what had she to expect from a ruffian like Arrison?” ”

“ Kate Aylesford was an only child and an orphan. It had been her misfortune to lose her mother, at so early a period of life, that she retained no distinct remembrance of her, and could only recall a mild, sweet face, which, as in a dream, seemed to have looked down on her, far away in the past, like a Madonna in a picture.
Eighty years ago, when our story opens, the facilities for female education were small anywhere, for it was a generation when Hannah More was considered a prodigy and when to be able to write grammatically was regarded as all-sufficient, even for a gentlewoman. ”

“ If your mother was alive, she’d wish you to let me go. You know I wouldn’t tell a lie, darling, or I’d have tried still to get you to go with me, in spite of your promise to your mother. Every minute is precious. It will soon be daybreak. Only keep Lion quiet, leave me to myself, and go back to your bed in the barn.”
“You shall go,” suddenly said the child. “I’ll go inside, and take Lion with me.”
“God bless you!” cried Kate, seizing her in her arms and kissing her again and again. “If I escape, and you ever want a friend, you’ll always have one, if you ask for Miss Aylesford, of Sweetwater.” ”

“ But the rage of Aylesford had now become ungovernable. Nothing, indeed, maddens a temper such as his so much as cool conduct like that of Major Gordon. Taking his sword by the hilt, he suddenly raised it, and striking our hero across the face, before the latter could parry the blow, said, with an oath,
“Take that, sir. It’s the first time that I ever saw even a rebel officer disgrace his cloth by poltroonery.”
Natures that are slow to anger, or that give way to it only after strenuous attempts at self-control, are always the most terrible in their wrath. ”

“ It must succeed. Come, cheer up, sir. Faint heart never won fair lady. Gad, I’m bound to have it succeed, if only to make me a gentleman again; a thing I was born for, but missed by my cursed stupidity.”
“You’ve often hinted at that,” said Aylesford, “and it’s easy to see you’ve had a good education. How did you ever come to seek your fortune as an ostler in the colonies?”
“Some other time, maybe, I’ll tell you,” answered Arrison, his gayety giving way to gloom. “It’s enough for to-day, that I became an ostler because I knew more about horses than anything else.” ”

“ The shouts of the living rose to heaven simultaneously with the groans of the wounded and the expiring gasp of the dying. Such was the fury of the fight, that the combatants disappeared on either side like grass before the scythe. Yet Uncle Lawrence and our hero still remained unhurt, as if bearing charmed lives, and still led the terrible strife. Each had long since overcome his first antagonist, and was striking right and left in aid of others of the defenders unequally matched or overpowered by numbers. ”

“ Ah! miserable man, whoever you are, whose life is spent in hotels; who know nothing of the quiet overflowing bliss of domestic happiness; and whose only knowledge of women is obtained from belles at balls, or flirts at watering places;—we wish you could have seen Kate then. In our time, alas! the needle is almost obsolete, so that you have small chance of being conquered. Young ladies would scream now-a-days, if caught sewing, whose grandmothers won scores of hearts by this bewitching feminine art. ”

“ A person, unfamiliar with the particular road, might lose himself speedily in its labyrinths. But the positiveness with which Kate spoke convinced Major Gordon that she had used the path before, and that it held out a possibility, at least, of escape.
In confirmation of this, he observed that the conflagration, though pressing close on their left, moved in a parallel line with them. For several seconds it was a race for life and death between the advancing fire and the fugitives. On sped the horses, their muscles starting out like whip-cord, and the ground fairly flying beneath their hoofs. ”

“ Bewitched by the grace, wit and beauty of Kate, not less than by the sweetness of her disposition as displayed in a thousand home ways, Major Gordon abandoned himself to the pleasure of her society, forgetting the barrier which fortune had placed between them, in making him poor and a patriot, but Kate an heiress and a royalist. ”

“ There is certainly both honor and wealth to be had in the service of King George; while here there is nothing at all to engage a man of spirit. And if any Aylesford joins the royal standard,” she added, laughingly, striving, for her aunt’s sake, to give a gayer tone to the conversation, “it must be Charles, unless you choose, aunt, to enlist, a la Joan of Arc, or I go a soldiering, like a vivandiere in the French army.” ”

“ But, in serious earnest, a royal expedition has probably anchored in the bay by this time; and, as I am tired of an aimless life,” he glanced meaningly at Kate as he spoke, “I intend seizing the opportunity to offer my sword to his Majesty.”
“Oh! my dear boy, don’t think of it,” cried his aunt in alarm. “You’ll be killed, I know you will; and then what will become of us.”
“Never fear for me, aunt,” replied Aylesford. “I am no more unfortunate than others, at least in war,” he added, significantly looking at Kate. “The chances are ten to one that I’ll escape even a wound. ”

“ She shook her head sadly, but firmly.
“Then it’s no use deceiving me,” was the angry answer, as he flung off the hand which he had taken.
“You love this low fellow, this cowardly traitor—”
“Stop,” said Kate, with an air of command, her person seeming actually to dilate before her companion’s eyes. “I will not hear a gentleman maligned to whom we all owe so much. Nay!” she continued, almost sternly, as Aylesford attempted to speak, “I will be heard, and once for all. You forget yourself, and trespass on even the privileges of a relation, when you charge me with loving Major Gordon. ”