William Gilmore Simms

“ There is no good reason, Lucy, why you should not be happy—why fond hearts should not be rejoiced to win your sympathies—why fond eyes should not look gladly and gratefully for the smiles of yours! You carry treasures into society, Lucy, which society will everywhere value as beyond price!"
"Ah! why will you, sir—why, Ralph?—"
"You must not sacrifice yourself, Lucy. You must not defraud society of its rights. In a more refined circle, whose chances of happiness will be more likely to command than yours? You must go with me and Edith—go to Carolina. ”

“ You ruin me in the love and esteem of those whom I love and esteem—you drive me into exile—you lead me into crime, and put me upon a pursuit which teaches me practices that brand me with man's hate and fear, and—if the churchmen speak truth, which I believe not—with heaven's eternal punishment! What have I left to desire but hate—blood—the blood of man—who, in driving me away from his dwelling, has made me an unrelenting enemy—his hand everywhere against me, and mine against him! ”

“ He knew that a man was in danger of his life—he felt that he himself was in prison, and he said he would rather be out among the pine-trees—but there was no rush of feeling, such as troubled the heart of the young girl, whose spirit, clothing itself in all the noblest habiliments of humanity, lifted her up into the choicest superiority of character—nor had the dwarf that anxiety to do a service to his fellow, which made the pedler throw aside some of his more worldly characteristics—he did simply as he was bid, and had no further care. ”

“ As Creighton, I loved you years ago—as Guy Rivers I love you still. The life of Ralph Colleton is forfeit—for ever forfeit—and a few days only interpose between him and eternity. I alone can save him—I can give him freedom; and, in doing so, I shall risk much, and sacrifice not a little. I am ready for this risk—I am prepared for every sacrifice—I will save him at all hazards from his doom, upon one condition! ”

“ From fifteen to twenty is no very long leap in the history of youth. We will make it now, and place the young Ralph—now something older in mind as in body—returned from college, finely formed, intellectual, handsome, vivacious, manly, spirited, and susceptible—as such a person should be—once again in close intimacy with his beautiful cousin. The season which had done so much for him, had been no less liberal with her; and we now survey her, the expanding flower, all bloom and fragrance, a tribute of the spring, flourishing in the bosom of the more forward summer. ”

“ And the outlaw was again defeated. He had not, perhaps, been scared. He had only been surprised—been confounded. In the first cry of the bird, the first rush of his wings, flapping through the trees, it seemed as if they had swept across his eyes. He lowered the pistol involuntarily—he forgot to pull the trigger, and when he recovered himself, steed and rider had gone beyond his reach.
"Is there a devil," he involuntarily murmured, "that stands between me and my victim? am I to be baffled always? Is there, indeed, a God?"
He paused in stupor and vexation. ”

“ Where should they learn to contend with guile—to acquire cunning and circumspection—to guard the heart—to keep sweet affections locked up coldly, like mountain waters? Shall we wonder that they sometimes deceive themselves rather than their neighbors—that they sometimes misapprehend their own feelings, and mistake for love some less absorbing intruder, who but lights upon the heart for a single instant, as a bird upon his spray, to rest or to plume his pinions, and be off with the very next zephyr. But all this is wide of the mark, Forrester, and keeps you from your story. ”

“ Men are as bad as ever, and wrong—the wrong which deprived me of my right in society—has been as active and prevailing a principle of human action as before he died. It is in his name now that they do the wrong, and in his name, since his death, they have contrived to find a sanction for all manner of crime. Speak no more of this, Ellen; you know nothing about it. It is all folly."
"To you, Guy, it may be. To the wise all things are foolish. But to the humble heart there is a truth, even in what are thought follies, which brings us the best of teachings. ”

“ There was no other sign of human weakness. He arose with composure, and followed, with firm step, the officer to his dungeon. His only thought was of the sorrows and the shame of others—of those of whom he had been the passion and the pride—of that father's memory and name, of whom he had been the cherished hope—of that maiden of whom he had been the cherished love. His firm, manly bearing won the esteem of all those who, nevertheless, at the same moment, had few if any doubts of the justice of his doom. ”

“ Threatened with a connection so dreadful as to her mind was that proposed with Guy Rivers—deeply interested as she now felt herself in the fortunes of the young stranger, for whose fate and safety, knowing the unfavorable position in which he stood with the outlaws, she had everything to apprehend—it can cause no wonder when we say sleep grew a stranger to her eyes, and without retiring to her couch, though extinguishing her light, she sat musing by the window of her chamber upon the thousand conflicting and sad thoughts that were at strife in her spirit. ”

“ Would you know me better—I am Guy Rivers, where the name of Creighton must not again be spoken. It is the name of a felon—of one under doom of outlawry—whom all men are privileged to slay. I have been hunted from society—I can no longer herd with my fellows—I am without kin, and am almost without kind. Yet, base and black with crime—doomed by mankind—banished all human abodes—the slave of fierce passions—the leagued with foul associates, I dared, in your girlhood, to love you; and, more daring still, I dare to love you now. Fear not, lady—you are Edith Colleton to me ”

“ Oh, believe me, the faith and the feeling and the hope, not less than the fear, which has made me what I am now—which has taught me to rely only on the one—which has made me independent of all things and all loves—ay, even of yours, when I refer to it—is no idle folly. It is the only medicine by which the soul may live. It is that which I bring to you now. Hear me, then—Guy, hear the prayer of the poor Ellen, who surely has some right to be heard by you. Kneel for me, and with me, on this dungeon floor, and pray—only pray. ”

“ As the perishable calicoes roared up and went down in the flames, as the pans and pots and cups melted away in the furnace heat, [87] and the painted faces of the wooden clocks, glared out like those of John Rogers at the stake, enveloped in fire, the cries of the crowd were mingled in with a rude, wild chorus, in which the pedler was made to understand that he stood himself in a peril almost as great as his consuming chattels. It was the famous ballad of the regulators that he heard, and it smote his heart with a consciousness of his personal danger that made him shiver in his shoes. ”

“ I am sanguinary, Munro—revengeful—fierce—all that is bad, because I am not permitted to be better. My pride, my strong feelings and deeply absorbing mood—these have no other field for exercise. The love of home, the high ambition, which, had society done me common justice, and had not, in enslaving itself, dishonored and defrauded me—would, under other circumstances, have made me a patriot. My pride is even now to command the admiration of men—I never sought their love. ”

“ The rage of the outlaw grew momently darker and less governable. The white foam collected about his mouth—while his hands, though still retaining their gripe upon hers, trembled almost as much as her own. He spoke in broken and bitter words.
"And may God curse you for it! You have dared much, Lucy Munro, this hour. You have bearded a worse fury than the tiger thirsting after blood. What madness prompts you to this folly? You have heard me avow my utter, uncontrollable hatred of this man—my determination, if possible, to destroy him, and yet you interpose. You dare to save him in my defiance. ”

“ He hates in proportion as he fears. Yet he has had nothing but protection from me, and kindness. Nothing! I spared him, when—but—" as if suddenly recollecting himself, and speaking aloud and with recovered dignity:—
"I am your prisoner, gentlemen. Do with me as you please."
"Hurrah!" cried the urchin, as he beheld the troopers lifting and securing the outlaw upon the horse, while one of the party leaped up behind him—one of his hands managing the bridle, and the other grasping firmly the rope which secured the captive; "hurrah! Guy's in the rope! Guy's in the rope!" ”

“ No sunlight, human or divine, penetrated the crevices of his dungeon, as in the case of Ralph Colleton, cheering him with promise, and lifting his soul with faith and resignation. Strong and self-relying as was his mind by nature, he yet lacked all that strength of soul which had sustained Ralph even when there seemed no possible escape from the danger which threatened his life. But Guy Rivers was not capable of receiving light or warmth from the simple aspects of nature. ”

“ It is in vain, woman, that you would trifle with and delay me; he can not escape me in the end. All these woods are familiar to me, in night as in day, as the apartment in which we stand; and towards this boy I entertain a feeling which will endue me with an activity and energy as unshrinking in the pursuit as the appetite for revenge is keen which gives them birth and impulse. I hate him with a sleepless, an unforgiving hate, that can not be quieted. ”

“ He was not only unapprehensive of present danger, but his thoughts were naturally yielded to the condition of the two poor women, in that lonely abode of forest, whom he had just rescued, in all probability, from a fearful death. Happy with the pleasant consciousness of a good action well performed, and with spirits naturally rising into animation, freed as they were from a late heavy sense of danger—he was as completely at the mercy of the outlaw who awaited him, pistol in hand, as if he lay, as his poor friend, Forrester, so recently had done, directly beneath his knife. ”

“ The wing of the bird is no security against the shaft of the fowler, and the helmet and the shield keep not away the draught that is poisoned. He who wears the greaves, the gorget, and the coat-of-mail, holds defiance to the storm of battle; but he drinks and dies in the hall of banqueting. What matters it, too, though the eagle soars and screams among the clouds, halfway up to heaven—flaunting his proud pinions, and glaring with audacious glance in the very eye of the sun—death waits for him in the quiet of his own eyry, nestling with his brood. ”

“ The fugitives, meanwhile, pursued their way with the speed of men conscious that life and death hung upon their progress. There needed no exhortations from his companion to Ralph Colleton. More than life, with him, depended upon his speed. The shame of such a death as that to which he had been destined was for ever before his eyes, and with a heart nerved to its utmost by a reference to the awful alternative of flight, he grew reckless in the audacity with which he drove his horse forward in defiance of all obstacle and over every impediment. ”

“ How long is it, Guy, since you have become so particularly solicitous of beauty, so proud of your face and features?"
"You will spare your sarcasm for another season, Munro, if you would not have strife. I am not now in the mood to listen to much, even from you, in the way of sneer or censure. Perhaps, I am a child in this, but I can not be otherwise. Besides, I discover in this youth the person of one to whom I owe much in the growth of this very hell-heart, which embitters everything about and within me. ”

“ Colleton—I would not willingly hear of it again. It is enough that you are now free from all such danger—enough that all things promise well for the future. Let not any thought of past evil, or of risk successfully encountered, obscure the prospect—let no thought of me produce an emotion, hostile, even for a moment, to your peace."
"And why should you think, my sweet girl, and with an air of such profound sorrow, that such a thought must be productive of such an emotion. Why should the circumstances so happily terminating, though perilous at first, necessarily bring sorrow with remembrance. ”

“ A young girl seeking the apartment of a man at midnight—she shrunk back with a new feeling. But the dread necessity drove her on, and with cautious hand undoing the latch securing the door by thrusting her hand through an interstice between the logs—wondering at the same time at the incautious manner in which, at such a period and place, the youth had provided for his sleeping hours—she stood tremblingly within the chamber.
Wrapped in unconscious slumbers, Ralph Colleton lay dreaming upon his rude couch of a thousand strange influences and associations. ”

“ Guy, will you join me in prayer?"
"My knees are stiff, Ellen. I have not been taught to kneel."
"But it is not too late to learn. Bend, bow with me, Guy—if you have ever loved the poor Ellen, bow with her now. It is [500] her prayer; and, oh, think, how weak is the vanity of this pride in a situation like yours. How idle the stern and stubborn spirit, when men can place you in bonds—when men can take away life and name—when men can hoot and hiss and defile your fettered and enfeebled person! It was for a season and a trial like this, Guy, that humility was given us. ”

“ But it is my prayer, Guy, that you kneel with me in prayer; that you implore the feeling of preparedness for all chances which can only come from Heaven. Do this for me, Guy—Guy, my beloved—the destroyer of my youth, of all my hope, and of all of mine, making me the poor destitute and outcast that you find me now—do this one, one small kindness for the poor Ellen you have so much wronged, and she forgives you all. ”

“ She forgives you all, Guy, I know she does, and God knows I forgive you—I, who, above all others, have most reason to curse you for ever. Think not that she can hate upon the brink of the grave. Her mind wanders, and no wonder that the wrongs of earth press upon her memory, her reason being gone. She knows not herself of the mood which her features express. ”

“ In the last moment his mind had wandered to the scene in which, but an hour before, he had witnessed the departure of Edith with his rival, Colleton.
The jailer, alarmed by the first fearful cry of Ellen succeeding this event, rushed with his assistants into the cell, but too late. The spirit had departed; and they found but the now silent mourner, with folded arms, and a countenance that had in it volumes of unutterable wo, bending over the inanimate form of one whose life and misnamed love had been the bane of hers. ”

“ At an early hour, therefore—these several duties having been done—Ralph made his appearance at the village-inn, and the summons of the youth soon brought Lucy from her chamber.
She came freely and without hesitation, though her heart was tremulous with doubt and sorrow. She had nothing now to learn of her utter hopelessness, and her strength was gathered from her despair. Ralph was shocked at the surprising ravages which a few days of indisposition had made upon that fine and delicate richness of complexion and expression which had marked her countenance before. ”

“ Maddened, not less by the cool determination of Colleton than by the contemptuous conclusion of his speech, Rivers, without a word, sprang fiercely upon him with a dirk, drawn from his bosom with concerted motion as he made the leap—striking, as he approached, a blow at the unguarded breast of the youth, which, from the fell and fiendish aim and effort, must have resulted fatally had he not been properly prepared for some such attempt. Ralph was in his prime, however, of vigorous make and muscle, and well practised in the agile sports and athletic exercises of woodland life. ”

“ He lies at the point of my knife, under my hands, within my power, without chance of escape, and I am to be held back—kept from striking—kept from my revenge—and for what? There may be little gain in the matter—it may not bring money, and there may be some risk! If it be with you, Munro, to have neither love nor hate, but what you do, to do only for the profit and spoil that come of it, it is not so with me. I can both love and hate; though it be, as it has been, that I entertain the one feeling in vain, and am restrained from the enjoyment of the other. ”

“ This speech, which had something in it vague and purposeless to the mind of Munro, was uttered with gloomy emphasis, more as a soliloquy than a reply, by the speaker. His hands were passed over his eyes as if in agony, and his frame seemed to shudder at some remote recollection which had still the dark influence upon him. Munro was a dull man in all matters that belong to the heart, and those impulses which characterize souls of intelligence and ambition. ”